#I'm thinking maybe in the cult and really devoted so they don't want to leave and will resent my character for trying to save them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

niuniente · 6 months

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YES THAT'S THE THING! The only negative thing I have heard about Buffy since it started airing in the late 90's is that Buffy always goes back to Angel, no matter what, and it can get boring.

After all, this is an extremely popular series. A cult classic. It has won lots of prizes and gotten nominations. Has gotten books, comics, a movie. Angel even got his own series!

And here I am, not believing what I'm seeing because the writing just sucks SO BAD AND MAKES NO SENSE and no, you can't say it's because the series is old.

This all is happening in S5. There have been inklings over the course that this series is indeed made by a man, because only a man would write romance or women like that. Nothing super big, just slightly annoying like "oh my god, no woman would actually think or do that".

The problem in S5 is that the series/creator clearly can't either understand what a healthy devotion is OR/AND can't commit to write Spike in one way only. He constantly contradicts himself without any given reason, which in this case would only be a severe mental health issue.

Spike is pictured as this lovesick puppy who would do anything for Buffy, a bit shy and really taking his time to gather his courage to confess his feelings, and who is also making sure that his actions won't hurt Buffy or her family, even if it would hurt or kill him. Like, this soft, gentle, sensitive man who will do anything to keep his lover safe and would never harm them in anyway. Every mother's dream son-in-law.

But Spike is also, at the very same time, pictured from this male perspective of a lovesick man; oh, isn't it romantic how he steals Buffy's clothes to smell them, has built an altar for her, has a Buffy mannequin at his crypt he treats violently when he gets angry, stalks her around her home because he can't help his feelings, how Spike asks her current girlfriend to roleplay Buffy in bedroom because otherwise he doesn't want to have sex with her, how he commissions this personal Buffy sex toy for his own pleasure and orgasms only, and how he kidnaps Buffy and tells Buffy he kills her if he can't have her? Oh, what romantic devotion, this man is SO in LOVE!

AND HE KEEPS GOING BACK AND FORTH! THIS EPISODE, HE WANTS TO KILL BUFFY. NEXT EPISODE HE ALMOST GETS KILLED HIMSELF BECAUSE HE WOULD NEVER ALLOW ANYTHING BAD TO HAPPEN TO BUFFY. WELL NOW HE STALKS BUFFY AND WANTS HER FOR HIMSELF ONLY, BUT NO, WAIT, HE'S ACTUALLY PROTECTING BUFFY'S FAMILY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT TO BRING ANY SADNESS TO BUFFY.

Like, who the hell is he? Do you want him to be the every woman's dream man or every woman's nightmare? He can't be both at the same time, not without an explanation and no, him being a vampire and sensitive isn't a valid explanation for such drastic differences.

And BUFFY? Sweet lord, Buffy! She's all just "eew, no" about this whole ordeal of having an obsessive man who has killed two Slayers (and is apparently the only vampire who has ever won against a Slayer) after her. No worry in the world. No concern that this man could kill or rape her, or hurt her family in his temper tantrum? Just scolds him by saying "gross" and "leave me alone".

And here I thought the biggest issue for the upcoming Buffy and Spike romance would be Angel's existence.

Of course, the series is probably going to brush all this freaky stuff off like "Nah, never happened and look, he was just so desperately in love and Buffy is so very strong she is not afraid of anyone and has no sense of self-protection as a woman".

I just don't understand how this level of character writing is considered even remotely plausible, not to mention something to be celebrated as an excellent cult classic?

Maybe it's just the Season 5. Maybe I'm just too old. And too sad. I just want better for Buffy and Spike, separately and together.

EDIT: OK TURNS OUT THE CREATOR OF THE SERIES HATED SPIKE AND HIS ACTOR FOR MAKING SPIKE A FAN FAVORITE AND RUINING HIS ARTISTIC PLANS, AND THAT THE CREATOR IS BASICALLY JUST A MAN SIZE WALKING DICK. A clear attempt to make fans hate Spike in S5 writing.

#S6 might have some hope for me #niu watches buffy #you know it's BAD when I get ranting because 99% of the cases I don't care enough about the bad parts in anything

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fierceawakening · 7 months

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Okay, so speaking as someone who was raised Christian, went full on ex-Christian antitheist, and now practices Christianity in a way that seems relevantly similar to how this person describes their religiosity ("I don't think there is a God, but the rituals connect me to other people and help ground me in my personal values, so I like them anyway")... I've been trying to think of what I dislike about these sorts of post, and I think I finally have hit on it.

People like this are right when they say "people who've abandoned a religion imposed abusively on them can't understand why other people wouldn't do the same thing." I was BAFFLED for a long time by the people at the church I'd left. They were nice! Why would nice people keep doing rituals dedicated to a god that I saw as inherently abusive ("love me or be eternally punished," and they chose "okay then I love you," as I saw it then)? The only way I could make sense of that was to think either they were painfully stupid or they were stuck in the creepy cult I'd narrowly escaped. Either made me feel profoundly uncomfortable.

But the thing that I think people saying that miss is... the people saying that don't seem (to me, anyway, as I read their posts) to understand why someone could have such a violently negative reaction to their culture of origin to want to cast it off entirely.

That's what they're not getting. They're like "but these dietary traditions aren't nearly as confusing as 'is there a God?' so why wouldn't I keep them even if I'm agnostic or atheist? SEE, YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL MY CULTURE."

Where... no, I don't think so. I think the ex-Christian atheist is just so revolted by the thought that they've been part of an abusive relationship ("love me or I'll hurt you forever!") that they want to discard EVERYTHING that reminds them of it, and that because the response that makes you brave enough to leave an abuser is so visceral, "sure but I kept the necklace they gave me, I like it" seems really fucking weird to them.

Ex-Christians are VERY often behaving like survivors who have very recently left abuse. They are not trying to get you to act a little Christian to make themselves feel better. They are not understanding how you can get to "God most likely doesn't exist" without then going "and therefore, I can stop hurting myself, and am free."

They hear you saying your relationship is healthy, but they’re not in a place where they can believe that yet. I wasn’t for a very long time myself! I wouldn’t have tried to demand people deconvert, that would be controlling, but I did Vaguely Worry when they didn’t.

It's not an attack. Give them time, and maybe they can even get to "I do a lot of Christian stuff but don't believe God exists, because some of the cultural bits that aren't toxic as hell are valuable to me.” I got there! I'm weird, but I'm not crazy.

But when you say "It's Christian of you to want to fully reject Christianity," that's baffling. No it's not. It's natural and normal for people to want to jettison anything that remotely reminds them of an abusive relationship they were in.

It's not intentional judgment that makes them not understand why you're not doing the same thing. It’s typical minding.

Which is bad! I’m not saying it isn’t. But it’s not a hidden devotion to a secretly Christian agenda.

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twdeadfanfic · 3 years

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Cheer up :) I'm sure the Leah plot is almost over after last episode, she'll be gone, dead or not, soon! You sound so sad but it's amost over, don't give up on Daryl!

Thank you, sweetheart 💜 (Are you the same anon always? Are you different people??)

The thing is, my problem is not that, and Leah been gone or not, are not going to change that. (Besides I'm not that sure she's going to be gone...)

My problem is not her (I mean, yeah, sure I'd have dreamed someone different for Daryl's love of his life), is not Daryl having a girlfriend, not really. I'm going to try to explain myself but I'm not good at it.

My problem comes from Daryl giving up his family for her. I don't mean now, he's not going to give them up when they're not only in danger but hunted by Leah's family obviously, I mean before, years ago, when she asked.

So Leah asks him to choose her over his family, Daryl's unsure, but in the end, he does choose her. If Leah hadn't left thinking that he'd left her, Daryl would have chosen her, he believes they belong together, and he'd have been with her even if that meant giving up his family and not seeing them again...when there was no reason for that, when he could have had both, his family and Leah, who now was his family too. That, Daryl choosing her over his people, especially over Michonne and the kids, it's the thing that hurts me.

It's made worse but the fact that it was not a choice that he made out of loneliness. In these new episodes (especially the last one), he's made clear that he's been missing her and thinking about her all this time, that he regrets leaving and getting separated from her, and that if he could, he'd go back and not leave, he'd stay with her, giving up his family and his people, for her.

That hurts twice. To know that he'd rather be with her, than having gone back to his family, to the time he's spent with Judith and RJ, with his family. That it's what really hurts me for real.

If he'd have found her again now, but his family was not in danger (either starvation or reapers) and they weren't in different sides of a fight, I'm pretty sure he'd have gone back to her and left behind Judith, RJ, ane everyone else. Because despite the fact that he doesn't show it (because the writers don't care to show it) he's in love with her to the extent that he regrets not saying yes the moment she asked her to choose her over his family, back when they weren't enemies.

That, that is what hurts me. What makes me unable to write Daryl, I struggle so much, I can't feel him anymore, I don't know him anymore. I can't even re-read my own writing to edit it. Because I am, I'm afraid, an idiot hahaha.

They messed Leah's character too, I don't mean the weird religious cult thing, because that's something more in-depth and of which I don't really blame her. I mean that she's totally devoted to her family (and Daryl became that for her when she believed to have lost her own). A person devoted like that to family and who protects them so fiercely, would have never put Daryl in the situation of having to choose between his family and her, especially out of the blue and when there was no need. Daryl's not the only one done dirty by the writing, Leah too.

She literally asked him where he belonged with, with his family or with her...that's something that the Leah we've been seeing now would ask, because she knows that would be the answer, what would be her answer too... but, Daryl decided that he belonged with her, over his family, and that too is something I never thought I'd see Daryl do. It makes me sad. (Reverse the situation, Leah would have not said that she belonged with Daryl more than with her family, yet Daryl did and it kills me.)

It also upsets me that we're never shown any love, affection, trust or intimacy between Daryl and Leah, and despite having a full episode for themselves, we weren't shown their relationship when in love, they've never been shown in love...nor in friendship or companionship either.

If Leah showed any gesture of affection, of love, of care towards Daryl (and him towards her) I wouldn't be so upset and hurt. Hell, I could even support it or like it, if they did it properly (not like they're doing it). I used to be so scared, sad and wary that Daryl would get with Connie, but then they showed them getting closer and being super adorable together and I became a lover of their pairing...but they did nothing to show any love between Leah and Daryl, like, almost not even any friendship or partnership at all...

Or am I blind?

So yes, my hurt, my problem, it's not going to go away. Because they already ruined the chance to show any love and intimacy and partnership between Leah and Daryl, and because the fact that Daryl regrets not choosing her, not staying with her even if that meant not seeing his family and the kids anymore, that is not going to change even if she goes away, dies, Daryl dumps her or whatever, and my main source of pain is that.

So yes, I am sorry if I sound like an idiot, but I don't think I'll feel better about him any time soon.

Also, I'm kind of sad too that when now we see Daryl in love, he's so no affectionate to the person he loves, even kind of distant (and I don't mean only now because I know they're in the middle of conflict, I mean also in their own episode together when they were supposed to be in love), I never imagined he'd be so cold and not affectionate when in love (like even when they were lying next to each other, he didn't even look at her or touch her, it was Leah always). But! That's my own fault for imagining things when there was no canon to prove them.

I'm also not too sure about Leah going anywhere. Daryl wants her by his side, that's for sure, and I don't think he'd give up on her, or would stop trying to get her with him. Leah loves him and wants him by her side too, well, wanted him, but I think she'd feel the same one she's past the hurt and see that Daryl didn't betray her, neither he abandoned her back then...or maybe not, because the writers are really screwing her writing too and you never know how she really is.

But yeah, the situation is fucked up at this moment...if the writers want them together (I won't be surprised) I really don't know how they're going to work around it, how Daryl and Leah are going to be able to trust each other again...considering that we didn't even see any trust before them prior that, and that they didn't seem to know each other at all, I wouldn't put past the writers to just go and say "yeah they're back together they trust each other again, all is fixed, no need to show it" lol. But yeah, it is complex in both sides...and just because I dont' like this relationship and the way it was handled, doesn't mean I cant see Leah's side too...but...I really hate how this has been handled.

Damn this got long, sorry...and thanks! And sorry again!

#please don't hate people...or hate me but don't come to tell me...

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script-a-world · 4 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#pylons #religion #Anonymous

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