#christ i'd love to find the time to actually draw it

[sforzesco]

paris of troy! during those years he was a shepherd.

I was reading cartledge's book on thebes and every now and then the spartan focuses wrt to the pantheon of gods comes up. sparta has nothing to do with this except for where it does, but apollo karneios was discussed and that got my attention, which circled back to paris, and then I started thinking about the paris + apollo link

I also started thinking about narrative rejections bc paris has a funky absence in the iliad that's giving a kind of...a vibe. your parents shouldn't have had you, the story doesn't want you around, but oh boy are you there anyway, manifested into existence. no matter what, doom must manifest in flesh form. it's a narrative necessity, the actual incident (the judgement) is secondary.

The Judgement of Paris in Later Byzantine Literature, E. M. Jeffreys

weird! love it! almost (but not quite) reminds me of troilos' murder at achilles' hands lurking in the guts of the iliad. it's there, even when it's not. more importantly tho: sheep. I miss working on a farm with sheep and goats and cows and--

[luveline]

Hi! I remember a while ago you said zombie!au Steve might have a hobby of drawing? Would love to see some of that maybe w r as his muse:D

steve zombie!au fem. 1k

You return to the camp with your new best friend at your side. In matching coats, no less. 

"Christ," Steve says, shaking his head in disgust. 

He loves —loves— that you have a friend, someone who might care about you just as much as he does. You deserve to be loved, and cherished, and known for your worth. You're a human vestibule of sweetness and God knows it wasn't going to be long before someone else noticed. 

But matching coats? "Alright, where's mine?" he asks. 

"Didn't have your size, handsome," Eddie says, giving you a quick and purely amicable hug. "See you later." 

He scampers off to who knows where and you sit down. You don't hide your happy smile, and Steve's glad for it even if it does make him jealous.  "He's so nice," you say. 

"No, he's not." 

"He is. He's almost as nice as you. And he helped me find you something." 

"After he outfitted my girlfriend in a couple's costume. I'm surprised he had the energy." 

"You're so jealous," you say, your happy smile growing in size with the seconds. 

"I'm actually making myself feel sick." 

"I can wear a different coat if it–" 

"Shut up! As long as you like me better, wear what you want." He shakes off his petty jealousy and takes your hand. For once, he's sitting on a towel rather than just grass or dirt, but his efforts to avoid extensive grass stainage mean nothing when your muddy shoe brushes his leg. "Nice. Thanks." 

"Sorry, sorry," you murmur, swinging your backpack off of your shoulder and sighing as you bend into yourself. "Jeez, my back hurts." You breathe out, a low moan of sound that drags. He can feel your pain. (He can't, but he figures that he loves you so much you're now connected spiritually to one another.) "How come I keep going on these expeditions and you keep staying home?" 

"I'm good with the kids." 

"Mm. Maybe you'll come on the next one anyways? I miss you when I'm gone." 

"I miss you too," he says. "More, I'd say." 

You giggle. "Whatever, you always have to be better than me. Shut up! Shut up, I'm trying to give you the things I found for you." 

Steve draws a zipper closed over his lips and flicks away the key. You get into these moods with each other sometimes, perhaps from having spent as much time together as you have, where a faked aggression rises between you. It's almost like you would've spoken at the start of the end of the world, when it was him and you alone, and Steve wasn't in the best of moods. The play fighting soon dies down as you open your bag; receiving gifts is always a pleasure. 

"First, underwear." 

"Thank you," he says, accepting the eight pack of boxers you offer like a man who's crawled the Sahara being given a glass of water. "So much." 

"You're welcome. Socks, a shirt, a new belt, a brace for your knee." You dump it on the towel next to him one by one. Your bag must've been heavy carrying all this, and it keeps going. You've brought him soap, hair elastics, razor blades, chapstick. The community you belong to is heavy on sharing, but you're free to bring home whatever you like so long as you're willing to carry it unaided once you've contributed to the food drive. You've clearly crammed your bag full of stuff for him, unveiling only underwear and socks for yourself. 

"You couldn't find any toothpaste?" he asks. 

You toss a pack of cigarettes at him without force. "Sadly, no. But I think Robin can get us some with those, right?" 

"I wanna smoke these so bad." 

You laugh and shake your head, fondly disapproving. "You don't! We can just kiss more, alleviate your cravings." 

"Weirdo." 

You lean forward, putting your cold hand on his cheek to leverage him closer. "You knew this when you met me," you say, kissing his cheek.

Steve's good on the cravings front after that. He swears that when things are at their worst a kiss from you could keep him going. Your lips can ease the ache of an empty stomach and the shattering heat of his ever-sprained knee.

You pull away gently like you're worried you'll hurt him in your detangling. Honestly, you might. Steve imagines you leaving sometimes like his arm being torn off. 

You reach back into the back for a parcel wrapped in a shirt for protection. The pencils and sketchbook you got Steve are long gone, lost with the rest of your possessions in the middle of a college campus on the Michigan border. Finding things like that is hard, and it hasn't been on Steve's mind. 

Apparently, it's been on yours.

"These are nice ones, right? The pencils?" you ask, having unwrapped your parcel, a soft backed sketchbook and a small metal case of pencils in hand. "There's only twelve, but I even found a sharpener so you won't have to do it with your knife. Sorry there's no black, I know you like the darker details."

Steve flicks through the sketchbook without thinking, every page blank. It isn't very big either, but it's perfect for purpose. 

He sets it aside with the pencils near all your new things and gets on his knees, tugging you in for a hug. "Thank you," he says, and he's said thank you a hundred times to you, but this one feels awkward, clumsy in his mouth. 

"You're welcome. Just promise you'll draw me again." 

"You're the only thing I want to draw." He kisses your cheek in emphasis. "You're the most beautiful thing everywhere we go." 

"That's such a line," you say, sounding melted. 

Easy, he thinks, turning your face to his for a kiss. Soft, as sweet as he can manage. With you, kisses start soft and end too rough, he can't help it. He remembers you're there and his to kiss and it drives him crazy. 

It's a little easier to stop today. Steve is genuinely eager to draw again, and in a week or two there won't be a page in his book without your likeness, his muse. 

[ouroborosorder]

Do you have an instance of Arknights VFX that gets frequently praised that you as a VFX artist think is mediocre or bad?

EBENHOLZ' SKIN "EINE VARIATION" IS A CRIME AGAINST ME SPECIFICALLY.

Look. I love Ebenholz, a lot. His effects are really strong, too! Some of my personal favorites. But this skin. Jesus Christ this skin.

I have seen so many people praising this skin as having good effects or being better than his original and it genuinely makes me wonder if half of the effects are actually rendered in some sort of shrimp colors that everyone but me can see.

There is not a single part of this skin's effects that I don't hate. Not just because I find them ugly, uninteresting, and unclear, but because I think they fundamentally misunderstand who Ebenholz is.

You asked for this.

Part 1 - The Colors.

The actual art for his skin has a beautiful striking blue and light gray background, with the light pink Arts accentuating it, and then the blood red and pitch black of his outfit meant to draw the eye to the center. This works perfectly in the art, so what's wrong?

First problem. Ebenholz doesn't have the blue background in gameplay. Meaning that his effects are red (not pink, like the art, they are red) and his skin is red. So there's extreme monochrome happening, with absolutely no interesting contrast between him and his Arts. His Elite Charge is blue, at the very least, so his signature gimmick stands out uniquely, which is quite nice! That's a great decision that won't cause any problems down the line at all.

"Oh, but Keys, it's so that the red Arts stand out when he uses his S3 and summons that giant goat spirit in the background!" That's a great point, person I just made up. Please remember this excellent point for later.

Part 2 - General Effects

The effect starts with a deploy animation wherein Ebenholz is surrounded by sparkles like some sort of magical girl. The deploy effect is genuinely bad in so many ways, mostly related to timing and motion, but this rant is going to be long enough. And I'm gonna need to focus and talk about the sparkles.

The biggest thing to know about Eine Variation is this image. Get acquainted with it. If there was a recurring visual motif in Eine Variation, it is this piece from the original art.

And yeah, as an effects artist, I'd be amped to work on this. This looks fucking sick as shit. It's dynamic, it's chaotic, it's got harsh lines to contrast the flowing music staff, it's great. So let's see how this texture looks in g- okay what the fuck.

In the game, it looks nothing like the art. It's literally just the stock glimmer effect. It's not even a new texture. This thing's been in the game since release. It looks. Bad. It's way too simplistic. Because it wasn't meant to be the center of attention, it's meant to appear for an instant and then fade. Like, you know. A glimmer.

What you just saw in the screenshot above is one of Ebenholz' Mystic Caster charges. And it is easily my least favorite part of the entire skin.

Ebenholz (Original Flavor)'s Mystic Caster charges has one of my favorite visual touches in the entire game. Ebenholz fights using artifacts from the Witch King whose power he inherits - a wand and a set of five Originium dice. So he wields the wand, and has die rotate around him as he fights. In-game, they represent this by his charges being the dice, rotating around his hand. This is, as we say in the vfx industry, fucking badass. So naturally they removed the dice entirely in Eine Variation.

Fuck.

Fine, alright. Maybe it's him... moving further from the Witch King's influence, then? We'll go with that hey stop looking at his S3 what are you doing don't get ahead of me.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "hey, Keys, this is unfair. You're asking us to judge an animated effect based on a static picture of it." Well, my dear reader, I have bad news. You just saw the entire charge's visual. The whole thing.

They are a glimmer of light that does not pulse or twinkle. They just. Sit there. Floating. Again, it's just so simplistic, it's not even interesting to talk about.

The only good thing I can say about it is that it's way easier to tell how many charges he has since they're bigger, more spread out, and not moving. Also the Elite charge is WAY more distinct, since it's bright blue now to contrast with the red normal charges. Which is nice! A good decision! It would sure be a shame if it bit them in the ass later!

Part 3 - Attack and Skill 1

Did you think I was kidding when I said that the sparkles are the sole visual motif in this skin?

I hate these attack trails. Not only are they too simplistic, they're just too cute. I joked about magical girls before, but dear god, this just doesn't fucking look right. This skin is literally described as him being apathetic and miserable as a noble, so why are the effects so... Colorful and cute? Ebenholz isn't a cutesy goofy music-themed magical girl, Ebenholz is a sad gay goth kid who would create a fake My Immortal confession for attention.

I also hate the musical notes. I know I complained about the glimmers being too one-note (pardon the pun), but they just don't interact with the rest of the effect at all. There's nothing else musical about what is happening here. They feel added to remind you that he is casting music.

God I fucking hate the sparkles so goddamned much. I also find it really funny that one single musical note bursts forth with each hit. These shapes are just... So boring, so simple. But put a pin in that for a later.

His S1 uptime comes with an awful aura. he glows red. There is only red and white. this is all there is. This is all there will ever be. That's all I've got about S1.

Part 3 - Skill 2

Oh jesus go back to the red and white

First off, I find these goat so fucking ugly. The synths are a truly terrible choice, because synths and digital music don't come up in any capacity throughout the rest of the effects. So. Great work. This doesn't make sense.

Anyway I hate the color here. The original has a great two-tone black smoke with bright blue glowing eyes, contrasting with Eben's orange Arts. In the skin they slapped an awful blue glow haze over them. This makes them just completely draw visual attention, while they don't match up with Ebenholz' aesthetic at all. if you could see the black, there would be a clear visual link between them, but... Nope. It's ONLY blue, motherfuckers.

Also, they passively emit triangles, which is the only time in this entire effect that the Arts = Geometric Triangles visual idea appears in the entire skin based around an arts caster. Yay for recurring game-wide motifs!

Shockingly, I hate the explosion. It's passable, it's fine. But the timing is absolutely awful. The original's feels like an explosion that is pulling the target in, but the skin's feels like an explosion followed by absorption. It makes it feel less like an explosion and more like a contrivance. Also, it spawns only like, four notes total, which is just so low. Please have more notes, you even have the musical staff, you're so close to having this look like musical arts. I also hate the random swirl of red. The goat didn't have any red in it. Why does this have red. Monochrome would have actually worked better, this is just a summon.

Part 4 - Sound of Silence

Eine Variation S3 features Ebenholz getting hoverhanded by a goat.

I wish I had any other way to put it. But he gets hoverhanded by a goat for the entire uptime of this attack.

What even is this thing? Obviously, it's the goat behind him in his splash art, but what is it? Is it the Witch King? That would make sense, but why is the Witch King's avatar blue? The Witch King has literally never been blue, he's always been associated as being red. Unless this isn't The Witch King, in which case, what the fuck is it then?

I hate this effect more than anything else in this game. The ghost looks absolutely awful. it is very blatantly just the art from the actual skin, slapped behind him with no regard for aesthetic consistancy. Or even regard for if the image is readable at the distance Arknights is played at. The goatghost.jpg is not animated at all, but the hands move up and down, which weirdly only further reveals how static the ghost is. Also the hands aren't animated outside of going up and down which is just so uncanny and uncomfortable. It just reveals how desperately they needed to have some animation to make it not look like absolute hot garbage, and they still failed.

After an entire skin of absurdly simplistic geometric shapes and basic ass textures, suddenly they think they can pull off some shit that looks like a granblue render. This doesn't even look in-line with the rest of the skin's effects, let alone with the chibi artstyle.

Now. Why I truly, truly hate this attack.

When you activate S3, all of Ebenholz' Charges become Elite charges. Meaning they all become blue.

The charges all finally become blue.

In the only part of the skin where you have a blue background.

I just. I can't figure out how you'd fuck this up this bad. If the Elite Charges were red, it would look like the fucking skin art, with the red notes on the pink staff. They'd stand out, or at least look fucking decent. How many charges does Ebenholz have? Oh I don't know THEY'RE FUCKING BLUE ON BLUE.

WHY. WHY ANY OF THIS. WHY ALL OF THIS. I'M IN HELL. THIS WAS MADE TO TORMENT ME PERSONALLY RIGHT

anyway I will give credit where credit is due. I actually quite like the trail when he casts his stocks in S3.

The slight orange two-tone and complicated trails add a lot of nuance and depth to the effect, and the glimmer is toned down to the point where I can see the diamond shape hidden underneath. There is one singular silver lining to this cloud. It could use more musical touches and less fucking sparkles but at this point I need to compliment something.

Finale - Why Do I Give A Shit

Eine Variation launched as part of the Bloodline of Combat skins that came out with Lone Trail. It released alongside Specter the Unchained's Born as One; my personal favorite skin in the entire game. It is a skin that perfectly conveys Laruntina's love of natural beauty and Specter's love of poetry and recitation, bringing them together into poems reflected in a starry lake. The effects are serene and dreamlike, peaceful yet chaotic. It conveys who they are going into the future, who they are together.

Born as One is Bloodline of Combat at its best. Bloodline of Combat is at its best when it tells you something about who this character is at this part of their life. How they change, how they grow, how they look at the world in this point of their life. This is the story that good effects can tell.

So I ask you: What story does Eine Variation's effects tell?

If this an Ebenholz who is growing further from the Witch King's legacy into his own man, then why does the avatar of the Witch King appear behind him? Why does the flavor text describe this as clothing worn by every Graf Urtica? Why does it not lean further into the synth aesthetic to separate himself from the classical music of Leithanien?

If this is an Ebenholz who is currently stuck within the confines of nobility, why is he not wielding the dice associated with his title as Graf Urbica? Why do his fucking goats have synths instead of traditional instruments? Why is the Witch King the wrong color?

And most importantly to all of this: Why are all the shapes so simple?

Yes, Arknights' Arts are geometric. They're usually represented by simple triangles. This is true. But think about who Ebenholz is.

Ebenholz is not a simple and elegant person. Ebenholz is a man who nails complicated, difficult, strange flute solos, but who fails to do simple rhythms and scales. He excels at the complex, the elaborate, and the detailed, and fails at the simplistic. This is always how Ebenholz has been.

So a skin full of simple shapes, easy language, and flat colors... Isn't how he'd fight. It's not who he is. It's not how he'd act. It doesn't just feel wrong, it feels like it's not made for him.

I don't just hate this skin because I think its effects are bad. I mean, I do, and they definitely are.

I hate this skin because it just... Fundamentally does not understand who Ebenholz is. And it definitely does not understand why he is so special.

[microchive]

either cam or gideon for the character thing!!!

GAH!!!! picking gideon because you already did cam also i want to talk about gideon nav my best friend gideon nav

favorite thing about them: how do i even begin.... i love that she isn't a hero and doesn't become one through the narrative, i love that she is so blatantly posturing all of the time and she builds herself up to be this big confident sexy funnyman because she needs that to keep herself afloat but what she is in reality isn't any lesser! she is funny and she's shy and nervous and she's so powerfully butch to the bone in a way that avoids all negative stereotypes but still manages to highlight the pitfalls butches find themselves in. she has so many layers and people reduce her to some kind of himbo when in reality she's objectively both too mean and too intelligent to be a himbo. i love that you can sense from the very beginning that she is sitting on a massive broiling lake of sadness and for all of her posturing she is both incredibly delicate and one of the strongest characters in the story. i love that she sucks so bad and died a virgin like christ jesus and even missing half her soul she remains consistent not in her outward personality but in her ability to shield her soft underbelly through some sort of performative attitude but EVERYONE can see right through her except gideon herself because everything she does is loud and annoying. she's impulsive and passionate and. incredibly annoying. i hate her and she's my favorite person ever

least favorite thing about them: probably the war crimes but it's not like she's passionate about war crimes she just doesn't gaf. this is just what a lesbian situationship will do to a guy

favorite line: literally all of them man everything she says makes me laugh.... here are some standouts though: - "If my heart had a dick you would kick it" - "I have lots of fealty in me. I fealt the Emperor with every bone in my body. I fealt hard" - "You've got two short minutes left before I punch you right in the butthole" - everything she says when talking to ianthe

brOTP: her and camilla ooooohhhh..... also her and pal. gideon works so well with the sixth house because they're just as annoying and generally peculiar as her they're just more lowkey about it

OTP: i'd have to say griddlehark because i have never stopped thinking about them ever but i do enjoy gideon x camilla (i forgot their ship name) because the cav4cav shit is so good godddd they're just two sides of the same coin, the same story with different upbringings they would help each other out

nOTP: not a huge fan of gideon and corona just because i think corona needs to chase someone who doesn't like her for enrichment purposes and gideon's schoolgirl crush on corona probably doesn't translate well into an actual relationship (let's be real though none of these relationships are going "well") but it is an interesting dynamic

random headcanon: i think she is really gross. genuinely. she picks her nose and doesn't wash her face and harrow gets on her ass about it which i guess is reasonable. also more intense but i definitely think both gideon and harrow have food issues but while harrow copes by being intensely picky gideon has some textual evidence of binge eating which makes sense to me character wise and also would explain why she developed muscle on planet malnutrition

unpopular opinion: i don't really have any once again?? i guess i like to imagine she isn't as attractive as she thinks she is but a lot of people write and draw her as a lesbian adonis which i understand because thats how she describes herself lmao. i think she's kind of cute in a weird way and tamsyn describes her as boyishly pretty so in my mind she's the kind of hot a straight man would never agree with. she is still the hottest person in the world to me

song i associate with them: I HAVE SO MANY. main ones are: father by the front bottoms, dance in room song by sipper, bodysnatchers by radiohead, suffering jukebox by silver jews, knife in the coffee by car seat headrest

favorite picture of them: this fanart: (this artist does such a delicious gideon ohhh i need her.) https://www.tumblr.com/bastardnoodle/741903153830723584/im-in-the-middle-of-reading-harrow-and-i-miss-her?source=share

[ainsi-soit-il]

I’m actually really interested in learning what your denomination thinks about sanctification if you feel up to a long post about it? (Ulterior motive: I wanna go through and find the parts where Catholics disagree/define sanctification differently.)

Sorry for taking so long to reply! Thank you for your patience, and thanks for asking!

To some degree, Wesleyan theology does treat salvation as something that's immediate, with John Wesley writing at one point, "It [salvation] is not something at a distance, It is a present thing, a blessing which through the free mercy of God you are now in possession of."

But Wesleyan theology (and I'd argue Scripture itself too) also holds that even then, justification is just the beginning, and we are continually being perfected by God's grace.

This is how John Wesley put it in The Scripture Way of Salvation:

From the time of our being "born again," the gradual work of sanctification takes place. We are enabled by the Spirit to "mortify the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:11, 13) and of our evil nature, and as we are more and more dead to sin, we are more and more alive to God.

In other words, God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit slowly transform our deeds and desires, so that we become more and more like Christ.

In the Wesleyan understanding of sanctification, sanctification takes place as believers grow to love God more. We draw a lot on St. John's language of "being perfected in love" in 1 John 4.

This is how love is made perfect in us, enabling us to have confidence on the Day of Judgment, because even in this world we have become like him. In love there is no fear; indeed, perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not yet achieved perfection in love. Therefore, we love because he first loved us. (NCB, v. 17-19)

Effectively, as we grow to know and love God more, we find our desires transformed. Sin becomes less and less attractive. We no longer want the same things that we wanted before, and instead our desires are increasingly aligned with the will of God.

And that is effectively what Christian perfection (or "being perfected in love", or "entire sanctification"... Wesley didn't tend to stick with one term for things) means. It's the point where there's no more room in one's heart for sinful desires, because one is that full of the love of God. Irish theologian William J. Abraham described it as, "the point in [someone's] relationship with God where disobedience [i]s no longer a live option for them."

It's worth pointing out that this perfection is not absolute. We're finite creatures, after all. We get into misunderstandings, lack knowledge, etc. and so as a result, we'll still end up sinning. But Wesleyan theology places a distinction between these sorts of sins and the intentionally-done sort of sins we are freed from when we are perfected in love. (From what I understand, Catholic theology has a similar distinction between venial sins and mortal sins.)

This is distinct from Presbyterians and most Baptists (both within the same umbrella of Protestant theology), where entire sanctification is something we never quite attain in life. Even so, a Baptist or Presbyterian might argue, we still are called to keep "running the race", to use St. Paul's analogy.

Hope this helps!

[truths33k3r4]

okay i HAVE to tell you - i stumbled across your videos recently in a mid-organic-chemistry-session-break and i’m so happy you find happiness doing these projects. 2012 TMNT was my JAM and i was recently remembering it and started looking at the fandom again. it was the show that made me interested in animation and voice acting (definitely as a hobby because i have yet to pursue those paths seriously and can barely draw haha but one day i want to do animatics :) ). but to see a girl do these things AND be openly Christian?? it’s like everything I had wanted to do in the past. you’re THE creator i would’ve loved when i was a teenager watching our turtles grow into the lean mean green team we love. wishing you the best always, Melissa!! God bless you and your’s 💖💖💖

AWWWWWWWWW THANK YOU SO MUCHHHHH <3

Hey, as long as you're breathing you still have time to pursue your dreams of being an animator and voice actor. :) I've only been practicing drawing since 2020, but before that my skills were ZIP- All you need is drive and practice. :)

Behold my art in 2020 ~

And my art now ~ (This is actually a re-draw of a 2012 scene!) :)

Put the time, energy, and love into it, and I have no doubt your skills will grow fast. :) Character studies also helped me too! I'd practice with drawing the Rise characters, then the 2012 characters and so on. :)

And I gotta be honest with you, I was nervous for a while to outwardly state my beliefs and relationship with God and Christ. It took weeks of prayer before I had the guts to share the Gospel as one of my earliest posts here on Tumblr. But ever since then, God brought me to the phrase "to God be the glory", and I've been using it ever since in every single video and project I post. :) So thank you for telling me that my channel encouraged you and inspired you <3 Whoever you are, dear anonymous, I pray you'll get the time and energy to pursue your life-long dreams. :)

Thank you for touching my heart <3

To God be the glory :)

~ Melissa

[quohotos]

So I don't have any art prepared for 810nicle day, so instead let me regale you of a story of a time where I didn't make some bionicle art. It was a bit of a shitshow.

So it was around 2017 I think, I was in high school. Back then I was on facebook and in this Bionicle fan forum/shitpost group called "Bionicle Maskposting". Honestly it was a great community with so many injokes, having to leave it behind was one of the reasons I stayed on facebook for so long after it stopped being a good platform. Usually people would share memes, mocs, and lore thoughts, but on a rare occasion people would try to find folks to help them with new group projects.

One of these fateful cases was a person who was trying to put together a crew to make a bionicle fan comic. I'd been teaching myself vector, having been inspired by the Bionicle flash games, so I tentatively offered my service to the project. I was still learning and not super confident in my abilities. I told them I probably couldn't do it on my own, but maybe could do backgrounds and trace overs in a vector style.

I got added to their discord server, it was like the third server I ever joined on discord. The mastermind behind all of this was very excited to have someone on board, and was quick to catch me up on what he'd been working on. He showed me his block out of the comic so far, there was no actual art, just all black panels and the dialogue to go with them. And it was... oh god it was bad.

The premise of the comic: It's set in an alternate universe where Tahu is the soul survivor of the Toa Mata. The rest of the Toa are brutally killed by Makuta and now he's haunted by horrific visions, survivor's guilt, and PTSD. He also has a son. Love is cannon in this universe and he has to raise the child he sired with Gali before she was ripped to shreds by a crab.

It was uhhh... not exactly the kind of story I wanted to sign on to, not to mention it was just poorly written, probably a teenager like me at the time. Everyone writes stuff like that, nothing wrong about it in the long term... but then it got worse.

This new guy joined the server, one I didn't recognize. He had like a wolf avatar for his discord profile. He immediately takes one look at what's been planned so far and says, "I love it," but then he has to ask one crucial question before he can continue.

"Is there Jesus in it?"

No he didn't say it like that, I'm paraphrasing, but he asked if there were going to be any themes of Christianity or Tahu's faith in the story.

what the fuck?

Why?

Why would that be in the Bionicle story? What a socially unaware thing to ask? Is he trolling this guy?

Well the ringleader guy who started the project responds mere seconds later

"Yeah, totally, Tahu's faith in Jesus Christ and his struggle with doubt is going to be a big part of the story."

Again, paraphrasing, but it was an enthusiastic response from the guy. They then went on to very rapidly start exchanging ideas about how they can add more christian themes to this already very cursed Bionicle fanfiction. Around that time I politely announced that I didn't feel like I could contribute to the project and excused myself from the server. I'm glad I wasn't ruder, they were doing their own thing there was no reason to be mean about it even if it was buck fucking wild.

I'm assuming it never came out, and part of me regrets leaving so early because right now I'm morbidly curious about how it turned out even if it's probably the last thing I'd ever want to read or draw.

Anyways that's my story, and part of the reason why even though I was one of the biggest Bionicle nerds you can imagine while growing up I generally stay away from fan forum discussions of it as an adult.

Happy Bionicle day

[novelmonger]

A few reasons that I, personally, believe God is real

There are many compelling theological, philosophical, historical, and scientific reasons to believe in God, but I'll leave those for others smarter than I am to enumerate them. Today, I just wanted to give a short, non-exhaustive list of why I believe in God, just from my own personal experience, because I think that can be just as compelling as the most well-written work of apologetics.

If God doesn't exist, what's the point? Why do good things? Why love? Why not just jump off a bridge or stay in bed forever? If God doesn't exist, then heaven doesn't exist, and we really are all just animals with no further purpose than to keep living until we die and become dirt. I'd rather believe there's a greater story being told, with an actual purpose and direction to my life, than just plodding along in a world devoid of hope.

I've known too many people and heard too many stories of people giving up everything for the sake of Christ and the gospel, including my own parents. If so many people, across so many countries and thousands of years, think God is worth everything they have to give, there has to be something to it.

When I look at a beautiful sunset, or hear a bird call, or smell a lilac, or feel the sun on my skin and a cool breeze in my hair, it's impossible for me to believe that any of that could be the result of chance. Such beauty feels created, the same way a symphony sounds different from someone plunking random keys on a piano.

When I ask God for comfort, when I'm crying in the middle of the night and can't find rest, when I'm at my lowest and cry out to God for help, I can feel His comfort. Sometimes, I just find myself drawing a deeper breath and calming down. A few times, I've felt a physical weight on my chest, like the hand of a father as he tucks his daughter in.

Sometimes, when I least expect it (whether I'm praying for an answer or not), a Bible verse will suddenly pop into my mind, sometimes one that I haven't thought of in a long time or didn't think I'd even memorized, verses I had to Google to find out where they were, but they perfectly addressed my need in that moment. I've read the whole Bible multiple times before, so clearly they were in my head somewhere, but I believe God pulled them to the forefront of my mind when I needed them. This is how I believe the Holy Spirit speaks to me, rather than with audible words.

Every time I've prayed for help, healing, wisdom, protection, peace...I've gotten an answer. It's not always an immediate answer, it's not always the one I want or expect, but I can always point to something that answers my request. Too many times, things have "just happened" to work out in ways I never would have expected. It's too consistent to be a coincidence.

I am a writer. I live and breathe stories. Stories are how I make sense of the world. Why? Why would I care about stories staying true to their themes, about character growth, about the climax and the eucatastrophe and the happy endings, if I'm just an animal? Why have stories been so important for the entirety of human history? The only answer that makes sense to me is that we are characters in the hands of the Great Storyteller, trying in our own fumbling ways to do what He does.

Please feel free to add to this list with your own personal reasons! I may add onto it myself later.

[rodolfoparras]

I just wanted to say thank you for letting me ramble about my ocs so much😭❤ I appreciate it so much and sjhsnssn mwahh❤

I can not draw Virgil for some reason so I used a picrew for the time being😭 pretty boy

https://cdn.picrew.me/shareImg/org/202405/2212914_RoK42RVQ.png

https://cdn.picrew.me/shareImg/org/202405/2212914_inUiStZo.png

Idk if piercings like his would really be around in the 18-1900s but I'm giving him them regardless because I can🙏 The first one is his work outfit, second one is what he wears on his few days off. He has a very tragic story before he becomes a grim reaper :( hence why mitski is being played so much when working on him.

Basically he was a hooker and performer, he fell into a bad depression, felt numb to everything and chased after sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. To try feeling something :( eventually got to the point he was practically rotting in a room, just sleeping with man after man. He realized he looked yucky and his room was trashed, cleaned everything up and made himself all pretty. Everyone thought he was getting his life together finally but he actually ended it :( he wanted to be seen as pretty when he died (last words of a shooting star by mitski🙏)

Virgil was fucking pissed when he was brought back as a reaper, he still tends to lash out at William when he has bad days, not that William did anything wrong, he just needs someone to blame so he blames him. William doesn't really care and just stands there waiting for Virgil to be done so they can finish work😭

!!! Ride the Cyclone is a great musical, I'd recommend watching it or at least listening to more songs from it ! You can find a 'slime tutorial' of it in youtube if you're interested ! Also Ballad of Jane Doe and Noel's lament are really great songs, Noel's lament works for Virgil too :3

And Talia is just woowowow that song honestly made me cry it's just so pretty and his voice???! I ascended

Speaking of Cupid Talia though, he's Slavic too ! He's from Carantania though he lives in London :3 he can travel back and forth pretty easily though with his ability to fly. Also Talia uses his wings as an umbrella for William sometimes🙏 he just holds out his big fluffy wings and covers William, he doesn't care that he's getting soaked, as long as William is taken care of😭❤

-🌱

Of course sugar bee!!! I love hearing y’all out!! You have very interesting characters with intriguing backstories and relationships and I absolutely love reading about them!

Oh the haircut is so freaking neat!!!and I absolutely love his clothes what a fancy gentleman he is!

Oh Jesus Christ that was actually a heartbreaking twist😭 idk why but something about him getting his life together before ending it is soul crushing it genuinely made me sad lord

Virgil is very much me I’d be knocking on gods door asking to be set free bc to continue living / existing in this economy? Absolutely not

Ooo I Will absolutely listen to more songs bc I added this one to my playlist I love it!! and I’ll def check out the slime tutorial once I’m done with watching the am play through!!

Also hello we love a Slavic king!!!!! Now I’m imagining talia cursing Virgil out in the thickest Slavic accent every time he tries to cuss out William