#but it is really painful to live in a society where mass slaughter is normalized and celebrated

[oca-rinn-a]

i want to be a happy person in the vegan community who makes people feel unjudged and welcome to take their time to transition, because i know that's how successful transitions happen, i know that in the long run it's worth being patient. but the individual animals suffering right now are haunting me.

please try your best.

[winepresswrath]

Do you think it is a certainty that Jiang Cheng DID hunt down to torture and kill Demonic Cultivators regardless of innocence, or do you think that the rumors are probably exaggerated and he maybe only did it the one time or never at all?

The insomnia times are upon me, so here we go:

a) In the show, I don’t think there’s really any grounds to think it’s true. You can certainly read it in if you want to! Jin Ling has a line that could be alluding to it. But I don’t think, based on show canon alone, it’s a natural inference.

b) in the book, I don’t think we do know, and I think that’s part of the point. The story is in large part about the impossibility of knowing the whole truth of someone else’s experience. Wei Wuxian is misunderstood and scapegoated; he misunderstands in turn. We’re in his head for most of the book, and he (and the narrator) actively mislead us on several occasions. Jiang Cheng is pretty consistently the subject of that narrative bait and switch! Wei Wuxian tells us that being struck with a discipline whip is shameful, and reserved for severe transgressions. He adds that he’s never been beaten with one but Jiang Cheng has, and that no matter how desperately Jiang Cheng tried he couldn’t erase the scars. This gives us an early impression of Jiang Cheng as a person who committed a terrible transgression against his sect and then was unwilling to live with the consequences of his actions. Later on we find out that that initial impression is wrong, and Wen Chao was the one who beat him after he was captured. At the end of the story we learn that not even Wei Wuxian knows the whole truth, and Jiang Cheng has those scars because he gave himself up to be tortured so Wei Wuxian wouldn’t be. We don’t get the full story, and then we find out that Wei Wuxian couldn’t have given it to us anyway.

c) based on what we know of the justice system in Ancient Magical China it is actually Jiang Cheng’s job to decide whether demonic cultivation is legal or not in Yunmeng and what the penalty should be if it isn’t. Capital punishment is very normalized in their society. There is no separation of powers. Jiang Cheng is the guy you call if your neighbour is terrorizing you with zombies and also the guy who has to decide what the punishment for terrozing your neighbour with zombies is. I would not be surprised if it is both extremely illegal and bad for your health to terrorize your neighbour with zombies in Yunmeng. On the other hand, per b, I would also not be surprised if the situation was considerably more complicated, because Jiang Cheng is a very conflicted and not always particularly stable person. I do think the idea that he’s hunting people down for using innocent inventions is pretty unlikely. If Lan Qiren is down with the juniors using the spirit attracting flags, they do not count as demonic cultivation, and I’d imagine most things in that category don’t either. The demonic cultivator with the lowest body count we meet is Mo Xuanyu, and he summoned what he may well have thought was the vengeful spirit of a mass murderer, bound said spirit to slaughter his family on pain of his soul being destroyed, and then turned him loose on the rest of the world. I support him, but it’s a public safety issue and I can admit that.

d) I also think he probably hits demonic cultivators with Zidian, because Zidian dispels possessions. That would a be pretty easy detail for a non cultivator to miss, and we know how the rumour mill works in their universe.

e) Honestly I should have just answered with this, but: Jiang Cheng didn’t kill anyone, because Jiang Cheng isn’t real, and you should enjoy whatever version of the character is the most fun for you. It’s 2020 go to wild and find your bliss where you can. You want to imagine him brutally torturing people to death? I hope it brings you joy. You think he has been saving and rehabilitating demonic cultivators because he couldn’t save his brother? You have more textual support than the the wedding clothes scene did after the narrator went on about how eternally at odds Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were, but Jiang Cheng still showed up with soup and Yanli and nephew naming rights. Go wild!

f) fic where the juniors abolish capital punishment end feudalism and establish a utopia.

[pcwerhouse]

Superpower AU Verse: End Days

Below the cut is the plot info for one of the AUs I’ve been working on. It’s nothing special really, just a superpower verse that’s essentially a Heroes/Tokyo Ghoul crossover. I’m thinking right now that it’ll be a hit or miss when it comes to people writing in this verse with me, but I’ve been working out the details for months now and figure I should just go ahead and give it ago. More info to come when I publish my character post for this verse detailing their roles, abilities, etc. I won’t start actually thinking about writing in this verse until I do publish the character info though, so look out for that if you’re interested. 

On June 17, 2026, a slaughter like no other occurred in Times Square by the hands of metahuman terrorists. Videos of the massacre went viral, showcasing the devastation these superpowered individuals could enact. People became acutely aware of their inability to protect themselves from violent metas. This event instilled an “us versus them” mentality into minds everywhere and the response to the unforeseen metahuman threat was swift on a global scale. In America, the response was more severe than any other country’s. The MTSA (Metahuman Threat Suppression Agency) was quickly formed and staffed. They were tasked with protecting the non-meta population from the dangerous monsters with superhuman abilities hiding among them. The agency managed to garner power and sway up through the highest branches of government, and in time created laws that made being a metahuman illegal. Metas were either captured for experimentation or killed on sight, that is assuming that they weren’t powerful enough to fight back. The conflict between the MTSA and the metahumans waged on and resulted in numerous deaths on both sides. Though society continued to press on, the American landscape became rather dreary as its citizens---metahuman or not---became consumed by the conflict. The country turned into a totalitarian state over time with the MTSA at the head and their mission to irradicate all metas becoming the rule of law.

The SPLICE Project quickly became the most advantageous scientific program MTSA researchers employed. They learned that the source of each metahuman’s unique abilities was located in their various organ systems. With careful excision techniques, some semblance of those powers could be harnessed and placed into armors, weapons, or mechs to give MTSA agents an upper hand when fighting against combatants. Still, despite the agency’s technological and informational advances in regards to battling the metahumans, they always seemed to be on the losing side of the ongoing war. Metas could easily blend into the normal population meaning that unless they openly used their abilities, they were impossible to discern from normal people.

The tide changed in the MTSA’s favor on the thirty-year anniversary of the Times Square Massacre. The Agency began mass-producing a SPLICE tool utilizing the ability of a meta who could detect others. Suddenly, agents could point a scanner at anyone and determine whether they were a normal human or not. Hidden street scanners would document the identity of any metahuman it caught which made it even harder for them to keep away from The Agency’s clutches. Metas couldn’t hide in the open any longer and were forced to retreat to the recesses of society just to survive. If they wanted to do more than survive, then their only other option was to conceal their faces and fight.

Masked metas became more frequently seen across the country. Some were dedicated to helping those who couldn’t fight to survive. Others were anarchists hellbent on destroying the establishment persecuting their kind. Some just wanted to use their powers freely without worrying about getting registered by a scanner. Either way, all metahumans were marked as enemies of the state and treated as such.

The detection tool became a beacon of hope for normal human society. For the metahumans, it became a harbinger of the end of their days. Metas can be found squatting in underground sewer cities, living in remote wilderness encampments, or anywhere really where they can survive for a time. But some are have grown tired of being hunted like animals. They have been organizing on an unprecedented scale, forming masked groups who use their abilities collectively for whatever purpose they deem righteous. The tides of the metahuman struggle in America may turn once more, but just as metas are honing their abilities, the SPLICE Project artillery is growing more vicious with each new metahuman capture. Plus, MTSA agents seem to be more brazen with their reapings as the public’s faith in the Agency and sense of nationalism continues to surge. Survival means irradicating the enemy, and thirty years of terror, fighting, and pain have left too many scars for most people to reach any kind of understanding with the opposite side. Compromise is not an option.

[cormackkynnith]

If I Were the Devil

By Cormac Kynith If I were the Devil, the great Satan, Lucifer, knowing what I knew, my pride would never allow me to admit defeat, even though I knew God had tossed me out of the Garden just as casually as he had the gullible Adam & Eve. In fact, as a last protest in the face of my sworn enemies, I would set myself to do as much harm to what God holds dear, take as many down with me as I go, embellishing the whole time, seeing things only my own way as I went. A third of the very angels of Heaven doomed to fall with me to start, but hardly the tip of the iceberg. I was so powerful, God created this prison of Time to trap the corrupted part of Creation with me in it. Ever walking forward in reverse, all the while only seeing the past that cannot be changed while being blind to the future. Talk about frustrating! This is no way for the Morning Star to be treated! After all, I am the brightest star in Heaven’s Host. Too bad for those lost & fallen that followed me, but eggs & omelets. I really believed that I could win. I just wanted to be God. But maybe I still can be. I would not just go in charging like some unsophisticated bumpkin. As one of the single-highest of Heaven’s Host, I am more than a match for anyone not directly empowered by God, Himself. I will use my best tactical advantages, play to my strengths, & move forward in as direct a fashion as I can get away with. Making Cain think that works of his own hands would satisfy God, then pitting his growing shame & rage against his brother should wipe out the Woman’s Seed. But Adam & Eve had too many children for me to set them all up with the same guile. I will have to think bigger… I will send some of the fallen among the humans to make children, the Nephilim. They will teach the humans that they are gods & demigods! There will be monstrosities among them to terrorize them so that the mighty men will slay them to become heroes & draw the humans to believe on them, worship them! They will have supernatural powers from the fallen angels tainted blood-lines, after all. What is this redemption, I have to wonder? These humans are as corrupt as anything I crafted from flesh with tainted angel-blood, & how easy it is to lure them into doing my bidding, pitting them against each other on a larger & larger scale! Is God watching this horror-show? I will accuse them daily right to His Holy Face! I am eternal as an angel. Having a few thousand years to plan things, the first thing I would like to do is sabotage the redemption & just stop it at the Source – I will directly alter the bloodlines with that of my fellow-fallen angels, & once I corrupt ALL living things that I can. God will not be able to redeem anything we taint, because He has condemned us, the fallen, from kith to kin. God of course is omnipotent, commands all Creation. The Flood slowed me down. That approach obviously failing, I would need a more long-term, less-direct back-up plan. I will keep working this route in smaller numbers, but I will have to scale it back & slow it down as well as keep working on misleading humans across the Earth. I will operate through subtleties & sins against these so-called “Chosen People!” I now have a huge host of disembodied spirits at my bidding because of the flood. The Earth-Born or Earth-Bound, children of the Earth – try trapped here with the rest of the fallen. Even our souls are trapped here in this cursed prison. I will use them as spies & emissaries. God may see all, but I will have eyes everywhere telling me everything, whispering into every ear, & tempting every human walking the world! I will bring them down at every turn, keep them focused on the pleasures & pains of the world, short-sighted. So, the children of Abraham, carried on by Noah, inherited the God’s Covenant? It is reconfirmed in the line of Jacob??? This guy??? I never saw THIS coming! Jacob is so rotten, God had to change his name to Israel! I will focus my attacks & efforts against this idiot & his decedents! I need to lay a better trap, however. I have to out-think God, corner this line of people, & eliminate them! God having a clear view of all time/existence that allows Him to unfairly safeguard His people, I have to take a fast, direct line to cut it off with more surgical precision. How nice of God to give written record of His Line with this Moses-idiot! I can NOT believe God used this guy to help the chosen of Israel to escape Egypt! That was a good plan, slipping one of mine onto the throne & enslaving the nation of Israel. This guy, Moses, in all of his bad temper does not know how to deal with my influence among God’s Chosen. Their arrogance alone makes them easy prey. The Books of Moses clearly lay out God’s plan & I can now target a more & more narrow line of people. Every freaking time I made a move against the King David & his line, lead him astray, set him up, strike surgically against their numbers, slaughter them whole-sale, God found a way to save one of them here & there, just enough to keep the line going! I now understand that I can never pull out a victory or evade my sentencing. Herod failed. Christ was born, I thought I had Him, set His own arrogant people against Him, THEY KILLED HIM, & God used THAT to make Himself the sacrifice to redeem ALL Creation! I HAD HIM, & He had stacked everything up to this point, using MY machinations to accomplish HIS goal! I cannot win. God sees all Creation throughout time like looking down on a parade from above it. I get it. He sees what I am doing from conception to the bitter end. But I will not go down quietly! I will destroy as many of these wretched children of Adam & Eve as I can! What I need to do is not oppose God directly, but the rest of Creation. God is perfect, but the rest of Creation is flawed, fallen, & vulnerable! I sucker-punched Adam & Eve with temptation & preying on their emotions, & got ALL Creation thrown down! I am the power of the winds, here! I am the god of this world until Jesus takes it back! How can this remaining lesser version of the human race resist me when the first & strongest of them could not? But I cannot be overly straight-forward into the masses. Subtlety is what worked before, so looking at what they pursue in their weaknesses, spelled out right in the Bible, I can use their desires, their greed, lusts, gluttony, & such. Who is more beautiful than me in all of the Host of Heaven? I am mentioned in the Bible exactly so! God does not promise feel-good times for worshipping Christ on this world. Look at what happened to the apostles! Who among mankind wants to suffer in this mortal world? These mortals cannot see the Eternity all around them. All they see is the World in the moment in front of their faces! I have to sow doubt about the Bible. I have to start with the posh & powerful to want to be free of the rotten consequences they face for following my plan, & set them to lead everyone they influence. I will dress it up as anything & everything they all want. I will use beauty, debauchery, & half-truths, all the while denying God or calling Him names like tyrant, hypocrite, & worse. I will put questions about the veracity & validity of God into their heads. I will set about making the cultures love themselves, focus impotently & uselessly on their own inner peace & pleasures until they are useless & lost in themselves. I will start societal movements, false religious movements, philosophical schools, & more with ALL of it pointing ANYWHERE other than to God for fulfillment! I will start slanderous myths about the religion of Christianity & keep tempting their numbers to failures & hypocrisy. But the best weapon will be men of sin in key positions within the leadership of every single leading organization trying to follow God! I own the synagogues, the Vatican was my idea, my personal favorite, Islam, is exactly where I want it, I have evangelical leaders with beauty & charisma focused on hypocrisy & heresy that people enjoy hearing, & entertainment will be an ever-swirling pool of temptation! I will OWN entertainment in this realm! Seriously, how entertaining is God? Ask anyone about how excited they get reading the Bible! If you are awake by the end of Genesis, you are not a normal, well-adjusted person! Now a good conspiracy movie or alien-genesis science-fiction book, & it is a party! I have most of the enlightened educational establishments teaching heresy for centuries, now. Every society & empire to rise under my tutelage against God as the Creator has fallen in huge style, self-destructed in their own arrogance. All throughout history, it has happened. I do not know if they are getting dumber or more arrogantly self-consumed. The only thing humans have learned from history is that humans do not learn from history – that’s them, not me! Honestly, it is going great for me, here! I am picking up speed! It is hard to believe this streak is going to come to an end! America, the United States formed for the purpose of Christian worship & freedom, now follows the single most insulting idol of ALL time! They believe that all Creation is a cosmic accident, & that existence all came from nothing. So many of them believe this! They believe in nothing creating everything, & that life came from goo by way of the zoo! Some humans act like monkeys, but flinging feces is hardly proof of truth. Gullible masses actually bought this! The level of sophistication required these days is actually beneath me. There just is not much challenge in this for me anymore. Human toys may have advanced with my help, but they have been in a steady decline in & of themselves. Seriously! God as the Son sacrificed Himself for this? I look back, & I remember the victories I enjoyed: setting the Muslims to try to take over & reave the world, using the hatred it formed in the Europeans from that to send the crusades against them in retaliation – then for the profit! I took control of the Vatican easily very early on, I STARTED Islam specifically to wipe out God’s Chosen, but these Christians are easy targets, too. I will use the Vatican & Islam to cull these Christians. Those not hearty enough to fight or courageous enough to kill themselves in suicide-missions can support those that are by their donations. I will keep the main war on the nation of Israel, make them live in fear which will gradually become anger & hatred for the world. The world, I will pit against them & each other. I will use greed & lust for power to guide leaders to my bidding – as always – as well as materialism, sin, & willful, self-inflicted ignorance to control the masses as much as possible. I will convince them that the greatest love they can ever achieve is love for themselves! I will do everything I can to make them so sick with sin, they will not stand for the Bible to be read around them for fear of the consequences of their selfish, self-indulgent, & lustful lives! And as we go, I will keep building up steam, drawing more & more into this sinking luxury liner. I will take as many down with me as I can to take revenge on God through His Creation, His precious humans! I have it all lined up & ready to go! The Jesuit Pope is forming the beginnings of MY one-world religion, starting with the Vatican, the false teachers of mega-churches, the corrupted synagogues, & the Nation of Islam as the base-components! The Christians in America are eaten up by their idolatry, comforts, worldly desires, & following prosperity & feel-good ministries that are signing on with the Vatican! Biblical World View & unquestioning belief in the Bible is at an all-time low. Iconic entertainers openly proclaim MY name, BRAGGING about selling their souls to me, & people follow them more than they pray to God! There are still too many stinking saints around to make my big move, but this Rapture the Bible talks about happening will pull all of the Jesus-fans out of the way – leaving the nation of Israel without so many willing to come to their aid. Nobody knows when it will happen, but when it does, I will say it was something new-age or alien-related. I will say that they graduated to the next level of existence & offer to teach them how to do it, too, so they can all go to paradise with the saints that left. Enough buy the evolution-bit & contrived aliens from other planets that it will wash. Aliens have been eluded to, mentioned, & issued to the world in movies to prepare them for my grand lie to justify why some of my demonic offspring look like they do at any rate. I will set up the ecumenical religion, have my spokesman set himself up as the figurehead, throw in some supernatural displays I have been telling them for centuries do not exist, blow their minds, & then take over by force when they least expect it. Sure, Jesus will roll in to save the day, but just think for a minute how many billions of suckers will have fallen for my world-sweeping plans! How many fell for the false teachings & nonsense I set up using minions, spawns like Nephilim or worse, to form cults & fallen-angel teachings to tempt & lead whole civilizations generation after generation astray seeking after power – just enough to get them killed before they could be Saved! God may know who all He has saved. I do not, so I will keep trying to sink them as fast as I can. I do know where I will end up, but look at what I did! Look at how many are going down with me! Look at your life! How much have you loved versus how much you have hated & been angry with others? How much have you given versus how much you have taken? How long do you spend indulging yourself in comfort versus how long you dedicate to helping others? How many singers, movie-stars, & sports-heroes can you name versus people in the Bible? How many YouTube videos have you watched of critical-fail compilations or mindless entertainment versus researching the Bible? How many books of the Game of Thrones & Stephen King have you read versus the books of the Bible? The BIBLE! The Handbook of Creation! How much of it can you even remember hearing? I know Christ died for you! I tried to talk him out of it! God is the original source of all unconditional love, the original, divinely pure, beyond understandable love. The Greeks called it Agapé, & it is beyond human understanding – you do not deserve it. Not one of you rotting mortals deserve anything except Hell, Sheol, the Abuso! Yet all you have to do is pray to Christ Almighty? Where is MY forgiveness??? Where is MY redemption??? Where is MY mercy??? I am STILL the most beautiful of ALL the angels of Heaven, & yet it is YOU incompetent, easily misled APE-looking wingless monstrosities who can just cry to HIM, & all of you are granted front-row seats to MY fall??? Well, I will not be alone down here when Christ returns to smite everyone left opposing him! There will still be plenty of your friends & family right here with me as Christ rolls in like an unstoppable force. Remember all of those Sundays you could have spent praying for your families & friends in church but spent screaming at the football games on TV instead? Remember all of those hours alone that you could have saved yourself by repenting & begging Christ to accept you as His servant? Who all do you know that will be right here when He comes like a scythe? Do you really think I will help you? I am why you are here! What is more, I cannot even save myself! Enjoy the show…

[ccjinxxandjake]

Done for You

Chapter Title: Exordium

Author: Max

Word Count: 6,348

Warnings: Fluff, angst, smut, suicide, suicide notes, character death, minor character death, implied/referenced character death, original character death(s), temporary character death, past character death, near death experiences, child death, animal death, not really character death, possible character death, near death, slow burn, slow to update, slow romance, tags may change, rating may change

Rating: Teen audiences and up

Summary: A fanfiction based off of Wretched and Divine and Vale aka an overhaul of a fanfiction that I had been writing for a few years.

Main pairing: Undecided

Author’s Note: Don’t forget to comment because comments are what keep me going and make me want to continue writing. I do not get paid to write this and I could be using this time to study for my AP Government and Politics exam and all of my college courses (I’m a dual enrollment child). Comments are your way of giving me my “paycheck” and feedback on my writing so I can improve to actually earn a paycheck from this in the future. So please help me put by commenting, liking and reblogging this.

I wasn't meant to survive this. I wasn't meant to be the last one alive. I wasn't meant to be the only survivor of this attack. I had friends whose lives were more valuable than mine. My best friends who knew I wasn't meant to have this life. I wasn't meant to be the last one here. The last one to survive this attack. I was meant to take my last breath with them, or without them as they would have been the ones to survive. But now they were dead, in a circle around me. My best friend's head laid on my lap. His light brown eyes looked up at me. A smile was painted on his face. He seemed so peaceful and I wished I was with him but I wasn't. I couldn't handle the pain of having him in my lap. He was dead, there was a dead body in my lap. I lost my best friend and the pain was too much too bear. My heart was in pieces as I looked at my other friends. They were my favorite people on the entire planet. "Police! Come out with your hands on your head!" The door was locked but I could hear the knob jingling. I didn't want to move. He was still here, still in my lap. I looked up and put my hands on my head. I pulled my eyes off of my dead friend and looked up. My eyes drifted to the only door in the room. A shadow appeared in front of the frosted glass window. “Come in, please, don’t hurt me! My friends are dead and three of them are on me. I can’t move them. I’ve been in here for days.” I really couldn’t move them at all. I had been here for a few days with no food. My body was too weak to move three grown men off of my small body. The door came down after three large thuds, probably from a policeman banging against it. The door gave way and three policemen, full SWAT gear, came in. My friends were light up by  flashlights. My hands were on my head still. The police looked me over and my weak body. I probably looked like I was going to die. I probably would have if the police hadn’t found me. “What are you doing here?” One man lifted his mask and looked at me. He had dark brown eyes and cropped blonde hair. My heart sped up as I looked up at him. “That’s a bit classified.” I replied as snakily as I could while in my position. I raised an eyebrow and looked up at him. His smile grew as I looked at him. A smirk grew on my face. He chuckled and bent down to look at me. “Now baby, I don’t think you want to say that around someone who could move these bodies.” I rolled my eyes and looked at me as I turned to look at the dark haired man next to me. “Then I guess I’ll just have to move them myself.” I shrugged as a glow began in my stomach. A deep, rich red that began to flow through my veins and towards my hands. A ball slowly began to form within my hands. I smiled and touched the body of the friend’s who herd was in my lap. His eyes glowed red and moved closer to me, pulling himself up. I smiled lightly, touching the two friends next to me. They did the same and looked at the police man. He looked on in terror as I touched my last friend. He also stood and began to work his way towards the policeman as I stood up weakly. A smile appeared onto my face as my ammoniated body began to move. “W-w-what the hell? What are you?” He asked, shuffling backwards. His friends turned from inspecting the rest of the room. Their eyes widened as they looked at me. I smirked and looked at his partners. My friends moaned, drooling lightly. I smiled and looked at the man’s friends. My friends screeched an ungodly noise and lunged towards the police. In a flash of blood, guts and flesh, the police were gone. I smiled and brought the friends back towards me. They collapsed into a pile of guts and onto the tarp I had brought with me. I wrapped them up and smiled lightly, throwing the wrapped up bodies over my shoulder. I turned and ripped the police badge off of the man’s chest. I also took his friend’s badges and shoved it into my back pocket. I turned and walked down out of the room. My body was hurt but I knew that I had to get out of here as fast as possible. I turned and looked at the empty room, well empty expect for the fact that there were dead bodies in there. We smiled and looked in front of me. The light from the sun came in from small skylights above my head and a small door, the one I had come through when I was sent on this mission. I smiled and headed towards it. I giggled and looked at the sun as soon as I got outside. The sun hit my face and giggled as I looked up. I smiled and looked at the dessert ahead of me. We won’t call it a fight when we know it’s a war. I always felt sorry for the people we lost.  I’m sorry if you want to call this a fight. I’m sorry that you have such bigoted views that you want to say that this whole situation that you left us in is a fight. That a lot of people were too extreme when all we wanted was equal rights. That’s all we wanted were our rights and that’s all we wanted. We were slaughtering ourselves with our bad decisions. These bad decisions lead to a war. A civil war, to be more honest. A war of which was worse than any of the world had ever seen. The bloodshed came in the tons of gallons and the bodies came in the hundreds of thousands. The bodies were so high in number that no one knew where to put them. So, there were mass graves underneath the cities. These were the biggest cities, of course, as they had the highest populations. There were tons of dead. Tons of dead bodies. All of which decaying right now. There were also loads of lost spirits. All Hallow’s eve was the worst. We were overrun. When all the spirits came to play, we hid. We hid like madmen. Ghosts ran free. We had been trapped. There were humongous catacombs under the cities. People could go and visit them anytime they wanted. But only on special, designated holidays. The catacombs were closed the rest of the year. They were very eerie and creepy when you moved through them. They were filled with cobwebs and bones, no shit. Bones filled the floors and if you weren’t careful, you’d crush the bones. We weren’t supposed to crush the bones. You would be cursed if you crushed a bone. Then you weren’t allowed back into the catacombs. You would never be able to see your family or ancestors again. I guess that wasn’t okay for most, but okay for others. I never knew someone who was banished from the catacombs. Technically all Wild Ones were banned though, but we all snuck in anyways. Well, everyone but me since I had no family. Not many Wild Ones had families either. Not many of us did and we were able to sneak those who had families. We were happy to help them out to see their families. But it was highly illegal and just one of the many rights we had lost to the Free Ones, or normal people. Wild Ones were outcasts from society and most people were. Some outcasts even were able to assimilate into the culture. They hid in plain sight. We were just the outcasts from the outcasts. We were the worst of the worst. The most terrible of society, the unfixable. We were mostly anyone who wasn’t white, and even some white kids were here, and who weren’t fitting into the norm. People hunted us all down because some of us had this special blood. They needed us to make some special serum and we were going against that. We needed to run away from them. We were not going to leave our fates in the hands of some weirdo. The end of the world as we know it did not come quickly. The end came very slowly, in fact. Laws were slowly passed and people were taken away to government facilities. There were no bombs and there were no wars. That war was called The War on F.E.A.R by news outlets. People who rebelled were called Wild Ones. Wild Ones were the outcasts of society. They were the rockers and the metalheads. Wild Ones were what “normal” and “regular” people called emos, goths and scene kids. Of course, some of them are emo, goth and scene. But not all of them were. The people who didn’t rebel were normies. They were the one hundred and eighty degree total opposite of the Wild Ones. Then there was F.E.A.R, the religion and idea that controlled every little movement of everyone. The government religion that was created out of fear, obviously, of the religion of Islam. They wanted to be able to keep different people out of our great United States of America. The president even decided to build a wall separating America from Mexico. That’s when it all started in my mind. Others trace it back to that election. They said too many people were blind to the right choice. There were too many bigots in the world and that election showed it. The War on F.E.A.R has been raging for years, generations in fact. The war stretched back as far as anyone could remember. Children were left homeless orphans, cold and hungry as they were left in the streets. Parents were left in the dusty streets. All because they didn’t conform to the regulations that the new government had set in place. The rules were so strict that even people complained that we were no better than the robots we had long since destroyed. This happened way before any of us were born. We are children of war. We don’t know any different. We know nothing other than tears and bloodshed. We are one heartbeat, one life. We just did not know it yet. We were ignorant to that fact until half of our population was dead or dying. Normalcy was not a subject the world was used to. It had never been used to normalcy. It had been constantly changing and growing since Pangea, the supercontinent. They were still pulling out of conflicts caused by a president who will go down in infamy as one of the most hated presidents in the history of America. No one thought to make an attempt on his life. Many people talked a big game but all of them were too cowardly to actually do anything about it. That was until the president was killed by a man named William. He and his Shadows killed the president to take over for themselves. I sat inside an old cathedral. It was wood and stone, mostly crumbling and beautiful. The stained glass windows were broken for the most part but the desert sun spilled through the unbroken glass splattering colors on the golden dirt ground. I moved like I was on broken glass. My back never to the door for long. I was scared of being tracked down by my old boyfriend and his Shadows. I had betrayed him and the cause we had worked for. That and the cathedral was off limits for F.E.A.R was always watching. They were especially watching me, for I had been one of them once way back when I strayed from the light of the Wild Ones and had believed in the power of F.E.A.R. The cathedral was on the outside of a run down Los Angeles. I learned from war lessons that Los Angeles was a bustling city and was a major hub for F.E.A.R supporters. Los Angeles was one of the first major cities to be taken over. Los Angeles, then Seattle, Washington D.C and Cleveland were in the first wave. Slowly other cities feel to the power of F.E.A.R. When they, F.E.A.R, were found out to be a pretty bad group in their own right, a group of rebels formed. Their name was unestablished until F.E.A.R deemed the rebels “The Wild Ones” after their wild and unpredictable nature. I was apart of them as soon as I learned of their plans to kill off anyone with special powers. Let me pause for a second and talk to about F.E.A.R for those of you who somehow stumbled upon this story by accident and I hope you stay until the end. I hope I make it to the end, to be honest. I guess the both of us will see who makes it farther, me or you. Last one to the last sentence is a goner. They’re the one who avoided and probably read the most spoilers. They’ve probably even see some awesome fanart. I really hope that there’s fanart of me. I don’t want to become one of those stories. I want to have a cult following and everything. I don’t want to be forgotten. I normally came to this cathedral to pray and meditate. Though, I never really took in the beauty of the run down place I came to on a weekly basis. I had been coming here once a week for most of my life. This was the only place where I truly felt comfortable with myself. I wasn’t overly conscious about my weight or appearance when I came here. It’s not unlike the US government to make everyone’s life a little bit worse. Some of us were rightfully pissed. Others turned to the church set up by the government. Those who turned to the church ended up seriously messed up. The whole church was just a set up. They brainwashed people and spit them out into the world. Those who were brainwashed had a mission. A mission to brainwash and control other people. The church controlled the whole government. People were just too blind to see what was really going on in the world. The human race was clearly fucked up. The president of the United States of America was going batshit. He mocked disabled people. He was clearly a misogynistic asshole. He was homophobic and transphobic. He lead the entire country to hate instead of love when just a few years early gay marriage was legalized. The president was just so aggravating and terrible. The whole world was fucking crushed. The US president brought our world to its knees. I had been taught by one of the Wild Ones. A man who went by the name of Mystic. I called him Jinxx and he had allowed me to harness my elemental powers safely, even if he only knew how to control fire. Fire was the easiest one to learn as Mystic was a good teacher. Luckily, I had learned one of the more dangerous of my powers first. Then the Prophet, a pretty douchey guy by the name of Andy, taught me how to control my seeing powers. Now I was on a whole new watchlist for F.E.A.R. I was never put on any kind of wanted list or anything, but I knew that I was being watched. Being this far away from base with my warpaint on was dangerous. My warpaint wasn't subtle to say the least. It consisted of red and gold feathers that extended from the middle of my forehead all the way and into my hairline. A mask covered everything from my forehead and down to my top lip. It was an old bird masquerade mask that we had picked up on one of our raids. One of the people on the raids had said that the mask suited my fiery personality and said I should take it for my own. So, I did and it became apart of my persona ever since. My life as a Wild One definitely wasn’t very conventional. I’ll admit to that fact almost immediately. I started off basically on the other team in my first few years of life. Then I was taken to the other side of the war. Eventually, by my own will and someone else’s, I was pulled back to the other side. From there, I bounced back to the other side and that’s where I am right now. From there on, I was being watched for any time that I was alone. I was sure that I would be pulled back to the “evil” and “terrible” side sooner than later. I’m not essentially evil or immoral. My “magic” isn’t evil or immoral. It’s just shades of grey instead of black and white. I have done evil or immoral actions in my life. Every human has done those types of actions in their lives. Does allowing a singular evil or immoral act to consume your life evil or immoral? Welp, that depends on the human being asked. I do believe that does make a person evil or immoral. If you let those feelings of guilt consume you, you become evil and immoral. I sat down in a dusty and old oak pew who’s hinges groaned in disgust as I sat down. I looked at the man people called Jesus in the old times. I dropped my bag of people on the floor. I looked over at the room and sighed lightly. I smiled and looked at the stained glass windows. What if there was a huge city here once? One with more churches like this. One with more freedoms and more rights given out. A world where America was actually a good country. I wouldn’t know if it would have been the best for me, living in the past, but I knew it was good for some people. I just felt bad that I had to fight for these rights. I sighed and looked down and picked up a bible from the back of the pew in front of me. “‘The kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you. Not in a mansion of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and God is there. Lift a stone and you will find God.’ It honestly sounds like a bunch of bullshit. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone actually believed in this stuff. Like really believed in it. So much so that they went to this place to worship their gods. I guess not considering that the world almost at its end. Maybe they did and they watched the world end as they prayed for the world not to end.” I got up and brushed off the dirt my ruined leather jeans and walk away, leaving the book. I hurried back and pick up the book, taking it with me. I had changed my mind, it might turn to be useful later. I don’t know how it would be useful to any of the Wild Ones, but it just might save our lives one day. It wasn’t like we needed to be saved from anyone other than F.E.A.R. But, F.E.A.R was just a concept made to confine the United States citizens and other select groups in the world. This book might allow for the Wild Ones to gain some knowledge for F.E.A.R. F.E.A.R was a construct created by the angry cheeto known to some as the forty fifth president. His name has been wiped clean of anyone who was there to see his term as president. We choose not to remember what he did because it was just that abominable. He was not our president, he was a way to get F.E.A.R into power. He let them take over and he let them start a war on us. He saw when we were at our most vulnerable. Then he launched his carefully thought out plan to exterminate us. He may have seemed very dumb at the time. He went on twitter rants and made obscene comments. Yet, he was much more cunning than the rest of us gave him credit for. He was the most cunning man to grace this earth, other than Hitler. You must give both men credit where credit was due. They were cunning man who knew how to manipulate people. If you could manipulate people, you could have anything you wanted. From a strategic standpoint, both men were utter geniuses. This doesn’t excuse their behavior at all. Yet, many people only look at what horrible actions they took. If only they looked at their actions like actual war. The games that they played with actual human beings. Instead, they thought of them were pawns. All humans were in their minds were pawns. They were just a bunch of chess pieces to them. As a matter of fact, humans are still pawns. They are the pawns of their religion, their beliefs, their values and their moral codes. They will never truly be free minded humans. Feebleness is not a weakness as some might lead others to believe. Every person has a weakness that they won’t show to others. Some mess up and their weakness gets them in trouble with the laws set up by society. Pedophiles and caregivers to non-age regressing littles are weak for little children and have an innate desire for sex with young children or those who act like little children. Rapists are weak for non consensual sex with other people. Serial killers have a weakness for their untreated mental illness which bring them to kill or just kill even though their mental health is in wonderful condition. Others have more physical constraints to them. Some people suffer from arthritis in certain joints. Others suffer from less serious mental illnesses. Either way, we will be tested, not only on our physical capabilities, but our mental ones as well. In high school, people always talk about grade point averages and test scores. The higher a person ranks, the more likely that person will have a better life. More opportunities are set before these people. They are allowed to live the high life if they so choose to take it. The lower scoring people are looked down upon. They are given the jobs no one else wants. But that does not mean that people can rise and fall in ranks. Scandals and miracles happen all of the time. This all depends on the person’s willingness to move forward in life and the laziness of the people who are accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle. I trudged back to the flattened city, my legs paining me with every step. My legs were so sore and they had been for nearly three weeks. I had taken the hike back to the compound like this almost every day. Sometimes I would have someone accompany me with a set of wheels. Then we would make our way back in record time. I had had enough energy to essentially fly myself here, but my powers in the element of air were pretty weak. They drained me if I used them for long. Too long essentially means like five seconds and that is quite depressing. I needed more training with my wings but Jinxx was never free. He always had some other trainee in the room with him. So now I had to walk ten miles back to the town square with a constant fear of being captured. It’s not like I would get captured on my way back home, it was just another fear of mine. Fear is what had always controlled me. I turned and looked over my shoulder as I looked at him. I just had to make sure that I was alone. It wasn’t like I was paranoid or anything. But I just needed to. I kept walking and sighed lightly. I wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. I didn’t need to be here anymore. I wasn’t meant to meant to be here and I knew it. I didn’t need to be here. I smiled and looked down lightly. I sat down on the hot sand and looked up. It reminded me of the day Andy picked me up. One day I was reminded of very often. Especially here in the desert so near to when I was found. ~ The hot afternoon sun beat down upon his back. Andy moved closer and closer to the funeral pyre. Ashley stood behind him, his chocolate brown eyes wide in fear and wonder. The pyre still smoked and it seemed like it had gone up in flames only a few hours before. Andy slowly moved closer to the skeleton of a Shadow. Its cloak and clothing had burned easily as cloth was always the first to go when lit on fire. The air stank of burning flesh. Andy pulled a bandana over his face and moved even closer. The skeleton moved slightly and Andy pulled back, holding out an arm to stop Jinxx from moving any closer to the skeleton. All of the kids were between ten and seventeen. “I have to investigate Andy. You know how important this discovery is to my research.” Jinxx held up his ripped up black leather journal and a stubby pencil. Andy shook his head and Jake pushed forward. Ashley stopped him and CC sat on the ground, pulling out a bag of M&Ms and munching on them. Andy looked back at CC with a fire in his eyes. CC rolled his eyes and stowed the M&Ms away. He slowly stood up and glanced over at Jinxx who gave CC a nod and a knowing glance. CC took this as permission to keep eating his candy, so he opened his bag back up and began munching on the candy once again. CC sat down again and a plume of soft dirt flowed up behind him. “I don’t give a crap about your freaking research Jinxx.” Jinxx gasped, astonished by Andy’s language. CC smiled and leaned back, taking in the sun on his, at the time, pale face. Jake moved up and behind Jinxx. Andy nodded and let Jinxx move forward. Andy watched on as Jinxx leaned over the Shadow. He checked over the skeletal figure and poked at it with his pencil. Flesh clung to the figure like wet clothes to a person after a long storm. The fire must have been put out before the skin had been completely burned off. Most of the skin was charred and it was next to impossible to see what age, race and gender the Shadow was originally. Jinxx was launched back in fear when a ten year old rose out of a pile of ashes underneath the Shadow’s stomach. “Who am I? Where am I?” A young girl said. She had raven black hair, one baby blue eye and another flame orange eye. She was tall and lanky. She was crying, the tears on her face sparkling in the desert sun like diamonds. CC stood up and slowly walked towards the girl. Jake pulled a First Aid kit out of Jinxx’s sack, which Jinxx had dropped when he went to go investigate the Shadow. Andy watched on as the rest of his team went into action, pulling the girl into a standing position. They looked over her, checking for any injuries. Andy moved closer and closer, eventually he was standing near her. The girl smiled at him as Ashley pulled her hair back. “She’s got a tag!” Ashley said, urgently. Everyone crowded around her neck. There were a few numbers tagged onto her neck, almost burned like a brand. Those letters and numbers called her to a place, location, owner and date. The date was too hard for anyone to read as it had been burned off. “HOT dash CLE dash SHA dash FIV. The rest is burned off. We don’t know a date.” Tags were always written in three letter code. HOT meant hotel, CLE meant Cleveland, SHA meant Shadow and FIV meant five or the fifth month of the year, May. Dates were everything in this kind of branding. That was when a slave or Shadow was born. That determined when they could be sold off to other pods. Pods were basically small forms of people put under the watch of a voice of F.E.A.R. Shadows and slaves were then sold off to other pods and constantly shifted around. ~ I kept moving and sighed to myself. Nothing else would work and I would be missed. If I dropped and never came back, someone would know. My body dropped and I sat on the hot sand. Someone would come for me. I was the most valuable asset to the Wild Ones. I was their last hope for any kind of salvation. Andy said I was some sort of angel fallen from heaven. That I had fallen when I was a baby because whoever was up there dropped me. That I was meant to save them. I didn’t know how true that was. Rumors swirled that he needed me to be an angel because he was losing support. That he needed me to make his support from other people grow stronger. I didn’t want to believe the rumors either. I didn’t want to think about him being a liar. Or at least, him deceiving me all of these years. I wanted to believe the memories he gave me. I wanted to believe in him, a prophet. I really did and he never seemed to want to be able to give into what actually happened. I sighed as I stood up and kept walking towards the city. Someone was bound to notice my absence. I had been gone half the day. Andy was sure to notice my absence. I turned and began working on my way back. The sand hit my eyes, making me tear up, and I pulled some goggles over my eyes. I smiled and looked down. I was heading home. I was heading back to the only home I ever knew. I only knew this home. I smiled and looked over at the city. It was gorgeous from way out here. I smiled and looking at him. I looked down a bit. I smiled and looked at him, the city. He smiled at me. I was amazing and I knew that much. I was this city’s savior. The only one who could save anyone. I walked and walked. I was miles away from the city. My absence would sure to be noticed. I was going to be noticed as soon as I got home. My feet pounded on the hard ground as I looked around, nothing to be see for miles. The sand hit my face as the wind picked up. A sandstorm was on its way. I needed to get home soon. I was going to be caught in the storm. I turned and looked at the city. It was getting closer to me. The city looked at me as I sighed I did the same. I was going home. The wind kicked up as I pulled my goggles closer to my eyes. Sand was already pushing into my eyes. I sighed and looked down lightly. Tears filled my eyes as I tried to get the sand that had entered my eyes out of them. My pace picked up as I began to jog back to the compound. I was still a few miles around and I would take awhile to get home. I sighed and kept jogging. I jogged all the way home, hoping that no one would miss me. I walked past the receptionist and smiled, knowing she wouldn’t complain about the dead body smell or look. I put the bodies back into their animated state and they began to move around freely. I never kept my friends dead for long. They were my favorite people and they willingly died for me every once in awhile when I had to do a mission. Luckily they were cool about maybe being dead for a few hours to a few weeks. “What’s up with us staying dead for like a few days? That rigor mortis shit really fucking hurts.” Chris came out of his room and smiled lightly as he stretched. “It’s not my fault that the police took three days to come find me. It’s not like my phone was fully charged that entire time. Not like we set up near an outlet or anything.” I smiled and giggled as I looked at Chris. Vinny walked out of his room and smiled at me, sitting across from me at the table. We had gutted the whole top floor of the apartment, much to our amazement as we thought that the landlord would shut down, and now I lived here with ten other men. “Chris, you should go shower. You smell like death.” Vinny pinched his nose and giggled lightly. I smiled and looked at him, nodding lightly. “Of course, but you need to shower after me.” Chris smiled and looked at Vinny as he nodded. I turned and looked at the maps spread out across the table. I smiled and played another pin in the map, right where the school was. “How was the mission, did you kill Justin?” Andy leaned on the door frame of one of the old apartment buildings. I smiled and looked at him, nodding lightly. I produced the badges from my back pocket. I smiled as Andy took the badges. His hands moved lightly as I giggled lightly, proud of my accomplishment. He nodded and looked at me, heading back into his room. "Hey, good job on the mission." Ashley looked at me and smiled lightly, patting my shoulder lightly. I smiled and blushed lightly. Getting praise from Ashley was possibly the best part of doing any mission. I thought he was super cute and I had developed a small crush on him. He smiled and looked down at me. "Thanks." I smiled and looked at him, he smiled and looked at me. I broke eye contact and looked over the maps. What would be the next mission? Who would I take down next? "I think you need to take a break from doing missions." He looked at me and smiled lightly, touching the small of my back, electricity shot up my spine. A blush creeped up to my cheeks. "No, no I don't. I want to take up another mission. A lone mission." I turned and looked at him, bouncing on the balls of my feet lightly. He shook his head and crossed his arms. Ashley tapped his foot and bit his lip as he looked over the map. He clicked his tongue a few times, eyes scanning the California map. "I know taking down F.E.A.R means a lot to you but, I don't think that you need to go on any more missions. I mean, look at you, you need to at least eat." He looked me over and sighed. I rolled my eyes and sighed lightly. He was right and I couldn't deny it. I definitely hadn't eaten in a few days. "I'll at least eat, do we have any food in the house or do I have to make a grocery run?" I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. "You need to make a grocery run." Ashley raised an eyebrow, smiling lightly as I nodded lightly and smirked a bit. I ran into my bedroom and grabbed a black down jacket. A grocery run basically meant that I was going to go to a Target or somewhere else that sold food and necessities. Someone else would accompany me and I would take as much as possible. Normally Ashley would accompany me. We would stuff my coat and pockets with food. Most time we would go during the morning, when there were less people there. We would only take what wouldn't get us dinged at the security scanners. But we had found other ways out, like the emergency exits. A few employees would help us a bit but those were the people who hated working at the stores. Ashley and I had a lot of fun doing these "raids". "Ready to go?" I asked, coming out of my room and smiled. Ashley nodded as he finished tying his hair back into a bun. CC came out of his room and smiled, looking us over. "Going on a raid?" He asked as turned towards the fridge, opening it up. I heard his stomach growl as I looked at him. I smiled and looked at him. He shrugged and looked at me. "Yeah, might have want to let me answer that before you opened up the fridge." I laughed and looked at him lightly.  CC walked over to me and looked at me. "Can I come with you then? Pick up a bit of food for myself?" CC asked as I prepared to go out on the raid. I smiled and looked at him, finishing up my job. "Of course you can come with us, the more fingers the better." I smiled and looked at him. He smiled and nodded, throwing on some sandals and heading out with us.

[sending-the-message]

My friend has been living in an alternate reality - (Part 2) by Mr_Outlaw_

So, it’s currently morning. I didn’t expect to get much sleep last night and I didn’t. We just picked up some breakfast. Clint’s been eating like an animal. Guess I can’t blame him, though. But I don’t want to get off topic. He followed up by describing a rough layout of the world beyond that island:

By his account, oceans made up 85% of the surface. There were only two continents. Well, there used to be three, but one was essentially annihilated and made unlivable by a previous world war. There were also islands scattered throughout, ones like Dusk Blue. The two remaining continents were known as “Neo-Civitus” and “Heaven's curse.” I’ll discuss the latter first. Clint estimated that he’d spent around two months there - but that’s another story. To put it simply, it resembled an apocalyptic shitshow, with the vast majority of it being a desert wasteland. “If you thought Dusk Blue sounded bad, this shit was something else entirely.” Clint explained. Apparently the life expectancy for children born there was around 6 human years. The places where people lived ranged from lawless zones controlled by warlords to totalitarian fortresses and everything in between. It had a total population of 17 billion living in an area about twice the size of Russia. And those were only what we would consider to be humans. The place was also filled with some of the most incomprehensibly horrific things he’d seen. Any place that wasn’t occupied by a majority of humans was simply referred to as “Oblivion”. If you went out into those places alone, you may last 5 minutes at most.

Now, the creatures that dwelled within oblivion were a bit tough to explain. Clint’s experiences with them were limited. However, he’d heard that people had stopped trying to label them all. There were simply too many. He told me about some of the more infamous ones:

Harbingers

These were giant winged monstrosities with sharp spikes protruding out of every inch of its body. You could barely see their skin, and even the heads was mostly covered. These things were massive, about the size of a large shuttle bus. It was rumor that the spikes coming out of their skin put them in constant agonizing pain. Because of this, they were in a constant state of rage, slaughtering anything that moved. They were called Harbingers because whenever one arrived, many others were soon to follow. That meant unavoidable mass-scale death and destruction. These things weren’t easy to kill, and people had to prepare.

Butcher knights

Nobody really knows what these are. A theory floating around was that they were members of an ancient order of knights that had been condemned by some otherworldly being. They were now forced to roam Heaven’s curse for eternity, searching for human flesh to eat. Yes, they ate people. In appearance, they were ten-foot tall humanoids covered head to toe in crude black armor, resembling that of a traditional knight. Upon close inspection, it almost seemed as if the armor was welded to their skin, which appeared to be rotting. They’d attack human outposts with extremely large, rusted pikes and axes. If the initial blow didn’t kill you, the ensuing infection sure would. Fighting them one-on-one wasn’t an option, as they could easily overpower multiple humans at once. Steam cannons had to be used to take them out.

Weeping infernos

These were also humanoid in nature, except for the fact that they were always covered in fire. They rode on top of unidentifiable creatures. They almost looked like horses, expect for the fact that they had six legs and ran at ludicrious speeds. It's unclear if the riders are physically attached to the creatures, as they seem to have their own legs, but have never been seen to dismount. The way that they kill is actually not what you'd think. While the constant stream of flames that burst out of their bodies was certainly a cause for concern, a bigger problem was their persistent, ungodly shrieks. If you got too close to them, your brain would eventually explode. That's where they got their names from.

The Hunter

This was a rare one. People were unsure if there was only one of these... or if there were more. This stems from the fact that it only ever appeared by itself. But that didn't mean it was easy to deal with. Supposedly, this thing was seemingly indestructible - until proven otherwise, that is. But so far, nobody's made a dent in it. However, it was only really pursuing one thing - the strongest entity in the surrounding area. Somehow, it could sense them. That meant the more settlements would try and protect their most capable fighters, the more people would die when the Hunter tried to get to them. Eventually, communities would just give them up and hand them over whenever it came around. They'd fight each other and the Hunter would always win. Most reports of its appearance may have been falsified, since so little people have actually seen it. However, the most agreed upon one was a being more than triple the size of a butcher knight. It had no legs, but about twelve arms that it used to attack and move. Its hands were large, covered in a caustic liquid and could grab a human, simultaneously crushing and dissolving them in seconds. It also apparently had no face, just a large mouth filled with sharp black teeth on its torso.

Ultimately, these only scratched the surface. Heaven's curse was like the ocean, mostly unexplored and the vast majority of creatures still undiscovered. This was probably good. However, these weren't the only things that the inhabitants had to worry about. There was also a perplexing phenomenon that seemed to plague everybody who lived there. Nobody could explain it away, nobody could identify the source, and nobody even knew what to call it. They just accepted it.

A good parallel for this in our reality would be the "Glitches in the matrix" some people experience. On Heaven's curse, you could be simply walking around before getting disoriented for a second. When you'd come to your senses, you'd find yourself standing outside the civilization you were just in. Out in Oblivion. People also claimed to see things that weren't there, hear things that didn't have a source, and be having conversations before realizing that there was nobody in front of them. One of the most extreme cases were times where everybody around you would stop in place, have all their heads twist to look directly at you, and then their lips would stretch ear-to-ear in the most horrific grin you'd ever seen. After a couple of seconds, everything would go back to normal. Nobody would say that they'd ever even remember doing so. This happened to Clint once.

You may be wondering how there could still be a constant population of 17 billion, considering all of this. Well, there was one thing that people living there didn't have to worry about. That was sustenance. Now, Clint admitted that the food they had to eat wasn't very good, but it WAS abundant. The bark on trees were nutritionally dense, rain came regularly and didn't have to be boiled to drink, and various - albeit strange looking root vegetables could be grown almost everywhere, with shortages being unheard of. Additionally, these medium size insects called "Salvators" were rampant all around. But they were never a nuisance, never seemed to spread disease, and if cooked, could be used as a great source of protein.

That's why there were so many people. Children were being bred at a torrid rate. Emotional connection to your offspring wasn't really a thing, and the ones that survived attacks by the Oblivion creatures could be trained to deal with subsequent assaults. Since food wasn't an issue, the more there were, the better chances a settlement would live on. However, the population always seemed to even itself out.

The climate was also favorable. While the north and south ends of the continent had extreme temperatures, nobody really lived there. In fact, nobody knows what lives there. The rest of it could probably be compared to Australia - pretty hot, but still livable. There were no seasons, and the sky was perpetually covered in what looked like an orange haze, so sunburn wasn't an issue.

With that said, everybody still wanted to get the hell out of there. The quality of life was still absolute shit. They all wanted to reach Neo-Civitus, which they nicknamed "Heaven's Promise". And that was pretty much impossible, given the fact that they were separated by as much ocean as the geography would allow.

Now, Clint had never actually been inside Neo-Civitus. He’d only heard about it and read descriptions. Supposedly, it was only a tenth the size of Heaven’s curse, and it was named after the only city on the entire continent. Clint said that a physical description of the place would be akin to Manhattan on steroids. A mega-city that was host to a population of 275 million. It was a continuous stretch of brilliant buildings and skyscrapers that lit up the night. It was also a functioning society. People had jobs, could start families, and could engage in recreational activities. Nobody had to worry about anything beyond shit like taxes and public opinion. "It sounded like the rat race all over again" Clint exclaimed.

While the area outside the city limits was still somewhat hostile, it was nowhere near the extent of Heaven's curse, or anywhere else for that matter. Besides, there was a monumental metal-based wall about 400 meters tall surrounding the entire place. There were also heavily armed military personnel called "Apex Officers" guarding it. In fact, a lot of it was comprised of the enhanced soldiers guarding Paradise X. These two places actually had an agreement where a portion of the X-Soldiers would be flown from Dusk Blue to Neo-Civitus in exchange for firearms. And yes, they were the only ones who had access to air-travel. They were also widely believed to be the sole producers of guns and ammunition. Resources were scarce in this world, and most of them were on Neo-Civitus. The few other resource rich islands around the world were essentially picked dry by recon teams sent by the government. This was that world's only superpower. They called all the shots and went unopposed in doing so.

However, there was one thing that they did have to worry about. You see, there was one thing that Neo-Civitus had in common with everywhere else - the sky. It was always cloudy. Nobody could come up with a tangible explanation of why. It was always just like that. "Well, that's just what those people think." Clint remarked quickly. Strangely, he didn't elaborate on that. That's when I really noticed how weird he'd been acting the whole time he'd been telling me this. There was an increasing urgency in his tone. Anyhow, he went on. Apparently there was a legend of sorts that had permeated every community all around that world. When the day comes where the clouds finally part, true Armageddon will soon come to fruition. And nobody could stop it.

I'd been so caught up in this that I'd forgotten I actually had work that day. My boss had texted me in the morning, telling me I had to come in later, just for a few hours. I was already late.

"Shit." I told Clint. "Look, I gotta run to work quickly. Uh... just stay here, alright? Don't go anywhere. I'll bring back some pizza or something."

He responded almost instantly. "Yeah, do what you gotta do. I'll be here." He said this in the same urgent tone he'd been using before. However, I didn't think anything of it.

I'm currently at work now, but I can't focus on anything. There were still too many things that Clint had left unexplained. I need to figure it out. I need to know.

EDIT:

I just came back and he's gone. I was somewhat afraid of this. It seems that he took a bunch of perishable rations, a few sets of my clothes, a laptop, and some cash. However, I did find something on the kitchen counter. It was an old, crusty journal covered in dirt and blood stains. There was also a sticky note attached to it. This is what it read:

"I'm sorry James. You've always been of the few people that I could actually bear talking to. Maybe you'll understand eventually. This journal should answer some of the questions that you still have. In the meantime, there's something that I need to do. Bye for now - Clint. PS: I'll pay you back sometime. You know I will. :)"

I smiled at that. It was true. He'd always kept his word. Deep down, I knew that he wasn't going to stay here forever. He just wasn't that kind of guy. Whatever he's doing... I hope he succeeds. In the meantime, it looks like I'm going to have some reading to do. Let's see what this is really all about.

[andrewuttaro]

Why should I be a sports fan?

I’ve been writing this article for years. I’m not kidding. I have been asking myself this question for at least five years. I’ve struggled to frame this question in a compelling yet personal way for a while. As much as watching and consuming sports had become a big part of my life it provided so much pain along the way. Then sports were taken away from us earlier this year. In a way so rare and normally reserved for labor disputes, the global pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) caused the whole sports world to go on haitus. It’s insensitive to put this loss as anything but minor next to the tremendous human toll of a once-in-a-century contagion so let’s start by saying are just entertainment. Even if it’s your livelihood you are probably aware deep down that you work in the candy shop.

That said what we decide to entertain ourselves with says a lot about us. As much as we view Ancient Rome as the jewel of antiquity these were also depraved people who used gladiatorial, often genocidally-oriented slaughter as their entertainment. In a non-pandemic world the deepest conversation in the sports world is probably how much violence should we tolerate. Not having any sports to consume allowed me to go into the deeper question of why should I be a sports fan at all?

I’m soon to finish Graduate School with an education to work in government so you don’t need to tell me there are more important things then sports. But that is really part of the why isn’t it? Sports is an escape but also a function of all that chaos in the broader world. Sports are not separate from politics, in many cases sports only exist because of politics. On the other hand, they should be an expression of depth. At its best sports express the depth of human flourishing: our yearnings, our joys, our sufferings, our need for togetherness. The poetry is warranted: sports helps humanity process the ups and downs of our own existence. Then again, it’s also really, profoundly stupid. Need I remind you of the butt fumble?

I was a giant nerd for the first decade and a half of my life. I still am now really but the classical definition of being a nerd precludes loving sports as much as I do. My family had always paid attention to World Cups and even club soccer on a casual level. My family had gone to a hockey game here or there but if I told you I was aware of the Buffalo Sabres President’s Trophy Campaign in 2007 I would be lying to you. My true sports life begins in 2011 watching the NHL playoffs with my dad. Those memories are precious to me. He probably would’ve preferred I get into the real sport of the family: American Football.

None of us actually played Football but like many American families mine gathered around the television on Sunday afternoons to watch the NFL. If it wasn’t the nearby Buffalo Bills it was my father’s Kansas City Chiefs, or my sister’s Philadelphia Eagles, or my uncle’s Oakland Raiders, or my mom’s whatever-team-Peyton-Manning-is-on. Football didn’t really capture my heart until last year and the likes of one Josh Allen, but it was always a part of my family life. Sports weren’t an interest of mine until those early 2010s Stanley Cup playoffs with my dad. I am hooked on hockey to this day.

I suppose many of you reading this can see your own story in similar terms. If you’re a lifelong fan of a team you probably have a full journey of ups and downs, wins and losses, joys and pains to look back on. I have far more pains to share than joys. I have been provided with so much pain in this decade of being a sports fan that I questioned: Why should I be a sports fan anyway? Why bother? If it gives me pain do I really need that in my life? On a deeper level most people who own sports teams are the worst kind of degenerate fat cats. I would feel less comfortable making that generalization if it weren’t true 80% of the time. Just take a deep dive into stadium and arena financing and you’ll agree with me before sundown tomorrow.

As stupid as the real-life ramifications of the sports industry are they reflect our own societal ills. The Ancient Romans hated foreigners and religious dissidents, so their entertainment was feeding those groups to tigers. In modern America we deify the wealthy so we let them walk all over our local governments to get tax breaks for giant stadiums we can chill at. The off-the-field stuff really grinds my gears, can you tell? Long before social distancing was in the everyday lexicon all these issues with sports in general made me seriously fumed on a regular basis. Then a Superbowl changed my thinking.

My dad’s Kansas City Chiefs won Superbowl 54. Ironically they did it against my father-in-law’s San Francisco 49ers. The Chiefs won the Superbowl fifty years after winning their only other championship in Superbowl four. My father, not even ten years old at the time, was entranced for life after that game. A fun rivalry with his cousin’s Raiders made it his team among other sports he loved. He went ahead and suffered through fifty years of Chiefs football which, the more I learn every day: really sucked for a long time. Five decades of suffering only magnified the joy of the eventual return to the mountaintop. The journey through thick and thin was a companion that my dad takes pride in. Recently he expressed some relief to me that the Superbowl the Chiefs finally won wasn’t cancelled by Coronavirus. After five decades of frustration I can see why.

Then I wondered if my dad was a sucker. The Hunt family who own the Kansas City Chiefs have bankrolled half the American Sports world. Their hand is in decades of American sports including being one of two guys keeping Major League Soccer afloat twenty years ago. The Hunts are one of a handful of people who can be considered the kingpins of this industry in North America. Was my dad just another one of their marks? Was I a mark for loving the Buffalo Sabres through their roughest decade in franchise history and still buying all the merchandise? Was all of Rochester, NY a mark for a beautiful experiment in the predatory world of American lower-division soccer called the Rochester Rhinos?

Well… Coronavirus happened, and those questions became silly next to images of mass graves and empty streets. That was the perspective it took for me to stop worrying about whether sports are some latent capitalist scheme to channel money from the middle class to the wealthy. Money goes where money comes. A healthy portion of social awareness is critical to be a good sports fan, but the off-the-field-stuff doesn’t undermine the spirit of the thing itself unless it REALLY does (I’m looking at you NYCFC letting fascists salute at your games). So what am I trying to say here? What am I going to wrap this up with: a feel-good message about how what really matters is the friends and experience we get along the way? Bonding with family and friends is the meaning of sports?

No, I’ll spare you that tired resolution today. I’m a campfire guy. I am no Boy Scout level camper, but the campfire is my jam: the campfire of shared experiences. Beyond family, religion, sports and a few common landmarks in our personal lives how many things really bring giant groups of humanity together? Like I’m talking about millions of people: what are things we all still share together as one whole? War I guess but if you find that fun in real life I am a little worried for your mental health. It just so happens I am something of a family man and a religious zealot. I just live for those things that bring humans together, the more the merrier!

In internet parlance the phrase is “concurrent viewers”. I’m a moth to the light for things we can all do together. I haven’t missed a Superbowl as far back as I can remember. And these thoughts are where I really found the answer to my question. Why should I be a Sports fan at all? In a time when we’re all craving human contact like I do as a part of my personality it reminds us what brings thousands and millions of us together is the glue of society. Glue is a fickle thing if you haven’t used it recently. It sticks and if you give it time it hardens into something almost inseparable. In these tough times healthcare workers, essential workers and the government are welding things together like sports once glued us together.

The metaphor isn’t perfect but my reason for sports is simple: it’s an us thing. It’s why we watch movies, eat certain places and go to certain live events when we’re not quarantined; we’re attracted to the things that bring us together. Okay, so maybe it is the friends-we-made-along-the-way argument, but I don’t hate that as much as I used to. Life is better together and living through a life-altering pandemic opens the mind to what that deeper, albeit corny truth really means. I’m a sports fan because I get to share it with others.

[deanmullenfilms]

A Red Pill: Most animal abuse is socially and legally accepted (But it’s not because people are evil)

According to uslegal.com “Acts of violence or neglect perpetrated against animals are considered animal cruelty” (US Legal 2016). And yet what is killing an animal in a slaughterhouse, could anyone suggest killing an animal is a non-violent act? And what is keeping animals locked inside in factory farm sheds for most of their lives, is that not neglectful? Of course, in reality these are examples of violence and neglect and few would argue otherwise and that is exactly why the same page as quoted above from US Legal’s website goes on to add that “Many animal cruelty laws specifically exclude accepted animal husbandry practices” (ibid). This is of course because it is necessary to make the livestock industry an exception to animal cruelty laws in order for it to work in a way sufficient to meet the demand for animal products in the modern era and especially in industrial nations where demand is highest. In order to meet this demand, a blatant disregard for the principle of what it is that defines animal cruelty must be largely and in some cases entirely embraced.

The fact animal cruelty laws and the principle that it is defined as violence or neglect inflicted on animals are negated in the cases of livestock farming and indeed that this is the norm throughout the entire world, we find ourselves in a situation where putting two and two together, it becomes abundantly clear that most of society and indeed the legal system itself is approving of and protecting animal abuse and therefore animal abusers. Stop and think about that for a moment; Considering that most animal products are the result of the inherently cruel practice of factory farming and that all animal products are the byproduct of violence and the killing of an animal who didn’t want to die (after all survival we agree is the most basic instinct of all animal life), ordinary, good, decent people are giving money to animal abusers and animal killers, every single day. Indeed for all animal abuse covered in the media in various forms (mostly concerning dogs), society expresses outrage at the abusers. Of course many of these cases are cases of more extreme and abhorrent violence, such as the beating of a dog. However, abuse is still abuse and even if that abuse is neglect and poor living conditions or even if the killing of an animal is relatively painless (which is definitely not always true – consider that more and more pigs are being put in to what are basically gas chambers across the western world), the sheer scale makes a lifetime of purchasing animal products responsible for far more animal suffering than the very people we despise who kick and beat dogs or cats. In essence, the vast majority of animal cruelty in the world results from the livestock industries and yet as society gives money to pay for this cruelty, society verbally attacks animal abusers of dogs and talks of how they love animals.

As children, we have a natural affinity for all animals and we more or less maintain this for dogs and cats, yet society wrongly teaches us to have minimal to no empathy for pigs, cows and chickens. We are taught that they are there for us, as a means to an end. We have objectified and de-personalized them almost entirely and a thought related to that point occurred to me recently, that the three animals’ people in the west refer to the most as a way to make fun of others while referencing animals are indeed pigs, cows and chickens. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It seems a reflection of the initial point I made regarding the objectification of these animals. It’s also clear that people have quite negative perspectives of these animals; maybe they’re ugly or disgusting or dirty or stupid and so forth. Of course some of these perceptions are just that, merely our perspective resulting from biological and cultural biases. To a pig, a pig is not ugly but because they are not so cute to most of us, we disregard their suffering. The idea of pigs, cows or chickens being stupid couldn’t be further from the truth. Pigs are the fifth most intelligent animal on the planet, noticeably smarter than dogs and are one of the few animals capable of passing the mirror-test. Cows and chickens alike can recognize faces, have strong attributes of emotional intelligence and can form specific bonds with other individuals, including humans. The reason I believe that society often perceive these animals in particular as stupid or disgusting and the reason I think they are referenced to the most out of all animals in making fun of other humans using such a reference is because people need to see pigs, cows and chickens in this light. They need to in order to feel okay about how they’re being treated. Just as society will mock vegans, society also appears to have a desire to de-personalize and objectify farm animals. Shoot the messenger and de-value the victims and then forget the truth; All in all, this is a coping mechanism for society to continue to pay for what is blatant animal abuse.

However, the cruelty of the livestock industry doesn’t end with killing or factory farm conditions; male calves are separated from their mothers by the dairy industry, often to be sold off and fattened for veal slaughter, many animals have been genetically modified to either grow too fast (chickens) that they often lead painful lives filled with risks including that of having broken bones which collapse under their own weight or egg-laying hens, bred to produce an excessive number of eggs than they would in nature in order to help meet consumer demand and as mentioned above, the growing prevalence of ‘co2 stunning’ of pigs, which is painful and extremely inhumane and yet more efficient, despite industry claims of it being humane or at least more humane. All in all, these industries are filled with abuse. Almost all animals farmed in the modern era fit the US Legal’s definition of animal abuse and similar definitions given elsewhere and yet most people pay for it and effectively give money to animal abusers, all around the globe, every single day. It’s been so normalized and people have been subject to such immense and immersive social conditioning alongside the constant stream of advertisements and pro-animal products sentiments persisting in governments and in educational information that it’s incredibly difficult to recognize this at first and yet undeniably, it is true. And who really benefits? These industries are killing animals, they’re killing the planet and they’re killing people. It’s the cliché; Corporations and those at the top are the ones who fundamentally benefit. This is why such animal abuse can exist without society being filled with evil people; society has been conditioned to see animals as objects and to associate animal products with being objects, making the real animal behind the product seem unreal and disconnected. It seems to some extent, people don’t fully ‘believe’ that factory farming and slaughterhouses exists. That may sound absurd but what is the psychological state of belief and how directly linked is it to being given the facts? If a society is conditioned so heavily to see animal products as simply something presented to us in stores and restaurants, this can shape our realities, to the point that even though people know consciously that animals are used to make their food, this conditioning makes such a reality, a little hazy and a dream-like breakaway from actual reality is feasible. Hence why a red-pill is needed. Images of factory farming are associated more with being something we come across on the internet or in a documentary than with something happening in our reality. It is my belief that if most people walked in to a factory farm or a slaughterhouse, people would feel very different. We are pushing our world to the brink of environmental catastrophe, we are creating the 6th mass extinction in the history of the Earth, we are enslaving, tormenting and killing 10s of billions of animals every year, we are damaging our own health and we are failing to recognize how these industries are filled with animal abuse, the very thing we as a society consider to be among the things we stand against the most. How is it that society can consider itself to love animals and to hate animal abuse and yet pay for so much, immense, large-scale animal abuse and far more in total amounts of suffering than is entailed in the underground dog fighting world or in any other illegal activities involving animal abuse?

[bnvupdates]

Virtual Reality & Documentary Filmmaking: What’s Next? Has Society Become Desensitized?

“What if I could present you a story that you remember with your entire body and not just with your mind?” asks journalist and virtual reality pioneer Nonny De La Peña.

When it comes to VR, science fiction, gaming, and simulated reality have the potential to really change up the way we experience entertainment as well as storytelling. De La Peña’s Ted Talk “The Future of News? Virtual Reality” centers around  the idea of creating an alternate or parallel reality to convey news through that is just as engaging as a video game, increasing the chance that immersive journalism will appeal to the ethos of the masses in a way never achieved before.

Unfortunately, the nature and format of today’s news broadcasts move too fast for VR technology to keep up with, as stories that unfold and are reported on might stay in the news cycle for a day or two at most. Creating an accurate, immersive experience can take weeks, meaning that this new form of journalism is going to have to cut its teeth on subject matter and issues that are more static before they can cater to the dynamacy of daily current events. Documentary filmmaking is a great medium to begin this journey, allowing for content creators to take their time and become immersed in issues themselves, so as to more accurately recreate and reconvey that immersion. Here are a few examples of, as well as possible caveats to, this revolutionary new platform.

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How “Real” Could It Be?

Nonny De La Peña’s quest to change the face of journalism really took off in 2012, when her piece titled “Hunger in L.A.” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. This was the first experience of its kind, recreating a situation in which a diabetic homeless man in an overcrowded foodbank line collapses from low blood sugar and begins seizing on the sidewalk.

“I wanted to do a piece about hunger,” says De La Peña in her Ted Talk. “Families in America are going hungry, food banks are overwhelmed, and they’re often running out of food. Now, I knew I couldn’t make people feel hungry, but maybe I could figure out a way to get them to feel something physical.”

She then shows people with VR goggles on, experiencing this immersive recreation. They have a wide berth of space to move around in, but all seem transfixed on the spot where they perceive the seizing man would be in their simulated reality. Some step around this spot gingerly, careful not to “step on” the virtual man. Almost universally, people reacted somewhat empathetically.

“…this kind of reaction ended up being the kind of reaction we saw over and over and over: people down on the ground trying to comfort the seizure victim, trying to whisper something into his ear or in some way help, even though they couldn’t,” says De La Peña. “And I had a lot of people come out of that piece saying, ‘Oh my God, I was so frustrated. I couldn’t help the guy,’ and take that back into their lives.”

The Empathy Machine, For Better or Worse

People like De La Peña hope that letting people experience the news instead of just reporting it to them will drive change via empathetic response. The recent hurricanes that have devastated Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico offer great examples of how this process could blossom. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have caused between $150 billion and $200 billion in damages, while Hurricane Maria crippled Puerto Rico, leaving many without food, water, or housing. While immersive journalism at its peak could have helped garner a more immediate response, critical help in all three of these areas will be needed for years to come. Social workers in particular “remain on the scene for months or even years after a traumatic event to assist members of the local population suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other trauma-related disorders,” according to Case Western Reserve University’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

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While it’s hard to measure the impact of documentary filmmaking beyond social media activity, people like De La Peña have proven that immersive experiences evoke empathetic responses. The logical conclusion would be that a higher amount of empathetic responses will result in further action beyond simply raising awareness, compelling people to act and help in whatever way they can. Unfortunately, some people worry that the use of VR as an empathy machine is played out, or even that it doesn’t create true empathy, but rather the “illusion of empathy”.

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Game developer Robert Yang recently published an argument against VR as an “empathy machine,” writing that “if you won’t believe someone’s pain unless they wrap an expensive 360 video around you, then perhaps you don’t actually care about their pain…  In this political sense, VR can’t actually offer any embodiment, transparency, or immediacy to anyone. At best, VR can only offer the illusion of empathy.”

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At worst, some believe, VR can create empathy that is misused or exploited. At 2017’s Tribeca Film Festival, the VR film Extravaganza explores this premise. Adi Robertson, writing for The Verge, explains:

“In Extravaganza, a media executive tries out the headset, which he’s been told is an ‘empathy machine.’ But all it plays are puppet shows full of (literally) balloon-breasted women and crude racial stereotypes, who are slaughtered — to the man’s amusement — by a monocled 19th century explorer. According to creator Ethan Shaftel, it critiques the way that a new medium can reproduce old forms of bigotry. “This puppet show was clearly made for people like him, by people like him, and it’s certainly not making the world any better,” said Shaftel. The technology might be new, but “this show’s already been made and programmed, and will never change.”

Society Desensitized

One of the worst possible outcomes of widespread VR in documentary filmmaking and journalism is that people may simply become desensitized to content which they would normally evoke empathy, due to overexposure to and even manipulative tactics in immersive media. Citizen journalism, for example, now utilizes video captured by those who have experienced current events to convey news from a bystander’s perspective. “Media outlets have begun to harness the unbridled power of citizen journalism by establishing social media profiles, engaging with their viewers and attempting to grow online communities,” writes Anastasia Passaris on the Clipchamp Blog.

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This is the same type of footage that was streamed live on Facebook, capturing the aftermath of Philando Castille’s fatal shooting in Minnesota, as well as the events unfolding during the devastating festival shooting by Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas. These user-shot videos containing violent, terrifying images, are becoming commonplace in social media feeds as well as on the news. Would further immersion help the average viewer truly understand how that situation felt? Or would these representations be treated as perverted facsimiles of sorts, that allow users to enter and experience those situations without having to level with the profound consequences and emotions that follow said experiences?

While it’s uncertain what type of impact VR journalism and documentaries will have, it is certain that people like Nonny De La Peña will continue to strive to steer the field in a positive direction. However, as VR movies and video games emerge that replicate immersive violence and hardship for the sake of entertainment, those waters could get muddy, further blurring the lines between what is “virtual” and what is “reality”. Nevertheless, this technology represents a way to share and remember experiences at a level never achieved before, bringing with it the potential to make the most connected societies in human history actually feel that way: connected.

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Author: Andy is a health, tech, and futurism enthusiast from the outskirts of the lush, Pacific Northwest. When he’s not writing, you can find him working on his latest audio mix, going on a run, or rolling d20s with friends. Follow him on Twitter @AndyO_TheHammer.

from http://ift.tt/2j5a1Qc

[philosophicalplantboy-blog]

Earthlings and Alternatives

Word Count: 1244

“Earthlings” is by no means an easy film to stomach, but it is an incredibly necessary one to watch. The grotesque movie depicts the harsh realities of animal treatment in today’s market system, with footage of people beating elephants and pigs as just a small example of the real life horrors documented. In an anthropocentric society where animals are regarded as mere tools, interchangeable with common household items whose only true purpose is to fulfill our needs, we often forget to consider what atrocities occur to give us such simple pleasures. So sets the stage for Shaun Monson’s 2005 documentary. Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, “Earthlings” shows us how animal treatment has devolved from respectful to outright soul-stripping. One of the more fascinating features of the film is its ability to draw parallels between speciesism and racism, something that was met with some mixed responses from my fellow peers following the film’s end. To compare animal rights to those of the Jews in the Holocaust is definitely bold, and controversial. However I found the comparison as enlightening as it was shocking. As a deep ecologist, I do recognize that animals are entitled to some level of fair treatment, and also acknowledge that whatever rights they have to any semblance of a normal life is stripped without any regard or consideration. Evidence to support such an understanding of animal rights can be traced to findings within cognitive ethology, which according to The Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy studies animal behavior to further support the fight for animals to be treated fairly due to their obvious abilities to interact and comprehend the world around them cognitively. The corporate system of factory farming is not only gross to watch, it's even more painful to imagine. By paralleling the treatment of animals to the treatment of humans, we are forced to consider the pain and suffering we allow to happen every day to millions of livestock. Just as the citizens who stood idly by as Jews and other minorities were stripped of their rights, we too are guilty participants of animal abuse by not doing anything about it while proactively contributing to it. After watching “Earthlings”, how can one possibly accept pet stores and puppy mills to continue to exist as they do? Even worse, how can we allow ourselves to purchase industry- produced meat knowing that animals are suspended upside down and painfully slaughtered while clearly in distress and pain? To even consider excusing our need for food as sufficient reason for factory farming when we have so many other means of creating food is both naive and selfish. In considering cognitive ethology, we can draw comparisons between animal and human development to recognize interspecies similarities that exist with how all organisms react to their environment. If we would not will a human to suffer at the magnitude of a concentration camp, who are we to bestow such similar punishment to undeserving animals?

A wonderful example of alternative means of creating food is the method of in-vitro meat as discussed in the short video “Meat the Future”. The film addressed that 10 billion animals a year in the US alone, according to the USDA, are killed for food. This number is echoed in the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) report, “The Welfare of Animals in the Meat, Egg, and Dairy Industries”; except it reports an additional billion animals are actually slaughtered to feed our country. Of that number, HSUS reports that 86 percent are birds, 116 million pigs and 35 million are cattle. Not only are these animals intelligent enough to be treated with far more respect, they also require an incredible amount of food and water to grow before slaughter, which puts only more serious strain on our environment. So what can we do to save these souls and still feed Americans? The answer lies in artificially grown meat. Rather than kill a cow to eat its meat, in-vitro meat utilizes the extraction of animal stem cells grown in labs to manufacture meat that is all muscle that requires far less energy, water and greenhouse emission to produce than raising entire animals. I find that this solution is much more logical than one such as moving animals back to smaller scale farms. While I can recognize the benefits to animal farming on a smaller scale such as no more need for antibiotics and a reduced number of livestock killed per year, it feels like a step back rather than a step further. I believe, as a deep ecologist, that the diversity of our planet is further enriched is we allow all living organisms to exist in ecosystems free of human interaction, since the quality of the individual species increases with what it is free to do as an active member of the greater sudo-organism that our planet. Another important thing to note is that while smaller scale farming does indeed reduce mistreatment of animals, who’s to say that every farm will treat all of its livestock the same as all other farms? Aside from this dilemma, the fact that in vitro meat requires so much less land, energy and food to produce makes it far more impactful in conserving the Earth’s resources.

Another equally necessary solution to solve America’s obsession with factory farmed foods is following the actions of Mercy for Animals and MTV in reaching out to the masses to wake them up from their glutinous slumber. In their Pro-Vegetarian Commercials, MCA and MTV combine tragic scenes of animals in abusive positions reminiscent of “Earthlings” with scenes of people purchasing the end result of their slaughter, only to be covered in the blood that they indirectly spill by contributing to an systemic yet barbarac system. What better way to reach the masses than to use our everyday media to focus us back to the overlooked events of the real world? By putting ourselves on a moral high ground over other living beings, we contribute to speciesism, showcasing our unfair actions within the biosphere of all living animals who possess some form of rationality even if is a sub-rationality. We can successfully call out the hypocrisy of our speciesism by following the example of MFA, MTV and the creators of “Earthlings” in reaching the minds of our younger, influential generations through media.

While I recognize that, as a meat eater myself who wears leather products and does not always check labels to ensure there were no animal tests, I am not one to be judge, jury and prosecutor in discussing the moral incorrectness of animal abuse to create daily goods, I do acknowledge my own failure to live up to the truly moral lifestyle that many others do. After this weeks’ readings and films though, I find myself believing that there is much more I can do to protest the injustice of animal shops, puppy mills and factory farms. My question is then, can we all truly advance our methods of meat manufacturing and goods synthesization to allow for animals to once again be treated with dignity and respect? Or are efforts to push for in vitro meat and vegetarianism fruitless due to the overwhelming dependence on mass food production and obsession with cheap meat within the states? Can in vitro meat really replace regular meat? Or will humans always prefer the real thing, regardless of the consequences? I ask myself these questions and leave them for time to tell.