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#my religion is the bit now

gxlden-angels · 11 months

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The 10 Soups for the Soul

Thou shall not have any goal above the bit

Thou shall not fuck around without expecting to find out

Thou shall not be a lil shit

Thou shall not let a homie go to bed without knowing they're loved

Honor thy furries and transfems, as you would have no internet without them

Thou shall not murder, even for the bit

Remember thy roots, for the first Pride was a riot

Thou shall not cross the picket line

Thou shall not make a decision while tired and hungry

Be gay do crime

#did I ever post the 10 Soups for the Soul #hi I'm soup these are my 10 commandments #this was an idea by my religious trauma coach a while back #I highly recommend making ur own 10 commandments #u can add them here or make some and keep them as a reminder to yourself #my religion is the bit now #and boy am I about to start praying #ex christian #religious trauma

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rearranging-deck-chairs · 4 months

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yazs faith in my fic mostly amounts to no alcohol and vegetarian jelly babies and vague religious anxiety on occasion, partially bc i dont know a lot about islam so i dont really have a lot to work with and partially because the show doesnt really give us a whole lot to work with either

but i do kinda like how, especially in this current fic where i give her a sort of explicit eating disorder past, that like, the main ways that god ends up playing a role in her daily life this way is through what she puts in her mouth or not

if the doctor is restrictive, emotionally psychologically nutritionally, and the master is excessive, yaz sort of hovers in the middle, pulled at from both sides

seduced by restriction vs seduced by excess. swallowing your anger vs spitting it out. desire and consumption and the way the human and the holy meet in the fallible body. you can become the doctor by acting like the doctor. you can make yourself holy by Doing The Right Actions

#i dont know.........which religions that fits and if theres overlap #the doctor isnt..............................a god. but. idk. vaguely divine sometimes #what if i want to eat her. what if she explodes. what if i explode with the desire to eat her. what if i eat her and she explodes inside me #its probably insensitive to...........literally everyone #muslims. bulimics. bulimic muslims #lesbians #but im not here to write that story im here to write my yazs story #i would have liked if they had given me more to work with though #like those rules or whatever they have for muslim astronauts #wouldnt it have been fun to see that #i wouldve loved for yaz to like try to keep track of the time of day and also in what general direction earth is #wouldve loved to know how she feels abt it all #if only to mirror with the master so we could extrapolate stuff abt him too #i suppose theres stuff abt him. those halos in timeless children right?#but also bc now i mostly just have my own feelings to work with #and my own feelings abt god are a little bit atypical i think perhaps who knows #are anybodys feelings abt god typical #are there typical god feelings? probably not #as many gods as there are bodies i think #which means a little bit of god dies with every body #whatever. my own feelings are christian probably which i dont think does yaz justice

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unproduciblesmackdown · 1 year

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reread the rest thus far of lackadaisy and there's the both v easy & difficult task of gathering a shit ton but only a shit ton of excerpts (like every single page is a highlight i'm not exaggerating)

and every single element is superlative and the way it all only becomes More So....already mentioned the way the like smooth gradient shading made the successful evocation of 3D Shapes more noticeable, along w/the consistent geometries of character design & details in fabric folds; the way Lighting & Coloring only goes on to become more prominent elements only enhances that further. the compositions, backgrounds, pacing, angles....everything is so dynamic & expressive, such as including the expressions which you know i also Love / absorbed

going "hell yes for people to discover this superlative comic" then having to occasionally refresh past site traffic overloaded server errors like "nooo" but actually yes

whilest clapping & cheering for the fun of everyone who's been here a minute. My God the invigorating reward when again i started reading in '07 & the concept of rocky & freckle on a "proper" run had only manifested via fun official bonus art, then a literal decade later as it was actually happening in the comic like screeeeaammm i can feel it coming in the air tonight oh lord etc....i've loved following it, again, if i see another new comic page. i am going to be Enriched

i also really was right on the ball myself this time around like okay okay yep i have picked up on Everything, at least to the degree i can lmao. i love the mysteries. i love how Character Focused it is too ofc and there's no characters i'm uniterested in / dislike. you gotta point to one of them, truly, and i have been a [pointing at freckle] enjoyer these fifteen years but fr i am a connoisseur of everyone, i love that so many characters are a weird mysterious chaos element story driver in their own right. i considered mordecai more intently than ever, love his like ultra mystery (and that we leave off on him doing some detectiving even) and truly fun that like, the source of the more Immediate problems he keeps having in every damn interaction isn't the like [wow mordecai with the just diving into the hatchet murdering] factor so much as it's that he's generally like "i am just standing here" and is not nt in any way that matters and people insist on fucking with him on that front. the peak tragedy of him in a bonus comic getting bullied into having to dance with someone to Be Polite like i'm so sorry i wish you could be that ficus too. anyways intrigued with the marigold &/or mordecai mysteries including that it's like, how coincidental is it that he talks about marigold having a thorn in its side & the savoys' nickname for him is peekon = thorn. there is so much to consider, love that for us truly. and i'm rooting for mordecai & nicodeme's dynamic out here, is another conclusion....very enriched by comparing & contrasting that serafine nicodeme mordecai triumvirate with the rocky ivy freckle one, to be sure. im enriched

i'm also enriched by every footnote that's got like historical facts / research notes / [this is inaccurate for xyz prioritization but here's the disclaimer] explanations. i Love information. and everything else like i loooove this comic it's Soooo Fucking putting my hands to my temples and inhaling at length through my teeth

#first time i've really taken tumblr up on that new thirty image limit expansion; bit of a surprise maybe lol #put your back into autism acceptance month &/or press j; scroll fast; read through it actually; filter the following:#long post //#learning abt the overwhelming popularity of baby ruth candy bars from lackadaisy footnotes? relevant to gtm:pota aficionadoship at one pt #remember discussing what i learned from another footnote abt some christian denominations / other religions being very Anti Prohibition #every time i use the word cagey i think of lackadaisy. cagey thing... we've all been there #fantastic time revisiting and i love to be considering all these characters all the further / with reckless juxtaposition #especially the two triumvirates as mentioned. rooting for them all #rooting for mordecai to be relieved of that v realistic [ppl sensing a Mess With His he is not nt in any way that mattersness Free For All]#either let him be or start shooting at him lmfao. but i Love that the gang had that pleasant nonbrunch together & no shots exchanged yet #more brunches! and i think nicodeme could be mordecai's bestie or w/e he wants. turn out to be Supportive in any way that matters #they are more so the ivy and freckle of their group after all lol. slightly would-be Unlikely coupling there as well anyways; and yet!#i am as enriched and intrigued and appreciative and etc as ever #and reminded that in my rereading i haven't yet gone over all the bonus material lol....#also stumbled across that sungwon cho had fandubs of lackadaisy comics posted like 9 yrs back??#which means i probably saw one or two; think i remember one being shared and checking that out #like hey didn't know i'd encountered you before like; vines & oh the lamps are fucking & etc. and now there he goes voicing mordecai yaay #lackadaisy

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cookinguptales · 1 month

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Thank you so much for the tarot reading you did for me a little while back 💜 i'm sorry it's taken me so long to say that! i do rather think you have prophetic gifts, by the way- it was spookily accurate and helped me a lot 🔮

No problem! I'm glad it was helpful to you!

I do tend to get at least one message like this every time I do a tarot night for my followers, and like... you are totally entitled to that belief! What do I know about psychic phenomena and prophecy anyway? lmao. Maybe I am psychic.

But personally, I believe that tarot has a high likelihood of speaking to us no matter what, if just because the archetypal nature of the cards means that they're dealing with problems that we all struggle with. We all have self-doubt, we all have complicated relationships with money, we all crave love of some kind. We all have trauma in our past and we all want to believe that this time, things could be okay.

One of the reasons I like tarot cards is because they are inanimate objects that we imbue with meaning. They were just playing cards, y'know? We're the ones that gave them power over us, and we did that by filling them with our own stories. We placed a mirror in those cards, and while mirrors can be used for scrying, they can also just be used to take a good hard look at ourselves.

If I say "oh, you've had money troubles in the past," who doesn't that apply to? Maybe I'm thinking about me, when we were homeless for a while when I was a kid. Maybe someone else is thinking about the money they lost to gambling last week. Maybe someone else, someone wildly wealthy, is thinking about a stock market crash that brought their five mansions down to two. Maybe a final person has just never had quite enough to make ends meet. God knows that describes a lot of people.

I like tarot because we can all look at the same spread and see something different. I see a story to tell to the best of my ability, and that's how I do readings. But for the people getting those readings, they're often looking into little mirrors and seeing how they reflect their own personal experiences.

Because, you know, we all see different things in the same mirror! That's how tarot works, I think. Maybe some people are a little better at reading things in that mirror and interpreting what they see there, but we all see something new and different and deeply, deeply personal when we look at those cards.

Love that for us.

#that's what I eventually ended up studying in college btw #the way people construct personalized belief systems and vernacular religion #I got into religious studies to make sense of the world after I got out of an abusive religious background #and people always ask me what religion I am now #and I always say... y'know... I don't know what I believe #I don't know if magic exists or ESP or the supernatural or any number of deities #I don't know if I fully believe anything anymore #but I do believe in the power of stories #how we tell them and why we tell them and the parts of us that we mix into them to bolster their power #stories can ease a broken heart or they can be used to launch a war #they can create a belief system or tear one apart #we tell stories to make meaning out of the senselessness around us but we use them to CREATE meaning too #and sometimes the meaning that we create can last for centuries #they can make a little pack of playing cards into something that I was forbidden to touch when I was a child #that I was too scared to even be in the room with until I was in college #and the stories I tell myself instead can reframe those cards as something lovely I can collect #that help me make sense of the world in all kinds of ways #by helping me understand the emotions at the root of our experiences #and the stories we tell to give voice to them #and make them material; a thing we can finally touch #idk I'm rambling a bit but! those are my thoughts on the matter!!#replies #tarot #tarot shenanigans

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scionshtola · 5 months

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tbh the whole “the wol kills so many people” thing doesn’t really work on me for a multitude of reasons except for when i do random side quests and end up having to baha blast a couple of just some guys. that seems a bit. unnecessary

#and since then i’ve adopted daredevil logic #meaning cori gives all these dudes concussions but they’re fine in the end #for example i was in rak’tika and they made me kill two guys from the other cult #and i was like this seems a bit much. so now in my head cori knocked them out and took them to slitherbough #and they deprogrammed them and then i guess reprogrammed to their religion idk.#i need a text post tag

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taikanyohou · 1 year

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anyway i love being asian and i love saying that out loud with my whole chest out. there's so much tradition and history in our culture and when you're in the west sometimes you fail to understand or you miss the sentiment, the reasoning, the point, of certain practices within the culture. either that, or you feel ashamed of them. until you start seeing, for example, white people doing and taking up practices belonging to the asian culture and you, as an asian, are like .... uh ............ what the fuck am /i/ doing being ashamed about it then .......

like. for example, oiling your hair. when i was a kid, my ammi would oil my hair every single time a day before i was going to wash my hair. that act, yes, held so much meaning for the both of us. it was something my naani did to her, so she did it with me. generational. it was our bonding time. it was her teaching me how we look after our hair. and then ... as i grew up, i didn't get my hair oiled by my ammi anymore. when she asked me why, i had said to her back then that i looked greasy and it was so embarrassing because i'd smell of oil when i would go to school and. yeah. she stopped doing it. and my hair got damaged. and its been years and today, i saw my ammi oiling her hair, and she just called me over, and i sat on the floor and she oiled my hair. and it just felt. like a lot. and i felt ... heavy.

and then i realised that despite being in my late twenties, there's still so much left in me to unpack and unlearn and relearn wrt me being asian. i thought i'd gone past that phase. but i haven't. and thats okay!

which is why its so important for me to have ... this space ... i guess ... where i can validate myself. where i can watch things that are asian, made by asians, doing asian things and following the culture so that i too feel comfortable in my own skin. in the people who look like me. in the food i eat. in the clothes i wear. in the languages i speak. in the art and media i enjoy. in all the big and little things i do.

but anyway. i love being asian. i wish i could talk about it more and how much it means to me when i make a deep dive and indulge within my culture and how rooted that makes me feel. i often feel like i've neglected so much of what it means to be asian, but its still not too late. and there's a deep comfort in that.

#faiza talks #sorry yall i had a bit of an out of body moment just now when i felt my ammi's fingers massaging my scalp when she was oiling my hair #and i was trying so hard not to burst out crying in front of her but its been years. not just 2 or 3. but like #over 15 years since the last time we had this moment together and uh yeah. it was a lot lmaoooo.#so yeah thats why this whole entire blog is so focused on asian things. ive wasted too much of my life ig on non-asian things but like.#now i just dont care. i wanna dive into the stories asians tell and the art that asians makes coming out of asia. theres so much to unearth #and ughhh yeah i love indulging in it. idc whether anyone finds it cringe or whatever man like. im past that.#idrc much for the popularity of it either bc theres GEMS hidden away back home that i wanna discover and bring onto this blog.#and then when u get religion + sexuality + culture together (like boyyofgod for example) like. !!!. idk it just means a lot to me.#that my culture can talk about these things and show these things from as ASIAN perspective.#how religion and sexuality (even mental health) is seen in asia isnt the same as it is in the west. so let asians make art about it all!!!!

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likeabxrdinflight · 29 days

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posting this on easter week because I feel it's what she deserves- over the past couple years my 8th grade religion (and also english/math) teacher, designated mentor/mother figure, one time crush and long time friend, has now firmly entered her Villain Era and has since said to me the following things:

complains about how fundamental tenants of catholicism, such as the virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection of jesus, are "bullshit."

she doubts even the historicity of jesus which is a spicy take considering most historians do accept it.

she's just openly teaching her students about trans people and pronouns now. at a catholic school. mind you, when I was there, she was still trying to walk a middle ground with lgbt issues. now she just dgaf. growth.

has gone on several rants about how the church "hates women and gay people." she did not used to do this.

she has openly admitted she doesn't believe in the power of prayer to a colleague.

told me she only taught there "because I used to think it was a nice myth that we could learn something from" and "some of the morals were decent." (I think there's more to unpack here but we don't have time for that).

she is now becoming more and more anti-christianity as right-wing christofascism continues to worsen. "I never believed in it but now I think I hate it?" good for you. good for you. queen.

she hoped a tornado would blow the roof off the school so she could retire early and was disappointed when it didn't. (she told me this when I texted her to make sure she was safe btw. unhinged.)

she has gone behind the parish priest's back to tell the entire school staff everything he was lying about regarding parish funds and changes to school curricula in an email.

has described this same priest as a "chauvinist pig" and "narcissistic asshole."

to his face.

and managed to keep her job only because they can't afford to hire someone new mid-school year and she's gonna retire in the spring anyway.

and now she's writing a murder mystery about said priest to cope. her husband suggested I should be the murderer. I said please do.

I'm so obsessed with this villain arc for her like. this is the person I most looked up to in my teen years. I thought she was so cool. I wanted to be her, I wanted to marry her, I wanted to be her best friend...she was my idol. she was there for me at a time when I needed her and has been there for me ever since.

she was never a believer, but I don't think she quite realized the extent of the church's capacity for harm until somewhat recently. it's like the wool's finally been pulled off her eyes and now I get to watch her deconstruct, if not the faith itself, then the role of the church in a community. and I'm so here for it.

#I have described this woman as the eda to my luz before and I do include the 'agent of chaos' bit in that description #she always had a rebellious streak in her and it was evident in the...shall we say 'non-traditional' way she taught religion #but she's just fully off the rails now and I love that for her #...I'm also posting this now because I always miss catholicism around this time of year and this is a nice anthology of reasons to not #ex catholic tag

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applestorms · 8 months

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morality in the world of good omens

so i wrote another (admittedly very messy) essay on good omens not long ago right after watching season 2 but after finishing that, rewatching all of both seasons multiple times, and reading through the book, i have a couple more distinct ideas to get out...somewhere...if only for my own sanity. this is me throwing my thoughts into the internet before i pop, if you will. just 3 sections, below the cut.

1. environment, characters, & transformative fandom creations

to start this post off a bit more broadly, i've been thinking a lot recently about transformative fandom and the reasons why we write fanfiction/create semi-original works in the first place, as well as why certain aspects of fandom (writing, art, analysis, etc.) will be more appealing to me for certain shows/series than others. correct me if you have a totally different view of this, but in my experience i've found that i tend to naturally gravitate towards different parts of fandom depending on what the original medium of the story was- podcasts tend to lead to some of the most interesting art trends, for example, since there's more room for interpretation and character design tends to be more of an ongoing community project than something set in stone like for a tv show with live human actors.

in my own observation, i've noticed that a lot of the really big & excitable fandoms, the ones that generate tons & tons of fanworks more naturally (a.k.a. just because of the story itself & not other factors like a pre-existing franchise or hype about new great gay representation, etc.) tend to surround stories that fall into a kind of "sweet spot" that makes the creation of fanworks really appealing. if you've ever wondered why there are so many ravenous artists bending over backwards to draw gorgeous fanart for stuff like homestuck or south park or even minecraft youtubers, it's likely because those stories all fall into a sweet spot for drawing, with character designs that are recognizable at a glance and yet still simple enough that there is plenty of room for personal creative touches. (think also, if you're familiar with such kinds of homestuck terms: hyperflexible mythologies, A4:1524, and/or this archive link cause the official thing is down now for some reason)

the conclusion i've come to is thus that even something as basic as the original medium of a story can dictate a lot about what kinds of fan activities are more common or popular within said story's fandom.

so, back to good omens- for me, this all relates back because of a question i've been messing with in my head recently, about why i've been less interested in fanfiction for good omens than i have been for the last few fandoms i've been, almost all of which have basically broken my ao3 bookmarks.

this question has been fucking with me for a while now, largely because i'm not entirely sure what's motivating it. a lot of times i can figure out pretty easily why i might personally not be interested in some parts of fandom, but that's not really the case here. from what i've seen this fandom seems to be pretty mixed in terms of age, & the writing that i have read is certainly no worse than i've seen elsewhere, perhaps even better in some places- and yet, i can't seem to get entirely into it, even getting frustrated as i can't find something to my tastes for an ao3 bedtime story as i've grown so accustomed. what caught me off guard is that this was an issue that i ran into while watching season 1 as well, back when the series was still quite popular but not blowing up like it is right now.

a lot of this may seem like (and likely is, at least in part) basic overthinking, but i mentioned it all here because the answer i eventually came to is reminiscent of my previous reflections above on the nature of fandom & how/why fanworks are created.

a couple paragraphs above, i used the example of art as an example of how fandoms that generate a lot of original artwork will often do the most when the original story falls into a sweet spot of character design, but notably i think that this sentiment applies to a lot more than just art. if you've ever seen the copious amounts of kpop & hockey rpf fanfiction that lives on ao3, it should be clear that this applies to writing too.

i wrote this essay a while back responding to an observation about the lack of a more extensive symbolic language in fanfiction & i've toyed around with the idea more since, particularly in considering the question of why a lot of what we see as the staples of fanfiction exist in the first place. in that post, my response largely revolved around an argument of why we create fanfiction- namely, that fanfiction is created as in tandem with deeper analysis of the original story/series, as a way of trying to practically apply character analysis to a new context.

the key part of that last sentence to me is how a lot of this revolves around character analysis (and shipping, but really it's the characters that motivate the shipping in most cases so. same difference).

i tend to instinctively separate fanfiction into two separate categories: fanfiction that is based out of the original world/canon of the story (including but not limited to fix-its, deeper analysis fics that take a scene & extrapolate from it, continuations, etc.) and fanfiction that takes the characters from the original story & plops them in an alternate universe/AU. while i separate these out as two distinct categories of fanfiction, i should also clarify that i don't think these two groups are necessarily equal in terms of number of fics- rather, the vast majority of fanfiction tends to be AUs, keeping the original characters & changing any & all aspects of the world around them. again, this may vary depending on the story & Vibe of the fandom at the time, stories like game of thrones or harry potter or homestuck might have a lot more in the canon category by nature of any major dissatisfactions the fandom has with how the original story was told, but in most cases AUs are more popular. this was a lot of the basis behind my argument that fanfiction is created as character analysis in fact, since the characters are the most important part that carries over from original story to fanwork, as well as can end up being one of the most debated/scorned parts when it comes to fandom drift (i.e. "that's out of character"/"he wouldn't do that"/and all other such arguments about fanon vs. canon characterization).

basically, my conclusion in this case was that i was a lot less interested in gomens fic largely because i have a really hard time separating the characters from the world in the case of this particular story. aziraphale & crowley being an angel & a demon and dealing with all of the bullshit of their world when it comes to heaven & hell are such integral parts of their characters in my mind that i have a much harder time getting behind AU fanfiction that plops them in a totally different context. it's just a much harder sell for keeping the characters in character for me. (i also tend to not like s2 fix-its just cause, idk they're just not my style, which is where a lot of the recent blast of energy has led us.) to clarify, this is not a judgement, just a matter of personal preference and a reflection of why, even if a lot of fandoms will look the same from the outside/involve the same things like art, fic, etc., an individual's mileage can vary wildly when it comes to how they interact with different things online.

*additional note, also for clarification: i do want to acknowledge that a lot of this depends on pure popularity as well, popular fandoms will often end up with basically everything in terms of fanworks just by nature of how many people are interacting with & thinking deeply about the story. my point here is more along the lines of the fact that even within the more well-populated fandoms, certain types of fanwork will often Stick Out more to me than others, or even be visibly much more common than in other fandoms, due largely to the original medium/structure of how the story.

so, speaking of aziraphale & crowley in more depth now- why does the world of good omens feel like such an integral part of their personalities when it comes to characterization? up next, let's talk about morality within the context of good omens' perhaps surprisingly secular take on heaven & hell.

2. the amorality of heaven & hell (ft. the crowley quote apples you know the one)

(warning in advance that this section may be a bit limited since i'm not going to get super far (or very far at all, really) into the whole religious-analysis aspect of good omens.)

i've been binge-reading the original pterry & gaiman book for good omens over the last few days and it's been very fun seeing all the slight changes between the tv show & the original. you can really see the hand of the original creators in how the tv show was translated, even just by looking at which parts made it and which parts were deemed worth cutting out. i suppose having one of the original creators right there helping build everything really helps make a book -> show translation work, since the ASOUE tv series was also pretty well received- something about knowing what's the core of the series & truly important to keep in, and having more time to tell the story itself?

anyways, i have a short list of notes that i've been taking as i read, conversations that stand out to me or footnotes that particularly amused me, but i keep coming back to one line that stood out to me quite early on. in context, this line comes from crowley during the conversation where he is first attempting to fully convince aziraphale about stopping armageddon, specifically when they're talking about exerting equal forces on warlock to make him normal:

"You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?" [Aziraphale] said slowly. "Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped," said Crowley. He shrugged. "Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that."

(pg. 67)

"They're just names for sides." if i had to pick one line to sum up the view on religious morality of this series, this would likely be it.

on the one hand, i tend to interpret a lot gomens' take on heaven & hell within the context of its political stance, something that is particularly obvious through a line from gabriel in s2e2 where he tries to clarify to aziraphale that heaven isn't trying to hurt job directly, but instead is just not stopping hell from doing horrible things to him. while there may be some additional nuance to add to this take within the context of british politics that i don't really know well enough to add about, i'm inclined to see this from the side of my own familiar american politics, which might hold some weight considering how long mr. gaiman's lived around here. point is, my current interpretation of that line is that it helps in more clearly establishing the analogy of heaven & hell as the story moves forward into newer seasons and thus more contemporary politics, equating heaven with mainstream liberal politics & politicians and hell with conservatives.

this stance seems to be emphasized even more in the tv show than the book which makes sense considering its been coming out more recently, and especially in season 2 which is still quite caught up in a lot of quarantine-based reflection. (the tv show puts a lot more emphasis on heaven & hell in general, actually, perhaps initially a byproduct of actually being able to see those environments in their entirety and all the angels & demons that populate them- but we'll get to that.)

the book takes a slightly different stance that, fittingly, seems more reflective of the time it came out. in particular, i was struck a lot more when reading the book by adam's rise (fall?) to power, and how much of it was motivated by a burgeoning nervousness/pessimism about climate change and the anxieties of younger generations that comes with inheriting an earth that feels so fucked up. honestly if anything it's only gotten more relevant in that respect, what with the current vibe on the internet & the hopelessness of the doomer gen z gang, but it also has a distinctly different flavor to me from the tv show, which i think is largely because it's less connected to Formal politics since again we see a whole lot less of heaven & hell as such distinct, bureaucratic entities.

instead, there is a very distinctly amoral aspect to heaven & hell that we get through lines like the one above and especially from characters like crowley. this is why i argue that good omens, despite having so many religious elements, is such a deeply secular take, especially when it comes to its ethics & morality- Good and Evil, notably with the capital letters in this case, has very little to do with actual actions and much more to do with the name that you stamp on top of said actions. heaven & hell and the angels & demons that we see directing and watching and generally fucking with aziraphale & crowley throughout the story are distinctly separate from humanity, and as we see even more as the story progresses, distinctly unaware about what it even means to be a human, in both a deeper philosophical & very basic and literal sense. Good and Evil is simply another name for the sides- and thus the true ethics is something separate, and based in a deeply human experience.

in my opinion this is also why aziraphale & crowley, lovers of humanity and also to some degree spokespersons of it from how much they've "gone native," tend to be so deeply at odds with both heaven & hell and always end up agreeing with each other over their own supposed sides. what makes aziraphale & crowley so distinctly different is that they ascribe to the same ethics & morality that humanity does, or at the very least are trying to figure out ethics & morality & How to Be a Good Person in the same horribly messy way that humans do, separating them from the black & white "this side Good & this side Bad," logic that the rest of heaven & hell instinctively ascribe to.

there's a lot of nuance here, which is also why i think there is such an emphasis on moral ambiguity (and love, but we'll get to that) throughout season 2. the story of job, grave robbing, & questionable attempts at matchmaking- aziraphale is working through a lot of Shit right now when it comes to trying to figure out what the Good thing actually fucking is, and i think it's key that a lot of that is motivated by crowley himself. crowley might'e been cast out of heaven for asking too many questions, but aziraphale is there & listening to them & giving them the serious thought they deserve, and that can't be overlooked.

sidenote: i couldn't figure out a place to shove this in, but i also wanna point out that a lot of this is tied to the idea of growing over time too. on the same page as the quote transcribed above is another line from crowley leading up to aziraphale's question that puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that warlock is going to be a product of nurture, not nature. again, this is an argument against basic black & white assigned-at-birth morality for the ability of humans to grow & change over time and be influenced by the people around them.

it's notable that despite adam's supposed origin as a Son of Satan, what really gets him to stop the apocalypse in the end is the fact that he doesn't really give a shit about all this big plans but instead just wants to hang around his friends. there's a lot of emphasis in the book placed on how beautiful & nice tadfield is as a place for a young kid to grow up, how well loved & fiercely protected it as as something beloved to adam. while he might be overwhelmed when faced with the full picture of how horrible the world can be, ultimately what he cares about is loving & taking care of the people & places that he grew up learning were precious, and the only way to do that is to keep growing & changing yourself within that world and trying to help it also grow into something better, not throw it all away just for the slightest chance that you could restart. a message worth taking the time to think about, at the absolute very least.

3. finding morality w/in humanity: crowley & aziraphale and speculation for s3

i have complicated feelings about both aziraphale & crowley throughout a lot of the show and especially in season 2. i think a lot of people, myself included, are inclined to see crowley as the voice of reason in this season, and for good reason- as i mentioned before, a lot of aziraphale's deeper questioning of the status quo and goodness (Goodness) as a whole is motivated by questions from crowley.

i kiiind of mentioned this in my previous essay, but to state it more clearly, my take on crowley is that he's arriving at the right answer for the wrong reasons, and, conversely, aziraphale is arriving at the wrong answer for... kind of also the wrong reasons but also slightly for the right reasons. let me explain.

crowley is clearly much more aware of the flaws in both heaven & hell than aziraphale is, which seems to be the basis behind a lot of his motivation in asking aziraphale so many questions in the first place. he's also, as maggie & nina point out in s2e6, deeply lonely, often running away or getting ready to fight literally anyone that isn't aziraphale (or humans, but that's a little more complicated). from his reaction to beelz & gabriel getting together, i think it's pretty clear that he still hasn't entirely given up on the whole alpha centauri idea, and it makes sense- as i said in that last essay, crowley basically won the argument at the end of the previous season when it comes to aziraphale & crowley, "making [their] own side," so he doesn't have much reason to face any of his personal fears until maggie & nina basically point out that they exist directly to his face. once they do point it out, however, he's very motivated to act & does so almost immediately, even after hearing what aziraphale has to tell him and being pretty thoroughly devastated by it.

my point here is that crowley is correct in seeing the toxicity of both heaven & hell, he's just flawed and largely motivated by fear (up for debate if that's all it is, but i certainly think it's a big part of it) in his desire to run away from it all. it's not quite armageddon, again he's going more flight > fight here, but he's still ultimately giving up and that's not a great conclusion.

on the other hand, as some others on this site have pointed out, aziraphale is certainly showing a lot of strength in his willingness to keep fighting & try to change things for the better, but it's not hard to see how that belief has been twisted. one of aziraphale's biggest flaw in motivation at this point imo is that he doesn't just believe in goodness but Goodness, the kind that's tied to heaven always being right & all actions being morally Good so long as they're done under the name of heaven, and that clearly also isn't great.

thus what i think the both of these two really need ultimately is that deeper connection to humanity, and the ethics born from humans interacting with humans. we can already see how strong these two are when they collaborate, even when they're doing their absolute best to be as subtle as possible, but what i think they need is to once again be grounded by humanity, not to get so caught up in the bullshittery of heaven & hell and Good & Evil, but once again find a goodness defined by the world that they mutually love so much and stick with it.

i keep tossing a question around in my head about whether or not aziraphale & crowley are going to end up human by the end of this series. it feels natural that they would, they're already so at home and in love with earth & around humanity, but i'm also not entirely sure if that would be a happy ending for them considering how long they've watched & loved the world as it's changed. perhaps taking this post into account is another push towards humanity as a happy ending, not running away to a cottage to get away from the world (i just can't see running away to a cottage to be together as as happy ending, sorry- it might work for beelz & gabriel but not for aziraphale & crowley), but choosing to settle down within that world that is so dear.

#'just three sections' LAFFS. YEAH #astronaut rambles #good omens #gomens #no but i like this one a lot better than the last attempt at a gomens essay #this one feels a lot cleaner. more focused?#got a bit sappy at the end but i don't mind humanity is always worth loving #also off topic but i read this really interesting paper at work the other day #about pratchett’s writing in discworld & zizek & religion #forget what it’s called now but it was an interesting take on how fiction/fantasy can allow for deeper insights/reflection of reality #got some discworld books today so looking forward to reading those once i slurp up the last hundred or so pages of good omens #also thanks to my dad for having some interesting commentary on the job interpretation in s2e2 today #i all but literally slept through sunday school so i think a lot of the more noteworthy religion takes in this show go over my head =3=‘’#man i am so very much looking forward to how season 3 continues this story #i feel like a lot of the big conclusions there are really gonna be important for the direction of the story’s main message #season 2 is just. such a transition season it’s hard to get super distinct conclusions sometimes #like it’s still going somewhere there’s shit developing #it’s not like sherlock where it just teases deeper meaning forever but gives you nothing #but. it’s just so obviously Not Over Yet and I Need More #anyways much love i need to go to bed now arghfjdkd lots of shit to do in the future but all i wanna do is keep writing gomens essays. sigh #brainrot central #oh yay my phone’s at 69% now ☺️ wheeee #good omens meta

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adhd-merlin · 10 months

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“Pride goes before the fall. At least you know that now.” Merlin looked up and gave him a quizzical look, as if he didn’t recognize the phrase. “The sin of pride? It’s from the new god’s teachings,” Arthur prompted. “The angels that surrounded him in the heavens fell victim to their own pride and fell to the pits of Hades, stripped of their father’s love and regard. It’s meant to be a warning to man, not to take the same path of pride.” When that elicited no recognition, Arthur squinted at him. “How do you know nothing of the god of Camelot? The chapel at the castle? With the cross? The Christ man?” Merlin merely stared blankly back. “I didn’t realize that was a god.” “You… Merlin, seriously?” Defensive, Merlin insisted, “It’s just empty rooms. Do you have to do a ritual to see him there?” Arthur experienced a sudden insight, then – something he didn’t think would have occurred to him a year ago. “He’s not a magic god. His followers eschew magic – their god doesn’t come from it, and they abhor it. It’s what drew my father to him. And you – you can’t sense him at all, can you? The Christ man? When you look at the chapel and the artifacts, there’s nothing there.” Merlin swallowed, a sickly and convulsive gesture, and looked away. “Is that your god too?” Arthur shook his head, his mouth softening, and felt the lines smoothing away from his brow. “No, Merlin. I never saw anything but empty rooms in there either. Seemed pointless to keep going back.”

From The Impersonated Self (Chapter 10)

ME: [BREATHING HEAVILY]

#i had read random bits of this series before #but i've decided to read it properly now #(it's long)#like start-to-finish on my kindle and everything #and some scenes and concepts are like #so relevant to my interests i swear #the hands of a hundred winters #fanfiction #religion #worldbuilding

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loveerran · 1 year

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I recently spoke with a member of the church I did not know. He complained that some choose the world's ways instead of God's ways. He compared that choice to the conflict between conservatives and liberals. I didn't know his political convictions, so I asked him (unironically) which side God was on?

His answer made me wonder if we still strain at gnats and swallow camels.

Overlooking the sins of capitalism and colonialism, or of classism and colorism, or our blind acceptance of other cultural camels we no longer even see because we are so used to them, may be exactly what's leading us away from Christ.

I don’t believe the culture wars are God's wars. I don't believe the contention is of Christ.

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

#Can't we all just get along #what's the most important thing you are fighting against?#what's the most important thing you are fighting for?#These are the questions this post leads me to think about #religion #true christianity #jesus #queerstake #tumblrstake #lds #mormon #some people think acceptance of lgbt folks is the end of the world #and think the world they live in now is perfect except for that bit #i disagree with their priorities #and it invites me to examine my own

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