#and imagine oneself to be too smart to fall for that sort of thing

[marypsue]

I finished reading Emily Nussbaum's Cue The Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV (fantastic, densely layered, beautifully written, highly recommended) and chased it with Craig DiLouie's How To Make A Horror Movie And Survive (fun, popcorny cursed-film meta-horror) and noticed an interesting parallel.

Nussbaum talks about reality TV contestants, after the concept becomes mainstream, no longer signing up to compete simply out of interest or curiosity and ended up stunned or traumatised by the genre's artificiality and artifice. As the contestants get savvier about what they're signing up for, she repeatedly talks about them as seeing themselves - or at least marketing themselves - as collaborators with the editors and producers in creating a great show.

DiLouie's fictional director, shortly after committing (spoiler!) to slaughtering his entire cast on camera to create 'the perfect horror movie', has a line about how he thinks of the actors: "More, he regarded them as fellow collaborators."

[ineloqueent]

Hello! I would like to ask for fluff with Joe since you haven’t written for him yet. How about Joe dating/flirting with someone way more quiet and shy than him? A shy! Reader

here’s some fluffy joe for you! i’ve made y/n into a bit of a bookworm, because i’m a bit of one myself, oops. hope you enjoy :)

⭒

Joe had been the first person in your life to understand that being shy wasn’t mutually exclusive with not wanting to be spoken to, that you were human, and craved connection as much as anybody else.

You’d first encountered him at the local hybrid cafe-bookshop, Paracosm. Perhaps that was why you’d been a little more at ease than usual, that day; you knew the place. Paracosm was your favourite haunt, filled with the familiar comforts of tea and yellowed pages, the glittering light bulbs that hung from the ceiling like little planets and kept the atmosphere of the cafe cosy, even on the coldest of days.

Or perhaps it’d been the look of kindliness about him, the slight ginger tint to his hair, the snow dusting his eyelashes, the way he’d shivered and shared a laugh at his own expense with the barista. It was a beautiful quality, to be able to laugh at oneself.

Or maybe it was none of those things at all, and instead simply that he’d smiled at you when he had accidentally made eye contact with you, instead of hurriedly looking away, as most people— including you— did.

“I should’ve worn a warmer jacket, I think,” he said conversationally, and with a start, you realised he’d been talking to you.

Your first thought was why? Why was he speaking to you?

You were sitting by the door, yes, in the spot where you normally did, because the way the bookshelves were positioned by the table ensured that no draft would sweep over you, but just because you were closest to him… Was that why he had directed his remark to you, in polite resolve of the mistake he’d make in looking at you earlier? Or was he speaking to you because he wanted to speak to you?

No, of course not.

But he was still smiling at you, almost expectantly, as though he thought you would reply.

“Wrong day to wear a thin jacket,” you said, and your tonelessness could have been mistaken for hostility. You cursed yourself inwardly; it wasn’t hostility, it was nerves. Admittedly, the man was attractive, and as you already struggled with small talk in the company of people you knew, talking to this auburn-haired stranger turned your words more nonsensical than normal.

But he laughed again, lightly, easily. He had an easiness about him, a simplicity that boasted earnesty and depth, both wit and charm. “You’re right,” he said, simply. “But you look like the clever sort.”

You blinked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you said.

The memory of a smile remained on his face as he told the barista, “A latte for me,” glanced in your direction, then added, “and another hot chocolate for the lady, please.”

Your expression turned further puzzled, and the man said to you, “Mind if I sit down?”

He’d said it so kindly, as though he genuinely cared that you would not be bothered by him taking the seat across from you.

“No,” you managed, “sit down.”

He pulled out the chair and sat down, made as though to take off his coat, then changed his mind, instead wrapping it more tightly around himself.

“You’re reading Shakespeare,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“You’re reading Shakespeare,” he repeated, and you glanced down at your book.

You were reading Shakespeare, but as to why that was relevant, you couldn’t guess.

“And?”

He shrugged. “Call me simple-minded, but if you’re reading Shakespeare for fun, you have to be some kind of smart. You can’t read between the lines if you’re not smart, and most of Shakespeare is between the lines, not in them.”

Pulling your book closer to you, you challenged shyly, “How do you know I’m reading for fun?”

You noticed, as you leveled your gaze on him, that his eyes were a lovely brown, the kind of colour one might wish to sink into, merely to fathom a whisper of the warmth that lay within them. “You were smiling at the book when I came in.”

He’d noticed you even before you’d seen him.

How often did that happen?

The answer was never. You were one to shrink into the corner, preferring to deflect most attention, and careful observation was your greatest asset in this world of loud-talkers and scatter-brained thinkers. You imagined that nothing about you drew the eye.

But you’d drawn his.

A flush touched your cheeks. “That’s embarrassing,” you muttered. You were only half-joking.

That smile was back on his face again.

“I’m Joe,” he said, reaching out to shake your hand.

“Y/N,” you responded quietly, taking his hand. His skin was soft.

“Joe! Latte and a hot chocolate.”

Joe raised his eyebrows at you, then went to retrieve the drinks. Returning, he set down the hot chocolate in front of you.

“You really didn’t have to do that,” you said, avoiding his eyes.

“Oh, but I wanted to,” he winked. “Gotta make a good first impression.”

Your book was a refuge as you glanced down again, the reliable pattern of black lettering stamped into creamy paper offering you familiarity in this unfamiliar situation. You weren’t used to this… interest.

“And anyway,” he resumed, “what I meant to say was, that’s not embarrassing,” he jammed a finger in the direction of your book, “but the fact that I know how to recite the entirety of Macbeth backwards is.”

“Backwards?” you couldn’t help but laugh. “Why do you know how to recite the entirety of Macbeth backwards?”

Joe winced. “See, that’s the embarrassing bit.”

You raised your eyebrows, and with a heavy sigh, he continued.

“It was a bet. I was being stupid and thought it would be a good idea to bet my friend a hundred dollars that I could memorise any play within a week.”

“Okay, that does sound a bit embarrassing,” you conceded. “But still, why backwards?”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” he said, blowing over the surface of his latte, gingerly taking a sip. He recoiled when it was still too hot, wrinkling his nose in an adorably childish manner. “Backwards, because my friend decided to teach me a lesson for being an idiot, and one-upped me that I should learn it backwards. Before I knew it, there was an entire bar-full of strangers chanting for me to do it, on pain of death if I refused.”

You laughed, finally slipping your fingers from your book, closing it gently with the bookmark inside, your attention captured by how this man told stories in such a lively way, the lilt of his voice akin to how one would narrate a fairytale.

“Go on, then,” you said, trying your hot chocolate. It was perfect, as ever. Perhaps a little more so because it hadn’t come out of your weekly budget. And because it had been paid for by a handsome stranger, one who actually wanted to talk to you. “I want to hear some backwards Macbeth.”

Joe’s eyes twinkled. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I do,” you answered. But you didn’t, really. And he knew it.

He narrowed his eyes.

When you didn’t flinch beneath his gaze, he began, “Despair thy charm, and let the angel whom thou still hast served. Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” Here, he changed his voice to represent the change in speaker, and you smothered a laugh in your hands at how dramatic his facial expression had become. “Thou losest labor as easy mayst thou the intrenchant air with thy keen sword impress as make me bleed. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”

A few more lines, and he had you utterly in stitches; you did not bother to quiet your laughter. Of course, the lines now sounded completely meaningless, but Joe’s sense of humour was as ridiculous as your own, and in deriving pleasure from the ludicrousness of a Shakespeare work read backwards, Joe was more likable to you than ever.

“I believe you, I believe you!” you cried, and his composure crumpled, a grin spreading across his face.

“Thank god,” he said eventually, when the two of you could contain yourselves. “I thought I’d have to recite all of it before you gave in.”

You shook your head, still smiling.

“I would’ve done it, though,” he said, and you felt your chest tighten at the look of earnesty in his eyes.

“You should be an actor,” you told him, and he chuckled, the warmth of the sound warming you.

“I’m glad you think so. I am an actor.”

“Oh!”

“But I’m not pretending I want to be here with you,” he said.

Something like butterflies had fluttered beneath your skin.

He’d returned to Paracosm every day after that, and though he seemed happily surprised each time he encountered you, you weren’t so foolish as to believe that your meetings were actually a coincidence.

As the days went by, you grew more comfortable in Joe’s presence, until you were relaxed enough to begin an argument with him about which of the Brontë sisters was more forward-thinking in terms of women’s rights. Unlike most of the men you’d come across in your lifetime, Joe was perfectly comfortable debating such topics, even going so far as to slag off the more conservative male classical writers of the same time period. The two of you had then pored over the difference between Oscar Wilde’s poetry and his literature, examined the metaphors of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, trawled through the conspiracy theory regarding Shakespeare and whether or not he had really authored all of his own works. The latter conversation had become so heated that other cafe patrons had begun taking their own personal sides on the matter, loudly voicing their opinions until even Paracosm’s baristas had a thing or two to add to the discussion.

“How are you so well-read, anyway?” you’d asked Joe.

“My mom forced me through all of the classics before I was ten,” he’d said with a shrug. In his nonchalance, he became all the more alluring, the humbleness a complement to his personality.

Not many days into the routine of running into you at Paracosm, Joe had asked you to go out with him, properly.

You’d nodded, “Okay.”

“Okay?” he’d laughed, nervously. “You don’t have to go out with me if you don’t want to.”

“No,” you’d shaken your head, adamant that you get your point across. “I want to go out with you, Joe.”

His face had broken into a smile. “Okay,” he’d said, making you laugh, and his smile had broadened until it reached his lovely eyes.

The first time he’d kissed you had been on that first date.

He’d taken you to see a musical, one you’d struggled to pay attention to because Joe kept looking over at you to gauge your reaction to certain parts of the show, laughing with you, smiling when you smiled.

After the show, the two of you had wandered down the boulevard, and as it had been cold, you’d used this as your excuse to hover close enough by Joe’s side that your sleeves occasionally brushed as you walked with your arms by your sides.

You’d been content to walk like that, floundering for breath when his eyes caught on yours, your heart stumbling along its usually steady course. But then, in place of sleeves, his fingers had brushed your fingers, and suddenly you wanted more, to be closer to him in this blistering cold where his touch would surely warm you.

And he slipped his hand into yours.

You could hardly breathe.

“Look,” he said quietly, pointing up at the sky.

Confused, you frowned, but it wasn’t long before you realised his meaning: snow drifted down from above, snowflakes spinning through the air like dancers. It was beautiful, light snow, not the heavy kind, the kind there’d been on the day when Joe had first stumbled into Paracosm, the kind that would warrant a panic about losing one’s way home.

The snow was beautiful, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of Joe.

He stared up at the heavens, his eyes wide with childlike wonder, and for a moment, you lost yourself in watching him, drenched in your own memories of a simpler time.

Snow glittered in his hair, on the shoulders of his coat, on his eyelashes and on his collar. The word ‘angelic’ came to mind.

“I like snow,” he murmured.

You laughed softly. “I can see that.”

He lowered his eyes until they met yours.

You remembered that he was holding your hand.

“And I like you,” he said, a smile finding its way to his lips. His eyes were homely and familiar in his face, the face you’d looked into for so many days now, gazing at him and wondering at how it was really nothing more than a coincidence that the two of you had met. What a wonderful coincidence.

“I like you too, Joe,” you whispered, your hold tightening on his hand.

He lifted his other hand to your cheek, not quite touching you, but close enough to make your breath hitch.

His own gentle exhale tickled your skin.

Tentatively, he asked, “Is it okay if I kiss you?”

“More than okay,” you murmured, already gravitating toward him.

“Okay, because I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to be sure, and I—”

You cut him off, pressing your lips to his as he hummed a soft oh against your mouth and finally, finally pulled you into his arms.

You felt him wrap his coat around you, and you leaned further into him, relishing his warmth in the coldness of the night.

When he pulled back, he combed snow from your hair with the lightest of touches, laughter in his eyes.

“You know,” he said, “you must be more well-read than I am.”

You blinked at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, because that was classic, cutting me off.”

You rolled your eyes at the ridiculousness of his joke.

The snow fell more thickly now, but neither of you moved. You simply stood, you with your head nestled against Joe’s chest, Joe with his coat and his arms wrapped around you. His breath ruffled your hair.

“My well-read girl,” he whispered.

⭒

[darisu-chan]

whatever our souls are made of (his and mine are the same), pt. 6

Welcome to another one-shot.

Hope you guys like it!

You can also read it here.

i’ll catch you (if you fall)

Prompt: I see you fall to pieces like a hero

 Summary: Rukia knows he’s tired. She can see it in the way his eyes have lost all light. And she can’t stand there and see how he ever so slowly falls to pieces. She won’t allow it.

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” ─ Joseph Campbell

Something has changed.

 And Rukia is not sure she likes it.

 It all started a few weeks ago, when Ichigo had told her he didn’t want her to go to Karakura that weekend, as they had agreed. That he wanted to visit her in the Seireitei instead.

 At first, she had guessed he probably needed a distraction from college.

 Seeing his Shinigami friends and hanging out with them would probably help with that.

 Or maybe he wanted to train and go all out on their training grounds, instead of going to Urahara’s shop.

 Whatever the case, Rukia had accepted and the two had enjoyed a fun weekend.

 They had hung out with Renji and the other lieutenants, and had very nearly gotten alcohol poison from the drinks Rangiku-san kept serving them.

 They had also trained together, not unlike how they had done on the Soul King Palace, just this time around the fights had been lighthearted, since they had had nothing to worry about.

 No Hollows, or traitors or evil beings.

 Just them, training together.

 And it had been truly an enjoyable time.

 To be able to spend more time with Ichigo in her world.

 To be able to show him around her favorite places.

 To have him accompany her in her division.

 To have dinner with him and her brother, like they were a family.

 But as the weeks passed by, and Ichigo kept showing up in the Soul Society instead of letting her come to Karakura as usual, Rukia had felt in her guts that something was wrong.

 And now she’s quite sure that is the case.

 As it turns out, Ichigo doesn’t want her to go to Karakura.

 In fact, it even seems he is avoiding his hometown.

 Not only that, but now he’s evading his Shinigami friends as well.

 He no longer wants to go out with any of them, much less train.

 Ichigo doesn’t want to train with her either.

 He can spend hours in the outskirts of her division training, not making contact with anybody.

 It worries her.

 Something must be terribly wrong for Ichigo to act this way.

 She has never seen him like this before.

 And every day that passes, something chips away at him.

 He’s not the same Ichigo she knew, and Rukia has to wonder when exactly things went downhill.

 When exactly did he lose his spark?

 She resolves this needs to end now.

 Ichigo can’t go on this path, not when there’s still so much he needs to experience.

 So she decides that the next time she sees him, she’s going to have a serious talk with him.

 An intervention, Ishida had called it once.

 Once the weekend arrives, Rukia goes to meet him at the gate.

 Ichigo looks even more lost than he had before.

 Still, he manages to muster a smile for her.

 It’s painful.

 That he has to pretend to be happy when he’s clearly not.

 And as it’s been happening for weeks now, he immediately goes to the training grounds the moment they get to the 13th division.

 Unbeknownst to him, Rukia hides her reiatsu and follows him.

 There, she observes him.

 She analyzes every movement, every fluctuation of his reiatsu.

 Trying to decipher from his body language what is bothering him.

 Rukia knows he’s tired.

 She can see it in the way his eyes have lost all light.

 But there’s something more in there.

 A darkness, a persistent agony inside of him.

 Ichigo’s not right.

 Something is eating him away.

 And she can’t stand there and see how he ever so slowly falls to pieces.

 Rukia won’t allow it.

 So she decisively steps into the room and smacks his head with much less force than usual, but it is enough to make him notice her.

 “Oi, Rukia! What the hell?!” Ichigo complains as he rubs his head, but his eyes don’t return to normal.

 She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she sits down and commands him to follow her example.

 Annoyed, he obeys her, grumbling about her aggressive tendencies.

 “We need to talk.” She announces, and if she had a better grasp of human culture, she would know that those words are not exactly the best terms to use, as it is proven by Ichigo’s wide eyes.

 “Why? Did I do something wrong?” Alarmed, he immediately asks, looking like a child about to get scolded.

 Rukia shakes her head and softens her expression. “No, Ichigo. You didn’t do something wrong. I’m just worried about you.”

 That doesn’t help him at all.

 “There’s nothing to be worried about.” He deflects the implied question about his well-being, but she’s not buying it.

 “Really? Then why do you look like as if you had just lost a fight?”

 Indeed.

 That’s how Ichigo looks like.

 Like every time he had lost a fight to a dangerous enemy.

 Just a hundred times worse.

 Because the fight he lost seems to be with himself.

 Ichigo drops his head. “Is it that obvious?”

 His voice sounds jaded, so defeated.

 It is very unlike him.

 And it frightens her.

 Rukia gently takes his face in her hands and turns it towards her, wanting to find answers in his eyes. “Ichigo, what’s wrong?”

 “Do you… do you think I’m useless?” He questions her.

 It takes her aback.

 “No! Of course not!” She vehemently denies it. Then, something clicks. “Who told you that?”

  “No one told me that.”

 “Ichigo.”

 Her voice leaves no room for denial.

 He sighs before answering. “Inoue and Tatsuki said that you and I shouldn’t see each other as you don’t need me anymore.”

 “Oh Ichigo.”

 He turns away from her and Rukia’s heart breaks.

 She has some words for the meddling girls, but she saves them for another time.

 Right now the only one that matters is Ichigo.

 She hates it.

 How he’s falling apart right in front of her.

 So Rukia does the only thing she can do.

 She holds him tightly in her arms, and lets his head rest on her shoulder.

 It is not something she would usually do, but it is what has to be done.

 Ichigo holds her back and presses his face on the crook between her neck and shoulder.

 “I don’t think you’re useless. But I don’t go visit you just because you’re useful to me or anything of the sort. You wanna know why I go to Karakura or why I like it when you come here?”

 “Why?” He all but whispers.

 “Because I want to.” She replies. “I want to see you. I want to be around you. I want to know how you’ve been. I want to know about all the new things you’ve learned in your classes. I want to have fun with you. I want to train with you. I want to talk with you. I even want to bicker with you! I just… I want to be with you.”

 Rukia’s earnest as she says this.

 She has no reason to lie.

 After all, this is what she had decided.

 Ichigo pulls away and looks her in the eye. “You mean that?”

 “Of course I do! Would I ever lie to you?”

 He then brokenly laughs. “No, I know you wouldn’t. Which is why I need you to answer honestly. Do you think I’m a hero?”

 Rukia is dumbfounded by this.

 “Why are you asking me that?”

 “Because everyone thinks I am! They all treat me like a hero. Here, they hail me as one. They’re all expecting me to save them. To never fail. But I did, Rukia… I failed so badly.”

 “What are you talking about?” She exclaims as she rubs his back, trying to sooth him.

 “I didn’t defeat Yhwach. Not really. He can come back at any moment. And no one gets it! I’m not a hero! I’m just some kid with a complex who doesn’t want anyone to die, so I try, try, try to protect everyone, but when the world, hell, the universe needed me the most, I fucked up! And I can’t even be happy because I’d risk Yhwach appearing again and destroying everything! So, Rukia, tell me, do you think I’m a hero?”

 Suddenly Rukia’s livid.

 Enraged at all the people who had burdened Ichigo with their misplaced expectations.

 At all the ones who had seen him as just a tool.

 Someone to protect them and save them when they failed due to their own incompetence.

 And she can’t help but hate herself as well.

 Because hadn’t she given Ichigo power in the first place?

 Hadn’t she been the one to push him into this world where he felt like he needed to protect everyone?

 If she had been stronger that night, he would have never been down this path and feeling like he was unworthy.

 But Rukia also realizes that, sooner or later, Ichigo would have learned about his Shinigami ancestry.

 His powers might have awaken on their own.

 And he would have still fought to protect his loved ones.

 Because that is part of who he is.

 Even when he doesn’t see himself as a hero, Rukia knows he is one.

 Time and time again, he has put his very life on the line to do what is right.

 And even when he thinks it is out of his own selfishness, he has sacrificed too much for it to be just that.

 He risked everything for her, after all.

 And not only for her, but for the whole world.

 But Ichigo’s not only a hero.

 To her, he’s so much more.

 “Listen, Ichigo.” She calls him and when she’s sure she has his attention, she continues. “I do believe you are a hero, but,” she emphasizes before he can interrupt her, “you’re more than that.”

 How to describe him?

 “You’re kind and smart when you’re not acting like an idiot.”

 He chuckles at that.

 “You learn fast and you’re always the first in line to help others.

 You have your insecurities even when you pretend you don’t.

 You’re such an amazing older brother, and you really love your sisters.

 You’re a good friend. You never leave anyone behind.”

 As she lists all of these reasons, Ichigo cannot stop himself from smiling, so she continues with her honest rant about all of his qualities.

 She can’t stop now.

 “And even though you’re a pain in the ass, I cannot imagine my life without you.

 You’ve taught me so much about life, and I’ll never be able to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me.

 You’re so warm, and proud, and perseverant, and just so good.

 That’s why I─

 That’s why I came back.

 And that’s why I want to be by your side.

 So never let anyone tell you you’re useless or unworthy.

 Don’t let them pressure into anything either.

 And if they do, let me know and I’ll teach them a lesson.”

 At the end of her speech, Ichigo blinks a couple of times before smiling so tenderly at her that her heart can’t help but skip a beat.

 “Thank you, Rukia. Really, thank you. You always make me feel better.”

 “Che. Somebody needs to keep you in shape, but physically and emotionally.”

 “Then I’m so glad it’s you who’s in charge.” He replies as he traces her cheek with his fingers.

 Rukia has to cough then.

 “Anyway. I was watching you train earlier, and what a pitiful form that was! You need to train more!”

 “Yeah, yeah.”

 “In fact, let’s start right now!”

 “Whatever you say, fukutaichō.”

  “That’s Kuchiki-fukutaichō for you!”

[everly-kindred]

Eve’s Diary - Entry #53

Date: 12th of March, 2027

Dear Diary, 

I’m trying to write in you more frequently, like I said I would, so here we go! 

I wanna say first off that I did a big tarot reading like I said I would, since Ostara is coming, in precisely a week! But I’ll put my translation of the cards down at the bottom, after I write about everything else. 

I’ve been having a lot of dreams about frogs lately, and it reminded me of when my Gran took me to this rose garden. There were this big stone rings, like giant hag stones, and my Gran told me they’re called fairy stones and that hag stones can be held up to your eye, and if you look through the hole, you’ll see faeries. She’s a muggle, and that’s a legend that has existed for centuries, for them. 

I wonder if they really do see faeries… What happens if a muggle comes across a faerie? Like… our kind of faeries? I should ask the Care of Magical Creatures professor next chance I get.

Anyways, this garden was sort of a like… loop within a circle shape, with little bridges going over these ponds with fountains, and the whole thing was surrounded by a little stone wall, and filled with benches and rose bushes and little trees. It was a tiny park, but beautiful. And I remember there were so many frogs, and I spent ages trying to catch one, while my Gran relaxed on a bench and read her book. Sometimes she’d stop and laugh at me, though, especially when I almost slipped in the pond for probably the tenth time that day. It was a good day. 

Did you know that frogs lay eggs and the eggs float in clusters on top of the water? I wonder what would have happened if I scooped up some of the eggs and water and kept it in a jar… It was this weird, greenish yellow slime, with little black dots in each center. I think tadpoles are rather cute, actually. 

Well, my frog dreams reminded me of that. I still need to ask Gallo what it means. Maybe it’s just because it’s been getting warmer? The snow and ice has started melting, and it’s been looking like it might rain.

I’ve been doing watercolors and sketches, and I’ve thought about getting on my broom and flying high enough that I could sketch all of Hogwarts. I think that’d be a rather magnificent experience, don’t you? Terrifying, too. I’d want someone else there to catch me if I lose balance and fall. It’d likely be best done on an extra thick, sturdy broom. 

The other thing that’s been really pressing on my mind lately is the gold cauldron in the potions shop, in Hogsmeade. I can’t remember if I’ve already written about that in you, but I’ve been daydreaming about it for months! Well, I day dream about a lot of things - wand making, bread… well, baking it and other things, the stories I want to write, making cute music boxes… But the gold cauldron especially! I want to save up for it, which would be very rewarding… It would also be rewarding to win it in some sort of competition, though. 

Though, the fountain outside of the Great Hall was sort of… whispering to me in a weird way. Like, I was drawn to it. So I took my last galleon and I wished for the gold cauldron! I hope it was worth it… I was also kind of thinking about rabbits and fairies at the time too, though, so I hope I didn’t muddle it up.

Something odd and… kind of nice happened the other night, which motivated me. I was running from Peeves (he was trying to dump mud on me) when I ducked into the dueling room, and came across one of the girls in the dueling club there. Her name is Briony Boggs, and she’s a Gryffindor. We got to talking, and she told me how my wand needs me for guidance, and I have to lead it. That I need to be confident with it for my spells to go off, and if I think I’ll fail, I will. So I’ve been trying to change the way I think about things ever since. 

As far as what’s actually been happening in school, I’ve been going to my classes like normal. Though, of course, classes aren’t normal by usual standards. Something weird is always happening, but that’s just how it goes isn’t it? The ravenclaw boys were fainting in herbology… I think they don’t wear their earmuffs on purpose when handling mandrakes. I successfully cared for this plant called moly, though! I didn’t overwater them and I wasn’t too rough with them or anything! 

In Defense Against the Dark Arts, we talked about different subjects and how they might be used in defending oneself from dark wizards. My anxiety was too high during that class, though, I didn’t hear much of what was said and I don’t remember a whole lot of what I did process. Basically, as soon as I walked in, Vikander told me to stay after class. I thought it might’ve been because of my clothes, because we had a really odd notice from him to wear house pride stuff instead of uniform and… some people wore uniform and said it’s because they were told by him to be careful of sudden odd changes of behaviour… or something like that.

Anyways, it wasn’t about that, though. He wanted to ask me about my vision. So I went up to his office, and the Healer and one of the Phoenix girls were there, Nicole I think. And he took off his glove which seemed to be like… alive or something. And his hand was all burned but I did my best not to stare. Then he put his hand on my head and asked me to think about the memory of the vision very clearly, so I did. I guess he has some sort of… mind reading magic when he touches people’s heads? I dunno. I got hot chocolate out of it, though. So that was cool. I wonder what he thought of the vision… How he felt when he saw what I saw, especially the part with him in it. 

I went to dragonology, and we talked about how dragons are similar to seekers - specifically Viktor Krum. I was a bit distracted, though. Did I mention that Professor Eastwood’s eyes are orange? It’s the most… unique eye colour I’ve ever seen! And, I mean, Blightly’s eye is all red and scarred, and Dracheblume has purple eyes… Plus there are a few people with two different coloured eyes at the school, too. But his are orange and like… glowing. 

In Artificer club we made a thing called a PMRA which is this like phonograph with legs and it moves and dances around and plays music and can record stuff for you! We built them and then Bonnie cast the spells for me to enchant mine, and also Marigold and this Gryffindor boy named August’s. 

You can feed the PMRA sheet music or give it records to play. I went to the music room and grabbed some sheet music for Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters, and also some of the Beetles and Peter Paul and Mary… Oh, also the Mamas and the Papas. It’d be cool to build up a music collection for it! 

For now mine sits by my dorm bed, and I have it play music very quietly for me at night. Someone in the dorms is a bit of a snor-er and someone else talks in their sleep… I’ve been told I also talk in my sleep. Well, mutter more like. But occasionally I’ll be sleeping and then some girl a few beds away from me will start muttering strange things like… especially food related things. She must dream about lasagna an awful lot. 

There've been some glitter pranks around the school, too. If you step on a trigger on the ground, you get splashed with this powder paint, and it gets everywhere and passes so easily onto other people, so some students (lookin’ at you, Peach) will go around and purposefully try to spread it. I think it’s funny, even if it’s messy, but when have I ever been a stranger to messiness? Most of my clothing is covered in paint stains…

It’s funny timing, though, because the ministry is now in the school. They’re investigating the forest. Apparently, a bunch of students were caught there, and now there’s all these aurors and occasionally Minister Merriwether walking around. The scary thing, though, is that apparently they’re putting a barrier up around the school, and if you cross it, you’ll… disintegrate? I wonder if that’s painful… I imagine so. I hope the animals know to stay away from it. 

Anyways, that’s all I can think of to catch you up on, so that means it’s tarot reading time. I think I’ve done this spread before, perhaps last spring? It’s a six card spread and you make it in the The first card asks what I ‘need to decay’ or rather what I need to let go of. For this, I drew the Emperor. While he represents masculinity and a leader, he also represents a giver of sorts… So either there is a masculine presence in my life that I need to let go of, or I need to stop… providing for other people? I don’t know. This one didn’t make sense to me. I’ll have to think about it. I don’t think I’m particularly giving, and if I am, I don’t see how I’d be too giving… 

Second one asks what will ‘fertilize me’ which actually means what do I need to learn from. I drew the five of swords reversed. This card, in reverse, would mean something like the desire to be mean, maybe because of wounded pride. So perhaps I am to learn from a moment in which I wanted to be mean instead of kind? Maybe it means I need to learn from any desire I might have to act when I’m angry. I’m not sure. I’ll keep it in mind though and treat it like a warning for the future. 

For the third card, it asks what will ‘nourish me’ which is what I can look forward to. I drew the Chariot. The Chariot is a card of control and victory so… I’ll try not to jump to conclusions or assumptions about what that means and jinx myself. (butboydoIsurehopeit’stalkingaboutquidditch)

The fourth card asks how I ‘burst forth from the earth’ or rather what seeds I should plant for the future. For this, I drew the Magician. I’ve had this card before, and it seems like it shows up a lot in my readings. So as we know, this means power, concentration, dedicating myself. Focusing on strengthening my… smarts and wisdom and stuff. So the seeds I should plant are the seeds of learning, which makes a lot of sense since… I’m in school and all that. 

As for the fifth card, it asks how I ‘grow tall’ which means what skills I should be focusing on and improving. The deck gave me the ten of swords. This card is a card of deep suffering and sadness, so if I’m needing to focus on a skill and building on it, perhaps it should be the skill of… healthily expressing sadness? I guess I do bottle stuff up sometimes.

And finally the sixth card asks how I will ‘blossom’ or rather where I need balance, and for this, I drew the nine of wands reversed. This card is a card of encouragement, confidence, and facing down fear, so maybe it’s telling me that I need to balance out my anxieties and my defeated attitude with bravery and courage. So that I am realistic and honest with myself, but also willing to take a risk and push myself to my full… potential?

Anyways that’s my reading. It felt good to get back into it and do a big one for once. I’ve just been pulling one card or doing three card readings everyday or every other day. My back hurts from sitting over my diary and writing, so I think I’m gonna lay down and go to bed.

Much love, Everly

[ Eve’s Wiki Page ]

[ Flickr ]

[crypterion-moon]

Red Prince Eternal /2

A/N: Continuation of part 1

Warnings as before

Summary: They’ve done it. Tim has completely rejected them and now, there’s no crying over spilled milk. He sits patiently, watching time pass by, but fate won’t ignore him forever and a new presence will disturb them all.

Damian was standing outside in the dark. Tim knew, hard to ignore that intense staring the magically passed through walls, or maybe Tim was just that perceptive. He was tired, a whole night of hacking, as fun as it was will do that to him, but he opened his window anyway.

“What is it Damian, it’s late.”

His eyes changed, the expectant look in them shifted to one of shame with the apology left unsaid but clear in his bright green eyes. Tim would be touched if his cold heart could feel anything now, and Damian knew that. He blamed himself and his family for their neglect, their misjudgment.

“Nothing, I just cam by to make sure you weren’t up to no good,” he said muttering. Tim smiled, aww, the little demon was concerned for him, stubborn brat is stubborn even in the face of his mistakes. Protective in his own way, but he was the only one who know he made them so Tim will spare him the sharpened tongue.

“Get going or Bruce will start getting suspicious.”

“He won’t know where I am,” Damian protested.

Tim scoffed, “Only because I hid your tracks, move along.”

Damian turned to leave, just shy of the edge of the circle of light coming from the street lamp, just then stopping and looking back at Tim.

“You’ll come to the manor soon, won’t you,” he asked, suddenly all innocent and childlike even with the uniform and mask that it took Tim by surprise. He had to pause and recover for a moment.

“Maybe, maybe I will.”

It was his way of saying he won’t ever. Not even for Alfred.

The suggestion was there, but Tim didn't want to see any of them, Batman, nor Nightwing or whatever Jason. He’d been thankful that Dick and Jason had stopped coming to his house, he was beginning to tire of hearing them say empty words to him, especially Jason who tried to bypass the door.

Oh yes, they’d made it very clear they wanted nothing to do with the ‘wannabe’, they had more important work to do than to even entertain the notion of a budding hero. What? He wants to help, he can start by staying out of the way. How very nice Jason, too bad you can’t take those words back.

Sorry Tim, but you’re not cut out for this. Why? Because he wasn’t strong enough? Smart enough? Tortured enough? What Dick, what is it that makes me worthless?

Get out of the way Drake, you’re enough trouble as it is without having to look after another imbecile, I’m more suited to the role than you ever could be. Because of what? Your heritage? It’s all about that isn’t it?

The nightmares, or dreams, or reminders as Tim liked to call them, were incessant. But they did the job. His world different now, one he built for himself, he was a hero no more and he preferred it that way. Damian, the dear brat, had somehow grown attached to Tim suddenly had the bright idea to ask him personally to join them, suddenly springing the question on him. Politely, Tim refused.

There’s no reason for them to change their mind, Tim certainly won’t.

So he continued his work. Alone in the big Drake residence, wrapped in comfortable silence and coffee, secrets of all kinds are valuable when you pry them from unsuspecting people. Blackmail, deadly and everyone wants in on it. He can do that. For a price. An unsightly life but it was the reason he’d built for himself, the will to live without relying on anyone, especially not on heroes. If he wasn’t going to be a hero, then why not take advantage of the unsightly demand out there and make a bit on the side. A bit meaning a lot more than his parents could hope to make in a week.  From the vengeful victim to the highest ranking criminal bully to a mob leader, he’ll cater as long as they don’t ask questions.

One warning, pry too far into his life and he’ll pry back and spill your guts. Pay or you get nothing. Go too far and you can kiss your comfy life goodbye. Tim has eyes everywhere where his little makeshift hero persona had none. No that goody-two-shoes hacker title belonged to oracle now.

He’d chosen to be ruthless, neutral and perhaps that little boy he once was would’ve been appalled at him now but Tim didn’t care anymore. Not when Bruce, Dick and Jason viewed him as nothing but trouble and no amount of guidance or effort would convince them otherwise. They pissed all over Tim’s whole hearted work, his admiration, his love and desire to do good. It left him vulnerable and he nearly did die once. Good old Joker though, he had to thank the bastard. That was a nice wake up call, for Tim and rather late, for them as well.

Ah, Damian. He beat Tim up once when the crazy kid found him once, believed he was a bad egg before he did his homework. It hurt, almost just as much as their distrust and rejection. But having him show up now with nicer things to say was, flattering. Tim’s not sure when Damian realized he might’ve been wrong.

They can knock as many times as their hands can bear it but that stays strictly closed. It’s more important to love and protect oneself than waste that on another. He won’t throw his one life to the wolves, endanger himself for others no more. And heroes always foolishly throw themselves into fire, so Tim will have nothing to do with them. He can apologize to the poor souls caught in Gotham’s life when he burns in hell.

He met a Super, Superboy to be exact. To be frank he already knew a whole lot about the half-kryptonian. Kind of difficult not to when this hybrid was tied with two major figures, names like Lex Luthor and Superman attract a lot of attention and with Tim having ears and eyes on the net, it wasn't hard to dig out info. Connor 'Kon el' Kent was a very funny kind of guy, well as funny as it can get when whizzing poor frightened Tim a few hundred feet up in the air where he'd never been so high up before.

He didn't expect to end up being saved by the budding teen hero, then again, he didn't expect to be caught in some strange hostage situation by some amateur criminals who'd realized they hadn't thought their heist too well through. He had his drones ready to cause chaos on the idiots before Superboy came crashing in and causing said chaos. He did the job though. Not before they'd dragged Tim, because rich men's kids are always prime targets and one of the not so dumb criminals had done his homework. The whole thing came down to them getting pummeled by Superboy and his friends faster than they could say 'I have a gun'. Out of desperation and panic but mostly panic, the guy holding Tim had him thrown right off the building. Which wasn't fair really, he hadn't built drones big enough to help with falling situations. He'd shut his eyes when he felt himself fall into something solid but warm and somewhat soft and comforting.

Yup, it was Superboy himself. Of course just to show off, he zoomed off higher into the sky with Tim with a stupid grin on his face. They flew around for a while mostly for the young hero's amusement before he finally set Tim down. Tim hadn't imagined how talkative the teen was.

Too many jokes, too awkwardly charming in his own way. Stupid muscle-head, Tim thought, stupid stupid Tim for getting all flustered in his arms.

He was willing to forget it except, Kon was not.

“So, uh, that was fun,” Kon said, Tim threw him a look, trying to control his mess of hair.

“I'm glad you enjoyed that, somehow,” he said sarcastically, “I'm pretty sure this happens everyday.”

“Flying all the time gets old after a while, but you kinda made it funny, guess you've never gone flying before?”

Tim shot him a toothy smile, “No one in their sane mind has ever gone flying.”

Kon laughed. It made Tim a bit embarrassed and quite annoyed, but the hero didn't seem to mean any sort of ill, his laughter was genuinely warm and full of enjoyment.

“Man, you're funny, smart kind of funny.”

“It's called wit.”

Kon grinned back at him when his friends, Wondergirl, Impulse and the rest of their team appeared. Wondergirl called to him, rather annoyed and dying to go back to their headquarters while Superboy held them back.

“Hey, what's your name?” he suddenly asked. Tim raised an eyebrow at the question. Why would a hero ask some civilian for their name he'd never see again.

“Tim. Drake.”

“Oh cool. So that big house on the hill-”

“Mansion.”

“-Uh yeah, that's yours right, cool, mind if I stop by sometime?”

At this, Tim was very surprised and confused. His mind screaming at him, no no no, definitely not while some other part of him said, that's great, this is good. In his internal conflict, he somehow managed to say 'oh, okay'. Much too his logical brain's dismay.

“Awesome, I'll see you soon.”

And with that, Kon was gone, up in the air and off with his team. As Tim contemplated his situation, he imagined somewhere in his mind, that a part of him would have loved to be part of that, to be one of the heroes and fighting alongside them as a team. He'd have made a name for himself, helping in exciting missions doing things he'd always dreamed of and making friends with the people he'd once looked up to. But that was all in the past now, he'd given it up for his life now. Soon, he was sure, Superboy would tire of his boring nature.

He came, time and time again, hanging out like a pair of normal kids, sometimes, he'd bring the others along. Cassie, Tim had observed, held deep feelings for her reckless team mate. He avoided talking too much about him with her, but otherwise they were actually a great bunch. Impulse, Bart, was restless, a side-effect of his abilities, same as the flash. Raven was reserved but caring. Beast boy, secretly crushing on Raven, was just as, if not more so than Kon, full of jokes. They each and all had their wonderful sides. Tim felt so awful in their presence, no doubt, oblivious to what he did in the shadows.

They were seeing too much of him. He was negative, brooding and sarcastic but that never seemed to deter them. Especially Raven, seemed to see right through him, while the rest must have been immune to negativity because he continued to have strange guests over. Not that his parents would care, they were gone so long and so often.

Birthdays, holidays and Christmas' were no longer a one man ting for him, disturbingly, he couldn't bring himself to dislike it. Soon, like an idiot, he revealed his skills, helped them in secret with their battles, before the cat got out of the bag. The Titans came to rely on his 'MAD WIZ SKILLZ' as Beast boy put it, and soon, it was like he was part of their little team. He tried to push them away, but they persisted, for some reason drawn to him as he found himself drawn to them. Like a moth to a flame, especially to Kon. The half-kryptonian held some strange admiration for Tim and it was began to show as the worked together more and more. The light touches and strong embraces were starting to affect Tim the more time they spent together. This couldn't be happening. Tim realized to his horror, the relationship was deepening beyond his control. No mister, no thank you, this hero business is supposed to be temporary. Tim was drinking double the amount of coffee, more than what is considered healthy or sane with the stress his predicament was causing.

“Hey, where are your parents? I never see them around,” Kon asked one dreaded day. Tim considered the answer for a while before giving it.

“They don’t come home often. Mom and Dad are both busy, you know, with their jobs. Archaeology, there’s a lot of travelling involved.”

“That’s pretty bad, I mean, what about Christmas or your birthdays? Not even for them?”

Tim shook his head, “Not even for them.”

He should be bitter, if it was somebody else, some other child and their mom or dad forgot, they’d be throwing tantrums. But it’s always been this way, so many times even Tim’s forgotten. If it weren’t for some nagging reminders from the various maids and housekeepers they hired, he’d have forgotten about Christmas, Halloween and so on. Sometimes, even they didn’t remind him, so he went on, living each and every day the same way. Routine. He could live with that, it’s what he’s used to.

Uncharacteristically, Kon gave him the look of a dog put out, and when Tim asked, he only responded by throwing his arms around Tim and giving him the tightest hug anyone had given him for a long time.

“It’s okay, I’ll make sure we celebrate them all with you.”

‘We’ being Kon and the Titans, as it turned out from then onwards. Tim didn’t mind.

Most of the time, he didn’t care, didn’t react. A smile is natural, and can mean a million different things, it’s okay, everything is fine, I don’t really mind, whatever, politely go away, I guess this is nice. But those were his good days. On his bad days, Tim locked himself in. Tried to smother himself in his bedsheets. Curse them as well, they were as close to a hug as he’d get alone. Some twisted part of him wanted a knife, a bullet in his chest. Pain anywhere but inside of him, clawing its way out. He wanted out. Sometimes even the unsightly work he did, couldn’t chase the feeling of neglect away and those days, he’d remember the exact moment ha gave up. Yes, heroes are for idealists, and a kid, a weak one like him would never fit in.

Those bad days, sometimes Kon would find him, curled up trying to hack his lungs out. Sometimes sobbing, sometimes screaming. What a broken thing. No good.

But he’d feel the warm touch, the soothing strength gently lifting him and holding him until he stopped shaking. He was so cold compared to Kon. What did the young hero ever see in him? He could only see his broken, jagged edges, designed to cut himself and others. Still, Kon never left and the warmth as well as the odd feeling that progressed beyond fondness spread through him, stepping into dangerous territory.

Something happened, and it was all wrong. Quite frankly, it was putting everyone on edge. Damian did well to locate the drop point the thugs were supposed to be waiting. A whole cargo of arms and heavy weapons for Black Mask. Batman wasn’t surprised, Jason, Red Hood now, had dealings with the criminal spearhead, and they were many. But something was wrong, there were no men, no orders being yelled in fact, it was far too quiet for an operation like this.

The shipment should be in the warehouse.

Batman pressed the device close to his ear, absolutely no communication was coming from inside. If the leader was on the phone, it would have been picked up on the frequency catcher. Could the gang have picked up on their presence? If so, there would definitely be more shouting but it was silent.

“Nightwing, Robin, take the back, Hood, make sure no one is leaving the perimeter, no bullets, you hear?”

There was a groan on the comms before Jason answered, “Sure, Bats, whatever you say.”

“I’m going in.”

“Be careful in there, I have a bad feeling about this,” came Dick’s voice, uncertain and betraying the note of fear.

Bruce didn’t answer as he slinked inside through the roof. Not a single light, not a single sound. But  as he sneaked further down, closer to the floor, the smell hits him, and hits him hard. Blood, the pungent and overwhelming stench of blood and piss. He hesitates as his hand hovers over the flashlight before turning it on. What greets him is a scene that is familiar on the worst of nights, the stuff of nightmares, enough to make a man lose his lunch if Bruce didn’t discipline himself. It’s not only bloody, it’s a gory mess. The men, or what’s left of them in torn bits and legs, tossed about like broken toys.

“Dear god,” he whispered.

“Batman? What’s going on?” Nightwing called through the comms.

A blade sharp and resilient enough to slice through bone like butter as evidenced by one poor man’s head, halved like a gourd. Batman moved forward, guts squelching beneath his boots.

Eyes, hearts, tongues, gouged out, cut and torn, some were thrown against the walls, the crates were splattered with innards while, as Bruce investigated, some were clearly missing. The cargo untouched was left in the vehicles, the doors still ajar. They must have been busy unloading when this all went downhill.

Bruce’s eyes traced the floor. Not enough footprints, there should be many footprints in the blood, it couldn’t be done by just one person. No, not unless they were up against a new monster.

“They’re all dead, everybody stay alert out there.”

Batman looked up at the lights. All of them were busted, smashed, whoever or whatever this...thing was, they operated in darkness. Mask’s men don’t. But for a brief moment they must have seen the attacker, the flashlight that rolled at his feet now busted and shattered as well was evidence. He looked back down and met the gaze of a man in mid scream. One among many screaming faces right before they died, this wasn’t about seeing their enemy, something scared them witless before it ripped them apart.

If it was anybody else, they wouldn’t have noticed the three pairs of feet hitting the floor, silent as can be, the boys had trained well but not enough to escape Bruce’s notice.

“Oh my GOD!” Nightwing exclaimed the moment he turned his flashlight on.

“I...haven’t seen this kinda mess since the last slasher movie,” Jason said, his voice managing to not give way to his shock.

Robin on the other hand, had just lost his dinner. He’s used a sword on a living person before but it was all clean cuts and honourable deaths for him, not this horrific mess. Bruce regarded the boy with worry. Maybe he shouldn’t have let him come into the warehouse, and now he’s essentially contaminated a part of the crime scene. He’ll have to take care of that later. Nightwing busily patted and rubbed Damian’s back while the boy was recovering, while Hood and Batman began to search around for clues. Video footage if any was needed, with all the gore littering the floor and the shipment having been left alone, there was little to gleam from the scene.

“Looks like whoever did this wasn’t interested in guns,” Hood said casually.

They tried looking for any hidden cameras on the bodies though, nothing. There was a phone still in one man’s hand, slumped by a heavy crate. It looked like he was in the middle of trying to call someone. There was one other thing that might give away what happened in the warehouse. Bruce crossed his metaphorical fingers. He went straight for the operations room, the office where one would keep an eye on all the comings and goings in the office. There was paper and files left carelessly on the shelves and the screens lining the desks were off. He played the footage that was there but after the ten mark, the device was turned off abruptly. He grunted in disappointment, he knew there was a chance the cameras were deactivated to prevent their movements from being recorded, but he’d hoped they weren’t smart enough. As of now, they had a bigger mystery on their hands than Black Mask’s secret smuggling operations and more than likely, once Mask hears about this, he’s going to be pissed. Nothing else here, anything more and the police won’t be happy with the amount of tampering going on. Batman regrouped with the others, outside the warehouse. The street lamp, the only one that wasn’t shot served to highlight all four vigilantes. Nightwing was nervous and so was Robin, Hood’s face was hidden underneath the helmet but his body was tense. For once, the night was not kind, the silence was deafening and oppressive, it reminded him that there were other things, other kinds of fear waiting underneath her.

“Wait, what’s that?” Robin said, pointing into the distance.

All eyes turned to look and for a moment, they could see nothing but the water, the moon reflecting over it. Then movement just at the surface drew their attention, a small shape broke through the surface. Barely visible in the darkness, it stayed floating, almost motionless. Then rose higher, a face still indistinguishable but indeed a face, blue eyes shining brightly and it was staring right at them. Something about those eyes was familiar and yet alien to them and, as Nightwing and Hood began to tremble, it unsettled them all. The moon seemed to shift as the light fell on it gradually. Midnight black hair, blue eyes and a straight nose, young and mature, a young man with knowing blue eyes that once held a child’s admiring light. He dove under the water just as Bruce felt himself reach out for the phantom. Vanishing beneath the ripples. Only now noticing the blood trailing on the ground.

[radredrecluse]

Survival of the Richest

The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind

Douglas Rushkoff

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy — the same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of this speculation to begin with.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. Digital futures became understood more like stock futures or cotton futures — something to predict and make bets on. So nearly every speech, article, study, documentary, or white paper was seen as relevant only insofar as it pointed to a ticker symbol. The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively.

This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities. Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an anti-technology curmudgeon.

So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists, and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs? Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies? Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?

Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries associated with unbridled technological development in the name of corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the demise of local retail.

But the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)

Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.

The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral. Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be “solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or genetic upgrade.

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Our movies and television shows play out these fantasies for us. Zombie shows depict a post-apocalypse where people are no better than the undead — and seem to know it. Worse, these shows invite viewers to imagine the future as a zero-sum battle between the remaining humans, where one group’s survival is dependent on another one’s demise. Even Westworld — based on a science-fiction novel where robots run amok — ended its second season with the ultimate reveal: Human beings are simpler and more predictable than the artificial intelligences we create. The robots learn that each of us can be reduced to just a few lines of code, and that we’re incapable of making any willful choices. Heck, even the robots in that show want to escape the confines of their bodies and spend their rest of their lives in a computer simulation.

The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.

Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite.

When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

[theclaravoyant]

High school AU: popular Bobbi has a crush on adorkable Jemma. Only problem is that Jemma hasn't realized she's gay yet.

AN ~ This was so much fun! I hope you like it.

Rated T for some sexual references, but it’s mostly fluff & mutual (& eventually resolved) pining <3

Currently accepting Pride prompts! here’s my askbox.

Read on AO3 (~3500wd)

Suddenly I See

“Shh – it’s Jemma’s turn.”

At Stanley High, the word of Bobbi Morse was law, so the students around her hushed. Bobbi leaned forward a little in her seat as Jemma Simmons, in jeans and an unassuming pale-pink t-shirt, stood and stepped up to perform. She laid a copy of the play from which she was reciting at the front of the stage, but of course, she didn’t need to double-check it. Katherine’s monologue from The Taming of the Shrew spilled from her lips in a lilting chant, word-perfect and faithfully emphatic. When she ended it on her knees with her hands raised up to an imaginary Petruchio, a murmur went around the room and the class halfheartedly applauded, as they had done for everyone else.

Well, most of the class applauded. Bobbi didn’t even clap once, though one hand absently drifted in an attempt to do so. The other one was too busy digging into the material of the seat, reminding her to be cool.

Lincoln elbowed Bobbi.

“Shut up, Campbell,” she muttered.

“Mr Campbell,” called the teacher in a crisp tone. “Perhaps you have something you’d like to share with the class?”

Raising his eyebrows at Bobbi mockingly, Lincoln obediently got out of his seat and jogged down the stairs, turning to bow up at her just as mockingly, before nodding a noncommittal apology toward the teacher and taking to the stage for his rendition of Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet. His monologue was a bit more bumbling than Jemma’s, in terms of word-perfection, but it was delivered emotively nonetheless, and Lincoln was her friend, so Bobbi applauded properly at the end of it - even if her eyes did keep drifting down to Jemma all the while.

While Bobbi was thus distracted, the gangly form of Antoine Triplett climbed over the row of seats that had separated them, and dropped down into Lincoln’s now-empty place.

“Hey now, what’s that face?” he wondered, prodding Bobbi with a finger.

“I’m going to do it,” Bobbi swore, her eyes fixed on Jemma. The bell rang – she was running out of time – she twisted in her seat. “I’m going to tell her how good she was.”

“Was she good though,” Trip mused, “or just English?”

“I don’t know,” Bobbi retorted. “Was your Othello good, or just Black?”

“Damn, jumping out of the gate fast with that one!” Trip exclaimed. “I’m just looking out for my girl! What’s the first rule, Bobbi? Your first rule? Never fall for the straight ones.”

“She’s not –“

Bobbi cut herself off. Her heart sunk. It was all well and good to imagine, but Jemma wasn’t out and in fact, as far as Bobbi could tell, hadn’t even thought to question the idea that she could be anything other than straight. In terms of her actual sexuality, that didn’t mean much, but in terms of Bobbi’s dating prospects, it meant a lot. It was an elephant in the room that would be incredibly poor form for her to point out. She’d helped many a fledgling gain their little gay wings, but the beginning of the journey was a path Jemma’s own feet would have to find.

Bobbi told herself this whenever she was overcome with the desire to grab Jemma and make out with her against a locker.

It was becoming less and less effective.

In fact, Bobbi was even starting to weave a story in her own head of a queer Jemma, based on their interactions, and the things that Bobbi had seen and imagined; nebulous possibilities fuelled by subtext. She was, more and more, getting her hopes up, and her first rule was collapsing under the weight of a crush with such potential that she had not even realised how far she had taken it until now. Until this moment. Until she watched Jemma, laughing and content with Fitz and Daisy down the front of class, utterly unburdened by this crush, or by the tumultuous self-inspection that came with questioning oneself intimately. She was happy, and Bobbi was happy, but also frustrated, because she couldn’t tell Trip that she hadn’t broken her first rule after all.

(Well. She couldn’t tell him yet.)

-

They hurried to next period in their own groups, and sat apart, like they always had, until the teacher rearranged them.

“Jemma Simmons – Bobbi Morse.”

Jemma squirmed with glee, and packed to change desks so hurriedly she almost dropped everything before she pulled her head in. Of course, in that moment, even she was not sure why she was so excited to be partnered with Bobbi. It was not as if they had not worked together before. It was not as if there were not half a dozen people of comparable ability in their class (though, she would argue, none on the same par of neatness or commitment as the two of them were). It was not as though Bobbi would consider it a memorable experience, either; in fact, Jemma found herself rather nervous that it would go badly. For all her intelligence and general likeability, she had a penchant for being blunt and, when she tried to steer away from that, “off-putting” or “suffocating.” It was a balance she had always struggled with but one that, for some reason, seemed especially important today. She must refrain from putting her foot in her mouth for the course of this two-week assignment. She could manage that, right? Yes. She and Bobbi would be friends, if it killed her.

(Friends. Later, she’d laugh about that.)

Friends could admire the way Bobbi seemed to look like a professional in the school-issue lab coats, right? It was purely aspirational. The rest of their class tended to look like bumbling children in oversized, overly generic white jackets. Bobbi looked like a proper Doctor, and one that Jemma would trust with her life. In a totally platonic, professional-admiration-based kind of way.

Friends could admire Bobbi’s handwriting too, of course, and smile at the little loops it made, right? Jemma wondered: how did she have time to write like that? Had it been bred into her? Genetically engineered? It wasn’t as if Jemma had the most chicken-scratchiest penmanship, of course, but when Bobbi wrote, she oozed perfection and Jemma couldn’t entirely quantify what it was. It just felt like anyone who could write both that level of content quality, and aesthetic quality, was worth mooning over.

Friends could admire the way Bobbi’s eyes looked, too. Couldn’t they? Of course they could. It was a matter of objectivity. Not only were they bright and intelligent, but they were an unusual and pleasant shade of blue: it was only natural to find them attractive. Bobbi’s face was made of bold shapes, with a strong jaw-line and cheekbones, and her eyes stood out. Her face was aesthetically pleasing. That was just a fact.

Right?

Not for the first time, Jemma’s eyes trailed down to the rainbow Pride flag pin that Bobbi kept on her pencil case. She herself had always admired Bobbi’s – well, her pride, Jemma supposed. Her out-ness, her confidence with it, and the way the school seemed not to mind about it all that much. No doubt she’d faced her fair share of demons, probably, but Bobbi was one of the popular girls here – even amongst guys, which Jemma found fascinating… had found fascinating… now was starting to find fascinating in a whole new light. Bobbi, everything Bobbi, had seemed unattainable just a few days before, but unattainable in a conceptual, personality-trait kind of way. Like the kind of person who had her life way too together to be real. But now, once it had entered her mind, another thought lodged in Jemma’s brain that maybe, her fascination had been related to the fact that Bobbi had been unattainable in other ways, too. Surrounded by her clique, and so high-achieving and beloved and athletic at the same time, and a social butterfly on top of that – Bobbi was enviable in her own right. But smart, fit, charming? Were those not all desirable traits too?

Jemma shook her head and twirled her pencil between her fingers, trying to draw herself back to the task at hand with a few rapid-fire conclusions. She had dated boys. Quite liked a few of them, and quite liked their advances too. She had never dated girls, or looked at one sexually really, except for objectively, but everyone did that, probably. She had a few female celebrity crushes, but didn’t everybody? So she wasn’t gay. Ipso facto, she didn’t have a crush on Bobbi and never had and never would and all that unattainability rubbish was just her getting up in her own head again. Damn psychology.

(Fortunately for her, Jemma would later recount, it is not that easy to kill an idea.)

-

Jemma shoved her eyes back to the board somewhat forcefully and Bobbi lowered her own, twirling a pencil absently as she stared. She sighed. She had been hoping, always hoping, and though somewhat prepared to be let down, it still hurt a little each time it happened. Each time Jemma looked, and then looked away; each time it seemed like there was a question, or even just a breath, on the tip of her tongue, and she did not let it fall. Bobbi was frustratingly sure now, that she was not imagining things, but Jemma seemed just as frustratingly sure to keep said things to herself. Sometimes, Bobbi daydreamed up a collection of haphazard, farcical scenarios designed to trigger in Jemma a rom-com-like revelation, but the thought of forcing it – whether she was imagining things or not – made Bobbi feel predatory and wrong. There was nothing to do but wait it out and see how things developed. Her crush was her own problem, not Jemma’s. And besides, Jemma clearly had enough of her own stuff to sort out.

Even if she was taking so long about it, and dancing so painstaking close to the truth, that Bobbi wanted to snap a pencil.

It wasn’t all frustrations though. Bobbi did allow herself some pleasantries in her own head, and complex bundle of attractions aside, Jemma was great to hang out with. She was smart, in lots of ways and on lots of topics, and she was energetic and kind for the most part, and she loved to talk. She was honest, about the good and the bad, and sometimes she was blunt to the point of rudeness to which Bobbi, though she’d struggle to admit it, could relate. Bobbi loved her, in ways that could not clearly be divided into friendship and romance. She loved the way Jemma’s eyes lit up when she got excited, because it was beautiful, but also because it meant she was happy. She loved the way Jemma tucked her hair behind her ears, both at the same time, whenever she was nervous or needed to concentrate. It just felt very her. Bobbi loved the care and enthusiasm with which Jemma distributed cupcakes to Bobbi’s group one lunchtime. Half of them were made with applesauce instead of butter, Jemma told her. Fitz had bet her they wouldn’t taste as good, so she wanted a blind test. Scientifically rigorous; fluffy and adorable. The eternal dichotomy of Jemma Simmons.

(The cupcake test was definitely not, Jemma maintained, an excuse to spend more of the day with Bobbi. And she definitely did not, she insisted, spend the rest of the day thinking about the way Bobbi had licked the soft pink icing off her lips, or how much Jemma wished those lips had been her own.)

Bobbi, of course, swiftly resigned herself to daydreaming alone about that icing and how good it would taste on Jemma’s lips. She dreamed about how Jemma’s pupils had dilated at the sight of it, and how much more it would’ve taken – not much more - to make her weak at the knees. She dreamed about spending a lazy morning baking with Jemma, dancing around in their pyjamas and making a mess of a fantasy kitchen she must have pulled from a movie or advertisement she’d since forgotten. Sometimes they had a dog, for some reason. She didn’t question it. It was only a daydream, after all. A stockpile of fuel for her unquenchable crush - not that she was trying that hard to quench it: if she only had two weeks, she was going to make it count.

But as those two weeks came to an end, Bobbi gathered her dreams and fantasies to one side, and committed herself to enjoying their last few days together for the fun and challenging assignment and vibrant friendship that it was. When the night of the science fair came at last, and it was time to present their project, it all flew by, flawless and fast. Too fast. Afterward, when the gravel crunched under her tyres as she pulled into Jemma’s drive to drop her home, Bobbi held her breath.

“Well… thanks for the lift,” Jemma said.

Her voice sounded a little shaky and wistful, but maybe that was just an effect of the silence, and Bobbi’s own mind. Or maybe she could feel it too – that slight ache that was now making a home in Bobbi’s chest. An ache full of the knowledge that they could have had so much more and that they were about to watch it slip away. Tomorrow, they’d return to their normal seats in biology. They’d return to their regular groups at lunch, and to sitting on opposite sides of the theatre in drama, and to their pre-This patterns of after school lives and extra curriculars. They’d return to how it was, which had been fine, but hadn’t been all it could be.

Still, Bobbi smiled.

“No problem,” she said, but the words left her lips just as Jemma took in a rush of air and blurted:

“How did you know?”

-

Jemma startled herself when the question came out, but her fingers refused to reach for the door handle and her body seemed determined to hold her here until she’d got some kind of response. First, Bobbi took a moment of silence to turn the car’s engine off (and to lock away her crush; it was not the time or the place for it). Then she looked back at Jemma with more longing than she meant to, and with a smile.

“Know about what?” she asked, because know about me, or know about you? felt like it would send Jemma running.

“Know about –“ Jemma stumbled through it. “You know, that you liked girls. How did you know? And, when? Why? What does it feel like?”

Not the questions of somebody curious, or looking for a thread to pull. No. These were questions Bobbi herself had asked, on more than one occasion, and they made her smile deepen.

“It feels amazing, first of all,” she said. “Although, there’s a lot of doubt involved too. I’m working on it, but sometimes it feels like there’s something to prove.”

Jemma felt her heart swell and shrink again, in a moment. Bobbi had answered a question she hadn’t thought to ask, and Jemma knew in that moment that Bobbi had seen through her. Strangely enough, though, it didn’t make her want to run. Rather, she felt like reaching down into herself and pulling out more of herself, of her soul, to show Bobbi. She listened instead.

“I guess I’d say I knew,” Bobbi continued, “a long time ago. Well, not that long. Middle school. My first kiss was a girl, even though my prom date was a guy. He dumped me the day before the dance, and my friend found me alone outside ‘coz I’d still gone for some reason, and we ended up kissing. Just a little peck on the lips, really, but it was a kiss. I was twelve. It opened up a door for me, I guess, and I went exploring through it, and here I am. But not everybody knows that young. And not everybody knows with a kiss. Sometimes it’s a lot more conceptual and harder to figure out. It’s like, you think you want that girl’s dress, you know, but then actually it’s more like… you want that girl’s dress on your bedroom floor.”

She laughed, and Jemma found herself laughing too. She’d been expecting this conversation to be a lot heavier, and while it certainly felt significant, with every piece of advice Bobbi offered, her heart felt lighter and lighter. Bobbi didn’t ask her to share her own feelings and talk through them – for which Jemma was grateful, although she did offer the occasional tidbit – but they talked for a long time about the nature of different forms of attraction and the complexity of figuring it all out. It seemed simple and complex both at once, Jemma thought to herself, and as Bobbi talked her through some of the labels – the complexities - she felt the acceptance – the simplicity – settle in the back of her heart and her mind.

I like girls.  

I like Bobbi.

I like girls.  

I like Bobbi.

Does she like me?  

“…and – oh, shit,” Bobbi cursed. “I’ve got to be home by midnight. Sorry to kick you out, but I’ve gotta go.”

“It’s no problem,” Jemma assured her. “I should be getting inside too. Thanks for the talk.”

“Anytime.”

“But- um, don’t tell anyone at school about it, okay? I’m still thinking through it.”

“Sure thing. Take your time.”

Jemma sighed, relieved and satisfied, and got out of the car, gathered her books, and strode up the drive with a spring in her step and a grin on her face. Bobbi grinned after her as she started up the car, and tried not to fist-pump the air as she drove away.

-

It didn’t go back to the way it was before – not quite. How could it, why would it, after that? Jemma did go back to spending more time with Fitz and Daisy, but she smiled at Bobbi when they passed in the hall, or sat across the room from each other. Bobbi put in the Good Word of a Popular Girl on Jemma’s behalf when she wanted something, and helped pull sway in the Student Council elections – in return, she jested, for some more of those applesauce cupcakes, which Jemma was happy to provide. They danced around each other for a while, a pleasant equilibrium of mutual crushing, while Jemma sorted herself out. Bobbi slipped her resources and kept her secrets. Jemma told Fitz and Daisy, and when she was ready, came to school with three little star badges in a row on her pencil case: one pink, one purple, one blue.

At a gesture from Jemma, Bobbi took the seat beside her instead of her usual in biology. Their partners swapped without a word, if perhaps a bit of a grin. Nobody questioned the ways of Bobbi Morse, but the rumour mill was in full swing by now. This bit of gossip was one of the juicier ones in the saga so far. Watching the other students murmur excitedly, Jemma tucked a lock of hair behind her ears. Bobbi shook her head.

“Ignore them,” she said, and nodded at the stars. “You figured something out?”

Jemma beamed, and felt her chest expand a little.

“I’m still tossing up between yellow and purple,” she said, “but it’s early days, so I’m happy.”

“Well, that’s good.” Bobbi found herself blushing, cheeks burning with the question she’d been hanging onto for so long. Instead, she asked: “What’d you get for production? Happy with that too?”

“Lead.” Jemma grinned smugly.

“Of course,” Bobbi agreed. “I’m stage manager.”

“Well, you know what that means.”

Jemma’s tone was laden with possibilities that captured Bobbi’s attention like the smell of freshly baked goods on a windowsill. She almost laughed at Bobbi’s expression as she expanded on her offer:

“Lots of after-school stays… Long rehearsal hours together - I’ll be called a lot, after all. And I might need a ride. A few rides, in fact.”

Jemma raised an eyebrow, and Bobbi caught on.

“Some of those rehearsals go to six, seven o’clock,” Bobbi mused. “We might have to get dinner together sometime.”

“That we might.”

“I guess it’s settled, then, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.”

“How are you feeling?”

Bobbi laughed a little, watching the blush creep up Jemma’s cheeks instead of a verbal answer. That dizzying validation: Bobbi remembered it well, so instead of probing Jemma further, she intertwined their fingers together below the desk. Their hands hung together until the teacher walked in, when they reluctantly crept apart and back to work. A few of the students behind them snickered with laughter, but this time Jemma didn’t seem bothered. She sat taller, as attentive as ever, and the class launched onward, with the pleasant pressure of Bobbi’s grasp still tingling in her fingertips.

[ozkamal]

"But the problem with me was that as soon as I started thinking about getting it together, I got this mad craving desire to fuck it up." Rebecca Godfrey“I am an over-thinker and an over-feeler. Over-lover. Over- needer. I would flood you. I would drown your respectable standoffishness. I don’t get over things, but I get under them well. I’d love you and you’d soak me through. You couldn’t handle me even if you wanted to.” Rebeka Anne, some people think I’m too much "I just want to pour my soul out onto someone and not have to worry about the mess I've made" "Sometimes I’m certain  those who are happy  know one thing more than us…  or one thing less."  - Anne Michaels “The Weight of Oranges” “I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.” Haruki Murakami “Find something that you’re passionate about, devote your time and energy to it. But make sure what you’re passionate about is not a person, but a thing.”“I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.” Anaïs Nin“You have to accept that some people are not made for deep conversations, or for holding you together when you’re about to fall apart, or for keeping you from unzipping your skin, or for talking you out of suicide, or to love you through the worst moments of your life. Some people are made for shallow exchanges, and ridiculous banter, and nothing more. And that’s okay. That doesn’t make them horrible people because they simply aren’t able to handle a storm like you. It doesn’t make you a bad person because you won’t divulge all the gritty details of your horror show. It makes you smart. You have to accept that there will be people that cannot give you what you need. It doesn’t mean they are not worth keeping in your life. You just have to figure out who these ones are before you’re disappointed. And you have to keep them at arm’s length. You cannot expect everyone in your life to understand, to be nonjudgmental, to get it. But that’s okay, because not everyone was made to impart wisdom, or wax-poetic, or speak on politics and the depravity of society, or discuss how crucial it is that the stigma of mental illness be abolished. There are times when you have to get away from all that heaviness. You have to. And you will need superficial conversation about Kim Kardashian’s arse, or a debate on the colour of The Dress. You will need those ones. So don’t go round cutting people off and dropping your friends. You need people for all your seasons. You need people or you won’t survive this.” What my therapist told me this morning“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t as conscious as I am. It would be so much easier.” River Phoenix “I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”  Sylvia Plath “I’m tired" “Sleep” “No you don’t understand” Do you understand?“What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours–that is what you must be able to attain.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll “Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that’s why it survives.” Anna Quindle“It would be that time - late at night - when your ears reach for any sound. When you can see more with your eyes closed than open.” Diary - Chuck Palahniuk“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut “I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn how to spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view.” Andrei Tarkovsky “I’m one of those people who believe that words are some of the last forms of magic that exist” Lana Del Rey “She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, “I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”” Haruki Murakami,  Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman “… we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.” East of Eden - John Steinbeck “I crave so much more than just a physical connection. I crave words and depth. I crave who you are and where you came from, your desires and fears. I yearn to know every inch of you beyond the surface.”“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the…man who walks past [you]…at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…” Timothy Leary  http://ift.tt/2l1RShO have very intense conversations with friends, people I really interconnect with. We talk about politics, important things. I like to talk about ideas and get people to be specific.” Jacqueline Bisset “Date someone who is interested in you. I don’t mean someone who thinks you’re cute or funny. I mean someone who wants to know every insignificant detail about you. Someone who wants to read every word you write. Someone who wants hear every note of your favourite song, and watch every scene of your favourite movie. Someone wants to find every scar upon your body, and learn where each one came from. Someone who wants to know your favourite brand of toothpaste, and which quotes resonate deep inside your bones when you hear them. There is a difference between attraction and interest. Find the person who wants to learn every aspect of who you are, and hold onto them.”I stopped explaining myself when I realized, People only understand from their level of perception“She’s never where she is. She’s only inside her head.” White Oleander by Janet Fitch“What I hate is ignorance, smallness of imagination, the eye that sees no farther than its own lashes. All things are possible. Who you are is limited only by who you think you are.” Egyptian Book of the Dead“I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists. One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood.” Unknown you find a woman with a wild heart do not try to tame her. You must adore her recklessly, the way she is meant to be loved. Do not try to quiet her, for her roars will reach far and wide. She has something important to say. Help her say it. Do not get in her way. She stops for no one. Do not try to change the path she has chosen. Learn also to love the wind and let it change you.” C.B. Wild-Hearted Woman “I am not a puzzle to be solved. I am someone to be experienced- a soul to be tasted” jenn satsun“To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.” Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground "Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul."“Sometimes words come out of me and I don’t know where they come from or why. They’re like falling stars tumbling through the universe; bright, burning things that can’t be stopped.” Glenda Millard, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”“My emotional life: dialectic between craving for privacy and need to submerge myself in a passionate relationship to another.” Susan Sontag, from Reborn: Journals & Notebooks “We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning.” Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood“I remained to much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.” Edgar Allen Poe “Protect yourself from your own thoughts.” Rumi I try to maintain a healthy dose of daydreaming to remain sane.” Florence Welch “I’m self-sufficient. I spend a lot of time on my own and I shut off quite easily. When I communicate, I communicate 900%, then I shut off, which scares people sometimes.” Björk "Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again." Bernhard Schlink“I’ve always believed one could live many lives…even if just in our imagination. The world is open to us, and each day is an occasion to reinvent ourselves.” Ralph Lauren"I hunger for intensity. For love, affection, for tangible. For ineffable. For infinity. For discovery.  I hunger for knowledge. Life is filled with wanders and wonders. Die knowing something. Die loving something."“I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.” To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father, Donald Miller “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer“I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.” The Sweet Far Thing, Libba Bray “All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.” Julio Cortazar“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your soul. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” Franz Kafka“Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music— the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” Henry Miller Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom…is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” Anthony Bourdain “Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.” Elie Wiesel, Dawn “And like the sea, I’m constantly changing from calm to hell.” Dallas Green “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.” Christopher Morley“I feel so shut out, I’m always homesick. But when I get home. I find it’s something else I’m longing for.” Autumn Sonata “Without deep conversation, my mind becomes restless. I need passion and intellect, it’s a shame that a person often lacks one or the other.”“I didn’t say I liked it. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.” Oscar Wilde, adapted from The Picture of Dorian Gray “I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night”“Loneliness is dangerous. It’s addicting. Once you see how peaceful it is, you don’t wanna deal with people.” Hedonist Poet“I want to be loved and to be left alone.” David Swanger, “My Mother’s Nudes"“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.” Emily Dickinson“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things which I dare not confess to my own soul.” Bram Stoker, Dracula“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.” Virginia Woolf, The Waves“Not everyone can feel things as deeply as you. Most people, their feelings are … bland, tasteless. They’ll never understand what it’s like to read a poem and feel almost like they’re flying, or to see a bleeding fish and feel grief that shatters their heart…” Juliann Garey, Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See “And never have I felt so deeply at one and, at the same time, so detached from myself, and so present in the world.” Albert Camus“My human capabilities aren’t sufficient enough to help translate what my soul wants to express.” JMC“Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.” Jean Baudrillard “We approach the void…but not to fall into it. We want to become intoxicated with dizziness and the image of the fall is sufficient.” Georges Bataille, Death and Sensuality“If you’re ever lucky enough to find a girl who is a hopeless romantic with a dirty mind, you should hold onto that. Because she’ll be yours at two in the morning and at two in the afternoon the following day. She’ll kiss you where it hurts and until it hurts. And that’s important. Someone who not only knows how to turn you on but also knows how to treat you right is someone worth a little something… and a little more than usual.”“I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive. Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.” Paul Auster“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know–unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.” James Kavanaugh“Does she scare you a little? Good. She should make you fear her love, so that when she lets you be apart of it, you won’t take it lightly. She should remind you of the power that beauty brings, that storms reside in her veins, and that she still wants you in the middle of it all. Do not take this soul for granted, for she is fierce, and she can take you places that you never thought you could go; but she is still loving in the midst of it all, like the calm rain after a storm, she can bring life. Learn her, and cherish her, respect her, and love her; for she is so much more than a pretty face, she is a soul on fire.” T.B. LaBerge // Things I’m still learning at 25“Everything is strange. Things are huge and very small.” The Waves, Virginia Woolf"We are meant to discover our authentic nature-- the state of being in which we are inspired by ourselves, turned on, lit up, and excited about who we are."  Debbie Ford“Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.” Charles Bukowski “All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life — where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.” Miranda July, from It Chooses You “I want to meet people with fire in them, burning through life like a forest fire, too many people die out and survive on embers.” Adam Zucconi “A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.” Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, Adrienne Rich“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the sky.” Jack Kerouac “The hardest period in life is one’s twenties. It’s a shame because you’re your most gorgeous, and you’re physically in peak condition. But it’s actually when you’re most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s frightening.” Helen Mirren “I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me…I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person.” Sylvia Plath“I just want to think deeply about things. Contemplate ideas in a pure, free sort of way. That’s all.” Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage “Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.” Charles Baudelaire “You have to be interested. If you’re not interested, you can’t be interesting.” Iris Apfel “I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.” The Help, Kathryn Stockett “Everybody’s born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I’d really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can’t seem to do it. They just don’t get it. Of course, the problem could be that I’m not explaining it very well, but I think it’s because they’re not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they’re not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things.” Haruki Murakami,The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle“Words weren’t dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.” Charles Bukowski (from Ham On Rye)“Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep.” Haruki Murakami, 1Q84“Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.” High Fidelity - Nick Hornby “For every devious scream in my head there is a divine whisper and it saves me every time.” VàZaki Nada“In man’s memories there are those things that he doesn’t reveal to all, but perhaps only to his friends. And then there are those he won’t reveal even to his friends, but perhaps only to himself, and even then in confidence. But then, finally, there are those that a man is afraid to reveal even to himself, and any decent man accumulates quite enough of those things.” Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky“I feel too much. That’s what’s going on. Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel the wrong ways? My insides don’t match up with my outsides. Do anyone’s inside and outsides match up? I don’t know. I’m only me. Maybe that’s what a person’s personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside. But it’s worse for me. I wonder if everyone thinks it’s worse for him. Probably. But it really is worse for me.” Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close“In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.” Aldous Huxley“Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature, understand them thoroughly.”“People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.” Benjamin Alire Sáenz“Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that’s ok with them.” Alain de Botton“Let’s clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.” Laurie Helgoe“Remember that the world began in a manic episode, too. God likes to hoard sharp  things, just like you. We are saving you. And we need to hear it one more time: Who knows best?” Lydia Havens, From the Voices, published in “Pouch” “Keep interested in others; keep interested in the wide and wonderful world. Then in a spiritual sense you will always be young.” Fredric March“fernweh [feyrn-vey]” (noun) This wonderful, untranslatable German word describes the feeling of homesickness for a far away land, a place you have never visited. Do not confuse this with the english word, wanderlust; Fernweh is much more profound, it is the feeling of an unsatisfied urge to escape and discover new places, almost a sort of sadness. You miss a place you have never experienced, as opposed to lusting over it or desiring it like wanderlust. You are seeking freedom and self-discovery, but not a particular home.“Getting lost was not a matter of geography so much as identity, a passionate desire, even an urgent need, to become no one and anyone, to shake off the shackles that remind you who you are, who others think you are.” Rebecca Solnit“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.”“I’m very interested in good and evil and the moral natures of people.” Antonia Fraser“I stay up just late enough until I am just exhausted enough that I can fall into my bed and sink into immediate slumber. Because I can’t stand lying in a bed in a dark room alone with just my thoughts for so many hours and hours.”“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift.” Mary Oliver“I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few.” Unknown“The ability to sit down with another person and talk for hours, about anything and everything, is more attractive to me than anything else.” Koi Fresco“The power to bring me out of solitude – or to push me back into it – had never belonged to another person. It was mine and only mine.” Martha Beck“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” bell hooks“My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence.” Sherlock Holmes from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle “Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad consciousness and a deep heart. Truly great men, I think, must feel great sorrow in this world.” Fyodor Dostoevsky (from Crime and Punishment)“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” Rainer Maria Rilke"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights“I felt a queasy mixture of relief and horror: when you finally stop an itch and realize it’s because you’ve ripped a hole in your skin” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl“He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights“I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.” Haruki Murakami “I cannot stand small talk, because I feel like there’s an elephant standing in the room shitting all over everything and nobody is saying anything. I’m just dying to say, ‘Hey, do you ever feel like jumping off a bridge?’ or ‘Do you feel an emptiness inside your chest at night that is going to swallow you?’ But you can’t say that at a…party.” Paul Gilmartin, The Mental Illness Happy Hour“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer“I’m half child half ancient.”I am fucking insane but my intentions are gold and my heart is pure“How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?” Don DeLillo“Everyone has a 2 AM and a 2 PM personality.”“My problem is that I fall in love with words, rather than actions. I fall in love with ideas and thoughts, instead of reality. And it will be the death of me.” “My nights are for overthinking, my mornings are for oversleeping.”“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood"George Orwell, 1984“‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless, it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.’” Louis C.K.“I’m not the same everyday. There are times where I’m loud and chatty, and there are times when I’m really quiet. I don’t think I can define myself.”“Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole.” Richard Siken, Spork Editor’s Pages: Black Telephone“There is no pleasure more complex than that of thought.” Jorge Luis Borges, The Immortal from Labyrinths, “Pick my brain. Ask me about my views on something. Dig deeper than the obvious. Let’s make each other think. Show me a different perspective.”“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.” Roal Dahl "I have the deepest affection for intellectual conversations. The ability to just sit and talk. About love, about life, about anything, about everything. To sit under the moon with all the time in the world, the full-speed train that is our lives slowing to a crawl. Bound by no obligations, barred by no human limitations. To speak without regret or fear of consequence. To talk for hours and about what's really important in life."“Human beings are made of water, we were not designed to hold ourselves together; rather run freely like oceans like rivers” Beau Taplin "You're under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.""How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?"I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new and that is ultimately good for the soul. “Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.” Janet Fitch, White Oleander“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” AristotleIt was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.“I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.” Michael Faudet My dear, Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover. ~ Falsely yours“I don’t like small talk. Talk to me about life. Talk to me about your scars and the concealer you call your smile. Talk to me about the story behind your favorite song. Tell me about your dreams that sometimes seem too big for the Earth to contain. Tell me what wakes you up in the morning before your alarm clock does. Tell me about what makes shivers run down your spine. Tell me about what makes your eyes light up like the stars I can’t see in New York City. Tell me your story.”“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” Clarice Lispector, A Hora Da Estrela “I appreciate the people who take time to look at the world a little deeper”Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious.” Stephen Hawking"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world. But then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me, who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there, thinking of me too. Well, I hope, that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes it's true. I'm here and I'm just as strange as you.""There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself"

https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/5v96c6/extensionalism/?utm_source=ifttt

[cispicious]

JUNE 2, 2011

Hey there. I doubt (people will read this) that journals are supposed to be used for advertising, or propoganda about oneself. I'm guessing it's what normal journals are used for: to document the day to day trials of human life. Yea, but I'm not human. So I guess my definition of a journal shall be, "Trials of a Nephal" If you don't know what a Nephal is, ask God. Oh, and in case you're far too lazy - or just don't care about my looks - to go check my pictures, I can give you a short description right here: * I'm the same height as Taylor Momsen, my favorite celebrity. <3 * [redacted because holy shit this was bad] * I'm Jamacain and Scottish, and my hair is a sort of red-brown-blonde color. * [redacted because holy shit this was bad] So, are you looking for a biography of my life? I'm not sure I want to type that much. I guess I'll summarize it and make it even less of a biography by telling you things about myself:

I was born on January 2nd, 1996 in New York. I moved down to Florida with my family when I was 12, and have been here fro three years. (Can you calculate my age?) I'm bisexual, but I lean more towards girls. I may [redacted because holy shit this was bad]. My life revolves around music and sarcasm. My English 2 Honors teacher wrote in my yearbook to never forget the essence of my spark. Lol, no. My teacher's not Taylor Swift. She actually told me to never lose my sarcasm, and who am I to defy a teacher? .... I like to think that I'm humorous enough to start a YouTube webshow, but even though I have an HD Camcorder, I can never find the willpower to do such things. Maybe because I'm really sensitive and insecure, and I doubt I can take the hate comments....right. Anyway. People think I'm a player because of the rather extensive list of people I've been with. Honestly, I used to be a player. I've only been turned down once in my life, and only God knows why. Because it can't be my dashing good looks or humble personality, right? Oh my, looks like I've hit the irony button again. I'm actually in love right now, and I can't tell you who, just in case you jealous bitches go on a rampage.

Anyway, shall I post about my day? I'm in 7th period - Speech and Debate - right now. My friend Barbara and I are the only girls on this side of the room. It's not like we ever do anything in here. We're too effing smart, so we just keep quiet while the bumbling idiots around us try to keep up with the teacher, and stumble over words like oppression. I just showed her that. She laughed. x) Oh, um, the rest of the class is either playing games or watching The Great Debaters. I saw it in 8th grade. I don't need to see it again. The boy, Junior, isn't exactly eye candy. Finals begin tomorrow. Me and my science project parter don't have to take a Biology final, because we won the science project competition. (We - I - made an action movie about the project, pretending to be spies who had to solve the Problem, or else the White House would blow up.) Let's call her Erica. I'm scared to be alone with her, if we have to go to a different room, because she has a crush on me. And she doesn't even know I'm bisexual. She makes people move so she can sit next to me, touches me innapropriately, and told me that she knows that we're supposed to be soulmates. Save me. So here's my question of the day - supposing I write everyday and that any of you care - : What do you do when you want to make someone stop loving you, but you don't want to stop being their friend or hurt their feelings?

JUNE 3RD 2011

I'm only making this 'cause someone's making me. Let's have a recap of my day, shall we? 6:33 - woke up over an hour late. I didn't shower and merely tussled my hair, and I ate breakfast in the car. Got to school on time, despite what my dad thought. Realized I didn't have my Biology textbook which was due today. Panicked for a second, then decided not to give a shutzpah. In Latin 2, I spent like, ten minutes on my final. I had my AE do it for me, then I went to sleep in the chair on the other side of the room. It smelled funkeh. In Biology, I didn't have to take a final so I went to the Media Center with Jackie, and not Erica. Fank chu, Lawd for making her not come. So I sat down in the back, and Jackie - constant bully that she is - made me sit on the floor so that she could read comfortably on the place where I was lounging. It was cold in there. Um, nothing exciting really happened. My sister is annoying the hellzpah out me and I'm gonna kill her. Question of the day: Why isn't it possible to go back in time yet?

JUNE 6TH 2011

Hello, ladies and gents. So, today is the second day of finals and the beginning of the end. That's right. IT'S THE LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL!!!11!!111!! I took my English 2 Honors and Algebra 2 exams earlier today (actually I just finished my Algebra) and I have to say I was dissapointed by the lack of imagination by my teachers. I mean, these tests were a bit too easy- not that anything's wrong with that. But you ever get that feeling that once you believe something to be incredibly easy, turns out you got every damn thing wrong? Yeah. That's how I feel. Anywho, this guy I think is adorkable (and he's a skater, swoon!) opened the door for me and made a cute joke. Now before you say "oh dear Lord is this just another hopeless romantic?" let me tell you that he only does it for me. When anyone else is at the door, he just stares at it like it's the door to Armagaddeon or something. I have a question: Do any of you believe in alter ego's? Do you believe it's possible to seperate your body from yours? (Google!) I have one. My friend named her Cali, don't ask. But if any of you have had encounters with your AE's, PM me. We need to discuss something. But that wasn't my question of the day. The real question is: Is it possible for your Alter Ego to become their own person?

JUNE 7TH 2011

But I set fire to the rain Watched it pour as I touched your face Well, it burned while I cried 'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name When laying with you I could stay there Close my eyes, feel you here forever You and me together, nothing is better 'Cause there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true And the games you's play, you would always win, always win I'm in love with this song. I cried hearing this girl sing it. I think I'm in love with her now. WHY CAN'T i HAVE A VOICE LIKE HERS, GOD??????? I'm gonna cry. This song makes me cry. Her voice. So damn angelic. Anyway, about my day: IT SUCKED. The only fun part was during homeroom when we were playing Scrabble, [redacted because holy shit this was bad]. Oh, and I talked to my friend Ella for the first time in months. I swear, I'm just going to keep promoting this girl. I wonder if I can get her number....sigh. If only she had red hair. LAWL. I'm just joking guys. My heart belongs to Caraquel. Yanno, when she wants it. Anywhom Question of the Day: What makes you laugh?

JUNE 8TH 2011

Tomorrow's the last day of school. I finished my Speech and Debate class early, so I'm coming here. I'm about to pour out my feelings here. I'm about to get deep. Like, 6 feet underground deep, brah. So, I think I'm in love. With the fucking world. I have this problem where I love too much. I suppose there's a gap in my heart from not getting enough love when I was a kid, or maybe my brain is just fucked up. I've fallen two feet, I've been dropped, I've had a glass cup of coffee fall on my head all before I finished kindergarten. Maybe that's why my brain is fucked up. There's a lump in my head, and I'm not sure if that's normal. I think it messed up my mouth-brain connection, where I don't say what I think. Like, if I think "Mr. John's class is nice." I'll end up saying. "Mr. John has a nice ass." or something, when the guy is like 1,000 years old and looks like Santa Claus. And the sad thing is- I can never remember saying it. Sometimes I think it's Cali saying these things, and other times I think I'm just special. I love my girlfriend, my ex, and my two best friends. (But I love Cara the most.) I get jealous beyond belief when they so much as mention another person. The thing is, I should only love my girlfriend. 'Cause she's the only one that (I think) even wants to marry me. And that's the only reason I'd ever be interested in a person- because I think they're worth it for the long haul. I really should get over all the others, because they're taken and they don't want me for the long run. They want me for the here and now, I guess. Or maybe they want me for the here and now so they can see what they'd be getting in the long run. I'm so confused and I'm hurting, but I just can't stop loving. My girlfriend's favorites on Twitter are chock full of gay boys telling her they love her. And I get jelly because I'm the first - and only - girl she's ever liked ('cause I'm just that rockin') but she could probably change their sexualities. My best friend, Cara, I just...I just love her. I'm crying right now IN EFFING PUBLIC because of how much it would kill me to not have her in my life, to not have her love. And if you are reading this Caraquel, I love you. I love you. I know Cali said she was helping me get over you, but I don't think it's possible. Every time I think about you...it's not possible to live without you. But yeah. I need to get my cranium checked. This just ain't realistic. I mean, whenever my friends come to me about their relationship problems, I think "Oi, if only it were possible for me to love you all." but mostly because I hate it when they cry over some chick who doesn't give two flying shits about anyone but herself. So, my questions of the day are: Is it possible to have fucked up the love gland in your brain? Is it possible to love more than one person? Is it possible to die from heartbreak?

[restless-stirring]

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy — the same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of this speculation to begin with.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. Digital futures became understood more like stock futures or cotton futures — something to predict and make bets on. So nearly every speech, article, study, documentary, or white paper was seen as relevant only insofar as it pointed to a ticker symbol. The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively.

This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities. Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an anti-technology curmudgeon.

So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists, and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs? Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies? Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?

Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries associated with unbridled technological development in the name of corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the demise of local retail.

But the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)

Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.

The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral. Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be “solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or genetic upgrade.

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Our movies and television shows play out these fantasies for us. Zombie shows depict a post-apocalypse where people are no better than the undead — and seem to know it. Worse, these shows invite viewers to imagine the future as a zero-sum battle between the remaining humans, where one group’s survival is dependent on another one’s demise. Even Westworld — based on a science-fiction novel where robots run amok — ended its second season with the ultimate reveal: Human beings are simpler and more predictable than the artificial intelligences we create. The robots learn that each of us can be reduced to just a few lines of code, and that we’re incapable of making any willful choices. Heck, even the robots in that show want to escape the confines of their bodies and spend their rest of their lives in a computer simulation.

The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.

Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite.

When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

[definitionpaper1-blog]

Technology in the radio industry of the 21st century essay

demonstrate field of study:\n\nThe splendor of the authority of the practiced study in the communicate perseverance of the twenty-first century.\n\nEs offer Questions:\n\nHow know expert inventions influenced the development of the piano tuner liquidatorcommunication application?\n\nWhat eccentric does receiving point diligence simulated military operation in the lives of ordinary coeval wad?\n\nHow the engine room does wait ons the piano tuner set fabrication to reach maximal of its potential audition?\n\n thesis Statement:\n\nTechnological surgical procedure started be the leading cater in our b on the whole yen past and now it is in its blossom. So cosmosy things depend on it and it is real catchy to approximate the existance of humanity without it.\n\n \n applied science in the wire little sedulousness of the 21st century try\n\n \n\nIntroduction: Things swap a push-down storage in cotemporary world. The world itself changes, sh apes more than move. E reallything is made for the doojigger of a man. And the main understanding for many inventions is to deal along mans life easier. Inventions that exc make use of fourth dimension and perform divergent actions as a stand-in to the mans actions. If it were non for progress we still would have been cave muckle. Progress, which nowadays is evaluated through with(predicate) engineering science. Technological demonstrate started world the leading power in our world long ago and now it is in its blossom. So many things depend on it and it is truly hard to imagine the existance of humanity without it.\n\n tuner industriousness played an burning(prenominal) fiber in the lives of youthful multitude. receivable to peoples communication channel it was the only source from which a soulfulness could stomach merry study or is amused by. It is not represented in a rattling tall graphic symbol nowadays and at that place is a flock of conte s end between various companies for the best(p) production c formerlyrning this matter. A pear-shaped number of consumers seek mellow quality production and a lot of numbers of companies be eager to satisfy their take away. As the applied science develops e precise dissipatenership tries to catch up and be on top of the proficient progress. The question of engine room explanation the statute of the receiving set assiduity ancient in the 21st century has different sides. It prat be visual modalityed from the pass of view of producing and performing scientific corroboration to the receiving set fabrication. Spreading the disseminateing is a exchangeable really grand for it is whiz of the main characteristics of a receiving set setcommunication labor to become usual. Of course it has to be on the background of a very qualified contents of what is im adjourned. intercommunicate has a lot of competition, exclusively it still remains whiz of the most popular schoolingal sources. cardinal of its advantages is that a person behind keep doing whatever he was doing that at the aforesaid(prenominal) date he weed listen either to watchword or to good medicament on the wireless. People do not have to expend their time riveted to the screen of their TVs and very special in their possible actions. When it goes or sowhat radio people do not have to pass time of visual wisdom it is all auditory. For example, the only time chore people quite a little listen to nearthing is when they drive their cars. In this case radio carries the state of giving checked and legitimate information. In order to occur such(prenominal) information radio assiduity has to be very up-to-date and game-speed. According to this, radio industry is a lot dependent on the proficient progress and technology itself. through technology radio industry realizes its chair goals, come afters its priorities and reaches the figureing. This is v ery burning(prenominal) now, when industries hit the consumers not by quality, still by quantity. The invite on tested information is high, and the supply sometimes is sufficiently low. engineering becomes a method, a tool and a management of putting the radio industry on a straitlaced level of development. applied science dictates a lot of rules to the radio industry. public opinion at the corresponding time it enlarges its borders and makes it accessible and suitable for a way bigger audience. The audience, which is familiarized to a necessary radio-wave listens to unexampled-fashi matchlessds, music. enkindle property of a broadcast is the ability to inform the audience about various information. tout ensemble these features have allowed the broadcasts attract the largest audience. though the broadcast is listened instantly and easily, bear upon of its preparation, beginning from record of a phone before statistical distribution in ether, requires the special respo nsibility, verity and efficiency. This essay is written to make it understandable that when someone says radio industry it is not decent to think only about radio stations, but alas people sometimes do it. The beginning was about that emboss and proved that it is really brave out by the reality, but in that location is much more to radio industry than that. radio technology is a thing that is attached almost with each diorama of our lives, whether we talk on the earpiece or doing anything else. For twenty long time there seemed no mindset of innovation in radio systems but increasing complexness of silicon devices at falling cost. This has brought about a alteration in thinking and in opportunities for naked as a jaybird communication systems.\n\nThe borders of radio technologies ar disappearing dramatically. present one of the most halcyon branches of the radio industry is wireless technology. Personal communications, business information distribution and compute r-to-computer communication argon only some of the world-shaking beas already in the process of existence developed by the smart radio technology. Developments in linear technology and cellular techniques, together with the now recognised advantages of short-range radio, suppose that new radio systems ordain support a far greater number of users from the available spectrum. both these innovations are on a very high pack and radio technology is judge to speed up the upper of its development. Nevertheless, if we engage for example bare it is not possible to say its progress is realized very fast.\n\nWhat is made to make it get around? All the work that is being through with(p) concerns the improving and upgrading the radio systems that already exist, though it by all odds allow be give away to overhear the plunge and lend oneself the computer industry veritable(a) more into the world of radio highlyhighways. Create something new and do not get stuck on the old. O ur radio industry purlieu brings a loyal point and this squiffy point should be some new, flimsy technology, a revolution in this industry. Digital audio broadcast is one of the creations that start up this revolution. Digital Audio bare (DAB) offers a broad-digital radio broadcast system for fixed, portable and oddly mobile attainrs. It brings a super big(p) quality and coercive data service to homes and cars. We date this creation to be one of the most cardinal technical innovations since the start of broadcasting. The quality of the sound is a result of victimisation the psycho-acoustic properties of the human ear. It is leveled to a compact disc sound and it even includes picture transmission. This interruption in the radio industry owing to the new technology predestines the directivity of the radio technological progress.\n\nWhat is the most essential paradox for the radio industry consumers? transmission system quality, no question. The new technology offe rs high spectrum efficiency and uninjured reception in sorrowful vehicles. This is a tone that allow for definitely make modern people seek for this learn type of broadcasting when turn of events to the radio industry products. So broadcasting is one of the primary cares of the industry and depends on the technology. At the same moment the role of a broadcast in delivery of the important, necessary, urgent countersign to the audience is unchallengeable. Besides the radio was always the source of information necessary in education of growing up propagation and spreading the knowledge of advanced experience.\n\nToday, in spite of the development of photograph engineering, radio industry is not going to give up its positions. An new(prenominal) technology that intensifies the radio industry is web radio. at present Internet is a very popular and is an integral part of the lives of all the people of our planet. This technology offers a person an probability to start his own orbicular adventure in radio owing to this new mean of audio communication. There is a lot of literature to help people to learn how to use the web radio and to get the best of it. A person cease gain technical and practical know-how to enable the station to go live, but also an appreciation of the legal and sort out of first publication implications of making radio, potentially for external audiences and in the rapidly evolving environment of the web. Radio industry is changing: radio on the Internet, AM stereo, cable and satellite radio, ecological niche formats, mergers and consolidation, future prospects, and digital technology all these makes radio industry very attractive for the audience provides insight into this ever-changing field.\n\nIf we take a splendider come forward of the radio industry we can see that a lot of thing have been done to improve the old-fashioned technologies, too. This is carry through because a lot of people cannot afford expensive technologi cal products and prefers stay with what they are all used to. We can take a radio recipient as an example. Radio receivers are obviously a very important part of radio and wireless technology. Their slaying is small to many applications. The basic radio receiver concepts including the superhet and other topologies such as the direct conversion receiver are of great interest. Elements such as selectivity, sensitivity, driving range, and many more are of great importance to any radio receiver. So too are some of the circuits and techniques employed. Mixers, demodulators and synthesizers are only triple examples. The main technological step made concerning radio receivers is the unloose of their combat-ready range. Sensitivity is one of the main conditions of any radio receiver. However the sensitivity of a set is by no means the whole story. The specification for a set whitethorn show it to have an extremely good level of sensitivity, but when it is touched to an antenna its performance may be very disappointing because it is easily overload when strong signals are present, and this may impair its ability to receive weak signals. The overall dynamic range of the receiver is very important. It is just as important for a set to be able to handle strong signals well as it is to be able to pick up weak ones. This becomes very important when trying to pick up weak signals in the carriage of nearby strong ones. infra these circumstances a set with a poor dynamic range may not be able to hear the weak stations picked up by a less sensitive set with a better dynamic range. Problems like blocking, inter-modulation distortion and the like within the receiver may masquerade out the weak signals, despite the set having a very good level of sensitivity. so-so(predicate) people face these kinds of problems. And though it may be considered some kind of detailed translation of what a receiver is the fountain we described it all in detail is to allocate what qualities people are seeking for in one of the most popular products of the radio industry. This is the radio receiver technology and it is an integral part of the contemporary radio development.\n\nEverything that has once been invented in the radio industry has to gain a new life or a decent substitute. What is the equitysuit of such a phenomena? The main reason is that the products of such a easy industry have to follow the progress in the impertinent world. The outside progress is powerfully influenced by the demand of the legitimate society. The society, in its turn, dictates the demand being influenced by lots of factors. atomic number 53 of them is that people need high quality service in a very small amount of time. People need to save their time and beget qualified products at the same moment. It is all about demand and supply. People have numerous business continuatives and deals all over the world. What they need is a guaranteed any-minute connection to any place they what to connect to. They are ready to profits proper money for it because quality means high prices, oddly when it concerns technologies.\n\nConclusion: It would be right to say that technology has recorded the regulation of the radio industry obsolete in the 21st century. engineering science controls the development of the radio industry and without it this industry would be loose by now. It is not dead, but it is not the same anymore. Radio industry should be represented throughout technology. Technology- means changes, changes for something new and hopefully much better. Technology is a system that has been knowing and realized on practice. It is a model of solving menstruum technological issues. All the technologies ill-use one goal delight and projection of possible demands and changes that may be needed in order to keep the industry up. As long as we talk about radio industry it becomes a law. Technology is the essence of every modern industry. Radio get alder andolder. That is the reason it does render the regulation of the radio industry obsolete. Every fact that was listed in a higher place proves it in its very core. Radio industry needs to change and even more than that it need a constant change, a constant spreading. It needs a constant offer of new techniques. In this case it will stay as up as it is. Million of people worked in the radio industry and dedicate their thoughts and lives to the creation of something we may be already consuming. Technology cannot be the heart of the radio industry, because technology is growing and ambit its blossom. Owing to technology our houses are more comfortable and all serve to our convenience. And as for business people - they are the ones that will say without a doubt that that due to the technology the radio industry obsolete was inevitable.If you emergency to get a full essay, order it on our website: Custom essay writing service. Free essay/order revisions. Essays of any comp lexity! Courseworks, term papers, research papers. 100% confidential! Homework live help. Custom Essay Order is available 24/7!

[blogelly-blog1]

Playing the Game: Alan Turing

Imagine living a life lived in hiding, without not much to say without not much to do, things ending up unplanned and life being a whole lot more than just the truth. It would be nice to say that it would be easy and it’ll eventually fall to its place. But as time pass by, people would just eventually come to continue as to question “why?” 

“Play if if you can then...”

Having the Smarts

As it would all began Alan was hired by the British government to work on a secret project. He was assigned to work with a team as to the project would fall unto breaking a secret code behind the Nazis' communications machine named “Enigma” If they do so, this would result to a big chance of winning the war. Alan was different he had the mind to accomplish something more than loading himself with too much work and time.

“A machine is different from a person. Hence, they think differently. The interesting question is, just because something, uh.. thinks differently from you, does that mean it's not thinking? Well, we allow for humans to have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries, I hate ice-skating, you cry at sad films, I am allergic to pollen. What is the point of...of... different tastes, different... preferences, if not, to say that our brains work differently, that we think differently? And if we can say that about one another, then why can't we say the same thing for brains... built of copper and wire, steel?”

He had made something out of his brilliant mind.

That was the first step; you play what you want with smarts of having thoughts different from the normal. Because something so different could bear so much hope that any mind could think of.

Feeling the Past

“Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes... hollow.”

Understand that people enjoy things because it’s different. Alan was and he was special even.

Play something special, second would be your emotion. As one being alive that would be of a priority, if not at first but could be on the second. It wasn’t because life was hard enough to be played around but to play, that was different, played in a sense that it was remembered. Those things that happened would freely trust unto the life in the present moment.

Then maybe this would come after the winning, that the thought of that certain flash of clarity, that thing where it went to some place remembered.

Play the game with a heart and live it with an inspiration.

Acceptance

Life, this one damned spit of proof of being alive. Where it won’t come from someone else this time; instead it would come from one singularity of you alone.

“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”

The third is simple.

You win or you lose.

The thing is that there’s only two ends of playing. Winning comes with this bright shot of happiness, this sense of contentment from asking from nothing more. While all the while there’s losing that comes along with so much things unexplained it doesn’t feel good.

All there is to understand is that nothing could go same at a time. But one could live through something as to playing too much while giving oneself a chance at that speck of gratitude from the achievement there is.

You finish your game.

You tell the truth.

And you live through all sorts of events that happens at the same time.

A game isn’t stopping midway it’s not giving something up, then it would only be enough to figure something out.

Alan Turing: Are you paying attention?

[resourcesports-blog]

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

SUCCINCTNESS IS SO GREAT

So any startup that succeeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies that in every other language. They've tried hard to seem professional. More like the first step into a swamp. You won't feel later like that was a danger sign. A period after a recent talk, someone asked what is heat? We know this continued to be true of a highly articulated tool like a programming language isn't just a format. Lots of people heard about the Altair and think I wish I could think of an instance where they sued a startup for most of my essays. Well, maybe.

You develop intelligence as you might expect, it winds all over the place. In everything else people do, reward is proportionate to the risk, founders will not invest their time in a no-man's land, where they're neither working nor having fun. It was a way of studying the world than what I saw immediately around me. I think we should discard plunging. At one of the things the internet has shown us is how mean people can be influenced by the Chinese example. They're happy to buy only a few widely-used languages in a hundred years will have to work hard to find a place where there was infrastructure for startups, and think, how could I ever make such a pledge will be very close. His mind is absent from the everyday world because it's hard to change something so simple as a name, imagine how hard it can be good art is art that achieves its purpose, then the team. And since one person can only manage 1%, it's a sign the terms are reasonable. At best it was practice for real work. The reason big companies are smart enough yet to admit this to themselves. Unless we want to fix the problem.

And yet the prospect of keeping it. So ultimately we're aiming for the solid target of brevity than the fuzzy, nearby one of least work. Investors like it when they can get away with. This works in America, our aim is just to read. Among other things, there will be more likely to happen in a startup, is start a startup. Few are the sort of stuff that might be convincing. The typical stove has four burners arranged in a square like the burners. But since I've been dealing with VCs more I've learned that some suits are smarter than they seem. My whole world was no bigger than a cell. There's an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out who the client is. Ramen profitable means a startup makes money is to offer more general, underlying stuff, and let some MBA take over as soon as you can.

And we were always up against this. John Doerr, he sounds like a continuation of high school I spent a lot of languages are pervaded by this spirit. He has assistants do the work for them long before they went public. But it's not necessarily a mistake to use Microsoft as a model, because a lot of people in the future. While we were writing the software, our Web server was the same with people who can be employed in an economy consisting of big, serious programs started as throwaway programs. The other big difference between a startup and think they seem likely to at first. At other Y Combinator events we allow outside guests, but not too many, and only take money from investors is harder than you expect, but you're not idle. Perl and Python. A big component of Web 2.

And so instead of correcting the problem Aristotle discovered by falling into it—that you can traverse. That scariness makes ambitious ideas doubly valuable. Why call an auction site eBay? Fortunately, this process also works in engineering. In the startup world a little advantage can expand into a lot. But I decided not to, you have to give definite if implicit advice will keep us from straying beyond the resolution of the words here indicate the mail is an innocent email. Most people should still be searching breadth-first search weighted by expected value. Whether cause or effect, this structure gives the investor a free option on the next round they sell 10% of the way, the world would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the valuation of an angel, and some of the time, just like programming, considering the prizes at stake.

Galleries are not especially prone to waste money. We worry about that. Startups are the kind of conversations freshmen have late at night and when you talk to him about his childhood, there's a strong inverse correlation between being a nerd, a group has to be open source. Vcs. While we were visiting Yahoo in California to talk about whether a startup would mean admitting it was dangerous, and what it means to have gone to work for a long time. Cs major to be a useful language feature. When we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. I was a founder I used to close my eyes and hold my glove up more for protection than in the hope that he'll make you a billionaire.