#C literally didn't speak for the rest of the time i was in there haha

[monapearlquo]

Shoutout to my straight coworker (let's call him R) for laughingly in the face of a homophobe today. He and his friend (the two of them are both around 18) went into a supply closet for two minutes together, shutting the door behind them. Now, both of them are VERY straight and in commited relationships with girls their age, so most of us who saw this thought nothing of it.

However, a new guy (lets call him C) saw them do this and made a comment about how suspicious it was, followed by a remark that was a bit homophobic (to which me and another coworker were like "that's not cool, don't say that again"). When the two boys returned, C literally sneered and said, "You done with your kissing session yet?"

And WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, R said, "Why? Did you wanna join us?" with a BIG grin on his face.

C looked appalled lmao. He literally just stared at R for a few seconds with his mouth open as R and his friend laughed and walked off. Meanwhile me and my other coworkers were trying not to laugh and failing.

It was a beautiful, hilarious moment, and I wish all allies the speedy wit to make such a reply when needed!

[vaguely-concerned]

I binged through all of Dragon Age: Absolution today and honestly I really really liked it! I was allowing myself only some very cautious optimism after watching the twitch premiere of the first episode, but freed from the need for infodumps and setting up the characters the rest of the show actually rapidly gets better from there (some pacing issues here and there excepted but hey they were given 6 episodes, I think they did pretty well considering those constraints)! If like me you HUNGER for, you YEARN for, you CRAVE more Dragon Age right the fuck now, this is not at all a bad thing to help keep some of that hunger down while we wait for the next game, and has a few loveable new characters to get into and some great action animation to boot.

More idle thoughts/reactions under the cut!

first and foremost I love Roland and Lacklon so much haha, a surprisingly well paced romance considering it mainly happens in quick background-ish moments! I'm especially interested in Roland's backstory, since he's very chill and openminded for what seems to be a decently well-trained/educated Orlesian? Lacklon being like 'I want to hold his hand and suck his dick 😔 fml' every time Roland did something cool in battle was just *chef's kiss* too, it was kind of smart to have their fight scenes double as foreplay as well on a writing level since they're arguably the least plot-important characters overall (though they and Qwydion are definitely the heart of the story as far as I'm concerned)

I understand why Miriam clung to Hira so much since she just lost literally everything in her life, good or bad, moments before and that relationship was the only time she had tasted anything like real love since her brother died, but girl... girl when people show you who they are, believe them. marry Qwydion instead you deserve so much better (Hira gave me the Bad Vibes right away from how she didn't respect anything Miriam said or expressed and kept pushing in ways that made me really uncomfortable, so I won't say I was shocked or anything lol.) There is the (??deliberate??) mirror of Hira hugging Miriam from behind in the blood magic dream and Qwydion coming up behind her in very much the same way to rest her hand on her shoulder in the real world afterwards, so I have hope maybe?

can you imagine Dorian watching shitshows like this go down every other week all around Tevinter and tearing at his perfectly sculpted hair because Andraste's tits if you motherfuckers would stop acting stereotypically for FIVE MINUTES! could any of you go take a PISS without resorting to blood magic! Dorian's job is a shit job and he's probably been doing it for a while by the time of Dreadwolf so y'know. get my son a drink

speaking of Qwydion, I am so glad for further support for my theory that vashoth born away from the Qun are actually some of the most well-adjusted people in all of Thedas. they've dodged the Qun from birth by definition, they don't seem terribly interested in the Chantry or grand politics of any kind, they don't have a caste system hanging over them, they can step on anyone who tries to mess with them even if they don't have magic... truly the only sane people running around out here

so you're telling me the Inquisition screws Fairbanks over no matter what you do, b/c either he dies or he's forced into Orlesian politics. Oh buddy I'm sorry we should've just let you frolic around in the Emerald Graves on your own you didn't deserve this

Poor Tessa. she is probably better off without him in the long run but that's a rough week

I was so excited to see Kirkwall again, I saw the horrific chain statues and went 'OH HELLHOLE MORE LIKE HELLHOME'. it's so grim and awful I miss it so much lol

meredith, huh. so uh. hawke really has failed at everything, pretty much, then. even the few people they did manage to kill to protect everyone didn't stay dead. I'm just waiting for the dragon they killed in the Bone Pit to come back and ravage the city as well now, just to top it off. celestial punching bag of thedas hawke. babyyyyyyyyy if it helps I still love you the most and so does your collection of bi weirdos found family

rezaren wasn't even that good a mage, as far as we can tell, so you have to wonder what the FUCK dorian's ancestor was pulling to have created this thing that he could barely control with half a dragon's worth of blood (and what someone like Dorian, who helped crack time like an egg in his student days sort of just to see if he could, it seems, could do with it if they didn't have like scruples or other pesky things like that. everything we see about tevinter magisters makes me more impressed with how comparatively not fundamentally shitty Dorian has managed to turn out (no wonder Bull is kind of impressed with him for having actual integrity, if this is the competition he's up against). can you tell I miss him lol)

I found it genuniely interesting how much rezaren and hira are thematic mirrors to each other and mutually cannot see it, right down to treating miriam ultimately as an object. same self-centered idiot, different hairstyles. what a scathing indictment of Tevinter high society that even Hira, who's family was notoriously progressive and trying to enact change, still treats people exactly the same way as the other magisters when push comes to shove.

thank u to Lacklon for pessimistic cynical bastard representation, he is right that that dragon is going to ravage the countryside and someone on the crew has to keep clear eyes for that sort of thing even when it's a downer

[iamacolor]

oh i love karolina! i feel like everyone i know likes to watch her videos haha. i was drawn to her because of her sense of humour but she's also taught me quite a lot! and now i correct every person who talks about corests as if they were torture devices 🧐

i studied polish philology so the main focus was obviously polish literature, language, culture etc but we also had many world literature classes of course. the only foreign language classes in uni were english and latin but we had one professor who was always complaining that not a single one speaks fluent french 😂

heh don't even mention the catholic influence... we have way too many religious crazies here 🤦‍♀️ the more right-wing, the more insane they are. just yesterday there was a parliament debate about john paul 2 (i'm serious) because some new proof that he about bishops who were protecting p*dos resurfaced and of course the right wing couldn't take it... i heard some nutjob yelling that jp2 singlehandedly overthrew communism as if we didn't have countless oppositionists fighting it for decades 🤦‍♀️

the history of polish jews is incredibly tragic. we still have some living here, there's an annual jewish culture festival in my town which i usually attend... but it's a very small minority compared to how it used to be. according to historical sources first jewish people were invited here by the polish king in the 11th century so they've literally been here since forever. they've always had to deal with prejudice (not always strictly religious) but i have no doubt that if it wasn't for ww2 and communism they'd still be here.

i've actually been to paris three times, although only once as an adult and if i may be honest, it was immigrants who were always the nicest, most helpful and friendly. i also try to follow french politics at least a bit and i see that teh raise of the rightwing is happening there just like here in poland. it's very concerning.

hahaha i admit it is quite surprising to me that you didn't know but it's okay. i'm very into classical music and also chopin is incredibly important to polish culture, very much like mozart to austria. he's also my favourite composer and my mom uses one of his compositions as her ringtone so every day is chopin day in our home 😂

that's interesting and now you got me curious if my name is still popular among children 🤔 because i know a lot of annas around my age but i can't think of any annas who'd be much older or much younger than me 🤔 damn i need to research this! 😂

I love that she's fun because that's the bext way to talk about a supposedly "serious" fashion history, just like how we talk about fashion nowadays (and also she's recently been showing her apartment and it's so pretty I'm jealous)

I'm learning so much thanks to you, I love it!!! I didn't know what philology was and that sounds so interesting, what a great choice of studies! it's funny to think of latin as a foreign language even though it technically is but since it's a dead one it feels funny I don't why lol i don't think polish is a latin language so I'm curious why latin would be the only other class instead of like German or Russian? edit: because I keep taking breaks to go do searches and so now I'm reading the Wikipedia page of the polish language and it says there's not written trace of polish before the 14th because of how much Latin was in use at the time so it makes sense - also I love that the first written sentence found in polish was a man telling his wife to rest while he'd grind for her! you're fine not knowing french, it's too complicated

omg right yeah I knew that jp2 was, of course, the only one capable of overthrowing communism, the world was just waiting for him to overthrow decades of authoritarian regimes 🤦🏻‍♀️(how can someone pretend to defend its country's historical values and identity and yet undermine its history...)

yeah I was reading the numbers and it was heartbreaking... especially since poland was one of the rare countries in europe to actually at some point be a welcoming place for them

I'm not surprised tbh even in france we don't really like parisians lol (and yes I've been living here for a couple fo years now so it's a bit hypocritical but I'm not planning on staying forever so I'll never call myself one) I hope you enjoyed your visit nevertheless it is a great city and although there too many people in the subways everyday (the audacity of people to be outside at the same time as me) I still like it

yeah I don't know a lot about classical music especially the composers and their lives, we don't study music for very long in france and even then they don't really tell us about the composers (which is odd now that I think about it because we tend to talk a lot about other type of artists' lives like painters or poets etc) but I've started listening to more classical music recently but it's thanks to playlist on spotify so I don't really pay attention to the composers... what are your favourite chopin pieces and what's your mother ringtone, I'm curious now!! also there's something I've been curious about lately but no one I know he's into classical music so this is perfect timing : do movies' soundtracks count as classical music (not the songs of course but the more instrumental, orchestral pieces)?

haha now it's your turn to do your searches!! meanwhile I've only met 3 other people with my name in my whole life lol

[apinchofm]

Writing Prompt: Matthew and Baldwin get trapped in a row boat in the middle of the ocean after they were mutineed against. Gallowglass finds them after a week.

Haha! This was fun to write!

Day 1

"Baldwin, get ready to jump!" Matthew yells to his brother, who is in the midst of tearing a soldier apart.

"What?!" Baldwin yells in reply. Matthew indicates to the cliff edge, where a sailboat was. They could easily use it to get back to France.

The two jump, easily diving into the cold waters below.

"Go, go!" Baldwin ordered, Matthew began rowing quickly as he kept a lookout for any more rebels.

God, how they hated England. And Protestants.

"We should reach Calais within a week." Baldwin estimated.

"How do you know?" Matthew asked.

"I sailed this ocean many a time," Baldwin says as he rows.

"Ah, yes. When you invaded." Matthew snarked.

"Father and I helped invade. You always like to leave that out. I don't do anything without him." Baldwin pointed out.

Matthew pulls back a blanket. Wine, some pickled foods. "At least there are some provisions."

Day 2

"I'll keep watch."

"No, I'll keep watch."

Matthew throws his hands up in frustration, "What are we even keeping watch of?! There's nothing out here."

"Still, I would make a better watch than you."

"Would not."

"Would too."

Day 3

"Oh, it always comes back to bloody Eleanor!" Baldwin roared.

"I loved her," Matthew said with a glare.

"She was married. And in case you forget, your actions led to the execution of your dear friend."

"You didn't have to hurt her. Hurt me." Matthew replied, less angry.

"I wasn't trying to hurt either of you. Everything I do protects this family. One day, when you are given more responsibility, you will understand."

"I hope my heart never grows as cold as yours, brother," Matthew said.

Day 4

"Did you mean it when you said you hated Ysabeau?" Matthew asked, at night. The two rested for a while, letting the calm waves rock them.

"Really? You want to bring this up now?"

"It's not as if you can run away. I just wonder." Matthew asked.

"She hates me more than I hate her." Baldwin retorted, "That's all there is to it. Don't worry, I'm never going to actually tear your dear mummy's head off."

Matthew glared at him,

"She coddles you," Baldwin said.

Matthew thinks of how Philippe trained him, tortured him. Ysabeau's cries of protest, "Only because she wants me safe and happy."

"There's no such thing."

Matthew sat up to look at him, "Surely, you don't truly believe that? There must be someone, who wants to mate with you? Love you?"

Baldwin shrugged, "Look at Fernando, Miriam. Why go through all that, if not to live the rest of our existence in pain."

"It's better to love and have lost than to never have loved at all." Matthew replied.

"If this assassin business no longer suits you, you should go into poetry brother."

"If I didn't know any better, that was a compliment."

Day 5

"I don't like the way you speak of women, brother. It's unchristian." Matthew said after his brother regaled him of a tale of how he seduced the princess of Sweden.

"Good thing I'm not Christian."

"You were baptised. I remember, when I was twelve. Father literally put Christophe in your name!"

"A cruel joke on his part," Baldwin smirked.

"You always mock my faith," Matthew complained.

"I was alive when your faith was created. It was stupid then, and it has only gotten stupider."

"As opposed to multiple Gods your people stole from the Greeks?" Matthew retorted. Baldwin spluttered and his younger brother smirked victoriously.

"You keep your faith and I'll keep mine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Matthew shrugged, "It keeps me going. It gives me hope that there is something more to life. That we are all part of his creation, good and bad."

"Well, I see God whenever I sleep with someone or go into battle. Is that not also a part of your God's creation?"

Matthew nods, conceding his point.

Day 6

"I wonder, who looks like who? Do vampires look like humans or do they look like us?" Matthew slurred.

"Who cares?" Baldwin replied. He turns to fully look at his brother. He looks sickly. More sickly than usual.

"Matthieu!" He slapped him, "Wake up, come on. We're almost there." He bit into his wrist, letting it bleed and put it to his brother's mouth.

"Drink, come on." He should've seen this coming. His brother's blood rage wouldn't allow him to be at peace like him.

"Lucius... you fool," Matthew murmured, not drinking. Baldwin pulled his jaw apart with his other hand, forcing the blood down his throat.

"I am not getting blamed for you being an idiot, not when we are almost home. Now drink."

Day 7

They arrive at the French coast, where they see Gallowglass and members of their father's forces waiting. Gallowglass runs into the water, to help drag the boat to shore.

"The two of you look like shit." The Scotsman remarked.

"Gallowglass, get Matthew first. He hasn't fed properly." Baldwin ordered, lifting his brother out of the boat.

"You didn't do this to him, did you?" Gallowglass jokes, lifting his uncle.

●○●○●○●○●○●

When they arrive at the temporary encampment, Philippe and Ysabeau come the day after. Ysabeau goes straight to her boy, kissing and cooing at him, whilst Matthew insists he's alright. Philippe simply nods at Baldwin

"So you didn't kill him," Philippe observed. Baldwin shrugs like he doesn't care but Philippe knows better.

His sons do love each other. No matter how well they hide it.

"He's still an idiot."

"Arsehole." Matthew retorts but the two smile at each other.

[restorerjourney]

Week 4 of 7

July 26, 2021

This week we felt the Lord saying to “tie our shoelace” while we rest and to run when we restart ministry. So as we rested until Tuesday, it was good because we didn’t have to face the crazy heat but for me it was still difficult. I felt trapped because we were restricted to stay in the base which is a 6 story hotel and during the day, if I wanted to be in an a/c area I would have to go to a public place with no privacy. I can’t go out to get a latte or snack out at the beach because the rule for outreach was that we only get one free day. It might sound ridiculous to some people which the old me would have agreed and complained about, but I believe God revealed how much I depended on my free and control to satiate moments of weakness and tiredness with material things and freedom and not with God. Learning to submit to authorities and surrendering that God’s way is better was another conviction that I had. I often found myself thinking my ways are better than others and God’s which can easily lead me into a place of complaining and lack of gratitude. We are in such spiritual warfare here that I honestly feel that I have no time or space to even allow the enemy to take a grasp of this, so I gave it up to the Lord. Monday and Tuesday although we were resting, we were also preparing for street evangelism which God highlighted as we prayed to focus on children’s ministry. Also almost every night we try to debrief/time of intercession to keep our team’s unity healthy. I’ve been seeing one by one as each of my team members struggle and experience breakthrough as they share and we do intercession prayer. It’s hard work I’m not going to lie and sometimes I don’t feel like doing this, but every time it’s been liberating. It brings us so much joy as we see our team member experience breakthrough the enemy’s strongholds. I can see how God is moving in our team members in such a different and powerful way that could only come from outreach. During our lecture phase in Kona, there is a sense of comfort but here in outreach when a lot of the things that we use to pacify or distract us from these strongholds are no longer accessible..these strongholds become so much more noticeable because we get more easily irritable and sensitive lol. 

Wednesday was our first day of actually going out and doing ministry and man the enemy attacked HARD. Our base has limited rooms and a room that our team found to do intercessory prayer before going out, the a/c all of sudden stopped working..O,.M..G...that humidity and heat was horrible but we tried our best to not focus on the sweat that we literally trickling from our head to toes and prepare our hearts for ministry. Today was going to bible ministry and as we were in a van, the a/c was not working well too! And what was worse, a car hit behind us and we had to stop and wait an hour in this horrible heat and humidity. We all never this amount of heat and humidity before and our energy was quickly being drained as we were stuck in a hot van. Then the Lord spoke to me so powerfully. During our time of intercession that morning, one of our team members shared us the bible story of the samaritan woman at the well and how Jesus led his disciples out of the way to go through Samaria because He had a plan to encounter this woman despite the dreaded heat. I felt convicted that the immense heat and humidity was just a taste of what Jesus did for me, I was that Samaritan woman. It wasn’t an easy trial but it did give me joy to go through the bible distribution ministry. I believe the enemy attacked us so hard that day because we were distributing bibles to a more wealthy closed off neighborhood that we had access only for that day. The rest of the week we found out we were only able to do bible distributions because of the severity of COVID cases here in Mazatlan. Out of all of Mexico, Mazatlan is a category red zone because it is a pretty touristy spot with lax rules. I am seeing that despite us not able to directly preach the gospel, God opened my eyes to see that through bible distributions, we were directly given them the word of God and that there have been people who have been saved just by reading it...it made me realize God was working through us despite what we think ministry should look like. 

Thursday morning we found out we were supposed to go to Stone Island ministry but all of a sudden it got canceled because of the pandemic. The leader, Eric, felt led to use this time to intercede and pray for the people of Stone Island. It was so difficult...because I felt the drive of the prayer was slowly deflating as we had to wait for the translators to translate it from Spanish to English to Korean. It was ROUGH. Then we felt we had breakthrough by the Holy Spirit as we kept pressing in and one of the people felt led to pray for the leader, Eric. The Holy Spirit broke out and Eric was shaking uncontrollable while standing and was just in tears. Being led by the Holy Spirit, we spoke life and declared God’s truth over Eric and led Eric to break off any agreements and lies of the enemy. Eric was forever changed and God spoke again so clearly that He cares about His leaders...that He is not a God that focuses on us working to death in ministry..He cares about the precious and sacrificial hearts of the leaders. This is the loving and gracious heart of our loving Father. 

Friday we had an amazing time of worship where we sang a song in 4 different languages, Spanish, English, Korean, and Portuguese! It was just so cool to see that our God is beyond our church bubble and that He speaks to all nations! Another highlight of this day was that my leaders allowed me to have dinner with one girl that I befriended here at the base. Her name is Flo and she is from London. We just instantly connected and it was so nice to have the freedom to walk on the beach and grab ice cream with her. We shared our stories and prayed for each other. It was amazing to experience how God spoke through each of us through each other in things that we didn’t even shared about. 

Saturday we went to the mall for the first time! The mall was surprisingly strict and they didn't allow any kids and every store would enforce temperature checks, masks, and putting on hand sanitizer. I think I let out my pent up frustration through shopping and had to repent and return a lot of the things I didn’t need haha. Overall it was just nice to walk around. I was able to catch up with some friends back at home who wished me an early bday which I am so thankful for. I’m so thankful to have friends who make the effort to walk with me through this journey despite the distance. 

Sunday is my birthday hehe! The big 33. The day Jesus died on the cross. It makes me look back at my life and wonder what I did...did it glorify God?...what did I prioritize?..in the end I just was so thankful for the past year how God has intervened in my life so powerfully. I am a believer that God will move in your life, even disrupt it... to save you from a path of destruction and to bring you to His freedom and life. Freedom and restoration is my inheritance. It’s the best gift from God that I could ask for. Now do I forget this everyday? YES! But our weakness makes us constantly remember that we need Jesus. I got to talk to my parents today, valentine sang me song...i think....I got to eat korean food twice by two unexpected people ( Imjae, and an IK pastor)...I got prayed over by IK ( International Korean) DTS students...we also got to go to one the restaurants that I’ve been wanting to go to, which is called “El Faro”. There you get this amazing view of the lighthouse which allows you to see this amazing view of the city. I felt so lucky. We ate amazing food, I got to have some of the friends I made at Stone Island join, they bought my favorite cake, and we took a lot of pictures. My team members gave me bracelets and earrings from Mazatlan and compiled video recordings to make a beautiful video card for me. It was so sweet (because for some of yall know.. I am a girl who is a sucker for words of affirmations). 

Right now it’s way past my bedtime and I’m sitting outside not to wake up my roomies but I want to use this time to update you guys and thank you for reading this.

Prayer requests

1) Team unity: One of our team member is really struggling and being spiritually attacked. Literally we have come so far in unity that we all felt it days before he told us. Please pray that he would choose Jesus and that God’s will be done with him and our team because His ways are better. Please pray for spiritual protection over our team, especially our leaders.

2) Street Evangelism: There has been a lot of restriction with the ministries here except street evangelism and bible distribution. Please pray that God’s will and promises would be revealed as we walk in faith to where God leads us, even if it doesn’t make sense.

Gracias! Buenos Noches mi amigos and amigas!

-Alicia