Church notes - 22nd March 2026

Mar. 22nd, 2026 04:58 pm
[personal profile] fardell24
22nd
Context
Purpose
Biblical Arc - leading to and following from Jesus' death and resurrection

Exodus 8:16 - 22

Philippians 4:7
Peace

Gr. Eierei (erio)
Join, Bind, Weave together

God Confronts Oppression
Colossians 2:13 - 15

Exodus 3:7, 7

Gnats
- The magicians couldn't replicate the feat.
- - "It is the finger of God."

Flies
- The Israelites were spared.

Matthew 6:10
Heaven on Earth.

Salvation - "Out of" and "in to"
Salvation reshapes identity and life.

Israel receives
- A new identity
- A new way of living (Torah)
- A new relationship (Covenant)
- A new calling (a kingdom of priests)

You can know you're forgiven, but still be a slave.
What do you need deliverance from today?
What are you a slave to?
What oppressive patterns are you trapped in?
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


Title: The People You Meet Along The Way.
Author: [personal profile] lannamichaels
Fandom: The Parent Trap (1998)
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Twelve years later, they meet at an airport.


Meredith is so fun to write )

Wednesday Reading Meme

Mar. 18th, 2026 09:18 am
sineala: Detail of Harry Wilson Watrous, "Just a Couple of Girls" (Reading)
[personal profile] sineala
What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing. Still have not attempted books. Currently getting over a migraine. I have to say, if I am now down to one migraine a week (which would be great, actually) I don't see why it has to be on Comics Wednesday two weeks in a row so that all my comics reviews are ass because I am clearly having difficulty comprehending comics.

Perhaps I could wait until Thursday to read them? No. It must be Wednesday. Otherwise the internet will spoil me.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

Captain America #8, Sorcerer Supreme #4, Ultimate Wolverine #15, Ultimates #22 )

What I'm Reading Next

Look, I'd be happy if I just got to read a book ever again.
[personal profile] fardell24
Norman Osborn was looking at the latest email regarding a replacement for the Goblin Glider when the assistant messaged him.

“The Fourth Vigilante is here to see you, sir.”

“Let her in.”

“Yes, sir.”

A minute later, the Enigma stormed in, with her hands glowing faintly.

“I know why you’re here, Sandi,” he said after the doors were closed.

“Do you?” the Enigma asked, as the glow intensified.

“You’re going to ask me why I am having you and the others followed. The answer should be obvious.”

“That you don’t want us to be in your way as you plot to gain more control over Lawndale?”

“That is a strong word,” Osborn said.

“That is what you’re doing.”

“You don’t have proof of that, and I know you’re not in the school paper.”

“I’m not, but, like, I am still investigating what you are up to, along with whatever else in Lawndale that you may not be responsible for,” the Enigma sot

“So, you’re not seeing the hand of Oscorp in everything?”

“No. There is a line between suspicion and conspiracy theories.”

“But I’m sure you’re engaging in the latter regarding SpiderGirl,” Osborn taunted.

“I’m not! She is overhyped, playing up the fact that she is Lawndale’s first superhero, and getting the credit for everything.”

“That is why I am doing what I’m doing!”

“No it isn’t,” the Enigma shot back. “You want to bring her down, as well as Ninja Talon, the Shadow and Dafoanairi.”

“I neither confirm nor deny, but I say that you are a variable that I could capture right now.”

The Enigma raised a forcefield. “Not without a fight and a lot of damage to this office, and you would have to explain to Harry why his friend disappeared.”

“That’s true. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try, or make something up.”

“You’re going to test me? You think I haven’t prepared?”

“I know you have some ace up your sleave, but yes,” Osborn responded become pressing a button and a panel opened revealing several of those pumpkin bombs.


Dafoanairi was ready, especially when she saw the window of the office open and one of the Enigma’s energy projections was shot out. She quickly moved to the window as the Enigma ran out.

“I know someone else is there,” Osborn said from inside the office.

Dafoanairi remained silent; she didn’t want Osborn to try to identify her from her voice, even if she was disguising it by pitching it higher. She let down a rope to a lower ledge.

“Let’s go. I did what I came to do,” the Engima said.

‘Which wasn’t much,’ Dafoanairi thought.

Read More )

Slay the Spire 2

Mar. 17th, 2026 11:04 pm
sineala: Mac laptop whose Apple logo has no bite (Young Wizards reference); text reads "my other Mac is a manual" (Young Wizards: My Other Mac)
[personal profile] sineala
I have slightly more brain now and maybe enough energy to post more? Let's find out. I'm sure you've missed me posting about random video games.

Anyway, Slay the Spire 2, the sequel to my most favorite roguelike deckbuilder Slay the Spire came out in Early Access two weeks ago, and is apparently stunningly popular -- it had 500,000 concurrent players its first weekend, beating basically everything else on Steam at the time, which no one was really expecting from, you know, an indie card game.

I haven't played it enough to give a full review, because even in EA there is a lot more content -- there are five characters, two of which are brand new, all of which have new cards, and there are all sorts of new mechanics and events I haven't discovered yet. So far I have now beaten what exists of the game with four of the five characters and I know I haven't seen anywhere near everything yet. I think it's currently balanced harder than the original game, but the subreddit is full of people saying it is way too easy, so I guess we will see what happens when the balance patches start coming out.

But the really cool thing about this game is the multiplayer, which we only found out existed in a trailer that they released, like, two weeks before the actual game. It has co-op with up to four players! I only have one friend who plays this game, as far as I know -- [personal profile] gelishan, who actually introduced me to the original game -- and we played a game of it the other night, and I have to say that co-op is absolutely the most fun way to experience the game. It helps to be on voice chat, so you can coordinate things like 'who are we targeting first" or "if you have anything inflicting Vulnerable, please play that first" or "do you need this Strength Potion" or "do you want me to play Piercing Wail this turn so you don't take 35 damage straight to the face" or whatever, but I guess theoretically you could play it in silence and just deal with the fact that everyone is playing their turns simultaneously.

Anyway, that is clearly the way this game has always been meant to be played and I need to do this again at some point. The co-op multiplayer is absolutely amazing! I don't know that I would recommend the game in its current single-player state to people who haven't played the original, just because it is already a hard game and it helps to have some idea of how three of the five characters play, if you're going to play it by yourself. But if you are playing multiplayer, I think you can just go for it and you and your friends can take turns carrying each other through the game.

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to, as I slowly regain some brain. Slaying the Spire anew!

(Also it's really weird to actually talk to someone you have known on the internet for, like, 25 years, but you've never heard their voice before.)
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


Does anyone have or have access to the The Polychrome Historical Haggadah by Jacob Freedman? I'm curious as to what kind of hagadah text it has. I can find a write-up that lists the levels and one of them is Contemporary, defined as beginning in 1900. What's the contemporary stuff? Are there notable things this hagadah includes/doesn't include?

It having contemporary things/cup of Miriam/etc is not a downside, I just want to know what sort of thing is in this before I decide if I wanna get it for this year or not. My utmost value in a hagadah is "is this usable", not really "is this beautiful", and my "is this historically interesting" niche is already fulfilled by the hagadah shelaimah. So is this the sort of thing that would perfectly slot next to the hagadah shelaimah on the shelf, or is it more of a gimmick? The last hagadah I got because it was artistic, I ended up giving away, because it was pretty but not actually functional.

Starfall Stories 53

Mar. 15th, 2026 08:27 pm
thisbluespirit: (viyony)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
Keep forgetting to crosspost my [community profile] rainbowfic pieces & I'm still quite a bit behind, so have two:

Name: Watchdogs
Story: Starfall
Colors: Azul #15 (Through thick and thin)
Supplies and Styles: Novelty Beads (11 Years of Dreamwidth Space Month & Book of the Day Challenges - "Never alone.")
Word Count: 1794
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Mild illness.
Notes: 1313, Portcallan. Leion Valerno, Tana Veldiner, Iyana Valerno. Takes place straight after after Turn to Dust and a few days before Sweet Interlude. (Just a slight linking piece, but I wanted to post something.)
Summary: Leion recovers from Chiulder's work - with a little help.




Name: Missteps
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #22 (Sorry); Azul #20 (Zest)
Supplies and Styles: Giftwrap + Silhouette + Novelty Beads (Oct Spooky Challenge 2020 - http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0g7cdJCp91r6aoq4o1_500.gif & September Secrets 11 Years of Rainbow fic - "It's in the palm of your hand now baby/It's a yes or no, no maybe" - Dark Horse, Katy Perry") + Pastels ([community profile] allbingo square "Bouquet of Withered Flowers - Rejected Love").
Word Count: 2361
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1313, Portcallan. Leion Valerno/Viyony Eseray, Kettah Jadinor, Diyela Eseray, Aolla Gerro, Vin Lorras.
Summary: Leion and Viyony attend the first night of the Sea Festival. Nothing goes according to plan.
selenak: (Time Lords by Crazy Celebrian)
[personal profile] selenak
Dark Winds, Season 3: continues to be both beautifully acted, thoughtfully and empathically written, and a visual feast. Also heartbreaking in the day it follows up on s2's conclusion for Joe Leaphorn and his wife Emma. Small spoilery remark. ) Also I was more grateful than ever that the show takes place in the 1970s and wasn't updated to the present because Bern's new job with border patrol would have felt very differently even before her subplot kicks in.

Young Sherlock: aka the one by Guy Ritchie which doesn't feel like a prequel to his Holmes movies and is the better for it. I mean, I didn't dislike his first Holmes movie, which was the only one I saw, but I wasn't crazy about it, either, and never felt the need to see it again. Also it was made at a time where all the various iterations of Sherlock Holmes seemed to lean into emphasizing his arrrogance. Now, this show is entertaining fluff with only the vaguest nods to when it's supposed to be set: female students galore in Oxford, 1870, for some reason a rich and high ranking visitor takes the carriage instead of the train to Oxford, while someone in the production team actually remembered the Paris Commune happened, they evidently forgot or ignored both the near starvation of the population part of that and that there was also the Franco-Prussian war going on, so everyone makes a trip to Paris for one episode with no armies in sight, but the Folies Bergeres being in business with dancing girls, etc., etc., etc. Not to mentiion something extremely plot spoilery ) But honestly, because the show doesn't pretend to be anything but fun fluff, I did not mind. What I do suspect is someone in the production team has watched at least some Smallville and thought, hm, that "Clark and Lex were bffs for a while when young before Lex went evil" premise is great, we should do that with Holmes and Moriarty". And proceeded to follow up on this idea. Young Sherlock, played by a member of the gifted Fiennes clan, and young James M, played by Mat (the second one) from Wheel of Time, have the necessary chemistry and homoerotic subtext, they hit it off famously, and at the same time the seeds for future supervillaindom in Moriarty are there. And the show does make it believable these are two young guys smarter than most others around them and on each other's level. Most importantly, though: this Sherlock Holmes is the first one in what feels like eons who is not introduced being a jerk to the people around him. (I love Elementary ! But while Elementary's Sherlock was never as extreme as Sherlock's Sherlock, he, too, started out being rude to his Watson and everyone else.) It might come with the much younger territory, but while he's cocky, he's not (yet?) abrasive, downright tender with his mother, and, lo and behold, civil to people who aren't awful to others in front of him. Otoh, it may also be that Guy Ritchie and his production team watched the last season of Sherlock and thought, hm, dysfunctional Holmes family drama, unexpected relations, we like it, we like it, but how about giving the women better parts? Spoilers were very entertained indeed by the result ) Oh, and absolutely no one gets raped or threatened with rape. Like I said, this fluffy show with a heavy emphasis on the bromance manages to do very well by its female characters. Anyway, whether nor not this gets another season - which it doesn't really need for the story it has told - I enjoyed myself.

Church notes - 15th March 2026

Mar. 15th, 2026 05:04 pm
[personal profile] fardell24
15th
Exodus 1:1 - 2:10
The Egyptian elites, especially the new Pharoah, viewing the Israelites as a threat.

Moses' mother's act of faith in placing Moses on the Nile.

Moses grew up with both Egyptian and Hebrew educations.

No matter how desperate your situation is, God is with you.

A picture of what Jesus has done for us.

Wednesday Reading Meme

Mar. 11th, 2026 02:17 pm
sineala: Detail of Harry Wilson Watrous, "Just a Couple of Girls" (Reading)
[personal profile] sineala
What I Just Finished Reading

Still nothing. I mean, okay, I read The Superia Stratagem for the 616 server book club but I'm not counting that because I have dignity.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

1776 #5, Doctor Strange #4, Imperial Guardians #1 )

What I'm Reading Next

Don't know. Still trying to figure out how to medicate my migraines. I clearly shouldn't try to write these posts while in the middle of migraine prodrome.

The eleventh of March!

Mar. 11th, 2026 08:59 am
sineala: Fraser (dS) doing buddy breathing with Ray Kowalski; the text reads "that thing you were doing with your mouth" (Due South: Buddy Breathing)
[personal profile] sineala
It's the one post I remember to make every year!

They have called this day The Eleventh of March! And whom-so-ever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain, you will stand at tiptoe when e'er you hear the name again, and you will get excited!...At the name March The Eleventh!

We happy few, we few, we band of brothers...our names will be as like...household names. And those who are not here, be they sleeping or... doing something else...They will feel themselves...sort of crappy. Because they are not here to, to join the fight. On this day, the Eleventh of March!


(Okay, I remember it because it's also my LiveJournal's birthday and I still haven't deleted it and so they send me an email every year. My LJ is now 25.)
[personal profile] fardell24
Sandi entered Cashmans and saw that the knockoff clothes were still on sale. “There are still a lot of them,” she said.

Theresa appeared from behind a rack. “Sandi,” she said. “They haven’t really been selling.”

“They haven’t?” Sandi asked.

“No. Only the occasional person. But most look at the quality and just put them back with disappointment.”

“Just as well.”

“I haven’t heard anything of clothes based on the other heroes of Lawndale,” Theresa added.

“That’s probably just as well,” Sandi said. “Like, SpiderGirl as the first, draws all the attention.”

“I don’t think that’s right.”

“Ninja Talon too, I guess, as she was the second, but it was Dafoanairi who disabled that robodactyl.”

“I’m sure they did it together,” Theresa said.

“You’re right.”

“I have also heard people talking. Many people don’t like the fact that someone is trying to commodify SpiderGirl.”

“That is exactly what is happening,” Sandi groused. “It’s like what happened with the interview, just different.”

Theresa nodded. “I knew something was wrong when I watched it. What was surprising was that Lynn Anders went along with it.”

“I know. Like, I met her briefly in the Historia just before the robodactyl incident, and how she acted then was completely different to when she took over the airwaves.”

“You’re saying that it was more than that she was drinking?”

“Exactly,” Sandi answered.


Fields arrived at the Historia shortly after six. She went up to the box office. “One to see Tempest tonight, please,” she said.

“That will be 25 dollars,” the girl said. “It will start at 6:30.”

“Thanks,” Fields said as she took the ticket. She then went to the café. There were many teenagers there. ‘Any of girl’s could be SpiderGirl or Ninja Talon,’ she thought as she went to the counter.

Read More )
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


I guess I cannot do the necessary suspension of disbelief/price of admission be in Workplace Fandoms anymore because what I've osmosised of The Pitt Season 2 is a lot of "should characters X, Y, and Z forgive Character A who was abusive and also stole patient medications and -- this part I'm unclear on but it sounds likely -- also practiced medicine in an ER while under the influence? It's very important question on if his apologies were good enough or if people should forgive him or be his friend again" and I'm like "that person should be fired from the hospital, this is not a buddy sitcom where they're all over at each other's apartments and dating each other and their warm opinions of each other matter, this is an emergency room, they are coworkers in a high-pressure high-stakes environment, not friends, he should be fired and they should never see him again and get to decide if they want to invite him to their bookclubs or poker nights or whatever, but the question of 'should they forgive him, has he done enough' is irrelevant because he should lose his medical license."

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