#the book of mormom

[saturnerens]

trey parker is so unbelievably real for this

[themythecho]

guys wait I need someone to hear this because I am genuinely SO proud of my spiritual improvement. So this boy and I that I would say I like have been texting back and fourth after this DnD meet, right? He asked if I was single last night (But I was already asleep), to which I awoke this morning and said “YeahI am lol, why?” So I texted my friends about this and I was like “I genuinely don’t know what to say, because I like him, but Mormons aren’t supposed to date till 16” (I’m 14) and so I have decided once he texts me back IF he even does, that I am going to say no. Specifically so I can focus more on God, as I also want to date someone who is Mormon preferably (But if they’re not, and I’m of age, and they’re respectful of the church and beliefs don’t counter it completely then I’ll pray abt that when I get to that). But I am genuinely so proud of my spiritual improvement because a year ago (When I was like atheist all the way) I would of just said yes, and I did to this one boy, long story short it did not work out. So anyway just wanted to share because low key I am actually so proud right now.

[wherepoetswentodie]

watched a book of mormon bootleg last night and now my eye is twitching and my laptop keeps on opening on a blank google docs

[musinerd]

i have the FATTEST crush on jack mcneill bro it's not even funny

[tyin-cherry-knots]

the only way I can drive my brother places without him arguing with me is if i pop in the Book of Mormon cd so yeah

[lavender-ghosting]

Normally I get unreasonably obsessed with one musical a year. 2021 was Groundhog Day the Muscial, 2022 was Frankenstein: A New Musical, 2023 was Wicked. I don't know what happened this year. I am DROWNING IN MUSICALS.

Falsettos, Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, plus a revived love of some of the songs from Count of Monte Cristo

[thoughtfulfoxllama]

Mormon Hot Take-

Evolution and Mormonism are completely compatible

Arguments:

1.) "Bruce McKonkie said that's not true." He did, in a book that was so doctrinally inaccurate that the First Presidency told him he had to edit it

2.) "But so did Joseph F Smith." At that time, Creationism was still being taught in schools, so Evolution was not only a new idea, but also solely associated with Atheism. So of course he spoke out against it

3.) "Joseph Smith said that the Earth was only a few thousand years old." Except no, he didn't. It was revealed to him that the Earth was 2.555 Billion years old (7000 years of Kolob time)

4.) "We're all the Descendants of Adam & Eve." Ok, and... With the amount of time humanity has been around, that can still be the case. We just need to move back our timelines. Why can't God have planned life (including humans) to Evolve the way we do. Especially when you consider if Adam & Eve were the only humans, then there'd be some massive incest going on. And even if you're some super-human who can live nearly a millennium, I don't think Incest would be good for their descendants. Same issue with Noah

5.) "What about Noah's Ark?" Where in Scripture does it say it was a Global Flood. It seems to me more likely that the Flood happened around 12,900 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas period. Also, Cain survived (if you believe he is Bigfoot). Did Noah let him on, did he cling to the side of the ark, did he just swim for a year

Now I can be wrong. Maybe the Earth is only 6000 years old. But I'd drive myself crazy to try to live with cognitive dissonance like that. And it makes sense to me

[panlight]

What do you think of the "Everything in twilight is because of Mormomism" theory going around? I'm always in some random comment section that's discussing twilight(either the lore, the characters, or SMs writing) and that's the only thing anybody will ever bring up

I think she was definitely influenced by her religion and the culture she grew up in, but I don't think most of it was like, intentional.

In fact she seemed to intentionally try to avoid Mormonism in the story; Charlie is Lutheran, Bella doesn't really have any faith, Carlisle is/was 'Anglican' and Edward seems to be vaguely Christian. She chose not to make any of the characters canonically Mormon, but they sometimes feel Mormon to readers because of how she wrote them.

SM herself had this to say:

The main theme that I consider to be LDS is that of free agency. These books are all about choice to me–people’s ability to rise above (or sink below) what is expected of them. There is a little bit of Helaman’s stripling warriors with the pack, too (they fight to protect their families, who are not able to fight the way they can). There is some overt discussion of religion, particularly in New Moon, and a little in Eclipse. For me, that is more about realism rather than my specific religion. Religious or not, real people have to wonder sometime about where they came from, why they’re here, and where they’re going. Characters who didn’t ponder that a little would feel pretty shallow to me.   As an author, I consider NOTHING, ha ha ha. I just tell a story. All the symbolism and themes and archetypes are things I discover after the fact. All that stuff in the above paragraph–I didn’t think of any of those things until after the story was done. Then I would read through it and think, “Hey, the pack kind of reminds me of those Ammonite kids. Wonder if that’s where I got it from?”

So I don't think she set out to make Carlisle 'look like Joseph Smith' but can imagine that when she was trying to imagine a young leader she might have been influence by Smith. I can definitely see how her attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, Indigenous peoples and race could have been influenced by her faith and culture. Imprinting seems to be related to a common trope in early Mormom fiction (tl;dr - everyone exists as souls before we are born and sometimes pair up in that spirit realm and have to find each other on Earth and when they do it's this instant, powerful recognition), and this based on an essay by a fellow Mormon (tw: for religion talk). And the whole idea of eternal families relates to ideas about 'sealing' and the Mormon afterlife.

But I don't think she set out like, "bwahaha I'm going to write a MORMON vampire romance!!!" She's not that deep, she had a weird dream and wrote it down and then built on that going wherever her imagination took her, but that imagination was certainly influenced by her faith and lived experiences.

And plenty of conservative religious types hate the books on principle for having vampires and werewolves in them at all because that's occult and that's of Satan. Also because of the 'sexual content.'

[therealvinelle]

What's your opinion on the fandom's obsession with Smeyers mormonism? I'd just recently discovered your metas(and they're so interesting btw they brilliantly expand upon the almost kinda psychological horror esque feel of the characters and story). But then I go into your replies and tags expecting everyone to marvel at your genius exploration of what's eluded to in the canon text or just the likelihood or natural outcomes of certain scenarios and decisions that have/may have not happened in the context of the overall story. Instead it's most of the time just a bunch of people going, "Aha. Confirmed it! That's so because Meyers a Mormon" or "See, that insert literally anything happened because of the Mormom themes, characterizations and ...idolization??? of insert literally any character/aspect of the lore. "

It would be a lie to say it isn't irritating even speaking as an atheist because it literally stifles any actual exploration of nuance within the books. Any theory, character analysis, or legitimate in/out of universe explanation in regard to canon can be boiled down to such an archaic supposition. And it's not just your blog. I see it everywhere here on tumblr when discussing anything twilight. Even people indifferent to twilight and twilight antis alike are of such strong conviction that they erase any character's belief or motivation or really anything Meyer has said in regards to that matter

Seeing as I'm running a doylism purist blog I obviously agree with you. The author's religious belief are a non-issue to me when I read Meyer's works, or anyone else's for that matter.

I say that, but there are exceptions - there's something strikingly Calvinist permeating the world of Harry Potter in that people are born good or bad and the juxtaposition between Tom Riddle and Harry Potter seems to boil down to Tom being a bad person who will make bad choices while Harry is a good person who will make good choices, and this extends to the rest of the cast and the Hogwarts houses as well. However, these are children's books with Good Guys and Bad Guys and I won't pretend to understand what's happening in JKR's brain, and so you won't see me saying that Harry Potter is Calvinist: merely that there are parallels that can be drawn.

Similarly, taking a step outside the YA genre I find that Victor Hugo's own political and religious personal journeys are reflected in Jean Valjean and Marius Pontmercy, but while it adds to the reading experience it doesn't make me see the characters any differently. They stand on their own.

I bring up these examples for a reason - sometimes, no matter how Doylist you want to be, you read a book and you can tell that, "oh this is an allegory for apartheid", or "I can tell the author is writing about personal experiences with trauma" or the plain old "you know, this feels like the author was projecting a lot" (frequently found on Ao3).

Twilight, for me, is not one such work. My thoughts on Mormonism and Twilight are summed up here, but one point I feel I should make is that although Twilight never read as Mormon to me, I also straight up know very little about Mormonism, so who knows, maybe I would be picking things up if I was more into it. As it is, however, the analyses of Mormonism in Meyer I've seen have been consistently reductive and superficial, where things like "Carlisle is a young blond leader -> Joseph Smith, the Cullens are a perfect family -> they're mormons, nobody in this YA series drinks alcohol -> they're mormons" are presented as compelling evidence, so I've yet to be convinced of it.

To actually answer your question though, I would just block "Mormonism", "LDS", and "Joseph Smith" on tumblr saviour and smile blissfully at my Mormon free dash. In fact I would do that anyway, regardless of what the Twilight fandom is posting.

[ilovetheater24601]

Musicals as out of pocket things i've heard at cosmetology school/my theater job

Charlie and the chocolate factory: "TDLR who?"

Spring Awakening: "you have to insert and twist.... Just the tip though"

Mean girls: "i was gonna blow dry her but she pissed me off so now im getting my nails done"

Heathers: "Solar i know im hot but damn its like noon on a Wednesday chill keep your clothes on

Be More Chill: "just because i hit my cart like its Nic doesn't mean that every dumb thing i say is because im high"

Waitress "look i get it that a homie has needs but you have a fucking FIANCE"

Book of Mormom: "of course a 15 minute errand took us and hour and 45 you sent the only two men in the frend group on a grocery run"

Into the Woods: "You may choose to use disposable sticks to separate tows"

The Wizard or Oz: "well that happened because you fell asleep"

Hair: "i got rainbow crocks and i wear them loud and proud"

Urinetown: "last night was a shit storm actually speaking of which i need to find some fabrezz because people are putting a shit storm in that bathroom"

[car-lizzzle]

Uh hot take. But don't worry this is a first of many to come🔥🔥

It irks me that members of this fandom(Yes, I am talking to you team Jacob/wolfpack) are still yet to understand the narrative or role in which the wolves played in the story of twilight. I can't believe that some people think to this day that the wolves were really presented to be the antagonists of Twilight. They don't even realize the harm that that's actually causing to our own particular ideals when we do that. Erasing the trauma and all the shit they had to go through, as young boys at that(not even to mention my girl leah) at the hands of these sinister creatures. And what's worse is that their actions make sense in narrative as the reaction to the many social and ethical issues occurring in the story. It all makes sense!! Never were the wolves meant or presented to be irrational. When will people realize that the Cullen's word is not law. They are often times racist, genocidal, misogynistic, classist, and many other things. What any of them says or implies in the story may in no way be true but are based upon their own individual prejudices and moral viewpoints. They're not the primary narrator of these books, Bella is. Their thoughts and ideals are not the primary narrative. Their words or their theories are not law or actual truth in canon) A lot of the characters in twilight are hypocrites. But especially the cullens. In no way shape or form should we take the anything the cullens say as the actual narrative. And I'm honestly disappointed that so many do. Especially supposedly sensible people in this fandom. It is honestly in many ways a result of all the paranoid reading many on this site engage in but especially those in the twilight fandom. And coming from a Black Amerindian woman, I find it really interesting that many of the things Twilight, and in the case of Smeyer(yes, her mormomism but thats another contentious thread im coming back to later) are presented as doing are really just a projection of many own implicit racial biases and how themselves see and view BIPOC characters. Hmmm it's really telling...

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

turn it off book of mormom is so perfect for bill because to me he's a convert and its funny. or spooky mormon hell dream for someone else maybe <- has gone to see the musical

paul

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

A full 8 years later, and I (though I've never seen The Book of Mormom) still catch myself singing "Hello, my name's The Elder One" to the tune of "Hello!" from that musical.

[whizzerspinksweater]

If any of yall like avenue q, book of mormom, steven universe, or puppet history be my friend

[wherediputtheeggs]

The “I just used my imagination” line in Making Things up Again honestly makes my want to cry.

[farklelucas]

me: tbh, james church has depression

julie, looking at me, distressed: uh, YEAH, i sure hope he does!