#Faith-Based Content

[artofthechristianninja]

Mastering Prayer in Content Creation: Passion & Pivotal Moments (Series Introduction)

What Do You Do Before Creating Content?  Imagine you’re getting ready to start a big creator project – new video, art portfolio, new podcast concept, stream-a-thon. You’ve got your equipment set up, software open, references lined up, and a carefully curated playlist in the background to keep your energy up. You even posted on social media to let your followers know something amazing is coming.…

[erinwantstowrite]

How do you feel about people binding personal copies of your works?

I have been reading Lof, and you are such an amazing writer that it blows my mind. When Lof is eventually finished, I would absolutely love to (with permission and loads of credit to you) bind a hardcover copy for personal reading . Reading through this fic has been such an emotional journey and I would love to be able to hold a physical copy. I was also thinking about incorporating some of the beautiful art you've done of the story into the pages of a book, that way the art was next to the scene you were reading. Again to be super clear this would just be something I'd make for myself to read, no monetary gain and tons of credit to you for the story and art!

Completely understandable whatever your answer may be, just wanted to ask your thoughts and let you know how much I've loved your writing!!

yeah that's perfectly fine!! i'm so glad you love LoF enough to do something as sweet as this, that's so amazing to me!! i'm fine with people binding their own copies for personal use- as long as no one is trying to use websites that could get LoF into trouble (i.e. trying to sell it, or paying for it, etc) then it's all cool with me!

[onemomentinhispresence]

[reasonsforhope]

Heads up/warning that I'm going to start posting articles related to the Israel-Palestine War

I've worked really, really hard to keep my blog about positive news only, and that's going to continue - these posts will be only about good news related to the war.

Of which there really, really isn't much, so I don't know that there will be a lot of posts, but I will be posting articles about humanitarian aid reaching those who need it and actions that will prevent more lives from being taken.

I know that, no matter my position on the war, this is something that would be very controversial and make a lot of people upset, so I wanted to be explicit about my position on this - and my posting policy, which is not the same thing. I also wanted to give people a heads up because I know the war in general is really, really triggering for a lot of people right now, for a lot of different reasons. I'll be tagging all relevant posts, so if screening those out is something that you need to do, you can.

I have worked very hard to make this blog a space with only good news because I know how much it can matter to have just one place, if nowhere else, that you can count on to not give you emotional whiplash with horrible news. To know you have one place you can go where you are guaranteed not to see bad news that will send you into a tailspin. That's why I've had a policy of not including signal boosts or PSAs about tragedies, no matter what they are, on this blog. (I do post about some of that stuff, including the Israel-Palestine War, on my main blog, though. I consider this blog to be me trying to run a public service, basically, and so have specific policies for myself around that, including my editorial and fact-checking standards.)

I'm going to be honest, I was really, really hoping the war would end after a couple of weeks, which has historically not been uncommon for wars with/involving Israel.

But that's clearly not happening, and I can't keep not acknowledging what's happening on here, so, this post.

With that, I imagine people probably want to know my actual stance on the war, since that's what I'll be posting in accordance with.

So, here's the official stance of this blog:

Every time a civilian is killed, it is a tragedy; Every time a child is killed, it is a tragedy, no matter their nationality. I condemn all antisemitism and all Islamophobia.

I support all calls for a ceasefire, as well as demands that Israel immediately stop its repeated bombing of hospitals, ambulances, shelters (including UN shelters), and refugee camps.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of hospitals is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of shelters or refugee camps is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of ambulances is justified.

There is no situation in which the killing of children is justified. Yet more children have now been killed in Gaza than in all global conflict zones combined in each year since 2019.

There is no situation in which cutting off an entire country and/or territory's supply of food and water is justified.

Yes, this applies to every group involved in the war, including countries supplying either side, and any countries or non-state organizations who may yet join the fighting.

The initial Hamas attack on Israel was a tragedy. The continued Israeli bombardment and invasion of Palestine is also a tragedy.

Most of the things I post will be about aid reaching Palestinians or news about tangible, confirmed progress toward a ceasefire. I probably will not be posting good news posts about aid reaching Israel, unless it's explicitly and only humanitarian and/or barring drastic unforeseen changes in circumstance. This is because as of yesterday, November 7, the Palestinian death toll is over 10,000 to Israel's roughly 1,400 (only about 200 of whom have been killed in the past month, starting on October 8, aka outside of the initial attack by Hamas). At least 3,195 children have died in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel.

The Palestinian death toll is nearly 8 times the Israeli death toll. The number of children killed is 110 times higher in Palestine than Israel. (Source for death toll here, ratios via calculator.) Every single one of those deaths is a tragedy - and there have been far, far too many tragedies this past month.

(On a related note, Israel stands very, very little chance of actually eliminating Hamas with this war. The US has attempted this same strategy and failed many times: the US failed to eliminate the communist/North Korean regime in the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing 70 years later; failed to eliminate the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War; failed to eliminate numerous groups of Iraqi insurgents in the Iraq War, which triggered Iraq's civil war; and failed to eliminate the Taliban in the Afghanistan War, even though that war lasted for literally 20 years. Afghanistan is once again under total Taliban control.)

The last thing we need is another 20 year war. The last thing we need is more civilian deaths. Bombing civilian settlements, as well as hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps are war crimes under international law, meaning that both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes.

It's time for the war crimes to stop.

Humanitarian aid reaching civilians is good news, and I will be posting accordingly.

Ceasefire now.

[okultraoldmanyaoi]

Is this anything

[wakinguponsaturday]

I'm gonna be a hater for a moment and say that I wish they hadn't made it so a "good" PC could recruit Minthara by knocking her out. Having recruited her on my "evil" playthrough, she's one of the best written characters in the game (when her dialogues actually trigger) and her VA's performance is fantastic. I'm not alone in having said the evil route is pretty bare bones relative to the good choices, and Minthara was one of the few things it had going for it. And I do want more people to experience that!

But you can do that by just. Thinking up an evil PC. Dark Urge is already pretty well set up for this if you're not great at conceptualizing original characters. The evil route is again already gutted, and this just makes the gameplay even more unbalanced. Your actions should have consequences - hence why raiding the grove has Karlach and Wyll leave your party. That's great, I love that moral fortitude on their part! And similarly, siding against Minthara locked you out of having her as a companion.

I know fully that this does not matter, and that other people are approaching the game differently. Hell, I'll probably knock Minthara out to recruit her on my next playthrough because I've adored having her around. (Though how I'll manage to gain approval with her as a goody two shoes, I don't know. The worldviews are pretty diametrically opposed.) But I think that it was a reasonable and well thought out decision to keep Minthara locked to that one choice at the onset. It didn't need to change. And playing as a morally grey or evil character, in a game whose moral greyness was already sparse, suffers more for it.

[artofthechristianninja]

10 Steps to Uncover God’s Purpose for Your Content

Are you feeling called to content creation but struggling to understand why? Do you wonder what purpose God has for you in the digital space? Here are ten practical steps to help you align your content with God’s calling. I’ve also included some example answers from my own exploration of this exercise. 1. Burdens What needs within your community or the broader world tug most at your heart? Are…

[ashtonisvibing]

i've found my first analog series that i'm very normal about i promise

angel hare has infected my brain it makes me go squish

i wanna draw fanart so bad [shakes my ipad]

[rioblitzle]

yeah i feel like the term "video essay" has become generalised to mean any sort of longform review or discussion youtube content, without a need for a solid thesis or baseline level of analysis at the structural core of the video (having seen the term applied to media reviews, icebergs, tier lists, series recaps etc), and that misclassification can be pretty unfortunate, but i don't think that necessarily means that those video not-quite-essays have an inherent lack of value or passion in them yknow?

[retconomics]

who is this white haired twink you're on about recently

live picture of me telling you from the bottom of my heart not to worry about it

[llycaons]

oh my god the untamed is in the bestadaptationbracket. cue every single possible argument about adaptations

[onemomentinhispresence]

[callmemrscarter]

Not only have I yet again been successful in *not* burning down our kitchen,

but I have perfected a favorite meal of my husband’s whilst sharing a few ways that I’ve been getting closer to Christ 🤍

In between all of the stuff life has been throwing at my family, a lot of things have had to get pushed back as far as how and when they’ll get done.

But, we shall overcome! Even if that means finally getting to upload a video right before a crazy storm hits AND in the midst of a date night 😅🤣

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

[artofthechristianninja]

Uncovering the Purpose of Your Content as a Christian Creator

As Christian content creators, it’s easy to get lost in the pursuit of likes, shares, and followers. But our true calling goes beyond the metrics. We’re not just here to entertain; we’re here to serve a higher purpose. Our content is meant to reflect His priorities, showcase the unique gifts He’s given us, and make a lasting, eternal impact. How can we ensure that our content reflects the deeper…