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Madeleine Bialke (American, 1991) - Life on Earth (2025)

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Rachel Ruysch (Dutch, 1664 - 1750): Blumenstrauss (1715) (via Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe)

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"Every single time when we look up at the night sky, we admire a fullness of stars, which surround us. But actually, there are significantly more stars, and our sight is unable to contemplate their true quantity. According to astronomers, there may be more than 200 billion individual stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. There are the same type of luminaries like our sun, some smaller, and others that are several times greater. In a gravitational field, the majority of stars have planets revolving around them. The most of them probably aren’t habitable and could even be dangerous for living creatures. On some of these exoplanets, there may be liquid water, which is a key source of life as we know it. We’ve been unable to discover evidences of life beyond our planet as of yet, neither primitive nor reasonable. But the future is unpredictable. There are dozens of potentially livable planets, but the vast distance in space is a great impediment for humanity, which does not allow us to explore them. From the current level of technological development, we would need hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of years of flight to reach them. Life beyond Earth, as we know it, is only possible with a small degree of probability if not excluded. Our planet remains unique and inimitable for us, but it is fading… Due to the unreasonable exploitation of natural resources, environmental destruction, and human avarice. Nothing lasts forever in space, and planets die over time. Astrophysicists estimate in four-five billion years, the sun will enter a phase of a red giant and scorch the Earth. The whole story of our planet will be erased for all eternity. One gets the feeling that humanity is not ready to wait so long…"

~ Jahrund

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Vivien McDermid (Scottish, 1981) - Swan Silence (2022)

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のびてのびて。今日も一日がんばっていきまっしょい。

Stretch well and let's do our best today.

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"After landing, he sank into thought — something was troubling him. The space around was shrouded in thick fog, and visibility was nonexistent. He recalled that morning at the lake, when as a child he had been mesmerized by the mist hanging over the water. Those memories now felt as distant as his physical separation from his home planet. Most likely, if he ever returned, he would feel like a stranger — for him, the flight had been fleeting, while millennia had passed on Earth. People struggle to coexist even across a few generations, let alone thousands of years. No, more likely he would continue to wander among distant stars, searching for a new place to call home. Suddenly, he thought he saw a silhouette. I must be tired, — he whispered to himself. Who could possibly be on this remote planet?

But the silhouette kept reappearing — again and again — until there were so many that they completely surrounded him. Is this real? he thought. This planet had been thoroughly explored, and— He didn’t have time to finish the thought — a sudden, bright blue light blinded him. Squinting, he could barely make out the shapes as they approached. They looked so much like humans — and yet, they were not. Their eyes glowed with a cold, blue light. Gentle touches spread across his body. Resisting was pointless. If this is my end, then it's a beautiful one...

Wasn’t it naive to believe we were alone in the universe? — he muttered, and for a moment, it felt as though he fell asleep. When he finally awoke, he saw the fog fading, and with it, the blue beam rising slowly into the cosmic void, emanating from the mysterious figures.

He sat on the damp ground for a long time, as the last streams of light disappeared beyond the horizon. The air felt lighter, and with the mist gone, the landscape was revealed — a boundless plain, scattered with black monoliths that resembled frozen waves. No sound. No wind. Only silence, and the echo of his own breath. He ran a hand across his skin — traces of their touch remained, as if the light had left burns. But there was no pain. On the contrary — a strange feeling of weightlessness, as if something inside him had changed. As if a piece of those beings had stayed within him. In the distance, lights began to flicker on the horizon. They did not resemble campfires or technical beacons — more like organic pulses, alive and breathing. He stood and walked toward them, guided by intuition or something no longer entirely his own. As he drew closer, he began to sense strange fragments of memory — but not his. He saw star maps, planetary systems, felt the emotions of other beings: loneliness, anxiety, longing. With each step, he felt their presence more — not as control, but as... synchronization.

He didn’t know what awaited him — a new civilization? Or yet another leap into the unknown?

But there was no more fear. Only the path — and the sense that he was needed. Somewhere out there, beyond the limits of unknown stars, someone was calling his name — a name he had almost forgotten."

~ Jahrund

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By martina.contiero

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people have said good things about you behind your back, without your knowledge. people have shared their love for you with others.

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The thing about taking the blackpill as a woman is that we don’t really have much of a community.

The bp is more of a mindset than a demographic. We’re all individuals and some of us are certain degrees of friendly with people we find have the same beliefs or similar beliefs and others spread negativity, while there are many various different personality types in between. We all go through different stages of difficulty and acceptance of bp truths, and we develop on a deep personal level that many people don’t as a result. This is a modern version of The Hero’s Journey come to life, which most people don’t seem interested in choosing, for reasons I don’t understand; reasons which I accept are their own to live with the results of.

Most social groups are about group-think; limiting freedom of thought and expression, which leads to limits in truth coming to light.

For women, the bp is about facing reality and each doing our best work to live our lives on our own terms; not allowing ourselves to be bullied into making certain unhealthy choices by males or male-centric females. Of course this is very difficult in this modern world designed, in so many ways, on toxic co-dependence within “romantic” partnerships. At least we’re doing our best at personal responsibility with things like not bringing more people into this world to suffer, and not participating in the physical danger and mind-fuck of sexuality.

The idea is that, I guess we’re supposed to get used to only having very few people who really, fully get who we are, because we’re such a small number of people who are willing to face, admit to, and understand the natures of women and men realistically, and actually try to find other women to talk with about it.

Quality over quantity should be the focus, within this lifestyle of openness to truths and personal development.

[Here's my article, Who are Blackpilled Women?, for those who are curious to know more about women like me.]

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ribbon seal moodboard ⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆

inspired by posts comparing them to various desserts

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A looping 3D motion study built in After Effects with Trapcode TAO and driven by expressions. Concentric rings of spheres form a cylindrical structure, each rotating with slight phase offsets. The motion generates a twisting, tunnel-like effect where depth and parallax pull the gaze inward as the formation endlessly folds into itself. GIF exported with Photoshop

Title: Toroidal Drift

720p-150frames-25fps-150colors-14.8MB

After Effects Source file *trapcode TAO required DIGITAL ARCHIVE (rodeoclub)

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This ended up being a great cozy mystery series and I was only disppointed when I finished it. It's a light read stylistically and as expected, nothing deep, but entertaining with good characterization and realism. It avoids the instalove trope and romance is never a main part of any of these novels.

I'm a picky reader who doesn't like most novels which come out these days as they tend to be poorly written as far as grammar, overuse or misuse of tired tropes, flat characters and storylines which don't make sense go, so I really recommend this one.

I'll be posting more about the few novels I've enjoyed this year, and they won't be ones which are very well known.

As you can see from recent posts, I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately, but now I'm switching it up with a fiction series. It's hard to find novels with celibate protagonists. This one's a cozy mystery. It takes place in a Shaker community, so there shouldn't be any of that annoying instalove trope which is so common now, or any type of romance taking over the story. I just started this one but am already hooked.

"SISTER ROSE IS ON A MISSION... TO CATCH A KILLER The peaceful Shakers, pledged to hard work, worship and nonviolence could scarcely believe there was a dead body in their herb house. The handsome young drifter known as a "Winter Shaker" had professed to be a Believer to find refuge from the cold and the Depression. Now he'd gotten himself murdered. Shaker Sister Rose Callahan, with her practical knowledge and worldly experience is assigned to find answers the sheriff refuses to consider-even if it mean discovering one of their own is the killer. But to protect a declining Shaker population, Rose must keep the sinful details hidden from the outside world. What the good Sister uncovers among the brethren are more than a tad of Earthly temptations, some un-Godly rivalry, and enough shameful secrets to raise havoc among the faithful...and to tempt some misguided soul to commit the most diabolical sin of all."

~ Death of a Winter Shaker, by Deborah Woodworth

"We have frightening enemies living among us, known by their strange dress. These so-called Shakers are shrewd and canny. . .a scourge; a tumor that must be sliced from our side . . Sister Rose Callahan read the printed flyer and shivered. Its message terrified her. She was aware that Believers had sometimes been objects of resentment from the outside world, but nothing like this. Who could write such things? And who could be responsible for recent acts of violence directed against the peaceful Shaker community? A sister had suffered a mysterious wound to the head; a sackful of rats were set loose in the schoolroom, food had been stolen -- and now a hate-filled message points to continued mischief. Sister Rose, recently honored with the position of Eldress despite her youth, seeks clues in the journals of her aged predecessor. She discovers a shocking similarity to outrages perpetrated years before, as well as a scandalous secret about a present-day sister. Now Rose must look both outside and within the cloistered religious community to find clues that link an old murder, a recent death, and an unknown enemy whose thirst for revenge overrides the ultimate sin...of murder."

~ A Deadly Shaker Spring, by Deborah Woodworth

"Rose Callahan, newly appointed eldress of the community of Believers at the Kentucky Shaker village of North Homage, confesses to a nagging resentment toward Andrew, sent by the lead ministry in Mount Lebanon to act as trustee. She knows little about the man, except that he's taken charge of the Medicinal Herb Garden, over which Rose previously had control, and he's been expanding the tiny industry and experimenting with new medicinal herbs.

Now two little girls have suddenly become deathly ill, and Rose's attention turns to the herb garden. Suspecting that the girls may have taken a notion to nibble on pretty but poisonous plants, she fears their hallowed land may have accidentally been turned into a killing ground. But as Rose investigates, mysterious death invades the gentle oasis of their spiritual world, and some chilling secrets come to light...secrets that bring Rose closer to a truth that even a nonviolent Believer might kill to keep."

~ Sins of a Shaker Summer, by Deborah Woodworth

"Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, Sister Rose Callahan's Shaker village of North Homage is surviving nicely. Now they have visitors—a group of "reformers" hoping to create a utopian community that allows more freedom. Rose is disturbed by the group's attitudes... and stunned when one of their members is found hanging from a tree.

The police are quick to rule the death a suicide but as Rose is leaving the orchard she notices a child hiding in a tree. She is Marin, the orphaned foster child of the dead man, and Rose believes she may have witnessed the hanging. The little girl appears to be deeply troubled, and Rose is shocked to discover the cruelty and neglect that has cursed her short life. Rose's fears grow as Shaker beliefs are challenged, questions about the death remain unanswered, and the little girl draws strange and mysterious pictures of her dreams... images revealing a terrible evil, and the danger that someone may be plotting to silence the only witness to a murder."

~ A Simple Shaker Murder, by Deborah Woodworth

"The Depression's winter gloom has crept into the summerhouse of the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts. The dead body of a woman 'of dubious reputation'"' -- a lost soul befriended by many of the brothers and sisters -- sits at a table in an evening gown, snow swirling around her frozen ankles, her lifeless arms stretched out before her.

A frantic call goes out to Kentucky, begging Eldress Rose Callahan to brave the February cold and come East, where her keen eye and peerless deductive powers are needed to help lift a terrible weight from the bereft and dwindling community of Believers. But Sister Rose's arrival is greeted with local suspicion and spreading terror when murder once again scars the gentle village. And as the fury of winter further isolates the small village from its suspicious neighbors, Sister rose and her dear friend Gennie Malone must race to unmask a killer who may be mad enough to keep killing throughout this frigid season of dying."

~ Killing Gifts, by Deborah Woodworth

"The curious are flocking to a quaint Kentucky village, where the North Homage Shakers have opened a hostel rumored to be inhabited by a nineteenth-century spirit. Business is booming even in the throes of the Great Depression -- until a hostel guest is found murdered and Sister Rose Callahan is compelled to investigate. An orphan girl claims to have seen a hooded specter dancing through the village.

And now Sister Rose fears there is more than one ghost involved in this dark shadow play -- as the secrets haunting visiting strangers and the local devout alike threaten to turn Shaker against Shaker and shatter their peaceful society forever."

~ Dancing Dead, by Deborah Woodworth

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davis_social