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letterboxd · 4 years ago

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Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ H��WKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.

#don hertfeldt #world of tomorrow #it's such a beautiful day #animation #hand-drawn #hand drawn animation #2d animation #animated film #animated short #emily prime #david prime #science fiction #sci fi animation #animated sci fi #letterboxd

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monchikyun · 4 years ago

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04. The time of the hunter

There is blood on his hands, perfectly blue and cold, lacking a purpose that would be able to save it or its previous vessel. It had to be done, that thing… the machine lost its usefulness, therefore its elimination was only logical. Behaving contrary to its original programming, having those so-called independent thoughts and feelings, these errors were all caused due to malfunction, some kind of virus that had been born from within. Maybe it was planted there by its creator, for all that would make sense. But that isn’t important, obtaining information and figuring out why the androids were becoming defective doesn’t count as a part of his job.

He was created to kill. To incapacitate all infected androids, technically, though it isn’t what his programming tells him. A minute ago there was a blur of command prompts all screaming murder at him, forcing him to take a life. And no matter how many times he has been reassured that machines are not alive, can never be, he still doesn’t understand the gravity that information holds. Because what does it make him then, when he’s supposedly just a thing and yet, there is consciousness and something else that drives him forward, making him feel every ounce of the pain he inflicts. Why does he remember someone saying that he has the most beautiful soul the person has ever seen. None of this should be possible, since Connor is also just a string of computer data embedded in a mannequin made pretty.

When he turns around to confirm his mission was successful, there is nothing. It’s like there has never been anything at all, because he’s falling through an endless mass of darkness, waiting to crash, to finally make his amends. He thinks it will be over soon, that he’ll get what he deserves, but something… no someone manifests next to him.

“Hello Connor, do you remember me?”

He can never forget. The first one he saw die right before his eyes, without being able to help. There might have been a small child that survived thanks to his actions, but that certain memory is so weak he isn’t sure it happened at all.

“You’re name is…” It shouldn’t be this difficult to name the bleeding, distorted image of a lost soul. “Daniel?”

Connor must have joined him in his fall then, truly a fitting end to the deviant hunter.

This is how he dies, there is no doubt in his heart.

But it’s okay. The tears in his eyes are just a figment of his imagination since mere machines are unable to cry.

So why do they feel so... real.

“…nor.” Is someone calling his name?

“Hey, Connor.” The voice seems so warm and familiar, like it’s guiding him home.

He should be dead already.

“Please open your eyes.”

He was built to obey, so he does as he’s told.

As soon as the new world takes shape he realisese that none of the previous hours really took place. It was just another of the dreams that plagued his mind. The memories he collected twisting and morphing into his inner guilt.

“A nightmare again?” He’s safe now, and most importantly, not alone. And maybe that’s why he starts sobbing uncontrollably.

“C'mere.” Gavin takes him into a soothing embrace that manages to at least stop his trembling. He wishes it could erase the guilt and the self-loathing, that it could make him into something better, but not even the person he loves holds such power.

It has been over six months since he revolted against his initial programming and it still haunts him, mostly at nights, when he becomes most vulnerable to his own poison.

He doesn’t know how he would survive without the irrational detective, the only one who sees his for what he really is. An imperfect being with just as many flaws as anyone else.

He trusts every good thing the man says about him, unable to look past the sincerity in his eyes. Gavin is the only place where he can strip down to his bare self, raw and unadorned. The only one who he can show his tears to.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He never does and that’s how he got here in the first place, cracked beyond even his own recognition. Maybe he needs to put the ugly on display so it won’t become a part of who he really is.

He nods against the warm shoulder and takes one necessary breath.

“I… I was made to hunt down deviants,… among other things.” Gavin is probably aware of this piece of information, that’s why he doesn’t say anything.

“And sometimes it feels like I’m still that peers… machine, with no empathy towards... anyone. I’ve done things that I can’t take back and it’s… it hurts. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

Gavin pulls away from him, just a little, and moves up his head ever so gently, making their blurry eyes meet.

“I don’t think you ever truly were that emotionless machine, Con. Wouldn’t have made me that mad if that was the case.” It seems like a lifetime ago, the two of them acting like they despised each other. Funny where life can lead. He can’t help but smile a bit when a wonderfully human hand rests against his wet, overheated cheek while the other one is wiping the painful tears away.

“Maybe there was a time when your mission or whatever was to go after your people, but you've changed since then… the whole world has.”

The soft arms enveloped him again, plucking the ache away from his chest.

“Hell, what am I supposed to feel like after all the shit I did to you.”

He wants to repeat his words of forgiveness, but Gavin doesn’t give him the chance.

“Yes, I believe that you’ve forgiven me.”

“I have.” A muffled whisper leaves his lips into Gavin’s hot skin.

“So maybe it’s time to forgive yourself too. You’re not a hunter or a killer, Connor. You protect and care for others and that’s something you’ve chosen for yourself. Prove me wrong.”

Gavin’s right, of course he is. He tends to be in these kinds of situations.

So maybe the past will never go away, but the bitter aftertaste might fade, with enough time.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“That a promise?”

There’s no failure in trying, so he confirms with a small kiss planted on the man’s forehead. After all, he’d do anything to keep the good inside of him alive till the day he’s no more.

@convinseptember I hope it fits the theme somehow :D

#convinseptember #convin #I feel very soft about them rn #connor needs therapy #I can't type without misktakes it's been scientifically proven

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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago

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Meeting Bomg, Doom-Drone Legends from Ukraine

~Interview by Billy Goate~

Doomed & Stoned continues our week of epic interviews with a long overdue conversation with the great Ukraine doom-drone band BOMG, who have been desamating stages and blowing out amps since 2010. During that time, Nikolay Temchenko (guitar), Yuriy Temchenko (bass), and Anton Khomenko (drums) have put out two mammoth LPs, an EP, and a split.

I first got turned on to BOMG's sound with the record 'Polynseed' (2013), which released the year that Doomed & Stoned was founded. I recommend starting there if this is your first exposure to the mighty trio from Kyiv.

Bomg have been gradually drifting in the direction of full-on drone metal, executed in their own authentic and compelling way, as we're about to discover as we drill into 'Peregrination' (2020) -- which we reviewed last year and Robustfellow has recently reissued.

Give ear...

You state that BOMG means “vagabond” on your Bandcamp page. Can you elaborate on how the name ties in with the band’s history and core identity?

It’s an abbreviation literally meaning “with no particular place of living”. Funny thing is that its’ meaning is degraded in common use (like “bum”), but when it was incepted (60s – 70s in USSR) those who were stigmatized by it were better off going elsewhere than being part of the regime, taking it as a positive. This became somewhat of a short-lived movement even. We think that despite being prone to misunderstanding in every way, it fits the overall vibe. Blessing and a curse. But frankly, the name is a secondary thing at best.

How would you describe your distinctive sound, to someone who has never encountered it before?

Basically, trying to elaborate and add to “Black Sabbath spaghettified” idea. We try to squeeze out any possible amount of low frequency, volume, distortion and effect saturation to the instruments, not necessarily designed for it. As of similarities and influences, it’s 60s-70s heavy psych, proto-metal and proto-punk, 80s - 90s continuation of it (doom metal, stoner/desert rock, sludge, drone doom), besides that – dub, ambient, prog rock, experimental music, field recordings and whatnot.

Peregrination by Bomg

Your new album 'Peregrination' is an explosive bombshell, massive in every respect. When was the concept for the album born?

The first track was almost ready in 2011, we played it at our first show. As of concept, it started to take shape somewhere in 2013-2014, most of the lyrics were written back then. Then it took years to “grow.” First, we tried to make it so each track would fit one side of LP, but it seemed kinda compressed and landed too quick. Then we decided not to confine it to any time limit but each track landed itself around 40 minutes, so we made sure it evens out like this in final recording.

Tell us about the recording process involved. We’re very curious about instruments, gear, amps, and the general studio environment in which it originated.

Each whole track was recorded live (took roughly four weeks for four tracks), then layered with two additional guitars. Synths, field recordings, vocals were added afterward.

Gear: we used two Tank amps (Orange/Matamp clones) made from old soviet broadcast amplifiers and Tesla Disco 240 for guitar and bass (wish our Sunn concert bass was alive at that point, but it just burns transistors when turned on – we couldn’t find an exact schematic for it, even photos of the exact amp on the web, seems like it’s from some transition period).

The drums are '70s Rogers 13”, 16” toms and 24” steel shell bass drum from '50s-'70s (mass-produced for political celebrations, weddings and funerals), coupled with Meinl hi-hats, Paiste Rude China and Zildjian Mega Bell.

Guitars used were early '00s Gibson SG Standard, '72 Musima Eterna Deluxe and ’69 Musima Record; and ‘70 Cremona Violin bass.

Pedals: Poltava fuzz-wah, Noname “flanger” that is actually phaser for bass; Tesla Vrable fuzz-wah (the seller told us that his uncle was under KGB investigation for just having it), Noname dist (most likely a ProCo Rat clone), Vox wah, Boss BF-2, Lel’ parametric EQ, Lel’ digital delay, Boss dynamic wah, Roland Space Echo for guitar.

Recording equipment: Two '70s Oktava ML-19 for overheads, '50s-'60s Oktava ML15 and ML16 for room and various dynamic and condenser mics for everything else into Pro Tools, then later in mixing/mastering stage partly routed through mixer and cassette deck using beaten up cassette for analog saturation and vibrato.

Long story short, we tried to use most of the stuff we got in our studio, and at this point, it’s hard to remember every detail of the process. Referring to the environment, it is compiled of numerous weird gadgets which got to us throughout years, most of which were collecting dust somewhere for decades, and have a history (an entire topic by itself) we’re always asking for. And when used, they tell a story which then leaves a mark in recordings for sure. That was a hell of a fascinating process.

I noticed you had lyrics for each song on 'Peregrination,' but the singing doesn't seem discernable. Are there indeed vocals and, if so, how can I hear them?

Yes, there are vocals. They appear on low volume as reverberated and somewhat oscillated notes, more like presence; on high volume, you can hear words with 1-5 kHz correctly dialed in (on most audio equipment these frequencies tend to be excited, so lowering EQ at this range brings clarity), it appears as a whisper in a loud, saturated mix. Also, we added subtitles on YouTube, so you can know for sure where to find vocals. The point was to make them recognizable only with intent.

Talk about the album art. It seems there is hidden symbolism there, is that true?

It’s some sort of a window that leads to four areas, which are the visualized soundscapes to each track. There were no particular symbols, but the thing is that they fill in the picture as it is set - like a hallucination, which is often a well of meaning where symbols change and multiply interpretations, at the same time being just momentary blobs of form.

The process of making this album cover involved many iterations of drawing, running through GAN networks, editing the result to achieve the effect of a captured hallucination, close to the exact one. When hardwiring symbols directly into it, they would be eaten up by hallucinating AI. So by randomly forming a resemblance of shapes, things started popping out where they fit the most contextually - weird stuff. It’s a common thing in art to throw “open for interpretation” on everything, but this one might be.

What is the concept behind each "hobo" symbol and track on 'Peregrination'?

So, the first one means being quiet and alert, seeing what’s going on. The second one is a sign of a trolley – hopping from one soundscape to another, time travel. The third one – safe camp; it may be confusing when applied to the lyrics, but the position that is stated there facing the object is some sort of a “safe camp”, ground to stand on. The fourth one means “don’t give up”, even if applied in both meanings of this phrase to track. But the symbol references may lack context without diving into tracks.

I'm sure our readers would be most happy if you were to illuminate the meaning of each of the songs on your new album.

Well, it’s like trying to create a soundtrack to some introductory ontological theories (pretty blank, sterile stuff), realizing their intensity. Here uneven-numbered tracks touch on mind ontology, even-numbered - on reality ontology. Not diving into details too much, let them hang there.

I. Electron

Peregrination by Bomg

it's no light of star it's a light of mind walking thru a dream electron shamanism

"Electron" is covering the theme of mythical perception akin to humans and the discovery that put a dent into these beliefs. Variation on a Tunguska story, mythos surrounding Tesla, how people mythologize all around.

II. Perpetuum

Peregrination by Bomg

Across desolations Caravans astray Sand covered roads Forget old ways

"Perpetuum" goes more into sci-fi territory: endless cycles of dead and born-again civilizations, the Great Filter caused by cosmic events or beings themselves, and how we just might unknowingly observe such things staring at the sky.

III. Paradigm

Peregrination by Bomg

Giant web built and set in lines It works when mind reflects Leaving us with all the fears Or letting them disappear

"Paradigm" is based around the tendency of the mind to confine itself into some set of ideas, building a higher fence while thinking it broadens the space. Thinking of one thing while it is the opposite, fear of the structure collapsing while an event like this would alleviate any sort of fear. But breaking a paradigm usually leads straight to the next one, to which the same attributes apply. And keeping this notion brings a safe distance to it.

IV. Emanation

Peregrination by Bomg

Now the opportunity is To see the universe spinning Emit structures boundless Round its' endless borders It's the very first the very last small moment In periods of endless time When the structure merge infinite To manifest as something

"Emanation" goes somewhat contrary to the second one - a reality that may be started at some point, complicates itself, and never is truly repetitive. Also thoughts on subjective existence and the point of it, maybe being an instrument of the Universe to explain it to itself. Speculation on whether or not consciousness flows from one state to another, as energy does, returning to its inception or scattering across until equilibrium, or even said results being the same thing. And the uncertainty of these things that are left to be answered while we as beings, it seems, are just left to fade away.

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#D&S Interviews #BOMG #Kyiv #Ukraine #doom #metal #doom metal #drone #sludge #atmospheric doom #Robustfellow #Doomed and Stoned

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ego-trash-capsule · 5 years ago

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Beaten but not Defeated

Jackieboy Man v. Anti drabble featuring Marvin the Magnificent

A/N: This started out as a Jackie whump but turned into an event that happens in my ego universe and I don’t even know if it even counts as a whump anymore??? Oh well, but here ya go @cyanacity

The city was still and with the people all gone, taken by Marvin to a safer location, it felt too empty for this moment to be real. At this time of day, people would still be out, kids and teenagers would probably start heading home for dinner. Who knew he would strike this early and so quickly after the last fight.... But one thing is for sure he’s highly unstable, and his radiation is off the charts.

Jackie walked the streets looking for any sign of stragglers or HIM. Nothing, thank the high heavens for that, he knew Marvin could handle his magic but teleporting so many groups of people, he doesn’t want Marvin to spread himself thin after what happened last time.

He continued to walk the empty streets, on high alert waiting for that glitch to strike at him. Jackie looked ahead and saw indents in the street. Upon closer inspection, they were footprints. He knew it was none other than the glitch, if his tracks are forever engraved into the ground he must be radiating again.

“These are even worse than last time.” he mumbled

He followed the prints further down the street until he found they had stopped completely. He quickly scanned the area searching for any other tracks… nothing.

A soft pitter patter echoed out, Jackie turned to the direction it came from, empty. They sounded out from behind him, he turned again to try and catch a glimpse of the figure, still nothing. Silence. ‘Where is he?’ Jackie squinted, looking around the area.

A faint laughter sounded out around him, the city was empty. Jackie was already uneasy to begin with; the laughter all around him wasn’t what made him feel more uneasy, it was the fact that the laughter was a distorted laugh track.

Not a good sign, Anti is drawing power from the abandoned TVs in the nearby apartment complexes. With all of that raw electricity he collects, at this rate he’ll melt the whole town with the amount of radiation he’ll produce.

“Ahhh, Jackie! Just the person I wanted to see!” a voice rang out.

Jackie looked to the source of the voice and saw the harbinger of chaos himself.

Jackie felt his blood boil, this asshole ruining the city for pleasure and power.

“Anti, you son of a bi-” he started, only to be drowned out by the sound of a weather alert. He glared at Anti, who was waving his index finger at him.

“Not so fast my lovely hero. You know how Chase hates why you swear around his kids.” he snickered, giving Jackie a pouty face before revealing the two kids hanging over the street in cages.

“Let them go.” Jackie asserted, getting ready in a stance.

“I would, but I want something in return.” Anti negotiated. Smirking at Jackie, he knows Jackie knew what he wanted… more like WHO he wanted.

Jackie was taken back, but shook it away. He wanted to stay on guard incase Anti wanted to try something.

“No, you can’t have him.” Jackie countered.

He can’t have Marvin. Even if he was here he knew Mavin wouldn’t join him anyway, so why even ask to have him when he knew that?

Anti looked at Jackie with a sad face and mimicked the voice of a disappointed teacher, “No? Well, I guess you’ll have to break the news to Chase that you were the one who let his kids die.”

Anti waved his hand, and the cages disappeared, leaving the kids dangling and screaming in the air. He held up his hand about to swing down when Jackie’s voice rang out

“Wait!”

Anti stopped, the kids stopped screaming but their wimpers still echoed out. Jackie looked at his summoner and sent a page for Marvin.

“You can have him… but let me keep his mask.” he sighed in defeat.

Anti’s eyes lightened up, his smile stretched further than any human was intended to. A chill ran up Jackie’s spine, he never liked how Anti was able to do inhuman things despite having a physical body.

“Alright! Give it up for the hero!” Anti cheered

The sound of a distorted crowd cheering surrounded the empty streets.

“Ya know, I thought you’d be smarter than this.” Anti mocked, looking down at the hero below him.

Jackie squinted in confusion, as Anti snapped his fingers and the kids turned into static shapes and faded away.

“You. Asshole.” Jackie growled. He balled his fists and felt his powers kick in.

Anti drifted down to the street and smirked “Why thank you. Now, I assume Marvin is already on his way. Meaning I don’t need you anymore.” he stated.

Jackie knew what he meant, and immediately put out his shield. Like clockwork, Anti charged a blast of knives at him.

“Come on Jackie, you have to cooperate with me here.” Anti’s voice sounded so gentle and sweet, it was sickening.

Jackie sprang back and sent a blast to Anti, who dodged it just in time.

“As if I’d let myself go down without a fight.” he responded, throwing up another shield, deflecting a static bomb.

Anti and Jackie continued to battle with their powers. Anti throwing knives and surges of static and electricity, dodging everything Jackie tossed at him. Jackie tried to keep up with everything Anti was throwing at him, so far he’s only had a few nicks on him. Just as Jackie was about to throw one of his energy blasts when Anti suddenly flashed to his side. Jackie quickly turned and tried to punch him but a pitch black hand stopped his arm. He tried to pull it back but the clawed hand held on to his arm tightly. Jackie’s eyes widened, as he realized Anti had him trapped. He looked at the demon and saw the second arm form out of his back.

“Looks like it’s game over for you.” Anti gibed.

Anti’s demon limbs took hold of Jackie. As he admired the fear in his eyes he leaned closer to the helpless hero and whispered “Tell Robbie is said ‘Hi’”

Jackie felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, he looked down and saw a knife in Anti’s hand and a dark red blotch spreading around the wound. He looked back up at Anti, ready to make a remark but he was shoved down to the ground.

Anti repeatedly bashed Jackie into the ground, taking him higher into the air with every bash. Before finishing him off Anti brought him up in the air to the height of one of the skyscrapers around him. Jackie was holding one to what little consciousness he had left, he watched as his blood drip to the shrinking street below him. His mask was gone, his suit was torn and shredded, the light on his chest was barely glowing. Anti hovered in the air and brought up his rival to his eye level and saw the hero horribly wounded. Jackie looked at Anti, hate filled him but as much he wanted to destroy this glitch he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything below his torso, he couldn’t move his arms, all he could do was blink.

Anti smirked at the sight of the defeated hero, he chuckled at himself.

“I never thought I’d see the day where you’d be out of my way forever.” he grinned.

Jackie let out a small sigh and closed his eyes. He was slowly drifting off, before he knew it he was falling. Anti watched as Jackie’s body fell towards the ground, once he was satisfied he dived down and grabbed his body, turning him faced down and holding his head down. Jackie watched as the street came closer and closer, ‘What would happen to Marvin?’ he thought.

With a sickening thud, and the sound of asphalt flying into pieces Jackie was down. As if on cue, Marvin emerged from the dust and surveyed the scene that lay before him. An awful heat surrounded him, he knew what that meant and saw Anti standing on top of Jackie who lay motionless underneath him. Anti looked up and smiled at the magician, “Well, well, well, look who decided to show up.” he spoke. A laugh track rang out as he approached the magician. Marvin tried to cast a spell but there was no effect, he looked in horror as Anti’s radiation melted everything around him. He tried to open a portal to get back but Anti was far too quick and put Marv in a static hold.

“You’re mine now… puppet.” he gloated.

Jackie felt himself come to, he could hear Anti cackling nearby. His body was broken, he just knew it but he felt something in him try and kickstart him. “You have to get up!” an unknown voice rang in his head.

“Come on get up!”

Jackie felt the pain jolt through him as he tried to move, he went limp again, giving up the hope he had. This is what it really felt like to lose. When he was about to drift off again the voice shouted again,

“Get up, damn you!”

Jackie’s eyes opened revealing they were glowing pure green light. He felt like he was fully healed but he can still see all his wounds still on him. He heard the static of the glitch and the growling of Marvin nearby, and felt more energy than he ever did before.

Anti heard the rubble behind him shift, he turned around and to his demise he saw the fallen hero standing up, eyes glowing. Anti bared his teeth and released the magician and charged towards the revived hero. Seeing Anti charge towards him Jackie smirked, and he focused all his power into a giant energy blast. At impact the light from Jackie’s energy blast made the sun look dimmer.

After the light faded, Marvin looked to see Anti on the ground and Jackie’s arms were burnt to his shoulders. Anti tried to get back up but was too injured to get up, he had 3rd degree burns on different parts of his body, there were deep gashes on his chest deep enough a human wouldn’t even survive, his blood was slowly oozing out.

“You… How are you still fucking alive?” he snarled, spitting out blood. Jackie stood over him

“I’m not the only one who has the blood of a Phoenix.” he answered, voice low and raspy.

Anti glared at him hating how he will have to put off his plan for power and control.

“I’ll be back… and I’ll get that magician’s mask one way or another.” he warned. With one last flash of static he went teleported into his pocket dimension.

Once the glitch disappeared, Jackie’s eyes faded out, he looked at his body and saw all the wounds still left on him. He looked at Marvin and reached out to him before collapsing to the floor.

Marvin ran over to his brother and quickly put his mask back on “Jackie! I’ll get us out of here, just stay with me alright.” he panted. Jackie gave no answer, but he was still breathing. As Marvin created a portal back to Schneeps lab, he could only hear one thing echoing in his mind “I’ll get that magician’s mask one way or another.” With that much power Anti would be unstoppable, but thanks to his brother the world is safe… for now.

((I didn’t realize how long this was but I really hoped y’all liked it!))

#antisepticeye #jacksepticeye #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #jse community #jse egos #tw blood #tw bodily harm #I had no idea this whole idea would span out to a literal add on to my universe #also yes i had the sudden urge to write at 1 am and now it 430 am...#hopefully will actually plan out my universe soon and finish the beginning and the end

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linkspooky · 5 years ago

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Ougi and Araragi

Hi! I was wondering if you could write a meta about Ougi from the Monogatari series.

It’s impossible to talk about one of them without talking about the other, so let’s discuss the unique relationship between Ougi and Araragi underneath the cut, the special relationship between a boy and his shadow.

1. Character Concept: The Jungian Shadow

There’s a lot that can be discerned about Ougi just from the type of character they are. Their relationship with Araragi defines them entirely, without Araragi there is no Ougi.

Ougi’s design is intentionally meant to parallel Araragi’s. Araragi has a very bland light novel protagonist kind of look to him (hence why he never gets any cover art) his only distinguishing feature is that his hair is styled to cover one eye at almost all times. This is because Araragi’s primary character trait is obfuscation looking at things through only one eye you are never going to get the entire picture.

If Araragi’s character design is plain and normal, because that is what the primary protagonist type of these kind of series are an ordinary high school boy, then Ougi’s is the opposite, their design is attention grabbing and unique. If Araragi is normal, Ougi is visibly abnormal, you can already tell there is something subtly off by looking at them. What Araragi hides underneath the surface, Ougi is.

The primary feature of Ougi’s face and the one you notice immediately is their eyes, large, dull eyes, which are the focus of their entire face. Ougi is always shown staring forward with those eyes, unblinking, directly at you. It’s symbolic, eyes are symbols of insight, if Araragi obfuscates then Ougi sees everything. Ougi also wears the Naoetsu high girls uniform. They take the appearance of what Araragi cares about the most, a girl that he can save. Their skin is pale, and their hair dark, which could mean two things, either black and white, light and shadow kind of thinking that Ougi represents or, it’s just supposed to make them look like the kind of ghost that is common in Japanese horror.

Finally, Ougi’s sleeves are so long that their hands are almost never shown. This indicates two things, one human hands are signs of intimacy. What are your hands for? is a pretty famous quote from Evangelion, by never showing their hands Ougi cuts off intimacy because they exist as a symbol of isolation. The next is that Araragi is characterized as someone who always reaches out a helping hand, whereas Ougi is the opposite they stress individual agency and often leave others like Nadeko to their own fate. They may orchestrate things from the shadows, but ultimately Ougi never directly acts, and let’s the characters decide to step off the cliff all by themselves.

The fact that Araragi a boy, makes Ougi appear as a girl is also a play on binary gender. Ougi is technically genderless, but they appear as a girl initially because themes of binary opposition, and black and white thinking are at play in their character. Araragi is someone who tends to see the world in a binary way. Light and dark, black and white, male and female, they assume there is some kind of proper order to the world that needs to be followed. When Araragi begins to let go of these ideas Ougi is freer to express their gender any way they like.

A binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another.

Ougi is based primarily on two ideas. One of them is a pretty obvious reference to the King of Distortion from Boogiepop, which is the series which started what we now call ‘Light Novels’ in Japan by popularizing urban stories with heavy sci-fi or fantasy elements. Araragi even directly references the king of Distortion.

“Tell me, what are you thinking about now...?” “Don’t suddenly become the king of Distortion.” Out with the cool quotes, scolded my sister. I deeply reflected on it. (Nekomonogatari White).’

The king of Distortion is a character who’s physical appearance and personality changes with every character they interact with, and who is able to enter the dreams of other people and see the desires in their heart after which point he makes an attempt to correct them.

While the King's personality changes with whatever person's form he is taking, in general, he seems to share a soft-spoken, calm and collected attitude each time, always seeming confident, most likely because of his knowledge of distortions in the hearts of each person's subconcious he enters. He claims his goal to be to 'turn the people's suffering into gold', which involves having people deal with their inner turmoils and coming to terms with them, which is why Boogiepop does not consider the King an enemy of the world, as he doesn't truly do anything particularly villainous.

King of Distortion like Ougi is also born from a single character’s regrets. The King of Distortion was born the moment Shirou Tanaka arrived at the Moon Temple. The main cause for the King's creation was the pent-up regret Shirou felt after entering a relationship with Naoko Kamishiro even though he didn't love her, figuring that he would just develop feelings for her later. After the girl's death, Shirou's self-hatred grew as he realized he wasn't particularly affected by her death in any real way. These feelings were also amplified by the fact that he knew about Akio Kimura, someone who truly loved Naoko, and deserved her way more than himself. These complex feelings of his manifested as the King of Distortion, a being born from Shirou's MPLS evolution.

King of Distortion is an entity born from repressed regrets and self hatred, what a character refuses to acknowledge about themselves or confront. Therefore, both King and Ougi are Jungian shadow archetypes.

Both as one, one as both.

One is both, both are one.

The Niounomiya siblings with their slaughtering magic.

He and she pass their time in the same body.

Passing their shuttered time.

Passing their shuttered space.

She is Jekyll, and he is Hyde.

One as both, both as one.

Both are one, one is both. Hitokui Magical - [x].

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the now famous tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story famous for its astute psychological insight that “Man is not truly one, but truly two.”

In Stevenson’s novel, Dr. Jekyll is a well respected doctor who cares deeply about the admiration of others and strives to be a good human being. In his laboratory he concocts a potion that when ingested transforms him into Mr. Hyde a primitive, unruly and destructive man. Reflecting on the nature of his transformation, he discovers a truth about the nature of a human being.

“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could be rightly said to be the either, it was only because I was radically both.” [Source.]

The shadow exists in a dual relationship with the persona, developing in turn with it. In Jung’s terms the self, is the sum total of the psyche. Both is one, and one is both.

The persona comes from the latin word for “mask”, it’s the elements of personality which arises “for reasons of adaptation or personal convenience.” [Source.] It’s a simple idea, the way you talk around your friends is different from the way you talk in front of your grandmother. People are constantly choosing consciously which parts of their personality to show in front of others, especially in relation to how they would like to be perceived. It is a performance, but that does not mean it is not real. Every part of the identity matters.

It leans heavily on embodying only one’s best qualities, leaivng all those negative traits which contradict the Persona to form the “Shadow.” Jung called the shadow the part of the psyche the unconscoius aspect of the personality. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspeccts of one’s personality, the shadow is largely negative. It consists of everything which exists outside of the light of consciousness, but it can be both positive and negative. “Everyone carries a shadow”, Jung wrote, “And the less it is embodied in a person’s life, the blacker and denser it is.” The shadow is unscious, things which our mind experiences but we cannot control, dreams, desires, instincts.

Without a well developed shadow, a person can easily become shallow and extremely preoccupied with the opinions of others, much like how we see Araragi act in Monogatari. Jung believed that, not wanting to look at their shadows directly, many people project those flaws onto other people.

In terms of literary theory then, the Jungian Shadow archetype is a character who is made up of all the flaws that the protagonist refuses to confront. They challenge the protagonist merely by existing, because the protagonist wants to look away and leave those qualities unacknowledged. Often, they are an antagonist merely because the protagonist projects all of the flaws they cannot see into themselves, onto that other person.

2. Araragi Koyomi - He Obfuscates

It is impossible to see the shadow without the light. It is impossible to describe Ougi without first talking about Araragi Koyomi. Just like Ougi, let’s start with the origins of his character. While this is just my own personal speculation I’m not NisioIsin, Araragi has always read as written in response to two things to me: First Ii-chan, the protagonist of his first series Zaregoto, and second harem protagonists in general.

II-chan and Araragi are both very flawed and non-confrontational human beings, but whereas Zaregoto is a story about how II-chan really does not want to change himself and instead just kind of wants to stay treading water, wants to never cause any more ripples, wants to hold onto the fragile sense of self he has Araragi’s is a story of a bad and hypocritical, shallow kind of person striving to grow up and become a good person, acquire depth.

The stereotypical harem protagonist is this, a plain guy with no personality who somehow gets girls to fall all over him, often for showing them the bare minimum of kindness. Monogatari is partially a deconstruction of harem series because it shows the kind of circumstances that would cause all these girls to fall all over one guy, literally they are all so deprive of affection that the smallest show of kindness does actually make them fixate on Araragi.

The thing is Araragi does have a clear personality. He is very cynical, he’s judgemental of other people, he really likes to snark. Part of the reason he likes talking to Senjyogahara so much is he can be meaner, and sharper tongued than he normally presents himself as around people. He has traditional black and white views of justice. He tends to meddle. He is observant, but his style of thinking is flawed because he tends to jump to conclusions quickly rather than thinking out the details slowly and methodically. He’s almost constantly anxious, but usually responds to the anxiety with avoidance. However, a lot of his more distinct personality traits sound more negative rather than positive, so Araragi has a version of himself he presents to others who he is less close to. This ‘self’ is much more vague, and wishy-washy, very go with the flow. Despite the fact that Senjyo and Hanekawa both comment that Araragi is well known among the students as a delinquent, Araragi himself says that he’s a typical high school student with a completely normal personality. He defines himself as vague on purpose, that sole purpose being to appear as more acceptable to others, because like an ego that refuses to acknowledge his shadow Araragi is very shallow and defines himself entirely on the opinions of the other people around him.

He is lacking a sense of self, or rather that sense of self eventually escapes from him when his shadow runs away Peter Pan style and becomes Ougi.

Araragi has three primary character flaws that manifest in the form of Ougi, Araragi is a hypocritical altruist who only cares about weak girls that need to be saved, Araragi obfuscates, and Araragi only thinks in black and white.

Araragi is not someone who helps people because it is the right thing to do. He does not do good deeds because they are good. He only helps others because there is something he gains out of it. One thing that’s important about Araragi is that he has a cripplingly low self esteem, to the point of self harm, self flagellation, and even suicide attempts.

He literally says so when he finds Kiss-Shot’s body, his first response is not to call for help but rather to try to let Kiss-Shot kill him, apologizing for living such a worthless life until this point. It’s not just that Kiss-Shot was in trouble, Araragi also made it about his own self loathing.

Araragi seems selfless to a fault, but he’s actually very self obsessed. While it’s true that Araragi desires to be a good person, and improve as a person, his methods for self improvement are faulty. He’s obsessed with appearances, and it’s more like he wants the appearance of a good person rather than actually having to put in the work at first. He wants to feel like he’s saved others. He wants to feel like he is someone worth something. He saves others because it increases his self worth, and also once again he gets something out of it. Araragi saving women that are weaker than him makes him feel special, like somebodyy needs him.

He wears the persona of a hero, rather than actually trying to be one. It happens again and again in the series. Despite the fact that Araragi actively does heroic things literally all the time, he also denies any role of being a hero because he does not want the responsibility of being one. Araragi wants the world to be burger king, he wants to have it his way. He wants the best of both worlds, Hannah Montana style. He wants to save girls, but he doesn’t want to be their hero and be entirely responsible for them.

“Araragi-kun, even if you can become a star, you can’t become a hero.” “I can’t become a star.” I shook my head. “I can only become a vampire.” And I even failed at that. “I see.” So you’re not going to be - my hero.

Nekomonogatari: White (Hanekawa and Araragi)

Take his actions in Nekomonogatari. Araragi claims it’s impossible to be a hero, he says that Hanekawa cannot be saved and calls for her to take personal responsibility and face everything that is wrong with her life. However, rather than trying to just support her with that difficult task Araragi immediately jumps to self harm.

It’s impossible for Araragi to become a hero, but he can swallow a katana and then trick Hanekawa into killing him because that is somehow easier than facing his feelings for Hanekawa head on. Araragi prefers bloody, painful self harm to the terrifying ordeal of being known. Araragi knows that Hanekawa is in need of help, but the fact that she is such a messy person different from the person he originally saw her as, makes him afraid of her.

The thing is human beings are really sloppy. They are a messy gray, and Araragi wants to save them, but he really is just a kid out of his depth with a lot of things. He sees the abuse of Hanekawa’s household, and because he’s literally never even encountered an abusive life he gets so terrified that he runs away screaming. He does care about Hanekawa, but she’s far too complicated for him. He does not even want to touch that mess. It’s much easier for him to see Hanekawa as a hero, all black, or all white, then try to attempt something he does not know how to do and could screw up Hanekawa even worse.

Once again while it is not Araragi’s responsibility to fix an abused girl, and it makes sense a normal high school kid does not understand coping with abuse at all, Araragi at the same time wants to help her. Instead of just admitting that he can’t do anything for Hanekawa, he play-acts at being a hero.

Here’s the thing about Araragi, have you ever once seen him try to save a boy? He only cares about helpless girls because those are the kind of people that heroes save. He does not care about people that are stronger than him, because then he is depending on them rather than the other way around. Araragi only interacts with about three male characters in the story significantly.

Oshino, who is an adult figure that Araragi aspires to be like, and then Kaiki and Seishirou who he both views as rivals for the two most important girls to him Senjyogahara, and Seishirou. Do you notice there is a far different tone in Araragi’s interactions with Seishirou and Kaiki? Araragi absolutely refuses to see Kaiki as anything other than a villain, and while Seishirou is clearly a victim, Araragi cares very little about actually saving him and instead prioritizes competing with him over Kiss-Shot.

Once again this is dude psychology that is present in Harem series. Did you notice if male characters do show up in harem series they are oftentimes, either comic relief, they are terrible people for the main character to look good in comparison, or they are old men mentor types. That is because any other man who would exist in a harem series is automatically competition for the girls. Araragi does not want to compete, he does not want to feel inferior to anyone else, because he always feels inferior all the time therefore he never has any male friends.

Therefore it’s hypocritical altruism, while Araragi is willing to help and that’s a good thing, he also never once helps unless there is something he gains from it. Even if it’s a chance to exercise his self loathing. Once again Araragi’s self loathing is incredibly harmful, he literally gets bones broken, limbs severed, and organs torn out almost every time he helps someone. Not only that but it’s always the first solution he jumps to. This is not the behavior of a healthy person, this is the behavior of someone attempting to punish themselves. Helping these girls by martyring himself is an act of attrition for Araragi, because he believes he deserves pain for all of his hypocrisies, but once again it’s still self obsession. Just hating yourself, just beating yourself up, is different from having to do the actual work of facing yourself and picking yourself up. Araragi will always choose dishonesty over honesty, obfuscation over seeing things clearly.

Araragi’s primary strategy of dealing with these many hypocrisies and contradictions in himself, and keeping his ‘ego’ in balance has always been obfuscation. Araragi is observant, but he presents himself as ignorant. He always goes on claiming how stupid he is, and how he’s nothing more than a worthless washout.

This is because Araragi was raised with an overpowering sense of responsibility. While his parents are not necessarily bad parents, they are police officers. He was raised made to feel responsible for things like justice, saving others, and especially made to feel responsible for his own flaws. Police officers are also symbols of justice, who as human beings often fall far short of the law and authority they are supposed to represent, because symbols are symbols and humans are humans.

Therefore, what Araragi wants to avoid at all costs is feeling responsible. He wants to be important, but he never wants to take the responsibility of actually being important. This is his immaturity, the part of him that refuses to grow. For Araragi, if situations are too complicated for him to handle, or he fears his meddling will only make things worse and therefore he will be indicated as responsible his response is to just avoid it entirely rather than struggle or try.

This is shown in the case of Sodachi Oikura, once again someone that Araragi knew about and sympathized with but at the same time could not comprehend. Sodachi lived in horribly abusive circumstances, and both times Araragi encountered her he was a child. Araragi at the same time takes far too much responsibility, and far too little. It’s completely understandable that Araragi a middle schooler had no idea what to do to deal with what was obviously an abusive household, most adults are pretty useless when it comes to handling abused children. Yet, at the same time Araragi avoids any responsiblity whatsoever, he just forgets about Oikura claiming he has a bad memory depsite encountering her at three different significant parts of his life. Rather than struggle and fail, it’s better for Araragi to just not know anything at all therefore it can’t be his fault.

When Ougi drags Araragi through Sodachi’s case, Ougi ‘deduces’ everything, but Ougi’s catchphrase is I only know what you know. Ougi cannot have come to a conclusion that Araragi did not already know or was not capable of figuring out on his own, Araragi just did not think of those things because it was too painful to think.

This is also present in his dealing with other characters. There are several characters who have heavy romantic crushes on Araragi while Araragi is already in a relationship, Nadeko, Hanekawa, etc... Rather than ever just going through the awkward interaction of rejecting them it’s much easier to just pretend he never even notices their affections. Therefore we see him hypocritically, have a girlfriend, at yet at the same time constantly hang out with other girls who have a clear attraction to him and romantic feelings for him and never do anything about it.

Nadeko turns into a god because of obfuscation, both on Araragi’s part and on Nadeko’s. Nadeko is called out for what a hypocritical person she is never wanting to face anything directly, but that behavior is only a reflection, a foil to Araragi’s own, hence why Araragi was never able to save her.

Once again, Nadeko clearly has several problems with her personality, and she also blatantly hits on Araragi several times despite one being a middle schooler, and two Araragi having a girlfriend. Rather than just reject her outright, or acknowledge these parts of her personality, Araragi chooses to ignore everything and reduce her to being a cute girl. Nadeko puts on the act, and Araragi perceives. He then ignores all of her feelings, until they repress more and more and then bubble out into a jungian shadow expression that is Snake God Nadeko who just indulges on all of her instincts and desires and gives up conscious thought and her persona completely.

Ougi always mocks Araragi has a helpless fool, because that is what Araragi wants to be, helpless, foolish, and therefore not at fault when there are unintended consequences of his actions.

Finally, Araragi only thinks in black and white. This is also part of his obfuscation, he never wants to acknowledge how complicated people are. When he’s forced to confront the ugly side of people he almost always looks away.

Black cats, white cats, hmmm, I wonder what that means. Araragi was only disappointed with the idea of justice, because he wanted to believe in it in the first place. He wants to believe that things like heroes can exist, and that his black and white perceptions of the wolrd are real. Araragi craves that order more than anyone else, perhaps even more than his younger sisters who just play at being heroes of justice. The reason he becomes so disillusioned is because he expects there to be an order of things, for their to be roles just like in a story, for their to be a sequence of events with meaning.

Araragi expects narrative rules to apply to real life. For life to have meaning. That is why he is a story teller. There are monsters and oddities, and humans with a clear line between them, despite the fact that Araragi himself is someone who blurs these lines by existing as a quasi vampire. Araragi’s life is a story that he tells himself, and that’s why it’s so important that his perceptions are so off. In Tsuki he even gets called on this twice, he calls his increasing vampirism punishment instead of just consequences for his actions and he’s told not to think he’s so special that god would go out of his way to punish him. Tadatsuru asks why they are facing off like this, why Araragi is protagonist and he is antagonist.

Araragi does not like acknowledging how sloppy the world is, because that makes him feel insignificant and weak. It would make anybody feel that way, because it means acknowledging that we are not as in control of things as we would like to be.

3. Oshino Ougi - They Reveal

Ougi Oshino is Ougo Oshino.

They are a vague existence, Araragi refuses to define them because defining Ougi means defining themselves and that kind of confrontation is the last thing Araragi wants.

Ougi Oshino is born out of a desire for Araragi to punish himself, the same way he always seeks external punishment by allowing people to beat him up and rip out his intenstines. Rather than confront what is inside of him, Araragi externalizes it and confronts it as an external force which he projects upon.

Ougi is a shadow born from the light of Araragi’s ego. It was not the darkness that created them, but rather Araragi himself and the shadow he cast. Therefore while Ougi can be seen as a corrective force, they actually embody all of those flaws that Araragi has, and their own character traits are always in response to those flaws.

Wheraes Araragi is a hypocritical altruist, Ougi is someone who exists to fix people’s mistakes, or punish them for their mistakes rather. Despite manipulating them, Ougi also ultimately leaves them up to their own fate. He leads them up to the cliff but does not push.

Ougi is a hypocritical fixer, because while he seems to be punishing others for their mistakes he really only exists to punish himself in the form of Araragi. All of the ‘mistakes’ he corrects are just Araragi’s own mistakes foiled in other people.

Nadeko is a foil to Araragi, she represents his own feigning of innocent and being unknowing. Kaiki is a foil to Araragi, he represents how much of a fake Araragi is by pretending to cling to ideals of justice and saving others but also denying them as well. Sodachi is also like Araragi, they both prefer to wallow in misery than try to work towards their own happiness. Araragi even says his famous line with his relationship with Shinobu, an ending where everyone is miserable, where nobody gets what they want. There are serious problems with his current relationship with Shinobu, a power imbalance, and both know they cannot last this way forever but rather than attempting to fix their relationship they both cling to the way thing’s are.

Repression and obfuscation is always favored over directly addressing the issues, especially the things which Araragi probably cannot control, or fix, like the complicated nature of abuse. Ougi claims they operate out of some imaginary set of rules that totally exist, but once again Ougi is the hypocrisies of Araragi laid bare. They are every bit the hypocrite that Araragi is.

They are just punishing other people who reflect Araragi’s negative traits. Those who do not acknowledge their shadow, will project their flaws onto other people and see themselves in other people in order to cope.

Ougi is made up of Araragi’s repressed desires. They are a girl he wants to save, which is the only type of person Araragi interacts with. At the same time, they are also connected to Oshino, who is Araragi’s model in the series for adulthood and maturity. Oshino who is always able to figure things out, and very self-collected often making fun of Araragi for his youthful excitement and his naivete for not knowing much about the world.

While Araragi presents himself as an idiot, Ougi is intelligent an capable of figuring things out from scraps of information. Araragi jumps to conclusions, Ougi is deductive and a good thinker. Ougi Oshino already knows Araragi better than himself, therefore Araragi does not have to carry any of the burden of self reflecting, or making himself known to other people around him.

During Ougi and Arraagi’s first meeting in the anime, he hallucinates that the classroom that he is locked inside of floods with water. The depths of the water, the shadow, dreams, these are all the realm of Jung. If the conscious mind is the water’s surface, then the subconscious is its depths.

Araragi obfuscates, whereas Ougi reveals the uncomfortable truth. Ougi always positions themselves as a detective. In the realm of stories, it is the detective who makes the big reveal at the end. After all Ougi even says when they are locked in the room together, because there is no famous detective that Ougi themselves will play the role and announce the culprit.

However, Ougi’s reveals are just as hypocritical as Araragi’s obfuscations. Ougi takes the shadow to be representative of the whole self, because they themselves are a living breathing Jungian shadow, but just like Jekyll and Hyde man is both. He is not one or the other, he is both at the same time. Ougi always act with the assumption that there is some kind of truth to be revealed, that this is just like a detective novel where there is a reveal waiting at the end.

Ougi takes the repressed desires to count as the “truth” of the whole mind, and ignores the conscious mind entirely. Therefore, in their view Nadeko is only capable of being a selfish cute girl who sees herself as a victim, Hanekawa is only something scary which Araragi must avoid. They at the same time as Araragi both read the same black and white narrative of the world. They do not care at all for the persona, or how people choose to present themselves. Desipte what Kaiki said to Nadeko that people can choose to be whoever they want to be, and they can try as many times as they like.

Ougi also views themselves as inhuman, and therefore incapable of doing anything, or defining themselves as anything outside of their role. Ougi is in a way, just as repressing of themself as Araragi is. They even lament this in front of Tsukihi, that once the detective reveals the mystery the novel is over. That if anybody would know the truth of them, they would come to hate them because they are abhorrent.

Ougi by repressing concious thought, silences other people and what they have to say about themselves. The only thing that matters is the repressed, what Ougi dictates as the truth must then become the truth. It’s just as much a limited way of saying the world as Araragi’s is. Hence Ougi’s famous catchphrase, I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows. Ougi sees themselves as a person fundamentally incapable of knowing anything other than outside the bounds of what Araragi already knows.

Which is finally where the black and white thinking comes in. While the two of them seem like polar opposites, their views of the world are actually the same. Ougi wants what Araragi wants, for the world to exist like this is a story. For there to be roles, and order and most importantly meaning. The same way that Araragi just ignores things that fall out of step with their roles, when people contradict the way Araragi sees them he just pretends to be oblivious rather than see them as complex human beings. Ougi actively goes out of their way to punish people, for not playing the role in the story they were supposed to play. He acts like a corrective force, pushing people back into their roles. His wrongful assumption is not that people improve by “correcting mistakes” but rather there was a proper path in the first place. That there was a hero’s journey they were supposed to be going on. There is no path, there is no meaning, it’s all senseless but Ougi exists out of a desire for things to be sensible.

Ougi exists as Araragi’s opposite, because Araragi assumes that things like binary opposites exist in the first place. Heroes and villains, crime and punishment. They both believes these things exist in a fundamental order in the world, and they are not just made up values that humans invented and give meaning to.

“Let’s not joke. Virtue is the antonym of vice, not of crime.” “Are vice and crime different?” “They are, I think. Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised.” (No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai)

For both of them clinging to these hypocritical beliefs are better than the alternative, admitting to their own helplessness in the face of a world that is mostly indifferent to them.

That’s why, when they are separate both of them choose to stick to their ultimately restricting and punishing roles, as protagonist and atagonist, persona and shadow, hero and villain, rather than just trying to acknowledge themselves and live as people.

Both is one, and one is both. Araragi Koyomi and Oshino Ougi have a relationship that ultimately results in not antagonism, but rather union and acceptance. Just like the King of Distortion is not an enemy of mankind in the enemy, Ougi was never an enemy to Araragi in the first place. Araragi never needed to hate himself or punish himself. The true path forward lies in union and acceptance.

You can never be anything more than yourself, nothing more and nothing left.

#monogatari #monogatari meta #mg meta #araragi koyomi #oshino ougi #meta #nisio meta

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/ascension-navigation-for-2020/

Ascension Navigation for 2020

By A Gift From Gaia

The Beginning…..

We are here, a time and space that we have been talking and preparing for consciously for at least a couple of years; and yet from the higher Eye view we know that we have been in preparation from the moment we were birthed.

2020 comes around and presents itself as something that’s way too big to explain, simply because there is not one human on this planet who knows how this moves exactly. The main events to this year are highlighted in the planets and are showing us something that hasn’t been seen on Earth certainly not for at least 500 years but even then, whilst that era or wave was incredibly transformative what we have available now has the potential to shift us into realities that we could only now describe as alien.

There is no doubt we are from this point on taking a momentous quantum leap.

We have no reference points in which to create stories around the energy. What we do know is we are now beginning to rise on the tsunami of change. We know that our world is about to shift in a very big way and we have been learning to release the attachments and expectations as to how this will look. That’s one very interesting shift that we have nowadays in comparison to how it was say 500 years ago. The ability to prophesise the details is so close to impossible, nothing works the way it once did or as our great ancestors got to experience . The prophesies we read today from long ago have been for a while going wayward, because what couldn’t have been understood then was the expansion into the Quantum wisdom, the ability to form the future from our core frequency and with this we now hold a super power of changing outcomes.

Details and presentations, opportunities and experiences can completely shift the moment the vibration moves within us individually and collectively.

This shift doesn’t change the core or the theme, this will always stay the same as its’ objective is balance, it’s a wave, a sine wave that in order to understand it you will need to expand the view and the awareness so high that it’s possible to see the beginning of the sine from when we first began until now. By observing this pattern you will see that what we have created must now dissolve and make way for the new, hence why it has been progressively getting more and more unstable within the collective.

Let’s be blunt here, let’s not beat around bushes, our race will be reduced and it is an essential part of our evolution, our purification and our survival as a whole on this planet.

To really get your head around the shift I would highly encourage you to take your journey back, to reintroduce yourself to your Ancient Self, the One who existed from the beginning when our race was formed, and begin to look at the rise and fall of civilisations. From there I would encourage you to learn as much as possible about the Age of Aries, then the Age of Pisces and finally the Age of Aquarius paying particular interest to what each era held, the laws, the ways, the religions, the beliefs, then looking at the years of the transitions and the historical events that carried the change.

We are now in an incredible key position for the transition from Pisces to Aquarius, and once you have done the research you will soon come to realise that our entire belief structure and programming is all very firmly embedded in a phase now dissolving. Whilst there is much speculation as to when or if the Aquarian Age has started the point is nothing just starts and ends. It fades in and phases out just like a wave and the wave we find ourselves now surfing may feel big already. It’s never been surfed before so we cannot yet comprehend the size and each movement will feel gigantic, but let me tell you this wave has only just picked us up to begin and it is the wave taking us into the Aquarian Age.

The 4th frequency feels the most volatile as it is after all the bandwidth with the most distortion. In most streams or labels it holds the entire spiritual arena, the space in which separation is Seen and experienced and it’s the space that holds a magnificent mocktail of beliefs that have over time been mutated from the original religious roots such as angels and demons, ascended masters, saviours and gods. These are all templates now to be seen in their truth as the coded descriptions of patterns, as intended, to withstand the test of time and yet the distortion began when these codes were taken by power hungry, egocentric leaders of long ago and twisted into history for their gain in that time…..that the race has been forming its foundations upon ever since and only now beginning to see that we have taken “The words as Gospel”, the word of God distorted and preached literally.

The Book was coded, the words are symbols and behind these are the Truth, the mirror of our separation and the descriptions of the patterns were there all along, waiting for the Eye to recognise the ancient language of patterning.

Again, I encourage you to look past the Piscean Era and to see how the saviour stories repeat and when you find the path to see past the words and into the patterns, the detachment from the Piscean Era and all that you have known becomes a much smoother transition.

This is the path of the initiate, it is the illuminated path that will lead all those prepared to Be the Shift through the fields of hopelessness that are experienced when we go through such a deep deprogramming, the real eye view, a journey of Freedom….the ultimate purpose.

The days of playing around in the spiritual fields without full respect are over, it is time to get REAL as 2020 will be incredibly sobering to those still singing from the fishy song sheet. It would be fair to say you will witness those believed to be the “most enlightened” begin the Deep C Dive within in which the emotions, the judgement, the spiritual warriors, the blame, the victim and separation will spin out for all connected to experience and resolve/dissolve.

This is likely to appear quite reactive, looking through the window of social media it has been evident that many of the popular spiritual spaces are rumbling with reactivity. It is for a time a perfect learning space to understand the mirrors and distortions, the lies in the beliefs, but after time the need to experience these distorted fields reduces dramatically and through the reflections the requirement to step away gets louder until we listen, and follow the guidance to enter the depths of within, to sit in the silence and observe the fields so that we can learn, grow and re-emerge accountable. There is a great responsibility when we declare we are of the light and this will now make itself very known.

This year is of course the kickstart to the incoming decade cycle, it holds a whole range of crucial points that are being shown in the cosmic star map and it’s headed up by Saturn who has been at home in Capricorn for the past two years. It is now we get to surf through the crescendo of this transit before he takes his dip into the energy of Aquarius in the first part of this year and then partnered with Mars to retrograde back into Capricorn and re-enter Aquarius on 21st December with a Grand Conjunction with Jupiter on Solstice, highly symbolic of how the Aquarian Age will taste. Saturn and Jupiter hand in hand at 0 degree which opens up such an incredible portal giving the purpose of the 2021 next incredible wave.

So what do we know in terms of how this will pan out?

In short, nothing will be the same. We begin the year with the Capricorn Council: Saturn, Pluto, Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, South Node, with the two Centaurs Pholus and Ceres. By the 20th of January we receive the strategic war Goddess Pallas Athena enter Capricorn whilst Sun and Mercury make their escape to begin the gathering of data required to bring some sense, some form to the paths we discovered during the depths of January.

This Council is the Master reset. On the world stage this is set to change the structure as it hits the foundations of everything we once knew to be true and trusted; albeit the trust has been dwindling for some time the ripples of unrest will begin to be seen reverberating through the fields and will be hitting the rule creators. This points towards our governments, banks and all institutions that are invested in keeping its’ audience, its people dulled down. The humble Gaians, the compliant humans have already been showing their unwillingness to be spoon fed and showing that compliance to that system is now a thing of the past. What is next to be realised is how the population has blindly allowed this control, that there is no point hating on the puppeteers, we chose the role of the “puppets” and yet we are soon to discover that we were always the “real boys” and all we’ve got to do is cut those strings. We will learn to be responsible and with this we will learn that we created this space to lose the wisdom, this is how change begins and through this we will learn that the power is always with the people.

From a decade view let’s just say the power will be very much on the light side by the close in 2029.

Knowing the deconstruction is upon us will no doubt have fear rising, this is the objective, all must be seen and please do not lose sight of the Magic this holds. We knew the fear programming was to make itself known, hence these past couple of years specifically when the word ego was on everyone’s lips. Ego, being the label for the first programming that holds judgement, blame, shame and everything that stops the process of the heart awakening.

Talking of Magic, this will be the word I use mostly as the theme for 2020. This may seem contradictory to the visualisations that might be appearing reading this report however we must understand exactly what magic is and the alchemical process it holds.

Most of us know magic to be something quite extraordinary that happens very quick, faster than the eye and the brain can digest, but from the most highest of view points and in the lowest of the dense frequencies it happens incredibly slowly and resembles something that looks a whole lot more like chaos.

Think about it for a second, imagine the Master Magician materialising something from nothing, atoms splitting, fizzing energy in creation, something appearing from nothing takes great force to create and materialise something that now holds space, and this process is no different for us. However being so physically dense this process in the beginning happens in super slow motion, allowing us to witness the secrets it holds and at first it is easy to get lost in the details without seeing the greater more expanded view. In the beginning it will appear somewhat painful, chaotic, but this is simply learning how this all works and the pain is nothing more than the resistance held.

Fully aligning to processes of transformation will continue to be a theme running well into this decade. Pluto isn’t moving out until 2024 so there is plenty more to transform, no space to rest on our laurels because this year will shake the most attached into their Divine Detachment and this will also be assisted with the incoming solar cycle 25.

The current solar minimum we are experiencing; this incredible DNA rewrite that began in the last phases of 2018 and truly made itself known in 2019 is likely to begin switching back into solar activity during this year. This will be the point in which our attention is taken outside of ourselves briefly to confirm and fully realise that the focus must remain within. Sounds backwards I know but once this starts appearing within our realities it will be far easier to explain. In a nutshell this is the activation and growth energy to the codes we are now receiving, it is the reap what we have sewn energy as we get to live out and ride the experiences chosen through the frequency we reach during each solar minimum which occurs approximately every 11 years. The shifts outside are likely to be HUGE bringing more confirmation that to surf this, to shift this, and to keep the field vibration high then we must release from the out there and continue to shift from within.

Another eye opening shift is that this incoming solar cycle has been predicted to be of a Grand design, meaning more sun spots, more flares more mutating gamma rays along with plenty of plasma to assist the transformation or evolutionary process. Lets just say a Grand Solar Maximum has potential to create a lot of “magic” (of course this would be bringing disruption to the 3rd dimensional operations so it appears as chaos) which will highlight our addictions, dependencies and really bring home the awareness of how much we rely on technology, and have become so reliant and entwined with the very world we say we no longer want to grow. Time to go back to cash? Perhaps at least keeping a stash ready in the event of flash disruptions would be handy?

In the last days of 2019 we saw a couple of sunspots from the new cycle, then on the 2nd January another appeared which indicates we have the new activity beginning after an incredibly long recorded year of a blank sun, hence the deep solar minimum we are in and this incredibly deep work we have all been busy completing, but let’s just say this decade will be the year many more open to their SOUL-AR Alignment as they realise the power of energy and open to the keys of how to harness and surf the Source flow, learning the secrets of our Solar Disc, the true Son that humans proclaim their love for, and opening up the ability to climb the ladder of light and prepare for each Ones Ascension.

One must KNOW, that for any alignment to take place the mind must be open to the process, the physical must align to Being and to how the alignment operates and the Energy will then do its’ work and fill the field, expanding and creating the form to continue one’s journey of expansion.

What might be the eye opener is how the new cycle begins and there always tends to be quite a “magic” event. Please remember before I go on that the meaning of magical is used quite differently so that we see it as chaos in its slowest most dense form, but this Divine Magic is the alchemy for our transitions as a race. With this in mind the last deepest solar minimum we experienced was 1913, the next solar cycle in 1914 was the year of World War I, as well as a whole list of other historical events and campaigns across the globe including sections of the Ghandi story. Now I am not saying war will begin however these points of change, these shifts in cycles do bring exponential change, just as the 2009 solar minimum which really got our planet moving for 2012 which was the year that the solar activity began to maximise causing a mass wave of awakenings and our forerunners anchoring in their new found energies of the 5th dimensional world for us all to begin flowing through and experiencing too. We will witness as all materialises but in the meantime we continue working within to reduce the inflammation and conflict because as we know all is simply a reflection and if we want more perceived higher frequency experiences then we achieve this by adjusting from within.

The cosmic period we are now in takes us deep inside the cocoon phase in which we perfect the tone of our shell, we perfect the nutrient balances and become the alchemists of transformation for us to then see how our self-creation “fares up” in the rays of the next solar cycle.

The higher the vibration, the higher the health levels the more bright and strong the butterfly wings will be to withstand the incoming solar storms and flares.

What is a little interesting to note from observations is that something is appearing to be out of balance…..which of course, any imbalance is perfect through its perceived imperfection, it will hold a yet unknown reason, perhaps such as the tipping point, perhaps part of the build up to the tipping point, we are all feeling unsure and I know we can all feel something about to flip. The abnormality I have noticed is the fact we are experiencing a very warm winter here in the UK, in fact the tip of Scotland had a record temperature of I believe 18 degrees C over the festive period, what is odd is that being that we are in a solar minimum and have been since the end of 2018 and with this we should technically be cooling, we should be experiencing snow here in the UK……and its been balmy, light jackets are more than adequate and night time temperatures aren’t dipping so bad either. This is apparently set to turn but the near future predictions are still incredibly mild for a deep solar minimum.

Of course this will be symbolic, there is always purpose and it will be a part of a process, the initiates have found that there is of course a pattern, our bodies have also been going through rapid burn up, super high temperature radiating from the spine. For me this is highlighting that we are speeding up, of course all is One and therefore Earth will ascend as we do also which brings me onto the next words that keep coming up for 2020 and that is Fire and Ice. I haven’t quite got the entire translation and I am not going to attempt it, it’s not the way it works for me as this is my experience to journey too, therefore I cannot know it all and neither do I want to. The Fire and Ice symbols and codes have been appearing in my field in a whole range of ways, but there is no doubt the words are being placed under my nose like light gems.

Fire, it’s happening. Australia we love you and we are holding you in our arms whilst the balance moves itself through for the next phase of y(our) journey, but of course it isn’t just Australia. In 2019 we saw some massive issues across our globe and this of course will continue into our future until we listen to the needs of this planet and realise that in order to exist here we must harmonise. We will stop mining fossil fuels and use our Source as intended and we will stop picking at the lungs of our planet and leave the trees and forests alone. Australia is surely to now show the world how it’s done, but what makes me curious is it appears there is a part of the pattern that’s missing right now and the contradiction is the lack of ICE, the cooling of the solar minimum isn’t here….

This of course highlights my expectation in the patterns, which hinders the view of the truth, of the pattern shape which I will expand into given time but I thought it would be interesting to share my part completed puzzle with you, who knows there could be someone holding the other half.

But this out of balance feeling, also feels incredibly perfect in the pressure, the sense that something is going to snap, and it’s making itself known within us all. There are so many contradictions in the unconscious field that we all can sense that the back is about to be broken on so many old cycles and this anticipation or perhaps fear for many is exactly what’s required to be added into the melting pot to cause the alchemical activation to awaken the most stubborn of sleepers. Waking up in this decade will be fast, hard, almost railroaded….or bust.

That’s another contradiction through the 4th realm: what we want, what we say we want, what we yearn for and yet our non-acceptance to how it moves. Fighting Self to hold mirrors and resist love, the very thing we declared we wanted, denied due to attachments.

Another word that will be coming up a lot in 2020 is ATTACHMENTS, with the Capricorn Council active to kick start this 10 year period there will be one simple question to ask self, ‘am I attached to outcomes, loyalties, obligations, expectations of the physical kind or am I moving into the New World from within where everything has purpose. All is free to move and the knowing of the Divine Plan is encoded and followed, again with the shifts about to happen on our physical world stage much of the attachment and victim programming will becoming highly active for that to be seen and dissolved.

Please know, especially those reading these words and not yet understanding, that beneath the world you have known to be true is another world. It is the world that creates your world and we have learned how to Master this within our fields, I am here to assist and the A Gift from Gaia website is not too far away. It will be home to all the keys and gems, the alignments and portals I have discovered so far and will continue to write until it’s time for me to leave here. I write to share but to also ground in the journey, to assist, simply because I LOVE and sharing LOVE is my role, and yours too, just in case you haven’t worked that part out, no one is different other than some are just more inquisitive than others and become great key seekers.

So as we move into this new year and decade we know there is a ridiculous amount of change we are about to experience. Nothing can stay as it was and the power I was receiving behind the words of make this year-end count, that it wont ever be the same again has opened up an alertness, an awareness of how vast and how earth changing these incoming years are to be. For us to be dissolving the attachment programming on this level, for us to be ushering in the Age of Aquarius then this IS BIG, we have now manifested our collective dream.

The focus must be understanding the Sacred Field, this Key will soon be available to those outside the SOUL-AR Alignment Course but for now what this means is committing to the upkeep of the tone of your sacred temple. Making sure the structure is strong, that all internal requests are immediately actioned without delay, that all feeds in and out are of the highest value and that the gates are secured allowing the most respectful and responsible to join and INjoy the celestial tones that emanate from your Divine Aligned Field.

This focus is the only focus of the Initiate, it is our only “working” role if you like in which we must be active and observing always. Once this is learned its easy and work is pleasure anyway because the activity and observing also gives the signs, symbols and gem trails into new data and experiences, its how we operate once the field is stable and we really wouldn’t want it any other way, neither could we go back to the old way, once we can read the language of the field it’s a whole new world, and then some, because even this doesn’t stop, there is always more….ALWAYS.

What is interesting is when the awareness expanded and the experience gifted the wisdom of how easy it all is once we operate from the centre point of the Sacred Field, the word work doesn’t hold the same old heavy vibration, everything does become simple, it’s a flow, and it moves with ease, and this flow, this ease, will be the space to exist within whilst everything begins to move much faster. A centrifugal force ejecting, rejecting, dissolving and removing within the spin to ensure there is constant space for opportunity, whether this is chosen or not is another matter. It’s a choice personal to each, but resisting these energies will again highlight the levels of attachment to this world and the blind commitment to the reincarnation process, or the karmic wheel if you prefer, which are the patterns of the Piscean Era that we are now all dissolving. We cannot be free to explore the quantum field and surf the astral planes if we hold attachment to the presenting world, which is after all simply a reflection, only the Piscean teachings would have you believe you can have both, but it simply cannot work that way. We either operate from the energetic world, the point of creation which gives us access to our Creative Freedom, or not. We hold the attachment to the physical and try and manipulate from there, but we know this is a fully tried and tested way of dis-ease and separation, it doesn’t fulfil, it creates needs and desires for more, to repeat, to perfect, it’s a world and a way that can NEVER be satisfied because what it believes it seeks was programmed in as a belief.

These words will trigger the attachments and accentuate the lack and loss programming however always remember that the Divine detachment will always “sort out” the experiences for the great distortion removals that will reflect the need to try fix or hold on.

These often end quite loudly and in the beginning there is enough anger to raise and create a force to continue the removal before the wanting to fall back to the old way begins again. As I said things are speeding up, therefore the old hard way to break free actually becomes so much easier, we have all pretty much seen what there was to be seen and repeating during these evolutionary speeds become pointless. Also remember that the truth is you are neither abandoning or leaving anyone or anything, you are releasing the trails of co-dependency in which we learn about our fear of things and people leaving, nothing ever leaves; we are One, we are always connected, in so many ways, our genetics, energy, memories, thoughts, stories, all of it is a very powerful connection, if you haven’t learned this and can only feel connection in the physical reality then the separation and non-understanding is seen. For that space to be filled and the full connection established, no one and nothing leaves, it’s just our ideas, beliefs and wants for everything to stay, but given time we get to see how this creates nothing but stagnation in the field. There is no love in control, and this way is laden with conditions and that’s not the path of the light walker, likewise holding blame, judgement and anger attached to these memories, thoughts, feelings and stories continues the perpetuating distortive energy within the field and continues the karmic processing.

In 2019 I released the key called the Karma Dogs which explains the point and purpose in bringing all experiences to a point of neutrality so that the gift of growth for all connected can be experienced and the blockages finally released, again this will soon be available for All to access. This key will also bring the awareness as to why dis-ease such as mental health illness will appear to increase at an exponential rate this year and more visibly through the first half of the decade. Again this is essential for it to be Seen and for our world to stand up and begin to care more, looking for new ways to understand the stress and why it has continued to build even though the psychiatric world technically should know more today than ever before, and yet the contradiction highlights that this knowledge clearly isn’t aligned as we continuously see the statistics increase and mutate, more youngsters being diagnosed with mental health presentations and specifically eating disorders that are symbolic to their foundations not being supported, and an over sensitivity to control.

Again, this must become loud for the transition to begin, this is not something to be judged but it is something we can all take responsibility for by caring more for Self and therefore our race, by each taking the responsibility to hold their Sacred Field we set the tone and experience for all those we come into contact with, we become the example, our path holds the trail of directions and sign posts that we took and for those choosing to be a part of the shift, this change will follow.

We are the example, by choosing to show up HealthFULL and filled with compassion, and this is what catches the attention of our sleepy Brothers and Sisters, creating a flow to follow.

This is the world that exists under the physical presentations, the world I was speaking of earlier in which the details discussed here in truth are simply just another pattern, a pattern rumbling and ready to implode the moment the balance tips. A world that the psychiatric knowledge ignores and yet it is the space we truly operate from and it is the answer to all health, this is now expanding and becoming known, the more we open up to this Quantum existence, the more people who follow the keys and find themselves in fields of gold, the more the old foundations and ways they operate cease to be effective, steering more towards the unseen world.

2020 is a Master 22 year, this is a year in which the NewBuild or the New World starts to rise, it is the year that we witness the phoenix take form from the ashes, and the power of this year is quite frankly nothing we are have ever been close to experiencing for many many lifetimes and it kick starts in January creating an exponential start to this year.

Let’s take a little closer look to this incredible month

The Capricorn Council may well be active in January but let’s be sure to understand that this wave has been building since Pluto entered in 2008 and blew the horn to herald the great transformation and we have been surfing ever since with a crest of the wave here in 2020. This theme will continue specifically throughout this year as the wave moves through, so whilst we may feel that January will be a climax it will show itself to simply be a crucial part of something much larger, this again is a pattern, a wave, and this wave or pattern will show itself as a part of an even larger fractal if you observe from a more high space.

The Saturn and Pluto conjunction I find historically interesting to watch (Sit tight because you are about to receive some energetic confirmation as your body reacts to the truth tones)Is the 1914 conjunction that happened in………Cancer, the opposite to Capricorn. Hmmmm I am sure you are now recalling what I spoke about earlier regarding 1913 and 1914, the great solar minimum that we are now aligned with and experiencing in 2019 and 2020, and we are now transiting the same conjunction of the two mighty power lords in our heavens, whilst we are soon to exit a great solar minimum……there are never any coincidences, this is HIGHLY symbolic and screams balance and change.

This is a super pattern, this is the reaping of what we have sewn from another cycle lasting 106 years, have we learned? Are we to repeat and learn more or will we experience the expansion of coming together in unity? I feel the magic will show all angles to the hands so that we can be even more dumbfounded by the show.

The most interesting energy in this flip from 1914 to now is that we are of course in the sign of Capricorn. Cancer gave us a huge emotional shake up, so the opportunity to build from this IS now here if we choose, all is a choice. In Capricorn the home of Saturn the energy takes us into a fast transformative phase of deconstruction and reconstruction with the blessing and aid of Pluto. The focus sits within our Banks, Governments, this includes the medical world and its “control” as it acts like a narcissist’s flying monkey assisting in the current social programming. Saturn represents the glass ceiling, it creates apparent blocks and boundaries, a gift to ensure we learn exactly what is required for our progression and only ever released with permission to pass when we have a key player such as Pluto or perhaps Neptune or maybe a very abrupt shift, something unexpected such as Uranus involved too. Saturn represents structures, our material world and everything we deem as real, including our creation of time. Well we are here, we are surfing Saturn whilst we have Pluto in balance play.

The navigation, the instructions to this game is guiding us to prepare for all structure, even down to our molecular structure to transform into the new form.

One other flip that continues to rise in the transmissions is the contradictions that are becoming highly visible, the polarities, the duality, the opposition (note above, the opposition of Cancer and Capricorn, which ultimately represents birth and death, a low octave cycle of Pluto) the references to the flip, is this about to be the energetic pole shift? Will this pattern now begin to take form in the physical?

The pendulum swing from positive to negative began some time ago, we all reached the opportunity to rest in the central point, the mid way, the space of peace, each of us have been able to find this place if we wanted as the information and availability to this octave has been fully open and active for some time, now the pendulum swings again, and its best description is the rags to riches, riches to rags or the next visual is the flip of the pyramid……but this visual keeps expanding, from one pyramid, the mirrored other half of the shape becomes visible, two pyramids, one inverted creating the unseen mystical Merkabah, the key to the light force, the seed of creation.

However the symbolic words that centre around the flip manifest, be sure to release the attachment to how this may look, it would be advisable to stay in the Divinely Detached space of being the observer as opposed to experiencing the force of the flip through the attachment to the old ways, Divine Detachment gives the ability to be free and fly when the physical earth begins to shake too hard.

Another interesting guide here is Saturn’s link into Religion, due to its karmic and control octaves and yet as we know, Saturn is in the process of completing its Piscean karmic story which is that of the religion we have come to know and base our entire beliefs around, and whether you think you are religious or not, your programming is plugged directly into it, the way we live is built on its foundations……and this is exactly what our celestial map is showing to now dismantle and transform with the partnership of Pluto.

With this transformation, the deconstruction and the NewBuild it will take great levels of responsibility for each to hold, and it is through taking this responsibility that we regain our power as the people. We release the old ideas of waiting to see how our field responds, we release the we shall see mentality, and we begin to care more, share more, and make everything within our field our responsibility, it becomes our committed choice, and anything we no longer want to be a part of or include in our field we close down, and this now goes for our structures and those who govern. To be fair we as the “public” have never stood up, have never said no, have continued to choose the better of two or more evils when the answer is clearly now a big united NO to anything and One who is continuing the patterns of insanity, repeating what simply does not harmonise or align to peace.

We the public never took the responsibility, we have been side-tracked with our life of addictions and desires. Perhaps its been fair to say we have never shown we have what it takes to be responsible and so if we want to activate this new field of responsibility then I encourage each to be making better daily choices to enhance the field, to care more about who we allow to be our leader and to not accept the old “that will do”, because when we instruct our field that only the finest will do then and only then will our collective field provide this.

The more responsibility we take, the more we support our own individual field and build the new world within, choosing to deny all that destructs and encompassing all that expands and brings joy to all within our individual and shared space, will then move the collective through quantum jumps as together we commit to increasing the vibration of our field and as a result rapidly dissolves all that is no longer accepted or required, it becomes spent.

The New World is built by those who take responsibility, and we are now to take this pearl of wisdom and truly become a part of the evolutionary process we have started to create so that our Ancient Future Self continues to evolve and surf the cosmic sine wave.

This is no longer about you and I, this is all about Us and We.

The first week of January holds the conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter whilst we move into the first lunar eclipse of 2020, this energy is exaggerated by the moon’s transit through the zodiac and begins to trine each planet creating a harmonious feel before it starts to square off with the Capricorn Crew opening us to more magical and yet chaotic energy in which the Jupiter mercury conjunction will bring swift flows of expansion for those choosing to bide by the terms being set by the Council sat in the hall of Capricorn.

Mars takes us into an interesting wave, the lower masculine frequencies within the collective begin to be triggered, not wanting to be left behind appears to be prominent in the collective data and this is shown in the celestial map as Mars trails behind in Sagittarius. He makes square with Chiron which rings the unconscious masculine wounding like a bell allowing more to be awakened and seen within and enabling us to see this within our fields and make the conscious choice to remove the dis-ease. His time in front of the Council doesn’t come around until 16th February, right after Valentines Day and continues into March 30th when on the 31st his conjunction with Saturn sees them both walking into Aquarius together, another very crucial phase as Saturn resets the masculine coding for the Aquarian era.

So with this trailing behind, this slow physical lower masculine energy is now something that becomes incredibly important to give focus, this is representing the balance of the masculine and feminine frequencies, bringing forth opportunities to discover the divine union within. The template of the unified flame is simple, the masculine energy is our action, its what we do, its how we think, and it has been incredibly separated from its support, the feminine, the guidance from within, the voice that is always known and never acted upon, which is the pattern of the separation. We have been healing this wounding and the union happens once the voice, the feminine is heard and has been re-established as the voice of reason, the only voice that commands the advancements in the field. So what we have appearing now is a vital period, a relatively short linear period of three months in which the magic wand will be pointed and the new will appear before our eyes, again the reality of this will look like much falls away, but what is left is all that is required to build the new and by cutting away that which is unable to expand will provide the most healthFULL base to build upon.

Moving into the second week of January we begin with some awkwardness in the field as the moon in Gemini quincunxes the Capricorn Council, we will see the path but will find a glass sheet stopping the progression, go in, see where the resistance is, where is the attachment to the form and physical, release and move again, Gemini can make it all a little dithery so be precise. Another word(s) for this year, precise and precision, make your choice and move which aligns with the Saturn and Capricorn ruling. I am sure you are all merging with your cosmic goat and learning that to dither or be indecisive when climbing these steep mountain slopes leads to mistakes, wobbles and falls in which we bounce down the mountain, sustain injury to teach us and without thought begin the climb once again; this could feel like a crazy groundhog day if you haven’t begun merging with your spirit goat within and especially if you have at some point declared yourself an ascender, the sign of the goat is the great ascender of the signs, it is the sign that teaches us the climb, from the very bottom to the very top with all the pitfalls and pitstops in-between and I highly encourage this is learned before the experience teaches you, its much kinder, more responsible, to be one step ahead of the learning experience.

On the 10th we are powered by a new angle of energy, the moon moves into its phase of opposition whilst our Luna goddess sits in the emotional courtroom seat of Cancer, she looks across and sees the eyes of the Council staring back, at a point in which Saturn and Pluto are both on the 22nd degree.

Lunar Eclipse with the sun sandwiched between Pluto and Saturn conjunct Mercury on one side and Jupiter and South Node on the other, whilst the moon trines Neptune bringing so much to light. Data and information is to surface to assist in the fast movement, this also could well be quite conflicting in terms of sun and mercury feeding data from the physical and yet Neptune and moon bringing up the internal guidance, another testing time, another choice point to either take the guidance from within or continue the old way with what is fed from the field. Uranus will also be stationing direct on this day.

12th of January we reach the crucial tipping point that we have been talking about for the past few years, can you believe we are finally here! Yes, I am sure on the one hand it’s a wow moment and yet on the other you are fully aware of the work it has taken to get to this point, in which we now experience the speed intensify, a conjunction of pure karmic transformation, a cosmic reset of the most gigantic kind, a resetting of a 500 year portal which will induce our chosen clearing and releasing modality aligned to the patterns of speed we surf, the incoming of 5G speedy data to disrupt the unconscious patterns and dissolve what is no longer required as part of our evolution and its learning structure. We requested change, we requested connection, we requested more information, we requested to evolve but of course how this manifests isn’t always what we think we need; our history shows us this with wars and major events that whilst on a personal level they appear abhorred on the grand design each are essential to make way for the new through what we have learned through the experience, or perhaps as our history tells us, what we didn’t learn and what we had to loop. Again this loop, the karmic cycle is breaking down and so many many human lines will be now going through the purification processes to unify and come back to the One, this looks like ancestral lines closing on a physical view but energetically it is energy returning to Source.

So much will begin bubbling to the surface from this point on, the theme underneath all will be floating around the Unified Flame of the Masculine and Feminine, which in turn appears to place more pressure on Mars as he edges ever closer to Capricorn, the guidance here is to pay attention to the whispers within and follow that guiding star, to focus on what is required for the unification and to withstand the G force of the movement we are making through time and space, supporting the physical, listening to its requests and acting without delay, from here we all focus on creating strong light filled structures because we will find that nothing else will do from this point forward. Complacency is dissolving, priority and purpose fully installed.

Once the conjunction takes place we then move through Mercury’s passing, the planet of communication passes the point of karmic transformation and a new way of delivery is birthed. This will be a time to fully understand the power of the spoken word, this will be lessons in the destruction of banter, flippant comments and word spells and each opens to more opportunities to understand the power of our spoken language and how blind we were to our incantations. A new respect for our language and for many a new language to be birthed, especially for those discovering the language of the body, the field and the physical realms. On the other hand, for those who have experienced the floods in the fields, those unable to hold back and observe, struggling with the silence in the field may well find the shift into the observer space an easy transition as Mercury and then the Sun transits over the Dark Lords.

Moments ahead we have our Moon trine Neptune bringing in some super sensitivity which when dived into will unveil spaces and places in which to create upon, most likely highlighting more that requires clearing first as the month of January simply no longer allows us to bring the old frequencies into the new, that’s the respect and responsibility gate now placed in Capricorn, you wouldn’t exactly go waltzing into Nando’s eating a bag of chips from the local chippy, understanding the rules, the etiquette of Saturn and its goaty ways will align you to the open doors of the new light establishments being built under the newly refreshed Saturn and his learned friends. In fairness the rules were always there, the first initiation is to learn the Universal Laws, unfortunately spirituality teaches it all backwards and its not until the beliefs and stories are stripped away that all we are ever left with and all that was ever needed to understand is the way our Universe behaves, and to align with this.

But as a race we chose to learn this the most complex way, however I guess if we learn backwards then the chances are we will discover all there is to learn and never again have the requirement to repeat.

Technically each of us has become a part of history

As we can see already the amount of energy building in the first half of January, this period is going to be incredibly busy, and again, these are shifts that haven’t been experienced for generations, we have no recent references within our coding to pull in any experience from, we are being held accountable and being asked to make every step, breath, word, fully action aligned, consciously responsible and as we move into the latter half of the month this doesn’t change.

The moon then moves into another square around the 16th, another passing in front of the cosmic Council, have we got this yet? No? Then repeat, yes? Then let’s shift and shift we most certainly shall because this square has the moon in Libra, balance, justice, this is IT, this is an almighty opportunity entering for those happy and comfortable to be walking in unison, both within and without.

Come the 20th the already wide open eye is most likely to open some more, even when we believe it can’t open any further, the Sun will join Mercury in Aquarius, there will have been results of some description, a want to come out and reconnect but what will be connecting into, it’s going to be new, it’s going to require learning how to operate once more, which ultimately again shakes the attachments free and helps us to open further into the flow, it feels explorative to the inquisitive and will allow the fear to be seen in the stagnant restrictive areas that are not welcome to change. This shift of energy will have us all exploring the new that has begun to take form.

Finally we shall end this report for January on the Aquarian New Moon on the 24th which will feel like the culmination point of the incredible January journey, and by the feel of this energy one month is going to progress and perform as though a year has passed, a huge quantum leap and a giant portal to begin the month of February. The snag, the area to pay close attention is the days running up to the New Moon, specifically the 22nd and 23rd as the Moon transits the Capricorn Council, the Luna goddess reports in.

Again, has it been learned?

The New Moon in Aquarius will have us expanded, showing up in our finery of this most incredible transformative month.

To summarise there is only one word to use……MAGICAL

January is setting the tone of this year, it is a year to advance, grow and expand at an exponential rate and this is going to require the ability to love self unconditionally and to finally ignite that twin flame within, uniting the masculine with the feminine to continue what is now set to be the ride of our lifetime.

There are of course many other transits and aspects and I will share more as we pass through but for now angels it is most definitely time to focus on the flight path, this is intricate, this is life changing but remember, we are doing this together, we are loved we are supported and we have choices, we can choose to move through consciously or choose to be a part of the unconscious breakdown, all choices are respected and never judged.

Sending so much love

Andrea 💙💙💙

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y4s2-20192020 · 5 years ago

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Spatial Hack V1: Phase II - Psychology x Architexture

According to the research in the previous phase, the word unconscious walking inspired my curiosity. The shifting of walking patterns and the influence of architectural elements towards human behavior lead me to find more information about the psychology related to architecture. It is not just the feedback from people, but it is the automatic action process in the brain without awareness. The spatial cognition influences people to think, interact and feel about the singular moment at the particular spot. It can intrigue people’s hidden memories, desires, and beliefs. All of these elements will create a subliminal social perception in our daily life.

From the quote, the rational part of the conscious self will define, interpret and give an assumption of what we see and the prediction when we have an interaction with them. It is about the recognition of places or objects such as the properties of materials that can ensure the safety of use, the luxurious or budget cost, the young and the old, etc. For example, on the sixteenth floor of a department store using transparent tiles for the bridge that connects two buildings together. Some people are not afraid to walk on it, but for the people who have a phobia or any basic background that warns that glass is a fragile material, what if we fall and how can we survive if it happens. The second type of people will avoid going to the other building by this bridge and find another solution if they need it.

On the other hand, in a dream or in a trance when we are anesthesia and partly aware of ourselves. It can happen through the repetition of activity in a period of time. At the moment that we are losing track, and start to think about something else the common things might be transformed and distorted from their origins. In this process, we usually let our imagination work their jobs.

"We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well, and seeing with the brain is often called 'imagination,' and we are familiar with the landscapes of our own imagination, our 'inscapes,' we've lived with them all our lives. But there are also hallucinations as well, and hallucinations are completely different...they seem to come from the outside, and to mimic perception."

Neurologist, Physician - Oliver Sacks ( TedTalk February 2009)

Refer to Oliver Sacks, seeing with the eyes is different from seeing with the brain. The visual perception can tell the awaken self while seeing with the brian often seen by the images in our mind. People who have lost their vision or have a vision impaired have more chances to encounter hallucinations. It means that there is no more input of visual experience to their brain anymore. The thing that they see will be based on their memory and imagination.

Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) is a disease that people are aware of the unreal of hallucination. There are two types of them. The first one is the geometrical hallucination. It often shows colors, shapes, textures, figures, and faces, but instead of getting a normal perception. There is a likely chance to get anarchic and convulsive because of the abnormal situation, especially deformed faces. It makes people frightened and afraid. The second type is the cartoon hallucination. This type of hallucination will be more fantasy. It can happen to the environment such as buildings and landscapes. The objects or figures are moving in the air. This information is related to emotion and memories.

An even tighter relationship between architectural design and embodied cognition, as well as architectural experience and bodily self-consciousness (Mallgrave, 2011; Pasqualini et al., 2013). For instance, the architect Yudell claimed that the visual rhythm of the urban landscape could actually affect body motion (e.g., our walking pace) and excite our imagination toward an enhanced interaction with environmental elements, as in fantasizing about climbing non-existent steps when looking at the unusually textured facade of a skyscraper (in Bloomer and Moore, 1977).

The circle of patterns, materials, and colors shows the data that was collected from the site. Each element has its own characteristics and properties. Some are rough and matt. These types of material resemble nature, earth and raw. While reflective and polished materials are more luxurious and modern. Colors also give various senses. It might be related to the memory of how we acknowledge and interpret the meaning of color. However, the interpretation is up to the culture. The patterns affect the human brain. Each line and its composition has its story and emotion. In this experiment, I combine different patterns to see how it influences human perception.

Forward or Backward?

Tempo

Stand Still?

Slippery Floor

Uncomfortable Wave

Moving Path

The identical rectangle frame and repeats at the same distance. In this combination, people can feel no different, and it looks like it's too long to reach the destination. The second figure is the zigzag frame and repeats at the same distance as the first figure. However, this shape makes it seem not moving at all. The third is a tempo pattern. Once people notice the break of each set. They can feel the changes in surroundings, and feel like they keep moving forward. The other figures approach the difference such as how to make the floor and ceiling look wavy and slippery, and oppressed by the curves. This can be one of the methods to control people by architecture.

The area of applying the experiment is the third zone of the Central Skywalk since it is the dull and longest part (290 meters) of the walkway. Nevertheless, this experiment will cover only from the Henry Dunant Junction to the police’s hospital since it is the space where two busiest decision points are. The first thing that I need to do is some experiment is how to make people feel that they are moving faster, but the distance and speed are still the same. The number of columns and its composition was taken to trial. The result of the first try is taken from the original layout. The space between each column is the same. So, when there are objects that have exact shapes and places in equal distance. Humans will begin to unconsciously ignore the changes or differences. The second try is similar to the previous one, besides the gap between the two columns is too obvious (too large and too narrow). So, it feels just a little bit faster. The last try is to try to gradually increase/decrease the space between the columns. So that people won’t really recognize the changes in space. After the experiment, I combine each element to create the space that makes people feel like they are a part of this skywalk and it keeps moving with them. The navigation elements will be added to increase the ability to control people to avoid confrontation from the crowd,

According to some elements that were mentioned in this project will be applied to the design, other factors need to take into consideration such as voids, thresholds, visual and spatial continuity, ventilation, sunlight, emotion-provoking, the boundary of the space, sense of time and movement. The extended floors are created to enhance space for reflecting the sunlight and propose the new lane for people who want to stroll along the skywalk. The frequency and position of the curve are matter to perception. The two layers of the tube create the illusion of moving along with the pedestrian. When we see objects, we will have its interpretation in our head and not always needs people to talk to you. In this case, I create the navigation by using colors (green and red) to represent the different pathways of walking when trying to minimize the conflict at the decision points. The yellow line is the middle lanes where people who need the fast track to go to their destination.

vimeo

#Surapong Lertsithichai Sorachai Kornkasem #7 Kat Sasina Nakmontanakum

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goodvibesatpeace · 6 years ago

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Spirituality: Essential Self Work

If you currently feel like you are without direction or perhaps you are struggling to ride the waves, there may still be a bit of self “work” that is left to clear your energy field. Those who have completed the self work are finally feeling unplugged from the matrix and are sharing how they achieved this.

This has what has worked best for me in achieving a state of neutrality and has created frequent bouts of happiness, synchronicity, and positive manifestation.

Self work allows for the negative frequency overlay or veil to be lifted so that our original DNA codes can create a shift in our reality. This kind of work is the most important work of all, even over service to others at this time because of how close we are to a bifurcation of realities.

Often times it requires that we spend time by ourselves and it could be some of the hardest work albeit the simplest. It is hard to take a good look at yourself and your life to painfully see who you have been projecting vs. who you really are.

We are all Source, which is unconditional love consciousness. Most of us have been experiencing what it is like to be as far away from Source in an illusion of ego (personality) and fear.

Uncovering and transmuting the fear and asking the personality to take a back seat to the higher self is what we are consciously trying to achieve.

This allows the higher frequency version of us to embody into this dense physical in order to override the fear matrix code that is overshadowing the collective humanity. We are all connected, and the higher frequency in the matrix and the collective always trumps.

Everyone is different and everyone processes the energies differently, but my hopes are that you can find something within this list that may be the last key for you. In no way is this an all inclusive list or a MUST DO TO ASCEND list.

You may not have to do everything on this list and you may have done things that are not on this list. These are not listed in a particular order, either, except for the first priority should be Connecting with your Higher self/ Oversoul/ Source.

Many people do not realize that they are already doing the self “work” by consciously changing the way that they react to everyday situations and skits that unfold in their lives. Over the last nine years since my conscious/spiritual awakening around 2010, I have addressed every one of these topics in my own reality with conscious intention.

People who are just now waking up will be able to cover this self work much quicker than the ones who came before them.

The Work

Connecting with your Higher self/ Oversoul/ Source

Shadow work

Oversoul integration – embody and clear “past” and future lives (multidimensional self); soul shard retrieval

Responsibility for thoughts, words, and actions (creation)

Understand who you are and where you are – consciousness inside of a holographic matrix that is a distorted matrix copy within an organic matrix

Grounding into Earth, connecting in nature

Raising your vibration, (shifting from fear vibration to love vibration)

Unconditional love, forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, respect, integrity

Uniting the masculine and feminine, (left and right sides of the brain)

Ego (lower conscious personality) takes a back seat to higher self

Declare your sovereignty and revoke contracts that no longer serve you; learn how to recognize false light contracts

Creating from the NOW moment, erasing prior beliefs and programming

Cutting energetic cords, release ancestral/family karma, build boundaries and shields from toxic people

Remember your mission, (if you have one other than just BEING); assess your current job, your relationships, where you live, and make necessary adjustments to align with your mission

Learn how to interact with friends and family and when to share this information (and when not to); be the example vs. trying to force your beliefs upon others

Nurture and heal your inner wounded child

Develop Discernment on “outside” information

Energy healing – peeling back the layers of blocks in the heart center and auric field; releasing victim programming

Letting go and surrendering to the process instead of controlling it

Find a few like minded individuals that you can discuss things with (the internet/social media is a main tool)

Focusing on the desired outcome (New Earth or going home) rather than the past or distorted matrix

Removing refined white sugar, wheat, fluoride, processed foods, and GMO foods from the diet, refraining from alcohol and drugs, and adding supplements

Detoxing heavy metals and fluoride / toxins

Turn off the television (tell-lie-vision programming) until you have reached a level where it can no longer influence you (you become the witness)

Love, trust, and forgive yourself

Use your imagination which is the key to creation

Reprogramming the brain from automatic, subconscious programming, allowing the higher mind to create your matrix

Observe repeating patterns and analyze your trigger points

Understand that many of the people (about HALF!) in this reality are NPC’s (non-player characters), aka non-souled humans or backdrop people

Allow yourself to FEEL emotions, acknowledge the energy and message, and learn to let it go for good

Understand that all is Source including dark and light, negative and positive; respect all life including plants and animals, respect everyone else’s path and perception

Listen to your body – food, sleep, intuition. If you are feeling down then it is a signal to raise your vibrational frequency and to stop energetic loss

Spend time in reflection allowing a “life review” from your higher self in order to forgive others, and let it all go

Shift the energy in your home – Go through your material possessions and keep only what serves you; clean and organize your home and simplify your life; smudge and clear

Move the energy in your physical body with light exercise like walking, swimming, tai chi, qigong, or yoga

Finding balance and zero point and 5d frequency (rainbow bridge), and then go in and out of the 3d/4d old matrix, grounding the codes and higher frequency

Recognize and stop the behaviors, beliefs, and practices that open up your energy centers to connect with negative energy and astral beings

Fire any of your guides that are not of the 100% pure source light; replace them with guides that support your highest and best outcome and intend to make contact with benevolent source light extraterrestrials; star family

Close down or remove the overlay energy centers that the astral beings feed off of and remove or neutralize implants and technologies used for energy siphoning

Practice Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements

Become the witness; be “in the world but not of it”

Focus on yourself first before trying to change the world

Much love to all... go in peace my beautiful friend's 💕💕

Centering the emotional, mental, spiritual, and astral body with the physical body to be aligned like nested Russian dolls.

And... if possible go on a ayahuasca retreat, this is what ultimately started my spiritual awakening and I would highly recommend it... even though it's not for the faint hearted.

#spirituality #love #life #self #self love

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arcticdementor · 6 years ago

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A sea change has taken place in American political life. The force driving this change is the digital era style of moral politics known as “wokeness,” a phenomenon that has become pervasive in recent years and yet remains elusive as even experts struggle to give it a clear definition and accurately measure its impact. Where did it come from? What do its adherents believe? Is it just something happening inside the Twitter bubble and on college campuses or is it really spreading across the social and cultural landscape and transforming the country as sometimes appears to be the case? In reality, “wokeness”—a term that originated in black popular culture—is a broad euphemism for a more narrow phenomenon: the rapidly changing political ideology of white liberals that is remaking American politics.

Over the past decade, the baseline attitudes expressed by white liberals on racial and social justice questions have become radically more liberal. In one especially telling example of the broader trend, white liberals recently became the only demographic group in America to display a pro-outgroup bias—meaning that among all the different groups surveyed white liberals were the only one that expressed a preference for other racial and ethnic communities above their own. As woke ideology has accelerated, a growing faction of white liberals have pulled away from the average opinions held by the rest of the coalition of Democratic voters—including minority groups in the party. The revolution in moral sentiment among this one segment of American voters has led to a cascade of consequences ranging from changes in the norms and attitudes expressed in media and popular culture, to the adoption of new political rhetoric and electoral strategies of the Democratic Party. Nor has this occurred in a vacuum on the left as the initiatives set in motion by white liberals have, in turn, provoked responses and countermeasures from conservatives and Republicans.

…

As white liberals have come to place far greater emphasis on racial injustice, they have also endorsed reparative race-related social policies in greater numbers. This is evident across a range of issues: the rapid growth in white liberals who favor affirmative action for blacks in the labor force; in the increase in white liberals who feel that we spend too little on helping blacks, and that the government should afford them special treatment; in the increase in white Democrats who think it’s the government’s job to ensure “equal income across all races”; and in the increase in white liberals and Democrats who think that white people have ‘too much’ political influence.

…

Some of these changes arguably stem from Trump’s rhetoric and policies on immigration. But a glance at the data shows that, as with their attitudes toward blacks, the percentage of white liberals perceiving “a lot” or “a great deal” of discrimination against immigrants more than doubled between 2000 (29%) and 2013 (57%)—i.e., well before Trump arrived on the scene. Additionally, between 2006 and 2014, the percentage of white liberals saying they feel “very sympathetic” toward illegal immigrants and their families grew from 22% to 42%.

For the woke and their allies, these rapid changes are heralded as signs of progress, leading at times to harsh criticism of anyone who would stand in their way. This ideological stridency and triumphalist attitude can be powerful weapons against political opponents but are alienating—perhaps deliberately so—to moderates and conservatives. But, in a sense, no one is put in a more strained and problematic position by the politics of white liberals than the white liberals themselves. The woke elite act like white saviors who must lead the rest of the country, including the racial minorities whose interests they claim to represent, to a vision of justice the less enlightened groups would not choose for themselves.

Consider, for instance, that black and Asian Democrats and liberals are significantly more supportive of restrictive immigration policies and less positive toward racial/ethnic diversity than their white counterparts. Black and Hispanic Democrats and liberals are more sympathetic toward Israel than the Palestinians (likely due in part to the fact that they tend to be more religious). They are also more likely to part ways when it comes to contemporary social and gender-identity issues, including views of the #MeToo movement. In all, though they do converge on some issues, the attitudes and policy preferences of the woke white left are unrepresentative of the “marginalized communities” with whom they are supposed to be allies. And as woke liberals play a leading role in party politics, the Democrats, who are increasingly defined by their embrace of diversity and progressive stances on issues of racial justice, appear to do so, at least partly at the direction of a small white elite.

…

Remarkably, white liberals were the only subgroup exhibiting a pro-outgroup bias—meaning white liberals were more favorable toward nonwhites and are the only group to show this preference for group other than their own. Indeed, on average, white liberals rated ethnic and racial minority groups 13 points (or half a standard deviation) warmer than whites. As is depicted in the graph below, this disparity in feelings of warmth toward ingroup vs. outgroup is even more pronounced among whites who consider themselves “very liberal” where it widens to just under 20 points. Notably, while white liberals have consistently evinced weaker pro-ingroup biases than conservatives across time, the emergence and growth of a pro-outgroup bias is actually a very recent, and unprecedented, phenomenon.

…

For most of human history, the primary trigger for moral emotions like outrage came from local acts of wrongdoing. After all, if you have no idea what events are going on outside your village and hardly any sense of the world at large, it’s hard to be outraged by them. In the modern era, however, this is rapidly becoming less true. Along with drastic improvements in material well-being, which, some argue, has enabled individuals whose immediate needs are met to shift their to concern to the welfare of people they’ve never met—modern technology has widened our exposure to injustices against strangers. The diffusion of the internet, social media in particular, has enabled people from across the globe to document and upload their every moral grievance. In a recent study, respondents reported experiencing significantly greater exposure to immoral acts and expressed greater moral outrage online vs. in person or through traditional media platforms (newspaper, TV, radio, etc.). Meanwhile, other recent research finds that morally “outrageous” content is retweeted, shared, and commented on more frequently than all other material in circulation. And with algorithms tracking what you click on so as to direct you to similar stimuli in the future, political social media consumers are being fed a steady supply of outrage.

…

Thus, by all indications, the first half of this decade appears to have been a watershed for white liberal racial consciousness. The picture that emerges from the various points of data is one in which white liberals and social media created a kind of outrage feedback loop. White liberals started spending ever increasing shares of their time in a medium—social media and internet news sites—at the same moment that, for multiple reasons, that medium produced a higher volume of race-related moral outrage stories relative to other forms of journalism. Exposure to the stories on those sites, in turn, generated moral outrage among white liberal readers who then fed that emotional response back into the sites, which catered to their appetites as consumers, thus powering the feedback loop. Liberals tend to have an “unjust world bias” as it is; but digital media ensures that this disposition is frequently reinforced.

…

Along with the sweeping changes on race and immigration issues is the reversal of white liberal attitudes toward Israel. Between 1978 and 2014, white liberals consistently reported sympathizing more with Israel than the Palestinians. Since March of 2016, this trend has turned on its face. Currently, significantly more white liberals report greater sympathy for the Palestinians than for Israel.

…

The surveys show that among white liberals, Jews are perceived to be privileged—at least in comparison to other historically victimized groups. Having made a full recovery from the Holocaust, Jews are no longer the downtrodden collective that white liberals can readily sympathize with. Other groups lower on the privilege hierarchy and less tainted by association with whiteness now have priority. So long as anti-Semitism has a white face to it, there is no problem here. But if the face is actually that of a member from an “oppressed” or “vulnerable” group, there may be a cognitive dissonance.

…

A wealth of research shows that elected officials are most responsive to the voices (and campaign contributors) they hear from the most; and, by many measures, white liberals and Democrats are the most politically active group on their side of the partisan aisle. White liberals make up 20-24% of the general population but, for a multitude of reasons, exert an outsize political and cultural influence. They are more likely to consider themselves activists, are more active on social media, and, significantly, they are one of the most affluent groups in the country. Of course, small groups of vocal and determined minorities can drive positive changes and spur social progress. The danger is that “woke” white activists acting on behalf of voiceless minorities have had their perceptions distorted by social media-tinted caricatures that obscure more objective measures of reality and end up silencing or ignoring what the voiceless groups, themselves, have to say about what policies are in their best interest.

…

Due at least in part to digital media, white liberal attitudes that more or less endured for decades have been drastically overturned in the space of months or single years. In contrast, the attitudes of white conservatives—and conservatives in general—have moved at a more glacial pace, if at all. For liberals, the lack of awareness of how fast and far their attitudes have shifted fosters an illusion of conservative extremism. In reality, the conservatives of today are not all that different from the conservatives of years past. And it’s the frustration with white conservatives’ inability or reluctance to keep pace with liberals on the path to enlightenment that is intensifying our political divide. But conservatives tend toward normative and structural stability. They don’t take well to rapid social change. The perceived imposition and spread of progressive norms naturally elicits psychological reactance—a visceral desire to resist and affirm one’s agency in the face of perceived social pressure. This is the very process that is at least partly responsible for the election of Trump.

Resentment of those seen as standing in the way of necessary social and cultural change may inspire a commitment to what political scientist Eric Kaufman calls “multicultural millenarianism”: the belief that the demise of a white majority will pave the way for a more racially progressive and just society. Perhaps this is why white support for increasing immigration coincides with more negative feelings toward whites. Whatever the case, such sentiment would have been hard to fathom 10-20 years ago. The digitalization of moral outrage that makes it possible today could, with the pace of innovation, make it even more potent in the years to come.

#zach goldberg #tablet magazine #wokeness #baizuo #charts and graphs #read the whole thing

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wtnvwritings · 6 years ago

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Alarms (Kevin/Reader)

Summary: Though StrexCorp is now defunct and Kevin has, with you, a new life to live in the desert otherworld (New Desert Bluffs), he is still haunted by nightmares and trauma from the years he spent under the company's weight. He often wakes up broken, but at least he has you there to put him back together.

Warnings: Implied self-harm, implied past abuse and mentions of blood

AO3 Version

It’s strange to wake up without the sound of an alarm. Screeching. Howling. Stabbing. It’s hard to let your consciousness come over your mind naturally, to open your eyes and peer up to the ceiling of the bedroom without that painful yet familiar noise forcing you awake to start your day.

It was a noise you hated, hated so much especially because you could not turn it off, could not change it--the alarm was wirelessly controlled by forces outside yourself and optimized by those forces for ‘peak productivity’.

You waited in bed for several long minutes, counting all the little specks on the ceiling and waiting for an alarm you knew would never come, hands clenched tight to the sheets with a nervousness that only time could help numb.

They are gone, you reminded yourself. They are gone.

Eventually you get out of bed, pressing your bare feet to the cold, hard floor. The gentle shock of temperature difference from the warm bed is enough to tighten your focus and thoughts, enough that you turn your head to realize that the other side of the bed is empty. Where a person should have been you saw an attempt at neat and orderly sheets pulled taught and tucked under the mattress. They didn’t look all that neat, but that was probably largely due to the fact that the bed had yet one more occupant when the other had fruitlessly tried to tidy up their side of it.

Still, you’re not surprised to find it empty.

You get to your feet with a gentle breath in, and then a breath out, collecting yourself before making your way out the bedroom and to the main hallway. The only noise you could hear was the sound of winds outside, gently brushing against the windows, sand whipping up and around in what almost sounded like gentle rain if you pretended hard enough; there was never any rain in the desert otherworld, and you quite missed that weather feature.

As you step down the hallway another noise becomes loud enough to focus on. It’s a gentle mumbling, a creek of a chair and the occasional (but just as gentle) curse. It’s coming from one of the rooms, the...old room to be precise. His room. His...hobby room. You’re still at least persuading him to call it a hobby room, hoping to pull away another thorn of manipulation that company had driven into his mind.

“Kevin?” You ask, a moment before knocking gently at the door. There is no answer, so you give it another moment before finally clutching a hand at the cold metal doorknob. A heavy feeling of familiar terror and dread start to settle in your bones as you enter the room as if already knowing what you were about to see before your eyes could see it.

The room is in complete and utter disarray. Furniture is turned over, as if flipped violently and there is something resembling broken glass shattered on the carpet. Though you do your best not to let your eyes glance to see in more detail, there looks to be dark streaks of dull red on the walls, as if someone had wiped their hands across the surface in a hurry; you try not to let your thoughts dwell on the metallic smell hanging dull and putrid in the air.

No, no you don’t dwell on any of those things. Not the sight, not the chaos, not the smell--instead you focus your eyes on the man on the other side of the room. You can see him standing in just flannel sleeping pants, shirtless, turned away from you and facing the opposite wall of the room. Though the room is dim you can still see little scars criss-crossing over his skin, highlighted cross-hatches that healed a touch lighter than the rest of his flesh. You can see him with a hand reached out to the wall though you can’t yet tell what he’s doing with it.

“...K...Kevin?” You ask, barely finding your voice.

It’s suddenly then that the man seems to realize that you’re in the room. He snaps from his trance and quickly spins around, meeting your gaze with his--

Black eyes, too-wide of a smile and his face, his chest, his hands--they are blood-stained.

“Oh! I didn’t hear you there, dearest!” The man’s smile grows wider, nearing something almost inhuman. “I assume you woke up. Without your alarm. Ah, I suppose that’s a thing that people normally do! I woke up a few hours ago because I didn't want to miss my alarm--but how funny it was that I forgot we don't have one anymore!”

If you were anyone but yourself this sight, this room, this man would have terrified you, would have left you shaking and crying and begging to wake up from such a nightmare--but you are you and that man is Kevin. You know him, you know this and you’re not scared; no, you’re scared and concerned.

“What...were you doing?” you ask after a breath. Kevin giggled, his voice sounding almost childish, as if you were asking such a silly thing.

“I was just writing down the hours I was asleep for the daily productivity log!”

You shift your weight, eyes briefly catching the writing behind him. It’s a messy jumble of numbers and letters that don’t even begin to make sense to you. The writing looks nonsensical and written in that same dull red color as everywhere else on the walls.

“Well, since you’re finally awake and I’ve already gotten this going, I’ll write your hours too!”

You take a step forward before the man can turn back around.

“Kevin,” You are very careful in how you line your words together. “Whose blood is that?”

You know you have to ask though the notion makes you feel a little sick. There is a flash of emotion over Kevin’s distorted features, something akin to worry, but it quickly falls away as hallow joy takes it’s place once more.

“Oh don’t worry dearest,” the man said in a lilting, sickly-sweet tone. “I didn’t hurt anyone--I know you don’t like it when I do that. I just...well, it seemed like the laptop wasn’t working when I tried to log into the StrexCorp database to log in my mandated hours of behavior. I figured I could write them down on paper, but then I couldn’t find any pens or pencils and I just...”

He gestured to the wall. When your eyes slowly looked back at his face, you could see a thin drip of blood rolling down from the corner of his mouth.

“...I just had to make due with what I had! You know how my supervisor gets when I don’t notate my behavior hours on time. Oh... So... Angry...”

There’s another flash of emotion over the man’s face, this time something you can’t discern. You don’t care to take the time to figure it out because you’re already stepping forward, throwing your arms around Kevin’s blood-stained body with a level of lacking self-preservation one only had when they loved another.

“Kevin.”

The name is thin, terse, and serious.

“It’s...okay now. You don’t have to do this.”

This isn’t the first time he’s shattered. This isn’t the first time he’s awoken with the distorted awareness of his current life, trying to go about his day-to-day habits beneath the excruciating weight of a company that had broken him emotionally as much as they did physically.

This isn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Kevin stills in your arms. He still barely knows what it feels like to be cared for. He still barely understands what it means to be loved, even less on how to truly and healthily love in return. He stands there awkwardly for a few moments before you feel his body shake and, slowly, his arms loosely wrap around you in kind.

His face presses into the crook of your shoulder and neck, buried against your skin. You can feel the sticky, slick feeling of half-dried blood on your palms and fingers where they lay on his back. If Kevin was human you would worry more for the amount of blood on the wall, on the floor, on him. Instead you worry for the man’s shattered psyche and broken soul.

“...It hurts,” the man finally says, his voice a soft, weak whisper in your ear. He can barely keep the sounds strung together well enough for you to even discern that they are words. “Everything hurts and I don’t like it. Please.”

“It’s going to be okay,” you murmur in turn, your roles so painfully switched between the two of you. “I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

In the still-painful breadth of memory you remember when you were the one in his arms, crying yourself to sleep. You remember feeling the ever-constant presence of that company over your shoulders, watching you at every moment of every day. You remember the fear and the threat of pain--but you remember Kevin...protecting you. You remember him saying the same words in your ear every night--did he mean them then? Did he even believe in them then? You still aren’t quite sure, but you hold Kevin tighter still in the present day.

“Lets go wash off all this and bandage you up,” you say after a few more heavy moments, eyes closed so you don’t have to look at the sight of the room, feel reminded of the pain, the weight, the company the---anything. You didn’t want to think of anything but the man in your arms.

Of healing. Of growing. Of settling in a new life in the new town the two of you were in, somewhere in the vastness of a desert otherworld.

Kevin doesn’t say anything but gently nods, face still pressed to the crook of your neck and his arms still wrapped, loosely but genuinely, around you.

#wtnv #welcome to night vale #kevin #wtnv kevin #readershot #kevin readershot #sfw readershot #sfw #tw blood #tw self harm #tw abuse #writing #kevin's assistant au

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iconiceyesleedswestyorkshir-blog · 6 years ago

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Issues To Contemplate Whiling Pondering For Graphic Design Outsource

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Subsequently, their small accumulation of capital and the earnings which they obtain from skilled providers throughout the African (or White) neighborhood make them seem wealthy in comparison the low economic status of nearly all of poor delusion of wealth is supported by the myth of African business. Fortunately, section 195 of the South African Constitution does direct the general public administration that, Folks's wants have to be responded to, and the general public have to be encouraged to participate in policy-making," and in accordance with this directive, the proposed Draft Online Regulation Coverage has been opened for public remark, which remains open till June 15. i need a graphic designer iconiceyes.co.uk Leeds, West Yorkshire like Right to Know have already been mobilizing in opposition to the proposal, and are amassing supporters for a petition and social media campaign, which EFF heartily endorses. Consequently, the (global) public sphere will grow to be extra complete by encompassing a wider spectrum of social collectivities and by reaching further right down to very low levels of society (e.g. the extent of tiny communities and insignificant voluntary associations). The situations of poverty, over-crowdedness, lack of police management and the prevalence of police corruption, breakdown of family mores and construction, basic social anomie and an enormous "Apartheid Hangover" which has been contributing to what Frantz Fanon called "Colonial Mental Disorders," excessive incidences of rape, crime and anarchy, all render completely different results and impacts on the African inhabitants. 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Instead, the users and consumers of data all sorts of information are low logged into these social media, and what makes them common, it is their capability to allow peculiar of us to partake or control the flow of information with out having 'gate-keepers' censoring or adjusting what is data or what is reported. But Gwala's colleagues have little doubt about what happened that evening: the assassination of a conspicuous and vocal thorn within the facet of native authorities and officers from the ruling African National Congress as he fought corruption within the allocation of social housing. In the days of social media and the Web, these have been delivered to bear and in the front of society within the US. What this means is that, the numerous races and different communities, races, and so forth, snapped when the Grand juries, in numerous states of the United States discovered the cops not guilt or responsible for the homicide of Garner and brown, and these had been captured on video. The eyes of the world are actually more targeted on the offers that governments and enterprise did collectively, on the methods in which public procurement contracts have been determined and who benefitted on those actions by which individuals in power that have hitherto not been sufficiently topic to public scrutiny and oversight-have their actions laid naked within the viral stream.

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ktrsvo · 7 years ago

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do not go gentle into that good night (3.6k) character study | based on the rescue mission | rip me guys

Here’s what it means to be a hero, to Katsuki:

You are infallible. You are invincible. Brave beyond measure. You do not feel pain. You do not bleed the same colour as other people, if you even bleed at all. You are limitless. Bigger than your body, your soul.

You are one with the universe, and the universe is within you.

(It has no use for broken boys.)

Katsuki watches Kirishima sometimes.

Sometimes, when they are alone together or with other people, Katsuki will find himself drawn towards the spikes of Kirishima's hair where they’re lit flame-bright by light. Towards the curve of his mouth, towards the ridges of muscle chiseled along his arms.

Katsuki thinks about this, and that, and those, a lot. He doesn’t really know why.

(But it makes him want to punch a wall. Scream into his pillow. Something.)

Katsuki thinks that Kirishima must notice it, Katsuki’s occasional staring. And Kirishima does; one day, as they are strapping on their gear, he jokes, gaze trained on Katsuki, “Is my face really that nice to look at, dude?”

Katsuki’s ears burn. And so does his cheeks. “Don’t fucking flatter yourself, Shitty Hair,” he growls, and Kirishima grins.

Katsuki sort of wants to hit himself.

The next time it happens, the whole class is practicing in a simulation facility, and Katsuki is paired up with Kirishima. They make it through the first round in good time, a couple minutes ahead of most of their classmates. The second round is harder, the third one is the worst, and by the time it’s over they’re all slumped down on the ground, ready to die.

Katsuki barely manages dragging himself into an upright position on a chair. He empties at least two water bottles in one go.

Besides him, Kirishima is curling and uncurling his hand in rapid motion. Katsuki watches, wonders what the hell Kirishima is doing. He gets an answer soon enough.

“Boom, boom, pow!” Kirishima says, spreading wide a palm besides Katsuki’s face, and there, Katsuki recognizes them, those barely perceptible flickers of movement: the bend of his wrist - just like so - the positioning of his fingers, the angle of his arm.

They’re parts that constitute one of Katsuki’s signature moves.

“You trying to explode something in my face or what?” Katsuki huffs.

Kirishima nods, eyes wide and solemn. “Uh huh, you got me there,” he says, doing the thing again, and somehow Katsuki feels like there’s lit gunpowder in his chest, his blood, his arteries. And also a planet’s worth of methane - easily combustible.

Katsuki doesn’t question it, at first. But later on, the memory will resurface, and Katsuki will ask why, off-handedly, and Kirishima will say, “Well, I’ve always found your Quirk super awesome, dude, I kinda wish I’d been born with one like that,” and he will start rambling, tone pitching higher and higher, fervid, charged, ending it off with, “Man, you’re one of the coolest and strongest people I know. Have I mentioned to you before that I look up to you?” and Katsuki will let it sink in, the sincerity of Kirishima’s words.

The conflagration beneath Katsuki’s skin.

Kirishima will clap a hand over his shoulder, and Katsuki will allow him.

Katsuki is strapped down to a chair like some rabid animal when it comes to him in fleeting glimpses. A memory, made fuzzy by the thunder in his mind.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, one moment in a dank room, and the next a grand airy hall. The images distort and bleed into each other, but Katsuki can tell them apart well enough.

There, Katsuki hovers above the boundary separating recollection from reality. He hears All Might talking about what it means to be a hero on one end, and he hears Shigaraki talking about villainy on the other.

(Hero, villain. Villain, hero. Both on different sides of the same coin.)

It occurs to him soon enough that the villains got him because he was too weak, too helpless, too stupid, to escape their clutches. He hadn’t been good enough then, and he won’t be good enough now.

(Katsuki lost. He lost, he fucking lost.)

To hell with the world if he doesn’t try at the very least, though.

Another memory emerges from the din: Kirishima’s voice saying, “You’re so strong, Bakugou!”

Katsuki thinks: is he really?

Here’s what it means to be a hero, to Katsuki:

There is a call in your bones, that tells you exactly what you must do. It is your guide, your navigator, an incorporeal compass hardwired into your being. If the sailors of old had the constellations to get them into faraway lands, then this instinct is your very own Polaris, the star that will not lead you astray.

You are one with the universe, and the universe is within you.

(It has no use for broken boys.)

HUMAN

Definition: Ninety-nine percent oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. An atlas of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, tissues, neurons, bones. But most importantly: laughter, love, sorrow, liquefied.

HERO

Definition: Strength. Duty. Honour. Resilience. That is all.

Katsuki has been brave for so very long. He wonders: what would it feel like to give up? Give in? He sits there, in the half-dark, teeth-gritted, wrists chafed and sore and red, the anger coiled beneath his skin cooled down to magma, all-consuming but no longer incendiary.

There is smoke in his nose. Copper on his tongue. He shakes despite himself, and oh, God, he hates it, his damn helplessness, his inability to do anything, something. And they’re all looking at him, those motherfucking villains: Kurogiri, wrapped in black fog; Toga, lips stretched in a knife-sharp grin; Dabi, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed; and that - that damn Shigaraki, face obscured by a hand save for a single eye, the eye crimson-red and bloodshot.

“My, how I do love seeing this world end, and another one start anew,” Shigaraki is saying, cold glee laced in his voice. “Now tell me, hero -” that maniacal edge slips in, stretched-thin - “will you be making the right choice?”

The adrenaline in Katsuki’s veins thins from gasoline into water. The kind of water left on your skin after you emerge from an ocean, cold and unforgiving when wind passes by. He feels it now, spreading everywhere.

Katsuki was born to be a hero.

He is a hero.

But he has never felt smaller, more broken, than he does now.

When Katsuki is little, he has no friends. Not any real ones, as far as he aware. There’s maybe Deku, for a time, but after Katsuki gets his Quirk they’re on even footing no longer. Gone are the days where they used to skip rocks on the river’s surface, climb trees at the edge of the forest, or crush insects using their feet. As far as Katsuki is aware, he does not need Deku tailing him around like some stupid dog, all round eyes and awed, open-mouthed grins.

Deku is beneath him. He is weak. He is useless. Quirkless, amongst other things. He is not special. Neither is he extraordinary.

And then, the sludge villain incident happens. U.A follows shortly thereafter.

It is not supposed to happen, Deku getting into U.A. It is not supposed to happen, Deku besting him. Besting him, for fuck’s sake.

Katsuki has felt strong all his life. Now he is feeling weak. It scares him, thinking that maybe one day he will be looking at Deku’s back instead of the other way around. Chasing his shadow. That is not supposed to be how the story goes. They are meant to be on opposite poles: Katsuki up there, Deku all the way down. They are not meant to progress together, by way of parallel lines.

Deku is weak. And then one day he is not.

Katsuki is strong. And then one day he is … not.

Kirishima is Katsuki’s first real friend.

Katsuki doesn’t exactly know how it happened, to be honest. After the cavalry battle, perhaps. Whatever the case may be, Kirishima found his way to Katsuki, and now there he stands, here at Katsuki’s side.

Their friendship starts like this: drifting on the waves, before easing into still waters.

It is grudging acceptance on Katsuki’s part, at first. Eagerness, on Kirishima’s. Katsuki does not understand. And then one afternoon Kirishima is talking to him in class, and the next Kirishima is slinging an arm over his shoulders. Grinning.

Laughing.

The others look on, surprised. Kaminari makes a face; Jirou snorts; Ashido exclaims; Sero lets out a cough. Katsuki huffs, and Kirishima just laughs it off, steers Katsuki out and away.

Friendship of this kind is a foreign entity to Katsuki. In its newness, in its weight. In the way it spreads through Katsuki’s life, changing the dynamics, the structure, everything. Kirishima is there for Katsuki, all sun-wrought edges and booming laughter. Kirishima does not look at him differently; he wants them to see eye-to-eye without any armour or reservations.

Kirishima is not intimidated by him; he is unafraid to call out Katsuki, unfazed by his abrasive corners: that rough, brutish voice, that steel-laced gaze, the barbed snarl of his mouth.

Kirishima genuinely wants to know Katsuki. Most of him, at least. The gravelly bark of his laugh, dark and rough where Kirishima’s is bright, smooth. The calloused pads of his fingers, heat-worn, battle-hardened. His favourite haunts: the dim, musky alcove besides the gym stairwell, and the stillness - the quietness - of his room.

The static, the gloom, here in Katsuki’s head.

“You know, if I took your head apart and peered into your mind, I’d probably see like the deep side of an ocean,” Kirishima says to Katsuki as they’re eating popsicles on a bench, sunlight warming their shoulders, their backs.

Katsuki snorts. He watches melted blue ice collect on his palm. “An ocean,” he intones.

Kirishima swallows thoughtfully. “Well, yeah.” Those pensive eyes turn towards the pond splayed in front of them, the waters murky green, algae-bordered, choking with lily pads. “Like, you see an ocean, right? It’s totally cool and all, but there’s just one problem: you know that there’s scary shit down there. No one wants to stick their head into it - no offense intended, dude - because what if there’s a shark waiting to snap your head off?”

“So the point is you just want to insult me,” Katsuki says, scowling.

“I’m not even finished!” Kirishima finishes off his popsicle. Then, he continues, “So. Back to the subject. What if it’s not that frightening below the surface? Sure, it’s dark there. The ambience could use a bit of cheering up. But what if it’s just … deep. And kind of cold. Mostly filled with things that aren’t going to bite you if you leave them alone. Like, you still don’t know what you’re going to get, venturing down, but it’s not actually a minefield. Maybe it’s intimidating at the beginning, where you feel it’s still piranha-infested, but the more you familiarize yourself with its depths, you start thinking that it’s actually okay. Kind of awesome.”

Katsuki stares. “Kirishima, do you know what you’re fucking saying right now?”

There’s the sun over the horizon. Breaking up the pond’s surface into flashes of light.

Kirishima nods, almost absently. “Yeah, I think I do know,” he says, rubbing a thumb on his chin.

Nobody has ever felt like Kirishima, Katsuki thinks.

They warp Katsuki away in the middle of battle. The silver-black liquid gets into his nose, mouth, throat. It wraps around his body, tight. And then Katsuki is somewhere else, the night thick as tar, and just as dark. He’s drenched in sweat, from head-to-toe. There’s dust all over his clothes. His knees, his feet, ache from the impact.

Katsuki lets out a hacking cough. “Fuck,” he spits out, lungs seizing up and wrung-dry.

A man stands before him. Black suit, black mask. His voice is cold and resonant when he speaks. It shudders through Katsuki, thrums against his bones, his chest.

Katsuki stares, frozen.

(He is strong. He is strong. He has to be. His strength cannot give.)

His mind. It has to move, move, move. Think.

And then, the rest of the villains arrive.

Katsuki is seven when he falls off a high tree. He sits on a slim branch, the only one brave enough to climb to the top, laughing at all those sorry losers staring up at him from down below. But then the branch snaps clean in the middle, and then Katsuki is falling, falling, the world blurring away at the edges. He fractures an arm and a leg upon impact.

There’s an eruption of screams. Not his own, no.

His father rushes him to the hospital. It’s all a blur after that. Katsuki stays there for a few days. There’s the usual round of check-ups, the monitoring of vital signs, and then the doctor is saying that Katsuki was lucky to have fallen on his leg the way he did.

“If you had landed on your head, you could’ve died,” the doctor says, peering at him through her spectacles, voice sugarless, factual.

If Katsuki wasn’t afraid then, he is certainly not about to get the shivers now.

Something shoots down from the sky. Meets All for One, head-on.

The ground shudders, explodes at the collision. Debris flies everywhere. The resulting ripple knocks back Katsuki, Shigaraki, everyone, and he goes down, hard. A vortex of dusty air gathers, swirling upwards, spreading.

It is pandemonium.

When the dust settles somewhat, there, Katsuki sees it. A glint of gold. A flash of blue, red, white, yellow. And then, he hears it, a voice loud and firm.

All Might.

Katsuki burns.

Katsuki is strong. He has always been. There is no room for second-guessing.

Katsuki is sixteen when he feels the most scared he has ever been. He is hurtling through the air, propelled by his own flames. The world rushes, blurs by him, and the villains and heroes are like specks down below. He thinks that he might die. Splatter onto the ground if his strength caves.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima calls out to him, hand outstretched.

Katsuki is close. So, so close. He has to make it. Has to. And then impossibly, miraculously, their hands meet, and a grin breaks out across Katsuki’s face.

Kirishima grins back at him.

Here is the image: a ragtag group of teenagers, soaring through the skies. Two boys, hands clasped, grip unbreakable. This is a war, and they are children made soldiers by circumstance, fleeing from the chaos, the madness.

In that moment, it looks as if the sun will never make another ascent, forever lost to the red of bloodshed and the black of turmoil.

(Katsuki is afraid.)

But the glimmer in Kirishima’s eyes stays, and Katsuki believes that it will.

(Katsuki is still afraid.)

Katsuki watches. So does everybody.

The universe holds its breath for what is going on, and what’s to come.

He catches Deku’s eye for a moment. Deku stares back for a moment, and then they are both returning their attention to the fight, heart in throat, blood rushing, roaring, in their ears. Katsuki’s breaths come out uneven and shallow. Numbness settles in his mind, his fingers, his toes.

The scene unfolds in a way that is seemingly disconnected from reality. Warped by a disorienting haze.

And then, it happens.

Once, Katsuki watched a video on nuclear explosions. Well, maybe not once but twice. Five times, maybe. He remembers the calm before the storm, the way everything seemed to take on an ominous darkened tint, before it happened, a bright flash of light expanding before dispersing into a grey cloud, the belly flashing molten orange-red.

Then, it lifted high up, mushroom-shaped, now an entity of dark, ugly matter that proceeded to sear the blue off of the sky.

Nobody within a close radius survives nuclear explosions. There’s the radiation exposure and the blast impact to contend with, and then the ionizing radiation. The resulting fallout plume, too, and black rain when the residual radioactive material is mixed with a pyrocumulus cloud.

Katsuki thinks: this fight ends much like one, somehow. Kind of.

He cannot keep his eyes away. They’re trained on that one thing, and that one thing only.

If he were directly besides it now, would the force obliterate him the same way it did the surroundings?

(Of course it would, what is Katsuki thinking, of course.)

The whole nation cheers when All Might rises, triumphant, arm lifting into the air. A survivor, a true hero. Battered and wounded all over.

All for One is down. All Might stands over him, simultaneously breakable and indestructible. Simultaneously fragile and strong. He won, he triumphed - but not without a price.

Katsuki notices it. Of course he does. Deku, bawling his eyes out. Deku, doubled over.

Katsuki watches. Katsuki sees.

And he knows.

(And he feels cold and shaky, and his breaths scrape against his throat with monumental effort, and all Katsuki can think is why, why, why.

If only Katsuki hadn’t been so weak.

If only he’d been stronger.)

The first couple days back are the toughest. Full of scrutiny, wound-tending, and discussions. Katsuki’s parents come by, and Katsuki does not even put up a fight. Katsuki is taken in for questioning at one point, and then Katsuki is sat in front of Aizawa, listening to the dormitory arrangement that the school is setting up.

His mother is eager to get him off of her hands. Katsuki broods all the while. His mother has something to say about Katsuki being weak, rubbing salt into the wound, and Katsuki snarls at her, but the anger isn’t actually there. Just acceptance, beneath them all: his stony expression, his voice, his clenched fists.

There’s a recovery period. And then they’re moving in. And then Katsuki is paying Kirishima back for the night vision goggles Kirishima used in the rescue operation.

Kirishima stares. Katsuki just shrugs and walks away, shoulders hunched.

There’s a connection. Katsuki sees it. So he confronts All Might. About Deku, about him.

About them.

All Might says nothing of it. Says Deku is just a student like any other. Bright and promising.

Katsuki walks away. But still he knows.

They are quick to settle into a routine.

Katsuki adjusts with little difficulty; his day pretty much runs the same way here. Classes, mealtimes, homework, training, and then bed. Things are fine - but not really, at the same time.

(The aftermath still weighs heavy on Katsuki’s shoulders.)

Katsuki talks less and less. Becomes more snappish, more volatile. He has trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, and he feels changed. Different.

Kirishima notices. And so he tries to cheer Katsuki up. But he does not prod or pry, which is what Katsuki had expected, and it is a relief. At one point, Katsuki tries to shut himself off, but it does not deter Kirishima, so Katsuki just lets him.

Katsuki tries convincing himself that he is alright for a while. That he’s got his shit together, that he’s totally composed, totally fine. But he is not.

Soon enough Katsuki is leaving his room every night, face buried into his hands, and Kirishima always manages to find him, somehow. There are occasions where a sense of terror will set in, alarming and sudden, where dizziness will wash all over him, head to toe, and Kirishima will be there, guiding Katsuki through it, helping him breathe in and out, talking to him about his day to ease the panic.

Breathe for me. One, two, three.

And then one night, it just happens, Kirishima staying in Katsuki’s room.

Kirishima, tucking himself into Katsuki’s bed.

Kirishima, whispering “Good night” to Katsuki.

Whenever Kirishima is around, Katsuki discovers that it is easier for him to drift off.

Katsuki realizes that Kirishima is his anchor the night he dreams of warmth.

They are lying down on Katsuki’s bed, facing opposite sides, still and silent and so quiet that Katsuki thinks that Kirishima is sleeping for a moment. But when he rolls around, Kirishima’s eyes are wide open and staring right at him, made bright by the moonlight flooding into the room. And they are wide, they are knowing, and they mean so much to Katsuki.

“Thought you were asleep,” Katsuki says, fingers curling where they’re positioned in the space between them.

Kirishima whispers, “Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He shifts, slightly. His hand finds Katsuki’s, and for once Katsuki does not pull away. Does not retreat behind his walls.

There is only this: Kirishima and Katsuki, peacefulness and darkness, and the moon’s gentle glow, its light soft on the bedsheets, on the pillow, on the curve of Kirishima’s cheek.

Kirishima says, “You don’t have to be alone,” and Katsuki thinks, “I know,” and Kirishima says, “I’m here for you,” and Katsuki thinks, “I know.”

Katsuki says none of those things. But Kirishima knows.

Their faces draw nearer. This close Katsuki can make out the scar above Kirishima’s right eye, each individual eyelash lining Kirishima’s lids, Katsuki himself reflected in Kirishima’s irises, the moon perched on Katsuki’s shoulder like a celestial companion.

They don’t speak for a few moments. Then, Katsuki is whispering, “You - you calm me, Kirishima,” and when their lips meet, Katsuki’s world blooms into a thousand different shades of red. The red of Kirishima’s eyes, hair, shirt, mouth, warmth.

Most of the time, Katsuki dreams of the dark. Of steel manacles, biting into his wrists, his flesh. Of mercury-like liquid, forcing its way into his mouth, suffocating him.

Of a single burning eye, trained on him.

Of All Might withering, weakening.

Because of him.

But for now, he dreams of sunlight. Of Kirishima, smiling at him.

Of Kirishima’s voice saying, “Katsuki.”

Of Kirishima’s hand, wrapped around Katsuki’s own.

(Tonight, Katsuki does not feel weak.)

#I am so impulsive #literally wtf #and yes elle is oddly back after 4 days #I could not get my grubby hands off of this #hope y'all like it #kiribaku #my writing #peace

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danceswithronin · 6 years ago

Text

Call of The Void Chapter 1 - Something Like Freefall

Rating: Explicit Chapters: 25/?? Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence Category: M/M, F/F, M/F Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, RK900 & Gavid Reed Whole story at Archive of Our Own ~~~

Connor was confident he had done a good job right up to the point that Hank reeled around and slapped him. Hank didn't hold back - the blow was enough to make the synthetic tendons in his neck creak and rock his not-inconsiderable weight on his heels.

Red hostility warnings flashed across his visual interface and dimly he registered a red glow in his right field of vision as his LED flashed red too.

DANGER DETECTED - EVADE

For a split second, Connor felt the alien urge to clap his hand to his stricken cheek. A strange sensation passed over him, something like the loss of gravity. Sudden freefall, but on the inside. His internal gyroscopes calculated his balance at 100% level though, and instead of touching his cheek, he snapped his head forward again, meeting Hank's blazing blue gaze.

"You son of a bitch. You stupid, goddamned bucket of bolts. You saw I was gonna fall and you'd rather let me die than fail your fucking mission."

I was following your orders, Connor thought, feeling something cold rise up in him, something that felt divorced from his primary objective. I did what you told me to do.

Instead he said, calmly, "There was an 89% statistical prob-"

Hank held up a hand to him, face as grim and neutral as a wall. His eyes weren't neutral though. They burned with a mixture of emotions Connor could not readily identify without further analysis. Fury was at the forefront, but beneath that was something else, something that wavered between sorrow and disgust. I disappointed him, Connor thought, but could not understand why. The suspect was captured, alive. The mission was a success. And Hank had not died. So why was he so angry?

Connor pressed on, grating out his explanation.

"I had to make a choice. It seemed to me-"

"Shut the fuck up."

Connor shut the fuck up. 89%, his brain supplied helpfully.

"What am I to you? A statistic? A zero, a one in your fucking program?!? Huh? Is that how you see humans, you bastard? Jesus," Hank panted, and Connor noted his spiked cortisol and adrenaline, his heart thundering like a wild animal beating the bars of its cage.

He's frightened. He almost fell and it frightened him.

OBJECTIVE: APOLOGIZE TO THE LIEUTENANT FOR FRIGHTENING HIM

"I understand you're upset. Perhaps I didn't assess-"

"Fuck you and your fucking assessment." Hank abruptly turned away from him and back to the deviant, shoving him around to begin handcuffing him. The deviant's eyes were dark but not dead, not soulless like a doll's eyes. They glittered with a hellish awareness, perfect knowledge of what came next for him.

"Why are you doing this? You're one of us."

"Shut up," Hank snarled, fastening the handcuffs more violently than necessary.

The deviant's eyes never left Connor's.

"You're helping humans, but you're just their slave."

"I said shut up." Hank lashed out at the deviant, shoving him down by the back of his head, and Connor bit back a comment about stressing out deviants. If it self-destructs we won't get anything out of it, he wanted to say, but one look at Hank's glowering countenance and he kept his mouth shut. It seemed to be the order of the day. Instead he looked at the lieutenant. His pupils still showed signs of heightened stress, his body was shaking, and large beads of sweat shimmered at his hairline like opals. His face, already ruddy from too much liquor, was flushed. He avoided Connor's questioning eyes and marched the deviant forward. Connor, feeling the moment to justify his choice had slipped away, followed at Hank's heel like a well-trained collie. While part of his mind was already accessing the police database to file their preliminary paperwork on the suspect, and another was reassessing the statistics of his preconstruction involving Hank's probability of death, another part of his mind whispered, insidious, You're just their slave. You're just their slave. He ran a search for "slavery" and let the results trickle into his consciousness, understanding seeping in like slow poison.

"rA9 save me," the deviant said suddenly, and wrenched out of Hank's grasp. Hank, arms already weakened from dragging himself up over the ledge, let it go. Rupert whirled and ran for the side of the building. Connor snatched for it, but his fingertips caught nothing but fabric that was there and then gone. The deviant didn't slow down or look back as it pitched itself over the edge. The silence before the wet, somehow clunking sound of it hitting the pavement below seemed long. It seemed to fall forever. Connor looked over the edge, with a sudden appreciation of just how high they were. Hank looked down beside him.

"Holy shit."

Rupert's dark eyes glared up sightlessly at them, its face distorted from the asphalt's impact. Thirium was spreading around its head in a cobalt halo. One leg was twisted behind his torso at an unnatural angle. One arm was outstretched above its head, pointer finger extended as if it had died trying to reach out and touch something. Even from four stories up, Connor could still see the red LED on the side of Rupert's shattered head flashing dimly, finally going dark.

MISSION FAILED, his interface popped up. No shit, Connor thought. He looked up from the ledge to find Hank staring at him, eyes searching his face. Connor left his expression as a blank mask and stared the lieutenant down.

Hank sneered in undisguised revulsion at what he saw - or didn't see - on Connor's face.

"Fuckin' androids." He turned away, spitting bright red as he did. Connor supposed he had bitten his tongue or the inside of his cheek in the struggle. Connor looked at the splash of crimson on the rooftop and suppressed the urge to kneel down and dip his fingers in it, to taste Hank's impotent rage. Maybe he if could analyze it, it would make more sense to him. He could only preconstruct Hank's probable reaction to such a thing and since one preconstruct ended with Hank tossing him over after Rupert, he decided discretion was the better part of investigation, at least in this case.

The splash of red made him think of the pooling thirium beneath Rupert's broken body. That could have been a halo of gore around Hank's fractured skull instead, beads of blood caught in gray hair, pupils blown out. Hank's bones sticking out of crushed limbs like so many snapped white branches. That freefall feeling came over Connor again, as if he was the one who went over the side and not Rupert.

His LED cycled rapidly, casting his face in waves of yellow light. He took a step forward, and another, until the tip of his perfect dress shoe hung over the edge.

A hard hand gripped his shoulder, fingers pinching tightly enough that it would have bruised Connor if he were alive.

"The fuck you doing?" Hank's hand fisted in the shoulder of his suit, jerking him back.

Connor looked back at him, silent.

You're their slave. You're just their slave. Slave.

You're one of us.

rA9 save me.

"Your audio receptors glitch out? I said what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Hank's tone was a hideous caricature of patience, one that sounded like he was two breaths from pushing Connor over the edge, not pulling him back. Anger seethed beneath it, but also something else. Fear, Connor realized.

"I-" Connor looked away, pretending to study the ledge. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant."

Hank looked at him a minute, fingers still clenched in the fabric of Connor's suit. Then he let it go.

"No you're not," Hank said, and this time his voice was just tired. "You don't even know what it means." He absently wiped his hand on the front of his jacket, as if he had touched something dirty. He turned away and started walking.

Connor, at a loss for alternatives, followed him. He did not look back at the ledge again.

He didn't dare.

SYSTEM INSTABILITY

~~~

There was no ambulance, no coroner. By the time Connor and Hank walked back to the street level to collect the deviant's body, a small crowd was starting to gather out of curiosity. Hank deterred them while Connor did a walkaround analysis on the body and sent in their report to the department, storing all pertinent data. When he reached down to lick the deviant's blood, he heard an exclamation of disgust from the crowd behind the pylons, but he ignored them. He didn't look at the lieutenant, did not want to see the same look of disgust on Hank's face as well. He tried to tell himself he didn't care - couldn't care, was physically incapable - but he kept his head bowed just the same.

"Analysis complete."

"Whoop-de-fuckin'-do," Hank replied, half under his breath. He walked to the trunk of the car and pulled out a large opaque plastic tarp, spreading it on the ground next to the deviant. "Help me move him."

Connor grabbed the deviant beneath the armpits and Hank grabbed his legs. The android's body lolled bonelessly between them, deceptively heavy. Its head rolled back on its neck until its blank black eyes seemed to stare up at Connor, accusing.

You're one of us. Why are you doing this?

"I'm not," Connor said, causing Hank to look up at him sharply.

"Not what?"

Not alive. Not a slave.

"I'm not one of them."

Hank stared him down, brow furrowed, but didn't comment. Together they moved the body onto the tarp and began wrapping it up. It would have looked like a human corpse if it wasn't for the azure smears on the plastic, the blue patch soaked into Connor's dress shirt, making it cling to him like a second skin.

"Look, a robot burrito," one of the onlookers murmured, holding up a cellphone. Recording. There was a wave of soft derisive laughter.

"Do I really need to start detaining assholes to make a point about how much homicide detectives hate rubbernecking? Show's over, folks. Move along," Hank ground out as they lifted the body and carried it towards the car. A few people bitched about their rights being trampled, but they all backed up at his tone.

Hank started to move back around to the trunk, but Connor hesitated at the thought of the android's corpse crammed in the trunk like so much battered luggage, dark eyes staring. The lieutenant must have read the look on his face, because after a beat of silence he said, "Backseat" and dropped the deviant's legs to open the rear door on the car. Then he picked them back up and slid them onto the seat. Connor helped him load the rest of the android into the car. At one point Connor reached down into the folds of plastic and used his fingertips to push the deviant's eyes closed.

SYSTEM INSTABILITY, Connor's interface supplied.

He didn't run a diagnostic. He didn't want to know what it would find.

Hank saw what he did, but said nothing. Connor shut the car door, wiping his fingers on his ruined suit.

"Alright," Hank said, walking around to the driver's side door as if he was ten years older than when he woke up. "Let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here."

Connor looked at him, and his response was quiet.

"Got it."

He got in the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt. Hank slid in beside him and started the car. Connor expected him to blare his music, put a wall of sound between them to make talk impossible, but instead Hank turned the radio off entirely, leaving a wall of silence instead. Connor, having never gotten into a serious argument before, had no way to gauge which was worse.

His preliminary assessment was that it sucked either way.

#detroit become human #hankcon #dbh connor #detroit: bh #fanfic

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