I remember being stopped by morality police in Iran while I was still a minor. At the time, I was shocked and laughed it off because my aunts reassured me they had no real power.

It's been 7 years since, and I've seen so many whatsapp videos as of late, of violence from these thugs against women. And its always about hijab, not zakaat, not prayer, nothing actually mandatory in the religion. And now there's been an active victim of Irans morality police, Mahsa Amini, who was also vacationing from abroad with her family. She was brutally beaten by the morality police and died while in police custody. Authorities are lying about her having a prior medical condition that led to her alleged heart attack (her family is speaking out against this lie).

Please don't forget about Mahsa. Protests have begun but knowing the government, a media blackout can follow and people will be met with violence until they obey again.

Hi, I hope this isnt annoying to ask but w the old guard ive seen a lot of people mixing up catholic and christian when it comes to nicky. when by todays standards theyre not interchangeable as catholic is a specific strain of christianity. i was kinda under the impression the crusades were a purely catholic thing since the pope. is that right or were other christians involved??

Hmm. Just to be clear what you’re asking, are you wondering whether it’s a mistake to use “Catholic” and “Christian” interchangeably when talking about this time period or describing Nicky’s faith? And/or asking for a basic religious primer on medieval Europe and the crusades more generally?

First, it’s not a mistake to use “Catholic” and “Christian” as synonyms during the crusades, especially since a) Catholics are Christians, no matter what the militant Protestant reformers would like you to think, and b) until said Protestant reformation, they were the dominant and almost (but not quite) singular Christian denomination in Western Europe. Our source material for the period doesn’t describe the crusaders as “Catholics,” even if they were; they call them Christians or Franks. (Likewise, the word “Frank,” i.e. “French” was often used to describe Western European crusaders no matter which country they were from, since so many crusaders came from France and that was where the crusades were originally launched, at the council of Clermont in 1095.) To call them “Christians” points us to the fact that the crusades were viewed as a great pan-Christian enterprise, even if the reality was more complicated, and nobody would need to specify “Catholic,” because that was implicit.

In short, medieval Europe had two major strands of Christianity, which developed out of the centuries of arguments over heresy, the contents of the biblical canon, the nature and/or divinity of Christ, their relationship to Judaism, paganism, and other religions of late antiquity, and so forth. Eventually these two competing branches took on geographical, cultural, and linguistic associations: Western (Latin) Catholic Christianity, and Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Christianity. The Great Schism in 1054 split these two rites formally apart, though both of them had at least some thought that the internal divisions in Christianity should be healed and dialogue has continued intermittently even up to the present day (though they’re still not actually reconciled and this seems highly unlikely to ever happen.)

The head of Western Catholic Christianity was (and is) the Pope of Rome, and the head of Eastern Orthodox Christianity was (and is) the Patriarch of Constantinople. Both of these branches of Christianity were involved in launching the crusades. To make a long story short, the Byzantine (Greek) Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, appealed to the Catholic (Latin) pope, Urban II, for help in defending the rights of eastern Christians, territorial incursions against Greek possessions by the Muslims of the Holy Land and North Africa, and the city of Constantinople (and Jerusalem) itself. So although the actual French and Western European participants in the crusades were Catholic, they (originally, at least) joined up with the intention of helping out their Orthodox brethren in the East and “liberating” Jerusalem from the so-called tyranny of Islam. To this end, the accounts of the council of Clermont focused heavily on the brotherhood of western and eastern Christians and the alleged terrible treatment of these Christians by the ruling Islamic caliphate in Jerusalem. At that time, that was the Isma’ili Shia Muslim Fatimids (who had replaced the Sunni Muslim Abbasids in the early 10th century -- there are many names and many dynasties, but yes.)

However, despite this ecumenical start, relations between Western and Eastern Christians started to go bad very quickly over the course of the crusades, indeed within a few short years of Clermont. Alexios Komnenos wanted the crusade leaders to swear loyalty to him and pledge to return formerly Byzantine lands that might be recaptured from the Muslims, and the crusade leaders did not want to do this. There were deep cultural, linguistic, religious, social, and political differences between Greek and Latin Christians, even if they were both technically Christians, and these caused the obvious problems. The Greeks were obviously located in a different part of the world and had a different relationship with their Islamic neighbors (they fought them often, but also traded with them and established diplomatic ties) and this caused constant friction during the crusades, since the Westerners always suspected (not entirely wrongly) that the Greeks were secretly in league with the Turks. Albert of Aachen, writing his Historia Ierosolimitana in the early 12th century, referred to “wicked Christians, that is to say Greeks,” and our primary source for the Second Crusade (1145--49) is Odo of Deuil and his De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem (Journey of Louis VII to the East.) He spent the entire time grousing about “treacherous Greeks” and blaming them for the crusade’s struggles (though the Second Crusade pretty much sabotaged itself and didn’t need any outside force to blame for its failure). There was some truth to this accusation, since Byzantium was then engaged in a war against Sicily (Louis VII’s ally, though it had its own connections to Muslim culture and indeed had been Muslim before the Normans conquered it in 1061). The Greeks had thus been working with the Muslims to undercut the invasion of Western Europeans into this contested territory, and this was not forgotten or forgiven.

The best-known example of Western-Eastern relations during the crusades going catastrophically awry is in 1204, at the sack of Constantinople as the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Basically: the crusaders were deeply in debt to the Venetians and had already attacked the Catholic city of Zara (Zadar in Croatia) in hopes of getting some money back, then got involved in the messy politics of the Byzantine succession, went to Constantinople, and eventually outright attacked it, sacked and destroyed the city, and raped and slaughtered its inhabitants. This obviously poisoned the well all but permanently between Latin and Greek Christians (frankly, in my opinion, it’s one of the worst tragedies of history) and Constantinople never regained its former wealth and pre-eminence. It declined until it was captured in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II, and has been an Islamic city ever since. (It was renamed Istanbul in 1923, under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the “founding father” of modern Turkey.) Obviously, Latin and Greek Christianity still had to work with each other somehow, but the crusades were actually the single biggest factor in driving the two branches further apart, rather than reconciling them.

The words “catholic” and “orthodox” both have connotations of universality, overall correctness, and all-encompassing truth claims. Therefore, in some sense, to a Catholic Christian or an Orthodox Christian, defining themselves as such, with both words, is repetitious; they are Catholic/Orthodox and therefore the correct sort of Christian (even if their theological opponents would disagree). However, historians obviously do use that convention to distinguish them, since the identity is important, and makes a big difference as to what religious landscape an individual is living in. As for heresy, it was an equally complicated subject. Numerous “heretical” (i.e. not mainstream Catholic Christianity) Christian sects existed in Europe for this entire period, most notably the Cathars. (They got their own crusade launched against them, the Albigensian Crusade of 1209--29 in southern France.) The lines between heresy and orthodoxy (small-o orthodoxy meaning in this case, confusingly, Catholic Christianity) could often be blurred, and religious practices were syncretic and constantly influenced each other. A big problem in the Albigensian Crusade was identifying who the heretics actually were; they looked like their Catholic neighbors, they lived in community with them, their friends and family members were Cathar and Catholic alike, both rites were practiced, and plenty of towns were just fine with this hybrid arrangement. Hence it was not as simple as just pointing and going “get those guys,” and indeed, one of the leaders of the Albigensian Crusade, when asked by a knight how to tell them apart, advocated to just kill them all and God would know who the good Catholics were. Welp.

Northern and eastern Europe also remained pagan relatively late into the medieval era (into the 10th and 11th centuries) and the Northern and Baltic Crusades were launched with the aim of converting them to Catholic Christianity. (You will notice that the crusades have a complicated history as both a vehicle of religious warfare and as an attempted theater of conversion.) Heresy was a constant preoccupation of the Catholic popes, especially Innocent III (the progenitor of the Fourth, Albigensian, and Fifth Crusades). Especially in the thirteenth century, splinter religious groups and localized sects of “heresy” were popping up like crazy, and it was a constant point of contention as to how to deal with them, i.e. by force, persuasion, reconciliation, dialogue, etc. No, the medieval Catholic church was not the stereotyped instrument of fear, oppression, and tyranny, and could never enforce its views universally on all of western Europe. Church attendance on the parish level could be so low that in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent issued an order requiring Christians to take communion at least once a year. So yes. The standard was very far from “everyone believed Catholicism fervently at all times and if they didn’t, they were immediately punished/burned alive.” The idea of burning heretics at the stake wasn’t even introduced until the early fifteenth century, and even then, it required an often-months-long formal church trial and wasn’t just something that the local village priest could hand out on a whim.

There were also monastic orders, and these (at least in Western Europe) were therefore Catholic, but they had different ways of practicing it and what their orders emphasized. The most common order were Benedictines (founded in the 6th century by Saint Benedict), who adhered to the Rule of Saint Benedict, which is still the basis for the following monastic orders. There were also the Cluniacs (founded in 10th-century France at Cluny Abbey) and the Cistercians (founded as rivals to the Cluniacs at the end of the 11th century, also in France). In terms of the crusades, the Cistercians were by far the most involved with/zealously supportive of them (Bernard of Clairvaux was a Cistercian) and took part in directly financing, preaching, and launching the Second, Fourth, and Albigensian Crusades alike. The better-known monastic orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, weren’t founded until the thirteenth century, on the tail end of the crusades, and didn’t take much direct part in them. The Dominican inquisition, however, took over the business of dealing with the Cathars after the Albigensian Crusade petered out, and their concern was often with heresy thereafter.

Anyway. This has gotten long, as per usual. But I hope this gives you some introductory sense of the religious landscape of medieval Europe, the divisions within Christianity, and the fact that it’s entirely accurate to use “Catholic” and “Christian” interchangeably when discussing Nicky’s crusades-era faith and counterparts. The crusaders themselves did not specify themselves as being Catholic, and the crusades were (at least initially) viewed as a pan-Christian movement, even if eventually fatal tensions with Orthodox Christians left a permanent scar. The idea of identifying the precise denomination of Christianity is also another Protestant Reformation-era innovation, and wasn’t, at least in this case, necessary to do.

How is the cowboi doing? :) I’d love to hear about some of their recent adventures.

OH WELL IT'S ME + ALSO MY DICE HATE(/love) ME SO YOU KNOW THEYRE GETTING WHUMPED CONSTANTLY LMAO

there have certainly been some Events Unfolding so those are under the cut, casey since youre in our campaign now NO PEEKING

fair warning this is .... long ..... you have asked me to talk about my dnd character and you simply CANNOT stop the floodwaters now. enter at your own risk

okay so basically the first arc of the campaign kind of kicked off with them getting a vision from their goddess (the grain goddess/goddess of agriculture) saying that she was trapped in a fey gate and that they needed to come rescue her

so erley immediately Rallied The Posse and set off to do that. they NUMEROUS times tried to pray to her, commune with her, basically just get ANY sort of communication or guidance from her, but the dice like to tell their story so i literally never got above an 11 (paladin with only +2 to religion my beloved) and they never heard from her, which was making them. pretty nervous. when it seemed like everyone else was able to talk to their gods just fine

well we eventually figured out that there was a huge gathering of fey in the woods (me: this might be too big for us to fight. what if its like 30 fey? / my dm, glancing at his notes where he has 2000 fey written down: (: ) and basically the fey like. had captured and were trying to kill what was left of the pantheon so they could bring back gaia as the One True God

we found all this out because it turned out several members of the party had been lying about how much they knew of the fey and had personal connections to the fey they'd kept hidden. and erley, who is ALSO HIDING A LOT from the party like. immediately went on the offense and was just generally very unhappy about this

there had been this fey merchant who kept popping up wherever we were trying to sell us magic weapons that seemed tied to us specifically. erley was always VERY suspicious of her and did everything in their power to stop the others from buying her weapons (which we literally had to buy with -5 to a skill point, not money, v sus) to mixed results. but basically when we got to the fey gathering (we called it gaiapalooza) erley rolled a 1 on their survival check to get through the magic field and like. got teleported to her. and they really wanted information from her so they basically were like LEORA I DONT KNOW WHO TO TRUST I THINK MY PARTY HAS BEEN LYING TO ME, CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THEM CAN YOU SEE US WHEN YOURE NOT THERE? and basically pretended to need a therapy session in order to milk her for information lmao. she also seemed like. REALLY interested in erley and i was also very nervous about that

and i was RIGHT to be suspicious of her because we found out she WAS ACTUALLY THE BIG BAD and we had to fight her in the arc finale. and several of our party members had rl stuff and were not there, and in game our druid was away casting an 8 hour long spell to try and stop the palooza ceremony, so our party was SUPER nerfed and also as soon as erley realized it WAS actually leora who was behind all of it and she WAS trying to hurt them with those weapons (the weapons were tethers to the gods to be able to kill them basically), they got .... a little angry

and my party found out after irl a year of playing these characters that erley's first level is barbarian :))

so erley raged and did frankly a staggering amount of damage in this fight, and also only stayed up because of rage because they took a LOT of hits. but also. they dont rage FOR A REASON so it sort of took them over and when leora dropped, one of the other pcs ran over to stabilize her as she was making death saves and erley :) maybe :) drove a spear through her heart and killed her :)

and her body immediately just like. overgrew with plants and vines and flowers and basically wrapped the spear in a bed of plants and it was very cinematic and cool

(we have since found out that leora was like. actually an aspect of gaia so. that is. interesting)

of course then erley popped out of rage and was like FUCK this is why i dont do this, i went too far, it always goes too far, THIS is why im ashamed of this, and just got very emo boi about it. so they used their last spell slot to cast restoration on the space they had fought in and reached out to their goddess, having just saved her and the rest of the pantheon like she had asked them to

and i rolled a nat 1!!!

(the dm was like "you have committed this violent act, you feel so low and so bad and in need of guidance, and reach out to your goddess. and the absolute lack of a response just makes you feel empty inside" and i was like :) oh :) okay cool :) you love to see that with your paladins huh)

at this point the druid came back in and, instead of erley like. examining any of their own shit immediately lashed out at her and was like "why did you lie to me about the fey, why did you lie about why you were here, why ARE you here because i realize now it wasnt to help me"

and at that point ONE OF THE FEY QUEENS WALKED IN and the druid was like "... mother ..." and we were all :O

so it turns out the fey queen is her birth mom but had like? kidnapped one of the children of her firbolg tribe and was holding her hostage and the druid was on a quest to find her and bring her back

so erley :) felt :) even more bad about that :) and very shamedly pledged their help to her, and basically was like "as long as youre on this noble quest i will follow you if you'll have me"

so we're on our second arc now, which is traveling across the country to go meet the fey queen and get this kid back. as we were traveling my dm had me roll religion and a luck check and i got a 21 ON RELIGION FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER and a 6 luck. and he was like "you dont usually dream, but you have a nightmare. you know this nightmare was given to you, it was divinely inspired, but you dont know who sent it" and it was just erley killing leora over and over and over again. so they were like. well fuck

(my dm also messaged me privately and we talked and he was like. yeah you can get rid of your oath of devotion and change it to oath of the ancients, i am not telling you or erley why the subclass has changed and you also might get nerfed later. also level up barbarian for the next fight)

so erley was. feeling PRETTY DANG BAD and very guilty and stressed and all that. they did also realize their barbarian side was getting stronger which, considering their backstory is all tragic barbarian shit they were NOT happy about. i was fully prepared to have them be more ostracized from the party and go into full angst mode, but then the druid actually like. pulled them aside and explained why she had hidden information from them, and had a very sweet conversation with them and held their hand and it was VERY touching (she also had the baller line "you think your goddess can hear you and she's not answering. but maybe you're talking in a whisper and she needs to hear you scream")

we had another fight (we're level 7 and my dm told us after it was a cr 32 fight like. dude??? what the fuck?????) and once again erley didnt go down only because of rage

THEY ALSO UNINTENTIONALLY CAST MISTY STEP (which is an ancients spell they didnt have before) and were like WELL NO TIME TO UNPACK WHAT THAT WAS RIGHT NOW, HAVE TO NOT DIE

after the battle was over i asked to roll a check to figure out why i had access to that spell and got :) yeah you guessed it :) another nat 1 :) so erley has literally no idea how they cast that or what it could mean. we just had a new pc introduced who is a sorcerer so erley is definitely going to talk to her and see if she knows anything. because they are FULLY IN THE DARK about their subclass change or what that means in game

we're also (because of the fucking cr 32 fight) going to be leveling up again soon, and babey you KNOW im leveling barbarian. after rage kept me up and then rolling another nat 1 religion check, and also me the player not knowing whats up with their goddess/magic, i simply cant level paladin rn. so im BETWEEN A FEW SUBCLASS OPTIONS and ive been thinking them over but i think it really depends how the next few games go

my FULL ANGST option was to make them level into zealot barbarian like their awful dad, but i thought that made the least sense in universe rn

secondary angst option is to level into berserker, which i think fits pretty closely with how i've been roleplaying the rage so far. trading off an extra attack for a level of exhaustion fits pretty closely. also whump central

the NICE option is to have them be a totem warrior barbarian, and have both their paladin steed and their totem be a bull :) (they are a cowboi after all) i think thats the closest i can marry their two classes and potentially have some healthy growth for them, let them see that the rage doesnt HAVE to be a bad thing, that being a barbarian isnt something they HAVE to be ashamed of. reskinning the bear totem would give them resistance to all damage but psychic while raging, and im planning on taking the tough feat, so theyd pretty much be ... an unstoppable tank. plus i can still divine smite while in rage so theyd be VERY powerful

and now youre all caught up on my very special boi :))))) bet you didnt expect quite that much of an infodump but. listen. listen im simply obsessed with dnd i cannot help it. any chance to talk about my characters i WILL TAKE IN A HEARTBEAT (thank u for prompting my ramble lmao)

Im trying to read 'on the incarnation" by st anthanasius and its. dense and also making me wonder... where can we 'draw the line' with the Saints teachings? Esp the church fathers. Is there like. A guide for "oh what they said abt xyz is good but what they said abt zyx isnt so good"? - c

I think if there is any rhyme or reason to it then it is majority; it all comes down to majority. Is this an outlying belief not accepted by the Church at large or is it accepted by everyone? For things half and half then you might need to seek out the answer yourself. 

Our good friend St. Augustine of Hippo can help us out again as being our example once more. In Orthodoxy he is considered a saint and a church father, having influenced the great St. Gregory Palamas but that isn’t to say everything he said and proposed has been accepted! Orthodoxy rejects the filioque, original sin, the doctrine of grace and predestination BUT he’s still a saint and his work is still considered important! Orthodoxy recognizes that humans are well, human, and everything they say might not be correct and from God. 

Now everyone in Orthodoxy rejects his views on original sin, no contest but I for one subscribe to his views on abortion (for the most part), however I know for a fact my priest does not!  As another example not from Augustine, in Orthodoxy there is debate to this day whether the toll houses are real, allegorical or complete nonsense! Some even reject the idea there is disagreement at all, on both sides!

Orthodoxy might be thought of as a religion by committee, which is frankly why I have hopes of it changing in the future, if only very slowly. In the future the elders will have reposed and a new generation of priests and monks will take their place, bringing with then new ideas! Orthodoxy typically doesn’t hold a council meeting like the Roman Catholics and decided that yes in this year we will officially change to this new policy, instead it is more about a slow progressive shift in ideas; the changing of the seasons, the shift in the tide, the water boiling slowly underneath. 

Since in Orthodoxy we are used to saying “I don’t know.” we look to the Church Fathers and to the Holy Tradition. For most things you can probably find a consensus for things, but there are always things they have yet to cover and in those instances ask your spiritual father, a priest, or pray about it and see what your conscious and the Spirit has to say. 

MASS EFFECT DS9 CROSSOVER PLEASE SHARE SOME THOUGHTS

You have. Opened a can of worms, friend.

WELL.

Ok so as far as set up i was picturing like. Wormhole/space magic shenanigans bringing the Normandy to DS9, set somewhere during that little window after Shep and Co. return from the Suicide Mission at the end of 2, but before Shep turns themself in to the Alliance.

The Normandy, badly damaged, limping up to this mysterious space station theyve never seen or heard of before, don't even recognize the outline or architecture, but hey at least they seem to be friendly? And they're offering to help fix our ship and get us back where we need to be so I guess they aren't all bad?

So then Shep and crew are stranded on DS9 for at LEAST a couple weeks while they try to get the Normandy fixed up, and allllll the shenanigans the respective crews get into, especially once they start interacting with each other

-There's the obvious of course, Shepard and Sisko would get along fantastically, I think. Both the leaders of crews of mixed bags, sometimes trying to get them to work together is like herding cats. Strong cats with guns and opinions, but at the end of the day they really are kind of a family, aren't they?

-Both are able to understand what was supposed to be one (relatively) simple mission turning into way more lives at stake than they signed up for (Shep with. Well. The entire events of the trilogy, but then Sisko too. Bring Bajor into the Federation. Thats it, that was the mission, but suddenly we're at war with a frankly stronger superpower from another quadrant and suddenly one station is supposed to be the head of it all? The pressure. The lives at stake if they fail. Yeah.)

As for the rest of the crew:

-The next obvious, I think, would Grunt and Worf. Very different methods and cultures, obviously. I'm not saying they'd necessarily GET ALONG even, but there'd be a mutual respect there, I think. Both coming from warrior races, fighting is in their blood, its what they know. And theyre both outsiders to their own culture, being raised primarily if not exclusively by Someone Else, having to fight for their right to have a place amongst their own people. There's a shared strength in that.

-Mordin and Garak, and their shared past as spies. Garak's penchant for lying with every other word out of his mouth vs Mordin's tendency to only say about half of the words in his sentences, each trying to weasel the truth out of the other. Each at the very least recognizing that theyve done horrible things in their past, but not necessarily having regrets for them. Well, no regrets they're willing to admit to.

-BUT THEN ALSO Mordin and Jadzia, really just. Best Science Bros. Mordin can be extremely focused, which I think might turn Jadzia off of him at first, up until she catches him singing under his breath while he works. And once their discussions start trending more towards the importance of art and culture alongside scientific advancement is when they really start to shine together. Also I think Mordin would be absolutely FASCINATED by the Trill, the symbiotic relationship and the symbiont carrying memories across hosts, how the symbionts and hosts merge, etc. Nothing like that really exists in the ME universe

-Julian and Dr. Chakwas could talk some about medicine, certainly, barring nothing else about the differences in their respective medical technology. But I think ultimately she would get tired of his attitude, and he would decide she didn't really have anything new to teach him.

-Julian, I think, would be much more interested in spending time with EDI and Legion. I mean, consider how he was in the one TNG episode, when he got to meet Data? He would be over the moon especially for a chance to study legion. The Geth Collective is genuinely an interesting idea, and I think he would be fascinated by the varrying levels of simulated intelligence, but without individuality. EDI would be an interesting study, because this would be before she got the mech body, so she would still for all intents and purposes "be" the Normandy. A ship as a living entity? With emotional attachment to the crew inside? Absolutely fascinating. And if it were a bit alter on that this happens? She has wants! And fears! Absolutely fascinating!

-Dr. Chakwas, on the other hand, would probably end up spending her time with Keiko O'Brien. Swapping stories about their times being forced to be on the relative sidelines, having to watch all the horrible things their loved ones are constantly dealing with and only being able to do so much. Keiko's exasperation with Miles and Chakwas' with Joker. (And Shepard). Plus really i just like to imagine them having tea together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-Kira Thane and Mordin I can picture spending hours upon hours deep in discussion, about ethics and morality and religion, and how the hell you're supposed to reconcile it all when you have so much darkness in your past.

-Kira and Thane, especially, have a lot to talk about. Kira fighting in the resistance her whole life vs Thane being raised as a living weapon, both deeply spiritual and refusing to believe that their respective peaces are denied to them, that they can still find their own redemption and make up for their pasts.

-Joker would spend a lot of time trying to avoid Julian, who I think would be very insistent on wanting to study his Vrolik's syndrome, and possibly trying to cure it. Joker really Does Not Like Him.

-Tali would inevitably spend a lot of time together with Miles, because assumedly they'd be working on fixing the Normandy together (when Miles isnt busy trying to fix one of DS9's 50 million other problems). I don't know that they'd honestly have much in common aside from engineering-related stuff, but they're both geniuses in their respective versions of their fields and comparing the 2 universe's technologies alone could take more discussion time than they would have.

-I don't think Jack would. Actually try to get along with anyone. I see her spending the vast majority if her time camping out in a holosuite trying to program it to let her kill simulations of everyone she's pissed at.

-Miranda and Julian. The two genetically engineered kids. Yeah there'd be a lot to talk about there. Parent drama? Feeling like you have something to prove?? Trying to find the "you" underneath the genetic tampering??? Yeah they'd get along.

-Ok hear me out on this but. I really think Garrus and Garak would end up having a lot in common. I mean, think about it: Cardassian military/goverment/cultural structure compared to the Turians? Love of state above all else, everything is for the State (but then family above even that). And on a more personal level? Getting into a profession, a LIFE, to impress your father and then it still isn't good enough, nothing will ever be good enough, so you keep trying and going to more and more extremes to be good enough and still nothing matters. And you haven't given up on your people, no, never, but they sure have seemed to give up on you, in a way, haven't they? Exiled (Garak), ignored at every turn (Garrus), but hey, here's this one human at least that'll listen to you, and maybe even help you where others won't, so maybe things aren't all bad? Garak lies through his teeth at every turn, Garrus knows this, but he knows where to pick up the specs of truth, too.

-Jacob, bless his soul, gets roped into "babysitting" Jake and Nog. Jake distracts him by taking advantage of his chill exterior, just long enough for Nog to set off chaos halfway across the station. Cue montage of Jacob chasing the boys up and down the Promenade.

...that's all I got I am. Definitely willing to discuss more/get add-ons to this/hear other people's ideas!!!

Man this got long ajxhahavxhs

t’s truly something how all princes/sultans in tmck are so pressed…I get their life isn’t easy, but all that blaming & truly how it can affect everyone’s perception. Murad even accused his mother of faking an assassination attempt on her life, incredible *sarcasm of course*. And Atike was just his cheerleader most of the time, ugh. All that blaming by people who even weren’t there. Thanks for writing that piece!

Aww thank you so much! This piece is my magnum opus I guess lol (Link here:https://fymagnificentwomcn.tumblr.com/post/610970504341405696/no-she-isnt-the-whole-evil-k%C3%B6sem-thing-isnt )

Murad’s angry 24/7 & gets so ridiculous with blame-shifting – he would need a good anger management therapy LBR.

And there’s one scene that portrays his character in nutshell:

Doctor: you cannot drink anymore wine, Your Majesty.

Murad, literally 5 minutes later: Yusuf, bring me wine!

Murad in 1 minute, another example:

Kösem: Don’t marry Silahtar to Atike, you also have another sister and if you do it, it will end in tragedy!

Murad: No worriez, I’ve thought about Gevherhan, I will marry her to Kemankeş ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mentioned a lot of blame-shifting in my previous posts, but he even at moment began questioning his mum about Gülbahar and whether she truly committed treason (and Gülbahar herself admitted to it).

Even when Atike asked him for permission to take children with her & Kösem to vaqf, he was totally okay with the idea, but later after kidnapping snapped at his mother that it was HER fault for gaving taken his sons there & began threatening her with exile far away. Charming as always.

Honestly, he’s like a broken record. In all his arguments, while Kösem has her logical arguments, his only argument is usually “I’m the only/rightful owner of Ottoman Empire, “I’m the shadow of God on Earth. Like dude do you realise how boring you are???

Don’t forget how mad he got when Kösem wrote to Kemankeş to have a backup plan if Murad died and Bayezid wanted to take the throne, which could have meant danger for other Kösem’s sons. After all, she didn’t take it from nothing, Gülbahar told her about assassination attempt to come & it actually already had happened by the time Murad received the letter. Yes, dude you are not immortal, you could have been killed, and life goes on you know? It doesn’t mean your mother doesn’t love you or is not going to mourn you, but she also needs to take care of your brothers and state ffs. He’s truly obsessed with this idea that after his death life will  (unfortunately in his view) go on – which is also meaningful since Kösem reminded him like two episodes earlier that state was going to remain even with both of them dead. And well we all know the “masterful” idea he conceived just before his death.

And it’s clear how even some of his siblings fear him – Gevherhan was scared immediately following the announcement of Kösem no longer being a regent (especially since he did in a way to put  blame on his mother for recent events to prop himself up, and he was also engaged in state matters at that point). Kasim also immediately fears being locked up in kafes or even executed. Judging by their conversations, despite problems going on, last 10 years were a peaceful time for their family.

As I said, out of all Kösem’s opponents only Handan and Derviş weren’t worse than her, and she was the only main player that never engaged in mass slaughter – Safiye, Halime&Co., Gülbahar&Sinan, Murad, Turhan - all did.

Same with Atike – she was a baby when when her father died, didn’t even spend her early years locked up as Ibrahim…. she’s honestly so blind it’s painful. The scene where she jumps at Kemankeş for trying to talk sense to Ibrahim not to appoint Genie Master as chief judge… please your brother is now acting contrary to Imperial law and it’s asking for further disaster if Cinci increases his influence among ulema by bringing people who pay him into it & it’s good Ibo is controlled in this way… nah, it’s actually necessary. And how you jump from this to your mother I have no idea either. A true performative “activist”, who talks about protecting her brother, but all is limited to talking  & exposing her moral superiority, while it’s not supported by any real actions helping him.

Well, you got your revenge on your mother for killing the husband who despised you, acted against your youngest brothers at that point, and likely was only praying you wouldn’t follow him also into afterlife.

I also forgot to mention one more example of Mu/rat manipulating the narrative – when he tells Atike following the failed dethronement attempt & Kasim’s death that their mother had lied to her and tried to kill him – he was after all put in kafes, he should be aware nobody planned an assassination attempt, bah he KNEW the whole plan from Sinan… and yes, Kösem being so adamant that nothing can happen to Mura/t cost her Kasim in the end.

Atike herself was aware that Mu/rat would have killed her brothers even if the dethronement attempt had not happened as she told him to his face after Kasim’s death and she stated that he had made the decision long ago. Later however she got the letter from Murad informing her who killed Silahtar and she even released Traitor No. 1 Sinan to spite her mum 😂.

I suppose princes at this point led the hardest existence because they were closed in kafes, unable to get decent education&experience or have families (maybe they were allowed to have sex with cariyes, but contraception had to be used or even abortion if the concubine of a sehzade has got pregnant) but at the same time they weren’t certain whether they wouldn’t be killed because the switch to anti-fratricide was pretty new&the times were turbulent. Osman clearly broke Imperial law by getting fetva from military judge to kill Mehmed, and Murad killed the biggest number of Ahmed’s sons obviously (yeah more than in the show because not all princes appeared in MYK, though we don’t know the exact number of Ahmed’s sons, Murad definitely also executed Suleiman, most likely his full brother). I laugh when people go about “rule-breaker” Murad. Wow by getting back to law that has already began to run its course, clap clap.

Murad was king of hypocrisy and it’s also a historical fact. As Halil İnalcık states in his book Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age: “ The tyrannical Murad IV was a habitual drinker and at the same time the most ruthless supporter of the prohibition againt alcohol”. Mu/rat tried to make use of religion in his attempts to drill absolute obedience, but he wasn’t a religious person himself & definitely tried to take from religion what it most suited him, while ignoring other things, e.g. he kept decreasing zakat, aka income tax that goes to charity. A small bit of trivia: apparently he was a big fan of Machiavelli’s The Prince, there were even some rumours that he translated the book himself (we can only imagine he also took from this book what he wanted 🤪 ).

Similarly Turhan manipulated the narrative, also in a hypocritical way – remember her going like: “how many padişahs you killed?” and she was the main force behind Ibo’s death… the moment Ibo told her that she “was a coward who hid behind his mother’s skirts”… it was clear he was doomed. There was explicit anger on Turhan’s side here. Not only because she felt insulted by him, but also because she felt a need to prove both to him and the world that she was capable to be on top without Kösem’s support.  Not to mention all her actions leading to Ibo’s situation, also her ordering Mehmed to sign his dad’s death order was so chilling “I don’t want dad to die”. Well, now let’s play morally pure, especially while murdering elderly (very elderly lbr :p) Haci in again a brutal way, including twisting his neck. It’s not even that she removed a padisah – she actively worked to make him crazier and for his rule to be total failure, it wasn’t even about her, Ibo or Kösem – whole nation suffered because she was impatient to take power into her hands./BTW pity we skipped the time period when they were both Valides and we know both tried to get rid of each other, without harming Mehmed/ And frankly even with Kösem it was a terrible & undeserved backstabbing because also Ibi criticised Turhan for this saying his mother always “loved and protected her, did so much for her” and I doubt Ibo was biased here considering that he was also on bad terms with his mum at that moment.

Later the situation truly calmed down & later princes could live much more peacefully because the practice of killing truly went out of style and also later there were less and less restrictions on princes and they could for example travel abroad with the reigning padişah. For example, Sultan Abdülaziz took princes for a European trip and they even had a chance to meet Queen Victoria.

And I laugh when people blame Kösem for “failing to protect the princes” instead of you know, blame the actual killer. Ahmed truly replenished dynasty, while Murad axed a number of his brothers, at the same time of course used his own propaganda. It is true that Murad executed the favourite of princes, Bayezid, during celebrations following the successful Revan campaign. Similarly, when Kasim was executed someone spread rumours about the prince impregnating a number of concubines & it was before the Baghdad campaign when even setting out on it Murad had to display his “splendour and glory”.

Show-wise I legit one read that Kösem killed Ahmed because she spared Bulbül following Safiye’s attempted coup lmao. It’s not like Ahmed wasn’t there when she made the decision & it’s not like it wasn’t Hümaşah who after all got Yasemin in, and I doubt anyone could oppose an Imperial princess anyway – she would have found another servant. And Bülbül later saved Kösem’s kids, so… scapegoating truly is in some people’s blood lmao.

I love how MYK played with the idea of historical representation & creation of narrative, how people “see” and how different factors might influence their perception & creation of narrative. And also how S2 put into different perspective some stuff from S1. I admit there were some things that back during first watch of MYKS1 made me go WTF? that I later understood when compared/contrasted with MYK S2. It’s clear that they truly planned a lot of the whole show back in S1.

It’s sometimes interesting how narratives may be created and repeated even without evidence supporting it - there is no historical evidence that Kösem took part in Osman’s dethronement, yet it is something that often pops up even in “historical articles” for example. People deduce since Kösem later became Valide quite soon because Mustafa’s (or rather Halime’s) reign didn’t last long, know Şehzade Mustafa’s (Suleiman’s son) story, and some rumours about what Ottoman women did to secure throne for their children, so they see getting rid of one’s stepson to claim throne for one’s child as logical and usual in Ottoman system,  even when there is no proper evidence backing it up. Because it seems natural and logical, so why not make it more spicy? We know next to nothing about Mahfiruz, but there is this “Betty vs Veronica” trope, so suddenly we learn that Mahfiruz was Kösem’s opposite, not politically involved or ambitious, but gentle & sweet, and even details like light hair pop up as opposed to Kösem’s dark hair (sometimes of course it is also extended to good vs. evil). Taken from where, other than fitting a known trope? Or when she’s presented as some sort of Mahidevran vol.2 as having as close relationship with Osman like Mahi did with Mustafa, perfect prince and jealous stepmother Kösem. I know some of the stuff is also derived from Western, orientalist plays, but those are obviously not sources and should not be treated as truth. And sometimes it it even repeated by historians. For example Uluçay, who  was very against Sultanate of Women & pretty much propagated a lot of rumours (and new approach to the period truly changed a lot of how academia writes about these women now). Let us look at this quote:

Taken from: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women.

It’s clear what narrative Uluçay chose for his research.

It’s common practice to sometimes fill in the blanks (and sometimes even change stuff) with known cliches, tropes, and narratives.

It is truly a topic for an extended discussion, so I will stop for now, but when it comes to Ottoman history I do recommend Daniel Piterberg’s Ottoman Tragedy. History and Historography at Play, which shows how the same event may be even differently presented in historical works depending on chosen narrative that is often rooted in current context.

as someone who was raised without religion idk much about god. i have ideas on what i believe in but i’m not sure how strongly i back them. what is god to you? how do you even define the word ‘god’? can god be anything as long as he/she/they/it is something you believe in?

long post alert! first know that my belief in god is why i am here. this belief made this blog. this is such a lovely, big question i have been pondering. i am so so honored that you are asking. i think it’s important to remember that faith in god is really what you make of it. in the words of tyler joseph, “Faith is to be awake, and to be awake is for us to think.. you need to try to think.” remember this. your faith is your own to create.

just a note, this post will seem all over the place, but it’s only bc my belief in god is so intertwined with life philosophy and experience. i cannot separate these things.

first, things important to note in your faith journey //  god as a being who loves questions and god as a being not defined by church or politics

as a bit of background, i grew up in christian churches, and i still call myself a christian. as i have gained life experience and developed my own identity, this has allowed me to ask more questions about the Bible and the traditional god.

don’t let questions scare you. questions are a healthy way to explore and get to know such enormous concepts such as the divine. questions get you answers.

don’t let your aggressive stop you. “Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.”- Harold S. Kushner

often, churches may shoot down questions, but this is a hierarchal system speaking, not god. churches are made of people. they don’t speak for god, and i really need you to remember this. you don’t have to subscribe to everything a church says. question everything. the bible is absolutely full of people questioning and doubting and being angry with god- which is part of why i believe in it. it’s raw humanness, and it is okay. listen to cataracts by levi the poet, or at least the track big business. alternatively: “Every day I am afraid that he [Jesus] died for nothing because he is buried in our churches, because we have betrayed his revolution in our obedience to and fear of the authorities.”— excerpt from “A Radical Christian Creed” by Dorothee Soelle

god and genderso to begin, i recently tweeted about god being… gender queer, or simply without gender. the bible generally uses masc pronouns and titles like father, but i believe that an unlimited god cannot be constrained into human constructs. if we are all made in god’s image, god is not strictly male. to say god can only be male is to place societal, human constraint on the devine. the characteristics to describe the divine biblical “father” arent reserved for male in our society. god isnt human. i am getting into the practice of saying “the divine” or “they” pronouns to describe god. anyway- i do believe in the trinity (god, son, holy spirit, more on this towards the bottom) so they is absolutely a christian term.

god and love and evili believe god is a loving, creating force. i often hear people asking “why does god allow this” and frankly, i can’t relate. if i believe in a good force, i have to believe in an evil force as well. if i believe in good and evil, i have to also believe they are at odds, fighting a spiritual warfare. i also hate the phrase “it happens for a reason.” sure, maybe. but your tragedy is tragedy. your chaos/trauma/pain is chaos/trauma/pain, not a lesson by default. however, since i do believe god is a loving, creating force, i believe that god can find something good to give you out of everything. perhaps we might not discover this good for years, or maybe the good will be something that you don’t experience, but, for example, perhaps telling your story saves someone else.

everything good as an echo to the divinealong with that, i believe everything good in the world is created by god, and thus an extension / connection to the divine. this helps me overcome depression and anxiety. i can wake up every day and say, wow, look at all this faith entertained: the sky and its clouds. leaves. the way milky chai tastes. music somehow exists and transcends space and time?? people love hugs? animals like pats? science!! sweaters are dope, they change our body temperature. the fuel that keeps us going tastes good??? what even is taste? can you believe color is just light unabsorbed? incredible. thank you.this type of gratitude is indeed a practice, something to work on daily. it’s not always easy. i don’t want to act like it’s an easy cure to mental illness. it’s a practice that def helps me tho.

including all peoplewhich extends towards people. i love the phrase namaste: the divine light in me recognizes and honors the divine light in you. suddenly, everyone is valuable. everyone is created. everyone is experiencing the world. it makes kindness much easier. this is why i don’t understand most phobias… how can one say a divine creator didn’t mean to create different flavors of love?! it’s beautiful.

let me say that again: all peoplei want to get this straight, esp w our… political climate. this post say it better than i can: the immigrant apostle creed and the litany for the dreamers. i also think it’s interesting to remember that many native americans believe that trans people are closer to the divine, bc of points i made earlier- god can’t really be boxed into a gender. also, i believe in a feminist jesus that was a child refugee and a homeless man who experienced suicidal thoughts and anxiety. (i’ll try to link references when i get home)

other religions and my godi study a lot of buddhism and other religions. i like to understand things. i love buddhism, and i believe it, but i think that having faith in this god offers depth and purpose. where buddhism empties, yeshua, the christian jesus, fills. it’s service to ease the pain of the earth, out of love. that’s it.

faith as movementwhich is also to say, yes, shitty people exist, and i can easily become so. it’s an uphill battle, but i like to view living as becoming closer to the person i was created to be. as we live, we have all these sides giving us input, shaping us. what we believe shifts who we are. we need to be selective as to which voices we are buying into. are these voices bringing us closer to the loving, whole person we are created to be?

god as a forgiving figurei believe god is forgiving. again, i believe in an evil force too, but i believe that god’s doors stay open. this isn’t an end. 

everything is a gift / god in everythingwhich brings it full circle. i believe god’s hand is in all the beautiful things. the giggly groupchats and sleep overs. the gasps of surprised joy and the dark chocolate. love love love love so many types of love. comfy beds. so much can be a religious experience.

further reading, from twenty one pilots to tags to the message-

i encourage you to also take a peek at my thread on coping mechanisms in twenty one pilots’ discography. it’s extremely difficult for me to separate top from my faith.

as for the trinity… just as i have different facets (daughter, friend, lover, coworker, etc) i believe that god can have different facets as well- the divine figure who is all knowing, the figure who has experiences humanness, and the spirit that comes closer, inhibiting the rest. tbr, i don’t find this concept extremely important. it’s all god to me, whatever.

again, thank you so so much for giving me space to talk about this. it’s so generous and kind and open of you. i am genuinely honored. it’s something that is very engrained into the way i see the world, tho i know i do not speak of it often. it’s difficult for me to find the vocabulary for something that is so based on feeling and experience for me.

if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! i’d really love the dialogue.

if you want a jumping off place for what i believe, the message bible is really cool. you can read it in book form from your library, or online for free. start at luke, or matthew/mark/john- just any of the four books about jesus. read the words, not what you’ve heard in politics or church. i can’t stress this enough. the more i read, the less i see a connection between these institutions.

i also have a faith tag on my personal blog. you can get a feel for what i believe here.

i hope that was vaguely interesting to someone :)) again feel free to ask any questions 

xxx you are loved for who you are and the true you you are becoming