#and i just dont know every place in the city

[nomynameisnothing]

Reminds me of something I was thinking about earlier today, pretty perfectly actually.

I went to an all girls Christian camp every summer for 2 weeks to ride horses and go backpacking when I was in my teen years.

I was a streadfast ultracynical atheist then. I felt I had a duty to disprove everything about religion. I thought believing in god meant you were stupid.

I always did my best to poke holes in all the bible stories and find a way to prove that they didnt make any sense.

My cabin leader was the sweetest person I've ever met, so friendly and wholesomely christian.

I said to her, "How can you believe in something when there are so many holes... so many things that dont add up?"

She said that she imagined her faith like a cabin. Like a home, somewhere she felt protected with a roof over her head to ride out the bad weather. She said, "Yes, there are cracks and holes in the walls but thats where the light shines through. Thats faith."

The knowing that comes from deeply understanding your place in the universe and in this life; from understanding the laws that govern the soul and trusting in your connection with spirit to guide and protect you every step of the way.

I understand that now

Not because its comforting or convenient, but because I see the evidence. I get it now.

Its faith in laws in the universe in uncharted dimensions of phsyics that have yet to be defined.

I believe this is now the time when we can make that leap and bridge the gap between quantum physics and spirituality. They are not so different. One is just unproven because it is the study of phenomena that can't be empirically tested. The laws of nature still prevail.

As above, so below.

What does Acts 19:19 mean?

The people of Ephesus are learning what real supernatural power looks like. Like all pagans in the Roman Empire, they have household idols and city gods; they are known for the temple of Artemis. They also have a culture of witchcraft, which attracts demons, which attract Jewish exorcists.

This is the state of the city when Paul arrives. In response to all the magic, the Holy Spirit empowers him to heal and expel demons in Jesus' name. Jewish magicians hear him and start using "Jesus" as a kind of magical word. When seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva enter a house and try to use Jesus' name to expel a powerful demon, the evil spirit attacks them, and the would-be exorcists run out in the street (Acts 19:11–16).

The whole city hears, and many of the practitioners of witchcraft immediately respond. Likely, they realize their spells and incantations don't really control demons, but Paul does. First, they reveal their practices, thus voiding them of power (Acts 19:17–18). Now, they burn their spells. "Ephesian writing," or Ephesia grammata, is a reference to written-down spells, some rolled into small containers and worn as amulets. If the pieces of silver are silver drachma, the value would be something close to 150 years' worth of a laborer's wages.

It's not uncommon for an unbeliever to see the power of Jesus and want to use it to gain influence and money. Simon the Magician did so in Samaria (Acts 8:9–24). But sometimes people are just waiting for rescue. When criticized for eating with unsavory people, Jesus said He came for the sick who need a doctor (Mark 2:15–17). When Zacchaeus heard Jesus, he gratefully accepted Jesus' message and His love and resolved to return what he had cheated (Luke 19:1–10). As Paul works, the demons flee left and right (Acts 19:12). Maybe the magicians just need someone to rescue them.

by Remedios Varo

[riverfigs]

ended up at a poetry reading alone (my friend had to cancel last minute) and I am terrified and excited! I dont think I'll ever get over this, but idk if I want to

[ghost-of-kreacher]

really wanna write a fic where dante is a really good singer and just kinda sings to themselves in their office not realizing that they havent turned off the 'broadcast voice to all sinners' thing at the clock so the sinners just enjoy whats basically a free concert

[dykedvonte]

The Khans - My Introspective

I don't like the Military and I don't support a lot of the actions the NCR does to the Mojave in New Vegas but in terms of the Khans I feel like the fandom infantilizes or diminishes the fact that they are or at least one of the most violent raider groups in the Mojave.

What happened at Bitter Springs was a tragedy, innocent lives were lost and the fact that the NCR swept it under the rug and continued to hunt down Khans that are truly trying to back down and resettle is horrendous, but there is a history to the NCR's aggression towards them.

The Khans first appear in Fallout 1, the main faction of raiders in the game besides the mentioned Vipers (who don't actually appear if I remember correctly). They came from Vault 15 along with the members that would form rival groups; The Vipers, The Jackals, and Shady Sands. They are a very large and foreboding raiding party, known for burning towns and encampments they attack and taking survivors as their slaves or slaves to sell. They are a big reason why the Jackals and Vipers are actually so small in New Vegas, they wiped them out.

Their main targets where Shady Sands and Junker town, the former of the two would be what became The New California Republic. This explains a big part of their animosity towards the Khans, only furthered by the fact the Khans kidnapped Tandi as a young girl, the girl that would go to offically found the NCR out of Shady Sands. When the dweller saved her and killed much of the Khans, this allowed the NCR to develop into what it currently is as they no longer needed to focus on fighting off constant raids.

When the Khans became the New Khans in Fallout 2, they barely resembled the Khans as they were led by Darion, Garl Death-Hand's son (former leader of the Khans). They were smaller and refortified vault 15, still planning to take down the NCR (at this time nowhere near as imperialist as they are in FNV) as mostly a revenge/power ploy. They manipulate The Squat, a group of y'know squatters, that lived in the upper levels, promising and lying about repairing the vault and offering them ransacked caravan resources if they kept the NCR away. Being their only life line The Squat had no choice. Still the chosen one got rid of them and they left New California for the untapped Mojave.

The Great Khans, the most current iteration, continued in the path as the original Khans, regrouping and gaining information from the Followers who hoped they'd use their new medical knowledge to heal themselves. They gained more members and a substantial part of Vegas territory before they were run out by the three families. They were pushed to Bitter Springs where they first and foremost continued to pick off and attack NCR settlements, most of which consisted of caravans, towns, and camps as they saw them as easy like in their old days. It was the killing of four influential Republic members (non-military) that brought on Bitter Springs.

Bitter Springs was the result of years of hatred and animosity and likely the goal to send a final message to the Khans. It does not excuse the fact that innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered with few survivors. It does not excuse the fact that the NCR has yet to make amends for this and continues to try and persecute the Khans even in moments of surrender.

This post is not to defend what happened but to give a quick rundown of the Khan's history and their history with the NCR. It's to remind people that the NCR is not just their military power but an actual group/settlement of people that were also attacked indiscriminately by the Khans. It's to point out that the Khans were not a band of indigenous people (no matter the comparisons) driven from their homes but raiders who fed into the brutal cultures of the west coast wasteland and were in turn treated to the same things.

My frustration comes from the fact that FNV has so many comparisons to indigenous struggles but the groups it chooses are not comparable at all. Their oppression hinges on not being familiar with their past, which explains why they have the reputation they do in canon. The "tribes" are often not even groups of minorities or have goals/desires out of acquisitions of power and I feel like it is important to both acknowledge that this is bad indigenous rep because it is not supposed to be. It is supposed to be a comparison of the in-game groups and how they all do the same things and justify it in their own fucked up ways, some better at it than others.

FNV of all the Fallout games (in light of it being heavily Western based) distastefully uses indigenous imagery and theming for groups that are sad mimicries of American indigenous cultures at best and outright offensive at worst.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[perilegs]

being homesick and changing as a person so much the place you grew up in isn't your home anymore is such a core part of ati and upon further inspection i think i was projecting a little

[uuuvas]

Like, what do normal people do when their bank is in the negatives twice a month for car bills, you've been consistently applying and interviewing places that you have multiple people on the inside putting a good word in for me, and haven't sold more than $10 worth of my art in 4 months. What is the next step.

[germx]

transitioning as a gay trans guy is fun because in my experience being harassed by people in cars increases in frequency and the people doing so have a different but equally scary intent when they yell shit at you

[stinkrascal]

also this is spoilers but i saw this on reddit and now i must scream about it sooooo spoilers for the end of wyll's romance maybe idk

okay tbh i cant confirm if this is true cuz i havent even beaten the game yet HA but people wouldnt lie on the internet right.... but anyways i saw that someone said one of wyll's romance endings is that he becomes a duke and you guys get MARRIED omg... and it has been on my mind all day and now im having very intense aza/wyll thoughts but mostly aza though aha

listen. just. just listen. okay. picturing aza going from a painfully awkward and socially inept crypt keeper living underground among the dwarves and the deceased, to the wife of the charismatic, renowned grand duke of baldur's gate, UGH. learning to socialize properly with nobility, learning how to maintain small talk, adjusting to the sheer size of their estate, free of cold drafts and water leaks. and the SUNLIGHT? the way it shines through the windows every morning, to remind her another day has come? and how much more comfortable the beds are when they're made of fur and feathers, not stone. and the way she's obviously very out of place, especially as a tiefling living among the upper echelon of baldur's gate, i'm sure she sticks out like a sore thumb. i'm sure she's turned lots of heads while incessantly infodumping about the best way to preserve a dead body, not yet understanding that nobility often aren't fixated on such things the same way she is lol. she's still a little weird and unsettling and unsure of how to handle herself in such a new environment, but hey... it's a lot more fun learning the nuance of courtly dance than it is trying to get a wriggly tadpole out of your head! she'll take the fright of social anxiety over that any day.

anyways. dies

[axellis-archv-2]

hey *takes what was supposed to be just a visualization in case i ever wanted to draw overhallidays place in the future and then spends 4 hours on it

[kawaiianimeredhead]

Really trying to get better at buying things on sale and with coupons but I have almost zero idea how much these things cost when compared to other things and I just can not retain this knowledge no matter how hard I try rip

[poisonhemloc]

it’s june

there was snow on the ground up in the woods and we had a thunderstorm roll in

and the river was. so high. Like, it was high last year, when we opened a month earlier than we usually do, because there wasnt a ton of snow blocking us from getting up there. And this year. Two months later than last year. Almost the same amount of snow still on the ground and there’s four downed trees in the river front of dad’s cabin and the river’s so high we thought the stone cabin already put the boards back in the dam to raise the water and just

...it’s nice since. multi-year drought but. this is not normal

[old-stoneface]

im listening to the audiobook for making money (ive read the book but it was a couple years ago now) and my review is that the antagonists for this book are my least favorite out of all of the city books ive read. they completely lack charm and theyre mostly just horribly annoying

[why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat]

See like, one thing most people outside of the Midwest don't understand is just how much Midwesterners put into Ope, and how polite we are. Like, at my old job (cross country) I said Ope because I walked into a desk and a coworker from NY yelled "That's actually a thing!?!?"

Something that I find funny is that most Americans don't know the layers of politeness to Midwesterners. We can be as complicated as high society or be as simple as media protrays us.

Another thing that most big town and up people don't understand is that there's words specific to some regions. I grew up in a small farming town that used Ho dunk, another town I lived in had Po dunk. The first town also used Rinky Dink but the second didn't have it or anything similar to it.

Word phrasing and intonation is also important here, because Midwesterners have mastered the art of being polite while insulting you. Depending on the context, having your home being called Rinky Dink can mean that it's quaint or you're being passively called trailer trash. Calling a strangers house Ho dunk? Straight up rude. But calling a friend house Ho dunk? You're friends and their house is your house so they won't make an effort to clean. Unless you're saying it behind their back and to someone else, then it's a stab in the back.

If you're at a house were you don't know the people all that well it's polite to say "Welp, s'ppose I should head out now" and slap your knees then stand up while saying it, after the event ended, and spend less than 5 minutes of goodbyes. Good friends are less than 10.

Close friends and family can spend up to 40 minutes saying goodbye, but 30 is the comfortable amount. If the guest stands up then the host should stand up to. If the host don't stand when you do, you're either very close friends/siblings and more than likely has keys to house or know how to get in, or the host just don't like you.

Being neighbors is another thing entirely, because it's a 'you scratch my back I scratch yours' type of situation. They mow your lawn after doing theirs? Send over a food item or do another chore for them. You are sick and they haven't seen you in awhile? Boom, concerned neighbors wishing you well.

Lost pets? Time to wrangle that dog/cat and wait on the curb for your owners! My grocery shopping can wait. Or even 'Hey, I just drove back into town on that road, tell your [family or friend that uses that road] to be careful!' and you only see that person like once a week.

If you think a (rural) Midwesterner doesnt like you, here's some ways to tell if they do: They dont apologize or excuse themselves when walking past you in an aisle. They stay seated during goodbyes. They don't try to catch up with you but catch up with others. They don't do small favors without being asked to do so.

But I'm also from central Midwest and grew up in small farming towns, and spent more time living in villages (less than a 1,000~ people) than I have cities. Where I live rn is so small and far away that there aren't any public transport, and I can walk from one end of the town to the other in like 20 minutes or less. The closest Walmart is 2 towns over and 30 minutes going 80 mph (128 km).

If you read all of that, the you're a nerd :)

Go drink water, eat, and sleep. Nerd.

Clark Kent, trying to leave a gala he’s covering: Ope, just gonna squeeze right past you.

Bruce Wayne, who heard Superman say the same thing at a Justice League meeting that morning: No fucking way

[domesticated-whores]

actually having a full mental breakdown over canceled plans, lol

[h-ypno]