#or I guess by getting into the higher dimensional physics of alternate universes and in canon having two equally real endings. oh my god

[splicejunction]

The key to writing rictor and shatterstar as toxic codependent yuri is to realize that neither of them will ever be able to fully believe that the other truly loves them (rictor because he’s too insecure and ‘star because he’ll never feel like he can trust his interpretation of rictor’s actions. Due to his nature. man who acts the most sure in his actions and statements has the most doubt about them. You know how it is) but they each believe they will never find anyone they want more than the first person they ever did so they keep getting back together. like. they each believe this is as good as it’s going to get. and I have two ideas for an ending (one good one and the other evil) so if I write this I’m leaving it ambiguous which actually happens. probably by writing two canon “epilogues” that spell out the alternate endings and and coexist with each other as equal possibilities in the canon

[script-a-world]

hello. i want to write a story set in a very religious place. like fanatic level of religious. in my mind, this place is ruled by what the church says but has a "cover" figure to "connect" with the people. the people of this place are devoted to their religion, meaning they know passages, go to mass, and shun those who don't support it. here is my question: how does one go about creating a religion that feels real? what do i need to take into consideration (i'm not religious myself).

Mod Miri Note: At the same time this came in we also received from the google form the question “How do I world build a religion?” I can’t confirm they’re the same anon, but we’re combining them for the answer.

Brainstormed: You seem to have a very… narrow perception of religion? If you aren’t religious yourself and you’re (presumably) from a Western culture, it makes sense that the Christian church and more specifically Catholicism are your go-to images of hyperreligion. Saying “mass” and “church” and “passages” kind of gives away the fact that you’re trying to base your religion off of at least your idea of an Abrahamic religion, but I’d ask you to reconsider. Right now it sounds like you’re trying to create a negative critique of these religions, and even if that is what you’re going for, you need to do a lot of research on their theology, history, and practices before you can do so with any competence.

I’d suggest doing some basic research on types of religions, like animism, pantheism, polytheism, general superstition, etc. There are plenty of spiritual worldviews that you might consider way over the top, but whose believers find it more bizarre when people don’t follow their teachings. Fanatics are never fanatics in their own mind, and especially among their own people, but also… fanatic might be a relative term. If you’re approaching this from a nonreligious background, then you might consider X-amount of religion in one’s lifestyle to be fanatic-level. Whereas a person who actively practices religion would consider X-amount to be perfectly normal, and only folks who take it to XX-amount plus some shadier practices are the true fanatics.

Remember, religions start because people want to make sense of the world. There is a deeper feeling of wonder and personhood and power, both within a human being and in the whole world around us, that drives spirituality and generates superstition. Religion, at least to start, is beneficial to people, otherwise no one but sadists would follow its teachings. Now, like anything else, religion can devolve into a means of power hoarding and control of a populace, but only because of the people in charge getting greedy. The vast majority of religions I’ve studied have had radical, freeing, empowering teachings applicable to everybody when they first sprang up, and only later did adherents twist those teachings into societal oppression. If there is no satisfaction or benefit in your religion, there won’t exactly be any incentive for people to follow it so closely, aside from whatever negative consequences occur for those who fall away. And negative consequences aren’t often enough to keep people in a religion. If following religion is more painful than the consequences of leaving it, plenty of people will jump ship.

Religion can also show up in every single part of life. According to Wikipedia:

A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept.

You look up and see a cloud, a spiritual person sees a portent, or a spirit, or a castle where the gods live. You take a break from work for a minute, a spiritual person now has time to mutter a prayer, or observe the mood of the world, or dedicate their work to their god. A person doesn’t have to be anywhere near a fanatic to have their religion be in every part of their life. Especially if they adhere to a more lax spirituality or superstitious worldview instead of an organized religion, the central spiritual experience of religious belief alters the perception of self and surroundings. It isn’t only a set of rules to follow.

It can even help areas of society that modern Western society considers nonreligious! Historically, medicine has always come under religion. Witch doctors, medicine men, witchcraft, even the hygiene laws laid out in the Christian Bible. Physical health has often been considered a reflection of spiritual health, which, in a way, is true! The placebo effect means tending to one’s mental and emotional health with the reassurance of religion will improve one’s physical health as well. Not only that, but the power of a “spiritual experience”, regardless of if you believe the supernatural is real, can cause religious ecstacy, something you might perceive as a serious psychological problem but those who experience it consider to be a deep form of spiritual expression to be treasured and sought after. The spread and preservation of information is also often aided by religion, even though that can change should those in power want to change history or obscure truth for their own reasons. Just look at the history of the printing press and how that was driven by the need for Bibles. Many cultures, most famously Australian Aboriginal peoples, have oral histories thousands of years long that tie in closely to their spirituality.

You also might be confusing religion with cults. If you think all religion is predatory, playing on people’s weaknesses and fears in order to coerce them into a miserable lifestyle of following strict laws and living under control of those in power, you definitely have conflated “religion” and “cult”. If you’d like to worldbuild a cult, go ahead! It’s likely to be smaller and less acceptable than an established organized religion, not very transparent to the outside world nor its members, and have a spirituality that is in fact just a veneer over gaining power, instead of genuine belief and devotion, and may in fact require people to murder or commit suicide. Just look at Scientology, or these, or even Jared Leto, and a more in-depth look from this organization covering many different kinds of cults.

On a more worldbuildy note, are those who practice this religion correct? Does their god(s) exist? Is the supernatural real? If yes, then are they really fanatics if they’ve been right all along? Even if they’re incorrect, the dedication and deep-held beliefs of religious people shouldn’t be mocked wholesale, in my opinion. Make sure to keep some genuine three-dimensional development for characters who are part of this religion, or include other religions with different practices, or the only thing you’ll accomplish is “waaaa religion bad believers dumb”. And if that is the story you want to write, feel free, but I can’t help you there.

Feral: What makes a religion feel real? Sincere faith.

Specifically among the leaders. I mean, sure, those lemming-like peasants who actually believe that superstitious nonsense will have sincere faith, but honestly? There is going to be a higher percentage of people faking it among the masses than among the clergy. Clergy members are generally required to go through rigorous studies and often take vows that can cause great discomfort. I am sure there are those who did it for the power - there are in atheist organizations as well, humans can be crap - but if you actually read the writings of important Church leaders of the past, not to mention rabbis, imams & mullahs, and archakas, you’re going to find that they have sincere faith.

Something you should always keep in mind when developing pre-modern religion in a Western context is that before the advent of modern scholarship, which starts to become a thing in the West during the Renaissance, all the important scholars were clergy. And again, those learned people either had to be really, really dedicated to their power-hungry ambitions or had to have sincere faith.

That does not make religions perfect by any means nor does it mean that the god they have sincere faith in is omnibenevolent (though the qualities of an omnibenevolent god will be strongly dependent on the culture that worships it). And religious leaders are absolutely capable of doing terrible, terrible things even if they profess to worship an omnibenevolent god, and politicians can definitely twist things around to suit their needs (again, this is not exclusive to religiosity). But your ask has this weird given that a major religion (on par with Catholicism/Christianity) in your world is a scam, and while yes, that happens in cults and alternative religions and in splinter groups*, as Brainstormed pointed out that’s just not how, at least, the four major religions of our world got started.

Yes, it’s true that bureaucracies of a certain size and age will inevitably begin to change focus to protecting its own existence. And yes, it’s true that ambitious sociopaths will be drawn to places of authority even if they are difficult to achieve. And yes, it’s true that an individual entering a toxic environment is more likely to be changed by the environment than to change the environment. But guess what! That has nothing to do with whether the organization is religious or not.

Why does a religion exist in the first place? It explains the universe in a pre-modern world; it provides organization and structure for community focus - in other words, many social programs have historically been run through religious organizations and leadership. And it provides hope and comfort in a very scary world.

Some clergy might be able to fake all of that for a little while, but a large bureaucracy with many clerics who are all in on the fake? No. Allow me to rephrase: hell no. People are not dumb. Maybe you believe that of all religious people, but you are wrong and they are not. The people in your world, if they’re anything like the people in our world, are gonna sniff out the bullshit if none of their religious leaders believe what they’re selling. There is a reason Scientology has to keep blackmail files on all its adherents, and I promise you, the Catholic Church does not do that.

*A note on cults, alternative religions, and splinter groups: Cults and alternative religions (their PR friendly name) are “religions” that are scammy and/or actively dangerous to the participants or others: People’s Temple, Branch Davidian, etc. Splinter groups are congregations that start as normal members of a large religion or denomination but its insular culture creates a divide that just takes things a little too far even for the most fanatical of the main sect (think terrorist groups that link themselves to religions). These types of religions might be what you are actually asking about. Groups like these can be highly, highly influential but in a very contained area. What cults often do is the leader settles in an area and buys property and builds a church and maybe a school and then encourages the members to all move either onto the plot of land if it’s large enough or to buy up surrounding land and homes and push out all the non-believers. That area can then be fortified or just have a de facto boundary with the rest of the world. Sometimes a group like this can become large enough to constitute an entire town, but rarely a city - groups that large will more often have centralized compounds but with the members living scattered among non-believers, as Scientology does. Obviously a group concentrated like that will have an impact on local politics, if they are allowed to participate, but it’s not going to go farther than the county line, so to speak. As we all know from the news, splinter groups like ISIS can become very large and globe spanning, but those types of groups have within them splinter groups and factions, and I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about anyway, so I’m just going to leave it there.

But frankly, your ask reads to me as “how do I create a fantasy!Catholic that is secretly evil and will show the audience how evil religion is in the real world? Opiate of the masses!” And my advice is… don’t. Because it lacks compassionate understanding of people of faith (many faiths), it lacks a factual understanding of how world religions differ and function, it totally lacks nuance, and finally, because it is absolutely, monumentally, extremely, really, very cliche.

Maybe the way your ask is coming across to me is totally not how you intended it. Maybe you only used the jargon you used because you assumed we wouldn’t know any other terms and maybe your understanding of world religions is actually quite sophisticated. Maybe you really do have this insanely clever way to spin a tired cliche into some new and original. In these cases, we strongly encourage you to come right back with as jargon-full and specific an ask as you can write, use our submission google form to do it. Otherwise, give our responses some thought and if after you’ve developed your religion, you want to come back with a specific ask other than “how do I world build a religion?” (which is a little too broad), please feel free.

[in-tua-deep]

Do both Fives get put in school in your double trouble AU? Do they get to have a chance at a (semi) normal childhood? How do the siblings handle having to actually parent one young kid and an actually an old man kid? And does young!Five bring out the childish side of old!Five? I just love this entire concept and young!Five having to fit in with the absolute disaster that his family has turned into. He loves them anyway.

“You know, we could go to school.”

Five flips a page in his book and ignored his ‘twin’ aggressively. But he could feel the heat of the stare from across the room and it was interfering with his concentration. So he glances up to meet gazes with a face identical to his own. “We aren’t going to school.”

“Why not?” Baby Five asks. Five shoots him a look but baby Five ignores him with ease, face earnest in a way they both know is false.

“I am fifty-eight years old.” Five informs his idiot double, as though anyone could ever forget what with Five bringing up his age every other minute. “I’m not going back to school.”

“Did you really keep track in the apocalypse?” Baby Five asks, raising his eyebrows at the other. His face is full of implied doubt, and Five would be offended if it wasn’t founded. When Five doesn’t respond, Baby Five crows triumphantly, “Ha! I knew you didn’t really know how old you are.”

“The Commission estimated!” Five protested, “I’m sure they were accurate!”

“Oh? Just like how accurate they were about the apocalypse definitely happening?” 

There’s really no good response to that so Five just shoves his book off his lap and crosses his arms childishly. Not that he’s a child. They already established this. 

Mercifully, Baby Five drops that line of inquiry to focus on the other equally terrible one. Perhaps not merciful after all. “What’s so bad about going to school, anyway?”

There’s a pause between them, before Five bristles, “It’s - it’s full of children that’s what!”

“You don’t even know what school is like!” Baby Five protests loudly, “You never even went! It could be fun!”

“If media has taught me anything it’s that school is in no way fun.” Five points out, standing his ground on the topic. Admittedly his knowledge of schools is limited - he only tried to scavenge around a couple during the apocalypse. Too many children’s corpses for his comfort, but a decent source of pens and paper and similar supplies.

“Claire said it’s fun.” Baby Five holds his position.

“Claire is six and the only things she’s really learning are how to read and write and make glitter monstrosities to hang upon the refrigerator.” 

“How do you know it wouldn’t be us making cool things to hang on the fridge?” Baby Five challenged, suddenly frowning. “Plus I mean - I dunno. I love Mom but I feel like she should be able to do her own thing, you know? Instead of teaching us?”

Five would like to protest that he doesn’t need the lessons since he’s an adult, but Grace has been a life saver when it comes to bringing both of her boys up to date on the present day and also gently giving them books and worksheets about things they never got to in lessons since they left at thirteen. 

“You want to be stuck learning about basic algebra and geometry?” Five asks instead, because it’s easier focusing on how school inconveniences them instead of how they are inconveniencing others. But his voice is just a tiny bit more uncertain that it was before.

Baby Five sighs deeply, “I mean. I guess not. But I’m bored of staying in the house all day and seeing the same people and just. Ugh. It’s been the same thing my whole life! Can’t we just like, pick and choose what classes to take? Maybe we could do maths with the higher up students.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re at like, the excessively knowledgeable ‘probably has a doctorate in mathematics’ level of maths.” Five says doubtfully, because it’s true. Five has been teaching his counterpart the equations and tricks he’s learned after forty-five years of doing nothing but think about equations and time travel in his spare time, but it’s not like it doesn’t come naturally to them. Five had always been light years ahead of his siblings when it came to the subject, and it was often a point of frustration when the others didn’t get something.

To Five, complex equations and algorithms were as second nature as walking. Sure they’d had to learn the basic at some point, but once they got the hang of it, it was easy. Time travel equations were more akin to figuring out how to walk on water instead of just walking. In this needlessly complex metaphor, that is. 

Baby Five slams his hands on the desk, making Five jump (though he’d deny it if pointed out), “That’s it! We could go to college! They let you pick classes and stuff there, right? So we could just test into the highest math class possible? Or not take one at all!” 

“We’re thirteen.” Five counters, but his tone is a little more thoughtful. “We’d have to take tests and stuff to say we’re ready to graduate high school. Which we are. Actually I’m pretty sure Reginald had us at college level when we were nine.”

“He always did have high expectations. But seriously! Just think about it! We’d get out of the house. We’d learn cool things. Luther ‘n Allison would stop fretting about what we’re gonna do with our lives. A whole new population to play tricks on.” Baby Five grins with mischief, and it makes Five crack a small smile back.

But there’s one problem. 

“Ugh, we’re going to have to legalize our existence if we want to do official things like that. And then they’re not just going to let us do our own thing, what if they try and take us away?” Five has never had a desire to go into the foster system, thank you very much.

“No one ever said we had to do things the legal way.” Baby Five sniffs, as though offended at the very thought of going through proper channels. Which, well. Yeah that sounded like the Hargreeves way. “I bet we could like, just pretend we’re the original Five’s kids or something. We would’ve been what, sixteen? There have been younger parents.”

“Pretend to be our own children? That’s your solution?” Five asks, eyebrows climbing up his face in incredulity. “And then what? Make it so we died and? Left our little orphan selves to family?”

“It’s plausible!” Baby Five protests.

“Yeah, and it would still wind up with us having one of our darling siblings as a legal guardian.” Five said firmly, which was his whole issue with this to begin with. “Which one of the boneheads downstairs do you want to have legal control of our lives?”

“Mom could do it?” 

“If you think Mom legally exists in the eyes of the law you’re even more naive than I thought.” Five sniffs, “She’s even worse off than we are.”

“Well okay miss negative Nancy,” Baby Five huffs, “You figure something out then.”

“Negative Nancy? Have you been hanging out around Klaus too often?” Five looks offended at the very possibility of their brother being an influence on his alternate self. Baby Five sticks out his tongue instead of answering.

There’s a pregnant pause between them before Five sighs, “Ugh. I’ll ask Mom about it tomorrow if it means so much to you. But I still absolutely refuse to attend a public high school with a bunch of snot nosed children.”

“We’re snot nosed children if you haven’t noticed.” Baby Five gestures between them with a roll of his eyes. This time it’s Five who sticks his tongue out childishly in response, even though as an adult he should really be above such things. 

“Maybe we can take a history course and you can correct the professor.” Baby Five offers, a vague sort of olive branch. 

“Bet you we could make at least one physics professor faint by jumping into class.” Five shoots right back, taking said olive branch with as much grace as he can allow. 

“Dibs on the time travel stuff for a thesis.” Baby Five grins.

“Absolutely not.” Five shoots down instantly, “When you spend forty years working on inter-dimensional maths, then and only then can you claim my work you little thief.”

And that ends the discussion on that.

-

BUT YEAH essentially I don’t think any iteration of Five would ever really go to high school with other kids like that because honestly?? even as an actual thirteen year old Five is lightyears ahead on some subjects and he has issues. Can you imagine Five dealing with bullies and gossip and shit teachers?? 

Five would have one (1) person pick on him and break someone’s arm because he was taught violence is the first answer to everything. He’s genuinely kind of too dangerous to be around other kids his age. He’s also not one to suffer fools lightly, and so the first time a teacher taught something wrong (which they would because history class is full of historical revision and Five was probably there for half of it) he would butt heads with someone. I knew teachers who didn’t like to be corrected and I knew teachers who would be thrilled their student actually knows a subject, it just depends.

I mean Five is thirteen and that’s what? Eighth grade? That isn’t even high school yet. I was learning geometry. I was reading the outsiders. Learning all the prepositions in english class. Making bridges out of popsicle sticks in physical science and watching that one miracle of life video again. We had to run the mile every Wednesday and it was the worst. 

You think putting Five in a PE class anywhere near other children and dodgeballs is in any universe a good idea?? He would obliterate them. He would make at least one person cry and probably send another to the nurses office and then, when he got in trouble, wouldn’t understand what he did wrong. Because Diego threw knives at him and probably hit him at least once, a foam ball should be nothing and that kid is making a fuss for no reason. Doing sprints until he pukes - you mean an average Thursday in the Reginald Regime?

at least in college Five would be able to tailor his schedule and take whatever level course he needs. He could be in very high level math courses and be in beginner’s astronomy or intro to archaeology or linguistics 101 or whatever the hell he wants to learn tbh (probably anthropology or contemporary history courses if he wants to catch up to modern day??)

as for the parenting bit, both Five’s aren’t exactly what you would call receptive to being parented by anyone thank you very much and will aggressively tell you to fuck off if you tried

BUT both Five’s also wouldn’t know what the fuck a parent looked like if it hit them in the face with a baseball bat because when they think ‘parent’ they think ‘good old Reggie here to traumatize everyone again’ so their idea of being parented is?? being told to train, being told what to do/being given a schedule to follow with specific hours carved out for everything, private training, being told their flaws in excruciating detail, etc. so like,, if the bigger Hargreeves are careful and subtle about it and frame it in a sibling way then they can sometimes get away with it

after all if Diego drives Klaus everywhere, then it’s not bad if Diego offers to drive the Fives somewhere, even if they can do it themselves. If Allison fusses and puts more food on everyone’s plates then it’s not a thing and doesn’t need to be pointed out. If everyone has to check in with hourly texts to the group chat when they’re out after dark, then it just makes sense that the Fives do as well since knowing where everyone is can only be a boon after all the shit they went through in the apocalypse

honestly the parenting going on is basically just setting up healthy boundaries (making sure the Fives knock before just fuckin jumping into someone’s room or bathroom) and gently coaxing them into going out and doing things which they can frame as family outings/taking Grace out to see the world, and also gently nudging both Fives in the direction of healthier coping mechanisms/getting them to go to therapy, that sort of thing

Vanya is a firm believer in both therapy and setting an example so she probably gently encourages the whole family to find someone to talk to and holding up setting an example to the Fives as an excuse to get her whole family into much needed therapy is very helpful

and young Five ABSOLUTELY brings out the childish side in old Five, mainly because old five actually genuinely has No Fucking Idea how adults function and while he physically grew up, his social growth was very stunted by the,, how do i put this,,, lack of Anyone Existing Around Him For Forty Years so he has like?? vague ideas of how grown up people function but not a whole lot

like his primary example of Being An Adult are a) Reginald, an eccentric billionaire who didn’t work outside of abusing children like that was his job and b) the Handler who has no concept of personal space and frequently insinuates she’s going to kill him

and THEN,, when he actually achieves his goal and gets back to his family he gets a wonderful assortment of:

Luther, who lived on the moon for four years with no social interaction. Has never owned property or held down a job. Has he ever done taxes? Has he voted in an election? Does he even have a license?

Diego, who lives in a boiler room at the back of a gym and fights crime as a vigilante in his spare time after flunking out of the police academy. Has anger issues and an obsession with knives.

Allison, the movie star whose personal life is a fucking WRECK and is going through a brutal child custody case after she mind controlled her child on multiple occasions. 

Klaus, who in general is just a wreck of a human being who has no occupation that I know of and is frequently in and out of rehab. Also homeless and overdoses on a seemingly regular basis if the nonchalant-ness with the paramedic says anything on that.

Ben, who is dead and invisible to them but who likely died before reaching adulthood anyway so.

Vanya, who has managed to hold down a job and home but has no social life to speak of and taste in men bad enough to literally end the world if given the chance. Seething with anger and resentment that has been bottled down and doesn’t know how to deal with her own emotions (though that was mostly Reggie’s fault tbh)

but as you can see there is not one single human adult in the Fives lives that is even in the ballpark of healthy normal adult role model.

I got away from myself but my point is that Five doesn’t know how adults act and baby Five is capable of prodding Five into joining his shenanigans partially because of this fact and partially because Five just genuinely wants to have fun sometimes

and if, occasionally, the duo pretend to be one another so that Five has an excuse for acting as childish as his genuinely teen counterpart then, well,,, who can tell them apart anyway? and it’s in the name of the game and confusing their siblings so there

I have plenty of feelings about the double trouble au goodness gracious