For We Walk By Faith And Not By Sight

2 Corinthians 5:7 Christian; Australian; Writer. Fan of disney, superheroes, fairytales, and general fantasy.

[visenyaism]

80s misogyny saved the Star Wars galaxy because Darth Vader wasted all his time and effort trying to convince his starry-eyed gayboy empath son to become an evil space fascist when if anyone had any point asked his daughter “hey do you ever just want to KILL these people” she would’ve been shooing lightning out of her hands to prove a point in like 10 minutes

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

(via prev)

[wanderintofics]

I think an interesting characterization of batman in regards to how annoyed he is when pulled out of gotham for justice league business is that he feels redundant, particularly n battle. he understands his worth as a strategist and someone who knows how to keep an organization running but in his mind that all could be an email and in battle there’s nothing he could do that some other hero couldn’t and, frankly, probably better. He is aware that in a super fight he is Just A Guy. while as in gotham there’s five seperate murder investigations happening right now that he IS irreplaceable in solving. this way it isn’t about superiority or surliness it’s about what he thinks is effective use of resources

[elissagothicity]

Bruce "I apologize for taking so long to analyze the autopsy of your brother's dead body, Its just that my superpowered friends wanted the pleasure of my company while they battled Deus-ex-machina number 7" Wayne

[shaftking]

“Media can be factually made with a child/family audience in mind” and “media for children/family audiences can be well made and engaging pieces of art” and “if you are an adult you should have a more diverse media diet than what exists to target an audience of primary middle and grade schoolers” and “it’s okay to watch a cartoon as an adult and enjoy it” can coexist.

[disorientation]

Having a "stupider people have done this" attitude about the things you want to do can open so many doors

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

I see your “Rocky swears like a sailor but only in pitches humans can’t hear/refuses to teach Grace what those words mean” and raise you “Rocky swears like a sailor and now has to explain to Grace that ‘bad bad bad’ isn’t actually a sequence you play on your Eridian speech piano in polite company.”

Grace is both horrified and amused to realise that a more accurate translation for what Rocky’s been saying is “shit shit shit”.

[verenakauer]

I feel so many feelings about Rocky during the first contact. He wants to connect SO BADLY. Do Eridians have horror stories about scary aliens? If they do, Rocky doesn't care. He wants this alien to be friendly. He does everything he can to accommodate. Here, a little gift I'm sending your way at the speed you're comfortable with. Please be there. Here, the next gift is going right into your airlock so that it's easier for you to catch. Please don't fly away. You made a strange gesture with your limb, I'll make my robot make that gesture back. Please belive that I'm friendly. Here's a tunnel to connect us, I'll make sure you can breathe in it. Please come meet me. I'll let you choose the material for the wall separating us; I'll rebuild the whole wall if it makes you more comfortable, no trouble, just please let's talk. You're all alone on your ship, I can hear it, please come sleep here where I can watch you, it's unsafe for you to be alone. I'm alone and scared, it's been 46 years since I felt safe while sleeping, please please please watch me sleep too. I'm very vulnerable when I sleep and I trust that you won't use it against me. I want to visit your ship, am allowed, question? I'm moving in with you. Let's save the stars.

[permanenteclipse]

Fictional country: average fantasy

Fictional small town in the middle of nowhere in real country: par for the course in any genre

Fictional major city in real country: standard fair, but it's usually clearly based on a real city

Fictional suburb of real major city in real country: strange but I can see the application

Real major city in fictional country: Chicago can be anywhere you dream of

[razielim]

debates i didn't know existed + a very humorous distinction

hostiles = antagonists that Murderbot is worried about 😳

targets = antagonists that need to worry about Murderbot :)c

[johannestevans]

Children near a magical wood catching bugs and their family are like. Please do not catch pixies and small fae and bring them into our home. They are sentient and they are intelligent

And the kids are like "but they get into our bug traps" and "we didn't catch him he followed us home"

And their parents are like. Please i do not believe that 6 fucking pixies smuggled themselves into our garage on the underside of your bicycle saddle and then set up shop in the old dolls house. These are living beings they're not toys it's not kind to treat them like this

And the kids are like we are NOT treating them like anything you said we're not allowed to trap them and they always get into our traps so we always run away when they see us and then they follow us and get inside our backpacks and stuff

And the parents are like

Stop lying!!!

And then they set up wildlife cams and not only can pixies apparently do all of that and are very desperate to hang out with these human kids (who have fun life-sized toys and are covered in wonderful things like glitter and are a free source of fresh bugs and pop tart crumbs)

But they can also like. Fully just pick locks and shit.

Setting up little cameras and having to come to terms with the fact that not only are these small fae initiating every interaction with the kids but have also taken their cat's side in the war against pigeons and keep riding it into battle

[doccyuk]

The fae quickly realise the camera is a camera, and just as quickly invent silent movies

Each intertitle card has been crafted from words cut out of other writing, so a piece of paper looking like a ransom demand states "BuT Hoo wil SAVE the Dams3l?" is pulled away to reveal a doll tied to train tracks

[theaudientvoid]

Which Birdcage cell block leader would you join up with?

Marquis

Acidbath

Teacher

Lab Rat

Galvanate

Gavel

Black Kaze

Glaistig Uaine

String Theory

Crane the Harmonius

Ingenue

Lustrum

Voting ended onJun 4

[lakesbian]

i genuinely love that the way k.a applegate resolves the issue of needing the alien on the team to be able to drop plot crumbs without totally solving everything for the human kids is by making aximili-esgarrouth-isthill a jock who only tangentially paid attention to when his teachers were explaining, like, the andalite equivalent of how to find the cosine of a triangle, and now he's in an astronomically rare circumstance where the fate of an entire species depends on him remembering how to do that. and he's cold sweating trying to recall the answers to homework problems he didn't do. and also he's always lying.

[lakesbian]

ax is literally experiencing like if you got teleported back several hundred years and everyone was expecting you to explain the precise mechanisms of how cell phones work to them and if you don't come up with a sufficient explanation they're all going to die. And he's not enjoying it.

[lakesbian]

every day this happens to ax

[i-am-a-fish]

please do not look up to me. I am 1 inch tall. I'm down here. if you look up you won't see me

[breezey-with-an-e-art]

but what if i.....

[i-am-a-fish]

I REALLY LIKE THIS ART THIS IS SO CUTE I'M BEING HELD UP

[wormzandgutz]

Born to be on a death metal cover, forced to be a viking

[beginnerblueglass]

I’ll never forget the story my dad told about the time our church was contacted by a man who was in need of some money for food, so the pastor took my dad to meet this guy at a cafe to talk about what was going on in his life, and some specific ways they could help, both materially and spiritually. The guy rebuffed every attempt to establish any kind of relationship or to hear the gospel, and made it very clear that he just wanted the money. When the pastor eventually gave him a gift card for a grocery store, he got upset that it wasn’t cash.

Another story is of my former pastor who had a man walk into church after the service and ask for money for food. The pastor said he’d take him to lunch at the MacDonalds down the block, and they could talk about what was going on in this guy’s life, and how the pastor and church could help. The pastor got a phone call at the door, so he handed the guy a twenty dollar bill and told him he could go order. After his phone call, he went into the restaurant and the man was nowhere to be seen. He’s taken his whole $20 and skedaddled.

Another story of a pastor who invited a man who had come to the church asking for money for food to his house for dinner. Later that night, the man broke into the pastor’s house, stole a bunch of stuff, and stole his car.

Rest assured pastors are used to people dealing with them in bad faith. These men remain some of the most generous people I know. They give to all who ask them. But a pastor’s willingness or unwillingness to give his church’s money and resources to someone he doesn’t know, who will not even attempt to engage in the community that is a church, especially someone who won’t even show up in person, is not an accurate barometer to gauge the generosity of a church or individual or Christians in general. The pastor’s job is also to protect his flock from wolves, like scammers who prey on the generosity of kindhearted people.

[thisbibliomaniac]

My pastor (we do not have a secretary) gets calls begging for money on a regular basis. Meanwhile, my church, as well as individual members, gave generously to friends of mine who were regular attenders, but not members, when they had an emergency.

We both give to and volunteer at the local food bank. We both give to and volunteer at the local pregnancy center.

Yes, the church is ready and willing to do for the community, but the reality is that much of the community is desperate to scam the church.

[historicaldisaster]

Ex Church Secretary here! Can confirm what has been said above and add more stories.

I was told first day of the job that I was NEVER to give cash to anyone who asked for help. Multiple secretaries in churches around the area had begun being harassed and even stalked by individuals who had identified the church and these women as likely to give free handouts. In addition, multiple churches had suffered break ins shortly after and it was believed people were asking for cash in order to confirm that money was being kept on sight for them to break in and steal later. I had a panic button that had been installed directly because of incidents like this where previous secretaries had been threatened and needed the pastors to come and help.

Our local churches were not wealthy, and thus decided to pool resources into a singular organization of local churches. Through this organization we paid rent, covered car repairs, handled groceries, babysitting, etc. It allowed churches to cover more ground together than we could apart. We were regularly accused of refusing to help people in need because the aid did not come through our doors, but through the organization's doors. Many churches cannot provide enough resources on their own, but by giving what they have to a specialized organization they can more effectively give to the community. Them telling people to go to ____ organization is not washing their hands of the issue, its helping someone get to the resources the church is helping to make available.

3. This multi-church organization we have was open to anyone in need, and the only barrier to entry was that we would pay directly to whoever needed to be paid and did not directly hand out cash. This quickly weeded out those who genuinely had something they needed help with, and those who just wanted cash. We also used second hand donations when we could to help stretch things. I frequently heard heartbreaking stories about how children would starve and anything would help, only to be cussed out and hung up on when I said we could pay their grocery bill through or organization or I could give them a grocery card, but I didn't have any cash. I had one woman bring her son in without any shoes asking for help, only to get angry and leave when I showed her our second hand shoes that she could grab any of that she needed. The amount of people angry because they didn't get cash was over twice the amount of people who actually took the aid we could offer. In fact, it was so rare for someone to actually accept help, that I remember them distinctly compared to the flood of angry, violent people who just wanted a quick buck.

The unfortunate reality is that it is dangerous and stupid for churches to hand out cash without any boundaries or discretion. It's a disservice to the people donating resources, and it's a cruel injustice to people who genuinely need these things, because they are inevitably outrun and cut off by opportunists who get there first and taken everything they can get. Every other charity operates with this kind of discretion or should be, and there is little to no criticism of them for doing so.

The reality is that people don't have a problem with how churches run charity, they have a problem with churches.

[beginnerblueglass]

👆👆👆

[ozvezdja]

its really unfortunate that padme no longer used the body double approach to security after aotc because the concept of the queen of fakeout deaths being married to the guy who loses his shit at the thought of her dying is honestly the wildest fucking thing and i think it's underutilised. let's give anakin a few trial runs before his big breakdown ok. maybe seeing padme getting assassinated live on space tv on a monthly basis will let him microdose on acceptance and inner peace. he can get into a different stage of grief each time and maybe when rots rolls around he will be fine

[homunculus-argument]

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and

[thekijs]

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.

[weaselle]

yuh i was there, that's how it happened

[baraphalloplastyclinic]

I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?

Don't become a housewife.

[ladyfoxfire]

And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.

If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.

[dressedupliketheking]

also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can