#like. what but more importantly why

[distant-screaming]

🌻

🌻 - my favorite fact I learned by doing research for a fic recently is that 'riding or sitting on a sea turtle in the United States is a 3rd degree felony'.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

oh noooo or whatever

bonus aka The Real Motive Behind This:

SURPRISE double bonus. textless ver of the first pic under the cut

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[welcometogrouchland]

Also I am. Constantly forgetting how fucking funny Hunter is. We never give him enough credit for how funny he is because his life is so fucked up but I swear 90% of his lines are just bit after bit after bit. He's not even trying either. Anytime he actively tries to make a joke it falls flat but if you just put him in a Scenario he'll find a way to be so over invested and yet out of touch/at odds with whatever's going on. He's so autistic

[lordbucketofthecaribbean]

What the fuck was that

X-men nation I don’t feel so good

Send help

Edit: Erik’s probably fine btw, no corpse means no death. I hope.

[laegolas]

A fact: a god loses their divinity only when it is sealed, or when belief in them is lost.

Another fact: Hua Cheng ascended.

He was never banished - he simply abandoned heaven the moment he realized Xie Lian was not there. For many of the gods this is tantamount to a death sentence - to fade into obscurity. Hua Cheng’s survival without followers could be attributed to his ghostly origins, and his own self determination, which could be true but —

What if there was someone who sent a prayer up in remembrance of a small ghost fire who warmed a chill night. What if there was someone who lit incense for a nameless follower with a smiling mask who sacrificed everything to save everyone(someone). The offerings are meager, rare, but sincere - worth more than a million merits from gold.

Hua Cheng may be the Flower Crowned Prince’s most devoted follower. Faith, gratitude, and love, however, transform Xie Lian into Wu Ming’s steadfast believer.

[waterdropsfall]

Decided to do a full boy drawing of my redesign :)

I was going for smth like underpaid office worker with the outfit

I also wanted to make it more appropriate for fighting so i aded oboros googles and the staf but his i think his was made of wood? This one is metal :]

[stephaniebrownthespoiler]

the non inclusion of Kon here is so funny to me

like there is very clearly an empty spot where he could have been and there is literally no reason that i can think of not to include him. like does Ollie just not remember his ass. what is this. it's so funny for no reason

[tepli-mravenci]

same guy

[recurring-polynya]

i want the boots rukia is wearing in this color spread more than anything

[camels-pen]

consider sanuso bodyswap where Sanji is of course "admiring" Usopp's body and Usopp is trying desperately to keep himself from getting worked up so that he doesn't light himself on fire.

Luffy and Chopper are not helping. They are in fact doing the opposite of helping. They've ramped up their pranks and are doing anything possible to get Usopp angry so that he combusts, freaks out, and then dives into the ocean to put himself out. They think it's hilarious.

Nami and Brook are Also not helping, since they're conspiring with Sanji to put on a fashion show with Usopp's body. Sanji called it "not wasting a precious opportunity to get him in something other than overalls". Usopp called it mutiny and he was gonna- dive into the ocean, holy fuck Sanji why is it so easy to catch fire?!

Best part about this is that Sanji assured him, several times, that his body doesn't get hurt by catching fire. Usopp still jumps into the ocean every time.

Robin pipes up at one point, asking if Sanji was immune to just his own flames or all flames. Sanji just kind of shrugs and said it depends. Franky, having just been leisurely watching all of this gets an idea. Would his Franky Fireball hurt Sanji's body or just give him more fire to work with?

He tries to coax Usopp into agreeing to test it out and, somehow, he manages it. Albeit, Usopp is all knocking knees and chattering teeth, a very odd sight from 'Sanji'. As part of the deal though, he can only shoot a fireball the size of his hand.

Usopp meant his small hand. The one Franky used for tinkering and fine detail work. He did not, however, clarify this.

So, when a fireball the size of Franky's big hand comes out, well. Usopp runs for his goddamn life.

It takes him a few moments- and the voices of his friends sounding distant and below him- to realize he hadn't, in fact, run to the men's quarters, but rather into the fucking sky.

And oooooh, boy he is gonna kill Sanji one of these days. Why was his body's first fucking instinct when running to go up, what the actual HELL-

Usopp lit himself on fire again.

He curses out Sanji as his Sky Walk fails in the same moment and he plummets towards the deck.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

Ignore all logistical considerations of "would they ever meet each other under these circumstances". If you don't think Jules Bashir would have chosen to join Starfleet, imagine he is on the station for some other reason, or they meet in some other location.

I wanted to make this poll because I've seen various fics where Garak reassures Julian that far from being upset over him being augmented, Garak is grateful for it, either explicitly because (he thinks) they wouldn't be able to have their usual conversations if it weren't for the augmentations, or simply because he likes Julian "just the way he is" and wouldn't want him to be "different". I disagree that Garak would think like this (or at the very least, I think Julian would react negatively if he did, rather than be reassured), so I wanted to hear everyone else's thoughts.

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

i see a lot of interpretations of zor being this otherworldly, anomalous presence- larger than life, practically non-human. and i, too, like perceiving zor through this veil of anonymity. i think making them too tangible or perceivable really detracts from what's been established about their character.

but, i personally really, really like the thought of zor being human. mortal. but terrifying to the point where you'd be forgiven for forgetting it.

i think one of the things that i adored about ieytd before the third game dropped (and honestly made me a little disappointed when it was changed later on) was the fact that the agency never had a face. it just... was what it was. it had facets- granted, the EOD was always the only one of any relevance. but, really, think about what we know about the agency between all three games. compare that to how much we know about zoraxis.

there's something really appealing to me about zor being who they are... they're probably the most wealthiest person on earth. they had a monopoly that quite literally gripped the world in their first- as their emblem would suggest. they hire some of the most lethal minds in the world- chemists, inventors, engineers.

and yet... despite it all, they're just one person. to me, their anonymity is a shield against the fact they are a person. they hide behind the lethality and prowess of their elite operatives- not to mention we've seen how clever they can be when it came to manipulating prism. they're by no means useless.

but what would they be without their anonymity? what would they be without the weapons they didn't design, the lairs they didn't build, the employees they use as human shields? the second zor is gone, zoraxis crumbles. they are the support pillar of their entire corporation.

... but what's the agency's equivalent? even post morales being a character, can we be certain that he's the glue holding the entire organization together?

think about zoraxis' most lethal schemes. seizing control of the world's atomic weaponry. striking targets anywhere on earth's surface with a giant laser. exploding the brain of every telekinetic agent on the planet. are they really seeking to cause as much damage as possible- to the agency specifically, collateral, or otherwise?

or do they not know where to strike. zor's tactic- for as high the stakes have been escalating- has always carried a similar motif. cleave and strike indiscriminately until the threat is neutralized.

but it never works. zor is lashing at a hydra- sprouting new heads where the old ones have been lopped off. they don't seem aware of how to destroy the agency other than exterminating each and every one of them off the face of the earth, in whatever way is most convenient at the moment.

i just think there's something to be said about zoraxis- and by extension, zor- always being seen as this oppressive, near-otherworldly force, constantly applying pressure on phoenix... when for all we know, zoraxis could be perceiving the agency in the exact same light.

zor, ultimately, has one beating heart. the agency has thousands. and all of them are dispensable.

[luvscharlos]

welp, happy birthday to alex ig (his birthday present is logans car)

[akirakirxaa]

Persephone's not sure what's going on but she and Pommy are going to figure it out.

[maulfucker]

we never see much of Dathomir, and what little we see is usually connected to Mother Talzin's side of the planet - the side where she ruled as a powerful witch, where a clan of nightbrothers is submissive to her clan and just as ready to die at her order as her nightsisters. but we do also see hints that she is just as megalomaniacal and tyrannical as Palpatine, so why should we believe this is the default?

in the better Dathomir that lives in my head if a clan is submissive to another, it is something political between them, not a reflection of the entire planet's power dynamics. the "Nightsisters keep the Nightbrothers as slaves and breeding stock" is a malicious misunderstanding by outsiders who wanted to paint dathomirians as savages. it is blatantly racist, but so is a lot of the galaxy, so no one really questions it.

in the better Dathomir that lives in my head the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers are equals, and it's not that the men are kept isolated, but that every clan lives mostly isolated from each other, possibly for safety reasons - this is the planet where rancors are originally from, it's entirely possible that in the old times wild rancors used to raid and destroy villages, and living near each other put them at risk of successive attacks. by isolating from each other they minimized the risk of losing entire generations at the same time, even if it creates a highly fragmented society and culture.

in the better Dathomir that lives in my head magic is not exclusive to the Nightsisters, it's just something some clans (of both Nightsisters and Nightbrothers) practice and others don't.