#and ik he hasn't had time to study as much as he wanted to bc obviously he has to work & pay bills n shit

[xythlia]

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#my bf has to take the therapist licence exam tomorrow but he thought it was saturday so yk incredible amount of anxiety #over not feeling ready & if he doesn't pass he may lose his job & its his dream so to lose that i worry #about how it would effect his mental health if he doesn't pass #but at the same time i believe in him & hes got a ton of practical experience way more than ppl taking the exam fresh outta college #so i feel very confident in him but the trouble is getting him to feel confident in himself bc this exam is THE big deal for therapists #and ik he hasn't had time to study as much as he wanted to bc obviously he has to work & pay bills n shit #idk we just had a two hour long call & i was just trying to be reassuring and give him confidence to do this #without minimizing his feelings bc i know that is such a huge deal & its years worth of anxiety on him rn over this test #like i even said I'm willing to do anything to help him feel better about it like I'll help him study over video call tonight and tomorrow #morning I'll drive with him to the test site so he feels calmer like I'll do anything to help #but he was like getting physically sick from the anxiety so I'm so afraid he might sabotage himself just from being this upset #©.editorials

[nopeferatu]

okay but speaking abt puritainism i RLY wanna talk abt hcs for alfred's own religious beliefs bc in basically every canonverse fic i've ever read theres always nods towards alfred being religious thanks in part not only to his origins as a nation but also thx to the population of christians that makes up the u.s., but i just wanted to say that like. in MY own hcs i straight up think alfred is agnostic LOL, esp in canonverse

ik a lot of people tend to focus on the fact that he started out as a colony founded by religious extremists and whatnot but i often tend to take the approach that yes, while a lot of aspects of a nation's being can be influenced by the demographics of its population, at the forefront i believe that the nations are people in and of themselves, and like people do, theyre prone to having their own beliefs outside of whatever the majority of their populations do.

so w that in mind, i generally think that the Enlightenment era and all the learning and studying he did during that time period leading up to the revolution had some of the biggest impact on Alfred the Person's own religious beliefs, and he was especially influenced by like, the early push for the seperation of church and state, and and again just like...atheism or at the very least agnoatic sentiments beginning to rise during the age of englightment. To me, he's not a full on athiest bc like. He knows that his existence in and of itself is very supernatural and I think he acknowledges that on some level, there is Something out there that created him, but like to him its of no consequence and he's not sure how much of it meddles in his and everyone elses lives.

Alfred just isn't much of a religious or even spiritual guy, but he's very open minded about it, not just bc of how many different religions are practiced in the U.S. but also again, he knows his origins are weird and his personhood is weird and so to him theres likely Something, he just like...hasn't cared to investigate that, lol.

anyways I'd love to hear about your guys' views on this bc Alfred is my bestest boy and I love listening to and talking about him and all the ways his character can be interpreted and the directions he can be taken and all that good stuff

#alfred my beloved.... #i literally love thinking abt alfred and his relationship to religion #esp cause once again like. i ALWAYS see canonverse fics write him as god fearing and a little bit of a christian w some slightly #conservative leaning values #like him just being like rly puritanical and virginal and sometimes straight up homophobic bc of the christian right that dominates a lot #of american politics and i just like. have completely opposite views for him LMAO