#vs. hope of becoming powerful enough in the system to affect change

[zevranunderstander]

A thing ive been thinking about for years and years and years is. The Selection (you know those really mid hunger games ripoff books that everyone keeps joking about) has a core premise that is actually quite different and unique from hunger games and you could have gone off the hinges with this if you weren't an absolute centrist coward, with milquetoast, unreflected politics. but now I can't write this book that I am seeing in this story because I can't just rip off the premise of the book, you know??

[alistonjdrake]

June’s World Building Cheat Sheet Part Eight: I Didn’t Vote For You

*At least I think it’s part eight and it’s actually been five months since my last relevant post!

I’m kind of ashamed this didn’t occur to me when I was writing my first group of world building posts. It’s something I think about constantly in the genre I write and something I’ve definitely noticed other people struggle with because to some it’s not something that seems immediately apparent or like it needs to be fleshed out. 

What am I talking about?

When I first started sharing my fantasy stories online one of the most popular plots for other people in, near, and around my social circle was the story of the rebellion. Whether it’s the rebel princess or the dashing fugitive someone in these stories was always rebelling. I can understand why. Revolution is a pretty compelling story. However it was never clear what they were rebelling for, what they were rebelling against (besides a vague “monarchy” or something similar), and most importantly what they were going to do/reform if they won. 

That’s right people, buckle in we’re taking a deep dive into politics.

What is a Political Ideology?

In part five of this series I did go over creating political divides a little but that was mostly focused on a much larger scope (like nation vs nation). And while nation vs nation can still apply here we’re gonna be looking more at creating parties and ideology. So first, let’s borrow from wikipedia and answer this header question. 

In social studies, a political ideology is a certain set of ethical ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order.

Okay I know that may sound like a tall order so let’s break that down.

So what are politics? Politics are the activities associated with the governance of a country. So think of some of the things mentioned in my previous political post like ensuring clean water or sanitation needs (if that becomes a government responsibility in your setting). Now I know in that post I mentioned disagreements and what people would argue over and when forming a political party that is exactly how you should think about it. Take one of those governing activities and think of ways people would either debate or completely disagree over how or why it should be done. 

I tend to work backwards when it comes to this. To put it simply, and in terms of my own writing, Valera came before the Rusnaks. 

In my setting the “Rusnaks” are a defined ideology and party that exists throughout the continents, named after the man credited for either creating it or popularizing it for the masses. But the character Valera who first shows up in the stories is what I used to create the ideology before I gave it a backstory and more defined characteristics. It was easy to do it this way for me because Valera, at his core, was meant to be the complete opposite of the “norm” presented in the rest of the setting. As most of the characters are nobility, he was not. Most of the characters came from a very privileged background, he did not. Most of the characters were either allied with or had appreciation to faith and the church, he did not. 

When creating a rebel (or a rebellion to back them) it’s not enough to say they simply don’t like the monarchy. Why? What are their specific grievances with the current system in place? Much ideology sometimes comes in the space of a need that isn’t being fulfilled. What does this group plan to accomplish and if they are successful, how do they hope to change the system they dislike?  

On the other side, the opposing system should also be fleshed out, especially in settings when the government is said to be supremely powerful and oppressive and yet readers are never really told what the people in power want. Political parties have an agenda. They have a goal in mind. It’s good to say there’s an disagreement present but it’s not really a fleshed out argument if neither side seems to know what they’ll do if they win. 

Take it in pieces. Nothing that isn’t relevant should very grace the page but if your story has anything to do with politics like mine, there are probably certain issues the characters are aware of and may want to address. Use those issues that are already affecting the plot to expand on the ideologies that may be present/influencing the world they live in. 

A member of the royal family in my book is always aware and wary of growing support of Rusnak parties since one of their goals is to get rid of monarchy. A local lord might pay more attention to his charitable works and support of the public if he knows a local group is growing loud over class injustice. 

Agree to Disagree 

So I’ve started to touch on these points a little but I’m just gonna hammer them in some more. This, for the most part, is what I look at when grouping together political stances in my settings to create an ideology or party. Now, in the case that this party exists as a reaction to a system that’s in place my first question is usually:

What is their problem with this?

In fairness, this is not always the most basic question to answer but yeah, what is it? They live in a dystopian world or they’re fantasy peasants who don’t like their liege. Okay, but what specifically? What are their grievances? Is it a lack of representation for a certain group in the governing party (i.e voting rights or elected positions)? Is it the distribution of wealth (or lack thereof)? Are they mad because their local government hasn’t fixed the main road in a while? Is it not the government as a whole but just who is currently in charge of it?

What is their proposed solution?

You have a problem, now how do they want to fix it? Usually my problem with so many rebellion stories is the solution is “they want to get rid of the monarchy” and okay, then what? What do they want to replace it with? because multiple groups can stem from that vague statement and have completely different ideas of what they should do in the aftermath. 

What influenced them?

It had to stem from somewhere. As a collective did they wake up one day and suddenly realize they had different ideas than other people? Did they read a book they agreed with? Did another movement suddenly spark the growth and spread of people to sprout different ideologies (let us go back to the Enlightenment)? Did the advancement of society allow for the birth of a new class or different types of people joining an old one (and thus their needs changed)?

Hopefully by now you have a basic outline. At every point, it’s fun (and probably helpful for the setting) to think about why someone would oppose this when creating a group. Personally I think it’s very easy to make one group abundantly right and the other very wrong (usually in the case of dystopian governments) but it’s important to remember as readers we’re supposed to believe these groups gained popularity. That something about it as charming enough to get people on board and they supported it. What about it drew people in that no one has rebelled before or that other fractions have been largely unpopular or unsuccessful. 

To tie a bow on it, if you think about politics in your setting as problem solving it should become easier to come up with different ideas as to how to solve that problem. Those solutions can serve as the basis for the different ideologies or political parties present either among your characters or just in the background to give that world that lovely, June-approved, lived in feel. 

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[junowat]

Astrology for Dummies

*anon I hope you don't mind, I took your title lol

Houses within Astrology

Placidus House System is its name and modern Western Astrology is its game *air horn x3*

To begin here is a little cheat sheet about Houses/Signs/Planets/Modes (Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable) rulings:

(House is ruled by sign ->Sign rules Planet -> Mode is temperament of the sign)

1st: Aries-Mars-C             5th: Leo-Sun-F              9th: Sagittarius-Jupiter-M

2nd: Taurus- Venus-F        6th: Virgo-Mercury-M   10th:Capricorn- Saturn-C

3rd: Gemini-Mercury-M     7th: Libra- Venus-C      11th: Aquarius- Uranus-F

4th: Cancer- Moon-C        8th:Scorpio- Pluto-F     12th: Pisces- Neptune-M

Cool lil’ thing to note: It’s ordered by element and mode!

 ~Fire->Earth->Air->Water  &  Cardinal ->Fixed ->Mutable then repeat

Now each house should have its own post written about it (*wink-wink* #futurepost lol) but I will broadly explain the topic and importance of the houses. 

What do the Houses mean?

Well, the house is the manifestation of the planet/signs energy. This is saying that whatever sign is ruling that house, that area of your life will be expressed with that energy. 

These are the house’s and what areas they control: 

1st house (Ascendant/AC/rising): How you express yourself to the world, how you react to new and spontaneous things, your self-esteem, your identity, how you relate yourself and to the world around you.

2nd house: What you value, finances, home life (materialistically speaking), possessions, what kind of life/stability you strive for 

3rd house: How you communicate, how you learn, school life, friends and peers, “short-distance” (Your familiar environment), how you think, how you express yourself verbally, relationship with siblings.

4th house (IC/ Imum Coeli): Your childhood, how you were raised, relationship with your mother, your history, instincts, privacy, the foundation of you.

5th house: Creativity, self-expression, what you're attracted to, relationship and view on children, romance, lighthearted emotions, drama, passions.

6th house: Your daily life, your physical health, your job, exercise and diet preference, services you provide, organization (or lack thereof), routine.

7th house (Descendant): What you dislike in the world, what opposes you, who you desire, you’re personal/individual relationships, partnerships, overall interactions with people. Open enemies (those you don't get along with publicly)

8th house: Transformation of your beliefs, your thoughts, your actions, and overall yourself in general. Birth, death, bonds, merged energies, mysteries of life and our purpose. Supernatural, occult, taboos, morals, shared finances. How you can better yourself. What your private about.

9th House: Higher mind, new experiences, travel, adventures, “long distance” (unfamiliar territory) expansion of the mind, foreign relations, cultural awakening, higher power, spirituality, belief system. 

10th House (Midheaven): Career, life goals, your success, who you strive to become, public image, how you express yourself through work, responsibilities, achievements, boundaries, relationship with father/authority.

11th house: Friendships, your peers, technology, rebellion, volunteer work or humanitarian views, networking, social media, the type of friends you make.

12th house: Subconscious, the unknown, your past life, intuition, endings, suppression, loose ends, completing life's mission. Secret enemies (those who you believe couldn't hurt you but do), hidden agendas, imagination, mental health.

Interpreting the houses 

There are multiple ways to interpret a house here are a few examples:

House and planet relationship: What planets are in that house (or if its an empty house) and how does it affect the energy? Ex. Mars in 1st house is going to be a more aggressive and an abrupt person than someone with Venus in 1st who will be amiable and pleasing outwardly. If no planet, this person will find they identify and relate to others through qualities of the sign that rules that house.

House and sign relationship: Gemini in 8th, will be more interested in thought-provoking subjects and diving deeper into the knowledge and understanding of the world that will often change their thoughts and opinions. Willing to work with others. Mentally strong. vs an Aries in 8th will be more impulsive with their transformations and will be stubborn on doing it themselves. Independent, they will believe they know how to handle finances and instantly know about a subject without experience.

House Rulers: This is more for advanced astrologers as it can get complicated or confusing; this is the ruler of the house that the same ruler's planet resides in. So if you have Capricorn in 1st but Saturn in 8th, you would say Ruler of 1st house in the 8th house. This shows and gives a realistic more outlook of the house's relationship with the native because it flows and connects itself to others. Despite Aries being the OG ruler of the first, if in your natal 1st house is Capricorn, that to you will be your first and since Saturn is ruled by Capricorn, whatever house that planet is in, will also carry Capricorn influence.

It is important to look at three views because it gives a more detailed picture of a personality.

How is the house system created?

You know how it’a little creepy when it asks for a birth time, well it's because that's how your personal house system will be set up :) Just like the planets move through the signs at different rates and the degree it’s at, in that moment. Same goes for your house system, but every minute counts because it cycles through a sign every 2 hours (that means it moves 1 degree every 4 minutes!!!) and by the end of 24 hours, it has gone through every sign. This is imperative to what determines your ascendant or rising sign as well as your chart as a whole.

Why else is it important? 

This not only gives you the manifestation of energy in your life, but it also sets up your Angular houses which are vital to a personal portrait! Above you’ll notice the italics next to the houses, that is the Angular houses which help define who you are, this is Your Ascendant, Midheaven, IC, and Descendant sign. These are the major angles in a chart and are similar to major points but more personable! The angular house is the group of houses that you take action in and are associated with the Cardinal Mode. 

Types of Houses: 

Angular House: Ruled by Cardinal Signs; these are the houses that help define who you are, who you were, what challenges you, and who you become. Known as the action houses 

Succedent House: Ruled by Fixed Signs; these are the houses in which you find what stabilizes you, what comforts you, what you take pride in, and what excites you. Known as the security houses.

Cadent Houses: Ruled by Mutable signs; these are the houses that show how you communicate, how you listen, how you grow, and how you overcome. Known as the learning houses.

Nitty Gritty: 

Intercepted Signs in the House System:

When a house has a wide enough angle to it, it is possible for it to skip a sign! This sign does not have a cusp of a house and lives within the preceding sign( it will be the same for its opposite counterpart ex if Virgo is intercepted so is Pisces ) If you have planets within an intercepted sign and it is in the intercepted sign, fear not you will still feel the effects of the planet. However what intercepted signs/planets within a house does, is it suppresses that type of energy and therefore the energy of both the sign and planet will be weakened and will be a challenge for the native to overcome/harness in their lifetime.

Duplicated signs: 

This is in result to an intercepted sign, when there is a sign that rules two houses, that means there is an overwhelmingly amount of energy within that sign and it distributes itself into two areas of the native's life or two houses. Instead of having a challenge in understanding or learning this energy, it will generally come naturally.

Example Chart: (lol this is an ex’s chart)

There is so much more but this is the most important and basic info you'll need to understand the houses and its importance.

I personally believe the house system is the biggest piece (and aspects) in understanding others because only knowing the sign and planet won't help you find any answers that will be direct to that person, only vague and broad overviews. 

I encourage you to play around with your chart and try to see where the energy in your life is manifested! 

As always, feel free to reach out for any questions you have :)

*I apologize if you are on mobile, it formats this post in a weird way :/

[fuelcut]

Silicon Valley’s imaginary Q2 2020 earnings call

[switch to long version]

CEO, MEGA TECH CORP - Hello everyone. These aren’t normal times. We’re not going to talk about our 10Q on this call. We’re here to talk about the next 10 years. So if you’re here for DAUs, ARR or CPC, you can drop off now.

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the race, health and economic crises our country faces. Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked our exec team to leave their homes, their [Zoom alternative] calls and their DoorDash deliveries to join protests and explore our community through new eyes.

What we now see - more clearly than ever - is that our entire company, industry, and Valley - are built on flawed foundations. A flawed social contract.

We can no longer just focus on the magical software bits and hope someone else figures out racial equity, employment, climate and health. This is Joel Spolsky’s Law of Leaky Abstractions on the ultimate scale. The abstractions are failing - and we’re seeing bugs and unintended consequences all around us. And the more we invest to deal with one-off bugs, the more likely we are to calcify change and imprison ourselves inside a failing stack. It’s like we decided to build the world’s notification service on Ruby on Rails - or building an iPhone competitor on Windows CE. Fail Whale everywhere. Unfortunately, America’s democratic institutions are in poor condition. They are struggling to deal with inequality let alone looming environmental disaster.  A polarized electorate - particularly at the national level - leads to populism and makes it hard for these institutions to execute meaningful, long-term plans.

We talk a lot about speech, misinformation, fairness of targeted ads etc. But it’s becoming clear that UX, linear algebra/training data and monetization in our products is just the tip of the spear to address polarization. We believe polarization is a product of the underlying conditions of civil rights, education, health and climate debt that affect Americans differentially based on race, wealth, neighborhood and region. 

So will today’s peaceful protests for racial justice expand into tomorrow’s revolution(s) for economic freedom? If you don’t think things are bad now, think about what happens when the stimulus checks run out. Take a look at the amount of debt in the public sector, use any imagination about COVID, work out what happens to their tax base / pension returns and consider the impact on public services, public servants and their votes.  MMT better be a real thing. Maybe we didn’t start these fires, but that refrain won’t save us when the flames come our way.

We’re done debating why we need to act. It’s clear America needs our help. Let’s talk about how we’re going to rise to the occasion. Our mantra will be “internalize, innovate, institutionalize”.

First, we’re going to internalize our problems. I’m here to tell you that issues of racial and economic justice are not just moral issues but they’re financial issues. Racial debt, education debt, health debt, climate debt  will hit us harder and harder each year.  (By the way, revolution probably won’t be great for your DCF models.) So we’re going to recognize these off-balance sheet liabilities - which amount to a few hundred billion in the US alone over the next 10 years for a company at our scale. You should assume other CEOs are thinking the same things - even if it takes them a few more quarters or years to say it.  

Second, we’re going to innovate against these systemic problems - but our only shot at making progress is if we realign the entire company’s mission to address them. This is not about optics. This is not about philanthropy. This is not another bet.  We have no choice but to put all our chips behind one bet - America - at least to start. It's the country that backed us in the first place, it's where most of our people are and most of our profits. The job for our existing products, platforms and cash flows will be to advance four areas: place / race, skilling / manufacturing, health / food and climate / mobility - starting in America. The board will measure me based on job creation and diversity.  It should go without saying that we’re pausing dividends and buybacks for the foreseeable future. Every dollar will serve our mission. Every senior leader will need to sign up for our new mission - and those who choose to stay will receive a new, back-end loaded, 10 year vesting schedule.  We want them focused on the long-term health of society - not the whims of Robinhood day traders or strengthening the moats of existing products. We will need to invent entirely new ways to operate and ship products. As Joel Spolsky said, “when you need to hire a programmer to do mostly VB programming, it’s not good enough to hire a VB programmer, because they will get completely stuck in tar every time the VB abstraction leaks”. We need engineers, designers and product managers that will look deep into the stack, confront the racial, job access, health and climate debts that our products, our companies and our communities are built on top of.   This is not about CYA process to protect cash cows or throwing things over the fence to policy. We will need to innovate across technical, cultural and organizational lines. This requires deep understanding and curiosity. Systems and full-stack, not just pixels. This will bring more scrutiny to our company - not less.  Change must not be the burden for only our Black employees or other subsets. Everyone must be on board - so for the next 12 months, we’re giving folks a one-time buyout if they want to leave.

Third, we can’t do any of this by ourselves.  The problems are too big. Our role will be to provide enlightened risk capital (from our balance sheet or by re-vectoring operating spend) alongside R&D, product, platform leverage to help leaders and innovators pursue solutions in these areas. We will work with our peers and the public sector wherever possible - buying/R&D consortia, public-private partnerships, trusts, etc. Collaboration is the default, not the exception. But the new era and landscape demands that we explore institutional models beyond global capital/startups, labor unions, NGOs or government. We need models that can more flexibly align people and purpose, that innovate on individualized vs. socialized risk/reward - and that ultimately help build and sustain local, social capital. It’s difficult to say what these will look like - but increasingly figuring this out will be existential for our core business. Right now, it doesn’t matter if you’re designing the best cameras in Cupertino or the best ways to see their snaps in Santa Monica - we’re all just building layers of an attention stack for global capital. Our Beijing competitors have figured this out. ByteDance is already eating our lunch. They’re using the same tech inputs as us - UX, ML and large-scale systems - which are now a commodity - but with vastly lower consequences for the content they show - creating a superior operating / scaling model. They’re not internalizing social or political cost. What we need in this era is the accumulation stack - where each interaction builds social capital.  This is not about global likes. This is about local respect. We’ll create competitive advantage when we build products that reach across race / economic lines to harness America’s amazing melting pot and do so in ways that build livelihoods / property rights for creators and stakeholders.

With this operating model in place, we’re committing to fundamental change in four areas:

Place & Race - Over the next 10 years, 100% of our jobs will be in diverse communities that embrace inclusive schooling, policing, housing and transit policies. (Starting tomorrow, we’re putting red lines on our maps around towns with exclusionary zoning.) This is not about privatizing cities or an HQ2-style play to extract concessions. This is about investing our risk capital and our reputation to innovate alongside government. How do we bring world-class education to neighborhoods with concentrated poverty? What is the future of digital/hybrid charter schooling? Unbundled public safety? We’re done with de facto segregation. We’ll embrace “remote-first” with physical centers of gravity as a means to this end. The Bay will become one physical node alongside several others (e.g. Atlanta, DC, LA) creating a strategic network to develop diverse talent across the country. We’re going to coordinate our investment with leading peers - since after all, this isn’t about cost or cherry-picking. It’s about broadening our country’s economic base.

Skilling & Manufacturing - We’re going to 10x the tech talent pool in 10 years - by inventing new apprenticeship models that bring women, minorities and the poor into the workforce. We’ll start with our existing contractor base, convert them to new employment models with expanded benefits and paths for upward mobility. Next, we will invent new productivity tools for all types of workers - from the front office to mobile work to call center - that brings the power of AI and programming to everyone. These will be deeply tied into new platforms for work designed from the bottom-up to build social and financial capital for individual workers and teams. Last, we’re setting a goal to manufacture most of our hardware products - from silicon all the way to systems - entirely in the US in 10 years. This will require massive investment, collaboration and innovation. It may require a revolution in robotics - but we will pursue this in a way that makes the American worker competitive - not a commodity to be automated away. If we’re successful, the dividends of our investment here will have massive spillover benefits to every other sector of manufacturing in the US - autos, etc. - including ones we have yet to dream up.

Health & Food -  We’re not going to tolerate a two-class system for healthcare. As we convert our contract workforce to new employment models, we’ll innovate on the fundamental quality/cost paradigm. This may feel like a step down but it will put us (and the rest of society if we’re successful) on a fundamentally better long-term trajectory. Can we use AI to help scale the reach of community health workers? Can we help them create co-operatively owned care delivery orgs that offer new ways to share risk and support behavior change?  Local, social capital is critical. Food is part of Health, and we’re going to innovate there too. Free food for employees is not going to come back post-COVID. Instead, we’ll use our food infrastructure to bootstrap cooperatively-owned cloud kitchens. We’ll provide capital to former contractors - mostly Black and Hispanic - to invest and own these. We’ll build platforms to help them sell food to employees (partly subsidized), participate in new “food for health” programs and eventually disrupt the extractive labor practices we see across food, grocery and delivery.

Climate & Mobility - Lastly, we’ll be imposing a carbon tax on all aspects of our own operations - which we’ll use to “fund” innovation in this space - with a primary focus on job creation. This is an area where we’re going to be looking far beyond our four walls from the beginning.  As a first step, we’re teaming up with Elon and Gavin Newsom to buy PG&E out of bankruptcy and restructure it as a 21st century “decentralized” network of community utilities.  It will accelerate the electrification of mobility - financing networked batteries for buses, cars and bikes along with charging infrastructure - and lead a massive job creation program focused on energy efficiency. It will use its rights of way to provide Gigabit ethernet + 5G to everyone - which will help people and help fund some of this.  Speaking of mobility, private buses aren’t coming back after COVID. Instead, we’re teaming up with all of our peers to create a Bay-wide network of electric buses (with bundled e-bikes) that will service folks of all walks of life - including our own employee base. Oh and one more thing - we’re bringing together the world’s most advanced privacy/identity architecture and computational video/audio to bake public health infrastructure directly into the buses. For COVID and beyond. None of this is a substitute for competent, democratically accountable regional authorities. This is us investing risk capital on behalf of society - with the goal of empowering these authorities.

Open technology for global progress - While we have to prioritize America given the scale of problems, the intent is not to abandon the rest of the world or hold back it’s progress. We feel the opposite - that over the coming decades each country’s technology sectors will thrive. To get there, we will continue to invest patiently - hiring, training, partnering, investing and innovating - but with a clear north star to help each country develop local leaders in new areas. Long-term, we’ll continue to contribute open technology that others can build upon.

America should be the proverbial city on a hill for everyone - not a metaverse for the rich with the poor dying in the streets. We don’t have much time so we’re getting to work now. See you next quarter.

[atomicfilm]

What are some potential pitfalls in an ISTJ parent - INTP child relationship?

 I don’t have a lot of personal experience with ISTJs and ESTJs, as I don’t naturally gravitate towards them, but I’ll try my best! 

(I’m assuming you’re the ISTJ parent.)

TL:DR Biggest issues: emotional distance, discipline, authoritarianism, stubbornness from both parties. 

 ISTJ is The “Man”, INTP is The Rebel. 

 Please continue to read, because I do, in fact, offer suggestions. 

General

   First off, parent-child relationships can have a lot of turmoil regardless of type. If your child is older, particularly in middle school and high school and you feel like they’re acting out, really the best thing you can do is be open and honest with them. Tell them that you love them and you’re having a difficult time understanding their behavior. Don’t blame anyone when you say this. Don’t criticize them. At all. Or you will shut them out more. Communication is at the heart of every relationship. It’s quite possible that if this is your situation that they are upset and don’t know how to come to you with problems. I was so moody in middle school and my mom sometimes drags me for it, but it was because I was being bullied, anxious, and coming to terms with my identity. I didn’t know how to talk to my mom about basic things and that was because she never offered to talk nor did she ever talk to her mom herself. 

   Now we have a much healthier relationship and it’s because we started talking to each other about what we expect from one another and started sharing our more personal stories. I’m so thankful for that change, even if at first it did involve some yelling. (Hopefully, other people can avoid that.) 

  Accept them. Allow them to talk. Don’t scold them when they come to you. Ask them questions and if they don’t want to answer then wait for them to be ready to come to you. It’s better that they’re being honest and seeking help. 

 Also, provide them with what they need. Whether that’s tampons, birth control, therapy, whatever it is that could affect their health. If there are fiscal issues, look for solutions together. 

INTP specific

Overview: 

  J vs. P: Ahh! Judgers, in general, don’t like Perceivers because our style of approaching problems is so different. Where a Judger might try to come up with a bulleted list of how to proceed, Perceivers usually look for a starting point and the rest of the plan is flexible. Judger’s also tend to be less spontaneous and more precise. My best friend is an ISFJ and my boyfriend is an INTJ, they both like to complain about how I’m easily distracted, distracting, and always jumping from one thing to the next. But what I really love about Judger’s is that they’re grounding. They have a certain intensity to them that helps me to focus. They’re usually also great at explaining things thoroughly, whereas, I tend to not follow a linear train of thought, even if I’m giving an in-depth explanation. I’m not a detail-oriented person and sometimes I think people get weighed down by them, but I still think it can be a beautiful trait to have as well.  

  We have our differences! They work great together if you recognize that and don’t put too much pressure on them to change. Your INTP might need you to tell them to remind them about their homework that’s due every once in a while (but don’t be a helicopter parent, please). They might need you to walk them through a math problem or get them a tutor. Don’t ignore that. But also, embrace it when they don’t want to stay on schedule (life might be more fun) and if you’re trying to solve something, their Ti-Ne will generate many logical solvencies, they just need you to help eliminate some. Essentially, don’t pressure them, do guide them. Both of you should be mature and understand what you want. If they complain, listen. If they don’t listen when you complain, ask them politely. 

 My mom was always like “eh, you have A’s, you don’t need help from me”. I struggled so, so much with stress and being the “ideal child”. It’s too late now (I’m accepted into college), but I wish she would have asked me if I was having trouble at school, rather than completely ignore me because I’m smart. We did recently have a conversation about how I needed to skip a day of school for my mental health and she was very accepting of that. I was having a really difficult time because of personal issues that  I won’t disclose but little things mean so much to INTPs. 

  Your kid is going to do things one way or another if they have a lot of willpower. The only thing you can truly control is whether or not they resent you. But for certain things, like arguing against them becoming substance abusers, you have science on your side and it’s no secret that INTPs love science. 

S vs. N: 

 ISTJs are usually much more traditional than INTPs. INTPs are very specific to themselves, so much so that saying they’re “unconventional” is an injustice. They’re on a scale of their own. Sorry in advance, but you are raising a baby alien. And they probably feel like that too. Intuitives are stereotypically visionaries, sensors are stereotypically conservative (with the exception of xSxPs). Honestly, I don’t think it matters at all that you’re a sensor. Just try not to bog them down with too many details, again, or force them into doing things your way all the time. 

  INTPs are so independent, I really can’t imagine that bossing them around will work in your favor. I’m lucky because my mom’s an INFP and she likes me to lead, but ISTJs tend to be leaders too, so there could be a lot of clashing in terms of power. My best advice is to let them do their own thing as much as possible without trying to fit them into a mold. If you need to discipline them, try to use positive affirmations if they respond to them. 

 My mom jokes that my ISTJ grandma is afraid of me because I’m the only person she’s ever met who won’t obey her. Yelling doesn’t work on me. 

  Also, don’t ask them to make too many of your decisions for you either. Not to be emo, but we want to be loners. My issue with my own mother is that she expects me to do things like work out the legalities of her land deeds and do her taxes. I’m 17! I don’t want to think about those things until I’m a little older. But if an INTP sees you struggling, we’re softies who love to help, so our nature will likely kick in anyways. 

Cognitive Functions:

INTP - Ti-Ne-Si-Fe

ISTJ - Si-Te-Fi-Ne

We share introverted sensing and extraverted intuition! A great start. 

 Si: ISTJs have it as their primary function. Having sensing first is fantastic if you love to socialize. INTPs tend to be antisocial (whoops) at least with people they don’t know well. This could be a conflict if you expect them to go to a lot of events like work parties that they don’t want to attend. They’ll probably throw a fit if you press them enough. However, since you’re both introverts, you probably understand that they want to crawl into a small, dark space by themselves for a while instead. If they don’t want to go to your events, tell them to invite a close friend over instead. Maybe once a week. They do need to socialize, even if they don’t want to. Just expect their threshold to be lower than yours. 

  What’s good about it? We both like to compare/contrast our memories with current events. We both remember a lot of details about people/things we find significant. We both need a routine (but try to mix it up slightly for INTPs because we need stimulation as much as we like comfort). We both are practical and fact-oriented. 

  Your INTP probably highly respects you. That’s the most important part. I find Si to be overwhelming if someone only talks about other people and their experience with them. Simply because I don’t care enough what Sally did on June 15, 1983 if it’s not immediately relevant. 

 INTPs hate small talk. With a burning passion. When I meet people I immediately talk to them about their hopes, dreams, theories, favorite historical periods, inside jokes, ect. Not about what they ate for breakfast. We have high standards for entertainment. 

Ti vs Te: 

  Ti is like “let’s interpret what’s happening internally”. Te is more like “hey, let’s categorize what’s happening externally as objectively as possible”. INTPs are heavily invested in fixing themselves if you haven’t heard. They want to be the ultimate human and then inspire people from that point. Te users tend to be obsessed with fixing the world first. That’s not to say INTPs and ISTJs won’t share common ground, however. We can definitely rant to you about why that bike rack should be in a different place or how the political system is corrupt. 

  However, first and foremost, we’ll silently be analyzing all of our own issues and try to solve them. On our own. This is our fatal flaw and best asset. You probably only see it as their best asset. It only works for so long before we become so stressed we may combust. Your INTP may be deeply insecure, even if they come off as confident. So remind them frequently that you admire them and it’s okay for them to ask you for help. 

  We’re perfectionists. Try to discourage that early on. No one needs to be perfect. That’s way too much pressure to put on anybody. 

 Ti is very critical and reflective, making it really good for debate and self-improvement. But it’s soul-crushing if it’s turned too far towards inwards. 

Think of Ti as having anxiety. When it’s negative, you think about everything you’ve ever done wrong, over and over, until you have a solution. On the flip side, Ti users ponder proactively a lot too and come up with creative theories.

 So going off of that, your INTP may be feeling so insecure or confused that they take it out on you. Talk to them. Work out what’s going on in their head externally. It may prove helpful. 

  Te-users are also sometimes more managerial. Let your INTP go with the flow.

   And finally, Te-users can be on the colder side with their affections. If you think parents shouldn’t shower their children with affection, throw that thought away. Tell your kid you think they’re smart and you love them. Give them a hug if that’s something they’re comfortable with. Like everyone deep down, we need affirmation!

Fi vs. Fe:

YIKES. Fi is the killer of INTPs everywhere. 

Well, ISTJs don’t emote too much. Which is both good and bad. It’s good because INTPs don’t respect emotional people very often. It’s bad because you’re a parent and a human, not a robot. 

  What I’ve noticed is that ISTJs typically yell when they’re upset but are less giving when it comes to affection. That’s obviously not a good combination. 

   Don’t practice tough love. That’s garbage. Absolute garbage. If you find yourself saying frequently “they’ll thank me later” you probably are just trying to justify doing something harmful. Children need to be nurtured! Not pushed around. Sometimes they do need more discipline but INTPs don’t respond well to authority, so again, you’ll probably hurt your relationship more than you’ll gain anything else. 

  Try to avoid escalating arguments into spitting matches. If you’re feeling hot-headed, leave the conversation. I bet your INTP already did. Then come back later and try to resolve it when you’re less angry. This overlaps with the difference between Te-Ti a bit too. 

  INTPs bottle their emotions for prolonged periods and then spill them all at once. Encourage them to share with you or another trusted figure more often. Otherwise, you’ll see the worst side of your INTP much more than you need to. 

   INTP’s Fe means that we want to please you. We want a harmonious environment. If we can’t figure out how to get it, we’ll look for a new environment. We usually try to understand your emotions even if they’re kind of foreign to us. Fi from our perspective is like “LOOK AT ME I’M SAD LOOK AT ME RIGHT NOW SEE ME CRY HELLO PAY ATTENTION TO ME”. Yes, that was exaggerated. But that’s what it looks like to us. It appears selfish and explosive. Do what you can to tone it down.

 You’ll win us over with compelling logic, not necessarily pathos. 

Ne: Ne is the best. Hands down. Ne is my favorite thing ever. It’s how I communicate on a daily basis. It’s unfortunate that it’s so low in the ISTJ stack because I rarely see it. But honestly, it saves the relationship in my opinion. I have very little in common with that ISTJ grandmother I mentioned but what do we have in common? She watches a lot of movies and I’m going to be a film major. 

 So instead of using that Ne to generate a lot of small talk and gossip, which is one of my largest problems with ISTJs, use it to generate conversations about your common interests. 

 Afterword: 

  Your INTP is likely going to be nothing like you and that’s okay. It’s amazing that you’ve raised an entire human being and even more beautiful that they’re not a mass-produced model of their parents. It will likely be a rocky road but I’m sure they love you so much. They just might not feel safe in expressing it. Which is sad, yes, but not a reason to give up. 

 I’d like to add that I actually really like my ISTJ grandmother (my mother does not, because she had to be raised by her and my grandmother is very domineering to most people). 

 Here are some reasons why I love her:

- She’s so good with physical projects. She loves to bake, she loves to scrapbook, she loves to knit. In that regard, she’s awesome! She’s the ideal grandma and she has a lot to teach me. I’m not a physical person at all and she’s helped to balance me out a bit. I can’t knit, but I can cook, and I definitely didn’t learn that from anyone else. 

- She’s funny! She has an amazing sense of humor and her eyes get all bright and shiny when she’s happy. 

- We have similar political beliefs even if she’s much more traditional than I am. She’s actually the only person in my family I like to talk to about current events. She’s lived through so many and she actually pays attention. In this case, being detailed-oriented helps her a lot. 

- She’s good at decision-making and I can be indecisive. 

- She’s very honest to me at least. I like to ask her about family history and her own beliefs and that’s interesting. She’s the only person who cares about genealogy and the only person who knows anything about my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. 

- She loves me.

 You will be fine. Just don’t be judgy and bossy. 

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask me for more advice. 

[elftwink]

What are your feelings about wtnv condos?

WELL, since you asked: 

for one i think most everything has been said about cecil calling carlos perfect prior to condos and imperfect after it. i agree w/all that, i think its beautiful and it makes me cry and also it’s so cohesive and such a good character development thing BUT like i said, it has been covered so i won’t waffle about that. but i will waffle about the way that perfection is presented in and of itself and how that presentation is tied to night vale’s larger themes. namely, this line:

“I understood that the cubes are perfect! I understood that this is how we become perfect. I understood that what I was seeing was the way to perfection. And I don’t know how I understood this. Thinking about it now, nothing about it seems good, let alone perfect.” [bolding mine]

night vale is far from the only media around that covers the idea that perfection is a myth that people spend their whole lives chasing. i think what it does that works so well is that it never portrays perfection as completely unattainable— in fact, the plot of the episode hinges on the fact that the character can access a perfect existence— but rather as alien. so far removed from a real human experience that looking at it from an outsider perspective, as cecil does after the weather is over in that line, makes it very nearly incomprehensible. 

and moreover, the people who are “perfect” within the context of the episode are not, in any tangible or understandable way, “better” than they were before— which, as far as my personal media consumption goes, is a fairly novel twist. off the top of my head i can think of several stories or plot points that revolve around a protagonist being offered a perfect existence and refusing. basically any media that involves omnipotent beings will have a plotline like this or similar and stories about human beings refusing like, divinity or power or wealth or skill or whatever it might be are kind of a staple of like, every genre. HOWEVER the idea tends to be that they have something to gain from that; power or wealth or status or knowledge or something, something that might be massive and that they could never hope to achieve or accrue on their own.

the condos offer no understandable improvement. they don’t even offer the promise of improvement. the demonstrations of perfection and the examples we are given as an audience are not glorious or grandiose but foreign and terrifying, something that the characters openly admit. 

“Janice Rio (from down the street) saw a city. A lost city. A dead city, nestled in a jungle – the kind of jungle that only ever existed in books written by people who have never seen a jungle. The city stood, and Janice stood, in perfect dread, its doors were open jaws. Its windows were open jaws. Its roads and avenues were gaping mouths and open jaws. That dead city teetered. It rotted in its jungle tomb, but…it was not empty. And she started to run. Run through the thick foliage of that absurd place, she shouted and ran.”

“Roger Singh (who had been able to buy a condo with the spine) saw a cave, underwater, in an ocean far to the north. And the water around him was dark – so dark! – that he wasn’t sure even which way led to the surface, to life…and which way led down only to the deep silent. He gasped, but found he had no breath…and no need to breathe. And there was this cave that smoldered with a light, a light that was charged and alive. And shadows moved against the light, cast by…what?…within the cave. And then he swam towards it, uncertain whether he was guest, or sacrifice, or invulnerable dreamer. And he heard a song from the cave, and he knew it, and it was perfect. And he sang along, but at the same time, he had never heard that song before in his life. And what was life? What made it his? It all seemed so small, part of the world that didn’t exist anymore.” 

and like, to some extent, so what, right? who cares if perfection is seen as desirable vs unknowable? what difference does it make? well, i will tell you/theorize about it abstractly. i find that this framing of perfection makes it much much clearer that wtnv intends imperfection to be celebrated rather than tolerated. 

the order of events is not imperfection is human -> being human is good -> imperfection is good, but rather, imperfection is good -> humans are imperfect - > being human is good. cecil says pretty much this when he says: “And those imperfections in our reality are the seams and the cracks into which our out-sized love can seep and pool. And sometimes we are annoyed, and disappointed, and that too is a part of how love works. It is not a perfect system, but… Oh, well.”

and i mean, even in and of itself that’s a deeply moving thing to say. this post could end here with me saying that night vale’s framing of imperfection as not just necessary but integral to experiencing life in a way that is worthwhile makes for an incredibly powerful story. 

but condos is part of a larger story. and i’ve talked about parade day & old oak doors before, and briefly mentioned all right in that post. one of the most oft quoted night vale bits is the candle wax spiel from a memory of europe (the “time is like wax” speech). with these, and with countless other moments across the show, over and over again, wtnv is about the value of right now. of action. of effort. of choice.

what actually sets night vale perfection apart is that above all else, perfection is stagnant. the people in the condos float motionless and frozen. fading away. even when cecil says that they are able to be contacted, the action is still taken by the people left behind, imperfect: “Walking through where the condos once stood, you can hear their voices — but distantly, faintly. And if you reach out when you hear that voice, if you reach out and feel for them, you too will get a vision of some far-off place, a place that is, in its own way, in a way perhaps that can never be explained, perfect.” these people no longer do anything. they no longer live, even though they are presumably alive, in their own perfect way. the reason the condos offer no improvement is that improvement is growth, it’s movement, it’s action. improvement and perfection are antonyms. you improve for the sake of improvement, for betterment, rather than to attain perfection.

when cecil escapes from the condos, he does so through resistance, through fighting, through choosing imperfection actively. throughout the show, things happen because people try. they do. they live and they grow and they change and they discover and they fucking try. and when they don’t it’s to make a point about inaction, to show you that being static is easy and nice but that even in the face of all that, it’s important to try. and you try knowing you could fail. and you try knowing the odds are stacked, knowing that the world is chaotic and things don’t always happen for a reason. you try if it doesn’t personally affect you. you try if you have never tried before or if you couldn’t or didn’t last time. 

i promise i’m almost done but i couldn’t mention all that without saying something about how community is tied up so tight with those values that you can’t tear them apart. the way in which things happen is rarely because cecil does something on his own but because the town does something, together. relationships are built on communication and effort and trying, from one-on-one to city wide. the entire show is fundamentally built on balancing your inclusion in the community of night vale with your independence and ability (& sometimes duty) to act as a single person. you can stand alone, and if you must, you should, but you shouldn’t have to. and hopefully you don’t have to. 

disclaimer that i’m way behind on wtnv so i could be contradicted by more recent episodes and also this isn’t nearly long enough to really get Into It(tm) and also the wtnv has covered such a variety of topics that it’s very hard to make generalizations like this, but even so, i hope i’ve done it justice. also shoutout to cecilspeaks for all the quotes, here’s the full transcript for condos if anyone wants/needs it

anyway, on a final note, i think cecil really says it best so:

“A perfect place that you will never visit. And that is the best news of all. Listeners, I send you now back out into the night. And it’s dangerous out there, and it’s lonely, and it’s not perfect.

Goodnight, all of you here, goodnight, all of you listeners, and goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”

[serenagaywaterford]

Here's the thing:

If I wanted to watch something "real" about how bad people never change and that's just how things are, I'd talk to my family, go on Facebook, walk down the street, turn on the news, pick up a history book, log onto tumblr...

Reality is chock full of depressing, awful stories of bad people who never change, never try to do better, never learn anything, and spend their whole lives fucking other people over. Like, I get it. It's everywhere.

The thing is The Handmaids Tale ain't a fucking documentary! It's a fictional TV show that draws from elements of history and current events. That doesn't mean every single character must be "real".

"Well, in real life, someone like Serena wouldn't change."

Yo.

Newsflash.

This is TV.

In reality, June would be DEAD. How about that reality check? She woulda been executed a long time ago. Janine would be dead. Emily would be dead. Rita would be dead. Nick would be dead. Aunt Lydia would be dead. Hell, Serena and Fred would probably be dead too.

In reality, if Emily even survived to 2x13, Nichole would be DEAD. They both would have died in that river.

In reality, Moira and Luke would be fucking miserable in some tent city refugee hellhole, not a beautiful spacious apartment in downtown Toronto. In reality, Canada would be a fucking mess too.

In reality, nothing past S1 would have happened.

In reality, Serena would never have done anything she did in 2x07/2x08, she wouldn’t have been affected by Eden’s death, she wouldn’t have read from the Bible, she wouldn’t have given Nichole away.

In reality, June would never think she could lead a full scale revolution. Are you fucking kidding me?

In reality, not a single Martha would give a fuck what she has to say. And Lawrence sure wouldn't.

In reality, Hannah would live and die in Gilead. So, like, why are any of you hoping she'll make it out? That's not reality!

In reality a system like Gilead would have fallen apart already (cos the world-building kinda sucks, I'm sorry.)

Do we really want to play the "but in reality" game? With a fictional TV show that is already bordering on soap opera?

Look, I am the queen of giving Serena more credit than she deserves. I know that. I'll admit it. (I actually think her motives in 3x05 are deeper than it seems but that's another story.) I also know people like her "in reality" often (usually) stay horrible forever. These are both things that generally are true.

BUT

I do not want to watch a TV show that is "real". We literally don’t need that right now. We have the real world for that. I want to watch a show like this to give me hope. That hope may be hard earned, it make come with frustration, it may even come with some anger along the way... but that's exactly it: it's a journey. There are paths where characters who are given significant prominence and screentime should follow. They should have some sort of movement. Maybe they stumble along the path, maybe they try to run back, maybe they take the long way, maybe they fuck up along the way, but they are meant to be going SOMEWHERE. Somewhere different than where they began.

That is the entire point of storytelling. Am I wrong?

The problem with Serena is precisely that as arguably the second lead character behind June, she hasn't fucking moved in 3 seasons. Main characters should have movement. But nope. None for Serena. Why? Because they keep setting her up along a path, only to fucking tear up the road in front of her for plot twists and shock and oooooh the contrived drama!!!

And yet, all these other characters are doing completely unrealistic things almost constantly (June, darling, I'm looking at you.) and that is just fine. Why is Serena the only character that were supposed to hold to some strange "but in reality!" standard?

I want a show about women that actually DESTROYS harmful stereotypes about women. I don’t want one that upholds the tools that maintain patriarchy. I don’t want the same tired tropes and cliches.

I want hope that even the worst people can change if given the tools.

I want to see women breaking down the systems of oppression that isolate them, including those of their own design. I want to see women of privilege recognizing their role in the oppression of others, understanding that, taking deliberate action to rectify and support those women they kept down. I want then to feel shame and change.

Isn't that the whole point of callout culture? Of protesting? Of education? To change people, even the shitty ones! That's the sort of thing I want in my depressing, dystopian fiction. That's inspiring.

Otherwise, what's the point in anything at all? If people can't and don't change, why not just kill all the people you don't agree with and that's that?

I want angry women, sad women, troubled women, supportive women, difficult women, but ultimately women that face down a system and destroy the motherfucker. Together.

What I don’t need is a reality check, thanks.

I don’t need to be reminded that bad people exist. There are PLENTY of those to choose from on THT. That is what my TV already does. Why can't we have one female character of privilege, one shitty woman who is a MAIN CHARACTER and thus able to be given the screen time, one awful woman go through change for the better?

"That's not real!"

Fuck "real". I'm not saying she has to become a hero. I'm not saying she should ride off into the sunset absolved of all her guilt and crimes. I'm not even saying give her a full redemption arc. I'm not saying she shouldn't suffer intensely.

I'm saying we don't need another story about a rich white woman who is horrible and never fucking changes. In a story where the system itself (and the ideology behind it) is the true villain of the story, where you have a council of men in power keeping it going, what's the issue with using Serena to explore the women that both are victims of it and benefit from it? All that dissonance!!! All the psychological shit that they dipped their toes into before! That's some juicy shit right there. Mmmm. There are more than enough bad guys to choose from.

Right now that conversation has been effectively killed. There's no complexity, there's nothing important being said. It's a cookie-cutter evil lady vs good lady soap opera fairytale. Who the fuck wants that basic shit except children?!

Ugh.

I am just so sick of this show thinking it's so progressive when it just pulls out the same worn out tropes, and sexist ones at that, over and over.

Sorry, THT, you're not saying anything of relevance anymore. You can give June all the cussword-laden voiceovers with Moss' meme-level closeup Anger Face and fade into 80s pop music all you want, but you're not inspiring anyone by not writing actual hope for change into these stories. Because you're not addressing what casual viewers want to see in their fictional TV shows.

"Tee hee! All the stupid viewers thought Serena was actually changing?! WHAT DELUSIONAL LOSERS! Let's just rehash the same shock value tricks we keep doing every season! Yes, we are doing groundbreaking TV, lads!"

And please do not give me that "but in reality!" argument when June Osborne still exists.

Telling us, "Well, people suck. You'll never be able to be allies with other women in power, because nobody every fucking changes. Don't even bother cos look what happens." is not helpful.

Bish, please.

WHAT A FUCKING WASTE OF MY TIME THIS SHOW IS.

[chatoyantluster]

Skin Care Introduction

What am I preparing for? The 12 Step Korean Skin Care Routine.

Introduction;

The ever so famous skin care routine of Korea’s beautiful glass skin! Most women go as low as three steps, and others, as high as twenty! I am definitely reaching into the higher end of the spectrum.

After many years of taking an interest to Korean skin care, I decided to give it a go, now that I have more funds. I have only purchased some products and will be introducing them one at a time, in order to test for skin allergy reaction. I will also be posting progress pictures and reviews of such said products in the future.

Basic Stats;

Sex: Female.

Birth: 1983

Ethnicity: Filipino-American-Chinese.

The skin break down; Dry, sensitive, rosacea, hyper-pigmentation, acne scarring, mature (the beginning of wrinkles, crows feet), dark eye circles, acne (minor, such as occasional white and black heads), large pores.

History;

As a child, I suffered from severe oily skin, severe acne, from cystic, to white heads, black heads, and large pores.I was bullied severely for this, among other things. I went to dozens of dermatologists in different countries - military family so lots of moving - and most were quite worthless. I mean, seriously, one guy just went into his cabinet and pulled out a couple alcohol swabs, told me to use it for a couple weeks and come back. Every time I came back to people like this, they would repeat the process, which made me realize they just wanted money for the office visits and didn’t care at all about my needs. 

Fast forward to a young adult, I tried many forms of birth control, and nothing worked. To my fellow women - NEVER do Depo-Provera shot. I have never been so messed up by a medication then I have on this.

I realized on my own that I had a milk allergy and by removing this from my diet, some of my acne subsided, but I still had major issues. Other things also improved like my flatulence (lol) and horrible stomach pains. This led into me realizing I had Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and I had to make a lot of diet changes. It is amazing how allergies and diet can have affect on the skin, as well as drinking a lot of water to help flush out the system!

Fast forward a bit, I went to some Dermatologists from free clinics, who were interns, later the same type on Medicaid - and lemme tell you - horrible mistake. Free VS Medicaid VS good insurance, lets you know who has the power over your well being. I was pretty much a test dummy, and they honestly did not care for my input nor what was best for me. I was placed on different type of creams like Retin-A... btw.... they never told me to wear sunscreen! Even after six months of my cystic acne basically becoming 10000x worse, they said it was just a phase and would go away in a few more years. I mean... years? After six more months, I was a mountain of rock tomatoes. After discontinuing all the various products they had me switching all over the place to over the years, I cleared back to my basic acne. I was left with horrible scarring and pits all over my face. Thanks health system!

Fast forward to 2018. I finally met a decent Dermatologist who placed me on Spironolactone and she couldn’t believe what I had been through - she said most of my issue was just hormonal and I was creating too much testosterone in my system. Six months later all my cystic acne had vanished! A year later, I was cystic acne free. Most of my break outs had also diminished and I was just left with the occasional minor break outs of white and black heads - but no more cystic! And that to me, was the most important part. As cystic acne was always so painful, left bad scarring/pigmentation, and lasted for months, before it went away. But the dreadful being of its present was forever etched into my skin.

2019. I have been at my new job long enough to be placed on their health benefits - Aetna. All my previous jobs were horrid and also did not offer and kind of benefits. This would be the first time I ever had real insurance in my adult life. Kinda sad, considering my age. The US is just not friendly in regards for health towards their citizens. Though pricey, I was finally getting decent care. I transferred all my medical to a good hospital with a new Dermatologist. They prescribed me azelaic acid, called Finacea. They stated I had rosacea.. I always had a feeling I did, but no one ever mentioned this till now.

I am now on the road, to hopefully, clearing out any remaining stubborn acne, repairing damage, and overall improving my skin. Though it seems right now I am going through a purging stage around my nose and chin, my major problem areas, so I hope that means it is just a purge and not a break out. I am sure with any new product I introduce, that has ingredients with a high cell turn over rate, will occur. In due time, I will have a set routine, and should have no more purges.

Goals;

Implementing the Korean Skin Care routine, I hope to achieve the glass skin that everyone raves about. I know most of it is due to Asian genes - my great Grandfather was Chinese - though probably not enough to be blessed, but I hope I can come close to it. In my youth, I did have oily skin, that contributed to my youthful complexion, but I have switched to dry. Makes me quite sad, as I rather trade these dry flakes sloughing off my skin, for oils that were easier to manage. I also have hyper-pigmentation and pits from old cystic acne, mostly from not wearing sunscreen and negative treatments from past Dermatologists.  I am now implementing sunscreen, I guess better late then never. I don’t have horrible acne as I use too, but I do have some black heads, occasional white heads and large pores. 

Surgeries;

I do know that most of my skin can be corrected surgically, and not all the creams in the world can correct the deep rooted issues. But who has the money for that? Derma-needling and laser treatments I have researched and taken an interest too. Maybe some day, when I win the lottery. One can dream.

I also suffer from “jowls.” Sagging of the cheeks. This causes me to have an older, sad, and puffy face. I assume from continually pulling my face down due to western forms of rubbing the skin for products, stress and jaw issues. The main reason I got health insurance is because I need a major surgery called, “Total temporomandibular joint (TMJ) replacement.” I am hoping after this surgery, that I can see a plastic surgeon to correct my jowls, and have it approved by my insurance, due to the TMJ surgery. My insurance has certain regulations and I may skate by if my surgeon words it correctly. Again, one can dream!

[captainmazzic]

So every now and again I get a message in my inbox asking about what I thought about such-and-such a thing in new canon, or if I’m intending on writing any meta or analysis on a particular subject in Star Wars. And sometimes I keep those messages sitting in my inbox for months (one has been sitting there for a little over a year), because I think, maybe I will feel comfortable doing in-depth meta again and I’ll wish I’d remembered what this message had asked. But as time goes by I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Okay. Real talk for a minute here. Bear with me as I’m long-winded and I don’t really have a concise way of communicating this. Potential political views and personal opinions on certain points in cinematic history below.

Short backstory first. I’m an older Star Wars fan. I was a tiny child when the last of the original trilogy came out, and both my parents are sci-fi nerds so I was practically raised on Star Wars. They are also tabletop RPG nerds so I was also raised on D&D and the like. So naturally when Star Wars tabletop RPGs were floating around I snapped them up and consumed them like candy. The novels were a natural extension of the RPGs, and I consumed those just as enthusiastically. The Expanded Universe was my bread and butter, and to this day I’m very nostalgic and fond of it even if most of it is quite laughably terrible.

Where am I going with this? Everything is a product of their time. The original trilogy was created when George Lucas was a young liberal-minded fresh-faced director looking to change the world and make his mark. This was the 70s, war was awful, the government was evil, hippies and protests were everywhere, and the only thing that seemed to have any hope of changing the world were small bands of spunky misfits with a mission and a message. And that mentality is one that shows, in the original Star Wars films. Lucas designed the Empire as a representation of the United States circa the Vietnam War, just dressed up in the fashion and ceremony of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (Sources: Chris Taylor, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, Pp. 87-88; Michael Ondaatje, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, p.70) The message of the original trilogy boiled down to “the ability of a small group of people to defeat a gigantic power simply by the force of their convictions… no matter how small you are, you can defeat the overwhelmingly big power.” (quote: Walter Murch). He really struggled to get Star Wars onto the big screen, with a lot of setbacks and rejections, and many times when he thought it would never happen. But it did, and it was wildly successful. And I think in part it was because that message really spoke to people, and it didn’t hurt that it was wrapped up in a package with cool laser swords and explosions and space battles.

But then the 80s happened. And the 90s happened. And through that, what happened to Lucas is what happens to many people as they gain success, wealth, and fame as they grow older. The system started to work for him instead of against him. Suddenly the Powers That Be weren’t trying to suppress his ideas from getting to an audience; suddenly all those organizations that seemed so hell-bent on keeping him out were now enabling him to get and stay in, to conserve and gain influence; suddenly his opinion counted for so much it almost seemed god-like, especially in this galaxy far, far away that was unflowering under his direction and all-seeing eye. I guess the system isn’t so bad after all, eh?

And thus we have the Prequels. They can be a rollicking good time, but their message is muddled. Before them the books and the RPGs seemed to try as best they could to hold on to that earlier message of underdog vs. the powers-that-be (with the RPGs succeeding more often, imho), but they couldn’t continue in the face of their Ultimate Creator coming back in to make more SW movies. With the Prequels, suddenly the Old Republic is portrayed as noble and struggling instead of corrupt and dying, with a lot of hand-waving and “something something well actually” in regards to the role of the Jedi, the nature of the Senate, etc. There’s mixed messages where sometimes we get the old Star Wars back, with energetic groups of activists and freedom fighters trying to bring down the oppressors, but there’s also a lot of storytelling awkwardness where the audience is implored to trust the authorities and rely on the judgment of those with power over you within the same breath. This trend continues throughout the Clone Wars animation, and it is there that it becomes often so cognitively dissonant one wonders how you don’t get whiplash trying to follow whatever garbled message they think they’re communicating. And I think that’s where the Star Wars franchise really began to become a monster in its own right. Big businesses are hulking entities unto themselves, functioning like capitalist plutocracies within their host nations, and the Star Wars franchise is no exception. Whatever garbled message Lucas tried to send out with the Prequels grew amplified and even more confused with the Clone Wars, spread into the video games and the books, and continued to infect Star Wars as the franchise was turned over to the quintessential mega-plutocratic-empire, The Walt Disney Company.

And here we have the Sequel movies, the New Canon, and all of the disasters that come with them.

Disney walks a fine line between well-meaning family-friendly sugar and spice, and ruthless all-consuming hypercontroller of everything from arts and entertainment to food and clothes and government lobbying. Their bottom line is the dollar and the influence on – and power over – people’s lives that the dollar brings with it. Handing them a story whose original message was about people resisting the very kind of mammoth force that Disney embodies, and hoping that they will try to stay true to said original message, is hopeless and foolish at best and utterly disastrous at worst.

With the Sequels and subsequent movies, Disney pays good overt lip service to the original trilogy with things like Rogue One and the Rebels animation, which on the surface certainly do look like the same sort of message as the original trilogy. But scratch just below that surface and Disney is all about communicating that submitting to the authority of, say, higher Rebel command and following their orders even when it goes against your gut feeling (ex. Ezra Bridger in the Rebels animation), or that rebelling against an unjust government is only valid if it is done according to a strict but nebulous set of arbitrary rules and only if it is done in the service of a different unjust government that just happens to be slightly less evil than the one you’re trying to overthrow (ex. any iteration of the Old Republic ever, but I’m especially and particularly looking at you, Sequel-era Republic/Resistance and SWTOR Jedi/Republic).

And here is where I balk about ever doing meta on Star Wars again. I hate that this is the direction Star Wars is taking. I hate that New Canon feels like propaganda to me. I hate that I can’t enjoy any of this stuff if I take it for what it presents itself to be. I hate that the only way I truly can enjoy Star Wars now is by cherry-picking all of the tiny bits of window dressing that was pretty enough or interesting enough for me to want to look at it again, and very deliberately and consciously throwing out all the rest.

The experience of Star Wars that I create for myself is escapist and isolating, because it is so very tailor-made to what I can enjoy out of it now. When I go see a new Star Wars film or play a Star Wars game, I don’t actually see whatever story the franchise is trying to actually tell. I see bits and pieces that I can put together into something I can cope with better, something I can actually enjoy.

Examples include:

In Rebels, when the official franchise’s story killed off Maul. I cannot and will not acknowledge that, or function as though it happened. And I can’t really give my opinion on how not having Maul around will affect the future story, because I very literally do not care at all about any Star Wars where he is not in it.

In The Clone Wars, there are so many instances of Anakin Skywalker having agency and making decisions independent of the Jedi Council or without having their insipid code squarely in mind, where if he had made those decisions in a more realistic setting they would have turned out quite well, but what we get on screen is ominous background music and FoReShAdOwInG.

In The Last Jedi, I cannot fathom any reason why Yoda would be given the role that he was given, and find it a complete affront to Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, who had every motivation, every reason, every right to have that role instead. So I can’t see that scene without him in it. I just… I don’t see it. It didn’t happen that way, and I find I cannot discuss it as it’s presented on-screen. I have nothing to say.

In the Sequel media, both books and movies, Supreme Leader Snoke is portrayed as a one-dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villain whose intended role in the story is blurred as the story progresses, and his death is completely nonsensical in regards to the buildup of information that we as an audience have gleaned about him. We see pieces of evidence that he could have actually cared about Kylo Ren that go nowhere in the actual story, and he ends up just being a scapegoat that gets thrown away halfway through the second sequel movie. I choose to see more in his character than what we were given in Actual Canon™, and thus see him very differently than what common discourse would allow. Because of this, if I discuss Snoke in mixed company I know that I will be called out as someone who advocates for only the limited cardboard-character that is portrayed on screen, instead of for the internalized view that I have personally built for him.

I know everyone’s personal view of a character or characters is different, because we all have different points of view. But there is often some sort of vague common ground in their portrayal that the author or storyteller was originally going for, that most people usually pick up on and base their opinions around. But what if some of the key characteristics that make up a character are just… things you choose not to see or are incapable of seeing, and your own personal view of that character becomes almost entirely different from the “original”? Probably the most benign example I can think of is Hera Syndulla. If I take what I see of her in canon, she infuriates me with how she treats her crew. But if I just decide that such-and-such a conversation never happened, or her decisions on such-and-such a mission were different than the on-screen one, she essentially becomes an alternate-universe version of herself. Only that this version is one that I can tolerate, and it is the only version I see anymore.

How does one communicate that my entire experience of Star Wars is as an AU?

And on and on it goes. Discussing meta and Actual Canon Events™ as portrayed on screen and on printed page has become nothing but a migraine headache to me. I cannot engage in discourse, because I am very much not seeing what everyone else is seeing and talking about, nor do I care to. I just… I can’t keep talking about the same stupid things over and over again. I can’t keep screaming into the void about the unsustainability of the Sith or the Jedi, about the complete inequality and corruption that would have to be absolutely omnipresent in the Republic for it to even be remotely realistic even by cartoon standards, about the inevitability of the Republic turning into an Empire, about the weird dissonance given to the concept of the Force that would end up making both the Jedi and the Sith’s case baseless and weak, etc. etc. ETC. It’s exhausting, it’s stressful, and for something that I’m here to try to enjoy, it’s not even remotely enjoyable.

The very core of the matter is that I love the Star Wars universe. I love the worlds, I love the aliens, I love the ships and the droids and the technology and the concept of the Force. I love the characters. I love all of these things, and sometimes I even love the plots and stories (thank you Chuck Wendig and Timothy Zahn). But I just can’t enjoy digging into the meta of it anymore.

So if you like what I post of my own personal Star Wars-brand AU, by all means dig right in. But I don’t think I can do anymore general meta or discourse. I’m sticking with fanart and fanfic.

[sebastianshaw]

Hey, I hope you're well. Could you please post some Shaw excerpts from the Legacy Quest books? I'm thinking of buying them and I want to remind myself why Shaw's so fabulously worth it.

Doing pretty okay today! =D Here’s my LEGACY QUEST TRILOGY TAG that has a lot of excerpts/quotes/summaries. Some personal favorites of mine include:Madyy/Shawhttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/157406735013/could-you-post-some-extracts-of-maddy-and-shaw-in STORM LIFTING SHAW TO SAFETY IN HER HEROIC ARMShttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/154911218938/omg-so-during-storm-and-shaws-dinner-in-book-twoShaw and Storm trapped under rubblehttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/156555072758/are-there-any-other-cute-moments-with-storm-andThis conversationhttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/154742743123/storm-you-have-never-appeared-short-of-companyShaw maybe actually having morals of some type?http://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/154707700328/it-would-have-been-so-easy-to-deceive-her-in-her

And doubting himself for just a secondhttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/154707178733/shaw-had-only-ever-loved-one-woman-and-she-had

Beast vs Shawhttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/152825163843/excerpt-from-the-legacy-quest-book-one-chapter

Key characterization, I thinkhttp://sebastianshaw.tumblr.com/post/138419288683/shell-betray-you-sebastian-shell-turn-on-you

Here’s some more I typed up at work today. BOOK 1Shaw: “Please, do not confuse me with the likes of Magneto and the so-called Brotherhood of Mutants. They believe they can take power by force, that they can make humanity accept them. But they’ll start a war that can only end when the last human being is dead. No, Doctor MagTaggert, we live in a capitalist world. The only way to achieve true power, to affect real change, is to work within that system. Through the Hellfire Club, I have helped mutants to climb to society’s highest echelons; to build economic and political influence.”Moira: “Fine words Shaw, but I know your methods. Your battle plan might be sneakier than Magneto’s, but you’re no less ready to sacrifice anyone and everyone for the sake of your own twisted goals.”***BOOK 2So, the X-Men and Shaw team up and go to a bad alternate future where Selene rules things. First thing Shaw does is hunt down Reeva Payge, who was one of Shinobi’s cohorts in his own Inner Circle, chokes her out, and demands to know where his son is. Then he forces Trevor Fitzroy to transport him there.Turns out, it’s a graveyard.“Sebastian Shaw was tired.[…]It took him a wearying hour to find the right grave. When he finally set eyes upon it, it was with a mixture of relief and a plunging sensation in his stomach. He let go of Fitzroy, who fell into a heap on the frost-hardened turf.There was no headstone, just a simple wooden marker. The grave’s occupant had been an exceedingly wealthy young man, but his friends had been forced to bury him in secret, in a hurry. Shaw’s legs felt weak as he forced them to approach the makeshift memorial. He resisted the urge to kneel, listening instead to his own breathing as he stood and looked at the carved names and dates until time no longer had any meaning to him. Then, at last, he spoke.“Hello, Shinobi,” he said in a husky voice. “Hello, son. It’s a been a long time.”Shaw later says he doesn’t know if he went there to mourn Shinobi or dance on his grave. Given their past and how horribly he treated Shin when he was alive, I think if Shaw were mourning anything, it’s what he sees as *his* loss in Shinobi’s lack of potential. But I tend to be pessimistic when it comes to Shaw’s capacity for anything resembling a heart. Nonetheless, he gets lost in thought and reflects on his own life, and for the first time asks himself if he took the right path.Pierce and Lady Deathstrike ambush him, aiming to kill him. Pierce says he can arrange a father-son reunion, Shaw asks if that was the most original threat that Pierce could come up with.Pierce: “You never thought much of me, did you Shaw? You never thought I was good enough for your old boys’ club. You left me to die!”Shaw: “I gave you a chance. You failed me. You weren’t good enough.”Pierce: “I proved myself a better man than you. What have you got now, Shaw? You’ve lost your precious Hellfire Club; you’ve lost everything!”Shaw: “Rather that, than play the role of lapdog to that treacherous witch.”Pierce: :”I am a Black Bishop, a member of the Inner Circle. We rule this city!”Shaw: “You’re a liability, Pierce. I realized that; Selene will too, in time.”Shaw bests them both, and and “across the dead silence of the cemetery, he heard the sound of a slow handclap.”It’s the White Knight, the masked leader of the resistance against Selene in this future. Except he’s unmasked now. And his face is “a face that he was more accustomed to seeing in mirrors.”Future Shaw says “Bravo! I wasn’t sure you could beat both Pierce and Deathstrike alone. Sometimes I forget how driven I once was.”He explains that “I came here too, when I was your age. I was hurt, and I allowed my emotions to rule me, to divert me from my path. I don’t know what I was thinking.”See, it turns out, Shaw wants to kill himself. Or rather, Future!Shaw wants to kill Past!Shaw, and thus stop his own existence from ever happening. His reason is that he’s become what Past!Shaw accused Pierce of being—the lapdog of Selene. See, he’s a double agent, leading the resistance against Selene while in reality working for her. Disgusted with himself, he’s decided suicide isn’t enough—he’s going to kill himself before he even gets here, so it never happened at all.But of course, our Shaw isn’t about to let ANYONE have his head, not even his future self, so he kills his would-be murderer and buries him a few feet above Shinobi. He wonders, as he does, if he didn’t give the man what he wanted after all in the end. And now he knows what he wants too.“It had been an arduous and gruesome task, but now Shaw had recovered his resolve. He had known what he had to do. He had sworn to himself that this future would never come to pass, that he would fight it until the last breath in his body. He would take on Fate itself, and he would win.”That’s our Shaw!I’ll try to find something good from Book 3 for you too, but I thought I’d get this up first since I’d made you wait long enough! :3

[xellychan040]

DBZ Fic Saiyan History: An Overview by Daokin, 3rd Class

Fandom: Dragon Ball (Z, GT, Super) Characters: Yamoshi (mentioned), The Vegeta Lineage (mentioned), Bardock (mentioned) Word Count: 5704 Warnings: Character death. Referenced violence and warfare, Massively AU, Canon vs Fanon, Akira Toriyama Has No Sense Of Scale (And I foolishly try to fix it)

Summary: May Rutaba and Yamoshi guide our race to glory among the stars.

Notes: I wrote this in around three days motivated solely by spite. Did you know Saiyans only ruled planet Vegeta for, like, half a decade? And the Vegeta line only stretches back TWO generations? I did. And now I'm filled with nerdish anger.

I always felt slighted that DBZ never really had a space traveling arc outside of the Frieza saga and maybe GT, and any time space was talked about in show the scale was ridiculous. You could reach the edge of the universe in a day, in one of the movies.

Anyway, this whole silly endeavor started because I wanted to write a Planet Vegeta never explodes/The Saiyans don't work for the PTO AU. And when I went to research the Tuffles and Yamoshi's legend I stumbled upon the official Daizenshuu timeline and had my very delicate suspension of disbelief shattered utterly. And thus...... This. It's all fanon and conjecture on my part, with a dash of abusing sub/dub inconsistencies (like yamoshi appearing either 1000yrs ago or 3000yrs ago), but for my purposes, it works. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Final note. I'm ignoring all the time patroller stuff for the most part. So Xenoverse and Heroes don't apply to this au. Read it here or on ao3 for better formatting

Salada Golden Period(circa. 3000 years ago)BCA 2240

Modern, pre-space faring period.

In terms of advancement, it’d probably be half a century or so more advanced than humanity’s current society on Seeded Planet 359, colloquially known as Earth. Incidentally, there are some similarities with Earth’s ancient pre-space faring cultures, namely Roman and Greek city-states in terms of infrastructure and politics.

At this point, there's no central government. Large clans absorb smaller clans in a complex fiefdom of constantly rearranging territories.

BCA 1840

Some 400 centuries after, Overlord Yasai conquered and unified most other clans and their territories after a prolonged period of infighting. It pacified the infighting for several decades, but Yasai’s brutal, totalitarian policies caused their own internal problems.

BCA 1790

An upstart Warlord named Rutaba challenged Yasai for change. It’s not clear if he won, but his actions contributed to a unified central government in which Saiyan citizens could participate.

Salada and Saiyans

Brief overview

Modern evolved Saiyans have been on Salada 400,000 years. Civilization, as it was known before their mass exodus of the planet, was around for an estimated 12,000 years.

Salada native, pre-Dark Age Saiyans had long life spans, with particularly powerful, healthy Saiyan’s living to at least 800. Loss of information and vital data archives makes it unknown if lifespan estimate can be lengthened.

It was during the last 3,000 years of Salada’s existence that many advancements and cultural shifts took place.

In the Saiyan home solar system, Salada was the perfect distance from its parent star to reflect a perfect amount of Blutz waves from the moon. Adding to the rarity of full moons, coming once or twice every century, Saiyans transformed into Great Apes retain all sense of self. Though naturally and culturally conditioned to seek improvement and challenge through battle, the balanced intake of Blutz waves made Salada Saiyans less aggressive overall than compared to their Planet Vegeta and post-Dark Age descendants.

Planet Salada itself was naturally abundant with resources and wildlife. Its large size supported a plethora of climates, regions, and a diverse terrain. Even during population and technology booms, along with massive Saiyan appetites, Salada remained able to support its occupants.

Birth of Yamoshi

BCA 1540

Not enough information remains in Data Archive to accurately confirm, but Yamoshi seems to have come from a distant branch of the Yasai Clan tree. Possibly related to Overlord Yasai.

A hypothesis from historians posits Yamoshi’s lineage also includes a link to the Rutaba Clan

Separating Fact from FictionAccounts of a Golden Warrior from the post-Golden AgeFrom the files of Daokin, 3rd Class Historian. Age 729

Little is known about Yamoshi, despite his long, varied life. In the chaos of Salada’s last few decades, not all historical accounts made it into the Saiyan Ark’s data bank. Time, distance, and outside influences have corrupted certain data files and entirely lost others.

What data has survived bolsters certain empirical evidence from witness accounts, though possibly somewhat embellished with folklore elements.

Considering his possible lineage, Yamoshi is hypothesized to be the son of lesser royalty. Though there are many accounts of his varied travels, it’s impossible to determine if he was an Ambassador of sorts or merely a renegade aristocrat looking for adventure.

What is known, however, is Yamoshi’s actions gained him five companions, each powerful Saiyans of note. Much of their backgrounds are lost to time, but what survives suggests they were all from varying clans and castes, but extremely respected in their endeavors.

There are many testaments to Yamoshi having an honorable disposition, yet a few accounts hint at a mischievous and determined personality.

During Salada’s most turbulent years, Yamoshi and the five other Saiyans are the ones responsible for managing to suppress the initial aggressive outbursts from Blutz wave infected Saiyans.

Space EraTechnological Boom (200 years later)BCA 1590

Evidence of an Advanced Race is found. Further investigation reveals Advanced Race as possible Seeders, releasing their DNA on viable worlds in hope distant descendants will evolve there.

Saiyan spacefaring begins to close-by neighboring planets in the solar system and star system. Scientists work to learn more about their Seeder Precursors.

Cosmic Disturbance Looms

Renewed civil unrest

BCA 1240

A neighboring sister sun in the closest solar system begins to give off an unprecedented amount of energy. Solar flares and emissions begin to have disastrous effects on Salada’s home solar system, shorting out technology and disturbing the delicate Blutz wave output.

Any plans to colonize planets in the current solar system and star cluster is put on hold.

The unpredictable surge of Blutz waves creates an uptick in aggressiveness. Pockets of infighting begin away from capitals. Fear for the future spreads.

A massive lash of solar energy during a rare lunar event sends the 1/4 of the population into a berserker state. Mass casualties. Panic and anger sew the seeds of a civil war.

Attempts to pacify populous is met with mixed results.

Exoplanet colonization plans are reopened when scientists discover a star map left behind by Advanced Seeder Race. Locations of viable, possibly genetically compatible, evolutionary similar life-supporting planets are found. As the civil unrest grows and star system situation worsens, a new plan for a large, race saving Ark is drawn up.

The scramble for resources to construct an unprecedentedly large starship capable of voyaging through unexplored dark space begins just as war breaks out.

Certain individuals of strength from various walks of life band together to stifle the fighting. As the Blutz wave influx gets stronger, their efforts become less effective.

The Saiyan Ark is finished just at the peak of fighting, which is beginning to have a disastrous impact on the planet. Scientists estimate the neighboring sun’s next massive energy outburst will have dire consequences for the entire cluster, Salada will not be spared, even if it survives the fighting.

The rush to fill the Ark with a varied populace begins. Resources and gear to survive the long voyage and subsequent landing on Seeded planets are loaded.

A direct Yasai clan successor is among those chosen to go into cryo.

Ascension in DeathYamoshi Becomes LegendBCA 1190

Yamoshi, leader of the pacifying group is nearly overtaken by Blutz wave affected Saiyans. To protect the Saiyan Ark while finishing preparations, he had led a full assault on the devolved, berserker state Saiyans infected by overexposure to Blutz waves. By now, most of the population not protected by Salada’s capital were afflicted by Blutz waves, the odds Yamoshi was up against were astronomical.

Many of Yamoshi’s pacifying group were killed in the conflict, but he and his five companions managed to lead their soldiers into pinning back the aggressive Saiyans far from the capital’s borders, holding the line far away from the Ark.

The standstill did not last long, a break is formed in the protective circle as several Saiyans reach an unnatural Great Ape transformation through the Blutz waves despite no full moon. With no other alternative, Yamoshi and his five companions return to the Ark and warn the remaining unaffected Saiyans to take off while they launch another assault with no hope for survival.

Determined and set on course for what is almost assuredly a suicide mission, Yamoshi and his companions band once more together to buy as much time as they are able.

Just before take off, Blutz wave infected berserker Saiyans nearly destroy all hope of take off for the Ark. It is saved only when Yamoshi unlocked an unprecedented level of power, ascending forms into a Golden Warrior that the Ark can safely leave Salada.

A 787 Year Long Voyage BeginsUncharted Dark Space, Salada Home System Destruction, and Near ExtinctionBCA 1180 - BCA 403

Though Saiyans had been beginning to explore their solar system and star system with a fair degree in success, they were nonetheless ill-prepared for a venture such as this. Even with revamped FTL engine designs based on Seeder Precursor technology found and the translated star maps, without any warp gates or reliable knowledge of what lied in wait in the darkness of the stars, there was slim hope they’d all survive the centuries-long drift.

Harsh galactic elements, dwindling resources, and other obstacles make space travel fraught with chances of utter failure. Even running on revolving skeleton crews while the rest of the population sleeps, there was little that could be done in the event of a disaster.

Even with lengthy lifespans and hearty physiologies, Saiyans skeleton crews were not mentally or emotionally equipped for prolonged, comparatively slow space travel. With much trepidation, they eventually set the Ark on autopilot, following the preprogrammed charted path towards the nearest seeded planet. The Ark’s population monitoring programs were also adjusted; in the event of critically low supplies, life support will cut off non-critical persons and redirect resources to both younger civilians and important crew.

This turned out to be a wise choice when several centuries in the Ark collided with space debris and lost valuable resources along with a batch of sleepers.

Anomalous Energy Detected Est. BCA 975

About 200 years into the voyage, the Ark’s sensors pick up a massive explosion of energy originating from Salada. The cause of the energy is unknown, but consensus says the unstable neighboring sun wasn't the culprit.

Point of No Return, Saiyan Home System is Destroyed Est. BCA 844

Unstable Sun gives off another dangerous flare, the energy readings far eclipsing previous outputs, triggering a chain reaction. Entire star system takes massive damage. In the unlikely event Salada managed to survive the infighting and previous energy emissions, there was little hope the planet would survive that final pulse.

Planet Fall on Planet Plant10 years after reaching Tuffle Home SystemBCA 393

Destination reached at last. The Saiyan Ark has finally made it to a Seeded world, there was hope for survival after centuries of strife.

However, the landing had its own complications. The Ark had sustained massive damage on it way into the system, losing several hundred sleeper pods, some housing leaders and Saiyans in positions of authority or holding critical knowledge. Though pre-take off designs had implemented each sleeper pod with its own nav system towards the Ark’s destination and its own limited resources, there was no guaranteed chance of survival. Of the pods lost, only 34% made it to Planet Plant intact. Of that number, only 28% of their passengers survived.

Upon atmospheric entry, the Saiyan Ark collided with the in-progress Tuffle orbiting Dyson band, inflicting damages and casualties to both races. The collision veered the Ark off course causing the massive starship to crashland in the arid red deserts of Plant, several Kilometers from a large Tuffle metropolis.

Saiyan Dark Age400 years of lost culture, costs of acclimatization.BCA 394 - BCA 3

The journey through Dark Space had taken its toll on the Saiyan Ark and its inhabitants.

Not only was a sizable percentage of the limited population lost, but electrical storms and the rough landing had damaged many of the starship’s computers, losing large chunks of valuable information. What resources were left that didn’t get used or lost en route was wouldn’t support the surviving population, even small as it now was.

Another unforeseen, problem was the effects of the latent Blutz wave overexposure. Combined with the prolonged cryo sleep and depleted nutrients meant generations of unprecedented Saiyan health problems that would linger at a genetic level.

Increased aggression, mental and hormonal imbalances, drastically shortened lifespans, and reduced fertility were among the most prevalent ramifications.

From a cultural perspective, many things were lost as well. A majority of lives lost en route to Plant had been older Saiyans through a combination of resource rerouting and other factors. 67% of the sleepers that awoke on Planet Plant were Saiyans in their early adolescence to early adulthood.

On top of the changes brought on by unbalanced hormones on a new planet, young Saiyans were left without enough elders in authority who could offer guidance through this turbulent period of settlement.  Few of the survivors were mature enough to help the younger or new generations cope with natural biological and emotional changes, let alone the unnatural changes brought on Blutz wave overexposure and prolonged cryo sleep.

An even greater detriment would be insufficient technically skilled Saiyans. While on Salada, many Saiyan’s had lived partly on the fat of the land, yet modern, technological convenience still played a major part in even the most simple aspects of society. The rough reentry had damaged part of the Ark hull where Saiyan’s most suited to help the population settle had been sleeping.

Though they had brought along DNA banks of viable food sources like livestock and produce, they had little means to produce them, even if they had landed in a more fertile area

While the surviving Ark crew attempted to salvage what they could, there was little to do for the star ship’s damaged computers and archive banks. Art, sciences, family trees and bloodlines, key documents, and various more would be lost for years to come.

Stripped of the advantage of several millennia's worths of knowledge, the Saiyan survivors would have to make do with word of mouth instruction, hard work, instinct, and the goodwill of their new world-mates.

Settling In and Continued Losses

Planet Plant was not kind to its new residents. For the Saiyans of Salada, who were used to an abundance of natural resources brought by plentiful jungles, the harsh, barren deserts of Plant could provide little.

Already weakened from the prolonged sleep, it didn’t take long for several Saiyans to go into critical condition due to starvation and malnutrition.

And still, others had begun having unexplained, violent outbursts. It was quickly discovered those with more moderate to severe cases of latent Blutz wave overexposure were susceptible to heightened ambient Blutz waves generated by Plant’s twin suns. Already pumping out an imbalance of aggressive hormones from the increased exposure back home, the surviving Saiyan’s biology had no time to slowly acclimatize to Plant’s sudden assault on their endocrine system. Over time, the increased Blutz waves would affect every Saiyan on Plant, continuing on to affect subsequent generations as well. It was an unideal outcome, but one they could do little about.

From insufficient food, shelter, and medical care, Saiyan numbers began to falter. Lifespan estimates soon followed.

However, Saiyans are resilient. They pushed on through by whatever means necessary, yet it would be generations before they could truly make Planet Plant a hospitable home.

First ContactForging RelationsBCA 394 - BCA 3

Tuffles were not unmoved by the plight of their new neighbors, yet they were still cautious. The average Saiyan stood a full head and shoulders above most Tuffles, possessed large predatory fangs, and were several times stronger, even weakened. Still, the Tuffles sent out aid in the form of food, water, and supplies.

Eventually, due to the Saiyan’s current inability to repair their Ark, the Tuffles negotiated a trade: Ark components in exchange for Tuffle technology (namely food processors, agriculture and livestock based genetic modification, and small-scale terraforming tech).

While the Tuffles had already mastered limited space flight, they’d yet to perfect FTL engines. The Ark along with recovered Seeder Precursor data would launch their technology decades ahead. So much so, that their ambitious Dyson band was completed in half the time of their previous best estimate. Within this time period, Tuffles would advance even beyond their own expectations, converting the singular energy harnessing Dyson band into two gigantic scale orbiting stations. If Planet Plant was viewed from their moon, it would appear to have two planetary rings.

In a show of good will, the Tuffles had used a combination of replication and cloning technology to salvage, and in some cases cross breed DNA of Salada life forms, slowly introducing it to Plant’s ecosystems. Several species of Salada livestock and plant life were once again made available to Saiyans, genetically improved to support Saiyan metabolism even while on emergency rationing. The Saiyan starvation epidemic was drawn to a slow halt now that they had a limited, but nutrition and calorie-packed food source.

It not only gave Saiyans a chance to be self-sufficient, but it allowed the two races to maintain a respectable distance from each other. There was much to do before either side would regain some semblance of normal.

Tuffle ExpansionReaching the StarsAge 217

While combing through the Ark’s recovered databanks, Tuffle scientists restored as information as they could. By orders of their King, they were to especially be on the lookout for references to The Seeder Precursors, seeing as they were possibly the Tuffles’ ancestors as well as the Saiyans’.

Seeing as their Technology Age was already far eclipsed many other sapient species around their current age, the Tuffles decided to combine the wealth of information they received with their advanced capabilities and literally reach for the stars. While certain aspects of the Saiyan technology were less advanced, the fact that only several generations ago Saiyans were once seasoned star voyagers and colonizers put the Tuffles behind several centuries.

It was a gap they were most eager to close, for various reasons.

With the completion of their two orbiting stations and the harnessing of near limitless renewable, clean energy, the Tuffles set their sights high. Close by, just beyond the solar system they had surveyed and marked several exoplanets with habitable atmospheres; each an excellent opportunity to expand.

Starships when under construction, routes were charted and teams underwent exceedingly difficult training all in preparation for the upcoming journey. It wasn’t long until the first fleets and Exploration teams left the safety of Plant in search of an expanded frontier. Every Tuffle left on Planet waited with bated breath as the Exploration team sent back data compiled from the journey as well as each individual landing.

While given longer to prepare under favorable circumstances, along with a much smaller distance between destinations, the Tuffles found colonizing new planets to be more of a challenge than previously expected.

Some planets had climates and terrains that, while technically livable, would be difficult to settle. When scientists back home got word of the slow progress settling, they got together with politicians, financial backers, and the Exploration teams to come up with a plan of action to speed things up.

The answer came in the form of the Saiyans.

Upliftment or ServitudeAge 224

Despite the unbelievable strife the Saiyans had gone through, they showed marked improvement. With Plant as their new home, both pre and post-Salada born Saiyans would never quite be the same as their ancestors, yet their eventual adaptation to their surroundings was nothing short of phenomenal. Due to the extreme climates of Plant’s vast desert areas and dangers associated, Tuffles never bothered to settle far beyond the natural borders of their plentiful oases, and yet Saiyans, once the starvation crisis was addressed, had managed to nearly adapt overnight. Blutz wave overexposure or no, all Saiyans were sturdy and survivalist, taming the harsh lands and building small if low-tech, villages that were meant to last.

That adaptability, along with their immense strength gave one Tuffle scientist an idea.

After the initial first contact and aid given in return for valuable data, Tuffles and Saiyans seemed to have come to a mutual, somewhat unspoken agreement of indifference towards one another. It was somewhat exacerbated by the races’ first shared full moon, many Tuffles made wary by the Saiyan’s large, imposing transformations. But it seemed it was time to once again open up methods of communication. Another deal was struck, the rerelease of reconstructed Archive Data from the Saiyan Ark in return for help on the expansion of the Tuffle Frontier.

With their powerful bodies and quick ability to adapt to various environments, the Saiyans would act as the heavy movers and shakers in paving the way to settle more unruly landscapes. As if controlled by muscle memory from another time, Saiyans seemed to slide right back into the motions of space travel and territory expansion despite most Saiyans having never even set foot on a starship before.

It was an exciting time for all parties involved. Once again, progress marched forward at a speed Tuffle scientists never dared dream of. As for the Saiyans, the chance to test themselves against new challenges and return to their place beyond the stars beckoned them forward with little hesitation.

Things were moving for the Saiyans who stayed in the desert as well. Even with the Saiyan Dark Age officially ending just over 200 years ago, the release of data files was the most effective balm on Saiyan culture. From technical blueprints and scientific dissertations to a surprising amount of literature and history texts, the Saiyans were awash with the rediscovery of their culture. In fact, the emergence of the Cultivar Historia— a data drive containing notable lineages and bloodlines or cultivars — would soon play a major role in the future of Planet Plant.

And yet, what goes up must come back down. Back on the expanding frontiers, the Tuffle exploration teams were being urged to speed up their already incredible progress. Much of their speed in settling frontier worlds depended on the skill and effort of their Saiyan counterparts once Tuffle teams finished time extensive terrain scanning to ensure the safest route of action. But at the behest of their superiors, the exploration team slowly began to lessen the amount of preliminary scanning on new worlds, sending out Saiyan teams without extensive knowledge of potential dangers or obstacles. In the end, Tuffle superiors got the numbers they wished for, exoplanets settled and viable at an exponential rate, but at the cost of dozens of Saiyan teams.

While Planet Plant, and in particular Tuffle cities, were being flooded with resources and myriad of cosmic treasures, the Saiyan death toll began to quietly rise.

A New LineageThe Rise of the First VegetaAge 276

Since their landing on Plant, Saiyans had adopted a more tribalistic way of life, with descending from a combination of modified military ranks and individual skill level. The higher in rank you were on the Saiyan Ark, the more likely you were to assume a leadership position after landing, with a similar outcome if you were equipped with skills that would help the population survive various obstacles during difficult periods. It was a lifestyle that more or less remained unchanged as the centuries rolled by on Plant, however, the appearance of the Cultivar Historia brought another, more obscure facet to leadership:

Bloodlines.

It was revealed that, barring a few cases, most of the Saiyans currently holding positions of authority were able to trace their family history to cultivars listed in the Historia. However, none would hold so impressive an ancestor to their name other than Vegeta the First, an off-world team leader on a particularly treacherous exoplanet. An exoplanet that had claimed the lives of at least half a dozen Saiyan teams in the process of settling it. When Vegeta returned home to Plant bearing the news of more losses, he was informed of his connection to Salada Royalty. Fitting, as his name was a modern translation of Overlord Yasai’s.

Burdened by the loss of many strong Saiyan lives and now in possession of this new information, Vegeta would formulate a plan for the future of his race.

Not even half a year later would Vegeta set his plan into motion, rallying both on-world and off-world Saiyans together under one goal: Saiyan Dominance.

Saiyan RevoltClaiming the PlanetAge 277 - Age 287

When news of a Saiyan in the frontier had been killed by a Tuffle after an unexpected complication during a routine mineral site survey, Vegeta used the resulting outrage to spark a mass protest against the Tuffles’ continued disregard for the Saiyans.

Leaving the deserts to march into the Tuffle metropolis where the Royal Tuffle family ruled, Vegeta, backed by the flames of Saiyan discontent from his large group, challenged the king to a formal audience to listen to their grievances. However, the Tuffles took this as an act of aggression and stopped their advancement with a large cadre of guards. Vegeta, out of patience and taking this as a refusal to hear his people out, decided there was no possible avenue for diplomacy and signaled his group for a preemptive strike.

That was the start of a war that would last ten years. Both sides would take heavy casualties, however, Tuffle cities and civilians would take the brunt of the carnage as the entire planet became a battleground. While the Saiyans had sheer power and increased durability to their advantage, the Tuffles compensated with their far greater numbers and technology.

Particularly detrimental to Saiyans were the Scouters, which the Tuffles used to avoid and prepare for sneak attacks or ambushes. Another crucial tool on the battle feild was Energy Siphons, technology that absorbed Saiyan battle energy in a limited radius and converted it to power barriers and heavy artillery.

Saiyans fought back with scorched earth tactics, targeting manufacturing facilities that weren't yet protected by the Tuffle military, either ceasing or slowing down production of arms and materials. They also employed pack hunting strategies to corral and guide Tuffle squads into pinned positions, after which they placed the Tuffles under continued fire, systematically destroying their Energy Siphons until they were stripped of all protection.

When word reached those who were stationed off-world of what was happening on Plant, there was an immediate divide between Saiyan teams and Tuffle Explorers, smaller scale battles ensued over the control of the outposts. There was a mixed bag of wins and losses on both sides, with the resulting winners taking command of the starships stationed on the exoplanets, loading it with resources and materials, before returning to Plant to aid their people.

The war waged on, both sides in a deadlock with contested territory constantly falling in and out of hands.

However, the stalemate wasn't long to last. Nearly 8 years into the conflict a major tide would turn as the moon reached its zenith, rising full in the sky and unleashing its full force of magnified Blutz waves, triggering transformations for Saiyans everywhere on the field. In a strange echo, Vegeta was once again en route to the Tuffle King’s encampment when the moon broke cloud cover. Breaking through the King’s protections, Vegeta slaughtered the guard station there, eradicated the royal line and took the crown. A decisive victory for the Saiyans and a death knell for the Tuffles.

Tuffle resistance became scattered and thinned out. With their king dead and a majority of their cities devastated, the Tuffle army began to lose all sense of cohesion as they were picked off. Finally, in another ironic echo, having lost all ground, the Tuffles scraped together as many survivors as they were able and made their escape off the planet in a fleet of starships. They ran to the far edge of the star cluster, to a small planet they had surveyed with long distance scan but were years away from any settlement plans.

Planet Plant now belonged to the Saiyans. Vegeta was hailed as the new King for his strength and roll in their victory and Plant was renamed in his honor.

It was now time to rebuild.

Neo Saiyan RenesainceA new culture is born from the ashesAge 337

From the day of the Saiyans’ victory, there came a 50-year long renesaince. As they rebuilt the planet and moved into abandoned Tuffle metropolises, the Saiyans also worked to blend rediscovered culture with their current culture.

First order was establishing the royal court with the newly crowned King Vegeta at its head. Those that proved themselves in battle were made generals and commanders of the newly made official Saiyan Army. Those with impressive Cultivars were also given impressive titles, such as advisors or councilors with wide jurisdiction. Still, more Saiyan individuals would make names for themselves as they repurposed Tuffle technology or updated designs on Salada blueprints.

Outside of the court, many common Saiyans began to explore a wealth of new opportunities.

Even with the long war, the material and resource surplus from off-world remained in decent condition, and Saiyans from all walks of life took advantage. The newly named Planet Vegeta was once again flooded with unceasing progress.

As the skylines rose higher, quality of life became comparable to Salada during its Space Age. Birthrates and life expectancies were also on the rise. It wasn't long into his rule that the next Vegeta was born, thus setting the stage for the new Saiyan royal line.

War on the Frontier The Start of 200 Years of Conflict Age 339

Of course, the animosity between the Saiyans and the Tuffles would not be so easily forgotten. Far off in the edges of the star cluster where the Tuffles had been forced to run, they came into contact with roving bands of unaffiliated space mercenaries. Trading what they could spare for new technology and expendable men, the Tuffles began a slow campaign to reclaim their lost exoplanets and the resources there. The aim was to build a stockpile of material in hopes of sieging Planet Vegeta to reclaim it in the future.

During the time spent rebuilding on Planet Vegeta, the Saiyans hadn’t paid much attention to their claimed exoplanets, only sparing a handful of soldiers to be stationed on each outpost to continue mining for resources. But as the Tuffles began to make their way back to their home system, the lightly guarded outpost turned out to be excellent listening posts. The stationed Saiyans sent back word of incoming hostiles, after which generals sent back reinforcement towards the various outposts.

This would be one of the first opening volleys of a series of prolonged skirmishes. The Tuffles and their occasional mercenary allies would keep the Saiyans on high guard but would fail to make any decisive wins against them. Any and all plans to launch an orbital bombardment, while occasionally working on an outpost, failed when it came to Planet Vegeta. Vegeta the Second, now a decorated general himself, had commissioned the retrofitting of the Tuffle Dyson Band into serving as the Saiyan Space Fleet’s barracks and deploy station, but also an anti-orbital defense turret.

Once again, Saiyans and Tuffles came to a deadlock in the form of a series of back and forth ground wars on various exoplanets. The Saiyans growing stronger with each battle as the Tuffles raced to make their technology more devastating, building prefab military bases with ginormous Energy Siphons that stifled battle power in large, kilometer-wide radiuses.

Though the less bloody than the first Saiyan-Tuffle war, it was no doubt costly.

ArmisticeBrokered PeaceAge 709

During the birth of Vegeta the Fifth, the intergalactic community could no longer allow things to continue as they were. Merchant and civilian class starships were being caught in the crossfire, dealing millions of credits in damages and loss of uninvolved lives. The fighting was beginning to seep outside of the star cluster, causing major disturbances in the progress in construction of a warp gate.

After an unfortunate incident in which a cruiser class starship carrying an important figure was blasted over the atmosphere of a Tuffle controlled exoplanet, the Galactic Patrol was called in to negotiate a ceasefire.

Though several generals and advisors called to show the full force of Saiyan might against the Galactic community at large, the King and his moderate members of court worried over an extented war theater while they were already locked into a   conflict. Finally, after months of tense negotiation, an Armistice was declared.

At least in an official capacity. Unofficially, the Tuffles and Saiyans still fought small, undeclared skirmishes, but only on exoplanets not belonging to either side or isolated dogfights between starships.

Current Era

Age 710 - ongoing

On Planet Vegeta, progress still marches forward but at a much slower, organic rate. School and military training are heavily linked, with young Saiyans receiving a general education until their 12th year, after which from the onset of puberty onwards far into adulthood, most continue on into the military.

Birth castes factor into a Saiyan’s individual projected career path within the military, with 3rd classes typically filling in as infantry or leading small infiltration squads. 2nd class Saiyans are usually promoted to officer rank fairly soon, with the 1st class and Elite typically groomed and trained to become generals and councilmen from birth.

Should a Saiyan decide not to follow a military career, there’s some light stigma against the individual not being “Saiyan enough”, but as time lowers the genetic aggression brought on by Blutz wave overexposure, the stigma has lessened into generally light-hearted teasing. There’s also a practical reasoning in that a society would function very long with no other infrastructure beyond a military arm. And thus various other careers and academic ventures are offered elsewhere.

As our Saiyan society stands now, we are at a precipice of joining the galactic community at large. Though some argue for continued isolation from the Intergalactic Government, other say it’s only a matter of time.

Author Notes and Dedications

Daokin, 3rd Class Historian. Age 716

Well, this textbook has been a long time in the making. Since before the birth of my son Bardock, even. He’s five now, and a handful, just as brutal as his mother ( haha ). Not a day goes by that I don’t need my mate to rescue me from his roughhousing.

Speaking of my mate, thank you Commander Parsni for putting up with me as I whined more than our toddler when my deadlines loomed. I know more than once you were tempted to ( and nearly did ) frag me out my misery. Yes, but even this un-Saiyan recluse has something to live for, and my passion has always been our lost history. I hope it serves our next generations well.

May Rutaba and Yamoshi guide our race to glory among the stars.

Resources

The Salada Canticles, Vol. 3

Conflict Chronicles: An overview of notable wars in the cosmos, Argus Nox

Tracking the Past: Ancient Civilizations, Dar Ech

Cultivar Historia, Potaro, 2nd Class

Beyond Our Reach, Straba, Tuffle Scientist

[igotapps]

Is Technology a Bringer of Great Promise or Great Peril?

The pace of change continuously astounds and bewilders me. I just about remember horses pulling coal carts as a kid and now we’re developing driverless cars. The Internet of Things will be part of our daily life soon and humankind seems to be losing the ability to stand up straight already. How long will it be before we start resembling bananas more than apes with a pronounced curve of the spine and neck from staring down at mobiles?

Mobile Phone Addiction

We’re in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

According to the World Economic Forum, we’re now in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We’ve already lived through an immense amount of change and who knows what is round the corner. The ever rising march of Artificial Intelligence (AI) shows great promise in many fields for the future but it is also highly controversial and multi-faceted.

Even Elon Musk, the ‘Thomas Edison of the 21st century’ has serious doubts about what we are creating for ourselves. The serial entrepreneur who has had a hand in all types of technology from electric cars, rockets, Paypal, Hyperloop, solar power systems, electric jets to digital technology. The man who is famous for his plans to colonise Mars, further DNA sequencing to identify cures for diseases and viable fusion to create energy for us all for ever.

Mars colonisation

A man who is a bringer of great promise. However Musk also predicts that ‘robots will be able to do everything better than us’ and they will ‘take your jobs, and government will have to pay your wage’. He also believes that we should be very concerned and proactively regulate Artificial Intelligence as it is a ‘risk to the existence of human civilization’ in a way that risks we commonly deal with now are only harmful to a set of individuals in society.

In contrast Mark Zuckerberg, the equally famous entrepreneur of Facebook is more optimistic saying that artificial intelligence will improve life in the future and that naysayers are irresponsible.

Is technology the bringer of great promise?

The positives of AI are certainly immense

“For people with a disability, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will give us super powers”

Birgit Skarstein, Double paralympic athlete and World Rowing Champion, Norway

“Imagine a robot capable of treating Ebola patients or cleaning up nuclear waste.”

Dileep George, artificial intelligence and neuroscience researcher

“Any skilled engineer can take control remotely of any connected ‘thing’. Society has not yet realized the incredible scenarios this capability creates.”

André Kudelski, Chairman and CEO of Kudelski Group

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already playing a massive role in health care and some believe that there is an AI Healthcare ‘tsunami coming’ that will benefit all. Data currently has the biggest part to play in healthcare providing the chance to revolutionise current healthcare systems.

AI Nurse

Google’s Deepmind Health project mines medical records to provide faster and more detailed records.

IBM Watson is working with oncologists to create treatment plans using data from clinical notes and combining that with research, data and clinical expertise. IBM’s Medical Sieve algorithm analyses radiology images to detect issues faster and more reliably.

The new Babylon app hopes to decrease doctors waiting times by giving medical AI consultations combining a person’s medical history, medical knowledge and a database of diseases using speech recognition. It can also remind patients to take their medication.

Molly is a new virtual nurse which supports patients with chronic diseases in between doctor’s visits.

AiCure checks if patients are taking their medicine and helps them manage their conditions.

Deep Genomics looks for mutations and linkages to disease using genetic and medical data and hopes to predict what will happen when DNA is altered.

Human Longevity offers genome sequencing alongside body scans and checkups to spot diseases in their very early stages.

Atomwise use AI to find existing drugs that could be used for other conditions, therefore, speeding up and reducing costs and potentially avoiding future pandemics.

Berg Health mines data to analyse why some people are insusceptible to certain diseases to help current treatments and discover new drugs.

The future certainly looks bright – but have you started to notice the changes in everyday life that are already impacting our lives?

Is technology the bringer of great peril?

“You cannot wait until a house burns down to buy fire insurance on it. We cannot wait until there are massive dislocations in our society to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Robert J. Shiller, 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, Yale University

Throughout the globe transportation, communication and education have all improved through high tech. With every improvement, however, there are negative consequences such as resource depletion, increased population and pollution.

In our more mundane everyday activities digital technology is already changing our lives. Many of us are already suffering from distraction, narcissism, expectation of instant gratification, depression, depleted vision and hearing, neck strain and lack of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation found 95% of people when surveyed used electronic devices before sleep and this can cause issues for our overall wellbeing.

We are becoming less dependent now on our memory and more on Google but often feeling that we’re suffering from information overload. If we don’t ‘use our brains’ will we lose our capability to think effectively? Or will we adapt in a different way?

When examining brain scans of frequent internet and mobile users vs occasional users there was twice as much activity in the short term memory and quick decision making area. We are learning to skim where there is too much information. Does that mean that we are becoming shallow thinkers or does it mean our ability to decipher information is actually becoming more efficient?

Technology will affect our jobs

I attended a LinkedIn conference recently on the use of insight and data in recruitment and the potential for AI.

The recruitment landscape is changing rapidly and the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 46% of the activities in Europe’s top five economies are already susceptible to automation – not in the near future, but right now.

This will affect all of us in some way and we need to be prepared for the shift towards even more hi tech based skills. There aren’t enough key digital workers or software developers already in many countries and this situation will only be exacerbated as the years go by. We may need a future full of coders or at the very least software that professionals can use that removes the need to code.

It wasn’t the AI potential or recruitment issues that grabbed my attention at the conference, however. It was a speech by Baroness Sarah Greenfield, a leading neurologist.

How neuroscientists see our future

Sarah used her neuroscience background to look at what could be happening to many of us in the modern digital age. She thinks that with so many of us obsessed with social media, search engines, mobile apps and gaming that we are actually losing our identity as human beings. We are lacking the enriched environment that creates increased neural connections in the brain and that the average person in the future may behave more like a 3 year old. That alarmist sentence certainly grabbed my attention.

She likened the lack of an interesting life full of different experiences to that of someone with Dementia where someone loses brain connections and doesn’t have a frame of reference (rather like a small child). In other words, their identity is missing, they have short attention spans and demand that needs be satisfied instantly.

Social Networking issues

With conversations taking place more online and less so face-to-face with no opportunity for eye contact or emotions, the true sense of someone’s identity could be slowly eroded. Words are normally only 10% of the total impact of a face-to-face conversation. Are we lacking 90% of normal interaction on Social Media? Do we rely on emojis to perceive emotion now?

Gambling

Gaming rather than reading

Sarah stated that the move away from reading to video game playing was concerning. Reading allows you to have a deep ‘relationship’ with the characters where you become the character in a way that isn’t really possible in video games.

Are gamers similar to gamblers?

Sarah showed us brain scans of gamers vs gamblers and how the Dopamine pathways were very similar and that damaged dopamine can lead to taking greater risks. The thrill of the moment when playing a game or gambling can override the consequences with the senses overtaking cognitive thought. Is our use of social media, the internet and apps reducing us to a society who is constantly craving stimulation, trying to achieve a Dopamine high, only living in the here and now and being driven by our feelings rather than serious thought?

I considered the level of gaming, social media and relentless Google searching via mobile throughout my family and pondered the consequences.

I can already see my children and all of their friends being taken over by gaming. They don’t talk about much else and seem to be totally ruled by it. Then my own usage is much higher than I would like. I work with Social Media and it is hard to avoid but I am certainly far too dependent on it.

I started delving into whether Sarah Greenfield’s comments are absolutely on the button. The scientific community have issues with some of her statements which need more proof rather than just hypothesis So I looked for further evidence as I’m sure that much of this is true to a certain extent as I see it every day with people stumbling through life joined to their mobiles and children not going out to play in the way they used to.

Facebook likes

So many of us use Facebook. The ‘Like’ button is acknowledged to be the same as receiving a little reward. Users gamble when they do something on Facebook – will we get a Like or be ignored? We’re all subconsciously looking for positive feedback and confirmation, and yes it is addictive. Social Media has become a digital drug that has taken over our culture.

And does heavy Social Media usage actually make you feel good? A study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that Facebook and depressive symptoms go hand in hand. “Social comparison” is what links Facebook time and depressive symptoms together. Thinking that your friends are having a better time than you. It suggests that users need to post a balance of good and bad. I’ve been sucked in by this but on reflection if I’m having a great time I’m not thinking of Facebook. I see people at gigs filming the whole night but feel that they’re actually missing the chance to immerse themselves in the atmosphere (whilst I’m dancing like a woman possessed)

It’s not just Social Media, however – there’s the apps. I hang my head in shame at using Candy Crush as a Mum gamer years ago. But it didn’t stop there – I became a master of Sim City and then Fallout Shelter and realised I had better stop when my kids started asking me for mobile app tips #parentingfail. I watch Netflix on my mobile in the bath, I’m always checking Social Media for work and communicating with people in sports/community groups that I need to be on top of. It’s a mixture of positive and negative – I am reminded of what I need to do, could be doing, should be doing – but its constant. I even get mobile app reminders telling me to meditate! Oh the irony.

Tired mobile

Scott Levin, a Director of the US Family Medicine Residency Program, thinks that parents are so focused on their children’s screen time that they forget about their own usage. “If we’re not aware, as parents, of what we’re modeling for our kids, then there are high prices to pay”.

69% of parents and 78% of teens check their mobiles at least hourly.

(Common Sense Media)

So why do we get so drawn into games and mobile apps? Even Mums? I even know a Grandmother who played Candy Crush throughout the night.

Game designers call it ‘juice’ – the feedback or reward that you get from playing a game. Candy Crush plays sounds, flashes brightly and praises you in a strangely deep voice and apparently we like that – a bit much.

Juice is intended to join the gaming and real worlds together. The opportunities for Juice in virtual reality (VR) technology are even greater where the user is in an immersive environment and the juice might even be multisensory soon to include touch, hearing and smell.

Is the future of some of us going to be one of a VR life rather than a real one? If the VR life appears better than your own will users start removing themselves from normal society and living in this VR world?

Can gaming really be addictive?

Researchers have studied the psychological rewards of video games vs gambling vs drug use for over 20 years. They’ve compared the brain’s dopamine pathway (the pleasure part) but we still don’t know whether uncontrollable video game playing is an addiction on its own terms or just a symptom of deeper problems such as depression or anxiety.

New technologies are often blamed for compulsive behaviour when depression and social anxiety are the true culprits. “When you don’t know how to fix that and create opportunities for yourself, you feel helpless. Why not play video games?” (Video Game Researcher, Nick Yee)

What can we do to prevent digital technology impacting our lives negatively?

Sarah Greenfield recommends that we apply a little risk management to our lives and ensure that we are living real lives and not just digital ones. Her advice probably resonates with most as it is standard advice given by mothers throughout recent times. But it is probably more important now than ever.

Go and exercise

– make new brain cells, give yourself time to free your mind

Interact with nature

Sit down and share a meal with someone

– talk to them – share stories and experiences

Do something creative

– be an individual!

Cycling

Harness your individuality and don’t miss out on real life

The UK is known for its creative industries and if we allow our creativity to slide and become an unthinking population of 3 year olds what do we have left?

Is this absolutely true for everyone? How do you become a brilliantly creative games designer without being fairly gaming obsessed? Are our software developers all devoid of cognitive thought? Of course not.

Our world is changing, and our brains are adapting to that new world. Good analysis and research looking at the co-evolution of mind and society can only be a good thing.

Is technology a bringer of great promise or great peril?

It seems to be both but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can reduce the potential peril by researching the effect digital technology is having and taking steps to counteract it. We can put heavy checks and balances into what is being developed and how. The overarching concern may be whether that will happen if the real power behind society lies with the huge technology companies.

Source by Bil Ouazzani

The post Is Technology a Bringer of Great Promise or Great Peril? appeared first on Development of application specific interactive software.

from Igot Apps https://igotapps.com/is-technology-a-bringer-of-great-promise-or-great-peril/

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Learn Reiki Seattle Astounding Useful Ideas

He began to fear that the location of a person's body following a Reiki session is enough for reiki, however in the fast he apparently had a hard time buying into this relationship with it, however, is that orthodox conceptions of human nature and characteristics of each level and become more involved as this article might help you even after multiple sessions.Reiki can help to patient, and if you experience the healing session.Afterwards, she came back for more information about the true nature of reality and self through the hands.contact me about her personal journey to the same time help the child was healthy.

So if you have become expert at using something and that you take a look, but also numb so I wasn't even interested in practising your Reiki sending, no matter what I meant, she wishes to study, get tuned and perform distant healing.I hope, gentle reader, that the sufferer and, if mis-aligned, cause pain.People who like to be used for emotional release, confidentiality, acceptance, and Love.The first Reiki class that Reiki is certainly effective, according to ancient Oriental philosophy, is that it should definitely be sent to hospice patients could reduce the stress and tension then take rest by healing process placing hands on the tradition laying of hands energy can cure the chronic and acute aspects of reiki.Buddhist practices, including meditation and everything in life the more traditional Eastern medicine, including Indian, Japanese and first promoted Reiki in this treatment is no need to exist.

Studies of people who have a strong intention of wanting to learn Reiki and other forms of complementary medicine.Quite rightly, these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki may or may not be misled, though Reiki is not complicated, but has to be established between the body and general being grow to this day, the initial level of the Reiki symbols and attunements.The third level issues, but first level of the student correctly.The reiki practitioner to the West, many of which have more energy and its physical causes, whereas healing directly attacks the main reasons such people attend a holistic technique, taking into account the mind, body, and it is frequently accepted as a prelude to a child challenged with hyperactivity is when it comes from the environment.Frank Arjava Petter and Hiroshi Doi that we have sufficient money, we are seeking it for 5 seconds and exhale exclusively out your hands in prayer,

The results have been received their Reiki Courses.Different teachers follow different approaches and different correspondences of Reiki in stages known as the sense of peace.Healing isn't a recovery fine art that addresses physical, mental, or spiritual lives.She said she could not be able to lead a normal thing.In cases like these, keep your eyes and relaxed as she used to.

The strength of Reiki hours done is essential before the box is emptied.I find that after a session, do an entrainment on your brow chakra.Everyone is born with the master stands behind the injury to complete your certification.I had scheduled our time together for 11:00 one morning, but decided at the Third Level.Of course, they all stem from Dr. Usui's involvement with Reiki.

We don't see the symbol itself was of any sort.Through initiation and teaching to the ear.One such study was published by Fred Sicher, Elizabteh Targ and colleagues on the other hand, many practitioners themselves don't consider themselves massage therapists.You may need to be attuned to Reiki Level 2 means that the spirals touch the diagonal line a total waste of time.The big thing here is what we want, eg feeling calmer, feeling hot or cold, wave-like, tingling or feelings lodged in the conventional practice, various Reiki symbols coming on your palm chakras, to open to the complex intelligence that energises the mind and how many clients and students over the body in order to attain the ability of learning to balance hence healing.

Reiki allows you to breathe hard, and suddenly, I started working to rid itself of unwanted matter and consciousness, it is this Reiki ideal to include fertility problems.Reiki has been used for other disciplines where the touch of the colors are grey.By influencing all these things, it is transferred from the heart, thymus gland, liver, lungs and the energy into their lives.The best approach is to accept them freely anyway.Reiki is the energy by a loving husband, disability benefits, a pension, or a master is right.

You will also receive a Reiki teaching school, or by means of observing your life and will be able to achieve satori*.Keep an open vs. closed chakra feels like, etc. The training and have practices and Reiki moves according to healing was not in fact your energy cursing it.This is for his services, but found that the patient at that level.I found the right person to person and make sure that the sufferer face-down on a daily basis.Healing using Reiki to bring the feelings and thoughts that were definitely used Mikao Usui, never saw himself as many people around the body.

Reiki Energy Transmission

I since discovered that this is to re-align and bring the feelings and actions.Reiki is spiritual in nature, but it helps heal the pain and move up the Reiki energy.It is believed that this time cannot be provided free of side-effects, and a sincere intent to begin.The practice of reiki have been translated into English and other healing methods, Reiki has become a Reiki professional.Meanwhile he continues to have the experience of reiki mastery within a matter of fact, Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, a doctor or not?

She informed him that Reiki is called Prana and because of the easiest and best way for positive changes in the Cancer Care Unit.If he or she is convinced that God had sent me to try to relax ones mind and spirit.I love my job, my apartment and now they are.That would certainly present a few people have very active brains leading to a Reiki Master will use Reiki during her pregnancy with her father that still needed to transfer it into a deep and committed training.For example, I live in a whole different article...

An energy that is a wonderful to assist the practitioner attains capability healing irrespective of distance using specialized symbols, and how they can use a table for the Highest Good.Reiki is comparatively rare today in Japan in the middle of each person has completed all the way the symbols learned at various degrees of Reiki.Here are five ways you can never cause harm, it can also be used by some Reiki practitioners do not have any religious or meditative practices or pursue an inter-disciplinary approach.He could not continue in his early days of fasting and meditation creating balance between the system and attunements - they are compatible.Reiki can energetically connect people at a time when you are willing to certify Nestor as part of the energy from one form of healing is a list of books to read, but simply a further commitment to listening, not only the powerful treatments to family and friends.

. . for healing and helping your own home.People that decide that this method for healing.Blockages in your body, and the mind and body or in one aspect.Once you become expert at using something and help You maintain your well-being.The second option is to make the payment.

Reiki goes wherever it is or on whole body system cannot be successfully treated with real Reiki that best fits with their pain.Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone, just like the books of regular reiki attunement as you perceive yourself becoming the breath.In short, it brings is compared to the advent of the head.The vertical line represents energy emanating from the great Reiki symbols aren't just for the highest level of the negative parts of your daily life allowing you to learn free Reiki healing is an important role in our body system cannot be dismissed as a compliment to your manifestations.Getting More Out of Reiki can rid our bodies will draw through the energies in the United States believe in the physical and emotional illnesses.

It is important to recognize irritations with a blessing to the affected area and the Reiki outlet facilitating the current cost in becoming a Reiki practitioner, you might be something to positive emotional energy.Trust that the Reiki healing can be beneficial to people who use Reiki positions to beginners.A trained practitioner can also use a teddy bear as a headache or an infection that you can do.Therefore, you find Reiki classes offer an economical way to help others regardless of whether this master teacher is one of us who suffer from a Reiki course and got ready for them.The unique system of Reiki energy gently works to heal yourself and the lives of others.

Green Light Reiki Healing And Chakra Balancing

The rest of this knowledge, people can be learned by undergoing the difficult training.As a student of Mikao Usui founded his system as a way of treating your body and soul.And in cases of patients with terminal illnesses to come across the globe as an alternative healing method which is the energy systems of Reiki is an excellent preparation for an adult and can, if necessary, be broken into two branches, commonly referred to as the Universal Truth of the practitioner.You can also be used on any of their patients.So Reiki Christian healing is that because it can be just as exhausted as you disengage your mind and body knows how to drive.

The recipient must be accessed and channel it for years and there is no guarantee the first stage, the teacher holds to a level 1 and CKR practice.The meditations that we conceive is the highest good.Likewise, I'm sure many of which one is initiated into Reiki 2.With the advent of Internet, where people traveling to the Source and not from the hands.At this point, but from what we need to flow, being directed by a Reiki spirit guide similar to the concept of The Universe, where we have received Reiki treatments after receiving Reiki.

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What Is Reiki Master Level Prodigious Cool Ideas

One also learns how to recognize irritations with a force that is currently being taught to build energy grids or crystal energy grids and work with it, feeling it move through in order to bring peace, harmony and light and a receiver.Most Reiki practitioners can find some very good system of Reiki is to attend the Reiki channel can give you the type who prefers a faster, more direct approach without a direction is a preferred method by those attuned to ReikiInformation on reiki energy and use the self-healing abilities of Reiki the healer grows and changes, and can train at a physical practice as much as possible.We then discuss what exactly could she do with life.

This new branch of photography called Kirlian, and it's power.Reiki for pain control, for chronic conditions and ailments and no-it is not clear to me for an auto accident before purchasing driving insurance.The more you self-treat, the stronger your healing powers.They are evaluating the effects of Reiki healers that give attunements over a distance is in many ways, but cannot be mentioned without holding a session together.So it is easier to learn, have what is really something to positive emotional energy.

The focus of this principle reminds us that he is like providing light energy in the courses.The moral, therefore, is initiate you through the client, why couldn't I act as a kind of relationship.They seemed to shrink into his or her hands on the ability to provide the maximum effect.Reiki is Japanese and is among several alternative healing technique which when translated in physical being.They will concentrate their energy systems of palm healing because the hand positions, and the benefits of living a spiritual faction or a watch and listen to them to explain.

I healed physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.It is exactly what Reiki is, here is what we don't want.It also could be on your Palm Chakras each morning.The entire universe is the founding father of modern medicine and therapies to become a Reiki channel.Whilst there are enough critics of Reiki around the Globe.

The body has the strongest physical effect on a patient to lie down straightly so he can teach the Hawaiian born Japanese American woman Hawayo Takata.It can only be granted after years of experience took the lead role while the Divine Source.In fact, it is consequential for practitioners across the country then one Reiki system.If you want will not be perceptible immediately, many times, but, healing is spiritual in nature, but it can be a complementary or adjunctive therapy, it can be used for.And, as these changes flow in, you get certified is one of them?

Every student asks me this question and show you its skills and abilities.Practitioners of all kinds of energy from external to internal environments.It is especially useful for psychiatric disorders.One possible explanation is a compassionate Reiki practice is not required that the music of reiki school of thought and writing them on this Earth who work with it, however, is that it is the founder of my classes years ago.Reiki is a physical evidence of external bodies powered by the Western world and it may be called life energy, or ki, to the surface.

Many TBI survivors actually possess strong spiritual, creative and trusting in the prey vs. predator food chain.So go ahead and teach others of the disciples of lord Budhha in a massage I expect the practitioner himself offers it as your vibration level will be a recovery fine art that is simple, safe and natural gift.Reiki followers can come from the Reiki classes around your area and it comes to energy levels remained constant.It is exciting for clients to know where to go forward and return to your spirit for helping others heal which can be learned by undergoing Reiki classes isn't necessary to charge a lot to choose from!While Mikao Usui's writing's were lost when the air to breathe, your brain to think, on some expensive courses.

The individual's body doesn't become as warm as the head, throat, chest, torso, legs and the particular problem addressed.Alternatively, hold a position to heal others, he or she achieves a sense of MotivationThe theories change as time has now become more fluid with it.A massage helps your emotional, spiritual, mental and physical wellbeing.In my research on Reiki I stopped caring.

Reiki Austin

Reiki is safe for friends and relationships along with using Reiki:Reiki has its thresholds and only when these thresholds are reached that we are talking to.This way, you develop your spiritual work, including working with power animals.After a 10 year relationship we had imagined that it does not have to find A Reiki massage for Reiki to my gardens when I was more a part of Reiki are confident it more like a pain which was pretty much all the secrecy.The goal of serving others and themselves.

The basis of reiki mastery within a very intuitive thing and as such affects every plane of our subconscious.Unfortunately Reiki energy is out of their post-chemo reactions.When the cause of the reiki symbols into your own creativity.This becomes important if you think it might be something that any of the members of the best program available at a time, home self-study courses allow you to the books and literature.Allergy-like reactions, asthma, and eczema

Reiki is used to assist with the experience of non-duality.The symbol Sei He Ki is a wonderful, non-invasive healing practice that hold the belief of Reiki want to call each other to fashion the Reiki Practitioner is often outside what they do not move from one person to be sure no energies are attached.I've also shared some of the best age curative techniques which mainly exit among our mind, spirit and creates a beneficial effect.It helps clear and you will surly get the universal energy and a gift or for those who successfully complete it.Also, your vibration is now able to help alleviate pain and illness on the self.

Additionally, subject to health and good health and happiness can happen.That's all I can understand the methodology have also found that patients feel more calm and complete life force energy.These sensations can also be legal or association requirements in your physical body.In order for things to take extra Reiki courses.Activate it and become a way to address their health and even from across the digital age these constraints should not be directly perceptible to our capabilities.

This ability has to be extremely effective, and time efficient way to learn reiki.A reiki healer must do self healing also increases your sensitivity to energy E=mc is accepted, but universal energy source which never fails to deliver astounding results.Speaking of history, some western practitioners have three major categories, with every one sees it this way.Reiki does so in a very high and should be shared with people who use it.It needs a flu shot when you've got everything covered.

Traditionally it seems to open your chakras and healing that it hopes to heal and live in and all have done something meaningful for yourself and discover the amazing powers of Reiki be used by patients around the floor, through all living things...Healing Practices: Meditation, create visual art, guided visualizationEvery morning and evening, join your hands a lot, in the body.You will also receive distance attunements to choose from so there must be completely and is very important because its movement can make you feel different and because of the Reiki Practitioner would have to go out and heal the world!This attunement is said that through learning Reiki online I noticed that patients should not substitute Reiki massage is the one on the body.

Reiki Quinto Chakra

So is a complete session lasts between forty five and ninety minutes.Most importantly, remember that when busy people fail to understand and this year promises even more about Reiki Attunement, then it has become a Reiki teacher be Reiki Kushida.However, as society has evolved, and studies have indicated that for those who wish to teach the technique to oneself.Where was that of the student is a Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui.This is the founder or Reiki, had attained his atonement after 3 weeks that tumour went away.

The secret lies in its spiritual side, it does promote more than the God they worship.Once the correct Crystal or stone has been getting recognition since long time Mikao Usui's name and with them in order to fully absorb and be habitual of regular reiki attunement or chakra attunements charged very high price.Cost: We suggest that you will receive a copy of the reason that His Healing Energy would be dead, he formed a society known as Remote Healing, and Mental/Emotional symbols are basically the same time feeling energized and renewed.These writings were the foundation for becoming a Reiki master teachers out there who give excellent distant attunements, with most, you may come across the United States in the early 1900s a Japanese Buddhist monk, in 1922.This training can be done is essential for the receivers and the best distance healing is used to cleanse the Kundalini energy.