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creature-wizard · 2 months

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Some things associated with New Age that aren't inherently bad

Since this blog can get kinda heavy sometimes, and because there's some people out there who think that anything remotely adjacent to New Age is evil and must be banished forever, I figured I'd write something on elements it includes that aren't necessarily bad.

Its general concept of God and divinity

New Age beliefs typically posit that God, or Source, effectively split itself into many different souls in order to have different kinds of experiences. There's nothing wrong with this model of divinity in itself, since it doesn't by itself imply anything hateful or suggest any kind of action that might lead to harm. Where it gets messed up is when people start claiming that if you're suffering, it's because you deliberately chose to have this kind of experience before you incarnated. That's just victim blaming, and it's wrong.

Energy healing

Energy healing on its own is a harmless practice, and many people do report feeling better for doing it. Dismissing energy healing as inherently bad in itself would be like dismissing prayer for recovery as inherently bad. It's really not. The problem is always when people start believing they should only rely on energy healing or prayer, or fall into the belief that pharmaceutical medicine is sinful or an evil conspiracy.

Listening to relaxing tones

No, those "healing frequencies" probably won't cure any serious ailments. But that doesn't mean they can't make you feel more relaxed or help you focus. You don't have to subscribe to any specific belief system to listen to these audios.

Glossolalia

The New Age practice of speaking in light languages is a form of glossolalia, which basically involves relaxing and speaking whatever sounds immediately come to you. Doing it can be cathartic and relaxing, and you don't need to subscribe to any specific belief system to do it.

Tarot reading

Reading tarot cards doesn't require subscribing to any specific spiritual belief system. Nor do you even need to be spiritual at all; you can read tarot cards with the perspective that what you're doing is prompting your own mind to consider things from new angles.

Meditation

Meditation is known to have beneficial effects, and doing it doesn't require subscribing to any particular belief system. Yes, it's a problem when somebody subscribes meditation as a cure-all, or use it as a form of spiritual bypassing, but that's a problem with the teacher, not the practice itself.

Eating more plant foods

Provided you don't have any allergies or intolerances, eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and the like usually isn't a bad idea. The problem with New Age is when it effectively moralizes food by decreeing certain foods "high vibrational" or "low vibrational," or when it's pushing conspiracy theories about modern processed food items being intentionally poisoned to block our psychic abilities or keep us dependent on the healthcare system. And obviously, it's appallingly ableist to tell someone that they could cure a chronic illness by switching to an all-natural vegan diet or something.

Belief in aliens

It's a big universe, and it's not unreasonable to think we're not alone in it, and that maybe there's beings who are observing us. The problem is when belief in aliens becomes part of a conspiratorial worldview that scapegoats certain groups of people for the world's problems, displaces real history, and misuses other people's traditions and beliefs.

Belief that things can and will get better

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett's words in The Hogfather, we sometimes need to believe in things that aren't true (such as justice and mercy) so they can become true. Believing that things can change makes people feel like their efforts are worth something. Meanwhile, when everyone's got a doomer attitude nothing will change for the better because nobody will even try.

One problem with New Age's optimism in specific is that they tend to believe that things getting better is contingent on converting a large number of people to New Age spirituality, which includes getting them to accept a large number of conspiratorial beliefs that target and harm vulnerable minorities, and/or distort and erase the actual spiritual beliefs of people from different cultures (many of whom are marginalized minorities and/or have been severely harmed by colonialism already).

Another problem is when you get the whole 5D ascension thing going on. 5D ascension is basically the New Age version of the Rapture, and just like the Rapture, it's always said to be right around the corner, but it never materializes. (If you'd like examples, here are predictions for 2012 and 2015.) Very concerningly, New Agers often list a number of physical and mental health symptoms as "ascension symptoms." They were claiming this as far back as the 2010s, when December 31, 2012 was supposed to be the big day. (Here's an example.)

Basically, hope and belief that things can get better is important - but it's also important not to hang our hopes (and medical decisions) on supernatural predictions that have already failed multiple times.

Wanting to promote compassion and understanding between people

This is a great thing to want! The problem with New Age isn't that they want to spread peace and harmony, but rather the way they want to do it without really listening to the people they supposedly want to help. You can't, for example, genuinely fight colonialism if you're engaging in cultural appropriation and misrepresenting their spiritual traditions - you're an active part of the problem. Promoting compassion and understanding begins with you shutting up, listening, and learning without imposing your own preconceptions or reacting from your ego. You're not doing this if you're looking for mythology to project aliens onto, or dismissing anything you don't want to hear as a conspiracy.

And here's some critical thinking tips before you go

When you're evaluating any belief system or practice, it's always important to remember that belief and practice are not the same thing. Most of the time the practices are harmless in and of themselves; the actual danger comes from the conspiratorial and morally polarized worldviews many practitioners also subscribe to. Nobody's ever died from putting rose quartz in their room or getting a reiki session. They have died from refusing evidence-based medical care because someone convinced them that the health care industry is a scam and will also separate them from Source.

When it comes to beliefs themselves, ask yourself what kind of narratives they're upholding. If they basically promote the same kind of conspiratorial narratives used by Nazis, witch hunters, or far right Christians to justify their hatred and violence, that's a pretty strong sign that this belief is bullshit. But of course, there's a pretty stark difference between believing that aliens could be out there, and believing blood-drinking reptiles have invaded the Earth.

#new age #beliefs #belief #spirituality #witchblr #critical thinking #discernment

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davekat-sucks · 3 months

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lute x adam is better than davekat and chaggie. they both sound killer singing together.

also just like wish's "villain", I find no fault in adam's reasoning, sinners such as rapists and pedos should be eradicated. i dont give a fuck about how apparently there are random kids in hell to emotionally manipulate the audience, for all we know that could be a grown ass man pretending to be a kid, and maybe that could have been more interesting: to see a hell's citizen take advantage of vaggie's kindness. it'd explain her trust issues & lute's bizarre reaction to actual mercy.

whats up with modern shows/films these days and their weird morals...

Adam x Lute is better than Davekat and Chaggie. Funny enough, Vivziepop confirmed that pedophiles, Nazis, and racists are already wiped out after they died. Like, human pedophiles/Nazis/racists who die, don't go to hell, limbo, purgatory, or heaven. They just get erased from existence. Angels have nothing to do with it. The Hazbin/Helluva universe already does its work. Of course, imps and hellborn creatures like hellhounds or the Sin ringleaders, can still be pedophiles, Nazis, and racists. But they are exempt from extermination. So the only sinners that do get sent to Hell to just do the same old shit would be murderers, con artists, human traffickers, rapists, and those who commit slavery, are still around. Which makes me question where does child murderers or those who lead child human trafficking and slavery fall in. Do they get wiped out from existence too if they didn't touch the child in that way? Do they get wiped out from existence for harming a young soul? Or do they get straight sent to Hell because murder is bad, regardless of age? Probably doesn't help that Heaven already admitted they don't know the requirements of people getting into Heaven, so it's a mystery on who is even checking since apparently at this point, even innocent souls who likely died of accident or bad circumstances, get sent to Hell regardless. It probably will be answered later on by some bullshit means, but it raises more questions on when in point did that become a thing. People pointed out that Angel Dust's sister, MOLLY, is there. What point in time Heaven allowed others to get in before it all changed with the extermination? Does even something small as when you were a kid stealing from the cookie jar, count as a major sin to be sent straight to Hell and that's why the child is sent in? Who the fuck knows. Maybe it will get answered in finale. Maybe they will hold it off for season 2 since it is confirmed and they are already recording the lines as we speak. I think the reason for these weird morals in recent modern media, just only goes for the straight black-white mortality, but hide it differently in these recent times as an act of justice that we won't make the same mistakes like we did in the past. Unfortunately, they are but are too ignorant to see it. Also in the case of how Hazbin Hotel is presenting with its rushed pacing, people, audiences and creators, would rather get to the heart of the matter fast and immediately than to build it up on how to get there. Why the fuck should we know about Camille and her backstory when all that matters is that she is a protective mother and that's it? No need to build up sustenance, all it matters is just the emotional factor to pull at your heartstrings for one moment like a quick sugar rush. No need to show the slow burn romance of why Vaggie likes Charlie. All it matters that she is now cute lesbians with her and its a good rep for LGBT. TL;DR of that is people are impatient.

#Hazbin Hotel #Helluva Boss #Hazbin Hotel Critical #Adam x Lute

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catboybiologist · 20 days

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I don’t know if I believe in god, but I believe god would celebrate trans people. I think human diversity is beautiful, natural, and unique to all of us. I’ve also seen that the vatican released articles protecting transgender people under similar logic(please correct me if you see otherwise). Anyway, just wanted to counterbalance that anon semen hate thing.. lol

I know this is from a good place, and I'm gonna be the asshole here, but its difficult for me to accept the kindness you're trying to extend.

I think that seeking validation and a moral code from anything other than "live your life in a way that's going to make the most people the most real and happy, including yourself", including seeking that from some kind of being of external influence, makes you susceptible to guilt and manipulation by people who use the ever-changing "interpretation" of that will to get people to live to their interests as opposed to yours, and that this philosophy isn't limited to situations where the will of that being is interpreted as something that benefits me specifically because that feels like a shortsighted mental trap of constantly validating my own life decisions to myself in a nonstop cycle of searching for approval from an influence that, by definition, doesn't communicate with me.

And funnily enough, the Vatican is the perfect example. The statements you're talking about basically amount to the same "love the sinner, hate the sin" shit we've all heard for pretty much our entire lives, and was basically only written with the intent of inviting lgbt people in to try and save their poor little misguided souls:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-francis-calls-studies-into-ugly-gender-theory-2024-03-01/

But thanks, I guess. Sorry to be a dick, I know this came from a good place, but its hard for me to mask my opinion on this kind of thing. I'll fully admit there's a personal sting here. I was the most patient, good little, explaining and validating tranny with a couple Christian "friends" earlier this year, only to find that they were stringing me along so they could try to "save" me. Trying to find validation in organized religion will always be a losing battle. These are organizations built upon decades of power structures that require specific family dynamics for population growth and control. I don't know if there's a god or not, by definition its really impossible to say one way or the other. But the Christian God is so transparently a tool for political manipulation in a way that should be obvious to queer people, and efforts to make the church seem "okay" for queer people more often than not have that same, thinly-veiled disgust associated with them. "oh, don't worry, we all have our little sins! Jeff gambles, Tom is gay, John smokes..." that kind of shit. That's not acceptance. It's thinly veiled disgust that will drop the moment there's an excuse.

Are there truly accepting Christians? Yeah, of course. But if you hand me a gun and claim its not loaded, I'm not testing it by pulling the trigger in my mouth.

#cw transphobia #trans #queer

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lesfir · 9 days

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The charming Dark Side

In the supplement to "Triumph of Evil", I'd like to take the time to the issue - which evil? Astarion, as well as Lord Astarion evil\dark side is complex.

Unattractive evil absolutely breaks Astarion as a character, in the Evil Ascension Ending too, he needs to remain attractive and complex. It's his core, as an Ascended Astarion too, is himself - Astarion, and one of his integral paths as an Astarion character. I need a certain baseline for statements like that, too.

Evil is not cardboard. except for tales cartoons, teaching the virtues Evil is complex. "Has some little good in it" where I'm greedy and want more Is a great line of reasoning in Astarion's story.

Astarion is an fun character for the theme of evil and good. Astarion's own reasoning is extremely materialistic, selfish, and an "evil" picture of the world. Which however in Faerun has its own meaning. It also stays in balance. Astarion is more likely to act as an unsuspecting actor of a global idea that contains complex moral themes than to say such things himself. For example, we might find thoughts that rise above the story in the words of the archetype character "the wise man", Wise Old Turtle -like. Astarion either does not do this arbitrarily or he mocks morality, uses it to accomplish a goal. Or he can't find the words:

CinematicNodeContext: Can't quite find the words to convey "even evil people can be a little bit good" so just mimes weighing scales with his hands NodeContext: "And even good or evil people can be a little bit complicated."

In my opinion this idea from act 2 already overlaps with the ending. Evil power as a tool, evil man, even a little bit of good and something complicated. It also generally intersects with Astarion's story.

Complex Evil has its own morality, motivations, reasons and sense, depending on the context of the story. But it remains "evil" for some reason. Here we are already getting to a debatable, personal topic and who understands evil and gray morality in what way. To me, grayness is different from evil: Realizing it's immoral and still willing to do it. The lack of regret\guilt. The desire to continue. The inner satisfaction, fun of doing evil or all together. Hello Astarion very much hello, Lord Astarion Maybe in the very topic being reasoned over, the story will be something gray, yet the character will be evil within the story. We can add here DnD - in which greed and selfishness are classed as evil. Greed is one of the "deadliest human sins", as well as pride, speaking of other structures of the definition of "evil".

This point of the complexity of dark themes in Astarion's character, was mentioned by Astarion author Stephen Rooney. Stephen Rooney | Idle Insights | Idle Champions | D&D 18:32

Lauren: What was like one or two of the core things that were the most important about his character that needed to be represented? When you were helping us bring your baby into our game what were like the couple things you're like - he has to have this in order to still be him.

Stephen Rooney: When you meet Astarion the first thing that he does in the game is pull a knife on you. He has a certain appreciation for violence I guess, a bit of a murdery streak so… I think it's important to have that… and also… he's a vampire, he's all about blood and he's all about darker sides of humanity. So it's important that that's that's represented in the game. But the same time he’s really fun to write, to have in your party. And it was it's very important for me that that is also represented those kind of the two sides. It's gonna stop you but we'll we'll have a smile on his face and see does it.

Lauren: The fun thing about that duality of like all right he's a vampire he's all about blood but also he's kind of this sarcastic fun character. I like that he is not your cliche brooding dark always kind of emo vampire like he's got in a weird way a lot of fun personality to him and like he's a rogue but he's dressed in like fancy clothes and very he's very charismatic and personable. Were you was that how you were you was that just how you crafted Astarion from a gameplay and character perspective or were you thinking of like let’s make sure he’s not Dracula let’s make sure he’s not super cliché vampires.

Stephen Rooney: (… about cliché vampires) The main thing with Astarion character I think was just trying to get a sense of fun into… He could… It would be very very easy to write a character that was very unlikable in Astarion and we absolutely didn't want to do that. He's a bit terrible consistently throughout the game, he's awful in a whole lot of ways. But at the same time he needs to be charming and he needs to be someone that you actually want to have around. Because you’re gonna be with this guy for hours and hours – it’s a long track through this game so… You gotta make sure he’s engaging, he’s fun. Lauren: He that nice line of like… He’s doing the terrible things but he’s so fun to be around and maybe he’s got a point about the terrible things he’s doing and, you know, maybe he's gonna sway the player over to his side of seeing things a little bit.

Stephen Rooney: Hopefully, I mean, that would be the gold standard if I hit that even most of the time, I’m extremely happy.

___

There are two sides to Astarion's character that are very important to have together - he is a bloodthirsty vampire, "he's all about the darker sides of humanity", and he is fun. It's easy to write Astarion as a very unlikable character, but that's something its author absolutely didn't want. Astarion needs to be charming, interesting, fun, yet keep two sides.

I mean that's why Lord Astarion - being the most dangerous on the meadow - is sulking that he wasn't the one throwing the party, arrogantly looking at the nails "wow they're still alive, good for them", throws away the goblet drinks wine from the bottle, and flies back and forth as tiny furry bat. Astarion's evil is seductive and alluring, instead of only black vacuum. It takes nuance and a lot of detail, balance, as well as the important thing - devilish charm and charisma. More like space viewed from a monitor, constellations and nebulae. If you truly get there, you'll freeze to death in a second, but it's very beautiful from afar. It's the kind of evil he has throughout story. Such evil stays with Astarion in Ascension, more openly and at the apogee. True, it's different for each individual. A friend of mine said: "why do you need that vampire bastard? I'm gonna kill him" хD Alluring of Astarion's evil and especially of Lord Astarion works very differently or doesn't work at all.

#astarion #ascended astarion #lord astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 astarion #astarion ancunin #baldurs gate 3 #Bg3 Evil Path

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sea-salted-wolverine · 6 months

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The House of Usher and the cardinal virtues

I thought to myself it's no good to whine about slotting characters into boring reductive categories without a good rebutal, so here's a dose of slightly more interesting archetypes.

Prospero reflects the cardinal virtue of Diligence and its mirror the sin of Sloth ("But he has an orgy so it has to be lust," by god you're so boring) He is the only Usher who tries to make anything of value. When Camille goes on her little spiel about how Ushers don't make stuff, she's not wrong. Perry got pretty ruthlessly shot down when he was presenting his ideas for trying to make value and start a night club chain, rather than just taking credit for someone else's work like all of his siblings and his dad. But he was at least trying. His drive to prove himself and gain respect is how he gets himself into the whole mess. However, it is the act of not doing his due diligence that kills him.

Camille has an interesting one because while breaking into a lab facility to expose mistreatment of animals would seem like the cardinal virtue of kindness, she's only there to get one over on her sister. The inverse of Kindness is Envy, and for as important as her role is as the family spin doctor, Camille is valued the least. Everyone suspects Perry when they hear about an informant, but that's because he's an idiot baby. Victurine is useful with her heart mesh implant, Napoleon took the role of the "chill fun sibling", and the other two are original Ushers, so Camille is left as the unfavored child.

Napoleon tried to buy his way out of his problem with Charity. He could have come home with a different cat entirely and told his boyfriend he was looking in shelters for Pluto and accidentally fell in love. Name it Mars, let the boyfriend chalk it up to a weird grief response. Bummer Pluto never came home. Verna would have had him trip over the thing on the stairs in the middle of the night and that would have been that. Instead, everything was transactional as he maximized what he could get out of his relationships for the least amount of effort. The boyfriend can live with him, the boyfriends cat can move in too, but as soon as that becomes even the slightest bit more effort (like when boyfriend wants to meet the family, or curb the drug use, or the cat brings home a dead thing) Napoleon wants it gone from his life.

Victurine likewise could have had a painless clean death had she mustered up the Humility to say that the device didn't work. Her demise, unlike her younger siblings, was a compilation of smaller shitty decisions and white lies. She could even recognize that each choice was morally wrong, but it was little choices that were easier to brush off. A dead monkey, a foraged signature, a rightfully concerned patient reassured with platitudes. Even before she was scrubbing blood off the floor to Bonnie Tyler, her inability to admit her choices were flawed was getting her in trouble.

Tamralane with her perfectly manicured curated life, is the one to take Temperance to its furthest extreme. I think it was Atwood who wrote about women and the internal voyeur to preform for, but I'm not going to Google it for a post about horror characters losing their minds and dying horribly. She lives under a personal panopticon of her own expectations and can never allow herself to experience her own life lest she fall short. Her wealth rather than mitigating this exacerbates the issue, giving her access to any and every distance she could possibly want. Death by mirrors isn't so much her going insane as it is the culmination of the life shes built for herself.

(Plus, I know her lonely evening was meant to be ~spooky~ but babe, that is literally just ADHD. Can't remember where you put the thing? Can't remember doing the thing? CAN'T SLEEP?! DOES EVERYONE HATE YOU AND THINK YOU'RE AN INSANE BITCH FOR PERFECTLY VALID REASONS?! Looks like Adderall for you).

Fraudrick. You dickwad. No Patience to allow your very injured and traumatized wife explain herself. The inverse of Patience is Wrath. Demonstrated that one in spades. I'm on Verna's side on this one. Pliers, really?

(His wife's name is fucking Mori. As in momento mori.)

Which leaves Madeline and Rodrick. What's a Gothic horror story without some really fucking weird and unsettling sibling dynamic? Dull, that's what. Anyway, never letting anything touch them or impede them in their lust for power and wealth offers a strange sort of Chastity. There's no love, not for the kids or Annabelle Lee that could touch them, no moral they wouldn't overturn, no value they wouldn't abandon. Madeline values her freedom above all else but she spent her life bound to her brother. They wouldn't even spare each other in ruthless pursuit of just a little more power.

So yeah, bummer for August Dupain that he wound up against the most supernaturally fucked up family that ever lived.

#the fall of the house of usher #Analysis #gothic horror #Poe adaptations #Cardinal virtues #Deadly sins

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gorbalsvampire · 4 months

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More Humane Than Human - Humanity as degeneration vs. Humanity as detachment

I wanted to repost the Requiem readthrough review before I got into this, because it started as one of those "Requiem vs. Masquerade which is better" conversations. In rules terms I think V5 has iterated successfully on Requiem - there's probably about the same density of actual rules there but V5 makes a better fist of hiving some of them off into advanced/optional/discretionary territory - but Requiem innovates hard in terms of ideas about how vampires and vampirism work, introducing things like the Predator's Taint and Lashing Out and, crucially, Touchstones.

Touchstones give the lie to the "V5 does rules better" claim. I have never liked how V5 does them. The notion of tying an individual vampire to a person, place or artefact is nothing new. Those of us who are Old, or retro-curious, may recall Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption, in which Brujah himbo protagonist Christof is told he needs an "anchor" for his Humanity and selects Anezka, the nun who nursed him back to health and who he's been having less than holy thoughts about ever since he woke up. Christof is told, by his mentor Wilhelm, that choosing a person as his "anchor" is a dangerous call - but his mind is made up and, not to spoil a twenty-five-year-old game, it turns out to be for the best for both of them... as long as he's kept his Humanity up, anyway.

So, Touchstones in the context of Masquerade are nothing new to me - in fact I was quite surprised when the full TTRPG didn't have rules for them. But! Touchstones in V5 are a bit different. Instead of one, there are many: instead of humanity in general, each of the vampire's Convictions has a named person attached to it.

The problem - and this isn't just me, it's something that's come up in all the V5 games I've played or hosted - is that viable characters have two or three Convictions. Coming up with two or three Touchstones at character generation, before you have a feel for who this person is and how you're going to play them and what their routine looks like, has not worked for anyone I've played the game with. One might work - most of us can ideate a relationship with one other person before we start playing - but three seems to stretch the limited sense of a starting character's identity too thin.

Rules As Written, of course, a Touchstone doesn't have to be someone significant to the story. They can just be someone your character saw every day, or sees every night, or notices every time they pass by. But... that's bullshit. That is not a "hang a key element of your personal ethic and capacity for self care on this person" relationship. I can see the story beat of "this person isn't there any more and you're morally shook by it" working once, maybe, but still, permanently altering your character's relationship with the Beast is kind of an integral function of the game. It feels like that hat should be hung on a sturdier hook - a full-on fleshed-out SPC. Like in Requiem, where you get one Touchstone.

Also, Humanity works differently, at its most fundamental level, and this exposes a key difference between the two games - one where I think Requiem is strides ahead. @awakenedsalamander touched on this talking about the differences in the concept of the Masquerade between the two games, but I want to go deeper on it.

In Masquerade, Humanity is about degeneration - it's the Downward Spiral, an almost inevitable drift from Man to Beast with exceptions being so rare they're practically mythical. It's about becoming worse, with all the moral judgment that implies, about committing acts that appear on a Hierarchy of Sins.

(At least, it is in V20. V5 abolishing that in favour of chronicle specific Tenets and character specific Convictions is really smart. I didn't grasp how it was meant to work from the corebook - it took the Player's Guide to spell it out to me - but now that I grok it, I love the tension between the Tenets that forbid and govern a character's actions and the Convictions that excuse and forgive those actions.)

In Requiem, Humanity is detachment. It's about the state of being a vampire slowly and inexorably reminding you over and over that you're not human any more, drifting further and further away from what you were and into the all-night society of predators. It's quantified in terms of Breaking Points - roughly grouped by significance and severity, these experiences hammer home that you're dead, you're dead, you're dead and out of this world. It's less "I did a bad thing" and more "I experienced something that no human ever should" like walking off a stab wound or being reminded you're a hundred years old and still act like you're twenty. When you hit a Breaking Point, you roll a number of dice - how many is a function of how serious and hard to avoid confronting the Breaking Point is - to avoid losing Humanity.

Now. In the past I've met quite a few players who don't really want to engage with the morality play aspects of Masquerade. Whether that's "we want to speedrun to Humanity 4 so we can play the game 'properly' without having to pretend we regret doing all the things RPG protagonists do" or "we think it's kinda stupid the way low Humanity says you may no longer create art or have sex without 'faking it' and let's interrogate what the developers think 'sex' is, shall we?" doesn't really matter. Maybe you want to play on the theme of post-humanity rather than be wrist-slapped for trying to do main character stuff. I don't blame you.

I think it should be possible to wholesale lift the Requiem system of detachment, rolled for at Breaking Points and mitigated by a singular Touchstone who can be a more developed character, or a place, or an object, and slot that into V5 replacing Tenets, Convictions and Stains.

That gives you a version of Humanity that's more permissive and less frontloaded, allows you to go deep on one hook instead of ideating sets of pairs before you even know who your character is. It also divorces functions of sexuality and creativity from being a good person - in the Requiem model, vampires fuck, and make art, and low Humanity expresses more in how they do it than whether or not they can.

(Although - there'd need to be some finesse around Oblivion, since I think the Discipline's theme of entropy inducing personal decay still works in the detachment model - maybe keep Stains as an additional lever, a function of Messy Criticals and dangerous Disciplines, and have Breaking Points inflict Stains instead of automatically triggering rolls...)

Important note on this idea: this does NOT exempt you from having a conversation about what's off limits in Session 0. It's easy to miss this in the V5 core book, but Chronicle Tenets aren't a safety tool. Chronicle Tenets are the moral rules that are going to come up A LOT in play, they define what your coterie collectively accepts as Doing A Bad Thing, to be excused for personal reasons (i.e. Convictions). An actual out of character trigger, an aspect of the World of Darkness with which a real live person who exists does not wish to engage, is a line or a veil - something we either don't include, or don't narrate explicitly. It's not something we build into one of the game's mechanical loops and ensure will come up. That would be... the absolute opposite of safe.

Whadda we think?

#vtm #vtr #vampire the masquerade #vampire the requiem #meta #house rules #humanity #// this took a lot longer than I expected - I either have long covid or my arthritis levelled up over this winter...

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halfusek · 1 year

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Irt you post about the archives- Have you read any of the novels? I feel like some of them, like Joey's autobiography, help give a bit more insight to these characters, at least a little.

As for Nathan, I think it's supposed to represent that, unlike Joey, he really was a self made man with good intentions, and that highlights that Wilson was trying to live up to the shadow of his father and instead of being the kind of man his father would have raised, Wilson chose to be as vile as he is.

Memory Joey on the other hand, really is just a representation of this flawed idea people had of the man, only the good parts of Joey that he chose to show. The idealized version of himself that he saw, rather than who he really is. It makes sense to have that contrast there, but he really is just a plot device rather than his own character and it's a shame.

I can't say much for the others, because they feel very lacking. They have a lot of good moments, like the "I'm beautiful." "Always were." scene for example, but outside these moments they feel somewhat empty.

It's unfortunate, because if they had the time, team, and resources, they could have had an incredible story to tell, but limitations with money and staff because of the irl studios layoffs and TheMeatly & Mike Mood making really, really bad choices with their business caused the game to fall short of what it could have been.

we must have read different books because it felt to me like batdr completely ignores book lore

honestly i just feel like the books have been made irrelevant and theyre just kind of telling us stories about these random characters? like adrienne is doing her best to describe these characters but im not gonna lie, as there was some potential to them batdr has been a huge turn off for me for reading anymore (plus that upcoming book is gonna have a yet another completely new character as the main protagonist and im just... bruh how about yall expand upon the characters you already have because this universe is just becoming very messy and full of shallow characters instead of having fewer but interesting ones?? im not against new characters being introduced but they just keep on adding then and then it feels like what we're reading doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, that sucks)

sure we get an insight to joey... the only character that actually HAS a lot of complexity and screentime in the games so like yea i like joey and i enjoyed his book but again it felt more like an extra rather than anything that helped expanding the story or the world, i dont really understand their strategy for these...

nathan's and wilson's relation is just uninteresting and shallows wilson's character in my opinion, like what he says to you in game makes out nathan to have been some sort of a horrible father and that'd be kinda interesting and would make wilson a morally grey character

but no he's just a spoiled brat or whatever his archetype is supposed to be and we can throw away the entire symbolism about nathan and bockswell lotsabucks (that cartoon cat from the comics) and the fact that there is supposed to be nathan arch junior and senior making it clear that they changed their minds about the plot just to surprise people (even worse, they ADMIT to doing that in the interview that recently came out... as if it was a good thing ToT) but by doing so they just contradicted clues that existed there before that we could have gotten away from the damn books! like this just makes me not wanna buy any other books anymore because its a clear message that it doesnt fucking matter if we read them, theyre just there to tell us stories about random characters that also wont even appear in the games anyways but we will get 200 more audiologs from other randos we wont care for

again i gotta be sorry for being so negative but im just SO disappointed with batdr and with what the archives had to say

like whatever they are telling their story, its not a sin to be bad and scummy at writing (scummy as in not understanding that youre baiting people into buying extra things for understanding the lore and then making sure you surprise people anyway)

so basically

there is no use for theorising because the message is that they just want to surprise us so if we guess where theyre going they will just change the story no matter how much its gonna suck and contradict what happened before

i cannot comprehend how meatly sees that as a good thing but i guess thats how he wants to tell his stories and whatever makes them happy man

but i find it incredibly shady when you advertise your game as a mystery to be solved and personally this kills my enjoyment of the franchise

#im not saying im gonna leave the fandom but you wont see me theorizing anymore #its headcanons now only baby #and im probably not gonna get any new books #as much as i have a lot of respect for adrienne kress and enjoy her writing #i still didnt even touch the lost ones book tho i have bought it when it came out #and at this point idk if i will #im currently undergoing an awful state when im still kinda fixating on bendy but i dont have anything to power my fixation #in an enjoyable way #and it sucks!!!#ive been trying to get into other things and ive been enjoying different stories but it isnt the same man #bendy hit those very specific things i like about stories but then it started to hit the things i hate #and that is even not to mention all the controversies #its just a real shame #halfask #halfpost #bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival

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quizzyisdone · 1 year

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As someone who also loves both Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare 2, what do you think Ghost would be like with Bell? Like if we switched which game Bell was in what do you think that would be like?

This is such an amazing question that I was, funnily enough, thinking about just last night while I was falling asleep!! I got me thinking not just on how Ghost would realistically view Bell, but also everyone else! So, let's just say that for whatever reason Bell and the Safehouse Crew from BOCW found themselves in the modern day with the 141 and Los Vaqueros. Provided they all know the full story behind what happened with Bell and what was at stake with Perseus, how would they see Bell?

How the 141 Would React To Bell?

See "On Adler's Morality" and "Bell's Background" for some clarification on my take of Bell and Adler's story from Black Ops: Cold War.

**Contains spoilers for Black Ops: Cold War

Simon "Ghost" Riley

Out of everyone, he sympathizes the most with Bell. In some ways, his life very much parallels theirs.

He sees his reflection in Bell, and it's comforting to know that there is someone else like him.

The main difference is that Bell lost everything in a more literal sense, while Ghost more metaphorically.

I mean they both lost everything, their true identities, their past life. Both were betrayed by those they were supposed to trust.

Neither know who they truly are, and the world twisted them into a shell of what they used to be. Everything from before where they are now is a long past bygone, neither can recognize themselves in a mirror.

Ghost doesn't care that Bell was involved with Perseus, considering how no one knows why Bell was with the collective in the first place. Moles were commonplace during the Cold War, and Bell could've very much been one.

When faced with Adler's reasoning, that it was all the name of stopping Perseus and never personal, that it was for the greater good and a necessary evil, Ghost is at odds with his rational mind for the first time in his life.

Nukes were at stake and brainwashing Bell saved the world, yes he understands that.

But he hardly thinks going as far as to brainwash and betray Bell was a necessary evil when there were other options.

Morally speaking, Ghost is very upstanding through that façade of indifference that borders on cruelty. At his heart, there are hard boundaries he need not never cross, nor should anyone.

Adler and Park crossed it, and he vehemently hates them for it.

Captain John Price

Price, as much as he hates to admit it, understands Adler in this situation.

It's not that he doesn't sympathize with Bell at all. At his heart, he's very much a good man who deeply cares for others. He sees the parallels between Bell and Ghost too, and it tears at his heart to know that more than one person has had to suffer those kinds of things.

Suffering is necessary sometimes, though. For the greater good.

Very much like Adler, he believes that sometimes there are certain lines that need to be crossed to make sure those lines stay there.

"Someone has the make the enemy scared of the dark."

Provided that Bell wasn't even loyal to Perseus in the first place, Price would still think that it was a necessary evil. Adler simply did not have the time to break Bell through conventional interrogation and the clock was ticking.

It's not like he'd give Adler a fucking medal or anything for what he did, but Price knows what its like to have to do these terrible things.

It would kill him on the inside to have to do what Adler did, and Price can honestly respect that strength.

But, when he looks at Bell, at that broken shell of a person who may not have even done any wrong in the first place, his heart hurts for them.

Alejandro Vargas

You know how Diego referred to Alejandro as "The Angel of Las Almas" during the El Sin Nombre mission? Yeah well change that title to "Bell's New Guardian Angel"

Much like Ghost, he vehemently hates Adler and is pretty empathetic towards Bell.

That does not stem from his own personal suffering, like it mostly does for Ghost, but from his own righteousness and his moral compass.

He very much believes that what separates him from the enemy is where he draws the line. And Alejandro draws the line way before brainwashing and betrayal.

If he were to meet Bell, he'd very much take upon the role of their protector himself and would try to befriend them. Alejandro does not care for their past, as he believes that everyone can change.

Price and Ghost may see just a broken victim in Bell, but Alejandro sees a hero who saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.

He almost admires Bell and would protect them in whatever way necessary from the cruel hands of Adler.

John "Soap" MacTavish

Admittedly, Soap was the hardest to figure out on this list.

On one hand, he's a genuinely very sympathetic person with a strong moral compass. On the other, he very easily buys into Price's ideals of crossing lines to ensure the line stays there.

His strong moral compass weirdly lends itself to an inclination towards an admiration of Adler.

He'd feel conflicted at first, but after learning about everything regarding Bell's situation, he'd have to agree with Adler. The price of one for millions? Hardly a choice.

To be honest, he wouldn't really care for Bell that much. It is very likely that they were a terrorist following the orders of rogue Soviet genocidal maniac. People change but the past cannot be forgotten.

Soap is in no way hostile towards Bell, but simply ignores their existence. What happened was unfortunate and betrayal irks him to no end. But was it truly a betrayal if Bell was a terrorist all along?

In Soap's eyes, Adler cut off the head of a snake and saved so many lives doing it, and doesn't deserve the vitriol.

Kate Laswell

Laswell is CIA like Adler, and is well aware of the MK-Ultra project way before she learns about Bell and Adler. Beforehand, she views it with a bit of distaste like she has with many of the CIA's Cold War era projects.

When what happened to Bell comes to light, that view doesn't change much.

A necessary evil in her mind. Similar to Price, she doesn't condemn it nor praise what Adler did. It just happened and she cannot change the past.

She is neutral on the topic of Bell however. They're not a victim to her like with Price, Garrick, and Ghost, a hero like to Alejandro, or a villain like with Soap. Bell simply just is.

A little sympathy is there, but she very much realizes the likelihood that Bell was very likely a loyal follower to a genocidal freak and may have very much deserved what happened to them.

What happened cannot be changed, and there's no use dwelling on it.

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

Gaz, out of everyone, has the kindest heart, so of course he would feel for Bell.

It's also quite literally canon in the MW2019 that he is disturbed by some of Price's methods, so it would be very safe to assume that he would be left with a feeling of distaste towards Adler.

He feels for Bell and would attempt to befriend them like Alejandro.

His line of thinking is very much similar to Alejandro's on that note, he's just less so inflamed, not quite so passionate.

Adler did save so many lives through doing what he did, Gaz does acknowledge that. But without Bell, no of it would've happened.

His hatred towards Adler does not manifest itself so passionately as it does for Ghost and Alejandro, but his lens is definitely tainted. For the life of him he cannot understand why someone would do this to another human being.

He wouldn't necessarily attempt to take the mantle of their protector from Adler like Alejandro does, but he does try his best to help them get better, mainly through humor and comfort.

That's what Gaz does best.

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seeingteacupsindragons · 2 years

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Yuukoku no Moriarty and Cross-cultural Interrogation

I’ve touched on this before, but something I find most fascinating about Yuukoku no Moriarty is the way it adapts such incredibly well-known works from a perspective so very foreign to the original media’s culture of origin.

Honestly, part of the reason I’ve always like anime and manga is because they aren’t stories that could be created in the anglosphere. They come from a completely different cultural understanding of not only how media works, not only one with different classics and literary inspiration to draw from, different tropes and literary devices, but just completely different values. Their stories spring from a different understanding of humanity and narrative, and it’s one of the most popular (and most accessible to a baby monolingual American) ways to get that kind of exposure to Something Else. I loved books from Ireland and Australia in a similar (but generally less intense) way.

Yuukoku no Moriarty is a very Japanese series targeted to a Japanese audience, but it’s also an adaptation of two very famous pieces of British literature. Two of the most famous and most commonly-adapted pieces of British literature. They’re so well-known that they have oozed into Western media to its core at this point, and you don’t even have to have been exposed to them to know of them, to know names, characters, and tropes that they inspired. Three pieces, if you include Shakespeare and William’s obsession with it and repeated references.

And on top of that, a significant chunk of the material is also sourced from Christianity and references to that, which is…

Well, have you seen the way anime usually does Christianity? It’s always very. Uh. Interesting. Japan is not a Christian culture and never has been; Christianity stands at less of the population and it’s never been so entrenched in it that an…accurate understanding ever took root. A lot of Americans and Europeans see Christian values and rituals as so common and matter-of-course that they think they’re secular or universal. But they are a product of a very specific place and culture, and not everyone shares those values.

Takeuchi-sensei and Miyoshi-sensei understand Christianity in a way I think is much more nuanced than most anime and manga and they seem quite familiar with it. It’s really great! But it’s also very apparent that they are…well, very likely not Christians themselves and, even more importantly, not steeped in a Christian cultural environment. And as well-read as the creators of Yuukoku no Moriarty are in these original works, as many obscure references they can fit in, as much of the series is actually literally in English…they don’t have the same values a British Christian does. They use Christianity the same way they use Shakespeare and Conan Doyle and Fleming: it’s a useful literary device with meaning they can leverage, but they’re not beholden to it.

Now, Yuukoku no Moriarty is a deconstruction of a lot of things. A lot of things that…came from the original sources they’re using, but also of other things. The concept of justice and revenge. Of anti-villains and anti-heroes and morality and. Of the roles of heroes. Of detectives and goodness and darkness and shadow. Of adaptations themselves.

And a huge part of these deconstructions is discussing these very British, very Western narratives and values, taking them apart, analyzing them, and then commenting on them in a way only someone who doesn’t see these values as a matter of course can.

I talked about this before when I’ve discussed YuuMori as story of atonement. Sin, guilt, dishonor, and atonement are incredibly cultural, and the way they’re viewed varies wildly from place to place and culture to culture.

William thinks committing sin, committing himself to sin, makes him the devil. And devils need to be exorcised and sent to hell. There is no reforming the devil. There is no atonement for the devil. The devil is a symbol of sin and punishment. He can’t reform himself, because if he did, there would be no punishment for humanity. Christian theology starts to fall apart without Hell and the devil, because a big factor in Jesus being…relevant…is that he emerged from Hell to save people from it.

But even if William is a Christian, his creators are (probably) not. Hell and eternal punishment in flames isn’t William’s path, because while Christians may punish sinners with eternal torment and brutal justice…that’s not the only way to deal with wrongdoings. And…most religions don’t…rely on eternal suffering as a punishment for Being Bad.

(I’m not saying Christians and cultural Christians are the only people who find some kind of virtue or value in suffering, but it’s not actually universal, it’s kind of horrifying if you think about it, and it is very much a hallmark of Christianity)

The series doesn’t even beg you compare William to Christ—it does it for you. Moran says he looks like a man climbing Golgotha. He’s featured with halos of light as he preaches evil. Albert refers to him as a good shepherd who found a lost sheep (Albert being the sheep). He was reborn on Easter in a wreath of unholy fire, out of the Hell that was the Moriarty manor, to save humanity. He’s done the “reborn in a new world” thing twice, once after a long period of time in isolation alone to repent of his sins and be tempted (by Sherly). I could go on and on about this, but I already wrote about it once. I could do it again, but not here.

Quite honestly, the very excessiveness of the symbolism might not work as well in a Western work. The over-the-top nature of the comparison works for an audience who isn’t going to see it everywhere all the time so easily—and it being so over-the-top I think makes it easier to swallow than if it was tempered in a way that couldn’t be poked a little fun at. Once again, this is being treated and respected as something to use as a literary device, not necessarily respected as a Moral Authority.

It does something very similar with Western history. In case you were not already aware, the history in Yuukoku no Moriarty is. Very inaccurate. Very, very inaccurate. I’ve made jokes before about how Yuukoku no Moriarty is historical fiction to make its foreign readers scream, but it’s not actually meant for foreign audiences, and our reactions are really secondary. Japanese culture is probably taught some of it, but not enough to be wincing through the explanations of things—and, much like it does with Christianity, it twists Western history as it wants to suit the story being told. It doesn’t matter if it’s accurate or not, because it services the story this way, and Western history is no more sacred than anything else.

Because if it’s (Christianly) sacred, then it can’t be deconstructed and commented on. And the series wants to do that. It wants to comment on Britian’s history of imperialism and its proxy wars. It wants to comment on America’s freedom vs inequality vs power vs manipulation. It wants to comment on those things, because they aren’t totally foreign to Japan—it has its own history of imperialism and oppression and manipulation and inequality. But approaching it from the outside makes it safer, easier to deal with—and viewing another culture’s flaws and values can allow someone to evaluate their own.

And, from my own perspective as a Westerner, it’s really fascinating to see these things from my own culture treated as malleable and useful story material. To break them down to useful chunks on a thematic level instead of accuracy to really evaluate what’s true in the stories and what matters about the stories. To see the same tropes I’m so familiar with, the same stories I’m so familiar with just because I Live As A Westerner, being wildly reinterpreted as something else. To see what else they could be and what other shapes they could take.

We see quintessential British superspies being reinterpreted as the way Japanese sees superspies. We see The quintessential Great Detective reinterpreted in the way that Japan loves to focus on the human, emotional elements of men instead of the cold logic Holmes is often subjected to in the West because of where we place our values on men. We see the Shakspearian theatrical tradition mixed with traditional Japanese theatre like Noh of Kabuki where performers are expected to wear masks and overact as a matter of course. And it mixes Christian religious imagery and references with a story that does not at all share the same philosophy because Japan is rooted primarily in Shinto and Buddhism.

Yuukoku no Moriarty a great opportunity to see cross-cultural interrogation at work. It’s just. Fascinating to see how it works. And maybe sometimes it doesn’t work. Maybe sometimes the choices are a little strange. But the very existence of the choices is just such a wonderful thing to see and really dig into. But Yuukoku no Moriarty is commenting on Britain and white, Western culture from an outside perspective, and that’s always interesting.

#Yuukoku no Moriarty #Moriarty the Patriot #I started this during my last writing stream but I just finished it this morning #so hopefully the people who previewed it are still excited lol

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grammarpedant · 8 months

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hangry from med withdrawal and chronic inability to sleep, I'm in my kitchen at 4am with worms in my brain. thinking about the ways in which people take a narrative's nonwhiteness and whitewash it, its disability "fixed", the way that queerness is straightened. thinking how past me was naive. hadn't been rubbed raw by the incorrigibly ignorant so often yet, didn't know that's what made the others so bitter.

it isn't your fault, i mutter contemptuously to that blind privileged ignorant. you've had the privilege of being able to ignore the wider world and its injustices, so why would you seek out pain? why acknowledge other people's pain when it hurts your sense of safety to do so? why would you seek out anything but the self-indulgence of your own id, your own dick, your own fairytales about white picket fences and White picket neighbors, a man and his wife and two and a half children. YOU have the privilege of never noticing how yours is one more voice in a chorus of others, calling out the same old story. Whiten the brown man, civilize the native. The lesbian will be happiest with a husband, and the trans woman isn't real just a joke. Fix the cripple and pity the autistic, one day we'll cure them too.

The only story that exists is the Normal one, you don't seem to notice yourself saying. the only happiness is in being Normal. A certain kind of White, straight, cis, abled Normal, the only one that's acceptable. That's what being human is.

You are going to fall in love. You are going to fall in love with someone of the right gender. "Falling in love" means something very specific, and you'll just know when it happens, because it happens the same way to everyone. You are going to have a relationship with that right someone, and it's going to look a certain way. It's going to involve sex, you don't get to say no to that, but it's only going to be the right kind of sex, the kind we deem moral. All of your attraction, all of your relationships, must fit into these boxes, these ones we've laid out before you in every fairy tale and every cry of "aw, he's pulling her pigtails, he must have a crush on her!" since before you even knew language. don't call us "allosexual" or "alloromantic" like that puts us on equal conceptual footing with you, you loveless freak! stop using words that describe our experience as anything but Normal, or yours as Not.

Don't make us try to acknowledge your deviancy like there could be anything worthy in there that's different from us!

-that's what I hear every time you once again bend and break and erase and rewrite the non-normative, the queer and disabled and non-White stories, and the relationshio anarchy ones and the asexual ones too, to fit the ones you know. you well-meaning ignorant, your good intentions merely pave the way to some christian hell.

you are one more drop in the bucket of Whitewash, the tide of normal come to cleanse us of our deviant sins. and ohh, don't even get me started on the pervasiveness of christian ideology, even in you who think yourself separate from religion.

it doesn't matter if i do get started, anyway. you aren't listening, you self-absorbed cretin, you never have been. you stopped at it's not your fault, too busy chasing your own self-indulgence to realize nothing is separate from anything else. the shape of the things that make you happy did not spring contextless out of nowhere but were carefully carved into the foundations long before you were poured into its shape. you are part of the world. your self-indulgence is part of the world's pain, too.

#verso talks #3am thoughts #transphobia #heteronormativity #allonormativity #homophobia #aphobia #in my eyes those who claim to 'transform' an aroace character are no better than those misgendering the agender one #vent post

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haggishlyhagging · 10 months

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The kind of spiritual counseling that women frequently receive within the "sacred condominium" is exemplified in an article by Fr. Bernard Häring. Writing of the woman who has been raped, he says:

We must, however, try to motivate her [emphasis his] to consider the child with love because of its subjective innocence, and to bear it in suffering through to birth, whereupon she may consider her enforced maternal obligation fulfilled [emphasis mine] and may give over the child to a religious or governmental agency, after which she would try to resume her life with the sanctity that she will undoubtedly have achieved through the great sacrifice and suffering.

Fr. Häring adds that if she has already "yielded to the violent temptation" to rid herself of the effects of her experience, "we can leave the judgment of the degree of her sin to a merciful God." Those who are familiar with "spiritual counseling" have some idea of what could be implied in the expression "try to motivate her." Despite Fr. Häring's intention to be compassionate, his solution is not adequate. The paternalistic and intimidating atmosphere of "spiritual counseling" is not generally conducive to free and responsible decision-making, and can indeed result in "enforced maternal obligation." The author does not perceive the irony of his argument, which is visible only when one sees the environment of the woman's predicament. She lives in a world in which not only the rapist but frequently also the priest view her as an object to be manipulated—in one case physically, and in the other case psychologically. Machismo religion, in which only men do spiritual counseling, asks her to endure a double violation, adding the rape of her mind to that of her body. As Mrs. Robinson of the once popular hit song knew: "Every way you look at it, you lose."

Feminist ethics—yet to be developed because women have yet to be free enough to think out our own experience—will differ from all of this in that it will refuse to give attention merely to the isolated physical act involved in abortion, and will insist upon seeing this within its social context. Christian moralists generally have paid attention to context when dealing with such problems as killing in self-defense and in war. They have found it possible to admit the existence of a "just war" within which the concept of "murder" generally does not apply, and have permitted killing in self-defense and in the case of capital punishment. They have allowed to pass unheeded the fact that by social indifference a large proportion of the earth's population is left to die of starvation in childhood. All of these situations are viewed as at least more complex than murder. Yet when the question of abortion is raised, frequently it is only the isolated material act that is brought into focus. The traditional maxim that circumstances affect the morality of an action is all but forgotten or else rendered nonoperative through a myopic view of the circumstances. Feminists perceive the fact of exceptional reasoning in the case of abortion as related to the general situation. They ask the obviously significant (but frequently overlooked) question: Just who is doing the reasoning and who is forced to bear unwanted children?

-Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation

#mary daly #forced birth #anti christianity #feminist thought #patriarchal religion #anti rape

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absolxguardian · 2 years

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Still thinking about Demonology as a way to understand Belos’ character.

When answering “why can’t people use witchcraft/demons for good purposes if they’re super careful about it” James invokes the theological principle of “Nunquam faciendum est malum ut bonun indie eueniat (Evil must never be done so that good may result)“. Belos doesn’t follow this, and so we can see that in his fanatical centuries long quest he has violated his own morality.

Now this isn’t all the lying, tyranny, and murder he did (although I would be interested to hear if someone who is more knowledgeable in New England Puritanism could give an analysis if witch hunters would be allowed to do long cons to catch witches in extreme circumstances)- witches don’t get human rights. And certainly not witches that were never Christian and are more similar to indigenous people than Europeans. Killing his brother was acceptable as well, with the theory that og Caleb had married a Clawthorne ancestor and became amicable with the people of the Boiling Isles, he had, in Philip’s eyes, became a witch (the human kind tempted to sin that he had hunted in the human realm).

No where Belos errors is where he himself practices magic. Now there could be more nuance in applying the Elaborated Theory of Witchcraft to Glyph Magic. Belos knows he isn’t making a deal with the devil, he’s using the natural (Demonology makes a big deal about what’s natural and what isn’t) properties of the Demon Realm. He could even tell himself its inherently different from the magic that the witches of the Boiling Isles use. But there isn’t any when it comes to extending his life using Palismans. That clearly violates the natural order of the Boiling Isles. And unlike Glyph Magic, it involves internalizing “evil demonic magic”. My reading is that Belos believes that regardless of his predestined afterlife, if he were to die in the Boiling Isles, he could only go to hell, because its so far away from his god. He can’t die without his plan at an anti-climax. Except Christianity isn’t a big anti-death religion. The good Christian thing to do would be to die a martyr.

Speaking of fighting against death, creating grimwalkers would be another violation. You can’t just go creating life other than the way God has laid out for you. That’s one of the reasons why American evangelicals and Catholics objected to IVF when it was first invented. In the past, theologians spent a lot of time thinking about where souls come from, most theories agreed sex was an important part of it. Belos is making clearly sapient people, and if he thinks he’s resecurting Caleb’s soul, that’s something only God can do.

Now while maybe Philip could defend himself in theological nuance from his own people when it comes to the Palismans and the grimwalkers, he doesn’t have a defense when it comes to the Collector. My man literally makes a deal with a devil-like figure. Like dude, that’s the one thing you’re not supposed to do.

#toh #the owl house #emperor belos #philip wittebane

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a-god-in-ruins-rises · 23 days

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it is interesting. the thing about christianity that christians most often tout as the reason why christianity is superior is the exact same thing that i always struggled with the most.

that "thing" is the concept of salvation. specifically, salvation from sin (especially original sin).

and i think one of the reasons why paganism appealed is precisely because it didn't have this thing. at least not in the same way.

it just always seems so convoluted to me. it seemed like a solution to a problem they invented. and it doesn't even make any sense.

one specific thing that always confused me was the immaculate conception. it's just strange to me. if god can make it so mary is immaculately conceived and born without original sin....why can't he do that for everyone? yeah i know it's mostly a catholic thing but still.

also, another thing is, i've never understood the significance of jesus' "sacrifice". like....he is god. how is that a sacrifice? he endures a day of suffering and then wakes up in heaven as the ruler of the universe? that suffering must be like stepping on a lego in the grand scheme of things. lmao. his suffering wasn't even unique either. romans crucified people all the time. there were literally two other guys suffering the same fate right next to him.\

also if it's essentially god sacrificing himself to himself....why all the melodrama? why do you have to go through all that to "wash away" everyone's sin? no one else seems to be involved in the transaction. couldn't you do it all without the suffering and the crucifixion.

also, most christians don't even understand how jesus dying is supposed to "save" us in the first place. there are all kinds of theories of atonement. but even among "scholarly" circles there's no real consensus. different churches will tend to one or another. but no one is really sure. ask yourself. how does jesus dying wash away your sins? is his death the devil's ransom? or was it to satisfy god's righteous fury? was it just a moral example? penal substitution? most people have never even really thought about it and took the "jesus died for our sins" refrain for granted.

and the questions continue. why is there sin at all? free will? okay well how can we have free will if god is all knowing? but sure let's grant free will. then why did he put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of eden? why even insert that kind of temptation? was it a test? why? it's like i tell a child to not eat a donut i placed on a table and then holding a lifelong grudge against them when they inevitably do. it seems so petty and stupid and kind of fucked up and irresponsible. also, like why can't he just show up to everyone and perform miracles and outline the rules clearly to people? if the choice is between salvation and eternal damnation i feel like he should be a bit more clear and direct. why gamble with people's souls? more petty testing? is it all just a game or something?

and i can keep going. but you get the idea. this is so central to christianity and one of the biggest points christians bring up when we discuss religion but it's so convoluted. and it just reads like someone make it up as they go along. and that's fine btw. that's literally what i believe about all religions, even my own. no religion is static and they're all constantly changing and adapting and evolving. and that's fine! but christianity always pretends to be different and superior for that difference. if they were just like "yeah idk it's all just myth and tradition and we're doing our best to interpret it and its mystery ultimately escapes us" or something like that i could respect that. but most christians are like "no. this is the absolute revealed truth and it's why christianity is superior and if you don't believe it you're wrong and going to hell."

lmao.

#just some more musing about religion #inspired by stuff i saw on twitter

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