Today, I’m in my third week of Sabbatical! I’ve been doing a lot of reading and I’m feeling the urge to revive an old ritual of sharing what I’m finding interesting lately.

The Benefits of Bubbles by Ben Thompson

Not all bubbles destroy wealth and value. Some can be understood as important catalysts for techno-scientific progress. Most novel technology doesn’t just appear ex nihilo, entering the world fully formed and all at once. Rather, it builds on previous false starts, failures, iterations, and historical path dependencies. Bubbles create opportunities to deploy the capital necessary to fund and speed up such large-scale experimentation — which includes lots of trial and error done in parallel — thereby accelerating the rate of potentially disruptive technologies and breakthroughs.

The piece is quite good and turned me on to Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation which I started reading yesterday.

Tripping Forever: The New Science of Psychedelics & Longevity by Tripsitter

The paper revealed two remarkable findings.

First, cells treated with psilocin showed delayed aging, with telomere length preserved compared to untreated cells. Other molecular markers of longevity shifted in the same direction — higher SIRT1, lower GADD45a, and reduced oxidative stress — all consistent with slower cellular senescence.

Second, mice receiving monthly psilocin doses lived significantly longer — with survival rates climbing to about 80%, compared to roughly 50% in the control group.

In other words, the cells — and the mice — aged slower.

Countless claims have been made about the benefits and side effects of psychedelics. This one is the first I know of related to longevity.

How to Combine Highlights On-the-Fly with Readwise by Readwise

Simply highlight the first string of text you want to combine and add the note .c1 (“c” for “concatenate”). Then, highlight the second string of text and add the note .c2. Upon importing into Readwise, these two highlights will be combined into a single annotation.

I use Readwise Reader for nearly all of my reading. I recently learned it’s possible to combine highlights, something I’ve wanted to be able to do for a while.

How to not build the Torment Nexus by Mike Monteiro.

Industries in decline tend to pick up speed, not reverse course, and their death moan comes when they shift from making things to extracting value.

Not a new piece, but it resonates within the context of the social, economic, and political research I’m doing this week.

Washington County Declares Emergency Over Increased ICE Activity at OPB

Oregon’s most diverse county declared a state of emergency this week because of increased immigration enforcement that has cloaked much of the community in fear over the past few weeks. ... The move follows at least 135 reported arrests by immigration enforcement in the county in October, according to the Portland Immigration Rights Coalition. This number accounts for nearly half the 329 arrests made throughout the state in October.

I’m hearing more and more second-hand reports of questionable tactics and arrests happening in my community. Unbreaking is a great resource for staying up-to-date on immigration and other topics like Food Safety. Their latest piece distills a torrent of activity on immigration from the past few weeks:

For months now, we’ve seen the expansion of a violent and unaccountable federal police force under the aegis of immigration enforcement, and this week, the way that enforcement threatens and interacts with data security is our biggest story. We’re tracking how federal agencies are using facial recognition software in the streets and vastly expanding mandatory biometric data collection for immigrants and their US connections — including by taking DNA from both adults and young children.

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: The Accra Office Girl’s Style Survival Guide, How to get rid of our colonial legacy and what's in a name, Simple happiness, Women stronger than man, and How to peel an egg

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The Accra Office Girl’s Style Survival Guide. Let’s be honest—office fashion in Accra isn’t just about looking good. It’s about strategy. Between the blazing sun, surprise downpours, and the icy blast of office AC, your outfit has to work overtime. Thursday: Tradition Meets Trend: Thursday is the perfect day to sprinkle in some cultural pride. Whether it’s a sleek kaba and slit, a short kaftan dress, or even a kente-trimmed blouse, blend tradition with office elegance. Colour crush: Mustard, deep green, or burgundy—those tones eat under natural light. Accessories: Gold hoops, a beaded bracelet, or leather mules. That’s the Ghanaian soft life energy we love. Friday: Casual, Cute & Ready for Chops. Friday is the runway between work and vibes. You’re professional till 4:59 PM, and at 5:00 you’re brunch-ready. Ladies, pull out high-waisted jeans or wide-legged trousers with a tucked-in chiffon blouse. Gents can keep it crisp in chinos and a linen shirt (because we know the guys are reading this too). Style note: Clean sneakers or loafers are totally fair game. Pro move: A signature fragrance completes the look—think fresh, floral, or woody. Survive the Accra Weather (and Still Look Like a 10/10) Carry a shawl or blazer—you’ll need it for that icy office AC. Say no to polyester — it’s basically a sauna in fabric form. Light colours = less sweat, more glow. Always pack a hand fan—yes, the fancy foldable ones count as an accessory now. Corporate life in Accra doesn’t mean dull suits and dark colours. Mix prints, play with fabric, and never be afraid to show a little personality. The key is balance—stay professional, but make it fashion. Because dear office girl, when you look good, you work good—and you’re way too stylish to be melting in polyester. How to get rid of our colonial legacy and what's in a name. Many of us feel “we can do it if only were given the chance”. I feel one may be able to do it if at least one has confidence in oneself. But in Africa we don’t trust ourselves. We want to be white like a white and bleach. We want to have straight hair like a white and either wig or straighten (despite that everyone now knows that straightening uses cancer causing chemicals). We want to wear white man's clothing and only use our own on special occasions. Our religion is foreign and imposed on us (both Christianity and Islam). Some of our elders say that if on Sunday morning on your way to church to meet God you meet a white man you need not go to church again on that day because you already met Him. Our official language is foreign (English) and our laws are written in the language of our formal colonial masters. And are based on our former master's laws. Whilst our judges wear white wigs (and I think looks absolutely ridiculous) and only one third of our people fully speaks and understands English. And to top it all we take foreign names. The most beautiful ones. Prescillia, Scholistica, Petrolina. What's wrong with our own names? Nkandobi means “I have seen it all”, Dufie means “the oldest women in a family”. Mansa is “the third girl”. Kofi means “Friday born”, Obrempong means “a person of importance”. I think that is more fun than the names taken from the bible or from the British Royal house. Let's do our own. The King is dead, exit His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, long live the King, enter His Excellency Kpema So Dramani Mahama.

Simple happiness. I recently wrote that some feel that time with family, time without phone, walking in nature and things like that gives them more happiness than owning luxury items or eating in expensive restaurants. In Africa we often live in crowded conditions, private space comes at a premium that not everyone can afford. I want to mention one additional luxury here. Owning your own toilet and bathroom. Starting the day in a relaxed manner, stooling without having to hurry because others are banging on the door. Sheer luxury.

Women stronger than man. Maybe not, but doctors think so, and at the emergency wards of hospitals and clinics men with exactly the same problem as women get taken in first, and men are prescribed painkillers more often than women with the same ailments. That is what a French study has shown. And there is more: Europeans get priority over Africans. So don't get sick when you visit Europe.....

How to peel an egg. This sounds silly but I am serious. And I am an egg freak, both for chicken eggs and quail eggs. At 70 GHS a crate of eggs you are paying about 2 GHS 35 pesewas for 6-7 grams of protein and there is about the same amount of fat as well, about half of it the “good” fat, whilst beef fat contains more of the “bad” fat. Anyway, that's not the only reason why I love eggs, I love the complicated taste of yolk and soft egg white from fresh eggs and I can experiment an entire weekend to get the right fluffiness for scrambled eggs, or to make a French omelet just rightly cooked. Now for the peeling. If you like boiled eggs you'll have to take the shell off after boiling and often pieces of egg will stick to the shell, especially with fresh eggs. So some suggest you add vinegar to the cooking water, some add oil, some dump the eggs straight into ice cold water after boiling. I've tried all and the only thing which works to my satisfaction is to peel the hot eggs straight after boiling, under running tap water. Though the egg is still hot the cold tap water allows you to peel without burning your fingers. I put a sieve under it to catch the shells so my sink doesn’t get blocked. Try, thank me later.

# Lydia...

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Most people mistake struggle for failure. They assume the fire means they’ve done something wrong — that the heat of adversity proves they’re outside God’s favor. But Scripture paints the opposite picture. The fire is rarely a punishment; it’s a process.

Before we go further, take two minutes to watch this powerful reflection on YouTube: faith-based motivation. It captures the essence of this truth: you are not losing in the fire — you are being refined by it.

When you return here, you’ll understand why even the most painful seasons of life can become sacred ground — and why what feels like breaking might actually be becoming.

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1. The Refining Fire: God’s Blueprint for Strength

If you’ve ever watched a blacksmith forge steel, you know that strength is born in the heat. The metal must be heated, hammered, and cooled repeatedly before it becomes durable enough to bear weight.

The Bible mirrors that exact process in Zechariah 13:9, where God says:

“I will bring the third part through the fire, and refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested.”

The refining process doesn’t destroy; it defines.

Modern metallurgy confirms that refined metal has tighter molecular bonds and fewer weaknesses after the impurities burn away. Likewise, God’s refining moments burn off pride, fear, and self-reliance — leaving a heart capable of carrying purpose.

As GotQuestions.org notes, God’s testing “reveals what’s already inside and replaces weakness with endurance.” (GotQuestions.org)

So if you’re walking through fire right now, you’re not failing — you’re being fortified.

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2. Struggle Is the Evidence of Formation

Every meaningful thing you’ve ever built required resistance. Muscles grow through micro-tears. Roots deepen against rocky soil. Faith matures when it must stand against fear.

Research on resilience by the American Psychological Association finds that people who endure hardship with purpose develop “post-adversity growth” — higher emotional intelligence, empathy, and problem-solving ability (APA.org).

Scripture got there first. James 1:3 calls this the “testing that produces perseverance.” In other words, pain is not evidence that you’re off track — it’s proof that you’re on the path toward progress.

The very fact that you’re struggling means you’re still fighting, still alive, and still in motion.

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3. The Hidden Work of Waiting

We live in a world that glorifies speed — instant downloads, same-day delivery, rapid results. But God’s kingdom doesn’t run on Wi-Fi. It runs on waiting.

Waiting is never wasted. When God delays, He’s not denying; He’s developing.

Look at David: anointed as king in his teens, yet he waited decades to wear the crown. That waiting trained him to shepherd people with humility instead of ego. Or Mary, who carried the promise of the Messiah for nine quiet months before the world saw its fulfillment.

As Christianity Today observes, “Spiritual maturity grows in the soil of delayed gratification.” (ChristianityToday.com)

When you wait, you’re being prepared for blessings that premature delivery could ruin.

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4. The Silence That Strengthens

One of the hardest lessons of faith is realizing that silence doesn’t mean absence.

Between Malachi and Matthew, there were 400 silent years — no prophets, no new revelation. Yet that silence was the womb of divine timing. The roads of Rome, the Greek language, and the spread of the diaspora all converged during that period, perfectly setting the stage for the Gospel to reach the world.

In your life, silence might mean the same thing. God is arranging what you can’t yet perceive.

As theologian A.W. Tozer wrote, “While it looks like nothing is happening, God is doing everything.”

So the next time heaven feels quiet, stop panicking. The Author of your story never stops writing — He just sometimes pauses between chapters.

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5. How the Bible Defines Real Success

Our culture defines success by speed, numbers, and visibility. God defines success by obedience, endurance, and faithfulness.

That means showing up when no one notices. Serving when it’s inconvenient. Praying when you don’t feel powerful.

Hebrews 11 lists heroes who “did not receive what was promised” yet still believed. In the world’s eyes, they failed. In God’s eyes, they finished well.

Success in heaven’s dictionary is faithfulness under fire.

So if your dream is delayed or your results are invisible, you may be closer to success than you think.

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6. The Psychology of Perseverance

From a psychological standpoint, perseverance reshapes the brain’s stress response. According to research published in Frontiers in Psychology, endurance training — emotional or physical — rewires neural pathways to favor long-term focus and calm reasoning under pressure (FrontiersIn.org).

Spiritually, perseverance does the same. It strengthens your mind to reject panic and choose peace.

That’s why Romans 5:4 ties endurance to character, and character to hope. The longer you hold your ground, the clearer your identity in Christ becomes.

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7. The Theology of Brokenness

Broken things are God’s favorite materials. Every major miracle began with something breaking:

• The alabaster jar shattered before worship filled the room.
• Five loaves broke before thousands were fed.
• Jesus’ body broke before salvation reached humanity.

Brokenness is not the end — it’s the beginning of usefulness. As DesiringGod.org writes, “God never wastes a wound.” (DesiringGod.org)

So if your heart feels cracked open, don’t rush to seal it. Let grace pour through the openings. Healing flows fastest through honesty.

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8. Why Comparison Is the Enemy of Calling

Nothing kills joy faster than comparing your process to someone else’s highlight reel.

The disciples fell into this trap too. After Jesus restored Peter, Peter immediately asked, “What about John?” Jesus replied, “What is that to you? You follow Me.” (John 21:21-22)

That verse is freedom. It means your timeline, your pain, and your purpose are handcrafted. Stop trying to run another person’s race. Their fire is not your forge.

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9. Turning Struggle into Strategy

When you shift your perspective from “Why is this happening?” to “What is this teaching me?”, struggle becomes strategy.

Every difficulty hides a lesson. Maybe the setback teaches patience. Maybe the betrayal teaches discernment. Maybe the delay teaches discipline.

Success without struggle breeds arrogance. Struggle without reflection breeds bitterness. But struggle with faith births wisdom.

The key is not to waste your suffering. Mine it for meaning. Journal your journey. Teach what you learn. Bless others with the comfort you’ve received.

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10. The Hope Hidden in Surrender

Faith isn’t about control; it’s about confidence in the One who controls all things.

When you stop fighting to manage outcomes, you make room for miracles. As Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Stillness isn’t passivity — it’s spiritual posture.

According to Harvard Health Publishing, intentional stillness (like prayer or meditation) lowers heart rate, reduces anxiety, and improves immune response (Harvard.edu).

It’s not just peace for the soul — it’s therapy for the body.

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11. The Role of Gratitude in the Fire

Gratitude isn’t denial of difficulty; it’s defiance of despair.

When Paul and Silas sang hymns in prison, chains broke — literally. Gratitude reframes circumstances and reclaims spiritual authority.

Each time you thank God in advance for an unseen outcome, you declare that faith outranks fear.

Try this: Every night, write down three ways you saw God’s hand in your day. They don’t need to be dramatic — a kind word, a safe drive, a moment of laughter. Gratitude builds endurance molecule by molecule, thought by thought.

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12. Finding Purpose in Other People’s Pain

Sometimes your healing accelerates when you help someone else. Serving while struggling reminds you that you’re not alone and that purpose exists even in pain.

Galatians 6:2 says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

When you lift others, your perspective lifts with them. What once felt like punishment begins to feel like privilege — that God trusted you with empathy others don’t yet have.

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13. How to Recognize Progress in Hidden Places

Progress isn’t always visible. Seeds sprout underground before they ever break the soil.

Maybe your growth looks like setting boundaries, or praying when you used to panic, or forgiving when you used to fight. That’s progress.

Heaven measures success in obedience, not applause. As BibleGateway.com highlights, Jesus often withdrew from crowds to pray — the quiet acts no one sees are the foundation of every visible miracle.

You don’t need a spotlight to shine. You just need consistency.

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14. The Season Before the Breakthrough

Every major transformation includes a moment that feels unbearable — the night before dawn, the silence before song, the despair before deliverance.

That’s not coincidence. That’s spiritual physics. In creation, God let darkness cover the face of the deep before He spoke light into existence. Darkness always precedes light.

So if your world feels dim, hold your position. Dawn always arrives — and it never runs late.

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15. The Fire That Forms the Future

The hardest fires forge the holiest futures. When you endure your refining season, you don’t come out weaker — you come out weightier, wiser, and more compassionate.

Peter’s denial didn’t disqualify him; it deepened him. Paul’s prison cell didn’t silence him; it amplified him. Your current fire isn’t your finale; it’s your formation.

As Olford Ministries International reminds us, perseverance “turns trials into testimonies and ordinary believers into extraordinary witnesses.” (Olford.org)

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Final Reflection: You Are Being Forged, Not Forgotten

If you take nothing else from this article, take this: God does not test to grade you — He tests to grow you.

Every unanswered prayer, every delay, every heartbreak can either become a grave or a garden. The difference lies in whether you surrender it to Him.

When you walk through fire, remember:

• Gold doesn’t fear the flame.
• Diamonds don’t resent the pressure.
• And faith doesn’t fear the fight.

The fire that once frightened you will someday illuminate others through you.

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Closing Prayer

Father, For everyone standing in the fire, breathe courage into their hearts. Let them know You have not forgotten them. Turn fear into fuel and wounds into wisdom. May every struggle become sacred evidence that You are near — refining, shaping, and strengthening. We trust You, even in the flames. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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🔔 Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube. ☕ Support the ministry: Buy Douglas a Coffee

#FaithInTheFire #FaithMotivation #ChristianInspiration #GodIsWorking #RefinersFire #FaithOverFear #SpiritualGrowth #OvercomingStruggles #TrustGod #Endurance #JesusIsWithYou #HopeInHardTimes #ChristianEncouragement #DouglasVandergraph #FaithBasedMotivation

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Douglas Vandergraph – DV Ministries “Forged in fire. Formed by faith. Focused on hope.”

24 October 2025

On diversion completed today. Its conception was primarily spurred on by Merlin James's Oxbow (2023), which I've been studying for a while—the relationship of its marks and the unique character of its surface to the components of its landscape subject. My own painting is loosely based on miles upon miles of open road on Oregon Route 99W headed toward Dundee from Portland International Airport, the memory of which meshed nicely with a bit of Phoebe Helander's aforementioned talk in which she describes repeating a rose petal form over and over as she fails to capture it in shifting light, its glitching buildup becoming visual information that composes the image indirectly. I think I was also holding similar ideas about visually fading in and out, of constantly oscillating relationships between what has just been seen and what is anticipated to be seen. Of focusing, unfocusing, and warping through that process.

The first woman who taught me fear also taught me how to survive it. Though not how to cope.

This is part 2 in an ongoing series exploring how I was made and how sex shaped me for better and for worse.

Read Part 1 Read Part 3 Read Part 4

Prologue

Before you dive in, be aware, this is deeply personal, extremely raw and contains experiences and offensive, triggering or repulsive language. Please proceed with caution if you decide to go on this journey with me.

Names have been changed, otherwise, this is a recounting of real events.

As I stated in part 1, sex has been a part of my reality as long as I can recall a reality. But not in the healthy natural part of human existence way. My understanding was distorted for a long time. And if I’m honest, I still don’t think I have a healthy relationship with it.

In this entry, I explore what would likely be termed a 'found memory'. An experience with an aunt that has never added up and I can only summarize there is something deeper which I cannot explain.

The Rich Relatives

I have always known her as Aunt Dana. My mom called her Lola. She and my grandmother were the only two who used her middle name. Everyone else, my dad included, called her Snake. She loved snakes. She kept a big boa in a glass aquarium in her living room. And a smaller species in the foyer.

I would say it was a cobra. But that seems ludicrous. She did have these two 3 foot cobra statues in her living room flanking the fireplace. So maybe that’s just my imagination.

Aunt Dana, like Mom, was a hell-raiser. The kind of woman who drank and smoked and didn't mind mixing it up. See my previous essay when she and Mom had it out in the front yard. She also, as I would later learn, ran cocaine for a cartel in the area. Specifically, my Uncle Chad did, but Aunt Dana was neck deep. This was the source of their lush lifestyle, not the construction and tile business that gave the family legitimacy.

In any case, her persona was all swagger and confidence.

I don't ever remember feeling super comfortable at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. It was way, way nicer than ANYONE else we knew. The property was packed with all kinds of grown-up toys. Tools. Boats/watercraft. Motorbikes. Lots of guns. Heavy equipment that even today I visualize as overgrown Tonka trucks. And they always drove nice cars. A new Mazda RX-7 and Subaru Brat were Aunt Dana's daily drivers. Uncle Chad drove a shiny white and blue Bronco.

The big A-frame they built still exists here in Dust Meridian. I drove out a few weeks ago as the sun rose and parked across the street. It wasn’t as large or impressive as it is in my memory. Still a very nice home.

I thought about Jenny throwing rocks at her dad's house in Forest Gump and how they later pushed it down with a big tractor.

Real life isn't fiction though. The tall roof and all-glass face of the house sits two acres back from the gate on State Hwy 79, so I'd need a rocket launcher or trebuchet to hit it. If I ever be come a billionaire, I'll fly in on my helicopter and offer them an immoral amount of money, then buy a bulldozer and push it down.

For now, like with Keith's, I just won't ride my bike by there anymore. I hadn’t in decades, no need to start now.

In their big house, there was always what I now know as drug paraphernalia. Not as if I remember them doing drugs around or in front of me, but there were more than a few sleep-overs where the next day I would see the aftermath of drug-parties. Wall splashed with various fluids, spent condoms, empty beer and whiskey bottles everywhere, and mirrored tables (they LOVED mirrored tables) covered in ash, dirty plates and a dusty residue.

Hello, Smut

Another off-putting feature of the home, was my cousin’s showcasing their parent's stash of pornography. I must have been too young to understand it, because it didn't interest me enough to recall it other than to know there were stacks and stacks of magazines in the upstairs closet behind two louvered bifold doors. We had the same doors in our home. I never liked them.

I DO recall the Zap! And FREAK comix collection. They were essentially cartoon pornography. I think my cousins knew I liked to draw and used it as an opportunity for a little grooming, Though they were also very young, so it is likely they were imitating what had been done to them.

While I have no memory of the specifics of what were likely Hustler and Playboy magazines, I'll never forget the outrageous drawing in those underground adult comics. That's what the publishing industry calls them. But they were smut. Huge-breasted anthropomorphic cat-women with bulbous nipples protruding from barely covering blouses, and strangely apparent penises throughout. And the characters were all sort-of grimy, drawn with a heavy ink line and lots of little bits of ink that indicate something being hairy or dirty.

The other kinds of content is fuzzy, but I know it was pornographic. Writing about it still triggers some kind of hormone in me. It's pleasing and disgusts me. How strange a thing. Imagery is powerful, even poorly drawn.

Later I would learn that the majority artist for these was Robert Crumb, and those who would imitate him. I came to love his work and style in other genres, though not the content of those books.

I don't recall my Aunt ever molesting me. I think that's important to state. That even though the trauma clouds the past, there was absolutely a sexual component to life with and around here. All three of my cousins were molested (the eldest who would go on to molest me) by her step-father, uncle Chad. My older cousin, just two years older than me is an absolute basket case today, as are all of her children. Well, those still alive.

Escaping from School

When I was six or seven there was an event that is still clear as day and a recollection that things were never the same after.

My Aunt came to pick me up from grade school. I may have been feeling ill and mom wasn't available, but in my memory, it is a surprise that I got a note to go to the office and my aunt was there saying she was supposed to pick me up.

What child isn't happy to leave school early? So away we went. It was a cold and snowy winter day in Dust Meridian. Back then, snow could last for weeks; now it's gone in hours.

As we pulled away from the school, she asked me if I was hungry. I was a fat kid. Well, I remember being a fat kid. My cousins called me fat. What few photos survived the fire in 1981 don't render me as a fat child. How odd that I remember being so self-conscious of it.

I digress. I said, 'yes! I'm starved'. And aunt Dana took me to McDonalds where I got a cheeseburger happy meal.

Reader, if we're born after 1980, you likely don't realize, McDonald's USED to be a special treat. At least in families of my economic status. So a happy meal in the middle of the day was a HUGE deal.

I had finished the delicious cheeseburger (I still LOVE McDonald's cheeseburgers—though I haven't had one in YEARS) and was working to consume the quickly soggi-fying fries when I heard her ask, “Do you want a DONUT!?'

I MELTED! How could this get ANY BETTER? Happy meal AND a donut in the middle of the day when I was supposed to be bored in social studies? Yes please.

So, Aunt Dana pulls into a parking lot and I hear the little rotary engine start to scream. All of a sudden, we're sliding sideways can and the car's spinning circles. I am pressed against the passenger door worried it will come open and I'd fly into space (we didn't wear seatbelts in those days and I had fallen out of cars TWICE by this point.

She is laughing a guffawing and thinking it's coolest thing in the world. I was scared and wondering when I was going to get my donut. She is VERY amused when I tell her that it was fun, and ask if we were going to the donut shop next.

I recall her brushing my cheek with the back of her hand and telling me I was a sweet child.

What came next is the confusing part.

Thighs and Vaginas

All of sudden, she's driving us out of town to her house on the highway and she has no pants on. Or shoes, or underwear. There is a dark furry patch between her legs that makes me very nervous. Her plaid, pearl snap shirt is open at the navel and parts and drapes to rest on the outside of either hip. I sit quietly, afraid to speak or move. She looks serious as we drive to her home. After we arrive, I remember her helping me out of my puffy orange coat in the foyer adjacent to her dining room and kitchen where she kept the big snake sometimes. The next recollection I have, she reads to me from the comics in the closet.

We are lying in her big bed upstairs with the mirrored tiles on the ceiling. I can see her naked body next to me, long blond hair splashing down over her breasts. I am a black blot in my memory.

I had never seen a naked woman before this.

The Aftermath

At home once, I went down stairs and walked in on my parents having sex on the vinyl couch. But I was bleary-eyed and had no idea what I was seeing. The memory of my aunt left nothing to my ignorant imagination. After then, I knew what all the parts of a grownup girl were.

As I said, I have no recollection of any physical action. My brain worked overtime to put that all away. Just the circumstances and the fact that while I was never fully comfortable in her home, I was terrified after that to be there without my parents. I never spent the night under her roof again.

I hate to dredge this up and maybe it's a young mind completely misreading the situation. It is impossible to know. And maybe pointless, except to try to understand why I am who I am.

The later abuse at the hands of my cousins were integers in the equation that I use to draw the conclusion that she was probably high and out of her mind. I don't think it was this event that led to several years of bedwetting from 6-9, but it certainly was a contributing factor.

Enuresis (technical term for bedwetting) is caused by many factors and isn't about bladder control. Witnessing violence, neglect, prolonged instability, sexual abuse, they can all contribute to an effect a child's nervous system that leaves them apoplectic and in a constant-fight-or-flight state.

The Reckoning

While this is all part of the toolset that built me, I am not bitter. I am sadder that I feel like I never knew my Aunt. Before I would reach ten, my uncle Chad would die of a mysterious heart attack, leaving Aunt Dana to figure out how to run the construction/tile business that was the vehicle for smuggling drugs in from Mexico.

When she lost that tie, she turned to petty theft and armed robbery. I only found this out when she was arrested and sentenced to 20 years for robbing a pharmacy. It wasn't her first, but it was the last one she would rob. In prison, she got clean and got a degree of some kind and when she was released on parole, ended in New Mexico working as an executive assistant for Texas Electric.

Her children's lives (my cousins) were a disaster. They ended up living with and being raised by my grandmother where I suspect they continued to be abused by my uncle. But more on HIM later.

Of the three children, the youngest died about 20 years ago from a heart attack. Indications are that the mysterious cause that killed my uncle, also killed my cousin. My middle cousin is an accomplished nurse in Dust Meridian whom I have not seen in about 15 years. The eldest of the three, Misheen—

She was the next to expose me to sex. I'll dive in on that in Chapter 3.

It's a horrible thing to not be able to know with confidence if someone was an abuser or if I'm just assigning baggage where it doesn't belong. I know with certainty that 8-9 year old me wasn't having sex with his 30 year old Aunt. I'm not a father, but I am fairly confident it isn't physically possible. But when people do drugs, everything is on the table. And a defenseless child certainly is a low-hanging fruit.

I've never asked my mother about this. As I stated previously, we didn't discuss sex, or sex organs. It was like those parts of us didn't exist. It is a strange matter looking back. But Mom was a practicing alcoholic until I was 11 or 12 and Dad was raised by an abusive mother and a string of men with whom she shared a bed. Neither of them had the tools they needed to properly prepare a boy for the world.

I shudder to think what my sisters experienced.

In any case. She is dead. Whatever she was guilty of, she paid the ultimate price for it and lived the kind of life that allowed her to do the things she did. What cruelties must have been inflicted on her to put her in this state?

Recently, when my sister-in-law died, my mother opened up to me about how devastating her own sister's death was. I was so preoccupied with being a young adult I never did more than say 'sorry mom'. But she expressed that it was easily the most difficult loss she has ever experienced.

I state this because you may wonder, 'why don't you discuss this with your parents and clear the air?' 
Either my mom was aware of matters (in periphery if nothing else), and chose to ignore it (VERY COMMON pre-2000's) or she was completely ignorant of everything. The truth is probably somewhere in between. In any case, the wages have been paid, my mother has her own crosses to bear in her old age and as a dutiful son, I cannot add another albatross around her neck.

I have little affection for almost any of my family. This is a great loss to me. But I realize that it is a defensive mechanism. My way of coping with a flood of mistreatment and abuse.

Reflection

My advice to parents is always: NEVER let your child leave your sight. The one's you trust the most are the most likely to violate it most profoundly.

Or, in my case, for-go the privilege of parent-hood. It is an extreme measure, but the only way to guarantee that your little Lorien or Seren will never be confronted with circumstances like this.

Fear taught me to survive; survival taught me to remember.

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This was easier to write about than chapter one, leaving me filled with disappointment more than anger.

Cope is a work in progress.

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I got E some dyfne shorts and she looks incredible in them, so good that I felt bad. I felt sad because how am I supposed to feel hot or attractive when she already has such an effect on me but it feels like I can’t do anything similar to her?

si bien entre las ofertas de las diversas franquicias habían productos interesantes y hasta sofisticados quería saber dónde estaba el camino más allá de las apariencias y los coloridos aspectos del folklore

hasta que cayó en cuenta de que no había dejado de caminar

que el camino estaba bajo sus pies la verdad ante sus narices y lo profundo en la claridad de su mente

Eastbound transatlantic travel is a long, exhausting journey. Direct flights to Munich are usually significantly more expensive, and a stopover in Dublin or Reykjavík is also a welcome break from being squeezed into an airplane seat.

i’m sick of staying optimistic all the time. i’m sick of carrying good energy for those who take, take and take from me. i’m sick of entertaining those who check in with me like a show they are flipping through without reciprocating my kindness. and they wonder what’s wrong with me when i’ve stopped giving. when i’ve stopped responding. when i’ve stopped smiling back. 

On MusicBrainz.

I am young enough that most of my parents music collection was in C·D format, altho they did keep a small number of cassettes. I first encountered No Need To Argue in this latter collection, long after my parents had mostly transitioned to exclusively playing from their C·D cabinet. I went many years without listening to it during the iPod era (not having a digital copy), but I returned to it with newfound appreciation once I finally secured a digital version in college. While my parents did have Stars: The Best Of 1992–2002 on C·D, I honestly didn¦t listen to it much; No Need To Argue is The Cranberries¦s best album, and it is best listened to as an album, so the greatest‐hits collection always left me feeling disappointed (not that it doesn¦t have some bangers).

After the cover art, which definitely ranks among the top 20 album covers from the 90s in my opinion, what attracted me most as a kid in the early naughts was the albums opening track, “Ode To My Family”. While it is normally not trivial to cue up individual tracks on cassette, the leading track on the tape is the exception to this rule, and I definitely did rewind and replay it multiple times in my childhood. I was enamoured with the way Dolores O¦Riordan pronounced “mother” and “father”, and I was mystified by the content—my naïve expectations regarding an “ode” were of positive emotions, and yet it confronted me repeatedly with the phrase « Does anyone care? ». At that time in my life, I had been taught to think of swearing as rude and hostile, but the line « Where¦s when I was young, and we didn¦t give a damn? » felt sweet, melancholic, and longing. I didn¦t know how to resolve these tensions as a young child, but I was fascinated by them.

It is incredibly difficult to describe the complicated feelings associated with a break·up in terms that an 8‐year‐old, unable to fathom dating, can understand, but I think O¦Riordan managed it in “I Can¦t Be With You” with « I wanted to be the mother of your child, and now it¦s just farewell », a line which will never be topped despite not even coming from the best break·up song on the album. Motherhood is a concept that artists tend to shy away from, and when artists do depict it, it usually takes on a privatizing manifestation—songs written to or about ones own children, divorced from society at‐large. In contrast, motherhood saturates No Need To Argue unapologetically, socially, and almost virginally: “I Can¦t Be With You” mourns the loss of possibility of being a mother; “The Icicle Melts” empathizes with other mothers after their children suffer violence; “Dreaming My Dreams” portrays the perspective of falling in love with some·one who already has a child. These tracks collectively form the basis of a different kind of ethic than one traditionally finds in punk scenes, and a different conception of love than is typically found in pop. It is profoundly and intimately feminine with·out depending on recourse to either patriarchal tropes or bio·essentialism; this is a fount of motherhood that all women can draw upon, regardless of whether they personally have carried a child to term.

Most of the remaining tracks exhibit a similar fusion of intensely personal emotion and a social awareness, and conscious social positioning, which is broad, feminine, and coalition‐building. Altho some of these songs do make good singles (nothing more needs to be said about “Zombie”), I¦m of the opinion that they all land their hardest in and with the context of the greater whole.

Favourite track: In the context of the album, I think the final track, “No Need To Argue”, is perfect in its minimalism. “Daffodil Lament” stands a bit better on its own.

#AlbumOfTheWeek

This is cute. That is all.

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This one's got sound!

https://youtu.be/rhJXgOREHaM

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Since we're talking cute:

A little girl drew these lovely portraits of the two of us. I'm sure you can figure with one is your Wolf. I love children's drawings. When they draw, it is still that innocent act of play. There is no ego nor bravado, just an energy excited to get out of their hands and on to the page.

#spiders #cute #gif #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #meme

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In a world where polished production and big budgets dominate online video platforms, there’s something radically refreshing about the raw, personal story of one father who simply showed up. With a digital camera, a mini tripod, and a mic in his hands—he hit record every single day, not merely to create content, but to show up with heart, hustle, and hope for his daughters and a community that would grow around them. He turned plain equipment and daily commitment into something remarkable: a thriving channel, a growing community, and a story of consistency winning over time.

Today, you can witness that journey from the first 30 videos in the series by following this playlist: Watch the first 30 videos that sparked the movement. That playlist is more than a set of uploads—it is the seed of a movement.

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Why the Beginning Matters

When this father began, there was no team of editors, no multi-camera setup, no big lighting rig. Just a dad. Just purpose. A digital camera. A microphone. And a simple tripod. He showed up every single day.

That level of consistency isn’t easy. It means: when motivation fades, press record anyway. When the equipment glitches, keep going. When the day is long, the kids are tired, the world is moving fast—still show up.

In doing so, he created something few creators truly capture: authenticity. The kind of daily persistence that viewers feel, that builds trust. Because viewers begin to expect you. They begin to rely on your presence. And when you show up again and again, you signal: I’m here. I care. I’m reliable.

Modern research backs this up: consistency in content creation helps build trust and credibility, improves SEO and online visibility, enhances audience engagement and loyalty. Content Whale+2Retail PR & Digital Marketing+2 Even within video platforms like YouTube, a steady upload schedule signals to both the audience and the algorithm that you’re active and committed. Medium+1

What this dad did was simple—but the implications were far-reaching.

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From 30 Videos to 15,000 + Subscribers and Beyond

What began as a modest 30-video series blossomed quickly. In just 30 days, the subscriber count surged past 15,000. Today, the community spans millions around the globe, and the subscriber count is well over half a million. This is living proof that when you show up with purpose, results follow.

Here’s why this kind of growth happened:

• Daily uploads built momentum. Each video wasn’t just a singular moment—it was part of a chain. The viewer who watched upload #1 came back for #2, #3, then told someone else.
• Authenticity attracted community. Many channels try to look perfect; this one looked real—and that resonated. In an age of filtered reality, raw truth stands out.
• Algorithm responds to consistency. Studies show that channels that upload reliably get more recommendations from platforms than those that are sporadic. Zebracat+1
• Trust builds loyalty. His daughters, his family, his real-life context became the backdrop—not just props—so viewers felt like part of something genuine.

Every video in that initial 30-video drop is packed with authenticity, growth, and the quiet power of consistency.

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What We Can Learn From His Journey

Beyond admiration, there are actionable lessons. Whether you’re a creator, entrepreneur, minister, or anyone building something meaningful, the same principles apply.

1. Show up. Period.

There will always be excuses: tired, busy, equipment failed, life happened. Yet he pressed record anyway. The reflex to show up daily—even imperfectly—builds a habit that compounds. As noted in marketing research, consistent content leads to better brand recognition, trust, and engagement. Acrolinx+1

2. Let authenticity be your differentiator.

When you show who you are—your family, your life, your why—you invite others into your journey. That’s powerful. Audiences gravitate to truth. Over-polish can distance you; real connections draw people in.

3. Embrace growth over perfection.

The first 30 videos aren’t flawless. But they are present. What matters more than the slickness of the first video is the fourth, the tenth, the twentieth. It’s the growth arc viewers witness. Which means you don’t need perfect gear to start—you just need consistency.

4. Build community, not just content.

In those early 30 videos, his daughters were the audience within his heart—but the global community emerged because he invited it in. He responded. He interacted. He made people feel seen. Community grows when you care about people, not just numbers.

5. Trust the long game.

It didn’t happen overnight. Though 15,000 + subs in 30 days is remarkable, the true value came when he sustained. Over time, the algorithm, the viewership, the community all aligned. According to YouTube statistics, channels that sustain consistent uploads for 12–24 months majorly boost their threshold for monetization and growth. Miss Techy+1

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The Power of a Simple Setup

The gear was modest: a digital camera (not necessarily top-tier), a mini tripod, a mic. Nothing fancy. No mega-crew. No Hollywood budget.

But just because the setup was simple doesn’t mean the mission was small. Quite the opposite: the simplicity enabled focus.

• No distractions from gear perfection → focus on story.
• No scalable setup to maintain → easier to keep daily rhythm.
• No big crew to coordinate → authentic human presence.

In many ways, a lean setup is a strength. Because it allows you to keep the main thing the main thing: showing up with heart. The message over the mechanics. The love over the lights.

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Why This Resonates in Today’s Digital Landscape

We live in a time of content overload. Thousands, maybe millions, of creators. Upgrades, gear sans, big budgets. In that environment, what stands out isn’t always the biggest budget—it’s the consistent voice.

• The algorithm on YouTube currently supports this: there are 2.53 billion monthly active users, and 47 % of YouTube users interact with brands at least weekly. Sprout Social
• The more consistent you are, the more you tell the platform “I’m here” and tell the audience “I’m reliable.”
• Platforms see you as less risky—regular uploads → more watch time → more favorable recommendation. Makarand Utpat+1
• Audiences have shorter attention spans—but paradoxically, those same audiences build habits. When a creator shows up daily, that becomes part of their viewers’ rhythms.

So this journey of one dad, one camera, one mini tripod—for 30 days and beyond—is more relevant than ever.

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Community, Purpose, and Impact

Let’s talk about what that community looks like. Not mere subscriber numbers—but actual connection.

• The daughters who watched Dad show up: there’s a legacy. He wasn’t just creating for YouTube—he was creating for them.
• The strangers around the world who clicked “Subscribe”: they found trust, consistency, and heart in each upload.
• The ripple effect: one channel, many lives touched, multiple languages, global reach.

Purpose drove this. Hustle powered it. And hope pulled it forward.

In that first 30-video stretch you can feel the trajectory: humble beginnings → incremental progress → community forming → momentum building. A movement, not just a playlist.

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What You Can Do Right Now

You don’t need to wait for perfect gear. You don’t need a big team. You just need:

1. A small camera or a phone.

2. A mic (good sound > perfect visuals).

3. A tripod or steady surface.

4. Purpose. Your “why.”

5. A schedule. Daily or regular—choose what you can sustain.

6. A heart for your people. Your real audience.

7. Response. Engage. Make comment replies part of the plan.

In 30 videos—within a month—you can establish pattern. And when pattern becomes habit, habit becomes identity.

This is your invitation: don’t just watch the journey above. Use it as inspiration to take your first step. Because greatness isn’t born—it’s built. And you can build it.

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Final Thoughts

When you look back on the early playlist, you’ll notice something: the authenticity, the daily grind, the simplicity. It doesn’t scream “viral overnight”—it whispers “steady and true.” That whisper is powerful. It becomes louder over time.

Whether you’re creating faith-based talk videos, lifestyle content, family vlogs, or daily devotions—what this journey teaches is universal: show up. Be consistent. Share your heart. Build your community. Use every upload to say: I was here today for you. Because when you show up for your audience, they will show up for you.

And as they do, the ripple grows — the playlist becomes a movement; the single creator becomes a community-builder; the simple gear becomes a vehicle for hope.

Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube

Support the mission – buy Douglas a cup of coffee

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#dailyvlog #contentcreator #familycommunity #authenticity #consistencyiskey #youtubegrowth #dadvlog #buildingamovement #inspiration #dreambig

#NSFW

This post is NSFW 19+ Adult content. Viewer discretion is advised.

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In Japanese AV, the face cumshot scene has become a widely popular and conventional trope. This scene goes beyond mere visual stimulation, tapping into the viewer’s latent codes of taboo and desire. After watching numerous AVs, the audience may feel that the urge to ejaculate on a performer’s face is universal across actresses. Yet in reality, a deeper, more obsessive desire is often directed at specific performers—such as Eren Sora (or Eriko Sora).

She is one of the emblematic figures of the face cumshot fantasy. Even in her ordinary opening interview scene in her 2024 FALENO debut (FSDSS-870), where she is fully clothed, a simple close-up of her face triggers an unusually strong urge (she had actually debuted with Moodyz in 2023 but went on hiatus shortly after). The question is why the desire to smear semen on that particular face emerges so intensely, rubbing the tip of a fully erect cock against the cheeks.

Eren Sora’s image radiates both purity and the confident pride unique to a spirited university student. Her face reflects youthful intellectual curiosity, decisiveness. Her cheeks, in particular, serve as a symbolic condensation of “the apex of innocence.” The desire to smear jizz specifically on her cheeks arises because the cheek is the area of the skin where the most sincere emotions of the inner self become visible. Leaving “the most primal and forbidden mark” upon her cheeks—the emblem of purity where sincere emotions become visible—is a transgressive and exhilarating act. This desire, in its essence, is an erotic ritual that exalts the act of leaving a profane mark upon the feminine interiority.

In Connection With This Post: Eren Sora .02 https://hustin.art/eren-sora-02

#AV #japan #debut2024 #ErenSora

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In Summary: * The most significant part of this Thursday in the Roscoe-verse was my decision this morning to sign up for clinical trials studying alternative treatments for my bad eye. Tomorrow morning I'll find out more about the details of what I signed up for.

Prayers, etc.: * My daily prayers.

Health Metrics: * bw= 220.02 lbs. * bp= 139/81 (65)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercise, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:20 – pizza * 07:15 – toast and butter * 12:00 – pancakes * 14:20 – 1 fresh apple * 16:20 – cole slaw * 17:30 – 2 crispy oatmeal cookies

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 05:00 – listen to local news, talk radio * 06:15 – bank accounts activity monitored * 06:30 – read, pray, listen to news reports from various sources * 10:00 to 11:00 – apt. with retina doc * 11:30 to 12:30 – brunch with Sylvia at iHop * 13:00 – read, pray, listen to news reports from various sources * 18:15 – listening to The Joe Pags Show * 20:00 – listening to relaxing music

Chess: * 15:15 – moved in all pending CC games

In September 2025, Hollywood's unions found themselves confronting an adversary unlike any they had faced before. Tilly Norwood had attracted the attention of multiple talent agencies eager to represent her. She possessed the polish of a seasoned performer, the algorithmic perfection of someone who had never experienced a bad hair day, and one notable characteristic that set her apart from every other aspiring actor in Los Angeles: she did not exist.

Tilly Norwood is not human. She is a fully synthetic creation, generated by the London-based production studio Particle6, whose founder Eline van der Velden announced at the Zurich Film Festival that several agencies were clamouring to sign the AI 'actress'. Van der Velden's ambition was unambiguous: 'We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman'. The entertainment industry's response was swift and polarised. SAG-AFTRA, the Screen Actors Guild, issued a blistering statement declaring that Tilly Norwood 'is not an actor, it's a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers' without permission or compensation. The union accused the creation of 'using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry'.

Yet Van der Velden remained sanguine, comparing AI actors to animation, puppetry, and CGI, describing them as simply 'another way to imagine and build stories'. At a conference in Los Angeles, she reported that in her discussions with studios, the conversation had shifted dramatically. Companies that dismissed AI performers as 'nonsense' in February were, by May, eager to explore partnerships with Particle6. The message was clear: whether the entertainment industry likes it or not, synthetic performers have arrived, and they are not waiting for permission.

This moment represents more than a technological novelty or a legal skirmish between unions and production companies. It marks a fundamental inflection point in the history of human creativity and performance. As AI generates synthetic performers who never draw breath and resurrects deceased celebrities who can tour indefinitely without complaint, we face urgent questions about what happens to human artistry, authentic expression, and the very definition of entertainment in an age when anything can be simulated and anyone can be digitally reborn.

The Synthetic Celebrity Industrial Complex

The emergence of AI-generated performers is not an isolated phenomenon but the culmination of decades of technological development and cultural preparation. Japan's Hatsune Miku, a holographic pop idol created in 2007, pioneered the concept of the virtual celebrity. With her turquoise pigtails and synthesised voice, Miku built a devoted global fanbase, held sold-out concerts, and demonstrated that audiences would form emotional connections with explicitly artificial performers. What began as a cultural curiosity has metastasised into a vast ecosystem.

By 2025, AI-generated influencers have established a significant presence on social media platforms, a virtual K-pop group launched in South Korea has attracted a substantial following, and synthetic models appear in advertising campaigns for major brands. The economic logic is compelling. AI performers require no salaries, benefits, or accommodation. They never age, never complain, never experience scandal, and never demand creative control. They can be endlessly replicated, localised for different markets, and modified to match shifting consumer preferences. For entertainment companies operating on increasingly thin margins, the appeal is undeniable.

The technology behind these synthetic celebrities has reached startling sophistication. Companies like Particle6 employ advanced generative AI systems trained on vast databases of human performances. These systems analyse facial expressions, body language, vocal patterns, and emotional nuance from thousands of hours of footage, learning to synthesise new performances that mimic human behaviour with uncanny accuracy. The process involves selecting actors who physically resemble the desired celebrity, capturing their movements, and then digitally overlaying AI-generated faces and voices that achieve near-perfect verisimilitude.

Yet beneath the technological marvel lies a troubling reality. The AI systems creating these performers are trained on copyrighted material, often without permission or compensation to the original artists whose work forms the training data. This creates what critics describe as a form of algorithmic plagiarism, where the accumulated labour of thousands of performers is distilled, homogenised, and repackaged as a product that directly competes with those same artists for employment opportunities.

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin has been unequivocal about the threat. During the 2023 strikes, actors secured provisions requiring consent and compensation for digital replicas, but the emergence of wholly synthetic performers trained on unauthorised data represents a more insidious challenge. These entities exist in a legal grey zone, neither exact replicas of specific individuals nor entirely original creations. They are amalgamations, chimeras built from fragments of human artistry without attribution or remuneration.

The displacement concerns extend beyond leading actors. Background performers, voice actors, and character actors face particular vulnerability. Whilst audiences might detect the artificiality of a synthetic Scarlett Johansson in a leading role, they are far less likely to notice when background characters or minor speaking parts are filled by AI-generated performers. This creates a tiered erosion of employment, where the invisible infrastructure of the entertainment industry gradually hollows out whilst marquee names remain, at least temporarily, protected by their irreplicability and star power.

Resurrection as a Service

Parallel to the emergence of synthetic performers is the burgeoning industry of digital resurrection. In recent years, audiences have witnessed holographic performances by Maria Callas, Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson, and Roy Orbison, all deceased artists returned to the stage through a combination of archival footage, motion capture, and AI enhancement. Companies like Base Hologram specialise in these spectral resurrections, creating tours and residencies that allow fans to experience performances by artists who died years or decades ago.

The technology relies primarily on an optical illusion known as Pepper's Ghost, a theatrical technique dating to the 19th century. Modern implementations use the Musion EyeLiner system, which projects high-definition video onto a thin metallised film angled towards the audience, creating the illusion of a three-dimensional figure on stage. When combined with live orchestras or backing bands, the effect can be remarkably convincing, though limitations remain evident. The vocals emanate from speakers rather than the holographic figure, and the performances lack the spontaneity and present-moment responsiveness that define live entertainment.

Recent advances in AI have dramatically enhanced these resurrections. Ten hours of audio can be fed into machine learning models to synthesise new vocal performances in a deceased artist's voice. Motion capture data from actors can be algorithmically modified to mimic the distinctive performance styles of departed celebrities. The result is not merely a replay of archived material but the creation of new performances that the original artist never gave, singing songs they never recorded, appearing in productions they never conceived.

The ethical implications are profound. When the estate of George Carlin sued a media company in 2025 for using AI to create an unauthorised comedy special featuring a synthetic version of the late comedian, the case highlighted the absence of clear legal frameworks governing posthumous digital exploitation. The lawsuit alleged deprivation of the right of publicity, violation of common law publicity rights, and copyright infringement. It settled with a permanent injunction, but the broader questions remained unresolved.

What would Maria Callas, who famously controlled every aspect of her artistic presentation, think about being digitally manipulated to perform in productions she never authorised? Would Prince, who notoriously guarded his artistic output and died without a will, consent to the posthumous hologram performances and album releases that have followed his death? The artists themselves cannot answer, leaving executors, heirs, and corporate entities to make decisions that profoundly shape legacy and memory.

Iain MacKinnon, a Toronto-based media lawyer, articulated the dilemma succinctly: 'It's a tough one, because if the artist never addressed the issue whilst he or she was alive, anybody who's granting these rights, which is typically an executor of an estate, is really just guessing what the artist would have wanted'.

The commercial motivations are transparent. Copyright holders and estates can generate substantial revenue from holographic tours and digital resurrections with minimal ongoing costs. A hologram can perform simultaneously in multiple venues, requires no security detail or travel arrangements, and never cancels due to illness or exhaustion. It represents the ultimate scalability of celebrity, transforming the deceased into endlessly reproducible intellectual property.

Yet fans remain conflicted. A study of Japanese audiences who witnessed AI Hibari, a hologram of singer Misora Hibari who died in 1986, revealed sharply divided responses. Some were moved to tears by the opportunity to experience an artist they had mourned for decades. Others described the performance as 'profaning the dead', a manipulation of memory that felt exploitative and fundamentally disrespectful. Research on audiences attending the ABBA Voyage hologram concert found generally positive responses, with fans expressing gratitude for the chance to see the band 'perform' once more, albeit as digital avatars of their younger selves.

The uncanny valley looms large in these resurrections. When holograms fail to achieve sufficient realism, they provoke discomfort and revulsion. Audiences are acutely sensitive to discrepancies between the spectral figure and their memories of the living artist. Poor quality recreations feel not merely disappointing but actively disturbing, a violation of the dignity owed to the dead.

The Legal Scramble

The entertainment industry's regulatory frameworks, designed for an era of analogue reproduction and clearly defined authorship, have struggled to accommodate the challenges posed by AI-generated and digitally resurrected performers. Recognising this inadequacy, legislators have begun constructing new legal architectures to protect performers' likenesses and voices.

The most significant legislative response has been the NO FAKES Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced in both the US House and Senate in 2025. The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act seeks to establish a federal intellectual property right protecting individuals' voice and visual likeness from unauthorised digital replicas. If enacted, it would represent the first nationwide harmonised right of publicity, superseding the current patchwork of inconsistent state laws.

The NO FAKES Act defines a digital replica as 'a newly created, computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation that is readily identifiable as the voice or visual likeness of an individual' in which the actual individual did not perform or in which the fundamental character of their performance has been materially altered. Crucially, the rights extend beyond living individuals to include post-mortem protections, granting heirs the authority to control deceased relatives' digital likenesses.

The legislation establishes that every individual possesses a federal intellectual property right to their own voice and likeness, including an extension of that right for families after death. It empowers individuals to take action against those who knowingly create, post, or profit from unauthorised digital copies. Platform providers receive safe harbour protections if they promptly respond to valid takedown notices and maintain policies against repeat offenders, mirroring structures familiar from copyright law.

The bill includes exceptions designed to balance protection with free speech. Bona fide news reporting, public affairs programming, sports broadcasts, documentaries, biographical works, and historical content receive exemptions. Parody and satire are explicitly protected. The legislation attempts to navigate the tension between protecting individuals from exploitation whilst preserving legitimate creative and journalistic uses of digital likeness technology.

Significantly, the NO FAKES Act makes the rights non-assignable during an individual's lifetime, though they can be licensed. This provision aims to prevent studios and labels from leveraging their bargaining power to compel artists to transfer their rights permanently, a concern that emerged prominently during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. The restriction reflects a recognition that performers often occupy positions of relative powerlessness in negotiations with corporate entities that control access to employment and distribution.

Damages for violations range from $5,000 to $750,000 per work, depending on the violator's role and intent, with provisions for injunctive relief and punitive damages in cases of wilful misconduct. The bill grants rights holders the power to compel online services, via court-issued subpoenas, to disclose identifying information of alleged infringers, potentially streamlining enforcement efforts.

California has pursued parallel protections at the state level. Assembly Bill 1836, introduced in 2024, extends the right of publicity for deceased celebrities' heirs, making it tortious to use a celebrity's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness for unauthorised commercial purposes within 70 years of death. The law excludes 'expressive works' such as plays, books, magazines, musical compositions, and audiovisual works, attempting to preserve creative freedom whilst limiting commercial exploitation.

The legislative push has garnered broad support from industry stakeholders. SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association, and the Television Academy have all endorsed the NO FAKES Act. Even major technology companies including Google and OpenAI have expressed support, recognising that clear legal frameworks ultimately benefit platform providers by reducing liability uncertainty and establishing consistent standards.

Yet critics argue that the legislation remains insufficiently protective. The Regulatory Review, a publication of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, warned that the revised NO FAKES Act has been expanded to satisfy the demands of large technology companies whilst leaving individuals vulnerable. The publication expressed concern that the bill could legitimise deceptive uses of digital replicas rather than appropriately regulating them, and that the preemption provisions create significant confusion about the interaction between federal and state laws.

The preemption language, which supersedes state laws regarding digital replicas whilst exempting statutes in existence before January 2025, has been particularly contentious. The phrase 'regarding a digital replica' lacks clear definition, creating ambiguity about which existing state laws remain effective. Many state intimate image laws and longstanding publicity statutes cover digital replicas without explicitly using that terminology, raising questions about their survival under federal preemption.

The challenge extends beyond legislative drafting to fundamental questions about the nature of identity and personhood in a digital age. Current legal frameworks assume that individuals possess clear boundaries of self, that identity is singular and embodied, and that likeness can be neatly demarcated and protected. AI-generated performers complicate these assumptions. When a synthetic entity is trained on thousands of performances by different actors, whose likeness does it represent? When a deceased celebrity's digital replica performs material they never created, who is the author? These questions resist simple answers and may require conceptual innovations beyond what existing legal categories can accommodate.

The Creativity Crisis

The proliferation of AI-generated content and synthetic performers has ignited fierce debate about the nature and value of human creativity. At stake is not merely the economic livelihood of artists but fundamental questions about what art is, where it comes from, and why it matters.

Proponents of AI art argue that the technology represents simply another tool, comparable to the camera, the synthesiser, or digital editing software. They emphasise AI's capacity to democratise creative production, making sophisticated tools accessible to individuals who lack formal training or expensive equipment. Artists increasingly use AI as a collaborative partner, training models on their own work to explore variations, generate inspiration, and expand their creative vocabulary. From this perspective, AI does not replace human creativity but augments and extends it.

Yet critics contend that this framing fundamentally misunderstands what distinguishes human artistic expression from algorithmic pattern recognition. Human creativity, they argue, emerges from lived experience, emotional depth, cultural context, and intentionality. Artists draw upon personal histories, grapple with mortality, navigate social complexities, and imbue their work with meanings that reflect their unique perspectives. This subjective dimension, grounded in consciousness and embodied existence, cannot be replicated by machines that lack experience, emotions, or genuine understanding.

Recent psychological research has revealed complex patterns in how audiences respond to AI-generated art. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2025 presented participants with pairs of artworks, one human-created and one AI-generated, in both preference and discrimination tasks. The results were striking: when presented without attribution labels, participants systematically preferred AI-generated artworks over stylistically similar pieces created by humans. Simultaneously, a separate group of participants performed above chance at detecting which artworks were AI-generated, indicating a perceptible distinction between human and artificial creative works.

These findings suggest a troubling possibility: in the absence of contextual information about authorship, AI-generated art may be aesthetically preferred by audiences, even whilst they remain capable of detecting its artificial origin when prompted to do so. This preference may reflect AI's optimisation for visual appeal, its training on vast datasets of successful artworks, and its capacity to synthesise elements that empirical research has identified as aesthetically pleasing.

However, other research reveals a persistent bias against AI art once its origins are known. Studies consistently show that when participants are informed that a work was created by AI, they evaluate it less favourably than identical works attributed to human artists. This suggests that knowledge about creative process and authorship significantly influences aesthetic judgement. The value audiences assign to art depends not solely on its intrinsic visual properties but on the narrative of its creation, the perception of effort and intention, and the sense of connection to a creative consciousness behind the work.

The devaluation concern extends beyond aesthetic preference to economic and professional domains. As AI tools become more sophisticated and accessible, there is genuine fear that they may displace human artists in commercial markets. Already, companies are using AI to generate stock photography, book illustrations, album artwork, and marketing materials, reducing demand for human illustrators and photographers. Background actors and voice performers face particular vulnerability to replacement by synthetic alternatives that offer comparable quality at dramatically lower cost.

Yet the most profound threat may not be displacement but dilution. If the internet becomes saturated with AI-generated content, finding and valuing genuinely human creative work becomes increasingly difficult. The signal-to-noise ratio deteriorates as algorithmic production scales beyond what human labour can match. This creates a tragedy of the commons in the attention economy, where the proliferation of low-cost synthetic content makes it harder for human artists to reach audiences and sustain creative careers.

Defenders of human creativity emphasise characteristics that AI fundamentally cannot replicate. Human artists bring imperfection, idiosyncrasy, and the marks of struggle that enhance a work's character and emotional resonance. The rough edges, the unexpected juxtapositions, the evidence of revision and reconsideration all signal the presence of a conscious agent grappling with creative challenges. These qualities, often called the 'human touch', create opportunities for connection and recognition that algorithmic perfection precludes.

Cultural authenticity represents another domain where AI struggles. Art emerges from specific cultural contexts, drawing upon traditions, references, and lived experiences that give works depth and specificity. An AI trained on global datasets may mimic surface characteristics of various cultural styles but lacks the embedded knowledge, the tacit understanding, and the personal stake that artists bring from their own backgrounds. This can result in art that feels derivative, appropriative, or culturally shallow despite its technical proficiency.

The intentionality question remains central. Human artists make choices that reflect particular ideas, emotions, and communicative purposes. They select colours to evoke specific moods, arrange compositions to direct attention, and employ techniques to express concepts. This intentionality invites viewers into dialogue, encouraging interpretation and engagement with the work's meanings. AI lacks genuine intention. It optimises outputs based on training data and prompt parameters but does not possess ideas it seeks to communicate or emotions it aims to express. The resulting works may be visually impressive yet ultimately hollow, offering surface without depth.

Defining Authenticity When Everything Can Be Faked

The proliferation of synthetic performers and AI-generated content creates an authenticity crisis that extends beyond entertainment to epistemology itself. When seeing and hearing can no longer be trusted as evidence of reality, what remains as grounds for belief and connection?

Celebrity deepfakes have emerged as a particularly pernicious manifestation of this crisis. In 2025, Steve Harvey reported that scams using his AI-generated likeness were at 'an all-time high', with fraudsters deploying synthetic videos of the television host promoting fake government funding schemes and gambling platforms. A woman in France lost $850,000 after scammers used AI-generated images of Brad Pitt to convince her she was helping the actor. Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, and Selena Gomez have all been targeted by deepfake scandals featuring explicit or misleading content created without their consent.

The scale of the problem has prompted celebrities themselves to advocate for legislative solutions. At congressional hearings, performers have testified about the personal and professional harm caused by unauthorised digital replicas, emphasising the inadequacy of existing legal frameworks to address synthetic impersonation. The challenge extends beyond individual harm to collective trust. When public figures can be convincingly impersonated, when videos and audio recordings can be fabricated, the evidentiary foundations of journalism, law, and democratic discourse erode.

Technology companies have responded with forensic tools designed to detect AI-generated content. Vermillio AI, which partners with major talent agencies and studios, employs a system called TraceID that uses 'fingerprinting' techniques to distinguish authentic content from AI-generated material. The platform crawls the internet for images that have been manipulated using large language models, analysing millions of data points within each image to identify synthetic artefacts. Celebrities like Steve Harvey use these services to track unauthorised uses of their likenesses and automate takedown requests.

Yet detection remains a cat-and-mouse game. As forensic tools improve, so too do generative models. Adversarial training allows AI systems to learn to evade detection methods, creating an escalating technological arms race. Moreover, relying on technical detection shifts the burden from preventive regulation to reactive enforcement, placing victims in the position of constantly monitoring for misuse rather than enjoying proactive protection.

The authenticity crisis manifests differently across generations. Research suggests that younger audiences, particularly Generation Z, demonstrate greater acceptance of digital beings and synthetic celebrities. Having grown up with virtual influencers, animated characters, and heavily edited social media personas, they possess different intuitions about the boundaries between real and artificial. For these audiences, authenticity may reside less in biological origins than in consistency, coherence, and the quality of parasocial connection.

Parasocial relationships, the one-sided emotional bonds that audiences form with media personalities, have always involved elements of illusion. Fans construct imagined connections with celebrities based on curated public personas that may diverge significantly from private selves. AI-generated performers simply make this dynamic explicit. The synthetic celebrity openly acknowledges its artificiality yet still invites emotional investment. For some audiences, this transparency removes the deception inherent in traditional celebrity performance, creating a more honest foundation for fan engagement.

Consumer protection advocates warn of exploitation risks. Synthetic performers can be algorithmically optimised to maximise engagement, deploying psychological techniques designed to sustain attention and encourage parasocial bonding. Without the constraints imposed by human psychology, exhaustion, or ethical consideration, AI-driven celebrities can be engineered for addictiveness in ways that raise serious concerns about emotional manipulation and the commodification of intimacy.

The question of what constitutes 'authentic' entertainment in this landscape resists definitive answers. If audiences derive genuine pleasure from holographic concerts, if they form meaningful emotional connections with synthetic performers, if they find value in AI-generated art, can we dismiss these experiences as inauthentic? Authenticity, in this view, resides not in the ontological status of the creator but in the quality of the audience's experience.

Yet this subjective definition leaves unaddressed the questions of exploitation, displacement, and cultural value. Even if audiences enjoy synthetic performances, the concentration of profits in corporate hands whilst human performers lose employment remains problematic. Even if AI-generated art provides aesthetic pleasure, the training on copyrighted material without compensation constitutes a form of theft. The experience of the audience cannot be the sole criterion for judging the ethics and social value of entertainment technologies.

Some scholars propose that authenticity in entertainment should be understood as transparency. The problem is not synthetic performers per se but their presentation as human. If audiences are clearly informed that they are engaging with AI-generated content, they can make informed choices about consumption and emotional investment. This approach preserves creative freedom and technological innovation whilst protecting against deception.

Others argue for a revival of embodied performance as a response to the synthetic tide. Live theatre, intimate concerts, and interactive art offer experiences that fundamentally cannot be replicated by AI. The presence of human bodies in space, the risk of error, the responsiveness to audience energy, the unrepeatable present-moment quality of live performance all provide value that synthesised entertainment lacks. Rather than competing with AI on its terms, human artists might emphasise precisely those characteristics that machines cannot capture.

Navigating the Future of Human Expression

The questions raised by synthetic performers and AI-generated content will only intensify as technology continues to advance. Generative models are improving rapidly, making detection increasingly difficult and synthesis increasingly convincing. The economic incentives favouring AI deployment remain powerful, as companies seek cost reductions and scalability advantages. Yet the trajectory is not predetermined.

Legal frameworks like the NO FAKES Act, whilst imperfect, represent meaningful attempts to establish boundaries and protections. Union negotiations have secured important provisions requiring consent and compensation for digital replicas. Crucially, artists themselves are organising, speaking out, and demanding recognition that their craft cannot be reduced to training data. When Whoopi Goldberg confronted the Tilly Norwood phenomenon on The View, declaring 'bring it on' and noting that human bodies and faces 'move differently', she articulated a defiant confidence: the peculiarities of human movement, the imperfections of lived bodies, the spontaneity of genuine consciousness remain irreplicable.

The future likely involves hybrid forms that blend human and AI creativity in ways that challenge simple categorisation. Human directors may work with AI-generated actors for specific purposes whilst maintaining human performers for roles requiring emotional depth. Musicians may use algorithmic tools to explore sonic possibilities whilst retaining creative control. Visual artists may harness AI for ideation whilst executing final works through traditional methods. The boundary between human and machine creativity may become increasingly porous, requiring new vocabulary to describe these collaborative processes.

What remains non-negotiable is the need to centre human flourishing in these developments. Technology should serve human needs, not supplant human participation. Entertainment exists ultimately for human audiences, created by human sensibilities, reflecting human concerns. When synthetic performers threaten to displace human artists, when digital resurrections exploit deceased celebrities without clear consent, when AI-generated content saturates culture to the exclusion of human voices, we have lost sight of fundamental purposes.

The challenge facing the entertainment industry, policymakers, and society more broadly is to harness the creative potential of AI whilst preserving space for human artistry. This requires robust legal protections for performers' likenesses, fair compensation for training data, transparency about AI involvement in creative works, and cultural institutions that actively cultivate and value human creativity.

It also requires audiences to exercise discernment and intentionality about consumption choices. Supporting human artists, attending live performances, seeking out authentic human voices amid the synthetic noise, these actions constitute forms of cultural resistance against the homogenising tendencies of algorithmic production. Every ticket purchased for a live concert rather than a holographic resurrection, every commission given to a human illustrator rather than defaulting to AI generation, every choice to value the imperfect authenticity of human creation over algorithmic perfection, these are votes for the kind of culture we wish to inhabit.

In the end, the synthetic performers are here, and more are coming. Tilly Norwood will not be the last AI entity to seek representation by Hollywood agencies. Digital resurrections of deceased celebrities will proliferate as the technology becomes cheaper and more convincing. The deluge of AI-generated content will continue to rise. But whether these developments represent an expansion of creative possibility or a diminishment of human artistry depends entirely on the choices we make now.

SAG-AFTRA's declaration that 'nothing will ever replace a human being' must become more than rhetoric. It must manifest in legislation that protects performers, in industry practices that prioritise human employment, in cultural institutions that champion human creativity, and in audience choices that affirm the irreducible value of work made by conscious beings who have lived, suffered, loved, and transformed experience into expression.

The woman who lost $850,000 to a deepfake Brad Pitt, the background actors worried about displacement by synthetic characters, the families of deceased celebrities watching their loved ones' likenesses commercialised without consent, these are not abstract policy questions. They are human stories about dignity, livelihood, memory, and the right to control one's own image and voice. The technology that makes synthetic performers possible is impressive. But it cannot match the lived reality of human artists whose creativity emerges from depths that algorithms cannot fathom, and whose work carries meanings that transcend what any machine, however sophisticated, can generate from pattern recognition alone.

We stand at a juncture. The path we choose will determine whether the 21st century becomes an era that amplified human creativity through technological tools, or one that allowed efficiency and scalability to eclipse the irreplaceable value of human artistry. The machines are here. The question is whether we remain.

Sources and References

Institute of Internet Economics. (2025). The Rise of Synthetic Celebrities: AI Actors, Supermodels, and Digital Stars. Retrieved from https://instituteofinterneteconomics.org/

NBC News. (2025). Tilly Norwood, fully AI 'actor,' blasted by actors union SAG-AFTRA for 'devaluing human artistry'. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/

Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. (2025). Official statements on synthetic performers.

US Congress. (2025). Text – H.R.2794 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): NO FAKES Act of 2025. Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/

US Congress. (2025). Text – S.1367 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): NO FAKES Act of 2025. Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/

CNN Business. (2025). Celebrity AI deepfakes are flooding the internet. Hollywood is pushing Congress to fight back.

Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP. From Scarlett Johansson to Tupac: AI is Sparking a Performer Rights Revolution.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (2021). Dead celebrities are being digitally resurrected — and the ethics are murky.

The Conversation. (2025). Holograms and AI can bring performers back from the dead – but will the fans keep buying it? Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/

NPR. (2025). Could 'the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman' be an AI avatar? Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/

Reed Smith LLP. (2024). AI and publicity rights: The No Fakes Act strikes a chord. Retrieved from https://www.reedsmith.com/

The Regulatory Review. (2025). Reintroduced No FAKES Act Still Needs Revision. University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Frontiers in Psychology. (2025). Human creativity versus artificial intelligence: source attribution, observer attitudes, and eye movements while viewing visual art. Volume 16.

Frontiers in Psychology. (2024). Human perception of art in the age of artificial intelligence. Volume 15.

Interaction Design Foundation. (2025). What Is AI-Generated Art? Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/

Association for Computing Machinery. (2025). Art, Identity, and AI: Navigating Authenticity in Creative Practice. Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Creativity and Cognition.

Scientific Research Publishing. (2025). The Value of Creativity: Human Produced Art vs. AI-Generated Art.

Recording Academy. (2025). NO FAKES Act Introduced In The Senate: Protecting Artists' Rights In The Age Of AI.

Sheppard Mullin. (2025). Congress Reintroduces the NO FAKES Act with Broader Industry Support.

Representative Maria Salazar. (2024, 2025). Press releases on the NO FAKES Act introduction and reintroduction.

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean. (2024). Dean, Salazar Introduce Bill to Protect Americans from AI Deepfakes.

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

This morning I was given the choice: will I accept the standard treatment for my particular stage of Wet Macular Degeneration, or will I consider enrolling in ongoing Clinical Trials in which alternate treatments are studied? I chose to sign up for clinical trials.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment at another office where these trials are conducted where there will be additional pictures taken of my bad eye and where I'll find out which specific type of trials I'll be enrolled in.

And the adventure continues ...