#if anyone gets my ass for plagarism

[personaschords]

fuck it! villain!deku au

all might rejects deku, and he snaps because he knows he deserves better, he's worked so hard and for nothing to come of it, for nobody to so much as acknowledge him. he's tired of being stepped on all the time. he wants to be heard. he wants to change things. he's bitter. he will make the world see.

deku's done plently of research on villains, so it's no big deal to get in contact with the early stages of the LOV. he shows up with truckloads of information, the kind that could easily be misused if it falls into wrong hands. and he's handing it right to them.

deku becomes a mastermind, throws himself into his work with a burning fury. he analyzes and learns and puts concepts into practice, picking up skill after skill. he's a technician, knows how to work every kind of gadget imaginable by the time the entrance exam for UA starts. and, more importantly, he knows all the important heroes' weaknesses.

when he's offered the chance to get a quirk, he turns it down easily.

and when they kidnap bakugou, deku is cold and uncaring. that is, until bakugou confronts him on why he's doing this. why he would turn to being a villain when all he's ever dreamed of was being a hero.

the heroes come to rescue bakugou, but they both leave with some kind of understanding.

but that doesn't stop deku from continuing on his path. he's more adamant than ever that the hero society needs to be torn down. he throws himself into his work for months at a time.

bakugou trains, trains until he can barely take it anymore. he has to get through somehow. he has to stop deku.

what he has that deku doesn't is support. his classmates, teachers are there for him. they guide him and inspire him to keep on going.

and when they finally meet, for the last time, deku is at the head of it all, taking out bakugou's classmates and allies one by one. bakugou doesn't have time to check if they're alive, just knows that he has to stop this.

he makes it past deku's last weapon, blows it up in a flash, and then it's just them, caught in the moment. bakugou runs at deku, half-tackles him, but deku pulls out one last gadget and fires. he's desperate.

bakugou has no choice but to set off an explosion, and deku flies back, hits the wall. his body is burnt, covered in red, and the blood is everywhere. bakugou runs over, kneels by his side. he checks deku's pulse and finds that it's fading.

"i'm dying," deku says quietly. bakugou is half-stunned into silence.

"i'm sorry," is all he can manage. the words have weight, are packed with meaning. i'm sorry for the way i treated you. i'm sorry that it got so bad.

i'm sorry it had to end like this.

deku laughs, and it's bitter. blood speckles his lips. his eyes are glazed over, and bakugou can tell he's almost gone. "it's okay, kacchan," he says, and the word tears at bakugou's chest, rips him open and leaves him raw. "this is how it is for people like us."

fifteen-year-old bakugou katsuki watches as his childhood friend dies in his arms, and the silence that follows does not feel like victory. it feels like the weight of a sky, pressing down on his shoulders, like a legacy passed on. a dying wish, perhaps, a want for things to change.

they are a tragedy in two parts, lost in the thrashing waves of a world that does not care.

[bqstqnbruin]

The Biochemistry of Smell

Wow, I’m here with another post. I actually started working on this before i got requests, so I’m sorry if you’ve requested stuff, I’m working on that, too, I just really wanted to finish this!

Also fun fact, all the stuff from the ‘paper’ in this is from my actual Biochem final paper from first semester junior year. Is that plagarism ? Oh well. 

Hope you like it!

______________________________

The family of odorant receptors also must be able to interact with the given complexity of the molecule. The receptors must bind to the odorant molecules in order to send the message to process the smell.

You were sitting in the Starbucks that was near your apartment building writing a paper on the biochemistry of smell. It was your final project and you needed somewhere with enough noise to tune out in order to sit down and focus. Not that you still don’t have music blasting in your ears, but you needed movement to block out in order to focus. At least that’s what you told yourself. Plus, needing to write this paper for your final project was enough of an excuse to get away from your roommate and her annoying boyfriend as they pretended to work on their finals. 

Except, after writing those sentences, you had a hard time figuring out how to continue. You finally look up from your computer to take in everything around you. An older man was walking outside with someone younger than him, a grandson maybe? Some girls who went to school with you gossiping about their professors. A woman in nurses scrubs leaning against the wall on her phone, her drink in hand. A guy at the table in front of you, staring at the stickers on your computer.

“It’s not polite to stare, ya know.” You say, taking out your music, giving the stranger a slight death stare that probably made you look more annoyed than anything. 

“I’m just looking at the stickers. They don’t make sense.” He gets up and places himself at the seat opposite you, the one you had your feet on for the last two hours, “I’m Jackson.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember asking? And what do you mean they don’t make sense?” You try to ignore his answer, just going back to your paper: Changing the structure of the molecule changes the smell produced by the molecule.  

“Oh, a feisty girl. And I mean, you’ve got all these Dallas sports teams stickers, but here we are in Denver. Wait, is that the Boston Red Sox?” he squints at the clear red B that was in the upper right-hand corner of your computer. The Stars logo was in the center, the Cowboys logo under the Sox, the Mavs in the bottom left corner, all surrounded by the other stickers that displayed what you liked for all to see that you’ve had since the beginning of the last school year: the chemistry sticker, Welton, turtles, The Office, Stitch, and more. 

“My mom grew up in Boston but I grew up in Dallas, it’s a family team. What do you want from me? I go to school here.” 

“So that means we can see each other a lot?” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. God, this guy was annoying. 

“You go to Regis, Jackson?” 

“No, but I work here, and what are the chances that I’ve seen you here every day for the last week and a half at the same time, the two of us sitting in the same places, at times, but today is the first day you’ve noticed me?”

You shrug, “I’ve been doing work for finals. I have a paper to write.”

“On what?” 

“The biochemistry of smell.”  

“So what’s your name?”

“Can you please just let me write my paper? I was just fine working on it before you started staring.” You had enough distraction at the apartment with your roommate, you didn’t need to have more distraction in the one place where you could block it out. He keeps talking while you just try to go back to writing. A molecule of higher complexity is typically found to be more pleasant than a molecule with lower complexity.  An example of this deals with furan, which has three olfactory notes: cinnamon, smokey, and spicy. 

“Hey! I thought we were going to meet at the Starbucks on the other side of campus?” A guy wearing an Avs sweatshirt comes up to you, taking the seat next to you. He plays for them, you just can’t remember his name, but why is he coming up to you?

“Oh, sorry, I must have read your message wrong. I was wondering why you were late,” you decide to play along. He’s much less annoying than Jackson is, and you have to admit, he’s much more attractive.

“Who’s your friend?” He turns to Jackson, who’s now bright red and looks incredibly frustrated over the fact that someone just crashed the one-sided conversation.

“You’re Tyson Jost. How do you know-” he looks at you, realizing he doesn’t know your name. 

“Y/N?” you say, glancing up from your computer.

“Y/N’s my girlfriend,” he spits out, his arm finding his way to the back of your chair until his hand ends up on your other shoulder. You have to admit, him doing that made you jump a little, but you were just hoping Jackson didn’t notice it before you settled back into your chair.

“Ya know, I think I actually have to go. Nice to meet you two,” Jackson says, storming out of the Starbucks. 

“You looked really annoyed and I figured pretending to know you for a few minutes was better than you killing him,” Tyson says, standing up once Jackson is definitely gone. 

“Thanks for keeping me out of jail,” you tell him, smiling up at him. You’re actually sad that he has to go. “Why don’t you take his seat?”

He looks stunned for a moment before a smile spreads across his face, taking the seat. “So I think I heard you were writing a paper on the biochemistry of smell?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s my final paper for my biochemistry lecture.”

“So what, different chemicals cause you to smell different things?”

You look at him, shocked but smiling, “You know something about smell?”

“I get bored and I start reading things.” 

The two of you spend hours talking. He was much nicer about the stickers on your laptop. You two had spent so long talking, you didn’t even notice the missed calls from your roommate asking you why you had been gone for so long. 

“Hey, just checking in on you, haven’t heard from you in a while. Dylan and I are ordering Chinese good tonight, let me know what you want.”

“Y/N/N, we’re ordering, but if you don’t answer I’m just assuming you want veggie lo mein and egg drop soup. Worst case you eat it tomorrow. Love ya.” 

“Bruh, answer your damn phone, would ya? Find my friends says you’re still at Starbs, hopefully you’re with your phone and not off in a ditch or kidnapped in the back of a van. See ya later.” 

“Everything alright?” Tyson says, seeing the look on your face as you debate going to your apartment, or possibly asking Tyson to do something else with you tonight.

“Yeah, my roommate is just wondering where I am. I just need to call her back, is that alright?”

“I’ll be right here,” he smiles at you, leaning back in his chair and stretching, revealing abs as his shirt lifts up. 

You know your eyes grow wide as your cheeks flush, running to the back near the bathroom so you can call your roommate, “Hey, Jocelyn, I’m fine, I’m still at Starbucks, I’m alive. Go ahead and order with dinner with Dylan without me, I’ll explain later but wow I might be making an ass out of myself right now. Ok, wish me luck, love you, bye.”

“So, once you finish this paper, what are you going to do?” Tyson asks once you get back to the table. 

“Uh, probably try to find some dinner. My roommate and her boyfriend are eating at my place, but something tells me they’re going to be doing more than just eating food,” you both laugh as you start to put away your computer, “Any suggestions on where to eat?” 

“Well, I know a place that has a special on chicken fajita pasta that I was going to go to,” Tyson says, standing up as you swing your bag over your shoulder, careful to not hit anyone passing by while doing so.

“Oh, really? Where?”

“My place.” 

“You’re inviting me for dinner?” 

“Only if you can tell me what chemicals are giving off the smells. You are the expert, after all.” 

The two of you walk out, his hand finding yours as he leads you to his place. “Well if it’s garlic, it has some sort of sulfur-containing compound, which is the same type of compound that’s associated with rotten eggs and the smell gas companies but into natural gas.” 

“So garlic and rotten eggs are the same compounds?”

“No, they just both have sulfur.” 

He spends the rest of the walk asking you about your research paper, followed by spending the rest of the evening cooking together, talking about your lives, bonding over the love of hockey you both shared (even though his ran much deeper seeing as he did it for a living). Time flew by, you didn’t even realize it was almost two in the morning when Jocelyn called you again, frantic, “I’m outside the building Find My iPhone says you’re in, and I’m here with Dylan, do we need to come in and kill someone?”

“No, love, calm down. I’ll be down in a few, ok?” You calm her down long enough so you can say goodbye to Tyson.

“We’ll have to do this again?” he asks, looking nervous, running his hand through his hair as he struggles to make eye contact with you.

“I would love that. Maybe next time you can meet my crazy roommate?”

“And maybe next time I can read the full paper on smell?” he asks, blushing by how nerdy that sounded. He actually seemed really interested in reading your paper, just as he has seemed interested in you all night.

“Sure. And, thanks again, for saving me from that guy,” you say, trying to prevent yourself from leaving. You can feel the tension building around the two of you. He wants to at least kiss you, and you definitely want to kiss him. 

“Uh, yeah. No problem.” 

“Oh, my god,” you say, grabbing his arm. Enough is enough. You kiss him as your hands find their way through his hair, his hands finding his way around your waist. 

You can hear a car honking from outside, knowing that it’s Jocelyn and Dylan. Tyson pulls away, obviously startled, but also seems relieved. “Oh, yeah, we have to do this again, please.” 

[koreaweeb]

Koreaweeb’s 101 - Inspiration

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert. I am simply sharing my 10+ years of writing experience. I’ve made mistakes before that I learned from, and I will try to continue and improve my writing too. Let’s improve together!

Please do not hesitate to send me ask on how to write!

I realised that I didn’t post a 101 yesterday, I’m so sorry about that! I am running out of topics to give advice on, however. Burnt myself out...so if you have anything you wanna know, don’t be shy. Jump on my ask!

But today, we are talking about inspiration. 

Inspiration for writing is obviously vital. If you have no inspiration, then you can’t write a story. But how do you get inspirations? You can’t force it. Well...technically, you can. You need to understand first, where your inspiration comes from. When are you the most creative? 

For me, after I watch a good movie or I hear a song I really like, that’s when I’m the most inspired. It can be a scene in a movie or even a line from a song that gives me ideas. 

Inspiration can literally come from anything. Saw a cloud that looks like a tree? Hm, inspiration. Stuck on the tube? That’s inspiration. You can look up writing prompts too. There are plenty of blogs out there with a whole ass list for word prompts, line prompts, and even photo prompts. 

Oh but if I get inspiration from a movie or a book, isn’t that plagarising? 

Well, if you copied and pasted, or based your entire story on that particular movie/book then yes, it’s plagarism. But if you were inspired by a coffee shop scene to write a story about a coffee shop, that’s not plagarising. 

I saw this online once, and it’s something that really means a lot to me because I have doubted myself so many times before. If I’m writing a cliché teen romance, there’s thousands and millions of teen romance out there. Why would anyone want to read mine? Well, you’re right. There’s plenty of teen romance books out there. But I’ve never read yours. 

So write that cliché rom-com story of yours. Another zombie apocalypse? Bring it on. And yeah, we all like a good ol’ damsel in distress saved by the prince. Who cares that Wattpad is full of arranged marriages? Or fake marriage to a billionaire and falling in love eventually? Yours is not out yet, and I haven’t read it. 

Everyone adds a little something to their story that makes it different to someone else’s. We will never know how good it is until you write it and put it out there.

[quirklessidiot]

I can't believe the first long post i have in a while is this and not a new fanfic huhu im so sorry ive been ignoring yall

(Tw: mentions of trauma and mental health as I explain some plot differences)

first off, to the two anons, thank you for reaching out! it did worry me for quite a bit that two seperate people had told me about it. It made me even want to delete the whole work after tbh since well it feels off and i don't really like the idea of having my stuff copied since i worked hard on that (despite it being bad yes thats why i was confused in the first place why someone would ecen want to palgarize it since its not even a super duper original idea)

Thankfully,,, the similar thing only would be y/n running away with her twins qnd the boy loving the girl too much either ways,,, the whole vibe was different so I didn't think it was plagarized at all.

For instance, In the other writer's story, Y/N actually gets and wants to tell him off the bat but because of sakusa's lousy parents, she cant do it, I'd say her mc's stronger i guess, if sakusa didnt had lousy ass parents?? I mean she was willing to fess up when i read it in the beginning.To surmise, Her MC's mentally healthier and seems to be a good mom off the bat?? Idk thats the vibe i got from the story like if kiyoomis parents werent like those parents from those kdramas, they'd be doing aigt since she was literally ready to tell him.

Meanwhile, coward's 'y/n' never wanted to tell him, right off the bat, she didnt hesitate. She never planned to tell him or anyone who he was ever. Even daiki had to solve that on his own. She was willing to bring it to her grave because she knows she'd rather die alone than risk ending up like her parents. She is portrayed from the very beginning as someone who never got over her childhood trauma. In shorter terms, she isn't as mentally or emotionally strong as the other author's MC.

Thats one really huge difference I saw.

Anyways i could go on and tell the difference between the two. The ground work of coward has been done way too many times to count tbh, this had happened even before when someone had told me me and a fellow tumblr friend had a similar idea (but once again it was debunked). Even I admit that coward isnt a n original idea. like i said before i was inspired by that one kdrama 'what is love' hshaha and i just wanted to quench my thirst for writing.

either ways sentences, characterizations, etc aren't as similar as they seem to be yay 🥺❤ thank you all for the messages and i apologize for the worries, i hope each and everyone stays safe and hydrated this quarantine ❤🥺

[kittenshift-17]

Hi! How are you? I love your writing! There’s absolutely nothing you put out that I don’t like. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying life. I have a question to ask you. I want to start publishing my own writing, but I’m pretty nervous about it. I want to start small, so I wanted to post on FFN first since it’s where I started reading, but the warnings when you first sign up are kinda intimidating 😂 Like no grammatical errors?!?And ratings! What if I write something too explicit?!? Also, do you think the community is welcoming and nice? Or will all (if any) reviews I get be flames? Please advise😂 Again, I’m a huge fan of yours and I hope you’re doing well.

LOL, if you’ve read my stuff you’ll know I break the rules about no spelling/grammatical errors and about being too explicit right out the gate in pretty much every fic. People might comment occasionally, but the hard-fact is whomever mods on FFN is either super busy or doesn’t give a shit because even stories that are repeatedly reported for plagarism don’t get deleted unless the fans harass the theif into it...  There was a massive purge a while back (maybe a decade ago now?) where anything explicit was removed without warning by the mods, but that was a long time ago and no one seems to give a damn anymore what’s published there.

But if you’re worried about those things, use Ao3. Over there you can publish anything (literally, anything, no matter how sick/gross/fucked up/explicit) and as long as you use the right tags, no one minds. 

As for the community.... it depends on the fandom/ship.

I’ve found over time that the community over on AO3 is much more welcoming and much kinder for all fics that aren’t Harry Potter based, and that most just tend to be a bit kinder in general over there. FFN is okay for HP fics, but you’ve got to be careful about which ship. The Dramione & Romione shippers, for example, are extrememly unforgiving and if you’re not one of the top 10 writers of all time, you’ve got to have a hell of a story to claw your way onto their noticeboard in any positive light. I know the biggest reason people who publish HP fics for the dramione ship tend to pull them/quit writing them is because so many of the shippers tend to be vocally combative. 

It takes a pretty thick skin to persevere when they’re prone to flaming anyone who publishes anything that’s less than perfect, and forget it if it’s trope-y and someone “famous” in the fandom has used that trope/plot device before because they’ll crucify you for a copy-cat. And those that don’t bother flaming tend to just.... ignore you? Lots of people might see their read-count climbing while the review count stays miniscule because so many just don’t bother reviewing with anything encouraging. Some do, of course, angels that they are amongst the riff-raff, but the vast majority won’t say anything - or if they do, it will be one short review at the end of an entire story. Most readers these days also really don’t like open WIPs and won’t even think about opening a story until it’s complete because  they’ve “been burned too many times before” (insert eye-roll here). They’re all about binge-reading and instant gratification and have no concept of suspense building ( I blame streaming services for this).

I don’t want to discourage you, but I do want to warn you. I remember when I started out and I was hoping for reviews and all I got was squat and the occasional “Have you considered getting a beta?” kinds of comments (more eye-rolling). I don’t want to disillusion you to the idea of publishing and I hope you’ll try your hand at it despite my warnings about what you might encounter... 

Realisitically, most people are nice until you do something to annoy them. If you answer every comment in your next chapter, you’ll get flamed (seriously, never do this, it drives me mental when it looks like there’s another half-page of chapter content to read but it’s just 50 comments replying to reviews. There’s a PM button for that, use it at your leisure without interfering with chapter/word counts, for the love of God). If you leave snarky author-notes responding to rude people? Flamed. If you abandon a story just when it gets good? Whining and flames. But for the most part, the nice readers will read and might comment, and the few assholes will flame and if you react, they’ll keep flaming because it’s how they get their jollies, and all in all it’s an experience in learning not to base your own self-worth on the opinions of others because you’ll find quite quicky that: a) there’s no pleasing everyone, b) most people are NOT as smart as they think they are, c) some angels walk among us, and they are to be cherished.

Regarding ratings.... I tend to just mark everything as M to be on the safe side unless it’s pure fluff with nothing suggestive. T if there’s kissing but no nudity/hanky-panky (the shippers get MAAAAD if you mark it M and then don’t give their thirsty asses the smut).

Good luck! Shoot me a link if/when you decided to bite the bullet and publish something.

xx-Kitten.

[shadowsnlace]

Now, back to your regularly scheduled content...

I’m so sorry everyone! I know I’ve been posting stuff lately where I’ve explained why I’m not going to write something. I promise, it’s all just my effort to be kind enough to give a response instead of just deleting something and letting someone wonder what happened to their ask.

Although, I will admit that those kinds of posts make me feel really awful. 

I am going through all of my asks to find what I just know isn’t my cup of tea or doesn’t speak to me for whatever reason. 

I am not trying to be preachy, or judge anyone’s choice in the fiction they like to read. This all has to do with my comfort levels and whether or not I feel I can write something and do a good job. If I’m forcing myself to write something then it’s going to reflect in the writing -- it’s gonna be shit and I never want to half-ass something for y’all. 

I’m learning that I have to set boundaries and I truly hope that you can all understand and respect that. I hate having to say ‘no’ to an ask, I really do.

There are also one or two asks that I’ve seen asked on other blogs and I’ve decided that I’m not going to do those asks. I’ll be answering them with a link to the blog that answered it. One in particular I know I can’t do any better than has already been done. I prefer to be very original and asking me to repeat what another writer has done makes me feel like I’m disrespecting that writer, like they didn’t do a good enough job so you’re expecting me to outdo them. 

That’s just my opinion and I’m sure some people just want to get an idea expressed from different voices. That’s completely fine. However, please keep in mind that for me (and probably other writers too) it makes it that much harder to write because we all have to make sure we don’t plagarize each other. I’m talking about really specific things, not general stuff -- that’s totally fine because it leaves us all room to be creative. (Example: Asking how the captains would react waking up as the opposite gender is really specific. Asking how a character would behave in a relationship with someone petite, or “what are the captain’s kinks” is general and leaves lots of room for multiple people to write it differently.)

And, please, don’t misinterpret, I LOVE asks that are specific. It gives me an idea exactly what you’re looking for. Just, please, if you’re going to ask me something so specific please don’t go and ask every other Bleach fanfic writer to do it too and vice versa. I read their blogs and they all do an awesome job. I’m not gonna do any better than they did. 

While I hate having to do this, in future I will be deleting any asks that I’m not comfortable with for any reason. I won’t be explaining myself in posts when the asks are anon. It makes me feel judgey and I never want to do that. If someone sends something and I can answer privately then I will do so in a respectful manner. 

Whatever I accept will be on the to-do list. If you made an anon ask and you don’t see it there then please send a request to see if I got it because Tumblr can eat asks. It is not any trouble at all to check with me that your ask made it to my box. If you have to send it anon, then I will simply answer, yes that I got your ask. If it’s not on the to-do list, then I’ve given it a pass. 

So...now, I will be getting down off my soapbox -- hopefully for good -- and getting back to putting out fun, sexy, full of feels (and sometimes drama) content for all you lovely people!

[jookyunltd]

Chris Rock name drop was sad lol like.... ok. So? This from a HUGE Prince fan. These new Prince stans are whack af. Y'all learned he was "woke" right before he died and now y'all getting slanderous as if anyone of you Similac BREF ass niggas was/is fucking with ANY of the last TEN projects he dropped.

Y'all care about instruments played, writing credits and dance plagarism..... just as long as Rihanna, Cardi, Ye or Drake aint in the conversation, right? FOH

PYT is in my top 25 perminant rotation. I can't just have Purple Rain sprung on me in a random shuffle. Darling Nicky, Let's Go Crazy & I Would die 4 U for sure tho. Even Diamonds and Pearls before PR.

Thriller is still the top selling record of all time, but it’s hella cheesy. Songs like Baby Be Mine, Girl is Mine, Thriller, and PYT can’t even compare to Purple Rain. Chris Rock even says so.

This nigga said PYT is cheesy.

Get out of my inbox blood

[profanityandprophecy]

We do not know the answers to the most important questions But we go forward believing that loving is the way Loving is the answer Compassion is our call To spread peace and justice over all Over all

Because @revkryssie mentioned they were interested in seeing my work on the service(s) I’ve been writing, I thought I’d share this with everyone. Feel free to add your thoughts, but please be kind. Posting this wasn’t easy for me & I’m feeling sensitive about it.

I hope me writing about my process is okay and isn’t too boring. (I wanted to get it down for posterity, because the how feels as important to me as the fact that I did & the things that I wrote. And, yes, I realize I wrote like 10 paragraphs on a 5 line work.)

(The file of me singing it is from the day I wrote it… the lyrics now change WE spread into TO spread. I wanted to reflect our charge, and the “we” thing felt a bit self-righteous/self-congratulatory. We’re not there yet so let’s not sing that.) If someone can transcribe music, I would LOVE to have someone write down the sheet music to it in MuseScore. (I <3 MuseScore. It’s saved my ass.))

About my process below the cut. (Y’all remember LJ cuts? Yeah.)

As I wrote my service, in trying to follow the parts of the Ordo Missae 1970, after the Institutional Narrative, where Christians tell the story of the Last Supper, you have the Mystery of Faith.

(Forgive my lay description of this. If I get it wrong, feel free to kindly correct me.)

For those unfamiliar with it, the Christians who have this in their service sing one of a number of different settings, all speaking to the greatest, well, mystery, of their faith: the death & resurrection of Jesus.

We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.

When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.

Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world.

You see what it’s getting at.

Now, I could just skip this as I have other parts of the Mass that seemed so focused on things that have no spiritual meaning for our church, that it seemed pointless to try to translate it into theistic neutrality. (Things that are so deeply tied up in theism or specifically Christianity that they can’t be extricated from that.) However, there was something about the concept that grabbed me, that made me really want to sit down and see if I could hash this out.

When I originally started envisioning services, I had no desire to create my own religion. In fact, I really wanted to be UU. But as my relationship with UUism soured, I realized that I either needed to reform UUism (still not fully off the table), or go under some other church, or start my own thing. I’m an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, so I’m doing this under the ULC tent, but because they’re such a broad ministry, they have no service of their own (that they’ve publicly published. I know the church in Modesto has services, and I’d be curious what format they use. From what I can gather, the minister has a sermon, and then opens up the floor to anyone else who would like to speak.)

Anyway, I realized that trying to puzzle out if our faith has a mystery, and if so, what, would be a valuable thing, due to the fact that it’s kinda sorta growing into its own faith thing, possibly its own religion, and it would probably be valuable to figure out what we believe (or even simply espouse), so that we can tell people who we are.

So I sat down and really tried to figure out the answer to the question of “if our church had a mystery, what would it be?”

At some point I had an inspiration: we don’t fully know the answers to the big questions in life, but we act anyway, and we act from the idea that love is important. Those answers are a mystery to us, but our faith says good is important. It is (somewhat) a mystery as to why, esp. when you realize how meaningless everything is on a grand scale of the universe… what we do matters to people in the here and now and in the future, but we’re not able to effect the grand scale of time. (Most likely?) And yet, life is still important, and doing good is still important, and loving is still important. That is what we all hold dear, what some would probably call their faith. So I think we have a mystery of our faith. (I’m open to writing different ones as well, as there are alternates.)

(Note: while most of the other non-theistic prayers and service parts I’ve written attempt to be suitable for all people, I recognize that a mystery of faith is, in some ways, an intimate thing, and it might be a thing that divides. I tried to make it as open as possible, but I also wrote it in what I want from my congregation/church in mind. So this one might not be as suitable for all as others.)

I started playing around with words and melodies. Here’s the thing. I’m a HORRIBLE composer. Truly. I failed Music Theory II in HS. And yet, I kept playing around with a melody, and eventually, through a lot of singing it out in my bedroom, nailed it down. (Frankly, I’m impressed with what I came up with. Inspired by something greater than me or beyond me? Possibly. More likely it’s like something I already heard, forgot about, and accidentally plagarized. That’s what happened the only other time I composed something I liked.)

I’m happy it’s upbeat, and it has a bit of the feel and influence of the contemporary/”folk” Catholic/mass music, that of Haugen, Haas, Schutte, etc.

It’s at a point I feel comfortable sharing it with folks, but it still doesn’t feel completely done. I’d like a coda that talks about that maybe when life’s done, we’ll get the answers to the questions, but until then we go forward with loving as our answer.

(I’ll formally CreativeCommons this later, once I decide what name I want it attributed to. General ideas are: feel free to share this, edit this, use it for your own uses, esp. services. I’d prefer if you shared alike w/ your edits. Commercial uses are only allowed if you’ve edited it in a way that added to it or made it your original work: i.e. mashed it up, added more to it, etc. All of this is allowed assuming you’re acting in good faith towards the work. Critical reviews are allowed, however.)