#banning myself from the internet until further notice

[panb1mbo]

being on my period makes me stupid horny

[grimoire-of-seven]

hello lovely!!! i’ve been having just an awful time at school, so i was wondering if u could do a hc of one of the demon boys comforting the mc when they’re overwhelmed?? it would make my day thank uuu xoxo

PROMPT: “I’m here for You”

Rating: SFW || Barbatos’ Warning: Vague main story plot spoilers at Beelzebub’s headcanon.

Words: 300-600

Characters: Demon Boys + MC / Gender-Neutral Reader

Notes: I suppose, what I got after writing this prompt is that no matter what, you deserve to take a break every once in a while despite your mind telling otherwise. I hope you’ll enjoy this!~

Lucifer

Letting your shoes walk you around the House of Lamentation for some fresh air or change of scenery, your bedroom, a place where your bones could rest, became more like a pressure cooker with piles of your homework, additional projects and materials to read occupying your desk that it became obvious that shutting yourself in could not do any good.

With your fingers fidgeting, your worries came like waves clashing to the shore without any rock to interfere, the conversation with your favored professor was a subject that was hard to dismiss and with the exams fast approaching…

Perhaps the fireplace by the common room would be settling.

Or a nice distraction that is..

“Is something the matter, dear?”

Like a feline jerking from a sudden touch or caress of its owner, you clumsily tried to composed yourself, looking to your rear as to who might have spoken, seeing only a prominent string pulled to his chin.

“Oh. It’s just you, Lucifer. Thought I was having some paranormal experience for a sec.”

“Paranormal?”

“Well.. your outfit seems to blend in with the sofa.”

Watching him place his hand close to his chest, an invitation escaped through his lips, asking you to sit beside him with your body just seemingly comply with it, tired should you think about it further.

“You are pursing your lips once more, human. It is like you do not have any lips anymore.”

“I don’t!”

“And your fingers are back in fidgeting again. You only do both of those things when you are upset and in terrible discomfort.”

Silence.

Sensing how this might have been a private matter, with your lips tightly shut and eyes that are so unsure where to look, the Avatar of Pride himself knew too well how it must feel with other people insist on meddling with your own business. Offering you the cup of tea he had brewed himself for, he spoke in a gentle manner, a contrary when hearing him shout his brother’s name; “You could always tell me what is bothering you, dear. However, should it be something personal and intimate, you could always have a nice cup of tea to think it with and I would not insist on the subject. We could just silently stare by the fire and be distracted together.”

Self-consciously trying to compose yourself as you took the offer, it took courage for you to take hold of his hand, making the conversation into a confession;

“Well.. it is just about my academic performance…”

What supposed to feel awkward and perhaps humiliating, none of those surfaced with the light-bringer listening intently, much so that it felt good to be able to find someone to talk to and release what had been oppressed for only your mind to argue with.

More so, to share it with a nice warm chamomile tea.

.. And it is just all overwhelming.”

“I understand,” the Avatar of Pride remarked, as he poured more tea to your cup, followed by a string of advice that brought enlightenment to your studies. Perhaps, to a demon who is prompt to every work, his advice would really help.

“Say,” inching closer; “If it is fine with you, I could accompany you until you feel like returning to your room. Perhaps I could escort you then.”

“Would you not have agendas to attend?”

“Nonsense.” He chuckled.

“I would like to accompany you for once. It seems my brothers have been taking too much of your time and with this opportunity, I would not want to miss spending more time with you.”

 Mammon

“Hey! Ya ready?”

Bursting through the door like your room is his too, as he makes a race to the bed to your side, it is obvious that your great Mammoney is really on the mood for trouble.

“You could go ahead, Mammon… I don’t think I am in the mood…”

“Go ahead? But I only count myself in ‘cause ya agreed.”

Pursing your lips, they were only duplicated by the white-haired boy’s brows, now all stitched together.

“What’s wrong?”

Turning to meet his gaze, this little gesture made the Avatar of Greed’s cheeks crimson red, this intimate space between you was something he was so waiting to capture alone. Something that he could perhaps thank God for?

Or Diavolo?

Or Lucifer.. Definitely Lucifer..

With every one of them banned from using D.D.D., it seems they just went on with their business and they didn’t even bother pestering their little human.

And what’s a great Mammon got to do in this situation?

- Not waste the opportunity.

“Nothing..”

“Nothing?” Sitting up as he took a good look of you, it was obvious that you were not well. He may be what his brothers call stupid but he isn’t that stupid now. “What is it?”

“Just a bunch of schoolwork. They’re just getting on my nerves.”

Erecting from the soft mattress you and he just shared for a few seconds to get a sense of his surroundings, there were several open books sitting by your desk. One look and he knew exactly what it meant.

And that is your room is turning into Satan’s room with all the clutter there is on one side of the room.

Truth be told, he had been in that situation. Stuck on an academic project or an exam to pass and he knew just the right solution to get it out of their exchange student’s peabrain.

Or as everyone else calls it, a break.

“You could just… leave me here and tell me if the prank went right… Sorry about this…” you said so with your head already planning how to manage the time to get all your work done, making a walk already to the desk to reread your notes from the day’s lecture to get a grasp once more on what to do.

And obviously, the Avatar of Greed didn’t take this as a hint to leave.

“Well…” Mammon went on contemplating, “I did not like making fun of Lucifer anyway.”

Lies.

“I always get the short end of the stick with him anyways. It’s all fun and games until you could hear that cry for my name at the end. And that’s when you’ll know, I screwed up.”

“How about this,” the demon schemed, “We go shopping! Huh? Ain’t that fun while not necessarily trying to think about how much we’re gonna spend?”

“Lucifer would not like this..”

“Who cares if he doesn’t. I already got my credit card thanks to you anyways.”

Unable to suppress a smile since you already knew how this would end to both of you, mostly him, getting in trouble, it was that smile that made him more convinced to take you out of the room.

“Whaddya say? Are you in?”

“You.. are going to spoil me? With your credit card?”

“Well.. as long as I don’t get tempted at buying something.”

Knowing how that would be difficult to the literal embodiment of Greed, you could not help but feel sorry and laugh at the same time to this moment.

“What if Lucifer decides to tie you up upside down again?”

“I got you to untie me up again.”

Ha!

“Don’t count on your chances.”

Taking the first step out of the door, you could only hear what seems to be a cry of desperation trying to catch up with you.

“Hey, human! Just what do you mean by that?”

 Leviathan

 Leviathan: Hey, you okay?

Leviathan: We’re supposed to meet a while ago to check if my package from Akuzon has arrived.

Leviathan: You still there?

….

…

…

Leviathan: Hey normie! Come into my room. Quick!

Why?

Leviathan: I have something to show you. Just hurry!

Leviathan: I’ll be here waiting for you.

And that was how you were hoisted from your room and off to the otaku’s. With your previous class just overwhelmingly taking too much of your energy, it could have been easy to dismiss the text and decline… but it is obvious that he wants to spend some time with you and it sure was convincing enough to get you walking from the hallway to his room.

And here you are, knocking thrice to his door.

“Took you quite a while.” He remarked, seemingly letting your tardiness pass as you dragged yourself inside, something the Avatar of Envy himself noticed.

“Are you okay?”

Were you always that easy to read?

“Just had a bad day.”

“I got something for you.”

With your eyes recognizing the green gem by the monitor of his sleek computer set, the said headline or icon of the game continued rotating until it went to the title screen. It has been quite a while since you have last played it, reminiscing the random shenanigans you ought to do at your saved file, your reaction somehow observed by the other entity in the room; “Have you ever played Sims before?”

“Only at an internet café..”

With his eyes somehow judging you closely, it was all shrugged off as he invited you to take a seat beside his gaming chair, hugging his Ruri-chan body pillow as he gave the controls to you;

“How about we make a new game and create our Sims? Game?”

Letting the visual cues guide you in properly making a household like a spark did an idea popped up and sure enough, this would take your mind off from worrying, at least, while the loading screen is out in the way;

“How about we design each other’s sims?”

“Eh?!”

Completely disagreeing to the idea, his cheeks only got more flustered, making him snuggle his face by the pillow in retreat; “Each other’s sims? But I could design my own Sims. How about we just go straight in designing our house instead?.”

It is too bad for him you got the controls. Selecting the sex “male” by the top corner, you began customizing the sims by removing every article of clothing to get a better picture of what you are working with.

“That’s unnecessary!” Exclaimed the blushing demon to your right but his cries were all ignored as you went through the categories, truly immersed in making the most accurate Leviathan sims yet!

“You have those striking sun-like eyes…” Squinting by the monitor as the zoom were not enough, every click and scroll to the menu, you would take a good look at him before returning to the monitor; “…and that stunning hair swept to your right. And your jawline just beautiful like that…”

“I think that just looks like me already, normie! Let’s move one!”

“And then your nose is a perfectly pointy and lips just thin yet striking…”

“Hey, I said that’s enough! Let’s design our house already!”

It has already come into conclusion to Leviathan that there is no getting through you. Not when you are engrossed and unbothered to his plea of taking the controls back as he somehow just keep on getting these remarks about him that all sounded like a compliment.

From his hair to his eyes… From his nose to his lips…

It is too much for an otaku to take in.

“And done!” Happily concluding your creation where you almost forgot naming it “Levia-chan”, turning to your right, you could just see the Avatar of Envy covering his crimson red cheeks with his hands that are accentuated with a blue-colored nail polish.

“I almost forgot about the nail polish! Wait!”

Just as you were to turn, he used the wheels of his chair to push you aside, sending you at the farthest left of the screen, giving him the full reins to the mouse, envious already to make you flustered just as he was;

“And now it’s my turn, normie.”

Satan

Knock knock knock

“I will bethere in a second!”

Knock knock knock

“Who isthere knocking so late this evening?”

Knock knock knock

“I swear,Mammon, if you are here to borrow money, forget abou—“

“Oh..human..”

Perhapscalling out for the Avatar of Wrath’s help after dinner is not a good idea..

“I did notrealize it’s already that late.. I could just come back tomorrow.”

Trying notto get on his worse side considering there is no Lucifer or any of the brothersto interfere, your heels were already inching farther from the door, biddingyour goodbye already with a smile when;

“It is justfine. You already caught my attention, after all.” His remark making you pausefrom moving away; “What is it?”

But then again.. is your concernsomething to make him allot more time with you? He seems already bothered whenyou were knocking the door.

“It’sjust.. nothing..”

“Nothing?”With his brows knitted to one another, it is a definite statement to say, hewould not be letting go of the subject;

“If it isnothing, you would have not knocked on my door thrice.”

There is nopoint denying it, no?

“It is justthat…”

“Yes?”

“I find thelesson a while ago…

“Human..”

His handsoon came across to your shoulders, his face closer;

“Whateverit is that is bothering you, you could say it to me.”

All right..

“I justfind the lesson a while ago.. quite difficult to comprehend..”

Gesturingyou to come in, perhaps it is only to your senses as to how awkward was itwatching Satan disappear on his clutter of books, only hearing his footstepsand the door shutting on its own. Seconds that soon turned to a minute, it wasunnerving how still it was, making you resort to a conversation;

“Is thereanything I could help you with?”

Followed bya series of footsteps, his head soon popped up along with several books on hisarm, carried like an infant to its mother.

“No need. Ifound what I need. Just that this room, needs organizing at the weekends.”

You couldfeel your fingers fidgeting, knowing not how to continue the talk but withapologies muttered under your breath;

“There isno need to apologize. I am most glad that I could help you.” Looking up, therewas nothing more but a genuine smile painted on his lips, something you werenot accustomed to but something you are comfortable with.

“How aboutwe discuss the lesson at your room? Mine might not provide the proper studyarea, to say the least.”

Was that a little joke added in?

“I could alwayshelp you sort your books if you want!” Offering the deal, for once, Wrathhimself cooled down and just fine.

“Deal.”

Asmodeus

“If it isnot our little human.~”

With thedemon approaching you by your seat at the dining, shopping bags occupying bothof his hands, your head could only take a quick look before declining once moreon your arms.

“What areyou sulking about? You know how that is a big no-no for getting a beautifulface like me.~”

“Not really helping, Asmodeus…”

Pouting hislips, you could hear the chair being pulled as he soon sat down, his shoppingbag all over by the table like how their meals were at the House of Lamentation.

“Are youfrustrated?”

“No. I’mhappy.”

Trying notto make this seem more of a topic considering how petty you think the case was,the Avatar of Lust did not take his eyes away from you, observing every movethe muscles in your face makes.

“Iunderstand. You do not want to talk about it then my lips are sealed.”

That was easy.

“But yougot to let me use your hands, please?”

Your hands?

“Morespecifically your fingers, sweetie.~”

Your fingers? Sweetie?

What isAsmodeus up to?

“What areyou gonna do?”

Looking athim search the largest paperbag, his hands were soon holding tons of nailpolishes, lining them all up on the hard surface as he kept on digging anddigging to the bag and out for your eyes to see, all so diverse and unique onits own.

There weremattes, gels, chromes, metallic, glitters, and pearls that are of differenthues, each one of them screaming to be tested out and was that little category orgroup by the farthest end of the line.. holographic?

“Likingwhat you see? I got them on a sale and the saleslady was happy to help me carrymy cart.~”

“I do notwant my soft skin and beautiful body pushing and doing any physical activityaside fro—“

“Asmo…”

“Right!”Flipping his hair, you definitely had a clearer vision of how his eyes areenamored to his newest collection that pray tell, still has a space on hisroom.

“Anyways.. Icould not test them all out to you, that would take us years but..”

Here it is!For whatever reason, his excitement was contagious as you scanned the wholeline of nail polish. Something you could not afford but could experience it nowwith the Narcissus.

“Which onedo you prefer? You only got to pick three.~”

You will definitely need more thanthree.

Beelzebub

Down went another cup of strawberry-filled yogurt.

With your room a dumpster of books and lecture notes, the kitchen became your little paradise. It has been an hour since you sat down and it is becoming more and more discouraging to do any work despite your brain stressing enough to do move on and start ahead.

It had been like this for a couple of days already. Wasting the whole day then contemplating and scolding yourself for not doing anything related to academics that eating became a form of coping up with the stress. If only things could be simpler then maybe…

GROOOOOoooWWLLL

“Did Lucifer put you again on patrol to the fridge?”

Looking at your blinky box, the Avatar of Gluttony himself is rather prompt to his tummy schedule; 6 o’clock in the evening.

“Nope.. Help yourself.”

Like a giant going in for a snack, you could hear containers and bottles clinking and shifting as Beel started rummaging, closing the door with his feet as both hands were occupied with containers labeled with his name.

“Wow.. you’re going to eat all of that?” Honestly, by now, this amount of food should not come as a surprise anymore. Especially after you witnessed him devour a whole buffet Barbatos prepared during their retreat at Diavolo’s.

“Nope.”

Huh?

“I figured you would want some too. Eating yogurt is not really going to make a cut.”

Laying down two mugs, two plates, two dainty spoons, and a butterknife, it is difficult not to think about what would you be eating that would require a knife.

“What do you have on the menu, Beel?”

“Well…”  he soon began opening every lid known to mankind, overwhelming what seems to be a little breakfast table by the kitchen; “We got a cheesecake, red velvet cake, some chocolate-chip muffins, vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate drink to go along with it.”

That is more than what your tummy could bargain for.

“Belphegor and I used to bond like this whenever he is conflicted too..  And since you are now part of our family, you could always talk to me if something bothers you.”

Beel..

Perhaps talking it out rather than letting it grow within would not hurt a fly or Beelzebub’s appetite as he just munched and munched while listening intently. You could tell he has his attention to your story as he would nod and would look at you to see if you are eating as well. And you are definitely getting a slice of the cheesecake with a scoop of the cold dessert on top; He might have said something along with the chomp but it was hard to fathom with bits and pieces of food intervening and crumbs already escaping the inevitable in his mouth.

“Thank you, Beel.”

Watching how he could not wipe the titbits off near his lips, it became quite an eyesore that your hand went subconsciously searching for your handkerchief before leaning in, your face several inches from him;

“W-what are you doing, human?”

And with the napkin guided with your index finger, you wiped away what was intruding by the demon’s lips, meeting its doom instead at a cloth.

“Thanking you. I am all stuff and I feel better now, because of you.”

Genuinely smiling for the first time in days, what you said ended with a hug and you could not help but notice how his body got warmer but his arms stiffer too.

Belphegor

“Taking anap always helps, human.”

Tempted tooblige, even just for fifteen minutes to refresh yourself from being stressedby the day’s lectures, it was something you regarded to as a waste of timeconsidering how reality defies expectations. One minute you plan to only take arest for fifteen minutes and you would open your eyes to see you have beensleeping for an hour or two.

It does nothelp as well if you would just lie down either. Planning to only lie down forfive minutes only to extend it if the minute hand would go to six minutes.

“I do notthink so, Belphie.”

Feeling themattress pushed down, you could sense him taking a seat beside you, looking atyour distraught features with his drowsiness leaving the conversation, even forjust a moment.

“Why not?”

“Well..taking a short nap only makes it worse for me..”

“How come?”

“Well,”heaving out a sigh, it somehow brought to your knowledge how tired andexhausted you are from all the learning and lectures you have to remember..flashbacks of how those three hours of lecture became much more of a torture astime progresses slowly..

“It’s justthat.. instead of working and rereading the lectures for next week’s testdespite almost drowsing off by the last hour, I am wasting it on taking abreak.”

Facing theother side of the bed, your mind wants you to take a stand and resume onstudying, your body declined such proposition and soon, came in another insidebattle.

Having aninternal dilemma, it took you quite a while to sense a rather stronger forcepushing down the mattress, sensing it as your position went wobbly before itall came to a halt, with the Avatar of Sloth himself sitting nearly beside you,feet dangling on the floor.

“But what’sthe sense of working if you are under stress?”

Under stress..

“Wouldn’tthat only affect the quality of your work or how you would perform at least?”

You havenot thought of that..

It wasalways a race with time.. but what about that aspect?

“I..”

“How aboutyou take a nap and I’ll wake you up?”

The Avatar of Sloth… waking you up?The embodiment of sleep and 5-minutes snoozes, waking you up?

“Hey! Don’tlook at me like I’ll let you down. I’ll wake you up, I swear.”

Seeing himtrying his best to make himself the suitable alarm clock, in retreat did youlie down, unable to suppress a giggle, or even a snort by how soft hisreactions were;

“Hey, cutthat out! If you won’t stop and sleep, I’ll sing Kumbaya out loud.”

And thatwas your queue for your eyes to shut tight.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 63

Chapter Summary - Danielle meets Sophie for lunch, then bumps into another friend who decides to give Danielle some assistance, but what will occur if she accidentally meets Tom?

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller​ @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​ @lys-syl @youcantcatchafallingstar

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

“Tom?” Danielle knocked on the door of Tom’s study before entering. When she walked in she was welcomed to the sight of him pacing frantically, repeating a line over and over in different tones, trying to find the right timbre to give it the emotion he wished to convey. He did not seem to notice her for a minute but stopped and looked at her as soon as he did. “You need some lunch.”

“I will, at one or half-past.”

“It’s two o’clock, Tom.”

“Shit.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t have time to go down and…”

Danielle left the room for only a moment before returning with a tray that had soup, a salad, two bottles of water, a teapot covered in a tea cosy and a cup with milk. “I know, so I brought it to you, read over lines, add notes and eat.” She ordered.

Tom’s frustration dissipated as he looked at the meal she had prepared for him, his grimace became a smile and he walked over to her and kissed her. “Thank you.”

“I told you, I would help keep you on track when we are both here.”

“I love you so much, Elle,” He kissed her again. “You’re never allowed leave.”

Danielle smiled before laughing. “Are you going to tie me up and forbid me from leaving?”

“That sounds like fun.” Tom grinned back before looking at her clothes. “You got changed, are you going somewhere?”

“I was going to meet Sophie for a while in Camden.”

Tom gave her another kiss. “But what if you are spotted?”

“Well then, when we become public I am sure someone will accuse Sophie of getting me to ensnare you and together we will rule the two boyfriends of the internet, Mwahahahahaha.” Danielle lasted only a moment before she erupted in giggles, Tom joining her immediately after. “But no, Ben’s not there either, he’s spending daddy-son time with Christopher, so no one will care and if they do see us it will be ‘Sophie Hunter and Friend’.”

“In that case, have a wonderful time, we are leaving for Luke’s at eight.”

“I plan on being home to cook a meal before we go.”

“Well, how about I have something ready for six?”

“How about I tell you I love you, but that I know you’ll be too engrossed in this so I will be home at five to cook?” Danielle retorted.

“Meany.”

“You know it’s true.”

“Well hurry along, every minute with me is wasting time you could spend with Sophie, are you driving?”

“I’ll get the Tube, quicker than finding parking. Text me if you need me to pick anything up.”

“Basil.”

“You’ve got it Sweet Cheeks, don’t work too hard.”

“No promises, have fun, Elle.”

*

“Hello, stranger.” Elle hugged Sophie as best she could with a baby belly in the way. “I was bold.”

“Do not tell me those are for my son.” Sophie scolded as she looked at the baby boutique bags in Danielle’s hand.

“No.” There was a sceptical look on Sophie’s face. “Some are for Bubble.”

“Elle!”

“I’m sorry, they were too cute.”

“We don’t know what we’re having.”

“They’re neutral, come on. I have no nieces and nephews, let me spoil your kids.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I know and I’m not even remotely sorry.” Danielle shrugged, earning an eye roll from Sophie. “So, how was Christmas?”

“Tiring. Thankfully Christopher hasn’t grasped it all yet, but he’s teething, so we were up half the night anyway.”

“Ooh, not nice.”

“Ben tried to let me get some sleep, but I can’t get comfortable so I was tossing and waking every time Kit was groaning.”

“There’s no winning, meds aren’t the answer, but they are so small it hurts them so much.” Danielle nodded sympathetically.

“Exactly, you seem to get it more than people with kids, all they keep saying is ‘try this’ and ‘try that’ and getting offended if it doesn’t work.”

“Saying that it worked for them so you either did it wrong, are calling them a liar or saying they don’t know what they are talking about.” Danielle finished.

“THANK YOU!” Sophie caused a few people to jump with her half shout. “Finally, someone who gets it.” She sighed, “I’m sorry, I am just unloading, I am so much stress and hormones some days and Ben is as tired, if not more with work.”

“First of all, you are allowed get annoyed, and secondly, give me learning lines over carrying a human being in my stomach, that shit is never easy.”

Sophie frowned. “How are you getting this more than most parents do, you don’t even have nephews and nieces.”

“Because I am able to see from the outside looking in,” Danielle shrugged. “So, what plans have you for tonight?”

“Dinner, then sleep.”

“Good plan.”

“Tim and Wanda are stealing Christopher for the night, I think Ben called hem to ask them for a night’s peace, I am not complaining. I need one good night’s sleep and I will be back to myself a bit, right now I feel like I am on the verge of erupting from tiredness.”

“So another coconut slice then?” Danielle offered.

“Fuck it.” Sophie turned to get out of the chair.

“Don’t you dare get up, I’ll get it, you cherish your decaf tea,” Danielle ordered going to the counter to retrieve the last slice of the cake for her friend. “There you are.”

“What happened your hand?” Sophie had not realised with the long sleeves that Danielle was sporting a wrist brace.

“Fell off a bike on Christmas Eve.” Danielle dismissed. “Small tiny fracture.”

“Not fun, how did Tom react?”

“Like I was base jumping, no he was scared because my phone was broken in the fall so it took hours for him to be told what happened to me.”

“Poor Tom.”

“Came to the hospital to bust me out, they wanted to keep me in because they thought I might have a concussion, but he demanded I come home, didn’t leave me do anything too strenuous all Christmas.”

“Of course not. So what are your plans for tonight?”

“Going to a party that Luke is insisting on having, though, between you and me, I think that’s his way of having all his clients in one place and not making a show of themselves in public.” Danielle smiled.

“You might not be wrong there. Have you something to wear?”

“Stop, Tom found this thing in my wardrobe I should never have bought and begged me to bring it.”

“Wait, you owned it?”

“Yes, I bought it a few years ago, I have no idea why.”

“Right, sorry, for a second I thought he was forcing you to wear something he got from somewhere, my brain is frazzled.”

“Jesus no, I don’t think Tom would ever do such a thing.”

“Do you want to wear it?”

“It’s very...not me.”

“How so?”

“Well, look at me, I am plaid shirts and jeans, not dresses.”

“So you can’t have both? You never were a girlie girl, were you?”

“We lived in the countryside, I had horses and helped my dad on the holidays with calves and testing and all that, what do you think?” Danielle laughed.

“Zara Phillips works with horses and look at her life.”

“Who?” Danielle stared blankly at Sophie, having no idea who she was talking about.

“Zara Phillips, the Queen’s granddaughter, Princess Anne’s Daughter.” Danielle shook her head to indicate she had no idea who that was. “I forget you guys don’t know anything about our Royal Family.”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Danielle dismissed. “If it doesn’t affect my daily life, not interested. I only have enough energy to look after me and mine, after that, not interested.”

“Good way to be.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Tom and I have this thing planned with Luke, if we get a chance, we are going to release this ourselves, including all about me.”

“A great idea.” Sophie smiled. “Sort of like our engagement announcement.”

“Minus a baby for us.”

“Would you want that some day?”

“What?”

“Marriage, children?”

“Perhaps,” She answered first before smiling. “Yes. Why?”

“Nothing, curious, you were so good with Christopher.” Sophie smiled. “So, the question?”

“How do you prepare for it. I mean, meeting all these people he works with. I know you have your own name, but Theatre and Opera Director sounds so much fancier than me, I mean…”

Sophie put her hand up. “I am going to stop you there.” She declared. “Tom doesn’t care for that, you are enough as you are, you are everything he wants as you are. You were enough when you were a paramedic, something that actually matters. If films stop happening in the morning, if they are banned, who, out of the two of you, hell, the four of us, has an actual profession? You saved how many lives, that is amazing.” Danielle simply dismissed it. “Honestly, you will hold your own, if those people think less of you for your job, then they are just petty pricks, a film cannot go ahead without someone making sure the damn thing is safe, you are the reason we will no doubt have more dragons and battles soon.” There was an expectant grin on her face.

“I am not telling you anything,” Danielle stated. “I had an NDA the size of a small country rammed down my throat, besides, I am more into the books, though I got them signed by Martin, that was pretty cool, he was there one day.”

“Wow, that is something.”

“I may have fangirled slightly.”

“Doesn’t everyone when they meet a particular person?” Sophie smiled. “I needed this.”

“You know where I am.” Danielle smiled. “I am off now until February.”

“I thought you had another job coming up?”

“My hand means no job, I was going to apply for another one but I decided to further myself before starting the next job at the end of February.”

“Anyone that belittles you does it because they are envious of your hard work, your fortitude and strong nature. Be yourself, Danielle, don’t let them beat you down, and remember, Tom wanted a strong fiery woman, show them why you are that woman.” She grinned.

“I will.”

“No better woman for the job.”

*

Danielle smiled to herself as she walked through Camden back to the Tube station. She thought about the shoes she had chosen for the dress Tom had chosen and groaned, she knew it was going to pinch and after a couple hours that was going to be a form of torture, passing one of the shops, she paused and looked at the shoes in the window.

“Danni?” Recognising the voice, she turned around to beam happily at the women walking towards her. “I knew it was you.”

“Nacelle,” She smiled, going to hug the other woman. “How are you?”

“Great, how was your Christmas?”

“Wonderful, how about you?”

“Great,” She turned to the woman next to her, “This is Becky, by the way; my fiance.”

“Fi...ah, you asked?”

“Wait, you planned to ask me?” The other woman asked.

“Yes,” Nacelle admitted.

“Wait, you asked Nacelle?”

“Yes, and she jumped out of the chair.” Becky smiled.

“I am so happy for you both, congratulations.” Danielle gave Nacelle another hug before Becky came in for one too.

“So you and Tommy boy better be free on June 22.”

“I can’t promise Tom, but I will make sure I am.”

“Why? Is everything alright with you and Mr Promotions?” Nacelle asked.

“Yes, it’s just that he sort of has to travel a lot for work so it is hard for him to get to a lot of events, and it is not always pre-booked, so I can’t say if he is free yet or not.” She explained. “I swear, he does exist,” she added laughing.

“I’m getting sceptical,” Nacelle joked. “So what has you in London for New Years?”

“Tom, we are going to a party tonight but I had to meet one of the girls for a late lunch, now I am looking in closed shops cursing the shoes I chose for tonight.”

“Pinchy?” Becky guessed.

“And high, he’s six foot one so I thought, you know, try and not look like a dwarf next to him.” both other women erupted in laughter.

“Wait, what time are you going at?”

“Well, I have to get dinner sorted for six if I ever want to get some way cleaned up.”

“And the party is at what?”

“Nine.”

“Where is it?”

“Some place called The Trinity Club.” the other two women stared at her. “What?”

“The Trinity Club, in Mayfair?”

“I think that’s where it is, why?” Her phone went off, causing her to read the text. “Tom’s cooking dinner.”

“Okay then, come on.” Nacelle half dragged her down the street.

“What, what are you doing?”

“You cannot go to a party at the Fucking Trinity Club looking like a hobo.”

“I don’t look like a hobo.” Danielle looked herself up and down.

“No, but there, if you are not perfect, you will be classed one, that is one of the best spots in London, how the hell did you get dragged into that?”

“It’s to do with Tom’s ‘sort of’ boss.”

“Seriously, is he in charge of Disney or something, because that is seriously cool,” Becky asked as they walked to a small building, before taking out her keys and opening the door.

“Sadly not, if he was, I would live there.” She smiled before looking at the open door.

“Relax, we are not going to steal you, I am going to do your makeup.”

“Nach,” Danielle shook her head. “No, it’s your holidays.”

“Girl, if you are going to the Trinity Club, you are going to be my business card, because these people can pay serious money for makeup.” Nacelle explained.

She was going to argue but seeing as it made sense, she conceded, after all, Nacelle was the best she knew, anything that made her look better for the party was a plus in her opinion. She sat in the chair and did as ordered.

“So, where are you staying?” Nacelle asked as she started the contouring after getting Danielle to wash her face.

“I...I moved in with Tom over Christmas.” the makeup artist stopped working and stared at her, “It was one of my gifts, a key to his place.”

“Didn’t I say you would be giving him the promotion?” Nacelle laughed. “You two will be married, wait and see, and have gorgeous little sassy babies with mummy’s sassy attitude.”

“Or Tom’s gentle nature.”

“He’s quiet?”

“Can be, he has two personas, the introvert at home and the extrovert for work.”

“I see it all the time with actors.” Nacelle agreed. “What colour is this dress by the way?”

“Midnight Blue, silver court-type shoes,” Danielle explained.

“That’ll suit your complexion and dark hair.” Nacelle nodded. “What are you going to do with your hair?”

“Let it down, maybe straighten it,” Danielle stated plainly, but Nacelle stared at her. “What?”

“Becky, love, get your straighteners.” She called to her fiance, who had gone to the bedroom to get changed. “Put it to two hundred.”

“I’ll just straighten it when I get home.” Danielle dismissed.

“Straighten? Danni straight doesn’t work with what I am doing to you. Is the dress sexy?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, sate my curiosity, will you have to attend the likes of this again in the future, business get-togethers and whatnot?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in that case, Becky and I are bringing you shopping next week to sort your wardrobe issues, you clearly need some help, because you are out of your depth.” Nacelle commented.

“I am not.”

“Danni, you have no idea if what you are wearing is sexy, no offence pet, but you are clearly not a girlie girl, and that is fine, not every woman is, but it means for the poshies, you need help.” Danielle bit her lip in embarrassment. “I am not trying to hurt your feelings Danni did your mum…?”

“My mam was sixty when I was a teenager. I was a surprise, so…”

“She was not much help.” Nacelle finished. “Well, that’s where it’s our duty as women to help you through girliness.” Danielle smiled slightly. “Becky.”

“Got it.” Becky came over, changed into her sweatpants and hoodie, smiling as her fiance worked on Danielle’s makeup.

“I thought you were a solicitor?” Danielle frowned, watching the ease that Becky had giving her ghd curls.

“I am, but I also know how to look good.” Becky laughed. “I’ve been on enough sets with Nach, she is close to hair people, they thought me a few tricks.”

“You should go into the caravan more often, they will give you a few tips.”

“Not everyone is as friendly as you,” Danielle commented.

“True,” Nacelle conceded, “Close your eyes.” Danielle obeyed. “But most want to show off how good they are.”

“Your home is so you, by the way,” Danielle commented as the other women worked.

“Aw, thank you.” Nacelle smiled proudly. “Yes, it suits us and Nero.”

“Nero?”

“Our cat,” Becky stated. “He’s asleep on the bed inside and rules the house.”

“They usually do.” Danielle smiled.

“Right, so how far do you have to go after this?”

“Just two stops on the Tube.”

“North or South?” Nacelle eyed her carefully.

“North.”

“Where are you living?”

“Belsize.” Danielle knew what was coming next.

“The Trinity Club, Belsize, Danni, you are living large.”

“Not me, Tom.”

“He asked you to move in with him, didn’t he, so you are part of that society now,” She teased.

Danielle stuck her tongue out. Nacelle never cared who was related to who, associated with who or how much they were worth, she was wealthy enough in her own right, she was highly coveted in her field, and Becky was hard working also, so she had liked Nacelle, and knew that she could actually tell her who exactly Tom was and know the other woman would not care for who he was, but that he cared for her. When she and Becky had finished, they showed Danielle what they had done, “Oh my, God. I don’t look like me.” She stared at her reflection. “Nacelle, you are insanely brilliant.”

“I know, I know.” Nacelle fanned herself.

“What time is it?”

“Ten to six,” Becky answered, looking at her watch.

“Shit, I really need to get home, and get basil.”

“Okay, look.” Nacelle went to the kitchen and grabbed a plant. “There’s the basil and we’ll drive you.”

“You don’t…”

“Girl, I have spent the last forty minutes doing you up, hair and all, so you better believe I am not letting you out of my home to get blustered up on a train,” Nacelle argued.

“I can’t believe you are giving me a plant.”

“Shut up and let me scope out your man’s house,” Nacelle ordered, shooing her to the door.

“Thank you, Nach.”

“June 22nd, don’t pretend I didn’t tell you.” She smiled.

“Oh, that’s a given.” Danielle winked.

It did not take long to get to Tom’s house and Danielle could sense the women looking at the structure from outside the tall gates. “Danni?”

“Yes?”

“He’s not a crime guy, is he?”

Danielle laughed, “He is not in crime, he is just good at what he does and wanted a nice house.”

“Well in that case, if we ever have a dinner date, we are so coming here.”

“How about when you are finished your next big job?”

“Deal, I’ll hold you to it, Danni.”

“Good, you have my number, thank you for everything Nach.” She smiled having gotten out of the car and looking in the window at Nacelle in the passenger seat.

“Anytime, I…” Nacelle ceased talking as the gate was half opened and Tom came out smiling at Danielle. “Wait your Tom is Tom Hiddleston?”

“He is,” Danielle stated nervously.

“Why did you say he was in promotions?” Nacelle seemed half hurt.

“Because he is, sort of. I didn’t want to say he was an actor on set, everyone gets nosy.”

“She’s got a point.” Becky conceded.

Tom was still looking at the car. “He is so confused.” Danielle giggled.

Nacelle opened her door and got out. “Hello, I’m Nacelle.” She stated confidently as she walked over to the actor, her hand extended.

“Nacelle, the makeup artist?” Tom smiled back.

“You told him about me?” Nacelle smiled to Danielle.

“Of course.” She smiled back walking over to Tom who looked at her in awe. “Nacelle found me in the street and demanded to attack me with makeup.”

“You look very beautiful,” Tom smiled honestly. “Nacelle, thank you for everything, she is, of course, beautiful regardless, but you know how Elle is with these things, she is so knowledgeable about the world of information, but her weakness is makeup.”

“She tries, but bless her, she is not good with these things, she had to have one fault.”

Danielle rolled her eyes but nodded in acknowledgement. “I was saying that Nacelle and her fiance should come for dinner sometime.”

“Definitely, whenever suits,” Tom smiled, “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

“We better not tonight, you two have places to be. With regards dinner, I am busy with work for a bit, as I guess you guys are, so let me know when you are around and I will let you know when Becky and I are free and we can arrange something.” Nacelle grinned. “Remember, shopping next week.”

“Oh Jesus, I thought you were messing.”

“I'm as serious as a heart attack, I am sexing you up, especially when it involves this man and his industry, I got you covered.”

“As long as I remain covered,” Danielle demanded.

“With your breasts…”

“Becky, get her home, now,” Danielle ordered as Becky, Tom and Nacelle laughed. “I am going in, it is about to start raining and I will puff like a poodle.”

“Go, show my masterpiece to the aristocracy.” Nacelle smiled giving her a hug. “You did good Danni.”

“I beg to differ, I think it was I that struck luck.” Tom smiled looking at her before looking to the plant Becky was passing out to them, smiling from the driver’s seat. “Is that…?”

“You said we needed basil.” Danielle shrugged earning a confused laugh from Tom as he took it.

“We do, we better get inside and start eating, ladies, thank you so kindly for all your beautiful work and for getting Elle home safely; I cannot wait to see you both again so that I can get to know you better.”

“Likewise Mr Hiddleston,” Nacelle smiled. “So long as you don’t mind us stealing her for a day’s shopping?”

“Not at all, I am sure as much as she will grouse about the shopping, Elle will love it.”

“You know, Elle suits you better than Danni,” Becky commented from the car.

“That’s his fault.” Danielle pointed to Tom.

“It suits, guess you’re Elle now.” Nacelle laughed getting into the car, “Enjoy the prosecco and caviar.”

Tom and Danielle waved as the car left. “You came out?”

“Well when you text to say you had a slight change of plan I was concerned, curious and excited.”Tom explained, “When you said you bumped into another friend, I wanted to say hello.”

“What if they couldn’t be trusted?”

“You told me about Nacelle before, so when you texted you were with her, I was going on what you said, and you were right, she is completely unfazed.”

“A unique situation.”

“Very much so, come on, dinner is on the table and then we need to get dressed.” He placed his hand gently at the base of Danielle’s back as they headed back inside.

[jarrettfuller]

Social Media Sabbatical

A few months ago I decided to try an experiment. It was a Sunday morning and the sun was starting to stream through the curtains as I gained consciousness, moving from dreams to reality. I rubbed my eyes and stretched my arms. I reached for my iPad — as I do every morning — about to open Twitter. I stopped. Why do I have to check Twitter as soon as I wake? "There are a thousand beautiful ways to start the day that don’t begin with looking at a phone," writes Craig Mod, "And yet so few of us choose to do so." Can't I have a few minutes to myself, before allowing the clutter of the stream into my mind? I had been feeling generally distracted, my mind scattered as I balanced teaching a few classes, producing a podcast, and getting a new studio up and running. My free time, I had noticed, was spent popping into Twitter to see the latest updates or mindlessly tapping on the newest Instagram Stories. The books next to my bed kept piling up yet for some reason I more frequently turned to Twitter. In that moment, I decided to stay off social media for the morning. I set the iPad down and picked up the book on my nightstand.

I got out of bed and made breakfast and coffee. I put some music on softly in the background. At lunch, I mentioned that I hadn't been on Twitter all morning. Embarrassingly proud of myself, I decided to keep going. No Twitter the rest of the day. And the following weekend I pushed it further: no Twitter all weekend. Every weekend since, I kept pushing it further: Instagram was added to the banned list. I eventually added Friday nights: when dinner started, social media goes off. And it doesn't come back until Monday morning.

I immediately started feeling its effects. I largely don't miss it but I really notice it as Sunday afternoon turns to evening. It's not a desire to come back, fantasies about what I might be missing, but a strange calmness. The mind feels quiet — it's an absence of chatter, a missing noise, a detox for my mind.

My relationship with social media is complicated. I came of age in the early years of web 2.0. At the beginning of 2004, as a sophomore in high school, I set up my first blog. I diligently signed up for each new service as they launched. I joined Twitter in April 2007 — a few months before I graduated from high school — which means my entire adult life has been spent on the service. I tweeted through college, I tweeted about my first job, about going to graduate school.

And these interactions were almost entirely additive. I've met countless people I've since met in real life and consider friends; I got my first internship from someone I knew on Twitter; I got jobs because of Twitter connections; found apartments through Twitter. It's been an invaluable promotional tool to get my work into the world. Too many of my career highlights would not have happened were it not for Twitter.

But over the last year, I've found the interactions not as nourishing as they once were. It feels more like a distraction now, instead of part of the work — a series of virtue signaling, lazy jokes, and assurance your followers know you saw the latest trending topic. The first thing I do when I wake up is look at Twitter and Instagram. I check them between projects, on breaks, while waiting for the train. It's become too easy to put all the blame on social media. The President of the United States uses Twitter to bully and bloviate; trolls attack the underrepresented. Many people I respect have left the site altogether, their profiles a quiet ghost town. But these services, I think, are not inherently bad. It's how we use them, our relationship to them, that can cause problems. It became a quick hit, an addiction I couldn't quite curb. And something needed to change.

In his 2010 book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr writes:

The information flowing into our working memory at any given moment is called our "cognitive load." When the load exceeds our mind's ability to store and process the information—when the water overflows the thimble—we're unable to retain the information or to draw connections with the information already stored in our long-term memory. We can't translate the new information into schemas. Our ability to learn suffers, and our understanding remains shallow. Because our ability to maintain our attention also depends on our working memory,—"we have to remember what it is we are to concentrate on," as Torkel Klingberg says—a high cognitive load amplifies the distractedness we experience. When our brain is overtaxed, we find "distractions more distracting." (Some studies link attention deficit disorder, or ADD, to the overloading of working memory.) Experiments indicate that as we reach the limits of our working memory, it becomes harder to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant information, signal from noise. We become mindless consumers of data.

I felt like I could see the effects of social media on my brain. As a child, I could sit alone with a book for hours; watch a movie (or two!) uninterrupted. Summer days growing up were spent creating — painting, designing, drawing, writing — late into the night. Now that time was spend consuming.

I'd always been a curious child, someone who loved learning, but what happens when that information consumption becomes the goal and I'm left with nothing to do with it, unable to make sense of it all? To take back my attention, to curb this addiction, I realized had to put some limits on my social media intake. I couldn't leave the service completely — it's central to too much of my work. (It's said that it was once a sign of privilege to be connected, but now the privilege is the ability to disconnect. We all have emails waiting for our replies.) In addition to my social media-free weekends, there's now no social media until after lunch. Those few hours in the morning with a clear head — two write and to read, to think and to make — has become valuable creative time for me. Screens go off again an hour before bed.

There are apps that can help. I've installed Freedom on all my devices. Freedom allows you to block apps and websites (and the entire internet if you need it!) for set times. I have a recurring block each morning that doesn't turn on social media until 1pm, giving me some semblance of control over where my brain goes.

Because these rules work for me doesn't mean they'll work for you. You might not feel the same way I do — I can only speak from my own experience. I know my weaknesses and these are my meager attempts at curbing them when I can. Attention is a muscle that needs to be trained, this is my workout.

I've long been interested in the Jewish tradition of Sabbath, the day of rest and the seventh day of the week in which they remember and reflect on the creation story from Genesis. In the story, God creates the earth in six days and uses the final day of the week to rest and reflect upon his creation. Sabbath is observed beginning at sunset on Friday evening until Saturday night during which they refrain from work and rigor, and engage in restful activity. The Jewish Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in his 1951 book, The Sabbath: “The Sabbath does not simply come into being on Saturdays; the depth of its experience is created by how we behave the other six days.”

This is what I've noticed: in taking these weekend social media sabbaticals, it's changed my relationship to the internet during the other five days. The weekends, now, are one again time of rest and reflection. When I open the app on Monday, my connection to it feels different — it's immediately overwhelming. It feels frenetic, loud, cluttered. After a weekend with an emphasis on slowness and depth, Twitter and Instagram suddenly feel quick and shallow. I'm resistant to opening the Twitter app. I no longer feel the need to read everything. Where there once was FOMO, there's now contentment. I can dip in and out when I please. I have my attention back and I feel, at least for a little bit, in control.

[brianruhe]

Testimonials

Testimonials

apollonian Jan. 9, 2020Don’t under-estimate Brian–he’s extremely clever. And Brian is actually a brilliant historian, understands Western Christian culture and philosophy, only coming at it all from his amazing Buddhist point of view–which absolutely throws those dumb kikes who hardly know what to say, think about it all. Most and best of all, Brian values and respects the Christian TRUTH ideal (= Christ, Gosp. JOHN 14:6)–see above notes by me. Only criticism I’d have of Buddhism is its too easy endorsement of non-existent “free” will which couldn’t exist in an objective, hence determined reality, which objectivity is agreed for both Christianity and Buddhism.Poet Samuel • Jan. 7, 2020What I notice about Brian’s work – He will inquire and investigate everything for himself in pursuit of his own personal / empirical insights and conclusions. And he will happily weather everyone’s judgement and scolding for doing so – Left, right, up, down, nobody can stop or correct a born truth-seeker from annoyingly examining every stone (lol). Keep on waltzing through the tidal waves of scorn and judgement from all alliances, Brian. Truth is king.

The Brian Ruhe Show  Poet Samuel • You nailed my view, Poet Samuel! Thank you dearly. My Dresden survivor advisor describes me as a true intellectual. I just want to know the truth!

The Outsider

 My Friend Brian Ruhe by American Buddhist monk, Venerable Paññobhāsa Mahathera Posted: 16 Oct 2019 01:17 PM PDTThe purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge. —Adolf HitlerIt is better to make a mistake than to do nothing. —Adolf Hitler My Friend Brian RuhePosted: 16 Oct 2019 01:17 PM PDT     No doubt some of you have noticed that I’ve begun doing weekly Skype interviews with the notorious Brian Ruhe, the “Nazi Buddhist,” president of the Thule Society (an organization that endorses the worship of a deified Adolf Hitler), and lord and master of the Brian Ruhe show, recently censored and banned from YouTube but still available on Bitchute. In fact some of you have started reading this blog because of seeing me on Brian’s show—after all, Herr Ruhe evidently has a larger following than I do, though that’s not saying very much. So I suppose I should explain why I am associating with such a notorious fellow, what I have learned from this association, and why I now consider him to be my friend.     Our first contact was back in 2011 or 12, and was brief and uneventful. I think in those days neither of us was fully red-pilled, so to speak, and we were more or less “normie” western Buddhists, though still rather unorthodox and weird by mainstream standards. Anyway, upon returning to the USA after many years in Asia I sent out emails to many of the teachers and Dhamma organizations in the general area (mainly the state of Washington and southern British Columbia in Canada), and in those days Brian Ruhe was a reputable, more or less mainstream Dhamma teacher. Anyway, after offering my services to any Dhamma society that was interested, Herr Ruhe wrote back saying that he was pretty much a subsistence Dhamma instructor and lacked the resources to support outside teachers, and that was that.     Several years later, after both of us had been “radicalized” by the Information Age and the Internet, a supporter of both of us suggested to Herr Ruhe that he should interview me for his show (the Brian Ruhe show, then still on YouTube), and so he contacted me. Not only did he ask me to be on his show but he further asked me to be the spiritual director of the Thule Society, which latter honor I declined for reasons laid out in a previous post. But we did the show, and it went rather well, and so we have continued with it.     No doubt there are some people out there who think that a Buddhist monk associating with a devout Nazi—or National Socialist, as Herr Ruhe prefers to call himself—is somehow necessarily inherently wrong and reprehensible. On the contrary, I don’t think so at all.     Some of Brian’s views are very different from mine, with regard to politics, the heroism of Adolf Hitler, the origin, ancient history, and current state of the human race, and also with regard to Theravada Buddhism—though ironically he is more of a scriptural fundamentalist than I am, at least with regard to cosmology and his belief in the texts’ authenticity and authority in general. So although I know the texts rather better than he does, I am also more skeptical, while Brian, bless his heart, is endowed with more of the Will to Believe. (In other words, going with the terms of Buddhist philosophy, he is more faith-oriented and I am more reason-oriented.) Regarding politics, I am not a Nazi or a fascist by any sane, non-hysterical reckoning. I see myself as more or less of a classical liberal, and consider the libertarian system set up by the founding fathers of the USA to be about the best so far devised and put to the test. The farthest I would concede to the fascists would be to say that, at this stage in the game, if I were required to choose between Marxism/socialism and some form of not-particularly-violent fascism, I’d almost certainly go with the fascists. Socialism sucks, and Marxism is historically, objectively worse than Nazism or small-f fascism in general, going with such objective criteria as numbers of corpses generated by each system.     So, although I’ve been called a Nazi sympathizer, my Nazi sympathies are very limited and conditional. I do have sympathy for Brian Ruhe though, mainly because he’s a nice guy, and a sincere one. For that matter I am willing to hold a discussion in good faith with anyone capable of a sincere and more or less courteous exchange of views. Hell, I’m even willing to have a discussion or reasoned debate with a neo-Marxist, though most of them seem too hysterical or ignorant to discuss their views rationally, especially if there is feedback from someone who disagrees with them. (Objective rationality is, after all, a tool of white patriarchal oppression.) I have been hoping to have a discussion with some advocate of politically correct Social Justice on this blog, but again, most of them are adverse to having their views challenged. But I am willing, just as Herr Ruhe also is willing.     So, a primary reason why I do weekly Skype sessions with Brian is that he is willing to converse and exchange views in good faith, even though we don’t agree on all points. We’re not overly concerned with changing each other’s views, either. And I must say that the conversations can be interesting, for us at least. Also of course the videos have increased the readership of this blog.     I mentioned that Brian is more orthodox than I am in his Buddhism, at least sometimes. He’s literally a devout Buddhist Nazi, or rather a devout Buddhist National Socialist—“Nazi” was originally a derogatory slur, and Herr Ruhe tends to avoid the term. (I persist in using the term “Nazi” simply because it’s shorter and easier, and National Socialists ought to be tough enough to hear words they don’t like very much. Besides, it’s used so much that it’s hardly any more of a slur than “National Socialist.” It’s sort of like the term “Pagan,” which also began as a slur but was later reclaimed, and even accepted with pride by faithful Pagans.) Anyway, with regard to Brian’s devout Buddhism, it is interesting that he was actually ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk for several months back in the 90’s, in Thailand, I’m pretty sure. Later he was a more or less mainstream teacher of Buddhism and meditation in the general area of Vancouver BC, until he was red-pilled and then ostracized by intolerant or fearful leftists. So Brian is a Buddhist first and a Nazi second. He takes Buddhist ethics very seriously, including the stuff about compassion and nonviolence. He understands Dhamma better than do most western Buddhists, and probably practices it better as well.     Some people might assume, and reasonably too, that a Nazi would necessarily endorse militarism and even genocide. Nope! Brian simply denies all of it. Not only does he not endorse genocide, he firmly disbelieves the very idea that Hitler’s Nazis favored or perpetrated it; all that stuff is just propagandist lies promulgated to vilify the Führer. The Nazis were the good guys, even by Buddhist standards, according to him—there was no genocide of “subhuman” races, and Hitler was a peace-loving man, an inspired visionary who preferred designing buildings to bombing them, and who was forced into WW2 against his will by establishment warmongers spurred on by globalist Jews. Thus, among other things, Brian Ruhe is a sincere Holocaust denier. (Personally, I feel that although many of the stories against Hitler are probably exaggerated to some extent—just consider the stories against Trump lately—Hitler’s notion of Lebensraum pretty much implied an eastward invasion sooner or later, and I very much doubt that the Slavs were simply going to donate their territory to him. Also, preemptively dividing up Poland with Stalin’s USSR was certainly not persuasive evidence of his peaceful intentions, and his annexation of Czechoslovakia was an arguably predatory and shitty thing to do. But I suppose the “Hitler did nothing wrong” folks have their own explanations for all of this.)     Ironically and maybe counterintuitively, as anyone who watches his videos can see, Herr Ruhe in his actual conduct is morally superior to the hysterical leftists freaking out at him on the streets of Vancouver. Most people who walk past Brian as he peacefully holds up a sign bearing a pro-Hitler slogan (or something equally politically incorrect) just ignore him, or glance at him and continue on their way; but some people curse him to his face repeatedly, bellow at him in a state of outraged anger, hatred, and self-righteousness, and sometimes even physically assault him. No doubt they feel perfectly justified and virtuous while doing so. Brian is almost saintly in his potentially self-destructive desire to peacefully wave Nazi signs in the midst of crowds of leftist activists. It is peculiar that the lefties going hysterical at Brian are literally more intolerant and more hateful than a Nazi. Let that sink in for a moment. But not only that: I would go even farther and assert that many Social Justice leftists, possibly even most of them, are more intolerant and more hateful than a Nazi, at least this Nazi. In a recent video of Brian’s one guy actually observes that Brian Ruhe isn’t a “real” Nazi simply because he isn’t hateful enough.     Again, I assert that I am not a Nazi or a National Socialist, or even a run of the mill fascist, and I do not agree with a lot of what Brian promulgates, even though he is a nice guy and we have some interesting conversations. A good example of ideological disagreement would be our respective attitudes towards Jewish influence on western civilization. Adolf Hitler once said,The art of leadership…consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention….The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to one category.It seems plausible to me that the Führer walked his talk in this case by using Jews as the unifying adversary. No doubt he really loathed them, but still it does seem plausible that they were also a convenient political tool for unifying the militant righteous indignation of the German people. Nevertheless, Jewish influence on western civilization is much more profound than most people realize; and anyone who reads Kevin MacDonald’s The Culture of Critique is bound to become at least a little antisemitic (which is why it’s the only academic work banned by Amazon.com). Some Jews really are behind much if not most of the pernicious social phenomena running rampant throughout the postmodern west, including multiculturalism and the various forms of Marxism. The Holocaust may very well have been exaggerated (for propaganda purposes) for all I know; and with regard to Herr Ruhe’s theories about reptilian space aliens collaborating with powerful Jews, I suppose the less said the better. It seems to me that the greatest Jewish influence on western civilization was the advent of Christianity, originally a Jewish reform movement, although relatively few Goy Rights Activists place much emphasis on that particular point.     So, Brian and I disagree on some things and agree, more or less, on others. Considering that we are both Theravada Buddhists, there is naturally quite a lot of agreement on basic doctrines of Buddhism and Buddhist ethics, and I even happen to share some of his weird ideas derived from ancient Indian Buddhist cosmology.     Regardless of the objective truth or falsehood of his beliefs, Brian Ruhe’s conduct is morally superior to most of the people publicly bashing Nazism, including the outrageous hypocrites virtue signaling on cable news outlets. News announcers and commentators on pretty much all of the mainstream media pose as moral guides to the masses, yet they, unlike Brian Ruhe, are certainly not operating in good faith. These people are calmly, self-righteously, and cynically attempting to destroy anyone who threatens the narrative that they are paid to disseminate (and yes, they are paid by globalist Jews), regardless of actual guilt or innocence. For me, the mainstream leftist/globalist media’s ruthless, cynical attacks on Brett Kavanaugh were the absolute last straw; the guy is a totally vanilla, nerdy Christian white rich guy who obviously has never been a sexual predator, yet almost the entire political left in the USA were declaring him a serial rapist based on nothing but unsubstantiated accusations made by leftist activists. When he became upset and indignant at such sleazy attacks these same people cynically attacked him for being emotionally unstable. Their conduct towards the Covington High School kids, or for that matter towards President Trump, have been no better. Such “moral guides” are vastly morally inferior to the likes of Brian Ruhe the “Nazi Buddhist.” If I were ever to be interviewed by someone like Morning Joe, or Cathy Newman in the UK, they would certainly not be conducting the interview in good faith as Brian does, intent upon an actual exchange of views, and I would feel contaminated by the process. Not that they’d ever want to interview me.     As it turns out, I am one of the only monastics of Brian’s own professed religion who is willing to associate with him in public since he publicly began endorsing National Socialism. A few others are willing to communicate with him privately, but otherwise keep their distance. This is understandable, but whether this avoidance of Brian is based on missionary diplomacy, cowardice, or something else would depend on their own mental states, which I surely don’t know. Anyway, I’m no Jesus of course, but even the Christian Messiah was criticized during his lifetime for hanging out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other unsavory riffraff.     And so, to sum it all up, Herr Brian Ruhe has got some very weird ideas (some of which may be true for all I know), but he’s a genuinely good guy, as far as I can tell. I suppose his girlfriend could describe a side of him that I haven’t seen, but then again she’s his willing consort and presumably loves him—but of course that’s none of our business.     Thus far I have enjoyed our Skype interviews, and I don’t give a damn about political correctness hysteria, so I’ll keep going with them for the foreseeable future. Brian’s Bitchute channel is here. The website for the Thule Society is here. (insert 30s-era German military music here)P.S. At Brian’s request I am including here a short video of Brian characteristically offering up a Nazi salute in the midst of a crowd of protesting lefties, while fortunately being protected by a few police officers: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Fg7mLXklitO8/?list=jAwYD9IBVY8E&randomize=false  

(insert 30s-era German military music here) You are subscribed to email updates from The Outsider. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.Email delivery powered by GoogleGoogle, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States  Previous Next  Sept. 22, 2019 Dear BrianJust wanted to shoot you a quick email to let you know how I appreciate you posting your views and interviews on “alt” dhamma. You’ve revealed to me that there are people who can benefit from sharing encouragement to strive on in this wilderness. the internet truly has great potential to reorient ourselves and bring our existing culture into focus by use of right view.After holding my own intentions under the microscope for some time, your example has encouraged me to make my own mini contribution in the spirit of friendship. So I decided to create a Bitchute channel and share the videos I’ve created for myself to encourage and inspire energy and devotion in my own practice.If you get a chance, please take a look. I am always very pleased to receive constructive criticism, thoughts and feelings by my elders in the dhamma. Please show me no mercy :).My hope in creating this channel is that we fellow wanderers can find some encouragement and inspiration to follow the buddha’s “pali line”, not the “party line” of present sectarian (special interests) dhamma.I believe it is our responsibility to implement the buddhadhamma as perfectly as possible in our individual, cultural, social and historical context. And I’ve found it helpful to start with what we have now (Western culture) and to “train” it in line with the dhamma. So I’ve been gradually “culturally appropriating” our popular movies, poetry etc and using it to develop propaganda to inspire pursuit of the dhamma. Here’s the link if you get a chance (Ministry of Cultural Appropriation)Anyway, thanks again. Your gifts, your offerings, your sacrifices, all appreciated as ever, my friend.Hope you are well!  2019-09-19 6:06 a.m., Hugo wrote:You are one of our heroes, Brian.Hugo o-d-i-n.net Molo_Tulo The Fuhuer sits in Valhalla with Wotan. He was the greatest man to walk upon Midgard! You rock, Brian! Keep up the cause!***Great video Brian! I posted the following comment…If you were wrong, someone would have debated you at length instead of people just repeatedly rejecting you and swearing like sailors. It’s very good to hear you explain the existence of the Transfer Agreement, AKA the Haavara Agreement that Hitler had with the Zionists. The Jewish author Edwin Black was one of the first to explain this in detail, and concludes that there should be a statue of Adolf Hitler in Tel Aviv because without him, no Jews would have been safely transferred to Palestine prior to the outbreak of war at the hands of the British and French.***Wow! They sure are triggered. There is no crime in standing on the street. If they can’t articulate an injured party (person) or (property), then there is no crime. Here’s some of what I’ve discovered in my search to expose the truth. In a Gallop poll in 1941, 83% of the USA was against blowing up Germany. Stay safe and thanks for the links! Peace,Robert Hiker1  Patex321 As an fellow Germanic i like to salute you for being/becoming awake!Patex321 As a german I thank you for your courage.RemelRemel Bloody hell. Good on you Brian for daring to tell the truth to the public. The guys complaining is just your typical brainwashed idiot. They can’t debate, just (((shut it down))). Funny how this idiot said you’re racist too. What a complete moron. Hitler was NOT racist.whitey333 The balls on you are enormous. Best Video I seen in forever.https://www.bitchute.com/video/sVJhWQ38k6O5/JimB Brian, you’ve got more courage than most of the big, puffed-up he-men “pumping iron” in all the gyms around the world. And patience! You’re a prime example of Buddhist tenacity.Bloody hell. Good on you Brian for daring to tell the truth to the public. The guys complaining is just your typical brainwashed idiot. They can’t debate, just (((shut it down))). Funny how this idiot said you’re racist too. What a complete moron. Hitler was NOT racist.Seekerofsanity Brian: I am new to you but really like what I have read so far. Saw the ridiculous shit that the renegade tribune wrote about you in march; pathetic slanderous lies if you ask me. Total cowardice. Look forward to more of your work!Western-Celt-UK More people need to do more of these vox pop billboard discussions in public in the big cities across the World and upload them, what a great way of getting truth across.Re_World I respect you brother, keep doing what you are doing.TheWestIsBeingDestroyed You are a patient man, Brian.aboutthetruthmedia  TheWestIsBeingDestroyedHe seems like a friendly, approachable guy.anarchore Brian needs a volunteer security detail. Maybe with matching shirts. 😀rambetterIt’s about time that people learned the Truth about Adolf Hitler. Brian, thanks for having balls.Handsome Truth 6 MILLION POINTS IN STREET CRED BRO!!!CarlSyerforest Brian Ruhe…King of Cool 

Kid_Dynamite If you keep displaying that sign I’m going to “try” to take it from you. Even that guy isn’t sure he can do it.CarlSyerforest • 4 days agoBrian Ruhe…King of CoolKid_Dynamite • 5 days agoIf you keep displaying that sign im going to “try” to take it from you. Even that guy isnt sure he can do it.−

The Brian Ruhe Show  Kid_DynamiteI told him I was taller than he was 

aboutthetruthmedia Very brave, very approachable Brian! It was good to watch. gingerj the brain washed sheep , this guy just refuses to listen and i think brian keeps his cool well, if it was me i think he would be on his way to a and e room.anarchore You rock Brian! Thanks for being a truth beacon.Jeffrey88 • 3 days agoWow! Great work standing your ground to that white knighters! That’s why I support the Brian Ruhe Show!Charley Howard I have to tell you, Brian you’re a considerably braver individual than I could ever be so hats off to you. If you wouldn’t mind a suggestion perhaps you could gently tell people about the slaughter of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Jewish commissars prior to the outbreak of the second world war in the Soviet Union. I think they be quite interested to hear that the Jews had slaughtered far, far more Christians at the hands of their barbaric socialist system than ever were presumably killed in any kind of death camp. I doubt they’ll believe you, but perhaps in a light a fire in their mind and that will make them more inquisitive as to what the TRUE HISTORY is compared to what the Hollywood version of history that we have been fed. Once again, kudos to you for your efforts, stay safe!   longdistancerunna We should be out there with Brian. Just imagine even 100 people walking alongside these men with similar signs against 2 jew defending “heroes”. It would be very interesting to see what would happen. Do you think something similar to the Munich Police shootings of the NSDAP’s march in 1924 that landed Adolf Hitler in jail for a year? Keep in mind that is what really caught the eyes of the German people who came to realize that they were being lied to about Communism. The Nazi parties election seats grew enormously after Herr Hitler was released a year later. 

whitershadeofpale  longdistancerunna • 4 days agoFair point, but I think if it got to the stage of 100 more people,standing side by side,would get attention from the authorities. A better approach would be to have smaller break-off groups working incognito. This is a very inspiring work from Brian though all the same.Sept. 18, 2019Hi Brian,these interviews were very interesting. To his credit, Armin at least approached the discourse with some semblance of balance and was far more restrained in denying you a chance to express yourself. The other guy…not so much. These guys are either incredibly naive (and/or ignorant of factual history) or they’re willingly denying the truth, so as to fit their Marxist dogma. I believe that many Euro-Canadians, Euro-Australians, Euro-Americans etc are coming to the stark realization that the fifth column Marxists have so corrupted our media and education, that they’ve damaged our young people, way more than we care to accept. If Trump’s presidency achieves nothing else, the exposure of the true size of the Zionist inspired Communist threat, will be achievement enough.Well done with your recently published David Duke interview. Dr Duke is one of the best around at exposing criminality of the Sabbatean/Frankist “death cult” that is Rothschild Zionism.– Chaz the Advocate  On 2019-08-30 5:17 a.m., wrote:Hi Mr RuheI just wanted to let you know I really appreciate your courage to share your views and to take the initiative to interview Ven. Pannobhasa.The interviews on corruption in the sangha, alt-buddhism in the West and Mind Control I found really intriguing.Very encouraging to hear your friendly voices in this wilderness!Wishing good things for you.Thank you kindly Tristan,I am passing your message on to Venerable Pannobhasa. “Wilderness” is an excellent word to describe this world, eh?Hi Brian Amen, brother. An encouraging thought that the Wilderness is the most honest place to learn the true value of friendship. Feel free to share my gratitude, but not my name or contact details, as I am trying to tread lightly. There are snakes. 🙂 From YouTube commentsNov. 12, 2017And Roid 20 hours ago (edited)Hi Brian I’ve turned my attention to doing mediation more regularly and learning Buddhist teachings due to your influence. I think there’s a lot of suffering and lack of mindfulness among the truther community so you may be a person who’s in the right place at the right time. I honestly would probably never have heard of Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Sona (let alone listened to Dhamma talks) for an indeterminate amount of time had I not been drawn to your interviews (I think it was the ones with Andrew Carrington Hitchcock and Dennis Fetcho that pushed me over the edge into looking into your work further). For people who love to learn and become a better person I think Buddhist teachings/practices are a great way to relieve the monotony of the “doom and gloom” content the majority of alternative media (or our personal lives even) seems to consist of. And if we feel like modern life is too much, some knowledge of existing support structures (such as forest monasteries) could be useful information.Brian Ruhe 9 hours agoWhat a testimonial, And Roid!! May I copy and paste this for others? I deeply appreciate your specific story, thanks! You make my job worth it.Oct. 2017 Alex Seferiades2 weeks agoBrian, your reverence for the German soldier brings warmth and happiness to my heart. Greetings from Ontario!! You are doing a great job covering what many are afraid to talk about but know in their innermost core to be the truth. It is most likely that you are a reincarnated official or soldier from the Third Reich era. Only you would really know that for sure though. You have my best wishes… Keep fighting the good fight! Brian Ruhe1 second agoThanks Alex! That makes my day. I was a Luftwaffe pilot killed in a crash about fall of 1944. I have discussed this in a few videos. My current girlfriend was my 13 year old daughter at that time and with her hypnosis session, she remembers far more about me than I remember. Read the full article

[smelllikeholyhell-blog]

Theory, Or: Interclass Activism and a Punk Development

This post serves mostly as any other post on any other website; I wanna write stuff and feel special I guess. That said, allow me to give my background as to why I consider my stance on this to be one of any more-than-minor experience regarding anything.

In my childhood, with an obscene absence of parental or adult authority of any kind, I turned (more often than not) to local punks because that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. As a result my path through politics has been one of increasingly weird twists and turns that really don’t make a lot of sense. From a small period of christian conservatism in the late 00s, to a nihilist in the early 2010s, an almost groomed-to-be neo nazi as a stepping stone between the two. I had a lot of voices going in and out of my ear and a lot of influences in my path that ultimately led me to where I am today; I smell like shit and I’ve thrown a lot of shit at cops. If I had to choose how to summarise my politics it would be that.

A short disclaimer before going further: Growing up I was a “white, working class” child with no family. The “white working class” myth in America is not only a disgusting, pandering myth. It’s an outright erasure of every non-white citizen within the working class and an attempt to arrange a hierarchy of importance based on outmoded racial demographics. That said I’m not entirely sure on how to approach my birthright identity in any a way more constructive than that, so bear with me while I stumble through that phrase with an increasing reaction of stomach bile every time.

As mentioned; I was ‘white working class’ as a child, this is in the 2000s so that’s hardly of any significance or importance, but when I say working class that is a stretch. My mother was a crackhead, in and out of rehab and only around to be abusive and steal. My father was also a crackhead, albeit the kind that can hold a job. My uncles were drug dealers, my grandma had a weird fucking life and I don’t want to get into that but she was a worker, and the only grandparent alive at the same time as me. This structure in my home life left a large gap of leadership, guidance or comfort and my childhood was divided evenly between time spent outdoors trying to be anywhere but home, and time spent locked in my room hiding from the world. I was diagnosed with ADHD in early childhood, major depressive disorder at 8, generalised anxiety at 11, PTSD at 13 and BPD at 17. Suffice to say balancing all of these things in different intervals, being bounced between different facilities and (as a result) not receiving a continued treatment for anymore than one concurrent issue led to a lot of issues with conventional learning.

This did not stop me from learning, early into my adolescence I established myself as a well-spoken and stalwart voice in my communities (both online and irl) for what I considered to be moral and practical political guidelines. But the formation of the politics that served as the soapbox for those guidelines was something of an event itself that can be traced back to a Ramones CD I received as a birthday gift when I was 5. The case was cracked, the CD was scratched, but I could make out enough of the songs to love it and listen to it everyday until I turned 7 and received a Rancid CD from an uncle who was tired of hearing the Ramones. Shortly after, when I turned 8, a local gave me a Crass CD burnt (very poorly) onto what was a Mariah Carey CD at some point or another. This CD was defaced very horribly and was quickly thrown out within 4 months of coming home with me, but such is life. 

The Crass CD contained a few songs. Banned from the Roxy, General Bacardi, Do They Owe Us A Living, but most importantly for my impressionable young self; Big A Little A. An iconic and time-tested anthem of independent thought and self-sufficiency, a song that rails simultaneously against the systems of oppression so prevalent in the 70s and 80s in the UK, and a song that promotes free expression. It absolutely devastated me in a way I can never put into words, it was transformative like very few things ever have been since and very few things ever will be again. But most importantly it began my path towards anarchism as a school of thought and general principle.

Let’s derail to more relevant information; as a child I struggled to read. Not because I couldn’t or didn’t know how to, I read very well in fact. But I was terminally bored. No matter what it was or what was on the line or what I had to do. I was bored. I would start a book, get 5 pages in, close it and go back to my computer. Go back to the music or the game or whatever, as long as it wasn’t that. As I’ve gotten older I’ve just accepted that I really...don’t like reading. I enjoy writing, I love it, but the act of reading as a way to pass time is one of the most intensely draining and soulsucking experiences in my life, valid as it may be. Most of my political upbringing was based around a mixture of things. Music, conversations, speeches and most importantly a system of failure that is uniquely experienced by every person in the lower classes regardless of identity and race. The system of having your infrastructure devastated, your schools packed, your teachers dismissive of you based on your financial ability to retaliate, and the saving grace of free lunches. Lunches which would be your only food everyday for weeks, sometimes. And in my formative years I spent many weeks and months homeless, not quite “fighting” for survival and in a situation comparatively far less severe than what my nonwhite counterparts have endured, but a difficult one nonetheless.

In many ways around this time I was extremely lucky to grow up in an area as diverse as can be. In a lot of classes I was one of maybe 4 white kids, where most children were latinx or black. I owe this time period a great deal as it allowed me the freedom to learn early how to hold other cultures in a good amount of respect, while also understanding my place at a maintainable but appreciative distance from them. I would later undo this through several years of drug fueled abuse of being given the oh-so-fabled n-word pass by a few black friends, though I can graciously say I moved past that and physically shudder every time I think about that time. But being homeless in this situation, in this region of America and with the great deal of privilege I was handed at birth, offered me an equally great deal of autonomy and my ability to learn where I wanted to learn and how I wanted to learn. If it meant staying up until 5 AM to go on scene trips to the local campus after hours then so be it, but if I wanted to hear what someone had to say I heard what someone had to say. This learning process, while informal and atypical, was the deciding factor in who I became to this day. But there are interclass repercussions for how I’ve learned.

As a young anarchist I attended every event I could. If it was a black bloc I was there. A protest, I was there. Vandalising, squatting and stealing were my favourite pasttimes and I regret absolutely none of it. I can say I’ve punched a cop or two in my time and that’s a pretty fun thing to say albeit entirely alienating when talking to people who aren’t anarchists. Most importantly though; I didn’t show my face. I learned security culture, I learned how to load a gun, I learned how to hide. I did all of it without books and I can say that most of my personal friends have a decent theoretical idea of practise and absolutely no idea how to sustain the execution of it. This, unsurprisingly, has not stopped those people from looking down on me at some point or another. Most still to this day with varying levels of severity. Usually when the topic of anarchy is prevalent I’m asked to give very diplomatic answers or partake in very diplomatic discussions

“What would happen to me in this situation?”

“How would this situation be handled?”

“Who’s your favourite writer?”

“Are you a syndicalist or a mutualist or an egoist?”

At the end of the day most of these discussions generally serve an entirely hypocritical and self-defeatingly toxic pecking order in anarchist circles. Who can theory the other person to death first? so to speak. At its best this behaviour is pedantic and childish. At its worst it just serves to divide current groups and prevent them from further cooperation, the very same cooperation which every single anarchist community inherently relies on for the most minor accomplishment of basic survival. In the last couple of years I’ve adopted a way of dealing with this which is simply in saying; I don’t have time for theory. This isn’t a lie, it isn’t a deflection, it’s the truth. My own time on a day-to-day basis is preoccupied with self-preservation in any capacity that that happens. If self-preservation is a complete distraction from my problems then so be it, no one will ever enforce a schedule on how I deal with my problems unless it’s me or my biological clock. If self-preservation is getting drunk when I wake up, that’s that. If it’s disappearing to go work on something for a few days, that’s that. If it’s networking with other anarchist to establish a network of ideas that’s that. But self-preservation is self-preservation, it is at its core just the act of survival in a capitalist society, one which is built to ensure anything but that survival.

I have noticed that my approach to this is not entirely uncommon in working class circles of anarchist praxis, it’s actually the overriding majority. The anarchists filling potholes are not the same as the anarchists lecturing one another. Debates on the internet for sport do nothing to help communities that are hopelessly marginalised into nonexistence on an hourly basis around the world, so we have to ask ourselves; Where did that mentality come from?

Where is that needless competitive edge in anarchist circles emerging from? My honest input on the matter is muddied, incomplete and unproductive but if I had to place my bet on where it comes from I would place it on a combination of two things. Both of equal performance and importance in their role to this toxicity; the inane publicity of debates, writings and lectures. And the role of competition in capitalist society--the ‘drive to win’ that is drilled from birth. It seems to me most anarchist circles in America and the UK are plagued by self-serving ideologues. People who look at the reputation of Marx, Paine and Chomsky and think to themselves that those people have contributed even a fraction an amount of the importance that unions have in leftist and post-leftist thought and praxis. People have conflated the “teachings” of these men (dogmatic as they are) with the tangible benefits and visibly positive effects that organisations like the IWW have had.

Obviously the teachings of Marx can inextricably be tied to the rise and solidification of union labour in the west, and I will never shortsell that fact no matter how much spite or disdain I hold for marxism. That said the execution, the maintenance and the daily operation of those organisations are independent of their foundational teachings. A framework is not praxis. A foundation is principle, it is logic, but it is not maintenance. To sustain an organisation like the IWW for as long as it has existed is an act not only of spite for a damaging system, it is done out of a sheer perseverance. The ability to transcend the fundamentalist teachings of labour thought and dogma. More importantly it demonstrates the ability to adapt across eras. People familiar with the radical changes, shifts and constant ebb/flow war on unionisation in America can truly appreciate how well the IWW has withstood the test of time.

While the IWW is a far-from-perfect organisation and still presents me with the constant hang-up of withholding total freedom from the working class, it still also presents me a security and benefit that will not happen anywhere else, anytime else. It’s an organisation whose legacy lives on through song as much as any other medium, yet people who are influenced by music and speech are looked down on in so many circles. Obviously this post has to end somewhere so it should end productively.

The total deconstruction of the snide self-serving ideologue status of white anarchists (ironic as it is to pin as a culprit given this post’s existence) is this; It is inherently ableist on its best day and it is gatekeeping classism on its worst. It is both counterproductive to cooperative efforts and a complete betrayal of the concept of solidarity by way of competition.

If you find yourself in this position or confronted after having taken that position, ask yourself the following;

Does the child of the average working class family have the time for theory? Will theory tangibly help them survive? Has theory protected them from homelessness, hunger or sickness? Will theory provide for their family?

The answer to these questions, historically and demonstrably is ‘No’. It will continue to be ‘No’ for as long as the working class is trapped in a system that enslaves us all. Theory can help structure direct action, but theory on its own is a waste of time that will not benefit anyone who truly needs the benefits they can receive, in a system that will happily kill them.

[chaplaingumdrop]

My Boss the Scam Artist

 I figure the best place to start writing memoir is from the back. So let me show you the back half of my story.

My grandfather died on New Year’s Day. I went home for the first time in two years for the funeral. I saw my father for the first time in ten years. Not that I hadn’t already been kind of a big smoker, but from the time I left Kalamazoo to go north until just a few days ago, I’ve been pretty much high non-stop. Some of it was good and fun bonding with my uncle, who can’t smoke much because of his job, and my little brother, who is an MRA and possibly the angriest MMJ patient I’ve ever known. A lot of it was me toking up by myself every few hours. To be perfectly honest, if I hadn’t taken that job working for my friend’s fledgling law office, I’d be baked now, not writing this memoir, and my rent would be paid.

When we first met, my employer-to-be was a prostitute. She worked under the name of Sophie St. Clair, servicing the men of Kalamazoo to pay her way through law school. She was also my primary source of marijuana. I used to come visit, smoke and watch Game of Thrones with her, and duck into the kitchen when a gentleman came to call. She had two kids, a live-in partner who was super chill but had a nasty temper and scared the shit out of her kids. Fun to smoke with though, fascinating human being. The kids were pretty cool too. They weren’t super verbal, but they were toddlers, so it’s to be expected. Over the next year of knowing Sophie they grew into awesome little kids, and I would begin to learn how messed up things were.

Sophie was smoking quite a bit of pot until she started actually working in law, then she transitioned to harder drugs with much shorter half-lives. I never realized the extent of her drug use, but only because I was in my own head too much and ignored the obvious signs of very serious addiction. I also understood having an opiate problem. I had watch my mom struggle with her addiction to prescription pain-killers following several hospital stays complete with very regular administrations of morphine. Sophie had been a veteran and was badly wounded in Iraq, so her replacement parts caused her a great deal of pain. She had gotten addicted to morphine and transitioned to heroin when the VA cut her off, as it was cheaper than pharmaceutical drugs. She had borrowed, as well as stolen, several hundred dollars from me. It all culminated in my paying an electric bill for her and then having her ghost on me, moving a few times, business, rehab, what have you.  After rehab she’s still hooking, and she’s smoking crack now, but I never saw her injecting drugs again. Progress, I figure. I introduce her to my roomies because we play D&D and I want to provide her with some social support so she can stay clean and happy. Sometime around the holidays I meet her new assistant, who does not remain her assistant long, leaving after he learned of her prostitution days, taking the dog with him. Enter Rain, grieving my grandfather, smoking too much, and desperately needing a distraction other than my single graduate class.

So it started normally enough, I was given some tasks and we had a lot of boring lawyer talk. I made my own contract on RocketLawyer and did W4 and insurance. Her retainer accounts were apparently messed up however, so I needed to cover some retainers to keep handling business. No big deal, I have some cash from student loans and can loan my lawyer friend some money, it’s in my contract that I get reimbursed for out-of-pocket costs. Her daughter gets a bad urinary tract infection and her ex hits her up for money to take care of it, which I agree to because I adore her children and want them well and happy.

We have to cancel our first business trip because of an unreliable driver (she isn’t allowed to drive because of seizures related to a TBI), and then a client who fucked up really bad and got locked up. Steadily and surely our trips get canceled, I wonder why I ever try to plan anything with her, and I keep smoking to deal with the stress that she’s causing me.

Then she started getting sick. Frequent seizures, general tiredness, bad shit. She had some scans done, there was a shadow on the scan, which upon biopsy would turn out to be a malignant tumor pressing on her TBI. A month goes by, I’ve loaned her money without a scrap of repayment, much less my wages. She’s sleeping on my couch with my youngest roommate, who has taken it upon himself to look after her health. They’re also fucking. It’s sort of cute, so I enjoy it for a bit. We keep doing lawyer things, I am suspicious but not enough to not continue going along with it all. Eventually, my accounts are drained. That’s when I notice a lack of documents coming my way and she’s started doing her lawyer talk stuff with her nursemaid. Every time I mention to her that she owes me 10k she says I’m next in line, she’s being hit up by everybody and has these medical bills and all. Predictably, she is never able to go out and get me my money or to go to the office to pick up the mail with my bar card and insurance information. She says her colleague Mark was going to drop it off, but then got stuck in Detroit helping sort out the travel ban, which was among my early work for her and a cause that I care about very deeply as a person of faith.

As of today two months have passed. I am unpaid. She is still on my couch, fucking my roommate. By this point I had started to shake off the haze and bothered to do some research. My active mourning period had mostly ended, or at least paused. My partner has been immensely helpful to me. She’s a student, an activist, and worthy of far more respect than I afford her due to her age and experience. She happened to meet Mark (the very same) at a meeting regarding the creation of a new county ID (we’re a sanctuary city, so the county is creating identification cards to help refugees and immigrants get around more easily). They had the chance to talk and as it turns out my boss has never been a lawyer. This disturbs me greatly, as I realize I don’t have a signed contract because of reasons. First it was a lost file, then it was her just never getting around to it, so I had asked my partner to print off a couple of copies so I can just make my “boss” sign. She claims to need her notary stamp, which brings us to the meeting. My partner had the good fortune to not interact much with Sara and brought fresh eyes and a sober mind to my life. She found that super sketchy and made a point of helping me when I wasn’t sure how to help myself or sort out what I believed about anything or anybody. Nobody is objective about their partners, but it’s nice that she’s better at addressing my suffering than I am. What she learned from Mark was that Sophie had worked with him once on an assignment in law school and then proceeded to throw his name around a lot. He was also never stuck in Detroit helping out refugees, she did not rent the office space next to his, and he’s really tired of having people call up to ask about her. Upon further research we determined that the registration number she gave me belongs to a lawyer with a very low internet profile a few towns away, and I had never bothered to look into it until now. It was fairly clear that I needed to force a signature and begin preparing to take action.

Thursday, March 16, Sophie told us her five year-old daughter had just died. I loved this child like one of those friends your kid calls auntie or uncle but actually isn’t. The thing is, I’d begun to suspect something was up with the kids for a while. I messaged a friend who had been ripped off by her, who told me to message the children’s grandmother, who could answer my questions for me. I was then contacted by the children’s stepmother, who very angrily informed me that the children are secure and happy, with parents who love them. She shamed her/us for having the nerve to intrude into their lives with Sophie’s scams and lies, that she had plenty of chances to get her shit together and be a mom to the kids. That it was her choice to be a hooker and abuse heroin. That the police keep coming to her home trying to arrest Sophie, that she’d received a letter from the Sheriff stating that she’d jumped bail too many times and would remain in jail until trial, and that if she ever wanted to leave Kalamazoo forever, this would be a damned good time. Then she promptly severed the line of communication and I was unable to reply. Today I sent a message to her husband to thank him and assure him I’d do what needs to be done. I assured him that Sophie had not been using my Facebook to access photos of the kids for one of her schemes, that I had been burned by her to the tune of 8-10k, and all I needed was answers. He asked for her new phone number, just to try to keep tabs on her. I gave it, and he began to answer my questions.

He told me she has around six active warrants for her arrest, and some waiting for her back in California. One of them for prostitution, one for impersonation of a court official, three theft warrants (one being for guns), and one for failure to pay child-support. He also told me she was never in the Marines, and that her hips are 100% real and made of bones growing in her body. He told me they split because the Sheriff picked her up and took her to prison in another state. That the “rape” (quotations his) she had blamed the dissolution of their relationship on had occurred when she got released and started turning tricks down there. He told me she’s got a teenage kid somewhere in Arizona, and that this isn’t the first or even the second time she has pretended one of her kids had died so she could run a new scam on somebody.

Hours later, an old friend visited. We’ll call her Alyssa. She had overdone it one night and struck a housemate in drunken rage. Police were called. She went to jail. She just got out today and she’s not allowed in her house while the housemate is still living there. She had contacted Sophie for help with the situation. The moment she and Sophie had stepped outside to talk I immediately informed her partner that Sophie was not a lawyer and that Sophie’s daughter had not died. He seemed puzzled, but also like he’d expected to find out that Sophie was a fraud. I shared as much as I could before they returned inside. Alyssa’s partner told me about her situation and that she didn’t have a place to go at the moment. I offered my bed should she require it, and he went to retrieve some things from the house and bring her an overnight bag. Shortly after he left I retreated downstairs while Sophie and Alyssa talked. I began to hear powerful weeping and realized that Sophie was telling Alyssa about her daughter. I bit my tongue while waiting for an opportunity, which arrived shortly. Alyssa joined me in my bedroom and we talked. I told her what I knew and showed her what I had gathered. I told her of my plans to file a police report after the holiday weekend (St. Patrick’s Day, I expect the police to be processing drunks through Sunday, so finding time to meet me for paperwork seems unlikely).

Alyssa and I make our reports on Monday.

[belladionna-blog]

Terms of Service

Payment

Payments are to be made through PayPal only, pricing is in USD.

Upon commission approval I will send you an invoice. When commissioning, you are agreeing to pay the invoiced price for the artist to perform a service to produce your request.  

Payment must be upfront, I won't start until I'm paid.

Returns or refunds are not offered for contracted work UNLESS I, the artist, cannot complete the commission. Commissions can only be canceled before the payment is sent.

Returns or refunds will not be given if the customer is behaving in an inappropriate and rude manner which may cause a detriment to my mental health.

Artist and Commissioner Relationship

Please remember that this is a professional relationship. I will be friendly, but you are still a stranger to me. This doesn’t make us friends, and please do not try to force me to be your friend. If we become friends naturally, then that’s great but otherwise leave it to what this is.

Don’t ask me for my skype or phone number as those are for personal use only, email and messages through wherever you find me works perfectly fine! I can still respond to you in a reasonable time period through these means.

I do have General Anxiety Disorder, so please don’t be pushy. It can trigger an anxiety attack, making the time in which you receive the commissioned piece longer! Please understand that I am still working with it, and there will be times that I can’t work because of it - I will contact you if this is the case.

Please respect me and my boundaries, and my personal life has nothing to do with the commissioned piece - let’s keep that out of it.

Rights

I retain the rights to ALL of my art, personal and commissioned. I can use them in my portfolio, ads, etc.

You are allowed to use the commissioned piece for personal use only. You can print, post, use it as wallpaper, etc. You are NOT allowed to use it for merchandise or any commercial use.

If you would like to use my art in such a manner (for example on T-shirts) that is a entirely different arrangement and you need to state it when commissioning me. Doing so without my knowing is not allowed.

I have the right to refuse a commission for any reason, and do not have to specify why.

I have the right to my gallery. I am not required to keep your commission in my gallery. I can move it, delete it, or not post it at all. I delete old work, or work that I don't feel properly represents me or my style anymore.

Posting

Upon request you can receive the a version without the watermark of the commissioned piece however, you are ONLY allowed to post the marked version. The unmarked is for personal use outside the internet (printing and computer wallpaper). This one will still have my signature in the image. You are not to for any reason remove it.

You are allowed to post the work you have commissioned from me in your own gallery. However you must credit me and have a link back to any of my social medias.

If you post an unmarked image you will lose all posting rights, all future work with myself and will be blacklisted.

If you did not commission the work and have not talked to me about it, you are not allowed to repost any of my work.

I may stream the commissioned piece on my Twitch channel, but will ask for permission to do so beforehand. If I decide to not stream it, please do not take offense.

Blacklisting

Being blacklisted means you are blocked on any social media and banned from commissioning me in the future. Depending on the situation you may also potentially lose any rights to previously commissioned work.

You may be added to the list for any number of reasons. This can range from breaking my TOS, copyright law, or the commissioner-artist relationship boundaries (to extremes). I am not required to give notice or even inform you of the specific reason as to why. I hold the right to do so as I see fit. Keep in mind I do so very rarely and only do it as a last resort.

Some examples of cause to be blacklisted -

• Harassment, bullying, extreme rudeness

• Failure to follow through with proper credits, and copyright.

References and Editing

Images as a reference for character(s) is preferred. Text will only be accepted if the character is very simplistic and written in an easy and clear manner.

You, the commissioner, are responsible for providing clear and accurate references of the character(s) with all correct information required. You, the commissioner, are responsible for clearly explaining what you would like and providing all accurate info relating to the commission.

If you, the commissioner, have failed to provide information or show it clearly with a reference, I am not responsible for editing and adding it to the final piece.

I, the artist, am accountable for not following the reference material or for missing details.

Completed work cannot be altered or recoloured by anyone else other then I, the artist, including the commissioner. The only exception is line-art specifically commissioned for the commissioner to color. Full credit for the lineart still required.

If the commissioner requests edits and the fault lies with me, the artist, I will correct these mistakes. If the fault lies with the commissioner, we may discuss correcting/altering the commission for a fee. The commissioner has the right to refuse the fee, and I, the artist, have the right to refuse to edit.

Work In Progress Shots (WIPS)

WIPS are available upon request, but they stay between you, the commissioner, and I, the artist. They are not to be posted, if they are I have the right to discontinue the piece. You may privately share them with friends as long as they know of this rule. If you are unsure if it's okay to share it somewhere, ask me and I will clarify.

Corrections are to be made at the sketch stage. Further alterations will not be made once the lining has begun.

Color corrections may be made once the flats are complete, but not once the shading has begun.

If WIPS are requested, I will wait up to three weeks for your approval to continue, or for any corrections that need to be made. If you, the commissioner,  fail to respond I will move forward on my own and complete it. If there were any errors, I can not be held accountable as the commissioner failed to approve or correct in a timely manner.​

Commissioner Inactivity

The commissioner is responsible for being active and responding to messages in a timely manner, as am I, the artist. If you, the commissioner, are going to be away it is important to let me know. In some cases I am able to move forward on my own without the commissioner’s input, but in such cases where I need more details or WIP approval you, the commissioner, should respond in a timely manner. Failure to do so may result in your commission being bumped down the list. Failure to respond within three months will mean your commission will be dropped without a refund.

Keep Track of Your Files

You, the commissioner, are responsible for saving the files of the finished product. If you fail to do so, I am not to be held responsible for saving back ups.

Copyright and Use Information

It is briefly mentioned on here, but i need to go more in depth with certain issues that have come up.

•By commissioning me you have the right to use that piece of art ONLY. You may not use any other pieces of my work. You are not allowed to use it for any commercial use without prior making that arrangement with me.

The only permitted use of the art work is :

• posting it in your own gallery with proper credit to me, and links back to the original. (If the original isn’t posted, credit back to me is still required)

• printing it to put on shirts, posters, etc. However this is for PERSONAL use. You can make a poster for yourself, you can make a shirt for yourself. But you can not make one and sell it unless we have set up a deal prior to the commission being started. If we have not, this is not permitted.

•You keep all rights to all your characters, but you do NOT have the right to the art work. As stated above you only have limited permission to use the artwork commissioned.

Plagiarism is NOT Fair Use.

Tracing and 'redrawing' are in no way, shape, or form fair use. This is called plagiarism.

If you think differently, I encourage you to go read up on Copyright laws and fair use. I have read up on my laws, and if you don't understand this concept, so should you.

[atticusblog2016-blog]

New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/muslim-blogger-murdered-in-maldives-after-speaking/

Muslim blogger murdered in Maldives after speaking

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The daddy of a blogger who becomes killed this week in the Maldives said Friday that his son obtained dying threats for months from nearby gangs who seemed to hold radical religious perspectives.

Hussain Rasheed, The father of Yameen Rasheed who became stabbed to death on Sunday, instructed reporters in neighboring Sri Lanka that his son became a Muslim who spoke out in his blog against growing radical Islamic perspectives inside the Indian Ocean archipelago country.

Yameen changed into discovered Sunday on the staircase of his apartment constructing in the capital, Male, with multiple stab wounds. He died later in a clinic.

Rasheed said he counted 14 wounds on his son’s chest by myself and there had been additionally cutting on his throat and head.

No arrests were made. Rasheed called on the government to invite worldwide professionals to join the investigation into his son’s murder.

Yameen criticized politicians and additionally spoke out on issues along with fitness, migrant employees’ rights and policing. He becomes actively involved in searching for justice for his pal and journalist Ahmed Rilwan, who remains unaccounted for on account that being kidnapped about 3 years ago.Maldives is a predominantly Sunni Muslim nation wherein training different faiths and atheism are banned.

The Enigmatic Open-Ended Islamic Muslim Choice: Hatred, Deception, and Violence Towards Infidels

It’s miles noticeably disheartening, if now not disgusting, that the sensationally famous self-proclaimed Television pundits, who have declared with gusto on talk indicates that the Islamic Koran does no longer contain any verses commanding violence, deception, and dishonesty from religious Muslims Towards who they regard as infidels (Christians, Jews, and all of us no longer Muslim), have glaringly by no means study the Koran themselves. Unlike the brand new Testament of the Holy Bible, which offers Jesus’ commandments as absolute standards of morality and spirituality in the direction of all of God’s youngsters, the Koran instructions Muslims to handiest be ethical and sincere with other Muslims, no longer with infidels. The Quran, Hadith, and Sira command, in over one hundred separate verses, violence, and hatred toward any non-Muslim who has now not proven submission to the Islamic god, Allah.history Islamic religion.

Muslim religion facts about women

Those really satanic instructions are based totally on the precept of abrogation imposed by Mohammad, (Naskh tafsir) Quran 9:5 (Ayat surf the “sword verse”). In step with Ibn Al Arabi, a great 12th Century Islamic student, the “sword verse” abrogated (or modified) each point out inside the Koran of showing amnesty to the disbelievers (infidels), ignoring and turning far away from them. Further, the equally essential 11th Century Islamic scholar Makki bin Abi Talib stated that verse nine:5 abrogated all-pardoning, amnesty, and forgiveness that Muslims had formerly been requested to show to non-Muslims in previous Islamic verses. This abrogation becomes supposedly in impact after the Islamic gangster, Mohammad, had left Mecca for Medina inside the sixth Century A.D.

So, is it any marvel that maximum devout Muslims at some point of the world presently consider, and are dedicated to the precept, that private Islamic jihad consists commonly of seeking to, both, violently pressure infidels into submission to the Islamic deity so as to reveal their own submission, or to kill the infidels. If something, the historical variations of interpretation of the “sword verse” in the Koran (Quran) commanding violence offer an open-ended option to local and convert Muslims to, both, actually take delivery of the verses commanding violence and devote themselves to violent Islamic jihad, or to use the verses with the intention to surreptitiously and conspiratorially dominate an infidel nation so that it will establish Islamic sharia regulation. either manner, the pragmatic stop-end result is supposed to be infidel submission.muslim marriage rules.

The subsequent partial listing of violent and hateful verses from the composite Koran became compiled on the Internet internet site “What makes Islam So Distinct?”

The Quran

Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and flip them out from where they have got grew to become you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing… however if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there may be no extra Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. however in the event that they give up, allow there be no transgression except In opposition to Az-Zalimun(the polytheists, and incorrect-doers, and so on.)” (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The verse previous to this (a hundred ninety) refers to “fighting for the cause of Allah those who combat you” main some to accept as true with that the whole passage refers to a defensive conflict in which Muslims are protecting their houses and families.

Luxurious Vacations in Maldives

Maldives is one of the favorite tourist locations and you can attain there whenever during the 12 months. you can spend your next vacation via sporting on with scuba diving and stay inside the fine lodges in Maldives. Here you could do snorkeling, boating, and you could additionally explore the brand new bluest heaven on this planet. It’s far constantly cautioned that e-book your Vacations in Maldives formerly because It is very tough to set up for spot reserving in this area because of the huge rush.

All inclusive vacation to Maldives’s

Popularly acknowledged for marine life, coral reefs, beaches, tender sand, crystal clean water and many extra thrilling capabilities, Maldives is one of the maximum pleasant locations to go to. Called an island paradise, Maldives is a blessing in conceal because of the rejuvenating feel it affords, calming your inner self, and supplying you with internal peace. You’ll witness infusion of different cultures that are rich and getting rid of. Maldives has an incredibly rich tradition comprising song and dances to liven up your spirit

Why do you go to Maldives?

Hedonistic lifestyle is favored and promoted for visitors for their costly and enjoyable journey. The luxury resorts situated in this region have less population, and they incorporate present-day architecture and delightful points of interest of blue sea and sand seashores. These accommodations are solely designed to serve you with the best fine amenities and merchandise. Your stay can be exceedingly first-rate and worthy of each penny that you pay. They are designed in a selected manner to provide to you a particularly comfy area.

Some of Those inns have received marine lifestyles and coral reef which can be loved with utter pleasure by way of the visitors staying there. The fine subject matter primarily based inns help you to kick away all your worries and stress. Plus, there are centers like private swimming pools, Jacuzzis, and heart-throbbing spas which serve as additional offerings.

There are outstanding activities that could bring masses of a laugh and turn your excursion into an adventurous one. Scuba diving, windsurfing, indoor sports and plenty of extra such sports will growth your enthusiasm. With such a lot of sports and limitless opportunities, this trip will intensify your life in the way which you would possibly have in no way idea earlier than. Enjoy it and you will have a memory of the lifetime.bali vacations all inclusive water bungalows.

But all the hotels do not have Those scuba diving facilities and you should make certain Those functions at some point of your reserving. Aside from that, a boat is the important mode of transportation in Maldives, and you may never assume the climate modifications and temperature of Maldives. So that you should deliver the iciness jackets all the time and your adventure may additionally take few hours extra for the duration of a harsh climate.Maldives vacation packages all inclusive.

An English Speaking Environment Highly Improves English Abilities

There are a variety of methods you’ll be able to use to improve their English Talents. Such techniques can encompass studying from textbooks, studying newspapers and magazines, taking note of English tune, looking English Speak television, and attending English mastering lessons. These are all excellent approaches to enhance your English Skills; but, one effective method of enhancing your English Capabilities is immersing yourself in an English Speaking Environment.

Public speaking

Being in an English Speaking Surroundings will enhancing your English Talking Competencies by supporting you speak extra easily and efficiently. Whilst you are constantly listening to and Talking English on an each day basis, you may dramatically improve the way you talk and apprehend the language. You may research English idioms and slang, pronunciation, and meanings of phrases and phrases. You may advantage extra self-assurance as you concentrate and learn. Interacting with others will even improve your confidence as you turn out to be more relaxed with Talking the language. Locations wherein newcomers can immerse themselves in an English Speaking Surroundings consist of.how to improve talking skills.study skills techniques.

Conversation Companies: There are many community backed Agencies that preserve Communication Businesses where English beginners can meet and engage with other English beginners. These Businesses can meet at a church, school, community center, government department, or at an immigrant carrier organization. There are also social engagements held by using immigrant Businesses. newbies can spend time in a comfortable Environment and speak with each different in English. You’ll learn to talk English at the same time as being part of an aid group. You will also most likely make some excellent friends. Some of These Corporations may also plan unique social activities like going to dinner, a film, or spending time at a coffee shop. You will gain self-belief Speak English in public.

[realitycrazy2017-blog]

Apple's Hostility Toward Adobe Merchandise - The Impact on Websites

New Post has been published on https://realitycrazy.com/apples-hostility-toward-adobe-merchandise-the-impact-on-web-sites/

Apple's Hostility Toward Adobe Merchandise - The Impact on Websites

As an internet designer/developer, an SEO specialist, and free no cost websites supervisor and overseer for my clients

I have registered a number of the Web sites I’ve created with Google Analytics, a surprisingly useful device to screen visitor resources, pastimes and options. Each day, after checking my email, I spend a beneficial part of my morning analyzing its reports which include how many site visitors regarded each internet site, how they had been referred, what key phrases they used, what pages they visited, how lengthy they spent on each page and what service issues they utilize, among different matters. I take a look at the final object because it often specifies the call of a business enterprise, a college, a government company or other particular supply in place of a behemoth IT provider like Verizon or Comcast. regularly this is critical data approximately who is journeying our free no cost websites.

Currently, and I admit I’m past due in addressing this challenge, I’ve been intrigued with the aid of what page they “landed on.” The cause for my hobby has to do with a challenge about their capability to get hold of Flash, presently a contentious topic due to apple news Pc’s refusal to consist of this era on a number of it is cutting-edge, very popular Products which encompass the iPhone, the iPod, and the iPad.

As a lifelong Mac person and lover, I commonly appreciate and assist something and the whole lot apple news, based totally on firsthand positive experience with their first-rate Merchandise and inventory performance. I have benefited substantially from both. However, after having bought Adobe’s Innovative Suite software program numerous years in the past and exerted the arduous attempt to train myself Flash, I have a vested hobby in being able to hold to make use of those sophisticated documents on a lot of my major Web sites, mainly since my customers have paid me for his or her advent and that they upload glamour and pizzazz to any web page they seem on.

However, this latest improvement lamentably appears to be little greater than an uncongenial,

competitive rivalry between two incredible generation organizations. Whether or not precipitated by way of gluttony for marketplace dominance or lack of compromise or cooperation underneath the guise of a better consumer revel in, it has impacted every person who has an internet site that makes use of Flash in its presentations. In studying what the consensus of opinion is on this topic, I read one account of an expert girl who became enjoyable business visitors in Top notch Britain. One of the guests changed into proudly showing off his new iPad and asked for the hostess’ URL deal with so they could respect her free no cost websites collectively in this new degree. What came about next is what triggered my worry. Whilst he arrived at her internet site, all they noticed have been big black holes because her internet site changed into typically dependent on Flash. Her embarrassment becomes mortifying.

Knowing that my very own business enterprise free no cost websites home page consists of three as an alternative massive Flash documents alongside a few needful HTML textual content, not to mention that some of my clients’ newly showcased domestic pages also flaunt huge Flash films to encourage, bedazzle and provoke, I targeted on my latest interest approximately some of the Google Analytics’ reviews I had seen which confirmed 0:00 time spent on the landing web page. Within the case of my very own internet site, the landing page is nearly constantly the house web page. It took place to me that if visitors arrived there to view nothing However black, who ought to blame them for defecting right now? ought to such visitors be the use of the modern-day Apple Merchandise? Despite the fact that Google Analytics does no longer specify the brand or sort of Laptop or device used, it does pinpoint the working machine and browser which in this example might be OS X and Safari.

Converting what passed off Inside the beyond is a fruitless pursuit so my aim now targeted on controlling free no cost websites visitations Within the destiny. Having used Adobe’s Dreamweaver software to create my Flash documents, I used to be conscious and had already utilized a behavioral manipulate which places a sensor on the page to discover Whether or not a vacationer has the Flash software important to view a Flash movie. If now not, the traveler is mechanically rerouted to a change web page made specifically without Flash to deal with this relatively rare situation. But as with the entirety, we encounter these days, the sensor does not work with all browsers (in this case, the old standby offender: Microsoft’s Net Explorer which historically, in my enjoy, has always covered ubiquitous roadblocks to consumer-friendliness) so the web dressmaker is left with a catch 22 situation. What to do? Whilst the intuitive sensor gives you the option to select to reroute the vacationer to a new page or simply permit him to live at the original Flash page if no detection is possible, this does not resolve the hassle. anyone is aware of that Windows and Net Explorer has been the foremost platform for most Internet use, despite Apple’s surge in reputation in current years. However plainly Google’s new Chrome browser has simply overtaken that honor. Meaning that it possibly makes feel to allow such site visitors to live at the authentic Flash page when you consider that they in all likelihood could have the Flash reader. In the end, it becomes the Mac consumer which triggered this catch 22 situations and best certain Macs at that. And supposedly the sensor might be capable of coming across Flash presence on a Mac operating machine. To confirm this assumption, I researched further and found the subsequent at http://www.Mobileblog.cellular-deals-as compared.Co.united kingdom/2010/industry-information/: “(Adobe’s) Flash 10.1 is officially WP7 bound. This new update can be launched for all WP7 gadgets; which means that the whole thing of the Net could be to be had at the browser for Microsoft’s cutting-edge mobile platform. The Google Android OS became the first to get hold of help for Flash 10.1 on the 2.2 Froyo model of the open supply cellular platform. According to adobe flash 10b , the Flash website participant may also be adapted to other working structures -except for apple news .”

subsequent hurdle, a way to reflect the sophistication of Flash on a trade page without Flash? After some investigation via an expansion of Google searches, I found out that Apple is promoting an open source coding language called html5 for simply such a trouble. For me, that was no longer an option considering I have not Currently upgraded my operating device past Mac OS X 10.four.eleven to the required level of advancement, 10.five.eight. The other feasible solution becomes to utilize javascript in a few sort of slide display. There’s one other answer as well But it isn’t terribly effective if you have big unique Flash files. Must you’ve got a small subtle impact created in Flash, you may choose to convert that document to a lively gift record which can be larger than the authentic Flash report But can still suffice as an alternative on this instance.

At the same time as those suggestions may be an appropriate intervening time method,

I trust this battle of pursuits is the start of a Changing of the shield at the Internet as I be aware that an increasing number of Web sites are doing away with Flash from their documents and are converting to apply of html5 or javascript instead. by way of the same token, RedmondPie.Com reviews that a new entrepreneurial business enterprise is seizing this case as a commercial enterprise opportunity with the discharge of a new product to get hold of Flash on iPhone: “…you could now get a very alpha model of Flash (aka Flash) to run right in your iPhone four.” what number of greater innovators will quickly comply with this trend? I’ve already visible that the mobile cellphone marketplace has been short to leap into the fray with blatant advertising and marketing messages about their Products’ warm-hearted reception of Flash! apple news Inside the interim has clarified its “adversarial” stance through pronouncing that its selection to limit the inclusion of the adobe flash 10 Readers on its latest machines that still can get hold of Flash become made with concern that users obtain the cutting-edge model of that software program which they could get without cost directly from adobe flash 10 . Ok, that makes feel. But wherein is Apple going to attract the road? What’s the plan for adobe flash 10 PDF era? Will they be banning that too?

Despite the fact that I used to be hoping to try and get any other year out of my present running machine and established software program, I assume I’ve confronted a chief purpose why I want to improve quickly, likely before the end of the tax 12 months to get the benefit of those essential commercial enterprise costs. Unluckily for me to be able to mean a likely expensive or bulky conversion to OS X 10.6.5, alongside a want to additionally reinstall Parallels to simultaneously run Windows, which allows me to check how each browser and working gadget is displaying my internet site creations. And as though that isn’t always sufficient, doing such an upgrade will simply be the proverbial “opening a can of worms” due to the fact now I can need to improve all my other Creative software, the least of so that you can encompass Quark eight.0 (which, by the manner, now presently offers Flash creativity, a characteristic I’ve until now been snubbing), Adobe CS5 Photoshop, Adobe CS5 Acrobat professional, Adobe CS5 Illustrator, and Adobe CS5 Fireworks. Sorely missing from that list is my loved adobe flash 10. without being capable of are expecting the destiny, who will succeed Inside the technology wars over open source vs. Proprietary coding, or Whether we all will sooner or later switch to smaller gadgets for the Internet websites get right of entry to, the question stays: ToAdobe Flash or not to Flash?