#confluence of nothingness event

[ashes-16-al-wallpapers]

Full art*

[ashvalentine16]

Confluence of Nothingness rerun and Taihou-chan's trust milestone event: Passionate Confession Practice rerun

[smokeybrandreviews]

Into the Abyss

Boy, it has been a clean minute since I've updated my Azur Lane progress, mostly because the content has been a trickle this year, but with the current Rerun Event, I felt obliged to do so. Seriously this year has been mad slim on stuff to do in my favorite WWII sim. As a KMS main, coming off a year which was straight up lousy with Kraut progress, I am a little… disappointed with the current offerings. I feel like it’s been that way for a while, actually. Like, I found the stagnation of the game to be pretty prominent last year but, again, I am heavily Iron Blooded so that’s probably just my bias. That’s not to say I haven’t gotten anything for my main Fleet over the last few months, just that I kind of wanted more. Still, there were other facets which have progress so I can’t be all that mad. But I kind of am.

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More

Look, man, this Iron Blood drought is killing me. Like, we've had a few crumbs but that's it. Crumbs. Obviously, I've gobbled up what i could, which ain't much. The two P6 boats, one of which was a Decisive and the Confluence of Nothingness event. That's it. Man, i am STARVING over here! So much so that, when Friedrich Carl showed up on that Banner, i dove wholeheartedly into that sh*t. And, boy, did it cost. I went at that banner with round four hindered Wisdom Cubes. It literally took close to three three hundred of the f*ckers to finally pop the first, new, Kraut Girl in almost a year. Seriously, i popped SO many f*cking dupes of almost every other ship on the Banner before i finally scored Carl. That sh*t hurt my pockets, bad. Like, egregiously. She finally decided to appear, when i was at my wit's end, but I'm content about it. I ain't happy, but my main Fleet is still one hundred percent complete, so small victories. But, for real, Manjuu needs to drop some more KMS ships soon. I'm dying over here!

The Coldest Winter

The whole reason I am writing this thing, is to address the massive Ruskie mammoth in the room – the Abyssal Refrain Rerun. Once upon a time, long, long ago, i passed on this Event because i kind of didn’t give a sh*t about chasing another Fleet at the time. I was headlong in my Iron Blood quest so I missed out on a lot of ash*t back then. Shimakaze, New Jersey, and, prudent to this particular post, Kronshtadt. Tunnel vision, for sure. After I netted U-110 and caught up with the Iron Blood offerings, I set out on honing my Northern Parliament Fleet next. After the Germans, the Russians are my favorite Fleet based on aesthetic. By then, however, Abyssal Refrain was in the rear view and I missed out on, like, three of those ships, Kronshtadt being the most important. Not only was she a glaring hole in the puzzle that was my burgeoning SN Fleet, she was the last UR boat I needed, after claiming both Shimakaze and New Jersey on Rerun Lite events. Seeing her banner reappear, I absolutely made a run. The thing is, I was low on resources. Chasing after Friedrich Carl taxed my pockets hard. Fortunately, since this is a Rerun which I had kind of participated in before, I had Ship Building tickets. Ran through those real fast but it wasn’t enough. I only had around one hundred, fifty Wisdom Cubes and was sitting on the edge of my seat rolling for that UR sweetness. It only took three. Sixty Cubes and she popped. I FINALLY had EVERY natural UR ship (not Decisive) available! Yes, I've included Sovetsky Soyuz in that assertion I absolutely made out like a bandit during Snowrealm Peregrination. It was, like, four rolls, total, and i popped all those ships. One of the easiest Banners I've ever attempted. That luck would not hold. Anyway, the Ultra Rare side quest is down, but I��m still missing Volga at the moment. Popped two Kievs chasing Kron and i hate it. Why the f*ck am i loading up on Shop Ships and not the one Banner i still ain't got? The f*ck?

[mealvaan]

Sojourn

TW. Suicidal ideation.

The last traveller in line evaporates to dust.

Emerging from the outskirts of the plaza, Signe traces the footsteps of the adventurer that once was. Their terminal is unknown to her. Funny, how travelling via aetheryte can make even a destination a deeply personal thing. Most opt for a hands-off journey, being chauffeured from their beginning to end without a care — without control. 

People often speak of one’s constitution and aptitude in manipulating aether as necessities for aetheryte travel, but neither concerns her. No, it’s the unspoken requisite of setting intent — the reliance on one’s will as the sole compass — that roots her in her place.

Signe’s mind is the source of her power. The Scholar’s blessing and the Spinner’s curse. From her fingertips, trickling streams flow into the well of the crystal, releasing a floodgate of conscious and subconscious thought that merges into a confluence.

The potency of her reason cannot be tamed; no matter how much she wills it to silence, her thoughts prise their maws open with gnashing teeth and desperate winges. She knows what they say even in echoes. 

The aetherial sea is devoid of tactile feeling. The ocean is her own liquid skin, the lot of it familiar and folding in on her. Kneading dough that serves to nudge her along, but only just, as other presences — presences that feel like her, but also adamantly individual — flit past with great ease. She floats along the lazy river. How comfortable. How modest. 

Would it not be nice to stay a while?

She wonders how long one can rest here before they are cast out, how long before the corporeal realm gets tired of her too. Is there a place in this realm where one can indulge forever and a day, shielded from the current in a pocket of blissful nothingness? Bathed in dim light. Pickled in it.

Her thoughts recognise what she’s done as the unpleasant, broiled word passes her psyche. 

Do you remember where you had meant to go?

She doesn’t remember the name of any place in this state. They’re all blurs and backdrops to her. Set dressing for another rotation of events, the palette of meaningless filler. She doesn’t know where she was meant to go despite how routine it is. Why would she leave, for that matter, when the Lifestream cradles her so?

Temptation beckons to bask in the warmth of her blood — to fall into deep slumber.

If she had eyes, they would glide shut.

Filtering through her faux lids, there is a bright light — the sliver of Thanalan sun through a drawn curtain. It slices through her sleep, carving a warm yellow glow into her cheek and nose and mouth, all of which she can’t move, she can’t feel. The light is incessant and impossible to ignore. The light is belligerent and demands her attention. The light needs to be addressed. 

Now.

Her physique coalesces with unreasonable conviction, each part of her falling into place and tied together with the slab of obsidian she calls a greatsword. A perfectly wrapped parcel, delivered right to her apartment tower’s doorstep. She has the gait of a groggy child woken from a nap, yet she drives herself forward as if she’d been awake the whole time.

Nothing happened. 

You can’t get rid of me that easy, says Brand, lounging in her peripheral. You won’t get rid of us. 

You don’t want to.

[smokeybrand]

Into the Abyss

Boy, it has been a clean minute since I've updated my Azur Lane progress, mostly because the content has been a trickle this year, but with the current Rerun Event, I felt obliged to do so. Seriously this year has been mad slim on stuff to do in my favorite WWII sim. As a KMS main, coming off a year which was straight up lousy with Kraut progress, I am a little… disappointed with the current offerings. I feel like it’s been that way for a while, actually. Like, I found the stagnation of the game to be pretty prominent last year but, again, I am heavily Iron Blooded so that’s probably just my bias. That’s not to say I haven’t gotten anything for my main Fleet over the last few months, just that I kind of wanted more. Still, there were other facets which have progress so I can’t be all that mad. But I kind of am.

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More

Look, man, this Iron Blood drought is killing me. Like, we've had a few crumbs but that's it. Crumbs. Obviously, I've gobbled up what i could, which ain't much. The two P6 boats, one of which was a Decisive and the Confluence of Nothingness event. That's it. Man, i am STARVING over here! So much so that, when Friedrich Carl showed up on that Banner, i dove wholeheartedly into that sh*t. And, boy, did it cost. I went at that banner with round four hindered Wisdom Cubes. It literally took close to three three hundred of the f*ckers to finally pop the first, new, Kraut Girl in almost a year. Seriously, i popped SO many f*cking dupes of almost every other ship on the Banner before i finally scored Carl. That sh*t hurt my pockets, bad. Like, egregiously. She finally decided to appear, when i was at my wit's end, but I'm content about it. I ain't happy, but my main Fleet is still one hundred percent complete, so small victories. But, for real, Manjuu needs to drop some more KMS ships soon. I'm dying over here!

The Coldest Winter

The whole reason I am writing this thing, is to address the massive Ruskie mammoth in the room – the Abyssal Refrain Rerun. Once upon a time, long, long ago, i passed on this Event because i kind of didn’t give a sh*t about chasing another Fleet at the time. I was headlong in my Iron Blood quest so I missed out on a lot of ash*t back then. Shimakaze, New Jersey, and, prudent to this particular post, Kronshtadt. Tunnel vision, for sure. After I netted U-110 and caught up with the Iron Blood offerings, I set out on honing my Northern Parliament Fleet next. After the Germans, the Russians are my favorite Fleet based on aesthetic. By then, however, Abyssal Refrain was in the rear view and I missed out on, like, three of those ships, Kronshtadt being the most important. Not only was she a glaring hole in the puzzle that was my burgeoning SN Fleet, she was the last UR boat I needed, after claiming both Shimakaze and New Jersey on Rerun Lite events. Seeing her banner reappear, I absolutely made a run. The thing is, I was low on resources. Chasing after Friedrich Carl taxed my pockets hard. Fortunately, since this is a Rerun which I had kind of participated in before, I had Ship Building tickets. Ran through those real fast but it wasn’t enough. I only had around one hundred, fifty Wisdom Cubes and was sitting on the edge of my seat rolling for that UR sweetness. It only took three. Sixty Cubes and she popped. I FINALLY had EVERY natural UR ship (not Decisive) available! Yes, I've included Sovetsky Soyuz in that assertion I absolutely made out like a bandit during Snowrealm Peregrination. It was, like, four rolls, total, and i popped all those ships. One of the easiest Banners I've ever attempted. That luck would not hold. Anyway, the Ultra Rare side quest is down, but I’m still missing Volga at the moment. Popped two Kievs chasing Kron and i hate it. Why the f*ck am i loading up on Shop Ships and not the one Banner i still ain't got? The f*ck?

[miss-cupcakez]

I’m suuuper hyped about the new Iron Blood event in Azur Lane! ♥ It’s called Confluence of Nothingness. :O

I immediately started playing after the server maintenance ended and the story starts out really really exciting! Can’t wait to find out more. :3

There’s also a bunch of cool new ship girls to get - first and foremost of course, Bismarck Zwei!

She’s got a super cool new rigging and she seems to be really strong as well - I can’t wait to add her to my fleet. :3

Also looking forward to getting Regensburg. She looks a little bit like a demon or succubus. xD

There’s also a separate mini-event where we can explore a mysterious deserted island, gather materials, build a little base and play mini-games, so I’ll certainly be busy in the coming days. ♥

[listing-to-port]

Nine lanterns

1. A lantern which can be configured to put out a menu of boutique lights. For example; the range of wavelengths and intensities typical of the Northern lights reflected off snow; lights like a fire burning in a cave; like a tropical sunset; like the light of an oncoming Class 390 Pendolino train. With it you can serve up a whole light banquet, blanketed at each end by warm and nutritious dark.

2. The lantern hanging outside the door, I don't know if you remember the one? You were very young. I think that if you saw it again you would remember. You usually do, even though the lantern usually manifests without the door, these days. But it is so easy to forget it again soon after. The real test, of course, comes with that time when you see the lantern again and the door with it.

3. A lantern that is dangerous for cows, but not in the usual way. You see, due to the lantern's unusual size and to the number of other lanterns like it and also due to a generally odd confluence of events, the cows in the upper field have assembled a functional hot air balloon. The danger is not that they will escape (they are doing so even now) but that, having fallen in love with the sky, they will use their balloon to embark upon doomed expeditions to the Arctic.

4. A metal lantern full of dark, carried by the old hob on his boneyard horse around the Winter streets. When nobody is looking, the hob lifts his lantern to the streetlights and puts them out for a moment then, defeated by electricity, he moves on. His days of spreading dark across the country are almost gone, but he likes to remember.

5. A lantern that contains a tiny universe slowed almost to a standstill at the point that it bursts out from nothingness and begins to grow. This is, for the moment, an economical, technically-innovative method of providing perpetual energy. Quite what to do with the universe at the point that it gets bigger than the lantern is unsure. At current time-slowing technology, it will take more than a hundred years for the first universe lanterns to outgrow their enclosures, and we will surely have thought of something by then.

6. A lantern that is burning in the mirror, but is absent in the world that it reflects. The severed souls of vampires may light these as a warning that their bodies are close. If you keep hold of the mirror, you will see the lantern go out when you have reached a place that is safe.

7. The mournful ghost of something many-jointed and wet that lived at the time of the dinosaurs. Its physical body transmuted into oil and in turn the ghost became a kind of ghost-oil, ready to burst into spectral flame as its remains were lit. These ghosts gather in their millions over power stations. If you can see ghosts it is like a sea of flickering stars up there.

8. An unusual lantern which generates no light of its own, but works by elevating a large rock high enough that the sun will shine on it even at night time; otherwise known as the moon on a stick. May also work without the stick but, given that that would diminish the value of the stick, we at moons on sticks incorporated would much prefer not to risk it.

9. A small portal into mid-day yesterday which may be used both as a lantern and also as cctv footage which you can throw a rock into to disrupt if necessary. If you can find the other end of the portal, of course, you can look a small distance into the future: but the most you may be able to discern is that it is dark there.

[antiquated-rhapsodist]

Canon of the Multiverse, Part Two: Entangled Across an Ocean of Oceans (Subspace Swells and the Lens of Matter)

The ocean is never still. Tides and storms are omnipresent, even if not visible. There is always some variation in the water, inevitably forming waves. And through these waves, we can ascertain information that some might think unknowable.

Consider the diagram. The observer cannot see the position of the islands. But the waves from beyond the islands become interrupted as they pass by, and these disruptions are visible to the observer. With careful observation and consideration of the possibilities, the observer can make surprisingly accurate estimations of the size and position of the islands, even if they were previously not known to exist at all.

A similar principle can be seen to occur within subspace, the ocean of presumed nothingness between universes. Subspace was glossed over in the previous part of this work as "the shadows behind reality" or "the void", but now its true nature comes more into focus.

This phenomenon was first documented (unofficially) by the first group of invitees to the Super Smash Bros. competition. The participants encountered irregular invasions of mysterious creatures dubbed "Polygons", beings that appear to be composed of jagged purple crystals and possess suspiciously similar shapes and abilities as the twelve travellers. At the time, this was considered a curiosity of the confluence of so many disparate worlds at once, and not deeply investigated. Indeed, as familiarity with the many worlds increased, so too did the security measures against Polygon attacks, which have been entirely eliminated for many years now. But with modern knowledge, we now have the truth: Polygons are a projection of sapient beings, caused by the disruption of subspace swells, made real by the very same reality rays that said beings perceive the world with. This was called "quintessence", due to the belief at the time that it operated across a fifth dimension.

It was later discovered that it is not just people and animals that can have echoes of themselves manifest through the void. During the attack of the Subspace Army, other facets of surrounding universes were found to have subspacial counterparts, such as Bomb Blocks and Barrel Cannons. In addition, as more universes joined the confluence, it slowly became clear that many of them shared characteristics with one another despite having never directly interacted previously - one of the more blatant examples being the existence of a habitable planet called "Earth", the homeworld of the "humans", appearing in some form across several entirely unrelated universes.

It is therefore evident that disparate worlds can be so affected by subspace swells that entire solar systems are identical across them, even if there is no direct relation between them whatsoever. And as one universe with something in particular becomes many, the similar swells from them become greater, thus creating a positive feedback loop.

So, this begs the question: If such disparate worlds can be so affected by subspace swells that entire solar systems are identical across them, how many copies of any one person are active at a time?

Perhaps against my better judgement, I decided to explore. With some help from an anonymous source, I was able to fade into a universe much like my own. And lo and behold, I met an alternate version of myself. As expected, she was surprised at my appearance, but this was quickly allayed as I explained how I had come to arrive. She had my experience with ether, after all, and while she had not looked into the possibility of travelling to other worlds she was aware of it. We had a short conversation, mostly confirming that we shared the same life story, before I returned home.

I visited a few other universes in the same manner, and quickly discovered how much quintessence can vary in its accuracy. Sometimes, I found an exact duplicate of myself, down to the hopes and dreams. Other times, I found one who had experienced some events differently, or had made a different decision at one point. And sometimes, I found one with an eerily similar description of her adventure, yet a completely unique backstory, such as having an entirely different mother.

It is clear that while matter acts as a lens to the swell of subspace, there can be any number of disruptions before it crests upon a new world. It is not simply a rubber stamp, but a children's game of telephone, impacting with a new flair that does not quite match the original source.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, this is far from limited to one pair of worlds at a time. A universe can be affected by an innumerable number of disparate swells in uncountable combinations, based on the distances and angles between them, and one only needs basic wave theory to realise that this creates an entirely unique resulting effect. (The terms "distance" and "angle" as used here are meant to be higher-dimensional analogues of those the reader understands, rather than pretending that universes exist in three-dimensional space relative to each other.)

Now that we have established the nature of one world being affected by others, we return to the case where one is less affected but more contaminated.

The Polygons were the first to be documented, but they are far from the only possible result of reality being imposed upon the unreality. Another major example is an amorphous being dubbed the "Shadow Bug", by itself a simple mote of darkness, but many together are able to accurately replicate a potentially unlimited array of other beings. Compared to Polygons, which are a somewhat natural result of some forms of multiversal travel, Shadow Bugs are significantly less natural and tend to arise from what I am calling "asymmetrical ruptures". The classic asymmetrical rupture is a portal directly linking a world of three spatial dimensions to a world with only two, but other more esoteric forms exist.

I have reason to believe that the Fog King, and all similar phenomenons encountered during that time, are either a variant of Shadow Bugs or Shadow Bugs themselves. I will keep my reasons and sources concealed for the moment, as I suspect that publicising them at this time would be unwise. But the similarities are plain for all to see: an amorphous cloud of particles able to mimic or overcome other beings with strong connection to an apparent rift in spacial dimensions. It is somewhat unfortunate that I cannot prove or disprove this theory, as no Fog nor rifts currently exist to gather data from, and I am not going to create any simply for such.

[perspectivepodcast]

[Transcript] Side A: Infinity Times Infinity

In their song entitled ‘Sun’, music band Sleeping At Last sing: “We are the dust of dust. We are the apple of God’s eye. We are infinite as the universe we hold inside. Infinity times infinity.”

 In an interview to Krista Tippett for her ‘On Being’ podcast, physician and writer Rachel Naomi Remen tells a story her grandfather had told her when she was a child, the story of the first day of the world. “[T]his was my fourth birthday present, this story.” Remen recalls, “This is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning, there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. Then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident. And the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness in the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day. Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people; to lift it up and make it visible once again and, thereby, to restore the innate wholeness of the world. This is a very important story for our times — that we heal the world one heart at a time. This task is called “tikkun olam” in Hebrew, “restoring the world.”

Krista Tippett at this point of the interview asks Remen if there is “a connection between the story of the sparks and tikkun olam in Jewish tradition? Are they bound together?”

“They’re exactly the same.” Replies Remen, “Tikkun olam is the restoration of the world. And this is, of course, a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world. And that story opens a sense of possibility. It’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you.”

 In the prelude to her book ‘Figuring’, Maria Popova writes: “All of it — the rings of Saturn and my father’s wedding band, the underbelly of the clouds pinked by the rising sun, Einstein’s brain bathing in a jar of formaldehyde, every grain of sand that made the glass that made the jar and each idea Einstein ever had, the shepherdess singing in the Rila mountains of my native Bulgaria and each one of her sheep, every hair on Chance’s velveteen dog ears and Marianne Moore’s red braid and the whiskers of Montaigne’s cat, every translucent fingernail on my friend Amanda’s newborn son, every stone with which Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets before wading into the River Ouse to drown, every copper atom composing the disc that carried arias aboard the first human-made object to enter interstellar space and every oak splinter of the floor-boards onto which Beethoven collapsed in the fit of fury that cost him his hearing, the wetness of every tear that has ever been wept over a grave and the yellow of the beak of every raven that has ever watched the weepers, every cell in Galileo’s fleshy finger and every molecule of gas and dust that made the moons of Jupiter to which it pointed, the Dipper of freckles constellating the olive firmament of a certain forearm I love and every axonal flutter of the tenderness with which I love her, all the facts and figments by which we are perpetually figuring and reconfiguring reality — it all banged into being 13.8 billion years ago from a single source, no louder than the opening note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, no larger than the dot levitating over the small i, the I lowered from the pedestal of ego.

How can we know this and still succumb to the illusion of separateness, of otherness? This veneer must have been what the confluence of accidents and atoms known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saw through when he spoke of our “inescapable network of mutuality,” what Walt Whitman punctured when he wrote that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

One autumn morning, as I read a dead poet’s letters in my friend Wendy’s backyard in San Francisco, I glimpse a fragment of that atomic mutuality. Midsentence, my peripheral vision — that glory of instinct honed by millennia of evolution — pulls me toward a miraculous sight: a small, shimmering red leaf twirling in midair. It seems for a moment to be dancing its final descent. But no — it remains suspended there, six feet above ground, orbiting an invisible center by an invisible force. For an instant I can see how such imperceptible causalities could drive the human mind to superstition, could impel medieval villagers to seek explanation in magic and witchcraft. But then I step closer and notice a fine spider’s web glistening in the air above the leaf, conspiring with gravity in this spinning miracle.

Neither the spider has planned for the leaf nor the leaf for the spider — and yet there they are, an accidental pendulum propelled by the same forces that cradle the moons of Jupiter in orbit, animated into this ephemeral early-morning splendor by eternal cosmic laws impervious to beauty and indifferent to meaning, yet replete with both to the bewildered human consciousness beholding it.

We spend our lives trying to discern where we end and the rest of the world begins. We snatch our freeze-frame of life from the simultaneity of existence by holding on to illusions of permanence, congruence, and linearity; of static selves and lives that unfold in sensical narratives. All the while, we mistake chance for choice, our labels and models of things for the things themselves, our records for our history. History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance.

Some truths, like beauty, are best illuminated by the sidewise gleam of figuring, of meaning-making. In the course of our figuring, orbits intersect, often unbeknownst to the bodies they carry — intersections mappable only from the distance of decades or centuries. Facts crosshatch with other facts to shade in the nuances of a larger truth — not relativism, no, but the mightiest realism we have. We slice through the simultaneity by being everything at once: our first names and our last names, our loneliness and our society, our bold ambition and our blind hope, our unrequited and part-requited loves. Lives are lived in parallel and perpendicular, fathomed nonlinearly, figured not in the straight graphs of “biography” but in many-sided, many-splendored diagrams. Lives interweave with other lives, and out of the tapestry arise hints at answers to questions that raze to the bone of life: What are the building blocks of character, of contentment, of lasting achievement? How does a person come into self-possession and sovereignty of mind against the tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism? Does genius suffice for happiness, does distinction, does love? Two Nobel Prizes don’t seem to recompense the melancholy radiating from every photograph of the woman in the black laboratory dress. Is success a guarantee of fulfillment, or merely a promise as precarious as a marital vow? How, in this blink of existence bookended by nothingness, do we attain completeness of being?

There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

So much of the beauty, so much of what propels our pursuit of truth, stems from the invisible connections — between ideas, between disciplines, between the denizens of a particular time and a particular place, between the interior world of each pioneer and the mark they leave on the cave walls of culture, between faint figures who pass each other in the nocturne before the torchlight of a revolution lights the new day, with little more than a half-nod of kinship and a match to change hands.”

 We all come from nowhere, and from everywhere. But are we worthy of the infinity we contain and are?

 In her illustrated book ‘Eating the Sun’, writer and illustrator Ella Frances Sanders writes about the sense of awe the infinity we are made of and surrounded by inspires. “A sense of wonder can find you in many forms,” Sanders writes, “sometimes loudly, sometimes as a whispering, sometimes even hiding inside other feelings — being in love, or unbalanced, or blue.

For me, it is looking at the night for so long that my eyes ache and I’m stuck seeing stars for hours afterwards, watching the way the ocean sways itself to sleep, or as the sky washes itself in colors for which I know I will never have the words — a world made from layers of rock and fossil and glittered imaginings that keeps tripping me up, demanding I pay attention to one leaf at a time, ensuring I can never pick up quite where I left off.”

Astronomer and poet Rebecca Elson published only one collection of poetry in her too brief lifetime, and it was entitled ‘A Responsibility to Awe’. Are we ever able to live up to that responsibility to awe, to the universe in its infinitely changing expressions?

Sanders goes on: “Depending on where you look, what you touch, you are changing all the time. The carbon inside you, accounting for about 18 percent of your being, could have existed in any number of creatures or natural disasters before finding you. That particular atom residing somewhere above your left eyebrow? It could well have been a smooth, riverbed pebble before deciding to call you home.

You see, you are not so soft after all; you are rock and wave and the peeling bark of trees, you are ladybirds and the smell of a garden after the rain. When you put your best foot forward, you are taking the north side of a mountain with you. […]

A lot of our time is spent trying to tie up loose ends, trying to shape disorder into something recognizably smooth, trying to escape the very limits that hold us close, happily ignoring rough edges and the inevitable. We separate ourselves out into past, present, and future, if only to show that we have changed, that we know better, that we have understood something inherent; if only to draw neat lines from start to finish without looking back.

The problem is that chaos is always only ever sitting just across the table, frequently glancing up from its newspaper, from its coffee cup filled with discolored and imploding stars. Because chaos too waits. Waits for you to notice it, for you to realize it’s the most dazzling thing you’ve ever seen, for all of your atoms to collectively shriek in belated recognition and stare, mouth open, at how exquisitely embedded it is in everything. Because we are not designed to be more orderly than anything else; seams have a tendency to come apart with time — you and the universe are the same in this way, which makes for a delicately overwhelming struggle.

So, then, if you can’t ever end things neatly, can’t ever put them back quite the way you found them, surely the alternative is to remain stubbornly carbonated with possibility, to never rest from your rotation. To keep assembling stories between us, stories about how everything was everything, about how much we loved.”

 Tell me, can we really embrace the infinite facets of the same infinite oneness we all are?

[ashes-16-al-wallpapers]

[smokeybrandreviews]

Sextuplets

Last year, Azur Lane was on fire. All year, there was hitter after hitter. New events, rerun events; It didn’t matter, the content was top tier. As a KMS main, i was eating really good. This year hasn't been as embarrassing in it’s riches, and not just because there has only been a single Iron Blood event. My Kraut dock is brimming with ships so I'm okay with that. Give the Ruskies and the Itais some love, they need it. No, I'm speaking more on the fact that new Events are few and far in between. The content this year, just isn’t as good as last, and it’s glaringly so. Don’t misunderstand me, i am very glad we got what we got. I was able to pick up New Jersey on a Rerun and Confluence of Nothingness added another UR option to my Kraut dock, bringing the grand total of my Rainbow options to four, so, even with this significant step back with the overall content being released this year, i am more than content. And then they dropped the new Priority Ships. Two of which are Iron Blood. One of which, is another Rainbow.

I am, as we speak, in the process of grinding out Hindenburg. She is one of the two Decisive ships available in Priority Six. The other is an Eagle Union entry, Kearsarge. I’m not going to lie, i might make a run at her, too. I rarely, if ever, use Eagle Union ships but it’s hard not to want Kearsarge. Her design is dope and she’s a beast. However, my Deutsch girls come first and Hindenburg takes priority. If she ends up being anything like her other Decisive kin, she’s going to be a real goddamn problem for my enemies. Fried, Otto, and Agir are mainstays in my first Fleet. Their damage and leadership perks make for a really intimidating, and daunting to battle against, Iron Blood contingent. More than that, Hindenburg appears to be a Vanguard ship and i am in dire need of Vanguard Rainbow options. I only have San Diego to fill that spot and, again, she’s an Eagle Union who i never use, not since actual, natural, Ultra Rares have been introduced. The grind to Hindenburg is as grueling as ever but i am nearing it’s end. I’m sitting on sixty-three percent of that ludicrous twenty-four million Experience; Just the last bit to go and then she will be mine. Then i can move on to the second Iron Blood option in this Priority, Felix Schultz.

Schultz is an interesting ship to me. I love her design, it smacks of Meltryllis from Fate/Grand Order and we all know how much i simp for that entire franchise, so it’s a forgone conclusion i was going to become a fan but i have no idea what I'm going to do with her. She’s another Destroyer in a dock lousy with Destroyers. Hell, we JUST got Otto in the last KMS event! That sh*t ended a month ago! AND she's one of the best in the game! Never mind Otto, we have Z46, Z1, Z16, Z2, Z24, Z25, Z26, Z28, Z35, Z36, Z20, and Z21. Then there's the Starter for Iron Blood, Z23 who, to this day, is still a top tier ship after her Retrofit. Which i obviously completed. Admittedly, there are only two Super Rare Destroyers, Otto and Z23, so Schultz is a welcome addition in that regard but, come on? Thirteen f*cking options BEFORE Felix is released?? Are you serious? Listen, my KMS choices are fruitful but, like, how about giving me a Rainbow Carrier or something? Sakura got two, Hakuryuu and Shinano. Eagle Union is sitting on Yorktown II and Enterprise. Hell, Implacable is one of the best Ships in the entire game. Slide some of that Air Superiority the German way. I understand that there is a certain amount of historical accuracy in this game so it makes sense that the Japanese and the US have all the jets while the Germans dominate with their torpedoes and U-Boats but, come on? Bismarck Zwei exists and that is a made-up boat! Make up a goddamn Rainbow Carrier then! Felix does look to be a pretty solid ship, though. I’m sure I'll find a way to incorporate her into a Primary Deployment or whatever. I just wish she was a Carrier.

Priority Six is an impressive lot, no doubt. I still think the best season was Four, just in terms of sheer diversity and power, but six is nice in it’s own right. I mean, it’s really hard to argue against a class which includes Anchorage, Hakuryuu, Agir, and August von Parseval, as the strongest. There’s a great mix of diverse strength in this new class and i find myself kind of wanting all of them for one reason or another. We’ll see how that goes after i finish developing Hindenburg and Felix Schultz. Obviously, i have an eye toward Kearsarge but I'm not sure i want to invest the resources, and time, into the other two. I just don’t care enough about the Vichya Dominion and already have ship that does what Shimanto does, ready for deployment as we speak. There is a decent chance I'll end up making a run at these other boats, though, if I'm honest with myself. Like i mentioned above, Azur Lane has been pretty light on the content this year. I have ample time to do other things. Like, I've already constructed and maxed out Hakuryuu, something i never really expected to do, so why not throw two more ships i have no real interest in, into that lot, too?

[smokeybrand]

Sextuplets

Last year, Azur Lane was on fire. All year, there was hitter after hitter. New events, rerun events; It didn’t matter, the content was top tier. As a KMS main, i was eating really good. This year hasn't been as embarrassing in it’s riches, and not just because there has only been a single Iron Blood event. My Kraut dock is brimming with ships so I'm okay with that. Give the Ruskies and the Itais some love, they need it. No, I'm speaking more on the fact that new Events are few and far in between. The content this year, just isn’t as good as last, and it’s glaringly so. Don’t misunderstand me, i am very glad we got what we got. I was able to pick up New Jersey on a Rerun and Confluence of Nothingness added another UR option to my Kraut dock, bringing the grand total of my Rainbow options to four, so, even with this significant step back with the overall content being released this year, i am more than content. And then they dropped the new Priority Ships. Two of which are Iron Blood. One of which, is another Rainbow.

I am, as we speak, in the process of grinding out Hindenburg. She is one of the two Decisive ships available in Priority Six. The other is an Eagle Union entry, Kearsarge. I’m not going to lie, i might make a run at her, too. I rarely, if ever, use Eagle Union ships but it’s hard not to want Kearsarge. Her design is dope and she’s a beast. However, my Deutsch girls come first and Hindenburg takes priority. If she ends up being anything like her other Decisive kin, she’s going to be a real goddamn problem for my enemies. Fried, Otto, and Agir are mainstays in my first Fleet. Their damage and leadership perks make for a really intimidating, and daunting to battle against, Iron Blood contingent. More than that, Hindenburg appears to be a Vanguard ship and i am in dire need of Vanguard Rainbow options. I only have San Diego to fill that spot and, again, she’s an Eagle Union who i never use, not since actual, natural, Ultra Rares have been introduced. The grind to Hindenburg is as grueling as ever but i am nearing it’s end. I’m sitting on sixty-three percent of that ludicrous twenty-four million Experience; Just the last bit to go and then she will be mine. Then i can move on to the second Iron Blood option in this Priority, Felix Schultz.

Schultz is an interesting ship to me. I love her design, it smacks of Meltryllis from Fate/Grand Order and we all know how much i simp for that entire franchise, so it’s a forgone conclusion i was going to become a fan but i have no idea what I'm going to do with her. She’s another Destroyer in a dock lousy with Destroyers. Hell, we JUST got Otto in the last KMS event! That sh*t ended a month ago! AND she's one of the best in the game! Never mind Otto, we have Z46, Z1, Z16, Z2, Z24, Z25, Z26, Z28, Z35, Z36, Z20, and Z21. Then there's the Starter for Iron Blood, Z23 who, to this day, is still a top tier ship after her Retrofit. Which i obviously completed. Admittedly, there are only two Super Rare Destroyers, Otto and Z23, so Schultz is a welcome addition in that regard but, come on? Thirteen f*cking options BEFORE Felix is released?? Are you serious? Listen, my KMS choices are fruitful but, like, how about giving me a Rainbow Carrier or something? Sakura got two, Hakuryuu and Shinano. Eagle Union is sitting on Yorktown II and Enterprise. Hell, Implacable is one of the best Ships in the entire game. Slide some of that Air Superiority the German way. I understand that there is a certain amount of historical accuracy in this game so it makes sense that the Japanese and the US have all the jets while the Germans dominate with their torpedoes and U-Boats but, come on? Bismarck Zwei exists and that is a made-up boat! Make up a goddamn Rainbow Carrier then! Felix does look to be a pretty solid ship, though. I’m sure I'll find a way to incorporate her into a Primary Deployment or whatever. I just wish she was a Carrier.

Priority Six is an impressive lot, no doubt. I still think the best season was Four, just in terms of sheer diversity and power, but six is nice in it’s own right. I mean, it’s really hard to argue against a class which includes Anchorage, Hakuryuu, Agir, and August von Parseval, as the strongest. There’s a great mix of diverse strength in this new class and i find myself kind of wanting all of them for one reason or another. We’ll see how that goes after i finish developing Hindenburg and Felix Schultz. Obviously, i have an eye toward Kearsarge but I'm not sure i want to invest the resources, and time, into the other two. I just don’t care enough about the Vichya Dominion and already have ship that does what Shimanto does, ready for deployment as we speak. There is a decent chance I'll end up making a run at these other boats, though, if I'm honest with myself. Like i mentioned above, Azur Lane has been pretty light on the content this year. I have ample time to do other things. Like, I've already constructed and maxed out Hakuryuu, something i never really expected to do, so why not throw two more ships i have no real interest in, into that lot, too?

[smokeybrandreviews]

It Takes Zwei

It’s been a week since the newest KMS event dropped and i am chugging my way through at a decent clip. Seriously, i did not expect to be this far along, this quickly. As i mentioned in my last Azur Lane post, Much Ado About Nothingness, i was able to limit break almost all of the banner ships immediately. Rolling Zwei taxed the f*ck out of my pockets but, in the process, i was able to fully limit break both Regensburg and Otto so, in a weird sense, all those Cubes were worth it. The last ship i needed to unlock was Jade, the Points Accumulation ship. Since then, i have, indeed, added her to my Fleet and, interestingly enough, she was the first ship i was able to get full Affection with. Zwei followed suit while Regensburg and Otto are bring up the the rear. Both of them are in the low nineties, though, so it’s only a matter of battles at this point. I imagine the next Weekly Awards grind will top them off an i can wife them up. That’s right, i was able to Oath Zwei! That’s another UR ship, completely loyal and boosted. I love that sh*t. All that’s left now is to mac out their Levels and start the climb to 125. Maybe. Them Cognitive Arrays are hard to come by.

All that said, I'm at an impasse with U-556 META. Like i said before, i don’t particularly care for the META ships. Right now, i guess. But in my grind to get Zwei, i popped enough of U-556 to max her out as well. I had all of these META Crystals, more than enough to actually full max U-556′s Level but no goddamn desire to actually do it. Like, I've never actually invested resources into a META ship but U-556 is, technically, a KMS boat so, i mean, shouldn’t I? Well, a few days ago, i did. I’ve properly been grinding out the necessary materials and experience to max out my first META ship, based strictly on the fact that she is a Kraut. It’s kind of obnoxious but, you know, it is what it is and she is coming along nicely. I was able to fully Limit Break her, achieving Level ninety-eight in the process, and even maxed out all of her Rigging Fortifications. I had all of the necessary parts for that since they Manjuu just throws that sh*t at you and i never used any of them before. All that’s left is the Experience grind for Tactics and even that is well underway.

All in all, Confluence of Nothingness was pretty solid for my Fleet. I added four solid ships to my KMS dock, pretty much maxed out my first META ship, and even bought some solid costumes to boot. I mean, have you seen Taihou’s Seaside Daydream? That sh*t is just obnoxious! Speaking of Taihou, there’s a new Taihou-chan to be unlocked. Obviously, I'm well on my way to achieving just that with the level grinding I've been doing for the new KMS ships. It’s only a matter of time before the newest Chan is a permanent resident of my Fleet. Pretty sure I'm sitting on something close to nine hundred affection points right now so, you know, that thousand is only stone’s throw away. For the first, real event of the year, Nothingness was solid. I love the new ships and those costumes are dope. I even completed Jade’s little Memory deal and that, alone, was worth the price of admission. Or maybe I'm just shilling for Iron Blood. I am a notorious KMS apologist so, you know, there’s that. Now, who's the horned, purple haired chick in all of the load screen artwork with the new boats? Did Manjuu cut a ship? Could I have gotten five new KMS boats instead of four? What the hell??!

[smokeybrand]

It Takes Zwei

It’s been a week since the newest KMS event dropped and i am chugging my way through at a decent clip. Seriously, i did not expect to be this far along, this quickly. As i mentioned in my last Azur Lane post, Much Ado About Nothingness, i was able to limit break almost all of the banner ships immediately. Rolling Zwei taxed the f*ck out of my pockets but, in the process, i was able to fully limit break both Regensburg and Otto so, in a weird sense, all those Cubes were worth it. The last ship i needed to unlock was Jade, the Points Accumulation ship. Since then, i have, indeed, added her to my Fleet and, interestingly enough, she was the first ship i was able to get full Affection with. Zwei followed suit while Regensburg and Otto are bring up the the rear. Both of them are in the low nineties, though, so it’s only a matter of battles at this point. I imagine the next Weekly Awards grind will top them off an i can wife them up. That’s right, i was able to Oath Zwei! That’s another UR ship, completely loyal and boosted. I love that sh*t. All that’s left now is to mac out their Levels and start the climb to 125. Maybe. Them Cognitive Arrays are hard to come by.

All that said, I'm at an impasse with U-556 META. Like i said before, i don’t particularly care for the META ships. Right now, i guess. But in my grind to get Zwei, i popped enough of U-556 to max her out as well. I had all of these META Crystals, more than enough to actually full max U-556′s Level but no goddamn desire to actually do it. Like, I've never actually invested resources into a META ship but U-556 is, technically, a KMS boat so, i mean, shouldn’t I? Well, a few days ago, i did. I’ve properly been grinding out the necessary materials and experience to max out my first META ship, based strictly on the fact that she is a Kraut. It’s kind of obnoxious but, you know, it is what it is and she is coming along nicely. I was able to fully Limit Break her, achieving Level ninety-eight in the process, and even maxed out all of her Rigging Fortifications. I had all of the necessary parts for that since they Manjuu just throws that sh*t at you and i never used any of them before. All that’s left is the Experience grind for Tactics and even that is well underway.

All in all, Confluence of Nothingness was pretty solid for my Fleet. I added four solid ships to my KMS dock, pretty much maxed out my first META ship, and even bought some solid costumes to boot. I mean, have you seen Taihou’s Seaside Daydream? That sh*t is just obnoxious! Speaking of Taihou, there’s a new Taihou-chan to be unlocked. Obviously, I'm well on my way to achieving just that with the level grinding I've been doing for the new KMS ships. It’s only a matter of time before the newest Chan is a permanent resident of my Fleet. Pretty sure I'm sitting on something close to nine hundred affection points right now so, you know, that thousand is only stone’s throw away. For the first, real event of the year, Nothingness was solid. I love the new ships and those costumes are dope. I even completed Jade’s little Memory deal and that, alone, was worth the price of admission. Or maybe I'm just shilling for Iron Blood. I am a notorious KMS apologist so, you know, there’s that. Now, who's the horned, purple haired chick in all of the load screen artwork with the new boats? Did Manjuu cut a ship? Could I have gotten five new KMS boats instead of four? What the hell??!