relief society president of antifa

& most people do not critically engage with the western construct of "religion" itself! people just take for granted this post-euro-enlightenment model of what religion means. which is where you get, at the worst, people criticizing "religion" who clearly genuinely do not know anything about any religion other than christianity (whatever kind they were raised with) & some vague half-facts about judaism and islam.

its also like. at the same time as (people living as) women have historically experienced religion as a tool of patriarchal control, it has equally been a feminized sphere of life. just in the western eurasian world, from the ancient mediterranean societies to medieval saints and nuns, people living as women have found personal existential autonomy and direction from their spiritual traditions, and cis men have viewed them negatively because of it. plato complained about how all the shrines in Athens were set up by women, but this was also a means for women to exist in the public sphere, to find meaning in their personal concerns and feelings and perception of the world, to connect with not just other women but also men and others who were similarly touched by these traditions. in late 19th-century southern Italy, facing the imperialist violence of the Risorgimento and brigandage wars, peasant women organized their communities in explicitly socialist and explicitly Catholic ways (from here):

A wave of popular unrest washed over Sicily at the close of the nineteenth century. In town after town, peasants mobilized labor strikes, occupied fields and piazzas, and looted government offices. While the island had a long history of revolt, this marked a new era of social protest. For the first time, women led the social movement and infused the struggle with their own mixture of socialism and spiritualism. The activity began in the autumn of 1892, in the towns surrounding Palermo, in the northwestern part of the island. In Monreale, women and children filled the central piazza shouting “Down with the municipal government! Long live the union!” After attacking and looting the offices of the city council, they marched toward Palermo crying “We are hungry!” waving banners with slogans connecting socialism to scripture. In Villafrati, Caterina Costanzo led a group of women wielding clubs to the fields where they threatened workers who had not joined the community in a general strike against the repressive local government. In Balestrate, thousands of women dressed in traditional clothes and also armed with clubs marched through the streets, demanding an end to government corruption. [...] In Piana dei Greci, thirty-six women were arrested after they occupied and then destroyed the municipal offices, throwing the furniture into the streets. [...] They celebrated the founding of the group as they would a religious festival, with music and food, and wove their political and spiritual ideologies together in their speeches. In the words of one woman, “We want everybody to work as we work. There should no longer be either rich or poor. All should have bread for themselves and their children. We should all be equal. . . . Jesus was a true socialist and he wanted precisely what we ask for, but the priests don’t discuss this.” [...]

the extreme patriarchy of the Catholic church still existed, and was still immensely harmful to many people. but existing alongside it was the lived Catholicism of peasant women whose fire for socialism was lit by their belief in God and Jesus and Mary. in all cases these people living as women could be depicted by as superstitious and irrational and driven by emotion and bodily sensation, not the proper logical rule-driven faith of the patriarchal state. which is another example of hyperobjectivity!

Book of Mormon musical fans are some of the worst offenders because they fetishize our missionaries (TEENAGE VOLUNTEERS), but would never dream of setting foot in a sacrament meeting, and that's if they even believe we're real.

But nooooooo, you can't cultural appropriate Mormons because they're too white and Christian, nevermind that historically both of those groups have rejected us, with mainstream Christians still calling us heretics and heathens in the big '26. Nevermind that that view erases the contributions and struggles of people like Jane Manning James, Elijah Abel, and the Genesis Group, to name a few.

I seldom post stuff related to my religion for two reasons: 1. I don't want to be perceived as proselyting, because that's not my intention, and 2. when you post something like that publicly, you open yourself up possibly receiving tons of hate. The latter has increasingly reinforced #1 over the years.

People have always perceived us as some kind of "weird" or "other." There has always been misinformation out there, people who profit off of that misinformation, or people who think they know more than they actually do. That isn't new. But shows like Secret Lives, and social media have basically magnified all that into a morbid, parasocial obsession that's, quite frankly, yet another example of peak internet brain rot.

Talking to these people, you would think that our entire history can be summed up by "con man, polygamy, child brides, and racism" and that our culture is just "mind control, creepy old white dudes, tradwives, soaking and dirty sodas."

Let me tell you, as someone who grew up well before the internet blew up into what it is now (who's lived across the US, known members from around the world, gone through periods of inactivity, multiple faith crises, and has in fact done plenty of her own research pre-2013 gospel topics essays) I cannot begin to describe how exhausting it is to interact with people who think like this. Even if you try to correct them on something that's just objectively factually incorrect, oh no no no no, that doesn't matter. You can't be trusted because you're still brainwashed. Nothing you say, do, or think is born out of genuine belief, lived experience, or critical thought. No, apparently, they know better than you, and think they can pathologize almost anything you do because they're more enlightened than you for... I don't know... listening to some true-crime style podcast on cults, watching Alyssa Grenfell or whatever's on Hulu these days, reading anonymous horror stories from reddit, looking at 19th century tabloids about how awful the mormons were, etc, accepting all of that at face value, and then calling it "research."

Never mind how sensationalized and exploitative the true crime media ecosystem is, even just generally. Never mind that in literally no other topic would "reading stuff on reddit" be considered objective research. Never mind that the whole concept of "brainwashing" itself is pseudoscience that's long since been debunked. Never mind that the word "cult" has become so loaded with prejudice, that there is a reason why you don't see a lot of "cult studies" in the primary scientific literature, and that the sort of rhetoric you see spread by self-proclaimed "cult experts" has its roots in a white-evangelical moral panic from the 1970s. Yes, even Steven Hassan who came up with the BITE model (which is not even peer reviewed btw) got his start in abusive deprogramming methods that were born from that era. Yes, even Alyssa Grenfell will unknowingly (or knowingly, honestly sometimes it's hard to tell with her) regurgitate talking points from that era too.

They don't bother to try and deconstruct any of that, but then have the audacity to try and lecture me about how I'm stupid for not deconstructing... which, in this context, can basically be translated into "Your perspective on your own mormon upbringing, aka your own lived experience, is only valid insofar as you stop being mormon."

And this isn't even getting into the quiet racism this crowd exhibits too. Seriously, they'll go on and on about how racist mormons are, but let me tell you... the volume of nasty, patronizing white-savior comments I see coming from these same people whenever they find a POC Latter-day Saint on social media is astounding. Again, talking to these "experts" who've allegedly done tons of research on us, you'd think all mormons were white until recently, and that's just not true. Even with the priesthood/temple ban (which yes, I agree, is a horrible stain on our history that should never have happened), there have always been people of color within our church. Pretending like they weren't there and/or minimizing their voices, or acting like they can't make their own informed choices about what religion they want to identify with is literally a form of erasure, stop it!!!

1. canonically female (no variation)

2. canonically the protagonist of her story (if it’s an ensemble cast you have to say you can legitimately see her as The main character)

3. your personal #1 favorite character in that story (ties are acceptable)

Audio: A recording of Leonard Nimoy reading it on Internet Archive.

Text: A PDF version.

Not One Word, But Many

Hansry, 4k, rated M

do you think any of the patrons looked at zukos scarred face - obviously done by a firebender - and immediately think jet was an asshole? like

jet: hes a firebender!!!!

patrons, thinking about the backstory they concocted for zuko and iroh where their home was invaded by firebenders and they barely survived with their lifes so they could come and have a peaceful life selling tea in a city the war doesnt touch: