#also i think one of the greatest discoveries ive made is just not being in a fandom and just consuming content idly

[teruthecreator]

okay but looking at that one guy in that sexy tumblr man mutual post has reminded me that i’m actually so glad i don’t rlly consume children’s media anymore. not that those shows can’t be interesting but the older i get the more i just...feel weird abt adults in children’s spaces. like the height of my steven universe phase was when i was like 14. straight up a baby. i had mutuals who were in their 20s. THATS WEIRD! LIKE OBJECTIVELY A LITTLE STRANGE! 

and i know i have friends/mutuals rn who are around 15-17 but i make it Very Clear from the get-go that i will not be treating them the same as my other adult friends. like i Will put up boundaries SIMPLY BECAUSE I DON’T WANT CHILDREN TO BE WORRYING ABOUT MY ADULT LIFE AND ADULT BUSINESS. NOT EVEN BECAUSE IT’S INAPPROPRIATE RLLY ITS BC WHAT 14 YR OLD WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THE HORRORS OF TAXES AND HEALTH INSURANCE AND PAYING BILLS ON TIME????

[melforbes]

seaglass blue annotations

hello! i just posted the last chapter and thought i’d put together some ~fun context~ for that fic. it got way way more attention than i ever expected and for something i feel i didn’t put that much effort into i think i did in the end put a lot of effort into it so i might as well talk about it and answer some potential questions.

my favorite book of all time is the sunlit night by rebecca dinerstein (yes, that one) and something i find really compelling about that book is how sparing the prose is, forcing the reader to fill in certain gaps, and i think having to fill in those gaps makes the book a really acquired taste with which either you love it or hate it and there’s not really an in-between

i also really adore how in that book the natural world backdrop comes to life, something i find really challenging to write. recently i even read into thin air, the book about the 1996 mount everest disaster, and even though the writing was superb, i still had to google what the hillary step was because i couldn’t picture it on my own. i don’t know how people write nature because to me it feels damn near impossible, but this sparing approach really worked, so i thought i might try it out. i tend to be longwinded (gestures vaguely at this post) and wanted to have certain parts of this be a lot smaller and more contained without negating impact. whether or not i made it work is anyone’s guess. definitely not my normal style, so to speak

based on the comments i’ve received i think this might be everyone’s favorite part. in my mind age of consent by new order was playing in the background. in pretty much every fic i have a scene like this one and all of them are based on the poem first base gold by rh*annon mcg*vin from her book branches (censored because she has a tumblr and i don’t want her seeing this haha)

i absolutely can’t do the poem justice by describing what it’s about, but the simplest, most basic interpretation of the poem is that there is no better place to kiss than right here, right now, because of the past. i really like that imagery and tend to use it a lot. she as a writer has been a big inspiration for me and if you’ve read my fic true minds i should add that the nonfiction inspiration for that was directly as a result of one of her youtube videos. i particularly love how the last paragraph (stanza? im not a poet) is one big run-on sentence that’s jovial and tongue-in-cheek and colloquial and straightforward. it feels triumphant in a quiet way to me and i love how it’s done. obviously my attempts at something similar are nowhere near as insightful, but still, the most basic image of this is that there is no better place to kiss, and that’s how i felt about the two of them finding pudding in the supermarket

this part is autobiographical; while writing this last year, i went through six months of intravenous drug treatment, a month and a half of which involved long days of doctor visits on every weekday. when you’re on stuff like that for a long time you end up with a central line for better access (potential plot hole in all of this: scully never had one) but for a month and a half i got poked almost every day and strangely enough it got harder over time. the first couple you never feel, but a week or two later you start flinching, and if the needle goes in the same vein each time, it hurts the more it gets prodded. i reached a point toward the end of the in-office visits in which i would bleed a lot every time i got poked, and i can’t watch anything like that happen to me so i was looking away each time, and when i felt that the nurse was done, i would look back over, and sometimes i would be looking down at a pool of blood that i hadn’t expected to see. it’s weird, you don’t actually feel yourself bleeding, i would’ve expected a hot bloody feeling but instead it felt like nothing. and when i say a pool i mean that it would drip down beneath my elbow, stain the sheet they’d put underneath, and i wouldn’t get all of it off until i showered. i didn’t necessarily find it scary, but it was surreal and kind of pulled me out of normalizing the experience i was having. for a very long time needing iv drugs was my greatest fear and i was surrounded by that then and fine, and then, there was blood all over my arm, and like, haha, this is actually not fine. you’d think something else would’ve been scarier, but it wasn’t. and now looking back at this paragraph i wish i’d edited it differently but hey that’s life

i’d never really understood the purpose of religion as a self-driven part of life until i took anatomy in college. i was raised catholic and though culturally i understand having a religion and being raised with one, i’ve never really reached for religion when i wanted answers, and i haven’t personally understood why that’s someone’s first option. and i know there’s been plenty of commentary on the hypocrisy of dana scully as a catholic who believes in science, yada yada yada, i think everyone has read all of that by now. but what struck me while learning anatomy is that there is a kind of neuron we don’t know the function of. there are four kinds of neurons, and one of them is still a mystery to us. and then, there’s all of these different parts of human bodies that exist in a certain perfect way, but why do they exist like that? to support life, yes, but why is it that we can make comparisons? why were irises not the same color? and we name valves of the heart after religious figures. we are so hell-bent on meaning that something literal will never be enough. and all of that made me think that dana scully has god to fill in what science won’t answer, at least not yet. and there’s definitely a bigger conversation about science as denial of indigenous cultures that i am nowhere near qualified to start. after taking those classes, i think i would be more shocked if she wasn’t religious. you can ignore pretty much all of the paragraph above but it was important to me that at some point in this fic she willingly conceded that she didn’t know what would happen and that she didn’t have answers. with illness, there is no logic, there’s no thinking your way out of it, and i think that would plague her for a long time. to me, she only would accept her death when she could say she had no idea what would happen, she has no answers, there’s nothing filling in her gaps anymore, and she’s comfortable with that. and i put all of that in a paragraph about my thoughts on god because it made sense to me. there are times that just feel like you’re in a movie and there’s no one else you can say caused them. it’s not enough to build belief on but it’s enough to bring a certain kind of wonder. also one time my parents insisted on watching stripes because it was so funny and when watching it none of us found it funny at all and my parents grimaced and were like what were we on that made that good back in the day so that’s in here now haha

and now, the biggest question: does she die at the end? when i came up with the idea for this fic, i knew the beginning and ending but not the middle, and i posted this as a smaller project (ie: chapters below 3,000 words) while illness made my bigger projects harder to work on and essentially flew by the seat of my pants the whole time. i wrote the last line a long long time ago and have always seen the ending as written as the concrete ending. when i started writing this, i never intended for there to be a definitive answer to whether or not she dies. i like premature endings (the ending of girls burn brighter comes to mind) and i think that this works better without saying whether or not she lives. and i also have a hard time with giving a definitive answer because this fic very much is about death and having her die would, of course, be traumatic, but showing her living instead i think ruins any takeaways people could have. i’ve never had cancer but as a chronically ill person i think i can speak to how you never actually win with illness; the best you can do is tie, and sometimes, no matter how much effort you put in, you “lose” anyway, you lose spectacularly, and all of your effort was for nothing. i wholeheartedly believe that humans can’t emotionally or logically process natural disasters or illness, hence why much of the talk about illness in this is from mulder’s perspective as he experiences her terminal illness secondhand; that way, he doesn’t need to (but still likely will) find logic or reason or meaning for death from a terminal illness, so his discoveries and his coping mechanisms aren’t as urgently needed. had i written a chapter that describes how she lives, i think that the discussion of death in this would be voided altogether. and i also don’t believe the ending would be much different whether she lives or dies; there’s still the need for death acceptance and talking about dying, whether or not she lives, and none of the story in this fic would have happened had the characters known she would live. the whole point is not knowing.

for a little while i toyed with writing an unofficial sequel of sorts in which i spelled out what i think happens after the ending, but after realizing that that would end up being longer than the original fic and would also have some massive plot holes, i decided against it. i do have my own version and i don’t want to share that version because i never really intended for my version to be some kind of genuine sequel in which every question gets answered and everything is wrapped up and happy ever after and whatnot. it was just where my brain wandered in the same way it wanders when i watch an open-ended movie. all of that to say, if you think she lives, then she lives. if you think she dies, then she dies. it’s your decision. i’d much rather you choose than me. i never marked this as “major character” death on ao3 because, well, she doesn’t die in this fic. whether or not she dies after the fic ends, that’s for you to decide. 

thank you for taking the time to read my writing. i never expected this to blow up (it blew up for me at least, for a while it was my most popular fic ever, with i think thousands more hits than anything else i’d written) and the response has been mind-boggling and wonderful. i don’t respond to comments often because it makes me feel like a pompous jerk (”thank you for enjoying this! i, too, enjoy this thing i have written! oh ho ho!” is how it sounds to me in my head, whereas when other writers respond to comments to me it just looks like thanks man have a good day, feel free to call me a weenie) but i’ve appreciated all of them very much. THANK YOU! i hope your new year is a Whole Lot Less Shit than 2020. i don’t plan on writing more msr because i don’t really have any ideas for them. thank you for making my last time special <3

[bau-rookie]

a close examination of Hotch and Foyet

in which Hotch’s greatest strength becomes his fatal flaw.

(a/n: super long essay, because i don’t know how else to consume media apparently lol. i’ve been sitting on this since “100″ because it is really sad and I just wanted to make sure I get all my thoughts in order. It is, to my discovery, Aaron Hotchner’s birthday today, so what better way to celebrate than by explaining all the ways the Foyet arc reads like a Greek tragedy and how Hotch is an amazingly well-written character. Sorry the only way I can think about paying tribute is by making myself sad. Oh there’s GIFs too! I made them and that’s neat :D)

I. Ingredients for a Greek tragedy.

Greek tragedies stem from classical plays, usually about the nobility, and is centered around their struggle against the Gods/Fate. The noble character has a hamartia, or a fatal flaw, usually their own arrogance, that brings upon their own downfall.

Technically, Criminal Minds would fall under the category of modern tragedy which focuses more on common people and everyday problems. (Though you could argue that being a BAU profiler isn’t your typical career, which makes our characters noble not by blood, but in spirit.)

In modern tragedy, there is less of an emphasis on the involvement of a higher power or Fate. Every bad thing that happens is of mankind’s own making, and this is something that CM discusses often, that evil isn’t necessarily brought upon by a higher power. It’s brought upon by ordinary people choosing to do terrible things. 

And Foyet is no different. He chose to kill all these people because he wanted to, but his fascination with Hotch and how his plans for him play out, entrap Hotch in a tragedy more Greek in nature.

What Foyet ultimately does is take Hotch’s greatest strength—his stoic resolve to serve justice—and uses it to hold him personally responsible for the death of his ex-wife, all while bending the hand of Fate to his will.

II. Hotch as a noble character.

In “Omnivore” we are introduced to the Reaper and the many ways he tries to exert control and power over his victims. After killing so many times loses its appeal, the Reaper decides to toy with detective Tom Shaunessey by offering him a deal—if you stop hunting me, I will stop hunting them. 

While we sympathize with Shaunessey simply trying to save lives, he does so with the knowledge that he is deliberately letting a serial killer go free. The fear and the guilt eats away at him until his death.

Hotch, on the other hand, quickly establishes himself to be a resolute pursuer of justice. We don’t get to make those decisions. We don’t let them get away with it. He holds onto the idea that they have no right to decide who lives or dies and that the victims that unsubs like the Reaper takes, are not something he, or anyone in his line of work, should feel responsible for. Their sole responsibility is to stop them. 

This isn’t to say that Hotch is unaffected by the increasing number of bodies. When he turns down the deal and the Reaper attacks the bus full of people, he is visibly shaken by this, so much so that we see Hotch cry for the first time. It takes Rossi delivering some tough love to remind him of what’s important.

Look, if you want to end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head—it’s not your conscience. It’s your ego. This isn’t about us, Aaron. It’s about the bad guys. That why we profile them. It’s their fault. We’re just guys doing a job. And when we stop doing it someone else will.

Hotch and the team in general, are faced with constant reminders that they are only human. They are fallible and cannot control every outcome. 

Not everyone can handle the stresses of being a profiler. Despite the horrors, the chance of failing, Hotch’s greatest strength is his stoic resolve. He’s become our beloved Unit Chief, the person on the team who takes on the most pressure, takes it upon himself to, at times, shield the rest of the team from the greater burdens. Personally, he’s arguably also the one who sacrificed the most to have this job, having lost his marriage.

Yet despite the horrors, despite the toll, Hotch shows up for the job anyway. Because he can’t imagine letting the bad guys get away with it.

III. Foyet as a representation of Fate

“The Eye of Providence. A symbol adopted by the U.S. Government with the words: Annuit Coeptis. Latin for “Providence or fate has favored our undertakings.” The Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of Fate.”  — Dr. Spencer Reid, “Omnivore”

From the beginning Foyet is shown to have a flair for theatrics. He leaves markings of the Eye of Providence, writes Fate in blood, calls himself the The Reaper. He has delusions of grandeur and posits himself as a higher power, one who gets to decide the course of other people’s lives. Everyone who has the misfortune of coming into contact with the Reaper, becomes another chess piece in his twisted game of Fate.

In another life, Hotch would never cross paths with Foyet. But because he did, Foyet acts as Fate, bringing down divine intervention in the form of driving Hotch into a tragedy of his own making.

Foyet acting as Fate is, paradoxically, also an argument against the actual existence of Fate. Everything that happens is a result of Foyet’s choices. It is him, a man, and not Fate who is choosing to kill, maim and be cruel.

When it came to Shaunessy, Foyet also emphasized pinning the blame of the death of innocent lives on the failure of law enforcement. It isn’t Fate when there’s something you could do to stop it. Shaunessy took the deal because he felt personally responsible for the possible loss of lives, an outcome that Foyet pretty much predicted, but one that doesn’t really affect him. Shaunessy agrees, he gets off on controlling the police. If he doesn’t, well, he can just keep on killing.

Foyet repeats the deal with Hotch. Offers him the deal, which Hotch refuses then immediately murders 7 people on the bus, setting a chain of cause and effect that makes it seems like Hotch’s actions led to this gruesome outcome. Again, placing the blame personally, on Hotch. And Hotch does blame himself, if momentarily.

Later, once Foyet escapes and corners Hotch in his own apartment, he makes it clear, you should have made a deal. Foyet acts as a vessel for Fate, a vehicle through which the consequences of Hotch’s actions are served. 

Foyet takes it a step further, when he puts Haley and Jack in witness protection. Left all the usual clues, to simply say your wife and child are in danger because you never took the deal. I hold all the cards here, your fate will come for you eventually.

Then Foyet disappears, and waits. Leaving Hotch filled with guilt over endangering his ex-wife and child, at the mercy of Foyet’s arbitration of Fate.

IV. Dominoes and fatal flaws

By the time “100″ rolls around, you’re so captivated by the action happening on screen that it’s easy to overlook how we got there. When I first watched this season, I had assumed that Foyet would be put on the back burner until the end of the season. His quicker-than-expected return seems to be happenstance, the writers behind-the-scenes doing some plot magic, but if you reexamine the events that lead up to “100″ we see Foyet’s greater machinations at play.

On the surface, the preceding episode “Outfoxed” seems to be a straight forward throwback to an earlier case. Faced with a family annihilator, Hotch and Emily visit the original Fox in prison, believing the current unsub might be a copycat. The episode seems to be about the mental toll being a profiler brings, with Emily contending with a sense of disgust at having to get intimate with a serial killer (post-”Lauren” this reads very differently, but I digress). Until right at the end, when they reveal the admirer letters were actually from Foyet, and the one being outfoxed is Hotch.

When the events of “100″ go down, we hear Foyet repeatedly blame Hotch for what happens with Haley, calls out what we see as a noble resolve to instead be Hotch’s fatal flaw. It was the same thing that led Haley to leave him, a failing borne from Hotch’s own ego, the part of him that insists that it be him who catches the bad guys, that it be him who risks it all. And Foyet uses that to his advantage, uses Hotch’s resolve to trick him into thinking that maybe he did cause all of this tragedy to happen.

One small detail that caught my attention, and set me on this Greek tragedy path, is when they try to track down Foyet in “100″, Garcia notes that he had set an internet search alert for the name “Peter Rhea.”

At this point, Foyet was ready to go after Haley and Jack. He already had pictures and surveillance of the U.S. Marshall in charge of them. He could’ve gone and killed them anytime, but that’s not how Foyet operates. He needs Hotch to feel personally responsible for things ending badly. He set the bait with the letters and simply had to wait for Hotch and the team to get close enough, to find Peter Rhea. This is, of course, incredibly risky. The team could catch him before Foyet gets anywhere close to Haley and Jack, but Foyet is sure of himself and is an extensive planner. He made sure he was always two steps ahead.

The irony is that Foyet would never have gone after Haley and Jack if Hotch and the team didn’t get close to tracking him down. There’s an added layer of Spencer figuring out Foyet’s alias using his genius anagram deciphering brain and Garcia’s expert tech analyst skills. Foyet managed to hurt Hotch because this specific BAU team are just too damn good at their jobs.

Foyet set up dominoes that only Aaron Hotchner could tip to fall. He does it so well it almost feels like Fate.

V. The inevitability of fate

“Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster called destiny.”  — John Hobbes, “Omnivore” closing quote.

A key aspect of Greek tragedy, is that Fate is often the result of divine intervention. They cause certain events to happen in certain ways so as to result in the most tragic outcome, usually death. It’s designed so that the audience is aware of what’s to come, and can see no other way for the story to end. The tragedy is supposed to feel inevitable.

One could argue, that there is no such thing as Fate. Life is simply a sequence of random happenstance, but our need to prescribe meaning to the chaos cobbles up stories of predetermined destinies. Especially when the idea of owning up to our mistakes and their consequences is too much.

All of this was the result of one sick man, George Foyet, choosing to be so cruel. And Hotch was simply a victim of circumstance because if Foyet wasn’t going after Hotch, he’d be going after someone else.

But what are the odds that Hotch’s first case as lead profiler happens to be The Boston Reaper? It was from that moment that Hotch’s fate was really sealed, he and Foyet would be forever intertwined. 

Hotch, being who he is, had inadvertently, made the Reaper personal. Even when his BAU team was sent away, his resolve wouldn’t let the Reaper simply disappear. It led him to build his profile, alone and over many years. Any other person might’ve just let the case go, but not Hotch.

So when Shaunessy died and the Reaper resurfaced, the only person in the world who knows enough about the Reaper to track him down, is Hotch. It’s what leads him to George Foyet, a victim at first glance, and Hotch comes to him unaware that he is promising The Reaper a new, worthy adversary, one a decade in the making. And everything, from his prison escape, to his attack on Hotch in his apartment, plays out exactly as Foyet expects it to, because as much as Hotch can read him, Foyet can read his behavior too.

At the end of 5x03, “Reckoner”, Rossi talks about what could have been when it comes to his childhood sweetheart to Hotch. About how he was too obsessed with his job, with the hunt that he gave up his chance of having a family. Rossi warns Hotch, don’t make my mistakes, kid.

You have a family. When all this is over, what are you gonna do to make sure you’re not a lonely guy wondering why you let the purest thing in your life get away?

My initial reaction was that they were setting up for Hotch to leave the BAU for good. The man who hung on to the job so much that it cost him his marriage, for the first time, actually considers leaving it all behind him. Because what Rossi says to him, driven by the circumstances that Foyet has created, is too profound for him to ignore. Foyet is too big of a thing to just move on from once its over.

Of course, my hopes of Hotch riding off into sunset to live a quieter life and watch his son grow up were optimistic at best. It’s a fantasy that purposely ignores the reality of who Hotch is, simply because I want the alternative to be possible. By the time Haley is buried, and Strauss offers Hotch retirement, we already know what his answer is going to be. Because everything we know about this man can only lead us to one conclusion.

Aaron Hotchner is the man who goes after the bad guys, the man who doesn’t let them get away with it. No matter how much I yell at my screen about how Hotch should just retire and spend all his time with Jack, deep down I knew that was never going to happen. Him losing Haley and still going back to work, seems like the only logical outcome. It’s almost feels inevitable.

VI. Catharsis

The point of tragedy is, according to Aristotle, to achieve catharsis. The purging of emotion through the telling of another person’s suffering. And that’s what “100″ does (unless your heart is made of stone and you somehow did not tear up even once).

Others would say that tragedy is meant to teach us a lesson. Meant to teach us the limits of our mortal abilities, to warn against hubris and arrogance; to remind us that they are higher powers and unseen forces beyond our understanding or control.

Criminal Minds doesn’t try to give us that lesson. Like in so many previous cases, the premise of a crime procedural is really a way of examining human nature. Why do people do bad things? More often than not, though our profilers can figure out how an unsub goes from doing thing A to thing B, they don’t have a satisfying answer for why. 

In Foyet’s case, he does all of this to Hotch because he can, because he enjoys making him suffer. It is evil, unnecessarily cruel. There is no sense to be found in what happened.

But “100″ does not deliver pure tragedy. It ended in the death of Haley but it also provided hope in the survival of Jack. Hotch finally rids the world of Foyet, though the way it went down, you can’t help but wonder about the price of justice, if the cost is too much for this one man to pay. But then the show reminds the audience, that this one man isn’t bearing that cost alone.

Aaron Hotchner has his team, his family, and with their support, a chance to recover from the tragedy that Foyet wrought.

I used to think that, despite being dead, George Foyet still won. He set out to hurt Hotch, and that’s exactly what he did. We’ve only seen Hotch openly cry twice at this point, and they both were directly caused by Foyet. And I suppose that’s still partly true. It’s hard to really tell with our stone-faced unit chief, but it’s hard to see how Foyet wouldn’t linger.

But that victory isn’t absolute. Foyet is gone, and he loses every time Jack gets to spend another day happy and alive. Foyet loses, every time Hotch shows up for the job and doesn’t let another unsub like him get away with it.

And maybe that’s the lesson. That though good doesn’t always triumph over evil, there is a way to move past tragedy. And that path lies not in solitude, in carrying the burden alone, but in the solace of our friends and family who can bear witness to all that we must face.

For all all my waxing poetic about how Hotch is a noble hero, this entire ordeal just shows how human he is. Yet despite his flaws and the tragedy, the core unassailable truth of who he is, the values he represents, remain unchanged.

He is Aaron Hotchner. The guy who hunts down guys like Foyet. The guy who doesn’t let the bad guys get away with it. The guy who, despite everything, managed to save his son. The guy who will keep his promise to the woman he was once married to, to teach their son that love is the most important thing. The guy who makes sure that his son knows that good people do exist.

Aaron Hotchner is the guy who, despite all the hurt, the pain and the loss, chooses to be the hero. And that’s the farthest thing from tragic.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Ive never really understood the hype surrounding Taylor Swift - I mean, I like some of her songs, but im not big on modern pop music so generally she just doesn’t really click for me. But I find it interesting that theres quite a few of Beatles/Swift blogs - like, they should have very little in common given that they’re from completely different eras and all, but somehow people seem to find a lot of semblance between the two. << and thats not me shitting on any of these blogs btw! Hope I don’t come off as rude or condescending there <3

Anyway, I was just wondering what got you into Taylor Swift? (I think ive read your post on how you got into the Beatles)

Hi, anon! Don't worry, I don't think you're rude or condescending! I agree they don't have too much in common and I don't really like their music for the same reasons.* I do have a playlist of Paul songs that have similar vibes to Taylor songs but it's mostly lyric-based. (Also the Beatles For Sale songs actually have quite the Taylor-tinge because Paul and John were not immune to Country Music)

I saw @stewy say once that a possible reason there are a good handful of us Swiftie-Beatle People on here is the appeal of a vast discography, which I agree with. If you have an artist/group with 200ish songs, it's just really fun to really dive into their work and explore all the facets. I also think: we're talking about the most popular band of all time and one of the highest-selling artists of the 21st century. They have a lot of fans so there's bound to be overlap, regardless of musical differences.

Moving on to your question: Getting into Taylor was an extremely personal experience for me and so my explanation is probably going to be kind of long so I'll put it under a read more.

It was spring-summer 2014, I was 15. I had heard the more popular songs of hers starting with Love Story and enjoyed pretty much all of them (I always found her hopelessly romantic point of view fascinating) but before I got a Spotify account in 2013 it was difficult in general for me to really get into an artists' entire discography so most of her songs had flown under my radar.

At the time, I was in this very weird sort of codependent online friendship with this girl who was basically my first real best friend and my first more or less crush. She was very depressed and I was very much in an I Could Fix Her™ mood, except that I obviously couldn't fix her and it made me feel like I wasn't enough and she had begun pulling more and more away from me and not replying to my messages and it was simply driving me insane. I consider it the saddest period in my life.

at some point during this period, I started trying to connect with other people (all online, I didn't know how to talk seriously to anyone IRL) and explaining the issues I'd been having, and one of the people who brought me joy and whom I actually felt not drained talking to was a huge swiftie. And IDK the fact that she loved Taylor and the fact that talking to her made my life better (and also the fact that I liked all the Taylor songs I knew at that point) just made me decide to give her a listen. And I think that whole "large discography discovery" phenomenon really helped me at the time (funny, because her discography has doubled since then). It gave me something new to focus on; there were just so many songs to discover, all telling such rich stories. I also have always loved bridges, they are almost always my favourite part of a song. And Taylor, god-bless her, loves them too and always puts her ALL in them. Like pretty much every bridge of hers brings the song to the next level, and even a lot of her songs I don't adore tend to have great bridges (Stay Stay Stay and Paper Rings come to mind). I think one of her most underrated qualities is how good she is at song structure and really building up an entire musical journey with a song. She also almost always adds cool ad-libs in her second and third choruses to keep the songs interesting and dynamic (or at least since she's gone pop). Anyways, back to the story: Then Taylor announced 1989 as her next album and released Shake It Off, and it was just like this great happy thing for me to look forward to, when I had very little keeping me going. The era was promoting a lot of happiness which in hindsight was slightly fabricated and it was just a really great thing for me to latch onto.

At the same time I was coming to realize that I was gonna have to pull away completely from my friend and all those break-up songs just… Hit, y'know? Like, some people seem to think Taylor's a one-trick pony because she likes to write break-up songs but to me, break-ups are just like this moment where you as a human can potentially feel every single emotion, and Taylor's songs have covered every facet of the concept. Here are some songs I remember from that period, that all meant a lot to me at the time because they explained my own pain to me so well:

Haunted, for the absolute terror you feel in the first moments you realize someone is probably gonna leave you. Come on, come on / Don't leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Something's gone terribly wrong / You're all I wanted.

I Almost Do, for the inner turmoil you feel when you know you have to stay away from someone for your own good but you really, really have to resist just running back to that person. We've made quite a mess, Babe / It's probably better off this way / And I confess, Babe / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again / With you / And I almost do.

Last Kiss, for that absolute sadness that comes simply with remembering everything that was good and not comprehending how it could've possibly ended. I still remember / The look on your face / Lit through the darkness / At 1:58 / Words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away?

Forever and Always, for that feeling of desperately wanting to hold on to what you still have but at the same time realizing it probably isn't going to last and having no idea how to fix it, plus feeling like the other person doesn't even care. So here's to everything / Coming down to nothing / Here's to silence / That cuts me to the core / Where is this going? / Thought I knew for a minute / But I don't anymore.

Dear John, my all-time favourite song, for that moment you find clarity and realize that you deserved better and that you were headed in an extremely dark direction because of this other person. [DISCLAIMER: my friend did NOT abuse me nor did we have some inappropriate age difference. But the way she would ignore me and her general moodiness really affected my own mental health and self-worth problems] You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain / And I lived in your chess games / But you changed the rules every day / Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone / Tonight / Well I stopped picking up / And this song is to let you know why.

(She's covered more aspects of break-ups in other songs [cheating, divorce, feeling awkward around your ex amongst others], these are just the ones I remember being really important to me when I was first getting into her)

She really helped me feel a lot less alone during one of my loneliest periods and I really can't thank her enough for that. Soon after this, I started crushing on a girl in my class and Taylor's love songs started to take on a new meaning for me as well.

What's crazy to me is, when she went on hiatus for a few years, a part of me thought maybe I'd grown out of her and no longer had much in common with her, but when reputation came out I was pulled right back into my love for her as a person and musician and then when Lover came out I found that she was still explaining feelings to me better than I ever could (specifically with the songs The Archer and Cornelia Street). And now with folklore and evermore she's simply absolutely perfected her story-telling and I find myself deeply moved even by the songs I don't directly relate to. I feel like she has this amazing ability to find the absolute truth in the specific. I've never had a summer romance with someone who already had a girlfriend and mostly wanted to go back to her, and yet the bridge of august feels so real to me, y'know?

Back when we were still changin' for the better Wanting was enough For me, it was enough To live for the hope of it all Cancel plans just in case you'd call And say, "Meet me behind the mall" So much for summer love and saying "us" 'Cause you weren't mine to lose

It's hard to explain but looking at this, like it's so much more than the story it's telling. It's talking about how when you're young you really need so little to feel satisfied; how sometimes the idea of someone maybe spending time with you is better than actually doing things with other people; and how if someone using you without much thought can make you feel like you're not even entitled to grieve what you lost. Sorry. I'll stop. Don't want to go insane.

So, all of this is very personal and unique to me, but I think really the main thing that draws me to her is how vulnerable and honest she is about emotions, how eloquently she can explain the pain of being alive to me. Some people think she isn't the strongest singer, but I think, much like John actually, one of her greatest assets is how good she is at projecting emotion. The song happiness is a song I think has some lyrically weak moments but her vocal performance on it is so raw and devastating that every single line works even when, looking at it on paper, it feels like it shouldn't.

Hope this rambling made sense to you, lmao?? I love talking about Taylor though so thanks for the ask! Also very open to giving song recs if you do want to check her out more but I won't unless solicited to lmao *Sort of off-topic but I do think there's a relation between my fascination with the Beatles' history and my love for a great break-up song. I like pain I guess :)

[im-just-trying-to-get-bi]

oh, what a raging dumpster fire this year has turned into, but, i am not making this post to focus on the negative, but the positive. im making this post as a reflection on how ive grown and how my blog/presence on tumblr have grown and changed.

first, i satrted 2020 with just 41 folllowers, which, at the time, i was surprised to have that many, i made a goal of 50 folowers at first, then, when i hit fifity, i bumped my goal up to 100, then 200, then 300, then 400. when i hit the 400's, my folower count kind of plataeued for a little while, until about 3 months ago, i started gaining followers again! i made my final goal for 2020 to hit 500 followers, and i knew when i did i would do something special. well, that day came a lot sonner than i was expecting. i hit 500 followers and had no idea what to do as a celebration, after a few days, i decided to do an art contest, i didnt get many entries, but, i was happy to get any entries. all 3 entries won, since i felt bad leaving one out

before i talk about the contest winners, i want to talk about my side blogs.

i have made 5 side blogs.

@imjusttryingtogetbinegativity which is the side blog i made for my negative posts.

@escaping-the-night my side blog for one of my favorite youtube shows, escape the night

@bi-on-arrival the side blog i made for one of my favorite tv shows, rupauls drag race and dragula a little bit too. it will includ talking about drag race, drag race all stars, drag race uk, drag race canada, drag race holland, and maybe some future shows

@imjusttryingtogetbihorrorblog which is my side blog for horror, movies, games, books, etc

and

@imjusttryingtogetbimusicalsblog my sideblog for musicals

ok, now back to the 500 follower art contest

@queery-eyed-prince designed my header

@alec-the-transgender-artist designed my pfp

and

@ampithereslove designed the header for my negativity blog

now, on to some great people ive met this year(im not gonna tag everyone)

my kiddos are all great people who ive met this year

other great people ive met include @galaxy-cat-09 , @poptartsaysurloved @polyam-bug-wannabe , @hay232 , and many many more i cant remember

the person that has made the greatest impact on my life this year is my wonderful boyfriend @alec-the-transgender-artist (ill have a whole section for him)

ok, now, how my identity has changed this year

one of the biggest identity changes ive had this year is my self discovery to being polyamorus

i also further looked into my identity as bisexual. i learned a lot about bisexuality, including that i dont need to have feelings for just boys and girls, but many different types of people, and still be valid. i always thought bisexuality is you just like boys and girls strictly, but i found out thats not true, and it made me happy

this is one of the ast sections, but i also want to cover relationships

i was in my first real relationship this year, but ive been in 3, the most successful of which is the one im in now

which leads me to my last thing i want to cover, my wonderful wonderful boyfriend, @alec-the-transgender-artist

he is so incredible. he cares about me and wants whats best for me. hes there when i need comfort, or affection, or anything. we respect each others boundaries and we just enjoy being together. we havent had any arguments, and i am so happy its as smooth as it is. i really think he might be 'the one'

and while 2020 may have been horrible and filled with a lot of heartbreak and hurt and sadness, but some great things happened this year and im so proud of what ive been able to do and who ive helped, who ive helped keep alive and everyone who i helped make the lives of a little less bad and made it easier

i love you all and value all of my followers more than you could imagine

[lady-plantagenet]

Hey, My curiosity and I can't stop wondering where your strong interest in Georges of Clarence comes from?My curiosity and I can't stop wondering where your strong interest in Georges of Clarence comes from?

Oh haha it was the long theory I wrote about, wasn’t it?

Well, it began when about a year ago I discovered that he was my 16x grandfather, which to be honest was quite a surprise as I am not even English. But that’s not why I am interested in him of course. The thing is, I had been interested in The Wars of the Roses ever since I was 12, of course that interest ebbing and flowing throughout the years. Out of nowhere this discovery came and it drew me back in but with a specific focus on him, Isabel Neville and Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, because before, my favourite figures were rather Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III and Edward IV.

I’ve always been partial to him for some reason, I don’t know if it was the portrait, the unusual death or the plain drama that was his life. I’ve also found it quite strange how the most politically disloyal man of that time was one of the few faithful to his wife, it made me wonder but I didn’t go into this any further (though I had attempted a terrible go at writing the story of Isabel Neville then 9 years ago). But now I really wanted to read about him further (not like make a massive project out of it but just dip in), and the more I read the more undiscernable became his motivations and character and what emerged was a man more complex than I previously expected.

Scholarship revealed to me that he was apparently not mad, and although he may have liked a drink, was certainly no drunkard (at least no one at the time thought so). He had indeed masterminded some elaborate plans in his day and by all accounts seemed an illustrious and charming man who had some strong motivations and belief in those, however deluded those belief may be. Some trivia about his religiosity, idolation from the multitudes, patronages (printing press and foundations) and apparent outstanding knowledge of the law has endeared me a bit too but also showed me that there might be more to him than a greedy, foul-tempered himbo (we have histfic to thank for this ugh). Much of what we know from internet biographies might be true, but the issue is they are presented as facts whereas they remain mere assumptions e.g. that he had married Isabel Neville because he had designs for the crown - not necessarily the case as this marriage suggestion had allegedly appeared as early as 1461!

We all look at him as Edward and Richard’s brother, but the main narrative of his life is about his status as a magnate (an institution then heavily a threat to the crown). It all started looking more to me like a story about an overmighty subjects’ tension with the centralising tendencies of the government (despite his royal provenance). His father-in-law had been called ‘The Last of the Barons’ by David Hume and Clarence being his political heir, a personification of the last generation of the truly medieval aristocracy and someone whose reactions to (some aspects of) the new age were an exemplification of the old system of chivalry falling away and the anxiety, hatred and fear that people like him felt, made me very interested in not only him but also what he represented in the grand historical narrative. I thought to myself ‘wow this looks like a fatalistic tragedy someone should write a novel about this’, alas no one had. So then I started writing my own story on AO3 perhaps appropriately called ‘A Bygone Era’ but more centered on his Duchess, Isabel Neville (because a piece of trivia I had discovered about her got me likewise interested). I got a lot of support from some of the other users (shoutout to @feuillesmortes <3) during the earlier chapters and that made me feel inspired to expand the story into a grander one about the aforementioned three figures, also because I was falling more in love with the aesthetics and culture of that era.

With that, came the need felt to do more research and with the pandemic hitting, I had more alone time than before. The more I researched the more interested I got and also frustrated that very little has been written about him (and not for a lack of sources!), and a lot of the times when I would come up with my own interpretation of the sources I would find that no one had ever thought the same thing as me before, so I also felt I had something to contribute. I’m not saying that I intend to make out of his legacy what SKP and others have made out of Richard III’s, I actually don’t intend to do anything but just put some possibilities and facts out there (some not even that obscure but just rarely circulated outside academic circles e.g. his role as good lord of the West Midlands, his legal judgments e.t.c). Also, of course I find this all very entertaining for some reason, it might be my lawyer personality? I mean sure, some aspects of his career and life probably also hit me on some deeper level, but I’m not interested in him because he was necessarily a ‘good’ person, I don’t frankly know the real reason I find his (and Isabel and Warwick’s) life so poignant but I know there is something there and I like challenges. Not to mention the AO3 story just writes itself XD, and often without my permission. The events of his life are fodder for the greatest novel themes, you’d be surprised XD.

Lastly, his posterity also baffles me. I feel strongly about how he is often used by Richardians as a tool to further villianise the Woodvilles, by Whig enlightenment historians (but that’s more Warwick’s issue) as a symbol of corruption - an impediment to progress and constitutional democracy, and by attention-seeking weirdos on TV to discount the current line of succession (have they never heard of right of conquest or attainder???). I don’t know, surely everyone has a right to exist for themselves, not just as someone’s brother ?? In such an individualistic age you’d think people would sympathise with someone who wasn’t blindly loyal and made up their own mind as to what their interests were and by extension how society should be (because in a pious age people invariably acted on what they thought was divine ordinance). Don’t even get me started on how he remains the only individual in a popular historical period whose image as a pantomime villain has never evolved (and when it is it’s always for one of the above motives) into one of a balanced human being. You must admit it’s rare nowadays to find a controversial historical figure who hasn’t recently undergone some romanticised revisionism!

[dabistits]

in the blood: connecting the backstories

With the arc concluded and what I imagine is pt 1, the pre-AFO bits, of Tomura’s backstory revealed, I thought I’d finally sum up one of the major points of this plot. Scattered throughout the arc were three major backstories—Himiko, Twice, Tomura—that could use some piecing together. It doesn’t seem like they were chosen at random or were primarily subordinated to good timing, and instead were written because they parallel and reinforce certain themes in Tenko’s past.

Here’s my typical disclaimer that these connections may not have been intentional at all, but, y’know. We’ll pretend Horikoshi is a competent writer and etc. etc. Of course, there’s also the question of what conclusion all these narrative threads points us towards, and I’m chronically afraid of making a wrong prediction so I won’t do that on this post lols (it’s also not 100% clear, which I’ll address). Nevertheless, I think it adds significance to consider Tomura’s past with the addition of framing it through the other two backstories, considering what they say about Quirks, society, and the characters’ internal processes about where they fit in the overall scheme of things.

(note: some screenshots below the cut contain mild gore!)

I. Quirk repression

We encounter this for the first time in the MLA arc through Himiko. Although we’re not privy to Himiko’s thoughts during the flashback, Curious makes an assertion that Redestro later repeats: that Quirks can, to some degree, influence a person’s disposition. Transform elicited in Himiko a desire to drink blood (in order to develop a bond of closeness), which was largely viewed as deviant, and she was pressured to suppress not only her impulse, but her Quirk as well. This idea of Quirk=disposition is also repeated with Tomura, who Redestro asserts is only capable of destruction.

Without being told Himiko’s perspective in the flashbacks, we don’t know how her experience with suppressing her desires went, nor whether she experienced any adverse physical effects from doing so. Tomura, however, is clearly stated (by AFO, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt) to experience unbearable itchiness whenever he represses his urge to destroy, a sensation which only seems to abate when he uses Decay. So for the moment, the message seems quite clear: suppressing one’s Quirk is akin to suppressing one’s self, and even more drastically, there may be physical consequences to doing so.

On the flip side of Quirk repression, then, there’s Quirk liberation. That’s what the Metahuman Liberation Army is going for, of course, but the three characters discussed here also found relief through their Quirks: Himiko in finally shattering her mask, Twice creating his crime gang, and Tenko eliminating that which he hated. Embracing their Quirks is portrayed as a way in which they achieved not only emotional pleasure and fulfillment, but agency as well—an increase in control over their own lives and fates—finally allowing themselves to do what they were “meant” to. This is, supposedly, a move which empowers oneself.

II. Quirk trauma

But that’s not entirely true.

Just as Quirks can be liberating, they're shown to be harmful when used without restraint, turning against their wielder and instilling suffering. Twice’s clones eventually went out of control and began to fight each other for claim to the original, and Tenko’s Quirk awakening killed his entire family. Both experienced trauma involving the people closest to them, Twice being confronted with “his own” betrayal, while Tenko witnessed the deaths of his family at his own hands—in the aftermath, they’re both left completely and utterly alone, abandoned by those they believed they could rely on, with uncertain recollection about how events actually transpired.

Then it’s no coincidence either that Twice’s and Tomura’s chapters focus on arriving at the truth of their traumas. Twice, after having spent an indeterminate length of time trapped in the uncertainty of his own realness, is forced into confronting his fear of disappearing after Skeptic orders his arms broken; in surviving this, he’s able to confirm that he’s the original Twice, once and for all. Tomura is likewise pushed into recalling his repressed memories (let’s assume right now that they’re the real memories) as his last connections to his family—their hands—are destroyed one by one.

It’s through the discovery of this truth after being confronted with their greatest fears or insecurities that they’re able to embrace the full strength of their Quirks, returning to a default, ‘pre-trauma’ state. Twice is able to create doubles of himself once more, and Tomura becomes able to unleash a stronger version of Decay. While Himiko’s case is much less drastic, the new characteristic of Transform also seems to be linked to her reaffirmation of her ‘truth’ as well. Those ‘truths’ may sound positive or negative, motivated most obviously by self-preservation in Himiko’s case, self-actualization(?) in Tomura’s case, or protective instinct in Twice’s.

Personally, I place a lot of (if not most) importance on Twice’s motivation in this arc, because his past and desires most strongly encapsulate the themes we see repeated across all of these backstories:

III. Alienation and belonging

Perhaps the strongest thread that pervades these three stories (and Spinner’s too, which we have less to go on at the moment) is the feeling of alienation. The four of them found themselves constantly rejected by those around them: Spinner due to prejudice, Twice never getting support nor sympathy after being orphaned, and Himiko and Tenko in particular being denied by their own families, both of them compelled to stifle their own desires, whether it be to pursue her instincts or to voice his dreams. They were positioned as outsiders, set apart from everyone else.

That’s why I believe it’s significant that one of the primary purposes of this arc seems to be to bring the LOV more closely together, from Spinner’s questioning and renewed loyalty, to a central conflict of this arc plot being a rescue (among other schemes from the MLA, of course), to giving the LOV a way out of the aimlessness from the beginning of the arc. Of course, past alienation and present cohesiveness also contrast each other as narrative foils, and this is most clearly exemplified in Twice’s chapters because he’s babey, which more extensively linger on his feelings towards his current situation and friends, who he sees as a remedy to the loneliness of his past.

The other characters haven’t offered the same reflection towards the LOV, but it’s not a stretch to say that the group provides them with something that wider society could not. People who accept Himiko’s “normal,” who enable her to pursue her love (for good or ill); who take Spinner seriously despite being a mutant with a “useless” Quirk; and to some degree, even Tomura seems to have achieved what he once wanted. Tenko was a child who made friends with lonely kids, who wanted to be a hero, presumably to save others, but was rejected by his family at every turn and had no one save him at a time when he needed it most. And even though his life as Shimura Tenko is long gone, Tomura currently finds himself as the leader of a group of outcasts who are looking out for him, fighting through a small army to save one of their own. The irony is poetic.

IV. Tragedy or Agency?

Which begs the question: what do we do with this information and how do we interpret these characters? Are they just cruel and unrepentant villains, or should we sympathize with them as people rejected by a prejudiced society? Really, this arc offers room for both readings.

At one end, we have Himiko and Tomura, who view their decisions to become ‘villains’ as liberatory. Whether or not certain painful events in their lives affected their choices seems to matter very little to them, or perhaps those events were even a blessing for leading to the choices they made. They decided to embrace their natures even if those traits were violent, distrusted, and societally shunned, and they do not consider this eventuality as particularly unfortunate. Himiko rejects Curious’ interpretation of her life as pitiable, and Tomura likewise asserts to himself that he’s untroubled by the deaths of his family. They both represent their pasts as not a tragedy.

On the other hand, we have Twice, whose backstory chapter bears the maxim that also appears on the cover page of vol 24, and thus has the privilege of setting the tone for a major portion of this arc: “All it takes is one bad day.” Twice’s backstory (ironically enough) reads uniquely more self-aware than the others’, both about his own decisions, and about the conditions surrounding him (i.e. how other people’s decisions affected him). He was aware of the way others viewed him and how that caused his alienation—best exemplified by how disposable he was at his workplace—and of his reasons for pursuing a “solution” that only dug a deeper hole.

Thus, we have the “one bad day” part of the narrative. Twice, who was orphaned early on and isolated from his peers, got into a motorcycle accident with one of his firm’s clients. His boss hits him and fires him, leaving Twice aimless until he comes up with the idea to Double himself. Twice’s backstory interprets "one bad day” as a truism about instability, particularly in a society which appears to have few safety nets and a lot of prejudice—essentially, the chapter posits that one incident of bad luck can put someone on a worse path, especially when people act in their own interest instead of in sympathy or aid. Okay. See where this is going?

We’re presented with two narratives here: that ‘bad paths’ are either predetermined by an individual’s disposition and are liberating to embrace, or they are often the result of an individual’s circumstances and influenced by other people. Nature versus nurture. The arc does not definitively come down on either side, so I’ll stick to observations and limit on drawing conclusions.

Tenko’s backstory also fixates on a day. The turning point in his life was the day his parents’ rejection of his aspirations culminated in physical violence from his father, setting off the chain of events that led to Decay’s awakening and killing his family; in the aftermath, he was also further alienated in a busy city where no one stopped to help him until he was conveniently ‘found’ by AFO. The “one bad day” lies in the fact that Tenko was entirely salvageable; neither his hatred nor his fractured relationship with his family were conclusive in a five year old’s state of mind, and they both could have been remedied if they had the chance.

So that leaves us with two different takeaways. Can Tenko be thought of as having taken a turn for a better, more self-actualized existence—a not-tragedy—or was it indeed a set of circumstances that should rightfully be considered unfortunate because it was fixable? The resolution of this arc seems to come down pretty firmly on the side of the first interpretation: by embracing his destructive ‘nature,’ Tomura has awakened the full scope of Decay’s power, subdued the Meta Liberation Army, and gained their resources—he’s more influential than ever before, and he’s put himself at an advantageous position to take down hero society. So, clearly his internal monologue must be self-aware, because the narrative is rewarding him for embracing his purpose.

V. The League of Villains and Self-Destruction

But I do have a caveat to add, and it has to do with self-destruction. I’ve talked about Tomura and self-destruction, but that’s not really just a tendency limited to him. It proliferates in most (if not all?) of the LOV members, in more or less obvious ways. Spinner’s crisis of self-worth and subsequent seclusion was arguably self-destructive, as is Mr. Compress’ tendencies to run away from conflict. These are more metaphorical and without much elaboration yet. On the other hand, for a more literal take, there is Dabi, who burns himself alive whenever he uses his Quirk.

Himiko’s is somewhat a mix of both figurative and literal. Transform lets her take on someone else’s appearance, and she has an obsession with ‘becoming’ her objects of affection; it follows that if taken to the extreme and if she’s successful in 'becoming,’ she erases her own identity in the process. It’s no different than the ‘mask’ she assumed until middle school; she trades one mask for another, more appealing one, and her own ‘self’ is what gets destroyed. 

Then there’s Twice. Double first started off as something that gave him comfort when he found himself utterly alone, but from there only lead to even more mistakes. Using his doubles to commit crimes as an ‘easy out,’ every decision Twice made thereafter piled on to conclude in his doubles’ murderfest. What began as comfort became the conduit for his own, literal, self-destruction as his doubles turned on each other.

Similarly, by the end of 239, Tomura has fully unleashed Decay. Like the first time he used it, he found it liberating, a release for all the emotions he experienced and repressed. Much like the rest who embraced their Quirks, it was a source of pleasure and comfort, but not without consequences: as shown by the damage one to his right arm, his body can’t sustain that kind of use. Decay too much, and there will be blowback in the form of starting to injure himself. It is, again, a form of literal self-destruction.

VI. To conclude:

The arc ends on a firm note about Tomura’s growth, and the direction thereof, concluding that Quirks affect innate drives which our antagonists have accepted and been rewarded for; however it follows on the heels of contradicting points about how that very acceptance and overindulgence ends in self-destruction. Our antagonists have been strongly linked together via backstory, highlighting the similar sources of conflict they’ve experienced. Familial strife, instinctive drives, the price of overindulgence, and the indifference of society are all elements that deeply influenced these characters, and their stories are continuations of how they conceptualize these elements with respect to their own senses of self. Again, assuming that we’re dealing with a competent writer, we can assume that these themes will be revisited as the story continues; namely, addressing to what degree a Quirk determines a person’s future (ideally, there should be a convergence of the messages brought up in this arc with those brought up with Shinsou and Monoma), coming to a resolution about the disputes of personal versus societal responsibility, and deciding how the narrative itself feels and wishes to convey about our antagonists and their struggles.

[kotolocke]

Entry #01: New Bark & Beyond.

God it really has been a week since I started this blog and I still haven’t updated it? Gotta stop being useless and post more regularly. I’ve made decent headway into the game so I have several posts I need to make about it. So let’s get started. I’ll save y’all from a long summary of the game events and stick with just mentioning important game-play stuff and how Lyra reacts to them.

First up: Elm’s request.

   This whole little introductory quest that Elm sends her on is actually kinda meaningful to her perception of herself as a trainer. In blog cannon, Lyra immediately goes to collect her starter from Elm after having a massive argument with her Mum about leaving home, which ended with her Mum basically pushing her out of the door and telling her she wouldn’t care if she came back. She would. She didn’t mean it, she was just lashing out. But Lyra didn’t know that and she ran most of the way to the lab choking back tears.

   So she takes a deep breath, calms herself down and as soon as she’s in the lab, Elm’s asking her to act as a representative of the lab and complete an important task for them. At this point, Lyra’s already been helping out around the lab for some time so this isn’t entirely out of the ordinary. But being asked to take care of a “real” “discovery” one of Elm’s peers has made whilst she’s still highly fraught from a fight but is pretending that she’s totally fine? This is the basis of the person she becomes. Someone who thinks of herself as a highly important “chosen person” who cannot express her real emotions or else she’ll won’t be taken seriously or allowed to follow her goals. Because something tells me Elm wouldn’t be too comfy sending a crying eleven year old off into the wild world of Pokemon after a big fight with her parents.

Next up: Lyra’s starter.

   Meet Cabbage!

   She’s an extremely sheltered Chikorita who honestly never thought she was actually going to end up travelling with a trainer. Surely she was just going to spend the rest of her life in the lab with the Professor? Lyra decided otherwise, and decided primarily because she was the only girl of the three Pokemon Elm was raising. Lyra was anticipating getting some flack for being a young girl on a Pokemon journey so she kinda projected some of this onto Cabbage. Moron boy trainers would probably turn their nose up a cute, female Pokemon so she should had to take Cabbage with her so she wouldn’t feel like she was anyone’s last choice.

   Cabbage would have been okay with that but unfortunately can’t tell Lyra how she feels. She’s just gotta learn to embrace all the terrifying Pokemon battles Lyra puts her through. Which happens surprisingly quickly; Lyra’s an impatient girl but she always gives her Pokemon the time they need to adjust. Speaking of adjust:

Cabbage is legitimately confused and slightly irritated about her nickname. It’s the first of many little annoyances that eventually lead to her becoming stubborn and standoffish towards Lyra as she grows more confident.

Next: Mr. Pokemon & Professor Oak.

   In terms of character development, this whole scenario kinda bolsters Lyra’s ego even more. But I want to single it out because it’s the start of one of her three major plot threads:

   This fckin’ egg. This egg is important and eventually hatches into one of Lyra’s core team members. This egg is also lowkey a symbol of everything early journey Lyra thinks about herself. She’s so unique and powerful and special, Elm can see she’s naturally good with Pokemon so he chose her to go on this dangerous quest to collect a mysterious egg! And better yet, during this quest the esteemed Professor Oak, advisory to the legendary Red, asks her if she can help him out with something too!

   He gives her a high-tech Pokedex, an item so exclusive that only a handful of trainers own one? Wow she must be the best trainer out there, she’s only just got her first Pokemon and everyone’s falling over themselves to get her to do trainer stuff for them. Clearly she’s hyper naturally talented and all the smart Pokemon experts know it! She’s a dumbass child. I love her.

   Anyway, why’s the egg important you ask? Oh—

—no reason.

And finally: Silver.

   Did you know: Lyra absolutely hates Silver’s guts pretty much until she sees he also hates Team Rocket? Because he kinda epitomises the older boys who would belittle her for being a girl who wanted to be a trainer?

   It’s pretty clear to Lyra that Silver kinda knows some shit about Pokemon training because she hears him muttering shit about Elm’s lab being “famous”. Bitch, the only people that Elm’s famous to are fringe nutcase trainers who breed for something they call IVs because he’s basically lord high king of egg knowledge or whatever. That makes it doubly annoying when Silver tries to kick her when she asks if he’s getting a Pokemon there too and twice as satisfying when she knocks him over with a retaliation kick and stamps off righteously. She’s especially glad that she chose Cabbage at this point; just thinking of what he might say about her makes Lyra fume. 

   More evidence that Silver is a bog-standard shitface sexist kid:

Whilst Silver would say this sort of crap to anyone, this hits a little too close to home for Lyra and she takes it as a misogynistic insult. Generally implying that she’s somehow not worthy of becoming a trainer is a surefire way to make Lyra go feral because she kinda thinks it’s the only thing she’s good at. And it’s just not true, look at what level Cabbage is at this point:

Three levels above where she started and only around 3-4 hours have passed since they first met. Lyra is insanely good at training Pokemon. She has great intuition when it comes to assessing individual Pokemon’s strengths and weaknesses and encourages them to fight in whatever way suits them best. She doesn’t always have great long-term strategy in battle, but she knows exactly what her Pokemon can and cannot take and dish out and this is what secures her most of her victories.

   Also Silver’s “someone weak” comment  is 100% self-projection, just so we’re clear.

   lyra vc: lmao yeah i am???

   lyra vc: lmao no!!!

   Queue Lyra getting Actually Mad™ because there is no way a dick like Silver could become a better trainer than her?? She’s gonna be the greatest, just you wait and see Tampon!!

   If you don’t think she was holding it in the air just out of his reach then you have fundamentally underestimated how much of a petty little shit my Lyra is.

   Regardless, Lyra then runs back to the lab to see exactly why Elm called her in such a panic.

In conclusion: All cops are bad.

   A kind of recurring theme in Lyra’s story is her distrust of traditional authority figures, and it all starts here.

   Okay, so obviously this exchange is so cartoonishly stupid that I cannot see it going down like this in blog cannon. But the cop that does come to investigate the lab in blog canon is pretty much as incompetent as this guy. Stealing a Pokemon is kind of not a big deal in Johto? Shit happens all the time, the cops are corrupt as fuck and they don’t care about doing their job. It’s the reason Rocket was able to regroup in Johto without anyone really making any attempt to stop them.

   So this guy is mad that he’s been taken really far out of his way to investigate some minor crime in a tiny town and now some brat kid is going on about how some other kid was rude to her? Yeah, he’s not happy and totally belittles her, calling her “girlie” and scoffing at the idea of her and her wimpy looking Pokemon could have defeated a criminal. It’s not until Lyra insists that it was the red haired boy Elm mentioned to the guy she battled that he starts listening to her, and even then he’s still extremely brusque with her. And Lyra cannot stand being talked down to so this drives her round the bend.

   A lot of terrifying things happen to Lyra during her journey, enough that she could easily qualify for police protection, but she never once asks for it throughout her journey. Because whenever she imagines walking into a police station, she imagines a bunch of wrinkly, balding, middle-aged men who will belittle and insult her the same way this cop did. And she’s not going to willingly suffer through that again.

[mmakehappy]

2017

1. What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before? i’ll try to do this chronologically again: so at the beginning of january one of my best friends left to study abroad in rome which was sad and i missed her a lot. i saw rory scovel do stand up. i took an animation class which was fun for the first few weeks until i failed it lmao. actually my classes from jan to march did not go so well tbh but whatever i made it through. my sister came to visit me the weekend before st paddys day which was super fun and then we saw panic which was soooooooo fuckin rad i love them still wow! i went home for spring break and visited a local winery w my dad which was a lot of fun and then a week later uhhh me and @carrot-gallery became gfs!!! and my whole frickin life changed bc i love her so much wow!! but then a week after that i turned 22 and spent my birthday alone! which i tried to pretend didnt make me sad but by the end of the day i was very sad about it and thats when my sweet gf called me to sing happy birthday and i sobbed on my couch and ill never forget that!!! so okay then spring quarter classes started and i was a part of depaul’s visiting artist series which was super cool... i met a lot of new awesome people (both at depaul and the industry ppl that were our guests!) and made some great friends in that class! i was a house manager and camera op which was super fun. i went to a screening of my fave professor’s short film which was also rad. i saw a ghost story at the chicago critics film festival, which was amazing. i saw idiocracy in 35mm and then mike judge did a q&a! the very next day i was house manager for depaul’s student film festival at the music box! i saw chris gethard do a live recording of beautiful/anonymous and then also do some standup, that was awesome. i saw day wave live!!! amazing! i spent an entire dystopian day dealing with megabus. that was hell! i sat at an outdoor amphitheater and even tho i couldnt really see him i got to listen to seu jorge sing david bowie covers and life was magical for a few hours. my sisters came up to visit me and we saw aladdin the musical and had our minds blown, it was soooo fun! i went to the chicago pride parade for the very first time but i went by myself and at one point i was sitting on the curb just crying! not a high point but still memorable. i won a ticket to an advanced screening of the big sick where kumail & emily were there to do a q&a after the movie.... had a fuckin blast OBVIOUSLY and then saw the movie 9 other times in various theatres. i also made it into a commercial FOR the movie i just loved it that much lmao! i moved into a new (and my current) apartment! lorde released melodrama and fucking murdered me in my own home. otherwise i had a pretty uneventful but anxiety filled summer bc of financial aid stuff so that really sucked. i saw good time w taylor and the safdie brothers were there to do a q&a and they were such interesting guys i could listen to them talk for hours honestly. my mom and sisters came up to visit me and we took our mom to her very first cubs game which was sooo so much fun and they won that day too!! it was awesome and we had a great time :) watched the eclipse (or tried to anyway!!) fall quarter classes started and i honestly kicked ass at them, i got on the deans list (i almost typed honor roll lmao i mean its basically the same) i hung out with ari again which was cool!! we went to the aquarium! me and taylor saw beach fossils which was honestly the most buckwild concert ive ever been to i think, it was good shit. i got jobs at AMC (which i have since quit lmao) and starbucks and left my job at the paint place which was bittersweet! me and taylor saw mbmbam live!!! so fun!! and we watched trolls that night and goofed on it so hard!! i went home for thanksgiving and found out my big sister is gonna have a baby this year!! :D i saw mike birbiglia do stand up! which was soooo incredible of course (except i felt bad bc my mom was supposed to come w me but she couldnt go! so i brought taylor lol) UMMMMM MY DAM GIRLFRIEND CAME TO CHICAGO TO VISIT ME AND STAYED FOR A WHOLE DANG WEEK AND IT WAS THE BEST THING EVER SHE MAKES ME SO HAPPY WE HAD SO MUCH FUN AND I MISS HAVING HER RIGHT NEXT TO ME EVERY SINGLE GOSH DANG DAY <3 ;_____; and that was my year!!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? last year i said id like to read at least one book each month and watch at least 100 movies - i did neither! im keeping the movie resolution though bc cmon 100 movies should be EASY for a film major wtf am i doing!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? no but it will happen in 2018! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? not a person but we had to put down my sweet doggo, flash :(

5. What countries did you visit? still none :/

6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017? More confidence that I actually deserve to be in college and that I can do this shit and I’m awesome <– that was my answer from last year and the year before but yeah. same. also money.

7. What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? ummm march 25 when me and gf became gfs and also dec 17 when she came to visit :)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? putting myself out there by doing VAS/Premiere, getting on the deans list for the first time since freshman year and then also getting a new job

9. What was your biggest failure? this summer i didnt do shit besides wallow and cry and it sucked!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? nope

11. What was the best thing you bought? every movie ticket and the bras i bought for natalie ;-)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? natalie’s because she’s amazing and works so hard!!!! and she can always cheer me up and im so in love w her

13. Whose behavior made you appalled? mine bc i could never just get my shit together and do my homework when i was supposed to :) < thats from last year but lmfao same!

14. Where did most of your money go? RENT, movie/event tix, food, in that order

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? THE BIG SICK, the new season of sv, p much all of the events that i listed in the first question lol

16. What song will always remind you of 2017? umm honestly probably any song from melodrama

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? I’m a. happier, b. probably thinner? or maybe the same idk, and c. definitely DEFINITELY poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? read and write and watch movies and write and read about movies

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Spending money and also being bitter about everything for no reason <– last year and the year before that AGAIN and also same!

20. How did you spend Christmas? working at AMC which i hated every second of :)

21. Did you fall in love in 2016? yes with my amazing girlfriend @carrot-gallery

22. What was your favorite TV program? silicon valley, AMERICAN VANDAL, the good place, great british bake off

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? nah just politicians who like. actively want me to die lol

24. What was the best book you read? bitch,

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? mitski like why the fuck did i sleep on her..... tbh thats about it bc i still listen to the same music i did 10 years ago

26. What did you want and get? I wanted a steadier/better paying job and i have it!

27. What did you want and not get? idk i wanted to be financially stable on my own and i still dont have that

28. What was your favorite film of this year? ugh i hate this question! ok in no order: THE BIG SICK, GOOD TIME, A GHOST STORY, GET OUT, THE FLORIDA PROJECT

29. What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying? uhhh having my sweet girlfriend by my side each and every day 

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017? sometimes chic, always sweaty

31. What kept you sane? Sydney, my best friend in the entire world. (This was my answer from last year and the year before that and the year before that AND THE YEAR BEFORE THAT but it still holds true) also everyone in the sv discord chat still AND natalie of course of course

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? kumail nanjiani duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, taika waititi, and martin starr always and probably more but i legit cant think of anyone rn lol

33. What political issue stirred you the most? yikes all of it. all of the issues (this was from last year but same lmao)

34. Who did you miss? i miss my dogs and my family and my girlfriend 35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017. You can set goals for yourself and talk about it all you want but it’s nothing until you actually start working towards it and doing something about it. <– answer from last year and the year before that and the year before that, still true!! imma keep that. also idk just like, there are good days and super bad days and ive survived all of them so its just a reminder to myself that ill be okay.

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. These days will all seem better in time Waiting on that hindsight

[lati-will]

Science & The Paranormal – The Question Of Consciousness

With so many people (many indeed being iconic scientific and historical figures) experiencing what they are supposedly not meant to, according to materialistic thought, the reasonable individual might be forgiven for wondering if there is something more to consciousness than our present “scientific” paradigms would have us believe. Can we go further than questioning the assumed legitimacy of orthodox materialistic theories which reduce consciousness to a mere epiphenomenon (by-product) of physical matter (the brain) and even—heaven forbid—suggest that they are not merely incomplete, but actually types of superstitions in themselves?

Etymologically, the word consciousness derives from the words scire (to know) and cum or con (with). Consciousness is “to know with.” So if you, the persona, recognize (to know or be aware of), who are you recognizing with? Is there more to consciousness than the Freudian ego and unconscious?

Mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has written:

A scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretensions of [sic] completeness…I would maintain that there is yet no physical, biological, or computational theory that comes very close to explaining our consciousness or intelligence.[i]

Indeed, in the past (and even today?) some scientists had taken the absurd position that consciousness is an illusion. This, while providing a nonsensical reason to ignore the problem of consciousness, obviously fails to sate the curious inquirer’s queries regarding how we got here and what we are doing here as conscious beings. Materialistic philosophy as we know it—derived from the mechanistic worldview—had, more or less since the dawning of the Age of Reason in the 1700s, steadfastly maintained that what we call experience arises solely as a by-product of the brain’s internal workings. No brain, no consciousness.

But is it really that simple? What about functions of consciousness that appear to transcend the cranial boundaries of our heads? The Age of Reason said that these forces had only ever existed in man’s imagination; only reason could show man the truth about the universe. “The trouble was,” according to Colin Wilson, “that man became a thinking pygmy, and the world of the rationalists was a daylight place in which boredom, triviality and ordinariness were ultimate truths.”[ii]

The Age of Reason glorified the rationalist, who, enamoured of his endless linear cogitations, was blinded to faculties of consciousness that actually transcended them: faculties that would have allowed him not to merely philosophize about deeper levels of reality, but actually access them. “This is the great tragedy of modern man,” wrote occultist, philosopher, and composer Dane Rudhyar. “His much acclaimed scientific spirit frees him of the compulsions of subrational and subconscious states of mind, only to bind him to an empty rationalism and a quantitative analytical intellect, both of which actually entomb him in a sarcophagus filled with only the mimicry of life. This sarcophagus is the ‘megalopolis’—the monstrous city.”[iii]

But something stirs in the bowels of the concrete jungle. An international online survey of paranormal experiences had met with an overwhelming response, according to Australian researchers in 2006. The survey, on phenomena that cannot be explained using the current “laws” of science, is by researchers at Monash University in Melbourne. A recent (for the time) Gallup poll revealed that 75% of Americans hold at least one paranormal belief, and a UK newspaper poll showed that 60% of Britons accept the existence of the paranormal, say the researchers. According to the researchers, the survey is not about beliefs or whether parapsychological phenomena exist, rather it is about what people have experienced and the impact it has had on their lives.Some 2,000 people had made contact via the internet within six weeks of the survey beginning. A whopping 96% of respondents claim to have had at least one brush with the paranormal. The exercise seeks to gauge the frequency, effect, and age of onset of unexplained phenomena such as premonitions, out-of-body and near-death episodes, telepathy, and apparitions. Results as of 2006 showed that 70% of respondents believe an unexplained event changed their lives, mostly in a positive way. Some 70% also claim to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that wasn’t there, 80% report having had a premonition, and almost 50% recalled a previous life.[iv] In May 2000, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published results of a poll conducted by Blum & Weprin Associates; a huge 81% said they believed in life after death.[v]

Virtually all of these beliefs hint at (and require in order to be true) the existence of other realms or dimensions in which consciousness can operate. A 2005 poll taken by the Scottish paranormal society showed that more people are likely to believe in ghosts and the paranormal than have faith in any organized religion. A Gallup survey taken in 2005 showed that about three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief.[vi] This is a massive amount of “paranormal” experience and belief—all of it depending on the existence of other levels of reality, without which such experience can only be labeled as delusion and fantasy.

Did you know that the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has now been amended so that genuinely psychic people are no longer considered “disordered”?[vii]

Intuition and Creativity

Srinivasa Ramanujan (below, left), born in India, 1887–1920, has been called the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. Working in isolation from his peers, this genius was single-handedly able to re-derive a hundred years’ worth of Western mathematics. As Michio Kaku reports in Hyperspace, the tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics.[viii] Most interesting to us, Ramanujan said that the goddess Namakkal inspired him in his dreams; in other words, the source of his creative genius was this other realm within his sleep, rather than ordinary waking consciousness.

Is there a link between this other realm of sleep and paranormal phenomena? At a glance, such a presumption appears to be a stretch, but the reservation of judgment is highly recommended at this point. Carl Jung (below) once said: “The images and ideas that dreams contain cannot possibly be explained solely in terms of memory. They express new thoughts that have never yet reached the threshold of consciousness.”[ix]

Ramanujan appears to provide an excellent example of the type of non-ordinary information access that the Russian paranormal researchers might call hypercommunication, and he isn’t alone among specialists, pioneers, giants of science, and so-called regular people. In fact, pioneer psychiatrist and consciousness researcher Stanislav Grof found that during LSD experiences his own patients were capable of accessing the “collective unconscious,” obtaining very specific, accurate, and detailed knowledge. In the LSD training program for scientists, relevant insights occurred in fields as diverse as cosmogenesis, the nature of space and time, subatomic physics, ethology, animal psychology, history, anthropology, and many more.[x]

Ramanujan, assuming he really did receive detailed formulas in his dreams via the subconscious, provides perhaps some indication of just how accurate and detailed this knowledge can be. As we will see, these insights that defy the Freudian and Newtonian-Cartesian (reductionist) worldview/s abound in the literature. In 1862 the chemist Friedrich August von Kekule famously arrived at the solution for the chemical formula for benzene in a dream wherein he saw the benzene ring in the form of a snake biting its tail—an archetypal symbol in itself—the Ouroburos. In a supreme historical irony, Descartes’ principles of what ultimately became the mechanist philosophy originated from a dream on the eve of St. Martin’s day of 1619 in which the “Angel of Truth” explained to him that mathematics was the key to unlocking the secrets of Nature![xi]

Similarly, Nikola Tesla constructed the electric generator…after the complete design of it appeared to him in great detail in a vision. The design for the experiment leading to the Nobel Prize–winning discovery of the chemical transmission of nerve impulses occurred to the physiologist Otto Leowi while he was asleep. Albert Einstein discovered the basic principles of his special theory of relativity in an unusual state of mind; according to his description, most of the insights came to him in the form of kinaesthetic sensations.[xii]

Einstein had said:

“The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.”[xiii]

Many of the great scientists have said very similar things. From out of nowhere a revelatory vision or understanding hits them, as if suddenly downloaded into their minds from some esoteric conceptual repository. It is interesting that many people find in lucid dreams that they can learn skills that translate directly into real waking life or they can solve problems in the conscious dream state that in the physical world had stumped them, and moreover, these solutions actually work.[xiv] Francis Crick was under the influence of LSD in 1953 at the moment when he perceived the double helix shape and unraveled the structure of DNA.[xv] The chemist D. I. Mendeleyev saw his entire periodic table of elements one night in a dream. And of course, many of history’s greatest and most successful musical artists came up with their best material under the influence of one drug or another.

Oprah Winfrey says, “My business skills have come from being guided by my inner self—my intuition.”[xvi] She’s not alone among the financially abundant. Researchers have tested CEOs of successful corporations for their ability to see the future, such as by predicting a string of numbers they would be shown later. They found that the CEOs who are good at this are usually those who are also highly successful in running their corporations, while CEOs who did not have this ability tend to have mediocre success rates in their corporations. “In one study,” says Dr. Larry Dossey, “experimenters were able to predict in advance the most successful corporate balance sheets by how well the CEOs did on tests that measured their ability to predict the future, such as a string of numbers they’d be shown later.”[xvii]

In 1982 the St. Louis Business Journal tested how a psychic would fare against professional stockbrokers over a six-month period, and reported that the psychic, who had no formal training in stockmarket trading or analysis, outperformed 18 of 19 professional stockbrokers. During the testing period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 8% but the psychic’s stocks went up an average of 17.2%, while the sole broker who beat her achieved 17.4%.[xviii] Physicist and psi researcher Russel Targ’s research group Delphi Associates succeeded in psychically forecasting for nine consecutive weeks the fluctuations in the silver commodity futures markets, earning them a tidy $120,000.[xix]

Psi* techniques are playing an increasingly important role on Wall Street, according to Dean Radin’s sources.[xx] In 1987 Richard S. Broughton, scientist and former president of the Parapsychological Association, pointed to the need-serving nature of psi and the competitive advantage it often provides in the struggle for survival—Darwinists rejoice.[xxi]

Many scientists have had profound interests in fields beyond the reach of the science of their day. For instance, Isaac Newton was an obsessive alchemist[xxii] and Freemason in search of the way to transform consciousness, Thomas Edison built machines to try to facilitate communication with the dead, and Marie Curie attended séances. The list of such eminent scientists with keen interests in the paranormal goes on and on. Is it a credible suggestion that they all were merely deluded into pursuing these areas by cunning charlatans or irrational, wishful thinking? Even Freud, whose attitude towards the occult was originally negative, changed his tune as he matured and learned more about it, suggesting, in a 1949 paper called Psychoanalysis and Telepathy, a union between psychoanalysts and occultists: “[O]ne might expect a mutual sympathy between the two…[A]n alliance of, and collaboration between, psychoanalysis and occultists would seem to be both plausible and promising.”[xxiii]

What about those modern-day scientists and professionals who have experiences in the “paranormal” realm? Brian Weiss, psychiatrist, hypnotherapist, and author, wrote:

The respected chairman of a major clinical department at my hospital is a man who is admired internationally for his expertise. He talks to his deceased father, who has several times protected him from serious danger. Another professor has dreams that provide the missing steps or solutions to his complex research experiments. The dreams are invariably correct. Another well-known doctor usually knows who is calling him on the phone before he answers it…[xxiv]

If these insights come from only one man, imagine what else we might be missing out on if we keep our heads in the sand while new paradigms form around us…

* Psi (pronounced “sigh”) is a term for parapsychological (occult) phenomena derived from the Greek, psi, twenty‐third letter of the Greek alphabet; from the Greek psyche, “mind, soul.” First used in a parapsychological context by biologist B.P. Wiesner, it was first used in print by British psychologist Robert Thouless in 1942.

By: Brendan D. Murphy

[transhumanitynet]

The Future You That You Least Suspect

The other night my teenage boys asked me what was on my mind (likely looking for material to make fun of me. Just kidding, they’re thoughtful kids).

Instead of trying to “kid proof” my thoughts or rush the conversation, I wrote them this letter. First, to explain that I’m consumed by how we think about and where we look for answers to the biggest questions of our time (listed below), and second, to propose an alternative way of finding answers (hint: I found inspiration in an amoeba).

How are we going to address climate change before it creates global chaos?

What jobs will be available for my kids when they finish school? What should they study?

Over the next few decades, how will we re-train ourselves fast enough — again and again — to remain employed and useful as technology becomes more capable?

Can the human race cooperate well enough to solve our biggest problems or will the future simply overwhelm us?

Most importantly, where do we look to find answers to these questions?

Hopefully I didn’t ruin the possibility that my kids will ever again ask me what’s on my mind 🙂

##

Boys,

There is an old joke where a man is looking for his keys under a street light. Another person walks by and inquires, “Sir, are you certain you lost your keys here?”

“No” the man replies, “I lost them across the street.”

Confused, the stranger says, “Then why are you looking here?”

The man responded, “The light is much brighter here!”

Credit

This comic is as humorous as it is true. All too often, we each do this when we’re trying to solve something. It’s where our brains naturally take us first.

Our imaginations are constrained to the familiar (under the light), so we have a hard time finding answers to difficult questions and problems because the answers often lie in the unknown (or in the comic above, the darkness). Staying in the light is natural, easy, and intuitive, but this limits our discovery potential.

I. How to look in the dark?

History can give us some hints about how others found interesting things in the dark. For example, we discovered that:

the sun is the center of our planetary swarm

the earth is round

the physical world is a bunch of tiny, uncertain pieces governed by quantum physics

Before these became accepted truths, they were very difficult to imagine. This is part because they are non-obvious and also counter-intuitive to our everyday experience.

It’s also because we can’t know what is not known, which means we’re blind to what is yet to be discovered. Don’t believe me? Try to think of something you don’t already know. It’s impossible! That is, until you know it, and then it’s obvious.

Going back to the 5th question, how and where can we look today to find new unknowns (the dark) that help us solve our biggest problems? Where are today’s insights that are equivalent to the sun is the center of our planetary swarm?

I think the most exciting and consequential place to explore is not looking outside ourselves, but looking inside; in our own minds. This is where I see the most fruitful answers to the questions about your future and mine.

What if the next reality busting revolution happened to our very reality and consciousness? And if that happened, could the future of being human be entirely unrecognizable from our vantage point today? I hope so, because the answers to our challenges don’t appear under the lights we have turned on so far.

You’re probably thinking, c’mon Dad, this is crazy talk.

Well, it’s happened before.

II. Thanks Homo Erectus, We’ll Take it From Here

Our ancestor Homo erectus lived two million years ago and wasn’t equipped with our kinds of languages, abstractions, or technology. Homo erectus was possibly an inflexible learner as evidenced by the fact that they made the same axe for over 1 million years.

Imagine trying to explain to Homo erectus a complex phenomena of our modern day society, such as the stock market. You’d have to explain capitalism, economics, math, money, computers, and corporations — after extensive language training and the inevitable discussion of new axe design possibilities (of course, trying not to offend).

The supporting technological, cultural, and legal layers that enable the stock market to exist are the engines and evidence of our prosperity. It’s taken us thousands of years to develop this collective intellectual complexity. The point is, our brains are incredibly capable of evolving and adapting to new and more complicated things.

That our cognition evolved from Homo erectus demonstrates that we have radically evolved before.

III. Amoeba, You’re So Smart!

A few months ago, Japanese researchers demonstrated that an amoeba, a single-celled organism, was able to find near optimal solutions to the following question:

Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route a salesperson could take that visits each city only once and returns to the origin city? (image credit)

This is known as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), and classified as an NP-hard problem because the time needed to solve it grows exponentially as the number of cities increases.

Humans can come up with near optimal solutions using various heuristics and computers can execute algorithms to solve the problem using their processing power.

However, what’s unique is that Masashi Aono and his team demonstrated that the amoeba’s solution to the TSP is completely different than the way humans or computers have traditionally solved it.

That’s right, this amoeba is flexing on us.

(Note: it’s worth reading about the clever way they set up the experiment to allow the amoeba to solve the problem.)

This got me thinking: when we’re confronted with a problem, we use the tools at our disposal. For example, we can think, do math, or program a computer to solve it.

Professor Aono found a different tool for problem solving: a single-celled organism.

I know what you’re thinking, can the amoeba do my homework or take tests for me? It’s a good question!

Also, kudos to Aono and his team for searching in the dark — this experiment is non-obvious.

IV. Why Am I Telling You About Amoebas?

I strongly believe that we need a major cognitive revolution if we are to solve the global challenges we face. Our species evolved before and we can do it again, but we can’t wait a million years; we must accelerate this evolution.

What I’m saying is very hard to understand and imagine, because it’s in the dark. But bare with me.

The amoeba gives me hope because it didn’t evolve to solve the TSP. We augmented it with technology to accomplish something pretty amazing. Similarly, we haven’t evolved to deal with cooperating on a global scale, battle an invisible gas that warms our planet or retraining our brains every few years as AI takes over more of our work. How can we augment our own minds to allow us to take on these challenges?

Imagine a scenario where you are dressed head-to-toe in haptics (think Ready Player One) that allow you to experience and understand things by feeling changes in vibrations, temperature, and pressure.

Also imagine that you have a brain interface capable of both reading out neural activity and “writing” to your brain — meaning that certain communications can be sent directly into to your brain — the kind of stuff I’m building at Kernel.

Let’s call this a mind/body/machine interface (MBMI). It would basically wire you up to be like the amoeba in the experiment.

Now, what if you were given certain problems, such as the TSP, that your conscious and subconscious mind started working to solve? Imagine that instead of “thinking” about the problem, you just let your brain figure things out on it’s own — like riding a bike.

Would you come up with novel solutions not previously identified by any other person, computer or amoeba?

If we actually had the technology to reimagine how our brains work, over time, I bet that we’d get really good at it and be surprised with all the new things we can do and come up with. To be clear, this is not just “getting smarter” by today’s standards, this is about using our brains in entirely new ways.

Maybe that means that your school today would be in the museum of the future.

People would likely use these MBMIs to invent and discover, solve disagreements, create new art and music, learn new skills, improve themselves in surprising ways and dozens of other things we can’t imagine now.

When thinking about the possibilities, hundreds of questions come to my mind. For example, could we:

minimize many of our less desirable proclivities, individually and collectively?

become more wise as a species?

come up with original solutions to climate change and other pressing problems?

accelerate the speed someone learns (i.e. you get a new kind of PhD at age 12 versus the average of 31 today)

I wonder, is this what you will do at your job in 20 years? Would your mind change so much that it would be hard to recognize your 15 year old self?

Ultimately, for our own survival, we are in a race against time. We need to identify the problems that pose the greatest risks and respond fast enough so that we avoid a zombie apocalypse situation. The most important variable to avoid that: we need to be able to adapt fast enough.

I’m sure at this moment you’re thinking, woah, Dad, calm down!!

V. Your New Job — Being Really Weird (in a good way)

You’re right in wondering what jobs computers will take — if not all of them. They’ll do the boring things that adults do to make money, except far better and for far less money. But imagine a scenario where AI relieves you of 75% of your current day-to-day responsibilities, and is much better at doing those things than you. (I imagined what this world could look like)

A lot has been written, even movies made, about this scenario (e.g.Wall-E). If this happened, would you play fully immersive video games all day? Or live a life of pleasure and be work-free? Certainly possible, although those are linear extrapolations of what we are familiar with today — meaning that’s simply taking what we know today and mapping it into the future. The same thing as looking in the light.

What if millions or even billions of people could build careers by exploring new frontiers of reality and consciousness powered by MBMIs? These types of “weird” thought exercises may be breadcrumbs that extend the considerations we’re willing to make when thinking about our collective cognitive future.

These may be the starter tools that empower us to become Old Worldexplorers setting out for the New World, and journeying on the most exciting and consequential endeavor in human history — an expedition, inward, to discover ourselves.

Dad

  orginally posted here:

https://medium.com/future-literacy/the-future-you-that-you-least-suspect-18cf63bd0061 

The Future You That You Least Suspect was originally published on transhumanity.net

[susangkomengreaternyc]

What We Learned at the 2018 New York Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference

 Register today for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6!

  Register today for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6! 

While New York City braved its first nor’easter of the season, our conference presenters and attendees brought the heat at the second annual New York Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference. Here’s what we learned: 

DAY 1: Tell Me More! What’s New in MBC

Dr. Patrick Borgen, Chair of the Department of Surgery at Maimonides Medical Center and Chair of Komen NYC’s Medical Advisory Committee, kicked off the conference in a way only he can, combining humor, intellect, and his signature bow tie. He started by highlighting some of the “sparkling advances” in metastatic breast cancer treatment beyond surgery, chemo, and radiation, such as cell cycle checkpoint inhibitors, immune modulators, adaptive cell therapies, synthetic lethalogy strategies, and double targeting of onco-protein targets, but made it clear that these advances are simply not enough. “As physicians, we seek not just to treat, but to heal,” he said, adding that healing requires the often overlooked practice of listening.

WATCH: Welcome to NYMBCC from Dr. Borgen

Susan G. Komen’s Focus on Metastatic Breast Cancer

Linda McNeil Tantawi, Komen NYC CEO, addressed the group. “At the end of the day, we are here to serve all of you,” Linda said, as she discussed Komen’s focus on metastatic breast cancer and the actions Komen is taking enterprise-wide to focus on patients with stage IV breast cancer. These can be reviewed here.

Morning Keynote Speaker Kelli Davis 

 Register today for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6!

Terminal Optimism

Kelli’s brutally honest and brave portrayal of her journey from an early stage PINK SURVIVOR to a breakdown which required hospitalization upon learning of her Stage IV diagnosis, to inspirational co-founder of the METSquerade and leader of Metavivor, was heartrending.  

“Although we’re not exactly where we want to be from a research funding perspective, I think this is the way to get there - being here, partnering, listening.” -Kelli Davis

WATCH: Kelli Davis delivers a powerful keynote speech on Terminal Optimism

ER+ Breakout Session

Dr. Patrick Borgen was joined by Dr. Joseph Sparano, Associate Chairman for Clinical Research in the Department of Oncology at Montefiore Medical Center, for the ER+ session. One of the key takeaways from this session: metastatic breast cancer can mutate; what we think we’re treating can change. DO NOT ignore the idea of rebiopsying.

“This is about an expert team, not a team of experts.” -Dr. Borgen on the importance of creating multidisciplinary teams that meet on a regular basis to review each patient they see.

WATCH: Morning Breakout Session on ER+ with Dr. Borgen

Morning Panel: Clinical Trials: The Doctor/Patient Partnership

Dr. George Sledge, Chief of the Division of Oncology in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University, moderated this panel, which featured Dr. Sparano, Dr. Francisco Esteva, Director of the Breast Medical Oncology Program at Perlmutter Cancer Center, and Priscilla Brastianos, Director of the Brain Metastasis Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Komen research grantee. We also heard directly from Dr. Sparano’s and Dr. Esteva’s patients themselves about their experiences with clinical trials.

If you or a loved one needs information or resources about clinical trials, call our clinical trial information helpline at 1-877-465-6636 or email clinicaltrialinfo@komen.org. 

WATCH: Morning Panel on Clinical Trials: The Doctor/Patient Partnership

Eliza S. Adams Memorial Keynote

Eliza Adams was a force of nature - a fierce advocate for herself and her community of stage IV Thrivers. In her memory, Dr. Sledge delivered the inaugural Eliza S. Adams Memorial Keynote, which focused on scientific advancements for the metastatic community and the work that remains to save more lives.

Dr. Sledge discussed new drugs that look at cancer differently and require us to think in different ways:

Precision Oncology or “slicing the pie”: breast cancer is not a single disease, it’s a family of diseases. The idea that a doctor can provide the greatest benefit by diagnosing what’s most common is no longer relevant because we are able to find very rare mutations within cancer. While we don’t have drugs for every mutation at this time, precision oncology is promising because we can now identify them, often resulting in more effective and less invasive treatments. 

“In the era of genomics, we now live in zebra land.” -Dr. Sledge

Immunotherapy: the idea that we can activate the body’s immune system against a human cancer. T cells, whose job it is to attack a cancer cell, have on and off switches, but cancer cells are really good at fooling them with Jedi mind tricks. 

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” -Dr. Sledge explains how cancer cells trick T cells into ‘turning off’ their defenses.

WATCH: Eliza S. Adams Memorial Keynote from Dr. Sledge

Bone Mets Breakout Session

Bones are the first site of metastasis for more than half of women who develop stage IV breast cancer. As a first step, doctors need to establish whether your bone metastasis puts you at risk for a premature fracture or premature failure. For some patients, they discover they have stage IV breast cancer only after they get a fracture!

“One of the most important things that doctors learning about oncology or patients learning about breast cancer need to understand is that not all stage IV breast cancer is the same.” -Dr. Borgen 

WATCH: Afternoon Breakout Session on Bone Metastases with Dr. Borgen

 Register today for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6!

Afternoon Panel: Genetics, Genomics and MBC. Why Should I Care

After the discovery of BRCA1 and BRCA2, doctors thought it was unlikely that germline mutations in those genes would lead to differences in treatment. WRONG! Dr. Esteva said that if you biopsy a tumor to understand its genomic sequencing, it can also give you insight into the genetics of the chromosomes in all the cells in your body, which could uncover a genetic predisposition to the cancer that you may not have previously been aware of.

“Almost every newly diagnosed metastatic breast cancer patient should consider BRCA testing.” -Dr. Borgen  

Whether the genetic driver landscape of metastases differs from primary cancers, and whether there are cancer genes specific to metastases, are important considerations impacting treatment decisions.

WATCH: Afternoon Panel on Genetics, Genomics and MBC. Why Should I Care

Dr. Borgen closed the first day of the conference just as he started it - with humor and intellect. Inspired by Dr. Sledge’s Star Wars analogy, he gave a memorable summary of the day: “If you’re [a T cell] in zebra land, playing whack-a-mole, instruct Obi-Wan Kenobi to give the big eater access to the droid.”

WATCH: Dr. Borgen Closes Day 1 of NYMBCC

DAY 2: Living Well with Cancer

Sunday was dedicated to hope, healing, enriching dialogue and hands-on demonstrations for improving quality of life and living peacefully.

WATCH: Morning Keynote on Hope, Healing, And Wholeness

“It’s okay to hope today that tomorrow we will be more hopeful.” -Kelly Grosklags, LICSW, BCD

Morning Panel on Palliative Care: What It Is, Why You Need It and How To Get It

Everyone would like to improve their quality of life, but for patients managing chronic disease, it’s especially important in relieving physical pain and emotional stress. Metastatic breast cancer is often treated as a chronic illness because it can be managed for years, making palliative care a useful technique in reducing discomfort. Dr. Dawn Hershman, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology with tenure and Director of the Breast Cancer Program of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, shared findings from her study that found acupuncture significantly reduced aromatase inhibitor-related joint pain after 6 weeks. But you don’t need an acupuncturist to reap the benefits of palliative care. Kelly Hogan, MS, RD, CDN, says nutrition can play an integral role in improving how you feel on a daily basis and quality of life overall. 

Which Dr. Do I See? The Role of Primary Care Doctors in an Oncology Setting 

Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, DO, better known as Doctor Mike, gave a fantastic, informative talk about the importance of cancer patients having a primary care doctor.

 Register today for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6!

He said that “for many people, when they hear the term ‘wholistic care’, they think we’re talking about naturopathic care or one that doesn’t incorporate medicines. In medicine, wholistic treatment is the treatment of a person as a whole, mind, body and social factors.”

WATCH: Doctor Mike Explains why Oncologists Shouldn’t Replace Primary Care Doctors

That’s a wrap on the second annual New York Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference! 

Special shout out to the courageous thrivers, compassionate caregivers and fascinating speakers who made this an exceptional weekend!

Thanks to our generous sponsors at Convene, Pfizer Oncology, Odonate Therapeutics, Genentech, Novartis, Lilly Oncology, MERCK, MBCN, Aetna, Celgene and Genomic Health, attendees enjoyed two days of the most current information related to metastatic/stage IV breast cancer for free!

From thrivers to advocates to health care professionals, the NYMBCC Faculty was made up of some of the biggest and brightest minds in the metastatic community - we cannot thank you enough!

Dr. Patrick Borgen

Dr. Priscilla Brastianos

Kelli Davis

Dr. Francisco Esteva

Kelly Grosklags, LICSW, BCD

Dr. Dawn Hershman

Kelly Hogan, MS, RD, CDN

Dr. Hanna Y. Irie

Eileen Moran

Dr. George Sledge

Dr. Joseph Sparano

Dr. Mikhail “Mike” Varshavski 

Tari Prinster, Yoga4Cancer

Dr. Martha Eddy, Moving For Life

Kristin Westbrook, Calm City

Looking for more? We’re continuing the MBC conversation on Saturday, November 10th at the Long Island Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference. RSVP here to join us for this FREE one-day event at Hofstra University!

Don’t forget to register for the 2019 NYMBCC on October 5 & 6! We hope to see you there! 

[sharionpage]

My Faith Crisis: What was Helpful? What was Hurtful?

The following is adapted from a talk prepared for a Stake Conference meeting two years ago in the United States. It was delivered by one of my good friends who was generous to share her experience (names and other personal information have been changed). While my friend’s story has somewhat of a “happy ending,” it is important to remember that not all stories will result in a return to activity in the church. In cases like this, it is even more vital that friends and family do everything they can to apply the “medicine” that my friend so vulnerably describes below and especially for the motivations that she describes. (Further excellent resources are linked to at the end.) We Mormons should also consider that the way we traditionally define “happy endings” is not necessarily the same way that our own religious tradition does, and that if we take Jesus at his word, we will all have “happy endings.” 

…

Three-and-a-half years ago on New Year’s Eve, my husband Daniel and I were in the car, rushing our three-year-old son Joshua to the Emergency Room. We were at a friend’s house that night where he had unknowingly eaten a peanut and was having an anaphylactic reaction. As I was cradling him in my arms in the back of the car while my husband drove, I was literally watching his throat close and hearing him wheeze to death. Through tears both Daniel and I called out to Heavenly Father. We begged him to spare our son’s life. Although still frightened and unsure that we would make it to the hospital in time, we did feel God’s presence so strongly. Heaven felt so close it was almost as if the roof of the car was not there. Despite the craziness, as we were in route to the hospital, I felt prompted to call the ER and tell them we were on our way. I was able to give all our personal information, as well as the details of the situation, so that when we drove into the valet parking and ran out of the car with Joshua, whose eyes were now swollen shut and was close to being unresponsive, there was a nurse waiting for us who wheeled me back with Joshua in my arms to a room waiting with an entire crew of medical staff. Joshua was taken from my arms and in the good care of these physicians, nurses and medical assistants he received everything he needed to become well again.

This was a traumatic event for our family, and it changed the way we viewed and handled life. For example, we now carry an epipen with us at all times, and send it with Joshua wherever he goes. When we show up to a social gathering or ward activity, the first thing we do is scan the food and dessert table for potential threats. We have done a lot of work to help Joshua know what is a safe food and what is not. We have made several trips to the gas station to look at the candy and find the ones that have peanut butter. We have taught his older siblings to read food labels and to help look out for him as well. I now have a completely new understanding and empathy for families that deal with food allergies.

I am going to liken this story about my son Joshua to having a crisis of faith, or a “faith crisis.” A good definition for the term “faith crisis” is: “a term commonly applied, especially in Western culture, to periods of intense doubt and internal conflict about one’s preconceived beliefs or life decisions.” Two years ago I came upon some shocking and disturbing (at least to me) aspects of church history. Upon my discovery of these things, I had what you could call an “anaphylactic reaction.” Over the course of several months, I became unsure of my ability and desire to stay in the church because of the things I had learned about. In my mind, the historical facts didn’t add up to truth. My mind became filled with so much doubt, I thought about it every day, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. Just as we cried out to Heavenly Father while driving to the hospital with Joshua, I prayed to Heavenly Father regularly and was completely honest with Him about how I was feeling about everything. Although still unsettled, I felt God’s love for me. He had his arms wrapped around me during this time, and I always felt that I was His daughter.

Although I had God’s love and presence in my life, I needed people. Just as Joshua needed medical professionals to put leads on his chest, hook him up to an IV drip, check his vitals, administer epinephrine and even give him a sticker at the end of the ordeal, I needed people who could help me through this difficult time in my life.

One mistake that I made was keeping my feelings, doubts and overall trauma to myself, with the exception of my saintly husband. I was scared to talk openly about this at church. I was afraid to confide in anybody. How could I, somebody who had once been able to stand and profess such absolute truth, now admit that I wasn’t sure if the Church was true anymore? So I kept it inside and although I showed up to church each Sunday, I was falling apart beneath the surface. Finally, after eight months of suffering in silence, I couldn’t handle it any longer and started to open up a bit about what I was thinking and struggling with. As you can imagine, I received a wide variety of reactions from people, some helpful and some hurtful, and even a few I would categorize as harmful. Here are some of the comments and reactions that were less than helpful:

“You’ve lost your faith.”

“What have you done to lose the Spirit?”

“Everything you’ve read is anti-Mormon material.”

“I feel badly for your kids and husband.”

“You don’t need to refer to this as a crisis.”

“You’re dark.”

“You’re status has fallen in the ward, you used to be on a pedestal, and now….”

“Do you feel the need to be angry?”

“You’re too smart, and if you’re not careful, you will intellectualize yourself right out of the Church.”

“It would be better for you to have broken the law of chastity than to have these doubts.”

And all conversations or interactions that had a hidden agenda, or people who actively distanced themselves for whatever reason.

All of these statements/actions were hurtful, and did nothing but push me further away and make me feel even less of a desire to remain in the church body. To get back to our medical analogy: this was not the right kind of medicine.

I have asked myself many times why would people react this way? Why do we sound the alarm, jump to conclusions or judgement so quickly, and become so defensive when people raise questions, concerns or doubts? Although perhaps well-intended by the speaker, these statements are hurtful every single time. They are also, at least in my case, untrue. I have come to the conclusion that often times, statements like these are based in fear. We fear that somebody who leaves the church won’t be happy anymore. Maybe we fear that they will make wrong choices. Do we fear that they won’t make it to the Celestial kingdom? It could just be that we fear the unknown, and that we have labeled things as anti-Mormon to prevent ourselves from facing hard facts.  Or we tell ourselves that somebody is just lacking faith, or has sinned and lost the Spirit and that must be the reason they are questioning or uncertain.

What do the scriptures say about fear? 1 John 4:18 “perfect love casteth out fear.” What is a “perfect love?” When I think of a “perfect love” I think of Christ’s love: charity. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul teaches about charity in verses 1-8 and again in verse 13.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Brothers and Sisters, according to this passage of scripture, charity, or the pure love of Christ, is even more important than our own faith and hope. This is a bold statement. How many of us are striving for that kind of charity? How important is it to you? As Paul says, it is even greater than faith and hope.

I have definitely been the recipient of great acts of charity, and while some of the responses received were hurtful, many more were helpful. Here are some responses and reactions that were very helpful:

“It’s okay.”

“I understand.”

“You’re normal now, most people have questions and doubts.”

“It’s a choice to believe.”

“You belong here.”

“It’s okay if you don’t know the church is true.”

A set of visiting teachers who truly befriended me. Who came every month and sometimes let me express my anger and frustration. Who never tried to change my mind or convince me to stay in the church. Who listened and loved and sometimes didn’t say anything at all. Who created a safe place for me to be me. Who cried with me, instead of for me.

A few sisters in my ward, who like my VTers, accepted me for who I was. Who weren’t afraid to talk with me about difficult issues. Who didn’t treat me like I was a project or a problem to be solved. Who didn’t judge, but rather supported and validated. Who told me I was a good person, no matter what church I went to or what my beliefs were. Who bore my burdens, and believed in me.

An elderly brother in our ward who, upon hearing of my struggle with faith, simply said with tears in his eyes, “I’ve been there too.”

A RS sister who finds me after every lesson I teach and whispers in my ear “You’re a spiritual giant.” (I know she is stretching the truth here, but it sure makes me feel good.)

A husband who has held me while I wept, picked me up when I have fallen, loved me fiercely through all my doubts/questions/concerns and heartaches. Who has been more patient and loving than I thought was humanly possible. Who has counseled me and listened to me endlessly. I can’t tell you of the late and long nights spent processing. Truly a loyal companion.

These kinds of responses are the right medicine. And when given the right medicine, chances are that people will heal.

This is not to say that I am the same as I was before. I didn’t magically go back to believing everything and having everything work out perfectly as it had seemed to before. Faith didn’t suddenly become easy for me. On occasion, it can be pretty hard for me still. Hope has become an important concept in my life and a common word in my vocabulary. Belief has become a choice. Even when people heal, they usually have scars of some sort. Just as my son Joshua’s life changed forever after learning what a serious allergy he had to peanuts, my life has changed forever as well. There are some “peanuts” for me at church now. I have a few things on the shelf, a few topics that I simply avoid or just try to be okay not thinking about too much. However, just as a child with allergies can learn to cope in life, so can somebody who has questions with faith. It might take a little more vigilance, but it can be done.

Because there were people in my life who truly cared about me and loved me with the pure love of Christ, I was able to find a place again in the Church.  Because I chose to stay, I began to see and recognize things that have happened in my life that I can’t deny. The feelings that I had at my baptism, my patriarchal blessing, and a Priesthood blessing given to me about seven years ago by my husband that resulted in a miracle are things that I have not been able to explain away. These three experiences with the priesthood have, at times, been my only link to belief. I am hopeful that more witnesses will come with time, but if not, I believe and understand enough to keep on going forward. I can choose to believe and hold on to the good parts of the gospel and of this Church.

Let us have the courage to exercise charity, the pure love of Christ. It is so important to our Father in Heaven and the Lord. Let us be kind, let us suffer long, and let us create a safe place for people to be. A safe place for people who have differences of opinion, differences in their struggles, differences even in their faith. Let us be more like our Savior. Just as the scripture says, “Charity never faileth,” and I can testify that it won’t.

  Other excellent resources include:

So, you want to help someone going through a faith crisis… by Uncorrelated Mormon

What to say to a friend who is leaving the Church by Jeff Swift

25 Things NOT to Say to a Loved One Leaving the Church (& what to say instead) by Julie de Azevedo Hanks

What To Do If Someone You Know Is Going Through A Faith Crisis by Boyd Peterson

Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt by Patrick Mason

Surviving a Faith Crisis (and How Church Members Can Help) by Patrick Mason

What Stage is Your Faith? by Dr. Greg

Gospel Topics Essays (Most LDS church members haven’t actually read these, or even know they exist. Before engaging in discussions with loved ones who struggle with hard issues, consider reading each of these essays carefully and thinking about their implications.)

    My Faith Crisis: What was Helpful? What was Hurtful? published first on http://ift.tt/2wQcX5G

[britesparc]

Some Thoughts on Empire Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movies

I’ve been reading through the list of 100 Greatest Movies in the latest issue of Empire Magazine. I love articles like this, primarily because I like voting for things (I even voted in that big bunfight we had a week ago. That was a lark, wasn’t it? How very amusing). I’ve also been reading Empire for a very long time, and voted in quite a few of these things by now, and whilst I’m not going to do any kind of deep-dive analysis, I did notice a few things and thought I’d just write about them.

Beats doing stuff, I suppose

Firstly, The Godfather. Obviously The Godfather is one of those films that is a frequent occupant of “Best Film of All Time” lists; but it’s probably fair to say that its popularity waxes and wanes over the years within a small margin of “excellent”. Put simply, I’m slightly surprised it’s number one, although not at all surprised it’s in the Top Ten. It’s not my favourite film (I don’t think it was in my Top Ten, to be honest) but it’s a masterpiece and I can’t argue with its victory. And I hope this settles once and for all whether Part I or Part II is the best…

Secondly, Star Wars. Quite frankly with the renewed love for Star Wars since the release of The Force Awakens 18 months ago, I was expecting The Empire Strikes Back to take the top spot. After all, Empire readers tend towards the geekier end of the film buff spectrum; it’s a mag for aficionados, but populist aficionados. So seeing both Episodes V and IV in the top ten is no surprise, although I kinda expected both The Force Awakens and Rogue One to secure spots.

And third: Spielberg. With Jaws and Raiders in the top ten, and very high positions for Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and Saving Private Ryan, once again the tastes of the Empire readers echo my own. I think I ended up with three Spielberg films in my personal top ten. Which reminds me: where the hell is Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? I’m willing to concede it’s not everybody’s favourite film, but come on. I wonder how many people, like me, had it as their number one? That film is seriously due a re-discovery. Perhaps the 4K screenings at Vue Cinemas this autumn will light a fire, or maybe we have to wait till the 50th anniversary in 2027.

And as for Jurassic Park, I mentioned it above, but at number 19, I wonder if it's the highest the film has ever ranked. And it’s symptomatic of something I’ve been noticing: the people who are writing and talking about film nowadays – the grown-ups in the room, the experts – they’re my age. I was 11 when Jurassic Park came out and it was my favourite film of all time until I saw Pulp Fiction a couple of years later. But although I do remember Empire giving it five stars, I don’t feel it’s had that “definitive classic” status that I always thought it deserved. Until recently, when the generation who grew up with it came of age, and were able to appreciate its value as, essentially, a bloody good family movie that, whilst being gripping and exciting for adults, also had that little extra kick of darkness – scary, bloody, with a dark sense of humour – that made the kids who watched it feel it wasn’t really for them, that they were opening a door into a world of freaky adult movies (having said that, by the time I saw Jurassic Park, I’d already seen two Terminators, two Aliens, and An American Werewolf in London, but you know what I mean). So the increasing love for Jurassic Park – and an even higher ranking for Back to the Future - kinda makes me feel I’ve come of age (although Ghostbusters is way too low).

And – finally – superhero movies. A common critique of modern Hollywood is that it's just one cape movie after another and one day soon we're all going to get sick of them (despite the fact that the three big comic book movies we've had so far this year have been a neo-Western, a sci-fi space odyssey, and a mythological war movie, which all seem fairly distinct genres to me). And how many "proper" comic book adaptations are represented? Four. And only one of those is really in the top end of the list (The Dark Knight, which really does seem to be securing "Citizen Kane of superhero movies" status). Unsurprisingly, film fans love good superhero stories, but also love good stories of extra-terrestrials, samurai, ghosts, gangsters, gladiators, and romantics – and loads more besides. Superheroes are no more likely to destroy Hollywood than adaptations of 1960s TV shows were back in the nineties.

So those are my big takeaways. I could have written more – the fact that Lord of the Rings endures, that Tarantino remains popular, that there are a pleasing number of classic films, that there aren't really many romcoms – but then I'd be here all day. I love the Empire lists because they straddle that awesome line between populism and artistry; Empire readers are unafraid to say that their favourite films include stuff like Jurassic Park, or Forrest Gump, or Return of the Jedi, but at the same time stuff like The Godfather, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, and The Shawshank Redemption are up there. Brand new films like La La Land and Arrival are recognised, but sufficiently far down the list that one suspects their popularity isn’t just based on proximity; they’re burning bright, but not suspiciously brightly. There are lots of 80s classics, because of the age of the audience. In short, it’s exactly what I’d expect a list voted for by Empire readers to look like. I’d seen 87 of the films – falling short mostly on a handful of classics I’ve not got round to, as well as the most recent films that I didn’t manage to catch at the cinema in the last year or so. I think I’ll try to see those remaining 13 films before Empire next has a Top 100.

[esprit-de-corps-magazine]

From Sky to Space: A Period of Mourning

By Benjamin Vermette

With the loss of David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Fidel Castro, George Michael, Muhammad Ali, Leonard Cohen, and many others, no wonder some speculate that 2016 was one of the worst years ever. Notwithstanding my opinion on 2016 — which I think was pretty great compared to darker times such as 1349 in Europe, when a quarter of Europe’s population died from the Plague — I must confess that the last two months were particularly tough in the “space” world, as we lost at least five great human beings that kept our eyes pointed toward the sky. In their memory, here is the story of the life and death of John Glenn, Vera Rubin, Carrie Fisher, Piers J. Sellers and Gene Cernan.

John Glenn (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016)

A true American hero and space pioneer, John Glenn was the exact type of guy you thought of as an astronaut — and that even before he became one. As soon as the United States entered World War II, Glenn joined the military with the idea of becoming a pilot. And that’s just what he did! Logging hours upon hours in the cockpit, Glenn was skillfully becoming one of the Marine Corps’ greatest fighter pilots. After World War II, Glenn flew over 60 combat missions in the Korean War, where he shot down three MiGs and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and eight other related medals.

Afterwards, in July 1954, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Maryland. As a test pilot, he flew various types of aircraft such as the F8U Crusader, with which he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight in 1957. Flying from southern California to New York City in less than 3 and a half hours, John Glenn made international news for the first time.

A year later, in October 1958 at the beginning of the Cold War, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded. The newly created agency wanted to send a man into space, and was under much pressure to accomplish this goal; it was a feat that would require preparation, experience, and caution. For those reasons, NASA probably thought they should ask well-educated and experienced test pilots to become astronauts.

Well, the thing with John Glenn is that he didn’t meet the first criteria as he lacked a degree in science. In fact, a couple of NASA’s criterions were barely met by Glenn: he was almost too old (40 years old, the limit being 40) and almost too tall (1.79 meters, the limit being 1.80). Nevertheless, Glenn was chosen to be part of a select group of 100 test pilots who met the basic qualifications. After a series of physical and mental tests, he received a call in 1959 asking him if he wanted to be a part of Project Mercury.

After several months of intense training at NASA’s various centres throughout the United States, the competition became increasingly stronger between the seven astronauts as each of them wanted — comprehensively — to become the first man in space. On April 12, 1961, this milestone was reached by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. A couple of weeks later, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, leaving only one unattained milestone at the mercy of the six remaining Mercury astronauts: the first American to orbit the Earth.

Unlike Shepard’s 15-minute spaceflight, this second flight was intended to be a five-hour mission, and the perfect guy for this was, you guessed it (or probably already know it), John Glenn. On February 20, 1962, John Glenn, watched by over 135 million people on live television, soared toward the darkness of space on a U.S. Air Force warhead customized to carry the lone man with the goal to complete three orbits of Earth safely. “Zero G and I feel fine,” were Glenn’s first words in space, showing the calm and reassuring nature he possessed even when accomplishing life glorifying exploits.

After splashing down 40 miles short of the planned landing area and being awarded NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal by President John F. Kennedy, John Glenn probably didn’t know the he would not go back to space for another 36 years. Yes, the next time he flew was in 1998 onboard Space Shuttle Discovery. Aged 77, he was NASA’s test subject in trying to better understand zero gravity’s effects on the elderly.

One of the main reasons NASA grounded Glenn in the first place for so many years wasn’t because they viewed Glenn as an incompetent, never-to-fly-again astronaut. On the contrary: as he became the most famous and praised American astronaut — even more so than Alan Shepard — NASA didn’t want to risk his life again by sending him on a risky mission to space. Regarded as a kind of national treasure that needed protection, Glenn finally retired from the agency two years after being the first U.S. astronaut to reach orbital flight to pursue a career in … politics.

In 1964, he ran for the Senate from Ohio; however, an unpredicted injury forced him to resign from the race. Ten years later, in 1974, he was finally admitted in the U.S. Senate as a Democratic member, where he served for 25 years. Note that Glenn also ran for president in 1984, but was unable to win the Democratic nomination.  

After a 95-year exhaustively filled life, Glenn died on December 6, 2016, in Ohio. Surrounded by his family, the hero left behind him one of the most inspiring careers an astronaut can hope to achieve, including a second trip to space at 77 years of age after a 25-year career as a U.S. Senator. A role model for everyone, Glenn’s legacy is imperishable.

 Vera Rubin (July 23, 1928 – December 25, 2016)

“Watching the stars wheel past [the] bedroom window” was enough to infuse in young Vera Rubin’s mind a spark of interest in astronomy, which later became a passion before becoming her life’s work.

Born in Pennsylvania, Vera Rubin paved the way for women’s greater acceptance in science as her work and observations are considered the driving force behind the discovery of dark matter.

In 1948, she earned her BA in astronomy from New York’s Vassar College, before applying for a graduate program in her field at Princeton. She however ended up at Cornell, where she studied under famous physicist Richard Feynman because Princeton didn’t accept women in the astronomy graduate program until 1975. Her alma maters also include Georgetown University, where she completed her doctoral degree in 1954 by attending classes at night while her husband was waiting in the car because she didn’t know how to drive.

She somehow managed to raise four children — they followed in their mother’s footsteps as each acquired a PhD in natural sciences or mathematics — while focusing on her research and the assistant professorship she earned at Georgetown in 1962.

Now let me resume the outstanding research she is most famous for, which seems even more praiseworthy considering her status as a woman in the male-dominated sphere of 1960s astronomical research.

According to Kepler’s laws of motions, the further away a planet is from the sun, the slower it should orbit around it. This implies that innermost planets — such as Mercury, Venus and Earth  go around our Sun faster than the outermost planets — Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. If you think about it, it indeed makes sense: the closer a planet is to its star, the stronger it is pulled because of the more intense gravity, so in order to keep moving around the star and not to fall on its fiery surface, it must move faster.

Rubin thought — and rightly so — that if this were true for solar systems and planetary systems, then it must be true for a galaxy. Like any other good scientist, she started observing galaxies using a telescope in order to refute or confirm her hypothesis (that the outermost stars in a galaxy must move slower around the centre of it than the stars that are closer). Astonishingly, she observed that the outermost stars were moving so fast that if the mass of the galaxy were only that of the stars and dust she could see — or everything else one can directly observe — then either the galaxy would have torn apart or Newton’s law of gravitation was flawed. Rest assured, the latter possibility wasn’t the one that explained the observations: gravity still works. Rather, Rubin embraced another possibility, a much darker one, which later proved to be right: dark matter. 

The reason why Rubin’s calculations weren’t working was because she didn’t account for all the mass of the galaxies she observed; she was only taking into account normal matter (stars, planets, dust, etc.), whereas dark matter was to be considered as well.

On large-scale systems, such as galaxies, dark matter’s effects are so notable that they significantly increase the system’s mass, consequently increasing the speed of the celestial objects that orbit around its centre (in galaxies, the celestial objects are mostly stars).

While we now know that dark matter contributes to roughly 25% of the ‘content’ of the Universe, concretely explaining what it exactly consists of is a more arduous task. Note that ‘normal’ matter makes about 5% of the Universe, while dark energy — a different thing than dark matter — makes up 75%.

As a leading female scientist, Vera Rubin obstinately persevered to finally find a satisfying answer to her observations. She was indeed right when she said that “science progresses best when observations force us to alter out preconceptions.”

She passed away on Christmas Day, leaving the gift to find dark matter’s nature to the future generation of astronomers.

 Carrie Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016)

We all remember watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope for the first time and feeling impressed when this beautiful, charismatic and powerful leader named Princess Leia famously recorded herself using R2-D2 to seek help: “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

However, even if she was Princess Leia in the hearts and minds of many, Carrie Fisher was a lot more. Actress, author and humourist, nothing seemed to be quite enough. In June, she announced she was going to be columnist for The Guardian, providing help to people suffering from mental health problems. A genuine altruist, Carrie Fisher inspired many.

Unfortunately, just as Princess Leia’s mother died of exhaustion shortly after her birth (see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith), Carrie Fisher’s mom, Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, passed shortly after her death, on December 28.

She will be missed, and her legacy on and off the screen will be remembered, and the rebellion will persist as long as peace is not restored in the galaxy, as long as the Force is unbalanced, as long as it is the will of Princess Leia’s soul.

 Piers J. Sellers (April 11, 1955 – December 23, 2016)

A NASA astronaut and veteran of three Space Shuttle missions, Piers J. Sellers wasn’t like the others: instead of encouraging us to look up and to dream about the wonders of space, he urged us to look down at the Earth and to realize the seriousness of its disastrously changing climate.

Born in England, Sellers moved to the United States in 1982 to work as a climate researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Maryland. He applied to be an astronaut in 1984, but was unfortunately turned down because he lacked a U.S. citizenship. In 1991, he was granted U.S. citizenship and, five years later, his application to NASA’s astronaut program was accepted.

His first spaceflight was in 2002 on Space Shuttle Atlantis. He conducted his first spacewalk on his inaugural flight, logging more than 20 hours outside the spacecraft with a total of three sorties. He later flew on Discovery in 2006 and again on Atlantis in 2010. A year later, in 2011, he announced his retirement from NASA, where he had also been director of the Earth Science Division at GSFC.

In January 2016, he announced he had been diagnosed with cancer with only a few months to live, thus motivating him to “live life at 20 times normal speed.”

Sellers was an astronaut, but his legacy will mostly be remembered in terms of climate, as he was an expert in the field. He appeared on Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2016 climate-change documentary Before the Flood and was addressed by many as a driving force in climate research.

By seeing the Earth as a fragile blue rock flying through darkness, he thought that, for the sake of humanity, we need to protect it, for he knew it was the only place we could live. He had a privileged perspective in addressing climate change, so let his message be clear:

“Here are the facts: The climate is warming. We’ve measured it, from the beginning of the industrial revolution to now. It correlates so well with emissions and with theory, we know within almost an absolute certainty that it’s us who are causing the warming and the CO2 emissions. Because it’s warming, the ice is melting, and because the ice is melting and the oceans are warming, the sea is rising.”

 Eugene Cernan (March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017)

The last person I shall address in this eulogistic article is the last man to have walked on the moon, Eugene Andrew Cernan, or simply Gene. The Gene. As one of my favourite astronauts, Gene Cernan is the exact type of guy every young man wants to be at some point in his life: cocky and arrogant, but also crazy smart and skilled.

Like many Apollo-era astronauts, young Gene Cernan was a Boy Scout as he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1952, he went on to study at Purdue University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1956, before earning a scholarship to become a U.S. Navy ensign. Two years later, Cernan became a naval aviator, while starting to study for a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, which he earned from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1963. As a pilot, he logged more than 5,000 hours in an aircraft, 4,800 of which were in a jet.

In October 1963, shortly after earning his master’s degree, he was selected as a NASA astronaut alongside Buzz Aldrin — the second man on the moon — and 12 other men in what was known as NASA Astronaut Group 3. It would be interesting to consider how devoted to space exploration and how courageous these men were to serve as “spacemen” because being an astronaut in the 1960s wasn’t as safe as it is now. For instance, from the 14 men that were selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 3, only 10 went to space — the other four were killed during training, either in a jet crash or in a capsule fire during a mission simulation.

Cernan’s first spaceflight wasn’t actually supposed to be his first: he was selected as backup crew for NASA’s Gemini 9 manned spaceflight mission, which was scheduled to launch in June 1966. However, Cernan and his colleague Thomas Stafford became the prime crew when Elliot See and Charles Bassett were killed in a T-38 Talon plane crash in Missouri. During this spaceflight, Cernan became the second American and the third person ever to perform an extra-vehicular activity (or EVA, a fancy word for spacewalk), but a couple of things went wrong and he was forced to cut the EVA short.

He served as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10 on his second spaceflight in May 1969 — two months before Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind.” Cernan’s spaceflight was a trial run — except for the actual landing and walking on the moon part — for the history-making Apollo 11, in which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and walked on the moon for the first time. Cernan once told journalists that NASA intentionally cut in the Apollo 10 Lunar Module’s fuel in order to prevent the crew from landing on the moon, because had NASA given the crew enough fuel to land on the moon and come back, Neil Armstrong probably wouldn’t be as popular.

His third — and last — spaceflight was in December 1972, when he served as commander of the last lunar landing mission, Apollo 17. He is one of the only three astronauts that went to the moon twice. Note that Cernan declined an offer to be the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 16 because he wanted to command his own mission.

The last words spoken on the surface of the moon were Cernan’s:

“Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record: that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.”

We hope you were right, Gene.

He passed on January 16 at age 82. I was particularly saddened when I heard about his death, knowing that Gene wasn’t so keen about his title of ‘last man on the moon’: rather, he was “quite disappointed [to be] the last man on the moon.” 

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: DISCOVERED

A Goodman is Hard to Find

While many of our features here at Discovered focus on explorers who dive bravely into the unknown, we would be remiss if we did not also take the time to focus on those individuals who unearth greatness right in our own backyard. This was the case in 2944 when scanner-turned-amateur archaeologist, Kamelia Ganesh, unearthed an incredible find in Croshaw, the Empire’s earliest system outside of Sol.

The following are excerpts from an oral history recorded by the Mōhio Museum in Kevric City, Angeli.

Kamelia Ganesh: A small mining outfit had picked up a claim in the Icarus Cluster [Croshaw Cluster Beta] and had hired me to do their deep sweep. I had been scanning the area for about two straight months. They were the types who prospected picked-over sites after the easy money had already been squeezed out. A lot of independent operations don’t think it’s worth going after the more difficult veins, and most of the time, they’re right. However, if you invest in the proper hardware, and you get a damn good scanner on your payroll — aka moi — to make sure that you don’t waste your time, then well, there are some creds to be made. Now, being that this was Croshaw, the claim had been turned over more times than a by-the-hour hab in Jele, so I had to go real thorough. That kind of scanning takes discipline. When you’re crawling along, meter by meter, it gets real tempting to start cutting corners, but that’s what separates the pros from the enthusiasts. Probably why I was the first one to ever pick up the signal.

Two days before she was scheduled to complete her work, Kamelia detected a faint signal from within one of the smaller fringe asteroids.

Kamelia Ganesh: Didn’t know what to make of it at first. Almost ignored the damn thing to be honest. But it had been a good week and I had found a particularly thick run winding its way through the core of a recently cracked asteroid. That find alone was more than enough to pay for the whole operation, so I figured I could take a little break to satisfy my curiosity. Comes with being a scanner, I guess. Never could just leave well enough alone.

The signal was barely there and it kept fading in and out, so trying to lock onto the source was a real chore. By the time I started to home in on it, I had figured out that the garbled mess was repeating regularly. Since it had a pattern to it, that ruled out some weird EM coming off a floater or the like. Started having fantasies of discovering some weird alien device. My heart nearly leapt out of my suit when I spotted that dim red blinking light.

As soon as it came into view, I knew I had found something almost as good as aliens. There was no mistaking that can shape. It was an emergency beacon for sure. But from the way it was embedded in the asteroid, almost like it was part of the rock, it had to be old. Really, really old.

Determined to learn more about her strange discovery, she reached out to an expert, Professor Scott McGonigal at the Mōhio Museum.

Professor McGonigal: The beacon alone was quite the find and I eagerly accepted when Ms. Ganesh generously offered to let the Museum have it if I would help her understand the signal it had been broadcasting. Together we set to work to unravel its secrets.

The emergency beacon had been badly worn by time. The power cells were barely holding a charge, its casing had been severely corroded, and the electronics were near complete deterioration from exposure, so it was a slight miracle that it was still able to broadcast at all. My initial estimates based on the rate of decay placed the object at least over half a millennium old. Working inside our lab’s zero-G preservation tanks, we managed to recover from the heavily damaged memory bank a partial registration number and launch coordinates.

I scoured the registration archives to see if I could uncover the identity of the missing ship that had launched the beacon, while Ms. Ganesh investigated the coordinates.

Kamelia Ganesh: The coordinates were always going to be a bit of a long shot. Not only were they incomplete, but without knowing when they were recorded, the extrapolated position could be anywhere in a huge swath of the system. Rolling back my starmap, I traced a route along centuries of possibilities but I didn’t turn up anything. I didn’t want to admit that we’d hit a dead end, but with the fact that the wreckage would be most likely be completely powered down as well as the fact that it could have just drifted away, I knew stumbling across whoever sent the beacon would be next to impossible.

Professor McGonigal: Despite the archives turning up numerous possible matches for the partial registration number, none of them fit the profile we were looking for. Any of the more recent ships of course were ruled out, as were all the ships who had been noted as successfully retired. After weeks of tracing the histories of the remaining candidates, it seemed that the ship from which our beacon had originated simply did not exist in the records. Sadly, I had to give up the search and return to my duties here at the museum.

With their leads seemingly exhausted, the pair’s search had come to a disappointing conclusion. As a consolation, Professor McGonigal invited Kamelia to attend the unveiling of the exhibit that would become the beacon’s new home.

Professor McGonigal: We had incorporated the beacon into our History of Spaceflight wing. It was placed alongside several other notable emergency beacons that had been recovered during Humanity’s expansion throughout the stars. As a curator, I couldn’t be more pleased that its inclusion in the exhibit is what gave us our most important revelation.

Kamelia Ganesh: The laser etching had been mostly worn away on the outside, but there were still a few marks here and there. One of them we had taken to be the remnants of a UNE crest, since the patterns were about the same, but seeing it next to another beacon with a similar marking, I noticed that it was a little bit off.

Professor McGonigal: Bless her scanning skills, because I don’t know many experts who would have picked up on the discrepancy. But once she pointed it out, it was plain as day. The crest wasn’t for the United Nations of Earth at all. It was in fact the very similar but distinct crest of the old Earth North American Alliance. The beacon was even older than we had thought.

The NAA crest hadn’t been used since the mid-23rd century, which meant that the beacon Kamelia had discovered dated back to Humanity’s earliest years of spaceflight. But what was it doing all the way out in Croshaw?

Professor McGonigal: With this new information in hand, it began to make sense why I was unable to find the ship in the registration archives. Knowing that the ship should be in the NAA records, I traveled to the University of Rhetor to access their datastore library directly. Sure enough, by re-configuring the alphanumeric sequence into the NAA format, we got a hit. What Ms. Ganesh had discovered was an actual emergency beacon from one of the first ships to ever travel through a jump point, the Goodman.

Outside of the Artemis, the Goodman was one of Humanity’s greatest unsolved mysteries. A Type-IV cargo vessel, it had in August of 2262 embarked on a supply run to a station in orbit around Sol VIII. The ship never arrived. Disappearing without a trace, the poor vessel and the eight souls aboard were victims of a phenomenon known then as the Neso Triangle, and what we know today as the Sol-Croshaw jump point.

Professor McGonigal: Researchers have been trying to locate the Goodman since Humans first explored Croshaw in earnest, and some seven hundred years later, Ms. Ganesh had found a major piece of the puzzle. Incredible.

Kamelia Ganesh: Talk about an a-ha! moment. That’s why the coordinates didn’t make sense. They weren’t incomplete, they were for a whole different system. See, since interstellar coordinates hadn’t been put into effect at the time, the Goodman had been forced to relay their emergency position using the old Sol mapping method. Can you imagine how confused the Goodman must have been when they got sucked through and saw a different sun?

I immediately flew back to Croshaw and began the search again. This time, with the starmap set to 2262 and the coordinates transposed from the Sol-method into our current standards, I was able to pinpoint where the Goodman had launched the beacon. Starting there and figuring that the ship must have drifted away from any of the usual flight lanes to have avoided detection for so long, I began doing what I do best, scanning. It took me a while, but the best things worth doing usually do. After weeks of looking, my scanner lit up as I detected the Goodman’s cross-signature and damn it all if it wasn’t right there in the middle of Croshaw floating peacefully in the black.

As soon as it made the press, the discovery was hailed as the archaeological find of the century. People were amazed and captivated by a piece of history that had been floating so close to them, just waiting to be discovered.

Professor McGonigal: We are still trying to piece together what happened to the Goodman’s crew once they arrived in the system, from the remains found aboard, but even if we never know the full story, the ship alone is an important piece of Humanity’s exploration of the stars.

Kamelia Ganesh: People been asking me if I’m going to switch jobs now, discover ancient wrecks full time. But to be honest, one find of a lifetime is probably enough for me. I’m just glad I got to discover a bit more of history’s story.

The Goodman is currently on display at the Mōhio Museum and there are hopes that other wrecks that disappeared through the Neso Triangle may soon be discovered in Croshaw now that archaeologists have a better idea where to look, thanks to the incredible efforts of Kamelia Ganesh.

http://bit.ly/2kSJSzn