This is the next in my series of why communism is doomed to failure. I did get some feedback that my arguments have been said before on the internet, and I should be more original. Therefore, I made a concerted effort to read more of the original, thought-provoking posts on this subreddit, so that I could learn from the great masters.
Yeah. Well, so much for that.
Theoretically, communists could wait for capitalism's natural, inevitable demise that's been predicted for almost two centuries. But that's not happening, either (weird). So, historically, if you want communism, you're going to have to fight it out.
Now, the problem that communism faces is one of the inevitable hierarchies of any revolution. People are social animals. Social animals are biologically defined as hierarchical. And while many communists hate the idea of class hierarchies, and want to get rid of hierarchies altogether, they are actually a very effective strategy for advanced, massive organization that enables accomplishing incredibly difficult achievements. These advantages include, but are not limited to:

1. Division of labor. Committing people to specific roles for extended periods of time makes their effort predicable and incorporable into larger plans to accomplish higher level objectives
2. Multi-level execution. This is an extension of the division of labor. Having people committed to thinking at specific levels (high, medium, low) and communicating allows people to use their limited mental capabilities and focus to the maximum on specific parts of a project, delegating the rest to others who, in turn, focus on theirs, such that small individual achievements coordinate into large scale ones.
3. Commitment. Incentives to follow direction over extended periods of time enables predictable effort, which is necessary for long-term planning and decision making.

Here's another obvious way to say this: I have a hierarchal military composed of multiple ranks and a large number of enlisted personnel who have signed contracts, are well paid, and will be punished if they do not complete their terms of service. You have a military composed of people who hate to work, hate authority, want to vote on every decision, and feel like fighting today. Place your bets.
Here’s a good visual representation of this phenomenon: https://youtu.be/NJRWgKKvqog.
Now, any revolution will have a hierarchy because you desperately need one if you're going to overcome any capitalists intent on not starving to death. Because they've already got this hierarchy stuff down pat. They've been doing it for centuries. And here you are, showing up with your new, better way. The first thing you do is immediately organize yourself into a hierarchy with leaders and followers. And that's why all of your revolutions have leaders and a more-or-less military style organization.
If you want to accomplish big things, that's the price you pay: a hierarchy. You ever think that maybe also extends to anything else? Like, economic production? Nah, perish the thought! We'll just have a temporary military hierarchy that takes over a country and completely revolutionizes all of its capital planning and investment...without a hierarchy.
Do you see the problem here? Of course you're going to have a hierarchy. You've created a division of labor, you have leaders and followers at multiple levels of execution. And you've concentrated the power in hands of a small group of people who led the revolution.
Do you imagine that will be a temporary solution? You've also confiscated all capital and transferred capital management from that group of people to the revolutionary leaders. Now, how do you get the workers to start managing that? You've gotten rid of the concept of private exchange of capital, so how the heck do they figure out what production is more/less valuable across the myriad of parts and components that go into the goods and services society needs? You don't. The results are a disorganized, undirected mess. You've run straight into the economic calculation problem, and it's so obvious that the workers aren't going to figure it out the the revolutionary leaders take control of the economy.
As much as you may hate the 1% making the decisions in a capitalist economy, that's actually a group of tens of thousands-millions in a country, tens of millions of people across the world in a decentralized system. You've decided that's too oppressive, so you've handed all capital investment to a small cabal of people.
Now what's the plan? They're supposed to figure out how to transfer and distribute all economic planning decisions to a group of people who have no markets and no prices, so they can all organize... how? Voting? What do they do? They vote for the revolutionary leaders to figure everything out on behalf of everyone. Because, you know: they're so kind and trustworthy.
And what do you get? An authoritarian economy that stays that way more-or-less forever with leaders who are worshiped as if they are gods, because you're looking for a god to save you. And they're not god. They're not even as good as the capitalist they may have replaced.
Good luck. Please try again soon, somewhere else. I have my popcorn.

Hi this might be a bit odd though I'm an aro/ace hermit.I'm out of Asia timezone wise but my schedule varies, I'm looking for 1 or 2 people that would be open to trying a new type of concept of a internet based collective as a social unit.
Consider, we live in a world where everything is instant, remote, and a bit abstract that there could be new ways of simply existing.
I view all relationships as just people deciding to be something, and everything pretty egalitarian. That isn't to say I don't have emotions, but for me it's more like people deciding to be x y or z rather then anything else.
I'd ask that anyone reaching out has a remote based job, you don't need to be ace but I'm kind of being serious this is for people who are so far removed from regular society that we're freestyling what concepts even are.
I like anime, fine dining, economics, socialism, gaming, art, technology.
Ideally you would be someone that understands technology but also understands the harm it does. Part of my work is around regulatory, so I'm kind of like dousing myself in gas here to filter out people.
If you've made it this far and are up to try this kind of thing dm me a bit about yourself.

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Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar winning Spider-Verse saga, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse’s very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most. Anyone can wear the mask – it’s how you wear it that makes you a hero.

Animated Film! Here are options for downloading or watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse streaming the full movie online for free on 123movies & Reddit, including where to watch Miles Morales's latest adventure movies at home. Is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 2023 available to stream? Is watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus, Peacock, or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service. Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online Free 720p, 1080p, And 4K.

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Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar winning Spider-Verse saga, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse’s very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most. Anyone can wear the mask – it’s how you wear it that makes you a hero.
After a grueling five-year-long wait, Marvel fans everywhere will finally be able to return to the animated multiverse with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The upcoming sequel's predecessor requires no explanation, as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse not only ensnared audiences and critics alike but also caught a prestigious Oscar win with a Best Animated Feature award. With "New York's one and only Spider-Man," Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), now becoming a household name, fans of the first film eagerly awaited the day they could see young Miles swing into the Spider-Verse again.
Thankfully, the wait is almost finally over, as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will return to screens soon. This time Miles will not only be reunited with Gwen Stacey (Hailee Steinfeld) and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) but he'll also be introduced to an entire multiversal society of Spider-people created and led by a particularly pessimistic variant of Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). Though some of the other variants in this secretive organization view Miles as a nuisance more than anything else, they'll have to learn to put those apprehensions aside if they hope to save the multiverse from an all-new terrifying threat. As the release date for the sequel to one of the most celebrated Spider-Man films ever made crawls closer and closer, here is precisely where and how you can watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse when it premieres this Summer.
If you’re like just about everyone else on the planet who saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018 and loved it, you’ve probably been waiting for the sequel. You won’t be waiting long, as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is finally coming out in 2023, a full five years later. It’s been a long wait but by all indications the film is going to be a blast for fans of comic book movies, Miles Morales’ version of Spider-Man, and this new animated franchise featuring the iconic webslinger.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most highly anticipated animated superhero films of 2023. Serving as a sequel to the critically acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), this upcoming installment promises to continue the exhilarating adventures of the Spider-Verse. Fans from all around the globe are eagerly awaiting its release. In this article, we will provide you with all the essential information on the film's release date and how to watch it online from any country, ensuring you don't miss out on this exciting cinematic experience.
This is especially true for many superhero films, which are often tied directly to specific streaming services. Disney+ and HBO Max - now rebranded as MAX - often house the new streaming releases for the MCU and DCU respectively, usually releasing anywhere between 1–3 months after theatrical release. However, with a film like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the situation is slightly different given Sony's lack of a dedicated streaming service, here's where to watch and stream Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse online.
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When Is the Release Date for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse?
When Is the Release Date for Spider-Man: Across thMiles, Gwen, Peter, and several dozen other Spider-people will be swinging into action when Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse premieres on Friday, June 2nd, 2023. This almost undoubtedly gives Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Flash a run for their money as the biggest superhero movie event of the Summer. Spider-Verse?
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had its world premiere at the Regency Village Theatre on May 30, 2023, and is scheduled for theatrical release in the United States on June 2, delayed from an initial October 2022 date because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Where To Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online:
As of now, the only way to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is to head out to a movie theater when it premieres on June 2, 2023. You can find a local showing on Fandango.
Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available to rent or purchase on digital platforms like Amazon, Vudu, YouTube or Apple, or become available to stream on Netflix.
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How to Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
There's been no official announcement regarding Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's streaming release date, though we know it will eventually be released on Netflix, rather than Disney+ or HBO Max.
In terms of which of the streaming giants Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be released on, Netflix will house the film upon its streaming debut. While again, Sony does not have its own dedicated streaming service, a deal was struck in 2021 between the studio and Netflix. The deal, stating that Netflix would stream Sony's films after theatrical release, was penned for 5 years meaning Across the Spider-Verse is part of the arrangement.
While Sony's Spider-Man content is also streaming on Disney+, due to the collaborations between Sony and Marvel Studios in recent years, Across the Spider-Verse will be a Netflix release. While the deal struck between Marvel Studios and Sony may extend to this film, Disney+ is only allowed to begin streaming Sony's Spider-Man releases upon their release on Netflix. As a result, Netflix will be the first streaming service that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be available on after its theatrical release.
Because it’s airing on FX, you can of course fire up Into the Spider-Verse via FX Now. But in addition, the animated flick is streaming on both fubo (which offers a free trial and has cord-cutting plans starting at $74.99/month; sign up here) and DirecTV (which also offers a free trial and has cord-cutting plans starting at $64.99/month.
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Is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in Theaters?
Not only was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse the subject of rave reviews, but it also pulled in some gargantuan levels of cash at the international box office, with a final tally that quadrupled the film's ninety-million dollar budget. With incredible success like that, it's only natural that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse would also be taking advantage of a theatrical release. That is the case, as the upcoming film will be exclusively available in theaters when it premieres on June 2nd, 2023.
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When Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be on Streaming?
The Spider-Man franchise is in a pretty interesting place regarding streaming. The various films of Sony's franchise have typically been scattered across multiple services. That said, following a historic deal between Sony and Disney, the many stories of Peter Parker and beyond are now available on Disney+. This includes the original Sam Raimi trilogy, the first Amazing Spider-Man film, and, starting mid-May, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Venom. Notably absent from the Disney-streaming platform so far are The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Morbius, and most significant of all, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Some of the films are not currently available on the service because Sony has pre-existing partnerships with Starz, as that's where most of the absent films are available to stream. That is except for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is instead only streaming on Fubo TV and FX Now.
If Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse comes to Disney+ before Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's theatrical run concludes, that would make the House of Mouse's service a likely contender for a streaming release. However, Sony has also historically partnered with Netflix for streaming releases. Up until recently, that's where Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was available to stream, and Sony still brings their other big releases to the service, like Bullet Train and The Woman King.
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When will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse be streaming on Netflix?
Sony Animation’s big new Spider-Man movie is about to hit theaters and will be headed to Netflix (at least in the United States) later this year. For a prediction as to when and a bit more about the new movie, here’s what you need to know.
As we covered in 2021, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be headed to Netflix as the service gets both Sony’s animation and live-action content via a first window deal struck in April 2021.
The deal stipulates that all Sony theatrical movies come to Netflix in the first window, which at a minimum, is 120 days after its theatrical release date. If it arrives exactly 120 days after, it’ll be streaming from September 30th, 2023.
With that said, given how big this movie is, we may see it release a few weeks after the fact. Either way, we expect the movie to be available between late September and November 2023.
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Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be Streaming On Netflix?
Yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is coming to Netflix approximately in December 2023.
In 2021, Sony and Netflix signed a five-year deal that gave the latter exclusive first-pay-window U.S. streaming rights for Sony Pictures titles after their theatrical and home entertainment windows. Fans can expect to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Netflix six months after the film’s theatrical release, thus in December 2023. The date seems reasonable considering that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dropped on Netflix on June 26, 2019, six months after its U.S. release on December 14, 2018. The pay-one window usually begins about nine months after a film’s theatrical release, but it might start earlier in particular cases.
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Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be On HBO Max?
No, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will not be on HBO Max since it’s not a Universal Pictures movie. Last year, the company released its films in theaters and on the streamer on the same day. However, they now allow a 45-day window between the theatrical release and the streaming release.
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Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be Streaming On Disney+?
Yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is also coming to Disney Plus approximately in 2025.
​
Once the pay-one window runs its time and Netflix’s exclusive rights expire, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be available on Disney Plus. The pay-one window might last as long as 18 months, which means it will be a while before Disney Plus subscribers can watch the much-anticipated sequel. Unlike in other countries, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse isn’t yet available on the Disney-owned streamer in the U.S.
American fans will have to wait until 2024 to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and at least until 2025 for its sequel. We will update this post once there is an official Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Disney Plus release date.
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Is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Available On Hulu?
Viewers are saying that they want to view the new Marvel's animation movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Hulu. Unfortunately, this is not possible since Hulu currently does not offer any of the free episodes of this series streaming at this time. It will be exclusive to the MTV channel, which you get by subscribing to cable or satellite TV services. You will not be able to watch it on Hulu or any other free streaming service.
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How to Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online For Free?
Most Viewed, Most Favorite, Top Rating, Top IMDb movies online. Here we can download and watch 123movies movies offline. 123Movies website is the best alternative to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) free online. We will recommend 123Movies is the best Solarmovie alternatives.
There are a few ways to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse online in the U.S. You can use a streaming service such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video. You can also rent or buy the movie on iTunes or Google Play. You can also watch it on-demand or on a streaming app available on your TV or streaming device if you have cable.
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When Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be on DVD and Blu-ray?
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will likely be coming to DVD and Blu-ray around the same time as the streaming release. With theatrical films, on average, coming to streaming sooner than ever (usually ninety days after theatrical release), we'll likely see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse get a DVD, and Blu-ray release no later than Fall 2023.
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Cast and Characters
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was written by Dave Callaham, Phil Lord and Chris Miller and directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson. It stars the following actors:
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The following cast members are confirmed to provide their voice talents for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
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Shameik Moore as Miles Morales / Spider-Man
Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman
Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis
Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales
Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man
Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan Ohnn / the Spot
Issa Rae as Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman
Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar / Spider-Man India
Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart “Hobie” Brown / Spider-Punk
Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara / Spider-Man 2099
Greta Lee as Lyla
Rachel Dratch as the school counsellor
Jorma Taccone as Vulture
Shea Whigham as George Stacy
Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider
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What is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse About?
Returning with many of your favorite characters, including Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman, Peter B. ParkeSpider-Man, and of course Miles Morales as our primary Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is set one year after the events of the previous film. Miles (Shameik Moore) is coming into his own as Spider-Man when he is unexpectedly approached by Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) with an extraordinary opportunity. Does Miles want to help a team of Spider-People, led by Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) protect the multiverse from the terrifying threat of a man known as The Spot (Jason Schwartzman)?
Obviously, Miles is going to say yes, setting him up for an adventure that will expand this movie’s concept of the multiverse in every possible way. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse promises tons of new characters and worlds, without losing sight of what people have come to love about this particular Spider-franchise.
Miles Morales has become a massively popular Spider-Man, and you can be certain he’ll be at the center of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s chaotic blend of action, comedy, comic book aesthetics, and large-scale science fiction. It seems more likely than not that Across the Spider-Verse will be the biggest animated release of 2023.

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1. The X-Files

SUMMARY: Two FBI agents named Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate strange unexplained phenomena that the rest of the FBI ignores, such as UFOs, secret government conspiracies, the paranormal, and other things that defy explanation. All the while secret agencies in the shadows try to cover up the truth.
RATING: 9/10, my favorite show of all time, the two characters are so great and memorable, and every episode has an intriguing mystery you won't imagine. It's one of the few shows that treat conspiracy theories and cryptic stuff in real life seriously, and the grounded realistic tone helps the mood and sets it apart from other similar shows.
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1. Twin Peaks

SUMMARY: After the murder of high school student, Laura Palmer, an FBI agent named Dale Cooper is called to the small mountain town of Twin Peaks to investigate her death, but he soon finds out that the town and the mystery surrounding her death go much deeper than anyone could have thought.
RATING: 9/10, this is the show that changed television as a storytelling medium, and easily one of the weirdest TV shows you'll ever see (as common with David Lynch). This show mixes every genre you can imagine into one pot, and it all blends really well into a world that you can't help but be fascinated by, and every single character is so likable and memorable. Despite being pretty simply made, it really manages to convey a feeling of otherworldliness. The villain in this show is one of the most terrifying in TV history. Also, expect to be confused a lot.
If there's one thing I have a gripe about this show, it's that after the death of a certain character in season 2 (you'll know who I mean), the show really derails its plot for the remainder of the season. But in the final episode of season 2 and for season 3 (The Return), the show becomes amazing again. Oh, and the prequel movie "Fire Walk With Me" and the deleted scenes compilations movie "The Missing Pieces" is great too, check those out as well.
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1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

SUMMARY: We follow the misadventures of a trio of sentient fast food items including the mean and foul-mouthed Master Shake, the straight-thinking and smart Frylock, the lovable but idiotic Meatwad, along with their fat grouchy neighbor Carl, getting into random weird situations in their bland and pathetic everyday lives.
RATING: 8/10, this is easily my favorite animated show, definitely one of the funniest, and it never gets boring to watch. In the middle of shows with fantastical larger-than-life ideas, it's fun to watch a show where every single character is a pathetic deadbeat idiot and lives a very bland life that just happens to have weird fever-dream stuff in it. It's a funny silly show to just turn off your brain to and enjoy.
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1. Project Blue Book

SUMMARY: Based on the real-life Project Blue Book, this show follows the cases of Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Captain Michael Quinn of the US Air Force as they investigate sightings of UFOs and aliens around the country.
RATING: 8/10, this is the next X-Files, except more UFO-focused. The characters here are all great, especially the two leads, they're both really likable and enjoyable and it's fun seeing the progress and growth of their friendship. The mystery of this show is also pretty intriguing despite being the usual UFO and government coverup mystery like X-Files. Still upset it got canceled on a cliffhanger, hopefully, it'll continue.
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1. Poirot

SUMMARY: A murder mystery show following a short Belgian gentleman named Hercule Poirot, solving some of the most heinous and complicated crimes with his little grey cells.
RATING: 9/10, one of my favorite murder mystery shows, a big part to the character of Poirot, who is so sweet and endearing but also very calculated, intelligent and filled with faith-based struggle on human condition. The side characters are great too, such as Poirot's best friend, Captain Hasting, Chief Inspector Japp, and Miss Lemon. This is a show that actually gets better with each season, and has one of the best and saddest endings to any TV show.

1. Father Brown

SUMMARY: A priest named Father Brown who lives in the village of Kembleford, solves gruesome murders with his close companions that the incompetent inspectors fail to solve with the intent of saving the sinners' souls.
RATING: 8/10, another of my favorite murder mystery shows, once again the characters are all really likeable here, with Father Brown being a kind understanding man who only wishes to help people, even those who committed murder or are discriminated in 1950s society. The cast are all very endearing, and it's always fun seeing their dynamic and seeing Father Brown help people, even in the most grizzly murder cases.
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1. The Chosen

SUMMARY: A modern serial adaptation of the story of Jesus, with a more grounded, historically accurate, and more relatable down-to-earth characters and interpretation of the story, being told from different perspectives of the people Jesus recruits.
RATING: 9/10, easily my favorite adaptation of the story of Jesus after "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977). I really like how this show attempts to be a lot more historically accurate and have a more realistic feel to it. The show also really succeeds in making the characters relatable and likeable, since in most adaptations you mostly just follow along with them without feeling to much about them, so it's nice this show gives every single character a more defined personality. Also, this is the only interpretation I've seen where Mary Magdelane is one of the disciples, so huge plus for that.
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1. The Twilight Zone

SUMMARY: An anthology series following different characters across different settings and time periods and situations where strange unexplainable events happen in mix of science fiction, horror, comedy, fantasy, superstition, and others.
RATING: 9/10, if you love shows where weird supernatural stuff happens, this is the show for you. Every single episode is different and really great, offering something different, it can be funny, weird, heartwarming, depressing, and even horrifying, you never know what you're gonna get. Despite every episode being 22 minutes and having a different character each time, the show manages to make every single character relatable, likeable, and sympathetic in a pretty short amount of time, and you really do get worried, feel sorry, or root for them. Definitely a must-see.
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1. Midnight Diner

SUMMARY: An anthology series about the owner of a small alleyway diner that opens from midnight to dawn as he meets and learns the life story of different people who different people who come into the diner as he cooks whatever food they request.
RATING: 9/10, it's a very nice slice-of-life show with a pleasant little setting, you get to watch the delicious-looking cooking while also learning and sympathizing with the different people who eat at the diner.
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1. Samurai Gourmet

SUMMARY: A recently retired man named Takeshi learns to appreciate life differnetly than he ever did before, especialy for food. He also develops a samurai alter ego in his mind that represents his inner warrior, who does what he wants or what he should do, an ideal self in a way.
RATING: 8/10, a feel-good show like Midnight Diner, the main character is just really heartwarming, and watching him experience life in a new way in a stage of life a lot of people consider to be the end is a really nice message. The show is also really funny, and the food looks great. Definitely worth checking out.
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1. Xavier: Renegade Angel SUMMARY: A weird, faun-like shaman guy named Xavier, who rambles the world in order to ponder deep questions and help others to reach spiritual enlightenment using deep philosophical ideas of life. Problem is, he doesn't actually understand any of the stuff he preaches, is a huge narcissist, looks for trouble and help people where there is no trouble, and ends up destroying everything in the end.

RATING: 9/10, easily one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, there's not one single scene or line of dialogue in this show that isn't funny or memorable. This is a very one of a kind show, and it's easily one of the weirdest shows you'll ever see in your life. The animation looks ugly and terrible, but it was done on purpose and it's part of the charm. The show somehow manages to be stupid yet genius at the same time, it's clear the writers of this show are very smart, and every single episode is stuffed with at least fifty jokes a minute, that it's possible to watch the same one-minute clip from the show, and discover a joke you didn't notice until your fifth viewing. It also has a lot of smart satire on spirituality and New Age spiritualism, and mocking the people who preach them through the character of Xavier. This show is only twenty episodes long and every episode is only eleven minutes long, and it's really worth checking out, clips and episodes are available on YouTube. Also the theme song, listen to the theme song.
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1. Columbo SUMMARY: A seemingly ditzy, slow and easily distracted police lieutenant named Columbo, gets into cases of near-perfect murders committed by people of very high-intelligence. But Columbo isn't as slow or distracted as he seems, and he always gets the killer to reveal themselves.

RATING: 9/10, easily one of my favourite and best detective murder mystery shows out there. But what makes this show different from every other murder mystery is that there is no mystery. Every episode follows the killer's story, not Columbo, from their background, their motivation, and how they committed the crime and cover it up. Columbo never seems like a competent officer or serious threat, which always leads to the killers underestimating him, and Columbo knows these guys are smart, and it's near impossible to prove the crime by the usual means most of the time. But Columbo is good at reading people, noticing little flaws in their innocent act, which allows him to tell something's off about someone. Because the crime is near-perfect, Columbo doesn't always gather one damning piece of evidence, rather he tricks the killer into revealing themselves by placing them with the main evidence and gets themselves to accidentally reveal themselves as the killer. It's a very unique, funny, and enjoyable show and worth checking out.
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1. Rome SUMMARY: The show follows two Roman soldiers named Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo and their intertwining lives of trouble with all the major events in ancient Rome, all the way from the rise and death of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, to the rise of Augustus.

RATING: 9/10, this show was essentially HBO's Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones actually came out. The show runs for two season, but is filled with every drama, action, and tragedy of ancient Rome you can imagine. The two (closest things to) protagonists, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are a very enjoyable duo, and you always root for them to be in a better situation despite both of them doing pretty terrible things. The drama involving the more major historical characters is also great, from Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Atia of the Julii, and Caesar's nephew, Octavian. All the characters in this show are as grey as can be, as Rome is a society where all sorts of terrible things are normal. The characters can go from decent to despicable and from hateable to being sort of admirable so many times, and you can shift a lot from liking a character to hating them and vice versa. The only disclaimer is this show has a lot of violent and sexual content, and I do mean a lot. Otherwise, go check it out, it'll be worth it.

title is clickbait.
this is less of a whiny copypasta (but you can use it as such if it does become stupid) and more of an attempt at walking through my experiences and hoping to keep an open mind about whether or not continuing the series would be worth it.
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Warning: my writing tends to be more or less an incoherent mess as I jump around and write what I think of off the top of my head.
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I read the manga up to the current chapter and at the end was left in a pretty negative vibe and hesitant on whether i'd enjoy the rest of the anime and LN if I invested time into it.
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Prologue:
I was browsing youtube and the scene with Zanac discussion and beheading came up. I tend to care less about major plot points getting spoiled and will usually read through summaries of things in advance. I value twists/big plot points less than how well they are executed. Interesting enough so I decided to read the manga. I chose manga over anime/LN because 20 minutes per episode usually doesnt slot well and LN requires more mental imagination of things.
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The Manga:
Gonna break down my reactions based on first time reading them

The Undead King Arc

Yup pretty chill intro, we get to see some of the basic things going down w Momonga, e.g. friendship, his relation to the guardians, his [guild's] cool crib, his overpowered abilities. Off to a start with Momonga helping the village and giving free items.
Nice villain premise seems solid
Guardians deciding to go for world domination interesting.
My expectations for the story based on this arc: "Ainz will become the anti hero who fights evil with killing so at least it isnt shit ass talk no jutsu I guess"

The Dark Warrior Arc

Momonga does some basic isekai/adventurer shit. Seems legit I guess.
First taste of good guys dying brutally. Corpses get defiled not cool.
My expectations for the story based on this arc is same as above really, good guy who isnt above killing.

The Bloody Valkyrie Arc

Ainz realizes there are people with power. Possible challenge? Ainz might have to exert some effort?
My expectations for story are same as above + seek revenge on the strong NPCs motivation, gonna fight a lot of mini enemies before reaching top of organization.

The Lizard Man Heroes Arc

I skim/read really fast but yeah the "Biped Sheep" went over my head as much as it did Ainz's. Honestly the giveaway should've been the lack of wool mentions and just directly talking about skin w/o stuff like meat or innards since it would make sense to make use of all parts of a sheep.
Lizardmen sex haha funny.
First taste of real evil brutality and it was underwhelming tbh.
At this point I kinda expected at least Zaryushu to be revived and Crusch to survive because they had baby making. yeah just based on that. honestly i believe baby making > actual children in terms of plot armor.
Interesting/funny how Demiurge and Albedo guide Ainz's reasoning unintentionally.
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Overall, nice of Ainz to let Cocytus step up, sorta gives the parent teaching kid vibe.
Cocytus choosing to spare the Lizardmen of his own volition, showing that the guardians can act independently of Ainz and have their own personalities. I understood Cocytus's choice was out of honor rather than mercy.
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My expectations for the story based on this arc is will Demiurge notice that Ainz isnt really the super mega genius brain he is and manipulate Ainz into pushing his own goals (or just Nazarick's goals). Alternatively Demiurge instead of intentionally manipulating, simply subconsciously manipulates.

The Men in the Kingdom Arc

Meeting the other guys.
Sebas being a good person baited me into thinking that Nazarick would really be nice guys after all. After finishing the manga I feel like Ainz's compassion for the sister thing was too much of an asspull. In order to justify keeping that girl alive they had to make her related. Because otherwise there was no way Ainz would've had any reason to keep her alive. It doesnt seem like she appears later so she more so functions as a bait to keep the reader thinking that they're really good people after all (in the manga).
Demiurge being Demiurge I guess, absolute murder happy feller.
My expectations for the story based on this arc is above + will the guardians become nicer + Ainz will continue pushing a hero persona while instigating the villainy himself. Evil yes but it'd be interesting to watch him be a fake good guy.

The Invaders of the Large Tomb Arc

He said they would die so I expected them to die. They died.
I honestly put 0 value into anime waifus. None whatsoever. Arche sad backstory? Yeah cool but I already knew she wouldn't be an exception so she died. The End.
Honestly? I got the kick out of watching the guardians exert their skills or personality to handle intruders.
The only slight nagging I had at the back of my brain was "Is Momonga going to do anything (is Ainz going to let them go to keep Momonga's identity intact)". I honestly dont know what was up with this line of reasoning but it was still sorta "Ainz is still technically good" copium. Turns out I didnt need to worry about Momonga identity at all because it gets buried and nobody ever really thinks about or brings it up again since he decides to go into Sorcerer King mode.
My expectations for the story based on this arc: "Ainz will kill people to 'protect' Nazarin from shit like looters/adventurers who dare trespass"

The Two Leaders Arc

Woah check out the side characters. Remember these guys Ainz helped? They're doing normal stuff and just trying to chill but get jumped by monsters!
Ainz decides to kill some more high end monsters! yippee!
My expectations for the story based on this arc same as before

The Magic Caster of Destruction Arc

bro killed 70k real people just to summon some murder monsters to kill even more. yeah honestly, what's the point i cant fuck with this anymore.
even though I didnt expect anyone to survive its still not a fun thing to just watch everyone get murdered.
My expectations for the story based on this arc: "Ainz will just kill almost everyone i guess and then enslave the rest"
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Epilogue:
After hitting the chapter 76 (last chapter I could find), I just felt subdued disappointment.
I dosed partial copium in two aspects

1. It's still a "game". Yes I know its another world but there are constant reminders that everyone else is an NPC, MC is looking for players, etc etc. The New World might as well still be the video game and MC is killing everyone simply because they aren't real people.
2. Undead = less morality. I would say the isekai shifted his personality though we dont see much of it in the manga. There's no way this guy would've passed any sort of mental health test. Then again its a dystopian future so they might not even have enough funds for mental health check.

Yeah I definitely did the seething and coping but I just decided that eh whatever it just isn't worth pushing manga/LN for if this is the series going forward. It felt like a shift from the first two arcs for sure.
Copying the names for the arcs it turns out the part where Ainz announces his utopia thing is right after it, which might've changed my mind on continuing the manga.
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Then I went on reddit

Browsing the Hot Posts

some good memes, not too much to talk about tbh

Searching for "evil"

Seeing some diverse opinions that were all pretty well received
"He is evil"
"He is just benefitting Nazarick at the expense of everyone else"
"He is justice/based"
I get last ones a meme and I'm honestly with number 2/3 combined ones where they acknowledge from a general moral compass perspective it is evil but his intentions are to further Nazarick.

Searching for "redo"

I'll admit, this was just kinda copium trying to find hypocrisy where there is none. I barely touched redo, looked at a few chapters, its just hentai with adventurer element trying to do a story. Still came up in my mind since I wanted to compare the "blatantly villain guys"
Specifically wanted to see the subset of fans that dunk on redo for rape specifically (rather than shitty story/hentai) and mentally calling them out for being okay with genocide but not rape.
I did see someone who mentioned how certain animes trigger them because of violence/sexual violence but Overlord is fine since its from Ainz's perspective but that's honestly acceptable and isnt a real good indicator of hypocrisy since PTSD can manifest differently.

Searching for "tanya"

I actually never read tanya but I already mentally had a dislike of the thing because of the "child hitler" thing. Yes yes imperial germany but the whole child conducting war crimes premise was not a great hook for me.
Turns out overlord and tanya are homies and thats just great i guess. Mass murderers rise up.

Searching for "arche"

Yup I agree with the common sentiment "Arche simps are cringe. Backstory =/= survivable". Gonna pat myself on the back for being so uncringe.

Searching for "arche sisters"

On this I regained strong feelings.
I would've been completely fine if it was "le salt mines". I would've been fine if they died in an orphanage fire. I would've been fine if Ainz just teleported, time stopped and killed them w one touch insta kill.
But really...
really?
as forgone as it was in terms of dark world + no other forms of child labor, I cant for the life of me imagine 5 year old children in that kinda situation ever and people casually joking about it. Given the non zero amount of fans who joke about it and the non zero amount of fans who enjoy the Overlord genocides there is definitely a non zero number of fans who got off on that. I would also argue there's definitely a difference between 5 and 10. Specifically, school starting at 6 years old (in modern societies technically). If the author chose 10, maybe less fucked up idk since they'd have awareness. Man could've chosen 1 year old and had the parents sell their baby children and it wouldn't have been that fucked up.
Idk how new fans would process this information while being called degenerates for simping Arche by the same people who joke about this.
I guess I'll keep snorting the "they died mercifully" copium instead of the alternative.
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Overall reasons for disliking

1. Manga format.Honestly I should've read the LN because the manga is both behind anime and still kinda graphic in presentation. Also cuts some details compared to the LN format. LN allows the reader to tone up/down their mental images and allows some readers to just read w/o imagining at all.
2. Switches up goals/personalities way too quickA lot of the early stuff feels like isekai bait. Switches from hero to world domination really fast. Momonga personality dropped and gone. Idk how much smoother the transition is in the LN compared to the manga
3. Arche's sisters too fucked up
4. Horny/sexualization out of place. Straw that broke the camel's back for me. Honestly the whole dark humor story didn't need horny tacked on. It feels grossly out of place to read Albedo thirsting over Ainz and then Ainz murdering everyone. If I'm being honest I've never enjoyed horny in manga where story isnt about horny. Curious how Albedo's body pillow never got brought up after he murdered all the trespassers... edit: taking this even further, i think the idea of best girls in this is silly. Ainz has 0 sex drive or romantic motivation and shipping any of the characters to Ainz seems futile. well shippers gonna ship I guess. edit: changed to out of place because yes I agree the sexualization is less compared to other isekais.

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Everything aside, I've never really gotten into Isekai at all.
I read SAO once. once. pretty much killed all interest in isekai after that. and the sexualization is not my jam.
I've guilty pleasured some power of friendship stuff like MHA but that's never been my bread and butter.
Honestly might've moved past shonen as a whole.
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Two of my favorite mangas are Moriarty the Patriot (anti-hero, alternative history of Moriarty but from a sympathetic perspective. Commits murder for a goal, willing to sacrifice self to better country) and Ya Boy Kongming (Alternative version of famous chinese strategist Kongming, uses his military strategies to help singer succeed in market)
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Maybe the real issue is that I dont like isekai. I'd love to hear any armchair psychologist thoughts you guys might have and some refutations to any shit points I made.
I'm willing to give LN another shot but I want to hear some rebuttals or agree/disagree on opinions stated
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tl;dr
overlord kills way too many people that i wish he'd just instant kill 80% and just slave the rest, no point in getting interested in characters outside of nazarick because they'll just get dumpstered.
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edit: I understand that there are people with WCI and therefore its still important for him to be conscious of that. I retract that part and apologize for not considering that.

The Pixar Nest nearly fell through due to Horst. Theorizer mentions that Horst realized that something was off, killing the CEO of BNL and creating a hole in the ozone layer over France and robbing a bank
We also know the importance France holds in the DreamWorks theory. It can be seen as the stronghold and origin of FEET itself
Here is where things tie in. Horst was capable of killing a man with his thumb: This connects to forced-evolution and strength. We also know Remy is capable of cooking: This connects with intelligent animals rising up slowly, as the other rats begin to help Remy with his cooking. I'd also like to note that Skinner is short, likely showing that Pixar is in the later stages of the Sky Gods' assimilation if humans grow weaker and are forced harder at the end of the timeline. Horst, also causing a hole in the ozone layer, would show supernatural or intense capabilities from one man or his actions
These are all motifs that point to something relating to Mort or The Sky Gods all at once. It's likely that Skinner only was against Remy cooking and was suspicious because he wanted to end another intelligent beast from rising up. The restaurant at the end might have even been shut down not for contamination issues but because FEET wanted Remy gone, using contamination as a cover-up (Remy also is shown to be clean and is smart enough to wash his hands) Horst was not as aggressively against Remy. This could be why he killed the CEO of BNL and tried to destroy their funds. These funds would also be the one thing holding them together, besides The Sky Gods blessing them with divine supernatural powers, as they would require proper advancements to evolve themselves or exterminate animals (and remember, we see a short exterminator as well located in France). Due to being the closest to intelligent animals yet likely a member of FEET, he would be chased as a rouge member. Remember, someone like Dubois is above the law. The fact Horst was arrested means that FEET might have bailed him out with ease (and money). But after realizing that France can move forward with intelligent animals like Remy, he killed their CEO with his bare thumb, using force-evolved brutal tactics
He then would've tried to drain their funds, which would include funds for weapons like the ones that Dwayne used that was hinted ar being used to kill Mort. This could explain the hole in the ozone, perhaps it was used as a last-ditch effort against a rouge footman who was trained to kill a man with his thumb
Another few details I noticed are things like Remy being a four-letter named rodent like Mort (hinting at a future host from another universe?), the themes of cooking that don't hint at sacrificial food yet, and that other connected universes could tie in well. We see intelligent animals in Up (the dogs, and we can add that Charles Muntz is quite well at fighting for an old man who lived in isolation AND whose only job was to HUNT a specific animal), Finding Nemo, and we see memetic control through BNL's alleged plans to air Buzz Lightyear cartoons. And consider how much music also ties into movies like Ratatouille, as well as France's culture itself. Maybe they're honing in power from The Sky Gods even further. FEET could even be trying to use BNL to destroy the Monsters' society in Monsters Inc because they fall under the category of intelligent Beasts
Here is what I think is happening: Along the events of the later DreamWorks universe, FEET reached out to another multiverse to anchor themselves in another France. This is BNL, and this is their back-up plan or practice of sorts. They are also trying to rebel against intelligent animals, evolving humans and creating the Supers we see, using memetic control via Easter eggs and attacking the most powerful and intelligent beasts ever: Monsters. However, one of their footman sided with yet another rodent of intelligence with four letters in their name. At the heart of France itself, this footman tried to remove every back up plan they had to collapse their corporation. However, this forced FEET to work harder, cementing themselves into the multiverse. This is because if FEET isn't native to Pixar and they go completely broke, they also cannot fight back in their home DreamWorks universe, losing to Mort. This is why their endgame DOES show lazy, fat, short humans, but also a lack of any intelligent animals. Any that exist, exist through the Monsters Inc universe that they use for energy. They exploit these intelligent animals as well, such as the giraffe too, so they can travel back home if anything happens. Bridging the Pixar multiverse allows them to travel across it and back to DreamWorks with ease, using this experience and/or energy to finally defeat Mort by draining an entire multiverse dry This means FEET is at the top while BNL is the franchise they introduce into Pixar that takes over. BNL is merely a hand that FEET (ironically) uses to test their plans in a new multiverse

MTF (45) here still presenting in boymode. I noticed I dont have friends to text, talk or hang out with. Hoping to connect with cool ppl. we can just text or if in my area hang out maybe. I hav interests that include animation, anime, science, philosphy, learning new skills or relearning old ones like math. Hoping to connect with ppl + or - 10 years my age. if its a few years off, no worries especially if your cool. Currently live in CT.

European Citizen's Initiative, ends: 06/06/2023 End The Slaughter Age
European Citizens’ Initiative, ends: 05/04/2024 For vegan meal
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European Parliament petition: Petition No 0391/2022 by Simone Pavesi (Italian), on behalf of the LAV (Lega Anti Vivisection), on a ban on imports into the EU of meat and other products derived from the hunting of kangaroos
European Parliament petition: Petition No 0388/2022 by Dennis Vink (Dutch) on behalf of World Animal Protection on banning imports of kangaroo products in the EU
European Parliament petition: Petition No 0408/2022 by Léa Badoz (French), on behalf of Eurogroup for Animals, on banning EU imports of kangaroo products
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Canadian Petition, ends: June 28 2023 e-4330 (Animals) Bring an end to the use of animals in military trauma training and replace them with more advanced, human-relevant and less expensive human patient simulators.
Canadian Petition, ends: July 14 2023 e-4351 (Public safety) support the replacement of fireworks for light displays.
Canadian Petition, ends: July 22 2023 e-4254 (Public safety) Phase out the sale and use of fireworks in favour of technologically advanced pyrotechnic displays
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Scottish Petition: PE2021: Ensure the definition of protected animals in the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 applies to the sheep on St Kilda
Scottish petition: PE1758: End greyhound racing In Scotland
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Finnish petition, ends: 27.08.2023: Animal rights to the Constitution (Eläinten oikeudet perustuslakiin)
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UK petition, ends: 22 June 2023 Stop animal testing
UK petition, ends: 28 June 2023 Make Animal Rights Required Learning on the School Curriculum
UK petition, ends: 28 June 2023 Ban the use and sale of shock collars, prong collars and choke chains in the UK
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UK petition, ends: 9 July 2023 Ban the use of fireworks in residential areas.
UK petition, ends: 11 July 2023 Require zoos and safari parks to close
UK petition, ends: 12 July 2023 Retain bans on cat, dog, seal fur imports, and extend to ban all fur imports
UK petition, ends: 18 July 2023 Create New Rights for All Sentient Animals
UK petition, ends: 20 July 2023 Ban the keeping of live dolphins for public displays and entertainment
UK petition, ends: 25 July 2023 Create a register of animal abusers, with mandatory checks by breeders/shops/etc
UK petition, ends: 26 July 2023 Completely ban the use of whips in horse racing
UK petition, ends: 30 July 2023 Ban the advertisement of leather products
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UK petition, ends: 2 August 2023 Ban the use of battery farms to produce eggs
UK petition, ends: 9 August 2023 Ban animal dissection in schools and colleges
UK petition, ends: 10 August 2023 Switch: Boost steps to end the use of animals in scientific and medical research
UK petition, ends: 21 August 2023 Make it completely illegal to trap, harm or kill foxes
UK petition, ends: 27 August 2023 Make hedgehogs a protected species and fund a hedgehog sanctuary
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UK petition, ends: 8 September 2023 End the use of animals for toxicity tests & prioritise non-animal methods (NAMs)
UK petition, ends: 13 September 2023 Ban the Import and Sale of badminton shuttlecocks that use feathers.
UK petition, ends: 15 September 2023 Ban processed meat from nursery and school menus in England
UK petition, ends: 17 September 2023 Add health warnings to red meat and processed meat products
UK petition, ends: 20 September 2023 Ban import of octopuses bred by intensive farming methods
UK petition, ends: 22 September 2023 Make it illegal to farm octopus for the production of food
UK petition, ends: 30 September 2023 Mandatory custodial sentences for animal abuse offences
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UK petition, ends: 4 October 2023 Increase the Maximum Penalty for Animal Cruelty to Ten Years Imprisonment
UK petition, ends: 4 October 2023 Make the culling of healthy animals in captivity illegal
UK petition, ends: 6 October 2023 Bring back the Kept Animals Bill and add provisions to regulate online sales
UK petition, ends: 12 October 2023 Stop culling of badgers permanently
UK petition, ends: 18 October 2023 Ban fence jumps in horse racing
UK petition, ends: 25 October 2023 Grant All Sentient Animals the Basic Right to Life
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UK petition, ends: 2 November 2023 Ban egg hatching projects in educational settings
UK petition, ends: 9 November 2023 Ban the export of horses for slaughter
UK petition, ends: 15 November 2023 The Vegan Petition - Ban Animal Slaughter and Animal Products by 2030
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French petitions: Senat (Sorry I don't understand the french so I could not check those, but if you live in France, you do! And if you find any, link them in comments!)
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Welsh Petitions: none (There is nothing now but keep your eyes open!)
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And if you have extra time, sign also environmental petitions on those websites! Thanks!

Told you then and now look at what is happening with HB6667, so yes they are coming for our firearms.
So if your a firearm owner and a democrat how is this working out for you now?
Regretting voting for that two faced lying oathbreaker lamont yet?
Regretting voting for democrats yet because they are the majority that is pushing this gun control and the turncoat republicans who are even worse who voted yes on this bill.
I think we should change the nickname of CT from the Constitution state to the Communist state.
So obey your masters in Hartford and do what they say even if it strips you of your rights and liberties.
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So they are not coming after our firearms or are they?
I keep hearing from people who are liberals and democrats saying "they are not coming for our firearms"
Wonder what they think of this: https://archive.ph/WfSFL
Here is the whole thing while it is still available online. I can see it getting buried.
NEW MILFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont said this week that he wants to go after thousands of firearms legally kept in Connecticut under several “grandfather” provisions in the state’s decades-old assault weapons ban, but clarified Thursday that he has not yet discussed specifics with lawmakers.
The governor first made those comments in response to questions following Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate, when he tussled with Republican opponent Bob Stefanowski over the issues of crime and gun control.
“He won't touch guns,” Lamont said of his rival on the stage. Connecticut has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including a ban on assault weapons that was first passed by lawmakers in 1993 and later expanded following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a gunman wielding an AR-15 style rifle and two handguns. Despite the ban, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has issued 81,849 certificates of possession for assault weapons to gun owners who legally possessed their weapons prior to the expanded prohibition taking effect in 2013. Officials estimate that the actual number of legal assault weapons in the state is much higher due to a number of other exemptions in the law, including those for active duty military and police officers.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “I think those assault-style weapons that are grandfathered should not be grandfathered,” Lamont told reporters during a media session following the debate at Mohegan Sun. “They should not be allowed in the state of Connecticut. I think they’re killers.” When asked whether he was prepared to introduce a bill during the next legislative session to remove the grandfather clause, Lamont said he was but then provided few details when asked how his administration would go about the task of collecting or removing the those weapons that are currently legal to keep. “Start by making them illegal,” Lamont said. “I think that would be a big difference. That is what you start with.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If the governor does pursue an expansion of the state’s assault weapons ban, he is likely to meet fierce resistance from Republican lawmakers and gun rights activists, who have already filed a lawsuit seeking to have the present ban ruled unconstitutional. “I’m sure it’s a great talking point for the governor in Connecticut,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It’s no surprise that the governor continues to boogie man law-abiding gun owners.”
Connecticut’s assault-weapons ban actually includes two separate provisions grandfathering in different categories of weapons. The first applies to assault weapons manufactured before the law went into effect in September, 1994 and allows those older weapons to be transferred and sold in Connecticut without additional registration requirements. The second applies to newer weapons that were legally kept in Connecticut between 1994 and 2013 — when the ban was expanded to include at least 100 additional models — and allowed owners to register those guns with the state, but not to sell or transfer them to anyone except for a licensed gun dealer or family member.
Lamont did not say Tuesday whether he hoped to strip one or both grandfather provisions from the law, though he has previously proposed requiring the registration of pre-1994 assault weapons in a similar manner to the gun owners who had to register their weapons after 2013. That proposal, part of the governor's 2022 anti-crime legislation, was ultimately stripped from the bill along with nearly all other measures pertaining to gun control.
When asked to clarify his remarks following an event in New Milford on Thursday, Lamont said he had yet to work out the specifics of a bill with lawmakers, adding that he planned to have those discussions if he is successful in next week’s election against Stefanowski. “I’ll work on that with the legislature, I’d like to get things done not just have a political talking point,” Lamont said. “I think the world would be a lot safer place, Connecticut would be a lot safer, and our cops would be safer if there weren’t so many of these assault weapons out there on the street.” Supporters of such a ban said this week that enforcement could be similar to that of a 2018 law banning bump stocks in Connecticut, which gave owners several months to remove the illegal devices from the state, transfer them to a federally licensed firearms dealer or turn them into State Police before criminal penalties were enforced.
“It certainly wouldn’t happen overnight, you would need to give folks a period of time to properly dispose of it,” said Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Steve Stafstrom, D- Bridgeport, adding a bill to remove one or more of the grandfather clauses from the state’s assault weapons ban is likely to be considered in 2023.
Opponents of the governor’s gun policies, however, said that going after the tens of thousands of legally-owned weapons would be a much more complex and sensitive task. “If you remove a grandfather provision… I guess the government is proposing confiscation,” said state Rep. Craig Fishbein, R- Wallingford, who is also an attorney for the plaintiffs challenging Connecticut’s existing ban.

New Dinosaur With Rows of Bristles On its Head Like a Toothbrush Has Been Discovered (goodnewsnetwork.org)
Researchers say this strange, dome-headed, bristle-bristling dino from 68 million years ago has traces of keratin, what fingernails and rhino horn are made of, sticking up from its skull.
The paleontologists who discovered the beast completed a CT scan on the partially-completed skull and revealed these keratin bristles, described as giving the animal the appearance of having a “brush cut.”
The animal is called Platytholus clemensi, and is a type of pachycephalosaur discovered in 2011 in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. It was a plant-eating dinosaur that grew up to 15 feet long and walked on two legs.

👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 02:59
Hello
[03:01]
Sorry for the random dm
[03:01]
I read that u were having trouble making new friends online
[03:02]
If I read correctly, you're in your 30s?
[03:02]
I am too
[03:03]
Anyway, if u wanna chat and see if we have anything in common u can shoot me a dm
[03:04]
I need friends too
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:15
​
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:16
Tell me about yourself?
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:16
Well.. I am a nerdy guy with love of science fiction and PC games.
[03:17]
That's me summed up in one sentence ha
[03:17]
How about you?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:17
I'm a nerdy girl with a love of science fiction and games
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:18
Hey, that sounds great! What's your favourites?
[03:18]
What genres do you like?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:18
Rn I'm obsessed with the new zelda
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:19
Oh boy I've seen the trailers, it looks absolutely stunning.
[03:20]
I actually watched a stream of Critical Role doing a one-shot Dnd campaign based of in game lore.
[03:20]
As a promotion of the game.
[03:20]
It was super cool.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:20
Aye I like DND too
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:20
Did you ever read SCPs?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:21
I've listened to basically every SCP video on the YouTube
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:21
That's one of my go-to places when I want to read something cool.
[03:21]
Some of them are so well written it's insane.
[03:22]
What's your favorite out of the ones you know?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:22
The sentient ball of yarn lol
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:23
Never read that one, tell me about it
[03:23]
Or tell you what, I'ma go have a quick read of it.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:24
Thank you, my memory is trash
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:24
It's the SCP-66, yes?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:25
Unsure
[03:26]
I think maybe
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:26
That is pretty cool one for sure
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:26
Yeah sorry for being so vague, I'm like mid-migraine
[03:27]
Hard to think
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:27
Sorry to hear that. Hope it passes quickly!
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:27
Yeah ty I can still chat and everything
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:28
So I've noticed your about me says that you have some strong stances on certain topic.
[03:28]
Tell me about it if you don't mind.
[03:29]
How did you come to hold these views?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:29
I watched Dominion on YouTube and saw the truth about animal exploitation
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:30
Would you link me the video? I'm curious to see myself.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:30
Ofc
[03:30]
https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko
YouTube
Farm Transparency Project
Dominion (2018) - full documentary [Official]
​
[03:31]
It's a 2 hour documentary
[03:32]
You're honestly the first person in my almost three years of activism to actually ask to see it
[03:32]
Most people don't want to know the truth they are culpable in
[03:33]
Even bringing up veganism usually makes a person agressive towards me
[03:34]
Personality I'll take bitter truth over a comfortable lie any day
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:35
It's because of people that use veganism to feel and act morally superior to others.
[03:35]
Those people give all vegans a bad name.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:35
Yeah I used to be an asshole vegan too ahahaha
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:37
Well if you know than you are aware that it's nothing against you personally, but rather the practice of how you implement it in your life.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:37
Egoism doesn't look good on anyone
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:37
But people will remain people and not realise you can't put everyone into one basket.
[03:39]
I strive to remain an individualist. Someone who believes each person is to be evaluated separately regardless of what their beliefs and backgrouds are.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:39
Animals are individuals too
[03:40]
And deserve the same consideration
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:40
The video you provided is quite drastic. I see how it could have affected you to such extent.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:40
The video is the industry standard in every developed country, actually
[03:41]
This happens everywhere
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:41
There are differences obviously from place to place, but that is the general gist of it.
[03:41]
Although there are exceptions of course.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:41
Such as?
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Z_fDL9C3M
YouTube
Just a Few Acres Farm
how we raise 35 Dexter cattle on 30 acres - without buying hay!
​
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:43
Regardless of how they are raised they all end up dead
[03:43]
Usually in a slaughterhouse
[03:43]
I've actually written about the ethics if you care to read it
[03:44]
I've had these conversations so much that I've made my own copypastas xD
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:44
Sure I would be glad to have a look
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:45
“Is sensory pleasure a justification for violence?” In today’s society, plant-based foods are readily available. Vegan staples such as rice, pasta, beans, legumes, fruits, and vegetables are among the most affordable food options. It is no longer necessary to exploit animals for food so why do we do it? Most people will tell you they like the taste of meat and don’t want to give it up. The interesting thing is that if taste satisfaction is a justification for needless violence, then logically other forms of sensory pleasure would also be justified. Thieves steal for the pleasure they gain from increasing their wealth and the excitement of breaking the law. Rapists rape for the pleasure they get from their victims. Serial killers kill for pleasure too. In all these forms of injustice, the wellbeing of the victims of these crimes are completely disregarded. The same is true for animal exploitation. To be logically consistent, you would have to say that all of these things are morally acceptable under the same justification. Obviously, it is not ok to steal, rape, and murder to please your senses, so the logical conclusion is that it is equally unacceptable to kill animals for taste satisfaction.
[03:46]
I have more
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Victorpollack — Today at 03:46
Bring it on
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:47
Wow you aren't even arguing, I've found a unicorn
[03:47]
Is it ok to kill an animal because they were bred for food? To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what your intentions were when you brought the animal into existence. Animals have no concept of purpose. Every animal bred for food wants to live, avoid harm, and experience wellbeing. It’s cruel to bring a creature into the world for the sole purpose of exploitation and murder, when you don’t need to. You can just live vegan.
[03:48]
Is it okay to kill an animal if you gave them a good life? No matter how you treat an animal, the bottom line is you don’t actually need to kill them. Taking their life is an unnecessary cruelty. There is no polite way to murder someone. If you went out on a date with someone and showed them a great time and then drugged the person and raped them, even if they did not experience pain and suffering, your actions are still immoral.
[03:48]
“Is it morally acceptable to kill when you don’t need to?” This is another important question. According to The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, a properly planned vegan diet is nutritionally adequate for all stages of life. Since we have established that animals are killed for sensory pleasure, we must conclude that killing them is unnecessary. Animals are sentient beings that have the will to live, avoid harm and suffering, and the desire to experience wellbeing.
[03:49]
In the meat and dairy industries, animals are forcibly impregnated via artificial insemination. Artificial insemination is the soft term the industry uses to downplay the rape and sexual exploitation of these beings. Don’t be fooled. It is rape. If this was done to a human being, it would be unacceptable, but because it is happening behind closed doors where their screams cannot be heard by you, the consumer, it is easy for the average person to shut their eyes and heart to the suffering of these innocent creatures. It’s easier to look away and tell yourself that somewhere in this monstrous industry, something humane has happened. That these animals have had a good life and a clean death. This is a comforting lie but a lie none the less.
[03:49]
“free range” and “cage free” eggs are not more humane than other eggs. These terms were coined by the egg industry to make you feel better about buying eggs, to make you think that the chickens live happy lives, free-roaming. THIS IS A LIE. Cage free and free range chickens are kept in factory sheds, much like those the egg laying hens are raised in. They suffer the same deficiencies and cruel conditions as hens raised in battery cages.
[03:50]
There is no essential nutrient found in animal products you cannot obtain elsewhere. You can be perfectly healthy on a plant based diet as acknowledged by the academy of nutrition and dietetics. It's senseless premeditated murder to participate in animal exploitation. Leave animals the fuck alone.
[03:50]
Some of these are a bit agressive, apologies
[03:50]
I wrote them a few years ago
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:51
The question of whether sensory pleasure justifies violence is a complex ethical issue that requires careful consideration. While it is true that in today's society there are abundant plant-based food options available, and it is no longer necessary to exploit animals for food, the ethical implications extend beyond mere taste satisfaction. Your analogy highlighting other forms of sensory pleasure, such as theft, rape, and murder, raises valid points about the disregard for the well-being of victims in these acts of injustice. It emphasizes the importance of considering the moral implications of our actions and the consequences they have on others. When it comes to animal exploitation for taste satisfaction, it is crucial to recognize that animals can experience pain, suffering, and have an interest in avoiding harm, much like humans do. Many people argue that because animals possess the capacity to suffer, it is morally wrong to cause them unnecessary harm for our pleasure or convenience. Ethical frameworks differ among individuals and cultures, and reasonable people may hold different perspectives on this matter. Some argue that there are instances where violence can be justified, such as self-defense or protecting others from harm. However, when it comes to exploiting animals for taste pleasure, the necessity and ethical justifiability are heavily debated.
[03:51]
Ultimately, the decision to consume animal products is a personal choice that depends on a variety of factors, including one's values, beliefs, and consideration of the moral implications involved. It is important to engage in open and respectful discussions about these issues, promoting understanding and empathy for different perspectives, while striving towards a more compassionate and sustainable world. The ethics of killing animals bred for food is a highly debated topic, and opinions vary among individuals and cultures. Some argue that if an animal has been bred and raised for the specific purpose of being food, then it is acceptable to kill them for that purpose. They may contend that these animals would not exist if it weren't for the demand for their meat, and thus their lives have some inherent value in fulfilling their intended purpose. On the other hand, there are those who believe that breeding animals for the sole purpose of exploitation and slaughter is inherently cruel. They argue that animals have their own interests in life, to live, avoid harm, and experience well-being, regardless of the intentions behind their breeding. They advocate for a more compassionate approach, suggesting that we should prioritize the well-being of these animals and work towards reducing or eliminating their suffering by adopting a vegan lifestyle. It is important to note that these viewpoints stem from differing ethical frameworks and values. Ultimately, the decision on whether it is acceptable to kill animals bred for food is a personal choice that depends on one's beliefs and moral considerations. Engaging in respectful discussions and considering the perspectives of others can help foster understanding and empathy on this complex issue. It is essential to approach these conversations with an open mind and a willingness to explore different viewpoints in order to promote compassionate and sustainable choices.
[03:53]
I think this is the most diplomatic way one could answer :p
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:55
Do you know what speciesism is
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:55
Belief that one species is surperior to others.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:55
It's the entire reason animal exploitation exists
[03:56]
The root cause
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:57
However, it is important to note that the causes and perpetuation of the animal-food industry are multi-faceted. Economic factors, cultural traditions, and individual choices also play significant roles in shaping the industry's practices and growth.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:57
Same concept as racism, antisemitism, sexism, ableism, etc etc
​
Victorpollack — Today at 03:59
moral relativism..
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 03:59
Hm?
[03:59]
I can see you're going to teach me some stuff
[03:59]
Excited
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:00
I just want to point out that moral relativism could be put within those categories.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:00
Please define moral relativism
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:01
Sorry I'm thinking of another word
[04:01]
It's at the tip of my tounge
[04:01]
Moral relativism is the opposite of what I was going for,
[04:02]
Moral relativism is a philosophical standpoint that suggests moral judgments and values are not objectively true or universally applicable, but rather depend on individual, cultural, or societal perspectives. According to moral relativism, there are no absolute or universal moral standards that can be objectively established. Instead, moral judgments are considered to be relative to the particular context, beliefs, or cultural norms in which they arise. This view recognizes that different individuals or societies may have diverse moral frameworks, and what is considered morally right or wrong can vary accordingly. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting different moral perspectives without asserting the existence of absolute moral truths.
[04:02]
Moral superiority is what I wanted to say
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:03
I don't understand your point
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:05
What I'm saying is that it's important to hold your views while realising the danger of falling into the same practices that which you wish to avoid.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:06
Owning slaves was socially acceptable not even that long ago, do you think that slavery is objectively bad?
[04:06]
It was also culturally accepted
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:07
Indeed.
[04:08]
It was however a product of the times during which much of the world had no concept of philosophy, scientific method and access to information.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:08
Do you see the parallel?
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:08
I absolutely see your point of view, yes.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:08
What are your thoughts on the matter
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:09
To summarize it is a complex and multi-faceted issue. Ultimately, the decision on whether it is acceptable to kill animals bred for food is a personal choice that depends on one's beliefs and moral considerations.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:10
Now replace "kill animals" with "own slaves"
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:11
That would not apply in modern times.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:11
I don't see a difference
[04:12]
Having one standard for animals and another for humans is speciesist
[04:12]
Would you hold the same position with any other injustice
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:13
Killing animals and owning slaves are distinct practices with different ethical considerations. While both involve the treatment of living beings, there are significant differences in the nature and moral implications of these actions. Here are some key distinctions: Moral status: Slavery involves the ownership and subjugation of human beings, denying their basic rights, freedoms, and autonomy. Slavery is widely condemned due to its inherent violation of human rights and the principle of equality among individuals. Animals, on the other hand, are often not considered to have the same moral status as humans.This difference in moral standing is a point of ethical contention and subject to various philosophical perspectives. Consent, autonomy: Slavery involves the deprivation of an individual's consent and autonomy. Enslaved people are forced into a state of subordination and are often subjected to coercion, violence, and exploitation. In contrast, animals do not possess the same level of cognitive and moral agency as humans. This difference in cognitive capacity and understanding raises questions about the extent to which animals can give informed consent or exercise autonomy. Historical and societal context: Slavery has a long history deeply rooted in systemic oppression, racism, and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. It has been a significant source of suffering and injustice throughout human history. While animal exploitation in various forms has also existed throughout history, the moral considerations and societal attitudes toward animal rights have evolved over time, with increasing recognition of the ethical treatment of animals. It is important to note that the comparison between killing animals and owning slaves can be complex, as it involves different philosophical perspectives, cultural contexts, and individual beliefs. Ethical discussions around these topics are ongoing, and viewpoints may differ based on diverse moral frameworks and values.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:16
There are humans who have less cognitive capacity than animals
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:16
That we can definitely agree on haha.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:17
Still we wouldn't exploit and kill them
[04:17]
And personally I don't know anyone, human or animal, that would consent to what you saw in dominion
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:18
A lot of people do exploit those cognitively impaired. Plenty of scammers out there.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:18
I'm sure you hear the screams
[04:18]
Yeah but would you?
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:18
Me? No.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:18
Then why fund animal exploitation
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:19
I suppose I hold a different viewpoint on the matter.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:20
Would you explain your personal viewpoint
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:23
The fact is that no matter what I personally do, I won't change global trends and practices of the trade. In the short lifespan that I have, I do not want to spend my life trying to turn rivers back upstream. I do not want to fight the windmills. Therefore I see no reason to change whatever my habits are within the world I live regardless of my ethical stance on the matter.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:24
So an appeal to futility
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:24
I have different priorities is all.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:25
Your logic is inherently flawed tho
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:25
How come?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:26
Because your stance is fallacious
[04:26]
​
[04:27]
Just because you can't end animal exploitation doesn't mean you shouldn't minimize the harm you do
[04:27]
Can't end rape either, doesn't make it okay
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:29
Even if that may be, like I have mentioned. My priorities are different and I do not have the privilege to allow myself such an endeavour without compromising them.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:30
You're human, you have the privilege not to be exploited and murdered, unlike your victims
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:30
However I admire your spirit of having a clear vision of what your stances and beliefs are and giving it your 100%.
​
@👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻
You're human, you have the privilege not to be exploited and murdered, unlike your victims
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:31
I beg to differ, I have been exploited many of times.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:32
Have you been anally fisted, forced to bear children, and then had those children stolen and murdered
[04:32]
Cause that's dairy
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:32
No, but I have been brutally beaten, stolen from, used for unpaid labour.
[04:33]
Therefore I can't say I see the world quite as pretty as it may seem.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:33
So why fund the oppression of others when you yourself have been oppressed
[04:34]
Your view seems extremely selfish to me
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:35
Because I have more pressing matters to attend to in my own personal life. Perhaps it is selfish of me to want to ensure my own well-being and of my fellow humans before attending to needs of poor animals that have bad conditions, however that is my set of priorites.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:36
When you go vegan you don't give anything up, you just stop taking what was never yours to begin with
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:37
However it does require resources such as time, effort and attention... Things I do not have to spare unfortunately.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:37
You're honestly telling me you can't spare the time it takes to read a list of ingredients?
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:38
I can't spare time to even cook most of the time.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:38
Me either
[04:38]
I get microwave shit
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:39
Good stuff. Well.. That has been an exhilarating conversation. How about a new topic?
[04:39]
You mentioned you like science fiction as well. What is your favorite movie?
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:40
I'm not really interested in pursuing this friendship, I can't consolidate the whole you activity supporting things I'm morally opposed to. The same reason I don't make friends with racists, sexists, etc etc
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:42
I have not in any way suggested that I support animal cruelty of any sort.
​
👻 🔪 Tuff Ghost 🔪 👻 — Today at 04:42
You support it with your actions
[04:42]
Words are easy
​
Victorpollack — Today at 04:44
However, if my inability to completely rework my entire life around your moral stance is enough for you to not want to be acquainted with me, than I must say I think there is nothing else I can do no matter how much I wish I could be your friend.
[04:44]
Well it's been a pleasure and I wish you a pleasant night.

Flying Sparks

Pre Order Now

​
https://i.redd.it/vub83em8fb3b1.gif

Chapter 2

“Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!”
The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert.
“And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales.
“Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots.
“Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.”
“What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?”
Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type.
“Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.”
“I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown.
“Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!”
The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders.
“So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots.
“Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone.
“One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked.
“Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare.
“So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked.
“As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied.
“And?”
The biologist groaned and rubbed her face.
“As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.”
“Frass?”
“Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table.
“Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?”
“Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate.
“Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!”
“It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness.
“It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly.
“Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back.
“Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.”
The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body.
“Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.”
“Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake.
“Not me, him,” Ama said.
“Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said.
Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer.
“Emerald,” Ama said.
“Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded.
Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince.
“Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone.
“I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch.
Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time.
Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again.
“I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered.
“I could do it,” Drake offered.
“You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.”
Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder.
“Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.”
“Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.”
“Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up.
“Same as usual,” Ama confirmed.
Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes.
“I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
“Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room.
The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden.
“And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them.
Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat.
“Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?”
Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well.
“From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence.
She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her.
“Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-”
The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment.
“I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.”
Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?”
Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change.
“Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.”
Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure.
“Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.”
He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest.
Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet.
Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around.
Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life.
There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies.
Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it.
“Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?”
Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question.
Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules.
The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers.
However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow.
He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock.
He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday.
The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it.
The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root.
“Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.”
It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here.
He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable.
​
https://i.redd.it/9sde27n9fb3b1.gif
“Flying Sparks”
Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon
#FlyingSparks #ScienceFiction #Scifi #Story #novel #book #DrakeMcCarty #AmaLove #Donny #Em #Bard #Bole #Aliens #Spaceships #Crystals #fireflies #NPS #NationalPark #Doctor #Sever #family #storm #writing #reading #drama #literature #author #BettyAdams #DyingEmbers #Dragons #ThingsThatGoBoomp #Indiegogo #CrowdFunding

Flying Sparks Pre Order Now Chapter 2 “Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!” The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert. “And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales. “Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots. “Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.” “What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?” Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type. “Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.” “I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown. “Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!” The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders. “So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots. “Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone. “One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked. “Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare. “So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked. “As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied. “And?” The biologist groaned and rubbed her face. “As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.” “Frass?” “Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table. “Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?” “Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate. “Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!” “It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness. “It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly. “Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back. “Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.” The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body. “Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.” “Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake. “Not me, him,” Ama said. “Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said. Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer. “Emerald,” Ama said. “Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded. Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince. “Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone. “I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch. Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time. Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again. “I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered. “I could do it,” Drake offered. “You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.” Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder. “Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.” “Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.” “Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up. “Same as usual,” Ama confirmed. Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes. “I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room. The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden. “And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them. Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat. “Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?” Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well. “From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence. She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her. “Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-” The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment. “I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.” Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?” Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change. “Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.” Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure. “Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.” He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest. Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet. Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around. Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life. There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies. Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it. “Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?” Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question. Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules. The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers. However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow. He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock. He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday. The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it. The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root. “Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.” It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here. He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable. “Flying Sparks” Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon #FlyingSparks #ScienceFiction #Scifi #Story #novel #book #DrakeMcCarty #AmaLove #Donny #Em #Bard #Bole #Aliens #Spaceships #Crystals #fireflies #NPS #NationalPark #Doctor #Sever #family #storm #writing #reading #drama #literature #author #BettyAdams #DyingEmbers #Dragons #ThingsThatGoBoomp #Indiegogo #CrowdFunding

Flying Sparks

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Chapter 2

“Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!”
The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert.
“And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales.
“Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots.
“Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.”
“What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?”
Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type.
“Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.”
“I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown.
“Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!”
The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders.
“So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots.
“Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone.
“One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked.
“Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare.
“So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked.
“As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied.
“And?”
The biologist groaned and rubbed her face.
“As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.”
“Frass?”
“Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table.
“Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?”
“Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate.
“Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!”
“It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness.
“It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly.
“Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back.
“Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.”
The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body.
“Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.”
“Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake.
“Not me, him,” Ama said.
“Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said.
Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer.
“Emerald,” Ama said.
“Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded.
Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince.
“Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone.
“I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch.
Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time.
Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again.
“I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered.
“I could do it,” Drake offered.
“You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.”
Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder.
“Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.”
“Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.”
“Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up.
“Same as usual,” Ama confirmed.
Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes.
“I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
“Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room.
The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden.
“And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them.
Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat.
“Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?”
Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well.
“From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence.
She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her.
“Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-”
The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment.
“I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.”
Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?”
Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change.
“Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.”
Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure.
“Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.”
He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest.
Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet.
Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around.
Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life.
There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies.
Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it.
“Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?”
Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question.
Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules.
The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers.
However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow.
He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock.
He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday.
The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it.
The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root.
“Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.”
It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here.
He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable.
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“Flying Sparks”
Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon
#FlyingSparks #ScienceFiction #Scifi #Story #novel #book #DrakeMcCarty #AmaLove #Donny #Em #Bard #Bole #Aliens #Spaceships #Crystals #fireflies #NPS #NationalPark #Doctor #Sever #family #storm #writing #reading #drama #literature #author #BettyAdams #DyingEmbers #Dragons #ThingsThatGoBoomp #Indiegogo #CrowdFunding