#and don’t even get me started on the evangelicals

[totallyevangelical]

The Bible fandom has been going crazy recently please stop I’m insufferable when I talk about Judas, Jesus and St Joseph

#catholicism #religion #catholic #christianity #church #Jesus #Bible fandom #i cant stop thinking about Jesus’ childhood #and don’t even get me started on Judas #Evan evangelical

[saintjosie]

I'm really interested in hearing about impactful spiritual phenomena, like your experience with religious ecstacy? I definitely get if it's too personal/painful/hard to explain

oh i am SO qualified to talk about this and this is gonna be way more than you asked for probably but here we go.

in a nutshell, religious ecstasy is the jesus camp experience. if you’ve never heard of a jesus camp, it’s this thing that charismatic evangelical churches do, where people spend 2-3 days (or longer) hanging out with other people into the jesus experience.

it’s much like a professional conference where you might see a keynote speaker in the morning, smaller session speakers in the afternoon, and then another keynote speaker in the evening, except instead of people going to which ever sessions you want and then having drinks with other attendees in between, every session is mandatory, and the schedule starts at 7am and goes to like 11pm or midnight or sometimes even later. (i’ve legitimately been to some of these that started at 7am and ended at 3am)

and yes, that sounds horrifying. and yes, it absolutely is. but the reason these get addicting is the same reason that people go to these kinds of churches; everything they say and do is carefully engineered to make you feel like a piece of shit while they also claim that the only respite from that guilt is achieving a state of religious ecstasy which is then supposed to meaningfully alter your behavior so that you feel slightly less like a piece of shit while also conditioning you to come back for more. throw in charismatic speakers, music, sleep deprivation, and peer pressure, and you have an incredibly addictive formula.

the foundation of the evangelical church is built upon this constant cycle of shame and ecstasy and jesus camp is the pinnacle of this experience.

i’ve been caught in the cycle before and EVERY time, without fail, the high fades away and is once again replaced by guilt. and the cycle continues.

and the only reason i am able to talk about this now is that once i started working on learning to love myself, the guilt went away. because despite the church’s best efforts to entrap me in its cycle of shame, authentic self love is so much more real than anything i ever experienced during my church days.

so yeah. don’t do heroin or religion.

[interroblog]

I started free writing last week and it tripled my daily word counts so I feel the need to evangelize 👀

I’m in the “figuring out what happens in this story” stage of plotting which is what it’s been really great for, but I can see it helping any time you need to solve problems or get ideas. Here’s the rules I use for myself, hopefully someone else will find it helpful

Write every thought. All of my free writing sessions start with a ramble about how I’m going to start free writing, then I write all the things I could explore until I latch onto one and go.

No thought is too undeveloped. Even if it’s a poorly written sentence fragment or idea about an idea… it might lead to something else, so it goes in.

Chase your ideas! If I’m writing about one idea and I suddenly get another, I’ll just immediately swap to writing about that. I can always finish that other idea later, but I know I’d forget about the new one. It’s easier to remember a half-written idea than a fully unwritten one.

Writing something doesn’t mean I’m going with it. I’ve written down ideas then immediately after added “But I don’t like that because (reason)”. It almost always leads me to writing about another idea that I like a lot more

Basically, it’s not about what you write. It’s about the ideas it leads you to. It’s so helpful for making me get out of my head and solidify thoughts so I can build on them. I’ll put three excerpts from my free writing doc under the cut to show off the different levels of “quality”

“there’s only one bridge into this area, it’s closed for flooding after snow melt. So that’s why they’re stuck in this area. Amp brings them back to his cabin? Doesn’t want to let a bunch of kids sleep outside. There’s two layers to his interactions, the truth that he would die for these fuckers because they are his family- and the lie he’s telling them. It’s the latter I’m trying to figure out.

they first meet him at the gas station, then later [note: here I skipped to the next line to follow a new thought I had, then never went back to finish this one because it connected back anyway]

They’re camping in the woods when they see something tall and inhuman. The moonlight reaches it and they see amp with a torch and a bag (torch??? Who am i) of food, fire starter, and a blanket (given to Saint, who then forces tab to share it with him because he feels awkward. Cuties)

He says he saw their car on the road, it’s march and he didn’t want anyone freezing to death. (There’s the hint that he didn’t just see their car but he knew to be looking for them. He didn’t just happen to have all that stuff on him, after all.)”

“time to free write 500 words real fast cause i wanna get to 2k. What are we working with. I think I’ve got some good stuff right now, it all just needs to fall into place. Let’s see how it goes, listing arcs.

There’s Saint’s arc which i still need to define more, it’s been changing a lot as the story develops which is good!! The goal!! I don’t want to solidify it too much, but it goes”

“let’s see… i really want it to build on itself, and the surgery stuff feels too out of place or like a regression, even though it’s literally the point of the story. Maybe it’s the fact they go home? I could try having the surgery take place in the underground with saint only thinking he’s back at a hospital- but that undermines a lot of the stuff with the parents if it isn’t real”

#mine #writing #writeblr #writing advice #wip: moon #this is for that one person that asked how I freewrite

[thegaybluejay]

Okay hi I’m back with another ramble-y ATLA character analysis since this is low key my brand on here lmao-

Today I want to talk about Zuko from the lens of someone who also had to deconstruct. This will be long, but please bear with me!

I was raised in a very white conservative evangelical Christian bubble where literally EVERYONE I knew for the majority of my childhood and teenage years thought mostly the same way. There was a lot of othering and shaming of anyone who thought too differently. Even if it was sometimes said more passively than cruelly, there was always that underlying tone. “The others/the people outside of our group/the worldly ones are lost and need our help because we’re better than them!”

While I strived to not be cruel, my beliefs were still harmful. I lost a few friends when I got to my mid-late teenage years because I didn’t yet know how to challenge what I’d been taught.

I see so much of myself in Zuko.

Zuko was surrounded by propaganda his entire life. He was steeped in it - steeped in the blood of those that the system he supported/represented had hurt and killed.

Anger is a huge part of all of this. While my anger was never quite as outward as Zuko’s (I hid it fairly well and was always known as the “pretty good kid”), I can still so heavily relate to his anger. His anger at always falling just short of being good enough or perfect enough. His later anger at himself for not understanding how fucked up the system was sooner. His anger at the people that failed and hurt him. His anger at realizing how he failed and hurt other people. All of it.

I also understand his backslides in Book 2 and early Book 3. When you begin tackling the first layers of harmful shit you’ve been taught, it can quickly become so tempting to just call it quits and go back. You almost start to romanticize the simplicity of life before you began this journey. The rules and goals were so straightforward back then, and deconstructing is messy as hell. Even if you were deeply hurting in your old life, at least you weren’t so damn confused. You used to know your next steps, but now everything is in disarray and you don’t have a direction to rebuild in yet. Going back almost feels like it would be a survival tactic, a way to have a sense of control again. Zuko definitely 100% needed to atone for what he did in Ba Sing Se because it hurt others, and while I’d like to think I would’ve made a different choice in his shoes, I also get it on some level. The confusion stage sucks, and it’s not always linear either.

But then.

One day, something just clicks. You eventually deconstruct enough that you truly come to full terms with how fucked up it all is. And you realize that you don’t belong there anymore, and the version of you that DID belong was just a facade. The blinders fully come off, they’re never going back on, and a spark lights in you that prompts you to make a big change. The deeper you go, the more urgent this deconstruction becomes in your mind because holy fuck I have to do something about this. I want this shit out of my brain for good and I want to help make things better. I want to learn who I am and finally live that out.

THAT is one of the most pivotal points in the journey, and I loved seeing it within Zuko’s arc when he comes to this realization after the war meeting in Book 3 and leaves to join the Gaang. I also loved that they didn’t trust him the first time he came to them - both he as an individual and the system that he had once supported/represented had hurt these people, and it took some real apologies and some time to build up trust. It also wasn’t done with half assed centrism either - it was “I acknowledge that this system is completely broken and wrong and I will do everything in my power to help gut it from the top-down and restore it with love”.

This leads to another pivotal point in the journey - instead of being motivated by fear like you were when you were deep in the indoctrination or by the raw anger you first felt as you initially left, you start to be motivated by love. And it’s the most freeing thing.

It was so cool to see Zuko learn that, while his anger was a helpful tool (ie: the confrontation with his father and his overall anger at the corruption he saw in his nation), he couldn’t be fueled by it any longer. He had to find another motivation to keep going, and he was then taught by the Sun Warriors and the dragons how to be motivated by light and life and love and also how to use those alongside an anger that was finally righteous.

And with this, he was ready to fight. To fight for a cause he knew to be good. To fight arm in arm with his newly acquired family. To fight to fix what his nation had done to the world and to itself. To fight for love and peace instead of division and hate and destruction.

And wow is it a beautiful journey.

TL;DR - Zuko’s story is so powerful to those who are deconstructing and I love him so much! I also just enjoy doing character analysis hehe.

(I really love talking about ATLA, so if y’all want me to analyze other characters or even plotlines through a specific lens, feel free to submit an Ask and I will happily do so!!!)

(Also, quick ending note - this is just my personal experience with deconstruction! Other people’s retelling of their own deconstructions may be different from mine, and that’s totally okay!!)

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #prince zuko #character arcs #i really love zuko guys #deconstruction #deconstructing christianity #exvangelical

[spicybylerpolls]

It is genuinely ASTONISHING to see how many people are against your blog because they believe “it’s bad/weird to fantasize” or they say stuff like, “analyzing is fine. fantasizing is evil.” Actually fantasization is a divine gift, a spiritual experience, one of the best things we can do as humans. And most clearly Bylers agree!

They spend all day fantasizing about Mike and Will holding hands, going on dates, kissing, even ‘making out sloppily’ but the second we on the spicy side say that we want Byler to fuck, people start freaking out. How dare you fantasize?

Stick to analysis, freak.

Can someone please tell me why sex is such a big weird scandalous taboo? Have we gone back in time? Is this an evangelical youth group? Is this Catholic school? Are we Mormons? To fight back, some say, “Oh I’m not fantasizing, I’m just exploring the character dynamics” as if fantasizing will implicate them as some kind of dirty rotten sinner, as if this is some kind of gotcha that will expose fandom nonces.

But I don’t get it. I’m doing both, unapologetically! I’m exploring Byler’s dynamics, just like we do with ever other HC and canon analysis point, AND I’m fantasizing about them fucking like rabbits until the end of time, just like we fantasize about how the Byler kiss will go or how Mike will finally admit his sexuality.

Last time I checked, sex is part of sexuality, it’s literally in the name, and it’s a Divine Gift. Mike and Will are not disembodied beings who only want to hold hands and look at flowers all day. They are gay teenage boys who are sexually ravenous for each other. It’s clear this era of Puriteens didn’t devour Reddie or Stenborough smut under the covers while giggling and kicking their feet. And none of them would have SURVIVED the Harry Potter fandom.

The other side of this are the adult fancops who are siding with the puriteens and constantly trying to cancel Bylers for thinking unholy thoughts. You can only think analytical thoughts while wearing suits and taking cold showers. Meanwhile 65% of the fandom is openly attracted to Finn, and I’m supposed to be gaslit into thinking this doesn’t translate into their experience actually watching the show? I’m supposed to believe they watched him drool over Will’s ass and then said, “No, he didn’t do that”?

“But why aren’t you fantasizing about adult ships like J0pper or JAncy or or or-”

Because I don’t care about them? No offense. I’ve never read J0pper or JAncy fanfic in my life. And this isn’t J0pper Tumblr? It’s Byler Tumblr. I’m a Byler and naturally I want to see my favorite characters rail each other romantically? And it’s very, dare I say, unnatural and unrealistic when you read fanfics and Mike and Will kiss each other and don’t so much as get a boner. One boner?

I’m so tired. It’s utter gobbledegook.

Especially giving the context of what Stranger Things and Byler represents, it’s so obvious that sexual exploration is the natural evolution for these characters in their arcs in Season 5. Self-actualization and an embrace of the queer experience in all its sensuality and beauty.

The shame WILL be on the other side.

yeah, all great points! I think people get overprotective and hyper-vigilant, and they want to make sure they're taking a strong stand against their nebulous, exaggerated, hypothetical image of the shadowy "30-year old creep" getting off to Byler smut in a dark room.

but you're right that all Bylers "fantasize" about many things, even those most vocal in the analyze-only movement. technically all of Byler is "fantasizing," since they aren't together yet and they are fictional. we're all just envisioning scenarios and situations!

for some reason tho, people are chill with people daydreaming about every romantic scenario imaginable and chill with people conjuring up sad, tragic, angsty situations involving Vecna and bullying and pain. but sex? no. sex is shocking, alarming, and frightening.

also, this is definition of fantasize:

there's nothing inherently creepy about that definition. It's neutral.

#byler #spicy byler #no poll

[creature-wizard]

Hello! If this is something that makes you feel uncomfortable, please feel free to ignore this!

DISCLAIMER: This is nothing against Christians! I have no problem with your religion!

Anyways. So I grew up extremely evangelical Christian and now I’m agnostic, I’ve been doing pretty good with dismantling certain ideologies that I was brought up believing, etc, but there’s one thing that I cannot get rid of and that is “rapture anxiety”.

Basically, the way Christianity was/is taught to me and the people of my church is very fear-based. “Be afraid of the devil and going to hell, but also be afraid of God and what’s going to happen to you if you don’t obey his orders” type shit.

And while I don’t usually even regress back to how I was when I was religious, when the Israel/Palestine conflict escalated this week, a bunch of the people in my community and in my family started spreading a shit ton of messages about how “the rapture is coming” and how “modern Israel is the the Nation of Israel in the Bible and the Palestinians are the Canaanites that God is destroying before the rapture”, etc.

And somehow all of this just took me back to my childhood in which I literally couldn’t sleep because I thought God was coming at any time because “no one knows the day or the hour of his coming” and I was going to go to hell if I wasn’t ready and all that anxiety just kept flooding back. Gosh, just typing this sounds so self centred, I feel like I’m making a literal genocide about me.

Have you ever experienced this? It’s so fucking debilitating, I hate that evangelical Christianity is so fear based. Sorry for venting and writing a whole book in your asks.

Hey anon, you're always entitled to talk about and seek support for your religious trauma from appropriate channels. Have you ever heard of ring theory? Ring theory essentially states that the important thing is to seek comfort from those further away from the crisis, and give support to those closer to it. Since I'm not more affected by this crisis than you, you aren't doing anything wrong here.

I haven't personally experienced rapture anxiety since the rapture wasn't part of my parents' belief system, but I know it's extremely common. I'm sorry you have to go through this.

I was, however, brought up with apocalyptic beliefs, and more than once I definitely found myself triggered when the topic - or even adjacent topics - came up. It took years of work to get past that.

If it helps, try to remember that much about this whole situation was actually engineered by Evangelical Christians. They literally want this conflict to happen because they think it'll catalyze the End Times and bring about the Second Coming. I can't imagine that the god who supposedly said that nobody knows the day or the hour of Jesus's second coming would be very amused by people being arrogant enough to think that they can actually set the End Times into motion themselves.

#answered #religious trauma #christian trauma #christianity

[queer-advice-hotline]

Hello Queer-Advice-Hotline,

Thanks for all that you do! Just found this blog and it’s been really educating and helping.

I have a question. I’m nearly 34. Last year I started on a journey of getting to know myself and what I liked, as I spent a lot of my adult life dealing with trauma and resulting codependency issues. I was very femme, the last thing I thought I’d be questioning when I started this was my gender.

I always wondered to wear male clothing and decided one day to explore that urge. (The men’s aisle at old navy is a gateway drug.) I started using they/them and a different name. (The name was to cut ties to my trauma as well as express my gender.) I kept wearing more and more men’s clothing, and that’s all I wear at work and my home. It feels right to me. I am out as non-binary with people, but friends in my life have no clue I dress like a man, sometimes use the “he” pronoun and bind.

I now use he/they. I don’t define myself as a trans man though. I thought for a little while I might be, but have no interest in hormones or surgery. I bind my chest mostly in private and love how it looks and feels, but I think I’d feel more dysphoric without my top half then with them. I like my top half and it’d feel weird to be without it. I also love my bottom half and wouldn’t want to get rid of that either. I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and think “fuck I love my body”. About the only thing I’m super dysphoric about is my voice. I wish it were much lower.

I like the way I see physically look now with just the outside appearance alteration: the masc clothing, short hair, etc. I do often have anxiety about being out to people about my gender. I’m out to my friends as non-binary, but most of they think I’m still femme. At work I dress masc, at home alone, and at one comic store I go to. Most others don’t know. I’m slowly being more open about who I am (and feel great joy in that) but am not fully out. I know that this is because I have a lot of internalized transphobia because of my evangelical upbringing and I’m working through it. I fear rejection. I fear judgement. I worry my change in my identity is because of my trauma, or some head injuries I had in recent years. I don’t feel secure in my place at the queer table. How do you work through those fears? I identify currently as genderqueer trans-masc. I am not sure if I’m allowed to use the terms “transmasc” or the pronoun he”. But I have no interest in HRT or surgery. I worry I’m misappropriating an identity. Is is ok to define myself as genderqueer transmasc and not want to physically transition? Am I trans enough, I suppose is ultimately the question.

Thank you for the help. I’m a really shy person, don’t know anyone in the queer community, and wasn’t sure who to ask.

Surgery, hormones, and any other sort of physical transition are not required to be trans. You can absolutely define yourself as trans masc, genderqueer, or even as a trans man if you wanted to. It’s not misusing the label at all.

You would be trans enough even if you wore dresses, had long hair, and used she/her pronouns. You are trans enough as you are, always.

#1-800-queer #queer advice hotline #gender calls #advice calls #queer #trans

[truthdogg]

Seems to me that Biden is completely botching the US response to the war in Israel/Palestine by clinging to the default US position.

Antony Blinken, however, appears to be pushing toward the right direction on Biden’s behalf. I have to wonder if this a case of official representatives doing what needs to be done while the official position stays the same, but I don’t necessarily see evidence of that. It certainly doesn’t seem to be moving the needle in any meaningful way.

The DC conservative/status quo policy bubble is so strong that even a hint at protecting civilians in Israel’s occupied territories is seen as radical. The supporters outside the beltway, the ones that actually have a vote in the next election, the ones that Biden needs to win, don’t see the world this way.

If Biden loses the general election to Trump next year, and he very well might, this is where it happened.

Meanwhile, our average evangelical Trump supporters are all over Facebook telling their friends and neighbors that the attacks on Gaza fulfill biblical prophecies, that Israel must destroy the Palestinians, that Trump has done the will of God and helped set this in motion by relocating the embassy to Jerusalem. The logic goes like this: “Trump is an instrument of God setting the stage for Israel’s return to the Jews. The Jews will then be violently destroyed upon the return of Christ, who will rule over all mankind and bring about the end of times.” It’s ludicrous for thousands of reasons, but there’s no reasoning with them. They are expecting Trump to win and to kill however many Palestinians remain.

Please, please, Americans, stop electing people who want to end the world.

And please, please, Biden, get your shit together and stop allowing anyone in your administration to conflate Judaism with Israel. That’s not a healthy path for anyone who seeks peace and wants to protect their Jewish and Arab friends and neighbors. Americans should not support the genocide of any people. Not Israeli Jews. Not Palestinians. Take that position and make it clear.

Edit: Interesting podcast here from Dec 7 describing Biden’s “bear hug,” his cautions, and how the administration is trying to shift Israel’s response, despite today’s UN Security Council vote. Observers are apparently expecting Biden to start directly & publicly confronting Israel’s government within 4-6 weeks, and Israeli officials are hinting that they know it.

#us politics #joe biden #trump #israel #palestine

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: BEMIS. Part 3

READING THINGS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO! 

Part one is here. 

Part two is here.

Part 2: Phases. (Issues 194-200) Published: August 29, 2018

Written by Max Bemis. 

Art by Jacen Burrows, Paul Davidson, and Ty Templeton

Editor: Jeff Youngquist

“Moon Knight couldn’t be in better hands”???? Excuse me comicbook.com? I don’t know who wrote that but… I’d like to have some words with them. 

Also, I’d like to note that at the end of a few issues, they have Kight Mail. This is something that was started way back in Moench’s run. Fans would write in and they got posted at the end of comics! It showed what they thought of current issues, what they wanted to see, and sometimes they even posted criticism of changes. It was a way to connect to fans and for the writers to feel appreciated or to ask what they wanted to see. 

Looking through the fan mail of Bemis’ work in vol one was interesting. All HIGH praises and excitement to see them make Moon Knight dark and gritty. I can’t help but wonder about the demographics of the people writing in at this time. Many of them said they had been long time fans of Bemis’ band “Say Anything”. Which makes me raise an eyebrow. 

Now, looking at the first issue of Vol 2. 

Still written by BEMIS. 

I want to rewind a bit and touch on something that’s going to be VERY important in this next upcoming issue. 

Remember how I mentioned that Bemis self identifies as "A Jew who is also a Christian"? Not a lot of people know what that means. It’s also been known as “Jews for Jesus” and Messianic Jewish religious movement.  

Messianic Jews are a branch off of Evangelical Protestants. 

"They adhere to conventional Christian Beliefs, including the concept of salvation through faith in Jesus (who they refer to as Yeshua by the Hebrew name) as the Jewish Messiah and savior from sin." 

I'm not going to get into religious politics or a lot of history here (I'd be here all day)... But if you have even the SMALLEST knowledge about Judaism, you'll feel a creeping sensation along your spine. 

The word moshiach (messiah) at its roots meant a leader to the people, not a savior deity. Not a god. It meant that a great king would arise or someone that could lead the people in peace. 

So when the Torah mentions the moshiach (messiah), it is referring to a human being that would come to the Jewish people and became a leader, politically usually, who would help Jews and all people thrive in peace.

The "Jews for Jesus" movement is a way to convert Jewish people to Christianity under the guise of still being Jewish. But the problem is that you are either Jewish or you aren't. If you convert to any other religion, you are no longer Jewish. It is a movement meant to recruit more power to the Evangelical Christianity side of things while also removing Jews away from Judaism. 

You see, Judaism is a people first and foremost. These people have been killed over and over and over again by so many different countries, religious sects, and political followings. A lot of the major movements (see Spanish Inquisition for more history on that) were not just genocidal, but culturally genocidal with forced conversions. Numerous times, the traditions and culture was almost completely wiped out. 

Because of this, there are a lot of VERY strict rules in place to try to save the culture and Jewish religion. One of those rules is that if you convert, you are no longer considered of the Jewish people. You are no longer considered able to speak on their behalf. This may seem confusing and harsh to some Christians or other people that are not Jewish. Perhaps I’m not the one to best explain that to you, but if someone repeatedly tried to kill you and wipe your memory and existence off the face of the planet, then a buddy decided to go join them, would you want that buddy to be able to say “Oh yeah, I know all about how it works. Let me speak for them.”? 

They tend to target new converts to Judaism, lonely jews, depressed jews, or at risk Jewish people. They invite them in saying that they want to be friends and to help them celebrate holidays and so on. Then they work on convincing them to convert. 

It's scarily like how a cult works. 

A "Jew for Jesus" is not a Jew. I don't care what their background growing up is, they no longer have the right to claim to understand the Jewish people or any of that. 

So having BEMIS come into Marvel and saying “I can write a Jewish system! I’m Jewish, after all! Representation!” is the biggest load of crap and honestly, it’s almost a hate crime. ….And after reading Vol 2, it WILL be a hate crime. You’ll see. 

Aside from the return of Bemis, there is a new artist named Ty Templeton. Templeton only draws for this next issue, which covers the creation of Moon Knight as a child. Then we head back to Burrows. 

And Cover artist Becky Cloonan. 

I feel bad because this was Becky Cloonan's first time as a cover artist. 

Despite the story, that is some AMAZING art. 

Issue #194

That’s nice. Looking at that kinda makes you excited right? A story about young Marc! Last time we got young Marc was a few flashbacks in Lemire and I adored those. I’d kill for more of that. 

Alright... Opening up, we have the title page that gives you the "previously" blerb. 

"Marc Spector recently fought through a gauntlet of enemies old and new as the Sun King joined with Bushman and the Truth to attempt to destroy Moon Knight and everything he held dear, including the daughter he never knew he had. Spector overcame the odds and defeated the Sun King, but now faces an even greater challenge: Fatherhood." 

Hmm. Sure. Okay. It's not terrible. Maybe....Maybe this issue will be okay. It’s a false sense of security. A little beam of hope. 

We see Marc and Frenchie at a table having drinks and chatting. 

I do deeply enjoy the idea of Frenchie coming back as a friend. Not as a loyal devoted pilot, but as a much needed actual friend to Marc. Marc has only ever just had Frenchie. 

They're chatting it up. Frenchie asked him if he could have had any job in the world, what would he have liked to have done if he wasn't a mercenary. 

Marc says he wanted to be creative. Aww. 

Frenchie tells him he'd have made a handsome actor. 

But Marc say sno, he wanted to be something creative. "There's a lot going on up here." He points to his head. "Stuff I could express without, you know...Beating people half to death. I'd be fat ad happy and soft." 

I mean, that's a pretty good Marc sentiment. And looking back at Lemire's childhood depiction of Marc, it fits. He wanted to do so many things... 

This is starting out as a pretty good issue. I like the art more (still a little flat, but it’s a coloristic style).  Not nearly as bad as-

Ah. 

Okay, so... I... I'm gonna take a very long breath here because we are about to go down a rabbit hole of SEVERE antisemitism. 

This is your only trigger warning. Same warnings as in Vol 1. I’m also going to cut a LOT of art out and just describe it to you. It is going to get disgusting. 

We are getting the story from Marc's narration as he talks to Frenchie about why he thinks being Jewish is the reason behind all his trauma. 

That's now what he said, but it is what is being heavily implied. 

Bemis just straight up said "Being Jewish is traumatizing and life would be better if I wasn't." 

And coming from a "Jew for Jesus", you know he full on believes this and follows it. 

And this is going to get VERY uncomfortable. 

MOON KNIGHT HISTORY LESSON REFRESHER: 

Moench didn't intentionally write Moon Knight as Jewish. 

He picked a name and found out it was of Jewish origins and he thought "Yeah. That sounds good." and rather than ignore it, he went with it full heartedly. 

He outright said "Marc is Jewish. The system is Jewish. Moon Knight is a Jewish Comic." 

He touched on a lot of heavy themes that in one way or another tended to cycle back around to Jewish issues at the time (1980s.) Moench tended to write about what he was seeing in the world around him and it is done with such care and grace that we can still feel those movements and issues when we re-read it today. His message is never lost. 

It wasn't until Zelenetz took over the run that we really got any of Marc's backstory, though. 

Zelentz, a man from a Jewish background who taught in a Jewish school, made Marc's father a Jewish Orthodox Rabbi from Czech who fled the Holocaust and Nazi invasion. 

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE was it ever implied that this or any of that upbringing had anything to do with his DID. 

In later issues, deep into the 90s and far away from Moech and Zelentz, mostly when talking about his brother, he mentions that his father was very strict and had a lot of rules. 

Some writers even hint at some abuse from his father, especially towards Randall Spector. But this conflicts with Zelentz, who stressed that Marc's biggest issue with his father was that he was too passive. 

In Lemire, we see another reimagining of Marc's father and see him as a bit more modern day and very concerned about his son's mental health and what others might think of him. 

We still don't see the trauma that happened and it doesn't even pretend to hint at it. 

I'll cover Marc's trauma in a completely different post much later, but not knowing Marc's trauma and past is a good thing. 

But people are curious and they wanted to know. They wanted to know what caused the DID and where Moon Knight came from. 

So Bemis thought "I used to be Jewish. Who better to answer this question than me?" 

(Anyone. The answer is anyone is better than you, Bemis.) 

So we see a bunch of stereotypically Jewish men sitting around a table. They are enjoying some wine after a meal and there are a LOT of books behind them. I'm going to assume they are in a Synagogue and this is a temple gathering. 

The artist here CLEARLY tried to copy and feed off of Smallwood. Perhaps in an effort to establish to the reader that we are looking at the same people and this is how the characters now look in cannon. 

I can appreciate that. 

So we recognize little Marc Spector and Elias Spector. 

We know Elias is a Rabbi and Rabbi like to gather with other Rabbi to discuss things and share knowledge. 

So I'm going to take a wild stab here that this is a group of Rabbi or other learned men in close proximity to the Rabbi. 

"Let me explain. I'd have to start with Rabbi Yitz Perlman, the funniest guy I've ever met in my life. 

You know when you're a kid and a grown-up is making grown-up jokes you don't really understand, but they're still so funny you almost Pee?" 

We see Rabbi Yitz making a joke that cracks everyone up. 

I had to look this one up because the joke flew over my head. Apparently it's an old joke and Bemis did NOT tell it right. 

Here is how the joke is really supposed to go: 

A Jewish father was troubled by the way his son turned out, and went to see his Rabbi about it. "I brought him up in the faith, gave him a very expensive bar mitzvah, cost me a fortune to educate him. Then he tells me last week he has decided to be a Christian! Rabbi, where did I go wrong?" "Funny you should come to me," said the Rabbi. "Like you, I brought *my* boy up in the faith, put him through University, cost me a fortune, then one day he, too, tells me he has decided to become a Christian." "What did you do?" asked the father. "I turned to God for the answer," replied the Rabbi. "And what did he say?" pressed the father. "God said, 'Funny you should come to me...' "

It’s actually pretty funny when told right. It also says that you should take responsibility to actually raise your kid. But it’s also a Jesus joke in a way. I’ll let you decide if it’s funny or not. 

Marc continues: 

"There was something exotic about the language he used, the rich, almost mealy-mouthed yiddish inflections he peppered into his monologues, but most importantly... Yitz had the best Jewish jokes of anyone I've met to this day." 

Marc… You were RAISED by a rabbi. There should be nothing ‘exotic’. YOU SPEAK YIDDISH. 

"Now, let me back up for a second and establish something you've probably caught on to, Frenchie. There's nothing Jews find funnier than making fun of ourselves. As a guy who gave up on organized religion, I sometimes think of it as a weird byproduct of our pride in being "God's Chosen People" (Or at least according to the old testament). Like we can afford to take the piss out of ourselves because, in the end, we're going to be the one's ruling the roost." 

I…I have to take a minute to break down why this WHOLE PARAGRAPH is wrong. GAH. 

True, Jewish people love to poke fun at themselves. It’s a survival tactic. I once had it explained to me that it was laugh or cry and the Jewish people chose to laugh. 

I don’t see Marc as having ‘given up on organized religion’. This is a very common misconception when it comes to Moon Knight. If anything, Marc Spector epitomizes the essence of being Jewish. He very much still is aware of the culture, costumes, and often still shows that he understands. Time and time again in Moench and Zelentz he spoke Yiddish, he saved Jewish people, he stopped antisemitism, he rescued a Rabbi and Torah, he punched out Nazi scum. In MacKay, we see that Marc still knows Hebrew. He still knows the prayers. Jake speaks Yiddish! What’s happened is that Marc observes in his own way and while this doesn’t come across as being overtly religious, that’s the beauty of Judaism. You don’t have to go to a temple or synagogue. You can be at home and follow your own path. 

The term Organized Religion in itself is not a Jewish term! It’s Christian! There is no overall ruling power or singular organizer that keeps the rules or how things are done! 

Here’s the biggest issue! There is NO pride in being “chosen people”. That’s NOT WHAT THAT MEANS BEMIS AND YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER. 

So, in Judaism, "chosen people" means that Jews are "chosen" to have extra responsibilities than other peoples. In terms of the covenants with G-d (basically, it's referring to circumcision, keeping kosher, etc). It means that the people have been chosen to make the world better. They can’t rely on anyone else. It is their responsibility to do their part! BUT Evangelical Christians interpret "chosen people" to mean "Special." Because Evangelicals believe that Jews are necessary for resurrecting Jesus. Which is where the “we’re going to be the one’s ruling the roost” phrase comes from. THAT IS NOT A JEWISH BELIEF. 

He says “Old testament.” There is NO Old testament in Judaism. Because there is no NEW TESTAMENT. That’s a Christian belief and teaching! It’s the Torah! And they aren't even organized the same way! 

They can afford to take the piss out of themselves because they have to! They humble themselves. They joke and make light of their situation. They say what they feel and think then laugh it off because they have to! 

And...While Marc is explaining this, we see young Marc watching a Seinfeld episode. 

Specifically it's the one where Dr. Whatley is suspected of wanting to convert to Judaism because he wants to make Jewish jokes. 

It's implying that converts aren't converting for good cause, but with a hidden agenda. 

We also see Moon Knight in certain Jewish and biblical settings as he explains things. 

"After all I've been through at the hands of one faith or another, I confess sometimes that makes me angry. But then I realize I'm caught up in the cycle itself just by having these thoughts. Inflation of ego, anger, shame...Just a cycle. One that runs on hatred. 

But at that point i didn't know anything about that. Jewish humor was just pithy and jolly, and I was proud to be in on the joke. " 

AGAIN. These are NOT Jewish ideals. Not Jewish teachings or beliefs! 

We see Marc expressing anger about being traumatized by religion and falling into a sort of cycle of inflated ego because he believed he was chosen! 

He talks about how it caused hatred and ego! BULL SHIT. It's humbling! When you take it into context, these teachings are MEANT TO BE HUMBLING! 

"Yitz was the Rabbi who taught my dad how to be one himself, so he was very much an uncle to me. I loved sitting in the corner of his office and listening to Yitz, Dad, and their friends rant about endless Jewish minutiae and debate its moral significance." 

No nonononononononono.

Absolutely not. 

"Being, unsurprisingly, a bit of a loner, I'd often go on adventures by myself through the bowels of our Synagogue, staving off dust allergies so I could pretend to be Indiana Jones. As if I'd, like, unearth some lost tablet that held the answers to all of life's questions and get rich. What I found, mostly, were obese mice.

I was a prepubescent kid who was more comfortable with a couple of Old Jewish Guys than I was with a single soul in my homeroom class." 

In these depictions, Marc is already an older kid. Judging from how he’s drawn here and in Lemire/Smallwood’s run, they look to be about the same age. 

We know that DID has to happen at a very young age from REPEATED horrible trauma. In Lemire’s run, we see Marc already HAS DID at this point, though it isn’t very obvious to him or his parents yet. They are already concerned about his behavior and he is already showing signs of being more than one person, even before we see him be introduced to Steven Grant. We also do know that Marc was a lonely child growing up. He played alone, didn’t have friends, and showed signs of behaving differently from the other children. 

How old do you think Marc is here? Cause he looks at least 8-10. And with the way he speaks and behaves, he has to be somewhere in that range, maybe closer to 10. 

Marc asks what the Shoah is and his father tells him that he’s too young to know. THen likens it to “The Sex Talk”. 

Not only that, but he doesn’t want to tell Marc about it. 

Elias says that his father was in a war, and that’s where he met Yitz. 

“The Shoah was part of a war. A big war. The biggest war. They called it a ‘world war’ Lots of people died. My dad died there. And my Mom had to move to America to get away from all the fighting, and that’s why we live here and not in Czechoslovakia…Not that I’m complaining.” 

NO. NO NO NO. That is NOT how you explain that. You do not casual World War 2. You do not casually explain the HOLOCAUST. ESPECIALLY not as a Rabbi talking to your own sun AT THAT AGE. He should already know about WW2. He should already know about the Shoah. He didn’t even explain it right. 

I’m sitting here sobbing. As a history buff that ESPECIALLY focuses in on this time period, I’m dying inside. I’m seething. 

He is downplaying the Holocaust. I can’t believe this. LOOK. OKAY. I get that this is a comic. It’s a comic that is rated T. I can understand (BITTERLY) if Marvel does not want to cover something as deep as- ….NO. ACTUALLY. NO I CAN’T. 

GO READ MAGNETO. GO READ CAPTAIN AMERICA. Magneto did a beautiful job of covering the Holocaust YEARS AGO. There is no right or reason to have to down play it like this. Bemis is just being a bigoted idiot that is trying to show his father as uncaring, Marc as being ‘special’ and unwell, and Jews in general as being cold! 

X-Men: Testament. Magneto

By Greg Pak and illustrated by Carmine Ci Giandomenico. 

Published in 2009. 

THIS is how you cover the Holocaust while still trying to be a comic set in the Marvel Universe. It is heartbreakingly beautiful and as honest as a comic can get coming from Marvel. GO READ IT IF YOU CAN. 

THIS… THIS IS NOT HOW YOU COVER THE HOLOCAUST.

No. Elias doesn’t get to look at him like that. It was a SHIT way to explain it. It was a shit thing that he just did there. He put Marc in that position and failed to teach him about his ancestors, his culture, his history, and the world in general. 

It’s not like there is a literal holiday set aside “DAY OF REMEMBRANCE” or that there is a literal prayer SPECIFICALLY WRITTEN for all those who died in the Shoah. And it isn’t like every Passover includes a paragraph ABOUT THE SHOAH. There is NO REASON Marc should not have an idea what the Shoah is. I’m so mad. I’m so mad right now. 

Oh! And then we immediately follow that up with a Greedy Jew Joke. 

Great. Fantastic. Why is Marc studying in the Rabbi office? 

He goofs off a bit more and they have fun. Marc asks Yitz if he can come by and study there again tomorrow while his dad finishes his work at home. 

Yitz tells him to come after seven. 

"I don't want to convey that I liked Yitz more than my dad. My dad was great. It's just that...Sometimes he wasn't all there. He would zone out sometimes and just...Disappear. Which is...Whatever. But when he got too deep into it, you'd see a flash of something. Something he knew. Something he felt... You'd get the suspicion something was upsetting him. Something he didn't want to discuss. He... Had a lot going on up there."

NOPE. You do not get to play this off like Elias was also mentally ill. 

While there IS a very small amount of research that may show that DID can be contributed to by a chemical imbalance in the brain that is hereditary and predisposes them a bit more towards becoming DID if traumatized... There is no proof and studies have not been conclusive or done enough! 

Or, perhaps, Bemis is implying that Elias knew about what was coming. WHICH IS EVEN WORSE. 

In Lemire’s run, Elias was caring. He wanted to help his son, though he went about it the wrong way. It was what was expected for that time and age. 

"I knew Yitz said to come by after Seven, and I was kind of embarrassed to show him how eager I was to hang out...Gotta play the cool kid... But I figured he'd be excited to see me, so it wouldn't matter." 

He finds Yitz's office locked so he decides to head down to the basement again to wait. 

He finds a trap door in the basement and of course he opens it up and falls inside. 

There, he finds Yitz in the dark.

"Oh, Marc. I said to meet me after seven, didn't I?"

If we follow the logic (logic. HA) that Marc doesn’t know what WWII is, what the Shoah is, or what happened, we can also follow that to mean that Marc doesn’t know what a Nazi is. He doesn’t know about antisemitism and he doesn’t know how to avoid danger or dangerous people.

That is a large room. To be hidden under a basement in a synagogue. And no one else knows it’s there? Bullshit. 

Also? Marc said that Yitz was a Rabbi that knew his grandfather and who also trained Marc’s father in how to be a Rabbi. This means he’s been a Rabbi for a LONG time. And not everyone just gets to be a Rabbi. It’s a PROCESS. A long process! 

I’m not posting the next pages. They are disturbing. 

"You must have so many questions. Most importantly, 'what is uncle Ernst doing with that dead boy hanging from the ceiling?' First... He's not dead. Though I was hoping to get that done before our meeting. Truthfully, you're a good sort and you've never been in any danger from knowing me. Until now, that is. Because you have learned. I'm not Uncle Yitz, but Uncle Ernst. Would you like to know how I knew your Grandfather, really?" 

He's torturing the hanging man during this speech. 

He babbles on for a while. Here's a summary: 

When the Nazi invaded, Marc's Grandfather tried to offer up information to the Nazi in an attempt to get his family out and to America. Apparently Ernst was the Nazi that Marc's grandfather pleaded with. Ernst saw that things were not going well in the war and that Hitler's end was coming. So he helped get the family out. In return, he asked to escape with the family. 

He disguised himself as "his long-lost Rabbi friend". 

Along the way, Ernst killed Marc's Grandfather so no one would learn the truth. 

Then he starts talking about how he was part of the Cabal (the people that made the Red Skull). They gave him enhancements too. 

"My Enhancement is more simple, more elegant. I discovered a method to elongate my life, so long as I sufficiently stimulate the dark, primordial pleasure center of my brain on a regular basis. And you see... What I enjoy most is killing Jews." 

Yeah so... We have a Nazi jew killer from Hitler run Germany who pretended to be a Rabbi????! 

This is propaganda. There are literally conspiracy theorists out there that believe that the Jewish people are hiding the Nazi. That they made it all up to hide the Nazi. 

Again, it takes SO MUCH to be a Rabbi. He had to study. He had to know All five books of Moses AND the Talmud and the history and teachings and language! There is NO WAY someone just stumbles their way through that. 

So this guy goes up to Little Marc and tells him about "what we accomplished together as a nation, less than a century ago. I will tell you of your 'Shoah'." 

Hmmmmnn…

And he tells Marc what his FATHER should have told him years before. 

About the Holocaust. It's a cliff note version of it. 

All of this is told over images of Marc enjoying his life with Marlene and Diatrice. 

It's told very matter of fact. 

About the trains, ghettos, camps, gas chambers, or of course Dr. Mengele (who, while famouse was not the worst of them). 

"It's the same world now that let it happen back then, Marc. It isn't crazy enough that it's impossible. People like me... We'll always be out there waiting to come back for you." 

SEE. THIS IS WHY HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS BEFORE. He could have gotten the proper introduction. The history. THe proper order of things. The places, the Nazi propoganda war machine, and the Final Solution. It is important to know history so it doesn't happen again. NEVER AGAIN is what they are taught. 

But it also teaches them that there are Nazi and people like that out there in the world. It teaches them how to avoid these things. These people. Teaches them about the dangers of people out there that want them dead. 

This should not have traumatized him. This was fact. This was what he should have already learned about and dealth with. 

So, Little Marc gets pissed off and attacks the man, biting him, punching him, and scratching him. 

Marc gets away, but Ernst yells that if he tells anyone he'll come back for him. 

This is not what caused Marc's DID. 

This is a poor rendition of "Jew Trauma" story telling. 

This is a clear play down on the Shoah, a push to show a Nazi hiding as a Jew, and a cold responce to mental health and death. 

I hate this. Good thing it gets worse. So...much...worse... 

Anyways, Marc finishes his tory and Frenchie looks horrified. 

He thanks Marc for telling him. He tells Marc that he needs to eventually find a way to "explain your condition, your world, the complexity of it all" to Diatrice eventually. 

You see, Diatrice has been raised by Marlene. Marlene is NOT Jewish. 

Even with "Uncle Jake" stopping by to help raise her, as implied in the last volume... It is very VERY doubtful that she is doing raised Jewish. 

And we already know that Marc/Jake/Steven’s condition has been hidden from her.

I wish it ended there, though I dislike the use of telling her he's a kook. 

But of course it doesn't end there. 

"It's probably something that's been in my family for a long time. And I can't help it." 

Again, no proof that this is a hereditary thing. 

"And when I was little, I got scared very badly and, since my brain was wacky, it wound a wacky way to deal with being scared. I made friends like Uncle Jake and Uncle Steven to keep me company when I feel really lonely or upset." 

It…Isn’t a TERRIBLE way to explain things to her, depend on her age…. It’s not exactly accurate to how it works, but it’s a start for a young kid. 

But then we get Bemis doing a TERRIBLE call back. Because Marc didn’t do a bad job of explaining this! This was not world ending universe changing news! This was something she’d already run into and now had proper terminology for! She knew her dad was different! She knew about Uncle Jake and Steven! This isn’t the SHOAH.

I really…REALLY wish this was like an annual or something. That it was mentioned then never brought up again. I really REALLY wish they had dropped this story and gone and done something else… ESPECIALLY considering Issue 200 is coming up and it’s a big deal…. 

It isn’t. It. Keeps. Going. 

In the afterward we got whoever being like "Wow! What an intense issue! What a gut punch at the end!" 

I think it's the editor. Which is just... They thought this issue was deep and moving. 

That should tell you a lot about where this volume is going. 

This bread? It’s rotten. Send it back. 

Issue #195

This one is drawn by Paul Davidson. 

This...This issue? I hated it. I hated it so much. Not even the kind of loathing hate you saw in the last issue. This is just... I felt physically ill reading this one. 

Oh. Right. Paul Davidson. 

I...I hate this art. I hate it so much. 

What I don't get is that his art doesn't always look like this. 

Sometimes it's kinda nice and has a good flow with the story. 

But it's like they gave him Moon Knight and he went, "Insane guy right? Caricatures it is!" 

Okay so... I DO remember reading this issue. It immediately struck me as a hateful commentary on 'radical' thinkers, 'new age' people, and 'people trying to be socialites'. 

This is why it's drawn like cruel Caricatures. They want you to hate these people and look down on them and think they snooty and bad. 

It’s cropped like that because it just keeps going. 

I’m going to save you the trouble of reading that drivel and give you a summary: 

You see a leader telling them that The Collective is starting today. 

He wants to assess each "former individual". 

We have the artist. She name drops a famous artist then tells them she "collects real human skulls of deceased circus clowns". Uh huh. 

Then we have the "Aggressive romantic nihilist". He has a collection of jeans that he doesn't wash after sexual conquest. Hmm. 

There's the skeptic. She thinks everything needs doubt and states that she hates everyone so far. Cute. 

There's the fanboy? He likes the whole group and apparently stalked them online before they even met and made paper-mache busts of them all? Right. 

Then you have the leader who is conducting the experiment. 

His idea is that he wants to "Fuse our very personalities in defiance of our skin shackles and actualize pure socialism." 

WOW. So this is not just a cheap shot at mental health, DID in general, but it's ALSO a political shot at socialism. 

Fantastic. 

I'm so stoked for this disgusting journey we are about to go on. 

I’m going to put a pin in this for a second for some personal commentary. 

I’m Ace. I’m deeply uncomfortable when it comes to sexual depictions and situations. Especially in comics. There are comics out there that are sexual in nature and that’s fine! I don’t care. I know not to read those ones. I have nothing against the act, in people enjoying different things, different fetishes, and so on. In fact, I stand very firmly in the beliefs that as long as no one is getting hurt and everyone is consenting, you can enjoy whatever you want. That’s your right. 

So when I opened up this issue and was faced repeatedly with deeply uncomfortable situations, implications, and art meant to make fun of these people… Not to mention that it felt like they were trying to make the very act of fetishes ‘funny’ or ‘wrong’... This isn’t good comic book content. It really isn’t. 

I’m not going to show you all these pages because they really are disgusting and make my stomach sick. But I’m going to try to pick out a few that are not…the worst…

So now they're at a "secret A.I.M. Base." 

They have some technology that the main guy is paying them for access. 

Apparently his cousin works at the AIM facility as a member. 

"I spent most of my life being spoiled by my parents, drowned in trophies, diplomas, accolades, and doctorates. Yet, as long as I can remember, I've woken up feeling empty and mundane. I'm as much as one man can be on his own. Together, we could be...something more." 

Yeah... this is going to be a dunk on DID. I can feel it coming. 

"This machine creates psychic bonds". The idea is that it's going to fuse them. 

They all gather around the machine and it melts them into one horrible flesh thing. 

They spot the AIM worker hiding in the corner and tell him he looks Lonely and "you should join us". And they absorb him too. 

And just like that, we are back to NORMAL art. Proving that it was drawn like that originally on purpose to make us instantly feel disgusted and uncomfortable and hate it. 

This art right here? I like this. I love the sharp lines. The shading. The dull colors. I like the shape of the faces. I like the noses (I'm a nose person. I love the shapes of faces and the different noses!) 

....I'm not sure why they are all fishing and why Steven looks like he's in time out... 

Got a good look? Good because the art style is about to change again and we don’t see this style again. I…I don’t get it. Why go back. Why give us ugly and disgusting? Moon Knight should be beautiful. It should make you stop and look at a page for hours just wondering about how he got the oil slick on the street to look like that (still pining for Bill. Always loving Bill.) 

So we see the boys sitting on a rock above a boiling water in the mind scape and Marc is complaining that he's done with the meta human "freak market". He wants to take it back to street level with thugs and dirtbags. 

Jake tells him "good job on the not-killing-him thing." 

He's being sarcastic because he's pretty sure that Sun King is going to show up later to cause problems like they always do. 

"It's all good. Bushman and I are really getting to know one another. We exchanged numbers. I think we might start a bowling league." 

"Jake, you're by far the worst me." 

Hm. Once again the conflict on Marc vs. Jake is just...Not fitting in with their character at all. 

And Khonshu catches something on his fishing line. 

It's marlene's head and she looks pissed. She yells at him and it snaps him out of his inner world state. 

We see them at the movies with Diatrice and his phone is buzzing. 

Apparently there's a "Super-Crime alert" app. 

He checks it despite being in the theater, completely pissing off Marlene btw, and is more than a little disgruntled to find that it's not a normal problem. 

He gets up and heads out "I said no more weirdos. I SAID no more weirdos..." And it is Moon Knighttime. 

He arrives to find utter chaos. 

He locates two cops and asks where the thing is. 

I'm not pleased with this at all. 

"All right, where is the guy?" 

"It's against the law for me to tell you that." 

"Jerry, don't mess with that guy. It's that crazy one. He cuts people's faces off." 

OKAY. SO. Let me get into this a bit. 

ONE TIME one of the writers had Moon Knight come up against Bushman. He cut his face off and kept it like a souvenir. Literally no one was around to witness this. Yet it's always been a running gag about how insane he is and that he cuts off faces. 

Which... I hate that writer for doing it. It was funny at the time... But that was a long time ago and looking back at it, that run was just... It had problems.

I'm not mad at this art style some of the time. It's an interesting costume and I always enjoy seeing interpretations to his costume. 

Then we see the thing. 

It's pretty grosse. A giant writhing mass of blobby flesh with lots of faces and hands and eyes and teeth. why is it always teeth? 

And it has noticed Moon Knight and wishes to absorb him too. 

"I don't necessarily like that you know who I am." He is not thrilled about fighting this. 

"We are now composed of...At least 32 New Yorkers. Several of which are familiar with your history." 

"Would you, say, be willing to not be that?" 

It smashes up any darts tossed at it. 

It immediately turns to a security guard and sucks him in, absorbing him into the Collective. 

Ready for this?

Yeah. I'm so uncomfortable right now. 

Moon Knight pulls out two swords and slices and dices but it doesn't really do much. 

It manages to tackle Moon Knight and rips off his mask and starts to absorb him. 

I'm not showing you that picture. 

things go black and then we find Marc, Jake, Steven, and Khonshu in a dank cave like place. They head towards a lighted room and find this thing that haunts my nightmares. 

I'm going to show you this because it's really ALL I need to show you to hopefully make you understand WHY I hate this issue So. Very. Much. 

Art makes or breaks a comic people. But so does the writer who tells the artist what to draw. 

ALSO WHY IS THE ART STYLE SO INCONSISTENT?! 

Nnnhhh…. This is not a Dr. Strange comic. There should not be psychedelic imagery. And even this is a bit much for Dr. Strange, because at least that knows how to make sense of the chaos. 

There is a fine art to depicting chaos without overwhelming the audience. This isn’t it. 

Also, it’s VERY clear that this is supposed to be taking a jab at the hippy collective socialist mentality. 

And you 100% know that Bemis thought this up and went “They’re already a collective of DID! This is going to be super awesome to show them joining all these other minds and making sense of it and then getting rejected!” 

F@*&%&$ you Bemis. 

So that ends that issue. 

Great. Next bread please. Get me out of this house of moldy bread. 

Issue #196! 

Still Davidson. (SIGH) 

I hate this cover. I have this thing about depicting the brain so it looks like wormy spaghetti. It doesn't sit well with me. I hate it. You know what else I hate?

Yeah. Yeah… I’ll leave it alone for now. But I can’t stress how MUCH I hate this. 

So... Butterfly man gives them a tour of the collective consciousness. 

"And this is just the beginning. The human mind has an infinite capacity for diversification. Each new brain we add is another universe within us. So imagine that we keep adding infinity upon infinity every time we absorb someone..." 

Jake calls it. 

"That's a lot of personalities to deal with. What you've got here is an excess of personality. You realize it's taken my man Marc Spector 30 years to deal with a HANDFUL of identities? No wonder you're just attacking random people on the street. This place is out of control." 

No. I mean yes but I also mean no. 

A system is not always cool and collected. Sometimes there are disagreements, fights, and struggles for how things should run (and that's just the ones that are aware of themselves being a system). 

MARC is not the one keeping their system going. We know this. We've seen it time and time again. Marc is the stubborn ass-hole that keeps them moving. That keeps them doing what they need to do. But he'd work them to death to do what he does. 

Jake is the one that cools them off and helps build up their social life and handles the joy in life. Steven is the one that handles the self care, the management of the life that doesn't involve them breaking every bone in their body, and Steven is ALWAYS prepared to pull Marc to the back if things go too far. 

They take care of one another. They have their roles. 

Marc is NOT in charge. 

Just because writers don't know what to do with Jake and Steven and always throw Marc to the front (1990s onward. Moench knew exactly what to do with them), doesn't mean Marc is the man in charge. 

Well, Butterfly man says "That's where you come in, Mr. Spector. [....] I'm the de facto ruler of the collective, given that its idea was born of my thought process. But I'm just one man who never had much to say for himself outside of scientific ambition... Which is obviously adequately represented here. Someone needs to kick some butt around here to keep things in line."

So Khonshu and Steven reason that if someone takes charge on how to handle all the ‘personalities’ then the blob will stop going on a rampage. 

IS THIS AN ALLEGORY FOR D.I.D.?! Is that what Bemis is trying to do? Oh I hate this. 

Butterfly man points out that they are ‘the sum of all your thoughts and whims’ and this somehow manifests…. 

So.... We get a lot of different designs of Moon Knight. Skrulls and robots and more butterfly sorts and just... The thing Marvel does when it's trying to design a lot of weird designs. 

I’m just not impressed. There could be better designs and in this art, they are all just kinda hovering there doing nothing. 

And thus… "Moon Knights. Every you you've ever dreamed of. Now, what say we put them to work?" 

And Moon Knight goes on a therapy mission to try to fix all the parts of the collective brain universe. 

The Moon Knights resolve "the Oedipal complex, the Angst quotient, All suicidal and homicidal tendencies..." 

(the fact that they placed suicidal and homicidal together in the same spectrum is down right insulting). 

Also there's this... 

I don’t even know where to start with this one. I’m going to skip the obvious low hanging fruit of “False masculinity” that should have been called “Toxic masculinity”... And hit the fact that you can feel that Bemis doesn’t like Steven. He writes him as a wimp. He writes him crying all the time and as vain and clinging to Khonshu. He CLEARLY views Steven as useless except as eye candy or worse. 

(Not to mention we’ve seen Steven in a speedo before, Speeden as we lovingly call him, and Bill did a FAR better job.) 

So they go back to butterfly man to see how things are going, since they resolved so many of the collective's issues. 

They take a peak at the outside world and... 

I swear to all that is holy in the Moon Knight world...

There's an image of the blob huge and destroying things and what not. Under neath that is a list of emotions the blob is feeling: 

Rage 25%, Frustration 25%, Sexual Frustration 40%, inner peace 10%

They decide they need to figure out the core of all the bad emotions and Jake figures that it's the main control guy, the butterfly man. 

"All this judgment and messiah complex nonsense--You're kind of a @$#%, huh?" 

He denies it, saying "It's not the general sentiment around here" but some of the original collective pop in to tell him that they all think he is. 

Butterfly man freaks out, yelling about how none of this would be possible without his genius and blah blah blah

"You think the work you've done is so great? If it weren't for me locking away that sentient virus that's trying to drive the collective insane, things would be way worse!" 

And everyone stares at him and asks if that's true about the virus. He denies it. 

They restrain him while they decide to open the locked door and deal with whatever problem is hidden behind it. 

A bunch of weird goblin like Ork creatures come out in battle armor and tell them all to prepare to die or kneel before their leader. 

"One man should never control an entire world, Maurice, and no crappy aspect of someone's personality should define them. Trust me. I would know." 

Uh huh. It's ego. They're fighting ego. 

So we get some trippy art of all the Moon Knights fighting the goblin things mixed with images of the blob fighting the army and avengers in New York. 

UGH. 

"All right. You're weird little reign is over" they defeat the goblins. 

"It's Facism of the mind! Get Jungian with us and let go, Maurice!" 

UGH. "Jungian analysis is a psychoanalysis method to access and experience and integrate unconscious material into awareness." It basically is looking for meaning behind behavior, feeling, and events. It's CARL F-ing Jung. A psychologist  "The goal is to achieve psychological healing and wellness by aligning conscious and unconscious aspects of someone's personality". 

There are a lot of opinions about Carl Jung out there and I'm not going to get into that. But a lot of this doesn't go well with D.I.D. It has a lot to do with integration of the alters when applied to DID. ...I'm not going to get into that either, because it's a HOT debate in the DID community and I have no business poking that bear with that stick. 

So Butterfly man Maurice says "But...I just hate AND love myself so much!" 

Jake takes things into his own hands. 

"Steve, I don't really know the metaphysical implications of this, but given this guy seems to think he's what's holding this all together, I think it might help to just...Whack him in the face. Give him some perspective, ya know?" 

(WHY IS HE CALLING HIM STEVE?!)

(Why did the art style change again? Why did their designs change again?) 

The blob explodes in the real world. It's...it's disgusting. 

It starts to vomit up all the people like No Face from Spirited away. 

Marc sits there, covered in goo. "Well... That was a rough one." 

Khonshu reflects. "I wonder if the effects of the change Maurice made to his body will ever come back around again? Can he be contained?" 

The police hand cuff Maurice and put him in the cop car. 

"It really goes to show how someone's hang-ups can govern everything about them." Marc reflects to Khonshu. 

"Certainly a lesson well learned, Marc. For you, for me, for everyone." 

"He may be a horrible guy, but I hope some of the work we Moon Knights put in within the collective's mind-state affected his worldview." 

Oh thank you it’s over. 

And I have reached my 30 image limit again so this is a great place to take a break and a breather before we head into the final countdown of BEMIS. 

So this issue is a sort of filler. You see, it was a one off that has nothing to do with the over all arch. It’s designed to give us space between important plot issues so that we feel a sort of passing of time. We start with something that feels like it stands on it’s own. Then we get filler. Then we start what feels like a new plot but it always circles back around to that first issue. 

Which means… Things are about to get really really bad. 

This issue may feel kind of pointless and like a one off that had no meaning other than to play with the inner workings of MK’s mind… But it was done so badly. 

We’ve seen a good rendition of how it’s done in MacKay. When people attack him mentally, his system does what it is supposed to do and acts as a protective force, often bringing great pain and downfall to the people that dare set foot in his mind. 

We’re talking about a system that has worked HARD to build up such a force to fight these sorts of attacks that he’s practically immune to them. 

Now THAT’S interesting. The idea of a collective hive mind trying to absorb his militarized mind is a fantastic story to tell! It’s exciting! Why? Because you should see HOW the system has learned to function together. How they protect one another. How much of a UNIT these guys are after all these years. 

I also really hate that Bemis is trying to get psychological on us. Attempting to reference big names that honestly are so far out of date that he’s not even using them correctly anymore. 

And seeing the way he writes, you get the feeling that he is pulling the “I know more than you” ego attitude and is prepared to fight/argue anyone that dares to try to disagree with his take. 

Knowing how he has written things here, and seeing how he has handled Moon Knight’s D.I.D so far, this whole issue was just one big jab at their mental illness. It was supposed to be funny and action packed and get MEN (specifically men who read Chuck Palahniuk or who take the Punisher to be pro cops) to agree and get excited about the new edgy Moon Knight. 

This isn’t where he’s supposed to be. The story isn’t supposed to go like this. The characters are all falling so short that I can’t wait to see them all leave again. 

….We’re so close you guys. Just…Just a few more issues to go.

Part 4 HERE

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Analyzing the comics #BEMIS #Marc Spector #Jake Lockley #Steven Grant #I hated this with a burning passion #No one should have to read this #why is this a thing that happened to us #What did we do as fans to deserve Bemis? #Please... It's been torture

[sadieshavingsex]

oh my god I honestly just realized really clearly in my mind that having sex when you have that particular brand of evangelical purity culture trauma is a CYCLE. a tried and true trauma and shame CYCLE. and if nobody has written about this yet I’ll be damned. we should crowdsource the first anthropological study of it right here. I’ll go first.

**mind you this is my interpretation of the cycle when you are willfully trying sex but are still stuck in the “sex is bad” mindset. so I guess it’s pretty specific. it’s the cycle that happens when you have the evangelical belief that sex is bad/scary/etc but end up consensually having it anyway

this is what I think the trauma + shame cycle looks like:

1. you avoid sex at all costs because that’s what you were trained to do. you believe that it is usually bad, scary, or some other terrible thing you’ve been taught

2. you’re drawn to or pushed toward sexual contact with another person for some reason. it can be anything: curiosity, peer pressure, interest in your own pleasure, wanting someone to like you, leaving the fold, etc. Whatever it is you’re willfully (although sometimes under some pressure) making your way toward sex but still wary of it

3. you get too close to sex and then you’re having it!!!! oh dear god!!!!! whoops!!!! oh god it feels so good?!!?!!!?? but this is really bad???? I’m so confused but my body feels so good oh god what is happening what do I do my brain is turning to mush!!! usually this stage goes on for me until I:

4. orgasm

5. post nut clarity to the maximum level. immediate stop you in your tracks guilt, shame, terror. the feeling that comes over you when you realize what you’ve done, what inhibitions you’ve gone against, the most epic level of failure you could have possibly achieved. that’s what you feel you just did

optional 5.2. well I did it whoops so doing something similar can’t be that much worse hehe I’ll just keep having sex for a little while it’s nice I enjoyed it. this step seems to have an adjustable length ranging in time from a few minutes to weeks or months

6. you eventually come to terms with the “horrible thing that happened,” fully believe that it ruined your life, feel like a failure, swear off sex again, etc

REPEAT!

the thing about the cycle is that practically every fucking time you’re having sex with a new person, experiencing sex in a new way, or even just experiencing it at all period—EVERY TIME feels like that same first time. the crying. the shame. the horror at yourself and your failure. the feeling of being the worst person in the world. the continued cyclic trauma of always believing you’ve done something terribly wrong and ruined your life or your body or your promises to yourself. like it’s so obviously a cycle that builds and builds upon the trauma and shame felt the first time.

I don’t know yet how to crack out of it, but I feel like maybe one good way to do so would be to try to purposefully restructure your own beliefs about sex. For me, even after leaving evangelicalism, I always believed that nothing good ever came from sex, that it cluttered my head and caused me to make bad decisions, that it felt bad and made my self-esteem plummet, etc etc and it’s not that all of those things were lies, it’s just that they were all totally informed by evangelicalism. If I can take a step back and see that SEX DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY—it does not have to be all bad, an ending, a failure, a painful event, a taking away, a loss, a struggle, a ruination, etc—then maybe I can start to pave a way toward replacing those old painful beliefs and traumatic experiences with newer and happier ones. If I let those old things control my life forever, I’ll continue repeating this painful cycle surrounding sex

#mine #sex therapy #exvangelical #religious trauma #sexually repressed #ex christian #ex fundie #purity culture #christian purity culture #this is so interesting honestly I wonder if anyone has studied this stuff #ex fundamentalist

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ryan Burge

Published: May 7, 2023

I was born and raised Southern Baptist. Gave my life to Jesus at 15. Got baptized in a pair of white pajamas. Then, I went to a Free Methodist college. Got a job at an American Baptist Church and have been serving in the ABCUSA for more than twenty years. I will be elected to the Board of General Ministries for American Baptist denomination this summer.

My wife is Irish Catholic. We got married in St. Teresa of Avila in our hometown. My very Southern Baptist grandmother went to her grave not knowing that piece of information.

Both my boys have been raised in the Catholic church. They were baptized as infants, and both have had their First Communions. They go to PSR classes nearly every Sunday morning before coming to worship at my church. And our sons attend Wednesday night youth group at the local United Methodist Church.

We wanted them to be part of a religious community. They are active in three. I hope that one of those sticks.

I try to get to Mass with my family a few times a year. Usually on Holy Days of Obligation, and other important days like Ash Wednesday. I really do like a lot of aspects of the Catholic Church. They certainly have better architecture than the average non-denominational Protestant building. Plus, I don’t have to do anything when I go to Mass. I can just sit there and meditate on the scriptures and get lost in the rituals.

I think one of the reasons I like going to Mass is that it gives me something to compare my own church to. We worship the same God, are saved by the same Jesus, and read (mostly) the same Bible.

From a data standpoint, however, there’s a lot going on in the Catholic Church that’s worth unpacking.

But before we dig into that - let’s just start as broad as we can: What share of Americans identify as Catholic and has that changed over time?

The General Social Survey has been asking about religious affiliation for nearly five decades. Same question, basically the same response options. The results are pretty boring, to be honest. Between 1972 and 1990, the share of Americans who identify as Catholic did not budge - 26%. From 1990 through 2010, it barely shifted as well - maybe dropping a single percentage point.

But, from 2010 through 2021, the trend line begins to move. It’s pretty evident that the Catholic share has dropped below 25%. However, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact percentage. In both 2016 and 2018, the number was 23% and in 2021 it dropped to 21%. But that last figure may be impacted by a methodological issue that I discuss at length here.

Overall, though, that’s a pretty solid result. I’ve shared this graph in a few talks that I have given with Catholics in the audience, and they seem fairly pleased with this result. I mean, I don’t blame them. Between 1972 and 2010, the Catholic share dropped by a single percentage point. Not bad.

However, that’s not the entire story with American Catholicism. Not even close. Lots of Americans still identify as Catholics but how many of them actually come to a Mass on a regular basis? That’s where the narrative about the Catholic Church in the United States starts to change.

I calculated the share of four Christian groups that report attending services nearly every week or more over the last fifty years. I love a graph like this one because the point I am trying to make becomes crystal clear in the visualization: Mass attendance for Catholics has fallen off a cliff.

In the early 1970s, about half of Catholics were weekly attenders. Today, it’s about 25%. And no, that’s not a result of the pandemic. Attendance was already down to 26% in 2018 - long before the world had ever heard the word “COVID-19.”

Note, also that the share of evangelicals who attend weekly has noticeably risen over the last fifty years (up at least a dozen percentage points). Weekly attendance for both Black and Mainline Protestants has stayed relatively stable, as well.

I think what is happening in the latter two cases, at least, is that people who marginally attended decades ago now no longer identify as Protestant. That means the denominator has gotten smaller and only the truly committed are left in the fold. It isn’t a resurgence, it’s probably more like a concentration.

The burning question here is: why have Catholics seen their attendance decline so precipitously? There could be a million and one reasons for Catholic churches to be emptying out, just like their Protestant cousins. But I wanted to focus on just one today: politics. I am a political scientist, after all.

I calculated weekly attendance rates among Catholics, but I broke it down by political partisanship. I was hoping to see some type of narrative emerge. It’s surprising to note that even through the mid-1990s, a Catholic Democrat was just as likely to attend weekly Mass as a Republican Catholic.

The clear partisan gap in Mass attendance only began to open up around the election of George W. Bush. But the divide was a small one: only three percentage points. It’s continued to widen from there, though. From about 2010 onward, a Republican Catholic is about six percentage points more likely to attend Mass nearly every week compared to a Catholic Democrat.

That’s not what I would call a huge divide. And if you don’t focus on the gap and instead look at the trend line - Mass attendance among Republicans has dropped from 55%+ to below 30% now. It’s not like conservatives are holding the line while liberal Catholics are jumping ship in huge numbers.

I wanted to take one more look at this, so I pulled up the Cooperative Election Study to test a working hypothesis. Maybe the devout White Catholics are becoming more Republican, while the ones who never darken the church doors are moving more toward the Democrats. I was surprised with the result, to say the least.

First, look at the right-hand side of the graph. Among weekly attending White Catholics, there is little to report. In 2008, 57% were Republicans. In 2022, it was 59%. Certainly, no big shift there - just a lot of stability over the last fourteen years.

Now, look at the never or seldom Mass attenders. This is where things get very interesting. In 2008 and 2012, it’s pretty clear that this group was a point of strength for the Democrats. However, between 2012 and 2016 some pretty tectonic shifts were underway. Instead of the distribution being +15 for the Democrats, it now becomes an even mix (around 42% for both parties).

From that point forward, the composition of low attending White Catholics continued to tilt to the right. Look at 2022 - it’s basically a mirror image of 2008. Democrats were 50% - Republicans were 35% in 2008. Now they are the exact opposite of that.

I am not one to write myself out of a job - but it’s pretty hard to make a causal argument that theology is what pushed low attending White Catholics toward the GOP - because they weren’t in the pews to hear those arguments from the priests and bishops.

For now I will leave you with this thought: shouldn’t White people who report their religious attendance as seldom or never have the same view of politics regardless of how they answer a question about religious identity? You can probably guess that a non-attending Catholic is a bit distinct from a non-attending agnostic. I will explore just how big that divide is in a future post.

[ Via: https://archive.md/SPWF7 ]

==

More Good News.

#Ryan Burge #catholic church #catholic #roman catholic #catholicism #empty the pews #decline of religion #leaving religion #religion #rise of the nones #good news #the good news #religion is a mental illness

[amethystsoda]

It’s kind of cliche how stereotypical my abuse and indoctrination was growing up—

(I guess this is technically a bit of trauma dumping??? But hopefully it’s more like “here are some experiences other traumatized millennials will relate to.” We share in this history together 🤝)

Family was into religious cult activities (aka evangelical pentecostals) and made us spend lots of time at church (good for becoming someone who cares about others and giving, but not good bc brainwashing/shaming/etc)

Only got one year of kindergarten before getting pulled into homeschool after a move. Mother got into talk radio and the conservative brain poisoning.

Not allowed to watch cartoons other than veggie tales. Christian bookstore almost exclusively. Hyper patriotic. ONe nation under GOD!!!!!!! *eagle caw*

Rapture scare and apocalypse fear—don’t deny Jesus if someone tries to shoot you and make you renounce Christ. Forced to watch The Omega Code at way too young. Listened to the audiobooks of all the Left Behind series (content including rapture, natural disasters, assassinations, beheadings for not taking the mark of the beast, etc).

My biggest fear around 7-10 years old was that I would have to be loyal to Jesus and get beheaded. I literally sat around thinking about how scary a guillotine was and how I would have to steel myself to accept that fate.

Also as a Pentecostal family, my parents believed in speaking in tongues. Cue up me at maybe 4 years old being forced to “learn the language” (I was getting no divine insight, no spiritual spark. I was a child with my brain still developing)

but being put into the empty bathtub until “the spirit worked” (aka I faked it and replicated how my parents did it with tear streaked cheeks, just so I could escape that hell).

Spanking as punishment… I wasn’t even that bad of a kid. They just didn’t know how to handle me being an independent thinker and curious.

Talk out problems?? Nah. Open palm spanking your butt will silence you and train you not to talk back. You said something I don’t like??? Time to push you to the wall and grab your chin and yell at you until you “repent.” (No wonder my response eventually was just to shut down.)

It didn’t stop there. When we got older and they didn’t spank as much. It was “you have to pray and repent out loud” “you have to read scripture.” And for someone who went nonverbal during those times, it was so painful to do.

I got diagnosed with adhd in kindergarten but my mom basically said “that doesn’t exist” and ignored it. I had tons of sensory issues and that motor system stuff where you trip or are clumsy a lot. I cried when the crinoline of dresses scratched my legs. I was hyper fixated on red shoes and butterflies.

I had purity training at 9 years old. A sliding scale off a cliff diagram of “dangerous actions” (the start was holding hands. Off the cliff was laying in bed naked and sex).

Growing up fat and constant throat infections but no doctor’s care because “you just need to pray when you’re sick and quote scripture and god will heal you.” The advil? Hidden up in the kitchen cupboard and judgement any time you would reach for it.

I remember never talking about crushes too because everyone would embarrass me. I didn’t know any terms for demisexual/bisexual. I just knew I felt deep love for everyone, and sexual desire for almost no one.

I often think about how things could have been different. How I ended up parenting myself and only relying on myself. No one else would care for me, so I had to.

Sure there were occasionally good moments.

I’m sure my mother was trying her best with my dad constantly at work until late hours.

But it also could have been so much better…

If you also grew up like this, I am holding you so tenderly. I’m holding a warm washcloth to the old wounds and wiping the childhood tears off your face.

I’m giving 10 year old you a mug of hot cocoa and a warm blanket and putting cartoons on. There’s no yelling. No threat of abuse. You’re safe 🫂🫂

We’ve been through so much, but there are better days ahead. 💖💖💖

#i’ve been considering making some comics about this… #abuse cw #religious trauma #cults cw #emotional abuse cw #amethyst rants #purity culture

[e-clv]

why have you been feeling ugly? you aren’t

Aw that’s sweet. I’ve just been in a bit of a style and confidence crisis I suppose. When covid hit I had to go off my ADHD meds and gained a bunch of weight, which while it didn’t really show much on me definitely made me feel out of control of my body and alienated from it. plus years of sedentary office work have made my muscles weak and given me back issues which has furthered that feeling…I’m going to the gym now and am back on ADHD meds so hopefully a feeling of control over my body will improve.

I think it was mostly that coupled with aging, which I generally have made my peace with, but it definitely is always a confusing time to be leaving the category of “hot young thing” lol. Like no matter what I do, I am no longer going to be a sexy 23 year old! If I try my absolute hardest to look hot there will be an entire cohort of people 5-10 years younger than me who don’t try at all who society considers much more attractive. Which is fine! But given the weirdness of the last few years it took me a little longer to adjust to that than I think it would have under normal circumstances. I was really socially isolated in SF during covid and pretty much only saw my coworkers except at the end there, so the basic vibe feedback of being around friends and people your age just didn’t exist for me at all. In addition I started getting a lot of pretty horrible harassment about my looks online here (one reason I keep anon mostly off now) and it all culminated in me going through a bit of a gender crisis. It turns out that when feminine beauty is your main foothold to femininity and that beauty goes away, you’re not left with much of a reason to continue performing femininity at all. So I tried a few things and really enjoyed that period, and would probably try them again at some point. Cutting my hair and getting tattoos was really great for me and I don’t think I would have done either of them if covid hadn’t happened, because the social rewards of being feminine were too great. But remote work really changed that and eventually I was in a good place with my job and just started trying shit.

Then we got engaged, which was obviously a challenge all its own. There are a lot of messages society sends us that amount to “you have to be the hottest you’ve ever been on Your wedding day” and I am definitely sometimes susceptible to those, especially as someone from an evangelical background who was mocked in high school and throughout childhood because my looks and attitude did not make me “marriage material.” It’s always been my dream to have a big beautiful wedding but it has been sometimes hard to reconcile that desire with realism about how I currently look or WANT to look. Like, I’m growing my hair out for the wedding in case I want to have it long, but it’s been hard to do that after a period where having it short was really resolving a lot of stress I felt about my gender presentation. But I also know that at the end of the day 90% of society will just see me as a slightly weird looking woman in their 30s no matter what I do & so I have decided to just sort of give up on that for now and focus on other things 🤷

Anyways that’s my rambling on what my body image issues are like as a 28-almost-29-year-old who grew up on tumblr. Thankfully I have an amazing fiancée who encourages me and makes me feel beautiful so even when I’m feeling kind of busted I have that to lean on.

[softpastelqueer]

We honestly need to start having an honest and blunt discussion about how ableist, abusive, and pro-eugenics fundamentalist Christians are to disabled, neurodivergent, or mentally ill people, ESPECIALLY the death cult branch of Protestants obsessed with the end times and rapture

Sure, we sometimes acknowledge the homophobia and sexism, but Christian fundamentalism, especially evangelical white church, actively teaches and believes that any disability, neurodivergency, mental illness or health condition is caused by God directly punishing you for your sins and lack of “true faith”

A lot of conditions are seen as proof of/mark of the devil/demons and a lot of churches DO promote abusive rhetoric about it, ESPECIALLY mental illnesses

And don’t even get me started on “Christian therapy” and “spiritual healing” for psychological or physical conditions

[oldbutnotyetwise]

Envy

     Envy is defined as a feeling of discount or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck.  Aristotle defined Envy as pain at the sight of another’s good fortune.  The Bible states Envy is a sin.  As one evangelical dictionary puts it, envy is the “sin of jealousy over the blessings and achievements of others.  The words Envy and Jealousy are interchangeable.  

     So it seems pretty straight forward that Envy is a bad thing, hard to see Envy as anything but a bad thing.  So I hope that you won’t think less of me when I share with you that I am a very envious person these days.  I envy so much, I spend so much of my day feeling envious of so many of those around me.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want for those around me to be pulled down to my level of struggle, I just wish that I was still able to live at my former level of living, the level that most around me still live at.  

     So what do I envy….where do I start…….

     I envy those who get to sleep in their own bed, with the love of their life.  I sleep in a borrowed hospital bed where I can grab onto the bed rail to help me roll over, since I can’t do that anymore on my own.  I look over at my wife sleeping quietly in the next bed missing the comfort received from reaching out and feeling her beside me in the depths of the night.  When a caress, embrace or soft kiss was all that was needed to chase away the demons and ease us back into a restful slumber.

     I have led a good life and had some adventures along the way, there were times when what I was doing in my career was quite dangerous.  You know what the most dangerous thing I do now is?  The most dangerous thing that I do everyday is I go to the bathroom, struggling to get in and out, legs quivering under the strain and exhaustion of standing, praying that I won’t fall and require rescue, or even worse break something.  I worry about the day when my legs stop working totally, and I know that is only days or weeks away.  I envy people who can easily and discretely take care of their bathroom needs.  

     I envy those who have the ability to be independent, I was once independent but now I’m totally dependant on others for my survival.  It is one thing to accept another’s help, it is another thing to require someones help for almost everything.  It is a hard lesson to learn, how to accept the constant help of others, not sure that there is anything more humbling.

     I envy those who are able to dress themselves.  My wife picks out my clothes, although she does accept my input.  I wait for her to have a break in her busy morning so she has the time to help me get dressed.  Something that used to be done so easily and quickly is now a major ordeal.

     I envy those who can quickly jump in the shower, wash, dry off and get dressed.  I feel like I have run a marathon by the time I just make it to the bathroom, then I need my wife to lift my legs into the tub as I sit on the shower bench.  I then do my best to shower myself while sitting.  I miss standing there under the shower head letting the hot water run over my body, it just felt so good.  Now I shut the water off, dry myself as best I can before Robin helps me get my legs out of the tub and helps me to my feet again.  I stand there on my unreliable legs while Robin drys the rest of me and I struggle out into the other room where Robin helps me get dressed, by which time I’m physically spent.  

     Your odds of getting ALS in Canada is .25%, or one out of every 400.  About 4% of people with ALS have something called Laryngospasms, basically where your vocal chords spasm and close off your windpipe so you can’t breath.  Yes I have hit the long odds twice, and I envy those who don’t know the panic off suddenly having their windpipe close off while you wonder if this is your time to die.

     Connected to the Laryngospasms, is the weakened throat and mouth muscles I now live in constant fear whenever I eat or drink that I will choke.  We were out to a restaurant with another couple recently and I spent the entire time extremely stressed that I would choke and make a big scene, embarrassing me and everyone with me.  I ate slowly with small bites and was still eating when everyone else's plates were empty and had been taken away.  I envy those who can eat and drink without giving a thought to the risk of choking.

     I envy those who can go out, get in and out of a vehicle easily, can climb those stairs into that really nice restaurant, just walk through that door without struggling to hold the door open and maneuver a wheel chair through the opening.  I envy those who can go out and just use the washroom, that don’t live in fear that maybe they drank too much and won’t make it home before needing a washroom.  Very soon my wife and I will not be able to go out in the van anymore because I won’t be able to transfer between the wheelchair and the van.  I will be trapped in my Condo, only able to go where my wheelchair will take me.

     I envy my friends who are living their best life, travelling or living their dream, friends that have a world full of possibilities in front of them.  I envy people who don’t have a major struggle to make it through every single day.  

    I envy people who can communicate easily.  You see my arms and hands are becoming non-compliant to the directions my brain is sending them.  Most of my writing on my laptop is now done with either one or two fingers.  Everything takes longer, and I don’t know that I will ever get the writing done that I wanted to get done before I die.  

     I envy people who can talk clearly.  You see for years I spoke very well, I had great diction, spoke clearly and intelligently during many Press Conferences.  I also felt I had a great voice, I used to joke that when I turned it on that I had that Late Night Radio Talk Show Host Voice.  Now I mumble because of the muscle degeneration, I dislike the sound of my voice, I don’t like talking on the phone now because I am hard to understand.  Now at Social Events I am more inclined to just sit quietly hoping no one tries to converse with me.  It’s not worth having to repeat myself two or three times and even then still not be understood.  No one wants to be a spectacle, yet that is what I have become.

     Now that I have confessed my sin of Envy I hope you will forgive me this continuing transgression.  Despite all these challenges I continue to consider myself a very fortunate person, Robin and I will continue to do our best until….well until we can’t anymore.  I don’t want your pity, or you feeling sad for me but what I do want is for you to realize just how fortunate you are.  Perhaps my situation can help make your more mindful, to be aware and grateful for all the little things that you do without giving them a second thought.   Savour every minute because one day the sand in your hourglass will run out, perhaps when you’re not looking, or perhaps when you are upset over some trivial matter, or perhaps when you least expect it.  Strive instead to be in a happy, content and mindful state when your time runs out, after all isn’t that how all great journeys should end?

#envy #als #gratitude

[goatbeard-goatbeard]

This is well-trodden ground by this point, but man is Good Omens cathartic for former evangelicals (hi, it’s me, a former evangelical).

One facet I personally love: heaven is also trying to end the world. Because for me, that’s not just a fun hypothetical. I’m not just imagining how the world would be different if the Bible was real. Heaven is actually, literally trying to end the world IRL.

Ok, let me give some context to that statement. Right now, there are multiple mainstream denominations of Christianity that are low-key or high-key trying to bring about the end times. They don’t usually talk about this around non-Christians or more progressive Christians because it’s, um, let’s call it “mildly offputting”. But behind closed doors, here’s some of the stuff that gets discussed in “heaven”:

Constantly sending missionaries to places they’re not wanted. There are biblical prophecies that say the word of God will reach every nation and people before the world ends. So that’s why missionaries keep throwing themselves at the Sentinel Islands, for example. This constant proselytization ranges from obnoxious to violent (ex: residential schools), but I regret to inform you that it’s the mildest entry on the “trying to speed up the end times” scale.

Geopolitical shit-stirring, especially in the Middle East. There are also prophecies about which nations are supposed to be controlling which pieces of land when the end times start. These do not match where the borders are currently. Evangelicals really want to “fix” those borders, and work very hard to gain the political power to make that happen. We are now getting into the territory of “trying to fulfill end-times prophecies makes it more likely for the world to end in real life,” because it’s actively inflaming conflict.

General apathy about life on earth. If God’s going to end the world, the humans can’t do it by accident, right? Also, what happens on earth is barely a footnote anyway. To evangelicals, the vast, vast majority of our eternal lives will be spent in Heaven or Hell. Our time on earth just decides which eternity we go to. So fears of climate change (or really any strong attempt to reduce suffering “on earth”, e.g. ending poverty) are viewed with suspicion. If someone is so worried about what happens on/to earth, they must not be a Christian… where else is their judgment clouded?

But ok, you might ask, “even if they don’t care about what happens to the world, why are they trying to speed up the end times????”

The best explanation I can give you is that the evangelicals’ god is extraordinarily powerful and extraordinarily shitty, and they sort of know that last part.

If you had asked me when I was an evangelical, I would of course have said that God was loving and benevolent. I even believed that internally.

But that’s also the way you would describe a dictator, if you lived under them. And this is an all-powerful, all-knowing dictator who can see even the contents of your own mind. Who has the power to punish you and everyone you know for eternity. Who might be as merciful as the progressive Christians believe, but you really can’t count on that when the stakes are so high. Besides, when you read the entire Bible — not just the popular bits — it doesn’t really paint a picture of a merciful god.

So you call God loving, even internally, and you do the things God wants to happen, even if you’re setting up the end of the world.

You try to save as many people as you can, smuggle as many people into Heaven as you can. Even if it makes life miserable “on earth”, even if it risks all life “on earth”, because “earthly” lives are temporary anyway, and you’d never forgive yourself if any of them got thrown into Hell.

You sometimes lose hours of sleep feverishly praying for God to soften the hearts of your nonbeliever friends.

You live under an evil, inescapable, lovecraftian deity who demands to be described as good instead, insists that it will all make sense in the end.

You know all this subconsciously, that God is a monster. But this is the world you’re stuck with, not the world you want it to be. So this analysis never, ever bubbles up into conscious thought… except when you’re imagining what nonbelievers think your god is like.

You’ve been doing that a lot lately, more and more. After all, you have to understand their point of view in order to reach them!

You would never actually agree with them, of course. It’s not safe. It’s not true.

But you can imagine what it would be like if you did.

This is the best you can do.

#in the context of Good Omens: take away the Metatron and you still have a problem #because God is still there #and maybe she’s nice #maybe the ineffable plan will be a pleasant surprise #but in the meantime you have to assume it isn’t #the stakes are too high #and what is the world against eternity #good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #exvangelical #exvie #ex christian #ex fundamentalist #ex fundie #good omens meta #long post #religious trauma #Aziraphale