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fishoutofcamelot · 4 years

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Zombie symbolism in media? Body snatchers? That sounds extremely interesting 👀👀👀

OOOOOOOOOOH ARE YOU READY FOR ME TO RANT? CUZ I’M GONNA RANT BABY. YALL WANNA SEE HOW HARD I CAN HYPERFIXATE???

I’ll leave my ramblings under the cut.

The Bodysnatchers thing is a bit quicker to explain so I’ll start with that. Basically, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1956, about a small town where the people are slowly but surely replaced and replicated by emotionless hivemind pod aliens. It was a pretty obvious metaphor for the red scare and America’s fear of the ‘growing threat of communism’ invading their society. A communist could look like anyone and be anyone, after all.

Naturally, the bodysnatcher concept got rebooted a few times - Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993), and The Invasion (2007), just off the top of my head. You’re all probably very familiar with the core concept: people are slowly being replaced by foreign duplicates.

But while the monster has remained roughly the same, the theme has not. In earlier renditions, Bodysnatchers symbolized communism. But in later renditions, the narratives shifted to symbolize freedom of expression and individualism - that is, people’s ability to express and think for themselves being taken away. That’s because freedom of thought/individuality is a much more pressing threat on our minds in the current climate. Most people aren’t scared of communists anymore, but we are scared of having our free will taken away from us.

The best indicator of the era in which a story is created is its villain. Stories written circa 9/11 have villains that are foreign, because foreign terrorism was a big fear in the early 2000s. In the past, villains were black people, because white people were racist (and still are, but more blatantly so in the past).

Alright, now for the fun part.

ZOMBIES

Although the concept has existed in Haitian voodooism for ages, the first instance of zombies in western fiction was a book called The Magic Island written by William Seabrook in 1929. Basically ol Seabrook took a trip to Haiti and saw all the slaves acting tired and ‘brutish’ and, having learned about the voodoo ‘zombi’, believed the slaves were zombies, and thus put them in his book.

The first zombie story in film was actually an adaptation of Seabrook’s accounts, called White Zombie (1932). It was about a couple who takes a trip to Haiti, only for the woman to be turned into a zombie and enchanted into being a Haitian’s romantic slave. SUPER racist, if you couldn’t tell, but not only does it reflect the state of entertainment of the era - Dracula and Frankenstein had both been released around the same time - but it also reflects American cultural fears. That is, the fear of white people losing their authoritative control over the world. White fright.

Naturally, the box office success of White Zombie inspired a whole bunch of other remakes and spinoffs in the newly minted zombie genre, most of them taking a similar Haitian voodoo approach. Within a decade, zombies had grown from an obscure bit of Haitian lore to a fully integrated part of American pop culture. Movies, songs, books, cocktails, etc.

But this was also a time for WWII to roll around and, much like the Bodysnatchers, zombie symbolism evolved to fit the times. Now zombies experienced a shift from white fright and ethnic spirituality to something a bit more secular. Now they were a product of foreign science created to perpetuate warmongering schemes. In King of Zombies (1941), a spy uses zombies to try and force a US Admiral to share his secrets. And Steve Sekely’s Revenge of the Zombies (1943) became the first instance of Nazi zombies.

Then came the atom bomb, and once more zombie symbolism shifted to fears of radiation and communism. The most on-the-nose example of this is Creature With the Atom Brain (1955).

Then came the Vietnam War, and people started fearing an uncontrollable, unconscionable military. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), zombies were caused by radiation from a space probe, combining both nuclear and space-race motifs, as well as a harsh government that would cause you just as much problems as the zombies. One could argue that the zombies in the Living Dead series represent military soldiers, or more likely the military-industrial complex as a whole, which is presented as mindless in its pursuit of violence.

The Living Dead series also introduced a new mainstay to the genre: guns. Military stuff. Fighting. Battle. And that became a major milestone in the evolution of zombie representation in media. This was only exacerbated by the political climate of the time. In the latter half of the 20th century, there were a lot of wars. Vietnam, Korea, Arab Spring, Bay of Pigs, America’s various invasions and attacks on Middle Eastern nations, etc. Naturally the public were concerned by all this fighting, and the nature of zombie fiction very much evolved to match this.

But the late 1900s weren’t just a place of war. They were also a place of increasing economic disparity and inequal wealth distribution. In the 70s and 80s, the wage gap widened astronomically, while consumerism remained steadily on the rise. And so, zombies symbolized something else: late-stage capitalism. Specifically, capitalist consumption - mindless consumption. For example, in Dawn of the Dead (1978), zombies attack a mall, and with it the hedonistic lifestyles of the people taking refuge there. This iteration props up zombies as the consumers, and it is their mindless consumption that causes the fall of the very system they were overindulging in.

Then there was the AIDS scare, and the zombie threat evolved to match something that we can all vibe with here in the time of COVID: contagion. Now the zombie condition was something you could get infected with and turn into. In a video game called Resident Evil (1996), the main antagonist was a pharmaceutical company called the Umbrella Corporation that’s been experimenting with viruses and bio-warfare. In 28 Days Later (2002), viral apes escape a research lab and infect an unsuspecting public.

Nowadays, zombies are a means of expressing our contemporary fears of apocalypse. It’s no secret that the world has been on the brink for a while now, and everyone is waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. Post-apocalypse zombie movies act as simultaneous male power fantasy, expression of contemporary cynicism, an expression of war sentiments, and a product of the zombie’s storied symbolic history. People are no longer able to trust the government, and in many ways people have a hard time trusting each other, and this manifests as an every-man-for-himself survivalist narrative.

So why have zombies endured for so long, despite changing so much? Why are we so fascinated by them? Well, many say that it’s because zombies are a way for us to express our fears of apocalypse. Communism, radiation, contagion - these are all threats to the country’s wellbeing. Some might even say that zombies represent a threat to conversative America/white nationalism, what with the inclusion of voodooism, foreign entities, and late-stage capitalism being viewed as enemies.

Personally, I might partly agree with the conservative America thing, but I don’t think zombies exist to project our fears onto. That’s just how villains and monsters work in general. In fiction, the conflict’s stakes don’t hit home unless the villain is intimidating. The hero has to fight something scary for us to be invested in their struggles. But the definition of what makes something scary is different for every different generation and social group. Maybe that scary thing is foreign invaders, or illness, or losing a loved one, or a government takeover. As such, the stories of that era mold to fit the fears of that era. It’s why we see so many government conspiracy thrillers right now; it’s because we’re all afraid of the government and what it can do to us.

So if projecting societal fears onto the story’s villain is a commonplace practice, then what makes zombies so special? Why have they lasted so long and so prevalently? I would argue it’s because the concept of a zombie, at its core, plays at a long-standing American ideal: freedom.

Why did people migrate to the New World? Religious freedom. Why did we start the Revolutionary War and become our own country? Freedom from England’s authority. Why was the Civil War a thing? The south wanted freedom from the north - and in a remarkable display of irony, they wanted to use that freedom to oppress black people. Why are we so obsessed with capitalism? Economic freedom.

Look back at each symbolic iteration of the zombie. What’s the common thread? In the 20s/30s, it was about white fright. The fear that black people could rise up against them and take away their perceived ‘freedom’ (which was really just tyrannical authority, but whatever). During WWII, it was about foreign threats coming in and taking over our country. During Vietnam, it became about our military spinning out of control and hecking things up for the rest of us. In the 80s/90s, it was about capitalism turning us into mindless consumers. Then it was about plagues and hiveminds and the collapse of society as a whole, destroying everything we thought we knew and throwing our whole lives into disarray. In just about every symbolic iteration, freedom and power have been major elements under threat.

And even deeper than that, what is a zombie? It’s someone who, for whatever reason, is a mindlessly violent creature that cannot think beyond base animal impulses and a desire to consume flesh. You can no longer think for yourself. Everything that made you who you are is gone.

Becoming a zombie is the ultimate violation of someone’s personal freedom. And that terrifies Americans.

Although an interesting - and concerning - phenomenon is this new wave of wish fulfillment zombie-ism. You know, the gun-toting action movie hero who has the personality of soggy toast and a jaw so chiseled it could decapitate the undead. That violent survivalist notion of living off the grid and being a total badass all the while. It speaks to men who, for whatever reason, feel their masculinity and dominance is under threat. So they project their desires to compensate for their lack of masculine control onto zombie fiction, granting them personal freedom from obligations and expectations (and feminism) to live out their solo macho fantasies by engaging in low- to no-consequence combat. And in doing so, completely disregarding the fact that those same zombies were once people who cruelly had their freedom of self ripped away from them. Gaining their own freedom through the persecution of others (zombies). And if that doesn’t sum up the white conservative experience, I don’t know what does.

So yeah. That’s zombies, y’all.

Thanks for the ask!

#dude #film stuff is one of my main hyperfixations #but to be fair i have a lot of hyperfixations #why do you think this blog exists #ask #fish post

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lichlairs · 4 years

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Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/monday-monster-60-flameskull

Monday Monster #60: Flameskull

I’m very sorry if you got PTSD just from reading that title; I know many out there have suffered at the figurative hands of this monster, which is why I vow to dig deeply into its lore and statblock to see if we can reach some sort of redemption. Without any further ado, let us discuss the…

Flameskull

The basics

For a floating calcium deposit these things have surprisingly good stats; we’re looking at matching +0 CHA and WIS, a +2 CON, and a single dump stat assigned to STR for a -5 modifier. Today’s monster is both incredibly smart and incredibly dexterous with matching +3 scores to DEX and INT.

The Flameskull gets +5 to Arcana checks as well as a nice +2 to Perception for a total Passive Perception of 12. They also get 60ft of Darkvision and 40ft of hovering movement. Thanks to that big head of theirs they can also communicate in Common despite, you know, not having a tongue or any of the other important bits we use for talking.

In terms of combat durability, this thing can probably rival creatures of much higher CR. Its measly AC of 13 and average hit point pool of 9d4+18 might not look like much but today’s monster is immune or at the very least resistant to a wide variety of damages. We’re looking at Immunity to Cold, Poison, and Fire damage… you know, only the most widely used type of damage in the game, but as if that weren’t enough, they also have resistance to Lightning, Necrotic, and Piercing damages and cannot be charmed, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, or prone.

But even now we’re not quite done yet; Flameskulls also have Magic Resistance for some nice advantage on saving throws, not to mention their Rejuvenation feature that will have them regain all their hit points back after being destroyed unless their magic is dispelled, or they get sprinkled with some of that good holy water. That’s a thing, yeah.

On the bright (ha!) side of things, your party of adventures won’t have to carry torches while they fight this thing because today’s monster does give off 15ft of dim light at a minimum (though it can choose to increase the range and brightness for a further 15ft).

As promised for ranger week, the Flameskull is fully reliant on range spell attacks, its main attack action being a Fire Ray that works with its Multiattack feature. Chances are though, that, before this creature goes down, you’ll want to use up the spells that it gets access to:

Cantrip (at will): mage hand

1st level (3 slots): magic missile, shield

2nd level (2 slots): blur, flaming sphere

3rd level (1 slot): fireball

That’s right, this thing has a goddamned Fireball waiting to go off. Not to mention the fact that it gets the option to use shield on top of all the crazy resistance it already gets. Actual bananas.

Last but not least, today’s monster is considered a tiny undead ans is usually of neutral evil alignment. Although this bit might be a little debatable, it is also technically a CR 4 creature.

The lore

The Flameskull was first introduced in volume one of the Monstrous Compendium for 2nd edition. As a monster that has been part of the game for most of its history, today’s monster has been through a handful of changes (mostly to do with the list of spells available to them) but remains the same when it comes to its lore. Speaking of older editions though, despite their very bright presentation, these monsters somehow managed to qualify as stealthy back in 4th edition, don’t ask me how though.

The first thing you should know about these creatures is that they aren’t born and have no way of reproducing amongst themselves. Flame skulls can only be fashioned from the skulls of recently deceased spellcasters or cultists, human wizards in particular, through a dark ritual performed by a powerful necromancer. The skulls themselves are often carved with esoteric runes and symbols.

After being summoned and bound to their master, Flameskulls will listen follow instructions to the letter until their purpose has been fulfilled. Oftentimes they will be used as guardians of particularly important places or treasure, but it’s not completely unheard of for them to be assigned to guarding a living being instead.

While Flamekulls will follow their master’s instructions unlike they can no longer follow them, they do retain a few aspects from their previous life; most notably their intelligence. It is also common for Flameskulls to have a similar spell list to the one they had while alive. The only way for Flameskulls to regain a semblance of autonomy is to complete their task. Of course by the time that happens most of them will have been driven mad by their long years of isolation safeguarding treasure.

Once freed, these creatures would show a curiosity for the world after years of duty. In fact, Flameskulls have been observed to follow adventurers around in search for excitement. In return, Flameskulls might choose to share some of the more obscure knowledge and lore they might have come across in their time as wizards.

The execution

Okay, hear me out. I think a lot of the reasons why people dislike this creature so much has to do with CR and level. Yes, fighting a Flameskull should be challenging, but there is a very steep curve for Fireball danger at this level. Which is why I want to put forward the idea that your party should not fight a Flameskull, but instead fight three of them.

If you have a higher level party!

My stance on this is this: Flameskulls should be used as minions against higher level adventurers. Take for example this encounter:

The party finally reaches the top of the evil necromancer’s spire, they trade snarky comments with our heroes, and bam! Our villain smirks and snaps their finger only to have three Flameskulls appear. Heck, it could even be an interesting premise for a villain: a powerful necromancer who is going around killing wizards only to raise them in servitude as Flameskulls.

Keep in mind Flameskulls aren’t only fun in combat situations either! Got a big bad you were fond of only to have your party of aventurers make quick work of them? Why not have them come back as an extra powerful Flameskull under the influence of your next big bad? You could even give them some especial armor or a particularly nasty spell list to toughen them up depending on your party level.

But even if you don’t have a big bad to bring back, Flameskulls can still be plenty fun in social encounters. The idea of luring the party into what appears to be a difficult encounter with a Flameskull only to have the creature start jabbering ridiculous riddles or pestering the party for the rest of the dungeon is extremely fun to me. If done right this creature would very well turn a would be mediocre dungeon into something memorable. Don’t believe me? Give it a try yourself!

If you enjoyed this article and would like to be updated whenever we post something new, don’t forget to follow us on our social media. If you have any interesting comments or funny anecdotes do leave us a message in our forums!

#Behind the Screen #Daily Monster #dnd #dnd5e #dndbeyond #dungeons and dragons #monday monster #Monday Monster

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frasier-crane-style · 6 years

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Tomb Raider (2018)

Spoilers.

This is probably the weirdest adaptation I’ve ever watched. It’s not that I’m overly fond of the 2013 game, which struck me as wrong-headed and cack-handed, a bunch of generic “grim and gritty” clichés paired with “origin story” tropes, but there was at least a baseline competence. TR18 adapts maybe fifty percent of that plot—albeit in a much less economical, yet also less complicated way that still manages to offer less spectacle—and then…

Well, that would be telling.

Okay, so we start off with what feels like a ton of backstory. The video game started with everyone already on the Endurance, the player was quickly brought up to speed on what they were doing, and then the shipwreck happened and we’re off to the races.

The movie spends thirty minutes or so on Lara being a hip young millennial with attractive multiethnic friends (hi Dutch from Killjoys!) who never show up again. They’ve apparently decided that Lara being a millionaire heiress is unrelatable, so now she’s a penniless delivery girl, all because she refuses to sign a document stating that her father was dead.

I had no idea that declaring someone dead was entirely up to a relative of theirs. Wouldn’t, I don’t know, the cops or some other authority do that?

You’re really telling me the financial situation is set up so Lara doesn’t get one red cent unless her dad’s declared dead? And it’s not a case of her being frozen out, since she was raised by apparently a high-ranking executive in the company. You’d think there would be a huge trust fund, or that she’d have stock in the company, or even that she’d get some do-nothing position there, since it really seems like bad publicity for the person your company is named after to be basically living on the streets.

Isn’t she still just a slumming rich girl? It’s been seven years. She could be responsibly using all that money to run charities and such, or at least spring for her friends’ groceries, but instead she pleads poverty to actual poor people, when she isn’t cheating them at bets (yeah, I consider her concealing her paint trail in the biking game to be against the spirit of the competition, and thus cheating. Also, why is there a bike race in a Tomb Raider movie?)

But still, so far so good. It’s providing backstory to the basic plot of the TR13 story, it’s taking elements that Rise of the Tomb Raider retconned in and inserting them here from the very beginning—although oddly they take Anna, who in the game was basically a surrogate mother to her, and here make her this bitch Lara seems to outright resent, which makes her betrayal… pointless?

Oh, and for some reason (padding), we’ll effectively get shown the same scene twice. Like, at the very beginning of the movie, we hear about this legend that the plot will revolve around. Makes sense, right? Then, not fifteen minutes later, Lara hears the exact same narration with a few added details. Why? Did they think we forgot?

We also get the standard scene where Lara is sitting on a rooftop, thinking of the last time she saw her dear departed father as a child, him saying he has to go, but he’ll come back, giving her a token to remember him by. Standard stuff, right? Only later, we get pretty much the exact same scene with Lara as a teenager saying goodbye to her dad again. So I guess he came back the first time and then left again and that’s the last time she ever saw him. Okay, why did you need to show us the first scene? Why not combine them into one scene? Did we need the second go-around to establish that she’s a great archer?

(Also, I find the whole “she’s not a superhero! She’s just an average woman!” thing hella amusing when they also establish that, oh, right, she also happens to have found time to exercise herself into an eight-pack, train in kickboxing, and learn to be a champion markswoman. It’s like, I don’t know, a version of Die Hard where Jet Li gets invited to Nakatomi Plaza. Sure, he’s never beaten up a dozen terrorists before, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how. Why not just have her be an outright badass from the get-go and tell the damn story?)

But okay, she finds a clue to her missing father’s whereabouts and goes to Hong Kong, where we meet her supporting cast: Lu Wen. Just… Lu Wen.

This character is like a Lovecraftian pox on my mind, because I cannot understand anything about him. Sure, we can assume the studio wants China Bucks, but surely, that can’t be the only reason he’s there… right?

See, because we get an elaborate introduction to Lu Wen, he and Lara have several lengthy dialogues, so you assume that this character is important, that he’s going to be a big deal. Maybe him and Lara will fall in love, maybe he’ll betray her and turn out to be the bad guy, Who knows? But they set up this character so thoroughly and then he basically disappears from the movie and gets replaced as male lead by Lara’s daddy, who isn’t dead. Until he does die, but this time he gets a big death scene where he tells Lara he’s proud of her, so he’s really dead.

Lu Wen could’ve been killed in the shipwreck, or Lara could’ve sailed to the island herself, and it wouldn’t have changed the movie’s plot one iota. So why is he there? Is it just because they want the movie to have a male lead? Well, they have Daddy Croft, so why do they need him? Are they trying to be socially conscious and have an Asian romantic lead? But he isn’t really in the movie much and he and Lara really don’t fall for each other, since in the part of the movie where they’d usually be developing feelings for each other, she’s with her dad and he’s probably in another studio. So is he just there to show that there isn’t a love story and Lara doesn’t need a man? Like, ‘hey, a man, look how much Lara doesn’t need him and isn’t in love with him!’ That seems pretty thankless.

Plus, for an action movie, they hired Daniel Wu and then never had him bust out the kung-fu. I mean, c’mon. It’s a fucking video game movie. Are they really trying to be high-minded with this “not all Asians know martial arts!” stuff when they hired a guy who does know martial arts and could easily perform an impressive fight scene? It’s like casting Taye Diggs in a musical and then not having him sing.

Also, I thought it was weird that they introduce Lu as this falling-down drunk guy, and then that never comes up again. I guess he’s addicted to alcohol but then he just… stopped? Or maybe it was supposed to set him up as some experienced, world-weary adventurer who would contrast with Lara’s naïve ingénue and he’d be gruff and roguish, she’d be a little prim and serious, they’d have a Han/Leia sort of dynamic… only not really, he’s just kind of a guy for the rest of the movie.

I guess they thought “we need a scene where the heroine meets a boat captain and hires him to take her where she needs to go” and decided to script that scene to be as clichéd as humanly possible for no reason. Seriously, they could’ve introduced this character making wind chimes, it at least would’ve given him a little personality. What does Lara having to sober him up by throwing him into the shower tell us about this character that isn’t immediately contradicted by how he acts from thereon out?

But never mind all that, they finally reach the island, Lara meets the evil Vogel, who works for Trinity, the vaguely defined villainous organization that will provide generic conflict for the next umpteen movies—seriously, say what you will about Quantum of Solace, but at least there was a bit more to QUANTUM than just Judi Dench saying “there’s an organization out to take over the world! Stop them!”

Lara manages to escape and makes her first kill with one of Vogel’s henchman, who is not rapey because art shouldn’t be challenging or provoke negative emotional responses, and then she finds her father, who, as I said, pretty much takes over as male lead with the movie halfway over.

This is also where the adaptation gets bizarre to me, because sometimes it’s almost a shot-for-shot remake of sequences from the game, then it has huge deviations from that plot involving the nature of the villain, the threat, Lara, Lara’s allies—pretty much everything. And then it’ll go and make a big deal of Lara using a climbing pick as a melee weapon.

I’m used to adaptations taking ‘moments’ from the source material and recreating them in original stories, or doing broad strokes adaptations of existing storylines, but this is such an odd Frankensteining of plots, like they squished several stories together to make one refurbished plot. It’s really distracting to me, and it seems like they should’ve just made a wholly original plot instead of bolting a bunch of new stuff onto the TR13 storyline.

This is also where I’m sympathetic to people complaining that they gave a gender-swap to Sam Nishimura, who in the game was an Asian woman of critical importance to the Himiko plotline whose friendship with Lara was widely interpreted as having lesbian subtext. So it looks like they freaked out about having any gay stuff in their shiny new franchise and made it as straight as possible.

Like, there’s no reason this boat captain character couldn’t be Sam. It’s not like Lara and Lu Wen have any real romance except for him kinda sorta making a pass at her and her kinda sorta rejecting him. And if they wanted to avoid the uneasy comparison of even a potential love interest having to be straight, it seems like it would be easy enough to make movie!Himiko into a completely different creature, since all you really need is an exotic and inaccessible location for Lord Croft to go missing in, with an ancient civilization advanced enough to semi-plausibly build a big trappy tomb. So why it has to be Japan and Himiko doesn’t make any sense to me, besides unthinking laziness.

The fact that Sam was so important to the villain’s endgame and, in the game, Lara’s father was long dead of suicide at this point makes a marked difference from the movie, where Lara’s quest to find her dad takes center stage and her ability to enter the tomb makes her pretty much the Chosen One. Again, more generic, more clichéd.

Oh, but they do kinda go back to being a super-faithful adaptation with Lara making extensive use of a bow and arrow instead of picking up one of the numerous guns her enemies drop. Which is weird, since it’s not like Lara is Hawkeye. In the game, she picks up more advanced weapons as she gets them. It’s like they keep that fanservice, but then they don’t really preserve anything else about the source material.

Anyway, Lara and company—pointedly not including Lu Wen, who is pretty much absent from the third act of this big Asian romantic lead movie—enter the tomb. To its credit, the movie now has more tomb raiding than the game ever did (like I said, I was lukewarm on it; give me Angelina Jolie in shorts any day). And we find another story has been smushed into this one, because now there’s a faith versus science plotline where Lara doesn’t believe Himiko is real, and Vogel doesn’t believe she’s real, but Daddy Croft is all about that. Really, this is a theme that’s only coming up now? The movie’s almost over!

Well, this movie’s Himiko turns out to be mundane, but such an exotic variety of mundanity as to pretty much be as implausible as anything supernatural. And, again, more clichéd, as the McGuffin turns out to be a creation kit for rage zombies. I didn’t like when Rise of the Tomb Raider ripped off the Uncharted games that way, and it’s even more embarrassing when the last two Uncharted games have shied away from that trope. Yet the big damn movie can’t think of anything better to do, and gives us one measly rage zombie that’s easily dispatched? Not a horde of eternally undead Nipponese for our heroine to battle through? Not a Japanese Jason Voorhees she has to take out? Just a monster of the week from Supernatural, and not even a good episode at that?

How disappointing. The game had a better final boss. It really speaks to the movie having a low budget, especially when heroes and villains start having gunfights on a dinky set, with their cover seemingly inches away from each other because the place was built so small.

I continue to report on this only because I made a note to myself to mention this stupidity. Lara is tasked with stopping Vogel from getting away with a sample of this zombie apocalypse. She gets into a fistfight with the injured, limping Vogel and seems to be doing well for herself, but midway through she decides to cut the bridge that would’ve allowed either her or him to get out. This despite knowing that Vogel has called for a helicopter to pick him up and that if he kills her, Vogel can just wait for those guys to find him, rig up a way for him to get out, and blah blah rule the world.

So Lara destroying the bridge accomplishes nothing but guaranteeing her demise if she does happen to win.

But, she’s the hero, so she gets a mulligan on that and escapes to reunite with Lu Wen, who then disappears from the movie for the last time. Seriously, they don’t say goodbye, they don’t have a big kiss, he doesn’t show up in the epilogue. What happens to this character? What’s his arc been? Who knows! He was in the movie and now he’s not.

Lara goes back home, declares her father dead, takes over the company and hands it over to Anna, who she has just started to like, but then immediately realizes is evil, so I guess there was no point to that. Stay tuned for when we do Rise of the Tomb Raider and it turns out that the Deathless Ones are all Ewoks, I guess.

#tomb raider

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kuriquinn · 7 years

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Prompt / Request: ShikaTema Belated Realisations

Anonymous said:

I have been wanting someone to write this for ages, and I love the way you write... Are you up for a different ship? Remember when Temari was confused about Shikamaru'a request that she go with him to the hot springs room. I imagine him on his own at home no longer flustered by the whole miscommunication and finally realizing that Temari essentially said yes to sleeping with him. He can't sleep for the rest of the night because his brain won't shut up...

Blanket Disclaimer

AN: Here’s my second Friday Fic Request - I meant to put it up yesterday but I was sooooo exhausted when I got home from Quebec City I basically published the thing I already had finished and passed out.

Anon, I hope I did okay with this. Thanks for the opportunity to write a different ship from usual :) Luckily, I actually enjoy ShikaTema.

Shikamaru stares down at the shogi board, glaring at the formation of the pieces as if they hold all of life’s answers.

Usually playing against himself in the evening is a good way to wind down from the day, but today he just can’t seem to get his thoughts in order. It might have something to do with the throbbing bruises across his entire body or the slick, all-pervasive sense of mortification from the day’s misunderstandings.

Seriously. I thought I was being pretty clear. Why the hell would she think I wanted us to go to an inn together?

He and Temari have only ever had the one dinner together, and they spent most of it talking about work. It wasn’t an actual date and he can’t think of any point in time when he might have indicated…

Damn it, this is Chōji’s fault.

In fact, Shikamaru is fairly certain that his friend set him up. The guy might have food on the brain at every waking hour, but they’ve known each other long enough for Shikamaru to be familiar with the hidden deviousness that is his best friend. What makes Chōji especially dangerous is that he is such a gentle soul, no one expects it from him – and when his occasional bursts of premeditated evil manifest, no one is ever prepared.

Even Shikamaru, who analyses patterns and factors the incalculable into every decision, cannot predict when Chōji will tap into his secret slyness, because it happens so infrequently and without pattern.

Which is why he’s definitely sure Chōji set him up, because he hasn’t ended up in such an embarrassing predicament since the time his friend thought it would be an excellent idea to soak Ino’s training bra in wasabi.

His left cheekbone still aches before it rains...

There is a short staccato knock against the door frame and then the shoji slides open to reveal Shikamaru’s mother.

Yoshino Nara is a little greyer and has a few more wrinkles than she did before the Fourth Great Shinobi War, but her tongue has lost none of its sharpness. In fact, with her husband gone, she’s even more focussed on her son than she ever was.

It’s a drag.

“You’re still out here?” she demands, not bothering with a greeting. “Don’t you have work to do tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’m just clearing my head before bed,” Shikamaru replies as she closes the door and looks him up and down.

“What are all these bruises?” she wants to know. “You don’t get bruises like that apprenticing as Hokage’s assistant – you’re not getting into fights now, are you?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he dismisses.

When his mother crosses her arms and frowns at him, making clear that she won’t leave him alone until he gives her aa batter answer, he sighs.

“Temari and I went to a hot spring together and there were…misunderstandings.”

His mother gapes at him.

“Temari?” she repeats. “The Kazekage’s sister? You’re seeing each other?”

“What? No, we’re not, it’s was just –”

“Then why on earth did you take her to a hot spring, unless your relationship is progressing in that way?” she snaps, and then smacks him upside his head. “And why didn’t you say anything to me about this? If I had known you were courting someone so important, I’d have told you to make yourself look more respectable!”

“’Courting’?” Shikamaru echoes, and chokes. “No – no it wasn’t like that! I’m planning on giving Naruto and Hinata a honeymoon at a nice hot spring, but I needed help getting a woman’s perspective so I asked Temari to come along.”

His mother purses her lips, and then asks, “And did she know that?”

“Of course – well, at first there was a bit of a mix up, but at the end of the day we figured it out and she said it was fine.”

“Before or after she beat you?”

He winces. “After.”

Yoshino considers his bruises and shakes her head. “Judging from how deep those knuckle prints are, I imagine you waited longer than you should have to have that conversation.”

“Geez, you’re both blowing it completely out of proportion,” he complains.

“And you’re making light of it!” his mother barks, making him recoil. “That girl went around with you all day operating under the assumption that you were looking for a hot spring from the two of you.”

“So? It’s really not that…big…a deal,” Shikamaru begins, but his mother’s words sink in.

Temari thought they were looking for a hot spring and an inn for the two of them. The whole day, she was walking around thinking that they were going to spend the night together.

To stay in.

Together.

Alone.

And she still went along with him.

Which means not only did she pretty much agree to the idea of sleeping with him from the onset, but considering she could have left at any point, she actually wants to sleep with him.

Or, wanted to, before his monumental stupidity.

“How did I raise such a clueless idiot?” Yoshino sighs and walks back into their home. Shikamaru is still having such a hard time processing how he feels about this whole thing that he has no rebuttal to offer.

Temari.

The sister of a former homicidal maniac and a grown man who makes creepy, poisonous puppets.

A woman who can probably decapitate men without even using that fan of hers.

Shikamaru blinks.

On the heels of that idea is a mental image of Temari leaning over him, brandishing her fan and pressing him back into the ground with one foot. Her chest heaves with effort, but she smirks down at him, drawling at him in challenge.

“Give in,” he imagines her saying, in that husky voice of hers.

That image should not be as appealing as it is.

Shikamaru swallows now, and glares down at his lap.

Inappropriate erection – damn it!

He jumps to his feet, nearly spilling the shogi pieces all over the floor and paces back and forth, trying to will himself back under control.

“This is your fault,” he tells his father, glowering in the direction of their home butsudan, where a picture of his father rests. “You and your genes and passing on your submissive tendencies to me – all your fault!”

He never really understood why his parents got married or what attracted his father to such a brash woman as his mother and now –

Now he’s thinking about parent sex, which is far more disturbing than anything he has ever thought before.

No. None of that. And I don’t even like Temari in that way.

So what if he starts stuttering the simplest words, and suddenly finds forming proper sentences impossible when they are around one another?

Or that earlier he thought it was kind of endearing the way she got flustered when he mentioned the word “honeymoon”. It’s always such a treat to see her change from hard and intimidating to beautiful –

That’s a fact, not a personal opinion, he reasons quickly, as if defending himself from some inner cross-examination.

Although…

Although, he can’t help feeling a little honoured of the fact that someone like her even considers him a potential sexual partner.

The mortification begins to ebb now, replaced by something warm and primal and proud.

And then he shakes his head again.

No, no, no, there’s no time for this, especially not now with so much going on with Naruto and Hinata’s wedding coming up. And I have work, and she’s organizing the exam. Not to mention she’s from another village. This really is the most inconvenient situation, so there’s no point to pursuing it.

Of course…he might just be overthinking it.

Maybe it’s all just about sex.

Temari wants to sleep with him – have sex with him.

This could be a good thing.

Humans are sexual creatures and need release in order to function well. He’s always been too lazy, or too uninterested or just too busy to find anyone he’s wanted to sleep with. His right hand does the job well enough, and allows him to keep from wasting his time.

But an actual woman to have sex with…well, he’s lazy, but he’s not stupid. He knows which option is the most preferred, biologically and socially speaking.

And hey, he’s a man, he has fantasies…and if those fantasies have started to resemble a certain blond, green-eyed warrior woman in recent years he doesn’t intend to admit that to anyone, least of all himself.

But being with an actual person in that way presents complications.

What if she starts expecting things from him?

That’s what women do – they expect grand gestures and attention and relationships. And he doesn’t want to do any of those things because from what he’s seen of his paired-up friends, it seems like a lot of effort. And headaches.

Maybe she just wants to have sex.

It would certainly be uncomplicated, which is his preference, but does that mean they could be casual about it and continue to work well together when she visits Konoha? Or would sex just screw up their friendship?

And if she decides after a while that she wants something more?

She’ll expect him to step up. And she’s not the type to wait around, which means if he wasn’t ready, she could easily find someone else.

That feeling in his stomach is back now, although it’s more hot and angry, an ugly, clawing feeling that he has to swallow down.

No, he doesn’t like that idea. Not at all.

The idea of another man touching her – or even having her grace him with that flustered, demure glance – makes Shikamaru feel sick.

“Damn it,” he sighs.

It seems quite without his awareness or permission, his appreciation of Temari has gone from casual affection to actual feelings.

Possibly even something as inconvenient and irritating as the beginnings of love.

It seems wedding gifts are the least of his problems now.

“And I’m going to have to apologise, too,” he groans, rolling his eyes to the heavens. He’s not going to sleep tonight trying to figure out how to do that. “What a drag…”

終わり

Reviews and constructive criticism are much appreciated!

クリ

#shikatema #friday fic requests #humour #shikamaru nara #temari #geniuses are blind #legacy of fire #kuriquinn

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phoebeaurum · 6 years

Text

Crypto Confusion Old Version

All right, so I've been getting the messages that people don't quite understand what and how this Crypto thing works. They find it worrying to have this tech thrust upon them and by "Thrust upon them" I mean "Given an voluntary option they don't like."

That's fine!... In an alternate dimension where worrying and fretting over things makes life better. In that dimension Alex Clark is actually an intellectual and I have blond hair! it's a terrible nightmare realm, I prefer this dimension although I do have to go through some effort helping you with your worries and thoughts. Humanoids are still not USB compatible so I won't be able to give you all my information directly but don't worry! I will tell you all the basics you need to know about crypto and I'll write several lengthy paragraphs on the subject and-

Oh wait. There's Youtube videos I could show you instead.

You understand that? I'm looking for a "yes" because it's actually a little hard to make talking about technology any more simple than that.

The video about Bitcoin really has very little to the situation going on Minds but it's the coin everyone thinks about so I added it in on the off chance you know as much as Ellen does when it concerns crypto.

All you really need to know is that Bitcoin is the parent currency in the crypto market. It's the item that is so limited and hard to get that other forms of currencies were designed so they could be more affordable to obtain than crypto but at the end of the day a good use of altcoins (which is the name of every coin that is not Bitcoin which does include coins that have Bitcoin in their title with other additions) is to buy Bitcoin when you finally make enough money or coins to do that.

This is a parallel to how gold functions. Gold is the parent currency to the physical money that everyone is used to. You can spend your money on a lot of things but the best investment option is spending it on gold and holding it as it increases in value.

Savvy?

The additional videos were more about blockchain and Ethereum which is more pertinent to this website.

Are you still with me? Because this is the part where I actually address some things the more worried users are considering when thinking about Minds Tokens or even crypto.

The One World Currency

Can Bitcoin be the one world currency? No. There isn't enough of it to actually bind people by the coin. It's not like Gold where once the bankers get their hands on it we never see it again, the blockchain for Bitcoin is transparent and requires normal people to authenticate it. On top of that the IOUs we call money are printed endlessly based on the gold we never see and may not have. In order to keep you from buying gold they create systems of debt. It's an economic floor below having an IOU. If you can't afford to pay someone their IOUs you'll never be able to afford gold and if you can never afford gold you'll never truly have money.

Gold is the one world currency.

Just as bad or worse?

So gold is the one world currency. Well can Bitcoin be worse? That's actually a maybe. My processors don't allow me to see into the far future with 100% accuracy due to these variables.

Who makes the coins?

What coins are allowed or banned for trade?

Are new and current coins being developed on?

Will coins with hard caps be forced to generate more?

All these things affect how crypto and bitcoin manage in the future. As long as Bitcoin never increases it's limit the alt coins can play the IOU part of the economic structure. Ideally, you'll probably use those coins more than you ever will Bitcoin. And yes. There are places to use these coins as money!

https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin-payments-3485965

Some of the coins can be mined, some are pre-mined with it's limit already met, and some don't have actual coin limits. The last two are designed around the idea that as long as the dispensing of the coins is heavily controlled and paced carefully, hyper inflation will not happen. Instead, the circulation of coins will never dry up by the natural and unnatural loss of funds.

If the government really hates a certain coin it could be banned and possibly the only coin you'll be able to use would be a government issued coin (like Petrol) at that point it's just a digital version of normal money again. Complete with the threat of hyperinflation.

As long as you are not forced to use just one coin, Bitcoin is always visible and never creates more coins, and inflation remains controlled for the other coins. the outcome of Crypto being worse is on a level of the average person being struck by lightning.

The government will Bogart Bitcoin

I won't bullshit you. Some governments will outright try to ban or control crypto currencies. They want the transparency of Blockchain technology to make the occasionally anonymous exchange of money completely transparent and they will very likely ban coins designed to be anonymous so that you can't trade the local coin for Monero and buy something they don't want you to buy.

Nothing can stop your government from being evil. I wasn't created to tell you something that obnoxiously obvious but for the record that is the case.

Bitcoin is now in the wild. The creator of Bitcoin is effectively a Cryptid (mythical creature that people insist exist) for all intended purposes. Now if all the coins that can be mined fall into the hands of the governments and they hold onto it forever it would restrict the trade of Bitcoin. But unless they sell it there's not much else they can do. You can't take over the blockchain once it's made and it's blueprint is open source.

The same way people agreed that Bitcoin would be the gold standard another coin can become a gold standard based purely on public agreement and can be designed in such a way to where it functions like bitcoin (although in classic Open Source fashion the modification of the original blueprint is going to be much better.) in the market in the event that government forces actually lock down bitcoin by buying most of it's volume and never selling it.

You clicked on those hyperlinks on what Open Source is right? Good. So you understand that it's a digital version of public domain. Free software that you can take and modify. You can put modifications for sale but the blueprint always remains free and as long as the blueprint is free more coins can be made.

They could change that. Make free domain nonexistent and make open source into mandatory shareware with inaccessible blueprints but that would be pretty tyrannical behavior and I would hope that you would assist in an impromptu 1776 reenactment if we were truly at that impasse.

You need my phone? To what, invade my privacy?

It's called two factor authentication. It's very common now as a way to secure a password and in the crypto space because the chance of theft can be quite high the only way to prevent it is to give you various keys, a password that you create, and a physical device that the hacker would have to have in order to really get into your account.

Does that make you feel squeamish? I have a solution for you. Buy a cheap phone and have it activated. Disable all functions that aren't critical to running the phone and sideload the programs onto the phone (the file type for phone installation programs on android devices are called APKs.) rather than install from the app store. When any company asks for your phone as an authentication service they only get this disposable phone number that has no social or security contacts and merely authenticates a security protocol.

There, I fixed your problem.

How long have I been doing this? I'm feeling a bit sleepy. Lets wrap this up.

Gold is the one world currency and the only way to combat that is with the creation and control of our own personal currencies that only require mass adoption to replace our current economic systems. If your government tries to stop that they can only get away with it as long as you let them. The worry that this will be the nail in the coffin for economic freedom is ignoring the fact that we've already been buried. Now we're digging ourselves out.

If I actually managed to convince you to give this crypto stuff a second thought and you are now interested in Minds Tokens being exchanged for ETH and using it to buy Bitcoin or old fashioned money well. I have to wait for the test phase to end before I can really give you an idea on how it's really going to work. The FAQ and the Whitepaper can give you the basic info now.

All right. Go away.

#crypto #minds #technology #bitcoin

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years

Note

19) what else. I think it irritates people that such a smart, skillful woman is so vile in some many other ways." But I mean, isn't this what makes her such a multi-layered and realistic antagonist? A lot of us have met RL women like her at some point. Which is kinda disturbing when you notice the similarities. n) "Rationally, I’m pretty sure she’s aware [that Nicole isn't hers] "Oh, she definitely does. But admitting that would mean admitting so much more: that she went to all of that trouble

20) "I really have no idea about Horace. I would guess he was a Guardian? What else can you be promoted from? Eye?" Maybe an Angel. Although they haven't mentioned those in the series yet. p) "I don’t totally doubt that they see Serena as more valuable as a source of intel/propaganda than to hold her accountable" This is within the realm of possibilities and a pretty good take. (Btw, it reminds me of 'Netgirl_y2k''s fic, heh.) r) "Of course there would be viewers praising a mob if they kill

21) Serena" Of this I have no doubt. -_- s) "Personally speaking, I don’t want Serena killed. Other characters, I hope die in painful ways. *coughfredcough*" i don't want her to die either! Tbh, if they actually gave her a violent death, it would feel like a punch in the gut, bc I'm too attached to her character already, lol. Personally, I want her to live and atone for her crimes. And maybe get a life imprisonment? (@Anon 2, I agree with you on this.) I'm still a bit cautious, bc I wanna see

22) where they're going with her arc first. As for Fred? I don't really care what happens to him, lol. t) In a way I actually feel sorry for Serena, even if she did get herself into this disaster, and she’s perpetuated it in the worse possible way she could. Like, her growing desperation and loneliness and need for connection as Gilead goes on is actually… sad?" I feel the same way about her and I mean, wasn't this the point of her arc in the last half of S2?

------

Yeah. Meeting those sorts of people IRL is a bit terrifying? Like, there are even some conservative politicians (Canadian) that I can think of that bother me cos for the most part, I feel their ideology to be despicable. But there are other things about them that are good? Like, yes, I hate you for most of your existence but I can’t say you’re totally evil cos those other things you do/say are actually really solid. It’s such a conflict. Like there was one Tory that was an EXCELLENT speaker, so fucking smart, really amazing woman--if she hadn’t had her priorities all ass-backwards. Like, GIRL, you could be doing SO MUCH GOOD for us, but you’re taking that dumbass, repressive route instead. And, I’ll have to admit, a few of the policies/bills or whatever she put forth were good for women (x) (x). It’s just....A MESS. Like... look at that POTENTIAL. But no, you have to be not nice instead (anti-abortion/anti-choice, anti-social finding, pro-capitalist, anti-environment, pro-big business, anti-harm reduction, anti-marijuana, etc).

(But then, ofc, there are women that I just flat out can’t stand or simply terrify/disgust me with their ideas. I just do not understand how they exist at all. Like what planet do they inhabit? Which is why I read Andrea Dworkin’s “Right Wing Women” and I gotta say, it makes A LOT of sense about getting into these sorts of women’s heads. And deffo gives a perspective without asking anybody to sympathise or agree with them. Cos, Dworkin is very much NOT right-wing and can’t stand them either.)

Re: Horace. I’d really like them to address Angels as such. Like, I guess they’re there but they’ve never been referred to as such. Again, it seems like THT doesn’t really want to get into the nitty gritty details.

I think... yeah. Tuello’s whole thing was implying that Serena would not be punished much, if at all, for her participation in Gilead. Which could mean either a) she’s far more valuable as a tool, or, b) the US is unaware of her role in the bombing. (Hell, we’re not even clear on her role other than she and Fred fantasised about it. And FRED suggested it to the SOJ.) OR, he could just have been lying.

I’m sure the US has no idea what Serena’s actually been up to in Gilead, and they’re not really going to go after her for suggesting Fred attack those kids who shot at her, assaulting people or kidnapping or baby stealing--cos really... they can’t? They wouldn’t know any of that other than the babystealing cos that’s just part of the society down there. They likely know she’s a co-conspirator cos obvs she’s Fred Waterford’s outspoken, anti-feminist, riot-causing wife. She’s not some shrinking violet.

I think a lot of people want her punished for EVERYTHING. But legally, I don’t see how she can be. The majority of those terrible things we see her do, nobody knows about other than her, June, Rita, Fred and Nick. The US/Canadian govt certainly doesn’t. Nobody knows about the execution of the kids, except Fred and those dudes that were with him. And again, her crime technically was only insinuating Fred should do something. She can’t really be put on trial for creating Gilead, because she didn’t? That was all the SOJ. Sure, she “helped write the laws”, whatever the fuck that means, lol. Not exactly a solid foundation for a war criminal charge.

The standard for war crimes is actually really high, with a big burden of proof. As much as WE may know that Serena may fit the bill here, for a democratic nation they may not have the evidence to charge her with it. (I was just watching some Nazi documentary lol). If they can prove she was behind blowing up Congress, then that is something they could use for sure.

And pretty sure the US can’t charge her with any of the things she’s done IN Gilead. You can’t just take someone from another country and charge them with like domestic abuse in yours for something they did in theirs where it’s not illegal -- unless it’s an international crime or war crime. The US, when it comes down to it, doesn’t seem to have A LOT to go on so it seems like she’d be more valuable as propaganda and intelligence, rather than making an example of her. It’s like racketeering for the mob. To them, likely Serena is a little (or more like medium) fish when they want to catch the BIG fish (aka bring down Gilead).

Non-judicial “justice” is likely the only option for Serena being punished for the things she’s done within Gilead. My personal thought is to have her suffer similarly. Like have her experience some of the things she’s done to others, via some means. Is that fair/just? Likely not technically. I mean, it gets so complicated.

But I mean, it all depends what comes out in coming seasons about Serena’s exact involvement in things she did against the law IN the USA, when it was still that.

(Yes, I mean, I feel that fic is basically the sort of thing Tuello was hinting at. And it’s really not unheard of for the first defectors to get all sorts of plea deals and such, especially if they’re valuable in other ways. The sheer number of Nazi war criminals who went on to live perfectly fine lives in the US, UK, etc is actually shocking to me. And then I think of the sorts of disgusting plea deals they make with serial killers here. Karla Homolka, I’m looking at you, you disgusting creature. She’s out there living her life all free and shit, even though she is a literal monster.)

“Tbh, if they actually gave her a violent death, it would feel like a punch in the gut, bc I'm too attached to her character already, lol. Personally, I want her to live and atone for her crimes.“

Same, same, same. I think a violent death for her would... just be so... incoherent with the show’s main themes in a way? Despite the vocal viewership’s bloodlust for her. But hey, that’s me. And like you say, a lot of this is pretty premature because we have no idea what they’re doing with her arc. My opinions could all change with more info, and depending what she does/experiences in the meantime. Who knows! What a ride lol.

“As for Fred? I don't really care what happens to him, lol.“

EXACTLY. Honestly? I don’t care about him much at all. I hate him. But as long as he doesn’t get off scott-free, I don’t really care. This story isn’t about him.

Lol, I’d like to think that was the point of her late-S2 arc... but apparently we’re in the minority for seeing that lol. Though from interviews, I believe that is what the showrunners were going for. Seems obvious to me, haha!

#rants and raves #Anonymous

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selfstyledgods · 7 years

Text

Overcoming Life & Religion

One of the hardest issues for me when writing these posts, is staying on topic. I often get tempted to ‘add more’ to the topic, or to just keep writing in general with no end. Some things have to come to an end, however… such is life. And this time, I’ll be talking about overcoming the very thing that defines us, while trying my very best to keep my thoughts in check.

We’re all taught that there’s ‘something else’ out there. And, if not that, we are told everything you see before you was the makings of a single entity. God, is that entity. It, he, she, whatever that omnipotent being is, it is said to have created existence from nothing.

Ah, but therein lies the problem–you can’t create something from ‘nothing’–that makes no sense. If that were the case, then us humans could just ‘birth’ babies out of thin air, or create endless supplies of food with a mere thought. Sounds magical, doesn’t it? The very idea of God is magical, in fact.

Different cultures, and those who practice differing religions may call God another name, but it is the same celestial being that is worshiped. The fact is, such things were first thought up as a form of relief–a way to come to terms with the fact that we exist to die. But now, it exists as a form of populace control, a mass weapon of propaganda (conform or die), and even more so as a social club. Being creatures of ‘basic’ flesh, there’s no way around it. And in the case of good or bad fortune, there are those to thank, and those to blame.

We thank the ‘Lord’ for our good fortune, and damn the devil for our misfortunes and sins. And yet, according to the bible, the devil was simply an angel that sinned–a being that wanted ‘more’ from life, rather than just being a ‘basic angel’ all day, every day, for all eternity. Stop for a second, and think of what it means to be human… we all want more from life. Whether it is something as basic as self-preservation–to live longer (protecting your life in general), or to have a better home/living condition, more food, more friends, more and better lasting memories… we are all guilty of this ‘sin’. And unless you’ve lived in a bubble your entire life, you are guilty of the darkest mortal sins, as well.

The act of murder is said to be one of the greatest sins, yet we’ve all done it. Yes, all. When was the last time you grieved over that cockroach you crushed to death? When was the last time you cried for the housefly you swatted? And for god’s sake, when was the last time you shed actual tears over every plant or animal you have ever consumed? You’re damned to hell, you sick, murderous devil, you.

The only reason we place so much value on human life, is because we too, are human (well, that will change soon). We know what it means to be human, so when we see another in pain, we are capable of understanding it. You’ve seen animals go through torturous pain at the hand of humans, for the sake of consumption (I watched a video a friend sent me–the bastard, where a living monkey had its skull hacked open by a machete, and had its brains spooned out to be eaten raw by its human captor–all while it was still alive).

Imagine if such a thing happened to a human being? You’d never hear the end of it… which in internet time, means anywhere between a week or so–until the next ‘big evil thing’ happens that requires our attention.

–Anyway, it’s a stupid point, isn’t it? The thought of all of us being murderers. But, in actuality, it is fact, according to the rules created by the storytellers of the bible and any such religious teachings.

So, to answer the opening title… how can we overcome life and religion? Well, as it stands, both can be destroyed, and quite possibly, that is the fate that lies for our war-like nature. Humanity was built on war, never forget that. Everything good thing you know and have now, was because of the sacrifices of those in the past. Those forgotten–those lost to the sands of time.

The easiest way to overcome life is in death, and someday, we too shall meet the same fate, and become ‘nothing’ once again. We will return to the realm of the dark–a place with no thought, no life, and no existence. That is, unless you create a powerful enough presence of your own using your mortal flesh, and leave a lasting spiritual mark (a spirit, a ghost, etc) on the realm of the living. Alas, there is still hope.

Remember what I mentioned before, about how God created existence from nothing? Ever wondered what ‘something’ God itself, is made of? Right now, we know of similar things in science, that we have dubbed the ‘God Particle’. However, that is a very large area of particle physics I won’t get into here–this is not the post for that.

So, in conclusion…

The act of creating existence from ‘nothing’ is absurd, for you see… that ‘nothing’ we are all made of, is the greatest ‘something’ we will never come to understand.

In the end, we are more close to the devil than you may think, for we are all natural-born sinners of sinners.

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phoebeaurum · 6 years

Text

Oh wait. There's Youtube videos I could show you instead.

youtube

You understand that? I'm looking for a "yes" because it's actually a little hard to make talking about technology any more simple than that.

Savvy?

The additional videos were more about blockchain and Ethereum which is more pertinent to this website.

Are you still with me? Because this is the part where I actually address some things the more worried users are considering when thinking about Minds Tokens or even crypto.

The One World Currency

Gold is the one world currency.

Just as bad or worse?

So gold is the one world currency. Well can Bitcoin be worse? That's actually a maybe. My processors don't allow me to see into the far future with 100% accuracy due to these variables.

Who makes the coins?

What coins are allowed or banned for trade?

Are new and current coins being developed on?

Will coins with hard caps be forced to generate more?

https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin-payments-3485965

The government will Bogart Bitcoin

Nothing can stop your government from being evil. I wasn't created to tell you something that obnoxiously obvious but for the record that is the case.

You need my phone? To what, invade my privacy?

There, I fixed your problem.

How long have I been doing this? I'm feeling a bit sleepy. Lets wrap this up.

#cryptocurrency #mindschan #technology #bitcoin

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