#Jeffrey - Joseph - come on

[itsmyfriendisaac]

Mysterious Skin: former teammates take polar opposites paths in life after playing little league baseball in the stinking butt-crack town of Hutchinson, Kansas. Hoping to end his reoccurring nightmares of alien abduction, Bryan Lackey seeks answers from Neil McCormick, an angsty street hustler!

[mindfulldsliving]

Alma 15:16-18 and Matthew 16:24-26: A Deeper Understanding of True Discipleship

When Jesus invites us to take up our cross and follow Him, He is not merely calling for symbolic gestures; He asks for genuine transformation and a life lived in pursuit of righteousness.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash True discipleship is a profound journey of faith that calls for complete surrender and a deep commitment to Christ’s teachings. In both Alma 15:16-18 and Matthew 16:24-26, we find striking examples of what it truly means to follow Jesus, emphasizing the need for self-denial, sacrifice, and unwavering devotion. When Jesus invites us to take up our cross and…

[asongoftearsandfandoms]

I just read every single item on this menu, and I now want a pop-up Night Vale town that has this cafe at one end and the Moonlite All-Night Diner at the other, and I want actual dish descriptions to look like this on the menu (actually, I want this menu to just be the menu), and idk i think it's possible.

Obviously irl some of the "crazy ingredients" would have to be eccentric-but-still-edible-and-complementary ingredients. Like the twigs in the dirty chai could be cinnamon sticks sticking out, and the leaves could be mint or some other complimentary herb plant, and the mud could be like just a pile of wet chocolate curls at the bottom of the cup. Anything with glass in it could have those clear sugar glass shards they do on all those dessert competition shows. Scrap metal could be jerky sprayed with that metallic edible spray paint. IT'S POSSIBLE IS ALL I'M SAYING.

Either way, I love this, I love this menu, and I want to eat here.

breakfast and lunch menus for the sunlite all-day café are done!

[unfortunatelyevent]

well fuck me heard that the second wtnv novel "it devours" is about Carlos and now I NEED to have it

[metamorphesque]

💌 poems for the month of love 💌

Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel

Wait For Me by Konstantin Simonov (tr. by Mike Munford)

A Kiss on the Forehead by Marina Tsvetaeva

Love by Joseph Brodsky

Your Unripe Love by Paruyr Sevak (from “Anthology of Armenian poetry")

Love poem by Tishani Doshi 

Maybe Under Some Other Sky by Willie Perdomo

Warming Her Pearls by Carol Ann Duffy

Ich finde dich (I find you) by Rainer Maria Rilke

Where does such tenderness come from? by Marina Tsvetaeva

I Loved You by Alexander Pushkin

Like a Small Café, That’s Love by Mahmoud Darwish (translated by Mohammad Shaheen)

Our Story by William Stafford

The Kiss by Sara Teasdale

[kerink]

in light of people's confusion over cecil's longevity in @sexymanotd i wanted to document a bit of his history for those unfamiliar or nostalgic

welcome to night vale is a podcast written by joseph fink and jeffrey cranor. cecil gerschwin palmer is the main character and voiced by cecil baldwin.

it debuted on june 15, 2012 it reached its peak in popularity in 2013-2014

despite this, wtnv has been one of tumblr's top fandoms since staff started tracking fandom-related data in 2014

for the longest time the only thing we knew about cecil's appearance was: "He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short. Not thin or fat." and that wasn't until episode 19 which aired march 15, 2013. for almost a full year we had no idea what cecil looked like. so tumblr's collective unconscious kicked into high gear and we did what we do best

we created a tumblr sexyman

from know your meme: "Defining traits of the archetype include skinny body type, trickster or villain role and dapper clothing."

know your meme identifies wheatley (portal 2, 2011) and the onceler (the lorax, 2012) as being likely tumblr's first sexymen. and the onceler fandom was at its peak in 2012-2013, the same time as wtnv. in addition to this, the hannibal fandom has been cited as one of the contributing factors to wtnv's success on tumblr.

so tumblr had created an archetype that worked and the wtnv fandom was made up of mostly hannibal fans - the foundation for putting cecil in a suit was there. and honestly? cecil's at work in the show, why wouldn't he be well dressed?

however, while this explains his attire it doesn't explain some of cecil's more unique sexyman features, namely the tentacles. for this we have to return to the 2014 fandom review analysis where you can see the most popular fandom at the time: homestuck

haven't you ever wondered why almost a quarter (189/923 at time of writing) of E rated wtnv fics on ao3 are tagged tentacles or tentacle sex? why cecil having tentacles for a dick is such a seemingly popular headcanon? well look no further then homestuck cultural hold over.

throughout all of this, the development of the sexyman archetype on tumblr and the rise of homestuck, one creator really stands out: kinomatika

kino was one of the most popular homestuck artists on tumblr at the time, popular for their eridan fanart. if you google image search "welcome to night vale" kino's art is still one of the first results you'll get

their design was so popular in fact it was featured in wtnv related articles from the time

and yes there were absolutely other artists giving cecil tentacles and moving tattoos at the time, but it can't be understated the reach kino had and the influence their homestuck roots had on their design choices

i recommend going through the archive of @nightvaleartclub to see how cecil used to be portrayed back in the early days. unfortunately the earliest fanart i've been able to find is july 2013 and i find it hard to believe it took tumblr a year to draw him. although, i started listening at episode 5 and didn't start drawing him until then myself so who knows...

cecil has had tumblr's heart in a vice grip since episode 1, with "20,000 posts, 183,000 blogs and 680,000 notes using the #Night Vale tag" during its first week. tumblr's love for wtnv has always been fairly genuine, from the impact the writing has had on tumblr humor and future story telling, to how wtnv paved the way for lgbt+ representation in indi media, to how it popularized podcasts as a medium for story telling, to the little comforts some of cecil's quotes still bring people today

cecil is not only a founding father of tumblr culture, but also a blorbo of the people. cecil the character in canon has a tumblr account where he posts his art and slash fanfiction.

although cecil's character has developed over time and we've come to see what a ditzy, eccentric, brat he really is, changing his status from sexyman to babygirl, cecil is absolutely a character you should embrace. and you know what... despite what i've said in the past

#cecilsweep

[ID: Images one and two are Google analytic graphs for the search terms "welcome to night vale" and "wtnv" between June 15, 2015 and January 27, 2023. They both depict very sharp spikes around 2013-2014 until the lines decrease greatly over time.

Image three is a drawing of Cecil from Welcome To Nightvale. He is white, with white hair, glasses, a third eye on his forehead, and he is wearing a suit. In the background is the silhouette of a neighborhood from the WTNV official art, a galaxy, and a moon. It is tinted purple. Image four is the always has been meme. Instead of the earth is the tumblr logo, and the text is: “a wtnv fansite?” “Always has been”. End ID] id thanks to @princess-of-purple-prose

[gothamite-rambler]

Jason may have a point here

Jason: Kill him.

Batman: No.

Jason (insistent): Kill him.

Batman: No.

Jason (angry): Kill him!

Batman (loud): No!

Joker: Can I kill myself to escape this nightmare of awkward father-son tension?

Jason and Batman: Shut up!

Jason: Ignore me, like you did when I died. What about the countless lives he’s taken? What about Barb? What about the hell he’s put all of us through for some sick joke? If you didn’t want to do it for those reasons, what about me? I wanted to ignore this, but he took me away from you! Why not vindicate me? I thought I was your son!

Joker: Guess you weren’t that close.

Jason smacked the Joker with the crowbar for the fifth time.

Jason: Shut. The. Fuck. Up! Back to you, B—Batman. When I saw the bomb tick down, I accepted it. I accepted my death with the assumption that when I died, you’d kill him. Then I wake up, and this monster is still alive. Why?

Batman: I’ve contemplated torturing the Joker in private. Making him feel pain from every nerve in his body, savoring the light leaving his eyes when I finally kill him. But I don’t want to go to that dark place… because that won’t fix crime. If I kill the Joker, I would be crossing a line I can’t come back from.

Jason (in disbelief): Stop joking.

Batman: I’m not.

Jason (tapping the gun on his leg): You have to be.

Batman (deadpan): When have I ever joked with you in this suit?

Jason: It’s not too late, because you can’t be serious. It literally would fix one thing… HIM! Because he’d be dead!

Joker: Can you tell me what type of torture methods you’d perform on me? I might need to use those later.

Jason pointed his gun at the Joker, showcasing how the crazy clown is only proving his point.

Batman: If I kill him, I would never return to who I was—the person I became to fight crime. I would kill the next one like him.

Jason: Then fucking do that! You can't be arrested. You’re friends with Commissioner Gordon, who, by the way, the Joker shot his fucking daughter. You shot his daughter, right?

Joker: Yeah.

Jason: Okay, so should I shoot him, or do you want to go first?

Batman: The Joker would have to do something insanely unforgivable to make me kill him.

Jason stays silent for fifteen seconds, unsure of how to respond.

Jason: …He blackmailed my mom into handing me over and tortured me horribly and then I died in a bomb explosion. Not from the bomb either, from being suffocated under rubble. Just so you know, I was legally dead for five years because of him.

Batman: That’s different.

Jason (twitching eye): Different how?

Batman: You're here now.

Jason looked around, incredulous.

Jason: Am I on a hidden camera show? Because that’s not a defense. Are you seriously trying to excuse what he did just because I’m back now?!

Batman: Um... It’s not right!

Jason: Why? Go ahead, tell me—why is it wrong for me to kill him and for me to kill irredeemable criminals? I'll wait. I have the detonator.

Batman: Because when my parents died—

Jason: Nope, nope, nope! My mom sold me out to the Joker. My dad beat me; my step-mom beat me! You’ve got to come up with something else!

Joker: …He has a point.

Batman (clenched fist): Okay, after saving lives without killing criminals, I learned that all life is valuable.

Jason (without hesitation): Joseph Stalin.

Batman: Okay, that was a war leader—

Jason: Charles Manson.

Batman: Hold on, he was a cult lea—

Jason: Jim Jones.

Batman: They volunteered in both situations.

Jason (calmly): Adolf Hitler. The Nazi soldiers who knowingly participated in the extermination of Jews and those who escaped to Brazil.

Silence.

Joker (weakly speaking): I’m… the one possibly dying, but he brought up a couple of good examples. Like I’d kill me after that.

Batman (stammering): No, wait, because that's not the same. The Joker is not the same as them.

Joker: Thanks, Batsy. I try to be different.

Jason (trying to breathe calmly): Okay, I’ll cancel out the world dictators, the cult leaders. I’ll do that for you… Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Wade Wilson... I can go all day; I love learning about true crime and wars. He’s not exactly like them either, but he’s pretty damn close.

Batman: …

Jason (irate): And again… him torturing and killing your adopted son isn’t the line? Am I near the line?!

Batman: I told you not to fall for your mother's tricks.

Jason (shocked): Oh… my God! Are you resorting to gaslighting? Are you really gaslighting me while I have a bomb? We’re doing that?!

Joker (not taking any of this seriously): I wouldn't stand for that, neither would Barbara.

Jason hit the man in the arm with the crowbar to silence him.

Batman (doubling down): All I’m saying is that when you came back, you started killing left and right.

Jason: Yes, rapists to my right and murderers to my left. It’s not like I kill shoplifters.

Batman (scoffing): Hypocrite.

Jason: A shoplifter might have a reason to steal and doesn’t resort to kill people.What rapists have you met that had a reason? Because rapists aren’t redeemable; they’re fair game. Same with, let’s see, child traffickers, pedophiles, serial killers, assassins—literally awful, evil people! That’s target practice.

Jason aimed the gun at the Joker as he spoke to emphasize his point.

Batman (indignant): Okay, last I checked, murder is wrong!

Jason (pointing his gun at the Joker): It sure is!

Batman: A criminal is a criminal. I treat them all the same.

Jason (laughing because he had this one ready): Let’s talk about Selina Kyle.

Batman (nervous): Let’s not do that.

Jason: No, no, she gets a pass when she’s attacked people to escape prison. If a criminal is a criminal, then why isn’t she in prison? Because she meows at you? Because of your odd sexual tension with her—I’ve read your journals. And I don't judge man, that's your love life, but I want to know why she gets a pass. Why does Black Mask walk? Why does Mr. Freeze walk? The Joker gets to walk… why is that? Tick-tock, detective.

Batman: …If you give me five minutes, I will think of an answer.

Jason (cocky): It bothers you, doesn’t it? That I’m doing a better job at being you? That I'm taking on businesses in this crime-ridden area because I can admit that crime will never stop? Is it that I kill murderers and rapists, and that hurts your feelings?

Batman: It doesn't bother me… I just don't want you to do this.

Jason (serious): Let me dial back the snark. I'm not asking you to kill Selina or Riddler or Mr. Freeze. I want you to kill the Joker. The man who's been alive and committing crimes since I died. I'm not even mad at you for not stopping my death. Honestly, I forgive you for that. But for the love of God, kill him! Kill him, and I’ll take the blame. That’s all I ask. I am begging you! Do you see this? I am begging you!

Batman sighed with regret knowing he couldn't turn on his morals again. It would only lead to worse happening to him and his family and that included Jason.

Batman (final decision): I can't. I won't. I'm sorry.

Jason: I—Wow, you’re actually going to make me do this. Okay, I kill the Joker or… you kill me.

Jason tossed Batman an extra gun, which the man catches with ease.

Jason: Or you can shoot him.

Batman (somber tone): I regret the day I let you into my life… Not because of any faults you made, but my own. I gave you a good life, with the life of a hero in the mix. Now that you’re alive again and there’s nothing I can do to stop you… I won’t kill him or you. Again… I’m sorry.

That was all he could say. The decisions he made in the past, when Jason died, were secrets he wanted to keep buried, even if it meant Jason would never learn the truth and would continue to harbor resentment toward him.

Jason: Heh… You regret taking me in because of the hero life you gave me—not because I died or because my murderer is still free. Cool. I suppose you’ll just stand by and watch me take him out.

With a dry chuckle, Jason spun the gun in his hand, poised to pull the trigger. Batman reached into his utility belt for a weapon.

Jason (with feigned sweetness): This is fantastic! I always wanted a moment like this with you!

Jason grabbed the Joker and aimed the gun at the cackling psycho's head.

Jason: I’m going to enjoy this!

Batman: DODGE!

Jason: What?

Batman hurled a Batarang at Jason, striking him in the neck and impaling him. In shock, Jason dropped the gun and the Joker, blood spurting from the wound.

Joker (amused): This is fun! What a twist! I didn't think you would hurt your own son!

Jason (shocked and angry): You threw a Batarang… at ME?!

Batman (regrettably): Oh shit, shit, shit! You were supposed to dodge!

Jason (betrayed): You pulled a Piccolo on me!?

Batman: I thought you would dodge! I shouted “dodge!”

Jason: You thought I would read your damn mind, toss Joker aside, dodge, and then not shoot him?!

Batman maintained a stoic expression, but inside, his mind was screaming in embarrassment.

Jason and Joker: Oh my God, you actually did. GREAT! I’m agreeing with him!

Jason yanked the Batarang out of his neck, chuckling dryly as he trembled.

Jason: This doesn’t even hurt me, crazy right? I—You threw this at me to save him… You know, maybe in a few years we can laugh about this, but not here, not today. I’m sorry too… but I’ll see you again.

Jason pressed the detonator, successfully escaping alongside Batman. The Joker was buried beneath the collapsing debris of the buildings, but somehow still alive.

[thesixthruin]

i don't fandom post here but. currently obsessed with welcome to night vale again and can't stop thinking about episode 221 (glow cloud, explained). keep thinking about dr. janet lubelle "explaining away" things as acts of both a disruption of collective faith and a killing of creativity.

we (as the audience) have witnessed cosmic horror as the everyday in that town for a whole decade. we, just like the citizens of night vale, take it as normal, or as adaptive to be normal. and then lubelle comes in and disrupts it to the point of death. she rendered a god useless. she killed a sentient river rock. even when cecil tries to chant all hail, all hail the glow cloud, the magic is gone. the faith is gone. it's been explained, unravelled, revealed to whatever kind of truth "science" has applied to it.

also, it serves as an allegory for how, when you try to explain your work to an audience, it kind of kills it? especially any writing that is absurdist or surrealist. explaining why the glow cloud even exists, or trying to pick it apart, renders it and the magic of night vale (both story and podcast) useless. the glow cloud is fun because it is a glow cloud that drops dead animals! we found out it was a god too! it has a child! isn't that whimsical and horrifying and brilliant? does it need explaining? no! and it's heartbreaking when it is! it's such a staple of the series and it's smart of joseph/jeffrey to play around with this after 10 years of creating and writing for this beloved show.

(also, if you decide to engage with this post, please do not share spoilers for future episodes, i am still playing catch up).

[nightvaleofficial]

Come hang out with Night Vale creators Jeffrey and Joseph at 5pm est today! Not a Patreon member yet? Join here as a Weird scout or higher member: https://www.patreon.com/welcometonightvale

[inthewitchesstew]

My book recs

☆Mostly classics but a few more modern ones in there too!! Make sure to check warnings for any books you read ☆

1. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

2. 1984 - George Orwell

3. If We Were Villains - M.L Rio

4. Animal farm - George Orwell

5. Dracula - Bram Stoker

6. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

7. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

8. Notes From the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky

9. Dante's Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri

10. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

11. Ariel - Sylvia Plath

12. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath

13. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath

14. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

15. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper lee

16. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

17. Macbeth - William Shakespeare

18. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

19. The Devils - Fyodor Dostoevsky

20. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky

21. A Nervous Breakdown - Anton Chekhov

22. Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

23. The Wind in The Willows - Kenneth Grahame

24. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

25. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

26. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

27. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

28. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin

29. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

30. Emma - Jane Austen

31. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

32. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

33. The Odyssey - Homer

34. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

35. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

36. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

37. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

38. The Trial - Franz kafka

39. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

40. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

41. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

42. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

43. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

44. Selected Stories - Alice Munro

45. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

46. Normal People - Sally Rooney

47. Existentialism is a Humanism - Jean-Paul Sartre

48. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

49. Persuasion - Jane Austen

50. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

51. The Death of The Heart - Elizabeth Bowen

52. The Iliad - Homer

53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey

54. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger

55. The Outsiders - S.E Hinton

56. The Chrysalids - John Wyndham

57. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

58. Middlemarch - George Eliot

59. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

60. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

61. Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche

62. The Stranger - Albert Camus

63. The Republic - Plato

64. Letters From a Stoic - Seneca

65. Man’s Search For Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

66. The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus

67. Bunny - Mona Awad

68. Belladonna - Anbara Salam

69. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

70. My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun - Emily Dickinson

71. How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing - Michel de Montaigne

72. The Telltale Heart - Edgar Allen Poe

73. The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy

74. Come Close - Sappho

75. The Fall of Icarus - Ovid

76. Tender Is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica

77. Cassandra - Christa Wolf

78. Forbidden Notebook - Alba de Céspedes

79. Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen

80. Carrie - Stephen King

81. Mrs. S - K Patrick

82. Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth

83. Perfume - Patrick Suskind

84. After Dark - Haruki Murakami

85. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

86. No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai

87. Wednesday's Child - Yiyun Li

88. My Husband - Maud Ventura

89. All Down Darkness Wide - Sean Hewitt

90. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

91. The Waves - Virginia Woolf

92. The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

93. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

94. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

95. Journey Into the Past - Stefan Zweig

96. Outline - Rachel Cusk

97. Chess Story - Stephen Zweig

98. Diary of a Madman - Nikolai Gogol

99. A Very Easy Death - Simone De Beauvoir

100. A Writer's Diary - Virginia Woolf

Enjoy!!

[goosemixtapes]

max's favorite short stories & articles!

to be updated as i read new things! "articles" could be anything from political points to philosophical musings to fascinating stories. obligatory statement that i don't necessarily agree with everything in every one of these stories/articles, but i think about them a lot and want to share :)

short stories

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live by Sacha Lamb (@kuttithevangu) (novella) (so says the writing on the bathroom mirror. of gender & judaism & magic and t4t trans guys. cw for suicidal ideation and bullying)

Epistolary by Sascha Lamb ("The [stuffed] frog you are selling on your blog is MINE and he is NOT HAUNTED and his name is MOSHE not BILLY HOPPER.")

Chokechain by Andrew Joseph White (a trans man discovers his parents have replaced him with a robot version of his pretransition self. cw for transphobia and violence)

Sandrine by Alexandra Munck (the tagline for this one is "I dated a sun god in college" but that doesn't do justice to the sheer concept here please read this)

You Wouldn't Have Known About Me by Calvin Gimpelevich (set in a hospital ward where patients are recovering from gender-confirming surgery)

No Flight Without the Shatter by Brooke Bolander (novella) ("After the world’s end, the last young human learns a final lesson from Earth’s remaining animals." cw for climate change/extinction)

And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead by Brooke Bolander (what if you had to death-match-fight a virtual version of yourself at your meanest made by your boyfriend whose life you're trying to save would that be fucked up or what. cws for guns and violence)

Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang (stories that clock you in the fucking teeth in the religious trauma.)

A Serpent for Each Year by Tamara Jerée (microfiction) ("Our relationship is almost a year old when I ask Nal why she is covered in snakes." cw for animal death)

The Front Line by W.C. Dunlap (microfiction) (cited as one of the world's finest attention-grabber openings. cws for police brutality, racism, and SA)

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse (step into the simulation and gain an authentic experience! cws for anti-Native racism and alcohol)

The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado (one of the best stories ever written. once there was a girl with a green ribbon around her neck...)

City of Red Midnight by Usman T. Malik (a chronicle of nested stories-within-stories, set in old fantasy pakistan, inverting a myth from the one hundred and one nights)

We Work In Miraculous Cages by Brenda Peynado (following a college grad drowning in loans through the nightmare of neverending work)

Other Worlds and This One by Cadwell Turnbull (a brotherly relationship collides with a theory about atomic particles, space, and time)

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (a convention of alternate-universe selves--all Sarah Pinskers--becomes a murder mystery)

Fandom For Witches by Ruoxi Chen (fuck every other thing ever written about fandom)

Haunted Home by Conrad Loyer ("The ship features a recreation of a slave ship’s hold. The cruise prides itself on it. It is not a good recreation, if the metric is realism.")

articles & essays

Lockhart's Lament (on how math is taught in schools. that is, badly. one of the most cathartic essays i've ever read on education)

Against Cop Shit by Jeffrey Moro (on adversarial education)

Debunking "Trans Women Are Not Women" Arguments by Julia Serano (comprehensive, well-written, good to have as a reference point)

On Liking Women by Andrea Long Chu (and on the politics of desire)

Turning a Unicorn Into a Bat by Josh and Lolly Weed (on Mormonism, love, and whether a gay man and a straight woman can marry happily. cw for homophobia)

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price (musings on motivation from a social psychologist and professor)

How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson (how come everything happens so much?)

White Women Drive Me Crazy by Aisha Mirza (on the harm caused by white women. cw for racism)

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong by Michael Hobbes (should be required reading for everyone at this point. cw for fatphobia and eating disorders)

Becoming Anne Frank by Dara Horn (on the cultural fascination with Anne Frank. cw for antisemitism)

The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem ([on/a] plagiarism)

On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People by Patricia Taxxon (video essay) (ostensibly what the title says, but actually a detailed musing on the essential properties of furry media and the freedom of dehumanization; changed my life a bit)

[babiebom]

Dbd Killers as Nicknames my friends and I use in game

A/N: because i think. I only have like one thing posted for dbd. These are the Male Killers!

Tw:maybe cursing? None? Slight sexualization of certain killers?

Genre:headcanons? Or written like headcanons at least

Wc: maybe 3+ for each killer?

The Trapper/Evan Macmillan

Has no nickname

Is just "the trapper"

Always said in a panic tho

Is usually called a "stupid stupid man"

The Clown/Jeffrey Hawk

"Oh it's *imitation of him coughing*"

His nickname is just us coughing in gross ways

Also "you absolute baboon" by when we're upset

The Ghostface/Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson

My boyfriend

I exclusively call him this

Everyone else says "oh no your boyfriend is here"

Or we call him Ghost-a Fa-che in really bad italian accents

The Executioner/Pyramid Head

Conehead

Forgot the word pyramid

Also trianglehead

Usually proceeded or followed by "ewwwwww why is he sludging up the place????"

The Twins/Victor Deshayes

Ugly little baby

We forgot that he is not really a baby

We also call him Viktor Vector

Usually followed by "kill her little baby"

Or "stomp on himmmmm"

Then "yeah that's what you get you ugly baby"

The Mastermind/Albert Wesker

Lil Kitty Meow Meow

Bc I accidentally called him whisker

And that reminded me of the Lil kitty meow meow meme

Is usually followed by his "urgh" when he does the dashy thing

The Nemesis/Nemesis

Nemesussy

It was a slip of the tongue that stuck

I also call him Thanos half the time

I forget his name and panic

Then call him Thanos because big purple man

Usually proceeded by "oh god it's Thanos I can see his stupid little zombies"

The Doctor/Herman Carter

Has no nickname but is usually called out by saying "sorry I can't talk right now he's ELECTROCUTING ME"

followed by imitations of his laugh

The Legion/Frank&Joey

I do not know how to write this

It's literally just The Legion but pronounced with a very bad French accent

Also Franklin or Frankie-boy

And Josepher and "which one is this one again"

The Trickster/Jiwoon Hak

We either call him Trickster

Or Jungkook from Bts(yes this whole thing)

Is usually followed by "bob and weave and bob and weave"

Or is followed by "please dont kamsahamnida me"

The Wraith/ Phillip Ojomo

Bing Bong

Because when he hits his little thing it goes Bing Bong

Usually proceeded by "oh god" and "please don't be bingbong"

Usually followed by "oh god where did he go"

The Hillbilly/ Max Thompson Jr

We just call him by Max

I usually call him Maxie-poo

Cute

The Cannibal/ Bubba Sawyer

Like Max we just call Bubba by Bubba

Bubba is a cute nickname in of itself

The Oni/Kazan Yamaoka

Onigiri

Because I said "Oni? Like onigiri?"

Followed by screaming or "someone stop him he's eating my blood"

The Deathslinger/Caleb Quinn

Rootie tootie mcshooty shooty

Because it's funny

Also sometimes call him the hashslinger

Or hashslinging slashed

From spongebob because we again forgot his name

The Shape/Michael Myers

Miku Miku

Because I panicked when I saw him and could not speak or remember his name for the life of me

Usually followed by "oh god this is gonna be a bad match"

Also followed by singing the song but only by saying Bing and bong.

The Nightmare/Freddy Kreuger

"Ew its stupid what's his face....sleepytime....nightnight"

Has no real nickname because we're not happy to see him

"Why is there blood coming out of this...oh."

"Haha your neck is bent weird"

The Blight/Talbot Grimes

Incoherent screaming

Literally it's "uhhhh HA HUHHHH WHA HELP"

Followed by "why is he so fast?"

Or is called speedy Gonzales or Sonic

The Knight/Tarhos Kovács

I have accidentally called him the borgo

We also just call him the knight or just scream

The Cenobite/Elliot Spencer

Pinhead

I find it funny that that is an actual name for him

Because we usually call him that

The Demogorgon(?)

Or "stupid pinhead" but you get the gist

Also BabyBox

Bad doggie

He is a dog that is bad because he keeps biting me with his weird little face

The Dredge(?)

Is this thing a male? Idk but it counts

Again we are bad at remembering names

Half the time he is called the sludge

Usually followed by "why is it nighttime"

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

Before we officially settle on Brinknor as the new title for the writers, may I humbly propose the alternative:

Finknoriams.

I like this for a few reasons. 1, and most important, is because it sounds like a kind of mysterious ailment. Like hey man are you okay? No, I have a case of the Finknoriams (Janet hasn't come back yet and it's making me sad.) I also don't like that two of the writers have their last name in the mish-mash, but one of them has their first name. It shouldn't be BRie williams, joseph FINK and jeffrey craNOR, doesn't that look weird? We should incorporate Brie Williams's last name just like Fink and Cranor have theirs incorporated.

Third, it places the last names in the order that they joined the project. Fink is the creator, Cranor came on as the co-writer, and Williams got boosted from part-time to full-time writer this past year.

So what do you think?

[writing-relatedactivities]

Joseph Fink:

I don't have much useful to add. I was confident about the outcome of this election and I was wrong so I don't feel confident in anything else.

But I just wanted to offer two things: a memory and a gift.

When the 2016 election happened, Meg and I were living in a cramped AirBNB in London while Meg and Jeffrey helped start the London neo-futurist theater company. I wanted nothing more than to shut down for a few weeks after that terrible night, but I was too busy. We were in final frantic edits on our second novel, It Devours!, and then we had to jump right into writing our next live show.

As you imagine, my mindset at the time heavily informed the content of that live show, which we eventually titled "All Hail". All Hail is a show, as you might guess, about the Glow Cloud. But it's also a show about feeling helpless, and about the unbelievable power that comes from having to rely on your friends and neighbors. It's a show about solidarity, and it's also a show about a sentient cloud that controls minds. It has layers, I guess you could say.

I can't promise that this show will be helpful to you. Certainly the two guys that wrote it during that difficult moment in history had no idea how to help themselves. But it is a work that speaks from one moment and maybe speaks directly to this moment.

So for that reason I have temporarily made it free on Bandcamp. You can still put in a price if you want to pay us for it, and that's appreciate, but don't feel like you have to. If it's useful to you, then that's all I'm looking for.

[metamorphesque]

💌 some of my favorite poems for World Poetry Day 💌 

A Cloud in Trousers by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Don’t leave the room by Joseph Brodsky (the original)

Ich finde dich (I find you) by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

You, Darkness by Rainer Maria Rilke

I Am Offering this Poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca

a splinter of my imagination by Halina Poswiatowska

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel

Wait For Me by Konstantin Simonov (tr. by Mike Munford)  

Before You Came by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

What I Could Never Confess Without Some Bravado by Emily Palermo

Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you. by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

I Want to Write Something So Simply by Mary Oliver

What's Not to Love by Brendan Constantine

Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Dear [ ] by Nick Lantz

Dogfish by Mary Oliver

Persephone the Wanderer by Louise Glück

Scheherazade by Richard Siken

The End of Poetry by Ada Limón

A Myth of Devotion by Louise Glück

Where does such tenderness come from? by Marina Tsvetaeva

I Loved You by Alexander Pushkin

Poems for Blok by Marina Tsvetaeva

I’m Glad Your Sickness by Marina Tsvetaeva

Wait for her by Mahmoud Darwish

The Guest by Anna Akhmatova

Listen! by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Carousel by Vahan Teryan

Landscape with a Blur of Conquerors by Richard Siken

Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light by Richard Siken

Notebook Fragments by Ocean Vuong

Headfirst by Ocean Vuong

Advice from Dionysus by Shinji Moon

[foccaccia]

"well, listeners, the riots have been forcefully calmed down by the sheriffs secret police, and the definitely-not-angels have put out their burning effigy of that round skeleton and ceased their chanting of 'SE-XY MAN. SE-XY MAN.'

"i am finally safe and alone in my office once more, and i - oh. oh god. oh dear god. listeners, i have just noticed what appears to be a dead body at my door, left there as if a gift from some well meaning but utterly clueless and unrelatable animal who does not know basic social etiquette - that, of course, corpses as gifts should be wrapped in silver paper with pages of that great american surrealist parody novel "Eat, Pray, Love" taped into a bow stuck on top.

"since khoshekh, my cat, floats four feet off the ground next to the sink in what was the mens restroom and is now a unisex restroom, this can only mean station management has left this corpse here.

"listeners, i find myself nervous, wondering if this is a warning to me from the edritch plural monstrosity that governs my work life and threatens me constantly - oh, but no, listeners, i am observing the dead body more carefully and am sensing the bitterness and fear that can only come from one who has lived a live spouting so much hate and pain. this corpse, whoever she may have been, lived a life of cruelty and deliberate harm, perhaps in the form of anti-transgender laws or severly antisemitic childrens books, though of course, listeners, i would have no way of knowing for sure. i can absolutely say i would not brave a library to find out.

"regardless, i think this must be a congratulatory gift from station management as to my new crowning of 'sexyman' status. my beloved carlos assures me i deserve it, though i admit i do not know, because of course i do not look in mirrors.

"well, listeners, if we have learned anything today, it is that the kindnesses and good intentions of our past, no matter how distant, will always remain in the hearts of the people around us, and may someday crown us - while our poison and hatred may end up with us brutally murdered by squamous beings and dropped at the doorsteps of unsuspecting radio hosts. good night, night vale. good night."

welcome to night vale is a production of commonplace books. it is written by joseph fink and jeffrey cranor, and produced by joseph fink. the voice of night vale is cecil baldwin. original music by disparition. all of it can be found at disparition dot info, or at disparition dot bandcamp dot com. this episode's weather was 'megalovania' by toby fox.