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gh0st-t0wn3 · 11 months ago

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I finally had time to make proper designs for the Trio!

Redson: Ver 1

Ver 2

I couldn't decide on if I liked it better with the braids or not so I just posted both, but anyways!

I gotta admit, I used to not like the idea of redson having Bull features (except for a small pair of horn maybe) but the concept really grew on me and now I really love it and wanted to try making my own design and I'm really proud with how it turned out.

I would've added more scars, since Guanyins throne pierced his entire body, but there came a point where it just looked like there was too much going on so I had to get rid of a few scars to tone it down, so we're just gonna say they faded over time, okay? Okay.

I also made him Miao (one of the largest ethnic minorities in southwest China) on PIF's side, and Mongolian on DBK's.

The Miao ethnicity of China has a long history, rich culture, and an ancient folk religion. Adorned in beautiful traditional clothes, possessing natural talent for singing and dancing, they live in uniquely designed indigenous architecture, which I think fits perfectly with how I imagined Princess Iron Fan and with her; Redson.

As for DBK being Mongolian, I saw someone else talking about this headcanon and I just liked it so I decided to use it, I don't really have a specific reason for it, I just thought it fit, not sure why though, it's just one of those things that makes sense even if you don't know why, you know?

Mei:

I made her taller and gave her a long dragon tail (like really long, it drags along the floor if she's not holding it up), though her scales are pretty much everywhere across her body they're most noticeable on her shoulders, thighs, and face (they're a bit hard to see in this photo because they're kinda hidden behind her hair, but I did give her scales beside her eyes)

I also gave her horns these little spiral designs around them, gave her sharper nails, and designed her ears to look like coral, since she's a water dragon and I thought they looked cool.

Honestly idk what else to say about her design, I didn't have anything specific in mind when designing her, I kinda just had to wing it, but I'm happy with how it turned out :)

(I also made her Bengali, on her dad's side, but it's not really important or has any reason behind it, just a headcanon I've had for a while, don't know where it came from though)

MK:

Alot of people have speculated that the monkey form we see during the fight against Azure in season 4 isn't MK's full form yet, that we're just seeing a fraction of what he's yet to become, based on the fact that while he has the weird side burns, the tail and the face marking, he also lacks a natural skin tone, they didn't give him a proper nose etc, so I wanted to play with the idea.

I decided to make him this strange mix between human and monkey, leaving him pretty much human with the addition of his tail(s), and weird li'l monkey feet.

(I was also gonna give MK more arm/leg hair, it was in my first sketch, but I forgot to add them when I was doing the line art and didn't realize until after I saved it as a jpeg, so that's my bad, but I'm gonna add it in to any other art I make)

It's also a bit hard to see in this, but I designed his staff with more details, specifically adding dragon-esque imagery to the Golden ends, this is because (for anyone who's new to the fandom/hasn't read JTTW) Wukong's staff was originally one of the several pillars that held up the sea in the dragon palace, until he stole it and shrunk it down to use as his weapon.

I also did MK's clones :)

Porty MK:

I gave him stripes of coloured hair and gave his tails all different colours, though I don't think he would actually dye it, instead I like to think that he would use that really crappy dollar store spray in hair dye (or hair chalk). I kept the fishnet clothes that I added in my originally design of him for my headcanons post, and decided to give him striped elbow length fingerless gloves.

I also gave him a cropped shirt, ripped shorts and these weird fingerless glove-esque shoes for convenience, since regular shows seem like they would be uncomfortable.

Edit: my dumbass forgot Porty's stupid print jacket 😭

Artist MK:

For Artist MK I gave him overalls and a jacket over it, which he wears specifically for when he's doing paintings so he doesn't ruin too many of his actual clothes (I know I said that this was inspod by Circusapple, which it still is, but this is almost exactly what I wear when I'm painting too, just in different colours).

I also gave him those gloves that digital artists wear so they're hands don't accidently trigger something on the screen because everyone knows that every artist just walks around with their art glove on even when it's not necessary.

Delivery MK:

I have to admit, I was never a big fan of MK's work uniform just being his regular clothes with a work jacket thrown over it so I wanted to try and make him look a little more professional and decided to instead give him a chef coat (similar to the one Pigsy wears on the show as well), with a logo for the restaurant on the chest, along with it I gave him plain black pants, since casual red jeans didn't seem very professional (I know he's just a delivery person, but if you were to look at pretty much any food corporation, even people who do deliveries have to wear uniform, so it's always been kinda strange to me that he's just in regular clothes).

The shoes were harder to make professional given the whole "half-monkey" thing so I opted to give him the same strange fingerless glove-esque shoes for comfort and convenience, but made them plain black as well.

#lego monkie kid #fanart #lego monkie kid red son #monkie kid red son #lego monkey kid fanart #red son #lego monkie kid mk #lmk spicynoodles #lmk mk #hong hai'er #lmk mei #lego monkie kid mei #monkie kid mei #long xiaojiao #qi xiaotian

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crafty-butch · 3 months ago

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Embalmed

A short story by me (tw: body horror, self-harm kinda)

Did you know embalming isn't actually that common, worldwide? I didn't. Sure, there are some famous exceptions–looking at you, pharaohs–but embalming random schlubs is mostly a US thing. Plenty of religions ban it outright. Islam, Judaism, several branches of Christianity…

Bear with me. I promise I have a point.

Anyway, I've got no opinion on what God wants us to do with our corpses. I've never been religious. I'm still not, weird as that sounds. But I'm with Islam, Judaism, and several branches of Christianity on this one. Just skip the embalming and bury the body before it starts to rot. It'll be easier for everyone, on the off chance someone decides to bring them back.

No, this isn't a joke. Look, I'm not saying it's likely, okay? I know the stats. Less than twenty confirmed resurrections in the last half-century. Maybe twice that many ambiguous cases. Actually ambiguous, that is. Just because someone is flaired “unconfirmed” on r/Resurrected doesn't mean there's a chance in Hell they're legit. So, yeah, I get it's unlikely. But let's jump back to embalming real quick.

You know how it works, right? At least vaguely? Blood goes out, formaldehyde goes in. Well, that's step one. Step two is sucking all the non-blood fluids out of your body cavity and swapping those for embalming fluid too. They also sew your mouth shut, stuff some cotton in you to stop any leaking–I could go on, but I won't. Like I said, I don't have any issue with embalming from a treatment-of-the-dead-body standpoint. I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for embalming Great-Aunt Edith, here. I'm just saying, if the dead body becomes an alive body, you can see why there might be some issues.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say: “It's magic, dumbass.” And, yes, it is. That's why waking up with your mouth sewn shut and your body stuffed full of formaldehyde doesn't immediately kill you again. Doesn't make it fun, though.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't focus on the mouth thing. I'm sure it's happened to someone, but my sister cut the stitches out before she brought me back. She was thorough like that. I just feel like it's easier to picture, you know? Mouth won't open and hurts when you try. The rest of it's harder.

I don't blame my sister for not dealing with the formaldehyde. I know there wasn't much she could do about it. If she'd had more time, I'm sure she could've come up with something, but once you've dug up a body, you're kind of on a (ha) deadline. If someone sees you, you're done. So I get it. I've had a lot of time to think it over, and I'm still not sure what she could've done better. Other than just letting me stay dead.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but…maybe I am? A little bit? I know that's an awful thing to say. It's not like I wanted to die. That's not what this is about. It's also not about how super amazingly great the afterlife is. Sorry to disappoint, but I have no idea. I don't remember anything between the hospital and waking up on the grass with a chest full of embalming fluid. Does that mean there's nothing after? Or did coming back just give me amnesia? No idea. I leave that one to the philosophers.

My sister probably would've had an opinion.

She was always…

Let me tell you about my sister.

She was great. I'm not saying this because of what happened. She really was incredible. Almost perfect. One of those people who's so smart and so kind and so beautiful and so goddamn humble but not so humble you can even accuse them of humblebragging, to the point where you can't help but hate them a little for making you look so fucking shitty in comparison and then you feel like the biggest bitch in the world and that just makes you hate them more.

Okay, maybe she wasn't quite as perfect as all that. After I came back, I learned some things. Turns out she was just as much of a fuckup as me, in her own way. She was just better at hiding it. But I never met that version of her. In my memories, she's still just Little Miss Impossibly Perfect. I wish she'd told me about any of it. Maybe…

No, that isn't fair. Why would she tell me anything that could get her in trouble? Maybe I would've hated her less, or maybe I would've just gone and told our parents. Even once we grew up. Would I really have been able to resist knocking her off that pedestal? I'd like to think I would, but come on. Look how I'm talking about her. And that's after she sold her soul for me.

If you're thinking right now that the world probably would've been better off with her instead of me, you're not the only one. Don't worry, I won't take it personally. Or maybe you're not thinking that at all. I've been told I project onto other people.

Maybe you're just confused about why I'm talking about her in the past tense. After all, it's not like selling your soul kills you, and you've probably never met someone unensouled. Or maybe you have, and you know exactly why I'm talking like this. Probably not, though. There are a lot more unensouled than there are people who were resurrected–people sell their souls for all sorts of reasons–but there are a lot more fakers too. Pro tip: if someone claiming they sold their soul gives any sign of caring about literally anything, including whether you believe them, they're lying to you.

So, yeah, she's still here. I know I keep saying it, but I'm not religious. I don't think my sister is burning in Hell while her empty husk sits up here, and if you ask me, that's just a real convenient excuse not to help the person who's still right there in front of you. Whatever a “soul” actually is, there's clearly someone here.

Sorry, I might be preaching to the choir here. And I don't want to sound like I think every religious person thinks that way. I just made the mistake of talking to my parents this weekend, and I'm still a little mad. Or a lot mad. Look, I know I'm getting off topic. Just, real quick, I want to explain.

She's still my sister. I'm not denying that. I keep saying she was this or she was that because she's not really any of those things anymore. She's not cruel, but she doesn't care enough to be kind. I'm sure she's still smart, but she doesn't actually want to use her smarts for anything. She barely eats if I don't pester her into it. I don't think she'd have an opinion on what my lack of memory says about the afterlife anymore. But, hey, maybe she would. Maybe I should ask.

Anyway. None of this is really my point. My point is, waking up next to your own open grave is freaky enough when you're not choking on formaldehyde. It took weeks before I was mostly bleeding blood again. (Yeah, I checked. Don't judge. You'd be curious too.) I coughed up embalming fluid for months. My insides still don't feel quite right. I could get them checked out, but I'll be honest with you. I don't want to know. I haven't been anywhere near a doctor since I got back.

I know, you don't think this will happen to you. No one you know is the right combination of smart enough to wade through all the bullshit to figure out how to revive you and stupid enough to go through with it. And you're probably right. But I thought that too.

#fiction #storycrafty-butch

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bitch-a-la-mode · 11 days ago

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If you ever want proof of the “you’re not immune to propoganda” meme I would like to tell you the story of my mother:

My mother is a first generation American who came to the US in the 80s. She was a young girl who grew up in NYC. Her parents had to seek asylum in the US for persecution. She saw what the world was like at its worst at a very young age. She was surrounded by black and brown kids, many of whom had a parent or immediate relative in jail. Her neighbors were addicts and dealers. Her parents struggled to maintain citizenship and jobs to survive in this country.

She went on to not only graduate college but get a masters degree. First in our family. She was one of the most educated people in our family for a time. We had relatives who couldn’t even read and they would actually cry at the sight of her and hearing her speak about topics.

She went on to be super progressive. She worked in the field of humanitarian law for many years. She worked with lawyers to get illegal immigrants asylum. She worked with lawyers who would get rights for prisoners. She advocated for more medical care and for progressive therapeutic techniques (such as introducing the arts) into nyc prisons. If there was a protest in Manhattan, she was there. This woman volunteered at planned parenthood. This woman would bring me to pride events as a child. This woman advocated against the invasion of Iraq post 9/11, which was a very controversial take at the time.

And then. Around 2021, she needed to have surgery and was bed bound for a couple months. She had nothing to entertain herself except what was around her bed: books, a tv, and of course, her cell phone. Practically overnight her social media feeds were flooded with extreme right wing propaganda. I have no idea how some of that content made it past the “sensors” that these apps swear they have. When I would point out this content, she would laugh and say how she “just wants to hear what they have to say”. But her feed kept getting worse.

By the time she was healed, she was a completely different person. A true 180 in personality. She’s all the “phobics” you can think of. She thinks schools are turning kids gay. She thinks fluoride in the water is poisonous. She thinks the Covid vaccine had a tracking device. She thinks libraries are communist propaganda (I’m literally a librarian lol). She thinks essentially every minority who tells a story of when they were treated badly is lying. She thinks all gay people are pedophiles. She thinks all trans people are mentally ill. She pushes religion on me and all her family/friends constantly. She doesn’t believe in climate change. She thinks the DOE should be abolished. She thinks all kids should be forced to read the Bible. She thinks abortion is a sin and anyone who does it is going to hell. She thinks girls shouldn’t go to school and should be trained solely to be wives and mothers. She thinks all “non Americans” should be deported (yes, including her own family members). I could go on.

The point is. Even with the education and upbringing, a historically progressive person in a historically progressive place can turn conservative at the blink of an eye, especially with the current technology. I have seen it before, especially with older people, but I am also seeing it with the younger generation (mainly teenagers) as well. I say this especially now because since the election results, I have seen social media on BOTH political sides get extremely conservative to the point where it’s scary. It started with little things like “trad wives” and now I see people supporting the invasion of allied nations. In these extremely unprecedented times, I truly suggest people be very careful with what they consume, because it is very easy to fall into this hole of conservatism that I am sure will lead to fascism. And AI has made things infinitely harder. As long as we remain aware and vigilant, I truly believe a large portion of the public will be able to fight back. But to do that, we have to be very careful and aware, and I hate to say it but a majority of people do not want to put in that kind of work. I mean… look at TikTok…

Anyways. I hate to say it, but I think it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. I just hope “better” is actually something tolerable and hopeful. Please be aware.

#before you ask yes we are no contact #heartbreaking #rant post #conservative #progressive #idk tags to add so whatever #first post in a LONG time and this is what I make lol #also you can’t have a normal convo with her. you ask her fave soup and she’ll bring up trump and evil dems #like okay babes it’s giving chronically online in the opposite direction I guess

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jennelikejennay · 7 months ago

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One thing that bugs me about the way Vulcans are usually depicted (with some lovely exceptions) is that their philosophy—logic, or the teachings of Surak, for short I'm just going to call it Surakianism—is very often shown as a bad thing. Either that, or Vulcans aren't following it at all.

Writing about religion (and I do think Surakianism is best approached as a religion*) is always fraught. Because generally as a writer, you don't actually practice the faith in question, so naturally you'll have an outside view. That's doubly true of Surakianism, a way of life humans basically can't follow and it would probably be bad for us to try.

[*I know they don't call it a religion. But the way it deeply affects the interior life of Vulcans, their ethics, and so on feels very religious to me. It doesn't seem to have a position on theism; Vulcans get their beliefs about god(s) from elsewhere, such as traditional Vulcan polytheism and their own perceptions of the universe. But the way it exists as a social structure AND a guide to the inner self is absolutely religious to me.]

We are told that Vulcans developed this philosophy specifically because they needed it—they were destroying themselves without it! Their emotions were overpowering and violent, and they were clannish to the extreme. So despite what most of the human characters say, especially Bones, I think the path of logic is a good thing for Vulcans, even if humans don't get it at all.

Surak's teachings can be summed up into three basic points (a Vulcan somewhere just raised an eyebrow clear into their bangs at this oversimplification, but I'm doing my best here):

1. Logic, or the use of reason as a guide and the control of emotions

2. Nonviolence

3. IDIC—infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Of course we only ever hear about the first one, because that's part humans notice. I'd say it was like reducing Catholics to fish Fridays and Mormons to underwear, but that's exactly what people do, so I guess it's understandable.

But I think the ordering goes the other way for Vulcans. First, acknowledge that others are of value, including and especially when they're different from you. Then, do them no harm. And finally, to achieve that goal, control your wild, violent emotions.

People imagine pre-reform Vulcans a lot of ways (and I never get tired of reading about them), but I think the best guide as to what they're like is by looking at Romulans. Romulans aren't wildly expressive with their emotions, we're certainly not talking about people who would otherwise be laughing and crying constantly. Instead, they're secretive and carry long, hateful grudges. They're loyal only to those closest to them, and they seem entirely without empathy otherwise.

Imagine the Vulcan emotions are like that. They have strong bonds to their clan, probably in part because of their telepathy. They're suspicious of outsiders, angry, prone to violence. Preferring the familiar is an instinct in humans too, but a mild one. Certainly humans have been and still are racist, but it's something we can generally overcome. I'm not sure the Vulcans could, not by relying on their emotions.

So they came up with the solution to control their emotions completely. Use reason instead as a guide to behavior, because logic will tell you that your own clan is not more important than another, and that reaching out in peace is beneficial to yourself and others. Don't give your emotions any credence and don't let them run wild.

Humans do some of this ourselves, and should arguably be doing more. We spend a huge chunk of our childhood learning to control antisocial impulses like screaming, hitting, and biting. We demonstrate self control in many tiny, unnecessary ways, in order to show to others that we are in control of ourselves: stuff like etiquette, social rules, even just leaving the last cookie on the tray for someone else. These are signals that say I am not governed by my appetites; I can be trusted to consider the needs of others.

And we could obviously be doing more. Too many political questions are being answered by people's emotional, knee-jerk responses like "I feel threatened by people who are different" or "I am angry about my enemies and want them punished" instead of "what produces the most benefit for everyone?" If we leaned more heavily on logic and reason to get us our answers, we'd make way better decisions than we do. Star Trek doesn't often acknowledge that in real life, making a snap gut decision doesn't actually have a very high success rate. Logic gives you better odds of saving the day.

But, you might say, Vulcans aren't doing very well at any of this. A heck of a lot of them that we've seen are racist. And while they repress their emotions just great, they don't actually make the most logical decisions most of the time.

But I don't think this actually discredits a religion at all. We all know Christians who are great at the easy parts of their religion—learning Bible verses or saying rosaries—but don't seem to be even trying to love their neighbor. That's in fact the way religions are usually practiced! External elements that people can easily see (like never smiling) are adhered to by social pressure, but more heart-level things are aspirational at best. That doesn't mean the message of a religion is bad; it doesn't really tell us anything.

This is especially true for a religion whose practice isn't optional. You have to follow Surak to stay on the planet. I can see this rule was necessary during the time when the Romulans were kicked out—pacifism doesn't work as a global solution unless everybody's doing it. Now, it seems a bit harsh. I think they get around it by not exiling anybody who's at least giving lip service to logic. That racist baseball guy in DS9 isn't a good Vulcan, but as long as he doesn't do anything violent or openly reject Surak, they're willing to say he counts.

Why are Vulcans so often the opposite of what their religion teaches? I think it's the other way around: their religion focuses specifically on their chief faults: clannishness, racism, ego. It just hasn't successfully transformed everyone. Makes perfect sense, really. We might as well ask why Christianity goes on and on about sex when humans are well known to be super obsessed with sex. Well that's WHY! It's one of our strongest impulses which in the past we felt the most desperate need to control.

The best argument against Surakianism is that total repression isn't the best way to handle emotion, that we need self-awareness of our emotions before we can account for them.

To which all I can say is, don't you think Vulcans know that?

I imagine there are lots and lots of viewpoints on this among Vulcans. Some favor repression and some favor understanding and acceptance; some think it's okay to have a little dry humor and some think we should be serious. We have the kolinahri who believe in the excision of all emotion (which I imagine is universally seen as extreme, like we might see cloistered nuns or monks who reject the world to achieve enlightenment). And surely there are ancient, wise Vulcans who deeply understand all their emotional impulses and are completely in control of them. Spock certainly seems this way by the movie era if not before: he knows that he has emotions, what they are, and how to respond to them. He has overcome the emotion of shame. So he seems not impassive on the outside, but a person at complete peace inside and out.

I just feel like we could stand to see more good Surakians, who are good not in spite of their belief in logic, but because of it. Kind of like how we see both good and bad followers of the Prophets on Bajor. I'm kind of anti religion myself, but I still want to see it given its due—especially a religion founded on such good principles. Sure, it's not a religion humans can really practice, nor need—a good half of our emotions are positive and pro-social, so it's no wonder a person like Bones would be convinced Vulcans are just punishing themselves unnecessarily. But it successfully turned Vulcan from a planet so violent it almost destroyed itself to a home of peace and learning. Of course Vulcans aren't going to mess with what works!

That has been my rant about logic for today. I highly recommend @dduane 's book Spock's World for a much deeper dive into logic and the path Vulcan took to get there.

#star trek #vulcans #vulcan culture

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rakubalka · 2 months ago

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I call this the Worlds Peerless Beauty AU

It all started because the developers of YGRASILL decide "let's have a beauty contest!" In which players voted for who they think is either the most attractive or beautiful player avatar

Ainz Ooal Gown to not be undone come together and start to brainstorm who to put

At first they think of Bukubukushagama because she has the voice , then they wake up and remember that most people wouldn't find a pink slime attractive

The they go through the other fem presenting members and well ...

Yamaiko looks like she will pummel someone to the ground

And the less said about Ankoro Mocchi Mochi the better

Then Peroroncino has the bright idea to put Momo-can , because everyone loves him

To Momonga dismay everyone else in the guild agrees , so majority vote

And so Ainz Ooal Gown goes head first and full steam into putting Momonga out there

By the time the voting came almost everyone knew that Momonga the adorable skeleton is more than just the guild leader of Ainz Ooal Gown

And say what you will about YGRASILL player being Heteromorphphobic but even they can agree that a skeleton getting the title of Worlds Peerless Beauty would be hilarious

And so in parts doo to players :

- actually falling for Momonga

- being a monster fucker

- being a troll

- being the only contestants most people recognize

Momonga got the title in a rather big majority vote (the second place had close to 3x less votes)

The title allows for a rare class called Peerless Beauty that's kinda overpowered , and because they are Ainz Ooal Gown they start to abuse it (the fact it allows Momonga to charm even otherwise not possible character is a BIG bonus)

But times goes on

And then we get the start of the story

Except now you have Ainz not only as the undisputed ruler of Nazarick but also as the undisputedly most beautiful thing there is

Because the Carne Village situation ? He got the villagers blushing , the enemy attackers blushing , Gazef blushing , Gazef's men blushing and the Sunlight Scripture blushing . And they all are blushing like it's a sport . His mere presence makes people questioning either their sexuality, morality or sense of beauty

Being Momon (with the armor and it's dampening effect) only somewhat negates that , more specifically it just makes it so people need to either look closer or be around him more to get the same effect . Remember the scout dude that made a rude comment about Ainz's aperance ? Yeah here he says that Nabe is beautiful in a cold , exotic and unique to see way , while Momon has a warm everyday type of beauty that slowly but steadily grows on you . And Evil Eye is even more lovesick that canon

Ad the moment the mask comes of is when people are hit the hardest :

Jirchiv is even more convinced that Ainz is GOD (he is probably gonna convert soon)(he is also one of the only people NOT having a sexuality crisis because he knows what he is , that being sapiosexual)

Neia is even more sure Ainz is GOD and acts as such (the religion is spreading even quicker)(Neia is also one of the only other people who aren't having a sexuality crisis over Ainz ,because she had her's from Shizu)

The Elf King wants to make babies (and is getting his ass beat)(power hungry madman what can you do ?)

Rener is having a breakdown because she thought she only liked Climb that way and is having a sexuality crisis

Climb is going through a sexuality crisis of his own because he thought he only had feelings for Rener

Zaryusu and Crusch are not only also in a sexuality crisis but are also contemplating opening their marriage to also include Lord Ainz if he so wishes

Brain is having his second biggest sexuality crisis (the first was from Gazef , so he knew he liked powerful men what he just didn't know was that he liked powerful men even and if they are skeletons)

Filip (being an idiot) thought that Ainz had a crush on him and decided to do all that (for some no name noble) . Filip decide he quite likes both him and Albedo and wouldn't mind having her as their shared mistress (he is getting send to Neuronist for the blasphemy he committed)

Remedios thinks Ainz is even extra evil because he is that beautiful

Zanac is like "I talked to GOD , and he is a really cool and down to earth guy" , granted he died but still got the respect of both the world strongest and most beautiful person and in just one conversation

Platinum Dragon Lord is contemplating kidnapping Ainz(and maybe taking him as his bride) and keeping him in his castles like he is a dragon from a fairy tale (dragons kind inborn skill to be able to judge how much something cost are going overdrive trying to calculate how beautiful Ainz is)

One of the fun parts in this is that people who wouldn't be attracted to him sexuality won't be attracted they just see him as someone extremely beautiful , and if someone argues let me ask you . Do you get horny while watching a sunset ?

#overlord light novel #overlord anime #overlord au #ainz ooal gown #albedo #comedy #overlord

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utilitycaster · 4 days ago

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Here’s my C3 hot take: I think Matt just messed up. I think att just didn’t do a good job DMing this one, and I’m sad but I don’t think the players could have solved the problems entirely on their own. The lack of a session zero makes no sense, but more to the point I think Matt just has to much Catholic Trauma tm to have told this story. His blind spot to religion v. Personal worship in his world building is to big to stick this one. His excitement about the culmination of these narratives after 9 years made him play story beats to close to his chest looking to surprise and shock his players, and also, because he was so tied to it, he didn’t pivot, or change the story to guide the players through. The pacing, especially at the beginning feels like he was entirely to excited to get to the clever plot.

Honestly… and this makes me sad, a lot of the issues feel like he sort of started believing his own mythology. I am so happy for him to be self confident but this all feels like a story guided by someone who thinks their terribly clever and so don’t have to rely on the same level of hard work, collaboration, prep, planning etc. of previous works (and also wanted to be novel, I just think of their original campaign announcement where they said “anything might happen” and sigh a little).

My bit of hope? That’s a really easy thing to come back from! I hope they reflect and improve going forward!

p.s. this isn’t to say the others couldn’t have made things BETTER, they could have, for sure.

Hi anon,

I disagree with most of this. Most crucially, this is not the form of campaign I think would come of Catholic religious trauma. Matt's mentioned he was raised nominally Catholic but he's also mentioned his parents were artists, hippies, and D&D players, and he seems to be on pretty good terms with them. I think this is a vast overstep on your part that came from basically nowhere, especially since the logical outcome of a Catholic Trauma campaign would in fact be one that actually did portray Vasselheim as a vast controlling force within the world regulating the worship of the gods across it. A pretty massive hole in the worldbuilding, at least as this campaign demands we see it, is that we really haven't seen religion as an oppressive force except in one highly specific case, and even that was spearheaded by mortals and not the gods and is indistinguishable from a purely political land grab. Like, the blind spot you mention is actually a sign that he was not raised particularly religious; someone who was raised strictly Catholic would be extremely aware of religion as a highly organized hierarchy with clear rules and a vast worldwide network and not "a few missionaries who didn't kill anyone or even forcibly convert anyone, Vasselheim seen as a good meeting spot for a worldwide conference, and Ludinus's grievances are all highly personal." Like, the Catholic Trauma version of Exandria has Vasselheim at war with the Empire for their banning of half of the prime deities, or going full Inquisition/Crusade on Hearthdell.

I want to be clear: when I accuse fans of projecting religious trauma it's because they outright have said shit like "I always like when a narrative kills the gods bc I'm a white southerner who was raised Christian". I do not say it just because they are affiliated with a specific religious denomination.

I also don't think the issue is so much believing his own mythology as much as the one major correct thing you said, which is the lack of not just a session zero but a heavy hand in character development, coupled with a very specific plot he wanted for this campaign. Campaign 1 worked because he tailored a campaign heavily to the interests and stories of the characters, and built a world around them. Campaign 2 similarly allowed for that same give-and-take; characters like Trent and Uk'otoa and Marion and the Gentleman came from the backstories the players came up with. Some of the players' ideas were changed as part of that heavier hand in character creation. The guidance for that campaign (morally gray and complex) was actually accurate, and when the characters took a sharp turn away from the planned story, Matt was able to pivot quite gracefully.

The problem really is that it's clear Matt had a very developed vision of this campaign and didn't realize that the characters of Bells Hells largely failed to fit within it. I don't think hard work wasn't done (I think there was in fact a TON of prep that we haven't seen, eg, I 100% believe Matt has an extensive amount of work done on Otohan, Ozo Cruth, Marquet, the Apex War, etc that Bells Hells simply did not see); I think, in fact, that like three hours of work that probably would have resulted in scrapping or drastically changing the characters to fit the intended story would have fixed the vast majority of problems here. It is only, frankly, because the characters are such a bad fit that the issues we're talking about (little establishment of organized religion vs. personal practice) even became issues! But it's literally that - it's not realizing that even a longform campaign can live or die on character creation. It might even be that too much prep was done ahead of time and he was too unwilling to abandon it.

#answered #anonymous #cr tag

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eternal-love · 21 days ago

Text

IT’S TOO LATE

Pairing: Austin Butler x Female!reader

Summary: Austin was your childhood sweetheart, years later, things weren’t just the same. And now your relationship was lead by guilt.

Warning: Angst. Mentions of religion. Mentions of death.

Note: I’m back with my fucking angst🤭 Too much love lately. Have to go back to my roots. You know the drill. The small and pink part are memories.

You and Austin were teenage sweethearts, you grew up together. Basically. Even your grandmothers were friends, that’s how you two met. As small children, drinking cold lemonade on the hot days of Anaheim while playing on the green backyard, swinging on swing sets and jungle gyms.

Then as you two grew older, you grew closer too. And suddenly you were dating. Then you got married and then started your own family. But things hadn’t been easy. At least not with your careers. You two had been lucky enough to have your big break in Hollywood.

But, being a celebrity wasn’t easy and your marriage was crumbling down. This wasn’t a problem you could point at Austin or viceversa. This was a two-way street. You were both at fault. Never being together, never interacting, you two had stopped having sex, hugging each other, laughing with one another. You two were always very physical so you were in serious problems.

To try and make it work between you, the two of you planned a trip back to Anaheim. To try and rekindle your relationship that seemed to be dead by now. But at least he accepted.

You were with him inside the car as he drove around, you felt like a teenager again somehow. It was a funny feeling. You still remembered him driving you both around, the Stones on the radio, then parking behind some abandoned place to make out on the back. Good old days.

You guys went to his grandma’s home. The small, green house.

The old woman opened the door, her big smile appeared once she saw you. Albeit it faltered when she didn’t see her great-grandchildren

“Oh, my dearest loves!” His grandma said with excitement, hugging you first and then Austin. Typical.

Austin was happy to see his grandma and you too, this woman was basically your second grandma. As you made your way inside her house, you felt like a child again, the smell of grandma’s home was something you wish you’ll never forget. Because you were getting used to that god-awful smell of loneliness in New York. One that started to appear once Austin and you spent less and less time together.

When you two walked inside his childhood bedroom, you both were washed with a feeling of nostalgia, this room held too many memories. Still the same. The plaid sheets, the skateboard he only used once because he got scared, shelves full of trinkets, an old tv in the corner, movie posters as well as some Playboy posters.

“I remember this!” Austin ran to his bed and grabbed a stuffed animal. Like a little boy, he held it close to his chest and smelled it. Home. That’s what it smelled like.

As you looked around on your own, you stopped right in front of his cork board. It was filled with stuff from back then, dates and concert tickets. You saw a picture of you two, but eighteen years ago. Doing the math, you were fifteen. You looked extremely young, babies actually.

“I remember them.” You pointed out softly. How stupid and in love you both looked. Austin came to stand by your side, his hand reached to touch the photo, not his young self, but yours. He ran his finger through your face in the photo.

“Hey, we were tiny babies.” Austin spoke with a small smile. “We looked so in love.”

That was the problem, looked. Past. Austin looked like he was in love with anyone he met, except with you these past months. You weren’t blind, everyone could see it.

He acted so nonchalant after saying that, he moved away and went to the abandoned guitar. “Oh, remember this? How many times did I play you Wonderwall?” He asked with a chuckle.

“Enough to make me cringe.” You answered, still looking at the photo. You could still recall how many times you had to sit through him playing you Wonderwall by Oasis once he learned it. You hated that song now.

“Hey, it wasn’t so bad. Playing you that song made you want to sleep with me. Don’t deny it.” Austin said as he kept admiring his guitar.

“That was you. Not the guitar.” You rolled your eyes as you turned to look at him. How things have changed, how nostalgic everything was.

Back when you two actually loved each other, and when it wasn’t just the fact that you two were used to each other what kept you together.

Sitting on the backyard of his grandma’s house, you stared at the old jungle gym you two used to play in. As a matter of fact, the giggles and voices still lingered in the air, far, but audible.

“I remember how much of a brat you were. Always accusing me of things.” You said. “Oh! Grandma! Y/n pushed me again and I scrapped my knee!” You imitated a child’s voice.

God, you could still remember the scoldings you got from your own grandma. Sometimes he just lied because you didn’t let him get on the slide first.

“I always got I wanted.” He spoke, a small smile forming in Austin’s face as he stared down at his glass of lemonade. “I still do.”

“You still do.” You spoke as the same time as him. You both chuckled to which you both know it was true, Austin could get whatever he ever wanted or desired.

That’s why you were still here. No matter how miserable everything was. He had something that made you want to stay by his side. Perhaps it was the fact that for more than 20 years you had thought that he was the one.

“You weren’t an angel either. In still looking for a replacement of my Workin Out Barbie. You broke it. And filled it with sand.” You scoffed, side eyeing him.

“Oh, you and your stupid doll.” Austin rolled his eyes. Smiling. “I told you I would get you one.”

“Well, I’m still waiting.” You smiled at him. Waiting? For what?

For him to love you as he used to do? To make as much effort as he did before? You didn’t know but you were still waiting. For something.

You can still remember that one special, core memory. When you were young teenagers.

“Stop. This a really old magazine.” You groaned as you sat under the tree, covering you both from getting sunburns.

“Oh, an old magazine. Please, I wouldn’t want to ruin your stupid magazine.” Austin imitated your voice, albeit his was laced with sarcasm.

“Don’t be stupid. This is my grandma’s.” You rolled your eyes. An old vintage magazine from the early 70’s.

“Lemme see it. The women back then were hot.” Austin said as he took the magazine from you. He started to eye it, skipping through the pages until you stopped him.

“That’s how I want my wedding dress to be.” You pointed at a page filled with wedding dresses, 70’s dresses, long, flowy, with bell sheer sleeves and lace. Perfect.

“You will look pretty in our wedding.” Austin said, turning to look at you with a sheepish smile.

“Excuse me, our wedding?” You asked, confused and a bit flustered. To which he nodded, his smile even wider now.

“Actually…” Austin looked through the pocket of his shorts, pulling a small lip gloss ring. Plastic, with glitter. Which probably costed him few cents. “I got this last week when I went out with Ashley and my mom. This, is while we grow up and I have the money to buy a good one.”

You blushed, smiling shyly as he took your hand and placed the ring on your finger. It was cute and you two were also fifteen. He leaned in and kissed your lips. You corresponded, although you two never told each other if you were dating or not. You both acted like a couple as soon as you discovered that you could.

“And the lipgloss is strawberry and pink. Your favorite.”

He knew you too well. It made you pull him closer and kissed him once again, this time your arms went around his neck. You both giggled in the kiss.

But as you pulled away he grabbed the opened magazine and ripped off the page where the dress of your dreams was displayed.

“What are you doing?” You freaked out and took the magazine from his hands.

“So you remember. For our wedding.” He gave you the page. You took it, your eyes wide open still.

“If my grandma sees the magazine—” he cut you off as he looked at you, a smile forming on his lips.

“Fuck your grandma.” He said, finding it funny. You found it funny too. The old woman was always uptight but she was your grandma.

“Austin!” You giggled as you shoved him softly.

Your giggles filled the backyard, as the air felt fresh and light.

Now, staring at that very same tree, all you could feel was the uptight flickering, as well as the sharp sting of words stuck in your throat.

“Do you remember when they would take us to church?” Austin mentioned, playing with his rings. You wished his hand was in your face, you always loved when you felt his cold rings against your cheek as he caressed your bottom lip.

“Yes. Yes I do. Why do you think I don’t take the kids to church?” You shook your head.

“I won’t ever get over when the preacher’s voice cracked while giving his sermon.”

The moment lingered in your minds. You both started laughing like there was not an end, like in the old times. But the laugh died early, vanishing with sighs.

“We should have taken them here.” He cleared his throat.

In reality, Austin would rather fill this uncomfortable silence with the sound of your kids running and screaming. He hated the fact that you both were so close yet so far apart. It’s like he couldn’t even reach for you. And he hated that.

“We should visit the church. Maybe it’s still as small.” He stood up and fixed his belt.

You were in for a ride.

That talk with Austin had been way too bitterly nostalgic, what was the point in dwelling of something that couldn’t return, because it had slipped from your fingers, vanished with the wind, like dirt, you could see it fly away but you couldn’t stop it or see where it landed afterwards.

You hadn’t been here in so long, Church. The church your grandmas forced you to go to when they hung out. You still remembered the altar to pray in the corner of the small church.

So you two knelt in front of the altar, it was weird. You remembered vividly being young and never actually praying, you only closed your eyes and placed your hands together.

“I don’t even know what to pray for.” You chuckled, before turning to look at Austin.

Then, you saw it. Your worst nightmare, you saw him. Yes, Austin, but not him now. But his younger self, 17 years old. The one that took you to pray after your grandmother passed

“Whatever you wish. Is just between you and whoever you’re praying to.” He looked at you, smiling. To which you only stared in complete horror.

From his perspective, he couldn’t even stare at you, staring right in front of him strictly, he forced himself to not turn his head around to face you, because if he did, he remembered your seventeen year old self. The one that didn’t know who or how to pray, whose breath was shaky.

It was heartbreaking, very. Gulping and while you forced yourself to look at him due to the guilt, he couldn’t even look at you because of the guilt.

“Austin…” You tried to speak to him, but it was too much.

“It’s too late.” He said before standing up and leaving the small church immediately.

Without knowing what to do, you looked at him and then turned around, you took a deep breath and then followed him out the church.

“No, it’s not too late. We can work on this.” You raised your voice at him.

“Really? Because I couldn’t even fucking look at you.” He turned around. Almost growling. “There’s nothing we can’t do anymore. Nothing that we haven’t done already.”

“If there’s guilt then there’s love!” You tried to excuse everything. “Why would we feel guilty if we supposedly do not care for each other anymore?”

“It’s not love. We’re just used to each other at this point! Listen, we can’t even stand each other anymore. That’s the point.” Austin spoke, his hand in his hip while his other rubbed his temple.

You stared at him. Perhaps it wasn’t the fact that your heart was breaking, but the fact that you would lose that certainty that he would always be there. Because he had always been.

“No, listen. From the beginning I knew this wouldn’t work. I just did this for the sake of nostalgia. But I cannot keep pretending. I really, really care for you. But all of this— it’s over.”

Definitely, it was the whole fucking truth but you just didn’t want to accept it.

The more it hurts, the less it shows.

“Listen, I’ve talked about this with my lawyer. Alright? It sounds bad but I just— I had to. We can get to an agreement. A quiet and calm divorce.”

To see Austin, the man who swore to never get a divorce, who didn’t want to repeat the story of his parents and childhood, ask you for a divorce. It hurt quite a lot actually, a burning pain in your chest.

“You know what? You may be right. This won’t work.” You tried to act tough. But you were crumbling inside.

As soon as you both were on your own. You both sobbed your hearts out privately. How weird. If you guys wanted a fictive so bad then why did it hurt so fucking much that it burned?

You nodded your head as you stopped the tears from falling.

“A divorce it is.”

#austin butler #austinbutler #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler x reader #austin butler imagine #austin butler fic #austin butler x you #austin butler is so hot #austin butler x y/n #austin butler fandom

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year ago

Note

AITA for converting to another religion?

Also just so i can find this im gonna type a word.

'DUCK'

Names are fake

I (FTM, minor but not really but yeah, i'll be a legal adult in no time so will by boyfriend, also I'm closeted to everyone except my boyfriend so assume any treatment i get will be with me as a woman) am agnostic. I don't hate religion at all, i respect and understand believers and when invited i participate in religious activities mainly doing it out of love for the person or because they seem genuinely fun.

Anyway, i have this boyfriend, Kenny, who i love very very much. I wouldn't say our relationship is 'perfect' because that is impossible, but we are close, happy, communication is good, i wouldn't ask for more. He makes me happy, he's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Kenny is jewish, he let me know few days after we started dating because he wanted to be open about it in a serious relationship. I 100% respected that and we had a warm lighthearted chat about it, he knows i'm agnostic, he respects that.

It's been a few years, and Kenny's family grew to love me.

With his family's consent, Kenny invited me to a few religious activities with them which i enjoyed doing because we were all in a happy mood. Over time I became comfortable around the family, we're friends now.

Let's skip forward, Kenny and I were having a conversation late at night cuddling in bed, and he brought up religion. We kept chatting, until he asked me if i would be interested in converting to Judaism.

I was kinda shocked when he asked that, one of the few moments he genuinely did something i didn't expect. I stay quiet, before answering with a low "I don't know, maybe?"

We leave the topic there, he wasn't mad or anything, instead he nodded and we just kept chatting about other stuff still cuddling.

It's been a few weeks after that, and the question is still there in my little brain. I've been doing research on Kenny's religion to have a better understanding of the question he gave me, and honestly? Doesn't sound like a bad idea, i'm up for it.

I brought it up to Kenny and he seemed glad that I actually remembered the question. It's nice to see everything is taken calmly.

However, part of the hesitation came from my doubts about changing 'religions'. I don't think agnosticism is like a proper religion, i mean it's not even Atheism level. But i have an understanding of how religions work from my Catholic childhood, i was raised Catholic. So if i'm correct most religions are given by birth, I feel like it would be an AH move to break the rule over an idea my boyfriend brought up.

His family seems okay with the whole thing though, so i have mixed feelings.

Is there actually an AH part of the decision, or am i overthinking it?

(sorry for bad English)

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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apostaterevolutionary · 2 months ago

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So another thing I want to talk about post-veilguard re: the lore. There's been plenty of long explorations of the de-fanging or just skipping entirely when it comes to the political stuff and I think the topic's been covered pretty well by others at this point, so I won't dwell on that. But I do want to talk a bit about the higher, more mystical lore with respect to gods/religions and the direction it's taken since inquisition's dlcs. Because... ngl, I didn't love it then, and I don't love it now

(Veilguard spoilers, but this also is about inquisition's dlcs too)

So. First off: I have not actually played the descent or trespasser. Because, at the time they were released, I was playing on previous gen consoles and thus I literally could not buy them even if I’d wanted to (and at the time, I did want to). I maintain that was incredibly dumb 10 years later, given trespasser was the actual ending of the game locked behind a price tag, but let's not beat skeletal horses huh lmao

Anyway. So I have only read about the events of those on the wiki/in people's posts (I don't enjoy watching let's plays unless it's someone doing something weird so). I own all the dlcs now, as I now have a computer that can run the game and I bought all of them, but every attempt to replay inquisition since my insane fervour when it first released has failed. I just can't finish the game, so I can't play the dlcs. Anyway. All of this to say: my knowledge of what happens in them may be skewed and even wrong. But I'm gonna talk about the topics anyway, so please feel free to chime in if I’ve got something wrong

So firstly: the titans. I remember really not liking this development when the dlc came out cause like. What? I read the wiki page then (and again recently, cause I remembered very little lmao) and honestly I still don't like it cause it just feels so... at odds with everything else in the lore? Idk. I still don't get how it fits in with absolutely anything. Feels out of nowhere and doesn’t really fit. But okay, they’re here now, and I’ll talk about their tie in to the rest of the lore later. But suffice to say: it just felt like a weird thing then and I maintain it does now too. Like it just doesn’t fit and feels like a weirdly forced addition. I guess that’s personal opinion but I gotta say it

But the bigger part of this is. The sort of... removal of all religions in Thedas for the sake of just. Elves were everything? At first, I really disliked the rewriting of elven gods as tyrants cause it's like... the simple, silly elves mourning everything they lost but actually what they lost was oppression and slavery even worse than today!!! That has implications I really dislike. But now it's... okay Tevinter gods? Well, people worshipping dragons makes sense, even if they weren't really gods - sike! They weren't just dragons either, they were fucked up dragons controlled by the elven gods. The elven gods which aren't even gods, but really just random people. Except those people were also fade spirits made physical. But still not gods! It's important that they are not in fact gods and just powerful mages! Oh also the maker is bullshit too and Solas was the maker, at least in the context of the golden city story (I'm actually fine with the maker and that story specifically not being real it's just. The combo of everything, you know). Also the elven not-gods destroyed the titans too! So also dwarven problems were their fault too! And destroying the titans created the fucking BLIGHT!!! You know, the worst thing to ever exist! Everything comes back to just these guys!!!

Like. It’s all Solas and the Evanuris all the way down. Everything is just them. It makes the world feel so… small. I don't like how everything's just narrowing in on one thing here? Fantasy with different races and religions are fun because it's like. I found the original stories interesting. The story of the elven gods and the forgotten ones being locked away by a trickster so that only he remains is such classic myth shit. I enjoy that. Lyrium being a weird, magic rock that just exists and also it’s poison? Yeah, that makes sense - we have radioactivity in real life lmao, why can't rocks be weird in a land of magic. The blight just. Existing as an evil thing, either as a result of the golden city story or something else - that’s also fine. And as much as the andrastian religion has done some terrible stuff (and the like. it just being christianity but jesus was a woman this time is kind of boring), the concept of worshipping an absent god is actually pretty interesting

And now it just feels like

Idk to me it feels so limited to just boil all of these interesting mythologies and beliefs down to just... well it was all the Evanuris. Everything was the Evanuris. Also they weren't even gods, they were just terrible. There are no gods in this world. If you want a religion, better bring paragon worship to the surface or go join the Qun cause apparently they're the only ones who have any kind of factual stuff going on in their religions (for now, at least lmao)

I recall seeing a post somewhere asking why no one in this game is religious at all. Well, I think this is why: most of the religions are about to not exist anymore. The dwarves are mostly okay, cause paragons are just ancestors, they were real people (though I'm sure there are some who's history has been distorted). Like the titan thing is a thing but idk how bothered most dwarves are by that, it’s not really brought up much. The Qun doesn’t have any sort of deity that we know of so like. They're okay. Except they don't have a military so. That's a problem for the nation, which could lead to the religion ceasing to exist if anyone decides to conquer them back after all the shit. Idk. I'm an atheist irl lmao so this feels kinda weird to harp on but it is very weird to me for a fantasy game to just. Destroy all the gods and beliefs like that. I suppose it's a unique choice but still... Why

(I also just remembered we still have the Avvar I guess, but they worship spirits, no? Which are also not really gods, but at least that’s also a believable religious concept. I’ve never seen a fantasy setting with no real gods before honestly. It’s a very bold choice, one I’m not sure I like)

And maybe! I'm missing something, either something that was maybe hidden in a codex or book I haven’t read or something that happened in one of the dlcs I haven't played but. Idk. The world of thedas feels just so small and cramped now that we know that everything most citizens of the world has ever believed was false and just boiled down to a small handful of old timey tyrants. Even the falseness I could deal with, but the limiting of just. Oh it was all just these guys. That’s it. All them. That's just... I don't like it. The larger context of dragon age lore is… idk it’s been getting smaller and smaller since the end of inquisition and I don’t like that

I started drafting this partway through playing and one of the things I also talked about was ‘where the hell are future games going to go now???’ but now I’ve also seen the secret ending and that… once again implies there’s something bigger behind absolutely everything? I sincerely hope that’s in a like. Subtle influence thing and not ‘oh yeah, Loghain and Bartrand were actually ~manipulated~’ way cause taking away their agency makes them infinitely less interesting characters (plus Bartrand already has the lyrium idol as part of the reason he did what he did). Like pls don’t let this turn into an idea that people can’t just do terrible things. Please, we really don’t need that. That may not be where it’s going but idk, that got my hackles up lmao

AND apparently in the reddit AMA they said they were done with the Evanuris’ story but like… the Evanuris were just everything that’s ever been believed in? I guess they don’t have to personally show up but… idk I kinda figured there’s no way to get away from them now. Also Solas, is still kicking around, even though presumably with the veil being tied to him... assuming he did get out or was freed again, he wouldn't kill himself to tear down the veil, right? Right??? This isn't an issue that may come up one day????? I kinda feel like it's a little bit of a plot hole

But that’s kind of a side point. The larger thing here is how we see the major religions and mythologies in Thedas all just converge on the same thing, a thing which is no longer an issue so. They’re mostly just gone? I can’t imagine the chantry is going anywhere soon (though with the south so thoroughly fucked, who knows, maybe too many people died and the religion will die too cause the political power structure is completely gone – if Tevinter didn’t get a new, good leader during veilguard I’d say they’re definitely going to take advantage of the weakness of the south to make their empire big again. Also ngl I actually think that would be an interesting thing to happen but oh well lmao). Not only are there no actual gods in Thedas, almost every religion was actually this one group and that’s it. That’s just so bizarre to me and I don’t like the implications. Fantasy settings and religions and deities go hand in hand and I guess they don’t have to but. It does feel like the world is smaller now, not bigger

Idk I don’t really have a real big conclusion here it’s just. Why do this? Why tie so much of the lore back to just one group? A group you’re also apparently done with now? And with the secret ending hinting at yet another group that even more things are going to be tied back to… This feels like very simplistic storytelling, not complex storytelling to me. And I don’t like that

#I hope this makes sense #this feels less coherent than what I normally write lmao but I don't really know how else to describe it #and maybe I'm missing some stuff but like. why is it *all* just one group #it's weird and I don't like it #god I'm writing essays again I guess DA fandom really is back lmfao #dragon age #veilguard spoilers #text #meta #shut up nerd #fuck I don't remember my meta tags

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womenloverlmao · 3 months ago

Text

13 Days of Halloween - Day 1

Carrie - Charlie Walker X Reader

Charlie loved you, and everything about you. He loved your looks, your mind, your heart. He even loved your weird obsession with books, one that is known among quiet teenage girls. His favorite thing about that, though, was when you were done and he got to watch the movie adaptations of the books you read with you. When Twilight first came out, you read it, and he got to see it with you. There were many other stories like this, but with the speed at which you read, it was too many to name.

Recently, you had read Carrie for the first time. You enjoyed Stephen King as much as the next person, but you weren’t a huge fan. You knew the general plot of it before you read it, but you were pleasantly surprised when you read about it despite its anti-religion connotation. You loved the book, and this time you were happy to be able to watch this movie with Charlie.

You got to snuggle up that night with a couple snacks and watch a movie together like you did once or twice a week, depending on how you felt. It was a fun event for both you and your boyfriend to enjoy. You never really pointed out the book vs movie stuff, feeling no need to cause an argument between you and Charlie even if it was all in good fun. Carrie was no exception.

As Halloween started to come up, you knew what you were gonna be. You loved the book, and you liked the movie, so you knew that you were going to be Carrie White. You told Charlie that you were going to go as her, and he didn’t think much of it. You were specifically looking forward to doing a book accurate portrayal of her, because you didn’t like that they got it wrong in the movies. I mean, that’s what the whole point of a film adaptation is, isn’t it?

You were gonna go to one of Kirby’s parties and bring your boyfriend with you, and so you got ready on your own before you would go to pick up Charlie. You were wearing the red dress, you had managed to thrift one that didn’t look exactly as described–specifically with the sleeves–but was good enough. You had put some fake blood on your face, but not much. You put the crown on and then added some on there too, letting some get into your hair. It was gross, but you knew that you had succeeded and this was one of the best costumes you had done.

When you went to pick Charlie up, he was confused. “I thought you were being Carrie White?”

“I am Carrie White,” you told him.

“But her dress is white…?”

“No, that’s only in the movie. I guess it’s supposed to portray an innocence or some sort in the movies, but actually, Stephen King had originally mentioned that it was red and actually went into detail about what the dress was supposed to look like. In the movie, they don’t follow any of it. I actually don’t really like it, and I don’t like a lot about how the movie was made, but still…”

“Why would they need to portray innocence if she was just going to kill everyone anyways?”

“Well, you know how the pig's blood gets poured? When the red gets on her, that symbolizes that innocence being lost.”

Anyways that conversation went on all the way to Kirby’s, and as soon as you saw her, she immediately said. “Damn, girl. You’re beautiful, I…am gonna assume you’re Carrie?”

“Thank you. And, yes. As of tonight, that’s my name,” you said with a smile. “Charlie doesn’t believe that I’m Carrie because my dress isn’t white.”

“Don’t get me involved in one of those conversations, I heard it happen about Eragon back in like…Freshman year.”

You laughed, but you looked over at Charlie. You gave him a smile, one that said I win.

Anyways, you had a lot of fun with your boyfriend that night. After winning that little dispute, it truly was a Happy Halloween for you.

#rory culkin #charlie walker #charlie walker x reader #charlie walker x you #scream four #scream #rory culkin scream #scream 4 #scream franchise #13 days of halloween

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wifelinkmtg · 10 months ago

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There's "spaghetti western" and then there's whatever the hell this Chef Boyardee shit is

Hello! and welcome back to Wifelink. We're talking about Outlaws of Thunder Junction today, Magic's second product in a row set in a version of Nevada, and let me tell you something: I am not impressed. The mechanics are uninspired, the setting is undercooked, the story is overstuffed, and to top it all off the whole thing smacks of settler-colonialism. AND they yassified Vraska, the monsters!

WE WILL GET TO THE HOT WOMEN, BELIEVE YOU ME, BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO COMPLAIN SOMEWHAT, AS IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN, AS A HUMAN BEING, AND AS A GAMER

The mechanics we've discussed elsewhere, and I will skim over the main storyline except to say that very few of this Big Villain Heist Team-Up gets enough spotlight to justify their inclusion here beyond getting recognizable names on cards, and that Rakdos' presence on the plane alone ought to be an apocalyptic calamity. I appreciate Jace & Vraska going full blackpilled accelerationist, stealing a baby, and aiming to destroy the multiverse & start over (a novel hybrid of Raising Arizona and Doctor Strangelove,) but I also know, sure as the sun rises, that whatever happens with their villain arc will be a underwhelming let-down.

What I actually want to complain about, though, is the setting. Thunder Junction ain't real, and I don't mean it's fictional, I mean it's plywood facades on a backlot. It's the set for a cowboy film. You feel me? This ain't a plane, it's a god damned sound stage.

Lemme go over the facts: we know Thunder Junction has been settled for a bit over a year. A year! - and yet there's multiple towns, multiple railways, and an honest-to-god metropolis. Less than two years and we already have ghost towns! This is not the product of a bunch of people on various planes all individually deciding to seek a new life in the off-world colonies. All of this represents a staggering quantity of people, material, wealth, and labor, being moved between planes, directed and organized - but by whom? For what reason? How, even? The story is totally uninterested in these questions.

One of the few silver linings to the way the Phyrexian invasion storyline ended was that the Omenpaths had a lot of interesting potential! Different planes would come into direct contact with each other for the first time ever! Different technologies, different philosophies and religions, different kinds of magic colliding, coming into conflict, adapting and adjusting to each other. And after a couple of sets where the interplanar contact was limited to one or two particularly adventurous individuals, we finally get to see what interplanar contact at scale looks like here in Thunder Junction... and it just looks like a John Wayne flick. Did people not bring their culture with them? Is there a big rack of hats and boots and dusters right where people step off the Omenpath? Shuck off those old Ravnican rags, kid, get changed. You'll spoil the aesthetic. I mean, it's baffling.

Luxurious Locomotive (art by Leon Tukker). This is one of the few man-made parts of this plane that I can look at and know where it came from: this is a Kaladeshi design. More of this sort of thing would have made Thunder Junction feel more like a real place and less like a Sergio Leone joint.

There's a side story, No Tells, by Isaac Fellman, which I quite like actually: it's about guilt and betrayal and the inevitable regrets of having moved into a queer housing co-op, and one of the things that makes it great is that we know where Yuma came from (New Capenna), we know why he left (the limitations of "be gay do crimes" as praxis under capitalism), and we know what he brought to Thunder Junction with him (cocktails, pool tables, and his co-op's emergency funds). Fellman has written nothing else for Wizards and doesn't play Magic, and even so he's done more to make Thunder Junction feel like a real place situated in a real history than the rest of the story team combined - which goes to show, one, that we should only let trans people write magic story for the next decade or so, and two, that what I'm asking for in terms of worldbuilding is not unattainable, or even that difficult.

And all of this ties into the colonialism, right? Thunder Junction is being colonized, and asking questions about who benefits, who's sponsoring this breakneck settlement of the plane, what they're after and so forth would require the story to take a good hard look at the process of colonization itself, and Wizards is flatly unwilling to engage with anything that thorny in their products. So, just as Ixalan involved a limp-wristed slant reenactment of the Spanish conquest of the Americas - but it's fine because they're the bad guys and they're technically not even trying to colonize Ixalan and they don't win anyway so no one gets hurt! - Thunder Junction is attempting to present a Disneyland version of Western colonialism. Untamed wilderness! Bringing civilization to uninhabited deserts! How cool and heroic these hard frontiersmen and -women are! I'm told they brought in Navajo cultural consultants for the Atiin, a fantasy equivalent, and I hope those folks were well compensated! The Atiin seem cool, and the one Atiin character we spend any time with is well-written, but the Atiin are not indigenous to Thunder Junction. They're not being colonized. And if there weren't anybody being colonized, I'd probably still dislike the colonial vision of a wild land inhabited only by animals, just waiting for us to shape it to our will with railways and violence, but there is in fact a native race of sapients on Thunder Junction, and these cactus folk get no voice in the story, so if they have some kind of opinion on the rapid colonization of their home and the clear-cutting of their cactus forests, we don't get to hear about it.

Prickly Pair (art by Brian Valeza) Too much of the extremely-limited presence Thunder Junction's only indigenous sapients have on the cards is devoted to cactus-based puns like this one, which is pretty distasteful given, you know, the colonialism.

I'm talking about colonialism not because I think that replicating colonial myths in fantasy fiction is an unethical thing to do - although it is - but because you can see, right, that Thunder Junction's lack of verisimilitude is intertwined with the colonial vision of the world at play here, yeah? The story wants to have cool cowboy shootouts and train robberies and it does not want its cowboy fantasy to be complicated by uncomfortable realities, so it has to avoid all of the basic worldbuilding questions that would tell us who the colonization benefits and how they're profiting off the plane, and in the end we're left with nothing but an empty aesthetic, like a duster hanging off a scarecrow, blowing in the wind.

ANYWAY SO WOMEN

To be honest, under the circumstances I'm not really feeling like giving the fine women of Thunder Junction my usual more elaborate treatment, so we're going to lightning-round this shit, which is at least thematic.

Blood Hustler (art by Anna Pavleeva)

Vampire MILF.

Rattleback Apothecary (art by Loïc Canavaggia)

Snake MILF.

Wrangler of the Damned (art by Michal Ivan)

Cis lesbian haircut, good with a rope.

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds (art by Ryan Pancoast)

BIG

#outlaws of thunder junction

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ghostsandfools · 2 months ago

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Detailed Algebralien Society

Guys… I’m REALLLYYYYYY bored……. And I’ve been thinking about Algebraliens a lot, so I wrote this detailed analysis of how I think their society works. But it’s like, LONG. Like it’s REALLY long, so not click read more if you aren’t prepared to read an essay length post of ideas about number people

Okay, I think Math is like their version of Science if that makes any sense. The laws of their world are defined by math the same way science defines ours. I think maybe math textbooks would be kind of like religious texts to them too, like there are different ways tot think about math and it’s principles (so basically when Two said they didn’t like math it was kind of like a metaphor for them renouncing religion in a way…)

And then obviously there’s the equations themselves. To me addition just seems like fusion from Steven Universe, where they become one being.

Multiplication is like cloning. I think the algebraliens would reproduce like normal humans and multiplication is more of just a way to clone themself. So like, if you did 7 x 4 instead of getting 28 you would just get 4 identical 7s.

I know what I said about multiplication sounds basically the exact same to division but I don’t think division splits you into two equal clones. I think it splits your personality in half. So like, when 14 divided by 2 each of the 7s got separate parts of their personality, yknow?

That just leaves subtraction… Subtraction actually seems kind of dark- I think it would be kind of like division, except it just takes parts of you away. So, division takes part of your personality and puts it into each of your factors, meanwhile subtraction just deteriorates your memories and personality until you can hardly function anymore. So like dementia basically-

Besides that, I think other types of equations are possible but the algebraliens haven’t figured out how to do them yet. So like, tetration and stuff is mentioned in their religious math textbooks but they don’t actually know how to do all that

When it comes to genetics I don’t think it lines up perfectly with how math actually works. So like, random example, if 6 and 9 had a kid it probably wouldnt be 15 because then numbers would just keep getting bigger and bigger. Instead, I think genetics would determine a number’s color and whether they’re even or odd. So, since 6 is even and 9 is odd, their kid would probably be an odd number that’s some shade of blue or white, but which number it is isn’t guaranteed.

Along with that, I think they’d differentiate by last names. Since there can be multiple of the same number, you’d be able to tell them apart by their color and last name. There are probably 100s of each number running around, but it doesn’t get confusing because of the last name thing. Along with that, when a number multiplies or divides each of their duplicates takes on their last name, and when numbers add together the sum gets both of their last names.

Algebraliens are known for their ability to travel through space. The equation playground is on Earth. So far we know that 4, X, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 14 live on Earth. 2 and 1 both came from space (ooooo, they’re totally exes with history together but I’ll make a post about that some other timeeeee) and we know 15 lives on some other planet because when 6 and 9 went to visit them they had to drive through space (9 is such a skilled driver ^^). I also don’t know if 3 lives on Earth because I forgor :]

This raises the question of what the algebraliens home planet is like or if they even have one. 15’s cabin MAY be located on their original planet, or maybe 15 lives on some completely different unrelated planet then the one they’re actually from. The lore is really blurry about this stuff :c

What we DO know is that the algebraliens are scattered across multiple planets (and maybe moons? Since 1 is so tied to the moon, and they crashed or Earth with the moon).

Since their math based religion is such an integral part of their lives, maybe they have some sacred land somewhere that we’re yet to see? Maybe??? I don’t know????

it’s like 1 AM right now and this is just me word vomiting all my dumb ideas about algebraliens-

If anyone actually took the time to read all this maybe you can share some of your own ideas and we can talk about number aliens together please 👉👈

#bfdi #algebralien #xfohv #bfb #tpot

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northlight14 · 10 days ago

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Bible References In The Edens Garden Chapter 1 Titles (Spoilers Ahead)

All of this comes from a quick google search. I was Christian growing up and went to a Catholic high school but I’ll never claim to be an expert on religion and Christianity or Catholicism. I also consider myself agnostic now as opposed to Christian. So basically my bad if I got anything wrong, y’all can correct me but just be nice about it plz😅

First things first, the title of the chapter overall being “Beneath the Veil of Hypocrisy”.

There are so many quotes in the Bible about hypocrisy to the point that when I searched, it literally came up with “25 top Bible verses about hypocrisy” so like realistically there are a lot that this could be referring to. A good portion of them I feel are applicable here though

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” Matthew 23:27

So like…I don’t think I need to go into why this feels relevant to Wolfgang and Eva. This idea of looking “beautiful” and “innocent” but in actuality being cunning and manipulative.

“Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Luke 20:46-47

Again with the references to law (man Wolfgang was fucked from the beginning, huh?😅). This once again making a reference to how Wolfgang was essentially the leader of the group. The description in this quote fits him to a T and again gives the warning about the cunning behind him or this dark side that came out when he was drugged and attacked Diana. Then the “these men will be punished most severely”. You can fully argue that he was punished for what he did and how he went about things. He was punished by Eva for scapegoating her and he payed the ultimate (ha ultimate) price for it

I could go on but a lot of these quotes basically say the same thing. The point is, the title is absolutely a reference to both Eva and especially Wolfgangs fate in this trial

—

Now the fun stuff! The title of the execution, “Fiery Furnace Of Affliction”

For this one, I’m gonna have to give a very quick summary of a Bible story which from what I can tell is literally called “The Fiery Furnace” so just bare with me. If you’re interested, there are YouTube retellings of this which will probably do a better job than me😅

Anyway, the gist is there were these 3 Jewish men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were taken from their home in Isreal and began living in a place called Babylon. There, the king Nebuchadnezzar (thank you autocorrect for somehow predicting that, my dyslexia was about to cry) had a statue of himself made that was 9ft tall and made of gold (as one does ig🤷). He then demanded that everyone had to bow before the statue and worship him when they heard the sound of musical instruments. If they refused, they’d be thrown into a fiery furnace. So everyone did as they were told except for our 3 dudes who didn’t want to bow to anyone except God. The King gave them another chance but they still refused. The King got so mad he demanded that the furnace be heated up 7 times hotter than it was originally before throwing them in, the fire being so hot it killed the soldiers who threw them in. Upon looking inside, however, the king sees not 3 men, but 4. The fourth was Jesus who was protecting them. The king ordered them to leave the furnace and saw the three had left unharmed and he was so taken by it all, he also became a worshipper of God.

Soooo I lot to dissect there and by now I’m sure there are some similarities that have been spotted but let’s get into it anyway

First- the group of 3 turning to 4

(We’re ignoring Kai in this screenshot)

The fact we started off with a group of 3 and then Eva joined later, though naturally not to protect them but instead herself in true twisted Edens Garden fashion

Second! The group being dragged to an unknown place against their will….dont think I need to elaborate on that one

Third! There being the leader who wanted the others to follow in his stead but lead people to be outcast.

Fourth! A more minor reference but the presence of music during Eva’s murder plot via Marks speakers.

A more fun read of this can be the fact that the speakers were being used during the game tournament for music, which was an event Cassidy said she wanted to do in order to build moral and community- Something Wolfgang explicitly sought to do, even if in a manipulative and cunning way. Similar to how the king incorporated music into his own worshipping of himself

Lastly, the furnace with someone who’s meant to be a protector inside. Like those men, for refusing to blindly obey a hypothetical man with power in a society they didn’t choose to live in, she is put into a furnace to die.

This is where it gets interesting. In Eva’s backstory she states she went out of her way to make her teachers happy, even at the cost of her friendships with her peers, not unlike the 3 men continuing to try and serve their God even though it could cost them. And when she is placed into the furnace and who does she see but the ultimate teaching assistant, aka the sort of person who would’ve been the subject of Eva’s “worship”. And like the men did to Jesus, she reaches out to her for help and protection once again.

But, of course, her “god” doesn’t save her and she succumbs to the furnace

—

I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff and sorry if all of this is super obvious, I just wanted to share what I found out and my thoughts

#tw religion #edens garden game #project edens garden #project: edens garden #edens garden spoilers #p:eg #p:eg spoilers #p:eg chapter 1 #edens garden #eva tsunaka #wolfgang akire #long post #tw blood #tw corpse

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racefortheironthrone · 2 years ago

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Why People Are Wrong About the Puritans of the English Civil War and New England

Oh well, if you all insist, I suppose I can write something.

(oh good, my subtle scheme is working...)

Introduction:

So the Puritans of the English Civil War is something I studied in graduate school and found endlessly fascinating in its rich cultural complexity, but it's also a subject that is popularly wildly misunderstood because it's caught in the jaws of a pair of distorted propagandistic images.

On the one hand, because the Puritans settled colonial New England, since the late 19th century they've been wrapped up with this nationalist narrative of American exceptionalism (that provides a handy excuse for schoolteachers to avoid talking about colonial Virginia and the centrality of slavery to the origins of the United States). If you went to public school in the United States, you're familiar with the old story: the United States was founded by a people fleeing religious persecution and seeking their freedom, who founded a society based on social contracts and the idea that in the New World they were building a city on a hill blah blah America is an exceptional and perfect country that's meant to be an example to the world, and in more conservative areas the whole idea that America was founded as an explicitly Christian country and society. Then on the other hand, you have (and this is the kind of thing that you see a lot of on Tumblr) what I call the Matt Damon-in-Good-Will-Hunting, "I just read Zinn's People's History of the United States in U.S History 101 and I'm home for my first Thanksgiving since I left for colleg and I'm going to share My Opinions with Uncle Burt" approach. In this version, everything in the above nationalist narrative is revealed as a hideous lie: the Puritans are the source of everything wrong with American society, a bunch of evangelical fanatics who came to New England because they wanted to build a theocracy where they could oppress all other religions and they're the reason that abortion-banning, homophobic and transphobic evangelical Christians are running the country, they were all dour killjoys who were all hopelessly sexually repressed freaks who hated women, and the Salem Witch Trials were a thing, right?

And if anyone spares a thought to examine the role that Puritans played in the English Civil War, it basically short-hands to Oliver Cromwell is history's greatest monster, and didn't they ban Christmas?

Here's the thing, though: as I hope I've gotten across in my posts about Jan Hus, John Knox, and John Calvin, the era of the Reformation and the Wars of Religion that convulsed the Early Modern period were a time of very big personalities who were complicated and not very easy for modern audiences to understand, because of the somewhat oblique way that Early Modern people interpreted and really believed in the cultural politics of religious symbolism. So what I want to do with this post is to bust a few myths and tease out some of the complications behind the actual history of the Puritans.

Did the Puritans Experience Religious Persecution?

Yes, but that wasn't the reason they came to New England, or at the very least the two periods were divided by some decades. To start at the beginning, Puritans were pretty much just straightforward Calvinists who wanted the Church of England to be a Calvinist Church. This was a fairly mainstream position within the Anglican Church, but the "hotter sort of Protestant" who started to organize into active groups during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I were particularly sensitive to religious symbolism they (like the Hussites) felt smacked of Catholicism and especially the idea of a hierarchy where clergy were a better class of person than the laity.

So for example, Puritans really first start to emerge during the Vestments Controversy in the reign of Edward VI where Bishop Hooper got very mad that Anglican priests were wearing the cope and surplice, which he thought were Catholic ritual garments that sought to enhance priestly status and that went against the simplicity of the early Christian Church. Likewise, during the run-up to the English Civil War, the Puritans were extremely sensitive to the installation of altar rails which separated the congregation from the altar - they considered this to be once again a veneration of the clergy, but also a symbolic affirmation of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.

At the same time, they were not the only religious faction within the Anglican Church - and this is where the religious persecution thing kicks in, although it should be noted that this was a fairly brief but very emotionally intense period. Archbishop William Laud was a leading High Church Episcopalian who led a faction in the Church that would become known as Laudians, and he was just as intense about his religious views as the Puritans were about his. A favorite of Charles I and a first advocate of absolutist monarchy, Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canturbury in 1630 and acted quickly to impose religious uniformity of Laudian beliefs and practices - ultimately culminating in the disastrous decision to try imposing Episcopalianism on Scotland that set off the Bishop's Wars. The Puritans were a special target of Laud's wrath: in addition to ordering the clergy to do various things offensive to Puritans that he used as a shibboleth to root out clergy with Puritan sympathies and fire them from their positions in the Church, he established official religious censors who went after Puritan writers like William Prynne for seditious libel and tortured them for their criticisms of his actions, cropping their ears and branding them with the letters SL on their faces. Bringing together the powers of Church and State, Laud used the Court of Star Chamber (a royal criminal court with no system of due process) to go after anyone who he viewed as having Puritan sympathies, imposing sentences of judicial torture along the way.

It was here that the Puritans began to make their first connections to the growing democratic movement in England that was forming in opposition to Charles I, when John Liliburne the founder of the Levellers was targeted by Laud for importing religious texts that criticized Laudianism - Laud had him repeatedly flogged for challenging the constitutionality of the Star Chamber court, and "freeborn John" became a martyr-hero to the Puritans.

When the Long Parliament met in 1640, Puritans were elected in huge numbers, motivated as they were by a combination of resistance to the absolutist monarchism of Charles I and the religious policies of Archbishop Laud - who Parliament was able to impeach and imprison in the Tower of the London in 1641. This relatively brief period of official persecution that powerfully shaped the Puritan mindset was nevertheless disconnected from the phenomena of migration to New England - which had started a decade before Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury and continued decades after his impeachment.

The Puritans Just Wanted to Oppress Everyone Else's Religion:

This is the very short-hand Howard Zinn-esque critique we often see of the Puritan project in the discourse, and while there is a grain of truth to it - in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Congregational Church was the official state religion, no other church could be established without permission from the Congregational Church, all residents were required to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church, and only Puritans could vote. Moreover, there were several infamous incidents where the Puritan establishment put Anne Hutchinson on trial and banished her, expelled Roger Williams, and hanged Quakers.

Here's the thing, though: during the Early Modern period, every single side of every single religious conflict wanted to establish religious uniformity and oppress the heretics: the Catholics did it to the Protestants where they could mobilize the power of the Holy Roman Emperor against the Protestant Princes, the Protestants did it right back to the Catholics when Gustavus Adolphus' armies rolled through town, the Lutherans and the Catholics did it to the Calvinists, and everybody did it to the Anabaptists.

That New England was founded as a Calvinist colony is pretty unremarkable, in the final analysis. (By the by, both Hutchinson and Williams were devout if schismatic Puritans who were firmly of the belief that the Anglican Church was a false church.) What's more interesting is how quickly the whole religious project broke down and evolved into something completely different.

Essentially, New England became a bunch of little religious communes that were all tax-funded, which is even more the case because the Congregationalist Church was a "gathered church" where the full members of the Church (who were the only people allowed to vote on matters involving the church, and were the only ones who were allowed to be given baptism and Communion, which had all kinds of knock-on effects on important social practices like marriages and burials) and were made up of people who had experienced a conversion where they can gained an assurance of salvation that they were definitely of the Elect. You became a full member by publicly sharing your story of conversion (which had a certain cultural schema of steps that were supposed to be followed) and having the other full members accept it as genuine.

This is a system that works really well to bind together a bunch of people living in a commune in the wilderness into a tight-knit community, but it broke down almost immediately in the next generation, leading to a crisis called the Half-Way Covenant.

The problem was that the second generation of Puritans - all men and women who had been baptized and raised in the Congrgeationalist Church - weren't becoming converted. Either they never had the religious awakening that their parents had had, or their narratives weren't accepted as genuine by the first generation of commune members. This meant that they couldn't hold church office or vote, and more crucially it meant that they couldn't receive the sacrament or have their own children baptized.

This seemed to suggest that, within a generation, the Congregationalist Church would essentially define itself into non-existence and between the 1640s and 1650s leading ministers recommended that each congregation (which was supposed to decide on policy questions on a local basis, remember) adopt a policy whereby the children of baptized but unconverted members could be baptized as long as they did a ceremony where they affirmed the church covenant. This proved hugely controversial and ministers and laypeople alike started publishing pamphlets, and voting in opposing directions, and un-electing ministers who decided in the wrong direction, and ultimately it kind of broke the authority of the Congregationalist Church and led to its eventual dis-establishment.

The Puritans are the Reason America is So Evangelical:

This is another area where there's a grain of truth, but ultimately the real history is way more complicated.

Almost immediately from the founding of the colony, the Puritans begin to undergo mutation from their European counterparts - to begin with, while English Puritans were Calvinists and thus believed in a Presbyterian form of church government (indeed, a faction of Puritans during the English Civil War would attempt to impose a Presbyterian Church on England.), New England Puritans almost immediately adopted a congregationalist system where each town's faithful would sign a local religious constitution, elect their own ministers, and decide on local governance issues at town meetings.

This seemed to suggest that, within a generation, the Congregationalist Church would essentially define itself into non-existence and between the 1640s and 1650s leading ministers recommended that each congregation (which was supposed to decide on policy questions on a local basis, remember) adopt a policy whereby the children of baptized but unconverted members could be baptized as long as they did a ceremony where they affirmed the church covenant. This proved hugely controversial and ministers and laypeople alike started publishing pamphlets, and voting in opposing directions, and un-electing ministers who decided in the wrong direction, and accusing one another of being witches. (More on that in a bit.)

And then the Great Awakening - which to be fair, was a major evangelical effort by the Puritan Congregationalist Church, so it's not like there's no link between evangelical - which was supposed to promote Congregational piety ended up dividing the Church and pretty soon the Congregationalist Church is dis-established and it's safe to be a Quaker or even a Catholic on the streets of Boston.

But here's the thing - if we look at which denominations in the United States can draw a direct line from themselves to the Congregationalist Church of the Puritans, it's the modern Congregationalists who are entirely mainstream Protestants whose churches are pretty solidly liberal in their politics, the United Church of Christ which is extremely cultural liberal, and it's the Unitarian Universalists who are practically issued DSA memberships. (I say this with love as a fellow comrade.)

By contrast, modern evangelical Christianity (although there's a complicated distinction between evangelical and fundamentalist that I don't have time to get into) in the United States is made up of an entirely different set of denominations - here, we're talking Baptists, Pentacostalists, Methodists, non-denominational churches, and sometimes Presbyterians.

The Puritans Were Dour Killjoys Who Hated Sex:

This one owes a lot to Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.

The reality is actually the opposite - for their time, the Puritans were a bunch of weird hippies. At a time when most major religious institutions tended to emphasize the sinful nature of sex and Catholicism in particular tended to emphasize the moral superiority of virginity, the Puritans stressed that sexual pleasure was a gift from God, that married couples had an obligation to not just have children but to get each other off, and both men and women could be taken to court and fined for failing to fulfill their maritial obligations.

The Puritans also didn't have much of a problem with pre-marital sex. As long as there was an absolute agreement that you were going to get married if and when someone ended up pregnant, Puritan elders were perfectly happy to let young people be young people. Indeed, despite the objection of Jonathan Edwards and others there was an (oddly similar to modern Scandinavian customs) old New England custom of "bundling," whereby a young couple would be put into bed together by their parents with a sack or bundle tied between them as a putative modesty shield, but where everyone involved knew that the young couple would remove the bundle as soon as the lights were turned out.

One of my favorite little social circumlocutions is that there was a custom of pretending that a child clearly born out of wedlock was actually just born prematurely to a bride who was clearly nine months along, leading to a rash of surprisingly large and healthy premature births being recorded in the diary of Puritan midwife Martha Ballard. Historians have even applied statistical modeling to show that about 30-40% of births in colonial America were pre-mature.

But what about non-sexual dourness? Well, here we have to understand that, while they were concerned about public morality, the Puritans were simultaneously very strict when it came to matters of religion and otherwise normal people who liked having fun. So if you go down the long list of things that Puritans banned that has landed them with a reputation as a bunch of killjoys, they usually hide some sort of religious motivation.

So for example, let's take the Puritan iconoclastic tendency to smash stained glass windows, whitewash church walls, and smash church organs during the English Civil War - all of these things have to do with a rejection of Catholicism, and in the case of church organs a belief that the only kind of music that should be allowed in church is the congregation singing psalms as an expression of social equality. At the same time, Puritans enjoyed art in a secular context and often had portraits of themselves made and paintings hung on their walls, and they owned musical instruments in their homes.

What about the wearing nothing but black clothing? See, in our time wearing nothing but black is considered rather staid (or Goth), but in the Early Modern period the dyes that were needed to produce pure black cloth were incredibly expensive - so wearing all black was a sign of status and wealth, hence why the Hapsburgs started emphasizing wearing all-black in the same period. However, your ordinary Puritan couldn't afford an all-black attire and would have worn quite colorful (but much cheaper) browns and blues and greens.

What about booze and gambling and sports and the theater and other sinful pursuits? Well, the Puritans were mostly ok with booze - every New England village had its tavern - but they did regulate how much they could serve, again because they were worried that drunkenness would lead to blasphemy. Likewise, the Puritans were mostly ok with gambling, and they didn't mind people playing sports - except that they went absolutely beserk about drinking, gambling, and sports if they happened on the Sabbath because the Puritans really cared about the Sabbath and Charles I had a habit of poking them about that issue. They were against the theater because of its association with prostitution and cross-dressing, though, I can't deny that. On the other hand, the Puritans were also morally opposed to bloodsports like bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and bare-knuckle boxing because of the violence it did to God's creatures, which I guess makes them some of the first animal rights activsts?

They Banned Christmas:

Again, this comes down to a religious thing, not a hatred of presents and trees - keep in mind that the whole presents-and-trees paradigm of Christmas didn't really exist until the 19th century and Dickens' Christmas Carol, so what we're really talking about here is a conflict over religious holidays - so what people were complaining about was not going to church an extra day in the year. I don't get it, personally.

See, the thing is that Puritans were known for being extremely close Bible readers, and one of the things that you discover almost immediately if you even cursorily read the New Testament is that Christ was clearly not born on December 25th. Which meant that the whole December 25th thing was a false religious holiday, which is why they banned it.

The Puritans Were Democrats:

One thing that I don't think Puritans get enough credit for is that, at a time when pretty much the whole of European society was some form of monarchist, the Puritans were some of the few people out there who really committed themselves to democratic principles.

As I've already said, this process starts when John Liliburne, an activist and pamphleteer who promoted the concept of universal human rights (what he called "freeborn rights"), took up the anti-Laudian cause and it continued through the mobilization of large numbers of Puritans to campaign for election to the Long Parliament.

There, not only did the Puritans vote to revenge themselves on their old enemy William Laud, but they also took part in a gradual process of Parliamentary radicalization, starting with the impeachment of Strafford as the architect of arbitrary rule, the passage of the Triennal Acts, the re-statement that non-Parliamentary taxation was illegal, the Grand Remonstrance, and the Militia Ordinance.

Then over the course of the war, Puritans served with distinction in the Parliamentary army, especially and disproportionately in the New Model Army where they beat the living hell out of the aristocratic armies of Charles I, while defying both the expectations and active interference of the House of Lords.

At this point, I should mention that during this period the Puritans divided into two main factions - Presbyterians, who developed a close political and religious alliance with the Scottish Covenanters who had secured the Presbyterian Church in Scotland during the Bishops' Wars and who were quite interested in extending an established Presbyterian Church; and Independents, who advocated local congregationalism (sound familiar) and opposed the concept of established churches.

Finally, we have the coming together of the Independents of the New Model Army and the Leveller movement - during the war, John Liliburne had served with bravery and distinction at Edgehill and Marston Moore, and personally capturing Tickhill Castle without firing a shot. His fellow Leveller Thomas Rainsborough proved a decisive cavalry commander at Naseby, Leicester, the Western Campaign, and Langport, a gifted siege commander at Bridgwater, Bristol, Berkeley Castle, Oxford, and Worcester. Thus, when it came time to hold the Putney Debates, the Independent/Leveller bloc had both credibility within the New Model Army and the only political program out there. Their proposal:

redistricting of Parliament on the basis of equal population; i.e one man, one vote.

the election of a Parliament every two years.

freedom of conscience.

equality under the law.

In the context of the 17th century, this was dangerously radical stuff and it prompted Cromwell and Fairfax into paroxyms of fear that the propertied were in danger of being swamped by democratic enthusiasm - leading to the imprisonment of Lilburne and the other Leveller leaders and ultimately the violent suppression of the Leveller rank-and-file.

As for Cromwell, well - even the Quakers produced Richard Nixon.

#history #puritans #calvinism #english civil war #oliver cromwell #the stupid meme about christmas #new england #protestantism

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