#asking god the important questions

[royalnavyart]

Lord please free me from this wretched heathen… teach me how to resist temptation.

[bl0rbohandbag]

Malleus on his way to tell his grandmother the next queen of Briar Valley is going to be a magicless human from another world that just showed up at NRC one day and if he doesn't marry them there will be NO EGG and the Draconia bloodline ends with him

[extravagav]

Oh heal my shriveled up little heart...

[countess-of-edessa]

scrolling through novena after novena choosing which saints i think would be most receptive to my frivolous little interpersonal problems

[natjennie]

the kristen cassandra night cool moonlight darkness unknown doubt and fig ankarna day sun justice conviction parallels..... the way they commingle in the common ground of rebellion..... the fact that you need doubt to find the truth and you need to believe in yourself to stand up for what is right and you need to trust that there is something better on the other side of the darkness..... the them...

[ye-olde-trojan-horse]

if someone could swiftly murder me prior to the work presentation I have to give in 5 mins that would be grand

[scientia-rex]

I'm Roomba cleaning again, complicated by the fact that I'm also taking down and packing away the decorations from Christmas, and since I change things/buy things/get rid of things every year while I try to fine-tune my decorations, that also means packing them away is more complicated than when I was a kid and it was like "here are our 5 boxes of Christmas decorations that will be the same until we die."

So I get to feeling frustrated and scattered because no one thing is coming together, because I keep going "oh shit, laundry. Okay, now that I'm in the laundry room, let's grab these Christmas sheets I cleaned and set aside a week ago and see if they fit in the new sheet organizer I got. Okay, now that the sheets are in the organizer, they have to go in the closet. Okay, now I'm standing in front of the closet and oh look there's a thing I need to carry back out to the living room." And it feels like nothing like happening, but I can TELL it is. If I give myself an ounce of credit, I can see that I'm getting closer and closer to the house looking the way I want it to.

It just sucks! I just hate having the ADD. Like, on the one hand, what is ADD, how do we define it, what useful characteristics does the definition have, how will our understanding of this change as our base of behavioral neuroscientific knowledge increases over time, but also: there's something different about how my brain works and it's times like this I wish there wasn't!

[pinkestlittlebutterfly]

Here’s what I’d do if I made a Servamp hospital AU except that I have no plot, only vibes. 

Mahiru – head nurse in charge of one of the wards, often working the shifts no one else wants. He’s beloved by some patients for being genuine and kind, annoying to others for his no-nonsense-attitude, and adored by young doctors for providing useful advice. In his locker there’s a stash of necessities for patients with no one to bring them – toothbrushes, phone chargers, a small selection of candy…

Kuro – nursing assistant, unwillingly provided with a job by his housemate and head nurse Mahiru. He spends most of his work day either complaining or hiding in the bathrooms, but is kept on the team for the soothing aura he exudes. Sometimes he lets terrified kids borrow his Nintendo Switch. 

Hugh – cardiothoracic surgeon. He is absolutely brilliant at his job, but struggles with the parts of surgery that require a bit of physical strength. Though he cares deeply for his colleagues he’s known for his very specific demands regarding surgery preparation, and occasional bouts of arrogance that are rumoured to be an attempt at compensation. Working with Tetsu has made him mellow out.

Tetsu – surgical nurse, and everyone’s favourite. Among the surgical team he’s deeply appreciated for the help he provides with physically demanding tasks, like positioning patients, and being gentle and careful despite his strength. Hugh insists on having Tetsu assist him whenever a challenging surgery is coming up, even if he has to stand on a step to mitigate their height difference. 

Lily – paediatrician who excels at handling fussy children and difficult family members. Outwardly he appears sweet and saccharine in advocating for those in his care, but he knows his rights well and will happily manipulate, lie or go behind a parent’s back should he find it necessary. He’s often called in for patients with suspicious bruises or injuries, and works closely with Misono from clinical forensics. 

Misono – specialist in clinical forensics. He’s known for his meticulous, court-proof documentation, which not a single lawyer has managed to get dismissed yet. Though he can’t work long shifts and used to be called in for consultations only, he has recently campaigned to establish a small outpatient department he can run some days of the week. He works closely with Lily from paediatrics. 

Mikuni – former member of the security team, now working in administration. Thus, he spends most of his days annoying anyone unlucky enough to catch his attention, preferably Jeje from radiology or Shuuhei from hygiene management, and seems to know everything about everyone. Sometimes Lily or Misono still call him to handle issues they’d rather not involve the actual security team in. 

Jeje – radiologist who has not seen the sun in months. He chose his job specifically to avoid contact with others, but must frequently leave the dark, little room he likes to stay holed up in to help out with punctures and other interventions since no one else has hands as steady as his. He’s often visited by Mikuni from administration or Lily from paediatrics, who bring him vitamin d supplements. 

Tsurugi – leader of the security team, infamous and mysterious to anyone who hasn’t witnessed him in line for lunch at the cafeteria yet. He only answers to one of the higher-ups among the administration team. Whether it’s a problem that security lies entirely in the hands of the administration is an ongoing discussion among the medical staff, but no one knows whether Tsurugi is aware of it. 

Shuuhei – head of hygiene management, living off coffee from spill-proof reusable cups. He’s said to be pedantic, but that’s what makes him good at his job. Though it’s a thankless endeavour, he works tirelessly to make sure everyone knows when to use which disinfectant and how to properly put on rubber gloves. Only the resident microbiologist seems to take him completely seriously. 

[skitskatdacat63]

"Victory belongs to the most persevering" - Nandopoleon Alonsoparte

+ First Consul Nandopoleon

Wow look I finally drew him properly! This was like the 2nd or so AU I've ever made, but honestly I feel so strongly about it that it's really intimidating to try and make a satisfying explanation post for it. I want it to be perfect ah. But I will one day! Maybe a web weave or smth in the meantime. But I digress. Napoleon Bonaparte = Fernando Alonso, please contact @/skitskatdacat63 for details.

In this painting I drew the uniform Napoleon wore during the Italian campaign in the 1790s, bcs I think it's so pretty, and not just the typical Napoleon outfit everyone knows(tho dw I'm in love with that one too.)

Though I will say, it was a bit weird drawing Fernando in navy blue(is this a sign for 2025?), so I had to draw him in the bright red First Consul uniform, to return some order to the world y'know

I ended up picking "victory belongs to the most persevering" as the Napoleon quote to use, but that was really hard to pick tbh. I literally have a whole folder of Napoleon quotes that remind me of Fernando LOL. Some others, to give you an idea:

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."

"From triumph to downfall, there is but one step."

"Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am."

"It requires more courage to suffer than to die."

Etc etc., again: I have a folder ;;;

I don't think this drawing was nearly as complicated as the Seb one, but for some reason it made me suffer more. I think you just get into this really intense mindset after drawing smth super detailed, and it's very frustrating. But I like it! His face was very confusing to me(the angle of the eyes), and then it randomly hit me how to draw it so that was cool. Look at him face :) handsome boy

Also here's the process! I think I'm gonna try and draw something each weekend as a gift to myself after the school week(if I have actual ideas for it lol)

[vamprisms]

funniest thing they could do on the boys is have homelander depowered so that he has to face life without powers in some sort of poetic justice and then at the last minute have billy beat him to death with a pipe anyway

[lavender-gayz]

why is it always 'what the fuck now lizzie?' and 'why didn't you destroy the dress lizzie?' how about 'did you have fun with the axe lizzie? it looked like you had fun'

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

y'all i promise i was GOING to brainrot about moth but then genshin dropped the teaser for the Arlecchino animated short and now my head is full of nothing but Father

[cementcornfield]

watched the press conference. joe seemed very calm and cool as always. said he expects them to make the playoffs with jake 😭

and of course one reporter snuck in a ja'marr question right at the end (i think james rapien who seems to ask all the ja'marr questions, bless him). he asked joe how ja'marr took the news and that seemed to throw joe off for a second before he said that ja'marr was disappointed 😔 but that jake would feed him like joe normally does 😭

[queenlucythevaliant]

Some off-the-cuff thoughts on overspiritualizing patterns in science

I remember watching a talk in middle school youth group about laminin, the "molecule that holds your whole body together" which was supposedly shaped like a cross. The suggestion, basically, was that the cross's image was integral to our molecular makeup and that this was part of God's design in a very Significant way. I was a burgeoning STEM girl, so I taped a diagram of a laminin up next to my bed for a while.

(As I would later find out, the whole laminin thing had/has some reach among Christians. There are T-shirts and everything)

Fast forever to spring of my freshman year as a microbiology student. I take my first course in cell bio, and I learn that laminins are actually one of many families of ECM glycoproteins. They aren't really any more significant in "holding the body together" than collagens, elastins, or fibronectins. They're very important, yes, but ultimately just one type of adhesive protein among many. And! They also do a bunch of other stuff that's way cooler than just. Adhesive.

While some laminins do bear resemblance to a cross when diagramed, it's really only because they have three subchains. Some are t-shaped, but others are y-shaped, and those don't look anything like a cross. Also, when they're in situ rather than in a nice, neat diagram, they tend to be all floppy and then they look even less cross-like.

Source

And when I learned about this I was oddly relieved. It felt like I was right about something that I couldn't even put into words, and that somehow the field of what I could call glorious had grown wider.

Christians are called to see and marvel at the presence of God in creation. I love doing that! I see God left and right through my scientific studies. Yet I also know that the human brain is pattern-seeking and that we are prone to pareidolia. I honestly don't know that there's a substantive difference between seeing the cross in some laminins and seeing Jesus on a piece of toast. It's all just seeing patterns that arise from something else (in the case of laminins, being able to bind three different molecules at once) and attributing spiritual significance. God is sovereign and maybe in the grand scope of his vision for creation it means something, but in terms of seeing God's hand in science I just find it so... small?

You could spin so many four-chain or four-domain proteins or goodness knows how many other molecules into images of the cross if you pick the right diagram. You could take every pattern of three in nature (and there are many!) as an image of the Trinity. If you really, really wanted to, you could take every six in organic chemistry as a sign of the beast, which would be hilarious in its misguidedness. It just becomes so literalistic and dull so very fast.

Look! Wouldn't you rather talk about the fact that laminins begin to appear along the edge of a developing lung at just ten weeks of human embryonic development, suggesting that they play a role in alveolar morphogenesis? That they're present in the neural stem-cell niche, which makes them an attractive candidate for helping to treat degenerative neurological conditions? I want to go back to whoever gave that talk that I watched in youth group and shake him and say, "God did that, and you're still hung up on the fact that laminins have three subchains?"

[feralsteddie]

So i need to hear about you Steve & Argyle friendship thoughts because I keep seeing them in your tags and I think they’re such an underrated duo that would probably get along so well together?????

ohmygod THANK YOU I’ve been waiting for an excuse to go off about them. Fics always leave out Argyle or have Steve just think he’s Jonathan’s weird friend and like, I get it, but we could do so much better guys

Like okay I have a couple of different ideas for them. One is nearly canon compliant (aka Hawkins still splits open so we still gotta wait on a boss fight, but Eddie lives, bc I said so) and the other is au where Vecna bites it, Eddie just got a lil nibbled, the charges got dropped, and everything is in the realm of fine. Gunna talk about the first one. This is definitely a bit of a mess of rambles. Enjoy.

It takes a while for them to actually have their first conversation, given everything.

Argyle is with Jon most of the time, who’s with his siblings in the cabin they’re fixing up, all hyperfocused on the impending return of Vecna and the town cracking open. Steve is running around the hospital between Max and Eddie’s room and threatening doctors if they even look at Eddie sideways or if he thinks Max isn't getting proper treatment.

So they just… don’t really cross paths. Argyle’s heard some of the stories about Steve from Jon, so he’s not too quick to go seek him out and Steve just could not care less about the other new guy along for the ride, he's too busy. Doesn’t even learn his name until about two weeks after they get to town and Robin dragged him by his ear to the cabin bc it was the only other place he'd relent to being at the moment.

Their first full conversation is actually about Argyle's daily foraging. He sees Argyle walking around, avoiding the traps and occassionally stopping to pick something and drop it in his bag. So, he's curious, and Steve's been friends with genius children and Robin long enough to be a good listener for things he doesn't quite get, but unlike the fifteen year old assholes Argyle seems cool with answering his questions.

With the ground kind of rotting out from the cracks in Hawkins, and the increasing likelihood the gov is gunna put up a quarantine any day now, they talk about how to best dry and keep things. Medicinal vs Food, how they can sub out ingredients in recipes for what they can find because it turned out they were both pretty damn good cooks.

From then on it just kind of turns into a Thing.

They both see how the other isn't really taken seriously by anyone in the group. Like, their respective best friends love them and don't look down on them, but there's always this kind of air that whenever they open their mouths they're gunna get some eyerolls. Argyle is the guy who can drive, Steve is the guy that gets hit a lot. They're not really necessary for planning.

So they help as much as they can in other places, together.

They make sure the group is fed, and sleeps, and doesn't do anything that raises their potential of being killed any more than necessary. (Joyce and Hop try, they really do, but they're busy harrassing government officials)

Jon hates how they get along, like, don’t get him wrong he knows Steve’s changed, is a good guy and all that, but come on Argyle is his best friend thanks and with how weird everything had been with Nancy he’d really like custody of Argyle back thanks.

Robin thinks it’s nice Steve has another friend their age, and knows how much easier having him around made getting used to the whole Monsters Are Real thing. (That being said, they require a certain amount of Robin-Steve one on one time or they WILL die. Or at the very least be insufferable to everyone around them)

Argyle got Steve into pineapple on pizza.

Steve braids Argyle’s hair whenever he needs to get it out of the way.

They talk to each other about their parental situations, about feeling like they’d never be what their parents wanted them to be. Argyle’s parents worked hard, wanted him to go to university and find a well-paying career; didn’t like that he was perfectly content with community college and kind of just wanted to open up his own restaurant one day. Steve's pretty sure his parents were disappointed the day he was born, and completely gave up by the time he only got back rejection letters. Argyle misses his, they were so worried when he’d gone missing for a few days, and their worry didn’t get any less when he finally called and told them where he was, but they’re not going to force him back. Steve’s parents still haven’t called, and he wonders if they remember that he’s still in Hawkins at all.

They don't hang out all the time. They've each got their respective best friends, and Argyle and Jon are usually the only two who manage to wrangle Mike, Will, and El. Who are constantly trying to sneak away to enact some half-baked plan they're sure will end it this time. Steve's got Dustin and Erica by the scruffs of their necks half the time, and his hands still full at the hospital the other.

They find out the two of them make a really good monster hunting pair though. Rob, Steve and Argyle end up on the same Team during scraps with the Upside Down Monsters. They've both got the most insane observation skills. Each quick on their feet and are really good with improvised weaponry. (Robin's able to fill in the pieces based on things they point out, is kind of the only one who really takes what they say seriously enough to utilise it.)

Argyle becomes the second person to come out to him on a bathroom floor while bloody. Argyle doesn't even really think anything of it, didn't even realise Steve hadn't known about his gigantic crush on Jonathan, just made an offhand joke about hoping his best friend thought the new gash on the side of his arm was as cool as the matching one he had with Nancy. They apent about an hour just talking about how he'd liked Jon from the moment he met him. Thought the awkward loner was cute and sweet and even after he found out he had a girlfriend back home he'd still wanted to be around him. Was content to be his best friend as long as he was happy, and did his best to move on with other people he could see himself caring for.

About a month after Eddie's back, Steve makes the third coming out to happen while bleeding on a bathroom floor. He'd kind of already known that he liked guys, but hadn't ever really thought too hard about it before. But he was having a bit of a freak out and Argyle and Rob both just squeezed into the dry bathtub with him. Let him have a full panic about liking a guy he'd kind of hated before spring break, a most likely straight guy who'd bodied a demodog that'd tried to sneak up on him and- hey did he mention just how hot that had been after they'd both calmed down from a mutual panic attack?

After that Rob, Argyle, and Steve will occassionally just get together to scream about their crushes. Robin still not sure what's happening with Vickie but they held hands guys, girls hold their friend's hands alll the time though right???

They smoke about it, a lot.py

[orpheus-lament]

/Pops out from under your bed

Hey can we talk about today's stream? Yes it was funny and relaxing but also!

Rubius suggested to exile Luzu to an island or throw him under the worst prision ever, he wants to make his life living hell for thousands of years and you know what Quackity said? You know what the man that has been calling for his head said? He said no

Quackity said that he didn't want to make him suffer out of respect for the relationship they use to have and that quick death would be his last gift for him, he said that he is currently making him suffer a lot and that is enough. Quackity still holds Luzu dearly to some degree and we can see it when he was watching the Luckity video, he smiled and only started shooting when video Luzu said "I want you to be happy"

YOU KNOW HOW THAT MAKES ME FEEL???

THEY BOTH HAD SIMILAR REACTIONS, BOTH STILL LOVE EACH OTHER TO SOME DEGREE

In conclusion? If they both talked maybe it could be fixed, not completely but at least maybe neither of them would have to die, but they wont do it, they are both way to deep in their decisions to back down