#the art class is a metaphor

[mumblesplash]

(teaching my art class)

me: and what’s the number one rule when designing characters with wings? …well?

a handful of students, sighing reluctantly: no good fa-

me (interrupting them): NO good-faith attempts at realism, EVER. you want all the bird dweebs and physicists jumping ship as EARLY AS POSSIBLE so they’re not around to cinemasins your ass when you get to the cool parts of your story, and…ugh, what now, gerald

gerald (my least favorite student): why not just do some minimal research instead of-

me: listen you little shit i can and will singlehandedly tank your 4.0 gpa

[eeriedragone]

omg not this guy again

[transsongtaewon]

Of course we know that there aren't many childhood pictures left of Yoohyun. But I think there weren't any in the first place of Yoojin.

Sure, when he was really young there was enough to fill a nice album, a cute baby and later chubby toddler adorning the walls, but they drop off when he is five. Nothing new joins what is there and eventually the pictures are taken down.

There are pictures of Yoohyun, many of them clumsily taken and out of focus, fingers poking in the frame of more than a few. Yoohyun looks happy in all of them, often posing somewhere but sometimes also caught unaware, doing his homework in the kitchen or unpacking a lunch box on a park bench.

How do you think their parents felt the first time they looked back through pictures from their beach vacation only to find Yoohyun, learning how to tie his shoes. Did they delete the pictures? How many times? Did they tire of it eventually? Of erasing their son's milestones, so they gave up and bought a new camera for their next vacation?

Of course it's not like there's no pictures of Yoojin. He's there in class pictures (few) and company get-togethers (many), and for special occasions there's even pictures of him and Yoohyun together, looking proud at Yoohyun's middle school graduation, still having to lean down so they're the same height. There's not many of these pictures - you can only ask a stranger to help take photos for so long - but at least they are some proof Yoojin exists as more than the eye that watches over Yoohyun.

[elevenveggiestraws]

“Take my right eye.”

“Excuse me?”

“Since I’ve already staked it once.”

…

“If you lose one of your eyes, won't your combat ability deteriorate? Why would you take such a loss because of me?"

"If I had to choose, I'd choose you, Han Yoojin-gun."

[unholyverse]

i like happy songs that sound nice, even with their words like dog bites

[dawnthefluffyduck]

I think i doubt my ability to work faster under stress too much

[chillandnormalrambles]

don’t sink in me with your dog teeth

[miiilowo]

Your chalk pastel drawing looks really interesting! I find the yellow aura against the black background inticing to look at.

I was wondering if you would post a close-up? No worries if you don't. Best of luck with finishing it over the break.

here u go :3 I started the door and didn't finish it (including most the shading for it) but everything else that's done is pretty much finished aside from needing to be filled in/blended better

[martyryo]

I can't cook I lack ingredients and they cut off the gas

[yurigalactica]

Her Name

Beneath a blanket of laurel and viridian she lies, Tucked among the roots and ivy. The forest holds her in an embrace of thistles and thorns, Bones of ossified birch, knees sunk into dirt.

Her ghost likes to follow me around, A youthful skip in her gait. She is much more vibrant than I, Eyes azure and gleaming As she darts through the tree line and gleefully squeals "Last one there is a rotten egg."

It's not uncommon for people to see her in me, Or rather, her instead of me. Grown-ups often chuckle and sigh, sugar sweet smiles on their lips, And chitter amongst themselves about how oh-so precocious she is.

Will they ever see me?

She and I are one in the same, people tell me. We have the same smile, same hair, same face. She is all I have ever been and all I ever will be. Anything I think or say or do, no matter how original, She has done it first.

Her name is what people know me by.  It sticks to my skin like maple sap, Burrows itself deeper like a malignant little tick. While it once tasted like wildflowers and pine needles, Now, it is no more than a withered husk That tastes of ash on my tongue.

I do not hate her.

How can I?

She is pure and free and bright, A beam of sunlight born in the burning summer sky. My history is hers, and hers is mine, Identical spirals of cambium etched into the flesh of our arms. When I look into weathered polaroid photographs, Streaked yellow and pink from bygone years, I see her round, youthful face, Lips quirked upward and beaming at the camera.

Her smile is beautiful.

I hold her closely, I carry her on my back. Her arms are looped around my shoulders And her messy caramel curls fall over mine. She clings to me like a moth to a lamp, Sinks her ivory birch roots into my bones, Entwines herself with me. She is a part of me.

But I am not her.

I am alive and she is no more than a memory. Yet when the world speaks to me they call upon her name. When I do not answer, they do not understand why. When I drag them after me, through the woods and to her grave, And show them the brambles growing in her lungs And the sunflowers blooming in her throat, They tell me that she is merely sleeping. For how could a dead thing Bloom so bright?

So I hack off those beloved curls under the cover of the night And stain them the same color as the dawn. If I am ever to become more than the person who wears her face, I must bloom brighter than her corpse. If not an act of rebellion, then call it a desperate plea For someone to softly cup my cheek and, for once, see me.

I am not the little girl with the sunlit smile, But I once was, years ago. It is a fact that is as immutable as death, A law as eternal as life. And though I still carry her in my arms, I am older and wiser now And she will remain forever a child.

We are not the same person. Not anymore. And someday, I hope, the world will look upon us, See our fingers entwined like morning glory vines, And call upon not her,

But me.

[jackgoodfellow]

He's despicable, I'll take 12.

[Work-In-Progress]

Please feel free to drop your favorite toxic positivity slogans in the notes!

I want to write at least one such quote on this image. The top contender right now is "We all have the same 24 hours in a day!"

Also valid examples: "Nothing's impossible!", "Anyone can do it!", and "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps!" - or maybe just "Self-made :)"

---

Originally drawn in crayon at my local bar's game night because tabletop games are slow as fuck

[majormeilani]

why does everyone say that phrases like 'he hissed' or 'he growled' is just a fanfic thing when that's literally phasing used in plenty of literature 😭😭😭 where do y'all think the 'fanfic' people got that phrasing from

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Made a silly little template i guess. can use for whatever. cus it's silly and monokuma is presenting some important information, guys! also, since i made the template, i will go first with it's usage

[tothechaos]

i get to go to my first conference in october OwO its for museums and museum studies! ill be making a poster and (potentially? hopefully!) giving a presentation!!

[nautical-poe]

Last comic for this semester! But I’m planning on making more over summer so stay tuned!!

[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 :)