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dual-plunger-enthusiast · 1 year ago

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Stuff DaFuq?!Boom! has done, a masterpost

As a Skibidi Toilet fan and artist, I do NOT condone any of what he has done. Blugray is a bad person and I do not support him in any way, shape or form. While I may still make fan-content, it does not mean I support him and his shitty actions. Liking content does NOT equal liking creator.

As a notice, this is all I have found so far, and I haven't really bothered with finding anymore new things. I have a life, I don't even really want to make this post, but I'm making it for awareness sake. If you have anymore information about Blugray, feel free to reblog with it. Thanks.

I do usually refer to DaFuq?!Boom as Blugray, as that is one of his aliases and is also quicker to type.

TW: THE N WORD IS USED IN THE FIRST TWO TWEETS, AND MENTIONS OF NAZIS IN THE NEXT TWO.

Tweet 1: 2021 screenshots of Blugray using the n word, claiming he has the "n word pass" which does not exist and does not condone him using the n word.

Tweet 2: Literally a whole VIDEO of Blugray saying the n word, along with dropping a hard r in the same video.

Tweet 3/Tweet 4: Same video, just in 2 different parts. Blugray's take on the Ukrainian/Russian war. I do not and will not engage in this sort of discussion due to personal anxiety, but it's kind of just Blugray being ignorant and believing in the propaganda fed to him.

This is a screenshot that doesn't belong to me or the entity that sent it, but there's also a George Floyd joke he made which is pretty fucking insensitive.

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Though it is not as serious (it still is serious, just not as much) as Blugray's racist behaviour, he has also been copyright striking basically ANYTHING he can find Skibidi Toilet related (I believe theorists and reaction channels are excluded???)

I do not know much about copyright myself, so take this with a tiny grain of salt. I don't use twitter, I simply just get sent these for awareness, and I'm putting them into a post to help others know too.

Many are bummed Blugray is copy-striking content, although he doesn't technically own majority of the assets of Skibidi Toilet, just the storyline alone (and the toilet models I think), along with the fact the Skibidi is a mashup of two songs, that both happen to be copyrighted (I think?)

On the other hand, others defend Blugray's copy-striking since there ARE idiots out there stealing Blugray's content, along with even falsely copy-striking one of HIS actual videos, which Youtube did a wonderful job (sarcasm) handling. Blugray may just be copy-striking everything just to not deal with anymore theft and false copyright strikes.

I cannot say much about this in particular, because as mentioned, I don't know much about copyright. Once again, take with a grain of salt.

Tweet 5: TL;DR: Blugray copy-striked Gametoons for a Skibidi animation they did. Gametoons reached out offering to Delete all their Skibidi videos, but Blugray offered to do some licensing instead, and promising to NOT copy-strike anymore of their videos. He then turned back on his word and copy-striked two more of their videos, which has lead to a chance of channel deletion, meaning Gametoons will be gone forever.

Along with copyright striking Gametoons, he also copyright striked a really popular Roblox Skibidi fangame apparently? I do not have evidence of this, I simply saw news that the game was striked twice, and if you look on Roblox now, every single Skibidi fangame has been renamed to not have "Skibi" in its title.

This is all I have by far, I will try to update the post best I can if anything new arises, but just a reminder, I have a life and I do NOT really want to dedicate all my time just for this post. Thank you.

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Update 1: Gametoons has been resolved. However, all other copystrikes still happened and tbh I’ve lost track of what’s happened at this point so uh yeah take that as you will.

#skibidi toilet #edit: i found out the difference between the r slur and the hard r which was why i got confused (i thought they were the same thing)#edit 2: gametoons update

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wishingstarinajar · 4 years ago

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I am going to ramble a bit but I will hide it under a cut because it's a bit long. It will be about the previous fandom I was active in around two years ago and how it affects me to this day. It's also about popularity and putting others on a pedestal.

If this sort of ramble isn't up your alley then feel very free to skip over this post! I don't mind. If you want to read more about it, just check under the cut.

The Franchise And Its Creators

====

THE FRANCHISE AND ITS CREATORS Around mid-2014, I joined the Wakfu and Dofus fandoms, a small-ish fandom as a whole but popular in certain circles.

For those who don't know, Wakfu and Dofus are (online, console, mobile, figurine, card and board) games, comics, animated series, specials and movies created by a French studio named Ankama. These two franchises are intertwined with each other as they play out in the same universe but in different timelines. I myself dabbled around in the animated part of the fandom; I was a huge fan of the two series and the Dofus movie.

There was very little catering to the international part of the fandom when it came to the studio's attention and interactions. There were no English dubs or subtitles; international fans had to rely on English fan subtitles on ripped/pirated episodes of the show and movie, same for the franga/comics. Merch was hard to get. A lot of articles related to the shows and whatnot were in French only, which is understandable because it is a French-made product. But there's no denying that the international fanbase felt a little neglected back then.

====

MY FANDOM JOURNEY

Because I was very interested in the lore of both franchises, I had to do a lot of digging and translating to be able to fully indulge in it all. I went full in! I dug deep, created OCs, art and also tried to write fanfiction. I also shared news and info about the series and movie; I ran a fan blog dedicated to sharing things with the international part of the fandom. I was also often approached about lore, particularly for a few of the canon characters and one of the races that play a role in the Wakfu franchise; the Eliatropes. It was fun, it felt good to help other fans out, it was nice to make friends and be creative with others about similar things.

Eventually, the character and art theft began. We all know this is a 'normal' part of fandoms, so I won't hammer too long on it. My issue with it was the fact that my main OC, a female Eliatrope, gathered a lot of attention because female Eliatropes were a rarity in the Wakfu franchise. They existed but didn't get a moment in the limelight, except for one that even received her own game (Islands of Wakfu) but it was so obscure that a lot of fans didn't know about its existence. My OC was somehow mistaken as canon by plenty of folks and many others started to use her as a template to create their own (female) Eliatrope OC. I didn't mind, as long as they weren't straight-up copies and I tried to be supportive by answering lore questions and give feedback whenever it was asked for it (which happened a lot). Of course, copying and theft happened more often than not; over the five years I was part of the fandom, I sent out almost a hundred DMCA reports for art and character theft (like true theft; I could handle some similarities or one-time occurrences). One particular case went to the extreme but I won't beat that dead horse any further; it brought me enough misery to last me half a lifetime, that's all I'll say on it. I kept a lot of the negative experiences behind closed doors and dealt with a lot of it quietly to not bother, worry or burden anyone else with any of it. I wanted a positive and supporting environment for my followers, even if the truth wasn't as pretty.

====

ANKAMA'S STRUGGLE

Over the years, studio Ankama increased attempts to cater more to the international fanbase of its animated properties (articles in English, English dubs and subtitles, etc). However, the studio's struggle to garner the attention of international supporters (aka companies and sponsors) didn't go too smoothly, and to make matters worse, they were also struggling with finding a platform in France to broadcast the Wakfu series on after wishing to take a different and more mature direction. Ankama wanted more freedom with the Wakfu show, like less censorship, a serial rather than episodic, and it not being aimed at a young audience like its previous contractor demanded Wakfu to be. Ankama even turned to crowdfunding to get certain projects (like new Wakfu seasons) off the ground and let's just say that those crowdfunding projects are best described as tiny dumpster fires; they weren't pretty to watch. The first one was a disaster with plenty of displeased backers and the following crowdfunding attempts often didn't meet the end goal due to bad past experiences or the lack of interest.

Luckily, Netflix breathed some life into the international Wakfu fandom, which was great! But it was still received badly (mostly due to the awful English dub and sound mixing of the first two seasons and special) that the third season Netflix made possible was not getting the attention it deserved. It was also a rushed product due to financial and time constraints on Ankama's part. Netflix eventually declined a fourth season and it all fell a bit apart from there. Ankama turned to crowdfunding once more to try and make season 4 a reality. Last time I checked (which was quite a while ago), it did decently enough to make season 4 a reality. (Please don't ask me about it, I don't know anything about it.)

====

THE PEDESTAL

While all this was happening behind the scenes, I was starting to struggle with the reputation I built up in the Wakfu and Dofus fandom over the few years I was a part of it. The best way to describe it is that I had grown exhausted.

Aside from dealing with the theft and answering people's questions daily, I wanted to be treated as an average fan but I kept getting put on a pedestal. People went as far as to call me by titles (like lady Wish and miss Wish) more often than not. To be called and treated as such made me feel alienated, like as if I wasn't considered real. I often asked to just be called Wish, no titles/formalities required, and that I wasn't as 'popular' as they believed, but the majority of the people didn't seem to listen. People were either afraid or refused to interact with me because they considered me 'too popular', or simply wanted nothing but my validation, feedback and/or free art. I also had my fair share of haters and people that didn't approve of my 'status' in the fandom. Join the club xD I wasn't very happy with it either.

I really started to dislike being called 'popular' because it had such a bad impact on the people around me (and my own mental wellbeing). Friends started to become jealous of the attention I garnered and it dragged me down every time. At times, it would turn toxic. It was never my intention to make my friends feel like they meant less because they surely didn't. To learn that they believed others were only friends with them or only looked at their art/writing because they were good friends with me hurt so much. It still does. I refuse to believe that was fully true because I was (and still am!) surrounded by very creative people and they all deserved as much attention as I was getting, at times more. I wish others saw it that way too.

I was also heavily chained down thanks to the role (model) I played in the fandom. Too many people (especially young ones) looked up to me and there were a lot of expectations that I felt forced to meet. I started to lose the energy for it, but if I dared to stray a little from the path, the pitchforks and torches would come out. It was very restricting.

In the end, I felt stuck. Things started to grow toxic. There was a point where I began to dislike the franchise because of the bad feelings it brought me. I couldn't even get myself to watch the series or movie anymore. I focused less and less on the canon side of things and more on my own ideas, which was one of the only comforts I really had left in the fandom. I started to shut myself off, which upset a lot of people. I am sorry for that, I wish it didn't happen that way but I was at my wits' end.

When I realized and also accepted that I was no longer enjoying myself with canon or fanon, I knew I had to move on or stuff would end badly. It was a very tough realization and decision to accept and make; I literally dedicated five years of my life to the fandom. I spent hours a day digging for info and news to translate and share, doing 'research' for my fanfics, answering questions, and whatnot. I truly lived the fandom day in and out. It was the first fandom I ever actively participated in to this degree. What the heck was I going to do without that?

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THE NOW

Abandoning the fandom was a scary step to take but not one I regret. I left the Wakfu and Dofus fandom behind me in late 2019. I feel freer now and so much happier. I no longer have the burden of expectations, being a lore guide or be forced to portray a certain role model weighing me down. I am no longer on that f*cking pedestal. I can finally explore interests that aren't exactly child-friendly without a big part of my following pummeling me down for it. (Don't worry, I always try my best to keep it in the appropriate places.)

Do I still like Wakfu/Dofus and all the stuff I've created with it? Yes, I do but I also want nothing more to do with it. Aside from the friends I've made there and also stuck around on my new adventures, I left the fandom behind me.

I still get approached at times about how my Wakfu OC, art and writing inspired someone and ask me if I could give them feedback for their own ideas or give them advice/information on Wakfu/lore. I am extremely humbled by it every time. It's great to see someone feeling inspired and be creative. However, I've moved on. I've left interacting with the Wakfu/Dofus fandom and fan-made stuff far behind me. I haven't touched it for almost two years and it shows on all the social media I share my art and writing on. I at times wish people could be considerate about the fact that I moved on but I also know and understand that not everyone knows my reasoning or my side of the story. I try not to be too harsh on it.

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MY ADVICE

I don't hate anyone for how things turned out; a lot of it was my own doing by not saying no or taking a stronger stand.

It did teach me a lot of things, especially about caring for my own well-being and putting others on pedestals. Please be mindful when you treat someone like others treated me before; it's not healthy, for yourself and the person you put on that high pedestal. Take everything in moderation and consideration, that's all. Everyone's human, everyone has feelings, and everyone deserves a sense of being. Even your favorite artists and content creators. Don't treat them like an otherwordly being that you have to worship.

In turn, if a fandom or something you enjoyed is making you unhappy nowadays, you owe it to yourself to make or find a change. Be good to yourself, always!

Thanks to anyone who read through this ramble. I needed to get this off my chest. I am not asking for advice, neither pity or whatever else. I just wanted to share my thoughts on past experiences because I have a feeling others might be going through something similar.

Thank you again, please take care.

#wish talks #wish rambles #edited with some format fixes

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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OPINION: How Umineko Changed My Entire Approach to Fictional Media

All screenshots captured on Playstation 3 by author

The following article contains a discussion of thematic elements and motives that appear during the second half of Umineko When They Cry. While no actual plot details will be revealed, some might still consider it spoilery. So if you want to experience one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever completely untainted, you should check it out on Steam right now.

The internet is pretty rad, isn't it? You can follow your favorite creators, watch tons of awesome shows, and talk about your favorite things with other people. How about we do that right now? Well, too bad, because YOUR FAVORITE THING IS BAD, ACTUALLY! You made the mistake of posting about it online, so prepare to be sent lots of negative comments linking to 5-hour video essays pointing out every single flaw about your favorite story and why you are wrong for enjoying it!

It's a situation I'm sure many of us have experienced at least a couple of times online. While the internet can be fantastic for finding like-minded people to chat with about things you deeply love, it can also be a gamble and sometimes you end up in a discussion where your conversational partner seems more interested in showing off their intellectual superiority over a work instead of openly discussing its merits or flaws. I certainly know — I used to be one of them.

"As I've eaten my way through countless tales to escape boredom, I haven't really been eating them. I've just been killing them." - Hachijo Tohya

The rise of social media has opened the gates for some incredible in-depth discussion and has changed the way I experience things over the years. But there is also a dark side to the discussions on the internet and that is the trap of wanting to feel intelligent in how you approach stories, which is often accompanied by not really being emotionally earnest. I myself tried to come off as perceptive by pointing out so many mistakes and bad things about media which led to exactly one thing: me becoming absolutely miserable. All I cared about was consuming as many things as possible (FOMO's also one of the many downsides of social media) and appearing as "smart" about them as I could. Until one fateful 10-month stretch in which I played a certain visual novel known as Umineko When They Cry.

Umineko really is tailor-made for catching people with that mindset: It depicts a mystery story about how mystery stories are told and consumed — and what genre would be more fitting to challenge someone concerned with intellectual superiority than one that is all about the clash of Author vs Reader?

"Books aren't a competition. It's not about who's read the most. But boasting that you've read all your ever need to read is just as wrong-headed" - Battler Ushiromiya

Umineko starts off with a well-known mystery trope: A family meets up in a mansion on a distant island, gets cut off by a storm, and then slowly gets murdered one after the other until everyone is dead. And just as in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (which served as one of Umineko's main inspirations), a bottle detailing the events of the incident to the public eventually washes ashore. But this only serves as Umineko's prologue, as its main character Battler quickly finds himself facing off against a self-proclaimed Golden Witch known as Beatrice on a meta-narrative level where he must prove these gruesome killings could have been committed by a human culprit, or be forced to acknowledge her existence and allow her to fully revive.

Thus begins a game of chess filled with exceedingly preposterous murders in which our protagonist's family gets killed by demons, giant goat butlers, and sharpshooting bunny girls — all supplemented by the so-called Red Truth, a truth-revealing tell not unlike Martha's vomiting in Knives Out. Battler must use these authorial proclamations and find a loophole that enables him to explain the murders in a way that does not frame any of his beloved family members as the killer and still allows him to deny the existence of the gruesome and torturous witch.

Umineko's all about how stories are perceived and told by both their creator and their audience. It explores how remarks by the author in every situation — no matter how off-hand they might be — can be used, applied, and twisted to shed a completely different light on a story regardless of its original intent. It shows how adding meaning to a narrative that wasn't meant to be there can both add to or subtract from its most important element: The heart its creator wanted to convey.

"If I had found meaning in only exposing the truth, I would have sunk to the level of a truth-revealing witch and fallen into ruin, spreading only hatred, [...], crushing and refusing to acknowledge anything but the particular truth I seek, unable to escape the cycle of misery." - Ange Ushiromiya

Umineko goes through many different angles of how we create, share, and discuss the tales that fuel our discourse. It ponders the importance of rules when creating storylines and tackles how easy it is to overlook major themes and motives by just focussing on minute details that are open to misinterpretation and irrelevant to a story's soul. It even includes the typical misanthropic yet oh so intelligent detective that usually gets idolized in most media (think BBC's Sherlock or House, M.D.) and puts them at odds with every other character because who would really want to cooperate with someone that completely disregards you as an equal human being and merely perceives you as an amalgation of hints, motives and alibis?

"Sheesh! Just one more step and I'd have been able to take a heart as innocent as the smooth sand just after a wave had pulled back and tear it to bits. What a shame. This isn't fun anymore." - Erika Furudo

And just when you start to really get into Umineko, it moves away from its main conflict, providing you important hints for its solution which most readers ignore as they aren't presented with facts and logic but on an emotional level distanced from the characters we long to get back to. But most importantly, it conveys how one single element is so indispensable to enjoying the narrative odysseys we embark on in our lives, to cherishing the characters that are presented to us in these tales, and to truly understand a story's message behind things like story developments, plot twists, and narrative tricks. I, of course, am talking about love.

Be it the love you feel for characters, for certain staging elements, phrasings of prose, orchestrations of music, design of sound effects, implementations of themes and motives, or cinematographic puzzle pieces — the one thing that is indispensable to truly enjoy all kinds of media, is love. Or, to quote Umineko directly, "Without love, it cannot be seen."

By the time, I was nearing the end of Umineko's eight main chapters, it had transformed from an intellectual battle between author and reader to an all-out war of a story against its community of readers who simply wanted to tear it down to cold, hard "facts." I had spent ten months and over 100 hours. The first half took eight of those months to get through (owing to a few lengths in Episodes 2 and 4), I finished the second half in less than two despite my busy schedule. I even dedicated a whole 15-hour marathon to the final episode as I was too glued to the grand finale to move away from it.

A new me came out the end. I no longer had an interest in tearing apart media for minor missteps. I enjoyed them much more deeply and honestly and began taking my time with the things I consumed. Instead of filling my plate at the buffet of stories as much as I could, I gave each dish its own course on the menu so I could appreciate its flavor in a different way — one bite at a time and not stuffed up simply to give the outward appearance of a seasoned gourmet. And for that, I will never be able to thank Ryukishi07 and his co-creators at 07thExpansion enough.

"The point of theory-making is not to create a culprit or to trample the truths that lie in the hearts of those who have not sinned. If you want to play detective, don't neglect the heart. Otherwise, we're just intellectual rapists. Don't forget it!!" - Willard H. Wright

If you are interested in reading Umineko When They Cry, you can find both its Question Arcs and its Answer Arcs on Steam, GOG, and MangaGamer. You can also read the manga adaptation digitally on Bookwalker (though I personally recommend the visual novel for its award-worthy soundtrack alone).

What work of fiction has touched your life in a profound way? Tell us in the comments!

René Kayser works for Crunchyroll as a PR and Social Media Manager in Germany. You can find him on Twitter @kayserlein where he tries to get people into Umineko every single day.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Going through some old pages on the wiki I keep for my projects (can not more highly recommend building a private wiki site for yourself if you’re a writer with a ton of different or extensive projects. Soooo helpful at keeping me organized).

Anyway, came across this old short story I wrote set in the days of the Holy Wars from the Citadel ‘verse I was talking about a couple weeks ago, that was the original setting for what became By Lost Ways. Tossing it out there in case anyone wants a read. Its fairly short and is a glimpse at the future gods of Night and Day from that ‘verse, Adana and Reyus. *Shrugs*

Even Heaven Can Break

“God is dead.” Nerrick sighed and pulled off his glasses, mopping at them again with his now wrinkled shirt front. It wasn’t as though he held any great hopes that clearer vision might give him any further insight into the utterly inscrutable - and likely insane - young woman sitting across the table from him. He‘d already tested that theory and found it lacking. It simply gave him something to do. An ever so slight distraction from the roundabout circles they‘d been engaged in since - what was it now? Some six hours past?

“Yes,” he heaved, long past the point of trying to disguise his weariness. “You’ve said as much, multiple times. I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate?” The girl - and she was nothing more than a girl, no matter what foolish superstitions she’d inspired amongst the lower classes - smiled again that same enigmatic smile that half made him wish he was a man more inclined to act on violent urges.

“God is dead,” she repeated with a small, careless shrug. “It seems a fairly straightforward statement of fact. I’m confused as to what more you expect me to say on the matter, Sir Magistrate.” His back molars ground together audibly. His patience maintained only by the constant vigilance of his temper. Nerrick reminded himself, not for the first time that morning, that he was a man noted for his restraint, his even temperament and unemotional dedication to justice. He was not about to be bested in a contest of wills by some ignorant, backwoods child, in his own prison.

The small dank room stank of mildew and rot, not to say anything of the havoc the dim torchlight was wreaking upon his fragile eyesight. Only his own personal ethics kept him from abandoning the girl to a more permanent exile in the deeper catacombs, an option that grew more appealing by the moment.

But as long as the possibility remained that she was merely repeating some heretical pagan belief, unaware of the repercussions her words had upon more civilized folk, he could not in good conscience treat her as just another rabble-rouser. Or, the Citadel guard against, condemn her to a space in the asylums, no matter how mad she seemed. Sitting comfortably three levels below the surface of the great granite and steel prison as though she were some grand lady awaiting tea in her parlor. . “Perhaps you speak of another god unknown to me,” Nerrick conceded gracefully. The wooden chair, almost entirely rotted through, creaked ominously beneath him as he shifted his weight, but God above, even his ass was falling asleep. Still she remained poised, back ramrod straight and never shifting those dark, pupil-less eyes from his. He was a man of reason and science and knew the unnerving Berut eyes to be nothing more than an unfortunate physical trait of her people, but it was easy enough to see how they’d gained their reputation for witchcraft and beguilement. Only the sternest of wills kept his gaze locked with hers. “I admit to being unfamiliar with all the customs of your people, and perhaps we speak of two entirely separate entities. The God of my people is eternal. He created everything we know, and much else besides, and He will endure when all else has turned to dust. He can not die.” “No.” Still she smiled. “There is only one God. In this, my people believe much the same as you. But you speak of faith, things that you can not know but believe to be true. I speak of fact. God is dead. This I know.” He tried reason. “God is the creator of all, and has no peer. If you admit this to be true yourself, then how can God possibly die?” She shrugged again. “Perhaps he willed himself to die. One can imagine eternity might grow tiresome after a time.” Nerrick could almost agree with that sentiment, as for a moment, he entertained the blasphemous thought that even God could be moved to suicide after sufficient time spent with this wretched creature. He dispelled such thoughts with a shake of his head - down that road lay this girl’s particular stamp of madness, no doubt. He tried another tack. “God created the universe. If He is gone, how is it that we are not? Shouldn’t the creation end with the creator?” “Perhaps it is ending, and it just hasn’t finished yet. We can hardly expect the universe to work on the same timetable as ourselves.”

“Tell me then,” he finally indulged her. “What makes you so certain God is dead?” “I saw him.” He sketched disbelief with an aged ashen brow. “You saw God.” “We seem to find a language barrier between us again, Sir Magistrate. Is my Erudi not accomplished enough for our conversation? Among my people, I’m considered quite proficient in your tongue, but perhaps I’ve been misled.” Nerrick flushed. Her Erudi was quite fine - more than, in fact, if a bit stilted. Another minor detail that bothered him, though he could not say why. How did such a young representative of an infamously uneducated people come to speak his tongue with the skill of the most lettered gentry? He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “How do you know that the man you saw was God?” “Wouldn’t you know God if you saw him?” “God is above humanity,” he rasped impatiently. “He doesn’t appear in human form. Should we see him, we’d hardly be capable of comprehending his glory.” Her lips moved in what he imagined to be an expression of pity. It was impossible to be sure, the way her eyes resisted any attempt to read emotion in them. They quivered like liquid night, reflecting the faint torchlight as unsteady flames alit on twin seas of oil. “You speak again of what you believe, because you have never known otherwise. I have known otherwise, and speak again of what I know.” “Enough!” His hand cracked down on the wooden table top, spearing his palm with splinters. His reddened face, already contorted in rage, barely registered the pain. Her face registered nothing at all - just the same painted mask of gentle amusement she’d worn since first escorted down here in the company of his guards. And it was a mask, he was sure of it now. She was too clever with her words to be either ignorant or insane. Whatever game she played at, he wanted no further part in it. “I have no more patience to waste indulging your heresy, and I refuse to subject more of my city’s people to it. You’ve caused nothing but disruption since you first arrived, inciting riots and restlessness among the lower classes, using their faith in service to your own twisted agenda, whatsoever that may be, and it ends here, girl.” She remained unmoved. A pale statue in a plain white dress, inky black curls spilling down both shoulders like curtains cut from the same cloth as those damnable eyes. Her lips twitched. “You may call me Adana.” Nerrick froze, save for where his chest heaved like the billows of a forge, grasping greedily at air to feed his exertions. The tinglings up and down his spine were more than just pinched nerves from too long sitting in one position. This girl, with her damn eyes and impenetrable nerves and heretical talk was more than just some insolent brat from the savage lands north of the city. He was no longer completely convinced there was nothing to the stories and legends of Berutian bewitchery. But those eyes held him now, and he didn’t think he could look away even if he willed it. “You resist giving me your name for these past several hours, and now offer it freely, without me even asking. Why?” “It no longer matters,” Adana told him, heaving a sigh of her own for the first time all morning. Nerrick almost felt that there was regret in that sigh, but her painted mask hid that as well as any other emotion, were it there at all. “For what it’s worth, it was never my aim to disrupt the peace of your city. Call it an unfortunate symptom…nothing more, nothing less.” “Then why?” “Everything you know is about to change,” she said gently. “Well, not for you, I suppose, but for them. They needed to know. It’s time for man to take charge of his own destiny, not spend the coming days huddled in shrines chanting desperate prayers to a deity dead and gone. They won‘t listen, not nearly enough of them at any rate, but some maybe.” Why not for me, Nerrick wondered, but instead he merely asked, “Why now? Why do you tell me all this now, when before it was just a game to you?” Adana laughed, a low throaty chuckle laced again with that hint of pity. “It no longer matters,” she said again. “You want to be here,” Nerrick intuited suddenly. “You evaded the guards for over a week, and then when they arrested you today, you hardly resisted. Like you wanted to go with them. Why? Why now, why here? What is it you want?” “To wait. Here with you.” And then, before he could ask for what, she continued. “There’s a mountain two day’s journey north of here by horseback. My people call it the Degatoi. Yours call it the Foothill, I believe. They say that’s where the Citadel rests, where God makes his home.” “That’s just a myth,” he frowned. “God doesn’t dwell amongst his creations, the Citadel exists in a realm untouchable by our own.” “Some myths are make believe. Others are facts that have since been forgotten. I believed it to be fact, as do my people. So I journeyed there, a pilgrimage of sorts. My…reasons are my own.” “And did you find the Citadel?” “No, it wasn’t there anymore. It moved. It does that, you know.” “Of course,” Nerrick snorted. “Why wouldn’t it?” “Why indeed,” Adana smile wryly. She smoothed her dress in her lap. “I did however, find God. He was lying at the base of the peak. Roughly your height, wearing unfamiliar clothes, though I suppose that’s only to be expected. His hair was strange, almost feathery, and he looked like no man I’d ever seen before. He was dead. And I looked into his wide, staring eyes and in them beheld the Abyss. And I knew then that he was God, and knew all the mysteries and secrets of the Universe that he’d known then at the last. My people can do that, you see.” Nerrick nodded, numbly. He had heard that, any schoolchild knew that myth of the Berut people, the legend that kept even the greatest sorcerers of the South from their doorstep lest it turn out to be true. They could see into a man’s soul with those strange eyes of theirs, see all the way into them into their deepest, darkest reaches and pull out every twisted secret and hidden truth for accounting. It was the kind of legend he’d always held up to be nonsense, but now, staring into those eyes of myth and reckoning, he knew it to be true. Knew all of it to be true.

He started to tremble, sweat dotting his brow, tracing salty rivers down the cracked parchment of his skin. The torchlight grew fainter and fainter and the air was dryer and thinner, harder to grasp at. Black flecks spotted his vision, and he took off his glasses again. Wiped them, though he suspected the problem was his eyes, not the spectacles. He’d heard these were all symptoms of a heart-death, but it was hard to worry about such things now. He had to know, had to wonder instead, what kind of things might one see in the eyes of a dead God? What kind of things might one know? “The same things we all know at the end,” Adana said softly. She looked at him in the rapidly regressing torchlight and he knew with the same certainty he knew everything now, that yes, her eyes held pity. For him. “You feel it now, don’t you? When it’s so close, that no reason, no logic, none of the games we play to convince ourselves we don’t know the things our soul senses - that little piece in each of us that’s the smallest sliver of divinity linking us to the rest of the universe - none of them can hide it anymore.” Nerrick shivered and licked chapped paper-dry lips. His voice came out a croak. “Why are you here?” “To wait.” “For what?” “The end.” And then, “I’m sorry.” The earth split with a roar, but to Nerrick, all seemed silent. He leapt back, knocking over his chair with a hoarse shout his ears could never possibly hear over the sound of walls crashing down, thunderous echoes reverberating throughout the small chamber. The stained slate floor rent with a crack right through the center of the room, and he stumbled, tried to right himself, stumbled again as the earth shook and danced and trembled like a living thing, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Dust stormed the air in gray, ominous clouds that twisted into his lungs with every breath he took. The sound and fury buffeted him on all sides, splinters and shards of broken rock bombarding his skin. Pricking, ripping, tearing and gouging.

His glasses cracked and fell, but before he the torches finally failed, he could still blurrily see the girl, Adana, seated serenely on the other side of the table, riding out the madness with perfect poise and watching him with those damned eyes. He fell himself finally and the ceiling split, raining clouds of dust and slate and broken rafters. One struck him full in the chest, pinning him to the floor. He felt ribs break, felt his terrified screams silenced by a shard of wood spearing him through one lung, all his breath going to granting him a few last gasps of air. Adana’s face filled his blurred vision then. In all the din, there was no chance of hearing her get up from the table and walk over to his side, but then there she was kneeling over him. She looked deep into his eyes. “You see? We all know things, even if we don’t know we know them,” she told him gently. “It’s because we’re all a little bit of God. Or maybe the Universe. Creation. I’m still figuring out where the line separating one from the other begins and ends. You were special, Sir Magistrate. Even if you didn’t know it. Take whatever comfort from that you can.” “Go with God.” Then her hand covered his mouth and nose, and she looked into his wide, staring eyes and beheld in them the Abyss, and all the secrets and mysteries of the Universe he had known at the end. ************* Adana rose with some difficulty, and drew the magistrate’s keys from his belt. She smoothed her dress - it would never be white again, she feared - and made her way to the door over a floor that still quivered and rattled, but only restlessly now. Much of its temper had been spent. The hallway beyond was relatively untouched. She quirked dry lips at divine providence, but perhaps it was more accurate to say she enjoyed the favor of the Universe at the moment. The torches were all spent and broken, save for where one had fallen upon the corpse of one guardsman and set his skin and hair aflame, lighting the gray hall fitfully with its macabre light. It was more than enough to see by. At least, more than enough for her eyes. She stepped over another body and ascended the small, tight stairwell at the end of the hall gracefully. Less so, when she almost ran into the blond, dirtied youth who came clattering down the stairs in the opposite direction. He reared back, startled, and she saw that she’d been accurate in her assessment: he was probably no younger than she herself, but his youth shone from his eyes and the sprightly smile that sprang to his face. She recognized him as one of the city-folk always to be found at her gatherings, listening intently to her words. Reyus, she thought his name was. She smiled. “Milady,” Reyus rasped out. The air was still thick and heavy with dust, and he had to stop and pant for breath before continuing. “We were just coming to rescue you!” He waved aimlessly behind himself with what she took for a stolen sword, perhaps looted from a guardsman dead in the earthquake. Coming down the stairs behind him were another young man and a slightly older woman, similarly ill-equipped. Adana favored them with a bemused smile. “How thoughtful.” Reyus blushed a rosy dawn and pressed his back to the wall to allow her passage by. He followed quickly at her heels as she passed the other two and continued up the stairs - rather like an eager but ill-trained pet, she contemplated with some amusement. “Well, there was a number of us - rather, we thought…we weren’t certain what the magistrate would do to you, and we were concerned…” “So I see,” she murmured as they alighted on the ground levels of the prison and found ten or so more men and women of varying ages and garb awaiting them with anxious expressions. They filled in silently behind them as Adana continued towards the front gates, kicking aside the outstretched limbs of the dead where they littered her path. “And are these all your enemies slain? What fearsome warriors have come to my aid here?” She suspected she might be needling Reyus just to see how much further his face could purple in shame and embarrassment. But it was the end of the world, after all. One should take one’s entertainment wherever they found it. The hues of his face performed admirably. “The rest of the guards fled when the earth shook. We never suspected - milady, what is happening? Is this your doing?” “God is dead,“ she said softly. “Such a thing is not without consequences.“ Adana stooped and unwrapped a relatively undamaged black cloak from one body, throwing it over her shoulders. “You’ll want one as well, I believe,” she told the boy.

His eyes held hers bravely, and he nodded. His was an interesting soul indeed. A cult had hardly been her intention. Gaining the attention of the magistrate had been her only real aim, and if she happened to seed her own mystery a bit early, and allow it more room to grow - well, that had hardly seemed at cross purposes either. But, she supposed, it was never too early to find one’s faithful. A boy like Reyus might come in handy, and who knew what secrets the others might hold? She nodded decisively, and raised her voice to address them all. “Everything you know is about to change.” “I have a long road to walk ahead of me,” she continued. “It is not for the faint of heart.” She turned and walked from the prison‘s gatehouse. All of them, she noted with some interest, followed close behind. They raised scattered cries and shouts of alarm as they beheld the vista outside, but she barely looked up. She already knew the sky overhead was a dark red as though aflame. Roiling purple thunderclouds collided and went to war, crimson lighting stabbing at one and then another underneath. A long black tear split the heavens, stretching from one horizon to the next. Consequences were to be expected. The streets ahead of them were filled with the ruins of buildings and the bodies of the fallen. Survivors milled about in small groups, suffocating in shock while scattered fires raged. Flames crackled hungrily, fitful tongues licking at the sky and spewing their venom of smoke and ash. She could hear, faintly, the desperate prayers for salvation and succor. She sighed, and would have told them to save their breath, but then, she’d already done so. Reyus spun about, lost for even a direction to point his horror. “Milady, what about them?” Adana shook her head without slowing. “They’ll follow, or they’ll die. This city is not long for this world. It’s too close to a Vein. Nothing more can be done, and the whole world will follow if we do not reach our destination.” “But where are we going?” She favored his persistence with another small smile and drew the hood of her cloak up over her head. “We‘re going to the Citadel. To seek divinity.” It began to rain, thick, heavy drops that were warm to the touch, quickly soaking them through and through. She was glad to have found a black cloak, as the imagery of her white dress stained by this unnatural downpour was not one she cared to contemplate - even if it would already never be white again. She reached out to raise Reyus’ hood for him when he remained too distracted to care. The blood staining his golden hair, still vibrant even beneath the dust of dungeons, was not an image she found herself caring much to contemplate either. His was a curious soul indeed. “Milady, I don’t understand. If God is dead, what divinity do we seek?” Adana laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that echoed through the ruins of the broken city. “Ours,” was all she said. They picked their way through the rubble as the skies continued to bleed.

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500wordtheology · 5 years ago

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Detour: The Good Place Conclusion

Please forgive me, I’m about to break protocol. Normally this blog is dedicated to theological topics and I strive to keep each post at around 500 words. Today’s post will certainly be theology related, but it is extremely unlikely I will be able to keep it brief. Should you want to skip this post, feel free to click here to advance to the next blog entry.

The TV show “The Good Place” has now concluded. If you haven’t seen it, close this window and go watch the first season. It’s great. Possibly one of my favorite single seasons of any TV show ever. Genius creative work, and brilliant comedy and heart.

I cannot say the same for the final season, and especially the final two episodes. That is what this blog post is about, and in case it wasn’t obvious:

COMPLETE SPOILERS FOR “THE GOOD PLACE” AHEAD.

I will not recap the show’s four seasons here, nor even the episodes being discussed. This is written for those who have already seen them. Instead let’s jump into exactly how, unfortunately, the conclusion of the show failed both morally and creatively.

Please understand I do not write this as some stuffy critic. I lived the life of a stuffy critic in my younger days, and while it is a lovely boost to the ego, it is empty and dumb. I’ve learned that much at least. The reason for my critique here is because we as human beings need to KNOW this stuff. We need to not be tricked into shallow thought.

Where It All Falls Apart

The Good Place made a number of mistakes with the final two episodes. Let’s discuss the errors and try to make clear where things went awry (and how/why they were hand-waved away).

The penultimate episode, “Patty,” introduced the idea that an undisclosed amount of time in Paradise would cause you to become a boring, intellectually-stunted zombie. Apparently even the greatest thinkers who ever lived who managed to get into the Good Place only ever wanted milkshakes and orgasms, and instantly abandoned all big questions about the Universe for simple Hedonism. (And yes, it’s very true that Hedonism is empty and meaningless.)

This outcome makes very little sense, and I am unsure if it was a result of running out of episodes (which would be a shame, because the early bits of the final season were often dull and it would have been far better spending more time exploring these later concepts instead of cheap laughs at the expense of stereotypical, hollow characters introduced and then thrown away) or if it was simply bad and unimaginative writing. Considering the fantastic writing of Seasons 1 and 2, and sometimes 3, this is extremely puzzling. At any rate, it shows a serious lack of creativity.

Here is an important truth that was almost totally avoided in these final episodes: The question “Why?” does not disappear simply because you can conjure up a Coke and some sunglasses any time you want. Those questions remain. They might even move more to the forefront of the mind. Why are things the way they are? Unanswered, unexplored. Not just unexplored by the writers, but unexplored by the characters like Patty who were set up to have been in the Good Place for an undetermined amount of time (but “long”).

This is the ultimate problem with exploring Philosophy without also exploring Theology alongside. Interviews with the creator of the show consistently have him bringing up things like Buddhism or Hinduism, but strangely absent are Monotheistic religions. Why is this? For starters, I expect it is because many of the loudest voices in the modern Western world do not care for such concepts. They don’t like what it entails. If we are not in charge of our own ultimate destiny, which is the case when God exists and has made you with a purpose of his intention, our ego gets a slap in the face.

And it should, because that is what our ego deserves when it is out of order, but that is another post.

Anyway, it is possible this choice was made to avoid ruffling feathers of media and the societal elite. It is easier to play it safe, even for a show that tackled some very large concepts like morality.

It is also possibly because studying such religions requires a great amount of work. Heaven, in Christianity, is not a fluffy cloud where you get everything you ever wanted (like margaritas and monkeys in go-karts), where you sit and play a harp (or guitar) all day and also, hey look, your childhood dog is there. That is a foolish, childish caricature of Heaven, but unfortunately has become widely accepted as true simply because people refuse to go study further. So mistruths are believed due to ignorance. Cartoonish ideas are thought to be accurate, because non-cartoonish ideas are hard and sometimes extremely uncomfortable.

It’s more than a shame.

Not only is Heaven infinitely better than such a stupid caricature, but it isn’t even the final destination! New Earth and bodily resurrection comes after. However that is Christianity, and The Good Place makes its own version of heaven instead. A cartoonish one. Fine. But even ignoring that, the problem The Good Place’s ending faces is in the mantra “Death makes life meaningful.”

Here’s the kicker: That’s not untrue. And because it is not untrue, we can quickly and easily get extremely confused. In fact, go read some reviews of the final episode from a number of popular websites and you’ll find they herald this truth. Because in our earthly life, it is right to say death makes this part of our existence precious.

The problem, and it is a HUGE one, is they then transpose the earthly lesson onto eternity. Ignorantly (and forgive me for this is not an insult but a statement of why they claim it, they simply don’t KNOW and I realize even saying such a thing is unpopular) they claim that eternity would be “like this life but longer.” And yes, if that was eternity they might have a point. However even within the universe The Good Place has created that is not accurate! We are shown concepts like The Time Knife, and IHOP, and Janet, and the Judge. These things alone make eternity not simply Earth-life-but-forever. And here arises a major problem, because the writers suddenly go from thinking reasonably large to thinking utterly small, right at the end when thinking big is so important.

Creativity is boundless. The Good Place was certainly not short on creativity! At least… up until the end. At the end what you had was creative bankruptcy. A nihilistic conclusion that there is no real meaning - except this conclusion gussied up with terms like “peace” and “love” before folks walked off to their annihilation. It is, in fact, the gussying up that I have the biggest problem with. It is a flat-out lie, paraded as some virtue.

This is detestable. Tricking the viewer into believing such ridiculousness as “if you’re ready to die, you should do it and your suicide is a good thing. The best thing, even. The only way to be happy forever.”

I am sorry, but this is not only trash, it is dangerous trash. I hope I do not need to go into detail as to why.

Retirement for All

Let me jump slightly sideways for a second and point out something extremely telling: The “solution” that everyone got on board with at the end of it all was The Eternal Shriek.

Think about that for a second. That is what their solution was. The thing that in Season 1 and 2 seemed (rightfully) so horrific.

Now immediately one might say “Oh, no, that is not the same at all! The Eternal Shriek was a forced thing, the pretty gate in the forest was a willful decision.”

Really?

WAS it?

This is the response the writers want you to have, and it is one, again, of shallow thinking. This is the trick of the pretty forest scene and the constant throwing around words like “peace” and “calm” and “love” at the end. What we learn from the show is that the Forest Gate ends up being everyone’s ONLY ultimate option. Tahani, after mastering demonic/angelic architecture, will be left with the same ending. She will “be ready” but only because she has no choice but to eventually be ready. It is no longer a choice, but, as Eleanor says in the show itself in Season 2 “It’s a crappy deal, but it’s the only one we get.” Even after all they’ve learned (and have the potential to learn, let’s never forget that aspect) they play God (but far worse, because they are not God) and give humanity the *same deal* they say is crappy and lament how it is the only deal they got.

You might also say “Oh, no, the Eternal Shriek had all that awful stuff like having your soul scooped out with flaming ladles.” Yeah? What of it? You’re not conscious anymore (otherwise Michael wouldn’t have lamented “no more me” when he had his existential crisis) so the desecration of your esense and the atoms of your body are as meaningless to you as if someone dumps your cremated ashes in the forest vs. in the ocean. Or, yes, even in a rubbish bin.

Note the throw-away joke of the creature Derek has become. In his final speech (before getting rebooted again against his will) he mentions the heat death of the Universe. Let’s not ignore that. We are left by the writers (manipulated, really) with warm fuzzy feelings as one of Eleanor’s golden particle-thingies lands on a person who then does something decent instead of cruel. But what is not shown (because it would harp on our buzz) is that man will die. Michael will die. They will be annihilated and then, eventually, all humans will die, the earth will die, the universe will die, Derek will die, Janet will die, the Good Place will die, the Judge will die, and the final pretty gold sparkle will no fall on some new person to help them improve, but instead cease to Be entirely and have absolutely no meaning at all. It will all amount to exactly the same in the end as if the Bad Place guys ran things.

To use the pretty analogy of the show, “The wave will still be water and return to the ocean,” but then the ocean will disappear entirely for no reason or purpose and even the wave and water will be worth nothing. (They don’t note this second half, because that second half doesn’t make you feel good. Yet it lurks there, undiscussed and ready to pounce and surprise.)

This is the stark, awful truth of a purposeless universe and existence. It is an awful thing, but it is the truth if that is the worldview we’re exploring. (A reminder this is not the truth of God, though. God loves you, and you do not exist for no reason. A necessary reminder because when we start to really dig in and explore nihilism it gets “real dark real fast.” We need to hold onto the Light at such times.)

At any rate, what then seems to separate the Eternal Shriek from the Forest Door is only that the last fleeting moments are located in a peaceful looking (though ultimately doomed) place. The results end up being identical. The final option of The Good Place ends up being the worst-possible-option of The Bad Place: Annihilation. This is the “solution” the writers came up with. The one they themselves made fun of in previous episodes (rightfully so, because it is terrible.)

And yes, it is that big and important. The *foundation* of ideas is precicely where they either stand firm or topple and crush everyone around them. We must dig deep when it comes to what we think and believe.

Selfishness and “Love”

Here I will break and tackle another awful, awful thing these final episodes support: Complete selfishness as somehow compatible with Love.

Jason is not all that bright. But generally he seems to have a good heart, particularly for those he cares about. Yet after completing a single perfect round of a video game, he chooses to leave the not-a-woman he loves forever. To abandon her, because he just doesn’t feel like sticking around anymore.

What?

But okay. It’s Jason. I was willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of the character, who is a few crayons short of a box.

Then Chidi does the same thing.

WHAT?

This is utterly absurd. Here the writers want to write what they want to write, rather than be honest. It is one of my biggest convictions that an author must be honest. He or she may nudge things in certain directions, but if the author of a story ever forces a character to do something against their character, that is not only poor writing but completely dishonest. It is the lowest form of storytelling to do such a thing. And we find it here.

Chidi, by his own admission, has a sense of calm and peace. Chidi is just fine. Yet he knows his choice to kill himself (annihilate, really, because we need to be crystal clear on that) will hurt Eleanor deeply. It will cause her extreme pain. He still chooses it.

My friends, that is not love. That is also not Chidi.

Love sacrifices for the beloved. And in this case, Chidi wouldn’t even be sacrificing much if he stayed, because we’ve already established he is at peace and internally calm. So rather than maintain this feeling, or even work to be better IF other feelings arose in the future, he checks out on Eleanor. Quits on her. Deserts her. (Leaving her a hedonistic even if hilarious calendar, no less. Fun joke but morally what the fork.)

Loving relationships in our modern age have taken a severe hit. One reason may be that we think this is how you should treat someone you love. “Me first” has become the battle cry of the age.

No, my friends. Love first. Always.

I anxiously await Heaven and New Earth. But also I love my wife, family, and friends. If I must stay here to support them, I will. Even if “there and then” is better, it doesn’t matter. I love them. I will remain for them. (I will even eat kale and exercise if it means I get to remain here to support them a little longer than if I only ate bacon and browsed Twitter from bed all day.)

Beyond that, I will remain because God has me here for a purpose. But since The Good Place did not deal with such topics, resorting instead to vague concepts of “helping people is good, so totally do it” and the like, I will even abandon this particular train of thought for this discussion. Even if it was ONLY my wife, family, and friends, they are worth it. Love is big enough to cause me to keep going for them.

Yes, Eleanor was noble in letting Chidi go. But Chidi was completely ignoble for going when he knew, without a doubt, she wanted him to remain. That she was not ready.

I think this may be one reason after thousands of years (or whatever a Bearimy is, they keep it vague on purpose and that is very clever of them) Chidi and Elenor are still calling each other “boyfriend and girlfriend.” They REFUSE to commit. Why? Because a husband does not walk out on the wife he loves and we know it. We all know it. Deep inside we know that is not what a husband is meant to do. That would make Chidi a horrific husband. But walk out on a girlfriend? Eh. Sure. Not great, but okay. The world says that’s not so serious. Walk away, dude, no one will care.

Sorry, Good Place writers, I care. I care deeply.

Why?

Here is where we get to the meat of it. WHY do I care? (Especially as a number of people point out to me “it’s just a TV show.”)

I care because I have SEEN what real love brings with it. Bliss. Not hedonistic happiness, but JOY. Ecstasy beyond frivolous ideas like orgasms. Delight beyond mere milkshakes and talking pandas. Glory. Perfection. Eternal Good with no end.

It is better, and it is worth striving for.

What happens when we accept and perpetuate ideas like “It is totally fine to abandon people you love as long as it is in your own best interest” is that it degradates our concept of love itself. Love becomes lesser and watered down. This is the same with divorce. Divorce is never easy. Sometimes it is necessary. But it SHOULD never be easy. And honestly? It SHOULD never be necessary. It’s because of our sin that the necessity arises. Here we see the problem not with eternity, but with eternity WITH sin still permitted. Yes, eternity breaks when we are simply “us” but “forever.” (Even if it is slightly-better-than-on-earth “us.”)

Going back to the idea of love, when we chip away at love and redefine it to mean something lesser we open the doors wide for awful things like what Chidi did and what Jason did. Selfish things. And newsflash, for anyone who didn’t already know, WE WANT TO BE SELFISH. It is in us. We desire to look out for number one, and always have number one be us. This is why the great command is “Love God, and Love your neighbor as yourself.” Because we already know how to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is “I don’t feel like being here in paradise with you anymore, bye.” We are called to do better than that.

Real love is epic, you guys. Real love is flippin ridiculously good. It redefines GOOD itself. We shouldn’t settle for the “this is nice” false love that is tossed around these days as if that is the bar. That is a garbage bar! Raise that puppy to where it belongs!

When you experience the utter glory of God and his love, it changes everything. The cheap love the world peddles becomes laughable. But not just laughable: sad. After I watched the finale and read review after review online where people heralded this idea of “eternity would be boring without death” I cried. I laid on the floor and cried for a world that doesn’t know God. That thinks this is all there is, or that boredom could ever come about from true paradise. Forgive me, but what shallow thinking that is! What despair, without even knowing it.

Alas, this is what people are taught. Let us never forget that Story does not just entertain us, it teaches us. It molds us. This is, sadly, the emptiness The Good Place ends up teaching as its last lesson. “Do good, because it’s good (don’t ask why), but then abandon doing good if it means you get what you want.” Hedonistic Nihilism is the conclusion they offer, spit-shined so you don’t think too hard about it or feel too bad. Yes, feel a little bad, they want you to do that. But not bad enough to really think about how the hope and golden particles of light in a peaceful forest are a trick to shy away from ultimate meaninglessness and selfishness behind it.

This is the final moral of the show, and it is desperately sad. This is the emptiness of Philosophy without God. And when it is sugar-coated like they sugar-coated it, it is a cyanide pill that tastes great and goes down smooth.

You know, until it kills you.

#goodplace #the good place #God #theology #philosophy #review

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pursuing-perfection · 6 years ago

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Broken Memories

[[The following is taken in part from elements of Kikiro’s event, expanded upon. Sensitive themes to follow.]]

You awaken. Alone. No one is there. You remember the Collective. You came here with them. But they are gone. Your hands move out and meet bars. You are in a cage. You can not stand. You can only remain on your knees. It's cramped and cold. You are naked, your skin painted with odd blue lines that you can't wipe away.

Kiki maintained that unrelenting stare upon the corpse before it. A forsaken skeleton of one long lost life now but a curled heap on the floor of a rusted cage. This was home, and Kiki knew it was. All its efforts had directed it to this place, to this moment, to this thing. This dust covered wretch left to decay in a room untouched by decades.

The memories swirled in the pendant it clutched now to its small porcelain hands. The gold embossing lacing through the rim of black obsidian glass. Here in this small token did the answers come to it, but for every answer more questions were left in wake.

This was not what it had been seeking. This was not the solution it thought it would obtain. Here there was meant to be purpose and direction, but all it had found instead was a catacomb of broken machines and twisted, imperfect creations.

Where was the answer? Where was the purpose? Where would it go now?

A man comes. He wears grey. He looks to you and smiles. You hate him. You want him to die. You wish you could kill him. He turns to another cage. A latch is twisted. He reaches in to grab a woman by her ankle. Her name is Catherine. You watch her scream as she is dragged out of sight. Her nails bend as she claws the stone to seek escape. She does not escape. Her screams go on for hours, but soon after stop. You are happy when they stop.

The bodies were difficult for one to move alone, but Vi was making progress. Kiki directed its companion to her task, assuring Vi lifted the dried bodies to carry them to the pyre outside the homestead. A place where the brittle remnants were consumed and cast to the sky in plumes of ashen smoke.

These bodies once could service but now they were desecrated. Left to brine and soon shrivel to dust in the confined spaces of the catacombs. Kiki knew not to what end this cleaning process was achieving. Such things being hardly a desire to itself. And yet, it performed the task all the same. Something to do as it pondered the questions.

Was it a mistake to come here? Or to come back here? It knew not which it was anymore. For the swirl of old memory and new thought conflicted. Who was this face in its mind? Who was this body it remembered feeling?

You have been here for days now. Your stomach hurts. You grip it. You see the blue lines are now marked with cuts. Strips of flesh are missing and they sting terribly when you try and move or touch them. You miss your loved ones. A woman steps in front of your cage. Her face is scratched out like a painting. She lowers to your level to speak with you. Her words are faded. You hear none of them. You feel hopeless. You wish, for the first time, that you could die.

The interior of the catacombs took hours to cleanse. Hours, or perhaps days. It could not recall the days and the nights as it took to the monotonous task with single-minded focus. Still with all of this time dedicated it was no closer to answers. Pondered in that pendent it only received the same images over and over. An echo of something alien to itself, yet familiar enough to feel unsettling.

It had rid the interior of all corpses, save one. One body it had felt unable to touch though it remained extremely aware of. Set to the rusted iron floor of a broken cage, the small curled figure continued to draw its eyes though Kiki was as of yet unable to shift it.

Something about it seemed sacred. As if it were meant to be there. As if the body had no other place to be. It was destined for that cage, and to move it would be wrong. Incorrect.

You have lost count of the days. Your skin is a broken patchwork of flesh and cuts. You look down and see where she placed pieces of porcelain. You are happy for these. They cover the wounds. You think they look good. You think they are... perfect..

The other dolls had taken to it. Following Vi around as she moved through the confined catacombs and silently assisting with small tasks that were in their capabilities. Kiki too had begun to tend them. When not cleaning or setting the mechanisms into order, Kiki and Vi occupied their time reconstructing the fragments the Collective had shattered. Bringing the dolls their motion once more, and releasing them to walk the halls of this darkened place.

Kiki felt purpose in this, but no satisfaction. This task was simply a task. A task that was correct to its mind but not what it was meant to do. Something in this place was missing, and Kiki could not create it with its hands nor the ones of Vi. It was hollow, like a beating heart without blood to pump. Empty.

Kiki had taken a measure of hope that such answers could come through the other dolls now in its care. But they only ever watched, walked, existed in a stagnant state. A thousand glass eyes and a thousand stitched lips. Efforts lost to seek their council. It was alone once more.

You see her face one more. You are so grateful that you get to see her again. You smile, you feel peace. Your body hurts but you know you deserve the pain. And you know she has come now to take it away. You wish you could cry, for joy swells your heart. She holds a necklace out to you. Gold chain, with a black stone. She utters a name to you. A name you will remember. A name that will be the last one spoken to you before all fades to immediate black. "Kikiro"

Kiki sat before the corpse once more. It had decided to let it remain there. This one single skeleton forgotten to a cage floor. It was meant to be there. It had no other place to be. It’s purpose was to remain in that cage and within it, salvation and release would come.

Kiki knew not what that meant. But it knew those words to be true.

It could remember now the words spoken that night, moons ago. Words the result of a crack in the veil that parsed the memories of itself to the ones granted by this pendant clutched still to its small hands. What words did it speak? Were they the words of self, or the echo of another?

Who was lingering within this pendant, seeking to be heard?

What would it do now that it had been noticed and engaged?

It had questions. But the silence held no answers. As Kiki regarded that skeleton before it, the other dolls moved in league. One to follow another they set their glazed eyes and cracked faces to stare upon the broken body of the forgotten life.

A legion of silence, a forgotten place, a creation without a purpose.

Kiki pondered if this was what fear felt like.

Vi remained still, staring at the body once more with the necklace clutched to her hands. Kiki, meanwhile, held standing directly in front of Vi, staring at the skeleton. "It.. it wished to return home.. it had to return.." The doll's face unchanged, features locked forever in the detail carved and painted by the creator. "It thought it could remember.. it.. hurts.. when it remem-.." The doll paused, a small porcelain hand extending to rest to the skeletal hand of that old body. "When... I.... remember...."

#Stories

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urbanjunction · 6 years ago

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Alright. Fuck it, boys, girls and gentle people. New muse time!

Name: Annie (Banner)

Species: Human-passing Life Model Decoy

Age: Chronically, about 8 years old. Mentally and physically in appearance, about 20-25 years old.

“Birthday”: Celebrated presently to be sometime in the first half of May 2011.

Hair: Red

Skin: Fair

Eyes: Blue/Green

Job: I guess she’s a free agent, but she was an LMD meant to do missions with Red Hulk, so. It’s quite up in the air what she actually does anymore as a rogue, uncontrolled LMD.

General Backstory: Developed by Dr. Banner, she was later brought into life to run out missions for the Gamma Base. Eventually, she strayed from that to help out General Ross/Red Hulk on his missions, growing close to him. Although she confesses she is only an LMD, she is noted to be valuable and important, having a lot of free will and new nativity about the world despite being given implanted memories to function as a normal person. She recognizes these memories aren’t necessarily real, but she remains a loyal, dedicated and faithful person, albeit going through a rebellious phase.

As much as an LMD can have one of those. It’s hard to say where her alliances lie anymore, but it’s generally for good. She’s very much her own person, not meant to replicate any existing person, but simply exist as a new one, something likely given to her in terms of individuality from her creator, who she now treats like and interacts with as her parent.

She retains all the abilities of an LMD. Found here: [ x ]

More info on her here, though I’m not following this too closely. [ x ]

FC: Alina Kovalenko

#muses;#reference;#important;#ooc;#c; annie

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roslinadama-sinequanon · 7 years ago

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Okay, so for any of you tired of the salt or tired of me complaining about Sharon Raydor’s death or James Duff don’t bother reading beyond this point. You have been warned. Rant will follow.

I just read his latest interview and if I hadn’t been infuriated before, I certainly am now. Every time he opens his mouth he just makes things worse. Basically what you get from this interview is that it’s the fans (Mary’s fans) fault for reacting in such a ridiculous and irriational way to a television show.

I find it interesting that while he continues to use Mary as a shield to hide behind and continues to say he killed Sharon off because he couldn’t end the show the way he wanted with her still alive(though why he needed or wanted it to go down that way I still haven’t figured out and he still hasn’t commented) he has yet to offer up any kind of explanation about why he lied to the fans about season 6. Why he offered it up as a gift and said we would be satisfied and gratified. He’s never commented on that, at least as far as anything I’ve seen.

So, here is my take on the article.

Maybe the fact that there is no hope is what has the fans most upset because they weren’t done yet.

GOD, people really don’t get it. We all understood Major Crimes was finished. We aren’t IDIOTS. We had accepted it. Yes, many of us hoped it might get picked up by another network but that inferno of rage did NOT happen because we were upset that there was no hope for MC to get picked up. That INFERNO was created over the senseless killing off of Sharon Raydor. END OF FUCKING STORY.

And what they are reacting to most is the death of Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), which many didn’t understand why it happened.

Uh, Ya THINK? Did ANYONE other than James Duff understand why it had to happen?

So Parade.com had one final conversation with series creator James Duff, who patiently explained why both he and McDonnell felt that Sharon needed to be laid to rest.

Yep, try to take Mary down with you Duff, it’s what you’ve tried to do since this whole thing blew up in your face. Mary stated in her podcast that HE came to her with what he planned to do with Sharon, she didn’t go to him and say Sharon needed to be laid to rest. She even said that she didn’t want Sharon to die. She had to make the best of the decision that was made--she did NOT make the decision, that was all on JD. Though I’m sure she was probably thrilled to actually have scenes with emotion in them that weren’t revolved around Rusty.

It wasn’t a decision he made lightly or one that didn’t cause him some pain.

I call bullshit. He’s admitted to planning on killing Sharon off before, it didn’t cause him pain, he used her as a means to an end.

What’s really interesting is the controversy about killing off Sharon is still going on, all these several weeks later. What do you want to say to the fans that are devastated by her death?

I’m sorry they’re having an emotional reaction to a television drama.

Wow, could he possibly be anymore condescending. Jesus, at least Mary and Tony and others understand why the fans are so upset and why we were grieving. His response is to look down his nose and basically call us idiots for feeling grief over a television drama. And it wasn’t a “television drama” we were grieving for, it was a CHARACTER we loved, an actress we all love and admire and a COUPLE we loved that was destroyed. We emotionally reacted to THAT. And because it was SENSELESS.

I don’t know what else to say. I have explained it and the story that follows could not have happened under Sharon’s watch.

No, it couldn’t, because Sharon actually had integrity. What he doesn’t say here is WHY he had to end the story that way. It was such a horrible way for the show to go out, losing all its morality and integrity…For what?

I wanted to give Mary something extraordinary

I think he needs to look up what that word means in the dictionary.That was hardly extraordinary. Mary’s only played that out time and time and again--most recently right on the show she did before MC, something called BSG, you should remember James, since you tried to rip it off time and time again.

I wrote a story that made people pay attention to Mary and I feel like I did the right thing. But we also wanted to make sure to give the audience a chance to grieve with us and the passing of our long endeavor.

Okay, so no. No you didn’t. You had your regular viewing audience which spiked highest for her wedding, proving that the storyline you were NOT interested in writing was the one that garnered the most fan interest, then you killed Sharon off and the viewership spiked for her funeral. Yes, extra people (many waiting to binge watch when the season was over)tuned in to see if A. she was really dead or B. To say good-bye to a woman they loved. I think most people believed her death was a hoax, that Sharon was pretending to be dead and tuned in to see how that played out. So, yes you garnered attention for Mary but only once her character was FRACKING DEAD, so only the regular viewers, you know the ones who kept you on the air all these years, saw the lame storyline you wrote for Mary to play out until her funeral.

And as far as grieving goes, are you kidding me? Once the funeral was over no one grieved about Sharon AT ALL. We grieved, but on MC she was completely erased as if she hadn’t existed. Life simply went on, even for Andy.

It was a difficult and painful decision for me. I can’t imagine, although I suppose it’s so, that people don’t believe I grieved very much. I cried while putting together those scenes, especially the one in the church. Also, not just because it was the end of the character, although that was devastating to me as well, but because it meant we were at the end of the show. I fully anticipated that this would be a controversial decision and my email boxes on my Facebook page just filled up constantly with questions about it.

I sincerely DOUBT he grieved at all. Anyone who could so coldly use Sharon as a pawn all these years does not feel anything for her.

But actually, you’re hearing from a dedicated minority of fans, and they are not fans of Major Crimes, but they were fans of Mary McDonnell, and that’s to be expected from that subset of fans. I knew it and Mary knew it. I discussed it with her. I said, “It’s not going to be the same as when we changed over from The Closer to Major Crimes and Kyra [Sedgwick] was gone.”

Again, the condescension from this man is just INCREDIBLE. So, we can’t be fans of Major Crimes and be fans of Mary McDonnell. And he seriously thinks that ONLY Mary McDonnell fans are upset by her death? There are LEGIONS of SHARON fans out there who are upset by her death and also a lot of even casual MC viewers. Are we vocal, yes, and sad to say it’s probably what got Sharon killed off. “That’s to be expected from that subset of fans.“ You can tell from his tone how much he despises Mary’s fans.

Also, yet again, he contradicts himself. Previously he stated that he was taking a lot of heat and people were mad at him but he was okay with that, it was just like when Brenda left and Sharon took over and he had to take the heat. Here he says how different it was. Honestly he’s made up so many stories he can’t remember what he’s said. And of course it was different, he didn’t kill off his precious Brenda Leigh.

I do believe Mary was astonishing, both in the last episode where she appeared in person, and the one in which she appeared in the video. I think the video was amazing, some of her very best work, and that’s what I was trying to accommodate

Oh yes James, how benevolent of you. You wrote that whole horrific sixth season in tribute to Mary. My God does he think we’re stupid. I swear it’s like he thinks he can turn the anger of the fans from him onto Mary. He wants everyone to blame her. And yes, Mary was great as she always is, but “some of her best work” Has he watched BSG?

No, it’s not. I said all along that the end of the story could not have happened had Sharon been there, and that’s the truth. That’s why I said she is like the leader who takes her vision to a new height, but does not get to stay there. She’s actually played that character before on Battlestar Galactica so she’s got that archetype inside of her as part of who she is.

So basically he is admitting that he has no creativity whatsoever and just wanted to copy BSG. HOWEVER, it’s BULL. Sharon had her vision all right. She took over that squad and Rusty Beck and imparted to them the knowledge and power of the law and rules and morality and integrity. And in end they ignored EVERYTHING that she stood for. That is hardly taking her vision to a new height but not getting to stay there to watch it play out. Her vision died with her and she would be devastated by what Rusty and Provenza did. Where is there anything but tragedy in that? To quote Sharon Raydor, “I will have to wonder where I went wrong as a mother.”

People seem angry at me, but I feel like I was reacting to events. I was not moving events, but next to doing something truly spectacular, there’s nothing like rising above something absolutely ridiculous. That’s what I’m doing at the moment.

How was he reacting to events. HE created the events and now he feels like our grief and our anger is “ridiculous”. For everyone who ever thought he respected the fans, this is how he really feels about them.

To me, it seemed that Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) had to be the one to kill Phillip Stroh and you gave us that. How do you think he’s going to live with it going forward? We’re not going to see it.

Yeah, we’re not going to see it. That’s why Provenza’s (G.W. Bailey) already made a deal, and that is with Rusty. He said, “When you graduate, you’re going to work for the DA’s office and you’re going to work this off. You’re going to work this off and you’re going to see firsthand what it is we’re supposed to do.”

That’s supposed to make it better? That’s his punishment for murdering somebody? Yeah, too bad all murderers don’t get such a cushy punishment. Don’t get me wrong, Stroh deserved to die, it just should have been done the right way.

Well, I gave a clue to Rusty and Gus’s disposition at the end of the show. Gus suggests he has to go back to his own apartment, and Rusty says, “Stay,” and Gus says, “I’ll stay forever if that’s what you want.” Rusty takes his hand which is an indication of what will happen with Rusty and Gus.

Of course it is you FUCKER, cause you had to give those two immature dysfunctional BRATS a happy ending and destroy the couple the fans really liked. And how telling it is that when Duff was asked about what he felt the characters were doing now with MC over he doesn’t even MENTION Andy, cause you know damn well he killed Andy when he killed Sharon. Hell, he’d been slowly killing Andy since the heart attack.

But I don’t really know how the show would function in another season because I’ve not thought of doing it. People are urging the concept of novels on me. In years’ past I would have said no way. But the media environment has changed so much, publishing has changed so much, that I might consider it. I would have to figure out when they took place, what form they would take and all that sort of stuff. But I have considered maybe novelizing new stories of Major Crimes.

I wouldn’t read any of his shit if you paid me.

Also I would say that for the viewers, I felt like the threat to Provenza’s continued leadership, which is what Sharon wanted, would be something of suspense, and having Sharon die indicated to the audience that I was willing to do anything at the end, so that’s something else I wanted in the water.

Oh, who fucking cared by that point James. Really. I didn’t hear one person worried about what might happen with Provenza. We were still, you know, grieving for Sharon and many of us were not even watching anymore.

The other controversy — and I read Mary’s essay that she wrote for Variety — was the removal of her name from the credits. Is that standard practice?

It is. It is absolutely standard practice. As a matter of fact, Raymond Cruz wasn’t in the first two episodes of this season, and he was not billed. Mary was paid for every episode by the way, even the episodes in which she did appear, so it was not a financial decision.

No, it wasn’t about money James, it was about respect, something JD does not understand.

It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, because there were so many people saying they would never watch again without Mary McDonnell. Had we billed her and she not appeared, we would have been accused of chicanery or of misleading people.

Also, there were so many theories about that Sharon faked her death and she would be coming back in the finale to deal with Phillip Stroh, that if we had billed her, people would have been distractedly waiting for a moment that would never appear.

Oh, but remember, James, it was only MARY fans who were upset with you for Sharon’s death. You can’t even keep your stories straight at this point.

So this is a bit of irrationality as far as I’m concerned. If people are determined to be irrational than rational reasons don’t generally meet the need that they’re looking for. But I will also add something my father taught me, which is if you spend your day looking for friends and decency, you’re liable to find that, and if you spend your time looking for swipes in this respect, you’ll find those things, too. With the exception of Columbus, people generally find that which they’re trying to discover.

Yes, I will give you that James. At this point I don’t have anything but contempt for JD and I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt at all, because he has not EARNED the benefit of the doubt. But, how you can he say we are going to out of our way to find the bad when he didn’t even bother warning Mary about this, and we know this because she wrote an article about it. He doesn’t address this at all.

I would urge Mary’s fans to look for all the ways in which we respected Sharon and all the ways in which we promoted her and pushed the character into the things that she always dreamed of obtaining.

She got her promotions. She got her marriage. She got her kids through college, which, by the way, only made her death more painful and made me, I guess, more loathed by a substantial subsection of the fans. But it’s my job to provoke emotional reactions and I feel like I succeeded.

What a complete and total asshole. If didn’t despise this guy before I sure as hell despise him now. He seriously thinks he respected Sharon? And he thinks that by giving her the promotion, the marriage and her kids through college makes it okay that he killed her? Yes, she got all that and then wasn’t allowed any time to enjoy any of it. And then of course it only made that “subsection” of the fans loathe him more, HELL YEAH, but that’s okay because he’s supposed to provoke emotion. Yes, he did succeed in that. He’s made so many people hate him and also have extremely negative feelings for the TV show he supposedly put so much effort into. If he wanted the negative responses like hate and betrayal, he achieved his goal, what a shame he didn’t put any effort into creating positive emotional responses.

Right and as you and I discussed last time, Mary agreed to it. It was something she also wanted.

Except Mary McDonnell herself said that she wished that Sharon hadn’t had to die.

Naturally if we had not known we were going to be cancelled, it wouldn’t have happened this year.

And there it is folks. Sharon was never going to survive under Duff. As he says here “it wouldn’t have happened this year” if they hadn’t known they were getting cancelled. Duff was planning to kill Sharon at some point, no matter what. I just WISH TNT had waited until he’d wrapped up filming the season and THEN cancelled them. Then he wouldn’t have had the chance to write that shit show of a death and he would have to live with the fact that he had NOT been able to kill Sharon off the way he’d been wanting to do for what appears to be years.

If they just sit down and think about it for a minute, people would realize that you can even create legal problems by billing actors who do not appear. So we followed SAG guidelines here.

Really, because you did it when Mary was on The Closer.

So possible novels, what else might you be doing next? Any thoughts?

I have some development in the works. I think it’s bad luck to talk about it, and I’m also writing a couple of features back to back, but the pace at which features get made is usually glacial, so if I mentioned them now, by the time they appear or don’t appear, people will have long forgotten. And I have a play that I’m finishing.

Please anyone who hears what he is doing, let me know so I can avoid it like the plague.

#sharon raydor #Major Crimes #James Duff #so fracking infuriated #this man should just shut up #admit you fucked up and shut up

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bigskywritings · 4 years ago

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Even Heaven Can Break

A tale of the Citadel, and of Endings, and Beginnings

“Perhaps you speak of another god unknown to me,” Nerrick conceded gracefully. The wooden chair, almost entirely rotted through, creaked ominously beneath him as he shifted his position, but God above, even his ass was falling asleep. Still she remained poised, back ramrod straight and never shifting those dark, pupil-less eyes from his. He was a man of reason and science and knew the unnerving Berut eyes to be nothing more than an unfortunate physical trait of her people, but it was easy enough to see how they’d gained their reputation for witchcraft and beguilement. Only the sternest of wills kept his gaze locked with hers. “I admit to being unfamiliar with all the customs of your people, and perhaps we speak of two entirely separate entities. The God of my people is eternal. He created everything we know, and much else besides, and He will endure when all else has turned to dust. He can not die.” “No.” Still she smiled. “There is only one God. In this, my people believe much the same as you. But you speak of faith, things that you can not know but believe to be true. I speak of fact. God is dead. This I know.” He tried reason. “God is the creator of all, and has no peer. If you admit this to be true yourself, then how can God possibly die?” She shrugged again. “Perhaps he willed himself to die. One can imagine eternity might grow tiresome after a time.” Nerrick could almost agree with that sentiment, as for a moment, he entertained the blasphemous thought that even God could be moved to suicide after sufficient time spent with this wretched creature. He dispelled such thoughts with a shake of his head - down that road lay this girl’s particular stamp of madness, no doubt. He tried another tack. “God created the universe. If He is gone, how is it that we are not? Shouldn’t the creation end with the creator?” “Perhaps it is ending, and it just hasn’t finished yet. We can hardly expect the universe to work on the same timetable as ourselves.”

#tales of the citadel #adana and reyus: night and day

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unmaskd · 8 years ago

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From https://unmaskd.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/why-bother/

“It took me a while to find you, sage,” said a man who emerged one bright morning from the deep forest that surrounded the house of Puram Bam. The man’s voice was void of emotion. He was simply stating the fact. Puram Bam was observing a white marble statue that stood in the tall grass next to his house. He glanced at his visitor and turned back, without saying a word. “And now that I have found you, it is too late,” the man said, as if agreeing that they needed no greetings or introductions. This time Puram Bam spoke, “Why don’t you go back then?’ The man shook his head. “What’s the point? On my way here I lost whatever little I had left.” “Maybe you didn’t have much to begin with,” said Puram Bam, his eyes studying the face of the statue. “Oh, no,” the man replied, and his voice carried a shadow of what could have been indignation. “I had what others could only dream of.” He went quiet. Puram Bam stood up and walked around the statue. It was a sculpture of a young woman. She was standing in a relaxed pose, looking at something, her face full of wonder and anticipation. “You don’t care about anything I have to say,” the man observed, his voice empty again. “Do you?” Puram Bam asked. The man chuckled dryly. “They were right. You are not like others.” “None of us are,” Puram Bam agreed. “Well,” the man said, “since I have come all that way to find you, I may as well tell you what brought me here.” “Do you know?” Puram Bam asked. “My mind wasn’t among the things I lost,” the man replied, a shadow of anger creeping into his voice. “Of course, I know the question that sent me on this quest. I just no longer care about the answer.” “Then you won’t mind if I go back to my house,” Puram Bam said, and started for the door. “Wait,” the man said. “Please. I’ll tell you. I may as well. I was an artist. A painter. A famous painter. Famous and rich. The best galleries were seeking my paintings, and the Emperor himself commissioned me his portrait. I was spending my days doing what I loved and as good as I was, I was only getting better at my craft. People said that when they looked at some of my portraits they felt as if they were peeking inside the souls of those who I had painted. I had women of stunning beauty, was friends with the most prominent people of the empire, and my dog lived in a better house than this shack of yours. I had everything a man can wish for. Everything. Sometimes, when painting, I even felt more than a mere man. I felt godlike. In moments like this it felt like there was nothing I couldn’t bring to life with my brush. “Then one day, I received a new commission from the Emperor Moktut. He decided to dedicate a room in his legendary gallery to the best artists who ever lived. Of all the living artists, I was the only one, whose portrait he wanted in that room. And so he asked me to paint a self-portrait. For there was no one else who could do it better. “Believe it or not, this was a new enterprise for me. Unlike many other artists, I had always had little interest in painting myself and found faces of others more interesting than whatever my face had to offer. But this was the Emperor’s commission, and so I had a large mirror delivered to my studio, and started painting. “This was the first time I looked at myself as a portraitist, and I liked what I saw. The mirror showed me the face of a man who had conquered life and who had every reason to be proud of his work and himself. As I was working on the painting, I felt like I was discovering myself. Among other things I discovered a few gray hair. I smiled at that silver sign of maturity and wisdom, and went on with painting. Then, I had to interrupt my work for several urgent commissions and it took me almost half a year to return to that self-portrait. And then it happened. I spotted more gray hair. Not much more, but enough to notice. “I remember that moment more clearly than any other moment in my life. There it was — my grand delusion exposed in daylight. Those hairs turning from black to white, they were sand in the hourglass that I had been ignoring foolishly for years. But I now saw it in full clarity. It seemed that I had only looked away for a second — and more particles fell down, never to come back. Godlike? I was a pitiful creature, a miserable sack of flesh, too blinded by his hollow pride to see the truth. The truth that I was but a walking corpse about to start rotting in a blink of an eye. What was the point of doing anything in face of that fate?” “I didn’t even think of finishing that self-portrait. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. I spent days sitting in a chair, thinking of how pointless everything I had ever done had been. Of how laughable my pride was. And of how blind I had been not to realize sooner that my life had no meaning. “Then I overheard a story that one of my servants was telling another. About a man who told the Emperor himself to his face that the Emperor was afraid of dying. And about the Emperor’s reaction to his words. The name of that man, they whispered, was Puram Bam. I thought that someone who talked that way to the Emperor Moktut — and lived — was either insane or as wise as they said he was. And so I am here, though finding you wasn’t easy. But it’s been a long road and by now everything has lost meaning. Even the very question that brought me here”. “You never asked that question,” said Puram Bam. “Why bother?” the answer came. “Why not?” Puram Bam replied. The man smiled with disappointment. “Is this all you have to say, sage? Is this what all your famous wisdom amounts to? You are not that different from others after all.” “None of us are,” said Puram Bam. “So you are not going to try and convince me that my life has meaning?” the man asked. “It doesn’t,” Puram Bam replied. “I should have known,” the man said. “That’s why they call you a sage. Because you tell people what they already know but are too afraid to say. Thank you. This is strange help, but still help.” “Can you help me too?” Puram Ban asked. The man shrugged. “I guess.” “This statue. What do you think of it? Does it amount to more than my wisdom?” The man walked up to the sculpture and went quiet. A minute passed. Then another. “Yes,” the man said, finally. For the first time there was more than a shadow of emotion in his voice. “Yes, it does. It amounts to more than anyone’s wisdom. This is a work of a true master. That pose, that face, the hair… you can almost feel the wind. And her eyes… Was it you who made it?” “No,” Puram Bam replied. “I’m not a sculptor. Words are my marble. A good friend made it and had it delivered to me. We talked one evening about my vision of a statue like this – and now it’s here, more real than anything I could’ve imagined.” “I never thought I’d say this about anyone,” the man said slowly, “but your friend’s portrait deserves to be in that room more than mine.” “Now,” said Puram Bam. “That’s where I need your help. Do you see that sledgehammer over there?” “Yes,” the man replied. “Take it and smash her.” “Have you gone mad?” the man asked, stunned. “Or is this some sick joke?” “I’m as sane as you are and I mean every word,” Puram Bam replied. “I’m asking you to take the sledgehammer and keep smashing this statue until it’s nothing but a pile of crushed marble.” “Why in the world would I do that?” the man cried. “And even I were to, why would you want to destroy it?” “Because it’s a lie,” Puram Bam said. “Perfection like this does not exist in the world. Just look at it — it’s a slap in the face of every walking sack of flash. Leaving it intact means making that lie stronger.” “Maybe for you,” the man said, angrily. “This is not what this statue means for me. Or for anyone who understands art.” “And what does it mean for you?” Puram Bam asked. “Don’t you see the same sculpture that I do?” “You see a woman who makes you feel inferior. I see a thought expressed in marble, a mirror that shows the best in me. That’s what true art does.” “So now this sculpture means too much for you to destroy it?” Puram Bam asked, touching the statue. “How is it possible? You hadn’t seen it until today.” The man shrugged. “Do you always spend years to to understand value of things?” “No,” Puram Ban replied. “But I’m not the one complaining that nothing matters.” “Who said–” the man began. Then he went silent. “Well played, sage,” he said a moment later. “Well played. You have driven me into a corner.” “No,” Puram Bam said. “This not my achievement to claim. But what do you think I have done?” “You made me see that some things still have value.” “Like an object you hadn’t seen until an hour ago? Do you really think it was I who made you value it?” “It wasn’t you,” the man said, his eyes are still on the face of the marble woman. “It was the sculptor. But you made me understand it.” “You are doing it again,” Puram Bam said. “You are still in that corner. And you choose to face the wall.” “What do you mean?” the man asked. “Didn’t you say just a moment ago that we both look at the same sculpture — and see different things? So did the sculptor give it two meanings? Of may be many more? Who knows what others see when they look at it.” “It wasn’t the sculptor,” the man said. His voice was quiet now. “It was me.” “Yes, it was you. And I’m surprised you didn’t ask for my help.” “I don’t need anyone’s help to see the value of art.” “Then why do you need help to see the value of your soul? Of that thing inside you that gives meaning to everything else, including that statue. What makes you worship the creation yet damn the creator?” The man closed his eyes. When he opened them a moments later they were full of pain. “Because the creator is already damned,” he said, the same pain oozing from his voice. “You knew it sage. You knew why I came here better than I did myself. And now you made me face the truth in more clarity than I ever had. Only now it’s so much harder to bear. Everything they say about you is true. The only thing they don’t say is how cruel you can be in making someone facing the truth.” “That truth,” Puram Bam asked, “what is it?” “The truth is that I’m afraid. I’m frightened like a animal, which is what I am. I think I have always known the value of that thing inside me that made everything else matter. That’s why I felt godlike in those moments. Because it’s the domain of gods to give meaning and create something that meaning can be given to. And that’s why it is so unbearable to think that that thing inside me will be gone, with all the meaning it can give to the world and everything it can bring into it. This is what I realized at that moment in my studio. But now you made see the full value of what I’m going to lose. And I don’t know how one can live a full life once he sees the truth the way I see it now. They must…” Then the man looked at Puram Bam. “Wait,” he said. “How… You understand this truth as well as I do. Better than I do because you made me see it without any veil. You must have known it for a while. How do you live with it? Where do you find strength to go on every day, knowing that your life will be over soon?” “Look at that sculpture again,” Puram Bam said. “It already gave you the answer. What made it so valuable for you?” “Her expression?” the man said with uncertainty. “That look? I’ve already told you all this. It’s a beautiful sculpture.” Puram Bam shook his head. “It’s a large piece of marble.” “It was. Until the sculptor touched it.” “It still is. The sculptor only changed one thing about it.” “You mean its shape.” “Yes. But what is a shape?” “It is …” the man stepped back from the statue. “It is its form.” “Form is just another word. What is the essence of a shape? Any shape? The rock that this piece came from had its shape too and was much bigger. Yet this statue means more to you than any rock. So what did the sculptor do to turn a piece of rock into a beautiful sculpture? What did he define?” “Its boundaries.” “Yes. Its boundaries. Its…” “…limits,” the man said. “Yes. Now think of your soul. Does it have any boundaries? Can’t your imagination take you anywhere? Can’t you be anyone in your mind? Can’t you create something that would not have existed without you — and even make it real? You can dive as deep as no one has ever gone and travel as far as no one has ever ventured. You can even bring back the wonders you discover on your journey, just like my friend did with that statue. Can’t you do all that?” “All of that and more,” the man said, his voice hoarse. “Our souls have no limits,” Puram Bam said. “Except one.” “Time,” the man said. “Time,” Puram Bam repeated after him. “Without it you would never give your soul any meaning. No one can value complete infinity.” The man sat down on the log that lay near the statue. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he said after a long silence. “I don’t see any flaw in your logic. But my entire being wants to scream in protest. I know you are right. Yet I want you to be wrong. I know I was the one who drove myself into that corner, and I’m out of it now. But I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know even where to start.” “It’s a long road,” said Puram Bam. “And no one can walk it for you. Maybe you can start by giving your life something you’ve tried to take away from it.” A hint of a smile touched the man’s face. “You’re talking about its meaning.” “Of course,” Puram Bam agreed. “Although I don’t know why you’d bother to do that.” “Why not?” the man said.

#meaning of life #life #fear #art #sculpture #phylosophy

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johnelms32 · 4 years ago

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WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics

WordPress is one of the best ways to create your own websites. From blogs to eCommerce stores, WordPress lets you do almost everything; even if it’s not inbuilt, you can find plugins to turn the platform into anything you want.

Keep in mind “almost” in that statement. There are things WordPress can’t do because of its nature, and hosting is one of those things. If you’re interested in using it, you’re probably aware of that.

Well, don’t worry. Today, we’re taking a look at how you can solve that problem.

Do you know what’s WordPress?

Sure, WordPress is a website creation platform. Everyone reading this knows that, but you might not be fully aware of what it really is.

WordPress is the most famous CMS platform available today. CMS stands for Content Management System, and it’s basically a type of platform built to create and manage content on the internet.

That’s why it’s so popular for bloggers: after all, a blog is nothing but content. However, you can use it for online stores, news websites, affiliate and membership websites, and more. That’s because everything comes down to content in the end.

Sure, it’s more specialized content; coding for these types of websites is a lot more complicated than a simple blog. However, WordPress also comes with myriads of plugins dedicated to turning the platform into anything you need.

On the other hand, there’s another very important confusion I need to clear up before we move towards actual hosting stuff.

Dot-com VS dot-org

This is an important topic because it ties right into our main topic: WordPress.org isn’t the same as WordPress.com. A lot of people think they’re the same, and I’ve personally seen a fair share of friends using the latter when they wanted to use the former—including myself when I was starting.

You see, WordPress.com is actually a free host if you want to publish your content quickly. Being free, it’s a fairly limited service, and if you’re serious about scaling your business, it won’t take long until you feel like it doesn’t cut it anymore.

It’s a lot better for smaller blogs if you just want to keep it personal, or maybe even a portfolio if you’re a writer. It’s also an amazing way to get your feet wet, but it’ll never offer the same speed and reliability as paid options.

One of the main reasons why WordPress.com isn’t a good choice for entrepreneurs is that your websites are simply subdomains. Just like other hosting services’ free plans, your website’s URL will look something like “xxxxx.wordpress.com,” which definitely isn’t good for your brand.

On the other hand, WordPress.org is what most people think about when they talk about WordPress. This one is the content creator with all of the plugins that let you do anything you want to your website’s features and design. You can mess directly with the code if you know how, but there are many visual builders that let you edit the site without any programming knowledge.

What does hosting a WordPress site mean?

Alright, so what’s does all that hosting talk mean? Well, hosting is actually a very self-explanatory concept. Traditionally, hosting means to house something—people or events—in your property.

Web hosting—and by extension WordPress hosting—is doing the same but with websites and servers. In other words, a web host has their own servers, and they take care of keeping websites within these servers. This is what lets your website and its content exist in the internet.

Naturally, different services offer more than just different company names. Some use different technologies, offer specialized plans, more or less bandwidth, different uptime, etc. The ideal hosting solution for you is one that can adapts to your business needs and can scale depending on your growing needs.

These factors are what you need to keep in mind when you’re choosing your service. You don’t want just to publish your content; you need to make sure it runs smoothly, won’t go out-of-service, and will generally work perfectly.

With that in mind, let’s go through the criteria for choosing a web host.

What you should expect from a hosting service

Now, all hosting companies do the same: keep your site live. How they do it can be a whole different story, and these measures translate directly into a better user experience and SEO performance.

One of my favorite standards when it comes to hosting features is definitely Bluehost, especially since it offers lots of modern solutions for anyone looking to run a website and make a business out of it.

For starters, Bluehost is a highly secure website, and that’s a huge consideration with so many hackers and similar risks lurking around the internet. Both your and your visitors’ data is always safe, and Bluehost ensures this by providing security measures used by some of the largest companies around the world.

You don’t need to worry about outgrowing their service either. You’ll be able to manage thousands of subscribers right from the get-go and support lots of traffic from the most basic account. You don’t have to worry whether you’re hosting an online store or a business website. As your business grows, you can simply upgrade your account with your larger revenue, and you’ll know exactly when to do so, because the best hosting providers work with tools like Google Analytics.

The last relevant criterion I want to point out is customer support. While it’s not a technical spec like the others, and thus won’t affect your site’s performance, it can be a game changer for newcomers. Customer support is usually what makes me choose specific services and products, and anyone who’s dealt with lousy customer service has an idea why.

If you’re just getting started, having access to 24/7 support can save your website in case you make a mistake, and the same goes if you already have a website and want to migrate it.

Click Here To Apply BlueHost Discount

How to use a service like Bluehost

I’ll use Bluehost as an example since it’s my personal favorite service—and my recommendation (as well as WordPress’) for anyone starting out. It’s one of the few web hosts offering the features I just mentioned while being ridiculously affordable.

Firstly, you want to head over to your host’s official website. Not all websites are the same, but they’re usually very similar. You want to find the option to acquire the service. For Bluehost, this is “Get Started Now”, so you might want to look for something similar if you’re using a different provider.

This will usually direct you to the pricing page, where you can choose an account tier. I’d recommend you go for the basic one regardless of your hosting service; these are monthly payments and can add up quite quickly. If you feel like it’s too small for your needs, most service providers let you upgrade your account anytime you want.

It’s also one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost. The Basic plan is just $2.95, and it only goes as far as $5.45 for the most expensive plan right now.

A few services, like Bluehost, come with a free domain for your website. The next step is to find your domain if you don’t have one already. If you already bought a domain elsewhere, you can use that, too. Keep in mind not all hosting companies come with a free domain, so you might want to buy one before choosing other services.

Keep in mind this isn’t a lifetime setting; you can always change it later if you decide to change your brand or anything like that.

The next step with Bluehost, and several similar providers, is to enter your account details. This usually includes your name, physical and email address, phone number, and others might include things like business name and ZIP code like Bluehost.

If you decide to go with Bluehost, you’ll have to define your package: add-ons, how many months you want to pay, etc. The last step is usually to enter your payment details and pay the upfront fee.

Once your hosting account is ready, some hosts like Bluehost will ask you to create your login account. This means creating your password and perhaps a username. If you already did this, don’t worry; remember I’m using Bluehost as an example, so it might vary if you go for another provider.

The final step is to set up your website with your host. Another reason why I recommend Bluehost is that it’ll take you right to this step after creating your account; it’ll even install WordPress automatically.

If you’ve seen WordPress tutorials, the next steps are fairly straightforward. You pick your theme and customize your website. You can start with a free theme, but I’d recommend you check out some premium ones. Premium themes usually come with advanced features that might even save you money on other plugins down the line.

That’s also my last personal advice: don’t be afraid of investing money in things like plugins, themes, etc.

Conclusion

That’s it!

A lot of people tend to feel a bit intimidated about getting a hosting service or looking for a domain, but it’s far from difficult. I’d even say designing your website is a lot more complicated than hosting your website, especially with a service like Bluehost, which comes with its own custom domain for free.

If you followed this guide’s steps as you read it, you already have open ground to customize your site and publish all the content you want. If you used Bluehost as well, then you were probably done in about 20 minutes or less.

The post WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics appeared first on Affiliate Business Hub.

from https://affiliatebusinesshub.com/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics

from Affiliate Business Hub - Blog https://affiliatebusinesshub.weebly.com/blog/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics

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heidiwschultz31 · 4 years ago

Text

WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics

Well, don’t worry. Today, we’re taking a look at how you can solve that problem.

Do you know what’s WordPress?

Sure, WordPress is a website creation platform. Everyone reading this knows that, but you might not be fully aware of what it really is.

WordPress is the most famous CMS platform available today. CMS stands for Content Management System, and it’s basically a type of platform built to create and manage content on the internet.

On the other hand, there’s another very important confusion I need to clear up before we move towards actual hosting stuff.

Dot-com VS dot-org

What does hosting a WordPress site mean?

Alright, so what’s does all that hosting talk mean? Well, hosting is actually a very self-explanatory concept. Traditionally, hosting means to house something—people or events—in your property.

With that in mind, let’s go through the criteria for choosing a web host.

What you should expect from a hosting service

Now, all hosting companies do the same: keep your site live. How they do it can be a whole different story, and these measures translate directly into a better user experience and SEO performance.

If you’re just getting started, having access to 24/7 support can save your website in case you make a mistake, and the same goes if you already have a website and want to migrate it.

Click Here To Apply BlueHost Discount

How to use a service like Bluehost

It’s also one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost. The Basic plan is just $2.95, and it only goes as far as $5.45 for the most expensive plan right now.

Keep in mind this isn’t a lifetime setting; you can always change it later if you decide to change your brand or anything like that.

If you decide to go with Bluehost, you’ll have to define your package: add-ons, how many months you want to pay, etc. The last step is usually to enter your payment details and pay the upfront fee.

That’s also my last personal advice: don’t be afraid of investing money in things like plugins, themes, etc.

Conclusion

That’s it!

The post WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics appeared first on Affiliate Business Hub.

from Affiliate Business Hub https://affiliatebusinesshub.com/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics from Affiliate Business Hub https://affiliatebusinesshub.tumblr.com/post/629102609669799936

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affiliatebusinesshub · 4 years ago

Text

WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics

Well, don’t worry. Today, we’re taking a look at how you can solve that problem.

Do you know what’s WordPress?

Sure, WordPress is a website creation platform. Everyone reading this knows that, but you might not be fully aware of what it really is.

WordPress is the most famous CMS platform available today. CMS stands for Content Management System, and it’s basically a type of platform built to create and manage content on the internet.

On the other hand, there’s another very important confusion I need to clear up before we move towards actual hosting stuff.

Dot-com VS dot-org

What does hosting a WordPress site mean?

Alright, so what’s does all that hosting talk mean? Well, hosting is actually a very self-explanatory concept. Traditionally, hosting means to house something—people or events—in your property.

With that in mind, let’s go through the criteria for choosing a web host.

What you should expect from a hosting service

Now, all hosting companies do the same: keep your site live. How they do it can be a whole different story, and these measures translate directly into a better user experience and SEO performance.

If you’re just getting started, having access to 24/7 support can save your website in case you make a mistake, and the same goes if you already have a website and want to migrate it.

Click Here To Apply BlueHost Discount

How to use a service like Bluehost

It’s also one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost. The Basic plan is just $2.95, and it only goes as far as $5.45 for the most expensive plan right now.

Keep in mind this isn’t a lifetime setting; you can always change it later if you decide to change your brand or anything like that.

If you decide to go with Bluehost, you’ll have to define your package: add-ons, how many months you want to pay, etc. The last step is usually to enter your payment details and pay the upfront fee.

That’s also my last personal advice: don’t be afraid of investing money in things like plugins, themes, etc.

Conclusion

That’s it!

The post WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics appeared first on Affiliate Business Hub.

from Affiliate Business Hub https://affiliatebusinesshub.com/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics

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rhondaeaton33 · 4 years ago

Text

WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics

Well, don’t worry. Today, we’re taking a look at how you can solve that problem.

Do you know what’s WordPress?

Sure, WordPress is a website creation platform. Everyone reading this knows that, but you might not be fully aware of what it really is.

WordPress is the most famous CMS platform available today. CMS stands for Content Management System, and it’s basically a type of platform built to create and manage content on the internet.

On the other hand, there’s another very important confusion I need to clear up before we move towards actual hosting stuff.

Dot-com VS dot-org

What does hosting a WordPress site mean?

Alright, so what’s does all that hosting talk mean? Well, hosting is actually a very self-explanatory concept. Traditionally, hosting means to house something—people or events—in your property.

With that in mind, let’s go through the criteria for choosing a web host.

What you should expect from a hosting service

Now, all hosting companies do the same: keep your site live. How they do it can be a whole different story, and these measures translate directly into a better user experience and SEO performance.

If you’re just getting started, having access to 24/7 support can save your website in case you make a mistake, and the same goes if you already have a website and want to migrate it.

Click Here To Apply BlueHost Discount

How to use a service like Bluehost

It’s also one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost. The Basic plan is just $2.95, and it only goes as far as $5.45 for the most expensive plan right now.

Keep in mind this isn’t a lifetime setting; you can always change it later if you decide to change your brand or anything like that.

If you decide to go with Bluehost, you’ll have to define your package: add-ons, how many months you want to pay, etc. The last step is usually to enter your payment details and pay the upfront fee.

That’s also my last personal advice: don’t be afraid of investing money in things like plugins, themes, etc.

Conclusion

That’s it!

The post WordPress Hosting 101: Covering The Basics appeared first on Affiliate Business Hub.

Source: https://affiliatebusinesshub.com/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics

from Affiliate Business Hub https://affiliatebusinesshub.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/wordpress-hosting-101-covering-the-basics/

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