#plus idk

but i feel like the player characters starting as teens is so meaningful in werewolf, because in addition to being a game about furries fighting the apocalypse it's also a game about indoctrination, generational conflict, and identity of self vs identity with group.

Well - my main worry here is the ~political~ public space. I don’t want politicians saying in public that Jesus told them to bomb people. I don’t want daily prayers to be normalized as the thing to do before taking any major decision. I don’t want your faith to be scrutinized before you even run for office (as it’s currently the case in the US). And I sure as hell don’t want religion - any religion - inside public (or private, if it were up to me) schools and universities.

The Christmas issue is, again, complicated. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t miss Christmas - as long as nobody takes away any holiday days from us. If they were to introduce a two-week holiday in December and called it ‘Winter Unicorn Bonanza’, I’d be okay with it. And I know for a fact no one gives a damn about any other Christian holiday - except for Easter, probably. Like, ask anyone what are we really celebrating with Pentecost or the Ascension - no one knows and no one cares and barely anyone under the age of 105 goes to Mass at all. People are just happy to have a day off and spend time with family - which is, in a way, also the ‘true spirit’ of Christmas as normalized by fiction over the last 200 years.

(Like - I do have a few friends who’re ‘practicing Christians’, and even they barely do anything religious for Christmas? They read a Jesus comic with their kids, but the main act is a) the tree, b) the gifts and c) the big lunch with family. And there’s an argument to be made that Christmas shouldn’t be about any of that, but should instead be a time of quiet and respectful contemplation - which is why the day itself was even banned in the UK for a few years.)

On the other hand, it’s okay for any culture to hold on to its traditions and habits, as long as they don’t actively hurt anyone. Even back in the 1980s, well before the days of multiculturalism, my primary school had all sorts of ‘religion-free’ Christmas activities for us to do leading up to the holidays - simply because religion itself was not considered an appropriate thing to discuss in a public setting with a bunch of 7-yo. We would make trees out of papier-mâché, little ornaments, and even a very generic Nativity scene - there was no mention of Jesus being born to save us from our sins, and instead a lot of talk about whether dinosaurs and G.I. action figures were an acceptable addition (our teacher said: dinosaurs yes, G.I. Joes no, for reasons that are now much clearer to me). I think it’s fun and important, both for adults and children, to be integrated into the community, to be linked to their country’s history and to mark the passage of time by celebrating a series of yearly landmarks (not necessarily religious - and again, let’s consider that for a majority of people, even religious holidays are not perceived as religious at all); and it’s perhaps inevitable that those yearly landmarks should be tied both to the country’s history and to the majority’s culture. But, again - there’s a difference between having a lively debate about dinosaurs in the Middle East and praying every morning with your teacher, or a PM telling you God is now deciding stuff about your laws.