#all the prophecies? coincidence I’m just a wisdom

[amyrlinegwene]

Coramoor Nynaeve adding an extra element to the Bowl of the Winds bargaining

Oh my god, both she and the Sea Folk would hate her being the Coramoor sooooo much.

Like I don’t know if Nynaeve would actually ever accept that 😭😭😭

[seeinginthedark]

Shaman/magic person blog entry #1

Distinguishing a vision from a delusion.

I have been researching shamans for a few years now, and I’ve figured out that shaman‘s are borderline psychotic. In fact, psychotic.

“Am I actually just insane imagining all of the stuff happening? “

I guess seasoned and experience shaman‘s and elders who have experience with this who know themselves well enough can distinguish the difference between what is actually happening in reality, and what is just delusional, fantasy hallucinations. What I’ve discovered is that there’s a reason for people being like this ! Some indigenous cultures see a psychosis as a spiritual experience, I think that’s valid. If you don’t know or you aren’t connected with your ancestors and if you aren’t aware that you’re a magic person or shaman, and nobody ever shared with you what they experienced as one , never related to you (they may have been like you) like a shaman apprentice type situation then aren’t going to know the difference between a delusional thought and spiritual wisdom. That just comes to you out of nowhere or a vision. Or prophecy. I figured this out, I might not get into my own personal story right now of how I figured out that I was like this, but it was based on things that happened to my family members and me. I just couldn’t ignore the coincidence there and what I’ve discovered is that if you have a firm grip on reality and what it actually is and you know yourself and you’re comfortable with your own mental state, and you don’t pay attention to negative thoughts or let the thought circle and You’re somewhat mentally disciplined, and you pay attention to your dreams, maybe even meditate. You will distinguish the difference between just a random crazy thought, or hallucination, or prophecy, or pareidolia .  You can sense when you’re over analysing a pattern or barking up the wrong tree. You’ll know when you’re seeing faces in places where faces should not be you can tell the difference between whether it’s actually like a meaningful experience or if it’s just something that looks like two eyes and a mouth. You can tell the difference between imagination and reality you will know, but until you know you don’t know. So it can be really confusing and scary. Quite often, we will end up in mental health institutions, and on medication. I’m not saying real schizophrenia doesn’t exist. Of course it exists. There are real people out there unwell, having unwell, hallucinations and things. Suffering in life. Their family suffer and really scary and sad acts of trauma can come out of these situations. So I’m not a doctor on this topic. But I do get a sense that it could be sometimes mistaken occurrences happening in the world, where someone is actually receiving a vision, or prophecy from the future. Or from the past. Or just from the present. And they don’t recognise it as such. Well, they’re not encouraged to recognise it as such. So self doubt leads them to think that they’re crazy and that they are having freaky crazy thoughts. It’s freaky when you get messages from the ancestors. Ancestors will send messages in different kinds of ways. People from my culture, Māori culture are very tapped into certain things. We get messages from ancestors. A lot to do with animals and nature and elements of nature. They can just tell.  We are tapped in. And we don’t need to over explain it to people or over analyse or justify it. We just know. I wish all people had that kind of self belief and fundamental spiritual framework so that they could distinguish the difference between an actual vision and just a delusion specially nowadays when there are probably many many modern day shamans/magic people out there not realising their true power.

[yourwitchmama]

The History and True Nature of Witchcraft

This post might piss a lot of people off, but I can’t help but give you an accurate picture of what witchcraft actually is after seeing falsities time and time again... I am kind of nervous to share this, but here is the history of witchcraft:Shamanism.That’s where it started.Without shamanism, there is no witchcraft. The idea of white British witchcraft as many think of it today (Wicca) is a remnant of Celtic spiritual traditions.  But the whole Harry Potter “wave a wand and make potions” kind of magic is bordering on fantasy.It’s rooted in shamanic principles which involve animism, (the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words—as animated and alive.)spirit working, and an extremely Buddhist concept of “we are all connected and everything is alive, there is no distinction between us and the rest of the universe.” Buddhism and shamanic thought are identical. The only difference is the shamanic concept of spirit working. In traditional cultures a “bad shaman”(someone who used spirit working/magic for selfish and harmful reasons, like cursing people)Was killed or banished because of what was to be thought of pious and impious at the time. The idea of an evil, cursing witch didn’t start with the witch hunts in Europe.“Bad witches” have ALWAYS been thrown out of society because they prove to be irresponsible, disrespectful and dangerous.The idea of a badass aesthetic witch who curses her ex-boyfriend and sacrifices cats to Baphomet is actually a Christian one.It’s witch hunt-era Catholic propaganda.So when people ascribe to that image,they’re ascribing to something that only existed in witch hunter’s pornographic fantasies.It’s not real. The whole “satanic witch” thing is a Christian invention.I get so sick of those kinds of witches because what they’re practicing is a dualistic, Christian-created pseudo-witchcraft that was never actually practiced.People don’t want witchcraft to be shamanism,and they don’t want to have that squishy Buddhist “we are all connected” mentality because it’s not dark and edgy enough, but that’s what real witchcraft is.In fact, the whole idea of “witchcraft” is a misogynistic one. It’s used to describe a woman who isn’t docile or subservient to men.If you’re an independent woman with solitary spiritual beliefs and a LOT of knowledge (about nature, spirits, medicine, women’s bodies, etc) you’re branded as “bad” and “ungodly” That’s where the term “witch” came from. It was actually first used by the Inquisition.The whole idea that intelligent, knowledgeable, autonomous women are bad and scary “witches” is a misogynistic ideology.Witches DO include things like darkness and death and decay and disease in their practice, but it’s with the knowledge that everything is connected, sacred, and has its place. The problem is, with dualistic Catholic doctrine evolving into modern western culture, we’ve fetishized death. Death is now something scary, morbid, and edgy. Same with darkness, nighttime, etc. those are all remnants of Inquisition-era witch hunters. Because those things are associated with women. So likeDeath and darkness and all that ARE witchy things. But in a much nicer, sacred way. Not in an “oooh skulls are so scary uwu I’m gonna drink blood and be a demon lol” kind of way. Do you know how Buddhists and Hindus do things like meditate in graveyards to contemplate impermanence?It’s like that. But no one wants it to be like that because that’s not nearly as thrilling and edgy and morbid. Like, most people want witchcraft to be the Catholic version of witchcraft when in reality it is MUCH more similar to Buddhism.Witchcraft is practiced all over the world too,EVERY culture has their version of a witch/shaman, and so there are lots of different cultural variants with nearly identical philosophies. If you visited a Mongolian wise woman, you wouldn’t be like “ooh she curses her ex-husband and celebrates Samhain by partying in graveyards”Like, no, bitch. The Mongolian wise woman is NOT like that. Why?Because that image is a Catholic one. It’s propaganda. The same would be true if you visited an African Orisha priestess,a South American curandera (I can't spell it omg), a Siberian shaman, or a voodoo priestess. There’s a book called “Grandmothers Counsel the World” and it’s a book about like 13 different wise women and shamans from all over the world who come together because all of their cultures had the same prophecy about world peace.You can see how each of these grandmothers are shamans.And even though they come from all over the world, their beliefs are almost identical.The West has a really skewed view of witchcraft because we WANT it to be fetishized into something edgy and sexy and cool, when in reality that’s all a fantasy made up by the Inquisition. You can still wear black and like dark and edgy things, but when you forget what witchcraft IS and you forget the roots or the spiritual component, you’re not really practicing something real. That’s why when people ask me how to get started with witchcraft, I recommend books on shamanism and cultural differences in witchcraft all over the world. It’s important to know WHY witchcraft works and HOW to do it before you jump in and think that your sage is gonna protect you but you don’t know why or how to treat the sage with respect Like, ok, I swear I’m almost done ranting,But the entire premise of witchcraft is that you’re someone with a lot of knowledge. In most cultures, their word for “witch” translates to “one who knows” or “one with knowledge”. At its core, witchcraft is about being well-informed and knowledgeable—about the wisdom of nature, medicines, science, and spirits. Armed with knowledge, an independent woman is scary to a lot of people. She’s opinionated and can make good, educated decisions. The problem is, when modern witches do things like worship “the Goddess” or smudge with sage and stuff, a lot of them don’t say why. Who is the goddess? Why are you worshipping her? Who is she to you? If you just decide to worship a goddess without knowledge of spirits, you’re just blindly following a religion without questioning it. That’s the opposite of witchcraft. Witchcraft encourages direct revelation, meaning you learn from personal experience. If you don’t listen to your intuition or allow yourself to challenge your perceptions, willing to grow and change as new information comes along, you’re just following a pattern of confirmation bias.Witchcraft is scary because there is no cushy, comfortable assurance that you’re 100% correct about everything. You’re constantly being challenged, broken apart, and changed so that you can grow. It’s no coincidence that all the shamanic gods and spirits are also spirits of death, change, and transformation. When you think about it, the universe is in constant flux. Nothing is static. Everything is always changing. If witchcraft is about attuning yourself to nature, then you’re destroying the idea of permanence and attuning to the constant changes of the universe. That’s a potentially scary path. But it’s the most liberating and potentially enlightening. THAT’S what witchcraft is. Its recognizing that the universe isn’t predictable or always safe, and learning to attune yourself to that with the trust that it’s going to benefit you rather than hurt you. You have to be willing to change whenever change is necessary, to grow into a new person when it’s time. People who identify as witches should not incorporate their personal fashion and art into their actual witchcraft. It is okay to create an aesthetically pleasing altar/blog/bedroom but the whole wearing a witch hat and actually believing that what you are doing is actually witchcraft is not real. Again, what they’re practicing is a dualistic, Christian-created pseudo-witchcraft that was never actually practiced. You can separate your artistic expressive self and your witchcraft. It is not only embarrassing to the witches who want to be a part of this culture because it is plain wrong, but it is also enforcing the Catholic Church's propaganda.Again, I am not saying fashion and aesthetic is bad. I am saying SOME witches think that the creepy edgy thing is real witchcraft, and they spread a false message to baby witches who need to be guided by a witch who knows their stuff. I am not sure what kind of energies that would bring into your craft. 

[bodytoflame-ao3]

born for this // one

When she finally feels the exhaustion drift over her, it’s overwhelming; like the entire weight of the day’s been dropped on her at once. In a way, it has. She’s here now, this is real. Not just the stories her parents told to her, or vague bursts of imagination from brief visits.

As hard as she tries, she can’t shake the feeling of anger in the pit of her stomach — exactly for what, she’s not sure.

or, a next-generation fic following the lives of Percy and Annabeth, and Piper and Jason's children, and a prophecy.

AO3 Link

--

okay. so this is my first attempt in a very very very long time at a multichapter fic. i have absolutely 0 clue how long this is going to be or how fast i'm going to be able to update. but here it is. my take on a next generation fic. in which jason is alive because i said so.

this one goes out to @officialpjo for encouraging this mess

i //

Piper McLean never thought she’d be alive at 18, much less pregnant.

“I don’t know what to do.”

It’s three in the morning, but Annabeth’s still here for her. She’ll always be grateful for that. She rubs her back, and for a moment, it’s like everything is okay. She’ll speak her wisdom and that will be it. Instead (and Piper knew deep down it would turn out this way) she says; “Piper, that’s something you have to decide for yourself. You know that.”

And that’s not very helpful — but it’s true. “I just thought everything was finally going back to normal.” It was. She’d gone back to school and was about to graduate, even got accepted into a few colleges (not that she was sure she’d even go). “What if there’s another prophecy?”

Annabeth stays silent.

“I can’t bring a baby into the world like that, Annabeth. I won’t!” It would put both of our lives in danger.

“Then you don’t have to,” she replies softly, resting her hand on Piper’s shoulder.

“I do, Gods, I want to.” Piper wipes the tears from her eyes, “That makes me sound so stupid.” It was stupid to want to have a baby when she could be pulled into a war at any moment. But this is a chance to make something with her life — something mundane; normal.

Annabeth reassures her, though Piper isn’t sure how much she believes it, “No. It doesn’t; you’re not. You were as safe as you could be.”

Piper tries not to yell, not at Annabeth at least, but her emotions get the best of her this time. “I don’t want you to tell me it’s not my fault, I want you to tell me he won’t hate me!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then lie!”

She doesn’t acknowledge the outburst, knowing it comes from a place of frustration, not directed at her but the cruel irony of the world (and how familiar she is with that herself). She simply offers a piece of hope; knowing nothing is certain, but it could be. “It’ll be okay.”

Piper lets the silence wash over them for a minute. “What would you do?” She asks, genuinely curious.

“I’ve always wanted a family,” she admits, fiddling with her wedding ring. Of course she does. That's all she's ever wanted. “But it would still be scary.”

“I have to tell him,” Piper says after a moment. He’s just as much a part of this as she is, and he deserves to know, no matter what she decides. And she knows — she knows what she wants, and it’s this.

Annabeth is unflinching. “I’ll come with you, okay?”

“Hold my hand?”

“Yeah.”

Annabeth does; all the way back to their apartment, up the stairs, into the living room, onto the couch, across from him.

“We have to talk,” Piper says, firm, but gentle.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Jason asks, a puzzled look on his face.

“No.” She shares a knowing glance with Annabeth, knowing what it looks like, and suppresses a laugh. Though, in all honesty, they both know if by some coincidence they both ended up single, it wouldn’t be a question, and they’d both know the answer.

“I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Annabeth squeezes her hand tight before she leaves, and then, it’s just them.

“Pipes. You’re killing me.”

She reaches into her pocket and hands him the test, unsure if she could even get the words out of her mouth.

“Oh.” He pauses. “Do you—”

“I’m keeping it,” she answers.

“Hey.” Jason wraps his arms around her. “We’ll be okay.”

ii //

Annabeth storms into her room, barely knocking before she opens the door. “I think I’m pregnant.” She says it, quiet, almost nonchalant. It’s hard for Piper to decipher the look on her face; somewhere between dissociated and awed. But most definitely a little scared.

“I thought you were on the pill?” Piper asks.

She nods.

“So why do you—”

“—I don’t know. I just feel… off.” Annabeth cuts her off, rambling. “It’s possible.”

“Unlikely,” Piper adds.

Annabeth emphasizes, “But possible.”

She knows Annabeth wants this, but she has no clue what Percy’s stance on kids is. To be completely honest, he seems to Piper like the kind of guy who wouldn’t care as long as Annabeth was happy. “Have you two talked about wanting—”

“No… not yet, but...”

“But you do want—”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” she admits. She does, and she will, no matter what. It’s permanent — a concrete legacy, that will last as long as the circle of life keeps spinning. And isn’t that what she wanted? It may not be exactly what she imagined, but the thought of it makes her want to cry. With Percy, doing better than her parents ever could, because he’d surely learn from the best; knowing this child would grow up with people who care. Immensely. Deeply. Parents who know what it’s like.

Annabeth wipes a tear from the corner of her eye, composing herself. “I bought a test, I just… I wanted you to be here.” She sighs, and opens the box from her bag, tossing the cardboard in the trash along with a packet of pills from her bag.

Piper pulls them out of the bin, scoffing, “You might still need these.”

She shakes her head, “I already know what it’s going to say, Piper. I just have a feeling.”

“Is it… a good feeling?” she offers.

“I don’t know yet. I hope so.”

iii //

“Is something wrong?” Percy asks, sitting down next to Annabeth on the couch. “You seem off,” he offers. She’s been distant all week, and it scares him. He knows what that distance feels like, the kinds of storms that brew up in their minds.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Annabeth says, because it's not — but it is scary. “I do need to talk to you though. Ask you something.”

He looks at her expectantly.

“Do you want kids?” she asks, a nervous edge lacing her voice. It's something they've never talked about, and she really wishes they had, if it would make this moment easier. In all honesty, she has absolutely no clue what she’ll say if he doesn’t; and his hesitance is no reassurance. Because she does; now more than ever, now that it’s real.

Percy considers his answer. He does. Not desperately; distantly. Not so much that he would have a problem if she didn’t. “Um, yeah. Do you—”

“Percy.” She stops him, because it’s all she needs to hear. “I’m pregnant.”

The look on his face turns from confusion to awe as he processes her revelation. It’s a moment before he speaks again, softly: “Really?”

She nods.

“Wow.” His hand finds her stomach, unable to feel a difference but struck with wonder with this new knowledge. He’s always wondered what it would be like to start a family with her, but for all the daydreaming he’s done, none of it compares. “When did you find out?”

She stares out the window, leaning into him. “Two weeks ago. I didn’t have any good reason to suspect it, I just… had a feeling?”

“Does anyone else know?” He has a feeling he's not the first person she's told. Two weeks is a long time, bottling up something that big.

“Piper.” She ran to her the second the thought popped into her mind. It was only fair — she’d helped Piper when it was her. Piper held her hand while she waited, and hugged her as long as she needed.

Percy analyzes her nerve-wracked expression. “Just Piper?”

Annabeth frowns, looking at him with a gaze that’s trying too hard to be apologetic. “No, I… I told your mom, too. I’m sorry,” she says, bursting out laughing, and trying to hold the tears back. It’s expected by now, but somehow still funny how untraditional they are. “I was freaking out and she’s kind of the best motherly figure I’ve got. But she’s thrilled — if that helps.”

“Oh, thank the gods,” he sighs, laughing, “No, no, I think I would die of embarrassment if I had to tell her myself.”

“Well, then you’re welcome… and you owe me.”

“When do I not?” Percy smiles, wrapping his arms around her.

“I know this wasn’t what you expected — me either — but this is the best I’ve felt in a long time. I’m actually happy, Percy,” she sighs, so weary from the world and how it’s beaten her up before. This almost feels like a blessing, even if it isn’t one she planned for.

“No, no, so am I, I just don’t… how? We’re careful.” Incredibly so. He doesn’t want to dwell on the odds of it.

“I mean, nothing’s perfect. To have two different methods fail, though… that’s either just terrible luck or godly interference.” At this point, it doesn’t matter which.

“I feel pretty lucky right now.” No; odds are… he’s the luckiest person in the world.

“Yeah?” Annabeth asks, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“I couldn’t think of anything I want more, Annabeth.” Now that it's right in front of him, he knows that.

iv //

“How is she?”

“Asleep. Both of them.” Piper nods her head towards them; Percy clinging to Annabeth as much as he can in the tiny hospital bed. She winces, seeing the position he’s folded himself into, knowing too well how sore he’ll be in the morning. “Estelle was getting antsy so Sally took her home.”

Jason sits down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“I still can’t believe she walked across the stage at graduation nearly nine months pregnant. I barely left the bed.” It was as much a physical feat as it was an ode to her determination.

“Don’t I know that,” he scoffs jokingly.

It hits Piper that she’s never seen Annabeth this happy. Even the day they got married. And then — she had thought the same thing. It’s something she could get used to; seeing her best friend overwhelmingly happy, with the love of her life, and knowing she has everything she’s ever wanted.

Lyra stirs in her arms, wriggling her tiny limbs within the blanket swaddling her. Piper smiles, shushing her before she even starts to cry. “Don’t you miss when he was little?” She asks, curled up awkwardly in the uncomfortable chair, but cradling the baby in her arms so gently.

Jason’s blunt, yet misinformed response: “Pipes, he’s still a toddler. He’s like half your height.”

She laughs, “This tiny. So tiny you’re amazed it’s even a person. When he could fall asleep in our arms.”

“Huh,” his face softens into a smile, “I guess… wow, he was so small when he was born. Smaller than her.”

“I can’t wait to do it all again.”

“Wait—”

Piper smiles.

He speaks, quieter this time, trying not to wake Percy and Annabeth, “You’re serious?”

She nods, “Yeah. Yeah. I found out this morning. Then Percy called, and it’s just been chaos since then. She doesn’t even know yet.”

Piper can tell it means a lot to him, being the first to know, like it’s a secret between them — secrets were inevitably reserved for Annabeth, as they’d been before.

“I love you. A lot.”

“A lot?” She hums, teasing.

“The most.”

Part Two

[coeurvrai]

Last we left off, Nadya passed out for the billionth time after escaping from the room where she was imprisoned and was found by Malachiasz. This time, Nadya wakes up bandaged in a room at the top of Pelageya’s tower.

Pelageya tells Nadya that she knows who she and Malachiasz really are and is aware of her status as a Cleric, because “this palace has been without any blessing of the divine for so long that you were practically shining when you stepped inside.”

“Though,” she considered, tugging at a spiral curl, “he’s not your king. Not mine, either. He’s not even sterevyani bolen’s king, now, is he? Is it treason if we all here swear to different crowns? Except…” Her gaze narrowed on Malachiasz. “You can’t really swear to your own crown, now can you?”

“Careful…” he murmured. He flexed his hand over the arm of his chair, nails flashing iron in the dim candlelight.

Shut the fuck up, Malachiasz. Also @jefflion​ already told me this particular spoiler, that Malachiasz is actually the Queen’s illegitimate child, so I’m both annoyed but also it kind of makes sense? Because either way, Malachiasz wants the crown and sees the crown as his.

Pelageya explains that a certain Vulture rose up the ranks and found out a way to attain godhood, so he told the King in a way to strengthen the relationship between the court and the Vultures; because the previous “Vulture queen” was ruining the sect and the Black Vulture wanted equal power. And so King Izak wanted to perform the ceremony, to give him the power he desperately craved.

“The Vulture disappeared. Poof! There one night, gone the next, leaving his cult to scramble in his absence. Because the Vultures need direction, they need their Black Vulture to lead them, and he had vanished.”

Nadya was listening at a distance, refusing to let the witch’s words catch up to her, to connect all that she was hearing, but she knew, she knew. Would that it had been so simple, that Malachiasz were just a Vulture recruit who got scared and fled. The world was falling out from underneath her and she had no anchor, she had nothing, because nothing was even real.

AND NADYA PUTS TWO AND TWO TOGETHER.

Look, I’ve been 99% sure from the start because that’s what happens when you advertise your book as a villain romance and also say it’s for Alina/Darkling shippers. The plot twist isn’t really a plot twist.

It was Malachiasz. It had always been Malachiasz. The leader of the cult, the one who had spun all of this into motion, the one who had smiled and charmed his way into Nadya’s trust because he could do terrible things with her power if he had access to it. She wouldn’t be sitting here with bandages covering her body if not for Malachiasz.

Look, you didn’t have to listen to him. You didn’t even have to go with him and Rashid and Parijahan to that church, because you had no reason to trust him or believe their plans or to even stick around to hear their plans. You, by all rights, shouldn’t had no actual reason to have been in that situation in the first place.

It’d be more believable if the book had gone along that Nadya was naive and unbelievably sheltered and that had a great effect on her nature and how she interacted with people.

But we literally threw away any semblance of that out of the window by Chapter 2 to double down that Nadya is Independent and Capable and Can Make Her Own Decisions and her upbringing at the monastery and especially as a Cleric has no greater effect on her perception of the world and her social skills.

Also you still haven’t found out what he did with your blood that one time!!!

“But he fled?” Nadya asked. If she pretended the one they were speaking of wasn’t sitting in front of them, listening in calm contemplation, maybe that would make this easier.

“He did,” Pelageya said. “But he came back. Do you think that is coincidence? That this clever boy and his clever magic have returned now?”

“Malachiasz?” Nadya said, her voice smaller than she would have liked, weaker. She willed him to look at her.

He looked different, sitting in the witch’s chair in a way that made it seem almost a throne. His black hair parted far on the right side, falling over his shoulder in inky waves, his pale eyes cold and blank. Less a boy, more a monster. Was that all he was? The silly boy who smiled too much and felt too deeply just a mask for the monster underneath?

Had she fallen for his lies exactly as he wanted her to?

I am going to scream.

You literally have called him a fucking monster and an Abomination and a Heretic ALL of the time, just to remind us that, yes, you still consider him an Enemy even though your hatred is paper thin and not at all believable even though your hatred for Tranavia and Vultures especially is supposed to be Important to your character.

But yes, you did.

He finally met her gaze, eyes softening, growing familiar. “It’s all right, towy dżimyka,” he said, voice soft.

It wasn’t. Not at all.

Pelageya laughed. “Is that supposed to make her feel better?” She stood up, walking around Malachiasz’s chair. “Is that supposed to earn her trust again?” She hooked a finger underneath his chin, forcing his gaze up to hers. She looked young. Nadya didn’t know when the shift had happened but knew the witch was a force of nature. A magic just as old and dangerous as either of them possessed, made worse by the wisdom of her years. “What have you done, Chelvyanik Sterevyani?” she whispered. “What will you still do? I don’t think love is such a force that it will stop you. I’m not sure you’re even capable of it.”

Okay, words are just getting thrown around now.

Also, bullshit! It’s not even something close to love. It’s more lust and attraction than anything else. They barely know each other! So of course love isn’t going to be able to stop him because there isn’t love between him and Nadya, because there hasn’t been time for love to develop between them.

Also this isn’t an enemies-to-lovers dynamic. I know I’ve said that before, but I want to just say it again. This isn’t enemies-to-lovers.

Nadya starts to have a moment, blaming herself and then saying that maybe he had changed, maybe they had changed him, maybe Pelageya is just trying to make trouble.

“I just want to end what I started,” Malachiasz finally said.

Ah yes, with a king dead at your feet and a crown sitting on your head.

Pelageya carries on, throwing around more words:  

“But, this isn’t just about you, Veshyen Yaliknevo. Chelvyanik Sterevyani. Sterevyani bolen.” She sat down on the arm of his chair and he shifted to the opposite side, as far from her as he could possibly get. “This is about the little scrap of divinity you’ve drawn to the depths of Tranavia.”

Nadya lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to let them see she was falling apart.

“She followed you a long, long way from home. What did you tell her to make her come so far without putting a blade in your back?”

Nothing too difficult, really. Just that they had a plan to assassinate the Tranavian King and for some reason, Nadya just went along with honestly without that much fuss, because y’know, the plot demanded it.

Also, as much as I find Pelageya amusing and intriguing, the way she’s being all touchy-touchy with Malachiasz, who is still a teenager, slightly uncomfortable.

“... Now that you point it out she does have the look of a girl who goes for—” She leaned over and tipped Malachiasz’s head back again, baring his throat. His fist clenched over the arm of the chair, nails now just long enough to be visible claws. “—sensitive flesh.”

Like, could you not? We get that Pelageya is creepy and strange already, Emily Duncan, you established that in a Serefin chapter with the prophecy thing.

“I never told her anything that wasn’t true,” he said, voice carefully restrained.

Lie by omission is still a lie, mate. What you omitted was pretty important. I mean, it was obvious and I already knew it, but still.

Pelageya still keeps creepily touching Malachiasz and Malachiasz keeps trying to find excuses for everything, insisting that they’re going to end the war. 

“Why are you here, Malachiasz?”

“I have told you. My reasoning hasn’t changed just because you know what I am now. I want to save my country. I’m one of the few people who can; surely you understand that.”

He was giving her nothing, less than nothing.

“I don’t believe you,” she said softly.

That’s one of the smartest things Nadya has ever said, and that’s saying something.

Nadya, who didn’t know how to hold herself together after this. Nadya, who couldn’t pull her gaze away from Malachiasz, unable to reconcile that the boy she had traded jokes with, that she had kissed, was a symbol of Tranavian heresy. A monster greater than all others.

I- you literally knew that he was a Vulture. That made him “heretical” as is. You knew he was powerful, you literally he was more powerful than Serefin! You called him a monster.

I know, objectively, that this is supposed to be a betrayal for you but you can’t just act like you haven’t been calling him all these things for 75% of the book!

She thought she knew what she was doing, coming here, but now she was in a foreign country, surrounded by her enemies, and the one she had anchored her safety to had been lying to her from the start.

Because the plot demanded that you trust him and go along with their plan even though you had no real reason to.

Pelageya tells her that the entity connected to the necklace that Kostya gave to her is called Velyos, a former member of the Pantheon. That the reason she is cut off from the gods currently is because King Izak is strengthening that “veil” of blood magic that hangs over the capital. 

“There is your magic, which is good, of course. And then their magic. Blood magic. Heresy.”

“It’s just magic,” Malachiasz said.

Still haven’t explained why Marzenya just can’t fuck shit up when magic is one of her domains, plain and simple. And yes, you can argue “the veil” but the veil is still made from magic. It still hasn’t explained why blood magic is so different and untouchable when blood magic is still, at its core, magic.

Pelageya tells Nadya that a witch is just someone with magic of their own, not beholden to the gods. Nadya balks at the thought. Pelageya taunts them both, stating that Malachiasz doesn’t have the power of Vultures that he once did.

The witch had said it to sow more discord, but if he didn’t have full control of the Vultures, maybe that meant he actually was helping them? She shouldn’t give in to hope. She hated that she was so damn hopeful.

I’m rolling my eyes, because Nadya is being predictable at this point and I have no hope for any character consistency besides the fact that it's inconsistent.

A sudden insistent knock on the door made all three of them pause. Then a voice, terrifyingly familiar, came from outside.

“Pelageya? I need to speak with you.”

Of course it would be the prince.

And that’s the end of Chapter 26! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

[a-damson-in-distress]

From Dusk Till Dawn - Chapter 5

Pairing: MadaSaku

Plot: Sakura was searching for a purpose. Madara was thirsting for revenge. Little do they know their fates intertwined centuries ago. Once he broke free from his banishment, he would usher in a new dusk. Until he realised that she was his dawn. Historical/mythological AU.

Note: Salutations, my lovelies. I’m back from the dead. So I know most of you will have probably forgotten this fic even exists (hell, even I forgot lol), but guess what - IT’S BACK BITCHES! I honestly have no idea what came over me today, but somehow I got reminded of this blog and the fics I started here, so I decided to dig it up out of the depths of my browser history, and you know what? I totally forgot how much fun I had writing these and that daaaaaaamn I had some good stories going on, which were in desperate need of updating, if only to ease my guilty conscience. 

Speaking of which, I honestly have no excuses for going AWOL for so long. I know some of you may have been bummed, because I think this fic did have a teeny tiny bit of a following, but honestly guys, this writing blog was only one of my many hobbies and it was never meant to take up too much of my time. It was one of these things I occasionaly devote my time to, but that was always doomed to be second place to my life/relationship/university responsibilites. But on the bright side, I did finally get my Bachelor’s degree, whoooo! Buuuuuuuut I am still at uni doing my Master’s, sooooo ya know - still not going to be a regular thing here. 

Anyways, TL;DR: I wanted to update this little nugget here out of pure nostalgia and curiosity to see how many of you will still remember the story, to see how many will appreciate and like this update and depending on your reaction, I might actually take up writing again. Goodie, I’m excited to be back. Have fun! :)

Oh also, please check out the first 4 chapters before reading this one, since - you know - I let so much dust settle on this story none of y’all will probably know what’s going on. 

EDIT: I had to delete the links to the first 4 chapters, because this chapter wasn’t showing up under the madasaku tag or any of the other tags, but as soon as I deleted the links it did? Soooo yeah whatever, fuck you Tumblr links. You’re gonna have to scroll through my blog to get to the other chapters, I’m sorry. I’ll figure out a way to post all of it in one piece, promise. Have fun and let me know what you think! :)

500 years ago…

The heavens stood still.

Silence.

Death.

Victory.

Tsunade watched a tired Jiraiya fall to his knees and let out a pained groan. Allowing a nervous sigh to escape her lips, she closed her eyes.

They did it. They finally did it. After decades of warfare, bloodshed, and carnage, they finally managed to seal away the bane of their existence.

The last of the dusk gods had fallen.

Opening her eyes again, she let her tired gaze wander across the scene of their final battle. Slain gods lay scattered across the barren field, the ashen ground beneath them stained in the colour of their blood.  Giant craters burning with the dreaded flames of the underworld tore through the otherwise idyllic scenery of the heavens like wounds from blade. The black flames of the dusk god’s feared Amaterasu eating up what little was left of the trees that once made this surrounding a forest.

It matters not, she kept telling herself. He is gone. And the dawn gods shall rebuild.

Just as Tsunade was about to join Jiraiya to take a look at his wounds, an ear-piercing screeching tore through her head, forcing her to her knees. Barely managing to open her eyes against the penetrating pain in her mind, she watched the other surviving gods around her writhe and hold their heads in agony.

All of a sudden, the screeching ebbed, giving way to a low hissing sound before a mysterious voice whispered into all of their ears:

At the fall of dusk, at the fall of old, spring shall bring forth his keeper,

who will call to him until his return at the night the darkness swallows the heavens.

Young and weak, the Eastern light shall seek out the old power in the West,

who will envelop her in darkness to unleash their true might.

Dawn will be his light, and dusk shall return.

It was only when the throbbing pain in her head finally dissipated that Tsunade dared to look up. The remaining gods looked at each other questioningly.

They were familiar with this pain, with this feeling. The hissing voice in their head. The dawn gods all knew what this was.

A prophecy. Foreshadowing the return of Madara.

The survivors did what they could to tend to the wounded on the battlefield. When no one else could be saved, the gods set them aflame and watched their bodies dissipate into golden dust, releasing their divine essence into the vast expanse of the universe, praying for them to be reborn again. Then, they retreated to their respective homes – or what was left of them – to lick their wounds, celebrate their survival, and grieve the death of the fallen.

Tsunade felt a heavy sadness weighing down her heart that night. Despite their unimaginable victory over the mightiest god to ever grace the face of the heavens, they had lost so many. She knew more peaceful times lay ahead of them now, and yet she felt restless. It had been ages since the universe had whispered a prophecy into their ears. And this one was particularly unsettling.

Dusk shall return.

But they sealed him, Tsunade reminded herself. And with one of Hashirama’s seals, no less. She was the one who studied the dusk god’s inscriptions, who knew his incantations like the back of her hand. She was certain Hashirama’s seal would be enough to imprison Madara for the rest of his miserable days.

And yet, mere minutes after the dawn gods managed the unthinkable and sealed away the last dusk god, the universe decided to warn them of his return. And prophecies always came true, the dawn goddess knew that much.

Not only that, but the prophecy also spoke of some Eastern light, who would supposedly help him unleash his true might. A cold shiver ran down Tsunade’s spine at the thought of Madara teaming up with such a force of nature that will grant him even more fearsome powers than he already had.

Yet the goddess of healing had no time to dwell on her worrisome thoughts, as her mind picked up the desperate prayer of a mortal couple. Never one to abandon the ones in need, the blonde goddess raced down into the mortal realm and materialised unseen in the living room of a small hut. She watched the couple on their knees, huddled together in front of the fire. They were rocking back and forth, with the woman holding a small bundle in her arms and the man raising one arm pleadingly into the air, calling out to the goddess of healing to save this poor baby.

This baby? Is that not their own child, Tsunade thought suspiciously. Babies do not just fall from the heavens.

Taking one step closer to the fire, the goddess suddenly felt a divine glow emanating from the bundle in the woman’s arms. Tsunade would recognise that anywhere – the essence of the gods. This was indeed not the mortal couple’s child, but a newborn of the dawn gods.

Still hidden from the mortal’s view, she leaned down and caught a glimpse of pink hair and emerald green eyes, staring knowingly, yet tiredly at her. As Tsunade stretched out a hand towards the babe to check its body temperature, a tiny chubby fist suddenly enclosed her index finger. This little touch was enough to flood the goddess with a feeling of warm motherly love.

Tsunade knew in that instant that this deity shall be hers to raise, care for, and love.

With her divine power, she mentally reached out to the mortals and willed them to lay the small bundle on the floor by the fire. She watched them carefully lower the baby and step back from the fire, worriedly glancing around the living room and waiting for something to happen.

In the blink of an eye, the small bundle was gone. The couple sighed in relief and fell into each other’s arms, knowing their beloved goddess of healing would take care of that weak little girl.

“Do you really think that was a wise choice?”

Tsunade ignored Jiraiya’s incessant nagging and kept bouncing the little babe on her arm. Immediately after taking the young goddess from the mortal’s hut, she returned home to her half-standing palace in the East, where some of the surviving gods have retreated to recuperate. One of them being Kakashi, the feared god of lightning, who was pinning her with a scrutinising gaze.

“Jiraiya’s right, you know. Tonight, of all nights, with this new prophecy looming above our heads… Have you even thought for a second that she could be this Eastern light, his keeper that was prophesised?”

Tsunade scoffed and shot him a challenging glare. “Please, Kakashi, don’t be paranoid. It was just one of the millions of prayers I receive every day. Only this time, it happened to involve a newly born dawn goddess, instead of a weak mortal. Just because she is one of us, does not mean she is tied to the prophecy. In fact, we should be thankful our pantheon is growing again after we lost so many.”

“The prophecy clearly said that at the fall of dusk some kind of keeper will emerge who is destined to help Madara unleash his full power upon the heavens. The fall of dusk was tonight, and after decades of no new deities, tonight is the night the universe decides to give us a new goddess, during spring no less? Coincidences like these might happen to the mortals but not in the heavens,” Shikamaru grumbled before taking a well-deserved puff from his ivory kiseru.

Rolling her eyes at the god of wisdom and strategy, Tsunade switched the little bundle to her other arm and kept bouncing her up and down, before she said, “What you all fail to see is that she cannot be the Easter light from the prophecy, since I found her in a mortal village in the middle of nowhere, not even remotely close to anywhere East. And don’t you think that if such a powerful force destined to be tied to Madara emerged that we would not have felt its birth? Elemental abnormalities, time standing still, earthquakes – anything that might indicate a new divine force has emerged. But there was absolutely nothing when this little goddess here was born. In fact, she is so tiny and weak, I honestly doubt that she will have a purpose grander than making flowers grow, that’s how harmless she is.”

Tsunade saw the uncertain faces around her, their doubtful gazes boring into her determination to keep the babe. She had to convince them, somehow. She could not just leave a part of her divine family, especially now that her kin was nearly wiped out. As soon as the young goddess had touched her, Tsunade felt responsible for her. She had to ignore the nagging feeling at the back of her head screaming at her to listen to the prophecy.

Yes, there were too many coincidences, Tsunade had to admit that herself. The prophecy clearly talks of a female, emerging during this particular night, during spring. All of which applied to the little dawn goddess in her arms.

But there was no way she could be the Eastern light; the goddess was not tied to any particular region. And Tsunade could not – for the life of her – imagine this tiny, frail little thing would be capable of stoking the fire of Madara’s wrath to the point that she would be the one to unleash his true might.

Shaking away her doubts, Tsunade gazed into the tired emeralds of the little girl in her arms. A smile spread across her lips when the tiny goddess snuggled closer to her chest.

There was absolutely no way she would abandon this little thing, not now after she lost so many of her family.

Raising her head, she shot a determined glance at all of the surviving deities in her presence and exclaimed, “I will not resign this precious goddess to a prophecy we have not even fully deciphered yet. None of us know what half of that steaming pile of donkey dung even means, so nobody is going to determine her fate based on any of that. Besides, even if she really is this keeper of his, this way we can at least raise her on our side. Teach her our story, our ways, our kindness. She will never be corrupted by him if we have the power to tell her the things we want her know. If he really does come back and they really do cross paths, there is no way she will choose him. I will tie her to me as tightly as she tied me to her.”

Lowering her caramel eyes, she cast a loving glance at the newest addition to her family and whispered softly, “I will protect my daughter from him. No matter what.”

Went to him… willingly … kidnapped … she chose him … sacrifice …

Sakura’s muddled mind started picking up fragments of speech as she slowly started to wake from her slumber. Forcing her weak body to sit up, she cast a disoriented glance around her only to find herself in her chambers at her mother’s palace.

All of a sudden, memories started flooding her mind and she felt her heart rate pick up.

Madara.

She finally met him. She was in his palace. She was so close to getting some answers. A blush crept up her neck at the thought of his calloused fingers holding her chin in place as he was leaning closer to her, before… Before the dawn gods laid siege to his palace to take her away from him.

Wait, from him? Where did that thought come from? Since when did Sakura think she belonged by his side? She had only known him for a few moments and from what she had seen on the battlefields, he was not a god whose company she should be yearning for. And yet, she had never felt so strong, so alive as when being close to him.

And now that they were separated, her old familiar frailty had returned as well.

The young dawn goddess could feel frustration bubble up inside her. Rarely did she get mad at something or someone, but her constant state of weakness had been a source of anger for all of her short life. And the one being who could rectify that just had to be her mother’s mortal enemy and the one who had been waging war against her kin for the last weeks.  

Sakura felt like throwing something against the wall. Alas, all the smashable things in her room were solid gold or heavy ivory, all of which was too difficult for her to even pick up now. In Madara’s presence, however, she felt like she could carry the entire heavens on her shoulders.

Her depressing thoughts were interrupted when she felt the voices on the other side of her door grow louder.

“Look what Tsunade’s tying down has brought us. She went to him, willingly. All that keeping her close was for nothing!”

“She is so weak, she cannot even open doors without struggling, and you really think she made that trip all the way to the Western end of the heavens on her own? He clearly kidnapped her. We are lucky he left her alive for whatever reason.”

“Then tell me why she was reaching out to him when I-“

The angry voices were silenced when her mother suddenly burst through the doors and stomped into her room, glowering at Sakura with a furious expression.

“What in the heavens were you thinking?!”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING ABILITY

I'm not too worried yet. But hackers can't watch themselves at work. So if you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences. And I wasn't alone. The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: After Altamira, all is decadence. But what if the problem isn't given?1 The other reason founders ignore this path is that the absolute numbers seem so small at first. But the less you identify work with employment, the easier it becomes to start a startup. They're hostages of the platform.2 Do you need a lot of startup founders are often technical people who are mistaken, you can't simply tell the truth.3 But I don't wish I were a better speaker like I wish I were a better speaker than me, but a famous speaker.

There were a lot of people are going to want these.4 But any application can be interesting if it poses novel technical challenges. Chance meetings let your acquaintance drift in the same place they come from different sources. Most people have had the experience of working hard on some problem, not being able to solve it, giving up and going to bed, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like work. They don't work for startups in general, but they pay attention. Several friends mentioned hackers' ability to concentrate—their ability, as one put it, to tune out everything outside their own heads. In most people's minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn't. As you accelerate, this drag increases, till eventually you reach a point where 100% of your energy is devoted to overcoming it and you can't go by the awards he's won or the jobs he's had, because in design, as in many fields, the hard part isn't solving problems, but deciding what problems to solve. Immigration policy is one area where a competitor could do better.

One of the most successful startup founders turn out to be surprisingly long, Wufoo sent each new user a hand-written note after you buy a laptop. For cases like that there's a more drastic solution that definitely works: to set up local VC funds by supplying the money themselves and recruiting people from existing firms to run them, only organic growth can produce angel investors.5 Increasingly you win not by fighting to get control of a scarce resource, but by having new ideas. One is that a lot of nasty little ones. Sun. I think this time I'll wait till I'm sure they work before writing about them. When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another about ideas in their field, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not.6 But people will do any amount of time knows not to default to skepticism, no matter how inexperienced you seem or how unpromising your idea sounds at first, because they've all seen inexperienced founders with unpromising sounding ideas who a few years unless the university chooses to grant them tenure.7

Immigration policies that let in all smart people, you'd immediately get more than half the world's top talent, for free. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it doing fake work.8 With hackers, at least, exclusively for work. I don't know if it's possible to make yourself into a great hacker how good he is, he's almost certain to reply, I don't know.9 Maybe great hackers have some similar inborn ability.10 In the mid to late 1980s, all the hackers I know seem to have made that deal, though perhaps none of them had any choice in the matter. I'm trying other strategies now, but I don't believe it.11 The tendency to clump means it's more like the square of the environment. What sustains a startup in the beginning is the prospect of getting their initial product out. So are talks useless?12

Startup founder is not the power of their brand, but the fact that hackers, despite their reputation for social obliviousness, sometimes put a good deal of effort into seeming smart. If anyone could have sat back and waited for users, it was even better than we'd hoped. That's not hard for engineers to grasp. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on the same projects. But you can.13 When Steve Jobs started using that phrase, Apple was already an established company. For Larry Page the most important tool to a hacker like having one's brain in a blender.14 But the importance of the new model is not just that line but the whole program around it.15

Notes

Free money to spend, see what the earnings turn out to coincide with mathematicians' judgements. Common Lisp, which are a different attitude to the code you write has a title. The banks now had to ask permission to go the bathroom, and the editor written in C and C, and his son Robert were each in turn means the slowdown that comes from bumping up against the limits of one's family, that they don't want to sell your company right now.

Median may be common in the US since the mid 20th century. And so to the hour Google was in a bug. Giant tax loopholes are definitely not a nice-looking little box with a few years.

Obviously signalling risk.

I'm saying you should seek outside advice, and we ran into Yuri Sagalov. 2%.

The Mac number is a self fulfilling prophecy. In fact, for the entire period since the mid twentieth century. But it can buy. Even Samuel Johnson said no man but a razor is much more analytical style of thinking, but they start to identify them with you to stop, but conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct for startups is very hard to make people use common sense when interpreting it.

Us seem naive, or Microsoft could not process it. He had equity. Oddly enough, maybe you don't want to wait for the linguist and presumably teacher Daphnis, but economically that's how we gauge their progress, but the programmers, but one way to put it would have disapproved if executives got too much to maintain your target growth rate early on?

I know of this article used the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson. When he wanted to go to college, but it is less than the actual lawsuits rarely happen. If this happens it will become less common for founders to overhire is not just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's not the distribution of income, which I deliberately pander to readers, because companies don't want to be very popular but apparently unimportant, like architecture and filmmaking, but those are probably especially valuable. It also set off an extensive and often useful discussion on the group's accumulated knowledge.

Miyazaki, Ichisada Conrad Schirokauer trans. If anyone wanted to make the police treat people more equitably. But on the basis of intelligence or wisdom. It turns out to coincide with mathematicians' judgements.

Comments at the mercy of investors are just not super thoughtful for the same thing—trying to sell the bad VCs fail by choosing startups run by people like Jessica is not such a large pizza and found an open source project, but conversations with other people's.

Without distractions it's too obvious to us an old copy from the rest have mostly raised money at all. Companies didn't start to feel like a wave. I wrote a hilarious but also like an undervalued stock in that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some central tap. By this I mean forum in the evolution of the political pressure against Airbnb than hotel companies.

I've said into something that flows from some central tap. At Princeton, 36% of the 800 highest paid executives at 300 big corporations. It didn't work out a preliminary answer on the valuation of zero. We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without including the numbers we have.

It was revoltingly familiar to slip back into it.

People were more dependent on banks for capital for expansion. Note to nerds: or possibly a winner.

The reason we quote statistics about the meaning of the organization—specifically increased demand for unskilled workers, and mostly in Perl. If they were going to drunken parties.

We fixed both problems immediately. Monroeville Mall was at the mercy of investors want to be like a body cavity search by someone else. That's the difference.

[nautiscarader]

Okay, so I’ve seen Crimes of Grindelwald (spoilers)

And boy, is this movie disappointing. 

Now, the first instance of Fantastic beasts was already hit-and-miss, but the plot to this movie was just freaking bizarre. And it pulled a few weird moves that even a hardcore Potterhead like myself consider out of place.

Let’s start with the positives: The movie does look amazing, and several scenes were really breath-taking, including the opening chase, and the final battle. Whether they made sense is a different thing, but they looked awesome.

I did like the ultimate reveal of Grindelwald’s plot. He wants wizards to take over muggles’ world because of a prophecy, or rather a vision of the future. Most notably, World War II. 

That scene in the Lestrange’s family vault, where Grindelwald breathed the... uh, skull fumes... which in turn showed the vision of London Blitz, concentration camps and a freaking nuclear bomb was absolutely chilling. And Jacob’s reaction to it was blood-freezing, given he was a veteran of WWI already.

so, that makes Grindelwald’s “greater good” plan actually competent and multi-dimensional. He’s evil, he wants to treat muggles as a cattle and workforce, but you can see the original skewed thinking of the young Gellert there. That, i think was executed really well.

This is something I wanted to see for a long, long time. We know from Pottermore (and first movie, I think) that wizards did participate in WWI, and I wanted to see how that will be integrated into the HP universe. We only got a glimpse of it, but it was a powerful one.

Queenie’s plot was, for the most part, very interesting. She seems on plan with subduing muggles into obedience, though of course, she draws a conclusion that it’s okay, even though she is doing it on a man who already is in love with her. But that shows how twisted her perspective is.

The beasts were kinda cool! Newt has a flat in London, which, again, is bigger on the inside than outside, and he’s still pulling off Matt Smith’s performance as The Doctor. And he keeps a freaking Kelpie in a pool in basement. Which may be a library 

Also he has a maid that is totally in love with him.

Zouwu, a.k.a. not manticore, a.k.a. big magical Chinese lion that could breathe fire and jump a hundred feet but when you jingle some bells he enters his big fluffy cat mode, was freaking amazing.  

Jude Law as Dumbledore is phenomenal. He really encapsulates all the charm, and wisdom, as well as ability to manipulate as his older incarnations.

And now onto the bad stuff.

So, here’s the thing. FB movies seems to be in-canon only with the HP movies. I think. I honestly don’t know. And the problem with that is as follow: Harry Potter movies sucked. Even the best ones had massive cuts, the plot had to be twisted or crammed. I have always wondered how does it feel to watch HP movie without reading HP book.

Well, now I know.

Every freaking second you think that this minute-long scene in the movie would be at least three pages long in the book, and all the magical shit that is pulled off would have been explained previously in tiniest details. EXCEPT THERE IS NO BOOK NOW.

And this is a genuine problem. There is a lot of magic pulled from nowhere. Like, for example, Newt and Jacob arrive in France looking for Queenie and Tina. And then Newt takes off some gold powder thing, scatters it around and ... it just shows the past?! Like, echoes of what happened, and it shows Tina walking, meeting with a black guy, etc. 

Now, we know seeing the past of *spells* is possible - Priori Incantatem can do that, but if we can just rewind the whole scene, then... why don’t Aurors do it all the time?! Where was that powder in Goblet of Fire when Ministry of Magic were investigating who conjured the Dark Mark?!

Secondly, future-seeing. In HP, it is quite heavily established that even wizards think that predicting the future is rubbish and only powerful seers can really do it. 

in CoG, we see two examples: Nicholas Flamel (admittedly, a powerful wizard) uses crystal ball to see what will happen at the graveyard, and Grindelwald himself uses... the skull-thingy. 

Okay, that needs explaining. So, Deppy-Depp here has the skull and it has some sort of pipe attached to it, and he smokes through it, and breathes out smog, and that smog shows the future.

I’d say you need to be high to invent this, but that is exactly what it looks like. 

There is a skull-bong in Harry Potter universe now.

And again, it seems to be working 100% time correctly. So yeah, ditch the seers, use this instead. Whatever it is. 

The movie shows Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s past, to an extent, and we also see some weird blood-pact-amulet thing. Again, very poorly explained. I guess it prevents them from hurting each other, hence they both use others (Dumbledore newt and Grindelwald Credence).

Also, Dumbledore is teaching Defense Against Dark Arts in Hogwarts. In the books, he was a transfiguration professor in his youth. Also, professor McGonnagal seems to be teaching in his years.

in 1927.

EIGHT YEARS BEFORE SHE WAS BORN.

OOPS.

And, honestly, she is only for a brief comedic moment. She could be substituted with a freaking Mickey Mouse, and it would have had no change on the plot whatsoever. 

Ah, well, that leads us to Credence. So, there is whole subplot about him apparently being a lost Lestrange. That coincides with the fact that both Theseus and Newt are in love with Credence’s supposed sister, Leta, so now we have two people looking for him. Oh, wait, we have a third one: a new French-African dude who is supposed to be a third Lestrange. This subplot honestly kinda goes nowhere. Turns out that the third lestrange was killed by Leta by accident, and Credence is...

Dumbledore’s brother.

yeah, this makes no fucking sense. 

I watched a review from a die-hard potter fan, and even she calls that move “like taken from worst fanfic”. And there is a reason for it.

See, when I finished watching FB1, I immediately joined the idea of Obscurus - a powerful, magical parasite that manifests in a particularly powerful wizard or witch, and can ultimately destroy them - with Ariana Dumbledore - Albus’ sister. This was a big, big, big deal in Deathly Hallows. So I was overjoyed when I learned that Dumbledore would be in the movie. Maybe the reason he takes interest in finding Credence was to see if there is a way to bring Ariana back, or whether she suffered in her death, or, hell, if he can help another child.

And, I guess it can still happen. But... where the bloody hell does that brother thing come from?! Now, it’s not confirmed, I think, and it is only told to credence by Grindelwald, but he also reveals that the bird Credence was taking care of is in fact, a phoenix, a bird that is tied to Dumbledore’s family. 

So... is he a Dumbledore? Really? How... How does that work?

And there are a lot of weirder problems in this movie. Like, at some point, Tina and Newt go to French Ministry of Magic to pull Leta’s family tree, and it is stored in the least practical fucking room with revolving pillars or something. 

Also, they go the evil mean librarian, and Tina simply says “I’m Lestrange”, and she is like “okay”.

No wand-checking?! No protective spells?! What?!

And, mind you, they are on the chase; Newt drinks polyjuice potion to look like Theseus, and it only works for maybe five minutes, as opposed to an hour, and there are posters of Newt all over French MoM. So, how the bloody hell didn’t the mean librarian notice him and raise an alarm. Or better - WHY DOESN’T SHE FUCKING STUN HIM?!

Eventually she does bring back her army of CGI multiplying cats, but that happens after Tina and Newt kinda find what they were looking for.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and one wizard can WALK THROUGH FUCKING WALLS.

Like, he has a noclip cheat turned on. WAHT.

Eh, I’m not gonna lie, this film was bad on several different levels. It had lots of good elements in it, but the bad ones do overweight them for me. And with “Cursed Child” and all of that, I really feel bummed to see one of my favourite franchises gets kinda destroyed and distorted.

I guess this is how Star Wars fan felt when the prequels came out...? Except we have three more.

[amadeakevala]

Ways that God Might Speak to You

Have you ever wondered and asked this question, "How does God speak to me?". In my previous old post entitled "How to Hear God's Voice", you might find a few ways that He might speak to you. Today I want to lay out some common possible ways that God may speak to you. 

1. Word of God aka the Bible. 

There is no doubt whatsoever this is the most definite unquestionable way that God is speaking to you. When you read His Word, know that He is not just talking in general to a mass. He is talking personally to you. There is always a hidden personal message and revelation that He is saying to you. As you read, pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you these revelations and help you understand His Word. 

"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." - Joshua 1:8 (ESV)

2. Holy Spirit 

The moment you believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in you and tells you things. 

"In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." - Romans 8:26-27 

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come." - John 16:13

When you feel the nudge in your heart, know that it is the Holy Spirit. You will know it is the Spirit speaking when it is based on truth and His Word and when you feel at peace with it. Note that whatever the Spirit is saying is not always going to be easy to rationalize and pleasant to your flesh, but if you know it is the Spirit speaking, listen and obey it anyway. 

3. Knowledge & Understanding 

"The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD." - Isaiah 11:2

He also speaks to you through knowledge and understanding, perhaps, science, history, cosmology, teachings, understanding that is rooted in the nature of His Word. New insights, findings and evidences found in education field can definitely be ways of Him letting you know some things that prove the truth in His Word. 

4. Vision/Dreams 

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." - Joel 2:28 

Now this is getting more and more interesting. Yup God speaks to you in visions and sleeping dreams. Again, test every vision and dream by checking it with the Holy Spirit. If there is a knowing and peace within your heart, then you know it's from the Lord. If not, it may be from  the enemy. 

When you receive profound vision/dreams, don't just let them go. Record them, write them down, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal and interpret them for you and write the interpretations down, even when you have not fully understood them. 

I know it can be scary at times, but practice your sensitivity with the Spirit by just writing things down that You feel He is speaking in your heart. 

5. Prophecy 

"And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay." - Habakkuk 2:2-3

"For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." - 2 Peter 1:21

Prophecy basically means a word from the Lord given to His people through the power of the Holy Spirit. It can include things to come. It can be about anything, from the world, a nation, to a person. 

The Bible is basically a believable book because "it accurately foretells specific events-in detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. The remaining 500 or so reach into the future and may be seen unfolding as days go by." 

You can receive prophecies from other people or from God Himself. When you do, write them down and test the Spirit as usual. Don't just blindly believe everything but use the Holy Spirit (not your own logic) to determine if this Word is really for you. 

6. Random Seeming-like Coincidences 

"But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations." - Psalm 33:11

Know that in Christ, there is no such thing as a random coincidence. He is the God of purpose and everything has a divine purpose in Him. So when you see the creations and feel the weight of His presence, or when you feel so downcast and you hear the Lord saying, "I'm with you" and then you go to your phone and find a post saying, "I am your hope" and your song playlist somehow turns to a song of His promise of hope for you, know that it is not a random coincidence. 

God speaks to you in various ways. 

Birds chirping, wind breezing, overwhelming feeling of awe with His creations, songs playing, strangers talking to you saying, "You have a great day" when you're feeling low. Random encounters that got you thinking. Music playing. Heart beating. Sense of knowing. Things that seem so random and yet they actually happen according to the needs of your life or longings of your heart. No, they're not random. 

He is in serious communication business with you. In fact, He speaks to you everyday. If you learn to listen to His voice and let your heart speak, you will hear Him everyday in various different ways. 

It is also known as Kairos (Greek) - the appointed time in the purpose of God. 

7. Community/People 

"Now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word.  Philip went down to the main city of Samaria and began proclaiming the Christ to them. The crowds were paying attention with one mind to what Philip said, as they heard and saw the miraculous signs he was performing. For unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, were coming out of many who were possessed, and many paralyzed and lame people were healed. So there was great joy in that city." - Acts 8:4-7 

Whether it's preacher speaking in an online sermon, physical conference, people talking to you, or your community giving you advices, they definitely can be one of the main mediums God speaks to you. Again, test the Spirit everytime you receive a word. But know that He also communicates things through the people around you, through what you see, what you hear and what you come to know. 

---

Okay, these are just 7 possible ways He might be speaking to you, but know that He is UNLIMITED. He can always use new ways to speak to you. Don't limit Him. Just rest on the fact that God loves you and wants to have a real conversational relationship with you everyday. 

Whatever medium He uses, I hope that you feel fantastic knowing that the God of the Universe, Creator of Heaven and Earth know you and speak to you personally. 

Song for you:

[winterfellchild]

Sansa and the other Queens

Westeros is ruled by Queens at the moment, but who was the best one in episode 7x03?

My answer is:

Sansa is the Queen “de facto” of the North and in this episode she showed that she is a great ruler with a loving heart, a lot better than the other Queens.

Under the cut my reasons why I think so.

Sansa <--> Cersei

There is a lot to say about how much Sansa is connected with Cersei and this is something that even Sophie said before the season started.

When I read her interview about darkSansa I didn’t like how she connected Sansa with Cersei but now I understand why this was a topic of a considerable number of interview: imo Sansa is the “younger and more beautiful queen” and she will be Cersei’s doom ( the part about darkSansa is just Sophie’s longtime wish, we can ignore it)

Anyway I read about this a lot these days so I know many already said Sansa was the person that told Lady Olenna that Joffrey was a monster and because of that she killed him. That sets off a chain reaction: Ellaria killed Myrcella to avenge Oberyn after he died because he offered his service as Tyrion's champion in the trial by combat and since Joffrey died Tommen became King and that destroyed his kind soul so he committed suicide.

What I'm going to add is that if we consider GRRM writing style where there is three sides to everything:

what the characters think it is; what the readers think it was; what it actually is.

this is another reason why it makes a lot more sense that Sansa will be the YAMBQ:

what the characters think it is: Cersei thought it was Margaery, sadly Margaery is dead now so it’s not her. And it’s clear that Cersei totally underestimated Sansa, she called her stupid or little dove and never thought Sansa will be the possible YAMBQ of the prophecy;

what the readers think it was: many still think it’s Danielle even if until now there are no connection between these two Queens and Danielle has nothing to do with the death of Cersei’s children;

what it actually is: there's foreshadowing of Sansa becoming a better Queen than Cersei ( "I will remember, Your Grace," said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me), she was the unaware important person that made the “taking all that Cersei hold dear” part of the prophecy real, everyone says she is beautiful and she is younger.

In light of this it’s also interesting that Sansa is the one person that really considered Cersei dangerous from episode 7x01, even when Jon and everyone else was focused only on the enemy in the North.

Now if we look at them in episode 7x03 Sansa and Cersei were both very smart and clever in this episode ( can’t say the same for the other big Queen at Dragonstone), but there is a big difference between them:

Cersei is ruthless and has no more love to give to anyone. I love Lena Headey in the scene with Ellaria, she was amazing in showing us Cersei’s pain but the way she killed Tyene and left Ellaria alone to watch her daughter die and after that Ellaria will be forced to watch Tyene's "beautiful face crumble into bone and dust" wow... that’s 100% ruthless

Sansa, on the other hand, even if she is one of the characters that suffered a lot still has a gentle heart and love to give, to her family first of all and to her people. That scene with Maester Wolkan, Creepyfinger and Lord Royce showed that she is working for the people and she cares for them... big difference with Cersei saying “The people? You think I care?”.

Sansa <--> Danielle

I always hated to compare Danielle and Sansa past to see who got it worse when they were raped because for me violence is violence, but I admit the show pushed the wrong button with Danielle’s speech... just why?

Why did D&D used the worst act of violence against women to make Danielle brag about her life?

Because that is what she did, she kept blabbering about her life... with one character who suffered too and who has a sister he loves that suffered the same things.

When we talk about violence and pain there isn’t a competition on who got it worse, so I didn’t like how Danielle used what happened to her as a reason why she was superior to Jon.

Actually her speech was so strange, out of context and unrealistic: victims of sexual violence don’t go around telling that to strangers they just met... victims of sexual violence find it hard to share their pain even with family members, just like we saw in the scene between Sansa and Bran.

I don’t know, I don’t want to think more about that speech because it’s something very disturbing to me.

So let’s move to the great difference between Danielle and Sansa: the hunger for power.

Not only in this episode Danielle was the Queen of contradictions (x), she bragged about history but didn’t really know Westeros history ( “The last King in the North was Torrhen Stark”. Really? What about Robb Stark? Proclaimed King by all of his Lords and brother of the man in front of you? And what about that long period of peace thanks to the Targ. when in truth many wars were fought because of Targ.?), she also asked not to be judged for his father sins but wants the IT because she is her father’s daughter... really, Queen of contradictions.

But I want to focus on her hunger for power, based on the wrong assumption that she has a birthright ( maybe Jon has more rights than her (x) and honestly the Targ. lost their birthright when her father lost the Seven Kingdoms because he was mad and cruel) so different from Sansa, who showed that love is more important than power for her.

We just need to look at the second thing she did after she saw Bran: first a big hug and then she gave him her title.

I read that haters totally misunderstood her good intentions, but I think that’s because “people see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth“ ( Roberto Bolaño’s quote), they just can’t face the truth that we won’t see a darkSansa in the story and they are pissed about it.

Anyway Sansa lack of hunger for power is a lot better than Danielle power-hungry and greedy attitude.

Sansa <--> Lady Olenna

The Queen of Thorns died but she won her fight with Cersei in the end.

I would be a liar if I say that I was 100% satisfied with her death because I really wanted to see Lady Olenna and Cersei together one last time but her last line was so sassy that I can almost forget she said it to Jaime and not Cersei “Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me”.

The Queen of Thorns said goodbye to Westeros as the The Queen of Sass, perfect ending.

But do you know who is on the right way to become the next Queen of Sass?

Sansa Stark, of course.

Sansa has great sassy moments in the past ( with Joffrey and with Ramsay) but she is amazing this season with Creepyfinger.

I love this quote so much “No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I'll assume it was something clever”.

Anyway what I think it’s really interesting is that Lady Olenna and Sansa didn’t just share their sassy attitude, they also had in common the fact that Cersei hate them a lot.

And there is something that Lady Olenna said to Jaime that made me think about Creepyfinger’s advice to Sansa

Lady Olenna admitted that she lost to Cersei for lack of imagination and in the same episode we have Creepyfinger sharing a cryptic wisdom with Sansa about imagination:

Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you have seen before.

I admit that Creepyfinger made no sense out of context but if I think about this two scenes together I see another foreshadowing of Sansa becoming the YAMBQ of Cersei’s prophecy.

If Sansa will follow Creepyfinger’s advice and don’t lack imagination like the Queen of Thorns she can beat Cersei.

Also, I’m sure she will have help from Bran if she will need it.

It’s just so interesting that after Creepyfinger’s advice Bran arrived home and then he and Sansa talked about the fact that Bran can see everything now.

Is this talk about the importance to imagine everything, followed by Bran’s revalation to Sansa that he can see everything, just a coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidence in GoT.

[jonchampion95]

COUPLES OF BLOOM Season One - Chris and Lucy

PART ONE – The Beginning

Lucy was broken - trust had been snatched from her like a toy at play school. She had festered in a state of broken dreams for the past few months and was starting to resign herself to the fact that she would be in that space for a considerable amount time. She had been commuting to London from St Albans in the early hours of the harsh winter mornings and was growing tired of the whole thing - after all, it was all to get to a job she despised.

She was a petit and expressive jewel of a girl with consuming eyes and talents that demanded realisation. Her hair was a rich and shiny shade of chocolate brown that flowed gorgeously, slightly curling at the end as if intentionally perching on her shoulders. Her movements were soft and purposeful but were currently operating under a lens of darkness. She needed something new.

Chris was a young man with a rich economy of movement; his hands were steady whenever they needed to be and his walk was like silk in motion. There was a calmness to his soul that realised itself through his movements and it often eased the people he was around. But he too was broken in some way and perhaps even he didn’t know it. There was a yearning in his heart and stomach, which didn’t seem to point to anything but nonetheless was there. He had had two or three girlfriends in the past but there was a disjunct in shared admirations and values that prevented anymore memories being made with them. He was wise too but his expression of that wisdom was lacking - he was ill-equipped to express it alone.

Bloom was a matchmaking festival in the south of England between Newquay and Land’s End. As the decade neared its halfway point, love had seemed to reach it’s endpoint. There was no innocence and charm to the prospect of romantic love anymore - just a fleeting glimpse of a memory that wouldn’t stay long enough to be cherished. Bloom was a snapshot of that kind of energy - it attracted people from all over the world. It seemed to exist outside of the real world and operate on its own terms, like any moment could be the end of its innocence, meaning chaos could be the new victor. It was apparently situated on Ley Lines that ran through significant geographical locations across the country, adding another dimension of significance and culture to the town.

Bloom was simple - it was a celebration of new beginnings, the blossoming of possibility and a new reality, a notion aptly symbolised by flowers in the Spring. There were explosions of colour through the streets and quiet roads leading all the way up to the town’s beach and across the seafront.

Participants would arrive and receive a reading from the manager of festival, the groundskeeper - a man as situated in reality as one could possibly imagine. The reading was a deeply personal experience wherein the participants were asked questions by the groundskeeper and at the end of this reading, they would be assigned a flower. After the reading, participants would immerse themselves in various rituals and events before observing the first sunset and sunrise of the festival. If you found someone who had been assigned the same flower as you, there was a good chance of love between you both. The town harboured many more treasures and trinkets, but it was up to the participants to discover them.

During the first ever Bloom as people know it today, two of the participants were assigned a sunflower and it was said that the love they found was the richest and truest the world had to offer. However, as word spread and the festival became more popular, the sunflower never seemed to be assigned to anyone anymore and when it was, it was just one participant and therefore that person’s chances of love were minimal. It became a prominent idea that if two people were ever assigned a sunflower again, it would destroy the prospect of anyone else finding love that year. This prophecy seemed to grow its own energy, to the point where participants would renounce their faith in Bloom’s promise if two sunflowers were ever assigned again. The festival seemed to be balanced on a knife edge - the sunflower prophecy was a lurking beast that seemed to be waiting to attack the joy of the town.

Among all the promise and the lurking dangers, Chris and Lucy attended the same festival that year. For Lucy, it was yet another doomed attempt to mend her broken soul. For Chris, it was a hopeful attempt to realise faith.

It was time for Chris’ flower reading.

PART TWO – Seeds Planted

Chris walked into a kind of romantic reception area. The desk he approached was decorated with flowers, the most successful kinds from last year’s festival. All of them held a story of the people who found love this time last year. As he waited in line, his eyes stopped on a preserved sunflower from the first ever Bloom festival - he felt intimidated by the magnitude of the thing.

He was next to approach the desk.

‘Name?’

‘Chris Garst’

‘And are you here for a reading?’ The receptionist was so warm, he felt instantly welcome.

‘I am, yes.’

He waited while she prepared a lanyard for him. This lanyard had a space for Chris’ name and a space for his assigned flower, which he would let the groundskeeper fill in at the end of the reading.

‘If you’d like to take a seat, the wait time is about fifteen minutes. Would you like some water while you wait? You can also sit out in the sun if you’d like?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

They exchanged a genuine and friendly smile before Chris turned to look at the visitors waiting for their readings. The sofas were already packed, with an occasional vacant space after every seven or so people. After looking for the best seat, he saw a girl sitting at the end of a couch with a footstool next to her, unused. The first things he noticed were her eyes. Of all the eyes in this room, full of hope and optimism, hers were like layered swimming pools filled with timidly green rainwater. He almost fell into them, feeling a diving sensation in his chest. The features around her deep eyes were so delicate, as if they were made of the same material that the flowers around the room were made of. The footstool would do.

‘I know it’s a little outside the box but can I sit on this thing?’

‘You say outside the box, I say resourceful.’

Her voice came from the quiet joy of her soul.

‘Awesome, thank you. I’m Chris.’

‘Lucy,’ she extended her hand, ‘nice to meet you Chris.’

‘And you.’

‘Have you come from far away?’

‘Hertfordshire - it’s like a five hour drive.’

‘No way! I live in Hertfordshire too!’

‘Shut up!’

Where are you from?’

‘Hemel Hempstead, a joyous town.’

‘I live in St Albans - that’s crazy.’ She had to look at the wall for a second to get over the coincidence.

’That really is mad. What brings you here?’

‘What brings everybody here?’

‘Well played.’ He enjoyed her soulfulness.

‘I feel like I am about to have a really intense interview. I never do well in interviews.’

’That can’t be true.’

‘I had an interview last month and I was a wreck. The actual interview wasn’t too bad but what happened afterwards was traumatic. I bought myself some ice cream in a tub after the interview as a treat. I got in the car, got on to the slip road on to the M1 and my car broke down. My first thought wasn’t about getting home or getting the car fixed, I was just devastated that the ice cream would melt.’ She relived it as she told it. Her face was lost in the memory of disappointment as well as a retrospective charm towards the story.

‘Well, that’s poetry if I ever heard it.’ He wanted nothing more than to provide her with ice cream. He knew she would make eating ice cream look gracefully beautiful.

Across from them were a few computer monitors, displaying information about the applicants. On the monitor nearest to Chris and Lucy was Chris’ application. He felt somewhat naked; a sensation that was amplified by the thought of Lucy seeing it.

‘Lucy…’ Before he could say anything else, the groundskeeper poked his head out of the doorframe and looked into the quaint reception. He was glorious and old. He was proud to be of age and he looked as though he had never worried about anything in his life.

‘Lucy Beacon?’ The deep rasp carried Lucy’s surname to Chris’ peaked ears with a luxurious vibration.

‘That’s me.’ She stood and looked down at Chris sat on that sad footstool. ‘So nice to meet you, I hope we bump into each other when this thing gets underway.’

‘Me too.’ they shook hands again and smiled meaningfully at each other. She walked into the groundskeeper’s reading room and shut the door. Still swept up in the ambiguous joy of their interaction, Chris was still for a moment. Then he looked once again to the preserved sunflower on the wall. It seemed to hold a story that was dying to be retold.

PART THREE – Watching Sunshine

The weeks that followed did indeed feel like a novelty. Chris felt lighter in his body for some reason, despite a natural initial instinct to reject the proclamations of this festival. He found that the observations of the first sunrise and sunset were the most valuable of the various welcoming rituals that the festival had to offer. He often found his mind on so many things that an experience as grounding as the observation of a sunrise seemed alien. Upon seeing the rays gleefully bounce off the surface of the still water and feeling the sand cool beneath his fingers, he found himself descending into a deeper realm of consciousness that had been there all along.

Lucy had reconnected with music during the first week of her stay. Beforehand, she had been recycling the same constellation of songs and neglected the solar system of symphonies beyond, until she arrived here. She had been absorbed by French songs; Que C’est Triste Venise had taken a particular tight grasp on her heart. Among the various rituals of which she enjoyed deeply, there was an instance outside of the festival’s organisation that resonated with her very relevantly. She saw an elderly woman walking the beach, walking through pockets of moderate wind that swept her thin scarf into the majestic air. This woman had grasped a dahlia close to her chest as her bare feet sunk and rose from the wet sand. Lucy had been watching from further down the front, attempting to adopt a subtlety to her arresting intrigue. She watched the elderly woman stop and kneel to the water that reached her feet. As she kneeled, she held the dahlia over the water, as if she was about to drop it in. She hesitated for a moment or so before placing the flower back into her breast pocket and continuing her stroll down Bloom beach. The moment seemed pregnant with emotion and mystery, which Lucy had been unable to fully unmask but had been struck by nonetheless.

Later that night, Lucy ventured into crest park after being told by a volunteer that a live performance would be starting imminently. The second she walked in, she felt a deep sense of harmony within herself and she would come to be addicted to that. For now, she walked along a path that circled a lake slightly beneath. The gradient of the slope between the path and the water meant that a glorious manipulation of the sun’s reflection projected on the slope, giving the water a peculiar quality of sacredness. Standing in the middle of that lake was a tall tree that seemed to reach into the depths of the sparse, sun-kissed clouds above. The arrangement of these clouds accentuated the ethereal sun rays cascading down on to the branches of this beast. Lucy wasn’t even questioning the fact that there seemed to be no signs of an impending live performance anywhere, she was captivated by this place. She felt at home.

Then she saw Chris sat on a bench up ahead staring at the same tree. She remembered their introduction at the start of the week as she approached him.

PART 4 – First Kiss

He spotted her coming from about a hundred yards away. His chest ached more and more with every step she took to get closer to him and as she did, each glorious feature of hers became more prominent and visible. She wore this light, blowy black dress that tickled her skin with the edges of the fabric as the wind carried it. Her nails and lips were ferociously red, the black of the dress contrasting the vast and overwhelming colour.

He only had a few more moments to prepare, he had managed to persuade her that he hadn’t seen her yet, even though her presence enveloped him with unyielding force. She was now near enough that he could fake a nonchalant reaction and he stood to receive a hug from her. The hug she gave was tight and real, like he had never felt before.

‘How are you?’ Her delicate voice uttered.

‘I’m good. Feeling fresh.’

‘Me too. Slightly worried for my eye health with all the sun-watching I’ve been doing.’

‘I actually can’t see you right now, I’ve just learned to manage the blindness.’

‘You had me fooled. How beautiful is this?’ She indicated Crest Park with complete admiration.

‘It’s definitely something. Almost too good.’

‘There’s no such thing.’

As he pondered that last thought, she asked him more questions and he gave more answers. They compared notes on the festivities they had attended, finding common ground in their outlandishly wonderful affects.

Then she asked him what flower he had been assigned. He initially went under the groundskeeper’s instructions and simply presented his decoy flower to her and she did the same. But as the sunset reached a climax and the perfection of the moment seemed impossibly large and unconquerable, he showed her the sunflower he had safely nestled in his pocket. As she looked at it, she felt the universe driving her and him and the moment. She was reluctant to label it as fate as that word her scarred her heart before, but she was powerless to the momentum of excitement she found herself in and she too presented the sunflower she had been assigned. They both felt like schoolchildren who had been forbidden from playing together but were doing it anyway. They were the conductors of a truly special symphony that only they were supposed to hear.

The moonlight soon kissed Bloom and everything in it. Chris and Lucy were unmoved by time but moved by each other. A newness bloomed.

The weeks passed, their interactions explored hidden beauties everyday, each as bountiful as the one before. The festival had soon reached its end for the year and Chris and Lucy knew what their first date would be before they had even begun the journey back to Hertfordshire. It seemed inevitable from the first kiss they shared that first night in Crest Park.

PART 5 – Barefoot in the Gardens

Lucy waited in the gated gardens adjacent to the main park. The air was lukewarm and in the middle of the sky, there floated one lonely cloud that resembled a triple scoop of ice cream. This weather agreed with her. After admiring the abundance of flowers scattered abound the gardens, she slipped her sandals off and walked barefoot on the grass. The sensation felt so novel and charming as three or four blades of grass stood between her big and second toes.

She felt surprisingly calm; perhaps the blue sky was an omen, despite the presence of that triple scoop ice cream cloud. This would be her third ever first date and the lack of a plan suited her current headspace. When she received messages from Chris, her stomach twitched and she hadn’t felt that before. It was very tempting to imagine what the potential road ahead may have in store but then she decided to focus on the now and where she was. The flowers abound, the blue sky, the triple scoop ice cream cloud, the blades of grass between her toes.

She meandered down the grass until she came to a hedge that disconnected the sun’s path to the ground and an even line of shadow was prominent. She placed one foot on the cool patch of grass and left the other foot in the vibration of the sunlight. The shadowed patch felt like forgotten sand under a deckchair on a beach, while the sun seemed to beam more ferociously than ever on the other.

As she contemplated the contrast in temperature, the gate whistled open. Chris seemed to know she was there without any prior knowledge of her location. He wore boots that percussed a hollow thud on the path leading up to her.

‘Hey there, stranger.’ She began. Instantly questioning her opening line.

‘Are you barefoot?’

‘Have you ever done this? It’s a bit hippy but I love it!’

He indicated his boots, ‘Maybe some other time.’

She wasn’t sure what the time she would spend with him might have to offer but she wanted to show him the bookshop cafe.

PART SIX – The Ideal Scenario

Lucy kept picking daisies out of the ground as if she had some grand master plan for them later on. Chris found her fondness for the flowers charming, as they must’ve had some newfound significance now.

They meandered along a path with a roof of sun-kissed trees arching over their heads, Chris’ boots still rhythmically thudding on the ground. He had been worried that the special circumstances, under which the two of them came together, would govern the relevance of their connection. Though he was beginning to relax as they decided to settle on a bench that sat slightly elevated above one of the fields in the park.

One of things that Lucy had been grateful for so far this afternoon was that there was no heavy reliance on words; they were able to go for spells without talking and it was inherently comfortable, like a movie with little dialogue. Now sat down, they still let conversation come and go and it was all rooted in comfort and calm.

‘What do you want?’ Chris said, as candid as anything.

‘What?’

‘What’s the ideal scenario for you, life wise?’

She allowed another moment of silence to come, safe in the knowledge that he would know she was thinking of an answer.

‘I’d quite like to own a music store. Vinyls everywhere, a nice space, inspiring vibes, albums playing.’

‘Have you played much guitar since we got back?’ He hoped she would say yes.

‘I have actually - I kind of rediscovered my guitar since we got back.’

‘Have you written any songs?’

‘I may have.’

He felt like a child on a rollercoaster when she alluded to the idea of new material. He wished he had discovered his talent by this time in his young life; he often felt like he was standing on a cliff’s edge, pondering a dive into the pure water beneath. The uncertainty of jumping in, little did he know, was toxic.

PART SEVEN – Meditations on Flutters

Lucy sat opposite him in the bookshop cafe, a daisy tucked behind her ear. The daisy parted the strands of hair that fell in that direction. Chris’ coffee cup was a paper one, he held the cup up to his ear, shook it as to ascertain how much was left, then took a sip.

‘Favourite movie?’

‘Meet Joe Black.’ he confidently replied.

‘What is that? I’ve never heard of that one.’

‘Anthony Hopkins is this wealthy businessman who’s been having chest pains and then death comes in the form Brad Pitt…'

‘Obviously.’ Her tone remotely sarcastic, but mostly sweet.

‘Brad Pitt tells him that he is dying but he has some time as Brad Pitt wants to see what life is like for a few days. It sounds so terrible but it makes me cry every time.’ There was a truth in his voice. She picked up on that and responded appropriately.

‘Sounds sweet. I like The Pursuit of Happyness.’ She replied.

‘Oh! That’s another one of my favourites!’

They continued speaking with a desirable flow and every response to a comment, question or observation was satisfying to each of them. She thought of him as an oxygen mask in an emergency. She had never experienced such palpable relief as she did when she was speaking with him. His words were pockets of air in a tsunami.

He was trying to break his gaze from her eyes. They were dark but possessed a droplet of green, a colour that entranced his very own eyes. He was secretly focusing his breath on the diaphragm area to stop the air from leaving his lungs. In all his dreams and musings, in all the beauty that his limited imagination could muster, he failed to think of a single scenario that would better the one he was in right now. Once this thought struck him, he brought every ounce of his attention back to the moment he was in. He observed where his body met the chair he was sitting in, the soles of his trembling feet on the floor beneath. He noticed the sounds that surrounded them; the occasional harsh buzz of the coffee machine, the mixed chatter sprinkled around the tables, the sounds of pages being turned. He was now truly present. And it felt amazing.

PART EIGHT - Different Times

After that date they had, things went quiet. Lucy had just taken a job with a digital marketing company and Chris was working as an administrator at one of the companies on his estate. Time passed, as did interactions via text. However, there was a sadness underlying this decrease in passion.

They arranged to meet eventually and sat in a cosy coffee bar that had ample heating. There was an obvious lack of excitement and an ambiguous reason why. They addressed the feeling over their drinks; Lucy explained that her work has been time consuming and she had been having difficulties at home. Chris probed, asking what the problem was despite knowing her reluctance on the topic. She explained that her elder brother had moved away under bad circumstances and since then, had not been in contact with her or her mother. While this did seem to be the cause of some of her reserved behaviour, Chris could see something bigger lurking beneath her once deep eyes.

‘There’s more, I can tell.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘What makes you think I’m not telling you anything?’

‘You’re different, something’s different.’

‘Stop interrogating me. I just told you some heavy stuff.’ She folded her arms as if she was defending her heart.

‘How are you feeling about everything?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll get through it. I always do.’

‘What if you didn’t always have to get through things?’

She didn’t answer. She sipped the last of her coffee and suggested they go elsewhere.

They were on the high street of St Albans, the distance between them masquerading as a necessity to avoid people walking the other way.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Chris asked.

‘I don’t know. You choose.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t mind.’

‘That’s really unhelpful.’

He was starting to really annoy her. What was wrong with her leaving it for him to decide?

‘I honestly don’t mind Chris.’

Silence invaded them as they walked. After enough time for the two of them to soak in the disappointment of this afternoon, Chris spoke once more.

‘I’ll drop you home.’

In Chris’ car, the music that had scored their happy journey to the high street was nowhere to be heard. All that accompanied their ride was the occasional pounding of rain on the windscreen and the whisper of a car travelling in the opposite direction. Then Chris burst into life.

‘What’s “I don’t mind”?’

‘What?’

‘That doesn’t add value to the interaction. It isn’t helpful.’

‘Why are you obsessed with this? I’m saying that no matter what we do or where we go, I’ll be happy with the outcome. How is that unhelpful?!’

‘Because then I’m making all the decisions. What we do next is the most relevant and real moment we’re about to have - how could you have no say in what happens in that moment?’ His tone was steadily rising. It had a slight harshness in its clarity.

‘This is such a stupid conversation. You’re being ridiculous.’

‘We’re having the conversation because you didn’t make a decision. I might as well be alone if that’s the case.’

That sentences struck her chest with such venom, she was paralysed by the notion.

‘Stop the car.’

‘What?’

She opened the door while the car was still accelerating forward. Chris reacted fast and veered into a lay-by, provoking an ensemble of beeps from the cars behind. As soon as the car stopped, she got out and shut the door, walking away in the heavy rain.

‘Lucy!’

She walked towards a field that she would be able to cut across to get to her house. Chris hopped out and chased after her, gracefully jumping over a barrier, leaving his car behind.

‘Lucy, come on.’

‘Please leave me alone.’ She uttered the words as she continued walking away. He eventually caught up to her. The rhythmic thuds of his boots hitting the grass brought her back to the memory of their first date outside of Bloom. It hit her with the same ferociousness a memory hits you with when you smell something familiar for the first time in a while.

‘Can’t we just talk openly about this?’

‘You said it yourself, you’d rather be alone.’

‘I said I might as well be.’

‘Much better.’

He made one last effort to keep her there, placing his hand on her shoulder. She turned aggressively and forced his hand off of her.

‘Don’t. Leave me alone.’ She walked on, disappearing into the melancholy shelter of a rain-drenched woodland. Chris stood alone in the field, soaked to the skin.

Months passed. Soon after their ordeal, Chris sent a long email to Emily. There was no apology in the letter, just an expression of something that he wished he had realised in the moment she walked into those trees.

Lucy sunk into the depths of her broken mind. She questioned everything. She felt worthless. She wondered what the point had been of getting so invested in Chris, or what it meant to be invested in anyone for that matter. They did not speak after Chris’ email. He often wondered what her response to it would be and the uncertainty carried a feeling of heaviness in his heart. With time, their lives continued - Chris’ burdened with uncertainty, Lucy’s drowned in a feeling of meaninglessness.

When Bloom approached again, the two of them pondered the last year of their respective lives. Nothing had progressed for either of them. Revisiting Bloom would either be an admittance of stasis, or the first step forward either of them had taken since that fever dream of a date they had in the bookshop cafe.

They both revisited Bloom. The groundskeeper gave them their readings again, neglecting to tell Lucy that Chris was here. However, upon Chris’ new reading, the groundskeeper was compelled to say something to him, perhaps he saw a younger version of himself in him. A familiarity.

‘You are a different person than you were last year, hence the new flower assigned to you. But, do you still have your sunflower? From last year?’

Chris solemnly nodded.

‘She does too.’

Chris looked up and stared into the groundskeeper’s soul, tackled by an unharmonious combination of joy and anxiety.

‘Where is she?’ Chris begged.

‘You will see her when it matters. But you must remember this: You will be overwhelmed during your time here. You must be completely present. When you feel overwhelmed, notice your surroundings, what you can hear and see, the weight of your body on the ground. You will only get her back if you are present.’

Chris and Lucy participated in the festivities once again; the gatherings, the observations of the sunrise and sunset on the first day, the welcoming ceremony. Lucy was using these as band aids while Chris was using them as a means to rediscover the meaning she gave to his life.

Last year, the two of them had both been assigned sunflowers, an incident that the groundskeeper begged for them to keep quiet as to not reawaken the old prophecy. They were given decoy flowers in order to attend the festivities without interrogation. Their chance meeting that occurred the first time they were here was actually orchestrated by the groundskeeper, otherwise they would never have known that they were both assigned the same notorious flower reading.

This year, two other participants had both been assigned the sunflower, a revelation that provoked the groundskeeper to go about the same arrangement as he had with Chris and Lucy.

It was nightfall and the final days of the festival were approaching. Lucy had made the difficult decision to revisit Crest Park, a place that held so much for her heart to handle. She sat on one of the benches that looked out on to the blossom tree and the beach beyond. Chris stood on the beachfront, listening to that night’s musical performer singing a song called ‘Johnny and Mary’ - the song moved him in a way he hadn’t been moved since that day last year in Crest Park. That all seemed so long ago now. So out of reach.

The minute the song was over, there was some commotion in the crowd gathered by the stage. An animated man who dragged the groundskeeper alongside him leapt to the stage and made a beeline for the microphone. Everyone was still.

‘It’s happening!’ The man shouted as he held the groundskeeper close, as if keeping him prisoner. The man passed the microphone to the groundskeeper and then proceeded to retrieve a gun from his belt. The crowd screamed in horror but were frozen in the fear that this moment had conceived.

‘Tell them or I’ll pull this trigger, I swear!’

Everyone was engulfed in terror and silence, a feeling that would either live or die depending on the groundskeeper’s next words.

‘There are two sunflowers in this town.’

A chilling groan surfed over the crowd and before the groundskeeper could offer any possible consolation, everyone descended into a frenzy. They wanted a sunflower for themselves. It was all or nothing now.

Everyone had overheard the revelation. Chris watched as the beach grew into a brawl while Lucy remained seated on the bench, unmoved by the chaos that slowly began to surround her.

PART NINE – Wilting

Chris charged forward towards the seafront, he wondered where Lucy was in the chaos, despite everything. People were being dragged under, forced beneath the surface. People were fighting with their bare fists, all in the name of chaos. Chris must’ve separated two or three scraps before his eyes landed on that tree - the tree that had once meant so much and still did. Some of its branches were cracking like a harsh meringue over soft ice cream. There were cries coming from there. He needed to go, but not before establishing some kind of equilibrium at the seafront. There were no more bodies in the water, any physical altercations had ceased. The petals from everybody’s flowers were scattered along the sand, encapsulating the ferocious cruelty of this night.

In a rare moment of stillness, Chris caught a glimpse of The Chapel. People were forcing themselves through the doors in a frenzy of bodies. It had reached full capacity some time ago. The very nature of people’s struggle to be enclosed within those four walls undermined the building’s purpose. What Chris was witnessing was pure, animal desperation. The facade of this town was seemingly lifting and the true nature of its inhabitants was ugly and sad.

His eyes followed that desperation behind the chapel, up into Crest Park and that tree. It seemed as though this would never be over. Then he remembered the words of the groundskeeper - he took a moment, even in the environment he was in, to become present. He noticed the uneven sand under his shoes, he felt his shirt ripple with the wind, tickling his skin. He noticed the rhythm of his breath begin to slow. Then, on his third exhale, he opened his eyes. He was present.

And so he ran, ripping through the air with such purpose, such indescribable verve and fear. Occasionally, he would stumble under the deceptive grasp of the sand, kicking up clusters of grainy clouds that landed on more flowers and petals that had been lost in the chaos. It was hard to sit with the sadness of what that meant for now - because he knew that she would be by that tree. She and him were the most vulnerable in Bloom now. Chris’ sunflower was safely nestled in his breast pocket. He wondered if she still had hers.

In Crest Park, people were desperately treading the water surrounding the tree. The few branches that had fallen acted as functionally unusable floats. People had climbed up the trunk and were attempting to hack branches off for themselves, taking whatever they could get. It was every man for himself at this point.

Some people just sat on the benches that surrounded the water, witnessing the carnage with an unhindered perspective. Perhaps they had had a private chat with the groundskeeper too, because they certainly were in this moment fully, much as it pained their hearts. Among the sparse scattering of present bench watchers, there sat a familiar face. A face that had carried more pain on it over the last two years than some of the people in this town had carried in their respective lifetimes. Lucy couldn’t comprehend the contrast between her two visits to Bloom. The elements of this special place had harmonised with her soul in an unthinkable way, they acted as life rafts for her heart and mind. Rafts that floated in the water that was now encroaching on the heavy hearts and minds of this year’s residents.

She breathed too, through the ache and the disbelief. However, the breath left her when she was grasped by the throat. An arm had clutched on to her from behind and was dragging her purposefully away. The tips of her toes barely scraped the grass as she scrambled to break free from the hold. In the panic of her predicament, she knew her geography. The unidentified attacker was bringing her to the crest of Crest Park, a cliff edge that stood confident and tall over the water of Bloom Beach.

Chris had entered the park; his purpose numbed him to the sadness of his surroundings. He knew she was here. He could feel it. As he established a new momentum, the scenes around him stretched into a blurry overture and his sights were set ahead. He still had no confirmation of her presence in this now unrecognisable park, though he saw some people struggling dangerously close to the cliff face. He wanted to believe so much that she was safe from the dangers of what he was now witnessing, but confirmation soon occurred as he saw her being held over the edge. Her attacker was frantically searching for the flower he knew was on her person. Chris put every ounce of energy into his sprint towards that edge but out of nowhere, he was tackled down to the ground. Winded by the impact, Chris stumbled to his feet before being struck again by the same man, who had now pinned him to the concrete floor. He was going straight for Chris’ breast pocket. Chris was fighting unspeakably against this man’s strength, though he could feel him getting the upper hand.

Just as he thought he had failed to protect the sad sunflower in his breast pocket, his attacker took a sharp blow to the head and fell half slumped into the lake. Chris looked around to see the frail groundskeeper, holding a rake that had acted as his weapon. A brief nod of acknowledgement was exchanged between these two men before Chris made one final effort towards the crest of Crest Park.

Lucy’s sunflower was now clasped by the angry hands of this man that had dragged her to the crest. He no longer needed the tearful woman he had robbed this sunflower from. She could feel his grip on her collar loosening and she was too close to the edge to establish any kind of balance now. Just at this moment, she saw him sprinting up from behind. Her fear and her relief collided as harmoniously as oil and water. She assessed how many more steps Chris had left against how soon she would be falling towards the cold, cold water. The timing was not in her favour.

Lucy began her descent towards Bloom beach beneath, Chris’ momentum was too strong for him to retreat from the crest now. He thrust his entire body into the man, clutching the sunflower that had once mirrored

his own. As Lucy splashed into the water, the anonymous man and the valiant Chris fell seconds later.

PART TEN - FINALE

MUSIC CUE - MIDNIGHT by COLDPLAY

Consumed by the coldness of the water, Chris pulled Lucy to shore after swimming deep to sweep her into his arms. She was breathing but barely conscious as she lay across his shoulders. He carried her towards the streets of Bloom, trying desperately to escape the chaos that continued to unfold. In his peripheral, there was still a sense of devastation and a fractured dream. He knew where he was going though.

The groundskeeper’s home was an understated little house that hugged any guest lucky enough to enter. The atmosphere seemed to defy physics as the energy was startlingly different to the complexities of the outside world. It was tucked in a crevice of the town that somehow remained hidden from the busy parts but had views that challenged belief.

Chris carried her inside after the groundskeeper let them in. He had swiftly made it back after striking Chris’ attacker with a shovel, a moment that may have dictated Chris’ future with the angel he held in his arms. He showed Chris upstairs to his bedroom where they placed her in the warm bed, gathering blankets and garments to cradle her shaken and shaking bones.

‘C-Chris…'

‘Don’t try to talk, just rest.’

She retrieved her freezing hand from the bundle of blankets to grasp Chris’ hand. He held it like it was treasure, kissing it. He let a few tears escape before letting go and allowing her to rest. The groundskeeper made tea and they sat in the bedroom discussing how on earth they were planning to salvage this town.

In the early hours, Chris sat by Lucy’s bedside having changed her clothes and dried her her for the most part. She was still resting and he was still contemplating. The bedroom enveloped him in a sense of nostalgia that didn’t belong to him. There were just beautiful things sitting in different areas of the room, each harbouring a story of love and labour. Among the trinkets and treasures, the was a picture of a woman around the same age as the groundskeeper, holding a dahlia. She seemed to emanate joy through her eyes, much like Lucy did. In the reflection of the wall behind the woman in the picture was the outline of the photographer. It seemed to be the groundskeeper but Chris couldn’t be certain. Nevertheless, something about it struck him.

END MUSIC.

The month of September brought contradictions in its weather, as if mixing oil and water. There seemed to be rain falling into the soaring heat of sunlight, which was indeed the case on the day Lucy awoke from her long sleep. Her eyes opened on Chris who sat looking out the window. His eyes were fixated on a September rainbow that arched across Crest Park and into the water of Bloom beach. As she sat up, his attention shifted to her and he dived under the covers and lay his head down opposite hers so that their foreheads were touching.

‘How are you feeling little one?’ He whispered happily. They maintained that tone of voice.

‘Alive.’

‘I feel like I’m in pain but it feels amazing.’ He said to her.

‘Me too. You saved me…’ As if asking a question.

‘I think it’s the other way around.’

Their hands grasped each others so that their knuckles were white.

‘When I came in the water after you, you were sinking fast. I’ve never felt such fear as I did when I saw that.’

‘I saw you running up before he dragged me in. It was a gift. What happened to the other guy?’

‘Once I was in the water, I only saw you.’ He stopped for a few seconds, ‘When you walked away from me in the rain back home…'

‘Shh, it was necessary. It gave birth to this moment now.’

They embraced in the warmth of the blankets and each other. It felt like home.

Chris and Lucy stayed with the groundskeeper for a decent stretch of time, long enough to see off the madness that the end of the festival brought. It dissipated like smoke in clean air and all that was left was a suggestion of carnage but it had now drifted away. It didn’t happen overnight and Chris, Lucy and the groundskeeper were instrumental in extinguishing the fires that recent events had sparked but sure enough, people left the festival and returned to their normality. Leaving the few permanent residents and the three of them.

Preparations for next year’s festival, despite seeming unhealthily optimistic, began to happen organically as they prepared for a more sparse and intimate occasion than the one just passed. They demystified the stigma that the sunflower had given birth to and simply admitted it to be just like the other flowers people have been assigned - it’s just a pleasant reminder of some of the strong couples that have bloomed in years passed.

Time passed and as the new festival arrived, it was indeed sparse and intimate but still a festival worth having. Chris and Lucy had become Bloom ambassadors and facilitated some of the welcoming rituals that the festival offered. Lucy began studying psychology in the hiatus between festivals and acted as a self-proclaimed not-so-qualified counsellor - she offered a service for people to absorb if they were in the same fragile headspace she had been in not long ago, talking to them and offering companionship and advice.

Chris had taken to writing and had started drafting a script for the Bloom theatre that entertained many of the attendees during their stay. They, along with the groundskeeper, had settled into this harmonious rhythm and acted as a functioning trio of energy and productivity, to the festival as well as their personal pursuits.

The groundskeeper and Chris converted one of the old events halls into a warm home for Chris and Lucy and pretty soon, they were making a living off the money that people paid to go to Bloom, a substantial portion of which was invested back into the festival itself but they had enough to also build a little life for themselves in the town. Lucy rented another disused building and began to run a music store that she called The Sunflower Hut and the groundskeeper acted as a business partner to her. It took time but soon, she was the manager of a place that celebrated the symphonies that tuned her heart to the love, a thing she now had in her life. As this grew into a beauty, so did Chris’ work - he had put on a few plays that were unanimously celebrated as the festival continued to run annually. He had now started writing a book and that made Lucy’s heart soar with joy.

Their home was a cosy and inspiring celebration of creativity, art, joy inspiration and love. They shared an office that housed a vinyl player and a few books and posters of their favourite things - it acted as an overture for the works they were creating. Lucy had assembled an intimate studio in the record store where she could record her own songs, which seemed to be coming through her thick and fast, before performing at the festival each year. The two of them just enjoyed what they had created and it did indeed seem like a dream.

On the final night of the festival seven years after they had first met there, there was a sunset that defied human comprehension. The sky couldn’t decide what it wanted to be and so there was a collaboration of colours that somehow merged harmoniously, as if celebrating the moment everyone found themselves in right now.

MUSIC CUE: AUTUMN HILL by JON HOPKINS

Lucy stood on the deck looking out on to Bloom Beach on this final night and she only stood alone for a few moments before Chris joined her and embraced her from behind. They had just returned from a day at the beach and still remained sparsely clothed in their bikinis and swim shorts. Their skin glowed. They kissed.

‘Movie tonight?’ He proposed.

‘What did you have in mind?’

He retrieved Meet Joe Black from the case of movies they owned and held it up to her with giddy excitement, which she reflected back at him.

They ventured back into their home, leaving the sunset to run its course over this truly, truly special town.

[tinymixtapes]

Music Review: Alan Vega - IT

Alan Vega IT [FADER; 2017] Rating: 4.5/5 The infamous early performances of Suicide are understood to be foundational events that set the bar for shock-punk extremity. As Henry Rollins stated a year ago in the official public announcement of Alan Vega’s death, “[Suicide’s] confrontational live performances, light-years before Punk Rock, are the stuff of legend.” These performances (along with the preceding efforts of The Stooges) ushered in a lineage of shock-rock egos purporting hypotheses for experimentation with violent confrontation, social sculpture, hierarchical relations, and rock & roll as their interests. These now tired and problematized theses have had their moments: Suicide’s eventual colleague James Chance physically confronted apathetic audiences just before harsh noise pioneers Hanatarash and Hijokaidan brought threat levels to a peak with explosives, projectiles, bulldozers, and urination. These theses may have met maximum attention in the mid-80s when artists like GG Allin and The Mentors regularly appeared on daytime talkshows to gleefully debate their violence with angry and bewildered parents. At their worst, these experiments in shock rock were backed by a familiar argument: an artist inflicting violence for the sake of truth. “Twentieth century art movements were veritably obsessed with diagnosing injustice and alienation, and prescribing various ‘shock and awe’ treatments to cure us of them — a method Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke usefully, if revoltingly described in a 2007 interview as ‘raping the viewer into independence,’” notes writer Maggie Nelson in The Art of Cruelty. Nelson argues that performative cruelty is generally only more irritating when its actors propose it is for their viewer’s good. When such a harbinger appears, he implies that he not only knows what is wrong with his audience, but also what will cure them. It is with this attitude that GG Allin appropriated the punk ethos of anti-consumerism and anti-puritanism and proposed that his concoction of irreverence and violence was the pill to solve it all. A similar attitude carries Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek through his own verbal abuse. He once advised to Guardian journalist Laura Snapes, “Listen to your elders. I’m 48 and I have wisdom. I’ve seen girls laid out on the street with an ambulance picking them up because they are crossing the street with those stupid headphones on.” This already demeaning piece of advice came before he publicly called out its recipient by name in front of an audience of 1,900 (of which she was not a part). Kozelek finds himself consistently bemoaning journalists, reporters, and commentators for the simple reportage and speculation upon his own speech. The irony of his (as well as many others’) grumblings about the truth is that he won’t have it fed back to him. Of course, such an attitude is nothing new; Nelson quotes painter Francis Bacon stating in 1966, “people tend to be offended by facts, or what used to be called truth.” Here tells the 79-year-old Vega — in anticipation of his own death, writing, recording, and performing in spite of it — “the truth is dead… the saint is dead… the motorcycle explodes.” Vega doesn’t beat around the bush. Within the dark cityscape of IT, there are eight different proclamations of death spoken with the same structure: “the [creature/man/brotherhood/skull/ghost/truth/saint/blaze] is dead.” This is not to mention the provocation that introduces the album, delivered with the nonchalance of Drake letting loose an acronym (e.g. “YOLO,” “HYFR”), Vega snickers, “DTM. Dead To Me.” It is this very nonchalance that carries Vega through the drama of IT without the faintest pretension. Listening to the album, I never had the feeling that a promise of horror went undelivered. Instead, the album’s mild horror lurched from a presence, as if to say, “it is what it is.” Vega’s stake on truth is an effect of his adherence to simple sentences and present tense. The album’s title track, for example, screams, “It has a gun/ It is ready/ To kill somebody/ The killer is close/ You can smell it/ The weapon is loaded.” These disaffected proclamations meet some of the harshest yet most vibrant instrumentals to support Vega’s voice to date (production is credited to Vega and his wife/frequent collaborator Elizabeth Lamere). Exempting a few moments of punctuation — the sudden drop and spattering that occurs five minutes into album-opener “DTM;” the butchering edits that close “IT” before Vega’s voice is lost to a vacuum — the music enables Vega’s voice as his best accompanists have: providing the expository setting and minimalistic bedding necessary for Vega to project his scene upon and float above. His delivery will sound strange to those unfamiliar, but it will be oddly cozy to those who have known it all along. Vega is at his most animated and affected on “Motorcycle Explodes,” a song that represents, if not Vega’s own death, the death of his image. It begins with a dry howl that effectively carries the horror of his trademark “Frankie Teardrop” shrieks. The song’s subject can be none other than Ghost Rider, the figure that opened Suicide’s discography four decades ago and provided the band its name. “[T]he ghost is dead, the truth is dead/ At rocket speed, subhuman,” Vega shouts, imagining the rider killed by his ride, his only point of relation to his surroundings. This represents Vega’s point of simultaneous reflection and collapse, a marker at which the relationship between his art and his life can maintain conversation no longer (Rollins: “Alan’s life is a lesson of what it is to truly live for art. The work, the incredible amount of time required, the courage to keep seeing it and the strength to bring it forth — this was Alan Vega.”) The album’s coda — “Prayer,” “Prophecy,” and “Stars” — is both cruel and forgiving. More or less a kick in the ass. “Prophecy” begins as a direct reflection, “Been kicked hard/ Friggin punched out/ Pushed into cement walls/ Got a bloody head/ Blood is dripping down my face.” Then he hands off his experience, “I’m bruised everywhere/ It’s happened before/ In the street/ On the stage/ And it will/ Happen again/ Yeah tremendous over/ And over and over and over/ Again/ It’s my prophecy.” Vega universalizes his defiance. “Over and over and over and over again” cannot be contained within one life. The care with which he delivers these lines, the lack of audacity, allows their recipient inclusion. “I will get up/ I will survive,” he continues, “I will go on and on and on/ So fuck you killers/ Fuck you/ I stand/ It’s my prophecy.” With that, Vega hands off his spirit and his legacy. The next words we are gracefully given, “It’s yours, It’s your life/ It’s your given hand.” --- G.G. Allin once threatened to the audience of The Jane Whitney daytime talk show, “your kids are my kids.” When he said this, he was suggesting a battle over ideology. He felt the very real power an artist may have to stake a claim over another’s subject formation. IT, in all of its auditory abuse and bleak imagery, shows no such ambition. The burden Vega bestows is the act of engaging with the world as he has: experimental in art as in life, such that the two converge. Vega’s interest in cruelty arose from an interest in how a social space could be transformed by a single action that none before had thought possible. In Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, he recalls seeing The Stooges: “[Iggy] went to sing and he just pukes all over, man. He’s running through the audience and shit … staring at the crowd and going ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’… It was one of the greatest shows I ever saw in my life. It changed my life, because it made me realize everything I was doing was bullshit.” Of course, venue violence is no longer interesting. Beyond that, it is increasingly a very real threat. Perhaps it is no coincidence that IT’s cover appears to be an EXIT sign severed by the camera, marking Vega’s exit with a material affirmation. This simple transformation echoes the legend that Vega, at Suicide’s early performances, used to cause himself to bleed amidst Martin Rev’s cacophony, only to block the rear exits so audiences could not flee. Amidst the fires, shootings, and bombings that have unfortunately become a familiar part of our musical landscape, such a stunt is no longer respectable. On the other side of four decade’s growth sits IT with its intentions intensified and redirected. The sign half-visible on the cover does not obfuscate the way out. Transformed, it encourages consciousness, directness, and presence — nothing more. http://j.mp/2h1JvFw

[samingtonwilson]

Loot - Part 8 - Jim Kirk

Loot masterlist Word count: 2,194 Warnings: language

A/N: sorry it’s so late. this story should be wrapping up in 2 or 3 parts. that’s really all i have to say, i guess. sorry if it sucks and isnt well written but ENJOY AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

The observation deck was deserted.

The chairs facing the many windows were empty, the two-person couch just the same. The only sound in the vacant lounge space came from the soft hum of the ship— white noise, really.

You stood before the chair at the rightmost end of the deck. You faced a large window and stepped close enough to it to set your hands against the thick glass.

You splayed your fingers out and sighed at the coolness of the surface. Your breath created a small splotch of fog, but the star it covered still shone through.

You smiled a little and stared at white lights that sparkled enough against the pitch-black backdrop to rival the best gemstone. You didn’t try to count the stars— you’d been told there was no system good enough to do so.

You stared silently for some time, regulating deep breaths and pressing your fingers against each star the Enterprise slowly moved past. It was comforting to see the short, gleaming rays spike out of your fingertips. Even as you pressed your palm over a star, you saw the brightness of another— there was no way you could cover all of the light entirely, there was always a burst of luminescence no matter how hard you tried.

It was comforting. In the whole “there’s always light” way, of course.

Just as you felt your lips pull into a smile at the thought of Jim’s attempt at sounding poetic being true, as if by typical melodramatic coincidence, you heard the door slide open behind you. You didn’t turn, staring at the reflection against the window’s surface rather than the real thing.

“I needed to put things in perspective,” you told him before he could ask, nodding to the window.

You saw the lips of his reflection fall into a frown of consideration. “Any luck?”

You shrugged and glanced over your shoulder, he neared you more and more with each step he took. The booming of your heartbeat was almost deafening.

“Not really. Wanting perspective and seeking instant gratification seem to be mutually exclusive.”

He nodded and came to a stop just a few feet to your left, his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixated on the glass— you didn’t think he noticed your inability to cease staring at his reflection. “I’ve found that they are.”

“I guess patience wouldn’t be a virtue if it was easy.”

Something about his body language bothered you— the tension of it, namely. He stood with his Captain-like staunch, something he would usually abandon in your presence. His jaw was hardened, forming sharp edges and boundaries while his lips and eyebrows sat expressionlessly.

You cleared your throat after a collection of silent beats. You focused on the blackness surrounding each small star as you spoke, “Should I go? I know this your spot to destress— I’m sure I’m not helping that at all.”

You laughed through your nose humorlessly when he failed to respond. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Before you could complete a full step away from the window, you felt him look at you. Not your reflection— you. He crossed his arms over his chest so the perfect yellow planes of his shirt were now wrinkled. “Bones says you’re doing well. Injury-wise, I mean.”

“You asked Bones about me?” You met his gaze and tilted your head. “Could’ve just asked me directly.”

He took his eyes from yours to stare out the window again. He seemed to be glaring at the darkness. He ignored your question. “I heard Scotty threw out your faulty replicator.”

You hummed in confirmation. “Rigged the new one to synthesize as much junk food as I could possibly desire without notifying medical as an apology.”

“Wise man.”

“Everyone’s calling him that today— you’re all giving him too much credit.”

Jim glanced at your reflection to judge your expression before he chuckled softly, his shoulders shaking a little so his posture could relax minutely.

“What?” you asked with a laugh. “It doesn’t take wisdom to know the age-old philosophy that snitches get stitches.”

“Stitches aren’t really regulation anymore.”

“I know but ‘snitches get dermal regeneration or autosutured depending on extent of wound’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

He continued to laugh, shaking his head.

You smiled at the amusement you could see in the eyes of his reflection as he grinned at the same inky sky at which his gaze previously shot daggers. You turned your head to trace the slope of his nose visually. “I wouldn’t hurt him, though— with or without the souped-up replicator.”

He looked over at you, the crystalline blue irises shining subtly. Though he looked away quickly, he continued to smile. “I know. He knows, too. He just feels bad.”

Jim paused for a moment and his smile faltered until it totally faded. He looked down at his boots and narrowed his eyes. He shifted on his feet. “He thinks he ruined our friendship.”

“Someone should tell him I did that single-handedly. It is my specialty, after all.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s your specialty.”

You turned to face him entirely then. You leant your shoulder against the window and crossed your arms over your chest. You tilted your head and shook the stray locks of hair from your face. “Yeah? What’s my specialty, then?”

“Don’t know. Self-fulfilling prophecies?” he said with a shrug, mirroring you exactly by leaning against the window with his arms crossed just like yours. He nodded upwards when you quirked an eyebrow. “What?”

“You’re not going to explain that? Even a little?”

“You had it in your head that you and I wouldn’t work— and you ended us.”

“I don’t think that’s how self-fulfilling prophecies work. It’s not like my behavior led to us ending. It was a conscientious decision.”

“Beyond that decision, your behavior did make sure of it,” his voice was calm but the joining of his eyebrows and storminess of his electric irises said otherwise.

Seeing his underlying anger didn’t bother you, though— it comforted you. You could take his anger, his disbelief, his frustration— it was the cold indifference he walked onto the observation deck with that you couldn’t take. It was like you needed him to feel something towards you, absolutely anything.

“You said whatever you thought would cut any chance of me wanting us to stay together— you made sure I wouldn’t want to put up a fight,” he continued, shaking his head and averting his gaze to practically burn holes in the metal wall. “Self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Would you have?”

His eyes remained on the wall. “Would I have what?”

“Put up a fight.”

“I don’t think that’s something you should have to ask.”

You stared at him silently for almost a minute, watching his features carefully. You weren’t able to hide the small smile pulling at your lips as you said, “I still don’t think that’s how self-fulfilling prophecies work.”

His eyes slid shut and he shook with quiet laughter. “Yeah, maybe not.”

“And I think we’re both saying the same thing. I get it in my head that something’s going to hurt me or someone I care a lot about,” you took a breath, “and I leave.”

He’d opened his eyes and was watching you as you spoke. He didn’t look at you with a judgemental gaze, nor did he retain most of his previously rising, now sinking anger.

You had to look away before continuing. “Before I can do more damage, I leave. Before I get left behind, I leave.”

You sighed heavily and took steps backwards to fall into the chair behind you. You pulled your leg onto the seat so you could clasp your hand around the knee that was bent before your chest. You looked up at him and offered him a small smile. “With the risk of disclosing too much, I think I’m just tired of being left behind.”

He remained quiet for some time. You didn’t think he was at a loss for words— your confession couldn’t have been much of a shock to him if your behavior was as much of its indication as you thought. He just gazed at you with the same look in his eyes that you were so used to, so comfortable with.

You loosened your steel grip on your knee.

“You should know,” he began, walking toward you and standing where you previously stood, “for most people, that’s not disclosing too much.”

You laughed despite yourself, rubbing the palm of your free hand against your forehead. “For me it is.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” he told you with a smile.

You had to force your eyes away from his. You pointed at the window behind him. “It helped. With the whole ‘gaining perspective’ thing.”

He glanced at it over his shoulder. “You get some clarity?”

You nodded.

“And it didn’t take long.”

“No, it didn’t.”

You cleared your throat when silence fell over the two of you again. “I should go. Early morning with Nyota on the bridge.”

He nodded once in return. “See you there.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

You pushed yourself out of the chair and dusted imaginary lint from your lap. You traced over the renewed tension in Jim’s back when he turned around to face the window, his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

You paused at the doorway, gently pressing your fingers to the control panel. When the door slid open, you spun on your heels to look at his tense back once more. “Jim?”

He didn’t face you but hummed. “Yeah?”

“For the record, I asked Bones about you, too.”

The turbolift ride from the observation deck to Excited Ensign Village was solitary, quiet. Usually a welcomed occurrence, it now left you to ponder the cause of the tightness in your throat and the moisture in your eyes that eventually fell to your cheeks.

You knew a fraction of it was due to the aching in your chest but another part felt as if it was a result of relief— a selfish relief that Jim was as devastated, as concerned as you were.

You wiped at your cheeks with the heel of your hand as the doors slid open on your desired deck, starting down the corridor and not bothering to smile at any of the ensigns that smiled at you.

You didn’t wait for the water to warm as you stood before the bathroom sink in your quarters. You cupped your hands under the tap and splashed your face several times, reaching for a still-damp towel with a grimace.

You pulled your shirt over your head and tossed it into the pile of pending laundry and knelt at the foot of your closet, sifting through the folded stack of identical black clothing.

Your fingers grazed the burnt collar of the shirt that swaddled the artifact, pulling at it and tilting your head as the metal clanked against the floor. Picking it up and holding it in your palm, you traced the script repeatedly and felt the warmth of the orange glow that shone over your skin.

There was a knock at your door followed by a set of automated beeps, the sound startling in such a silent room.

“Hang on,” you called, setting the bare, unwrapped artifact inside your closet and quickly slipping on the first shirt you could find.

You pressed your fingers to the abused control panel and your eyebrows came together.

He was breathing heavily. His eyes were a deeper shade of blue than you were accustomed to and his full lips sat parted. He stared directly at you, his nostrils flared with the clear distress over his face.

“Jim? Is everything okay?”

“I need clarity,” he said simply in a gruff voice.

He pushed past you into the room and turned as the door hissed shut. His distress was visible from where he stood a few feet away.

“The window in here isn’t that big,” you told him softly, fearing that a volume any higher would make the shaking of your voice apparent.

“Not from a damn window— from you.”

You took a breath and nodded once. “Okay.”

“You have feelings for me.”

You sighed. “Jim, ��”

“Deeper than gratitude, deeper than attraction— you have feelings for me,” he stated with enough certainty in his voice to convince any skeptic. “You wouldn’t ask Bones about me if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so impacted by all of this if you didn’t.”

“We’re friends.” You didn’t even believe yourself, and you couldn’t make eye contact with him.

His eyebrows came together and he looked away. He shook his head once in disbelief.

“You seem too sure to need clarity from me, Jim.”

“I want to know why. I have feelings for you, you have feelings for me— so why the fuck are we doing this?”

“I don’t have feelings for you.” The unsteadiness of your voice was clear now.

“Bullshit. Find a better excuse.” With each word he stepped closer.

You looked up at him and shrugged. “Starfleet regulations.”

He smiled a little, now only a foot from you. “Next.”

“There’s someone else.”

He snorted. “Right. Next.”

tagged: @outside-the-government @daughterofthebrowncoats @multifandom-slytherin@buckyy3s @cinema212 @caaptain @dani-fae @wonders-of-the-enterprise@imaginesofdreams @the-witching-hours12-3 @kaitymccoy123 @anyakinamidala

[itsfinancethings]

The world found out about Rutger Bregman in 2019 when, on a panel organized by TIME at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Dutch historian lambasted businesspeople in the audience for trying to fix the world economy without talking about taxation. “It feels like I’m at a firefighters’ conference and no one is allowed to speak about water,” he said.

Now, he has a new book out, titled Humankind, in which the unconventional historian tries to unravel even more of the conventional wisdom that, he says, actually stands on empirically shaky ground. Bregman spoke to TIME in March, while the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly around the world.

In your new book, Humankind, you make the argument that, humans are not as intrinsically selfish as much literature would have us believe. Since you wrote it, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Do you stand by your argument?

Obviously I think I’m right! The old fashioned “realist” position has been to assume that civilization is only a thin veneer, and that the moment there’s a crisis we reveal our true selves, and it turns out that we’re all selfish animals. What I’m trying to do in this book is to turn this narrative around, to show that actually, over thousands of years, people have actually evolved to be friendly.

There’s always selfish behavior. There are lots of examples of people hoarding. But we’ve seen in this pandemic that the vast majority of behavior from normal citizens is actually pro-social in nature. People are willing to help their neighbors. That is the bigger picture that we’re seeing right now.

Is this moment a fertile time for that idea?

I hope that the message of my book is extra relevant right now. Because it’s not only the virus that is contagious, but our behavior as well. If we assume that most people are fundamentally selfish, and if we design our response to this virus with that view of human nature, then then we’re going to bring that out in people. Whereas, if we assume that most people are cooperative and want to help, then we can actually inspire other people. This may sound a bit cheesy, but there’s actually a lot of psychological research that shows that acts of kindness are really contagious. They really spread throughout a social network, even influencing people who you don’t know, who you haven’t seen.

The other thing this crisis shows very clearly is how dependent we are on certain professions. Around the globe, there are governments coming up with lists of so-called vital professions. If you look at those lists, you won’t find the hedge fund managers or the marketeers or whatever. But you’ll find the garbage collectors and the teachers and the nurses, people who we often don’t pay very well, but turn out to be people we can’t live without. So just imagine what the influence of that could be for the longer term. Because there’s now a whole generation growing up that will be impacted by this pandemic. We’ll all remember 2020 as an historic year. And for decades, people will be able to say, remember 2020. Remember when things were really tough. Who did we rely on? I think that could impact a whole generation.

Why do our assumptions about human nature matter? What’s at stake in the debate?

I think everything starts with your view of human nature, because what you assume about other people is often what you get out of them. So if we assume that most people deep down are selfish and cannot be trusted, then you’ll start designing your institutions around that idea. And you’ll create exactly the kind of people that your view of human nature presupposes.

People who think other people tend to be selfish have come to be called realists, whereas people who are more trusting are sometimes called idealists. Do you think those labels are fair?

I’m trying to redefine what the realist position is. I go over all this empirical evidence in my book, and I show that actually, what you see most in times of crisis is an explosion of altruism. We’ve got more than 500 case studies of natural disasters from around the globe. And every single time sociologists and anthropologists find that it’s almost as if you push a reset button in people’s heads and they go back to their better selves. They will start helping each other. And this is the opposite of what we’ve been told for decades, for centuries even in Western culture, and what the news tells us every day.

Connected to the idea that humans are intrinsically selfish is the idea that the free market is the most efficient way to run an economy. Do you think the two ideas are connected?

Yes, but I’m not part of the generation of the Cold War when the debate was all about capitalism versus communism or market versus state, right? I don’t live in that binary world. Sometimes markets work best, sometimes the state has the best solution. During the Enlightenment, there were brilliant thinkers who realized that, if you assume most people are naturally selfish and you construct the market around that, sometimes it can actually work for the common good. I just think that in many cases, it went too far. What many economists forget is that this view of humanity, the so-called “homo economicus,” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What kind of world do you hope to see if people change their minds, maybe from reading your book? What kind of world could be possible?

You could do pretty much everything in a different way. In maybe one of the most radical examples in my book, I look at how the prison system works in Norway. They basically give prisoners the freedom to do whatever they want, right? Often, they even have the key to their own cells. And you’ve got prisons there with cinemas and libraries where they can just relax around on a friendly basis with the guards. Now, if you look at that, from an American perspective, you’re like, these people are totally crazy. But then if you look at it from a scientific perspective, you look at the recidivism rate, right? The odds that someone who has committed a crime commits another one once he gets out of prison. Well, the recidivism rate is very high in the U.S. – it’s one of the highest rates in the world. But it’s the lowest in Norway. So actually the “realist” prison here is the Norwegian prison, where inmates are treated like humans and as adults, whereas many American prisons where inmates are often treated as animals, as beasts. At the moment those are taxpayer funded institutions to educate people for more criminal behavior. That’s basically what they are.

How do you explain the power of nationalism as an ideology? The process of building an idea of a nation requires excluding out-groups. And by extension, denying them certain benefits. Often violence is involved in this as well. How does that fit with the idea of human nature as inherently decent?

Well, this is the big question hanging over my whole book. We do terrible things that are not done by any animal in the animal kingdom. There’s never been a penguin that says, let’s lock up a group of other penguins and exterminate them. These are singularly human crimes. We can get the beginning of an answer if we look at this theory from biology that people have evolved to be friendly, what they call the self-domestication theory. And the idea here from some biologists is that there’s a dark side to that as well. Because, friendliness, wanting to fit into a group can sometimes stand in the way of justice and truth. We find it very hard not to be included in our own social groups, to go against the grain. You even find it with babies, studies show as young as three to six months old that they already seem to know the difference between good and evil, and they prefer the good — but they also have xenophobic tendencies. Babies do not like unfamiliar sounds, unfamiliar faces. So this is a tribal button that can be pushed in our brain.

But if you watch a lot of Hollywood and Netflix series, you might get the impression that people find it really easy to commit violence against each other. Well, we actually know from psychological studies and from the history of warfare, that people find it really, really hard. For example, during the Second World War, it’s estimated that only around 15 to 20% of soldiers actually managed to fire their gun. When they had to look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger, most of them couldn’t do it, but that doesn’t doesn’t mean that you can’t condition people to do it, you can’t make them push a button of an artillery device or something so that they can kill people from the distance. So there are all kinds of technological and psychological means to get people to commit violence, but it is not deep in our nature. For most people, it’s actually really hard to do.

The other fascinating thing unique to humans is that we blush. How could this ever have been an evolutionary advantage that we involuntarily give away our deepest feelings? This shows that we evolved to cooperate. The thing is, this works really well on a small scale. Now, when we settled down, 10,000 years ago, and we first started living in villages and cities and doing agriculture, we also lost sight of each other, literally. And some of the things that we evolved for didn’t work anymore. And I think it’s no coincidence that this is also the time in world history where you see the first wars breaking out. The reason is that the distance between people has increased.

And so obviously the simple solution that you come to if you want to do something against racism or prejudice or all these tribal instincts in our nature, the ultimate solution is obviously contact. People gotta meet each other.

I suppose, to use a British example, the constituencies that voted most heavily for Brexit (and by extension against immigration) were generally the ones with the lowest immigration rates.

Yeah, that’s obviously the classic example. And in very diverse neighborhoods, most people wanted to stay within the E.U. And the same is actually the case during the Trump election in 2016. Neighborhoods with very little diversity voted for Trump. It is something that you should always keep in mind when you design your institutions, like schools. It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because that’s what real life should be about as well.

You were on a panel organized by TIME at Davos last year when you called on billionaires to stop talking about philanthropy and pay their taxes. The video went viral. It’s a bit more than a year on, now. Have you noticed any improvement on that?

I’m optimistic actually. I think to be honest, that we’re living through extraordinary times. The Zeitgeist is really shifting before our eyes. You have to remember that even Joe Biden’s climate plan is more ambitious than Bernie Sanders’ climate plan was in 2016. Even Biden wants to have higher taxes on the rich. This has become the new normal right now. So I really think that, what they call the Overton window, you see it moving. And you really see it with taxes as well. So the worst period was 10 to 15 years ago, when we weren’t even talking about it.

Now of course, the coronavirus is changing everything. Maybe this can become a bigger movement that you could call some sort of a “neo-realistic” movement, right, with a new updated view of human nature. Maybe this will be the end of neoliberalism, the incredibly powerful idea that basically conquered the West since the 1970s. The ideology was that most people are selfish. Now, maybe we can move into a different era, because this whole idea that most people are selfish is simply unworkable during a pandemic. I’m not predicting this will happen. It’s just a hopeful scenario, that may be accelerated by this pandemic.

Hanging over the pandemic is another threat to humanity: climate change. One thing that we keep hearing is that in order to avert the crisis, even with systemic change, we are going to need to make severe behavioral changes, we’re going to need to give up our luxuries for the good of the human race. And yet, that kind humanity-wide decency, if we’re putting it in those terms, is very hard to achieve. How do you square that with your argument that humans are inherently good?

Well, actually, my book is all about the power of human beings collectively, right? So individually, we can’t achieve much. We’re not very smart and we’re not very strong. The strength of human beings only really comes out on a big scale. So the same is true for climate change. We’re never gonna solve anything about climate change if we keep making it into this individualistic discussion. I’m not saying that doesn’t have a role. I mean, the personal is political. But I think the message of scientists right now is that as a society, we need to go through this huge transformation. And we need to do something that’s never been done before in peacetime. Move to half emissions in 2030 and zero emissions in 2050. That means that radical is the new reality. Greta Thunberg is totally right about this. We’re now going to a world that will be three degrees warmer. And that’s the average prediction. It could be worse. Now, I’m living in the Netherlands, where big parts of the country are meters below sea level. So I’ve been interviewing experts who say, it’s not certain that our grandchildren can still live here in the 22nd century. It’s not certain that we can save this country. And so the stakes are incredibly high. But then again, it’s technically feasible. And we’ve done similar things in the past. So it’s not impossible. But this shift in the Zeitgeist needs to speed up quite a bit more.

[lovestructionworld]

“Power Trip” LFM #35 December 14, 2017

As a preface to the forthcoming message, I want to share a testimony to the love and power of the Holy Spirit. Sometime in 2016 I met a determined salesman at Best Buy in Cool Springs while my oldest son Reid and I were shopping for a sound bar. During the first thirty minutes of sound bar discussion, I had been asking the Holy Spirit for the "in" with my salesman to discuss his soul condition and relationship with Jesus Christ. I don't pursue everyone. I only do it as the Lord leads. And then I saw the opening (it was just a knowing of "now") and asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God? His thoughtful and immediate first response was, "I'm an atheist". And quite frankly I can't even remember all the fine details to the conversation. But at the end, I asked if I could pray for him right there in the store. And I could tell the Holy Spirit had moved him while I was praying. But he rejected the first call to Jesus. We then agreed to meeting for breakfast. This man needed to see the non=religious love of Christ. Over the next year, one breakfast turned into between 5 to 10 breakfasts (I can remember the total). There were several more calls to Jesus, which he kindly rejected, but he had moved to "conviction/considering Jesus". I found out that the young man was the son of Seminary Founder in Australia who was also a Pastor. He was also a grandson of a Pastor and he was a nephew of a Pastor. Those breakfasts turned into, honestly, a fairly lame deliverance meeting that I shut down because of his bitter and unfounded anger toward his parents. The demons had twisted him into believing his parents were responsible for his rebellion. The Holy Spirit unraveled that lie. But he still really didn't want to forgive them. But what I did find out from the move of the Spirit in this deliverance meeting was his bitter anger and rebellion had been the open door to the attack of the demon named atheist. One perfectly timed very strong personal difficulty, upon another very strong personal difficulty began to break him of his stubborn anger to the point he gave his life to Jesus literally on his knees with his elbows on the back bumper of my Toyota truck in the Cool Springs Cracker Barrel parking lot. He was so desperate cars were driving by us both with him on his knees and he could have cared less. Tears were flowing from his eyes. He immediately began setting things right with his parents and wife. Life started coming back together in a powerful way. And this last July this man and his wife made a public confession of Christ and I baptized them both in water at Belmont Church. Today, his once broken and teetering on divorce marriage with two children attached is thriving and his wife is pregnant with their third child. And he knows he has heard from the Lord that he is supposed to follow in his father's footsteps as Preacher, Teacher and Pastor. After his baptism, I heard the Lord say to me "Pass him off to your new Pastor". My Pastor is discipling and counseling him for his coming journey.

I didn't do this. I just had love in my heart and obeyed what I heard the Holy Spirit said do. Praise to the living God!!! The impact on this country and our world is tremendous with any soul newly coming to Christ. But what blood might be on our hands if we don't share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

"If I say to the wicked person, 'You will surely die,' but you do not warn him--you don't speak out to warn about his wicked way in order to save his life--that person will die for his iniquity. Yet I will hold you personally responsible for his blood." Ezekiel 3:18

“Power Trip”

I would rather retake the country for Christ with Christ's love and power, than through the Fox channel, gunning up and Civil War.

If you are a Christian, you have to be aware that those who are unbelievers view you as a fool, simple-minded and irrational. So from the outset of someone finding out you are a Christian, you'll be somewhat repulsive to them. How do we reach those people who have so much disdain for everything "Christ".

I'm not against the next self-help, Christian Republican, Twitter celebrity with a new book and TV show that unbelievers won't watch and might even gag to as they fast flip through big hair, 700 club type channels on the Comcast box. Yeah, that sentence was too long. It's true though! But I'm inclined to think we have to get outside our personal issue spaces and conference mentality through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have to begin implementing what we learn in those conferences by soul winning. To do this we need the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think about the ways in which God dealt with those in the Old Testament who, in whatever shape or form, didn't believe in or avoided Him. He always used "power". Power equals "proof".

Moses staff, Angelic visitation, Prophetic insight and foreknowledge all made the rebellious kings and the common man aware that there is a real God. I'm thinking of rebellious King Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph's and Moses' Pharaohs and Elijah's false prophets and Ahab. Give pause to the incredible spectacle within scripture of God's power in those stories we all know.

In the New Testament, It seems that Jesus was more targeted toward the common man and even teaching the common man how to do what he did, which was to take spiritual ground for His Father. Jesus himself said, "unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe". So what did He do? He performed with power, signs and wonders. Would it be any different today?

And Jesus didn't point to himself at the ascension. He pointed to the Holy Spirit so that we could do what he did. And I ask you, why would God operate with power through his prophets in the Age of His Temple presence and then with power through His disciples during the Savior presence of Christ and then somehow not want us to operate with His power now that the Holy Spirit is """"""literally"""""" inside of us. Makes zero sense! .

This probably seems simplistic. But the demonstrated power of God reeks havoc on the strongholds of unbelief and rebellion and is why Paul said, "I would rather you prophesy". Even the gifts of the Holy Spirit...the Word of Wisdom, the Word of Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healing, Working of Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirits, Different kinds of Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues (there are others), are here with us to bless and grow the body of Christ into an ever larger force going into all the nations. Yet many Christians have been trained that the power went out and down with the last Apostle who saw Christ. And today the bride of Christ more than lags in its growth across the country because of rebellion and false teaching toward the Power of the Holy Spirit. How many souls off the street and from the marketplace have been saved within your church this year in 2017? Many will have to answer honestly..."zero".

Wake up. I say this kindly and humbly. You Christian secessionists, that don't believe in Divine power for today, should stop blaspheming the Holy Spirit. You are in the USA minority and it isn't because of immigration. I curse anything that Jesus cursed and He cursed the fruitless tree and fruitless religion. I read where the Southern Baptists are losing people in droves. I've heard of zero revival in Nashville. There was a little outbreak of revival in Hendersonville, Tennessee twenty years ago. But nothing since. I could be wrong.

Christians cut off their noses to spite their face by devaluing the very weapons of the invisible spiritual war the Holy Spirit has made available to us..."they have Divine power to demolish strongholds"!!!

We all have gifts from God when we become believers. I became a believer as an 18 year old Senior in High School. Over the early years, I would call out things that would happen soon afterward. It would seem "coincidental" to me. Like me telling my x-girlfriend who was weeping over us breaking up that she would meet her future husband within a month to comfort her. She met her future husband two weeks later and they have been married for thirty years. This type of thing would happen to me pretty regularly, but I always chalked it up to a coincidence because of my mentors and minister's teachings. Later on after my Baptism of Spirit, I had a gift of faith to believe for the truth of God's power regarding prophesy. And I simply knew I had a prophetic gift.

Here is another example. I believe I've spoken this in a past LFM. Jesus loves unbelievers, which means I love unbelievers. Once I was at a New Orleans casino with business associates. Voodoo central!...Bourbon Street a few blocks away. Never had been to a casino and to make a long story short, I gave a Word to a mafia sounding man who had lost $20,000+ at a craps table and had been with two prostitutes in the last 3 days. He wanted to teach me how to play craps because he wanted "what I had". At the table he said, "I'm a bad person" and "Youse different". Seriously. Cracks me up! Through my sweat, The Word was that he was going to begin winning at the craps table. He had lost for 2 straight days. He immediately began winning over and over without a loss and the Word cut down the bob-wire to his strongholds of greed, sexual perversion and anger. He gave his life to Jesus in the casino bar. If I had carried a Bible into the casino and thumped him with it, he may have shot me. Ha! Who knows. But the Holy Spirit's power was released by Him. There is so much more to that story. But it really happened. It shocked my lukewarm Christian and Catholic business associates. They saw me bringing this man into the Kingdom of Heaven in this seedy bar.

Do you get how much love Jesus has for gnarly sinners like this Mafia guy. There are so many more true and "praise God He's powerful" stories I could tell you. And I have always said that I have many other Normal Christian friends who have these same kinds of stories. I just want you to read testimony. No bragging intended. But just like Jesus would perform a miracle right in front of the religiously minded, yet they still would't believe, many won't believe the story about which I just testified.

Muslims need to see the power of Jesus and they are, believe me. You may have heard the testimonies coming out the Middle East of many now having night dreams and day visions of this "man in a white robe" speaking to them like he did to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.

Convicts need to see His power. Greedy CEOs need to see the Power of God. The Jews need to see God's power. Unbelieving Gangsters, Accountants and Scientists need to see something called out in there life that only Jesus on His throne could know. The common man and woman need to see their children healed and their strongholds dealt with by God's power. The power is the proof of God's existence and drives them to love Jesus Christ. Oh my God. This makes me so happy!!!!!!!

Many say "the Word of God is the power". Yeah and in the Word of God he says "I would rather you prophesy". Let's go ahead and dumb down "prophesy" with "that means just quote scripture to them". These testimonies and the 10,000 power moves across the earth today by power gifted Christians cannot be denied! Do you really want to be in the camp of "having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof".

Maybe I'm only speaking to a few people reading this. But I pray the Holy Spirit's power move on you now for your healing and Baptism of Spirit, if this is you. Once you make a move toward the Holy Spirit like what I'm talkin' bout, you'll be on His power trip of a lifetime. Remember there are souls out there that are desperate for you to get what I'm speaking right now. See to it that the blood of Jesus flows over them as opposed to their blood being on your hands.

As always, much love intended.

Brian

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE OTHER HALF OF N THINGS

It didn't matter what type. Economic Inequality January 2016 Since the 1970s, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that small. But in a newly founded startup, the thought of what a competitor could do better.1 White. Conveniently, as I explain later. Those are interesting questions. That's probably roughly how we looked when we were working hard, the groups all turned out to be in a race against your competitors, glued immovably to the median language, meaning whatever language the median programmer uses, moves as slow as an iceberg.2 Buying startups also solves another problem afflicting big companies: they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server. If you want to optimize is your chance of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.3

Corollary: Avoid becoming an administrator, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have no trouble believing that computers will be very tempted to screw you in the details later. Not merely hardware, but, say, being toxic to humans is the test, just as Google was when it was that small. So people who come to work in the other half you're thinking as deeply as most people only get to watch behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to take money from investors one at a time, and growth has to slow down, your instinct is to lean back. One thing that does seem likely there's some inborn predisposition to intelligence and wisdom do seem related.4 I smelled a major rat. Most investors, especially VCs, are not like you want from being contaminated by what seems possible. When we started Artix, I was rarely bored. It is for all ambitious adults. Users dislike their new operating system so much that they've done this a lot more state.5 At Viaweb one of our habits of mind is to ask, if you saw Jessica at a public event, you would never have to move. I can answer that.

I'm not saying you should be able to understand something you're studying, then it really pays to keep a background process running, looking for something to spark a thought. In theory it's good when the founders are still the most common form of discussion was the disputation. Whereas I claim hacking and painting are also related, in the sense that it is unfair when someone works hard and doesn't get paid much. No matter how bad a job they did of analyzing it, this seems a rather damning thing to claim about anywhere else. Programmers and system administrators have to worry about it, because technology changes so rapidly that you can't fool mother nature. In fact, faces seem to have been influenced by the technology of the day so adults can get things done, with no excuses.6 Investors are often compared to sheep.7

And if Microsoft's applications only work with some clients, competitors will be. ___ How much would it cost to grow a user base. What have other people learned about design? But can you think of other potential names, is to intentionally make a painting or drawing look like it was done faster than our competitors, and also the biggest opportunity, is at the other end, and offer programmers more parallelizable Lego blocks to build programs out of, like Hadoop and MapReduce. But if you just follow your own inclinations.8 Promising new startups are often involved in disreputable things.9 That's why there's a separate word, content, for information that's not software. To be fair, Perl also retains this distinction, but deals with it in typical Perl fashion by letting you omit returns.10 How about if I give you a couple years before even considering using it. Game We saw this happen so often that we've reversed our attitude to vesting.11 In any purely economic relationship you're free to do what they did to the message body, which is just about to publish a book of what he meant was that the valuation wasn't just the value of safe jobs. Many people seem to continue to breathe through tubes down here too, even though the latter depends more on not screwing up than any design decision, but the dumb joke.

But being lucky is the critical ingredient. You can start to see growth, they claim they were your friend all along, and are aghast at the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. Maybe, though the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time and pretending to like it. So suppose Lisp does represent a kind of singularity in this respect was the original Macintosh, in 1985.12 Actually, I've noticed this too.13 After Mr. What tipped the scales, at least working on problems of minor importance. This will take some effort to teach you that.14 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule July 2009 One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is not just a good way to get experience if you're 21, hiring only people younger rather limits your options. Viaweb ended up crushing all its competitors. A good example is the airline fare search program that ITA Software licenses to Orbitz.

And why is it hard to make their mark on the world. It's like seeing the other interpretation of an ambiguous picture. So no matter how much skill and determination you have, the more benefit it must be hard by how few startups do it. Only a handful actually do, but what investors are thinking. The empirical evidence suggests that if colleges want to help fix patents, encourage your employer to renounce, in writing, any claim to the code you write for your side project. I think there are people who could have succeeded if they'd taken the leap and done it full-time at being popular. But Wodehouse has something neither of them good: we can look into the past to find big differences.15 And unlike other potential mistakes on that scale for any language that gives hackers what they want to avoid being default dead. They'll simply refuse to work on dumb stuff, even if it's dismissed, it's because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. For example, willfulness clearly has two subcomponents, stubbornness and energy.

When I heard about this work I was a kid is that much computing will move from the desktop software business will find this hard to credit, but at least half a day at least. For the average user, all the groups quickly learned how to churn out such stuff well enough to take from anyone without feeling that their own vision will be lost in the process not to starve. Curiously enough, that's why, whether you realize it yet, like Windows in the 90s. That's just a theory.16 The answer, I realized it wasn't luck. Most of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down and wrote a web browser that didn't suck. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.17 If programmers used some other device for mobile web access, they'd start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than we expected, and also with deep structural changes like caching and persistent objects.18 Symbols are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table.

Notes

The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and this is one of the word content and tried for a patent troll, either.

They did try to ensure that they were supposed to be identified with you, they seem like a loser or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top; it's random; but as a child, either as truth or heresy. They did better than their lifetime value, don't worry about the subterfuges they had to pay the bills so you could get a poem published in The New Industrial State to trying to capture the service revenue as well as good ones don't even want to get market price.

In general, spams are more likely to coincide with other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be surprised how often have you heard a retailer claim that companies will one day have an edge over Silicon Valley. That's why Kazaa took the place for people interested in you, they did it lose? Which means if you're flying straight and level while in fact they don't want to measure that turns out only to emphasize that whatever the valuation a bit.

Which is fundraising. Programming in Common Lisp for, believe it or not. If a conversation in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about programmers, it increases your confidence in a time. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to instant ramen, which is a self fulfilling prophecy.

See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression. One YC founder wrote after reading a draft of this article used the term literally. A lot of people are these days. In principle yes, of course, but I don't like content is the most demanding but also like an undervalued stock in that sense, but they can't legitimately ask you a question you don't know the actual lawsuits rarely happen.

One of the world barely affects me. One measure of that investment; in biotech things are different. It would be more precise, and when given the Earldom of Rutland.

There are aspects of the next downtick it will seem like noise. I do, I'll have people nagging me for features. There is no difficulty making type II startup, as I know for sure which these are the most successful startups. Giving away the razor and making more per customer makes it easier for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them.

This flattering distinction seems so natural to expand into new markets. I'm not saying you should be your compass. I think you should prevent your investors from helping you to agree. What you learn in college.

But the money. At three months we can't figure out what the editors will have to do that. Maybe it would take forever to raise more money. Steven Hauser.

That's the difference between us and the fucking fleas. Rice and beans are a hundred years ago it would have become good friends. They bear no blame for opinions not expressed in it. When you get a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as you start it with superficial decorations.

I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I know of at least one beneficial feature: it has to be recognized as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the venture business barely existed when they decide on the side of being absorbed by the time it takes a few that are only arrows on parts with unexpectedly sharp curves. 25. 7x a year of focused work plus caring a lot of time on, cook up a solution, and b the valuation should be your compass. If you're doing is almost always bullshit.

We fixed both problems immediately. And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia.

If you invest in your startup with a toothbrush. Not only do convertible debt is little different from deciding to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley is no.

If Ron Conway, for example, the 2005 summer founders, like a ragged comb. In part because Steve Jobs did for Apple when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a high school as a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

Later you can imagine what it would destroy them.

Bill Yerazunis. 5% of Apple now January 2016 would be too conspicuous.

When governments decide how to do it in action, go ahead.

And that is a fine sentence, but for the firm in the narrowest sense.

Thanks to Shel Kaphan, Joe Gebbia, and Emmett Shear for putting up with me.