#straight up ranted about it for like an hour

[adlersbitchboy]

Never apologizing for ranting. I 100% agree. I got the achievement too first try and I always play cod campaigns on recruit first so I can get most of the story and then as I play like harder difficulties I notice more little things. I love all the references to each game that timeline wise come before it.

I agree that Adler should not be allowed out in public because even in cold war when he's "more tame" he's still psychotic. I love him but he terrifies me lowkey. Also who let that man go to Iraq alone after the doctor guy? We should be glad the doctor wasn't there and he had to get Sims involved otherwise he would've just come back to the safe house like "here's the info I got... by the way I killed the doctor" and w the player would have to sit there and be like "what the fuck Adler? What if he could've helped us more?" Also I love how they made Adler the slowest character in the desert mission. I kept looking back and he would be all the way back just coming over a dune after I'm on the next one already. He's got them bad knees and back I guess. Also during my playthrough on the mission with Sims, Adler went up to one of the shotgun enemies and got blasted in the face by the Marine SP. Like straight in the face. And then looked at me like I did it. Like I didn't tell you to follow me, ya twink. (Sorry I can talk about this man for hours)

I also loved the scene with Felix cooking because it was one of many scenes that made the characters feel so much more real. It gave the player a feeling of connection and it shows the differences with how different Adler acts around people he trusts vs how he acted around Bell in Cold War... even if he did get more psychotic and paranoid.

BLACK OPS 6 SPOILERS

I finished BO6 and I was not expecting it to be THAT good. Like the final mission reminded me of BO3 BUT 10 TIMES BETTER. I mean did I hate the cliffhanger that is probably gonna make me watch warzone shit on YouTube? Yes. However I loved the gameplay and creativity the game brought to the table. I love the little touches in each characters room and Woods little cot set up by the evidence board. When i first saw the picture of Woods and Mason I almost started crying. Like that poor man has been through so much.

Also the end missions? Why did Adler just have MKUltra drugs lying around? Someone needs to like keep an eye on this psycho.

There was literally one mission where he disappeared and I started freaking out because I though Adler was off committing the most heinous war crimes ever. Like why did no one else besides Sims care about how psycho he was?

Speaking of Sims, that mission was so much fun.

I'm definitely gonna replay the fuck out of this game. I'm gonna treat it like I treated cold war and replay it til I beat it on Realism mode or whatever... which shouldn't take too long. I also have to go back and get all the achievements.

Also with the whole framing Adler thing... who really thought he wouldn't find away to fight the allegations?

[the-busy-ghost]

Me normally: Let people love what they love

Me, after a Test Match Special commentator expresses their belief that the new All Creatures Great and Small is somehow "better" than the 1978 version: This is pure insanity and TMS can no longer be trusted on anything, how can they even be trusted to know about cricket, do they have no TASTE

[cyarskj52]

[apoloniaspiegelgold]

All my life I've been told by all kinds of people that they can never really tell what I'm feeling or what's going through my mind because apparently I'm always just hiding everything behind a smile so that I've become rather unreadable. And then he just. Takes one look at me and goes 'Yeah. I know that face, oh here we go again, she's about to unleash her thoughts. She's gonna bash that theory I just showed her so hard. Where's my popcorn?' I hadn't even said anything yet and he was already laughing.

And to be honest. It's quite nice to be known, actually.

[doomatix]

LISTEN- It's the implication of RedCanary gouging their eyes out and having taken things from the ruins--possibly acting a guide for a certain someone to find them--the paranoia reaching a point that made them aggressive which was commented on... the sudden change of demeanor after posting a picture of gouged out eyes.... LISTEN,, there is one (1) bitch in this series that I remember that has specific benefit to gouging out other people's eyes, is basically haunting the institute, would mark a significant personality shift, and would be a freak about it. There isn't a whole lot of evidence thrown around but the possibility doth exist and I am going insane about it. I have THOUGHTS that cannot be committed to words yet but trust that they are there-

*Grabs you by the throat* Listen to me you TMAGP-loving freaks. Listen to me right now. RedCanary might be the host for this universe's Jonah Magnus.

This is under the assumption that TMAGP takes place in a parallel universe that may or may not have already had the fears in it prior to Jon releasing them at the end of TMA.

RedCanary goes to explore the Magnus Institute ruins. They become paranoid because the Eye is watching them. They pick up a wooden box with strange symbols carved into it. They go to put it back. Next we hear from them, they post an image of gouged out eyes with the caption "Canaries should stay above ground."

They found the tunnels, hence that caption. Then they found Jonah Magnus's body sitting down there, waiting for a new host.

In this universe, the Magnus Institute burned down in 1999. Maybe in this universe Gertrude went through with her original plan of burning the place to the ground after finding out Elias was actually Jonah in 1997. Either way, let's say Jonah's original body is down there, maybe with Elias's body and his eyes and all that, and with his plans foiled, he's just chilling down there waiting for an opportunity which RedCanary then gives him. This is my going theory due to the specificity of the caption "canaries should stay above ground" (referring to the tunnels, and also it being in third-person) and the fact that RedCanary themselves would be pretty unlikely to be able to post that picture of THEIR OWN EYES GOUGED OUT unless it was Magnus assuming their body and identity and being a freak about it.

But there's more.

Narratively speaking, it makes sense for the third voice in the computer to be Jonah Magnus, right? If Jon and Martin ended up in this universe as voices in a computer, the only other person sharing their fate would have to be Magnus, given how TMA ended. Recall, also, the boot-up sequence in the trailer of TMAGP.

Jonathan, Martin, and Jonah, right? Unless Augustus is gonna be a new J name or this is just an unrelated easter egg but like. It's Jonah right?? Right??? And he's watching the O.I.R.A through the systems like a good little voyeur, and Colin knows it!

So now we possibly have TWO Jonah Magnuses in this universe!! That's absurd!! One from the TMAGP universe now loose and running around in RedCanary's body, and one from the TMA universe trapped in a computer. But if this is true...doesn't that mean there would be two Jons and Martins too?

And listen...I'm thinking about what Jonny and Alex said during that liveshow panel about this story's themes regarding "what makes a human." If we dare to hope that Jon and Martin (and Jonah, if it's his voice in the computer) are going to gain consciousness and once again become proper characters...then, are they going to simply stay in the computer? Or are they going to "manifest" physically? Are they going to UPLOAD themselves into THEIR OWN TMAGP UNIVERSE BODIES?

@doomatix and I have been going crazy over these theories and they were the one that initially considered RedCanary's new identity as Jonah Magnus. Are our facts wrong? Does any of this even make sense? We haven't seen anyone else posting about this particular theory. Someone help us we are rotting. And don't even get me started on how GWEN would fit into this--

[kuromi-hoemie]

hhhh talking about my writing was fun but 30 tags is not enough.. yes i have 3 major influences but i have minor ones too.. it is a lovechild of my favorite things.. writing is so fun and i have no self control or a concept of pacing myself i will sit there for 16 hours and get hit with every status effect but by god does it all just flow out of me. I've always been a music person yes but i also used to write a lot into early adulthood until The Incident™

but i am ready 2 jump back into it. i think comics are a great middle ground between the two mediums so i don't get As into writing bc i kind of started going crazy last time 🫡 i can take a more structured approach to it that forces me to pace myself and think about it differently. i love art.... i love making things i love knowing how to do things i love knowing how to play things i love having so many creative outlets, even if i don't do a lot of them regularly lol. it is enriching 😳 and nice to know that it's always there to come back to when u want.

[comradecowplant]

so things are not going well with my new elderly socdem friend unfortunately.

[baku-usagi]

Hey sometimes healing is violence.

Sometimes getting better and truly repairing broken bits of yourself is being angry and letting that anger out.

Sometimes it's OK to not forgive until you've had the chance to rage.

[good-beans]

Gonna catch up my blog this/next week fr 👏

[t4tdanvis]

every time i meet a laurance stan theres like a 15% chance theyll like gene, 25% chance theyll just go "eh ok", and a 60% chance theyll go "hey u really like this character right? and u dont want people hating on ur comfort character right to ur face right? here have a 20 paragraph essay i typed up on how much i hate him, including details like how i portray him as an abuser and a rapist! u dont need to thank me :)"

[queenlucythevaliant]

Why did God harden the Pharaoh’s? I’m in a Bible as Lit class and someone brought up “wouldn’t that be against free will,” and why did God let the Israelites stay it in slavery for so long. Why is God different in the Old Testament to the New Testament? I hope this doesn’t bother you, with all these questions

Okay, so there are several different questions here and I'm going to try to address them all. I'm sure I'll miss something somewhere, so other more knowledgeable friends feel free to add on. Follow-ups are also very much welcome.

First off, Bible as literature class! Yikes. I took a Bible as lit class for my English minor years ago and my experience was pretty much wall-to-wall frustration. It was mostly an exercise in coming up with the most transgressive reads on Scripture possible and that really upset me.

I hope that your experience is better than mine. However, assuming that the class is at a secular university, I'd still encourage you to be intentional about talking the things you cover in class over with knowledgeable Christians in your life. I certainly benefitted a lot from doing so, both in the sense that I got to vent a whole bunch and in that I got help contextualizing the secular perspectives within Christian scholarship.

That out of the way: The God of the Bible is the same in both the Old and New Testaments.

I do understand where you’re coming from. It’s not uncommon for people to find God kind of inscrutable in the OT when they're more used to reading the NT. I actually think that's a failure on the part of the contemporary church in the West; large swaths of the OT tend to be understudied among lay-Christians.

Systematic theology can help a lot here. I'm just going to hit a few really broad highlights, but I really can't recommend Wayne Grudem highly enough if you're interested in more in-depth reading. Lots of people start with Bible Doctrine, but my family happened to have a copy of his enormous Systematic Theology tome in the basement when I was in high school and I got a lot out of just poking through that a little at a time too. A few quick bullets though:

Across all the Biblical texts, God is love. He glories in kindness to his people, whether it's in the covenant with Abraham, the Exodus, the faithful ministry of the prophets, Christ's ministry/death/resurrection, or the promised coming of his kingdom.

God is holy; he gives the Law to the Israelites so that they can approach his holiness without fearing for their lives and he sent Jesus so that we can do the same. Both Isaiah and Peter react with fear and awe in the face of God's holiness.

God is just. By virtue of his holiness, he cannot allow sin to go unpunished. As modern westerners, we often chafe against this but has any of us experienced justice that was actually pure? Justice is a form of faithfulness, and the same God who sent his people into exile poured out his wrath on his own son in our place. He has promised that one day, every evil will face his perfect justice.

God is faithful. He keeps his Covenant with Abraham even unto the cross. In the OT he is faithful husband to an adulterous people. In the NT he tells us that when we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Lots of other characteristics but this answer is going to be long enough as it is. The only way to get a real sense for the continuity within the Bible is to read the whole Bible with an eye towards the continuity.

The reason that God is more approachable in the NT than the Old is that he became human. In the Incarnation, all of that holiness and justice and faithfulness and love that was God came to earth in our perfect likeness so that he could live beside us and die for us. God is certainly easier to approach in light of Christ's work, but he is utterly the same as he ever was. Read the Transfiguration and tell me that isn’t the God of Mount Sinai. Read John 1 and tell me it doesn’t remind you of the end of Job. Read the Gospels, Hebrews, and Revelation and play spot-the-OT-parallel. It's beautiful.

Why did God leave his people in slavery for so long? You could ask the same question about the Babylonian captivity and even about why Jesus waits to return and finally defeat Death. Why does he wait? Why let his people suffer?

Well. God is sovereign and he only permits evil to the extent that it ultimately accomplishes the very opposite of what it intends. Because the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, the Exodus was able to occur. The Exodus glorified God in extraordinary fashion, both among his own people and to the peoples of the ancient world. It was also a necessary type and precursor to Jesus's work on the cross. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that redemptive history rests on God's work in the Exodus, which is itself contingent on a period of slavery in Egypt.

“How long, O Lord” and “Come Lord Jesus” are the same sentiment in different words. We are still in exile, even now. We are chronologically exiled from the place where we belong, the New Jerusalem, and we mourn because we live in a fallen world in which sin and death can still hurt us. We can ask, just as the Prophets once asked, why God waits to vanquish the Enemy, extract suffering from the world, and restore our years that the locusts have eaten. And in each case (the slaves in Egypt, the Babylonian captivity, and the period of waiting for Jesus to return), the answer is that God does not fix it yet because He is doing something bigger!

Regarding Pharaoh's heart: this is basically a question of human nature. The easiest way that I can articulate it off the top of my head is using Augustine's fourfold state of man:

Prior to the fall, man was able either to sin or not to sin (posse peccare, posse non peccare)

The natural state of man after the fall is one in which he is unable not to sin (non posse non peccare). This was Pharaoh's state.

Following the work of Christ, regenerate man is able not to sin (posse non peccare)

In eternity, glorified man will be unable to sin (non posse peccare)

When we talk about man's will, we must acknowledge that our wills are subject to our nature. In other words, Pharaoh was a natural, fallen man. His nature was inherently sinful and his heart inherently hard.

What we've got here is sort of a "Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated" situation. Pharaoh, in his natural state, had a hard heart and a natural enmity with God. God did not intervene to give him a heart of flesh. My people I have loved, but Pharaoh I have hated.

Not a perfect parallel, but I think it serves its purpose. The point is that God's sovereignty isn't in conflict with man's will, since our wills are a function of our natures. Man behaves however his nature inclines him to behave at any given time. We call this free will; however, God is entirely sovereign over all of it.

This is definitely a long, messy answer, but like I said, feel free to continue the conversation. I've got some biochem to work on, but I'm always happy to talk theology :)

[galindatopland]

i am VERY sleep deprived and not really sure how to put it into words so bear with me but something about yellowjackets pushing regular human experiences to the extremes and being so unafraid to step into the truly bizarre and unhinged really just resonates with me in some way. it's hard to show the inner experiences on screen and they often feel so much larger and so much weirder than how it looks from the outside. and then there's the way things turn very literal on this show. they wanted to freeze out a member in the pilot and then they reject jackie and she freezes to death. the consequences become so much more lethal but i think for many people they always felt that way internally. and it's this way with like every main character. take like.. even misty for example. yeah you probably didn't prevent your entire team from getting rescued after a plane crash lmao but you may have been bullied and you may have craved validation so much you did things you're embarrassed by or keep a secret. oh you have intrusive thoughts or health anxiety? you might relate to tai's very real fear of her own self, to thinking you can't trust yourself or your body. have you ever been consumed by grief and guilt? well try finding a character more consumed by guilt and grief than shauna

[look-better-in-gold]

one thing i think one piece fans forget is that for most of the characters in it having the d initial doesn’t mean anything. we don’t find out it’s anything to think about until skypiea while robin is talking to gan fall (who met roger) and he says “d.? i see. one letter of his name… that can’t just be a coincidence!!!” and laughs. we only know what we do bc luffy’s the main character. i guess you could argue kureha saying roger’s name is gol d. roger at the end of drum counts but it’s brushed off and you’re not like. encouraged to think about why it’s different. she only knows this bc she’s a REALLY old lady who was around when roger first set out. and gan fall met roger. law knows about it from cora, Who Used To Be A Celestial Dragon. nobody who knows about it is a normal citizen. the world government wants it to be a secret. they successfully wiped out 100 years of history. “the will of d.” or those “eat like a d.” jokes are NOT something everyone is making!!! GUYS. WE ONLY KNOW BECAUSE WE’RE THE VIEWERS. WE’RE WATCHING THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. NOT EVERYONE WILL KNOW WHAT THEY DO!!!!

[loderlied]

[nebulouscoffee]

Friends I crave distraction. Please feel free to send me random Star Trek asks - about the shows, the characters, hot takes, theories, your fics, my fics, someone else's fics- anything is fine, I would very much welcome it

[orcelito]

I always get so angry but then I play video games and I'm no longer so angry

This is a problem when it comes to wanting to leave my shit ass job