#4x implied?

[therandomcreechur]

the-the-the-thetehtethehehtttthhhhhh- *explodes*

uh yeah I tried lineless art for once :0

no text ver. under cut (lowkey kinda pathetic and boring af)

[mipexch]

i love animating these little freaks

[sillyboyjuno]

ummmm my freak buges

I got silly on magma and drew my freakies.. two is my favorite design out of the three of them.. don't mind. the fucked up and crushed pngs of them don't look at it don

ummm... two is standing in front of the two of them, and four is shooting mind lazers at them i fear.. buddy stole his contestants...

plus some closeups! okay bye bye now

[askterisk-asterisk]

Hush Fourie! Says you who drew urself kissing X!!

Oh, so that's what was under that scribble!

QUIET YOU! IT WAS NOT A KISS!

[p4rty4nim4l]

TW: BLOOD

/

/

/

among us

[scalpelsister]

i start intensive outpatient therapy on tuesday and i could not be more upset lmao. i know its going to be good for me overall but i cant think of something i want to do less than that sjshdhdh. ALSO it runs all the way up until my birthday with my birthday being my last day (unless i get discharged early) which is just.... no good.

[recycledraccoon]

Twitch Streamer Mary Ann Skuttle AU

She almost exclusively plays video games, tho sometimes she reviews the quality and cuteness of plushies. Sometimes she updates people on her quokki pet's level or how her personal AC Island looks, or her longest running Stardew Farm. (Maru IS her favorite Stardew marriageable NPC because it reminds her of her "loser boyfriend".)

Sometimes she gets her friends to play games with her on stream, or they're just in the background hanging out. Once when a game comes out that Mary Ann is legit excited for (in her own way) everyone gathers in a little watch party in the background with snacks as they settle in for the Marathon stream about to happen.

If she misses some streams she probably tosses out a simple update about her and her friends being on a quest or something similar that she implies is kinda lame. Her watchers KNOW she's an adventurer but there is never any elaboration.

They also know she has a boyfriend but known VERY little about him.

Loser Boyfriend™️ Confirmed Facts

1. Loser

2. His quokki pets gameplay is trash

3. Also an adventurer ig

4. Plays drums sometimes

5. They officially met when she curb-stomped his ass at a sports tryouts and he got mad. (No elaboration)

6. He made her a switch capable of running ROMhacks and mods.

7. Half-orc. The only times they have ever seen him is once or twice when he wordlessly hands her a mango soda from off screen. They have an entire emote of his hand with the soda bottle they spam sometimes. (#bottleboi)

Which is to say when Gorgug shows up in the background of the stream one day, cause Mary Ann rearranged or was streaming from somewhere else temporarily, people start freaking out.

Mary Ann notices but only comments "yeah, that's my loser boyfriend. Don't worry about it."

THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE MARY ANN!!!

THAT'S GORGUG THISTLESPRING, FAMOUS 4X WORLD SAVING RENOWN ADVENTURER BEFORE HE EVEN FINISHED HIGHSCHOOL, THE FIRST EVER BARBIFICER IN THE WORLD, AND GODDAMN FAMOUS ROCK STAR.

YOU CALL HIM YOUR LOSER BOYFRIEND?????

"His quokki pets gameplay is trash."

MA'AM-

[toh-aus-coven]

Philip's Story is an Adoption Story... Here's Why That Matters

A few disclaimers before we dive in...

Binary thinking is discouraged here; adoption and its themes are complicated and nuanced. Multiple truths can exist.

This is one perspective and this analysis comes from being in community with adopted/orphan people, research, and misc experience

"Adoption adjacent" includes adoptees/orphans/foster kids (these three groups often overlap in various ways that will be elaborated on)

Please engage with this post in good faith. I know non-adoptees can experience things listed in this post however, there is a different context that underlies the experience of those adopted/adjacent. And of course, I'm not trying to make generalizations either... It's just that the narrative is more complicated than a lot of people want to admit.

Sound good? Let's proceed. THIS POST IS GOING TO BE A BIT LONG!

At the core of Belos/Philip's story is an 'adoption' story. And it's all because of this particular line:

I know what you're thinking "But isn't being an orphan different from being adopted?" Yes, and within the media in particular, adoptee and orphan stories overlap heavily-- in fact, it's almost a circle (although due to his background and his time-period, he'd probably be taken in by someone given the boys' age of their arrival). It’s about the experience of parental separation which is what connects adoptee and adjacent people. So while Philip is not adopted, he is adoptee adjacent and that still matters. Concerning media and the way adopted/orphaned characters are portrayed, it's often presented in a very binary manner. Most people's knowledge of the subject comes from other people's perception of it rather than adopted/orphaned people themselves. And to a degree that makes sense... These stories are often ABOUT [adoptees/adjacent people ] without INCLUDING them. Adoption themes are incredibly pervasive throughout literature, TV/movies, video games, and other media. It's not inherently wrong to have an adoption-related storyline, plot, or character but most people don't do it in a way that is humanizing and avoids common pitfalls within the storytelling.

There's a quick impulse to call Philip 'evil' and 'irredeemable' without actually understanding his character... and when you view him through an 'adoptee-centered' lens his behavior makes a lot of sense. The fact the show treats this specific fact about the character as a plot device rather than something that could be explored is a tiny bit insulting. They only mention it in the exposition which kind of implies that this detail is meant to explain Philip's deep attachment to his brother. Which yes, it does and TOH leaves us hanging -- or actually they just tell us that this man is evil and call it a day.

Which leads me into one of the biggest pitfalls that the show uses for Philip-- he's framed as just evil. The trope of good/bad adoptee/adjacent character is a pretty common see -- even within the same piece of media. If we're going to use TOH we can look at King's character -- King, a young main protagonist who is the last living son of a god. King is young, cute, 'exceptional', has special abilities, etc (there are issues with King's portrayal as well but this post isn't about him). This is an issue because adoptees/adjacent people are more than a reductive good/bad label. Same with concepts such as 'gratitude' -- being grateful or not grateful when the real answer can be a lot more complex than that. It's a binary question that can be a complicated answer. We're the picture-perfect heroes or the irredeemable villains-- nothing in-between.

Taking this into consideration, when we look at Philip you start to see someone who's not 'evil'; you begin to see a man who is coping with separation trauma and abandonment issues. This is unfortunate to hear but research tells us that adoptees are 4x more at risk to 'self-exit', 2x at risk to have substance abuse issues, and generally more likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders (obviously every individual is different but when talking about adoption many people tend to ignore these types of statistics in favor of more 'positive' ones). 'Negative' aspects that many adoptees/adjacent people experience or try to talk about are often dismissed or worse, they are gaslighted. When you look at Philip and his characterization you see these behaviors in a different light such as:

His attachment/abandonment issues (Caleb, this one doesn't need any elaboration; EDIT- gonna elaborate anyways lol). To be honest Philip shows a lot of symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. The hallmark of the disorder is a fear of abandonment — and BPD often stems from childhood trauma. Interestingly enough it’s not uncommon for adoptees (in particular women; there is a misogynistic component to this but i digress) to get a BPD diagnosis. And given that the show portrays Philip in a very stigmatizing way… you can see why this isn’t great…

Difficulty regulating his emotions ('the curse' seems to come out when he's emotionally escalated)

'Substance' use (the palismen; he seems physically reliant on them and they don't benefit him in any way besides sustaining his life. also, he looks like he's huffing something when he consumes one Side note: Some people think that Philip deserved to 'be cursed' (which is a side effect[?] of the consumption) since he “cursed himself”... super not great for adoptees/adjacent people we’re already a misunderstood group of people and it's not uncommon to get insulted or blamed when trying to have a nuanced discussion or share experiences.

His sense of self seems unstable... Most of his identity hinges on his brother, not himself (ex. being a witch hunter, the use of the gravesfield coat of arms for the emperor's sigil, the coat he wears, his name-- Philip Wittebane, etc)

There's a bunch of emotional stuff I would have to guess would be true but they'd more fall under theory or headcanon

It's not that he is 'evil' he is in pain and he is blamed for that. Obviously, he doesn't make productive choices and he does bear responsibility for the harm he caused and he is a creation of his environment. He had to hate to survive. This is where 'this and' can come into play... For many adoptees, we have feelings of not belonging -- even more so for transracial adoptees (those adopted/fostered into homes of a different race than their own). Many transracial adoptees are raised in environments that are racially / ethnically homogeneous (from their own race) so it can be harder to 'fit in' and it can also cause someone to have a complex relationship with their racial/ethnic background when one is essentially assimilated into a community that they stick out of.

edit: In mainstream society being adopted or 'orphans' is deemed to be a shameful thing, used as a comedy device, or through very rosed colored glasses... and there's a problem to highlight here: because adoptee/adjacent are often seen as source material for STORIES we often view their experiences through the lens of A STORY rather than someone's lived experience. It is easier to view a particular thing as a story for entertainment when for someone else it is reality. While Philip is a fictional character many aspects of his behavior are very real and deserve understanding and empathy for real adoptees/adjacent people. We deserve to be more than stories with black-and-white roles and deserve to be seen in color. As full complex people.

Here are some resources if you're interested in learning more about adoptee-centered adoption perspectives:

https://adoptionmosaic.com/resources

https://sidebysideproject.com/11-short-films

http://adopteereading.com/overview/

https://harlows-monkey.com/

https://adopteeconsciousness.com/

this tedtalk is good too: https://youtu.be/jL4lnvQ1wVU?si=HpYASjvvOXnY2faX

Edit: https://youtu.be/Rz3ME8K_zW4?si=CpEQarRbe8VAUqAR (this documentary just came out and you may hear a certain basilisk/gem featured!)

[inqilabi]

I have gotten a lot of questions in the past about how I identify whether a man watches porn aside from directly asking him. And I'm not sure that I ever got around to listing it. And the further I get away from being in a state where I have to find this about a man, the more I forget. It's fresher in my mind when I'm actually assessing a man for this.

Here's some off the top of my head

1) how they look at you. I think every woman kind of intuitively knows this feeling. You will feel sexualized. There could be an error rate here, if you are a woman who has some internalized misogyny and likes being sexualized, and perhaps you might perceive this as "he's really into me" as opposed to, I felt violated with eyes.

There was one date where a man looked me up and down. I felt grossed out by it. Later on, I did ask him if he watched porn and he said he watched it 4x a week.

Another date, I had worn a knit sweater on the first date. He didn't seem to check me out initially when we walked towards each other and seemed to be respectful with his eyes. But on one of the later dates, we were discussing something and he told me/koked that "I knew what I was doing wearing a knit sweater to the first date". Implying that I was trying to get and draw attention (as my breasts looked big). it was the most basic ugly knit sweater. I wore it because I was comfortable. And it gave me an indication that he probably watches p*** cos only in porn, do you have basic regular clothing being sexualized

2) on that note. If men mention something around certain clothing items, they watch porn. You can't sexualize a neutral object like clothing (unless it's lingerie) without watching porn. So things like pencil skirts. A certain type of hair like straight or curly.. porn thing

3) this one I assess for the most. I ask if they have thought about me sexually. Like early on into the dating process. Around when you have your first kiss which for me is like date 3 or so. But at a point when things are just getting less formal and slightly spicy.

And I ask what they thought about. I also want to know at some point whether they have helped themselves to the thought of me. And I'm a firm believer that a person should not think of you sexually UNLESS you have indicated something to that effect. You have flirted with sexual innuendos. You have been explicit or implicit with sexual innuendos. They shouldn't just see your pictures and have gotten to know you a little bit, and be thinking about you sexually.

A sexual thought should occur in the context of actual explicit sexual play of some sort. Otherwise, they're objectifying you and that is something that happens with a pornified mindset.

(I don't know if my thought process in the last one here makes sense but this is something that I firmly believe in)

[honorthysalad]

HGSN as rabbits. I tried to match coat colors as closely to the character but those weren’t the basis for why certain breeds were chosen (mostly).

Yoshiki is a black self-chinchilla single-maned lionhead. You’re probably more familiar with double-maned lionheads, where the mane is larger and along their sides. Single-maned on the other hand just have the ruff of fur around their head and are caused by heterozygosity, which is fitting for Yoshiki I think.

‘Hikaru’ is a lilac Himalayan. Himalayans are the only rabbits with a cylindrical body type, which separates ‘Hikaru’ from all the rest. They’re also known for their red pupils. Lilac was just chosen to get his points as close to white as I could.

Yuuki is a dwarf hotot. Wanted something small for her, and these are my favorite dwarf breeds. They’ve got built in eyeliner. Also the idea of a mostly white fancy breed being careless and messy entertained me. Also every hotot I met has been very chill.

Maki is a chocolate tan. They’re on the small side for a running breed. As the name implies, running breeds are bred to be athletic. About it.

Asako is a chestnut giant angora. Unfortunately there aren’t any long-haired running breeds so I just went with the largest wooly breed. Together with Yuuki they're very “tiny rabbit obsessed with giant girlfriend who’s 4x her size”.

Kurebayashi is a blue beveren. Beverens have a semi-arch body type which is pretty uncommon. They’re also one of the oldest breed of rabbits, so I felt like that emphasized the lineage Kurebayashi has since her sight is an inherited trait.

Tanaka is an American blue. Also a semi-arch, they’re partially descended from blue beverens. Americans are also meat bunnies so adds into Tanaka being subject to an exploitative company.

[undeniablycandycane]

Had a dream where these "creators" of natm were trying to stop people from shipping jedtavius and it was to the point where me and a bunch of fans were going on a mission to prevent them from stopping the shipping of jedtavius altogether (via abusing copyright and being homophobic) and we ended up having to hide in this huge barn/warehouse like 4x the size of a normal barn. (Side note a few of us lived on land he owned including myself?) One of the guys was coming so we hid behind tractors, hay bales, machines, fences, etc and the guy named Mitch found a few of us and we ended up making this silly excuse that implied we were his children/under his care or something because we were just like "we need more sustenance! Our snacks do not have enough juice and liquid content" so he was like "ugh fine" so like four of us tagged along in his truck and went to the dollar store to buy bottled tea and bug juice and gummies and ice cream and I remember being at the store picking up a bunch of stuff taking advantage of free snack and then I woke up

[p4rty4nim4l]

meme I made to cope with something

[flimsy-roost]

it took me about a quarter of a century to understand that sometimes the conversation itself is an expression of friendship or camaraderie, and that the actual content doesn't always matter for a lot of people.

I remain blissfully unaware of other intended uses for conversations while they're being applied, like I understand in theory what power plays are, but I rarely recognize them when they're being attempted in front of me.

this leaves me invulnerable to most socially derived psychic damage. as a nerf, I'm 4x weak to sonic damage. if you can't make me feel bad through subtly implied hierarchies just scream in my face real loud that usually works

[pigeonwhumps]

Earth Security memorandum

Operation Badger masterlist

Everything taglist: @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump

Randowhump's Birthday Whump Event prompt 3: living weapon

Just a lil late. This is more scene setting than actual whump, I think, but anyway.

Adding this to its own masterlist bc there's two parts to it and it bothers me adding it to the unconnected whump masterlist (or whatever I called it) when it's clearly not that but idk how much I'll write for it. Just as an fyi, for once. I'm enjoying this though, I'll write more at some point.

In the year 2037, Earth is invaded by the Stex. 14 years later, superpowers start appearing in teenagers, and are apparently humanity's best defence against the aliens. What is Earth Security to do but train these people up as weapons?

679 words

CWs: implied minor whump, dehumanisation, referring to people as assets, living weapons, multiple whumpees, death sentence

Earth Security memorandum

Re: Trial of Operation Badger

Date: 11/06/2075

Since the invasion of the Stex in the year 2039, new methods of defence have been required. Attacks remain ongoing, and Earth security remains diligent and proactive in developing new counters to them. By far the most successful are the adrayntus powers.

22 years ago, it was discovered that unheard-of powers were emerging in seemingly ordinary teenagers. Initial research revealed that they had developed from high levels of exposure in utero to adrayntine, an element regularly used by the Stex. These powers were split into three categories:

Ad-traduki: Stex language translation

Ad-mensoj: Stex telepathy and behaviour prediction

Ad-mekanika: Stex mechanical expertise

(See file XTR-3L for more information on the adrayntus powers)

It was proposed that these people could prove useful assets in mankind's fight against the enemy, and a 20 year trial was implemented to study this. A summary of the trial, results and immediate recommendations are below (see file XTR-5P for a more detailed report and file XTR-5O for raw statistics).

Adrayntus powers start to develop in all genders in the early stages of puberty, usually between the ages of 10-14. Once they reveal themselves, the potential asset is offered training and employment to assist with the war effort. Legal guardians of the intended asset are persuaded via various methods (see file XTR-4P for examples) to allow this – rates of acceptance of our training by legal guardians are at 98%.

Assets are boarded at specialist institutions (see file XTR-4R) for ongoing education and training. They study Esperanto, mathematics, human and Stex-related sciences, develop their own powers, undergo basic military and intelligence training, and are trained on how to survive encounters with and capture by the Stex. See file XTR-4X for example curriculums.

Upon arrival and during their first few months at one of our centres, the assets are divided into teams. Each consists of one tradukinto (ad-traduki), one mensoleganto (ad-mensoj), and one mekanikisto (ad-mekanika), plus one non-powered asset of around the same age, recruited from suitable candidates (see file XTR-6A for detail on suitable candidates and recruitment processes). One handler is allocated per team, to be seconded from regular military service.

Upon reaching legal majority, the asset signs a contract of their own to allow for their continuing training and more advanced employment. They transfer to the adult subdivision of their respective department division and continue to assist the war effort for as long as they are willing and able.

Recruitment of adrayntus-powered assets has been ongoing throughout the trial period, and numbers have been sustainable. The core group of twelve original assets recruited during the first year of the trial developed extremely well during their training, and were divided early on into four working teams. Out of these, two are still active. The third has been disbanded due to casualties, its remaining members continuing to be active in R&D, and the last ordered for pulping following desertion. Efforts to ensure continued loyalty have been stepped up and within the trial period there has been a desertion rate of 1.2% of recruits. During the trial, 501 adrayntus-powered assets and 167 non-powered assets were recruited globally, organised into 167 teams. There has been a loss of 37% of recruits due to Stex activity, and 15% during training.

Despite the extra cost of training adrayntus-powered assets, teams including them are up to 71% more effective than conventional soldiers in combating the Stex, and they appear to boost the effectiveness of the non-powered asset on their team as well. The trial has been very effective, and it is strongly recommended that the use of adrayntus-powered assets is continued by Earth security.

Signed:

Astrid Sjögren

Astrid Sjögren, Head of Operation Badger, Earth Security

-----

Earth Security evaluation

Re: Earth Security Memorandum Re: Trial of Operation Badger

Date: 12/08/2075

After considering this memorandum and associated files and evidence, we concur with the conclusions made above. This is a formal confirmation allowing the continuation of the training and use of adrayntus-powered assets. Operation Badger is to continue until further notice.

Signed:

Arthur Carver

Arthur Carver, Chief of Operations, Earth Security

[raskies456]

So. This graph alone doesn’t necessarily show a decline in community. Maybe the study does, but the figure itself doesn’t, and I think it’s worth understanding why.

TLDR:

1. It’s a percentage measure, which means you can’t even tell if the literal number of people meeting offline is decreasing (discussed in depth under readmore).

2. You can’t tell if the change in percentage is because people are meeting online instead of meeting offline. For example, they could be meeting online instead of not meeting anyone at all.

3. Even if people were choosing to meet online over meeting offline, this doesn’t necessarily imply a decline in community.

Several people in the notes have pointed out that the graph ends in 2020, and that Covid almost certainly influenced results that year. This is a great point and is exactly the sort of thing people need to consider when looking at figures like this, but in this case it looks like the upward trend in online dating and downward trend in the rest of the variables was already happening prior to 2020, so covid doesn’t explain away the trend. Other people have questioned the source, which again is a good thing to look into, but even assuming the source and methodology were accurate you still couldn’t claim from this figure alone that there has been any decline in the number of couples that meet off the internet.

This is because what the graph shows is actually a change in percentage, and not a change in number. If you look at the vertical y axis, you can see it ranges from 0% to 50% as opposed to simply measuring the couples of people who met in a certain way. Now, graphing a percentage is a perfectly reasonable thing to do here, since you’re probably not surveying the exact same number of people every year, and if you interviewed a hundred people in 1990 and a thousand in 2000, you’d end seeing all your variables get around ten times bigger even if there was no change in how likely a couple was to meet in a given way between those years. In order to study how people’s behavior is changing, you pretty much have to use percentages to deal with the fact that you’re not going to have the same sample size each year.

However, this also means you’re no longer looking at actual numbers. You can’t tell from a percentage alone how many couples are actually doing any given thing, and you have to keep in mind that your percentages for each year are always going to add up to 100%. This means that if the percentage of people meeting online goes up, the percentage of everything else must drop, even if the exact same number of people are meeting offline.

To illustrate this, we can pretend to do our own small survey with two categories: couples who met online, and couples who met offline.

In the first year, we interview 10 couples. We find 9 couples met offline, and 1 online. So, 90% of people met offline this year, and 10% met online.

In the next year, there are 20 couples we ask. Again, 9 couples met offline, but now 11 couples met online. So now we have 45% of our couples meeting offline and 55% meeting online, even though the number of people who met offline never changed.

We can even see percentages drop when more people meet offline, so long as our sample gets bigger. In the third year, we interview 100 people, and find that 36 couples met offline, which is 4x more than last year. However, now only 36% couples met offline (and 64% online), because we are now looking at a 36 couples out of 100.

In all these cases, the percentage of people meeting offline dropped even though the number of people meeting this way never decreased. It simply happened because more people were meeting online. It could be true that the increase in online meetups happened because people were more likely to choose to meet online than through their community, but it’s also entirely possible that the people in couples who met online simply would not have met anyone through other means. It’s also simply the case that there are plenty of explanations for why people might choose to meet partners online rather than through their communities that don’t require any decline in community or connection.

Basically, it’s not only impossible to determine from percentage results whether the number of people meeting offline is decreasing, but it’s also impossible to determine why. It could be a loss of community ties, but it could be a lot of other things as well.

[reedreadsgreek]

1 Corinthians 9:21–23

21 τοῖς ἀνόμοις ὡς ἄνομος, μὴ ὢν ἄνομος θεοῦ ἀλλʼ ἔννομος Χριστοῦ, ἵνα κερδάνω τοὺς ἀνόμους· 22 ἐγενόμην τοῖς ἀσθενέσιν ἀσθενής, ἵνα τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς κερδήσω· τοῖς πᾶσιν γέγονα πάντα, ἵνα πάντως τινὰς σώσω. 23 πάντα δὲ ποιῶ διὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἵνα συγκοινωνὸς αὐτοῦ γένωμαι.

My translation: 

21 to the lawless as lawless, not being lawless to God but lawful to the Anointed, in order that I might gain the lawless; 22 I became weak to the weak, in order that I might gain the weak; to all people I have become all things, in order that by all means I might save some. 23 And I do all things on account of the good news, in order that I might become a sharer of it. 

Notes:

9:21

The adjective ἄνομος (10x), from α negation + ὁ νόμος, is “lawless”. Here the sense of the adjective is not pejorative, but simply “without the law” or “not having the law [of Moses]”; ICC supplies “Gentiles” for clarity; NET: “those free from the law”; NRSV: “... outside ...”. The aorist ἐγενόμην must be supplied from verse 20, with which the substantival adjective τοῖς ἀνόμοις is a dative of advantage. The phrase ὡς ἄνομος (“as without law”) functions as the predicate of the verb. 

In this parenthetical phrase, μὴ negates the present participle ὢν (from εἰμί) which is concessive (“although”) with the implied verb ἐγενόμην above. The adjective ἄνομος (see above) is predicate. The genitive θεοῦ could be subjective (“the law God pronounced”), objective (“lawful obligation to God”), or relation/respect. 

ἀλλά indicates strong contrast. 

The adjective ἔννομος (2x), from ἐν + ὁ νόμος, is “legal, lawful” (BDAG); here, “under the law” (NASB, NET; sim. NIV, NRSV); HCSB: “within Christ’s law”. ἔννομος is predicate after an implied ὢν. For the genitive Χριστοῦ, see note on θεοῦ above. 

ἵνα + subjunctive indicates purpose. Paul unexpectedly shifts here to the 2nd aorist form of κερδαίνω (“I gain”) with the aorist subjunctive κερδάνω. The direct object of the verb is the substantival τοὺς ἀνόμους (“those without the law”). 

9:22 

The predicate of the 1s 2nd aorist ἐγενόμην (from γίνομαι) is ἀσθενής (“weak”). ‘When he had to deal with the over-scrupulous, he sympathized with their scruples, abstaining from things which seemed to them (though not to him) to be wrong’ (ICC). The substantival τοῖς ἀσθενέσιν is a dative of advantage. Note the change of construction here, lacking ὡς. 

ἵνα + subjunctive indicates purpose. The substantival τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς (“the weak”) is the direct object of the aorist subjunctive κερδήσω (from κερδαίνω “I gain”; see note on v. 19). 

The substantival τοῖς πᾶσιν is masculine (“to all people”) and a dative of advantage with the 1s perfect γέγονα (from γίνομαι). The predicate nominative is the substantival πάντα. The change from aorist to perfect indicates ‘the permanent result of his past action’ (ICC). 

ἵνα + subjunctive indicates purpose. The adverb πάντως (“by all means”; see note on 5:10) modifies the aorist subjunctive σώσω (from σῴζω). The direct object of the verb is the masculine accusative plural indefinite pronoun τινὰς. Note the repetition of παv- root words (NASB: “all things to all men, so that I may by all means ...”). 

9:23 

The substantival πάντα (NIV, HCSB take it as demonstrative: “all this”) is the direct object of the present ποιῶ (from ποιέω). The verb is modified by the causal prepositional phrase διὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, probably meaning, “for the sake of the progress of the gospel” (Fee, contra ICC). 

ἵνα + subjunctive indicates purpose.  ἡ συγκοινωνός (4x) is, “participant, partner” (BDAG), from σύν + ὁ κοινωνός (10x) “partner, sharer”, itself from κοινωνέω (8x) “I share, participate in”. συγκοινωνὸς is predicate with the 2nd aorist subjunctive γένωμαι (from γίνομαι). The genitive αὐτοῦ, referring to the gospel, denotes the thing participated in. Although συγκοινωνὸς εὐαγγελίου may refer to being a partner in the work of spreading the gospel, Fee suggests that Paul means, sharing in the benefits of covenantal community (so NRSV, NIV: “that I may share in its blessings”; HCSB: “so I may become a partner in its benefits”). NIGTC, however, takes this idea as foreign to Paul’s thought here, and says, ‘the issue is neither that of bringing benefits to others, nor that of sharing in these benefits as a missionary-pastor’ but ‘to instantiate what the gospel is and how it operates.’ Paul is unlikely to mean, “so that I may secure my share in salvation”, as ICC suggests.