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twisted-leader-of-something · 4 years

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Background Information - The Cult of Mana/Blot

So, basically these guys are villians in two of my OC's Personal Stories, most notably for Das Mana-Alvah and Quentin Nighy-Sallow, that later bleeds into the main story. And, my god, I didn't realize how much I had in my head about this cult til I actually wrote it down. So, here, have a whole page of information on this cult.

Base credit because my stupid ass deleted my original photos and I honestly had no energy to re-draw it so I used a base: https://www.deviantart.com/dogplss/art/Female-Outfit-Design-Base-F2U-442331266

https://www.deviantart.com/dogplss/art/Male-Outfit-Design-Base-F2U-442323426

Edit: My stupid ass forgot to put a cut. Sorry guys.

Offical Logo:

Common Symbol Used to Represent the Cult (The Unofficial Symbol):

Offical Name: The Gathering of the Glourious One (official name by the group), the Faith of Mana (more general name used by outsiders, mandated by the group), Manaism (offical name for scholars)

Other Names it is Known As: The Cult of Mana, The Cult of Blot, Mana's Sect, Those Creepy Guys in Black Robes, The Dark Religion [as in, it's the religion you shouldn't mess with] (mostly used by the older people), The Worst Religion (according to some people).

Status: Active

Type: Destructive Apocalyptic

Structure: Meetings conducted by a member of or mandated by the Blot-XXX family that teach the doctrine of the cult that are mostly in private places.

Class System: The Blot-XXX family also known as the Speakers of Mana (the leaders of the Cult) - the people mandated by the Blot-XXX family also known as the Apostles of the Speakers (these are often locals mandated by the head family in an area or people really close to the Blot-XXX family) - the Record Keepers of an certain area also known as the Scribes of Mana - the Treasurers and Donatiors of an certain area also known as the Creditors of Mana - The Cult's Police Force also known as Mana's Protectors - and the average person called a Follower of Mana (this is the majority of people who aren't in the leadership roles)

Main Headquarters: Remote parts of the Delightful Harbor

Founder: Corentin Blot-XXX (Deceased)

Notable Members: The Blot-XXX and the Alvah Family

History: Scholars don't have an exact time when the Cult was founded as according to several sources it is possible they've been around for as long as magic has been, while others say this cult is a recent development in Twisted Wonderland's history. But most agree that the cult is pretty old. The Cult's official statement is that it came about by a man named Corentin Blot-XXX, who lived about the time magic became popularized and received a divine revelation that Blot or Mana was meant to save Twisted Wonderland from its' doom. [Now, what that means is up to interpretation as Corentin did not ever elaborate on what he meant by 'save Twisted Wonderland' and the Blot-XXX family seems to not care about answering that question either.] so he created a religious organization that was meant to save the people of Twisted Wonderland by doing crazy stuff to your magical abilities without Overblotting. Which, was considered okay by most governments despite the really crazy and dangerous shit they did to themselves like magic rituals to get as much Blot as possible and keep it, using Blot for really stupid and dangerous reasons, and the list goes on. Most governments let the cult be in the open because well, the group wasn't doing anything illegal and they had religious reasons for their crazy shit. As, it was a religion. And religion does really crazy shit in the name of their gods. Eventually though, an undercover anonymous medical team managed to get into the cult and gained a lot of insight into the minds of the leaders of the cult, the damage it was doing to the people in the religion, and the conditions to live in that religion and released to the public the cult's body count of people who had died of their exposure to lots of Mana, people being kept prisoners as the cult's 'scientists and researchers' who were assumed dead, and the terrible living conditions a person had to put up with unless you where an Aposlte or Speaker. And almost hours after the pages and pages of gruesome information was leaked, the governments of Twisted Wonderland banned the Cult for these activities, and would try to arrest any and all members of the leadership of the cult. Which got of good portion of the leadership at the time before they where forced into hiding in order to continue their mission. After the dust settled, the Cult had to competely change their tactic of getting people into the cult, so they made the World Blot Research Society, a more public and scholarly setting that was meant to lure people into the cult but eventually became it's own thing because of so many none members joining in.

Current State: The Cult currently makes up a decent number of the population of Twisted Wonderland and is mostly found in the Land of Pyroxene or the Delightful Harbor in small, secluded areas that often look like tightly-woven Christian towns that most people say have really creepy vibes coming from them. The Blot-XXX family is located in a high class area of the Delightful Harbor, and are ruling the cult with an iron grip, or the least the Main family does.

Ways to Spot one of the Cult Members: These cult members often wear the eye in their logo somewhere on their body, it can be tattooed or a piece of jewelry, but more often than not it is on their clothes in some shape or form. The people are mostly keep in hidden places, since the group has been banned in most if not all countries for kidnappings and bad living conditions.

The Eye:

- Cult Outfits/Roles -

Followers: These are most of the population of the cult, as it is hard to move up in ranks due to competition and because the systems of moving up is very strict and hard to actually pull off. These people can have normal jobs such as being a doctor or a janitor, but the normal jobs are considered lower in their society due to it being an theocracy. But, these people seem pretty cheerful overall despite a range of diseases and strange happenings.

Outfits are not customizable unless you are a beastman, and are cheaply made. Often with cheap cotton.

Protectors: These are basically the police of the society. While this is a normal job most societies need, this is the equivalent of the religious police as well as being the normal police as well. Decently regrended job because of how much control they have over people despite being so low on the hierarchy, and often really mistreated by the upper classes due to how much power the group has.

The Alvah family is in this category.

Outfits are customizable depending on species and area and ranking within the police force, which follows military personnel ranks.

Creditors: These are basically the once rich people of the society. While they live the same as the Followers, they wear clothes that stand out as looking similar to those in higher ranks, which they are allowed to do because they donate huge amounts of money to the cult. Other than a change in clothing and attitude, not much is different between this group and the followers.

Outfit can be customized very little, and are often made by the Creditors themselves to imidate the Speakers.

Treasurers: These are the secretaries of the Record Keepers, Apostles and Speakers. It used to be just people who where truly Treasurers, but the role has evolved into just a high rank member's secertaries. These people often have better living conditions than those below due to the higher ranks giving them better conditions in exchange for their hard work.

These are customizable to show who to the person serves as a secertary, and often are really well made compared to the lower classes, and are custom made by this class as well.

Record Keepers: These are the people who are considered the scribes or record keepers of an area. These people often are also scholars, and highly regarded by society for their knowledge despite more often than not these people heavily depend on the Apostles and Speakers for their knowledge, as they can only get it from those two groups. This is the highest possible rank the average person in the cult can get. Have good living conditions, noticeably better than the Creditors, Protectors, and Followers and somewhat better than the Treasurers.

Outfits are of really good quality and can be sold on a normal market for scraps.

Apostles: These are mostly families and people who have been in the Cult for a long time, and are considered the closest thing the society has to the nobleman class. These are the people closest to the Blot-XXX family, or are in the social circle. They have leadership roles in the area they are in, and are well respected for their religious duties, despite this class often looking down upon the lower classes.

These outfits are often the ones assicated with the cult, as the medical team caught mostly pictures of this group of people. Hugely customizable based on area and rank in the social circle, which depend how close you are to the Blot-XXX family.

Speakers: These are exclusively for members of the Blot-XXX family. As, the family is considered the closest to Mana, despite the family not really believing in what their ancestor preached. Most members use their positions of authority for getting money or favors from the people free, and some don't do their job at all. Despite the family's lack of care for their duty, the members of the cult are really brainwashed so they will do anything this family says.

These outfit are very customizable. They really vary from individual to individual, but usually that makes it easier to identify the person.

Other Things to Note:

- Matriarchal society

- Super Transphobic, which is actually how lots of people leave the cult

- The rankings of the Apostles go by closeness to the Blot-XXX family, and while it is more or less something that the classes, it's still really present and important with the Apostle class. It's an unspoken thing.

#[ character content ]#twisted wonderland oc #twst oc

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leilawhittaker · 4 years

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What’s Lei’s comic history? And how do the movie adaptations differ from her comic character?

Okay but I love this question this is like...one of my fave questions I’ve gotten about her thank u!!! Bear in mind my comics history knowledge is a little rusty but I think this tracks.

SILVER AGE

-X-MEN

Leila first appears in the early 60s as an early X-Men villain. The Trust operates sort of like it does in the movies, an organized crime syndicate run entirely by mutants. (I like to think that they took the fairy tale thing a little too far and like, every Trust member has a fairy tale name. This gets retconned later.) In the comics, Leila isn’t the leader of the Trust, just a member. This, too, gets retconned later.

Leila and the Trust appear sporadically before Leila redeems herself and leaves. She might’ve joined the X-Men for an issue or two, before deciding it wasn’t a good fit and dipping.

-CAP’S KOOKY QUARTET

Look, the name still fits if you consider Cap the leader and Leila/Clint/Wanda/Pietro his quartet. Leila joins the second ever roster of Avengers, and fits right in with the team made up largely of former villains.

This is where we get into Leila’s backstory for the first time. It’s very similar to her movie backstory, but toned down a bit because of the comics code authority. We maybe see like, one panel of her mom hitting her, but the extent of the abuse she suffered is largely told through implications, and she’s not confirmed as a sexual assault survivor until the 2000s when we get more flashbacks. Her backstory centers less on religious trauma and more on being surrounded by anti-mutant sentiment.

Because that’s the other big difference, is that Leila’s ability to alter her appearance isn’t a big secret like it is in the movies. In the movies, David forces her to repress them and she doesn’t realize she can do it until she’s an adult. In the comics, her main power is changing her appearance, not an extension of her power-copying ability, and she’s been aware of it since she was a child.

(I think the DNA mirroring and power copying concepts don’t get introduced until later, probably in the early Bronze age; in her first appearances Leila is just your garden variety shapeshifter.)

Anyways. The CKQ era is where snowcap starts, but it’s also where the animosity between Leila and Wanda starts. Wanda canonically had feelings for Steve at this point, and this being the sixties, of course they would be written as romantic rivals.

Eventually this tension is what makes Leila leave the team, possibly breaking up with Steve in the process, mostly because the writers didn’t want to write Cap as having a girlfriend that’s just never around.

INTERMISSION: MCU LEGAL ISSUES

I imagine that Leila, like Pietro and Wanda, is a character that Disney was hesitant to use because of her connection to the X-Men. Ultimately throughout her history she’s been more involved with the Avengers than X-Men, but still.

The first two chapters of Leila MM would be told through a comic series that takes place before the Avengers, but is released shortly afterwards as a sort of mini-prequel, since she was the only Avenger to not be introduced before the movie, because while they were making the pre-Avengers movies they hadn’t decided to bring her in yet.

Like Quicksilver, Leila likely has an XMCU counterpart. I’ll have to watch the movies and get back to you.

BRONZE AGE/EARLY MODERN AGE

Leila remained underutilized for a lot of the next few decades. She popped into different books, never really settling in one plotline for long. She and Steve were on-again off-again; their relationship was strained by Leila’s heel-turn revolving door. Comics, god bless them, are straight-up ass at lasting character development (*coughs* Quicksilver: No Surrender *coughs*) and you never quite knew when Leila would spontaneously decide to go be a villain again. Still, her villainous periods tended to be mild, focusing more on theft and minor crimes than huge murders, and she and Steve continued to have soft spots for each other even while on opposite sides.

TURN OF THE CENTURY

This is where things start to look up. Marvel has all but abandoned the CCA, and they’re now welcome to expand on Leila’s backstory.

Leila rejoins the X-Men briefly, and goes up against the Trust. Here we get more of her backstory with how she took control of the Trust, as well as more backstory on David. Prior to this David had been portrayed as a very minor player in her backstory, the leader of the cult who had no particular relationship to her. Here we learn the extent of the abuse he subjected her to. A lot of it is told through implications; Marvel might not have been following the CCA, but they weren’t about to get too dark, either. It’s a source of debate whether David is Leila’s biological father or not.

(Possibly in Ultimates it goes even further and gets into the nitty gritty, but Ultimates isn’t 616 canon, so there’s still debate about some details. It’s clear, though, that in both continuities, David was a major abusive figure in Leila’s life and their relationship was formative for her. Leila’s backstory is notoriously dark for a comics character.)

After her plotline with the Trust, Leila rejoins the Avengers, and is basically solidified as an anti-hero from that point on.

-M DAY

I haven’t read much about this plotline but Leila is one of the few remaining mutants after M Day.

-CIVIL WAR

Leila takes the anti-reg stance, and she and Steve get back together. However, they get into a fight, as Steve confronts her about her motives. He says that Leila is only anti-reg for her own purposes; she doesn’t want to be in any database because she wants to be able to run if she needs to. And he’s honestly like...50% right, but Leila doesn’t bother explaining the other side of the story. They break up, and she ditches the conflict before things get as ugly as they do.

-SOLO SERIES

Leila, like Hawkeye, becomes a popular household name after the Avengers, and finally gets a solo series, entitled Codename: Snow White. Inspired loosely by the movies, this is where we see Leila join SHIELD as an agent. There’s a plotline where she goes undercover and has to pretend to be evil, and runs into Steve, who sees right through it--proving that he does trust her integrity.

They share a kiss, but don’t get back together, just because they’re both busy with SHIELD/Avengers stuff. But it’s sort of a promise that they’ll try to work things out when they have time.

-ALL-NEW X-FACTOR

I just really like the idea of Leila on this team. Maybe she’s investigating Serval Industries for Fury? But like her vibing with Lorna, snarking back and forth with Pietro, flirting with Remy, complaining about how ugly the costumes are, we love to see it. It eventually leads to her joining the Uncanny Avengers when Pietro goes back.

-UNCANNY AVENGERS

I think? That by the time ANXF was done Steve had left the team but pretend he didn’t and pretend he’s still there. This is where he and Leila get back together finally, a writing choice that is informed by the popularity of the relationship in the movies. After the series ends, when their next appearance is, they show up still together.

DIFFERENCES

I think in the comics Leila is a slightly lighter character. A little less tortured. She hasn’t done as many bad things as she has in the movies, so she has less to feel guilty for, and her backstory is like, marginally less traumatic. She never burned down the compound, and Violet Elwood doesn’t exist. So she’s a little more well-adjusted.

I think also the fact that she keeps finding her way back to villainy is a big difference. In the movies, once Leila truly becomes a hero she never goes back. I think comics!Leila has a similar complex where she thinks she’ll never be a real hero, but copes with it by not trying, whereas mcu!Leila is willing to suffer through it.

I think another reason for that discrepancy is that comics!Leila’s villainy is, again, more mild than mcu!Leila. In the comics, all of her villainy after her original turning good is just like, stealing shit. Leila in the movies is literally a spree killer.

OTHER NOTES

Self indulgently, I think she probably had a brief thing with Pietro at some point. The relationship was widely regarded as a bad writing choice (because most of the time they hate each other) and is mostly ignored except for like ten people who ship it. I’m one of them.

#qna #ava #thank u!!! this was so fun to answer

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racefortheironthrone · 5 years

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Thoughts on Powers of X #1

Well, I did this for the one, might as well do it for t’other...

Well, any thought that this mini-series might be less weird than its companion was completely blown away by the very first page, which revealed that Powers of X (pronounced Powers of Ten) is going to be taking place in four different times:

Year One (X^0)

Year Ten (X^1)

Year One Hundred (X^2)

Year One Thousand (X^3)

...with each segment increasing by a power of ten, because apparently Hickman has decided he’d like to drive us all mad with math puzzles. That first page is a doozy of design, I must say, laying out four key moments (and four or three key players) in the past and future of mutant-kind, with the layout suggesting a parallel between all of these characters (as well as a suggestion that the guy in the Cerebro mask shares Charles’ lower facial features exactly.

Year One

We then get an un-interrupted six page sequence which, on the surface, seems the most normal but is anything but. The first page shows Charles Xavier strolling through a fair and sitting down on a bench to enjoy the weather and his good mood, although the symbolic connection between the dwarf ringmaster and the strongman and Xavier’s dream of mutantkind is quite ominous. Then someone who looks a lot like Moira McTaggart sits down next to Xavier, and this is where x-fan’s expectations all of the sudden get flipped upside-down. On the face of it, Charles meeting Moira around the same time that he first has his Dream of mutant/human co-existence would be quite normal...except that Moira’s tarot cards are depicting people and places in the Year One Hundred (more on this in a bit), and Moira is talking to Charles very familiarly, but he hasn’t actually met her yet.

This is where a little alarum bell goes off in my mind shouting “TIME-TRAVEL SHENANIGANS!”

This much-hyped scene turns out to be Charles reading Moira’s mind, but it’s very clear from what we’ve just seen that this is not the Moira we know. And if this Moira is a clone from the future (I’ll get into that in a bit), the publicity tag-line would make sense: after all, time travel to avert a bad future goes way back in X-Men, and often that time travel has involved things happening to Charles Xavier before he could get his X-Men off the ground.

However, we’ve never see anyone go back just to tell Charles what happens in the future, even though that would profoundly change the timeline just by changing his mind. Is this what turns Charles Xavier into the be-helmeted man in Year Ten with the very different dream? Or would informing him of the future change or prevent the events of Year Ten?

Year Ten

Probably the most straightforward sequence - and the best argument for why HoX and PoX should be viewed as two halves of the same story - this sequence shows us exactly what happened to Mystique after she went through the Krakoa portal in Washington Square Park in HoX #1.

It turns out that, as much as even Magneto is feeling the “hope-y, change-y” vibes, he, Mystique, and Professor X all have their own agendas regarding the information - note the running theme of the issue - that she pulled out of Damage Control’s servers.

Further ominous notes: Charles Xavier has never been a telekinetic, and yet here he clearly uses telekinesis to grab Mystique’s thumb drive. That’s very ominous, especially given what we learn about cloned mutants have multiple, spliced-in mutant powers. Also, Professor X’s comment about “everyone who would live in...a better mutant world...owes something” echoes ominously with the interstitial material’s description of Omega class mutants as a natural resource for the state.

Year One Hundred

The most conventionally super-heroic segment, this section shows us an all-too familiar dystopian scenario, with cyborgized humans and cerberus-like sentinels working together to not merely kill mutants but violate their minds and bodies. Further signs of what they’ve been up to comes in the literally black-brained ex-Hound who was genetically designed for infiltration and subversion of her own people.

A sign that mutants have adapted to this conflict by abandoning moral principles as well comes in the fact that the dead mutant in question is not only programmed to mind-wipe on death, but is repeating Professor X’s speech from Year 10. In a parallel to that era, it turns out that the mutant group who’ve been interecepted were downloading information from the Nexus

We also meet our two main characters in this epoch - the red-skinned Nightcrawler lookalike Cardinal (whose Tarot card is the Devil, “the red god and the lost cardinal of the last religion” (no idea what that means)) and the metal-skinned Soulsword-slinging Rasputin (whose Tarot card is the Magician, “the metal metapmorph, the great sword, and the girl with one foot in two worlds” (no idea what that means)). As we will learn later, these are not names but clone-types, because war has its own way of getting us to dehumanize ourselves in the pursuit of victory.

Important Interstitial #1: The Sinister Line

It wouldn’t be a Hickman comic without infographics, and this one was a doozy: at some point after Year 10, a crisis rocked the mutant nation which caused “the almost universal death or disappearance of senior leaders.” This crisis apears to have been engineered by none other than Mister Sinister in order to motivate the remaining mutant leadership into approving “breeding pits” located on Mars, where he could breed and clone mutants for “aggressive, militaristic traits,” to counter-balance the humans’ HOUND program. That’s a hell of a fall from grace.

We then learn that there were four generations of Sinister clones before the whole thing fell apart in a horrific calamity and yet further declension occurred:

First generation: straight-up clones of existing x-men, although the language of “divergent copies of a...pure, uncompromised X-gene” is as disturbing as you might expect from a Victorian eugenicist. (Are these the mass-produced units following from the prototypes we saw emerging from Krakoan cocoons in HoX #1?) Anyway, they all got turned into child soldiers to defend Krakoa until it eventually fell 30 years later. (Keep this date in mind.)

Second generation: combinations of only two x-genes, “mostly predictable.”

Third generation: combinations of up to five x-genes, apparently were wildly successful against the “Man-Machine Supremacy” and about to win the war, when...

Fourth generation: apparently were “produced with a corrupted hive-mind,” went rogue, destroyed 40% of all mutants, destroyed Krakoa, and then killed themselves taking out Mars and the Sinister pits therein.

And now we learn what our protagonists are: Rasputin is (seemingly) a fourth generation mutant with the combined powers of Quentin Quire, Piotr Rasputin, Unus the Untouchable, Kitty Pryde, and Laura Kinney, rather than Kitty and Colossus’ kid as some had feared. Notably, however, Rasputin doesn’t have the same gifts in the same strength as her progenitors: she’s half as strong a telepath as Quire, half as good as phasing as Kitty, half as good at healing as Laura, and about half as good at force-fields as Unus. The only places where she equals them is in turning into organic steel. BTW, if those powers seem somewhat redundant - why would you need to be intangible, made of organic steel, force-fielded, and self-healing all at the same time rather than focusing on just a few of those - well, clearly the intent was to create a tank and a half.

Meanwhile, Cardinal is a (seemingly third-generation) “outlier,” a failure in the breeding program that gradually got worse and worse. All Cardinals - and it’s not clear whether all Cardinals look like Nightcrawler - are pacifists and have “an obsession with creation myths,” and are extreme communitarians who reject individual identity. (Incidentally, Cardinal is where we get the religious through-line of the issue.) One question: if he’s a pacifist, why is he carrying a rapier? Genetic holdover from Kurt Wagner?

Which raises an important question...given that more than 60% of generation four were pacifists, how exactly did they carry out so thorough a massacre of their own people?

And finally we learn that all of this was Mister Sinister’s plan...which ended with his execution. I remain skeptical, because while I absolutely buy that Mister Sinister would arrange things so that he could run his eugenics programs, I don’t get why he’d self-sabotage in order to defect to such an unrelentingly hostile enemy.

Year One Hundred, Part 2

Here’s where we see the structure described as “the ower, the axis, the pillar of collapse and rebirth, the monolith of ascension.” (Keep your eye on that word.) Here we meet Nimrod the Lesser and Omega, and see the other side.

And what we find is a society where the machine is clearly beginning to become the dominant part of the Supremacy, despite a formal pretense at equality, a society where Nimrod makes polite noises at decency (”I am embarrassed and ashamed at what we did in the name of both expediency and annihiliation”), but then claps with childlike glee at the thought of getting to turn mutants into biological databanks.

(In a much less important interstitial, we learn that the HOUND program turned out to be a failure, with the scary ones being “ineffective hunters of their own kind,” and the majority of the black brains defecting en masse.)

Finally, we see an old man Wolverine, along with a green-suited Magneto, a very tree-like Black Tom Cassidy, and a Xorn, rendezvousing with the team to receive the data and bring them in touch with “the Old Man.” Which raises all kinds of questions as to when this happened vis-a-vis Mister Sinister’s betrayal.

Important Interstitial #2

In the wake of the fall of Krakoa, we learn that the once-burgeoning mutant population has been reduced to less than 10,000 refugees living in Shiar protected territory, with only 8 mutants left in the solar system...presumably the group we saw in part 2.

Year One Thousand

And now we find out what happened to our poor Hound, namely that she’s been stuck in a tube for 900 years, a crumbling historical manuscript beyond the ability of the Librarian to preserve.

As we move outside, we learn something critically important: that the “human-machine-mutant war” ended, with humans reduced to zoo animals kept in a nature preserve. Does this mean mutants won? Or did the machines do away with both their enemies and their allies?

#xmen #xmen meta #powers of x #spoilers #hoxpox

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phobio2000 · 6 years

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Meekness

July 26, 2018, Thursday

At The Livingroom Cafe

One of my favorite movies is “Lord of Wars”, starring Nicolas Cage. It’s not like my all time favorite, one of the best of all times, but it is a very well made narrative that’s full of details and insights about the various aspects of being a successful arms dealer. I thought it was brilliant.

The movie ended with the main character saying something like “The meek does not inherit the earth, arms dealers do, because after everyone is done killing one another, they’ll be the only ones left.”

I’ve heard of a pastor of a very heavenly-centric ministry (as if they are preparing for a greater afterlife by sacrificing the present life, which is basically what buddhists do, and while it’s Bible based, I wonder how well does the ministry message stay unbiased and within the correct context) who said that the meek will inherit the earth in the next life, in heaven, when the Lord returned and re-establish the world order in a righteous and holy way. While I think that is definitely true, but does this mean that the implication is to forego this life altogether in pursuit of a better heavenly life through parking your butt in a chair and pray all day? Well, this is pretty much what buddhists do. They park their butts and pray to Buddha all day in hope for a better afterlife or a better reincarnation. It’s almost weird and dreary and even eerie. I think the various aspects and implications of any given teaching must be examined to prove its legitimacy, but even before that, Jesus has already taught us that we are to tell a tree by the fruit it bears, that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit and a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and by the fruit you will be able to discern the false prophets (or problematic teachings of sketchy ministries, for that matter). Notice the wisdom of God, that you don’t have to be an expert on theology, but just simply apply your life experience, discernment, and common sense, and you’ll be able to tell what ministry is sketchy, enough to save your own butt from getting tricked.

Because, Satan is said to be the father of all lies, and his power is in his lies. So if we only pay attention to the message and the teachings alone, we would be playing right into the predators’ hands, doing exactly what they want us to do. Furthermore, if we do that, coupled with not applying critical thinkings and asking the right questions, then we are likely going to get into a lot of trouble.

It’s like that movie “My Cousin Vinny”, when Vinny was trying to convince his nephew to trust him and let him represent him as his attorney, he showed him a deck of cards and said something like “The prosecutor is going to build a house of cards. He’s going to show the jury every side, every angle, convincing them that it’s a real house, but he is not going to show the side view. Because, from that angle, everyone will see that it is just a house of card, paper thin, not the real thing, and we know that it isn’t real because you are innocent.”

So here is the second thing to look for, with the first being examining the fruit. What are these people like, how honest are they, how happy are they, how transparent are they, how do they conduct themselves (other than just being “holier than thou”), what do they do when they face conflict of interest, what is their strategy on handling life and getting ahead, how sincere are they, what are their goals and objectives, personal and ministry-wise, and etc.? And then, the second thing to look for is to scrutinize the ministry from different angles to see how legit and real is it. Chances are, with almost all ministry, or people, or family, or any organization, it would be at best, part real, part house of cards. And it would be yet another difficult thing to determine overall how legit is it, is there enough truth and good in it to consider it legit, how do you know your assessment and ruler is correct, how do you know you saw everything, how do you know you have not been placed under their spell already and have your judgment clouded? This can be really difficult. I personally make this kind of mistake all the time, being so lenient and willing to see the good in people and entities, cutting people slacks, giving people the benefit of the doubt, so that, even though I believe I really understand well how it all works, yet in terms of applying what I know, I have been pretty much a failure. Because, I feel that, on the other end of the spectrum, people tend to be too critical, playing it too safe, being too quick to judge and come to conclusions too quickly, so that, their hearts are not really about seeking the truth and opportunities to grow and solve problems, but to hedge themselves in a cocoon where they can comfortably do their own things and live their lives, having no burning passion to see God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And, for me, coming from that background myself, I would rather keep putting myself out there and get my butt kicked over and over and cry over and over, than to fall back in to my old pattern, obtained through the environment I grew up in. Chinese has this saying “Just stick to sweeping the snow off your own driveway” (自掃門前雪). I think this is a very common mentality that greatly attributes to why there are so many problems in this world, because we have set the expectations too low, that, as long as you sweep snow off your own driveway well, you are already a fabulous person. This is not what the Bible teaches. We need to take a closer look and reexamine our values and way of life.

Jesus is looking for peacemakers, good Samaritans, people who are willing to love God and people the way God loves us, and etc., and by that standard, we are falling way too short, and I hope that God’s light will shed into more people’s hearts so that they will feel convicted so that our lives may shine forth his glory, rather than falling short of it.

And the third thing I do is auditing, using secular ways of measurement on ministries and their leaders. Because, people will be people. Pastors and “holy” Christians love to put up a beautiful exterior to impress people, but, any one with a moderate amount of real life experiences can tell, that the very same bullshit and tactics employed by secular people to get ahead is being used by these religious hypocrites. I have a lot of real life experience because I got my butt kicked a lot my whole life. Just walking down the street today I thought that, “The best way to gain experience and insight is to have reasons why the right kind of people want to kick your ass and be in a situation that they would want to remove their masks and do it, then you’ll learn about life real quick.” My brother had reasons to want to kick my ass because he’s insecure, and he has read The Three Kingdoms many times, not good enough to use in real life situations, but enough to practice on a benevolent dummy. My dad had reasons to want to kick my ass because he needed to brainwash someone who can give him a legacy, and I was his last hope. My mom had reasons to kick my ass because she needs her son to be close to her (though she has repented, praise the Lord). My church had a reason to kick my ass because certain people want to propagate certain unrighteous agendas, and I happened to be in the way because I was honest, blunt, and willing to take a stand while being so obvious to politics to even remotely discuss under the table dealings and mutual back scratching. At various jobs there were people who had incentives and stakes to want to kick my ass, too. So time and time again I saw not just gloves coming off, which wouldn’t have been unexpecting, but masks coming off, too, which was extremely scary, how so many seemingly decent or even good human beings, when there are things at stake and they showed their true selves, they are monsters and animals on the inside, or at least have something like that inside them. So I have a lot of experience. Plus, over the years I’ve reverse engineered Bill Gothard’s teachings and have a pretty deep understanding of how the Christianity religion fools people. It’s like, when I notice these things, I’d pretty much get an allergic reaction, I don’t even need to think anymore, it’s like a trip wire would just go off and makes me go “Hmmmm…”. But that is not to say that I know everything or I won’t get things wrong, it just says what it is, that I have a lot of experience because I got my ass kicked so much by so many people over the course of so many years and I didn’t let those ass kickings go to waste but analyzed and scrutinized every detail the best I could. Nevertheless, with that being said, I still make the mistake a lot of leaning too far over to the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt, but that is only concerning my own life, though. When it comes to protecting others, I am rather verbose and vigilante, that I’d rather play it safe and call things out early before things get so bad that people fell under evil spells so deeply that they are not capable of listening anymore and then bad things would happen.

And I think that, the church is overall filthy, just like how the world is filthy. We cannot be salt and light and change the world when we are just as guilty as they are in our own ways and operations and fundamental approaches behind the scenes. And then, a lot of people with enough real life experiences, they look at the church and its people and smell the vibes, and feel the same way, or at least not feeling inspired, not seeing anything real, because our own corruptions has reduced our teachings and messages down to mere empty shells, a house of cards. In order to fix the world we must first fix ourselves.

And, coming full circle, I believe meekness is key.

I heard a very wonderful teaching on meekness last Sunday night by Nathanial Wood. I think overall, what he is trying to say is, that meekness is a two part process: 1) Becoming as strong as you can by the grace of God. 2) Having perfect self control over yourself, also by the grace of God, doing only his will and never our own, even when tempted to the point of death.

Because, looking back at everything I just wrote, the culprit is lack of meekness. We let our own desires get ahead of ourselves, going out of control, doing what we ourselves think is right, and thus resulting in the present situation, like what the Bible says “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6).

I think a good example is Moses. In his first forty years of life he learned all the knowledge of Egypt, which is a great feat. But because his strength was unbridled, he only ended up killing someone, and he was ineffective in rallying the Hebrews around him anyway. But in the second forty years of his life, that’s when he really learned meekness, laying down himself to become a clean vessel fit for the master’s use (2 Timothy 2:21). And by thee end of the second forty years, there’s something new about him, that he no longer believe that he has what it takes to do God’s will concerning his people, while during the first forty years, he seems to be just like an overly excited dog that just can’t calm down, constantly jumping around, barking “Me me me, pick me, pick me!”

Now, as a side note, we really got to take a hard look at ourselves, as well as ask the Lord fervently, which stage are we on, the first forty years or the second or the third. Sometimes I see some Christians or pastors or even major ministry leaders who are still stuck on stage one, still jumping around restlessly, screaming “Me me me, bigger ministry, bigger this, more that, greatness, great is my reward in heaven!” I think this is another important thing to look at, when choosing which ministry, teaching, and pastor to follow and learn from.

Another big distinction between the first and second forty years is that, the first stage, it’s more about Moses than about God and the suffering of the people. It was about him wanting self realization, wanting to do something great and feel excited about the fact, wanting a fulfilling life, wanting greatness for himself. He was willing to pay the price and choose to identify with his people rather than ignoring them and just enjoying himself as the prince of Egypt, which was something that Esther was tempted to do, but at the same time, he lacked meekness, that sense of total surrender and letting go of himself, which is really the key in all walks of life, actually, and not just being a Christian.

For example, yesterday I was listening to a young woman playing piano, very good, pretty accomplished pianist, but when she plays, I feel like she was competing against the music. There is that sense of duality of playing and expressing the music and indulging herself while she plays. The thing is, to be the very best you can be at what you do, you have to surrender yourself to it. The indulging part comes only after you’ve fully surrendered and then the music becomes so beautiful that it gives back what you sowed into it. This is really one of the most important principle of life that most people miss out on, the principle of sowing and reaping, letting the reward come in the form of a harvest, while sowing sacrificially in tears. So basically, Moses was chosen, but wasn’t ready.

So the question is, having you ever undergone this training of meekness, to completely surrender yourself to God, or to your life’s calling, so that it is no longer you that live, but Christ that lives in you, so that you have become a living sacrifice before God that is content with whatever, whether as a prince of Egypt, a mere shepherd, or as the chosen one that delivered the Hebrews out of the bondage of slavery. Does it matter still and how much? It’s a good question to ask yourself often.

I remember this pastor, Jeremiah Kua, preached about this when I was a kid. He was pretty lighthearted about it, saying something like, “So, what would have happened had Moses not undergone the second forty years? Well, look at all the plans and projects that God assigned Moses later on. Without the second forty years, Moses would have said to God ‘God, I have learned all knowledge of Egypt, and let me tell you, the design for the tabernacle can be much improved, let me show you what I mean…’”. Just imagine all of the wrestling that would have taken place between the two, while the imminent needs of leading the 400,000 people are urgent, pressing, and paramount every single day! How horrible would things have worked out, if that had been the case!?

I was just a kid and thought that’s a very interesting perspective, not knowing what the real world and the message’s implication is like. But the thing is, though, even though I was just a kid, like not even in high school, I took that message to heart, but the other mature spiritually advanced grown ups, they did not, and look at what kind of people they have become and how they run the church now! It’s like the parable of the sower, they were definitely not good soils… :(.

Decades later, Pastor Kua started writing books, which is basically a compilation of his life’s work, in the form of Biblical character studies. It has like over ten volumes, and the volume he choose to give away to people for free is the one titled “Serving God by Gifting vs Serving God by Grace”, and pretty much all those church people received a free copy, as I did, more seed sown, but no fruit still… In the book he wrote about people like Samuel vs Sampson, King Saul vs David, and etc., emphasizing the utter importance of serving God by grace, which will lead to beautiful results, vs serving God by gifting, which could lead to many problems. I think that in general, people have mix responses, because, perhaps some peopel do not like the restrictiveness of this view, that by inhibiting yourself this way, a lot of natural gifting would get hold back, inhibited, and restricted, which could be used towards productivity and getting results. But for me, I agree with the teaching, because, for one, it is Biblical, and in addition, I believe that God is a God that prefer to manifest his glory through the chosen few who are well prepped and ready, than utilizing the masses that would mask his glory and most likely make a big mess of things.

So this whole piece of my background just suddenly tied into this recent teaching of meekness. It’s interesting how Pastor Kua did not make that correlation, but it makes perfect sense. Because he said “What is a spiritual giant? Basically, great in natural gifting coupled with great in spirituality.” So to be “great”, for real, natural gifting isn’t enough, it must become trained into actual abilities rather than just raw talent and strength, which takes discipline. And then, all of that must become subjected under the control of self and God through the process of establishing meekness.

Psalm 86:11 states “Unite my heart to fear thy name.” This is meekness again, in a nutshell. Now how much work and time does it required to unite a person’s heart so that it is entirely focused and disciplined? And then, to have that united heart to come under God in fear and obedience, a very daunting task that the Holy Spirit is so willing to invest himself in with every single one of us, but we ourselves do not see the value it doing that. We may ignore it, partially ignore it, being half-ass about it, while coveting short term growth and productivity above it, so that, you may see ministries that don’t deal with the heart at all, but just impress them with rules and regulations, to keep the naturally waywardness of the heart suppressed and out of the way, so that the effort, time and energy can be invested towards practical productivity in growing the ministry. This is cheating, taking shortcut, exploiting the believers, even, as the individuals themselves may prefer to grow as a person through the taming, consolidating, and disciplining of their hearts, but since that aspect of personal growth appears to be irrelevant to the goals of the ministry, it is deemed irrelevant. How irresponsible is that? Pastors are first and foremost, the shepherd of the sheep that God entrusts them, so how dare they, and who do they think they are to play God, to ignore Biblical instructions and become workers of iniquities that rob God the pleasure of seeing his flocks grow and experiencing more of his love and grace, as well as robbing the individual believers of the same, just so that the leaders’ insatiable selfish ambitions may take another bite?! Where is the meekness in that? Is this the kind of leader that God wants to inherit the earth with, in this life or the next?!

I’m reading the Book of Genesis now, and I also seek a lot of meekness in Abraham. One thing that really stood out to me this time is that, even though God blessed Abraham with prosperity, the only piece of land that he ever bought in his life is a small land for burying his wife and himself, after he died. His whole life he lived as a nomad, living in other people’s land or in the wilderness or something, never gets to settle down and be established. And when you are not settled down, it just doesn’t feel right, I think, and when you are living in someone else’s land, it just doesn’t feel right, too, having to negotiating with the one who owns it and never be able to get really comfortable and rest, dwelling on the thought that “This is my land, this is where I take root, I can do what I want here, I can be comfortable and settled here.” It must have been hard to do, especially when he was financially capable of just buy a nice piece of land and call it. But he was meek, being a good steward of what the Lord gave him, and would not make decisions like this without God’s leading. Now that’s meekness.

Isaac many have lived a rather uneventful life, but he was really true to whatever teachings he received from Abraham, so he did great, too, I think, didn’t mess it all up. That’s meekness, too.

Jacob’s situation was peculiarly interesting. He’s so smart, strong, and capable, and he’s blessed by the Lord, yet he was made subjected to Laban. It’s a really bad situation to be in, having all this talent and favor, yet could not really establish himself and be his own man. He became a blessing to Laban, and Laban held on to him like a magic genie or something, probably planning to owning him for life. It’s just really hard, I think, to know that you are capable of doing so much better, yet circumstances press you down, making it hard to breathe, driving you crazy, yet there’s little you can do about it. Even later on when he became better off through his wit, he still has no power, not the military kind, so that, Laban can kick his ass any time he wants, and when he got back to his homeland, Esau can kick his ass any time he wants, too. It’s like, even though he’s so capable, it’s like his whole life there’s always something that kept him in line, in check, there’s always something that made his life hard. It’s like, even with his marriage with Rachel, which was proven true love for seven years, yet no one is perfect, and God hit Rachel where she’s weak at and she became contentious with her sister, Leah, and the marriage becomes love and headache at the same time.

I am not capable like Jacob, but I certainly feel his pain. All these years I just so long to be established, rooted, settled, making life more comfortable and having that feeling that things are working like they should, the way that most human beings innately longed for, but after all these years that day never came. And right now, whether it’s with women or work, it seems like my ability is higher than my stature, making it really hard. Middle management probably don’t want me because I’m too capable. Girls are afraid of me because I understand relationships way too well. It just feels like an impossible situation right now and I don’t know what to do. All I ever did was trying my best to overcome the various peculiar situations that God threw me into, and all I did was just trying to trust God and do my best for him everyday, and I ended up in this very peculiar place. It’s surreal and bizarre and kind of scary.

But I believe that God can do the impossible, that the whole reason why I’m in this situation right now is so that he can do the impossible and receive all the glory. I still believe that the best is yet to come. I have learned meekness. I will trust in the Lord and just have faith, hope in his mercy, and abide in his love. Amen.

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everettwilkinson · 7 years

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Top Five Media-Generated Non-Stories from Trump’s Foreign Trip

The media latched on to a few absurdly overblown stories to keep the bad vibes flowing during President Trump’s first overseas journey. Editorial judgment is apparently easy to suspend when the opportunity to hype an odd photo or curious video clip presents itself.

The Orb: By far the most entertaining non-story was the photo of President Trump, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and President Sisi of Egypt posing with their hands atop a mysterious glowing white sphere.

Internet wags had a field day coming up with humorous theories about the Orb, including the lively wag subdivision of Breitbart News, whose contribution made the New York Times roundup of Orb-related merriment.

A good time was had by all, but really, there’s nothing terribly mysterious about the Orb. It’s not a relic from some obscure desert nomad ritual given a high-tech gloss by the Saudis, or an alien artifact, or a leftover prop from the Lord of the Rings films. It’s just a translucent globe of the Earth with a very bright light inside, which makes it look weird in photographs. It’s part of the decor at the high-tech new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, and the three leaders were posing for a routine photo op.

Evidently the management of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology has a keen sense of drama, as the New York Times describes the scene: “When the king and Mr. Trump touched it, background music of the kind that might accompany a reality show’s elimination sequence or introduce a cable news program soared and pulsed. The screens glowed with statistical displays and videos about fighting terrorism.”

That orb is destined to show up in a lot of selfies.

The First Lady swats President Trump’s hand away: Shooting wars have gotten less coverage than a few seconds of video that appeared to show first lady Melania Trump evading President Trump’s attempt to hold her hand on the tarmac in Tel Aviv, while walking the red carpet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara.

CNN analyzed what it called “the swat heard round the world” as if it were the Zapruder film, offering a variety of theories as to the meaning of Mrs. Trump’s 1.5 seconds of body language. Verdicts ranging from “awkward” to “she hates his guts” were rendered.

Mrs. Trump’s facial expressions and posture were scrutinized for signs of her dismay with the business of being first lady. Signals from distant stars that might host intelligent alien life are examined less carefully than the signals Melania Trump is supposedly sending. As for the Ogre-in-Chief, well, the “experts” see nothing but brutish misogyny in his body language.

None of that has anything to do with what people who actually know the Trumps say about the state of their marriage, but why let common sense ruin a good news cycle?

If anyone needed further evidence that a great deal of modern reportage is driven by whatever “viral sensation” happens to float across the Twitter and Facebook pages of journalists, here it is. Hundreds of pages of news and commentary milked from one second of video is the best return on minimal effort since Jack planted a handful of magic beans and grew a beanstalk that punched through the stratosphere.

Trump body-checks the President of Montenegro: The media flipped out over video from President Trump’s visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels that showed Trump apparently shoving the hapless Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro aside, so he could claim a choice position in a group photo shoot.

“The Balkan state is in the process of formally joining NATO, but membership, it seems, does not earn it a spot at the front of the line,” sniffed the New York Times.

Now that you mention it, no, tiny nations that aren’t even part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization yet would not normally stand in front of the Commander-in-Chief of the global hyperpower in a NATO group photo. Also, group photos are arranged by photographers and diplomatic staff, not shoving contests between world leaders. Of course, most of the media types trying to make hay out of the Trump Shove know this, since they work with photographers on a regular basis.

Alas, even as new heights of media dudgeon were reached, Markovic ruined the fun by declaring he was not offended by Trump’s pat on the arm.

“It didn’t really register. I just saw reactions about it on social networks. It is simply a harmless situation,” Markovic said. Then he blew up the rest of the narrative by noting, “It is natural that the president of the United States is in the front row.”

Trump attempts to dismember French president with brutal handshake: Not content with tossing the Prime Minister of Montenegro around like a sack of potatoes, Trump also came close to crushing the new French president’s hand at the NATO summit.

According to the Washington Post, the only reason President Emmanuel Macron didn’t draw back a stump is that he was warned in advance about Trump’s gorilla grip. The ensuing encounter featured some of the most spectacular hand-to-hand combat since Agent Smith faced off against Neo at the subway station:

Macron strides along the blue carpet to the wall of world leaders walking toward him. As the president of the United States stretches out his arms in a “hey, buddy!” greeting of the newest member of the elite club, Macron veers to the right like a decoy Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House. Trump looks on as his French counterpart double kisses German Chancellor Angela Merkel and shakes hands with other leaders. When Macron does get around to greeting Trump, Trump goes for the grab-and-pull. But Macron immediately yanks back and employs his left hand to try to hold down The Donald’s rising right arm as the insecure alpha tries to assert his dominance as cameras clicked.

President Macron is but a student of Trump-fu. Melania is the master. Macron had to parkour his way across half of NATO headquarters to escape. Melania countered Trump’s iron fists with a mere twitch of her fingers.

Veils at the Vatican: Melania Trump could not so easily evade the misogyny of the Catholic Church. The breathtaking hypocrisy of the Trump White House was laid bare when Mrs. Trump refused to don a headscarf in Saudi Arabia, but submitted to wearing a black veil at the Vatican along with Ivanka. How could the Trump women defy Islamic dress codes while obeying Catholic ones?

This particular non-story had a short shelf life, because most media organizations already knew the answer. They still tried to milk it with headlines like “Melania Trump Wears Veil, But Not a Headscarf,” but the body text of the very same stories admitted the Vatican’s dress code is long-established and well known, while the Saudis did not even request she wear a headscarf. They don’t make such requests of visiting VIP women as a general rule.

Furthermore, as Canada’s Globe and Mail noted, the Vatican is a holy site, and Mrs. Trump happens to be Catholic. She did not visit any holy sites in Saudi Arabia, where head coverings or the removal of shoes might have been required.

The Trumps also respected religious traditions during their visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which has a published dress code for visitors. Mr. Trump wore a yarmulke head covering when he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Wall.

There are three main reasons we saw a brief shower of “Veil But No Headscarf” headlines: reporters noticed people were popping off about it on Twitter, they were hoping for a cheap “Islamophobia” hit, and they remembered Donald Trump criticizing Michelle Obama for not wearing a headscarf in Saudi Arabia. Try Googling stories about Melania and the headscarf from May 20th, and you’ll see a string of stories from virtually every mainstream media organization recalling that Trump “attacked” or “slammed” Mrs. Obama for declining to wear one. They’re also still pretty sore about conservatives mocking President Obama for bowing to the Saudi king, so they scrambled to make a story about Trump bowing too. The Memory Hole is very real, but there are some things the media does not forget.

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from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/top-five-media-generated-non-stories-from-trumps-foreign-trip/

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