#if you so Spiritual... why the FUCK are you still in church?

[silverislander]

rereading a book i loved in high school to annotate a copy. remembering why it connected w me so much

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Okay so in the same vein as this post, I want to reality check the people who keep asking (yes I've been this person too, don't @ me) why oh why are Jews the only group leftists are willing to categorically deny self-determination to, and the reason is that most of them are tits deep in Christian supercessionism and don't even know it and have absolutely no desire to change that.

The reason they deny self-determination to Jews is the same reason that they would deny any claim to self-determination of, say, Mormons. If the Mormon church tried to claim Utah because it's the epicenter and birthplace of Mormonism [Edit: apparently the birthplace of Mormonism is western New York and not Utah whoops, but the point stands] and therefore they may as well have an indigenous claim to it, people with brains would rightfully lose their shit.

"But it's a culture too, not just a religion!"

So? Have you met any Mormons and spent time with them? They have their own culture.

"Okay but Jews are an ancient people!"

Please look at the batshit Mormon theological view of the Twelve Tribes and their attitudes towards Native Americans.

"Okay but our history is real!" Yep! These people don't know the first thing about Judaism and Jewish history and don't care.

The reality is that most westerners are hellbent on ignoring Jewish history and ethnoreligious identity because literally all of western civilization is built on Christian supercessionism. Even the people who leave Christianity and hate it (and "all religions") with a violent passion still refuse to engage in learning about Jewish cultural and ethnic history because you cannot do it without engaging the history and texts that they blame as the roots of Christianity and therefore they discredit all of it out of hand.

Obviously they're super fucking wrong about this. You, my fellow yid, and I, both know that. But unraveling the supercessionism means understanding their culpability in Jewish suffering and how they benefit from institutionalized antisemitism.

They are extremely unlikely to do that.

Why? Because if they unlearn Judaism as "just a religion" &/or "Christianity without Jesus" and begin to understand it as an indigenous Levantine group, they then have to reckon with the reality of how much Christianity has stolen from Jews and how much of their hatred for Jews is baked into their western goyische psyche by intentional Christian misunderstandings of Judaism.

Am Yisrael cannot to them be a real people with deep tribal roots and a strong culture, because then they would have to separate Judaism from Christianity and question their assumptions about us and our history.

"But Judaism accepts converts!"

Okay, as someone who "converted," I'm going to say no, not really, actually. Conversion is a convenient shorthand, but it's not accurate. Converting to Judaism means a mutually consensual adoption into the Tribe, after thorough vetting, at least a year of study and perseverance but probably more, and the main, primary promise that you make is about choosing to share the collective fate of the Jewish people. Yes, this adoption and naturalization is through the medium of the spiritual/religious aspect of Jewish identity, but it's way more than that. To be a Jew is to know that I might get stabbed on my walk to shul for being visibly Jewish, and to accept that possibility because the idea of not living as a Jew is worse. Gerim have to be ride or die because a serious chunk of Jewish history is on the "die" side of that equation. You have to be just a little bit nuts voluntarily take on that risk (reminder that I say this as a ger who is happily Jewish) and it must come from a place of profound love for and identification with the Jewish people. And once you join the family, that's it. You don't get to ever stop being a member of the family, even if you become estranged from it.

It's a people, with a deep history and culture, and anyone who joins it takes on both. Obviously your genetic makeup and ancestry don't change, but everything else does.

Understanding that major difference in Judaism in a serious way means that they would have to let go of their world view that their religion and culture are separate, that Christianity intentionally divorced faith from culture in order to acquire as many converts as possible, and then begin to understand how Christianity has shaped their understanding of culture, tradition, what religion is, ethics, and values. And they would have to then make an effort to separate their understanding of Judaism and what they think they know about us from Christianity, however they do or don't relate to it.

[stars-in-a-jam-jar]

Moar Buddy Dawn Shit in relation to this post

Buddy was dead for about 10 to 15-maybe-20 minutes. Kristen and Gorgug at the top of Freshman Year were only dead about 3 to 5 minutes and they still got some form of time in the afterlife, (side note: Gorgug not knowing what Orc Heaven looks like and being Deeply Fucking Terrified and shellshocked by the entire experience is So Juicy To Me, like. Something that should by all rights be familiar to him being foreign. Of deep spiritual significance, but not in the way it was 'supposed to be'; he didn't even know how it was 'supposed to be' at the time or after he learned it, he's still not really sure if it was ever a 'supposed to'.) so I'm quite sure Buddy experienced Something beyond the grave and chose to leave it for this nameless aspect of Ankarna. The version of her which exists as a result of her complete death and incomplete resurrection/preservation.

In that 10 to 15 minutes, Buddy passed into the place he was going. Perhaps some cornfield out on the edge of Helio's domain where Helio figured 'I'll get to him or he'll find me sometime, there's literally infinite time here'. Perhaps as a petitioner on the Astral Sea- wait, no, I'm thinking about Rolling With Difficulty cosmology, the Astral Realm is not a sea in Fantasy High. (also go listen to Rolling With Difficulty) Regardless of if he went to the afterlife the adults all told him he'd go to if he'd been a good boy or to some more limbo-like place, he had just enough minutes for the reality to sink in that he's Dead. He's dead and the feeling of a hand gripping his shoulder as if to hoist his assailant high enough to slit his throat presses like a cold weight on his skin. As if this body has skin, no, he's just a solid soul given form in this place.

So jarring. Resting dead in some corner of the cosmos like finding the one empty room at a big loud party where you've mostly been taking things in, sticking close to people you know, not doing anything you're not supposed to. Sitting down on the unfamiliar furniture or swaying idly in place as you listen to the murmur of this foreign world around you. Only it's not like that, not truly at all. You're not at the party anymore, the echoes of your life aren't some thing you're taking a break from to rejoin or building up the nerve to excuse yourself from to get a proper change of scene. There is no going back or moving forward.

He's dead. Buddy Dawn is dead.

How many minutes did it take him to lose composure? Did he even? When the ultimatum was posed to him, did he harden his heart to any regrets about abandoning his original faith, or did he relax into knowing he could live again, in service of something that reached for him and he reached back towards?

Why was he so chipper saying 'Dang, y'all, I worship a nameless god of rage.'? He didn't sound horrified by his decision in much the same way he didn't sound in touch with reality when he said 'Sometimes I raise my hand and magic that burns folks to a crisp comes out, but that's just the lord Helio working through me.' His death didn't change him so much as it fixed his gaze onto something new.

He is still a Cleric. Through and through. His soul needs a divinity to latch onto. And this is the first time he has latched onto a divinity wholly and completely for himself. He was not taught how to live for himself. He was taught how to live and die for a cause. For Helio. He earns a nice afterlife via sacrificing his autonomy to whatever the church tells him is good and right.

But he doesn't want a nice afterlife.

He wants another life.

And he no longer has faith that Helio will deliver him from any hardship, because even after he's just barely grasped how dead he is and has been for the past 11 minutes, his soul is wrent into an ultimatum by a different power. Go back to his body and continue living under a new banner, or be trapped in a dark, solitary purgatory which his soul may never be free from.

It's an easy decision, really. Barely requires any thought, only following a feeling. He no longer wants to stand by the god who allowed him to die so unceremoniously and so unfairly. He honestly feels more betrayed by Helio than he does by Kipperlily. Kipperlily hardly made any promises to him, just asked for him to be the party's cleric. He never expected her to do that, sure, but... His whole life he was promised that every bad emotion he ever felt in response to every wrongness in his life would (should, must, has to) simply evaporate away in the golden light of the corn god. And it's been an eternal 12 minutes, but he only feels worse and worse.

And if all Helio could promise him was a flat expanse of farmland overseen by someone who didn't even properly greet him when he walked in (if the celestial bureaucracy were even doing their jobs and funneled the soul of Helio's cleric to Helio instead of some cosmic waiting room or other), but this nameless deity can promise him a life for himself? Then by god he's taking that ultimatum, come back to life, sit up with a slightly surprised little smile and announce to the world (as he has been taught is right to do when you are devoted to a god) 'I worship a nameless god of rage!'

And he'll be happy with this choice-that-is-not-a-choice which he was betrayed and coerced into. Because it truly feels self indulgent to choose anything. To choose ragefully living for himself instead of obediently dying for an unfulfilling promise. He'll choose the intensity and the darkness because the gentle constant pressure cooker of walking in the light gave him nothing but sunburns and a slit throat.

[flimsypaperseagulls]

RAT KING 🖤🖤🖤

Work in progress! I've gotten so attached to Papa IV, his big heart and spooky charisma and love of sparkly things, his awkward self when he's not on stage and the hallmarks of a lifetime of isolation and neglect come out. I see him as someone who never received enough love or acceptance and who knows loneliness well, and that's why so many of his songs seem to speak to people who are hurting in those ways. A friend to rats, if you will -- the forgotten and overlooked.

Either that or he's just an overly sentimental romantic (which he 100% is, lol, that's not in question) who can't help but throw an empathy spin into his songs meant to gather the masses for Satan's world takeover. [ I know the Papas don't actually write the lyrics, but every album feels different Papa to Papa soo I'm extrapolating that the music is influenced by their personalities at least somewhat. ]

Also the fact that the band itself aims to create a grandiose, larger-than-life, church-like spiritual experience without the guilt and judgment makes Copia's "I'm here for you always" themes so healing for a chronically lonely, deconverting ex-Christian like me. I don't miss Christianity and the ways it has fucked up my mind, but I do miss believing in a great omniscient someone I could call out to for love and understanding when I didn't get enough of it from other people. Even if Ghost songs are satirical and I love them for that, they are also sincerely comforting when I'm having a hard time, in a way many religious songs used to be for me.

And there's an edge to the satire that's comforting too, more in line with my evolving worldview where embracing darkness and humor is sometimes the only way to cope with how shitty reality can be.

I'm afraid of the possibility that Copia might die in the movie so I'm drawing him, in an attempt to find peace about how his music and memory will still live on, no matter what fate has in store. The art is helping a little, but idk, fictional characters are real people to me, and I'm still scared of losing him 💔 Rat man forever.

I'mma try to color this later and see if I can finish it, but for now I'm proud of where it's at and of allll those rats who cut way into my sleeping hours this weekend hahaha

[myrtles-and-blood]

Newbie confusion: Prayers

Reading The Complete Book of Demonolatry by S. Connolly.

Thanks to this book I've discovered that I've been praying wrong this whole time, not only applying in Demonolatry, but in general. I thought it was a nice poem you'd say out loud and that's it, I didn't understand why people talked about it like it was an actual offering.

Like, it's actually an exchange of energy. I'm actually giving something to them, not just saying stuff out loud. I still have a very physical view of the spiritual world (contradictory, I know), and unless I can feel the offering, make it, touch it, sense it in general, it's like I'm not doing anything.

I didn't understand offerings very well either. Like, I give you a strawberry and you spiritually eat it or what? What's happening to the strawberry, what's going on. 😦

The thing, or how I understood it, is basically that entities are energy themselves, and when you put energy into doing something with a good intention for them you're... feeding them? I don't think that's the word, but maybe in the same way a person goes to a ballet. That dancer is not doing anything for me, but their performance evokes an energy that makes me feel good.

I think I didn't really get why a deity or a demon would like to constantly receive praise and everyone to be scared of their power because "bad things happen when you don't like me" type of mentality. That's how I used to view God and that's what I thought was the norm.

I didn't get it because I wouldn't like it if people did it to me, but actually this is not what was supposed to be happening when worshipping. People pray and offer stuff because they are friends and students of their deities/demons, and they like to thank them for teaching them stuff and helping them.

When I first discovered this stuff I was like "Damn y'all talk are fucking crazy" but no, it's just they don't live with the idea that they should fear who they worship, just respect it like any other being on this earth. Believe it or not I thought this was stupid until later on.

Nothing more to add, actually. I wanted to make a post about my discovery and my view as a newbie in spirituality, because I'm more new to this than I thought I was. My head works in mysterious ways.

I'll definitely incorporate this new knowledge and see how I can make my brain think I'm doing something and not just saying meaningless stuff out loud, I may or may not update. 👍🏻

Small disclaimer: I don't hate God currently, but according to everything that I saw and heard at church I thought he was meant to be feared, and my small kid brain didn't really think that was nice so I stopped believing in him and started being an absolute hater. I stopped after a while and discovered witchcraft.

I'd love to hear that I'm not the only one who had a weird perspective on this, I also love hearing other perspectives and any advice you have on this matter (with respect obviously). 🫶🏻

[noandpickles]

Growing up in Mormonism, there's a phrase you hear all the time. We are meant to be "in the world, but not of the world." Part of why Mormons love this phrase is that they feel that the "in the world" bit distinguishes them from their less popular, more compound-inclined offshoot. But the primary purpose of the phrase is to emphasize that latter half.

"The world," in Mormon teachings, is often used as a shorthand for the devil and his forces, along with all the tricks and trappings of popular culture that he uses to ensnare souls. Where I lived, it meant everything from queer people to religious diversity to James Cameron's Titanic. Mortal existence was split between the church and the world, the church was run by god and the world was run by the devil. A major goal of spiritual life was to avoid being an active participant in secular culture because secular culture existed only to destroy your soul. It would never be phrased that bluntly, and there were no hard and fast rules, but remaining untainted by the world was a virtue that got hammered home hard.

It's taken me nearly a decade to recognize and unpack the shit I was taught growing up, and I'm still working on it. This piece in particular didn't occur to me until tonight. I think this is why I love cities so much, particularly cultural celebrations like pride. Standing in a crowd, seeing the throng of humanity all living and loving and experiencing and creating, it makes me so fucking happy I could cry. In a very real way, it feels like discovering an alien civilization. There's a whole world of vibrant life out here that I was always taught to fear and deride in equal measure. Getting to discover that world piece by piece is a wonder.

So I watched Die Hard on Christmas. I took as many anthropology and linguistics classes as I could fit in my college schedule. I sing karaoke at gay bars. I stand in a crowd in London, or Seattle, or New York, and I just breathe in the everyday marvel of humanity. I'd been culturally starved before, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of making up for that lost time.

[nerdragenewvegas]

Thinking a lot today about how despite my insane thirst for Joshua Graham, looking at him logically for 35 seconds made me realise that my years in the Mormon church were effectively years in a cult and how projection seems to change how people experience Honest Hearts a lot.

Like there's a huge subsect of people who credit the character with reconnecting them with their faith and I mean hey if that's a positive life change for you that gives you grounding, cool. But I really struggle to kind of understand that perspective of in to be honest because the point of the arc (at least to me) is that Joshua was using faith to project his own feelings and traumas and bias in a way that allowed him to somewhat avoid blame or responsibility in the event he learns he's wrong - he even admits this much depending on your ending.

First time around he did this with the Legion taking that place of a "higher power" once he was out on his own and seperated from the accountability that the other New Canaanites gave him, and when we meet him, he's doing the same thing with his Faith. And believe me when I tell you that scapegoating like this is so common in Mormonism that it's actually hard to clock once you've been in for a while, and Joshua is so good at romanticising what he's doing that we spend a lot of the DLC willing to believe him until he's about to actually do a genocide for real and we realise what's happening here.

This happens a lot in Mormonism with things like LGBTQ+ and gender stuff, where nice things like the Plan of Salvation (which can genuinely be quite reassuing and warm in a spiritual sense) are co-opted to justify homophobia and transphobia and misogyny. "I, personally, don't have an issue with trans people at all! But the plan of salvation is so clear about our bodies and how we need to respect gods choices in our design!" - despite the Plan of Salvation saying nothing about gender identity or expression and honestly kind of validating the idea that transitioning etc is also part of gods plan for some people. "I love lots of gay people and so does the church, but the word of God is clear that temple marriage is for men and women only." That kind of thing. "The whitelegs are gods children, too, but the bible is clear about how we handle those who would seek to harm this Zion we've built! I don't enjoy murder, but it's what God wants, it's a chore."

Realising this and then looking at times in my life where I saw this happen in the Mormon Church is what took me from "gently deconstructing and still believing some of it" to "I was brainwashed and in a fucking cult." So i always kind of struggle to see how anyone can get "I should seek God again" from this, but at the same time? I think that's the best part about Honest Hearts and a lot of Fallout NV in general: it forces you to learn not about yourself than anything else in the actual game. It's such a wonderful game when it comes to getting players to self reflect - maybe this is why it's so known for being the "omg I'm trans now" game.

What a special fucking game, huh?

[cali]

HOW do you have the patience to make these details... how do you decide where each line goes when there are so many? Is it channeling something? Or do you have to think and reason, okay, this line goes here, and then the next line goes here...

when i was younger i used to think spending more time on art made it better and i would kind of try to prove my mettle in art by use of heavy detailing instead of via technical skill. also i generally care moreso about the details in things rather than bigger picture so im more inclined to have my drawings reflect that... now i dont think that time makes it better anymore but thru years of working like this ive just developed a general affinity for extensive detail. i am trying to be more content with making simpler stuff too but i have to consciously learn that though, keeping it simple and staying confident about it.

do i channel something:

mmmm...maybe? sometimes a picture makes me a little crazy and i feel like i have to represent some type of perfect divinity in a "correct" manner.

heres 3 pics where that happened. the first two are trying to be more representational of concepts whereas the latter is more general level ornamental. like how a church would be decorated.

im a little more lax now on dedicating pictures to spirituality, but a lot of my pictures still have some type of divinity meets earth topic and in those i always think of the divine as something that in its truest form couldnt be understood but because the creature has divine power it can present itself or modify the world in any way it wanted to. and so it would choose ways that are easily understood as beautiful and good. why angels are pretty...

thats whats happening in these. the comet makes its body be beautiful while the seal eel serpent is showing its power thru perfect control of the water and making a really pretty splash

to ur question of how i decide on each line: its a mix between keeping every line imbued with intent but also not concentrating on the picture so hard that i have to enact force on it. i still redo most of my lines multiple times but i also dont feel fully conscious for the detail part of these bigger pictures. i have to be in a good mental state and those happen rarely. my workflow isnt ideal. a lot of days i do nothing and then on one day of the week i dont do anything but draw on one picture for 14+ hrs. i did that a couple days ago again and its euphoric in the moment, but the day after i feel drained dry as fuck. theres also an aspect to it where i draw virtue from patience and dedication to a task. i try to steel my patience a lot and drawing like this is part of that. i look up to nuns and eunuchs or that spaniard who built a church solo. id like to have that type of mindset with a Will that strong. but i dont want to do it via god based faith but instead my own thing. sorry for babble- thank you for the ask.

[lokh]

Im gonna need your like, whole musical rec list, bc literally every song you have posted has not flopped once, give me your faves i need to eat them

OUGHHH YOUVE UNLOCKED THE BEAST ARGSHHFHJDF....

in the interest of making this both easily accessible but not stretching the dashboard, im embedding bandcamp links when i can, otherwise linking to youtube when unavailable

in no particular order, inclusion based mostly on what im still actively into LMAO but also just things you should give a go at least once:

list of artist recommendations

zeal and ardor: described as a mix of african-american spirituals and black metal. try devil is fine, you aint coming back, wake of a nation or church burns

bloodywood: indian folk metal, literally nobody is doing it like them. recently featured in monkey man (2024), try chakh le, yaad or dana dan

stromae: if youve never heard any of his songs WHAT ARE YOU DOING..... incredible lyricist, described as a blend of hip hop/electronic. papaoutai made the rounds on tumblr a while back, but you should also try santé and l'enfer

alamat: pinoy pop. a youtube commenter described them as sounding like 2nd gen kpop which probably also explains why i took a shine to them LMAO, notable for the amount of filipino culture on display and the diversity thereof (singing in different languages, themes). first heard them thru kasmala either here or on twitter lmao, try aswang or maharani

andy bull: alt-pop. a lot of poppy and upbeat songs with a melancholic undertone imo. an australian artist, try it's all connected or keep on running

cosmo sheldrake: electronic, wikipedia also lists him as folktronica and baroque pop. you may have heard the song come along on an apple ad - hes known for sampling sounds from nature. pliocene for example features sounds from endangered ecosystems.

if you like cosmo sheldrake, you might like hidden orchestra (electronica, ambient). also making use of field recordings, i really love the archipelago mixtape but its a hard sell at about an hour lmao. if you like the following song then i implore you to give it a go

son lux: experimental, you may have heard from them in the entire soundtrack for everything everywhere all at once (!!!!!). try dangerous, dream state (brighter night) or live another life.

ammar 808: electronic/world fusion, also behind bargou 08 (folk rock you should also listen to). i just cant get ain essouda out of my head, but i also love geeta duniki

miyavi: j-rock, used to be a visual kei artist. these days he might be known more for anime openings like flashback (kokkoku) or other side (id:invaded), or for work like snakes in arcane (or actually inspiring and voicing a character in it), but ive always been partial to his early work like sukkyanen myv or ashita, genki ni naare

songs/albums

'threads' album by now, now (indie rock).

'dream to make believe' or 'what to do when you are dead' by armor for sleep (rock, emo). here's the truth about heaven from the latter album

i already posted about it but denzel curry's 13lood 1n + 13lood out mixx (rap, trap) is extremely good

the guilty gear soundtracks and im so serious im not fucking joking. different kinds of rock and metal and all sorts of influences put in, a genuine labor of love. xrd and earlier games are mainly instrumental with some vocal tracks (try give me a break or big blast sonic), while strive pretty much always includes vocals (of course i need to rec rock parade, but also try requiem. its genuinely hard for me to pick and choose lmao)

not an album and not an artist

coke studio pakistan and coke studio bangla knocking it out of the fucking park, im particularly a fan of harkalay and kotha koiyo na. you could try the other coke studios too (tamil, india, etc)

triple j like a version is when the radio station triple j brings in artists and has them do a cover of a song (artists choice). i liked denzel curry's cover of bulls on parade and flume's shooting stars (video for this one is incredible, man had a vision you just have to stick it out), but you get a lot of interesting interpretations like the wombats' running up that hill, gordi's in the end or, infamously. the wiggles' elephant

ive DEFINITELY missed out some, but thats what my music tag is for LMAO i hope someone discovers something they like here!!!!

[slocumjoe]

What do you think the companions opinions of ghosts and supernatural things are?

You know, I've actually done this before, years back!

Looking back on it now, I have some differing ideas, having spent more time really thinking these dudes over and writing about them. So,

COMPANIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 2; ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Cait; Surprises herself when she realizes this, but she believes in God. Not just agnostic, she believes in the Christian God. It never occurred to her until one day, when she caught herself and realizes that this was the belief she held. Her parents weren't religious, so it didn't make any damn sense to her. She just sorta defaulted to it. Obviously, Cait is not religious, but yeah, she kinda assumed a Christian mindset. Just never cared. Once she catches herself, becomes staunch atheist, but that shift was sudden and kind of wobbly. Its a "Wait, what do I actually believe in?" moment. As for cryptids, no. Maybe ones before the war. But as for the post apocalypse, anything is possible, so, why bother with trying to make it all mysterious?

Curie; Avid hater of cryptids and Aliens, but fascinated by religion. You ask her for her opinions on the topic, and she'll break off into a sociological discussion of the nature of religion and faith, and what's she's noticed in the apocalyptic modern era. You ask her if she believes in religion, and you can see her eyes go all blue screen of death, Ms. Nanny body or no. For one, the Ms. Nanny programming would never allow her to form an opinion on that. For two, the programming also kind of held everything in place. In a synth form, where her brain is looking for her own answer, but her instinct/programming remnant is looking for coded-in pre-recorded responses...it's a good way to send her into a kind of crisis. The move from metal to meat doesn’t do her any favors, here.

Danse; A loose agnostic. He sees no need to argue about it, but he doesn't believe, but he also doesn't...disagree? Danse's stance here is "we'll never know so what's the point." He tried religion, and he'll pray in...dire circumstances...but if you ask, he'll call himself an atheist. He'll also go into the sociology and go all nerd on you, but where Curie almost physically can't have an opinion, Danse doesn't have one and doesn't feel the need for one. If he needs God to be real, he'll hope for it. Otherwise, nah.

Deacon; would fuck with Buddhism. Would be that annoying dude at the Whole Foods check out buying hummus who holds the cashier at obligation-point to talk about karma. Normally this would be a Deaconism, an inside joke. Not here. This is a genuine Deacon. He'd also be very interested in all religions, but Buddhism is the one he's most likely to consider, if not partake in. Aliens and cryptids? Uh...Deacon likes to have fun, so yeah, but he's probably not a hardcore believer. He's just being a silly goose. Will double down and go full tinfoil hat to be obnoxious, but doesn't really put stock in it.

Gage; nah and nah. He was raised catholic and it didn't take. Or, maybe it took too well, or in the wrong way, depending on your perspective. He still privately considers Sunday to be special, but he doesn't act on it. Cryptids, also nah. Same reason as Cait. Have you seen what radiation does to animals? To people? Why the fuck would anything be surprising? "There was a giant moth the size of a man on my house!" Shit, that means the runoff from the nuclear power plant from up north has reached the watering holes. "I saw a large, hairy man!" That was probably Gage himself. Fuck sake. "There was a man with a goat head!" Thats a Pack member, which is arguably worse than what you think you saw.

Hancock; Religious in the traumatized way. The begging for God to kill you if you deserve to die but nothing happens, so clearly death is too good for you, kind of religious. Hancock has mental breakdowns in churchs, screaming at the remains of the cross in the middle of the burnt pews. Hancock is religous when thematically appropriate and suitably unhinged. Cryptids, he likes the fun of it, but seriously, if Hancock starts mentioning God and crucifixion, you need to check on him.

MacCready; Hardcore no on the religion, hardcore yes on the cryptids. This man would have Bigfoot bumper stickers. He would be on the reddit threads. I don't even know what to write here. Do I need to justify? You know. You know MacCready is a Bigfoot truther. Aliens? Don't talk to Bob about aliens. He'll hold you hostage in a story about the time he went camping up in [insert North Eastern Forest Here] and definitely saw [insert North Eastern Alien of Cultural Importance Here]. This man would go ghost busting.

Nick; religious, but like, very low key about it. He's not a praying man, but he does think the Big Man Upstairs exists. Mostly because there's so many times in his life where he's certain someone is laughing at him, and whatever dumb situation he's gotten himself into now. Does go to church every so often, and steps lighter in the ruins he finds. Aliens? Nope. Cryptids? Nope. Ghosts? Yeah, absolutely. He doesn't buy into those haunted house attractions, but he believes in the afterlife, and that some folks might get lost on their way there.

Piper; no religion. No aliens. No cryptids. Hard facts or fuck off. At least, thats what she says. But the moment something rattles in the basement at 2 in the morning? Piper is superstitious. She doesn't believe, but she's not gonna play chicken with demonic possession or alien abduction. Now, she has some ghost stories, but she doesn't think they're ghost stories. "Yeah, turned out the person I'd been talking to was legally dead for 30 years. Kinda weird." "Piper." "Say its a ghost and I'm throwing my drink at you. Who doesn't fake their death every once in a while?"

Preston; raised religious but didn't take. It's not that he believes in ghosts, it's that Preston has a good head on his shoulders. This man Knows when Something Is Wrong. Preston might not have the highest PER, but he knows when to get the fuck out of somewhere. Aliens, cryptids, whatever. Preston doesn't even know if ghosts are real. He just knows that some places don't forget what happened to them. If you're ever in a weird location, use him as a "back in the car right fucking now" meter.

X6-88; no religion, aliens, or cryptids, whatever. However. Very prone to believing tall tales. Myths. Legends. Mothman? Genuinely thought that was just a species of moth. He thinks they're bullshit, provided the info is being provided with air of literalness. If you open with "yeah, there's this story of a giant half man, half moth creature," he knows its a story. If you go, "There's a giant moth from Virginia that eats people", that's just what moths are like. Why would he assume there isn't a carnivorous moth? Gets very, very upset whenever someone pulls one over on him like this. By someone, I mean Deacon. Its always Deacon.

[velvetvexations]

it’s so fucking weird to me that this person is so far up helio’s ass that they’re actively refusing to see the crux of the problem ally/kristen took with him. kristen asked helio - the god that she’s worshipped her entire life, who she was chosen for - why people experience suffering in the world to such a high degree. she was met with straight up deflection.

Indeed, person who blocked me, Helio deflected the question, but that doesn't change the fact that 90% of everything both Kristen and the fandom says about Helio being bad forever after is "frat boy". Furthermore, while Kristen is within her rights to have found that disagreeable, it's not actually that weird that a god would pass on explaining the massively complex subject of the Problem of Pain to a teenager in the remaining five seconds they had before she was revived.

Again, Kristen could prefer doubt. I have a close friend who converted to Judaism for basically the exact same reason, because Judaism in her experience encourages questions more than being raised Christian did. It's valid. But both Kristen and the fandom treat doubt as the only valid expression of spirituality, and act like having faith in anything is inherently bad. That's why I enjoyed Tracker smacking Kristen down so hard when she openly accused her of selling out with Wolfsong, and yet half the fandom is still convinced they're secretly evil, or at all relevant to the plot for that matter. For the fandom it must be sinister because it's not Kristen's special reverse-faith.

But if you are a member of a religion that works on faith, which is like, most real world religions, 'not knowing' and having like, faith that a deity or deities is doing something or has a specific plan or way of doing things even if you don't know all the details is pretty important! So it's weird that just because that's not for Kristen that the fandom blows up into it all being terrible, just in and of itself, for anyone.

#that’s not even mentioning the real-world parallels to be drawn between the church of helio and fundamentalist christianity

I'm super mentioning that. Because, like, there are other versions of Christianity. Daybreak went to Hell! He went to Hell. Helio is not the fundamentalist stereotype of Christian God. He is clearly presented as not being someone whom people like the Harvestmen accurately represent. But the parallels to fundamentalist Christianity have been taken by the fandom to mean that's all there is, and that Buddy must necessarily abandon his religion and switch to Cassandra or Ankarna - ANKARNA, the infernal god of rage and conquest who has directly caused the deaths of several people including Buddy's - to be a good person.

And everyone is like "Helio let this happen" like yeah Cassandra let a lot of things happen, gods in D&D worlds don't micromanage every crisis, they don't magically shield every follower from being betrayed by their teammates. It's one of many issues caused by forcing a version of fundamentalist Christianity into an otherwise D&D-based cosmology, the Problem of Pain in general works differently because there isn't a single omnipotent god which that whole premise is meant to challenge. No one asked Zeus or Thor why there was suffering in the world, it's only a problem because the god being asked the question is supposedly omnipotent. Helio did not let it happen, it just happened and it doesn't make sense to treat the situation as having been entirely in his control as though that's expected of any other god. But Helioism is a stand-in for Christianity and that is just fundamentally incompatible with D&D divinity, so Sol and Helio are treated so differently is completely inexplicable.

[gogodollie]

tell us the most unnecessary and oddly specific headcanons you have for nihil and seestor

Thank you for the ask teehee <3

I simultaneously think I don’t have many unnecessary/oddly specific hcs but at the same time I also might have too many. But mainly in the sense that hardly anyone likes these two so a lot of it does come off as unnecessary. Okay anyways so:

- Sister has an insane sweet tooth but denies it entirely. Satanic bake sale goods go missing the night before? Don’t ask where Sister was at 1am. On this note, old Imperator says she only drinks black coffee (she thinks it makes her sound mature and sophisticated even at her big age) but she’s got a hidden barista setup in her office like those bar cabinets with a shit ron of syrups and sweeteners and flavored coffee creamers.

- They’re ibs 4 lactose intolerance. You can guess which is which.

- Old Nihil is actually great with kids. Something about him having a brain that functions at their level I guess. The twins that follow him around with his oxygen tank would spend hours forcing him to watch them play roblox and brainrot on his huge fucking ipad but for an 80 year old he took it surprisingly well. He will however pause the video every 30 seconds and ask for an explanation as to what the actual hell is going on.

- Imperator loves corny romance novels and bodice rippers. She is not immune to a Fabio cover. Nihil used to tease her about it so now she just throws a bible sleeve over her books so she doesn’t get called out when reading them in public or around the abbey.

- Imperator has a bump on the bridge of her nose from breaking it when she was younger. She’ll never explain why it’s there because she was beating the shit out of another sister, who actually managed to land a decent punch, and she’s embarrassed about how she let her guard down.

- Nihil is asthmatic. He’s so embarrassed about it and his occasional coughing/wheezing fits but Sister carries around his (very expired) inhaler around in her purse just in case.

- Despite being the more skeptical of the two (when he’s newer to the church at least), Nihil loves spiritualism and the supernatural. He likes gimmicks! Those tarot spreads seen at the Ghost: Reverence and Resurrection pop-up? They were done by him post-breakup because he’s a wet pathetic loser. Imperator will call psychics, tarot readers, and pagans hacks because she only believes in the real Devil that speaks through her but Nihil is still insisting they have their fortunes told when they’re at the fair together.

- Old Imperator gets insanely flattered when a bartender/server still checks her ID. She’s giggling and won’t shut up about it to Nihil for the rest of the night because “Papa did you see. I’ve still got it” while Nihil just mumbles a “Yeah, yeah. Cool” as he is actively falling asleep into his meal.

[rrat-king]

walk with me bird,,, thinking about kristen's lack of self preservation especially in sophmore year- she does crazy shit again and again and it is funny but like. when you actually look at it, its like this elaborate performance. so much going on in kristen's brain, losing her family, (we know she's clearly still thinking about it with the start of sy being her returning to her brothers) losing her religion and then recreating it and still feeling lost.

all her life being full and told that this is the thing- that will protect you as long as you are good so kristen is good and then realizes oh. i was meant for something terrible actually, my church who vowed to protect me is actually trying to make me a hellmouth. like oh. great well i dont feel safe in that anymore, im always arguing with my parents because even they are still polluted with their religion but she lets it go she tries to find something else. and then she ends fy with her new religion and immediately doesnt like it, over the summer it still doesnt click and she changes it again, she puts her faith or even lack of it at the forefront as she does these insane choices, like a leap of faith. like oh someone has got to save me if i do this- surely someone will. (also pushing my agenda of kristen's faith eventually forming into believing in her friends bc they are the ones who always save her not the gods even though i do love cass)

like ally talking about chaos not being cute anymore really makes me think of all this- because it's like kristen being like oh well if it goes wrong than at least it's some sort of relief from this pressure of being something and at least im not plagued with thinking about not being good enough for my own parents. like her being so not aggressive but trying to counter sandralynn too- like not wanting to view her as a parental figure but as a person. kristen like almost tries to parent her in a way which sounds weird but its very like she can't turn it off in her head because she's been raised with expectation so she does feel on the same level as adults when in reality she is not but kristen believes like oh i can solve this here maybe u shouldnt be doing this thing in her relationship. i think part of it is kristen not wanting to see a parent become better and then have to wonder why her's didn't. like was she not enough for them to want to me better. it's so complex i adore kristen's character and it kinda surprises me how often she becomes very 2d in the fandom but alas, many thoughts about her

i am absolutely walking with you. i love what your talking about with her dynamic with sandra lynn (which. i will always be crazy about her and sandra lynn they are just both so intersting in thier relationships) but yeah it makes a lot of sense that she doesn't know how to properly interact with her if you think about the amount of pressure she has been given to be a spiritual leader through church or if you hc her as a parentified older sister to her little brothers (which i do personally) so she's not thinking about her interaction with sandra lynn as like, a regular adult cuz she hasn't really had those interactions before, especially when it comes to an adult not trusting her.

and i think that's why she just feels so insane in sophmore year, jsut like, she's going from something super rigid to something where it feels like she can do anything and that's fucking scary. like she has a place to stay but she doesn't really have any parents to answer to, she has a god but she has so much doubt it doesn't feel reliable, all she really has as stability is her friends and her girlfriend, and i feel like she is just incredibly reckless cuz like, she's doing better but its almost like she has nothing to lose? but she does. and she did, and i think that was what beardsley was saying about the chaos not being cute anymore, like kristen was acting like she was invinvible at times and that not only got her hurt, but also those around her, and im excited to see how she grows from that.

[propheticpotato42]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the potential of religion in the fallout universe.

We’ve seen a lot of local cults throughout the series but really only two religious “institutions” and those are Mormonism and Catholicism. The reason why I single out these two is that they both seem to have a larger reach than any of the other cults or practices while also maintaining a level of stability and uniformity.

The examples of Mormonism we see in Honest Hearts shows, through the New Canaanites, that the Mormon faith is still alive in post-apocalyptic South West and still has many devotees and followers. The many is implied.

The examples of Catholicism are less overt. We only ever meet a handful Catholics in the modern Fallout games and they are all in Fallout 3. Father Clifford runs a church and is aided by Diego who wants to join the Priesthood. The only other Catholic is Marcella who is a missionary sent from “The Abbey of the Road” and you met her in Point Lookout. What I think is interesting about this is the consistency. What I mean is that when Marcella arrives at Father Clifford’s church she immediately recognizes all of the prayers and the two engage in the same rituals and prayers. This means that Father Clifford uses the same language and ritual as the Abbey, which makes sense if they are both Catholics, but it also means that there is no massive drift going on after 200 years. Either that or Father Clifford is associated with the Abbey. Furthermore the rule of Clerical celibacy also survived the 200 years as can be seen by the Diego missions, and celibacy is the kind of thing you could see not surviving the post apocalypse.

For me this screams that both Mormonism and Catholicism are still alive in wasteland, and potentially more widespread than we may think.

I have this theory that the Catholic Church may even still fully exist as an institution in certain parts of the post apocalyptic Americas but warped by time and has incorporated some elements of Folklore Religion.

Also I lied earlier because there is a third religious institution, the Children of Atom. They appear in both Fallout 3 and 4 and show a consistent religious believe and structure. Also they fucking spread from the capital wasteland all the way to Far Harbor. And in the Far Harbor DLC they even start experiencing the beginning of a straight up religious schism. There is a lot of potential there to explore if only Bethesda used it.

What really interests me is the potential for various other religions groups. Are there any Muslims in the wasteland? Hindus? Buddhists? The US is the most diverse place on the planet and it is kinda hard to believe that all of these various religions didn’t survive in some way. I just don’t believe it.

And think of the potential!!!!

Post apocalyptic Amish settlements! Greek Orthodox Churches built in the middle of abandoned cities! A Sikh inspired equivalent to the Followers of the Apocalypse!

I can understand how bringing in real world religion can get messy fast but even in that case why don’t we see any new religions that are more than kooky local groups? Why doesn’t spirituality spread in the wasteland? And again the potential!

There is so much there!!!

[eybefioro]

Weekly fic rec, by yours truly...

Even after all this, you still have time. It's cold, but soon enough, the season will change. We watch the snow fall, the days going by. We share stories, we get warm by the fireplace. There's still time, and there's still your favourite restaurant down the road. There's still your favourite show, there's still the hug from a loved one. There's still everything that makes time worthwhile.

on the same page by Chekhov

Rated E, ~118k words.

My tags: satisfying, entrancing, hopeful.

Summary

Aziraphale Z. Fell is a rising star of the spiritual literary genre - the next Eat Pray Love guy - and his version of Chicken Soup For the Christian Soul is flying off the shelves. It's not that he's not grateful, but it's one thing to enjoy a career in writing and another completely to be pigeonholed into a specific genre, so much so that you are almost forbidden from writing anything else. So yes, maybe he has a bit of a secret. An outlet for his less... appropriate urges. And yes, if his typical readership got word of the sort of paragraphs he could put out on a particularly inspired night, they might suffer some form of heart attack typical for their age. But all of that is well hidden, and there is absolutely no way anyone would ever find out about his Arrangement with A.J. Crowley - the most debaucherous romantic fiction author of the decade. That is... until they have to pretend to be married to each other.

I love me some long human AU. I love to read these long ones and let myself just fall into the story, see how everything develops, really dedicate some time to it, and immerse myself in this new universe. See the characters that we know so well in a complete different context but still being somewhat the same.

And this one does it so, so well. Crowley and Aziraphale are so true to their characters in this fic, and it's spun in such a way that even though it's a completely different background and situation, it's still so them. It's still the same story. Still the same absurd longing and dancing around that we see, and that's so wonderful! Idk how the author did it, but it's so impressive. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's necessary to be accurate to the characters for a fanfic to be good. I feel like in every fic, they will be different, and that's GOOD. Fandom is a sandbox for us to play in. Nonetheless, I will say it again, this fic is impressive in that sense; their motivations, their story, their situation, the way they talk, how they think... it's very true to them. Besides that, the characters are all so well written. They feel real.

I love how the story is told. You don't get the whole picture at first, you don't understand their whole situation and relationship. You get feed details slowly, in the moments where they are needed, and just by the end you actually are able to sit and see it all. It's so engaging, and makes you understand both points of view. Why and how they endured all this time, all this longing.

Also, the thing about both of them being authors and writing each others books, and meeting through fanfiction? That was so genius. It scratched my brain so well. It's just so fitting, the whole arrangement is so well constructed. Aziraphale’s relationships with Gabriel, church and family is so well described. You can really get his way of thinking, and the choice he and Crowley constantly make to Not Talk About It, the one that makes you want to shove them in a room and make them fucking communicate, is... is totally understanble by the end. I was like, yeah, if I was in this situation I'd probably do the same, even if it makes me mad. I could relate a lot to Aziraphale and understand his thinking (although that may not be a surprise lol).

On that note: the use of the fake marriage trope is so well implemented and fits with the characters in the story in such a way that is uncanny. It really feels like something they'd think it's reasonable to do. This is such a idiotXidiot story it's infuriating in the best fucking away. It's so in sync with both seasons of the show, and it was written before season 2! But don't worry they end up together. It's like the author spun that and actually gave some closure, and made them fucking talk LMAO

Also, this fic deals with some sensitive topics, especially homophobia and its consequences, but it's done in such a sensible manner. Yes, they face some pretty bad shit (especially Aziraphale in the past), but they aren't told in a violent (?) manner? Like, the violence is not romanticised, it's not there for us bawl over. The characters deal with it and are triumphant in the end. They are resilient and strong, and even if they suffer because of homophobia, they get to rebuilt their lives and be happy. They get their good ending, and they win.

The writing in this fic is also incredible. I metaphors are delicious, the way the feelings are described, and how everything develops. It's just such a good read, keeping you on your toes. It's funny, it's sad, it's infuriating (as I said before, in a good way), it's hopeful, it's beautiful, it's hot. It's many things at the same time, but above all, it's satisfying. It makes you go through all those emotions with the characters, but by the end, you get to see them happy, free, and communicating. It's delightful writing. Really. There are some paragraphs that I will be thinking for a long time because they hit HARD.

This fic is like balancing craving and indulgence, like having a bar of chocolate that you just eat a little piece every day, because you want to make it last, only to then notice that you can buy more if you want to. It's like a good, deserved piece of cake that tastes like happiness.

[golvio]

One of the less jokey reasons why I’d love to see a Cultist Simulator style game with Ganondorf is because I feel like a Ganondorf game would be the best opportunity to explore a side of Hyrule we’ve never seen before.

CultSim & Book of Hours were all about this secret side of the world devoted to magic, the eldritch and esoteric, and the forces trying to suppress it so individual quests for ascension don’t cause too much collateral damage (which then go too far, as police and bureaucracies often do). The game’s format itself was based around peeling back the layers of the mundane world to get at that secret world, and from there to go still deeper to discover the purpose of your game and possibly ascend to godhood/end the world/etc.

In Zelda, we get constant vague references to a secret occult world—a cult of dorks in black robes who live in the woods in AoC, a reference to an unnamed tribe of dark mages in FSA, mentions of “lost writings” or deteriorated scripts holding forbidden knowledge in TotK, etc. And there are countless witches here and there, from Maple to Twinrova, which suggests there might be at least a couple less formal covens kicking around, some transference of more secret magical knowledge between masters and apprentices throughout the ages.

So…who are these people learning this obscure and sometimes forbidden knowledge? What eldritch secrets are there to actually know, beyond the bright and fenced in path of what Princess Zelda is taught, diluted down to “what Link/the player needs to know in order to do their job?” Who keeps preserving the knowledge of Ganon’s existence? Who keeps trying to resurrect Ganon and why?

Not to mention who are these people, specifically? Cultist Simulator featured all sorts of factions that borrowed inspirations from everything between Mesopotamia to the lost ceremonies of the Mysteries of Ancient Greece to the Spiritualist and Occultist movements in the UK and US in the latter half of the 19th century. On one end, you had grand spiritual societies like the Ordo Limiae, which devoted itself to the study and navigation of boundaries between the occult aspects of magic, only to dissolve into countless schisms and petty infighting once the society’s heyday had passed. Then you had more recent up-and-comers like your own cult, with even more petty infighting and backstabbing between upstarts jockeying for ascension into the Mansus in the vein of Aleister Crowley’s rivalry with William Butler Yeats. Then there are the Libraries, which each devote themselves to the collection, preservation, and distribution of occult knowledge, as well as the containment and dispelling of cursed tomes that could be dangerous to the general populace. And then that’s not to mention what the Edge folks have going on, with the underworld organizations that traffic in tallied years of life, loosely organized bands of monster hunters, that one Edge/Heart cult that was “a society of physicians and duelists” obsessed with the saving and taking of life, and so on.

What kind of networks of occult knowledge would a hitherto squeaky-clean and spiritually orthodox universe like Hyrule have? What other gods are out there, once you stray from the kingdom-approved domains of the church of Hylia and vague myths of the Golden Goddesses before her, beyond even the more localized shintoist style cults in isolated villages worshipping local nature spirits and tutelary deities? What were the networks of people both Ganon and his mothers studied under, who made Twinrova who they were, and, in turn, made Ganon who he is?

Who is Ganon to these people? An aspirational figure? A god/demigod the mages just getting started down this path whisper prayers to? A fellow acolyte of forbidden knowledge they could learn from? A rival to backstab to guarantee their own ascension? A resource to exploit? More importantly, how does Ganon feel about all this? Does he ever communicate with any of these people, or does he fuck off to a tower somewhere until Link shows up and the cycle starts over?

I doubt anybody at Nintendo has ever thought about this as hard as I do, but overthinking is kind of my thing. Right now, I’m overthinking the question of “Where the hell do all these dark wizards keep coming from?”