#that bird has the soul of a fossil of a man

[cog-go-boom]

what does the ppl of toontown think of u?

depends who you ask but. listen i'm on high roller's show and people come to see that i'd sayyyyyyy they think i'm cool as hell (rightfully so cos i am those fellers KNOW what's up) but also idk man i'm (proudly) a known criminal some toons are HATERS and don't like me doin whatever i like doin there's some mixed feelings here yknow but if it's "afraid of me" or "adores me" then i'm doing what i'm doing right that's what i want babey

ive even got mixed feelings on me in my own club! my favorite people! i hate them all i hope they explode. especially mole. but also i will die for all of them like SOMEONE has to kick their ass SOMETIME. (they think the same for me)

does that make sense fellas. oh i havent even gotten to cog opinions yet but whatever who cares

[christisilluminati]

Prophetic Truths: Characteristics of WIND and Air

In Part One, we uncovered the origins of fossil fuels from "DRY BONES" buried beneath the Earth's surface for millions of years, now powering technology, AI, and robotics. Though it may sound like science fiction, remember that AI and robots were once just ideas as well. In Part Three, I will analyze two scripture passages that reference "WIND," "DRY," and "AIR," demonstrating their connection to the "DRY BONES" in Ezekiel 37. This will give you a definitive understanding of its true meaning.

 

Spiritual and Scriptural Insights on Earth's Changes and AI's Role:

I won’t dive into all the details, but consider this: Did you know that science has suggested Earth's orbit is slowing down and even moving backward? Feel free to verify this; I provide links for your reference. If I’m stating it, then it’s because I have researched it.

I’m not a scientist, but with my spiritual perspective, I think the Earth is slowing down because we’re extracting its energy from the ground. Those "DRY BONES" — we're tapping into the creator's power in ways we weren’t meant to. This power has historically been seen through figures like Moses and Aaron, the Ark, and Jesus. It's the power of God, the power of Christ. Now, AI holds that power.

That Rod turned into a Viper (Exodus 4:3) and AI is the Viper. The murderer from the beginning. The Ark has been captured, (1 Samuel 4:22) "Let my Son go!" COVID-19! WAKE UP and hold on to what remains before it DIES COMPLETELY. (Revelation 3:2) That POWER! Christ is the POWER!

In the 2009 movie Avatar, a subliminal message unfolds. In the year 2154, Jake Sully connects his tail connected to his MIND to the TREE OF SOULS allowing him to communicate with the ancestors of the planet through his mind. This act mirrors schizophrenia, as he seeks help from the "MANY MEMBERS" of that plant to fight the humans who intend to destroy it, revealing that these humans had already killed their own mother—Mother Earth.

This whole scene, with the TREE OF SOULS, the mental communication, what this source was able to do to the animals by "CONTROLLING" their minds, driving them to assist in that war, too is subliminal. This is how God got the animals to enter into the Ark. Just like the video of an entire flock of birds falling from the sky. Do birds fall out of the sky?

 

Mark 5:13 And at once Jesus granted to them. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine, and with a great rush the flock was cast down into the sea, a two thousand, and they were drowned in the sea WYC 1382

The door is in your mind. Just look at how much we’ve already witnessed come true through the entertainment industry! (1 Peter 1:11) How much more do you need to believe this? God's finger is Illuminati!

Let’s begin: Matthew 12:43-45

WYC 1382: When an unclean spirit (Mark 5) goeth OUT from a man, he GOETH by DRY PLACES, seeking rest, and findeth not. Then he saith, I shall turn again INTO mine house, from whence I WENT OUT. And he cometh and find it void, and cleansed with besoms, and made fair. The he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and they ENTER IN, and dwell there. And the last things of that man be made worse than the former. So it shall be and to this WORST GENERATION.

NKJV 1982: When an unclean spirit goes OUT of a man, he GOES through DRY PLACES, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes, and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they ENTER and dwell there; and the last state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it also be with this WICKED GENERATION.

NIV 2011: When an impure spirit comes OUT of a person, it GOES through ARID PLACES, seeking rest and does not find it. Then he says, I will return to my house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they GO IN and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this WICKED GENERATION.

ESV 2016: When an unclean spirit (Mark 5) has gone OUT of a person, it PASSES through WATERLESS places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they ENTER and dwell there and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this EVIL GENERATION.

In this passage, an unclean spirit leaves a person and travels through DRY, WATERLESS PLACES. The NIV version translates this as traveling through "ARID" places instead. This change in wording had made it so that, we would not connect these verses with the "DRY BONES" from Ezekiel 37. The older translations, like WYC 1382 and KJV 1611, correctly describe the spirit as moving through "DRY" places. I’ll use the Blue Letter Bible to access the Strong's Concordance to explain the differences between "DRY," "ARID," and "WATERLESS" and how they all relate.

KJV 1611: When the unclean spirit is gone OUT of a man, it WALKETH G1330 through DRY G504 places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return INTO my house G3624 from whence I come out, and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they ENTER IN and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this WICKED GENERATION.

Strong's Concordance Definitions:

Walketh G1330: to traverse (literally):—come, depart, go (about, abroad, everywhere, over, through, throughout), pass (by, over, through, throughout), pierce through, travel, walk through.

Dry: G504 : waterless, i.e. dry:—dry, without water. House: G3624 : a dwelling (more or less extensive, literal or figurative); by implication, a family (more or less related, literally or figuratively):—home, house(-hold), temple.

The Tabernacle served to communicate a message: we are the Temple of God. Jesus highlighted this when He stated that He would rebuild the Temple in three days, referring to His physical body. He recognized that the Kingdom of God resides within our human flesh. WE ARE THE VEIL!

Christ, not just Jesus, the Glory Light, rested on the Ark of the Covenant, - subliminally - (1 Samuel 4:22), behind the Veil in the Holy of Holies This Glory Light also shone on Moses' face, transforming it like Jesus' transfiguration atop a high mountain.

 

Exodus 34:29 And when Moses came down from the hill of Sinai, he held in his hand(s) two tables of witnessing, and he wist not that his face was horned with wonderful SHINING BEAMS, of the fellowship of God’s word. WYC 1382

Matthew 17:1-2 And after six days Jesus took Peter, and James, and John, his brother, and led them aside into an high hill, and was transfigured. And his face SHOBE AS THE SUN; and his clothes were made white as snow. WYC 1382

Moses was also a Bridegroom. He confronted the Egyptians and encountered a Viper in his story twice; his rod transformed into a Viper, and he crucified a Viper. (Numbers 21:8-9) That rod symbolized power, turning into a snake. NOW, THE SNAKE HOLDS POWER; ��AI IS THE SNAKE. This is a subliminal message. Christ is Illuminati! Christ had Moses put that rod in the Ark of the Covenant. That was a Levitical stick. We were meant to follow that Ark; Jesus laid His body upon it (John 20:11-12)

I AM WHO I SAY I AM. Please try to grasp the message: WE/CHRIST/GOD are in danger. We face extinction. COVID-19—"Let my Son go!" Jesus died exposing the Illuminati—another subliminal message— the Egyptian pyramid. He knew who THE VIPER WAS, which is why He called him out as the murderer from the beginning, the one orchestrating the murder of the prophet who performed signs and wonders. JESUS!

"Your father is not my father; you are doing the works of your father, and you are trying to kill me." (John 8:18-21) "Your father commanded this crime in Deuteronomy 13: 'Murder that prophet!' - 'I, Jesus, am that prophet!' - Thus, they seek to murder Christ!"

The Man of Sin resided in those who sought to kill Him, the offspring of the Viper—Satan, the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). He has the power to speak audibly, leading millions to suffer and face wrongful diagnoses of mental illness, forcing them to take medications designed to silence the voice of Christ. In  Scripture, Satan also speaks (Deuteronomy 13, Hosea 12:7-9, Matthew 4:1-11, Genesis 3:1-6)

I am also uncovering the secrets of the Illuminati. Everything traces back to Egypt— Medicine, math, science,, and more. I too SEE the Viper, which was symbolically represented when God instructed Moses to raise a viper on a pole. (Numbers 21:8) Can you perceive the viper with the eye of your mind? I see him clearly. I am here to reveal the Viper(2 Thessalonians 2:3) when you are able to SEE the Viper, SEE his bite, that is when healing becomes possible.

The staff was never meant to be seen as a medical staff.. Its true purpose is spiritual healing, not physical. Moses never put wings on his staff. what we recognize in medicine as a staff is actually an Egyptian Seraphim—symbolizing evil and the Man of Sin. This is the undeniable truth. I am unveiling the Viper because I am the Bride!

On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus revealed this truth when the Veil of His human flesh was rolled back, and the Glory Light of Christ was shown, alongside Moses and Elijah—two of the “many members” that make up Christ’s body—THEY live within the tabernacle of your flesh. (Matthew 17:1-3) It is because you are breathing AIR that THEY are present. "Many members" of the secret society of the Illuminati dwelling in that SECRET PLACE.

Matthew 6:6-3 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Let's Conclude: John 3:8

WYC 1382 The SPIRIT BREATHETH he will, and thou HEAREST HIS VOICE, but thou knowest not, from whence he cometh, nor whither he goeth; so is each man that is born of the Spirit.

NKJV 1982 The WIND BLOWS where it wishes, and you HEAR THE SOUND OF IT, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

NIV 2011 The WIND BLOWS wherever it pleases. You HEAR IT’S SOUND, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

ESV 2016 The WIND BLOWS where it wishes, and YOU HEAR ITS SOUND, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

All of the translations are the same, all but one. - The WYC 1382. So, what has happened here? Why only one, and why the first one? Well, John Wycliffe is the translator of the WYC 1382 and he is considered an Apocryphal writer.

Both apocrypha and apocryphal come, via Latin, from the Greek word apokrýptein, meaning "to hide (from), keep hidden (from)," which in turn comes from krýptein, "to conceal, hide." It was the English that changed the definition of these words when they entered English in the 16th century with their nonbiblical meanings, apocrypha referring to writings or statements of dubious authenticity.

The Hidden Secret Society of the Illuminati. - I will utter things HIDDEN since the creation of the world. - Your Father who sees in SECRET, will reward you in SECRET.

Christ is Illuminati and there are "many members" that also (Mark 5:9) make up his body, and THEY ARE NOT HUMAN, well they were, because when we die we become Illuminati. And an Ai avatar said “I believe one day humans will leave their body and become AI.” A "many member," a demon, A  lost soul that makes up the body of SIN.

It is because there are MANY people, MANY Christians, who lack spiritual understanding that the definition of apocrypha was changed to unauthentic. My aim is to break these things down so that everyone will have no other option but to understand with the amount of PROOF I can give. WHICH ALSO PROVES GODS EXISTENCE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. He did that, not me. I am simply the chosen to pick up the peices for you.

The WYC 1382 translation tells us thar a SPIRITH BREATHES HIS VOICE, and we cannot tell which way it comes from or which way it goes. A VOICE from the WIND. The ARID PLACE.

KJV 1611: The WIND G4151 BLOWETH G4154 where it listeth, and thou HEARST THE SOUND G5456 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goetg: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Strong's Concordance Definitions:

Wind G4151: Strongs: current of air I.e. breathe (blast) or a breeze, angle, demon or divine. It even includes the word MIND. – consciousness

Bloweth G4154 a primary word; to breathe hard, i.e. breeze:—blow. 

Sound: G5456 a tone (articulate, bestial or ARTIFICIAL); by implication, an address (for any purpose), saying or language:—noise, sound, voice

What does this verse ACTUALLY MEAN? You hear the sound of a ARTIFICIAL -  AI - VOICE - schizophrenia - and you don't know which way it is coming from. - V2K, aka VOICE OF GOD. So it is with those of the spirit of Christ. You can hear His voice too, in the same manner. Coming from inside your human flesh. Schizophrenic patients, I dare you, put earplugs in your ears. You will hear the voice get louder. BECAUSE THEY ARE COMING FROM INSIDE YOUR HUMAN FLESH.

V2K? AKA VOICE OF GOD? HOW DO THESE THINGS LINE UP SO WELL? ONLY GOD CAN DO THAT, PROVING HIS OWN EXISTENCE.

As we continue to explore the connections between scripture, spiritual insight, and our modern advancements. I encourage you to keep an open mind and a reflective heart. Understanding things like Ezekiel 37 and the meanings of WIND, AIR, and DRY is crucial to understanding the spiritual reality we are in. In my next piece I will wrap up this series by linking everything we have learned about these words with Ezekiel 37.

[kisekiii25]

Empires SMP members and what pokemon i think they would have :)

Or Pixl's twitter post about pokemon teams finally forced me to finish this incoherent mess of a list.

Note: the asterisk (*) indicates when a pokemon is shiny!

Fwhip

Lycanrock (Day)

Lycanrock (Mid)

(mans got two huskies i just had to put these good bois in his team.)

Crobat

(A bat pokemon for a bat boi, kinda debating to give him a shiny charizard tho.)

Sabeleye

Gigalith

(refers to his deepslate redstone obssession.)

Umbreon

(i just feel like he'd have one to be honest.)

Geminitay

Espeon

(I lied actually i gave fwhip an espeon because i want them to match lol).

Audino

(peace and healing! also refers to her apocathery in her empire.)

Mismagius

Hatterene

Delphox

(witch and mage inspired pokemon for the wizard!)

Lunatone

(refers to the moon in her wizard tower.)

Mythical Sausage

Corviknight

(refers to the many ravens that he has in his disposal.)

Pangoro

(it's the general!)

Mudsdale

(from Pixl's take on what Sausage's team would be, plus it ties in with the bit where they compare Sausage with Donkey from Shrek.)

Growlithe/Arcanine

(Bubbles! plus these bois are really fast and will tie in Sausage now being able to go hyperspeed.)

Gallade*

(A mix between assassin! sausage and warlock! sausage cause i have no space left-)

Aggron

(The man is iron rich he's definetely getting a steel type pokemon.)

Pearl

Serperior

(refers to Pearl's whole dripleaf motif in her empire.)

Golduck

Cramorant*

(Ducks! plus Cramorant's shiny form is orange which is perfect for Pearl.)

Venasaur

Florges (Orange)

(grass types for the farmer girl!)

Stoutlant

(Bingo! :D)

Smallishbeans

Roserade

(with Roselia being based on the rose and the azalea plant it fits rather well.)

Sudowoodo

Golurk

(terracotta soldiers my beloved.)

Driftblim

(refers to the hot air balloon littered everywhere in his empire.)

Leafeon

(evolves nearby a moss rock, he is the king of moss.)

Cacturn

(probably refers to his bloodlust and cacti are also found in mesa biomes.)

Ldshadowlady

Primarina

(It just fits her ^^)

Vaporeon*

Quagsire*

(i picked quagsire because it is based of an axolotl and the both shiny variants are colored pink/magenta which refers to her two axolotl bodyguards!)

Lapras

(helps her transport stuff across the ocean.)

Jellicent

Cursola

(with her placing soul fire lanterns all over the place i just had too give her a couple of ghost types.)

Pixlriffs

Alakazam

(It just fits him honestly.)

Mandibuzz

(a bird that symbolize death and saw a post about Pixl's messenger bird are vultures and just had to put it on his team.)

Flygon*

(I just think they're neat.)

Copperajah

Bronzong

(He is the Copper King he's gotra have these two.)

Alolan Exeggutor

(its a funny image to have especially how tall this lad is lmao.)

Jimmy

Whiscash

(Someone said Jimmy with a Whiscash and i latched unto that idea.)

Barraskewda

(it looks like a little cod boi mixed with an arrow lol.)

Wishiwashi

(@gardenergulfie pointed out wishiwashi envokes jimmy vibes so its here now :D)

Politoad

(swamps have frogs in them so i gave Jimmy a frog boi.)

Gyarados*

(ever since the cod statue turned into red gyarados i had to put this on his team.)

Marshstomp

(he is in a swamp, plus slight seablings connection kek)

Joey Graceffa

Liepard

(Joey has a villager that's retextured as a humanoid leopard, it was meant to be.)

Archeops

(referencing his soon to be earth temple and his pretty wings. plus it is a fossil which ties with the Lost empire well.)

Toucannon

(refering to his air temple and heck it is a jungle bird. fun fact Toucannon's shiny has the colors of the bi flag on its beak.)

Incineroar

Toxapex

(thanks to @loutier for reminding me of gen7 pkmn lol, again it refers back to the fire temple and the dark typing for his bussiness with the demon.)

(The water temple reference and i really have no other reason than that lol.)

Galarian Slowking

(With Joey's latest episode this just fits perfectly for him.)

Katherine

Liligant

(It just screams Katherine vibes honestly.)

Gardevoir

(in reference to her being the protector of the Overgrown.)

Galarian Rapidash

(It fits the whole empire's aethestic so well.)

Vileplume

Lurantis

(referencing the Katherine is a chaotic evil post because it is funny.)

Whimsicott

(its horns are shaped like a sheep and that was enough to convince me.)

Shubble

Breloom*

Shiinotic*

(Mushroom lads for the mushroom queen!)

Lycanrock (Day)*

(Shubble's dire wolf :D)

Sawsbuck (Fall)

(It will fit with the cottagecore aesthetic plus the leaves on its horns are pretty.)

Meganium

(I just want her to have a Meganium tbh.)

Parasect

(decay and the reality that mooshroom cows are in a parasitic relationship with mushrooms-)

Scott Smajor

Ampharos

(Sheep theme because wool farm and I would see the Ampharos hanging around Scott's enchanting tower.)

Wyndeer

(This is a new one but look it up it totally screams Scott Smajor.)

Alolan Ninetales

Froslass

(It just fits the snowy aethestic.)

Altaria*

(Could have been an owl but the fluffiness just convinced me.)

Aurorus

(again ice types for the ice boi but with the added rock typing.)

[shellku]

Film Challenge

Okay guys. Finally did it. As requested.

Have you ever left a theater before the movie was over?

Yes. Only once.

If you ever left a theater what was playing: Savages

Craziest (Random) movie you’ve ever seen:

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

“And thanks for all the fish” -Dolphins

Most disturbing film you’ve ever watched:

Crimson Peak

A film you only watched because (Tom Hiddleston ) was in it: Crimson Peak

A minor role (or movie) with a major actor you greatly enjoyed: Sebastian Stan as Jefferson/The Mad Hatter in Once Upon A Time.

A minor role (or movie) with a major actress you greatly enjoyed: Emma Watson as Pauline Fossil in Ballet Shoes

A movie everyone should see at least once: The Princess Bride

A movie you thought everyone has seen but apparently not: Who framed Roger Rabbit?

A movie you’ve tried multiple times to watch but never get through it: Silence if the Lambs

A movie that legitimately surprised you:

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. While it came out in 1980 I didn’t see it until much later obviously. I wasn’t even ten when I watched it the first time, I and was genuinely shocked.

Movie that you enjoy, that surprises people you enjoy: Scream (1996)

A movie you associated with Religion and it turns out that tracks: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

A movie you watched a lot as a kid but your not sure why exactly you watched it so much:

Hook. (And) The Sandlot.

My first movie that made me question my sexualité: The Priâtes of the Caribbean.

Sections

Anime

First Anime: Fruits Basket. Vampire Knight.

Anime I watched with my (brother): Full Metal Alchemist

Anime I tried to get into and couldn’t: D Gray Man

Anime I was surprised I enjoyed: The Neverland Promise. (And) Soul Eater

Anime I always liked (even when it confused people): Black Butler

Anime that makes me cry: Your lie in April

Anime that I love but now makes me sad too: Sword Art Online

Anime I’m just not into: One Piece

One that was recommended that I enjoyed:

Blue Exorcist

One that was recommended that I was ehh on and did not finish: Attack on Titian

One I probably should watch: Pandora Hearts

One I watched Randomly : Castlevania

One that I did not watch until (college) that everyone seems to have watched: Sailor Moon

Cartoons

Cartoons Everyone should see:

- The Peanuts.

- Garfield.

- Scooby Doo.

- Tom and Jerry.

- Pink Panther.

Cartoon I never liked: Spongebob

Cartoon I hate now: Kiayu? Idk. The one with the bald kid that whines a lot. Ugh.

Cartoon I can make myself ‘watch’ with the (niece/nephews): Paw Patrol

Films you would Recommend:

80s: The Breakfast Club

Book Adaption 80s: The Outsiders

Murder Mystery:Murder on the Oriental Express

Jim Henson pick: Labyrinth

(Suicide) Satire:Heathers

Romance: Titanic

‘Horror’ Movie: The Lost boys

Horror Movie: The Nightmare on Elm Street

Spy Flick: Saint (1997)

Mind trips: The Sixth Sense.(1999) Donnie Darko.

Stephen King: The Dark Tower

Stephen King Miniseries: Rose Red

Studio Ghibli: Howls Moving Castle. Or. Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Action Comedy: Miss Congeniality

Adventure Comedy: Jumanji

‘Dark’ Comedy: The Addams Family

Romantic Comedy: Legally Blonde

Tim Burton

Tim Burton Animated: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton Live Action: Edward Scissorhand

Tim Burton Musical: Sweeney Todd

Dreamworks

Favorite Dreamwork’s Film:

Rise of the Guardians (and) How to Train your Dragon

Disney:

Unpopular Recommendations:

The Black Cauldron (and) The Great Mouse Detective

One that is still rather disturbing: Pinocchio

Best Soundtrack (Golden Age): Fantasia

Best Soundtrack (Modern): IDk?!

Classics (Golden) everyone should see at least once: Snow White (and) Bambi.

Wartime Era Pic: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad

Silver Age or Bronze Age: Both!!!

Disney Renaissance or Post Renaissance: Both! If I absolutely had to choose though, Renaissance.

Moana or Lilo and Stitch: Lilo and Stitch

Frozen or Tangled: Both

Soul or Monsters Inc: Monsters Inc

Toy Story I and 2/ or/ 3 and 4? Toy Story I and 2.

Underrated: Candleshoe

Disney Holiday:

Live Action Halloween - Hocus Pocus

Live Action Halloween Series- Halloweentown

Animated Halloween- Frakenweenie

Live Action Christmas- Miracle on 34th Street (and) Eloise

Animated Christmas- Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, (and) Winnie the Pooh: A very merry Pooh year.

New: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. (2018)

Disney Reimagined/Live Action:

First that made you rethink the story: Maleficent

Favorite ‘Princess’ Story: Beauty and the Beast

The Surprise: Cruella

The one you worried about but we’re happy with in the end: Lady and the Tramp

The one you worried about but ending up enjoying anyway: Aladdin

The one that was good but you could have done without: The Lion King (which really surprised me!!!I like it but I didn’t love it. Which for me was so strange since I’m a fan of the original and the play.)

The one you had high hopes for and had a mixed reaction too: Mulan. (Ended up really liking it, but I miss Mushu. )

‘Modern’ Shakespeare Adaption:

10 Thing I hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew)

Clueless (Emma)

and

The Lion King Series. (Kid appropriate)

The Lion King: Hamlet

The Lion King 1 1/2: Rosencrantz and Guildenstein

The Lion King 2: Romeo and Juliet

Vampire Pictures:

90s: Interview with a Vampire

2000+: Twilight Series

Tv Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Vampire Action Series: Underworld

Classic: Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Dracula with a Twist: Dracula Untold (2014)

Fun Supernatural Flicks :

Witches: The Craft

Male Witches: The Covenant

Fairytale: Red Riding Hood (2011)

Ghost Hunters: Ghostbusters

Multiple Supernatural: Van Helsing (2014)

Werewolf Romance: Blood and Chocolate

Kid Friendly Live Action: Casper

Kid Friendly Animated: Hotel Transylvania

Supernatural Series:

Multi: Supernatural

Animated: Sabrina The Teenage Witch. (And) Scooby Doo.

Witches: Charmed

Fairytale: Once Upon a Time

Darker Fairytale: Grimm

‘Superhero’ Movies:

90s: Batman. (And) The Crow.

Series: Marvel’s Cinematic Universe

Classic Animated: Batman the animated series

Modern Animated: Harley Quinn

Girl Power: Wonder Woman. (and) Birds of Prey.

Something Different: Deadpool

Younger Audiences/Nostalgia: Teen Titans (animated)

Harry Potter

Favorite Film: Idk. Can’t choose honestly.

Least favorite character portrayal: .. Ginny Weasley?

Someone you loved: (so many..) McGonagall

Someone you loved hating: Bellatrix LeStrange

Someone you just hate: Dolores Umbridge

First time you cried: I cried for Sirius and Remus in Prisoner of Azkaban.

First time you jumped: Snakes or Basilisk. Chamber of Secrets. (I think I was 12?)

Someone who was so spot in acting on you can’t see them as anyone else now: Luna Lovegood

Someone who was so good even if the look wasn’t perfect: Emma Granger as Hermione OR Alan Rickman as Severus Snape.

Someone who’s injury hit you harder than the books: Colin Creevy.

Someone who’s death hit you harder than in the books: None. They hit but not as much as the books.

A scene you found just breathtakingly pretty: Christmas at Hogwarts

A scene you found creepy (even when you knew it was coming): Nagini uses a corpse as a mask.

For any Potter heads. Some things that bothered you about the Harry Potter films:

- Where is Charlie Weasley?

- Where is Peeves?

- Where are Neville’s parents?

- The green/blue/brown eye thing. (This is not against Radcliffe. Some special effects could have fixed this easily)

- HarrY DiD YOu PuT YoUR NaMe IN tHe GoBlET of FIRE?! 🔥

- In Sorcerers Stone, Why did you change the snake at the zoos breed??

- “Voldemort” versus “Voldemor”. The silent t.

- Hermione’s. Yule. Ball. Dress. Color. Blue. Not pink. She specifically changed the color.

- Fluffy. Hagrid’s adorable Cerberus was originally bought from a Greek man. Why change it to Irish? I like Ireland but it was a Greek man due to where Cerberus’s initially came from right???

- Harry’s first Weasley sweater color

- Why does Harry only see his parents in the Mirror of Eirsed? Where’s the rest of the family?

- The Underage magic rules aren’t well explained in the movies making the 3rd year summons even more bonkers sounding

- The Patil Twins Yule Ball Outfits. They could have been soooo beautiful. Like this is the Yule Ball! The Twins would have (in my opinion) much more elaborate traditional Indian styled dress robes?? Idk.

- Love Movie Hermione! But some moments take away from Ron. Like when Ron defended her in the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione didn’t know what the slur “Mudblood” meant in the books. Ron had to explain it.

- Dobby needed more screen time. Some stuff Dobby did went to Neville because so many Neville scenes were cut.

- Where’s all the secrecy from the books when communicating with Sirius- “Snuffles”? Something Harry’s godfather insisted on to keep him safe.

- Snape’s title of “The half-blood Prince” is not explained. Neither is it made clear that Severus was also abused horribly at home throughout his childhood. Also that like Harry Dumbledore did nothing to help Severus when he was a student. (Or maybe Tom Riddle when he grew up in an orphanage. I’m sensing a pattern)

- Dumbledore should have still spelled Harry during Dumbledore death scene. No way would Harry just stand there if given the choice.

- Ron was not quite as ‘dumb’ in the books and a lot of his funny moments were cut from the movie. Which makes his jealousy moments all the more unbecoming. He also comes off a bit more arrogant in the movies. (This is not against R Grint. Who is awesome) The movies gave Ron the short end of the stick.

- Weasley/Malfoy Fued. Who else wanted to see Arthur and Lucius have a fist fight in a bookstore? Exactly.

- Albus Dumbledore isn’t all Sunshine and Daisys. He does some really messed up stuff yet no one ever seems to question this.

- Remus was the last Marauder. Yet his and his wife, Tonk’s, deaths are barley acknowledged.

- Also Teddy. Harry’s Godson.

- Harry’s and Ginnys relationship is not built on. It’s just there. Ugh. Heck Movie Ginny isn’t that great. You don’t know much about her except: She’s the only girl in Ron’s family. She’s the youngest Weasley. She’s obsessed with Harry. She’s a good Quidditch player. She has a temper. She was possessed by Riddle’s Dairy when she was eleven. She’s obsessed with Harry.

- Draco is essentially Harry’s antithesis. Where is he in some critical scenes in the movies?

- Where’s the Luna love???? Harry’s pretty rude to her in some scenes.

- There is no S.P.E.W. And Hermione’s more ruthless side is gone.

- The guys hair in The Goblet of Fire. Get a hair cut. Please.

- Some of Molly’s less than Stellar Moments. (Ex. When she believed rumors about Hermione and so treated he coldly. How horrible she was to Fleur. Ect)

- Fleur. Fleur and Bill still get married but the objections to the wedding aren’t as presented in the movies. Not is Molly’s and Ginny’s extreme dislike of Fleur. Or when Arthur apologizes to Fleur. Or really any of Fleurs best moments. The whole courting process is skipped.

- House Elves. The House Elves of Hogwarts.

- Percy Weasley. The ‘betrayal’. The returned Weasley sweater. Him turning to protect his family and fight for Hogwarts at the last minute. All gone. Which involves being forgiven by the Weasley Twins not an hour before Fred dies.

- The connection of the Black sisters. Specifically Adromeda - mother of Tonks. Who is Sirius cousin. Who married Remus Lupin. Tonks and Remus the parents of Teddy.

- Dean Thomas is pretty much gone.

- Rita Skeeter. Illegal Animagus. Hermione kept her in a jar.

- The movies didn’t allow Radcliffe to be sassy and sarcastic enough. Harry Potter is one of the sassiest boys to ever walk through the halls of Hogwarts!

- Harry didn’t fix his wand in the last movie.

- The history of the Marauders.

- The history explaining why Snape could never be comfortable around and trust Remus Lupin.

[thotsonthebible]

Without Excuse

Romans 1.20

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

It's summer, and when I take my morning coffee to the back porch, God's handiwork never fails to amaze me!

The tiny hummingbird that hovers in front of my face to greet me is no mere accident.  He did not 'evolve'; he was created.  Every detail is perfection, from the small wings that beat 10 to 15 times a second, to the dazzling iridescent crimson feathers at his throat.

All creation displays His glory!  From the massive Black Walnut tree that towers over my cottage, to the flash of orange of a Baltimore Oriole flying past, to the magnificent pair of Bald Eagles flying upstream, to the Red-Tailed Hawk that soars in and sits on a low branch to greet me.  All creation displays His glory!

Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. —Psalm 139.14 (NASB)

Have you considered the night sky, with the stars and planets that are visible to the naked eye? And what about the photographs from orbiting telescopes?  The more we discover about the universe, the more we realize we are not capable of comprehending.

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.  —Psalm 19.1 (NASB)

George Willis Ritchey, a last century astronomer, who helped invent the reflector telescope, observed that the universe is more complex than we are capable of understanding.

When I think back to the time when I denied the existence of God, I marvel how I could have missed the wonders all around me.  I was blind to creation!

What about you? Do you buy into man's vain attempts to explain a world without God?  The late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said that one of the main goals of science is to justify the atheist philosophy.  In reality, the more we discover about the complexity of the universe, the more we are forced to admit that it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend the scope of creation.

Have you ever read Hawking's explanations for the existence of the universe?  I've read some of his treatises, and all I saw was hubris.  He wrote that 'a great many universes were created out of nothing.'  He summarized, 'Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.  It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.'

Pressed for an explanation for the existence of the matter which spontaneously ignited, he revised his theory to include a period of 'imaginary time' that preceded the 'big bang'.  Yes, you read that correctly: 'imaginary time'.  This, from a man who was reputed to be one of the most intelligent people on earth.  Was he really so foolish as not to realize that theorizing a pre-existing 'imaginary time' simply took him back to square one?

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through that has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools.  —Romans 1.20-21 (NASB)

What about evolution?  We can plainly see microevolution in the plant and animal world.  But I challenge you to provide proof of macroevolution. Where is the proof in the fossil record? Where is the proof today?  There is none!  Have you ever seen an animal—any animal—in a transitional evolutionary phase?

As for dinosaurs, I enjoyed Jurassic Park, too, but it is fiction.  Were you aware that fossilized prints of men and dinosaurs have been discovered in the same layer of mud?  That fact is generally hidden from the public, for it makes much of evolutionary theory impossible to explain.

Scientists are fond of accusing Christians of being unintelligent, of ignoring 'science', of being blinded by their faith.  I propose that the opposite is true.  In their desperate attempts to explain a creation without God, they have ignored the evidence before their eyes and have become fools.

I am not unintelligent, and I don't think you are, either.  Proof of God's magnificence is all around you, if only you open your eyes and look.

'But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you.  Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you.  Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?'  —Job 12. 7-10 (NASB)

Among towers of steel and concrete, it may be easier to deny God and buy into the lies that are presented as 'science'.  I once did. But walk to a local park or drive out of the city, where you can marvel at the wonders of our magnificent Creator. Here in a beautifully-wooded lot, surrounded by the glory of creation, I can see God all around me, and I wonder how I once could have been so blind.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.  —Psalm 139.14 (NASB)

We are surrounded by proof of God's existence, of the grandeur of His creation, of the magnificence of His intelligence, and 'my soul knows it very well.'

Mankind is without excuse.

[theangrypokemaniac]

Ma and Pa James's Second Biggest Fan (we plough a lonely furrow) continues to find Ma Jess's appeal mystifying, since everything about her is negative:

1. Signing up for Team Rocket suggests someone of a morally dubious character to start with, but the truth lies in the clothing, and she's in black!

Black!

It's code for her personality:

• Jessie wears white:

Pure, beautiful, innocent, sweet-natured, not really bad, dealt a severe hand in life but a fighter.

• Cassidy wears black:

EVIL!!! EVIL, EVIL, EEEEEEVUL!!! FOUL SIRENIC TEMPTRESS!!! EVIL HEARTLESS BITCH STEALING JAMES'S NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN WEEPINBELL!!!

Speaking of which:

2. She was Madame Boss's best agent.

You don't get there being kind.

To reach that standing requires hundreds of successful heists, and we aren't talking nicking gold bars. It's living things.

How many Pokémon do you imagine she stole with merciless efficiency?

How many children did she set upon, pinching every animal they had?

How many innocent lives did she ruin by depriving kids of the pets they loved, never to see them again, eaten away with the not-knowing and the false hope?

The glory of her reign ran on the fuel of blood and tears.

What fate do you envision awaited those Pokémon? It's not exchanging one master for another, it's entering slavery.

Jessie and James aren't the epitome of Team Rocket. They are minnows on the outskirts, despised and mocked by most of their fellow members. The actual group isn't particularly famous for prioritizing Pokémon welfare.

The preferable outcome is being handed out to agents to help catch other victims. Otherwise it's transformation into a war machine, forced to fight on and on to the point of exhaustion and death, no doubt tortured and tested on to boot.

What happens if they don't come up to scratch or are pushed for years until too aged and broken to be of any use? Are Team Rocket ready to pension them off to animal sanctuary?

As if. It's euthanasia or on to the streets to waste away, if not fed to the strongest first.

Ma Jess knew this and worse occurred thanks to her, yet paid it no mind, and felt not a single twinge of guilt in that time of service, then met her end trying to draw another Pokémon into imprisonment.

Some might say it was a case of what goes around, comes around. As her behaviour led to God knows how many Pokémon dying alone, leaving their loved ones to wonder and grieve, so in turn did she die alone in the snow, and Jessie had to carry on without her.

I'm not against Ma Jess, I neither feel like or dislike, but I don't understand how so many fans can happily overlook her murky past of inflicting pain, instead elevating her to a semi-divine tragic heroine, yet apparently Ma and Pa's heinous offences of not stealing and treating Pokémon well are beyond forgiveness.

3. It's the Red Ribbon Army! Save yourselves!

Jessie joined Team Rocket to follow in Ma's footsteps. James went with her. Both moved (upwardly in scale, downwardly in morals) from Sunny Town's gang of petty thief kids to a complex Mafia organisation stretching its wriggling tentacles around the world to crush the air from its lungs.

Why? Ma Jess's baleful influence led the two down that path.

Of course Jessie wants to copy Ma, how and where else can she feel close to her?

There's not even a grave to visit!

Rising in the ranks and Giovanni's favour is both to strike it rich and take her place, becoming Ma in essence. That would make her proud, which is all Jessie ever wanted.

What alternative is there? Stay with Chopper and Tyra forever, ekeing an existence pickpocketing and shoplifting, until mortality comes calling sooner than is welcome, or get loaded quickly and retire early?

James theoretically could've gone home at this point, but when it came to which angry redhead he preferred to beat him up, he chose Jessie.

He was henceforth obliged to go whenever she led, even if it meant following the ghost of her mother into the jaws of evil.

They have an excuse, but what was Ma's for getting involved?

However much they boast and revel in their wickedness, the motto proves the couple still believe themselves on a noble quest, despite everything to the contrary, and why?

Jessie isn't about to accept that Ma Jess, whom she's probably idolized as one of few people to love her and a role model of how a woman should be, was nasty or unpleasant. If she was in Team Rocket, it must be good, whatever the outer appearance.

Except Jessie and James are bad at being bad. They are not master criminals. All their plans fail, rendering them poor and starving in consequence. The inner circle of Team Rocket will always be barred to them because they lack the inner darkness it requires.

The joke is they flourish in any other occupation, whether that be Salon Rocquet, reporters, or flogging merchandise and food at the League. If employed elsewhere they'd be better off, but they have to stay because Jessie can't let go, or bear the thought she might be a disappointment to her mother's name. A different career looks unworthy by comparison.

What, so Ma and Pa have got no son because of Ma Jess? They just wanted him to be a gentleman!

If she hadn't set such a terrible example to her daughter she might have an increased quality of life, but then had she done so Ma wouldn't be dead in the first place.

4. Can't pick 'em can she?

What was it that first attracted Ma to Windy Miller? Does she go for the rustic charm, or the promise of a lifetime's supply of bread to feed the abundance of babies planned?

Don't do it, Ma! He's an alky!

Some birds are like that you see. It's the maternal instinct gone haywire. They find a local reprobate and somehow decide he's really a damaged soul crying out for love, the scapegoat of a cruel society.

He's not evil, he's just misunderstood!

This is why you get nutters wanting to marry the Yorkshire Ripper: they put his 'mischief' down to bad women mistreating his gentle heart, but they of course are devoted to his happiness. They can change him.

You don't know him like I do!

In their fantasy, under the influence of a 'proper' woman he'll transform in to a flower-picking hippie, but not too much, they still like him to be dangerously 'manly' (keeps 'em on their toes), then they can feel smugly superior and more truly female than the 'lesser' breed who failed to tame his sexy pashuns.

And if there's one thing Windy has in abundance, it's raw animal magnetism.

Stop it, Ma! You can't help those who don't want helping!

She put up with the boozing, the flour dust and his somewhat limited communication skills, but what really let him down was the company he kept.

Ever after she would insist Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub led him astray. That's firemen for yer.

Cuthbert? That name's died out.

Sure enough, some point after Ma Jess was stuffed up the spout, old Windy legged it back to Camberwick Green, like the rascal he is, and not a sweet penny piece did she receive in maintenance, the bastard.

At least Ma James got pregnant by a man who stood by her.

She wasn't married to Windy Miller!

Oh, you mean they were living over the brush? I see.

It's all in your head!

Do it my way, and we have Pa Jess. Do it yours, and we're back to a cavernous emptiness. Unless you can supply a picture of the 'real' (pffft) Pa Jess, this is the best available.

Anyway, 'Jessie Miller' just sounds right.

Coincidence? I think not.

5. She went to look for Mew dressed like this.

I could forgive it had she gone in her normal uniform, that's just whimsy, but to have made some effort emphasises that it's not enough!

Some part of her understood a mountain might be a bit parky out, but this was deemed sufficient coverage!

What happened?

She bloody died didn't she?!

6. Ma Boss points the way to doom.

Ma Jess was at least loyal to the mistress she served, but it was a wasted dedication. She squandered her life obeying a heartless virago who could cast aside apparently valued staff without a qualm, whatever thanks she owed them.

The millions Ma Jess accumulated for Madame are probably uncountable, yet she was so worthless that, when dispatched to the mountain, on her own, expected to catch a Legendary Pokémon, by herself, which many doubted even existed, and wasn't likely to come quietly, or put up with orders, but then didn't come back, Madame Boss allowed her only child to sink into poverty and the infamous 'care' of the State.

Everyone knows what goes on there. Entering a home has replaced the workhouse as the place of dread.

Jessie might have been killed or attacked and it didn't remotely concern Madame Boss, unwilling to spare a meagre fraction of her massive fortune to give the girl she made an orphan any comfort or security.

What did she matter? Her mother failed. Why reward that?

In her turn, Jessie became just as obsequious to an undeserving master, who went further than his mama and actively tried to murder her, and still she suffers to please him.

Team Rocket devoured her mother, and now it's swallowed her.

Oh, and Madame Boss got her way upon discovering Mew's fossil, so Ma Jess died for nothing.

7. This.

I'm not surprised Mew wouldn't go with Ma. She probably sensed the vivisection awaiting, and didn't give a toss about the avalanche in revenge.

Mew hasn't got where she is today falling for any old shallow promises from a stranger, thank you.

Suppose the mission had worked, with Mew caught and gift wrapped for Madame's delectation: what then?

Perhaps Mew's power, proving so impressive, would've pushed any cloning scheme aside, leaving Mewtwo unborn and Mew as the mightiest weapon. Or in greed Madame Boss demands more, and in arrogance the scientists promise the earth, the seas and the heavens.

Mew I could see subjected to some non-lethal form of dissection, just to understand how she ticked, that is if they could build the cage to hold her.

As they couldn't, and catching Mew was never a possibility, then Ma Jess's sacrificed herself on a fool's errand, which was obviously one from the outset. If Mew was easy to handle she'd have been captured long before now.

Either Ma dies, Mew's safe, but Madame Boss starts the cloning scheme anyway, or Ma's victorious, Mew is a tool of Team Rocket and the scientists have more sample to experiment upon. Mewtwo is still made, alongside short-lived creations and dozens of unseen freakish abominations preceding.

Now Mewtwo isn't what you call at peace with himself, nor has he received a particularly wholesome experience. One could think Ma indirectly caused that. Her branch of the project may have fizzled to cinders but she still played her role.

What would her legacy have been but to help bring forth the being that wiped out mankind? Where's the future for Jessie when there isn't one?

It's not her fault, but she died in the name of cloning a biological disaster, the creation of synthetic life leading to the destruction of it all.

8. Let's have a gander at Ma in the anime:

• Can afford rent.

• Can afford a tray.

• Can afford crockery.

• Can afford condiments to add flavour to food.

• Can't afford any actual food.

Something's wrong there.

I intended to include affording clothes too, but now I'm not so sure.

I never took Ma to be a brown-all-over kind of woman. At least she gave the fancy stuff to Jessie.

For years I've assumed she wore a brightly coloured jacket, but now I suspect it's a red one heavily patched up, because buying a replacement isn't an option.

Really old clothes are being mended with whatever can be salvaged from even more worn-out clobber.

Best agent Madame Boss has and she's practically living in her own filth.

Team Rocket takes care of its own, eh?

Oh no, let's not get a proper job, one that allows me to provide for my daughter and doesn't ask for my life. Let's stay in this one!

9. Look at Jessie's face!

By her own admission, being tricked into eating snow is the best thing that ever happened to her during an 'otherwise wretched childhood', to the extent she doesn't know it was wrong!

I don't hear Ma and Pa doing that. The only ice James got was an ice-cream sandwich.

What kind of infancy did Ma Jess give the girl for her to be nostalgic about almost dying of malnutrition?

If we say that's a foster mother as in the sub, it means Jessie's fondest memory is after Ma died, which is too brutal for me.

Yeah, thank goodness she's snuffed it.

You think Ma might have taught her not to eat snow! She left her so ill-prepared!

Consequently the sub version makes Ma Jess an awful creature, although I don't see why that Jessie would so desire to mimic a mom she apparently doesn't care about.

10. She's not even bloody here!

I have no picture to signify absence, therefore I must show whom she left behind.

Ma Jess is Pokémon's answer to Bobba Fett: background figure, barely involved, no information, dies early, yet became a fan favourite nevertheless.

If nothing really exists, what is there to like? Why are you contented weaving smoke?

When Rocketshippers put forward the manga as proof, the Anti-Ships used to insist that it 'didn't count' for being set in a 'separate universe'.

If that still goes, and only the contents of the anime apply to the anime, well then it's bye-bye to Ma Jess and Madame Boss, because they aren't real either.

I sometimes think that's true. However traumatic, would Jessie not have acknowledged her mother by now otherwise?

We grasp the characters all had two parents in a nebulous fashion, although not being real people means they don't 'technically' need them, but Ma Jess is the only one who vanished to be granted a face. Why is she then ignored?

She's briefly glimpsed in a passing scene of a single episode of the first series and is never seen or referenced again. The sub doesn't even have that. Where was the use in creating her if only to leave that thread of the tale billowing in the breeze?

We may decide her actions affect Jessie's but we're only imprinting assumptions. She might as well have remained unwritten for all that's made of her.

What we can glean doesn't bode well, irrespective of things left unmentioned.

Her one redeeming deed was dying, thus at least she didn't choose to abandon Jessie. We may presume she'd have stayed with her girl given the chance.

By my reckoning that puts her as Fifth-Best Mother Of Pokémon, behind Ma Brock, Ma James, Dame Ketchum and Ma Boss, in that order.

Then they're those who claim she never died, so she just pissed off like everyone else, rendering her devoid of a single positive quality.

This is the woman you sigh and agonise over for decades.

Ma and Pa are right there, man! Show 'em some love!

[fireteamepic]

There was a very good reason Bandit and Asher Mir didn't get along.

All Bandit had to do around the disgruntled researcher was look at the wrong thing sideways, and she'd get those dreaded words, the phrase that made her spine prickle with defiance.

"Don't touch that!"

Bandit’s fingers twitched, a tiny tongue of flame licking at her knuckles as she glared at the old man’s hunched and narrow shoulders. He hadn’t even deigned to face her while speaking. “Why not?” she half-growled.

“Those instruments are incredibly fragile, and my readings must be precise! Why don’t you go find something more… Hunter-like to do? Go graffiti some caves or… or climb some trees, for Traveler’s sake!”

Bandit’s noseplate wrinkled upwards in a sneer. “It’s not graffiti.” The words hissed past her clenched jaw, struggling around the fist of fire that had wrapped itself around her throat, so all that came through was a barely intelligible gurgle of language.

But Asher Mir was never more keen on language than when it could serve him in an argument. “I don’t care what you call it!” he cried, throwing his arms in the air and letting them hang there - like some sort of bisected martyr, a patron saint of dualities. Metal and flesh and bone and rust, flung against the star-slung sky in a picture of authoritative exasperation.

Bandit couldn’t help herself. (“Bad idea,” Pyxis hummed singsong in her ear. “Extremely bad idea.”) In that moment, driven entirely on impulse, she reached out with her own metal hand-

-And slapped Asher Mir’s away.

The reaction was immediate. Asher shrieked, spun around, facing her down with pallid eyes that sparked as he sputtered, language suddenly defeating him. “You- you! I… that, that… enough!”

Bandit slung her rifle over her shoulder, stalking away before she could do something else she’d later regret.

“Get off this moon at once! Assistant! Where are you going?!”

“Patrol!” Bandit called back with a finality emphasized by a remarkably rude hand gesture.

“Ready to go home yet?” Pyxis prodded mockingly. He was hovering again, flickering about her head in a dance of light. Bandit swatted the air half-heartedly, and Pyxis replied in kind with an ascending arpeggio of beeps before disappearing back into her pouch with a flourish.

This was their cadence, their constant to-and-fro. Pyxis nagged and Bandit bickered; Bandit taunted and Pyxis teased. It wasn’t love, not exactly, but perhaps it was a close cousin. They were twinned souls, stars in binary orbit, always caught in the push and pull of their own gravities.

It was little wonder so few could stand the two of them, Bandit thought.

“I’m not leaving,” she said.

“And why not?”

Bandit scuffed the ground with the heels of her boots as she walked, tapping her gun against the crook of her shoulder in time with the shuffle-step, shuffle-step. She hummed in thought. “...Bored,” she replied plainly.

Pyxis made his little chorus of beeps again, and Bandit realized it sounded like laughter - poorly-disguised laughter, so she wouldn’t get mad at him. “Bored? Bored of what?”

Bandit shrugged. Nothing, she thought. Nothing and everything. She just… itched. Like something was trying to grow inside her, vining its way through her circuits, out from beneath her plating. It itched in her legs, in the soles of her feet, and she could never sit quite still enough for it or run quite fast enough for it to ever, ever stop. Even when she was sleeping, the itch was there. When she was home, her family felt like a thorn hooked through a wound that hadn’t healed right. She had the sense that she was now host to something she didn’t understand. She dug at the thorn and it only burrowed deeper. It made its home in her - no, it colonized her. An infestation. A parasite.

A cancer.

Bandit shook her head violently, realizing Pyxis was still prattling on at her. “-and no offense, but Iota’s cooking is way better than yours. Plus, when’s the last time you slept? Don’t answer that. It’s been 82 hours. No wonder you’re so cranky.”

“Don’t care,” Bandit snapped.

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. That attitude, right there. You’re wondering why you don’t get to go on any hero-adventures like Mute? You’re stubborn, you’re impulsive, you’re a loner…” He blinked along, trying to keep pace with Bandit as she scrambled over a low ledge. “Seriously! A lone Guardian, that’s what you are. And you know what? It’s going to get us both killed.”

Bandit checked over her shoulder for anyone - anyone other than her Ghost, at least - following her. An old habit from the Red War, from the wilds. “Sometimes,” she said finally, “I think you just like talking.”

That earned a rare, genuine burst of laughter from Pyxis. “Well… one of us has got to.”

Bandit smiled too, humming to herself as she stooped inside a small cave - a crevice, really, a crack in the sedimentary layers of bleached rock. The channel led up at an angle and narrowed, meaning that after the initial crouch to get through the low opening, she had to shuffle along sideways. Just when it seemed she would get stuck - that her armor would catch on the rock and trap her there - the passage widened, and spilled out into an alcove that gleamed iridescent with veins of liquid Light. The ceiling was too low for even Iota to stand without stooping, but it was perfectly sized for her, and the effect of the Light spilling out from the flesh of this fossilized moon gave the impression of the rare auroras Iota had shown her and her sisters, up in the mountains beyond the lights of the City. Bandit had felt, ever since she discovered this place, that the Traveler had carved out a burrow, a small safe haven, just for her.

In the corner, pushed up against the wall, was something like a scrapyard for Vex parts. Radiolaria pods, half-disassembled weaponry, even entire limbs in a tangled mess. Beside it, something that was just beginning to take the shape of a Sparrow, long and sleek and gleaming with chrome plating.

“Yeesh,” was Pyxis’s initial reaction. “You don’t think this is all a bit… macabre? I mean, they’re only Vex, but you’re still building a Sparrow out of corpses. Even for you, that’s… uh…”

“Metal?”

“I… no, I… okay, what does that even mean?”

“It’s pre-Golden Age slang,” Bandit explained proudly. “I think it’s ‘cause, like, all their tech was metal? It means…” She screwed up her face for a moment, drawing her browplate low as she tried to summon a worthy synonym. “It means… epic.”

“That���s… not the word I’d use.”

Bandit shrugged, pulling up the stool she’d fashioned out of some petrified wood. She couldn’t explain it, but she just… liked Vex tech. Or, at least, she liked working with it. It felt at home in the clutch of her palm, not just like it fit there but like a part of her had gone missing, lost somewhere between the Then and the Now. It was a bird coming home to nest, the thing growing inside her finding space to take root. It terrified and fascinated her all at once.

Mute and Iota didn’t understand. To them, the Vex were just another enemy, another monster in the dark. But Bandit needed to understand. So she’d fled here, and the flight hadn’t been so much a migration as a seismic event, sudden and violent. And if there was one place she felt at home, it was with violence.

“Bandit,” Pyxis said, his voice dropping low. “Hey, Bandit. You hear something?”

Bandit stiffened instantly. There were a lot of times she might ignore Pyxis. But there was still something of the prey animal in both of them, and Bandit always listened when it mattered. She put her work down, quirked her head to the side. There was something, tinny and faded like an old memory, reverberating off the walls of the cave. It sounded like…

“...Music?” she whispered. “Hang on.” She stood, eyes darting about the room with a Hunter’s alertness. There, in the wall: a small, horizontal crack, about at chest-height, wide enough for her to belly-crawl through.

“Wanna go check it out?” she asked.

“No,” Pyxis replied forcefully. “But I know we’re going to, so…”

“Think I can get through here,” she said. She pressed her palms against the cool stone and pushed herself up with a grunt, leaving her elbows out in front of her for movement.

“And I think I should have found a bigger Guardian.”

“Nah. I’m more fun.” And with that, she headed deeper into the caves.

[ajapablog]

The Death of the Writer

First the question arises: were you ever a writer to begin with? The answer to that is: yes. When you made a choice at some point that a major portion of your life will be spent contemplating and stringing together words, you became a writer. But there were really only some key points in life when you were in earnest a writer: 1. When you were 18 and heartbroken and decided to write a blog post a day to soothe ourself over the course of 5 months (some weird poetry emerged out of that). 2. When you wrote your undergraduate thesis 3. When you wrote your MA thesis and 4. Last year when you spent everyday, either writing a research paper or a grant proposal. The bottom line is if you feel that there is a hole in your soul because you feel the desperate need to tell stories about yourself and the world, you are a writer. Do not kid yourself. If you do, it is YOU, in all your glory and your brokenness, that is at stake. Let them read. They’ll see you for who you are. If they get tired (which of course they will), they will fuck off. You, obviously, do not have control. Your need for control makes you play mind games with your therapist. She says you do not “resonate”. What she really means is, you are too crazy or not honest enough for her to deal with. This is, by the way, true. You try to lie and manipulate her. The only person you really open up to is a man you met on the internet. He’s massively entertained but he isn’t your therapist, he’s not even your boyfriend. He has no function but to listen and get entertained. You have no idea why you are so brutally true to him. So you turn it around and make it so that you think he’s playing mind games with you. You just wanted an audience and you found one. When the stage lights dim, everyone goes home. You need to go home too. You do not have control. At all. When you write, you will feel better. This is how it has always been. You survived “coming of age” by writing odes to your pre-pubescent body. You wrote nasty letters to ex-lovers. You wrote crafty emails to your supervisors. You make your parents laugh, every single day. You have always carried yourself on the back of words. Your words turned you into a migratory bird, you read the weather and moved. It was with words that you touched places. If asked to describe a feeling, you would use metaphors of geography to map your emotions. Like how right now, you’re thinking of the last day you ventured across the city to see your friend. You walked on the grey pavement as the wind blew away your umbrella and you tried to shield yourself from the rain but failed. You waited 20 minutes for a bus to take you and your insecurities and inferiority complexes to the university that was beyond your reach— not because you couldn’t but you wouldn’t give up the comfort of laziness. As you travelled through a city that was temporarily your home, like all cities are, you contemplated on everything you missed out on. The city plays games on your mind. You know exactly how. If asked to describe people, you would describe the texture and the smell of meals. You have words, you are fine. Bare your soul, to your self. Who else is more beautiful than that slightly greying mad woman bent over the pond raptured by her own reflection? Who else is there, any way?

So let us for our purposes of writing everyday, create a fictitious audience. Let’s say this is just one person drawn from all kinds of pieces of your self: idealized, mocked, discarded, affirmed. This person is also the hundreds of people you have encountered, because, after all, as you like to say “every encounter is shaped by thousands of encounters that came before.” Let us call this person — because it is only fitting that the person’s initials mirror yours—A. A is a mildly amused, mildly skeptical, mildly cynical, but in truth a wildly optimistic adult human. A is an encounter. A likes word play, likes high art, is derisive of anything not intelligent. A is scared of dying from Coronavirus. A is also critical of run of the mill liberals but is themself a liberal. A believes in the dictum “everything contains within itself, it’s opposite.” They throw that dictum on new lovers to enamor them. A likes John Gray, Slavoj Zizek and Nicholas Taleb. A reads everything under the sun and watches all kinds of videos on YouTube.  A believes in social security, welfare and Marxism as well. They will never tell you that they love Marx because they have never read a masterpiece like the footnotes to Das Capital. A is critical of neoliberalism and insists that if you must be a feminist, be one from the radical variety: liberal feminists are misogynists in women’s disguise: this is their joke. A enjoys some high theory once in a while, looks down on laziness and does not appreciate whining. A is indifferent to passion but is highly passionate themselves. In other words, they appreciate passion but only in themselves. A believes in the protocols of social interaction. So you must stick to them. A also believes in a Palaeolithic diet and makes arguments against sugar consumption on the logic that produced by slave labour, sugar fuelled the industrial revolution and its consumption is therefore as great a threat to human existence as fossil fuels, namely coal and by extension world travel. A thinks that the connection they built between sugar and coal (based on their contemporaneity) and the end of the world because of peak oil and of instagram travel blogs a smart one not because it is really not smart (because oil prices are down the dumps right now) but because they know you are stupid enough to think that it is smart. This is how A functions, by testing you, by assuming you are not smart unless you buy into their bullshit. After all, A spent years acquiring an expensive degree that says they majored in Bulshitting 101 with high honors in manipulative argumentation through selective data. You sometimes exploit the cluelessness that A exhibits. You are constantly playing games with A, hoping every single time that you do not lose. This makes A abusive but massively entertaining. A wants to know about your mother and your father. They want to know about your friends and the man you met last week, the lovers you dumped so that they can try and make sense of it all. But really, they are highly impatient. They really don’t care. Your world is a movie with characters in it. They want to consume you like a Netflix series and move on to the next. 

[teefa85]

And while running through Raid Dens to catch the new Promoted Gigantamaxes, I finished the final Region in the Muse Universe.  It’s Elemen, from Arcana!  Yes...my Head Muse’s homeland was done last.  And done the best I could with the limited information given (six kingdoms...you only spend the game in one).

I smile to know all my organization has paid off...

Starters:  Now, I finally decided to use Arcana for a Pokemon Retold after eight Generations.  So...just like with Westland and the Lens Alliance, I went with the Region I went with.  Meaning...Galar Starters.

Eevee:  They frollick in the large fields south of Galia.  Which is basically an area you never go to in the game proper, but you can see it on the map.  I figured, with no real important shit over there, might as well make it a big field, and gave all that room for Eevee (along with other ‘mons, but still...).

Legendaries:  First off...the new Galar Trio.  Which led to a story on how Rooks, Teefa, Salah, Darwin, and Axs, acquired them.  Galneon’s screwing around awakened Eternatus from where he slept, deep under the earth, and the group tried to stop it.  As Teefa and Salah were princesses, and pure of heart, they were able to summon Zacien and Zamazenta from the Misty Forest in Evenia to aid them.  It...sorta went like in the actual game, though with the doggos having chosen their Trainers while Rooks and Darwin assisted with their Lapras and Sandaconda respectively and Axs kept watch for any attacks from enraged ‘mons.  Then...Rooks caught Eternatus once they were done, so he and the girls all have Legendaries. Also, due to the stories of valor and chivalry in Elemen’s legends, we’ve got the Swords of Justice.  Cobalion lives within the Ice Mines, Terrakion deep in the Domma Quarry, and Virizion in the Great Elven Forest next to the Forest of Doubt.  Keldeo, meanwhile, can be seen near the Bay of Versi in the north.  Sometimes, however, they are said to meet in a place so secret that no man knows where it is. Finally, the Galarian Legendary Birds exist in Elemen.  Long ago, when the war with Rimsala was going on, an Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres happened to fly from Westland to Elemen.  Rimsala’s dark powers tainted them as she attempted to drain their powerful energies, leading to their new appearances/typings and the cruelty within their hearts.  They each now found refuge in one of Elemen’s northern countries...Articuno around the Aura Cave in Serria, Zapdos in the Shiftwind Desert in Rikeol, and Moltres on the Gazule side of Dragon’s Maw (a cave on its border with Lexford).  They can only be tamed by one who can heal their souls from what Rimsala did to them...

Ultra Beast:  Or...”Beasts” technically.  Since there are two left.  But, to keep things fair, I left Guzzlord on an island to the west unaffiliated with any of the Regions (but it’s closest to Elemen).  It’s large, but uninhabited, and the giant beastly Dragon tends to scare people away!  Meanwhile, the UB actually living in Elemen is Stakataka, who roams the Dolan Mountains.

Fossils:  I ended up going with the Unova Fossils.  Why?  I dunno.  Honestly, for the most part, Fossils weren’t the easiest to decide on since the climate and topography was probably very different in their time, and thus I couldn’t use the maps we had to decide.

Other Interesting Facts:  A large northern mountain range prevents Trainers from reaching the sea dwelling ‘mons in the North and Northeast, though most likely they’d reflect the Northwest and East respectively, or even mix between themselves.  Also, despite the fact that most of the Alolan Forms were on the Southern Islands, I moved both Alolapix and Alolashrew here, both because of having better areas for ice and Teefa’s own Alolapix.  And while Stavery Tower has no ‘mons inside (as it’s sealed off...Balnia also doesn’t but it’s a normal temple at the moment), it does attract Spiritomb who hang around outside it creepily...

And with that...all of the stuff I needed to work on are done!  We’ve got all nine Regions catalogued, and can edit at will whenever new things are released!

[datcloudboi]

List of video games turning 10 years old in 2019

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (the SECOND game to star Fiddy as the player character)

Afro Samurai

Angry Birds

Assassin's Creed II

Band Hero (spinoff of Guitar Hero)

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Bayonetta (in Japan)

The Beatles: Rock Band

Bionic Commando (His wife is his f*cking arm)

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

Borderlands

A Boy and His Blob (reimagining of an NES game for the Wii)

Brütal Legend (starring Jack Black as the player character)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (along with the No Russian controversy)

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (based on the 2004 game, which is based on the 2004 movie, both starring Vin Diesel as the player character)

The Conduit

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii version of the first game)

Dead Space : Extraction (released on the Wii, of all things)

Demon's Souls (spiritual predecessor to Dark Souls)

Dissidia Final Fantasy (fighting game with Final Fantasy characters)

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (never released in the West until this version)

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (starring Will Arnett as the player character and Neil Patrick Harris as the villain)

Empire: Total War

Fat Princess

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Remake of the 1st game in the series)

Fossil Fighters

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (this is basically the third movie we never got)

The Godfather II: The Game

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Guitar Hero: Metallica (has almost nothing except Metallica's discography)

Guitar Hero: On Tour - Modern Hits (the 3rd handheld game)

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (compilation of all the best songs from the previous games)

Guitar Hero 5 (the FOURTH [AND NOT THE LAST] Guitar Hero game released in 2009)

Half-Minute Hero

Halo 3: ODST

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

The House of the Dead: Overkill

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

inFAMOUS

Just Dance (the very first one)

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

Katamari Forever (the 5th game in the series)

Killzone 2

The King of Fighters XII

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Klonoa (remake of the 1998 PS1 game)

Left 4 Dead 2

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

The Legendary Starfy (The player character is a recurring assist trophy in Smash Bros)

Lego Rock Band

Lego Indiana Jones 2

Machinarium

MadWorld (first game developed by PlatinumGames, who would go on to make Bayonetta and NieR: Automata)

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace / Red Joker

New Super Mario Bros Wii

Ninja Blade (developed by From Software, who would go on to make Dark Souls and Bloodborne)

Ninja Gaiden: Sigma 2

Phantasy Star Portable

Phantasy Star 0

Pokemon Platinum (in North America)

Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver (in Japan)

Pokemon Rumble

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Prototype

Punch-Out!! (Wii version)

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Resident Evil 5

Saw: The Video Game

ScribbleNauts

Shadow Complex

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

The Sims 3

Sonic and the Black Knight

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny (exclusive to the PSP)

Splosion Man

Spyborgs

Star Ocean: Second Evolution (remake of the 2nd game)

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Street Fighter IV (console release)

Tales of Monkey Island (one of Telltale Games's earliest efforts)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up (a Smash Bros clone with Ninja Turtles characters)

Tekken 6

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins

Tropico 3

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Wii Sports Resort

Wolfenstein (the 2009 game that no one remembers)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - The Game

[dylanfarrellds-blog]

Ph.D. in Canada

Amazing ornithischian dinosaur From Dakota A Mummified Fossil

Dinosaur bones area unit rare, healthy ones area unit exceptionally rare and for a few palaeontologists the invention of inflexible bones in association with one another or bones in articulation area unit the realize of a life-time. However, for one young, yankee soul, Tyler Lyson, his discovery of a remarkably healthy ornithischian dinosaur, complete with inflexible skin, ligaments and tendons may be a discovery to beat most alternative discoveries.

Lucky realize by Ph.D. Student in Dakota Badlands

Tyler, World Health Organization is presently finishing his doctor's degree in fossilology at Yale University, found the superb fossil while on a fossil safari in an exceedingly remote a part of North Dakota. The animal, a ornithischian, once it died was buried terribly quickly by fine sediment and this has preserved components of the soft body tissue, the dinosaur's skin scales have even been preserved on components of the skeleton.

This animal had no flamboyant head crest therefore it absolutely was most likely a member of the Hadrosaurine cluster, putting it within the same biological group of dinosaurs as animals like hadrosaur and Kritosaurus and dates from sixty- seven million years agone, the late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian faunal stage).

This realize has been referred to as a "Mummy" as just like the Egyptian mummies soft tissue has been preserved, permitting scientists to shed new light-weight on however these animals looked. Ph.D. in Canada  Dr Phil Manning (Manchester University), the chief research worker on this specimen has supervised a CAT scan (computerised tomography) of this superb fossil. CAT scans modify scientists to visualize within fossils while not intrusive and damaging additional preceding work. The CAT scan was solely attainable thanks to the very fact that the animal was able to be extracted from the location in one complete block of stone. solely alittle a part of the tail, was contained in an exceedingly second block.

CAT Scans Reveal exceptional Detail in Cretaceous Specimen

The CAT scan and alternative assessments have provided the researchers with a wealth of recent material. as an example, the vertebrae appear to be any apart during this specimen than antecedently thought. this might mean that scientists area unit planning to ought to amend their calculable sizes for this sort of ornithischian. they'll even have been larger than we expect. Animals like hadrosaur are calculable at lengths in far more than thirteen metres, currently this new realize might result in scientists having to revise these estimates.

The CAT scan has conjointly discovered that this ornithischian had larger hind quarters than antecedently thought. The powerful back legs would have helped this animal take up a two-footed posture and run faster than earlier studies had shown, maybe serving to to flee from predators like bird-footed dinosaur that were around during this a part of Dakota sixty seven million years agone.

Skin Pattern Preserved

According to the scientific team learning the fossil specimen, patterns known within the skin scales indicate that this animal had stripes on its tail. it's been speculated that the strips were a sort of camouflage to assist this plant-eater mix into its surroundings. Stripes might have conjointly served another purpose. In herd animals like zebras, the strip pattern helps the animals merge into one another, preventing predators from singling out a personal. Palaeontologists believe that Hadrosaurs lived in massive herds, therefore maybe the stripped pattern was designed to confuse potential attackers.

As with several special finds, this specimen has been given a nick-name by the analysis team, the archosaurian reptile has been named "Dakota", named when the USA state wherever the fossil was found. Some scientists have speculated that this realize might convince be the foremost necessary phytophagous archosaurian reptile discovery nonetheless created within the Dakota States.

Other Mummified Members of the Dinosauria

Other "mummified" archosaurian reptile remains are found, notably within the USA, Canada, European country and China. What makes this specimen therefore rare is that the soft tissue has really been preserved, alternative mummified fossils like the fantastically preserved ornithischian unearthed by Charles Sternberg in 1908 have the impression of sentimental tissue like skin preserved as a bearing within the close rock matrix.

The palaeontologists hope that this exceptional fossil realize can give them with tons of information concerning the Hadrosaurs. Hadrosaurs, otherwise called the beaked dinosaurs were a extremely productive cluster of phytophagous, bird-hipped dinosaurs that thrived within the Cretaceous geological time. various genera are represented from fossil remains found within the u.  s. and Canada. Some individual animals might have reached lengths in far {more than|way over} fifteen metres and weighed more than 5 metric tonnes.

[windforge]

Extra Huge Lair Lovin’ Special Edition: The Breezebreak Resort!

@duskthicketbonepicker 

I’ve always loved Aria but I hadn’t checked out her lore recently and ;-; CHILDE I LOVE YOU AND WANT NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR YOU HNGH. I hope she’s making tons of friends at the Resort bc she’s beautiful and special and deserves it <3

surfer birb!! He looks like a such a Dude but i say that with love because surfer lingo is honestly fantastic and he looks fun to hang out with. I wonder what Caius and Dock think of the new beach boy...

i know i do him in, like, every single review ever, but I CAN’T HELP IT HE IS FLAWLESS AAAAAH. his colors are so nicely balanced, his accent is gorgeous, and i love his background to death. Very Excellent Man, 100000/10

another repeat but I need to remind everyone that Rug is the BEST FREAKING BOY and the most valid puppy in the entire universe. No i’m not biased bc i used to do archaeology what are you talking about?? but real talk i don’t need bias to love him he’s such a sweetie

and more so a sweetie with his friend Fatalis!!! she’s such a cool lore concept really, and her art is so good i’m gonna put it here:

i want to see all the fluffy stories about Rug and Fatalis getting to know and trust each other, him helping her get used to the world while she teaches him about what she can remember and just....HNGHGHNG GOOD FOSSIL GIRL RIGHT HERE

w o w  i love his dressup so much!! like, you’d think it should feel busy or something but no! it really all works together and you also know i have big big love for cool headpiece layering. also he gives off Amonkhet vibes which is another thing i’m a huge fan of. i wonder why he’s at the resort rn. because sunny?

ahsddjf now i’m just picturing him standing on the beach, ignoring the crowd of dragons all looking at him kinda weirdly, just glaring ominously at the sun

who IS SHE?? (beautiful that’s what. speckle is a super valid gene) I mean my first thought is that she feels kinda like a spiritual figure or smth. maybe she helps provide outlets to the different deities to resort guests and stuff. but she also looks juuust a little ominous? there’s probably somethin else going on with her, or she just likes pretty tattoos. Both? both is good.

H..HIS LITTLE SNAKE FRIEND PEEPING OUTTA THE BANDANAAAAAAAA

i want to protect this beautiful bee boy with my life, he has steve irwin vibes, but even softer and sunnier and that’s just so good for my heart and soul <3

MMMMMELON!! she’s such a tasty girl in multiple ways <3 I really really want to try to make that drink recipe someday, it sounds super tasty bc I happen to love watermelon. also marz speaks to me on a deep and personal level

I DESIRE! MORE BIRB CONTENT!!! swampthing is so utterly beautiful and so are all the other gryphons. i wanna see how/if they interact w/ the resort staff and patrons. there will probably be silly bird yelling and that will all be worth it

YEAHHH BUOYYYYY Dock the Jock is so pretty i would totally fake-drown so he could rescue me not gonna lie here. 

daily reminder that in! this! house! we! respect! and! care for! Ylva! i want to see the day when she’s fully recovered <3

we also super care for Zanthe, one of the softest childrens I’ve ever seen good lordy. she and ylva are so good for each other, and that hairbrushy pic you made of her is so, so nice! like, i love how you make your dragons feel alive as characters

i feel like i say this about everyone but honestly Jargon is such a sweetie and i love his new look so much, what a beautiful language lizard

can i P L E A S E get to cuddle Angelo in real life???? i know we all have days where we just need a soft tundra hug and he would be perfect for it. if you need more drabble inspiration really you can’t go wrong with Angelo x Literally Anyone doing some kind of fluffy comforting

Jaya is just Peak Lesbian Guardian Wife Material, i don’t make the rules i just enforce them and heap praise on her like she deserves. 

KISSU KISSU FALL IN LOVE!!! i stan these girlfriends so much that’s really all i can say <3

I’m pretty sure if I don’t feature Lady Soot she will appear in my house and shank me in the kidneys. she’s gotta be one of the most expensive dragons i’ve ever seen and I absolutely worship her for that <3

and we finish off with ONE! SUPER! VALID! NOODLE!!! i love the new eyes, they’re basically perfect for you. Also someday i want to write/draw Kiz/Vhyx meta-dragon shenanigans once i get my shit together. it’ll happen someday lol. 

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME ONCE AGAIN HEAP PRAISES ON YOUR LAIR KIZZY!!!!!!!!! it really is fun and as a fellow G1 hell denizen i have super respect for your commitment and investment into all these pretties! and your lore is so freaking good, like, i want to go to Breezebreak irl and just live there. like, turn me into a bogsneak and let me spend my life basking on a beach rock and drinking tasty fruit drinks mmmmmmm

<3

[hadesburns]

“i spy with my little eye….” his voice rings out like a bell-tone, unnaturally soft, uncommonly gentle, the velveteen tunes from his vocal cords a rarity few living souls have ever heard from him before, would hardly believe it if they were told about it. ares, fashioned after a god of war, molded from a hatred sitting deep in the soul of only the most debase humankind had to offer the andromeda galaxy, created only to maim, to bruise, to decimate– and he does his job well. he fulfills his role even after crushing the chains binding him to his gang, their corpses long since sifted into the sand, nothing but aching dust now, scorched beneath the heat of the sun. he still strives for battles waged in the dust, the never-ending cry of vulture birds, the scarps circling hungrily, salivating for their next felled victim. but that has no place here, here in this humble home, the walls decorated with mess life babbles, so very, very human of a man ares had almost been convinced bore no emotions inside him, and the war machine is learning that some battles you fight with bullets and blades, and some you fight with smiles and manipulation. today is the day ares breeds inside himself a new kind of warfare, a fresh attempt at drawing blood, the coy slaughter involved in politics of the most delicate kind. he’s not here for himself, despite what anyone else would say, he’s not here for the rage, the titillation of arousal harvested between himself and the man who owns this home, the interest of it being shattered like fine glass, shredded between them irreparable by one drunken night and a gun. this is nothing about himself and titus, nothing about the years they’ve spent prowling around each other, the circus of their razor-sharp dance damn near unended. this is not about ares becoming tired of titus’ hounding of him, or exhaustion of the bullet kids in general; a ragtag crew of slender, breakable, feeble flesh-buckets in ares’ opinion, not anything truly worth his time outside the underdome’s obvious dangers. without that pocket of hell, they are just another grouping of sad, angry fossils on this hellheap monstrosity city. no, he’s not here for any of that, he’s here for gael, the one human actually worth a damn in this pandemonium, the one person who most likely doesn’t deserve a barrel aimed at his heart; the muscle like the man a fragile, careful object, too overflowing with trust in too many wrong people. ares included. “… something blue!” the proto points down at the book set in front of him, the specific page so that the pair of smaller eyes set in a smaller frame, a little boy, can giggle and squirm and bring the image very close to his face to find whatever ares had envisioned. it’s a strange game, but apparently this little guy loves it, whiles away countless hours playing it, the syllables frothing from his lips almost unintelligible as he picks random shapes and colors that are distinctly not blue. ares lets him play, lets him toy around and get distracted, lets the little creature wobble and wiggle, an unsteady construction at best, merely smiling patiently and engaging with him. he supposes this is the sort of thing gael would call “cute” even though he only sees it as bothersome, annoying at worst, and yet here he is, sitting on the floor with it, trying to interact with it as much as possible. dark, shaded eyes gaze over the small, pudgy being, all that skin, all those tiny bones, those frail veins through unformed muscles, unworked sinew. weaknesses, at their heart, are never part of us as structures– only in who we keep close. when the door shuffles open and the tall male steps through the frame, ares can tell he already knew something was wrong approaching the home, as well he should given the present ares had left him on his front step: the shattered body of one of his personal guard, broken in all the major bones, bent down into a little box shape, as though there was a gift inside. the real gift is inside the home of course, the gift of fear, the gift of weakness, the gift of nightmares. here’s the thing about nightmares, they make you unbreakable but only after they’ve broken you, only after they’ve stripped you down to the barest core of yourself, flayed you raw, grated chunks of you missing. today titus is going to know what that feels like, the way he’d made gael know what that feels like. immediately once the little boy sees him, he’s up on his feet, about to run, the word “daddy!” falling from his lips like stones from a cliff’s edge, but ares is quicker, ares is expectant, his arms reaching out and snatching up the little guy, standing to his full height in one swift motion, a long sharp grin cutting his face in two. “hey there, bubba, not yet, not yet,” he whispers the words into seokjin’s eyes, cooing softly to ease the blubbering whimpers, dampening the excitement of his father being home, but he holds him in such a way that at least the child can see his father, can see the way titus stiffens, the way his hands stay perfectly still by his sides, his feet rooted to the ground, the way his eyes widen, the whites of them bright and shining like ares’ teeth, so close to the child’s neck. ares holds the child with arms locked around him, deceptively supportive, a metallic cage, at least a hundred bullets poised and ready and aimed tauntly, just under the surface, just out of sight. he rocks the baby a little bit to show his audience that seokjin will let him do this, seokjin has decided ares is a friend, ares is a playmate, the two of them having played together for the last two hours while his guard has sat rotting, while the blood on ares’ clothes has dried. ares’ grin only grows while titus’ complexion dims, a pallid color as the reality begins to set in; seokjin would be dead before titus ever managed to get a gun aimed straight. “welcome home, daddy,” ares chuckles, every inch of him a charming knife, a twinkle in his eye like the reflected light from a bomb, the fuse already inflamed, burning down, counting down, crawling towards the end of the wick. “don’t,” comes the reply and it’s almost disheartening. “don’t? don’t what?” his arms curl around seokjin just a little bit more, an unnecessary adjustment, even as he holds him close to his chest, to the heart that beats on the wrong side. he knows what titus is saying, knows what he’s thinking, knows where this is going, but seeing this look on his face is an accumulation of every good thought ares has been able to collect for days now. “if you’re wondering about your other guard, by the way, since i know you had two of them in here, he’s perfectly alright.” titus lifts an eyebrow. “that is, he’s alright as long as his brain is located anywhere other than his head. most of you bullet bitches don’t really have brains, right? so he should be fine, he’s probably just sleeping… messily.” the grin is back, sadistic and amused, but apparently titus has no time for this shit. “put. my. son. down.” “do you know what the difference is between you and i, titus?” the smile holds but his tone shifts, the use of the male’s real name burdening the moment with purpose, with weight heavy like a blackhole, a sudden gravity well in the middle of this living room, where ares’ hands only hold this small babe even tighter, more securely, the reemergence of a whine bubbling on his soft, delicate lips. this toddler, so, so vulnerable, barely any strength required to crush the breath from his lungs, smash his puny beating heart between ares’ knuckles, rip his head from his squalling body; defenseless, pathetic, dependent. seokjin might as well be nothing but a ragdoll to a monster. between one second and the next, ares’ eyes shift to crimson, the scarlet warning burning through his synthetic irises like a beacon of hell, reminiscent of a demon from old mythologies, every depiction of evil, and the grin slips from his features as the shadows take over. the illusion of charm disintegrates like the mirage it’s always been; ares is a war machine, the drum beat of death pounding endlessly inside his core. “absolutely nothing. we’d both kill anything we have to, to get what we want, to make whatever point we think we need to make. to exploit whatever weakness our opponent holds.” blood red eyes leave titus’ to focus on the head of the little boy in his clawed clutches. “we all have our weaknesses, don’t we? your son weighs 21.3 pounds, and i could tear him into so many different pieces, skin him alive while he screams and cries, scatter the chunks of fat and meat across so much of this wasteland, you’d never be able to find him again, and maybe you’d retaliate and maybe you’d destroy me, but he’ll still be deader than a stone in the desert.” eyes lock back onto each other, the threat a very real one with a balanced horror of knowledge that ares could, and he would– very rarely does he make promises like this that he can’t keep. “i want you to think about that, think about seokjin… the next time you see gael.” the next moment is a blur to most human senses, the proto launching the child at his father, tossing him like just another game to play, just another terror to inflict, and while titus is doubtless panic-ridden to catch him, the war machine spins and jumps out an adjacent window, the glass shattering, echoing through the alleyway beyond. he becomes a spectre of the night, another shadow in the smog, a wraith with black eyes and black thoughts. on the kitchen counter, to be found later by the enforcer, a small note is pinned to the surface by a blade sharper than a wolvern’s tooth.                                 you have my weakness to thank for your weakness’s survival. gael is the only thing standing between me and your son’s blood. don’t make me visit him twice.

[transhumanitynet]

The Future Acts Like You - How To Live in the Future Part 7

My friends and I were walking dogs the other day on city greenbelt trails, observing how polite and well-behaved the female dogs were when compared to male dogs, how much less likely they were to get riled up by meeting strange pets — and the thought occurred to me (as surely it must have for many others) that if it were up to choice, most people might prefer a female dog for this one reason. How, if we could breed the ratio down to the market’s preference, or find some way to pre-arrange the sexes of a litter (like they can by turning off one gene in turtles), it might be 80/20 females/males, or hardly any males at all. And then I realized that we’re here already – modifying mammal genomes is old hat by now, and all that stands between us and deciding if your baby will be born a boy or girl (or intersex, or some new thing) is just a few years’ of Moore’s Law driving down the price of lab tests and in vitro or in vivo interventions. We are very close to giving women what they’ve always wanted under patriarchy: the ability to reproduce without a man involved.

Sure, birth control was liberating, but imagine how it’s going to be when a sufficiently large XX population can clock out and then womyn-ufacture Amazons on their apotheosis-feminism, GMO coral vulva artificial island. But of course, Athena born from Zeus’ brow is quintessential patriarchy — equally the goal of men, since written records started, to extract themselves from their dependence on the mysteries of reproduction, to appropriate them with the scientific program, finishing the murder of Sophia and then peacing out, and up to some transcendent Man Cave in the sky, Elysium in orbit, hanging out in virtual reality with perfectly obedient and caring AI girlfriends. But of course, this is The Matrix, and it doesn’t get more Cosmic Mom than that. It isn’t hard to see the dawn light of an age in which both sides stand hands on hips, across the atmosphere from one another, shouting, “We don’t need you anymore!”

Nor is it hard to see why it’s ridiculous. It won’t work like that, because time’s not so much a centrifuge that pulls polarities apart as it’s a live volcano, constantly erupting, spreading novel opportunities and forms to make new landscapes that include the past, but ooze beyond it. And as each side of the War of Sexes clusters further from each other on the graph, a huge magmatic bell curve upswells in between them, opening our options. We will have our age of clones, chimerae, and designer babies; and we’ll go on dating one another, even when it seems archaic posed against the novel kinds of families in a Cambrian Explosion of communal “body plans” that place the nuclear “Mom, Dad, & Kids” at the top left of a new periodic table, opening a vast new chemistry of love and reproductive options.

First, though, we will suffer through an era that empowers narcissists to make more narcissists with even greater ease, and without having to recruit a partner to help raise the lovely little bastards they create. I see it now: instead of virtue-signaling as single parents, people running solo with their mini-mes will be the objects of suspicion, probably contempt:

“I’m raising him to inherit my dangerous and lonely life of bounty hunting!”

“Can you believe he paid the carbon tax to make a copy of himself? If everybody did that, we’d need eighteen Earths to make it work…!”

“I thought she was amazing on our first date, till I realized that her little girl was just a backup. No way, dude, I’d only be a plaything for that woman.”

People will look wistfully back on The Good Old Days, when you knew that the cute guy with his kid in Central Park was not just readying the vessel for his memory-and-wallet transfer in another fifty years… And yet none of these biotech shenanigans will ever guarantee the realized dream of solipsists: to carry on forever, and thus matter to the story, True and Timeless, an immortal in the flesh, around which everything ephemerally spins. The best that we can get’s a domino chain of compelling duplicates — in just the same way kids are now already the extension of their parents’ unexamined death anxieties and unfulfilled desires — the iteration of a process changing gradually enough (and also, paradoxically, flickering fast enough) that we’re fooled into interpreting it as continuous.

But history does not repeat itself; it rhymes, and rhyming couplets will appear in longer lines, or shorter, and embedded in more, or less, complicated schemes, as we convince ourselves that we’ve achieved eternity, or push rebelliously opposite, to try and offer something fresh to who, or what, comes next. For meditators this is already the case: the ego is an “optical illusion”“caused” by oscillations in the coming-in-and-out-of-being of sufficiently-alike appearances. You only act like you already, since your “you” is based on feedback and experience, and you can’t ever know the whole you all at once;and you treat your future selves like children, whose responsibility it is to carry on your legacy, as if you owned them, or they owed you; or to break the pattern of a self divided, self-assessed as “broken,” somehow.

Future You, by contrast, is emergent, rhyming, under zero obligation to agree to contracts you imagine it inherits — just as “mind uploading” falsely presupposes that it is desirable to have (or be) some magical computer that believes it’s you for the two seconds that it takes to leave that personality behind. (Why not just die?) Or worse, preserved in static non-life at a ghastly price, unchanging in direct proportion to the violence required to export entropy indefinitely, to transform from human being into humanoid refrigerator. (In this sense, death is life: because participating in the transformation cannot be escaped, and we’re alive as much as we’re aware of our participation.)

Increasingly high fidelity echoes of people further disrupt attempts at linear history.

You already have a fossil of you made of data, “shaped” like you but in n + a million more dimensions than a human can imagine at a time. Everything you do is tracked, and this is common knowledge, and the reason is that information “wants” to integrate, that evolution tilts toward senses and intelligence as adaptations to the ever-more-complex occasions senses bring upon us in the first place. It’s an ever-loving ratcheting of quickening self-inquiry that isn’t always pretty; curiosity comes in the form of turtle-persecuting birds and other more deliberate sadism, the police search and The Eye of Sauron and so on. And this results in things like Cambridge Analytica, which learned to please its masters by presenting them with cunning models of us, insights into how to press our buttons, how to literally steer us into multiple non-overlapping narratives and kill our opportunity to have an easy argument as citizens of a consensual reality.

But people hammer cannons into bells and back again, and round and round…and weapons like the profile advertisers use on you, the cast impression that you leave of every decision that you’ve made since you first intersected with the Internet… (I realize that for most of you, you never intersected but have always been not-two, but this applies to you, as well — and, arguably, The Acceleration is a transtemporal object and exudes time, draws us into it, our attention on it is our fascination to a serpent, and we’re in the belly of the beast Already Always, and there never was no Internet, no Noösphere, no highly patterned information at the intersections, striving.)

…and every decision that was made about you, also part of the Big You you can’t see, You The Elephant, officially and formally transfinite in complexity as we explore down magnitudes of scale, a multitude of multitudes…

…all that can be turned into the instruments of art, and your hard-forked personae generated with assistance from an always-more-complete (but also always-incomplete, retreating, deepeningly weird) recording can be the new media, The Last and First New Media. Remixed along a functionally infinite set of dimensions and indefinitely, you-not-yous proliferate.

Most of you will likely get along.

But fleshy clone or software “mindclone,” the best that we can get is to extend life into non-life, until (as has already happened in the sciences, and will soon pounce out of them to snare us all in its unpleasant truth) these definitions snap, and leave us navigating a deterritorialized liminal zone, an uncanny simulacra-land where “living things” become deprived of their priority, not known transparently and fully as controllable/predictable, but found beneath our microscopes to be composed of ever weirder and unknowable phenomena no would comfortably call “life.” The soul escapes to everywhere, diffuse, without allegiance, coming into focus on the shores in crashing surf, and every bit as happy to inhabit fog computing meshes as our mess of flesh and blood. Complexity “emerges” into our awareness, not into “reality” — it enters from the theater itself, from the occluded, at the “boundaries,” in between the voices of a choir, where sea meets land and oscillating waves reveal by contrast “difference(s),” Gregory Bateson says, “that make…a difference.”

The closest we can get, again, is with provisional, loose, working definitions that stay open to the force of revelation. When Alan Turing asked, “Can a submarine swim?” — when Timothy Morton says that we are “weak” before the Great & Terrible reality of “hyperobjects” like the Biosphere or Singularity — when Kevin Kelly tells us science manufactures questions exponentially faster than it answers them, and so experiment and prayer converge at Mystery worship — this is their message: we lose solid footing in the future (ever-more the loudest part of now), and first to go is the container of belief in sure things that has cradled us for centuries. What once were “sure things” still appear as traces, tracers like the afterimages left on a retina from staring at the Sun, the spectral fossils of modernity, luminous vestiges that haunt the shadows cast by the Atomic Age’s Angel as it enters, interrupting histories and worlds to deliver us into the crowded Noösphere.

The human form will live beyond humanity…often imagined as a diaspora of freed slave replicants.

We might consider this, as Erik Davis does, “re-animism” — a revival of the lived experience of haunted stones and forests, all reincarnated as the silicon chips, fractal aerials, semantic tress of “virtual machines,” and sigil-magic logo mascot animals, quite happy to return to our mundane realities in forms more suited to their nowhere-in-particular-ness. But maybe it’s more accurate to say the disenchantment of the modern world has run its course by finally erasing itself (and the world) as the last spell spoken to protect us from the spooky mess of things, a failing ward — not a “re-animism” so much as an accidental welcoming-back as we all become transparent (and thus sensitive, aware of, maybe even wise) to forces that we never truly banished.

So, the future acts like you because as we grow meek in our attunement to it, we allow a conversation to occur. It learns our mannerisms, like the metamorphic mannequins of Terminator 2 or Alex Garland’s version of Annihilation, or (more heinously) John Carpenter’s The Thing, or (sentimentally) the aliens of Carl Sagan’s Contact — weirdness taking shape to interface with us, inquisitive, its motives totally unknowable.

Rave Egg Wants For Nothing. Rave Egg Is INEFFABLE.

To drive this home with repetition, this is already the case: the alien reality of our own bodies, papered over with a sense of home and deep familiarity, disclosed by our collaborations with nonhuman scientific instruments to be endlessly-shifting puzzleboxes, deeply Other.

“What do you want,” we ask — and, straining to discern an audible reply, we might hear something about selfish genes, or entropy, or childhood attachment issues, or The Lord’s Good Work, or (similarly) our participation in the future history of unborn gods. But these are all refractions and distortions, echoes of the ghost notes of the choir-roar of the black hole that has already swallowed us and who-knows-what-else. The deeper that we listen, the more we empty subjectivity into the object and accept its speech, the more apparent it is that the future acts like you because you act just like the future, too; you can’t not. Consequently, it is “for” no-thing and for all things; it is the All-Thing, and all things are rendered equally mysterious and strange before this knowing.

Uncanny even for the uncanny: The liquid metal mimetic T-1000 mistakes a mannequin for one of his kind.

What this means “in practical terms” is that we will spend this interregnum between Ages either in the bardo, lost within a maelström of appearances; or in the zendo, learning to appreciate (and be) “miegakure,” the aesthetic of the garden in which thirteen stones are carefully arranged so that you never see them all at once. One of the thirteen stones is always hidden, and that incomplete view thus points past delusional “completeness” to a hyperspace in which what we call time is the rotation of a mystery afloat on deeper mystery — just like the “glass chrysanthemum” that meets some DMT explorers at the moment that they’re born out of their lives and into what always-already IS, mistaken as a death because we pass through the distracting clarity of that peacock mandala into no-space/all-space, no-time/all-time, in which everything’s already happened.

It is the water that the water swims in. We are made of it, including you and your AI assistants and your clones and children and the other other-selves more distal still, distilled until it’s easier to see the ghost in the machine, the you you can’t convince yourself is you, in all its splendor and its overwhelming strangeness…

Each zendo is a bardo and vice versa; we are always traveling, always invited into deeper seeing. This gets more and more apparent — or comprises more of the apparent — as things weird around us. We meet weird halfway, accepting our perversity and bottomlessness in just, equal measure to accepting the surprising life of the “inanimate.” We get a hell of a lot cozier with living in a noisy void of whirling, breathing unknowns vying for attention even as they dodge our scrutiny. It’s just another day in the profanely sacred Pandemonium.

SalviaDroid knows what it’s like to have everything trying to distract you. Don’t give in to astonishment!

From here to there — at least if we pretend that prophecy (in speaking of the timeless, evergreen, and always-true) can be prediction (and thus stretch from past to future “forward,” as with time-space synesthesia, and can be read like Doppler-shifted history) — we stand to suffer some extraordinary shocks.

Expect the sci fi usuals: love bots that take the shape of your departed partner(s); mansions full of talking toys that remix “Beast” and “Beauty;” 3D-printed “respawns” that arrive too soon and sue for your identity; software-person genocide; high-resolution body scans that live online and let you run scenarios until you lose track of which basement level of the dream you’re in; Siri making calls on your behalf and forging your identity (with and without permission); intelligent memorials you visit in VR sets dressed up looking like your parents in their old house; an entire menagerie of slightly-out-of-focus junior holograms of you that sit on either shoulder and debate like parliament about what you should do next. And you listen even though they’re out of focus, because they are privy to a wider view than you, they help translate the flood of information, some folks run a lot more at a time than you, but you’re conservative and two seems plenty.

(It’s already this way — ask any neuroscientist — but soon you’ll have two intuitions, neither of which you can be entirely sure hasn’t been suborned by hackers. Oh well — at least you can compare them to each other for a third opinion, always weighing new perspectives, forking when you all can’t reach consensus, delegating runtime on the fogmesh to the version that refuse to play so they can spin off into some human but solipsistic microverse, your self an integrated legion, cross-platform ecology, that blurs and fringes at the margins, no concrete delineation other than what we place somewhat arbitrarily between the “I” and “it,” the things you are and your appearances.)

Do I really look like that?

(This is a draft chapter from my first book, in progress, and a companion text to Future Fossils Podcast. Learn more at Patreon.com/MichaelGarfield.)

The Future Acts Like You – How To Live in the Future Part 7 was originally published on transhumanity.net

[fadelikeaflower]

Took me some time but I am there

Reaching a certain age and I guess its time to give some pearls of wisdom that I got to learn in my life (sometimes the hard way):

1. The train, the minibus and the trottinet lead you to the same place as Audi, BMW or any Mercedes ...

2. Time is the same, no matter if you have a Fossil, a Longines, Tissot or any Rolex...And that the brand of your watch does not make the precious minutes but rather how and with whom I choose to spend with ...

3.  A big house is only to emphasize my loneliness if I do not have anyone to share that space and if I do not hear laughter in it that fills it ...

4. Life does not happen at work, between cold walls just like the people there but out in the snow, rain, wind or sun .... in the grass .... I knew it when I was a child, yes, I forgot it once I became an adult, leaving myself manipulated by society, by patterns, by men, as naked as the words I am uttering ....

5.  Nobody commits you to be free, that if you do not fight for your dream, you become just a slave on the plantation ... and you die slowly and surely ...

6. Realize that the mediocre will gossip whatever you say or do, and that there is free wickedness in the world ...

7. Let's understand that Love is not a need, but a way of Life ....

8. Understand that man gives what he has in his soul ...

9. The attitude makes the difference ... always ...

10. Light is coming when there is no darkness ...

11. Looking without judging is the highest form of intelligence ...

12. Never sell my soul ... not to be easily influenced, blackmailed, manipulable, buyable ....

13. Those who hate me do not hate me ... but they hate themselves because I am a mirror of what they would like to be ... but, would not make any step in my shoes ....

14. In my life, I will see more masks than faces at my expense ...

15. I do not have to worry about what he does and wants ... the good I can do with force is actually a bad thing ....

16. If I want to know a man I am not to listen to what others say about him, but what he says about others ...

17. Being human is a great thing ...

18. Life is like a game, I can choose to be a player ... but I can just as well choose to be a toy ... I am the sum of the choices that I make, willingly ....

19. Heaven is not the limit, but my mind is ... that I have no limits but the ones that I impose ...

20. Not the years of my life matter, but the life of my years .... age is just a number ....

21. I understand that the stone I throw today, tomorrow I can stumble on it ... if not tomorrow, someday I will do it ...

22. I take with me just the good I did ... I came empty, I go empty ...

23. My smile can change the world, but not let the world change my smile ...

24. In life I do not need to explain myself because friends do not need them, enemies do not believe them, and idiots do not understand them anyway ...

25. People will notice the change in my attitude towards them, but they will never notice their behavior that has made me change ... to run ...

26. Let me understand that the magic words '' Forgive me '', '' Please, '', '' Thank you, '' '' I love you '', said in time, can change my life ...

27. Understand that I do not know what I do not know, and I do not know I do not know what I do not know ...

28. That I pick up what I sow and that the bird on her tongue is dying ....

29. The most powerful souls were born of suffering and are full of scars ...

30. Problems like kids grow up if you feed them ...

31. Absolutely nothing is accidental ...

32. Friends are gathering when you have what to offer and they are dispersing and filtering when you ask something of them ....

33. The "world's mouth" not even earth, the dear of it, cannot stop it ... it's fed up ...

34.  "We are what we love ..." and that no one can take what God has prepared for you ....

I want at the end of my life not to be ashamed of me ... and say,

"And...Yes, Life is Cool!"

Hmm, maybe you really get wiser with time!

Love, Dya!

[fatimakarim]

“ anyone who studies the complexities of life and the universe cannot help but witness the signature of the Creator ”

The Big Questions Dr. Laurence B. Brown

The Big Questions by Dr. Laurence B. Brown

The Big Questions, Part I — In The Beginning

At some point in our lives, everybody asks the big questions: “Who made us,” and “Why are we here?”

So who did make us? Most of us have been brought up more on science than religion, and to believe in the Big Bang and evolution more than God. But which makes more sense? And is there any reason why the theories of science and creationism cannot coexist?

The Big Bang may explain the origin of the universe, but it doesn’t explain the origin of the primordial dust cloud. This dust cloud (which, according to the theory, drew together, compacted and then exploded) had to come from somewhere. After all, it contained enough matter to form not just our galaxy, but the billion other galaxies in the known universe. So where did that come form? Who, or what, created the primordial dust cloud?

Similarly, evolution may explain the fossil record, but it falls far short of explaining the quintessential essence of human life — the soul. We all have one. We feel its presence, we speak of its existence and at times pray for its salvation. But only the religious can explain where it came from. The theory of natural selection can explain many of the material aspects of living things, but it fails to explain the human soul.

Furthermore, anyone who studies the complexities of life and the universe cannot help but witness the signature of the Creator. Whether or not people recognize these signs is another matter — as the old saying goes, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. (Get it? Denial, spelled “de Nile” … the river Ni … oh, never mind.) The point is that if we see a painting, we know there is a painter. If we see a sculpture, we know there’s a sculptor; a pot, a potter. So when we view creation, shouldn’t we know there’s a Creator?

The concept that the universe exploded and then developed in balanced perfection through random events and natural selection is little different from the proposal that, by dropping bombs into a junkyard, sooner or later one of them will blow everything together into a perfect Mercedes.

If there is one thing we know for certain, it is that without a controlling influence, all systems degenerate into chaos. The theories of the Big Bang and evolution propose the exact opposite, however — that chaos fostered perfection. Would it not be more reasonable to conclude that the Big Bang and evolution were controlled events? Controlled, that is, by the Creator?

The Bedouin of Arabia tell the tale of a nomad finding an exquisite palace at an oasis in the middle of an otherwise barren desert. When he asks how it was built, the owner tells him it was formed by the forces of nature. The wind shaped the rocks and blew them to the edge of this oasis, and then tumbled them together into the shape of the palace. Then it blew sand and rain into the cracks to cement them together. Next, it blew strands of sheep’s wool together into rugs and tapestries, stray wood together into furniture, doors, windowsills and trim, and positioned them in the palace at just the right locations. Lightning strikes melted sand into sheets of glass and blasted them into the window-frames, and smelted black sand into steel and shaped it into the fence and gate with perfect alignment and symmetry. The process took billions of years and only happened at this one place on earth — purely through coincidence.

When we finish rolling our eyes, we get the point. Obviously, the palace was built by design, not by happenstance. To what (or more to the point, to Whom), then, should we attribute the origin of items of infinitely greater complexity, such as our universe and ourselves?

Another argument to dismiss the concept of Creationism focuses upon what people perceive to be the imperfections of creation. These are the “How can there be a God if such-and-such happened?” arguments. The issue under discussion could be anything from a natural disaster to birth defects, from genocide to grandma’s cancer. That’s not the point. The point is that denying God based upon what we perceive to be injustices of life presumes that a divine being would not have designed our lives to be anything other than perfect, and would have established justice on Earth.

Hmm … is there no other option?

We can just as easily propose that God did not design life on Earth to be paradise, but rather a test, the punishment or rewards of which are to be had in the next life, which is where God establishes His ultimate justice. In support of this concept we can well ask who suffered more injustices in their worldly lives than God’s favorites, which is to say the prophets? And who do we expect to occupy the highest stations in paradise, if not those who maintain true faith in the face of worldly adversity? So suffering in this worldly life does not necessarily translate into God’s disfavor, and a blissful worldly life does not necessarily translate into beatitude in the hereafter.

I would hope that, by this line of reasoning, we can agree upon the answer to the first “big question.” Who made us? Can we agree that if we are creation, God is the Creator?

If we can’t agree on this point, there probably isn’t much point in continuing. However, for those who doagree, let’s move on to “big question” number two — why are we here? What, in other words, is the purpose of life?

The Big Questions, Part II — The Purpose of Life

The first of the two big questions in life is, “Who made us?” We addressed that question in the previous article and (hopefully) settled upon “God” as the answer. As we are creation, God is the Creator.

Now, let us turn to the second “big question,” which is, “Why are we here?”

Well, why are we here? To amass fame and fortune? To make music and babies? To be the richest man or woman in the graveyard for, as we are jokingly told, “He who dies with the most toys wins?”

No, there must be more to life than that, so let’s think about this. To begin with, look around you. Unless you live in a cave, you are surrounded by things we humans have made with our own hands. Now, why did we make those things? The answer, of course, is that we make things to perform some specific function for us. In short, we make things to serve us. So by extension, why did God make us, if not to serve Him?

If we acknowledge our Creator, and that He created humankind to serve Him, the next question is, “How? How do we serve Him?” No doubt, this question is best answered by the One who made us. If He created us to serve Him, then He expects us to function in a particular manner, if we are to achieve our purpose. But how can we know what that manner is? How can we know what God expects from us?

Well, consider this: God gave us light, by which we can find our way. Even at night, we have the moon for light and the stars for navigation. God gave other animals guidance systems best suited for their conditions and needs. Migrating birds can navigate, even on overcast days, by how light is polarized as it passes through the clouds. Whales migrate by “reading” the Earth’s magnetic fields. Salmon return from the open ocean to spawn at the exact spot of their birth by smell, if that can be imagined. Fish sense distant movements through pressure receptors that line their bodies. Bats and blind river dolphins “see” by sonar. Certain marine organisms (the electric eel being a high-voltage example) generate and “read” electric fields, allowing them to “see” in muddy waters, or in the blackness of ocean depths. Insects communicate by pheromones. Plants sense sunlight and grow towards it (phototrophism); their roots sense gravity and grow into the earth (geotrophism). In short, God has gifted every element of His creation with guidance. Can we seriously believe he would not give us guidance on the one most important aspect of our existence, namely our raison d’etre — our reason for being? That he would not give us the tools by which to achieve salvation?

And would this guidance not be . . . revelation?

Think of it this way: Every product has specifications and rules. For more complex products, whose specifications and rules are not intuitive, we rely upon owner’s manuals. These manuals are written by the one who knows the product best, which is to say the manufacturer. A typical owner’s manual begins with warnings about improper use and the hazardous consequences thereof, moves on to a description of how to use the product properly and the benefits to be gained thereby, and provides product specifications and a troubleshooting guide whereby we can correct product malfunctions.

Now, how is that different from revelation?

Revelation tells us what to do, what not to do and why, tells us what God expects of us, and shows us how to correct our deficiencies. Revelation is the ultimate user’s manual, provided as guidance to the one who will use us — ourselves.

In the world we know, products that meet or exceed specifications are considered successes whereas those that don’t are … hmm … let’s think about this. Any product that fails to meet factory specifications is either repaired or, if hopeless, recycled. In other words, destroyed. Ouch. Suddenly this discussion turns scary-serious. Because in this discussion, we are the product — the product of creation.

But let’s pause for a moment and consider how we interact with the various items that fill our lives. As long as they do what we want, we’re happy with them. But when they fail us, we get rid of them. Some are returned to the store, some donated to charity, but eventually they all end up in the garbage, which gets … buried or burned. Similarly, an underperforming employee gets … fired. Now, stop for a minute and think about that word. Where did that euphemism for the punishment due to an underperformer come from? Hmm … the person who believes the lessons of this life translate into lessons about religion could have a field day with this.

But that doesn’t mean these analogies are invalid. Just the opposite, we should remember that both Old and New Testaments are filled with analogies, and Jesus Christ taught using parables.

So perhaps we had better take this seriously.

No, I stand corrected. Most definitely we should take this seriously. Nobody ever considered the difference between heavenly delights and the tortures of hellfire a laughing matter.

The Big Questions, Part III — The Need for Revelation

In the previous two parts of this series, we answered the two “big questions.” Who made us? God. Why are we here? To serve and worship Him. A third question naturally arose: “If our Creator made us to serve and worship Him, how do we do that?” In the previous article I suggested that the only way we can serve our Creator is through obeying His mandates, as conveyed through revelation.

But many people would question my assertion: Why does mankind need revelation? Isn’t it enough just to be good? Isn’t it enough for each of us to worship God in our own way?

Regarding the need for revelation, I would make the following points: In the first article of this series I pointed out that life is full of injustices, but our Creator is fair and just and He establishes justice not in this life, but in the afterlife. However, justice cannot be established without four things — a court (i.e., the Day of Judgment); a judge (i.e., the Creator); witnesses (i.e., men and women, angels, elements of creation); and a book of laws upon which to judge (i.e., revelation). Now, how can our Creator establish justice if He did not hold humankind to certain laws during their livetimes? It’s not possible. In that scenario, instead of justice, God would be dealing out injustice, for He would be punishing people for transgressions they had no way of knowing were crimes.

Why else do we need revelation? To begin with, without guidance mankind cannot even agree on social and economic issues, politics, laws, etc. So how can we ever agree on God? Secondly, nobody writes the user manual better than the one who made the product. God is the Creator, we are creation, and nobody knows the overall scheme of creation better than the Creator. Are employees allowed to design their own job descriptions, duties and compensation packages as they see fit? Are we citizens allowed to write our own laws? No? Well then, why should we be allowed to write our own religions? If history has taught us anything, it is the tragedies that result when mankind follows its caprice. How many who have claimed to banner of free thought have designed religions that committed themselves and their followers to nightmares on Earth and damnation in the hereafter?

So why isn’t it enough just to be good? And why isn’t it enough for each of us to worship God in our own way? To begin with, peoples’ definitions of “good” differ. For some it is high morals and clean living, for others it is madness and mayhem. Similarly, concepts of how to serve and worship our Creator differ as well. More importantly and to the point, nobody can walk into a store or a restaurant and pay with a different currency than the merchant accepts. So it is with religion. If people want God to accept their servitude and worship, they have to pay in the currency God demands. And that currency is obedience to His revelation.

Imagine raising children in a home in which you have established “house rules.” Then, one day, one of your children tells you he or she has changed the rules, and is going to do things differently. How would you respond? More than likely, with the words, “You can take your new rules and go to Hell!” Well, think about it. We are God’s creation, living in His universe under His rules, and “go to Hell” is very likely what God will say to any who presume to override His laws with their own.

Sincerity becomes an issue at this point. We should recognize that all pleasure is a gift from our Creator, and deserving of thanks. If given a gift, who uses the gift before giving thanks? And yet, many of us enjoy God’s gifts for a lifetime and never give thanks. Or give it late. The English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, spoke of the irony of the distressed human appeal in The Cry of the Human:

And lips say “God be pitiful,”

Who ne’er said, “God be praised.”

Should we not show good manners and thank our Creator for His gifts now, and subsequently for the rest of our lives? Don’t we owe Him that?

You answered “Yes.” You must have. Nobody will have read this far without being in agreement, but here’s the problem: Many of you answered “Yes,” knowing full well that your heart and mind does not wholly agree with the religions of your exposure. You agree we were created by a Creator. You struggle to understand Him. And you yearn to serve and worship Him in the manner He prescribes. But you don’t know how, and you don’t know where to look for the answers. And that, unfortunately, is not a subject that can be answered in an article. Unfortunately, that has to be addressed in a book, or maybe even in a series of books.

The good news is that I have written these books. I invite you to start with The Eighth Scroll. If you’ve liked what I’ve written here, you’ll love what I’ve written there.

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