#an open door no one can shut

[lightfromthelighthouse]

Good Morning!☀

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Revelation 3:8

I know thy works. Such a wonderful reminder from our savior. Others may not know us or our works, though they may think they do. We may feel unoticed and unappreciated.  Others around us may get the praise while no one seems to know that we are there. Rest assured that Jesus knows who you are, and he knows your work. He knows what it costs you to do that work. He knows what you had to overcome to do that work.

He even knows the times you felt like giving up, but you did not, thought you could not go on but did, kept believing when others doubted. He knows of the doors that were closed in your face, just as you thought you had reached the finish line. Now he says to you, "Behold, look I set before you an open door."

Not only is the door open to you at last, it is a door that no one can shut!  No one can stop  you from going through. No one can shut it in your face.

See, he sees your works. He hears your cry. He will honor your obedience. Behold, he will set before you, a visible, undeniable, unshutable open door!

[stagefoureddiediaz]

The Helena diaz of it all has me fascinated. I’ve said for a long while that Eddie’s real issues are his mommy issues and this episode just cemented for me that we’re gonna explore that and deal with it.

Because it’s Helena who forced Eddie to grow up to fast - because her husband wasn’t around much - so she pushed Eddie into de facto parent and husband role ls - selfishly filling her needs and ignoring the damage it was doing to her son (it is a form of abuse in my book).

Eddie then had the audacity to fall in love with and marry Shannon and get her pregnant. It’s why Helena was always so off with Shannon - she was punishing her. She is also punishing Eddie for all of this and his refusal to return to El Paso only cemented further her bitterness and resentment.

Now she does have Ramon back she doesn’t need Eddie any longer to fill that role so she is still punishing him and part of that is tied into her glee over now getting to parent Christopher - something she has always been intent on doing the doppelgänger just gave her the opportunity- as well as allowing her to further punish her son and his love of Shannon.

Her barbed comments about building a pool were all about showing what she can provide Christopher - how she is parenting him better than Eddie - it’s part of her mind games - making Eddie feel like more of a failure as a parent to his son.

The reality of course is that the reverse is true - Helena’s parenting is all superficial, flash and showy - it isn’t the hard day to day parenting when things get tough and you have to be the bad guy. While Eddie has made mistakes, there is nothing superficial, flash, or showy about his parenting. It’s why bucks comments about Eddie being a great dad are so important.

Eddie feel like a failure right now and that he is entirely to blame for everything. But in reality, while he does bear a bit of the responsibility, the truth of the matter is that he needs to learn and deal with the fact that all of it actually stems from Helena and her abuse of her young son - Shannon never stood a chance just like Eddie never has.

[carefulfears]

mulder not owning a bed is such a minor character detail that’s encompassing of practically the entirety of who he is, which is so crazy honestly

[dellamortte]

completed the ‘inner demons’ quest for lucanis again and i genuinely started crying halfway through……. i love his quests so much, but this one in particular is such an important part of his story and a huge part of his healing journey and we get to see into his inner thoughts and how lowly he thinks of himself but rook says such lovely and supporting things about him it just makes me so emotional ohhhhh i love him so mcuhhh

[planetsallalign]

I woke up at 4am with a migraine that felt like an ice pick was being jammed from one temple through the other. I stumbled my way downstairs and downed a couple ibuprofen and some water then went and laid back down. Unfortunately this migraine decided it was going to be one of those that the pain gets so intense you throw up. And I threw up the only pain relief medicine that was in the house. After throwing up the pain wasn’t as blinding, but Maeve decided if I was up she should be eating. So after 2.5 hours of her in my face purring/licking/digging at the blankets and me pushing her off the bed I gave up. Got up and fed them and then remembered Walmart opens at 6am. Threw clothes on, luckily the sun isn’t out today because the migraine was still killing me. Grabbed some excederin migraine and a bunch of other random things. Now I’m back home straight into bed. I should have made coffee but I don’t have it in me at the moment. I did buy myself a treat for later. Can’t wait to have this once everything is nice and cold in the fridge.

[darkartistyt]

how do i cast a spell that makes whoever is sending my friend hate fall into a ravine and die

[blujayonthewing]

idri's thieves' tools were inherited from her mentor; they're big and clunky in her hands and she'd maybe be better served with finer, lighter tools, but these are the ones she learned with, and she wouldn't give them up for anything

elyss's are a bespoke matched steel toolset made for her by her blacksmith friend and the party's former fighter; she asked him to make them, but she treasures them like a gift nonetheless

melliwyk's are personally handcrafted and bundled together into one fold-out multitool doohickey, stylized as an insect with various tools for its antennae and legs

felix's are a hodgepodge, obviously accumulated and/or replaced one piece at a time across a wide timespan and from completely different sources, bundled together with his other hand tools in a worn but well-tended leather case embossed with a raccoon motif

[shy-forceghost]

Give me Jillian Salvius helping Beatrice navigate her grief.

All the others tell Beatrice that her pain would pass, and that she'll find comfort in God, that she has to go and live her life because "that's what Ava would have wanted". But then Jillian approaches her and goes "I know how you feel like you have to move on. And that you have this idea that everything goes by the plan of God and I respect it. But fuck that. You are allowed to feel angry. You are allowed to be sad. And I understand not wanting to accept she's gone and wanting so desperately to find a way to bring her back. "

I'm sure I could've written that better but take it as an opportunity to write your own version haha

And no one like Jillian to understand what is like to obsess over the idea of bringing someone back from the Arq. Jillian, who burned herself (physically and mentally) on her intends to cross just she could see her son again. Jillian, who understands no amount of physical pain would equal the idea of losing that person. So if Beatrice wants to spend days sat in front of the Arq, refusing to let it leave her sight for even a second, Jillian brings her food and a blanket, because she knows no amount of convincing could make her leave so at least she'll make sure she's being cared of. Because Jillian was in that position before except there was no one to make sure she was eating or sleeping.

Jillian understands if what Beatrice needs to heal is to research about the Arq, if building theories on how or when Ava could come back is the thing that brings her peace. So she allows her to stay, she accompanies her the best she can. If we look closely, Jillian and Beatrice are actually very similar; a clear path of actions gives them more comfort that well-intended prayers and kind words. Beatrice finds herself with someone who doesn't dismiss her need for clarity, who doesn't force her to grieve in the same way everyone else does.

also:

Give me Jillian realizing Beatrice has never had a positive mother figure in her life before; adopting her under her wing and giving her all the motherly love she'd given to Michael, not in a "you are substituting the son I lost" way but more in a "you all taught me that I'm capable of giving so much love". Jillian finding purpose again helping not only Beatrice, but the found family she got.

Jillian couldn't save her son, but she can help this girl save the love of her life.

[ouroboobos]

i am 100% an advocate of kids being freely noisy and excited when they play because i wasnt allowed to as a kid and it was very stressful. however

[saenora]

I wanna hear about you and sae!! Tell me all about the buildup of your guys feelings for each other!! I wanna know how you two met and who fell for the other first, all the deets!! 🩵🩵

amiraa when i tell you i jumpedd over teh topp with this ask will you belivee mee.. i am so delulu and hopeless when it comes to him :((( <33 i apologise for late answering i was busy giddying!!

aah okayy so we're also a childhood bffs to lovers kinda tropee eheh .. i had a kid crush on him... innocent crush kinda.. which he very well knew all this time bec as kids we shared our first kiss to each other... it was just smoll tiny pecks only bec i told him i dont want to regret my first kiss like what if i hate right? so we decided to give it to each other bec we're always gonna be frends. lol little asses. but then he goes to spain and well after writing him regularly for a year he never writees back so i also started writing less and less each year till its down to no letters. so when he comes back he has a lot ot make up for , but since we were kids i dont hold it to heart bec now were so 'mature' lol... he tries to be a better friend?!... i mean he is much quieter and doesnt really have opnions when it comes to stuff but he is involved in my life it just happens over time.. and even though we had a wall between us now it kinda comes crashing down when i had this super bad week and he comes bearing food :(( (i actually closed the door on him and thought he left but only returned w food) we kinda get feely touchy and its a little blur between how we started kissing and making out... him taking the lead,,, he said a lot before we started kissing... things he doesnt usally say out loud. we decided to forget what happened but the next time we were alone, we couldnt help but get handsy and even tho i was like woah wait bro... we make it clear its purely physical... *proceeds to cuddle, stay over and kiss playonically* brrr after that its just like when we were kids sneaking out but this time its for sex. though we keep it a secret but yk feelings kinda resurface for me and i knowww he doesnt feel that way because for one its sae and two he jusy never seemed the type to fall in love and stuff rite.. he scoffed at the thoight of it. so well i just stopped liking him like that... but little did i know he started falling 🥹

[lightfromthelighthouse]

Good Morning!☀

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Revelation 3:8

We may feel that no one appreciates what we do or even noticed that we have done it. We sometimes feel that we are taken for granted, with little or no thanks coming our way. Passed over for promotions, pushed aside, we feel like we are going nowhere fast.

Rest assured, child of God, God sees your work. He knows better than you what is going on behind the scenes. Your labors have not gone unnoticed by him. He is preparing to open doors of opportunity for you that no none can shut or keep you from it.

Stay the course. Hold fast. Do not despair. Rest if you must, but do not quit! God has not forgotten you!

[crabrangoonluvr]

yesterday i crushed my middle three fingers on my right hand w a 40lb window (long story, was emergency) and today, because primarily using my nondominant hand isn’t inconvenient enough, i got a paper cut on the tip of my left pointer. 4/10 fingers not at peak function. i cannot afford to lose any more

[rawliverandgoronspice]

https://www.tumblr.com/rawliverandgoronspice/718014251940315136?source=share

Ill be honest and say i think the removal of sheikah related lore was not for internal weird racist reasons and instead simply for game design reasons, why the zonai tech is so similar in concept and execution. totk is a sequel and also a redux, they needed technology for mechanics and a reason for the world to change and introducing an entirely new race of characters would be the perfect scapegoat. it feels like it ignores botw almost entirely because 1) new players 2) to be a finished version of botw more mechanics and more content. the narrative was barely a thing in this game because what mattered the most was design and gameplay above all else. i don't think caring about gameplay first particularly bad, it's a fun game they will probably revolutionize the industry once again, and that nintendo doesn't care about lore at all but it really wasn't the priory here at least that's how I felt when i play the game. i adore the overworld and the npcs but the main quest (tears) story itself is very stale. best praise i can give to it is character design and zeldas sacrifice/how they handled her and link that's literally it (vague because i don't know if you've gotten there yet, it's after the completion of the tears quest and getting the master sword). zelda lore at this point is a sandbox and us fans will do what we want with it. sorry for the ramble!

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So I sort of agree, especially on the first part. I absolutely believe that yes, sheikah were not sidelined for malicious reasons, and the ease of just having one super-powerful ultratech culture you rely on was cleaner than having the old relics hanging around. I actually think it's the cleanest choice to make (one that would have been *even cleaner* would have been to write a story and think of a world that reinvent its landmarks based on that new ideas of archeology and the past bursting back into the present, which is theme that coats the game but doesn't ever permeates it). I still think any acknowledgement that it used to exist would have enriched a world that has, ultimately, very little new things to teach us about itself (I have scoured the Depths a bunch, and it's a combat/exploration hotspot, and that's cool but also what a missed opportunity to try some proper FromSoftware-style worldbuilding down there!). I don't think this would have confused new players; if anything it could have hinted at more and gave the new players any reason to pick up Breath of the Wild? But: the world is a playground! That's cool. I think it could be a much more meaningful playground, that's all. There's a category of players who kind of need some light modicum of internal consistency to be invested in exploration, and will just get bored otherwise (I have seen a bunch of people making this exact remark, and honestly... yeah, there are areas in the game I'm not interested in exploring just because I know it's a consequenceless challenge in the end --I'm just not the kind of player that is hooked by a game loop on its own merit, I need to understand what I'm building towards or I lose interest. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't have changed anything to a regular TotK's enjoyer experience, but would have greatly enriched the experience of players like me)

Still think that making Sheikahs a subset of hylians was a very weird choice. Not an outright malicious one, but one that does build up with all of the other weird choices and make this Hyrule feel like a revisionist Hyrule; and one they simply... didn't have to make.

(I'll maybe do another post about this, but there are so many things in this game that would be very confusing to a new player either way also --but that's kind of going into another territory)

I disagree about one general point, however, and I may get offtrack here a little but I guess you gave me an excuse to rant a little about how narrative design is perceived by the general public and what has been frustrating to witness in regards to the conversation surrounding this game from my perspective.

Mainly, this notion that "they had no other choice" because they chose to prioritize gameplay. I'm going to overshare a little (again sorry) but I work in gamedev in real life; I am actually a narrative designer that did quest design and game writing on a couple of games, some of them that also qualify as AAA open worlds. I think it's completely fair to see this game from a player perspective as a series of compromises struck to privilege the aspect of the game they were the most confident with --however, it is literally my real life job to walk through situations that can be extremely similar to this one and find solutions that weave narration with fun experiences game and level designers managed to put together. It doesn't mean that story has to swallow gameplay: if anything, narrative designers always try to privilege mechanics first and treat them as narrative devices in their own right before whipping out the actual cutscenes and the constant writing (and this game was somehow under AND overwritten in my opinion, especially in English --so I don't think it even solved this aspect?). This is not at all aimed at you in particular but at the internet at large; it ends up being quite grating to see assumptions being made about what can and can't be done in non-linear narrative as like, a fact of the universe instead of it being a specific field that deserve research and investment just like any other graphical advancement or intricate interactive feature, and explain away poor design decisions by the strange notion that they had no other choice, as if Nintendo studios aren't comprised of a bunch of humans who made active and passive choices. Like, I worked on very similar issues. There are solutions to how you feed information to the player in a non-linear way. There are ways to maximize impact and depth, even when you let the player guide the story. Again: it's fine if it doesn't bug you or a lot of people --but there are flaws. It happens. It's gamedev. It's a miracle any game is made at all --and this one is its own sort of miracle. What strikes me as strange is that I never see that level of excuses made for companies that do not cultivate that same image of being an unapproachable, united workforce, that get instead torn to shreds at the slightest sideway brush --but that's another subject maybe (maybe).

Narrative design is this thing that, when it's not there, people don't realize it could be; and when it is there, people take it for granted unless it's very visibly front and center like in Edith Finch or Disco Elysium or any other number of indie games (generally it's the indies who do all the research and development and take all of the risks on that front --like seriously I worked in narrative-driven studios, known for their narrative games, where 2/3 of the game designers couldn't care less about emotional impact beyond satisfaction/frustration/boredom, and it's infinitely frustrating (heh) to have your specialization considered optional fluff when you know how far thematic cohesion can push a game when handled well ANYWAY anyway). So: I was always going to care about the way they handled narrative, because it's how I'm wired, what I research, and I also played this game in part because I was very curious on how they'd push their explorations of BotW's possibilities, which were very interesting if a little limited. Needless to say, this was a let down. And I think it's not unreasonable to have higher narrative standards than this.

I do want to autocorrect myself on a statement I put out before, however, that being the notion that not enough research was put into narrative. I think I want to push forward a new theory that sounds much more plausible to me (again based on nothing but speculation and weird déjà-vu vibes, which is perhaps why I care that much :) :) ), and that being: a lot of research was done, and then cut. It seems very plausible the narrative used to be much more ambitious than this --and then, for one reason or another, somebody panicked, or the thing got out of hand, or they couldn't get it to work exactly right, and everything was downscoped pretty late into production. Six years of development is a long time, and I don't think anyone with the standards of a Nintendo employee would have been happy with handling the storyline the way it was. It kinda feels like a rushed cobble-up of loose threads after a massive downsizing, leaving plot holes and suboptimal emotional experience. Again: just a theory, no proof at all. But I absolutely wouldn't be surprised, and it would explain a lot of things.

[king-sassy08]

Bro. Does anyone else feel hopeless

[haarute]

had a bad bout with mother ✌️

[ramontism]