#and it'll probably be by the end of this year

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

Okay I think we need to get on the same page. By "perfect lyctorhood" I did NOT mean a version of lyctorhood that I, the reader, think is perfect in that it's ethical and good and everyone is happy and gonna ride off into the sunset. I meant a version of lyctorhood where both the necromancer and cavalier are intact, in seperate bodies, and alive.

FOR THE RECORD, I was pointing out similarities between characters who have come close/achieved it with Harrow and Gideon, and pointing out a pattern of John saying something is impossible, only for Harrow to do it with Gideon anyway. I just think when its established that everyone in history is trying to do X thing and many have come close but none have succeeded, the natural conclusion is that someone's gonna figure it out before the series is over.

HOWEVER!!! I don't think this is necessarily going to be a happy ending. For one, the series tells us at every moment possible that Immortality SUCKS. For all of HTN we are brain blasted with the worst most foul found family known to man because they are simply too old and unkillable to be normal to each other. We watch a man who was once so hellbent on not leaving any humans behind that he became an enemy of the state become a shell of himself, at best neutral to the billions of senseless deaths he causes and, at worst, happy about it.

In contrast, the most content, loving, and fulfilled character in the series is alive for all of six months. Nona knows she's gonna die, and she loves anyway! It's this beautiful interrogation of eternal life as a religious reward for good behavior. Yeah, maybe sounds good on paper, but what would you do that would make you happy for forever? Especially if your religion taught you to sacrifice your own self worth or ignore the personhood of others in order to achieve eternity. How are you gonna spend your time? Doing the same shit you did just to get there, probably. And chances are, it'll make you miserable.

We KNOW normal lyctorhood sucks in that it's necessarily exploitative. Culture in the nine houses has justified and draped pretty lace around what is essentially raising people to be so subservient that they let themselves become human batteries. Because of how ghoulish this is, it's easy to assume that perfect lyctorhood would be a good, ethical alternative. But just because both people are alive doesn't mean there can't still be abuse and exploitation! In fact, in the ONLY example of someone actually becoming a perfect lyctor, John does it to Alecto against her will! And THEN because he can't kill her, he imprisons her in the tomb. Doesn't sound like a very fun religious tier reward to me but idk!!!

So basically, there is no ethical lyctorhood under capitalism. In the best case scenario where the necromancer doesn't subjugate the cavalier, they're still alive FOREVER, every year getting farther and farther away from what made them human. Maybe they end up like Augustine and Mercymorn, with all their conflicts over the years congealing into a weird toxic occasional hate sex misogyny-fuelled situationship. Maybe they never speak again and have to spend the rest of forever completely alone.

Point is, as much of a relief as it would be to see Gideon and Harrow in the same room again, I don't think perfect lyctorhood is a happy ending for anyone. I have no doubt in my mind that they're gonna do it, but i have a LOT of doubts about what fresh hell it's gonna wreak when they do.

if the locked tomb doesnt end with gideon and harrow both alive and whole having achieved perfect lyctorhood i will eat my own hat.

alecto and john are the only perfect lyctors right? alecto, who is made of several million dead people, and john who is god. youre telling me that harrow "made of 300 dead babies" nonagesimus and gideon, whose dad is god, aren't gonna do it? youre telling me harrow's biological ancestor is the only saint to never become a lyctor because she came so close to figuring it out that her cavalier was killed to prevent it. you're talking about harrow, who opened the tomb at ten with nothing but sheer determination and accidentally getting a little bit of god blood under her nails and gideon, who we keep being told cannot and will not die, won't end up alive? is that what you're saying? bc john says two things are impossible; opening the tomb and perfect lyctorhood. but those are only two things and Harrow already did one of em. does she seem like a quitter to you?

[zippidi-dooda]

Low, melodious hums echoed through the chamber. Soft shuffling of fabric and clicks of heel on stone followed every sway and every twist, every turn.

Your eyes stayed shut, body moving in sync with your partner behind you, fully entrusting yourself to their lead.

They stood close, a lithe hand on your waist, the other in yours, guiding you along. Long hair draped over your shoulders, nose tucked against your neck, chest beating steadily against your back.

It wasn't hard to forget all that surrounded you with him so close.

You leaned further against him, free hand reaching behind to cup his soft curls, gliding across the former ballroom with ease.

"We should probably put an end to this soon."

Your partner laughed softly, the motion sending a warm blush of air against your skin. "You make it sound so dramatic."

"Well, the sun is sinking. We could pretend one of us is about to turn into a pumpkin."

Another laugh, then you were spun around.

You shifted to rest your hands on his shoulders, thumbs rubbing along the loose, white tunic hanging from his frame.

"That'd be most unfortunate. But I'm sure we can spare a few more moments." He brushed back stray strands of hair, tucking them behind your ear. "You look lovely in this lighting you know. We should come out here more often."

You rolled your eyes playfully. "Alright, what do you want?"

"Nothing, my dear. Why must you always assume I work at an angle?"

A spin followed by a dip, then up again.

"Because after a few sweet words, you usually end up asking permission for something or other. And I happen to have made it my own game to guess what it'll be for next; a journey to the village, a day to peruse the hold, a moment to brood? Quite fun for me, but you do know you don't need to ask for anything? I know you'll return eventually."

He closed his golden eyes, taking one of your hands, raising it up to kiss the dorsal side.

"Yes, I know. But I wouldn't want to leave you to search in a panic. Rather not worry your brow. But there's truly nothing this time, my dear. Simply wish to remind you how gorgeous you are."

You bit back your smile and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. "Hm, well if you do decide to ask for something, the answer is yes."

Amber irises opened up to smile at you. His hand traveled up to caress your cheek. "Careful. You may come to rue that decision."

Your dance came to slow halt.

"That'll be a first."

A cool breeze flowed through the large windows, ebbing sunlight twinkling against the heavy, patterned glass.

"You have much faith in me."

He leaned in.

"I could ruin your day in seconds."

"Yes," you rubbed the soft pad of your thumb against the fangs peeking behind his lips. "And yet you haven't in all the years I've known you."

A breathless laugh escaped him, now resting his forehead against yours.

"It's hard to play the part of scary vampire when you act as if you've nothing to fear." He lowered your hand. "Though I quite enjoy that about you. Otherwise I'd still be slowly turning into Belmont right now."

You smiled, settling into his hold. "Yes, what a shame that'd be."

Time beat steadily between you, orange light fading to midnight.

"May I kiss you?"

You caught yourself midway through a laugh. "I told you, you don't have to ask for anything."

"Yes. But for this, I quite like to." He burrowed his fingers into your hair. "So, may I?"

Arms easing their way up to hang over his shoulders, you smiled. "You may."

"Lovely," was the last word uttered before you felt the lush kiss of his lips molding against your own

[bitchfitch]

Ok, so there's this entire economy that's built on returned/overstock goods that were on shelves in America eventually ending up in Mexico right?

Random companies like Target or whatever pay X dollars to put some crap on their shelves until it's clear it's just not selling, so instead of eating the loss they sell it at basically 0 profit to some asshole with a truck and the ability to tolerate the god awful amount of paperwork moving goods across that border entail.

Ok and then that some asshole gets to the border and they go through everything they've got and decide what's worth Actually paying the import taxes on and what's basically just land filler. And they take their trash pile and they go to the trash store in whichever border town their in, and say "hey you want this crap?" and the trash store owner says "Nope! but I know some poor schmucks who'll buy it because they can't afford anything better." And they put the trash on the shelves.

These are all the returns, the opened boxes and damaged but Technically probably still functional, things it was just too expensive to try to import into Mexico bc they were worth less then it would cost in fees to get them on shelves there.

Ok, and as a child of one of these towns, you go in to these stores and you buy a basically new Video Game™ for like 2 dollars. And it's crap. Its not shovelware for a show you think you've never heard of or anything but it was still something made to put Product™ on Shelf™ and it'll be lost media in a few years because every single copy ended up in un marked cardboard boxes in towns like yours.

but it's what you had the money for and so it's what you think all games are like until you move somewhere with an actual game store and find out that wait no, theres games that don't crash constantly and have more depth than a dry river. You see the same crap games that were all over your town but no one buys them because they have better options. which is how they end up on the trash store shelves eventually.

And then a decade or some odd later you have to deal with people who've always had access to the good stuff and the word of mouth knowledge or TV commercials or magazines to tell them What was good before they bought it claiming the crap they bought and returned or never gave time in the first place just didn't exist and that shovelware is an artifact of modern game dev instead of something that was always there since the beginning.

[no-goodbyes-no-regrets]

Day 2: cooking together for @bucktommyfluffebruary

Short 'n' sweet today - I might even catch up soon!

It's (not) just dinner (AO3)

(this will continue in day 11 and 12)

---

"Ok you cut the zucchini, while I take care of the onions. Or do your eyes not tear up from cutting onions? Then maybe you can do that while I cut the zucchini." Buck ordered, rushing around Tommy's kitchen.

"You know you can just buy a bag of mixed vegetables that's already chopped up." Tommy suggested. "That would be easier than all of this. And less time consuming."

"We could also just buy a couple of microwave meals or order pizza." Buck said sarcastically. "Or maybe just pre-packaged sandwiches from a gas station? Or a couple of bags of chips?"

Tommy bit back a laugh and put his hands on his boyfriend's hips.

"Babe relax. It's just dinner with my brother. It's no big deal. He'll eat whatever you want to serve. It doesn't matter if it's store bought or made from scratch."

"It's not just dinner. It's the first time I'm meeting your brother and his... boyfriend? Partner? Lover? Spouse? What do they call each other?"

"I'm... not sure... Does it really matter?"

"Yes it matters! I want to get it right. I want them to like me."

"I'm sure they will." Tommy told him. "And if they don't, that's their loss." he vowed.

"Tommy... You only just reconnected with your brother... I don't want to be the one to mess it all up for you."

"You won't." Tommy insisted. "I've gone years without Donovan in my life and managed just fine. If he, for whatever stupid reason, decides not to like you, then I don't want him back in my life. You're more important."

Buck melted a little at that.

"Still. I want him and... What's his name again... Dominique, to like me."

"And I'm sure they will. Don told me Dominique owns a food truck, maybe you two can trade recipes."

"Wait, he's a chef? I thought you said they worked together? I thought he was SWAT?!"

"He is. The food truck is kind of a hobby I think."

"Great. What kind of food does he serve? What's the name of the truck? Maybe I can find out via google."

"I don't know. Don never mentioned a name." Tommy shrugged. "I've never met the guy either, only seen a picture, so he's probably just as nervous about meeting us as we are about meeting them."

"That's the spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them speech." Buck rolled his eyes. "Only this is about your brother and his... partner." He settled on.

"Maybe. But is it working?"

Buck sighed.

"Maybe." he turned his attention back to the recipe he'd found online. A slightly different version of the classic lasagne Bobby had taught him to make. "Ok we should hurry up because it needs to soak up the flavours in the fridge for a couple of hours before it can go in the oven. And I don’t want them to starve while waiting for dinner."

"Yes, chef!" Tommy said and jokingly saluted him with a wooden spoon. "Put me to work."

Buck narrowed his eyes.

"Have you been watching The Bear without me?"

"Of course not. I would never."

"So if I check... it'll still show the episode where we left off the other day?"

"Hmm"

"Thomas..."

"Fine..." Tommy rolled his eyes. "I was bored when you were on shift ok? There was nothing interesting on. I only watched two episodes!"

"We only had two episodes to go until the end of the season!" Buck said exasperated, pointing a zucchini at him. "But your brother will be here in a couple of hours so we really don't have time to get into this right now... But I'm going to remember this... For later."

"I look forward to it, chef." Tommy teased and stole a quick kiss that quickly turned into more until Buck pushed him away.

"Stop distracting me. You. Onions. Now." he ordered and Tommy grinned and gave him another mock salute.

"Yes, chef!"

"Menace."

"I learnt from the best."

[iesnoth]

I made the choice to go from a smartphone to a "dumbphone": one that essentially only does calls and texts.

The transition hasn't been as immediate as I thought, as I didn't realize how much I relied on my phone, from Spotify to car insurance. It'll probably take a couple weeks for me to not boot up the smart phone to access information there.

But I can't do the doom scrolling anymore. I can't lose hours of my day in mindless games and social media. I also realize this change may come with some restlessness, confusion, and withdrawal symptoms, but my hope is, at the end, I'll be better at time management and more at peace in myself.

I don't know if I'll keep this up for the foreseeable future, or just a year or so (until the social media dependency is gone), but I'm excited for the Internet to be a place I visit, not a place I live.

If you want to look into getting a dumbphone, I'd suggest the Dumbphone Finder. That's how I found mine. It allows you to pick and choose which features you want in a phone. I still wanted GPS, and I use Verizon, so ended up with a Nokia 2780.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I wrote a whole thing in response to this. It's not done. But I just want to say I'M SO FUCKING TIRED OF THIS.

I'M SO FUCKING TIRED OF THE ENTIRE LEFT APPROPRIATING JEWISH TERMS, REDEFINING THEM TO MEAN SOMETHING EVIL THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN AGREE ON, AND THEN ATTACKING AND INDIVIDUALLY EXILING JEWS FOR WHAT YOU IMAGINE WE BELIEVE.

And I don't think it's actually the entire left. I think there's a loud, horrifying group that does this, and a larger silent majority that mostly doesn't even see it.

I think that ten years ago, I would quite possibly not have seen any of it. I wouldn't have been in the right circles online to see it. I would've reblogged things that sounded right, and moved on.

I probably would have seen and shared things that defended Jews. Because that's what I did, ten years ago, when I saw them. But it would've been incredibly rare.

And that sucks. Because right now, it feels like everything has been on fire for about a year and a half. And really, everything has been on fire for even longer than that.

I've seen people talk about how nobody was acknowledging the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre as antisemitism, or having marches or vigils around it, except Jews.

I remember several other things during that time where all the non-Jews talking about them, on the left, were being ignorant defensive antisemitic garbage.

I only recently learned, by looking at the FBI hate crimes stats, that Jews in the US have experienced the second-largest number of hate crimes almost every single year since the FBI started tracking them.

(Second only to Black people, yes. Usually gay men are third. Idk if anyone's ever tried to analyze what percentage of each community the hate crime stats represent.)

Nobody talks about that.

But plenty of people talk about how Jews weaponize claims of antisemitism. Apparently this is the only marginalized group you're allowed to say that about? At least, I haven't been able to think of others.

Plenty of people claim the ADL is weaponizing claims of antisemitism to make pro-Palestinians look bad. (An argument that really only works as long as you ignore the FBI's nearly forty years of data.)

I don't expect people to be able to jump in and defend Jews or call out antisemitism. It is, frankly, a lot to learn. And it's stuff that gets so silenced and erased, people often have to start from scratch.

But my tired cranky ass is BEGGING YOU. PLEASE, if you care about this shit, reblog this, and hit the jumblr tag and find some Jews to follow. Just go find some people to listen to and learn from.

Because it's just gonna get worse. Trump is going to actively make things worse from both ends. He's anti-Jewish as fuck. He literally keeps a book of Hitler's speeches in his nightstand. (Not that it's helped him any with his own oratorical efforts; holy shit.)

He is also anti-Muslim as fuck, and today he apparently said he wanted to take over Gaza.

What's gonna happen is that the left is going to continue decoupling "Nazi" from "hates Jews." Continue not listening to Jews or learning to identify and unpack antisemitism. And it'll be just as happy as ever to say "punch Nazis."

But it already has a jumpstart on "Israelis and 'Zionists' are Nazis." And on "Israelis and 'Zionists' shouldn't be allowed to teach, or perform publicly, or possibly hold jobs."

Every single thing the far right does to attack "pro-Palestinians" is going to be awful, and is going to be used to imply that they support Jews -- which, in turn, will make Jews seem sus.

When white supremacists and literal Nazis attack Jews, the left will continue to pretend it's not happening.

Basically, Trump will be emboldening anti-Jewish sentiment and acts on both the left and the right.

And now that I think about it, maybe that's part of what happened his first term too.

Again: my tired cranky ass is BEGGING YOU. PLEASE, if you care about this shit, reblog this, and hit the jumblr tag and find some Jews to follow. Just go find some people to listen to and learn from. (You can follow me, if you don't already. It's just that I mostly write infodumps 😇)

If you want a quick read that's a real masterclass and gut-punch on this topic, read People Love Dead Jews, by Dara Horn. You can get it used! New! In podcast form! At the library! At your library as an ebook or audio book! Read a review! Read an excerpt!

This tiny bit is absolutely wrecking me:

Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house. Other people look at you and can only see the dead.

Here's an interview about how she ended up writing the book that has some absolutely amazing examples. Even with her interview, it's hard not to quote things she says:

We have had this idea when we teach people not to be bigoted, that like the way to teach them that is to say, like, see this fill-in-the-blank group over here, like you shouldn't be mean to those people because they're just like you and me, they're just like everybody else.

And it's like, well, the problem with that, especially in the Jewish case, is that Jews spent 3,000 years not being like everybody else.

Everyone, but especially Jews, please add your own suggestions in the reblogs, replies, or tags.

Someone messaged my drag collective with a complaint about my "Zionist leanings" and asked me to be thrown out of the collective. I thought my co runner would back me up bc he owes me for an entirely separate thing, and I've been doing most of the work between us recently. Nope, threw me straight under the bus.

.

[shigarosie]

I gotta get smth out real quick feel free to ignore

I'm really stuck between staying with the non-conventional job that I love and am comfortable with and looking for a more conventional job with benefits that I probably won't like as much. This is the only type of job I've ever had (I've worked for several different people/groups doing the same kind of work) but at the rate things are currently going I'm struggling to see how I'll be able to continue working this job and also be able to support myself financially as things in the next couple years change and shift.

[sophsicle]

this chapter is so hard to write because of all of the people. and it reminds me why i kill off characters. like goddamn this would be easier if some of you were dead.

[gayofthefae]

I said it a lot more deep and moody here but in short and a much lighter tone:

Will is THAT BITCH. Be like Will. Be the boy who has boys he didn't even date never being able to look at their girlfriends the same way after you because you ruined love for them forever by being the best they'll ever achieve and can never have again or recreate with anyone else. Go off. Be like Will.

[i3utterflyeffect]

What if stick!Alan gains powers at some point? He’s fidgeting with a random item and accidentally resizes it somehow, and he just silently stares at it wondering how that just happened and what it means

god that'd be funny. SC is so excited because HOLY FUCK THAT'S SO COOL!!!!! and alan is just unsure if he should be worried about this ability or not. i think it'd be fun if he could do similar things to what agent does with his array of tools as well. plus like. that'd be hella interesting when vic comes around

[fivie]

just wrote out a new outline for the rest of UMW and I was kind of like. Oh! This actually looks. kinda doable 👀

[raifuujin]

It's been more than 20 years and for some reason I feel that Gosho hasn't given Kaiao any development, how can more than 20 years pass and Aoko dynamics, relationship and feelings remain the same? At this point I feel like Gosho is just going to make them date because "they already liked each other" they remain in the same status quo

Hey, if we go by DC romance progress, they've been going too fast. We've already had suspicion of identity chapters, and that didn't happen until more than 400 chapters in DC. /j

Since heists have taken over any character development recently, I don't even know if Kaito and Aoko will even get any romantic progress. Maybe the actual identity confrontation will happen down the line, since that's thief drama, but atm, it really wouldn't surprise me if they only ask each other on a real date at the very end of the manga.

Like. I'm sure Gosho would love to make MK a love drama as well, but he writes MK so rarely, and usually as hype for something Kid related in other media. So the MK stories tend to be heavy on drama that can only take place at Kid heists. (To the point that the new chapters just. Use Kid as the plot device to show off a new character. Even Hakuba's never gotten so much 'look at this character being a detective' treatment in MK.)

-sighs- I just feel bad for MK as a series at this point. I like the characters, I like the general story idea, but. It's been going down a very steep hill with Gosho wanting things exciting, but not wanting any real progress in. Anything. But unlike old MK, the new stories aren't even nice standalone setpieces of story, they're... mundane. They could be high stakes, if you purely look at the scenarios on paper, but. We all know nothing's gonna happen to Kid. Nothing even happens to him when the actual bad guys show up, much less one-time antagonists.

We need actual character focus and development, not heist drama. Badly. Not even romance, though that'd be a nice change. Just any character expansion of our limited cast of characters. Gosho wants big, all the time, meaningless big stuff, when small would be so nice.

[choking-on-roses]

Colleague called me a Luddite today because I wrote the abstract for a book chapter submission by hand without using ChatGPT

[syndrossi]

Hello, I just wanted to ask when you’ll update episode 2 of Ghost. Thank you so much!❤️

Oh, gosh. I'm planning to do a winter prompt-a-thon at some point, similar to the one for Halloween, and since it's a snowy ficlet, that's probably the ideal time for it. Feel free to add a prompt for part 2 when I eventually call for prompts!

[nanihirunkits]

hello !! i'm so sorry if this question is annoying but i couldnt find any info on it so i thought i would ask ?! when is the heart killers coming out 🫣

hi!! we unfortunately don't know yet however jojo did tweet the other day that they've started editing the show and that we'll get to see it soon

@airenyah and i have been speculating about the release date and we landed on october 26th (or maybe november 2nd onward) based on future open slots and the show just giving a saturday slot vibe 🫣

[technikki]

having an overprotective and somewhat paranoid mom can be funny but sometimes i feel like my brain is determined to make her think i never take a single thing she says seriously. i talked about how sometime in the future i'd like to travel around latin america to better connect with our culture since we live in the us and of course she wasn't thrilled with the idea of me traveling across continents but i almost immediately stopped listening to her because she mentioned brazil's high murder rate and "BRASIL NUMERO 1 CAMPEÃO PENTA 🇧🇷☝🏻☝🏻🏆" started blaring really loudly in my head