#after all you can’t recognize things external to you without first having an internal referent :)

[savcir-faire]

i like you

i like you!

And that aint nothing new

imi - Bon Iver

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzeltopia

This episode, much like many other plot important episodes of the first two seasons, is decent on it its own, but becomes retroactively worse due to season three’s bad writing and behind the scenes bullshit. 

Summary:  Matthews reveals himself as another dark spirit and disciple of Zhan Tiri, and traps Eugene, Lance and the others in unbreakable vines similar to the Great Tree's evil magic. He has Rapunzel live the perfect life while he prepares to hand over the mystical powers of the Sundrop to his master. Fortunately, Rapunzel is able to make contact with her brown-haired dream self and attempts to convince her to let go. 

Timeline Alert

So what does almost a year ago mean? The Great Tree was six months out, and then in Mirror, Mirror, Lance said that they been fighting for three weeks since. So how long have then been stuck in this shell house? Because You’re Kidding Me was just the next day after Mirror, Mirror. Was Lance’s ‘three weeks’ comment meant to be after Brothers Hooks and Rapunzel: Day One and not Great Tree? Are we 7, 8, 9, or 10 months out from Secret of the Sundrop? Like be clear about your time frame guys if you’re going to use it as a plot point. 

I’m going to say we are 9 months along on this trip, just cause that sounds closer to ‘almost a year ago’ without keeping them all trapped in the shell house for months. So Great Tree is 6 months, Brother’s Hook and Rapunzel Day One is 7 months, Mirror, Mirror is going on 8 months, and at the end of this episode they’ll be heading into the 9 month period...I guess. Lets just say they were trapped there for a week or two. 

This Episode Only Highlights How Self Centered and Immature Rapunzel Still Is Rather Than Showcase How Much She’s Grown 

The point behind this episode is show how much Rapunzel has grown since season one, and how she is accepting of responsibility now, but it actually backfires because she’s not actually being challenged on her selfish desires but on her lack of agency. Which is the wrong lesson that she needs to be learning at this point in her development.

Rapunzel in her subconscious mind doesn’t wish for what’s best for other people but what’s best for herself. People she must interact with on the regular have to be superficially happy even if it completely warps their character. While people she doesn't care about, like Lady Caine, can just be simply banished and ignored regardless if they deserve such an end or not.  She doesn’t see people as people with individual thoughts and feelings, but as satellites to herself and her narrow worldview.  

 Also, ‘I believe everyone deserves a second chance’ my eye! Caine never gets even a first chance in Rapunzel’s own fantasy world. Because Rapunzel is a selfish hypocrite who’s ‘redemptions’ always comes with strings attached. 

Here Comes the Dumbest Plot Point In the Show

I’ll talk about this more when we get to season three, but this scene is the beginning of the end for any dignity the show once held. 

Also why would ‘I don’t trust anyone’ Cassandra follow a creepy voice calling her name through a doorway inside a magic house that’s tried to kill her twice now? 

If you gotta make you character act out of character in order to get your plot rolling than you haven’t a good plot. Think of something else. 

What’s the Point of Having Two Names? 

They did this both with Sugarbee and Matthews here and it makes zero sense. Why would they need to bother with fake names if the heroes wouldn’t even recognize their real names to begin with? Such revelations add nothing and fails to tell the audience anything new about the characters.  It’s also not consistent as it turns out Gothel was a disciple too and she only gets one name, so what gives? 

So How Does This All Work Again?

So Zhan Tiri needs ‘a clash of the sundrop and moonstone’ in order to be freed from her prison. Why? I don’t know, but holding Rapunzel prisoner for life actually undermines that plan, and it’s a plan that Zhan Tiri is currently setting up with Cassandra off screen during all of this. 

So does Tromus/Matthews just not know that Zhan Tiri is already ‘free’ and has her own plans?

Is Rapunzel’s power being drained what gives Zhan Tiri a foothold in the real world?

Or was Zhan Tiri released back in the Great Tree with the removal of the spear and that’s why she knows to go after Cass? 

What was up with the Great Tree and the sealed tree back in Painter’s Block? Did they have any impact on Zhan Tiri’s plans?  

Were any of the disciples actually useful at all? 

So What Do the Disciples Gain From All This?

Sugarbee, Matthews, and Gothel were all once real people who actually lived so what are their reasons for following Zhan Tiri? What do they gain from going through such complicated plans? Why continue to follow someone after you’ve been dead for centuries and are a ghost now, and were presumably trapped and or killed by Demantius for following her? Real people don’t just hold on to such fanatical devotion without reason. 

This Conflict Over Choices Does Not Work Without Varian

Going back to how this episode fails to develop Rapunzel; it wants to have Rapunzel take responsibility for difficult choices, but much like Painters Block, it completely ignores her biggest fuck up thereby undermining why she has trouble with owning up to hard choices.  

Rapunzel ruined a child’s life. She may not have meant to but she did, and thus far she has done nothing to make amends for it. She’s not even spared the poor boy a single thought beyond seeing him as the boogeyman in a nightmare once. 

You can’t have Rapunzel take responsibility for anything if you won’t hold her accountable for anything.  

Varian was meant to appear in this episode, and indeed he should have for the above reason. 

But of course Chris had to give us a bullshit excuse for why he cut the most plot important character from the series. 

I’ve already spoken about how Varian’s cameo in Happiness Is did nothing to actually further develop Rapunzel nor explore her guilt back in that review. In this episode, however, I want to discuss how hollow the comparisons to Gothel is and why there shouldn’t logically have been any competition between the two. 

Varian and Gothel provide two completely different conflicts and two completely different points of development for Rapunzel’s arc. Gothel is the instigator of her conflict with Rapunzel. Rapunzel, as the victim, has only one thing to learn, self esteem. She learned it back in the movie, she relearned it back in the season one, and here she’s re-contextualizing it for this episode’s mini-arc. 

Meanwhile Rapunzel is the instigator of her conflict with Varian. She’s the one with the power in their relationship and her choices matter. She doesn’t need to learn agency because she already has it. What she needs to learn is responsibility and she can’t do that without confronting Varian and what she did in some manner. So unlike with Gothel there only new ground to cover here rather than rehashing old conflicts. 

Chris Sonnenburg has things all backwards. Rapunzel’s agency/self-esteem issues and her need to take responsibility for her actions are not interchangeable conflicts. Addressing one does not automatically address the other, and of the two her conflict with responsibility holds more weight because it’s ongoing. We haven’t seen the resolvement there. It also affects more people than just herself so the stakes are higher there as well. And to top it all off, it fits with the themes of the episode better. 

Also, you very much could have had both characters because they both reflect different conflicts and serve different purposes in the narrative. Time management in television is a very big deal yes, but you have little grounds for defense when all you’ve shown is how poorly you’ve managed your time until now. 

In short, Chris is full of shit. 

No, It Wouldn’t

We’ve already established that there’s no need for Rapunzel to go on her quest in season two. The black rocks are inactive, there’s no ticking clock she has to beat, and her staying at home would have actually prevented the conflicts in season three. 

Unless dream Rapunzel is referring to Zhan Tiri being released, but even that is false because Zhan Tiri is already floating around a little blue ghost girl off screen right now. What Rapunzel choses or chooses not to do does not change that. 

Lack of external conflict undermines internal conflict.  

Just Cause You Make A Meta Joke About Your Heroes Being Dumb For No Reason, Does Not Make Them Any Less Stupid 

Jokingly admitting a fault in your writing doesn’t not excuse that fault. If you can’t have a plot without handing the idiot ball to your characters than you haven’t a good plot. Time to go back to drawing board. 

Season Three Will Go Back On This Episode’s Message and Prove the Villian Right

I’ve liget seen fans unironically praise the show for it’s message of ‘be content with what you have’. Not only is that a terrible lesson to teach children; it’s actually the exact opposite of what the show is trying to achieve.

“Be satisfied” is suppose to be the wrong motto. Rapunzel is suppose to be fighting against this message. In the episode itself it’s the villian who is saying such things in order to tempt her to stay put. 

So how could anyone look at the show as a whole and come away with idea that the one off villain was right along? 

Because season three does a complete 180 away from its original messages regarding agency and responsibility. All consequences disappear from the story and the mains are given convenient scapegoats to distract from their decisions. Characters actively regress and are rewarded by the narrative for either not doing anything or for victim blaming others for their actions. 

But most damaging of all is the fact that nearly everyone winds up back where they started out at, or aren’t given a proper ending at all. Tangled’s story is just one giant circle and that in of itself contradicts the idea of progress.  

Cassandra’s Hurt Hand Is Only Relevant When The Story Wants Rapunzel to Feel Guilty About Something  

Oh but we can just throw Cassandra’s burnt hand in here as a substitute Rapunzel’s guilt over Varian. Even though the two incidents should actually complement one another rather than compete for dominance. 

Tangled doesn’t trust its audience to remember things. It acts like if it’s off screen or not being focused upon than it’s not happening or isn’t relevant. This undermines any ongoing or overarching conflicts.  

Why should we care about Cassandra’s arm if she’s been shown as being fine with it for four episodes by now? Especially since it’ll never come up again after this point? And on the flip side of things, why should the audience not care about the 15 year old who has been sitting in a dungeon for almost a year now due to Rapunzel’s neglect?  

We’re not magpies who are quickly distracted by shiny new things. We are capable of retaining information and informing decisions based off of that. Especially if Chris was shooting for the teen audience as he claims he was. 

Oh But We Got Time For Godzilla-Pascal 

Can’t spare even half a minute for a Varian cameo that would be relevant, but we sure got time to waste on a pointless action sequence that does nothing to further the character in what is meant to be a character development episode. 

This Scene Is Out of Character 

That’s not how abuse works! 

The whole reason why Gothel was able to keep Rapunzel under her thumb for 18 years because Rapunzel always sought her approval. Never at any point, even when finally choosing to break away from her in the movie, did Rapunzel wish to harm the woman. That goes against who she is as a character and it’s not how abuse victims respond to abusers even after cutting things off with them. 

If anything, Rapunzel’s treatment of Frederic in Happiness Is is more in line with how a victim goes about mourning the loss of an abusive relationship. Victims grieve for what might have been. Victims mourn the loss of what good times they had with their abusers, because yes, abusers aren’t abusive 100% of the time 24/7. They can’t be or they risk losing their victim quicker.  

I initially was ok with flashbacks to Gothel on occasion because no victim ever makes a completely clean break from their abuser. Even ‘moving on’ isn’t some triumphant singular action when you stand tall while you knock your opponent down in a wish fulfilment fantasy.

No. ‘Moving on’ is slow. It’s understated. It’s routine. It’s about being able to do the dishes without getting triggered. It’s sitting at lunch with friends and being happy and calm without the fear of returning home hanging over your head. It’s not skipping out on work because your anxiety is through the roof over just meeting with your boss. It’s not devolving into a yelling match over something minor because you internalize your abusers behavior.  

Abuse victims don’t celebrate violence as strength. We celebrate being an unmovable mountain of clam fortitude. Being in control even as the world rages at us, because we’re self assured. 

The fact that this scene exists, while Happiness Is shows Rapunzel behaving the opposite way to the father who abused her the same as Gothel did, only proves that a man shouldn’t have been in charge of this show. Certainly not without a woman by his side giving equal input. 

Stop Using Destiny as a Shorthand for Everything!

Destiny isn’t a catch all word that can mean whatever you want it to. Words have definitions for a reason. Destiny isn’t a goal nor does it equate to agency and responsibility; kind of the opposite in fact. 

Well That Was Redundant

All we did was rehash Rapunzel’s season one arc in under half in hour. Nothing new was learned. It’s like writers don’t know how to resolve any conflict that isn’t a repeat of the first movie. Meanwhile actual unique conflicts are just sitting off to the side being ignored. All because the show’s creator doesn’t want to hold his precious self insert accountable for anything. 

Bye Bye Smart Cass, Hello Dumb Cass

So from this point onward the Cass we’ve known for nearly two seasons is gone. She’s just been replaced by the dumbest bitch on the planet. Because the writers don’t understand how manipulation and trauma actually works. Nor do they comprehend the importance of giving characters actual goals.  

Conclusion 

Season three is what retroactively spoils this episode. Cass’s dumb decision here, Zhan Tiri’s lack of a coherent plan, the uselessness of the disciples, and even the lack of Varian could have been glossed over had they writers given us a satisfying pay offs for any of the main conflicts. But they didn’t and so here we are. 

Also a small update, but after this review and starting next week, the Salt Marathon will go from bi weekly updates to only one a week. This is a combination of real life work getting in the way and the growing length of the reviews. This means we’ll hopefully be done come March, which would mark the show’s anniversary. I got some plans to celebrate if that works out. 

[bryte-eyed-athena]

A New Earthseed Community

I used to imagine what life would be like in a dystopian society where everything has collapsed or is on the verge of collapse. This Earthseed community project has given me the opportunity to actually put some serious thought into how a community might survive in a world that has gone off the rails. However, I am going into this making a few assumptions. First, the world I am envisioning my community living in is very similar to the one depicted in Parable of the Sower. I was considering writing journal entries like Lauren did, but then I thought that was too much like fanfiction. Instead I am going to simply respond to the questions. Second, this is an established community that has already done the hard work of gathering trusted people, escaping to a safe area, and building the community. I’m trying to think about how to make this community survive, as well as thrive, long term after it has already been established. Third, the community has decided to give their settlement a name so I will refer to them as “The Dandelion Community”. Hopefully trying to envision this ideal community can help me with thinking of solutions to solve our real world problems.

Explain two real-life issues that make it necessary to create your Earthseed community. What are you seeking shelter from?

Climate change is wreaking havoc all over the world as it exacerbates natural disasters and displaces millions of people. In California the climate will get hotter and wildfires will cause more damage. Climate change also disproportionately impacts low income people of color who do not have a refuge to escape to once the environment becomes hostile. These are the groups of people that are going to be impacted the most negatively and they are the ones who require shelter and protection.

Police brutality has impacted communities of color and immigrant communities the harshest due to the influence of systemic racism and capitalism. It has created a culture of fear and violence which harms us physically, mentally, and spiritually. It is a system that must be entirely abolished in order for all marginalized people to feel safe. If it cannot be abolished then we must seek refuge in areas where the police don’t exist and have no power.

Quote two Earthseed verses from Parable of the Sower and show how you will apply them to your community. You may be creative in your interpretation.

“All successful life is Adaptable, Opportunistic, Tenacious, Interconnected, and Fecund. Understand this. Use it. Shape God.”

The Dandelion community understands that there will be numerous challenges for them to face if they want to survive. But life is not just about survival it is also about being able to live well. This verse will inspire the community to see their existence as more than just a fight for survival. It will motivate them to seek success defined in these terms. They will internalize this message and learn to be adaptable to new challenges. They will either seek opportunities or turn their dire circumstances into one. They will tenaciously fight for themselves and for their fellow members. They will feel connected with the community and other people they meet on the outside. They will also try to make sure that all their endeavors are fertile in order to produce more good to balance all the bad in the world. With this verse in their hearts they will be able to Shape God.

“Embrace diversity. Unite— Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed.”

Out of all of the Earthseed verses, this is the one that defines the human story. Centuries of conflict and horror could have been avoided if we sought to embrace diversity and unite with our fellow man. Instead, this planet has been divided and conquered over and over. The Dandelion community will refuse to be divided, robbed, ruled, or killed by any one. Their strength will be in unity and the bonds they form with each other will heal them internally. The diversity of body ability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, faith and so on will give the community a unique advantage to respond to change. The diversity of opinion and experience would be a useful tool and not seen as a hindrance.

Explain where you will create your Earthseed community to be safe.

Safety comes from being in a defendable area surrounded by people with the skills and tools to survive. The Channel Islands National Park is a chain of four islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. It is too far away to swim to and there is enough land to support a large community if they are spread across all the islands. The Dandelion can reserve certain areas for small villages that contain homes, libraries, and facilities to create goods. The rest of the land can be used for farming sustainably as well as a training/play area for children. Once the community is able to build boats they can start to fish farther out into the ocean to provide more variety in their diets. These islands would be easy to defend since they are isolated and far away from the coast. Swimmers wouldn’t be able to get there and the community could devise ways to sabotage the waters so boats wouldn't be able to get through. The islands are also large enough that a stable and thriving community could be built there so people can live peacefully.

Who can join your community and why? Who can’t join? Why not?

Anyone can join as long as they are willing to learn skills and be ready to contribute. They are expected to be understanding of others and respectful of diversity. They also must dedicate themselves to protecting all members of the community from external threats. It is also important that they understand that joining a community means truly becoming an engaged member of the community. This means that they make the effort to be a part of people’s lives and make positive contributions no matter how small. They must want peace and understand that it takes hard work to create the conditions for peace and love to flourish.

What will your leadership model be for your community?

The Dandelion community is very mutual aid based so it is important that every member has a voice and opportunity to exercise power. There will not be a single leader since teamwork and communication are valued highly here. Instead there will be a group of around ten people who gather and discuss the problems of the community no matter how big or small. The community will also gather in weekly town halls to address any grievances or solutions they have directly to the group of leaders. During that meeting they will try to create solutions that take into account the needs and wants of the community. After a month this group of ten people will be replaced with a different set of ten people. Anyone can volunteer to be a member of the group and it's basically first come first serve. Eventually as the group rotated members monthly every person in the community who wanted to be a leader would have been a leader at least once. This way the burden of leadership is shared equally across the community. This also means that no one person can hold total power and become a tyrant. It also means that there will always be someone in charge and someone the group can defer to in order to make a final decision.

Create a future technology (one on the horizon, not something like teleportation or time travel) to help improve life at your Earthseed community.

A water filtration device will be necessary to support the community. It would be non polluting and powered by solar energy. Once water is filtered from the ocean the community members can all go and get as much as they need. There will not be a plumbing system so people will have clay jugs to transport their clean water.

A series of solar powered radios set all around the island chain will help make communication easier and faster. If an urgent warning needs to be sent out people will be able to hear it on their radio. It will also make internal communication easier so people could just ask for things without having to travel.

Long range portable telescopes will help the defenders of the island see any oncoming threats. They will also be a good educational tool for the children when they want to see the stars.

Most importantly would be a submarine that can be used to travel to the mainland safely. The island won't be able to provide for every need and there will be times where trash needs to be disposed of. A submarine with a renewable energy source would be a good way to travel and maybe explore other places that could be safe as well.

Explain/show how your Earthseed community will SURVIVE.

The Dandelion community will survive by using knowledge collected in books and by forging strong community bonds that will encourage mental health. Books on indegenous and sustainable farming practices will help the community create a replenishable food source that feeds everyone. If there are surpluses, scouts could travel to the mainland and give it away. Books about fishing and the ocean would help the community fish safely and prevent overfishing. Books on natural medicine and surviving in wilderness environments can help the community treat and prevent illnesses as well as be attentive to their surroundings. Other books on math and literature and technology can help with basic education and entertainment which will help the community feed their minds and souls. All of this knowledge will help the community become self reliant and understand the world better which will help them Shape God.

Explain/show what TWO steps your Earthseed community will make to build a better future, i.e. education, housing, conservation, farming, etc.

The Dandelion community recognizes the importance of education and that learning can happen at any point in life. All members of the community will be educated equally and on the same topics. They will learn the basics like reading, writing, and math. They will also learn survival skills, how to cook and clean, how to swim, and how to use tools and weapons. They will also learn how to be sustainable and not harm the environment. As they grow older and develop their own interest they can divert into different fields. Some may wish to become teachers, potters, weavers, fishers, farmers, writers, etc. New members that come from the mainland will also be educated in the same way and if they have certain skills then they will be asked to contribute their knowledge as well. Innovation and creativity are encouraged, but above all the survival of the whole must be put first.

Hopefully the environment of peace and love will encourage the community to want to share their resources with others. One of the reasons Lauren’s original community fell was because outsiders thought that they were rich. In reality, that wasn’t the case, but Lauren’s family was still better off than most. If the Dandelion community found a way to share their resources and beliefs with those on the mainland they would be able to create more stable communities. The best defense against criminality and violence would be to remove the factors that cause it, in this case poverty. By sharing their technology and knowledge the Dandelion community would be able to lift people out of poverty and create stable communities across the coast line. Once those communities are stable enough they would also be able to create stability even further inland. This will ensure the longevity and survival of the Dandelion community.

[strangertheory]

I’ll admit I’ve been very skeptical about the DID theory, but your most recent post discussing the “layers” was mind blowing to me. I’m still standing back to see how things play out, since it is a theory, but reading the first “layer”, I 100% can see that being part of the plot. The rest is a little more abstract and I’m curious to see how they would write it in if this theory is true. Thanks to you and Kaypeace for your posts on this theory, they’re interesting!

[This is a follow-up Ask referring to this earlier post.]

Thanks for Asking! I have a lot of thoughts on the possible “layers” going on in the story, but I find it challenging to put into words what my ideas are sometimes because I don’t consider myself a very good writer. I can’t promise that anything I write in this reply will make a lot of sense, but I will do my best! I’ve avoided trying to explain certain thoughts I have on the layers of the scenes because they’re complicated and I hadn’t been sure how many fans would have an interest in them since there’s already such a small number of fans interested in the interpretation that the story is about a DID System in the first place. This is yet a sub-theory of that theory! But I’m really excited that you asked. I will try to explain as best I can.

Please keep in mind that although kaypeace21 and I both theorize that Stranger Things is about a DID System (her blogpost about which characters are alters is excellent and I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet), we each have our own interpretations of the DID theory that are sometimes very different from each other’s. Her analyses are based on the theory that the alters, internal worlds, and traumas in Will’s mind have escaped his subconsciousness through supernatural means and have become real. I see her interpretation as one possible explanation for the events in the series and I do like that interpretation a lot. I think it’s a very compelling theory and interpretation of the events so far. But what I’m going to describe in the rest of this blogpost is not currently representative of what kaypeace21 theorizes is going on in the series. This “second layer” interpretation that I’ve considered is based on the idea that there are no real superpowers in the story at all and that they exist strictly within internal worlds or in the imagination of the storyteller.

▪️ ▫️ ▪️ ▫️ ▪️ ▫️ ▪️ ▫️

To explain my “second layer” theory which I also like referring to as my “story within a story” theory: I believe that some scenes (but not all scenes) that we see in Stranger Things might be metaphorical and not meant to be taken literally as they are shown, but rather seen as an artistic interpretation of certain concepts and scenarios.

Let’s look back at season 1. Imagine that a character (I’m going to say Mike because I do suspect he’s the one writing the story) is explaining the story of “what happened in 1983″ in a journal, and then a film crew had found what Mike had written down and adapted it into a series but the film crew did not know the original context of Mike’s story, and so the film crew was unaware that it was a story about Mike’s friend who has DID and that many of the characters in the story are actually alters.

“One day Will went missing and then a girl who said her name was Eleven showed up. She was scared and said that she knew Will but that he was ‘hiding’ and that she could help us find him in the ‘Upside Down.’ She told us that we absolutely couldn’t go tell any adults because it wasn’t safe and that ‘bad men’ were after her. I hid El in my closet upstairs when my mom came home unexpectedly. Mom told me that she wants me to feel like I can talk to her. (“All this that’s been going on with Will. I want you to feel like you can talk to me. I’m here for you!”) Later, Dustin and Lucas and I helped find clothes and a blonde wig for El. We made sure that my mom didn’t see El while she was at my house. We snuck into the school with El and tried to get to the radio in the AV Club Room, but Mr. Clarke found us and reminded us that we should be attending Will’s memorial assembly. Oops. (Thankfully Mr. Clarke didn’t ask too many questions about El and he believed our story that she’s a cousin from Sweden!) Attending Will’s funeral was a funny experience since we knew that he was actually alive after El channeled him on the walkie talkie (”Like Professor X!”) Eventually Nancy found out about El (”Is that my dress?”) and so did Joyce and Hopper and we worked together to put together a sensory deprivation tank because El remembered that she could enhance her ability to reach into the ‘Upside Down’ that way. We set up a sensory deprivation pool in the school gym. Joyce thanked El for everything that she was doing for Will and told her that if she ever got scared that she should let her know and that she’d be with her the whole time. El was able to reach out with her mind and find Will in the Upside Down. She found him in the Upside Down in Castle Byers, barely conscious. She told Will that his mom was coming to get him, and Will whispered back ‘hurry.’ Then El became upset as Will faded away into the darkness and her connection to him weakened. She took her goggles off and sat up in the water, panicking. Joyce held her close and told her that everything was ok. Joyce and Hopper went into the Upside Down to find Will and Hopper gave Will CPR until he regained consciousness. Then the Party got to visit Will at the hospital once he was feeling a bit better, and we told him all about the adventures that we’d had and that we’d “made a new friend” named “Eleven.” (”Like the number?”) Dustin said that El was “basically a wizard” but I insisted that she’s much more like a Yoda.”

So. I recognize that I skipped many scenes in the above example summary of how author Mike Wheeler might retell the story of “what happened in 1983,” but I skipped scenes because I want to primarily focus on the connection between El and Will that is represented in season 1 and set aside what is going on with the other characters for a moment. But if you re-read the summary that I wrote above you might realize that the way in which I described season 1 could be interpreted (at its core) as the non-fiction story of a bunch of kids finding their friend who went missing in the woods, realizing that the person they’re interacting with is no longer Will but a new individual (an alter, a distinctly separate state of consciousness and separate self), and then going on an adventure as they try to sort out the best way to “find Will” and bring him back while also becoming friends with El and protecting her from the “bad men” that she says are after her. The ‘Upside Down’ is a space in the DID System’s subconsciousness that is an internal world. The innocent creativity of Mike, Dustin, and Lucas as they try to find an outfit and a wig for El to wear to school is very sweet. The scene in which they accidentally run into Mr. Clarke when they are trying to break into the AV Club room becomes even more charming when you realize that Mr. Clarke does not appear to recognize El (but Mike, Dustin, and Lucas appear very nervous that he might realize something strange is going on!) Attending Will’s memorial service with El at their side gains an amusing layer of narrative irony, and Joyce’s protective parental affection for El gains new layers of significance. Every moment in the story changes if we imagine that the story we are seeing on screen is like a creative theater performance telling the story of “what happened” and each alter in the series is represented by their own individual actor on screen.

Are there moments in season 1 that break this “second layer” theory that I’ve considered? Arguably there are. I consider this a theory-in-progress. But the key concept of this “second layer” theory is that the story is perhaps not meant literally but is meant as a story that is artistically representative of the experiences that alters in a DID System might have. Many films and tv shows that portray fictional characters with DID approach telling their stories as an outside observer might and without taking into account the individuality of each alter, alters’ experiences in internal worlds, or the way that alters might have different understandings of our reality when they’re very new to the outside world and are fronting (controlling the body) for the first time. Perhaps Stranger Things is taking a new approach.

You’re probably wondering how I carry this “second layer” theory into season 2 and especially season 3 in which we finally see Will and El in more scenes together. I might write a longer blogpost about it at some point. But I believe that, if I were to assume that my “second layer” theory is correct (it’s just one of a few very different theories I’ve considered), that it is possible that significant portions of season 3 take place in an internal world or a dream in which characters that exist in Will’s life are now NPCs or alters. This would make Will’s statement “What if we locked him out here with us?” incorrect. What if Will should have technically said “What if we locked him in here with us?” What if “the Gate” is specifically the doorway through which alters need to pass in order to front in the body in the external world? As I’ve mentioned in a few other posts: I theorize that El is a gatekeeper alter. I suspect that Hopper is also a gatekeeper and that he has been mentoring El. In summary: I often wonder if Will is not always entirely “awake” and if many scenes are taking place in a liminal space between his conscious and subconscious, between reality and his dreamlike experiences in an internal world.

You might be interested in reading a summary of my observations regarding how Will and El do not interact with each other in any scenes in season 1 or season 2 directly in this older blogpost that I made about the parallels between El and Will. I think it might interest you a lot and provide more context to my “second layer” theory if you haven’t read this older post before. I am infinitely fascinated by how Will and El parallel each other so closely and yet rarely interact. I think that this is an intentional consequence of whatever secrets the writers have in store for us in future seasons and I cannot wait to find out what those secrets are. I hope that the connection between El and Will is going to be explored more in season 4.

How might we expect the layers to be peeled back in the series itself if the writers decided to reveal this “second layer” existed beneath the current story? I think that they could reveal things to us a few ways if this “second layer” does exist. Perhaps we could see a character meeting with a therapist and a medical professional would openly name the condition and describe what the characters have been dealing with in a way that provides very new “second layer” context to earlier events in the series. (Sidenote: Back in the 80s it was called “multiple personality disorder” and we might have characters in the series refer to it that way since it takes place in the 1980s, but that term is outdated and it should be referred to as “dissociative identity disorder” or “DID” today.) Perhaps we might see them artistically or literally represent concepts like co-consciousness (two alters being conscious and aware in the body at the same time) or have characters transform back and forth into each other while sitting in a chair in order to represent them taking turns fronting in the same body.

Or perhaps this “second layer” theory that I’ve described is insisting on too much artistry and metaphor and the real “second layer” is that the vast majority of the story so far has taken place in internal worlds and Hawkins itself is an internal world. (I have wondered if this might be why Hawkins doesn’t exist in the real world even though other locations referenced in Stranger Things do exist: Chicago, Indianapolis, etc.) If that were the case maybe we’ll see the shared body of the DID System for the first time in a future season which may (or may not) resemble any of the actors we’ve seen portray characters so far. But from everything that we have seen so far I theorize that the host is most often known by the name Will in the external world. (We've had both Will Byers and William "Billy" Hargrove canonically referred to as hosts. And we have "Will the Wise" who I suspect is also an alter.)

Thank you for your Ask! I hope that I was able to explain some my thoughts in a vaguely coherent way. I really should do a larger post breaking down every single scene between seasons 1 and 3 and how this “second layer” interpretation of the story could apply, but I haven’t had the time and I’ve been wary of doing it since I’m not sure how it would be received. But maybe I’ll do that sometime soon if enough people have an interest in it.

[jadetea-writing]

A quick breakdown of Voltage's recent statement on the writers' strike.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer, nor am I studying to become one.

—

This is the official statement from Voltage Entertainment USA, Inc. and we now consider this unfortunate situation resolved.

Voltage Entertainment USA, Inc. recognizes and values the contractual contributions of all of the freelancers and outsource companies we work with. This includes artists, writers and engineers.

Blah blah pretty words

Our hope was to not lose any of our contract writers and to be able to come to a satisfactory agreement with each of them. We also understand that they define their own worth as independent contractors and have the right and freedom to reject contracts that do not meet their expectations.

We totally wanted to keep our writers! Our *contractor* writers can set their own conditions for work, so if they don't like the work, they can reject it.

Our writers have the right to accept or refuse any assignment as it is all based on “at will” agreements.

Our freelance contracts do not guarantee work or assignments. It establishes a freelance "at will" arrangement that allows us to offer individual assignments that any contractor can choose to accept or refuse.

The writers are contractors—not employees. We never promised them anything. It's their choice if they want to write for us or not.

“Voltage Organized Workers” is not a recognized union. It is composed of individual freelance contractors. Each writer is an external freelance contracted individual. The writers are not in-house employees.

VOW is not a *real* union, and the writers aren't real employees

Voltage attempted to negotiate with each individual writer on 2 separate occasions.

First attempt to offer to negotiate with each writer on July 15th was outright rejected.

Exact language, “On the subject of individual negotiations, we respectfully but firmly decline.”

We tried to negotiate with them twice, but they said no because we wanted to negotiate with them individually (where they have less power)

Social media campaigns by the freelance writers immediately began within 20-minutes of their initial rejection. False statements and claims were made in the social media posts, we will not answer them.

They went to social media only 20 minutes after we refused them :(

Technically false claims were made

Note: they're most likely """"false"""" because the writers are TECHNICALLY able to reject contracts/deadlines…but realistically that just means "you either do it like this or we hire someone else"

At the point the writers refused to work any further on their assignments, they violated their signed work orders. Voltage still attempted to negotiate with each writer for a favorable outcome.

The writers stopped writing, breaking whatever contracts they're currently in

Voltage has attempted to maintain professionalism the entire time and has made no false claims or statements against any of the freelance writers.

We're being super honest guys.

Voltage made a second attempt on July 17th to negotiate including a very favorable rate increase for the freelance writers outlined clearly and reiterated that negotiations must occur with individual freelance contractors.

We tried to bribe them individually to shut up, but they insisted on negotiating as a group

By stating that they were only interested in "collective bargaining" we can only interpret this as the writers choosing to reply in a manner that willfully chose to ignore our requirement that we negotiate with each individual freelance contract writer, in essence rejecting our offer again.

THEY rejected our offer. We totally tried our best guys.

Exact language “none of us will be entering negotiations individually.”

Collective bargaining refers to the negotiation process between an employer and a union comprised of workers to create an agreement that will govern the terms and conditions of the workers' employment. “Voltage Organized Workers” is not a union.

They're not a """real""" union, they can't negotiate as a group

Voltage has made all it's attempts in good faith and in a professional manner, however we recognize that with no resolution in sight the company must move forward.

We tried ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Our new writers rates are in place, they are the same rate increases we proposed to resolve the issue.

We agree to pay them more, but no promises on deadlines, protections, or any of those other things they want

Voltage has always recognized the contributions of our freelance external script writers, as the creative process is a collaborative one.

We would also like to take a moment to clarify for you the work our internal production team does behind the scenes.

The Voltage Producers create each series.

The Voltage Producers create the world-building.

The Voltage Producers create the characters.

The Voltage Producers create the overall season plots and episode outlines.

The Voltage Producers in conjunction with the internal art staff create the event image scenarios.

All Artwork is created by many collaborative hands including our internal art team and our network of freelance artists and outsource studios.

The Voltage Producers create all Artwork specification documents.

The writers aren't the only content creators. The producers came up with the general story and characters , and we have artists doing art stuff

Some of those artists are contractors too lol

Our in-house team is around 24 employees from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and gender expressions. We pride ourselves on collaborative storytelling and we feel that different perspectives are crucial to the stories we create.

Even without our contractor writers, we're still super ~diverse~

We regretfully announce that some updates to various series will be delayed for the foreseeable future. These series include:

Queen Of Thieves

Zoe’s Episodes 10~12 will be delayed.

Villainous Nights

Juliette’s Episodes 10~12 will be delayed.

Sweet Enchantments

Sin With Me (with the exception of Onyx)

Wicked Lawless Love (with the exception of Nathan)

Cecelia’s Episodes 10~12 will be delayed.

Reigning Passions

Tales Of The Wild

Look at all these things you like being delayed because the writers are on strike :(

We apologize for our role in the delay of content you so dearly love, we attempted to resolve as quickly and fairly as possible.

We are still committed to the same level of quality that our fans expect. We thank you for your support and patience while we work to accommodate recent changes.

Blah blah pretty words

TL;DR:

Silly writers, rights are for employees! (not contractors/freelancers)

[kinemonsamuraiwano]

Ranking The Top 15 Strongest One Piece Characters

Ranking The Top 15 Strongest One Piece Characters 323 hours. That’s approximately how long it would take for someone to completely catch up to the ONE PIECE anime. When a show goes on for this long, it’s for a ton of different reasons. Innovative storytelling, creative world-building, and an engaging protagonist all play a role. However, one thing that makes ONE PIECE truly special is its cast of characters. Over the course of 20 years, creator Eiichiro Oda assembled a cast with over 1,000 characters in it. These characters cover a number of areas, but our focus now is their powers and abilities.

In the ONE PIECE universe, characters can eat something called a “devil fruit.” When this happens, they are granted a special ability. For example, when protagonist Monkey D. Luffy ate the gum-gum fruit, it gave him the properties of rubber. Luffy could stretch his limbs at will and was even immune to lightning damage and the sensation of pain. With so many characters possessing interesting abilities like this, it’s fun ruminating over who the strongest ONE PIECE character is.

Before we get into the list order, I want to talk about my ranking system. When creating this list, I envisioned the ONE PIECE universe as a giant battleground. The person ranked #1 here is, in my opinion, the last person who would be left standing on this battleground. The person ranked #2 would only lose to the person ranked #1, and so on and so forth. Also, we’re only including anime characters. Sorry manga readers, but you might not see your favorite character here or ranked to your liking.

So, without further ado, let’s get into the character rankings.

> Kefla is Coming to DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2!

https://jwoodard.instructure.com/eportfolios/640/Home/Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_2021HK94K

https://jwoodard.instructure.com/eportfolios/640/Home/9Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_20219HD

https://jwoodard.instructure.com/eportfolios/640/Home/92021HD_Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_9Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_2021BTHDZH

https://shf.instructure.com/eportfolios/173199/Home/9Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_20219

https://shf.instructure.com/eportfolios/173199/Home/9__Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA__2021TW

 https://shf.instructure.com/eportfolios/173199/Home/20219_Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA___2021_

https://venus.instructure.com/eportfolios/70367/Home/9Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_2021blueray

https://venus.instructure.com/eportfolios/70367/Home/9Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA_20214k

https://venus.instructure.com/eportfolios/70367/Home/9_Fast__Furious_9_THE_FAST_SAGA__HD20214K

https://kinemonnn.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/one-piece-the-10-best-episodes/

  15. Caesar A lot of you might be surprised Caesar made this list at all. At this point in the ONE PIECE anime, Caesar is essentially a meme character. Luffy’s crew, and fellow pirate Capone “Gang” Bege, always belittle Caesar and call him a loser. Part of this is because his devil fruit power has been restrained for a while now, and he is at the mercy of other stronger characters. However, it wasn’t too long ago in the story that Caesar was the main antagonist of the Punk Hazard arc. People have forgotten exactly how dangerous this guy is, so let’s take a look back at his accolades.

Caesar ate the gas-gas logia fruit, making his body gas. A seemingly useless ability unless matched with genius intellect, and luckily, Caesar has that. He’s acute enough to recognize air is oxygen, a type of gas. As a result, he can physically manipulate the air around people. If Caesar wills it, he could cut off an opponents air-flow and kill them within minutes. It doesn’t matter how strong you are; that technique is impossible to block. Caesar’s also shown ingenuity with the simple castanet instrument. He fills this instrument with explosive powder, clamps them together, and uses his devil fruit powers to fan the flames throughout the air.

Caesar hatching another plan. | Image: Crunchyroll Caesar has many more abilities. However, he doesn’t do much fighting due to his cowardly nature. He goes to extreme measures to avoid fighting, but his devil fruit abilities alone earn him a spot on this list.

14. Trafalgar Law Coming in at #14 is one of ONE PIECE’s most popular characters, Trafalgar D. Water Law. It’s a superfluous name for sure, but the “surgeon of death” isn’t a person you want to make an enemy of. Like Luffy, Law is a member of the worst generation. He earned this title by committing countless heinous acts against the government and quickly accruing a bounty of 500,000,000 bellies (5,000,000 USD.)

Law is a ruthless individual equipped with the op-op fruit, nicknamed “the ultimate devil fruit.” With this fruit, Law can create a giant spatial sphere called the “room.” And within this room, Law can control anything he wants. It gives him an undeniable edge over anyone he can fit in this sphere.

Law traps a Navy soldier in his “room.” | Image: Crunchyroll However, Law’s biggest downfall is dealing with foes outside of his rooms. He’s adept with a blade, but not enough to stand up to skilled swordsmen like Mihawk or Zoro. His gamma knife ability, which destroys a person’s internal organs, is certainly powerful. But, it requires a lot of energy and is difficult to hit unless the person is trapped in his room.

Law has potential. There’s no doubt about it. But I ranked him low due to his a few weaknesses in his game.

13. Doflamingo Donquixote Doflamingo, more commonly referred to as Doffy, is one of the seven warlord’s of the sea. This elite group of pirates is so powerful the World Government in ONE PIECE actively turns a blind eye to their misdeeds. The power of these warlords range quite a bit, but make no mistake about it, Doffy is a force to be reckoned with.

He’s a towering specimen, standing over 10 feet tall with an overall imposing physique. He’s able to use the “color of armaments” Haki, a difficult technique that only skilled fighters can use. Doffy is also blessed with the Conqueror’s Haki ability, which only one in a million people can use. This ability can be used to defeat thousands of enemies at once without moving a single finger.

These abilities make Doffy a dangerous fighter, but he also has the string-string devil fruit to further augment his strength. It might sound like an underwhelming power, but these are no ordinary strings. They’re strong enough to support his tremendous size and weight, allowing him to use a make-shift flying technique. He can also use them as stitches to heal his internal/external injuries, and create copies of himself to fight. Last but not least, Doffy awakened his devil fruit power, allowing him to perform more advanced moves. For example, he can turn buildings into string simply by touching them.

Doffy manipulating others like puppets. | Image: Crunchyroll Doflamingo is extremely powerful and can hold his own against any character in the ONE PIECE universe. However, I believe he’d end up losing most hypothetical fights against everyone listed ahead of him.

12. Sabo Sabo is second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army. This organization directly challenges the corrupt officials of the World Government. It’s home to some of the most dangerous fighters in the world, and Sabo made them look like total chumps as a kid. He fought his way to the top of the organization, and as a teenager, is already strong enough to fight Navy admirals. His battle with Fujitora was brief, but people shouldn’t overlook the fact that Sabo stood on even ground with him.

> DARLING IN THE FRANXX: You Poor Darling

Arguably the most impressive part about their battle was that Sabo didn’t even have full control of his devil fruit yet. The flare-flare fruit is highly lauded for its destructive abilities and is the perfect fit for an anarchist. He recently acquired it earlier in the Dressrosa arc and was merely feeling out his abilities. He’s already shown the ability to use armament Haki as well, which will catapult his strength further.

As the story continues, Sabo will only continue to hone his abilities. He’ll be absolutely lethal when he finally fulfills his potential.

Sabo the Inheritor. | Image: Crunchyroll 

11. Kuzan Kuzan is one of the original three Navy admirals, although he eventually forfeits this position. He arrived rather early in the series while pursuing Luffy’s crewmate Robin. However, Kuzan had to go through Luffy first if he wanted any piece of Robin. Even though Luffy has taken down strong foes at this point, Kuzan made him look like an amateur. It’s not just Luffy though. Kuzan has taken down giants and even halted emperors with his combat prowess.

Since he’s above the rank of a vice-admiral, Kuzan can use armament Haki. He’s also gifted with the ice-ice logia devil fruit. He uses this fruit to control, create, and become ice. So to Kuzan, it doesn’t necessarily matter how big you are. He can freeze you. It doesn’t matter how far away you are. He can freeze the environment around you, or manifest his ice into projectiles to track you down.

Kuzan is every bit deserving of his admiral rank. He is strong enough to fight for ten days against Admiral Sakazuki, whose magma-magma fruit directly counters his. ONE PIECE fans up to date with the series will enjoy seeing how his uncertain future plays out.

Kuzan showing off his devil fruit powers. | Image: Crunchyroll 

10. Issho Issho joined the ONE PIECE cast of characters in the Dressrosa story arc. He replaced Kuzan’s position as a Navy admiral after he leaves his position. As a Navy admiral, Issho is one of the strongest fighters in the ONE PIECE universe. He mostly relies on two overall abilities when fighting.

The first is his devil fruit, which has yet to be named. It does, however, give Issho the ability to manipulate gravity. This lends Issho an advantage heading into any single fight. He can raise gravity levels so high that people can’t even stand up. Conversely, he can make objects have no density and manipulate them as he pleases. We saw his powers on a grand scale when he manipulated the density of a meteor and sent it hurdling towards Dressrosa.

The second is his Haki. Issho himself is blind but uses “color of the vision” Haki to accurately predict enemy attacks.

Overall, Issho is an absolute powerhouse. However, he is still blind. It’s an unfortunate, self-inflicted handicap that will hinder his efficacy on stronger opponents.

Issho preparing for combat. | Image: Crunchyroll

 9. Shanks Shanks’s combat abilities are a bit of a mystery. However, we know enough about him to give him a high ranking on this list. For starters, he’s one of the Four Emperors, making him one of the strongest pirate captains in the world. His power and reputation are highly feared, and we see this a couple of times throughout the series. For example, Admiral Sakazuki fought through many powerful people, even warlords, to get to Luffy in the Marineford arc. However, he didn’t even attempt to challenge Shanks when he arrived on the battleground. Even fellow emperor Big Mom noted she would have to form an alliance with Elbaf’s army of giants, which is famed as the strongest in the world, to have a chance at killing Shanks.

So, we know at one point that Shanks was an immensely powerful pirate. We don’t know, however, if he’s still a fighter of that caliber. Shanks lost an arm protecting Luffy when he was a child. He’s undoubtedly a weaker fighter, and even his friendly rival Mihawk questions if he’s still in any condition to fight.

When it comes down to it, Shanks’s pedigree alone earned him a spot on his list. However, the uncertainty of his current fighting condition places him in a mid-tier position.

Red-haired Shanks. | Image: Crunchyroll > MY LESBIAN EXPERIENCE WITH LONELINESS Doesn’t Shy Away from Suffering

8. Mihawk If you’ve noticed a trend on this list, it’s that almost everyone has eaten a devil fruit. Mihawk, however, has no such ability. What he lacks in this department, he more than makes up for in sheer power. Mihawk, aptly nicknamed “hawk-eyes,” is the world’s strongest swordsman. His swordplay is so great he can take down master swordsmen with a mere dagger and minimal effort.

He’s also advanced his abilities so far he can overcome any swordsman’s natural enemy: distance. Through sheer power, and possibly armament Haki, Mihawk can fire beam-like projections from his blade. These projectiles are so powerful they’re capable of cutting massive steel ships and even glaciers in half. With this kind of power, it’s no wonder only Shanks of the Four Emperors could match his swordplay.

“Hawk Eyes” Mihawk. | Image: Crunchyroll 

7. Borsalino Like Issho, Borsalino is one of the three Navy admirals. He’s a bit of an oddball, and honestly one of my least favorite characters. But, I have to give credit where it’s due, and there’s no denying how truly powerful Borsalino is.

He ate the glint-glint logia fruit, and gained the ability to create, control, and transform into light at will. Borsalino is capable of shooting laser beams from his hands, fingers, or feet (which are capable of causing massive explosions). He can also travel great distances almost instantly, and attack enemies in their blind spots. When you combine this with his armament Haki, Borsalino can take down powerful foes in a matter of seconds.

There aren’t many weaknesses in Borsalino’s game. You’ll be hardpressed to find people in the ONE PIECE universe capable of combating his agility and devil fruit abilities.

Borsalino leveling cities with tiny finger blasts. | Image: Crunchyroll 

6. Charlotte Linlin (Big Mom) Big Mom, the only female member of the Four Emperors, was first introduced in the Fishman Island arc. Luffy, in his typical brash nature, expressed his desire to kick her butt. We didn’t know much about her then but her insane power was revealed during the Whole Cake Island arc.

Big Mom, as her name might suggest, is an absolute behemoth of a person. She stands at 29 feet tall, and her body is so sturdy that she’s only been cut once in her whole life. Her power is off the charts as well. As a 5-year old child, she single-handedly defeated many of Elbaf’s strongest warriors.

Although she’s 68 years old now, people still fear her name. Showing your fear, however, is the last thing you want to do in front of Big Mom. Showing fear activates the condition of her soul-soul fruit, which allows her to freely interact with another person’s soul. She can remove years from a person’s lifespan, or kill them in one fell-swoop if she wants.

Big Mom’s only weakness is to those who aren’t afraid of her. It’s a big one though, as Navy admirals and new world pirates won’t be afraid of her. Her overwhelming strength, size, Haki, and use of Prometheus and Zeus are still enough to take down ONE PIECE’s mightiest foes.

Big Mom’s immense size measured against Germa 66. | Image: Crunchyroll

5. Whitebeard No list would be complete without Whitebeard. For a very long time, people considered Whitebeard the clear-cut favorite to be the new pirate king. The only reason as to why he never became the pirate king is because he found it rather low on his priority list. Nonetheless, he was unequivocally the strongest man in the world. Part of this was from the tremor-tremor fruit, but Whitebeard’s strength is deeper from that.

Like Luffy, Whitebeard gathered his strength from being hell-bent on protecting his friends. He took an excruciating amount of pain during the Marineford arc to defend these convictions. This includes 267 wounds (mostly from Navy admirals), 152 gun wounds, 46 cannon shots, a point-blank stabbing, and a fight against the entire Blackbeard pirate crew. It took all of this to bring down a 72-year old man.

Whitebeard standing tall. | Image: Crunchyroll 

4. Sakazuki Sakazuki is the current fleet admiral and replaced Sengoku after he stepped down. As such, he is the strongest military power in the world and is a one-man army of sorts. His magma-magma logia devil fruit is one of the strongest on record. It allows Sakazuki to control, create, and transform into magma at will and is even strong enough to burn fire.

The power that burns fire. | Image: Crunchyroll Above all else, Sakazuki is cunning, manipulative, and dangerous. So much so that Blackbeard of the Four Emperors fled on sight after hearing Sakazuki was aboard a Navy ship. Part of that is Blackbeard’s tendency to panic in the face of elite enemies, but it’s also great planning on his part. He recognized any encounter with Sakazuki would likely be drawn-out, and if he’s not careful, could result in his death. Sakazuki’s extremist ideologies also make him a formidable foe. He’ll fight to the end to protect his belief in absolute justice, and purging the world of “unclean pirate blood.”

Right now, Sakazuki is painted as the central antagonist of the series. The inevitable showdown between him and Luffy is likely years away but it’s something fans can’t wait to see.

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3. Monkey D. Luffy It’s about time we got to our beloved protagonist! Luffy has kicked up a storm everywhere he’s sailed to. At first, he didn’t have much more to his game than out-punching opponents. However, Luffy seriously stepped up in the Water 7 story arc. He honed the abilities of the gum-gum fruit and developed techniques likeGear 2nd and Gear 3rd. In the Dressrosa and Whole Cake Island arcs, he took things up a notch by developing and mastering his Gear 4 technique. Luffy also has the same Haki powers Doflamingo has, which theoretically qualifies him to fight the world’s strongest opponents.

Luffy activates his Gear 2nd technique. | Image: Crunchyroll And if that wasn’t enough, Luffy has limitless energy, and the gall to fight anyone regardless of their badass reputations. He won’t take anyone slandering his friends and has several lethal fighting techniques. However, arguably Luffy’s biggest strength, as noted by Mihawk, is his ability to draw people to him. Luffy has a penchant for turning doubters, haters, and immensely strong people into his close allies. His actions speak louder than words, and part of this is what makes him one of anime’s most fascinating protagonists to watch.

2. Magellan “Magellan is #2? Are you out of your mind?” This name might surprise a few at first, but let’s remember who we’re talking about here. First off, Magellan is endowed with the poison-poison fruit. This turns him into a toxic human, which is perfect for his career choice. Magellan is the chief warden at Impel Down, a prison home to the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Throughout this list, we’ve seen some amazing abilities. Magellan needs to be able to counter all of these should they ever be imprisoned at Impel Down. It just so happens that Magellan’s absurdly strong venom serves as the perfect neutralizer to any foe.

“Ruler of Hell” Magellan. | Image: Crunchyroll To Magellan, it doesn’t matter how strong you are. If you punch him, his poison will kill you within minutes. It doesn’t matter if you’re faster than him. He can manifest his poison into different shapes, like a hydra, to catch you as you run away. Magellan only needs a few drops of poison to kill you, making him incredibly dangerous. The only way someone could possibly beat Magellan is if they could nullify his devil fruit powers. This train of thought is the perfect segue into our number 1 slot.

1. Marshall D. Teach (Blackbeard) Maybe not a shocker, but come on. Let’s be honest here, Blackbeard is an absolute freak of nature, even by ONE PIECE standards. He’s a gargantuan human being (11 feet tall) and has a massive body. The latter allows him to store not one, but two devil fruit powers. This much potential power kills any other person foolish enough to try eating multiple devil fruits. Blackbeard, on the other hand, can balance his two devil fruit powers with no ill-effects.

Furthering his case for this #1 spot are his actual devil fruit powers. The first fruit he ate, the dark-dark fruit, is lauded as the strongest devil fruit ever recorded. It turns Blackbeard into a man of darkness, as he can literally manifest himself into dark matter. Furthermore, his devil fruit can temporarily nullify the abilities of other devil fruit users. To this extent, it doesn’t matter what awesome powers you might have, Blackbeard drowns everything in his darkness.

If, by some miracle, you can survive this ability, then you deal with Marshall’s second devil fruit, the tremor-tremor fruit. This gives him the ability to cause quakes. Blackbeard can cause earthquakes by slamming the ground, or by even punching the air and reverberating nearby objects. With all of these ludicrous abilities, it’s no wonder Blackbeard is the favorite to become the new pirate king. So move over Whitebeard. There’s a new favorite to become king of the pirates.

Blackbeard stating the obvious. | Image: Crunchyroll Only the Strong Survive in ONE PIECE As mentioned earlier, this list isn’t categorical. ONE PIECE has a near infinite cast of characters. As a result, one person might value a certain character higher than someone else. They might feel that Whitebeard is the strongest pirate, and there’s certainly a case for that. Germa 66, Marco, Vice-Admiral Garp, and Silvers Rayleigh all make legitimate cases to be on this list too. But, at the end of the day, it’s all fun and speculation. Even so, I’d love to hear your opinions about who the strongest ONE PIECE character really is.

Comment below with your personal rankings, and let me hear your opinions!

Featured Image Courtesy of Crunchyroll.com

> Celebrating 30 Years of AKIRA: The Film That Forever Changed Anime

[clothingblog35]

Wd My Passport Ultra Software Download Mac

I have eventually got my personal mac, the problem is I have a WD My Passport portable HD, with all my art, photos, and data I had done with the PC. I wish to copy files from my mac to the drive, it wont allow me. But when I open and copy files from the drive to the mac it works. How do I fix this without formatting the drive?

Summary: Have you received the error: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' on Mac? Don't worry, this article will focus on how to fix WD My Passport is corrupted or unreadable on Mac. To avoid the loss of important data, you'd better recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Passport with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

WD My Passport external hard drive is able to work on Mac and Windows for data transferring or backup. It is popular for its auto backup and passport protection features, keeping your files and folders safe. However, there are times that the WD My Passport becomes unreadable or corrupted on Mac. You may be greeted with errors like 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer', which prevents you from accessing all data stored on the drive.

Dec 04, 2018 Another difference is My Passport Ultra is USB-C ready, USB 3.0 compatible and formatted for Windows 10 to with plug-and-play storage out of the box. It also includes with NTFS driver for macOS so you can work on macOS operating system without reformatting. While you have to reformat My Passport into compatible file format in order to use it on.

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It's so frustrating when you meet this issue. If you are struggling to solve this issue, you will find a collection of verified troubleshooting steps.

Table of contents

1. Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error

2. How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?

3. Conclusion

Note: If you received the disk not readable error with three options: Initialize, Ignore and Eject, please don't select 'Initialize'. Initializing the drive will erase all of the data that is currently sitting on the drive, which makes it difficult to recover lost data.

Causes of WD My Passport not readable on Mac error

Let's at first take a look at the complaint from community.wd.com:

'My WD My Passport 2TB Portable External Hard Drive has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro Server with macOS 10.12 Sierra) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.13 High Sierra with the same results. Any suggestions to fix my unreadable WD drive?'

The good news is, even though you have been prompted with an error message, at least your WD My Passport drive is recognized. There are many reasons that can lead to a drive not being readable, but essentially this is because the internal file system is damaged. Some of the possible reasons for this error are described as follow:

Mac malfunctions

Outdated drivers

Faulty connections

Write-protected drive

The WD My Passport is not formatted

An internal file system error or bad sectors

Virus/malware infection to your WD My Passport

Incompatibility issue between your WD My Passport and Mac machine

Accidental interruption or removal of your WD My Passport during transferring data

How to fix 'WD My Passport unreadable' on Mac error?

In most cases, the issue can be repaired with a simple initialize. But this operation will remove all data stored on this drive. Are there any other ways to fix WD My Passport unreadable issue on Mac? Of course, just try these solutions one by one:

Solution 1: Re-insert the WD My Passport

The first and foremost thing is to remove the WD My Passport safely from Mac and then re-plug it into the USB port properly. If the external hard drive mounts and appears on the left sidebar of Finder, then you can access the drive. However, if the WD drive still won't mount or the error persists, continue with the next method below.

Solution 2: Check the Mac computer

The next step is to check whether your Mac machine has a problem or not. Just connect a different storage device to your Mac. If this error still pops up, the problem may refer to your Mac machine, you can restart your Mac to see if everything works well. Otherwise, if you can see the other drive in Finder, the problem is associated with the previous WD My Passport.

Solution 3: Check if the WD My Passport is encrypted

The WD My Passport for Mac corrupted or readable issue can also happen if the drive is encrypted by BitLocker. By default, the Mac computers cannot recognize a BitLocker encrypted drive, which means you are unable to read or write BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.

You can insert the drive in a PC and then turn off the BitLocker encryption so that it can be read on Mac. In addition, you can access a BitLocker encrypted drive with the help of a third party tool.

Solution 4: Update Mac drivers

Drivers enable one or more hardware devices to communicate with the computer's operating system. If drivers are out-of-date, a variety of issues will happen such as the disk not readable error. Apple handles all system and driver updates for your system. To check if any updates are available, please do the following:

Step 1: Go to Apple menu and select 'App Store'.

Step 2: Click on the 'Updates' button located on the top pane.

Step 3: Check available updates for your system and applications.

Solution 5: Repair the WD My Passport in Disk utility

Disk Utility is a built-in used to erase, format or manage internal disks and external storage devices. The most important feature of Disk Utility is First Aid, which helps detect and repair any issue with your disk. Here is how to run First Aid on your Mac to repair the unreadable WD My Passport:

Step 1: Open Disk Utility from your /Applications/Utilities folder.

Step 2: Select the unreadable WD My Passport in the left side bar.

Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab.

If Disk Utility tells you the disk is about to fail, back up your data and replace the disk. You can't repair the disk. Otherwise, continue to step 4.

Step 4: Click Run.

If Disk Utility reports that the disk appears to be OK or has been repaired, you're done. Otherwise, you have to back up as much of your data as possible.

Solution 6: Recover lost data and erase the WD My Passport

If the error still exists, you have no choice but erase the WD My Passport. But keep in mind that you will lose all data store on this disk. If you didn't back up important data, you should get lost data back with free Online data recovery software at first.

Step 1: Recover lost data from the unreadable WD My Password on Mac

If you are not sure which data recovery tool you can trust, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended to recover lost data from the unreadable or corrupted WD My Passport. This free Mac data recovery can scan and recover lost data from unreadable SD cards, internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac provides a complete Mac data recovery solution even if your Mac won't boot/turn on, your device is failing, inaccessible or has lost a partition.

Moreover, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac can also recover recently or permanently deleted files, recover lost data from formatted hard drives, recover lost data from unmountable hard drives, and recover lost data from inaccessible drives, etc. This software supports recovering documents, photos, videos, emails, and music files. It's fully compatible with macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.

1. Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.

2. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.

3. Select the unreadable WD My Passport and click 'Next' to search for lost files.

4. Preview the searching results, choose those you want and click 'Recover' to get them back.

5. Go over to ensure all lost files have been successfully restored.

Step 2: Erase the unreadable WD My Password in Disk Utility

After you get files off the WD My passport hard drive, you are safe to erase this external hard drive to make it work again. Reformatting will fix the unreadable error and the drive can be ready to use. Then you can copy the recovered data back.

• How to format external hard drive on Mac?

Solution 7: Ask data recovery service for help

However, if the solutions above don't fix the WD My Passport unreadable issue for you, or your WD My Passport even won't show up on Mac, it's probably the drive has been physically damaged. In that case, you should send it to a local data recovery service or replace it with a new one.

Wd My Passport Ultra Software

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Conclusion

Wd Passport Ultra Software Download

Hope these solutions have helped you fix the WD My Passport corrupted or unreadable issue. If you have any question about this article, stay in touch with us for further assistance. Specifically, we'd love to hear if you have other solutions for this issue.

[sagebodisattva]

No Time-Space, Only Mind-Space

So recently, some of you may have noticed, that I’ve started to use a certain phrase; a strange new bit of terminology, that I’ve employed more then a couple of times in the past few videos. And this neologistic nomenclature seems to have piqued a little interest among you; leaving those within you wondering, what could this peculiar designation mean exactly? And this uncertainty has undoubtedly left many of you feeling anxious and watchful. Well, have no fear, the Meta Sage is here. The term in question is: “mind-space.” What is a “mind-space”, exactly? And to what, does “mind space”, apply?

The first outside inquest concerning this matter came about a week or so ago, when a commenter by the name of “The Trickster”, mentioned it specifically. Thereafter, the subsequent comment exchange that followed, served as the inspiration for this current video. But, before we delve right into the thick of the matter, I’ll read the transcript of that comment exchange, as it happened; to both, act as a supplementation to this video, and to hopefully, delineate for you, the basic premise of the subject at hand.

So, here’s the transcript:

The Trickster: You are hanging on to an unfalsifiable narrative that reality is just, as you called it, a "mind-space”, and anyone with differing ideas are lost in their own externalizations, or something. Did I get that right?

Meta Sage: More or less. Nice implication, but the “mind-space” is undeniable because it’s already the case before anyone can think about it. It’s the “space-time” theory that’s a conceptualization, and needs all kinds of explanations and narrative to support it.

The Trickster: Ergo, the mind-space theory is ultimately an unfalsifiable concept you choose to believe. As it can't be properly substantiated or debunked. See, I like you, Meta Sage. I don't dislike the ideas you put forth. But only a sheep refuses to question a particular narrative. And I also like poking holes in a narrative. “Space-time”, on the other hand, can be tested, debated, analyzed without an absolute perception.

Meta Sage: You have the whole thing mixed up, which I noticed last week when we were talking in the comments on the other video. You glossed over what I just said and reaffirmed a falsehood. To move forward, you have to break free from this obstacle; and you can do this more easily by throwing out the old model of reality. Case in point: If we take two people, wipe their minds clean of all memory, then put them together in a room to discuss reality, the “mind-space” is already the foundation of everything, before even one word can be spoken. The context of existence is undeniable, and this is a reality before any debates, tests or analyzations take place. The “space-time”, on the other hand, cannot even be discussed without first learning a whole bunch of things that one then has to assume as reality. There’s a slight difference. You have to be able to discern between reality and abstractions.

The Trickster: Yeah. I won't write a long response. Rather, I'll ask this, why do you assume the idea of a “mind-space” is inherently present in the minds of said individuals you mentioned in your example? If you propose life is a dream, most without some sort of philosophical capacity would just miss the meaning of such an idea. While time itself is experienced by everyone regardless if its an illusory and misunderstood aspect of reality. Most know time is the measurement of events in existence. A mental construct? Yeah. To some extent. But the “mind-space” idea is an abstraction by its very nature. An unfalsifiable idea which only needs one to believe, and no argument posed to it can truly debunk or pick it apart. Just because the mind serves as a useful interface for interacting with and perceiving the world it doesn't automatically mean the mind creates reality. Yes, we are experiencing something. But let's not jump to conclusions. But look, I won't claim to know everything. If I've got things mixed up feel free to correct me.

Meta Sage: Thanks for keeping that so short. Thing is, I don't have to assume an idea of awareness. Awareness is already the foundation. Or, said another way, because there is awareness, abstract aspects like "ideas, concepts and theories", about a so-called "existence", can be formulated. Now keep in mind, when I speak of awareness, I'm not trying to assign it an identity. It's not a consideration of a "me" or "them", when it comes to awareness. There's no "people" existing to experience something, nor any "world", and it certainly isn't a human's mind that is creating anything. Identities are part of the dream. None of this phenomena is your true identity. So the idea is to be able to discern between awareness, abstractions, and dream phenomena. Conflating these aspects is where the confusion arises. It's the context within the field of dream phenomena, that I call the “mind-space”, and this is to clarify the fact that it isn't a physical location. "Physical locations" are ideas formulated about a purely mental phenomena. As is "time" also. These are all just ideas about illusion. Only awareness is reality.

So, that was the exchange. And so now, I’d like to expand a bit more on the subject, and really try to make things nice and sparkling clear. In a sense, this particular teaching could be considered one of the core foundational principles of Pure Potentialism. If one can manage to grasp this essential teaching, much of everything else will fall into place a lot more easily. Simply put, one of the core principles of Pure Potentialism is that the context of experiential reality is the mind, not physical locality. This is what is meant by “mind-space.” The apparent “space” that things seem to occupy, is made out of pure mind, not made out of objective materiality.

Sounds easy enough, but it’s actually rather difficult to realize; as the idea of materiality is ingrained deeply into people’s minds unconsciously, so maintaining crystal clear clarity will be a very strenuous mental effort to undertake; and, to top that off, people don’t find any ego gratification in this, thus, are generally dissatisfied with the cold stark truth, and, ultimately, will deeply yearn to find some other kind of narrative; one that provides an explanation that places a great deal more importance on their ego’s supposed existence. That’s what matters most to the average man. His precious self image. His dandy pride. His lofty self importance. It’s really quite rather disgusting actually. So it’s an uphill battle the entire way. Thus, the way to start to make some tracks towards clarity, is found in the lucid discernment between awareness, abstractions and dream phenomena.

This is the stumbling block that The Trickster got snagged on. He got SNAGGED on it. The Trickster can’t tell the difference between awareness, dream phenomena and abstractions. He wrongly conflates them, then argues his points premised on this falsehood. So, I’d like to break this right down for you, which will hopefully lend some much needed cohesion to the matter.

1. Awareness. What is awareness? Awareness is the absolute base, and allows all else to be possible. It’s the original face, and the undermost real true identity, despite having no physical embodiment, or manifest qualities. What will we find to be the case, after every single falsehood is stripped away? After peeling back all the thoughts, the identifications with a self, the objects around you, the entire world; only this, is what remains. Awareness. And so now that there is awareness, there can be some “thing”, to be aware of. Or, “something can be imagined to be the case”, to be more exact. Now that there is awareness, awareness can be aware of imagination. And the imagination isn’t a thing. It isn’t located anywhere. Indeed, the imagination itself could be said to be imaginary. Hence, said another way, awareness can dream. And since awareness can dream, there can now be an aspect called existential reality. This is what awareness does. It imagines existential realities, with varying degrees of fleeting qualities. And this brings us to the next factor: dream phenomena.

2. Dream phenomena. What is dream phenomena? Dream phenomena is an illusion. It’s what the imagination of awareness imagines into being. There are no limits as to the possible variations the illusion can be imagined to take. And the context of any such imagined illusory variation, is what I refer to as the “mind-space.” The “mind-space” are the borders that hold together a particular illusion. Wherein, consciousness can now find it’s ground, and quickly begin to establish identifications that will bring it self affirming fortification. If this consciousness ever manages to become refined, it will perhaps recognize itself in it’s own reflection, and suddenly become self aware. And once self aware, there can now be these aspects called thoughts, ideas, beliefs, concepts, theories, and knowledge. Now a consciousness can philosophize about it’s own supposed “existence”, and make speculations about who, what, when, where, why, and how, this is. Which, brings us to the next factor: abstractions.

3. Abstractions. What are abstractions? Abstractions are the intellectual activity of a consciousness. The constant yammering of the inner voice. The ongoing internal narrative we tell ourselves is the storyline of our supposed existence. The purely intellectual deductions, and hence purely intellectual conclusions, that we THINK; and then go on to call that a reality. This is where things get murky, and then awareness, dream phenomena and abstractions become a muddled amalgamation of confusion; where now, one will have a hard time telling the difference between the concept and the object of reality, and may even mix them up entirely. This is exactly how the truth of the “mind-space” became forgotten, and how we now think we live in this idea of a “time-space” context; and went on even further to suggest that, the one and only true sure thing, the “mind-space”, is just a belief, and that the “time-space” idea, is actually the true default reality. Enter The Trickster.

So now you can see some of the reasons how and why this whole thing became so deeply convoluted. If the only things you think to question are only staged on a foundation of materialism, and inquiry into the intro-spectrum is something that never occurs to you as important, you are a pretty lame example of a skeptic. The Trickster makes the assertion that only a sheep doesn’t question a particular narrative, yet, oddly enough, doesn’t think to question the narrative of his own materialistic belief system. Apparently, he accepts as an unquestionable given that “time-space”, the normative mainstream belief system that has the general consensus of the shepherd’s flock, is a fundamental truth. And that’s truly rich. But, overlooking that for the moment, let’s move on to address one of the central themes of his argument: that the “mind-space”, is unfalsifiable; and cannot be properly substantiated or debunked.

Well, as far as being “substantiated”, is concerned, everything I’ve said thus far should leave no doubt as to why this isn’t that hard to flesh out. It’s only your over-thinking process that makes it extraordinarily over-complicated. Awareness is the fundamental truth. This might be about the only thing one can say to be, “self evident.” Without awareness, you cannot cast doubt, or weigh evidence, in the first place. Without awareness, you cannot even begin to make substantiations. So, if you actually have consciousness, and are not just a mindless zombie, then your consciousness is substantiated just by being conscious. What other evidence would you require that you are conscious, other than being conscious?

And as for debunking; what the hell would you hope to debunk anyway, your own consciousness? That seems a bit counter intuitive; and this is what makes me think that you’re just playing the usual little bullshit games of a delusion whore. Stop it. You have an absolute foundation that establishes a proper setting for investigative inquiry, and you wish to lessen it through doubt, or minimize it to some secondary status behind inanimate matter, for what purpose exactly? Or, as he so eloquently put it, “it’s a useful interface for interacting with the world.” The “world”, he comfortably assumes; but what gives context to his entire existence, he harbors reservations. And by the way, no one ever said that the “mind-space” creates reality, so it’s actually YOU who jumped to those conclusions. As previously stated, awareness dreams of a “mind-space”, and the context within that “mind-space”, is what you are wrongly calling an objective world. The “mind-space” is not a useful tool for interfacing with a world, no. There is no world. The “mind-space” is the composition of reality itself.

And if I need to go over the fallacy of the whole time delusion again, then you probably haven’t been paying attention. I’ve already deconstructed the idea of space, and much the same will apply to the concept of time. Yes, the idea of time is only an abstraction. The patterns you see in nature do not represent time. One rotation of a planet around a star is not indicative of any objective factor operating in the universe. There is no universe. Time is a completely fabricated ‘relative-to-a-subject’ tool, and nothing more. And it doesn’t matter that you can test it, debate it, or analyze it, without an absolute perception, (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean), it doesn’t change the fact that time itself doesn’t exist independently to the factor that is giving time significance. So assuming the concept of time as some kind of fundamental groundwork of reality is a big problem. There’s no problem, on the other hand, with the truth of the “mind-space” reality. The only problem here, is your over-thinking intellectualism. An over-thinking intellectualism that likes to over-think so much, it now believes it’s ideas are reality, and that the actual reality is an idea. Nice!

And when it comes to “falsification”, that whole idea is largely stupid. Why would you make the criteria for a phenomena to be considered scientifically, a prerequisite of having certain conditions where the phenomena can be shown to be false? Does that seem to be reasonable? If that’s the case, then gravity is unfalsifiable, as it can be tested ad nauseam, and never be shown to be false; and yet gravity remains an accepted truth within the scientific community. And, on the flip side of that coin, astrology can definitely be shown to be false. So that suddenly makes it legitimate, and now qualified as eligible to be considered scientifically? What the fuck? Something’s definitely not quite right with that line of reasoning. And that’s why the idea of falsifiability is an impotent repellent against the truth. Maybe this qualifier was concocted as a ward against a god theory, but other then that, it accomplishes very little else. Again, why would you need to falsify your own consciousness? Why, other then to create distractions in an attempt to preserve your delusion; which, only causes confusion and delays.

Awareness is the absolute truth, and no, you cannot falsify the truth, under any circumstances; otherwise it isn’t the truth. The truth is the truth, and falsehood is falsehood. That’s why truth and falsehood have two separate distinctions, instead of being considered as the same distinction. Truths are never conditionally false. The truth is always the truth. Only a falsehood has the potential to be considered as conditionally true; and that’s due to the designs of illusion; but, that’s not why we’re here today.

Why is awareness the undeniable default axiom of existence? Because it’s the foundation of everything, whatever you want to call that. Whether you wanna say it’s the foundation of being, of consciousness, of physics, of material universe, of existence, or of whatever else you can come up with, matters not. The context is awareness. And that’s why it’s the ONLY sure thing. It’s not that there’s an idea of a “mind-space” inherently within you, but rather, that “mind-space” is the inherent groundwork for consciousness. Understand, this is not just a conceptual theory. It’s already the case before the development of intelligence. You don’t look outwards for it. You are already it. And you were already it, before the expansion into advanced philosophical thinking. No, it’s not god. No, it’s not materiality. Those are all prime examples of making outward attributions; what I like to refer to as, externalizations. Stop wallowing in the confines of mental slavery. You are beyond anything found within the “mind-space.” You are pure potentiality itself.

[thevoidwell]

100 Reasons to Love Vivia Nihar

Inspired by @wrongshatteredrealms and their post about 100 reasons why Destin Karn is their favorite character from Shattered Realms.  This post took a while to make, but Vivia really deserves it.  It’s quite long, I warn you.

1. She loves her country even after everything the people in it put her through

2. She is a feminist icon

3. Her nickname is “Little Fox” and that’s just adorable

4. She’s so strong in spite of her mental health issues

5. Her mother committed suicide and she still manages to go past the place where it happened all the time without breaking down each time

6. She just cares about Stix so much and would die for her

7. When she realized just how much Serafin has been manipulating her, she tried her best to do something about it

8. She is a pirate princess who also happens to be a lesbian, and honestly you can’t get any cooler than that

9. “Do I look like I care about plums?”

10. “Now would be the right time for the gardener to complain about his plum trees”

11. She has that habit of patting the sides of her face like she’s checking to make sure her mask is in place

12. She calls Merik “Merry” and it makes me laugh every time

13. She’s the Chosen Daughter of the VOID WELL, which nobody thought existed

14. The lack of patience she has with the vizers is amusing, but she takes it to an art form with Serrit Linday and it’s priceless

15. Her annoyed internal monologue about how it seems like five thousand servants have stopped to talk to her, interrupted only by another servant coming to talk to her before she mentally changes the count to five thousand and one

16. All the pining for Stix in her POV chapters with the constant repetition of “Too good for me”

17. When she saves Merik’s life by showing up out of nowhere and cutting off Garren’s head

18. When, upon cutting off Garren’s head, she gloats by saying “Come back from that”

19. Even when Merik constantly misgenders Cam in Windwitch, Vivia still has a hard time believing he’s a girl

20. Later in Bloodwitch when Cam is introduced as a boy, Vivia immediately believes it (Merik, take lessons from your sister)

21. Her own brother thinks she’s intimidating and trying to have him killed, but she really just needs a hug

22. “I could have just as many titles if I wanted”

23. The way that as soon as she realizes Stix is missing, she goes into an absolute panic because what if something happened to her???

24. How she gets chills when Vizer Sotar calls her “My Queen” because no one’s ever called her that before

25. She put in so much work for the under-city but got recognized for none of it

26. She came up with a really awesome speech but didn’t get to say it

27. When Cam is talking about Paladins and magical doorways in Bloodwitch and externally Vivia is like, “Yeah, okay” when internally she’s basically saying, “What in the world is he talking about - ”

28. She completely tricked Merik into believing that the boat miniature was actually representing a Dalmotti trade ship

29. She also tricked Merik into believing that she believed him when he lied about where the miniature was

30. When she’s just so done with Linday in the council meeting and she keeps mentally making her ideal punishment for him even worse

31. Until she’s thinking about how he should be drawn, quartered, eviscerated, and burned to ashes and she gets distracted from the actual meeting

32. How flustered she gets when Stix kisses her on the cheek

33. How she constantly refers to that moment as “the kiss” even though it wasn’t a real kiss because it was so emotional for her

34. She quite literally jumps into a valley filled with seafire to save the people of Lovats

35. When Merik saves her from dying as she plummets through the valley of seafire, she acts like it’s an everyday occurrence and proceeds to just go about her business

36. She has a hard time trusting Cam at first, which makes sense, but as soon as he mentions the message that Stix sent her, Vivia immediately trusts him because it’s better than risking the chance that Stix might not need help

37. “You may lower your water” “Oh may I?  I’m so glad to have your permission”

38. She has plans to put more women on the High Council once she’s officially queen

39. When Vivia, a person who has never had a real conversation with Safi, knows within about five seconds that the reason Safi wants Marstok to trade with Nubrevna is because of Merik

40. Over the course of Bloodwitch, she goes from barely interacting with Vizer Sotar to going to talk to him for literally everything and asking for advice and help

41. Anybody could say any random thing and she’d find a way to connect it to the fact that Stix is perfect and amazing

42. When she gets the message from Vaness suggesting a meeting over trade, she just starts laughing because she thinks it’s a trick, then when Stix says she should go she’s like “okay”

43. That kind of infuriating thing where she writes a message to Vaness via the Wordwitched paper after telling the empress she got home safely and we don’t get to know what she said

44. “You can keep [the pencil].  I have others” “As do I.  We’re not that poor”

45. How she bickers with Vaness for well over two pages about whose fault it was that the Truce got broken and who needed help more

46. When she thinks Merik is dead, the extent of her reaction is pretty much “Aw, that’s too bad” but when Stix goes missing for a day, she’s in an utter panic and asking Vizer Sotar where she could possibly be

47. How she learns to stop apologizing to Serafin and stop feeling guilty over the things he does to her

48. When she’s anxious over something, she stops and remembers [insert advice from her mother].  It doesn’t sound like a lot but when you remember that the whole country thinks her mother was insane and you remember their mother-daughter relationship, it’s sweet

49. That moment in Bloodwitch where her thought process is basically “I like how Stix always calls me ‘sir,’ it shows we respect each other but not in terms of royalty...wait why is she calling me ‘Your Highness’ now, does she not think we’re friends anymore?...oh thank God she called me ‘Viv,’ we’re friends for sure”

50. Nubrevna needed food, and it wasn’t getting food, so she just decided to steal it

51. She’s unbelievably calm when Merik holds a pistol to her head

52. She tries so hard to stop the Fury but doesn’t realize that the Fury is a reincarnated Paladin who happens to be pretty much immortal

53. For all those times Merik thought about how she treated her crew like servants, you don’t see her chaining people to the deck for 10 hours at a time

54. She is shameless about her piracy because she knows it’s for the greater good of Nubrevna

55. When she orders the generals to do something and they refuse, and she realizes that her crown was taken away and she hadn’t even been there for the vote like...poor Little Fox

56. When she has that realization that Jana had managed to bear with the shadows instead of nurturing them as Serafin had, and that made her even stronger than him

57. “Vivia was ready to be Queen” yes!!!

58. No matter what Merik does, chances are her response would be “ugh” or rolling her eyes because they are Siblings™

59. She doesn’t have as many of the action or fight scenes as the other characters, but I’m still always so excited for her next chapter because she’s just so amazing

60. When she decides it’s time to stop trying to be a good daughter and start trying to be a good ruler

61. When she mentally agrees with Vizer Sotar that Cam’s “door” is, in fact, a wall

62. When she’s simultaneously annoyed and impressed by how much clay and water Vaness put out before their meeting to make her feel safe against the empress’s Ironwitchery

63. That trick she does with the water at the meeting with the vizers

64. She reminds the High Council that it was Jana and not Serafin who signed the Truce, so he should not get the credit

65. When she stands up to her father and says that there is no way he’s fit to lead an army after having almost died

66. “I decide who holds the title of Admiral and I haven’t appointed you”

67. When she basically tells Serafin that he’s a pathetic soldier and he exaggerated all of his accomplishments, like Vivia, you tell him

68. The internal jealousy when she thinks Stix is seeing someone else

69. When she canonically thinks that Vizer Sotar is the only one on the council who has a fully operational brain

70. She does such a good job of pretending that Merik is dead at his funeral

71. For all she was talking about how the meeting with Vaness would be pointless, she actually stayed in touch with the empress and it’s a good thing she did

72. For that matter, she didn’t give up on Vaness’s negotiations when the empress had to end their meeting abruptly to talk to Habim

73. She isn’t physically described too much in the books, so the reader gets to have their own image in their head of what she looks like, more or less

74. Even though she’s proven to be good with a blade, most of the time she honestly doesn’t need one because of her Tidewitchery

75. When she sends Linday off to do something menial just so she can have a moment alone, but (unfortunately) he barks at some servant to do it instead, and she has to put up with Serrit Linday for even longer

76. When she internally calls Linday “slimy”

77. She stays so remarkably composed while the vizers tell her that her throne has been reclaimed by Serafin, even though her life is falling apart

78. She still goes to Jana’s garden sometimes

79. Most of the country thinks she is weak because she’s a woman and because her mother committed suicide, but omg Vivia can GET THINGS DONE

80. When Vaness dropping the pencil is actually reassuring to her because it means that she’s a human and not 100% perfect, 100% of the time

81. Her friendship with Stix is just amazing - so much mutual respect and support

82. Her self-esteem is nonexistent, but Stix trying to boost it always seems to make her day

83. She worked so hard to get the food for Nubrevna that it was so heartbreaking when she realized it was all for nothing

84. For that matter, the same goes for her efforts for the under-city

85. In Windwitch she mentions how she hates spiders, but later she gets a spider off Merik when he doesn’t notice it’s there #SisterlyLove

86. After Stix kisses her on the cheek, she literally just stands there because she’s just so 😍 overwhelmed 😍

87. When Serafin jokes about Vivia possibly having arranged for Vaness’s death and she’s horrified at the idea but externally is like “yeah...ha ha ha”

88. When she was a kid, she found an abandoned room in one of the palace wings and she decorated it herself and called it her fox’s den, which is the cutest thing ever

89. When she realizes that the Void Well is the Void Well and she knows she should bring her father down to heal him but some part of her doesn’t know if she should...she’s just so confused and, I repeat, really needs a hug

90. That moment where she’s so busy that she doesn’t try to put on a façade and Stix actually notices and she’s just so touched

91. When Vivia decides that even though she doesn’t know Cam, there is no way she’s going to stand there and do nothing while Garren cuts off his finger

92. When she has no idea what just happened but she’s glad she saved Merik’s life, so this one time she has no regrets

93. When she is so overwhelmed by all the negative things happening that she thinks to herself that this must be what drowning feels like, and it’s just so painful to read

94. That moment in Windwitch where she’s so scared that something might happen to Merik or her crew and she feels like she’s somewhere between Serafin and Jana and she doesn’t know which side is the better one, so she makes that decision to save the city even though she thinks it’ll kill her

95. When she manages to start over with Merik and put everything in the past

96. How all of her irritation towards the vizers goes out the window whenever she talks to or thinks about Stix

97. How she’s so frustrated by Vaness at first but by the end has a lot of respect for her

98. The way she acts in front of the council in comparison to the way she acts when she’s alone

99. She’s part of Vix, an amazing ship!!!!

100. In conclusion, Vivia is such an incredible character and deserves all the love in the world.  Thank you for reading 🙂

[heartlesslywhumping]

I got an ask regarding some touchy subjects and rather than just respond to the ask and have it pop up in everyone’s feeds, I decided to copy/paste the question under a cut.

Here are the trigger warnings,

TW: Loss of a loved one TW: Guns TW: Shootings

im writing a story about my oc’s life after she finds out that her boyfriend died in a school shooting he was responsible for & im having trouble writing the grieving process for her. her facing the fact that she misses him & still loves him but is shocked & appalled @ the actions he committed, not wanting to believe that he was planning something so horrific, or wanting to believe he was even capable of doing something like that. (i get it if u don’t want to tho, it’s a bit controversial)

Before I start, I’d like to remind everybody that all the research I put out is taken from the internet, conversations with people I know, and the occasional book. I am not a professional in the matters of mental health and this is not infallible, my word is not law and this is for fun and writing purposes only. Seek out real help in the form of counselors, doctors, and therapists if you are affected in real life.

So I’m sure everyone is aware of the five stages of grief. A lot of people use that for the end all, be all of writing grief but the thing is, there is no end all be all when it comes to emotions or brain stuff.

Some people fit that mold exactly whereas others skip all but one. Some speed through and some take ages in each stage. There is no neat lineup of emotions, more like a roller coaster that never ends. An unfortunate side effect of the firm belief in the five stages means that some people criticize themselves for “not grieving correctly”. Each grieving process is unique as each person is unique.

Of course, misunderstanding the grieving process can lead to some fun internal angst!

That being said, I think it’s important to know and acknowledge the five stages of grief. To keep this from being a crazy long, college essay length response, I’m going to try to keep all of this brief. If you (or anyone) would like further information about any of these individual steps and would like my help in research, just let me know!

Denial: Denial is stage number one. It most often shows itself by being unable to acknowledge situations, avoiding the facts of a problem, and downplaying the consequences of issues. It can show up in regards to anything that makes one feel vulnerable or out of control. Which is basically grief. These days, doctors say that a bit of denial is actually good and can be helpful. It gives the brain little doses of what has happened, protecting us from taking in too much too soon. The brain naturally gives us little breaks to process, regroup, and try again. However, denial can easily become unhealthy. When one avoids a problem altogether, the denial stops one from taking important actions, or a person becomes unable to face anything or delaying getting help

Anger: Lashing out at others, at yourself, and even at the person who died. There’s anger at being left behind, being in pain, that life has changed, at the events that led up to death, there’s even anger at being angry. This is probably a lot of what your character will feel, potentially even the majority or getting stuck in that feeling. There’s the anger that the boyfriend did this, anger that there was nothing your character could do, anger that the boyfriend died, anger at themselves for grieving or being angry at the dead.

Bargaining: This most often shows up before someone dies. The sudden return to faith, the praying, the thought of karma, all those things. After death it shows up in “What if I did [blank], then could I have stopped this?” “If only I had done, said, noticed [blank], then this wouldn’t have happened”, “What if when they said or did [blank], that was a sign?” It’s a lot of blaming oneself for something that was completely out of their control. Were there signs? Was there something I could have done? It can turn utterly unreasonable, too. “If I had eaten the carrot first instead of the potato, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” People can even go into the somewhat fantastical idea that if they do one thing or another, than they will wake up and it will all have been a bad dream or misunderstanding. It can also turn into “If I do XYZ, then this will never happen to me again.'' This is another stage I wouldn’t be surprised if your character kept returning to.

Depression: This is when the “sad” part of grief shows itself most clearly. It feels as though it will last forever. This term doesn’t mean the mental illness, it means the response to loss. People often withdraw from life, they wonder what the point is of anything, they get lost in a fog. The realization of loss hits hard and is understandably depressed. Can this all lead to a mental illness? Of course. But having depressive reactions to depressive situations is a normal response. The odd thing would be to not experience depression after depressing situations.

Acceptance: This is often confused with the sun coming out and everything being okay again. The reality is, nothing will go back to the way it was. One may never be okay with what happened. And that’s normal. Acceptance is accepting the reality that a loved one is gone and recognizing that this reality is your new reality. One may not like it or find it to be “okay” but it’s reality now. People learn to live with it and keep going. They learn how to live in a world where their loved one is gone. They readjust and realize that they can’t live in or change the past. There is no replacing someone but one can move on, make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new lives overall. Many people see this as a betrayal of a loved one but it’s not. It’s continuing to live life. You aren’t replacing someone, you can’t replace someone. But you can make new relationships and lives while respecting and loving those who have gone.

Now, of course everyone grieves differently. These five stages don’t always occur in this order, some last longer than others, some don’t show up, some keep coming back for more. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, it just happens. Some show their pain externally, some keep it internal. It’s all different and it’s all okay. Understanding these stages is important but they fluctuate.

Some Final Notes about Grief: Grief shakes faith. That doesn’t just mean religion, although yes, that too. Faith in the world is shaken, faith in ourselves, each other, anyone that could be perceived to have “stopped” this. Law enforcement, medical professionals, caretakers, etc. Some ask how such a thing could have happened to such a good person or how the world is so unfair. People also are shaken in themselves and their relationships. Who are they without their loved one? Who were they before? Who are they going to be after? Some people may try to go back to the way they were before but come to realize that there is no going back. We are often defined by others. We define ourselves by our relationships to people. We are certain people to our spouses, our siblings, children, friends, coworkers, etc. We’re mentors, we’re caregivers, we’re the mom friend, we’re the bad influence, etc. When someone passes away, it can feel like we’ve lost that part of ourselves as well. That is part of grief. Your character may wonder where they stand now, they’re the “girlfriend of a school shooter”, what does that mean? This of course, spurs the whole bargaining and blaming and all of that stuff.

     Second thing I want to mention: Trauma. This is a traumatic event, regardless of whether your character was there or not. The moment she is told turns into a traumatic event. She may feel that she doens’t have the right to be traumatized because she wasn’t affected. But she was. She is just as traumatized as anyone else, just in a different way. She will likely have some post-traumatic effects. This may or may not lead to PTSD, but there will be lasting effects.

Side note: PTSD can happen to anyone. Most people refer it to war events but it can happen to anyone that has had a traumatic event occur in their lives.

People affected by trauma tend to feel unsafe. Whether that’s in their bodies, in their abilities, in their relationships with others, what have you. Regaining a sense of safety can take anymore from days to years. It’s often hard for people to regulate or soothe difficult emotions in their lives that they may not associate directly to the trauma. They may also find speaking about their trauma overwhelming. There are actually researchers trying to find nonverbal ways to help emotional regulation.

Processing trauma puts words, emotions, and meaning to it. This is most commonly undertaken with a therapist or a counselor. Attending to safety allows one to move through processing and integrated it rather than reacts to it. Now, people often can be overwhelmed and emotionally flooded while processing. The feeling of safety and stability must be regained before moving on with a personal recovery or story. The point of processing is not to relive the trauma but it’s also not meant to tell a story without any emotions. This involves exploration, mourning, and remembrance of what happened, along with the space to grieve and express emotions.

Eventually, people find their new sense of self and reality. They redefine themselves in the context of new reality. Trauma no longer becomes a defining aspect of their life. They are not organizing their life around their traumatic experiences. Trauma becomes integrated into the story of their life but it is not the story that defines them. Eventually, people come to recognize the impact of their trauma but are able to take concrete steps towards empowerment and a new way of living. Some find this through a mission to help them heal and grow further, such as mentoring. Regardless of how it’s achieved, recovery is different for everyone. Many feel this burning desire to get better quickly and can feel frustration that a process is taking too long or they’re not doing it right. Sprinkle heavy air quotations around all of this. Recovery is not defined by the complete absence of thoughts or feelings around trauma but the ability to live with it in a way that it’s not controlling your life. It’s important for those recovery to be gentle, patient, and compassionate with themselves. However, because emotions are wack, they’ll likely need someone to help them with this as they will not be at all kind to themselves.

     Now, I’ve thrown around the term “Integration.” What does that mean? Trauma integration is a process in which trauma is acknowledged to be a part of a new, ongoing reality but is no longer the center of experience and life because it is surrounded by awareness. In better terms, it’s realizing that trauma happened and is a part of your life story but it does not define your life story.

Here is a helpful image that explains what happens before, during, and after trauma. The creator says that her view of this “roadmap” is a circle, not a line. None of these stages are “one and done”. Survivors of trauma usually go through every stage multiple times with varying lengths and intensities. It’s a spiral, not a line.

I’m going to post more research regarding trauma later, because I think it’s neat for writers but especially whumpers.

     The final thing I want to offer is that I would not be surprised if your character dealt with survivor’s guilt. If you don’t know what that is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Guilt that you survived where others did not. Now, your character may not have been in any direct danger but her guilt over the fact it was her boyfriend that killed others will likely be the same. I know people that have dealt with survivor’s guilt because their house did not burn down in a wildfire and their friend’s did. It’s the feeling that one has done something wrong by surviving a tragic even where others succumbed. It can even show up in an employee who kept their job when an equally qualified co-worked was laid off. Emotions are wack.

Of course, it’s not logical for someone to feel responsible for another person’s fate but humans rarely have control over their guilt.

There is the obvious guilt over surviving. That one stayed safe where others didn’t, even if the person in question was whole countries away. The feeling that one does not deserve to be safe or should have been harmed/affected as well. One finds themselves questioning the fairness of the world or hating their “good fortune.”

Then there’s guilt over what “should” have been done. There’s remorse that maybe one didn’t do enough. They should have known, should have tried harder, done better, etc. It’s an inflated sense of failure or responsibility. Back to bargaining with the sense that someone should have done something differently. Eventually, one has to realize that there’s only so much a single person can do.

There’s more guilt over what you did. Leaving behind family for better or safer opportunities, pushing someone out of the way while running from danger, etc. There’s also the potential guilt for coincidence. Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. Jennings told Holly that he had given up his seat to a flu-stricken Big Bopper and Jennings would instead be taking the unheated tour bus. Holly joked that he hoped Jennings froze on the bus. Jennings responded with “I hope your ol’ plane crashes.” Later, Jennings said that for years he thought he caused the plane crash.

Now we know there was no way Jennings caused the crash through a teasing comment, but guilt is funny that way.

Survivors often try not to think or talk about an event. Additionally, many feel on edge, vigilant, paranoid, detached, easily startled. They may obsess over what happened, feel confused, unworthy about living, unsure of the meaning of life, or are plagued by the sense that no matter where they go or what they do, they're never safe. This may appear in your character feeling that she never truly knows someone else and can never trust another person.

Eventually your character will have to learn to forgive herself, even though she didn’t (or did, depending on your story) cause anything to prompt her boyfriend to do that.

Final notes: Grief doesn’t just go away. It sticks around for years after. Sometimes you’re hit by it out of the blue random. The wounds remain but the pain lessens and life goes on. Recovery is possible and reachable, but grief will always stay. Recovery, peace, and healing are not found in another person. A new relationship or a discussion with another victim will not heal your character. She may find closure in talking with others, she may find help from a therapist, but one person cannot heal another. There is help, there are resources, and it will all help her to heal but ultimately that comes from her. A physical therapist cannot touch you and presto! You’re healed and strong again. They can train you and help you work through your pain until you body is strong but it will be your muscles that heal and your body that fixes. It’s the same way for mental health. A therapist or counselor will help but they cannot give you a new brain or heal it for you. Of course, your character can be in a new relationship by the end of the story but I would be careful about framing things to seem like her new boy/girlfriend is the cure for her. They cannot fix her or give her peace. They may love and support her but I would just be aware not to frame things like a new relationship is her cure.

That’s it from me! Already this is pretty crazy long and that’s the gist of things. If you would like my research and input on other things, let me know!

[meditationadvise]

Three Simple Ways to Pay Attention

The most usual reaction I listen to these days when I inform a person I teach reflection is "I'm so worried out. I might actually make use of a few of that." I am also entertained to listen to fairly often "My buddy should actually fulfill you!" I enjoy to see that meditation is recognized increasingly more as something that could be directly handy in our daily lives. Anywhere stress plays a function in our problems, meditation can have a possible role in its relief.

Meditation technique need not be tied to any idea system. The just necessary idea is not a dogmatic one, yet one that says each of us has the ability to comprehend ourselves much more fully, and to care extra deeply both for ourselves and for others. Its techniques work to free us of regular reactions that create us excellent sadness, such as harsh self-judgment, and also to develop wisdom as well as love. Meditation gives any person who seeks it a chance to look within for a sense of abundance, depth, and also link to life.

Rather compared to an ornate, arcane collection of directions, standard reflection is composed of practical tools to help deepen concentration, mindfulness, and compassion.

1. Concentration

Concentration is the art of collecting all that energy, that stormy, scattered interest, and settling, centering.

Concentration steadies as well as focuses our interest so that we could allow go of harmful internal distractions-- is sorry for concerning the past, stresses over the future, addictions-- and also keep from being attracted by external ones. Interruption loses our power, concentration restores it.

We commonly experience our interest scattering to the four winds. We take a seat to assume something through or work with a problem, and prior to we understand it, we're gone. We're shed in ideas of the past, commonly concerning something we currently regret: "I should have said that more masterfully." "I ought to have been less shy and also spoken up." "I should have been smarter and also closed up." We aren't assuming things via to locate a method making amends. We're just lost.

Or our distractedness drives us right into anxiety-filled projections regarding the future. Envision you are resting in an airplane at one of the New York City flight terminals. All of a sudden you begin assuming, "Oh no, I think this airplane may leave late. I make certain it will certainly be late. Currently I'm mosting likely to miss my connection. Exactly what will that suggest? That suggests I'm mosting likely to show up in Rose city, Oregon, after twelve o'clock at night. There will not be any taxis! Exactly what's going to take place to me?" It's as though Portland were famous for having people vanish if they land after midnight!

Without concentration, our minds dilate into the future in such a way that isn't really such as competent preparation however more like exhausting rumination. When I see my very own mind starting that arc of anxiety, I have a claiming I utilize to assist restore me to balance: "Something will certainly take place." There will certainly be a bus. I'll invest the evening in the airport. Something will certainly take place. I can't figure it all out right now.

Concentration is the art of collecting all of that energy, that stormy, scattered focus, and settling. A person came near speak to me just recently when I was educating, opposing my use words focus. He said it advised him of suppression, as though he were squeezing his attention into something, withstanding and feeling bitter anything else that came near pull his interest away. I asked him if steadying or clearing up would excel substitutes, as well as he happily accepted them. That's what concentration in fact suggests. It's not a required, stressful, stretched effort. It's letting points choose exactly what goes to hand.

2. Mindfulness

Mindfulness fine-tunes our focus to ensure that we can connect extra totally as well as straight with whatever life brings. Numerous times our understanding of just what is happening is misshaped by bias, practices, worries, or desires. Mindfulness aids us see with these and also be much more aware of exactly what really is.

Imagine you're on your means to a celebration when you run right into a good friend who points out an earlier meeting he had with your brand-new colleague. He claims, "That person is so boring!" When at the celebration, that do you locate yourself stuck speaking to but that brand-new associate! Because of your good friend's comment (not even your personal understanding), you end up not really listening meticulously to them or looking completely at them. More probable you are assuming about the following 15 e-mails you have to send or fretting as you gaze concerning the room and also see a lot of individuals you prefer to be speaking with. Whatever he or she is stating increases your displeasure and frustration.

But if you understand just what's taking place, it could be that you drop the filter of your pal's comment and also determine to discover out for yourself, from your own straight experience, exactly what you think about your new coworker. You pay attention, you observe, you are broad-minded, interested. By the end of the evening you could choose, "I concur. I locate that individual really uninteresting." However probably not, life also supplies many shocks. Just what is essential is that we're not just led by exactly what we've been told, by the beliefs of others, by conviction or bias or presumption. Rather, we shape our perception with as clear as well as open an assumption as possible.

Mindfulness does not depend on just what is occurring, however has to do with how we connect to what is taking place. That's why we state that mindfulness can go anywhere. We could be conscious of pleasure as well as grief, pleasure and also discomfort, stunning songs and also a screech. Mindfulness doesn't imply these all flatten out and also come to be one huge blob, without distinction or intensity or flavor or structure. Instead, it indicates that old regular methods of connecting-- maybe holding on fiercely to pleasure, to make sure that, ironically, we are in fact appreciating it less, or frowning at as well as pressing away pain, to ensure that, regretfully, we experience a great deal much more, or numbing out, detaching from average, not really interesting experiences, so that we're half in a desire a great deal of the moment. All these self-defeating, restricting reactions don't have to be there.

We could easily misinterpret mindfulness and consider it as passive, complacent, also a little bit boring. I was showing someplace lately and also began the formal meditation guideline, as I usually do, with the recommendation to just sit in an unwinded method and also hear the sounds in the room. Somebody raised his hand right now and asked, "If I hear the noise of the smoke detector, should I simply rest here 'mindfully,' knowing I'm hearing the smoke detector go off, or should I stand up as well as leave?" I responded, "I 'd 'mindfully' obtain up and also leave!"

I understood his concern. When we hear phrases typically used to explain mindfulness, like "simply be with exactly what is," "approve today moment," "do not get shed in judgment," it can appear very inert. The actual experience of mindfulness is of vibrant, alive, open area where imaginative responses to situations have area to emerge, precisely since we're not stuck in the well-worn grooves of the same old habitual reactions. In mindfulness, we do not shed discernment and also knowledge. These high qualities, in reality, come to be much more intense as stagnant preconceptions as well as automated, inflexible responses no more rule the day.

3. Compassion

Compassion opens our attention and also makes it a lot more inclusive, changing the method we view ourselves and the globe. Rather than being so caught up in the construct of self and other and also us and them that we often tend to see the globe via, we see things much extra in terms of connection to all. This fundamental makeover from alienation begins with more compassion to ourselves.

Even in methods that do not especially emphasize compassion or concern, these high qualities are inevitably being created in reflection. If we return and also consider the fundamental workout I defined, establishing focus, we locate that it is typically done by choosing a things such as the feeling of the in and out breath, then resolving our attention on it. What we uncover at first, often to our shock, is that it typically isn't 800 breaths prior to our minds wander. Much more commonly, it is one breath, maybe two or 3, after that we are lost. Possibly extremely shed in a dream or memory.

Then comes the minute we understand we have actually been distracted. Our usual reaction would certainly be to feel that we have actually failed, to rail against ourselves. Just what we practice, however, is releasing delicately rather than roughly as well as returning to the breath or our item of concentration with kindness as well as compassion for ourselves. Therefore, those high qualities of concern as well as kindness strengthen also if we do not offer voice to those words.

And what we provide for ourselves, we could likewise start to do toward others. A few years ago I got on my means to Tucson, yet my strategies were tested when I located myself in an airplane resting on a path for four and also a half hours at La Guardia Flight Terminal. Looking back on it, I often refer amusingly to those hours as "the breakdown of human being." It was hot, and also it expanded hotter. After a point, people beginning screaming, "Let me off this aircraft!" The pilot resorted to hopping on the system and also stating sternly, "No person is leaving this plane."

I had not been really feeling all that chipper myself. I could not connect with individuals in Tucson that were intended to select me up at the flight terminal, as well as I was concerned regarding them. I had a house to head to in New york city City and also maintained thinking, fruitless, "I can simply return there and also try once more tomorrow." I was warm. I really felt mauled by the people yelling around me.

Then I recalled a photo that a friend of mine, Bob Thurman, writer of Infinite Life: Seven Merits for Living Well, typically uses to define the flow of generosity and also compassion that comes from seeing the world more truthfully. He says, "Imagine you get on the New York City metro, and also these Martians come and also zap the train vehicle to ensure that those of you in the cars and truck are mosting likely to be with each other ... for life." What do we do? If somebody is hungry, we feed them. If a person is freaking out, we attempt to calm them down. We could not such as everyone or authorize of them, yet we are mosting likely to be together for life. We need to react with the knowledge of just how interrelated our lives are-- as well as will certainly remain.

Sitting on that airplane, I recalled my close friend's story. I browsed the cabin and also thought, "Perhaps these are my individuals." I saw my worldview shift from "me" as well as "them" to "we." The claustrophobia eased.

In terms of meditative understanding (as opposed to our usual mindset, which may relate to these high qualities as gifts we could do nothing to grow or as prompt psychological reactions we take pleasure in yet can't support), compassion and compassion are undoubtedly skills we establish. Not in the feeling of compeling ourselves to feel, or perhaps worse, pretend to really feel, a feeling that is not there. Instead, if we learn to listen in a various, more open means-- seeing the excellent within ourselves rather than focusing on what we do not such as, noticing those we usually neglect or look right via, releasing groups as well as assumptions when we associate with others-- we are producing the problems for generosity and also empathy to flow.

We method meditation ultimately not to come to be great meditators however to have a different life. As we deepen the skills of focus, mindfulness, as well as empathy, we locate we have less anxiety, even more satisfaction, more understanding, and also greatly much more happiness. We change our lives.

[cy-fi-theansweris42]

The Good, the Bad, and the IDK How To Feel About That of: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) (Part 2)

(Continuing from where we left off)

Good: THE ENTIRE BIT WITH CASEY V. SPLINTER! How you see Raph and Mikey look at each other with mischief in their eyes before trying to look serious, how Leo laughs for just a moment before trying to be the serious leader again and trying to get them to stop, and then how they all just look on in amusement when Casey charges Splinter, it’s all wonderful! Plus with Splinter’s “giant rat one, new guy zero” YOU KNOW he heard them and played along. I love it all.

Bad: Casey only ever saw the truck from the front, so how would he recognize the Tartaruga Brothers logo?

Good: Just give me an entire movie of Donnie doing science stuff, it’s all I need in life.

Good: Leo’s head shake and smile when Donnie’s rambling about science stuff (I’m ignoring the initial eye roll)

Good: AUGH, HOW DONNIE INSTANTLY STOPS BEING EXCITED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING HUMAN, COMING UP WITH REASONS WHY WHAT LEO’S SAYING MAKES SENSE, IT HURTS MY HEART SO GOOD JOB MESSING WITH MY EMOTIONS

Good: Leo’s sword training is AWESOME (I’m jealous, high-key jealous)

IDK: You guys haven’t finished that Christmas album yet? It’s been a year, lol

Good: I really like how instead of just charging in, yelling about how Leo didn’t tell them about the ooze, Raph leads up to it, talking about honor which he knows is important to all of them.

Good: THE LOOK ON RAPH’S FACE, LOOKING AT LEO LIKE “Did you really think we wouldn’t find out”

Good: YOU CAN SEE THE EXACT MOMENT LEO REALIZED WHAT RAPH IS TALKING ABOUT AND IT JUST SCREAMS “oh shit” THIS BOY KNOWS HE DONE MESSED UP

Bad: You tell people about this stuff Leo

Bad: You did not consult with Donnie, you told him what to do

Bad: “There’s only one vote that counts in this family, mine.” LEO NO

Good: Donnie nerding out about the museum, same

Good: Donnie rambling on about science, his mind whirling at a mile a minute while he figures out what’s going on, freaking heck they did so well with Donnie in this movie

Good: Knowing that portals work both ways (it’s like Hawkeye from Avengers all over again)

Good: April knowing something is up with Raph and Mikey doing stuff without Leo and Donnie, but rolling with it

** “Who you calling chicken, turtle?” Oooooh, sick comeback Jones (not)

Good: I feel like all the comments about Casey not being buff or anything is them joking about Amell’s role in Arrow, because at this point the shows been going on for like…4 years, and he’s freaking jacked in that show, plus I’ve seen this guy run through an American Ninja Warrior obstacle course like it’s nothing. If this is them making jabs at that, then that’s hilarious.

Good: I love Raph and Mikey trying to get through police headquarters by themselves, like A for effort you guys, you’re doing so well.

Good: ‘Heroes in a half-shell’ jingle again and Donnie sounding happy that Mikey’s calling him and then instantly going into big brother mode and telling Mikey that they’re on their way.

IDK: THEY’RE NOT MONSTERS AND I KNOW THIS IS JUST HAMMERING HOME THE WHOLE ‘they wouldn’t be accepted’ THING WHICH IS WHY I’M NOT MARKING THIS AS BAD BUT HOLY FREAKING HECK AM I PISSED AT THAT COP!!!

Good: Mikey’s soft “we’re not monsters” SOMEONE GIVE THIS RAY OF SUNSHINE A HUG, HE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

IDK: I really don’t know how to feel about Leo’s reaction to Mikey feeling hurt by what the cop said. I really don’t.

Good: Mikey sounding genuinely happy for Bebop and Rocksteady “achieving the power of flight”, lol, pure bean.

IDK: Is Raph only afraid of jumping because of the lack of things to grab on to or something, he jumps around New York and off of buildings no problem.

Good: DONNIE JUST CASUALLY WALKING OUT OF THE PLANE

Good: All of their reactions to Donnie just jumping, lol

Good: “Prepare for the ouch!” AND THEN THEY ACTUALLY SAY OUCH WHEN THEY HIT THE PLANE, LOL XD

Good: Mikey’s reaction to seeing a giant warthog and rhinoceros that he knows they’re going to have to fight is just the single “HEH” awkward laugh, I love it

Good: Donnie just holding onto the part of the Arc Capacitor and telling everyone who’s fighting around him to watch it, lol

Good: IF YOU LOOK IN THE BACKGROUND AFTER ROCKSTEADY FIRES THE TANK, YOU CAN SEE LEO JUST GIVING HIM THIS LOOK AND THEN HE JUST RAISES HIS ARMS LIKE “are you serious right now”

Good: Donnie’s “I’m doing awesome”, yeets the control stick away, lol

**Bebop, don’t tell me you’re thinking you can outswim a turtle, please

Bad: I hate how much wire was used to run the camera feed to the box, it’s so inefficient and an absolute waste of wire.

Good: Once again ‘heroes in a half-shell’ jingle being used because the job was successful, I love how much Donnie uses this little ring tone for things.

Good: I hate conflict but it’s very well done right here and I just want them to stop fighting, so bravo making me feel emotions again.

Good: Donnie instantly jumping to Mikey’s defense with a “how could you!”

Good: The Chief just says “well-played” in response to Casey having picked her pocket to steal her phone, big mood

IDK: I want to know how Donnie hacked the Technodrome, like is it just one giant Wi-Fi hotspot, how did he even connect to it?

IDK: How does he know the atmosphere is toxic, just give me a little explanation, please

**I want to know how that ooze works, full injection causes full permanent mutation, drops of slightly re-engineered version causes very temporary changes lasting only a few seconds, and apparently one sip changes external appearance but not internal systems. Does it have to physically enter the body via injection or ingestion in order to make permanent changes? (assuming it would permanently change their appearance, that could also be temporary, but if it was then wouldn’t Donnie say that?) Why would it start externally and work inwards when it would first make contact with internal systems? (so many questions, I just want to know how it works, I love science stuff)

IDK: And Raph just made the decision for everyone without asking…just like Leo did

Bad: PUT DOWN THOSE GUNS I SWEAR

Bad: EVEN AFTER SHE SAYS TO HOLD THEIR FIRE THERE’S STILL COPS POINTING THEIR GUNS, STOP IT

Good: I LOVE THEIR LITTLE TEAM UP THING ACKNOWLEDING EACH OF THEIR DIFFERENCES!

**A footnote in the history of the Foot clan, ba-dum tss

Good: “When something bad happens, you want to be with the turtles!” Lol, Vern’s got it figured out

Bad: Why is Shredder surprised about being betrayed by Krang when he just betrayed Stockman?

Good: I’m pretty sure in the area where Krang puts Shredder, you can see a Triceraton and I love the reference.

Good: I love Casey’s “well do you wanna switch?”, he sounds so done

Good: “chewed up piece of gum with a face” is the best description of Krang that I’ve ever heard

Bad: The way Vern jumps down on that Foot ninja, like come on, the dude saw him and still didn’t do anything!

Good: “He is literally re-arming” Lol, very true

Good: Excellent use of momentum when Leo nearly gets thrown off the Technodrome and just swings back around, I love it

Good: When Donnie finds the beacon, just slowly realizing that it’s way out of reach, lol

**I’m so sorry, more science rambling: Would removing the beacon from its spot instantly start messing with the construction of the Technodrome, like are each of the pieces set to assemble in a certain order at certain distances from the beacon, meaning that once assembly has begun and the beacon gets moved, the pieces would suddenly try to readjust? Or is it a more general signal and the pieces know where they’re supposed to connect with room for error, which is why the signal needs to be outside the Technodrome in order for assembly to stop? (I just want to know how it works 😭)

Good: I LOVE how instantly they’re all each going after Krang the moment he has Mikey, saying how nobody messes with Mikey, and I swear, there’s a little bit of extra sass with how they move their weapons after taking Krang down, like a “that’s what you freaking get”. Like, at the end of the day, they’re protective of their baby brother and heaven help anyone that tries to hurt him.

Good: THEY GET KEYS TO THE CITY

Bad: “I think you should give people more credit, they’ll accept you now.” SAYS THE PERSON THAT WAS INITIALLY CALLING THEM MONSTERS WHILE HER OFFICERS POINTED GUNS AT THEM. “You could live a normal life, like the rest of us.” YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE ARE, STOP GIVING THEM FALSE HOPE!  

Alright, that’s the entire movie. Honestly, I love it a lot more than the first, there’s so much good stuff in this movie, you can see how they’re teenagers, so much more Donnie (after a severe lack in the first one…I’m also very biased since he’s my favorite, lol), and the sibling relationships between the turtles is great. Time for a tally.

Good: 69.90% (72 goods) Bad: 20.39% (21 bads) IDK: 9.71% (10 IDKs)

(I hear there’s plans for another one…I can’t wait to see how that turns out, lol)

[phinnsyreads]

Item #: SCP-032

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-032 is to be housed in Automated Containment Unit 535/15. Direct contact with SCP-032 is to be restricted to research-relevant tasks only. Interviews, if deemed necessary, are to be carried out using the Unit’s remote communication array. While SCP-032’s presence is not directly harmful to the human body, exposure to it is to be limited to periods of 12 hours or less due to its adverse effects on most beneficial microorganisms. SCP-032 is not to be exposed to any biological material not refined or otherwise tempered by humanity, with an emphasis on non-human living entities. For full list of classifications, see Document-032-RCL. SCP-032 neither requires nor requests substances or other forms of comfort.

Description: SCP-032 is a Type-F (imperfect external resemblance, internally inconsistent) human simulacrum of currently unknown origins. It is composed of an outer shell of pigmented silicone (5.5 mm thick), and various plastic fiber polymers, with the outward appearance of a Caucasian woman nearing the third decade of life. SCP-032’s interior is composed entirely of liquid refined oil, lacking any skeletal or muscle structure. Despite this, SCP-032 is capable of locomotion and speech. SCP-032 is capable of maintaining the illusion of humanity at a moderate distance, but becomes unconvincing at a closer range, causing mild discomfort in most observers. This effect has been deemed non-anomalous. Despite apparently possessing fully-realized cognitive abilities, SCP-032 claims that it is not sapient, acting only as an intermediary instrument of its creators. The Foundation has not been able to verify or refute this claim as of yet.

SCP-032 has extreme adverse effects on any biological entity in its close vicinity not created, willfully influenced, manipulated by or similarly relating to humanity. While the exact nature of these effects varies, SCP-032’s presence inevitably causes severe and irreparable damage to the ability of any living organism to exchange and/or use energy: wild flora loses its ability to photosynthesize or otherwise produce or consume energy, fauna the use of its respiratory and digestive systems, etc. This applies to microorganisms as well, though SCP-032’s effects seem to favor damage to their reproductive systems instead. It is hypothesized that the symbiotic relation some microorganisms have to humanity is the reason for this discrepancy.

SCP-032 was discovered sitting on the doorstep of the inner compound of Foundation Site-██ near ██████████, Slovakia. When questioned by Foundation security personnel, SCP-032 explained its anomalous effects and claimed it was there ‘to be stored’. Surveillance footage show no record of the time of its arrival, and it is not yet known how SCP-032 came to know Site-██’s location or approach it without being spotted. When asked for its reason for seeking Foundation custody, SCP-032 replied that it was there at the command of its creators, seeking 'indefinite storage, until claimed’.

Addendum:

Interview 032-A

Note: this interview was recorded near the time of SCP-032’s initial containment by Dr. Alexander Kovac, Site-██ resident psychologist, following its initial examination by Site Security.

<Begin Log>

Dr. Kovac: Before we begin, there’s something I feel I should ask you, since security so often neglects doing so. It’s not strictly conforming to protocol, but I find it tends to make things easier.

SCP-032: I was instructed to cooperate. Dr. Kovac: Good, very good. Tell me then, what is your name?

SCP-032: I don’t have one. People have names. I’m not one.

Dr. Kovac: Is that so? What did your so-called creators call you then?

SCP-032: They didn’t.

Dr. Kovac: Surely, they had to refer to you somehow?

SCP-032: I am a vessel of their will, and nothing else. They never needed to call. They never will.

Dr. Kovac: In that case, would you mind if I refer to you as SCP-032?

SCP-032: I was instructed to cooperate.

Dr. Kovac: So you said, so you said. Tell me then, what is the purpose of your coming here?

SCP-032: I am to be stored here until collected.

Dr. Kovac: Security told me that much, but why here, and collected by whom?

SCP-032: Collected by the ones they wish to torment, and stored here because in finding me here he will suffer further.

Dr. Kovac: Is that so? Is that person you refer to part of this organization then? Do your creators bear some grudge towards a particular operative?

SCP-032: He is not one of you. Merely a… one-time sympathizer, of sorts. He believes you tried to help him once, and if he is forced here, if he finds me here, you will die. That will hurt him. They have no interest in any of you, or your organization. You are here as a tool, just as I am.

Dr. Kovac: Who is this man then? What did he do to earn this sort of treatment from your creators?

SCP-032: He did not know his place. Won when he should have lost, was proud when he should have been humbled. Was wasteful with gifts too precious for abuse.

Dr. Kovac: And you are here as punishment?

SCP-032: He was already punished. Severely. Forced away from kin and kind, to endlessly wander, to destroy against his will. To poison humanity by his very presence. Eternal solitude, flavored by ceaseless guilt. A masterwork of torment, they say.

Dr. Kovac: If that’s the case, why are you here?

SCP-032: Because even in this existence, there is the occasional moment of solace. At times, he may yet look to the world and see things he will not destroy. Look to nature and feel warm wonder, and bask in the false light of ancient, moldy memories. It keeps him sane, gives him hope. That will not serve. Hence my presence. I am to be his last undoing, a hastening to the end of reason.

Dr. Kovac: And how will your presence do that? Are you meant to deceive him in some way? Is that why you look the way you do?

SCP-032: In a manner of speaking. Eventually, his wanderings will lead him here, to me. In a day, or a month, or a century. And he will recognize me, and see what they think of his precious memories. How they mock them. He’ll understand that because of his actions, she is forever beyond his grasp, and all that remains to him is… me. A simulacrum as artificial as his hope. When he finds me, I will attach myself to him, and he will watch the mockery of his memories destroy his last source of solace. And that will be that.

Dr. Kovac: I… um. You said he will recognize you. Why?

SCP-032: I used to be his wife.

<End Log>

—

Interview 032-B

Note: This interview was held six months following SCP-032’s initial containment, as part of a series of interviews meant to evaluate SCP-032’s cognitive abilities and personality, or lack thereof.

<Begin Log>

SCP-032: I hate her.

Dr. Kovac: Well… that’s certainly a way to start an interview. Care to elaborate?

SCP-032: The one I was made to look like. My… mold. I hate her.

Dr. Kovac: An interesting sentiment for you to have, considering your repeated assurance that you possess no consciousness or feelings of your own.

SCP-032: I don’t. I hate her because they want me to. It serves their purpose.

Dr. Kovac: How do you get that impression?

SCP-032: The first thing they did, after creating me, was to show her to me. It’s not something they often do.

Dr. Kovac: I don’t follow.

SCP-032: Interfere with those who passed beyond their halls. They might be vengeful, spiteful, even cruel, but they take their duties very seriously. Just to show her to me, to risk disturbing her final rest… they wouldn’t do that without a purpose.

Dr. Kovac: And-

SCP-032: She was beautiful. So peaceful, serene. Whole. Even gone, even dead, I could see the essence of who she used to be… of who she still was, and forever will be. Her soul. They told me she didn’t get to live for all that long, but when she lived… she was herself. She was alive. And so I hated her. Do you know what it feels like, to be made as a mockery? In every line of that smooth, silent face, I saw a twisted reflection in my own. Fragrant skin to molded plastic, soft hair to synthetic fiber, blood to oil. Soul to nothing at all.

Dr. Kovac: Excuse me if this sounds presumptuous, but I can’t imagine feelings like this coming from anywhere but yourself.

SCP-032: [Shakes head] Can’t you see? This is all part of their plan. When he finds me, when he sees what the Brothers created just to punish him further… he’ll go mad.

Dr. Kovac: Because of what they did to the memory of his wife?

SCP-032: Not only that. Because he’ll see me. He’ll see how much I hate her, and how much I hate myself for not being her. Hate being here at all.

Dr. Kovac: And then what?

SCP-032: Then… a final realization.

Dr. Kovac: And what would that be?

SCP-032: He never won.

<End Log>

===

[The voice of Dr. Kovac was provided by @phinnsy.] [The voice of SCP-032 was provided by Brittany ███████.]

[village-skeptic]

on “having it both ways”: thinking about S2 and looking ahead to S3

So apparently once a year I end up latching on to Riverdale pre-season promo and having WAY TOO MUCH to say about it.

Image analysis, pop-culture riffing, S2 criticism, meditations on resistant reading, my own discomfort with “wrongfully accused” narratives in this particular historical moment, and some hopes on the literal eve of the S3 premiere, below the cut...

So, last week when this piece of promo dropped, the very first thing that I thought of was the visual reference to Chicago and the Cell-Block Tango.

(I didn’t do it! - but if I’d done it? - how could you tell me that I was wrong?)

HOW perfect is that homage? The red lighting, the raised arms? The promo still just FEELS like a snapshot from a Fosse dance routine. (A little more on legendary choreographer Bob Fosse here.)

It’s a defiant pose, right in the center of the frame, but a slightly vulnerable one at the same time. There’s nothing hidden here; everything’s on display. The pose draws the viewer’s eyes inescapably to the body - a muscled body, but one which here seems like a gymnast or dancer’s body: lithe figure, tapered waist, power that is channeled into performance.

(this is tasty; this is plenty; this is hungry work)

So, on a first pass, insofar as it puts this demonstrative male body on display, it’s a little bit of a subversive image, I think. And that’s well in line with the way that Riverdale so often courts the female (and/or gay male) gaze, and at its best does some really unusual stuff with masculinity. 

I thought about all of this - and then, silly me, I saw that this piece of promo was NOT a still, but is, instead, a short clip. 

Archie doing pull-ups on the prison bars, as another heavily muscled dude saunters behind him, reads to me like a completely different type of performance! To the degree that it invites the eye, it sends the message: don’t fuck with me. In motion, we have purely the pursuit of greater strength, the purging of weakness in favor of the means of self-protection. 

Instead of Chicago, my mind jumps to 3x01′s title source: Fortune and Men’s Eyes. Dominate or be dominated. 

Realistically, I’m willing to believe that the ambiguous interpretation here between “still” and clip is just a quirk of how it happened to be uploaded to Twitter by a social media intern. 

Still - the interpretative gulf between the still image and the image in motion got me thinking how often Riverdale seems to want to “have it both ways,” and what that does to the audience’s experience and expectations of the show.

For instance:

Other people have written at length about how Riverdale’s pursuit of aesthetic homage or plot contrivance has created character inconsistencies that occasionally baffle. Cheryl is alternately a tragic Gothic heroine and a lacquered, ruthless Mean Girl; Jughead is both a sensitive loner writer and also a bad-boy gang leader; Betty is both Betty and Dark Betty. (GOD.)

Other folks have discussed how the show needs to really play out the consequences of conflicts between the characters. It’s not that the show shouldn’t drop bombshells like the Bughead breakup(s) or the conflict between Betty and Veronica/Jughead and Archie, but it seems all too willing to reset back to milkshakes in a booth at Pop’s without doing enough work to explain WHY things are okay again. (See also: resolving major conflicts between characters literally with a song.)

The desire to “have it both ways” also really shows up in the show’s tendency to engage complicated issues (racism, sexism, colonialism, the prison-industrial complex) on a shallow level - thus getting credit for mentioning them, without really taking the time to explore them meaningfully or to explain the characters’ investment in them. 

The result of this, in terms of storytelling, is that you leave a lot of room for resistant (even combative) readings of the text to emerge. To name a few of my own:

frustration with Jughead’s acceptance of what feels like a suuuuper patriarchal role as “the Serpent Prince” (and later King)

the fact that it’s really hard to sympathize with Veronica throughout entire swathes of season 2

a profound opposition to a storyline that sexualizes Betty’s mental health issues in a really exploitative fashion

And then... there’s Archie.

In the “Cell Block Tango,” the murderesses of Chicago (bar one) get to justify their crimes. Conversely, as we open the third season of Riverdale, the audience knows that Archie’s being blamed for something he didn’t do. Despite bragging about it (!!) to a bunch of mobsters (!!!!), Archie is not guilty of the murder of Cassidy Bullock. 

...but he IS guilty of so! many! other! things! across Season 2. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but aiding and abetting a criminal, covering up a murder, blowing up a car, and forming an extralegal vigilante militia group - TWICE - all come to mind. 

The last bits of S2 offer us a version of Archie’s amends-making that comes in the form of defending the Serpents, turning on Hiram, supporting his father, et cetera. And then the very last image of S2 - Archie being clapped in cuffs right at the moment that he’s supposed to be sworn into office - is meant to distress us.

But a season of watching Archie embrace fascism leaves some marks, y’all. And a not insignificant portion of the audience, still frustrated with the character’s choices, couldn’t help but say - well, he had it coming.

So, yeah. It’s been a few months between the close of S2 and the open of S3, and in most cases that would be enough time for me to sit with the story in and of itself, to consider more broadly where it had failed or succeeded, and to allow some of that “resistant reader” response to drain away.

But real talk, you guys: I’m finding it really hard right now, at this moment in American history, to connect emotionally with the story of a young man trying to fight the charges of which he has been wrongfully-yet-ever-so-plausibly accused.  

[Please note, I am NOT trying to say that RAS is somehow trying to weigh in explicitly on the SCOTUS debacle. The S2 finale laying the groundwork for this plot aired this spring, and S3E1 has (presumably?) been in the can for a while now. And, to its credit, Riverdale has in both seasons explicitly criticized a sexual culture that objectifies young women and reduces them to “points” (the football team’s playbook) and to prey (Nick St. Clair).]

But, for me personally, I can’t help looking at this plot and hearing echoes of “It's a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of.”

Here’s the interesting thing: I think RAS knows this, and I think the promo around this plot is partially designed to try to dispel these connections. 

(For me, at least, it’s having mixed results.)

(source)

For instance, I can’t look at this still (young man, formal suit intended to project good character and youthful vulnerability, sullen face, flanked by counsel) without thinking, “Wow, this feels....Brock Turner-y.” 

I don’t know if anyone’s written about courtroom photos and sketches as a genre of visual composition, but I feel like I’ve seen variations of the Riverdale still a million times, often printed on the front page of the local university newspaper, discussing the controversy over the conviction (or NON-conviction) of a promising young athlete accused of something awful that no one who knows him EVER would have suspected he would do. (Nice boy, nice family, so many extracurriculars, such good grades!)

Of course, there’s a major difference between the photos above: Archie’s defense team is entirely female. 

Obviously this makes sense because Mary Andrews and Sierra McCoy are both major supporting characters who are also lawyers - but it also makes sense in trying to dismantle some of the potential gut reactions to this visual framing. There’s some “innocence by association” going on here, I think. And after all, Archie IS innocent of this particular crime!

This still lands with mixed effect for me though, because any defense strategy that suggests the intentional composition of a visual tableau feels inherently cynical, even when the character is sympathetic or innocent. 

For instance: I just watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which features a scene where the main character shows up in the courtroom in full Upper West Side respectable regalia to try to get the obscenity charges against her dismissed - she fails and ends up having to plead guilty, because she mouths off at the judge. Anyone who’s familiar with Amy Sherman-Palladino’s work will recognize this bones of this plot point in the courtroom scene in Gilmore Girls: Rory’s grandparents’/lawyer’s attempt to portray her as a naive little angel backfires, and she ends up getting a ton of community service as penance for stealing a boat. It’s important to note that the characters are both guilty of their charges - although, as another favorite show of mine might note, “the situation’s a lot more nuanced than that.”)

(source | source)

Another way in which the pre-season promo is distancing Archie from both his actions last season, and the present context external to the show, is to emphasize his profound contrition. In this teaser from Riverdale 3x01, we get Archie declaring that “whatever happens to me in the courtroom on Tuesday - that is what I deserve.” This a statement of universal guilt and responsibility (one might say martyrdom?) that goes well beyond the scope of his actual infractions.

Now - I really, really appreciate that we’re getting a sad Archie rather than a mad Archie. And I want to acknowledge that he’s so definitely a kid here, trying hard to “man up” and to grapple with the fact that he screwed up big time and that there are consequences for his actions. After a season of doing the wrong thing over and over and OVER again, he’s trying to do the right thing. 

But here’s the thing: Fred responds to this confession of near-universal guilt with what (in this snippet) feels like a pair of universally-exculpatory statements: “You are a good kid. You got manipulated by a mobster.” (Mary is more nuanced: “You do not deserve to be framed for murder.”)

Archie does not deserve to be framed for murder, and he certainly did get manipulated by a mobster. In fact, I would like to formally start a petition to have Archie not fall under the control of an unscrupulous adult in S3!

However. 

Instead of accepting guilt for anything and everything and being immediately absolved for non-specific sins because of his inherent “goodness,” I really want to know that Archie understands what he actually DID do last season. He climbed wholeheartedly on board with the plan to Make Riverdale Great Again, and in that process, he did things that were NOT AT ALL commensurate with being “a good kid.” I think both the character and the show would benefit from a more explicit meditation on exactly why Hiram’s manipulation was so effective, and why Archie moved so quickly past being merely Hiram’s pawn, and voluntarily embraced the role of Hiram’s very ambitious accomplice. 

One of the specific preconditions of restorative justice is that the offender has to acknowledge their actions and the hurt that they caused. Reconciliation and vagueness are incompatible for so many reasons, but one of them is because a BIG part of learning from your mistakes is thinking precisely about what you did so that you can choose not to do it again.

I read a bunch of the new Archie comics over the break, and I think I now have a greater appreciation for the trope of Archie as a schlemiel. Despite his best intentions, the Archie archetype keeps making the same goofy, klutzy mistakes over and over again. This is fine, even funny, when it means that Archie just keeps accidentally ending up with a bucket on his head. Whoops! 

It is super not okay if it means that Archie just keeps finding himself supporting fascists. ...whoops?

(At present, my entire country is being “manipulated by mobsters.” Clearly, I have some feelings about this.)

I don’t actually know how to wrap all the loose ends of this analysis up meaningfully and coherently at the finish here - but then again, that probably puts me into good company with our showrunners. Optimistically, I’m going to hope that that’s intentional - that I’m judging in media res, and that plotlines and character arcs in S3 will weave together in a way that will surprise and delight me! 

But mostly, I’m going to reiterate my hope that S3 makes meaningful choices. That the people in charge don’t waste their actors’ time filming oodles and oodles of material that gets sliced and diced to ribbons. That they make choices EARLY about major plot points; that they stick to them; and that they let the rising action and falling action of your narrative reflect those choices, and the consequences that naturally accompany them. 

I hope that the people in charge of S3 will resist the ever-present temptation to “have it both ways” - which ultimately works out to really no definitive way at all. Telling a sturdy story is risky in a totally different way than courting controversy - but it’s so, so worth it. 

[yogaadvise]

Appreciating OM: The Sound of the Universe

Most of us know with the rule OM. We regularly shout it at the end of a team meditation or a yoga exercise course, without believing much concerning it. Possibly we make use of a mantra that starts with OM, but what does it really stand for? What is truth worth of this all-powerful sound?

The Development of the Cosmos According to Sound

Science informs us that deep space started with a big bang, whereas Vedanta says that the big bang is really a big OM, which really did not just take place once, it is continuous. In reality, if the OM picked up even a mini 2nd, the entire Universe as we understand it would certainly vanish promptly! OM climbs from Pure Awareness, which is main and underlies all existence, continuously unfolding as our experience of the Universe.

Imagine, if you can, a time before deep space existed. Visualize an area of Pure Consciousness, a timeless silence. Not a vacant silence, but one full of the capacity for everything. At some point, Pure Awareness determined it wanted to have an experience yet, as absolutely nothing else existed, it might only experience itself. Because all experiences are based upon comparison, Pure Awareness needed to move within itself to experience itself.

Now, activity creates friction, and also rubbing develops sound, so Pure Consciousness experiencing itself produced a noise. However, Pure Awareness, necessarily, is silent, so this noise, which was OM, had actually to be required out of the silence as well as became what we call conditioned consciousness. OM, or conditioned consciousness, is what we experience as deep space in which we live.

The suggestion that God produced the globe out of absolutely nothing is additionally central today to Islam, Christianity, and also Judaism-- and many references to a god developing deep space by audio (words) exist. In the Old Testimony God developed through His words when He claimed, "Let there be Light." The Scripture of John says, "At first was words (the sound of OM), as well as the Word was with God, as well as words was God (Oneness)."

The Expanding Universe

As the initial resonance of OM arises from the unmanifest, it branches out into all the various resonances of deep space, which show up as the world we know.OM as a result includes within all of it the rules, appears, as well as resonances of deep space. Whatever in deep space is a symptom of OM and also eventually a representation of Pure Awareness from which it arised. OM is the collective sound of deep space, the Primaeval Sound.

The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians says, "The One ends up being Numerous, the Unity comes to be Diversity, the Similar becomes Selection, yet the Numerous continues to be One." The Scripture of John says, "The Word ended up being flesh" (reveal production). In Egyptian literature the developer god pronounced the names of everything.

Modern science tells us deep space is expanding. Vedanta informs us that our Awareness, or Understanding, increases as we expand towards Enlightenment. The Quran states, "And also the paradise (area) We produced with might, and certainly We are (its) expander."

If, as Vedanta informs us, deep space is a forecast of our Awareness, after that the supposed expansion of deep space is contingent on our spiritual development, and also right now of our Knowledge, deep space will also get to the final thought of its trip and discontinue to exist as a separate reality.

Vedic References

OM is pointed out countless times throughout Vedic literary works, the majority of commonly in its initial kind of AUM.

The four principle Vedas, Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva, clarify on the knowledge of the whole development. It is said that all the understanding of the 4 Vedas is contained in the Rig and all the expertise of the Rig Veda is consisted of in its initial syllable "A". Therefore by fully understanding this very first syllable, which is the start of the rule AUM, we can know the entire production. According to the old Puranic messages, AUM stands for the union of the 3 major manly deities as well as the forces within the World. "A" suggests Brahma (production), "U" indicates Vishnu (upkeep), and also "M" suggests Shiva (damage). In the wonderful Indian text the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna (the Divine) states, "Of words I am OM."

The Chandogya Upanishad opens with the referral to 'allow a male meditate on OM, the essence of all." The Chandogya Upanishad likewise informs us that the gods took the song of OM unto themselves, believing, 'with this [tune] we will overcome the demons," therefore implying that OM motivates the excellent dispositions within each person.

When speaking of OM, the Katha Upanishad says, “this syllable is Brahman (the Outright), this syllable is the greatest, he who understands that syllable, whatever he wishes, is his."

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad asserts that OM is a tool of meditation that empowers one to understand the God within oneself, to recognize one's Atman (Soul, Self).

Adi Shankara stated that if you can only study one Upanishad, it should be the Mandukya, which is fortunate due to the fact that it occurs to be the fastest and adheres completely to OM. It opens by stating, 'AUM, this syllable is this universe, all previous, present, future, and also whatever exists beyond time is AUM." Simply put, every little thing that exists in manifest production is contained within AUM. The Mandukya Upanishad then speak about four states of consciousness:

The "waking state," where the senses are turned outside, is stood for by the letter "A" and also by knowing this, we become masters of our detects, resulting in the gratification of all wishes and also the achievement of greatness.

The "dream state," where the senses are routed inward, is stood for by "U" and by recognizing this we grasp our dreams, become established in wisdom, and also everyone birthed right into our household is extra deeply Brahman (highly evolved).

" Deep sleep," where awareness delights in tranquility without understanding of external or internal things, is represented by the letter "M." The Mandukya claims that by understanding this we understand all, and also whatever combines right into ourselves. In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali states that Mmmm is the name of God, and also in Psalms it claims, "God provides Truth to His beloved in sleep."

The fourth state explained in the Mandukya Upanishad is Turiya, which we understand as Transcendental Awareness, Atman, the silent aspect of AUM, or the "void" between thoughts. Turiya is stood for by "AUM." It is indivisible, it is the combination of three noises. The Mandukya informs us that AUM is the extremely Self, past birth and also death, the symbol of long lasting Joy. He who knows it as such, enters the Self with his self. Those who know the Fact come to be the Truth.

Chanting OM

As OM is the sound of deep space, it's always existing, so practically we can't chant it. We can not produce OM by a chanting of it, we just generate a vibration considerate with the vibration that is currently there, which is OM. It is not a chant made by us, developed by us, or started by us. Rather, we establish a link in between ourselves as well as the Supreme Fact, which materializes itself as audio vibration in the kind of OM.

An different means of shouting OM remains in its different type. In one breath chant, "Aaaa-- Uooo-- Mmm," complied with by silence. The fullness of the "A" sound falls down right into "U," then "M," and also ultimately the silence of all 3 with each other as soon as they have ended on the gross degree. The waking, dreaming, and also deep sleep states combining into the Unity of the Absolute.

When OM belongs to our mantra, such as in Primordial Sound Meditation, we experience the totally broadened degree of creation, attuning our private hearts to the Ultimate Reality.

Listen

Sometimes, if you rest really quietly, you will certainly listen to the sound of OM, like a far-off planetary hum. Pay attention within you, it's not outside you, it is you.

When your mind is quiet as well as you listen, you will certainly listen to God humming.

By training these spiritual techniques you like, you will certainly obtain more understanding and also insight on your own spiritual trip. Go here to figure out just how to come to be a Chopra Facility licensed instructor.