#in WHAT world is trans rights the same as christianity oh my god.

[dovedrangeas]

[lacunasbalustrade]

what are your general thoughts on queer(gay n trans n all) people? like you dont seem to be against gay ppl from what i can see but i also see that you've like never really openly said something pro or against trans ppl. sorry if its out of the blue im just curious esp seeing your pov as a religious person who has trans mutuals/follows n all bcuz i (unfortunately) know plenty of christians that know trans people but only tolerate them instead of accepting them (which usually means they misgender/deadname them)

hi! I'm happy to answer your question - it's a bit controversial, though, and a sensitive topic for everyone, so I do ask for your understanding if anything I say happens to offend you.

as a Christian, I believe in the stance the Bible puts forth: that BEING gay is not a life choice, it's an inclination that came forth due to the presence of sin in the world. the continuation, however, of this choice, is a sin.

To quote so no one thinks I'm speaking out of some random, bibically incorrect bigotry, Romans 1: 24 NIV "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another." ,Romans 1: 26 "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones." , Romans 1: 27 "In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."

obviously my faith and beliefs should not be forced on unbelievers. I am not any holier than anyone else because I am straight. I am every bit as sinful because it's impossible to avoid committing sin.

so if I'm going to sum it up, it's best said as: none of my business because Who Am I to tell you how to live, right? you're my friends and 'preaching' isn't actually loving. the best form of loving others as a Christian is to accept them as a person before judging based on whatever life choices they've made or pronouns they call themselves. which brings me into the next part!

theologically, I have to admit I'M NOT VERY SURE about trans people. I genuinely cannot find many sources of literature on the topic. There are intersex people, there are people with gender dysphoria. The Bible doesn't talk much about those, enough to give any real objections anyway. To talk about my beliefs based off the context, if God made you as you are, you shouldn't be trying to change you...is the logic, but again, no reason to force biblical beliefs on unbelievers.

I do disapprove of the extent to which some trans people have taken this schtick. I've seen posts saying 'oh if kids can play soccer and do ballet which messes them up for life, they can also do trans surgeries!' I'm sorry. That just doesn't make sense. WHY would anyone want kids to have permission to do Very Risky Things when they are small enough to not know better or make informed choices? And I also know many posts say that 'common sense', kids aren't gonna do those things till they're old enough to feel like they need to do them....those posters need to remember the last time they regretted doing something as a child. Common sense can't be relied upon in my experience.

Plus, given the kidnapping laws in the U.S which basically allow children to be taken away from their parents if their parents disapprove...lol yeah now make a law where my child can be taken away from me if I'm not in the same fandom as them. It can be hurtful to receive dissent on your life choices, but that don't mean up and leaving is the solution, unless the living situation is physically dangerous in some way or you are an actual adult. Children are not trustworthy indicators of whether or not a parent is problematic. And I'm saying this having had problematic parents myself - sometimes we are part of the problem. And if it's difficult, you should still try not to give up on them.

This might be the most important part: I'm wondering whether the gender stereotypes placed on girls and boys are the markers trans people want to overcome. Because from what I've researched, there are two different camps. 1: people who admit that they are biologically whatever sex they were born, and just enjoy dressing like and passing for the other sex because it makes them more comfortable. 2: people who actually believe they are the other sex because they feel that way and they are only effectively realizing that change to their 'authentic' self by transitioning.

I don't believe in gender stereotyping. Like, girls wear skirts boys wear pants. Boys can't wear pink etc etc. So the concept of a trans woman thinking they are a woman because they enjoy the markers attached to being a woman, like, for example, having long hair and wearing skirts, makes me really uncomfortable. Because that's not the whole experience of being a woman. It's only a small part of it, and it's not universal at all. And while no one can claim that ALL woman have experienced a certain set of conditions that make them woman...the only standard for BEING a woman, in my book, is to be a biological one, because it's the only defining trait. When people think of girls, I don't want them to automatically think of girls with skirts and wearing pink. I want them to acknowledge that all girls are different, and the only thing that makes them girls is the gender marker, not their conformance to 'gender norms' that have arisen from societal conditioning.

The idea that someone's feelings can be 'authentically accurate' makes me feel even more....nah. Feelings are valid but if I trusted mine all the time, I'd definitely be all over the place.

To sum it up: no problems with the trans behavior because I'm not into forcing biblical perspectives on y'all. But I definitely have a problem with the idealogy and the legislature.

dead name, misgendering wise...I believe people should be called whatever they want to be called unless it makes the other person uncomfortable. In which case the other person should just stop interacting with them since they're so uncomfortable. (E.g you want me to call you Baby Chicken. For some reason I have a problem with it. Maybe I have a strong fear of chickens.)

Basically I respect your life choices. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk haha.

[dearestsilhouette]

vent rant

mAN why do i feel guilty

I had a really good day today, got shit done, yet I feel guilty over saying “please don’t call me best friend”. Just 6 simple words are making me feel guilty for, what, sticking up for myself? Saying I’m uncomfortable with being called that by someone I don’t really like??

Oh, yeah, and I hate two people whose names are similar to mine!! One’s a fucking homophobe AND transphobe, the other one I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. And they’re both Christians. Nothing bad about being Christian, but they’re the “get Jesus and repent” kind. Man, I don’t know if I have religious trauma or what but I actually despise religious talk. Makes me wanna cry. I was in elementary when I was first shamed for believing in no god. ELEMENTARY. I was younger. Less mature. Less understanding of the world. And yet a fucking adult shamed me for believing in what I wanted. A full grown adult.

And now I’m put into a school full of Christians. And I’m the probably only atheist here. There may be one more but I’m not sure. But I feel like the only one. Luckily, I know someone who respects people who are gay and is Christian and doesn’t pressure it onto me 24/7. Because I hate people like that. I hate the person sitting next to me in TSA because they believe that gayness and being trans is wrong.

I hate the people sitting at the table next to me in ela because they’re so stupid and so immature. I hate my classmates in gateway because they’re so stupid to the point where they don’t know what basic reproduction is. They’re so fucking stupid. I hate them so much. I hate them. I hate my health class because people don’t ever listen or do anything except one person, and the people to the right of where I sit, except for one person because she’s actually smart, just don’t care. They don’t care about others. I hate the person who sits a bit ahead of me in health because they think my anger is funny. I hate everyone and anyone who thinks my anger is genuinely amusing. I hate it when people say “I understand you” and yet they don’t.

I hate everyone who says that. I hate anyone who says basic, negative human emotions are funny. How would you feel??? How would you feel if you were angry and people were laughing at you? How would you feel if people were pressuring something on you that you don’t believe in? How would you feel, hm? How would you feel if you were so emotional to the point where you isolate yourself for hours on end without other people’s voices and touch while you have a breakdown? How would you feel? And be honest, people! How would you feel?

People don’t understand. They don’t understand my brain. How I function. Funny how the only person who’s super super close to me (aka my mom) doesn’t understand my feelings. And yet people who I don’t interact as much with, such as one of my friends who’s present online but also an irl friend, understands me more than anything. Funny how my online friends get me more than my parents. My mom doesn’t understand anything. She says she’s the same way and yet she’s not. She’s compared sitting and standing once, saying they’re the same thing. /srs

I think my mom’s dense because they are, in fact, nkt the same thing. And I hate when she says “would you do this in class?”, because, NO. I WOULD NOT. But I’m doing it here, because it’s a non-public space, and no one can see me but myself, my brother and you. And I hate my dad, too. I don’t like him. I love my parents, but I don’t like my dad too much. I hate him more than I love him. He doesn’t believe someone can go by they/them pronouns, and as someone who prefers it when people refer to me with they/them online and partially irl, it makes me want to sob. He makes me feel like I’m pressured to shave. He doesn’t let me have headphones or my tablet at the table because he wants to “have a family dinner / lunch”. I wish you weren’t my dad sometimes. Because I don’t like you.

I feel like I’m too emotional. I cry too easily. I get angry too easily. And it doesn’t make it easier that I pressure myself. I pressure myself to get stuff done sometimes. I hate this. I hate my brain. Why must I do this to myself. And the only way I can relieve this hatred and sadness is either keeping it to myself or talking to people online about it.

I hate this. And I’m starting to hate me.

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Reacting to Contemporaty Comics (Without Context) 10/?

Returning to completely no context. Pre-old Loki's death, pre-everything good about my boi, pre-MCU (technically. I think it's concurrent with The-Hulk-Movie-That-Will-Not-Be-Acknowledged)

Spoilers for The Mighty Thor: Lord of Asgard #64 (2003). Also quite a lot of religious (mainly Catholic) commentary. (Actually commentary is putting it lightly. I go on a couple rants about Catholicism as an institution and the hypocrisy of the Vatican. It relates to aspects of the comic, but I'm drawing a lot on real world history and my own upbringing in the Catholic Church when I react to it. So if that triggers you or even if you feel like that will bother you, you might want to skip this one.)

This is a long one.

Who in the shit are these people?

Just call yourselves pagans and have done with it, you pretentious idiots

Thor stop being Odin. I'm about to be rooting for Loki for more than just principle

Oh I do not like this art I'm sorry

Mmkay, Imma need JP 2 to sit the fuck down and chill

"The church is quite tolerant." I'm sorry, it's what, now? Y'all drove me out for being gay and trans 16 years after this comic came out, you dumb shit

Sorry my Catholic trauma is showing

Shut UP my dude. You don't own the world. Stop

Okay I'm back to rooting for Thor if it's gonna be Thor Tells the Vatican to Fuck Off

Like (sorry I'm not done) where the FUCK does the goddamn Catholic Church get off trying to tell Thor not to go all Imperialist on Midgard's ass??? The Catholic Church! How fucking unself-aware do you gotta be to still reap the benefits of your centuries' old terror fest on the entirety of the goddamn world and turn around and be like "But he can't do the colonizing, boo hoo, it's not allowed if he's not being Catholic about it. :((( " Fucking SHUT UP

Okay rant over for now. I'm sorry, the Vatican's real world hypocrisy pisses me off too much to not address it in a comic book

NORSE. PAGANS! VIKINGS!!! What the fuck is this dumb man

this dipshit really just used the "my son" shit on THOR. You condescending son of a bitch, that man is older than you by several centuries!

(Commercial break I guess lol) The ads in this comic remind me that unlike the comics from like 2013 or 2019, or the vintage 80s comics, I was in elementary school in 2003. I remember this flavor of Kool-Aid. I don't remember what this ad is actually for, the mad voice twister (with Kool-Aid points? whatever those were), because I didn't read comics as a kid, but the flavor it's promoting I sure as fuck do.

Guys! People training to be warriors don't use real, sharpened blades, you dumbasses!

Okay, I was gonna say I was leaning slightly toward the priest's opinion after two pages of the Thor cult, but then I remembered all Catholic everything was conducted in Latin prior to like 1960 for basically the same reason these guys think they're talking like Shakespeare and actually no, you're all fanatics.

I did not expect this comic to be Religious Commentary: the Comic, with Lord in the title referring not to a medieval/Asgardian title but drawing parallels to Lord Jesus/ The (Christian) Lord

I guess I should've seen it coming. I've picked up on a lot of Judeo-Christian (I know that phrasing is contentious and for good reason, bear with me) imagery in Thor comics. Hell (no pun intended), they've been drawing parallels to the Norse gods and Christianity since Snorri (and I've commented on his Holier than Thou bullshit before)

Is there no other religion in this comic world but Thorism and Catholicism? I feel like I'm gonna look up this author and he's either gonna be an ex-Catholic or a current Catholic

You know I looked it up right after I wrote that, and wouldn't you know it, I both maybe spoiled myself and couldn't find out his religion or lack thereof. It's an interesting angle, and at the moment it feels like either a) he's specifically going after just the Catholic Church on purpose because he's got personal beef (or reverence, if the Catholics come out on top), or b) he knows Catholicism from a personal perspective (either as a current or ex-Catholic) with a lot more confidence than any other religion, and rather than risk grossly misrepresenting other religions out of ignorance or laziness or possibly more sinister reasons like an upsetting number of other white people, he has chosen to focus on what he knows (a religion which has coincidentally done quite a lot of harm to people who practice or historically would have practiced those religions he is not as well-versed in). But we're very early in the book and I also didn't read anything before or after this, so maybe Jurgens explores how other religious people respond to Thor in later pages or issues, or maybe he already did.

Oh. Oh no. When WASPs pull the religious persecution card, you know they're doing this shit for the wrong fucking reasons. (I mean, using WASP loosely here, since at least one of them isn't ex-Protestant but ex-Catholic, but the other three criteria fit these men. The demographic becomes slightly more racially diverse later in the text, but the three guys talking right now are all white.)

I'm getting flashbacks to when the Knights of Columbus came to talk to my Sunday School class in eighth grade and the guy got progressively more irritated with my classmate because he kept asking questions about the sword that came with the uniform, which supposedly was not the point of the order. I mean, c'mon, Mr. B_____, look me in the eye and tell me with confidence that the majority of those old suburban white men in your order did not join exclusively to get a sword. For the record, my (unknowingly) transmasc genderfluid ass was also extremely interested in the sword, but I was already aware I was barred entry into the order, and also already pissed that I'd officially been confirmed and then told I was not allowed to be gay, trans, ordained, or a knight by Catholic standards, two of which I already was but as yet unaware, one I wanted to be now out of spite, and one I'd always wanted to be. (But that's a story for a different blog. The point being, half of these Thorists joined to get a sword and that's it.)

The least believable thing about this comic is these kids go to Catholic school and don't have to wear uniforms. I'm sure those schools exist, but even if they don't have to, there is absolutely nothing on Ginny's body that would meet a dress code aside from maybe that turtleneck that covers everything.

Trent, a lot of non-Catholics enroll in Catholic school. Though the Pope is real pissed with Thor at the moment, so maybe not going to Catholic school is a good idea

They absolutely would not delay Mass for two teenagers unless they were getting married (which usually isn't a thing the church necessarily condones I don't think) or one of them was the Virgin Mary herself

that portrait of Jesus has the longest hair I've ever seen someone give him

LOL oh my god this priest is still arguing with Thor

"You are on the cusp of destroying the Catholic Church, Thor." PROMISE?!

"Your church is part of the ruling class and has been for centuries." PREACH, THOR!!! Also, Jurgens is ex- Catholic, I'm calling it now

"What good have you done?" THOR ODINSON, GOING FOR THE FUCKING KILL! We STAN

Loki continues to be nowhere in sight, but you know what, this is cathartic, a balm on my ex-Catholic soul, I don't even feel the loss

"...while befriending some of the world's most heinous dictators." hahaha, Thor knows what you did in World War II, Pius. He wasn't even fucking here and he knows. I'll bet Steve told him.

...did...did you just admit that the Catholic Church still uses tithes?! I don't think you're supposed to mention it!

Baby, being a nun doesn't make one a steadfast believer. Having a sister who's a nun but not you means even less

Oh we're comparing our plight to Native Americans now, huh? You do remember you live in a (non-religious) Protestant nation, right? The Catholics have limited legal sway aside from being white, but guess what? Most of you are white, too. They're not gonna go Trail of Tears or Cholera epidemic on your asses. I'm begging y'all from the distant future of 2024 to learn your motherfucking privilege before it's too late.

I'm gonna need your source for your second religious persecution claim, guys. This smells an awful lot like "Christians are so oppressed because someone told me once how bad missionaries are, boo hoo, my rights are being infringed upon" bullshit

"You really think we'll be arrested?" No. No, dude, I really doubt it. I think you could walk down the street with your sword sharpened and unsheathed and you wouldn't get arrested. You know why? Because you're a white man and ACAB, that's why. You might run into an issue if you try to take it on a plane, because it's 2003 and if I remember correctly it still takes like 3 hours to get past TSA, but other than that, I think you're good, man. This is just good old-fashioned fear-mongering.

THE PRIEST JUST DREW A FUCKING GUN WHAT THE FUCK

Oh now Loki shows up

I cannot believe Loki just restarted the fucking Crusades. I mean, the Pope lit the match, but Loki stoked the flames into inferno.

Wait. Did both kids die? That's what these panels mean right?

Fuck that's the end. What an insane concept for a comic issue holy shit

Well enjoy my residual Catholic issues and cynicism about white men getting away with whatever they want, I guess. This is what you come to this blog to see, right?

[arcanistsdelight]

Okay, I'm a transwoman, and it's time I talk about the list. This is going to be a long post.

What list, though?

The list of things that were *definitely the real reason* of why I felt like I needed to transition - according to my mother.

It's been over a decade since then, so the list I provide here will not be comprehensive, just the big players that I remember well enough to discuss.

Body Dysmorphia Depression SAD (Seasonal Depression) Bipolar II PTSD

Some non-falsifiable uh... *conditions*: Just an effeminate man Maybe it's the bisexuality? Literal Demons

When I started seeing a therapist to seek a diagnosis for gender dysphoria, we worked our way through that list, at my insistence that we take every potential diagnosis seriously. We talked through them one by one. It took over a year, and a lot of journaling to disprove those that could be disproved. Here's what I learned:

Body dysmorphia is the persistent belief that there is something wrong with the way you appear - typically a small unnoticeable, or non-existent flaw, but not always.

Whoa - that does sound pretty familiar, right? Being concerned about my body and how I appear. That hits home with gender dysphoria really well. So, let's inspect the specifics - what was I so concerned about? Oh... there was nothing wrong with my body... I just didn't feel like it was my body, well, that's dissociation. That's a different symptom. Did I think there was something wrong with my body? No, I was in good shape - I was in the military at the time, my body was hella fit. Was there something that would make me feel more comfortable in my body? Well, it really just came down to the fact that I wasn't a fan of being perceived as male, because that didn't reflect how my brain was processing the world... sounds more like gender dysphoria than body dysmorphia and there's a solution. Let's not rush things though, let's work through the list.

--

Depression is a common comorbidity with gender dysphoria, and this was an accurate diagnosis! Aaaand that made it a very difficult thing to parse. What direction was the depression coming from? What would alleviate it? Well, fortunately, the answer, after nearly 3 months of journaling, one-on-one therapy and a lot of introspection became clear. I was depressed because I had a fair amount of dysphoria about how people addressed me, and how I looked, about how my muscles grew and the way I-myself, and the world at large, perceived me.

--

SAD - Easy, nope. Not Seasonal, the ebb and flow of my reaction to gender dysphoria was just a reflection of my own ability to repress and cope, which I was a master of. You want me to live in denial? Baby, I got you. I know all the tricks... I'll only have a complete mental breakdown every 2-3 years.

--

Bipolar II - Maybe, it's entirely possible. There is definitely a more-energetic and driven/less-energetic and sad cycle in my life that does sometimes resemble a very mild form of Bipolar Disorder. Also, entirely unrelated to what I am experiencing with gender dysphoria. I can be productive, happy and energetic and screaming on the inside; I can be depressed, sad and screaming on the inside; I can be not screaming at all in either of those states. The screams of my dysphoria do not relate to the cyclical pattern of my joys and sorrows.

--

PTSD - Yep, I got that too. Specifically, in the form of CPTSD, and specifically, related to how I've been taught to hate myself for my entire life. No the PTSD didn't cause my trans identity, being a queer youth in a christian town raised by christian parents caused my CPTSD. It wouldn't have mattered what the particulars of my queerness were, it would have all resulted in the same beatings, bullying, and awareness of just how sinful and evil I am in the eyes of the christian god. The cause of that lay with our culture's unnecessary violence and hatred towards those of us that are different.

--

Now, for the non-falsifiables up there, I couldn't really disprove them, hence the title I've given them. Maybe I am just very effeminate... but at some point, does that really matter? I am the type of feminine that I would like it to be known and recognized in everyday life, please and thank you. I am also bisexual, it's true! I would like to be a woman no matter the partner. As for demons? Well, take that up with your god, I can't do shit about it, that sounds like a purview far beyond my own. If he can't control them, how the hell should I? And yes, I spent years in my youth praying for help from god.

So... I did it, I went through the list, and I convinced my mother that I am definitely trans... right?

No. The list never mattered. It was fully a waste of a year of my life, a lot of money and the time of a skilled psychologist. My mother still denies that being trans is a real thing. It doesn't matter that hormones have stopped the depression, that I live far happier and healthier than I ever have before. There is nothing I can do to prove my identity to another human. You just have to trust me, you just have to find some way to believe that I am who I say I am.

I don't believe in extra gatekeeping. Because I tested the gates, they couldn't stop me, only keep me from knowing myself a little bit longer, only give me more time walking the razors edge of suicidality. They won't realistically stop anyone else either, because if you're sure you're trans... you're trans, it's not something else.

[automatismoateo]

I'm no longer a strong atheist. My dad has turned me into an Anti-theist. via /r/atheism

I'm no longer a strong atheist. My dad has turned me into an Anti-theist.

It's been a long time coming, from his constant jabs at LGBTQIA+ individuals on TV to his constant "You just need to give Jesus another try, I know you're angry at him just let him help you" how would I ever be mad at something I don't precive as existing?

He watches his "Unashmed podcast" (it's a podcast made by the duck dynasty people) and in the recent episode that he listens to out loud, one of the wives is describing how they were with Kirk Cameron at a library doing a reading hour (a reactionaries response to drag queen reading) and how because some employees were "loud" it was violating their 1st amendment and oh how very oppressed the poor Christians who were just trying to read were :(

So he vocally agrees and starts to mumble "yeah its coming. Yep, the bible is right we're done for."

So I asked him, "What are you talking about?" And he goes off on a far right white Christian nationalist bullet points of

• If a Christian is simply criticized, then that MUST be persecution • The LGBT are shoving an "agenda" down our throats (I'm bi, I'm also trans but obviously haven't disclosed the latter, so where and when the fuck am I "agendaing" people?) So I tell him how far the right groups are threatening LGBT events with bomb threats and showing up in person armed to intimidate people. His response? "Oh well... yeah well it's bad yeah BUT pastors are being arrested for simply saying they don't want to marry gay people" and no matter how much I tell him "NOBODY IS ARRESTING CHRISTIANS FOR BEING CHRISTIAN" His response is "well they just hide it very well, it happens you know it does, i just go by what the bible says is coming"

I'm sort of financially stuck with my parents right now (have yall seen these inflation prices? Seesh) and so Every. Fucking. Day. I hear about his God, his values, his way of life. But me? If I want to be me? He has said to my brother when he came out as bi "stop talking, I don't want to think about that" with a disgusted look on his face. I'm truly just disappointed that my dad can't respect me (or my siblings) enough to just give the minimalist of acceptance by saying, "Well.. I guess if you're bi, you're bi" Sorry for ranting, I have nobody who is secular irl to talk with about this. It's taking its mental toll on me. Religious fanatics love to shove their religious beliefs down everyone else's throats, yet when a valid criticism arises, its "oh woah is me! I'm literally being fed to lions :(" It's just a constant daily shitting on how the world isn't "godly enough" and how we are in a "moral" decay because of it, and how me and millions of others are going to hell, then in the same breathe say "you need to respect my beliefs" And his "respect" is you don't question his beliefs.

Submitted March 09, 2023 at 04:54PM by ObeytheCorporations (From Reddit https://ift.tt/vXncHaN)

[problematically-pagan]

Religious and Gender Equality is the key to Harmony

CW: Religion, Christianity, Paganism, Transphobia Mention

I agreed to go to church with family recently (this is why you should never nod to anything without properly listening by the way, kids) and I fear that it was a grave mistake!

After realizing my error, I said "Oh, that's fine! I can just deal with it, after all it's not like I have to pretend to be a Christian, right?"

I was apparently wrong...

I've been told that I can not wear my Mjolnir necklace, that I have to wear a dress, that I can not let on to anyone there that I am pagan...

I was told that wearing my Mjolnir may offend someone there... To that, I have one thing to say:

If a necklace has the power to offend you or make you feel threatened, your faith is not strong enough! A mountain does not bend under the wind, no matter how harshly it may blow... the ocean does not dry up under the heat of the sun...

I have nothing against Christians. In fact, some of my closest friends are of the Christian faith! But they do not feel offended or threatened by my beliefs and how I choose to express them, nor I theirs!

If you find others beliefs offending or threatening to yours and are reading this, take a moment to ponder. Is your faith truly so fragile that the wind can blow it away?

And if you feel like you're being kept from expressing your own beliefs for fear of offending others and are reading this, believe me when I say this:

You have a right to believe what you do. You have a right to express those beliefs. So long as you are not causing harm to yourself or others, you remain with that right. Do not ever let the world take that away from you!

The way I see it, if Christians can wear crosses I should be allowed to wear my Mjolnir! And with the same level of pride as they do with their crosses!

-

As for the issue of me wearing a dress...

I will humor them this time simply because I do not currently own any nice masculine clothes. That said, if asked I will openly admit that I am pagan and I am trans... The way I see it, they don't have to agree with me, they need only show the same respect for me as I do them.

If you're trans, you have a right to be open about it if you choose. Those who truly care for you will accept it, even if they don't understand it. If people don't accept it and respect you, they were never worth your time or love to begin with and- though that may be painful to accept- I can promise you that you are better off without them! And I take pride in keeping my promises!

We walk with Gods! Be true to yourself and be true to your beliefs! Skål, brothers, sisters, and friends! May you find peace and comfort in all that you do!

[zarya-zaryanitsa]

About Veles

Today I present you my amateur translation of a fragment of Religia Słowian by Andrzej Szyjewski. My own comments will be indicated by a „trans. note” disclaimer. I accept constructive suggestions for improving the translation.

Chapter 3: How to combat chaos?; Subchapter: The Adversary

From the perspective of structure of the Slavic world the most important thing is to discover against whom is the weapon of Perun directed, in other words, who is the Slavic counterpart of the Devil. Greek „diabolos” and hebrew „satan” is usually translated in slavic tongues as „bies” „czart” or „veles” (let’s forget for now about Helmold’s Chernobog who is not a deity in his own right but merely a pejorative epithet). Bies, especially in the Eastern Slavic regions is associated with something terrible and terrifying, the verb „zbiesić się” signifies falling into madness but also the convulsions that can accompany possession. Chart or chort is a class of evil spirits, that filled up the wild nature, especially woods, marshes, waters and winds; deceiving, bringing evil fate and misfortune. The term veles we know from XV-XVI century Czech texts where it appears in phrases such as „what devil, what veles, what dragon incited you against me?!” „oh what veles encourages them to commit such sins!” „go to veles!” „go to veles over the sea!”. Nowadays we say „go to hell” (trans. note: in Slavic languages we literally say „go to the devil” rather than go to hell, but I used the english phrase to give you a sense of how it resounds). This draws our attention to the person of Weles or Wołos, god known from numerous Eastern Slavic texts.

This name, encountered in many variations such as „Veles”, „Wieles”, „Velevit”, „Wołos” originates, depending on interpration that you accept, either from protoslavic „volstь” („power”, „domain”), „valas” („hair”, „fur”), or „wel-„ „vel-„ ( „to see”, but also „bewitching glance”). The looks and domain of this deity are hard to precisely pinpoint. He is most likely a Slavic derivative of indo-european Varuna, associated with the night sky and magic. Scholars also point to his close kinship with Baltic god of the dead, known as Vels or Velinas, also associated with the christian Devil. In Latvian the souls of the dead could be referred to as „veles”, and this word is used interchangably with „navia”. As a result Veles is commonly considered the god of chthonic spheres, watching over the dead but also the fertility of fields. Russian chronicles call Veles „skotiy bog”, „god of cattle” but list him on the same breath as great deities Perun or Mokosh. So he isn’t merely a protective spirit of the cowsheds.

When in „Tale of Bygone years” Ruthenians make peace with Byzantines the Greeks kiss a cross before swearing an oath of peace, while Ruthenians „swore on their weapons, on Perun and on Veles the god of cattle, and confirmed the peace”. Later where raising and bringing down of idols is briefly mentioned names of Perun and Veles are cited again. So Veles is not some lesser entity, but a powerful god, with might and influence roughly comparable to that of Perun himself. Keeping in mind Dumezil’s tripartite schema of the functions of gods in indo-european religions we can note that the warriors from princely team swear on Perun while commonfolk on Veles. The punishment for breaking an oath was, on Perun’s side death from warrior’s own weapon, and on Veles’ side „becoming golden like gold itself”. This leads us to believe those gods are sovereign masters of different spheres of activity: Perun rules over heaven, war and the knightly estate while Veles over earth, agriculture and the third estate. Let’s call back for a moment to the folk tale discussed in the previous chapter, in which, as a result of an agreement between God and Devil, the God holds dominion over the living and the Devil over the dead (or alternatively, human souls go to heaven to God and human bodies end up in the earth, with the Devil).

Semiotics have examined many texts in which Veles or Volos appears, not only discovering many traits shared by indo-european gods whose names are connected with the vel-/vr- core (like baltic Velinas, vedic Varuna, the demonic Vala or celtic filedhs) but they also noticed that christian characters were used to remedy the shortages that arose as a result of christianization and removal of pagan divinities from the language and cultus. Perun whose name as we know has been „desacrated” in the polish language and reduced to mean „thunder”, was replaced by prophet Elijah (Saint Ilya). „Veles” in Czech language became synonymous with „devil” and his person was replaced by Saint Nicholas (Nikolai, Mikuła). Why? Elijah ascended into heaven among stormy winds, in a burning chariot. In the consciousness of the people he is still there, riding in his mighty chariot, it’s rattling - the thunder, it’s fire - the lightning. Elijah becomes the Thunderer (trans. note: originally „gromowładny”,  „he who has power over thunder”), and in this function he is equated with Perun, who most likely was believed to ride the Big Dipper. Saint Ilya appears in ruthenian, ukrainian and Southern Slavic sources as the master of weather. On the orthodox icons he can be seen riding a white horse and holding a spear - a distant remnant of Perun’s original weapon. The same role can also be played by Saint Michael and Saint George, although for different reasons. This will be discussed in another chapter.

As we can clearly see on the basis of semiotic analysis the Saint put in opposition to Saint Ilya is Saint Nicholas. There are legends of Saint Nicholas protecting commonfolk from the wrath of Ilya and tricking the prophet to protect peasant’s field from destruction and in this way earning peasant’s undying gratitude. As stated by Uspieński in his articles „the dangerous, punishing, heavenly Ilya is put in juxtaposition with benevolent Nicholas, protecting from the ground”. Ilya is just and strict, Nicholas is merciful and gracious. This opposition translates also into eastern heroic epics where Ilya Muromec enagages in conflict with Mikula Seljaninovic.

What does kindly St. Nicholas (nowadays mostly associated with Christmas gifts) has to do with Veles? It’s important to bear in mind that in christian orthodoxy St. Nicholas is the most revered of Saints, one that sometimes replaces even the God himself. Russian folklore gives him, not Saint Peter, the keys to heaven, as well as patronage over cattle and fertility of fields. Upon analysing the person of Saint Nicholas in Eastern Slavic folklore one can confirm wealth, fertility of fields and cattle, souls of the dead, afterlife, oracle and witchcraft as the domain of Veles. The person of Nicholas-Veles is so crucial to the reconstruction of Slavic religion that we ought to ponder his characteristics in more detail.

Subchapter: Veles, Nicholas, the chthonic sphere

When Volos is referred to as skotiy bog (god of cattle) we should understand it to mean he rules over wealth, riches, abundance. This particular way of looking at things was carried by the indo-europeans out of their nomad days. That’s why so many heroes in so many myths face cattle thiefs: vedic Indra, greek Heracles, celtic Cuchulainn. The Persians poured gold in the shape of bull heads, and latin „pecunia” - „money” originates from „pecus” - „cattle”.

In Orthodox Church two saints are especially connected with cattle - Saint Nicholas and Saint Vlas, the former because of similar function, the latter - most likely because of close association of his name with the one of cattle’s previous protector. Their icons are hanged in cowsheds, their names called upon in spells to protect the animals, their sacred days were a holiday of livestock breeders. Veles-Nicholas protects grazing livestock from the attacks of wolves and wild dogs, closes predators’ jaws with his heavenly key, covers the eyes of the Bitch of Plague (trans. notes: an awkward but direct translation of the original „Morowa Suka”). He was able to do all that becuse distant pastures, wilderness and wastes are within the sphere of animalic nature (as opposed to human civilization and culture) as well as chaos, things that he clearly rules over. His sacred days would be the first days of grazing of cattle and horses. A three years old black bull (tryzna) was sacrificed to him. Let’s recall that in many Indo-european cultures white bull is the favored offering of thunder-wielding, atmostmospheric deities (Zeus, Jupiter, Indra) while the black bull is offered to chthonic forces.

Veles dwells primarily in the Afterlife known as Navia or Wyraj, he’s the protector of souls of the dead and the god of death, guiding souls to the other side (a psychopomp). According to the texts of charms and ruthenian zagovors (trans. notes: eastern slavic oral charms) he lives in a swamp in the very heart of Navia, where he sits on a golden throne among the roots of Cosmic Tree. In the folklore of Eastern Slavs his domain is described as land „beyond the see” or „across the river in the other world”, which is clearly confirmed by Czech curse „go to veles over the sea!” As for the analogical functions of his christian hipostasis all the way to XVIIIth century a dead person in Rus’ would be burried holding „a letter to Saint Nicholas”, who guarded the gates to Heaven. Ruthenian texts reveal to us the image of a fearsome warden at the heavenly gates, wielding a flaming sword in one hand and a key in the other. He opens the gates if he deems the soul worthy of Heaven, otherwise he destroys it with the flaming sword. He leads the souls into Heaven or he takes them across the Dead Waters, to their afterlife.

By logically combining two main functions of Veles we can assume that in Navia his main occupation is taking care of the cattle grazing on heavenly meadows, and that this cattle are in fact human souls (also called navias). This interpretation would remain in accordance with vedic texts and hittie rituals, on the basis of which the orginal indo-european view of afterlife was reconstructed - a large heavenly steppe full of grazing cattle/souls, whose name contains the well known to us core vel- (as in greek Elysion Fields, earlier velysion; hittie „vellu-”; scandinavian Valhalla). Let’s compare that with a famous cosmological riddle „the field unmeasurable, the cattle uncountable, the farm-hand horned, the host rich” (meaning sky, stars, moon and sun)(trans. notes: it rhymed in polish). Veles-Nikolai is then the shepherd of souls. This function, as well as common among chthonic deities guardianship of the riches hidden under ground, are what connects him with earthly wealth, trade, plowing and cattle. Another dominion of his was alcoholic fermentation, he is the god of beer, patron of feasts and festivities as manifestations of wealth.

The chthonic sphere in not an area valorized only in negative terms, it holds unmeasurable treasures and it’s connected with the fertile soil. In both those fields Veles-Nikolai is actively present. To understand that, one has to follow religious scientists-evolutionists James G. Frazer and Wilhelm Mannhardt in analysing certain harvest festivities pointing to the ideas of crops and fertility being personalized. Those harvest traditions, as explained in The Golden Bough, were the source for near-eastern idea of dying and reborn god of vegetation. The reapers work in such a fashion as to leave one sheaf of grain remaining in the middle of the field, there the spirit of grain dwells untill it’s also ritually harvested and preserved untill next year’s planting. Among Eastern Slavs this sheaf is called the Beard of Veles, or the Beard of Nikolai. Once the reaping is done a female reaper braids the sheaf three times saying „Bless me Lord/ May I twist this beard/ Strength for the reaper/ Head for the horse/ Beard for Nikolai” (trans. notes: It rhymed in polish. Sort of.)'

In eastern tradition Saint Nicholas is depicted as an old man with long yellow-grey beard. In light of the aforementioned Slavic harvest ritual this yellowish beard is also meant to represent the crops, something that the Saint inherited from his pagan predecessor. Ruthenian „obshchiy bog”, The God For Everything, protector of the people, „defender of peasantry”, in fewer words - Veles, he’s the god of agriculture, and he is the reason why it is said that „in the field Nicholas is the only god”. Folklore depicts him walking through the field margins and planting fertility in the fields.

The amount of spells, charms and zagovors calling upon Veles-Nicholas points clearly to his rulership over the sphere of magic and witchcraft. He is the keeper of law and oaths, and he punishes those who break them with various sicknesses, especially skin diseases such as warts or scrofula (also known as zołotucha, „golden sickness”, which explains the fear of „becoming golden like gold itself” among the oathing ruthenian warriors from the Tale of Bygone Years). From the same core as the name „Volos” came the russian word „volshebnyi” meaning „magical”; perhaps related to scandinavian seeress „völva” or even old irish „file”, a poet. Russian magicians, volkhvs are „the wizards of Veles” and according to the „Legend about the founding of Yaroslavl” after burning their offerings they would perform divinations and sometimes sing accompanied by gusle. Veles was the one that brought poetic inspiration to singers (skomorochy, skomorokhi). Ruthenian „Tale of Igor’s Campaign” calls the seer Boyan a „grandson of Veles”.

We have temporarily left behind the subject of Veles’ „hairiness” which leads us to a very rich sphere of animal symbolism. Without a doubt this god had his animal manifestations, one of which retained it’s significant place in rituals. The animal is, as name suggests the bull or the ox (trans. notes: „ox” - pl. „wół”, in connection with alternative spelling of Veles’s name „Wołos”), which in it’s reduced form appears in nativities and caroling groups (trans. notes: the specific traditions listed originally are herods and kolędowanie) as black shaggy goat called Turoń (from „tur” - „auroch”). Turoń’s presence in cult practices can be traced back as far as 1166. It’s worth mentioning that according to some researchers the names of polabian gord Wolgast (pl. Wołogoszcz), ukrainian Volhynia (pl. Wołyń) and the polish island and gord Wolin are all connected equally to both oxen and Veles - which does not seem implausible considering the chronicler Herbord’s claims that god Pluto was worshipped in Wolin or the attempts to connected polabian-pomeranian god Triglav with Veles/Volos. Finally it’s worth mentioning that among Western Slavs the most popular offerings to be placed in the foundations of buildings, rampants, castles etc., were aurochs. Auroch skulls were found beneath the rampants of Gniezno, Stettin and Wolin. Those ritual actions could correspond with the idea of cosmogonic duel between bull-shaped Veles and Perun, and sacrificial murder that was the origin of our world.

However the most important zoomorphic form of this deity was the snake, or his mythologized counterpart, the zmey - the dragon, serpentlike flying creature. In slavic mythology he’s an archaic character, taking it’s origin from the primordial monster of chaos, personification of destructive forces that decompose the cosmic order.  The connection between the chthonic sphere and crawling creatures is universal in religious symbolism. In slavic folklore we can notice a wide range of motives elaborating on those ideas. Fiery Zmey is de facto synonymous with the fiery river of the afterlife. His jaws, „ad'” in eastern slavic languages were synonymous with hell. In this form Veles can be called Zmey Tsar Ir (among Eastern Slavs) or Čorny Jurij, „Black Yuri”(among Lusatian Sorbs). Him and his wife Yuritsa („Jur” and „Jurica” are on one hand venomous, „jadowici”, and on the other characterized by great sexual potency - „jurni”) dwell in Heaven or Wyraj, a wonderous land where birds go for the duration of winter, only to return again in the spring - „wyroić się”. In Western and Southern Slavic folklore the serpentine master of the Afterlife is called „The Serpent King” (Poland), The Serpent Tsar (Serbia), or The Money Zmey (Lusatia). He takes the shape of a giant snake in a crown, basking in the sun, guarding a golden pile of treasures. Those who are able to sneak past hundreds of his reptile followers and steal his crown can count on a large ransom, but they shouldn’t keep the crown, for it will bring a flood of reptiles and misfortunes on their city. This connection to the riches hidden in the deep womb of the earth is expressed in the mentions of golden and red colors: gold, yellow and copper red are the colors of the afterlife and of Veles. Veles’ gold is juxtaposed with Perun’s iron, used for the production of weapons.

Although spells often mention a couple that’s ruling the Underworld there are very few remaining traces of Veles’ partner. In the writings of John Chrysostom a field spirit named Vela makes an appearence. Other versions mention Volosatka (pl. Wołosatka) who guards the cowshed and the cattle. In polish sources we find kashubian demon Velevitka. The children of Veles, if folk tales are to be believed, are the stars from the constellation of Pleiades. Aside from the mordvinian loaning of ugro-finnic „vele”, Slavs call them Vlašiči, Wołosynie or Stožary. This last name (signifying the central pole of the threshing floor, around which a couple of oxen walks in circles threshing wheat) has been amalgamated with the others and together they assumed the form of Volostožar’, however this name is assigned to the Orion’s Belt, not the Pleiades. It shows us that this constellation, assigned soteriological context all over the world was also connected with the cult of Veles. In ancient Egyptian texts Orion, the constellation of resurrection, allows the rebuilding of Osiris’ person in the Otherworld. The connection between the master of the Afterlife and the Orion constellation can be found in a folk tale naming the three stars of Orion’s Belt as „The Hoe, The Rake and The Plough”, „The Poles” or „Peter’s/Moses’/Jacob’s Staff”. This staff aside from being an obvious fallic symbol (connected with Orion’s potency and the pole that forms axis mundi) is also a weapon, a counterpart to Perun’s thunder. One of polish folk legends claims this pole is what Lucifer attempted to hit God with, which then, after hitting the firmament turned into a scythe. In this astral code we can recognize traces of the original myth, about a duel between Perun and Veles.

Veles art: Sukharev

[nightswithkookmin]

Goldy I never thought I would reach out to any Jikook blog but after your last post I have to. I am an east asian american and trans. I have never spoken on this issue, commented or posted about this. I am a Jikook supporter but sometimes Jikook supporting blogs don't feel like the friendliest place. I want to thank you for changing my opinion on that. It is an insult to BTS to say Jikook don't know they seem gay or that they don't know what gay looks like. It is an insult to fans like me to say it would be OK to do the things they do if they were cisgendered straight men. I personally saw a few people say or dance around this and they got intimidated by big blogs for it. I would never name names because I beleive in free speech and the right of people to express themselves, as long as it isn't hate speech. Supporting lgbt people and making sure they don't feel endangered is MORE IMPORTANT THAN STANNING A KPOP BAND and I say this as a 4 year long bts and Jikook stan. So many people don't want to touch this issue and I understand why.

But thank you for supporting ACTUAL lgbt people as well as bts and showing stubborn people that BTS mean gay rights when they say gay rights.

I don't know why but this Ask made me cry...

I've been reading it over and over for the past two days and each time I feel humbled by it. Thanks so much for sharing this with me.

I think the era of the obsessed 'kids' and '13 year old shippers' in this space is coming to an end. I think it's time for a more nuanced mature conversation on what it means to ship and stan our faves in today's sociopolitical climate.

Let's intellectualize shipping and use it as a vehicle for social change not just pleasure. Sabotaging political hashtags is a start. Trending and donating to BLM is equally important. Fighting for gay rights and recognition is the next step and a natural progression from here- and about damn time!

Gone are the days where celebrities and idols were immune to accountability and personal responsibility. We live in a world where everyone is required to be converstant in and sensitive to social issues. Awareness is woven into our collective consciousness and for some of us we cannot divorce that from our pleasure receptors.

Hate to quote my pastor but, 'As a kid, I spoke, thought and reasoned like a kid. As I grew up, chilee darling, I put my ghetto ways aside. You feel me?' Lol. Yea, my pastor hood like that. Lol.

The fact of the matter is, BTS has a higher mature demographics now. Majority of us grew with them, if not past them. They are not seventeen anymore, Jin is almost thirty, the youngest in the group is past twenty three and majority of their fanbase are breaching Young Adult well into Adulthood and beyond.

We simply cannot view them with the same lens anymore. If we did, we would be infantilizing them if not enabling them.

We ought to be able to have certain conversations that reflect our age, hearts, backgrounds, experience, values and beliefs.

We can't sit behind our television sets and smart phone screens in this day and age and assume BTS sat through a performance like this and did not for a second think about what it meant, why the crowd cheered at certain moments or even understand the impact, message and intent behind it- especially not when Halsey, an openly bisexual woman and advocate for LGBTG rights is an acquaintance of thiers.

I don't know how a fraction of this fandom can assume BTS would have a collaboration of this nature and not know anything about the gay rights discourse or what queer baiting is or not consider how their actions may or may not be contributing to the marginalization of persons as these- to not have agency and personal responsibility or empathy.

JK cannot stan a gay artist such as Troye Sivan and divorce his music from his sexuality because it flows from it. Not when Troye has openly spoken about the struggles he went through as a closeted gay man, coming out and how that affected his mental health.

JK knows what gay is, he is aware of the struggles queer people face on a daily. His decision to cover, license and recommend songs by this artist is a deliberate act coming from a place of being informed on the matter.

Jimin knows. RM knows. Suga knows.

BTS cannot prepare a speech like this while oblivious to the plight of the LGBTQ plus community. I refuse to believe that simply because it's not true. Anyone who says otherwise is a scammer. Lol.

And I think they are intelligent enough to have cognisance of the fact majority of the world view certain aspects of their home culture as problematic and non-progressive and that this same world is watching them and what they do in this space matters.

They are part of the conversation. And it's in their interest to present themselves as queer a queer friendly band and company by distinctifying themselves from these 'traditional' Kpop bands.

I believe they know that being woke gives them a competitive advantage as MCs and advocates for the youth in today's world.

I believe they are aware certain things in their 'fan service culture' doesn't fly in the space they compete in and want to compete in. They are competing and rubbing shoulders with top LGBTQ plus advocates, sharing seats with them at awards, standing next to them- they best to look sharp.

It's obtuse for anyone to fall on the 'culture' rhetoric to excuse certain behaviors of their idols when actual queer people from and within that same culture fight against it.

Most S. koreans I know and have come across complain about their 'culture' and some even harbor strong resentments against this whole fanservice culture.

Holland, an openly gay Idol from South Korea, has equally spoken out against the 'fan service' culture prevalent within Kpop on several occasions and laments how it depoliticizes queerness and affects actual queer people within S.K.

And isn't it funny that the same conservative Christian population who strongly oppose homosexuality in S.K often lead online campaigns against Jikook for 'promoting homosexuality' because of certain fanservice and skinship they do?

If skinship is normal and fanservice is culture, why does conservative S.K keep pushing back against it? It's their culture uno?! Lmho.

Queer south Koreans and conservative Christians hate fanservice culture and yet here we are using their culture to defend it as if it's all black and white. Lmho.

Did they or did they not see South Korean's reactions to this performance by Jikook? The mixed feelings most had about it?

Men can nibble on men's ear but God forbid they toss them in the air and catch em💀

South Koreans are not a monolith. Their culture is nuanced like any culture. It's not static and not clear cut black and white either.

It's one thing to respect other's culture, it's another to perpetuate it in ignorance. Perpetuating their culture and being religious about it does not allow for the dynamism inherent in their culture.

Troye Sivan talked about how he'd stop in the middle of his concerts and performances upon seeing the hyper fangirls in the front row and then think to himself, 'I know they know I'm gay, so why are they still here...'

And this was before he came out.

Jikook know we know they are queer or that we think of them as queer. When Jimin talks about 'those that love me for me' he knows exactly what he is talking about or rather who he is talking to- it's not these hets I'm afraid.

Troye also talked about being privileged because he lived in a rather queer friendly neighborhood where everyone is gay and so he'd always felt safe coming out.

Isn't that what JK is doing?

Now this is a person who's without a doubt had a lot of influence on JK in his early formative years as an Idol right down to his decision to move into a much queer friendly neighborhood of Itaewon.

They know we know. Jikook is gay.

Thankfully, there are reports of a rising number of LGBTQ plus in South Korea, a lot of allies, a lot of queer folks coming out and a lot of companies opening up to working with gay idols and aspiring idols.

It's such a relief but a lot of work still needs to be done and I stand with them on behalf of Jikook and any queer folk in SK.

My sister is helping me reach out to an LGBTQ plus advocate from Seoul for an interview for my blog. If everything goes well, I'd love for her to share her thoughts on queer passing, queer baiting and fan service within Kpop and how that affects LGBTQ youth in South K.

It's a conversation I'm really passionate about and interested in.

I love me some ships, but I also love me some queer advocacy and human rights uno? Lol.

Thing is, I may quit BTS one day, but I can never quit being me. Being human. Always put the human first is my motto.

Oh and I hear people are plotting to cancel me? Chilee. Y'all do that but:

Let it echo.

Signed,

GOLDY

[lilyhoshikawa]

🎥💕💎

Nyanko didn’t specify so I’m gonna do this abt WKTD and u can’t stop me!!

🎥: Do you have any favorite scenes from your hyperfixation?

I’m a basic Jupiter kinnie sadly so as expected. My favorite scene has gotta be the Red Ending 3am scene. There’s such a beautiful, horrible tension in the early moments- the anxiety and uncertainty over knowing that the least obvious among the trio is going to become the devil, the sad bargaining in lines like

“We don’t need to know who the devil is. It’s just a phase. …right?”

Which transitions into this pleading, and then

Venus: “I can feel fingers on my face and arm and everywhere.”

Jupiter: “Ahaha. Gross. I’m gross.”

And then the most iconic scene in this entire game, the most powerful and tiny act of the hair tie breaking, a piece of symbolism so small yet so monumentally significant. And then everything that follows, the entire speech.

“Don’t touch me. You shouldn’t touch me. I wasn’t born good.”

Talk abt lines that live in my mind rent free dhdjbdjd. Everyone talks about “I wasn’t born good” bc it’s a killer line and very relatable, but shoutout to some other stars:

“I can try hard, but I think… God knows my heart isn’t really in it.”

“Y’all are sweet. But don’t do that. I won’t be happy if you do.”

“I want to touch. I want to be touched. I want to hurt. I want to be hurt. And if you feel the same way, you’re as bad as me.”

“Won’t you let me feel like a real devil for a moment?”

And that’s all just. Amazing. There’s so much to say abt that from the perspective of religious guilt alone, of ppl who have experienced that unique kind of internal struggle with Christianity, let alone the compounded complications of being gay, trans, neurodivergent. It’s a really impactful scene especially for the game’s themes, bringing them all together in the perspective of your typical idealistic leader character, of the one who wants to be good the most (that’s also why it’s imperative you play this ending last).

💕: Tell us about one of your favorite characters and why you like them!

I have committed the grave act of hubris in answering that first category in-depth before realizing I already elaborated on my answer for this one. Oops! Oh well.

Obviously it doesn’t take much to figure out my fave of the trio but every character is really important and I don’t wanna get caught up in rambling about Jupiter knowing she seems to be most ppl’s favorite.

All of the trio have different reactions to trauma, in particular the trauma of their world in which Christian morality is the actual law of the land. Many ppl can relate to Jupiter’s need to go along with it and to “fix herself” but I find the other two equally compelling.

Neptune isn’t happy with the way things are, she’s furious, bitter and burned. It’s criminal that the writers don’t elaborate on it more, but she’s existed for this long in a system that has already judged her bad, has already decided her very existence is wrong, and to her, it’s horrific and baffling how many people are okay to sit back and accept the same. The pain she feels watching the other members of her group suffer, trying so hard to appease a system that has already discarded them. Neptune isn’t interested in offering platitudes to a system that has already tossed her to the side, deemed her bad and irredeemable. Frankly, she doesn’t even care. What hurts her, what bothers her, is seeing other people grapple with the guilt that isn’t theirs to own, to try and fix in themselves what was never a problem to begin with. It’s like seeing a friend suffer a tragedy and blame themselves every time.

And Venus, perhaps most interesting of all, also knows that. She’s aware that the system is stacked against her and everyone else, and she’s bitter about it, but she knows nothing else. She goes along with it, and all the bullying and pain and hardship that comes with it. She isn’t deluded into trying to overturn her odds and prove herself to be good like Jupiter is, she’s apathetic, she’s accepted the hand she’s been dealt. She doesn’t fight back against her bullies because she has simply accepted their abuse as a natural part of her existence. She wants more, wants better, and has glimpses of hope that it’s obtainable- perhaps if she does what she’s told, if she doesn’t complain, if she puts up with it, one day she’ll get what she wants, what she needs to survive. But she won’t, she never will. She accepts all the hardship, all the abuse, all the confusion or a world built for and around people who aren’t like her, who can’t understand her- and she does it silently hoping things may get better on their own.

All three worst girls mean so much, have such meaningful and interesting perspectives and tell such compelling stories on personal levels which are only made more powerful by their union, by their coexistence and the vague, awkward but hopeful clashing of their disparate realities, coping mechanisms and outlooks. It’s shaky, it’s difficult, but they provide for each other what they each lack- Jupiter receive permission to be enough as she is, Neptune receives validation and companionship, and Venus receives the accommodations she needs to be her authentic self, no longer hidden. It’s really powerful, for trauma survivors and the mentally ill and for LGBT+ ppl.

💎 Are there any fun facts or trivia you would like to share?

Something most ppl may know but that I almost missed is that the original demo for the game- titled “We Know the Demo”- is actually not just a shortened version of the game or anything, but a unique prequel story that fills in some more gaps in characterization and worldbuilding, which I found very valuable for my fic “The Light God Didn’t Make.”

It includes such scenes as Neptune being secretly unstoppable at dodgeball, Venus infodumping, Neptune pointing out the fact we all know that Jupiter would look cool holding a guitar, and also Venus singing. All of them iconic bits.

The demo is free off the developers’ website and functions basically the same as the game, with picking a duo of characters to interact in each scene, so it’s a great complimentary piece to play before or after, and it’s really helpful in developing a better characterization of the trio if ur looking for that.

[klysanderelias]

So I've been playing through the beginning of the wrath of the righteous crpg that just released and it's... weird. Part of it is because I had the adventure path books like 6 years ago and read through all of it then, so I have a minor level of stuff to compare in my head, but also because I kind of dramatically grew as a person re: rpg stuff and DND in particular. Not gonna spoil anything, although I'm likely to keep posting about it so I'll put a note in the tags just in case, but...

Pathfinder moved somewhat away from the bullshit of old-school 3.0/3.5/4e dnd in a lot of ways but there's still a lot of the bizarre genetic essentialism and really uncomfortable parallels being made to real-world ethnic groups (shoutout to the guy who created the continent of mwangi for his only understanding of africa apparently being congo by michael crichton), and I know that 2nd ed pathfinder did a lot of work to address THAT, but WotR still has a LOT of really uncomfortable moments.

and at the end of the day, I think what really bothers me is that CRPGs as a whole aren't really comparable to ttrpgs because the level of freedom and interaction is always going to be limited by file size, creator imagination, authorial intent, and natch, money. And, most crpgs spend their biggest efforts on combat and gameplay and tend to tack dialogue and character interactions on almost as an afterthought - I think pillars of eternity 2 was the best I've seen the system implemented, and nothing else has really met that standard since. And that's okay! It'd be almost a fool's errand to try and implement that in a crpg to anything close to the level a basic ttrpg could do, but then it basically feels like half of your character creation is superfluous or unnecessary because like, the game is designed around the combat. You have one character with a persuasion or diplomacy equivalent skill, and everything else is either for exploration or combat and that's it.

I guess it's just frustrating to have been like, 5+ years without a real ttrpg game in my life so I'm using crpgs to substitute and it's not at all the same experience, and yet I KNOW that it could be because I own the fuckin' adventure path and have planned how to run it in the past. Or maybe what I mean to say is like, i know what this recipe tastes like homemade, and the storebought mass-produced version is something completely different even though it's supposed to be the same.

I dunno, I'm only a few hours in and honestly, it's pretty good! I can genuinely recommend it as a crpg, and I know from kingmaker that the studio a) creates quality work and puts in the time on writing and b) patches and bugfixes like crazy unlike a lot of other studios that make crpgs.

Oh, but one thing I will say - I remember the adventure path being a lot more progressive about this shit from like, fuckin' TWENTY-THIRTEEN. They had a trans lesbian in their game like it weren't no thing, and WotR in 2021 feels a little like a step back, again because of weird genetic essentialism undertones as well as the tendency to equate fantasy religions to christianity to the point that one character prays to her goddess to forgive her sins etc and another character talks about seeking forgiveness from his god re: his terrible decisions in the past and it's like... y'all know that not all religions are christianity, right? And i say that as a white dude raised super fuckin' christian! Maybe it's silly but it makes me feel skeezy when a character starts spouting the sort of shit I have heard almost verbatim in a southern baptist church but here it's okay because it's regarding literal actual demons?

At least Anevia is still a lesbian, here's hoping they didn't walk back her being trans.

[petalsbloomed-a]

( i am so fucking angry. negative shit under the cut )

( i am so fucking angry that the same people who proclaim to support the “sanctity of life under god” are more than happy to see a queer person kicked out of their home because “religious freedom” and “it’s unnatural” and “we need to uphold the sanctity of adam and eve”, turn a blind eye to a trans person denied medical care that will more than likely prevent them from being ostracized, self-harming, and even taking their own life, because “biological sex isn’t bigotry” and “you can’t be born into the wrong body”, and won’t help a poor family who is starving because of “fairness in money, you keep what you earn and too fucking bad for you if you don’t have it cuz that’s how capitalism works.” sanctity of life where? you only care about a subsection of lives, “lives” who will likely cut into those of a real breathing sentient person and subjugate them to income loss and medical issues for a good chunk of THEIR lives. nobody has the right to use another’s body without their permission. having a child changes everything. it isn’t just something you can easily bring up into this world because of “life reasons.” in fact, in my opinion, the whole “life reasons” is a red herring, a distraction from the issue at hand.

you know who the real genocides are being done against? WOMEN AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. you know who the real discrimination is being done against? QUEER AND TRANS FOLKS AND NONWHITE PEOPLE. all across the world. but you drop everything and claim that you’re “pro-life” even though you don’t give a single FUCK about REAL lives, REAL people who are suffering, dying, because of immutable characteristics.

FUCK the supreme court. FUCK the conservative majority. FUCK everything these fuckers are doing to undo so much of the progress we’ve done and are STILL striving for in the past 40-50 years.

oh and “religious freedom” my fucking ass. religious freedom for CHRISTIANS, THAT’S what y’all think religious freedom is. yet y’all demonize muslims and people who practice islamic religions because y’all are fucking racist. i’m fucking saying this shit, the only reason why these religious practices are being demonized is because of racism.

you’re not being “cancelled”, you’re not having your “freedom of speech” questioned, i’m using MY freedom of speech to tell you why what you’re saying is bullshit. oh and by the way, freedom of speech refers to the fact that the GOVERNMENT can’t silence you, not platforms like twitter and facebook owned by private companies or other individual people.

i am so happy i’m an atheist. a trans bisexual queer genderfuck whose existence angers the other side so much that they’re blinded by rage and go after things that we thought would be protected in a so-called democratic state. but they’re not. these “freedom-lovers” are pushing for fascism. control over the most vulnerable minorities because they’re WEAK. they HAVE to find something to latch onto so desperately, or the grift dies. and their power dies with that grift.

it was never about life. it was about control. it was about discrimination.

abortion. is. healthcare. PERIOD. roe v wade is life saving. OBJECTIVELY so. )

[kiricat]

So I think I can articulate why I'm sticking with (progressive, pro-LGBT) Christianity, in spite of everything:

- The triune God is the only god concept that I know of that makes any sense to me. There are personal reasons for this that I don't super wanna get into right now. Suffice it to say that a being who is both one person and multiple people at the same time is the only sort of being I could accept as creator, and the only sort I could worship.

- I can't be an atheist anymore. I'm too convinced of the supernatural, not because there's any good argument for it (there isn't) or objective evidence of it (there isn't), but because I (subjectively, yes) feel it too strongly to ignore.

- Some years ago, I saw Jesus. Physically. Twice. Granted, this probably happened because I was insane -- and that's not me striking a spiritual pose ("the WORLD think's I'm crazy"); no, I was, quite literally, messed up in the head. The part of me that I like to describe as a "lapsed atheist" points out that both of my visions of Jesus occurred during times when I was experiencing other psychotic symptoms, due to some bad meds that weren't even working on my depression. Therefore, these visions were almost certainly just hallucinations, like all the rest I was having. (Similarly, I'm convinced that "speaking in tongues" and the other Pentecostal "manifestations" are neither manifestations of God nor of the devil, but of the power of suggestion.) But... well, maybe I'm still just psychotic, but those visions felt and still feel too real for me to simply dismiss. I'm telling you, I saw the man. And maybe I really didn't, and I'll probably always wonder, and I don't even know if I can describe him (besides the fact that he's not freaking white) because I'm terrible with faces in general. But I still absolutely knew, and know, that it was him. Oh, and he was the first person to ever call me my true name. So, y'know. There's that.

- I like being visible as a trans lesbian Christian, because I don't want the bigots and fascists to have a monopoly on Christianity. There is something of genuine value here, something that is worth embracing and protecting. My church, which is essentially bending over backwards to keep me alive over so many years now, is ongoing proof of that.

- I just kinda want to, you know? Maybe I'll always doubt, and maybe (hopefully) I'll always wrestle with it, but this faith is just something I want to do. I chose that word deliberately -- I want my faith to be something I do, not simply something I "have". I'm not even sure what "having faith" means for someone as distrustful and skeptical as me, but I know I can practice faith. I know I can be faithful. At the very least, I want to try.

[wyrdify]

tfw your friends validate what you’re feeling, and you weren’t expecting it, so you just sit and cry at your computer

So, a lot of you know I don’t like posting on other social media websites. When you work for a social media company, and you spend hours and hours looking at it, you don’t really want to deal with your own. It’s exhausting. I scroll through my Facebook maybe 2-3 times per day just to see what my friends are up to, like and comment on their stuff, and move on. I usually don’t spend more than five minutes on it at a time.

Well, I decided to post on my Facebook for the first time since January. For the past few days, I’ve been struggling with the news that came out of the Vatican (link here). Because I’m honestly lazy, I’ll just let my post speak for itself:

I've debated on and off about saying something regarding this story since I first heard about it a few days ago. I read news articles about it from different sources, listened to some commentary, and let it sit with me for a while. This morning, I finally decided to read the response straight from the source to form my own opinion. Honestly, I hoped that I heard wrong. I hoped in futility that there was a mistranslation or something.

I'd advise reading the whole thing since it's not that long, but this is what stood out the most to me:

"At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all of the sins that we can commit”[12]. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him."

It hurt to hear about and read. I can understand their point of view, but I can't agree with it. I just can't.

My belief in God has been on shaky ground since last year, possibly longer. I struggle to see evidence of a loving God in this world, especially the one I was taught about in church throughout the years. Agnostic bordering on atheist is how I'd currently describe myself. Maybe, someday, that faith and belief in a higher power will return. Maybe I'll gain new perspective and understanding as I continue on through life. Who knows?

But, honestly, I'm tired of trying to fit into the Roman Catholic Church. When I took RCIA back in 2014-15, I had recently come out as bisexual (later asexual). We had a class on the sacrament of marriage and holy orders. Hearing my classmates and teachers talk about how homosexuality was detrimental to marriage hurt a lot. I hid in the bathroom and cried. If it hadn't been 10 degrees outside, I would've left. But, I stayed. I hoped and prayed that the Catholic Church would see people like me, like my friends, like so many around the world, and they'd listen. They wouldn't see us as intrinsically disordered, and they'd see our love as a reflection of God's love.

Not only that, but I prayed to be fixed. I prayed to be straight. After I came out as trans, I continued hoping and praying---if not for acceptance and understanding, fix me so I wasn't trans anymore. Almost every Sunday before, during, and after mass, I had some version of these thoughts. Some were darker than what I'll post here. Eventually, I stopped going to mass altogether. I stopped praying in written form and non. I stopped trying to pray to what felt like nothingness.

That's where I am now. Again, maybe I'll regain my faith in some shape or form. But, I have a feeling that if I do, it won't be within the walls of the Catholic Church. Quite honestly, I'm tired of trying to fit myself into a place that made it clear it doesn't want me as I am: fearfully and wonderfully made AND queer.

I'm neutrois. I'm asexual. Those are parts of me I refuse to shelve and hide away as if they're disgusting or wrong.

As soon as I have the time and funds for it, I'm cutting off my long hair again so I can start feeling like myself again. Honestly, I miss looking in the mirror to see myself smiling back.

This is why I’m a little off today. I’ve been letting this eat at me for the past few days, and I didn’t dare bring it up to anyone. I didn’t want to make any of my friends uncomfortable by talking about religion, and I still don’t know how to approach the subject with my husband. His family is Catholic, and we’ll be going down to visit them for Easter... and I’m not out to them. Because there never seems to be a right time to do so and a bunch of other reasons.

My biological and incredibly liberal family doesn’t accept the trans part of me, so I really don’t feel like having my in-laws reject me too, y’know?

Honestly, I didn’t expect much after posting that. Maybe a couple of “oh good you’re finally getting out of the church” comments or the most basic “sorry you’re feeling like this” stuff. A lot of people tend to believe that there isn’t any overlap between the LGBTQIA+ community and Christianity. I didn’t expect two of my friends to validate that hurt I feel, and they both said it in a loving way. I read their comments shortly before I got on shift half an hour ago, and I’m still processing them.

I’ll probably delete this later, but... yeah. This is where my brain is currently at. Today is gonna be a slow day.

[theworldsoul]

Uhh warning VENT!!! Talks about self harm and shit... also religious bullshit and gender bullshit??? Like I'm really trans and also Catholicism really fucked me up so if ur uncomfy with that just... skip this post. Also if ur Christian and can't handle seeing ur shit defaced then skip this post. Also if ur gonna clown on this post as "cringe atheism" then fuck you because I'm literally coping with pain lol

:readmore:

Anways now that the disclaimer is over... here comes the real shit.

I... have been going through a LOT lately, jesus christ. I was HAPPY today, yknow? I thought I was gonna be happy the whole day.

I was dancing today. That's how happy I was. For the first time in like... a whole year... I was really so happy. I thought I was gonna cry. But then I got home. And well,,,, I did cry. But not from happiness. I just got my math grade back. A fucking 49 percent. MY AVERAGE RIGHT NOW IS A 57 PERCENT. I MIGHT FAIL MATH 20. I MIGHT HAVE TO RETAKE IT. oh my god I'm such a failure I cant do anything ever i try SO fucking hard but honestly??? I cant fucking do this. I can't, I'm not mentally capable. "Just work harder"... BITCH I AM WORKING AS HARD AS I CAN. I AM SPENDING HOURS AND HOURS OF MY LIFE STUDYING AND PRACTICING. I'm starting to think that how hard i try doesn't even fucking matter because I'm STUPID and all i know how to do is PAINT SHIT!!!! NOBODY CARES ABOUT ART!!!! IF I FAIL THIS CLASS I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE A HOUSE IN THE FUTURE!!!! A HOUSE!!!!!

I dont even want to be a fucking orthodontist. Okay??? I wanna do what I love: painting. But NOOOO. I have to get a "respectable" job that will "pay me enough money to live". WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO MAKE MONEY TO LIVE??? WTF??? THATS LITERALLY SO FUCKED UP. everyone deserves to live (unless they like murdered someone? I guess? Idk) BUT LIKE I DIDNT KILL NO ONE SO WHATS ALL THIS BS ABOUT WORKING TO LIVE???? WTF??? I rly gotta do all this shit I hate, all this shit I'm mentally incapable of doing... so i can have a house. Fuck this. Yknow with my average at a 57... I might fail this class even if I get a really good grade on my next quiz. Can you fucking believe it??? I'm literally so fucking stupid I cant even pass a dumb fucking math class god i hate myself. I cant fail this class. I've NEVER failed a class. Almost failed... but never HAD TO RETAKE A CLASS. that's the ultimate failure. I think my parents would hate me if I failed this.

And on top of that... I'm really struggling with uhhh, dysphoria and body image... and it's so fucking horrible man I want to rip all my skin off I want to suffocate god I want to KILL him I want to MAKE HIM SUFFER. I want to gouge his eyes out and force him to eat them. WHY WOULD HE MAKE ME LIKE THIS????? WHY????? WHATS THE POINT IN MAKING A CHILD SUFFER SO MUCH???

What did I ever do that was so wrong I deserved all this punishment???

Well FUCK YOU and fuck your stupid book and FUCK THESE STUPID FUCKING SAINTS. WASNT THERE SUPPOSED TO BE A WHOLEASS ANGEL WATCHING OVER ME?? PROTECTING ME??? WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT BITCH NOW?? WHERE WAS THAT BITCH WHEN... when I was being bullied? When I literally wanted to kill myself?

Where was that guardian angel when I kept making THE SAME MISTAKE over and over again and I KNEW it was wrong but I kept doing it anyways because it was the only way I could feel like soemone cared about me????

I bet that angel motherufcker KNEW they didnt care. DID THE ANGEL EVER ONCE HELP ME??? NOOOO. all those times I was bruised and broken... all those times...

Man, I was just a kid. I was SO fucking young. And I would come like a lamb to the slaughter and kneel. I would pray... ask for guidance. I would pray the rosary too, I would read the bible and try my very best to understand it, I would go to church and volunteer at church and do my best to be a Good Boy and never sin. I did EVERYTHING right. I literally fasted at some point, like a religious fast. I was devoted...

Honestly though? I think it was the same mistake I make over and over again, except not with a real person.

And you have me NOTHING. GO GIRL, GIVE US NOTHING!!!!!!! I literally used to self-punish for the sins I couldnt bring myself to confess. At my communion, there was one sin I didn't tell because I knew it was unforgivable. I still hate myself for that. But man, I used to try and do all sorts of things to somehow cleanse myself of it. I figured THAT whole ordeal was why I was constantly being tortured.

But I was stupid and I am stupid and that makes NO SENSE because if the thing I'm being punished for happened when I was a child, WHY DID THE PUNISHMENT BEGIN AT MY BIRTH????

They used to tell me that god handcrafted every part of me specifically for some sort of grand reason.

Why.

Really? This bitch really "handcrafted" me just so I could cry and cut myself nearly every night??? Fuck that. Like why would you make me this way. It hurts more than you can IMAGINE. The only reason I'm not dead yet is because of ME, MY strength, not any of the bullshit YOU gave me. I hate when people say "oh, god made u so hardworking" or "oh, god made you so passionate/hopeful/full of love/fiery/whatever" LIKE STFU BITCH THAT WAS NOT SKYDADDY THAT WAS ME!!!

you wanna know what he made me?

dysphoric, ugly af, yeah.... but the worst part?

He made me feel.

That doesn't sound bad, right? Well it's the worst thing on the list. It is my downfall, my Achilles heel or whatever. This emotions shit??? It RUINED my life. My whole life I was cursed with a fucking monster inside me. I kept trying to tell everyone that it wasnt me!!! I kept telling them that it felt like I was being possessed. But adults are SHIT. I hate adults. I want to kill them all. They failed me and their god failed me. None of them every listened to me. All they knew how to do was punish, punish, punish.

It's like giving an allergic kid some peanuts and then getting angry at them for going into anaphylactic shock or whatever. Nobody ever thought "hey, why don't we stop giving the kid peanuts?"

ALL THE ADULTS AROUND ME ACT LIKE CHILDREN AND THEY ALWAYS HAVE ACTED LIKE CHILDREN FUCK ADULTS

Anwyays that's how I ended up with all these unresolved issues,.... emotion is a tough one, like I literally dont have the ability to control my emotions at all, I can try and like, repress them but I cant make myself actually feel less.

My emotion hurts more than anyone else's and nobody ever understood that. I would tell them that it hurts, it PHYSICALLY HURTS, and they would say I just wanted attention. I would tell them I literally couldnt control what my body said and did, I would tell them I felt like A PUPPET ON STRINGS and no one believed me. Fuck them.

Healthy coping mechanisms? I literally self ship with Snape to cope. I literally self ship with characters my brain made up and put in my dreams to cope. I used to hurt myself so much trying to feel loved and cared about irl. Fiction is so much better. I sound like a loser but its TRUE. The sort of thing I need, the sort of love I need is like... a parent. You can't go looking for a parent in a romantic partner, it fucks everything up and you end up... well, let's just say it proabbly wasnt the most legal thing, but I wasnt thinking strisght at all I mean dude I was So fucked in my head when I did all that...whatever...anyways so thank u for fiction!!! I love fiction. Want to kill someone? Draw it. Then you'll feel much better!!! And you dont go to jail!!!

Well the pics here... idk, it was really calming to do this. It's new, painting over religious shit. I was gonna do the whole bible but I already burnt that shit so.... and I was going to cut but I'm trying really hard to stay clean... like really hard. It's so weird and like, addicting, once I hit styro I don't want to stop, but also it kinda transfers the emotional pain to physical pain, making it way easier to deal with. I just can't keep doing that because I KNOW it's bad and look I thoguht I was clean for a whole year but then I fucked up and WOW, GUESS WHAT MADE ME RELAPSE??? MATH CLASS!!!!

Whatever anyways here are my wonderful works of art I made while crying and cursing god (like I'm so pissed at all this catholic bs I believed in him again just to swear at him lol)

.... but imagine for a moment, a better world. One in whcih these saints whose images I've defaced are actually good people... a world in which they SEE ME AND THEY HEAR ME... and I go unpunished.... and I am embraced by someone who UNDERSTANDS.

I think I would cry.

Too bad that world doesnt exist and I just made it up to try and feel a bit better. Whatever, whatever. I painted the things, they're gonna dry. I work hard, I'm gonna do good on my quiz, I hope. I just have to be making it through, that's all it is, work work work without a break but I can proabbly do it. I'm really slipping I admit like the mental health is slipping it's getting worse like I havent had a "fuck I am afab" moment in such a long time so yeah...

Anwyays I feel so much better now that I did my little art project yknow???

[lilacandladybugs]

What’s your current relationship with god? I’m very curious lmao

I’m sorry if this sounds incomprehensible and rambly and disjointed or pretentious. I care a lot more about this than almost anything else in the world and I wish I could do a better job of explaining myself. But I feel like why I believe in God or what my relationship with him is like is like trying to explain who I am. And I’m just the accumulation of everything I’ve ever experienced or that I think and I feel like it’s really important that I communicate it correctly so here is my attempt.

Here’s a video that’s really good that I think will give some good background information. If you don’t want to read all of this, the video is probably enough to explain.

TLDR: This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Death isn’t supposed to happen, it isn’t a part of the natural order of things. God loved us so much he died to fix it, and rose again to defeat death. God loves me and I love him, and I’ve never found peace or fulfillment like that in anything else.

I hope this makes sense anon let me know if you have any questions or if I misinterpreted your question. 

TW suicide // grief // abuse // rape mention (not v bad or graphic or anything)

Long version:

I think I've always thought that there's something naturally (for lack of a better word) poetic about existing. Not really meaning that it's good, but kind of that everything feels really purposeful it seems to flow together like an old epic. Everything seems intensely meaningful to me.

I've always thought that life was tragic. That death is a fracture in the way things are, like we live in the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization.

And I've always thought that life seems like an incomprehensibly wonderful gift, because how can there be tragedy if there isn't anything worth losing? But somehow it seems like peace is the basic way things are, that normalcy isn't normal at all but like this status quo of goodness which makes bad things happening not only heart breaking but surprising.

Reconciling all of those ideas is really confusing.

I'm a strong proponent of thinking analytically about what you believe since the answer we choose to the question of whether or not God exists is like quite literally something we bet our lives on. We bet our life that God exists or that he doesn't, that things have meaning anchored in an external source or that they don't. 

So while I grew up a Christian I've never felt really dead in it. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to be stubborn in asking questions and I don't have a problem with questioning authorities on why they believe what they believe—especially if they really confidently assert it. I want to be able to know things and understand them.

My junior year of high school three of my closest childhood friends died, and several others almost died. I remember sitting up at like two am listening to twenty one pilots self titled album just like seething and exhausted asking lord why would you abandon me like that?

Some other really horrible things happened to people that I cared about, I felt abandoned and rejected by Christians just for being broken, some of them caused it or contributed to the trauma and abuse. How could people who claimed the name of God do that?

My debate partner's best friend killed himself the same year that my friends died, and he became an atheist and I stayed a Christian. We fought about it a lot. I really seriously considered becoming an atheist.

The thing that I couldn't accept was the lack of eternality. 

Really ironically I think I stayed a Christian for the same reason that my friend became an atheist. We were both asking why all of the living world is crying out in anguish. We both wanted to die. We both were angry. We both were horrified.

My friend thought that the question of “where is God?” was harder to answer than “why is there meaning to death?”

I'm a Christian because I'm horrified. He's an atheist for the same reason.

If you don’t feel like reading it, here’s the TLDR: there is no reason for someone to do something or not do something if God isn’t there to tell them to. There isn’t a moral grounding for law.

Arthur Leff was an atheist law professor at Yale in the eighties, and he wrote about the moral grounding for laws in his essay, Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law. The question he was asking was what can we do to ground morality? What can we do to prove objectively that there are things one ought to do and things one ought not do?

I am unwilling to accept that. There is something evil about abuse, neglect, rape, torture. There is something about these things that violates human rights, human dignity. There's something about them that goes against objective moral law.

But without God there is no moral law. So I wouldn't be able to say, "you should never rape someone, because rape is wrong." And everything that I had experienced flew in the face of that.

Dr. Leff wrote this about that question;

“All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless:

Napalming babies is bad.

Starving the poor is wicked.

Buying and selling each other is depraved.

Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.

Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.

There is in the world such a thing as evil.

[All together now:] Sez who?

God help us.”

In the end, it comes down to this; Do I believe that the complexity of the universe is because there was someone intelligent actively involved in its design, do I believe that information, reason, logic, emotion, and morality exist and are reliable because they have grounding in God’s identity? Do I believe that God is who he says he is?

And I guess the answer to those questions was yes.

I saw God. He was there in the stillness - in the sunrise and sunset and at 2 am after I couldn't cry anymore. I felt him. And I know part of his goodness that I wish I never had to know. I felt like I was lying breathless bleeding out in a gutter watching the stars. Almost like a pause - just a moment in time where I was hurt enough, still enough to hear his voice.

One of the most important things I learned is that life is not hopeless.  If life is a story, then the last chapter of the book has already been written. This is the premise of the song It is Well with My Soul by Horatio G. Spafford.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul” 

The powers of evil and darkness can take away my friends, my sanity, my family, and even my life, but God has already saved me, and I can find peace in spite of my circumstances. Three of my friends died, but God has already conquered death. I feel powerless, but God is powerful. I feel abandoned, but God loves me so much that he died a horrible torturous death for me. Living in light of that is peace. 

Whenever I felt like I couldn’t keep going there would be something to stop me. I heard his voice in music, and in my friends that held me when I cried, and in morning glories on my morning walk. I kept lists of all of the times this happened, every time that someone encouraged me to keep going, every time that someone would quote a Bible verse when I was crying out for God to answer me, every time that the world paused. Everything asked me the same question, do you think it means nothing? Do you think that there is a direction that we’re going? Are we coming from nothing and going toward nowhere?

I had friends who heard him too. He was so gentle to us. I wasn’t able to go to church, I wasn’t able to listen to worship music but the LGBTQ+ community took care of me, they were isolated from church as well. There was enough for me in that God promised he would take care of me, and he did. He died for me. He talked to my trans friend and said, “listen, your parents have rejected you and said you’ll never be your son, but I am a good father. I love you. Be my son instead.”

God mourned with me. He saw everything and he was angry. I was able to breathe because I knew that in the end there will be justice for abuse victims, because God said that he is the holder of justice, and vengeance will be his.

When one of my friends was hospitalized I stood outside during the beginning of a thunderstorm and watched the clouds and the sky darken and lightning flash across the sky.

Even the wind and the sea obey him. He asked me if I trust him. 

I guess my answer was yes.

In spite of everything that I went through, I was more thoroughly convinced that I ever was before that things matter. I was convinced that abuse is evil. I was convinced that death is an abomination. I was convinced that these laws of morality are woven into the fabric of the universe. I was convinced that God died to save us from that reality. I was convinced he loved me.

I still am