#that’s not to say i have no problems with the transition from series 7 to 8 but that’s nothing to do with clara’s personality

[impossibledial]

you hate clara in series 7? not a clara stan.

you hate clara in series 8? not a clara stan.

you hate clara in series 9? not a clara stan.

you think clara’s farewell in hell bent is bad? not a clara stan.

in conclusion, if you can’t take the time to understand her arc then you are not a clara stan.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Moonlight Chicken is For the Queers

Ok I started my rewatch of episode 8 and figured out what I want to talk about for this series' finale: intentions and resolutions. This post will be about intention, and how I truly feel that Moonlight Chicken is a gift for queer people. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but for the purposes of this post, I will simply present the following title card.

Moonlight Chicken, Chapter 8: The Self-made House and Home

(if you are expecting this post to be anything other than a jumbled mess of my personal experiences with no clear through-lines or relevant transitions between sentences, thoughts, etc. then turn back now)

Whatever we want to say boy loves started as, fetish or otherwise, queer people are still able to see themselves or get comfort and representation. But coming from watching literally 25 boy loves in the last four months, this show feels different from most (not all) of them, to me, because of how strongly this show centers around built community, rather than romance, as it's central theme.

And yeah while any standard friend group in BL could be considered community in the abstract, the idea that they are a community is never quite presented. It's Team taking food from Pharm and all three of the gang teasing each other, it's Kuea and Diao spending most of their time talking about their relationships, it's Porsche forgetting Pete exists because he's so caught up in Kinn. More often than not we are building towards and hoping for declarations of love between two characters. And do not get me wrong, that is all well and good, and always what I'm rooting for in those shows. And we get something akin to that in Moonlight Chicken too, which is when you finally have Li Ming and Jim calling Heart and Wen (respectively) their boyfriends.

But the "I love you" we get in Moonlight Chicken? That isn't between the couples, it's between Li Ming and Jim.

Because the thing that makes Moonlight Chicken different from other BLs is the emphasis it puts on queer elders raising queer youth. It's about queer youth learning from queer elders and queer elders learning from queer youth. It's about how home and birth families don't always fit quite right, and how you build families and homes despite. And it's applicable to many people, children in abusive homes, disabled people, etc. too. Which is why P'Aof adds strained parental relationships and deafness in to this piece. But because this is fundamentally a BL show, I'm viewing this more through a queer lens.

So naturally, this also means I am informing my analysis of this show through my feelings as the only (known/out/visible) queer person on either side of my family. When I was little, a decade or more before I realized I was queer, I asked my mother one night if I was adopted. I'm not, and I know that, but why did I ask? Because I never really felt like I fit. Not the way I was supposed to fit, not the way family was supposed to fit together. My house never felt like a home.

And it's why I love this exchange between Wen and Jim at the end of episode 2

"I want home," "Don't you already have one?" "I don't." "A person like me doesn't fit to be anyone's home,"

And technically we know this isn't true. Wen does have a home, he has a condo, he has a place to sleep. But emotionally is where the problem lies. Wen is living with his ex, the apartment is cold, he has work colleagues and a friend that he and his ex both know and that's it. And as he tells Jim in episode 7, all his friends are straight. And then he meets Jim, and there is a spark, and maybe it's possible for home to grow there.

Literally, physically, I have a home. I have a family. But the more I embrace my queerness, the more I understand and am comfortable with myself, the more isolating and cold that house and family feel. I'm such a different person now than I was, and there are homophobes and transphobes on both sides of my family, and that makes it hard for me to feel like I am loved. Even when logically I know I am. But it's hard, when your mother says she accepts you and has yet to use my pronouns properly despite me being out to her for over a year and having three separate conversations about it. When your uncle spends twenty minutes or more complaining about trans people, when your cousins don't think trans people should exist. That's my family...technically. That's my home...technically. But it hasn't felt like that in years. So I understand what Wen means here, Wen's definition of home is not a place it is a feeling.

And Jim? We know Jim is already everyone's home. He is home for Li Ming, he is the closest thing to a parent that Leng has in his life, he makes sure the community not only has food, but has as much as food as they could possibly eat. He is first and foremost a community caretaker. But he is so wrapped up in his grief about Beam, his self-hatred, his stubbornness, his exhaustion that he is not able to believe that about himself. Home is a place and not a feeling for Jim, because he can't allow it to be.

The key to Wen and Jim's relationship is finding and building that home.

Home, Family, Community. These are incredibly important themes to Moonlight Chicken and those themes are incredibly important aspects of being queer.

I don't know how Thailand is re: homophobia and transphobia, if kids risk the same chance of getting kicked out of their homes for being queer, etc. But that is a very real possibility for many queer people in the States. But I'm thinking of homelessness in queer youth, how 28% of queer youth have reported experiencing homelessness in their lives. I'm thinking of ballroom and ball culture and how participants in the Ballroom scene were parts of Houses with mothers and fathers at the head of them who acted as mentors to their queer children. When I think about queerness and what it means, I think about ballroom. I think about connection, I think about community.

But that community is often forged from necessity borne out of isolation. What do I mean by isolation? I mean the isolation that Li Ming feels in school, around his school friends. I mean the faces Li Ming makes when his friends are talking about girls:

I mean the physical barriers the show places between Li Ming and his school friends.

It is the isolation that comes with queerness, with poverty, with everything about Li Ming. Beyond the fact Wen is a little younger than Jim and thus better able to understand and see Li Ming's desires to be seen as an adult. I think it is this state of listlessness in Li Ming is also something Wen recognizes. I think at this point Li Ming is so desperate to get away, to go to America, to be listened to and respected by Jim.

Jim who is too caught up in constant stress to see the home he has built for himself, Li Ming who is too caught up in wanting to be understood to appreciate that he has a home to run from. Wen who is working as a go between for Li Ming and Jim because he wants them to be his home. Heart who has been trapped at home and found his freedom because Li Ming understands the frustration of misunderstanding, and the importance of community.

I'm thinking about how so much of the final episodes are dedicated to showing community, showing family, showing the audience that home lies in the collective.

We see it in how many people rush to help Mrs. Hong:

We see it in the people who help you carry your grief:

We see it in how deeply and broadly the pain is felt when community pillars are lost:

We see it in the end of and era:

We see it in the olive branches:

And in new beginnings:

Very few people in these shots are connected through blood, but they are a family. And when I look at these shots the only thing I can think about is how I felt the night I threw a party for all my trans friends. All I can think about when I see these shots of everyone sitting and eating together is how many times I would look over to my friends and see them beaming. How many times someone came up to me to excitedly say this is the first time they felt like they could fully be themselves. How everyone kept asking to do an event like this again. How everyone kept asking to be added to a group chat at the end of the night so they could keep in contact.

And I remember how it felt for me to realize that I had built a community for myself in a place that I have really been struggling to feel was home. Because I had spent so much time in school and work, barley able to scrape together enough money to cover expenses, exhausted and stressed and unable to see what I had sitting right in front of me.

And I think about other queer people I have met, who light up when they see someone else who is gay, who talk about how lonely they feel because they only have one other queer friend. How immediately the need to invite them out, to introduce them to people, to make sure they have community strikes.

I think about how I worked at a summer camp out of state, and got to try out my pronouns, and figure out who I was, and then a few months later, I had to return home. Where I wasn't out yet, where I was going to get misgendered, and how quickly I came out to all of my close friends about my gender identity to try to mitigate how much my mental health tanked when I had to be someone my parents thought I still was. How at the same camp, the queer kids flocked to all the queer staff, how desperate they were to bond. How much lighter they got to be when they were away from their parents and allowed to be themselves around people who also understood not only them as people with the identities they held, but also their struggles existing in a household that didn't see who they were.

I think about how, in the States at least, "are you family?" is/was used as code for "are you gay?"

It's why it is so important to me that Moonlight Chicken ends with the line: "I just built a home. I don't want to move anywhere."

Because Wen has finally built his home. Because he has found his family, his queer community, his home. And yeah, we get the romance, yeah we get Li Ming and Heart holding hands, and Jim and Wen making out, but the emphasis of the final episode is moving forward, being brave, allowing yourself to love, and allowing yourself to stop, look around, and realize that you've made a home for yourself that is built of the people you love who love you in return.

Community building is a huge part of life for literally everyone, but it vital to the survival of marginalized communities. And when I think about my own relationship to queerness, one of the most sacred and important aspects of being queer is building the family you need.

[megabuild]

would you be down to summarize the podcast ep briefly ?<-guy who sucks at podcasts

i had clipped some stuff for the first part already so i'll add them in!

bdubs cites steve carrell as an early inspo, because the office was popular at the time he started making videos; he also talks about watching looney tunes as a kid and says his delivery as a character is similar to daffy duck

(impulse also cites bdubs as an inspo of his own, goes as far as to say he mimicked him in some early videos)

skizz talks about bdubs' delivery and acting being part of the reason people assume the life series is scripted. they also have a nice acknowledgement of the problems that come with planning and scripting.

bdubs mentions seananners, coestar and his brother pungence as some of the first people he saw playing minecraft.

impulse say that in bdubs' first video he promises to become one of the best minecraft builders there is. bdubs gets very humble and mentions again that he's not good with compliments.

bdubs says he draws now but before minecraft had basically no creative talent, outside of music, which he had to work hard at. skizz goes on an insane tangent about his high school girlfriend drawing a pointillism piece of a lion that seamlessly transitioned into sean connery halfway across the page. i had to rewind this part a few times because i kept losing track of what the fuck he was talking about

bdubs initially kept being a youtuber a secret from his wife, who he was still dating at the time, and planned to give it up when he got married and become a contractor full time. however, when he told her about it, she encouraged him and was the person who suggested he take it full time; bdubs himself says that since it was a family business, he would never had given it up without her encouragement.

impulse talks about meeting the mindcrackers as a fan, and how bdubs took the time to speak properly to every kid at his table and give them autographs, to the point where the building actually closed up and he still had people waiting- so he took them all out and did more autographs and meets in the parking lot

they talk about beau the trucker, his streamer persona, and how that came about (it was generikb's idea). bdubs said part of the reason he switched to streaming at that time was because content creation is a 24/7 job and it was putting strain onto his wife who was struggling to take care of their two children. i can't really summarise this well as it's a personal anecdote but it begins at about 38 minutes in. he also mentioned he was very nervous about singing on stream.

this leads into them talking about the "dark moments" and valleys in the career of a youtuber, where bdubs discusses the death of his daughter ivy rose; again, i don't feel comfortable summarising this, but it's a very touching discussion of how he couldn't imagine making content again but decided he didn't want people to associate her with him not making videos anymore. it starts at around 52 minutes in.

that brings them up to him coming back to hermitcraft season 6, where the video ends! bdubs promises to talk about his onlyfans in the next episode.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic fans really think dark and edgy is quality?

The fandom's collective need to treat the Pontaff games as the worst thing to happen to the series, and the desire for Maria's death to "elevate" the movies, should make that obvious.

Because for every fan that actually tries to explain their gripes with the former, there are fifty more who mindlessly hate on them just because they can't stand Sonic not being edgy. The zombot arc is considered Peak Sonic because everyone is suffering, failing, and crying 24/7. '06 is retconned as a secret masterpiece because Sonic doesn't say Baldy McNosehair. Eggman as the final boss is considered problematic because giant purple testicles are supposedly more epic and raise the stakes. SA2 is frequently called the greatest in the series, even by those who have never played it, because it's dark, therefore it's good.

Of course, this is something of a problem with media perception in general. Even outside of Sonic, phrases like "comedic", "child-friendly", etc are often said with negative, patronizing connotations, as though anything that isn't 100% intense serious business is instant sanitized slop that could never possibly have anything compelling going for it. Even people who are willing to defend breezier works often feel the compulsion to mention how "simple" they are by comparison. Or how they're "just" a lighthearted romp. Or that "sure, it won't be winning any awards anytime soon, but..."

Or going back to Sonic, notice how when fans talk about the transition from Genesis to Adventure, they often tend to emphasize the latter era as significantly darker and thus deeper... as if CD's visual storytelling and Eggman starting a forest fire never existed.

Lighter works still require effort to pull off. Comedic media still requires effort to pull off. This online tendency to dismiss or downplay such works not because of their individual quality, but because they have a backwards concept of what maturity is, has always been a pet peeve of mine. It's also why I don't give that much leeway to anything that's praised solely because of how dark it is.

[crystalelemental]

For a long, long while now, Gen 7 has been cited as my least favorite Pokemon generation, with USUM in particular being my pick as worst game in the series. Gen 7 broadly has a lot of gameplay issues, and USUM removes the story components I actually liked, leaving it with very little in the way of redeeming features. As a result of this, it is the only game in the series I have never replayed.

Until today.

As part of the replay for the series, I have taken on Ultra Sun, the game I own but have never beaten because Ultra Moon soured me so badly. The team is endlessly chaotic. I'm serious, I have never swapped around the team as much as I did with this playthrough. The final setup though was Litten, Hariyama, Blissey, Tyrantrum, Dhelmise, and Necrozma-Solgaleo. Some others I know we used for a bit include: Whimsicott, Lycanroc, Ribombee, Espeon, Skarmory, and Zoroark.

Let's start with the big issue: story. A major portion of its problems come from two areas. The first is the obvious: this being the follow-up to SuMo, the change on Lusamine and the Aether Family in particular are jarring and unpleasant. The other is more about its own failings. Specifically, this game added a lot of extra story beats that offer little to nothing, and the game is clearly unedited, resulting in scenes where Lusamine will bitch out Lillie as her having no children because of her defiance, only for the very next scene to involve everyone worriedly talking about how all their actions have been for the good of the family. It's a messy game that did not get to really explore an alternate presentation of this family dynamic, instead transitioning from one end to the other at the literal turn of a scene. I cannot say I enjoy anything about this particular story, and the constant interruptions for it are extreme.

But! I have been on a big focus on gameplay, because Pokemon games are mostly about the gameplay. And USUM has been one I've talked shit about on that front a lot too, specifically in regards to some of the annoying trial changes and holdovers from the original game. Is this still a problem?

Sort of. I've mentioned this often, but the reason I'm replaying all these games is because of one Professor Bopper, who played through the first three generations so far and has really fun takes on the games as a whole. Among his other videos is one where he talks about how games guide players into learning their systems, where he makes the point that gamers are uniquely bad at video games, because of the tendency to double down on how they want to play rather than the way the game wants you to engage with it. They'll impose challenges that don't actually exist, and complain that the game is too poorly designed when it cannot be approached that way. To keep a long story short, I think that's what happened to me the first time.

When I play Pokemon games, I tend to look for arbitrary demands in my approach. Specifically, I will try to avoid "over-leveling," keeping below my opponent, or avoid using more items than they might, not using X items, etc. And USUM in particular does not want you to do that. It even gives you an entire class of items unique to this game that are designed to be beneficial: Roto Powers.

As part of this full experience, I opted to actually use Roto Powers when I felt they were necessary. Popping full heals and boosting all stats +1 on command is...very funny. But I also, as you may notice, swapped around my party a lot. Part of that is just running different options I like, but part of it is to play as intended with an EXP All system. You're supposed to play with different tools and use the Pokemon that best meet an immediate challenge. So I did exactly that...more or less.

Combined, what this meant is that I had a significantly easier time with this runthrough than the first. One holdup my first time through was Kiawe. Marowak gets double speed on entry, and holds a Thick Club to double its attack power, has Detect to prevent non-Z Move damage, and will call a much faster and deadlier Salazzle to counter Brionne. The first time through, using a regular team and using my usual demands, I had a very hard time managing that fight. This time, my Hariyama slapped the Thick Club right off it with Quick Claw Knock Off, and easily finished the entire fight solo thanks to Thick Fat. The other was Ultra Necrozma, an absolute statistical behemoth of a fight that is a major level jump from prior foes, who gets +1 to all stats on entry, has excellent coverage, and boosts damage on supereffective hits. I could not handle this thing short of severe luck and Revive spamming my first time through. It was the only time I broke to use the Roto Boost, and I forget who actually did the deed, but with enough we managed to squeak out a win. This time, not worried about levels and popping one (1) Roto Boost right away, let my Blissey completely stop it while tearing it apart with Shadow Ball.

The Boost item in particular is also what let Litten compete. With the removal of Super Training, Litten can no longer manage its stats via min-maxing, but it can get these free boosts to everything and perform Cat Sweep. Which is fun! I like Litten! I do not care as much about the other two forms. This felt right.

I would say I have been overly harsh on USUM's overall gameplay design. Its flaws exist primarily in places of story and interruptions to game flow. It really is too broken up and too wordy to get into as strongly. But there are other problems I take.

First: removal of Super Training. This causes problems for me, because I actually agreed with how Super Training was implemented. I loved it! But now we don't get it until later, and it invokes real-world time and significant bean counts to get to a fast pace. It's just unmanageable, against a system that was accessible and active.

Second: Roto Boosts rely heavily on Rotom Dex letting you do the lottery thing, meaning your access to these powers are randomized and slow to accrue. I like their effects, but they are rather impossible to come across in some situations. Then again, we have X items that are purchasable, so maybe that's intentional.

Third: Mantine Surf comes so close and just barely misses the mark. I love that BP is actually accessible in ways other than grinding at the postgame battle facilities. I hate the postgame battle facilities. They're terrible. But Mantine Surf lets you have access to BP, which in turn means access to the early game tutors and stat boosting items. In a way, you can still boost stats reliably and early on. But, BP yields are still very low for the time investment, and BP costs are still pretty high. Not impossibly so. But they aren't a good exchange rate. There's also the fact that one of the tutor sets is postgame, when it really did not need to be. Then again, I had a ton of BP from the PokeBank situation, so...

Fourth: side quests. Talking to everyone is a generally good idea if you're unfamiliar with the game. Sometimes they have good hold items or TMs. In this game, however, sometimes they kick off really tedious side quests that give really terrible rewards and have no value. And sometimes those quests are like "Catch this Pokemon for me!" and it's the rarest one in the zone. This is why I used PokeBank. I just wanted to instant clear those quests. I did not intend to pick up 1400 BP. It just kinda happened that way.

Fifth: not to bring up Bopper again, but in his Johto video he talks about fan response to Johto as a whole, referencing the opinion that Johto hates its own dex, a statement I have never heard before and was baffled by. The complaint seems to be about inaccessibility, that the new mons are harder to find and are generally weaker, and thus not worth talking about, as well as that the game as a whole tends to emphasize old Kanto Pokemon in boss fights compared to new ones. Gen 7, admittedly, has a bit of this feeling for me, in a way that Gen 2 doesn't. Not so much the latter point around bosses, but the former for sure. Many of the new Pokemon feel very hard to find, occupying optional areas and being very, very low encounter rates, or relying on the new Call for Help system to appear at all.

Johto's systems that kept things hidden were largely day/night cycle, headbutting trees, and happiness evolutions, which...were all fun systems to engage with! I liked those! Alola's new system...not so much. Call for Help is a wretched mechanic that can drag out random encounters forever just because you can't OHKO an opponent. It is also the only means of finding some Pokemon. And the chances of Call for Help (1) succeeding, and (2) calling the specific thing you want, basically don't exist. Let's not even get into Hidden Abilities. It's just an inelegant system that makes finding these things extremely difficult to near impossible, and I don't like it.

That's not to say they can't have little surprises to randomize playthroughs, but...well, the other group we like listening to is Castle Super Beast, where they recently talked about these kinds of hidden variables that are supposed to be fun things you sometimes stumble on to find a new surprise in games after a few playthroughs. And their take way that these really low spawn rate, really hard to achieve pieces...no longer serve any purpose in the age of the internet. We all know about it already. Trying to hide it as a surprise thing you sometimes run into doesn't help if I already know about it, how to do it, and it's just slow and tedious. There's no purpose to that anymore. And it compounds for a game like Pokemon, where you will see this thing on an enemy team, and know that it exists, but be completely unable to find it because of low rates. You're more likely to move on to other, frankly better things.

After all, regional dexes are large now, and you can get behemoths like Larvitar really early on. When you have all the top performers from old generations around, there's less incentive to use the newer options. One thing I do tend to lock myself too, albeit loosely, is using stuff new to the generation. Because it's new, and I want to try out the new stuff. But it is made difficult when the dex size is small, the new stuff is almost entirely low encounters, and the strongest solutions are more readily available.

I don't really know where my complete feelings are on this game. Did I have fun? Kinda. There were a few places where I completely stopped because the game was getting a bit too slow in forward momentum, like the whole Aether Paradise segment or Mina's trial, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being either. It's problem, I think, is just overstaying its welcome. The game goes on for about five hours more than it needs to, and removal of some scenes to just let you move forward would lose nothing. But by gameplay...it was fine. I had an okay time.

"What about Rainbow Rocket?" Postgame is officially outside the purview of these replays. "But you did postgame for everything el-" I am not doing that.

[thoughtforminfo]

Tulpa Tip #7

You know how sometimes you throw a party and the people you invite invite their friends too? Or sometimes, people hear about the party on their own and invite themselves?

This chapter deals with two distinct scenarios: tulpas invited by other tulpas, and headmates that form on their own after you've created a tulpa.

Imagine your head is the party and your tulpa is the invited guest. Then, your tulpa misses somebody and starts either trying to invite them by themself or begging you to do it nonstop until you do. *Cough cough Rudolph cough cough*

Fortunately, when this happened in our case it was a pretty easy transition for us to make and it went well, but that's not always the case. System changes can be distressing for everyone involved and that's one of the many reasons you should never make a tulpa lightly. It's like having a kid. Be sure you want one before you make one because they don't just go away. Sometimes, it may be necessary to refuse. If your tulpa is asking for a person who would negatively impact them or you, it's very important to calmly and firmly tell them no and explain why. There is no guarantee this will go well, but it is important to try.

Another thing that we've experienced in the near-decade since Rudolph formed: sometimes people just appear on their own. Our system has changed many times. New tulpas have been formed, tulpas have started going by new names, and while we can't trace back to the exact moment of everyone's forming, most of us can trace a chain of events that led to our existence in the system. This is true for the ones we made on purpose, and for the ones we didn't.

Some of our headmates have formed with no planning or aforethought. All three have formed in times of great stress and turmoil. They are quoigenic because nobody has any idea where they came from. This can happen in any system, including a tulpa system apparently. We still call ourselves a tulpa system even though we're technically mixed origin, because out of 16 of us, 12 are tulpas. The rest? Uhhhhhhhh, idk, I just work here.

So, what do you do when this happens? All we can really do is roll with it. We've been very lucky so far and not had any major problems, but that isn't to say there haven't been bumps in the road.

For example, one of our oldest headmates, who formed in about 2017, is a fictive from a video game. He is an antagonist. One of our newest headmates, who formed on her own, is a protagonist from that series and she HATED him at first. In fact, she went around trying to "warn" the rest of us against him. Obviously, it didn't work. I mean, he's been here for about seven years and his main job is making the body brush its teeth and go to bed on time. We trust him. But she didn't. In her case, she just needed time to get used to things. They needed to talk things through. It's working out now between them.

TLDR: Communication is key. If your tulpa starts to want other people around, talk it out. If you get a new headmate and nobody knows where they came from, talk to them. If two headmates are having conflict, make sure everyone involved understands why and will do what's right for themself and the system.

Obviously our advice isn't one-size fits all! Don't make a tulpa if you're not sure you want one.

[semi-imaginary-place]

Yeah Ao no Flag is a romance manga but more than that its about the lives of highschoolers as the begin transitioning to adulthood and all the messiness that entails. I don't usually have patience for the drama of highschool romances and the will they/won't they, actually Ao no Flag is the only one I have read to the end which is a testament to its quality. I've heard this series compares to Kids on the Slope for its nuanced depictions of complicated emotions and highschool problems but I haven't read it so I can't say.

I kind of want to see a sequel about those 7+ years like I would have liked to see Taichi and Touma's relationship develop and yet that would also be a very different series than Ao no Flag which is specifically about the third year of highschool, college and the early 20's come with a host of different problems.

Maybe I'm reading too much into things but when Taichi met with Futaba for the first time in 5 years and found closure for their breakup, I think their talk about future he wanted to choose referred to Taichi planning on progressing his relationship with Touma. Earlier in the chapter we see signs of Touma and Taichi's cohabitation like the two toothbrushes and the page right after Futaba is a cityscape shot of Shibuya with the famous 109 building, Shibuya being one of the first areas to offer legal protections of any kind to same gender partners.

Futaba is the one to push Taichi to meet Touma in ch 52, imagine if Taichi being Taichi let that opportunity die and that relationship wither away by doing nothing. She pushes them to have a heart to heart alone. This is what I like about the main cast, they've all helped each other grow as people from Futaba being a little more brave to Taichi not running away from his problems and not letting what other people say get in the way of his relationships and happiness. Taichi from the start let his feelings of inferiority get in the way of his friendship with Touma. Thinking about it that way Taichi originally was attracted to Futaba because he left she was "on his level" as compared to Touma who was too good for him. He distanced himself from Touma in highschool because he felt inferior in comparison with other people treating him differently from Touma. It was Taichi that changed and pulled away from their friendship. By the end of the series we see him starting to overcome that and that's when he reaches out to Touma which contrasts the begining of the series where is always Touma reaching out to Taichi.

I do hope Masumi chose her husband because she awakened to realizing that while she likes both women and men and not because she thought conforming would make her happy, but either way she seems happy with her choice in the end and that's what matters not how she got there.

I can see how people might have been blindsided but reading through while knowing the ending, Touma was always important to Taichi and there were hints the attraction was mutual from the paneling to how Taichi looked at and viewed Touma. Through ch53 KAITO leaves Taichi's relationships unresolved, him and Futaba are still kind of awkward around one another and he's only then actually communicated with Touma, everything is left ambiguous and I love that because it hints at hope without making anything concrete and is a great tone to leave the main story on. Futaba and Taichi breaking up is pretty realistic, not many highschool romances actually last. It's the first serious relationship for both of them and that's usually about learning about yourself and growing as a person and also a relationship many people also grow out of. The cast in people's lives aren't stagnant, we are always meeting new people, bonds wax, wane, and change forms. It has been years of course they have all met new people. In a way the epilogue reframes the series as an old highschool memory. The emotions and struggles at that time were real but Yokki was right in the greater scheme of things you're career path is more important than any of highschool dating drama going on.

One of the main themes is people's choices. People should make their decisions regardless of what others think and should pursue their own happiness which looks different for everyone. What future someone wants to choose is theirs to decide. We see this through the cast making many choices (some of them bad choices) and those are tied up in personal circumstances that an outsider has no place judging. Its repeated multiple times how the effects of someone else's choices are something another person has no control over so there's nothing for that other person to feel guilty about. With this in mind the ending to Ao no Flag was very appropriate, its an open ending and we learn nothing concrete. The epilogue is so far in the future (over 7 years, it could be 15 for all we know) that we the audience have no right to judge where the cast is in life because we know nothing about those years. Personal relationships are just that personal, and it doesn't matter that other people think about it. All the readers who were angry at the ending prove this point again, the characters went and did what they wanted regardless of what the audience thinks.

[drkineildwicks]

Kineil Plays: Hogwarts Legacy - 2/7/23 - Pre-game prep

So I got up early to get everything done before playing, including downloading the game

Space required is 72.92 GB this should be good

“estimation 3 hours” – this reminds me did I ever download ARK?

Also considering my internet server tends to have a fit when I do big downloads...this should take a while (never use Breezeline nee Atlantic Broadband they suck)

Skimming through the license agreement and I love how positive the “in the unlikely event of a problem with your game” language is

Like yeah it might go blooey but we hope not

Also seizure warnings which is probably a standard warning for games but in thinking of how the spell are animated in the movies I can understand this particular bit of cover our ascots language

And I understand that there’s also some sort of anti-piracy thing…Denuvo, which a lot of people are leery about and I can’t say I blame them

EA Games, which Warner Brother used to license to (which is also the reason you’re never going to see a rerelease of the early HP games, too many legal tangles) had some sort of anti-piracy thing too, but in EA’s case (especially with Spore)…you only had so many installs, so if you got a new computer or lost your old save file because of a virus or something you were SOL and needed to buy an entirely new copy

Since games generally go for $60 a pop, people were understandably upset

And real talk, if this Denuvo does something like that to me because I keep all my save files on an external drive, I will be first in line for whatever mod patch cracks it

I get why they might want an anti-piracy thing in place, especially for this game all things considered, not to mention the current mindset a lot of people seem to have about not paying for services rendered (which is especially something that plagues any aspect of the arts and entertainment industries), but there’s a big fat line between covering your bases and alienating your audience that’s got to be considered

I feel like part of the blame can be attributed to the death of rental stores, tbh, since now people can’t test out games first to see if they’ll like them or not

Anywho my intent with this review series is to go through an entire playthrough from start to finish, maybe later on I’ll try to do it through the other houses because my understanding is that there’s unique story beats for every single Hogwarts house so that’s cool

Now to make sure I actually finish the playthrough because I have the habit of really enjoying a game and then never finishing it

Which is apparently a recent development because I used to be good at finishing and replaying games

Part don’t want the experience to end and part been burned too many times by modern games (glare at Pokémon’s post-game, or lack thereof).  “Replayability?  What’s that???  Only CONSUME”

While we’re talking about mindsets to get out of, the whole treat everything as disposable, replaceable, and transient really needs to be disposed, replaced, and transitioned out of

Okay it’s still going along so I’ll go finish everything else I need to do so I can play guilt-free

Was going to cook dinner tonight but Mom knows how much I’ve been looking forward to this game so she proposed leftovers instead and I’m okay with that

So…*final Jeopardy theme*

[incorrectcoldflashblog]

For the WIP asks:

3, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 22, 23, 24, 26

Look. I wanted to say ‘ALL!’ so, believe it or not, this is actually me reining it in! 😆

3. what’s a wip that you’ve procrastinated on the longest? why?

I mean, it has to be my Fake Dating AU (for Coldflash, of course). I’m mostly procrastinating really getting started on it because I know it’s gonna be on the longer side and I’m in the middle of posting another big project of mine so I really cannot handle having to write both at once (no matter how much I might want to, haha, but unfortunately I’m trying to be reasonable).

6. write 3 sentences of any wip you’d like, post it in the answer.

Barry has been the one to make every move. Len wouldn’t have. He promised himself that he would only take as much as he was given.

7. do you outline before writing? if so, what’s your outlining process like?

Not really? I’m kind of a mess about outlining to be quite frank, I always know vaguely where I’m going but that’s about it!

9. what are you struggling with the most in finishing your current wip(s)?

Scene transition, which is always a big problem for me honestly. Figuring out how to get from point A to point B in a way that’s not too abrupt and makes sense.

14. what’s your favorite thing about writing?

When things suddenly click into place after you’ve been stuck for a while.

15. what’s your least favorite thing about writing?

English hard :(

22. when do you know you’re really in a writing frenzy?

To be honest lot of the times writing in English is very much like hitting my head repeatedly against a brick wall for me so writing frenzy? I don’t know about that, lol. I’m just glad when I’m able to write for a while before hitting the wall!

23. what’s something that you think all writers should know?

Oh I really don’t think I have the writing chops to answer that!

24. do you have a writer you look up to in terms of writing routines/style?

I don’t really have a writing routine per say but in terms of style and characterization @moriavis was probably the biggest inspiration for the way I write Coldflash, especially in my current series.

26. is there a wip you’d like to see recreated in a new medium (ie. movie, audio drama podcast, web series, animation, musical)?

Lol, no? Not that it wouldn’t be fun to watch a Coldflash musical XD But yeah I don’t have any other ambition than to write fic and hopefully have a couple people like it too.

I hope I haven’t forgotten any of your questions and thank you so much for asking me so many of them <3

WIP Ask Game

[lyranova]

Hi Lyra! Can you answer 7, 13, and 23 for the fic writer ask game please? Thank you! 🥰

Hiya Acacia! Of course I can, and thank you for asking 🥰!

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

Hmm…Usually i kind of just let the muses guide me 😅. For example, sometimes I’ll start off writing one character's POV, and then it’ll somehow gradually transition to another characters. Sometimes it’s just which character I feel fits the situation better, or who I “know” better. But most times you’ll see it bounces between both, even though that is kind of “frowned upon” by some 😆! But most times I just decide the minute I start writing, and sometimes I have it planned out, usually it depends 😆!

13. What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

Probably to be less critical of myself and my writing 😅! I used to be sooo critical of my writing (I still am I’ll admit), and I always used to apologize for them being bad or sucky, but now after getting advice from mutuals and encouraging words from followers and commenters. I’ve become less and less critical. I’ve loosened up and have started taking my time with it, and even if it takes me days/weeks/months/years to complete, then it just does!

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

Have fun and enjoy your writing! Just take your time, if it takes a while for you to complete your series/oneshot/whatever then it does, and if people say something then that's a “them” problem! Also don’t forget or feel guilty for self indulging, if you wanna start a second, third, or fourth series then do it! I used to feel so guilty for writing self-indulgent fics instead of requests or my series, but now I don’t, because sometimes you need to self indulge!

[phentouse]

7/118/2023 at 03:35 am

It's clearly visible in people's eyes the way they judge me, but if they analyzed me for a day they would know at least a part of who I am, since only myself and God know who I am, people think I'm lazy and that I do nothing but stay in bed all day using my cell phone, but I always try to improve a little more every day, I try every day to fight against my inner monsters and my problems, that nobody sees, nobody feels, but I always fight to be the person I want to be , the early morning is the only time that is mine alone I can be myself without any filter , the early morning is the time when I reflect on my life and everything around me , the whole day is over and the dawn is the beginning of a new day and the border with the day before so it's perfect to analyze everything, I like to think about who I really am, I can try to seek self-knowledge, but I'll never know who I really am, but I know that I'm someone happy and full of love to give people, many people think I'm strange, weird, but I love being different from people, I like to be bold sometimes and do what I want without being afraid of criticism and judgments.

I know that every day is a new opportunity to change my life and enjoy it so I do everything on my cell phone, I watch movies, series, music, books, podcasts, videos and much more, I know I have a life to live that's why I try to enjoy every moment in my own way and in the way that I think is best, sometimes just writing like that seems to be easy, but living in today's world is difficult, that's why I fight every day to have a good and simple life and to in the future to have a dignified and successful life, the life of a teenager in transition to adult life is by no means simple, but I also know that it is with these difficulties that we grow, and the me of now that will determine my future so today I I build tomorrow, that's why I say fight with all your strength against your problems, against your difficulties, grow with your difficulties.

For many this blog will sound very strange and confusing, but it is a rant and a reflection, who you are, who you want to be, who you are building to be, who people see and how they see you; well above all see yourself and if no one sees you even better, people grow in secret, if no one knows no one destroys, if no one cares about what you do or if you exist then you can do what you want without fear of criticism; I finish this blog at 4 am tomorrow with this phrase "you have to be humble to know that you are someone and not someone at the same time".

[dhaaruni]

What do you think about how climate change is being handled in DC rn? Your perspectives on other political things have been really smart and optimistic and i see a lot of polarization between "we're doomed" and "nothing is wrong" that I'm hoping you have some nuance on

Lol well.

I agree with David Shor and Matt Yglesias when they say that whatever we do with regards to climate change, we have to make sure gas prices don't go up to the extent voters hand power right back to Republicans, who'll just make things worse. Like of course it would be way easier to deal with climate change if we banned people from eating red meat 7 days a week and made them take public transit but that's also a recipe to a 50-year Republican trifecta lol.

I also really agree with this piece.

This part in particular is significant:

“Climate justice” has become a tool for using the cause of racial justice to win intra-progressive fights over climate policy. The climate-justice movement associates itself with a series of left-wing stances whose relation to the cause of racial justice is at best theoretical. [...] The climate-justice movement isn’t even satisfied with maintaining the broken status quo. Its main goal is to make it even easier for local communities to block these projects by passing a new law to “dramatically expand the public comment period before permits can be issued, plus provide legal recourse to affected frontline communities,” per E&E Daily. You can see how the climate-justice movement’s principles brought it to this position. They believe local communities should have more power. The problem is that their ideals are bad — or, at least, that they are an extremely poor fit for the contours of the existing climate-change problem, in which community activists rank among the most powerful forces standing in the way of decarbonization. In theory, the climate-justice movement’s vision of devolution and restoration of ecosystems is radical. In practice, it upholds a system — one that reifies the existing built environment and maintains local control — that is deeply reactionary.

The point is, we have to make concessions because we don't have another option. The choices aren't "Do something" or "do this better thing;" they're "do something" or "do nothing" or "make things worse," and Republicans will almost always pick the last choice.

[jonathankatwhatever]

One like we used to do. Take 13. Add 5. That’s 8 attached to Mag10 or 2SBE3. That says the 8 loads from CM64 appearing orthogonally. And that’s at the End of a Mag10 so it would be the fit leading in and out to something else. And the f&b of the 18 compares so the result may pass to another gsProcess.

Holy moly, this is from Storyline too. The actual strategy discussions in Group Strategy 7 were this sort of calculating. And I see now that it was GS7 and gs1 where the latter is general. That explains the job. There were other GS and I ran GS7 because that was the localization of gs1.

I see rings now as enclosures which may be views as chains because they may be enclosed Triangularly. This means that what we see is curved relative to the Observer level, so we trace a circle and it is a length. Or the other way round: an Extent can become a 0Space Boundary because the 1Space relates to a Triangular and the bT form. In other words, that isolated the transition.

The aggregation of discrete existences.

Why this exercise? Because SBE is 3 and if we Attach that to Mag10 then adding a hand to make 18 treats that 13 as a hand. That enables the 12+1 and more.

This constructs filters which can be removed to reveal better information, better direction.

Internally generated filters. Reflection.

How would you explain turbulence in the generation of gsSpace? That it is the reduction of higher dimensions into a CM1, into a localization where the fit is turbulent.

Never realized how much Eminem’s voice owes to Stevie Wonder. Listening to Higher Ground.

I think all of the Clay problems are now solvable if I can translate the ideas. BSD is getting clearer. I’m confident with Hodge. Navier-Stokes is weird because turbulence is expected to come after. Not sure how to translate that. Yang-Mills is clearly doable. Need to translate some axioms.

I think BSD requires translating the meaning of a 0, which we have, with the concept of curve rank. The answer is becoming obvious since the points of the curve are over the 0 from the 1Space renditions, like into its Taylor series. I really do use a lot of Ts in my thinking. You give meaning to the 0. I’ll let you play with that.

So make that a bit more rigorous and the intractable is tracted.

Hodge seems to need a limiting to rationals. That is inherent to the de Rham cohomology. I ts in the continuity requirements because that imposes a depth limit locally which thus must resolve to rationals.

I am enjoying that this material is simplifying as I was told it would.

If this is accurate, then we have a very good handle on the mass gap: ‘a more precise definition is that the mass gap is the greatest lower bound of the energy of any state which is orthogonal to the vacuum.’ We got the orthogonal. And the lattice!

Listening to we want the funk. Turn this mother out.

Freddy’s dead. The musicianship. The quality of the musical thoughts. Curtis. You can hear the jazz it could be.

That math is getting clearer by the moment. Cool.

Why was Rare Earth able to sound so live? Done at the same Motown? The mix makes it white soul.

Just realized that we can use the solved Poincarre conjecture as a test. Which appears to work.

Need to walk.

[crystalelemental]

So I guess you don’t have much positive to say about Stranger of Paradise, particularly it amounting to the Garland backstory no one asked for. Also, if you don’t like 7, which I understand as being one of the most loved games in Final Fantasy, then is there ANY Final Fantasy you would define as “good?”

Oh man. Stranger of Paradise fucking rules. I haven't played it, but I watched a playthrough of it after seeing the Bullshit scene and reading a synopsis and thinking this would be the most cringe shit ever and telling my wife we absolutely had to watch this, and for most of the game it definitely pushes into an earnest "this is so goofy I can't hate it but it's certainly not quality," but then you hit the pivot and it's like am I having feelings about fucking Astos the dark elf right now? That game exceeded every expectation. Jack Garland is unironically cool as hell.

Anyway, there are others, but more under the cut because unfortunately I am in a chatty mood today.

I think part of my answer to this has to come with the caveat of "I've mostly played re-released that made the games substantially more accessible, so if you're asking whether I think any are good it's like...yes but also no."

I think Final Fantasy XII is the best one. I think the story is fantastic, I love the cast, I think Vaan is out of the way enough to not really be a problem, I think the world itself is really neat, I think the concepts for Gambits are a lot of fun to set up and see run. I also think if I tried to play a version of it that isn't The Zodiac Age and had to deal with everyone having the same grid and no speed up function I would stab myself, and even with the updates all the weird MMO-esque low drop rates for certain items in chests is extremely intolerable, into a really poorly designed superboss fight in Yiazmat. Though the phrase "poorly designed superboss" applies to like. Every Final Fantasy superboss.

Except 5's, which I think are legitimately fun and interesting. Five is probably the one I consider the highest quality. Despite being goofy, it's honestly got a really poignant narrative, and an extremely endearing cast. The class system is divine, and I love the creativity available in its systems. I hated it as a kid when I sucked at video games because holy shit is this game kinda hard, but now it's an easy favorite.

I really respect 3. Not the DS version so much, but the pixel remaster actually made me fall in love with the game. It's less refined than 5, and I think it very strongly railroads you into like five actually useful class options, but it's a really fun and very streamlined experience, and the transition from the initial overworld to the Boundless Ocean just really impacted me personally, I think that's a great reveal.

I like four, but I don't think it's good, that's just pure nostalgia. I really latched on to Rydia as a kid, and I thought Cecil having to fight his Dark Knight self and winning only by refusing to fight while the Dark Knight used its HP sacrifice move until it KO'd itself was peak ludonarrative. It's still really good. I just also have to be honest that a lot did not favor it as I aged.

FF1 is pure neutral, because it's not really doing much to have a strong feeling in any particular direction. It's fine. Pixel remaster is the best iteration because you can turn off encounters, turn on 4x EXP and gold, and just boss run the entire game, improving it immensely.

FF2 sucks, but I will admit some story beats are, in my opinion, wildly under-appreciated. You kill the emperor and he conquers hell and comes back. That rules.

FF6 and FF7, the beloveds of the series, are lukewarm for me. FF7 I haven't played recently enough to fully articulate why, I just can't remember anything interesting going on from when I played it way back when, and I am personally less invested in SciFi, which is what that game feels like to me more than fantasy. My wife would probably tell me it's urban fantasy, but the point remains: I want my fantasy to be vaguely old timey. FF6 is a very well crafted narrative that I think takes zero risks on anything. I think it's so well loved because it didn't really push anyone to consider anything they didn't already believe, which is why people think it's super powerful that Celes and Terra, the only two adult women in a cast of 14 playable characters, start to understand their human heart by finding the most boring hetero romance partner or adopting children. Also everything Kefka is about what Exdeath was about, but Exdeath is cooler. "Oh but Kefka doesn't have any kind of sympathetic backstory to-" he kinda does, they explain he was subject to Cid's experiments and that broke his mind. Even if you don't count it, Exdeath doesn't even get that, he's just evil for its own sake. I don't think either of these are bad, only that I don't remember enjoying 7 much, and having recently replayed 6, was not as dazzled as most seem to be.

Listen. I cannot tell you about FF8's plot. I just think about the word "junctioning" and start convulsing. I hate that system so much. I hate that levels scale to Squall's level, so the best way to play is to never kill anything but convert them to cards for the stupid minigame, then use good cards to earn more good cards to convert to spells to junction to stats. I couldn't beat the final boss when I played normally and reached level cap, because I didn't junction all the best spells at 100 uses. I had to restart and play to the junctioning in the slowest, worse grind I've ever known. There's probably a midpoint somewhere that makes the game tolerable but I do not know it. It's the only one I legitimately don't know how people can enjoy. Even 2 has some nonsense going for it, but 8 I cannot remember a single positive memory of.

FF9 was fine, I actually remember liking the general story (apparently I have an affinity for "kinda goofy but very sincere"), but as mentioned, that game solidified my general stance of "Do not ever split the party on me I will kill you." Because they took Garnet at a critical moment, leaving me with no healer, relying on Potions when we barely had money because you can't sell equipment because it has unique skills to pass on, but you can't really grind money either because you'd take damage negating what you earned anyway, until you can push far enough without issue to get Quina and figure out how to learn White Wind, and I hated that entire section so much. Maybe it's not as bad now that I'm older and can take it. But the memory burns within me.

FF10 is really fun to play for the main campaign despite being best described as "immature" on a story level. It's a shame about postgame being the most extreme and tedious grind-fest out there with completely shitty superbosses.

I never played past 12. My step-brothers had a PS2 so I got 10 and 12, with 10 kinda being my entry point, but when the console upgrades happened we didn't get the PS3, so I didn't keep up with 13 onward. I have seen tidbits of 16 and am not impressed. I could not tell you a singular detail about 15 despite knowing I've seen things. No one ever had a positive thing to say when 13 came out, but recently I hear a lot of defense for it but couldn't tell you why.

Anyway, call it contrarian, because I am severely so, but I don't think something qualifies as "good" because popular consensus says so. I think even the games I don't like have merit, and there's a reason that they resonate with people, but I'm not about to defend something that I don't enjoy or find as profound. There are a few Final Fantasy games I consider really good, but they are...definitely not the ones most people agree on.

[rourhksapocolypse]

Pictured above is the program for church service at our local church (week of 5/12-5/18 2024), and when I read it (not someone who goes to church because I don't fit in the local congregation) I found I really liked how it was handled.

The big idea for this week's sermon is "Can a Christian be Gay or Trans"? (Or support those who are?)

TL;DR the sermon was well handled, if the program was any indication, and says "Don't Hate Gays for Being Gay!", and "Gender Transition isn't going to help people, but if they choose to take that plunge you are not to make their life worse; but also because Gender Culture can and has hurt people without making anything better we should probably help people separate the lies from the truth and letting them make their own decisions and choices", while reminding us "We are supposed to love our neighbors/enemies as we do ourselves, as God would want us to do and as He does us.", but in more detail.

Also, if you decide to look into this post, expect discomfort, whiplash, and rants. No holds barred. No section written completely in order.

I'll transpose sections of both program and personal thoughts directly as I write this.

Opening Cautions

This is a personal topic for many of us, let's approach it delicately.

Reminder: this series is "can a Christian..." [and] not "can a person..." (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)

[I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a [Believer in Christ] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”] New International Version

It is crucial that we seek to take the log out of our own eye before offering to take the splinter out of our neighbor's eye (Matthew 7:3-5)

[3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.] NIV

Personal thoughts: The two bible verses here, which I've copy-pasted through a quick google search, bring up liars and hypocrisy. The general meaning brought up in First Corinthians is "Don't judge people who don't know better, we're not here to be the chat police on the people who don't know the standards we are being held to. But if someone says they're a Christian, but don't live up to the hype, don't bother. They're lying and probably trying to drag you into shit and you should just cut them out of your life because they will drag you down with them for the hell of it."

That covers Corinthians, so what about what Matthew is saying here?

Basic meaning? "Don't be a pot calling the kettle black." as the old saying goes. Or to be a little more internet-focused, "Why hate the guy with the furry-ears headband when you're prancing around in a fursuit? And why try to help fix his problem when yours is so much worse?"

Do you hate that I'm saying this? That it implies you might get called out by Jesus as a Pharisee - a hide-bound lip-service "believer" who sticks more to the rules than the message?

First: Get a life. Truth is Truth and we're supposed to support that.

Second: if I'm calling you out, then that's between you and God. Bring it up with Him and He'll direct you to ways to actually fix it. And then maybe let you fail to fix it on your own merits.

Can a Christian... Be Gay?

Direct Teaching: God created humans with opposite genders, and for sex to be enjoyed between opposite genders in a life-long covenant relationship (Genesis 2:21-25; matthew 19:3-6; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

[direct mentions of Genesis chapters one and two]

21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[a] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[b] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. | 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’  for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

[Verse 25 is irrelevant here, and this is basically a Magic-Not-Science explanation for sexual dimorphism for the early Jews, because they didn't really know what science was when Genesis was being written, and that a number of today's egotistical anthropologists would consider anyone before Egypt as an uncultured primitive. Also, I was advised to not leave in that last part, but it's not like I'm being completely inaccurate.]

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Wisdom: What do you mean by "gay"?

Experiencing same-sex attraction.

Engaging in same-sex activity.

Identifying as part of the gay community.

The Point: All of us experience different temptations. The question is not whether or not someone experiences a specific temptation, but how they think about and respond to that temptation.

Personal thoughts: This one is harder for me to parse. But then everything about the logistics of love and romance are difficult for me to explain and understand.

What is most obvious from the get-go, however, is that different people have different tastes, and of course, how they go about chasing those tastes.

Obvious, extreme example ahoy: Rape can happen among (both by and to) men and women. And extra-marital sex - or for the more worldly, cheating on your partner - is a bad way to respond, and certainly not a Christian one.

And while using Matthew 19:6 to argue for polyamory is certainly possible, the biggest and best way to separate fact from fiction in a truth-based (supposedly or actually) religion is to go straight to the source material. In DnD, that's the Monster's Manual or the DM's Manual, etc. In Christianity, that's the Bible. And if there's conflict between multiple sources (NIV vs NLV vs King James versions, as an example) then try to find the most direct translation.

I'll be honest, I really want to take a tangent and bring up noted inconsistencies between the source materials of other religions, including Islam and some "Christian" cults) and the actual message they say they send, but I need to stay focused on the sermon program in front of me. Also I don't actually have the passages in question lined up already and I don't want to put in the effort to do that. Plus, love your neighbors even if you think they're wrong. Mostly because that's not the point here, and partly because I might be wrong.

Back to business: I'm not sure how to handle Corinthians chapter 6 (like I know how to handle anything in this section right?), but one of the big points here is how Luke is calling out to members of a church in Corinth, people that are choosing to become better people now that they are Christians; people who are being shown how to become better people, and are probably not having a good time right now with their non-Christian friends, who are probably making fun of them (and significantly worse) because they're "No Fun Anymore", because they're not going out and getting completely sloshed together, or are having qualms about tricking people out of their hard-earned savings, or just not having a whole lotta sex and sleeping around anymore, etc. There's a lotta things here that we villify in the U.S. today, and I'm not willing to sacrifice any kind of moral standing I have right now by editing the truth/source material, and we all agree that (excepting the Gays) everything on this list deserves to be there. So how do I handle their inclusion on the list?

I can see multiple reasons for their placement on this list, both good and bad. Some men might justify that Sex = Good, but Unexpected Kid = Bad, and Homosexual Sex = No Kid = Good! as one reason - though that also gives some a-holes "licence" to do terrible things to other men (rape, abuse, other mentally scarring things) and also sexual immorality such as sleeping around or cheating on your partner "without consequences", et cetera.

On the flip side argument, as just one, we have Eugenics. Which is good and bad for many reasons - the Good for passing on genes and lineages and so on, the bad for the fact that unlike animals our DNA has no error-checking whatsoever, and honestly just look it up and prepared to be incredibly horrified at what some people think and accept, even today. (including the FUCKING HOLOCAUST as one of the bad things.)

And now we move on to the next bit.

Can a Christian be trans?

Direct Teaching: God created us male or female, and we are to present ourselves as such (See above, and Deuteronomy 22:5)

Going back to the Hebrew, the literal translation of Deuteronomy 22:5 is: “Never cause or force a warriors weapon to be used by a woman or weak person; neither dress warriors armor on a woman or weak person for to Yahweh, God of Host, disgusting is such that do so.” Note the word used in Hebrew tow`ebah, [link]

To "transition" means to change something about yourself to reflect the gender you identify with:

Social: changing the way you dress and behave.

Hormonal: taking puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

Surgical: Having one or several procedures to change your anatomy.

The Point: the message of our culture is: healing can be found by changing your body to match your feelings; Christianity says: healing isn't found that way.

Personal thoughts:

I feel how we change and mark our bodies (tattooes, gender reassignment, etc) is up to us and our choices, because God respects our choices, and our right to make them. He gave us that right, and sticks to that self-given rule. (and if you bring up the Garden of Eden? He planned on Lucifer trying to fuck up His creations, He gave Adam and Eve the choice. That they didn't know the consequences of that choice is immaterial to this point - do we even know the consequences of our actions, half the time? Or most of the time? - He gave them a rule, He planted the Trees of Life and Knowledge without any particular barriers preventing them from eating from them beyond His command! It's right there in Genesis, the very beginning of the Bible, that Actions. Have. Consequences.)

But that leaves us with two major sticking points for me. Evolution, the mechanism by which our bodies were created (as theorized by science), left our bodies inefficient and prone to breaking, particularly when inbreeding makes any kind of play, due too the inefficiencies of the process. So improving on what's there (glasses/contacts, cybernetics, cosmetic surgery, tattoos for the the aesthetic, etc) is perfectly acceptable. But on the flip side, we have Gender Reassignment. This is where I upset people.

Gender Reassignment. Trans-masc Pyramidhead is an example of this surgical procedure that I find stupid. 80+% of his body is pure muscled masculinity. Adding surgical scars that imply his hips were actually wider than they are, or that he had significantly more estrogen in his body at one point kinda messes with his presence. And the pro-trans message one might get from viewing that picture, that piece of artwork, in isolation does not mesh at all with the fact that he is a remorseless video game monster! (also, I know nothing about Silent Hill, but his Frankenstein/Weird Concept existence, just, doesn't help in general)

And in a more real-life example?

A biological woman bottle-feeding her daughter for the first time did not have happy tears, because she physically could not breast-feed her child. Gender reassignment cut off her mammary glands when she was younger. And while voluntary, it still left her with bleeding emotional wounds when she had her child.

An old woman with Alzheimers contemplated her partner. He'd gone through reassignment while younger, and sometimes forgot significant amounts of (now) her life, such as the reassignment. On one notable example (s)he'd woken up, looked down upon the aging body, and freaked out: "What have you done to my body?!"

When I encountered that article, I had basically clicked away fast and tried to distract myself from the emotional discomfort that I was empathizing with. But now I bring it up to underscore the point.

One of the big things that came up in a recent talk with my dad (which was months ago and sounded like a bunch of conspiracy theories, included what sounded like a bunch of government/military shit that no one wants to own up to that I can absolutely believe even if I don't remember 80%+ of that), is that a lot of things we believe today was told to us by shills (liars) and hacks that don't deserve their medical degrees or et cetera. And Government/Military propaganda based not in the least in truth is certainly prevalent enough in fiction and history that we can believe they're doing it to our faces today and expecting us to thank them for it.

Humanity has told itself all kinds of lies, deluded itself with all kinds of ideas, and while I'm not trying to put anybody down, I feel that the popularization of Gender and Gender Reassignment, and the ways those things were treated by the media, is one of those. The way it got turned from a personal thing into a political thing. How some people, including and especially the creeps and politicians, tried to cash in on it while those with morals and integrity tried to keep it contained - and eventually just took a step back because of how out of control it was, those against seeing it as a degradation of their country and those for seeing themselves lumped in with terrible people and the movement itself turned into an excuse for the morally unhinged to take advantage of.

There's a reason I try to stay out of politics. Why I try to follow Caboose's example in Flamethrower's Other than the Sum of its Parts. And that reason is that anything Political is A) complicated and B) lied about. 98% of Gender Politics is completely unknown to me, as a result of those two reasons. And the other 2% I might just spew out randomly because someone I considered more knowledgeable than myself said it first.

----

Now that that's out of the way, we can get to the interesting bit.

I didn't like the first option for Deuteronomy (New International Reader's Version), so I kept looking a little further and found that. Remember how I mentioned earlier that when you're unsure of something, go to the source material?

We have the Bible in English, because it was first translated to Latin, but it started in the Hebrew.

The NIRV, when translated to plain language, says "Cross-dressing is a Sin!", but the original Hebrew is basically saying "Don't push somebody into a role they're not fit for!"

This is not confined to the LGBT community. It touches on the community, yes, but some people are made for that community, Christian and otherwise, but this verse also touches on gaslight/grooming, Toxic Masculinity/Feminity, attempts to control the universe and make it conform to your expectations, dozens of things that create trauma...

Well, at this point A) I've run out of ideas, and B) I really don't wanna look at all the shitty things this one verse covers. If you think I've listed all of them?

Oh, you sweet summer child.

Now, at this point, I think God wants to say something through me: Very Few People will benefit from Gender Reassignment.

Please Note that this is not None. And it is not limited to Physical Health Issues. But less than 1% of this world's population require it.

...and He's handing me back the mic.

So, let's look at that.

First is Reader Reaction: No. I am not doing this for attention. I've asked him to hold my hand through this, make sure my thoughts, and His Intent, comes through. This is not about me. This is about exploring His Message.

Second is population. <1% is a very small number... in statistics. In Global Population? Considering we have upwards of five Billion, just in India, then that leaves around fifty million people who can benefit from the surgery.

Third is the fact that I correct myself. It's not fifty million that can benefit, it's somewhere around that number that require it. More can benefit from it, but somewhere around... let's say twenty five million, actively need it. Who are they? God knows, I don't, nothing more needs to be said about this.

Fourth is that, while a statistically tiny number require it, more can benefit, yet Gender Reassignment isn't the only method of handling things. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph got Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh from the three wise men when Jesus was born. (which, didn't exactly last them long, because King Herod sent the Wise Men as part of a method to track down Jesus, due to fearing Jesus deposing him, and they needed to get out of the country! And they were expensive gifts, so they pawned them off and used the money to get out of there). I bring this up because, while the money was useful, it wasn't the only way they had to get out of the country. It was convenient to get outta there fast, and the Wise Men gave them the warning, but they coulda gotten outta there the slow way on foot and partially starved themselves for Jesus' sake, or hitched a ride in some caravan or with some smugglers or something. All of those were valid options - even if some of them were more attractive than others. Money and legal was still the best option of them all.

This is relevant, because while useful, gender reassignment isn't the only method of healing available. For some, Reassignment is a net neutral. For some, like the Alzheimer's patient I mentioned earlier, it can be a net negative - some good, lotta bad. And I don't know if you've noticed, but it's kinda permanent. That it's an option is, I feel, a good thing. But it's a lot easier to reprogram your mind than to surgically alter your body. Cheaper too. My suggestion? Try therapy first. You might accidentally-on-purpose dig up all sorts of things that are bothering you, and even find out that the body disphoria? It might not come from your body/self-perception/gender issues at all! (It still could, yes, but why fix the symptoms if it doesn't solve the problem? Pin down the problem first, then fix.)

Can a Christian... love and support unconditionally?

Love without conditions means acceptance without conditions, not approval without conditions.

This one is Big. No question. It means "I'm telling you not to hate the Gays. Just like you'd not hate a smoker specifically because they smoke, or an alcoholic specifically because they drink alcoholic drinks. Hate the tabacco, hate the alcohol, but don't hate the one addicted to them. Same thing is supposed to apply to The Gays."

Are you going to suddenly hate your child because they drive a Tacoma? Do you hate them because they decided they wanted nothing to do with the world's idea of gender roles, or gender at all, and decided to go completely 'genderless' and nonbinary? Are you going to hate them because they're suddenly going by neopronouns?

No?

Then why would you hate them, just because she likes girls, or he wants to marry a guy, or your nonbinary third likes them all (or no one in a romantic capacity)?

Or are you actually just that shallow?

God commanded us Christians to Love Deeply and Unconditionally. Friend, Enemy, lover, neighbor, child. To care about them all. Not to spread and perpetuate the cycle of hatred, fear, and violence.

There's a guy I knew, who turned out to be gay. I'm gay-adjacent (as in, not gay, but like it's all that hard for someone to make the mistake?), and while I know (now) that I probably handled the reveal badly enough to hurt his feelings, I didn't love/like him any less when I found out. I just tried to add a little physical distance - an unexplained act of "I respect that you are into guys, and I like you, but you're not my type". Matter of fact, I'm currently praying that he gets a partner, one who is basically a better version of me who's actually into him. (so, huggy-er than average, and willing to shower him with affection)

And this kind of command is kinda pointed at you non-Christians too. To be better than that. To be better than those who lie and deceive you for their own profit and amusement. To rise above the racism, no matter what form it takes.

To give one example of the challenge I'm handing out, I'll point you at a Tumblr story from a self-admitted tomboy I read once. (I forget the account name). She's a girl, she does guy things, and when someone from the LGBT community approached her, she told them straight out, "I'm a tomboy", and then they refused to accept that. Instead of accepting her words as shorthand for "I go by She/Her, and I do things society thinks only guys do", the other guy referred to her as a "They/Them", which really annoyed her. (also, don't @ her if you come up with her blog name, just show the post to your friends in the LGBT community as an example of "don't be like the jerks who hurt you. Instead, respect others and throw out Society's ideas of Gender Roles entirely")

-

Overall: One of the big things that stands out to me, is that it doesn't bring up Leviticus.

Leviticus 20 is, of course, the big chapter/verse people bring up when it comes to Anti LGBT speech/hatred. "An abomination to lie with another male as with a female", or whatever translation you prefer.

Doesn't really help that it's not really in-theme for that chapter to be translated as "Hate the Gays", when older translations of that passage mark it as "Don't have sex with children, and also leave animals alone when it comes to sex".

But all this also reminds us to respect each other. Our choices are our own. Us christians? We're not supposed to be here to judge you. We're supposed to be here to help guide you, show you the right way, help you up when you choose badly and fall, and help you heal. Remember the line, "You are the Salt of the Earth"? That's what it's supposed to mean.

And, yeah, we're kinda doing a bad job of it. But we're only human. Just like you.

Be safe, and love each other. With all the Evil in the world today, we're all going through our own shit. Let's not make it worse.

And, sorry for not posting for a long time? Just, haven't had anything worth posting.

[mirandamckenni1]

9 Tips for Navigating Physical Touch & Sexual Intimacy in Autistic Adults (Autism & Sexuality PT 3) Autistic people often struggle with sensory overwhelm, delayed processing, and trouble understanding expectations, all of which can cause problems within the context of a relationship. This video explores 9 practical tips for navigating physical touch and sexual intimacy in neurodivergent relationships. This is Part 3 of my series Autism and Sexuality (see below for links to Parts 1 & 2). Scroll down for timestamps to jump to a specific section in the video. 👇🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨👇 UNSTUCKIFY YOUR LIFE | Get the Guide OUT NOW: https://ift.tt/0RkHDvK 👆🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨👆 Autism and Sexuality Part 1 (General Overview): https://youtu.be/Vf-RBx03tOk?si=acag6u8BSGLJ9b0p Autism and Sexuality Part 2: Defining Important Terms for Gender and Sexual Identity https://youtu.be/CSyzP1y16iA?si=Q_EW-MdCgFn3A7El 🙀🌟 RESOURCES 🌟🕺 🖥 Mom on the Spectrum website: https://ift.tt/cNK6Mxg More Mom on the Spectrum Videos: https://www.youtube.com/momonthespectrum Online Autism Groups and Classes: https://ift.tt/6WaxOks Spoon theory: https://ift.tt/tBdqFsL Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria: https://ift.tt/WGkryYI ❤️ 🧡 💛 MY FAVORITE THINGS 💚 💙 💜 ONO Fidget Roller (affiliate link): http://bit.ly/3xLZnQY (use code: MOMONTHESPECTRUM for 10% off at checkout) Flare Earbuds for Sensory Overwhelm (affiliate link): https://ift.tt/qY5KJXi Manta Weighted Sleep Mask (affiliate link): http://bit.ly/3n3l64I (use code: MOMONTHESPECTRUM for 10% off at checkout) ⏰ TIMESTAMPS ⏰ 0:53 Disclaimer 1:36 A bid for connection with your partner 2:15 Requirements for having a productive conversation with your partner 2:50 List begins 2:57 Understand your wants and needs are valid 3:22 Don't do anything you don't want to do 4:36 Talk about expectations beforehand 6:34 Explore the role that Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria might be playing 7:16 Explore therapeutic options 7:49 Explore ways to ease the transition 8:31 Use nonverbal cues to communicate preferences 9:24 Learn more about spoon theory 11:07 Stay curious and have fun 💃⭐️ FIND ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA 🤠🎶 Instagram: https://ift.tt/rqpVyNZ Tiktok: https://ift.tt/4kpIgP2 📧 Business inquiries: info@momonthespectrum.life 👏🏻 FREE 👏🏻 WAYS TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT 🦾 🟥 SUBSCRIBE to the channel 🟧 LIKE the videos that are helpful to you 🟨 COMMENT in the comment section 🟩 Click the “bell” to be notified when I release new videos DISCLAIMER: Taylor Heaton is not a licensed psychologist or specialist healthcare professional. Her services do not replace the care of psychologists or other healthcare professionals. Please note that Taylor can’t take any responsibility for the results of your actions, nor any harm or damage you suffer as a result of the use, or non-use of the information available through her website, YouTube Channel, or social media accounts. Please use judgment and conduct due diligence before taking any action or implementing any plan or practice suggested or recommended by Taylor Heaton or Mom on the Spectrum. Please note that Taylor doesn't make any guarantees about the results of the information you may apply from her website, YouTube channel, and/or social media accounts. Taylor shares educational and informational resources that are intended to help you succeed in navigating life as an autistic adult. You nevertheless need to know that your outcome will be the result of your own efforts, your particular situation, and innumerable other circumstances beyond Taylor's knowledge and control. Taylor is an Amazon affiliate and may receive commissions on qualifying purchases from affiliate links. Taylor is a Flare affiliate and may receive commissions on qualifying purchases from Flare links. 🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿 You are a beautiful person worthy of love! Comment with your favorite emoji so I can say hi and connect with you. #actuallyautistic #momonthespectrum #autisticadult via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-qjPmlXR7A