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x-infernhoes-x · 4 years ago

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Evermore- Maliksi x Reader

Title: Evermore

Genre: : )

Warnings: Not much but I’ll leave it to you guys lmao. Implied Relationship as well so ye.

Word Count: 1, 690 k +

Description: I don’t know WHY I get ideas for fanfics at ungodly hours of the night like I’m supposed to be on a break here since my neck still hurts from writing that 2k pound of word vomit that is known to be one of my greatest smut piece that eventually earned me the title as ‘The Emissary for Zaddy Cannibal’ WHEEZE and I started writing this at 1:57 am so let’s hope I’d finish this before 4 am. I’m basing some stuff I know about Maliksi from the comics and perhaps the anime as well. I also suggest listening to Evermore from the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast after reading!

PS. I didn’t finish this last night because I got sleepy at 3 am. There’s an AO3 version of this that’s direct to the point if you want something shorter than this one which can be found here! Oh and my grandma suggested that I set the font size to 12 instead of 11! and as always, I finished this at 3:29 am GGWP talaga.

Anyways, enjoy! _______________________________________

If people asked about how the Prince of Tikbalangs was like as a person, most of them would describe him as rowdy, haughty, stubborn at times may even be perceived as a pervert due to his distaste of not wearing any underwear underneath his jeans. Some thought of him as the classical, spoiled rich kid who cared for no one but himself but in reality, he was so much more than what people would perceive him to be. Being a Prince was something, sure he got everything that he wanted regardless of what it was, he would always find a way for it but sometimes it led him to live a rather lonely life that felt like he was nothing more but a slave to live through this illusion of being the perfect prince.

If they took the time to peek through the curtains of his façade, they would see that he just wanted someone to understand and see him for who he is but this also proved to be contradictory for the poor fellow given the fact that every time someone would show him just the right amount of honesty and kindness, he would find out that most of these people were only after him for things such as taming him to become their loyal servant, for his money or even for the sake of his looks. He thought that this curse of his would stay with him for the rest of his Engkanto life but somehow that all seemed to change his rather pessimistic view on life when he had come across someone who would turn his whole life in a different direction.

Maliksi had met (Y/N) (L/N) on one of his father’s many extravagant events where he was forced to sit through it. Of course, while his father was busy chatting away, the prince took this as an opportunity to sneak away which eventually led him towards an unsuspecting person who would change his life forever.

At first, the two of them were like total opposites, always clashing and arguing about something to the point that his father, Senior Armanaz had to interfere with their constant bickering but time seemed to wear both Maliksi and (Y/N)’s dissatisfaction for each other’s presence and instead began to tolerate the other, which eventually led into something more than just friendship among the two.

Maliksi and (Y/N) were completely inseparable, almost attached to the hip to the point that the Prince was rarely seen without them. He would take (Y/N) on trips across the country, sometimes he would take them out on long drives after his races and almost everything in between. People have reported that the two seemed even more in sync especially in battle, covering each other’s backs while bantering about which car model was the best or where they would eat after this whole ordeal like the two of them were playing a mere game of Patintero or even playing a good round of Pogs to see who got the most hits on their opponents and who seemed to be stronger.

But there were precious moments where Maliksi would take them on trips across the country just to escape from the hectic and bustling streets of the city and gave them the taste of what it means to be free and live life in color. He would watch his partner’s joyful and almost curious gaze with a feeling of warmth and care in his chest that would make him smile along with them, the two of them would participate in various festivals such as Flores de Mayo and its ritual pageant, Santa Cruzan, The Masskara Festival in Bacolod down to his personal favorite which happened to be the Moriones Festival that takes place in Marinduque. But out of those trips, the one that he treasures the most was the time Maliksi and his parents had flown out to their home province, Bukidnon to celebrate the Kaamulan Festival where his partner met the rest of the family, of course, this was also the time where he had proposed to (Y/N) after their 3 years of dating, he was glad that they had accepted his proposal.

Who knew things would eventually change from thereon. With the underworld restless and agitated from all the events that have transpired, it seemed to put a strain between Maliksi and his fiancé. To make matters worse between the two, Maliksi began to do races that would conclude in fatal car accidents for both parties. This would result in (Y/N) and Maliksi arguing non-stop every time they meet however these fights never resulted in something physical but it would leave them in tears or the other walking away with a slam of the door. This cycle seemed to break the moment a certain Babaylan-Mangdirigma had beat him at his own game and managed to snap some sense into him as well the moment his beloved ran at him at full force, scolding him right in front of Alexandra Trese before the two left to settle their problems in private.

“Magpakasal na tayo.” Maliksi told (Y/N) the morning after the two of them had reconciled. Of course, this made his fiance cough up their drink, eyes wide and still hacking their lungs out while Maliksi made his way over to them, patting their back gently to ease their pain. Once things were clear, (Y/N) could only look at him, disbelief and surprise evident on their face before they spoke, “Seryoso ka ba?! Paano yung simbahan, yung venue-“ Holding their hands in his own, Maliksi could only give his soon-to-be spouse a grin, placing a chaste kiss upon the back of their hands. “Wag ka nang magalala, babe. I’ve got it covered.” And just like he had said, Maliksi did have it covered, the venue, the church, and everything in between. It was a quick but simple ceremony that had his parents and (Y/N)’s parents present and nobody outside of the clan knew about this union between them. Time seemed to move quickly after that but the two newlyweds felt like it was an eternity for them both.

In a short amount of time the fantasy of church bells and dreaming faded into war cries and chants of ‘Sic Itur Ad Astra’ quickly and we see Maliksi and his spouse come face to face with the greatest foe they’ve ever come across, the war-god of Bukidnon, Talagbusao. With the rest of their forces subdued by the War God and Maliksi trying to recover from the hit he had taken from Talagbusao, the Tikbalang prince seemed to take notice that his spouse was nowhere in sight and panic seemed to take a hold on him like a choke-hold. Standing up, he began to look for them, ruby-red eyes rapidly scanning the area, furiously looking for his beloved, silently praying to Bathala that they were okay or let alone still be alive.

His prayers seemed to be answered when he saw them, still kicking and fighting and running to where Talagbusao was and he immediately knew something was wrong. “(Y/N)!! ANONG GINAGAWA MO!?” Maliksi yelled out through the sound of roaring bullets, trying his best to reach over to where their lover was. “Alexandra, ngayon na!” Maliksi heard (Y/N)’s commanding voice ring out as she caught the Babylan-Mandirigma’s knife, Sinag throwing it to her while they subdued Talagbusao to the best of their abilities, eyes locked with their husband as they mouthed at him, ‘Patawarin mo ako, Maliksi.’ And as quick as a flash, Alexandra, Talagbusao, and (Y/N) disappeared into the Dragon’s Gate. Maliksi was left to watch his spouse in paralyzed horror and shock disappear right before his eyes, chest clenching in panic as the impact of the closing portal sent everyone nearby it flying backward.

_____________________

A month has then passed after that event and we see Maliksi within the Trese household as he would always do, always waiting, hoping, and praying that his (Y/N) would return to him safe and unharmed. This day was different than the other days he would spend at the household because this day was the day that Alexandra Trese had returned as announced by a pale-looking and wide-eyed Hank. The tikbalang prince was the first to head where Alexandra---who was now swarmed by her older brothers and the kambal, his eyes still searching for his spouse, his expression of hope immediately diminished as he spoke, his voice slowly trembling with each step he took, “Nasaan si (Y/N), Alexandra?” at the mention of his spouse’s name, Alexandra then refused to meet his eyes as the rest of the Trese siblings along with the Kambal clearing a path for him, all watching him with disconsolate looks and glistening eyes as Alexandra held onto Sinag as tightly as she could, trying her best to find the right words to say to him.

“Wala na si, (Y/N), Maliksi. She’s gone.”

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“There is a story, of a man who had lost his beloved in a war, some say he still waits for their return, others say that the day his beloved had disappeared, he had soon followed.”

“They say that this man could be found standing by the tall windows of Tower A [1] located in Ayala Avenue. Urban myths suggest that this man is a ghost bound to the building, others say that he’s the reason why that Tower still exists.” Now in his prime, Maliksi sat in the place where his father used to sit. It had been years since he had taken over the clan and years since his beloved, (Y/N) was taken away from him at such an early age. Beside him was an empty throne reserved for them once they return. No matter how many years it would take him, Maliksi Armanaz, former prince and now leader of the Armanaz clan, would still wait for his beloved, (Y/N) to return to him until the end of his days. He would wait for them for evermore.

#trese netflix #trese #trese imagine #maliksi imagine #maliksi armanaz #fanfic #trese x reader #maliksi x reader #kailan kaya ako titigil #ewan ko ba HAHAHA

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thisselflovecamebacktome · 4 years ago

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My personal connection with Taylor’s discography, part eleven: Happiness

Basically this is just a series I’m doing where I write down my feelings on what each of the Taylor songs means to me personally on a line to line basis both for my own sake to have it somewhere and for anyone who wants to know anything further about me.

So with that in mind, let’s get started.

Happiness

So much like the majority of Evermore and Folklore, Happiness reminds me of my family and the trauma of losing them which I’m trying to move past. Particularly, Happiness is the connecting point of the progress I’ve made moving forth and the reality that there’s still a long way to go and wishing I was further along the recovery road.

Honey, when I'm above the trees I see this for what it is

I feel like this lyric is pretty much what it’s like on ‘good’ days. Like when I have removed myself enough from the situation and pain, I can rationalise to myself that what happened to my family wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just a bunch of well meaning people who made choices they thought were for the best but ultimately did more harm than good. I can also acknowledge that what happened was probably for the best and that while I’m in pain now, it probably would have been worse otherwise.

But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given is just shit we're dividin' up

But most days aren’t ‘good’ days. Most days, it feels inescapable that I gave between 16 to 23 years to these people that were meant to love me unconditionally for my whole lifetime just for them to decide that what we had wasn’t worth sticking around for. Most days, I can’t move past the bitterness that I have knowing that I feel like I’ve wasted my life because genuinely lived my life as a mirrorball and gave my all to make these people happy and keep us together just for it all to fall apart anyway.

Showed you all of my hiding spots

I’ve always been an oversharer that kept her heart on her sleeve. I genuinely feel like I showed my family, and especially my immediate family, every version of myself. My highs, my lows, my strengths, my weaknesses, my likes and dislikes; I showed it all.

I was dancing when the music stopped

I’ve mentioned this a few times in this project, but despite the issues my family had, I really fucking believed we’d get out of this okay and that the others wanted to. And I wore rose coloured glasses as things were ending and people were showing their true colours because I wanted so badly to believe that it was just a bad fight and once things cooled down, everyone would pitch in to fix things. So when it finally hit that none of them truly wanted to fix things, I realised that the music had stopped years beforehand and I had just been living in my own fantasy world dancing to a beat that wasn’t there.

And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention. I haven’t met the new me yet

I saw a post recently that said this line is pretty much Right Where You Left Me condensed into one lyric and genuinely I have not seen anything more correct in years. Like I am still sitting here nearly six years after this started and nearly four years since I finally accepted it (god realising it’s been that long hit me like a fucking truck, not gonna lie) wondering who the fuck am I meant to be now? Like even without feeling like I devoted my life/existence for these people, who are you meant to be if not a reflection of the people who raised you and were meant to love you unconditionally?

There'll be happiness after you

I know I will get my balance back one day and be happy. There’s a lot of practical steps that need to happen first, but I know I’ll get there. And even though I wish it was with my family, I’ve accepted that it won’t be and it can’t be dependent on them or else I’m going to end up like my mother and never happy.

But there was happiness because of you

As much as I still cuss out my family, particularly my father, I grew up as a daddy’s girl and family orientated person and not all of that was negative. Though I can’t currently look back at them without crying, I have photos of birthdays, concerts, events, holidays and even just random day to day life at home that brought me so much joy. Likewise, though not directly involved, I would not have had one of the best experiences in my life of going to Japan with my school had my parents not cared enough to work their ass off for it. And though it’s hard to remember at times, especially on bad days, that is just as important to remember as the fact I’m going to be happy one day if I truly want to heal.

Both of these things can be true

Like I said, both past and future happiness is important and doesn’t negate each other. I can accept that someone from my past that made me happy isn’t going to be the one that does it in my future without either being more or lesser than the other.

There is happiness past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror in the nightfall

Growing up in a mentally, emotionally and at times physically abusively household has left me with a lot of scars and while there’s no way to ‘prove’ it, I genuinely believe was the start of my then undiagnosed PTSD as opposed to the events of 2011. While ‘terror in the nightfall’ can directly be linked with the PTSD symptom of having chronic nightmares, I also link it just as strongly with general self doubting thoughts. Like I am very much still in a place where despite wanting to, I constantly question whether I should get married and have children or even just make new friends because I don’t feel worthy of it. All it would do is fuck over these other people. Because like end of the day, if the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally for my whole life didn’t, why the hell would anyone else?

Haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime

I will love my family forever. And genuinely, if they hadn’t of left, I would have done anything to make them happy for the rest of my life. And the fact that I do not get the chance to do that haunts me, and while I can never know for sure, I genuinely think it haunts them too.

Leave it all behind and there is happiness

Though it’s been hard, I’ve reached a point where I recognise that if I want to be happy, I need to leave behind the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what’s “meant” to be’ and focus on what is and the people who want to be in my life.

Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?

Like I mentioned, I grew up as a daddy’s girl. Growing up, he was always the ‘fun’ parent. The one who was smiling and laughing all the time. The one who propped me up when I felt down. The one I really thought believed in me. But somewhere along the lines, he took offence to me wanting him to step up and face his choices so that we could fix our family. And as a result, he took joy in, in his own words, turning my sister against my mother and I and pushing me to still see him in order for mum to get spousal payments before the legal settlement out of spite. So I spent years begging him to be different, really thinking it was just a moment of hurt just for him to take pleasure in it.

When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

I’ve hinted at the fact that my mother is still less willing to recover and move past what happened with my family. Consequently, she’s spent the last 5 ½ years being like a bull seeing red at all times. And though I’ve tried everything I could to help her (literal hundreds of letters to politicians and other related parties to step in, reaching out to family, constant meetings with lawyers etc), even going as far as to go to law school hoping to find a solution there. But none of it panned out like we hoped. And because richer people with better connections, more money and “smaller” issues that are unrelated to ours won their cases in court and because I’m fighting for future laws to prevent this happening again rather than the unwinnable battle with my now fully adult and moved on family, suddenly it’s my fault things turned out like they did. She genuinely believes I did not try hard enough and did not care enough about my family, and particularly my sister, when in reality, losing her was, is, and always will be the biggest heartbreak of my life.

I hope she'll be your beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you

I’ve mentioned in a few other posts that both of my parents have, in their own way, raised my sister and I to be rivals rather than sisters. And so when my father chose to not reunite our family, it felt like he was picking her over me. And in my bitterness, I spent a long time making comments about how she was either just as bad as he is and using him financially or she was an idiot who couldn’t see through his bullshit and was fine being nothing more than a trophy so long as she was his favourite.

No, I didn't mean that. Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury

With time and distance away from my father and the refusal to constantly lend myself to my mother’s negativity however, I realised that I really had been aiming my anger at the wrong person. My sister was 16 when she left. A literal child. Each and every adult in my family, my then 20 year old self included, owed her more than what happened. Even if she was a “problem child” who physically and verbally lashed out, we owed her more and we failed her. That’s the part about all this that will haunt me forever. It’s not what happened to me. It’s what happened to her and the ways I let my anger and my parents cloud my vision to the point I know in my heart that things would have been different and I could have done more to save this family had I not. And I know that that anger probably traumatised and provoked a lot of my sister’s actions too. And in all honesty? The anger probably came from a place of projection too because in realising my father would rather stick with his lies than his family, I had to accept that I had been the fool that spent years soaking up praise about my achievements just to find out that’s as far as his ‘favouritism’ of me went.

You haven't met the new me yet

I somewhat joke about it, but I genuinely feel like I became a new person in 2019. Though I’m obviously not like magically healed from the trauma or anything, and while I don’t ever see a way I can have these people in my life again, on the most part I have a new outlook on everything. On top of no longer blaming my sister, I’ve been putting the focus back on myself both in terms of things I could have done differently but also doing my best to not see my family’s decision to lie and take the easy way out as being a reflection on me. Because ultimately, it’s not about me; and it took me a long time to realise that. And there’s a sense of peace in that which is the first of many parts that they won’t know about me. And in many ways, that feels like the first step to rebuilding myself.

There'll be happiness after me

Much like how my life has kept going, so has theirs. My now nearly 22 year old sister has a son who’s about to be a toddler. She has friends I’ve probably never met. My other family members probably have just as fulfilling relationships and memories that I’m not part of. It’s sad, but that’s how life goes.

But there was happiness because of me

Again, just like how my anger doesn’t negate the positive memories I’ve had with these people, realistically it’s doubtful that every second of the 16 – 23 years they knew me was neutral at best for them.

Both of these things, I believe

Logically you cannot have one of the above and not the other. Like despite what my mother thinks, you do not just stop being happy one day just because someone, or in this case many people, left. But that new happiness you have doesn’t make the old happiness any less honest. Also just in general In still in a place where like I really have to believe that my family loved and were happy with me but also happy now or else I’ll have a mental breakdown. So yeah…

There is happiness in our history, across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise, dappled with the flickers of light from the dress I wore at midnight

Like I’ve said, I have had a lot of good memories with my family, and with them being night owls and our Christmas day events at my uncle’s tending to run for 10 – 12 hours, the use of the time of midnight feels all the more personal to me. And while like I said, these fond memories aren’t enough to go back to that environment, they’re enough to be a light in the dark that reminds me that I’ve been happy before and illuminate the way across the divide to be happy again.

I can't make it go away by making you a villain

Listen, I will probably blame my father and other family members for the rest of my days over what happened. But with the new me that came in 2019, I’ve also accepted that focusing on that both internally and feeling the need to demonise them to everyone by acting like they were the only ones to make bad calls and that some of those calls didn’t come from a well-intentioned but misinformed place doesn’t make any of the pain go away. Even if they were the devil personified, I cannot change what happened. All I can focus on is myself and my future. And that’s the only way I’m going to heal and find peace.

I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven

Despite everything that happened in my childhood before the split, I am someone who got through it still loving my family and not feeling traumatised by them (or at least not processing it as such) until my adulthood. And while that may seem very bare minimum for a lot of people, it’s also a lot better than a lot of people had it.

And I pulled your body into mine every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties

I know a lot of people see this as a sexual line, but I gotta be real, from the first listen, I pictured the moments where I held/hugged my sister through anxiety attacks and lash outs and my father did the same for me. And again, despite that intimacy, we’re now in a place where we’re only polite in public (not that I’ve seen them out but if I did) in order to not cause a scene/get chucked out of wherever we were. Also, I can see this being how my father viewed all the awkward silences (which I spoke about in my It’s Time To Go post) and whatever when I did go to see him after my parents separation, because again, it did feel more like obligation than actually wanting to be there and while I know he somewhat caused that by deliberately keeping the family apart, I still feel bad over it.

No one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him, too

Even the worst of families never expect things to blow up in the way my family’s relationships did. There isn’t and probably never will be a manual on that shit. And there’s an inherit loneliness about that because while your other loved ones can stand by your side, ultimately you gotta go through that shit alone because no one really knows what to say. So all the guilt, anger, depression and whatever else you’re feeling is exactly that: yours and yours alone. And that makes it all the rougher.

But now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head

After my sister and father left, my mother couldn’t bare to sleep in her and my father’s old room nor my sister and my old room; instead opting to sleep in the lounge room. As a result, I moved into my parents’ old room. Though I have all new furniture, it’s set up in much the same way my parents had it and so it’s hard to not think about how my father slept in the same place I am now for 20 years of my life and the same can be said about my sister being in our childhood room for 16 years of her life. And while I’m somebody who has blocked out the ability to cry over most emotions, I’m still someone who cries very easily when I’m frustrated which as much as I wish I wasn’t, I still am frustrated and have cried more tears than I’d like to admit over how easy it should have been to keep our family together and how they just didn’t want to. And because there is that bitterness with the frustration, it does feel far more toxic than regular tears.

After giving you the best I had, tell me what to give after that

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve blamed myself a lot for decisions I should have made differently in this process, so I see this more as a line to remind myself that I did all I could. Like I took the ‘nice’ route with the adults in my family only to be rejected, I tried the assertive route and was only met with being cut off, and even if I took the ‘nice’ route with my sister, there is no reconnecting people who do not want to be. They all made their choices and could have come back at any time to hear our side even if they didn’t want to at the beginning, but again, taking the easy route was more important to them than taking the right one and no amount of me giving them what they wanted was going to change that.

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness... and I think she'll give you that

This is another fantasy moment for me. Like I really hope that one day I can forgive my family. Not to be in their life or anything, that ship has sailed. But just for my own peace of mind. I feel like I’m almost there with my sister, but honestly? It feels like I’m never going to get there with the rest of them. Alternatively, I see this line as again, being about forgiving myself for the bad calls I made, and while I’m not quite there either, I definitely think I will get there someday.

#about me #happiness #taylor swift #evermore album #ngl kinda hate this because it took so long to do but i also feel like i somehow didn't get it all out despite it being far too long #also this process has shown me that happiness is by far taylor's most devastating song for me personally

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fyrewrites · 5 years ago

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Volume 14, pages 54-47 excerpt

In which a time god meets his maker and learns a new reason to stay alive

(Yes, Soth is a renamed Sotha Sil.)

Nothing left. Soth leaned over the edge of the balcony above the clocktower, letting his eyes see everything. It was all beneath him now; millions of years of precise work, and no more could be done after. This was that time when Soth came to that realization. He could do nothing now, nothing but bide his time until he finally let go.

There was nothing more to do. No more waiting. The clock did not tick forever; the gears would wind down. Such procrastination was not fit for the god who watched over the clock.

Soth went down to his Regent and took him up to the secret workshop. It was time.

“You are ready?” Gestalt asked. “You are sure? There’s still so much—”

“Do not make me wait,” Soth said. “We have waited long enough. Do you hear it, the ticking of the clock? Every second wasted is a second closer to apocalypse, time-stop, and after that, there will be nothing we can do. I must do this now.”

Gestalt placed himself up onto the worktable and wound himself down. Soth got to work, and just as he was about to begin the ending of this operation, a voice called out.

“It is not time for you to leave yet.”

“What gives you this assumption?” Soth asked to no one in particular, hoping that he had just heard a figment of his imagination. As the voice replied, his hopes were dashed.

“I know it. This is not an assumption, nor was it ever intended to be. The most you may do now is lose your legs, which is what the clock will allow. Once you fall, the clock will shatter; you know this. Why not hold that off for as long as you are able? A broken clock is no clock, and no clock begins the end.”

“Yes, that is… true,” Soth said. “I know this already and I know also that once I transfer, then my Regent will prevent—”

“No. The Regent is but your king. You are his god, omniscient in the eyes of time and powerful evermore than he. Your Regent cannot prevent apocalypse. There is no preventing apocalypse. It is the end; it is the turning of the Cycle, the changing of the guard, and there is no preventing that. However, there must be a watcher here, one who keeps his eyes on the clock and one who is powerful enough to fix it. That is, and has always been, you. From the moment you—”

“Enough,” Soth said. “Why do you bore me with this knowledge? No, don’t answer.” Soth turned around and looked the clock-maker in the mechanical eye, noticing how this artificial yet organic… horned one seemed to whirl, like wind.

This was a being made of clockwork. Droplets of creatia, like glittering jewels, fell from the gears ze was made from as they turned, an endless stream of the sacred blood of creation that vanished as it touched the ground. Hir eyes glowed scarlet, with a hint of purple. Ze was hovering, clockwork wings arcing from hir back, framing hir with the essence of divinity that the horned ones were so known for. And, of course, hir horns. They were spirals made of gears and sprockets and springs, gently wrapped in soft blue flame.

“I do not want to accept your view,” Soth said. “I feel that only I am right in this situation; I gaze upon the clock often and regularly, and know its wants and desires. You do that never. Who are you to know the clock?”

“Ignorance must be so peaceful,” said the clock-maker. “You know of me, but you claim to have never seen me, when I recall your hands feeling me, asking me what I wished, asking how to keep me ticking. I am the clock. I am its voice, its maker, and its avatar. I remember every visit you have made to me, entering from the left where your Citadel is carved, finding your way through the gears, unsure at first, but quickly learning the ways, quickly learning me. Do you now understand…?”

The clock-maker, wheeling, said, “Do not disappear from the world. Do not vanish. You are not yet ready to fall from the face of Reality. Perhaps, in time, you will learn, and when you do I will be here, always ticking, until my shape changes and I must part from myself and become half-broken, half-not. But that is several sparks away.”

Soth understood. He stepped away from Gestalt, who returned to his duties. The clock-maker looked at him then and nodded, then changed shape and returned to hir normal position, way beneath Limbo, ticking on and on as the Clockwork-That-Spins-Better.

#my writing #the dark light wars #fantasy

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sarahw-world · 7 years ago

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“Yellow Roses” - 03 Just This Once

Hi guys! Here's the next chapter!

I'm really sorry I've taken so long, but this chapter turned out to be much longer than I anticipated, since there's a lot going on, and it's probably one of the hardest things I've had to write so far, I guess you'll see why when you read it.

Anyway, I hope I made it work somehow.

Author's note: By the way, a friend from the fandom asked me privately on my Tumblr about the book Bulma was reading in the last chapter, in case anyone else is interested, it's a short novel (novella) by Tolstoi called "The Death Of Ivan Ilyich". I admit it, I'm a tiny bit obsessed with Russian writers, particularly Tolstoi and Nabokov...

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Summary:

As Vegeta visits Bulma once more, he reminisces on the few encounters they've both shared already...

You can read it uncensored on AO3:

You can read it censored on FF:

Or you can keep reading under the break:

Vegeta walked hurriedly through the crowded streets, packed with faceless, uninteresting warriors who seemed to be getting ready for a well-deserved night of drinking and fucking after returning from whatever meaningless mission they’d been assigned to.

He was late already, mad at himself for having been stupid enough to agree to have a drink with Nappa for a couple of hours, not even knowing what exactly had made him relent and accept his subordinate’s insignificant invitation to begin with. The only explanation he could find was that he’d simply chosen to indulge the old man, who was getting unusually sentimental lately, particularly so ever since Raditz had died mere weeks earlier. Their last purging mission had been filled with Nappa’s annoying chatter about their extinct race and long-gone home planet. Insipidly dull nights spent sitting by the fire, surrounded by the sickening odor of the dead bodies both Saiyans had left piled up all over the place. Repetitive legends of mythological heroes and courageous, formidable warriors floating tediously in his mind as he chewed on the rubbery, tasteless meat of the revolting dead alien a little harder than he should.

The Prince had finally come to the realization that he didn’t care much for his people’s legends anymore, certainly not as much as he used to back in the good old days. As a child, Vegeta had worshiped those men, memorizing such tales word by word, and even begging his caretaker to narrate them repeatedly before going to bed, falling into a deep sleep invaded by buoyant dreams featuring idolized conquerors and epic battles.

But things were different now…

The child had become a man, and those bright, hopeful dreams had slowly, but implacably, morphed into the darkest of nightmares. As he’d grown older, bitter cynicism had taken over, and the list of matters that Vegeta genuinely cared about had been basically distilled to two very simple principles: survival and revenge. Gone were the days of naïve, optimistic foolishness, after all, no one in their right mind would give credit to such tall tales after having been exposed to the chaos and torture the Saiyan Prince had been raised amongst.

In his life, there was no room for any more fantasies, other than the only one that truly mattered, that of him surpassing himself, crossing the barriers of his own strength and ascending to the Legendary status which was meant to be his birthright.

Super Saiyan.

Everything else was superfluous, and absolutely nothing else mattered. There was no past and no future, no whims or illusions except for that which was tangible, real, and nothing would ever be more real than the sound of Frieza’s cold, slimy neck cracking triumphantly beneath his lethal hand when he ultimately became strong enough to end his Master’s repugnant life. Frieza’s death was now the sole purpose of his existence, the golden goal that motivated him to keep going whenever things got hard and the whole world crumbled around him, burying him underneath its crippling weight and making him feel as if he could barely breathe anymore.

That is, of course, until she’d walked right into his life…

Bulma.

The ravishing woman who was supposed to be a meaningless one-night stand and, in the end, had turned his bleak, monotonous world upside down. All he’d wanted to do ever since he’d first laid eyes on her was to conquer her, to possess her, to take as much pleasure as he could from that flawless, supple body and then leave her behind evermore once he’d had his fill of her.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Surely, Vegeta’d had the unnerving suspicion, right from the start, that this unique creature was unlike any other female who’d ever crossed his path. But his oversized Saiyan ego had taken charge, as usual, lying to him, slyly tricking him into believing that he had matters under control and that, even if he ended up enjoying the exotic little earthling too much for his own good, he’d be strong-willed enough to turn around and walk away before trouble ensued and he irreparably lost himself in her.

But one night had turned into two, and two nights had become three and, before he knew it, he’d seen Bulma on five occasions; every single time he’d been off-duty ever since their first intimate encounter had taken place.

She’d developed into an addiction…

A shameful, uncontrollable addiction he’d gladly succumbed to without even bothering to put up a real fight, like a nectarous, poisonous drug coursing wildly through his veins and hopelessly pervading his senses.

The erotic dreams he’d fantasized about, before he’d had his first chance to take her, had now been replaced by the dangerously vivid memories of the enthralling way in which the woman had instinctively responded to his wicked touch. While Nappa spent his nights nostalgically reminiscing about some ancient tales no one even cared about anymore, Vegeta had become frighteningly good at mastering the art of disengaging from reality, evoking every impurely explicit detail of the nights he’d shared with Bulma.

The magnetic siren had come to be his most cherished distraction, a blazing spark of blue erupting into his consistently grey world. Discovering the comforting warmth of her body had made his lonely nights seem a little colder, and everything felt flavorless after having run his depraved tongue across every delectable curve of her anatomy, her distinctive, honeyed taste forever imprinted in his mouth.

All he’d ever looked for in a woman was release, just a single night of wild, mindless sex, with no names, no explanations and no promises; a few mind-numbing hours where he could unleash his pent-up rage and forget about the outside world and the cosmic joke of a life he’d been forced to endure.

But this time, things were different.

It’d always been exceedingly easy for him to let go of a woman, often forgetting their humdrum names before he was even done getting dressed in the morning. But, when it came to Bulma, the more he took, the more he wanted, and nothing seemed to ever appease his gluttonous Saiyan appetites. His life was now a bizarre routine of death, destruction and the almost masochistic obsession of recalling those ardent, unbelievable nights of pleasure, with agonizing wealth of detail, over and over again.

*** Please visit AO3 or FF for more of this chapter! ***

#vegebul #vegeta #bulma #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #sarahw-world #romance #dbz #dragon ball z #au #yellow roses

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mybeautifulchristianjourney · 2 years ago

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True Vine

by Andrew Murray

Apart From Me Ye Can Do Nothing - John 15:5

In everything the life of the branch is to be the exact counterpart of that of the Vine. Of Himself Jesus had said: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” As the outcome of that entire dependence, He could add: “All that the Father doeth, doeth the Son also likewise.” As Son He did not receive His life from the Father once for all, but moment by moment. His life was a continual waiting on the Father for all He was to do. And so Christ says of His disciples: “Ye can do nothing apart from me.” He means it literally. To everyone who wants to live the true disciple life, to bring forth fruit and glorify God, the message comes: You can do nothing. What had been said: “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit,” is here enforced by the simplest and strongest of arguments: “Abiding in Me is indispensable, for, you know it, of yourselves you can do nothing to maintain or act out the heavenly life.”

A deep conviction of the truth of this word lies at the very root of a strong spiritual life. As little as I created myself, as little as I could raise a man from the dead, can I give myself the divine life. As little as I can give it myself, can I maintain or increase it: every motion is the work of God through Christ and His Spirit. It is as a man believes this, that he will take up that position of entire and continual dependence which is the very essence of the life of faith. With the spiritual eye he sees Christ every moment supplying grace for every breathing and every deepening of the spiritual life. His whole heart says Amen to the word: You can do nothing. And just because he does so, he can also say: “I can do all things in Christ who strengtheneth me.” The sense of helplessness, and the abiding to which it compels, leads to true fruitfulness and diligence in good works.

Apart from me ye can do nothing.—What a plea and what a call every moment to abide in Christ! We have only to go back to the vine to see how true it is. Look again at that little branch, utterly helpless and fruitless except as it receives sap from the vine, and learn that the full conviction of not being able to do anything apart from Christ is just what you need to teach you to abide in your heavenly Vine. It is this that is the great meaning of the pruning Christ spoke of—all that is self must be brought low, that our confidence may be in Christ alone. “Abide in me”—much fruit! “Apart from me”—nothing! Ought there to be any doubt as to what we shall choose?

The one lesson of the parable is—as surely, as naturally as the branch abides in the vine, You can abide in Christ. For this He is the true Vine; for this God is the Husbandman; for this you are a branch. Shall we not cry to God to deliver us forever from the “apart from me,” and to make the “abide in me” an unceasing reality? Let your heart go out to what Christ is, and can do, to His divine power and His tender love to each of His branches, and you will say evermore confidently: “Lord! I am abiding; I will bear much fruit. My impotence is my strength. So be it. Apart from Thee, nothing. In Thee, much fruit.”

Apart from Me—you nothing. Lord, I gladly accept the arrangement: I nothing—Thou all. My nothingness is my highest blessing, because Thou art the Vine, that givest and workest all. So be it, Lord! I, nothing, ever waiting on Thy fullness. Lord, reveal to me the glory of this blessed life.

#True Vine #Andrew Murray #devotional #John 15:5 #November 14 #2022

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yhwhrulz · 2 months ago

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True Vine Devotional for December 13

“ Apart From Me Ye Can Do Nothing ”

John 15:5

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alwaysaprilia · 8 years ago

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Beastly

Note: I apologize in advance for those following me, and who are not into Beauty and the Beast for all the spam, because I just saw the live action 2017 version and I am emotionally compromised.

For serious, I have had the earworm that is Evermore on repeat since I got home from the movie and the feels are REAL with this. So very, very real. This will be a three parter at most, and will be from the Beast/Prince Adam’s (-let’s pretend he is OFFICIALLY Prince Adam, okay?) POV. Obviously anything you recognize is not mine. This first part is my imagining of life pre-Adam’s birth and just before the film’s prologue kicks off.

(I am also working on the last part of my CS Mini-fic We’re Going Down Swinging, so please keep an eye out for that!)

Vœu exaucé

Queen Adèle had always been gentle and delicate, both in nature and health. Life at court was not for the fainthearted, and her husband, King François was not an easy man to get along with by any means-inattentive and dismissive, and outright cruel at his worst. But the Queen was stronger than she looked-with a brave heart and an iron will to match, she persevered.

The Court eventually bowed to her, charmed where possible, and cowed when that didn’t work, and as for the King-even he was not completely impervious to his wife. Adèle learned to pick her battles with him, smoothing his sharp edges where she could, wearing him down until sometimes, she could almost claim he had affection for her. He made no mention of the sort, but she had long ago decided that it was not something to dwell on.

Still, her favorite time of the year was summer, when they retreated from their duties in the capital and made the summer palace their home instead. Beautiful and peaceful, it was the perfect getaway from Paris gloom and politics-even François was known to laugh and smile there. So time went on, and they lived, if not happily, then contently, and it was enough.

Until it wasn’t.

It started with the dreams, happy and playful, where a little boy with hair the color of summer’s sun laughed as he raced through the halls of the summer palace, urging her to catch him. The same little boy would sit in her lap and listen to her stories of far off lands and adventures with wide eyes, excitedly plying his father, who sat nearby, with endless questions, receiving indulgent answers. The little boy with eyes so blue, twin to the King’s own eyes, and a face so fair, would not leave her be, until Adèle accepted the inevitable. She wanted a child.

That particular endeavor was even more harrowing than life at court, and after her fifth miscarriage, the royal physicians cautioned against further tries, citing that her health, already delicate, would not be able to sustain the strain of one more loss. For the first time in a long time, Adèle did not dream of the boy, and for a time, she was inconsolable. The only solace she found was in the infrequent visits made to the convents and orphanages around the city, when heavily disguised and guarded, she would help pass food and blankets to the children and the poor who needed it the most. It was the only thing that soothed her battered heart, especially when the children’s grateful hugs, given and received despite the silent disapproval of her guards, temporarily let her forget she would never receive one from her own baby. Giving them what little comfort she could eased the pain-until one day, she received something in return.

It was a strange encounter-she had just sent the last little girl on her way, a pretty child with big brown eyes and a lovely name of Isabeau to match, when the next person in line stepped up. It wasn’t a child at all, but an elderly woman, who took the offered blanket and food, and smiling serenely at her, and offered a single, perfect, red rose in return.

“For you, madame. Perhaps it will make you smile. One so kind, should not have a heart so sad.“

Adèle accepted the rose without hesitation, unable to resist, stroking the velvet softness of the petals.

“Thank you. Oh it’s beautiful, thank you very much.”

“It is but a flower, madame. It’s beauty will fade with time. A far more fitting gift would be something that would last much longer.”

“I need no gifts, madame. Although I am human enough to want just one, and I am afraid it is beyond the power of anyone to give me.”

“And what gift is this, madame? Indulge an old woman’s curiosity.”

“The greatest gift of all. A child to fill our home with laughter, someone who will be brave and wise and good and loved by his mama.”

“His mama. Your heart is set on a little boy then, it seems?”

“I would love any child born to me with the fierceness of the sun-but yes, madame, I confess that my dreams are plagued with the face of a sweet baby boy. Or they were.”

“Bittersweet are the dreams that never become a reality, but I have lived a long time, madame. Long enough to know that dreams that do come true can be bittersweet as well. I wonder if you would still yearn for your boy, if you knew he would not have an easy life? If you knew he encounter darkness? If you knew there was a great chance he would be consumed by it? Would you still want him then?”

Adèle stared at the rose, running her fingers over it’s smooth green stem, before one of the sharp thorns caught and pricked her finger, causing crimson blood to well.

“But that is life, is it not, madame? Like this rose, so lovely, still has these dangerous thorns. Every day we choose between what is good and right and our baser instincts. To choose not to have him, because of the bad that may befall him would be to deprive him of the good that he may have too. Would he have good in his life, madame? Would he have love?”

The elderly woman stared off into the distance and smiled, gently, softly, like she was privy to lovely sight only she could see.“Oh yes. There would be love in his future. The truest kind.”

Adele swallowed and shut her eyes, heart aching again for this phantom future of a son who would never be hers.“Then who I am I deny him such a thing?”

“So is that a yes, madame? If someone were to offer you you heart’s desire, would you say yes?”

“If I were given a choice to live forever, without my boy, or a few years to love him, to hear him laugh and play and teach him how to be a good man-there is no choice. I choose him. Every time.”

“As I knew you would.” The old woman inclined her head to Adele, so much that she wondered if her disguise was not as effective as she had hoped. When she straightened, it could have been a trick of the light, but the Queen could have sworn the woman’s eyes had flashed gold, and that she wasn’t old at all-but young and beautiful and terrifyingly powerful. “Enjoy the rose, madame. And worry not. I feel that you will not be sad for long.”

She was right.

Three months after, the royal physicians announced that the Queen was with child once again.

12 months to the day that she received the rose, her often wished for baby boy, Adam, was born.

Descente

Little Adam lived a life half filled with light and shadows, dreams and nightmares.His maman was a gentle sun, warm and kind and so full of love for him. She was always there to wake him from slumber, kiss him goodbye when he left for lessons or she to her duties, listen to his earnest attempts with various instruments and tell him the most wondrous, fantastic stories. She bore his tantrums with grace and could quell even his worst bouts of short temper with steely resolve and logic followed by a punishment that suited the transgression. These never lasted too long, and by the end, Adam was so distraught at the thought of disappointing her, he never did make the same mistakes twice. There was no one the little Prince loved better.

In contrast, his father was like a moon-less night, the kind where even the stars seemed dim. Exacting and stern, the King was a sharp, chilling wind, capable of shredding a young boy’s spirit and heart to shreds with a single glance and cutting words. The one time the little Prince had forgotten himself and talked back to the King, he had been left in the highest room in the tallest tower for hours, with nothing but a book of manners as company, which he was to read the out loud, cover to cover, until his father came back for him. His clothes of fine silks and muslin were barely a match for the drafty chill of the attics, but Adam did as he was told, hour after hour, though his stomach growled and he shivered, he kept on reading, but the King never returned.

By the time his mother had found him, Adam’s lips were a faint shade of blue, and he’d been only half conscious, still mumbling parts of the book. It was one of the few times he could remember maman ever raising her voice, as she’d raged to the King that this was no way to treat his son. After that, maman had sat him down and told him he must step lightly around the King, and to follow her lead whenever it came to dealings with him. If she was not there, he learned to never speak unless spoken to, but when addressed, he answered clearly and quickly. He was never to see his father unless summoned, and if he absolutely had to see the King when not called for, he was always to wait until he was announced. If the King was drinking, Adam needed to leave, no exceptions. And if the King ever raised a hand to him, he was to come straight to his mother. The last instruction chilled him to the bone, and Adam had hugged maman extra tightly that evening, and wished for her to stay with him always.

Outside of his parents, it was the same tale. The children of the court alternately fawned over and spoke ill of him behind his back. He never knew if they actually liked him because of him, or because of his title, and in the instances when he was surrounded by them, he never felt so alone. Refuge was found in the strangest of places-Mssr Cogsworth, the head of house, seemed to have a knack of turning up at the moment’s Adam needed an escape the most, claiming that there was an urgent matter than needed the Prince’s attentions, young as he was. Mssr. Lumiere, the youngest of the royal staff of butlers, had been assigned as his personal manservant, and was forever singing and dancing and telling tall tales himself, usually involving his pursuits of beautiful ladies. And Mrs. Potts would tutt that the kitchen was no place for a Prince, but would always let him hide there anyway. It was a strange life, but it was all he knew.

Like the Queen, Adam loved their summer palace best, away from the stuffy palace and the children who didn’t really want to be his friends. In the summer, his hair would turn even brighter, bleached by the sun as he ran over the grounds and through the halls. There were so many places to explore and things to see, and maman’s laugh sounded so much brighter and freer. There, even the King seemed to thaw, and he would find spare words of kindness for his son, and smile like he was actually glad he was there.

The summer of his seventh year was the best one he’d even known. The fall was the worst.

The cool weather had brought an unseasonable chill, and the Queen, who had become even more fragile and delicate in the years since his birth, caught a cough that simply refused to go away. Adam would spend as much time next to her as allowed, reading to her or telling her of his lessons, adventures and how the roses in the gardens looked today. In the nights when he was supposed to be in bed, he would sneak back and wait outside her door, and listen to his mother coughing through the night, trying to fight down the growing sense of dread that she might not get better. Adam knew it was bad when the King was summoned back to the summer palace- there could be no reason for this, except for him to say goodbye. And when it was his turn, it was like the worst of his dreams had come true.

Maman didn’t say much at that point. She could not, for it looked like it hurt to breathe. She had the strength to press her hand to his cheek one more time. She managed, one last, painful word and he could not tell if it was a title, a request or a command.

“Love.”

Her hand dropped, and she was gone.Adam stepped back. He could only stare, too numb to even cry.

*****

In the months that followed, his half life became much more singular-it was less light, more dark.

The King had never been an affectionate man, nor a particularly good father, and what little of softness there was in him, had been wrapped up in the Queen. When she died, so did his potential and will to change. He turned even colder, until there was almost no difference between the statues of him in the halls and the man himself-some would say even his likeness had a softer heart.

Adam was only seven years old, and heartbroken. He was seven years old, and he thought he would never smile again. He was only seven, but already knew that to seek comfort from his father was a useless endeavor. So, like a flower seeking the sun, he looked for any scrap of warmth and light he could find, and even in the giant, empty palace-he succeeded.

Cogsworth is old and fussy, and is forever reminding him of his lessons and to mind his posture (“Little master, do sit up, a royal Prince does not slouch!”)-but he also allows Adam refuge in his office when the King is in one of his wine fueled rages, episodes where his disdain for his son, and tendency to blame him for the Queen’s death become more pronounced than ever. The man balances the books, and Adam, busy with his own ink and paper leaves him parchment upon parchment of scribblings and sketches in return. Lumiere pretends not to notice his little shadow, but simply sings louder in his tasks, and makes his self musings more entertaining and if he hears smothered chuckles, he simply ignores them and goes on his way. Mrs. Potts always has tea and treats ready to soothe on the bad days, and hugs for the worst ones. The hugs heal and harm in equal measure-they feel like maman’s, so much that he could almost pretend they were the same.

They are not.

They could never be.

*****

It happens on cold, winter’s night. Maman has been gone for over a year, and Adam is eight now, taller, skinnier, and much more adept at losing the silent guards his father insist tail him even within the palace. He is in the kitchen, drinking tea and telling Mrs. Potts about his day, Cogsworth, Lumiere and his current paramor Plummette also present and listening in. They are sitting at the kitchen table where the staff takes their meals and it is cozy and cheerful and Adam almost feels normal again-when the doors bang open and silence falls.

It is the King, and he is looking for his son. When his eyes, so alike and so different to Adam’s own, find him sitting there like a serving boy, the anger that flares up is terrifying to watch. Everyone leaps to their feet and bows before the King, Adam included, heart pounding. The King does not yell, merely commands Adam to his side. The boy obeys, they leave the kitchen, and walk silently back to the West Wing of the palace, where the royal quarters are. Adam carefully stays a half a step behind his father, keeping alert, and painfully aware of how heavy the King’s breath is with wine and liquor.

“Do that, often, do you, boy? Muck around with the servants, like some common urchin?”

Adam swallows and forces his voice to be steady as he responds. He’s not sure if he succeeds.

“No, your highness. Not often.”

“I hope you enjoyed your time tonight, for it will be the last. I have been too lax in matters regarding your upbringing, it seems. I should not have let your mother coddle you for so long. You are far too soft, boy, it is no wonder the courtiers whisper. From tomorrow, you if you are not at lessons, you will be shadowing me, understood?”

All his mother’s warnings and lessons rush back to him, and Adam is unsure of what to do now, because this situation had never happened before. He knows he must answer, and quickly, so he releases a shaky breath, and agrees.

“Yes, your highness. Understood.”

Durcir

How do you take a boy too soft (

-too sweet, too kind, too much like his mother-)

and turn him into a man, into a King?

You tell him he is not a normal boy. You tell him he is royalty, it is his birthright to rule, his right to be served. He is above ‘thank you’s’ and ‘please’s’ and ‘you’re welcome’s’.

He is above friends, he needs nothing, he needs no one.

You teach him that appearances matter, and the finer the dress, the more worthy the person is of his time (-but those are very few indeed, for he is to succeed you, so who could have finer things, who could look better than your successor?). Only the worthy should be granted his kindness, his favor, and the worthy are very few indeed.

You tell him he bows to no one.

You teach him that he must be suspicious of everyone and everything. His position incites envy and ill wishes, and everyone, everyone, has an ulterior motive.

No one does anything simply out of the goodness of their heart, and anyone who claims to do so will not be able to prove it. People are inherently bad, it is their nature to look out of themselves first, so he should not be taken in by seemingly selfless acts.

Finally, you tell him that love is a weakness, a wasteful endeavor that robs one of strength, a hollow promise that never bears fruit. You teach him that love clouds judgement, and only leaves behind pain and suffering. As proof, you offer him the facts: his mother had loved him, hadn’t she, and yet she had had still left him. Had he never loved her, he would not have to feel that emptiness in his heart, that damnable ache that never went away (-no matter what Francois did, no matter how he drank, how many warmed his bed, he could not escape her, he could not be rid of her, she was everywhere, especially in the boy, he looked exactly like her, acted just the same and it was driving him mad-)…

You tell him that if she had truly loved him, she would never have gone away.

Your son is an excellent pupil. His eagerness to please you drives him to learn his lessons well, but then that fades, and instead he learns his lessons because he enjoys them. He grows into a fine (-selfish, cruel, entitled-) young man, expensively educated, with an appreciation for only the most beautiful (-and therefore most worthy in his eyes) people and things. It takes many years, but finally you have succeeded. You have turned the soft (-good, compassionate, emphatic) boy into a man (-monster), who disdains love, just like you.

(-You can’t be sure…but sometimes you think you can hear your dead wife weep.)

TBC.

Google translate tells me the following:

Vœu exaucé - Wish Granted

Descente - Descent

Durcir - Hardening

AN: One of the best things (IMHO, I know there are many who disagree) about the 2017 version of BATB was the backstory additions, and the little tidbits that were woven in to answer the plot holes left by the 1991 version: hello Belle’s mama, why the villagers didn’t know about the great big honking castle right THERE, hints of why the Beast turned out so…beastly (har har I came, I saw I punned-forgive me), where exactly Belle and her dad came from (headcanon-they kept moving further and further away from Paris and to smaller and smaller towns) etc etc. But one of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE additions was how they updated the relationship between Belle and the Beast. Seriously, these two have one of the most ‘developed’ (for a Disney fairy tale adaptation) relationships, and I love that they drew that out even more in the live action adaptation and even addressed the more problematic aspects. Like yes, please continue to kill me as you flirt over tastes in literature and have snowball fights and travel places with your magical book (-which daaamn Agathe, you’re so clever/cold) and then kill me even more dead with your last scene and-whew. Basically Disney has reaffirmed that they still have what it takes to own my soul (-and wallet, welp) so guess who’s going to watch this movie many many many times?

#beauty and the beast 2017 #batb ff #batb #belle x adam #my fic #fanfiction

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dfroza · 5 years ago

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A set of posts about hope

shared yesterday by John Parsons:

Though we can't control what happens in this dangerous world, we can trust that God is working all things together for good, even during times of severe testing, even in things that are blatantly evil, and even in the midst of mass hysteria (Rom. 8:28; Gen. 50:20, Jer. 29:11, etc.). And while we instinctively recoil at the prospect of physical death, there are decidedly things worse than death itself, namely, losing hope in life, walking in the darkness of despair, living a joyless existence because of fear, and ultimately facing God as a shameful coward who shrank back from the truth. As much as we abhor evil - and we must resist it with all our hearts - even more must we love the good - and cling to God (וּלְדָבְקָה־בוֹ) with all that is within us.

Ultimately, the most important thing to remember regarding death is the truth about God’s salvation (יְשׁוּעָה). After all, God assuredly hates death and provides each of us with its eternal remedy: By clothing himself in human flesh, Yeshua embraced mortality itself and willingly bore the penalty for your sins, exchanging his life for yours, thereby destroying the one who had the power of death, namely the devil, and by so doing, set you free from slavery to the dread of death (Heb. 2:14-15). To those who belong to Messiah, death represents a passage to eternal life and the loving presence of God Himself.

Only the miracle of faith can see hope in the face of radical evil... and yet that is the very message of the cross of the Messiah... Our Lord demonstrated that He is the the Killer of death itself; the Slayer of the Serpent; and the ultimate Triumph of God's Light over the realm of despair and everlasting darkness... He is the First and the Last, the Living One who died, and behold is alive forevermore, the true Keyholder of Death and Hell (Rev. 1:18). [Hebrew for Christians]

"If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). The sages say, "Being free means that I am in the place I am supposed to be." In other words, freedom means surrendering, accepting, and yielding to God's path of blessing for you. This a place of great spiritual contentment where you are liberated from the slavery of fear and disappointment. Yeshua lived in this freedom, since He completely yielded Himself to His father's daily care (John 5:19; 8:29; 14:10).

Surrendering yourself to God’s care is also the means of finding self-acceptance. God knows all your sins and has paid for them upon the cross, and therefore His love for you is the basis for which you can properly forgive and accept yourself... A Yiddish proverb reads, “If I try to be someone else, who then will be like me?" When you die, God won't ask why you weren't more like Moses, Elijah, etc., but rather, why you weren't more like the person He recreated you to be. No one else can do the things you are called to do, and therefore God created you as a distinct individual who reflects His glory in a unique way... “To the one who conquers I will give a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Rev. 2:17).

Those who trust Yeshua as their Savior can intellectually understand and emotionally trust that God is working all things together for good in their lives (Rom. 8:28). Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover, chaverim. [Hebrew for Christians]

May God help us "let not our hearts be troubled" because He has promised never to leave nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5). "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). As the old spiritual song goes, “He's got the whole world, in His hands... he's got you and me baby, in His hands...” May the LORD our Heavenly Father help us trust in Him. Amen.

4.10.20 • Facebook

and another post about rebirth, about resurrection:

The Scriptures make clear that Yeshua is the true Passover Lamb of God (שֵׂה הָאֱלהִים) whose sacrificial death and shed blood causes the wrath of God to "pass over" (pasach) those who are trusting in Him (John 1:29, 3:36; Acts 8:32-36; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 1 Pet. 1:18-20, etc.). Amen! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain! (Rev. 5:12). But while the sacrifice of Yeshua gives us forgiveness (סְלִיחָה) and atonement (כַּפָּרָה) with God (Eph. 1:7; Rom. 5:11; Heb. 9:12, etc.), the resurrection of the Messiah (i.e., techiyat ha-Mashiach: תְּחִיַּת הַמָּשִׁיחַ) justifies His work of salvation on behalf of the sinner and forever vindicates the righteousness of God (Rom. 4:20-5:1; Rom. 10:9; Heb. 13:20-21). As Yeshua said: "I am he that lives but was dead; but behold, I am alive for evermore (הִנֵּה אֲנִי חַי לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד), Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Rev. 1:8). Rejoice friends, for our LORD lives! He has killed the power of death and forever reigns in indestructible life!

The resurrection of Yeshua is not an "academic" or speculative question to be considered in purely rational terms, but rather is a matter of eternal life or death. How we choose to respond to its message determines our destiny. Everything turns on whether we awaken to the risen reality and Presence of Yeshua in our lives. Without Him we are hopeless; with Him we are more than conquerors (1 Cor. 15:14; Rom. 8:37).

Everything turns on whether we awaken to the risen Reality and Presence of Yeshua in our lives...

Yeshua completely atoned for our sins and His resurrection validated that God the Father accepted His sacrifice. It was God the Father (i.e., Reality) who raised Yeshua in victory (Gal. 1:1, Rom. 10:9), and those who put their trust trust in Him are declared righteous on account of their faith. Yeshua “was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). As Jesus Himself said, "Because I am alive, you also will live" (John 14:19). [Hebrew for Christians]

4.10.20 • Facebook

to be concluded by yesterday’s email sent out by The Temple Institute in Jerusalem that gives a glimpse from a Jewish perspective of the significance of Passover:

"I remember to you the lovingkindness of your youth"

(Jeremiah 2:2)

Nisan 16, 5780/April 10, 2020

Earlier this week, on the Seder night, we all experienced what it was like to be in Egypt on that first Passover eve: we were all instructed (commanded) to stay inside our own houses while a wicked plague was running rampant outside. We all painted our doorposts with the blood of our faith and trust in G-d. And like the Israelites we have emerged from the Seder night into a world of uncertainty. We know in hindsight that it all worked out for the children of Israel. We know that seven days after leaving Egypt the Sea of Reeds opened for the Israelites to pass through, while Pharaoh and his legions were buried beneath the waves. We know that fifty days after leaving Egypt Israel stood at Mount Sinai and received Torah, entering into an eternal covenant with HaShem. We know that forty years later, after many trials and tribulations, Israel entered into the promised land. We even know that two thousands years after her Holy Temple was destroyed and her children were driven into exile, Israel has returned to her ancestral homeland, proving all the naysayers wrong, and verifying the words of the Hebrew prophets. We know all this. But the erstwhile slaves who walked out of Egypt with their meager belongings slung across their backs didn't know this. Hundreds of years later the prophet Jeremiah (2:2) noted:

"Go and call out in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: so said HaShem: I remember to you the lovingkindness of your youth, the love of your nuptials, your following Me in the desert, in a land not sown."

Traditionally, many Jews at the conclusion of the Seder, (if still awake), sing aloud the Song of Songs. Many Jews also recite the Song of Songs on the Shabbat of Passover, in the synagogue. What, you may ask, does a love song have to do with the exodus from Egypt? Thousands of years ago our sages recognized in the words of the Song of Songs a beautiful parable describing Israel's exodus from Egypt and rendezvous with G-d in the wilderness. The two lovers of the Song of Songs are HaShem and His people Israel. They long for one another, they are plaintive when the other seems hidden and they rejoice when they are reunited.

Today we may also cry out at times to G-d "Where are You in this time of Corona, in this time of uncertainty?" The Song of Songs provides our answer: "The sound of my beloved! Behold, he is coming, skipping over the mountains, jumping over the hills. My beloved resembles a gazelle or a fawn of the hinds; behold, he is standing behind our wall, looking from the windows, peering from the lattices." (Song of Songs 2:8)

This Shabbat take the time to read aloud Song of Songs, and relive for yourself the first flowering of love between the children of Israel and the G-d of Israel, even as we today, are traveling through "a land not sown," into a future not certain, but for one eternal verity: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." (ibid 6:3) Chag Sameach & Shabbat Shalom!

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Filters Against Folly, Garett Hardin

The Expert as Enemy

The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion. Moreover, to the extent that time allows, we may become a little bit expert ourselves; but we don't have time enough to go far in this direction.

We need lay defenses against expertise. Fortunately there are such. The most important defense measure is to make oneself sensitive to the biases introduced by the assumptions and methods of experts.

Three Filters of Reality

It would be naive to expect a unitary explanation of so widespread a human characteristic as wooden-headedness. Bull-headedness (to use another term) can in fact be adaptive up to a point: in such case we may call it "steadfastness". It is the excess that needs guarding against.

Snow's Two Cultures

C.P. Snow

Mathematics and the natural sciences : discussions of things

Humanities (history, literature, philosophy) : discussions of words

Should science be merely an errand-boy to human ambition, or should its insights help shape our desires?

The attitude that regards work with things- work carried out with the hands- as dirty is one that is reborn time after time in societies prosperous enough to support a class that uses its skill with words to belittle those who make things work. Each such birth sets in train the potential suicide of society.

Focus on Filters

Polarization and objectivity don't mix well; the search for truth becomes submerged by the implicit and demanding question "Are you with us or against us?"

Our intellectual tools are filters for reducing reality to a manageable simplicity...Most expertise is single-filter expertise. We come closest to the truth when we compensate for the biases of one filter by using others (which have different biases).

Three reality filters:

literate filter

numerate filter

ecolate filter

Distinguishing the filters

A literate person is competent in the fine scale analysis of words and their meanings, and adept at finding the best word to express his ideas. Consciously or not, literate analysis begins with this question: "What are the words?" i.e, what are the most appropriate words?

Scientists, focusing primarily on things and processes, often pay little attention to words... Scientists are apt to pay more attention to quantities and rates than they are to rhetorical niceties. (a rate is a quantity of change per unit time) Numbers, in the broad sense, dominate scientific thinking.... The implicit question of the strongly numerate person is this: "What are the numbers?" i.e what are the exact quantities, proportions, and the rates?

We only have a limited ability to predict what will happen in time as the result of any intervention, however well meant, in the natural order of things. Caution and humility are the hallmarks of the ecolate attitude toward the world... Time and it's consequences are the essential concerns of the ecolate filter. The key question of ecolate analysis is this: "And then what?" That is, what further changes occur when the treatment or experience is repeated time after time?

Anti-conservatism (under whatever name) is more often associated with ignorance than with knowledge. Prudence, an essentially ecolate virtue, is not popular with enthusiasts.

No one filter by itself is adequate for understanding the world and predicting the consequences of our actions. We must learn to use all three.

Sins of the Literate

LAnguage no doubt began as straight description of the world, but it soon grew to encompass the indirect approaches of irony, sarcasm, and contrafactual conditionals. To understand what is meant, one often has to be able to hear two languages: language in the ordinary sense, and the unspoken language that tells you how to "hear" the spoken. The second "language" is often called "meta-language". An important accomplishment of the literary artist is his ability to make the reader "hear" unspoken meta-language. It hardly needs saying that a competent artist with words does not preface an ironical comment with the statement, "I will now speak ironically".

we do not truly understand language until we explicitly express this greater truth: "Beyond communication, language has two functions: to promote thought, and to prevent it.

Infinity as a thought stopper

Combating infinity used as a crutch to prop up an argument / stop critical thought:

operationism / operationalism: "What operations are implied by these statements? I.e gauge the legitimacy of the idea of "infinity" and rephrase according to operationally feasible language\

But the resources of the world - our world - are finite.. . . Matter and energy are jointly "conserved": there is never, in human experience, any creation or destruction of matter/energy.

The Protean Nature of Discussion-Stoppers

A long list of demands would begin or end with the statement "These demands are non-negotiable." Such a term makes civilized discourse impossible. Its use bespeaks a cowardly desire to escape the intellectual discipline of civilized discussion. Those who use such terms as non-negotiable, self-evident, must and imperative try to deny others the right of responding.

All these words have the effect of moving discussion out of the numerate realm, where it belongs, and into a wasteland of pure literacy, where counting and measuring are repudiated.

Above all else, language is action: it serves the demands of the ego whether it is used to promote, or to prevent, thought

Poetry is least dangerous when the typographical arrangement of words reveals the author's poetic intent. It is most dangerous when the argument is cast in the form of prose, in sentences heavily infected with unacknowledged poetic claims of non-negotiability. In our time the claims of recognized poets are no longer a serious threat to rational thought. The gravest threats to rationality now come from those who employ the rhetorical weapons of poetry from behind an ambush of prose.

The Numerate Filter

Achieving much with little: this aesthetic ideal is as widespread in science as it is in any of the activities traditionally recognized as arts. The successful result is called “elegance”.

The attitude Saints requires of its practitioners is respect, bordering on reverence, for ratios, proportions, and rates of change. Rough and ready back of the envelope calculations are often sufficient to reveal the outline of a new and important scientific discovery.

Thus it is with all numerical standards of safety. The final point of the decision is always arbitrary. . . Arbitrariness is an adaptive response to the practical need for action.

Life is impossible without arbitrary decisions [however unconscious the decision maker may be of his dependence on the arbitrary]. But so strongly do some people reject all risks in life that they make decisions that in the end make life riskier.

Quantities matter. Numbers matter. Duration of time matters.

The Pursuit of Reliability

Total system reliability : f( tech , human operator)

Note that the reliability of the system is less than that of the less reliable component

The mathematical problem apparently exceeds the analytical abilities of the human mind. Here is yet another way in which we have to acknowledge and accept the fallibility of human beings. As we depend more and more on evermore complex control systems, we can hardly help being somewhat and easy.

The Ecolate Filter

but, to paraphrase Gertrude stain, in the world beyond words, and effect is an effect is an effect. The adjective “side“ is added to coerce thinking-to restrict questions to safe channels (safe for the promoter’s enterprise)

The First Law of Ecology

history is written by the winners: this natural bias is one of the great protectors of unjustified optimism. we who are momentarily on top pay little attention to the impoverished descendants of yesterday’s losers.

(First law) We can never do merely one thing

Cause and effect assertions about history are forever dubious because of the logical flow of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. Out of a multitude of contributing factors how can we be sure that a particular one is, or is not, determinative?

Selective attention was the , and it still, the rule among those who claim to found their ethical system on scripture

in other words, read your Aesop: remember the tale of the Camel’s Nose. Once you compassionately let the camel stick his nose inside the tent, how can you refuse him further entrance?

as with the Delaney amendment, the fear of the nose/wedge/slope is rooted in thinking that is wholly literate and adamantly anti-numerate.

The wedge objection cuts both ways: if we refuse to do a thing which bear is the possibility of abuse for fear we will find it easier and easier to tolerate the evil, then we will by the same token find it easier and easier to tolerate [having] less of the good. The wedge argument has no place in standard works on philosophical ethics or moral theology. The classical moralists’ reply to it has been absus non tollit usum, the abuse of a thing does not bar its use. - Joseph Fletcher, bioethicist

In seeking a consensus, our first step should be to grant a modicum if justification for the position of society’s nay-sayers. . . Excessive ecolacy can lead to conservatism of the most stultifying sort. For prudence’s sake, ecolacy must be combined with numeracy. Any action that we take- and inaction is a form of action- leads to some unwanted consequences. Prudence dictates that we compare the advantages and disadvantages of all proposed courses of action, choosing the one that, on balance, is quantitatively best.

Ecolacy vs The Idea of Progress

We must never forget the millennia-old question “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” - “Who shall watch the watchers themselves?” Custodians need watching too.

We load untested conclusions into i’ll-stated premises. But every intervention in an existing system is, for certain, only an intervention. We will make progress faster only if we honestly call the changes “interventions” only, until an audit shows what we have actually done.

Categories of significant interventions in the world (systems): organisms, systems of organisms, political systems

The Binding of time

At high rates of interest the present value of the distant future effectively vanishes.

No matter what ultimate value we assign to the mature forest, at any believable rate of interest the economists’ “present value” of a good that lies 2,000 years in the future is practically indistinguishable from zero. If we are content to act as the pure “economic man”, we may conclude that we can’t afford such a good. But does it not seem odd that we, the inhabitants of one of the richest countries in the world, cannot justify the best? Poor economic rationality does not yield an acceptable answer; we need to find a higher form of rationality.

The Rationale of Poverty

Moreover, every man knows that it is always possible that he may die before tomorrow arrives. This knowledge is particularly poignant and poor societies. A culture of poverty is one in which the future is discounted – both implicitly and explicitly - at a very high rate.

The same economic calculus operating against different backgrounds of wealth responds differently to the “same“ business opportunity.

Due to differences in implied available interest rates affecting discounting of future values.

Politicians and the Future

Why is it so difficult for politicians to take the long view? It is often said that the trouble is rooted in democracy, the argument running as follows. Conscientious politicians want to do a good job legislating and administrating; but all politicians, conscientious or not, have to be concerned with being re-elected. Many political decisions that would make matters better in the distant future incur “unacceptable” costs in the present. Voters, most of whom have only a poor grasp of future necessities, will throw out an elected representative if he votes to increase taxes now. Noting that the term of representatives is only two years, of senators, six, and of the President, four, we may take as a rule of thumb that the horizon of most politicians is no more than five years away. Proximate goals drive out distant goals.

The Limits of Rationality

To accept the authority of the sacred is to step outside the bounds of rationality. This is one way to escape the limitations imposed by the economic theory of discounting.

In a world ruled by the unconscious assumption of extreme individualism, it is difficult to give a solely rational justification for saving things for another generation. It is not easy to answer this double question: “Why should I do anything for posterity? a what has posterity done for me?” The generation that makes the sacrifice is not the generation that reaps the harvest.

An individual who identifies with his ancestors steps outside the bounds of pure individualism. Once this step is taken, identification with posterity and its interests is not so difficult. In fact, what we perceive as the limitations of the economic theory of “discounting the future” are perhaps merely the limitations of the concept of individualism

economic theory of poverty, in which motivation is proportional to the psychological “weight” of a gain or loss- “marginal utility”

there comes a point at which it psychologically pays a rich man to make decisions that are “unselfish” in the sense that they are posterity-oriented. Wealth lessens the burden of rationality, which is, after all, designed to deal with perceived shortages.

A Tragic Distribution System

A commons is a resource to which a population has free and unmanaged access; it contrasts with private property ( accessible to only the owner) and with socialized property ( access to which is controlled by managers appointed by some political unit )

but in exploiting the pasture they follow the principle Marx set forth in his “Critique of the Gotha Program” in 1875: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Issue being that gains accrue to individuals but costs are shared by the group so self-interest will always drive individuals to consume more.

Those who think a Marxist distribution system in a commons would work “if only people would act like good citizens” fail to realize that they are expecting the impossible, namely that every single person should be an angel. By contrast, those who hold out no hope for the Marxist system assume merely that every sizeable population includes at least one person who is less than an angel.

Responsibility: Sense and Nonsense

operational definition of responsibility ... by philosopher Charles Frankel: “A decision is responsible when the man or group that makes it has to answer for it to those who are directly or indirectly affected by it.

The consequences if the various alternative systems of distribution must be sought in the kinds of operational responsibility they create.

Who benefits? Who pays?

To cut through the cant of “responsibility” we must ask the double question “Who benefits? Who pays?” .... when a politico-economic system of distribution is proposed.

Profit and loss are distributed via one of 3 main routes:

privatize: profit/loss accrues wholly to an individual / going concern. Benefits from intrinsic responsibility

commonize: spread indifferently over a whole population . Privatize gain, commonize loss- doesn’t meet positive responsibility criterion . Negative responsibility pays the decision maker to make the wrong decision

socialize: profits/losses distributed differential ly by managers among the group that owns the common property( managed commons) .Both gains and losses socialized but the rewarded group is just an abstraction that cant really make decisions nor be rewarded. Individuals must be delegated decision power on community behalf. Weak assumption is that decision maker motives are perfectly aligned with those of rest of community.Contrived responsibility

Intrinsic defect of delegation

Meeting the requirements is easier than doing the job right

contrived responsibility if socialism makes possible the sabotage of information systems

The overall system of a sizeable community struggling to survive in a crowded world may be either socialism or privatism. Either system may work, more or less. But, except in non-critical areas of distribution, commonism can not possibly work for long.

The Double C Double P game

Commonized costs, Privatized profits

Consequences are produced by actions, not by names. Policies must be judged by their consequences.

Taboo, the Mother of Confusion

Personal success often depends on playing the CC-PP game without others becoming aware of the rules that are being followed

An effective taboo is worth more than a skillful argument. As a countermeasure, the first step in emasculating a taboo should be to pin the proper label on it.

To externalize a cost is to subsidize it. Those who vigorously oppose government subsidies should, to be consistent, also oppose the impositions of hidden costs on unconsenting individuals, costs that pass under the uninformative name of "externalities".

It is the fashion for nations to erect memorials honouring "The Unknown Soldier", in recognition of the multitude of men in uniform whose heroism has not been specifically rewarded with individual medals and citations. Perhaps we should erect two more monuments, one to the Unknown Worker and the other to the Unknown Citizen, as symbols of the millions whose unrequited suffering from "externalities" over the centuries made possible the industrial momentum that propelled Western civilization too so high a material level in so short a time. Without their sacrifices, the life of the average citizen today might not be significantly better than it was at the time of Christopher Columbus.

Chp 11: Compassion vs Principle

There is an essential conflict between compassion and principle.

A Utilitarian View of Compassion

Purely as a motive, compassion for others is beyond criticism. But consequences are at least as important as motives in the judgment of moral actions. Compassionate actions that increase loss and suffering cannot be recommended as public policy.

To be acceptable, utilitarian ethics must be ecolate, must take account of time and the unfolding of human behaviour as actions become precedents. This conclusion is not new: Immanuel Kant expressed the same idea two centuries ago in his Categorical Imperative: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Note the distinction between act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism.

act: net benefits accruing to one person performing act

rule: net benefits accruing should everyone as a rule act a articular way

The Medical Commons

Animal parents that invested heavily in grossly immature offspring that were almost sure to die would leave fewer breeding offspring in the next generation than would animal parents that followed sound bioeconomic rules. Natural selection favours bioeconomic rationalism.. Of course, humansa re free to practice as aberrant behaviour as they please. The question is, how long can the species survive practicing unnatural ethics? Techonology escalates the cost of heroic medicine at a rate far exceeding the rate of increase of national income. Will the day arrive when we put all our income into saving nearly invisible embryos, patching up the nearly unpatchable, and preserving aged human vegetables, thus leaving no income for the enjoyment of life by those who must work to pay the bills?

The steps in the escalation of medical costs need to be spelled out. High awards by juries cause malpractice insurers to raise the premiums demanded of physicians, who of course, have to increase their charges to patients. This increases the cost of medical insurance for the patients. Malpractice insurers put pressure on doctors not to overlook any possibility in examining the patient. Where one or two laboratory tests used to suffice, a doctor may now demand twenty. This is called "practicing defensive medicine". (It is more defensive for the doctors and insurer than it is for the patient.) The premiums for medical insurance rise still further. The higher the cost of medical insurance, the greater grows the demand for federal subsidy, for completely socialized medicine. Even those who realize that it is the commonizing of costs that is producing the runaway escalation find it difficult to suggest a politically acceptable way of stopping the ruinous process.

The invention of new "rights" is one of the major indoor sports of our time. most of the sportsmen are literate, non-numerate, non-ecolate folk with only a tenuous grasp of time and the power of runaway feedback.

At some point, compassion must yield to principle.

The Effect of Scale on Values

Scale and the Effectiveness of Shame

So long as abilities and needs are determined within a really small community, commonism works... What is the force that keeps individuals from abusing the right to determine their own abilities and needs in a small community, but not in a large? The effective force is shame

The Importance of Management Costs

Theoretically we could charge individuals in proportion to their quantified use of the sidewalk, but it is obvious that the management costs of doing so would be quite out of proportion to the good that could be achieved... Even so, this decision is implicitly based on scale.. Unmanaged, on a first come first served basis, insufficient spaces favor those whose time is worth relatively less and who can afford to come early to get a parking space. Those who have more money than time resent the result and press for another solution.. . . once the scale of cities passes a certain point, if time is of any value, there is no rational defense for the commonistic arrangement.

Part II: The Larger View

The Global Pothole Problem

Operationally, the word “global” indicates a desire on the part of the speaker to common use regional expenses over the whole globe. . . the motivation is apparently unselfish. It is casually presumed that every “ubiquitous” problem is a “global” problem. But “ubiquitous” is merely a descriptive word, whereas “global” has now crime a prescriptive term that implicitly prescribes political action, generally the commonization of costs.

Misunderstandings are surely some power function of the number of people seeking to be understood. Information suffers from diseconomies of scale.

There is no way that a true village can be created out of large numbers. Numeracy repudiates the purely literate dream of the global village.

Long experience has shown that local problems are best dealt with by local action. . . Self-interest urges individuals to evade responsibility whenever they possibly can. . . Never globalize a problem if it can possibly be dealt with locally.

A Truly Global Problem

Consequences of the Greenhouse Effect

The survival of the human species over several million years has depended on territorial behaviour. There is no reason to think that the future will be any different. Under conditions of shortage, failure to adopt a territorial attitude amounts to the establishment of a commons. Territoriality, in preserving the quality of life for some, increases the misery of others. Commonism brings misery to all.

When crowding compels man to replace the unmanaged commons by private property or a managed commons, Zero-Sum Games then become ones in which some people get the pluses while the corresponding minuses devolve upon other people. Unfairness that may be tolerated in a long traditional Zero-Sum game is likely to be powerfully resented in a game newly imposed upon the players. A climactic shift that changes the layoffs to the players will almost certainly lead to serious political conflicts .

Taking Cassandra Seriously

Independent scientists are convinced that the acid rain danger is real, but politicians who must decide between better forests and fishing grounds or unhindered industrial growth understandably ask, What is the bona fides of the person who (in effect) says "I am Cassandra"? All experts are, and should be, suspect. Even a majority of experts does not automatically command credence. Therefore (say the politicians), "Let's have another study first." Today's response to the evidence for acid rain effects foreshadows tomorrow's response to the greenhouse effect, if the danger becomes undeniable.

Origins of the Global Dream

Globality as an Evolutionary Stage

Each of the various groups larger than the family arose because it gave a selective advantage to those joining such a group in competition with people who refused to become joiners. A tribe can muster more political strength than a family, and a nation can muster more political and military strength than a tribe. The advantage in each case depends on competition at the same level, with the same class of aggregations. When a class of aggregation has only a single member, there can be no competition to confer advantage to this unique group. Then competition within the group becomes the dominant factor. As competition between subgroups and individuals takes over, the unique large group disintegrates.

In time, intragroup competition would be certain to shatter a single all- inclusive group.

The Paradoxical Wealth of Information

Whether conservation prevails or not depends on the category of existence being dealt with. Those who do not understand the nature of the fundamental categories of existence continue to stir up time- consuming and fruitless controversies.

The Conservation of Physical Wealth

Only three categories are required to classify all the many forms of worldly wealth: matter, energy and information. The order given is also the historical order in which these categories became clear to science. The most critical question to be settled for each category is this: Is it conserved? That is, does the amount remain the same through all permutations of state, neither increasing nor decreasing ?

Wrestling with Information

Information may be "coded" in either matter (print on a page) or energy (radio pulses). A minimum amount of one or the other is required: you can't encode the encyclopedia with a single atom of matter or a single quantum of energy. But beyond the required minimum there is no quantitative relationship between the amount of coded matter or energy and the "quantity of information" conveyed.

Multiple identical encodings do not increase the amount of information (though they do increase its availability, and hence its potential effect)... When dealing with information, the difference between 1 and 1,000,000 replicates is trivial as compared with the difference between 0 and 1... Looked at form the other end, when someone writes a new playy, discovers a new scientific principle, or invents a useful new machine, something seems to have been created. The very idea of creation contradicts the idea of conservation.

Implications of Nonconservation

Scientists have no doubt that the prudent course is to assume that the laws of conservation of matter and energy will continue to hold. But information is not conserved ... Because matter and energy are conserved any system of distribution of these forms of wealth is a Zero-sum Game. What I gain, you lose; and vice-versa. Redistribution does not create wealth.(not directly at any rate..)

The distribution of information is not a Zero-sum Game, quite often it is a Plus-sum game. If I have a bright idea, and if I share it with others, some bright person may work over my idea and pass it back to me in improved form. That's a Plus-Sum Game; the history of science is replete with examples. This is why science is best pursued in a completely open manner....To restrict science is to weaken it.

The herdsman's concept of "carrying capacity" has no meaning applied to the wealth of literature, which can be shared widely without loss... This fact of his profession may make it easy for a wordsmith to be taken in by proposals to globalize the wealth of materials and energy, commonly through an initial step of globalizing a problem. Globalizing material wealth means creating a material commons, yet many a literate professional sees nothing wrong ...

Dilemmas of the Literate

Commonization of his ideas is the dearest wish of the wordsmith; he is less enthusiastic about commonization of the material rewards of his creativity.

The idea behind copyright law is not just to protect the interests of the creator so that he can get rich. It is also in the interest of society that potentially commonizable material be privatized, at least for a while, so that other ingenious people will be motivated to produce in the future. Great rewards are great motivators. Technological advances in the replication of information at low cost have created a new form of commons that is hard to fence in. Technology seems to have thrown morality for a loss.

Pure Research: A problem for society

The costs of pure research in this generation may be more than matched by benefits in generations to come. But the double question "Who benefits? WHo pays?" demands a double answer.. Only this generation is capable of paying, though the benefits go to people who are incapable of paying because they do not yet exist. When the beneficiaries finally come into being they will find it impossible to repay their beneficiaries who will have long been dead.

A society of "bottom-liners" wholly oriented to the present, cannot justify the support of pure research.

Now society has to pay big for pure research (equipment). But who is "society"? Since few industrial concerns can afford such philantropy, most of the support has to come from the nation as a whole... This means that pure research presents us with a new distribution system: Privatized Costs and Commonized Profits - with the commons extending over the whole world (or at least that part of the world that is well enough educated to understand the results).

The nonconservation of information works in both ways... both destruction and creation are possible. As Condorcet dimly realised, there are no assignable limits to improvements in information and organization... the most important elements of that diffcult-to-define entity we call "the quality of life" are not material and hence may not be limited. After nearly two centuries of mistakenly pursuing limitless material progress, it is time that we shift the major focus of our attention to the immaterial aspects of life. Above all else, this means we must bring human demands into balance with material resources. Though these are limited, human ingenuity in tackling organizational problems knows no certain limit.

One World: An Ecolate View

Biblical Evasion

It is considered good form to speak politely of Scripture: rever it, but don't bother reading it seems to be the rule. Above all, don't read it thoughtfully.

Singular Ethics

On the scale of a family or a small village the Christian-Marxist ethic may work well enough; but long before it can be extended to include the nearly 5,000,000,000 people of our earthly cosmos it fails because "according to his needs" operationally defines a commons, which necessarily leads to the tragedy of the commons. Inevitably.

the work of wordsmiths is worth little if it is not first passed through the gauntlet of critics skilled in numerate and ecolate analysis

singular ethics, a belief that whatever is proved for the singular holds also for all larger numbers, without limit. Singular ethics disdains numeracy and is contrary to the spirit of science... numbers matter; quantities matter; ratios matter; ... Mathematics can do this (inductive proofs) because it abstracts numbers from all else. In the material world, however, associated properties cannot be separated from one another... the way one property changes may follow a mathematically different law from that of another property change. As the scale of an object changes, the ratios of its properties change.

Replacing Abstractions with Actors

Country X, which is an abstraction, cannot act. Those who act in its name are rich and powerful people. Human nature being what it is we can be sure that these people will not voluntarily do anything to diminish either their power or their riches. Prudence may move the rich to let a few goodies trickle down to the poor, but the trickling will not be enough to undermine the favoured position of the rich. How could it be otherwise?

Philantrophy that truly benefits the recipient is not impossible, but it requires close attention and postaudits of the results, so that donors can learn from their mistakes. It is easier to make material gifts, than it is to garner information and learn from it.

Telephilantrophy: A modern Invention

The Best Wordsmiths money can buy

The bankers most astonishing statement was the assertion that “There is negligible risk of permanent default or debt denial in sovereign lending because the sovereign borrowers cannot cease to exist.” ... “Astonishing” is the mildest word one can apply to such a claim

Bankers, like countless others who want to get ahead in the world, are sometimes tempted to compromise their principles. Faced with potentially monstrous losses in the international area, they may hope to benefit from a new version of the time tested CC-PP game. If the foreign loans are paid off they make money in the usual way. But if poor countries default and our government steps in to make good on the payments, the banks collect their usual profits while the costs are imposed on the general public. The imposition takes place through several routes. First of all, keeping interest rates high after 1973 meant that costs were imposed on every American who, directly or indirectly, borrowed money- which translates to simply every American. If and when a ad hoc F.I.D.C. for international loans is created, the costs of the defaults will be added to the already existing national deficit. This may result in higher taxes, or (alternatively) in the "monetization" of the unpaid debts through deficit financing and subsequent inflation (the greatest of all hidden taxes). Whatever euphemisms are used, costs will be commonized. All this will be with the approval, if not the connivance, of a group of man ready at the drop of a hat to condemn "communism".

Condemning communism, they are willing to practice commonism when need be. They need not be faulted for what they condemn, but they do deserve criticism for being willing to base their salvation on a basic plank of Marx's platform, namely making distribution in accordance with need.

Renunciation Ressurected

Conservatism as Humility

Burke’s justification did not appeal to many moderns. To speak of the “venerable rust” , the “sacred altar” , and the “ingenious and noble roughness” of social institutions now loses, rather than gains, the support of the average man or woman. In our time it is the new, not the old , that easily commands unquestioning acceptance.

The Confidence of Science and Texhnology

In the area of technology, humility was replaced by arrogance as one astonishing invention succeeded another. Whitehead has said that the greatest discovery if the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. Once this process had gained momentum those who called for caution in the adoption of new technologies were scornfully told, “You can’t stop Progress!”

What renunciation means

Because technological discoveries have surprise this in the past, people outside science are inclined to suppose that every scientific law will sooner or later be overthrown.Scientist demur. They perceive a hierarchy of laws, with those at the base of the intellectual structure being almost certain to survive all revolutions.

in 1942 the mathematician ET Whitaker called the basic “no can-do“ assertions postulates of importance, saying that each such statement “asserts the impossibility of achieving something, even though there may be an infinite number of ways of trying to achieve it a postulate of importance is not the direct result of an experiment, or of any finite number of experiments;… it is the assertion of a conviction of the mind, that all attempts to do a certain thing, however made, are bound to fail.“

By Way of Summary

His (Spinoza) words bear repeating: I have laboured carefully not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them; and to this end I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred. anger, envy, ambition, pity, and other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties...

As concerns their final effects, the reactions of a self=sustaining system are often ambivalent... The ambivalence of reactions leads to speaker-biased pairs of adjectives. "I am firm, you are bull-headed. You are fickle, I am adaptable. I am prudent, you are stingy.".. Once a person becomes sensitized to the perception-bending nature of labels, their emotional power is lessened.

Note that Spinoza identified both love and pity as "perturbations of the mind", thus implying that we should question the value of even these highly prized abstractions. When we elect to judge acts by their consequences we can no longer blindly accept love and pity as pure virtues.

The pursuit of science has two objects: understanding and control. To achieve these ends we must master more than words: we must also know quantities and have some comprehension of the total environment of forces.

In the reworking of education it is time to supplement the three R's with the Three Filters. The skills of Readin', Writin' and 'Rithmetic need to be combined with an attudinal checklist that asks if the best words have been used, if quantities have been duly considered, and if the consequences of time and repetition have been taken into account... No single filter is sufficient for reaching a reliable decision, so invidious comparisons between the three is not called for. The well-educated person uses all of them.

When action is inescapable we must keep in mind the thought that our analysis of the situation may yet be mistaken

Nothing is so contrary to the spirit of humanism as is belief in the existence of absolute reliability. Moralists demand it, promoters promise it - but scientists study its rhetorical opposite, unreliability, under such headings as statistics, design of experiments, and decision theory. Humanism aims to learn how to survive and enjoy life in a complex world shot through and through with error.

Evidently, the cost-purity curve takes a sharp turn upward as we approach absolute purity. This is a general principle applying to all substances... To remove increasingly minute fractions costs more and more, but the benefits of removing them are less and less. We must recognize that the world is finite; the resources available per unit time are finite. When costs are paid out of a common pot, extreme purity in one dimension can be achieved only by impoverishment or contamination of others... Rational limits must be set to every ideal of purity.

Temperance is required even of the passion for justice. PErfect justice is as impossible as absolute purity. Individual differences in the reaction to competitive challenges, couple dwith the positive feedback of power- "To them that hath shall be given" - ensure that inequities of redistribution will reappear no matter how often they are ironed out of the politico-economic system. It is dangerous to think of poverty only as a state or condition; poverty is also a process. Poverty minimizing policies are most successful when they deal with the process rather than the state. We must recognize that all control operations incur costs; excessive controls generate their own kind of poverty. We must face two questions "How much are we willing to pay to achieve a specified amount of good?: And "Who is the "We" that is called upon to pay?"

When a community is "large," say 150 or more, shame buckles under the ubiquitous pressure of egotism. Asserted needs escalate, apparent abilities wither. By the very logic of the commons, individuals are paid to do wrong: operational responsibility becomes negative. Since shame cannot control asserted needs when the numbers are great, the community has only two paths open to it. IT can allow individual freedom, in which case the escalation of asserted needs brings ruin to all: this is the tragedy of the commons. Or the state can define the needs of every individual: this is tyranny.

The Sahelian picture is a symbol of what will happen to the entire world if humanity decides that needs create rights. This is the picture from space from which morals should have been derived.

The word "subsidy" is the nearest to frankness that enterprising promoters come. A subsidy is a means of dipping into teh commons of the public treasury without acknoledging commonsitic intent. The subsidized enterpriser seeks to establish a game in which costs are commonized while profits are privatized- the classic and unacknowledged CC-PP game.

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