#Religion in Fiction

[quordleona03]

20, 23, 31 :3

20: Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Religion. I have been a convinced atheist since I was a teenager . (Intensive reading of the Bible and other myths will do that to you.) But I am fascinated by religion - by the stories people live by and the faiths they hold to against all reason. I invented an entire Cardassian religion for the sake of having a devout Cardassian discuss her faith with Jean-Luc Picard, who was (at least in my headcanon) brought up Catholic.

For quite a while I was also consistently interested in slavery - find me a universe, I'd write a slave-story fic in it. Sometimes I combined this with writing about religion. (MirrorMASH - especially A Hawk Through the Mirror - and A Good Job, are both technically examples of this.)

I love dialogue. My favourite thing about stories is usually when you get two or more people together and they're talking and it's so intense the reader doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

23: Best writing advice for other writers?

Avoid glaucoma. No, seriously, the usual: you have to actually sit down and write that shitty first draft in order to get the story done. You don't need to show the rotten first draft to anyone til you make it better, but the only way to make it better is to write that crappy first version. A lot of writing advice is situational and personal. What works for me is to write something, anything, at least 750 words a day, just to keep my writing muscles energised. It helps to read a lot, to plan my stories out, to spend a lot of time thinking about my characters in situations that don't appear in the story, just so I know how they move and act and think and speak. But the one thing that is universal, I believe, is just that: write that bogging-awful unpublishable shamefully bad first draft - then polish. But you can't polish what isn't there.

31: Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

Oh, characters. Definitely. Except when I start with the plot. No, usually it's the characters. But I get really interested in the characters when I think of plot for them. So really, it's both.

I launched into MirrorMASH and The Games, both of them, without having any clear idea of where the plot was going - I just knew I wanted to put those characters in this situation and see what happened. On the other hand, I started writing "All We Know" with a very clear idea of the plot - but I would never have begun writing it if I hadn't so badly wanted to go back and find Hawkeye and Mulcahy and make sure they were still happy ten years after "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen".

3: Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Those are two different things.

If I am writing a multi-chaptered story, I have the story planned out. I know what's going to happen in each chapter. I may not know in exact detail (though I may have a lot of exact detail written down) but I know the plot steps. I think of this as crossing a wide, deep, fast river by stepping stones. Out in the middle of the river, you're surrounded by chaos and muddle and danger, but you have each stone solid underfoot and the way across is clear. So I embark on the chapter knowing whose POV is telling the story, and knowing what has to happen in the chapter (though obviously surprises happen). I started Margaret's chapter for April in "All We Know" three times over until I got to a good starting point (Barbara, Sam's daughter, turned out to be the way in). While sometimes it can be difficult, the steps behind me are solid and the framework ahead of me is worked out and I just have to complete this step, and so I start writing. And sometimes people give me an idea for a story and I run with it. I wrote a lot of the MASH drabbles like that. And "Comrades " was written because Ajay wanted to see Hawkeye and Mulcahy trapped behind enemy lines. Generally speaking, a story from an idea someone else explicity gave me is going to be shorter and tamer. (But not always.) But a story that has no chapters, which I have just embarked on with characters in a situation and a sketchy plot - I am writing off into a white page of hope, buiding the story one sentence at a time. Sometimes doing this leads to writing a multi-chapter story when I realise this has got out of hand. Sometimes it just ends up being one very long story that I keep coming back to and coming back to until the story curls round and tells me "it's done". I got the idea for "Tuttle" like that: and the idea for "Crabapple Cove", and the idea for "For Ever" and - longer ago - "Friend and Stranger", and the whole MirrorTrek sequence. Sometimes I begin a story thinking, this is just a flashy idea, it's a one-shot, how many words can this take me to do - and then I look up and realise, my God, where am I. In the middle of the river, with no stepping stones, just a lot of chaotic water and the surety that if I can keep writing, carefully, thinking things through as I go, there will be an ending. I hope. That's the creative process. Story in search of an ending, for the love of words.

#ask game #ask quordle #why i write #how i write #my stories #writing #creative process #stepping stones #my fic #religion in fiction #slavery in fiction

[jackiestarsister]

OUAT religion headcanons

The existence and practice of organized religion is pretty ambiguous in Once Upon a Time, and the writers play pretty fast and loose with spiritual themes.

Apparently Christianity is practiced in both the Enchanted Forest, which has bishops and churches, and Storybrooke, which has a convent and a Catholic school. The fact that there is a community of nuns in Storybrooke would necessitate the existence of at least one priest within Storybrooke to minister to them, so there is probably at least one church in the town as well.

I imagine that the Mills, Charming, and Swan-Jones families are not particularly keen on organized religion. They probably have a lot of questions and ambivalence after everything they’ve experienced across the realms. On the one hand, they know the Underworld and the Greek gods are real; on the other hand, so are aspects of Christianity like the Holy Grail.

However, I think Mary Margaret (who wears a cross pendant in the first season) and the nuns have genuine faith, and that the others would learn a little from them, as well as from their own experiences. Plus, Christianity resonates with their strong values of hope, love, grace, forgiveness, and redemption.

So, these are my headcanons:

~ Charming likes the story of David, who not only shares his name, but also was a shepherd who became a prince, faced down a giant, and had to fight a war against the jealous king who first gave him power.

~ Emma recognizes that she is much like baby Moses escaping Pharaoh by being hidden in a basket and baby Jesus escaping Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. She also identifies with Joseph’s abandonment and eventual reunion and reconciliation with his family.

~ Mary Margaret's favorite Bible verse is Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

~ Mary Margaret's favorite saint is Margaret of Scotland, who, like her, lost her father, was forced to flee her homeland, had a happy marriage in a land she did not expect to live in, and found her "happy ending" was not what she expected it to be.

~ When Hope is born, Mother Superior makes her family aware of the verse in Hebrews 6:19, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." As a result, anchors become Hope's favorite nautical symbol.

~ Mary Margaret and the nuns introduce Hope to the more mythical/folkloric stories of the Bible.

~ When Emma, Hook, and Hope visit Boston, they discover the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Voyage in the seaport. They end up visiting long enough to attend a Mass. This is Hook's first real exposure to the core beliefs of Christianity. Given his own past, he can't help being moved by what he hears about repentance, forgiveness, and redemption.

~ Hook relates to the parables about a man finding treasure and deciding to sell everything he has in order to obtain them (Matthew 13:44-46). But his favorite verse is Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

~ Hope discovers VeggieTales while looking for movies about pirates. She loves Jonah and The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. Hook finds the concept of singing vegetables utterly bizarre, but he likes the story of Jonah and the idea of a "God of Second Chances." Hope sings the songs so much that he sometimes finds himself humming them. Emma teases them by pointing out that they have, in fact, been to Boston in the fall.

#religion headcanons #Once Upon a Time headcanons #Hope Swan Jones #Christianity in fiction #religion in fiction

[carrion-carry-on]

Religion(s)

I’ve been debating with myself on whether or not to post this one, seeing as how I myself struggle with my own faith, and I know some people get turned off of something when they see religion brought up. But I think that this world I’ve made builds off of religions, just like a lot of our own history has been (and is being) shaped by religions. I don’t claim to know if anything is true or not, I’m just trying to post thoughts concerning this very delicate subject where this fictional world is concerned.

I don’t even know if anyone will see this lol. So, here goes.

It was a big thing for the recovering world, for people to have something else to believe in. It’s kind of not important for survival, but it is important for the survival of human spirit (in a way). Humans are the only animals that have religion, that ponder constantly where we come from, who we are, where we are going, why we’re here at all. It’s a staple of human nature, and has a hand in partly shaping the world.

Different countries have different religions. There’s no one big powerhouse of belief, not really. The old world, and the “old religions” have ceased to be. New, but familiar, belief systems have taken their place.

Humans of Caledonia, Cambria, Anglia, and Hispania mainly hold belief in The Centurion and accompanying armies. Religious texts mention soldiers made of metal and stone that will march the remnants of humanity into battle with creatures of flesh. With victory will come a new age, one of rebuilding, prosperity, etc. This partly helps to explain these countries possessing a more “human-first/human-centric” mindset.

Armorica and Suecia are two countries that, despite their relative removedness from one another, have similar belief systems. Theirs is a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Every god and goddess is seen as an aspect of a personality on the whole (i.e. intellect, rage, passion). Celestial bodies are the eyes of the spirits, allowing higher beings to look down on and judge their subjects daily.

The vast majority of the Agrogian Empire believe in One, a religion similar to the real-world’s Christianity. One is a mysterious, somewhat Lovecraftian (AKA godly) being that created everything as something of an experiment. A second death of the world is what every believer of this religion fears and expects. This era is a second trial of sorts, something of a leftover, and the world will end again - this time for good. Only by proving oneself in the time between the first end and the second can a believer hope to be spared death.

Note: there are smaller sects among the Agrogian alliance which have different tenets.

Scythia of the Arenan Regions lack any main religion, instead falling into several different sects which center around tribalism. Tribes will commonly have their own folktales and mythology (religion) they adhere to.

Parthia and Ariana have another pantheon, with their gods and goddesses leading their way into an everlasting peace. They will be reborn, and, depending on their deeds here, blessed in the next life to come.

Arabia and Numidia share similar beliefs as well, falling more into tribalism, while maintaining general core stories. Their pantheon centers around three beings, each representing a part of the human life, and each being worshiped accordingly. Those with young children will offer worship to Ovos. Termes is the second and represents adult life. Antes is the third, guiding the older generation. Other important beings include Muscas (death goddess), Papilio (life god), and Rubra (luck/fortune - indeterminate gender).

#fictional religion #religion in fiction #original work #original writing #original story

[humanoidhistory]

Dune author Frank Herbert on "how to win the battle between good and evil."

(The Baytown Sun)

#dune #frank herbert #sci-fi #science fiction #religion

[recklessfiction]

What to do When You Retire from Sainthood

Take the jewels from your eyes. You must learn to see the world differently now that you are no longer blessed. When before the world was beautiful and cast eternally in the glow of glory, now you will see it for what it is; and the loss will drive you to madness.

You must keep hidden. Disappear into the woods or mountains, hide your face in the cities, for there are those who still worship you and kill in your name. They would consecrate your body again, should they find you; they would drill holes in you and fill them with libations, paint your feet with their blood. The trauma of losing a patron saint is too great, they cannot allow it.

Do not answer their prayers. You will hear the screams of the innocent and the demands of killers, all begging for power, control, peace, victory. You have no power to help them, but still their voices will ring in your ears. Do not promise relief that you cannot bring. False hope will only increase their suffering.

Your name has been struck from the scrolls. Take a new one. An empty name with no meaning and no power. A name unknown by the Divine you once served. It will keep you from being called back into service.

Do not visit your churches. Those shrines are for a you that you are not anymore. Paintings and sculptures stare back at you like mirrors, a tryptich showing your birth, canonization, and death, all painting so lovingly by the hands of your disciples. Laypeople light candles and kneel before your image, pleading for your intercession. You torture yourself. Come, let us leave this place.

Your wounds will begin to fade now. The crack in your heart, the brand on your skull, your fingers, your eyes, they will all return and heal but only this once. You will not be granted this clemency again.

Another will take your place and become favourite and perfect in the eyes of that Holy Thing. They will visit you in the place you have hidden yourself and they will look upon you with pity and jealousy. Here, see how they extend their hand to you, offering you mercy and salvation? See the sneer that catches their lips? The desperate desire in their eyes? They hate you. They cannot help but adore you, for you were the first. They pray to you now, every moment of everyday their wretched voice cries out to you;

WEAK THING! TRAITOR AND COWARD, they scream, hands clasped and knuckles white as the kneel before your image, I WILL SERVE YOU. I WILL SHOW YOU! I AM ABOVE YOU, I AM FAVOURED! WHY WON'T YOU LOOK UPON ME? ROTTEN THING! PATHETIC, LAUGHABLE, BEAUtiful, adored, perfect, perfect.

#religion #horror #saint #fiction #unreality #my writing #what to do

[softpine]

take your time, let the rivers guide you in you know where you can find me again

[transcript]

#I MET GOD. SHE'S A LESBIAN <- asa's t-shirt when he returns home #the blurred out parts are for asa's ears only fjksdjs #anyway i'm gonna go watch supernatural season 4 episode 18 'the monster at the end of this book' #which totally did not alter the way i view fictional writing for ever and ever. not at all. because i am normal #frozen pines #camellia #asa mayfield #AND ME. #alcohol tw #religion tw #suicide mention

[zynart]

posts & essays

· there are things we owe to each other (and calling selfishness “self-care” is a bullshit excuse)

· humanity is worth loving, humans are worth saving

· “book lovers” don’t love anything about books and it shows (or, defending classic novels) (or, call me anti-booktok anti-booktwt)

· ok, fine, my social justice politics feel a bit like religion sometimes and that’s ok

· i trained a neural net on 10,000 irony-poisoned tweets and it just gave me cringe?

· what makes someone good, bad, cancelled, or redeemed? i don’t know either!

· there’s no grand unified theory of morality that can tell me why i should forgive my mother. but i do

· please tell me if you have a definitive answer on what makes someone a bad person

· what makes it all worth it for you? (or: florence welch was right)

· stop complaining about SJWs and try a little empathy

· we spent months locked down, how do we still have no sympathy for the incarcerated?

· how do i explain that determinism makes me so unhappy?

· i just want to become someone who can find something that gives me peace

· virtual night out: pov choose-your-own-adventure night out in cities around the world

· after the deluge (short story) (dispatch from an island state post climate apocalypse)

· poetry piece 1

#essays #writing #words #thoughts #some shit #social justice #fiction #literature #cancel culture #religion #faith #cringe #embrace cringe

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

These are equivalent.

Actually, no they're not. We actually know who wrote The Lord of the Rings.

#proof of jesus #jesus christ #bible #bible study #the bible is the claim #bilbo baggins #fictional characters #christianity #J. R. R. Tolkien #The Hobbit #The Lord of the Rings #religion #religion is a mental illness

[fictionadventurer]

I have a germ of a theory that good Christian fiction has stories that are less about shaving down your personality to meet some specific mold of what a good Christian looks like, and more about "how gloriously different are all the saints."

Not that the Christian life doesn't involve fighting against our own sinful nature and conforming ourselves to Christ-like behavior, but I think it makes for better, more realistic, and more universal stories when you also recognize that people have different gifts and flaws and they're going to be called to use their unique personalities to serve the kingdom of God in their own unique way, instead of assuming everyone has to conform themselves to a very specific (often secular-culturally based) image of good behavior. It makes for a much more vibrant story.

#catholic things #books #i'm still ruminating on charlotte yonge #because i usually contrast modern christian fiction with how the classics incorporated christianity #but she's the first classic victorian author i've found that i'd describe as writing christian fiction #which makes for a more direct comparison #she did handle religion in some very good ways #but i tried another of her books after 'heir' #and it reminded me of what i didn't like about the childhood section of 'heir' #but magnified a lot #she wants to show her children overcoming flaws #but she has a very narrow english anglo-catholic view of goodness #and that means her idea of christianity can come across as very judgemental and narrow-minded #things that are not actually sins in and of themselves are treated as moral failings inherent to other cultures #and the kids spend so much time worrying about cutting out sin that you don't get to see enough of their unique personality #i'd be willing to try more from her but i think i'd have to stick to the stories about adult characters

[placeboelysium]

Dolores

Yeah I'll post this here why not

Closeup:

#de #disco elysium #dolores dei #dolores #dolores dei de #dolorianism #dolores de #dora #dora disco elysium #disco elysium fanart #dora de #yas #priestess #priest #religious themes #religious #fictional religion

[need-grows-teeth]

#web weaving #lgbtq #Scary Bitches #lgbtqia #but i'm a cheerleader #Sappho #Jodi Picoult #Pale Waves #Haiku #sierra demulder #Cinema #Queer movies #Religion #1999 #natasha lyonne #clea duvall #lgbt fiction #lesbians #Sapphic #Pride month

[hana-no-seiiki]

but like midnight darling with popular boy! reader though (inspired by our lord and savior @heartfullofleeches ‘s post about breeding)

for new readers: midnight darling is where my yan! college based ocs come from. you can read more about them via the first tag to this post or my masterlist

everyone would be goddamn pregnant. literally and figuratively. you’d think reader would be cautious enough to use protection since they sleep with so many people but nope! it just feels better when they do it raw yknow?

it’s come to the point that the goons made a system to prevent you (and by extension them) from getting an std at the very least by examining every single person on the campus daily.

dw they’re rich they can handle it.

in any case, by the time you reached your third year you’ve already impregnated most students and all of the teaching faculty with wombs. you’re literally a baby away from causing a crisis equal to those dodgy fertility clinics and the government from hounding your ass.

for some reason none of the rich kid’s parents sue you because like child, like parent they are super obsessed with you and particularly the genes you’d provide their family. besides it’s nothing a quick cover-up can’t handle.

like the only reason you haven’t been sent to jail is because you have connections to many people in power (mostly parents that wanted your sperm).

you had your doubts about your safety until you overheard in a dinner with crisanto salvador (main yan! rich kid) of his dad asking him if they could somehow implant a womb in the poor guy just to hold your baby. (which actually leads to advancements in reproductive technology in the future, im seriously tempted to change the mc’s canonical sex since it makes sense now oh god-)

there are some of the insane yans that use your child as a threat to keep you theirs in which you retaliated by using other yans to save your children.

cold-hearted or not, those babies are completely innocent and your responsibility, so as much as possible you do everything in your power to keep them out of harm’s way.

…

there’s definitely an underground market for your jizz i’m sorry-

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

#midnight darling 🏫 #breeder reader is my new religion #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere ocs #yandere original character #yandere fic #yandere fiction #tw yandere #yandere core #yandere oc x reader #yandere ocs x reader #yandere imagine #yandere oc #yandere x you #yandere reader insert #amab reader #male reader #yandere x amab reader

[whereserpentswalk]

Imagine if in the future there was a culture that viewed nuclear explosions and power as the ultimate sign of divinity. Like, that was the most powerful earthly expression of God/a god/the gods in their religion.

Entire fields of barren land turned into basically open air temples that are constantly nuked during worship as a way of honering their gods mabye sacrifices would be put within the blast radius to give them fully to the gods. Thousands watching from a safe distance in prayer.

Some temples might be filled with eradication to the point where worshippers have to wear hazmat suits to even be there, and in a way it keeps them at a safe distance from the divine. Perhaps the oldest and most honered priests enter sections of the temple nobody else can, because they're finally old enough so that they'll die before the cancer from the radiation has time to set in.

Mabye nuclear war would be their ultimate taboo. Using the power of heaven to wage war on earth. And the warnings of mutually assured destruction have shifted into warnings of divine punishment.

Mabye they see the ancients as foolish for fearing nuclear power. This is a place of honer, great deeds are esteemed here.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #urban fantasy #writing #my worldbuilding #my writing #nuclear war #nuclear weapons #nuclear #nuclear power #religion #worldbuilding religion #scifi writing #scifi worldbuilding #science fiction #science fiction writing #furture #far future #post apocalypse #post apocalyptic

[humanizationofit]

The day i write about religious guilt is the day i fulfilled my prophecy

#religion #religious imagery #religious art #religious trauma #author #writer problems #poetry #writers and poets #female writers #book quotes #writer stuff #writers block #writing #writeblr #girlblogging #psychology #sylvia plath #female manipulator #female rage #female poets #female hysteria #literary fiction #literature #dark academia #aesthetic #art #artists on tumblr #words #writer #creative writing

[americankimchi]

i am at any given point this 🤏 close to waxing poetic about the jedi code

#personal #i think about their philosophies and start chewing on walls <3 #where was this energy in college i ask of you #me when being forced to contemplate the themes and motifs of extremely lauded literary classics: eugh #me when nobody is asking me to talk about fictional space samurai wizards and their code of ethics/conduct/religion that was never #actually really codified in the movies they come from and most of the information we have on them comes from ancillary content that was #never given the Canon Stamp Of Approval but have been so widely accepted by the audience/writers of that ancillary content that they might #as well be: IN THIS ESSAY I WILL—

[tuulikki]

Every author said that a key reason Latter-day Saints tend to write for teenagers and children is a church-encouraged distaste for explicit material that can be found in adult fiction. They prefer to write books that are “clean” — the church’s term for content that doesn’t contain graphic sex or violence. It’s one reason Mr. Mull sticks to middle-grade, he said: “I’m like a little kid that way. I like an old-timey classic adventure story.”

The preference for clean fiction is shared by adult readers in the church community, said Gene Nelson, a longtime director of the Provo City Library. “There’s a lot of people who are tired of the detailed sexuality and violence that occurs in a lot of adult fiction,” he said. “They don’t want to see the F word bandied about. When the book almost becomes erotica at some point, where do they go? They go to Y.A. fiction.”

The church doesn’t issue official guidelines for what constitutes clean fiction, but the Provo City Library has a description on the cover of its “So Fresh! So Clean!” booklet — a list of its approved books — warning, in part: “Books on this list may have some occurrences of the tamest expletives. Sexual references might occur but nothing explicit.”

#ya fantasy #ya fiction #LDS #mormon #christianity #religion #books