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slushiepizza · 11 days

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Marie and Mother Mary

Relationship : Marie & Milo Greer

Tags : Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Partum Depression, Gender Roles, Catholicism, Motherhood, Italian American Marie Greer

Word Count : 1,510

ao3

Notes and Warnings:

this fic kind of surprised me because I'm not super into the Shaw Pack. But I do find Marie Greer's presence and bits and pieces we know of her character fascinating. I wanted to explore Marie's mind and feelings about being a mother when she's dealing with a gambling husband; and for her to raise someone like Milo Greer- she must've done a great job as a parent.

I took inspiration from my own experiences growing up with Catholicism and specifically in relation to the biblical Mary as a religious figure; and how mothers often find comfort in the thought of a figure who related in their struggles of motherhood and womanhood. It also has a theme of gender roles/ alluding to rigid gender identities because of the circumstances that Marie grew up in.

This fic isn't really... religious per se, and it takes more of a neutral standing while still criticizing how religion could be used to provoke feelings of personal guilt and trauma in someone who grew up in it, while also giving comfort to anyone that needed the universe to say that everything will be okay. If any of the themes may cause distress in you, I do implore you not read this fic, as consuming writing is a vulnerable activity.

The year was 1993. Marie Greer walked into the empty church lot with her baby in her arms. It had been decades since she last stepped on its stone floors. The security guard stationed outside looked at her strangely, but let her in once she asserted that she was there to pray.

She passed the main building for a small garden in the back. There were rows of wooden benches but nobody to be found. Good. Marie didn’t want company at the moment. To call it a garden was an overstatement- it was tiny and cramped, overgrown with vines. In front of the benches, the centerpiece of all the foliage was a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mother Mary, she thought, the double entendre not escaping her.

As soon as she sat down right in front of the statue- Milo wailed inconsolably like he always did.

The baby’s loud cries echoed disturbing whatever peace that was left from the place. Marie sighed, tired and weary, of this. He was an especially sensitive child, smaller than other babies his age. Marie was used to catering to people who’d fuss over the littlest things, Colm had a particular affinity for order and cleanliness whenever he came back from blowing his month’s earnings in a night, after all. The addition of Milo to the family just added more on her plate- she had to catalog every single one of his many allergies, and make sure that the room was never dusty because he’d have a coughing fit otherwise. The replacement of their popcorned ceiling had not been cheap, either, not with Colm leaving barely anything left after his trips to Vegas.

She did this all for love. For him. For her husband. But oftentimes, she felt like there was nothing left of her to give. Dry. Hollow.

She shushed Milo and lightly rocked him in hopes that he’d calm down but to no avail. He thrashed and turned, his nails accidentally scratched her in the arm. Marie winced and tried to soothe him, lightly patting his back. It took thirty minutes of rocking and soothing Milo until the baby went back to sleep.

St. Mary’s weathered ivory-colored face looked down at her, her expression blank and unmoving. Her lips were sculpted into a serene smile. Her pupil-less eyes gazed back at Marie.

Just like any other Italian-American family at the time, church was a routine for Marie growing up. Her mother would dress them in their Sunday’s best and wrangled her and her seven unruly siblings into the building. “Quit fussin’ your pigtails, Marie. I did that real pretty for you,” she’d chide. They’d sit in the back of the church because tardiness ran in that family’s blood like a curse.

Past the twelfth and thirteenth pews, God felt distant.

Marie would follow everything diligently. She stood up when everyone else stood up as the priest lifted the circular white wafer, the body of Christ, above the altar. As a child, her height wouldn’t allow her to catch a single glimpse of it. She’d comfort her younger siblings whenever they’d make a ruckus. But the whole thing- it went one ear out of the other.

She could’ve sworn she tried her best to listen and followed whatever the adults did.

I have greatly sinned, escaped past her lips as she did the same thing she had now, rocking her baby sister in her arms. At the time, she hadn’t even lost her milk teeth.

She stopped going when she married Colm. He was the opposite of the man her mother wanted her to marry, and in retrospect, she felt that it was one of the many reasons she liked him. His mind was raucous, his eyes wild and unmoored. Like nothing was holding him back. Colm used to be an ambitious man- the thrill of being an Investigator for DUMP perfect for his unrested soul.

Marie loved that part of him, the fact that he’d question everything, unbelieving in anything unproven.

He said that he wanted to purge the world of assholes- the unjust, those who hurt others for their own sake. As he turned in empowered criminals in the pursuit of it, he became one himself.

Marie met St.Mary’s gaze- almost challenging her hollow stare. Something surged through her, from the ache in her back settling to her tight diaphragm.

After the birth of her boy, Mary couldn’t cook or clean. All she did was stay in bed. Her sister came by to help take care of the house while Colm stepped outside as usual. She said that it was normal, her body had been through hell, after all. But the heavy feeling, the heaviness that settled in her chest persisted for the next two months.

Marie hated feeling helpless- her house a mess, and her baby cried constantly. She was a woman of action, and stagnation shackled her, leaving her trapped. Her visit to the psychiatrist- and the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual- had told her that it was depression with a postpartum onset. She told the doctor that she refused to accept that she was a ‘bozo who was sick in the head’ and that she will cure herself with a margarita and a sorely needed hair perm alongside a fresh coat of manicure.

And look where that got her. Crying in front of a statue in church.

She still stared at the other Mary, the statue’s size and height caused her to look like she was looking down on whoever prayed in the confined space, guiding them iin a time of need. With that, for once, Marie realized that she was angry.

She wasn’t stuck to her mattress, fatigued, and lacked energy because of sorrow- she was so angry, the weight of her job description as wife, mother, woman, wolf, dog, bitch- Marie weighed down on her like anchors. She was angry, at the fact that Colm was nowhere to be found throughout all this, angry at her mother- for making her a mother to her own siblings when she was barely a child, angry at the fact that she couldn’t even love her child properly because she no longer had any love left in the hollow of her heart.

The emotions had clawed the insides of her ribs and caused her to let out heavy breaths- she was a dog panting for air when there was none.

“When does it get easier,” she demanded to the Mother of all Mothers through gritted teeth. “Tell me, Mary,” she begged, desperate, as tears started to roll down her face. “Tell me!”

“When does being a mother ever get any easier?”

Her voice was a whisper, barely audible, as she started to sob and heave quietly.

A soft breeze blew past the branches of the trees that surrounded her. It moved the leaves and allowed them to move gently back and forth. The statue still looked down at her, hand slightly outstretched in a supposed kind, helpful gesture. Ants crawled from the crack in the marble, they moved past Mary’s dress down to the hem, circling around her exposed foot, past the head of the sneak that was crushed triumphantly under her toes.

Marie sank into her seat, tired. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, sniffling. Unbecoming of her, she thought. She’d rather die than let anyone see her like this. But there was a comfort between women, she supposed. Damage from rain stained Mary’s cheek like tears- not unlike the thick mascara that currently ran down her own. The air was comfortable, easy, and Marie felt light. It reminded her of the 80s. Of girls in the bathroom of the disco, talking someone out of calling their past lovers as they applied lipstick and passed cigarettes between one another.

“I guess,” she sniffed. “I guess you know better, right?” she stared into a picture that hung on a distant wall. In it, St. Mary cried as she held Jesus' dying body. “He didn’t give you a hell of a good time either,” her voice cracked pathetically.

Girl, tell me about it, Marie imagined the statue said. The Virgin Mary had the voice of her best friend in college. Is that not what being a mother is? The pain so bad, it feels like you’re splitting in two? Going through all seven hells for your baby’s sake?

“Why do we even put ourselves through this,” she chuckled sardonically. “If I wanted to go through pain, I’d rather just listen to Colm talk about whatever fish he caught on the weekend.”

Mary didn’t answer, and Marie understood. Milo opened his big eyes in her arms and reached up to her with tiny hands. He giggled, light and oblivious to the puffiness of Mary’s face and the swell of her eyes. She cooed at him and held up a finger. Milo wrapped his hand around it, gentle.

St. Mary’s serene smile was still plastered on her face, her hand outstretched in the air between them.

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #marie greer #milo greer #redacted milo #redacted marie

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kiragecko · 7 months

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This is a post about why I'm currently considering myself to be nonbinary, but it's not a post about gender.

It’s about 90% of the elementary school girls wanting to sit on the grass and talk about boys, and me still not understanding why even now, in my mid 30s.

It’s about ‘girls books’ that were all about friendship drama and worrying about menstruating, and how these were framed as universal concerns. My only friends were a pair of male cousins and we mostly cared about how our Lego ninjas’ castle infiltration was going. (The options were limited in my small library in the mid-90s.)

It’s about the ‘wild’, ‘disobedient’, and 'hyper' kids in the books I grew up with being so much better behaved than me, even on my best day, that I’d puzzle over it for weeks. Maybe if my parents were stricter I would be able to follow instructions easier? Maybe I was one of the mean kids in those books? Why was nobody in books like me?

It’s about the revulsion I feel when I think about ‘romantic’ gestures. Remembering my mom getting flowers from someone at church, and my aunt getting upset when I laughed about how she wouldn’t like them. MY MOM IS ALLERGIC TO FLOWERS, but a person who had nothing to do with the situation got offended that I didn’t consider them a thoughtful and nice gift. It makes me feel nauseous thinking about how I’m ‘supposed’ to think things that I don’t want and can’t use are loving gifts, just because society decided they were.

It's about people wanting me to already know their social conventions, and feeling like they are doing SO MUCH WORK when they make allowances for my mistakes, but thinking that learning anything about how I like to communicate is asking far too much of them.

It's about trying to make friends as a teen, and all the guys getting upset or weird when it became clear that wasn't code for dating.

It's about makeup giving me rashes, and my hair being done up giving me headaches.

It’s about women in lingerie in ads, and how I wore a headscarf for a year in reaction to how that made me feel.

It's about learning biblical gender roles, and getting really excited about the idea of protection and love in return for submission. And then finding out I like the BDSM understanding of protection and submission a lot more than I like the church's. That the person I love doesn't have the skill to protect me in ways that make submission safe.

It’s about having noise and light sensitivities, but being expected to enjoy crowded weddings.

It’s about people acting disgusted when I get too loud. Or excited. Or happy. Or interested.

It's about 'body language experts' that ""explain"" what various gestures mean, and it's about that month when my husband believed them and told me I was wrong about what I felt.

It's about definitions of 'womanhood' and 'humanity' that contain things that exclude me. And learning how to be okay with being the exception this time. And eventually getting so used to being the exception that I can no longer connect to the concept at all.

It's about only reading fantasy, now, because an elf's experience isn't supposed to be relatable.

It’s about learning that ‘I actually wanted’ things I didn’t want, and I was ‘unreasonable’ when I said no, and I was being ‘too sensitive’ when things physically or emotionally hurt.

It’s about being ADHD and aroace and weird in far too many ways; in a culture that seems to consider that to be willful rebellion and disrespect.

I don’t know how to be a woman. I don’t know how to feel good about being a woman. I don't feel I can fulfill the roles and dynamics associated with femininity. I can't present myself in the expected ways, and I don't really want to. In isolation, 'woman' feels like an accurate description. But than I think of OTHER people considering me a woman, and having the right to define what that means, and I just can't.

I need a break from considering myself female, so I can figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t break me.

I want to learn how to interact with other people in a way that are less exhausting and painful. Engage on my own terms, and disengage if those terms aren’t fulfilled. Protect my own boundaries with strangers and acquaintances - people I don’t expect to make allowances for me. Not by demanding things of them, but by only offering myself on certain terms.

I don't want to ask anything about anyone else. I'm tired of it being about them. I want to ask things of myself. Ask for respect, and care. Figure out what that would actually look like. I want to process and let go of my self-hatred and feelings of being 'designed wrong'.

I've heard the terms 'acegender' and 'neurogender'. They don't excite me, but I recognize that's part of what's going on. Having ADHD gets in the way of performing womanhood to the point that it becomes hard to separate them. And some much of femaleness is defined in relation to being a part of a heterosexual romantic couple. I've got the man, but that hasn't helped me decode the mysteries of romantic and sexual attraction. The baffling concept of men having some sort of allure that women lack, of being a different category.

But, like my marriage isn't about my lack of attraction (it's about the choice I made to love him, and the decade plus of commitment we've had to each other), being nonbinary isn't about my lack of understanding of and ability to perform womanhood. It's about choosing to love myself, and recognizing that I've internalized enough harmful beliefs that I can't healthily identify as female right now.

It's not about gender.

#nonbinary #gender stuff #neurodivergence #asexuality #acegender #neurogender #when you spent years thinking your desire for they/them pronouns was about not being female #and it turns out it's actually about wanting to opt out of stereotypes that were destroying you

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bookpillows · 10 months

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a lot of these ‘biblical womanhood’ actually provide a lot evidence to support the argument that people say it’s harder to raise girls than boys because parents try to form unnatural gender roles onto their daughters. to them the entire point of being a ‘biblical wife’ is a woman making herself and her world as small as possible for the benefit of ‘submitting’ to her husband so of course it’s difficult to raise girls to make themselves essentially less when all of the world is open to them.

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divinum-pacis · 1 month

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2024 Book List

Here's a list of some new books I've found interesting and enjoyable in the last year or so. If you have any recommendations, send them in! (See previous book lists here)

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by Dalai Lama (2020)

Love and Quasars: An Astrophysicist Reconciles Faith and Science by Paul Wallace (2019)

Stars Beneath Us: Finding God in the Evolving Cosmos by Paul Wallace (2015)

Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe by Stephen C. Meyer (2021)

The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism by Bernard McGinn (2006)

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber (2014)

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr (2021)

That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, & Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart (2019)

The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God and Self by Carlton Pearson (2009)

Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life by Lee Strobel (2023)

Why? Making Sense of God's Will by Adam Hamilton (2018)

Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America by Russell Moore (2023)

The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Divide by Pamela Cooper-White (2022)

How Jesus Became God: the Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart D. Ehrman (2015)

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible by Michael S. Heiser (2015)

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan (2011)

#religion #science #ethics #library #book list #books #divinum-pacis

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lockedinthelabyrinth · 2 years

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I find it interesting how Muir keeps identifying characters with Jesus but then subverting it in the same breath. The previous books already had it but Nona really goes all in.

Most obvious you have Gideon who is the daughter of God. Except her very existence is already a subversion because she is a messianic figure not for the Empire but for Blood of Eden. A savior whose sacrifice will open the Tomb and -ironically enough- kill God. (There’s an argument to be made about how in this context Wake takes on the role of God instead of John, as she is the one knowingly killing her child to achieve salvation. Pyrrha calling her We Suffer’s “God” when talking about her in Nona could be another small nod to this reading. Though I am also intrigued by Wake-as-Mary simply because Mary is always revered as a symbol of ideal purity, womanhood and virginity- all of which Wake is very much not. There’s a crack theory about John-as-Mary between these two statements somewhere.) Also small thing here, but Gideon is at first meant to be sacrificed as a baby. So it would not be a willing sacrifice of an adult but a forced sacrifice without any agency. The person who gives her life with a sense of agency in this context is Wake, who knowingly dies for the higher cause ( so she’s kinda God-and-Mary-and-a-Martyr depending how you look at it. Love that for her.)

At the end of Gideon the Ninth Gideon does eventually sacrifice herself in a way that is more in line with a Christ-like figure in Empire, as lyctorhood itself holds connotations to communion which is again linked to Christ’s sacrifice. However -and I find this part really interesting for all the potential it holds- Harrow ultimately rejects this sacrifice, refusing to let Gideon die for her sins mistakes.

In Nona we see her resurrected but instead of a wholesome biblical resurrection Gideon isn’t alive. She is a corpse walking around, the wounds on her body not proof of a miracle but visible reminders that she is “mega-dead”. God brought her back but it’s more body horror than anything- a subversion of the christian idea of resurrection-as-salvation.

In the context of her being Blood of Eden’s Christ figure Gideon is called a weapon, which is an unusual association to her function as a savior. The weapon motive is brought back in Kiriona who is no longer a weapon for Blood of Eden but the Empire - exept then the two functions merge, as it turns out that both John and Blood of Eden want the tomb open, making her a Christ-figure/weapon for two seemingly opposing forces at once.

Then there’s Alecto who is getting pretty overt connotations to Christ far before Gideon does and again in a subversive way. The tomb that is rolled shut is a direct reference to Jesus’ grave, juxtaposed with the initial framing of Alecto as God’s and the empire’s doom. And the infamous: “I pray the tomb is shut forever. I pray the rock is never rolled away.” which calls forth a theme of resurrection but in an inverted way. It is there, implied through a negative (the tomb opening, the rock being rolled away), but instead the prayer calls for its opposite eternal rest, death - which is on first glance sensible because Alecto is the doom of the empire so it is only logical to pray for her to stay dead- but also incredibly ironic because resurrection is a central aspect of the empire. To pray for its absence in the same breath as praying for the empire seems therefore almost contradictory. (Like, Harrow is essentially saying a prayer that can be read with undertones of hey, maybe necromancy itself is kinda wrong.) It’s likely also a play on christian prayers that frequently feature calls to Christ’s resurrection. (Also something, something the title of this whole series being the locked tomb. The questions Muir poses about resurrection are already right there, on the cover.)

And then. There’s Nona. Where, like, a bazillion things just happen all at once? There’s Alecto getting a body which is both a play at Adam and Eve and God becoming flesh through Christ. (If John literally used his blood, bone and vomit to make Alecto’s body does that mean she has his DNA? I don’t actually want to know but this cursed thought is stuck in my head now. Help.) Anyway, God becoming human is usually something with very positive connotations, it’s the beginning of salvation. In the locked tomb however, it happens amidst a flood/apocalyse, brings with it the death of all of humanity and is an act of violence on Alecto, who did not want a body and didn’t consent to it. It’s not an act of God becoming human through birth but something divine being forced to become human through death. (Could also be examined under the aspect of Alecto already containing all human souls, therefore no real need for her to become human as there’s no barrier between humanity and the divine in the first place. They are naturally intertwined and John creates a barrier by removing the souls. This post by @facille and this post by @mercyisms are absolutely excellent in regards to this, please go read them. In essence for this line of thought: Human souls as seperate individual things and the way the empire thinks of them are a christian concept, one that isn’t representative to how souls actually work in the world building of the locked tomb. John builds an empire based on the aesthetics of christianity but it’s made-up not scientific reality. John doesn’t even know how the river and afterlife really work or what’s beyond it. Also in regards to Alecto not being seperate from human souls- there’s a possible link here with how the narrative in the dreams keeps conflating Harrow and Alecto to the point where it’s at parts not clear who John is speaking to when he says “you”. Might be something different but it makes sense if the individual soul is, and was always, part of Alecto. When John says “I hurt you”, he could be referring to both Harrow and Alecto and all of humanity and life because they were always the same to begin with.)

A connection can be made between Alecto’s birth-through-death and the Resurrection Beasts- named for resurrection, but in effect products of murder. (No resurrection without death.) They’re also linked by the allusions to the furies. The Resurrection Beasts endlessly hunting John’s Orestes (murderer of Mother earth) Alecto being named for one. (Or for John. He’s named after her- Gaia, and he was the one who couldn’t let go of vengeance, so the name “Alecto” could carry aspects of his character as well as Alecto’s.) However despite suffering the same fate, Alecto’s relationship to John is very different to that of the Resurrection Beasts’.

Nona sacrifices herself in order to become Alecto which is a resurrection but again, imperfect. Because Nona and Alecto aren’t quite the same so there’s still an element of permanent death here that even resurrection cannot rectify. (I’m looking forward to what Alecto will do with this, especially with Nona’s love for Pyrrha and Paul. Can love survive resurrection unchanged?)

There’s also this line in the epilogue: “And Alecto said, Pyrrha, he lead me down as appeasement to them; he fed you to them as appeasement to them; but he has never appeased me, and now all he has done was teach me how to die.” Which, first off, banger line there Muir. Second off, drawing a direct line between John putting Alecto in the Tomb and the cavaliers being unnecessarily killed to achieve lyctorhood when John knew better, both of those again getting connected to Christ’s sacrifice, however the word choice here is “appeasement” to the lyctors which is notably different from how theology would usually treat christian sacrifice.

And: “John loved her. She was John’s cavalier. For she had loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved the world that he had made her she. For John had loved the world.” In this context Alecto becoming human is again likened to Christ becoming human but here explicitely framed within the context of Jesus becoming Flesh as an act of God’s love for humanity. And in a way reframing John killing earth and humanity as an act of divine-and-human love. It also intermingles John with Alecto mirroring how both Christ and God are ultimately one and the same in christian theology. As well as the way Alecto and John become intermingled through perfect Lyctorhood- making her human and him divine, both taking in aspects of the other. In contrast to christianity where only the divine becomes human, here it goes both ways, but in a strange cannibalistic way in which the divine is consumed in order for the union to happen. (Communion-as-cannibalism and divinity and humanity already being one come to mind again.)

It also calls forth John as another Christ-figure, chosen by Alecto-as-God to save humanity. A reading which is made explicit earlier in Nona when he likens himself to Jesus while healing the sick (which is really fun, because not only is there a Christ parallel, the characters themselves are aware and intentionally invoking it. It’s delightfully meta.) Of course John as not only God but also a Christ figure is brought up already in the books before Nona with “the God who became man- the man who became God”. Which within the text is a nod to the process of lyctorhood between John and Alecto but also another play on God and Christ being one and the same. (For those who don’t know: There’s a thing in theology where Jesus had to be fully God and fully human at the same time in order for his sacrifice to be meaningful. Fun stuff.)

John-as-Christ in Nona is interesting in regards to the end of the world that we witness, as it calls forth both images of the flood of the old testament and the last judgement. The flood meaning that the trillionaires fleeing on their space ships are Noah’s ark - not chosen by God to survive but by corruption and selfishness. (Blood of Eden itself is interesting in its naming because it has both connotations of paradise (within the context of the worldbuilding probably earth) and original sin, a state that is carried on from generation to generation and is only removed through Christ’s sacrifice.) Also making a connection between rising sea levels via climate change and the biblical flood, as well as John killing everyone to start anew to God killing everyone with the flood to do the same thing, except John also kills everyone with the goal to sink the ark, those chosen to survive, as their survival is unjust in the face of everyone else being left to drown.

John’s focus on punishment for the sinners trillionaires over trying to save everyone else and his words in John 5:4 “We’ll get them all back...some of them, anyway...or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn’t do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive.” reads to me as a condemnation of christian thoughts and ideologies, that reserve heaven and salvation only for the few worthy and have a heavier focus on sin and punishment than they do on forgiveness, redemption and healing. John’s insistence that he can just do another flood, another blank slate by killing everyone is also pretty horrific and damning in this context. (Maybe purging everying you percieve as wrong isn’t the answer. Maybe all the flaws and wrongs and dirt are an important part of humanity. Maybe it’s not the world that is wrong but your way of looking at it.)

Interesting also that in this context he not only sees other people beyond redemption but also himself. A system where sin, once it is commited, is irredeemable is fundamentally an unhealhy one. It doesn’t allow moving on or growing from it, you just live with your mistakes forever. (Again shout out to @mercyisms fantastic post, because John being himself a victim of his mentality is really interesting if you view it as him being a convert to christianity)

In essence, Muir brings up allusions to christianity everywhere and never once plays them straight (something something lesbians). (I talk mostly about the Christ metaphores here, but it’s also true for all the rest. Like Ianthe and Corona being a Cain and Abel parallel but notably without the murder etc.)

A small aside at the end: Harrow’s role in all of this is very important as well and I think it can in part be interpreted as that of a believer struggling and trying to find truth in religion. Most obvious she is constantly defined and adressed in a context of religious worship- as a nun and her title of Reverend Daughter. She most consistently treats John as the God of her religion, where the others go along with his just some guy spiel, and when they talk she questions and demands things from him- both in a way that harkens back to the way a religious person may interrogate their religion and God. We see her actively rejecting Gideon’s sacrifice and her questions for John in John 5:4 are just...”What does it mean to love God?” and “I want to journey to find God . Maybe at the end of that road, I will find God in you, Teacher...the God who became man and the man who became God. Or, perhaps, the child of the Ninth Houses will recognize a different divine. But I am the Reverend Daughter- I am the Reverend Mother, the Reverend Father- I must find God, or some aspect of God, and understand it for myself...even if she lies, right now, within the Tomb.” It’s about faith. Being born into a religious tradition and starting to question it and trying to find your own kind of truth. And John’s answer: “God is a dream Harrow. You all dream me together- and she’s dreaming me too. In a way, her dead dreams of God mean more than all your dreams put together.” And then. He lets her go. He let’s her go and allows her to seek answer’s for herself.

Anyway fuck TazMuir forever and ever because I’d really love to take a closer look at all of this to get a grasp on what the narrative is actually trying to say with it instead of just noting that it’s there, except that that would require rereading these books in detail with a bible and Dante’s Inferno at hand and looking at how it all intersects with her other literary references and ideas and I really really don’t have any time at all right now, which is why I’m shouting about this on the internet so I can get it out of my system and work on the things I’m supposed to be doing. (And I hate how there may be small mistakes in this because of me misremembering but I can only reread small passages because time and. Fucking damn it TazMuir). I swear to Jod Alecto better come out when I actually have some time, so I can at least take a proper look at the whole picture once it’s done instead of slowly going insane.

#tlt #the locked tomb #nona the ninth spoilers #gideon nav #alecto the first #jod #john gaius #long post #tlt meta #harrowhark nonagesimus #one day I will write a long text without using 'also' every other sentence #until then: drinking game where you take a shot every time an 'also' pops up #There's a point I wanted to make in the Harrow section about one possible interpretation being the detangling of native faith from christian #imperialism. But I don't know anything about Maori faith and whether her heritage and praying to the Tomb/Alecto/Earth could mean anything #in that regard. And her religion is pretty steeped in christianity #so I didn't want to draw lines between it and Maori traditions if there may not even be any.

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lunarsilkscreen · 5 months

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What is a Women? (Let's get Pedantic)

Let's assume that words pre-date human understanding. We need words to communicate ideas, and therefore; before science and biology, there are words.

What separates manhood from womanhood? Lexiconically it's the "(wo)."

Woman and Man are tandemly linked. If both are "Man" from the word "Human" what makes a human different from a man. There is a difference. That is the "Hu".

Because what you're asking is really, what is the difference between the masculine and the feminine. Because if we ask what is the difference between Male and Female we get: Iron.

So what are these prefixes "Hu, Wo, and Fe"?

Is Wo Woe? A man who suffers?

Or is it a meaningless article that only gets affixed to "Man" to denote submission?

On "Hu" Wikipedia has this to say: "Hu (ḥw), in ancient Egypt, was the deification of the first word, the word of creation, that Atum was said to have exclaimed upon ejaculating..."

Therefore Hu is ejaculating man, but Wo simply means Woman. Or rather: Wife. Non-gender specific wife, apparently.

It wasn't until the middle-ages that Man gained it's relation to the p3n15. And Women to the vagus nerve.

Therefore, A woman is a servant, or a housemaid legally bound to a man. The origin of "Wife" as a profession. And it's later we see Women (cis women especially). Relegated to that territory.

Now I know what you're saying, according to the Holy Christian Chaste Bible: "Men don't have F*holes."

But here's the thing; we cannot make assumptions as to the appearance of man and woman at the dawn of mankind either. For all you know both had both sets of genitalia, and both had XX chromosomes.

There's a distinct lack of fossilized human genitalia for which to base historical observations. We know what we as humans are, but we do not know what we were.

And, it's entirely possible that the "Y" chromosome itself is a mutation of what was a second 'X'. We named them based on their appearance after all, and some research suggests that the "Y" chromosome is in danger of becoming extinct. (I didn't do the research, go read the article.)

But let me refer you to that line in the Bible: "God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them."

And this will be my most controversial statement in this post; God created both male AND female in *his* own image. A statement that outright declares both are one and the same.

So the real question; if you're religious, where does this separation come from? It's not a modern English interpretation that can be applied, in Hebrew its: Elohim created Zachar and Nekevah. (Abbreviated) I don't think modern Hebrew understands the historical Hebrew either, but it's as close as we got.

Elohim being closer to "Divinity" or "The Divine" instead of singular "God".

Zachar and Nekevah possibly referring to sexual anatomy, but never in the same way ish and isha are used.

Ish being man and isha being a woman. What is the difference here? It's the 'a'.

So here's the question, the ultimate question; How do you define human? This biblical context suggests that *you* are not human until you've married another and joined in consciousness.

And a human is made in God's image.

As any wife could tell you; Joining in consciousness isn't a thing. As any divorcè could tell you; "I don't miss that ish".

What this is really about, the real question here is, are trans people trying to bypass *that* connection in order to become "human" as defined in the Bible?

Or, is it possible that before Adam; there was a genderless society. And one day God said: "Let there be man." And then there was man, and everybody was like "but who's he gonna mate with" and then God said "Let there be rib" and then there was a rib in which Adam fit?

And then the other people were like "Phew, I thought that was the end of humanity as a whole."

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apilgrimsprogress · 2 years

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For evangelicals these attitudes are connected: limiting women's spiritual authority goes hand in hand with limiting women's economic power. [...] Evangelical teachings that subordinate women within the home and inside the walls of the church influence attitudes about women in the workplace. Or, considered within Bennett's framework, male ecclesiastical authority and male household authority exist within broader cultural practices that subordinate women to men. Patriarchy doesn't stay confined to one sphere.

Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

#o #beth allison barr #the making of biblical womanhood #feminist theology

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come-see-our-show · 9 months

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Into the Woods is clearly a story about growing up, but I want to acknowledge the underlying sexual themes in the story, specifically growing into one’s own sexuality, because there are so many allusions to that and I can't be the only one seeing it.

Fair warning, this analysis is going to be a mess.

CW: Discussions of rape and pedophilia.

(Also, when I refer to "sexuality" and "sexual indentity," I'm not taking about one's sexual orientation, but rather one's interest in sex and relationship to it.)

1. The Witch

I’ve always seen the Witch’s backstory as a metaphor for rape. When she says the Mysterious Man was “Raping [her],” she means that he was stealing from her. However, even since biblical times, gardens have represented temptation, maturation, femininity, and sex. The witch was told from a young age to protect her garden, and when the beans are taken, she feels an intense loss. She is cursed with ugliness because she has been “deflowered.”

This was clearly a traumatic event for her, much like how sexual assault is traumatic for victims. It reminds me of the scene in Maleficent where her wings are taken from her while she’s asleep. There’s something so graphic about it. From a young age, girls are taught to protect our virginities, and if we are too proud of it then it will get taken away from us. We are shamed for being comfortable in our sexual identity, but at the same time we are forced to make it a huge part of our identities. The Witch does not know who she is without her power, and the thing she loved most was taken from her.

2. Baker’s Wife

BW is also shamed by the narrative for having a sexual identity. We can infer that she’s had sex with the Baker because she knows they can’t have children, but the only time she is explicitly shown as a sexual being is when she cheats on him with Cinderella’s prince, which results in her demise. Again, female sexuality is seen as destructive.

3. Cinderella

Cinderella’s character doesn’t have any explicitly sexual themes like the Witch or BW, but I feel like that’s intentional. BW admits to Cinderella that she’s attracted to the Prince. It’s all described in a very tame way, but given the fact that BW has sex with him in Act 2, we know in hindsight that there is some sexual desire there.

Cinderella doesn’t show any desire for the Prince. She talks about how amazing the ball was, but doesn’t talk about the Prince unless BW coaxes it out of her. It’s weird to BW that Cinderella isn’t really excited about him, because shouldn’t all women feel that way?

I don’t think Cinderella is attracted to men at all (I see her as a lesbian or aroace). Her arc ends with her dumping the Prince, thus claiming her independence and rejecting the traditional expectations of female sexuality.

4. Rapunzel

The Witch projects her own trauma onto her “daughter” (bc uhhhh generational trauma 🤪). While she is undoubtedly abusive, you can see why she wants to protect Rapunzel from the world so badly.

Rapunzel’s first introduction to the world is by a man who enters her home and has sex with her after knowing her for maybe a day or two. We don’t know if she was the one who asserted the sex, but given the fact that she lived in a tower all her life and doesn’t know anything about the world, I doubt it.

Despite how dubious the consent is, Rapunzel probably enjoyed it since she was so happy to reunite with her prince after. Sex should be a beautiful and exciting thing, but she pays the price by becoming pregnant, another thing that I highly doubt she was educated on. Imagine how terrifying that must have been, to wonder why your body is changing so durastically, then giving birth to TWINS. Nightmare fuel.

Rapunzel’s storyline reminds me of Wendla’s in Spring Awakening. A sheltered girl is entering womanhood, but because she isn’t taught how to handle these aspects of life, she is sort of taken advantage of by a more experienced partner, and her first time having sex isn’t 100% consensual (even if she enjoyed it), she becomes pregnant, then dies. Rapunzel and Wendla never get full control of their bodies.

So, yeah, teach your children about sex because “children will listen.”

5. Little Red Riding Hood

Most actors portray the Wolf as a lustful character with lots of sexual undertones. The story of Little Red Riding Hood does sound a lot like a story about a little girl getting taken advantage of by a predator. That IS the story, even if it’s about a wolf eating her instead of a pervert molesting her. The lyric “Look at that flesh, pink and plump,” has undeniably sexual undertones. He’s attracted to her youth and purity (cough cough her virginity). He reacts to her the way a pedophile would react to a child. And yes, it’s disgusting.

Many victims of pedophilia don’t see the perpetrator as a threat initially. They’re kind, funny, maybe even give you treats. That was how Red initially saw the Wolf.

Red’s solo, I Know Things Now, is about not trusting strangers. All children are told to not trust strangers. In fairytales, it’s so you don’t get eaten by a seemingly-kind wolf. In real life, it’s so you don’t get kidnapped by a seemingly-kind adult. She acknowledges that “even flowers have their dangers,” again drawing the parallels of nature and sexuality.

Young girls are seen as women once they are objectified by men (hello barbie movie). So, we learn to be wary of men by protecting ourselves with keys or pepper spray. Red begins her introduction into adulthood once she is objectified by a wolf. She learns to be wary by protecting herself with a knife. However, Red reclaims her power by wearing the Wolf as a coat. She's hardened by this experience, which is tragic because she's still a child, but she holds her head up high by wearing her abuser's dead body. She views herself as a survivor. That's a power move.

6. Jack

Jack’s solo also has some sexual undertones, though less obvious than Red’s. The Giant’s Wife “draws [him] close to her giant breasts” and he "come[s] back again, only different than before."

In real life, boys are congratulated for having sex, but girls are shamed. Jack and Red, the two tweens in the show, have the same reactions to their pseudo-sexual experiences. Jack becomes greedy and impulsive, but Red becomes wary and guarded.

While I don't see Jack as a victim of the giant in the same way that Red was a victim of the wolf, his experience also parallels how male victims are treated (if you want to interpret his experience as statutory rape). They are congratulated for being assaulted because boys are expected to always enjoy sex (even though assault/rape are not sex!). Jack's Mother is the only person who acknowledges that he could have been hurt, and that he is "still a little boy." But of course, she gets killed trying to protect her son from that danger.

7. The Princes

I’m lumping the two princes together because they’re very similar. Much like men in real life, they rarely face the consequences of their actions!!! They treat women like prizes (evidence: all of Agony), but soon after, they cheat on the prizes they used to want so desperately. They aren’t satisfied because the patriarchy teaches men to view women as sexual conquests.

Also, it’s notable to me that after CP and BW have their affair, BW has to pay a much bigger price. While CP is dumped by his wife (and tbh he’ll just move onto the next girl), BW is literally KILLED. The Giant is not literally killing her for having sex, but it’s rather coincidental that these two events coincide.

BW and CP’s aftermath is similar to the real life aftermath of sex. If you’re a man, you’re gonna be fine. If you’re a woman, you need to pay a price because you’re a whore. I’m not saying BW should have cheated on her husband, because that’s wrong. But it takes two to tango, so it’s interesting that CP gets out scott-free. On the plus side, CP is still seen as an asshole and BW remembered as a loving person despite her flaws. A slight win despite all of the tragedy.

Anywho, that my spiel. I may edit it in the future, but I was just in a production of Into the Woods and HAD to get my feelings out at once. Toodles.

#i love this show so fucking much #i just played jack's mother it was an EXPERIENCE #a good one!#the entire cast would always cry backstage from witch's lament all the way to the finale #act 2 wrecked our shit #i cried ONSTAGE during the finale (which i was not supposed to do) due to how verklempt i was #i love that cast <3 #summer says stuff #into the woods

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brightgnosis · 5 months

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[The] Submission and simplicity [of Slow Living and the #TradWife movements] can be most attractive during times of duress. People have historically glommed on to charismatic religions when it feels like the world is changing in ways that make it feel unfamiliar—and they crave something, anything, steady. It makes sense, too, that some of the women who become followers of religious sects that preach the gospel of biblical womanhood may be escaping some form of personal or familial trauma. To give up control can feel very much like achieving it.

But there are so many ways to find the sort of steadiness that these accounts, biblical or otherwise, seem to offer. If nonbelievers are attracted to them because they seem to promise a life where you get to stop scrambling to do it all, where there’s actually time to do things like bake a cake, or make clothing you like, or just be with your children without an agenda—that doesn’t mean you should become a #tradwife. It just means that we’ve normalized the substitution of women’s labor for a functioning social safety net, and still organize society as if every family has an adult who doesn’t work outside the home, when that’s not the reality for 80 percent of American families.

That also doesn’t mean feminism has failed us. It means that legislatures largely controlled and influenced by men—many of whom believe in some version of biblical womanhood—have worked really hard to make a life of submission this attractive, and a life of agency this hard. They’ve rolled back reproductive rights, of course, but they’ve also stood in the way of the sort of childcare reform that would make parenting easier—not just for working moms, but for all parents. They’ve busted unions and suppressed the sort of labor protections that would put boundaries on the workday. They’ve ensured we’re the only developed country in the world without mandatory paid family leave. And it’s all very purposeful, if rarely articulated.

From 'My So-Called #TradWife Life: ELLE asked me to live like a “stay-at-home girlfriend” for a week. It didn’t go well', published 2023; Anne Helen (My Ko-Fi Here)

#My So-Called TradWife Life: ELLE asked me to live like a 'stay-at-home girlfriend' for a week. It didn’t go well #Anne Helen #Elle #Ye True Olden Days #Homemaker #Homemaking #Housewife #NonTrad Housewife #NonTrad Homemaker #NonTrad Homemaking #TradWife #Tradfem #Traditionalism #Some Tunes Shouldn't Be Whistled #Folk Life #Slow Life #Homesteading #Quote

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qui-qui-quee · 2 months

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Admittedly a lot of my original posts lately have been particularly negative, I’m aware.

I do wonder if I’m in a period of lamenting when looking back. There’s just too much going on, too many people thinking they’re on the right side of history (or the faith) by the way they talk about ideologies. Too much lack of nuance and assumptions about what worldliness actually looks like. Too much death. Too much destruction. Too many violations of humanity.

And in my case I’m in a weird transition period in my own life as well (and I’m currently battling a cold so there’s that).

But… yeah did Jesus really care about us being theologically right?

He already showed us how to live, how to love, gave an entire sermon on what His kingdom was meant to look like but we often get obsessed with the details. He died on the cross and resurrected.

Yet instead of being secure in all that, we’re constantly angsting over our sin and listening to the Accuser tell us we’re doing things wrong (and for some reason be more concerned over God’s wrath than not??). And we treat the Bible with a modern lens and demand it serve us in ways it just wasn’t meant for. Look at how more focused we often are on Paul’s letters and assume everything he wrote there to the dot is 100% applicable to our time now, compared to the universality of Jesus’ teachings and its challenges to human power and authority.

Anyway I dunno what else to say here. I’m rambling again. I wanna listen to people who aren’t from your typical white male evangelical circles or groups influenced by them. I come from a reformed background, evangelical background and I wanna expand. But it’s hard and lonely. I find myself more intrigued by folks like James Baldwin, a black gay churchgoer, and after finishing books like The Making of Biblical Womanhood, wanna listen to for example, more women in Christian history who you never hear about on ur average Sunday cuz “hur dur wOmEn CaN’t PrEaCh Or bE pAsToRs”.

I should end this ramble now. But yeah, I know it’s okay to be uncertain. I know it’s ok not to have everything together and that God’s got me. God is bigger than all that. Bigger than myself. Bigger than this world. I just need to keep going.

He’s Bigger and He loves me, ya know? Just as He loved everyone to throw Himself into the jaws of death for us and resurrect. If people think that’s a cop-out or an easy way out then they miss the point. Sometimes it’s hardest thing to remember and live out when you’re surrounded by all things depressing and anxiety-inducing.

Something I need to keep reminding myself of that cuz man does living life as a human suck reaaaally bad these days hahaha

#qooky rambles #if anyone here goes -shes like this cuz shes under God’s wrath-#pls stfu pls #get the log out of your own eye #and stop simplifying what that is #youre no better than the religious leaders who walked past the beaten man on the sidewalk

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mongrelmutt · 4 months

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My books read list for 2023! For the first time I met my goal of at least one book a week!! 😁

1. "A Conspiracy of Kings" -- Megan Whalen Turner

2. "Thick as Thieves" -- Megan Whalen Turner

3. "Return of the Thief" -- Megan Whalen Turner

4. "Vatican II" -- John O'Malley

5. "The Catholic Church: A Short History" -- Hans Küng, translated by John Bowden

6. "Confessions" and "Letter to Coroticus" -- St. Patrick

7. "Through the Brazilian Wilderness" -- Theodore Roosevelt

8. "The Wind in the Willows" -- Kenneth Grahame

9. "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" -- Kate Clancy

10. "Star Wars: Padawan" -- Kiersten White

11. "Star Wars: Master and Apprentice" -- Claudia Gray

12. "Deep Down Dark" -- Héctor Tobar

13. "The Lost World" -- Michael Crichton

14. "Provida Mater Ecclesia: Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII Concerning Secular Institutes" (English translation) -- Pope Pius XII

15. "Frankenstein" -- Mary Shelley

16. "Kenobi" -- John Jackson Miller

17. "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law" -- Mary Roach

18. "Trigun" and "Trigun Maximum" -- Yasuhiro Nightow

19. "Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution" -- Andrew M. Wehrman

20. "Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith" -- Eve Tushnet

21. "The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth" -- Beth Allison Bar

22. "Turtles All The Way Down" -- John Green

23. "All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1)" -- Martha Wells

24. "Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2)" -- Martha Wells

25. "Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3)" -- Martha Wells

26. "Exit Strategy (Murderbot Diaries #4) -- Martha Wells

27. "Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5) -- Martha Wells

28. "Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot Diaries #6) -- Martha Wells

29. "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History" -- Erik Larson

30. "The Johnstown Flood" -- David McCullough

31. "The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World" -- Riley Black

32. "Beastly Brains: Exploring How Animals Think, Talk, and Feel" -- Nancy F. Castaldo

33. "The Rise and Reign of Mammals: A New History from the Shadows of the Dinosaurs to Us" -- Steve Brusatte

34. "Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Dog" -- John Bradshaw

35. "Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (or Don't)" -- Alex Bezzerides

36. "Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive" -- Philipp Dettmer

37. "Catholicism and ADHD: Finding Holiness Despite Distractions" -- Alex R. Hey, PCAC

38. "The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery" -- Sam Kean

39. "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" -- Ed Yong

40. "Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig" -- Mark Essig

41. "The Mind's Eye" -- Oliver Sacks

42. "Loveless" -- Alice Oseman

43. "The Monkey Trial: John Scopes and the Battle Over Teaching Evolution" -- Anita Sanchez

44. "The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet" -- Henry Fountain

45. "Kiki's Delivery Service" -- Eiko Kadono (translated by Emily Balistrieri)

46. "Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas" -- Jennifer Raff

47. "Ancillary Justice" -- Ann Leckie

48. "An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives" -- Matt Richtel

49. "System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7)" -- Martha Wells

50. "Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures" -- Nick Pyeson

51. "Howl's Moving Castle" -- Diana Wynne Jones

52. "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" -- Shirley Jackson

53. "Sarah, Plain and Tall" and "Skylark" -- Patricia MacLachlan

54. "The Haunting of Hill House" -- Shirley Jackson

55. "All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings" -- Gayle Boss (illustrated by David G. Klein)

#books read 2023 #reading #books #long post #personal

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