#but no individual leaves close combat experience such as this unchanged

[age-of-moonknight]

“An Unquiet Grave,” Moon Knight: City of the Dead (Vol. 1/2023), #4.

Writer: David Pepose; Penciler: Marcelo Ferreira; Inker: Jay Leisten; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[mamthew]

Been playing the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles remaster some since it dropped, and I have some thoughts on it. It’s been a…really long time since I last played the original, and I never was able to get too far in, since I was so new to video games that I was unable to intuit most of its mechanics. Despite this, I fell in love with the game. For quite some time, it was the only game with “Final Fantasy” in the title that I had played. I played, enjoyed, and beat its three sequels: Echoes of Time, Ring of Fates, and The Crystal Bearers (neither of the My Life As spinoffs, but eh).

This remaster is not a good remaster, but mostly not for the reasons I’ve seen put forth online. The developers didn’t do much to improve the visuals, sure, but honestly the art direction of the game was pretty enough anyway that it skates by on that alone. The load screens are not nearly as long as I’d been led to believe. The gameplay is unchanged from the original, and like…I like the gameplay of the original? That’s why I played the remaster? I want to play the game?

My biggest issue with the remaster is how the online is handled, but reviewers have straight up lied about problems with the online? Like…you have a permanent friend code you can give people. The temporary online codes you can generate are different from the permanent one. Why are reviewers saying your online code changes every 30 minutes and you can’t save permanent friends when that’s demonstrably false? Seems like a thing you maybe shouldn’t be writing in your official review.

I’m going to put my own issues with the online aside for a moment, though. I promise we’ll come back to it, but my issues with the remaster are only understood in the larger context of what the game did as a piece of art and what it no longer does now as a result of the changes. First, then, we’ve got to lay down what Crystal Chronicles did as a piece of art. Crystal Chronicles, I’ve come to realize during this playthrough, is a game about storytelling as collective memory, and much of the game’s mechanics work in service to this theme.

In the world of the game, something happened long ago that released poisonous miasma into the air and made much of the world uninhabitable to the four major races. The game follows the players’ customized characters as they take annual pilgrimages to collect enough “myrrh” from magical trees, which is used to maintain the barrier that keeps their town safe from the miasma. The game is broken up into years; it takes four drops of myrrh to maintain the barrier for a year, each dungeon’s tree only provides one drop of myrrh, and it takes several years for a tree to replenish that drop, pushing the characters’ caravan further and further out each year in search of trees that are not yet spent.

I’ve compared this setting to Death Stranding a few times in the past, and I think the comparison holds up. The game’s story has only gained something from the current moment, too. I go out and risk myself to get groceries, which I then bring back home so I can continue to hole up safe in quarantine until I run low again, and I think the game fairly accurately simulates the rise and fall of that pattern, the balance of risk and safety, and the way the dangerous unknown eventually becomes the mundane with time. Most of the locations in the game are old products of civilization that have been lost to nature, and walking through former farmland, abandoned roads, and empty towns in the game do remind me of walking down empty city streets back when coronavirus was still keeping people off city streets.

The game has several stories running in tandem, but the most central one is the ongoing story of the characters’ caravan, chronicled in a journal. After every new encounter, new area, or completed dungeon, a new entry is added to the journal, and at the end of the year, all the entries are incorporated into a cutscene, so the player can read them and relive the year’s events. The entries are very short and written in a simple style, but they still give the player an idea of how their character viewed the events. These end-of-year cutscenes are actually really enjoyable little rituals, and I’ve been avoiding reading the journal entries specifically so I can experience them for the first time in these retrospectives.

As the years progress, the character’s entries show that their memories of earlier years are fading. “Whenever I close my eyes, I vividly remember all my adventures,” says the entry at the end of the first year. By the end of the fourth year, however, “so many memories from my earlier adventures have dimmed, from the joys of chance encounters to the suspense of my first battles.” The entries also show the ways the annual pilgrimages have changed the player character. “It was an easy fight, so I spent a peaceful interlude over a light meal,” says an entry after revisiting an older dungeon. “I was a little surprised. I never considered myself a fighter.”

The written and oral records of the past permeate this game in so many ways. Before each dungeon, a narrator who is presumably another caravanner who went to the same places in the past introduces the location with either a history of the place or an anecdote about the place. The Mushroom Forest, to her, evokes a childhood memory of her mother. She introduces the Veo Lu Sluice by explaining the history of who built the sluice, what conditions allowed for its construction, and what its irrigation has done for the people since. After each dungeon, the player character receives a letter from a family member, telling them what has been happening in the town while they were away. At the beginning of each new year, the town’s patriarch tells your character a story about the previous caravanner, who mysteriously disappeared after announcing he had found a way to remove the miasma entirely.

It feels like history, generally, has been put on hold. The Lilty military once dominated most of the world, but had to shrink back into their capital city due to the miasma, and the city eventually diminished to a small trading post. The Yukes once were at war with the Lilties, but they’ve allowed trade between their towns again, so caravans can have safe havens to stay in while collecting the precious myrrh. The once-nomadic Selkies were unable to find a new homeland before the miasma spread, and now most are stuck on an island that was supposed to be a temporary stop. We hear much of this history throughout the game, but we don’t see any of it. It’s recorded and known but has little bearing on the culture or lived experiences of the inhabitants of a world where no one can leave their homes.

The moogle adventurer Stiltzkin asks the player character where memories go once they’ve been forgotten, and it’s a fair question in a world where everyone is as alienated from the past as they are from each other 

The problem is, this isn’t supposed to be a game about alienation, exactly. It’s supposed to be a game about shared experiences and the ways we experience and remember the same events differently, as different individuals. It’s supposed to be a game about combatting alienation through shared experience. This is supposed to be a game in which I share a screen with three other players even as we each also have our own personal screens providing us with different objectives and showing us different letters from our different families. In the original game, the multiplayer was devilishly difficult to actually set up, as each player had to have their own Gameboy Advance, attached to the Gamecube and used as a controller, to control their own character. The players’ characters lived in the same town and were on the same caravan together but competed over who unlocked which powerups and picked up which recipes, meaning everyone’s stat spread and armor was different. Players had slightly different experiences within the larger shared story, and the use of the Gameboy Advances were meant to highlight those differences.

Which leads to my issue with this remaster. In the original, characters were saved to the same file, and every player’s character lived together in the same town. Their families each had different houses in the towns and would eventually provide the party with different supplies, depending on their jobs and the responses they received to their letters. At the end of each dungeon, the player characters would sit together in a circle and each receive a letter from their families. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene showed the characters and their families celebrating their return together. Your characters explored towns together, and your fellow players watched the random encounter cutscenes with you.

In this game, you can’t play local multiplayer at all. You can only play online multiplayer in dungeons, and clearing a dungeon with other players only counts towards the host’s file. At the end of each dungeon, the characters sit in a circle as the mail moogle tells all but the host that there is no mail for them. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene shows an almost entirely empty town; the character and his immediate family dance alone. Certain secrets have now been relegated to the single-player experience only, and the minigames you could unlock and play with friends were removed entirely. Towns are also exclusively single-player. The game is no longer a shared multiplayer experience so much as a dungeon-crawler where friends and strangers can jump into dungeons to offer brief help.

This creates a strange two-minded state of play, where I see and remember the vestiges of the game that once was while playing a game that’s in thematic opposition to it. As my character explores Tida Village and sees signs of the population that once lived there, I play this remaster and see leftovers from now-removed game mechanics. It’s a deeply unsettling and alienating experience.

The online isn’t inherently bad, then. It reminds me of FFXIV, where dungeons and bosses are their own separate experiences, removed from the rest of the game. But this online is inherently unsuited to the game it is in. Crystal Chronicles is not FFXIV; the developers put together a system of online play for a different game than the one they were remastering.

It would have been possible to change the game to suit this online system, too! The journal entries for dungeons could have also included the names of players who joined them for those dungeons. The online players could have still received letters, but from the host character’s family, thanking them for keeping their loved one safe. New random encounters could have been added between different online caravans, allowing them to trade items or play minigames with one another. The party at the end of the year could have included the families of randomly selected online companions These changes could have could have given us a synthesis of the old and new, and helped to center the chronicles over the crystals.

Instead, though, we have this incredibly flawed remaster, after almost a year of delays, that serves more as an empty reminder of what the game once was instead of actually allowing us to experience that game, or instead of, god forbid, actually building on that game’s premises and promises. I’m still enjoying the game a lot, but the experience is hella soured by my knowledge of how the game used to play. I’m not sure how enjoyable this remaster would even be to someone unfamiliar with the original.

This remaster feels like a purposeful nail in the coffin of Crystal Chronicles; an excuse to show that the franchise is no longer a potential seller. Whether that’s its actual intent doesn’t really matter, though, since I fear that will be its ultimate effect either way.

[thedrown]

GOTS Lore- Sikha’s Family

 This lore tidbit isn’t BLAABR but instead me Star Wars story Ghosts of The Separatists! You may have noticed my love for the Kaleesh and while there are seemingly many Kaleesh characters, most are actually part of Sikha’s family so this entry will briefly take a deeper look into her background that her bio didn’t cover!

 Sikha’s clan known as “Ourag” originate from the small port city of Shakren named after a Kaleesh Sith lord during the Cold War. As with most Kaleesh, ancestral reverence was important to her and Sikha’s ancestors played a significant role in turning Shakren into a hub of foreign trade during a previous generation of five siblings whom branched out to expand Kalee’s position in the galaxy. Two sisters left to neighboring Muunilinst and learned of trade and finance, a brother maintained tradition becoming a proud warlord of a small mercenary army in the Outer Rim, while the remaining two brothers remained on Kalee consolidating the outside resources and funds of their siblings into their hometown to overhaul and expand Shakren’s infrastructure into a small, but capable, spaceport and shipping dock. The combined efforts of these siblings’ wider worldview beyond Kalee pushed Shakren into the corporate eye attracting the IGBC and their subsidiaries and such investments laid a foundation for what was on a galactic level a minor trade spot but for the Kaleesh meant a stepping stone into greater regional affairs beyond mercenary work. The small industry these five brothers and sisters spearheaded laid the foundation for clan Ourag to be respected clan in Shakren as well as leave a significant amount of wealth to their descendants through their enterprises within the IGBC’s network of commerce. The city stands in the shadow of Kaleela but remains a bustling trade hub for Neimoidians, Muuns, and many other aliens overseeing business in the city with the IGBC, Baktoid Armor Workshop, and Hoersch-Kessel Drive all maintaining small facilities and cargo depots in it’s industrial shipping zone. While the Ourag’s business has since fallen under the IGBC, they maintain autonomy when it comes to affairs on Kalee and operate with minimal outside oversight due to the significant cultural nuances of the worlds masked denizens. 

 Beyond these enterprising ancestors clan Ourag has few claims to fame beyond one distant individual being a slave turned Sith apprentice during the time of the Old Republic which thus brings us to her immediate family and current generation during this time of the Secessionist Crisis and Clone Wars. Sikha’s grandfather was a veteran of both the Huk War and the even older Kaleesh-Bitthaevrian War having fought first hand beside and later against the Jedi during the conflicts. Recruited and trained by the Republic as a pilot, he bombed many Bitthaevrian bases and worlds and his deeds during this conflict would weigh on him in his old age though his immense feelings of betrayal from the Jedi during the Huk War left him largely dejected and withdrawn. It was only the onset of the Clone Wars did he spur back to life jumping into the pilots seat and acting volunteer to the CIS navy as a squadron leader deployed under the IGBC’s forces. His war stories acting as inspiration to a young Sikha, he only shed his withdrawn nature when it came to his grandchildren trying instill within them a nobility to their Kaleesh beliefs as a form of safeguarding their inevitable lives of combat from being manipulated as he once was by the Republic. 

 Following this are his two sons, Sikha’s father Aukad and her Uncle Isso San Ourag. Isso left Kalee at a young age being sent into an exchange program with Muuns to learn banking and gain greater exposure to the larger galaxy and as a result is scarcely much of a warrior and is a true and proper businessman and doesn’t even live on Kalee currently, residing instead on Scipio following the war encroaching upon Muunilinst and Mygeeto. While sporadically present in Sikha’s childhood, Isso holds a spot as a loving bringer of many curious gifts from beyond Kalee’s space and is someone she holds very dear.  Isso’s younger brother Aukad on the other hand had to forgo a normal life when the the Huk War broke out when he was just entering adolescence and thus was thrusted upon an unrelentingly violent conflict that ravaged his home. All he had was his father who was forced to teach a young Aukad many difficult lessons in the name of survival, the scars of which haven’t fully healed. As a result of his stolen youth and strained relationship with his father, Aukad is an extremely protective father who’s jaded feelings towards his peoples fixation on warfare left a lingering cloud of concern when it came to raising his children in Kaleesh custom whilst fearing the outcome it could have in whatever conflict falls upon their world next. He is a deeply conflicted man feeling immense shame over the rift between him as his son, overwhelming fear of Sikha’s wellbeing both physically and emotionally now that she serves in the CIS, and self doubt as a father for his youngest daughter Aicha. Despite this, Sikha views him only as her perfect father regardless of flaws or familial loss and after the death of her mother the two came to rely on one another for their reunited family following Sikha’s return from Mandalore. While worrisome of the greater war, he actively serves in CIS intelligence in a largely unimportant listening post in the Kadok Regions under Admiral Riivas.

  Speaking of, Sikha has two siblings in her older brother Takhan and little sister Aicha. Khan left Kalee and his family behind when Sikha was still little and she knows very little of him and her parent’s lack of explanation developed feelings of abandonment within her towards her older sibling, a sentiment that turned from somber to bitter following the death of their mother. Meanwhile, small innocent Aicha is fiercely protected from the outside world by both her overprotective father and her coddling overbearing older sister who both seek to give her a life away from their family tragedy and conflict. By in large they’ve succeeded to this end as she is largely unaware of problems both at home and the greater galaxy and is simply enjoying her childhood with only brief curiosity as to the ever diminishing size of their family as the war progresses. Khan, while absent from family and Kaleesh only in species not culture, has created a small mercenary army based on Jedha offering his security services to the highest bidder portraying himself as a carefree vagabond ignoring the considerable chip on his shoulder towards his home. He intentionally distances himself from all things Kalee even seldom wearing a mask and fully embracing greater galactic culture as a spacer with the constant comments on his lack of “Kaleeshness” being infuriating jabs to his ego though he simply presses on in his search of wealth he doesn’t even care for. His resentment for home is only tempered by his relationship with comrade and fellow bounty hunter Kla Sekkru. The peppy and excitable Trandoshan is close to her culture being a hunter purely for sport to gain Jagannath points yet is similar to Khan in that she appears highly irregular to most of her kind. Kla is endlessly energetic in pursuit of new experiences and methods of gaining points. Her joy in experimenting with her peoples deep rooted customs is a curiosity to Takhan who sees none of the burden his culture holds upon him holding Kla down, in fact it seems to drive her forward instead. The only person he’s ever opened up to and an object of fascination, Kla is something of Takhan’s missing piece though her whimsy persona diminishes his emotional sentimentality to unequivocal acceptance of who he his; Kla doesn’t act his therapist, being her loving self unchanged by his exposing of emotion means more than her sympathies ever could and she as such chooses to simply love him in the simplest form.

 Lastly is Sikha’s unnamed mother. A hunter from the north who battled an everyday fight for survival while the Huk pillaged the rest of Kalee, she grew up close to family and communes of her small tribe trekking across the tundra with all tribesmen and women being a single unit united in survival and mutual care. It was during the warmer season where the blizzards broke did she and other young tribes members venture to the mainland to sell and trade their polar goods and she would meet Sikha’s father Aukad when he purchased meat from her only to spend all his budget on her handmade trinkets after instantly becoming infatuated with the heavy coated nomad. For the rest of the season he would visit her in the market and even help her sell her wares as the two bonded. It wasn’t long before the two were wed and she would return to the tundras for another season before returning to Aukad to stay for good, the time and distance had changed nothing and despite his coming of age, he took no additional wives despite the option and happily awaited his distant bride. They had a happy marriage living in the Ourag estate and raising their children alongside Isso and his family. Where Takhans departure weighed heavily on Aukad, his wife instead accepted her son’s decision hoping for his return once he concluded his personal journey and always made preparations at clan shrines awaiting his eventual return with calm confidence. Her warmth and caring nature while being deeply tied to northern Kaleesh customs lent to Sikha’s development as a more worldly and open individual who is Kaleesh first, but always seeking new and greater knowledge to expand upon herself. Despite her closeness to her father, Sikha takes far more after her mother though her death at the hands of Huk defending a young Sikha dramatically altered her disposition reserving the aspects of her mother behind a near impenetrable wall to all outsiders to her life and manifesting a stoic coldness at best and borderline sociopathic grudge to those she blames for tragedy at worst. The Huk War, death of mother, and time enslaved by the Hutts and subsequent freedom by Mandalorians distorted her mother’s values in Sikha making her present self someone who speaks of the morally gray whilst practicing only in black and whites.

 Beyond this Sikha’s uncle Isso also has two wives who both serve in the CIS on the frontlines as shocktroopers while their triplet sons all joined the Bounty Hunter’s Guild to gain martial experience being sporty and supportive cousins to Sikha while their mothers were the ones who trained Sikha and caught her up to the Kaleesh rites and customs lost during her time away from Kalee post Huk enslavement.

[yogaadvise]

5 Lessons in Self-Confidence from the Bhagavad Gita

Self-confidence is a fundamental high quality to living a reliable, empowered, and meeting life. Being aware of as well as reliant upon your very own powers and capacities is what allows you to think, talk, and act purposefully and think that you have the inner stamina as well as nerve to succeed.

Like everybody, there are times you can lose self-confidence in yourself as well as get on spells of uncertainty, instability, as well as unpredictability. Doing not have self-esteem, you may be afraid and also believe that you are weak or unskilled and also consequently wait to talk or show assertiveness, missing out on potential chances for development or success. You may sabotage and also hold on your own back in your work, relationships, or individual lives. As any individual that has gotten on ruts of self-doubt as well as instability can tell you, this is not a pleasant state to be in. Just how do you prevent it? Just how can you preserve a healthy degree of positive self-image in that you are as well as what you can do? The solutions, partially, depend on the Bhagavad Gita (Gita).

The Gita, perhaps among the most adored messages in all the Vedic literary works, is a vast storehouse of Yogic understanding and ideology. A part of the epic rhyme, The Mahabharata, it encapsulates the significance of Vedanta in the tale of Arjuna, the finest of warriors who is caught up in an epic fight between the forces of great and also wicked. Gathered on the battleground of Kurukshetra, the forces of good (Pandavas) and the pressures of wickedness (Kauravas) are planning for war. The mighty Pandu warrior, Arjuna, asks his magnificent charioteer, Krishna, to put his chariot in between the 2 armies so he can see who he has to combat. To his discouragement, Arjuna sees in both militaries close friends, family members, teachers, and valued elders, all ready to deal with and also pass away. Overcome with grief, Arjuna sinks right into anguish at the idea of the inevitable bloodshed. The resulting discussion in between Krishna and Arjuna states on the course of yoga exercise as a way of liberation from suffering.

In the second chapter of the Gita, The Yoga of Knowledge, Krishna instructs Arjuna in the ways of yoga, essentially giving him a wakeup telephone call from his despondency and sadness, claiming:

This despair as well as weakness in a time of crisis are mean and not worthy of you, Arjuna. Exactly how have you come under a state up until now from the path to freedom? It does not become you to yield to this weak point. Emerge with a brave heart and also ruin the opponent. (C2, v2-3)

The lessons that follow are powerful tools for restoring Arjuna's confidence. Like Arjuna, you can likewise take advantage of these timeless mentors in your pursuit for self-confidence and also self-determination. As you read each of these five principles, allow the profound wisdom of these mentors to resonate within you as well as feel your self-confidence expand as a result.

1. Know Your True Self

In Krishna's very first mentor to Arjuna, he describes that the material globe you perceive with your 5 senses is not truth expression of fact. It is an impression, albeit a convincing one. Your supreme essence is pure spirit, pure classic understanding. It is independent of the good or poor viewpoint of others, feels over no person as well as below no one, and is brave of all obstacles. When you shed sight of this essential understanding, you forget your actual identity. You take the ephemeral functions you play as well seriously and also feel disconnected from the resource of your power. Krishna reminds Arjuna:

The impermanent has no fact, fact exists in the eternal. Those who have actually seen the limit between these 2 have acquired completion of all knowledge. Recognize that which suffuses deep space is undestroyable, no power can affect this unchanging, imperishable truth. The body is mortal, but he that stays in the body is immortal and also immeasurable. Arjuna, battle in this battle. (C2, v16-18)

When you absolutely symbolize this understanding, it ends up being difficult to harbor doubt, instability, or anxiety. In living from the level of your heart, your thoughts, speech, as well as activities embody the essence of pure boundless spirit-- fearless, certain of itself, and bold in all things.

2. Follow Your Purpose in Life

Krishna after that goes on to advise Arjuna to follow his dharma, or his function in life. Arjuna's dharma is that of a warrior, both literally as well as metaphorically. Arjuna has actually been a mighty warrior all his life, it is what he was born to do. Yet Krishna also motivates him to be a warrior for decency as well as the pursuit of understanding. This knowledge is the understanding of the adverse pressures that grip the mind and rob you of your sense of function in the globe. Whenever you shed your sense of objective, you really feel lost, adrift in a globe that wouldn't care if you existed or otherwise. Krishna advises Arjuna that doing his dharmic task is the key to redemption:

Considering your dharma, you should not vacillate. For a warrior, absolutely nothing is greater than a war against evil. The warrior confronted with such a battle needs to delight in, Arjuna, for it comes as an open gateway to paradise. If you do not participate in this battle against wicked, you will certainly sustain transgression, breaching your dharma and your honor. (C2, v31-33)

While this passage may seem as if Krishna is promoting physical violence, the fight defined is really an internal one in which you are called upon to seek out the causes of your very own lack of knowledge. When you pursue and also meet your dharma or function in life, you really feel driven, calculated, and also purposeful in what you do. A vital, legitimate, and special item of a cosmos that has no spare parts, you can be certain understanding that what you carry out in the globe issues as well as makes a difference.

3. Take Action

What follows is a hint at what will certainly be gone over in detail in future chapters of the Gita. Krishna reminds Arjuna that he is right here in this world to take action. Insecurity, worry, as well as anxiousness are the outcomes not of activity, but of psychological turbulence, compulsive over-thinking, and analysis paralysis. When you fail to act, and obtain captured up in the limitless "what if" loophole, absolutely nothing is achieved as well as you only question on your own extra. If you act, nevertheless, you will either complete your goals and also locate fulfillment, or fail, yet pick up from the experience. This lesson teaches you to not simply rest on the sidelines of life and marvel, however to act as well as possess the repercussions. As Krishna teaches:

You can work, however never ever to the fruits of job. You ought to never ever take part in activity for the benefit of benefit, neither must you long for inaction. Carry out work in this globe, Arjuna, as a male established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success as well as loss. For yoga exercise is perfect consistency of mind. (C2, v47-48)

In other words, take action! Make that phone call, get that task, ask that special someone out on a day, and also create that publication. Do not bother with the outcome, acting is the vital part. The more you act, the extra comfy it will certainly come to be. If nothing else, your self-confidence will grow from having the ability to say, "I did it!"

4. Build Experience

Krishna explains that every activity leaves an impact, yet only via disciplined technique are you able to boost. When you act, you construct up a surplus of experiences. Your skills expand and also you become extra capable. You develop the expertise, the understanding to navigate your activities with skill as well as convenience. This is an essential trick to self-esteem-- routine, specialized practice. As Krishna states:

Arjuna, currently listen to the concepts of yoga. By practicing these, you can appear the bonds of karma. On this path, effort never ever goes to waste, and there is no failing. Also a little effort toward spiritual understanding will certainly protect you from the best fear. (C2, v39-40)

Put an additional method, keep going. You will certainly always proceed. I'm advised of the response one of my fighting styles instructors offered me when I asked him the key to end up being a positive as well as reliable martial musician. His reply was merely, "Mat time," which was an additional means to say, simply keep training. Repetition is the mother of all ability, no matter what the endeavor. If you wish to improve, and consequently more positive, maintain practicing!

5. Meditate

Finally, Krishna instructs Arjuna the profound understanding for touching right into the knowledge of yoga exercise: reflection. Through the practice of reflection, the voices of doubt, uncertainty, anxiety, as well as worry soften to remote murmurs, ultimately fading away entirely. On top of that, reflection allows you to have straight experience of your heart-- the infinite, immortal, boundless, pure spirit. Tipping right into this area sets you without the requirement to seek the approval of others. Krishna explains those developed in this knowledge like this:

Neither perturbed by despair nor hankering after pleasure, they live complimentary from lust and also fear as well as rage. Developed in reflection, they are truly sensible. Fettered say goodbye to by self-centered accessories, they are neither gladdened by good luck neither depressed by bad. Such are the seers. (C2, v56-57)

When you make regular call with your real self, the heart-- the area of limitless consciousness-- you experience self-confidence as your ground state. From this state of self-referral, you recognize with ease that you can accomplish anything.

These five lessons supply you with powerful tools to harness the inherent confidence that already lives within you. Use Krishna's teachings as a normal pointer that you do not serve the world by playing tiny. Develop with an endure heart as well as defend knowledge.

Discover the knowledge, stamina, as well as tranquility of your real self amidst the elegance of The golden state's main shore at Silent Awakenings, an intimate silent retreat with Deepak Chopra. Learn More.

[makku-ruko]

Liar’s dream:

(Following the resurrection of Oni’s wife)

Trudging through a plain of pure white, a redheaded figure. The snowflakes, though fluffy and rather large, their surface left no cold burn. The figure, emotionlessly journeying forward ignored them soon approaching a structure —a castle. Blank as the snow.

The figure only gazed upwards at its majesty, not necessarily appreciating it himself. Peering forward, he noticed a group of individuals devoid of colour, tints. Anything. They matched the castle yet bared no face or clothing— simple outlines of simple figures. They only stared back.

Golden blinked in response. Unfazed. The figures then advanced to inspect him. Still, he remained unfazed. Several hands motioned him forward, a few clutching his wrist to lead him. He followed blankly.

Within the castle laid orchid marbled flooring. The blankness, pureness of innocence. Golden remained unfazed yet guilt commenced building within his psyche.

‘It’s hurting my eyes....’

He was led to an altar of sorts, devoid of throne. There, a few figures scattered before returning shortly with gifts. The redhead would only obediently move as requested as the figures dressed him.

He was adorned in pure white. A flurry halo of sorts as a crown. Streams of silver embedded themselves in light feathery coating. Golden complimented the angelic embellishment. The next adornment was a cape— one for a monarch. White as light yet comforting to touch. Velvet underneath cotton. Streams of translucent fabric acted as garnish. The garment held itself so large that this new prince could practically mummify himself with it had he wanted to.

Hurriedly, the figures made haste with fixing his gifts so they may not interfere with his steps. There, they all scurried back to the gathering grounds and stood as a crowd, awaiting order.

With power now in his hands, he lifted a hand. One thought pulsed through his mind.

‘...Barricade.’

And so, he gave the order. A slender digit targeting the grand doors that stood tall and accessible.

“Barricade.”

With no further preamble, blank feet scrambled to close the doors and lock down their precious grand structure. As they did so, His own feet guided him to a different area. The courtyard.

Stepping into the fluffy mounds of snow beneath him, he journeyed into the centre—trudging. Golden appeared to soften at the now noticeable caress of snowflakes skittering off his tanned skin. Lifting his hands holding them out somewhat, he let the flakes fall to melt upon the surface of now icy palms.

It just kept snowing....

———

The albino figures merely gain their energy from their a core. A material only found beneath the grounds of the tundra that possesses immense amounts of magical energy.

The albino castle is the core of the tundra, reason being that at its heart right down to the earth’s crust there lies a large icicle fuelled by the magic of a great sorcerer. The core material is the soul of said icicle and the power is the augmentation. Said core is so powerful that it fuels the whole tundra with ice magic and if robbers try to steal it, they’ll be filled with magical energy until they burst before even reaching a quarter underground.

Demons and unchanging races only become icicles at the sheer power of this core.

The albino figures learn speech solely from experience and sound. They listen to what happens around them and so learn how to communicate. The great sorcerer was lonely and so chose to build a kingdom yet died shortly after their birth from running himself into the ground was mass exertions of energy.

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Liar’s todo list:

“Listen up. We have three months until something drastic happens or someone shows up to kill us all. So. That’s three months to prepare yourselves in any way that you can. This castle....and you all are already very precious to me so there’s no way that I’m letting this shit take us down without a fight.

There’ll be some changes however. New additions to your team— the tanks. These will be trained for combat and fighting purposes —you all are defence....unless you want to learn to fight. Ideally the odd ones out can hide within the meek kind and throw off any coming attackers.

I’m going to make a draft of formations that we’ll use in case of emergency. You’ll all be drilled every week or so until it’s second nature. The rest is up to Athril and I to execute. Primary concerns are protecting the castle and protecting yourselves. That is all.”

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Scribbles:

-Useful formations

-battle plan

-develop a believable decoy

-learn to animate snow sculptures by absorbing the core’s magical energy

-build tanks/fighters

-build mini decoys

-give them all weapons

-create a panic room for the less able

-plan B: leave it to Athril

-strengthen Castle’s defences(????)

Key note: Don’t be afraid to sacrifice