#to them the idea of co-existing in harmony is impossible

[idontmindifuforgetme]

its not american culture but white culture tbh. my family is russian/german and my mom expected us to move out and be self-sufficient by the age of 20. even though we pay rent to live at home too. from what i heard from previous jobs/friends brown/especially muslim families keep their children at home until they get married, some stay with their families until they are in their 30s lmao my mom would kick me out at that point ruthlessly. its true that white families are colder and less welcoming of their own children. why bring a child into the world when all you do is wait until it leaves home? its questionable

this is insane to me!! and yes ur correct in ur assessment—it’s very normal in that culture/not seen as a negative at all, whereas in american culture you’re seen as a freeloader. it’s also worth mentioning that a lot of arab people choose to live w their family not for financial reasons, but bc they legit don’t wanna live away from loved ones. family is infinitely important in arab culture, in the same way it’s infinitely neglected in american culture. moving out is normal too (if u also happen to be american lol), but so is being surrounded w family voluntarily. if ur family is lax enough, which is mine is, its ultimately up to u what u wanna do.

for my family in particular my mom doesn’t want me to live w her so much as she wants to take care of me, bc to her ill always be her responsibility regardless of age. she always told me that no matter where i live, she will always be happy to support me. i rly won the jackpot bc she has granted me both autonomy and a support system no matter what, when by contrast a lot of more strict brown families might not be okay w that kind of freedom (i felt it necessary to emphasize this btw bc the stereotype of all brown parents being conservative and stifling is grossly overapplied—my mom is proof it’s not true). but white families are so fucking COLD to each other (not ALL of them btw!! as always people and situations aren’t a one size fits all) and being kicked out of the house seems to be the standard. i find that so fucked up

[dailyanarchistposts]

Section E — What do anarchists think causes ecological problems?

This section of the FAQ expands upon section D.4 (“What is the relationship between capitalism and the ecological crisis?”) in which we indicated that since capitalism is based upon the principle of “grow or die,” a “green” capitalism is impossible. By its very nature capitalism must expand, creating new markets, increasing production and consumption, and so invading more ecosystems, using more resources, and upsetting the interrelations and delicate balances that exist with ecosystems. We have decided to include a separate section on this to stress how important green issues are to anarchism and what a central place ecology has in modern anarchism.

Anarchists have been at the forefront of ecological thinking and the green movement for decades. This is unsurprisingly, as many key concepts of anarchism are also key concepts in ecological thought. In addition, the ecological implications of many anarchist ideas (such as decentralisation, integration of industry and agriculture, and so forth) has meant that anarchists have quickly recognised the importance of ecological movements and ideas.

Murray Bookchin in particular has placed anarchist ideas at the centre of green debate as well as bringing out the links anarchism has with ecological thinking. His eco-anarchism (which he called social ecology) was based on emphasising the social nature of the ecological problems we face. In such classic works as Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society and The Ecology of Freedom he has consistently argued that humanity’s domination of nature is the result of domination within humanity itself.

However, anarchism has always had an ecological dimension. As Peter Marshall notes in his extensive overview of ecological thought, ecologists “find in Proudhon two of their most cherished social principles: federalism and decentralisation.” He “stands as an important forerunner of the modern ecological movement for his stress on the close communion between humanity and nature, for his belief in natural justice, for his doctrine of federalism and for his insight that liberty is the mother and not the daughter of order.” [Nature’s Web, p. 307 and p. 308] For Proudhon, a key problem was that people viewed the land as “something which enables them to levy a certain revenue each year. Gone is the deep feeling for nature.” People “no longer love the soil. Landowners sell it, lease it, divide it into shares, prostitute it, bargain with it and treat it as an object of speculation. Farmers torture it, violate it, exhaust it and sacrifice it to their impatient desire for gain. They never become one with it.” We “have lost our feeling for nature.” [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 261]

Other precursors of eco-anarchism can be found in Peter Kropotkin’s writings. For example, in his classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops, Kropotkin argued the case for “small is beautiful” 70 years before E. F. Schumacher coined the phase, advocating “a harmonious balance between agriculture and industry. Instead of the concentration of large factories in cities, he called for economic as well as social decentralisation, believing that diversity is the best way to organise production by mutual co-operation. He favoured the scattering of industry throughout the country and the integration of industry and agriculture at the local level.” His vision of a decentralised commonwealth based on an integration of agriculture and industry as well as manual and intellectual work has obvious parallels with much modern green thought, as does his stress on the need for appropriate levels of technology and his recognition that the capitalist market distorts the development, size and operation of technology and industry. Through his investigations in geography and biology, Kropotkin discovered species to be interconnected with each other and with their environment. Mutual Aid is the classic source book on the survival value of co-operation within species which Kropotkin regarded as an important factor of evolution, arguing that those who claim competition within and between species is the chief or only factor have distorted Darwin’s work. All this ensures that Kropotkin is “a great inspiration to the modern ecological movement.” [Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 311 and p. 312]

As well as Kropotkin’s work, special note must be made of French anarchist Elisee Reclus. As Clark and Martin note, Reclus introduced “a strongly ecological dimension into the tradition of anarchist and libertarian social theory”. He made “a powerful contribution to introducing this more ecological perspective into anarchist thought,” of “looking beyond the project of planetary domination and attempting to restore humanity to its rightful place within, rather than above, nature.” Reclus, “much more than Kropotkin, introduced into anarchist theory themes that were later developed in social ecology and eco-anarchism.” [John P. Clark and Camille Martin (ed.), Anarchy, Geography, Modernity, p. 19] For example, in 1866 Reclus argued as follows:

“Wild nature is so beautiful. Is it really necessary for man, in seizing it, to proceed with mathematical precision in exploiting each new conquered domain and then mark his possession with vulgar constructions and perfectly straight boundaries? If this continues to occur, the harmonious contrasts that are one of the beauties of the earth will soon give way to depressing uniformity … “The question of knowing which of the works of man serves to beautify and which contributes to the degradation of external nature can seem pointless to so-called practical minds; nevertheless, it is a matter of the greatest importance. Humanity’s development is most intimately connected with the nature that surrounds it. A secret harmony exists between the earth and the peoples whom it nourishes, and when reckless societies allow themselves to meddle with that which creates the beauty of their domain, they always end up regretting it.” [quoted by Clark and Martin, Op. Cit., pp. 125–6]

“Man,” Reclus says, can find beauty in “the intimate and deeply seated harmony of his work with that of nature.” Like the eco-anarchists a century later, he stressed the social roots of our environmental problems arguing that a “complete union of Man with Nature can only be effected by the destruction of the frontiers between castes as well as between peoples.” He also indicated that the exploitation of nature is part and parcel of capitalism, for “it matters little to the industrialist … whether he blackens the atmosphere with fumes … or contaminates it with foul-smelling vapours.” “Since nature is so often desecrated by speculators precisely because of its beauty,” Reclus argued, “it is not surprising that farmers and industrialists, in their own exploitative endeavours, fail to consider whether they contribute to defacing the land.” The capitalist is “concerned not with making his work harmonious with the landscape.” [quoted by Clark and Martin, Op. Cit., p. 28, p. 30, p. 124 and p. 125] Few modern day eco-anarchists would disagree.

So, while a specifically ecological anarchism did not develop until the revolutionary work done by Murray Bookchin from the 1950’s onwards, anarchist theory has had a significant “proto-green” content since at least the 1860s. What Bookchin and writers like him did was to make anarchism’s implicit ecological aspects explicit, a work which has immensely enriched anarchist theory and practice.

In addition to pointing out the key role ecology plays within anarchism, this section is required to refute some commonly proposed solutions to the ecological problems we face. While it is wonderful that green ideas have becoming increasingly commonplace, the sad fact is that many people have jumped on the green bandwagon whose basic assumptions and practices are deeply anti-ecological. Thus we find fascists expounding on their environmental vision or defenders of capitalism proposing “ecological” solutions based on expanding private property rights. Similarly, we find the notion of green consumerism raised as viable means of greening the planet (rather than as an addition to social struggle) or a focus on symptoms (such as population growth) rather than root causes. This section refutes many such flawed suggestions.

A key concept to remember in our discussion is that between environmentalism and ecology. Following Bookchin, eco-anarchists contrast their ideas with those who seek to reform capitalism and make it more green (a position they term “environmentalism” rather than ecology). The latter “focus on specific issues like air and water pollution” while ignoring the social roots of the problems they are trying to solve. In other words, their outlook “rest[s] on an instrumental, almost engineering approach to solving ecological dislocations. To all appearances, they wanted to adapt the natural world to the needs of the existing society and its exploitative, capitalist imperatives by way of reforms that minimise harm to human health and well-being. The much-needed goals of formulating a project for radical social change and for cultivating a new sensibility toward the natural world tended to fall outside the orbit of their practical concerns.” Eco-anarchists, while supporting such partial struggles, stress that “these problems originate in a hierarchical, class, and today, competitive capitalist system that nourishes a view of the natural world as a mere agglomeration of ‘resources’ for human production and consumption.” [The Ecology of Freedom, pp. 15–6] This means that while some kind of environmentalism may be possible under capitalism or some other authoritarian system, an ecological approach is impossible. Simply put, the concerns of ecology cannot be squeezed into a hierarchical perspective or private property. Just as an eco-system cannot be commanded, divided and enclosed, nor can a truly ecological vision. Attempts to do so will impoverish both.

As we discuss in the next section, for anarchists the root cause of our ecological problems is hierarchy in society compounded by a capitalist economy. For anarchists, the notion of an ecological capitalism is, literally, impossible. Libertarian socialist Takis Fotopoulous has argued that the main reason why the project of “greening” capitalism is just a utopian dream “lies in a fundamental contradiction that exists between the logic and dynamic of the growth economy, on the one hand, and the attempt to condition this dynamic with qualitative interests” on the other. [“Development or Democracy?”, pp. 57–92, Society and Nature, No. 7, p. 82] Green issues, like social ones, are inherently qualitative in nature and, as such, it is unsurprising that a system based on profit would ignore them.

Under capitalism, ethics, nature and humanity all have a price tag. And that price tag is god. This is understandable as every hierarchical social system requires a belief-system. Under feudalism, the belief-system came from the Church, whereas under capitalism, it pretends to come from science, whose biased practitioners (usually funded by the state and capital) are the new priesthood. Like the old priesthoods, only those members who produce “objective research” become famous and influential — “objective research” being that which accepts the status quo as “natural” and produces what the elite want to hear (i.e. apologetics for capitalism and elite rule will always be praised as “objective” and “scientific” regardless of its actual scientific and factual content, the infamous “bell curve” and Malthus’s “Law of Population” being classic examples). More importantly, capitalism needs science to be able to measure and quantify everything in order to sell it. This mathematical faith is reflected in its politics and economics, where quantity is more important than quality, where 5 votes are better than 2 votes, where $5 is better than $2. And like all religions, capitalism needs sacrifice. In the name of “free enterprise,” “economic efficiency,” “stability” and “growth” it sacrifices individuality, freedom, humanity, and nature for the power and profits of the few.

Understanding the social roots of the problems we face is the key. Many greens attack what they consider the “wrong ideas” of modern society, its “materialistic values” and counter-pose new ideas, more in tune with a green society. This approach, however, misses the point. Ideas and values do not “just happen”, but are the product of a given set of social relationships and the struggles they produce. This means that it is not just a matter of changing our values in a way that places humanity in harmony with nature (important though that is), but also of understanding the social and structural origins of the ecological crisis. Ideas and values do need to be challenged, but unless the authoritarian social relationships, hierarchy and inequalities in power (i.e. what produces these values and ideas) are also challenged and, more importantly, changed an ecological society is impossible. So unless other Greens recognise that this crisis did not develop in a social vacuum and is not the “fault” of people as people (as opposed to people in a hierarchical society), little can be done root out the systemic causes of the problems that we and the planet face.

Besides its alliance with the ecology movement, eco-anarchism also finds allies in the feminist and peace movements, which it regards, like the ecology movement, as implying the need for anarchist principles. Thus eco-anarchists think that global competition between nation-states is responsible not only for the devouring of nature but is also the primary cause of international military tensions, as nations seek to dominate each other by military force or the threat thereof. As international competition becomes more intense and weapons of mass destruction spread, the seeds are being sown for catastrophic global warfare involving nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons. Because such warfare would be the ultimate ecological disaster, eco-anarchism and the peace movement are but two aspects of the same basic project. Similarly, eco-anarchists recognise that domination of nature and male domination of women have historically gone hand in hand, so that eco-feminism is yet another aspect of eco-anarchism. Since feminism, ecology, and peace are key issues of the Green movement, anarchists believe that many Greens are implicitly committed to anarchism, whether they realise it or not, and hence that they should adopt anarchist principles of direct action rather than getting bogged down in trying to elect people to state offices.

Here we discuss some of the main themes of eco-anarchism and consider a few suggestions by non-anarchists about how to protect the environment. In section E.1, we summarise why anarchists consider why a green society cannot be a capitalist one (and vice versa). Section E.2 presents a short overview of what an ecological society would be like. Section E.3 refutes the false capitalist claim that the answer to the ecological crisis is to privatise everything while section E.4 discusses why capitalism is anti-ecological and its defenders, invariably, anti-green. Then we indicate why green consumerism is doomed to failure in section E.5 before, in section E.6, refuting the myth that population growth is a cause of ecological problems rather than the effect of deeper issues.

Obviously, these are hardly the end of the matter. Some tactics popular in the green movement are shared by others and we discuss these elsewhere. For example, the issue of electing Green Parties to power will be addressed in section J.2.4 (“Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?”) and so will be ignored here. The question of “single-issue” campaigns (like C.N.D. and Friends of the Earth) will be discussed in section J.1.4. Remember that eco-anarchists, like all anarchists, take a keen interest in many other issues and struggles and just because we do not discuss something here does not mean we are indifferent to it.

For anarchists, unless we resolve the underlying contradictions within society, which stem from domination, hierarchy and a capitalist economy, ecological disruption will continue and grow, putting our Earth in increasing danger. We need to resist the system and create new values based on quality, not quantity. We must return the human factor to our alienated society before we alienate ourselves completely off the planet.

Peter Marshall’s Nature’s Web presents a good overview of all aspects of green thought over human history from a libertarian perspective, including excellent summaries of such anarchists as Proudhon, Kropotkin and Bookchin (as well as libertarian socialist William Morris and his ecologically balanced utopia News from Nowhere).

[nightfall-by-jacqui-natla]

10. INTRODUCTION

I TURNED TO CARLISLE WITH A BURNING question that had been nagging at me as we made our way through Forks Airport, preparing to board a plane to BWI Airport. "So, those people in London, you know them?" I inquired, my interest piqued.

He nodded, a faint smile dancing on his lips. "He's been a close friend of mine for quite some time," he replied.

"By quite some time, do you mean centuries?" I teased, but Carlisle's expression remained solemn.

"The leader of the coven is named Gabriel. The two co-leaders are Joseph and Simon. I resided with the coven for many years before departing for the New World, or America as it is now called," he explained.

I was captivated by his connection to the London coven. "Seems like you guys have a strong bond," I remarked.

Carlisle chuckled softly. "Well, Gabriel was the one who changed me."

"Really?" I exclaimed, taken aback by the revelation.

"Yes, he saved me from a life of suffering and loneliness. I owe him a great deal," Carlisle replied, his eyes reflecting gratitude.

I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe towards Gabriel and the London coven. "What are they like? Are they similar to you in any way?" I inquired, eager to learn more about this mysterious group of vampires.

"They share our values of compassion and restraint, but they have their own unique customs and traditions," Carlisle explained. "They drink animal blood like me and my family and have a deep respect for human life, striving to coexist peacefully with them."

"I'm guessing you're not the human blood sort of guy," I said, trying to hide my revulsion at the thought.

"I don't like the idea of taking someone's life to let me live," he admitted. "When I discovered that I can drink animal blood, I tried to perfect the diet. It took me years, but I managed to get the hang of it."

"I wish I could say the same," I muttered, feeling ashamed of my own struggles with the diet.

"Don't worry. You'll get used to your diet," Carlisle reassured me. "You're not the first vampire that came to me for help to escape."

I was taken aback by his words. "Who was the first vampire you helped escape?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

But Carlisle just smiled enigmatically, his eyes twinkling with secrets. "That's a story for another time," he said, and I knew not to press the matter any further.

As we continued our conversation, I couldn't shake the feeling of excitement and anticipation at the thought of meeting the London coven. Their history and connection to Carlisle only added to the mystery and allure of the vampire world that I had become a part of.

As we settled into our seats on the plane, I couldn't help but wonder about the dynamics of the London coven. What kind of vampires were they? Were they as compassionate and ethical as Carlisle? I made a mental note to ask him more about his time with them once we landed in Baltimore.

Throughout the flight, Carlisle shared stories of his past with the London coven. He spoke of their shared struggles and triumphs, their unwavering loyalty to each other, and their commitment to living peacefully among humans. It was clear that the bond between them ran deep, forged through centuries of friendship and mutual respect.

As we touched down at BWI Airport, I couldn't shake the feeling of awe and admiration for the London coven. Their existence was a testament to the possibility of vampires living harmoniously with humans, a concept that seemed almost impossible in the world I had known before meeting Carlisle and his family.

Carlisle did manage effortlessly secured a private plane back at his place, a luxury reserved for the elite few. As a doctor, his financial status was no secret, but the ease with which he obtained the aircraft was impressive nonetheless. For me, it was a relief. The temptation of human blood still lingered, a constant reminder of my true nature. Boarding the private plane, we soared through the clouds towards London, leaving behind the mundane world below.

The journey through the skies was a gruelling eight-hour affair, as we soared towards the bustling metropolis of London. As the plane finally touched down, Carlisle and I rose from our seats, eagerly anticipating the adventure that lay ahead. The door creaked open, and we stepped out onto the tarmac, greeted by the sight of three imposing figures.

My anticipation soared, my mind racing with excitement as I instinctively enveloped myself in a cloak of invisibility, unsure of what these strangers would bring. In contrast, Carlisle's face lit up with pure delight, his smile giving away his familiarity with these enigmatic men.

"Gabriel," Carlisle's voice exuded warmth as he pulled the towering vampire into a tight embrace. The two men held each other tightly, lost in the moment of their long-awaited reunion.

"Carlisle, my old friend," Gabriel's voice resonated with a deep, velvety smoothness as his arms wrapped around Carlisle in return. "It has been far too long."

As they slowly released each other, I couldn't tear my eyes away from Gabriel. He seemed ethereal, like a phantom, with his almost translucent skin that defied the absence of sunlight. His eyes shimmered like molten gold, captivating and mesmerizing, while his short, curly black hair effortlessly framed his face. He possessed a commanding presence, standing tall at six-foot-two, his muscular physique a testament to his immense strength. His square face boasted a broad forehead, a chiseled jawline, and cheekbones that could rival any sculpture. Every inch of his attire was cloaked in darkness - his jacket, pants, shoes, even his shirt and tie, all black, exuding an air of mystery and power.

"How is your family?" Gabriel inquired, his velvety smooth voice tinged with genuine concern.

Carlisle beamed. "We've had our fair share of challenges, but we're doing well."

The other vampire, positioned beside Gabriel on his left, chimed in. "And what about the newborn?"

Carlisle's expression turned grave. "Rest assured, she is here, Simon."

Simon was a distinct breed of vampire compared to Gabriel. He possessed a slender and agile frame, with light brown locks and a visage that almost resembled that of a young man in his early thirties. His golden eyes exuded warmth and hospitality, and he sported a casual ensemble of jeans and a sweater. His face possessed a captivating charm, highlighted by a subtly defined jawline adorned with a touch of light stubble. He seemed to possess a gentler approach than Gabriel and the other vampire, yet I could sense the underlying power that lay beneath his serene exterior.

"Hey, stop fooling around, Carlisle," the third vampire grumbled in his strong Cockney accent. "I don't have time for games, mate."

Carlisle's voice remained composed. "I can assure you, Joseph, this is no laughing matter. She's right here in front of us. But she's invisible."

Joseph, with his scruffy appearance, had short dark hair and a fair complexion. His heart-shaped face bore a resemblance to Simon's, complete with a light dusting of stubble. Clad in a black leather jacket over a burgundy hoodie, dark denim jeans, and black fingerless gloves, his worn-out boots completed his rugged look.

Joseph crossed his arms, his piercing gold eyes narrowing in skepticism. "Invisible, you say? Are you sure you haven't finally lost your marbles, Carlisle?"

"Joseph," Gabriel interjected calmly. "Carlisle wouldn't organize a whole gathering just for a... what do humans call it when they deceive others in a playful manner?"

"A prank?" I responded, still unseen by them.

"Ah, yes, thank you."

Joseph's skepticism only deepened as he glanced around the room, searching for any sign of the supposed invisible presence. His sharp features were set in a scowl, his disbelief evident in the way his brows furrowed.

Gabriel, ever the voice of reason, placed a reassuring hand on Joseph's shoulder. "Trust me, Joseph. Carlisle may be many things, but he is not one to play pranks on us. There must be a logical explanation for this."

Joseph's gaze flickered between Gabriel and the empty space where I stood, his mind clearly racing with possibilities. Finally, with a resigned sigh, he unfolded his arms and shook his head. "Fine, I'll entertain this idea for now. But if this turns out to be some elaborate joke, Carlisle will never hear the end of it from me."

As the conversation continued, I couldn't help but smirk at Joseph's stubbornness. Despite his tough exterior, there was a hint of curiosity in his eyes that betrayed his true feelings. And as the mystery of my invisible presence unraveled, I knew that Joseph's skepticism would soon give way to wonder and amazement.

Simon, on the other hand, remained stoic and reserved, his eyes darting back and forth as if trying to make sense of the situation. His skepticism was palpable, a barrier he had erected to protect himself from the unknown.

Gabriel, however, seemed unfazed by it all. His calm demeanor and unwavering gaze spoke volumes about his confidence and belief in the supernatural. It was clear that he was no stranger to the unexplainable.

Finally, Joseph's voice broke the silence, his tone a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. "I can feel her presence, but I can't see her. What's going on, Carlisle?" he asked, his eyes searching for answers.

Carlisle's voice tinged with frustration as he addressed me and my unseen figure, "Can you please reveal yourself now?"

As the words hung in the air, I hesitated for a moment, relishing in the anticipation of their reactions. I took a deep breath and spoke up. "I'm here," I said. "I'm the one you've been waiting for."

Slowly, I materialized before their eyes, my ethereal form becoming solid and tangible. Joseph's eyes widened in astonishment, his tough exterior momentarily crumbling as he stared at me in disbelief.

"I...I can see her now," he stammered, his voice filled with awe. "This is incredible."

Simon, ever the cautious one, observed me with a mix of skepticism and fascination. His eyes darted from my face to my translucent figure, trying to make sense of the inexplicable.

Gabriel, on the other hand, remained calm and composed, his inscrutable expression unchanging. It was as if he had expected this revelation all along, his serene demeanor hinting at a deeper understanding of the situation.

"You're a fresh one, aren't you? I can sense it," Joseph was the first to engage me in a genuine conversation, breaking the ice with his observation.

I nodded, acknowledging his perception. "Yeah, I'm still kinda new to the whole vampire lifestyle."

Simon's eyes narrowed, his voice laced with a dangerous edge. "And what did your creator tell you?"

Meeting his gaze head-on, I held my ground. "She spun a web of lies, only for me to unravel the truth on my own."

The area fell into a heavy silence, the weight of my words hanging in the air.

Gabriel finally spoke up, his voice calm and measured. "It seems like you have a lot to learn, but don't worry, we'll help you navigate this new world."

A soft chuckle escaped Carlisle's lips, like a gentle breeze rustling through the leaves of a tree. Gabriel stood there, arms folded, in awe of what he had just witnessed. "I've seen gifted vampires before, but nothing quite like this."

Simon glanced at me, his eyes filled with an insatiable curiosity. "What is your name?" he inquired, his voice a velvety whisper.

"Violet," I responded confidently. "My name is Violet."

Simon's unwavering gaze remained fixed on me as he continued, "How long have you been a newborn, Violet?"

"Three months," I murmured, my voice barely audible.

Joseph stepped forward, mischief dancing in his eyes. "And can you vanish into thin air, luv?" he asked, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

"To the best of my knowledge, yes," I replied, my heart racing within my chest.

"How so?" Gabriel interjected, his eyebrows arching in surprise.

"I might possess other abilities too," I hinted, a sense of mystery lingering in the air.

Simon's eyes widened with intrigue, his curiosity piqued even further. "Such as?" he pressed, his voice tinged with excitement.

For a moment, I hesitated, contemplating whether or not to reveal the true extent of my abilities. However, there was something in Simon's eyes that urged me to trust him, to share my deepest secrets.

"I can create purple light and project it from my hands," I confessed, my voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know the best way to describe it, I'm still trying to figure it out."

Simon's eyes sparkled with wonder, his mind racing with the possibilities of what I could do.

"Purple light?" Joseph exclaimed, his eyes widening in disbelief as he glanced over at Carlisle.

Carlisle shrugged, a smirk playing on his lips. "Well, you heard her. Sounds like you've got yourselves a real magician in your midst."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Prove it," he challenged, his tone daring me to demonstrate my powers.

Taking a deep breath, I focused all of my energy on the ebb and flow of time surrounding me. And in an instant, my hands radiated with the familiar glow of the enchanting purple light. Simon's excitement grew, his eyes fixed on my hands as if they held the key to a whole new world, and even Gabriel's skepticism wavered for a moment.

Joseph's jaw dropped, his disbelief replaced by awe. "That's amazing," he murmured, his voice filled with wonder.

But as quickly as the display of my powers had begun, it faded away, and my hands returned to their normal vampire pale skin.

I couldn't believe that I had just bared my soul to these strangers, divulging every intimate detail of my life. And yet, there was a strange sense of comfort that settled over me, a feeling of safety that I couldn't quite explain.

Was it foolish to trust them so easily? Perhaps. But I couldn't help but feel a sense of belonging with these enigmatic individuals, despite the fact that I knew next to nothing about them. It was a strange and unsettling feeling, one that left me questioning my own sanity.

Gabriel broke the silence, his voice filled with newfound respect. "I stand corrected," he admitted, his skepticism replaced by a newfound belief. "You are like a magician, but at the same time you're not. You're something far more than I ever thought."

His words were a balm to my soul, a salve to the wounds inflicted by Gavin, my pitiful excuse for a father, and the likes of Riley and Victoria. No one had ever taken the time to explain to me the nature of the world I was born into. I was thrust into this existence as a mortal human, only to be reborn as a vampire without any semblance of understanding.

I took a deep breath and scanned their expressions for any hint of disapproval. "Will the rest of the coven accept me?" I murmured softly.

"They will," Simon assured me, his voice calm and comforting. "We've never encountered vampires quite like you."

Joseph joined in with a laugh, his eyes gleaming mischievously. "And if they don't, we'll have to have a serious talk."

His words made me smile, feeling a wave of warmth and belonging wash over me. I turned to Carlisle, embracing him tightly. He returned the hug, radiating love and understanding.

"Thank you, Carlisle," I whispered, barely audible.

"You're most welcome," he replied, his eyes shining with pride.

As we parted, I found myself gazing into his eyes, a sense of connection unlike any other filling me.

"Please pass on my best wishes to Bella," I murmured, and he nodded solemnly.

Gabriel, who had been listening in, spoke up with curiosity. "Bella? Who is she?"

Carlisle turned to him, a playful glint in his eyes. "Ah, Edward has found himself a special someone," he said with a grin.

Joseph, always the jester, chimed in with a hearty laugh. "It's about time, isn't it?"

"Bella is Edward's human mate," Carlisle explained, his voice filled with a mix of joy and amusement. "They have a bond that goes beyond anything we've ever seen before."

Gabriel's eyes widened in surprise, and he exchanged a quick glance with the others. "A human mate? That's...unusual, isn't it?"

Carlisle nodded, his smile widening. "Indeed, it is. But love knows no boundaries, and Edward and Bella have found something truly extraordinary.”

Simon chuckled softly, his eyes twinkling with understanding. "Well, if Edward has found his soulmate, then the rest of the coven will surely accept him with open arms. Love is a powerful force, after all."

Gabriel nodded in agreement before adding, "Please extend our warmest congratulations to Edward."

Carlisle's smile grew even wider. "I most certainly will. Until next time, my friends.”

Until next time. Those words held a different weight now. I couldn't help but recall the mysterious girl in the dark cloak saying them to Felix with a menacing tone. Carlisle's farewell, on the other hand, was warm and reassuring.

"Goodbye, Carlisle," I murmured, my voice barely audible amidst the roar of the jet engines.

I observed his departure into the opulent interior of his personal aircraft, a twinge of sorrow gripping my heart. It's always tough to bid farewell to someone you hold dear, even if it's just temporary.

As I shifted my gaze away from the plane, I caught sight of the three vampires standing behind me. Gabriel, Joseph, and Simon. They were my newfound family, and I was excited to deepen our bond.

"Are you prepared to meet my family?" Gabriel inquired, his tone suave and self-assured.

I nodded, a surge of anticipation coursing through me.

This marked the beginning of a fresh chapter in my life.

Gabriel clapped his hands together and made his way towards a sleek black Mercedes parked nearby. Joseph trailed closely behind, with Simon and I following suit.

The car itself was a masterpiece, boasting elegant contours and gleaming metal. Settling into the plush backseat beside Simon, a sense of anticipation began to bubble within me. The engine roared to life, propelling the vehicle forward, leaving the airport in our wake.

As we traversed the dimly lit streets, a profound sense of awe enveloped me. Everything felt novel and exhilarating, and with my soon-to-be family by my side, I knew that the realm of possibilities stretched endlessly before me.

As we cruised down the highway, the hum of the Mercedes engine lulled me into a sense of security. It had been forty-five minutes since we left the airport, and I couldn't help but marvel at how quickly my life had changed. Just a few hours ago, I was a regular person, going about my business. But now, I was a bloodthirsty monster, thanks to Victoria and her deadly skills.

The memory of the three men who followed me to a back alley still sent shivers down my spine, which was unknowingly to be my last night as a human. But with Gabriel, Joseph, and Simon by my side, I felt safe. There was something about them that exuded strength and security. Simon, in particular, had a warmth about him that put me at ease.

Gabriel, the leader of the coven, commanded respect with his mere presence. And Joseph, with his tough persona, was someone you wouldn't want to mess with. Despite only knowing them for a few seconds, it felt like I had known them for a lifetime.

As we continued on our journey, I couldn't help but wonder what other surprises awaited me in this new world. But with my newfound companions, I knew I was ready for anything.

Gabriel sat in the driver's seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel with a sense of purpose. Joseph sat next to him, his eyes scanning the darkened road ahead. I sat in the back with Simon, the silence between us palpable. As we drove, I couldn't help but watch the road zooming by, the world outside a blur of motion.

But then, my eyes were drawn to the night sky, where the full moon shone bright and bold. It was a beautiful sight, but it was quickly overshadowed by the howling in the distance. I swallowed nervously, my anxiety slowly rising. It could be those wolves that I saw earlier today.

"Don't worry about them, Violet," Joseph's voice broke through the silence, making me turn my head. "Those Children of the Moon won't bother us."

"Children of the Moon?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"That's what they're called," Joseph replied, his voice calm and steady.

I couldn't help but wonder what he meant by that. Were they some sort of mythical creature? I had heard stories of werewolves and shapeshifters, but I never thought they could be real.

"I think I saw them when I was hiding from the newborn army," I explained my theory about the so-called Children of the Moon. "They were like huskies, except bigger."

Gabriel, who was driving, shook his head. "Those aren't the Children of the Moon. That's what Carlisle told me."

I felt dumb for my mistake, but I was still curious. "So, what were the things I saw when the newborns were attacked at the battle?"

"Those are shapeshifters," Gabriel explained. "They can change into a wolf at any time, anywhere. The Children of the Moon don't have a choice."

"So, the Children of the Moon are the proper werewolves," I said, trying to wrap my head around it all.

Joseph nodded. "They change at the full moon, but the silver bullet thing is just a myth perpetuated by Hollywood."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "You're telling me that all those movies I've seen are wrong?"

Joseph shrugged. "Mostly."

As we continued on our journey, I couldn't help but wonder what other myths and legends were actually true. And I couldn't help but feel grateful that I was in the company of these three vampires, who seemed to know more about the world than any human ever could.

Gabriel delved further into werewolf lore, his tone grave. "I once knew someone who was attacked by a werewolf. The creature nearly took his life. Since then, he's harbored a deep-seated hatred for them. He wants them eradicated completely.”

Intrigued, I asked, "But how can you be sure if they're wiped out?"

Gabriel sighed, his eyes darkening. "It's difficult to say. Werewolves are elusive and can blend in with human society easily. But my friend is determined to hunt them down, no matter the cost."

I shuddered at the thought of a relentless hunter on the loose, targeting creatures that were simply trying to survive. "It seems like a never-ending cycle of violence and fear."

Joseph nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, that's the reality of our world. Creatures of the night must always be wary of those who seek to destroy them."

As we continued our journey, I couldn't shake the feeling of unease that lingered in the air. The supernatural world was vast and filled with dangers beyond my wildest imagination. Then, I thought about my exposure to sunlight. "I have discovered that we do not combust into flames when exposed to the sun."

Joseph chimed in, his voice resigned. "It's true. We sparkle like diamonds."

I couldn't believe it. "So, rather than enduring a fiery inferno, we transform into walking disco balls?"

A soft chuckle escaped Gabriel's lips. "I suppose one could interpret it that way."

As the conversation carried on, a growing curiosity enveloped me, compelling me to inquire about their ages. "How old are you guys?"

Simon spoke first. "Physically, I'm thirty-one. But in reality, I'm four hundred and eighteen."

Joseph followed suit. "I was turned at twenty-nine, and I'm about to be three hundred and ninety-three."

Gabriel smirked. "I've got them beat. I was thirty-eight when I was turned. Four hundred and forty...four hundred and forty AD, that is. I'm at least sixteen centuries old."

I was stunned. "That's...that's ancient."

Joseph chuckled. "You sure like to talk."

I shrugged. "I'm just trying to get to know you guys."

The car was enveloped in a thick blanket of silence, the kind that makes you feel like you're suffocating. It was only for five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Just when I thought the silence would never end, Simon's voice broke through the stillness.

"Violet," he spoke to me, and I turned to look at him. "How old are you in human years?"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. We were still talking about ages? Despite my annoyance, I answered him. "Seventeen."

"That is young. How did you become a vampire?"

I took a deep breath and began to recount my story. "Well, I ran away from Forks because of my useless dad. He didn't care about me. I arrived in Seattle, and then three bikers started following me. That's when a vampire female named Victoria jumped in and saved me. She complimented me on not seeing her when she attacked them, and then she bit me. And the rest is history."

"Victoria?" Gabriel interrupted me. "Does she have red curly hair by any chance?"

I was taken aback by his question. "Yes? You knew her?"

"I knew of her. I invited her to my coven, but she refused. I've heard she's dead."

I nodded, remembering what I had been told. "Yeah, I was told that Edward killed her."

I didn't know what to expect from this coven. Would they like me? Were they gifted like me? My eyes flicked back to Gabriel, his golden eyes still fixed on the road.

"How many are there?" I asked, trying to break the tension.

"There are six of us," Simon answered. "Gabriel, Joseph, me, Helena, Rhona, my wife Alana, and her son Ethan. Although, Toshiro did stay for a while until he left."

"Why did he leave?" I asked, curious.

"Because he didn't like the idea of drinking animal blood," Simon replied.

I couldn't help but feel a sense of relief wash over me. At least I wouldn't be the only one drinking animal blood.

As I sat in the car impatiently, Carlisle's words echoed in my mind. Animal blood. The thought alone was enough to make my throat burn. I couldn't help but ask Gabriel about it.

"You all drinking animal blood?" I questioned, my curiosity piqued.

Gabriel's response was unexpected. "I was used to drinking human blood only," he admitted. "It's like becoming an addict. You don't know when to stop. And then, it took over your life and became the only thing you depend on."

As Gabriel shared his tale, I was captivated. "Centuries later, I learned that an Anglican pastor's son was on my trail, investigating the disappearances and murders. That pastor's son turned out to be Carlisle."

I listened intently, my curiosity growing with each word. "But how did he convince you to change your diet?" I asked, my voice filled with genuine intrigue.

Gabriel's eyes softened as he recalled the pivotal moment. "Carlisle showed me a different path, a way to regain control over my insatiable thirst. He introduced me to animal blood, explaining that it could sustain us without the need for human lives. It was a difficult transition, but with his guidance, I learned to resist the temptation and embrace a more compassionate way of living."

As I absorbed Gabriel's story, a newfound respect for Carlisle began to take root within me. It was clear that his influence had not only saved Gabriel from a life of darkness but had also sparked a revolution within the vampire community.

"And that's how you discovered it?" I probed.

"Yes," he confirmed. "It tastes as good as human blood. So I decided to have this blood as my diet."

As I listened to Gabriel's tale, I couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration for his self-control. It was a testament to his strength of character that he had been able to resist the temptation of human blood for so long. And yet, at the same time, I couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. The thought of drinking animal blood was still a foreign concept to me, and I couldn't help but wonder what other secrets the world of vampires held.

The words of the ancients had left me parched, my throat ablaze with a fiery thirst. I rubbed at my neck, trying to ease the ache that had settled there. Joseph's gaze flicked to me, his eyes narrowing in concern.

"Your eyes," he murmured, "they're pitch black. When was the last time you fed?"

I shook my head, the burning in my throat making it hard to speak. "I don't know," I managed to rasp out. "Maybe five hours ago, I think."

Gabriel's voice cut through the silence that followed. "That won't do. You need to hunt before we meet the coven. Epping Forest has plenty of deer to sate your hunger."

The car veered off the motorway and onto a winding road that led into the heart of the forest. As we drove deeper into the woods, I could feel my senses sharpening, my body preparing for the hunt to come.

[ariadnesweb]

Secret Boss Idea: 'Rose'

-Invisible Sound designer of Mike Rook Tower, worshipper of the 'Light'.

-Not to be seen or understood: Lacks even a corporeal form to interact with Darkners.

-Can be heard; but cannot speak - makes harmonies, not words.

-A hypnotizing idol - despite the lack of body, or 'self', it is impossible for most darkners to listen to her sound without falling to her will; if she wants you to dance, you'll dance; if she wants you to fight, you'll fight; if she wants you to freeze, you'll freeze.

-Takes pity upon the old flowers gifted by Asgore to Toriel - much like her, these too can no longer meet their purpose to maintain the sanctity of the Dreemurr family. Instead, they've been doomed to rot away and disappear, piled like trash in the gutter.

-But she can save them, you see - she can use the power of her will to turn the spotlight on them, give them a taste of the pure joy that is purpose and success: they are the star of the show now, growing beautiful, fruitful, and aromatic for the young Dreemurr kid and their friends.

-(She functionally traps Kris & co. in a room until they play her garden simulator, and finish preparing the garden. The plants in the garden are just plants - they are alive (like plants), but lack sapience the way Mike, Tenna, Lancer, or even Rudinn & Werewires have.)

-(Once you leave the room, you can continue straight ahead and finish your adventure - or....)

-(You can return towards the end of chapter 3 - if you wanted to see your gardening handiwork one last time, you can return to do so, but the garden is...)

-Overgrown. Rose's music has the power to maintain and keep flower's growing - but dedicated as she is to her single task, she has no ability to judge when she (and the plants) should rest. The plot of land that gated in various bushes and vines, had now been engulfed by a jungle of fruits, pencils, and miscellaneous weapons for the Squad.

-(Not that any of them are useful... They actually kind of suck.)

-The original plants Rose set to save have now fused into a 'core' tree; A colorful intertwined trunk from flowers, holding up a circular mirror decorated to imitate a rose. The mirror works like a screen, telegraphing the next note to play, sometimes mixing and matching to express Rose's emotions. Two sets of paper have been drawn as leaf imitations, moving every which way to better clarify Rose's movements - she is the flower orchestra's conductor after all.

-All the better to bring these poor little dark things to light, after all - She, who is Holy; She, who is Free; She, who was never given the Darkner form of her fellows and transcends space and time to align them correctly and give them purpose in service of Kris - Rose will lead these useless plants to their end, in choir worship.

-(Alone? Maybe not... It was thanks to HIM that she now knows how to use her voice for good.)

-Is this not what the Dreemurr Kid wants, after all? Rose exists to serve the Dremurr Family - and no one else. She does not give a care if anything happens to Susie or Ralsei - but then, of course, Kris wouldn't want them to get hurt after all, since they ARE Kris's friends. Hmm...

-(Rose basically kidnaps Kris in order to 'protect them', isolating them up in a flower bud, while Susie & Ralsei try their best to free them. Mostly Susie - Ralsei is split in helping Susie free Kris, helping Rose hypnotize Kris with comfort, and having a mini identity crisis over the existence of Rose, a weird Dark Being so consumed by her worship.)

-(Susie herself is trying to keep determined in her goal to protect Kris, versus getting distracted in her own beatdown of Rose's hypocrisy; what a stupid flower being, after all, that wants to beat down and swallow Susie's own identity, contaminate her and corrupt her away from herself, make her an accessory to Kris when she is her own person - But Susie can't win this battle without saving Kris, first, she can't let her impulses get the best of her.)

-If you can free Kris, if you can get them to stand their own - Kris will immediately tell Rose to stand down and breathe, that they don't need her to make herself their savior.

-And Rose will immediately do so, freeing up and letting the flowers in her grasp rest - she wants to make things better for Kris in the end. If resting will do that then... she'll rest.

-She will contemplate on her next step for a moment then - she might need to rest her chaotic orchestra, but staying still... it doesn't suit her.

-The flowers that Rose originally tried to save are dead now - the jungle falls apart without her will. Was it already dead? Was the only thing keeping it together Her? They cannot be flowers, anymore. Perhaps the petals can be repurposed for a new project, maybe the items can be shared away to different Lightners/Darkners, maybe the seeds can be kept and resown - but the original bouquet of reconciliated marriage is gone now.

-Much like the other secret bosses, Rose settles on becoming an item - this way, she can ensure Kris and their friends have power on their side, the power to make their own choices and free their own will. Is this not what Toriel would have wanted, in the end? To watch them grow up?

-The mirror that expressed Rose's will is blank now - she is no longer using it. It might find its way back to Castle Town, repurposed for the community by Seam for something.

-('Rose', the sound designer, used to be a melody before the flowers - she was written in the book of Hymms, what used to be Toriel's favorite book, from which she would sing to the family for rest and prayer. Then the divorce happened - words were had, decisions were made - and Toriel could no longer stand the song of her old evangelical religiousness. She threw the page describing Rose out, hid the book in a corner to gain dust, and never looked back. But the memory of the old hymm still remains in the house, with her, with her kids - the sound designer of the Dreemurr family still exists, repurposed to serve Mike & Tenna instead.)

[jcmorrigan]

How was your element of harmony fic gonna end?

OOH NOW THIS ONE HAS BEEN SUCH A WHILE THAT THIS ACTUALLY SOUNDS FUN TO TALK ABOUT

Context for those unaware: EoH was one of my many attempts at a multicrossover. A predecessor to TBTC. It was my goal at being an EVERYTHING CROSSOVER and taking forever to highlight every little thing that could be explored in the canon of each work used. And I was in a difficult relationship with KH at the time, even though it was obviously a KH derivative, so I didn't want to actually use Sora and co. as the main cast. MLPFIM was a comfort show for me, and I was already used to the br0n135 using the Mane Six in crossovers with everything you could imagine, so I was like, hey, let's do this, Mane Six are now multi-world travelers and Discord is assembling every villain ever to stand in their way. (KH then ended up in the mythos anyway!) This is also where I was playing the infamous Twilight Sparkle/Mozenrath ship that is now very very dead.

To explain exactly what all was going on with the lore and politics of it to make this last bit make sense would take too long, so from there, please just...roll with it. I'm about to detail you THE FINALE ARC

The original idea was actually, at some point, to begin work on the Finale Arc when most of the main players were introduced. Then go back in time and keep editing the middle of the story to go on indefinitely. A bad business plan for many reasons, first of all being that I didn't even get to introduce the players that would've made it possible to begin the arc. That's how long I took to explore EVERY FRICKIN THING.

Over the course of the story, Discord has been interfering on every crossover world you can imagine, to the point of sometimes altering their canons into "fix fic." The story is aware of this. It's kinda like in the Loki series (of which I've only watched episode 1) where there's a "sacred timeline" and Discord's crossover actions are deliberate attempts by him to break it. We learn at some point that paradoxes and timeline changes are what broke the Age of Fairy Tales into the KH worlds we know today. So Discord rounds up his Old Ones (the Lovecraftian monstrosities that are more powerful than gods) and they all band together to strike at all the cracks he's put in the structure of the multiverse, and it all just falls APART. Worlds are destroyed, time has no meaning, suddenly everything is shards floating in void. The main players survive, mostly. Countless civilians die. Some named characters are given tragic deaths.

I've actually written one little snippet from this arc because I wanted to. It details two particular characters, who at the time were side villains I enjoyed and was just digging the vibe of, going down defending a stronghold from the creatures of Darkness (oni, yokai, Heartless, Grimm) that emerged from the void when everything broke. By the way do you want to take a guess who these characters IT WAS ARCHIBALD SNATCHER AND ROMAN TORCHWICK. GOD, THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN THE SIGN RIGHT THEN AND THERE THAT THEY WERE WHO I WANTED TO BE WRITING ABOUT FULL-TIME

But! I had a friend who'd lent me the book "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," and I was REALLY into that book's whole concept of "all stories in existence are threatened to end." So I lifted Khattam-Shud, a personification of The End (and I have since heard is also a political caricature), as the ACTUAL final boss. Discord wanted to blow up the multiverse because of the CHAOS that would ensue! KS, however, wanted to end EVERYTHING. (If I were doing this today, he'd just flat-out be Ansem, Seeker of Darkness instead.) Discord would realize he'd been played as KS makes a bid to line up one more cataclysm that will reduce everything to dust.

Heroes and villains alike, Discord included, find each other across the wastelands and amass into one last survivors' army led by the Mane Six. They approach the final field standing between them and KS and they charge. KS unleashes Dark creatures (Echthroi, as I had it) to gun them down. Pretty much everyone dies in this battle except the Mane Six themselves. (Which should give you a hint as to how this REALLY ends, but let's keep going.) The Mane Six fight their way to KS (and I'm REALLY gonna date myself here - the final line of defense before him was gonna be Paige the freaking Notebook from DHMIS as a personification of creative control). He shatters the Elements and then un-exists the Mane Six, but they don't die.

Instead, they end up in a sort of...white realm, inspired by the development rooms in The Stanley Parable (I was into even weirder fandoms back then than I am now apparently?). At one point it was gonna be "inside the author's laptop" and they could see doors to other timelines (i.e. crossover fanfics my friends were doing). They can also see all the files here for all the worlds they visited on their way and all the friends they made. Y'know, everything that's now DEAD.

The memories of everyone and everything they loved, however, allows them to forge one (1) new Element stone. This is...wait for it...THE ELEMENT OF HARMONY. Its surface shimmers with a rainbow of all colors! But wait! When it's flipped over, there's another side to the same gem, with colors dissonantly swirled around in an ugly way. Our heroines realize that the Element of Harmony also serves a dual purpose as the Element of Chaos, since you can't have one without the other!

The Mane Six find a way back to KS' battlefield, where he's about to finally UN-EXIST EVERYTHING. Twilight gets to say the one and only "FUCK" she's allowed to say in the whole story (I really...want to use this same joke on Mozenrath in TBTC...I know I've said he curses inaudibly to keep him IC but just imagine in the finale arc he gets the one and only FUCK he's ever allowed in his life). The six huddle around their Element of Harmony and activate its magic, casting a rainbow aura that begins to heal the broken multiverse. KS then tells them there's no way that will ever work because he and the other Old Ones caused so many paradoxes that it'll fall back apart again. To build a multiverse that's stable under these conditions would make no sense. And Twilight goes "WHAT FUN IS THERE IN MAKING SENSE" and flips the Element over to the Chaos side! Now the Chaos energy basically...fixes all the plot holes and physical impossibilities of the multiverse, allowing it to rebuild everything that had broken without a single issue!

Discord petrifies Khattam-Shud and it was fairly badass but I can't remember exactly what one-liner I gave him to end it.

Lights up on a rebuilt multiverse. Everyone's alive again and nothing's broken! YAY! And everyone in the survivor army (though they're not "survivors" anymore since EVERYONE is alive again) has come to Equestria to give the Mane Six a celebration for saving literally everything! AND THEY'RE ALL PONIES OR OTHERWISE MAGICAL CREATURES BECAUSE OF MY RULES OF FORM CHANGING IN THAT FIC. HAHAHAHAHA IT WAS A VERY COMICAL MENTAL IMAGE AND STILL IS.

The Six get their ships (Twilight/Mozenrath, Pinkie Pie/Megavolt, Fluttershy/Sakuya from Okami, Rarity/Stork, Rainbow Dash/I would really rather not say this one because it was taboo in a way I don't wanna touch again, Applejack/I don't even know anymore because it was gonna be Emma Swan and then it wasn't and then I just got confused). And everyone just has a good time.

The Six then take off in the ship again for THE ADVENTURE CONTINUING, EVEN THOUGH AFTER THIS I WOULD JUST GO WRITE ETERNAL ADVENTURE LEADING UP TO THIS MOMENT

Also I heard the song "We Come Running" by Youngblood Hawke on the radio once and I was like "This would go great over a credits sequence" so I used it for a while as my inspo for a KH-style "credits montage" where you see each of the most major worlds and the factions that live on them, and an early concept for the WHAM ARMY was one of these factions and this cracks me up so much because they graduated from a shot in the KH montage to WE ARE THE PROTAGS OF THE NEXT FIC

And that's pretty much it!

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Beliefs: Existence and Oneness of God Almighty: THE UNIVERSE AND GOD’S EXISTENCE

The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments. Some saintly scholars even have stated that God is more manifest than any other being, but that those who lack insight cannot see Him. Others have said that He is concealed from direct perception because of the intensity of His Self-manifestation.

However, the great influence of positivist and materialist schools of thought on science and on all people of recent centuries makes it necessary to discuss this most manifest truth. As this now-prevalent “scientific” world-view reduces existence to what can be perceived directly, it blinds itself to those invisible dimensions of existence that are far vaster than the visible.

Let us reflect on one simple historical fact: Since the beginning of human life, the overwhelming majority of humanity has believed that God exists. This belief alone is enough to establish God’s Existence. Those who do not believe cannot claim to be smarter than those who do. Among past and present-day believers are innovative scientists, scholars, researchers and, most importantly, saints and Prophets, who are the experts in the field. In addition, people usually confuse the non-acceptance of something’s existence with the acceptance of its non-existence. While the former is only a negation or a rejection, the latter is a judgment that requires proof. No one has ever proven God’s non-existence, for to do so is impossible, whereas countless arguments prove His existence. This point may be clarified through the following comparison.

Suppose there is a large palace with 1,000 entrances, 999 of which are open and one which appears to be closed. No one could reasonably claim that the palace cannot be entered. Unbelievers are like those who, in order to assert that the palace cannot be entered, confine their (and others’) attention only to the door that is seemingly closed. The doors to God’s existence are open to everybody, provided that they sincerely intend to enter through them.

The most important factor leading many, especially those under the spell of materialistic science and its worldview, to fix their eyes on the apparently closed door is causality. Causality leads to the vicious chain of cause and effect, for each cause is also an effect. Moreover, the effect is totally different from the cause. All things and effects are usually so full of art and beneficial purposes that even if all causes gathered they would be unable to produce one single thing, let alone their simple immediate causes.

In order for a cause to produce an effect, it has to be able to produce the whole universe in which that effect takes place, for that effect cannot exist without the whole universe. Nor can they exist separately. Materialist scientists imagine powerless, dependent, and ignorant causes to be responsible for the existence of beings and things, and thus fancy them to possess absolute qualities. In this way they are implying (tacitly believing) that each of those causes possesses qualities that only can be attributed to God.

However, the latest discoveries of modern science, like the universe’s unity and its parts’ inseparability, exclude the possibility of all the explanations put forward by materialistic science. They demonstrate that all entities, whether in nature or in the laws and causes attributed to them, are devoid of power and knowledge. They are contingent, transient, and dependent beings. But the properties attributed to any of these entities need infinite qualities like absolute power and knowledge.

This shows that causality is by no means necessarily linked with “objective” study or “neutral” scientific investigation. It is no more than a personal opinion. Moreover, it is an opinion that is irrational and devoid of sense.

When we study the universe, we see that all beings utterly refute the false claims of materialist and atheistic reasoning through their order, mutual relationship, and duties. They affirm that they are nothing but the property and creatures of a Single Creator. Each rejects the false notions of chance and causality, ascribes all other beings to its own Creator, and proves that the Creator has no partners. Indeed, when the Creator’s Unity is known and understood correctly, it becomes clear that nothing requires that causes should possess any power. Thus they cannot be partners to the Creator, for it is impossible for them to be so.

The universe is a document for believers to use. The Qur’an informs us that believing in God is to assent with one’s heart to the Creator with all His Attributes supported by the universe’s testimony. The true affirmation of God’s Unity is a judgment, a confirmation, an assent, and an acceptance that can find its Owner present with all things. It sees in all things a path leading to its Owner, and regards nothing as an obstacle to His Presence. If this were not the case, it would be necessary to tear and cast aside the universe in order to find Him, which is impossible for us.

The universe has been made in the form of an intelligible book so as to make known its Author. The book, which addresses humanity, seeks to make humanity read the book and its parts, and respond with worship and thanks to its Author’s will. Humanity attains to that worship by uncovering the order in the Book of the Universe through scientific study and displaying the functioning of the universe’s beings and workings.

The universe is not passive or neutral. We cannot interpret it as we wish, for there is only one correct way of looking at the world, one universal world-view common to all humanity. This view is taught to us in the Qur’an as well as in the Book of the Universe by our Creator. This means that the Qur’anic world-view recognizes that the perception of the world differs relatively from one person to another. It allows for plurality within unity so that a universal dialogue is possible. This world-view contains no fragmentation or conflict, only harmony, assistance, peace, and compassion.

The materialist scientific world-view is based on radical fragmentation, for it views nature as a mechanism with no inherent value and meaning. It isolates an object by cutting off its connections with the rest of the world, and studies it within its immediate environment.

But our perception of ourselves tells us that we are meaningful and part of the whole universe, and that everything must have a meaning and be part of the universe. Materialist science has left the subject—humanity—out of the universe and, insofar as this science is taking over, people feel that they have no place in this world. Thus they are isolated and live lives without meaning, except in a very limited, egoistic sense. People are alienated from their environment and from themselves.

The universe is an inseparable whole. Indeed, the unity observed in its totality, including humanity, is so clear that no one can deny it. Thus the materialistic approach to the scientific method has to be reconsidered. This method is reductionist, for it reduces everything to fragments and then attributes each fragment to causes. But in reality, all things are interconnected and interdependent, for it is impossible to attribute anything, however small, to causes that are themselves transient and contingent. Since whatever is responsible for one thing must be responsible for everything, we cannot have one thing without the whole.

Why can we ascribe a thing to its antecedents in time but not to its neighbors in space? Why should a thing be able to produce another thing just because it happened before? All modern scientists know that space and time are fully equivalent and unified into a four-dimensional continuum in which both “here” and “there” and “before” and “after” are relative. In this four-dimensional space, the temporal sequence is converted into a simultaneous co-existence, the side-by-side existence of all things. Thus causality appears to be an idea limited to a prejudiced experience of the world.

Causality does have some meaning. Opposites are mingled in this world: truth with falsehood, light with darkness, good with evil, white with black, and so on. Since people have ingrained inclinations toward both good and evil, they are tested in this world to determine whether they will use their free will and other faculties in the way of truth and good or otherwise

Divine Wisdom requires that the veil of causes and laws be drawn before Divine Power’s operations. If God had willed, He could train the planets with His “Hands” in a way observable by us or let visible angels administer them. Then we would not be speaking of the laws of causes involved, such as gravitation. Or, in order to communicate His Commandments, God could speak to each person directly without sending any Prophets, or could write His Name with stars in the sky in order to compel us to believe in His Existence and Oneness. But in this case, humanity’s earthly existence would not be an arena of trial that pushes us to new developments and discoveries in science and technology, thereby enabling us to remove one veil more from the meaning of existence.

Like a mirror’s two sides, existence has two aspects or dimensions: one visible and material, known as the Realm of Opposites and (in most cases) Imperfections, and the transparent, pure, and perfect spiritual realm. The material dimension must—and does—contain events and phenomena that appear disagreeable to us. Those who cannot perceive the Divine Wisdom behind all things may even criticize the Almighty for those disagreeable events and phenomena. To prevent that, God uses natural laws and causes to veil His acts. For example, so that we do not criticize God or His Angel of Death for the loss of our beloved ones or our own death, God places diseases and natural disasters (among other “agents” or “causes”) between Himself and death.

On account of this world of testing and trial’s essential imperfection, we encounter and suffer from many deficiencies and shortcomings. In absolute terms, every event and phenomenon is good and beautiful in itself or in its consequences. Whatever God does or decrees is good, beautiful, and just. Injustice, ugliness, and evil are only apparent or superficial and arise from humanity’s errors and abuses. For example, although a court may pass an unjust sentence on you, you should know that Destiny permits that judgment because of a crime that you are hiding. Whatever befalls us is usually the result of self-wronging, an evil that we ourselves have done. However, those who lack the necessary sound reasoning and judgment to understand the Divine Wisdom behind events and phenomena may impute directly to God the apparent ugliness or evil, imperfections and shortcomings, experienced in worldly life, even though God is absolutely free of any defect or imperfection.

Therefore, so that people do not ascribe any ugliness or evil to God, His Glory and Grandeur require that natural causes and laws be a veil before His acts, while belief in His Unity demands that those causes and laws should not be ascribed to any kind of creative power.

If God Almighty acted in the world directly, and not through causes and laws, we would be unable to develop scientific knowledge or live even an instant of a happy life free of fear and anxiety. We can observe and study patterns in phenomena thanks to God’s acting from behind natural causes and laws. Otherwise, each event would be a miracle. The regularity within the flux and mutability of events and phenomena makes them comprehensible to us, and so awakens within us the desire to wonder and reflect, which is a principal factor in establishing science. For the same reason, we are able to plan and arrange our future affairs to some degree. Just consider how life would be if we did not know whether the sun would rise tomorrow!

Whoever owns such attributes as beauty and perfection desires to know them and make them known. God owns absolute beauty and perfection and is independent of all things. He also owns a holy, transcendent love and thus a sacred desire to display His Beauty and Perfection. If He showed His Names and Attributes directly, without the “medium” of causes and laws, we could not endure them. He manifests them as he does and by degrees within the confines of time and space so that we can connect with them, reflect on them, and perceive them. The gradual manifestation of Divine Names and Attributes is also a reason for our curiosity and wonder about them.

[bigskydreaming]

Do you shipp bats and superman? Or bruce and selina or you don't ship bruce with anyone?

Tbh, I don’t have strong preferences on the matter of Bruce’s ships. Its not a matter of disliking them usually, so much as just not being super hardcore one way or another lol.

I would say probably my go-to is Bruce/Selina, just because I love Selina and there’s that opposites attract element to them that can be hard to make work, but when it works, ugh, it just WORKS, y’know?

I do ship Bruce and Clark for similar reasons, though this is actually more of a recent thing, honestly.....back before I first left DC fandom the first time around, probably around 2012-2013, I definitely would not have called myself a Superbat shipper at all, but that didn’t really have anything to do with not seeing their potential or not liking the characters together. It was more just a byproduct of like.....back then, I didn’t really like how Bruce and Clark tended to be written together? 

Like, a lot of that was probably due to the tendency there sometimes is with slash ships to not really write just two male characters from some show or comic and put them in a relationship together, but rather to just kinda take two characters and write them in such a way that they feel like this kinda generic cookie cutter relationship that has more to do with going down a checklist of characteristics/specific moments/themes/etc than it does with who those characters are and what they’re like normally.

But for whatever reason, since I started getting back into DC fandom stuff last year, I’ve found a lot more Superbat fics that are a lot more to my liking, or that just FEEL more like Bruce and Clark in a relationship rather than coming across as two characters who have little in common with them and just happen to share the same names. I honestly have no idea what’s changed in the time since I was last in fandom til rejoining it, at least in regards to this specific ship and how its written, or just as equally likely, something changed about my perspective between then and now that made me read it differently or be more open to it than I was in the past. *Shrugs* Who knows. So again, its like Bruce/Selina, I’m not opposed to it at all, have enjoyed several, but I just don’t tend to ship Bruce the same way or to the degree I have ships I’m more invested in, for most of his kids.

My one big caveat with Bruce and Clark is that like, its GOT to be respectful of Lois, she still should have a presence in Clark’s life and not have been just...erased or overlooked or killed off or just sacrificed on the altar of Superbat to make room for them to get together, y’know? Like I don’t have a particular preference here, like, they could have previously discovered they just prefer being platonic soulmates and just have a super strong friendship that’s not threatened or replaced or lessened by what Clark comes to have with Bruce later, they could have previously been married and are amicably divorced now for whatever reason and still successfully co-parent Jon now, who splits his time between living with his Dad and Bruce and step-siblings at Wayne Manor, and then the rest of his time with his mom and her new girlfriend or wife Diana, perhaps...whatever. Not picky on the particulars, I just need Lois to still be important to Clark rather than treated as though an obstacle in the way of Superbat’s true love.

As far as other ships go......I never got on board with Bruce/Diana even though they do at times have great chemistry.....I’ve just never seen that really successfully resulting in an actual relationship....unless Clark is involved as kinda a...not buffer, exactly, so much as a third complemetary piece needed to complete the picture. Same thing with Clark and Diana too, though, their brief New 52 relationship not working for me for the same reasons. The full Trinity together in every sense of the word? I can dig it. Just two of them though....Clark and Bruce is the only pairing out of the three of them that actually fits on its own, IMO, because something about Clark and Diana has always just felt a little too....forced, or artificial to me for some reason, like.....people always try too hard to emphasize how good a pairing they make on paper, that it just never FEELS natural or organic in execution, and I’ve never really felt any interest in trying to execute a version of it myself to have any idea how my own attempt would fare. *Shrugs* 

And then Bruce and Diana on their own, like.....I think Diana respects the hell out of Bruce and will always have a soft spot for him, but her bullshit tolerance does come with a ceiling, and I think for Diana, Bruce is one of those people where she does better with him in small doses, lol. Too much exposure to Bruce, too constantly, and for too longterm.....I think she would end up being like “this relationship is starting to feel too much like a Greek tragedy, and not even one of the good ones, I gotta go, bye” lololol okay so it wouldn’t really be like that. I just mean.....Bruce thrives off of structure and rigid discipline in a way that Diana would find stifling, I believe? 

Don’t get me wrong, Diana is incredibly disciplined herself and capable of holding herself firm and steady in anything with a kind of discipline few others could ever dream of, but its not her PREFERENCE, I don’t think. She’d rather default to a freer approach to and through life, whereas Bruce can do that at times to accommodate loved ones needing or wanting that from him too, but at the end of the day, I think he’s always going to rather scheduling in some time set aside for the both of them, as something to look forward to....rather than just letting it come when it comes and then when it does, obsessing over whether he’s neglecting something else as a result. 

So again...Bruce and Clark I think work, but Bruce and Diana or Clark and Diana - require all three working in harmony to be what all three of them actually need and want from that triad.

And then Bruce and Talia I’ve talked about a couple times before in depth, and I have hugely complicated thoughts on them due to the sheer bullshit writers have subjected Talia to over the years. I try to ignore Morrison’s take on Damian’s conception as much as possible, like, I never go with that angle or that particular taint on their relationship unless for whatever reason its absolutely relevant to the plot - and I’ve never come up with a plot where it is, nor do I think I’m likely to. And this is for a couple of reasons - the first is that while I’m always saying that any writer could make a case for any character doing anything, conceivably, Damian’s conception as written by Morrison just...destroys so much of the amazingly complex and multi-faceted character Talia often was before he wrote that, and recasts every aspect of her and Bruce’s previous love story as just...a painful, not funny joke. Its not remotely something I ever want to read into those two, even if I’ve never shipped them as endgame myself. 

But at the same time, because it did so unequivocally happen in canon, I can never really blame others for accepting it as the reality of their relationship by this point, for whatever reason.....I mean, there’s the simple fact that something like that is so hugely personal to read about and see yourself in as a survivor, for instance, for any survivors who read Morrison’s story and afterward had trouble separating that view of Talia from previous stories of her....like to me, no matter how much I think Morrison is bullshit for writing that story, especially since its hardly like he had any interest in writing or acknowledging Bruce as a survivor in its aftermath.....I fully believe Morrison was like “how can I make Bruce a biological father who owes nothing to the mother and has no obligation to share the child with her or fight over custody or anything like that.” 

Which is a shitty reason to do that particular kind of story. And why I don’t blame anyone for disregarding it, as I try to whenever possible, but neither do I blame anyone for finding their relationship kinda ruined in the wake of it, just because sometimes its physically/emotionally just hard to see PAST that kind of thing, even when you know the reasons for it existing at all are threadbare in the first place. 

(Its like how I do write and focus on Bruce’s abusive behavior with some of his kids in the past, not because I necessarily LIKE to, so much as it just being such a personal topic to me that from the second it was written into his character and dynamics, whether written WELL or PLAUSIBLY or not, it just became impossible for me to pretend it just never happened or I never read any of those stories, so I have to find some way to tackle it in my stories and takes. But because I do think that the reasons for writing Bruce act that way in the first place were always poorly thought through, and it is a disservice to a lot of the reasons others love the character, I don’t blame them for disliking it and disregarding it themselves, so long as they don’t shit on me or my reasons for not doing the same).

So yeah, I don’t tend to write that particular element into Bruce and Talia’s story ever, for all those above reasons and also one other specific one: it doesn’t just make Talia a rapist and Bruce a survivor, it makes Damian the child of rape. And he’s just had so much shit to deal with in his life with everything else alone, I never am comfortable heaping that onto him as well, because sooner or later it WOULD eventually become something he had to deal with, and no easy thing to deal with, so I’m just like....what if he didn’t have that particular issue to deal with ever.

NOW, all that said....Bruce and Talia still even without that have never really been an endgame ship for me, but rather something that’s kinda always been doomed to be a tragic romance, like they’re each other’s one that forever got away. And that’s because for me, unlike Bruce and Selina being opposite in just the right ways, Bruce and Talia are alike in the wrong ways. Its part of WHY they have the connection they do, and such a deep one....they GET each other, in ways I don’t think anyone else has ever truly understood them. They might not subscribe to the same beliefs, even have the same morals, they might not be willing to use the same methods, their ultimate goals aren’t necessarily the same....but their PASSION for their goals, their beliefs, their commitment to doing whatever each believes they have to do in order to see their goals fulfilled, to see that they never stray from what they believe is their duty, their reasons for existing....THAT is something I think they’ve both always understood about each other, that they have in common. Both believe too strongly in what THEY believe and value as most important, to be truly willing to give that up and follow the other to their goal or along their path instead.....and they get that, so they never truly ask that of each other, or at least aren’t surprised nor hold it against the other when they turn them down. I think they do love each other, and on some level always will.....and it might not even be that they don’t WANT to give everything else up to be with them.....its just, I don’t think either truly knows how to do that and still be them, like they know that even were they to make that choice, it would cost them too much of what makes them THEM, to ever truly do it.

And aside from that, even in an AU setting where Talia didn’t raise Damian in the League, where he wasn’t forced to grow up fighting the way he did, and say she spirited him away and into hiding at birth to hide him from Ra’s, but still never sought Bruce out til Damian was ten or so, even if only because Bruce is too easy for Ra’s to find or keep an eye on....basically, I just mean even in an AU where Talia was a great mom to Damian from Day One til the day Bruce met Damian, and she only kept him from Bruce for ten years or whatever for Damian’s safety....I think that would still destroy any chance of Bruce and Talia ever being together after that, just because in that kind of scenario, Bruce might absolutely understand why she did what she did, even agree with it....and still not be able to get PAST it, not to the degree of....trusting her with his heart again, even if they were perfectly able to coexist well for Damian’s sake. Bruce missed out on the first parts of all his other childrens’ lives because they were someone else’s first. The fact that Damian is the one and only kid of his that theoretically, there was nothing keeping Bruce from being a part of that from day one....like this is the one and only way I will ever accept Bruce having a distinct view of Damian as being different from his other kids in his eyes....its not about him being Bruce’s biological son, its about him being Bruce’s son that he never had to be second to come into his life, that there was nothing stopping him from being there from the start....the fact that Talia, for any reason, did keep him from that, even were it with the best intentions, IMO....that would be something that might not even be Bruce’s to ‘forgive’ per se, like that’s not even the right word to describe certain scenarios that might result in that.....but it would still just irrevocably change something between them I don’t think they could ever get back.

So except for AUs where Talia brought Damian to Bruce right after he was born and stayed with him to raise Damian together, I don’t see them ever working out longterm.....and I don’t really see Talia ever giving up her own beliefs as to how to live her life, shape the world, wield her influence....just to live in Bristol with Bruce and raise Damian with him, even as there is nothing really in that case keeping Bruce from still at the same time continuing to be Batman and do all of that the way HE prioritizes. But again, by the same token.....I also don’t see the inverse ever happening, where Talia finds a way to go where she needs to and do what she believes needs doing, with Damian in tow....and Bruce willing to give up being Batman to just come along for the ride and to help raise Damian. So yeah, ultimately, for me those two are the ultimate tragic romance of Bruce’s core ships, where love has nothing to do with whether or not they work out....just rather who and what they are getting in the way of what they are too each other.

[flych1]

Kehlani singer on her new album

Kehlani, singer on her new album

Photo: Pari Dukovic

Kehlani

In early March, Kehlani was due to meet his label. She was preparing to release her second album - her first since she had a baby and a return to her roots R-B. She was scheduled to perform the first part of Justin Bieber's Changes tour, as well as a number of dream solo dates. Atlantic executives told him they believed in the album, which was scheduled for release on April 24, its 25th anniversary, but the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to develop a promotion plan. We'd have to postpone it. "I was casting actors and actresses. I was doing all kinds of things," she says of all the pre-production she had completed at the time of the mid-March meeting. We're talking about a video call from Zoom; Kehlani sits alone in a sunny room in his Los Angeles home. (Later, she will be joined by her dog, a pint of ice cream and a tequila-based drink with a slice of orange coming out). It just so happens that today is the original release date. They said, "We don't think you should take it out,"" she said. "And then I went to my room and made the 'Toxic' video on my laptop." She posted it on YouTube at the end of March. "People messed with it," she adds. When Kehlani's label accepted her request to release the album this month, it was stipulated that she had to do it all herself. "If all we do is make music and press the button, then you can do it," she says. "And I was like, 'Okay, challenge accepted fucking.'" So now Kehlani and her photographer, with whom she's in quarantine, are planning and editing music videos, photoshoots, and album coverage. (She also lives with her daughter, two younger siblings, a close friend and her assistant). His garage has been converted into a two-level studio, one side for music, the other for visuals. Kehlani has been a professional musician since the age of 13. A series of mixtapes - full of overshares about having a heart built and broken - and a random but successful debut album have already made her a leading figure in the industry. His music is R-B in its purest form: songs about how love defeats you, about floating on the pure adrenaline of a crush, about the desire of someone you can't trust in your heart. It's no coincidence that when white artists like Bieber and Charlie Puth want to look into an R-B sound, they call on Kehlani to help them. The new album, It Was Good Until It Wasn't, is part of a revival of the genre in the midst of its fiercest debates. It is also a transition disc, a bridge between adolescence and adulthood. Throughout her career, Kehlani has been considered the daughter of the R-B: sexy but boyish. In her old music, she played with both sides of the binary. On the new record, it got too big. She did so immediately after giving birth to her daughter Adeya, who is now one year old. (She is currently co-parenting with her ex, Adeya's father, Javaughn Young-White, younger brother of Jaboukie from the Daily Show). "People would always be like, Kehlani is adorable or, like, Kehlani is cool hella. But then I had a baby and it made me look more feminine," she says. "So I guess I thought, OK, I'm going to start shaking my ass and talk about it." (She wanted Bieber to do a song for her album, but he refused. "Because he's a super-married guy now, it didn't really fit," she said. Kehlani's self-managed music video for "Toxic", filmed with the only camera on her MacBook, shows the nervous figure of the singer slipping and squirming, rubbing her arms and hips. "Don Julio has ridiculed me for you," she tells her former lover that she won't reach out to him, even if her body urges her to do it out of instinct. Kehlani insists this is not his last relationship, which ended publicly and painfully, with Compton rapper YG earlier this year. It's the kind of personal drama that made headlines and made Kehlani's blog famous. She writes songs that address all of this openly. Her fans grow up with her career because she is transparent, sometimes to excess. Or, as she says, I do in public, and it makes people feel like I'm not a stranger. I'm a person with a human ass. I'm screwing up in front of the whole world." The conversation about the state of the R-B was revived last November, when Lizzo, often considered a pop artist, won album of the year at the Soul Train Awards, beating soul singer Ari Lennox. ("It's clear that I'm not cool enough," Lennox tweeted after his loss. Last February, rapper Young M.A. went further, saying that "we barely have R-B". Indeed, in recent years, the superstars of the genre - like SWV, Boyz II Men, Ginuwine, Toni Braxton - and their musical descendants have mostly failed to stop the charts as they did two decades ago; many contemporary black musicians evade the label, preferring to be called "alternative R-B", while others experiment more with genres that were once declared out of bounds by the guardians. Kehlani, on the other hand, is part of a coterie of artists who maintain the relevant R-B today, alongside newcomers like Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller and Lennox. She has a song for every step of a relationship: going under it, going over it, watching the door ahead, a personal promise to stop texting her. His music seems new - not as a consistent copy of a Brandy song - but the influence is palpable. She finds the current debate about gender - what the R-B is, what it was and where it has gone - boring. It may no longer sound like it did in the 90s, but rappers (think, more recently, Drake) have expanded it beyond the desperate desire (or desperate loves) of the last century. "I think people don't know enough about music to make these kinds of accusations [that the R-B no longer exists]. The R-B is simple lyrics and a great song. Lots of harmonies and batteries and melodic production," she says, as if it were easy. "I'll never be able to make 90s R-B music. I'm never going to be able to make R-B music from the early 2000s, because that's not when I was making music. It wasn't when I experienced things that shaped my words and my sound." Kehlani was born in Oakland and raised by her aunt. His mother struggled with drug addiction, and his father died when he was 24 years old and she was very young. A stint on America's Got Talent put her in touch with Nick Cannon, who paid for her to spend time in the studio to make her first mixtape in 2014. On Cloud 19, you can hear the beginnings of a great talent: his voice is more acute and younger, but it is overflowing with emotion. On the deck of Cloud 19's "As I Am" film, she sings and succeeds in the chorus of a Mary J. Blige classic. A week after the release of her second mixtape in 2015, she signed with Atlantic Records. Kehlani turned to pop with his debut album of 2017, SweetSexySavage, an album full of rushed and half-finished ideas. It was carried out amid a personal mental health crisis, sparked by rumors that she cheated on her ex-boyfriend, NBA player Kyrie Irving, in 2016. The relentless online bullying led her to attempt suicide. (Kyrie Irving later admitted that she had never been unfaithful.) "I started an album as a person and experienced the most traumatic event of my life," she says. Her label held on until the deadline, letting her make an album from songs she barely recognized. "I had no connection with the music," she says. "I was embarrassed about everything." The new record is a reset, closer to the Grammy-nominated mixtapes that made it famous. It Was Good Until It Wasn't Gives you the Pure B-R rush, the R-B "waiting for you to call me", the R-B "the only thing that interests me is you": the hits of Brandy and Monica in the 90s, the classics of Alicia Keys of the early 2000s who fall in love. She is also less affected by the nostalgia of adolescence than by the immediacy of adult desires. His first mixtapes were about childhood and adolescence; It Was Good Until It Wasn't at peace with the way most conflicts or heartaches unfold. The title comes from a conversation with a friend about her recent breakup. That's the life of this, you know? she said. The is good and then it's not good anymore. Although she has been in the industry since she was a teenager, Kehlani has never had any decisive success for her career, and it is unlikely that the new album will deliver one. "F-MU" is hot and dancing, and the collaboration with Canadian R-B star Tory Lanez, "Can I," is a sexy earworm - although neither song seems particularly suited to virality. His greatest successes are gossip blogs that overshadow his music. His three-month relationship with YG ended just after they released a song together proclaiming their love. (Their duet came out on the eve of Valentine's Day 2020; three days later, she released a breakup song after images of him cheating her surfaced). Minutes before one of our calls, Kehlani posted a series of tweets about a feud with another Oakland native, rapper Kamaiyah, who slammed her on Instagram Live about a previously unreleased mixtape and accused her of being a colorist, among other things. "She gave the green light to my family and me and told everyone in Oakland to kill us for a song," Kehlani says. (Kamaiyah later replied, telling Kehlani, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't threaten you," but added that "a green light means going like a fight, not shooting"). A moment after our discussion, she answered a phone call from a friend and nervously asked if her tweets - which had let the rapper know there was no bad blood - were correct, if she had handled the situation properly. Kehlani and Kamaiyah had long argued over a joint mixtape, which was to be released before the release of their two albums. Her production was difficult, and even the basic decisions - how many songs she should have, what it should be called, what the visual aesthetic should be - met, according to Kehlani, with Kamaiyah's resistance. In the end, she had had enough of back and forth, and the mixtape didn't seem as essential to her as the release of her album. When she came back to our call, her mood was appalled. I tried to contact her to do good business and she said, "If the project doesn't come out, you can't have it [one piece]," she says. "Even though I wrote it." Once again, she was swept away in a drama she couldn't control, tweeting clarifications about a quarrel she didn't care about, instead of celebrating the upcoming release of her album. But why challenge a misinterpretation if she is tired of getting carried away by the drama? How can I put this to rest and out of my body? Because I don't want to wear them," Kehlani says. "Even if you never want to piss me off again, how can I make sure you know it's love on this side?" she tweeted Kamaiyah to let the rapper know she wished him the best. She is satisfied with the way she has defused an unexpected quarrel. A few years ago, it would not have been as weighted. It took a lot of to get to this point, she says. The death of two friends in three months has put a lot of things in perspective. Philadelphia rapper Chynna overdosed in April at age 25; Minnesota rapper Lexii Alijai, whom Kehlani considered "a little sister," overdosed on New Year's Day at just 21 years of age. Lexii Alijai was scheduled to perform the first part of the post-Bieber tour as the headliner. "I couldn't believe it because Alijai was so young," she says. "It was a click, it was amazing, it was sad and it was heartbreaking. I'm always trying to find the best way to help them continue their legacy." Being 25 was also more than a quarter of a life. It was a horizon she never thought she would see. "I've always had a strange feeling about being 25 or older," she says. "It's a shock because I'm now older than my father was." that's part of what made It Was Good Until It Wasn't feel like the album she finally grew up on. "I wanted to be 25 on this one," she says.

Instagram

from flych https://ift.tt/3fOJi2U via https://ift.tt/2SkgjJX

[grimelords]

Hello I’ve finished my February playlist for you. There’s no timeline on these things anymore they just come out whenever they come out it seems. A good mix, and I’m sure there’ll be at least one thing in here you’ve never heard before that you’ll like. 

Doncamatic (feat. Daley) - Gorillaz: This song is extremely traumatic for me because they released it after Plastic Beach as a standalone single and Damon Albarn said they had a whole other album worth of songs from the Plastic Beach sessions that they were thinking about releasing with Doncamatic as the lead single that just never materialised, and the idea of Plastic Beach 2 sitting on a hard drive while we get The Now Now (The Fall 2) instead is maddening.

Portait Of A Man (live) - Marlon Williams: I feel like I've used The Secret to bring this album into existence. It's exactly what I wanted from him - no studio artifice or weird genre pigeonholing and his huge voice on full display. It's incredible and long as hell and this is definitely the highlight.

Houdini Crush - Buke & Gase: I'm in love with the structure of this song. It takes SO long to get back to the chorus. It takes about three different sections in the middle and then finally gets back there and it's so satisfying because of it. You could edit this song into a tight indie pop piece but instead it has the space to go wild and jam and it's great.

AE_LIVE_KRAKOW_200914 - Autechre: Sorry but Autechre finally put all their live albums on spotify and they're very VERY good. Not the sort of thing that you want to listen to as part of a playlist exactly cause they go for an hour each but a very nice reminder nonetheless.

Sheet Metal Girl - Pig Destroyer: I think Pig Destroyer is one of the best band names I've ever heard. I found out later they meant pigs like cops which is still good but the idea of absolutely eviscerating a hog for no reason is very palpably metal. Just looked up the lyrics and this song seems to literally about having sex with a girl made out of sheet metal. Good!

Horizon - Aldous Harding: I absolutely love this song and the way she says 'babe' lights my brain up like a christmas tree. Every now and then I think about when you’ll die baaaaabe.

Born Slippy (Nux) - Underworld: There's a good bit on the Genius page for this song that says "Lots of 1990s acts helped popularize techno, but in Karl Hyde, Underworld had something that was the exclusive province of rock bands: a totally full-of-it frontman who sounded cool." and it's interesting that Underworld and The Prodigy are the biggest names to survive that time and still be at least slightly relevant now. No matter how much you put into your instrumentals nothing can really compare to just having an insane guy yell a bunch of garbage over it.

A Change Is Going To Come - Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters: This is like all good all normal and then he does that huge squeal at 2 minutes in and you're rocked to your core and then it only gets bigger and bigger and better from there. Also maybe one of the best mid song monologues I've ever heard.

No Signal (feat. Roy Woods) - 24hrs: The whole thing of emo rap mirroring mid 2000s emo is still so strange because it's not just the mindset and content being repurposed it's the literal melodic conventions. Change the instrumentation of this song and it's melodically just an emo song. Very strange, but this song is great regardless.

De Aqui No Sales - Cap.4: Disputa - Rosalia: Rosalia rocks and I only just found out El Guincho co-produced this album which is very exciting to me. I love the way this song feels like it never really gets to the big build up it's promising. It has a big intro for about half the song and then when it feels like it's about to blow up when the handclaps come in it just sits in that groove for a while and ends. I also feel like I should mention the video for this song because it's like the platonic ideal of a music video. It's got everything you could ask for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvGt2BcDl_g

Glass Jar - Gang Gang Dance: Here's how good brains are: I had a sudden urge to listen to this album the other day but couldn't remember what it was called or who it was by, only the album cover, but for some reason locked away in my brain was the fact that it was from 2011 so I just looked through Pitchfork's Best Of 2011 list until I recognised it. Incredible. Anyway I'm so glad I did because I ended up having a huge phase with this album. They walk the fine line of psychedelic jammy bands like this of taking up a lot of space with atmospherics but it never feeling like it's lost momentum. Even when this song takes fully half of its 11 minute runtime to properly get started it never feels like wasted time somehow, it's always moving somewhere.

Heavyweight - Infected Mushroom: It's unbelievable that this song's good because it absolutely shouldn't be. The unholy mix of goa trance and metal usually reserved for Command And Conquer soundtracks is so unbelievably naff that it's come all the way around again and I absolutely love it.

Black Static - Health: I'm still absolutely furious about Pitchfork giving this album a 3 and not particularly for the score but because it's some of the worst Pitchfork Writing I've seen in a quite a while. They tried to cancel them for calling the album Slaves Of Fear I think: "The “we,” it seems, refers to the slaves, the slaves of fear, and if I try any harder to connect the dual sensation of edginess and laziness with slavery, the all-American institution that killed and brutalized millions of people for hundreds of years, I am going to have to take a long walk into the sun." Not sure about that. Anyway this song's great sorry for talking about a review instead of the song!

Burn Bridges - The Grates: Twee pop is an underrated genre and The Grates are an underrated band because they brought so much attitude and power to it it's hardly twee at all. It's huge and it rocks!

Girlfriend (feat. Lil Mama) - Dr. Luke Mix - Avril Lavigne: Sorry for putting Dr Luke on your dash in 2019 but this is mostly for Lil Mama. Removing Avril's verses and replacing them with Lil Mama but keeping the chorus and big guitars makes it sound like a lost Girl Talk song and it's so, so much better than the original. There's also a good bit in this where she really puts a lot of emphasis on saying 'Jennifer Hudson' and the weird harmony vocals in the background mirror it which I like a lot.

Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups: It seems like Silversun Pickups had no lasting impact beyond being one hit wonders for Lazy Eye which is so strange to me because their first two albums were absolutely solid. This is also a good example of totally nonsense lyrics feeling like they have meaning because the melody it so good.

3 - Seekae: It's very strange now to think that Alex Cameron was in Seekae. But that's not important. What is important is how good this song is. In the extremely narrow genre of Mount Kimbie-ites +Dome really stood out to me as album from guys who really got it. It's extremely catchy music but it still sounds like nothing you've ever heard before which when you think about it sounds like it should be impossible.

Shooting Stars - Bag Raiders: Bag Raiders did a little Song Exploder thing for Triple J about this song a little while ago and pointed out something I'd never noticed before which is that this song has the extremely strange structure of 1 really long verse, breakdown, 1 really long chorus, end. Which is.... completely amazing. And also that this song blew up and charted higher than it ever had before via memes like 6 years after it came out is still bizarre. Remember when it was in the video for Swish Swish by Katy Perry? God I hope they got paid a million dollars for that.

Romantic Rights (Erol Alkan's Love From Below Re-Edit) - Death From Above 1979: Huge fan of this remix that seems to just drop the full song unedited right in the middle. The perfect way to remix an already great song - just make it longer.

Dwa Serduszka - Joanna Kulig: I saw Cold War and subsequently couldn't get this song out of my head. I loved that movie so much but I also extremely agreed when @cyborgbree said the ending was like a Simpsons parody or foreign movies.

Holes - Mercury Rev: This song gives me depression and makes me feel like I'm sorting through old records and merch from my old band that tried really hard but never got anywhere even though I've never even been in a band. That's the power of music!

It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus) - Arcade Fire: Reflektor is a great and underrated album and to this day I am still finding new things to love about it! Namely this song which I've never paid much attention to before but massively jumped out at me last time I listened. It's a 3 note riff but it's absolutely amazing.

Dance Your Life Away - Audiobooks: Huge fan of having the gall to name your band Audiobooks and a huge fan of this song! It sounds like if Life Without Buildings was a dance band, which is a theoretically perfect idea. It sounds like she's just making the words up on the spot and she probably is and it's absolutely great.

Everything (Deathless) - JW Ridley: I'm so glad that War On Drugs brought heartland rock back for the masses and finally gave us back extended guitar solos outside of a metal or prog context. It is so inspiring what you can do with two chords and a propulsive groove.

Unmarked Helicopters - Soul Coughing: Sorry for continually putting Soul Coughing in these playlists but check out how good this song they did for the X Files movie soundtrack was. 'check out this Soul Coughing song they did for the X Files movie soundtrack' is a very specific kind of 90s sentence. Anyway the 'black black black black and blacker' part with the distortion on the vocals is so good, love it lots.

Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys: I saw Arctic Monkeys a couple of weeks ago and it was amazing but also extra good because they played this song that I'd completely forgotten about and it went off. The Josh Homme produced Arctic Monkeys albums are very good because his fingerprints are all over them and they sound like Queens Of The Stone Age covers.

What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out? - Gang Of Youths: It's fucked up how good this song is. I listened to it the other day and was like 'what the fuck how come I never listened to Gang Of Youths second album that much? But then I kept going and realised it was 70 minutes long and had about five interlude tracks on it. I love Gang Of Youths but they need a producer that will yell at them until they make a 40 minute album. Fuck this song's good though. So good I'm mad I haven't seen it live yet.

Shark Smile - Big Thief: I don't even know the words to this song or what it's about but it makes me cry anyway. I'm very glad I found out about Big Thief this month, like two years after everyone else. Their description on Bandcamp says "Listening to Big Thief is like the feeling of looking at a dog and suddenly marvelling that it is like you but very not like you; when you are accustomed to looking at a dog and thinking 'dog', watching Big Thief is like forgetting the word 'dog' and looking at that naked animal and getting much closer to it and how different it is to you" which is a certainly a way to feel.

Inhaler - Foals: I don't know how I've avoided it but I've never really gotten much into Foals even though they have multiple songs that I really really love, this one being one of them. I think it's an amazing piece of recording simply for how huge it gets. This song swells to about ten times its original size as the chorus hits before totally deflating again. Also a huge fan of anyone that can make a Battles riff work in a conventional song like this does.

Red Bull & Hennessy - Jenny Lewis: Another fantastic song in the long pantheon of great songs about getting twisted and being horny. The isolated 'ohh' after 'all we've been through' feels like a real Shania Twain piece of production and I love it. Also the drums on this song are absolutely massive for some reason which is very cool.​

listen here

[sadafternoons]

Because I can

*

I envision myself 

At the centre of my universe

An infinity

Contained 

in all its endless enormity 

As an idea

Within my thought

*

And as I envision it

With all its abstractions 

Of time, space and motion 

I own it

For it is I 

Who has wrapped my head

Around it

*

And now that I have

I am able to step out 

Of my own creation

While I am in it 

And can observe 

My work of art

For what it is

*

Beautiful

All encompassing

All present

I am One

Within 

and 

Without 

*

There is no room

To imagine

The coexistence of a parallel universe

A significant Other

Looming beside it

Disturbing the beauty

Of the singularity of my own Infinity

*

And as I realise 

The impossibility of sustaining an exclusive hegemony 

Over everything

I am confronted 

With the possibility of coexisting

With an infinite number of multiverses

Imagined by each one of us.

*

And so, I must start again

I must reduce the size of myself

To a planet

The size of the earth

Exclusive in the status assigned to it

As the favourite

In the solar system of our universe

*

I feel special

And as long as I can continue to own

My narcissistic perception

Of my own uniqueness

I can

Happily allow other planets to float past me

At a comfortable distance

*

I can accommodate

All of them

In this version of my narrative

And we can give each other

The space and time

Needed to co-exist

In harmony

*

There is no chance

Of trespassing

Without permission

In to our respective orbits

Or disturb

In any way

Our uniform motions.

*

But wait

Am I going to orbit alone?

With 3 months between myself and my moon

A year between myself and Mars

13 years between myself and Neptune

And light years between myself and the Sun

How will I ever touch base with an Other?

*

If I can never share the same

Space, time and motion with an Other

I cannot let

Myself be

Caged to this isolating Order

Without the choice

To break out of it

*

And so I think

I will have to start again

I must either be free to make a choice

To stay al(one)

All One

In the enormity of my Universe

Content in my need to not accommodate another

*

Or

Co-exist

As a planet in the solar system

Locked together with the Others

In our orbits

Of isolation and individualism

Without the choice to break free from them

*

And now that I have taken each imagined possibility 

To its dismal end 

Let me start again

And imagine my self

As me

In the size and form

I am

*

For it allows me to imagine 

And explore

All the creative possibilities

Of arranging and rearranging

The order

Of all space, time and motion

In the way I want

*

And freely 

Create

Alternative realities

In ways

That the Universe

And the Planets

Never can.

30.5.2019

[wisdomrays]

THE AGE OF SPEED

This age could certainly be called an age of speed. With the technology of speed, the world promises many diverse benefits to mankind. It brings prosperity, comfortable, easy living for some people; the gap between an idea and its enactment is reduced; the shrinking of distances increases the potential for rapid realization of projects (and, of course, of interventions in those projects by others); conflicts may break out more suddenly and then be more quickly reconciled. Science fiction imagines a future world where events happen at the speed of light – with, as yet, imaginary benefits and dangers. But mankind should be alert, in the here and now, to the danger that the technology of speed may not be used in the interests of truth and justice.

Speed, movement over distance in time, is as old as the universe; the sensation of speed was 'experienced' as soon as man was created and covered distances by walking. Man has ever since extended and advanced his power of movement until speed has reached its present, dizzying level and continues to increase. Man first 'enjoyed' speed through his feet, then on the back of domesticated beasts, then in carts and carriages, then bicycles and motor-driven vehicles. Today, man is on the verge of defeating, even annihilating, distances. The annihilation of distance is already a reality in the case of sound and image transmission by processes far ahead of the transportation of objects.

Speed has brought more ease and comfort, but has also had negative consequences. Whether the positive consequences outweigh the negative ones is still an open question, one we can only answer by balancing the technological advances against real and substantial gain in human happiness and in the meaningfulness of human life.

Buses, trains, ships and planes, running on some advanced form of electrical energy, or in the further future space-craft run on some form of pure light energy, will make it possible to cover huge distances in minutes. We will, at the same time, be able to press a button and receive sounds, images, colours, even smells, from long distances. As 'time' and 'space' are effectively reduced, the earth will really become a global village.

Human conquests over time and space are, as we have noted, set to go much further, bringing with them, in addition to many facilities, numerous problems. We are bound to admire advances in scientific research, new inventions and their application – all the wonders of civilization. However, need this prevent us from asking whether the dazzling speed – attained through man's commitment to investigating every detail of the 'book of the universe' – has really served the nobler aims, those rather more important for human life than speed by itself. If, by subjugating time and space, by contracting the world into a village and reducing time costs to near zero, speed cannot reach the higher goals, does it really benefit mankind? If science, penetrating into the universe's remotest corners for knowledge of the whole of existence, made the whole world as familiar as our own neighbourhood, uncovered everything in it, making it, as it were, naked, and did not do so for the sake of the higher human values, needs and desires, would it not be a kind of ignominy to use such a science – to be familiar with the secrets of an individual or a nation, and able to expose them?

Is speed an end in itself? That is, are inventions and developments in transportation and telecommunication made just to indulge a crazy, unreflecting addiction to doing things ever faster? It is doubtful if these sophisticated means of transportation and communication have led to any great advance in human values. We wish that they had, so that we might look forward to the peaceful co-existence of the world's peoples in a world contracted to a village. But it is impossible to claim that the technologies of speed serve any such goal at present.

If we argue that speed is desired, not for its own sake, but for the service of mankind's loftier goals, can we also argue that faster cars or trains or planes really contribute to the attainment of these goals? If they do, we can aim to contract time and space still further – to the very limits of science-fictional imagination. But it is difficult to give a positive answer to that question: the present applications of speed technology are far from achieving the desired goals.

If speed is meant to save time, to get things done faster or to reach somewhere faster, but the time saved, the things done or the destinations reached, are not part of some higher aim more important than speed, then what is all the effort for? If we have no general aim for our speed technology and no specific intention to realize this aim, then all our effort and the time saved will be in vain – like streams of water flowing nowhere, or rain falling on barren ground. Today, some proponents of speed, heedless of any general aims in life, are greatly impressed by a technology that allows one to leave the earth's atmosphere in a few minutes, to carry sounds and images many thousands of kilometers almost instantaneously. They value only the speed, they evaluate only the technology, detached from its general consequences. However, speed is only a material phenomenon. Without specific goals it can be neither a foundation for progress and civilization nor a means to the realization of human values. While mankind found happiness in centuries when they travelled on foot or horseback, they have in this century, unfortunately, suffered from the most horrifying kinds of brutality despite very sophisticated technology.

Speed has never been the most urgent need of mankind. It was and is only a means to an end. A balanced view is important. Some have idolized speed and glorified technological advances, regarding these as everything; others, reacting against the uselessness of speed without purpose, have become hostile to modern mechanisms of transport or communication.

Speed should serve specific aims. It is to be welcomed and valued as long as it enables the realization of human values and human aims; as long as it brings peace and happiness and ends pangs of separation; as long as it contributes to the general harmony of the world and the solution of worldly and other-worldly problems; and as long as it advances scientific research and empowers scientific establishments. Without these benefits, speed in movement or communication is no more than a meaningless, insecure illusion.

[goodvibesatpeace]

Spirituality: Caring For The Universe

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.

Our Responsibility Since Creation

Ancient wisdom holds that humans were created to be the caretakers of the Earth.

We were placed here on this planet in order to care for its plants and animals, to protect its natural beauty, to show respect and gratitude for all the abundance that the Earth gives us every day.

Scientists are discovering now that everything in the Universe vibrates at one frequency or another. That includes human beings.

Think of your heartbeat, your breathing, your cycles of waking and sleeping. These are vibrations.

All things vibrate differently, so we may not be able to sense the vibrations of a rock or a tree as easily as we can feel the natural rhythms of other creatures similar to us: The heartbeat of a dog, the pace of a galloping horse, the buzz of a bee.

Ancient wisdom, and many indigenous people today, bear witness to the fact that even inanimate objects have vibrational energy.

Even modern scientific findings, such as superstring theory, support the idea that vibrations are at the core of all existence.

The vibrations are there, but in modern culture we are not taught to hone the senses that can detect this type of energy. And so for most of us, it goes unnoticed.

But if we stop and think for a minute, we can begin to recognize the ebb and flow of the natural world all around us.

Flowers that open and close, cycles of birth and death, the tides, the migration of birds, weather patterns cycling from sun to rain and back to sun, the seasons, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, even the expansion and contraction of the universe — all of these are vibrations, on smaller or larger scales.

Humankind was created with the mission to care for the rest of Creation through the power of their heart and their capacity to produce refined vibrations.

Keeping this memory alive in their heart and signing it back to all that lives became their gift, their mission, and the foundation of a beautiful way of life.

Humans were given the responsibility of all the vibrations on Earth. It was our honor and task to literally keep the Universe humming with its essential life force.

How Our Ancestors Cared for the Universe

Ancient humans felt (and many indigenous people today feel) a burning responsibility to show their respect, honor, and gratitude to Nature, to the Universe, and to Mother Earth which gave them life.

And so, they created rituals involving singing, dancing, lighting fires, and different types of prayer. These activities raised the vibration of the Earth and all life.

Their actions, carried out with great love and gratitude in their hearts, reinforced and strengthened the forces of nature all around them.

In turn, the Earth and the Universe protected and supported the humans, sharing with them the great abundance of existence.

It is commonly known by indigenous people that high-frequency vibrations activate consciousness, nourish what is hungry or weak, heal what is sick, and invite in the most luminous forces of Nature.

Some cultures also reflected this responsibility in their buildings.

The ancient Egyptians built massive pyramids, the construction of which was virtually impossible based on the technology of their time.

These buildings were aligned with the constellationsand named after the shining light of the sun.

Lushwala theorizes that the humans who designed the Egyptian pyramids as well as the ancient temples in Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, and other places were creating “sacred mirrors to produce and freely share high-frequency vibrations.”

“They built a world on Earth which was like a mirror where the cosmic dance could reflect itself and resonate, and where all beings could receive the nourishment of this vibration.” – Arkan Lushwala

And so, we know from the wisdom of these people who lived thousands of years ago, that we as human beings on Earth, share an intrinsic responsibility to protect and care for the land.

We Are Failing as Caretakers

But today, due to a global economy driven by wealth and greed, humans are destroying the environment and with it the natural balance of give-and-take between man and nature.

Generally, worldwide, we are taking from the Earth far more than we are giving back to Her through respect and love.

At the same time, the indigenous cultures of the world — the groups who hold the ancient wisdom and in many cases still practice the ancient healing rituals that are so desperately needed — are disappearing.

For example, National Geographic states that 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared in the past 40 years, and another 20% could be lost over the next 20 years.

The areas that are being cleared include the ancestral territory of many indigenous tribes that depend entirely on the surrounding environment for their food, water, medicines, and general health and well-being.

As these people are increasingly threatened, their populations decline and their traditions become diluted as they are exposed to the modern world.

Their young people may trade in the traditional language, songs, and prayers for a modern education and the ability to speak Spanish or English.

And as the older generations die off, worlds of ancient knowledge are being lost or abandoned.

What happens as these important rituals are lost? What is the effect on the Universe when fewer and fewer people are left who know the ancient ways of singing and dancing to honor the ground that we walk upon and the animals and plants that provide our nourishment?

Is that shift at the core of what is happening to the Earth now?

When forgetting to nourish the forms of life that nourish us, everything beings to decay and lose its radiance.

Humankind has consumed millions of tons of resources taken from the planet during the last decades … There isn’t any consistent practice or tradition used for compensating the Earth for all that is taken from Her.

What can we do to reconnect with the Earth and restore the brilliant vibration of all life, to give strength back to our world when people have already taken so much?

For if we can find a way to give back to the Earth, then She will most certainly have more abundance to share with us, and humans can live in increased prosperity (richness of mind, body, and heart) instead of being caught up in endless war, greed, and fear as much of the world is today.

Our Responsibility Today

Evolutionary Activism is a rising movement based on the idea that we, as humans, are aware of evolution and our place in the circle of life. We are the universe becoming aware of itself.

Ancient wisdom tells us that we were meant to be caretakers of the Earth, and so our consciousness points us toward an extraordinary responsibility to create a better world for all beings.

Bill Twist, co-founder and Executive Director of the Pachamama Alliance, referencing the late ecotheologian Thomas Berry states:

Thomas Berry says that the great work that we are facing at this time of evolution is for our species to make the transition from being a destructive presence on the planet to a mutually enhancing human-earth relationship.

… To really engage with the questions of creating a mutually-enhancing human-earth relationship, it is going to require tremendous boldness, tremendous brashness, tremendous commitment to get at the core of what needs to be engaged with.”

Worldwide today, groups advocating for transformational social change are already impacting our world in significant ways.

Movements such as Buen Vivir and Deep Ecology are calling for a change from the current paradigm to one of respect for nature; a shift away from consumption and consumerism and toward a more holistic view of humans’ place on the Earth.

What role will you play? What talents, knowledge, and deep heartfelt passion for your cause, will you bring forward to make our world more thriving, just, and sustainable?

Pachamama Alliance’s online course, the Game Changer Intensive, is designed to expand your sense of scale and situate yourself as a key part — not only of your community — but of the universe itself.

It will help you gain new perspective on your place in the world, and engage with our collective responsibility as human beings for our role in shaping the evolution of life on Earth.

Much love to all... go in peace my beautiful friends

Spread love, light and good vibrations 💓💓💓💓

[istanbulorconstantinople]

The great convulsion came

The great convulsion came. The gathering storm of centuries burst at length in the French Revolution. Then, indeed, it seemed that chaos was come again. It was an earthquake blotting out all trace of what had been, engulfing the most ancient structures, destroying all former landmarks, and scattering society in confusion and dismay. It spreads from Paris through every corner of France, from France to Italy, to Spain, to Germany, to England; it pierces, like the flash from a vast storm- cloud, through every obstacle of matter, space, or form. It kindles all ideas of men, and gives wild energy to all purposes of action. For though terrible, it was not deadly. It came not to destroy but to construct, not to kill but to give life. And through the darkest and bloodiest whirl of the chaos there rose up clear on high, before the bewildered eyes of men, a vision of a new and greater era yet to come — of brotherhood, of freedom, and of union, of never-ending progress, of mutual help, trust, co-operation, and goodwill; an era of true knowledge, of real science, and practical discovery; but, above all, an era of active industry for all, of the dignity and consecration of labour, of a social life just to all, common to all, and beneficent to all.

That great revolution is not ended. The questions it proposed are not yet solved. We live still in the heav- ings of its shock. It yet remains with us to show how the last vestiges of the feudal, hereditary, and aristocratic systems may give place to a genuine, an orderly, and permanent republic; how the trammels of a faith long grown useless and retrograde may be removed without injury to the moral, religious, and social instincts, which are still much entangled in it; how industry may be organised, and the workman enrolled with full rights of citizenship, a free, a powerful, and a cultivated member of the social body.

Such is the task before

Such is the task before us. The ground is all prepared, the materials are abundant and sufficient. We have a rich harvest of science, a profusion of material facilities, a vast collection of the products, ideas, and inventions of past ages. Every vein of human life is full; every faculty has been trained to full efficiency; every want of our nature is supplied. We need now only harmony, order, union; we need only to group into a whole these powers and gifts: the task before us is to discover some complete and balanced system of life; some common basis of belief; some object for the imperishable religious instincts and aspirations of mankind; some faith to bind the existence of man to the visible universe around him; some common social end for thought, action, and feeling; some common ground for teaching private guide turkey, studying, or judging. We need to extract the essence of all older forms of civilisation, to combine them, and harmonise them in one, a system of existence which may possess something of the calm, the completeness, and the symmetry of the earliest societies of men; the zeal for truth, knowledge, science, and improvement, which marks the Greek, with something of his grace, his life, his radiant poetry and art; the deep social spirit of Rome, its political sagacity, its genius for government, law, and freedom, its noble sense of public life; above all else, the constancy, earnestness, and tenderness of the mediaeval faith, with its discipline of devotion to the service of a Power far greater than self, with its zeal for the spiritual union of mankind. We have to combine these with the industry, the knowledge, the variety, the activity, the humanity, of modern life.

Of all subjects of study, it is History which stands most sorely in need of a methodical plan of reading. The choice of books is nowhere a more perplexing task: for the subject is practically infinite; the volumes impossible to number; and the range of fact interminable. There are some three or four thousand years of recorded history, and the annals, it may be, of one hundred different peoples, each forming continuous societies of men during many centuries. Many famous histories in one or two thousand pages cover at most about half a century: and that for the life of one nation alone. Macaulay’s fascinating storybook occupied him, we are told, more years of labour to compose than, in some of its periods, the events occupied in fact. A brilliant writer has given us twelve picturesque volumes which almost exactly cover the life of one queen. The standard history of France extends to 10,000 pages. And it is whispered at Oxford that a conscientious annalist of the Civil War completes the history of each year in successive volumes by the continuous study of an equal period. At this rate forty thousand years would hardly suffice to compile the annals of mankind.

[privateistanbultour]

The great convulsion came

The great convulsion came. The gathering storm of centuries burst at length in the French Revolution. Then, indeed, it seemed that chaos was come again. It was an earthquake blotting out all trace of what had been, engulfing the most ancient structures, destroying all former landmarks, and scattering society in confusion and dismay. It spreads from Paris through every corner of France, from France to Italy, to Spain, to Germany, to England; it pierces, like the flash from a vast storm- cloud, through every obstacle of matter, space, or form. It kindles all ideas of men, and gives wild energy to all purposes of action. For though terrible, it was not deadly. It came not to destroy but to construct, not to kill but to give life. And through the darkest and bloodiest whirl of the chaos there rose up clear on high, before the bewildered eyes of men, a vision of a new and greater era yet to come — of brotherhood, of freedom, and of union, of never-ending progress, of mutual help, trust, co-operation, and goodwill; an era of true knowledge, of real science, and practical discovery; but, above all, an era of active industry for all, of the dignity and consecration of labour, of a social life just to all, common to all, and beneficent to all.

That great revolution is not ended. The questions it proposed are not yet solved. We live still in the heav- ings of its shock. It yet remains with us to show how the last vestiges of the feudal, hereditary, and aristocratic systems may give place to a genuine, an orderly, and permanent republic; how the trammels of a faith long grown useless and retrograde may be removed without injury to the moral, religious, and social instincts, which are still much entangled in it; how industry may be organised, and the workman enrolled with full rights of citizenship, a free, a powerful, and a cultivated member of the social body.

Such is the task before

Such is the task before us. The ground is all prepared, the materials are abundant and sufficient. We have a rich harvest of science, a profusion of material facilities, a vast collection of the products, ideas, and inventions of past ages. Every vein of human life is full; every faculty has been trained to full efficiency; every want of our nature is supplied. We need now only harmony, order, union; we need only to group into a whole these powers and gifts: the task before us is to discover some complete and balanced system of life; some common basis of belief; some object for the imperishable religious instincts and aspirations of mankind; some faith to bind the existence of man to the visible universe around him; some common social end for thought, action, and feeling; some common ground for teaching private guide turkey, studying, or judging. We need to extract the essence of all older forms of civilisation, to combine them, and harmonise them in one, a system of existence which may possess something of the calm, the completeness, and the symmetry of the earliest societies of men; the zeal for truth, knowledge, science, and improvement, which marks the Greek, with something of his grace, his life, his radiant poetry and art; the deep social spirit of Rome, its political sagacity, its genius for government, law, and freedom, its noble sense of public life; above all else, the constancy, earnestness, and tenderness of the mediaeval faith, with its discipline of devotion to the service of a Power far greater than self, with its zeal for the spiritual union of mankind. We have to combine these with the industry, the knowledge, the variety, the activity, the humanity, of modern life.

Of all subjects of study, it is History which stands most sorely in need of a methodical plan of reading. The choice of books is nowhere a more perplexing task: for the subject is practically infinite; the volumes impossible to number; and the range of fact interminable. There are some three or four thousand years of recorded history, and the annals, it may be, of one hundred different peoples, each forming continuous societies of men during many centuries. Many famous histories in one or two thousand pages cover at most about half a century: and that for the life of one nation alone. Macaulay’s fascinating storybook occupied him, we are told, more years of labour to compose than, in some of its periods, the events occupied in fact. A brilliant writer has given us twelve picturesque volumes which almost exactly cover the life of one queen. The standard history of France extends to 10,000 pages. And it is whispered at Oxford that a conscientious annalist of the Civil War completes the history of each year in successive volumes by the continuous study of an equal period. At this rate forty thousand years would hardly suffice to compile the annals of mankind.

[clothingstore]

The great convulsion came

The great convulsion came. The gathering storm of centuries burst at length in the French Revolution. Then, indeed, it seemed that chaos was come again. It was an earthquake blotting out all trace of what had been, engulfing the most ancient structures, destroying all former landmarks, and scattering society in confusion and dismay. It spreads from Paris through every corner of France, from France to Italy, to Spain, to Germany, to England; it pierces, like the flash from a vast storm- cloud, through every obstacle of matter, space, or form. It kindles all ideas of men, and gives wild energy to all purposes of action. For though terrible, it was not deadly. It came not to destroy but to construct, not to kill but to give life. And through the darkest and bloodiest whirl of the chaos there rose up clear on high, before the bewildered eyes of men, a vision of a new and greater era yet to come — of brotherhood, of freedom, and of union, of never-ending progress, of mutual help, trust, co-operation, and goodwill; an era of true knowledge, of real science, and practical discovery; but, above all, an era of active industry for all, of the dignity and consecration of labour, of a social life just to all, common to all, and beneficent to all.

That great revolution is not ended. The questions it proposed are not yet solved. We live still in the heav- ings of its shock. It yet remains with us to show how the last vestiges of the feudal, hereditary, and aristocratic systems may give place to a genuine, an orderly, and permanent republic; how the trammels of a faith long grown useless and retrograde may be removed without injury to the moral, religious, and social instincts, which are still much entangled in it; how industry may be organised, and the workman enrolled with full rights of citizenship, a free, a powerful, and a cultivated member of the social body.

Such is the task before

Such is the task before us. The ground is all prepared, the materials are abundant and sufficient. We have a rich harvest of science, a profusion of material facilities, a vast collection of the products, ideas, and inventions of past ages. Every vein of human life is full; every faculty has been trained to full efficiency; every want of our nature is supplied. We need now only harmony, order, union; we need only to group into a whole these powers and gifts: the task before us is to discover some complete and balanced system of life; some common basis of belief; some object for the imperishable religious instincts and aspirations of mankind; some faith to bind the existence of man to the visible universe around him; some common social end for thought, action, and feeling; some common ground for teaching private guide turkey, studying, or judging. We need to extract the essence of all older forms of civilisation, to combine them, and harmonise them in one, a system of existence which may possess something of the calm, the completeness, and the symmetry of the earliest societies of men; the zeal for truth, knowledge, science, and improvement, which marks the Greek, with something of his grace, his life, his radiant poetry and art; the deep social spirit of Rome, its political sagacity, its genius for government, law, and freedom, its noble sense of public life; above all else, the constancy, earnestness, and tenderness of the mediaeval faith, with its discipline of devotion to the service of a Power far greater than self, with its zeal for the spiritual union of mankind. We have to combine these with the industry, the knowledge, the variety, the activity, the humanity, of modern life.

Of all subjects of study, it is History which stands most sorely in need of a methodical plan of reading. The choice of books is nowhere a more perplexing task: for the subject is practically infinite; the volumes impossible to number; and the range of fact interminable. There are some three or four thousand years of recorded history, and the annals, it may be, of one hundred different peoples, each forming continuous societies of men during many centuries. Many famous histories in one or two thousand pages cover at most about half a century: and that for the life of one nation alone. Macaulay’s fascinating storybook occupied him, we are told, more years of labour to compose than, in some of its periods, the events occupied in fact. A brilliant writer has given us twelve picturesque volumes which almost exactly cover the life of one queen. The standard history of France extends to 10,000 pages. And it is whispered at Oxford that a conscientious annalist of the Civil War completes the history of each year in successive volumes by the continuous study of an equal period. At this rate forty thousand years would hardly suffice to compile the annals of mankind.

[istanbulpub]

The great convulsion came

The great convulsion came. The gathering storm of centuries burst at length in the French Revolution. Then, indeed, it seemed that chaos was come again. It was an earthquake blotting out all trace of what had been, engulfing the most ancient structures, destroying all former landmarks, and scattering society in confusion and dismay. It spreads from Paris through every corner of France, from France to Italy, to Spain, to Germany, to England; it pierces, like the flash from a vast storm- cloud, through every obstacle of matter, space, or form. It kindles all ideas of men, and gives wild energy to all purposes of action. For though terrible, it was not deadly. It came not to destroy but to construct, not to kill but to give life. And through the darkest and bloodiest whirl of the chaos there rose up clear on high, before the bewildered eyes of men, a vision of a new and greater era yet to come — of brotherhood, of freedom, and of union, of never-ending progress, of mutual help, trust, co-operation, and goodwill; an era of true knowledge, of real science, and practical discovery; but, above all, an era of active industry for all, of the dignity and consecration of labour, of a social life just to all, common to all, and beneficent to all.

That great revolution is not ended. The questions it proposed are not yet solved. We live still in the heav- ings of its shock. It yet remains with us to show how the last vestiges of the feudal, hereditary, and aristocratic systems may give place to a genuine, an orderly, and permanent republic; how the trammels of a faith long grown useless and retrograde may be removed without injury to the moral, religious, and social instincts, which are still much entangled in it; how industry may be organised, and the workman enrolled with full rights of citizenship, a free, a powerful, and a cultivated member of the social body.

Such is the task before

Such is the task before us. The ground is all prepared, the materials are abundant and sufficient. We have a rich harvest of science, a profusion of material facilities, a vast collection of the products, ideas, and inventions of past ages. Every vein of human life is full; every faculty has been trained to full efficiency; every want of our nature is supplied. We need now only harmony, order, union; we need only to group into a whole these powers and gifts: the task before us is to discover some complete and balanced system of life; some common basis of belief; some object for the imperishable religious instincts and aspirations of mankind; some faith to bind the existence of man to the visible universe around him; some common social end for thought, action, and feeling; some common ground for teaching private guide turkey, studying, or judging. We need to extract the essence of all older forms of civilisation, to combine them, and harmonise them in one, a system of existence which may possess something of the calm, the completeness, and the symmetry of the earliest societies of men; the zeal for truth, knowledge, science, and improvement, which marks the Greek, with something of his grace, his life, his radiant poetry and art; the deep social spirit of Rome, its political sagacity, its genius for government, law, and freedom, its noble sense of public life; above all else, the constancy, earnestness, and tenderness of the mediaeval faith, with its discipline of devotion to the service of a Power far greater than self, with its zeal for the spiritual union of mankind. We have to combine these with the industry, the knowledge, the variety, the activity, the humanity, of modern life.

Of all subjects of study, it is History which stands most sorely in need of a methodical plan of reading. The choice of books is nowhere a more perplexing task: for the subject is practically infinite; the volumes impossible to number; and the range of fact interminable. There are some three or four thousand years of recorded history, and the annals, it may be, of one hundred different peoples, each forming continuous societies of men during many centuries. Many famous histories in one or two thousand pages cover at most about half a century: and that for the life of one nation alone. Macaulay’s fascinating storybook occupied him, we are told, more years of labour to compose than, in some of its periods, the events occupied in fact. A brilliant writer has given us twelve picturesque volumes which almost exactly cover the life of one queen. The standard history of France extends to 10,000 pages. And it is whispered at Oxford that a conscientious annalist of the Civil War completes the history of each year in successive volumes by the continuous study of an equal period. At this rate forty thousand years would hardly suffice to compile the annals of mankind.