#emerges from a hyper focus whole

[venussaidso]

Ketu Dominant Themes — 𝐍𝐚𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 (part 1) 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝟑

disclaimer: spoilers for all movies or shows mentioned.

the warnings: mentions of drug abuse, sexual violence, self-harm, genocide, mental disorders/illnesses, cannibalism and self amputation.

The most interesting theme within all the Ketu nakshatras is one that is unexpected, as Ketu is commonly associated with concepts of disconnection or isolation from society as a whole — given its frequent link to the 12th house. However, it is more about the interactions with the unseen forces within society than anything else. The 12th house also represents the collective consciousness and all the interconnected energies that come with it, which we all become deeply influenced by. Ashwini is the most sensitive Ketu nakshatra, as it is easily consumes and absorbs by these 12th house energies through the native, often leading to chaos and loneliness.

Ashwini Nakshatra embodies nothingness, the oldest energy in the universe. It exists in the space before actualized creation and after the rise of awareness that emerges from nothingness (or the cosmic void). It is very fitting that this is the first nakshatra, but it should also be considered the last Ketu nakshatra. The focus here is on the spirit's evolution. The energy found in this nakshatra is as undeveloped as it is chaotic, which is why evolution needs to take place — and this usually involves extremely harsh forces to tame it. In Ashwini, there is confusion or a lack of self-awareness regarding one's own identity. I am going to use some films as examples to explore this point.

First, I'll use the most typical Ketu-coded character; Ashwini Moon Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. This film follows an investment banker who revels in the wealthy excesses of his superficial lifestyle, surrounded by others who do the same. His life is empty, mostly revolving around getting into exclusive restaurants, indulging in designer suits, and maintaining a meticulous morning routine. There is a general pressure to conform, and the Ashwini native is highly sensitive to these societal energies, which they absorb — driving them to compete and, eventually, to go too far. For Patrick Bateman, it’s no longer about conformity; it becomes an obsession, and these pressures push him into homicidal tendencies as an outlet. This film perfectly encapsulates modern-day consumerism, and it is, of course, an Ashwini native who descends into madness as a result of the empty, superficial yuppie culture he is subjected to.

Nothing can fill the emptiness inside him, and he knows it. This crippling, painful awareness continuously fuels his violent self-hatred and his hatred toward others. This is why he remains trapped in a cycle of loneliness, surrounded by the same narcissistic, self-absorbed individuals who perpetuate this soulless culture.

The movie was adapted from the book with the same name, written by Mula Moon Bret Easton Ellis whose own experiences inspired the book "American Psycho".

Quote from an interview; OregonLive (2010);

"[Patrick Bateman] did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of 'American Psycho' came from... It came from a much more personal place."

-- Mula Moon Bret Easton Ellis

Now, onto the movie "Fight Club", which was directed by Magha Sun David Fincher, and stars Magha Sun Edward Norton and Mula Sun Brad Pitt.

The most highlighted character from this film, played by Brad Pitt, is Tyler Durden, who plans on making a revolution to destroy the hyper-capitalistic, materialistic superficial culture that we saw destroy Patrick Bateman from the inside in "American Psycho".

(video - 🎧)

Of course, just like Ashwini Moon Patrick Bateman took his obsessive consumerism too far; Mula Sun Tyler Durden lays on the opposite spectrum, aiming to destroy modern society by blowing up all credit card companies and ruining the world's economy. Mula is related to destruction as it is ruled by Nirriti, the goddess of destruction. The oppressive forces that weigh on this Mula character, Tyler Durden, causes him into a spiral for freedom (9H), using extremities and acts of terrorism to be rid of ego/society. Whereas Ashwini, having no solid identity and just being undeveloped in nature, is more likely to conform; but so long as Ketu is there, there will always be an emptiness in the ambitious pursuit of things. Ashwini can grant excess wealth and fame, but with no inner fulfillment or balance, you see characters like Patrick Bateman. Or Daniel Plainview from "There Will Be Blood".

A movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who has Ketu in Magha, and stars Ashwini Moon, Mula Ascendant Daniel Day Lewis who portrays Daniel Plainview. Plainview is more Ashwini, as he is an extremely ambitious, capitalistic and competitive oilman.

His pursuit for wealth and power leads him to personal loneliness, isolation and emptiness, we see how Ketuvians become so drained by the energies they absorb in the pursuit of things. Similarly to Patrick Bateman, he not only hates others but himself as well and wishes for no one to succeed in life.

His primal competitiveness and self-loathing even drive away his only family, his only child. His adult son means to do his own oilrig business and cuts his partnership with him. But Plainview's unchecked ambition shows that even after attaining success and power, he literally goes ahead to disown his own son as he considers him competition now. And now he extends the same hatred he has for others to him. Further isolating himself; this validating his deep sense of loneliness that was always there with his self-loathing.

The film ends in an Ashwini fashion; in which Plainview goes into a psychotic meltdown and murders someone who he has had a long stewing hatred for.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

I wanted to provide a brilliant video from the YouTuber "The Vile Eye", who explored the dark nature of this character; because it perfectly illustrates Ashwini nakshatra in a twisted way, especially in how Aries in this segment is influenced by Ketu forces. Everything about this character is every Aries stereotype you can think of from the top of your head, but Ketu exaggerates it to the point of extremity and tragedy.

Amazing video for anyone who wants to understand Ashwini at its extreme which can manifest in real life of course.

The series "Peaky Blinders" stars Ashwini Moon Cillian Murphy whose character faces moral dilemmas, as his relentless pursuit of power contributes to his moral ambiguity.

His ruthless ambition to become the most powerful in the criminal underworld is something I couldn't help but relate it back to Ashwini's drive & competitiveness.

The movie "Scarface" stars Ashwini Sun Al Pacino who plays Tony Montana. And fun fact, Tony Montana is loosely based and inspired by the real-life figure, Al Capone, who had Ashwini Moon.

Both Tony Montana and Al Capone had unchecked ambitions and an unrelenting desire for power. In Ashwini, extreme power can be attained, and we saw how Tony Montana quickly rose to it (as Ashwini is the Star of Transport and it is associated with Shidhra Vyapani Shakti which translates to 'The Power to Quickly Reach Things'). Similarly, Al Capone was also driven by the desire for power, and he attained it.

Like Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood", Tony Montana starts to experience isolation after all of his achievements. His chaotic behaviour contributes to his alienation, and he starts to feel intensifying loneliness, which seems to be a theme with this nakshatra. And this film also ends in Ashwini fashion; with absolute chaos, the psychotic unraveling of Tony and of course death.

I wanted to also add in the movie "Nightcrawler" which stars Mula Sun Jake Gyllenhaal who plays a character willing to go to the extreme lengths for success and personal achievement, to the point of exploiting others, unconcerned with ethical boundaries.

He has a distorted view of success and has an unchecked, ruthless ambition. He is also a socially isolated character, behaving inappropriately as he is disconnected from social norms. In his obsessive & relentless pursuit of success, he is devoid of humanity. Had to mention this film because these themes are not exclusive to Ashwini.

But as I did mention, Mula natives are more likely to be aware of societal pressures and these natives often feel deeply disturbed by them. In the film "Falling Down", Mula Moon Michael Douglas plays a character who has become disillusioned and is now aware of the pressures and oppression caused by the modern-day life. This movie is literally directed by Magha Sun Joel Schumacher.

He confronts many issues such as homelessness and crime, which are heavily rooted in the greedy, capitalistic system of modern society. But he becomes violent and chaotic himself, going into a descent to madness (from absorbing the energies felt by the collective who feel the weight of these oppressive forces within society). This movie deals with the consequences of unchecked rage, a theme shared in all Ketu nakshatras.

The film "Taxi Driver", which stars Magha Sun Robert De Niro and is directed by Magha Ascendant Martin Scorsese, depicts a man who suffers from extreme loneliness, alienation from society, and struggles with existential crisis. The film explores social decay; such as social disparities, the disillusionment of our main character to society's ills, crime, poverty etc. He goes into a descent into vigilantism, using violence as a catharsis which is a common thing for these Ketu nakshatras (mainly Magha and Mula as it looks at societal frustrations and the emptiness in life/modern culture).

The character also suffers from a possible case of untreated mental illness, and insomnia — and this seems to be a theme with all Ketu nakshatras in general.

Another film where the main character suffers from extreme insomnia is "The Machinist", starring Ashwini Moon Christian Bale whose character's insomnia and untreated mental illness literally contribute to his isolation and alienation.

And the film "Fight Club", in which Magha Sun Edward Norton plays an insomniac character who has dissociative identity disorder. And his split personality is interestingly played by Mula Sun Brad Pitt.

Then the film "Insomnia", directed by Ketu in Magha Christopher Nolan, starring Ashwini Sun Al Pacino who plays an insomniac detective who faces some mental challenges.

There is a spiritual belief about insomnia which suggests there may be a disturbance in one's spirit; unresolved issues that have been long reppressed may be linked to an imbalance of energy within the body. This imbalance causes restlessness and mental problems. This idea aligns with Ketu and the 12th house, which deal with the unconscious — particularly deep-rooted traumas and the ways in which they affect us and those around us. It isn’t just about traumas; it can also stem from the repression of internal suffering caused by loneliness or external pressures. We see this with Patrick Bateman, whose only outlet is literal murder, or Tyler Durden's "revolutionary" fight club, which causes more destruction around him as planned. Both characters violently act out from these unaddressed, decaying energies within themselves and within society.

The series "Sharp Objects", directed by Magha Moon Jean-Marc Vallé, mostly deals with family traumas, but also shows how those traumas and unresolved energies literally cause death and chaos around them.

Camille Preaker, played by Magha Sun Amy Adams, is deeply traumatized and troubled. She has a history of self-harm and bears many scars on her body; her self-destructive behaviour is a coping mechanism for the trauma she experienced in her youth (sexual violence by a group of boys and witnessing the slow, preventable death of her sister). Then we have her younger half-sister Amma, played by Magha Moon Eliza Scanlen, who has a hidden dark side shaped by the family’s troubled history and generational trauma. By the end of the series, we discover that Amma is the killer responsible for the violent murders that have shocked the townspeople of Wind Gap. Amma is behind all the gruesome deaths of the girls whose teeth were removed.

While Camille’s coping mechanism involves cutting herself as self-punishment for the guilt she harbours from her sister’s death, Amma literally commits homicidal acts. This reflects just how damaged and complex their trauma is, as well as the toxicity of the community they grew up in. Their mother, played by Mula Moon Patricia Clarkson, has Munchausen syndrome and is responsible for the death of her oldest daughter. Camille witnessed her sister’s suffering and death, viewing her mother as a monster — and now sees her little sister as an extension of her mother.

This series is an excellent example of how unchecked personal trauma can impact others, especially those who are uninvolved. It also shows how much destruction can be caused, as seen with Amma killing other girls as an outlet — similar to Patrick Bateman's. This is why I now realize how wrong I was about Ketu. Ketu is not necessarily about isolating from society. In relation to society, Ketu represents the unaddressed, rotting energies within it, always tying back to individuals’ personal and generational traumas. It makes sense that Magha relates to ancestral roots and the origins of oneself, including the origins of one’s trauma.

Now onto the film "Nocturnal Animals", which is directed by Magha Sun Tom Ford, stars Magha Sun Amy Adams and Mula Sun Jake Gyllenhaal.

Amy Adams plays Susan, a successful art gallery owner. She receives a manuscript for a novel called Nocturnal Animals sent to her by her ex-husband Edward, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The book is extremely violent and tragic, but it turns out to be a symbolic reflection of their relationship and marriage, tying into Ketu themes of unresolved trauma and getting to the roots of it. The book forces Susan to confront how much her actions hurt Edward.

The movie focuses on confronting one's past and demonstrates how trauma continues to shape the lives of those involved. It also shows Susan still has unresolved issues, evident in her repulsed reactions to the extreme parts of the novel.

The movies "Split" and "Glass", stars two Ashwini Suns, Anya Taylor Joy and James McAvoy. McAvoy's character, Kevin, has dissociative personality disorder and these different personalities exist to keep him safe. His trauma is so extreme and deeply painful that it manifested into the creation of The Beast, his most dangerous and superhuman personality. Three kidnapped girls are prey to The Beast as they end up being devoured by it but only one survives — and that's Anya Taylor Joy's character, Casey.

The reason why she doesn't fall victim is because she, too, has suffered extreme trauma and her resilience through it is what creates her immediate connection with Kevin. It is when The Beast sees her scars that he calls her pure, implying that those who have been damaged are the ones who are truly evolved.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Also, "Split" is another example of how deeply repressed energies and traumas of one can ruin everything around them and victimize those close to the Ketuvians (usually uninvolved people's lives being violently taken; "Split", "Sharp Objects", "American Psycho", "Falling Down" etc.).

Ashwini Moon Zendaya in the series "Euphoria" plays a character, Rue, who has been through a significant amount of trauma, including the passing of her father. She uses self-destructive ways to cope with her deep emotional pain and grief, very similarly to Magha Sun Amy Adams's character in "Sharp Objects". Rue uses drugs to numb herself from her harsh realities. There is a moment in the series in which she has a chaotic meltdown.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Something I now understand with Ashwini is how explosive, volatile and scary its ungrounded energy can be — exactly why I'd commonly associate it with hysterical meltdowns which can lead to accidental or unplanned homicidal acts or other forms of harm/self-harm. This scene of Rue is vaguely taking me back to Ashwini Moon Christian Bale's spiraling and meltdowns in "American Psycho".

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Ketu, especially with Magha, seems to cause erratic behaviours when its natives aren't purified of their long-accumulated baggage in their unconsciousness — exactly why the 8th house is also ruled by Ketu, as Scorpio shares this particular theme. As long as there is deep disturbance and imbalance in the body, there is no rest for the soul – even for future incarnations to come.

But now, I want to touch on the senseless harshness of Ketu. Remember, this energy embodies the eternal, sucking void. Mula nakshatra relates to the center of the cosmic void and delves straight into its roots. Ashwini has already risen from it, while Mula is centering itself back into it. Mula is where we seek an awakening to the truth behind reality. What lies on the other side of the cosmic void?

Truth is sought in Mula; but it seems in Ashwini nakshatra, it is understood that chaos and nothing is the absolute truth of reality. There is no inherent meaning to anything, which may sound nihilistic, but it is precisely what makes life beautiful.

In the film The Pianist, written and directed by Magha Sun Roman Polanski and starring Ashwini Sun Adrien Brody, the story begins on a warm note with a well-put-together family and a handsome, talented Ashwini man who dreams of being a pianist. However, things take a drastic turn.

We witness a once bright-eyed man transform into a shell of his former self after enduring harrowing events. The events continue to worsen, growing more tragic until there is no longer even a sliver of hope. The majority of the film is filled with despair, senseless cruelty, and the slow annihilation of the protagonist’s soul.

I've never watched a film more Ketuvian than this — surrounded by genocide, death, and complete isolation, consumed by one's own lonely misery. One moment, you think a character might somehow make it out alive because they have the conviction and drive to survive, but the film immediately takes that hope away as they helplessly die. You think the protagonist might finally see some light, and the film even provides brief moments of comfort, but it ultimately shows how everything stays horrific.

There are no answers to any prayers, as suffering is ongoing. This tone creates another layer of entrapment, and you watch as the character resigns himself to letting life do whatever it wants to him, trapped in a world where he is helpless. With Ketu, you come to realize there was never any security at all.

But his survival at the end makes you question why he even went through that to begin with. There was no lesson to be learned. Why did his friends and family die, but not him? In the end, he became the successful pianist he had dreamed of from the beginning. He was exceptionally talented from the start; these events took everything from him except his passion for the piano.

What he went through was senseless, as Ketu has no prime motivation. Saturn will push you through the worst so that you can reach a level where you can attain all of your reaped rewards, but Ketu doesn’t care about what you get in the end – that's also Rahu's objective, as Rahu deals with ego. Ketu deals with the evolution of one's soul, and that usually involves its annihilation.

The film "Society of the Snow" is literally directed by Ashwini Moon J.A. Bayona, based on real life events. There's a documentary based on these events as well, "Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains", directed by Magha Moon Gonzalo Arijon.

Now, in Society of the Snow, there is a tone of hopelessness set in the film because of the gruesome reality these characters (based on real-life people) experience. Never in their lifetime did they think that everything would change so drastically from just living the average life of normal teenage boys — echoing the opening of "The Pianist". These characters, who were part of a rugby team, get on a plane that would soon crash onto a glacier surrounded by endless, cold, harsh mountains — with just a piece of the wrecked plane remaining, which they take shelter in. The protagonists are surrounded by the dead bodies of friends who did not survive the crash, signifying total despair and loss. They couldn’t even sleep; the first night spent with many of them crying and wailing out loud, nearly freezing to death.

A day after, a rescue helicopter searches for them and they all scream out for help. But the helicopter misses them, barely noticeable under all the glacier that surrounds them. This is when the sense of hopelessness starts to intensify as the story progresses. Now that the chances of being rescued remain at zero, they realize they can’t ignore their growing hunger anymore. They all have no choice but to eat the flesh of the dead bodies, after running out of chocolates, and we see how these decisions mentally challenge some of the characters.

It is truly tragic that they were stranded, isolated from the world, and in complete despair every waking day, for a span of 72 days. After being rescued, we see just how malnourished they were from the looks of their bodies. They come back home bone-skinny and depleted. The monologue in the ending scene tells us how the survivors wondered: "Why didn’t we all get to come back [home]?" "What is the meaning of it all?" These were the questions I wondered for the movie "The Pianist".

Ashwini Moon J.A. Bayona also made the film "The Impossible", which is about survival and resilience — based on real life events. Much like "Society of the Snow", it also has a sense of complete despair and there is an involuntary separation of a family (which reminds me of "The Pianist" in which Ashwini Sun Adrien Brody's character is also separated from his family in the story).

"Nothing is more powerful than the human spirit", it writes on the poster.

"Nowhere", is directed by Ashwini Moon Albert Pintó. It's a survival thriller about a pregnant woman who finds herself isolated from society as she's drifting in the sea trapped inside a container. Because of her newborn baby, she is forced to survive and protect her child even when there is no hope. The reason she's even in the container is because she was fleeing a society of a dystopian future in which women & children are caged and murdered (her attempt to run away from oppressive, societal forces leads her to total isolation).

And we also have the film "127 Hours", directed by Ashwini Moon Danny Boyle, starring Ashwini Sun James Franco who plays Aron Ralston, whose right arm becomes trapped against the canyon wall when he was on a solo canyoneering trip. When he is unable to release himself, we realize the severity of his situation. He is completely isolated and alone. His own supplies have run out and he's losing his mind. The struggle for survival and one's own helplessness is a theme of Ashwini nakshatra as this drives one into taking extreme measures for freedom — as he resorts to cutting his own arm off.

These themes seem to speak of the power and resilience of the human spirit, as emphasized in "The Impossible" and "Society of the Snow". Our ability to survive even just our own personal traumas must be a testament to our spirit being an extension of the Higher Power which is behind the happenings of all of these senseless yet significant experiences and events we go through.

It is in Ashwini that one's experience through harsh forces contributes to the spirit's evolution after total annihilation, which leads us on the path towards moksha.

Ketu is very pure by nature, and it wants to destroy impurities. The repression of one's accumulated dirt can manifest in destructive tendencies. By facing one's true inner self and embracing your entirety is how you embrace Ketu in general. But one must go deep and inward. All three Ketu nakshatras deal with getting to the roots for this reason.

Ashwini is ruled by the Ashwini Kumaras, gods of medicine and healing, also known as divine physicians. In order to heal, one must get to the root of all disturbances to create the perfect medicine for healing. As Ashwini is ruled by the 1st house, this involves getting to the roots of oneself for self-liberation. Magha, on the other hand, is about tracing your own existence back to the existence of others — usually family members and ancestors. Magha relates to generational trauma and shining light on it in order to become freer.

Mula is symbolized by the roots of a tree, and "mula" translates to "roots." It signifies ancestral roots as well, but primarily the truth. Mula is where disillusionment takes place as one gets directly into the roots of everything, going right into the galactic center — which can also signify going right into the roots of our demons and letting all of that rotting energy burn from your body. After this purification process, one's consciousness raises by default.

Ashwini has strong, undeveloped energies that can be tamed and grounded to be properly channeled. In order to achieve this, one must let go of poisonous impurities so that they are no longer controlled or possessed by unseen forces. It is in Ashwini that we know of the interconnection of the collective consciousness, which was secretly discovered in Uttara Bhadrapada and remembered in Revati. Ashwini nakshatra is extremely sensitive to outward energies, as are the rest of the Ketu nakshatras. Every individual's consciousness is affecting the whole world in some way. This, being a Ketu theme in general, describes the whole energetic field of the world and how we each play a part in it and affect each other's lives.

As all Ketu nakshatras deal with getting into the roots of things, we must get dirty by digging into our own roots. These unconscious triggers, which form our Shadow Self, contribute to how we interact with the world and other people. There is always the capacity to harm or further traumatize others because of our own unchecked, hidden troubles.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hey I've been folowing a long time, but as a trans person I'm a little bit uncomfortable with the post that you reblogged essentially ending with "Misandry isn't real" because it (unintentionall, I presume) leaves out how trans people and the rise of "Man-hating feminism" in queer and progressive spaces actuall demonizes people for their masculinity.

It just rubbed me the wrong way because although I can't speak on Black issues, I have seen a LOT of radical feminists using "Misandry isn't real" to both justify and downplay the abuse of trans and queer men, as well as masc-leaning nonbinary people and butches. While men are not systemically oppressed the way women are, the growing radfem-inization of queer and social justice spaces have been pushing queer men/people who look like cis men out, which negatively affects passing trans men, nonpassing trans women, and a whole host of other queer identities that are being run out by "Women are pure and innocent and men are evil and violent" (which of course, comes with the undertone of "WHITE women are pure and innocent because only they really count as women")

I know a point in the post was that Black people have masculinity PROJECTED onto them, and are thus not punished for their actual levels of masculinity and whatnot, and I totally agree with the point about it being primarily racism over all else.

That being said, I feel like it's important to acknowledge that terms like "Transmisandry" have emerged for Trans men to discuss their personal intersection of misogyny/transphobia/"feminist" manhating. Blanket statements like "No one is oppressed for their manhood" aren't helpful when trans men get called sex traitors and threats to womenhood, because they only count cis men who aren't punished for their masculinity.

I hear you, and I understand. But, from my perspective, what the post itself was discussing was limited to using the treatment Black people experience with hyper masculinity as an incorrect comparison with the label of misandry, rather than the actual culprit of racism.

It happens a lot, actually, where queer nonblack people make incorrect or incomplete comparisons using the Black experience (that they don't understand or aid otherwise) to try to make points on the queer experience. I went and reread, and they did not say "misandry isn't real", so much as they said "you're addressing the incorrect issue by trying to make this incorrect comparison".

So I think it wasn't just "a" point in the post that discussed the Blackness aspect, I think it was "the" point. I don't think the post discussed the part you're discussing because that was not its focus- it just said stop using that particular argument to support your stance, bc it won't bolster it.

But if you'd like to add your concerns directly onto the post for op to see, or to send the op of that post a message to better ascertain their stance on what you're concerned about, you should do so! The same way you spoke of your concerns to me, you should make that known to them for a full conversation and understanding to be had.

[beelsnack]

Back in the Saddle - Obey Me! Boys and an MC Who is Overcoming a Depressive Episode

Hyper-specific coping mechanisms? On my blog? It's more likely than you think.

(Just kidding that's like the whole reason I started the blog in the first place lol)

I'll be honest, I'm not caught up on the games at all. I got like 2 chapters into Nightbringer before the rhythm games gave me sensory overload. But they're still my emotional support demons and I'm still going to write about them on my silly little blog. Enjoy!

May make a part 2 with the other characters, this one was getting kind of long.

-----

Lucifer: The music room had always been one of the few places that Lucifer could seek solace from the chaos that seemed to follow him. Most of his brothers had no desire to practice an instrument, and those who did tended to want to do it on their own, so if he was there, they tended to avoid the area. He had come to expect the room to be empty when he arrived there.

So seeing the human hunched over the grand piano threw him off a bit.

He knew they played the piano - it had been in their paperwork when they first came to the Devildom. They played quite frequently before, taking comfort in the familiar feeling of the ivory keys when the strangeness of their new home got to be too much. But something in recent months stopped them, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what. They hadn’t been very forthcoming about their mental state, and Lucifer didn’t want to pry. 

Well, actually, he did want to pry, but each time he asked, they got more and more irritated and withdrawn from him, and that stung just as much as not being able to help.

They were making considerably more mistakes than they had before, likely due to a lack of practice, but Lucifer could see a bit of their old spark returning to their eyes as muscle memory took over. They were playing an ost from a human world show, something slow and soothing that they played often. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Lucifer thought he could see the beginnings of a smile on their face.

Before he quite knew what he was doing, he had silently made his way over to them. His shadow fell over the keys, and they jumped in shock. They whipped around so fast he was worried that they would twist something. “Lucifer?!”

“Don’t stop on my account, my dear,” he smiled gently at them, perching himself on the bench next to them. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard you play, won’t you indulge me a little?”

Mammon: It was just a little doodle.

Borrowing the human's notes was a pretty common occurrence for Mammon. If he even remembered to take notes, they were sparse at best and incomprehensible at worst. He had just wanted to take a picture of them at first but the human insisted he write them himself. 

"We don't need to make it too easy for Lucifer to tell you don't pay attention," had been there reasoning, but Mammon wasn't going to turn down some alone time with them. Even if it was in the library.

When the human had presented their notebook to him, his eyes had immediately gone to the little drawing in the corner. It wasn't very detailed, more like random scribbles that eventually morphed into a flower and some stars. When they had first come to the Devildom, their notebooks had been absolutely filled with doodles and drawings, ranging from rudimentary shapes and shading to full-on sketches in the margins. They claimed it helped them focus, so Mammon had been a little concerned when the drawings had dwindled to nothing.

"What are you smiling at?"

Mammon jumped, heat creeping up his neck as he realized he had been caught. "Nothin'!"

He glanced back at the drawings, wishing he had his shades to hide behind. "...I missed the doodles, is all."

Leviathan: Right.

Left.

…Alright, the coast was clear. Sighing softly in relief, Levi emerged fully from his room and made his way downstairs. Most of the residents went their separate ways after dinner, and he knew for a fact Beel had his Fangol game so the kitchen should be free.

Levi stuck his hand in his pants pocket to make sure the folded square of paper was still there. One of his favorite Deviltubers are done a video recreating various dishes from different anime, but Levi just had to try them as well. But any sort of attempt at baking was doomed to fail if Beelzebub was in the house, so as much as Levi had wanted to jump right in as soon as he had seen the video, this excursion needed careful planning.

He was feeling rather hopeful until he got to the kitchen and saw the light on.

Defeated, he was about to turn around and head back into his inner sanctum to await his next opportunity before he realized that the shadow moving along the wall was far too small to be Beel.

Quietly, carefully, he poked his head around the corner and peered into the kitchen. There, in an old t-shirt with an apron tied around their waist, was the human scooping flour out of a bag.

Either he made some sort of noise or they just felt his presence. They turned around, looking startled for a moment before regaining their composure and grinning sheepishly at him. “Hey, Levi, what’s up?”

Levi blinked owlishly at them for a second. “Uh, well…”

The human’s baked goods had quickly become treasure in the House of Lamentation when they first arrived for the exchange program. It had been their passion, but something happened somewhere to tamp out the gleeful little spark they had whenever they were trying out a new recipe. But, like a storm passing, that light was beginning to peek through the dark clouds.

“Levi?” they asked, cocking their head at him like a confused puppy. “You alright?”

“I-I’m fine!” Levi had to physically shake himself out of his train of thought. “You-you’re baking something?”

“Mm-hm,” they hummed, turning back to the counter to glance at the recipe on their phone. “I was really in the mood for some chocolate cake.”

Chocolate cake wasn’t one of the recipes on his list, but seeing them passionate about something again made him forget about his whole mission. “Do you…want some help?”

Satan: Someone was humming.

Satan had thought he was alone in RAD’s library. Very rarely did students venture here at this hour, and his brothers were causing suck a ruckus back at the house that he hadn’t been able to focus on his book even shut within his room. And now someone was being annoying here.

His already short fuse was slowly but surely reaching the end, and he slammed his book shut with a bit more force than necessary. He would get his quiet time or there would be blood.

The perpetrator was somewhere in the fiction section, it sounded like, and Satan rounded the corner of the shelves like a predator sniffing out its prey. Finally, after a few moments of following the sound, he caught sight of another person. He stopped at the beginning of the aisle, mouth already open in a snarl to scold whoever had the balls to - 

“Oh, Satan, hi!”

He deflated like someone had poked a hole in him. Of all of the people he thought he would encounter, the human had been very low on the list. Recently, they barely left their room except to go to class or eat. Usually if he wanted to spend time with them he had to gently coax them out into the open like one would entice a cat with treats.

Satan cleared his throat. “Well, this is unexpected.”

The human had their arms full of books. Quite the assortment, too. A thriller, a book about previous kings on the Devildom, what appeared to be some sort of romance manga and an autobiography of a well-known witch.

“I ran out of things to read,” they shrugged, looking away. “Went through everything I had at least twice.”

“You know,” Satan walked over and took two of the books out of their arms - they always got irritated when he took everything, like a stubborn kitten, so letting them hold on to something would preserve their dignity. “You can always come to me if you want recommendations.”

Asmodeus: “Hey, Asmo?”

There were only a few people who were brave and/or stupid enough to go into Asmo’s room without knocking. Not because he would be angry or anything, but one never knew what kind of salacious activities would be going on in there and it was better for all involved if there was some warning before opening the door to Asmo’s den of debauchery.

“Hello, darling!” Asmo chirped, beckoning the human inside. They were lucky, he had just gotten out of the bath and was in the middle of his skin care routine. “What’s up?”

“Do you have anything for eye bags?” they asked, poking idly at the puffy skin beneath their eyes. It was clear that their mental health hadn’t been in top condition lately, their stress written in the dullness of their skin and drawn across the acne that dotted their face. But Asmo knew better than anyone that pointing out someone’s physical flaws did nothing for self-esteem, so he hadn’t said anything.

“Of course!” he grinned, scooting over a bit to give them some room on his vanity stool. “Skin care is self-care, darling, glad to see you treating yourself.”

The human sat down next to him, and now that they were closer Asmo could tell just how drained they were. They sat with their shoulders slumped, and they had an air of exhaustion about them.

“Oh, dear, haven’t you been sleeping well?” he asked, reaching over to pick up a small tub of cream. “Sleep is extremely important, you know. I’m a hot mess without my beauty sleep.”

“Really?” they quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Emphasis on hot,” he giggled, dabbing his fingertip into the cream. “Now, hold still for me, darling, wouldn’t want to poke your eyes out~”

Beelzebub: Beel had grown to like the quietness of the gym in the morning.

He was one of the few demons who had the diligence to work out every morning, and the ones who did make it a daily habit tended to leave each other alone to work on their own things. Everyone knew each other there, to the point where they each had their own spot where they left their stuff and there was an unspoken rule that nobody touched anyone else’s belongings.

It was also an unspoken rule that anyone who tried would get eaten by Beelzebub but he tried not to think too hard about that one. He still felt kind of guilty about it.

Muscle memory took him over to the bench by the weights where he usually set his things down, and he was in the process of sliding his gym bag off of his shoulder when he realized that there was another bag there that he didn’t immediately recognize. He stared at it for a moment, trying to see if he could figure out who the owner was until he got close enough to smell it.

Usually gym-bag-smell wasn’t something he would actively seek out, let alone find enticing, but he would recognize that scent anywhere. It was the human’s.

Sure enough, when he turned around, there they were, stretching in front of the weight bench. It had been…Beel didn’t even know how long it had been since he had seen them in the gym. They used to go quite frequently. Not enough to call themself a gym rat, but they kept up with their fitness pretty well. Until they didn’t.

Beel hadn’t wanted to pry, but he had been worried about them when they stopped working out. He could tell they were suffering physically from it as well - whatever had stopped them from exercising had also stopped them from taking care of their body in general, and he could tell by the weakness in their arms and the dragging of their feet that they weren’t at the top of their game.

He called out their name as he approached them. “You’re here.”

They jumped, eyes wild before they realized who was talking to them, and they shot him a sheepish grin. “Oh, hey, Beel.”

“You haven’t worked out in a while,” Beel stated matter-of-factly before smiling warmly at them. “It’s good to see you here again.”

“Ah, yeah,” they mumbled, looking away. “Kind of…lost my momentum for a bit, I guess. But!” they perked up. “I’m back at it!”

“Good. That’s good.” Beel dropped his bag next to theirs on the bench. “Want me to spot you?”

Belphegor: He was trying to stay awake this time, honest.

Belphie didn’t exactly have the best track record for showing up to class, much less managing to remain conscious for it. Lucifer had been nagging him lately about his attendance, but he was always nagging him about something. No, the real winner of the annoying yet effective big brother olympics was Mammon, who had looked Belphie dead in the eye and said “I bet you couldn’t show up to class for a whole week if you tried.”

And Belphegor was nothing if not a stubborn asshole.

Although, the dare was about going to class, not staying awake, so technically he could snag a nap and Mammon couldn’t say any - 

Belphie’s eyelids snapped open - he hadn’t even realized he had closed them - when something small and bright blue landed on the desk in front of him. It took a moment for him to refocus, but when he did he noticed that a small folded paper star had bounced in front of him.

He raised an eyebrow before turning to look at the human, who was sitting a few seats away from him looking too innocent for them not to be the culprit.

“Can I help you?” he muttered.

“Wakey-wakey, Belphie,” they grinned back at him. They had surrounded themself with a myriad of different-colored paper stars, something Belphie hadn’t seen them do in quite a long time. They had claimed that keeping their hands busy helped them focus during class, and even outside of class they were usually doing some sort of origami project. But at some point, they had stopped. Maybe someone had pointed it out to them, maybe something happened to make them depressed, he didn’t know. But he had kind of missed seeing their little army of paper animals.

“Can you make a fox?”

[sepublic]

Hive Mecha Scene

I want to discuss how the Hive Mecha battle in a Metroid show would translate into a scene: Of all the bosses to discuss, this one seems silly, but hear me out.

Samus enters the Hive Totem chamber, and then poisonous water floods the room, leaving only a small platform to be safe on. The Hive Mecha opens one of its three ports, releasing a swarm of Ram War Wasps. They swarm around Samus at all angles, flying around, disorienting; Samus tries to aim for one but misses, then feels compelled to aim for another that crosses her field of vision.

All the while, the War Wasps ram into her, throwing Samus off-balance and messing with her aim, her focus, her concentration. Samus switches focus to each attacker, only to get sidetracked all over again; She almost falls into the poison, maybe does and climbs back onto the pedestal. She wastes a few missiles, maybe even a Super Missile; But it's clear Samus is wasting firepower, her focus should be on precision, not a more powerful blow against individual War Wasps that don't need much damage. And missiles are slow, unlike the faster and responsive power beam.

As that surprisingly good music plays in the background, Samus crouches and closes her eyes, concentrating; This isn't working out. She then flashes back to her childhood on Zebes, a moment with Old Bird. Old Bird tells her a classic story; Something along the lines of some entity, who attempts to take on a whole group of things it wants.

But it gets distracted, sidetracked, the things keep evading it. Instead of focusing on just one, it focused on all of them, and its greed proves its undoing; It comes away with none of the things, because its attention was split across getting all of them at once, instead of having the patience to do one at a time.

Samus opens her eyes; She knows what to do now. Straightening up, she hyper-focuses on one, single, Ram War Wasp; She lets the rest attack her, tanking the damage as she tracks this specific wasp with her arm cannon, and then bam! She fires, obliterating it.

Onto the next one; And then the next. Every now and then she moves to the side to dodge a ramming War Wasp, but otherwise, Samus remains patient, methodical, and still. She doesn't waste any energy flailing about, she knows progress is progress. Cue a montage of her doing some sick sharpshooting, until all of the War Wasps are dead.

Samus scans the Hive Mecha now that she's free, and cue the explanation of its symbiotic relationship with the War Wasps, its purpose as a security system, as well as the vulnerability of the ports it deploys War Wasps with. Knowing what to do now, Samus fires a missile into its port, destroying it.

The Hive Mecha switches to the second port, releasing another batch of War Wasps. This time, Samus is prepared, going into Morph Ball mode. She baits them; Every time a War Wasp lunges, Samus Boost Balls out of the way, leaving behind a bomb in her place that blows up the War Wasp. Cue the following explosions, the War Wasps just don't learn unlike Samus.

The second batch is finished, Samus destroys its following port. The third port opens-

And Samus fires a Super Missile right into it, destroying the War Wasps right as they emerge; Spawncamper. A few War Wasps make it out, some aflame, but Samus finishes them off from afar like an Olympic marksman. With all its defenses destroyed, the Hive Mecha deactivates, and the room drains itself; Samus is free to continue her progress in exploring the Chozo Ruins.

If you played the boss fight yourself, you can tell: This scene implements the intended strategy for the Hive Mecha. You focus on an individual War Wasp, shoot it, and then another comes to take its place. I think translating the in-game strategy into a methodology Samus herself has to adopt in the episode would help to diversify the boss battles in the show; If all of them are adapted, they need different ways to make them stand out, beyond just having different appearances! It’d be repetitive if she just shot them the whole time.

Plus, it shows Samus’ cleverness; She’s a strategic fighter who analyzes and breaks down her opponents, instead of going gung-ho on them; She adapts to her surroundings, hence all of the transformation and upgrades. That’s what the scan visor represents, it’s what the puzzle nature of the series represents, and it’s why she lasts while others don’t.

And the way she approaches the same problem in different ways until she can bypass it entirely (such as the Hive Mecha ports) shows Samus is creative and can come up with work arounds, which also hearkens back to the sequence breaking built into the games’ DNA. Her methods develop as her familiarity and understanding does; So in a way it’s like character development, as Samus learns a lesson she applies to future scenarios.

And in the end, Samus holds dear to her heart the lessons and childhood she got from the Chozo, applying it to a Chozo ‘test’ in the present. I could see this scene, simple as it is, capturing the basics and fundamentals to a lot of Samus’ character; AKA the core mechanics, which is what an early boss fight does.

[theriverbeyond]

How connected would you say these two posts are? Would you enjoy raw tofu this much if you weren’t just coming out of the joy/pain of a hyper-focus-fueled-temporary-loss-of-humanity? 😂

... ok u got me i DID post both of those back to back bc i emerged from a 4 hour felting session and then immediately inhaled a whole block of raw extra firm tofu with a little soy sauce using a spoon BUT in my defense I have been doing this since time immemorial. one of my favorite comfort foods/snacks as a little kid

[abronzeagegod]

Untitled YA Project Chapter 5: A Quiet Assault in the Dead of Night

First Chapter || More

8:50 PM local time

1.4 Miles outside of the Training Barracks, House Kaiyantsh, Si Yátz

Hira sat bolt upright a few minutes later, the paralysis toxin leaving her body. Luckily for her, shrar toxins from their stingers are the least potent of the zlilfian’s defenses, but they could sting more than once.

That, however, was the least of her concerns at the moment. Something very bad was happening. There was a human on the island, Rafe attacked her, there was a human on the island, and there was that horrifying moment where all sound went away. But that last one was probably some weird side effect of the adrenaline of the whole attack and the paralysis. Right?

Hira quickly stood up. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. There was so much wrong and it all just happened. She started to panic. This wasn’t just some test or prank. This was an attack.

Oh crap.

That thought clarified everything else and she knew what she had to do. She had to get back to the zone’s military barracks and warn someone, anyone, everyone.

At least she was a good and fast flier. She had that over Rafe and her new human best friend. Even if they did have a lead on her.

With a running start, Hira took to the air and flew as fast as she could. Dodging the limbs of trees and dangling tendrils or the leaves of the various giant flora native to her island. Hira would land on a thick tree branch only for a moment as she would use it to springboard to a jump at an angle and propel her flight forward faster.

It took her barely twenty minutes to get back to the barracks. Which she assumed would have been a record of some kind but that didn’t matter. Hira ran into the barracks and shouted for someone, anyone. But her voice felt empty and quiet, even to herself. They couldn’t have possibly beaten her here, could they?

She could feel the nervous flutter of her wings and the agitated sway of her stinger. Something was wrong. Very wrong. And for some reason that made Hira hyper aware of herself.

With that sudden, intense focus, she noticed a small circular device on the ground about halfway down the hallway. There were small whiffs of smoke coming out of it.

Smoke bombs!

The human, and possibly Rafe, must have planted them and then smoked the entire building. All of the zlilfians would be incapacitated within moments. Hira was only spared because she wasn’t here.

This was definitely an attack.

She couldn’t hear anything and that’s when something stirred in the back of her mind, from one of the books she read back a few months ago. The collapse of the Maya back in the early part of the 100’s CE. There were fears that the oldest enemy of the zlilfian people had come to finish the job. The Silence.

Hira was truly afraid now. It was the only thing she could think of. The thing that had destroyed the old ancestral home of her people had come back to finish the job.

But she also knew that she couldn’t just stand there, being afraid. She had to warn someone. If this was the Silence she couldn’t just radio for help. She had to get to the emergency broadcast system. A failsafe that every Great House in every zone had to maintain by law. She had been briefed on it several times, but she never really remembered what to do.

Hira did remember where it was. She thought a quick little litany thanking the sun for shining on her and giving her whatever small slice of luck she had.

Without sound, and with everyone presumably incapacitated, Hira didn’t even attempt to try and be stealthy as she made her way to the command office.

She flew as fast as she could through the wooden structure of the barracks, only stopping to secure a cloth over her face to try and reduce the fatigue brought on by the smoke bombs that were still spewing little clouds of smoke.

Hira slammed into the door of the command office, which should have been locked. The door opened so fast that it hit the wall and left a solid dent from the door handle.But it made no sound. Hira was breathing hard because of her flight, yet she didn’t move. Because already in the room were the mysterious human and Rafe.

The human was on the commander’s computer, and looked over their shoulder at the sudden burst of movement caused by Hira’s sudden appearance. Rafe aslo turned to look at her, but with a curiously flat expression. There was no subtle, unconscious movements of her antenna or wings. Nothing to suggest she was awake. In fact, she had that look across her entire being that she wasn’t really paying attention to anything around her, like she had zoned out during a boring lecture and had started to fall asleep.

Rafe turned to look at the human, who Hira had to guess was an adult, possibly in their early adulthood. She had little experience with humans so judging their ages was hard. But she also guessed he was a male by the facial hair, a close cut beard to match the close cut haircut.

The human made a few curt gestures to Rafe and the slackened zlilfian suddenly launched into a series of attacks on Hira.

This time, Hira was prepared. She dodged and countered where she could, listening to the little voice of Rafe in her head from earlier that day who was correcting her form.

But she couldn’t just dodge and defend. Something very bad was happening. And Hira needed to activate the alarm, which was of course on the other side of the room. She had to attack and get around Rafe.

“Rafe! Why are you doing this? What is happening?” she tried to ask out loud, forgetting that sound was a dead thing here. Even if she could get a response, Rafe didn’t look like she could share, with that vacant look in her eyes.

Hira flared out her wings and went in for a quick series of punches which caused Rafe to react and settle into a defensive position. Instead of following up with even more attacks to try and get around Rafe’s guard and press her advantage, Hira jumped up, flying a few feet up, and then like she did with the trees before, used her friend as a springboard to propel herself to the far side of the room.

Right to the alarm.

She landed and tried to do what she could to activate it. But she couldn’t remember how. There were so many buttons. So she just started pushing every single one.

The she felt the harsh stinging pain right between her big wings. She looked over her shoulder to see the empty expression on Rafe behind her, stinger stuck in Hira’s back. The concentration of the toxin would be much greater that it was the last time. She could already feel the numbness spreading.

Hira couldn’t hear herself cry out in pain as he friend attacked her so hard that the stinger was stuck in her back.

It was only then, that she remembered what she had to do. She pushed up on the small lever with her left hand.

It felt so hard to do. She was suddenly so tired, her muscles were sore from the patrol and the flight and the fights. Hira just wanted to sleep. She could feel the toxin and the pain spreading, the toxin amplifying the feelings of exhaustion. One leg gave out. She had to pull the lever back down to activate the alarm. Her arms felt heavy. Her whole body felt heavy.

Hira dropped to one knee. She couldn’t hear anything. Her vision was fading. She could smell and taste the smoke in the air. The ground seemed like it would be so comfortable. She just wanted to lay down and do nothing else.

No!

Part of her screamed. The adrenaline in her body spiked. She had to stop this! She had to set off the alarm.

Her hand lay on the lever, but she couldn’t convince her fingers to close. Everything had gone numb. She couldn’t keep her eyes open.

Pull the lever down, she screamed within her own head, and maybe out loud too, even though she couldn’t hear it. The paralysis was winning the fight.

Hira collapsed to the floor as she finally succumbed to the toxin, pulling the lever with her.

Suddenly, flashing lights lit up the office. It would have been bright and annoying but Hira’s eyes had closed. She could only still see hints of flashing lights behind her eyes.

She would have smiled if any of her muscles worked. Instead she passed out.

i have a kofi

[gaawrites]

5 Killer Habits - Be a Rebel - Book Review

There are many great human beings, leaders who write motivational books; of these, only very few thinkers follow what they preach. I, for one, was never a fan of self-help books, mainly due to my lack of focus, but Sree Krishna Seelam Sir’s book “5 Killer Habits—Be a Rebel” became a total game changer.

I always thought success was always something I would get, no matter what. Yes, it needed hard work and luck, but I always figured I would thrive in whatever field I was working in. Only to realize the world isn’t what I presumed it to be. I understood I was privileged and sheltered.

In the title, the author is asking us, the readers, to become rebels—to become extraordinary. As a child, I wanted to be someone out of the ordinary too. But it must have been my lack of knowledge or real understanding about the world around me; I thought I would be someone different by not living according to the timetable—by not being disciplined. Hence, a child who used to get up every day at 6 in the morning started to wake up whenever she felt like it—which, after many years, she has come to regret.

After reading the first chapter, I realized the concept of discipline isn’t what I thought it was. It wasn’t just about following a timetable; it was about owning it. The author emphasizes the importance of waking up before the sunrise to be more productive. I am someone who wakes up early in the morning, on the day of an important examination, and still studies everything at the last minute, only to score above average in all the subjects. I have done this for as long as I can remember—even from first grade. Looking back, I realize I could have topped all of my exams if I had been punctual and consistent.

This publication calls out to the readers to be initiative and take bold actions to change their lives around. And to prove all the pessimistic people wrong, the author himself opened up about some of the problems he had faced in his life. He even challenged himself to achieve a goal, where he forced himself to overcome his fears, like when he swam across the Krishna River, even though he was always afraid of the water.

His personal anecdotes helped me connect, understand, and relate with him more. This book, as a whole, was filled with truths he learned, facts he understood, and wanted to spread to everyone who wanted to learn. This book acts as a guide to introspection and learning.

Growing up, I watched my father help and support a lot of families. Both my parents grew up in poverty, especially my mother. A family of 5 depended on her by the time she turned 23. They worked hard, and they sacrificed a lot to reach where they are now. They are my role models. They aren’t exactly great parents, but they are great people.

It is my dream to give back to my community, to my home. Maybe that’s the reason this book has resonated with me so deeply. The author mentioned how love plays an important role in motivating oneself. Just like what he said, I am my parent’s extended version, and the love they have given me plays a huge role.

He also provides the readers with tools and exercises that will help them reach their goals.

One of the most spoken phrases that I have heard is, ‘Don’t be a hero,’ and here Mr. Seelam Sir said the opposite. Volunteering is a foreign concept to a lot of people. Maybe it’s because we, Indians, focus more on report cards and careers, which are highly respected in our society, than doing what we really love. Our obsession with money seems to be the main culprit, along with the invisible societal standards everyone’s so hyper-fixated on.

I understand that even the thought about blaming money emerges from privilege, but if the people on the top tried to keep their greed away for even a little bit, a lot of things could be changed.

In today’s world, everything and anything is a moneymaker. Be it medicines or education. Frederick Banting, the inventor of insulin, refused to patent his discovery as he believed that it should be free for everyone. But today, it is considered one of the expensive medications in the US. The same goes for education. Everything is in numbers and marked in profits.

In the book, there was a quote by Socrates: “An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.” Nowadays, degree certificates are starting to be considered useless because of corruption.

There is a change in trend, where the current youth seem to be more understanding about the necessity of giving back. With this mindset, they are not only developing leadership skills but also finding their life’s purpose.

Research shows that our quality of life and lifespan will extend when we have a purpose. The author mentioned how interconnected a country’s life expectancy rate is with being content.

In India, the retirement age for most of the institutions is 60 years old, and our life expectancy rate is around 70 years. After retirement age, our parents or grandparents started becoming isolated and idle. They should be encouraged to pick up any new hobbies or passions to keep them engaged and content. People who volunteer from a young age are more optimistic than others and are said to be living longer than others as well.

He also pointed out that we are turning our planet into a graveyard. To the future generations, we must be representing the dark ages. Due to humanity’s ignorance and stupidity, the world as we know it is collapsing around us, and we choose to ignore it. The analogy he used—when our kitchen is burning, will we wait till the whole house is on fire to take action—struck a chord within me. We were notified about the environmental problems 20 or so years ago, and even still, we choose to be ignorant. Our future generations might be cursing us when they are forced to face the consequences of the problems we caused.

We exploit the ecosystem as if we own it. We forget that there are other species, other than us, alive too. We should have forgotten that others occupy this space; that would have been better than what we are doing now.

We are killers. Status is important, I understand, but is showing off important? Killing animals for their skin and teeth. Animal abuse for our entertainment.

There are a lot of laws and regulations regarding animal killing, but the system has built-in loopholes that are not left exploited. In India, most of the states consider cows as something holy and yet play a huge role in the global market for providing cow skin.

As if all these problems weren’t enough, there are islands forming in the middle of oceans that purely consist of waste and plastic. One plastic alone takes more than a century to disintegrate. There are areas in the ocean where living organisms can’t survive. Imagine the conditions of the fishes, being unable to breathe in their own homes. With the way we are going, I think we will be buying oxygen to live, in the near future. I hope I am wrong.

There is no lack of awareness. Everyone knows everything. It is the lack of action, and this publication calls for brave action from the readers.

In the third chapter, Be a Dromomaniac, the author emphasizes that the key to personal development is solo travel. He tries to convey how solo travel can change a person by providing his own experiences. He encourages everyone to live in the moment, a moment that is not disturbed by likes, comments, and pictures on social media. Spending money on something like solo travel is not an expense considering how it helps us not only unwind but also gain experiences and make lifelong friends. Solo traveling can help us build our confidence. At the end of the chapter, he asks the readers to go somewhere nearby, alone for the weekend, and explore.

Solo traveling helps us prioritize what really matters. Is it the expensive clothes or cars that matter, or is it trying to look after our family and community that matters? Solo traveling helps us change our materialistic and bigoted perspectives to valuing experiences and keeping an open mind.

It is also another way to stay curious. Staying curious is important in learning. Learning is a journey; it is never-ending. To learn the truth, to understand the world, we need exposure, and we need knowledge.

As a psychology student, I understood that no one was inherently evil, i.e., no one is born evil. It is their circumstances and the environment that makes them choose to be evil. In the streets of Mumbai and Bengaluru, there are little kids on the road, trying to steal.

Lack of knowledge and poverty led these kids to make choices that they might later regret in life.

Knowledge can only be attained through reading. Reading improves your critical thinking and logical reasoning skills. It should be a habit that is developed from childhood. Most people don’t like reading because they connect it with school books. Reading should happen outside what’s taught in our school books.

I have been an avid reader from childhood, all thanks to my mother, who used to tell me stories and buy me books regularly. I spent a lot of my childhood reading. Reading helped me grow in ways that schools could have never done. Reading helped me to be more open-minded and empathetic. It strengthened a lot of good values and ethics that my parents instilled in me growing up.

In my mother tongue, Malayalam by Kunjuni Mash, there is a famous phrase roughly translated to –

‘Whether you read or not, you will grow either way.

But the one who reads will be fruitful, while the other will not.’

Great thinkers and leaders were all avid readers. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and many others took up reading while they were imprisoned and later started writing.

It is highly recommended to read nonfiction as it contains facts and information that help you. Any type of reading is encouraged, but nonfiction reading is recommended.

In Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, he proved that children are the extended version of their parents. They imitate and act just like their parents, which is why parents are asked not to fight in front of their children. It is said that a reader lives 1000 lives. Reading helps us develop a skill called visualization.

The author also recommended some of the nonfiction books as a starter, like Animal Farm and Tuesdays with Morrie. Books like this help a lot in thinking and observing our society. It’s like when a blind person can see the world for the first time.

He also requests the readers not to read newspapers much as they contain a lot of misinformation. Current media’s objective is not to provide accurate information but rather to provide items that have drama and entertainment.

Apart from the media, another institution that spreads fake news is the religious institution. There are still people who believe the earth is flat, even though it was proved otherwise years ago.

The education system across the globe is corrupted. The syllabus and books are not selected according to the knowledge they contain; it depends on people with power. Students’ education is in the hands of some people who don’t even bother to read or update the books accordingly.

Indians are brought up with a hatred towards Pakistan and vice versa. Children are not born with hatred; it is ingrained into their minds.

My parents never taught me that there is only one true God. I was brought up in a way to see our society as a whole and not differentiate it according to religions. Just because someone follows a different culture, why would they be inferior or superior to me?

Most of the wars happened because of this religious propaganda. They manipulate people who don’t have good critical skills and make them do their bidding. In Nadia Murad’s autobiography, The Last Girl, she explains how her community was treated by Iraqis, even though they both belonged to the same country. The Yazidi community was almost driven into extinction. Iraqis would capture the girls and sell or enslave them. They will kill the men and manipulate boys who haven’t reached puberty. Nadia’s own cousin, a young boy barely 14, was brainwashed and became a terrorist.

Just like this, there are many instances where people fool others, saying they are the messenger of the God or that they are the god itself!

Uneducated people who fell for their tricks will do their bidding all for entering heaven. There were many cults that all have done massive suicides to enter heaven. This has happened way too many times. It is time to separate culture from education and politics. Many religions are still aggressive. Though child marriage and Sati are all considered crimes, they are still happening right in front of us. Supernatural powers may or may not exist, but no supernatural power has ever asked us to do harm to other people in order to preach about them. I believe the gods we follow aren’t gods but rather humans, extraordinary leaders. We, many years ago, must have idolized them just like what happened with Buddhism. The only difference is Buddhism happened far more recently than other religions. After all, history depends upon the one who’s writing it.

Islam is about brotherhood. Hinduism is about Dharma. Buddhism is loving everyone. Christianity is about loving your neighbour. There are over 100, if not 1000, religions across the world. That means there are ten thousand scriptures. What matters is how we decipher them. Respect each religion but don’t let it be the cause of destruction.

In conclusion, it is a privilege to know this, to understand this. What matters is what we do with this knowledge. And I believe it is the privileged who should take the action this time around.

[kondapallisiva]

The Transformative Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Industries

Introduction:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a revolutionary force reshaping industries across the globe. Its applications are diverse, ranging from automating mundane tasks to driving strategic decision-making processes. Let's delve into how AI is revolutionizing business processes across various sectors.

1. Automation and Efficiency:

AI-powered automation is streamlining workflows and increasing operational efficiency across industries. By deploying machine learning algorithms and robotic process automation (RPA), businesses can automate repetitive tasks, reducing human errors and freeing up valuable time for employees to focus on more strategic endeavors.

2. Enhanced Customer Experience:

In sectors like retail, hospitality, and healthcare, AI is revolutionizing customer interactions. Chatbots powered by natural language processing (NLP) provide instant customer support, personalized recommendations, and seamless transaction experiences. AI-driven sentiment analysis helps businesses gauge customer satisfaction levels in real-time, enabling them to respond promptly to feedback and improve service quality.

3. Data-driven Decision Making:

AI is transforming decision-making processes by leveraging big data analytics and predictive modeling. In finance, AI algorithms analyze market trends, assess risks, and optimize investment portfolios. In manufacturing, AI-driven predictive maintenance minimizes equipment downtime by detecting potential failures before they occur. By harnessing the power of AI, businesses can make data-driven decisions that drive growth and innovation.

4. Personalized Marketing and Sales:

AI is revolutionizing marketing and sales strategies by enabling hyper-personalized targeting and content optimization. AI algorithms analyze customer data to identify patterns and preferences, allowing businesses to deliver tailored marketing messages and offers. In e-commerce, AI-powered recommendation engines enhance cross-selling and upselling opportunities, driving revenue growth and customer loyalty.

5. Healthcare Transformation:

In healthcare, AI is revolutionizing patient care, diagnosis, and treatment. Machine learning algorithms analyze medical imaging scans to detect abnormalities with greater accuracy than human radiologists. AI-driven predictive analytics identify patients at high risk of developing chronic conditions, enabling proactive interventions for better health outcomes. Virtual health assistants powered by AI provide patients with personalized healthcare guidance and support, improving access to medical services and reducing healthcare costs.

6. Supply Chain Optimization:

AI is optimizing supply chain management by enhancing demand forecasting, inventory management, and logistics optimization. Machine learning algorithms analyze historical sales data and market trends to predict future demand more accurately, reducing stockouts and excess inventory. AI-powered predictive analytics optimize transportation routes and delivery schedules, minimizing costs and improving delivery efficiency.

Conclusion:

The impact of artificial intelligence on industries is profound and far-reaching. By harnessing the power of AI, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth, innovation, and competitiveness. However, as AI adoption continues to accelerate, it's essential to address ethical considerations and ensure responsible AI deployment to maximize its benefits for society as a whole.

[hermannlederle]

Hermann Lederle

Critically admired german artist Hermann Lederle is most prominent for his PIXEL and BLOTS painting and more recent ADAPTATION series. His works have shown in numerous exhibitions around the world, and his artistic production is particularly unique and recognizable. Although initially the impression is abstract, Lederle's works feature geometric elements that compose, as a whole, figurative elements, bringing to mind that of the abstract expressionists.

Los Angeles artist Hermann Lederle is known for his innovative BEAUTIFUL CHAOS abstract canvas scapes and unique BREAKAWAY layered PIXEL painting. Blurring the boundaries between paint-scape and landscape reality, and between the paint and its intended object, the work combines geometric abstraction and pure color concept to explore a new ethereal thematic. Through a PILLING of dotted lines and multitude of hyper-glow colors - as if the artist intends to assault the surface with micro-nuclear forces, Lederle constructs a next generation art-scape.

Upon graduating from Karl Friedrich School Mannheim for humanist and classic studies in Germany, Lederle re-directed his career path. His early apprenticeship training in photography inspired him to seek a formal continued education in the Fine Arts, namely filmmaking and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. San Francisco became his new residency for the next years until graduating with a BFA, followed by five years establishing himself as a painter in the thriving arts district of Tribeca in downtown New York City. It was there, Lederle began to formulate his own visual language to express his concepts and ideas through the lens, on canvas and on the film screen. Exemplifying the artist’s interest in the interaction between art and film and creating an additional link to 21st century web based digital art, Lederle's painting strives to wipe clean the slate of conventional notions of image construction.

Lederle's PIXEL series, first shown at Media Rare Gallery in Hollywood  suggests a kind of Cubism for the digital age. His work as a filmmaker cross-pollinates in subtle, oblique ways. The idea of pixel paintings originated when working with digital images. “It was a discovery. We may have been seeing this way unconsciously since human beings had eyes, but now that we know we can zoom in on something, and then zoom out and see the whole picture, it becomes an awareness we can use to appreciate the pixilated version. Kind of like a primal, pre-conscious experience that relates to the era of technology."

Lederle's FOOTPRINTS ON SNOW series entails a two stage process, where a graduated color is applied with a tractional brush allowing for the distinct qualities of its stroke to emerge. The second stage is executed with a painter's knife often with ostensibly contradictory linear shapes and lines, imbuing it with the properties of rival perceptions, irreversible  like footprints, taking place within the canvases.

More recently, in his so-called ADAPTATION series, those vertical bands consist of the vivid and expressionistic decades-old paintings that Lederle has painstakingly hand-cut and then collaged onto the canvas, leaving just enough space for original marks to show through as interstices of the canvas. Punctuated with a stop and go rhythm, the work reigns in the artist’s prior unbidden flourishes and lays bare the source of artistic inspiration, simultaneously suggesting themes of evolution as they relate to Lederle's own practice and reflections on art history.

His latest works in submission on the occasion of IN SPRING Exhibition 2024, recall the BLOTS-pointillism of the neoimpressionists. When purposely set against a SCHIENA SCURA - dark FOAM bubbles, the painting is calling out a messy, un-ordered free floating imagery of some scenery not quite in focus and frozen in a still frame, although its kinetic forces relentlessly pushing up against its limits. The experimental composition of primal shapes and lines striving for a creative expression of artificial, nearly molecular spaces in another dimension and direction. These images take time to absorb, asking you to invest and trust, not speed through in a frenzy. A new-dimensional structure slowly emerges transcending past traditional geometrics.

Hermann Lederle's work has been exhibited in the United States in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Hungary. A body of his work is in consignment at galleries, including DSV Kunstkontor Stuttgart, HPH Siebdruck Echterdingen Germany, Media Rare Gallery Los Angeles, Court Gallery New York, Lawson Galleries San Francisco, Friedman Guinness Gallery Heidelberg, and in private collections of Ringo Starr, Eric Stolz, Cal Zecca, Gabor Csupo.

Lederle lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Previous notable exhibitions took place at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery ANDRENOCHROMO FOR DINNER Milan Italy 2022, ART KARLSRUHE HPH Special Serigraph Exhibition Germany 2020, Silverman Studio Hollywood 2017, Vertiva Stuttgart Germany 2015, Arthea Galerie Mannheim Germany 2015, Frank Pictures Gallery Santa Monica 2012, Solaris Gallery Los Angeles 2005, FP Gallery Los Angeles 2005, Media Rare Gallery Hollywood 2001, Lawson Galleries San Francisco 1987 and Court Gallery New York City 1986.

[tapan156546541]

Title: Safeguarding Digital Frontiers: A Comprehensive Guide to Cyber Security

In the present hyper-associated world, where each part of our lives is unpredictably woven into the advanced texture, the meaning of network protection couldn't possibly be more significant. From individual information to basic foundation, the danger scene poses a potential threat, presenting difficulties that request steady watchfulness and proactive measures. As innovation propels, so do the procedures and strategies of digital foes, requiring an extensive way to deal with shielding our computerized boondocks.

Understanding Cyber Security:

Digital protection includes a wide cluster of practices, innovations, and conventions intended to safeguard organizations, frameworks, and information from unapproved access, abuse, and double-dealing. It's not simply about introducing antivirus programming or setting up firewalls; rather, a diverse discipline requires a blend of specialized mastery, strategy systems, and client mindfulness.

The Importance of Cyber Security:

The repercussions of digital assaults can be broad and destroying. Past monetary misfortunes, they can result in reputational harm, legitimate liabilities, and even compromise public safety. Consider the effect of information breaks on organizations, where delicate client data is compromised, prompting disintegration of trust and certainty. Besides, in areas, for example, medical services and money, the stakes are much higher, with possible ramifications for patient wellbeing and monetary strength.

Key Threats in Cyberspace:

Digital dangers come in different structures, going from normal malware and phishing tricks to modern ransomware and country state supported secret activities. Programmers exploit weaknesses in programming, equipment, and human way of behaving to penetrate networks and exfiltrate important information. With the multiplication of Web of Things (IoT) gadgets and distributed computing, the assault surface has extended, enhancing the potential for double-dealing and disturbance.

Principles of Effective Cyber Security:

Accomplishing strong digital protection requires a proactive and all encompassing methodology. Here are a few key standards to direct your endeavors:

Risk Evaluation: Distinguish and focus on possible dangers and weaknesses in view of their probability and effect. Direct ordinary reviews and appraisals to remain in front of arising chances.

Safeguard Inside and out: Carry out numerous layers of protection, including network firewalls, interruption location frameworks, encryption, and access controls. This approach mitigates the gamble of a weak link compromising the whole framework.

Ceaseless Observing: Screen network traffic, framework logs, and client exercises to recognize abnormalities and potential security episodes continuously. Utilize progressed investigation and AI calculations to distinguish designs characteristic of vindictive way of behaving.

Occurrence Reaction Arranging: Foster far reaching episode reaction plans framing strategies for identifying, containing, and alleviating digital assaults. Lay out clear lines of correspondence and assign jobs and obligations to work with a planned reaction.

Worker Preparing and Mindfulness: Teach representatives about network protection best works on, including secret key cleanliness, phishing mindfulness, and safe perusing propensities. Cultivate a culture of carefulness and responsibility where everybody assumes a part in safeguarding delicate data.

Standard Updates and Fix The executives: Keep programming applications, working frameworks, and firmware in the know regarding the most recent security fixes and updates. Weaknesses frequently emerge from obsolete programming forms that leave frameworks helpless to double-dealing.

Information Encryption and Protection: Encode delicate information both on the way and very still to forestall unapproved access and revelation. Comply with information protection guidelines and industry principles administering the assortment, stockpiling, and transmission of individual data.

The Future of Cyber Security:

As innovation keeps on developing, so too will the nature and intricacy of digital dangers. Developments, for example, man-made reasoning, quantum registering, and the Web of Things vow to reform enterprises yet additionally present new roads for double-dealing and misuse. In this unique scene, flexibility and strength will be vital, expecting associations to keep up to date with arising patterns and embrace a culture of consistent improvement.

Conclusion:

In a time characterized by computerized change and interconnectivity, network protection arises as a key part for defending our aggregate advantages and safeguarding the respectability of our advanced biological system. By embracing a proactive mentality, utilizing trend setting innovations, and encouraging a culture of joint effort and shared liability, we can sustain our safeguards against digital dangers and set out on a way toward a safer and versatile future.

In the consistently developing fight between digital protectors and enemies, the stakes have never been higher. As gatekeepers of the computerized domain, we should stay careful, versatile, and focused on the standards of network safety, guaranteeing that our advanced boondocks stay secure and strong notwithstanding difficulty.

[sjjnyc]

The Desert Continuum + thoughts on having a fluid identity and lifestyle

I bought The Funambulist's Issue #44 about the desert because I felt like, while living in a landscape I didn't grow up in, it would be helpful to learn various desert perspectives. I really love the idea of a "Desert Continuum" described in the excerpt below because it raises my awareness that there are other desert communities around the world. Duh! I know.

"What we can do however is to loosely trace these porous boundaries and, from it, observe the drawing of a desert continuum (see the map on next pages) that links Dakar to Ulaanbaatar by way of Karachi, Volgograd, Gaza, and Nairobi—considering cities, rather than mountains or other salient points, has to be understood as arbitrary geographical references here. Just as we talked in our issue on The Ocean about the political commonalities that islander nations could experience through the Ocean despite living thousands of kilometers apart, we can envision such a commonality throughout this continuum."

- excerpt from the Introduction

After growing up on an island near the Atlantic Ocean, I felt like a dear caught in headlights moving to the arid West. I didn't think I would even be here this long. I'm kind of not surprised I found myself in this region of the country during my Saturn Return; I was born in Denver, Colorado in 1991 and grew up in Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs until the age of twelve, so it makes sense that I would find myself back here during my first Saturnian rite of passage.

Besides living in Brooklyn with my great-grandmother for almost two years (when I first moved to New York City and for my grandmother, when she returned after two decades away), I mostly grew up on Staten Island. It makes sense that I and other people would place myself in this distinct place, but then I have familial migrations, histories, lineages and personal callings going in all sorts of directions, so it's hard to place me somewhere.

I have not shared the story of why I came to Arizona in 2019 in the first place; I didn't want to come here. And I didn't want to stay in New York City either, because like a lot of folks I have a love-hate relationship with the city. I've moved around a lot since I was a child, whether I was staying at different family member's houses, moving to another neighborhood, another city, another state, another borough. On the outside I look like an adventurous nomad, but my whole life has been constant uprooting and uncomfortable home situations.

I root in water, my body and taking care of myself

I root in water, my body and taking care of myself. Sometimes people don't understand the first part, they don't understand my watery energy and predominate watery expression- and what tends to happen is that I become judged and pathologized, and something that needs to be balanced and fixed. I'm not shy in letting folks know I have problems and things to work on, but honest to God it is so interesting how sometimes the first thing people do is pathologize my relationship with water. Or my hyper focus and expression of water explains xyz issue in my life. At first, I started internalizing these reactions, but I think all of this reflects what's going on with other people.

I live in an aquatic universe yall (with other beings, many who have lived here way before I was a twinkle in somebody's eye); I don't need to second guess myself, accept other people's funky energy about how I express myself, feel ashamed or feel like I need to abandon myself/my aquatic heritage in order to make sense, be relatable and belong.

It was water who reached out to me. I was on my way to being a farmer while my water art practice quietly emerged in the background. But Water, while living in urban New York City, came forward into my consciousness and life in an unexpected way. Most of my life is guided by Water, and it's intelligence draws or attracts people into my life who inspire me and who I (need to) learn from. And after almost thirty-two years on the planet, I find myself a part of the Desert Continuum, but I don't know if I belong, or if I'd ever call the southwest home, even though I absolutely love New Mexico.

Desert Libraries in Mali, The Invention of Nubian Deserts and The Impact of a Life (and Death): Colonial Encounters and Aboriginal Desert Practices

The Desert Issue is included in my make-shift water library (Timbuktu is not mentioned in the magazine, but thinking about water libraries made me think about desert libraries (#nobinary) so I included a link about desert libraries in Mali), and since I'm moving once again, I had to pack up my water library and put it in my grandmother's garage. You can review the digital version here; it needs to be updated!

Mali is a part of the Desert Continuum / Photo Source: Libraries of Timbuktu

Ancient desert libraries / Photo Source: Timbuktu Hopes Ancient Texts Spark a Revival

I only managed to read two stories anyway: the displacement of Nubian people from living near their ancestral waterway, the Nile River, and the life and death of desert Aboriginal artist and community leader Mr. Ward. These essays were difficult to read; it's like I can't read the other contributions just yet because I'm still sitting with these two stories, each one having stirred my spirit and left some kind of imprint.

All Image Sources: The Funambulist Magazine #44

I'm really big on life not being a quiz. With all the technology many of us are afforded, I think it's helpful to relieve ourselves of having to know and remember everything and feel free to look something up or ask someone when we don't know something. In saying this, there are probably places I know about that I don't even know are deserts.

When I think of Egypt I know about the pyramids, but it never really registered that Cairo is a desert city. Also, outside the US I have been paying attention to Desert Mob, Central Australia's largest First Nations art and cultural event and exhibition held in Mparntwe or Alice Springs. I happened to find the organization on Instagram. At least for me in my personal experience, it is really nice to see the art and cultural practices people in different desert communities are creating and participating in. Even though I don't know anyone well in Egypt or Central Australia, these places, being a part of the Desert Continuum, develop my consciousness and clarity more around desert identities and lifeways.

PROMPT: This prompt is more for people who live in arid and semi-arid environments: who are your favorite desert artists? Or whose work would you like to learn more about? Another prompt is to take a portrait of yourself in the place you call home and share it if you want!

[foodboys-blog]

best food 2023

Sustainability and zero-waste practices: The focus on sustainability extends beyond ingredient sourcing. Restaurants and food establishments are likely to adopt practices that reduce food waste, such as utilizing food scraps creatively, composting, and implementing sustainable packaging solutions.

Hyper-local and hyper-seasonal cuisine: Chefs and food enthusiasts are increasingly embracing hyper-local and hyper-seasonal cooking. This means showcasing ingredients that are sourced from the immediate vicinity and highlighting dishes that reflect the flavors and traditions of a specific locality.

Immersive dining experiences: The dining landscape may evolve to provide more immersive experiences. This could include interactive meals, multi-sensory presentations, and collaborations between chefs, artists, and performers to create memorable and unique dining events.

Ethnic and regional exploration: Exploring lesser-known cuisines and regional dishes may gain popularity. Diners are likely to seek out authentic experiences and flavors from underrepresented culinary traditions, such as African, Middle Eastern, or Central Asian cuisines.

Health-conscious indulgence: While indulgence and comfort food will always have their place, there is a growing interest in healthier alternatives. Chefs may focus on creating dishes that are both delicious and nutritious, incorporating more whole foods, nutrient-dense ingredients, and creative preparation techniques.

Personalization and customization: Customization options may become more prevalent, allowing diners to tailor their meals to their specific dietary preferences or restrictions. This could involve build-your-own-bowl concepts, personalized spice blends, or interactive menu options.

Food technology advancements: Advancements in food technology may influence the culinary landscape. This includes the use of AI and machine learning in recipe development, 3D printing for food presentation, or advancements in food preservation techniques that enhance flavors and extend shelf life.

Remember, these are speculative trends based on observations and patterns up until September 2021. The best food in 2023 will ultimately be influenced by a combination of cultural shifts, individual tastes, and the creativity of chefs and food entrepreneurs. Stay curious, explore local culinary scenes, and keep an eye on emerging trends to discover the exciting flavors and dishes that may define 2023.

[manifestingkai]

Manifesting as an ND person through trauma, intrusive thoughts + survival mode behaviours.

*Disclaimer: I do work in mental health + have it, but I am not a doctor and none of my content should replace health related advice/matters. If you’re in need of emergency or crisis support, please reach out to a trusted loved one or your healthcare team.*

You are not your trauma. You did not manifest your trauma. You are not responsible for your trauma (though you are the creator of your healing, however that looks for you). You do not have to revise your trauma or mental health issues away. This is a hill I will die on.

You are perfect as you are right now. You are whole, complete and capable right now. You can manifest. The law can, does and will work for you. Your best is good enough and you are not an exception to LOA. You are valid, seen, worthy and deserving just as you are.

The law of assumption is so unique in the sense that there are no rules besides the ones we create for ourselves. It’s the coolest and for some the most challenging part of the whole thing - add in the layer of being ND and it becomes a little more dynamic, esp at the beginning.

Yes, if you can think of it and desire it you can manifest it. Your subconscious mind is limitless. This is mind blowing information the first time we hear it and sometimes it takes a little while to fully wrap our heads around it, that is completely common and okay.

Many of us have been conditioned to think and view ourselves, others and the world around us a certain way: for me and many others this was taught in a very survival-based, often negative way.

Examples: can’t have everything you want, life is hard, you can’t always win

The learning that none of that is true can feel staggering, too good to be true. But it is true. You’ll see it for yourself if you haven’t begun to already. As an ND person sometimes this learning comes with its own unique set of thoughts and questions. That’s okay too.

Your brain’s primary function is to keep you safe and alive. It will do everything and anything it needs to in order to meet that need for survival and safety.

When you experience a trauma or ongoing trauma, your brain learns to perceive situations + things as safe or unsafe.

Without getting to much into the science/psychology of it (bc I will link threads at the end), your brain works so hard to keep you safe that it may perceive danger even when it is not there in an attempt to keep you safe. Very common in trauma survivors.

People who experience trauma often live in survival mode. Often hyper-vigilant, in a state of moving from one day to the next with the focus being on getting through one day to the next, keeping safe, protecting themselves. It can be hard to see past surviving for some.

So finding LOA and learning that the circumstances you’re in or the things that have happened to you don’t define you and don’t have to be your future can be overwhelming. When I first found out I wept and grieved and celebrated all at once.

I recognize that you may still be experiencing trauma and your 3D world may not feel safe to you. I’ve been there too. In the moments when living in the end felt too much or impossible, I remind myself that it’s changing. That i’m going to be safe. That my life matters. Yours does too.

Manifesting starts and ends with you in your mind. For those of us who experience intrusive thoughts that can feel scary, too. You are not your intrusive thoughts. You don’t have to spend all day beating yourself up when you have one, you are human and it happens.

It is perfectly okay to allow the thoughts to pass if jumping on it to flip it causes you to spiral into it or causes 15 more. What works for you might be a bit different than what others do and that is okay, your experience is unique to you.

You create new stories in your mind (4D) but you do still have to navigate living in your physical world (3D). If you take nothing else from this, please take that you do not need to neglect yourself or your mental health to manifest. Taking care of you comes first.

You do not have to lock yourself in a room all day and affirm, you do not have to repeat the same 2 sentences for 12 hours straight until you’re burned out and exhausted. The fun in manifesting is exploring what works and feels good for you.

This can be done through techniques: SATs, scripting, visualizing, subliminals, affirmation tapes, lullaby method. There are so many. Explore it, see what feels good for you.

If you’ve experienced trauma, it can be scary and difficult to accept this at first and I encourage you to take things at your own pace. You can start with something like seeing lime green cars, you can test it out, you can have questions. You are supported and you’ve got this. You can trust yourself and you have all of the power. 💕

Source: my thread on Twitter // additional resources here

[lady-riel]

“Drunk in the Wrong Bedroom” - Part 2/2 - Gwynriel fic

Part 2 summary: Azriel's POV of Gwyn's drunken ramblings, plus what happened the next morning.

A/N - I generally dislike rewriting a whole scene from another person's POV but I got so many requests for Azriel's so here you go.

Part 1 here

Read on AO3

Part 2

A shuffling noise punctuated by a hiccup woke Azriel from sleep. Instinct had him silently unsheathing the dagger that was always stowed under his pillow.

He tossed off the covers to free his legs, giving no thought to his nakedness, every muscle in his body focused on the impending fight. With an invisible flick of magic, he illuminated the bedside faelight to unmask the intruder, his dagger pointed directly at them.

The flare of light made Gwyn’s unbound copper hair shine and swing like a curtain as she jumped back in surprise. Her wide eyes were unfocused, and she smelled like she had just climbed out of a whiskey barrel.

Azriel watched her gaze travel down his body, and he was suddenly hyper aware of his distinct lack of clothing. Shit.

He guessed that Gwyn’s obviously whiskey-soaked brain finally comprehended what she saw because she let out a squeak followed by three loud hiccups. Adorable hiccups, his brain supplied. He viciously shut down that line of thinking.

What the hell is she doing in my room? he thought as he tossed the dagger aside and pulled the covers up to his waist so Gwyn wouldn’t have a heart attack right in front of him.

“What—” she hiccuped again “—are you doing in my bed?”

“This is my bed.” Fuck, she was absolutely drunk out of her skull.

“Then what is your bed—” another hiccup “—doing in my room?” Gwyn demanded. She tried to put her hands on her hips, as if to prove a point, but was so wasted that she staggered instead.

Azriel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gwyneth. This is my room.”

Gwyn’s face was scrunched up like she was concentrating on something complicated, and she swayed and fell down onto the bed.

Gwyn is sitting on my bed. His stupid fucking brain which wouldn’t shut up was doing some kind of ridiculous happy dance. It became even more excited by the crimson flush that crept over Gwyn’s cheeks, obscuring her freckles.

“I can’t believe I just saw your—your—” She halted, unable to produce any more words, her jaw open in shock.

Azriel tried hard not to laugh. Or show any expression at all. “Yes, maybe refrain from telling Nesta about this,” he said, shuddering inwardly, thinking that if Nesta found out and decided he was somehow taking advantage of Gwyn that she’d have him by the balls.

Gwyn didn’t reply, her huge eyes still sliding in and out of focus.

But then she leaned in towards him, one hand on the bedspread. “Don’t tell—” she let out another hiccup “—don’t tell Azriel that—” her voice attempted to drop to a whisper but still came out comically loud “—that we drank all his whiskey.”

Now Azriel really had to fight not to laugh. Mother’s tits, was she so drunk off her ass that she didn’t know she was talking to him?

“It’ll be our secret,” he assured her.

Gwyn nodded, placated, but continued on, “And don’t tell Azriel that I—” one hiccup “—that I—” another hiccup “—that I’m in love with him.”

Her words thundered through him like a flash flood. That I’m in love with him. They twisted through the cracks of his broken, beaten soul, like clean water into the cage that he had never truly emerged from. That I’m in love with him.

Azriel’s heart clanged fiercely in his chest and he had difficulty drawing a breath.

“Okay,” he murmured to her at last, when he had finally gotten a firmer grip on his mental faculties, “I won’t.”

“Good,” Gwyn said. Then she unceremoniously flung herself down onto the bed beside him and closed her eyes. Her copper hair was spread across his pillow like a halo.

Gwyn is lying on my bed. And she’s in love with me. Azriel was pretty sure this was what a brain aneurysm felt like.

As much as he wanted nothing else than Gwyn to be lying in his bed with him—and in love with him, his stupid brain interrupted—he knew if she fell asleep here and woke up beside him, probably a bit closer to sober, that it might freak her out.

So he banished the part of his mind that was throwing a party and managed to say, “Don’t you want to…stay in your bed?”

Gwyn didn’t open her eyes. With sleep tugging on her words, she slurred matter-of-factly, “This is my bed. We already established that.”

Azriel stared at her. Fuck, she really meant it when she said she drank all my whiskey. He barely dared to hope that she really meant everything that she said.

Half-asleep now, Gwyn mumbled, seemingly to herself, “Based on Nesta’s description, Azriel’s cock is definitely bigger than Cassian’s.”

Azriel felt his jaw drop in shock. That Nesta would be talking in such detail. That Gwyn would want to hear such things. More than anything, that she’d be capable of comparing sizes in her drunken state.

A soft snore emanated from Gwyn’s half-open mouth, interrupted by another hiccup. He imagined pulling her close and wrapping her tightly in his arms. Brushing her hair back. Dropping a kiss on her forehead. He imagined her sleepily snuggling against him and nuzzling into his chest. The thought made his heart twist and clench. He realized he wanted those things more badly than he had wanted anything in his life. A secret he’d been carrying around since Solstice, hidden from everyone. For a long time, hidden even from himself. But no longer; he’d known it for a while now.

He indulged a few more moments of watching her snore, smiling at the occasional hiccup that punctuated her deep breathing. But he knew he couldn’t let her sleep here beside him. And even if he went and slept on the couch downstairs, she’d still wake up in his bedroom and be confused or scared or embarrassed.

So Azriel sighed and got out of bed to pull on a pair of pants. Padding around to the other side of the bed, he slid his hands under her shoulders and legs and lifted her into his arms. Just as he had imagined, she curled closer into his bare chest and let out a contented noise. The twisting sensation in his heart tightened painfully. He wondered if he could go on like nothing had happened, if she didn’t remember any of this the next day. Which was fairly likely given how utterly wasted she was.

He carried her through the open door that Gwyn, in her inebriated state, had forgotten to close behind her when she’d entered. He walked down the hall and into her own room where he laid her gently on the bed and pulled the covers over her. Her snoring didn’t cease.

He couldn’t resist brushing a stray lock of hair off her face. Impulsively, he bent down and kissed her brow lightly. He lingered there a moment and then whispered in her ear, “I’m in love with you too.”

He left her room with a long backwards look right before he closed her door softly.

Too keyed up to sleep again, Azriel prowled down the stairs to the library. Both Gwyn and Nesta’s scents lingered in the air. He picked up the half-empty decanter of his best whiskey and rolled his eyes. They were both going to have hellish hangovers tomorrow.

He poured his own glass of whiskey, then sat down on the couch where Gwyn’s scent was strongest, soaking it up, watching the fire burning low.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Azriel was first in the dining room for breakfast the next morning, already at the table when Cassian walked in, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“No Nesta this morning?” Azriel asked.

“She’ll be along soon. I think she got really fucked up last night with Gwyn and she’s moving a bit slow this morning.”

Azriel merely grunted in reply, focused on his eggs. He was nervous about what Gwyn would remember. Or wouldn’t remember. He couldn’t decide which was worse.

A few minutes later Nesta and Gwyn stumbled in together, both bleary-eyed and wincing at the light.

“Morning,” Gwyn mumbled as she and Nesta sat down beside each other. She poured a cup of tea for herself.

When she briefly met Azriel’s gaze, his stomach sank like a rock. There was nothing in her eyes that indicated she remembered a single thing from the night before.

Cassian smirked at the females. “Rough night?”

Nesta glared at him with as much irritation that she could muster in her state. Gwyn just stared into her tea with a nauseated look on her face.

Out of nowhere Gwyn yelped and dropped her mug of tea, which shattered on the wooden floor, tea splashing everywhere. She buried her face in her hands, elbows on the table.

“Are you okay?” Nesta croaked, her hand on Gwyn’s shoulder, as the House whipped away the ceramic fragments and puddles of tea on the floor. Gwyn emitted a high-pitched sound that vaguely sounded like an affirmation. “Are you sure?”

“Tea too hot,” Gwyn muttered into her hands, uncharacteristically ungrammatical.

Cassian looked over at Azriel with a confused look on his face. Azriel shrugged.

“Here,” Nesta said, pouring a glass of orange juice and holding it near Gwyn’s face, “Drink some juice.”

Gwyn tilted her head slightly towards Nesta and spread two of her fingers, peeking out between them. While one hand still covered her eyes and forehead, the other snaked out and took the glass. She sipped it.

Azriel tried to get a read on Gwyn, but she didn’t look his way, and her hand still blocked him from gleaning any hint from her face. Gwyn silently took a couple more sips of the juice.

“So exactly how much did you two drink last night?” Cassian asked.

Nesta rolled her eyes. “Enough.”

“Clearly,” Cassian snorted.

“Like you’ve never been hungover,” retorted Nesta.

Before Cassian could pull out of his ass what Azriel was sure would be a refreshing come-back, Gwyn let out another yelp, dropped the glass, which also shattered, and quickly stood, knocking her chair back. Her face was flaming red.

“Gwyn!” Nesta exclaimed, but Gwyn didn’t respond and rushed out of the room without looking at any of them.

Nesta gaped and started to rise from her seat, but Azriel motioned at her to sit down. “I’ve got it,” he said, standing up. “You eat some food to soak up that hangover.”

Azriel hurried after Gwyn leaving Nesta and Cassian staring after him in bewilderment. He had a strong suspicion in his mind about what made her lose her shit. Twice.

He followed her scent into the living room, where he found her slumped on the couch with a blanket draped over her head.

“Gwyn,” he whispered soothingly, sitting down on the couch a couple feet away from her.

Gwyn meeped and flung her arms up to wrap around her head over the blanket.

Azriel’s lips twitched. “Are you alright?”

She let out an “uh huh” in the highest pitched voice he’d ever heard.

“Do you want to tell me what you remembered?” he asked softly.

Gwyn slunk down even lower on the couch and moaned.

Azriel just waited. His stomach twisted with nerves, worried that she would say she didn’t mean what she said last night. That it was just the whiskey talking.

“Um,” she mumbled from under the blanket, “How about we just never look at each other ever again?”

“That seems a bit impractical.”

“Then maybe I can just die right here and now.”

“I would be extremely upset if that happened,” he whispered.

Gwyn dropped her hands down, her head still comically draped in the knitted blanket.

“Will you tell me what you remembered?” he repeated patiently.

She finally pulled the blanket away from her head and let it pool at her waist. She studiously kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Azriel watched her throat bob as she swallowed thickly.

“I remember seeing your…um…” Her gaze darted back and forth across the ceiling as she trailed off.

“Mm hmm,” Azriel hummed, pressing his lips together to keep from laughing. “Is that all?”

Gwyn’s eyes, focused on the ceiling, widened, her teeth biting into her lower lip, and she grabbed the blanket and quickly flung it back over her head. Azriel snorted.

He waited a moment before he said again, “Is that all?”

Under the blanket the shape of Gwyn’s head shook back and forth quickly.

“You want to tell me what else you remembered?”

She shook her head vigorously again.

“Why not?”

“It’s too embarrassing,” she wailed.

Embarrassing, he thought, but she didn’t deny saying it or say she didn’t mean it.

Azriel slid closer to her and slowly drew the blanket off her head. Her whole face was scrunched up, scarlet, and her hands flew up to cover it, smacking against her skin.

Throwing caution to the wind, he breathed, “I’m in love with you too.”

Gwyn’s hands lowered slightly, just her round eyes peeping out above her fingertips. “Really?”

“I have been for months,” he admitted.

Her hands dropped, revealing her open mouth. Azriel’s eyes slipped down to gaze at the curve of her lips before snapping back up to her teal eyes.

Her mouth closed part way, the corners pulling up.

Azriel cautiously held out a hand between them, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering if she wouldn’t want to touch his scars. But she did, threading her fingers through his and gripping his hand tightly. Her smile spread.

“It’s been months for me too,” Gwyn murmured.

They smiled at each other like idiots while his thumb stroked over the skin of her palm.

A bubble in Azriel’s chest swelled, larger and larger, until he thought he might float away. Or it could pop, he knew, and leave him deflated and broken. But maybe Gwyn was worth that risk.

He cleared his throat. “Would it be—” He stumbled over his words, strangely unsure of himself. “I—would it be presumptuous to ask if I could—if I could kiss you?”

Gwyn stared at him.

“It’s okay if you’re not ready for that,” he added, his voice soft.

Her tongue slipped out and wet her lips. Azriel watched the movement closely. It was an effort to drag his eyes back up to hers.

Gwyn lifted her arm slightly, her hand still wrapped in his. “Will you pinch me first?”

His brows drew together. “Why would you want me to pinch you?”

“Because I’m sure this is a dream,” she whispered.

Azriel smirked. “You really think you’d be this hungover in a dream?”

Gwyn’s mouth twisted to the side thoughtfully. “Good point.” She gazed at him and he could hear her heart speed up. “Yes,” she said at last, “You can kiss me.”

Azriel’s own heartbeat raced, matching hers. He slowly shifted closer to her. So slowly. Waiting for her to announce that she changed her mind. Waiting for her scent to morph into fear.

But she only kept her eyes on him, hope shining in those teal depths. Her grip on his hand tightened slightly.

Still moving at a snail’s pace, Azriel lowered his mouth to hers, brushing his lips across hers gently. When she opened her mouth, leaning up into him, he responded, deepening the kiss. He kissed her slowly. Languidly. Pulling away a few millimeters, he tenderly rubbed his nose across hers and through lidded eyes watched her smile grow, and then recaptured her lips, this time more intensely, feeling her respond in kind.

With a gasp, Gwyn tore her lips from his and covered her eyes. Her breathing was punctured and arrhythmic.

Azriel’s heart stuttered to a stop, horror flooding his veins.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned, still fighting for shallow breaths. One of her hands reached out to grip his shoulder, as if in apology. “I’m—I’m—I think I’m going to vomit—”

As soon as she uttered the words, the House dropped a bucket on the coffee table in front of them. Gwyn grabbed it and promptly threw up inside.

With both hands, Azriel drew her hair back from her face, gathering it into a ponytail. He held it in one fist and ran his other hand down her back, drawing soothing circles as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the bucket, again and again.

When there was nothing but dry heaves left, her forehead dropped down to rest on her hands that were wrapped around the edge of the bucket. She moaned.

Azriel’s hand didn’t cease in its circles over her back. He murmured, “You feeling better?”

Gwyn moaned again. “This is an auspicious start to our relationship,” she muttered into the bucket.

Azriel huffed a laugh. “Or maybe an auspicious end to your whiskey drinking.”

The House had also left a glass of water on the table, and after Gwyn took a few more deep breaths into the bucket to make sure she wasn’t going to vomit again, she rinsed her mouth with the water, spitting it into the bucket, which the House then whisked away.

Gwyn sagged back against Azriel, resting her head on his shoulder. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

“I promise I didn’t throw up because of the kiss,” she said.

Azriel snorted. “I’m pretty confident it was the half bottle of whiskey you consumed.”

Gwyn groaned again. “Stop saying the word whiskey.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t believe I threw up in front of you.”

He grinned into the top of her head. “Well, if you had any lingering doubts as to if this is a dream, you vomiting should put that fear to rest.”

A strangled, humorous noise made its way out of Gwyn’s throat. “Great,” she muttered.

Since she didn’t object to the first one, Azriel dropped another kiss over Gwyn’s brow. She snuggled closer into him.

And then she bolted upright, ripping out of his arms. Her eyes were round as saucers, staring at him. “Did I—did I—Mother above—did I say your dick was bigger than Cassian’s?”

Azriel snickered. “Yup.”

Gwyn hid her face in her hands again, a stream of unintelligible words slipping out from behind them.

Azriel leaned forward and kissed her temple. “Don’t worry, love,” he murmured in her ear, “It’s nothing I didn’t already know.”

[spann-stann]

Setting Blurb: Imperial Governments and Subcultures (Rework)

The League is not conterminous. Vast stretches of territory are isolated from each other by even more vast stretches of space, with communication travelling between two Imperial territories taking years. This has allowed for some level of diversity to emerge among the many communities that are part of the League. So long as they adhere to the Imperial Ontology, the peoples that make up the League can conduct and govern themselves as they see fit.

Governments:

Consortium Imperii: The Consortium Imperii refers to the Imperial Family as a whole, 300 years of growth have created a sizable amount of manpower for the League’s head of state to call upon. Every member of the Imperial Family is expected to perform some role in the service of advancing the League and mankind’s interests. The most dutiful and promising have the chance to appointed heir.

Great Houses: The term “Great House” is used to define the ruling governments of most communities within the League. A Great House may refer to a single ruling family, or a clique of families combining their resources. Some communities may have more than one Great House competing for power.

Corporate Republic: Referred to by non-Imperials as “Caste Republics” and “Organic Republics” by Imperial citizens, citizens living in Corporate Republics are organized into several corporate groups, vocational organizations that and collectively govern the Republic. Corporate Republics vary in size, ranging from simple settlements to grand industrial powerhouses. Corporate Republics are the most common form of government in the Imperial League.

Great Syndicate: Great Syndicates are semi-autonomous, hyper-specialized Corporate Republics that focus on one or a family of industries. Some Syndicates have the resources and manpower to rival the Terran Viceroyalties in strength and influence. Some of the most powerful Syndicates include the Agricultural Combined Concerns (AgriCombine), Habitat and Starcraft Construction Guild, and the Imperial Trading Company.

Tribal Zone: Tribal Zones are a specialized variant of the Corporate Republic that focus on agriculture. Tribal Zones may focus on one or more agricultural sectors (farming, livestock, etc.).

Theocracy: Theocracies are communities that are governed by an Ecclesiastical body as opposed to a Corporate or Martial one. The majority of Theocracies across the League are small, monastic enclaves. The largest Theocracy in the Solar System is the Shi’a Islamic Caliphate on Phobos.

Military Demesne: Military Demesnes are territories governed by the Imperial Armed Forces, and range is size from minor outposts across the Extrasolar Territories, to installations covering Deimos, Pluto, and Charon. Military Demesnes also serve to house Armed Forces personnel and dependents, and the many industries and services needed to support them.

Martial Band: Martial Bands are small communities in the League that focus solely on providing manpower for the Imperial Armed Forces, specializing in roles for the Land, Space, or Support Service Forces. Martial Bands are primarily agrarian, with armies of Serfbots doing most of the farm work to allow the human residents more time to focus on military pursuits. To prove their worth, Martial Bands are allowed to compete in live fire competitions against each other.

Knightly Corporation: Knightly Corporations are even smaller, and more specialized Martial Bands that are awarded to prominent members of the Armed Forces’ Officer Corps (in the hopes of passing their skills down to their children).

Subcultures:

Coman Society: Shortened version of the term “Common Ancestor Societies”, Comans are created by a single married pair purchasing a sizable land grant or habitat to settle and develop. Coman Societies don’t receive new settlers, instead relying on their own genetic stock to populate their home. Comans are quite popular in the Extrasolar Territories.

Diocletia: A small scale variant of a Coman Society, a Diocletia is created when a rewarded individual receives a land grant to enjoy retirement in peace. Many Diocletia are housed in the orbital habitats around Sol.

Cleruchy: Cleruchies are communities designated for settlement by veterans in recently incorporated territories (to aid in assuring the local population’s loyalty and a speedier Imperialization). As time progresses, Cleruchies may either evolve into Corporate Republics or Martial Bands.

Itinerant Populace: Itinerants are nomads, utilizing specially made orbital habitats that can travel from planet to planet.

Errantries: Errantries are Martial Bands that “answer the call to adventure”, and travel across Imperial-controlled space in the pursuit of earning glory (and the attention of the Imperial Armed Forces). The mercenary bands in Sirius and the “conquistador tourists” of Alpha Centauri are the most (in)famous examples of Errantry cultures.

Mobile Missions: Missionary Orders, religious charities, and relief services that travel to parts of human space that have suffered (or will suffer) from some form of calamity. The craft that Mobile Missions use to provide aid with are built to comfortably house millions of those in need of aid. Mobile Missions began to emerge following the Human-Crystalline War.

Corvee Guilds: Corvee Guilds serve as mobile “temp workers”, traveling from place to place to provide manpower in locales where there is a shortage.

Restorationists: Restorationists are adherents of a religious or cultural group who believe that something about the present day is “off”, and that Imperial society need only return to a “better” period from Earth’s past. Usually this involves some form of technological regression, in order to better attain material conditions for the aspired “golden age”.

Revivalists: Less radical than the restorationists, Revivalists only advocate for certain aspects of modern Imperial society to be either scaled back, altered, or removed entirely.

Lifestylists: Rather than looking into the past for solutions to modern problems like Restorationists, Lifestylist subcultures look elsewhere. Lifestylists have a large supply of sources to serve as tools for creating their ideal societies, from popular works of fiction, to alternate historical simulations, and even from scratch. The Order of Social Anachronists of Jupiter, the Collegium of Alternate Histories on Saturn, and the aptly named From Scratch Society on Uranus are Great Syndicates that exist to represent the Lifestylist movement.

Abdicates: Common among the Fay-Touched colonies, Abdicates are those communities that, due to their being stranded in Fay-space, had to abandon certain technologies. While some argue that it was necessary to maintain resources, others knowledgeable of their history will state, begrudgingly, that they simply lost the means to preserve and recreate the lost technology.