#faith is what takes it

[glass-expanse]

James 2

My brothers, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For example, a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor man dressed in dirty clothes also comes in. If you look with favor on the man wearing the fine clothes and say, "Sit here in a good place," and yet you say to the poor man, "Stand over there," or, "Sit here on the floor by my footstool," haven't you discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Didn't God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that He has promised to those who love Him? Yet you dishonored that poor man. Don't the rich oppress you and drag you into courts> Don't they blaspheme the noble name that was pronounced over you at your baptism?

Indeed, if you keep the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all. For He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you are a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. For judgement is without mercy to the one who hasn't shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgement.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him?

If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but then you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead by itself.

But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith from my works. You believe God is one; you do well. The demons also believe-- and they shudder.

Foolish man! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless? Wasn't Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was perfected. SO the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, wasn't Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by a different route? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

[obzcureobject]

another animation!

[potato-lord-but-not]

sorryyyy sorry sorry

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Good morning, Sleepyhead.

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[bacchuschucklefuck]

dreaming abt sophomore year class swap bard!riz

[canonkiller]

do it all for love

[serpentface]

Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.

This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).

The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.

While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).

The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.

A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.

[okerum]

welcome to hell 2 was NOT on my 2024 bingo but i am not complaining

[c-art00nish]

Ned × Peter fanart for LoF by @erinwantstowrite cause they have me on a chokehold

[hello-eeveev]

man people really hate that orym still gets sad about his husband and father being murdered huh

not only is healing not linear and one’s progress shouldn’t be compared to someone else’s, but orym is actively in a situation that is bringing up that trauma and grief again and again, and you just want him to ignore that? to never talk about it??

like, I’ve been really stressed out lately in a way that’s bringing up a lot of old, tough memories and just a *smell* started to trigger a spiral, but you want orym to be perfectly reasonable when he’s dealing with the organization that killed his family, friends, and coworkers???

I also think that some of you just don’t like that Liam’s narration style utilizes a lot of imagery and parallels, because I’ve seen takes that are like ‘liam narrating orym being reminded of laudna’s past as she plays with her puppets shows that he doesn’t view laudna as a full person’ and ‘orym telling laudna that she has more love than delilah and that she deserves to live outside of delilah’s shadow means that he is incapable of viewing her beyond her history with delilah’—and with the latter take specifically: literally no? what? the whole recent arc has been laudna struggling to do that herself? how is orym trying to combat that view reinforcing it?

marisha frequently evokes delilah imagery in her narration of laudna and we all agree that it rules, so why is it suddenly Problematic that orym also thinks about these parallels? hot take I guess but I think it’s cool actually that liam pays attention to how his friend describes her character and has his own character engage with it.

[petrichorthefox]

Seat above the rest, offered generously by the Merchant of the Stars

[bruhainrot]

DOL SYDNEY’S QNA

Purityguy responded to my questions about Sydney!! If you have any other questions about Sydney you can directly message them as they get back to you very quickly and very active on discord 🫠🫠

The embarrassing tea response got me going “KID KYLAR U SLY MF💀💀” Man kylar can be cool if he doesn’t have a lack of self awareness.

Sydney pissing Whitney off id like to see that hueheuheu 🍿🍿

edit ion know guys. I feel like there could be a Sydney dismissal event for that last one cause im gettin the chills. As Syd can have a big reaction when PC confesses to them about their broken vow, it’s likely that Sydney would react strongly if PC cheats on them with Whitney during PC/Sydneys pregnancy. Whitney might do some cheeky blackmailing like with Kylar. Siding with Whitney leads Sydney to break up with the PC as a result. Just a speculation. So far we have Whitney making Sydney moan during their little fight in the library, being able to impreg/be fucked by Sydney during science class and Sirris prolly be like “thats my boy/girl!!! Grandchildren rahhhhh” in syd’s future pregnancy content, so ima expect something real funky.

So far, I can think of two long-term consequences:

Dismissal event: Sydney feels betrayed.

Sydney may not be able to let go of what happened, leading him to make a stupid long term plan to kidnap the PC. He may end up kidnapping the PC in the adult shop/his house's basement for some kinky bdsm session cause he doesn't want the PC to leave him due to abandonment issues. PC developing yet another stockholm syndrome.

edit edit sydney sucks at science, damn sirris ur own kid lacking in ur own class 💀

[rosurie]

school LIs <3

[blueskittlesart]

deeply refreshing to see someone critical of Swift who also like, genuinely likes her. Like i'm neutral to positive on her, but the online discourse has been absolutely rancid. flipping between "Taylor Swift has never done anything wrong ever and she's a fucking genius" and "Taylor Swift is the worst lyricist of all time and also a bad person" is exhausting, so thank you for like. nuance or something lmao

not to make it serious for a sec but i genuinely think that being able to like things that are bad is really important. like I think that it's an important skill to be able to look at something and see what you personally enjoy about it and then take a step back and acknowledge that objectively it's flawed. and to also be able to acknowledge that liking something isn't necessarily an identity or a moral stance. and i think that fandom space in general could really benefit from more people taking the time to learn how to do that. it's okay to like things that are bad

[saph-y]

Me at 3 a.m. apparently : *Rolls a new Elden Ring game with my fav pkmn chara face for absolutely zero logical reason ⚔️🦌🩸*

(untrue, the logical reason is I wanted to.)