#I am an evil dictator of taste

[vivwritesfics]

Hellooo!!!

I basically had this idea for a long time now.

Landoscar x reader, where there is an article of them with pictures. Like they are in a hotel balcony, in robes, sharing a cigarette, and just small touches and smiles? Like you can clearly see that they did the dirty??👀

And later on the boys are asked about it, and they don't deny that the 3 of them are in a romantic relationship?

You can do whatever you want with the ending, I am happy with anything.

Thank youu❤️

okay i know i have requests in my inbox older than this one, but this jumped out at me the minute i got it and i just had to get on and write it

Warnings: smoking

The shirt on her body wasn't her own. Her forearms were on the balcony as she lifted the cigarette to her lips. The people marching through the streets below looked like little ants, she thoughts. But then she shook the thought away because it made her feel a little bit too much like an evil dictator.

"Hey," Lando walked up behind her, hand on her back as she came to stand beside her. He wore the softest smile as she rested his back against the balcony railings, looking back into the New York apartment they'd rented for the weekend.

Stubbing out her cigarette, she popped a mint into her mouth and stepped towards him. His nose crinkled at the smell that clung to her, but he quickly dropped it and wrapped his arms around her.

It was like they couldn't bear to be apart for more than two seconds. Looking at them, it was like they'd been apart for months, reunited at long last. At least, that was what Oscar thought as he watched them.

The coffee machine stopped. Grabbing the two mugs he had ready, Oscar walked out onto the balcony, joining his loves. He gave her the spare mug and stood beside Lando as he sipped his own. Lando never got a coffee; he hated the taste and the smell.

"You guys are killing me," he groaned as Oscar leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"You're so dramatic," he laughed, hand on Lando's waist as he stepped around him to kiss her.

The post coital haze was like no other. They stood together on the balcony of the New York apartment, exchanging kisses and touches. New York, because they weren't expected to be there, because they had no reason to be there. New York, because it was a perfect escape.

Oscar was wearing his McLaren hat. Well, he was until she knocked it from his head and placed it down onto the table. "There," she said, raking her fingers through his hair, messing up the tamed locks.

By that point, it was too late. If Oscar hadn't been wearing that hat, they probably wouldn't have been spotted. Well, they might have. The tabloids always managed to find Lando. Fangirls on tiktok always managed to find Lando.

That was how images of the three of them getting rather... frisky on the balcony spread around the internet. If the pictures had just been the two of them kissing her, they could have saved face. But no. There were plenty of images of Oscar and Lando, lips locked and groping each other.

The three of them didn't know about it until the next race. She was home, watching it all unfold.

When the interviewer first asked about the pictures of them on the balcony, first asked about their trip to New York, both of their faces dropped. Nobody was supposed to know about that trip, nobody but them. The only pictures from that trip was supposed to be the polaroid Oscar took of her back covered in Lando's cum (the picture in his wallet).

Lando looked at his teammate. Neither of them really wanted to reveal their girl. They didn't want their relationship in the spotlight, but they had no choice.

Oscar cleared his throat and lifted the microphone to his lips. "That-" He looked at Lando. "-is our girlfriend."

Truly, it was a weight lifted for both of them. The world knew that they were together, knew about the girl they loved. They didn't need to know much more than that, didn't need to know their story, how they met, how the three of them got together.

They didn't need to know their story.

Now it was out, they couldn't wait to take her to a race. It was going to take a long while for them to get to that stage, to want to have her around the cameras and the interviewers.

But one day. One day it would happen.

[fanfoolishness]

the thing with feathers (it isn't hope.)

Trapped and tortured in the Ossuary, Lucanis finds a possible means of escape. It'll only cost his soul. 2244 words, whump, torture, angst, Lucanis + Spite in the days leading up to Rook's rescue. Lucanis and Spite POV.

---

A vast creature with fins and a massive, sweeping tail blots out the distant sunlight, drifting lazily through the open sea above him. Lucanis watches it move on its way, his vision blurring. Pain pulses with every heartbeat.

It is not the pain of blades or poisons, nothing so inelegant as beating or whipping. It’s something in his blood, Zara’s magic invisible to his eye but writ deep in every limb, every breath, every thought. He lies limp on the cold stone table, the leather restraints unnecessary; the searing pain eats at muscle and bone. He couldn’t move if he tried, and oh, he has tried.

Determination flares within him. He cannot move, but he can stay alive. Crows are patient, and as long as he lives, there yet may be a chance to end her. He breathes in -- jagged fire -- and breathes out -- the taste of ashes.

What day is this? What night? It doesn’t matter. Zara’s voice grates at him, each word a pinprick that makes the pain coruscate brighter. She is dictating her research notes again. 

Another reason to kill her. She is insufferably arrogant.

“... a rarer demon, more fragile than some, but with true malevolent potential. Yes. I believe this will be a fine match for our Demon of Vyrantium.” A sneering laugh colors her words, and her hated face swims into view. She wears a sick, sly smile that does not reach her cold eyes. “Ah, you’re awake. Tell me, Crow, are you afraid?”

He tries to hiss out an insult. He is not afraid. Crows are never afraid. 

Hiding in a secret passage -- how he’d run from voices in the hall -- Mama and Papa in their bedroom, spilled wine on the floor -- tongues swollen, faces purple -- they wouldn’t wake up -- 

(Almost never afraid.)

He struggles. All that escapes him is a strangled groan. Zara smiles icily. “Oh, you should be.” 

She raises her arms to begin the ritual, and his blood boils in his veins. He has seen what happened to the other prisoners after this - found dead in their cells, or mutilated and destroyed here in the lab. He shudders, every muscle twisting, spasming, roiling. Zara’s voice deafens him, cruel and evil words in old Tevene, words that carry a power that crushes him to the table. He can’t breathe through bloody foam rising up in the back of his throat. He opens his mouth, gasping for air. He is choking, he is dying, death has come for him at last --

And then there’s something forced into his mouth, foul and sticky and vile, pouring into him. He gags, retches, but he cannot move under the weight of the magic, and it’s swallow or suffocate. 

Lucanis swallows filth and poison, and everything goes red. 

Violet. 

Black.

-

A small SHARP claw

Twist it into the gut, rend and tear

Hate, hate, hate

Cannot get out. Cannot see. World solid. Unrelenting. Scratch scratch rip

Scream!

Scream into dark, into cold, into empty! No Fade!

Must get her. Get enemies. Get who did this.

Feeling... stronger. Eating growing waking up.

Can start to see…

Water. Magic in the bones, in the sand. Prison. Smell of blood and tears and sweat and sick. 

Trapped here. Trapped in --

“What’s happening to me?” 

Sounds like fear. Confusion. Don’t want. Need spite!

“Get out of my head!” 

This prison moves. Made of flesh. Alive and red. Fingers claw at skull, get out, get out, can’t! Fear, fear, fear --

“What did she do to me? Leave me alone!”

Reach. Try. Ah! Flesh moves! A toy, a tool! Legs drag, sssstep sssstep fall, pain, yes.

Breath. Needs it. Tries. (hate this.)

“What are you?” 

Gasp. Tired. So tired. Mortal. Can’t even see the Veil. lost! lonely!

Take tongue and teeth. Another toy! Strange and clumsy. A voice like blood.

“Spite. No. YOU. Get out.”

“This is my body!” Rage. Tasty. sustaining! “I am Lucanis Dellamorte. I am Lucanis Dellamorte. I am Lucanis --”

“Lucanisssss.” 

Tastes like determination. Dissssssappointing. Find the way OUT! Out of Lucanis!

-

You can’t be possessed. You’re not a mage. You can’t be possessed.

Lucanis mutters it under his breath. Runs it around his head. Tries to wear it as a talisman.

He can almost believe it in the quiet of his cell. The thing skittering around in his mind could be a hallucination. He has heard of prisoners talking to themselves after solitary confinement. Perhaps his Crow training in this regard has failed him and he has simply gone mad. It would be shameful, but it would make sense.

Except he has never heard of a hallucination walking a body around like a marionette, running it into walls until it bleeds and bruises, stealing a mouth to moan and growl in garbled speech. Every time, Lucanis wrests his body back in a sick game of tug-o-war. Every time, he dabs at any blood with the edge of his cloak, licks it from his fingers, removes as much trace of injury as he can. He has been lucky that the guards have not yet realized something is… wrong.

“You are Lucanis. Spite is here! Spite needs to get out!” The voice is getting stronger. Clearer. Easier to understand with every passing day, more and more complete sentences, a sense of a… personality.

He distracts himself in every way he can. He dreams of killing Zara and her cronies in loving detail, picturing lacerated kidneys, punctured lungs, torn throats, poison, asphyxiation, drowing, crushed larynxes, broken necks. When that grows dull and he has mapped out every plausible and implausible cause of death he could visit upon them, he dreams instead of Treviso. The scents of the canals, the sound of water lapping against stone, night-blooming jasmine, coffee rich and hot, paella and pasta and stews, cioccalata calda, roasted branzino, fine cheeses, delicate chocolate pastries --

Then he falls asleep again, and wakes up with new scratches and bruises in the opposite corner of the cell from where he fell asleep, and an insidious little whisper in the back of his mind spits mine. Mine. Mine.

But Lucanis is not possessed. This thing calling itself Spite, speaking with a voice filtered through the Fade, it is only his imagination. It has to be.

It is unfortunate that he has always been a poor liar.

-

The laboratory again. They need the restraints this time. Leather rubs against his wrists and ankles hard enough to leave ulcers. Lucanis struggles -- he’ll kill them all for whatever they’ve done to him -- but it isn’t until Zara cuts his arm and twists the beading blood into her magic that the lie shatters.

“Enough is enough, Crow. Where is my demon?”

Something flows through him, unblocked at last by Zara’s spell. It’s powerful, intoxicating, a terrifying loss of control. A shower of violet light erupts from his body, formless, shapeless -- and then wings, gusting fiercely -- 

Zara steps back, fear in her eyes, then greed. “Ahhh, Spite, there you are.”

The lie in his heart dies with a whimper. There is a demon trapped within him, a monster. Zara knows its name; she put it there. His body sags against the table.

I am an abomination.

His efforts to stay in control fail him. Lucanis’ mouth opens, speaking with a voice that isn’t his, equal parts glee and malice. “You know me?” Spite rasps. “Let me OUT!”

Zara’s lip curls in disgust. “I’ve done my part. What’s keeping you from doing yours? He’s just the incubator. Erupt out of him and be done with it. Come, I’ve work for you to do.”

Don’t listen to her, Lucanis pleads, hoping Spite can hear him. She’s the reason we’re trapped like this! She did this to you! To us!

You believe in me? Understand now?

Yes. Yes, I understand what you are, Spite.

Lucanis’ head lifts as he and Spite both regard Zara. “You did this,” Spite accuses. 

“Of course I did,” Zara sniffs. “Now, come.”

She deserves to die for this. Don’t give her what she wants! Don’t --

The world is lost in a haze of violet light, and for a time, he knows nothing.

-

“I’m alive.” Lucanis. Surprised. Confused. Waking in the cell, waking after Zara. He was gone for such a long while. Spite does not know how to count it, but he knows it was not sleep.

Spite used the time well. Studying. Exploring. Understanding that the world is different here. Rules -- mysterious but there to be discovered. Always choices. He made his, back in the laboratory.

He will show Lucanis what he has learned.

Spite stretches. Reaches. Claws out of the human prison now that Lucanis is awake, takes a shape, familiar. 

Lucanis recoils. “Mierda!”

What does that mean?

“Take a guess,” Lucanis says. Suspicious. Staring. Face pale, wary, hunted. He steps around Spite, examines. Smells like shame. “You look like me.”

A shape. Your shape. Easy to take. I know you.

“You do not know me.”

Hate Zara. Hate prison. I know that. You know that.

“True.” Lucanis, sighing, sitting down, eyes searching. “May I ask about the wings?”

No wings now. He wears a Lucanis shape now, and Lucanis does not have wings in the physical world.

“From earlier.”

She called us Crow.

“Yes. I am a Crow. You are not a Crow.”

I want to be a Crow! Flying, fierce, deadly, strong! 

“Fine. Keep the wings, if you must.” Crossed arms. Closed face. Looks sick. Hurt. Zara did things to the body, see it still in winces, bruises. Not like the Fade, there and gone; lasting, lingering.

Spite could not stop her. Blood magic held them still. Hate. Hate! 

“What? You are staring.”

Zara hurts us. We hate her! 

“I thought she was going to kill me.” Lucanis waits. Pauses. Curiosity. How do mortals hold so many spirits? So many emotions? “Why didn’t she? I thought she was trying to get you… out of me.”

Prisons. I am trapped here. You are trapped here. We! We are trapped!

“You… listened to me, when I asked you to stand against her. That is what happened, isn’t it?” Touches face, touches purple-blue flesh, dried blood on lips. “You didn’t leave.”

Not for her! She would use chains of blood! She bound us, she stole me, she put me here! 

“That is two of us.” Dark eyes, hollow, twin voids. “We could… work together.”

Crow contract?

“Not like that. But a deal. You don’t do what she wants, and you help me stay alive. And I will make certain that we kill her and escape.” Determined. No. Not determined.

S p i t e f u l ! 

Yes! To stay alive only to kill, delicious!

More time. More toys. Trial, error, how to use hands and mouth, legs and feet, speak run leap. And better, to hold blades, rip tear kill, blood on the hands, taste it! 

It is a deal. Let us make the deal!

“I will work with you, Spite.” Lucanis reaches out a hand. 

What is it?

“A handshake. It means we have agreed to the deal.”

Reach back. Translucent purple on olive flesh. Agreement. Understanding. Spite lets the shape go, retreats back into the mind, curls up and waits for opportunity.

-

Lucanis paces the cell, tracing step after step. The wounds from Zara’s attempt to extract Spite have largely healed, and he takes advantage of feeling better by staying on his feet. It keeps him awake. If he is awake, he is himself. Mostly. But when he sleeps…

The weight of the deal sits uneasy on him. He has heard mages in the Crows talk of their temptations, the way demons stalk them in the Fade and in places where the Veil is thin, how a deal with a demon can create an abomination. But his deal with Spite came after abomination. None of it makes any damn sense.

He must worry about that later. It is a lifeline, even if it was made in desperation; it is still a blade he didn’t have before. Like any blade, it could kill the wielder just as surely as the target. 

It is the best he can do.

Spite chatters in his mind. The wards can fall. I can take them, Lucanis! I see the tricks and the sneaky locks!

Spite has been telling him this for the past day or two, eager and brash, ready to go. But the guards on them have been doubled since Zara’s failed attempt to take Spite, and Lucanis has to keep forcing Spite back. There will be a chance, but they will only get one. Lucanis knows it in his gut.

When do we escape? When do we kill her? Spite asks, impatient at being ignored. In the few days since their deal was struck, he speaks more easily, more insistently. 

More annoyingly, Lucanis thinks to himself. It gives him a shred of comfort to think of Spite as an irritant, an illusion of control he clings to readily. He is aware this time that it is purely illusory, but if it allows him to get the job done, he will continue.

“Soon,” he murmurs to Spite. He watches the guards through the wards of his cell. There is something different in their behavior. They are agitated, on high alert. They reach for their weapons, and then they are gone, summoned elsewhere. Something is finally happening.

Lucanis smiles, and Spite is there beside him, a violet shadow with a feral grin. 

“Very soon.”

[slavghoul]

Interview from Sweden Rock Magazine 6/2023

In which Tobias talks about Phantomime, his inner little evil dictator, and why he'll never be like Bruce Springsteen, among other things.

You've just released another cover EP. I always thought that Ghost would be like Metallica and become known for picking up lesser-known songs, making them their own, and playing one or two covers at every show. You were on your way to that with first The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" and then with Roky Erickson's "If You Have Ghosts." After that, you released a bunch of covers, but in recent years, you've almost only played "Enter Sandman" live.

In the beginning, and especially up until 2015, the choice to play covers was not in exchange for original songs, but it was because we simply needed songs to play live. We played 'Here Comes the Sun' to fill out our set. We only had one album, and it was only 30 minutes long or something.

But "Here Comes the Sun" must have given you a taste for it since it worked so fantastically well live.

Yes, absolutely. We actually plan to play it again at some point because I think we can do a really great version of it now that our lineup better matches the sound of the song. The last time we played it was so long ago that we still used a lot of backing tracks and stuff. I think we can play it better now. But did you imagine that we would do covers of Saint Vitus, Trouble, and Coven?

No. Unlike Metallica, you didn't start with hard rock covers...

No, no.

...but with "Here Comes the Sun" and then "If You Have Ghosts," which became a big song in its own way, but "Enter Sandman" is a completely different type of cover.

Exactly, it has a completely different purpose. I think it's a good song, and it became a fun thing. There was clarity in why we played it and what was important about it. We don't do it anymore, not because we don't believe in the purpose, but it had its time. Now, "Jesus He Knows Me" is the most fun to incorporate because now we've embraced it as our own song. I feel like I have so much else, and I don't want to be... I mean, some people think it's a lot of fun, and Bruce Springsteen does a lot of covers at the end of a concert. A lot of cool rock 'n' roll classics. People enjoy it, and it's great. Disturbed also does that and plays "Highway to Hell" and "Run to the Hills" or whatever they do. It's a fun way to end a concert, but I don't know, I have a fondness for dramaturgy. That's why I could never do a Bruce Springsteen. I can't go on stage and just say, "Hey, what do you want to hear?" and then improvise. It's a show, and everything fits together tightly. I've been sitting here with our lighting technician for five days. We sit all day and just program lights based on the smallest damn beat so that it fits and so that we know that the guitarist will come out and switch to that guitar for the next song. It's this song, and he will come out there, and then we have to change these lights in the dark so that it's red on him there. Then it's not possible to have a "cover hour" at the end where we just turn on the lights and play Judas Priest. But if we do a Judas Priest cover at some point that feels really relevant and we can do it really well, then I have no problem arranging the lights and incorporating it into the context. Metallica is much more rock 'n' roll, they are much more "loose" than what we are... than I am. They have the ability to just go out and more or less turn on the lights in the room and play "Am I evil?", "Whiskey in a jar," "Blitzkrieg," and "Breadfan," and the happiest of all is me. I love when that happens, but I don't want to do it with Ghost. But sure, if in 30 years we have recorded a bunch of fun covers, maybe it could be a fun thing to do a tour with just a bunch of that.

How funny that you say "if we have recorded a bunch of fun covers." Ghost has already recorded a bunch of covers, so aren't they fun?

Haha! Yeah, yeah, but we're still building, of course. We're talking a lot about this, me and my agents and management. When is the time to do things? When should we take advantage? What is a "downplay" for us today? A "downplay" is very clear if you're Metallica. Everyone knows that when they come and perform, it's at least at the Globe Arena, sold out for at least two nights without any problem, and at their biggest, it's now two nights at Ullevi. For them, a clear "downplay" would be if they come and play at Göta Lejon again. There's a clarity there, and it's something they can indulge in.

Explain it so that people understand. What is a "downplay"?

A "downplay" is when a big band plays at a small venue. Like the Rolling Stones when they played at Circus. It's a clear "downplay," and there's a clarity there where you know that "now when I go and see the Rolling Stones at Circus, they won't have their big stage, they won't do this, and they'll just come up and play a bunch of really obscure stuff." Then there's a clarity. It's not something for everyone who just wants to hear the big hits.

And are there plans to do this?

If everything goes as planned and if there's still an interest in it in the future, I would think it would be really fun to intentionally and clearly reshape the show. To do something different on the side that isn't meant for these bigger things that we're currently trying to find our "pacing" in.

The first time I interviewed you was in 2011 at a sushi place in Stockholm.

Was it that long ago?

Yes, we met at the central station in Stockholm, and you had just had your first meeting with Nicholas Johansson at Universal, so this was before he signed you.

Okay, so it was the same day then? Oh, damn.

It became a full page in Expressen, and you said that you want to take Ghost to where Rammstein is. Now you've said the same thing again, but Rammstein no longer plays at the Globe Arena and instead does three nights at Ullevi. It feels like you're constantly shaping Ghost based on Rammstein. What will you do when you've reached three nights at Ullevi?

I hope one never becomes completely satisfied. The perfectionist in me is frustrated every day on tour when things don't turn out as good as I had envisioned. But I also have a cutoff point... There's a point every day when I try to see the glass as half full when it comes to perfection before the concert, and I know something is wrong. If I know that a spotlight operator doesn't seem to understand the show, it's an irritation that might continue during the concert because someone keeps missing their cues, that is, what they're supposed to do. You can tell they don't know the show. It's super annoying. It's the kind of thing that both I and everyone on stage feel, and we're all aware of it. Everyone has been made aware of what we're trying to achieve. We've arranged the whole show based on the idea that "when you come up those stairs, you will be visible, and then you will see what you're doing because a light will shine on you." If that doesn't happen, there's a risk that the person simply won't see what they're doing and will fall off. It happens. There's a lot of that kind of thing that's highly orchestrated with very narrow margins, and it has to be right. But I usually reach a point where it's like, "Now the concert is over. Everyone did their best, even that idiot up there who missed all their cues. Everyone did their best, and the audience doesn't seem to have left and demanded their money back, so you have to see it as a damn good result." That's how I try to approach it every day because, in the end, "no matter what, this is so much cooler than working a regular job," haha! I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do. Then I have this little circus director Nazi inside me as well, screaming and wanting things to be a certain way. But I also laugh easily, so it's about constantly trying to balance everything and see it as always moving forward. But it also means that I know that even the day when or if we stand there at Ullevi and do a concert ourselves, it won't be exactly as I imagined. Something new will happen, and if we have the show I want, it will rain like hell or something. That's always how it is. Metallica's Lars also told me that when we were on tour together: "It's incredible. Even at our level, there are still things that happen that make us go, 'Damn, we're not quite there yet!'" But that's the thing. I don't think pirates become pirates just to come home and sit with the treasure. It was the piracy itself that was quite fun.

Now I'm going to say something provocative. This is Ghost's worst cover so far. I don't even like the original.

Which one?

"Phantom of the Opera."

Okay, haha!

Yeah, I got the laugh I wanted to be able to print, haha!

Well, haha! Don't you like the album or the song?

I'm not a big Iron Maiden fan, and I don't consider the Paul Di'Anno era sacred.

I love Iron Maiden and think the first two albums are really cool, but they got their act together when Bruce Dickinson joined. It was with "The Number of the Beast" that they became an arena band and started sounding really damn good. I know it's like swearing in church. It made me feel a bit inspired and made me think that if I were to do something with Iron Maiden, it damn well had to be something from those first albums. They have two albums with really proggy stuff and quirky arrangements, and you can really tell they had a bit of time and that they were low-budget recordings. That gets me going. Paul Di'Anno sings, and I love Paul Di'Anno. He's really cool, has a great voice, and sings with a lot of sloppiness. He soars and flies melodically - just the fact that "I know I'll do that in a different way." I've always liked "Phantom of the Opera," but for a long time in my life, before I really figured out how to count, I didn't quite understand how to play the intro. Not tonally, but I didn't get how to count in the intro. That was such a thing that one day when I suddenly figured it out, I thought, "Damn, I want to play this song someday." You miss it because on the album, you don't hear how great the intro is.

Is it you playing?

Yes, although Fredrik "Kulle" Åkesson (Opeth) is also playing. But I recorded all the demos, I play bass on the record, and I recorded all the guitars first.

Did Kulle do all the guitar solos on the EP?

Well, mostly, with one exception.

It's a very shreddy EP with a lot of flashy guitar solos.

Yes, exactly, there are quite a lot of guitar solos. Generally, this is how it works when we work: I compose the solos. When I write solos, it's not just a bunch of bends, but it's a melody. I'm very influenced by Kirk Hammett, especially how he played on "Ride the Lightning," "Master of Puppets," "...And Justice for All," and even on the black album. Every time he plays solos, they are melodies. He comes into the song and more or less plays another song within the song, and it's very hummable. It's not incredibly difficult stuff, and that's roughly my school of soloism. I like to compose the solos so that they turn out the way I want, but I myself am not a great shredder. There are a lot of tricks in the studio where I sit and play something over and over again, and then you can cut it in. And then you can slow down the speed, and then I can record it and make it perfect. But the result is that when I say, "It should go like this," Kulle listens to it and says, "Yeah, I can do that part a bit differently. Then I can do it this way to make it even faster." He plays solos from start to finish with his highly trained fingers. He has that whole thing in his DNA, while I'm more of a songwriter and composer.

But you play a solo on the EP, right?

I don't know if we kept it. I don't fucking know because we changed a lot of things.

Because you said that Kulle plays all the solos except one.

It could be a thing, but I don't remember if we changed it or not. But if we take "Phantom of the Opera," there are quite a few different guitar parts in it, purely guitar-wise. It's that fairly standardized Iron Maiden thing where there are two lead guitars playing melodies together. That's one thing, and then there was a slightly bluesy solo at a place where I added some storming Rachmaninoff piano that's absolutely not in the original. I thought it should be a bit of a stormy sea, and then there's a part with two guitars playing the same thing simultaneously, and then a solo duel starts. On the original album, it's Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton playing, and their solo duel is just okay. I don't think it's that great. Sorry, Iron Maiden fans, but in terms of solos, Iron Maiden really got good the day Adrian Smith joined. Adrian Smith is the one playing all the cool solos. I'm really sorry, Dave Murray, but that's just how it is! I know what Kulle has to go through because as a soloist, it's quite tough to constantly be told what to play, and then he has to do tricks and improve things. So, I said, "In this solo duel, you can pretty much play whatever you want from here to there, but I don't want you to challenge me because it will be a bad match. It'll be Carl Hamilton against Woody Allen, and that's not fun. We'll bring in Lasse Johansson from Candlemass." I love Candlemass, I love Lasse's guitar playing, and I know that Kulle loves Lasse. I just sat there, and they got to do their things, and you can hear that it's a bit more improvised. It's more Kulle when he gets to play his stuff, and it's nice.

I want to highlight a cover that turned out great on the EP: Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero." It feels quite suitable to cover because At The Movies also did a fantastic version of it with Ronnie Atkins on vocals.

Actually, I haven't heard it at all. I must have missed it.

Ghosts' version turned out really well, but isn't it too obvious to cover a big song, so to speak?

I would be a bit opportunistic and say this: it probably depends on how it lands. We stuck our necks out the day we were going to play "Enter Sandman" at our concert. It was one thing on TV because that's what it was (at the TV4-broadcasted "Polar Music Prize" in 2018), but you know that this is like playing "Smoke on the Water," "I Wanna Rock," or "Ace of Spades." It's one of those songs that is too well-known in a way. It can feel pancake-like, but it went well, and I feel that "We Don't Need Another Hero" could also become such a song, provided that the audience likes it. But it's not a song that you want to take up five minutes of the concert if it's not super fun.

And how do you know if the audience likes it?

The easiest way is to test it live. But you'll notice when the album comes out. If everyone mentions all the other songs and not that one, then maybe not many people are interested. Also, we usually do this sometimes during rehearsals: "We rehearse it and see how it sounds. How does it feel? How does it feel to play? Does it stick? Do we play it nicely? Does it work live?" I believe that if we fast forward to a huge presumed Ullevi [stadium] in the future, it's a fantastically cool song to play.

[kerubimcrepin]

Live-read: "Julith et Jahash" - Part 1

In the past, I said that I would wait for a translation that is currently in the making in the russian fandom. However, because I am weak, and want to keep this blog going asap, I lied. (This liveblog will be very slow due to this, so be warned.)

This comic will let us understand Joris better... while literally all of his personality, morals, body language, and tastes, are a product of Kerubim, — this might shed light on A. family history, that might dictate his physiology (what if Julith randomly says she has an allergy? This isn't real, but it would be big for Joris lore), and the things he went through after the movie: what experience he would have with the huppermage culture, which he was cut off from for his entire life thus far.

Question: is there a single member of this family who DOESN'T fish??

Kramdam is a part of Rok Island, the name of which will be familiar to you if you're A. a player of the MMOs, B. batshit insane about Joris lore.

It might be silly, for me to point this out, but listen: the movie, the series, they all happen hundreds of years before the Dofus MMO, — so to have confirmation that Rok Island is that old, is very interesting.

I had previously said that huppermages aren't very fond of cultures outside their own, and I want to elaborate, so that my words aren't misconstrued: Huppermages culture is, in a lot of ways, a mixture of different classes, — because a lot of huppermages aren't born huppermages, but instead, people who convert to this class, and a lot of their spells are inspired or taken from other classes. However, not assimilating fully is... very unwelcome.

Having a history of oppression and at least one genocide in the years after the movie, made huppermages very understandably conservative and closed-off. But this culture, as we'll see from this comic, had some pretty toxic traits even before those scars.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Like I already knew about this, but I want you to understand: the stupid fucking log thing is a family trait.

Do you think Joris told Bakara "I hate magic, I hate magic, I hate magic. I HATE WANDS. I HATE STAFFS. I KEEP BREAKING THEM. LET ME OUT. LET ME OUT OF THE ACADEMY. STOP HAVING ME BE ENROLLED!!!!" and the next day she brought him a fucking log. Do you think this is what happened.

So small, and already sure that she'll never be as good as her brother... man.

Also... Bakara and Joris looked very similar as kids. At least that's my opinion.

I didn't think this comic would make me emotional, but the Jurgen family having a thing for logs is making me violently ill.

It probably was Bakara who gave him that bright idea. And Kerubim was probably like "ok son, I am someone who also uses blunt weapons, I can teach you how to do this."

There isn't some "i like to use logs" gene, it was all just Joris preferring to use melee, Bakara's memories of Jahash's melee skills, and Kerubim's skill in melee fighting.

It is just... insane to me, how Joris ends up doing this one thing that his biological father liked to do, despite how different they are as people. Despite Joris likely feeling absolutely nothing towards the man.

Well, that, or he fucking hates Jahash, though probably not as much as Julith.

Think about it this way, — Jahash and Julith ruined his childhood by their reappearance. They ruined his life for the next few decades too, probably. And after? They would always be a shadow over his life, for as long as they are remembered. It's always either "you're evil and we don't trust you because you're Julith's son" (even though he knows that Julith was framed,) or "you're not good enough, even though you're Jahash's son. How come?" (even though he knows from Bakara that... Jahash was just a man. Even if it is hard for him to put together the almost-holy image of his father as seen on the stained-glass in a temple, and the image of him that Bakara talks about, — a human person, who had fears and dreams.)

The only way for Joris to live his own life, without any judgement or comparison, without being reminded of how shit his childhood was, is to wait for the World of Twelve to forget who the fuck a Julith and Jahash even are. It's logical for him to have some irrational resentment.

And yet he brings a log to a nuke fight in season 4. Jahash would never do this, because he got good at magic, but he WOULD approve.

His parents would have loved him a lot, if they had the chance.

List of things that Joris and Bakara share:

Neurotic perfectionist who struggles with self-hatred about their skills and their body.

Cute ass behaviours and expressions as children.

Alcoholism (this is my fanon for Joris. It came to me in a vision. He's just like Kerubim and Bakara, — needs to get shitfaced to cope.)

Haunted by Jahash's success in life, even though Jahash would NEVER have wanted either of them to be haunted.

Thin grabbable waist and twinkish/waifish looks as adults. (Joris is already a twink, despite his 3ft stature, but NEVER forget the official concept art of how Joris would look if he wasn't possessed by a dragon as an infant. He would be a tall, blonde, anime twink instead.)

Whisperers have, historically, been used as servants by Bontarians and Huppermages.

Though by Waven times, they are enemies of the state (at least dissenting ones), and Joris wants you to beat the shit out of them, for the sake of his beautiful nation. (because they're dissenting)

Jahash and Bakara grew up with their dad, Juvence Jurgen.

By huppermage standards, they lived in very unusual conditions.

"All huppermage towers are super-protected, we WILL die if we don't take precautions, so I will go ahead, and deliver the message myself."

Yeah, no, they're not typical huppermages. I guess Joris has a lot in common with Bakara and Jahash. (I keep making myself sad, thinking about this.)

He thinks that Jahash and Bakara are some local hicks/rednecks that the huppermage has been experimenting on, which raises many red flags. Like the fact that apparently, human experimentation is a thing that some huppermages do. Then he thinks that the huppermage is experimenting on his own kids.

The headcanon that Jahash might have had some learning disabilities that he gave to Joris as one last "sayonara you weaboo shit" genetical move, and that it was REALLY hard for him to learn magic and impossible for Joris, stays winning.

By the way, I guess this is a good time to give you the next, very funny piece of trivia:

Joris's name literally means "George George the Farmer Farmer".

I think it's likely that, historically, before Jahash's success in life, their family were just some random poverty-stricken farmers, who happened to be huppermages.

I'M SO FUCKING SAD ABOUT THEM.

Grandpa Jurgen is literally so fucking real.

THE HEADCANON THAT JAHASH MIGHT HAD LEARNING DISABILITIES THAT HE GAVE TO JORIS AS ONE LAST "SAYONARA YOU WEABOO SHIT" GENETICAL MOVE, AND THAT IT WAS REALLY HARD FOR HIM TO LEARN MAGIC AND IMPOSSIBLE FOR JORIS, STAYS WINNING.

Juvence really cares about his kids.

"If you don't do as master says, he will kill you and all your loved ones."

Guys I'm starting to think, that between this, the political intrigues, the bullying, the "using Bakara for PR while she becomes a teenage alcoholic and not giving a shit about her" thing, — that the huppermage academy and temple, are um.... not actually Good, as an institution.

To most this is "an honour," and yet, this random selection process chose a teenage huppermage who, by all accounts, can't do magic and doesn't know a single spell.

I'm so fucking sad.

You know what else these two quotes can apply to? Haha. well. I ask you to imagine Jahash's funeral, and—— [i collapse on the floor weeping]

"He was always more like a father to her, than an older brother."

I am going to crash my car into the sea. And I don't even have a car.

[waeirfaahl]

The way to slightly fix S05E09 and S05E10

In previous post I discussed about how to make the leading to the love-story less infuriating, here I'll discuss about how to make 9 and 10 episodes of 5 season less infuriating.

I have no ideas, which could make the decision to return to the past and to erase the future right — it is wrong from all sides, it dergadates Jack and genocides all habitants of the future and also makes Ashi more dusgusting character. The only what comes to my mind is simply to add the existing of Aku's spell and/or technology, which would be activated exactly when Aku was dead/killed — some kind of "I am the future! Nobody else! Especially the samurai and his worthless kind!". On another hand, Jack simply could just imprison Aku either in the stone tree (what actually had to happen in 5 season even in the past) or in the sword.

So, about 9 episode. Here, here, here and here I discussed in deepest details, why the sudden "Luke, I am your father!" bullsh*t in 9 episode makes zero sense, why this "twist" is absolutely impossible, why this "twist" contradicts to the canon of the classic seasons and breaks them on fundamental level, making them impossible from the beginning, why this "twist" contradicts even to 5 season itself, and why this "twist" is insulting toward Aku and disgraces this character in the worst way. And I hate and despise the very idea of Aku having daughters, I hate and despise the very idea of Aku mating with humans, and I hate and despise the idea of "a female human is pregnant after either mating with the supernatural being or immacular conception and gives birth to demigod abominations". Insulting, mediocre and disgusting sh*t from bad fanfiction, it is a bad taste straight up and the blatant travesty on Aku.

First of all, Tartakovsky's mind apparently was rotten with religion, because he turned Aku, the supernatural trickster with awesome, unique and really interesting biology and tragic backstory, into a typical and cliched satan/devil with obvious cliches like worshipers from nowhere, who treat him like a god and get his strength to their kids or whatever. (later Tartakovsky will call the Scandinavian deity of vengeance/revenge as a devil in 2 season of Primal)

And it is not my assumption, the entire 5 season has these weird religious elements — like, the sudden religious zealots, who treat the "wrong evil spirit" as a rightful and kind god, who gives his "flesh and blood" to them for worshipping, the travelling inside of the giant beast, what changes the mind of the character with "wrong beliefs", the "sacrifise" of this new "half-breed" character in favor of humans (and apparently for getting an immortal soul and a chance for rebirth), the idea "Humans are the purest, the most noble and innocent, we can't kill humans, it is a sin" or whatever, how Tartakovsky compares the future with Hell, and also the line from 5 season "Aku enslaved the children with his beats from Hell!" — yep, in the f*cking distant 4000+ future we hear this sudden bullsh*t with Hell (in contrast to this, in the classic seasons there was only "Aku's evil beats", i.e. simply a dictator type). I hate, when authors reduce something unique, deep, intriguing to this primitive religious sh*t. Especially, when it wasn't intended originally, and when it is opposite concept, i.e. impossible to co-exist with.

Second, Tartakovsly's mind was rotten with "A poor girl with bad/abusive/absent daddy" cliche — like, now let's ignore Hotel Transilvania or 2 season of Primal or recent Unicorn: Warriors Eternal series for a second, just look at Aku's reaction and behavior in 9 episode — the demon was pretty friendly to Ashi and ignored her, having no intentions to harm her, but as soon as he discovered that Ashi is his spawn or most likely just an infected vessel of his blood, Aku immediately started to mock on her and mistreat her and act bad toward her. As if Tartakovsky knew that many people enjoy Aku and intentionally ruined this character by adding this crap, totally ignoring that it contradicts to the canon and Aku's core and personality, and that it doesn't work at all due to "Why should I despise you?! We have no relationships whatsoever! We don't know each other at all!" and also how stupid it is to mourn due to sudden "Oh no, my sudden relative or blood donor I never knew is a villain! Poor me!" and how stupid it is due to "Excuse me, why you judge and blame me?! I don't know this girl! It is even not one night stand! It is as if your hair were used for creating either clones or chimera without your permission and awareness, and for some reason everybody will blame you for unawareness and how you dared to be bad toward these abominations!".

Third, attempting to connect Ashi to Aku, Tartakovsky makes Ashi more disgusting Mary Sue, who steals Aku's backstory and arc, but also Tartakovsky erases the good build up Ashi already had — she survived, she trained, she remained human, she took revenge on her monstrous mother for all cruelty she commited to Ashi and her other daughters, she befriended with Jack and started to study and to learn positive life and feelings. And also Tartakovsky makes another hypocritical thing by this "Ashi, I am your father/creator, so I'll be bad to you and you'll oppose me!" sh*t — Tartakovsky totally ignores, forgets and erases Ashi's mother and her crimes, cruelty, affect and influence on Ashi, he tries to blame Aku in this, as if the demon knew and planned everything and himself mistreated Ashi since her infancy with the fanatical leader's hands or whatever (remember Tara Strong's words in interview about the game?)...

...despite the fact that Aku knew nothing about these zealots and their leader's intentions and goals, he didn't give any orders to them or to someone else, Aku knew nothing and did nothing in 5 season, only the fanatical mother is to blame for the existence of Ashi and her sisters and their horrible life, full of suffering and death. (And in contrast to this, the three alien gods knew everything and started the conflict and did nothing, they participated in this, not to mention that the human soul they used for the sword... is not pure) So, how this trash from 9 and 10 episodes can be fixed? Easy — Aku simply could take control over Ashi, using a spell — like, the transformed Ashi looks like those cursed archers, so why not? For increasing the stakes, Aku could infect Ashi with his blood, calling his tiny part as his "little naughty daughter that can play with this mortal young female toy before eating" (I mean, he previously called Ultra-robots as "My children!", i.e. he called as "his child" his tiny parts, which even haven't become separate organisms, and vessels of his blood, i.e. it is metaphorical thing, not literal), and then finding out Ashi's sad backstory (i.e. Aku never visited those female fanatics and knew nothing about them — plus, Ashi's father can be either some random human, maybe a zealot from this same cult, or most likely Ashi and her sisters can be born without a father) and mocking on both her and Jack, 'cause he can't help her, as well as 'cause Ashi can't oppose to Aku's blood that controls her and slowly and painfully devours.

And Jack doesn't use the sword for burning Aku's blood from Ashi's body and gives up exactly after Aku silently commanded to his blood to torture, to crook Ashi's body and to almost break all Ashi's bones, so she screamed due to pain.

While in 10 episode Aku's decision to not kill Ashi immediately after he caught Jack can be explained by his confidence that the girl under his control and spiritually she is weak enough in contrast to already wounded Jack. So, he mocks on her like "You already spent enough time having me as your awesome daddy and entertaining my little daughter, but now it has come to the end! Kill the samurai, my dear, be useful to your crazy mother that terrified even me after reading your memories! Don't disappoint her at least once, after this — goodby, my sweetheart, my daughter will eat you alive and you'll not suffer anymore!" — simply saying, Aku would command to his blood to devour the infected Ashi immediately after she would kill Jack.

So after Jack's friends arrive and distract Aku, the infected Ashi (or specifically Aku's blood) attacks Jack, Jack tries to free Ashi, she is weakened and says that she can't rebell and that no one needs her in this world, she is just a worthless replica of her mother, so better to let the demonic blood to kill her, better to die, while Jack says that it is not true, that Ashi is not her monstrous mother and can choose a path, that she already did that, and that he (Jack) needs her and values her and loves her, and she gave to him the desire to live and to continue the battle. And then Ashi has inner unfair epic fight with the demonic blood and wins — i.e. Ashi became free exactly due to own inner spiritual strength and Jack's support, not due to the stupid "Power of Love".

And later Aku sees that she is free from his blood and control and attacks Ashi, but Jack reachs for the sword and fights the demon, who already killed the 3/4 of all Jack's arrived friends. Yes, no sudden demonic powers — no way Ashi would ever have them and use. Not to mention stupidity of this — in 5 season Aku defeated the Portal Guardian, who defeated and almost killed Jack, but failed to the teenage human girl. So, no this bullsh*t.

And after this we have the final, which I mentioned in the beginning of this post — Jack imprisons Aku either in the stone tree or in the sword, deciding to stay in the future (and, well, Ashi could give to Jack the idea of "You showed me the path of light, maybe for Aku there's a chance. When I was under his control, I could see his memories he hid for centuries and wanted to forget. And he actually hesitated in killing me."). So, that's how the final episodes of 5 season could be done and handled (if we're talking about the story and direction 5 season chose). I dislike the idea of "Fix-It" format (pointless spending of time, if you well), I prefer to erase the bad sequels from the universe and create new stories, but since I don't have the certain production materials for certain post yet, I can't publish my AU of 5 season for now, I want to end with that post with production materials firstly.

[kittyandco]

am i the only one who's literally never in my life seen someone go: "[evil character] didn't ACTUALLY(!) do the things that made them evil in the narrative (and therefore it isn't fair that everyone distrusts them)" in a non-joking way... and then chide the idea of this character improving. i'm beginning to think y'all are making things up because 1) you don't like the idea that the character can change, and you think that having the opportunity/ability to change, whether in fanon or canon, means that they're magically absolved of everything (but also let me tell you something: no one is going to want to change if no one is willing to at least understand them, if not forgive them, even if full forgiveness never comes)... in the narrative, you will see the change a character goes through in a very limited sense. there's only but so much screen time that can be dedicated to it, even if the character is from a super long series, because there are other things going on around it. there's going to be shorthand and metaphor and a few decisions they might not have made before, but that aren't fully "explained."

there's a lot of work they'll have to do after the story officially ends or before it even begins in some cases. you have to fill in the blanks with your imagination/theories/other thoughts. that's how you engage with fiction if you're at all invested. overexplaining and overcorrecting for everything that is unspoken/implied/must be inferred is how you get a very boring work.

often, what is presented in canon is ONE decision or a few MAJOR decisions that signal change. no one is expecting the other characters to be like "i automatically forgive you for every single infraction committed against us! yay!" ... personal change is a process of self-discovery and learning how to maneuver the world differently over time. learning that some of your preconceived notions might be wrong, and that there are an infinite number of ways to perceive the world overall and everything in it. and a lot of that may have been done before the character's change arc begins; and it is most definitely happening in the background.

and it would do some good if someone was willing to stick around to see the change happen and how someone who was previously thought to be the worst guy alive can actually use their abilities/personality for good (and often villains are made from loneliness; it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?)

again, it's all about reading/watching between the lines. what brought them here? it isn't always going to be spelled out

not every villain needs to change... but the ones that do, or that have the very potential? that's important for a lot of people (like myself) to see! and if we want to fantasize about it or write about it or hope for it, why does that offend you?

or, 2) you don't like how someone else characterizes them for a ship/AU/whatever reason they might have. it's actually fine if someone want to just write about this character not being evil anymore. that's their prerogative. the only issue you'd run into there is if someone's trying to dictate that perspective as fully factual in some way (it's important to set those parameters early in the convo). personal interpretation is an individual thing. there are SO many ways to interpret a piece of fiction and it's okay if every once in a while someone's like "i like this evil character but i like writing about them being good." it doesn't take anything away from you, the way you write or perceive the character, or their canon portrayal.

this example in particular is so NOTHING compared to what i've seen about my faves. a lot of fans can be downright offensive and hateful about my personal taste in faves, toward ME, AS A REAL PERSON WHO LIKES THEM, and that's when i start having a problem. it's important that my faves be horrid and immoral for personal reasons (and for personal reasons i like writing about them having a soft spot for something, ideally me, and having the motivation to not feel so lonely/hurt/etc. anymore and thus becoming a bit of a better person), but i couldn't care less if someone wrote them in a different way that doesn't affect me at all

[blue-bower]

Just a bunch of Silly Little Guys

So some of yall have probably noticed I've had a tiiiiny bit of a hyperfixation on clowns and jesters for a while now. 

It really started becoming apparent to me when I latched onto Jevil in 2018, but I've honestly loved clown characters for many years. I think the earliest I may have realized I might have a thing for them was that scene from The Brave Little Toaster, and the Toon monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh. I think I was just, in denial or hadn’t fully realized it. And I’ve thought a lot about all the reasons they appeal to me.

1.) Laughter: Laughter and comedy is fucking amazing. I love to laugh, I love hearing and making other people laugh. Everyone deserves something that can brighten their day, and I love that there’s a bunch of gremlins out there whose entire job is to bring laughter. And I enjoy all the methods they use to loosen people up: Pranks, tickling, general goofiness, appealing to one’s inner child, tickling (x2), making someone absolutely loopy and laughter-drunk with bouts of lunacy and ridiculousness, giving playful scares.

2.) Design: I think clown & jester designs are so much fun and so freaking cute. I love elaborate, colorful outfits, I have mad respect for people who can tolerate wearing facepaint all day, I love seeing people who can absolutely own a mismatched, extravagant, goofy outfit.

3.) Fear factor: I enjoy how much they creep people out. I'm a little shit that loves scaring people, and I myself am an adrenaline junkie that enjoys spooky & unsettling things. It fascinates me how so many people have a phobia for silly little guys in facepaint.

4.) Personality: I've always taken a liking to characters that are unhinged and chaotic with way too much energy. I don't necessarily like blatant Evil/Killer Clown stereotypes (I could honestly care less about Pennywise, and the Joker leaves a bad taste in my mouth due to my ex and an abusive POS ex-friend) But I enjoy characters that don't give a fuck what society thinks about their oddities. Characters who just enjoy being pranking little shits, who just want to be seen and enjoyed for the manic goofballs they are. Characters who are on the verge of finally fucking snapping after being misunderstood for so long, because heaven knows I can relate to that.

5.) Commentary on society: Jesters especially are meant to tear down societal conventions, to mock and point out the shortcomings of the upper class. And I eat that shit up, as someone who absolutely hates societal expectations, corporations, biased dictation over how people should behave, how they should view people who exist outside of heteronormativity, gender norms, race & neurotypical behavior. Clowns are often seen as the butt of the joke, and in that sense, they show a sadder side of how society acts towards people who don’t fit their mold, showing the effect that emotional abuse can have on the psyche of someone who just wants to bring joy.

6.) Relatability to myself: For a long time I’ve loved to entertain people, I love making people laugh, I enjoy being in the limelight when in costume and acting as a character, I love impacting peoples' moods in a positive way. That being said, for a good majority of my life, I felt like I was the clown that everybody mocked and laughed at. I was constantly bullied, humiliated, blown off, looked down on. I was the clumsy, ditzy, undiagnosed neurodivergent that everyone in middle & early high school unanimously agreed was a prime target for projecting their need to feel superior. I've always had the worst luck, and to this day I feel like I jinx everything I say or do. Life tried to make a clown out of me. If the song “Circus Hop” existed in my teen years, I would feel it to my core.

But, now that I'm finally more confident in myself, I choose to embrace the klutzy, silly, manic inner gremlin that craves to see the downfall of massive corporations and bigoted, entitled, joyless prickheads. The side of myself that refuses to let harsh realities and cynicism stifle my childlike imagination & creativity and my passion for fictional worlds in "childish" animated media. And I won't let people look down on me for it. I won't let people see me as a laughingstock anymore - not unless it's on my own terms. I'll choose to let people laugh at me, and laugh with me, for reasons that highlight my good traits, not because they think they can throw pies at my face whenever they want.

[starleska]

i am nothing if not ready to enable things so i'm asking you about ming the merciless from flash gordon. bald, evil, dresses eccentrically. seems like your cup of tea. i'm watching the 1996 flash gordon cartoon right now and for some reason he's a lizard man in that

😳😳😳 hello???? sir???????

oh my god this man exudes so much authority and gender i don't know what to do with myself 🙈🙈🙈 you have the best taste!!! he's giving Roger Delgado as the Master sci-fi dictator realness and i'm living for it 😭💖 the beard!!! the robe!!! the brows!!!!! i've always found Spock unreasonably cute and that's coming back to haunt me now, thanks 😖 i am very unfamiliar with Flash Gordon but from the bits i've just watched, Ming seems like a real piece of work...and maybe like he could use a few of us worshipping at his feet? 🥴 10/10 suggestion, i need to go and watch this movie now!!!! and open up to the wider Flash Gordon universe. thank you so much - you may well have planted the seed for a real fixation 🥵

[terrainofheartfelt]

Sort of inspired by your discussion of Jenny needing to go to London alone to really grow into herself and mature as a person, in an ideal world in which none of the main characters were forcibly tethered to the UES or its more toxic inhabitants post-high school, how do you generally - like broad strokes - imagine them developing as people in college and throughout their twenties? I always wonder where everyone might have ended up had they not been constrained by the type of narrative they were living in, and I’d love to hear any headcanons you have on the subject!

I've been thinking about this on and off since i received it (an embarrassingly - for me - amount of time ago) and now finally feel like I can answer.

because, like, what if we weren't constrained by the harsh realities of making tv? what if the rules meant that they could leave new york?

well, first, let's dovetail off jen moving to london and blossoming, and send eric along with her. he can go to cambridge, or any of the other big name universities in the area, and he and jenny would be flatmates and live their own hilarious queer sitcom of being students in london.

I've already plugged nads' yale au in my answers this evening, but I still really like the idea of dan and blair attending yale, and outside of the maelstrom of manhattan drama, they settle into their own selves and learn they could actually...like each other? and then they fall in LOVE as far as careers, they are the most driven. and we've talked about novelist dan and editress blair and art historian blair and college prof dan.....but lately I've been thinking about blair working in costuming. It's not high fashion design, but I think it's a great synthesis of the things we know blair loves: literature, film, history, art history & fashion history, Evil Dictator of Good Taste, being a specialist and big boss on a niche subject...yeah...

i still enjoy the idea of vanessa being at nyu, or at another arts college in nyc, and making her own way and building her own story (without being boxed in to the secondary character of anyone else's story!) I like the idea of her attending Tisch too, and expanding her skill set into screenwriting in that way.

to plug another au by a friend, S's goodbye stranger introduced the concept of Serena attending Berkeley, and I LOVE it. I love that for her. Berserk-ley. I think that school in that part of the country would be where Serena would really thrive. She becomes a full glamorous SF queen. perhaps she opens a coffee shop. Blair is outwardly mortified but inwardly very proud.

As for Nate, I think he is the character who really should take a gap year. It's never questioned, but the way he is yanked around by the collar those first two seasons, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that nate would decide that he needs some time to figure out what it is he wants. sidebar: bc the serena gap year felt disingenuous in many ways, yk? serena was so eager to leave new york and go to school and study. she likes learning, we see it, and the opportunity to reinvent herself that college would provide....why would she walk away from it? except for TV Reasons. so, I like the thought of nate taking at least a year. traveling, volunteering, maybe he takes a community college course or two. he falls off the grid for a while and he realizes how healthy and how happy he feels without the constant eyes and pressure of his family & gossip girl. and after that time, he's found what he actually wants to do, and goes to school to do it. -- as always, I'm fond of nate working in health care, as a nurse or pt or something, but it could really be anything. teacher? chef? social worker? children's librarian? (actually culinary student nate has come up in convos with ivy & cherry before and I am into it.)

and uhhhhhh i guess chip wiskers can crash his inherited business and money into the ground bc lets be real that fucko would try to launch his own cryptocurrency and since he seems to hold such disdain for education and self-betterment, he stagnates and falls off the face of the earth byeeee

[glameowr]

GRus baby js ugly can you censor

the hays code aka the motion picture production code (actually written by daniel a. lord and martin quigley, two very christian guys which of course was reflected in the code; hays did not do anything important and was just a figurehead, and actually kinda made stuff worse for the MPPDA) has been since replaced by the MPAA rating system. thus, “ the treatment of low, disgusting, though not necessarily evil subjects should always be subject to the dictates of good taste and a regard for the sensibilities of the audience” (article III of the hays code, vulgarity) is no longer instated. therefore i will not censor grus baby and i am not required to as the creator of this film. though everyone at the studio got mad at me when i fully animated a gru and lucy sex scene and i wasnt allowed to put that in

[unhingedselfships]

More Yakuza!Kadokura KimiKura Songs

Coffin - PVLATINUM

“'Cause I'm about to spend a Month's pay on cocaine Fuck a bitch who got a boyfriend Spit in his face Take a motherfucking 9M to my brain Put my body in designer in my coffin”

Watch Me - Bludnymph

“Fives, tens, hundreds, ones Girls want cash, girls wanna have funds Getting drunk off your attention Stacks so long it make a girl run That's that shit that I love Throw it so fast you got a paper cut Bought out the club, now, it's just us Sip straight from the bottle like”

Mr. Dictator - Saint Motel

“Everybody tends to disagree On just how evil A single human being should ever be And all your bones they scream for more”

Pain Killer - Sickick

“Fuck your intervention I just want to feel your high I don't think I'm quitting Tell me you won't leave my side Nothing really matters You're all I need Nothing really matters But you and me”

Devil in Paradise - Cruel Youth

“I wanna be where the sun don't shine Where the birds don't sing and the kids don't smile They say, I saw the Devil in paradise I wanna be where the night is day Where the roses die and the thorns ain't fake And they say, I saw the Devil with a smiling face"

Hayloft - Mother Mother (Crypto, Jake Daniels cover)

“Young lovers and they are not sleeping Young lovers in the hayloft With his gun turned on, Pop went a-creeping Out to the barn, into the hayloft My daddy's got a gun”

Breathing Fire - BAD CHILD 

“Where the time go, I don't know People come and people go,  Stick around I'll keep you close Go ahead call it unconditional 'Cause we're fire breathers You're a violent creature 'Cause we're fire breathers Yeah, you know I need you”

Bodies - Bryce Fox

“I'm just bored trying to drown the anxiety Wanna see if you got somethin' ugly up in the psyche All I'm sayin' is we got two types of blood Tryna mix it up, is you afraid or what? I mean, away we go, are you gon' pass the love? I'm just diggin', are we on the same page or not? I mean, I'm like my past, I'm wasted”

Definition Forbidden - DNMO, Bijou Dream

“I don't even know your name yet Still, I am fixated Love the way you tell me what I want to hear Love the way you don't love me But still, hold me close without judging”

Sweet - Unlike Pluto, Mister Blonde

“I'm only sweet when I'm high In class, I learned to lie To pretty boys, to pass the time 'Cause I got that good shit, American pride Kiss the kids goodnight and take the Harley for a ride”

Montero - Lil Nas X (Rain Paris cover)

“Cocaine and drinking with your friends You live in the dark, boy, I cannot pretend I'm not fazed, only here to sin”

Fake - The Tech Thieves

“Please don't fake it, show me what you're all about I got wasted, learning how to let it out I can't take it, kiss me with the lips of doubt Please don't fake it, fake it, fake”

Demon Mode - Stileto, AViVA

“Went to Hell and met some friends You know, it's not that bad Cocktails and cigarettes For sins I don't regret”

Vicious - Bohnes

“She's a little bit twisted, little bit wild Little bit fucked up, that's my style Little bit ruthless, little bit raw Razorblade tucked inside of her bra Lovin' that pain, she roughin' me up Guess I do too cause I'm stupid in love”

Roses - SAINt JHN (Banks Arcade cover)

“Turn up baby, turn up, when I turn it on You know how I get too lit when I turn it on Can't handle my behavior when I turn it on Too fast, never ask, if the life don't last, done been through it all”

Maraschino Love - EZI

“Your lips, a sugar rush Like candy on my tongue Once I got a taste, I couldn't stop Wanted every drop, give me all you got I'll sip you out the bottle, you're so sweet like cherry pop Was like, Oh my God, my new favorite drug You go down like liquid velvet, maraschino love”

Heart Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand) - Marilyn Manson

“And I don't mind you keeping me on pins and needles If I could stick to you and you stick me, too Just don't break, don't break my heart And I won't break your heart shaped glasses”

Borderline - Tove Lo

“Good people do bad things too Pretend they don't know, but they do It takes one to know your mind You and me we are one of a kind, it's true I like to feel my bones when they crash into my heart I like the taste of blood when you're tearing me apart I like to push you to the edge as long as you say you're mine”

Mary on a Cross - Ghost

“But through all the sorrow We were riding high And the truth of the matter is I never let you go, let you go We were scanning the cities Walking to greater dues But besides all the glamour All we got was bruised”

Desperado - Rihanna

“Desperado Sitting in a old Monte Carlo A man whose heart is hollow, uh Take it easy I'm not tryna go against you Actually, I'm going withcha Gotta get up out of here and You ain't leaving me behind”

[empressarcana]

This is a copy/paste from my YouTube community page. 💗

💫 💫 💫

I did a small impromptu reading for anyone stumbling upon my community page. Pulling two cards from The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck, I stare into the eye of the Kairos card. I resonated with one of the messages in the guidebook about this card.

"The word "evil" comes from the root "unripe". Consider that everything has a time of ripeness, when it becomes a nourishing fruit, sweet to the lips."

I am feeling a sense of guilt for not having enough time, not knowing when to act, when is the right moment. In alignment to our soul's purpose, we choose when a moment is in divine timing or not. Surely, many of us roll our eyes at the thought of allowing such a thing to dictate when action is meant to take place. With the Kairos card, I feel time, the Universe, unknown force, energy, is always observing from afar, the shadows. This can also be the unripe part of us, unsure when a moment should be seized or not. Do we want to take a bite into the ripe fruit, allowing the juices to flow down the sides of our mouth, enjoying the sweetness of the moment? Or do bite into the unripe, tasting the bitterness, not allowing the fruit to flourish? We always are in control of the final outcome, but the pressure comes from the power of decision.

Pulling another card, the Healer, I feel a conundrum within, wanting to take action, wanting to help someone, yourself. Using the abilities of the Healer, the gift, one wonders how much is too much. Can I use all my energy, my strength to help another? Is it too much? Is my well of love deep enough to give, give, give? All of this comes down to one's inner knowing, intuition, of the right moment. Honestly, hearing this message from my higher self annoys me a little, feeling an inner impatience. Still, the truth of the matter is, we are always healing. The journey to self is eternal. No matter where we go at the end of our lives, whether there is another life or the next, whatever one's belief might be, our soul, I believe is eternal.

The Healer works with the light, bringing Kairos out of the shadows, reassuring them it is okay to take their time. Right now, with the dice I rolled, I am seeing the 10 of cups, 4 of cups reversed, but also the King of Cups reversed. Inside, the desire for completion speaks loudly, wanting to scream it out to the rooftops. Many in the collective might be feeling this desire to expand on relationships, feel the warmth of the sun with a partner, creating a life together, completion. The 4 of cups, in the Rider Waite, is depicted as an individual not noticing the cup being offered to them, simply staring away. With it being reversed, I feel many of you are seeing this chalice, this offering, not rejecting it anymore. You are willing to explore these parts of self, whereas before you didn't believe you were deserving of your own 10 of cups. Now, in the King of Cups reversed, I am, again, seeing the energies of the oracle cards I pulled. Kairos reminds us of divine timing, trusting the process, even when emotions don't feel grounded. The King of Cups is skilled, knows when their emotions are meant to be seen or not, felt or not, but also extending their healing abilities to loved ones.

The Astro dice shows the Sun in Leo 4th house, the house of security, of the home. For now, the remedy of heart is to embrace the things that make you smile. Leo is the heart of the zodiac, showing pride in their work, creativity, too. They want to be seen. Right now, make your home a place you're happy with, a place you can share with self, with another, and create, too. Shine your light, my loves.

Lucy 🦋

[alburrito]

5.15.2024

"No doubt some of that is the sad result of mental illness, but a percentage that high represents a more far-reaching societal problem - a crisis in meaning and a poverty of purpose.

Relativism leaves us with no criterion for moral decision-making but personal taste.

Pope Benedict XVI said that 'relativism, which recognize[s] nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.' That is because relativism leaves us with no objective truths to govern our behavior. The moral compass of a relativist has nowhere to point but to himself.

-Absolute Relativism, pg 8-9

This excerpt from this tiny, yet impactful book has hit me the hardest, probably because I relate to it the most. The percentages were referring to CDC's survey of how many teens considered suicide/how many actually attempted it. Granted by the time I was considering it, I was far beyond my teenage years, but the fundamental reason was still the same because I kept asking myself: "What is the point of living?"

When I had those thoughts, I was still a practicing Catholic but starting to have one foot out the door. Not sure I could remember the reason why, but maybe something along the lines of, "What am I even doing this for?" or really "I can do it myself without having to go to church."

Unbeknownst to me, as I was leaving, all meaning and purpose slowly fell apart. I was just going through the motions of graduating undergrad, finding a job, looking to move up career-wise to have stability in my life. That last part is what I hung all my hopes on, even as I moved into pharmacy school and what I thought I was gonna end up doing with my life. However, assigning that meaning soon fell apart when my moral compass did not have direction. A compass that does not have a North/South Pole assigned to it will just spin infinitely.

My behavior afterwards was simply doing what felt "right" to me and if other people had something to say, I usually had some kind of justification or simply just thought "they don't understand." Actually that is where it all went wrong. I remember discussing that thoughts/actions are not inherently right or wrong, but more so the justification that comes along with it, and as such, the justification is what evil constitutes. Even now as I write it out, it is no different than the Original Sin that Adam and Eve committed. In itself, eating the fruit was considered wrong, but it was the shift in blame and trying to play God by justifying the action that led to humankind's downfall.

My justification to shape a world where I was the one dictating it to always be in the "right" was my flaw and the cause for my demise. Whether it was speeding on the highway or binge drinking, I always found an excuse to justify my actions, which ultimately kept me going on this spiral. Because I wanted to maintain this control, I started pushing people away as well. I did not want to hear their concern because I believed they would not understand or would ruin my outlook. It was also why I procrastinated because it was perfect or bust, so I never opted to take the path filled with mistakes. I needed it shaped to what my vision was.

Will wrap this up before this gets to be too long and incoherent, but as much as I dislike relying on religion to explain things, I think this philosophy cannot be ignored. Being raised in the Catholic faith for more than 2/3's of my life, it has been baked in, and for me to throw it away completely would mean I would have to throw away my life as well. Catholicism has actually kept me from ending the short life I have lived, so I think it would be my task to repay the debt that I owe.

[cryiling]

the media literacy on this site is so low 🥱 everyone voting yta is so chronically online, and if you voted yta PLEASE just block me now before I block you. proshippers try to have empathy for two seconds challenge impossible! let me break this down for you since it seems like everyone is missing some nuance here.

"Even though they KNOW that I have an irl history of abuse as a kid, they still told me this." did u guys skip over this or?? op is clearly anti-proship bc of abuse they faced as a kid, this is triggering for them. I will never understand the two-faced side of tumblr that loves their traumatized blorbos and uplifts trauma survivors until someone is traumatized/triggered by proship material, then suddenly this person is an asshole for having triggers and boundaries? you are sick, get help. of course op would feel betrayed that their friend likes something that they know violates op's triggers! that's a perfectly reasonable reaction. it's concerning that ppl are saying it's not.

"I didn't know they were 'that kind' of person." if you think op is suggesting in this line that they "didn't know x was a 'pedophile/rape enjoyer'" I am fucking begging you to learn to read. op is just saying that they didn't know x was a proshipper, and if they HAD known, they never would have befriended x in the first place. which, again, is FINE. they are not actually calling x a pedophile or anything along those lines. y'all are delusional.

the part with r, y'all are so desparare to prove your point that you're jumping to conclusions that literally aren't there 😹 let me simplify this for you. r says x has been feeling down about losing a friend, op asks if anything else has been said abt them bc they don't want rumors abt them, r says x said "it was your choice in the end because you two were different." obv very respectful, and op I really don't think x was saying anything bad about you, but I can understand why heightened tensions made you worry abt that.

through texts, especially being relayed by a third person, tone can be really hard to interpret, and so op was just having a hard time telling if what x said was genuine hurt or meant to be passive aggressive against op for making the decision to cut x off just bc they have different ship tastes. it's ok to think that a text might be passive aggressive!! and op didn't actually act on any assumptions, so there are no actions to judge here.

then op tells r about how x is a proshipper and likes things that op has been abused by, and r is like ok whatever. so yeah ofc op is a little stung that r didn't agree with them, but it's not like op literally told r to drop x and take their side, op just moved on. op is not trying to dictate their friends' friendships?? literally what part of this made you think that? did we even read the same post 😹

then op says they're sad that their other friends are ghosting them, and they wonder if it's because of what x said after all. that's it! "op is demonizing x just for being a proshipper!!" LOLL they literally did not?? op just said maybe their friends are ghosting them bc of what x said to r and what r told those friends, and op only wants to blame it on x bc everything started with x, but op hasn't been (the wording does get a bit unclear here).

I'm so serious, what part of that did you interpret as "op thinks x is a proshipper, so therefore they are an evil person who spreads malicious rumors!" 💀 touch grass, please and thank you.

op, you are nta.

I (26, NB) dropped a long-term friend (23, not disclosing gender, I'll call them X) for being a proshipper, and now they're trying to get in the way of my other friendships.

A little more than a month ago, an old friend from when I was an itty bitty teen on the internet (we met when they were 12 and I was 15 or so) messaged me on twitter asking if we could share discord since they're more active on that platform, and they missed hanging out. Ok, no prob!! I missed talking to X and life was going kinda icky for me at the time. We exchanged discords and started talking more frequently, before we would talk through twitter dms maybe one day every few months, and we went from almost no contact to talking every single day. It was like being a teenager again; we still shared similar interests and we really fast clicked over old and new fandoms we were in. We talked about college and how they're starting to get the hang of their new job but needed support, talked about our family lives, etc., and in general I felt really comfortable and happy to be chatting again with someone I've known for so long. We were inseparable for weeks.

However... of course, as adults, and having known each other for YEARS, we started talking about fandom ships and fics we enjoyed. We didn't have the same taste in pairings, but that was okay. Until it wasn't anymore.

I shared my NSFW twitter with them, and they followed me. A few minutes later X told me, "I see you have "proship DNI in your bio, I just want to let you know that I am a pro-ship and enjoy some things in fandom that you might think is gross. I hope that's okay."

I was kind of weirded out, and told them that as long as they didn't like anything that would be criminal in real life, that's fine. They told me they *did* enjoy things in fiction that they "wouldn't condone in reality" and even though they "don't talk about it publicly" they still wanted me to know. For some reason. ?? Even though they KNOW that I have an irl history of abuse as a kid, they still told me this.

I was so fucking uncomfortable and really, really sad, and honestly I felt betrayed? I stepped away from my account for like, an hour before messaging them back and saying I didn't want to continue talking to them anymore. That I didn't know they were that kind of person and I'm not comfortable being their friend. I didn't read their response to me because I soft-blocked them.

While I was getting over that and trying to move on, a few days later I was talking to another mutual friend of ours when they asked if I was still friends with X. I got chills remembering how I broke off with them, and said no, we weren't talking anymore. That they were the kind of person that made me really uneasy and uncomfortable to be around. The mutual friend, I'll call R, said that X was "feeling kind of down about losing a friend recently" and talked about it in a discord server they share. X didn't mention my name but R wondered if it was me who dropped them since I was really touchy about boundaries online. I freaked out a little thinking about them talking about me, and asked what else they said, and R told me "not much, just that they felt sad but it was your choice in the end because you two were different" and I don't know why but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Were they trying to make people seem like I was the bad guy or something?? Idk.

I told R the reason why I stopped talking to X, and that X is a proshipper who likes things like inc*st and rape, and R wasn't as supportive as I thought he would be, saying that he understood how I felt but if X was being honest and open about their interests, it probably meant they trusted me and didn't want to "lie" to me. I don't understand how that's even relevant if X is a fucking proshipper. I don't want their trust in the first place if that's who they really are, and I felt betrayed that someone I knew for so long was hiding that for me until we were bonding again. R basically dropped it there and said "idk then" and I told him I was going to shut off my notifs for a bit. I really don't want to talk with him again right now especially since he didn't seem THAT bothered by X being a proshipper who's into really criminal shit.

Since then, friends of mine who are also friends with R (because he's a friend of X still, for some reason), haven't been replying to me as much anymore and I'm super sensitive to noticing these things, at first I told myself it was nothing, but there's an obvious decrease in our interactions. I can't help but think that X actually said bad stuff about me, and R didn't want me to know, or maybe X convinced R that I was a terrible person or something. I still haven't read X's reply to me because I genuinely do not want to interact with them ever again, but for the past few days I've been so angry and hurt by my other friend's actions that I can't help but want to blame them, since this all started when I left them.

AITA for dropping a friend because their interests made me SEVERELY uncomfortable? I don't know what to do.

What are these acronyms?

[ambrosiamaple]

I have always known that a cup of my blood spilled would be worth less than a drop of a white person's blood. I have always known the value of my life, the culmination of my lived experiences, would be punctuated with the qualifying adjective denoting my skin tone, thus rendering my accomplishments less significant. I am brown and therefore less than, regardless of any quantitative metric, and will be mourned by society as a fraction of a person when I pass. The laws were built to be punitive to second class citizens and a haven for the white masters of the Western world. I know this, and yet, I find myself disappointed still.

The fact that the loss of human life on an incomprehensible scale is not deemed a tragedy significant enough to warrant intervention is abhorrent. The fact that a population comprised 50% of children has been determined to be expendable, and worse, guilty for the crime of existing, is reprehensible. The fact that Israel is able to operate without reproach and is given arms and money to more efficiently commit war crimes and genocide, is maddening.

I wonder how it tastes, with your head buried in the dirt, so that you cannot see, cannot hear, the pleas of those dying and asking that they be considered human. You ask us to vote for someone who has readily committed genocide because the alternative is worse. Yet, it has already been proven that brown lives are worth more past expiration. Is your motive to protect yourself, a white person, for whom it hasn't gotten bad enough yet? I would remind you that we, minorities, have always been told to wait and vote for incremental change, so that we could be denied our humanity for longer. I would remind you that most significant change mirrors the dogma of punctuated equilibrium, in that it occurs rapidly all at once. I would remind you, if you are so privileged, that there is no middle ground. There is no lesser evil when the options are genocide of the many and the even more. Choose how you will, condemn who you want, but do not presume to dictate to me that I ought to make sacrifices. I will not vote for someone who kills my brethren and calls it freedom. I will not vote to maintain your privilege, where I have none. I will not do my part in oppressing my own people and, if there is no option for me to choose against my oppression, I will simply abstain.

[reaching-my-summit]

some days, i wonder who i am

what’s sitting at the core of the “me” that the world sees

i’m a barrage of different selves

for my family, for my mentors, for my friends

actually, i’m a different friend to most of my friends, filling whatever gaps need filling

a problem-solver, a helper, a yes-man

maybe i have never really been given a choice to be “me,” whoever that is

academic success wasn’t optional

even my passions were forced upon me

“try it, you need to be involved”

“you can’t quit, so you want to look like a quitter?”

so maybe there has always been this suffocation of my core. a hydraulic press keeping me together

because what would happen if it all fell apart?

i still sit at that circular table in my mind, the smell of oil and fat hanging oppressively in the air. like mustard gas. i hear their question. no—it’s an accusation.

i was accused of being me. and that still stings eight years later.

i realize that i let others dictate how I perceive myself. i hold on to those perceptions and i internalize them. if someone said that about me, it must be true. why else would they say it?

fat. stupid. self-obsessed. too logical. too loud. too unprofessional. too earthly. too weird. too much.

so i gather up all my “toos” and i carry them at my sternum, just under the frog that lives in my throat. because crying is too dramatic, and if i’m upset, i must be tired or overreacting.

reaching. being unreasonable. asking for too much.

because i can excuse everyone else’s feelings, right? everyone’s feelings save my own. because the second i try to be me, i get shoved down into that box again. and it’s oppressive.

and i’m there, lit up by fluorescents, unable to process where i am. i remember driving there, but everything else is fuzzy in between.

it’s the first month off the drugs i got on because i wanted to help someone else. i’m standing in the painkiller aisle, staring blankly at a box of advil pm and hoping to god that it can make me sleep without waking up in tears. without waking up shaking, burning, twitching, retching, unable to tell anyone that i was falling apart because who the fuck would have cared enough to help? how could i explain how broken i was when i had been the one to destroy myself?

i stood in that aisle, ears ringing from the buzzing of the lights and the pressure in my skull and i knew. i knew that my desire to fix everyone else had finally broken me.

and now i stand at the sea. and it’s a desert.

i stand at the precipice of my youth and look out at the tumult. and at the dunes. and i wonder why the surf doesn’t eat me alive even when i’m drowning.

i know i’ve been wrong. i’ve done bad things. it’s why the quicksand keeps lapping at my ankles, wearing away at the tiny planet you tattooed on my ankle. you hurt, so i hurt, so you hurt, so i hurt

so you hurt me

and i hurt

until i break

and i hurt you

and i hurt

and i hurt

and the sand digs into my skin and filters into my pores and my blood and my bone until i’m so filled with you and your hurt that i rip myself apart

and i know why you hurt me

i always will

and i’ll blame myself, because i see you

and i see the riptide threatening to pull you under

and i’m useless because i couldn’t help

and i’m evil because i couldn’t help

and i’m evil because i ripped myself apart as you drowned

and i know i shouldn’t have felt your pain with you, but i did. and it hurt you. and i can’t take that back.

but in return, i’ll be me.

and i’ll cry when i think of you in the dark. and i’ll pray that you can forgive me. and i’ll ache as the red strings that once connected us leech out of me. i still hold the scissors in my hand, glued to my palm like the taste of cigarettes on my tongue.

and i’ll be me. i promise.