#welcome to the esoteric part of my brain

[howlingdemon13]

Tales of beings from the stars ushering humans to the otherworld are as old as time itself. One wonders if there is truth to the stories.

I made a talisman and sigil for my demonjuice design! Like the one I did for Peviahe, I took a lot of inspiration from the Ars Goetia for the sigil. The general shape is based off of the constellation, Orion.

The Enochian script is read counterclockwise and roughly translates to "hand of the central one".

[oetscop]

hey! absolutely love your art and your rainer interpretation- can you talk about your headcanons lore-wise involving rainer and mike? honestly you can talk about more than just those two as well i'm very curious about your interpretations honestly.

YOOO I LOVE UR RAINER ALSO thank u.....

this will hopefully not be complete word salad. bc my brains fried already, but my views on petscop characters are esoteric and best and downright incomprehensible at worst. so idk how legible this will be JDKSHSKSBSK

uhh ill start with like. jill is significantly older than anna and lina. rainers actually fairly close in age to anna.

rainers biological dad isnt in the picture and actually went missing a few years after him and jill divorced. it runs in the family i guess. but since tom was there longer hes only ever called him dad, and both jill and him took the last name hammond when they got married. and mike was actually an accident! a welcome one tho. jill and tom were in their 40s and rainer was like 16 or so.

they were very close tho! he was very close with his immediate family. for the brief time he was in college he still lived at home despite the commute.

mike would sit and watch him work on the game all the time. he wanted him to teach him how to code (thats why he created the "petscop kids" after school program! at first anyway...) but 5-6 year olds dont exactly have the attention span for explaining how the dev kit console works. unless theyre belle i guess. but he did get into art! and considering rainers also an artist he encouraged it. mike would sometimes draw his own pets to be put in the game, but since it never went past evencare they never showed up. he did sorta base toneth on mike, and that was before he based any of the other pets on other family members.

mike went missing shortly after rainers mental health was declining. he ran away after some argument with his mom, and nobody remembers what the argument was even about. since this was after marvin hit the dog with the car, and he was beginning to experience psychosis, he immediately made the connection and believed marvin had something to do with it. the cops found it a little suspicious that rainer somehow just knew he had been struck by a car, and he was the only suspect for quite a while. tom had to vouch for him pretty hard and get him a lawyer.

as for vaguer things. the newmaker plane was started in an attempt to find out where mike wouldve run to. he was already recording movements in game, so he put all of mikes in game behaviors into a to scale version of their town, trying to train it to show him where he couldve gone. this obviously didnt work. didnt help that it was completely flat terrain and like had only their house, the marks house, the school and like a couple roads. it actually lead him to the opposite side of the town than where his body was located.

marvin is ALSO severely mentally ill and was convinced that care was lina reborn before any of this happened. obviously anna didnt believe that since shes still. yknow. alive. but rainer introduced the A/B/NLM concept to him, and they both began to believe care was just lina A reborn. pre traumatic event lina. they were both trying to see if they could somehow force something like that to occur, in an attempt to bring mike A back. when belle didnt work, they figured she was too old, so they moved to care. part of this whole "changing your past" thing involved plucking out her eyebrows (lina A had trich) and essentially trying to reenact aforementioned traumatic event. thats why marvin kidnapped her to keep her in the school. and it didnt work! just traumatized the fuck outta the kid. they never had the chance to do anything to "bring mike back" by the end of it, which lead to Bathroom Tomb Event. however, last belle heard, he was pretty certain paul was actually mike A. she tried her best to keep that from paul before they became distant.

i feel like the core of a lot of this is that i really dont believe that the rebirthing process does anything at all. with enough manipulation you may start developing false memories, sure, but its not actually working. in retrospect it makes rainers character a lot sadder. just a terrified kid trying in vain to bring his baby brother back. its not easy losing someone so young in such a horrible way without knowing who took his life.

BUT UUHHH YEAH ^}^ can you tell ive been thinking abt petscop pretty much nonstop since the end of 2022 i bet you cant

[stepswowdsen]

【FGO】 Beautiful Carnivore, The All-Ridiculing 💚🐈‍⬛

And here's the other batch of colour tests I did

Ashiya Douman doodle 💚 🐈‍⬛

OG + playing around with gradient maps (18 total)

The 1st one is the OG!

I'm just testing rough colours for now so it's super messy and not refined yet

I already loved the colours of the OG that I chose but the other are so cool to see. The way low opacity gradient maps shift the colours in subtle ways WHOAA

If you're curious, check out the Ashiya Douman vs. Dioscuri anthology comic here! Popular FGO fan-artist and official artist AU (@delete_au) has such gorgeous art~

Rambles

I've been obsessed with Ashiya Douman, the evil clown cat since December 2020. Didn't even take me a week to be obsessed. It took 5 days. Sen's Limbo December Descent 🙌

LimGuda is my comfort HC NBLNB ship 💚🧡 They've been one of my top fave ships since December 2020. The spice of a gay evil clown demon who hates humanity, with a karmic relationship of love/hate with the human they're in love with, is unparalleled.

I can’t get over how much I adore Douman. They’re simply the best. This chaos clown is a forever fave of mine~ I love how in-depth and nuanced this hot evil jester onmyouji is. The emotional nuance and complexity of this chara…

“WANTS TO WATCH THEM FALL TO HELL BUT UNWITTINGLY FALLS IN LOVE WITH THEM.” I’M DEVASTATED ABOUT THEM

The amount of detail that went into Douman's character and design is insane to me… Hasendow AKA Showichi Furumi (Douman's character artist/illustrator) has such a huge brain 🤯

My LimGuda collection is my pride and joy 🤭 When Douman first released on FGO NA in November 2022, this was my Douman pentagram setup. Douman merch summoning circle catalyst! We did summon an evil demon into my Chaldea~ Welcome home! You are now reunited with your WIFE 🫶

The clean up's gonna be hell with how detailed Douman's design is, but I love working with their colours! I wanna draw LimGuda in matching green and red Áo tấc so bad!!! Matching couple clothes~ 💘💞

Douman loves them with curses… LIKE A CAT TIPPING OVER VASES CUZ THEY WANT TO BE PAID ATTENTION TO. The whole “Limbo gets defeated/is overwhelmed by the power of feelies and their S/O’s Candid Sincerity" trope I love to see in their ship works that I wanna draw eventually btw… I wanna draw them lots!!!

Cinna said “Douman just reminds me of that ‘cat reacts to separation anxiety by trying to maul their owner’ thing I saw one time” LMAO

Ashiya Douman vs. Dioscuri Anthology Comic by AU

The Ashiya Douman vs. Dioscuri anthology comic has such beautiful art by AU (@/delete_au). Douman invited Ritsuka to fall into hell with them & now they're the one inviting him. Douman tells them that the two of them are "bound by unbreakable/inseparable fate." JAW DROP??? THIS IS GAY AS HELL 🏳️‍🌈 LIMGUDA IS REAL!!! 💚🧡

AU (@/delete_au) is a popular Fate/Grand Order (FGO or Fate/GO) fan artist that's been commissioned to draw official works for Fate (including official merch)

TYSM to Carli (@/carlikun) for translating it... I got stuck on some parts reading the JP version cuz of Douman's difficult, esoteric and archaic vocabulary... I got to clear things up reading the VN fan-TL, and it was interesting to see how it was translated in Viet, but yeah the EN fan-TL cleared up so many things for me.

They drew the Ashiya Douman vs. Dioscuri chapter in one of the FGO anthologies. LIMGUDA ALSO INTERACT IN IT, AND THERE'S TONS OF LIMGUDA FOOD HEHEHEHE... Their art is so gorgeous. They're one of my favourite FGO artists, their works are stunning.

THE WHOLE THING IS SO DELICIOUS SO I'LL JUST SHOW A COUPLE PAGES FROM THE END, BUT OH MY GOD???

I LOVE THEMMMMMMMMMMM LOVE IS REALLLLLLL

Douman is gigantic. Ritsuka's 200 cm tall (~6"7) bf that loves them!!!

AU'S DOUMAN COMIC FROM THE FGO ANTHOLOGY COMIC WITH DOUMAN AND RITSUKA IS MAKING ME SCREAM WTF /pos /endearing

[codeandcreativity]

Reverie

Summary: Spencer and Maeve visit the Folger Shakespeare Museum. Written for @railmereid's 2K writing challenge/prompt: "Do you think we could pretend?"

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Maeve Donovan (PG-13)

Category: Fluff, Angst

Warnings: Allusions to stalking. No explicit spoilers, but this won't make sense if you're not familiar with the beginning of the Maeve arc (Season 8).

Reverie

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Do you think we could pretend?" she asks softly.

"Pretend?"

"That we're together."

He looks up, past the scratched and dirty fiberglass casing of the phone booth, down one of hundreds of similarly featured streets from which he might have called her. "How?"

"Your mind is an amazing tool, Spencer. Convince me," she says with a gossamer laugh. "Tell us both a vivid lie."

"A rare vision?" he suggests, warming to the idea.

"Take pains," she says. "Be perfect."

"OK." He slips his hand into his pocket to pull out his own phone. "I'm going to hang up and call you on my cell."

"That sounds like a great start."

He settles the heavy pay phone receiver in its cradle with a satisfying thunk and hits the first speed dial on his cell.

"Hey," she answers right away.

"Hey." He smiles to himself. "You're still there."

"I'm still here."

"Great." He exits the phone booth and walks towards his car, three doors down in front of a coin-operated laundry. "I'm parked outside of Georgetown Laundry," he says, unlocking the door of his horizon blue 1965 Volvo Amazon and sliding behind the wheel.

"I'm right around the corner," she says, voice light with mirth. "Come pick me up."

He follows those welcome instructions, turning the corner at a lazy crawl just in time to see her emerge from the door of her brownstone. Her face is hidden from him by a curtain of rich brown hair as she turns to lock the door behind her. Her figure is mostly hidden, too, beneath a loose white sun dress that falls just past her knees and a gray cardigan that is at least one size too large. She turns at last, her eyes shaded by sunglasses but her smile bright and genuine. She trots down the steps to street level, waving cheerfully as she crosses the sidewalk to his car.

He's out of the car before he knows it, rushing to meet her on the sidewalk. He holds out his hand and says breathlessly, "Maeve."

"I think we're a little past that, Spencer," she says warmly, ignoring his proffered hand and wrapping her arms around him in an embrace that feels like early summer. She smells of cotton and lilac, light and sweet. Without a thought, he buries his face in her shoulder and wraps his arms around her tightly, as if she will float away, an ephemeral thing he must cling to if he is to have any chance of keeping it at all.

"You're really here," he murmurs against her skin. She shivers. He wants to make her do it again, so he says, "Maeve."

She laughs, her hands dancing the length of his spine. "I'm here. Now," she says as she pulls back just enough to see his face. "Where should we go?"

He breathes deeply, soaking in the warm summer air and the tethered feeling of her finally standing beside him. "Where do you want to go?"

She pushes her sunglasses up to reveal pale blue eyes, crinkling with excitement. "Where do you want to take me, Spencer?"

He barely has to think, when she says it like that. "I know a place." He pulls open the passenger side door and offers her his hand again. "Get in."

This time, she takes it, her skin cool and dry against his as she lowers herself into the car. "I should have known you'd drive something with character," she says as he climbs in the driver's side, running her fingers along the vintage console.

"I don't drive it much," he admits, pulling away from the curb and pointing towards their destination.

"I know," she says. "I'm glad you drove it today."

He turns his head for just a second to appreciate the childlike wonder on her face. "Me, too."

"Can I roll down the window?" she asks.

"Of course."

She works the crank until the window is as far down as it'll go, turning her face to the breeze. "I haven't been out of my apartment in so long," she says wistfully.

After a beat, he answers, "I know."

She turns back to him with a reassuring smile. "I can't wait to see where you're taking me."

They drive through tree-lined streets to the historic part of town, calling out landmarks well-known and esoteric, until finally he pulls over and puts the car in park. "I think we're here," he says, squinting through the windshield.

"You think?" she asks playfully.

He chuckles. "Yeah. We're here."

Before them rises a long two-story building with a facade of white Georgia marble, worn by more than 80 years of east coast weather but no less stunning for its age. Tall vertical windows line length of the building, art deco grilles adorning those and the entryway closer to the ground. A series of themed bas-reliefs pose under the windows, figures of stone so well-hewn they seem to not to have been carved from the marble, but to have emerged from it.

"Oh, I haven't been here in ages," she says, hand in his as she leads him up the stairs. Her fingertips hover over the figures, but she doesn't touch. Hers won't be among the hands that slowly erase the figures from the stone from which they were birthed. All the best tragedies already constructed, in word and stone, from Macbeth to Hamlet to Romeo and Juliet , those stupid, star-crossed lovers.

"This sort of artwork is usually installed near the top of the building," he says, watching her face flush with happiness as she traverses the path towards the doors. "The Folgers asked the sculptor to place them closer to street level to give the public a better view."

She pauses a moment in front of crowned Titania, dwarfed by an attentive Bottom, idiots in love. The Fairy Queen's face is turned out, in soliloquy or reverie. Titania's body occupies the same space as her lover's, but her mind is far afield. What a privilege.

She hums appreciatively. "Is there a show today?" she says, turning her hopeful face to his.

He smiles. "What would you like to see?"

"Surprise me!" she says with a grin.

They tour the library until the sun sets, gasping softly at the details of the collection on exhibit in the Great Hall. They admire the finer points of the room itself, with its soaring plaster strapwork ceiling and intricate terracotta floor, inscribed with the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, secreting in its tiles the titles of the Bard's plays. They hover as close to the First Folio as they're permitted.

Their hands never part.

They take in the Elizabethan Theatre, with its three-tiered balconies and carved oak columns, but that's not where either of them want to spend their evening, so he takes her at last out to the garden. And for all the things they've seen today, it's the sight of the formal garden, the smell of lavender and honeysuckle and thyme that pulls the breath from her lungs and she says, "Oh, Spencer."

Palms pressed together, he pulls her closer to his side. He bends his head and whispers, "There's more."

They traverse the garden slowly; she pauses often, to touch an unfurled leaf or inhale the scent of a flower rising brilliantly from the heavily mulched earth. While she drinks in their surroundings, he only has eyes for her. Her dark hair, blunt bangs playful over clear blue eyes, the pretty pink of her cheeks when she catches him looking, the sly curl of her lips that tells him she knows she's got him wrapped around her any way she desires. She has only to say the word.

"They're setting up for the show," he says, pointing down the path with his free hand.

She looks up at him, so pure and full of hope. " A Midsummer Night's Dream ?"

"I can't imagine anything else," he says honestly.

She laughs, soft like a blanket. "I imagine we have our choice of seats."

They do, and when they're settled on a blanket the color of a late summer sunset, she leans over and whispers in his ear, "I brought us something to drink."

"I don't…"

"I know," she interrupts. "It's sparkling apple cider."

Night falls around them and the lights come up. The players on the stage dance and sing through the text seamlessly, interlacing the stories of lovers and actors, tales of fairies and humans, crises of self and burgeoning feminism that make A Midsummer Night's Dream one of Shakespeare's most widely performed works.

As the play proceeds, they turn towards one another, until they are reclining, somehow watching the stage as well as the stars above. Puck makes their appeal to the audience at last, an assurance to the perturbed that what they have witnessed may be nothing more than a dream, to be whisked away by another sleep. There is no applause as Puck sees themself out, only the lingering silence of a theater long after the audience has gone.

They are the players now, alone on the stage.

"Maeve," he says softly, just for her. "Can I kiss you?"

"I think you should," she says, and before he can make a move, she presses her lips to his. Stunned, he reacts only after a moment, his fingers threading into her hair as he pulls her closer. He follows her lead, afraid of taking this ephemeral thing they've made too far. The kisses are passionate but chaste, not that he knows any other way.

Too soon, he feels her stiffen against him. "Spencer."

"What's wrong?" he asks, looking down at her face. The tone of her voice has painted her features ashen. She's only a shade now. A phantom.

He hears a series of beeps, a staccato succession of three.

"I… I have call waiting," she says, her voice truncated with fear.

"Maeve?"

"No one has this number."

"It's OK. Don't hang up. I can get someone to trace it," he tries to reassure her, but the terror in her voice has infected him.

"Spencer, I have to go."

Before he can say anything…

"Goodbye."

"I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"How will I know you're OK?"

…she's gone.

He's standing in a phone booth three doors down from Georgetown Laundry, listening to a dial tone.

-End-

Read on AO3

[kazeofthemagun]

♛- also shiroi---kumo // i know I haven't written alot with him but still I'm curious

Gush about your rival kaze

Send me a url and I'll tell you the following:

@shiroi---kumo

🔮 my opinion on;

character in general: White Cloud is a useless scoundrel of a Misterican who does not understand the sheer magnitude of the situation with Chaos. The fool believes a peaceful solution is still possible and refuses to take necessary measures. The royal brat's utter naivety will cost us this fight unless I personally beat reason into his head. Give me a hammer and I will hit those conveniently-placed stakes he has on his forehead right into the mush he has for a brain. Furthermore -

Oh shit I'm sorry I forgot to establish certain aspects of the mun/muse boundaries with Kaze here. You know he will take any opportunity to spite Kumo. But! Anyway here goes the mun: Kumo ily. He is lovely. I adore him. Childhood fav. Something about this series' character designs just captivated me. I'm talking the Unlimited duo and their Demon Weapons and the unique ways they summon, their opposite aesthetics, their conflict, the different ways in which they try to approach the Chaos crisis. They are the only two warriors in the universe who can defeat it, but they have to work together, as reluctant as they are to do so. There cannot be one without the other. There is no Black Wind without White Cloud, no matter how many times he calls his Misterican counterpart a clown, fume-lung or maggot. They're in for a looong run of this prophecy stuff. Where Kaze is the more extreme, destructive one of the pair, Kumo is tranquility personified, always in control of his emotions - until he isn't. He is the calm to Kaze's storm. He's.. mystical, esoteric. Like he's made of the Mist he breathes. He's always fascinated me, and the way his Sword Dragons are so freaky compared to his appearance is awesome. Gimme that juxtaposition shit. Gimme all the character contrast. Gimme weirdass horned summoners in funky ornate pajamas who bottle up their magical Mist breath and slice the bottle to summon longboi sword centipedes. And keep their soul in the jewel upon their sword so they can keep swinging after their body dies. XD Do you see where I'm going? Kumo is so goddamn unique. As is Kaze. I love both so much it's probs unfunny. I'll shout at Square to give them another chance >:[ I want a game with them in it so badly. If not Dissidia, then just put em in one of the other spinoff crossover things, c'mon. Pleaseee. PLEASE.

how they play them: Yes. From what we've interacted (and from what I've read of your old stuff, though that is old and I understand it may not be indicative of the current portrayal) you get this boi down. I'm not surprised, you're an amazing writer. Your Kumo encompasses both that mystical, dignified persona, and the pettiness he is capable of when Kaze is involved. I live for it. I personally HC the same thing. Leave Kaze and Kumo alone with internet access and knowledge of their fandom, and they'll change each other's Wikipedia pages and fill them with insults. But not just any insults. Refined insults. Or something like that.

the mun: I already wrote about this in the other ask you sent so I'll skip this part~ TLDR: a very good bean.

🔮 do i;

follow them: YAS

rp with them: Yaaas, not much but it's understandable given the workload and motivation.

want to rp with them: YAS you are always welcome to come here, throw Mist boi, throw confetti and/or smack-talk at Kaze, send asks, talk fandom, lore, art ideas, plot, anything. I'm always here so whenever you feel Mr. Makenshi more you are welcome here.

ship their character with mine: Theyyy? This raving disaster?? Ahahahahah nooo... JK unless? 👀 (jokes aside they are stuck with one another for possibly thousands of years so I've actually been considering this one from a storytelling standpoint. I don't have any HC ship for Kaze - he's hard to ship with anyone - but Kumo is the only other Unlimited, so maybe down the line? Depends on what you think. I'm fine either way. It would need to happen organically, though. And I imagine it would take them a long, long time to settle their differences. We're talking many years here to get them to stop calling each other Misterican (derogatory) and Windarian (derogatory).

🔮 what is my;

overall opinion: Kumo. Yes pls. *eyes* A soft boi. 💕 A misty boi. ☁️ A swordy boi. 🗡 WHITE CLOUD! Don't mind the sign on my blog hub, Kaze put it up. I give all the permission to approach anytime. Alllll of it.

[Jfc forgive me gushing but anything Kumo = I get excited.]

[Obligatory Kaze reaction.]

"............"

"Hmph."

[miskatonique]

CRAWFORD TILLINGHAST CHEAT SHEET !

since my muses are not super well known in the contemporary rpc ( and i’m too lazy to do a full about page at this very moment ) i decided to put together little posts for them that give their general backgrounds, vibes, and plot possibilities !

this is a mix of canon and headcanon, and these are subject to change / adapt as i get more used to writing the characters

BACKGROUND:

Film: From Beyond, 1986

Dr. Crawford Tillinghast, 27, was working as an assistant to Dr. Edward Pretorius on a machine called “The Resonator,” which allowed the world beyond our view to be perceived by stimulating the pineal gland of the brain, which is theorized to be one of the “abandoned” sensory organs in humans.

Although The Resonator was successful in showing a world beyond ours, Crawford’s mentor Dr. Pretorius became obsessed with it and the creatures from that world. A creature comes from beyond ( title drop ayyy ) and bites off Pretorius’ head, killing his earthly body but absorbing his essence / spirit into the other world.

Because the world beyond ours is only visible when the Resonator is turned on, police aren’t able to see the creatures that killed Pretorius and Crawford is blamed for the murder and taken into psychiatric custody. When Crawford tries to tell the police the truth about the machine, he’s assumed to be a schizophrenic.

I generally don’t feel like vibing with the second half of the movie where Crawford’s pineal gland literally grows out of his head and he starts cannibalizing people ( it is a horror movie after all ) but I’m down to explore that stuff if someone wants to!

Also Pretorius is a sexual sadist which isn’t super salient to the plot but he’s fucking weird and he makes Crawford very uncomfortable even though Crawford respects him as a scientist

VIBES / PERSONALITY:

Professional soft boy. He’s very anxious around new people, tends to be very introverted, but when he gets used to someone / gets adopted by an extrovert he tends to latch onto that person

Very excitable when talking about his physics research, but also overly aware of how esoteric it can be to some people and generally assumes he’s annoying whomever he’s talking to about his work

Believes in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and is okay with other people finding applications for his research. However, he’s very against anyone using his research to hurt people, and will do anything he can to stop that from happening

Plagued with fatigue and headaches, mostly because of how hard he works on a daily basis but also because his work with the Resonator actually stimulates parts of our brains that we don’t generally use. Anybody who spends any length of time around the Resonator at any point in its development will begin to develop headaches, as well.

I’m sure you all know my son Finn Clifton over @starslung but him and Crawford are partners working on the Resonator while Finn is in grad school for his psychics degree, so if your kids know Finn then it’ll be easy to introduce Crawford xo

PLOT POSSIBILITIES:

He’s got the vibes of the reluctant scientist that the evil doers have co-opted to be on their side in an action / superhero movie, and he will gladly betray the villains to go over to the other side and help the heroes kick ass

On the other side of that -- be evil! Seduce him into using your state of the art equipment and then trick him into doing your dirty work!

Got any physics or biology students? He’d be more than glad to take them under his wing / partner with them and give them laboratory experience helping out with the Resonator / brain experiments on the pineal gland. Hell, students of any kind are welcome to help with the clusterfuck of this experiment.

Help him break out of the psych ward and prove that he’s not a murderer! Or just help him break out and give him a place to live, he’ll do your laundry for you.

Hold him tenderly. That’s a dare.

[midnightiscoming-kasabian]

The thing is, says Sergio Pizzorno, he didn’t intend to make an album like SLP at all. After he finished touring behind 2017’s For Crying Out Loud – Kasabian’s fifth number one album in a row - he liked the idea of doing a solo record: “I’ve been making a new Kasabian album every couple of years since 2004, I have my routines and I have the way I like to work, and I just think I felt I needed a re-set, so that I could approach the next Kasabian album from a different place”.

Nevertheless, he thought that his solo album would sound… well, like you might think a Sergio Pizzorno solo album would sound. He is, after all, famed not only as Kasabian’s chief songwriter, but a man dedicated to pushing esoteric influences – from MF Doom to Bulgarian psychedelia to avant-garde electronica – into the sonic framework of a mainstream, stadium-filling rock band. A solo album, you could reasonably expect, would be a chance for Pizzorno to let his freak flag fly, unencumbered by the need to make music fit to headline festivals and huge gigs.

“I didn’t need to bear any of that in mind,” he nods, “I didn’t necessarily think, ‘I need a single’, which was liberating. I could do whatever I wanted vocally, range-wise and character-wise. I could explore different parts of my own character that I could just turn up a bit. To begin with, I thought it was going to be way more experimental and I thought it was going to be way more odd in terms of the length of tracks and what people, even myself would maybe expect: going more into that sci-fi, Krautrock kind of thing.

“But what I found happening was that I was listening to a lot of Tyler The Creator and Mac Miller. I was in that world. I sort of got rid of all my synths and guitars and just sort of had phones and laptops and just picked out sounds. And it turned out like it did, and I thought it just felt right. In a way, it’s probably a bit more of a psychedelic move for me to do this than just to make the record I expected.”He says he found himself writing songs that didn’t end up how he imagined they would at all.

“There’s a track called Trance, which is a love song, it’s an end-of-the-night, sun-going-down, that beautiful moment. There’s a kind of French sophistication to it, it’s quite laid back, but it’s still got an ending that’s huge and euphoric and anthemic. It lulls you in. It doesn’t really want to be an anthem, it wasn’t really supposed to be, but somehow, I got to the end and thought ‘this is huge’. I love the idea of that twist, of people thinking ‘oh, right, I’ve got this’, then it suddenly turning into something else. That’s the thing about the album really, it kind of throws you all over the place.”

It certainly does. In fact, it’s fair to say that SLP isn’t an album that anyone could anticipate: an intriguing, unprecedented split between filmic instrumentals – audibly partly inspired by Roy Budd’s iconic soundtrack to the 1970 British gangster flick Get Carter – and richly melodic songs influenced by hip hop and grime.

“On the album, there’s three pieces of music that are like the start, the middle and the end of the album and all three pieces are called Meanwhile:

Meanwhile…in Genoa, Meanwhile…At The Welcome Break (featuring Slowthai) and Meanwhile…At The Silent Nowhere.

“There’s three notes that run through all of them, so they call you back, you’re back into a film. I like that, in an album, when you’re just dropped into a world and you go ‘OK, I’m here’. They gave the whole album a structure. It’s almost like a self-portrait, of where I am now, going down these avenues I’ve always wanted to go down, trying things I’ve not tried before.

“I just liked the idea of that cartoonish sort of thing, you know: “meanwhile, in the Batcave…” People see me in a band, they think: that’s what he does and that’s what he is, so the idea behind them is that meanwhile, he’s completely someone else, doing this other thing. And inbetween them, it was just a matter of exploring, turning everything up, just to see where it took me: experimenting with the way I sang, with different rhythms, with things that I’ve always wanted to do.”

Elsewhere, the album bounces from the distorted chaos of Soldiers to the dubbed-out psych-funk-new wave hybrid of The Wu, from Lockdown’s examination of “ending up in a flat at the end of the night with a group of people you know shouldn’t be there” (“there’s a reference to FIFA 94 in there,” he laughs, “because whenever you’re somewhere like that, there’s always something odd going on, some bloke sat in the corner playing some weird old computer game or eating dog chews or some shit like that”) to the piano ballad meets sun-kissed Balearic house of Nobody Else, a track that sums up SLP’s breezy, rulebook-out spirit of exploration.

“I started to learn jazz chords,” notes Pizzorno of the latter, “I was playing around with that, trying to do something in a Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder kind of vibe. It’s so important, that innocence of just exploring and experimenting, when you’ve got that little part of you going ‘can I get away with that?’ When you ask yourself that, you’re probably on the right track, because it means you’re doing something interesting. It’s like the album cover, I’ve got this mad glitter make up on, but it’s spread all my face like you would when you were a kid – it reminds you that playing is important.”

Elsewhere, there’s the intriguingly-titled Youngest Gary. ““That came from a friend of mine, who told me that the youngest Gary in Britain was 28: no one’s called Gary any more, so the youngest Gary in Britain is 28. It’s complete bollocks, but I loved it, wrote it down, and it turned into this story about a Ziggy Stardust kind of character, except he’s called Gary, who’s moved to London, he’s wandering about, the last of his kind, the last Gary in Britain. I just like the idea of people looking at the title and thinking ‘you can’t call a song that’, but there’s this mad story behind it.”

The single, Favourites, meanwhile, features a guest appearance from hot UK rapper Little Simz, sparring with Pizzorno on a song that ponders Tinder dating and “Identity in the digital age, where people are pretending to be someone else online, and that somehow drives us further away from being who we really are”.

“It was just me and my wife watching these girls flick through their phones, picking their dates,” says Pizzorno, “thinking about how people’s brains work in a world where nothing’s real and at no point are you really being yourself because it’s about projecting this image, this ideal that doesn’t really exist, you know: I can’t actually say the thing I want to say in front of this person because they think I’m like my profile, and my profile says I’m really arty and nice. That’s where that line comes from: “there’s a discrepancy in the bill!”

Little Simz came down to studio and she did it in literally two hours, so professional, just brilliant. She completely blew me away. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, make music with hip hop or grime artists. I feel like there’s a big crossover now in terms of the production of that kind of music, with how weird it’s all getting: it’s sort of moving over to where I’ve been: weird songs that change half-way through, little odd noises. I feel like I want to do more of this, even though I suppose people wouldn’t expect it of me or even know it was possible.”

The collaborative aspect of the project continues on the woozy ‘Meanwhile... At The Welcome Break’. Following a meeting with slowthai at one of his shows in Birmingham last year, Serge instantly recruited Tyron to feature on the album. In fact, he says, that’s how he would like the SLP project to develop in the future.

He is excited about the forthcoming SLP live shows early September “where I sort of play the songs in character, so each song will be part of my character, I’ll get into that role”, and fully intends to make more music under the banner.

“It sort of exists now, and that’s really exciting, because I have this outlet, I can be that person in that world. Moving forward, I’d like to collaborate more and open that door more. The SLP project will become this sort of place I can go and just do whatever. It’s so important to have that. My life in the band and my boys, that’s part of me that will be there forever, but then there’s something else I have to get that out or I won’t be able to move forward.”

Which does beg the question: what do the band and the boys make of all this?

“It’s been quite beautiful really,” he says. “Before the end of the last tour, I spoke to Tom and he was always, as ever super-positive: “yeah, I can’t wait, amazing, go man, amazing, amazing”. Then he went “hang on, you’re still going to do Kasabian, right?” I told him not to worry. I’ve sort of started on the new Kasabian album, actually.”

Hang on, you’re releasing a solo album and planning a series of solo gigs while making a new Kasabian album?

“Yeah,” he smiles. “Luckily for me, this is what I like, it’s just what I do. Making music feels like time off for me. You get to a certain point where you’ve sort of seen everything and you sort of know how things work, and you just…” – his voice dips into a whisper – “don’t give a fuck anymore about any of it.” He laughs. “You just go: I really like making music. Right, bang, let’s just make some music.”

[keelywolfe]

FIC: A Perfect Blend

Summary: A community effort requires a community. They're working on it.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Original Undertale Characters, Fluff, Domestic

Notes: This is not what I was supposed to be writing today. I have no control over my writing brain, seriously. 

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

It had taken much longer than Edge would have preferred, even with him and Antwan spent any free time they could dealing with red tape and insurance companies, architects and contractors. Months of effort and headaches, but finally all their work was bearing fruit. Barring any hitches, legal or otherwise, (and Red was dealing stringently with those sorts of issues, far from Edge’s plausible deniability) the Beanery would be opening their doors again by the end of the month.

They’d gone with an entirely new location instead of rebuilding over the old, one that was strategically closer to both the Monster community and en route to the college, allowing both of their most common clientele easy access.

The new building had an open floor plan with large windows letting in the light and the sitting area was twice what the older building held. The walls were going to be a clean white with dark wood trim, tasteful art already chosen and waiting to be hung.

Behind a wide counter was the work area, designed with plenty of space for their more esoteric brewing equipment and that combined with the industrial lights overhead gave the shop a bit of a mad scientist effect that Edge knew the college students who had always frequented the shop were going to appreciate.

He suspected Stretch had a hand in the design.

This was his first time in the building and Edge explored it with a jaundiced gaze, looking for any flaw, any issue that would need to be dealt with before the grand opening. Nothing had caught his attention yet, but there was still time for him to ferret out mistakes while he waited for the others to finish the task at hand.

Painting the walls was going take a little time, particularly with this group.

They could have easy paid for professionals to come in and paint the shop; they had retained plenty of local contractors for this project, out of both practicality and a way to build a relationship with other Human businesses.

Stretch had been the one to suggest inviting the Monster community out to help with this portion of the development. Many of them had visited the shop daily and losing the Beanery had something of a ripple effect. Without their welcoming coffee shop to start the day, less and less Monsters had bothered to come into town at all, isolating themselves within New New Home.

A lack of Monsters in the Human community meant a lack of adjustment to their presence and while Stretch never let himself be held back from visiting his favorite places, one skeleton couldn’t do it all on his own.

“people loved the beanery and everyone who worked there,” Stretch argued to Edge when he’d absently mentioned they were looking into contracting it out, “they wanna help and you guys need to let them.”

He’d been quickly proven right; the signup sheet filled up in less than an hour. Plenty of Monsters were bereft without the Beanery and there had been little they could do to assist in rebuilding, until now.

It was a small gesture and with the size of their group, they’d be done quickly. But the show of support would be priceless. Most of them were already hard at work, and if they lacked the skill of professionals, at least they worked with enthusiasm.

Speaking of…

“hey, babe,” Stretch said cheerily when Edge walked over to him. Normally, Edge would steal a soft kiss or a touch, but Edge was fond of his outfit so today was going to be an exception to the rule. How Stretch managed to get so much paint smeared on his clothes in such a short time, Edge would never know. Jeff was standing next to him and if he wasn’t quite as liberally decorated as Stretch, it was a close thing. “how is it looking? not bad, right?”

For all that his technique was haphazard, to put it generously, it looked acceptable enough. It was a good thing that all of the wood paneling and tables had been carefully covered before they began.

“Your painting is better than your fundraising suggestions,” Edge said dryly.

Stretch only snickered but Jeff raised a curious eyebrow, “Why? What was your idea?” He shifted on his paint-daubed sneakers uncomfortably, but managed to add, “And, um, I thought you guys were okay with money?”

“eh, we don’t really need the cash,” Stretch shrugged, dabbing at the wall with his brush. “but the public relations department likes to do different things, right, babe?”

“It helps build a relationship with the Human community,” Edge agreed. “However, I don’t believe a nude Monster calendar would give us the kind of exposure we’re looking for—” Edge stopped and closed his sockets, pained, as Stretch and Jeff both cracked up with laughter.

“good one, babe,” Stretch chuckled. Absently, he scratched at his cheek bone with the back of his hand and managed to smear paint across his face. The white against bone gave him something of a ghostly appearance. “anyway, what we decided on was a joint effort between the beanery and our local monster bakery.”

“They are going to supply baked goods for them to sell and we’ll have advertisements here on how a portion of the sales go to support different non-profits in the area,” Edge agreed, trying not to think about how he was getting these two into his car. Hopefully there were a couple leftover drop cloths. “It’s mutually beneficial. That will provide good PR and awareness for everyone, the Monster community and the nonprofits.”

“Really? Like for veterans and stuff?” Edge didn’t know the meaning behind the glance Jeff and Stretch exchanged, but he made a note of it. Much as he appreciated their close friendship and the support it gave Stretch, part of Edge sensed trouble surrounding these two like a miasma. Better to be prepared for whatever they stumbled into.

Not to the point of secreting tracking devices on them, of course, but there were certain days that Edge saw the appeal in his brother’s approach.

Instead of asking, though, he only nodded. “Oh, yes. For example, our first organization is one providing equine therapy for veterans and children with disabilities. A couple of my boys from the Y have gotten involved and it’s been a valuable resource for them.”

“That sounds like a pretty good way of doing things,” Jeff admitted. “If you ever need any help, let me know, yeah?”

“Actually, we do have an opening available in the Public Relations dep—” Edge began, only to be interrupted.

“shit,” Stretch yelped, “here, here, help!”

It was with no little frustration that Edge let go of his lost opportunity to steal Jeff from his current employment and instead watched his two stooges struggle to keep a ladder from overturning, the paint can at the top wobbling dangerously.

He should have banned these two from ladder access before they ever got here and now it was too late. Missed opportunities abounded today, it seemed.

Trying to take it away would probably get him an argument from the both of them and Antwan hadn’t been able to come, so Edge wouldn’t have any backup. In other words, not worth the effort to fight a battle he wasn’t likely to win.

He kept his magic at the ready, though, and two-thirds of his attention on these fools as they worked. Stretch wouldn’t be able to stay angry for long if Edge had to turn his soul blue to keep him from landing headfirst on the floor.

His remaining attention was on the rest of the room where groups of Monsters were gathered at each wall, all of them painting amidst laughter and chatter. Monsters young and old had come, alone and with their families, and all of them eager to help.

Edge stood back in the middle of the plastic-draped tables, watching, and only glanced to the side when he felt a presence next to him. Debbie stood there, watching. She dressed like she would have any day at the Beanery, down to her apron and her tidy ponytail. That, at least, had not changed. There was a coffee cup in her hands, wafting a gentle steam.

They stood in silence together for a long moment, watching the hard work and laughter of the others.

“I can’t possibly thank you enough for this,” Debbie said quietly.

“You don’t need to thank me, the Embassy—” Edge began, automatically. He broke off, startled, when she nudged him lightly in the ribs with an elbow. At her height, she had to reach up to do it.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to slip a thank you?” Debbie scolded lightly. Her smile was teasingly warm but there was no mistaking her gratitude, shining in her damp eyes.

“I…suppose not,” Edge said, slowly. Red did sometimes extol the benefits of using the gratitude of others, but Edge sincerely doubted that was what she meant. “Debbie, what happened to the Beanery was not our fault but there is no getting around the fact that it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been an adamant supporter of ours.”

Carefully, he reached over to settle a gloved hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “You gave us a place in your world to be ourselves, you gave us normalcy when all too often, we stand outside. For what you gave us, it’s our turn to support you. I’ll accept your thank you, if you’ll accept mine, for allowing us to give you this. The Beanery was never just a coffee shop. Not to us.”

“Blast it,” Debbie let out in a watery sigh, pulling up her apron with her free hand and dabbing at her eyes. “All right, enough of that. Honestly, I came over here because I wanted to give you this.” She held up the cup in her hand. It was plain black, thick ceramic, and large enough to hold a generous serving. “It’s the first cup of coffee in our new building. Your usual.”

Oh.

He took it from her, held the mug up in both hands and breathed in the aroma, beautiful, rich darkness. Pitch-black coffee, roasted in house, and that first sip carried with it memories that were as sweet as the coffee was delicately bitter. He rolled it over his tongue before swallowing with a heartfelt sigh.

“It’s perfect,” Edge told her, and Debbie grinned.

“That’s what I like to hear.” She nodded at the others, dropping her voice conspiratorially, “I’ve got drinks and pastries for everyone when they’re done, but I thought it was better not to mention the lemon bars until he was finished, or they might never get started.”

“Good choice,” Edge chuckled. He didn’t flinch when Debbie gave him a gentle pat on the back before she went back behind the counter to finish setting up equipment. His back was probably as high as she could reach without a stepstool, he thought ruefully.

After the painting was finished, they would be bringing in carpenters to add shelves to the walls for displaying the various coffee beans and teas that the shop carried. The floor still needed tiled and there were plenty of small details to tend to yet.

But by the end of the month, the new Beanery would be open for business. The plastic on the tables would be removed and they would be filled with people, Humans and Monsters, couples and college students as they enjoyed coffee and pastries, indulging in both treats and community. A place for Monsters to slowly work towards joining the Aboveground.

Quite the burden to place on a coffee shop, but then, as Edge had said, it had never been just a coffee shop. Not to them.

Edge sipped his coffee peaceably, watching his family and his people laugh together as they worked, waiting for them to finish and join him.

-finis

[donnnoir]

Dallas, TX                                                                          June 30, 2019

Well Friend’s, although currently I suspect there are no readers of my crude blog.  Other than those that may have an interest from the Shadow Government’s perspective.  They always keep tabs and monitor my actions and interactions at large or singular.  An annoying fact of Life as me.  So hopefully at some point and time in the future an interested party will have numerous pages to sort through.  I am trying to get all my material under one or two roofs / forums which can and are accessible to everyone.  At least that is my hope and the intention of all this.  Granted it also allows me an outlet to vent some of my frustrations and the various events, occurrences and histories with this and more that I have Lived and experienced throughout my Life.  Now in such a spirit I am posting a electronic log entries after I arrived back in Austin TX, following the events I experienced in Southern California.  Which events culminated in my being shot twice in my left leg and subsequently ran over by an F-350 dually pick-up, running me over from toes to my head being dragged under the dual tires on the driver’s side of the vehicle.  Needless to say it was an interesting evening.  I was run over on East Anaheim St. about one hundred feet from the intersection with North Henry Ford Ave., on the south bound side of East Anaheim heading back toward Long Beach, I believe the location is still in Wilmington. With the location of my being shot some distance from there and that being approximately 325 North Lecouvreur Ave., Wilmington.  These events happened on or around the 5th of March 2018.  I was transported to St Mary’s Hospital at 1050 Linden Ave. Long Beach, CA..

The following are a series of electronic entries to an ad hoc journal at the time.  I Post this ad hoc journal in its raw form, the only editing being for the most part that of correcting some of the major spelling mistakes.  Hopefully I  have retained the jagged nature of my mind set at the time.  I freely admit that upon my return from California for the first time in my life I was showing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I still have on occasions bouts associated to this PTSD.  I trust as coming events unfold and I have New Obstacles and Challenges to focus my attention and thereby forestall the elements of the Disorder.  Thus I Post this warts and all.  Without regard to its chronological or content of order. Because of this I will no doubt be covering much of the data, information and stories at a later Posting.  I will also be Posting the images of my hand written journal, as the loose leaf entries that I have adopted as my handwritten format.  Since every log or journal I have started has been stolen repeatedly.  So I now write on whatever loose leaf papers I have before me in the moment.  I hope to Post those as packaged folders Postings in their chronological order.  There is a degree of overlapping entries between this Posting and those of my handwritten entries.  Bear that in mind should you actually elect to read all of these.  Most of the entries some date and location headers.   I hope that in doing this that no seeming contradictions arise, especially since I am the source.  I welcome any inquires from any reader of my material.  Thus I submit the following:

Welcome, seems it has come to this. I am going to attempt to compose my thoughts and histories via electronic medium. My reservations must give way to practical realities. Not to mention the fact that each and every one of my previous logs / journals has been stolen from me. A immensely annoying recurring theme.

Thus I am going to try and make a virtual journal. Presumably I will augment this with the additional paper journal. Which will then be uploaded into a file of images. The hope being the combination will effectively accomplish the task. Towit that of providing a record of my life including events in the extreme. Additionally I wish to leave behind in some convoluted fashion my diverse understanding of things. By far I would consider the latter to be a far greater contribution to the brain wealth of humanity. I would like to think that should any of this writing come to light. It does so some time in the future . When the more fantastic elements can be seen in historical context. Such that what would otherwise be seen as speculative ventures into science fiction writing, will be known as simply fact. Because believe me when I say I truly wish and hope to be / will be wrong, regarding that which is to come. For a change!

Sigh… I must take a break, now. Necessity requires I consider many issues, not the least of which is where to start, and how best to proceed. Besides the fact I have not developed the requisite manual dexterity to type with my thumbs.

Monday July 2, 2018 … Killeen Texas

Sigh… damnit all to hell! I am having one of those rare days when I feel anxious, overwhelmed to the point of feeling trapped. I do not know if it is possibly PTSD related. I suppose I have to accept that as a issue with in me from now till the day I die. Regrettable not to mention humiliating for me. Granted, I suspect that the the cannabis Jade bought had a little something extra in it. So she could anesthesias more effectively giving her a reprieve from the increased infra-sound, ultrasound, microwave along with the entirety of the electromagnetic emissions I am at present enduring. I am concerned for her and her son Joey's well being. Despite her being one of the girls / operatives / victims of our government’s illegal covert initiatives know as MK Ultra. She is a bundle of contradictory issues and personalities. Your typical Golem. Her biological father is Warren Causey. He was George Bush Sr. right hand even prior to Sr becoming head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Causey was Sr's go to man for wet works and deep black bag operations. Especially if the back side had a tail which could be exploited for control of any or all parties involved. Causey is a true satanist and worse. He recently developed a rapid onset of Alzheimer’s. Not quite as sever as my own father and name sake Donald Paul Williams. But the timing of both though separate is suggestively coincidentally to events associated to me and those involved in FOXing me. I suspect brother Magnus of being petty. Grinding and hammering on old grudges. Along with becomingly increasingly punitive in operational objectives concerning breaking me to the point of my “losing” it. At which point and time my only anticipated options would be to appeal to their overview and / or full capitulation to their agendas. Thus far I have successfully thwarted their attempts. Yet it has come at an immense cost to me, across the board. Okay in anticipation that I may never acquire the journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach, California. A long walk beginning by The Queen Mary and which ultimately landed me in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is becoming increasingly incumbent that I reiterate elements I previously wrote down back then. You would think it would be a simple straightforward process. Naturally such is not the case, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which are context and my desire to avoid sounding narcissistic, or worse disillusion. Yet failing to do so will ultimately end in me portraying myself as such, even more so. Besides I really hate repeating myself, sorta a pet peeve of mine.

To the uninitiated this is going to sound ludicrous and insane. However, any comprehensive primer would require volumes of esoteric information, along with accompanying commentary and should include appropriate citations. All from tomes that are closely guarded. That I am denied access to permanently and utterly. Thus it is best to proceed directly into the matter wading through the initial convolution, realizing by degrees it will work out becoming about as clear as mudd. The luciferains according to their Canon refer to me as “The Dark One”. It is an appellation pulled directly from their actual scripture as initially iterated  to Cain from lucifer, himself.

Obviously atheist may take exception to these concepts, especially the language used. There is not much I can say in response to their misgivings. Because their beliefs lack the framework from which to attach this model. Hell most individuals beliefs also in like fashion lack similar mental framework. Yet most have allowances or the tools where with the modular architecture of their minds are able to “build out” an additional wing to the mansion in their minds which houses their understanding of “reality”. At the very least they can entertain the blueprints to an “add-on” to their mansions. Similar to the operations of our minds “cognitive consistency”. Dr Richard Alan Miller is fond of noting “I would never have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”. Or by extended reference the belief that if you have enough information to postulate a coherent question, you already have enough to know the answer. You just have to convince yourself of it. The implications are profound. Stretching into metaphysics and the issues of faith preceding the miracle(s), and even magick! All topics I have and will continue to touch upon in my ramblings. But I go too far afield of my primary focus. Simply, I am The Dark One. This is both metaphoric and literal. For the few people whose sight allows them to to clearly see into the underlying spiritual realm of our world. Because all things that “are” where first created in spirit. Elsewise they would not exist or remain lifeless sterile elemental at best. There are also at worst case possibilities, but we will forego any such dialogue for the moment. Everything we see and interact with has a corresponding spiritual aspect providing impetus to the whole. Usually the spiritual aspect even resembles the physical expression, although at times the proportions differ. A fact that I know I will touch upon in other areas as topically necessitated. Nonetheless if one was to see our spirits they much resemble the physical form of our bodies, though a bit taller (note this is a foreshadowing hint, to a vastly different topic I Will Be Addressing. At times I may interject future foreshadowing hints, though sans the extensive explanations). Depending on the scope of vision applied a person may / can see many other things. For my current model I am going to stick to issues of direct correlation to what we perceive as the physical world.

Okay, yes I do know I tend to take a long round about, seemingly loquacious manner, almost tediously so in my explanations. This is due to the fact that words are nebulous, our ability to effectively communicate was fractured becoming compromised long ago. As a consequence, for clarity's sake I find this too wordy manner necessary to minimize confusion later in the discussion. By degrees we lose our way, or perpetuate our lost condition. Therefore it is by incremental degrees I am trying to more properly realign the various skewed beliefs we all hold. It is simple geometry, trigonometry or if you prefer vector math. If your initial bearing line is off by a few degrees, as you proceed further down its vector, or direction of travel where you end up will be considerably different than you meant to be. I wish to be aptly clear as to this fact early in my shared discourses.

Back to the proximate relationship of the spirit to our physical nature / condition. Also know that our spirits are gender specific. The entirety of humanity in this expressed Creation, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Have migrated to this plane and place from Our Heavenly Home. That being a higher plane of existence, a organized realm of Love and Light. We, being all of us from Adam, Lilithe, and Eve till the last child of Eve is born, we are they that kept our first estate. Thereby earning both our right and place to be born here in this that by our common assent / consent / agreement we agreed would be real, thus we call it reality, simple. Wherefore, this being real by our mutual assent, means by extension that our actions here shall have real consequence to our station thereby effecting our progression. Those within Our Divine Family that rebelled and failing to reconcile back into the Family are denied participation in the progression of this estate and the subsequent assignments as to which paths we are to be assigned to in our individual journeys to progress back home.  Meaning, i.e. lucifer and the one third that fell (more properly “that were cast down”) with him. At times I will refer to lucifer as lucy or louie a small affectation I have over the years grown fond of as pet names for he who would seek dominion through his lies. Know that for my part I have always viewed our existence as an ongoing extension of the war in Heaven. Even as a toddler this was simply the nature of the world, in both a literal and metaphoric sense. Lucy is playing an end game gambit. As to our day to day offenses he for the most part cares little, seldom choosing to involve himself.  As I try to tell people; we can do bad all on our own, we don’t need the devil or louie's help. Matter of fact regrettably this particular Creation is an aberration. Most Creation’s do not have a Lucifer, who refuses to repent and reconcile, and worse yet becomes Satanish.  In so doing thereby becomes completely nonredeemable. Fit only to be cast out beyond the dark realms / dimensions. So far that not even a god could ever hope to make it back to Our Heavenly Home. Heady fanciful stuff, with a touch of discordance due to conflicting superlatives, I already know. From the presumed position of our understanding as a whole it is the best I can do with our shared mythos. The presumed contradictions fade as our understanding increases. Please accept I know little, next to nothing. What little I may grasp, has been fought hard to obtain over a tumultuous lifetime.

One of the hopeful eventualities concerning our collective situation in this Creation which I try to communicate to those that appear to show potential for understanding the following idea. Is that, Once we “eventually” progress through this Creation. As our then on going progression continues through multiple future Creations we will in all probability never encounter another such circumstance / Creation wherein any of those will again be with the added burden of a Satan / Lucifer persona to add complications to our individual, group, and familial progress. Who would threaten to usurp Creation from G-d and all of us. We can do bad all on our own. We really don’t require an objective excuse or archetype on which to pin our failings. If you are acquainted with the Book of Revelations, in its pages are the clues to understanding Lucy’s actual focus / agenda for our Creation. For we are eternal beings, Children of Divine Parentage. We live through infinite eternities, progressing and striving to Perfect Ourselves unto the Image of Our Heavenly Mother and Father. Now I sound like a some traveling revivalist preacher. Might as roll out the tent and tambourines, hahaha.

Wednesday July 4, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Well happy 4th of July, U S of fucking A. Not to be cynical, but here we are celebrating another Independence Day in the Land of the Free. The irony is inescapable. Sadly too many individuals become distracted and lost in the perpetually shifting landscape of dysinformation. Yes the horrors these people revile against are very real and indefensible. Except in the losing of perspective, failing to see that these innumerable struggles are purposely being generated to engage the population to distraction. Usually these horrid distractions are set cross ways of social and cultural lines. This formulaic tactic is meant to ferment hostilities, hate and conflicts across the associated strata. This has been repeated throughout history to create wars, fracture our social structure, warp our values, and indoctrinate the population en mass with beliefs such as to reshape our view of reality shackling all of us to a diminished image and sense of self along with the entire human race. Once we accept this warped view as the archetypal potentiality of us all. We are guaranteed to sell ourselves and our brethren into slavery. In due course I will be discussing at length the geopolitical history within the framework of our limited knowledge of what we recorded since the flood. Rather what we have been permitted to know of said records. The fact that much as been redacted from the common brain trust passed on to us via academia. Those alabaster halls occupied by self appointed guardians of the approved versions of knowledge and information released to us vulgar unfortunate masses. So burdened, I shall pass this Holiday celebrating the antithesis of its traditions.

Continuing in the same vain as previously began prior to the day’s celebrations, in much the similarly convoluted fashion as before… I, The Dark One of Occultic Lore. I have been told; that I have done things no one in the history of the world has ever done previously. Personally I can only cite one quality as being demonstrative of such high praise. Though in all honesty I am more often than not being chastised for lacking focus, being lazy, acting the fool in the face of my enemies, or being cavalier in my affections, or placing myself at undue risk of life and limb, and the list goes on and on ad nauseaium.  This from the select few who know and understand who and what I am.  Those who may actually care about me, and would see me fulfill that which I have been foreordained to do whilst sojourning here. The totality of our circumstance here, now at this moment, we soon shall enter perhaps the most critical and precarious point of our history and that of this Creation.  I am all too well aware of this along with that which shall soon come to pass shortly.  This awareness, I experience across multiple vectors while being cognizant of a sea of permeations which ultimately stream toward a specific Crux in Our Familial Aggregation (I am trying to develop appropriate nomenclature – wherein I avoid certain more readily common labels or descriptors and/or appellations. Whose usage has been subverted into the double speak practiced by the various satanic and blood occultic families which run the world. Who have ritually (via trauma) conditioned and indoctrinated their acolytes, golems / victims to hear and respond to accordingly, never in a positive manner. Wherefore it is incumbent upon me whenever possible to avoid affirming these, even to the point of reinventing the ascribed nomenclature.) within this Creation. As a consequence I must stumble through idiomatic constructs, ungainly though they be. Believe me if you knew and understood the actualities ascribed to words and the double or multiple meanings applied to them within the Families. The evils, the pain, the denigration of the individuals / victims usually by those nearest them; ultimately by extension it eventually infects and corrupts societies unto the world at large.  You would weep an endless river of tears unto filling the seas, if you could see this in your minds eye properly.  As long as this perniciously malicious spiritual / familial / multi-generational / social / cultural pathogenic practice continues, our struggles will end in naught. Hence into this morass I must seek to keep my appointed task. How best to explain this? I have spent the majority of my life in the haze of denial.  Avoiding my differences.  Putting off my preparations for that which is to come.

Since approximately twenty four plus months prior to Operation Jade Helm our covert Intelligence apparati, including elements of the ruling shadow government began a concerted effort at Foxing me. The on set of Operation Jade Helm and its scope marked an exponential increase in expanded efforts against me.  Now, let me make clear Operation Jade Helm’s purpose was not solely to target me, there where many targets across the greater portion of the United States of America.  Death dealers and various squads of assassins executed / murdered an increasing number of American Citizens, most had been identified for some time to be exterminated.  Impunity seems to have become the operational by word.  The extremes demonstrated continuously since that time defy all reason. Defining the architects of this action as being criminals is almost quaint.  This level of criminal insanity goes beyond the point of being treasonous. With the majority of resource allocation comes from “military Intelligence” which then utilizes other military resources and supplies.  Thus it is that we have been duped into financing our own demise.

For purposes pursuant to their agendas, they have labeled me a domestic terrorist.  Thereby presumably justifying illegal exercises and persecution of my person.  Rationalizing by extension similar acts against my family and anyone I may care about and or Love. Death for them would be preferable to the horrors their personages have been and are being subjected. I know I sound ludicrously paranoid with delusions of grandeur in the extreme. Hahaha….  gosh how I wish, hope and pray such were the case. I make this record in defense of myself and my actions. Naturally I fear all my good intentions with their accompanying actions are for naught. I realize that upon my death as allotted to the sons of man, as to the first part, my character will be maligned in the worst manner possible.  A issue I will address at length later in this on going exposition of myself and my misadventures as they may be.

Thursday July 5, 2018.  Killeen Texas

Despite my misgivings it seems I survived all the pops and bangs of our nosiest of American Holidays. A joyous circumstance to be certain. From now till my last day of my allotted life as unto the children of men, my life hangs in the balance. The ante to live my life as it were.

My current accommodation over the past almost six weeks has been with an old flame and friend Jade Causey – Chamlee, and her 18 year old son Joey, whose given name was Freddie. Bless their souls for extending to my worn out arse a place to stay and recover. Regrettably my physical recovery is taking much longer than I anticipated. I am fully aware my expectations regarding the time necessary for a complete recovery was / were unreasonable. But I need to set the bar high to keep from being complacent. Now had my situation been inclusive of adequate financial resources I would be at least relatively close to my timetable. I would have had access to better medical, dietary, living and therapies. Hell my injuries would have been properly tended to at the hospital in my initial admittance. Instead I continued to be the object of curiosity and experimentation. With little consideration to trying to give me appropriate medical care. I have come to know what to expect, due largely to my younger brother's general attitude. Wherein he rationalizing what him and others do to me, as simply a matter of effect associated to the who and what I am. It is rationalized that if  I, Donn am this special chosen person than he/I should be able to survive everything, whatever it may be.  Because if he/I don’t than obviously he/I am not that special and thus not protected from on High.  Horrific logic used to rationalizing a growing list of atrocities committed against my person. A ugly fact of my reality, one I anticipated. What issues make this whole fucked up process unacceptable, malicious, acutely painful and unforgivingly egress is the manner by which they have targeted and used others. Especially my younger brother, father, son, Tiffany, Revaka, Heather, Angie and numerous others. They have been tortured, abused and treated as disposable commodities. All are scared and precious, some are very unique with abilities reaching into arenas not generally accepted or understood in today’s world view. Yet these individuals are denigrated, abused in some of the most deviantly sordid manners. Most are ultimately destroyed, first robbing them of their minds, bodies and in some final insult of their very souls. As it appears that they are being harvested for physical vehicles to have demons placed in their bodies. Yeah, I suppose I could say it in some sort of more politically correct parlance as “aliens” from a lower resonating dimensional reality / realm. Somehow I find that by doing so it fails to communicate the malicious evil inherent in the process. I find the old nomenclature to communicate the Truer meaning. Though some eras of our past carry their own obvious failings magnified exponentially by ignorance while fueled by misguided zealotry. They were not called the Dark Ages for nothing. Similarly different cultures, societies, periods, places and times have fallen to various abysses of Darkness. We have this false mental image of life on Our Earth proceeding in some linar fashion from primitive man (including Adam, for those of a theological inclination) struggling out of caves. Fighting against their own primitive brain / mind which was trapped in a diminished brain pan capacity from questing for fire against ignorance and superstitions. With us being the cumulative beneficiaries of this on going process. Peoples of those ancient times could not have been as intelligent as those today. Therefore they could not have grasped the concepts we do. Some of the most ridiculous fallacies of logic ever presumed to rationalizing and justify conduct or beliefs. Matter of fact the inverse is actually True. But what the fuck could I possibly know!

Sadly my frustrations are rearing their collective heads as it were in my writing. I wish I had been more diligent in securing my journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach towards Utah. I was more focused recording relavent issues in a contemporaneous fashion. Not to mention a considerable investment in explanations dealing with a variety of associated topics. Grrrrr… all I did then was walk and write. I may soon be in a recurrence of such, shortly. I can no longer abide where I am. All the more so under these conditions. Deep in my mind I am aware of happenings which require my attention. Not to mention my friend’s household is not psychologically conducive to my state of being. At least not in a healthy way, good intentions not with standing. My largest obstacle to my leaving believe it or not, is my need for acceptable footwear. Flip-flops aren’t going to cut it. Hell they are wholly inadequate to even walk just up the street a block or two. I must admit the sidewalks and streets of California were well suited for walking.

Monday July 9, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

As Pooh would be apt to say, “Oh bother”. I feel for the most part Tigger. Bouncing all about spinning, twisting, flipping… as well on my head as my tail. I am most acutely wanting to find my focus once again. My communication skills seem heavily compromised. Not that I was ever able to write as effectively as the great Nobel Laureates. Generally speaking I could at least maintain some linear cohesion in my writing.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally I am shaken.  Much as if my being was trapped in the tremors of advance Parkinson’s. In similar fashion my expressed thoughts and experiences lack focus, my abilities at lucidly articulating my larger life occurrences is choppy at best. Failure is NOT an option! No matter how I feel or how events are or may effect me, I must regain my composure and find my center. While reacquiring my skills of teaching and sharing what I have learned.  Please excuse me if I don’t edit the foregoing entries. As convoluted and murky as they may be, their relevance contemporaneously can not be diminished. Hopefully they will in due course provide a benchmark to juxtaposition future writings and notes thereby effecting a glimpse into my state of being at the time of writing.  Grrrrr…….

They have done a very good job of isolating me. All the more so, as I try to come to terms with the potential cost to those I would seek commerce with across all levels of our socioeconomic strata.  If what I endured while being the object of a Foxing protocol by our shadow government’s covert intelligence community are any indication. Anyone who associates with me, either at mine or their initiation is subject to become targeted for retribution as punishment to me. Too high a cost to blindly impart with out consideration to finding possible means of mitigation. Or at the very least terms whereby I am ultra selective with whom I interact. Along with the rationale for said interactions. Soon enough our social dependency will require I abandon all such pretext or attempts at shielding anyone from consequence. I fear that time shall be upon us/me far too soon. Perhaps I am again being exceedingly naive. My efforts are most probably for naught. An on the at large canvas of the bigger picture my presumption at damage control will only result in a larger area and impact of effect upon our society as a whole. Not that I am some savior or prophet, far from it actually. In the grander scale of things, I might best be referred to as a “wild card”.  Meaning that in any analysis of the interaction of variables, one may with a degree of certainty predict the outcome of any issue, contest, conflict even war. However should certain individuals or a very small dynamic group of individuals enter the forum. Suddenly the landscape of the matter shifts radically to the point that the original outcome no longer applies or is meaningful. We have numerous examples of such occurrences throughout our histories. Of salient import to us here in America is The Battle of Thermopylae, and the 300 Spartans. We all learned about continents in school. Did you ever notice that Europe and Asia were counted as separate despite being one land mass. The reason is that Western Culture and Asian (Oriental) Cultures being vastly different it was traditionally ascribed to them being two separate continents. We may naively presume to ridicule such a blatant indulgence as arrogance. Yet there are fundamental reasons for this error being valid. We as the heirs of Western Culture, need to understand the mythical / legendary impact of these distinctions upon our mameic memory, especially those of us of the West. From Greece to Rome, then following our Angelo – Dutch (Iberian) roots it is transmitted to us. The importance and permanent impact of the actions and sacrifice of Leonidas and 300 Free Spartans against over a 1,000,000 servile basically slaves to a potentate deemed quasi divine, carved out a legacy of Freedom which stands even today. An Epic “wild card”. There are many others, most are lost to us today. With the occasional exception that survives in our Epics, our Mythologies, our Legends. Most such stories are the blending of factual events with older religious or semi religious traditions. Which aliteration was a common and accepted means of teaching the lessons of both convanents in a factual and metaphoric means. Much the way Jesus Christ taught using parables, allegories composed to have layers of meaning dependent upon the degree of understanding had by the student. So a natural continuation of this is to be inclusive of many historical events, along with the trans literal substitution of the individuals to those of prophecy or the the Divine or Angelic intercession of some ancient history. These depending on circumstance would be iterated and reiterated in verbal traditions to be celebrated in the retelling, usually in association to particular annual festivals. Such as the case with the Saga of the Norse Kings. A subject I hope to have the opportunity to entertain at length later in my writings, scribblings. The vast majority of my ideas, concepts, models and histories can generally be attributed to greater minds than mine. As has been said before, the reason I / we can see so far is that we stand on the shoulders of giants, those that have come before us. Yes I paraphrase taking a degree of liberty. More particularly to hopefully retain its original meaning.

Funny I have been much as I am, the entirety of my life. Before I commence an in-depth sharing of many of the somewhat unique occurrences and events that have brought me to this proposition in time. I wish to clarify and reiterate some postulates. Elsewise a portion of my own records and logs may well be used against me. Principally by interests who would wish to call my lucidity and grasp of reality into question, in the hopes of indicting or coloring my character via my words. No doubt they shall do so nonetheless. I only wish that my original is sufficiently vetted in the sane understanding of reality has to be a defense to my honor and mental facilities. Thus, again – I am No prophet! Nor am I an Alien. Hahaha… Nor am I some savior! As far as religion – I will say as was told to me by what would be termed alien contactees, or more specifically those that I felt and believed we’re genuine. Of the many I personally met back in the 1970s. According to these individuals as to the subject of religion and the Bible when broached to the various aliens these contactees interacted. All the aliens responded that yes the Bible was more or less correct and that it was wholly applicable to us, our Creation, and Our G-d. I know not at all what they say on the popular shows in the media today. Hmmm,…. As to my personal religious beliefs and inclinations, I am Mormon by conversation and have been excommunicated for many more years than I care to mention. By the way my excommunication was due wholly to personal moral matters not issues of doctrine or beliefs of Faith. So if somewhere in my upfront acknowledgements, you find me wanting of naïve. Fine, do or do Not as is in you, or as is your want. I make no apologies, nor seek to compromise in some misguided attempt to achieve an accord or consensus. Rather quite to the contrary, I share, present, seeking dialogue broader than an account of the happenings surrounding my life. Simply because I am appalled by the amount of lies and disinformation being used to indoctrinate the populace. Add to this the lack of corrected and broader views from the dreadfully homogenous perspective droning from damn near every sector. The present modalities disgust me, breaking my heart such that I would to weep day and night for Our collective Family. Yet better spent are my efforts in defense of the Truth and an improved accounting of our histories and circumstances. In pursuit of same I find I must submit my private life and experiences to general scrutiny. The majority of which I have never shared with anyone prior to the last six to eight years. I have desired to live a rather conventional life, for the most part. Realizing that soon enough I will forever be denied the Joy of such.

To this end and the accompanying process I submit some of the earliest memories and events of my life and childhood. One of my earliest, if not the earliest is being in my crib prior to the age of two. My father was working for numerous government and governmental contractors at the time. Naturally I don’t recall those details. Our family had just moved to Southern California. We were living with my mother’s sister somewhere in East Los Angeles. Their home was the typical Spanish Colonial. Anyone familiar with the style and form of such. Know that hallways usually converge into a common room, you cross to the hallway leading to the room you have as your destination. In this pass through common room is where my crib was stationed. Probably the best location for it and me. So the various women could occupy my attention should I become fussy. An many times this common room was an area where the women would congregate as my recollection is. Well across this room was a pantry closet, with selves and full of the sundry items found in such for the time. In the coming and goings of my family and relatives there were numerous occasions that would find me unattended, alone in my crib. It was during one such interlude that the commencement of a reoccurring vision / dream began. I having been left alone to my own devices (parenting back in the day). When the door to the aforementioned pantry slowly opened wide. A beautiful female Golem, her physique had the appearance of red bricks. Yet the contours of her form were singularly female. Rather she had distinct curves with aquiline sculptured features. Most hauntingly she had these striking blue eyes. She never spoke a word, her eyes spoke volumes to my initially shocked mind. As the sounds of returning relatives approached, she gracefully returned from whence she came. On the first couple of occasions I witnessed this I raised a bit of a commotion. I was not yet verbal, and in all honesty I was a late talker. Well the relatives thought I might have seen a rat. So they dutifully opened the pantry to inspection. The pantry was then as it always was, with neither a rat or exquisite Lady Golem. This parade continued off and on for the majority of the our short time residing at my aunt’s house. Usually the Lady Golem had those blue blue eyes, though green and grey versions are among the visits. Each and every time she would come to the side of my crib, moving her head, or tilting (cocking) it just so. Always her eyes full of questions and disbelief. Her eyes seemed to express; You? You are the one sent? Hmmm… You don’t look like much! Look more like a little wet rodent, but who knows?. This was more or less the sentiment expressed in her eyes. Following my first encounters I became accustomed to her visits and would actually miss her on the rare occasions of absence. Needless to say from early childhood I saw the “world” differently than others around me. I also learned to accept this altered perception without fear, understanding its validity within the accepted context of what is “actual” or the “concrete” reality of our existence.

If you may recall back in the haze of school days. During various lectures the teacher's would sometimes use what is commonly referred to as an over head projector. Depending on what was being taught, it was also common practice to layer over lays. These would either complete the image or at times super impose other images as needed. Sometimes even as multiple layers of over laid transparencies. Some of you more contemporaneously educated individuals may never have seen such primitive presentations, having known only power point. For those so blessed what I describe next may be Greek to you. For the dinosaur amongst us most should have some recollection. This model is the closest I can use to illustrate how the world appeared to me growing up as a child. Usually I would see what could best be described as up to two transparencies overlapping the “real world” in general. I could even lift these overlays to get a clearer view of what was being presented before me. At times these would both be at in the foreground of “reality”, other times both would be in the background, while at other times it would be split one in front and one in back. Yet there were numerous other configurations, sometimes completely unrelated to the happenings around me (foreshadowing alert). Gradually this ocular affect of the world began to diminish till it no longer was within my field of vision. By the time I was around sixteen to seventeen years of age this effect was effectively gone. Since then I have experienced this only a handful of times. I usually take a different approach, I will address momentarily. One of the proximate results almost immediately of perceiving my world in this manner is that I usually know the scope and degree that anyone is lying. As an adult it is not quite as prominent as in my childhood. Though there have been exceptions. As a direct consequence my earliest life lesson was in due course the hypocrisy of the adults around me. Everyone would profess such devotion to “the necessity” or importance of always “speaking the Truth”. Yet I would be punished to no end for pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact the adults more often than not lied as suited them. I learned to keep such to myself. Something I still do to this day. I tend to filter or make allowances far too much now as an adult. Invariably leading to greater complications. Besides transparencies certain images or objects would “float” across my field of vision in similar transparency manner. Some of which I could not decipher any context or meaning at the time or since. To begin to place elements of this visual experience I need to explain tangent events of recent.

The advent of the Internet and the information highway is as with most such paradigms, both a blessing and a curse. Dependent largely upon the nature and supposed inclination of man. We are all no doubt familiar with the media platforms of Facebook and YouTube. Like everyone else to some degree I have had occasion to surf around doing research or simply for mindless pleasure. Back prior to Jade Helm, when my Old Lady (though she was substantially younger) Tiffany and I were keeping house in Austin, Texas. I noticed a YouTube video regarding the Apollo 20 mission. Oh by the way according to my histories the Apollo lunar missions went up to 20. I wanted to see what was been discussed along with what twists and turns the disinformation specialist spin their distractions. Which if you can determine it sometimes conclude what they are trying to hide or if their direction of spin is a “z” vector you can sight 180 degrees opposite to determine the landscape they don’t wish you to see. You may consider all this a large investment of mental energies, it is just how my mind works at times automatically. Back to the Apollo 20 video. In the video there was some general discussion of aliens, their nature and origins. During this open dialogue, there was a series of various old clips. I presume were some how removed from the archives of NASA. Many of the older non-defined clips I was quite familiar with the images. Not because I have ever seen them as photos, images, clips or video. At the time I was floored, since previous to that moment I was unacquainted with their context or related meaning. These objects I use to see in the exact same configuration and involved in the exact motions approximately forty years earlier as I was growing up. Matter of fact judging from the age of the imagery I would have to conclude I was witnessing them contemporaneously as a child. Without the context of outer space or NASA I had presumed I was watching some complex interactions of some sort of strange protozoal life from. I even remotely as concerned they had some how become infected to my cornea, so prevalent we’re the objects across my vision. So striking was their imposition upon my sight that more than four decades later their association was immediate and most assuredly certain. One less mystery to worry about. Yet the implications are troubling profoundly. Both of myself and the world at large, considering how maliciously the world's population has been lied to and manipulated. The ends of which are too shocking and horrible to ever discuss. Although in previous conversations at moments of weakness I have divulged a greater portion than may have been prudent.

Wednesday July 11, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

You may right so wish to ascribe or diagnosis me as having a form of delusions inclusive of all types of hysteria, grandeur, psychosis with severe religious obsessions. For what passes for psychiatry today within the public ledger domain, you may be correct. I would offer in defense a extensive lifetime containing a ongoing accounts of a similar or even greater note. Although I am not a Moses, peoples of another time would recognize me as being touched by The All Mighty, as it were. I will at least own any such appellation. Am I some righteous man deserving of beautification unto sainthood, I would argue Not. At best I have tried to be a descent man, who speaks the Truth as much as possible. I am burdened by an additional commitment.

Back in my youth, being around nine years old. I had a singularly profound series of visions / dreams. I repeatedly dreamt my death, accompanied by the various permeations associated to reaching same. The process took several days (nights) between three to five. Being so young I didn’t think to take particular note of the days my dreams were thus occupied. They obviously had a unique feel with a equally sensational intensity, they still abide with me today. I distinctly recall a voice of sorts coming to me following the last night of witnessing this panorama of my life's end (as are the days accorded to the sons of man). Now this voice which came unto me, I presume it was within the precincts of my mind. Not that it would have mattered greatly since I was alone when it came unto me. Nor did I think to ask from whence or whom spoke. I knew and could feel the light of our Divine Home as I heard the intent along with the presumed words. It was a simple dialogue, stating; “this is how it ends, this is what you have come to do. You need not do it. You have the right to choose. However if you are to complete this task. You must choose to do so now.”. Being a precocious and arrogant child, I immediately presumed that if I had been sent to do such, than the obvious was that I was the best candidate to accomplish the prescribed task. Armed with such infallible logic, I whole heartedly accepted my calling understanding it would come at great cost. Now granted, an understanding of the true scope or magnitude or the enormity of the cost or suffering I fully lacked. I have spent my life preparing. I have come to know that even at the prescribed time I will lack of my own what is necessary. I shall present to the task my all, trusting in Our G-d to shore me up to complete that which I would do. Subsequent to acceptance of this appointment I am to keep in the near future, my sight / vision increased. The frequency and quantity began increasing dreams, visions, revelations, transparencies along with my general perceptions increased. I now openly own the fact that I see the world through the eyes of the mystic. Only recently was my sight dampened. A heart breaking topic the occasion of which surrounds losing my Love Tiffany. The subject of which shall also be laid upon the alter for examination by the modern day augers. Find what fault if you will, I care little. Only know that matter and its accompanying are for later. I must at present attempt to continue in this established vain of thought recounting events long past in my short life. Besides the notations contemporaneous to me and my circumstances or any of the other tripe I have need to spew forth. Believe this, if I could accomplish my foreordained task without sharing, discussing or placing ultimately for public review any of this – such would be my desire. Painfully I have had to come to terms with the ugly reality I must prostrate myself to assure I am able to do what needs be done. Onward thru the fog, as it were.

Without going into specifics too much, early on I displayed another aptitude. Sometime around first to second grade. My Dear sweet mother recognized I somehow had a hand in the going ons of the other children that back then composed the group of children who had commenced to being around. Now my mother was blessed with a keen intellect. Which included the wisdom to not over think somethings. Instead wherever possible if there was a direct and simple solution to apply one's efforts to the solution. Thereby allowing life to continue on as meant. Almost elegant in its simplicity, usually quite effective in solving any problem, a quaint provincial version of Occum's Razor. Consequently the solution was simple, as she noted; “son, I don’t know what you are doing. But it is wrong. Apparently you need my help understanding that.”. There after I regularly got my hide tanned. Until sometime around the age of seven plus the realization that just because you could do something; does not mean you should. And that everyone is entitled to make their own choices. Afterwards the occasion necessitating my tanning ceased as a consequence to those particular actions. By no means did I fail to earn other occasions of corporal punishment as befits a young boy trying to find his wings, so to speak.

Growing up making my way through our education system of public schooling. I never cracked a book. Now one should not presume schools and childhood were smooth sailing. Quite to the contrary, in second grade my school in southern California labeled me “retarded”. Lacking a separate facilities or classes you were simply shoved to the back of the class with similarly challenged children. Nor did they have to test the child or give notice to the parents. Following a few weeks at the back of the class I began to demonstrate “odd” behavior. Which my always observant mother was quick to question. She went to the school and raised holy hell. In actuality it was more of a racially motivated issue. My parents being divorced, the school only saw my Hispanic mother. Being profoundly dyslexic, their initial assessment was that I was a Mexican, and you know you can not teach their kind. I was going to a all white school at time. Not to mention kindergarten in Watts. During the riots in 1965. I had to have police escorts to school. While I still have very distinct memories of the entire family sleeping in the living room with all the doors and windows blocked and barricaded against the rioting blacks. A sort of difficult time growing up. Believe me I know what racism is like. I am not going to hold my tin cup up on that lame ass subject. The fact that there are those in this country that hold onto this issues as the reasons for all their troubles. Or that there are groups and individuals who exploit this history for their enrichment. All this does is allows an ever expanding rifts in our society. The age old axiom of divide and conquer. Yet we all seem oblivious to this, instead we rush to our own deaths.

Thursday July 12, 2018,. – Killeen, Texas

Aaagh, fuck, damnit…. I fucking swear. Why do I even try to help anyone. Generally they hold to their own practices of appeasing the least common denominators by which they live. What can I say. As gracious as my hostess and her son may be. I doubt if I can tolerate much more of their dysfunctionality sans any self realization or objectivity. And they wonder about Joey meeting someone (female). I can’t imagine the woman who would find any of this manner or lack of is appealing. I try to maintain perspective because I do recognize the roots of most of the antisocial behavior. Even if it expresses its self differently than one may anticipate. I just don’t have the tolerance I usually do. In my current condition of convalescing from my injuries, makes me subject to the vagaries that define the lives of normal people. Due to the obvious singular quality of my life I have had to come to terms with the fact that I do not process anything in like manner as my peers. An before everyone thinks I am trying to sound all superior or some such, please note that I am continually making stupid mistakes principally due to my own naivety. We all have this aspect wherein we judge our circumstance and that of others from the pigeonhole perspective. Everyone else's view though differing from each other falls within a given area, or a few degrees of each other. Mine falls a extreme distance outside of what could be considered the norm. Nonetheless being very human I continue in the belief I perceive “reality” much as the other person from a similar understanding and values system. Invariably this attitude finds opportunity to smack me in my face by its differences. Each and every time I am recalled that, oh I knew better because I am fully aware of the differences and should have factored accordingly. Even now at this more venerable point in my life I find one of my biggest failings is naive belief in the character of my fellow man. Yet if my assertions as to my last day as are allotted to the sons of man be True. For the greater part I will be doing so for the entirety of Our Familial Aggregation. Even for those who seek only to cause me and those I Love and care about, harm or maliciousness. Because that is the way of things in our Creation. Soon enough the vile evil shall reveal itself, the kid gloves shall come off and life will never be this peaceful again. If it be the will of he who sent me I will seek to balance many scales of injustice. Till then I must endure and prepare as best I can.

Well enough complaining about friends who do their best given the circumstances. I appreciate all they have done on my behalf. Especially since to a large degree they grasp what potentially may be the cost. Even if in some small ways they may have been influenced by the same malicious or “Bees”, that seek to be the cause of my failure. For such is the nature of things in the abyss. Especially considering the length of time I have elected to spend wrapped in the confines of twisting throughout what we commonly refer to as “reality”. I generally feel more comfortable surrounded by its miasma and ickor than anywhere else. As much as it may appear to be a contradiction it ultimately is fact. Sigh!!!

For the time being I guess I will change the temporal focus of my entries. I can seldom stay focused on any particular time frame for an extended period. Doing so usually causes me to shift to the associated memories which become very visceral in nature. Soon it begins to become a tad overwhelming. All the more so once framed in relation to the present context. I sincerely hope that suffices and is remotely coherent. I am usually deconstructing my conceptual models and ideas into a form more acceptable to being understood. Sometimes I become lost in the process to the point I know what I mean despite the fact that the words and or syntax are nonsense. In conversation I sometimes have to stop and ask if what I have postulated or presented in the dialogue makes sense. I know it all made sense and sounded good in my head. Aaah but I can’t always presume to have effectively communicated the same.

Saturday July 14, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Well here it is the weekend, somewhere in Who-ville are working stiffs cheering at the arrival of the ritual with its time off. It has been interminably long since I have have lived a life so constrained as to include the simple Joy of a defined weekend of days off. Hell I am usually engrossed in my vocation daily. With my ever prevalent purpose always driving me. For the most part I have become unfit to be amongst civil company. Yes I am conversant. I am genial enough when in mixed groups. I tend to empathic of those around me. I genuinely give a damn as to the well being of others. Even so, the inescapable Truth is that the darkness is too imbued into my being. Because of the darkness of my spirit, I have become rolled into the ubiquitous abyss of our “reality”. Though it does not effect me quite the same as others its taint has woven into my fibers. Not being much of a liar I lack the necessary tools to hide it from general view.

Wednesday July 18, 2018  - Killeen, Texas

Well damn, I sometimes really get fucking frustrated.  At one level I am perpetually detached from the day to day focus and obsessions of everyone around me. I can’t bring my mind to focus on the general ideological concepts propagated by the geopolitical theater. Which resembles an episode of the moppet show as far as I what it appears. Are the offenses and injuries less or non-existent to my sympathies or moral indignation; not in the least. They still represent injustices and crimes which need to be effectively dealt with and hopefully the scales will balance. Even so, I just can not seem to get all worked up over these slight daily travesties. All the more so since I tend to view all these for what they are within the larger perspectives and plans of globalist / occultic families. Typical divide and conquer, or simple distractions from their primary objectives. I can appreciate everyone’s sentiments and attitudes that the scenarios of what is to come are not perceived as real or likely. Hell even I given enough distance and time begin to feel as though none of it is possibly factual. Except for the fact that I have lived a life associated to these eventualities. Even when I was in the thick of things all those involved would tell me bold faced lies as to what was occurring. As if to make me question the obvious, because the obvious Truth of the matter was outside any social norms. I guess there are those for a convenient lie is preferred to Truth too extreme to accept. I have been at this life, spending the majority of my existence living in the abyss. Which is everywhere, it co-exists with whatever social or cultural conventions occupying our realities of the moment.  It is ubiquitous yet invisible to all but those who have had the misfortune to have grown up in its mists, or the uninitiated. Due to my unique occular abilities I am sort of self initiated. It took me a little while to come to understand the meaning of this subset of our world. I have always seemed to rub against this sub culture, even as a child. A odd fact which has taken me many years to come to terms with it. Even then it was a process of educating myself to be able to grasp the entirety of the concepts. Though outrageous beyond belief, it is nonetheless part of a larger pool of knowledge I have fought long and hard to achieve. We are a phenomenal expression of life, even across the multiverse. For all our uniqueness, we are seemingly determined to trivialize who and what we are. More importantly the processes and manner whereby we are to accomplish our purpose “here”.  Truly phenomenal!!!

Yet I digress. I am simply getting on my soapbox, whipping the horse, so to speak. Grrrrr…

How best to convey some of the basics back into the discussions and open forums in our sea of opinions. A perplexing problem one that has vexed my soul for almost three decades. I suppose the real source of my reservations has principally revolved around my own reluctance to be centrist to any reintroduction in a general dialogue. Much to my consternation it is plain that to accomplish this and thereby facilitate me being able to keep my appointment in the future, I must find the where with all and means to personally become directly a part of our social dialogues. I can freely admit to my own megalomania. I try not to buy into it myself. I shan’t feed such feelings or Mali-adpted inclinations. What ever a person's tendencies, we fail our own interests in doing so. To the point of it becoming a all consuming psychosis. Our histories are replete with the villains who are consumed by base desires at the cost of all else. Not that such is my fear. Rather I prefer to do what I can from a position far from the limelight. We don’t always get to choose how best to accomplish our goals. My non-object oriented way of thinking I suppose. Aaagh, this is an area I would deeply desire some assistance. Not to mention the realities of presently being impoverished. I had best get used to my condition, I fear I shan’t know any other for some time to come. I guess I need to find the way and means to broadcast my ugly mug on to the internet. I guess I will start some YouTube type of series. I need to really get my act together!

Amazingly as we and our solar-system has traversed the apogee of its elliptical orbit with its sister star. This having occurred back in December 2012. We are now accelerating towards our sister star on the side closest to our Galactic Center. We will soon be re-entering the flows of Magick. They are part of the natural order of things. Think of it as a higher order of physics. We conveniently suppose a posture of superiority over some earlier more organic beliefs or systems of interactions within our realities. Although witchcraft, paganism, shamanism, and various other practices have been collectively maligned for associated practices related to satanistic practices (which Are very evil). In many such cases we have throughen the baby out with the bathwater. I am not trying to condemn nor make excuses, only to ask for a broader open review of these strangely different beliefs and practices.  Many times they are simply corrupted versions of our Judaeo-christian thought, beliefs and practices. Sometimes I even find missing pages of our religious histories amongst these. An to borrow a quote;  “We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft.” - C. Lamb.

Friday July 19, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Now as to my disjointed quaint manner of writing, I am recalled of yet another quote from Webster’s,  “Prolix, Diffuse. A prolix writer delights in circumlocution, extended detail, and trifling particulars. A diffuse writer is fond of amplifying, and abounds in epithets, figures, illustrations. Diffuseness often arises from an exuberance of imagination; prolixity is generally connected with a want of it.” [1913 Webster].  As to which, my confused manner may be likened, I leave such determination to those who due to some pathological compulsions decide to continue on through the disjointed tediousness of my log.  Excuse my quoting, it but appears the best and most eloquent descriptive means external to my own critiques. Wherein Webster provides what I believe is a more accurate description of my loquacious manner and style of communication. Bleck, ugh…

On to more relevant matters. As I continue to play my game of catching up to the current state of affairs in my existence. Jumping back to around August last year, at the time I elected to take my leave of the Long Beach / Wilmington area of the LA Basin. The majority of occurrences I previously wrote down in a contemporaneous log as I walked out of LA ultimately reaching Salt Lake City, Utah. With a brief momentary stay in Las Vegas, Nevada. My mind aches at the memories from that time. Regardless, there may in the retelling be wisdom or beneficial information for myself or others. Sorry if some of this has a choppy feel to it. There are mountains of unresolved emotional context and histories, which continue to elicit extremes within me. I hate sounding apologetic from the get go. Not that any of the vacillating diminishes the importance of the material or what I endured.

In July of last year, my younger brother was arrested and placed in presumably Twin Towers downtown Los Angeles. It was involving drugs and a handgun. I saw him and the P.O.S. , earlier that night. I already knew there were going to be problems. Additionally I had been indirectly informed my situation was about to become difficult. No more niceness regarding my treatment, operational dictums were changed. Initially I was was acutely aware my younger brother was not in police custody. I figured he was being held some where on or around the federal facilities of Terminal Island in the Port of Long Beach. Later parts of my sight of his circumstances were confirmed to me, though the exact location never has been (foreshadowing). Sometime during the second week of his presumed incarceration. He digitally appeared in the system with the appropriate arrest date, and information. To this day I am not convinced of the terms and conditions accompanying this purely “staged” event. No doubt there were days he was in the Twin Towers facility. Anything else is highly suspect at best if not solely manipulated data for the purposes of the Op. Nonetheless, I was sorely put upon. Due to the determinate fact that whatever had previously as well as on going to date are the proximate results of his being “my brother”. I was aware my brother was not my brother. I later would describe the fact as, “my brother was murdered on the mesas of New Mexico 4 (5) years prior”. I freely declared the fact, even with my younger brother present. At the time of his arrest I had invested two years trying to awaken and heal his soul. During this ordeal, he was on goingly conditioned (subject to various satanic trauma assisted by ultra high technologies deployed by our Shadow Government for the purposes of mind control). I can not escape a degree of culpability. Many may seek succor in the belief that I was not responsible, nor the individual inflicting these horrors to my younger brother. I acknowledge the physical reality as being so. However the moral reality is that, We are our Brother's keeper. An for myself it has a immense literal quality. We are all part of Our Larger Familial Aggregation, what we do, say or do not effects all. While in my particular case, he is my younger brother – same Mother and Father. I have known what to expect from the future all my life. I have even attempted to convey this knowledge in abstract to my brothers. Granted I did Not know that in recent times the evil practitioners of these vile satanistic rites had made a huge technical breakthrough. It use to be, if an individual attained adulthood free of these practices or influences, then they would die free of its chains. Obviously a person could freely elect to cultivate any base desires or perverse inclinations. By “choice” being the operative mandate, those chained to the MPD / DID minds of victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) are forever robbed of any choice in the matter. Not even I can “set” them free or the chains forged in their infancy and childhoods. I can only unlock the gates and offer them the means to heal. The process is long and painful, requiring more years than anyone can live to hopefully heal. Sadly as each victim is considered chattel to the perspective heads of each “family”, who is in turn property of another. Hence there are functionally twelve Satanic Patriarchs seated at the heads of their “family”. Under Satanic Dogma they consider themselves “gods” of their worlds. According to their beliefs you exist as titled property, if not than you are of no consequence thereby you do Not exist. The worth of you and yours is less than the trash sent to the dump.

Sunday July 22, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Continuing with similar point of fact as discussed, it may all sound or would be considered linear, a straightforward affair. Appearing almost orderly, locked in some strange perverse dance. When it is anything but. Take into consideration the matter of succession. You might be inclined to infer that being Patriarchal, it is a matter of patrialinacal father to son. The reality is far from such Familial Sensibilities. Simply put, upon the death of the head of any household. He, who inherits is the male gains control of his clan by right of arms, or force. Basically if you are not yet feared enough to demand your seat as the heir to the estate. The one who rules does so because he has murdered and killed all the opposition by blood rite according to Antediluvian Law. Meaning you not only kill your opposition, the action is inclusive of all males of immediate consanguinal association. The wholesale murder also removes any potential blood retribution by those who possess an immediate claim to do so. Secondly it demonstrates to clan members at large the vicious response dissent will meet. Terror then substitutes conditioned context within their trauma-based mindset vicariously confirming that male's natural right to head that Family’s Branch of the Larger Familial Group. If you can remotely rationale order from such chaotic slaughter. You more than likely were raised under such paradigms, or your values are perversely twisted and I recommend you seek professional help from any school of thought practicing a highly structured value system, preferably based on some well established benevolent religion. Notice I qualify said using the word benevolent. Cause if you use the most liberal definition to the concepts of religion you could quietly slip satanism or luciferinism in as established religions. The distinctions are sufficient as to invite debate. One I feel is much a waste of time for all parties. Generally I ascribe it principally to a matter of semantics shackled to vastly differing modalities of operations defining values. Our time can be better spent educating ourselves up and out of overly cerebral arguments designed to trap us in artificial concepts posing as reality. A overwrought process favored by Academia in defense of entrenched theories dressed in the ideology we refer to as the “Scientific Model”.  Yes, I have great disdain for what passes for education and schools of higher learning. They have long since been co-oped into the problems they were meant to free us from being slaves. I will tuck that soapbox away now, thank you for your indulgence.

What is even more incredible is the fact that this insanity is governed by their own set laws and rules. They even have a court system with defined jurisprudence. Not any sort you or I could consider properly legal. Rather it is more a system to maintain the “status quo” based on traditions, precedence, along with a strange quasi religious tones from Antediluvian Laws. Even known lies are acceptable if left uncontested but those who have standing and recognized Familial context. Elsewise the stated lie will stand as fact, enforceable to the fullest extent to which the system can accommodate.

Now if you followed that loose explanation, allow me to attempt to give an overview of some of the semi-societal interactive relationship between myself and these psychopaths. Especially above the standing rank and file victims constituting the entirety of the Families. I have a singularly unique interactive connection to them, their Families, their politics, traditions, religious dogma, technologies of the Shadow Government, including possible contingencies for what is to come. It is a chaotic and confusing dynamic paradox. Perpetually in a state of change, in recent times there has been much difference of opinion concerning how to acknowledge or interact with me. Technically I am a nonentity, because I exist outside the direct consanguineous relationship, nor am I amenable to joining their point of view. I remain in opposition to them, their practices, beliefs to the extent of being fundamentally adversarial to “them”. It is worth noting I have been at this so long that everyone I know or deal with daily belongs to this subset of our society. Almost all my friends, associates, girlfriends or anyone else comes from some blood occultic families. Some even to what capacity they are able seek to support me in my efforts. I am alive today because some evil bastards simply decided not to do as they were instructed. Knowing full well the consequences for siding with me. Try to understand these individuals have lived corrupt malignant lives, they hate themselves but are forbidden to take their own lives. There is virtual nothing they can do to truly cause those over them to flip out or take offense. Yet they do recognize that my stumbling about is upsetting. Having run around everywhere doing what I do. I have always done so without a net, so to speak. It is a source of boarder line amazement, more particularly they think I am “bat-shit” crazy! Nonetheless I am still here. You may know people who collect body art, fashionably tattoos these days. I sometimes joke of my own collection of scars and injuries to my body. Thankfully I heal exceptionally well. Most of my scars heal to the point of being almost unnoticeable, if you did not know my histories. It is an exhausting hobby, painful too! A frequent refrain I hear while being admitted to the ER or ICU has been, “Mr Williams, you are very lucky to be alive”.  “Yeah Doc I hear that allot. Do the best you can.”.  It has become somewhat of a ongoing joke, amongst friends and family. These days those groups have become ultra thin. Another reason I make this record of events in my life including improved contemporaneous writings. We can all hope for such. Believe me if it was up to me, no one would know much if anything about me, or my life. I have been, or more correctly I have allowed myself to be forced into a dreadfully unpleasant set of circumstances, as I have whined concerning previously.

Okay Sherman set the way-back machine to the 80’s and 90’ of the last century. Seeing patterns across the country in the minds of crazy ass bitches, now I do Not mean that in a bad way. I have a immense affinity for beautiful crazy ladies. Now as I was saying, the imagery within their minds was too consistent to be coincidence. The language of our sub- conscience is imagery, archetypal, motifs, iconography, mythical, dreams, visions, will of the wisps and whimsy. I believe we all “see” much more of one another than we choose to accept. The largest hurdle to understanding is this compulsion to read or understand what we “see” before the picture is finished assembling in our minds. This tendency has been increasingly pushed into smaller and smaller bits. Which as a negative exponential inverse function has become more and more confusing as to be nigh meaningless with each subsequent reduction. Hence at a time when we should be more connected to everyone. We find increased feelings of isolation and alienation. No matter how much we communicate with our neighbors next door or abroad we have less consensus or feelings of commonality. We sequester these feeling with their accompanying anxieties, less we inadvertently offend anyone. Like what the Fuck! It is part and parcel of the Adult World. Being offended or offending others is how things get done. Usually for the best interests of everyone. Granted we should strive to be engaging to achieve our goals, short of violence or intimidation. Yet as any honest government would gladly concede. Once negotiations by normal means come to an impasse then comes negotiations by “other means”. The debased conduct of sordid persons is best met with our best foot forward, right up their ass! Like most animals, immediacy tends to be the most effective in correcting Mali-adpted conduct. Back to the horse I rode up on, hahaha.

At any rate, over the years I began to solve the underlying issues. I actually came to my own work arounds prior to fully grasping the centralized source or the impact of its implications. Years later I did begin to hear limited bits of information over the internet. Although it did take me a while before I started to correlate the “conspiracy theory” data with what I was “seeing” in women throughout the country.  Largely because few had any real coherent information. Eventually, information concerning Project MK Ultra and our government's Psy-Ops programs sufficiently surfaced to flesh out the details. As a child, young teenager I was familiar with the government’s LSD experiments for a variety of reasons, mind control being one aspect. Frankly I can not believe there are people today who do not know or refuse to believe that our government conducted such experimentation on the populace. It was just common knowledge in the circles I travel. If you read the Program Outline for MK Ultra it has an extensive list of lines of “study” information was to be explored, accumulated with a focus of deriving paradigms of control on individuals, groups, countries, cultures, and from that to the world at Large. The Globalist, New World Order, G-7, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati the individuals and their constantly shifting panorama of institutions and foundations are continually sifting beliefs and cultures in an multi-generational game of Three Card Molly. Degree by degree all the world’s various societies and Cultures have been manipulated via global misdirection with large quantities of restructuring of values and beliefs. Till everyone on Earth thinks good is bad; and bad is good. I should think we have all heard these arguments before, usually framed as the delusions of conspiracy theorist. All rather convenient as a means explaining away any descent or even an open fair discussion. Our social structure has drifted far from where we should be. Starting in 2020, everything is going to change and never be this pleasant or nice again. Well at least not till after the Second Coming. Hahaha, despite sounding …...

[dmsden]

Worldbuilding 8 – It’s a Kind of Magic

Hullo, Gentle Readers, and welcome back to our series of Worldbuilding articles. In these articles, I’ve been developing a campaign setting for D&D 5e that I’ve been calling Beyond the Borderlands. In the latest articles, I’ve been exploring the classes in the Player’s Handbook, and I’ve found details that I’ve been able to use to add to my world. This time, we’re going to be looking at the magic-wielders of the game.

Firstly, I want to mention two classes from the Unearthed Arcana articles: the mystic & the artificer. Although I love both, I’m not sure either one really fits my concepts for this campaign, so I’m stating here that I will not likely make room for them in BtB. Instead, let’s look at the three classes from the Player’s Handbook – the Sorcerer, the Warlock, and the Wizard.

Like fighters, magic-users have been part of D&D since the very beginning, although their names have changed several times. In 5E, they’re called Wizards, and their modus operandi hasn’t changed all that much. It’s sort of an amalgam of 3E and 4E, because they have cantrips, lesser spells that act as their “At Wills”, but also a list of daily spells.  

Reading through the Wizard, we see that wizards must specialize in one of the eight schools of magic, although we’re only offered Enchantment, Evocation, and Illusion in the packet. Nothing here specifically jumps out and inspires me to come up with details about my world, at first, but then I find myself pondering…who decided to organize them into these schools? A look at the spell list reveals that some old names are back in circulation – Melf, Otto, Mordenkainen, Evard… This starts the old brain-gears turning…maybe these are the people responsible? 

I decide on the spot that these illustrious names are people who lived about a century before the campaign begins. They came together in alliance (or at least truce) to codify magic, to make it possible for wizards to teach one another more easily. I will give them a name – the Esoteric Order of Illuminated Sages. This group will likely come to include other illustrious names like Tenser, Otiluke, and Bigby. 

Warlocks are unique due to their need to be tied to a patron. Patrons are the source of a lot of story opportunities in a campaign, but I find them to be something that should be crafted to the individual warlock, rather than built in generic forms to be plugged in when a warlock character is created. That being said, I do want to ponder the three main flavors of pact a warlock can take – the Archfey, the Great Old One, and the Fiend.

I’m already thinking that this campaign will use the classical devils from D&D’s past – Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Dispater, and the like. This will make crafting patrons for Fiend warlocks fun and give them an immediate burst of flavor. I could also see it being fun to create an NPC “go-between”.

The Archfey is a very flavorful choice, but I’ve done very little thinking about the role of the fey in this campaign. Many monsters are fey, and I’d like to be able to use them as antagonists in my campaign. Perhaps in the divide between Order and Chaos, fey are generally on the side of chaos, but they occasionally make bargains with mortals for power. In traditional folklore, cold iron is the antithesis of the fey. Perhaps this is because cold iron is a powerful symbol of Order? I like this idea, and I think people may carry cold iron tokens when going into places where Chaos is powerful. Civilization itself may be sickening to the fey, so having mortal catspaws to do what they need in cities will be most useful to them.

The Great Old Ones can take on many forms, but I haven’t explored much of the role of the Far Realm in my campaign. They could have motivations similar to the fey for making pacts with mortals, needing mortals to do things in Civilization that they cannot.

This makes an interesting idea, as it means that most Warlocks will be undermining Order in favor of Chaos. It actually makes Fiend-pact warlocks the most lawful of the breed. It also suggests that people don’t trust Warlocks, and with good reason. This immediately brings ideas of witch burnings, inquisitors, pitchorks and torches, and the like. If someone wants to be a warlock in this campaign, they’re likely going to need to hide the fact or risk angry mobs.

Sorcerers are born to the power they wield. While their specializations (dragon blood or wild magic) don’t excite me for campaign concepts, their very nature does make me think. They sacrifice versatility for the ability to better manipulate the spells they do know, represented by their metamagic abilities. Perhaps one of the “wizard” types I mentioned above rebelled against the power structure of the Esoteric Order in favor of his own natural way of doing things. In the old Greyhawk campaign, Rary (he of the Mnemonic Enhancer and the Telepathic Bond) is sometimes known as Rary the Traitor. I may keep this epithet, painting Rary as someone who tried to work within the structure of the Esoteric Order, only to eschew its ways in efforts to bend magic in new ways.

And having just thought that, perhaps Rary succeeded, instead, in breaking magic. This caused a wave of Wild Magic to crest outwards, where it settled in various people, allowing for the possibility of Wild Magic sorcerers. There we go; story where I hadn’t thought to find it!

This is my final article on classes, but we have a long way to go before we have a campaign. Join us next month for another article.

[hermitologist]

My 20 Favorite Records Of 2018

Hi. I made a list of my favorite records of the year again. People seem to enjoy these things, and I definitely enjoy tearing my hair out trying to figure out what I liked best, so here we are again.

 This years list is chock full of heavy/sludgy bummer jams, post-rock epics, and super aggressive metal and hardcore, with a few poppier and more adventurous indie records scattered about. The honorable mentions list gets a bit more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds a little less like it was birthed from the loins of the late-90s/early-00s Hydrahead and Relapse discography.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on, no matter the genre. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so help me out.

Also: When my aging corpse is not being pissy about being used for something other than child-wrangling, eating, or sleeping, I try to run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record on each run. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram. 

BONUS: I put together playlists of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just throw it on and see if anything grabs you.

Hermitology’s Favorite 20 Records of 2018 - Spotify Playlist

Hermitology’s Favorite 20 Records of 2018 - Apple Music Playlist

20) Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

This record is ridiculous in the best ways possible -- insane amounts of shredding, light-speed double bass and blast beats, and lyrics about slugs and other assorted beasts. It’s been ages since I went through my Swedish & Norwegian Metal phase, but this awakened those long-dormant receptors that used to hum when I listened to At The Gates, Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, Soilwork, et al.

Listen here.

19) Ingrina - Etter Lys

Excellent French doomgaze/post-rock that sounds like it could very easily be the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Etter Lys has a familiar sound/vibe, but a refreshing energy and captivating sense of dark melody that really makes them stand out to me. Highly recommended for fans of This Will Destroy You, Rosetta, God Is An Astronaut, et al.

Listen here.

18) Beach House - 7

This record was the perfect foil to all heavy stuff I listened to this year, and my go-to in-flight record of 2018. It’s a damn near perfect collection hazy, airy, dreamy, downtempo indie pop. I’d never been a huge Beach House fan, but 7 hooked me and pulled me in. Throw this your headphones on, press play, and melt into your chair or couch.

Listen here.

17) Culture Abuse - Bay Dream

This record was not what I was expecting, but it ended up being exactly what I needed. (If that makes any sense.) Instead of a grimy, high-energy punk record, I got a fuzzy, bouncy, catchy-as-hell soundtrack to my entire summer. A perfect blend of The Ramones and peak-Weezer, with a vibe all its own.

Listen here.

16) Deads - LLNN

Roughly forty minutes of insanely heavy and furious drop-tuned, down-tempo, doom-inspired crushers offset by eerie, cinematic synth parts. If you’re a fan of early-Cult of Luna and/or Isis, this record should be a new staple in your diet. There’s also enough atmosphere here to appeal to post-rock fans who might desire a little aggression boost.

Listen here.

15) Heads. - Collider

Beautifully written sludgy rock that falls somewhere between the heaviness and spookiness of Young Widows and the heroin-soaked atmosphere and melody of Failure. For what it’s worth, I dig Collider more than either of the aforementioned bands’ most recent output. It’s a perfect marriage of influences, killer songwriting, an excellent recording, and a flat out fantastic record from front to back.

Listen here.

14) mewithoutYou - [untitled]

I’ve been a mewithoutYou fan for ages and love everything they’ve done (so I’m a little biased), but this record is just on a completely different level as far as I’m concerned. It’s the peak of their creativity, songwriting, mood, dynamics, lyrics, production, etc. It’s got the atmosphere and moodiness of post-rock, the angular quirkiness of Fugazi, the energy of Refused (at times), and the all the character of a classic mwY record. It’s phenomenal, and doubly impressive because they made it 18 years deep into an already impressive career.

Listen here.

13) Foxing - Nearer My God

I was familiar with Foxing before this record came out because they’d toured with many former tourmates, and while I appreciated what I’d heard from them, they never really clicked with me. And then I heard this record and it totally floored me. It’s incredibly ambitious without coming across as super scatterbrained or pretentious and it’s executed flawlessly (production included). This band should be massive, and I’m stunned that I’m not seeing this record on more year-end lists

Listen here.

12) This Will Destroy You - New Others Part 1 & 2

Somehow TDWY managed drop two incredible full lengths a month apart, and I honestly cannot choose between the two (so I’m combining them into one). These LPs are arguably their best work as a band, the addition of Robi Gonzalez on drums has given their sound new energy, dynamics, and pocket, and there aren’t many bands in post-rock doing it as well as these dudes do. Incredibly impressive to be able to put out this much music all at once and have it be this consistent. 

Listen here.

11) The Armed - Only Love

Somehow this record manages to be chaotic, energetic, beautiful, delicate, catchy-as-hell, abrasive, and atmospheric all at once. Sometimes it sounds like you accidentally have five different songs playing at the same time. Somehow modular synth-soaked punk/metal works. Clearly I cannot explain exactly what in the everliving hell is happening here, but I can tell you that it’s a wholly arresting record that blew my mind on first listen, and has gotten better with every listen since.  

Listen here.

10) Hemwick - Junkie (EP)

Normally, I wouldn’t include an EP on this list, but this is one just too good to ignore. It’s 30 minutes of insane riffage and heaviness that sounds like it spawned from the same gene pool that produced Converge, Cult Leader, and Intronaut. It’s got the spazziness and brutality of the former, blended perfectly with the occasional post-rock/metal shift into the epic melody of the latter. Super excited to hear what comes next for these guys (hopefully an LP recorded with Scott Evans or Kurt Ballou?), because this is an incredibly promising “debut”. 

Listen here.

9) Architects - Holy Hell

As a standalone record, Holy Hell slays. As a follow-up to losing a family/band member to cancer (guitarist, Tom Searle), it’s a fucking triumph. Somehow Architects managed to push through the grief and heartache, and pushed the boundaries of their musical creativity and emotive lyrics to create what is arguably their best record. Holy Hell is packed to the gills with with massive, arena-sized riffs and moshworthy breakdowns, sprinkled with just enough melody and dynamic to keep things fresh without losing its edge. An amazing accomplishment in the face of such adversity.

 Listen here.

8) Slow Mass - On Watch

An outstanding fusion of mellow(er) post-hardcore, bummer jams, Unwound-inspired post-punk, and shimmery shoegazey goodness. “Suburban Yellow” (see playlist) is one of my favorite songs of the year, falling somewhere between the crushing gloominess of a Kowloon Walled City song, and the somber plod of a classic Pedro The Lion track. I tend to shy away from music with dual lead vocals (because I often prefer one of the voices to the point that I’d rather just hear it all the time), but Dave Collis and Mercedes Webb’s voices are so complimentary and perfectly balanced that they take these songs to another level. Bonus: I’d highly recommend watching their frigid Audiotree session. 

Listen here.

7) Hot Snakes - Jericho Sirens

One of my favorite bands of all-time put out its first record in 14 years, and it was well worth the wait. It’s Hot Snakes doing what they do best --  ripping 30 minutes of high-energy post-punk jams fueled by the brilliantly weird guitar wizardry of John Reis, and propelled by the dual drummer attack of Mario Rubalcaba and Jason Kourkounis. I’m not entirely sure where I’d rank it in their discography, but having fresh Hot Snakes tracks makes the world a better place. 

Listen here.

6) Cloud Nothings - Last Building Burning

What did we do to deserve two Cloud Nothings LPs in two years? I was a little worried about whether the band could churn out a record as fantastic as Life Without Sound (which landed at #7 on last year’s list), but they absolutely did. Last Building Burning builds on the catchiness and energy of LWS’s bummer jams, but adds a little extra grit, fury, and urgency. The result is a record that’s damn near peak Cloud Nothings. It’s got hooks for days, an energy that’ll make you want to bounce off the walls, and a nasty edge that brings to mind 80′s Wipers or early Hot Snakes jams.

Listen here.

5) Cult Leader - A Patient Man

Cult Leader’s Lightless Walk was a Top 5 record for me in 2015, Gaza’s No Absolutes In Human Suffering was in my Top 5 in 2012, so it should be no surprise that they’ve cracked the Top 5 again. I’d be hard pressed to name another HEAVY band who has done it for me the way these guys have over the past six years. A Patient Man hits all the notes -- pure chaos, expansive and melancholic post-rock sections, and the most headbang-worthy breakdowns on the planet. It’d take a miracle to get this 43-year-old geriatric with a bad back to come out of mosh retirement, but the breakdown in “Aurum Reclusa” is seriously making me think about a comeback.

Listen here.

4) Low - Double Negative

I don’t think I’ve had a record screw with my brain as hard as Double Negative did since I heard Kid A for the first time. It’s a spooky, brain-liquifying journey through sonic textures and ambience, arranged and mixed in a manner that is absolutely enthralling (and a bit unnerving and “wtf are my headphones broken?”at times). If you’re gearing up for a first listen, I’d highly recommend clearing an hour on your schedule, throwing on a good pair of headphones, and letting this have its way with you. If you’ve already heard it, you should listen to it again. It gets better and weirder and more captivating every time. It’s a trip, and a great one at that. 

Listen here.

3) Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want

As a standalone record, this is groundbreaking. As a “comeback record” it’s a fucking triumph. Their S/T record (2010) is one of my favorite heavy/noise rock records of all-time, and somehow YWGWYW surpassed my lofty expectations for a follow-up. It’s a dizzying journey for sure. It’s moody as hell. It’s coherent. It’s adventurous without being overly weird. And it’s all of the best things about their previous work distilled into a perfect chunk of musical madness. The best records are the ones that make your brain matter spill out of your ears upon first listen, but it’s the all-time classics that do that and get better with every subsequent listen. Sure, it’s a record for “when the mood is right”, but when I’m in the mood, this hits all the notes for me. It’s a masterpiece. 

Listen here.

2) Holy Fawn - Death Spells

This record came out of nowhere and absolutely knocked me on my ass. I’m not sure I’ve had a record do that to me since I first heard Cloudkicker in 2009 -- knew nothing of it, had zero idea what to expect and literally had goosebumps for a majority of my first listen. Tempe’s Holy Fawn have created a unique blend of dense, dynamic, and cathartic post-rock, doom, and shoegaze with airy vocals that remind me a bit of Jonsi from Sigur Ros. It’ll be a daunting task to follow up this masterpiece, but I’m incredibly excited to see and hear what the future holds for these guys.

Listen here.

1) Pianos Become The Teeth - Wait For Love

This was one of my most anticipated records of the year, and it not only lived up to my lofty expectations, but exceeded them. “Bitter Red” was far and away my most played song of the year, and I must’ve listened to Wait For Love 50 times during the month of February alone. It’s no surprise that I found myself going back to it throughout the year, and in revisiting for this list, it gave me chills just like it did 10 months ago. These dudes are doing melancholic and cathartic post-hardcore better than just about anyone these days, and I cannot wait to hear what’s next for them.

Listen here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Roughly 80% of these records could/should have very easily landed on the Top 20 list (and probably would if I obsessed over this list any further and gave everything a super dedicated re-listen). They’re all absolutely worth checking out.

I know this list might be a little daunting, so I put together a Spotify Playlist of my favorite songs from each record, so you can just throw it on and see if anything grabs you. 

Thanks to my man Zack Hite for helping me out and putting together an Apple Music version of the playlist. 

Hermitology’s 2018 Honorable Mentions Spotify Playlist

Hermitology’s 2018 Honorable Mentions Apple Music Playlist

Baptists - Beacon of Faith

Birds In Row - We Already Lost The World

Boygenius - S/T EP

Candy - Good to Feel

Coastlands - The Further Still

Conjurer - Mire

Death Engine - Place Noire

Drug Church - Cheer

Emma Ruth Rundle - Dark Horses

Failure - In the Future Your Body Will Be ... 

Fiddlehead - Springtime and Blind

Hammock - Universalis

IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance

Jay Jayle - No Trail & Other Unholy Paths

Jesus Piece - Only Self

KEN Mode - Loved

Man Mountain - Infinity Mirror

Mogwai - KIN

Nate Smith - Pocket Change

OHHMS - Exist

Ólafur Aarnalds - re:member

Polyphia - New Levels, New Devils

Portrayal of Guilt - Let Pain Be Your Guide

Prefuse 73 - Sacrifices

Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die … 

Sectioned - Annihilated

Slow Crush - Aurora

Snail Mail - Lush

SUMAC - Love In Shadow

Svalbard - It’s Hard To Have Hope

Taken - With Regards To (EP)

The Story So Far - Proper Dose

Tides of Man - Every Nothing

Vein - Errorzone

Yashira - Shrine

PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (humor, sports, politics)

Chapo Trap House (politics, humor)

Hang Up & Listen (sports, culture, nerdy)

Effectively Wild (baseball)

The Frotcast (movies, humor)

The Trap Set (drums, psychology)

The Gist (current events, politics)

Song Exploder (songwriting, production)

The Modern Drummer Podcast (drums)

[bonnissance]

forgot about the fic mashup!!! binch gimme... uh... *throws darts at board* airport/travel au... + interrupted love confession! (for hicsqueak duh who do you think i am)

I went slightly esoteric w the prompts and did the interrupting of (canon) confession myself in order to get to the travelling. this may just be the first part of a divergent confession of love, but for the moment my brain has stalled 

travel AU + interrupted love confession

Pippa doesn’t pause when she picks up her broom.

She wraps her hand around the wood. Feels the knobling against her palm, the thatching against her knuckles; thinks about turning around, about facing Hecate again, making her face Pippa again. After all these years. Wonders what Hecate might do, if Pippa finally let out all the wondering and worry she’s held in her heart for years, decades and just asked…

Then thinks better of it.

It’s been a decade since they spoke—before today, that is—they haven’t had a civil, polite conversation beyond formal pleasantries in almost two more. The likelihood of that changing today…it doesn’t bear hoping for.

Besides, Hecate could barely even bring herself to look at Pippa, much less listen. Why would anything Pippa says mean something to her, never mind the fact that she broke Pippa’s heart all those years ago, without a word, and never ever said why.

Why would Hecate want to listen now, just because they’re in the same castle, the same room, with no audience; it’s too much to hope for, and Pippa can’t survive another bout of false hope, not when it comes to Hecate.

So she leaves. Strides away, broom in hand, trying to blink the image of Hecate—beautiful, stubborn, selfish Hecate, always silent when she ought to speak (always lashing out when she should stay quiet)—back into the recesses of her mind, where she’s stayed, all these years.

Tucked away, at the back of her thoughts, where she can’t do any more damage.

She passes Mildred on her way out of the castle, stopping only briefly to inquire whether she wants to come to Pentangle’s. She already knows the answer, knows she recognised the stubborn streak in the girl, who else it reminded her of. She isn’t surprised Cackle’s has gotten under her skin the way it did Hecate, more than a decade ago, and that she wants to stay here: the odd one out, but safe and welcome.

She wishes Mildred all the best, walks out of the castle sure the young witch is going to do great things, somewhere far away; it’s hardly the first time she’s seen the sparks of brilliance before any one else, only to be banished to the dim again.

She finds her students waiting for her by the main entrance, Miss Cackle keeping them company. For a moment Pippa wonders if Ada and Mildred were conspiring together, then realises just how ridiculous a thought that truely is. Why would anyone care if the two of you ever speaking again, she reminds herself as she corrals her students into the court green, beckons them to prepare for flight.

She looks up—she can’t help it, just one glance more—to the top window of the tower she just descended.  Sees a shadow at the window and scowls. She hasn’t even moved, Pippa thinks, just making out Hecate’s silhouette at this distance. Except to watch you leave, her traitorous mind points out, and bile rises in Pippa’s throat. Because Hecate will watch her leave, but refuses to say goodbye.

She won’t be the one waiting for Hecate to see sense, not this time.

She turns away from the window, the tower, the castle. Steadies herself on the broom, grip tight to keep her balanced, and nods to her students. Musters her magic, feels her tiptoes rise off the ground, raises her head to look straight ahead.

Only to find Hecate standing right there, just in front of her, dead ahead of a broom about to hit her square in the chest.

Panic races right through Pippa, eyes wide and ears roaring. She wrenches her broom up and to the side, almost somersaulting in the air as she struggles to avoid a collision; she manages, doesn’t harm a hair on Hecate’s head, only to ruin her own updo when she ends up in a heap on the ground, limbs akimbo and broom almost broken.

It’s just like old times, whenever they were practicing that blasted routine: Hecate always made it through practice looking pristine, while Pippa ended up a mess of grass stains and unkept hair. Not much has changed, she realises, as she stands again, fringe in her eyes and her hat somewhere over…there?

‘What on earth…Hiccup!’ Pippa yells, frightened and stressed and frazzled, clambering to her feet and rounding on the other woman, standing off to the side looking suitably mortified. Good, Pippa thinks, she should be embarrassed, pulling a stunt like that. ‘You could have been hurt, what were you thinking?’

She puts her hands on her hips, stares Hecate down, expects an explanation at the very least (she knows an apology is too much to hope for). She waits and waits and waits, while Hecate just stares at her, eyes gleaming.

It’s almost a full minute before realises what she’s said—what she’s admitted, in front of a handful of confused onlookers and the woman herself—that a childhood nickname was never very far from her lips, that she still cares.

Hecate keeps staring; Pippa wishes the ground would swallow her whole.

[vestedbeauty]

Positive Thinking Is Hooey. This Works Better.

New Post has been published on https://vestedbeauty.com/positive-thinking-is-hooey-this-works-better/

Positive Thinking Is Hooey. This Works Better.

Positive thinking always bugged me. It seemed to require lying.

Mind you, I’ll be the first to look for the silver lining. But that’s different from positive thinking. Here’s the thought experiment I’m running now.

A few months ago, I bought a copy of Trevor Blake’s “Three Simple Steps” because my employer and friend, Ryan Moran, called it the best book he’d read all year (other than his!). I figured I’d breeze through it, pick up some cool insights to implement, and then put it on the shelf. As with most books, reading it would yield a few gems I’d use to make some incremental improvements in how I show up in life. I gave myself two weeks to read it and pull out a few action steps.

Three months later, I’ve just now finished it. Not because it was a tedious read, but quite the opposite. Trevor’s message – and even his writing style – is kind of like a nice single malt scotch. You could gulp it down, but what a waste that would be. 

Reading the very last pages, including the acknowledgements, within seconds, I wanted to flip to the beginning and start it again. That’ll happen tomorrow.

But like most writers, for me, I’ve got to write about something to know what I really think! I’d love for you to listen in – and would welcome discussion if you’d like to share your thoughts.

There’s so much to process in this book. Like a delicious meal served with a fine wine, savoring and lingering is the only way to go. We’ll start with just one concept – that of being “for” rather than “against” anything.

What You Resist Persists

Whether you’re into personal development – or if you’ve raised kids – you know this truth. It’s about where we put our focus and energy. 

A hypothetical for you. Pretend that your child starts dating someone you think is a horrible choice, and you object with every fiber of your being. What happens? Yes. They dig their heels in, get married, and have ten kids with that person. Because something in them felt like you left them no choice but to rebel and preserve their own sovereignty. Had you not objected so vehemently, the relationship might have run its course. The energy you put into being against it fueled it.

We Go Where We Look

Just listen to what he says at 2:55.

I don’t know that I’m a believer in the Law of Attraction so much as the Law of Attention. In my own experience, it’s become obvious that where my focus goes, that’s what grows. The better I master my attention and learn to direct it, that’s magical.

Maybe you’ve experienced entangling yourself in mental anguish, too? 

Perhaps it started by waking up feeling anxious. Your mind went searching for every reason you should feel that way. Running a mental inventory, your brain found every deficit in how you’ve handled life. You spot that financial stress, relationship strife or disconnection, acute awareness of physical discomfort or flaws, and your mind actually seems grateful for a thorn to hang onto.

Now you’ve got a name for the thing that’s bothering you – something you can turn over, examine, and own. There’s almost a sense of relief because you’ve identified what’s bothering you. But it’s short-lived because what you’ve actually done is send yourself down a rabbit hole that only gets worse the further you go. By devoting so much attention to what feels horrible, that horribleness only expands.

But the same is true in the opposite. You know this if you practice gratitude. Even if you’re in a foul mood, if you start mentally listing things you’re grateful for, the list gets pretty big pretty fast. 

Noticing this inevitability, I’ve leveraged it on purpose. If I’m feeling anxious, down, or less than positive, I’ll challenge myself to count ten things I’m grateful for – counting on my fingers to make sure I don’t lose track. Each item seems to spawn four more, and by the time I end the exercise, the count reaches into the dozens. Focused thoughts expand – in any direction.

This video, in that context, always lights me up.

It’s Not Really Positive Thinking

That’s always seemed like a ruse. I’ve been in settings and businesses where it took incredible delusionary power to tolerate the level of denial going on. You’ve probably experienced that, too.

I’m trying hard to find any other example besides the one I’m about to share. So, that’s probably the one that needs sharing.

When I was young, I was a pastor’s wife. At one point, we served in a Pentecostal church. (There I met some wonderful people, some who have been great friends to me for many years. Between them and the lessons I’ve learned, the experience was not altogether negative. Just wanted to say that first.)

Here’s the instance…

At one point, we were attending a Sunday night service. They went long. Longer still, when you count the altar time at the end. Kind of compulsory (and I was very young and not yet comfortable setting boundaries). My back had been teetering on the verge of going out all day, and standing so long became agonizing. I finally spoke up to excuse myself so I could go sit down. The head pastor started praying for my back – a particularly long-winded prayer, claiming my healing like you might see a televangelist do.

[This is so uncomfortable to write.] All the while, inside, I’m just silently begging to be allowed to go sit down, or even better, to go home. But I felt compelled to go with the group’s consensus that my back was healing on the spot. There was an unspoken directive – faith demanded a certain positive perspective. NOBODY said it, of course. But that was my perception. It seemed like a requirement to believe something contrary to what I was experiencing. 

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One truth became evident: The mind heart cannot accept what the mind rejects.

No Belief Required

Trevor talks a lot early on in the book about being “for” rather than “against.” This wasn’t entirely a new concept for me. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve been on an earnest pursuit of personal development. I’d learned practices, like setting intentions and focusing on gratitude, that satisfied my integrity and pointed me in the direction I wanted to go.

But the way he puts it feels like a whole new level of mental discipline. Before reading Three Simple Steps, I’d experimented with just identifying and sitting with my emotions. Definitely better than feeling vaguely “off.” But after finding the perfect descriptor for a feeling and staring it in the face, then what? 

I discovered that my focus is kind of like a blow torch.

If I paid too much attention to some feeling – even if aptly named – that doesn’t serve me, it was easy to slide into an utterly destructive mental state. Climbing out of that pit took a lot of energy. At my best, I believe that while pain is just part of life… but suffering is optional. After enough experiences of that pit, I decided to bypass it as much as possible. So, while it’s helpful to be able to identify any emotional state I experience, it’s way better to be able to steer myself in the direction I wish to go.

In being “for” instead of “against,” I found something to practice that does just that. Unlike mere positive thinking, it satisfies my sense of integrity because it doesn’t involve trying to believe anything, much less a lie. It works quickly; like lifting a toy train and setting it on a set of tracks, this practice resets my attention and direction. Finally, a few months into this practice, I see changes in my life. I notice my thoughts serving me better. Even in the face of challenges, there’s a growing sense of peace that lets me approach life from a more relaxed place. 

So, How Does It Work?

The way I experience it, it’s like this…

Things happen in, to, and around us, all day, every day. We’re consciously aware of some of these inputs. We have thoughts about them, and those thoughts lead to feelings. Those feelings either fill us with delight or they repel us. That’s the fork in the road, and we get to choose which way we’ll go. Our mood will follow, flavoring the next part of the day, week, or even for years.

In that moment, we can choose thoughts that are either “for” or “against” – no matter what the situation is. The mind will follow that choice and create what we experience.

Time for an example, because this still sounds pretty esoteric. In fact, I’ll give a highly practical and probably universal example.

Here’s How Being “For” Helped Me Tidy Up

Hubby and I like to keep our house clean and uncluttered. We’re not obsessed or anything – it’s just a preference. I function best in a tidy and reasonably clean space. 

With Christmas preparations, there was a lot going on. Our space had more boxes than usual. One table was full of supplies for wrapping presents. We were also working on our new chicken coop – so there were building supplies and debris right outside. Our cleaning lady recently quit because of some health issues and a career change. For a couple of weeks, I thought I’d just take over because I don’t mind cleaning and figured it would be a good way to ensure I move more each day. But I discovered that while I rather like doing daily maintenance cleaning, getting around to deep cleaning wasn’t happening. It became a losing battle.

Altogether, these factors resulted in a messy house. If I’d given a lot of thought to how much I was “against” living in a mess, my thoughts would have gone to the dark side. My emotions would go toward despair, frustration, resentment, and all of that might have resulted in an angry freak-out. 

Instead, I practiced being “for” instead. I’m for order, for tidiness and clear space. I’m for the peaceful feeling of a neat environment. Those are the “for” thoughts I focused on, and they helped keep my mind in a resourceful (and happy) state. As I practiced keeping my mind focused on what I am “for” it became easy to just clean up the mess. I wasted zero minutes stewing and fuming about how messy we’d let the place get. That meant I could fix it faster. It also meant I could focus on my work rather than getting hijacked by the drive to battle what I didn’t like. Even better, I didn’t pick a fight over it 🙂 

Practicing “For” Is Fun

A clean house is nice, of course. But this is fun to practice every day, as often as it comes to mind. From potentially big worries (the degenerative disc disease in hubby’s spine) to smaller annoyances (driving in holiday traffic in the snow), I’m learning to spot the fork in the road. It’s right in that spot that choosing consciously whether to be for or against in my thoughts makes all the difference.

It’s an entirely different thought experiment from “positive thinking” which always felt intellectually dishonest. “For” thinking feels more like working a puzzle. It’s a conscious choice to harness how the mind works for the best outcome. 

This is just one new practice I’ve been playing with as a result of reading Trevor Blake’s book. It’s one of the first detailed in the book, so I’ve had the most practice with this one. His steps build on one another and the results start to compound. As he posits, we get more of whatever we focus on, desirable or not.

This post got kind of long, huh? Part of me is screaming that I need to go back and edit, to tighten it all up… maybe even optimize it for the search engines, add a call to action. LOL (content marketing training dies hard!). But really, I just wanted… needed… to put my thoughts out there. My hope  deep certainty is that this blog will eventually gather readers who long to talk about this kind of stuff, who share their experiences, and who are on the same path. So, if you’re still here and if this resonated with you, thank you. I truly would love to hear your thoughts. 

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[findmyhouse]

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER - LOVE BEACH (1978): 4/10

Yeah! How do you like that album cover? What the hell happened? Okay, time for a little history lesson. Remember how the band used an orchestra on the previous two albums? Well, one day Keith said to the other guys: “Hey, wouldn’t it be a great idea if we took an orchestra with us on our next tour?” And… well, to be honest, it actually was a great idea. Artistically, at least. Backing up the old and the new ELP hits with orchestral arrangements resulted in some outstanding performances that were captured on the live album Works Live, which I heartily recommend to anyone who's interested in the band. Financially however, this was a really bad move. Paying the musicians and transporting their equipment was such a financial strain that the band would inevitably lose money unless they sold every last seat at every venue. And they didn’t succeed at that because the popularity of progressive rock as a whole took a nosedive in the late seventies. The genre's emphasis on complex rhythms and structures, esoteric concepts and instrumental virtuosity became more and more associated with snobbish elitism and was rejected by the new generation, which instead flocked to the more approachable, raw and rocking sound of punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols, who regularly mocked progressive rock bands as part of their performances, with their famous “I hate Pink Floyd” t-shirts, and their burning of Yes and ELP records on stage. In addition, the music industry itself changed around this time and became far less receptive towards experimental music than it had been throughout the decade.

So, to make a long story short, ELP were in a bad spot in 1978, and were further plagued by deteriorating personal relations between the band members, as well as conflicts with the record company which demanded a hot-selling record. Love Beach was made in a desperate attempt to reach out to a new audience: it’s made up primarily of a bunch of lightweight pop songs but also throws in a few progressive-sounding tunes to please their old audience. The result, predictably, pleased no one at all and made ELP the laughing stock of the music world. Even the band members themselves have frequently mocked it. What else could they do? This album is just too easy to mock. Just look at it! Even the liner notes hardly say anything about the music and mostly just talk about how much fun the band had on the Bahamas, where the album was recorded.

I mean, you can tell that there are some creative problems when a singer has trouble trying to make the third line on an album fit within the meter. At the same time, Keith changes his synthesizer tones from otherwordly and ominous to sickly sweet and sappy, and Carl plays an awkward drumming part that never seems to get off the ground. And despite all of that, I still have to count “All I Want Is You” among the better songs on here, because it shows at least a wee bit of classical influence and of the old production style (and to be fair, this is hardly worse than Greg’s pop stuff on Works, Volume 1).

However, things very rapidly go off the deep end with the title track and “Taste Of My Love”, which are basically guitar-led cock rock anthems that have Greg singing oversexed smut that would make even Gene Simmons blush with embarrassment (Oh, I almost forgot: all of the lyrics on this album were written by Peter Sinfield, who originally rose to fame by supplying King Crimson with his hallucinatory texts about 21st century schizoid men and rusted chains of prison moons, and who just five years earlier thought up the apocalyptic machine warfare themes for Brain Salad Surgery. Now he writes such lovely slices of poetry like “I’m gonna love you like nobody ever loved you; Climb on my rocket and we’ll fly”). Anyway, these songs are far too tame instrumentation-wise to appeal to the general sleaze-rock crowd, and far too simplistic to not infuriate anyone expecting to hear the ELP of old: Keith’s synthesizer parts feel like they were added to these tracks more out of obligation rather than because they actually contributed something of substance to the music.

“The Gambler” goes for a comedic mood again, but really overstays its welcome with its generic female backing vocals as well as some shitty ukelele and some equally shitty harmonica to spice up the pill. Oh well, at least it has some funny keyboard playing. And "For You" ... well, that one's actually alright. Unlike the rest of the album, it's more melancholic and reflective than sappy and jolly, and it has some nice echoey guitar playing, too. I couldn't care less about the "rocking" coda though (in quotes because it just sounds kind of torpid).

In contrast to the first side of the LP, the second side holds tracks that are basically bones thrown toward the band's traditional audience. The first track on here, "Canario", is also not bad. It's another classical cover (of a piece by Joaquín Rodrigo) that still sounds overly sweet and kinda cheesy but at least it has some dang energy which is sorely missing on the rest of the album, particularly on the next track, where things get really murky when the boys try to pen one more epic multi-part suite in the old prog style, called “Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentlemen”. Don’t expect another “Tarkus” here: this whole suite is just a big toss-off. Almost the whole thing is in the same key and the same plodding tempo, and it sticks to the same disgustingly cheerful atmosphere that dominates the rest of the album. Furthermore, the lyrics try to sound really grandiose and world-shattering but, when taking the utterly banal subject matter into account (a soldier falls in love with a nurse but oh no she died the end), just come off as pathetic. But worst of all, Keith's keyboard playing feels completely sterile and forced throughout the whole thing, and there's no impressive synth solo to hear for miles around. The final movement, "Honourable Company", is a gradually intensifying march that's obviously intended as a rewrite of "Aquatarkus", but it has no climax and just ends up sounding like really bad theme park music (I apologize if I overuse this analogy in my reviews but I really can't think of a better thing to compare it to. Do you remember waiting in line for an Indiana Jones ride and hearing some super-cheesy tune for the grand, magical adventure you're about to go on? Yeah, that's the one ). Not even the gratuitous Chopin quotations help bring the suite to life or anything resembling life.

Oh, I'm sorry. I must come across as angry right now, but honestly, the spectacular stupidity of this album makes it impossible to actually hate or get angered by. The incompatibility of Emerson, Lake & Palmer with their newly created popstar image, combined with the unconvincing manner in which they pursued this new direction, makes Love Beach one of the most hilariously ham-fisted and ill-conceived products in the history of mainstream rock music. So just don’t take it too seriously. Don’t look for quality here. Just let the stupid sink in and have a blast.

Allmusic's original review of this album consisted of just one sentence which read: "A record that ELP released only because they owed it to their original label, and that's all one needs to know." I suppose it’s a mystery whether the band just wanted to make a few dollars and please Atlantic Records or if they actually wanted to make a turn in this direction, but in any case, the album flopped both commercially and critically. Now reviled by their former fans and belittled by their enemies, the trio finally called it quits and went their separate ways.

Best song: eh, I guess it's probably CANARIO

[curlygirl79]

When I saw the blurb for The White & Gold people, I was instantly fascinated – I mean, who doesn’t remember the fuss over THAT dress? I am honoured to welcome Segun Starchild to my blog today, to tell us more about the background to the book. Many thanks to Segun, and to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources, for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour. Over to you, Segun:

We were ALL amazed by the dress saga of Feb 2015. Yes, it was certainly a treat for the eyes, being furiously debated yet light-hearted at the same time, and a total mind bender which forced some of us to question our ideas about reality. Yes, even those who said, ‘I don’t know why everyone is so caught up in the dress,’ and ‘I don’t care about something so simple,’ have to admit it was bloody interesting.

Experts in the field of Neuroscience have tried to explain why we see the dress in the colours we do, using neatly packaged ideas such as colour constancy which allows us to view an object under different light sources but keep the same colour constant throughout. Unfortunately, with #thedress, there’s a lot more to the story than that!

The reason for the difference in colours as told by Pascal Wallisch a neuroscientist from NYU, is that if your brain had decided the dress was photographed in a shadow, you saw it as white and gold. If your brain thought it was illuminated artificially, you saw it as blue and black. Our brains are too clever for our own good it seems.

I get it (to a point), who am I to argue with neuroscientists? But I will take things in a different direction to them, so bear with me. The dress is clearly blue and black, it’s not a mystery like the pyramids of Egypt or the Malaysia Airlines plane that went missing in 2014. I get that it was a ‘money shot’, a one in a million-chance event, when the lighting conditions were exactly right to produce that effect, and I get the science behind optical illusions, but for half the population to see two colours that totally weren’t there I think something deeper is at play!

In the context of the dress; if you saw it in blue and black you were absolutely right, it was, so those who see the dress in white and gold are wrong, because it wasn’t. But if we remove the dress from our focus and look at the wider world, they weren’t wrong they are gifted. Why? Because they can see past the 3rd dimension, past our physical reality where the dress is blue and black, they can see into another dimension, the 4th dimension where the dress is white and gold.

The 4th dimension is another plane of existence where spirits and other beings reside. As physical beings we have a body which is affected by the elements and death, but we also have a spirit which is energy, that cannot be destroyed but rather transferred from one state to another. This is what goes on to the afterlife when we die, and this is what clairvoyants and dogs are thought to see. E.g. dogs have been known throughout history to see spirits and ghosts of the dead and it seems humans are finally catching up.

Those who saw the dress as white and gold have evolved into a new species with superhuman abilities and higher intelligence that I call ‘homo pas horáō’ (all seeing man). They have awakened the mystical third eye, which acts as a direct window into the 4th dimension where one can learn great mysteries and see things on a higher level.

Many spiritualists say that the 3rd dimension is fading away and there will come a time when it is gone for good. Perhaps this dress is the first stage in our rise in consciousness, and there are more weird, wacky and wonderful things to come our way? What does that mean for the blueys? For whatever reason, they aren’t included in the genetic shift, they can’t see past reality, they can only see what’s there. It’s natural selection all over again, one species will adapt to the new surroundings and rise to power and dominance, and the other may unfortunately, cease to exist. They will not be able to function on the 4th dimension, which according to some will replace the third dimension, they will have to find some way of ascending or seek life elsewhere.

I know, it’s pretty far-fetched. But according to German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer; ‘all truths go through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’

Many thanks Segun, for that fascinating insight. Read on folks for the all important book details.

BLURB:

A dress causes a huge debate across the world as some see it as black and blue and others see it as white and gold. The white and gold people suddenly start to get even stranger visions and develop super human abilities making the black and blue people seem old and inadequate. The government try to quarantine and control their power but the white and gold people react setting the stage for a war between the rival groups.

PURCHASE LINKS:

Website

Amazon

Kobo

Barnes & Noble

iTunes

Lulu

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Segun Starchild is a writer whose previous works include ‘Black Egyptians’, ‘The Capability Test’ & ‘Kamun vs. Leviathan’. He is a self confessed seeker of ‘The Truth’ and has a great hunger to know the mysteries of life. He has studied the esoteric mysteries of great sages to gain a reputable amount of wisdom and has the blessing of taking a journey through life with confidence and true knowledge of self and kind. He hails from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria and is for the unification of the African continent. Segun currently lives in London, working in IT Development and Support and the director of Akasha Publishing Ltd.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

YouTube

Pinterest

Website

Goodreads

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

GIVEAWAY:

Giveaway to Win a T-Shirt, in the colours of the dress, in either white and gold or blue and black. (UK Only)

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter link below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for dispatch or delivery of the prize.

ENTER HERE

Don’t forget to pay a visit to the other blogs taking part in the tour for more information about this fascinating book.

I am thrilled to be hosting Segun Starchild, author of The White & Gold People today. @Akashic84 @rararesources #thatdress #blue&black #white&gold #fictioncafewriters #spoonshortagebookclub #thatdress When I saw the blurb for The White & Gold people, I was instantly fascinated - I mean, who doesn't remember the fuss over THAT dress?

[teal-deer]

Unexpected but welcome side effect of getting into esoteric religions like Thelema: when the paranoid/delusional part of my brain starts yelling garbage like I’M SEEEKRIETLY GoD/SATAN!!!111!!!!1111111111111111 I can go “yes, okay, that’s nice, what else is new? so is everyone. shut up.”