#mainline protestant

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ryan Burge

Published: Nov 26, 2024

Let me give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how a story can wind its way through the media ecosystem. In June 2023, in the early days of this Substack, I wrote a brief post.

"Women are more religious than men, right?"

At that point in my Substack’s life, it did pretty well. It received a bit over 7,000 views—3.5 times the number of subscribers I had—and generated a nice bit of revenue. But it didn’t have much “tail.” In other words, within a day or two, no one was talking about it. That’s completely the norm in the newsletter game, by the way. If you can write something that endures for more than 24 hours, that’s atypical.

Every once in a while, I would tweet a graph about the gender gap in religion, and it would get a little traction, but it wouldn’t really reverberate around the discourse. However, in September, I sent this one out:

And it got quite a bit more social media traffic. Once you get above 100 retweets, things really start to move. I sent that out because Ruth Graham and I had a conversation a few weeks before about the gender gap in religion and I wanted to see if a story like that would have any loft. And, of course, getting 210K impressions was a pretty strong indicator that the story would land well.

It was published on September 23, 2024 with the title, “In a First among Christians, Young Men are More Religious Than Young Women.” I think it’s fair to say that (beyond the election), it’s the most well-read story about religion in the United States for 2024. In my world, that means that since I was quoted, I will get contacted by several other reporters who want to pull on the threads of that idea a bit more. When I scan my calendar the last two months, I think I have spoken to at least five media outlets as a result of the NYTimes story. That’s how the media ecosystem works - they set the agenda and other reporters live in their wake.

And, so do I, really. I want to write stories that people read. That’s why I continue to noodle around on that data. I did that for a piece a couple weeks ago that also got cited in the NYTimes by Ross Douthat.

In early November, I was speaking to a reporter from another major outlet, and they asked me to investigate whether a specific type of Christianity is seeing a revival among young men. So, I made an interesting graph, and now I can share it with you.

I broke the sample down into men and women, tracking the share of each who identified as evangelical Protestants, non-evangelical Protestants, and Catholics by age. This is what that data from 2022 and 2023 (total sample size of ~85,000) looks like:

Working left to right, there’s a clear gender gap in evangelical identification. Women are more likely to be evangelical Protestants, regardless of age. The gap is larger at some points and narrower at others, but it isn’t numerically huge. For thirty-year-olds, about 18% of women are evangelicals compared to 16% of men of similar age. It’s almost nonexistent for those around sixty years old, but otherwise it remains steady around 2-3%.

What about mainline Protestants? One clear conclusion is that women are slightly more likely to be non-evangelical Protestants compared to men. But by “slightly,” I mean a single percentage point. The lines never intersect or reverse; they run in near-perfect parallel.

Now, the Catholic line is where the real action is. The story is not as simple here. Among young people, there’s a clear gender gap—men are more likely to affiliate with the Roman Catholic Church compared to women. It’s not huge, but it’s there—about 2-3 percentage points. However, this gap narrows around age 45 and disappears by age 55, not reappearing afterward. This divergence is clearly a young-person phenomenon.

What does this mean in actual numbers? Here’s the share of 18-40-year-olds who are members of each religious group.

We can see a gap for evangelicals: women are about three percentage points more likely to say they are evangelical Protestants compared to men of the same age. For mainliners, the gender gap isn’t statistically significant. Notably, though, women aged 18-40 are twice as likely to identify as evangelical compared to non-evangelical Protestant.

But the Catholic gender gap is there and it’s reversed. Young men are two percentage points more likely to be Catholic than women of the same age. I can already see readers searching for more information on how JD Vance converted to Catholicism a few years ago. I’ll touch on politics a bit later, so stick around.

I also wanted to examine the other side of the gender gap conversation—this time looking at three types of non-religious Americans: atheists, agnostics, and those claiming no particular religion.

There’s definitely a gender gap among atheists, and it’s large compared to the gaps in the previous analysis. Among forty-year-olds, a man is about twice as likely to be an atheist compared to a woman of the same age (10% vs. 5%). This narrows slightly among older folks but remains around three percentage points. For agnostics, there’s essentially no gender gap; women are much more hesitant to identify as atheists in this data.

The “nothing in particular” trend lines are quite different. A larger percentage of people chose this identity—about 30% of the youngest adults. Among those aged 18-40, it’s apparent that women are more likely to be “nothing in particular” than men. The gap closes by their fifties, and older men may even be slightly more likely to identify as “nothing in particular” than older women.

What does this look like in actual numbers? Here’s the breakdown of nones among 18-40-year-olds.

This reinforces that atheism is more popular among younger men compared to younger women: one in ten men aged 18-40 are atheists, compared to just 6% of women. For agnosticism, there’s no gap at all—both remain at 8%.

For “nothing in particulars,” the gender gap reverses as discussed earlier. Among younger women, about 30% identify as such compared to 27% of men. In total, about 45% of men aged 18-40 are non-religious, compared to 44% of women. So, the overall number for nones isn’t a significant difference, but looking deeper, the composition of female nones slightly differs from that of male nones.

Now, as promised, let’s pivot to politics—another potential explanation for the gender gap in religion. Here’s the partisan composition of three types of evangelicals, broken down by gender, focusing on 18-40-year-olds.

Among all evangelicals, there’s no gender gap: 52% are Republicans, 32% are Democrats, and 15% are Independents. However, race plays a significant role here. Among white evangelicals, young women lean more toward the GOP than men of the same religious group; 59% of young white evangelical women are Republicans, five points higher than their male counterparts.

For non-white evangelicals aged 18-40, the partisan gap reverses: 36% of men are Republicans, compared to only 26% of women. It’s interesting that white evangelical women are the most right-leaning group, while non-white evangelical women are the most aligned with Democrats.

Let’s talk about Catholics, too. That’s where we saw the largest religious gender gap in the previous analysis - is politics driving some of that?

For Catholics, where we saw the largest religious gender gap in the previous analysis, politics seems to be a factor. Young male Catholics are significantly more right-leaning than female Catholics. In the whole sample, 38% of men are Republicans compared to 32% of women. Among white Catholics, the gap narrows: 42% of young female Catholics are Republicans compared to 45% of men. There’s still a gap, though.

For non-white Catholics, there’s a clear Democratic preference: 62% of young female Catholics of color are Democrats, and just 20% align with the GOP. For men, it’s 55% Democrats and 27% Republicans. There’s some tacit evidence here for the JD Vance pathway to Catholicism that intersects with politics.

Before I close up, I wanted to show you the partisanship of non-religious groups by gender, too.

There’s a pretty compelling conclusion here: non-religious women are significantly more aligned with Democrats than their male counterparts. Among atheists, 79% of women are Democrats compared to only 68% of men. For agnostics, it’s even wider: 75% vs. 56%. Among “nothing in particulars,” 51% of women are Democrats versus 41% of men. The plurality of the “nothing in particulars” are politically independent, suggesting that rejecting one label often correlates with rejecting others.

There’s a gender gap in religion, but it’s nuanced. Young women are more likely to be evangelicals, while young men are more likely to be Catholic. The most right-leaning group in this analysis is white evangelical women, with 69% Republicans. The most left-leaning group? Atheist women, with 79% Democrats.

Let’s just say I have many threads to pull on for future posts.

==

As always, I have a problem with the definitions here, as someone is classified only as an atheist if they "identify" as such, rather than simply being one by definition of not believing a god(s) exist(s).

"Agnostics" are atheists. And "nothing in particulars" are atheists if they don't believe in a god(s), regardless of whether they "identify" as such.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Catholic Cultural Criticism

Have you noticed how society just isn't Catholic anymore? Nobody takes the authority of the Church seriously or internalizes any of our morals! You know where it all went wrong? When people abandoned Catholicism. What is the solution? Why you'll never guess--

[feastingonchrist]

Gosh i love learning about theology and Christian history/denominations sooo much! Redeemed Zoomer is not my favorite person to learn from...other than the very bare minimum about different denominations within Christianity, but his videos are fun to watch as a curious introduction into Christian churches, their theology and how they each do things differently. Whether some are in closer unity with one another Catholic, Orthodox, the mainline protestant churches or really not even at all, (other protestants), we are all united in Christ and believe the core doctrines of Christianity. I will also say that watching Zoomer's videos made me want to go back to church again!!! I joined my church on a curious whim just by stepping out in faith and it's so awesome to see how God has been working in that area of my life and faith journey! *btw this isn't a post about theology, i just wanted to say that cause i was watching/studying theology for most of the day. It has been fascinating me for the past year now. But this is a post on my experience at some Baptist churches vs my Methodist church.*

For the longest time, i didn't want to attend church because the only types of churches i had been to were Baptist (with a contemporary worship style) and i cannot connect to God during that worship style. I didn't even feel like i was apart of the congregation, either. The atmosphere felt very cold, though the people weren't rude. it's just not been a very inviting experience. It feels almost "corporate". I feel too distracted in that type of worship setting. The music is just too loud, the lights/projector screens are too bright/flashy, and i don't like contemporary worship music in church...something about it makes me want to claw my eyes out!!!!!!!! It's so whiny and goes on for way too long. I actually don't mind some contemporary songs if they have good lyrics and music. I just don't enjoy it for a Sunday morning church service, it's not bad for a casual Wednesday night or Sunday night service. It's too overstimulating on top of the loud instruments playing over the songs on the loud speakers. I do prefer a traditional worship service, but that is just me. It's much more grounded and God-centered. The congregation feels more united, too. I like how we say the Creed & Lord's Prayer together. Something about the worship style/environment is so simple, yet profound and pure (it's hard to put my thoughts and feelings into words here.) There's no distractions on stage or any loud instruments that are so unbearable to where i want to leave the sanctuary and never come back to the church because i am legitimately overstimulated and exhausted for the rest of the day...I feel refreshed spiritually, socially, and physically after church on Sundays. That is a HUGE BLESSING. I also like how my church isn't massive and everyone knows each other, it has a genuinely friendly and warm environment that i have never been apart of before. That's the church environment i prefer to be in and what i had been praying for for so long. Now that i am here, i long to attend church on Sundays and i didn't know how much i was lacking spiritually (me taking steps of faith and seeing God show up for me) and even socially (forming new relationships with other believers!) My church isn't even THAT traditional/liturgical, it's kinda in the middle, though it's lower church compared to other UMC/mainline protestant churches, yet still higher than non mainline prot churches. Especially since my UMC church split and joined the GMC and some theology nerds are mad about that and yeah i guess technically we aren't considered mainline anymore, but i don't really care. Maybe one day we can unite again... btw, our church checks still say united methodist on them LOL. I do, however, want to visit a truly high UMC service one day to see what that is like. I'm sure it's wonderful :)

Anyways, this is where i'm drawing the line on this conversation. I didn't write any of this to bash other forms of worship or to brag about mine. trust me, i have been apart of these types of conversations before, i see it all the time. Especially the Catholic/Orthodox vs protestant arguments. They make me sad and seeing that constantly is beyond frustrating! But i just wanted to write this based off of my own experiences in these two different types of church settings. Let me know your thoughts if you have gotten this far! I am not at all an expert on theology/church history. I know next to nothing about it cause i never knew there was this much richness and infighting within The Church or all this history in how the denominations formed and why, etc. It's so cool, though! A huge interest for me now, too. I decided not to do too much format editing cause i wasn't sure where to break anything up into paragraphs, nor did i want to make this post longer so i do apologize for that. I kinda didn't feel like it, either. Normally, i do though. So i'm soory fot those on mobile, lol!

[christianity-crucible]

Cal Thomas is still the same lying, bigoted piece of shit that he was during his Moral Majority days 40+ years ago.

[alliluyevas]

honestly growing up as episcopalian with an openly gay parish priest + my mom's side of the family being catholic the first time i encountered a priest who had a wife and children i was kind of shook.

[maureen-corpse]

I don’t want to be a hater but every time I think I’m going to have a normal time with a well-known age-old hymn and it turns out this Lutheran hymnal has different words because they set a low limit for allowed gendering of God or something I become an old lady shaking her cane at stuff

[atheostic]

[purplespacecats]

my hindu bestie just texted me informing me that their parents are now christian and i'm like. are they okay??? do we need to stage an intervention??????

[bgwlsmahf25]

If She Could, She Would pt2

pairing: Natasha x reader

Warnings: mentions of HYDRA; mentions of the Red Room; nat almost breaking your heart; bits of angst

Genre: fluff; sprinkling of angst

a/n: here is part 2 as requested! Hope you’ve enjoyed this story :)

“Hi.” You stared worriedly at Natasha then sighed. “That bad, huh?”

“Clint…” Her jaw was clenched and she had worry lines on her forehead. She was pacing up and down, deep in thought, occasionally glancing up to make sure you were still there.

“...is going to be fine,” you finished calmly. “I just checked in on him. Helen is confident. She’s the best at what she does.” You paused. “The mission?”

“Difficult.” Natasha chewed her lip. “HYDRA’s got two enhanced with them: a boy and a girl.”

You looked up as Maria walked in, Tony in tow. Natasha went straight to him and they began conversing in low voices. Maria walked over to you, handing you a tablet. “Find them. Anything you can.”

Several nights passed, each one longer than the last. You were the last to bed and one of the first to rise. You were mainlining coffee and sandwiches, afraid to leave your computer for a second in case valuable intel arrived at any second.

Papers were scattered across your desk, your floor and most of your bed. The papers started to grow in height, unwieldy stacks appearing across your room. You had long ago given up on team movie nights.

Tony persuaded you to briefly show your face at his party, but then Ultron emerged and the Avengers were no longer concerned with galas and gatherings. You started to delve into Ultron, tracking him through databases and mainframes, often ending with a burnt out battery, your computer smoking in protest.

One afternoon (or it could have been evening, you neither knew nor cared) there was a knock on your door. Startled, you looked up then awkwardly maneuvered your way to the door. Opening it, you found Natasha on the other side and you could tell from her face that she wasn’t happy.

“Come in.” You stepped aside, as much as you could, and she entered your room. “Forgive the papers. Research.”

“Y/n, how long have you been in here?” she said quietly.

“A while.” You stared at Natasha. “Why? What’s happened?”

“A lot.” Natasha sighed. “We’re… scattered right now. What have you found on the twins?”

You turned back to your laptop, groaning as you noticed smoke trickling out the side. Wrenching it open, you pulled the extinguished battery out and replaced it with a fresh one from the stack on your desk. You picked up a piece of paper and turned back to Natasha. “I was coming to find you, actually.”

“Why?”

“Have you ever heard of the Red Room?”

Natasha seemed to freeze, her shoulders tensing and a far-away anxious expression appearing on her face. She clenched her hands tightly into fists, the knuckles going white and let out a short, sharp breath.

“You have heard of them. Who are they?”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me that, y/n. W-why are you asking about them?”

“Natasha, what’s going on?” you said, dropping the piece of paper and putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Tell me.” Her voice was harsh and cold and you reeled backwards in surprise.

“I, uh… I was in contact with someone. They were talking about the Red Room, they said to ask the Black Widow if I wanted to know more. It came up as a possible source of comparison for what HYDRA have done to the Maximoff twins - that’s the enhanced you saw at Strucker’s base.”

Natasha glanced at her phone as it began lighting up with messages. She ignored it and stared at you. “Give me the name of your source.”

“N-no, I can’t do that, Natasha. I promised to keep their identity secret.”

“Y/n, I’m not asking. Give me the name of your source.”

“No.” You felt suddenly afraid that Natasha might harm you, but you stared her down. “I’m not releasing that information to you.”

“I will find it,” she said, turning and leaving your room. “When I am back. We are off to Seoul.”

***

“Y/n! I don’t care what you’re doing in there, get your ass out here now!” Furious hammering began at your door.

“Alright, alright, jeez, I’m coming.” You opened the door to find Maria and some SHIELD agents on the other side. From Maria’s expression, you knew it wasn’t good. “What happened?”

“It’s Natasha. She’s been captured by Ultron. We need to find where he’s keeping her. I’ve got every resource on it, but I thought you should know.”

You stared at Maria in barely concealed horror. “Y-yes. I’m on it.” Sweeping papers aside, you sat down at your desk and began typing furiously, filling your screen with lines of code. Ultron’s sources began to attack back and you realised you were in for a long battle. “I’m coming, Nat,” you murmured. “I will find you. Whatever it takes.”

***

“They’re in Sokovia. They’ve got three minutes to suit up and we’re going there.” Steve looked at you, Maria and the rest of the SHIELD agents he’d assembled. “I need you here. Check all communications. If anything changes by one second, you tell me.” He started to leave the room, then put a hand on your shoulder. “Clint’s got a bearing on her. We’ll bring her back safe, y/n.”

You nodded, wondering why Steve was taking time away from his mission to tell you. You were worried about Natasha, but you’d barely seen her and her reaction to the news about the Red Room still played in your mind. She didn’t trust you and she was angry at you. And she was still in the hands of Ultron…

***

“It’s taking off!”

“The whole thing is moving!”

“There are people on it!”

“People. People, calm down!” Nick’s voice sounded amongst the chatter of the SHIELD agents, as you all watched Sokovia lifting into the air. “We will be going to their assistance. You.” He pointed at an agent hunched over a computer. “How many multi-person carriers have we got?”

“I, uh, sir…”

“Seventeen,” you said calmly. “At first count.”

“Seventeen? This is Sokovia we’re talking about. Find me more!”

“I’m on it, sir.” You reached over and prodded the other agent. “Look alive, Anders, we need quick fingers and even quicker minds for this job. Divert all non-essential traffic to other services. Then re-direct all carriers to SHIELD usage. Destination: Sokovia.”

“Right.” Anders seemed to be in a daze and you sighed.

“Guess I’m doing it myself,” you muttered, flexing your fingers and beginning to type. “If you’re not helping, Anders, then find me someone who will. Move it!”

He nervously jumped and scurried off across the room, frantically talking to other agents and pointing at you.

***

“You know,” another agent slid into a seat beside you, “the Black Widow wants Dr Banner.”

“What do you mean?” You felt fear creep into your mind. Had you lost your chance with Natasha?

“You don’t know? Something happened between Romanoff and Banner, I don’t know all the details, but I know that they’re an item.”

Your heart sank. She was gone and you’d never had a chance to respond to her gesture with the scrapbook. What were you supposed to do now?

“Agent?”

“Get on with your work,” you snapped. “I need a coffee.” You pushed your chair back and strode out of the room, feeling angry and sad at the same time.

Heading into the break room, you burst into tears, sinking to your knees on the ground, taking great gasping breaths. Your heart felt like it had been shattered into a million pieces and you cursed the day you met Natasha Romanoff.

***

“Ultron destroyed. Sokovia was also destroyed,” you said grimly. “Maximoff twins recruited. Not too many lost. I’d say that’s a win, sir.”

“Of course it’s a damn win,” Fury ground his teeth. “And I’m alive again.” He sighed. “I’ve been watching you, Agent y/l/n. You’re a quick learner. How ‘bout a promotion? Come and work in my office.”

“Sir, I - thank you, sir, I’d be honoured.”

“Alright, that's settled.” Fury followed your gaze to where Natasha was standing, staring blankly at the wall ahead of her. “Go on. My news for her can wait.”

You headed over, unsure what you wanted to say. Then you remembered that she was with Bruce Banner now and you started to walk away. You weren’t going to talk to her, you weren’t going to interact with her anymore. It hurt too much.

“I know you’re there. Aren’t you going to say hello?”

“I don’t know if I should.”

Natasha turned, taking you in. She bit her lip, a knowing look in her eyes, and took a step towards you. “Y/n.”

“No.” You put your hands up, whether protecting yourself or pushing her away, you didn’t know which. “No. You don’t get to - no. No more.”

“Y/n.” She continued to walk towards you. “Let me explain.”

“No.” You turned and began to walk away. “You don’t get to come close anymore.”

“This is about Dr Banner.” You froze. “This is about the rumours going around about me and him. You know how you feel about me, but you won’t say it because it looks like I’ve moved on.”

“You have,” you whispered.

“No.”

“Yes, you have,” you insisted. “I don’t have a chance anymore, and I’m not sure I ever did.”

“As if you were with me. As if you were beside me.”

“No. Don’t. Don’t say that, it’s not true.” Hurt flashed across Natasha’s face. “It’s not true.”

“As if you were walking right beside me. Watching the same movies. Eating the same food. Sleeping in tiny motels. Chasing leads that end in nothing. Taking photographs because you want the memories of travelling across Europe and Africa with me.”

“Natasha… no. You don’t get to worm your way in anymore.” Tears were starting to run down your cheeks. “My heart doesn’t belong to you.”

“But mine belongs to you,” she whispered.

You let out a bitter laugh. “That’s not true.”

“Will you let me decide what’s true?” she snapped, her patience finally breaking. “Let me explain, y/n.”

“No,” you whispered, walking away. “Not anymore. I won’t take it anymore.”

***

“Romanoff’s been training me.” Wanda eyed you curiously. “There’s something there, isn’t there?”

“Wanda, don’t push it,” you sighed, furiously beating some eggs. “Not if you want breakfast.”

“You’re doing it all wrong.” She leant forwards, taking your hand in hers and guiding your hand in a circular motion. “This will make eggs fluffy. That,” she mimicked your old movement, “will not do anything.”

“Whatever,” you sighed, handing her the bowl. “How’s training going?”

“You’d know if you joined us.”

“It’s not for me. I’m not an Avenger, I’m just a field agent.”

“Who works for the management of this place.” Wanda looked at you. “Your thoughts are loud.”

“Hey, get out of my mind!” you said, annoyed but not angry. “Leave my thoughts alone.”

“Y/n, even without reading your mind, I can see you’re unhappy.” Wanda’s tone was gentle and you sighed. “I know that you miss her. Why won’t you talk to her?”

“Wanda, she doesn’t want to hear from me.”

“Yes, I do.” You spun around to see Natasha walking into the common room, staring at you with an intense gaze. “You shut me out, not the other way around.”

“I didn’t - no, that’s…” You spluttered then sighed again, knowing she was right. “Whatever. Hello, Natasha.”

“Ooh, so formal,” she gently teased, sending you a brief smile. “Hello, y/n. I miss you. Why don’t you come to training?”

“You know why.”

“No. I don’t.” She leant on the counter beside Wanda and watched you, an amused smile playing around her mouth. “You’re the one who walked off.”

You grabbed Natasha’s arm and pulled her from the room.

“Hey!” Wanda called out, a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. “What about these eggs?”

“They’ll keep until I return!” you called back.

***

“You’re not an easy person to talk to nowadays,” Natasha remarked.

You unlocked your room and pushed her inside, shutting the door behind you. She looked around, intrigued to see what your room looked like without the stacks and stacks of papers. Spotting a photo of you and her on the wall, she stepped towards it.

“Leave that alone,” you said quietly.

“I’ve made you angry.”

“You didn’t have to accuse me of being a horrible person in front of Wanda. I’m not that bad, I’m just busy. I keep making time for you and then either you don’t show or you’re off on a mission.”

“First time I’m hearing about it.”

“In my head, Nat. I keep making time for you in my head,” you said impatiently.

“Why not ask me in person?”

“Because,” you whispered, and suddenly Natasha understood.

“Because you’re afraid I’ll reject you,” she said quietly. “You regret what you said all those months ago.”

“Of course I regret it!” you burst out. “I wish I’d stuck around and listened to what you were going to say but I missed my chance.”

“Not from where I’m standing.” She looked at you. “My heart belongs to you, y/n, whether Banner’s around or not.”

“But you’d pick him. For appearance’s sake, for the good of the Avengers, for the good of publicity… you’d pick him.”

“I have seen so much. So much of the world, of what it can give you but also what it can take away.” Natasha pointed at the photo of the two of you. “That was the first time I saw myself like that. Happier. Carefree. With no weight on my shoulders.” She stared at you. “I want that back, y/n, but you’re the only person who can give it to me.”

“Give… I have nothing to give you, Nat.”

“Love,” she burst out. “You have love to give me.”

“You’re making it really hard to say no,” you whispered, a smile creeping onto your face. “All I want is to say no, but you’re making that very hard right now.”

“I’m going to keep talking until you say yes,” she whispered. She sat down on the edge of your bed and watched you carefully.

Then she began to talk about her upbringing, her favourite book. The fact that she still read that book even now because it comforted her. About leaving Russia and the heartache that had caused. About meeting Clint’s family for the first time and being called ‘Aunty Nat’ and realizing life wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it was.

Then she started talking about you. The first time she’d met you and realised she was falling. The Christmas you’d gone ice skating together and you’d burst out laughing as you fell over. The way you made her feel inside. How she knew she could be herself with no fear of rejection.

“Natasha.” You reached out, placing a finger on her lips. She kissed your finger, making you smile. “Okay. I’ll try something with you.”

“You will?” Her smile was big and happy and you couldn’t help but smile back, taking in the green eyes that were staring so intently into yours.

“Yes.” You leant forwards and kissed her softly. “I will.”

“Now,” she murmured against your lips, “about the name of that source…”

“Natalia Alianovna Romanova!”

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Okay I'm curious: I've seen a lot of Christians use/refer to the phrase "hosanna in the highest!" which is used in the New Testament and I've frequently heard it pronounced "hoh-ZAHN-ah". However, it's a much older liturgical phrase in Hebrew and definitely not pronounced like that. I want to know: (1) were you taught the actual meaning of this word by your community/do you know what it actually means without googling it, (2) what variety of Christian are you, and (3) if, after googling it, were you correct?

Sorry fellow yidden and other non-Christians; this poll is specific to people who identify as Christian and/or who were raised as such. (Edit: gerim who were raised Christian can vote, but you have to base it off of what you were taught as a Christian, not what you know now.)

Christians who answer: if you googled this after voting yes and were taught wrong about it, please let me know in the notes.

(If you're wondering if you "count" as Christian or having been raised as such, for these purposes I would say interpret it broadly to include anyone who views Jesus as the messiah and grew up reading the New Testament as part of your bible.)

[feastingonchrist]

been reading up on Methodist theology a little bit (well, what it says on the wiki page and the global Methodist catechism) and from what i have seen so far, they're pretty based and teach some things i have already believed/agreed with anyways lol. so i think it's funny that i ended up in the Methodist church, especially considering that when i watched one of RZ's brief explanation of the Methodist Church last year, i have wanted to check it out ever since then. so i did. i'm learning by experience & studying theology. so far, i love the Methodist Church!!! i don't/won't agree with everything though, and i think that's actually very healthy in any Christian denomination bc: sola scriptura.

[aprillikesthings]

I better be the patron saint of smutty f/f fanfiction (with a special preference for animated characters) or I'm not passing your prayers along to God

Thinking about people associating a saint with something they didn't care about at all in life, but so many people keep asking then to pray for then in relation to that one thing that, from the afterlife, they really do start to care about it.

[maureen-corpse]

Some days watching mainline Protestant denominations post on Facebook really is just like

Mainline Protestant Denomination: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.

People in the comments: I can’t believe Mainline Protestant Denomination has gone DEI and WOKE!!!! Talking about “having care for one another.” Every day I thank God I found a splinter group that hates women and gives white men the respect they’ve been denied for too long

[elyvorg]

Kieran Part 1: It’s All About Strength

I’m a longtime Pokémon fan who happily plays through every mainline game, but I’ve never been more than mildly fond of the occasional character here and there, because Pokémon isn’t much for deep and nuanced character writing. Then I played The Teal Mask DLC and came out of it with many, many Feelings and Thoughts about Kieran – enough so that it warrants a full, juicy analysis about all of his subtleties and issues. I never expected I’d write one of these character analysis rambles of mine on a Pokémon character of all things, but here we are. Colour me surprised and impressed.

For anyone reading this in the future: this was written before The Indigo Disk came out and therefore only talks about the events of The Teal Mask. Assuming The Indigo Disk doesn’t completely drop the ball on the best character-writing job that mainline Pokémon has ever done (please; please don’t), there will probably be a Part 2 to this analysis coming in a few months. (Aaaaand here it is! But you should read this one first, of course.)

(I’ll be referring to the player character as “you” here for ease of wording, but rest assured, this doesn’t mean I’m accusing you the reader of any of the questionable ways the player character treats Kieran. I was also very annoyed at being forced to lie to him, believe me.)

His weakness, and your strength

Kieran is a kid gripped with a crushing sense of inferiority and weakness. We don’t see all of where this came from, although we get a pretty good idea of part of it – his sister. So many times when Kieran tries to protest against things and assert himself, Carmine snaps back at him for doing so. Over time, that kind of thing would have made him feel like he’s wrong for trying to stand up for himself, leading to him letting people walk all over him. I don’t want to give Carmine’s behaviour all of the blame for Kieran’s issues, though, because there’s bound to be more to it than that. I expect some of it also came from him being bullied and outcast during his time at Blueberry Academy – I hope The Indigo Disk gives us glimpses into what Kieran’s life there was like before all this.

As a result of feeling so weak and inferior, Kieran admires and idolises people he sees as strong. This becomes clear early on with how much he looks up to you just for being able to beat his sister, someone else he also sees as strong. Apparently, he couldn’t stop raving about how cool you were and how he wanted to battle you all evening back at home.

He doesn’t want you to know that, though, based on his protest when Carmine comes out and tells you so. Kieran's probably rather embarrassed for you to hear how much he idolises you, after all. He also seems to think his request for a battle would be annoying and a bother – he says “You don’t mind?” in surprise when you accept, even though asking people for battles is supposed to be just what trainers do. Why would a strong trainer like you want to waste your time battling someone weak like him?

Kieran’s comment in the battle if you land a super effective move is also very telling: “Oof, ehehe… I guess I got a lot of weaknesses…” He tries to play it off as light-hearted, but, hm, that sure is A Way for a rival character to comment on you knowing about type matchups. And he most certainly does not seem to agree with his sister when she says he’s almost as strong as her.

(Fun fact: the game actually lets you lose the first battle with each sibling while still continuing the story. If you lose to Kieran in that first battle, he assumes you were holding back against him, as if that’s the only reason he’d ever be able to beat anyone. Perhaps he’s experienced people holding back against him out of pity before – maybe Carmine used to?)

He's flustered when Carmine partners him up with you, too, even though you’re the only option that he has at least a vague rapport with now – he’s still assuming someone cool like you wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time on him than you have to. Kieran worries he’ll “get in your way” if he sticks with you, so he hangs back and stays well out of your way instead. It’s a cute way for the game to justify him not actually following you around in the gameplay even though he’s supposed to be following you according to the plot, but it also just makes perfect sense for Kieran’s character. This is a kid who constantly tries to take up as little space as possible because he’s convinced that nobody wants him around. And it’s important that he seems to feel especially this way towards the people he looks up to (with the exception of Carmine, because she’s family and he spends most of his time with her already).

Then there’s the scene where he meets Koraidon/Miraidon. At first, I assumed it was there to introduce Kieran to our lizardbike friend because they’d be relevant later somehow. But they’re not! So the only reason this scene exists at all is for the purpose of illustrating to Kieran that, in his words, “you’re special”. You are A Protagonist, capable of befriending super special, rare, strong Pokémon with ease. (Just like a certain other special legendary Pokémon you’ll be meeting soon, how about that.)

Admiring the ogre

So, as you begin the trip to visit the signboards about Kitakami’s legend, Kieran starts to open up about how much he likes the ogre. Perhaps he feels safe telling you, because you’re an outsider and won’t frown upon him for it like the locals are prone to do. He probably gets that from them a lot and has learned not to bring up the ogre in town – another thing that makes him feel left out.

Even so, Kieran starts from the angle of “it’s so strong and cool because it won one-on-three”, since that’s a more acceptable reason to like the ogre that doesn’t question the validity of the legend, and is less personal to his issues. If you agree with him that the ogre sounds cool before he’s explained why he thinks so, he responds with “I knew you’d get it!” – you, who’s also really strong and cool, would obviously recognise that same strength in the ogre right away, right?

If you’re sceptical at first instead, he stresses that “it was all alone!” and still managed to hold its own – the more personal side of the reason he likes the ogre coming out just a little. By the second signboard, Kieran’s gotten a bit more comfortable with you, enough to start touching on that more deliberately. He mentions that it’s shunned, and that he likes its strength because he admires that and wishes he could be that strong himself.

Then he invites you to see the ogre’s den, something completely unrelated to the purpose of the school trip, because he trusts you enough to feel sure that you’ll get what he’s trying to illustrate about the ogre there. He points out that it seems like a lonely, miserable place to live, and that he’d happily let the ogre stay at his house if it wanted. He’s not quite explicitly saying so, but Kieran clearly empathises with the ogre because he relates to that kind of loneliness. Though he doesn’t want to outright say that the legend is wrong and the ogre isn’t actually the bad guy – maybe he’s got backlash from the villagers before for suggesting it –  he's got to believe that to be the case.

(I’ve seen one or two people suggest that Kieran fawning over the supposed bad guy in the legend is an early hint to his potential for darkness, but I really don’t think that’s it. There’s plenty of reason for Kieran to relate to and see the sympathetic side of the ogre in the story due to his own status as a social outcast, without it needing to be a case of “he just likes bad guys because he’s Edgy”.)

Later, at the festival, Kieran has a quiet chuckle to himself when Carmine’s talking about the Loyal Three being heroes, and says it’s funny that she doesn’t know anything about the ogre. Then he conspicuously changes the subject when she implies that it’s just that he likes edgy bad guys, because that’s not it – but at least now he has someone who does get it. Carmine mentions later that she feels Kieran is trying to one-up her about the ogre, and maybe this is true. Perhaps this is one small way in which he can privately feel superior to his sister, because he’s more right than her, or than anyone in the village, about the ogre’s true nature. And while that’s more due to luck and a large helping of projecting his own issues onto it than out of any genuine inside knowledge of the truth, Kieran is the one person who understands the ogre best.

Or, at least, he understands it best… for the most part. Because there is one very key way in which Kieran is actually thoroughly wrong about what Ogerpon is truly like.

Misunderstanding the ogre

This begins to be apparent at the second signboard, when Kieran’s gushing about the ogre’s coolness and says “it didn’t even care when everyone shunned it”. From meeting Ogerpon later, we know that this is patently not true about her – she’s terrified of humans because of how they see her, so really she hates being shunned! But Kieran doesn’t imagine that to be the case about her, even though he empathises with her presumed loneliness and is basically projecting his own onto her. He sees the ogre as somebody who is shunned and alone, like he is, but who, unlike him, is strong enough to not let it get to them. Someone in the same bad situation as him, but with strength that he only wishes he could have to deal with it.

In that same conversation at the second signboard, Kieran then goes on to talk about how his sister always does everything for him, and he’d like to become stronger and more independent and reliable. And, “then, just maybe… I could be that ogre’s friend.” As if he doesn’t think he’d deserve to be Ogerpon’s friend unless he was already strong, just like she is.

He mentions a couple of times that he comes to the Dreaded Den a lot but has never once seen the ogre, which might seem a little strange at first. Obviously Ogerpon kept well hidden from him because she’s scared of humans – but, did Kieran never try to call out to her? To tell her that he’s not afraid of her, that he admires her strength and she must be lonely and hey, maybe they could be friends? If he had, then surely over time, Ogerpon would have grown to trust him and shown herself – so apparently, Kieran never did try to call out to her in an attempt to befriend her. Because he felt he wasn’t worthy of her friendship, not when he’s so weak, so inferior to someone as strong and cool as her. (A lot like how he wouldn’t have had the courage to tell you how much he admired you, if his sister hadn’t blurted it out for him.)

While you’re visiting the den with him, Kieran assumes that “a powerful ogre like that would only show up if it heard some kinda battle”, leading to him challenging you again. Since he admires the ogre for its strength, he’s assuming that the ogre also values strength just as much if not more than he does, which really isn’t necessarily true about Ogerpon!

During the battle, Kieran says he’ll “put up a good fight” this time. Which is to say, he still feels so thoroughly outclassed by you that he isn’t remotely expecting or even trying to win – he just wants to at least not go down quite as pitifully as last time, not when he’s potentially being watched by his idol the ogre. And when he loses (the game requires you to win this and all future battles against him), he laments how he’s ever going to be able to beat you, and then he muses, “If the ogre saw that battle, I’m sure it’d be thinking, ‘That kid’s got some real strength…’” He is assuming that Ogerpon would like you, far more than she’d ever like him, because of how strong you are. This is very important.

(As it happens, Ogerpon was secretly watching that battle, but as for whether she’s actually thinking what Kieran imagines she is about your strength – who knows?)

Friendship! Or is it…?

By the end of the den visit, Kieran has just enough confidence to invite you to the Festival of Masks, and to his own house to get ready to go together, which there’s no way he’d have been able to do at the start of the day. He’s so surprised but thrilled to hear that you consider yourself his friend – based on that and his grandparents’ reactions, you’re likely the first friend he’s ever made, which would not be surprising. It’s lovely watching this shy but sweet kid actually smiling and feeling comfortable around you and happy to have someone he can call a friend for the first time ever. And GHHHH it is so painful in hindsight knowing where things are headed.

Even with you calling yourself his friend, though, Kieran still feels inferior to you. He dejectedly offers to give you his mask for the festival when you find yourself without one, even though it’s the ogre mask, his favourite, his thing – because he instinctively feels that if anyone should be the one who gets left out, it should be him, like always, and not you.

The whole time, Kieran’s bound to be feeling thoroughly insecure about this new friendship. The idea that he’s actually made a friend, and not least someone as cool as you, likely feels far too good to be true, more than he deserves, and I suspect he might be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he mentions to Carmine that you’re coming to the festival with him, her response is vaguely evasive, and Kieran responds to that in a very prickly, defensive way. It reads to me like he thinks Carmine is jealous of him befriending you before her, and that he’s afraid she might try to take you away from him as a result. Whether that’s actually true or not isn’t really the point (I think Carmine might indeed be a little jealous, but she would not do something that deliberately malicious) – what matters is that Kieran believes this may be the case and is liable to view all further interactions with you and Carmine in that light.

Then, at the festival, Carmine pressures Kieran into playing Ogre Oustin’ even though he doesn’t really want to. She’s probably doing this in an attempt to encourage him to have fun, but since he doesn’t find it fun (because he doesn't like this game where he's pretend-killing the ogre!), it’d be easy for him to feel like she only did it because she wanted him out of the way so she could hang out with you. And it’s while Kieran’s doing that that you and Carmine meet Ogerpon without him. Of course, that’s nothing but pure unlucky bad timing – Carmine had no idea Ogerpon was about to show up – but from Kieran’s point of view, with his obvious history of being maliciously left out of things by others, it’s easy for him to feel like there was some deliberate element to it.

At first he doesn’t know it has anything to do with Ogerpon, though. But still, when he gets back from Ogre Oustin’ and asks what you two were up to, Carmine abruptly shuts you up before you can speak and is blatantly hiding something – which Kieran takes to mean that you were laughing at him behind his back. That’s something else he must get a lot, for him to be automatically assuming it’s happening here. Really not so far off from his fear that his sister’s going to try and take you away from him, either.

Carmine’s lie isn’t done out of any malice – she is genuinely trying to protect her brother from feeling bad over being left out of meeting Ogerpon – but she sure is doing so in a way that’s going to make him feel even worse over being left out on purpose once he realises the truth. Carmine does care about her brother in theory, but this girl has zero social brain cells. And we the player are forced to play along with the lie whether we want to or not, which awkwardly turns our player-insert character into a very specific kind of character who would do so. I guess they either also have zero social brain cells, or they’re kind of a doormat who’s swayed by a forceful personality like Carmine’s. This part is frustrating, but I have to accept it because of the delightful things it does to Kieran’s arc, which really is the important part here.

Learning of the lie

The next morning, it seems like Kieran’s largely managed to brush off the weird bit last night where you and his sister were maybe laughing at him behind his back, because he greets you with a smile, ready to go see the last signboard. And then Carmine… forcefully demands that he finds somewhere else to be, because you’ve got business with her. Kieran protests that it’s not fair that you’ve been spending all your time with her lately – score two for his fear that she’s trying to take you away from him – and when she snaps back at his protest like always, he runs off.

But he doesn’t run off that far, because he stays close enough to listen in on the conversation. The discussion of Ogerpon’s story goes on for long enough – and takes long enough to get to the important part – that Kieran pretty much has to have stayed to eavesdrop on purpose, which is a little sketchy of him. Still, I can’t blame him all that much, what with his background of being mistreated, and the way Carmine’s behaviour gives him ample reason to be afraid there’s something going on here – of course he’d have wanted to know for sure. Perhaps he was even trying to hope that listening in would prove that you’re not actually hiding something bad from him and he was just being paranoid.

Except that actually, it turns out the truth is so much worse than Kieran had feared. Never mind just laughing at him – you and Carmine met the ogre without him and then hid it from him as if he didn’t even deserve to know. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it then turns out that he was right all along about the ogre being a good guy, and his own grandpa didn’t even think it was worth telling him that, and now you’re still just going to keep lying to him about it all and leaving him in the dark.

(Really, I have to side-eye their grandpa a lot more than Carmine here, because he’s a grown dang adult and has so much less excuse. He says he’ll tell Kieran the truth “when the time is right”, but what does that even mean? The “right time” would be right now! Heck, it should have been the moment he realised that Kieran had already intuited the truth!)

And all this being lied to and shunned and left out of things (like always) stings even more for Kieran because it’s coming from someone he’d thought was his friend. He’d actually dared to hope that someone – and not just anyone, someone really cool and strong – actually wanted to be friends with him? Of course that was too good to be true. Why would someone as cool and strong as you have ever wanted to befriend a weak loser like him, anyway? (After all, cool strong people only ever want to be friends with other cool strong people; that’s how it works, right?)

Probing about the lie

The correct thing for Kieran to do with this situation would have been to simply come right out and confront you about the lie. But of course he doesn’t have the courage to do that. He’s far too used to being shot down whenever he tries to assert and stand up for himself (no thanks to Carmine). And since he only learned about this because he was eavesdropping, it’s easy for him to imagine having that turned against him, and the whole situation being treated like he’s the one in the wrong for doing that.

Still, it seems like Kieran might want to at least indirectly give you the opportunity to tell him the truth. He heads off to the village shop to act like he was there the whole time, and then casually asks you what you were talking about back there. He’s maybe trying to hope that you don’t really want to lie to him and only got swept up into doing so by his sister’s forcefulness, and that you’ll tell him everything now that she’s not here, because, you said you were his friend, right? Later on, too, at the third signboard, the way Kieran brings up that his family is descended from the mask maker feels suspiciously relevant, as if he only thought to do so because he overheard the story and is trying to give you a chance to go, “Hey, speaking of that mask maker, actually…”

But no. It sure seems like you’re very deliberately choosing to keep him in the dark. As such, he’s bound to be feeling extra small and awkward at the signboard, just wanting to “get this over with” and be done spending time with you, because you clearly don’t want to waste any more of your time with him than you have to, right? The awkwardness of the third signboard photo, with Kieran obviously not wanting to be there, and your character’s very strained thumbs-up, is heartbreaking in comparison to how cute and happy the first two were.

During the conversation there, Kieran mentions the ogre being alone and treated like an outcast in a way that is very clearly also talking about how you and Carmine are treating him right now. The game pointedly lingers on his response to your comment, regardless of which dialogue option you choose. If you agree that that sounds awful, he says, “You think so too, huh?” – you think that it’s bad to treat someone that way, and yet, you sure are treating him that way anyway. If you instead mutter an awkward apology, Kieran asks, “For what?” This could read like he’s calling you out for not being able to admit to what you should be apologising for, but actually, I’m not sure that’s it. It could also be him genuinely asking that, because he doesn’t realise you need to apologise for anything. Hold this thought, I’ll go into it more in a bit.

It's because he’s weak

The other thing that happens at the third signboard is Kieran challenging you to another battle. He doesn’t really explain why, but I suspect he’s hoping that if he wins and proves his strength to you, you might just tell him the truth, or at least it’ll give him the courage to confront you about your lie. This is the first battle in which he says he wants to win and is actively trying and hoping to do so, rather than just accepting his loss before he’s even started. His optimism is pretty fragile, though, as he laments “it wasn’t supposed to go like this” if you hit him super-effectively, and “why does it have to be like this?” when he’s down to his last Pokémon.

But of course, he loses, just like he must secretly have been expecting to all along (how could he ever beat someone as strong as you?). And so he concludes, “it’s all ‘cause I’m too weak” – not just losing the battle, but everything. Why he’s always left out and shunned by everyone, why you lied to him and went behind his back about something you knew was important to him – it’s because he’s weak. He was battling you to try and prove that he’s stronger, strong enough to deserve better than that… but of course he isn’t.

A particularly important little subtlety is that he mutters “That’s why I…” – because it would have been easy to expect this line to say “you” instead. That you lied to him and shunned him because he’s weak, that it’s your fault for choosing to treat someone weak like this. But Kieran isn’t framing it that way. He’s thinking of it as his fault, simply for being weak, and that’s why he will always inevitably be treated like crap by everyone around him. As if that’s nobody else’s fault for choosing to do that, but simply the natural way of things when someone’s weak. As if he deserves this for being weak.

(So: what are you sorry for? You shouldn’t be sorry for anything; it’s his fault, isn’t it? Someone as strong and perfect as you could never be conflicted or in the wrong.)

By the end of this signboard visit, Kieran’s leaving on his own, saying that he’s got to get stronger with his Pokémon. All of this is happening because he’s weak, so he needs to be stronger – and apparently, that means “strength in Pokémon battling”. In reality, even if he did become the best battler out there, that wouldn’t necessarily make him any better at standing up for himself in social situations or being independent and reliable in other ways, but he’s very much conflating the different kinds of strength. This probably has a lot to do with his schooling at Blueberry Academy, which teaches Pokémon battling, leaving him overly focused on battling strength as the only kind of strength that matters. Perhaps he was picked on at school because he wasn’t very good at the battling classes, which wouldn’t have helped. I hope we see some glimpses of this in The Indigo Disk.

And on the topic of Kieran fixating on getting stronger at Pokémon battling: his Furret is never seen in his team again after this point. It was one of the first two Pokémon he used against you, so it’s presumably one of his closest Pokémon partners, which makes it heartbreaking that he ditches it from his team because, clearly, it’s too weak. Even worse, he’s inflicting being left out and shunned on someone else – someone he probably cared about – precisely because it’s weak. That’s just what happens to people who are weak, right? Guh. Poor Furret.

Outburst at Loyalty Plaza

Kieran most likely spends the next 24 hours alternating between fervently training as hard as he can, and stewing in his feelings of loneliness and rejection and betrayal. His grandpa mentions that he spent that night in his room after not even eating dinner, which, yeah, when he’s sharing a house with two of the people who are lying to him, not surprising. Oof. And more than just pain and betrayal, he’s got to be feeling so much anger, anger which he’s never been able to truly express, because every time he tries to stand up for himself he always gets shot down – but that only makes the suppressed anger worse.

The correct thing to do would have been for Kieran to confront everyone calmly about the lie as soon as he became aware of it. But because he couldn’t just do that, his resentment festered inside of him with no real outlet, until finally it becomes unbearable and explodes out of him and he has to do something to express it, no matter how questionable. So he steals the Teal Mask and runs off with it.

I don’t think Kieran actually has much of an idea of what he’s going to do with the mask. The one logical thing would have been to give it back to Ogerpon himself, but that can’t be his intent, because he doesn’t go anywhere near her den with it. And I highly doubt he’s planning to break it or anything like that, since he’d never do something that’d hurt Ogerpon. Really, I think he just wants you and Carmine to notice and acknowledge what he’s going through and what you’ve done to him – and if he steals the mask, you’re going to have to confront him to get it back.

He heads to Loyalty Plaza in particular because he’s conflating his own situation with Ogerpon’s. In amongst his pain and anger at the way he’s being treated, he’d have also been feeling a lot of anger at the injustice of how Ogerpon was and is treated, because he was right all along that she was never the bad guy, but she’s shunned undeservedly while the “Loyal” Three are lauded as heroes. Even though this outburst from Kieran is really all about his own situation, he makes it about Ogerpon first, because that’s easier for him to openly be angry about. He only brings up his own treatment as a comparison to how Ogerpon is treated like an outcast, as if the only way he can frame it as wrong in his head is by comparing it to something that’s definitely wrong. (After all, he deserves to be shunned because he’s weak – but Ogerpon didn’t deserve any of it, because she’s so much stronger!)

During Kieran’s outburst, Carmine blurts out an apology on realising that she’s hurt him – but Kieran basically just ignores it and continues to vent. Which tells us something interesting: that Kieran never did this out of any attempt to get you and Carmine to apologise for lying to him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have reacted in some way when Carmine did just that. So I think, in keeping with Kieran’s belief that all this is his fault for being weak, he doesn’t actually think you two need to apologise for anything. He’s lashing out because he’s angry and in pain and doesn’t know how else to deal with it, but he’s not consciously thinking that you and Carmine are in the wrong.

He’s also still holding onto the idea that you and Carmine were just laughing at him behind his back, which is of course not true, but when Carmine tries to say that, Kieran snaps back that she’s a liar. Given that she undeniably has lied to him about one very important thing, of course Kieran would find it easy to believe that she could be lying to him about anything and he can’t trust any reassurance she gives him. This poor kid must have such a history of being mistreated and patronised by others to jump to assuming things like this.

Lashing out with a battle

Then Kieran challenges you to another battle, promising to give back the mask if you win. Since there’s no way he is truly expecting to be able to beat you, this means that he never really intended to keep the mask forever. But he also doesn’t just want to seem like some weak pushover who’ll roll over and give in as soon as he’s confronted, so he at least wants to make you fight him for it. And based on his line at the beginning of the battle – “I know this isn’t right, but… I can’t just hand over the mask to you!” – he doesn’t want to just give up one of Ogerpon’s possessions so easily to someone who treated him like an outcast the same way those villagers back then treated Ogerpon.

Really, I think the battle – and the notably forceful way he asks for it, unlike the previous times – just comes a lot from Kieran’s anger, and his need to externalise it somehow. He even insists that he needs this battle, if you’re hesitant about accepting the challenge. There’s probably a part of him that wants to lash out with physical violence, maybe punch you or something, but he knows that’s wrong and that it’d look pathetically impotent of him anyway even if he tried. Happily, this world has a socially-accepted form of violence-by-proxy instead, so Pokémon battle it is!

As for the battle itself, Kieran’s switched up his team some more, removing Furret as previously mentioned, and adding two new members instead of just one like the previous times – but the Cramorant he uses here doesn’t stick around either. This is less sad to me than Furret, though, because he wouldn’t have been very close to it. Cramorant may even have been taken onto the team with the condition of “I’m trying out new team members to see who’s strong enough”, at which point ditching it is less of a betrayal and more of it simply failing a job interview.

(Meanwhile, the other newcomer, Gligar, clearly impressed Kieran a lot with its strength, as it becomes his ace for the final fight. Fitting that his ace there is not a long-time partner, but one obtained only after he began to fixate on getting stronger.)

He’s also more openly determined to win (despite his suppressed conviction that he could never beat you), and remains more optimistic than before even when things aren’t going so well for him. In fact, this is the only battle in which Kieran has lines for hitting you with a super effective move or a critical hit. That said, he’s still a little insecure, based on an optional line: “I need to get this right… I’m gonna make sure to give the right commands!” which tells us that he feels like his losses are his fault for making mistakes and choosing the wrong moves, rather than blaming his Pokémon for not being strong enough. He also has an absolutely great comment in this battle if you land a critical hit, which I have to highlight: “What can’t you do? You’re like the hero in a story…” It’s purely luck, but despite that, he’s seeing you as this impossibly perfect hero that he could never ever measure up to, and this delights me.

Losing the battle just seems to make Kieran’s frustration at his own inferiority even worse, to the point that he does indulge in some physical violence, towards the shrine. Which is as pathetic as he must have been expecting, and should in theory have been harmless enough. (Of course, it appears that this is what somehow resurrects the Lousy Three, but there is no way Kieran expected or wanted that to happen, so he can’t be blamed for that.) Then he gives the mask back, just as he promised he would, and (ignoring another attempt by Carmine to apologise – again, this was never about that to him) he runs off back home.

So I find it really hard to condemn Kieran for… any of his actions here? Sure, he stole the mask, but he didn’t do anything bad with it and gave it back just fine (and must have always been intending to). All he was doing was lashing out – unhealthily, but basically harmlessly – over the really very callous way you and Carmine had been treating him. And if he hadn’t done this, you two would probably never have told him the truth about Ogerpon, and he’d have remained out of the loop and never met her at all! That would have been awful!

And yet: making you and Carmine bring him into the loop about Ogerpon and getting the chance to meet her is also not something Kieran was aiming for here. Just before leaving in a sulk, he says, “Say hi to the ogre for me” – which means that he never expected to get to meet it himself. He is still, even by the end of this confrontation, labouring under the belief that you and Carmine don’t want him there with Ogerpon and that he doesn’t deserve to meet her at all.

Apologies, and a lack thereof

After you rescue Ogerpon from being bullied by the resurrected Lousy Three, Carmine shows up with Kieran in tow. Apparently she found him moping around at home and dragged him here to apologise to you about his stunt with the mask. Which, yes, does warrant an apology – but what really frustrates me about this part is that Carmine doesn’t apologise for what you and she did wrong. Sure, she blurted out a couple of cut-off apologies back at Loyalty Plaza, but those never had the intended effect when Kieran was in no emotional state to accept them. Here and now, he’s calmed down enough that he would be able to take on board an apology… but Carmine doesn’t give one. It’s possible that she already apologised at home before bringing him here, but if she’d done that, then she really ought to have got you to also apologise for lying to him, and she doesn’t – so I can only assume that didn’t happen. And you the player can choose to apologise to Kieran here anyway, but since it’s optional, it’s not given nearly the attention it deserves.

Since Kieran never gets a proper apology while he’s in a state to listen, it means he never actually ends up internalising the fact that you were in the wrong to lie to him and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Which would have been a really, really important thing for him to realise! As it is, he continues to quietly assume that all of this is his fault for being weak, with nobody to tell him that this way of thinking is flawed.

It's frustrating, but I do kind of get it, from Carmine at least, because she’s also a pretty flawed person. Her deal seems to be that she’s only able to be emotionally sincere in uncontrolled outbursts when she’s worked up, and when she’s calm she covers up her true feelings with bossiness and vanity. Which makes her not at all capable of apologising to Kieran when he’s in a calm enough state to be capable of registering it. These siblings’ issues do not mesh well. Still, here’s hoping that Carmine’s able to self-reflect enough to acknowledge her partial responsibility for Kieran’s suffering by the end of The Indigo Disk.

She does seem to realise her mistake here enough to make a point of trying to include Kieran in their Ogerpon adventures from here on out, at least. But it’s too little too late in terms of how Kieran views things. He seems to have assumed that Carmine dragged him here only to apologise, and not to properly meet Ogerpon or be involved in helping her out, because he expresses surprise when Carmine casually includes him as part of the Mask Retrieval Squad. He was expecting to be shunned and left out as always – what do you mean, she wants him there?

Meeting Ogerpon

The only interaction Kieran was expecting to have with Ogerpon here was giving the fixed-up mask back to her, because he wanted to be the one to do so – but she shies away from him when he offers it. Carmine comments that she’s probably scared of new people, and this is likely the truth, but Kieran’s silent response suggests that he’s not necessarily agreeing with that assessment. Remember, from earlier: Kieran is convinced that Ogerpon values strength. And he’s so used to being shunned by others, especially strong people, because he’s weak. It would be very, very easy for him to come to the irrational conclusion that the reason Ogerpon refuses him is because of his weakness, even though his sister’s suggesting something else.

Despite Kieran’s key misconceptions about Ogerpon’s values, he does continue to understand her better than most people in certain ways. When you try to head into town with her, Kieran’s the one to point out that she’s probably afraid to go in because of the way she’s been treated by the townspeople. He also comments that she’ll feel safe going to retrieve the masks from the Three as long as she’s with you. He empathises with that insecurity and social anxiety enough that, seeing it from Ogerpon in person, he can instinctively see that’s the case about her too.

And yet… seeing Ogerpon’s fear, and understanding that she’s scared of being shunned just like him (which he previously said the ogre didn’t care at all about!), doesn’t actually change the part of Kieran that is also irrationally convinced that she only cares about strength. There’s no moment in which he seems to be re-evaluating Ogerpon or realising anything new about her upon seeing her being afraid. The part where she’s shy and afraid, and the part where she’s strong and cool and therefore values strength in others, manage to be separate enough in his mind that he never actually cross-references them to realise that one of these surely can’t be as true as he thinks it is. So his false conviction that things are about strength to Ogerpon still remains, unchallenged.

Staying behind

Then, even though Carmine is making an active point of trying to include him, Kieran… chooses not to come with you on the mission to retrieve the masks. This is despite the fact that this’d be his best chance to spend time with Ogerpon and hopefully get her to warm up to him, which you’d think would be his priority when he’s quietly hoping to maybe have the chance to become her partner.

But even though it would be a logical choice for Kieran to come with them, it makes perfect sense to me why he doesn’t. As far as he sees things, you and Carmine are way stronger than him and already have the fights against the Three covered – he’d be nothing but a useless third wheel hanging back, only there out of Carmine’s pity for him and not because he’s needed. And in terms of Ogerpon, Kieran is the kid who visited her den countless times but never had the courage to call out to her and ask to be friends. Of course he knows he wouldn’t have the confidence to actually try and get closer to Ogerpon, especially not when she’s already got someone she likes (someone who’s strong while he’s weak, which is clearly what matters to her, right). He knows he’ll just spend the whole time watching Ogerpon obviously like you way more than him while not being able to do a thing about it, and it’ll just make him feel even more jealous and left out.

(Trust me, as someone with social anxiety who spent a lot of my childhood being low-key outcasted by my so-called friend groups, I get it. When you’ve lived like that, integrating yourself with new people can feel downright impossible, no matter how much you may want it.)

So Kieran doesn’t come on the mission – but it’s not like he just uselessly sulks around, either. He spends the time doing something else to help Ogerpon, something neither you nor Carmine seemingly thought needed to be done: telling the town the truth that she was never a bad guy. Because of course Kieran understands best just how hard it is for Ogerpon to be shunned and outcast by everyone, and of course he has some Strong Feelings that people deserve to be told the truth, hmm I wonder where that might have come from. This task is really difficult and scary for him, too, because he hates talking to people – but he does it anyway, for Ogerpon’s sake! What a brave lad!

(I’ve seen people side-eye the fact that the villagers accept the truth and turn around their view of Ogerpon so easily, but honestly it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I get the mask maker way back when being persecuted because the villagers of the time saw Ogerpon kill the Three and made assumptions, but, like, it’s been generations. All of the witnesses who had that emotional gut reaction to the fight are long dead. Most of the people alive today didn’t even truly believe the story of the ogre was real until the Loyal Three showed up – they just thought it was a fun folktale that gives their village some unique culture. So for them to be told “hey, the ogre is real, but also the story’s backwards and the ogre’s actually the good guy”… so what? I was always sceptical of Grandpa’s conviction that the truth must never be told to the village (because… people will get angry that they were lied to? So therefore you should just keep lying to them so they never find out they have something to be angry about? Yes, great tactic, it worked so well on Kieran). Kieran basically just went and proved that there really was nothing to be worried about all along and the people should have been told the truth ages ago.)

His final chance to be strong

So now we reach the end, where Ogerpon makes it clear that she wants to stay with you, and… and even though he must have seen this coming, Kieran can’t accept it happening without trying to fight against it.

This isn’t even really about Kieran wanting Ogerpon’s friendship in and of itself. It’s more about what the concept of being partners with Ogerpon means to him. This whole time, he’s been obsessed with the ogre, and yet only letting himself imagine that maybe one day when he’s stronger, he could be its friend. He’s fixated on the idea of befriending Ogerpon as something that will mean he’s strong and no longer alone and everything is good now. Obviously this is extremely irrational and not necessarily true nor the sole way to fix his problems, but that’s how things are in Kieran’s head.

And so, with recent events making him feel even more weak and outcast than ever, you being effortlessly strong and cool enough to befriend Ogerpon on top of everything else feels to Kieran like it’s about to take away his one chance to turn things around, forever. Of course he can’t just let that happen without at least trying to have things his way. He says right at the beginning of the battle: “I know you’re probably a better trainer for Ogerpon, but I… I…” – and he can’t even voice the end of that sentence. He can’t put into words why he feels like he needs to become Ogerpon’s partner even though he knows he's being selfish and she’d be better off with you, because it’s not based in any conscious logic and is all just one big subconscious irrational mess of his issues and inferiority complex.

I’ve seen a lot of people condemn Kieran for this part, saying that he’s ignoring Ogerpon’s wishes because he’s planning to force her to join him whether she wants to or not if he wins. However, I firmly disagree that Kieran has any such thing in mind here. Remember, he’s still labouring under the misconception that what Ogerpon cares about most is strength. He thinks she likes you so much because you’re so strong (remember the previous time he battled you in front of the den, where he commented that the ogre must be thinking how strong you are if it’d seen that?), and that she refused the mask from him that one time because he’s weak. So Kieran has convinced himself that if he can prove himself to be stronger than you, by defeating you in a battle while Ogerpon’s watching, then she’ll naturally choose him to be her trainer over you. Right?

When Carmine says that he has to consider Ogerpon’s feelings, Kieran’s simply silent for a moment before saying “…I want to battle anyway.” He’s not denying that Ogerpon’s choice is what matters – he just believes, or is at least trying to believe, that her choice will be determined by this battle. And of course he doesn’t say anything like “Ogerpon will choose me if I’m stronger than you”, because – well, perhaps because a lot of this is also subconscious enough that he can’t articulate it, but even if any of it was conscious, he knows it’d sound stupid. Especially the part where he’d be talking like it’s possible for him to beat you, because deep down, he still completely convinced that’s impossible.

Plus, nowhere in this does Kieran bring up the fact that he told the village the truth about Ogerpon as a point in his favour for why she might choose him – which supports that it’s not about any kind of friendly gestures to him and he’s convinced she’ll make her decision entirely based on strength. (And it also proves that he did that out of a genuine desire to help Ogerpon, without any ulterior motives of trying to get her to like him!)

Just before the battle, he says: “Whoever wins gets to be Ogerpon’s partner… So don’t… don’t you dare hold back!” – making a point of demanding you don’t hold back, even though you might think he’d want any advantage he can get towards supposedly winning Ogerpon’s favour. But this makes perfect sense when you realise what this is about to Kieran. He believes that Ogerpon will choose (and deserves to choose) whichever of you is the strongest, and this battle won’t actually prove that if he only wins because you were holding back against him.

Kieran also thanks you for not holding back when you land your first super effective hit, which I enjoy. He’s so used to being patronised and seen as weak and pathetic, so he’s actually glad that you’re taking him seriously and viewing him as a legitimate opponent.

And, hey, he is! His team is pretty stacked: a full six Pokémon with solid movesets, and even strategic held items (at least in the postgame version). Assuming you’re not over-levelled, it’s quite a challenging fight, as it should be. Kieran is trying so, so hard to be strong enough, because this poor kid has convinced himself that all of his problems and pain are due to him being weak, and he is so desperate to fix that by proving himself even stronger than you, strong enough to win Ogerpon’s favour.

When he loses, he just crumples, and it’s heartbreaking. Kieran had so much more riding on this battle than just befriending Ogerpon – this was what felt like his one and only chance to stamp out the part of him that feels crushingly inferior and like he deserves to be treated like dirt. Guhhh.

And of course the first thing out of his mouth is, “Figures.” His inferiority complex runs so deep that, no matter how hard he’d trained and how genuinely really good his team had grown, he never truly believed that he ever had a chance at beating someone as cool and strong as you. He was just desperately trying to convince himself that he at least had a shot, because he couldn’t bear to give up without trying.

I really wish you could tell Kieran how good he was in this battle! It truly is impressive how much better he’s grown at battling since the first one, in such a short space of time, too. Just because he’s not quite as strong as you doesn’t mean he’s weak, not by a long shot. But nobody tells him any such thing, so Kieran continues to view things in that irrationally all-or-nothing way. He lost, so he's weak, end of.

Then he has to stand there and watch you battle Ogerpon in order to catch her. Before all of this happened, Kieran would have been so stoked to see his hero the ogre showing off just how cool and strong she is – and hey, her powers really are pretty awesome to behold! But here, despite the amazing spectacle in front of him, Kieran just looks supremely awkward. Like he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be here. Like he doesn’t even have the right to get to see Ogerpon’s full strength in all its glory. You’re the only one who’s strong enough to have earned this.

He does make one possible comment during the battle, if you land a critical hit on Ogerpon: “You really are good… I’m no match.” Which is a bit excessive, considering that really anyone is capable of critting Ogerpon if they get lucky – but apparently Kieran’s thoughts during this battle are still incredibly hung up on just how strong you are and how he’ll never be able to measure up to you. This goes to show that his issues at this point have shifted to be more about you than about Ogerpon. Which tracks, since his admiration for the ogre was never quite about Ogerpon herself and was more about what her strength represented to him – and now you’ve come along and given him an even bigger example of impossibly cool strength, in a much more painful way.

Once you’ve captured Ogerpon, Kieran manages to awkwardly congratulate you on it – hey, he’s doing his best not to be a sore loser! – laments once again why he can’t be like you, and then runs off. No doubt he’s feeling a huge heap of uncontainable painful emotions that he does not want to show in front of you or Carmine and needs to go let out in private. This kid is Not Okay.

So, in summary: Kieran comes out of all this with the message that all of his pain and suffering and loneliness is his fault because he’s still too weak, and he will only ever be strong enough to put all that behind him once he’s stronger than you. And to do that, he needs to get so, so much stronger, almost impossibly so, no matter what he has to do to achieve it. I’m sure this will be Just Fine leading into The Indigo Disk. (: (: (:

And one last thing: the game doesn’t let this happen, but if Kieran had won that final battle against you, I believe things might actually have turned out better. Because let’s face it, Ogerpon would probably still have chosen to go with you anyway, and if she had, Kieran would have been forced to face the fact that it was never actually about strength to her. It wouldn’t even be that hard for him to understand that, given that he’d already noticed the indications that she was scared of being shunned by the townspeople and that she liked you because you made her feel safe. This would help Kieran recontextualise things a little and stop focusing so unhealthily on gaining more battling strength as the One Thing that will solve all his problems. He still wouldn’t exactly be suddenly fixed and happy, but… things wouldn’t be quite so bad, at least. Alas, you are Too Protagonist to lose and let that happen.

[greater-than-the-sword]

I know this is a very regional specific dilemma, but those "Protestant churches look awful" posts hit weird especially because I remember a time when there were good Protestant churches which had pews, steeples, little crosses on the top, windows with colors in them, even. They were wholesome places to spend a Sunday afternoon running around with your friends playing hide-and-seek in the church basement. Nowadays if you see any of those on a church in the PNW, that's the sign that place is a pagan temple. It's as good as dead. Even if it doesn't have Pride flags hanging all over it, it might as well. The corruption of the mainline churches damaged our aesthetic associations as well