not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

With recent shootings in public places and churches, the question of self-defense has been coming up lately. But first, let's be clear: What we are seeing today is not a gun problem; it’s a moral problem called sin.

Vengeance is not self-defense 

One Scripture often used to support pacifism and banning weapons is found in Proverbs 20:22, “Do not say, ‘I will recompense evil’; wait for the Lord, and He will save you.” But this scripture verse is dealing with vigilantism, not self-defense. 

According to Romans 13:4, one of the purposes of the authorities is to “execute wrath on him who practices evil.” They are God’s avengers, but we can be defenders.

Seek peace when possible 

As Christians, I believe that we are to seek peace at every turn and not drape the cross with the flag. But what about self-defense as a last resort and biblical mandates to protect? 

The Old Testament offers many examples, but what about the New Testament? It does as well. In Matthew 26:52 Jesus says to Peter, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Jesus didn’t denounce the sword but clarified its place.  When we take premature emotionally charged action, it may cost us our life. 

Buy a sword 

Later Jesus adds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me?” If He had been a thief and a robber, the clubs and swords would have been justified. In my opinion, these Scripture verses imply that weapons do have a place in society, although we must be careful. 

Additionally, in Luke 22:36 Jesus said, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” What is the context?

First, again I would err on the side of peace, but this isn’t always an option. One thing is certain: A sword was for defense. Earlier, Jesus had sent them on a peaceful mission trip where they did not need these items, but now Jesus may be implying that self-defense might become necessary. He wants them to use wisdom and be prepared. 

Love your enemies doesn’t mean hate your family 

Some may argue, “Didn’t Jesus say to love our enemies, and bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute us?” (cf. Matthew 5:43-48.) Yes, but these references refer to personal assaults, offenses, and character assassinations, not to self-defense or the protection of others.

It is taking a quantum leap to believe that Jesus is saying, “Do good to those who are trying to maim or destroy you or your family.” 

Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek

Paul tells Timothy that if “anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). But if I protect my family, which is often a greater responsibility (if not equal), then I’m labeled a war-monger and accused of misapplying the Scriptures. 

The Scriptures must be read in their appropriate context. For example, when Jesus was slapped, He didn’t turn the other cheek. He said, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?” (John 18:23). Although we are to err on the side of grace and peace, there is a time and a place for confrontation and protection.

Forgiveness is not passivity

I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating violence or aggression; I’m advocating scriptural consistency and continuity. Context is the key factor here. Forgiving is not being passive, and granting grace is not being gullible.

Are we called to guard our families spiritually, emotionally, and financially but not physically? This makes no sense. However, my concern with the current gun debate is that we are buying into the fear narrative. A minimizing of sovereignty is directly related to a magnifying of worry. “Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man” (R.C. Sproul). 

A Glock for the flock

Many are prepared militarily but not spiritually, instilling unhealthy fear in their families. They are motivated by the fear of man rather than the fear of God. I hear much about GLOCK, Smith and Wesson, and Remington, but little about brokenness, surrender, and humility. 

Every time God’s people trusted in their weapons and armies, He called them to repentance. Our protection is in daily submission to Him. Psalm 121:2 adds, “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth.” Our current trend beckons us to be very careful about who, or what, we “worship,” and who, or what, we place our trust in.

Before we get a Glock for the flock and become pistol-packing preachers, we must be watchmen battling in the courts of Heaven with prayer and fasting.

Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane's sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.com or wcfav.org. He is the author of Feasting & Fasting, If My People, Desperate for More of God, and Help! I'm Addicted. Follow him on Facebook at: facebook.com/confusedchurch. You can also follow Pastor Shane on Instagram @shaneidleman and Twitter (X) @IdlemanShane 

A finished Peach drawing I FULLY intended on posting with a bunch of other stuff but this week has been extremely busy so that post will have to come later 😂

She’s really cute in the new game 🩷

Kind of infuriating how many times this article uses terms like “making out with” and “having a love affair with” and “cheating on her fiancé with” and “her relationship with” to describe a female teacher repeatedly sexually assaulting an 11 year old boy.

Like I get sometimes it’s quoting what others have said but the only the time the article itself uses the term abuse is in the last paragraph and the only time it refers to the behavior of the pedophile as sexual assault is the last sentence and it’s not even describing her behavior. It’s just mentioning what she was charged with.

Articles like this are just as sick as the female predators they’re written about.

"READ MY DNI" no. use your block button like an adult. i'm not scrolling through the many-paragraphs-long pinned posts of every blog i reblog something from. if you insist certain types of people aren't welcome in the notes of your posts then it's your responsibility to curate that. or choose a closed social media platform like facebook or instagram. or go and live in a barn away from humanity if you really don't like sharing the world with people who are different from you

A bunch of folk are commenting on the post about a sanctuary feeding a bear Twizzlers with something along the lines of “well if the sanctuary is preferred by PETA it’s immediately sus.” There’s a lot more to that relationship worth knowing about.

What a lot of people aren’t in a position to be aware of is that while PETA’s public facing advocacy is really inflammatory and offensive, it’s almost a smokescreen for how much they’re investing in widespread and effective lobbying and litigation. They’re heavily involved in very serious work to advance more restrictive animal-based legislation across federal and state governments, and are taken very seriously because they have very, very good lawyers who know animal regulation and oversight and everything related inside and out. Litigators associated with them are pretty much cornerstones of every animal law school I know of in the US.

The reason this matters is that when PETA sues over animal care - like under the Endangered Species Act - as part of the relief granted by the court if they win, they generally get to say where the animals go. And the animal welfare matters, but those animals also represent millions of dollars in fundraising and advocacy narratives for both PETA and the receiving sanctuary. The lawsuits that took animals from Tim Stark and Jeff Lowe from Tiger King and put them at the iffy Colorado sanctuary? PETA. The lawsuit against Dade City’s Wild Things that put their tigers (and some of Joe Exotic’s) at the same place? PETA. They’re using those court ruling to change the law via bench precedent one case at a time, all towards making it easier to remove animals from (even good) zoos or shut them down.

Similarly, having lobbying powerhouses in places allows them to use the narratives of those animals and the beautiful photos from the sanctuaries to convince legislators to pass new / more restrictive laws, and to listen to PETA even more (because look what good we did the last time we collaborated on a bill!) . The Big Cat Public Safety Act was a big thing PETA lobbied for in collaboration with Carole Baskin and the Big Cat Sanctuary Alliance (which has two current/previous influential PETA lawyers on the advisory board). If you’ve got a representative voting on bills that restrict animal use or care, they’ve probably got a pretty favorable view of PETA, because they’re being approached by really professional powerhouse litigators who are totally removed from all that vile stuff the PR side spews.

And you know what PETA is doing with that lobbying? Pushing for more ways to be able to confiscate animals or go after captive animal facilities in court. They’ve been talking for years about adding a provision to the Animal Welfare Act that would allow them to sue facilities for any potentially harmful violation, just like they’re doing with the Endangered Species Act. The zoological industry and probably many other related animal industries could not survive the financial cost of all the lawsuits that would open the door for, regardless of merit. I first heard a PETA litigator raise the topic years ago at a meeting - a bill introducing that amendment is currently active in Congress. (They’re also exploring avenues for using consumer fraud laws to allow “true” sanctuaries to sue other sanctuaries whose practices they don’t agree with philosophically and say are scamming the public.)

To sum up: in animal industry world, PETA isn’t this offensive obnoxious entity you can eye-roll and ignore. They’re a seriously scary, heavily funded, incredibly influential lobbying group with some of the most intimidating lawyers I’ve ever met. They invest money in things they know they can win, and by the time they’ve started a visible campaign, their target is so underwater - whether there’s a real issue or no - that it’s rare to come back from it. So when I say “this sanctuary is PETA’s favorite for placing animals”, what that means is “this facility has been chosen to be a philosophical partner for PETA’s legal and legislative goals and is receiving animals worth millions of dollars in fundraising revenue in return.”

They’re not going to pick a partner that is a liability to their work, which is why most people in the animal world seem to be assuming that the sanctuary is at least fairly decent. You’d think they wouldn’t risk that level of reputation damage if the place got its own expose. And yet, it seems like that sanctuary is actually pretty yikes, and nobody who has any power has taken a close look. Such is the seduction of heavily moralized sanctuary branding.

Friendly reminder that ultimately PETA doesn't want animals to be in captivity at all, to the point where they will euthanize pet cats and dogs because it's impossible to release them to the wild.

Day Dress

c. 1837-1840

printed challis and lined with glazed cotton and linen from Great Britain

Victoria and Albert Museum

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

TIL that in 1903 the New York Times predicted that building a flying machine would be possible in 1-10 Million years.

via ift.tt

To understand how ridiculous this is, the first successful powered airplane flew this same year, 1903

You’re understating how ridiculous

it wasn’t just the same year. it was nine days later

Hi friends! I have a twitter mutual who has fallen into hard times and needs help bringing her twin girls into the world. If you feel so compelled, feel free to contribute to her baby registry.

Prayers and shares are appreciated just as much as monetary support, as well!

“Can you define woman without excluding any woman?” Yes, I can, actually.

A woman is a person born with at least one X chromosome and with the absence of a Y chromosome.

It’s fairly simple. People with Turner’s syndrome (XO) are ALWAYS female, and people with Klinefelter’s syndrome (XXY) are ALWAYS male, because the presence of the Y chromosome makes them male. And this isn’t my opinion by the way, this is medical literature. We’re also talking about sex here, not gender. This includes any variation of chromosomes - for example, the extremely rare genetic disorder, XXXYY, people with this disorder are ALWAYS MALE, even though they have more than one (and two!) X chromosomes, because the presence of the Y chromosome makes you male.

I give any radfems and/or TERFs the right to use this explanation whenever some TRA trues to pull the “but what about (extremely rare genetic disorder) or (someone with no ovaries, a hysterectomy, etc). Because you don’t really need to define “woman” by external genitalia or even anatomy, because there’s one thing that all women have, no matter what. And it’s at least one X chromosome, and no Y chromosome.

literally even fucking wikipedia proves me right dude

i would also like to add that some TRAs may bring up the extremely rare chromosomal disorder de la Chapelle syndrome, in which a person possesses XX chromosomes but is phenotypically male (this was used on me once). this may stump someone who does not know how to find or read medical literature, but this too is misleading, so let me explain how this syndrome still does not contradict what OP is saying:

first -- this disorder is EXTREMELY rare and so extensive research with statistically significant sample sizes are impossible. the exact details of this order and how it happens are debated, however put simply: although the subject may possess two X chromosomes, he is still male because the extra X chromosome possesses genes typically found on the Y chromosome, notably the SRY gene which codes for male phenotypical traits. in 80% of cases XX males contain the SRY gene, effectively making the extra X chromosome a modified Y chromosome. among the remaining 20%, he will possess other genes that are typically found on the Y chromosome. ONLY 200 CASES OF THIS CHROMOSOMAL DISORDER HAVE BEEN REPORTED.

do not let them mislead you with this! they typically just read the first paragraph of the wikipedia page but refuse to read or accept the rest of the actual science. it's another way they say "this incredibly rare chromosomal disorder that i dont have exists therefore i am female"

OP is right -- all current medical and biological literature will concur. i implore you to read the entire page for de la Chapelle syndrome and look into the further reading section. individuals with chromosomal disorders are not your pawns, they are not a secret 3rd sex, they do not prove your arguments that are quite frankly unrelated, and all chromosomal irregularities are simply variations of XX and XY -- female and male.

IMHO (based on both my occupation and my personal experience), I think it comes down to good medical professionals vs. bad ones. A good provider is going to give practical guidance/strategies along with any necessary medication. A bad one (or, to be generous, an overloaded one) will throw meds at the patient without education/information on both the meds themselves and additional/alternate strategies/options.

To the second paragraph, it still falls within my previous thought. There's certainly children who are medicated when they shouldn't be, just as there are adults who are as well. However, with my family, it was a last resort. Kid #3 was diagnosed with "probable ADHD" at three years old. The "probable" was because three is too young to officially diagnose ADHD. The ADHD itself had a few factors, but the defining one was him having zero danger awareness, which made him a danger to himself and others. No amount of any strategy curbed this, so we finally had to go with medication. Now, at five, the "probable" has been removed, and he is on a medication that allows his brain to think ahead to the consequences of an action. This has eliminated his severely dangerous behavior, and allows other strategies to be implemented and actually be effective. We do hope that with those and time/age, there will come a point where he no longer needs the medication, but of course it's also possible it will continue to be necessary.

General P.S.: To the original McArthur issue, I know this analysis video was highlighted in a separate post, but I just wanted to add it for anyone who hasn't seen it:

don't let people enjoy things

Anons on Tumblr.com:

Google is actively blocking Captcha on Firefox

Firefox users have noticed that captchas - both the picture kind and the click the box kind - are not resolving on Firefox. Tests on Chromium based browsers show that it works perfectly fine on them. It is also known that Chrome will be disabling all ad-blockers in June when it moves to Manifest v3, which will greatly limit what extensions can do.

If you use Firefox, there is an extension called User-Agent Switcher and it allows you to change your browser's UA to Chrome. This will allow you to bypass reCaptcha/Captcha blocks set up by Google and make them function properly.

It could be a code snafu on Google's part - but given how predatory they have been acting lately, I'm going to guess not. Don't get locked out of your websites or feel forced to use Chrome again just to browse.