#faith & doubt

[shorthaltsjester]

when people think delilah just completely takes over and laudna has no control. when people think jester is just an uwu child who has been manipulated by every man she’s met. when people think vex is an empty husk of daddy issues without her brother by her side. when people think fjord is an arrogant asshole who doesn’t pay attention to the party around him. when people think scanlan saying that vox machina doesn’t care about him is an accurate assessment.

[gideonisms]

I don't think John gets harrow, really at all. I think he is constantly misjudging her and her level of attachment to him. She's been indoctrinated to love him but she's literally always put her unhinged lesbian crushes ahead of him in her loyalties. She tried to release the girl she thought could kill him age 11. She lobotomized herself out of being useful to him because she thought he was wrong that she couldn't do anything to save gideon. She hates the food he gives her and she finds his interpersonal relationships distasteful. She's been trained to put him first but she doesn't actually like this guy. Imo

[txttletale]

everyone loves to talk big game about how they hate carceralism and punitive justice until it comes to the topic of sexual violence in which case half of the prison abolitionists will revert immediately to being constitutional literalists for the code of hammurabi without missing a beat--good thing that the accusation of sexual violence hasn't been historically leveraged against people of colour or gay people or trans women or anything or this capitulation to kneejerk reaction would be uhhh pretty bad!

[thevirgodoll]

why are you waiting on confirmation that the best is on its way? you don’t need anyone to give you permission to claim what you deserve. it’s already written. this story already has your name on it. you just have to stop rewriting it because you don’t think it’s possible.

[erinwantstowrite]

peter parker would HATE having the hiccups

this made me cackle because you're so right. peter would get the hiccups and start cussing himself out and dick would be giggling at him the entire time

[trappedinafantasy37]

POV: Evil murder kitten tries to evil murder you in your sleep. She's desperate for a reason not to evil murder you because she does not want to.

[longreads]

In today’s new Longreads essay, Kayla Aletha Welch recounts joining her husband and 50 other people on a pilgrimage in the Jaliscan highlands—and goes on an unlikely journey of marriage, faith, and doubt.

“I saw him differently then, as one does when she realizes that the man with whom she has birthed a child and opened a shared line of credit might believe that a tiny doll in a tiny town holds mysterious powers.”

Read “Where Miracles Exist for the Weekend” on Longreads.

[quotelr]

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence.

Charles Bukowski

[samijey]

#y'all heard the man #ucey2024

[artist-issues]

Listen, doubt doesn't have to be a bad thing. Doubt is a step up into strong faith. Think about it.

Accepting what those who know more than you say because you're humble and willing is good. But when you start to ask questions, that's not bad. That just means you want to know the answers, and know them for sure, whether your parents and your community are there to give them to you or not.

See? When you "doubt" something, you start examining the thing you're doubting. You start testing your weight to it. You start considering yourself, and it, in a new light. How else would you approach something you've been hearing all your life with this new, independent interest, seeing it with your own eyes, unless doubt made you approach it, fresh?

The good news is, when it comes to Christianity and the God of the Bible, there are strong, solid answers to those questions. The fact that you're asking them is good, because you'll see for yourself that there are answers. And then you'll get to decide, just between you and God, not "what will my community/parents/friends think," what to do with those answers. If you don't start asking questions you wouldn't get that fresh, "making my faith my own" vibe. The Bible says "come and see." It says "seek and find." It says, "put to test the things you have heard." Asking questions is not bad, as long as you're genuinely looking for answers.

What's bad is when you're asking questions and behind it all you actually already won't be satisfied with ANY answers...because you're in love with the idea of your own "skepticism" and "reasoning." There's answers, but you've gotten to a place where no answers are "good enough" for you. That's not the kind of doubt I'm talking about; that's the kind of doubt that's bad and nonsensical.

There's another kind of doubt, too, that just sits in uncertainty and doesn't look for answers. Because there's some twisted romance in being unsure and unsteady and halting in place, all tortured and anxious, and wanting "special revelation" and feeling cast out because you didn't get it. That's bad. That's not the kind of doubt I'm talking about. Again, there are answers. Be humble enough to go find them.

And finally, be careful that you're not just asking questions because you really just wanna live a certain way or do a certain thing that the Bible 100% says not to do. Because doubt is a quick way to get to shrug off that whole "Christianity" thing so you can do whatever you want.

Doubt can make faith stronger, but only because you're looking to put that faith in answers, not your own reasoning.

[yashley]

exu calamity rewatch: "Our tenacity far exceeds the magisters’."

[tooies]

i think probably the reason i like the idea of like a girl secretly being a dragon but still trying to just have a life in society and be normal is because it's kinda a transfem narrative of the whole like everyone thinks you're a terrifying monster but you just want to be a girl. and the other reason is due to i'm otherkin

[deerest-deer]

lottie + hugs

[kidovna]

I wanted to ask you- do you really think that Mike and will could end up together in season 5? Like realistically? I personally wish for nothing more but I truly can’t imagine how they would do it with the other stuff happening around them. At best I can only think of Mike and eleven separating and if neither of them will die, I can imagine that they will leave an open ending for the viewers to interpret if Mike had feelings for will as well. What do you think could happen?

I really do think that they can end up together. When has the supernatural plot ever stopped jancy, jopper, lumax, mileven and stancy from happening and why couldn’t it be a possibility for byler?

I think season 4 and the first shadow covered both Henry and El’s backstories. We’ve gotten confirmation multiple times that season 5 covers Will’s backstory, and Mike is a big part of his life. Other than resolving the conflicts from season 4, giving us more information about the mind flayer /UD, and providing context for will’s involvement in the plot, there’s nothing major (like the Russia plot) left to establish in season 5. Everyone is already in Hawkins and know Vecna’s motives.

[Marvel spoilers…?] Remember how avengers infinity war killed half the universe at the end of the movie and then a) invented time travel, b) brought them all back and c) killed the bad guy all within 3 hours in the sequel? I think byler happening in the 10+ hours of season 5 wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. They’ve already known each other for 10 years and are semi-canon.

Sure, there’s always a possibility that they could leave byler open ended but why would they do that if they wanted every character to have their perfect happy ending?

[blackpearlblast]

honestly one of the things that's been wild for me to learn lately is that israel was responsible for enforcing the idea that the holocaust was an unparalleled genocide that stands apart from everything else that's happened in the course of human history. even before i understood well enough how deeply interconnected all genocides are, when i was a kid, i really fucking hated it. it felt so wrong to me for the holocaust to be The Genocide of human history. it felt disrespectful to other groups who had gone through genocide and it felt like weirdly dehumanizing and tokenizing to us. i didn't want to think of jews as The Group Who Went Through A Genocide, i wanted to see us how i was familiar with in our culture our holidays our art our singing our prayers. that's how i wanted other people to see us too! not that i was ashamed of what we had gone through but i just didn't want people's perception of us to just be that we were victims and i didn't want other peoples victimhood denied to them through that either. but yeah kind of wild to learn that israel and zionist rhetoric seems fairly responsible for this pet peeve of mine from childhood before i even really had a greater consciousness of solidarity or anything.

[erinwantstowrite]

I just heard the song Slipping Through My Fingers and immediately remembered the first chapter of LoF literally started crying

that whole song can summarize peter and tony's relationship tbh,,, quite literally every time tony thinks they've got it and he understands peter well, he blinks and peter's getting older and more stuff is happening (he wouldn't trade it for the world)