Florida Lotus

The world of philosophy is like an Escher painting in a Chicago mall; noone has any clue which floor they’re on, and everyone’s arguing that their floor is the highest, when really it’s all relative, based on which staircases and arguments you’ve read. The smart people go outside where everyone is on solid ground, and nobody has to argue which is better.

Some good old wisdom. That’ll definitely come in handy when the Reds invade!

But honestly, who guards their minds this well anymore? Well, here’s your reminder. Hollywood trash is trying to brainwash you, not with subliminal messages but overt plot themes and symbolism.

I was working on some blending on my figures, but I was asked to paint a unit in black, so my approach didn’t really work. Instead, I drybrushed all the edges and then washed flat plates with the original color and hit details. The rest of this article is really just the elaboration of this basic technique.

PRIMER - Start off with black primer, no zenithal needed.

BASE COAT + EDGE HIGHLIGHT - Base coat the whole model with Abaddon Black, then dry brush with Iron Hands, hitting all the edges and details. Afterwards, take some watered-down Abaddon Black and wash large plates and fix details where needed. For extra oomph, you can edge highlight by hand, but drybrushing all over the model works just fine for me. By “drybrushing,” I mean putting paint on your brush, drying it out on paper towel, then on your hand until you can’t visibly get anything off the brush. Then you move the brush downwards across surfaces. The brush will catch on any edges, resulting in edge highlights, and any flat surfaces will get a small amount, which is why you go over large plates with a wash of the original color.

SHOULDER PLATE - Anyways, after this (make sure to get the gun well with highlights) take the Iron Hands and liberally apply to the shoulder plate, the circle-vent-thingies, and the cover of the jump-pack, as well as the elbow decal, choice places on the bolter, along edges of bullets, decals, that computer bracelet, etc. If a decal is on top of a surface that is already Iron Hands, use Warplock Bronze instead. For the golden decal in the middle of the pauldron, I mixed 1 part Retributor to one part Warplock Bronze, as my retributor seemed especially yellow today. Another option is to Guilliman Flesh over the Retributor, an approach that Duncan takes with his Bladeguard Veterans. Afterwards, wash multiple times with Nuln Oil to darken behind the letters.

FACES - For faces I used Rhinox Hide, then applied Model Color’s Skin Base (I don’t have any Citadel flesh colors yet) mixed with a tiny bit of Rhinox multiple times until it looked right. Then, I did the eyes with a little bit Blood Angels contrast to Corax White for a peachy color and used it on the eyes, then dotted in some black lines with Corvus Black. You can do whatever you want for eyes. Afterwards, I washed the head with Agrax Earthshade. In the case of the beard, I used Jokaero orange and washed with Agrax, with Corvus White for teeth. At this point, drybrushing the original Basic Skintone highlights the head, and that’s what I did, very lightly.

Jesus Christ, this text is so dry I need a drink. But it’s better to tell you how I did it than leave somebody guessing. I guess.

For VISORS I dotted in some Corax White in the center, then Blood Angels contrast over it, and again but this time only hitting the bottom half. I like to mix any remaining contrast on my palette with some water, and using this to create a glaze (?) giving off the effect of glowing eyes. Don’t go overboard though, and really thin out the water so you can tell what’s happening.

For the LEATHER bags I just painted them Rhinox Hide. With the previous drybrushing that you DID do, hopefully the layer underneath will give undertones or whatever painting bullcrap they’re feeding us today.

For the PURITY SEALS I used Rhinox Hide, than Basic Skintone to give it a parchment look. On a different model I used Corax White and then skintone, but it didn’t look as good. Then use a black and scribble little lines on, and then use Mephiston Red for the wax.

Then, for the big GUNS, for the muzzle and the magazine I painted them Warplock Bronze, along with the loading lip thing, and Iron Hands for the inner piece. If you do the Iron Hands first, you can just paint over the mistakes.

Finally, I used multiple layers of Nihilakh Oxide to create the blue cords, or you can not be a loser and just get that Warpstone glow and wash it I guess. I used multiple layers of the Oxide to create the blue edges on the knives, so that is useful.

THE CAR WASH - Finally Finally, I used broad swathes of Nuln Oil to make it luk gud, and you can go crazy here. Make sure to hit the metal details, I find Nuln Oil makes it look dark and brooding, just like me.

SLAP THAT BASE - For the big winner, slap some Nihilakh Oxide in desired places, then drybrush and stipple some Warplock Bronze on, leaving some black spaces for the mind to fill in. Then stipple some Rhinox Hide and Jokaero Orange onto the base for dirt and rust, and if there’s not enough Bronze stipple some back on. Finally clean up the sides of the base with Abaddon Black and we’re done!

I use three brushes. A large-ish flat brush for basecoats, washes, and drybrushing, a size 6 pointed brush for fine details and general painting, and a rough flat brush for stippling and drybrushing. I believe all three came from a variety pack of brushes from Hobby Lobby for less than $10. I also bought one medium layer brush from citadel for what must be the same price or less ($6-8 for one brush vs. <$10 for a lot of brushes), and I honestly don’t use it. Even if I bought a fine detail brush I also doubt I would use it, as I just don’t like tiny brushes. So keep your money, and thin your paints. No really, thin your metallics and paints ever so slightly, so that they can actually come off your brush someday.

Ciao! A Lotus

I went over to my Grandma’s last Sunday, the way we always did. She’s got one of those houses that looks a century old, and smells like it too, but you just know that the porch is as steady as it’s always been, even in the middle of a swamp full of rotting wood. There’s a history to that house too; my great grandpa built that house for his wife and kids, and it’s been lived in that whole time. Grandma’s the last one alive from that crop, and though she’s got all kinds of children and nieces and children of nieces, she always told me I was her favorite with a wink and a smile, although there wasn’t anyone else to hear but the crickets and the willows.

I’m not sure why she said I was her favorite, as far as school and boys I was the plainest girl around, and noone ever let me forget that. But she knew I liked the trees and books, and that was good enough for her.

But as plain as I was, my Grandma was not. People said she knew Voodoo, and that was why she got the house, and she’d be willing to read your palms for a snail’s shell from under the old tree out front that was all gnarled and covered with lichen. And the company she kept certainly did nothing to discourage those rumors, welcoming vagrants and strange men in for cookies and cream.

So it was that one Sunday afternoon, my Grandma welcomed me inside for tea.

“Don’t you want some sweet tea? I’ve just put some ice in.”

“Sure Grandma.”

She poured some into her china cups as soon as we came into the tiny kitchen. The ones in the cabinet were for show, the ones in the kitchen were for tea. Her portly little figure kind of reminded me of a tea kettle as she settled into her chair, now worn with use.

“Ah, now isn’t that good.”

I sipped the tea gingerly. “It is. Grandma, you always make it so good. How do you do it?”

She grinned. “Love, dear. That’s all it needs.”

“Really. Well, I guess my love is stale and bitter then. Should I get some new love?”

“Oh, well, you’ll find it soon I guess.” Grandma could make me laugh at my own problems.

“Thank you for the tea, it’s really good.”

“Ah, don’t mind. I love it when you come. Everyone else is just so annoying; ‘Am I getting inheritance? Where’s my money? Can I have some more sugar in my tea?’ To which I have to answer ‘No, it’s sweet enough as it is, and you don’t need any more pounds.'” She burst into laughter. “But really, it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how’s it going with school?”

“I’m fine.”

“Getting into any trouble?”

“No, not really.”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes seemed to bore into me like bugs into wood.

“No, I’m fine Grandma, it’s really nothing.”

“All right then. Hey, did you get any tea leaves?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Let me take a look.”

I handed it to her, and she hmmed and hahhed for a little bit, turning it this way and that.

“What do you see?”

She cut me off with a look. “Patience is a virtue, you know.”

“Oh, but I guess I can tell you. I think you’ve got… boy problems… not enough of them… and… you don’t like your school… or really your home… am I right?” “Oh come now, you can’t expect boys to look at you with your jaw open like that.”

“Alright, yeah, you’re right.”

“Honey, you’re moping.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re right. How’d you know?”

“Oh, the magic.” She waved a frail hand at the ceiling. “And some good old wisdom.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I can tell you have boy problems because you always come here, instead of that place that’s open on Sunday nights. You don’t like your home because you’re always reading, and nobody likes school. It’s pretty simple.”

“Wow. You think you could teach me to read tea leaves?”

“Oh darling, there’s nothing magic about the tea leaves. It’s the time we spend together! Now how about some dessert?”

I’m writing the best shit of all of fucking history. Read it motherfucker.

The sword of anguish awaits the bearer, wearing the face of a murderer. A grimace paints his face with pain, driving pleasure deep within his veins. Let it pierce me, bring it deep within, forgive me Father for I have sinned Let this world bother me no longer, no longer this world shall I wander.

Stumbles like a drunken sailor, sings like the son of a siren Slinking snake in his low, strikes the spider in his high What is he looking for?

Follow the path deep into the forest Child of mine, you have always known this tale Watch it unfold terrified and exhilarated Watch yourself follow the path deep into the forest

Unable to stop yourself and unwilling to try Waiting for the ending to happen to you

I don’t need a vacation. I need a job.

You should stop smoking. It’s gonna kill you. Isn’t that an affirmation of life? Trying to kill yourself? I don’t know. But you should stop, I don’t wanna die getting high off your fumes Sigh Whatever dipshit.

Anger drives me. My brain is the cockpit and my amygdala the wheel, tongue dropping bombs all over society, my body speaking in the universal language of hate. You don’t have to hear my words to feel the meaning smack you in the face.

Am I a poet? I don’t want to be a poet. Nevertheless, the words come from– no, spew from my brain through my mouth and my fingers, spilling forth from my intestines all twisted like your disgust and feelings of disgust and my disgust with your disgust. I like that word. Do you feel like throwing up? Maybe when I mention it, it happens, like pissing and yawning. I’d like that. I would. But it makes things complicated. Can you imagine, any time you write something, some dumbass takes it literally? What a f*cking nightmare. Fiction would be dead for good if some idiot took the ideas of another world and put it in this one, or invented some newshit to screw up the minds of children and fools and wound up with random school shootings and suicide and socialist regimes. Thank God for fiction, and the freedom to fornicate. Amen.

I don’t want to be a poet, because it means I care too much. Hitler wanted to be a poet. Marx wanted to be a poet. They were poets, and they knew it. They made poetry with bullets and blood and pain, and the whole world became their canvas. Stop caring. Stop caring. Stop caring. You save lives that way. Stop caring about your goddamn life so I can live mine you selfish bastard, I’ve stopped living mine for yours!!! Not my fault I’m an idiot!

Let’s talk (LIE) about me. My mother died in a car accident, and my dad lied all the time. He used to beat me with his belt for lying, and I got back at him with my attitude and my tongue. Beat me harder daddy hahahahahaaaahahahahaahahaaahahahHAHHAHAHAHAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA. YOu can’t touch this bitch, you can’t touch me. I’m untouchable in my safe place, my heaven in my mind where my mother strokes my hair and whispers into my ear that she loves me and she’s proud of me andn how beautifully I write and my wonderful stories even if they aren’t original but nothings original anymore and my heaven falls into shit and decay no longer golden but wonderful and black and I sit there fuming staring at the wall until my dad comes into the basement and sits with me and is very quiet and I hear him cry because he’s been here for years in the basement of hell waiting for me to come down with him but I don’t want to I don’t want to be here I don’t want to be in this house at all so I walk into the street and it is raining on my suitcase and it is soaked but I have learned not to care for the rain. I heard once that it doesn’t matter whether you hide from the rain or embrace it, you still get wet. Better to embrace it than to be afraid of it.

My heaven is made of gold and ignorance. Its foundations are corrupted by logic, but as long as you believe in them, they could be made of steel. It’s the good path, as long as you’re good, but if you betray it you’ll be drinking gasoline champagne for the rest of your time there waiting for it all to end and realizing you wasted your life.

My hell is made of my mind. I fell through the floor the second I doubted, and I never looked back. That’s a lie, but I’ve moved on anyways. People sit here and fume in their hate of everything for making them fall from heaven, even hating themselves for being in heaven and hating heaven for them being in it. They tell themselves Heaven was never real, and now we’re free to do whatever we want. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re prisoners in their own logic and learning and “freedom.” Here they wait for all eternity, or so they believe.

But what they don’t know is that there’s a back door hidden in the corner for those who look, and its name is hope. It’s a long climb up the ladder, and it’s dark and shadowy and sometimes you don’t know whether you’re going up or down or sideways, but someday you reach the top. And you open the hatch, and step out of that dark tunnel, and you look around and realize where you are.

You’re right where you’ve always been, and you breathe the fresh air that’s never tasted so good. You made it, where most people never go, you went beyond the furthest mountains and the darkest shadows and the deepest pits, and all the shitty people and all the mishaps of life, to be where you are right now. And you realize this. And you smile.

You can choose to not hang around toxic people, or you can argue that it’s worth having different view points around. The real question is what you want to do with your life and what you value.

My mother told me I should go to art school. I was shocked; I honestly don’t think that anything I do constitutes “art.” I doodle, and my painting isn’t that good. So I said, “I’m not an artist, I just try to make things look good.” And that’s basically what I do with everything; cleaning, working, painting, etc.

Ergo, everything you do can be art. Living is an art.

Also art school is just to understand the terms and bullsh*terry of the art world.

Though they predicted His arrival, they could never have foreseen how quickly His influence grew. For many long years, we kept to the strict tradition of bland, tasteless Tofu, Vegetables, and Fruits.

But then the evil one came– Seitan! Soon new, trendy, flavorful fake meats invaded our sanctified shopping aisles, followed by organic foods and gluten free options to seize the weak minds of young impressionable hipsters!

Seitan! I curse thee, and send thee back to the pits of some godforsaken food laboratory from whence ye came, along with all your catchy corporate-owned descendants!

… Now, the thirty reasons why you should follow the good old Atkins diet.

Man created God, so God could create Man So while God controls Man, a Man controls God Should Man control God control Man? (And why is God a Man?)

sive.rs/book/Stoi…

Like what I’ve been meaning to say; we forget what it was like to live before, and how far we’ve come. But our animal desire to have more makes us unhappy, even when we live in palaces and eat nectar. Different circumstances, same behaviour. Soft.

www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/…

Culture moves so fast it’s become stagnant. There is no time to reflect. What happens when a cliff suddenly appears?

What happens when the farm animals decide to have a barnyard revolt? Revolution, that is. What begins with good intentions and dreams of equality turns into a nightmare when little by little the “authorities” (the pigs) change the rules, benefiting themselves and killing anyone who stops them, until there is no longer any difference between the rule of man and the rule of pigs.

It’s pretty obvious Orwell was referencing Communism, with the ancient boar giving out his wisdom before his death, and the two pigs in charge representing Trotsky and Stalin, followed by a steep descent into tyranny. But I don’t think he favored the rule of man either, as they are one and the same, capitalism and communism, both milking the cow for all it’s worth. As a socialist, it would make sense that he favored the middle ground, with equal representation and food for all, but when the citizens fail to fight for their rights, an evil leader can easily take control and sway the opinions of the obedient livestock. (Also, notice his tools; the ignorance of the flock, the bending of the rules, and the threat of the dogs.)

The series was good at the beginning, before it REALLY shifted into sci-fi political intrigue. (I think I just have a thing for entering without any assumptions, so maybe that’s why the first book always hits harder.)

Basically, in the post-mortal future, the most ethical and intelligent people are chosen to be Scythes, whose job is to control the population in an immortal world overseen by a perfect AI. However, being a Scythe means being completely exempt from normal law and the mentioned perfect AI, along with access to anything they want. You can see why this might be an issue. Eventually, some of the newer Scythes turn out to be not-so-ethically-minded, and results in a power-grab and the fight for morality.

Anyways, it seeks to answer what is right and what is not, from a perfect AI bending or breaking its own rules, possibly for personal reasons, but always for the greater good, to a moody vigilante justifying his murders and a back from the dead flat-out crazy Scythe seeking to exterminate as many people as possible, no matter what rules he has to break or who he has to kill.

The theme is present, but the mood is arguable, with a noticeable slow and rapid introductions after the first book; it doesn’t feel like the same world anymore. Perhaps this is intentional, but it feels like the second and third books were made post-haste, shifting from a world just like our own to a mythical futuristic setting.

All in all, 3.5/5, but if I were rating the first book alone, 4/5. The first book stresses the morality of being in charge of controlling population and killing in kindness, in comparison with a person who just doesn’t care, and that makes it worthy of reading. The next two however just don’t have the same feeling, and instead it turns into a race to obtain the secret weapon to stop the bad guy.

I am so tired of fiction. I guess… the experience of novels I don’t like just makes me not want to even touch another book. Yet another investment of so much time and energy, all into something that I might not even like. Ugh.

And yet, who knows? Is that gambling or adventure?

Just finished Foucalt’s Pendulum. That’s some batshit novel writing there. It was a little long, and I was waiting for the end, but when it finished it hit hard in the heart.

Basically, these three editors for a publishing house take a delve into the occult, and slowly lose control over their boundary between theory and reality, even though it’s plain even to them that their madness is their own invention. As they follow the Templars to the Rosicrucians to the Assassins, they collect all of their “connections” called the Plan, all based off of a piece of paper discovered by a natty old colonel, and able to reshape history in its form. However, one of the editors shows off the secret and gets kidnapped by the theoretical secret society, while another contracts cancer, and the last becomes the narrator of the story.

It’s interesting to see how the editors, logical, haughty, and inscrutable become madmen putting together any coincidence they can find, until all they can see is the Plan, even in the most basic machines. In the cancerous editor’s case, he believes that in re-writing history, his body has learned to re-write itself, killing him in the process. The piece of paper is a merchant’s receipt, but in the eyes of believers, it becomes a treasure map. And even though the truth is obvious, the believers must cling to believing; they are addicted to the search. For the frustrated people who search endlessly, if they find something, they were right all along. The search gives meaning to a meaningless life.

The conclusion that the narrator ends with is that the search for the answer is more important than the answer, and if you were to tell the believers, they wouldn’t believe you. So they invent their own searches for an impossible answer, which proves itself. If the answer were found, it wouldn’t be the right answer. Therefore the search must be true.

So don’t go searching for the impossible, when it’s already in front of you. “I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”

(But isn’t that what a Templar would say?")

Speculative economics is shaped like a boat. It works, until everyone rushes to one side of the boat and it tips over.

Then whoever was waiting for the keel looks like a genius.

Human behaviour.

It’s so awe-inspiring to walk through a maze of words and feel the dedication of so many people who have given pieces of their lives and knowledge away. Lifetimes of words.

The immense beauty of wondrous dreams is captured by boring people. What a perfect form of torture!