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As someone who has to watch A Christmas Carol twenty or so times each year at the theatre I work at, I actually really love it and every scene is essential! Past shows him the people that have helped him in the past, lets him see how his actions led to current consequences, and makes him confront the fact that his miserliness is really out of fear (at least in some versions, it's implied that he feels he needs money to win his father's/Belle's approval, and to get out of the loneliness he felt as a child).

By the time Present comes to see him, he already says that he's learned his lesson and is ready to change. I think Past is how he learns what the problem is, Present showed him what he can do to change (showing him how people are merry and help each other and showing him people who need help), and then Future is kinda just to scare him I think

Idk how this relates to CEOs tho. Maybe they also need to see all the people they've ever hurt, but that might take a little longer

look i figured out how to put this post underwater

my personal opinions and interpretations of a piece of literature are incoming. this is me nitpicking but: by the end of the first ghost scrooge is already ashamed of himself and looking toward change and when the third ghost comes he assumes that theyre looking upon a future in which he has changed so he's terrified and devastated when he sees the reactions to his death because he doesn't know if the scrooge they know in a year's time is one who has changed, or one who has changed enough.

like yes i do think that seeing his own miserable lonely celebrated death is vital to the man he becomes on christmas morning BUT. it's not just that. scrooge's fatal flaw isn't just greed, it's isolation and indifference. seeing that there is tenderness and love in this world not far from him is as important as watching his own kin disregard him as lost and loathsome.

that's why, in my mind, seeing how loved tiny tim is, understanding the love and faith and perseverance of the Cratchits as well as his own hand in continuing their poverty and illness, and being struck with the abject tragedy of tim's (really quite preventable) death changes him as much as the businessmen's jokes about him do.

i think what the point one might make here comes down to the fact that it isnt until scrooge is confronted by the reality of the suffering he is enabling that he understands how badly he needs to make a change. he knew Bob Cratchit is poor, I'm sure, but he was able to ignore that fact until the spirits show him the Cratchits' home and their malnourished children. Healthcare CEOS see that every day, they arent ignorant. healthcare companies actively fight to keep people in poverty and sickness. so maybe they're way more evil than Scrooge, who's to say

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My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.

Again it's an honour to be drawing one of my favourite short stories ever. Thank you so much for the original authors for creating this story; and for everyone who bought a copy and donated to the above non-profits.

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Fine, alfredo sauce

this post is an experiment, I am curious about how far you will get into the post.

to start, I challenge you to read the orange text below, and not read any further:

the challenge is to only read this far into the post. if you are stopping here, leave a comment about your favorite carbohydrate.

ok, you have decided to continue reading. hell yeah. no shame in that at all. this test is not meant to make you feel bad, in fact, you should be happy whenever you want forever.

if you made it here leave a comment of your favorite fictional universe, you are officially a Tier 2 Post Reader.

ok, the next part of this post is behind a barrier, there's a keep reading button. if you made it this far, tell me your favorite reptile in the comments. you are more than welcome to stop here, only continue if you would like to.

hiiiii :)

ok you're in the big leagues now. this is the DLC of the post. if you made it here, tell me your favorite milk substitute.

now FOR REAL. this would be a cool place to finish off at. you can go after this, I promise you're not missing out, you can leave. If you made it here, tell me what tattoo you would get if you decided to get a new tattoo today.

thank you for reading, I promise this is a cool place to stop reading the post. you really can go now. :) 👍

*ahem* alright, you are still with me. I'm happy to have ya. here's the deal, the chance of you seeing a picture of my dog within this post is 12.5%. you have a 1/8 chance of seeing a dog in this post.

keep in mind, that is not a high chance.

if you are ready to leave now, tell me your favorite plant. like, your favorite plant can be a tree or a specific fruit or vegetable or whatever. just tell me your favorite. then you may leave the post.

alright. since you made it here, I have the ultimate test: a link. definitely the highest barrier to entry so far, this could lead you anywhere. it's a trust exercise with a complete stranger.

clicking on this link will continue the post further, for how long this will go on, I cannot say. If you do not want to proceed, tell me your favorite sauce, and be on your way. I like buffalo ranch.

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My hopes/predictions/wishes for Ithaca Saga:

Open Arms reprise when Odysseus arrives in Ithaca

We'll Be Fine reprise with Telemecus, Athena, and Odysseus and they help him kill the suitors

Thunder Bringer makes a very brief appearance when Ody learns that "you hurt my son?!"

"Unfortunately for you I BECAME THE MONSTER!"

One of the suitors: you're a monster

Odysseus: No. I'm just a man

Suffering and Waiting are referenced as a leitmotif at the very beginning of a beautiful duet between Penelope and Odysseus

Ok I just really like repeating themes and leitmotifs

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My brain: So what if. Stay with me here. Roleswap AU

Me: …Go on

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Certainty vs Uncertainty

I spoke to the Gatherings group which meets in Deltona, FL. I shared these thoughts with them, and want to also share them on my blog.

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When I was growing up, I didn’t see LGBTQ people. I didn’t know any. I didn’t consume any media which portrayed them, at least not until I was a teenager in the 1980’s when the news would have stories about gay people protesting for recognition of the pandemic wiping them out and demanding more research and attention to HIV/AIDS.

As a teenager I began understanding that I might be one of “them,” and that scared me. I denied the possibility and doubled down on being the best Mormon that I could be. But there were moments where my thoughts would go to “what if?”

At the time, the LDS Church had very strong teachings against gay people. Here I was with my identity fully invested in the church, and so was my family's. To explore the idea that I might be gay meant to shake the foundations that provided stability and meaning in my life. Every indication I had is that if I were gay I would be kicked out of church and probably out of my family. That made it critical for me to press down the queer part of me.

Even though I was in denial, I still heard those negative messages and thought what if that’s me? What if I’m an abomination? What if I’m a threat to the family? What if I’m an enemy to God? I certainly didn’t want to be those things.

As my teenage years progressed and it became more and more clear that I feel things for guys that I never do for girls, I accepted the idea that I’m defective. God would never want someone to feel these things therefore something is wrong with me.

When I was 19 years old, my bishop called me into his office to talk about serving a full-time mission. Even though I didn’t share why, he could tell I wasn’t excited about this idea. He told me to go home and pray to ask God if the church is true, if the Book of Mormon is true, if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I went home and prayed, but not about those things. I asked, “God, do you love me? All of me? Can you love who I am and what I am?”

That was the first time I was honest with God about what I was experiencing, and this prayer was answered with an overwhelming feeling of love and warmth, and I heard the answer, “You are not broken.”

First, how sad that someone who grew up in this church, all those years of Primary, Sunday School, and youth programming, would wonder if God could love me.

Second, this answer contradicted what the presidents of the church taught. God shot an arrow through the idea that everything I had been taught and believed was true, certain, and unwavering.

This is a church of certainty. “I know this church is true.” “I know the Book of Mormon is true.” “I know the president of the church is a prophet of God.” Being an LGBTQ member is an experience that pushes against that certainty. I think many, probably most people will question some of what they’re taught, but generally queer people enter faith transitions earlier than their non-queer peers.

Over the years, I have received answers that are out of alignment with the church. It caused dissonance for me. But that’s also what allowed me to find a way to stay. I didn’t have to believe the things this church taught about LGBTQ people because I had very clear answers to the contrary. Nevertheless, being a queer Latter-day Saint was, and is, a difficult space to exist in. Over the years, I’ve seen the church change how it talks about gay people and in the policies. Things weren’t as fixed and certain as I’d been taught.

For 9 years now, I’ve been serving as a stake executive secretary. I make appointments for the stake presidency, I create & maintain the stake calendar, I create agendas for meetings, and I attend lots of meetings. It’s just as exciting as it sounds. It also means that when a general authority comes to my stake and meets with the stake presidency, they also bump into this gay man.

I have a small blog where I write about being a queer Latter-day Saint. I wrote about the first general authority I met and I told him I’m gay and how he reacted with love and kindness. This post went viral, over 500,000 visits. Even though at the time I was anonymous on my blog, suddenly I was out to everyone. As my sister’s friend asked, "How many single, stake executive secretaries who live in Florida and work at a university can there be?"

Several of these general authorities have invited me to meet with them when I travel to Salt Lake City, and I’ve had some interesting conversations with them, including with Elder & Sister Renlund. It's been an interesting experience to hear members of the Seventy and an apostle speak without certainty.

Sister Renlund’s father had a brother who was married to my grandma, he died in World War II. My grandma remarried and my mom is from the second marriage. My grandma was sealed to her first husband, and that was fine for my granddad until his wife died. That’s when certain questions became a big concern for him. Is he going to have no one in heaven? Does this mean he won’t be exalted? Are his children sealed to the other husband and he'll be their dad in heaven? While alive, a woman can only be sealed to one husband, but when she passes away she can be sealed to all the husbands she was legally married to during her life, and it will all get sorted out in heaven. If she chooses to be sealed to my granddad, the person she spent 70 years with, where does that leave her first husband?

We were talking about that and Elder Renlund said that we don’t know how it works, we don’t really know what heaven is like, but we’ve seen enough glimpses to know that it does work out for everyone and it is wonderful.

He has said something similar to that answer several times when I’ve visited with him. In a church of “I know this,” and “I know that,” this is not how I expected an apostle to answer. I’ve gotten similar responses from the Seventy I’ve met with.

This idea of not being certain, not knowing what the answer will be, not defining what the outcome must be, gives us the capacity to learn and grow, to seek what God wants for us. Until I was willing to be honest with God about how I experience life and ask if God could okay with me, I didn’t get an answer. God never was willing to respond to prayers begging Him to “fix” me, because I came with an answer, an outcome, and it wasn’t what God wanted for me.

The answer that I’m not broken sustained me for a long time. I’ve gotten a few other answers like that, such as it’s okay to date and seek a relationship,it is fine to leave this church, which clearly go against what our church leaders say. It puts me in a situation similar to the one that Joseph Smith described when local pastors were telling him that he was wrong and is a liar, yet he knew the answers he’d gotten from God. “I had seen a vision. I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.”

Many people like that our church culture is one of certainty. It gives them a sense of safety. Here are the answers. They know if they check these boxes then they’ll receive the blessings they desire.

Having a culture of certainty creates a monoculture. People who have different viewpoints are likely going to be shy about sharing their thoughts in a Sunday School class. And it’s easy for others to become defensive and reply that is the incorrect answer, here’s what the acceptable answer is, and help keep everyone in line and the lesson on track. It leaves us blind to lessons we could learn from other perspectives. I don’t think that’s how God wants us to operate.

As I read the scriptures with my queer eyes, I more and more see that the things important to God are that we love each other, that we look for people who are vulnerable and try to make them more secure. We are to be welcoming to the foreigner and open our home and we are responsible for their safety because we’re operating from a place of security.

Earlier this year we got new policies about trans people at church. How certain are we that God wants these policies? If these are hurting trans people, what do we do about it? Do these seem like the policies a God of love would approve? Are they consistent with the idea of loving and treating others how I want to be treated?

Having queer people in church is powerful, it shakes up the certainty. I’ve heard parents of queer people say, “I know a loving God won’t separate me in heaven from my child.” “I trust that God will make it all okay.” That’s another way of saying, “Maybe our leaders are wrong, maybe God isn’t beholden to the rules we say He has to follow.” It’s their way of making some space for the dissonance they feel between what is being taught and the reality of their queer family member.

In the Genesis story we read about binaries. God divided darkness from the light. God created the heaven and the earth. God separated the water from the land. God created male and female. And yet, if we look around, none of those are binaries, they are spectrums. There’s sunsets and sunrises and eclipses. There’s swamps and marshes and bogs where the land and water are mixed. The sky has clouds and humidity, that’s water in the air. These spectrums are pleasing to God.

In Romans 1:20, the apostle Paul teaches that we have an invisible God but can know them by the things that God makes. When we want to know about God, we look at God’s creations and these will testify of what God is like. Considering all we can see around us, God loves diversity. God loves exceptions. God loves peculiarities. God doesn’t stick to binaries. God revels in variety. Same-sex behavior (courtship, sex, pair-bonding, and parental activities) have been documented in over 450 species of animals. What does this tell us about God? Having people whose gender is trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, intersex, androgynous, and so on, is more in line with what we observe about God from His creations than the idea that there is strictly one kind of man and one kind of woman and that’s it, no other variety allowed.

I leave these thoughts with you, and hope it helps lead you away from certainty and towards the humility of belief that perhaps we don’t perfectly know God, that our leaders can be wrong about things and as we grow in understanding perhaps it’s time to question if it’s time to change.

We say that people are to endure to the end, and that can sound like hold tight and don't question and suffer to the end. I think a better way is to say we should grow to the end. Athletes work to increase their endurance, they grow their ability. How can we as individuals and as a community grow? When we see policies are harming people we can ask what God would have us do? That’s a path to growth and spiritual maturity. Are we more concerned about being certain or about finding truth?

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New pictures from a jacket I made for a Christmas present for my girlfriend (don't tell her!)

Hello everyone!

Would you like to help a poor queer student pay for rent? Probably not, we don't know each other.

BUT! ☝️

Would you like an awesome holiday present for your friend/sibling/significant other/monster in your basement/voices in your head? How about just for yourself?

I know you want custom tshirt/jacket/scarf/pants/ whatever other article of clothing you wish, hand made for you and only you.

Here's two t-shirts I made for my best friends a while back. While they're pretty basic, I've been working on my skills since then, so there are many more options!

And a jacket I'm continually adding to. The dragon is the most recent addition.

I'm thinking the price of a regular t-shirt like above will be about $17-18, with a lot of leeway available for different articles of clothing.

More details under the cut, or DM me for information!

The primary draw of this over those websites that can just put an image on a tshirt is the wider range of options available to you. I can put the design you want on the sleeves or back of the shirt, I could put a design onto socks or a hat or literally anything you want!

You can send me an image you already have (which will make things much easier on my end) or some concept arts and ideas, up to you

I will buy the base article of clothing, mark it up, and send it to you as soon as I can. I don't have a super defined time frame, but I'll do my best to get it out soon (and also get my homework done)

The drawing will fade slowly over time, but the tshirts above are after two years of wear, so it lasts a reasonably long time

If you have any more questions please DM me, and reblog this so it can see the people who will be interested

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I'm writing an essay on the difference in how christianity and mormonism are treated under the western christian identity. It's very much addressing the lack of knowledge surrounding our religion but all i can imagine is someone reading it and going "lol the morms are getting mad". yeah i am getting mad. this your address? my liahona led me here. better that one man perish etc etc

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Several years ago, when things were bad, as they are now, I made a comic about art and community in the face of hate. Today feels like a time to reshare.

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Like we gotta try, right?

Is it even humanly possible to get 1.billion notes?

Errrrm

Could I have some help to find out maybe?~

Pls

@stormingchaos12 @mrchaosman @moonmoth-art @fandomhasrottedme @100percentevil

@anyoneelsewhogonnahelpmethx

Like, spam the comment area, reblog, etc, do whatever but let's try to make it to one billion 🎱 for no reason

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New reaction image

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Marinette Dupain Cheng the woman that you are

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Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

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🛸 .。.:*°　🌙　•　　.°•　　🚀 ✯　.°• ★　*　　　°　　 .。.:*・°.　.°• 🛰 　°· 🪐.　 •　° 　 •  ☄ .。.:* ・°☆. •　.°•💫 .。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

mutuals look we are in the planetarium together

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Actually "Elhokar did nothing wrong" and "Moash was right to kill him" are both very lukewarm takes that don't do either character justice. It's possible to hold several truths at the same time like 1. Elhokar did some really fucked up things 2. He was also trying really hard, growing and learning to do better 3. Moash was RIGHT to be angry and want justice 4. Taking justice into his own hands is still wrong, and his actions being *understandable* doesn't make then *justifiable* 5. "Revenge only leads to more violence" is like one of the key themes of the series, with Elhokar's revenge war at the shattered plains being just another good example of that 6. Killing Elhokar actually didn't bring Moash any peace and was bad for his mental wellbeing and relationships And most importantly 7. The circumstances for both of these characters are very complicated and not morally black and white, both of them are simultaneously a product of their surroundings and life histories AS WELL AS individuals with free choice who should be held accountable. There's a lot of parallels to be found between them (the revenge theme for starters, but also lying to oneself and others, struggling with taking responsibility over one's actions, a desperate need for love and appreciation that fails to come across in a productive way, etc etc). And that imo is much more interesting to think about than "who was right"