#i have limited myself to a few but if you want some more esoteric stuff the Satanic Messiah EP is really good | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

eldritchsurveys · 4 years ago

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945.

When did you wake up today? >> I woke up at like 4a at first, and then finally fell back asleep sometime after 6a, and woke up for good at a little after 8a. IDK why this happens, but it’s really annoying when it does.

Are you a breakfast person? >> I don’t know what a “breakfast person” is. I do eat a meal in the morning...?

How often do you exercise? What type of exercises? >> I don’t exercise. It’s difficult for me to find something engaging and fun enough for me to stick with it. When the weather cools off a bit I will probably take up morning walks again, but right now I’ve reached my limit with summer conditions and can’t be motivated to willingly drench myself in sweat.

Any favorite TV shows? >> Plenty. Here are three: Person of Interest, The Dragon Prince, Hannibal.

Do you pay attention to the news? >> I read news articles sometimes, when the subject matter is of interest to me or I want to get the full story behind something. Also, I get daily emails from The Flip Side, so that’s a bit of news every morning.

Do you ever donate a dollar to fast food charities? >> Not usually. I also am rarely at fast-food restaurants, so.

What type of books do you like to read? >> I like a wide variety of books -- genre matters less to me than whether the content is written in an engaging manner and whether I care about either the characters or the subject matter presented.

Have you ever enjoyed a reading assignment for school? >> ---

Did you get to decorate your own bedroom? What's it like? >> As a child? No. Now? Yes, because I’m an adult and I pay rent here so I can do whatever I want with my own room. It’s not really decorated in a specific manner, though, like it doesn’t have a ‘theme’.

What size bed do you sleep on? >> Twin, because that’s what fits in my room. Fortunately, I am a relatively small person.

Do you wake up easily to alarms? >> I would if I used them.

Do you stay up unnaturally late at night or do you get to bed early? >> I don’t think I go to bed particularly early or late. Ten PM seems a pretty neutral bedtime.

What are you usually doing if you're up late at night? >> If I’m up late at night, it’s most likely because I couldn’t get to sleep no matter what. It’s definitely not on purpose.

Do you keep anything on like a fan or the TV while you sleep? >> I have the fan on in summer because otherwise the heat would kill me. But I don’t like the noise, I prefer silence when I’m in bed.

Do you procrastinate with deadlines? >> I don’t usually have deadlines.

Do you put a lot of effort into school? >> ---

What food could you absolutely live off of? >> I don’t think I could live off of any food (barring survival situations, of course). I require an array of nutrients just as much as anyone else.

What do you get when you go to the movies? >> An alcoholic beverage, sometimes. Otherwise I don’t usually buy concessions, they’re too expensive. I’ve definitely sneaked many a snack or beverage into a theater and I’ll do it again.

Where do you like to sit at the movie theater? >> Back center.

If you're just lounging around the house, what are you wearing? >> PJ pants or shorts and an undershirt or t-shirt.

Do you like wearing heels? >> An inch or two is fine. I’d prefer not to wear anything higher than that.

Would you prefer a night in or a night out? >> A night in usually suits me, but depending on the kind of night out, I wouldn’t say no to that either. Definitely been getting nostalgic for dinner-and-movie outings lately.

Do you enjoy being alone, or does it make you feel lonely? >> I do enjoy being alone. It’s nice to just veg out in the apartment doing whatever I want, and I don’t feel like I’m being scrutinised every time I move.

Obsessed with any songs at the moment? >> Not any that I can think of.

Do you enjoy showers, or do you take them cause you need to? What about baths? >> Showers are a bit triggering for me for a tangle of reasons, I don’t enjoy them at all. I never take baths, those are a hard limit for me.

Shower robe or towels? >> I just get dressed immediately after drying off and moisturising.

Do you have routines for waking up and going to bed? >> I clean my face and take my Pill before going to bed. I usually read for an hour after waking up, before getting up for bio stuff.

Do you remember your dreams often? >> Not often.

Do the dreams you remember make sense? >> I usually only remember ones that have some kind of connection to waking life. The more esoteric ones are difficult for my brain to hang onto, I think. They come through less frequently.

How is summer going so far? >> I’ve had my fill of summer and now I am looking forward to fall. That’s the thing about summer -- it’s short enough that by the time I’m tired of it, it’s almost over anyway. By the time I’m tired of winter, the worst months haven’t even hit yet.

Do you spend a lot of time tanning? >> I don’t spend any time tanning.

What would you say occupies your time most? >> The Internet, I guess.

Do you keep your room clean, or are you not phased by mess? >> I try to keep my room clean, although the size and how everything is set up makes it look a little more cluttered than it actually is, which drives me batty.

Do you get hassled to keep a clean room? >> Who would hassle me...? I’m grown, I’m responsible for my own damn room for better or worse.

Do you do your own laundry? >> Sparrow does the laundry.

Do you think graffiti is art or vandalism? >> It’s both. Art from the perspective of me, a passerby who likes pretty colours and funky lettering. Vandalism from the perspective of a building owner or law enforcement official.

How do you like your marshmallows roasted? >> Until they’re crispy? Is there any other way, lol...

How do you get rid of hiccups? >> I don’t do anything, mine go away pretty quickly.

How about brain freezes? >> I don’t do anything for that, either, it’s over in a few seconds.

Do you have any healthy addictions? >> That’s... that’s an oxymoron??? What do you think “addiction” means?

Are you old enough to vote yet? >> Yes.

Is voting important to you, or are you uninterested by politics? >> I am uninterested in politics and yet I still participate in the voting system. I didn’t used to, but I’ve come to understand the importance of participating and so I do my best.

Are you alright at world geography? >> I’m pretty abysmal at world geography. I know where some countries and geographical features are, and I can figure out the general area of where other countries or geographical features would be, sometimes... but mostly I just never put much mental energy into that sort of thing and I’m often wrong.

How about navigating your city? >> I can navigate this city pretty well. I’m good with cities.

What part of history interests you most? >> What part of history doesn’t interest me, at least marginally?

Do you keep your cell phone on you all the time? >> Not necessarily on me, but it’s usually somewhere nearby. ... *looks around* ...Well, right now, it’s all the way across the room, but hey.

Do you answer it when it rings or do you screen your own calls? >> I don’t answer my phone at all. Every call I get is spam or a misdial / someone thinking this number belongs to someone else entirely.

Are you big on the texting? >> I don’t text much because there’s no one to text except Sparrow, who I see every day in person anyway.

Do you like chewing gum or eating mints? >> I like the cognitive effects of gum-chewing. But Orbit changed the formula of my favourite gum so I had to give it up.

Do you use dental floss much? >> I don’t floss.

If you're biking do you wear a helmet? >> I hate the way helmets feel on my head but I understand their importance so I just avoid biking at all, basically.

What is your favorite outdoor activity? >> I’m not sure. Hiking, maybe? I do miss hiking.

Do/did you enjoy living with your parents? >> I did not enjoy it.

Do you have any favorite clothes? >> If I still have an article of clothing, one can assume it’s a favourite of mine. Otherwise I’d just... get rid of it. I don’t like keeping things I don’t enjoy.

How about a favorite pair of shoes? >> I only have two pairs of shoes and I like them both for different reasons / purposes.

How many different types of ID do you have? >> Well, I have a state ID, and a Social Security card somewhere (... I should really figure out where that is, I always seem to misplace those), and a birth certificate. I think those are the major forms in this country (I don’t have a passport, which would be another major form).

Do you always remember your license when you're driving? >> ---

Do you pay much attention to speed limits while driving? >> ---

What do you listen to when you're in the car? >> Sparrow’s iPod, usually. But she got a new dongle for the car and it’s Bluetooth, so now I can play my Spotify sometimes too. I have a playlist specifically for the car that’s my Liked Songs with all the metal and hard rock removed (which is, like, three-quarters of my likes, lmao).

What do you spend most of your money on? >> Rent.

Do you take advice when it's given to you? >> I don’t usually receive advice.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic under the shield of "realistic"? >> I feel like that’s not the whole picture. Some people are plainly pessimistic, some people are pessimistic and call themselves “realistic”, and some people are realistic. Whatever. I think my viewpoint depends on what kind of day I’m having, not some innate preference.

Do you avoid arguments or do you go out of your way to express your views? >> I avoid arguments but not to the point where I never express myself. Sometimes my trauma-inspired aversion to perceived conflict can get in my way, but I try not to let it win every time.

Are you looking forward to the future? >> I don’t usually think about the future. I’m busy enough with the present.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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magicdepressive-blog · 5 years ago

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Meet The Harveys

NWI native and Chicago resident Charlie Evans wants to introduce you to his one man band The Harveys, whose debut album, after over a year in the making, is nearing the completion stage. As Evans labors through the finishing touches of the LP and prepares it for public release, he sits down with me to talk about the project and tells us what we can expect from his esoteric alter-ego.

HW: You're getting ready to release your first LP; a collection of songs you're putting out under the name The Harveys. But essentially The Harveys is just you. What made you decide to release music as a fictional collective rather than under your own name?

CE: The Harveys isn't a real band right now, so the idea that it can be locked into only one thing doesn't appeal to me since I don't have to fight other people to have it be whatever it needs to be. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of existing as a solo act. I feel like the idea of the Harveys started as a crutch of being afraid to do this on my own. For whatever reason, the idea of having a fictional band made it seem like a more viable project in my head, and more approachable as something to present out to the world.

HW: But you're not literally the only player on the record. Who else appears on the album, and in what capacity?

CE: One song is an old one that was written as a group by Patrick Biancardi, Sam Evans, and myself....

HW: Right...that's Werewolf Teacher, isn't it? That's a great song and I remember you telling me that it has its origins in your time as a member of (now defunct Region band) Greenstone.

CE: Greenstone was a great time as a band, and helped form a lot of the stuff that I wrote and created on this album. When I began working on recording I wanted to get an old song down that we had never had the chance to properly record. It was a great point to learn how to use recording software and to test the viability of the fictional band project. A lot of the music I wrote afterwards feels similar in some ways to what we were working on with that project, but definitely is a different animal. Not writing in collaboration with other people or having to compromise things is both a blessing and a curse.

HW: Who are some of the other people who pitched in to help make this LP?

CE: Alex Akers contributed trumpet to I Sit Differently at the Piano. I met Alex while I was working for New Oberpfalz brewery, and we struck up conversation pretty naturally. I had completed about half of the the track, adding in the vocal snippet and guitar, but I felt that guitar all the way through would be frankly boring. I basically asked Alex if he wanted to add trumpet to a weird track that I had made and sent it over. About a week later he sent me his layered tracks and it was amazing! My primary instrument is the electric guitar, so it's always really awesome to work with other instrumentalists that can bring a completely different feel to a track. That song wouldn't work without Alex's contribution. Jake Egli plays the keyboards on The Somnambulist and helped me mix and master the record along with production work.

I'm definitely open to the idea of adding a more collaborative element to The Harveys. I would love to be able to flesh it out into a full band setting. I think a lot of these songs would translate pretty well to a live setting, and there's lots of song ideas in reserve. There's always ego involved in adding other people to a band, but I enjoy the collaborative aspect of writing music a lot. Sometimes it's okay to come in with an idea and see how it gets morphed into something completely new, original, and different that way.

HW: Having grown up as an aspiring musician in NWI and now living in Chicago, can you compare the two locales where musical heritage is concerned?

CE: I would say that both have a lot in common with each other, with Chicago getting the edge of diversity simply through pure numbers. Not unlike most other suburbs of Chicago, NWI filters a lot of its musical identity from Chicago, which I think is great. The Chicagoland area has an abundance of amazing music that doesn't always get the attention it deserves on the national stage.

HW: You recorded this LP at home on your computer. Were there any technical limitations that you encountered while making the record that, had you been in a studio, you might not have had to deal with?

CE: I think the biggest hurdle for doing all recording on my own is that my ear wasn't as trained, especially in the beginning, at what was good and what was bad. I improved rapidly, but especially early on I think that having a 2nd set of ears to hear everything is very helpful.

HW: Why did you decide to release a physical LP and how do you plan to market it? What streaming formats will you be utilizing?

CE: I love the idea and the ritual of vinyl...placing the vinyl on the turntable, setting it to the right speed, and letting the needle hit the record. There’s an art to creating a track list and an album that flows correctly from side to side. I think the best records still work with that duality; breaking it down into two shorter playlists and making sure those statements stand on their own and complement each other. That being said, I think the songs stand on their own, so I don’t mind pushing it to streaming as well where the majority of people (myself included) discover their music. I’m planning on releasing The Harveys on all major streaming services. The LP version of the album will be funded through a Kickstarter.

What I like about the idea of a vinyl release and giving yourself those limitations is that it really forces you to look at how songs flow as a cohesive unit. Balancing the amount of time you can put on a side along with making sure that each track is keeping the listener along for the ride is so important. Additionally, the 2 side nature of vinyl makes you look at it as a mini suite for each side. My process was mostly trying to balance all of these things to make the strongest single unit of an album. Sifting through all the songs I had written to put together what I feel is a cohesive album was a bit difficult at first, there’s definitely enough material left off to have an extra EP in the future or work towards another album. For me, I think the unifying threads that make this album stand as a whole are some of the themes touched on like growing up and the somewhat lonely existence that adulthood can be. There’s plenty of humor on the record, though, as well, which I feel is always needed. I don’t trust people who are too serious about everything. There's a lot of genre exploration that I wasn't able to make work cohesively on this record that could definitely fit in better on a slightly different project. I would love to create a great medley style suite, ala Abbey Road. I'd love to do something soaring, epic, and heartfelt like that.

HW: There are very few recording artists who so confidently pull off such a varied palette as what you've proven capable of on this LP; some that come to mind as exceptions are Ween and Captain Beefheart and Zappa and Guided By Voices. Were any of those artists a lighthouse for you while you were crafting these songs?

CE: All those bands and artists are huge influences, Ween in particular. Reading and getting into Ween was a huge part of what made me finally get off my butt and start making music again. The independent spirit that drove each of these artists to create despite not necessarily having the big push of a label was a huge inspiration. Learning about Ween using a drum machine and writing silly songs and just generally not caring what other people thought of them was a liberating idea, and also made my excuses for why I wasn’t doing anything seem like just that: excuses.

HW: Speaking of tracks that DIDN'T make the record, Feed Me, Human is one of your standout songs and I feel like it exists in a world of its own stylistically; some kind of avant garde heavy metal oddity...definitely something I haven't heard before. Is metal a big part of your musical tastes, and if so what can you tell me about this track? It sort of skirts a strange territory that's both playful and sinister.

CE: I love metal! Metal as a genre is so tongue in cheek, and I love that about it. I never trust any metal band that takes themselves 100% seriously. I remember reading a story that Adam Jones from Tool told about how when he met Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins he told him that Boris was his favorite song and was a foundation for a lot of how he built his songwriting and sound, and Buzz responded something along the lines of, "Thanks, it's about my cat." Metal is so great because it can occupy both territories of sinister and silly.

HW: Let's focus on what did make the album. Metropolitan Malaise is unabashed power pop exuberance; Hydration is Key is a blissed out, psychedelic signal from another galaxy. You cover Big Star's 1972 acoustic masterpiece 13, and then there's the aforementioned I Sit Differently at the Piano; four minutes of Badalementi-esque guitar and trumpet noodling atop which sits a bizarre sampling of an interview with a mental patient from the early 60s. The Funkalator struts and swaggers with ballsy, bell bottomed moxie, and Werewolf Teacher is textbook singer-songwriter gold. And that's just HALF the album. But maybe the standout track here is The Somnambulist, a disarming number that begins with a tribal, measured acoustic bounce before exploding into a veritable roman candle of life-affirming guitar-fueled adrenaline.

CE: I'm particularly proud of The Somnambulist. It has the most overdubs of any track, and took me the longest to assemble out of any of them. I'm particularly proud of my vocal performance, which incubated in my head for a pretty long time, and took even longer to build up the ability to properly sing. It's the classic rock track I always wanted to write.

HW: What's your writing process like? What do you find is the most challenging part of the formula?

CE: Wake up, make some coffee pick up my guitar and start playing something...pulling up Garageband and a virtual drummer and see if I can get anything useful out of it. Record it, and see if there’s enough there to develop. Sometimes there's something good there for a full song, sometimes there isn't. I built a lot of songs on the fly, and would do multiple takes of things to see what worked or didn’t work. Having a good feedback network of people to send songs to certainly helped as well to guide the directions that were working and not working in the music. I think the most challenging thing for me with this project was not really working with other musicians to create. If I wanted to finish the song, it was on me!

HW: I really appreciate you taking the time to offer a little insight into what we can expect from The Harveys. I really think you've assembled a great collection of songs and I'm really looking forward to the vinyl.

CE: I think the biggest thing I’m hoping to offer is a bit of a blast of nostalgia that isn’t hopefully too derivative. Power pop and dad rock have reached the level of being uncool, but I still love making it. I’m hoping that I can bring some uncool music to people and hopefully get them to dig into the same things I love too. I was talking with Jake while we were mixing and mastering and we both said waiting for lightning to strike will involve you mostly waiting. It’ll happen, and does happen, but you have to work at it no matter what.

-End-

The debut LP from The Harveys will be available soon pending a Kickstarter. Please stay tuned to Charlie's Facebook page for more info and show your support for this gifted musician. You can stream the unmixed demo of Metropolitan Malaise on Bandcamp here:

https://theharveysarentreal.bandcamp.com/track/metropolitan-malaise

Album art by Grace Calderone, 2019. Bar photos by Harvey Woodlawn, 2018.

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jswdmb1 · 5 years ago

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In A Daydream

“The sky is calling,

Calling out my name.

Telling me just to stay,

Stay and don't go away.”

- Freddy Jones Band

I have never been a creative person. Even though I love music, I can’t sing or dance and have never shown any natural talent at the musical instruments I have tried. I have no ability to paint, draw or create art of any kind and a trip to the Art Institute is wasted on me as the only difference between Monet and Manet to me is one letter. I have very little appreciation for literature and don’t read many books unless they are non-fiction. If it doesn’t involve a fact or figures, it is unlikely I will be much help to you, and I have been okay with that. We are often told that our brains work either one way or another and I was satisfied that I had at least a half of one functioning.

But a few years ago, I started to rethink that whole notion that creativity was only for those that didn’t succumb to the life of a left-brained numbers geek. There are plenty of artists and entertainers with a sharp business sense (well, at least a few), so why can’t it turn the other way as well? And why does creativity have to be limited to the traditional arts? Can’t it be also used in unconventional ways that harness the analytical ability of a buttoned-down mind? Isn’t that the definition of creativity in it of itself?

I decided to put this to the test by even challenging the traditional constraints of what is considered creative, which is usually limited to artists or actors, singers and dancers, novelists and the sort. But it is an oxymoron to think that way about creativity, and I began to search for other ways to find an outlet. I started with writing and hosting trivia nights for charity. They are crude productions, but all of the content is my own and those in attendance generally seem to have a good time (including me). That modest success gave me some thought that maybe there could be other outlets for me.

I started doing some writing and posting to social media but it didn’t seem right. I had toyed with starting a blog but I was intimidated. That was something for people much more creative than me. But, I thought what will it cost me and I stopped worrying about doing it for any other reason than to create an outlet for what I thought might be brewing inside. Like my trivia nights, the initial efforts were spotty but I sensed maybe there was something I could build on there. I kept going throughout that summer and then things came to a halt, which ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.

That’s when I ended up taking a break from not just writing, but from life, to get myself back on track. I have referenced this event in the past, but not shared a lot of details about it. It was about eight months after I quit my job to start my own business and about four months after my dad died after a four-year battle with cancer. I wasn’t exactly on stable mental ground going into this period, having spent literally decades on various medications and in and out of therapy, so it wouldn’t take much more to push me over the edge. It was at this point that my wife’s mother’s health took a sharp turn for the worse and the pressure built from there.

It would be more stylish to say that my breakdown occurred in a dramatic event like you see on TV, but it was quite unexciting. As the summer wore on, I withdrew from my business, upped my already prodigious use of booze and meds to self-medicate, and spent more-and-more time doing a whole lot of nothing. When I stopped going through even the motions of participating in daily life, those close to me finally stepped in and gave my psychiatrist a call. Turns out he was on vacation (no joke) but his colleague suggested a trip to the outpatient psychiatric center of Hinsdale Hospital for an assessment. Within 24 hours of that assessment I found myself in a full-time out-patient program to treat my main problems of severe depression and general anxiety disorder.

I don’t deviate into this story for any other reason than it is directly responsible for what got me back into writing. One of our big things there was journaling. More specifically, writing honestly about ourselves and then sharing them to the group. I wrote some things in those sessions that shocked me, but that shock didn’t really hit home until I read them aloud to people I just met. I was even more shocked to find out that the world didn’t end because I was finally honest about who I was and my feelings about that. It was even more surprising to find a lot of people felt the same way and that we could maybe help each other if we talked a bit more about it.

Three days after I was released (I asked for a certificate that said “SANE” but no dice), my mother-in-law died. I had been writing again on this blog, but I wrote a post quitting it after deciding I couldn’t spend time so frivolously when so much bad was going on around me (the post, “Here’s Where The Story Ends” is still on here if you want to look it up). But fortunately (for me at least, can’t speak for the rest of you who have to read this stuff), my break was short-lived. I got back into it and slowly started to develop an embrace of the notion that I might, at times, have something useful to say.

That finally brings us to today and the point of this particular post. Tumblr keeps track of the number of posts you have in your profile and after I hit send on the last one, I saw that I had hit post #99. While I generally think milestone anniversary numbers are a bit silly, it did give me a bit of pause to think about what I would write next for #100. It made me take a quick look back over the past three years about what I have documented. Most of it is pretty amateurish, and nothing is spectacular, but there is an occasional good thought that seems to pop out every once in a while. That’s not really important, though. What matters to me is that I managed to create 100 of anything. Good, bad, or indifferent, this production suggests that some creativity exists within me. That is not something I was sure about before post #1 came along.

What does this all mean? I don’t know. Sure, it’s tooting my horn a bit, but really what is wrong with that? I mean, what is the point of creating anything that you don’t share? And, just because you share something, it doesn’t mean that everyone has to like it. I get that a lot of what I say is a bit off the wall and maybe too esoteric for general consumption, but at least it’s genuine. And every time I finish one of these, I can say in no uncertain terms that I have been honest with myself and I’m comfortable with who I am no matter how imperfect that may be (insert joke here).

And that is how I am going to celebrate this 100th post. By acknowledging that it may be poorly written and lacking a coherent theme, but understanding it is who I am and how I feel at this moment and I have documented that truthfully and without spin. And I’ll take credit for that as my true gift of creativity and I’m happy to share it with you. And I’m grateful that I have been able to do it a hundred times and I’ll be just as grateful for the next one and any more I can do after that. And I’ll take none of it for granted because life is too short to take anything for granted. And I’ll reread this at some point, and realize that I have used far too many cliches in sentences that start with “And”. And that’s okay, because that’s who I am.

Thanks for reading whether this is your first time, 100th time, or maybe your last time. I hope whatever creativity exists in me has been properly channeled into this vessel and I hope it adds something to your day time you read it. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too because that is better than if I hadn’t tried. 100 times to be exact.

Peace, Jim

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modernabstractart3-blog · 5 years ago

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Summary Art Painting Studios -- From Primitive Caves for you to Modern Lofts

Contemporary Painting Have anyone ever attempted to remember typically the first time when you actually discovered for yourself looking at a good abstract art work or a great abstract artwork? Do a person remember the ideas or even feelings you had by what you were looking with?

Contemporary Painting

This article is a mirrored image of some of the own personal along with opinion-based viewpoints and facts while an artist about summary art with certain personal references to facts that tend to be throughout agreement with precisely what I believe myself personally seeing that to the nature, delivery, expansion and the progression of the cut fine art outside the boundaries from the esoteric terms of often the art instituto.

To get a basic and requisite look at the topic, we should initial comprehend what the word fuzy indicates before we might tackle the actual understanding associated with "abstract art" on its own; in addition to we learn that subjective in this sense as well as as some sort of verb implies to extract or perhaps eliminate and surprisingly as being an form word means not easy to be aware of; abstruse. And as a new transitive verb it signifies to take apart, get rid of. It's origin is actually via Latin abstrahere 'draw away' or 'draw by. '

Thus, we can determine that abstract, is normally considered a form regarding art that does not necessarily depict any situation that resembled the particular objective or stuff globe; instead it showed brand-new creations that very subjectively were expressions of typically the inside substance and often the spirit in the artist and also often through a deep spontaneity that brings away the internal world of the actual artist.

Therefore abstract artwork, being the merchandise of this kind of very natural, unconstrained along with unpremeditated impulse within the lack of any external obama's stimulus, is intrinsic and is one of the very basic nature in addition to the comprise of the particular artist, as the real influence behind his designs.

As I evolved via my representational art as well as became far more acquainted using the history of skill, I learned that summary art work had its root beginnings inside the very early daybreak involving human history whenever man did start to draw upon the walls connected with their cave. These earlier cut arts, abstract images and also abstract paintings : often embellished with natural and organic fabric dyes - often attempted to help get the essential mother nature and the good quality associated with the objects rather when compared with the genuine appearance regarding them.

As the fine art historians and art pros formulated their opinions along with ideas into prints, considerably more esoteric terms spun over subject under " nonobjective art, " " nonrepresentational art, " and inch nonfigurative art. " With regards to aesthetics, since non-e on the principles of creating artwork are actually precisely formulated, that particular subset of humanities offers its pundits galore having many schools involving divergent opinions and feelings, exactly where esoteric lectures in addition to viewpoints are listened to along with open jaws in pays of cause, personal words and phrases suffers within the cloud connected with confusion.

Decades long ahead of the birth associated with fuzy expressionism in America, remarkably figurative arts had endured in the East, that is from the Islamic culture, everywhere calligraphy also as the nonfigurative skill is educated as a subject matter establishing sometimes as early because with primary schools, since excellent emphasis is located upon typically the pupils' purchasing and creating skills within calligraphy, for the reason that art regarding handwriting.

From the Western tradition, abstract patterns are identified in many forms. Nevertheless abstract arts are distinctly distinguished in composition application form in relation to pretty art as well as fine art work, where in subjective fine art, the results of development, are spontaneous snapshots with the artist's thoughts, emotions, and also the introspection by which this individual results in his work involving summary art.

Abstract Expressionism, we all know that it today, had been born in the us in often the mid 20th hundred years pursuing a massive exodus from the European avant- garde musicians to New York Town, making the area the actual center of the artwork planet; a title which had been held by Paris, france. Typically the contemporary American performers were being immensely influenced by simply the arrival of this particular new talent that will produced forth the very pleasant freedom of personal phrase throughout the vehicle of improvisation inside absence of typically the boundaries along with limitations connected with conventional types.

The introduction of summary expressionism throughout New York is the start of a new tranquil artistic revolution by which often the particular artist began to be able to rebel overloaded against typically the status quo. He started out the latest era where he or she could readily create to the future along with transform the existing scene for any better tomorrow.

Some involving the innovators in fuzy expressionism, for instance Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem fuente Kooning, grew to become synonymous together with New York Institution along with action painting while they enjoyed a significant role concerning how became deservedly known because avant-garde; a new region of independence for the actual artist to create in addition to construct with an ritual in which surmounted any sensible and also objective realm regarding purpose.

On the a lot more textural area, Jackson Pollock began to re-arrange the easel and coated since he pleased, conveying themselves by pouring the particular coloring from within unto typically the canvas, as he believed. Pollock, as one regarding the most mavericks involving the era, used likewise his body as a good device to paint together with, while he moved speedily all-around his large canvases on to the ground, spattering interlacing habits regarding paint, like a great emotional ride up and down, drawing often the viewer into their rhythmic movement of motions, apparently in to an infinitude, infiniteness of place.

In wonderful contrast to help Pollock, Barnett Newman's color-field paintings, are generally open career fields of substantial empty spots for the audience in order to step into all of them and also imagine what they would like to place in them.

At this point, in the interest of simplicity, we could possibly categorize fine art into just representational artwork and summary art. Representational art becoming what we instantaneously acknowledge in association to be able to recognizable objects, vs. cut art work that requires our considered to perceive the composition on the art and the contrast of each of our observation using the conclusions looking for built in the past, inside order to get to the actual immediate instance, where we live. Thus, in our declaration regarding abstract art, the particular profile or the deficiency of any psychological answers, brought about as the actual response to understanding the subjective art, elevates the problem of, what on earth is truly a abstract fine art and any time does it become productive.

Let's take a imagine that many of us are looking at the representational art, a landscape where it depicts any mossy wooded area cloaked in a low hole which has a cascading shallow steady flow working through it. Many of us can all trust exactly what we are looking in, appreciate the high quality associated with its beauty, and a few regarding us become awestricken through its magic, and possibly check out the mist in often the air and aroma the particular moss. We want to appear at it as some sort of pleasant encounter. We impression that it is restful, because it has typically the tendency to generate us really feel good. It helps all of us - even if the idea is for the brief time - ignore our issues, and converts our trouble into a brand new degree of calm, to the actual point which we could always be there, in our creativity. We walk away via the painting like a pro and seem at other artwork in which does not produce the particular same feelings and thoughts, and most of us turn and look from it again and yet again, wanting to have an overabundance of regarding the same pleasant knowledge. Delight is what all of us are experiencing.

This can be the mental reaction we sense in the direction of this very representational fine art that we fully know. The idea communicated to people a clear message within the particular boundaries connected with its techie expertise, through which it ended up being created. The complex competence wasn't the initial aesthetic attraction, however. It seemed to be typically the message that the item communicated for you to us how it looks, that fascinated us. The actual virtuosity with which it had been created becomes 2nd to help the significance of often the meaning and the good quality of the delivery. Though the message doesn't always have in order to have the same this means for every single viewer, it is usually the combination of each, the message and often the specialized expertise that gives about a comprehending that reasons the viewer as a better alternative sentimentally.

From sketching as well as chiselling with sharp rocks about the walls of their cave, to the beauty involving today's technology, male has journeyed through a incredible evolution within the artistry among many other mechanics of life. From whoever has accepted the boundaries with their culture and environmental variables, have remained true and also faithful to what that they were accepted and likely to create available as numerous representational and radical disciplines. But the more bright, who had an consciousness of higher sort of living and true probable, wished to move beyond numerous with no tolerance intended for reductions and entrapment. That they started to be the visionaries who have fled from and sought liberty regarding expression elsewhere, exactly where the achievement of which freedom was probable.

Some sort of great number of American artists along with teachers this sort of as Joseph Albers in addition to Hans Hofmann transferred in order to America in core the twentieth century and made New york city the new Art Facility of driving by leaving London right behind. They brought using them that all freedom involving spontaneity to make paintings that will became whatever you know right now as summary expressionism. While unique because our little finger prints, each appearance, evolved into a new aesthetic personal unsecured to reckon with.

Nonetheless the basic roots associated with the move from representational art to be able to abstract art work and expressionistic paintings possessed begun to build in typically the later part of often the nineteenth century in the actual form of impressionist along with neo-impressionists when art acquired begun to change their confront, while still holding onto a fantastic degree of similarity to what the idea intended to be; and by simply the time post-impressionism experienced arrived on the landscape, the field involving fine art had already been subject to some sort of noticeable change and effectively on its way to a major alteration.

Before to the arrival connected with this brand-new transformation, and also certainly prior to post-impressionism, the particular artist had been primarily interested in the organic representation of the landscape, rather then attempting to tap straight into the interesting depth of the own emotions by using his / her canvas, and get connected to typically the psyche of their market.

Nothing is more highly effective along with significant than the particular birth plus the power involving a new idea. Practically nothing can or is competent connected with stopping an concept. Once a notion is considered, it should not be stopped, diminished or utilized; because a good idea has no muscle size or form to sit on a physical space and turn subjected to the enemy pushes, and become insecure. A new thought, after conceived, takes on a lifetime of its own, by currently being nurtured from the powerful lofts of creative imagination and brought forward inside arms involving those who take hold of this.

Hans Huffman who else started to be recognized as the papa from the abstract expressionism possesses this particular to say: "An idea can simply be appeared with the help connected with the medium of phrase, typically the inherent qualities regarding which needs to be surely inquired about and comprehended in obtain to become the transporter associated with an idea. " Typically the idea of self-determinism, in order to permit oneself the control of freedom of reflection is a luxury which is not available for purchase, nevertheless to attain; a school innately available to any few, but obtainable through the masses. For a few that arrives quickly, along with the sleep come to be able to embrace it by way of hard knocks.

The evolution associated with art work from representational for you to fuzy expressionism required an enormous levels of liberalism and endorsement by those whose support and economic support had been instrumental in the tactical a higher level the abstract expressionist artists.

In an article, very unveiling of their philosophy connected with art, Johannes Itten states: "If brand new ideas are in order to think any artistic kinds, the actual physical, sensual, perceptive in addition to spiritual forces have to almost all be equally available as well as act in concert. very well Absolutely speaking, Itten claims what can be done to create the good artistic phrase within terms of the means necessary to broadcast a idea, which is a thing thought, felt or imagined from the mind, into the particular canvas being a successful function of art, which could be inquired about and realized by the person.

This kind of above criteria specified by simply Itten in the beginning 20th century was any major philosophical bite in which essential lots of gnawing and food digestion before making acceptance as well as support; and so the abstract musicians experienced to endure a quite lovely plight in generating and also preserving their income.

Prior to arrival of the actual European founders and their very own fortitude, in taking all their very precious reward involving abstract paintings, representational performers had no concept while to what freedom connected with imaginative expression really supposed to start the doorway into a new world of practicing art, that opened a new entrance in addition to an extension associated with their inner self applied.

Encountered with the sever visitors of the traditionalists who have refused change, the summary designers began to communicate their heart, on their very own new canvases, making use of their individual newly created regulations. Throughout the world of artwork, where skill is dealt as a extravagance and also not a necessity along with influenced by the discretionary dollars of any few, the entrance on the abstract art throughout general since particular cut expressionism endangered the axles on which typically the art work market was pivoted.

Transform became inevitable, as well as people who prefer the old ways broke rank along with futurists at the expense with the modern art; but often the subjective expressionists became busily linked to experimenting and looking for ways the several physical organizations and designed new instruments by which they are able to implement paint to their canvases.

Suddenly the conventional signifies by the fact that artist possessed painted became an constantly changing process of query, generation, experimentation, and more projects; each time giving birth and labor to a brand-new strategy. The canvases, chemicals as well as the studio tools lengthy far beyond the restrictions of the artist's business and also into the region of attachement and discovered objects.

Jackson Pollock ended up being the quintessential action electrician, who struggled badly using acceptance, began to utilize the body as the painting musical instrument around his / her vast canvases laid out and about on the floor along with danced with his information, drippings as well as spattering associated with paint; this individual developed and also mastered the method of action artwork and liked some regarding the sprouts of any fun new fame and good fortune ahead of he fell unwilling recipient on the demons of the traditions at the vine ripened age of 49. They left a great musical legacy behind, which continued in order to inspire many abstract music artists through the variety connected with great canvases which they left behind.

And this Pollock have said in aspect regarding his paintings: "It's most a big sport of structure, some along with a brush, a number of together with a shovel, some opt for a pen. The method regarding painting like a pro is the all-natural growth outside of need. My spouse and i want to express this feelings rather than show you these people. It doesn't subject how the paint is actually put on, as extended as something is explained. On the floor My partner and i am more content. We feel nearer, more an integral part of the painting, since this kind of technique I can wander around it, job through the four sides along with literally be in typically the art work. The modern performer is cooperating with space in addition to time and articulating their feelings rather than showing. When I'm painting, I am not aware of precisely what Now i'm doing. It's merely after the get acquainted interval that we see what We've been concerning. The artwork has a lifestyle involving its own. Every fine painter paints what they are. "

Another great designer as well as contemporary painter coming from the fuzy expressionists class is Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg created influences with identified objects about the streets associated with New York Area and also defied every feasible traditionalist's rule as this individual grown through his occupation, which often became quite deservedly fulfilling, earning him excellent, prestige and financial good results within the past few generations. He after moved for you to, Florida to receive away from Brand-new York City, where he or she continue to create his or her art work on the peaceful and rich shores regarding Captiva Tropical island.

One involving the most inspiring approaches connected with Rauschenberg worth recollecting, will be his concept associated with leaving plenty of to probability for the cause regarding discovery, where the musician enjoys the serendipity involving unexpected happenstance.

The a pair of most important style of subjective expressionism, were being the motion painters having use connected with textures, spattering along with drippings of paint during, gesturing the mood on the artisan, and the color-field artists who expressed their process the unified fields regarding color and shapes, although other painters made employ of both equally styles inside their work.

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alexteltevskiy · 5 years ago

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Why I take photos

Hey everyone, how’s it going?

I’m back. Been taking a break from social media this past year. Recently moved to SoCal from Chicago and was busy settling in. Also, I took this time to step back and look at where I’ve been and where I want to go with my photography, as well as how I present it online.

I’ve got a lot of fun new content planned and will slowly start rolling it out. Meanwhile, to make up for my lack of updates, this post is chock-full of awesome photos and interesting thoughts on photography. Climb aboard and enjoy the ride!

Throughout this past year I continued taking photos, but I left social media entirely, feeling that it was becoming a bit too much. Too much of a time investment and mental drain, researching & following, using all those silly hash tags… Too much attention being eaten up by a constant bombardment with a never-ending flow of imagery. Too much bots, too much spam & too much noise. Too much “for the likes”. Too much stuff I couldn’t care to care about anymore. Instant gratification and desensitization were the new norm. Even the quality stuff didn’t matter anymore. I knew it was time to jump ship.

But I did miss the things that were actually good about it. There weren’t that many, but still… I knew that it was only a matter of time before I plugged back in again. And… here I am. Meanwhile, my sabbatical allowed me the luxury to think about my photography from the ground up, and think I did. In this post I’d like to share with you some of the fruits of all that thinking: I’d like to share with you the 10 reasons why I take photos.

1. Exploration & adventure

Photography allows me to explore new, unfamiliar places, as well as see the old and familiar places in new light, over and over again. Back in the olden days I used to call it a “Passport to adventure” (pardon the cheese). And I still feel that way.

Nothing else gets me out the door as quickly as a camera and a fresh new roll of film, and not much enriches a life more than travel.

2. Meeting people

Meeting new people is always fun. It’s a life-enriching experience and helps one feel connected to the greater world. It’s not always easy to connect with strangers on the street, but a camera usually helps break the ice in more ways than one.

Since many of my interests lie in old mechanical objects, having a vintage camera with me actually sparks a lot of conversations to happen entirely by themselves. And at the end of the day, 9 out of 10 people actually feel honored to be able to tell their story and have their picture taken.

3. Family and friends

I don’t need 691 snapshots of what we ate for breakfast every year. I need just a few quality photos that are engineered to stand the test of time and will always bring back the fondest of memories spent with my family and friends.

Quality photography, where I put in the time and effort to make each shot count (ahem, film, not pointing fingers, ahem). It’s rewarding and it makes my relationships feel that much more special (sorry for the sentimental cheese).

4. Recording milestones

Speaking of family and friends, the moments that we cherish most are the ones that deserve their own dedicated photo shoot. Being a photographer transcends into being a historian and keeper of family history and even tradition.

“Production values” are high, trips are planned, adventures are had and lasting memories are made. Photos serve as testament to us and the big advancements in our lives - a big move, getting married, having children…

5. Fueling curiosity

To be curious is to be human. It’s what defines us as a race that’s able to advance and grow. There would be no fire, no wheel, no semiconductor and no landing on the moon and (gasp) no Instagram.

Taking photos for me is a continuation of that fine tradition of discovery. I see, I like, I take a photo. I obsess over the photo and object that lies herein. I learn more about it, wiki-ing about the design decisions on that olive green ’67 Cutlass or the impact of that historic Main St. movie theater on the town or how surfboards are shaped. Or why the moon is sometimes red. Or why Dingbats have such a funny name.

Photography helps me learn more about my world. Always a nice thing.

6. Imagination exercise

Every once in a while I’d take a photo and it would entertain my mind in many not-so-obvious ways. Could happen with a picture perfect landscape or a failed Holga long exposure. It would mysteriously linger in memory for a while, prompting repeat viewing. Often times the effect would be immediately after seeing the photo, other times it would surface years after the fact.

I would be drawn to the photo, get lost in it, imagine myself in it. All sorts of metaphorical thought would crawl into the picture, all sorts of things would form in the shadows and bubble up. Sometimes nostalgia would paint the skies a dull yellow and I’d feel warmth in my toes that I haven’t felt since 17. Sometimes at night, the skyline of Port of LA turns into Port Town from F-Zero and at midday, the sand dunes on the beach turn into a romanticized version of early 20th-century Arabia.

Humans are visual creatures, and photos have the power to play all sorts of tricks on the interplay between imagination, memory and all the 5 senses. Photos help me tie my mindscape together.

7. Giving back

It’s only natural to want to share with the world something that you truly, honestly love!

Photography is a craft that has lots to do with understanding fundamentals, repetition and learning from your mistakes. It also has lots to do with many other things that are not so immediately obvious due to the exceedingly esoteric nature of what makes or breaks a good photo. Not to mention that there’s a very complicated technical side to photography as well, film or digital...

The answers to all of these come with time and experience, and as always, with a little help from our friends. As such, it’s always a humbling and enjoyable experience when I can offer my friends a little help of my own, based on my personal experience and observations.

8. Experimentation and happenstance

Photography has always been about experimenting - seeing what works and what doesn’t. Every time I try something new I am faced with fresh and, dare I say, invigorating challenges.

Sometimes I learn something cool that I’d like to continue doing (redscale or Pen-o-ramas). Other times I find a format that completely changes the kinds of shots I’d do for long stretches of time (half frame or a 6x9). Or I would find a camera so unpredictable that I wouldn’t know how the shot will turn out at all (pinholes, Holgas, solarcams, old soviet cameras, etc).

In the world of film photography, there is absolutely no shortage of film, formats, cameras and techniques to try out. We have, after all, more than a hundred years of photographic legacy to fall back on and tinker with. It keeps things interesting and the perspective - fresh.

9. Getting lost in the moment

This is a big one, especially with film photography. A craft so diverse and expansive that condenses down to a singular moment when the shutter goes off. There’s so much to love, so many details to enjoy.

Starting with the obvious - not having to chimp or preview the photos and being limited by a scarce, diminishing resource (film) allows more time to bask in the surroundings and bond with the moment rather than just keep popping off the camera like a machine gun. Waiting for the moment (or setting up the shot), anticipating the scene, watching it all come together. It’s meditation.

The gear, so varied and spanning such a breadth of generations, each with its own intricacies, procedures and character. The mechanical, tangible nature of control manipulations. It’s all very tactile and ASMR-ish. Come on, all you Leica fans out there - tell me you don’t go through an elation every time that cloth goes sssssshwick, haha )

10. Feeling the passing of time

Photos are like a quality wine - they get better with age (I actually don’t know if that’s true, but that’s how the saying goes). A lot of photos we admire today were received completely different when they were first presented to the world. We look back at the photos from the 60’s, 70’s and go through a portal to that time. How people lived their lives, where they lived, what they drove, how they had fun. It’s all put through the context of history. Same goes for movies, music - any cultural item.

It’s important to understand that your photos, if you choose to keep them around for that long, will be viewed many decades down the line and will offer a glimpse into those times. Viewers from the future will look at the cars and marvel at how people got around in these dead-dinosaur-powered vehicles, or how everyone on the street was stuck staring down at tiny glass screens, or even the fact that the very photo they’re looking at is static, isn’t an immersive 3D experience and has limited resolution.

Things get especially interesting when the photographer himself is the subject of the photos...

11. Cars

Wait, didn’t I say it was 10 reasons? Well, there’s always room for cars! Awesome, timeless automotive examples, each with its own personality and style. As they say, there’s always room for cars...

Conclusion

Sorry if that was too wordy! A lot of reasons, huh? And everybody will have their own… That’s the beauty of this thing called photography - everyone makes it their own. Hopefully this post presented you with some interesting food for thought, or maybe inspiration for your next photo project. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Stay awesome!

#film photography #analog photography #filmisnotdead #ishootfilm #film #fujifilm #kodak #35mm #120 #4x5 #believeinfilm

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unwriter-sc · 6 years ago

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Novel Prep Game

Tagged by @thatfizzyyyy thank you very much.

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

FIRST LOOK

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

This woman, Robyn Lancaster, has been sucked into a fantasy world, one where she is recognised as the leader of a rebellion known as Oliva Winter. While she does manage to plead for her trial to be delayed, someone is charged with looking after her until a later date, that person is Princess Anna Winter.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

I plan for it to be a single book. However, that does not mean that I won’t be open to more books in this world in the future.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Noble Castles, shining steel, old books, dark rooms (I’m not good with aesthetic, please help)

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

There’s a lot of high fantasy, Princess falls in love with chosen one stories that inspire it. There’s also plenty of inspiration from Modern Girl in Thedas fanfics as well.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

I don’t really have many images, I have the one I prepped for my Quotev cover. (If anyone can find the original artist for me to credit, that would be wonderful)

Btw: my Quotev and Wattpad username is TerribleArtist

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

Robyn Lancaster (though I rarely write much stuff from her POV, so Anna Winter might be better)

7. Who is their closest ally?

Anna Winter (if Anna is the protag, then it is Robyn and Helias)

8. Who is their enemy?

Ser Alexander Bronzewing, largely because he believes that Robyn is evil.

9. What do they want more than anything?

At the start of the story is to simply go home, later, it is to be in a relationship with Anna Winter.

10. Why can’t they have it?

The first one is because Robyn has no magical potential, so she’d have a hard time casting the spell required to return home. While later it is because Robyn is a peasant (raised to being a handmaiden) and Anna is not only a Princess but the heir apparent to the throne.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Robyn believes that she has a grating personality, that she is quite dumb and that her affections for Anna are one-sided.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

Seeing as how I can’t draw for shit, I’ll use descriptions.

She’s like 5”8, somewhat lithe build with a bit of healthy fat. Really pale skin. Evident of not going outside much. She has long, frazzly black hair, which is put into a long braided low ponytail, typically rested on one of her shoulders.

PLOT POINTS 13. What is the internal conflict?

Let’s see… you from Anna’s POV (I rarely write from Robyn’s POV), you got her struggling to come to terms with her demisexuality, her still learning about what it would take to rule, and coming over her minor bit of mental trauma from the Witch Queen’s War (I need to write more for that)

14. What is the external conflict?

For Robyn and Anna to get together despite the pressures of the more traditional nobility (who are already ansty from Helias’ reforms)

That and Robyn and Alexander’s long term hate/hate relationship, as Alexander believes that Robyn is evil and must be purged, while Robyn believes that Alexander is an idiot who needs to get off her case.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

Death is one of them. Being used as a vessel for the resurrection of the Witch Queen is another.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

The origins of the Magicless would be one (though it will be kept strictly under wraps). Another might be Anna’s demisexuality (for which she was heavily closeted)

17. Do you know how it ends?

An epilogue involving Anna’s coronation after her father abdicates the throne. Anna and Robyn already have a secret marriage together (because the clergy sees love as love)

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?

Bold of you to assume that I’m smart enough to have a theme. I don’t actually know what the theme would be.

19. What is a recurring symbol?

Steel and books.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

In a fantasy world (that I don’t have a name for yet), specifically on the continent of Pacajteroj, and the Kingdom of Emain. Which is on the west coast of the continent, it is a trade orientated kingdom with a bloody past, has a good harvest and is generally considered to be the good guys on the continent. It has a warm Mediterranean climate, with draughts in the summer and mild winters.

The story is largely set in the Capital City of Emain, Serenity’s Grace (though it is largely called the Capitol, by most). Which is a multicultural city where trade flows like water, it’s a hive of noble and commoner activity (as well as some less than legal activity), it’s generally quite a good city, life is good, etc. (I subscribe to the “Fantasy worlds can actually be bright, rather than dark,” style)

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

I have many scenes in mind already, I have the duel between Anna and Ser Darian (which I plan for Anna to lose) I’ve got Robyn getting flogged (I’m a bit of a sadomasochist) I’ve got Robyn and Anna confessing to each other (I have to rewrite that scene, because it was terribly written). I’ve got a lot of fun scenes in my mind. It’s just writing what comes in between.

22. What excited you about this story?

Initially, it was my method of entertaining myself while I was on holiday in the Netherlands and then I still had a few ideas. Then I got confirmation that this was going to be published and got a blank check in terms of time. So that was fun as all hell.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!

Let’s see… since I don’t like cutting chapters short, I tend to write from multiple POVs every single chapter, using what I call the four important details method, basically whenever I do a timeskip, or change POV, I write these details, to inform the readers (and myself) whose POV we are seeing this from.

Date – Time – Location – Person

I tend to write in third person limited, mixing descriptions with actually telling the reader some things.

My writing style is horrible really.

I think I shall tag: @eternalwritingstudent @ratherinterestingmilkshake @juls-writes @esoteric-eclectic-eccentric @acebelle @eternalwritingstudent @lillayalightfoot

#tag game #novel tag game #Princess and the Outlander

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docfuture · 6 years ago

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The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 45

[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post something new about every two weeks, with short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready. The next update is planned for the week of July 9th.]

Previous: Chapter 44

Nothing was ever simple. Flicker contemplated Journeyman, temporarily frozen in the middle of refilling his teacup, in the cluttered compartment on the Learning Is About To Occur, outbound for Europa. A biogestalt watching a human she cared about very much, while she thought. Something she'd done countless times before. Biogestalt was a funny word. Flicker had learned it from Doc; he'd used it as a loose translation of a Grs'thnk concept. If you scanned a biological brain and made a copy of it on a computer, you had an 'upload'. Doc was cynical about them, with good reason. Theoretically you could run one in a suitable computer environment and give it input; let it change state, have experiences, make decisions, gain new memories, be a person. Freeing a mind from the shackles of a bio body. When the Grs'thnk first tried that, they discovered the resulting minds had been freed to go insane very quickly. Bio minds had evolved to run in bio bodies; arranging the right conditions for one to run indefinitely on a computer was a big ask. Too big. They had settled for something that could run at high speed on computers for a limited time, then reintegrate with still-living bio minds and bodies. They called the result (and colloquially, any bio who used them) a biogestalt. They had also kept copious records of the many, many things that could go wrong with the process. The Grs'thnk aid mission had been alarmed to discover Earth already had something very like their biogestalts. Stella and Three were apparently friendly and stable, but operating far outside of normal safety parameters. The Grs'thnk had coped. They'd been downright terrified to find out that Flicker was a biogestalt as well. Enough so that Learning, with his admiral's approval, had arranged a careful sequence of not-quite-subterfuges to transfer a summary of some of their dangerous, hard-won biogestalt knowledge to those helping her. Flicker had read it and found, not to her surprise, that she had symptoms of conditions ranging from 'serious' to 'how are you even still alive', as well as legacy issues from the thorny problem of using lossy compression to fit high speed memories back into a bio brain. She'd barely started working through the list when her time had been cut short. Signs of a new problem, possibly triggered by being far from Earth, had shown up while she was on Europa. And understanding an old one--her trust issues with Journeyman--had gone from 'important' to 'life-or-death'. A long-deferred reckoning with awkward parts of his history could no longer be postponed. They had the rest of today and one night left. He was her partner. To the end of the world. She slowed down and smiled at him as he finished refilling his cup. "I'm not all that great at making potions," he said. "Even though I started early. I know lots of alchemists who are better. But we get along pretty well, because they're some of my best customers, and I'm one of their best suppliers." "Because you can teleport," said Flicker. "Because I can teleport and portal, and I know a lot of specialized herbalism; things like 'how do you tell if this difficult-to-grow-wort is the right kind for Potion X', and 'how long do obscureberries stay good if picked in late fall'. It's how I make a lot of money, favors, and assorted useful bits of magic in trade." He waved a hand. "So I'm always on the lookout for new alchemically interesting plants--or new supplies of old ones that have grown rare or disappeared. And a few years ago, I hit the jackpot. I don't suppose you've ever heard of an herb called silphium?" "No. But I'm terrible at remembering anything about plants except how flammable they are, so I can keep from starting fires." "This one is pretty esoteric. Silphium was an important trade item in classical antiquity, as a spice and a medicinal herb. It was important enough that the Minoans and Egyptians had glyphs for it, and the city where either the good kind or the only real kind came from--accounts differ--put it on their coins. It got used in potions, too--some of the oldest verified potion recipes used silphium. And... then shortly after the Roman Empire got started, it went extinct. Maybe." "Maybe?" "Opinions differ. It's a good topic if you want to start a really messy interdisciplinary argument. What isn't in dispute is that the good kind went away--probably wiped out by overharvesting. Whether the actual plant species survived, and what made it the good kind was soil chemistry or some local hybrid that couldn't be cultivated--is still argued about. And all the arguments are complicated by the fact that as demand went up, it got very expensive, so people tried all kinds of substitutes and adulterants, and it's really hard to tell now whether any particular account of it was referring to the good stuff or not." Journeyman smiled. "My first teacher had this big old tome of historical potion recipes, with three generations of marginal notes by successive alchemists on what actually worked, side effects, and the like. I still have it. And when I dug into the history of the first potion I ever made myself, I discovered that it was a variation on an ancient formula that used silphium. So when I started hunting for new old plants, I used a few tricks to check for silphium whenever I was anywhere that it might have escaped notice. And one day, in a place that was very difficult and dangerous to get to, I found it." Flicker frowned. "How could you be sure?" "I tried it in some potion recipes that used silphium substitutes, and it worked. Then I tried in an old recipe that never worked with a substitute, and it worked in that, possibly for the first time in two millennia. It worked really well." "Wow. Where did you find it?" "Kyrjaheim." "How did you get Golden Valkyrie to give you permission to go there?" "I didn't ask. I just went. That would be the dangerous part." "Why didn't you ask?" "Ask who, and how? There's no phone or net service in Kyrjaheim, Golden Valkyrie only rarely appears anywhere publicly visible on Earth, it's even more rare for her to land, and when her Choosers show up, they're usually very busy dealing with a disaster or crisis. Which left message drops, most of them with human gatekeepers. I was virtually certain that if I tried that, I'd get a form letter 'no'. "But... I was pretty sure I had a loophole. A number of people helped by Choosers were later interviewed, and visiting or moving to Kyrjaheim was a common question. Uninvited humans weren't unambiguously forbidden in Kyrjaheim--there was just a complete lack of transport, a ban on interfering with any existing portals or the Choosers means of coming and going, and a lot of stuff that was frowned upon. And I could portal, port, and tread lightly on my own. "So I figured there wasn't any point in trying to talk to them or her directly. She could see the future and she was busy. Either what I planned wasn't a problem for her, and I'd be fine, or it was, and I'd show up to find a Chooser telling me to go home. And I'd listen." He took a sip of tea. "This was a bad plan. Bad overconfident reckless arrogant wrong bad. 'I'd be fine.' Ha ha." "You got caught?" "Yes. I knew that at some point I'd have to talk to someone, but I really wanted to test a few more things first, and I needed more silphium to do that, and... I got trapped at the point where I was most in the wrong. I managed an epic fail at 'better to ask forgiveness than permission'." Journeyman took a deep breath. "My first trip was a quick look around to verify portal accuracy. I found the silphium on the second. By the third, when I came back to gather more, I thought my camouflage and misdirection spells were doing the job. Then I got my first hint of how hard it is to hide from a Chooser. I was carefully brushing ants off a silphium plant when I heard a voice--from way too close behind me--say how she didn't have to tell anyone she'd seen me." "Ouch," said Flicker. "She must have been watching for a while." "Yeah, and wanted to see what kind of hole I'd try to dig for myself. I knew Choosers were more than just empaths--sensing character is essential to Choosing. And she pushed me right up to the edge between 'talk' and 'run'. That meant she already knew a scary amount about me. I'd been detected on a previous trip--or possibly even before I arrived. I never found out for sure. "I knew I was in trouble, and trying to hold back anything was a very bad idea, so I said that unless she was an ecologist or botanist, there was probably somebody she should tell. I did not want to be alone with her, and if I ran I'd never dare come back." "I'd bet that was Golden Valkyrie's spymaster," said Three. Flicker frowned. "Why?" "That's the kind of thing you hit someone with before a recruitment attempt." Journeyman looked over at the monitor Three was using for her avatar. "Yeah... But I'd say 'Kyrjaheim's spymaster'. Don't assume Golden Valkyrie needed to micromanage everything. I made that mistake. Anyway, this interrogator told me that if I wanted a bigger audience, I'd get one. And five minutes later, I was in a clearing with more Choosers. I'd figured she'd keep it small--two or three others, maybe half a dozen. I got sixty. It was terrifying." "How mad were they?" asked Flicker. "They were plenty annoyed. I'd spent too much time worrying about what Golden Valkyrie would think, and too little worrying about what her Choosers could, and would, do on their own. And I'd seriously underestimated how different their culture would be. They were never off-duty when they were on Earth, so it was easy to make wrong assumptions. And I was in their home, uninvited. The group looked like a cross between an emergency town meeting and whoever thought a 'Hey everybody! Guess what I caught!' was worth a look. Some were in armor. Some were in work or casual clothes. But they all had their spears, they were all projective empaths, and they all had Opinions." Journeyman looked back at Flicker. "Did Yiskah ever tell you how overwhelming it can be to have a crowd of empaths all have Opinions at you at once?" "I saw it--I found her in the bathroom the day I accepted the einherjar. She was pale and shaky and had almost started eating minds in self-defense." "Yeah. And instead of getting interrogated privately, I got interrogated publicly. I talked myself hoarse for hours, and got mercilessly cross-examined by a bunch of gardeners, a field biologist, several experienced medical professionals, an organic chemist, and several others. About more than just the silphium. A lot more. And then I was unambiguously reminded that Kyrjaheim was at war, and they started discussing what kind of deterrent was appropriate, and whether it required following me home and hunting me in shifts until I was too tired to keep porting away, and... It was bad." Journeyman looked down, then slowly took a sip of tea. The silence lengthened. Flicker sped up. "Three? I don't know what to say. It looks like he's using breath control to stop a panic spike, and his eyes aren't focusing. Is he having a PTSD flashback?" "Possibly." "I didn't want that! Why--" "I'd prefer to spend at least a week on this," sent Three. "We don't have a week. The biggest manageable risks for tomorrow and after are failures of trust and stability. So we're pushing. He knew it would be rough for him, too," sent Three. "But knowing that you're still calm might help." Flicker thought about that for a while, then slowed back down. "I'm here, Mike," she said. After a moment he looked up and half-smiled. "Thanks," he said. "Anyway, my first interrogator eventually interrupted with a suggestion about a little task I could do for Kyrjaheim. One that could clear up all my problems. I'd be able to come back safely, and even gather a little silphium under supervision. If..." He shook his head. "They all kept the pressure on, but no one objected too strenuously--which makes me pretty damn sure this had been planned, and had at least implicit approval from Golden Valkyrie. So, not without considerable trepidation, I tentatively agreed to step from the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad frying pan into the nice, easy, simple really, anyone could do it fire." "What did they want you to do?" asked Flicker. "What my interrogator said she wanted me to do was a little light spying in the Nine Worlds. I'd been there before, and I wouldn't attract the kind of immediately hostile attention that a Kyrjaheim Chooser would. I objected that the Norns would pick up on that very quickly, and then I would die very quickly, by porting straight into a trap. I was assured there was a way around that." Journeyman waved a hand. "But I think the idea all along was for me to act as a stalking horse or distraction. There were very few battles in the war between Kyrjaheim and the Wanderer, because there were Seers and skilled strategists on both sides, and whichever side was going to lose would see that and change something. There was this constant readiness and tension, but very little actual fighting." "That makes sense," said Flicker. "Most of the battles would be inside unstable time loops that collapsed, and all people would end up seeing were some strange coincidences." "Well, I was a splendid candidate for conveying coincidences around. But I wasn't about to jump into that seething mess without a little prep work first. Like, arrange for better backup, and find out a little more about the factions in the Nine Worlds--there weren't just two sides in the war, there were at least four." "Yiskah told me a little bit about that. She's still digging into it for me." "A lot of history there. I didn't find nearly enough. Which was one justification for the spying mission in the first place, I'll give them that. But I did manage to do something about the 'follow me home and hunt me in shifts' business. That really bothered me--if the Kyrjaheim Choosers could do it, there was no reason Nine Worlds Choosers couldn't." Journeyman smiled. "So I went and had a talk with Doc about something we'd been discussing for a while. Then we came out of the secure room, I told a joke about bad days, and asked you if you wanted me as your regular patrol partner. And the two of us went and had ice cream. I figure you might have a few memories of that day." Flicker closed her eyes and smiled. "Yes. I wasn't a sidekick. I wasn't a burden. I wasn't a barely contained threat. I was a partner. That did so much for my sanity at a time I really needed it." "Helped me, too. See, if any hostile pseudo-mythological extradimensional entities tried to pursue me to Earth and--" "Rocks. Plasma. Death." Flicker opened her eyes again. "Yeah, that. You are what is technically known as really effective backup." Journeyman took a deep breath. "So. All prepped and as ready as I was going to get, I portaled into the Nine Worlds. I started where the stream from the Norn's pool meets the sea, a place called the Beginning and Ending Falls. By taking a dip in the plunge pool there, I could make it hard for the Norns or anyone else to tell what I'd been up to recently. Like getting recruited to spy. But there were issues. It washes away all spells and illusions, so I lost a bunch of personal protection, and had to leave my hat and clothes on shore, or I'd lose their embedded wards. Also it was frickin' cold, and required full immersion." He waved a hand in agitation. "I finally managed to duck under, came up with teeth chattering, and have I mentioned how damned hard it is to hide from a Chooser?" "Yeah." "She was standing on my hat, glaring at me, spear at the ready, other foot on my coat for good measure. I was stark naked and completely hosed. I was going to lose all my gear and probably never be able to come back--I couldn't even try any spells, the only thing I'd be able to manage was a port--and you know what she says?" "What?" "'You are not the Trickster!' Accusingly. Like that was the entire reason she was mad." Flicker stared. "Wait. What?" "I know! It made a little sense, I guess. I was standing in the middle of the Falls, so no illusions, no shapeshifting, no tricks. I had to be exactly what I looked like--a skinny, naked, shivering, red-headed idiot who apparently looked something like the Trickster. But what a stupid thing to be mad about. And what a stupid way to..." Journeyman shook his head. "I snapped. I was furious, I knew I was going to have to port out, so why not burn that bridge right down." He stared down at his hands. "I yelled back at her. I said, 'Brilliant! I'm not someone dead. Red hair isn't enough to fool you. And the Trickster couldn't possibly have had any kids, could he have?'" Journeyman looked back up. "And her eyes went wide, her face turned pale, and she said, 'Forgive me, Trickster's Son.'" ***** Journeyman sat motionless in human time while Flicker considered her reactions and exchanged messages with Three. "The name itself doesn't bother me," sent Flicker. "The implications, maybe a little? But this Chooser..." "Yes." Three sent a sympathetic smile. "She was the real reason for avoiding the name. Because the first question you'd ask is how he got it, if he wasn't literally the Trickster's son. Everyone has been wary, because you've been putting patches on your patches for too long." "I know. But when I get like this--I know the way I interrupt is wrong. I can't listen any other way and still talk. And if I start with the wrong words, sometimes I can get to the right ones. But they're like an interrogation." "I'll help keep you on track. And I've considerably narrowed down the possibilities for the biogestalt part of your trust problem by analyzing your telemetry and watching the two of you interact. It's not simple jealousy or voyeurism--you don't have either problem with Donner--but picking at those is helping me get the data I need. So I've kept pushing." "I understand. But if I lose calm, Journeyman might stop talking--and if I really lose it, I might have to compartmentalize and do a full swap. I... don't want to do that, and I know it would upset him." "He'll handle it," sent Three. "And it will prevent disaster. You can't run away and he won't port. I'll set up a better context, so you don't have to worry about it. Ready?" Let me out, urged a old familiar voice inside Flicker's head. No, she replied. "...Ready."

After Flicker slowed back down, Three made a throat clearing sound. "What now?" asked Journeyman warily. "Tea and calm was a good idea," Three said. "Unfortunately it isn't going to be sufficient. The good news is that I'm a lot closer to verifying Flicker's problems--and indirectly, one of yours. You've been worried about hiding this ever since it happened, right?" "Yeah." "Then spin it all out the way you do best, as if you don't have to give a damn about offending anyone. I will assist Flicker in dealing with the emotional fallout--which may be psychologically rough on you, but will not include plasma, sudden catastrophic damage to the ship we are on, or any need to port. I personally guarantee it." Journeyman looked over at Flicker, moving only his eyes. "Partner? You okay with this?" "It's what we need," she said. Journeyman winced. "This is gonna..." He closed his eyes, shook his head, then opened his eyes again. "Okay." He waved a hand. "I need to tell you a bit about Gisela. This isn't going to be very objective. I didn't really believe what was happening at first. I thought maybe I'd been hit with a hallucinogen while my wards were down--and I did get hit with a couple of strong psychotropics." "What were they?" "The Valkyrie's Kiss, with no warning and no wards, followed by sexual attraction from a powerful empath." Anger. "If she--" Alert on her visor. 'Talk to me' from Three. Speed up. "What part of 'don't have to give a damn about offending anyone' did you not understand?" sent Three. "And who are you angry at?" "Her! And... him for being so stupid." "Don't yell at him over anger at her. Especially if what you're really angry about is that it worked." That was fair. Unfortunately. Time to figure out how to end the sentence in a reasonable way. Let me out. No. Flicker slowed back down. "--didn't ask first, that sounds coercive," she finished. "She said I looked cold and asked if I wanted to warm up. I did--freezing water, remember--and she warmed me up very thoroughly. And you're putting me on a pedestal again. I could have said no. I could have ported out. I didn't. Gisela knew how to press my buttons. I did want to know how she figured me out so quickly--and why she was there. And I recovered my hat." "That I understand." "So. You know a little about how Seers work." "Not enough," said Flicker. "I understand the basics of how they interact with time loops, Golden Valkyrie told me a bit of 'What', a little 'How', and no 'Why' at all, and there's what you've told me. Was Gisela a Seer?" "No. But the Norns were a big help to the Wanderer. They had their limitations, but he knew how to exploit what they could do--and just as importantly, how to coddle, wheedle, and support them. Gisela was part of that support." Journeyman waved a hand. "The Norns picked up a lot of sub-oracular grade insights. Scraps of visions and sounds from potential futures and lost pasts. Disconnected, but not always meaningless. And Gisela was good at putting the pieces together in interesting ways." "So she was like an intel analyst?" said Flicker. "That wasn't all she did, but yeah. She'd been at it for a long time, had an extraordinary memory, and had a talent for putting together something from thirty years ago, something from last week, and something new, and going 'Aha!' She was wrong a lot, but she was right often enough to be frightening--and uniquely useful. And oh, did she ever know it." Journeyman frowned. "She also had an infatuation with the Trickster. Except it was really about her idealized vision of a cleverer, less self-sabotaging Trickster. The real one was never very close to it, but I'm not sure it's fair to call that his fault. He was spitefully malicious to Gisela, but he was spitefully malicious to everybody. Apparently the most objectionable thing he did to her was to turn her down. She still blamed others for everything bad that happened to him, especially after he died, and was angry that the Norns were never able to clearly identify how he died or who killed him." "Because Stella did it." "Yes. Then one fine day, Gisela put together some clues that something might be starting at the Falls, flew over, and spotted me. And found my flippant rant utterly convincing, because her Chooser's sense told her that whatever else I might be, I was closer to her ideal than the original Trickster ever was. I was the Trickster's Son, the New Improved Trickster. I was her Trickster. She was so abruptly, intensely passionate because she thought I was who she'd been waiting for all along. There was just one small problem." "You were a spy." "Oh no," said Journeyman. "That was no problem, she knew I was spying. Of course I was. I was a Trickster; what else would I do first? No, the problem was that we had dramatically different goals, values, morality--" "She was evil," said Three helpfully. "Now that's--" "Oversimplified, but a good place to start." "It's not where I started." "Indeed. But I warned Flicker not to yell at you because she was angry at Gisela; now I'll warn you not to go easy on her because you're afraid of how Flicker will react or judge you." "That's not the problem." "Um, I'm right here," said Flicker. "Yeah," said Journeyman. He looked at her and took a deep breath. "I'm sure you've noticed me tense up sometimes when we're together. Every now and then, that's because you've done something that reminded me of Gisela. And not necessarily a bad thing." "...Oh." "She wasn't a good person, but don't caricature her, okay?" "Okay." Let me out. No. Journeyman rubbed his forehead. "Gisela was never abusive or intentionally harmful to me. She was downright gleeful to finally have a clever lover to banter and plot with. She'd often listen to me when she wouldn't to anyone else. She wouldn't hear 'wrong' or 'against the rules' but she could hear 'waste of time' or 'bad idea, here's why'. So I dialed my rants up to 11, and we got along for a while. She thought I was overly squeamish and forgiving, but also that I was sufficiently malleable for her to 'fix'--she was a Chooser, after all." "She was the Gisela that Eirik was telling a story about," said Flicker. "The day we went to the Box. Wasn't she?" "Yeah--he suffered quite a bit for a couple of poems he wrote about her. She was proud and vindictive to a fault; she never forgot an injury or slight. She was also the most prominent survivor of a... faction that the Wanderer had encouraged with the intent of solidifying a power base independent of Greta and the older Choosers. There were a lot of people she hated because of the fallout from that." Flicker frowned. "So why did everyone else believe you were the Trickster's son?" "I don't think a lot of them did. But whatever the Norns said was consistent with me being some kind of trickster, and Gisela's demeanor changed dramatically after I showed up. Gisela was happy; Gisela was smug. She started gloating instead of being grimly vengeful all the time, which was a significant improvement if you were an einherjar she disliked. So most of the einherjar were surprisingly okay with me." Journeyman waved a hand. "Skardi said he didn't care who I really was--he liked me better than the old Trickster, and I was keeping Gisela out of everyone's hair. Ragnar even offered some helpful tips for self-diagnosis of pelvic stress fractures." "Didn't anyone care you were spying? What about the other Choosers, and the Wanderer?" "No one besides Gisela even brought it up. I knew better than to go anywhere near the Hall, and Gisela didn't get along with the other Choosers, so I rarely saw them. And I never saw the Wanderer at all. But about that... Gisela shared all kinds of outrageous theories with me, from her rummaging in the Norns' prophecy wastebasket. One of them was that the Wanderer was afraid of me, for the good reason that I could kill him--with just a little help. Which she was happy--nay, eager--to provide." "How?" "Very directly. She would portal in front of him and begin stabbing, making sure to get an eye early, then I would port in behind him, portal a chunk of lead inside his heart, then warp cut him into little pieces before he could recover from the resulting internal explosion. Then we'd dump all the now radioactive, cursed Wanderer chunks at the entrance to the Wolf's cave for him to snack on, and I'd proceed to the Hall to be hailed as the new ruler of the Nine Worlds by right of conquest, with her by my side." "That sounds... ambitious," said Flicker. "A bit, yes. I told her that her plan seemed the sort likely to have unanticipated side effects, however successful." "How did she know you could do that?" "Her frightening ability to put together old and new. That and a few other things scared me enough that on my next trip to Kyrjaheim, I planned to insist on speaking privately with Golden Valkyrie." "'Planned to'? What happened?" "I was worried about the Wanderer tracking me, so I attempted some overly clever interdimensional bouncing around and ended up with three different, mutually inconsistent sets of memories of what happened that day. The most significant thing they have in common is Golden Valkyrie telling me I needed a lot more experience before I tried that again. I listened. "I think--now that I know more, anyway--that it was a side effect from either cross-world amplitude addition or a timeloop collapse while I was not causally connected. Either way, it was more scary than what I'd intended to ask about, and 'what really happened' may not even have a well defined answer. Do you remember the time I showed up all spooked and I asked you to tell me about physics or something you liked, we had a picnic on Samos, and you taught me about plasma and shockwaves and induced fusion for about four hours?" "Vividly," said Flicker. "It was the first time I felt successful at helping you with anything social. I was so happy." "Yeah, that was the day after my screw up. You helped ground me and reassure me I was actually back on Earth again." "So, all of this was going on while... Wait, was the spying, and Gisela, part of the 'Byzantine interdimensional magician mess' you mentioned a few times?" "Yup. And a couple of weeks later I started putting some old and new things together of my own, and came up with some scary guesses about who your parents were, and the origin of the war between Kyrjaheim and the Wanderer. And what was likely to happen when Gisela found out about you, or vice-versa. "Then there was a battle--an actual battle in the Nine Worlds, which the Wanderer's forces lost decisively. Supposedly the Wanderer listened to the one thing Gisela was wrong about and ignored all the things she was right about--but that was her version. I wasn't around; ask Eirik or Osk if you want a more objective view. Gisela got blamed, and the next time we met she was due to be subjected to a banishment or ban or something. A new one--she was under several already." Journeyman looked down. "As we discussed what to do about it, she told me in detail about something she'd hinted at before. She'd committed an epic act of hubris some time before, and convinced the Norns to prophesy, in detail, about how she wasn't going to die." "And that was bad?" "Very. If you ask a real Seer to do something like that, and they agree, it's like a very powerful, self-inflicted curse. With potentially horrific side effects. But it did severely limit the ability of almost everyone to even credibly threaten her--it might well have been why she wasn't already dead. No one could kill Gisela in the Nine Worlds, or when they were in their own home world, or when they were both in the same world, and she couldn't die under a whole bunch of other conditions that turned out not to matter. "I knew immediately that she was almost certain to die in one of three ways, and the potential fallout from one of them went all the way up to 'end of the world'. So I told her about the second--that I would kill her using portal trickery. I said that I didn't want to do that, but that I knew how prophecies worked, and that if we stayed together it was virtually certain. So I had to leave." "Why... Why would she even tell you about something like that?" "I think there was some additional condition that she thought meant I couldn't do it, and I was supposed to try to figure it out. Like some variation on 'cannot be killed by a trickster', because she reacted with shock, but didn't try to argue. Leaving was a very un-Trickster like thing to do. I wished her luck, ported out, and did my best to assure that the first way wasn't worse than the second, because I really did not want to try to kill her. I never saw her again." "What was the third way?" asked Flicker. "Self-inflicted portal mishap. Very unlikely, but it was the loophole that would get her if she tried something completely suicidal." Speed up. I do things that remind him of her--not necessarily bad things. But why... Oh. If someone destroyed the Nine Worlds, Gisela's immunity there would go away. And the person everyone was afraid would do that... Slow down. "When I was hunting the Wanderer," she said, "there was a group from the Nine Worlds that opened a portal to Colorado. I detected them and closed the portal with rocks. There was a single flyer that had already gone through. I was in the Nine Worlds; she was on Earth. I threw my first rock through the portal and killed her. I never got a good look at her." Flicker's stomach felt hollow. "Was that Gisela?" Journeyman met her eyes. "Yes. Skardi saw her die." "Oh." They all knew. Every Chooser and einherjar by now. And Yiskah. They all waited. Out of... respect? Or was it fear? Flicker thought about what she might have done, if she'd found out about Gisela when she was fourteen. Or fifteen. "I wasn't wearing my visor," Flicker said. "I don't have any recordings. I killed her, and I don't even know what she looked like. That seems... disrespectful." "There are pictures," said Three. "Would you like to see one?" "Yes, I would," said Flicker. Journeyman tensed. "There are quite a few," said Three, "Mr. Obvious Spy here took a camera with him. And someone seemed determined to make sure he came home with plenty of pictures of her." Journeyman stared into the distance. "She thought of digital cameras as a kind of magic; more pictures of her meant I was more likely to come back soon." "Pic on your visor, Flicker," said Three, and an image formed. Let me out. No. "She's... very beautiful," said Flicker. "I don't like the way she's looking at you, but I suppose that's to be expected." She frowned. "I thought Choosers with long hair kept it braided." "Which--" began Journeyman as he glanced at his handcomp. "Oh. That one. Her hair is down because we'd just gotten out of the water and I hadn't braided it for her yet." "You braided her hair?!" "...Yes?" Pain smote. Let me OUT. No! Speed up. "Three! This hurts worse than everything else put together! Help?" "Got it!" sent Three. "Do not slow back down. I've identified your primary problem." "Well, what is it?" sent Flicker. "You have Post-Biogestalt Voyeurism Fixation, with complications. You masked and patched it with three different compensation strategies; projection is the most important. Lif doesn't bother you because she's socially awkward and has short hair, so projection is easy. Long hair is alien to your self image, but projection didn't completely break down for Gisela until her hair became romantically significant. That was the key clue." "Nothing like that is in A History of Biogestalt Development and Pathology,” sent Flicker. “I'm positive; I've read the whole thing three times." "It's not in the fifth edition; I have access to a more recent version. It wasn't widely recognized until a lot of smart Grs'thnk who had abused homebrew biogestalt rigs as adolescents started showing common symptoms as adults." "What causes--No, forget that. How do we fix it?" "Not quickly." Three sent a wry smile emote. "A lot of deep work. And some research--humans aren't Grs'thnk, and you're more than just human." "Patch it for tomorrow?" "Too likely to break--and we'd be adding a new existential failure mode at the last minute. Here is what I think you need to do... ***** Flicker slowed back down, to a roiling mix of anger and other emotions. Journeyman was watching her closely. "Found my problem," she managed to say. "But Three thinks I'm going to--" "Hang on," said Journeyman. "Three? You've got a diagnosis?" "Yes," said Three, "Unfortunately--" "Documented and backed up to DASI?" "Yes, but--" "Good. Let me talk to my partner for a sec." Journeyman stood, then crouched in front of Flicker and looked up into her face, his eyes intense. "Flicker? Partner?" "Yeah?" "I know you're hurting. I went along with Three to get us to this point. But you don't really want to do something you're considering, right? Something drastic?" Let me out! No! "No, I don't." "Good. Don't. Hold on for a little longer and I promise I'll show you the best magic trick you've ever seen. But first I need to have a little talk with Three. It might get loud. Okay?" "Okay. I'll manage." Journeyman reached out and gently touched her face. "That's my partner." He stood and turned to face the monitor where Three's avatar still gazed out impassively. "Three. Thank you for identifying Flicker's problem. You can pick minds apart like nobody's business, you're great at diagnosis, and you're the only person the Grs'thnk would trust with the needed background in time. But your plan for solving the problem is a bad plan. Bad overconfident reckless arrogant wrong bad." "How evocative. We don't have much choice. You realize you're just making things more difficult for Flicker?" "No, I'm making things more difficult for Skybreaker. Who I'm sure is so much more stable and well integrated and better behaved and totally wouldn't go around breaking arms, obliterating pocket dimensions, or gratuitously disrupting local spacetime topology if she gets out again. And she might truly be more comfortable than Flicker during the upcoming construction and space battle." Journeyman stared at the screen. "You know what she won't do? She won't meekly give Flicker her body and mind back after all the excitement is over." "I know you have a lot of experience with possession," said Three. "So do I. But that isn't a good model for--" "I agree! I also have a lot of experience with dual-form, dual-identity shapeshifters with change conflict and emotional problems. Skybreaker isn't a demon; Flicker is a were-starship." "Perhaps," said Three. "But she is also a biogestalt, which I doubt was true for any lycanthropes you've worked with. Further, you are the object of her fixation, making it more difficult for you to help her with it. And finally, there is far too much we don't know or don't have access to here. I'm afraid I don't fully trust your judgement. Maximizing the chances for universal survival requires--" Journeyman looked up at the ceiling, pain on his face. "Three. No. I like you. And I hate making threats. But you're advocating something that would cage Flicker in her own body. Don't fuck with my partner. I can time-travel." There was a long silence. Flicker held her breath. "You have a better plan?" said Three, and Flicker started breathing again. "I do," said Journeyman. "Flicker?" He turned to face her and smiled and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. "Yeah?" she said. "I promised you the best trick. Watch this." He rolled up his sleeves, then spread his arms wide. "Nothing up my sleeves, as you can see." He picked up his hat and shook it vigorously. "And here we have a perfectly empty hat. But wait!" He turned it over and rummaged inside. "What's this?" He pulled out a small plastic rabbit. The head was hinged; he flicked it open with his thumb, revealing an electronic connector. "Why this looks like a data storage device. Say, DASI?" "Yes?" replied DASI from a speaker on the side of her bulky portable node. "You've been very quiet this trip. But I believe you have a conditionally locked decryption key, and some embargoed communications. Has the condition been satisfied?" "It has," said DASI. "Wonderful! Decrypt this and release everything." Journeyman plugged the rabbit into a data port and picked up his handcomp. The 'You have mail' alert flashed on Flicker's visor, and she activated it. A picture appeared and her breath caught. It was an album cover, featuring two people very familiar to her, smiling and laughing.

Donner

Thunderer

With special guest Osk

Pre-release excerpt, Flicker's cut. For personal and therapeutic use only, see attached instructions. Advisory: Lyrics. Flicker looked up at Journeyman, who was paging through something on his handcomp. "Mike?" "Yeah?" "Donner sent me music. New music." Journeyman smiled. "It would be a stretch to make him appear in a puff of smoke. Radio can still catch up with us, though, so I left him two messages this morning, one using the same trick with DASI to delay it until we were on Learning and under the embargo. He's had a busy day in the studio." "There's a bunch of decrypted stuff here too..." "I would expect no less." Journeyman waved his handcomp. "But wait! There's more! I now have, on this ordinary handcomp, a copy of A Partner's Guide to Post-Biogestalt Voyeurism Fixation, by DASI and Dr. Stella Reinhart III. Looks real handy, and Three? You might be related to that second author." "How closely?" asked Three. "I think that's partly up to you." "There were a number of items for me as well. Which raises a disturbing epistemological question. Where did the data in that archive come from?" "Good question! I have theories, of course, but I'm not sure. The encrypted archive was in one of my blind data drops when Flicker and I ported back from Europa, along with some very scary instructions. I'm sure you've both noticed I've been a bit on edge since. But I think the way it got there is what really upset the Floater safety guy." "Wait," said Flicker. "You didn't even know what was in it until now?" "I wasn't certain. And we had to go through all this," he waved his hand, "for the trick to work. Nothing is free; someone has to be the first to figure things out. I can buy time, but if I hadn't been willing to do what I did, I don't think that archive would have appeared at all." Flicker sped up to read the instructions for the music. The first track, 'Unwind', caught her eye. '...should reduce stress from inter-identity cognitive dissonance and the assimilation of emotionally loaded information...' She listened. Journeyman was discussing something with Three, but that didn't matter because Donner and Osk were singing. Together. The track finished, and Flicker considered her mental state. It hadn't been a dramatic song--that wasn't the point. But the room felt a little bigger, and Flicker could breath a little easier, and the artificial gravity felt more comfortable, and tomorrow seemed a little less insurmountable. And the voice had stopped bothering her, at least for now. Flicker stood. Three seemed to have regained her sense of humor, and whatever she was talking to Journeyman about didn't sound critical. "Three? Thank you for everything. Now I think I would like some time with just Journeyman." "Certainly," said Three. "Call if and when you need anything." Journeyman raised an eyebrow as Flicker led him into the next compartment, his sleeping room. After closing the door, she put her arms around him, leaned her cheek against his, and just breathed contentedly for a moment. "I haven't solved everything," he said softly. "Still... good trick?" "Best trick," she said. "Best trick ever."

Next: Chapter 46

#FallofDocFuture #Maker's Ark #FallMisc

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undergroundbandimagines · 4 years ago

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Finding Love at Middle Age: Throw Away Your List

How a skeptic found love with an astrology believer

Image: Upsplash

I’m embarrassed to admit that I used to be an aspirational dater. I had a graduate degree, so I wanted some one with one or more better degree(s). Some one with more resources than I did, who was more knowledgeable about a lot more stuff than I knew.

But really, I wanted someone whose life I could co-opt.

I needed someone with a great career because I didn’t have one of my own, and wanted to be inspired. I had so few friends after being widowed that I wanted to adopt someone else’s. And I was so adrift, I wanted someone with a rich framework of connections into which I could slot myself.

I was looking into the pond, but unlike Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection, I was obsessed with how I reflected off other people.

I followed this pattern for years, but no one I dated worked out long-term. Many of those guys with great career successes didn’t have much time for a relationship. Some were mansplainers, assuming we both knew he was the smart one and I was relegated to being the audience. Just because someone was successful didn’t mean he was caring or or considerate or less emotionally messed up than anyone else.

Then I fell for someone who was wrong for me.

He had a perfectly good job, but his passions lay outside his career. It didn’t define him. He was a natural athlete to my klutz, a professional ski instructor whereas I avoid anything where it feels the ground is rushing up to meet me. He believed in a benevolent higher power. I did not. He thought the universe did, in fact, provide. I thought it had a complicated personality bordering on hostility.

Worst of all, he believed in astrology. For the record, he’s a Scorpio, I’m a Leo, and, according to astrology sites, this creates an incredibly passionate relationship between two strong personalities…but again, I don’t believe in astrology.

When he contacted me, I thought we had no future together, but he was just so nice, texting me photos of sun rises from his morning runs with cheerful little notes to have a great day. Even though I don’t do cheerful or sunrises or runs, morning or otherwise. Not only was he nice, but he was also great-looking, which I guessed would manifest in self-absorption.

His profile said, “May you find friends, and lovers and more,” which to me sounded far too optimistic. I tended to go for guys who were driven to succeed, cared little about fitness, and cultivated dark sides that they loved to talk about.

My first real date with Mr. Opposite was a day long drive around some beaches in Marin with stops at his favorite restaurants. At the start, gave me a little gift book he’d bought for himself in Santa Cruz with drawings of the beach and quotes about the ocean. I did not own anything like it, but I was charmed by his thoughtfulness. And by the way he said he wanted me to have it because he knew I liked being by the water. Most importantly, he was comfortable giving me something that was special to him without worrying whether I’d think it was silly.

I discovered he was great listener who was emotionally intuitive. He was a visual thinker with a flair for home decor. That type of smarts is often underestimated in a world run by standardized testing. I had no long-term hopes for us, but I liked him so much I kept going out with him. He always greeted me with a huge, toothy smile like he was really happy to seeing me. (Not that I had to guess, he actually told me each time how he was looking forward to seeing me).

After our dates, I felt as if I’d basked in the sun for a few hours. It just felt great to be around him. And I realized the men I’d been dating weren’t as pleasing to be around as he was. Nor did most of them have his lovely manners. Nor his innate happiness.

I had a revelation: my type of allegedly smart wasn’t any fun.

No liking stuff that wasn’t intellectually stimulating or cleverly esoteric. Rejecting the power of affirmations and positive thinking out of a sense of misplaced wisdom. Not feeling like I was enough as is. (Hence the aspirational dating).

Being with him made me feel like I had so many more choices. I didn’t have to be a cynic.

I blog a lot about finding love online through perseverance — find more profiles, check messages daily, meet people in real life — but the real difference was being open to someone outside my usual range. And I accomplished the almost impossible: finding a happy, not disillusioned middle-aged single person!

I think many daters make the same mistake that I did: limiting our criteria to people like us. (“Must love atheistic existentialism, the films of the nouvelle vague, and early but not later Haruki Murakami.”)

Or we seek out the super successful because we think they’ll provide better lives for us. I had to figure out my own career and connection issues, and limit my search to finding love instead of a course in self-improvement. But I also realized I wanted more, more sweetness, more respect, and more availability, with a hell of a lot less superiority. Love became much easier once it was just love.

We can throw away our lists without abandoning our values.

We reject people with different philosophies when, in reality, do we really want someone who thinks the same way we do? Isn’t it more interesting to learn new ways of being? For me, being with a positive thinker is wonderfully cheering, even if it isn’t something I’ve yet to adopt. It’s lovely to sit by the water and just be with it, like he does, instead of checking my step count every five minutes.

Sure, we can still want someone loyal and smart and compassionate and not super self-involved, but that might not look the way we thought it would. They might have a different kind of job or income or personal style than we initially required. And that gives us a far greater pool of prospects while, at the same time, allowing us to find people with the core values we wanted in the first place.

Your person might very well be out there, they just have a different job or a different wardrobe than you expected. They might have a different view of the world. And all that might be to the good.

May you find friends and lovers and more.

Finding Love at Middle Age: Throw Away Your List was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 12542575 https://ift.tt/3qsGSMs

#RSSMix.com Mix ID 12542575

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entergamingxp · 4 years ago

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The Steam Game Festival 2020: Demo Impressions Lightning Round

June 26, 2020 4:00 PM EST

Having played the best, I now play the rest. Here are more demo impressions from The Steam Game Festival that didn’t leave the same mark.

The Steam Game Festival – Summer Edition’s first iteration has come and gone, and I feel like it was an overall success. Lots of up and coming games got fresh eyes on them to drum up interest and feedback. I took it upon myself to play huge swathes of them, and I’ve already covered the games that most stood out to me. But that’s only the 10 most impressive games of the 24 in total I played.

As before, I’ve written impressions and limited myself to two paragraphs per game. They aren’t as universally good quality this time around, but there’s still some potential gems buried away here. So, here’s the lightning round of my remaining demo impressions from The Steam Game Festival – Summer Edition.

Iron Harvest

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A squad based RTS with steampunk mechs in an alternate history set a little after World War I. It’s set in the same world as the acclaimed board game Scythe. In practice, Iron Harvest plays a lot like Company of Heroes with a WWI skin featuring steampunk mechs. You build up your forces, take and hold resource points on the map, and try to beat the enemy before they beat you. I was looking forward to this game, but I honestly found myself quite underwhelmed.

The ability to pick up weapons from defeated enemies and change up your infantry armaments on the fly is neat, and the presentation is quite nice. But I just found that the gameplay is missing something. The cover system is very barren and requires you to build most of it, and units just don’t feel like they’re as effective as they should be. Unit control feels unresponsive, the mechs are visually impressive but clunky to move, and I just found myself failing to engage with it. It all felt very hollow and lacked any sort of punch or X factor when playing. I hope this can be improved before launch, but it ultimately feels like it’s too barren an experience as it stands.

The Survivalists

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The Survivalists is a somewhat standard survival/simulation game. You’re a castaway on an island and have to scrounge for resources to survive, thrive, and eventually escape. In addition to the colourful pixel art, The Survivalists’ main gimmick are the friendly monkeys you can bring on your side. These can be trained to gather materials for you, mass produce basic crafting, or aid you in combat.

In practice however, I found the controls and UI to be fairly imprecise and unclear. Multiple times I thought I was teaching my monkey pal a new task and assigning him orders, only for it to do nothing or go completely awry. The system needs a little cleaning up, I think. Beyond this, The Survivalists is colourful, functional, and entertaining enough. It’s fairly generic survival stuff beyond the presentation at this early point, though. With that said, there did seem to be the promise of ancient ruins, pirate treasures, and other intriguing things to unearth from hints gleaned in the world. Hopefully there’s more spark and variety in the full thing.

Builders of Egypt

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Back in 1999, Impressions Games released an Egyptian flavoured city builder called Pharaoh. This is a game that my teenage history nerd self played quite a lot of. Apparently, so did the makers of Builders of Egypt. This is effectively an attempt at making that classic game on a modern engine. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything on offer here that I couldn’t get from just replaying Pharaoh. And I don’t mean that to be a reflection of the early nature of development; it just seems like it will be a lesser game even when complete.

Pharaoh had real charm to its presentation, sound, and general design that I just don’t feel in Builders of Egypt. There’s a lack of colour and personality here that no amount of historical accuracy and high fidelity Unreal Engine lighting can replace. Now to be fair to Builders of Egypt, it’s a perfectly serviceable city builder with a solid theme. It’s possible that with enough time and effort, the mechanics and options for building cities here will really stand out. I just don’t see it currently, is all. It’s not a great feeling to want to go and replay a 20-year-old game after playing a new demo, unfortunately.

Stronghold: Warlords

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After finishing this demo, I went to check who had developed this. I thought that this was someone trying to capitalise on the Stronghold name and legacy with a cheap knockoff, or else they’d managed to get their hands on the IP. To my surprise, it’s still the same developer that’s had the series since the original game. Sadly, that’s not the only thing that hasn’t changed since the first game, either.

Stronghold: Warlords is a city-builder/RTS with a focus on building and defending a castle or stronghold. Warlords is an eastern-themed one, and has a diplomacy feature by which you can bring the titular Warlords into your fold for bonuses. But the entire thing is ugly, slapdash, and controls awfully. Again, it feels like there hasn’t been any forward development or improvement from the very first Stronghold game(s) almost two decades ago. This will need a lot of work to make it even slightly comparable to those games. Given the poor reception Stronghold 3 got, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Occupy Mars

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Another survival game, and this one just begging comparison to the book (and film adaptation of) The Martian. The aim of Occupy Mars is exactly what the title says. You’re an astronaut on Mars and you have to gather resources and build up the facilities needed for future colonisation prospects. The gimmick for this one is that it is intensely micro-management heavy. For example, let’s say you want to get ore from a rock. Generally, survival games will let you hit it twice with a pickaxe and then pick up the ore. In Occupy Mars, you’ll start by breaking up rocks into smaller chunks a few times until they’re small enough for your rover’s crane arm to load them. Then you’ll be manually moving and opening/closing the crane’s claw to load chunks of ore into your trailer.

That’s only the beginning of the tiny details you’ll need to control and pay attention to. How about manually setting power consumption, dragging power cables around and placing them in the right sockets? Or having separate oxygen metres for your spacesuit and interior structures? I generally don’t mind this genre of game, but Occupy Mars felt way too technical and fiddly for me to gel with it. That said, this is absolutely a dream for a small niche of players who crave that level of simulation. I respect its commitment to detail-oriented gameplay and wish it well, so check it out if this is your thing.

Haven

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Haven’s a potentially interesting one, but the short demo didn’t give me a lot to go off. It starts with a gorgeously vivid animated cutscene full of life and colour. The actual gameplay can’t match those visuals, but it definitely tries to match the aesthetic. Said gameplay is very movement centric, as you control your character(s) and glide over the landscape to collect resources and investigate the world. At the tail end of the demo, it surprised me by becoming an RPG, featuring an ATB-esque battle system. You control two characters with their inputs mapped to each half of the controller, and you unleash their appropriate actions in combos or sequence as appropriate.

More than anything, Haven is aiming to be a story-driven experience. The two characters are young and in a relationship together, making that abundantly clear in their early actions and dialogue. It’s all set amidst a somewhat fantastical sci-fi backdrop, and there’s definitely enough threads that pique my curiosity. At the same time, it could very easily crash and burn hard based on execution, and there’s a couple red flags in the dialogue that make me worried about that. So I’ve got a curious eye on this one, and we’ll see if it pans out.

Learning Factory

I’m still not entirely sure what to make of Learning Factory. It’s not unlike Factorio, that delightfully complex game in which you build massive automated resource collection networks. The look, layout, and mechanics of Learning Factory are almost identical to that, but on a very simple level. Despite this, it’s got a very stylised appearance, and the machines are being built in order to sell goods to cats and satisfy their needs.

Just when I thought this was a kid’s first Factorio, that’s when it kicked off the learning machines and data analytics angle. You take the data from selling goods to cats and then refine it via these learning machines to perfect your algorithm and maximise your sales. There’s even a tutorial and links to educational sources for more about learning machines. By the looks of it, the developers Luden.io have a focus on making educational games, so on that front I could see this being a useful resource. It’s not something that I’d want to play over its contemporaries, but I nonetheless respect this approach and wish the devs all the best in this undertaking!

Ostranauts

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Ostranauts is a top-down adventure/simulation where you get a derelict spaceship working and set off into space with it, hiring your crew and making life work out there. Unfortunately, that description ends up being far more alluring than the game is to play. It’s another case of having incredibly technical mechanics that end up being really esoteric in practice. There’s an audience for this, but it isn’t for me. Instead, I just found it very unclear how I was supposed to proceed with actions and tasks, and struggled to even begin doing so.

In fairness, this seemed to be one of the least ready-to-experience demos I played; so much of this could just be technical difficulties. Lots of trial and error was required to even really begin, only to find certain aspects clearly bugged and broken. This is a game in dire need of a manual, but that’s currently complete absent. I get the feeling that I’d be able to fly a real space shuttle easier than I could a ship in Ostranauts, at least until there’s actual documentation present. There’s not really a lot I can say about this one, unfortunately. Alas, I’m not interested in seeing more of it.

Mr. Prepper

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Based on its appearance, I assumed Mr. Prepper was going to play something like Fallout Shelter. In practice, it’s much more a standard survival game with resource collection and crafting. Even so, the unique perspective and dystopian “hyper American Dream” setting and narrative makes for a fairly compelling time.

You have to manage your usual gauges for survival and scrounge what resources you can, but you’re also being watched by government agents. There will be routine inspections of your house, so you have to hide all evidence of your secret bunker and illicit activities. This means keeping your house above ground in complete order, covering up workbenches, putting bunker entrances under a rug, and so on. It’s an interesting little spin on things, and I have to say that I’m intrigued by Mr. Prepper. Will keep an eye on this one.

Grounded

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I’m still surprised that this is made by Obsidian. But then, considering the systems are largely just adding more survival and crafting aspects to The Outer Worlds, it’s not all that unbelievable. Grounded is yet another survival game, but this plays with the Honey I Shrunk The Kids formula. You’re a child/teenager who has been shrunk to the size of a bug, and has to survive a suburban backyard amidst an assortment of now very large insects.

Like so many survival games, the general mechanics and crafting options on offer here are nothing new. The aesthetic and concept of your resources being chunks of grass stalks and bug parts is remarkably endearing, though. There’s also a lot of nods to the era of ’80s/’90s aesthetics and a general Weird Science feel to it all, though. I’m not sure how much content and variety this will feature, but Grounded definitely felt more charming than I expected. Worth a look at the very least.

Arietta of Spirits

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At a glance, Arietta of Spirits ticks a lot of boxes for a somewhat generic indie game. Colourful pixel art, classic action/adventure mechanics that evoke memories of classic games — 2D Zelda titles in this case — and a story that promises to be emotional and personal? That’s all here, and there wasn’t anything in my time with Arietta of Spirits that I hadn’t experienced like that before. Still, that’s disingenuous of me to say. Something doesn’t have to be unique to be good, and Arietta’s demo was good.

It’s pretty, playable, charming and fairly well-written. The concept of the spirit realm bleeding into the physical has lots of potential to work with. Gameplay mechanics were somewhat bland though, with little in the way of unlocks or special moves beyond slash with sword and dodge roll. There’s nothing bad or out of place here, it just hasn’t really done much to elevate itself. I’d need to see how Arietta of Spirits plays in later parts before I can make a solid judgement call here.

Wild Terra 2: New Lands

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Wild Terra 2: New Lands is another survival game, but this time it’s an MMORPG. You start in the wilderness and have to gather resources to survive, eventually building up a base and developing technology. Skills will increase through use, and some scavenged items will be higher quality than others. Once again, nothing that the genre hasn’t seen before, but it’s got some depth and a decent amount of options in its tech tree to entice players.

What killed the game for me, then, was the MMORPG aspect. As an Australian, I connected to the Asia Pacific server first, only to find that lag and rubber-banding was pretty extreme. I tested out the gameplay systems and found them enticing enough, but swapped to the US server to see if performance was better. Technically, the latency was improved, but in exchange? Everywhere I moved to in every direction was filled with the camps and huts of other players, and almost all usable resources were now impossible to find and respawning insanely slowly. For a new character, it was practically unplayable. If this isn’t fixed or addressed by launch, Wild Terra 2 is likely dead on arrival. Some potential here, but the current state is worrisome.

Earth From Another Sun

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I feel like Activision-Blizzard is going to smite me just for even speaking about the existence of this game. Still, here it goes: Earth From Another Sun is a blatant asset flip that shamelessly plunders visuals and designs from the likes of StarCraft. If the thumbnail wasn’t a dead giveaway, then the fact that I was fighting a slightly modified Hydralisk almost immediately was. Mechanically, it’s a horde-mode FPS that tasks you with killing enough units in a time limit to progress to the next wave, gathering pickups and loot along the way.

There is so much wrong with this game, quite frankly. It’s a visual mess; not just for the cheaply-designed or copied assets but also just in how readable the UI and systems are. Nothing describes trying to figure out what I was doing better than “trial by fire,” as I had no recourse but to wing everything. And yet? I couldn’t help but find the idea of the game enthralling. A fast-paced and frantic FPS with numerous progression and customisation elements? I could see myself playing that. Or hell, just make a StarCraft FPS. Anything that isn’t this much of a mess. Steer clear of this one, but do take note of the ideas in the process, developers!

EarthBreakers

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Speaking of an FPS based on an RTS franchise, who else remembers Command and Conquer: Renegade? Petroglyph does, because that’s what they’re attempting to reimagine with EarthBreakers. It’s a team-based FPS where you use resources collected by harvesting or through kills on building up an RTS-style base. You can use money on upgrades for you and your team, eventually producing base defences and vehicles to deploy. Ultimately, the last base standing is the winner.

References to the original C&C Renegade notwithstanding, EarthBreakers is a decent proof of concept. It’s going to need a lot more work to really shine, though. Movement was very floaty, and weapons didn’t feel particularly satisfying to shoot or land. Hitboxes were an awkward affair, and currently the only vehicle on offer are tanks so there’s not a lot of variety. As much as I love the concept and really hope for it to be polished and delivered, I’m not sure that Petroglyph has the chops to land a strong FPS that feels solid to play. Let’s hope I’m proven wrong.

And that’s everything I played for the Summer Edition of The Steam Game Festival. The event is over now, but many of these games will be developed further and available in the future. Some are worth keeping an eye on, and some are less so. But overall, this was a good event, and the availability of demos is only a good for customers.

Here’s hoping the trend will continue, and I shall likely to do this again for future events. For now, if anything piques your interest, you can click the links on each game in the piece above to wishlist them on Steam.

June 26, 2020 4:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/the-steam-game-festival-2020-demo-impressions-lightning-round/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-steam-game-festival-2020-demo-impressions-lightning-round

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djsandok · 4 years ago

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Heavy Hip Hop Set Reflection

Last night was special because it put my journey as a DJ in perspective.

(March 13, 2020 - Mesa - My Birthday Weekend / The Last Weekend Before Quarantine)

It’s been a standard question to answer as of late: “How have you been dealing with the quarantine?”

I usually refer to THE QUARANTINE SERIES keeping me busy while explaining that I’m an extrovert that thrives off other people. This is true with teaching, art, and especially DJ’ing.

I came into last night thinking it was going to be a casual R&B listening session with some old and new friends---I was even wearing my favorite R. Kelly shirt. Little did I know I’d be playing for the generation that helped me fall in love with hip hop and DJ’ing.

I started DJ’ing after a road trip with my family to visit some extended family in San Jose. I was around 12 or 13 at the time I think. They weren’t professional DJs but knew the basics of DJ’ing. I was surprised at how simple the concept of transitioning from one song to the next was.

I saved money and bought my equipment. Then came my vinyl collection. Then came the hundreds of CD-Rs I needed to make to play the newer stuff and/or rare stuff.

I didn’t know it then but I know it now. I was part of the last generation of DJs that were hired because of the record library they had. To put it in perspective, anyone can be a DJ with a limitless library of MP3s now. You specifically hired a DJ because you trusted his/her limitations in music.

It was an absolute honor to build a clientele strictly from referrals. To this day, I don’t really like to DJ for strangers unless they’ve heard me perform somewhere.

(Bryan Black tattooing my leg in 2012)

It reminds me of a conversation I’ve had multiple times with my friend, Bryan Black. A tattoo should be a collaboration between the tattoo artist and the client. A client shouldn’t be forcing their vision of the tattoo while disregarding the artist’s advice. I feel the same exact way with my DJ clients.

All Bryan and I want for our clients are for them to trust us.

That trust is usually rewarded with something special, memorable, and most importantly, organic.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ej (@sandok_) on Apr 27, 2018 at 3:22pm PDT

(Skratching to Leon Bridges in my classroom in 2018)

I’ve been thinking about how I define myself as a DJ in 2020. Yes, by default, I’m a Hip Hop DJ.

However, I’m not really sure where Hip Hop stands today. I think the “good” Hip Hop sampling era died somewhere along where Kanye’s music started getting overtly self-centered and simply not good.

With the music industry changing drastically because of the internet, it’s probably really easy to find a talented rapper. Hell, I’m friends with some of the best emcees I’ve ever heard.

But what next? How do you market them to people on the internet? How do they make a career out of it? How do you connect them to producers so they can reach their potential?

That’s why I think the next stage of Hip Hop is centered around artists like Bryson Tiller, SiR, and Frank Ocean.

Simply put: you have to be able to showcase some musicality that isn’t necessarily based on rhymes and sampling.

(Toby, my munchkin cat, posing in front of some the most talented female R&B artists of the century)

Which brings me back to why last night was so special. I’ve been so stuck on the above mentality for a very long time knowing I’ve been bored of new Hip Hop for a while.

Nevertheless, I get really excited about really good R&B. And the 21st-Century has definitely been providing. SZA, H.E.R., Jorja Smith, Lana Del Rey, Snoh Aalegra, Summer Walker, and Jhene Aiko to name a few.

I’d like to think I’m good at spinning that stuff because there’s an intimate feeling with their music that I’d like to share with the listener.

Nevertheless, where does that leave me in 2020 as a “Hip Hop DJ?” Especially since I tried my hardest to have my roots grounded in the culture. I learned how to DJ breaks from Dwenz and the Foundation FunKollective, an incredibly influential figure and organization in the Los Angeles Hip Hop community. Did I abandon hip hop in the 2010/2020s?

Hell nah.

My first DJ mentor, DJ Redline, dropped in the set around 8:30 PM. My sister had some classes with him at CSUF and he took me record shopping when I was in 7th/8th grade. He let me in on all the DJ secrets with buying records, mixing, skratching, etc. He even gave me a BUNCH of records which gave me a sense of pride knowing during those times DJs are what their records are. I didn’t have anything.

Anyway, I decided to drop a LA Symphony track knowing we’re both big fans of them.

Damn. That was the catalyst that brought out a BUNCH of memories.

That was one of my favorite 12″ vinyl that I loved showing off back in the day.

I definitely feel spoiled that I have the MP3 and can play it whenever I want.

But, I don’t play it. At all.

lordnik0n_ was the first to be stoked about the LA Symphony drop.

I later found out he’s the father of a former student.

That student used to tell me his family listens to my recorded mixtapes all the time.

Little did I know that he’s been tuning in to my quarantine series.

The night progressed into a HEAVY esoteric hip hop set that probably lordnik0n_, Redline, and I knew.

Peep the set here. It starts around 1:43:00

As a DJ, your job is to play for your crowd, my crowd was two people last night even though there were more watching.

I never get to play any of this stuff. It was important to me to get a recording of it so I could listen to it later.

Last night was special because it brought my journey as a DJ full circle.

I grew up knowing there are really talented Filipino DJs before actually learning the fundamentals.

I learned the fundamentals through imitating radio station DJs (Icy Ice, Melo-D, E-Man, etc.) and other DJ Crews (Invisbl Skratch Piklz, The Beat Junkies, The 5th Platoon, etc.)

I immersed myself in Hip Hop culture by participating in B-Boy events as a DJ and building a record collection.

I built a clientele that trusted my taste in Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, Soul, Rock, etc.

I heavily incorporate my love and appreciation of music and culture into my English Language Arts classroom.

I was welcomed as a resident DJ at Mesa which started a shift in the music they were providing for their guests

It’s really hard to describe last night because I was thinking about all those bullet points simultaneously and reflecting where we are during this weird-ass quarantine lockdown.

But something really special happened when I was playing MP3s that I have as vinyl. All those memories of when I was young, naive, and wide-eyed about the world came flooding back to me.

All those memories came back and I was able to organically rock a hip hop set as if it were 2004 all over again.

All those memories made me realize that I haven’t really changed much. My shift in music taste doesn’t necessarily mean I’m abandoning my Hip Hop roots. It shows that I’m still hungry and wide-eyed about the world and want music to continue to give me the happiness it’s always provided me.

(Rampage, High School Sandōk, Sunnynblue circa 2005)

I wish I had more pictures of when I first started DJ’ing. I think I was insecure because I didn’t want the label of “Bedroom DJ” because I wanted to be something much more.

Kind of ironic now that I’m DJ’ing in my living room for y’all. HAHAH

A huge thank you to everyone that has been influential in my life. That includes my clients, friends, family, and random people that enjoy my music at a bar/club/twitch stream.

holla.

#sandok #djredline #foundationfunkollective #dwenz #hiphop #themostinterestingdjintheworld #mostinterestingdjintheworld

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witchofleviathan-blog · 6 years ago

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Master List Occult Servers

Astrological Garden The positive community focused on astrology and spirituality! Of course, you DO NOT have to be into astrology/spirituality in order to join and be part of the awesome community! We talk about various of things and the people here are amazing! • Must be 16 and older • LGBTQ+ friendly • Includes spirituality, typology, and other channels outside of astrology • #Mature channel for those 18 and over • Honorary members of the month get to choose their own role and color • Overall a very friendly community! We are also the most active astrology server out of all astrology servers in Discord! https://discordapp.com/invite/9ebTerJ Esoteric Enclave

Esoteric Enclave is a group of laidback and diverse people, connected by their interest and/or practice in the occult. There is a mix of occult discussion as well as general conversation with likeminded people. LARPers, trolls, and those who are easily offended are not welcome. Enter with an open mind or do not enter at all. We’re happy and proud to have a diverse gathering of people, but we will not cater towards the desires of specific people. https://discordapp.com/invite/jvpDpgN Mystica

The Mystica Discord Server is forum for discussion of Pagan and Occult traditions, with a particular focus on mysticism, divination, and magical practice. https://discordapp.com/invite/8yugWkq Sanctuarium

The Sanctuarium Discord Server is an independent, open, and welcoming space for Pagans and Pagan discussions of all types, including Polytheistic Reconstructionism, Eclectic Paganism, Witchcraft, and Western Occultism. For the puposes of our server, Contemporary Paganism encompasses religious and philosophical traditions reviving or drawing inspiration mainly from the pre-Christian traditions of Europe, North Africa and the Near East, but may reasonably extend to other polytheistic, esoteric, or otherwise alternative forms of modern spirituality. Members of more mainstream spiritual traditions are welcome to participate in our discussions as long as they treat our members with respect and dignity. https://discordapp.com/invite/8qznJYD Fulfilment of The Mind Welcome to fulfillment of mind we are a brand new community revolved around the spiritual including meditation, chakras, occult, astral projection, and many other topics we are a community with a open flow of knowable as well as fun games a PDF library friendly staff and much more. https://discordapp.com/invite/qS8Tfxg Sentinel Outpost

Welcome to the Sentinel Outpost! We welcome all paradigms, belief systems, and religions! Our primary focus here is to share our experiences with one another. We are not exclusive to one paradigm but we mainly focus on "energy work" and the topics that fall under that term. We accept all other names for this practice and welcome other belief systems. https://discordapp.com/invite/JBXyGY7 lowlight lowlight is a server centered around friendship and conversation. everyone is treated equally and with kindness, an enforced rule. there are channels dedicated to different conversation topics like dreaming, astrology, nostalgia, etc. always accepting ideas for growth. extremely active members can easily get a role. active voice chat.

https://discordapp.com/invite/p7QqtpX Cognitionem Aeternae

Greetings, fellow practitioners. We're a grouped haven of friends, seekers, and occultists. We follow Magick and psychic development. Our notion is simple, be what you are and do what is to be done in Divine Will. We have been growing rapidly recently and noticed a number of members capable of executing their knowledge, why not join us? in case you have any inquiries - We familiarize with diverse topics and specialize in Magick, witchcraft, energy-work, and much more such as Theurgy, traditional Magick (Ceremonial Magick), Evocation / Invocation, Astrology, Philosophy, Wisdom, Meditation, Yoga (Hatha | Kundalini | Raja | Bhakti-Yoga) and Pranic practice, Grimoire studies, Hermetic learning, ancient history. These topics do not limit the server of its understanding, teaching and, or learning (i.e exercising One's Will) any other topics to be included. If Hath One to join us, be sure to introduce yourself. Our focus also stands in member reputation and their skills of communication, if you are a beginner, we too would have to have you as we have plenty of teachers around (Including myself). With whatever concern you have, feel free to message me, privately. Thank you, and hope to see you at the Cognitionem.

-Be sure to read the rules.

-Be patient, after your introduction, we will assign you a role.

-We are taking serious students and magicians.

https://discordapp.com/invite/JPxR4jm EsotericAmerica Dedicated 2 the pursuit of gnostic consciousness & the esoteric awareness that we all spend our lives, knowingly or not, seeking or mourning the lack thereof... https://discordapp.com/invite/YMXgFhn Haunted Hub A server that's all about scary things. We have myths and legends, true crimes, even places to decode things. Staff are pretty friendly and you can suggest stuff that you don't see in the server. Their are some memes here and there too https://discordapp.com/invite/RXeVpqp The Upper Sanctum Welcome to The Upper Sanctum! This is a place to study and discuss the occult in all it's forms, make yourself at home! Tarot readings available. Please be 18+ due to possible adult content. https://discordapp.com/invite/V3VNC5s /div/ination • #divbot.net Divination Avalon: Fortune-telling, Bots, Tarot, I Ching, Runes, Cartomancy, Pendulum, Scrying, Technomancy, Astrology, Horoscope, The Future, Dreams, Magick, Occult, Esoteric, Herbs, Crystals, Philosophy, Quotes, Paranormal, Supernatural, Fringe, Learning, Fun, Div, /div/, /x/ https://discordapp.com/invite/Za4Kf8u Divination and Paranormal Occult, paranormal, and spirituality. We accept everyone. Tarot, Lenormand, Paranormal, Crystals and more. Community and Admin lessons. Bots. Disscussions Notifications for streams and reddit. https://discordapp.com/invite/wRpCYCY The Mystery Machine Your one-stop-shop for all things spooky, strange, and unexplainable! Whether you like UFOs, cryptids, ghosts, or the occult, we've got something for everyone! https://discordapp.com/invite/gBhkv7P Spiritual Friends A server for tarot enthusiasts and any other spiritual things. It's pretty quiet so hope that's not too much of a bother. This server is intended to learn. Please do not ask for readings https://discordapp.com/invite/cUMXDb2 Place of Light777 This server is a multipurpose place in which people can chill, spread high vibes of joy, get help and overall evolve as beings. It's a place where people get their sh8 together or those who have some of it together can help out others on their journey. In other words it's a place for positive energy where people can thrive and keep their levels of happy high. https://discordapp.com/invite/eDbcFy3 Temple of a Huldra A laid-back occult / spiritual server, for meeting friends as well as learning together. Focus is on tradition and experimental magick and meeting new beings / spirits. We stray away from using modern or mainstream content https://discordapp.com/invite/6qKbTas Black Moon Black Moon is a Left Hand Path server in which discussion is focused on the occult, "black" magick, supernatural, spiritual as well as all metaphysical things. It is also just a place to be social with like-minded individuals. https://discordapp.com/invite/FqzSpPZ Photomancy This is a server for hanging out and talking about photography (or other art), self improvement, and spirituality! We welcome anyone here, regardless of orientation, race, beliefs, disabilities, etc. There is no such thing as a stupid question here! https://discordapp.com/invite/B6TRBPG Arispal Come on over to Arispal, we talk about things related to paranormal. We talk about aliens, sciences, mysteries, spirits, psychic/ESP abilities, conspiracy theories, magick, philosophy and many things. Our community voice chats. https://discordapp.com/invite/wQmNZy5 Earth Library https://discordapp.com/invite/2heEj2Q Seeking Truth & Enlightenment Occult & Flat Earth

https://discordapp.com/invite/xBMwfVq Server of the Shining Star Welcome ! We are new server which goes for occult communities. The main idea of the server is to spreade peace and keep fights aside, we want to learn one from another and create community where everyone is respected and loved. We host lessons for different topics, such as chaos magic, demons, witchcraft, chakras and many more. We believe every member have other skills and abilities, and they can teach others something they are good with. Feel free to join us and check :-) https://discordapp.com/invite/SR8HVDY Minerva Tarot Readings A community dedicated to Tarot readings for Crypto, popular coins, general love, relationships, money & career. Private readings available. https://discordapp.com/invite/95kwq98 The Akashic Records The Akashic Records is a repository for information about metaphysics, religion, and spirituality. There are a few fun bot commands to play around with as well to help fill the time when you feel less serious. Come share, chat, learn, teach, and hang out.

https://discordapp.com/invite/U7f9Xf3 Island of Misfits (18+) Join The Island of Misfits! We are a growing occult-themed, BDSM-related discord community who welcome all people from all walks of life who are 18 and over. We're so excited to have you join us! We have much to offer, including: ⛧ Dedicated admins and mods ⛧ An 18+, adult-only environment ⛧ Self-assignable roles and levels ⛧ Hidden social channels (gaming, occult, cannabis chats) ⛧ Music bots & server familiar ⛧ Server events, movie nights, daily topics ...and much more. Come join us on our dark shores! https://discordapp.com/invite/jtA9W7D Sapien Medicine The official Discord community of Sapien Med. https://discordapp.com/invite/WmAvdFz The Wave This is sort of an anything goes server (except straight up harassment), I'm new to this so help would be appreciated. You can request roles and channels, and I will most likely add them! Welcome to the wave babyyy https://discordapp.com/invite/JTXBnq7 Surreality Welcome to surreality! A server where you can talk to others who think outside the box like you do. Interested in the Occult? Converse with other witches or learn from others. Discuss various topics such as divination, astrology, conspiracy, reality, ect. Join and help us grow today! Looking for Moderators also.

https://discordapp.com/invite/xRGHssG Nexus A crossroads of Mysticism & Magic! - If you have the desire to participate in the alternative spiritual community found across Discord, this is the place to start. - Nexus is a hub and a directory of the best alternative spirituality and related lifestyle servers on Discord. - Nexus is a meeting place for adults of diverse beliefs and backgrounds to come together in the spirit of cooperation and collaboration. https://discord.gg/2fH6jTK Limbus A friendly, growing community, devoted to discussion of occultism, magic, spirituality and related topics (as well as general chit-chat) in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. (18+ only please)

https://discord.gg/nGUdUSm

Arcane Metropolis

We are a supportive occult and magic comunity. We are very laid back and inviting. We welcome all spiritual and occult bloodwalks of life. We do require you to be active at least once a week. https://discord.gg/Czy9rXw Alethia | Áλήθεια Aletheia is a server for those who are serious about the exchange of occult knowledge through academics and experience. https://discord.gg/ZdJ5JbX The Spiritual Lounge Active community Many roles Many spiritual people Custom emotes Trained staff NSFW Memes Are you looking for a community filled with mistery and passion? Then you should drop by the spiritual lounge! We are currently spearheading one of the most active occult/spiritkeeping/spiritual server out there So drop by our server and see for yourself. https://discord.gg/uYts8Vn Infernal Suns This is Infernale Suns. It's got a certain vibe to it. But, it's for all the occultists, regardless of who or what they are. To come, and learn amongst one another. https://discord.gg/vEWzPgB The Magician's Lair Welcome to The Magician’s Lair! This is a Discord server for magic and witchcraft. We welcome anyone of any faith and belief to come join us! Here’s what we offer: Self-assignable roles! We include special channels for different belief systems! No more going through a billion channels to find the right one! We keep it neat, clean, and simple here! We welcome lurkers! Novice? No problem! Beginners as well as those who are experienced can join! We encourage and welcome healthy debates and discussions in all of our channels! https://discordapp.com/invite/NcDGaNB Cosmic Stars °:. *₊ ° . ☆ ✮　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .•°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ✮　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .• COSMIC STARS server is about a friendly community that loves spirituality. Maby you are new to spirituality or maby you know alot about it. Come join this server if you want to talk about spirituality and get help from other members. °:. *₊ ° . ☆ ✮　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .•°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ✮　 °:. *₊ ° . ° .• https://discordapp.com/invite/cdFr6FC Witches of the Night Grove Welcome! We are new server which goes for occult communities. The main idea of the server is to spread peace and keep fights aside, we want to learn one from another and create a community where everyone is respected and loved. We host lessons for different topics, such as chaos magic, demons, witchcraft, chakras and many more. We believe every member has other skills and abilities, and they can teach others something which they are good with. Feel free to join us and check :-)

https://discordapp.com/invite/9pEjDdr The Great Intent This server is dedicated to the occult, religious & spiritual discussion. Please only join with serious intention. https://discord.gg/zdRM8xp Knights of The Sun 2 We discuss and learn about the occult as well as topics like history, science, and philosophy. Join if you want. https://discord.gg/F4yeTjg Thornblade Forest Welcome to Thornblade Forest, a new server for Pagans, Witches, and Occultists to connect with each other. Our Forest focuses on creating a diverse, culturally inclusive environment where we can converse and share our knowledge and experiences with each other. We welcome people who are well-seasoned practitioners and the green leafs with fresh eyes still forming their roots in the magic and occult community. OUR COMMUNITY OFFERS: ❧ A main chat to hang out and converse with each other ❧ Dedicated Occult and Witchcraft Channels ❧ Voice Channels ❧ Discussion Channels ❧ Channels for Casual conversation ❧ Resources to help you on your path ❧ Server Index This is not roleplay server, each of hold our paths in high regard and expect the respect our practices are due. https://discordapp.com/invite/m9aS6Uu House of Healing Hello and thank you for checking out House of Healing! We're a community-focused group of people interested in the more easy-going areas of witchcraft. With focuses on meditation, yoga, and herbalism, as well as a frequently updated library, there's plenty to do! https://discordapp.com/invite/2RmMAM8 Chaos Cult Cult for learning about all types of magick; younger students and those starting out may join also. https://discordapp.com/invite/VNnYN7c Infinite Potential A server related to a broad range of occult practices where people of all paths are welcome. https://discord.gg/rxQqPef Occult and Divination We are a newly established secular magical order focused on learning and gaining knowledge. All paths are welcome to join. We have weekly studies and lectures! https://discord.gg/b5ut2nM Arcane Web of Jewels. Occult is a word meaning hidden knowledge. We explore spiritual domain operating on a level that is scientific and explainable, using beliefs and practices that work on a very objective and tangible basis. If interested in spiritual development and an elevated grasp of occult understandings, please feel free to join, we are a very open community. https://discord.gg/a5TaMrJ The Hellfire Club Welcome to The Hellfire Club. We are geared towards more experienced occultists interested in sharing their knowledge and experience . All are welcome as long as they have a passion for learning. We have library of books available for any members to add or take from, and a open forum for lectures. There are new Weekly Challenges each week for different practices. https://discord.gg/fbk5vkX Witchery This server is dedicated to the study of witchcraft and the occult! Joining our discord means you agree to the vast hidden knowledge of the occult shared through the eyes of witches from around the world. We have custom ranks which can be selected when you join! Plus MANY channels that cover a wider variety of topics relating to the occult! Join now and get started on your journey to power and prosperity. https://discordapp.com/invite/WNVpYK5 College of Occult Sciences. Founded in 2011 The College of Occult Sciences has aimed to help each person along their personal spiritual path. https://discordapp.com/invite/s68xCEv

#Occult

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