#i could play planet zoo but the next step there would be to build the reptile house which i havent designed the exterior for

[first-enchanter-surana]

Uuuuugh I don't know which game to play tonight

[crystalgirl259]

Guilty Pleasures Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Noah’s Ark

It would be over three thousand years before Zane met the strange demon known as Kai again. In those years the human race had grown at a rapid rate and had taken over pretty much the entire planet. Zane couldn't help but wonder if the human's sudden growth was always part of the plan or if the weapons he and Kai had gifted Adam and Eve had had a hand with it and aided in their expansion. Zane shuddered as he thought about the weapons from Heaven and Hell.

After he had sealed the Garden of Eden, the Almighty had only asked him once where the shurikens were and thankfully he managed to convince them that they were in the garden somewhere.

He had tried to find the two weapons in later years but it seemed that they had been lost to time. The angel was standing among a large crowd, watching as Noah finished building his ark. Noah's family had begun to lead the pairs of animals on board. While most of the crowd laughed and jeered at the man, Zane was just barely managing to keep the bile down, knowing what was coming. He wanted so desperately to warn the people, to tell them Noah was telling the truth and that they needed to find boats.

But at the same time, he knew that they wouldn't listen and that it was too late anyway.

Before they finished even a small boat the flood would come and wash them all away. As the angel wrestled with his thoughts, he suddenly felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He turned to see Kai standing beside him with a big grin on his face. The demon hadn't changed at all since Zane had last seen him. The only different thing was the brunette's missing wings that had been hidden, much like Zane's own wings.

"Hello, Zane." Kai greeted warmly and Zane wondered what had drawn the demon here.

"Kai," Zane replied awkwardly. He still didn't know how to properly interact with a demon, even if this one didn't come off as a threat right away.

"So, giving the mortals a flaming sword and icy shurikens, how do you think that worked out for us?" Kai asked with what Zane could swear was a mischievous purr.

"The Almighty has never actually mentioned it again." He replied, trying to keep his attention on the boat.

"Probably a good thing." He shrugged as he looked around at the crowd and back at the boat. "So what's all this about? Build a big boat and fill it with a traveling zoo?" He asked and Zane had took swallow the lump in his throat as he thought of a response.

"From what I hear, God's a bit tetchy and is wiping out the human race... with a big storm." He stammered, catching the demon off-guard.

"All of them?"

"Just the locals." Zane tried to smile, but it was so strained even Kai could see through it. "I don't believe the Almighty's upset with the Chinese, or the Native Americans, or the Australians."

"Yet."

"And God's not going to wipe out all the locals; I mean, Noah, up there, his family, and his sons, their wives, they're all going to be fine." He tried to reassure, but it had little to no effect on the brunette.

"But they're drowning everybody else?" He scoffed as he looked around at the crowd who were ignorant to their impending doom. His eyes widened when he saw a small group of kids running and playing in the crowd. "You can't kill children." He gasped in horror when Zane reluctantly nodded, snake eyes wide open. Not even a demon would kill a child. Why kill something when they wouldn't go to hell, anyway? Something that couldn't defend itself.

It wasn't logical.

It wasn't fair either, he thought. But only very quietly to himself. Zane had looked so helpless, but he hadn't agreed with the demon. At least he hadn't said it out loud. Although something had been in the angels' beautiful eyes. Kai liked to imagine that it was doubt. Still, he knew that having exactly that could be extremely dangerous. One doesn't simply doubt the great plan. Kai wanted to save the children. He did. The reason why he wanted to do that was far apart from any comprehension.

It couldn't be that wrong or right or whatever.

Only that way the children could grow old and be bad and ultimately go to hell, and that should be hells' only concern, anyway. He observed the Ark from every side. It was huge. Much bigger than a house, and much bigger than a dune, and much bigger than any animal climbing aboard. There should be more than enough space for everything and more. Also, the other unicorn was still missing. Kai wasn't too concerned, they still had the other one.

An idea started to form, as he observed the Ark.

There were a lot of animals and no one was paying as much attention to them as they should. A unicorn had already gotten away, anyway. Maybe, just maybe, this could also work the other way around. There should be enough space...

****************

Zane felt bad. He felt as bad as he never did before. He felt even too bad to listen to his conscience, which tried to tell him something. It couldn't be that important, though. The fresh air didn't make it better. The angel was the first one to discover seasickness. On the third evening, Zane sat outside between a flamingo and a gazelle and tried to keep the contents of his dinner where they belonged.

"Snowflake, are you ok?" Kai asked, suddenly standing between him and the flamingo. The flamingo watched him suspiciously with his head tilted.

"Oh, I'm fine," Zane answered bravely.

"Are you sure? The light makes you look a bit greenish." He said and the angel tried not to stare at the demon's long and probably soft hair in the wind and falling into his eyes.

"Maybe a bit tired." He said, clinging onto the railing.

"Tired?"

"Tired." He repeated. Kai had never seen an angel getting sick before. Maybe it was Gods' anger that made it that way. Maybe it was something entirely different. Either way, the demon was worried. It was a huge ark. There were near to no waves at all. Which meant, the floor was practically not shaking any bit. Zane glanced at him, help to seek. The angel sighed dramatically once more.

"I'll make you some ginger tea." The demon finally said.

"I'll feel miserable till the end of-"

"You'll be fine in two or three days, trust me." The demon assured him. Zane took a step forward, then let himself fall against the railing again and got even greener if possible. "What did you eat?" Kai asked as he took the angel carefully by the arm.

"Some tuna I think," Zane admitted reluctantly.

"Bad idea." He sighed as he shook his head. Zane flinched at the word bad. "Let's go inside, ok?" The demon suggested as he half carried him inside. His hands felt hot, but also his touch was strangely calming, and maybe just a little bit nice. "What do you usually do to calm yourself down, angel?" He asked reluctantly. This made the angel jump a bit. Then he looked to the ceiling with a pinch of guilt, as they slowly walked down the stairs and deeper into the Ark.

"I read or write something."

"You should stop that."

"I will do no such thing!" Zane cried as he ripped his arm away and a moment later he grabbed for Kai again because he almost fell over a big rat.

"I mean you should stop that as long as you feel bad." Kai chuckled lightly as he brought the angel back to his cabin which he shared with different breeds of pigeon and two friendly brown chickens.

"Will you read something for me? Please?" Zane asked as he snuggled into a blanket. Kai hesitated for a moment, but then he grabbed a scroll that was lying next to Zane's bed. How could he say no? The angel looked at him expectantly. The scroll was made of dried leaves and the tiny symbols looked like they were written with blood. Since the demon couldn't read, he had to improvise. He sat down next to the angel, not too close but not too far, opened the scroll from the wrong side, and began to tell a story.

Zane closed his eyes and smiled so sweetly that it made Kai almost forget how words work.

But he took a deep breath and continued his story bravely. Kai kept talking quietly over the singing of some budgies, the yawning tiger, the cheeping degu until Zane calmed down enough to not sleep but dream. After he had made sure that Zane was feeling better, the demon left him alone, although he desperately wanted to stay. But he had other things to do...

****************

Zane had rested for hours and was now refreshed. The angel felt much stronger, although still shaky. But now he was bored and he had been thinking about Kai for a while now. For some reason he couldn't explain, he just wanted to see him again. Preferably sooner than later.

"Kai? Where are you? Could you... Could you read me another story, please?" He shouted as loud as he dared, which wasn't very loud, as he approached the section where there were zebras, some apes, and a few butterflies. It was quite dark. Only a few candles lit this section. There he found Kai, but the demon didn't look pleased to see him.

"Wait a moment, Snowflake; don't come here." He said, sounding nervous.

"Is something wrong, my dear?" Zane asked and went there, anyway. Just then, a young girl that had been hiding in the shadows and he had almost walked into ran and hid behind Kai. He stared at a terrifying demon surrounded by small children, mouth agape. Two were holding his hands and one was sitting on his shoulders, badly braiding his long hair with tiny and probably not very clean fingers. In the background, they heard a hog making some unhappy sounds.

"What did you do?!" Zane almost hissed.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Kai said, trying to act innocent.

"I'm talking about the children! Where do they come from?"

"Oh.. hey... I haven't even noticed them."

"Kai." Zane scowled as he crossed his arms. He uncrossed them again, however, because he needed them for stability. He felt himself getting sick again. Was the floor getting shakier?

"You can't kill children." The demon finally said softly.

"WE CAN'T- can't keep them here." He insisted, trying to keep his tone down as the small girl sitting on Kai's shoulders started crying.

"What do you intend to do? Throw them overboard? Does the ineffable plan tell you to do that?" Kai snarled and for a moment their eyes were locked. Zane then sighed and fixed his gaze on the floorboards as the demon glared at him.

"What now, angel?"

"No, I don't –Do you even know how to take care of children?"

"Do you?" Kai asked sarcastically.

"No, I don't…"

"Me neither." The demon sighed. Zane watched the kids held Kai's hands and hid behind him. He quickly realized that they were afraid of the angel. After a moment of careful consideration, ha decided that he didn't want them to fear an angel. He was supposed to be the good one. "Do you think about snitching?" Kai asked, his voice sounded somehow hurt.

"No, I- I thought, that we both don't know how to take care of children, but maybe we could learn it together." He offered awkwardly. At first, the demon felt like he was petrified, but then he sighed.

"If you want to, yeah, whatever; you look for something to feed them and maybe a bit of clean water and Ava over there wants to see the unicorn so I'll go with her and show her if you keep an eye on the others for a while because I can't take all of them there because Amon over there is scared of horses and I don't know how he will react to a unicorn." He shrugged and Zane nodded. They had never taken care of living beings, before. Okay, not really.

But they learned quickly and all the children survived.

Kai in his snake form would curl around the children to keep them warm. Zane would cook something nutritious for them to eat. He would eat most of it, but they're also would be more than enough for the children. After that, they would talk. Tell stories on a stormy night to calm everyone down. Mostly the angel, because the shaking of the ark didn't make him feel good. Still, his stomach would get upset from time to time.

"I'm glad, you were there," Zane said one night quietly, as they watched over the children sleeping. Kai didn't answer. He picked up a beautiful feather of a parakeet and gently put it in Zane's hair.

"I gave the Mammoths' ration to the children; I mean... it's a huge animal, so it should be fine without one dinner." He said casually after a while. Then the angel wondered, when the last time was, that he fed the mammoths. It couldn't be this long ago. The Ark would have a little fewer passengers when it arrived than when it started sailing. But the children would all survive and grow to be adults. Raised by an angel and a demon, all of them got to be fundamentally human.

Lurking between the goats, there was a second demon which none of the other beings noticed.

Even then he had smelled bad, but to be completely honest, everywhere on the Ark it smelled pretty bad. Between lurking sessions, he enjoyed scaring the birds. There were a few penguins that he didn't like. One had bitten his hand when he tried to pet it. Therefore Morro made the penguin stop flying. All the other birds hated him for that. Sometimes he also scared some children. But weren't there more than there were supposed to be? One time he saw the demon Kai holding the hand of a small girl as she cried.

After a while, she stopped crying as he talked to her calmingly and fell asleep in Kai's arms.

This confused Morro. Why would he do that? This was the first time when Morro suspected something. He didn't like it. Something was going on, something fishy, and it wasn't the fish. He couldn't prove it though, not just yet. He didn't know how to yet. But he was lurking in the shadows, ready to strike. Still, he was new to the job, but he gave his best and already could do an impressive amount of lurking in a day or preferably at night...

[dekuinthelake]

Happy Birthday Bloodborne

Seeing as it’s the 5th year Bloodborne has graced this mess of a planet with it’s omnipotent light I figured write a little thing about how much the game means to me. I’m going to get fairly personal so if you don’t like that kinda thing feel free to skip.

The first time I beat BB I didn’t think much of it, honestly. I’d had a rather basic playthrough where I didn’t see pretty much any of the optional bosses or do any of the story. I did as Gehrman suggested and just hunted some beasts. I took a break from it for a while and didn’t return to it until my life started getting... Difficult. 

My parents a year prior had gone through a rather turbulent divorce. In the wake of this, my sister and her boyfriend moved in so we could all help my dad pay for his house if only just barely. At the time we all knew even with four of us we didn’t make the type of money to help make payments and the inevitability of him loosing the house was a constant and looming stress. Worse still, my sister only agreed to move in if she was added to the mortgage, meaning she could threaten to sell on a whim, a privilege which she started using to strong arm me and my dad in to behaving a certain way. Her boyfriend was verbally abusive towards everyone, but especially condescending to her. Tension grew between all four of us, but especially between me and the boyfriend. I could ask my sister if she wanted to go out to lunch and catch up and she’d respond, “Let me ask my BF”. His control over her became apparent and the wedges he was intentionally drawing between her and our family was impossible to ignore.

All the while I was working a 4AM shift at a Zoo in the winter and barely getting any daylight or human contact since I had to be in bed so early to wake up for the drive. I cleaned a mile of glass in the dark every day non stop, only to have it be dirtied the moment the park opened. No matter how hard I worked to keep the park as clean as I could, even to the point of putting on dust masks to knock down spider, the higher ups weren’t happy with our companies work. As our contract was rapidly coming to an end, rumors began to circulate that we might not have it renewed if things didn’t improve. Worse still, someone had been stealing from the supply closet. Supposedly only the managers knew the code, and this sparked massive distrust in the Zoo staff towards our department to the point keys were taken away and our lives were made harder by no longer having access to vital shortcuts around the park which made getting from place to place take even longer in the miles long local. 

This futility and rage sparked the most obsessive play through of a game I’ve had to date. Undeniably, these situations were hopeless and lonely, and Bloodborne is a game that understood exactly how I was feeling. The Hunt is, after all, an eternal nightmare. No matter how many beasts, kin, or humans you kill, it’s an unending loop of uncertainty and oppressive danger. The tenuous state of things in Yharnam was uncomfortably familiar. Only in the game, it was far easier to focus on the things I could control.

The weapon I wielded. The stats I chose to upgrade. Which path I wanted to explore. The fluid combat enabled more split second choices every second, helped in large part by a generous stamina bar. More so than Dark Souls, Bloodborne expects you, the player, to take charge. You either commit to an aggressive plan and kill the beasts, or you die. 

When I first started, I played extremely cautiously and likewise did not have a lot of success. On new game +1, however, I began to realize that vital element. Hesitate and you die. Commit entirely and live. The more I played, the more I meditated on the very nature of what this game was communicating to me. 

In my actual life, I hadn’t come out as trans yet and it was something I was viciously debating internally. Earlier that year I tried to commit suicide. I half came out in the hospital, telling the ICU nurses my name was Mike. But even in the psych ward I was terrified to speak to social workers and groups about those feelings... Being that I had 6 hours completely alone and in the dark, it gave me time to listen to a lot of media by trans people. I distinctly remember one video where a trans woman was describing what dysphoria feels like and openly sobbing. I was starting to understand the core of why I hated myself, my body, and my current situation so much. 

But I was afraid. Even after the epiphany that I wanted to come out, I had a lot of doubt on if I could afford HRT, if I could commit to it, and what people would think. I worried starting T and in turn second puberty would bring back my horrible temper that I had going through it the first time. When I say I had rage problem, that’s putting it mildly. I’ve punched people before just for touching me when I was younger, and with the situation between me and my sister’s boyfriend getting more tense by the day I was rightfully concerned it might erupt in to actual physical violence. 

And so... I continued to come home from being alone all to spend most of my time alone playing Bloodborne. It was a great game to keep my mind off of things because of how much focus it demands to play. Funny enough, once you get good at it, the beasts are also a great punching bag.

A lot can be said about how Blood Vials aren’t the best method of healing. Having to stop boss attempts because you need to go farm some red Estus isn’t great design. However, running around that first part of Yharnam with the beast claws just shredding through citizens like a wild animal is possibly the most cathartic thing in my life at the time. It made me feel powerful, unstoppable, and like I was in complete control. I knew exactly how to handle the big pats one by one, and eventually I got skilled enough to just run into that big mob by the tree and stop people anyway because of how good the audio queues are at letting you know when you gotta dodge. I spent hours in both this location AND Chalice Dungeons farming for Echoes and consumables to the point that controlling my character in Bloodborne feels as natural as walking. 

I started beating the game faster and faster. I was on +5 difficulty and working on the DLC by myself when things escalated... 

At this point, I knew staying at my dad’s house wouldn’t be possible. The verbal fights between me and my sister were getting more and more prevalent. More than that, I knew it was time to come out and I didn’t feel secure doing that in an environment that was actively hostile. The plan was to save up, move out with two friends... But moving out came far faster than I had anticipated. 

A few days after my birthday, we had a family meeting. I don’t remember what sparked it, but we all sat around and voiced our complaints with each other. When it was my turn to speak, I brought up the fact my sister’s boyfriend had been intentionally isolating her on top of in general just being a jackass to her. He’d make her get things for him, call her stupid when they played games... The works. I don’t remember what he said that sparked it, but I remember the feeling... A really familiar feeling I hadn’t had in years. My pulse thundered in my neck so hard I couldn’t hear anyone over it. I started yelling incoherent shit. My sister stood in front of him because I was aggressively stepping forward. It was that temper I thought I’d knocked coming back. If she hadn’t gotten in the way, I’m absolutely sure I would have pummeled that man. I hadn’t felt that way since I strangled a kid in school to the point he nearly passed out.

 It was then I knew I had to leave. By nature, I’m violent. I hate it. But the decisiveness which I’d slowly been building helped me find the courage to admit this.

I took off in my car and just hauled ass to the highway. I had a bloodborne CD I’d been playing on my way to and from work. It sounds silly, but larping I was just a hunter during those crushing morning shifts was helping me keep going. Sure it was hopeless, but I felt bad ass to keep trying. I needed to have an unbreaking will to deal with this dilemma. Having so recently made a second attempt to kill myself, I had this powerful urge that no matter what I couldn’t end up there again. So, I decided not to beat myself up about it and just accept that I had to move on and away from what little family I had left.   I remember not really thinking words. I listened to Gehrman’s music on repeat with the windows rolled down going 78 miles an hour and just... Screaming. Literally screaming as loud as I could in to the night. Over and over again until it hurt just to breathe. 

Even though I felt betrayed by the people I thought were closest to me there wasn’t anything I could do but endure. 

Eventually I arrived my current roommate’s parent’s place where they were living at the time. I told her and her husband what happened. We went to the store for something. I got a call from my dad saying my sister was threatening to move out and apparently had yelled at him for not keeping me in line despite the fact at one point he’d physically gotten up and started yelling in my face to calm down. That was it. I asked my friend’s parents if I could move in temporarily and... That was that. 

The next day we gathered up all my things. I had to leave my dogs which was possibly the most agonizing part. 

But that night? I beat the orphan of Kos by myself on +5 on my computer monitor plugged in the wall and set on a box. Doing that was this weird extreme elation. It’s like I’d defeated two massively difficult, seemingly impossible tasks in one day. I’m glad I had help with the moving, though. Unlike Kos, that would have been impossible alone haha.

That weekend passed and I went back to work at the Zoo as normal. After I finished my shift, however, every employee in my company was called to a meeting. This was it. We all knew what was coming. We were to be laid off in December, giving us 3 months to find new work or apply to the company that was taking over the contract. 

In the wake of this news, moral plummeted. No one really tried that hard. I was coming in high to work every day and drinking with a coworker during our shift while we tired our best to continue work. That last month I worked there was a weird drug addled haze of extreme emotions mixed with ignoring them in favor of listening to VaatiVidya lore breakdowns of Bloodborne. 

I was going home and spending hours on art inspired by the general vibe of the game and my impossible to digest feelings. I’d lost my job, home, and family. I don’t know if I would have survived without both Bloodborne and my art as an outlet.

In the following months, I had gotten to New Game +7 and started recording myself trying to kill bosses without healing. Even though to this day no one watches these attempts but me, making them was frankly vital to keeping me distracted and focused on something I could control. 

There was a time where I didn’t think Ludwig +1 was beatable but... Here I am two years later happily having 100% Bloodborne and beaten every boss on +7, most of them without even needing to heal. 

The biggest lesson I took away from this game was persistence and decisiveness. The Souls series in general made me realize something huge that to this day has helped me fight my depression back. I’m a stubborn fuck who will grind and grind and grind until I finally achieve victory.

Fight for the progress you want to make. Things seem hopeless a lot, but you have to keep going. With effort, you can change anything you want to in your life.

Two years later, I’ve been doing HRT for 1 year and 3 months. I just had top surgery done. I’m working a job I like that’s got normal daytime hours and pays more than any work I’ve ever had with benefits. I don’t think I would have had the tenacity to stick to these things without realizing a fundamental aspect about my personality thanks to the help of Bloodborne specifically. 

I can endure, learn, grow, adapt. 

Thank you, Fromsoft. I hope this conveys a shred of what this dumb little game means to me. I needed Bloodborne so much when I moved out. I’m so glad it exists.

[miso-vicious]

Who Are The Diamonds?

Throughout the years of Steven Universe, what we know for fact about the Diamonds could fit into a teacup. Episodes involving them are few and far in between. But season five is intent on remedying that. And ever since “Can’t Go Back” and “A Single Pale Rose”, I’m sure a lot of us aren’t sure what to think anymore. But in the past 48 hours, that’s all I’ve been able to do. So let’s get started.

How Old Are The Diamonds?

The Diamonds’ ages are never given, but clearly they are clearly some of the oldest beings in the galaxy. Pearl and Lapis Lazuli were both brought to Earth from Homeworld when Pink Diamond’s colony was first being built. Which would make both of them older than 6,000 years. And this colony was just the latest in a long line of conquered planets. Clearly the Diamonds had been doing this long before Pink ever got her colony. At the time of Earth’s colonization, Blue Diamond had 9 planets, Yellow Diamond had 2 star systems and 18 planets, and White Diamond had 35 planets. The expansion of the Gem race was something that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, long before they ever got to Earth. This is the only way to gauge the Diamonds’ ages.

But Pink Diamond, she is clearly much much younger than all the other Diamonds. She was given her first planet long after the Diamonds had begun to conquer theirs. Given how big of a leap there is between the amount of planets they each possess, it can be assumed that there is an age gap between all of the Diamonds, and they were not born at the same time. White Diamond is the eldest, and Pink Diamond is the youngest.

Who Was Pink Diamond?

We’ve received plenty of… mixed reviews in regards to what Pink Diamond was like in life, so a lot of what comes next is going to be speculation.

It doesn’t take an expert to figure out that Pink was very different from her sisters. She’s around Stevonnie’s height, can only be described as fluffy, her gem cut is completely wrong, and isn’t a primary color. It’s possible that Pink Diamond is an Off Color Gem. If she was originally designed to look just like Yellow and Blue, and was supposed to be Red Diamond, you can see how Pink Diamond was a wrench in the hierarchy. She was nothing like her siblings, and this was far from a good thing.

How did Pink Diamond Get Her Own Colony?

It was fairly obvious how deeply… unhappy Pink was with her current lifestyle. During Jungle Moon, she was under the care of Yellow, who didn’t have time to entertain her childish demands. But childish or not, Pink had already figured out that part of being a Diamond was ruling planets. And she wanted one. Who knows how long she had been denied her right to rule, but Pink was tired of if. Yellow knew she wasn’t ready for such a challenge, I mean, if you’re still throwing tantrums, you’re not ready to be a Diamond. Yellow was tolerating bringing Pink along with her to work like it was “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day”, but when she started interfering with said work, Yellow had enough. Maybe it was a joint decision between herself and Blue, or she decided this just to get Pink off her back, but Pink was given her colony. Either to teach her how hard it was to do the job of a Diamond, or to make her complacent long enough that she wouldn’t bother them for a long time.

Let’s face it, Earth was pretty primitive 6,000 years ago. Our technological advances could fight in land wars at best. A space invasion, we would’ve been out of our league. Earth was the perfect planet for Pink to conquer, and it would’ve been a great addition to Homeworld’s colonies.

That is, if the building had been completed.

Mysterious Events

A human zoo? The beginnings of a Gem rebellion? There was something wrong with this colony. The preservation of life wasn’t apart of the Diamond’s plan. And a Gem trying to break out of it’s given mold? UNHEARD OF! The colony was falling apart. But there was already so much time and resources invested in this planet, they couldn’t just abandon the project. And it was time to stop coddling Pink and have her start pulling her weight.

But this time, Blue had to be the one to tell her. Yellow had done her part and gave Pink an easy planet to conquer, most likely at Blue’s behest. Now it was Blue’s turn to be the disciplinarian parental figure. Yellow didn’t even speak to Pink, because she knew that Blue would say everything that needed to be said. Even so, Blue was gentle with Pink, she told her what needed to be done in the simplest terms and left her to finish her colony. But that may have been the last time they ever saw Pink.

Shattered

Shortly after these events, Pink was shattered by an unruly Rose Quartz, the leader of the Crystal Gems. Which the Diamonds didn’t take well.

This started an all out war between the Homeworld gems and the Crystal Gems. One that lasted thousands of years. Until the Diamonds decided to fire the silver bullet to end the war, and get rid of all the pesky Crystal Gems in one fell swoop, but lose all the unfortunate Homeworld Gems who couldn’t escape in time.

Corruption. In a single flash, the war was over. But that didn’t change the fact that all the Gems, time, and resources that were sunk into the war were lost. Peridot mentioned in “Too Short To Ride” that resources on Homeworld are currently low, which is why she’s so small and lacks the ability to change her form at will or even project a weapon. Era 2 isn’t doing to well with Gem production, but they’ve leapt over several hurdles and are now incredibly technologically advanced, most likely to have the upper hand in case of another war that may come in the future.

What Really Happened

In beginning, Pink Diamond was very innocent in the world of the Diamonds. What they did was mass genocide and global destruction on a galactic scale. But Pink saw it as a game. A game she wasn’t allowed to play. She was tired of being put in a corner, she wanted to be apart of their world, and be viewed as an equal rather than a child. But how grown up can you be when you still resort to throwing tantrums to get your way?

Once again, this is speculation, but here’s what may have really happened: Pink was given Earth as her first colony. But she wasn’t the cold hearted brat that Garnet painted her to be in “Your Mother and Mine”. Pink left her Moon Base to walk among Earth. She saw it for it’s true beauty rather than it’s potential to progress Homeworld’s galactic conquest. But she couldn’t explore Earth and communicate with the humans the way she hoped with her entire entourage breathing down her neck and keeping her in her palanquin. So she did the next best thing, she disguised herself as a Rose Quartz soldier. And along side her loyal Pink Pearl, she got to see Earth in it’s full glory.

Pink loved the Earth. Her time there allowed her to actually grow as a person. She had respect and admiration for all life on Earth. She didn’t want to harvest it. But she had a responsibility as a Diamond to do her job, she couldn’t stop production simply because she wanted to save the Earth. She even tried to save some humans by creating a zoo. But she couldn’t save all of them. So she made up excuses to slow everything down. There were too many organic lives. The cities were too difficult to dismantle. And she instigated rebellion amongst the troops. But the Diamonds grew tired of her excuses, and told her to just sit there, look pretty, and everything would be taken care of for her. The colony would be completed and all life on Earth wiped out.

Pink grew desperate. The Earth was going to be destroyed, and she couldn’t lead her rebellion from the inside of her palanquin. So she and her loyal Pearl made a plan. It was time for Pink Diamond to die, so Rose Quartz could live. Pearl loved her so much that she would do anything for her. So Pearl disguised herself as Rose Quartz and assassinated Pink Diamond.

In reality, Pearl had merely poofed Pink, But with pink diamond shards on the ground, and Pearl hiding Pink’s real gem, no one was the wiser. As far as everyone else was concerned, the unbreakable Diamond was shattered by a Rose Quartz. And Rose Quartz rose as the leader of the Crystal Gems, the savior of humans and Gems alike. Thousands of years passed, and when the Homeworld Gems began to leave, the Crystal Gems thought that they had won. No one thought the Diamonds would stoop to such horrifying measures in order to end the war.

Rose managed to save Garnet and Pearl. Since she is a Diamond, her shield was able to repel the Diamonds’ attack entirely. But everyone else was lost. So they spent the next several hundred years of their lives trying to poof all corrupted Gems and put the in the Temple until they could figure out how to change them back. And we all know the rest of the story: They find Amethyst, Rose has many romances in her life, and one day, she met a human that changed everything for her.

The Ballad Of Rose And Greg

Rose thought she knew everything about love, but when she met Greg, she realized she knew nothing. She loved humans, but she had never been in love. Greg taught her that with love came mutual respect and effort, all she was giving him was adoration and playtime. She was unintentionally belittling him and his needs. When push came to shove and he wanted something more than what she was giving him, it scared her because she didn’t know how. So they decided to help each other grow. She would learn about real love, and he would have to grow up and support her emotionally and financially by getting a job.

And one day, they decided to take the next step and have a child together. At the cost of her own existence. But she loved Steven so much and the thought of what he would become amazed her, that giving up her physical form didn’t scare her. Maybe it was impulsive and as a leader, a poor choice, but it was her choice. And what she felt for Steven was real, genuine love.

What Happened To The Diamonds?

Unfortunately for the Diamonds, they both grieved in different ways. Yellow threw herself into her work entirely, while Blue never stopped mourning over the “loss” of Pink. Blue seems to have idolized Pink, preserving her zoo, her ship, even Earth, thinking it wrong to harvest it. Thinking the Cluster is still going to emerge, Blue visits Pink’s final resting place one last time to say goodbye, and kidnaps Greg. But in “That Will Be All”, we see Blue and Yellow together for the first time.

While Yellow berates Blue for falling short on her duties as a Diamond, Yellows cold and calculated facade disappears for a moment, and we see that she too is still hurting over the loss of dear Pink. Perhaps they both blame themselves because Pink told them that the Crystal Gems were too unruly for her, but they left anyway. Maybe if they had done something, perhaps even stayed to help her colonize the planet, she would still be alive.

The Trial

When Steven was put on trial before the Diamonds, it was quite the spectacle. The odds were stacked against him, with Yellow basically fixing the trial in her favor, but she didn’t count on Blue wanting to know the truth of what happened. Neither of the Diamonds were stupid. As far as they were concerned, it should be impossible to shatter them. But Rose somehow managed. None of what the witnesses said makes sense, and Blue thought Steven would tell her the truth.

Blue wanted to know so badly, she was willing to prolong the trial and Steven’s punishment.

Yellow, on the other hand, just wanted to put this whole chapter of their lives behind them so they could move on. But this was misconstrued as her trying to hide something.

Which lead Steven’s defense attorney, Blue Zircon, to the incorrect conclusion that one of them played a hand in Pink’s death. We now know that the real Diamond that did it was Pink herself. But this conclusion made the most sense the Blue, that she was willing to listen, while Yellow was completely outraged at the accusation. Blue Zircon still gets points for getting us in the ballpark.

What’s Next?

I’m sure we all remember the HORRIBLY TIMED spoilers that were leaked by Cartoon Network. But working off that, I can make an educated guess. If you’ve somehow avoided the recent spoiler, congratulations, and don’t read any further.

This scene seemed impossible until “A Single Pale Rose”. But we may have already had a glimpse into the future.

A long time ago, “Mr. Greg”, there was that whole number “Both of You” where Greg and Pearl are serenaded by Steven, dance together, and repair their relationship. The wedge in their relationship always came from the fact that Rose had chosen to take the next step in her life with Greg. Here they were able to reconcile and start a beautiful new friendship. But the coloration seems to be quite calculated: Steven is pink, Greg is yellow, and Pearl is blue. This reflects the actual Diamonds and how they handled the loss of Pink. Yellow bottles up her feeling and puts out a strong facade to no one knows how much she’s hurting (except Greg is positive while Yellow is aggressive). And Blue wears her emotions on her sleeve, and was always devastated at the loss of her dear Pink. And Pink/Rose just wants the two of them to talk about their problems rather than avoiding each other and be happy. Maybe they mourn in different ways, but the both loved Pink.

Maybe with Steven’s help, he can tell them the truth of what happened to Pink and help the two of them move past what happened.

Thank you for making it to the end of this long post. If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear it.

[origami-goblin]

Starfinder Theme Focus - Spacefarers and Xenoseekers

--

First of all, let me apologize. It's been MONTHS since I teased the final article on Starfinder themes and leaving this series in a perilously unfinished limbo. I wish that I had a decent excuse to explain it, but unfortunately I don't have that either. So please, accept my apology, and let's get to the conclusion of this series!

We've covered a lot of bases - Ace Pilots, Bounty Hunters, Icons, Mercenaries, Outlaws, Priests, and Scholars, which means that today we will be talking about Spacefarers, Xenoseekers, and briefly touching on the Themeless concept. That's still a ton of ground to cover, and I'm a bit intimidated even thinking about it. Concluding this intense detail into Starfinder's themes will be bittersweet - not only because it'll be over, but also because there's no way to fully encapsulate the entire, endless spectrum of characters you can create within Paizo's Starfinder universe. That's what's really great about the Themeless option; if none of the other themes do your character justice in describing their schtick, then you can always go Themeless and solve that particular problem.

Whenever I create a character, I will usually start by trying to find an interesting or obscure feat, characteristic, theme, etc and build the character around that. Some people are really creative and come up with amazing backstories first and build the character to fit their artistic vision. Although that'll happen on occasion, I'll generally determine a character's backstory after I've fleshed out their vitals and statblock. The important thing for me is that my characters stand out. Not from a min-max perspective (if that's what you enjoy then keep doing it!), but from a standpoint of going outside the norm and playing a character with abilities that people may have never experienced before.

Stone Warder Sorcerer? Breadth of Experience feat? Archivist Bard? All of these types of choices go leaps and bounds to hint and what the character is all about. A Stone Warder Sorcerer would be something like an Earth Bender from Avatar, gaining their powers from the rocky world around them. Characters with a Breadth of Experience are ancient, meaning that they've seen and heard nearly all there is to know. Bards with the Archivist archetype aren't going to be dishing out much damage, but they are constantly scribbling down their experiences and every bit of lore they can get their hands on. And just like that, a single piece of your character's statblock can literally define them.

That's partly been the point of these posts about the Themes in Starfinder. Sure, you can come up with an absolutely AWESOME character concept and attach a theme that fits that character. No problem. But if you're having trouble coming up with a character, the options listed in these posts are meant to assist you in launching off into the incredible Imagisphere to create a truly unique character.

Alright, I've babbled so much that I've turned into a brook. (Sorry if I've used that particular moniker already...it's been a long time since my last Starfinder post). Time to finish off the series!

Spacefarer Character Concepts

"Your longing to journey among the stars can't be sated. You yearn for the adventure of stepping onto a distant world and exploring its secrets. You tend to greet every new opportunity with bravery and fortitude, confident that your multitude of skills will pull you through. Perhaps you simply find joy in the act of traveling with your companions, or perhaps you are just out to line your pockets with all sorts of alien loot!"

Clueless Tourist - Let's face it. You saw a map of the Pact Worlds and immediately searched the best places to visit on each planet. Theme parks, monuments, parks - you want to visit them all and document your travels on a blog that you're still coming up with a creative name for. Experiences are the best currency to be paid in, and your goal is to become filthy rich on them. Now, you might not understand all of the different cultures or customs in the places that you're visiting, but in your eyes everybody else should be happy that you're bolstering the economy in all of your destinations. Excuse me - could you please take my photo?

Deductive Meteorologist - Perhaps in the same vein as the Environmental Engineer concept from the Scholar post, this character would be all about the weather and is drawn to the varied climates and conditions present in the Pact World planets. Have you ever seen the sunrise through noxious fuchsia clouds or felt thick, oily rain land on your head? All of these phenomenon can be explained through science. Maybe you'll publish a scholarly journal on your findings, or maybe your more of a storm-chaser bent on surviving the most wild and dangerous conditions. No matter how you spin it, you're fascinated by the weather, whether your companions like it or not.  

Hospitable Flight Attendant - Time to make everybody else's travel experiences as enjoyable as possible. You're an expert at socializing and keeping everybody's minds off the baggage fees and severe lack of legroom. In your eyes, there's no part of a space commute that can't be made better by a tall glass of sherry or a delicious sack of Zeni's Zesty Znacks. While traveling, you are sure to keep all the amenities nearby to heighten the enjoyment of those around you. You might have gotten into the gig because you wanted to see the universe, and maybe that itch is just beginning to surface once more.

Curious Explorer - Hardly anything fancy about this one. You love exploring. The mystery, intrigue, and discovery thrill you to pieces. Every time you come across a corner, you just HAVE to see what's on the other side of it. This is known to get you into heaps of trouble and situations where you end up on the wrong end of a 'No Trespassing' sign. But, through your foolhardy actions, you've been able to experience things that very few other people have, and your stories are the things of legend. There are countless star sectors to visit and only so much time...what are you waiting for?!

Budding Photographer - Your goal? The perfect shot. You might be a movie producer scouting locations for your next sector-buster. Or maybe you're an artistic photographer determined to capture the essence of the human (and alien) experience. You never miss a moment and you are incredibly easy to track based on the trail of snapshots that you leave behind. Whether your honing your craft or a complete amateur when it comes to lighting, focus, and apertures, space grants you the freedom to create magnificent works of art. Every horizon has another potential shot, and you'll hitchhike your way around the galaxy if you have to if it means catching your elusive unicorn.

Xenoseeker Character Concepts

"The thought of meeting alien life-forms excites you. The more different their appearances and customs are from yours, the better! You either believe they have much to teach you or you want to prove you are better than them. Of course, the only way to accomplish your goal is to leave the Pact Worlds and travel to the Vast, where a virtually endless number of aliens await."

Captivated Anthropologist - This concept makes perfect sense. As an anthropologist, you live and love to study the differences between humanoid species. You can even take it a step further to be fascinated with specific aspects of each of the races. What are the secrets behind the Lashunta's psychic abilities? How tough are the scales of the Vesk? So many questions and not enough time to find all the answers. You might become acutely interested in your crewmates, asking them all sorts of intrusive questions in order to develop an understanding for their specific gifts and talents. Beings with surgical enhancements might be particularly interesting to you as humanoids continue their never-ending quest for power.

Inquisitive Marketing Guru - If you want to sell something, you HAVE to know your market. Double blind surveys, focus groups, experimental expos...you will stop at nothing to understand the people buying the products you're pitching. Whether you're a part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme or a well-known enterprise, you are hungry to understand the psychology of buying patterns and habitual spending. If you can unlock those secrets, you will be the most valuable asset to whichever company decides to employ you. And, by developing an understanding for the beings around you, you'll undoubtedly be an asset in any situation involving sweet-talking with honeyed words. Heck - maybe if you can find some delicious edible aliens, you will be the next great snack mogul in the Pact Worlds! Second only to Zeni himzelf.

Experimental Doctor - You embrace the uniqueness of yourself and encourage others to do the same. Stand out from the crowd, you say. Set yourself apart! Implant yourself with one of the many augmentations that you can provide! Your interest in the countless creeping aliens and obscure creatures skittering around the Vast stimulate your imagination and provide you with the necessary...tools to allow you to develop exciting new attachments for your adoring fans. Or maybe you're more secretive and don't think your work should see the light of day. Will you be a mad scientist or a renowned surgeon? The choice is yours!

Calming Zoologist - People will pay loads of money to see an exhibit they've never experienced before. There are countless numbers of mindless creatures out in the far reaches of space that would be welcomed additions to a zoological attraction. Your history in taming wild beasts and soothing the animalistic nature in the creatures you've encountered makes you the perfect person for the job. There is a fantastic space zoo that'll pay top dollar for new specimens, and you're itching to get paid. This isn't to say that you are inconsiderate of the creatures' feelings, however. The zoo that you're working for is more akin to a resort, and they take great care of the residents that live there.

Talkative Space Taxi Driver - While taking fares, you've come across just about every type of intelligent being known in the sector. Long nights that turned into early mornings were a staple of yours, and you've delivered passengers to slums, clubs, and luxury estates, learning about them all the while. You love a good conversation; it helps pass the time and gives you an amazing repertoire of stories to share with your crewmates. Everybody comes from a different background, and you have learned to appreciate the intricacies and uniqueness that everybody brings to the figurative table. You might have a bit of a lead foot as well...but who doesn't?

Themeless Characters

If you don't fit the bill with any of the other themes, then you are probably Themeless. By choosing to forgo a theme designation, your statistical bonuses will suffer compared to a character who has a theme, so if you're more concerned with numbers and maximizing your character, then this might not be for you. Choosing this option, however, will allow you to portray your character as a vast canvas, awaiting your masterful strokes.

Hopefully I've portrayed the wide variety of concepts that the Starfinder themes can cover. With a dash of creativity, you can morph at least one of the themes to fit the base core of your character. Try to think about each of the themes in new ways; don't get caught up in the specific 'title' of the theme. Read the blurbs about each one and search for synonyms that line up with the character that you're envisioning in your mind.

---

At the end of the day, play a character that you WANT to play. You should be excited every time that you portray your character, and play the game in whatever way is going to be the most fun for you.

I hope you've enjoyed this series on the Themes of Starfinder! See you in the stars!

[neyla9]

Abducted Part 10

Ao3 Version

It was only the third day of Dipper and Bill’s visit to Earth, and it was today they were visiting the Zoo. Bill had been very excited for it, since Zoos didn’t exist on his planet.

 Dipper had his alarm clock set to seven am, so he could get up early and prepare for the trip, but woke up around eight and discovered that someone had turned his alarm clock off.

 He got up, put on his clothes, and went downstairs to find Mabel and Bill almost done making breakfast.

 “Hello, Pine Tree,” Bill greeted him while carrying a plate of scrambled eggs.

 “Good morning, Bill,” Dipper greeted back, stepping out of the way so Bill could reach the dining table and put down the plate. “Hey, did you turn off my alarm clock.”

 “Yes,” Bill nodded and walked back to the kitchen, quickly emerging again with a plate of assorted fruits. “So that you would not get up early stress over everything. Breakfast is almost prepared.”

 Feeling hungry, and slightly speechless, Dipper sat down at the dining table and waited for the others.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  After breakfast, Dipper and Bill headed out for the zoo. The two of them had to take the bus, which turned out to be more exciting for Bill than Dipper had anticipated. Vehicles with wheels were almost an ancient concept to Bill’s people, and they had never had anything similar to a car. Bill looked excitedly out of the window while the bus drove, and described the entire experience as “sailing on the ground”.

 After arriving at the zoo, and paying the entrance fee, Dipper was free to show Bill some of Earth’s creatures. One of the closest exhibits to the entrance was the lions. Half of the exhibit was closed off with a wall, with an opening in it leading to the lions’ inside containment. Part of the wall also had a window that allowed patrons to observe the lions closer. The other half of the exhibit just used a waist-high iron fence, but around said fence was an area with water, preventing the lions from reaching it.

 There were three lion cubs, playing with each other on a cut-down tree that had been fashioned into a climbing gym for the lions, while the adult lions lazed around in the sun.

 “Look at them!” Bill exclaimed in awe. “Look at them, Pine Tree!”

 “You wanna get a closer look?” Dipper asked pointing to the window where some of the other guests had already gathered.

 Bill nodded and nearly ran over to the window.

 “Why does only one of them have hair?” Bill asked, pointing to the male lion through the window.

 “Oh, that’s called a mane,” Dipper explained. “Adult, male lions have those, unless they’re sick.”

 The next stop was the penguins. Bill thought they were really funny looking, and got really excited when he heard that penguins mate for life.

 After the penguins came the seals. The seals’ exhibit had a piece of dry land made to look like an arctic beach, but the majority of the exhibit was a giant swimming area for the seals, which included a window that allowed patrons to see the seals swimming through the water. Bill stood glued to that window for nearly fifteen minutes, just watching the seals swim back and forth through the water, like an underwater ballet.

 Then came the tropic house; a special area dedicated to tropical birds, along with other animals, like reptiles and insects.

  “This area is filled with butterflies,” Dipper explained when he and Bill entered said part of the tropic house.

 Bill watched in fascination as all the butterflies fluttered back, forth, and around the area.

 “There are so many,” Bill whispered in awe.

 Dipper looked around and then proceeded to turn Bill’s direction to a nearby sign.

 “There; it’s a list of all the different kinds of butterflies they have,” Dipper said.

 Near the end of the tropic house was an area containing crocodiles. Bill was very confused when they reached them.

 “Where are the animals?” Bill asked.

 “Right there,” Dipper responded, pointing at the reptiles, all of which were lying very still.

 “Oh, those are not logs,” Bill noted before frowning. “I… think they are dead.”

 It took a while to explain to Bill that the crocodiles weren’t dead, they were just lying still to lure their prey closer, but afterwards, they made their way to the kids zoo; an area of the zoo mainly composed of farm animals like cows, pigs, and horses, along with a petting zoo with goats.

 “I believe this area is for children,” Bill noted while two five year olds nearly ran him over to get to the animal-themed playground. “Why are we here?”

 “In about five minutes, there’ll be a show at the outdoor arena,” Dipper pointed to an area shaded by a tarp, with three rows of benches under. “My sister and I would always watch it whenever we went to the zoo.”

 “What is the show about?”

 “Oh, a zookeeper shows up with different animals, and children get to hold and touch them,” Dipper explained. “I remember once the zookeepers had snakes, hedgehogs, and turtles.”

 While Dipper was busy explaining, more people arrived and sat down in the seats, including families with small children who all wanted to sit on the front row. Finally, a young woman, wearing a zookeeper uniform, came, pushing a trolley with boxes of varying sizes on it.

 “Hello everyone,” the woman greeted the crowd, stopping the trolley. “My name is Amanda, and I’m here to show you some of the animals we have here in the zoo.”

 She opened one of the boxes and pulled out a lizard, which was around four inches in length.

 “Anyone know what this is?” she asked and most of the children excitedly raised a hand.

 One of the children, a little girl, got to answer, after which all the children got a chance to pet the lizard, and even hold it.

 Afterwards, zookeeper put the lizard away and pulled a huge snake out of the other boxes. Some of the children looked slightly scared at the sight of the enormous reptile, while others looked surprised at the sheer size of the serpent.

 “This here is the zoo’s largest constrictor snake,” the zookeeper explained. “Don’t be scared; she’s a real sweetheart.”

 The snake slithered upward and draped itself behind the zookeeper’s neck. Some of the small kids gasped in fear at the sight, one of them even yelling out a warning to the zookeeper.

 “Don’t worry,” the zookeeper laughed. “Snakes are coldblooded, which means they get cold very easily. Kinda like when you’ve been out in the snow for hours. And because of this, snakes always try to seek out warm places. Try touching your necks and note how warm they are.”

 The children did as instructed, and many of them marveled at how warm their necks were.

 “Now, I’m gonna need an adult to hold this snake, so I can help the kids who wanna pet the smaller ones,” the zookeeper said before pointing to Bill. “Could you help me, sir?”

 “… Sure,” Bill responded after a moment of surprise. About half the kids present walked over to Bill after he was handed the snake. The snake, however, didn’t stay in Bill’s hands for long, as it slithered towards Dipper’s neck and draped itself around him, forcing Dipper to carry it instead. It seemed like the snake preferred Dipper’s higher body temperature.

 While all the kids were petting and cooing at the snake, Bill leaned in towards Dipper and whispered to him: “I hope someday our children can experience this.”

 After the show, they walked around for a while, looking at the many different animals, Bill more enthralled with each exhibit.

 When it was about time to leave, there was only one last thing Dipper wanted to show Bill; the Night Zoo. It was a separate building, like the tropic zoo, filled with nocturnal animals. A sign outside the building warned against flash photography and lights in general, since it would disturb the animals inside.

 The first room in the building was where the bats were kept. It was almost entirely dark, except for some black lights. The bats’ exhibit was constructed to look like a cavern, with a giant piece of glass separating the guests and the animals.

 It was also very quiet inside; everyone spoke in low tones and whispers to avoid disturbing the animals, so the most noise came from the bats screeching, and from some speakers that played typical night sounds, like the sound of crickets and owls, for ambience.

 It was a gorgeous sight, watching the bats fly back and forth or even just hanging upside down; some of them even hang right in front of the glass wall, allowing patrons to see them up close.

 “So,” Dipper whispered to Bill while they observed the bats. “How was your first visit to the zoo?”

 “I enjoyed it immensely,” Bill responded with a smile. “I have had a chance to see all these new animals, and so close too. It has been wonderful.”

 Bill placed a hand on Dipper’s shoulder, gently turning him away from the exhibit, and towards Bill.

 Dipper stared at Bill; with the black lights being the only source of light, it made Bill look… enchanting, there was no other word for it.

 Dipper leaned forward, tilting his neck to meet Bill’s lips. They felt soft like velvet and made Dipper’s entire body shiver at the sensation.

 Overall, a rather pleasant outing.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It was on the fifth day that Dipper’s family would visit. His parents, grandfather, and two great-uncles were the only close family members who’d show up, and most likely the only ones who cared about Dipper being alright. Aside from them, there was, his grandfather’s second wife whom Dipper had no idea why she would show up, especially since she didn’t like anyone in the family, his aunt on his mother’s side, who lived for drama and had never particularly liked Dipper, his aunt’s husband who most of the time acted more like an accessory to his wife than a husband, and their daughter, Dipper’s cousin, who always gave off the vibe that she either hated Dipper in a very passive-aggressive way or that she wanted to date him, and Dipper honestly crossed fingers for the former.

 Needless to say, Dipper was nervous; if how Mabel had reacted was any indication, his family had become convinced that Dipper had been kidnapped and subjected to various forms for abuse and terrifying acts. Really, only the kidnapping part held any kind of truth, and even then it had been based on a misunderstanding.

 Still, Dipper was worried. He wanted his family to like Bill, but even if he could convince them that Bill wasn’t a criminal scumbag, they would probably always see Bill as the one who took Dipper away from them.

 Dipper sighed and continued polishing the silverware, all in preparation for when the various members of his family showed up.

 “You’re still polishing the silverware?” Dipper let out a small gasp in surprise and turned to find his sister. He had been so lost in thoughts he hadn’t noticed her entering the kitchen.

 “Yeah, I’m just…” he paused and put the spoon he had been polishing down. “… getting done…”

 “Something bothering you?” Mabel asked.

 “… When is everyone getting here?”

 “Uh, mom and dad should get here first, in about an hour. Then Aunt Sharon, Uncle Ron, and Cousin Adina. Then Grandpa Shermy… Uh, Granny Alice didn’t give a specific time, and neither did Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford, but they said they would be here before seven.”

 “Oh, okay,” Dipper swallowed and made to leave, but was blocked by Mabel.

 “What’s wrong?” she asked.

 “I just…” Dipper sighed and let out a frustrated groan. “I know this is going to be a disaster! I want Bill to like our family, and I want our family to like Bill, but with how you reacted when I first got here, a-and Aunt Sharon showing up with her family-“

 “Dipper, everyone was very worried about you!” Mabel insisted. “Why else would they travel all the way here?”

 “Curiosity?” Dipper suggested. “Whatever the reason, it’s not to see if I’m okay. If anything, they’re probably hoping Bill’s an abusive jerk or something.”

 “You think that mom and dad-“

 “I’m not talking about mom and dad!” Dipper interrupted. “Mom, dad, Grandpa Shermy, Grunkle Stan, and Grunkle Ford; I know they have my best interest in mind. Everyone else who’s coming; not so much. I want Bill to see our family as his. Bill doesn’t really have a family himself…”

 “I know this is hard for you,” Mabel placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “But… maybe they’ll surprise you?”

 “… I doubt it,” Dipper sighed.

 His parents showed up only fifty minutes later; their arrival was signaled by the doorbell ringing.

 “I’ll get it!” Dipper shouted and went to the front door. As soon as he opened it, he was pulled into his mother’s arms.

 “Oh, Dipper!” she sobbed and held him close. “It’s really you! I almost couldn’t believe it when Mabel called!”

 “H-hey, give him some space, honey,” Dipper’s father interjected. Dipper was surprised to see that his dad’s eyes were shining with unshed tears.

 “Who is it?” Bill’s voice sounded from behind him. Dipper didn’t need to see to know that both of his parents were staring at Bill.

 “Um, mom? Dad?” Dipper let out a nervous cough. “This is Bill… he’s my husband.”

[klavier]

Formulary for a New Urbanism by Ivan Chtcheglov

SIRE, I AM FROM THE OTHER COUNTRY

We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun. Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. We know how to read every promise in faces--the latest stage of morphology. The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk billboards, the latest state of humor and poetry:

Shower

Bath of the Patriarchs

Meat Cutting Machines

Notre Dame Zoo

Sports Pharmacy

Martyrs Provisions

Translucent Concrete

Golden Touch Sawmill

Center for Functional Recuperation

Sainte Anne Ambulance

Cafe Fifth Avenue

Prolonged Volunteers Street

Family Boarding House in the Garden

Hotel of Strangers

Wild Street

And the swimming pool on the Street of Little Girls. And the police station on Rendezvous Street. The medical-surgical clinic and the free placement center on the Quai des Orfevres. The artificial flowers on Sun Street. The Castle Cellars Hotel, the Ocean Bar and the Coming and Going Cafe. The Hotel of the Epoch.

And the strange statue of Dr. Philippe Pinel, benefactor of the insane, in the last evenings of summer. To explore Paris.

And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. Now that's finished. You'll never see the hacienda. It doesn't exist.

The hacienda must be built.

All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.

These dated images retain a small catalyzing power, but it is almost impossible to use them in a symbolic urbanism without rejuvenating them by giving them a new meaning. Our imaginations, haunted by the old archetypes, have remained far behind the sophistication of the machines. The various attempts to integrate modern science into new myths remain inadequate. Meanwhile abstraction has invaded all the arts, contemporary architecture in particular. Pure plasticity, inanimate, storyless, soothes the eye. Elsewhere other fragmentary beauties can be found -- while the promised land of syntheses continually recedes into the distance. Everyone wavers between the emotionally still -- alive past and the already dead future.

We will not work to prolong the mechanical civilizations and frigid architecture that ultimately lead to boring leisure.

We propose to invent new, changeable decors....

Darkness and obscurity are banished by artificial lighting, and the seasons by air conditioning; night and summer are losing their charm and dawn is disappearing. The man of the cities thinks he has escaped from cosmic reality, but there is no corresponding expansion of his dream life. The reason is clear: dreams spring from reality and are realized in it.

The latest technological developments would make possible the individual's unbroken contact with cosmic reality while eliminating its disagreeable aspects. Stars and rain can be seen through glass ceilings. The mobile house turns with the sun. Its sliding walls enable vegetation to invade life. Mounted on tracks, it can go down to the sea in the morning and return to the forest in the evening.

Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams. It is a matter not only of plastic articulation and modulation expressing an ephemeral beauty, but of a modulation producing influences in accordance with the eternal spectrum of human desires and the progress in realizing them.

The architecture of tomorrow will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space. It will be a means of knowledge and a means of action.

The architectural complex will be modifiable. Its aspect will change totally or partially in accordance with the will of its inhabitants....

Past collectivities offered the masses an absolute truth and incontrovertable mythical exemplars. The appearance of the notion of relativity in the modern mind allows one to surmise the EXPERIMENTAL aspect of the next civilization (although I'm not satisfied with that word; say, more supple, more "fun"). On the bases of this mobile civilization, architecture will, at least initially, be a means of experimenting with a thousand ways of modifying life, with a view to a mythic synthesis.

A mental disease has swept the planet: banalization. Everyone is hypnotized by production and conveniences sewage system, elevator, bathroom, washing machine.

This state of affairs, arising out of a struggle against poverty, has overshot its ultimate goal--the liberation of man from material cares--and become an obsessive image hanging over the present. Presented with the alternative of love or a garbage disposal unit, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal unit. It has become essential to bring about a complete spiritual transformation by bringing to light forgotten desires and by creating entirely new ones. And by carrying out an intensive propaganda in favor of these desires.

We have already pointed out the need of constructing situations as being one of the fundamental desires on which the next civilization will be founded. This need for absolute creation has always been intimately associated with the need to play with architecture, time and space....

Chirico remains one of the most remarkable architectural precursors. He was grappling with the problems of absences and presences in time and space. We know that an object that is not consciously noticed at the time of a first visit can, by its absence during subsequent visits, provoke an indefinable impression: as a result of this sighting backward in time, the absence of the object becomes a presence one can feel. More precisely: although the quality of the impression generally remains indefinite, it nevertheless varies with the nature of the removed object and the importance accorded it by the visitor, ranging from serene joy to terror. (It is of no particular significance that in this specific case memory is the vehicle of these feelings; I only selected this example for its convenience.)

In Chirico's paintings (during his Arcade period) an empty space creates a full-filled time. It is easy to imagine the fantastic future possibilities of such architecture and its influence on the masses. Today we can have nothing but contempt for a century that relegates such blueprints to its so-called museums.

This new vision of time and space, which will be the theoretical basis of future constructions, is still imprecise and will remain so until experimentation with patterns of behavior has taken place in cities specifically established for this purpose, cities assembling--in addition to the facilities necessary for a minimum of comfort and security-- buildings charged with evocative power, symbolic edifices representing desires, forces, events past, present and to come. A rational extension of the old religious systems, of old tales, and above all of psychoanalysis, into architectural expression becomes more and more urgent as all the reasons for becoming impassioned disappear.

Everyone will live in his own personal "cathedral," so to speak. There will be rooms more conducive to dreams than any drug, and houses where one cannot help but love. Others will be irresistibly alluring to travelers.... This project could be compared with the Chinese and Japanese gardens of illusory perspectives [en trompe l'oeil]--with the difference that those gardens are not designed to be lived in all the time--or with the ridiculous labyrinth in the Jardin des Plantes, at the entry to which is written (height of absurdity, Ariadne unemployed): Games are forbidden in the labyrinth. This city could be envisaged in the form of an arbitrary assemblage of castles, grottos, lakes, etc. It would be the baroque stage of urbanism considered as a means of knowledge. But this theoretical phase is already outdated. We know that a modern building could be constructed which would have no resemblance to a medieval castle but which could preserve and enhance the Castle poetic power (by the conservation of a strict minimum of lines, the transposition of certain others, the positioning of openings, the topographical location, etc.).

The districts of this city could correspond to the whole spectrum of diverse feelings that one encounters by chance in everyday life.

Bizarre Quarter--Happy Quarter (specially reserved for habitation) -- Noble and Tragic Quarter (for good children)--Historical Quarter (museums, schools)--Useful Quarter (hospital, tool shops) --Sinister Quarter, etc. And an Astrolaire which would group plant species in accordance with the relations they manifest with the stellar rhythm, a planetary garden comparable to that which the astronomer Thomas wants to establish at Laaer Berg in Vienna. Indispensable for giving the inhabitants a consciousness of the cosmic. Perhaps also a Death Quarter, not for dying in but so as to have somewhere to live in peace,and I think here of Mexico and of a principle of cruelty in innocence that appeals more to me every day.

The Sinister Quarter, for example, would be a good replacement for those hellholes that many peoples once possessed in their capitals: they symbolized all the evil forces of life. The Sinister Quarter would have no need to harbor real dangers, such as traps, dungeons or mines. It would be difficult to get into, with a hideous decor (piercing whistles, alarm bells, sirens wailing intermittently, grotesque sculptures, power-driven mobiles, called Auto-Mobiles), and as poorly lit at night as it is blindinglylit during the day by an intensive use of reflection. At the center, the "Square of the Appalling Mobile." Saturation of the market with a product causes the product's market value to fall: thus, as they explored the Sinister Quarter, the child and the adult would learn not to fear the anguishing occasions of life, but to be amused by them.

The principal activity of the inhabitants will be the CONTINUOUS DÉRIVE. The changing of landscapes from one hour to the next will result in complete disorientation....

Later, as the gestures inevitably grow stale, this dérive will partially leave the realm of direct experience for that of representation....

The economic obstacles are only apparent. We know that the more a place is set apart for free play, the more it influences people's behavior and the greater is its force of attraction. This is demonstrated by the immense prestige of Monaco and Las Vegas--and Reno, that caricature of free love--although they are mere gambling places. Our first experimental city would live largely off tolerated and controlled tourism. Future avant-garde activities and productions would naturally tend to gravitate there. In a few years it would become the intellectual capital of the world and would be universally recognized as such.

[kingmindint]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1]

Halsey Minor is a serial entrepreneur with a resume that will make any startup nerd’s head spin.

The bulk of Halsey’s entrepreneurial experience comes from building, innovating, and investing in the then-nascent Internet world. Halsey is widely regarded as a pioneer of the Internet world, and has thrown his gauntlet into the rapidly-developing blockchain world. Halsey’s notable accomplishments, accolades, and experiences include:

Founder of CNET, one of the first media sites to publish technology and consumer electronics reviews, news, articles, podcasts, videos, and blogs in 1994. During Minor’s eight-year leadership, CNET became one of the Internet’s first profitable companies. Halsey led the site to become a NASDAQ 100 company, and it was eventually acquired by CBS Corporation for $1.8 billion in 2008.  

Co-founder and early investor of Salesforce.com, investing $19.5 million in 1999. Halsey worked closely with John Dillon and Marc Benioff. Halsey was the second-largest shareholder when Salesforce.com IPO’d in 2004 with a 10% stake.

Briefly collaborated with Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon’s, as per this 1999 relic Wired article.

Halsey spun off CNETs technology to a web-publishing software company called Vignette in 1997 and acquired a 33% stake. Vignette would later become one of the most successful IPOs in the following tech boom and had a market cap of around $26 billion.

Halsey provided seed funding for the music service Rhapsody in 1998.

Halsey sold Grand Central Communications to Google in 2007.

Founded Uphold, a digital money exchange service and early Coinbase competitor in 2014.

Founded LivePlanet, an end-to-end capture, distribution, and monetization system for immersive video.

In November 2017, Halsey launched VideoCoin, a blockchain-based project aimed at building video infrastructure for the blockchain-enabled Internet.

What is VideoCoin?

VideoCoin recently closed their pre-ICO fundraising round and beat their goal of $35,000,000.

In broad strokes, VideoCoin is a distributed computing project that aims at storing, encoding, and streaming video at an affordable, efficient, and sustainable rate. VideoCoin aims to utilize unused or underutilized computers in data centers to facilitate the powering of the network.

Halsey’s project will rival cloud-based video processing providers such as Amazon Web Services and provide the same services at an estimated 60% to 80% discount, while also providing video producers the ability to build their own apps within the VideoCoin ecosystem.

Editor’s note: Getting the chance to interview Halsey Minor was awesome, and we made sure to ask a variety of questions that allowed him to shed light on different aspects of the cryptocurrency world from his unique series of high-level experiences. Questions highlighted in italics and bold were shortened to save readers from our interviewer’s (my) rambling.

This is the first part of a two-part interview and primarily focuses on Halsey Minor’s new project VideoCoin, how he applied his experiences founding CNET and co-founding Salesforce.com apply to blockchain entrepreneurship, and how Halsey sees the future development of the video industry.

The second part of the interview contains dialogue around innovation and entrepreneurship with new technologies, problems with the current banking system, regulation, the global landscape, and how the cryptocurrency industry contrasts with the Internet industry in the mid to late 90s.

  Alex: Could you tell me a little bit more about VideoCoin? Why did you guys start? What’s VideoCoin seeking to solve in the next year or two?

Halsey: Let me give you the history.

I’ve done a bunch of things you’re probably familiar with and a lot of them have involved launching platforms.

When I started CNET, there was no web publishing software. I created the companies and then wanted out. I kept 35% of it. They became the leading publishing company and an 11-billion-dollar company. I left CNET to help John Dylan and then Marc [Benioff] build Salesforce. Marc came to me and I was looking at buying CRM software and saw all the problems in the industry. I ended up putting $19 1/2 million dollars and leaving to basically help build the company for the next four and a half years. A lot of these things have been sort of an outgrowth of a lot of the businesses that I’ve started, maybe even all of them have been outgrowths of specific needs that I’ve had.

Just in this industry in general, just for background, I started my first company in crypto in 2013. It’s called Uphold. It’s a CoinBase competitor. It’s a great product. One of the few companies that are connected to the US banking systems so you can connect your bank account. It’s very profitable, it’s been very successful. It’s not as big as CoinBase but I ran that for two and a half years. There was so much regulatory stuff, it just drives me crazy. I brought an investor in as a CEO.

Uphold’s home page.

I left to build a VR video company called Live Planet. We have our own camera, we have our own cloud, we have our own software. The cloud ingests this video, which is really kind of 4K video. Then it has to process it to send it to Facebook or to YouTube or to Samsung Galaxy Gear or to Oculus.

And so, a single file that’s ingested, coming from the 4K camera, spins up hundreds of processes for encoding the video. Just as a kind of data point, if we took one of our cameras in and ran it for an entire month, 24/7, that our costs, just using our Google infrastructure, would be about $30,000.

Live Planet’s home page.

So, the company is called Live Planet because the idea is to put these cameras everywhere. From zoos to theaters until you could essentially drop into any location around the world because these cameras are streaming live. In order to build the cloud, I’d hired Devadutta Ghat, who built Intel’s video streaming cloud, which they sold to Facebook. He built the software, he ran the data center and he did not go to Facebook with the acquisition. He’s one of the few people in the last 10 years who actually built a video streaming cloud. And by that, I mean encoding, which is all the processing part, the storage, and the streaming. We’re an interesting company in that we’ve got, in my case, very deep crypto experience going back to 2012 and a highly profitable business and very deep in experience in video.

[Editor’s note: this is really f*cking cool.]

I’ve been someone who’s always been fairly attuned to changes in the architecture of competing. I actually started CNET in 1993 as an internet company. We actually launched the website in April of 1995. So, it was very, very early. The architecture of the Internet as compared to AOL and all those other services, it seemed like the next logical step. When Marc came to me with Salesforce, the idea of getting rid of client-server software and building a centralized hub made a huge amount of sense in terms of cost.

What attracted you to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency?

It took me honestly a couple of years. I saw Bitcoin and other currencies as a way of forming a new kind of payment system. I have to admit, for a while, I really thought that the blockchain was really a technology looking for a solution. It took me probably about, really until 2016 or 2017 when I started to think about it as things like Ethereum started coming out. I started realizing that it’s actually an entirely new architecture for computing. In the simplest form, it just allows computing to be turned into a commodity in the same way that Uber has turned cars into commodities and Airbnb has turned homes into commodities.

It does that because it could do three things. It can prove that a computer has resources, it can prove that the computer has used resources, and then you have a ubiquitous payment system that doesn’t require money to be moved from border to border. I don’t have to pay our miners in China in yuan.

We started using these new payment systems. Two other parts that were sort of key catalysts was one, realizing that there’s 20% to 30% of servers that sit in data centers that are totally unused. They’re called zombies. If they were to mine bitcoin or some other currency, they would need to buy special cards, but all computers have a video encoder.

Every computer that’s sitting can do VideoCoin mining. So, you’ve got these huge resources that are out there. You have the ability now to compensate them across borders.

Video itself is going through a rapid transformation. It is itself at an inflection point. You’ve got the HD going to 4K going to HK and then you’ve got things like VR video, which we know very well. That’s really going from video being something you watch to life you experience.

VideoCoin home page.

All of this has led to video now being 80% of the Internet and growing at a 25% compounded annual rate. It’s really made it very difficult for large media companies to deal with the costs of this transformation of consumption going from broadcast, which is basically costless, to being forced to connect to all of these consumers directly over the Internet and pay all these fees.

The last thing I’ll just throw in is that all of these media companies who are spending all this money on video, they’re mostly paying Amazon and Google, both of whom are their direct competitors. The only business that Amazon has that makes money is AWS and that’s the business they’re playing into.

Jeff Bezos is famous for saying that other people’s margin is his opportunity. Amazon has never actually had a profitable business. Everybody has been Amazon’s opportunity. The problem now, for the first time, Amazon has something to protect. AWS is 3/4’s or 4/5ths of the valuation of Amazon. They make a ton of money and you’ve gotten media companies who have rapidly escalating costs of video because video has gone from being delivered by satellite or cable to being delivered one to one over streaming and media companies.

You were talking about video itself as an inflection point. Do you guys have any plans to go beyond just the infrastructure of creating the VideoCoin system which is already awesome and I’m sure will have a lot of far-reaching effects on the industry? Do you guys have anything planned for onboarding more people to use video and your platform?

I’ll tell you a brief story about Salesforce. Marc Benioff started Salesforce, but he moved to Hawaii and for 13 1/2 years, John Dillon ran it. I lived in San Francisco and spent a lot of time with John. Mark was going to start something called Database.com. Database.com was going to be the cloud. I said to Marc, look, I just put $19.5 million dollars in this company for you to make Salesforce the CRM company and you go and build the cloud as another company. You should take your CRM app and just generalize it and build a cloud. This is part of a larger discussion that ultimately had him coming back and becoming CEO about three years into the life of a company.

What we’ve done is we built this app that ingests large amounts of video and is capable of taking that video and transforming the format to everything from Youtube360, Facebook360 to Oculus Rift, for instance. A huge amount of processing. The way I look at it is we’ve built our first app. That gives us a huge amount of knowledge because a lot of coins today, they’re building these theoretical solutions. They don’t actually know a specific use case that they’re solving for. We know one.

Here’s what happened at Salesforce. I built web publishing software because I knew exactly what I needed to build and that helped everybody else in the industry.  One thing to point out was in the early days of Salesforce, everybody said, hey, it’s cheaper. What I did, there will be an ecosystem that will develop around Salesforce and Salesforce will end up being far more innovative than the software you’re buying for client server.

While it’s not apparent early on that it’s more innovative, there’s just a lower cost. That’s what ends up happening. So, I think that because we have an open source, we’re effectively an open source project unlike Amazon Web Services or Google.

I think you’re going to have a whole industry of people who are trying to innovate and build new applications just exactly as we’ve done. If you think about it, video is controlled by a very small number of companies and there’s been no innovation. You go past YouTube and it’s really hard to find anybody who’s done anything that is a significant innovation to video.

Now, we will change that with VR and maybe some others, but, I think in time, we will we will build other applications on top of our infrastructure. But we’ll also spend a lot of money and time trying to seduce developers to come in and build on top of our infrastructure. I think ultimately you should be able to develop video sites like you’d develop websites.

This is just a personal belief of mine because right now everybody has to live inside of the container of YouTube and their monetization system. I think one of the things that we can allow is for a lot more destination-oriented content sites to begin to flourish. Right now, people will build an app and they’ll sell it to the History Channel and it’ll collect its AWS. Let’s say an app will be bought by the Home Channel or Sci Fi. All of those apps are basically exactly the same and they just connect to AWS. They’re generally boring and don’t do anything breakthrough.

We have people like Hanno Basse, who’s one of our advisors, and he’s doing it because we as a company kind of solve two fundamental problems. How do we lower the cost that these guys are experiencing as video explodes on demand over the Internet, paying to Amazon and how do they figure out new monetization strategies with things like VR? To answer your question, I think there’s going to be a whole bunch of innovations.

What are your thoughts on innovation in the space, and how infrastructure-based projects like VideoCoin can help? For example, I’m thinking of how STEEM is building something called smart media tokens (SMTs), and many developers are using those to launch new functioning and profitable businesses. It’s really helping entrepreneurs break through current limitations.

Anytime that you can reduce the cost of something, you unleash new forms of innovation. Like FOX for instance, they want to put all of their sports content into the cloud because they’d like to then take that and start creating new products like the History of the Redskins or the history of a player, so they can basically create these sort of micro-content packages which they can monetize either by charging or with advertising.

They need to be able to put everything up in the cloud. I think there are a whole bunch of ideas emerging in crypto right now, as you point out, that are sort of next-generation video platforms. The Internet is now the Videonet. And so, I think with crypto, lower cost infrastructure de-centralization, I think you’re going to finally see a sort of reemergence of real solid video innovation.

Editor’s note: This is the end of part one. Part two contains Halsey’s thoughts on innovation and entrepreneurship with new technologies, problems with the current banking system, regulation, the global landscape, and how the cryptocurrency industry contrasts with the nascent Internet industry in the mid to late 90s.

The post Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1] appeared first on CoinCentral.

  source: https://coincentral.com/halsey-minor-videocoin-part-1/

Post source: Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1]

Source

The post Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1] appeared first on Bitcoin Geek.

via Kingmind Interview: Halsey Minor on Transforming the Video World with VideoCoin [Part 1]

[therightnewsnetwork]

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Never forget.

Remembering the time I spent in Poland in the gas chambers, on the rail tracks and with brave Christians that saved Jews from death. Here are some images and memories I dug up from an old blog post recounting that experience:

Boarded the plane immediately for a long flight to Poland. We were about to stare evil in the eye.

Having Tania and my four children near me made this pensive flight more bearable. My family slept, read and laughed over the next 12 hours. Tania finished “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom. I had finished it the week before and now was reading all I could to understand the mindset of the Germans, Poles and those rounded up during the seemingly never ending years of the Holocaust. I have never had more nightmares.

I didn’t want to step on that blood soaked land. The sun went down and rose again just as we were about to land. I had slept very little and I was getting sick. By the time we landed I was feverish and exhausted. My body was playing self-defense.

We dropped my family off at the hotel. The children slept for a few hours and then went to the zoo. The adults however would not see their pillows as we had much to do.

Our first stop was the only operating synagogue in Warsaw. It was as rainy, cold and as gray as I had imagined a former Soviet country. I met with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We had an amazing conversation. And while I was still 18 hours away from the gates, Auschwitz loomed over all of us.

Later, I met with local university students to talk about history, the future and courage.

Always being rushed, never having enough time, I slowed us down again in the Warsaw Ghetto. I couldn’t get over the size of the wall. I tried to imagine the people, sights, sounds and emotions on both sides of that wall. I don’t think there is a better example of the theory of “out of sight, out of mind” — at least for those on the other side of this wall.

We reflected at a memorial to those lost, ironically, built out of the stone cut for the intended use by Hitler commemorating his Victory. The Lord has a way of making all those who work against Him and His people into Haman of the Old Testament.

Tired, emotionally spent and with my neuropathy finding it’s own again, we arrived at the airport where we had landed just eleven hours earlier. Tomorrow promised the best and worst of humanity.

The first thing you notice in Warsaw is how new everything is — and also how many ugly gray buildings from the communist years still remain. This is not a country that has seen much prosperity or happiness, at least politically speaking. After the Germans occupied and destroyed the country, their own people and almost all of the Jewish population, they were freed by Stalin’s thugs. They then turned around and did the same thing just with a different attitude and uniform. People still feel the strings a soviet puppet.

Yet the new generation is glorifying the old ways once again. The number of Soviet images you see around out number — by FAR — the number of clubs or public images of the Founders in Philadelphia (not including those paid for by the state.)

Freedom is so rare in the history of this planet — most humans have never tasted it. And those who enjoy the most freedom now are oblivious to not only its scarcity in human history but how fragile and fleeting it really is. Men are at their best when free and closest to the backside of real want. Today, the meaning of want has been carelessly reduced to ‘free wifi’ or the latest Apple gadget. The empty ‘things’ we want are now referred to as things we need.

I wanted to find people who have lived the difference. And I did.

I was expecting to meet two people today before the tour of the camp that understood the difference between want and need — and also understood duty, honor, compassion and faith. One was a little old lady who just wanted to tell her story. She wanted no credit, no pats on the back, no money, no glory, no nothing — except to be heard.

She was even hesitant to have her picture taken — which explains why many of our pictures of her came out like this:

She saved her first Jewish person when she was just 16. Jewish people were only allowed to eat under 300 calories a day, that’s equal to a little more than a bottle of soda. When a hungry Jewish child begged her for food, she told her to meet her the next day. She could have been killed for helping. But did it anyway — and fed many hungry, starving Jews, saving their lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

After that overwhelming experience, we slept hard for 6 hours. At the crack of dawn, we are up and fed and ready to hit the road. While this trip was filled with horrifying, unimaginable evil — there were also moments of light. Like this one taken on a bus in the morning:

Take a good look at that picture. Look closely at our faces. Remember that look — that was the morning. Tomorrow, you are going to see what just a HALF DAY touring Auschwitz did to those faces. We leave the two small children behind. We will meet them at the airport later. This day will be hard enough to process as an adult.

First stop in Krakow to the grave site of one of the most important rabbis in Jewish history. He was responsible for compiling Jewish law. His grave was meant to be destroyed by the Germans — just one of the many despicable habits they had — but as a German solider approached the grave, lightening hit the surrounding fence, jumped to the German’s bayonet and threw him back.

It scared the rest of the soldiers enough that they just left it alone, under a tree. But it didn’t scare them away from the other grave stones… They had plans for the others.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around the evil that goes into something like this. At first glance, this looks like an ordinary stone wall. But this is a wall made entirely of broken headstones:

Many of them have the hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessings. I later found out they not only built the wall, but the destroyed cemeteries and headstones were used for sidewalks! It was overwhelming to see this — the evil — they just did not view Jews as human beings. I just kept thinking — how do people become that evil?

I think I understand EVIL and GOOD more than I ever have before… and the day is just beginning…

Next, Tania and I visited a beautiful synagogue used during the war as a horse stable. Yes, a horse stable. It is in the town much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed. This was a brave community — they built the synagogue in the 1800s right next to the street. Unusual from a people that feel as though they should almost hide from those that are not Jewish.

Also, my understanding of why Israel is so crucial to not just the Middle East — but to the entire world — the best way to prevent another holocaust from happening again is becoming clearer.

When we visited a small town, what appeared to be a grassy field actually turned out to be a stone wall. The remains of a moat from the 1400’s. There was a fire in the town — and the Jews were being blamed for starting it. The King, who loved the Jews, gave them this part of the town and built the moat, thinking it would keep them safe. The safety only lasted while the King was alive.

THAT’S why it’s so important that Israel is allowed and capable of defending themselves, not through charity or any other country or the U.N. — because it WILL NOT LAST.

Tomorrow… Auschwitz.

I knew that this day was going to be tough. But other than close, personal tragedies we’ve experienced in our own lives, our day at Auschwitz is hands down the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. If you have been here you know that you will never experience anything like it in your life. Never. I was prepared for something horrifying — but now I know there is nothing that could ever adequately prepare you for this place…

We had barely made it through half the day, saw the trains and a few other things — and already the emotion has hit us like a ton of bricks.

And you can see it on our faces:

No matter how many motion pictures you’ve seen or books you’ve read — you’ve NEVER seen evil like this before. My whole family was afraid to go to Auschwitz, and there’s solid justification for that fear. This history will hit even the most apathetic creature right to the core. But we held each other up — here’s a picture of our family moments before we went into Auschwitz:

There are many buildings to go through. The whole atmosphere is evil — strangely as it may seem, the grounds don’t feel evil. But it doesn’t feel good or positive in any way either. The other thing is it’s strangely void of any spirit. It’s like a dead spot on planet earth. I’ve never felt anything like it. But evil was on display at every turn. One building was full of shoes, suitcases, glasses, gold teeth and more. The items were stripped off their victims and redistributed to German citizens.

Each represents a person, a person who was face to face with perhaps the biggest evil the world has ever seen. I was already overwhelmed at this point, but there was another room I hadn’t visited yet. It would be the room that broke me up and pushed me over the edge.

This room was filled with prosthetics and braces — worn into the chambers and later taken off the dead bodies. This was all that was left over:

What remained were only the ones NOT good enough to send to Germans to pass on to their kids and relatives. This was just a fraction of the carnage. My question was — why didn’t anyone bother to ask where all the free shoes were coming from? The Germans didn’t know? Or was it they just didn’t want to know?

That’s when my daughter just couldn’t take it any longer. She turned around and left the gates. It was extremely painful to watch. But I couldn’t help but think — if only it were so easy to leave those gates 70 years ago. This is a horrible, horrible place.

But that was just the beginning. Up next we saw the place where they did operations on women — without anesthesia. The images were so disturbing — even though we had complete access, everyone just knew it was time to turn the cameras off. We shot nothing. All I can tell you is no one — and I mean no one — said a word for several minutes after.

When the Nazi’s weren’t busy torturing prisoners and performing hideous “surgeries” — they had another pastime: executions.

This wall was for the Polish who betrayed the Germans, and committed horrible crimes like feeding a hungry Jew. Not many Jews were executed here — the Nazi’s felt it was a waste of resources (bullets) to use them on Jews.

We all stood outside, afraid to go into the final area: the gas chambers. By this point, we thought we knew what we were going to see. But we still had no idea.

This is the gas chamber. In the roof is the square shaft of blue light. This is where the Zyklon B was dropped.

I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall:

I knew I was wrong.

To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding the up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone — but not instantly. It took at twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

When I walked back behind one the execution and rape rooms — that soldiers used for their own gratification — there was yet another layer of evil to pile on. It was a swimming pool. Yes, just a few feet away from people (including children) being tortured and murdered — they were outside enjoying themselves with a nice refreshing soak in the pool.

Even after the gas chamber, we couldn’t leave yet. We walked out of Auschwitz 1 and loaded a bus, tried to eat something even though none of us were hungry, and rested before heading to Birkenau.

We came to a place known as Auschwitz 2 — many of you may know it as the camp from the film Schindler’s List. Mengele performed most of his experiments here, and almost two million people were murdered here.

We went to the gas chamber of the last camp. The crematorium was built by a private company and had been patented so, in case these acts of horror took off, only they could profit. There were two stories of crematoriums in the camp, and here is the logo of that company on one of the doors:

Aside from moments of tragedy and joy with family — this day was the most life changing of any in my life. The only thing in my life that has been harder hitting has been the death of a family member. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I would wish it for my best friend — you connect with yourself and history in a way I have never experienced.

The final picture — a warning put there by us after communism fell. Remember, the horrors we witnessed today were held behind the Iron Curtain until the USSR fell. To me the first part of this plaque says it all:

It is true. I, like my family and probably everyone else who has ever seen this — was left completely speechless. There’s nothing left to say.

Powered by WPeMatico

from http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/

[patriotnewsblogger-blog]

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Never forget.

Remembering the time I spent in Poland in the gas chambers, on the rail tracks and with brave Christians that saved Jews from death. Here are some images and memories I dug up from an old blog post recounting that experience:

Boarded the plane immediately for a long flight to Poland. We were about to stare evil in the eye.

Having Tania and my four children near me made this pensive flight more bearable. My family slept, read and laughed over the next 12 hours. Tania finished “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom. I had finished it the week before and now was reading all I could to understand the mindset of the Germans, Poles and those rounded up during the seemingly never ending years of the Holocaust. I have never had more nightmares.

I didn’t want to step on that blood soaked land. The sun went down and rose again just as we were about to land. I had slept very little and I was getting sick. By the time we landed I was feverish and exhausted. My body was playing self-defense.

We dropped my family off at the hotel. The children slept for a few hours and then went to the zoo. The adults however would not see their pillows as we had much to do.

Our first stop was the only operating synagogue in Warsaw. It was as rainy, cold and as gray as I had imagined a former Soviet country. I met with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We had an amazing conversation. And while I was still 18 hours away from the gates, Auschwitz loomed over all of us.

Later, I met with local university students to talk about history, the future and courage.

Always being rushed, never having enough time, I slowed us down again in the Warsaw Ghetto. I couldn’t get over the size of the wall. I tried to imagine the people, sights, sounds and emotions on both sides of that wall. I don’t think there is a better example of the theory of “out of sight, out of mind” — at least for those on the other side of this wall.

We reflected at a memorial to those lost, ironically, built out of the stone cut for the intended use by Hitler commemorating his Victory. The Lord has a way of making all those who work against Him and His people into Haman of the Old Testament.

Tired, emotionally spent and with my neuropathy finding it’s own again, we arrived at the airport where we had landed just eleven hours earlier. Tomorrow promised the best and worst of humanity.

The first thing you notice in Warsaw is how new everything is — and also how many ugly gray buildings from the communist years still remain. This is not a country that has seen much prosperity or happiness, at least politically speaking. After the Germans occupied and destroyed the country, their own people and almost all of the Jewish population, they were freed by Stalin’s thugs. They then turned around and did the same thing just with a different attitude and uniform. People still feel the strings a soviet puppet.

Yet the new generation is glorifying the old ways once again. The number of Soviet images you see around out number — by FAR — the number of clubs or public images of the Founders in Philadelphia (not including those paid for by the state.)

Freedom is so rare in the history of this planet — most humans have never tasted it. And those who enjoy the most freedom now are oblivious to not only its scarcity in human history but how fragile and fleeting it really is. Men are at their best when free and closest to the backside of real want. Today, the meaning of want has been carelessly reduced to ‘free wifi’ or the latest Apple gadget. The empty ‘things’ we want are now referred to as things we need.

I wanted to find people who have lived the difference. And I did.

I was expecting to meet two people today before the tour of the camp that understood the difference between want and need — and also understood duty, honor, compassion and faith. One was a little old lady who just wanted to tell her story. She wanted no credit, no pats on the back, no money, no glory, no nothing — except to be heard.

She was even hesitant to have her picture taken — which explains why many of our pictures of her came out like this:

She saved her first Jewish person when she was just 16. Jewish people were only allowed to eat under 300 calories a day, that’s equal to a little more than a bottle of soda. When a hungry Jewish child begged her for food, she told her to meet her the next day. She could have been killed for helping. But did it anyway — and fed many hungry, starving Jews, saving their lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

After that overwhelming experience, we slept hard for 6 hours. At the crack of dawn, we are up and fed and ready to hit the road. While this trip was filled with horrifying, unimaginable evil — there were also moments of light. Like this one taken on a bus in the morning:

Take a good look at that picture. Look closely at our faces. Remember that look — that was the morning. Tomorrow, you are going to see what just a HALF DAY touring Auschwitz did to those faces. We leave the two small children behind. We will meet them at the airport later. This day will be hard enough to process as an adult.

First stop in Krakow to the grave site of one of the most important rabbis in Jewish history. He was responsible for compiling Jewish law. His grave was meant to be destroyed by the Germans — just one of the many despicable habits they had — but as a German solider approached the grave, lightening hit the surrounding fence, jumped to the German’s bayonet and threw him back.

It scared the rest of the soldiers enough that they just left it alone, under a tree. But it didn’t scare them away from the other grave stones… They had plans for the others.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around the evil that goes into something like this. At first glance, this looks like an ordinary stone wall. But this is a wall made entirely of broken headstones:

Many of them have the hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessings. I later found out they not only built the wall, but the destroyed cemeteries and headstones were used for sidewalks! It was overwhelming to see this — the evil — they just did not view Jews as human beings. I just kept thinking — how do people become that evil?

I think I understand EVIL and GOOD more than I ever have before… and the day is just beginning…

Next, Tania and I visited a beautiful synagogue used during the war as a horse stable. Yes, a horse stable. It is in the town much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed. This was a brave community — they built the synagogue in the 1800s right next to the street. Unusual from a people that feel as though they should almost hide from those that are not Jewish.

Also, my understanding of why Israel is so crucial to not just the Middle East — but to the entire world — the best way to prevent another holocaust from happening again is becoming clearer.

When we visited a small town, what appeared to be a grassy field actually turned out to be a stone wall. The remains of a moat from the 1400’s. There was a fire in the town — and the Jews were being blamed for starting it. The King, who loved the Jews, gave them this part of the town and built the moat, thinking it would keep them safe. The safety only lasted while the King was alive.

THAT’S why it’s so important that Israel is allowed and capable of defending themselves, not through charity or any other country or the U.N. — because it WILL NOT LAST.

Tomorrow… Auschwitz.

I knew that this day was going to be tough. But other than close, personal tragedies we’ve experienced in our own lives, our day at Auschwitz is hands down the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. If you have been here you know that you will never experience anything like it in your life. Never. I was prepared for something horrifying — but now I know there is nothing that could ever adequately prepare you for this place…

We had barely made it through half the day, saw the trains and a few other things — and already the emotion has hit us like a ton of bricks.

And you can see it on our faces:

No matter how many motion pictures you’ve seen or books you’ve read — you’ve NEVER seen evil like this before. My whole family was afraid to go to Auschwitz, and there’s solid justification for that fear. This history will hit even the most apathetic creature right to the core. But we held each other up — here’s a picture of our family moments before we went into Auschwitz:

There are many buildings to go through. The whole atmosphere is evil — strangely as it may seem, the grounds don’t feel evil. But it doesn’t feel good or positive in any way either. The other thing is it’s strangely void of any spirit. It’s like a dead spot on planet earth. I’ve never felt anything like it. But evil was on display at every turn. One building was full of shoes, suitcases, glasses, gold teeth and more. The items were stripped off their victims and redistributed to German citizens.

Each represents a person, a person who was face to face with perhaps the biggest evil the world has ever seen. I was already overwhelmed at this point, but there was another room I hadn’t visited yet. It would be the room that broke me up and pushed me over the edge.

This room was filled with prosthetics and braces — worn into the chambers and later taken off the dead bodies. This was all that was left over:

What remained were only the ones NOT good enough to send to Germans to pass on to their kids and relatives. This was just a fraction of the carnage. My question was — why didn’t anyone bother to ask where all the free shoes were coming from? The Germans didn’t know? Or was it they just didn’t want to know?

That’s when my daughter just couldn’t take it any longer. She turned around and left the gates. It was extremely painful to watch. But I couldn’t help but think — if only it were so easy to leave those gates 70 years ago. This is a horrible, horrible place.

But that was just the beginning. Up next we saw the place where they did operations on women — without anesthesia. The images were so disturbing — even though we had complete access, everyone just knew it was time to turn the cameras off. We shot nothing. All I can tell you is no one — and I mean no one — said a word for several minutes after.

When the Nazi’s weren’t busy torturing prisoners and performing hideous “surgeries” — they had another pastime: executions.

This wall was for the Polish who betrayed the Germans, and committed horrible crimes like feeding a hungry Jew. Not many Jews were executed here — the Nazi’s felt it was a waste of resources (bullets) to use them on Jews.

We all stood outside, afraid to go into the final area: the gas chambers. By this point, we thought we knew what we were going to see. But we still had no idea.

This is the gas chamber. In the roof is the square shaft of blue light. This is where the Zyklon B was dropped.

I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall:

I knew I was wrong.

To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding the up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone — but not instantly. It took at twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

When I walked back behind one the execution and rape rooms — that soldiers used for their own gratification — there was yet another layer of evil to pile on. It was a swimming pool. Yes, just a few feet away from people (including children) being tortured and murdered — they were outside enjoying themselves with a nice refreshing soak in the pool.

Even after the gas chamber, we couldn’t leave yet. We walked out of Auschwitz 1 and loaded a bus, tried to eat something even though none of us were hungry, and rested before heading to Birkenau.

We came to a place known as Auschwitz 2 — many of you may know it as the camp from the film Schindler’s List. Mengele performed most of his experiments here, and almost two million people were murdered here.

We went to the gas chamber of the last camp. The crematorium was built by a private company and had been patented so, in case these acts of horror took off, only they could profit. There were two stories of crematoriums in the camp, and here is the logo of that company on one of the doors:

Aside from moments of tragedy and joy with family — this day was the most life changing of any in my life. The only thing in my life that has been harder hitting has been the death of a family member. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I would wish it for my best friend — you connect with yourself and history in a way I have never experienced.

The final picture — a warning put there by us after communism fell. Remember, the horrors we witnessed today were held behind the Iron Curtain until the USSR fell. To me the first part of this plaque says it all:

It is true. I, like my family and probably everyone else who has ever seen this — was left completely speechless. There’s nothing left to say.

Powered by WPeMatico

http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/ %cats%