#i never thought i could experience a functional public transport system

[nordic-language-love]

Random af sentiment but my God I love the trains in Japan

[tommyandlala]

Editor’s Note: This is being posted a day late, we are now in Nepal, not Japan.

We’ve been in Japan for ten days now, but that time feels like it’s been either a blink or lifetime. We’ve seen and done so much already- experienced more Japanese culture in a few days than most will in a lifetime - while knowing full well that we’ve barely scratched the surface. And hell, we are certainly not in Kansas anymore. To say things are different here is like saying that fire is different than water; that the drab plastic facade of a cookie-cutter apartment building is different than hand-cut stone of a fountain adorning the entrance to a thousand year old wood temple. Can you guess which country is which in this analogy?

It’s a feeling that I vaguely understood about Japan before we left and was hit over the head with upon arrival. How not only is the architecture of Japan’s physical world different, but how much the shared history, traditions, and values of the people influence everyday life in a way I’m not used to at all. And maybe it’s because we’re coming from the US, where you can feel yourself living through a fading empire’s swan song. Where products and apps and technology and transportation and public space (and often people, government, and culture writ large) not only never work the way they’re supposed to, but, by and large, exist solely to take your money.

But I digress, we are not talking about the stars and stripes, we’re talking about the land of the rising sun. And it has been beyond refreshing to experience a culture that invests in making things work for its people. Utility and practicality are baked into every aspect of life. This applies to the most visible parts of Japanese life, from a train system that is extensive and frequent to some of the cleanest streets that I have ever seen. Tokyo’s population is almost twice that of New York City’s, yet I saw all of three pieces of trash and two people sleeping on the street while we were there. Obviously, figuring out how to ensure such a massive, densely-populated area stays looking good is not simply a logistical problem to solve but a matter of customs and shared values. A culture of respect, honor, and emphasis on consensus goes a long way to ensuring that society functions as smoothly as possible. There aren’t public trash cans anywhere, but there’s also no trash on the street. That’s because everyone, collectively, cares enough to pack garbage out with them and not leave it on the street.

And that’s just one small aspect of the culture that feels different in a thoughtful, positive way that works for everyone. How about the fact that my Japan Rail tap card also works as a debit card when buying food at 7-Eleven? And why is 7-Eleven selling such delicious pre-made meals? By delicious I’m not talking about a hotdog that’s been furiously spinning on greased rollers under an aggressive heat lamp for the last twelve hours. These are noodle bowls with veggies and chicken, fish wrapped in rice and seaweed, squid and brocolli salad, or a simple egg salad sandwich on the fluffiest bread you’ve ever had in your life. All for a few bucks a piece. And they exist not only because of the demand (people want a convenient, cheap, and consistent snack) but because even at the corporate level there’s a principle in creating something of value for the consumer without price-gouging or eschewing quality. It feels like what I imagine growing up in the American post-war years must have felt like: high quality goods and services; products made with care and designed to last; things that serve a legitimate purpose - and all for a price that’s affordable to most working people.

Ok I could go on like this forever, commenting on all the fun, confusing, big, and small differences between cultures, but I’m getting carried away and I don’t think the point of this blog was to be a deep dive on how Japanese culture creates a more benevolent form of capitalism. So I’ll end by saying that obviously none of this is an original thought. No doubt a million other Westerners have remarked about these very same cultural differences upon their first trip to Japan. What I’ve realized is that there’s a gulf between reading someone else talk about it and actually experiencing it yourself. And crossing that gulf.. well folks, we call that traveling.

[cloudninetonine]

A Player's Aid: Chapter 8

Fandom: Legend of Zelda, Linked Universe.

A/N: As an apology for taking so long on the last chapter I sped ran this for all to enjoy with a little surprise at the end. ;)

Warnings: Brief mentions of violence, brief mentions of an argument, angst, bad language, mentions of anxiety(?)

It was only a little past 4 when you reached the stable, everyone seemed to still be vibrating with energy, chatting vividly amongst each other and walking around to check out where the lot of you would be camping tonight. In all honesty, you hadn’t been surprised that any of them weren’t even close to being tired- they were adventurers, they were heroes and a 10-hour walk certainly wouldn't put a dent in their vitality. 

However, you were practically dead on your feet. The walk had put a strain on your legs, and including that earlier scuffle with those Chuchus, your whole body felt heavy from exhaustion. Your eyes fought to stay open as you sat back on a tree stump next to the cookpot just to the right of Dueling Peaks Inn, Wild already cooking lunch while everyone did their own thing around you. 

"Tired?" A quick glance to your left showed the Hero of Warriors, taking a seat on the log next to your stump, leaning on his elbows on his knees with a careful smile.

You hummed. "I'm not used to so much walking."

"Is that so?" 

Nodding your head, you wrapped your arms around yourself and yawned. "Hiking like this is reserved for days out with friends- most of the time I get around using public transport or my car."

"And what's that?" Wild asked from next to the pot, cutting up some carrots on a chopping board and then sliding them into the boiling water. “‘Public Transport? Car?’ I’ve never heard such a pairing.”

“Uhhhh-”

Oh, how could you explain this? A metal horse? A metal cart? Honestly, how would you begin to explain half the thing within your world? The concept of metal containers that would fly, a system that kept you connected to almost everyone in the world, the technological advancements of science, and medicine alike. The etiquette, the people- everything seemed to be such a foreign concept in the light of the Legend of Zelda franchise aesthetic. You were talking to real medieval men, adventurers and knights- your world wasn’t even close to a dream, it was a concept that seemed improbable.

Warriors glanced over to Wild as you blue-screened, the younger male shrugging his shoulders before turning back to cooking, stirring it accordingly.

“...Like,” You started, gesturing your hands in a sort of box, face creasing as you willed your brain to blow off the dust on its functioning cogs and begin production of your thought process. “Like a metal…cart? No-”

The knight gave you pity.

Pity veiled in another deep question.

“What exactly do you hope to achieve travelling with us?”

Your gaze snapped up to him, his expression, not mean or cautious as you expected- but holding a true sincerity for his question. Warriors wanted to actually know what you wanted to get out of your newfound allyship with them all, something everyone was probably thinking and while it did stir the anxiety in your gut, it brought respect forth for the man who was actually trying to get answers from you in a polite way.

Hands came to fumble together in thought.

What did you want from this adventure? Of course, your main goal was to return home, no matter how much you grew to like- no love this place. Hyrule was a dream come true, a very dangerous dream and you knew that in the end, you’d be gutted having to leave such a beautiful place behind, a concrete fragment within your memory. It would hurt, but this wasn’t a place you could stay, not when you knew you’d miss everything back home. Arguments with yourself were frequent along with this question- back home the world seemed so horrible, so the gift of travel to a completely different universe to experience the life of dreams would be something to take in a heartbeat, right?

But what about those you left behind? Your best friends without a single clue as to where you had disappeared to. A vacant bed with a whining pet who missed the return of their master as they nuzzled into the pillow that had already long forgotten your scent. A mother, alone in the living room wondering if you were alive or dead as police tried desperately (did they even care?) to get you back. You’d miss the memories of places too: The seaside with those beaches, the parks that had been trekked, again and again, the cinema you’d watch great or rubbish movies in with companions, the shops that you’d spent hours exploring- being pessimistic about the world around you was easy, but in the end, the true beauty of it all slapped you in the face when it was but a thought in your head.

Your home wasn't great but it also wasn't terrible. 

"(Name)?" A hand came to rest on your shoulder, your attention brought forth as Warriors glanced over you, meeting your eyes finally. "Are you well-" 

"Nothing." 

The man paused before raising a brow. 

"I don't have anything I want to achieve while with you guys- unless befriending you all and making it less awkward is something." With a shrug, you smiled, sweet and soft. "Maybe learning how to fight so my arse doesn't have to deal with more Chuchu burns- fucking hell those hurt. I thought Chuchus smacked you like when you accidentally belly flop into a pool-" 

The chuckle that left the blonde surprised you both it seemed, the man's hand moving from your shoulder to cover his mouth as it spiralled into laughter, the heat crawling up your neck at the deep, smooth sound-

I THINK THE FUCK NOT YOU STUPID BITCH-

STAY BACK CRINGE CRUSH FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL-

"Your honesty is humorous at times, (Name), but I like that." His eyes almost sparkled in the afternoon sun, hair blowing in the wind and ruffling golden yellow locks. "Melancholy is for the mundane, your comedy is something that we will need during this adventure." 

…What type of anime bullshit was this? 

Why were the Goddesses making him so handsome? Was it to torment you for that stupid x reader you made when you were 13?! You had sent that memory into the bottomless void with the rest of the soul torturing embarrassments-

"Cheers." You responded awkwardly, looking away. "You- uh, hm- You have pretty eyes and a nice face. Very skrunkly-"

Your face immediately fell into your hands. 

What the actual fuck, (Name). 

Your friends would have certainly burned you at the stake like a Salem witch without a shred of kindness in their eyes. 

‘The council has made their decision- to the Chat of Shame they go.’

Your stupidity would be pinned in the Discord chat for all to see.

Wild wasn't hiding his amusement, that was for sure, snorting out the spoonful of soup he was taste testing right into his hand, laughter spilling from his lips as he turned to his bag and searched for a cleaning cloth within his bag. Every single cell within your being told you to kick him over as he patted down his face, glaring down at him. 

"Thank you?" The Knight chuckled, patting you lightly on the back to help ease your humiliation. "You are, uh, skrunkly too?" 

You couldn't hold back the horrid noise that you weren't entirely sure was a laugh from bursting out of your mouth. 

-----

There was a certain tenseness around Twilight when he'd approached Time later that day. His shoulders were squared, his brows furrowed and his lips pinched in a way that the older man knew meant he had a question, one he was certain he wasn't about to like. Only to be expected though, it would have come from him or the Hero of Warriors eventually and he was not apprehensive about answering as he cleaned down the Gilded Sword from the Chuchu slime. 

"Why would you leave them alone?" 

The tone in his voice revealed a clear negative: he was upset, he was confused- he was angry and he had every right to be. The rancher looked up to Time with an obvious adoration for his heroics and what he had done today was certainly not that. Leaving you alone was stupid, it was cruel and the younger man knew better than to watch your form disappear from sight as they took position to take on the camp. Anyone could have stayed, but the old man had decided none of them would. 

Why? 

Time returned to his weapon. "I was testing something."

Twilight's frown became more prominent. "What could you have possibly tested that it would have risked their life-" 

"It's watching us." 

A noise of confusion left the man before it morphed into understanding, however, the conflict still swam within his gaze. "And you believed that it was needed to leave them? We didn't need to test that theory when it is something we have already guessed." 

It wasn't just that. 

It was with a heavy heart that Time kept it to himself but it was for the best because the younger lad simply wouldn't understand. Or maybe he would, a simple glance towards Hyrule prodded that idea similar to a sleeping bear. 

There was something about you and he knew it. It had started with your voice itching a scratch he just couldn't reach, it was relieving and sweet, his body physically relaxing and almost bringing tears to his eyes and for what? What possible reason could your voice do that to him? No magic was in place, so how? 

The answer was your relationship with the traveller it had to be. The man wasn't a fool, he knew that the Hero of Hyrule was hiding something but he also knew questions upon questions would lead to no answers. 'They resemble my old friend' is what the boy had told them that evening but there was more to it, that fondness in his eyes was all too real and he wanted to understand why. Time wanted to know if that same feeling of fondness is what lay too far in his own mind, hidden by a wall of darkness he couldn't seem to penetrate. 

So, he thought he'd test your wills. After all, if you were an old friend of the travellers, were you perhaps an old friend of his? Maybe seeing you fight would spark the fire in his head and thus the memory would present itself. 

It was only when you fell into his arms, whimpering with tears fighting to fall, did he remember you didn't hold the face of a fighter and he had just pushed you into a dangerous position without any regard for your safety. 

The way you clung to Hyrule had his heart squeezing with regret. 

"A guess is a guess," The man replied finally, meeting the narrowed eyes of Twilight after nearly a minute of silence. "I- we needed to know for certain if the Shadow is watching us. That Chuchu is proof-" 

"In what way is it proof-" 

"Must you keep asking questions?!" 

Twilight's mouth snapped shut, the tense atmosphere shifting uncomfortably when Time finally sighed, leaning back with a mixed gaze. 

"My apologies, I didn't-" Releasing another breath, he slid his sword back into its scabbard. "I believe that the Shadow summoned the monster not to hurt our guest but to separate them from us." 

Twilight settled down on the log opposite his mentor, leaning forward with his brows once again furrowed, however, his expression held confusion in contrast to his earlier grumpy scowl. "But we were already separated?" 

"Not far enough- you saw how fast the traveller moved. One scream and he may have ended our journey in no less than a few seconds." Glancing back over to their comrades, the two men watched the scene from afar. 

Wild was sneaking up on an untamed horse along with you and Hyrule following behind. The two watched as Wild gestured for you to come closer, saying something they couldn't hear from their own position before the both of you were rushing forward and jumping the great beast, frantically soothing it until it finally relaxed, your cheers loud as you threw your hands within the air in accomplishment. 

"I believe the monster was a ploy to get them alone so that it could strike." You turned your body, high fiving the Hero of the Wild. "It just didn't account for which way (Name) would have run." 

"The Shadow is smart, did it not think of that possibility?" 

Time hummed in thought. "It may be desperate." 

"Perhaps."

Silence hung between them as you, Wild and Hyrule trekked back over to the group, your mouth running fast from your excitement while Hyrule laughed, patting your thigh in hopes of calming you down.

 “We will continue this later.”

They returned to their own duties.

-----

"Who are they?" 

It was late now, the sun setting in the West and bathing the area in a beautiful golden glow. The evening wind blew softly, ruffling the trees and waving the grass around you with its gentle whistle, the flow of Squabble River soft in your ears, its currents beautiful against the light of the sunset and the water disappeared into the horizon beyond the cliffs of Dueling Peaks.

The camp was situated just by Ha Dahamar Shrine, the fire a beacon in the coming night as the laughter of men caught the air, the different heroes exchanging many stories of their adventures, some making boisterous gestures while others merely sat back comfortably.

You knew you couldn’t wander off, no, that would have been a stupid decision but you also wanted to get away just a little, just bask in the beautiful serenity of Hyrule. Big Twin Bridge was only a few feet away, somewhere close to keep an eye on you, so you pointed towards it, informed Hyrule of your decision and sat on the wood to watch the sun disappear from the sky.

You understood why Rusl felt sad when dusk fell as the world around you bled from view and the only thing in your mind was what could possibly be happening back home. Your hand fell to your bag beside you, rummaging through the contents to find what you were looking for and- there.

Your purse, with different important trinkets stuffed inside.

“Jesus Christ Wind!” You had yelped a little while after pulling out the thing, holding your assortment of items close so as to not drop them in the river below. “Don’t fucking sneak up on me like that you little bastard.”

The young boy huffed, sitting down next to you with an overdramatic scowl as his arms came to cross over themselves. “Not my fault you’re deaf.”

“You little shit-”

The boy laughed, missing your playful swat his way then leaned against your arm as you huffed playfully, turning back to the little photos in your hands.

“So, who are they?”

“My friends and family from back home.” Turning them towards him for a better view, you pointed them out to him carefully as you spoke their names. “That’s Marie and JD, they were my childhood friends at a funfair. That’s Amira and Abdul, they’re twins, we met them a little later in life and that there is Elisabetta, we only became friends recently.”

“And her?”

“This one? That’s my mum- we went out for her birthday,” You laughed, bringing it a little closer to examine the look on your mother’s face. Excitement, pure excitement after you drove her to a beautiful garden cafe an hour away, bought her lunch for the day then gifted her a pretty engraved ring with a card you and your other friends had signed- all from your own pocket. “She was so happy and proud, I’d saved for months to make her 50th birthday special.”

Wind looked up at you. “Do you have any more photos?”

“Oh, yeah, on my phone- hold on.”

Staring at the abundance of memories stored in the hard drive of the device proved something you already knew- you missed them all so much. From the cute nights out with your gang to the stupid cursed photos that JD or Elisa would sneak when you weren’t looking and those just such motherly images your mama would send of her pretty window plants, the food she had cooked while you were at university or work with the caption “Wish you were here! :)” and old little memories she’d find going through her photo box on occasion.

The Sailor recognised the look that glazed over your face the longer you went through your gallery, moving his sleeve to wipe away the tears that had slowly begun to roll down your cheeks, a small sniff sounding from your nose when Wind squeezed your hand, gesturing to look at him.

“I miss them too.” He whispered, “My sister and my nanny- I miss them a lot.”

The tears returned tenfold and your arms moved to wrap around the smaller boy who welcomed your hug without argument. His own face pinched with sadness as you sobbed into his hair, crying for the comfort of your friends and your family. It was nice to know that the feeling was mutual, maybe not even just with the boy, but for now, you found comfort in him, thanking the beings above that you weren’t alone with your longing.

"I'm sorry," You wept, "You probably haven't seen your family for ages and I'm here crying after 3 days-" 

"Don't apologize, distance affects us all differently." 

That's all you needed to hear, continuing to cry your heart until you were finally satisfied, Wind by your side your entire time. 

And at that moment, it was enough. 

-----

Getting awoken wasn't something you were really fond of. Honestly, that could be said for many, however, you were particularly angry this time around from your disturbed sleep with your bedroll being lumpy, leaving you to struggle to enter the land of dreams until well into the night, the first duty being taken by Four who sent you a sympathetic smile at your toss and turns. 

Wild wasn't spared any kindness with the dirty glare you sent him that only hardened when you noticed the lack of daylight around you, only the glow of the dying fire that Hyrule was poking at lighting up his quick to change expression of nerves, hands flying up. 

"What?" 

"I mean no ill intent: There's something I want to show you." 

Your face was pinched with displeasure as you pushed yourself up to a seated position, moving your hand to rub at your eye to rid of the sleep. “Really? Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

With a whine, you flopped back onto your bedroll, summoning the wills of a thousand suns for the energy of having to leave your warm, lumpy mat.

Wild was patient the entire time as you dragged yourself to get ready, too tired to even argue when he handed you a different set of clothes to your own with no explanation, but you honestly didn’t care- they were fluffy and incredibly warm as you pulled them over you while the wild hero talked with the traveller just a few feet away.

“You promise to take care of them?”

“I swear on my life.”

The friendship between the two had certainly become a deep one, a shared love for adventuring and deep secrets whispered in moments of silence- they were like blood brothers with a bond forged from flames. Having each other’s back was minimal, if one were to jump into a bottomless pit the other would follow in hopes of the following escapade. Hyrule and Wild were not a duo to be messed with, unpredictable and fueled by the fire in their hearts, the other heroes knew together they would be in good hands.

The brunette also knew that his friend would keep his promise, however with the anxious squeeze in his chest putting pressure upon his shoulders for reassurance the man needed confirmation. Hyrule couldn’t lose you again, not a third time, not after so many years with so little time together could the hero let you disappear from his hands when he had just gotten you back. Accompanying you both wasn’t an option, not with the others dead asleep just a few inches away, he needed to guard them as his morning duty suggested. 

So when Wild’s hand rested upon his shoulders, cerulean blue meeting hazelnut brown with a second promise of “I swear it.” falling from his lips, Hyrule swallowed the ball in his throat and sat back against his log.

“...Be back soon.”

Wild grinned something cheeky. “As quick as lightning.”

With a chuckle, Hyrule snapped his fingers and let the magic spark between the digits. “An oath, my friend?”

“An oath I shall make it- if that is what you so truly wish.”

“I’m ready.” You called quietly over, sat patiently on your sleep mat as Hyrule finally waved him off, the other hero standing to his full height and turning towards you.

“...Protect them.”

Without sparing another glance, Wild nodded then walked over to you, tugging you to your feet then walking away from the camp, further in between the cliffs of Dueling Peaks.

“Where are we going?”

“Just a moment-”

The reveal of the Sheikah Slate- The Sheikah Slate was indeed a sight to behold…only for it to be overshadowed by the tiny whispers of magic accompanying it, sending a shiver through your spine as Wild clicked about the screen, concentrated solely on his task.

Ah yes, you had almost forgotten, after a very busy day involving very homicidal Chuchus and exploring not even a ⅓ of the beauty that was eastern Hyrule, it was easy to let slip the current flow of magic running through your veins, pulling off the glove Hyrule had gifted you to see the mark of the Sheikah burned into the back of your hand, your eyelid twitching as you registered the tingle of the same power currently residing in it.

“Are you well?” Wild’s voice snapped you from your daze, glove returning to its rightful place as he narrowed his eyes. “Does it hurt?”

“No, no, I just- I think it’s reacting to the slate.”

He hesitated. “...If that is the case-”

“Don’t back out now, you’ve got me bouncing on my toes you’re not allowed to do that.” Nudging him slightly with your shoulder, you ignored the ominous whispers of the slate in favour of sending him a smile, warm and inviting that prompted a shaky one of his own. “Let’s do this! I wanna see what you wanted to show me.”

“...Okay” He nodded, more to himself. “Yes, let’s do this.”

There was a click of a button.

Then the world around you began to dematerialise- or rather, you began to fade, neon blue surrounding you with the whispers growing in volume around you. They weren’t screams, no, still hushed and mixed around you, but they were certainly deafening for the few moments whatever this was- lasted, your feet making contact with the solid ground as your surroundings began to phase in, the entirety of your body lacking energy which only led you to stumble right into Wild’s arms, his grip gentle yet firm when he tugged you to stand upright, face to face and meeting eyes.

“How do you feel?”

You blinked, then looked away. “Uh, pretty sure my arse is in my throat-”

The sudden look of horror flashing over his face made you panic, hands coming to hold his shoulders as you stumbled out reassurances.

“I’m taking the piss! I’m alright! I’m just a bit shaky and deaf at the moment, that’s all!”

“Are you sure-”

“Positive!”

Another doubtful second passed before he finally relaxed, taking in the deepest of breaths.

“So where are we?”

His smile was kind as merely turned you around, your mouth dropping in sheer awe at the scene.

The Necluda région was certainly a sight to behold from atop the hillside where the village of Hateno sat, but standing here, atop Dueling Peaks summit it was nothing compared to what you were seeing now. Green, green, green- it was everywhere. Grass was all over the land no matter where you looked, the many smaller mountains stood proud over the fields, and the clouds cast over the land like a blanket.

You weren’t reduced to just the sights of Necluda this time, however.

Turning to your left, you spotted Sheikah towers leading up to the greatness that was Death Mountain, the volcano’s deadly glow of lava highlighting the intimidating cracks along its surface from its mighty eruption thousands upon thousands of years ago. A familiar sight of two divine beasts in the distance made you grin, a whisper of their names falling from your lips. 

“Vah Ruta... Vah Rudania…”

Excitement knew no bounds as you hopped off the platform of Shee Vaneer shrine, to look upon the beauty of Hyrule fields, Hyrule Castle free of its plague of malice and a beautiful, broken beacon to the centre of the kingdom. Further beyond you could just spot the nest of the Rito with their protector standing tall on its perch above its found home.

“Vah Medoh.”

Then you sprinted to the opposite side, casting your amazement from the scene of the Bridge of Hylia over the Goddess’ great lake, the risen land of the Great Plateau just a few miles following behind and just beyond that the Canons that hid the sands of the Gerudo région, her greatness watching over the kingdom with what you knew was a gaze filled with a pride that was older than most.

“Vah Naboris! Oh my God, this- this is amazing-” Your eyes bulged when you noticed a fiery sea glass blue glow from a mountain top in the distance. “That’s gotta be Satori Mountain! I-”

“You’re about to miss the best part.” Wild’s chuckle was teasing as he grabbed your shoulder, gently motioning you to turn back to the direction of Necluda, pointing at Mount Lanayru. “I told you I’d show you some of the best spots in Hyrule, didn’t I? Well, you must see the beauty that accompanies it.”

Beyond the great land formation, sat the horizon and with it the rising sun, the light slowly pouring over the scenery and bathing it in its warm, orange glow. It was truly beautiful, this entire shot was incredibly beautiful and you couldn’t help the blubbery laugh that fell from your lips, arm running over your eyes to stop the amazed tears from running down your face.

Then suddenly you were hit with the pressure of it all. Kidnapped from your home and dropped in a land that shouldn’t exist, you met the heroes of Hyrule who weren’t exactly happy to meet you as you were to meet them, threatened by one, was painfully branded by Sheikah magic, had to walk for 10 hours, lost a fight to something as pathetic as a Chuchu-

And now you were watching the most beautiful sunset you’d ever seen.

You wished you could show your friends this.

“(Name)?”

You wished you could show your mum this.

“Are you alright?”

You wished you weren’t feeling everything so much at once.

“Hey! Can you hear me?”

You wanted to scream.

So with a deep, shaky breath- 

You did just that.

You screamed. You screamed, hard and loud and you made sure to place every pesky little emotion that had washed over you for the past three days into the yell, feeling the suffocating pressure slowly fade as you let it all out. It was long, dragging out for a total of 10 seconds before you choked on a voice crack and coughed into the open air, covering your mouth with your elbow as you leaned over while trying to catch your breath.

“What- What in Hylia’s name was that!?” The Wild Hero yelped after a moment, staring at your hunched over figure with widened eyes. “Why did you scream-”

Quickly, you turned, grabbing at his hand and catching his eyes as you finally spoke, still huffing out a storm from your very much needed vent wail. “Scream with me.”

“Wh-”

“Don’t think.” You squeezed his scarred digits gently, running your thumb over the callous skin with a softness he hadn’t experienced since-...ever. He couldn’t remember such a time when someone had treated him with such a kind touch. “Just scream with me. Let it all out- no one would hear it from up here anyway- what do you say?”

Wild’s brows furrowed in contemplation. “But-”

Your smile soothed his worries. “I’ll hold your hand, so you don’t have to worry.”

"But why do you want me to scream?" 

"Link, I just screamed over stuff that’s happened over the past 3 days,” You laughed, it was melancholic and heavy, but your expression stayed light. “I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel- so come on! Let it all out!”

“....You’ll do it also?”

“I’ll even take the breath with you!”

Stuck between a rock and a hard place- no. No, he wasn’t. You were giving him an option, not trying to push him into a scenario he may have not wanted to put himself in. Gazing upon him with kindness, grip encouraging but loose, allowing him a way out if he really didn’t want this.

Wild really began to understand the Traveller’s protective nature over you, he really did because he in a way felt it too. You weren’t like a lot of people he had met during the years of his reemergence- the people saw him as a warrior, the one to cut down the malice that Ganon had cursed over his home, purging safety from the innocent and leaving the once prestige Hyrule into ruin. The hero was supposed to be strong, he was meant to be brave- and that was all. Obedient to a T. 

But that wasn’t you, was it?

No, he saw how softly you looked at them all- with a fondness of a friend who wanted only good things for them after a lifetime of struggle and anguish. You talked to them as if they were any other person, even with those starstruck eyes you still joked about with them, sent them cheek and remained, what he guessed was, your normal self even in the presence of ‘Hyrule’s Greatest Heroes!’. Hell, your quick to blossom relationship with the Sailor was hilarious in itself, no restraint held as you tripped one another about or hurled insults only to giggle to yourselves after.

Usually, the first reaction to a hero was for someone to ask about their journeys, their adventures- their hardships. You simply threw what they had come to perceive as the social norms out the window and continued on without even a curious brow their way.

There weren’t many of you in Hyrule- in any of the Hyrules and he wasn’t about to lose you.

You both faced the rising sun.

You took in your breath once again- the man followed suit.

Then, without a moment of hesitance-

You both screamed.

-----

“Your heart sings of a tale of sadness, dear hero.”

From atop the great heights of Dueling Peaks, the Hero of the Wild snapped out of his daze. His eyes, which had been focused on the swirling malice storm surrounding the great towers of Hyrule Castle, pulling away to look upon the hanging blue skies, watching the clouds fly by silently.

“I’m not sad.” He responded after a moment, quiet and restrained. 

You ignored the comment.

“I get it, you know? They dropped bricks on your legs and then told you to start running- why wouldn’t you be sad? Be angry? Why wouldn’t you want to be mad at the whole world?”

His hands tightened into fists at his sides, voice holding warning. “(Name).”

“You want it all to stop, don’t you? The fighting, the malice- you hate hearing the mere word of Ganon but more importantly you hate how everyone keeps mentioning your life 100 years ago-”

“SHUT UP!”

He didn’t need to be told how he felt, he didn’t need to be told who he fucking was. Wild knew who he was! He knew what he wanted to be! But people kept pushing this narrative onto him- this life! He didn’t want to be the hero anymore! He wanted to appreciate the life around him, the beauty of it all! But he couldn’t do that with all this pressure!

“...Scream.”

Through his huffs, he narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What-”

“Scream, let it all out.”

“I’m not gonna-”

“Stop thinking for once, Link! Just do what you need to do! Yell! Cry! Curse! Do it all until your voice is hoarse! Not a soul will hear it from above the clouds! You. Need. This. Now scream.”

He hesitated.

You didn’t.

“For the love of the Goddesses- SCREAM YOU FUCKING FOOL!”

The man flinched at your authoritative tone, eyes widening at the sound of the pure pleading accompanying it before you were speaking again.

“I’ll do it with you!” You bargained, “Just let. It. Out!”

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds-

The Hero felt his chest expand with the deep breath he took, your own gasp following in suit as he stood to his full height, looking down at the sight of Ganon’s Domain with nothing but a burning hatred in his eyes, fists once again tightening when finally he opened his mouth.

And along with him, you both screamed until you could scream no longer.

-----

“-ild? Wild!?”

You were holding him by the cheeks when he finally phased back in, face way closer than it should have been as you looked over his form carefully, your mouth moving at a speed, way too fast most could comprehend- but he did.

Of course, he did, he had known that frantic ramble for as long as he could remember.

And by the Goddess had he missed it so.

“You there!?” You yelped when he finally sighed, his glazed eyes returning to their usual beautiful shade with a few blinks as you brought him close, hugging him with the strength almost mustered from a Moblin while you rocked him side to side. “Oh God, don’t scare me like that-”

A choke fell from your mouth when the hero hugged you back two times as strong, almost lifting you from how close he had dragged you to his form. There was no space between your bodies, you were being squeezed with everything he had, held close like it had been lifetimes since he had last seen you. Face buried into your neck, you shivered at his warm breaths before you patted gently at his back, wheezing.

“Are…you…okay?”

A sob.

There was a sob, a heavy sob, one that made your heart clench and your own eyes water from the pure emotion behind his next words.

“You came back.”

That was all you needed to hear before the smile grew taunt on your face and the hug was returned just as fondly as it was given.

__________

Tags: @nihilistic-wobbufet (IT IS STILL NOT TAGGING PROPERLY)

[curious-minx]

Zippity Zoomer: Mining the Minecraft Generation

One picture is usually all it  takes to transport the viewer, one picture can create many stories.

“Where Y’All Sitting” is an image meme template ripped from good ol’ Vectortoons, a ubiquitous nobody. This meme represents a leftover relic of the days of true Beliebers.  This particular variant of the meme offers up a collage of usernames turned public personas of Minecraft content creators, and is not in fact secret gibberish code that Gen-Z uses for telepathic communication. For the record, and for the sake of offering my own  POV, dear Reader  I’m a rapidly decaying millennial screeching into my late twenties. The following is an investigation into a NEW BREED(Z) of Celebrity, The Minecraft Streamer.

////

Millennials are more obsessed with generational categories because we have never felt an ounce of control in our own destinies.” - Me, a too wordy Millennial 

My first impression when I started Googling these names one by one is that Google generously auto generates the word “merch” next to nearly every name on this list. In the Age of the Hustle, our children’s children are hawking off not just plain ol t-shirts; but also offer a wide array of: hoodies, cell phone cases, coffee mugs, pillows, stickers (oh god, the  endless flood of stickers), clocks, shower curtains, coasters, jigsaw puzzles, magnets, tapestries, bedding (no, bedframes?), hats, fannypacks, flags, stationary, facemasks, baby onesies, coins, drinkware, pet clothing, and fake presidential campaign merch are just a smattering of the wares hawked by the people listed in this picture. This list of Minecraft enthusiasts turned digital entrepreneurs are all mostly various stripes of the same  floppy haired young men variant. An unyielding crop of snarky cocky content creators. Most of them are banking off of the success of a digital experiment that asked, “What if Lego, but as a video game?” No! There’s more to Minecraft than that! So much more and a decrypted boomer like me could  never hope to decipher.

Buy my Merch because I’m born to be on Merch. 

The cockiness permeating from these content creators is understandable. Most of these current Professional Gamers were raised devoid of a functioning plausible civilization. These Gaming Content Creators can have faith in the digital system  because it is through the stage of Minecraft they are  accumulating millions of youtube and twitch subscribers. All of these content providers are part of millions of young people’s media diet, websites churn out articles tracking down their love lives. People want to know if badboyhalo is dating Skeppy ? People want to know if Addison Rae is joining a Minecraft based content farm collective Dream SMP? Why has Tommy Innit been banned from Tik Tok? Why did georgenotfound boycott Wendy’s? Were Minx and Wilbur Soot really dating?  Does technoblade have ADD? Okay, mainly the website Distractify is asking these questions  the Google algorithm certainly encourages them too). This onslaught of articles proves that not only are these largely Minecraft based Twitch streamers profitable from a merchandising stand point but they can also be mined for tabloid fodder.  

Wilbur Soot - who is not an Incel. He’s just cheeky. 

The connective tissue that brings all of these names together is not just Minecraft and Game streaming, but the common cause of a collective, the Dream SMP collective. Apparently, young people need a collective to believe in. I know I would be lost without an Animal Collective or an Odd Future to help illustrate what a collaborative effort should look like.  Young people gravitate towards collectives and communities at large, because it is no longer available in the real world (and this was the case well before Covid). Take another name from the meme lunch room, Wilbur Soot, who is not only another Twitch based video game streamer, but he is also a musician with equally viral music videos . Soot’s general sound/vibe could be described as if Los Campesinos were extremely online and played less instruments (and just generally were worse, okay maybe that’s a thin, mean comparison). His music is not offensive, one song in particular “E-girl” finds Soot’s flipping expectations and criticizes the Internet for aiding an unhealthy romantic  fixation. Surprisingly thoughtful material that is trying to articulate the raw feeling of people plugged in since birth. Seeing  as most of these Minecraft based guys are known for being on the mic for hours at a time it does make Soot’s four minute song feel way longer than it should be. Soot’s got an impressive music production style down that makes his schtick go down easier. My verdict, Wilbur Soot is certainly a step above Hobo Johnson.

One of these e-boys were reported on for  making an off colored jokes on a Jackbox stream, and is about a complete non-story as you would expect. I am sure most of the young men listed in this collage are walking Ninja/pewdiepie hate speech bombs waiting to happen, but I am sure that kind of controversy is saved for later down the road to get over that 10 million subscriber hump.For the most part, this is bunch of dorky tech savvy teenagers who indulge in wholesome trolling and have a fixation on serving the Sponsors.  

These Minecraft based content creators’ main business pitch is a Maximalist Parasocial Bonding that specifically taps into the fan’s Good Friends based cortex. In no way am I adverse to freebasing on parasocial adult (mostly male) friendships. Being a human being, especially young and naive, is a lonely and miserable experience. People need all the faint grasp of human  connection he/she/they can get. None of these kids invented this dehumanizing that rewards people who strip themselves down to the basic elementals, strip themselves down into a celebrity sized square.

A still from the upcoming DREAM SMP movie trailer that is currently nestled at 11,100,784 views

Writing this article has been a personal exercise in fighting against validating every one of my knee-jerk reactions against these Simple Minecraft Dreamers. I saw a sea of probable goons rolling around in their sponsored donated money pits where donors’ flex control over the content provider. Give badboy Skeppy 10,000 big ones and he’ll shave his head for you and put on a show. Digging deeper, and I assure you what is lurking behind every seemingly bizarre and incomprehensible faction on the Internet is a longing for community. An all too real human ache and urge to spin stories and craft personal mythos. Minecraft is not the Marvel Industrial Complex but the Dreamers, muffins and potatoes could change all of that. I keep thinking that Minecraft is just a video game version of Legos and that it will one day fade away, but I am dead wrong. It is I that will be doing the fading away. The stories and servers of Minecraft myth makers will outlive me. My body will decompose but a Minecraft streamer’s plastic phone case will endure.

[jessgartner]

2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics. 

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020: 

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all. 

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes. 

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.” 

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented. 

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids. 

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold 

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day. 

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year. 

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me. 

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad: 

Travel down 70% 

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35% 

Gifts and donations up 200% 

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category) 

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens. 

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC. 

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love. 

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village. 

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.” 

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold 

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places. 

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors. 

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard. 

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic. 

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it. 

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will. 

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins. 

I want to shake with joy. 

If you’d like to receive the (shorter) monthly Life Olympics, subscribe here. 

[quirkwizard]

Wizdom of the Dead

Yes, please tell us what BNHA characters you would like to have in a zombie apocalypse :D

Well, anonymous asker, I was going to do your ask. But as you can see, it quickly got quite big. So I decided to make it’s only little thing that I could have fun with. Before I continue with my explanation, a few rules. I will be limiting this to six characters and myself, though I will allow myself to pick from whoever in the cast I want. The zombies will be the traditional slow kind. And for the sake of fairness, I will also be giving myself a Quirk for this scenario.

My Quirk: High Spec

I’ve talked a lot about how I’ve wanted this Quirk, and I think it is all the more relevant here. Whatever role the others can’t fill, I could feasibly cover by constantly absorbing more and more information. Just get me to a public library and we will be home free. 

Momo: I mean I kind of have to have her on the team. Her Quirk is just too useful to consider anyone other than her as my first choice.  I know food would be harder to come by in this scenario, thus making Momo just as much as a liability because how much her Quirk relies on food. I believe also that she would make a solid leader as well, able to make plans and organize us to keep us all alive.

Mina: You wouldn’t think someone bright pink would be useful in a zombie apocalypse. Besides her acid being an amazing offensive tool that works at a lot of ranges, what actually made me consider her for the team was how much she can alter the Quirk. On top of the acid, she could feasibly make glue, which would be great for building up defenses or making non-lethal traps. She also has the added bonus of being very upbeat, which would be nothing less than a blessing a time where everyone is grim, gritty, and hasn’t showered in three months.

Denki: While Denki doesn’t endear himself to me like he does everyone else, I cannot deny how amazingly helpful he would be. He’s basically just a living generator, which would amazing in places full of formerly functioning electronics with no electricity. I mean he is kind of stupid, but that just makes it easier to excuse the actions when the writers need him to do stuff to make the plot move.

Pixie Bob: Team Mascot! But seriously, “Earth Flow” would be amazing, allowing the group to alter the terrain to get around easier, make traps, and even make our own shelter. But the bigger reason I decided to pick her was her Earth Devils because of how useful they would be. We would never need to worry about transportation, the Earth Devils would do great at fighting zombies, and we could even feasibly use them like pack mules. Granted Pixie Bob is a little... much, but nothing that would be a real threat to safety.

Double: Bit of an obvious choice, at least for me. Besides being very loyal, his Quirk would be on par with Momo’s in terms of how useful it is in this scenario. Not only could he make great scouts and supply runners without endangering anyone, the doubles could even be used as zombie bait without risking harm to the main force. And even if the zombies wouldn’t try to eat them because they are basically walking mud, then that makes them even better supply runners since they won’t be targeted. Plus making doubles of the other members of the group would make it so they don’t exhaust themselves by using their Quirk too much.

Hawks: Who would have guessed the Number 2 hero would have been so useful. He would be an amazing scout, able to fly around unimpeded to survey the area. He is no slouch in combat either, with how he’s able to cover a lot of ground and be pinpoint accurate with his feathers. Hawks could even use his feathers as a passive security system since he can hear through them.  Plus his wings would make it so we have an easy access to weapons by using his feathers. Though one of the bigger reasons I wanted him on board was because of his ability to stay calm in a panic, something more valuable than ever when everyone is forming crazy cults or murder cults.

Runners Up:

Cementoss: Covers the same ground as Pixie Bob and would be amazing in a city setting where people likely will not be. But I just thought that Pixie Bob could do what he does and still have a little more to offer.

Setsunna: Does a lot of Hawks would do, but with the added bonus of being less vulnerable to the bite by splitting off parts of herself. I even considered the idea that she could use her Quirk to make bait for the zombies. Then I realized how insane that made me sound, so I decide to drop her.

Recover Girl: Her healing Quirk would be invaluable, plus she’s the only doctor we’ve seen in the series that hasn’t experimented on people. But I felt as though that is all she offered, not really having any other traits that would be helpful, especially with her size and age. But I feel like that combined knowledge and experience of the group, especially with Pixie Bob’s training as rescue hero, would be enough to at least get by.

[zendzen00]

Internet was WHAT?

Probably a high percentage knows that Internet really expanded between the 1980s and the 1990s, specially thanks to Internet pioneers that decided to come up with new terms such as “cyberspace” or with new acronyms like “MOO” and “MUD” (supposedly might be referred to videogames)

Yes you already knew that, of course. But do you know how Internet actually was? It was the coolest war machine! Kind of...

I will explain myself better trying to wrap up the basic concepts:

Internet started as a small publicly owned computer network established in 1969 in the United States. At the time it was not called how we know it today but it was called internetworking, in fact the term Internet only emerged in 1974 as an abbreviation. The “modern” Internet dates from 1983 with the establishment of a network of networks independent of the US armed forces.

A moment of transition happened when CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) adopted internet protocol (IP) for its internal connection and then consequently, in 1989, they opened their first external IP connection.

It’s expansion was also contributed by Globalization which was at its first steps. Naturally, further in the years Internet returned the favor by letting Globalization actually happen.

So, with the internationalisation of the internet, it’s first key applications were e-mails and bulletin boards. And believe it or not, the world wide web (or as we all know it as WWW) publicly launched in 1991. Then of course, the new century saw the rise of social media with the launch of Facebook in 2004 and consequently in 2010, smartphones took off.

But the most absurd part is internet’s technological innovation.

The Internet started as a vast machine that occupied a whole room and turned into a normal object that we can carry around and keep on our laps

Internet went through different developments such as computer networking, shared codes for transporting and addressing communication, and of cloud computing

The Internet became a connective software that facilitated accessing, storage, linking

Internet’s development of communications infrastructure.

Can you believe that Internet did all this in just thirty years? But the most important part was how Internet was at the actual beginning.

Remember when I said that in 1989 CERN opened their first external IP connection? Do you think that’s casual? I don’t think so.

Even though Internet is seen as an agency of peace, it was actually a product of the Cold War.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a satellite orbiting the Earth; a factor that was not really appreciated by the Pentagon, which saw this action both as a demonstration but also as a threat. In fact, the Pentagon set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)— a new, independent military body whose aim was to bridge the space gap and to ensure that a technological defeat from the Soviet Union would never happen again. The main idea was also to have one single network in order to maintain all the information together and also to have all different computers around the world function together as a unit. This network was called ARPANET.

Computer networking could facilitate in some way the development of a sophisticated military command and control system that was capable of withstanding a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. This idea led the military to sponsor a system without a command center that would be destroyed by the enemy in case of attack. This was not a problem because the military also had the idea of a development of network technology that would permit the use of the system even if some parts were destroyed. The military had different concerns because they wanted to have a networking system that could serve different specialized military tasks; in fact, this concern incouraged the creation of a diverse system that allowed different networks to be incorporated.

The military seemed young Tony Starks, huh?

Yes the military did it’s part, but what about other developments?

The military-scientific complex shaped the Internet but also the American counterculture did its part in the 1980s. Basically the counterculture reconceived how the computer could be used to advance its vision of the future. In fact, its activists transformed it from a tool of a techno-elite into a creator of virtual communities, a sub-cultural playground and an agency of democracy.

That’s not it.

A third influence was a European welfarist tradition that created great public health and broadcasting systems. While the internet was born in the US, the world wide web was created by Tim Berners-Lee.

He was inspired by two fundamental ideas:

opening up access to a public good

bringing people into communion with each other

Berners-Lee had the desire not to promote the web through a private company because he thought it might trigger competition and lead the web to be divided into different domains. This would destroy his conception of a universal medium for sharing information.

Now my actual question is: did you really know all THIS? Because I did not.

Starting off, it was incredibile how the military thought of a way to use the network in order to keep their data secret but only knowledgeable among the people who actually had to know the facts; in fact there was a contract between the military and scientists in order to keep the situation a secret. We can call that era of internet WEB 1.0 and the one of this era WEB 2.0.

The Internet is a complete different world now, in which you can search things and probably have an opinion, even though at some point you couldn’t have that either, or at least you could give your opinion but it wouldn’t matter.

Unfortunately there is also another kind of web called the dark web, which are networks that use the Internet but require a specific kind of software, configurations and also authorizations to access. Also the internet has its dark side.

With the rise of social media the Internet completely changed. From what was a military experiment, it turned out to be a daily necessity for everyone: from searching important things such as news to also looking for memes or school-related articles. Not to mention also how the internet and social media became a platform that gave access to bullism or actually cyberbullism; apparently with the Internet things can get better but also worse.

If the old Internet could see where the new Internet is at, probably it would tear its hair off.

REFERENCES:

Curran, James. “The Internet of history: rethinking the internet’s past”, in Misunderstanding the Internet

Levine, Yasha. Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet

[scroobles]

My Testimony Against Rictus Corporation

At Rictus I was living out my destiny as a Marketing Strategist, refining campaign messages and watching them hit the bullseye right between the eyes of our demographic. The deadlines were tough and I hit most of them at a hairsbreadth but I was tenacious and worked uncompromisingly to get things done. The multiple personality quizzes at the company corroborated this and they were hardly ever wrong, I suppose it was the main reason I was chosen for the post. I was for the most part liked by the office, although looking back its hard to tell what “liked” consisted of. Whether it was a genuine connection or just assumption of mutually shared moral axioms I wasn’t sure. I do not blame my colleagues entirely for this as it was the way in which were trained that dictated much of our behaviour in the office. We all started at the corporate bootcamp. This was set in the welsh borderlands against a hillside with a view of the beautiful foothills, planted with a ring of orchards circulating the property. It looked much more like a Spa than a bootcamp, I suppose that was the point, to start us relaxed and open. I was greeted at reception with soaps, lavender oils, bathrobes and shown upstairs to my personal futon. We were required to stay training for a month in total, which was asking a lot but as I looked at the view from my balcony I knew this was a blessing. The staff there were filled with a joie de vivre and an eagerness to please switched on at all times. Josh was our instructor for the month, he gave off the strong impression of an online fitness instructor rather than a business guru, his charisma was practically a smell, a muscle and a force field. This actually became infectious after a while. He made us run around in the morning as in any bootcamp and we were told physical fitness was a requirement, which non-maintenance of could get you fired. In the afternoons there were open-air presentations called “Transparency Classes”, which we would take sat under the dappling light of the orchard where we talked about the basic principles of business and afterwards moved onto more personal topics. It was clear we were to divulge our past selves, if there was any hesitation in this our instructor would repeat the company mantra “The more in light, the more we make right”. These classes gelled our group together and we became fairly close after the month was through, a closeness comparable to a first year of Uni. After this I was feeling refreshed and ready for the work ahead. We were sent in a busload together to the headquarters, had our checks, our cards, our eyes mapped and were led through the atrium to our Marketing quarters on the 1st floor, through the serpentine interior of the building. I was shown to my own personal Panorama ICE screen, I stroked the plexiglass screen awake, tingling from the power at my fingertips. One of the first projects to come to our sentinel was a market testing project for a new product developed called The Memory Ball. We were invited to test it for ourselves passing the ball to each other in a circle, It was a dull grey oracle, about the size of an easy peeling orange. I felt it in my hand and must have squeezed it as the light began to shine through my palm, I let go of the ball and it hovered there dead still in the air, I thought what a supreme piece of technology! We were given them to carry on our person for a week, as it took that amount of time to prepare your memories to be accessed. I came back from speaking to a test group who were full of bountiful praise for the product, I couldn’t wait to try it for myself. I entered their thoughts into our feedback vortex and headed home with anticipation. Back at my conapt I sat in my living room, unable to wait I began rubbing the ball, it started whirring and suddenly the memories of the preceding week came sputtering into life in holographic grandeur. Memories of the office, of the river from public transport, columns of rain moving across the sky in the distance. These images experienced themselves in front of me, I was only a third party to myself, blissfully apart but yet so near. It was a beautiful experience that would eventually in the end, turn bitter for me.

Society as a whole knows about Rictus and what the end goal of the platform is. Its products all provide a path for you to create an Exo-Soul, this is a perfect simulation of ourselves that can last pristine, stored forever in ether. You must have seen them, if a friend or a colleague hasn’t shown one to you you may have seen them acting in Hollywood films without being aware of it. Achieving a synthetic immortality is the main driving factor for many people’s use of the app, however for some this is only a side-effect of using the app. Creating an Exo-Soul was never my personal goal however, I didn’t really feel comfortable being uploaded into the ether for anyone to access for eternity. I was too self-conscious, even in death I would embarrass myself! For some reason I didn’t ever criticise this nature of the business though, I guess there has been too many socio-technological implosions in our society to even begin to attempt a criticism of this power. Anyway I knew it was a dream marketing tool, it converged our human desires, drew people into the app and gave them the fuel to keep pushing through the program. I had the Marketing excalibur in my hands but I didn’t understand the morality regarding its power. I kept segmenting and strategising, functioning as a consistent worker in the quadrant. The first time I felt that things were changing for the worse was after a seminar we had introducing a new appliance on our Panorama ICE systems. This new appliance allowed us to see the psychological make-up of our users, their names were not included but it provided a sweeping look at the real-time state of their lives in absurd, graphic rendering. As the presentation closed I went back to the lower quadrant to inspect this new function. My hand waved over the title “Pulse Systems” on the ICE , I saw the familiar hexagons slide across the screen but these opened much different information this time. I could access the romantic relationship satisfaction of users scored out of 10 with decimals, the state of users mental health, even the general characteristics of their lived experience, for example whether the texture of their sensory existence was grainy, blurry, black etc. I felt deeply unsettled at the information available to me on my screen and felt the need the share my worries with the others, we were meant to be honest with each other after all. I came into the quadrant mess as my close acquaintances were speaking about their home entertainment systems. I waited for my opportune time and put myself forward “So how’s everyone feeling about these new Pulse systems then? Personally I feel a little afraid of them y’know, seems like we’ve gotten too personal”. The look of puzzlement came across their faces as the collective mastication slowed to a halt. One close acquaintance Mary said “Why do you feel that way? I think this close relationship with our customers is beautiful in way, they can tell us how they are feeling and we can respond to help them, help mould their lives into a better shape”. She used the word closer like it was a relationship between between lovers, a strange word for a Marketing strategist to be using. The others were nodding I couldn’t quite tell if they were being genuine. “Well I just think that this information is nothing to do with us, of course we can track their use of the product but I think the extent of people’s feelings should end at what they think of the product, don’t you think?”. She shifted her position in her seat and said “The people have spoken Sam, they wish us to understand them. We can give people a 360 degree new life, our products can give them a new lease of creativity, an interlocutor for them 24/7, even immortality. The information we gather is inevitable and as you well know Sam, the more in light, the more we make right”. I couldn’t come back to such an entrenched position, I felt myself adrift, filled with a doubt for the people who I have been in the midst of this whole time.

There was a change in my colleagues attitude towards me from then on. A library of poorly hidden distrustful looks answered me, only the most perfunctory conversation greeted me in the corridors. I kept working on my projects continuously burying myself in the work in an attempt to forget. I was hurt by their coldness and retreated further and further into my Memory Ball. In the evenings my living room was graced with memories of many months before. A skyline the colour of blazing peach therapeutically pacified me, the granular vividness was astonishing and I could forever rewind and pause. Even zooming in on the dilated eyes of Pat my co-worker laughing at a crap joke of mine provided me much relief. One night I was working on crunching some reports for a product called “The Philosophers Throne”, which to our surprise became immensely popular with the elderly population. This was a essentially just a toilet but one which engaged you in a philosophical discussion, asking pertinent and paradoxical questions in an attempt to draw a clear line of thinking out of you. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, you could say hysterically considering I was alone with only the black night outside as a friend. Working at night was always a strange experience, it was like being in a fluorescent desert, there was a buzzing and squeaking in your ears you could never place, was is it in your brain or from some unknown source in the office? I stood back and blinked and feeling my attention pass through the ceiling I made to the water cooler for extra hydration. As the water filled my bottle I saw the light of a monitor in the managers office. This was against company policy so I dutifully went to turn it off. Just before I did something caught my attention. A header titled “How Rictus Challenges can capitalise on information suction from company targets” raised my eyebrows. To explain what Rictus Challenges are if you are unfamiliar with them, they are challenges in which you have to pass to move onto the next level on the app. These levels are Humani, Chrysalist, Exo-Trist, Wizari & Pantheon. If you make it to the pantheon you can have your Exo-Soul released after death, for all the world to see. I Remembered wondering how peculiar and specifically tailored these challenges were before but this all made sense now, I kept on reading. The document detailed how these surveillance Challenges provided actionable information on the company’s “enemies” and helped curtail their movements against Rictus. One example given was a customer who was told that he needed to ascend a hill overlooking a house belonging to a government official and meditate with a Rictus Headset on for two days, which he honourably did. This unearthed valuable evidence against the government official of an affair he was having, which was used to silence him. I was shocked at the use of our customers as vessels to carry out the company’s dirty work, I printed the document and made off with it. Unsure of my own place within the company, even the world, but knowing that I must act in some way.

The next morning my manager entered the office in his usual self-assured manner, clutching his morning Americano. I saw him walk into his office where the exposed monitor was waiting for him. Moments later he came out of his office with a fretful look, like a wolf retreating from a buffalo. He scanned the floor left to right looking for anyone else aware of this information breach, I averted my eyes, seeing this he became just a bit suspicious of me. For a week I tried to time my movements and miss bumping into him, however putting much effort into avoiding people marked me as more suspicious, I suppose I have a terrible capacity for concealing my feelings too. We were told for GDPR reasons we were only aloud inside our own departmental quadrants, I knew this was clearly nonsense, I was planning to explore another level higher up. I knew there was a level some way up called “Central Navigation”, where many of the corporate-wide decisions came from, a lot of our departmental prerogatives had its stamped authority. As I was thinking of this the manager sat himself on my desk, smiling with cold, concerned eyes  “Hey Sam, you seem a little pre-occupied, and I don’t mean with the work. Is there anything you need to tell me?” I responded reflexively “Well nothing really, actually there’s something going on at home” He leaned in sensing a good deal of hesitation in my answer. “That’s interesting Sam, I thought you lived alone?” He smelt blood “Uh yeah, I mean back at home, home. Parents not so well, I need to sort out their healthcare, expensive nowadays isn’t it?” His posture sunk back to its usual state from hearing this excuse, disappointed that his hunch had been incorrect, trusting me even though I was talking like a fridge “Okay as you know our prime value is to be transparent to one another, I truly suggest you speak to our Rictus councillors about this, we don’t want anything happening to you” “Sure” I said, “If this continues you will see them” he reiterated, “Yes, I understand” I said staring into the middle distance, with one desire to find what and who was pulling the strings above me. I knew there were multiple fob entries and no eye scanners, as they were placed on entry to the building. I knew the janitor for the building as I was a frequent late night worker. One evening I accosted him, and gave him a very expensive handshake for his participation in getting me up there. He said for me to be out of there by 9 latest otherwise I would be locked in and that would be the end of us both. The next night I lowered my Janitors cap and made it up to the “Central Navigation” level after getting past the fobs and keypads. I went to clean the toilets first and worked my way around the level. It was a darkly lit area, like an aeroplane cabin at night, I felt watched. I heard somebody coming down the corridor and made my way into the filing annex in an empty office. The shuffling and voices came nearer until I heard them enter the room. It seems the senior employee was surrounded with a coterie of lawyers. He began the address “Welcome gentlemen I have brought you here to discuss the new final clause in the Rictus panopoly. We are seeking your guidance on legal matters, needless to say this is highly confidential information I am about to share, if any of this gets out we will know exactly where the leak is, you can guarantee that”. I was recording with a field mic, he went on “As you have heard we are looking to introduce a new lifetime guarantee for our information subtraction operations. We are looking to build in a Final clause, one that we will vigorously lobby for. We see information as not something attached to a particular person, we see it rather like oxygen, none of us own this substance, not even the breather, therefore it is an open source material. This we feel should be the new basis of our information strategy. Therefore we are looking to introduce a final clause to implement a ceaseless subtraction of our users without any get out” I looked at my recorder I knew I had something groundbreaking. After it finished I waited a while to exit the room, in fact I saw the gentleman further down the hall, I almost saw the question mark rise above his head however an incoming call distracted him from further pursuing his curiosity.

I’m not sure what was driving me towards this new life as a whistleblower, I didn’t question my reasons, it was a course that carved out itself by the magnitude of the information, but maybe there was some reflection missing on my part. Anyway I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, the world couldn’t wait on this information so the next day I left for the Guardian Newspaper headquarters at 90 York Way. I waited at the entrance behind a pillar, I had memorised the names and faces of the main journalists I could trust, I made a note of who was coming and going. I saw one of the journalists exit the revolving doors, I checked my list and almost shouted she’s perfect! I walked from my pillar and accosted her in the street I told her I had a story for her, she seemed hassled by me “I appreciate your willingness to talk but we have official avenues in place for this sort of thing, please follow the process”. “Please you don’t understand” I pleaded “This isn’t your average story, this is about abuse of power, this is about Rictus. This could be a huge groundbreaking story for you, A Guardian exclusive”. She stopped in her tracks, visualising herself carrying the golden torch of freedom up a large hill, appearing on cascades of network interviews, signing book deals. She turned to me discreetly “Okay, meet me tomorrow at the Lebanese restaurant Taste of Beirut, here’s the address, come alone” she gave me a searching look and left, I couldn’t believe this was happening so quickly. I could barely get to sleep that night and drifted into a thin dream. I was awoken later on, not knowing exactly what had stirred me but I sensed there was something wrong in the apartment. I walked out of the bedroom and caught a light illuminating from the office and headed towards it. A strange sight welcomed me as I looked into the office. There was my Memory Ball hovering over my desk, restlessly searching for something, moving like a dragonfly with a sentience I could palpably sense, opening the drawers with its magnetism. The ball suddenly noticed I was in the hallway watching and stopped dead and we locked eyes for a couple seconds. It suddenly lunged towards me with a violence that took me off guard completely, narrowly missing my temple. I scrambled down the hallway to make it to the safety of the bedroom and slammed the door, The Memory Ball came crashing behind me. The conspiracies hit me at once, Have they surrounded the property? Would they kill me? Are the Guardian in on it? I told myself I couldn’t answer these right now and gripped the baseball bat in my hand. I timed opening the door at the exact wrong time when The Memory Ball was attempting to knock it down, it came crashing into my face. I felt my nose break and the hot stifling blood rush into my sinuses. In a pain driven rage I launched myself at the ball with the bat, smashing up lampshades, bookshelves, until I hit it flush and smashed it to pieces. I dropped my bat, collapsed on the floor and cried, my memories were forever gone from me.

I couldn’t sleep, I knew that Rictus were out there aware that I had some information on them, although may not be aware of exactly what. I knew the only way I could get out of this corner was to risk it and get this information out there, that could be my ticket to safety. I got off the Bus after numerous changes in an attempt to shake off any trail. The restaurant was a little walk away, however as I approached there were more and more people suspiciously looking at their phones, at me, back at their phones again, my nerves started to oscillate. As the restaurant came in sight I saw a thicket of people on the pavement, congregating as if waiting for something. They had their headsets over their eyes, one of them recognised me and they all turned to look right dead on. At this point I knew that I too had become part of the Rictus Challenges I had read about earlier. I guessed that their aim was to stop me getting into the restaurant, god knows how this challenge was framed on the app. What could possibly convince them to unknowingly but willingly take part in intimidation tactics? but here there they were on the pavement, as if controlled by a digital tapeworm, arms wide, yelling at me. I wanted to see how far they would go so I decided to run a circle around them, a couple broke off from the group and took chase towards me. At the point I knew that they would not countenance any failure of this challenge. I ran off down the road and kept running for a mile or so and hopped on a bus in the same direction. I was sweaty and petrified, feeling hunted down. I didn’t know who I was surrounded by, Rictus had more power than I had known, how could I have been so naive this whole time, even as their employee? As I was panting with my head resting against the bus window the most disturbing sight started to unravel outside. There were billboards passing with my face and body supplanted on them, unmistakably me. There I was waving from a McDonalds advert, winking from the golden sands of a Thomsons Holidays beach, loosening my tie for the latest Paco Robanne perfume 20ft above. This was unbelievable, what were they trying to achieve with doing this? What was their point? It took a while to calm myself but I saw quite clearly what this was, it was a message “We can make you into anything, be places you never were, at a very unfortunate time for you”, they controlled my own image, they were flaunting this power they had over me, I felt violated. On the way back my image was everywhere surreally laughing back at me. I got back to my conapt and shut myself in.

I arose as if from anaesthetic the next morning, the sky was dusk, dawn was just breaking, the somnambulant sky rolled into existence just as I did. I should be in work I thought but this was out of the question. There was something strange, the sky was different but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was mored here, but out of a strange compulsion I felt the need to follow my fuzzy curiosity outside. There was something strange with the light, it was hanging too low, I kept on thinking there were clouds over the sun, like there was some permanent dusk inside of the globe. I was unsure what had happened to me in the night. I was looking out for my face in signs but I didn’t see it on anything, the sides of buses still had the the usual faces of satisfied customers. However out of the corner of my eye there was blip, I swore one of the animated store signs lurched towards me. I jumped and thought what the hell was that? But it resumed its normal cheery animation. I kept on with the walk I’m not sure why, something had changed I kept repeating. The buzzing started to rise. I caught the tube and things really began to change. The holograms illuminating the walls glitched disruptively. Cities these days are full of holograms, I never knew just how much they have permeated the city until I ascended out of the tube that day and stood in horror at the demented chorus above me. Adverts were suppurating with iridescent lesions, popping under the pressure. Figures had holes burning out of their abdomens, some screaming drowning in the suffocating cathode seas. I looked at pedestrians as they walked by, but they were in another world. I had come to another plane of existence, one purely curated by Rictus. Every holographic image I came in contact with was sullied, images bleeding into one another with horrifying freedom, from that day onwards no image was pure. Each image, even internal, a memory, a lifeless object, fornicated pointlessly together. The days afterwards preceded with visual intensity but at the same time an amnesia began to descend like impenetrable fog, which made it hard to plan my next movements. I knew I had a problem as the desire to go back into my Memory Ball became all-consuming. At this point I knew that the destruction of the Memory Ball had weakened me fatally. I didn’t know there were any side effects from pure technology but I knew something had left when my memories stored in there, were scattered to the wind.

[danasukontarak]

Severance: A Book Review and Sad Self-Reflection

Work is a crazy place, though nothing ever really happens. The glacial pace of systemic change in a tiny bureaucracy, the sporadic spitfire of emotionally suppressed emails, the incessant hum of pages being printed (to be retained for seven years), all wrapped in the repetition of blithe inquiries about your office mates’ weekend activities or how the weather’s shifted into a new season. It makes for a bizarre life experience when you spend at least a quarter of all your time there, even more bizarre when all your previous jobs have been in stores, open to the public and therefore a variety of daily experiences and interactions without the pressure of real responsibility. My relationship to work has always been hella plebeian. I’d survived on minimum wage and credit cards, happily. I’d stand all day, speak to dozens of strangers, and struggle for the twelve days preceding each payday. Every day these days, I sit at my desk in front of two monitors and a landline phone, sequestered in one section of a waterless aquarium. And every second Friday, I receive a direct deposit in an amount I’d once considered far fucking fetched.

How can you really describe work beyond the actual work you are responsible for? Work as I know it is a place where you can be yourself, but not really. Unless, of course, you are genuinely a dull person. My mind is sharp, and though certain work activities get it sharper in practical business ways, most of my work life sends it barreling the opposite way with full force, in slow-motion. At any given time, you can find me in my head about what I’m doing with my life. I get lost in so much thought it’s not even funny. I envy how my cat can witness the same meal served to him three times a day and never think, “Again?” To the contrary, he thinks “Yes. Again.”

I used to pontificate about my future work life, questioning how realistic it would actually be that I end up actually sitting at a desk doing something I don’t mind but don’t love. It’s now been my reality for four years. Does that sound terrible? Not really. There are plenty of worse fates than an HSA and a 401K. In an alternate reality, I could be struggling to pay rent or forced to rely on unreliable public transportation. For plenty of people, that is base reality. Because theoretically I would be grateful for any existence with a semblance of free will, I guess I am grateful for this type of life, too. I just get depressed by the unforeseeable end of my company, as it erodes at the life force of its ultimately dispensable staff who’ve spent so many cumulative years within those four walls. It pays well. What do we pay, though?

I say all of this to say that Ling Ma wrote an amazing novel that spoke to me as a corporate, consumerist millennial, particularly one who’s been caught excelling at a job for which they are utterly indifferent. Severance is a zombie novel focusing on a particular kind of fungal-induced fever that renders its victims stuck in a cycle of repetition for any number of mundane daily tasks. Imagine obsessively and mindlessly printing and filing papers at your desk until you rot away from malnutrition, your mandible hanging on by a sinewy thread. The main character of the story is Candace Chen, a Chinese immigrant who loves to work and has no family. She literally works through a zombie apocalypse and finds herself alone in New York City. She’s one of the few who have avoided contracting Shen fever and deteriorating into sloppy pseudo-humans, but at times I thought, maybe her fever is just a little more functional. You know, like the difference between an amateur and a career psychonaut, because she’s definitely tripping big time at plenty of points throughout the story. At these same points, I also wondered to what degree I, myself, am metaphorically fevered. I’ve been waking up to work at the same desk for four years, unable to pinpoint any real moments of meaningful satisfaction. Is that really living? 

Severance is Ling Ma’s first book, and written during a time after she was laid off from her job and given a severance package. I remember when my coworker was laid off, not long after I’d started. She’d trained me to take over one leg of her responsibilities, but what was really happening was unbeknownst to the both of us until she was called into our boss’s office one Monday morning. Later, we talked and she told me that she’d been meaning to quit for a while, and that this was the kick in the ass she needed to get started on her own editing and proofreading firm. I am reminded of how inspired and envious I was, but what overshadowed that was my newfound ability to pay for things comfortably. Like Candace Chen, I was, and have since been, working for Kiehl’s eye creams and cashmere Uniqlo sweaters.

My favorite passage in the book is one in which Candace talks about her boyfriend, who’d expressed disenchantment and downright disdain for the consumerist lives they’d been leading in the Big Apple. He ultimately decides to leave. In a way, it read as me talking to myself.

I know you too well. You live your life idealistically. You think it’s possible to opt out of the system. No regular income, no health insurance. You quit jobs on a dime. You think this is freedom but I still see the bare, painstakingly cheap way you live, the scrimping and saving, and that is not freedom either. You move in circumscribed circles. You move periphally, on the margins of everything, pirating movies and eating dollar slices. I used to admire this about you, how fervently you clung to your beliefs--I called it integrity--but five years of watching you live this way has changed me. In this world, money is freedom. Opting out is not a real choice.

[humanitys-shortest]

Personal lil’post. I’ll add a read more thingy because it’s gonna be long af, but it would mean the world if any of you took the time to read. Thank you so much. 😊

I’ve never spoken about this really, but it’s been really plauging my mind for a long while now and I thought it would be good for my overall health to get it off of my chest. I know I can trust you guys with absolutely anything and everything, and I’m very comfortable talking to you all.

The reason why I’m able to dedicate so much time to my blog is because I work from home. I’m an aspiring photographer - took photography A-Level at college for two whole years and I absolutely fell in love (despite how terrible my college expierence was) and wanted to continue it further!

I decided not to go to University once I finished my college A-Levels however, as I didn’t feel it was for me... Amongst many other reasons.

I don’t like the term “suffering” because it’s just something I’m learning to live with and adapt too, but... I suffer from really bad anxiety, to the point where it leaves be unable to find a job or do such simple things on a day-to-day basis which any other person who functions without anxiety would be able to do normally; such as go to the shops and pay for their own shopping, or even getting on public transport without having a severe panic attack. I don’t want to get too much into depths about this, but it’s one of the hardest things I’m dealing with right now and I want you guys to know that if I ever don’t respond to your comments or messages, it’s not because i’m being ignorant or ignoring you. I just have a really big difficulty with communicating with other people and I hope I don’t upset any of you because of this!

Right now, I’ve had a year break from education after finishing college. I thought maybe I’d change my mind about what I want to do during this time, as all of my teachers kept encouraging me to go University, like it was the only choice I had. But in my mind, if I’m not one hundred percent sure that University is for me, then why commit to such a big life choice? It sucks that University is so much money, too. I’d be in debt for such a long time, for something that I don’t even know if it’s for me or not. I see it as a sort of product, you know? What if I ended up dropping out? I’d still be in all of that debt and - with the really tough times I dealt with in high-school and college, I think it’s safe to say I’m done with the education system for a long while.

My anxiety is really up and down. Some months I feel like I’m getting better, other months I feel like I’m getting worse. I’m currently not seeing anyone/any doctor for my mental health, and I know I really should, but that exactly one of the things I can’t do. Like, physically can’t. I can’t even begin to explain how nauseous it makes me feel and I’m really trying to get better with the thought of going into big situations like this.

I’m really, really lucky that I have my boyfriend. I’ve been with him for eight years come the nineteenth of this month, and we started of in a long distance relationship. He moved over to the UK for me in 2017, and I am so, so happy and thankful for all of the constant support and love he’s been giving me. I wouldn’t be able to cope if it wasn’t for him, I have no idea where I’d be and what I’d be doing. In short, i’m not exactly in a good place with my family, but I know that I’m more fortunate then others, so I really don’t want to delve into that and complain either.

But it makes me feel so upset that I can’t... Do anything to help and support my boyfriend in terms of our financial state myself. He has a really good job and he earns enough money to support me too whilist supporting himself, but I just wish I could do more. He knows how difficult it can get for me. He’s seen me at my worst... He doesn’t want me to get a job because of it - he tells me constantly that we’ll be just fine for years until I’m “ready” to look for a job, and he doesn’t mind supporting me to the ends of the earth and back. He wants me to find something from home, and he’s constantly helping and encouraging me with that, too.

I have done a lot of YouTube work in the past, but I never got paid for any of it due to the fact that it was all animation based and I used material from other people; therefore I couldn’t earn money for using other peoples work/copyrighted material. I have started social media accounts/platforms for my photography work for about a year now, and I just don’t know how to boost myself/get the attention over on said platforms. I have also been doing my Sims stuff for nearly a year now too and...It makes me feel so motivated to have all of this to work on. It means so much to have all of you guys supporting me and filling me with confidence each and every single day. 😊

I was wondering if any of you had any pointers on any of the stuff I’ve written about, whether it be about your experiences with mental health and/or anxiety, or perhaps a way I could boost myself on social media platforms and get attention to my photography work. You can message me privately or even drop a message on anon if you’d like to talk, I’d be more then happy to respond whenever I can. 💛

I was also thinking about starting a Ko-fi... But I wouldn’t know where to begin, or if it’s the right thing to do, and I don’t want to come across like I’m asking/begging anyone for money because I’m really, really not. But I’ve been told about Ko-fi numerous of times, and that I should perhaps start one because some of you guys have offered to drop me a few coins for my work like - how? Why? I don’t deserve that! You guys are just - so so lovely and I can not process how lucky I feel and how thankful I am for all of you.

Again, thank you so much for all of your support, and thank you for reading through all of this bumbling mess if you took the time too! I’m really not trying to come across as attention seeking, goodness knows it’s taken me a long time to be vocal about this on social media and I still don’t know if I’ve explained this well at all, but I really want to bring more confidence and positivity in my life during 2019, and I know I have a lot of support here on my blog and it’s the most comfortable place I feel like starting at. 

Thank you thank you thank you, all of you. 💛💛💛

I’m sorry for any typos or spelling errors, I tried to proof read but I’m just a big dummy. I’ll also post links to my photography pages below, and any likes/comments would actually make me cry. No joke. Thank you. :’)

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[thirdrategenius-blog]

Okay, who is "ThirdRateGenius?"

I feel a brief back-story will help A LOT of people understand why I think or act the way I do.

There's a lot I don't know. I wasn't allowed to graduate high school because people lied, saying I was dangerous. Fortunately, a jury of my peers in a county court of law said, "No, he isn't." Unfortunately, the school system still threw me away, and wouldn't let me re-enroll.

In my late-20s, I went to a psychologist to discuss my attention problems. The battery of tests revealed, among other things, that my IQ was in the upper 99th percentile.

I began cognitive behavioral therapy, and began a prescription stimulant regimen, and was soon promoted at the restaurant I worked for. (I guess you could say I've always enjoyed "feeding the masses.")

In 2013, my father died under suspicious circumstances. His wife forgot to inform his only child about the death in the family. I imagine her forgetfulness was rooted in the fact that they didn't get married until he was medically declared "Class 5 Mentally Handicapped" -- the most extreme option on the doctor's clipboard. Until that moment, I don't think anyone had seen "Multiple Sclerosis" as a cause of death. Then again, no doctor, judge, or medical examiner even *looked* at his body before 'signing' the death certificate.

His mother died 6 months later. She collapsed at home and went to the hospital, where they assigned her to hospice. While her boyfriend was in the cab home to pick up clothes and toiletries, the hospital called to say those items would no longer be necessary.

After another six months, I was hospitalized for the 1st time in my life. Some unknown, debilitating gastrointestinal issue. A week later, they sent me home with no explanation.

A couple years later, I was hospitalized a 2nd time. After days of violent body convulsions & intermittent consciousness, I walked into the ER with 174/40 blood pressure. The admitting nurse seemed impressed with my ability to communicate & maneuver.

I spent 3 days in "No-Contact ICU." My friends and family had to put on surgical gowns, masks, and gloves before they walked through the 2nd set of sliding glass doors into my room. We were told it was 'just a precaution.'

Feeling I was about 3-quarts low, I suggested they run a "Paranoid Array," as I called it. (Aresnic, Cynide, Ricin, Organic Mercury, etc.) They laughed, but sent a nurse in muttering something like, "They don't think its necessary, so he'll probably have to pay for this one out-of-pocket." She drew LOTS of blood and left me to think about what I had done.

Two hours later, a few doctors came in without the 'proper attire' and informed my mother she could finally touch her child.

They hooked a 1-liter *glass* bottle into my IV; and informed me I'd be moved to a traditional room later that evening.

They never told me what, exactly was wrong with me. But, I also still haven't seen a bill from that Paranoid Array. (I'm guessing it was because doctors aren't used to laughing very often.)

The 3rd time I was hospitalized, it was entirely my fault. Suffice it to say, "I got into an entanglement of my own emotions." Yes, I have quite a bit to write about that particular experience, though it wasn't the first time my body informed me that our relationship wasn't quite over.

But that's for another post.

Today, I'm trying *desperately* to find a job of any kind. Any kind of income, whatsoever. Scrubbing toilets would be fine by this point... a bicycle being my only mode of transportation is, comically, the least of my worries.

No electricity at my house is complicating the job-hunt even more.

No running water is complicating my ability to sit, uninterrupted, in a public place to fill out online applications, check messages, or charge my phone & battery packs. Librarians, coffee shop employees & retail managers all have sensitive noses, apparently. Not to mention I probably handed them an application not too long ago.

Since there's no water, not having natural gas at the house only complicates heat & cooking. I sleep where the fireplace is, the living room, on the couch with my dog, Edison.

Until poverty, I would have never thought to use a residential fireplace to cook variety of pasta or rice along with various other canned or dried 'somewhat edibles.' I even went so far as to attach a few anchors and 'support systems' for racks, hooks, bars, etc.

Though, lately, no income has translated the same amount of food, which I'm told is supposed to be important for some random human function.

In the interim, I'm sticking to my go-to stress relief: writing. And picking up some new hobbies along the way: Carpentry & woodworking, drawing (digital & paper), and photography. Obviously, the 'electricity issue' doesn't allow much improvement for some a couple of those, but my sanity's in triage over here.

LAST THING, I SWEAR: If you can't tell, I'm VERY new to Tumblr...

Twitter has been my medium of choice lately, so feel free to stalk me there if you're really interested in knowing now..

There's a few things on Instagram, too.

I've posted maybe 1 comment on Reddit & still setting up a "ThirdRateGenius" page on Facebook...

And, uh. my Grindr & Scruff profiles have been around for a while, but those aren't exactly for everyone... but, if you're in the area, you should be warned: I'm not on my ADHD meds these days.

[devilsurvivor-2-recordbreaker]

The frowning reflection staring back into VR Chat

I’ve tried on many many many occasions to try and use VR Chat. However everytime I do I always end up getting angry at my self whatever maybe the cause: hardware buffering and slowing down, the game chugging to try and load over a dozen pixel sharp models of anime girls, me unable to get my computer to register my voice or the mic not functioning, or just me struggling to say a simple hello.

I always end up seeing myself in real life when I do that. A constant struggle to try and claw open my mouth and say ‘how are you’. A nervous and stressful experience riddled with what ifs and cold sweats as I figit in every way as I desperately attempt to prepare myself to take that first step. Checking the time over and over, replaying scenarios until I’ve mastered the art of not talking to the person. Watching them leave and still blaming myself for being unable to get anywhere closer. Doing all over again and again and again and again til i close the software/leave the space and grouchily metaphorically convince myself that the next time will be different. That maybe the next person will be easier to talk to.

Same with pretty much every else internet or the irl.

School; discord servers; clubs; stores; tumblr; pretty much a majority of places where you’d expect to meet friends you know go here and chat for awhile and do it all over again some time later. I still get into feverish conditions just trying to talk to people at times, I still occasionally struggle to communicate with others, it still feels like I’m that kid who could barely speak for himself and believed that no one would even hear me. I still feel like that when I try to join a conversation and just get talked over, its a immediate stop sign because it feels like no matter what its just easier to keep silent than bother to say anything because you know no one will listen for the most part. Your settings all jammed and your system over heating barley able to process everything around you because you never learned how to do something as to ‘properly learn how to talk with others.

Perhaps a portion of that can be explained due to my autism.

I struggled to communicate for a long time before middle school when i felt more comfortable talking with others. I always had one or two good friends in elementary because it was alot easier to have one than many to me. But that only made it harder when that friend left, and I was left to try find someone to fill that hole for friendship among my peers. Ever since I was young I always had trouble trying to make friends, the majority I became familiar were just acquaintances and peers while others I considered closer: these people were friends to me. But they all left, either due to my own negligence, faults, or for other reasons beyond my control. I appreciate those who stuck around before leaving as well but seeing them go too was still hurt like hell.

Perhaps another could be attributed to that lose of friends, a now formed anxiety that if I don’t make friends then I never will.

perhaps another could be how the harsh break-ups I had with atleast three friends sent me into a spiraling depression. How during this time I swore to never make friends again to protect myself from this ever happening again. Hiding in a shell to keep myself safe.

Maybe even more could I point the finger at the structure of American community structure as with the design of suburban neighborhoods being a total wasteland mixed with the unreliable on foot or public transportation where I am, added the lack of a third place between work and home to build such relations ships I was stuck in my own head anyways.

That no matter what were to happen or where I was to go in life. I still be a sad lonely and confused boy barely able to keep himself from crying when he could not stand the thought of being alone in his social life only to be surrounded by it.

I could blame many different things. but the bottom line is that: a uncut and fearful loneliness which persuades me to hopelessly try and create a simulacrum of social interaction with others just to realize how stupid this is, tear everything down, and wallow til I try to do the thing that failed me once more so I can feel better for just long enough to keep myself from entirely breaking down.

So i go on VR Chat and only see the frowning reflection staring back at me.

[thistimelasttuesday]

fish bowl world

they say they are hammerhead sharks.

when they are obviously not shaped like hammerheads

not with their great bellies above our roof.

they said we need scuba gear so the sharks won't eat us.

they said sharks don't like to eat anything manufactured.

i could not understand for the world what that means.

but they haven't been eating the...

======================================

Fish Bowl World

It was the year we stayed indoors, only half a decade after the entire city had gone underwater. For the most part, the entire population was rattled and anxious because of the uncertainty of our lives, as if we ever actually knew what was going to happen. However, as we all eventually do, we get used to it and forget how odd our situation is. Whatever is present isn’t odd and whatever can fit in a giant’s mouth can be eaten. I am writing this in my living room. The temperature is cold, as it always is these days, and my kids, Felix and Sam, are watching the outside world by the window. They established this habit earlier this year when the sharks finally swam down our street. I didn’t want to feel alone in my feelings, and so I’m memorializing my experiences and my thoughts, in the hopes that maybe when the debris of this modern Atlantis finds its way back home on land, granted that the sun has still not scorched the rest of civilization, someone might be moved and understand what a difficult year it has been for the rest of us and what a difficult life it has and will continue to be.

We learned all kinds of words we didn’t use before this year, like how a group of sharks is called a shiver, which makes a shiver run down your spine when you gaze at their enormous bellies from your roof. Most of the time, they’re quite peaceful and they slowly languid in the sunlight dancing in the waves. It makes me forget how many people are in those bellies and how they’re causing so much chaos in our predictable and programmed lives. Many people say that they needed this break and it was such a blessing, and in many ways, I agree, but I find it callous to say out loud, so I only echo it in my mind whenever I can lie down and feel the slightest warmth from the morning 200 meters away from me. It disappears quickly because a shark would pass by, but some days, they don’t and I get to watch my wife Yves fondly as she works on her paint-by-number set.

None us are sure, not even the government, why the sharks came, where are they from, and how to get rid of them. It’s sad how we haven’t even thought of a flashy, new name for the sharks other than a shiver of sharks. However, let me explain further. The sharks don’t actually hunt and kill us. We can swim out on the street and visit the neighbors or have a lovely dinner by the bistro that served 3 free appetizers on weekends. It’s just that no one knows what could attract the sharks and cause them to go rabid. There’s a difference in their nature that no one knows yet. Some stories get published online about how there are even children who have touched the sharks. It gets drowned out by public criticism since kids shouldn’t go outside when the sharks are so dangerous. Some people think the sharks are so adorable, but some think they’re holograms. They get reprimanded by people whose friends or co-workers were bitten, or worse, eaten by the sharks. But whenever I see them, I see only black eyes like olives and one time, a snaggled tooth by the edge of its mouth.

The sharks look like Great Whites, and most people think they are. But the news says it’s an unidentified species. The news is always done by the presidential spokesperson and his team. I don’t listen to it, but it’s the only way to get information that resembles some form of truth, so one way or another, I hear about it. But it never is enough for me. The same presidential spokesperson said that the sharks were Hammerheads when they first started appearing in January. Every encyclopedia about sharks were sold out because of that, because no one for the life of them knew what a Hammerhead was, but based on my own cross-analysis the sharks actually looked like a very delicate child of the in-breeding of a Basking shark (because of their normal state, when they would just gently swim near the pavement), a Bull shark (because of their thick bodies and their likelihood to attack people), and a Thresher shark (because of their long tail fins). You could imagine why it was hard to believe the presidential spokesperson came to the conclusion that the sharks were Hammerheads—sharks known to have uniquely shaped heads. By March, when the first casualty of the sharks were announced, the presidential spokesperson concluded that these sharks were Great Whites, hence why most people think of them as such. Some respectable people even refer to them as Great Whites, but they’re just unknown, deadly sharks who have found a haven in our underwater city. A month ago, the presidential spokesperson declared that the sharks were a sub-species of stingrays, due to their alleged “electronic” tails that resemble and function like those of stingrays. I’m not sure where he gets that information but people lap it up anyway. Now, the sharks are stingrays and tomorrow, the corals are towns. Who knows?

The TV commercials remind us to make sure our soundproof systems and air systems are on and functioning. If they aren’t functioning well, we should phone 00900-12345 to get it fixed. The bill isn’t grand when you do call them, but they usually have to call them once a month in fear of drowning in the middle of the night. Add all the expenses together, and it does become quite a sum. The soundproofing systems are a precautionary measure because although no one knows what the sharks really want, they do become violent whenever loud vibrations happen in the water. They figured it out when the sharks, as they were thought of as Hammerheads during that time, first showed up around city limits. The military patrol those areas to make sure no people step out of the city and die from lack of oxygen. As reported by word of mouth, it was an ominous scene to watch. I only heard about it when I was buying groceries to stock for a few weeks following the lockdown and the cashier animatedly shared the story, recounting the events and worrying for her own life and family because she still has to man the register so people could eat and go home. That morning, I dropped Felix at school and Sam at the day care, and Yves and I went our separate ways to work.

“It was like the Jaws theme song was playing! My neighbor’s kid was on patrol and suddenly, in the distance, they started seeing the outline of the sharks. You know the city limits? They’re scary! It’s endless deep blue that goes on and on and on. It gives me the shivers! And then, a shiver of sharks! You know that’s what they say on the news, yeah? A group of sharks is called a shiver. Anyway, they opened fire at the sharks and guess what? A bloodbath. They started eating and biting the military guys. My neighbor’s kid, he ran and called for back-up, but the general said to fall back or else, they’ll be massacred! That’s how the sharks got in! Dum-dum-dum-dum!” She finished off with the Jaws theme song. I saw Jaws with my family too, a week when the sharks came in. It did not help Yves with her jitters and the kids couldn’t sleep by themselves for a while, so we slept in the same bedroom for months. We couldn’t help but watch the sharks swim above our homes during those few months, so a lot of us were restless. It was all over social media, the way we coped with the situation.

After a few weeks of observation, the military general (the “highest” guy) concluded that the sharks didn’t like extremely loud vibrations in the water. Everything made sense. The guns were too loud and the intercity submarines were too, so transportation was halted. Most of us had to swim to work, so decent companies issued a work from home set-up. Regular schooling was out of the question, so children are being educated through Tube School. They send us videos of teachers in little tubes brought by the Messenger Fish and issued by the government. That’s where I learned that sharks sensed the vibrations through sonic waves. Granted, that didn’t explain much as it was for 5th graders like Felix but making sense of one small thing can do so much for someone who is blindly groping in the dark.

That lesson was delivered by a science teacher. You ask where are the scientists in this story? There are no scientists these days. No person in the right mind will exclaim that they are a scientist because all the scientist in every field of science have been forced to work at the air systems. They maintain the air that we breathe inside our houses. No one knows how they do it, but everyone knows that it’s the reason why not a lot of people study to become scientists these days. There are science teachers in schools but most science-related work is for the service of the people. It is modern slavery as people are held against their will and the military will do all sorts of “bargaining” with you. You will be called noble but you will never be able to see your family, that’s what being a scientist is like in the underwater city.

Now, everyone is only adequately knowledgeable of science, which isn’t good for the year of trial and error in order to get rid of the sharks. The presidential spokesperson advised the people to stay indoors as much as they can, but we’re about a year in, so some people have been going out with dusty diving gear. They swim with the sharks to do normal people stuff, and although I think it’s incredibly reckless, it’s also very human of them to do so. I go out the garden sometimes, just to wet the diving gear and brush the kelp I’ve been growing. It’s the little things that keep me busy.

[historyofgd-nicole]

Journal #7

Henry C. Beck’s map for the London Underground stuck out to me in this week’s reading. We would take a map like this for granted now since we are so used to it, but it is really amazing to think about what it would be like to experience Beck’s map for the first time. I am from the East Coast, so I can’t confirm that California has a map like this for trains, but I would assume it does. I am, however, from New England, so I have been on the T (MBTA) in Boston many many times. I can honestly say based on that experience, that I am thankful for designers like Beck because it would be even more confusing to ride train systems like that with absolutely no help from a map at all. 

I really do enjoy the layout of the London Underground map that Beck created since it reminds me quite a bit of the T map of Boston. According to our textbook, “The central portion of the map, showing complex interchanges between routes, was enlarged in proportion to outlying areas,” which I can see being incredibly beneficial to people who used the Underground on a regular basis (Meggs & Purvis, pg. 361). As I said, the only map I can compare it to is the T map of Boston, and I feel as though Beck’s map is actually better. Boston’s map highlights major stations, but I do not think it does so as effectively as Beck did in his map.

Image of Beck’s London Underground Map 1933 (source: The Verge)

For comparison purposes, I am also including an image of the MBTA map of Boston. In my research, I found out they are “revamping” the map, so it may not be the most current version, but it is the version I used last time I was in Boston several years ago.

Image of MBTA Boston Map (source: The Boston Globe)

As you can see, the only major stations that are truly bigger than everything else in the map are the stations you begin or end at. However, the design of the map that includes connecting colorful lines is similar to that of Beck’s London Underground map. The Transport for London website further discusses Beck’s idea behind the map: 

“Rather than emphasizing distance and geographical accuracy, like other maps, Beck based his on the circuit diagrams he drew for his day job; stripping the sprawling Tube network down to a neat diagram of coloured, criss-crossing lines.” 

I had never thought about it as a circuit diagram before researching this topic, but it really does make sense. As we know from our textbook, his maps were a big success, “When the public found the new map extremely functional, it was developed and employed throughout the system,” (Meggs & Purvis, pg. 361). Apparently, Beck’s design still is used to this day, with modifications of course. That alone shows you how monumental his design was, and how it changed the lives of people who previously used the London Underground, and even those who still use it to this day. 

Another thing I thought about when reading about Beck’s map is the amount of patience it must have taken him to create such a large diagram. Our textbook mentions that he, “…hand-lettered over 2,400 characters in Johnston’s Railway Type,” which must have taken quite a bit of time on its own (Meggs & Purvis, pg. 361). While it may have been a significant amount of work, Beck inspired variations of maps with similar designs on an international level. I wish there had been even more information on his process in our textbook, but I am happy I looked into the subject more so I could learn where his inspiration for the design came from. Also, I know the T map was not necessarily based on the London Underground map, but when I saw Beck’s map, I immediately thought of how it looked similar to the T map. It made me realize that maps are a work of art, too! I would not have thought of maps in that way prior to reading chapter 16.

[lightoftruth]

On this date 34 years ago, SN 1987A erupted. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), SN 1987A was the first naked-eye supernova in four centuries. The LMC is a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy, about 168,000 light-years away. Keep in mind that the light-year is a unit of distance, not time. A light-year is the distance that light travels in a year, about six trillion miles. Right away, the distance of the LMC raises a problem for recent creation. If the world is only a few thousand years old (more specifically, a little more than 6,000 years), how could we have seen SN 1987A? For that matter, what about all those other galaxies that are much farther away? How can we see anything in the universe that is more than 6,000 light-years away?

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Creationists get this question so often that we have a name for it: the light travel time problem. Over the years, creationists have offered several answers to this problem. For instance, a few creationists have suggested that astronomical distances are not all that great and so light from all the universe could have reached us long ago. However, this would require a tremendous reduction in the long-established scale of the universe. But there is abundant evidence that astronomical distances are at least qualitatively correct, with many galaxies being millions of light-years away. For example, the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest galaxy similar in size to our own galaxy, is approximately two million light-years away, and that distance appears sound. Therefore, doubting astronomical distances is not a productive way to address the light travel time problem.

Mature Creation

A popular solution to the light travel time problem is the concept of mature creation. God did not create man and woman as babies or as embryos. Rather, the Genesis creation account indicates that God made Adam and Eve as mature adults. Suppose one could go back in a time machine to shortly after the creation week, say on day eight. Examination of the first couple would have indicated that they were adults, perhaps in their 20s, even though Adam and Eve were only a few days old. That is, Adam and Eve were created mature, without the normal birth and growth process that humans go through to reach maturity. Likewise, the plants in the Garden of Eden (and elsewhere) would have looked mature too, even though they didn’t exist more than three days before the creation of Adam and Eve. The day three account says that God caused the plants to grow out of the ground (Genesis 1:11–12). This happened in less than one day, because God made the dry land appear one day before he made the plants appear. Why was it important that the plants rapidly reach maturity so quickly? According to Genesis 1:29–30, originally man and animals were vegetarian. The plants could not fulfill this purpose if they were not mature. This pattern of maturity would seem to apply to all the creation week.

This concept of maturity, or the appearance of age, also played out in some of the miracles that Jesus performed. Jesus’ first public miracle was the changing of water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana (John 2:1–11).

This concept of maturity, or the appearance of age, also played out in some of the miracles that Jesus performed. Jesus’ first public miracle was the changing of water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana (John 2:1–11). When the wine ran out, a very embarrassing thing for the bridegroom, Jesus changed water in six large stone vessels into wine to supply the need. The servants who witnessed the miracle took the wine to the master of the feast, who did not witness the miracle. The master of the feast was impressed with the quality of the wine and commended the bridegroom for not serving the best wine first, which was the common practice, but rather held back the best wine for later in the feast. A marriage feast could go on for days, so the master of the feast apparently thought that the wine was at least a few days old. However, anyone who did not witness the miracle would have thought the wine was even older than that. After grapes are grown, harvested, and crushed, the fermentation and aging process of wine takes some months. Any reasonable person would have concluded that the wine was the result of this process and hence was mature. When confronted with the fact the wine did not exist until a few minutes before, one would be left with the conclusion that the wine had the appearance of age.

Similarly, one may argue that feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14:15–21) required the appearance of age. Jesus multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed the multitude. Anyone who did not witness the miracle but examined the fish created by the miracle would have reasonably concluded that the fish were hatched and grown in the Sea of Galilee before being caught, processed (cooked?), and transported to the location to be eaten. Likewise, one would reasonably conclude that the bread was the result of grain that was sown, grown, harvested, milled, and then baked. All these processes normally take considerable time, but none of these processes happened. Again, this miracle required the appearance of age.

Creationists who appeal to mature creation to solve the light travel time problem reason that if most astronomical bodies were not visible at least by the end of the creation week, then the astronomical bodies could not fulfill their functions given in the day-four account (Genesis 1:14–19). Therefore, God must have created the universe mature, with light created in transit between them and the earth.

Such evidence would seem to be deceptive, which would violate the character of God. The light we receive from distant astronomical bodies is not just illumination. Details of the light often bear evidence of processes.

However, there are is a problem with this solution. Our bodies have subtle evidence of things that occurred during our growth and maturing processes. The most obvious of these are small scars of minor injuries sustained while growing up, but there are other evidences, such as the sealing off the ends of our leg bones upon completion of the growth process. Did Adam and Eve bear in their bodies any evidence of a childhood they never experienced? Most supporters of mature creation would opine that Adam and Eve did not. This amounts to an affirmation that while Adam and Eve were created mature, they did not bear any detailed evidence of processes that never happened. Such evidence would seem to be deceptive, which would violate the character of God. The light we receive from distant astronomical bodies is not just illumination. Details of the light often bear evidence of processes. For instance, I have more than four decades of experience observing eclipsing binary stars. An eclipsing binary star is a system of two stars that orbit one another very closely with an orbital plane that lies close to our line of sight to the binary. From the distance we view close binaries, we cannot see the individual stars, so their combined light blends into what appears to be one star. However, as the two stars orbit each other, they alternately eclipse one another, causing their combined light to dim. I measure the brightness of eclipsing binaries as a function of time to obtain their light curves, a plot of how their light varies over complete cycles. We can use light curves to deduce properties of the stars involved. However, if the light of these stars were created in transit so that the light never left the stars, then we would see evidence of events (eclipses, for example) that would have never happened. This is deceptive.

Decreasing Speed of Light?

It was this realization that led many creation scientists to look for alternate solutions for the light travel time problem. One of the first of these alternate explanations was the suggestion that the speed of light had changed over time. If the speed of light were infinite or near infinite when God made the stars, then their light could have reached the earth in a very short length of time. Supposedly, the speed of light has decreased since the creation week to the relatively modest 186,282 miles per second today. In the late 1980s, attention was drawn to the fact that the earliest measurements of the speed of light a few centuries ago were higher than the currently accepted value. Intervening measurement of the speed of light appeared as if they were gradually decreasing toward the modern value. If taken at face value, this would indicate the speed of light has decreased in modern times, though it raises the question of why this trend recently ceased.

The possibility that the speed of light was decreasing or had decreased in the past drew much attention among creationists, but soon problems with this hypothesis were pointed out.

The possibility that the speed of light was decreasing or had decreased in the past drew much attention among creationists, but soon problems with this hypothesis were pointed out. One problem is that the speed of light is not an arbitrary constant. Its value depends upon two fundamental constants of nature, constants that govern the strength of electrical and magnetic forces. These forces play important roles in the structure of matter. If the speed of light were changed even a small amount, it would greatly change the structure of matter. There is no evidence that this has ever happened. In fact, there is good evidence that this has not happened in the past. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the speed of light has ever changed to any appreciable degree.

What about the evidence in the form of historical measurements of the speed of light that indicate that the speed of light has decreased? This trend shows up only if one treats all measurements of the speed of light as having equal errors of measurement, but this is not the case. The earliest measurements of the speed of light were subject to the greatest amount of error. With improvements in technology, the errors in the measurements have greatly decreased. When making measurements, people do not operate in a vacuum. Rather, they generally are aware of the work that preceded them and hence “know” what the right answer is. If researchers’ measurements are at variance with previous results, there is a tendency to interpret new measurements in the direction of the “known” value. Some people call this trending.

I first experienced trending many years ago when I took general physics as a university sophomore. Our labs were partly graded on how good our results were. We could follow all procedures properly and still get poor results because of the limitations of the equipment. I was a bit naïve in that I followed the procedures, made the measurements, and then proceeded to compare our results to standard values to find a percent error. If our results had high percent error, this surely would result in a poorer grade. Aware of this, one of my lab partners was more astute than I was and looked up the established values beforehand and computed what measurements we ought to expect. If we made measurements that were at variance from what he expected, he insisted on repeating the experiment until we got results that produced measurements that were within the acceptable percent error to get a good grade. This approach assumes that we were wrong, and the established values were right. That probably is a true assumption, but one can never be too sure about that.

When one is aware of trending, one begins to understand that an apparent change in measurements of something that is supposed to be a constant may not constitute evidence of change at all. It is likely a matter of the earliest measurements, which were subject to the greatest error, happening to have been greater than the true value. If the earliest measurements happened to be less than the established value, then one might interpret that as evidence of an increase in that established value. If an increasing speed of light were indicated by historical data, we wouldn’t be having this discussion because it would exacerbate the light travel time problem, not possibly solve it.

The key evidence in the supposed decrease in the speed of light is a plot of the measurements of the speed of light as a function of time below. See Figure 1 for a representation of what this plot looks like. Figure 2 shows the same plot of data, but with error bars added. Notice that the earliest measurements have the tallest error bars, indicating that those measurements were subject to the greatest errors. A good fit to the data would be any curve or line that passes within the error bars. Aware of trending, I have drawn a red horizontal line that fits all the data well. A horizontal line means that the speed of light has not changed. Therefore, the data do not necessarily indicate a decreasing speed of light after all. Add to this the fact that the measured speed of light has been constant to a high degree of precision for more than a half-century, and the decay in the speed of light does not appear to be a successful answer to the light travel time problem.

Figure 1. The measured speed of light is plotted vertically against a horizontal plot of the year of measurement. You can see that the measured speed of light looks like the speed of light has decreased over the years. However, this conclusion ignores the relatively high probable errors of the earliest measurements of the speed of light.

Figure 2. With improvements in technology, the accuracy of the measurements of the speed of light has improved tremendously over the years. A good way to show how accurately measurements are made is with error bars. An error bar is a vertical line that passes through a data point and extends to the maximum and minimum values the measurement could have, knowing the error of measurement.

General Relativistic Solutions

With the problems of the mature creation and the decay of the speed of light solutions to the light travel time problem, creation physicists began to explore solutions involving general relativity.

With the problems of the mature creation and the decay of the speed of light solutions to the light travel time problem, creation physicists began to explore solutions involving general relativity. General relativity is the current, dominant theory of gravity, but it also is a theory of space and time. According to general relativity, time is a fourth dimension that we must consider along with the three dimensions of space. The difference between time and the other three dimensions is that motion in time is in only one direction: forward. In fact, all objects move forward in time at the same rate, so we can’t even remain motionless in time. Motion through this four-dimensional spacetime is along a geodesic, the shortest distance between two points. If geometry is flat, such as in a plane, geodesics are straight lines. However, if geometry is curved, then geodesics are curved, though they may appear flat within the geometry. According to general relativity, the presence of great mass or energy bends spacetime. As objects follow their geodesics in this curved spacetime, we perceive the geodesics as acceleration of gravity.

The effects of relativity can have some interesting manifestations in the world. For instance, the passage of time is not at the same rate to all observers. Depending upon location, time can pass more slowly in some reference frames than in others. This was the key to Russ Humphreys’ white hole cosmology, published in 1994. According to this model, God initially created the earth inside a white hole. A white hole is an alternate solution to a black hole, with matter and energy streaming outward rather than inward. Because of this loss of mass, white holes would be unstable and would cease to exist. Therefore, if there ever were white holes, they likely no longer exist now. Furthermore, while there are theories of how black holes could form naturally, there is no theory of how white holes could form. With these constraints, few physicists think that white holes are around today. In the white hole cosmology, the white hole evaporated on day four. With the earth at the center of the white hole, it would be the last thing to emerge from the white hole as the white hole vanished. Humphreys reasoned that time on earth would pass very slowly compared to locations outside the event horizon, the outer boundary of the white hole. This would allow for billions of years to pass in much of the universe while only a few days might have elapsed on the earth. This would have provided ample time for light to reach the earth from the most distant parts of the universe.

Right away, the white hole cosmology gained many adherents among creationists. The appeal was that it was the first rigorously scientific approach to the light travel time problem. Few creationists realized that, while the white hole cosmology was young earth, it was an old universe theory. That didn’t matter to most people who understood this, because with general relativity, the passage of time depends upon one’s location. The perspective of the creation account is from the earth’s surface, so the white hole cosmology would seem to preserve recent creation.

Many supporters of the white hole cosmology don’t know that Humphreys has since abandoned his model. For several years, Humphreys has been pursuing a different approach, again relying upon general relativity. Humphreys now believes an expansion early in the creation week produced what he calls a “timeless zone,” which again allowed much time to elapse in part of the universe but not everywhere. He is still refining this model.

Encouraged by Humphreys’ incorporation of general relativity, two other creation scientists attempted their own solutions to the light travel time using general relativity. John Hartnett studied the work of the theoretical physicist Moshe Carmeli. Carmeli modified general relativity to include a fifth dimension, a space-velocity that incorporates the Hubble flow of galaxies. Hartnett adapted Carmelian physics to a recent creation model to solve the light travel time problem.

Jason Lisle took a different approach. Lisle noted that all direct measurements of the speed of light rely upon measuring how long it takes light to travel one way and then back to the observer by a similar path. Knowing the distance involved, we compute the average speed of light over the round trip. We assume that the speed of light is the same in either direction, but how do we know that this is the case? We don’t. What if the speed of light on the outgoing leg is one-half what we think the speed of light is and is infinite on the return leg? The amount of time required to make the round trip would be identical to the time if the speed of light were the same on both legs of the trip. To most people, this second possibility doesn’t make sense, but there is no way of knowing whether this alternative is true. Furthermore, with general relativity, it doesn’t make any difference, nor could we be certain either way. The assumption that the two-way speed of light is the same is the Einstein synchrony convention; assuming that the speed of light is infinite on the return trip is the anisotropic synchrony convention (ASC). Again, either possibility is compatible with general relativity.

The ASC solution to the light travel time problem has gained supporters among recent creationists (such as John Hartnett). However, many supporters of solutions of the light travel time problem based upon general relativity don’t truly understand these solutions. For instance, many creationists think that the ASC solution means that light coming toward the earth travels infinitely fast; thus we are receiving light from the most distant objects in the universe instantly. However, this is not what the ASC solution claims. Rather, with general relativity we don’t know whether the ASC is true, but it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that any timing convention consistent with general relativity can be considered as correct.

However, many supporters of solutions of the light travel time problem based upon general relativity don’t truly understand these solutions. For instance, many creationists think that the ASC solution means that light coming toward the earth travels infinitely fast; thus we are receiving light from the most distant objects in the universe instantly.

To illustrate this, consider SN 1987A, the naked-eye supernova in 1987 that I began this article with. When did this supernova happen? I’ve already just told you: in 1987. But SN 1987A was in the LMC, which is 168,000 light years away. Therefore, one could say that SN 1987A happened 168,000 years ago, as opposed to 34 years ago. Which is correct? Either is correct, and either is consistent with general relativity. ASC allows for God creating the heavenly realm over billions of years in a shell of creation that shrank at the speed of light that collapsed onto the earth on day four of the creation week. Alternately, God could have rapidly created everything in the heavenly realm on day four with the light arriving instantly on earth. Either possibility is consistent with general relativity, and we cannot tell which is the correct one.

Is There a Better Way?

But how much science as we now know it should we allow during the creation week? By its very nature, wasn’t the creation week miraculous? The creation of plants on day three hardly followed science as we know it.

General relativity is one of the best scientific theories we have. This is why solutions to the light travel time problem based upon general relativity are so attractive. But how much science as we now know it should we allow during the creation week? By its very nature, wasn’t the creation week miraculous? The creation of plants on day three hardly followed science as we know it. Ditto for the creation of swimming and flying things on day five and the creation of land animals and man on day six. The creation of light on day one seems to have not followed the pattern of how light is understood to work today. The creation of astronomical bodies on day four likely wasn’t accomplished by physical processes currently in operation. Ultimately, the sudden appearance of matter and energy during the creation week violated the conservation of matter. In short, all the processes during the creation week did not conform to how the world now operates, the description of which we call science. So, isn’t it inconsistent to expect the light travel time problem to have a naturalistic (scientific) explanation? Is this not an assumption of uniformitarianism, something that we creationists frequently call out evolutionist on?

Many people have preconceptions about the creation week that they impose on the text. One preconception is that God created everything ex nihilo (out of nothing) during the creation week, but this is not true. God formed man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7) and woman from his side (Genesis 2:21–22). Neither creation was ex nihilo. In similar manner, out of the ground God made the land animals (Genesis 1:24), as well as the birds (Genesis 2:19). Furthermore, God caused the plants to grow out of the ground on day three (Genesis 1:11–12). It is possible that God fashioned other things from matter he had created ex nihilo earlier in the creation week. For instance, did God make dry land from the water on day three (Genesis 1:9–10), or was the solid ground already there but far below a primordial ocean that completely covered the earth’s surface? Similarly, did God create astronomical bodies ex nihilo on day four, or did he make them from matter he had created earlier in the creation week?

Another preconception is that God made everything instantly during the creation week, but this is not true either. The process of the creation of man, plants, land animals, and flying things from the ground required at least a little time. Ditto for the creation of Eve. The separation of light and dark on day one may have taken some time, as well as the making of the expanse of day two. We may surmise that God similarly used processes on day four to make the astronomical bodies. Note that none of these were the gradual processes required by evolutionary theories but rather were rapid (taking less than a day), directed processes.

Notice that the manner of creation of plants is described twice, once in verse 11, and the other in verse 12. These two verses use different Hebrew verbs to describe the earth bringing forth plants. These verbs get across the idea of producing, sprouting, shooting, or thrusting. These are very active verbs, indicating rapid growth. If we would have been witnesses to this process on day three, we may have seen something like a time-lapse movie of plant growth. This suggests that the development of plants on day three might have been what we see with plant growth and development today but was abnormally fast. In other words, it was miraculous. Why was this fast growth and development of plants necessary? According to Genesis 1:29–30, both man and animals originally had a vegetarian diet. To fulfill this purpose, the plants had to be rapidly brought to maturity. The statements of Genesis 1 that what God had made was good has the implication of completeness, that what God made was meeting the purposes intended for them.

The astronomical bodies also have purposes (Genesis 1:14–18), but they could not fulfill those purposes if they were not visible, at least by two days after God made them when man was on the scene. As God rapidly brought forth the plants on day three to meet their purposes, could God similarly have rapidly brought forth the light of the stars on day four so that they could fulfill their purposes? Note that I am not suggesting this was done through the physics of general relativity or by altering physics so that the speed of light changed. Rather, I’m suggesting that God miraculously brought the light to earth from the farthest reaches of the universe right after he filled the universe with astronomical bodies. Because of the comparison to how God made the earth rapidly grow plants on day three, I have called this the dasha solution to the light time problem, from the Hebrew verb used in Genesis 1:11. An alternate name for this solution is matured creation, emphasizing that God did not instantly create things mature during the creation week but rapidly matured them upon creating them.

Conclusion

The popular mature creation solution to the light travel time problem introduces the difficulty of false history of processes that never happened. While the dasha solution superficially resembles the mature creation solution, it differs in a fundamental way: all of the processes that we see playing out, such as SN 1987A, actually happened. With the mature creation solution, none of these distant events occurred. Rather, evidence of those events was artificially introduced into the light when God created that light in transit on day four. Since in the mature creation solution, the light from distant objects never left those objects, none of those distant objects need exist at all. Consequently, in the mature creation solution, much of the universe could be an illusion. In the dasha solution, when did distant events such as supernovae in other galaxies occur? The dasha solution would require that they happened relatively early in the universe. While I believe that distant galaxies are millions, and even billions, of light-years away, I don’t believe the light has been traveling to us for much more than 6,000 years. Given the tremendous distances and otherwise implied light travel times, we are seeing much of the universe in something close to real time.

The other solutions to the light travel time problem rely upon physics, the way that the universe now operates. We recognize the role of the miraculous in so much of the rest of the creation week, so why must we restrict ourselves to a natural, physical mechanism to solve the light travel time problem? The dasha solution is the only answer for the light travel time problem that is consistent with the miracle of creation and the character of God.