#blah blah 'when' and optimism

[malimaywrite]

i love my story. i genuinely do so, so much, but MAN am i tired of reading it over and over and over and over lmao

[fiyr-cap]

updating my characters’ designs and working out the little details, particularly for Kendra.

[victoriaplaysims]

i gave the goths the makeover they deserve

i think i'll always see the goths as i did in ts2 (except mortimer is younger and bella is yk, not kidnapped). i did my best to represent them that way. this includes giving them all new traits, interests, likes and dislikes, jobs, skills - everything.

by: @victoriaplaysims

cc links and character presentations under the cut

bella goth: growing up, bella constantly daydreamed of glamour, fashion, paparazzi, the biggest stars in del sol valley - and of course herself, being right there in the center of it all. bella loved the years she had spent in the city, surrounding herself with the hottest it girls and heart throbs. she had it all; the perfect life, the perfect clothes, and the perfect top ranked soccer player fiancé - until she found him in bed with his personal assistant, that is. bella left del sol valley that night and never returned. she moved back in with her parents and six months later, she ran into a childhood friend at bella's mom's art gallery, and as they say, the rest is history.

hair, makeup, lashes, dress, skin details: one two three

mortimer goth: coming from a long line of succesful ceos, scientists and world leaders, mortimer had his life planned out since before he was born. there was no choice, no option other than to always do better, do more, change the world of both business and knowledge. all he has ever known is hard work, scientific break throughs and black tie events as a member of the board of the goth institute of science. he often stays late at the lab, working on his special, very classified project. rumour has it he is optimizing and redefining what it means to be a sim today - but is there such a thing as the perfect sim? and is perfection always a good idea?

glasses, pants, skindetails: one

cassandra goth: yes, she has grown up in an old haunted mansion and yes, her dad is a weird science guy, but cassie is more than just a goth. she's the perfect mix of both of her parents - she inherited her mom's charisma and her dad's brain power. cassie refuses to acknowledge her future as a member of the goth board of blah blah and locks herself in her bedroom as soon as mortimer starts talking about the future. for now, cassie just want to be a normal teenager, doing normal teenager stuff, and focus on her book club simstagram. she has the rest of her life to worry about her future.

hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, glasses, sweater, skirt, skin details: one

alexander goth: from an outside perspective, alex might seem too young to be involved in what it means to be a goth -a future leader and all the pressure it brings. but his father has been preparing him for over a year already. "one can never start too soon, when there's much to do" mortimer always says, and then goes on and on about things alex never understands. so he just nods along and tries to keep an attentive smile on his face - but that's only on the outside. on the inside, there's a big, scary monster in his stomach that's trying to eat him alive. alex is lucky to have simon by his side when he starts feeling this way. simon is a boy around alex's age, he says he has lived in the goth mansion for a very, very, very long time and he can walk through the walls. alex, however, can not.

hair, eyelashes

thank you to all the cc creators: @simstrouble @oshinsimblr @miikocc @kijiko-sims @sentate @tamo-sim @wildlyminiaturesandwich @lamatisse @imvikai @twisted-cat @johnnysimmer

[nerves-nebula]

Fuck it, we ball.

—

Leo groaned as he kicked off his blankets, his whole body felt gross and nasty as the summer heat made the farmhouse feel like a sauna. Donnie was still working on fixing the A/C, but he kept mumbling about not having pieces he needed to get it “optimal”.

Leo refused to complain about the heat to her brothers, though. She took the room with the worst air conditioning so they wouldn’t have to. It had a window that practically worked like a death ray when the sun was high in the sky, cooking her in her shell.

“Try to think of the positives.” She rubbed her face, “I’m probably getting a nice tan from this.”

She practically jumped out of her shell when a loud banging came to her door, Mikey and Raph’s voices behind the knocks, calling her name in their “we’re trying to be obnoxious on purpose” voices. He groaned and pulled himself from bed to throw the door open, glaring at the boys standing on the other side.

“What?” She snapped, trying to put on an air of being annoyed. In reality, she could already feel her brother’s excitement radiating off them and infecting her own mood.

“It’s too damn hot.” Raph said, “So we’re gonna have a picnic down by the lake and go swimming.”

Donnie nodded excitedly, “We haven’t had a good soak in real water in ages. It’s good for our health.”

“Donnie says baths don’t count as real soaks because of micro-blah blah blah.” Mikey mimed Donnie’s talking with his hand, sticking out his tongue, “I say: Cannonball contest. Biggest splash gets first pick at the picnic basket.”

“Bet.” Leo grinned, “I’m getting antsy anyways.”

The other three all yelled in excitement, hurrying off to get ready for the excursion now that they knew Leo was coming.

-

Donnie was the first one in the water. It made sense, he was the most aquatic of them all, and he’d been sick plenty of times from drying out when they were kids. They had barely even set up the picnic blanket before they heard the thunk of Donnie dropping his shell cover and running for the water. He dove in like the natural swimmer he was, resurfacing moments later with a laugh.

“It’s cold!” He shouted, “It’s almost 90 degrees outside, why is the water cold?”

“How should I know, genius?” Raph yelled back, “You’re the smart guy here!”

Donnie just dove back down, the only hint of him visible from the surface being the bright purple shorts he wore.

“What a dork.” Leo grinned, “He’s gonna get a sunburn and complain all day tomorrow.”

Mikey and Raph just laughed, Raph grabbing the sunblock to start smearing over himself. They formed a circle, each getting the others’ backs and shells for them. Leo purposefully poked his fingers just a little too hard into Mikey’s sides, laughing when Mikey yelped at what he thought was an attempted tickle.

“You watch your hands, Leonardo.” Mikey glared.

“Why, Mikey, whatever do you mean?” Leo placed a hand to his chest, feigning innocence, “I’ve never done anything wrong in my life.”

Raph laughed this time, reaching over to shove Leo, just hard enough to knock him over into the grass, “That is the biggest fuckin’ lie.”

“I’m an innocent angel!”

“You’re full of shit is what you are!”

Mikey squealed as Leo pounced on Raph, the pair scuffling through the overgrown weeds, staining their clothes as they tussled. They yelled names at each other, but unlike years before their tones held no real heat. Mikey watched as they pushed and shoved at each other, happily deciding not to tell them that they were very quickly rolling towards the lake.

Leo’s last insult was cut off suddenly by a loud shout as Raph tumbled into the water, surprised both by the feeling and how Donnie had been right- it was fucking cold!

“What’s wrong, Raphie?” Leo teased, “Can’t handle a little water?”

Mikey took that moment to bolt, heading directly for where Raph and Leo had landed, hopping at the last possible second to leap over them and splash into the lake, subsequently drenching his brothers with the lake’s water. Leo and Raph both shouted loud enough for hun to hear beneath the surface and he was quick to escape before he faced their combined wrath, diving down towards where he could see Donnie, who had surfaced near the center of the lake to float and stare at the clouds.

“I’m causing problems on purpose.” He told Donnie, who just rolled his eyes.

“You’re a menace, Michelangelo. Forget the fact that we’re mutants and obviously inhuman, your actions are the reason we can’t join proper society.” He reached over and lightly bapped Mikey on the head, “You’d probably become a criminal.”

“My goal in life is to be an episode of a true crime podcast.” Mikey giggled, kicking up onto his back so he could float next to Donnie. They relaxed, enjoying a moment of comfortable semi-silence (seeing as Leo and Raph were still wrestling on the shore), taking in the wonderful feeling of the lake’s gentle waves against their skin.

“Did you ever think we’d get here?” Mikey asked, uncharacteristically quiet, almost like he was afraid to ask it.

“No.” Donnie’s answer was easy, “But I’m glad we did.”

——

I figured we’ve had a long streak of sad and angery lately, I wanted to show the light at the end of the tunnel.

-Monster Anon

STOPPPPPP THAT'S SOOO SWEEET AUGHHCKAGHAG. raph and leo play fighting instead of REAL fighting,,, gaougahh, the way they would have to get wAAAYY more comfortable with each other to even get to that point cause they'd associate each other with violence and pain for the longest time,,aggajfjmga... stoppppppppaghgosjfmgan.

[samueldays]

The widespread human barrenness of otherwise-prosperous countries is one of the weirdest things about this age to me.

Via Gapminder - the color coding is Europe yellow, Asia+Oceania pink, Africa blue, Americas green. Caveats about data sources, blah blah, I note that the correlation holds even if you take out the African data points.

Between 32k and 64k there's two pink dots which superficially look like cause for optimism, and I want to note what outlier countries they both are:

The sheer amount of non-policy circumstances surrounding both these countries makes it unlikely that one can draw policy lessons from either one.

Part of what makes this whole phenomenon so weird to me is the degree to which it resists explanation by common approaches.

Hypothetical Leftist: "GDP per capita is a shit measure, the rich are hoarding all the money and everyone else is too poor to afford raising children, we should redistribute more and have more parental leave!"

But this is wrong, because the poorest half of Americans are having more babies than the richest half, while Norway has four times the parental leave of America but a lower TFR.

Hypothetical Rightist: "The West is undergoing moral decay, women are slutting it up on OnlyFans and men are watching porn instead of getting married, muh based [insert reactionary country here]!"

But that is also wrong, because based reactionary country such as Russia has a TFR of only 1.51, and that wealthy pink dot with the lowest fertility in the whole chart is not exactly West, it's South Korea at TFR 0.87 -- and falling. With caveats about different ways of estimating TFR, other reports have SK dropping another 0.06 from 2022 to 2023 AD.

It isn't physiological, the rich countries have great medical treatments for that. It isn't personal, there have always been lots of individuals who didn't reproduce. It isn't economic, child subsidies and tax breaks and various monetary incentives have been tried with minimal effect.

This feels to me like a poorly-explained and under-appreciated mystery. It's apparently something social and/or structural. Nobody seems to have a good idea of how to stop it or why it happens.

The fact that it happens is undisputed, The Demographic Transition is well known, but that's just a label and the attempts at explaining its causes seem oddly lacking. I can look up a specialist paper studying the Causes and Consequences of the demographic transition and it's one line of causes ("decreasing mortality") and four pages of consequences, I look up a common public explanation and Wikipedia suggests everything but the kitchen sink:

 birth rates fall due to various fertility factors such as access to contraception, increases in wages, urbanization, a reduction in subsistence agriculture, an increase in the status and education of women, a reduction in the value of children's work, an increase in parental investment in the education of children and other social changes.

This does not sound like an explanation of causes to me, it sounds like speculatively listing stuff that happened at the time.

And as with the hypothetical partisans above, there's a mostly-counterexample: Japan.

I'd ignore the pre-1860 data because it looks to be two estimates and a connective line. Still, Japan had "various fertility factors such as access to contraception, increases in wages, urbanization", etc. in 1900, and fertility stayed high, until after losing WW2 when TFR collapsed in short order.

Short, not immediate, because 1947 has higher TFR than 1946. One might suspect that the new American-written Constitution of Japan coming into effect in 1947 had something to do with it.

Perhaps I should spell out the assumption that the fertility crisis is a problem.

It is a threat of cultures and nations ceasing to exist if they can't reproduce, it is a threat of economies collapsing for lack of specialist labor and specialist products, it is a threat of pensions being unfunded and old people starving and freezing to death because their retirement plan was based on certain assumptions about the population pyramid. "I can move to another country" isn't reliable in the long term if the other country either has the same problem and will cease to exist as such or if the other country isn't accepting of you and your mindset, "We'll import immigrants" is both politically contentious and of dubious effectiveness because if the migrants do assimilate then they'll also have low fertility and if they don't assimilate then you lose your culture anyway, the place you live is now a colony.

For South Korea in particular, the bleeding edge of the fertility crisis, at this rate the Korean peninsula will be reunited by means of "North Korea walks over unmanned border" - if South Korea manages to level off TFR at 0.87 and not fall any further (already falling, see above), its population will drop by 80% by the end of the century.

If you're reading this on Tumblr, imagine 80% of the media you like not existing, because the people who would have made it were never born. You get two of your top 10 shows (not the best two), and then delete 80% of the good fanfiction about those as well. The rest is slush pile and reruns.

With tongue firmly in cheek: Maybe our future is bimbos - people who really love sex (specifically PIV sex) and are too dumb to use contraception and have too little self-control to keep their legs closed, because that's what evolution will select for.

The problem will, in a sense, eventually resolve itself. The future belongs to those who show up, bimbos or someone else, whoever manages to keep a high birthrate and a high food supply. But it's hard to say who that will be, or what complications there will be on the way towards a blind evolutionary resolution.

Technophiles like to imagine exowombs or cloning will soon be good enough for mass production and replace "birthrate" with humans-production-rate, but I don't see that happening any time soon because progress is slow (Dolly was 30 years ago and still hasn't gotten widespread adoption even for sheep), and I don't see that happening any time later either because the technophiles are most subject to South Koreafication and there will be none of them left to run the cloning tanks.

Across from them we have various Africanists who like to point to countries like Nigeria with its TFR of 5, but that's going to run into food supply problems because Nigeria already imports a hundred million dollars' worth of food from the US every year, and another hundred million dollars' worth of food from Germany, and over a billion dollars in all. In addition to growing the food there's the difficulty of running international logistics from Germany (TFR 1.58) which in the long run might not have the people to operate all that. High-tech mechanized agriculture concentrates the stress on the smartest and best-educated section of the population to make and fix the machines, and that's the section with the lowest fertility!

Things are weird and they're going to get weirder.

[hellsbellschime]

Are you implying that those who write the article know that this is all slander and still release a hoax to defame Sophie? Why not write the truth, why continue the slanderous campaign against a young woman, the mother of two kids? Sophie is so wonderful, she doesn't deserve all of this

LOL I'm sorry but are you familiar with TMZ in the slightest? They are the sleaziest tabloid outlet out there and they will write whatever a celebrity tells them to write and that they are legally allowed to. TMZ was actually created by a lawyer named Harvey Levin, and the thing is that they will spin the shittiest, falsest narratives imaginable, but they DON'T slander anyone, like they will LITERALLY go right up to the line of what they can legally say without defaming someone but they leave just enough leeway to escape any liability for writing something that is undeniably false.

So while I'm not an expert, I have some extra insight into this because of my job, and a lot of TMZ's tactics are incredibly transparent and it's not hard to figure out what's going on and who they're serving. Because again, they are the scummiest, lowest of the low in tabloid journalism, so if they are the ones who broke a story then, unless they broke that story because they literally found court documents filed by a celebrity (which they actually do fairly often), that story is coming from someone directly involved in said story. In this instance, it is comically obvious that they're being fed info directly from Joe Jonas and/or his PR.

And because TMZ is so sleazy, if you ever see someone who is actually famous who appears to be feeding info and trying to spin their own narrative via TMZ, then that is because they know that TMZ will put whatever spin that they want on the story in order to get the exclusive. Like in this situation, they have "sources" saying that Sophie is a partier and a negligent mother and blah blah blah, and they can say that because TECHNICALLY that is true, they are being directly told this by someone on Team Jonas, but because they can deflect onto their "source" they can print whatever they want and it's not considered slander even though they did nothing to verify what they're being told.

TMZ will also game search engine optimization to favor the celebrity that is spilling the tea, which is why you'll see them suddenly churn out a dozen articles about the same topic with the same spin, because having a bunch of content on a topic will make search engines categorize them as more of an authority on that topic, ergo their content will be pushed towards the top of the pile.

Beyond that, they (and a lot of other tabloids do this, but TMZ is the worst because again they'll just print whatever wild shit they're told with no regard for whether or not it's true) break a story and include a source because once other outlets start reporting on the story, they will refer to TMZ and repeat what the source has said. It's actually an incredibly quick and easy way to craft a narrative, because essentially if the other sites who are covering the story don't include what these "sources" have said then it will make their coverage seem less credible. So, in a matter of hours, there are 20+ articles that include at least something referring to Sophie Turner being a party girl who abandoned her kids, and to people who don't understand how this all works it makes those allegations seem credible because EVERYONE is reporting on it. However, EVERYONE is saying this in reference to one single source, and that source is probably just someone acting on Joe Jonas' behalf and saying something that they know is a lie but that can be spun into a story and dominate the narrative.

Lucky for Sophie, there isn't a lot to actually back this narrative up, but again, tabloids will run a lot of bullshit stories if they think they can get some traction off of it, and TMZ is unequivocally the worst of the worst when it comes to spewing absolute bullshit so they can get a scoop and get more inside info from a celebrity. They also know how to game the fuck out of SEO and how to craft articles in a way that lowkey forces every other outlet that reports on it to refer back to them. So as an incredibly tl;dr answer to your question, they aren't reporting the truth because they have an in with Joe Jonas specifically because they're willing to lie on his behalf, and that is far more valuable to them than actually writing the truth.

[aerodaltonimperial]

Hook/Jack/Darby prompt: only one bed

(I KNEW YOU WOULD COME THROUGH 💚🧡⚰️)

"Oh my god, it's so fucking hot in this room."

"Jesus, Hook, just turn the damn thermostat down. Did you know you can control that? Amazing how they offer little boxes on the wall for—ow!"

"Not sorry. I meant to get the pillow zipper in your eye."

"Guys, stop. Look, Hook, just get up and turn the temperature lower. This bed isn't really very big, and we're just gonna have to get snuggly."

"Snuggly?"

"Don't even pretend like you don't fucking love it, Darby, you absolute sap."

"Whatever. Jack, your elbow is in my spleen."

"You do not know where the spleen is."

"Sure, I do. It's right there where your pointy-ass elbow is digging into my side."

"Fine, I turned it down, but seriously, it's so fucking hot. Jack, why do you run at like a million degrees all the time?"

"Probably because I'm so sexy."

"Hah. Good one."

"You know, you're very rude, and I will push you off this bed without a second thought."

"If you do, could you scooch over a bit, cause you are taking up way too much room."

"He's got two pillows, too."

"Jack, what the fuck."

"I need the pillows! I need to feel cradled and supported when I sleep."

"Oh my god, shut up."

"No, that was one of those wiggly eyebrow comments he expects us to pay attention to."

"Well, to be fair, I kind of expect you to pay attention to all my comments, Hook."

"Jesus. Fine, fine; c'mere."

"Thank god, you got his elbow out of my side."

"Well you're supposed to move over, too, what—no, this way. Why are you like this, Darby, I swear."

"But you're so fucking hot. Are you on fire, how."

"Just—what are you doing? Why are you getting up?"

"I'm taking my pants off, Christ. I'm going to spontaneously combust here."

"That'd be kind of neat to watch."

"Hook, I will shave all your hair off when you sleep."

"Blah blah, you big talker. Hurry up, he's all squirmy."

"Ugh. Okay. This cannot be the optimal way to do this."

"Is there an optimal way to do this? Plus, c'mon, we can't even figure out how to take selfies right. It's gonna take us years to get this configuration settled."

"Years, huh."

"You plannin' on going somewhere else, Darbs?"

".... not really."

"Sap."

"Fuck off, Hook."

"Stop. Seriously. Okay, let's just—good lord, you don't—ow, don't kick me."

"Fuckin' hell."

"Okay, okay. I think we're good."

"Yeah, we are."

"Now shut up and go to sleep."

"Yes, mom."

"That's a horrible mental image, thanks."

"Heh."

"Mm... hey, did someone set an alarm? The free breakfast ends at 9:30."

"... I can't reach my phone."

"Well I can't reach mine, I'm in the middle!"

"You demanded to be in the middle."

"Not the point, Hook. Grab your phone. I don't want to miss breakfast."

"Yeah, you get pissy when you don't eat."

"I have to get up to reach my phone."

"Oh my god, this is the worst."

"Okay, okay, we'll just wake up. Somehow."

"Yeah, cause we're so good at that."

"Whatever. I'm tired. Can we please go to sleep?"

"You're hogging the pillows."

"It's cause he's got two."

"Jack!"

"Why are we so bad at this, seriously."

[junk-culture]

on the one hand i'm like oh whatever it'll be fun life's too short let's all pay for an old man's divorce and have a good time. if divorce-fueled brotherly reconcilement/nostalgia bait in a sea of 50,000 40 yr old blokes is my only way to see oasis live then what the hell. cringe but free hashtag celestial biblical etc. but on the other hand it's like. thinking about definitely maybe and how the rawness and punkiness and working class optimism and youthful swagger and energy and blah blah of it all is partly what got me into oasis in the first place and the concept of 2 rich guys in their 50s trying to recreate that is a bit sad. i can't be bothered to find the quote but something something the jam were our beatles and thank god they'll never be our rolling stones. etc. but at the same time i am still just like well it'll be fun. maybe they do genuinely like each other now maybe it's fine to not let go of the past maybe it'll be really jolly. i don't know. im a chronic fence sitter. a lover and a hater. and all this will be irrelevant anyway when i discover on saturday morning that tickets cost £500 or something and therefore there's no way in hell im going. etc

[1016anon]

On Bridgerton's Queen Charlotte & Mental Illness

I've only watched the first three episodes of Queen Charlotte and I have not read any reviews about the series. I didn't plan on writing this, but apparently I have Thoughts and mental illness is something which has always been important to me.

Spoilers under the cut.

Trigger warnings: Discussion of suicide, depression, substance abuse. Mention of post-natal depression, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder.

The problem is: love is not enough.

At the end of the third episode, Charlotte manages to convince George to stop yelling at the sky and come inside.

Why is she able to do this?

Because she loves him.

Reynolds, who's known George much longer and therefore has likely seen and learned the ins and outs of George's episodes stands uselessly to the side with a blanket, but Charlotte, thanks to her Great Love for George, is able to draw his attention away from Venus and get him inside.

Perhaps I will be proven wrong when I watch the fourth episode next weekend, but I know how this story usually goes: She gets him warm, gets him safe, surrounds him with tender loving care and understanding so that when his episode is over, he may not believe he is deserving of love, but he will know that he is loved.

Love will give Charlotte the strength to stay with him and have fifteen children. Love is patient, love is kind, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13.

It's a common trope, well worn, familiar as that fucking bible verse. The trope is not only used in a romantic context. It speaks to the great love parents have for their children, or the Power of Friendship, or whatever kind of love it is you're looking to validate. It's got enough verisimilitude to be persuasive and enough optimism to be seductive.

And it's wrong.

Not only is it wrong, it's actively harmful. Because the corollary to this idea is that when love fails to heal, it is because the loving person did not love enough, or the person who is ill did not love them back enough.

Love is not enough, it has never been enough, and it will never fucking be enough. I hate this trope and I bristle every time I hear it in songs, see it in movies and tv, or read it in stories.

If love were enough, people would never commit suicide. They wouldn't become addicted to drugs; they wouldn't become alcoholics. They would be able to snap out of their manic depressive episodes; they would always be able to distinguish between what is real and what is not; they would be healed of PTSD; they would not obsess over routines. They wouldn't have eating disorders; they would stop exploding into rage; they would never be depressed.

If love were enough, the people who love individuals with mental illness would not feel helpless, frustrated, angry, desperate-- because their love would be enough to fix it all. Their love would be enough to convince their suicidal partner to stay. A child's love would convince their alcoholic parent to quit. A parent's love would be better than lithium.

To reduce the treatment of mental illness to love is to reduce the failure of that treatment to love, and as a result place the blame on the people who are supposed to love.

Mental illness is chemical. It is biological. It is because of neural pathways and neurotransmitters. It is a result of the strange coping mechanisms the human brain has developed over the thousands of years of evolution. I'm not denying that there is an enormous environmental factor.

However, I do not believe that anyone gets cancer because they are not loved enough, and I do not expect anyone to be cured of cancer by the power of love.

The human brain is an organ. Sure, we can dress it up with fancy terms about it being the seat of intelligence, wax philosophical about the soul or spirit, houses the essence of humanity, blah blah blah, whatever. It is first and foremost an organ and like any other organ, it can and does fail.

Mental illness is a lot of things, and only recently recognized as Real thing. Prozac was approved by the FDA in 1987 and while antidepressants are now widely recognized as helpful, that was definitely not the case even twenty years ago. Today, there's still a very real stigma associated with its use that makes people hesitate to actively consider it an avenue of treatment.

"Well, what did you expect from a spinoff of Bridgerton?"

I don't expect anything. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to criticize it or point out things which are harmful. It's a really popular series. Number 1 on Netflix or whatever.

What I want to do is write this for myself, and for anyone else out there who is either asking themselves now, or will ask themselves someday, why love has not healed everything like it ought to have done.

Because I've heard it time and again from people left behind after a loved one commits suicide: Why wasn't I enough to make them want to stay? Didn't they know I loved them? (Why didn't they love me enough to keep living?)

Loved ones dealing with substance abuse: Why don't they love me enough to quit? Why wasn't I enough to convince them to get help? Where did I go wrong? If they really loved me, they would stop.

And the flip side, during an argument or in a moment of frustration: You don't love me enough to stop! If you loved the baby, you wouldn't be depressed. If you loved your parents, you wouldn't put them through this! If you loved your partner, you would have gotten help.

That's why this trope is destructive.

Mental illness and the treatment of mental illness are not about love.

Sure, love can help. But sometimes it doesn't.

Again, perhaps I will be proven wrong in the subsequent episodes of Queen Charlotte. But for me, the damage has already been done. She tells him that she is Venus. Goddess of love. Venus is going inside, so George needs to follow the love and go inside also. Love is going to lead him home.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

What did you think of Gag Order?

Oh god, I love it.

And, as per usual, when I love something, I write a damn essay about it. The shortest version: this is going to be my album of the year. I think it's Kesha's masterpiece.

It's definitely Kesha's most mature and vulnerable album yet. It reminds me a lot of If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey, in that they both deal with a lot of reflection, confronting their self-loathing, finding faith. But while I think IICHLIWP is ultimately Halsey's story about finding faith in love and in themself, Gag Order is about Kesha seeking answers and surrendering to something else.

It's powerful, nameless - and hard to resist wanting to follow her when she cries out for it. Some might call it "god," but I think that, while she does name-drop some religious figures, she's not really talking about any specific religion or belief system.

But I also think this album is about Kesha struggling with the darker parts of herself. Rainbow and High Road were so much about finding peace and acceptance, forgiveness and redemption. Even when she explored darker topics or her trauma, it was couched in this (probably necessary) optimism and positivity that acted as a wall between the painful truth and our perception of her. Maybe even her perception of herself.

I don't think she was willing or ready, for whatever reason, to fully leave the "Tik Tok"/"Die Young"/"Blow" party-queen of the early 2010s behind. Both Rainbow and High Road have had multiple party anthems on them, even if they were more grown up and less focused on youthful recklessness than the songs on Animal and Cannibal.

But the closest thing Gag Order has to a party/dance anthem, the kind Kesha is most known for, is "Only Love Can Save Us Now." And while it starts with a really aggressive, thumping (fun!) beat and the verses feature that iconic Kesha kinda-rap (her words, not mine,) the chorus bursts out in this incredible, gospel-esque belting chant of Kesha begging god to save her. And the music shifts from a dance/club beat to an acoustic guitar and a gospel choir arrangement.

It's so powerful, and while I go nuts to it, it definitely is a far-cry from songs like "Die Young" and "Blah Blah Blah," or even "Woman" and "Tonight."

It's not a song about partying. It's a song about surrender.

The same themes are echoed in songs like "Eat the Acid" and "Something to Believe In." Kesha was reckoning with some dark shit, and she found herself seeking something more. I don't know if she always liked what she found, or enjoyed the process.

As a result, it's also definitely Kesha's saddest album. She's had one or two sad songs on every album ("The Harold Song," "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," "Resentment," "Father Daughter Dance," etc) but this record has at least four, depending on how you interpret them.

"Too Far Gone," "The Drama," "Living in My Head," "Fine Line," and "All I Need Is You" are all pretty sad, definitely more slow-tempo and ballad-y. And "The Drama" is the only one that ends with any sort of tongue-in-cheek humor.

That protective armor, the silly party-queen persona, is almost non-existent on this album. And as a result, this is Kesha's best work yet.

And I love party-queen Kesha, don't get me wrong!! I've loved Kesha since the beginning, I never had a moment where I didn't. I talk a lot about Halsey being the artist that changed pop music for me, but Kesha came before. There's no world where I listen to Halsey without Kesha. (God, y'all, I think I'm realizing how much she means to me writing this, lmao.)

The hopeful songs are definitely there, like "Hate Me Harder," "Happy," and "Peace and Quiet." But even those have a melancholy to them.

Sonically it's also really different. Not just the instrumentation, although that's a big part of it. It's more trance-y, industrial, kind of psychedelic, and the vocals involve more chanting and repetition. She's also using her voice in a really cool way, often more like an instrument than just a way to convey the lyrics.

The vocalizations in "Peace & Quiet" and "Living in My Head" are really novel, and I've never really heard her sing like that before. She started out singing as a yodeler, and I think people always underestimate her voice. It's stronger and more interesting than ever on this record.

I also really liked how she used the repetition of "you don't wanna be changed like it changed me" as a rhythm element in "Eat the Acid."

This album is definitely a departure from anything she's ever done, and I think it's going to have a mixed reception as a result. "Only Love Can Save Us Now," the closest thing to a party song, is already quickly becoming the most popular one on the album. A lot of them haven't even cracked 1mill plays on Spotify yet. (I'll get them there by myself dammit.)

But, if you ask me, it's a no-skip album. I think Kesha's first.

This is so long, and although I could absolutely keep going, I'll stop now. But I'll go deeper into my album ranking/what I think of each song if anyone asks, haha.

But yeah. Go listen to Gag Order. Unless you don't wanna be changed like it changed me.

[winter-dayz]

Freedom or the Kindness of Death

Pairing: Lee Hoseok x Reader Hybrid AU; Shapeshifter AU Genre: Horror Words: 1142 Warnings: gore; murder; strong language; torture; violence

Masterlist | Fictober Masterpost

Taglist:  @soobin-chois

“Let me go!” She thrashed around in the tube-like compartment, arms and legs suspended by thick, sterile ropes, and her entire body surrounded by thick glass. She stared down the abnormally muscular lab-coat in front of her cage with abhor.

🎃

The lab-coats on the other side continued to ignore her, writing down whatever shit they thought they figured out about her species. Occasionally they’d press a button or flip a switch, trying to elicit a reaction out of her in some fashion.

If they failed, they would grimace or glare before hastily scratching something off their stupid laundry list of torture. If they succeeded, the greasy lab-coat that was manning the switches would smirk arrogantly as the bug-eyed lab-coat would write paragraphs of evidence, data, hypotheses. Blah blah blah.

She never thought torture would be so boring. But perhaps she should be grateful. Thankful that she wasn't being torn apart and pieced back together. Sliced and diced only to be sewn up, “good as new”, like she’d watched some of her fellow hostages be.

She’d watched several be mutilated, starved, dehydrated, drained, and plain murdered. All in the name of “science” as those white coat freaks claimed. As if hybrids were some kind of laboratory toy for them to use and play with as they pleased until they’re ready to throw the old one out and bring a new one in. 

She knew there was no chance she’d ever see the sun again. Bound to her tube-casket, only to stare at the burning fluorescents day after day. And despite her current, more favorable, form of experimentation—torture—she knew that it’d be her turn soon. 

The lab-coats were growing bored of her reactions. As was she, hardly having energy to react even when the doo-dads they messed with should have actually elicited one. So, it was coming, and she could only wonder what fate she’d be privy to.

Would she be sawed in half and inspected like a bug or cut up and dissected like a cadaver? Would she be subjected to extreme conditions like the ones she saw shriveled up from hunger and wilt away from lack of water? Or would they dispose of her, a simple murder, like the trash they believed her to be?

Oddly enough, those thoughts were the only thing getting her through her days. Long gone was the optimism for release. Long gone was the hope for freedom. Now, she only prayed for the kindness of death.

🎃

As she continued to squirm as best she could, the lab-coat on the other side only stared at her blankly. Behind him, anarchy ensued. Somehow, the hybrids had managed to overtake the facility. She heard as glass and windows were shattered and screams echoed through the halls from both predator and prey alike.

Her room had already been ransacked by both sides. The lab workers had rounded together any important information they could before hightailing it out. Then, several incoherent hybrids rampaged through the room.

She had watched on with confusion at first, but things started making sense after the door was left open for her to witness the sounds and sights of an uprising.

The man on the outside stared, unblinkingly, at her. His head tilted to the side for a moment as he observed her features—both human and hybrid. Something was different about him. He wasn’t like the usual lab-coats, but with her senses still obstructed by her prison, she couldn’t tell what exactly was different.

He walked over to the control panel and the woman tensed on instinct. Maybe he was the executioner of the facility, and he had been ordered to kill her before she could escape. It’d make sense based on his physique.

He stared down at the knobs, switches, and buttons until eventually his hand reached out, morphed into a claw, and slashed across the entire panel before shifting back to a human hand.

Her limbs were released, but at the same time, the inside of her tube was jolted with an all too familiar barrage of electricity. The zaps continuously bit at her skin and the man looked on with wide eyes before quickly slicing at another section of the panel.

The door swung open and she quickly hopped out, albeit with weak legs, and made a break for the other side of the room. He only watched in curiosity at her frightened demeanor. His large frame blocked the exit, and he slowly moved closer. He towered over her the closer he got, both because of his height and also because she cowered down lower the less the space between them became.

At this proximity, she could read the badge on his coat. Lee Hoseok. The picture showed a brightly smiling man, and the job position read “reception”. No wonder she’d never seen him down here; he wasn’t a technician, nor was he the executioner she originally assumed. But the face looking down at her did not match the one on the plastic card, and she quickly remembered the distinct difference she could sense in him.

This time, however, it wasn’t the interference of her senses that stopped her from investigating. This time, it was fear. He had moved impossibly closer, planted his hands on either side of her head and loomed above her. On instinct, she grabbed whatever she could nearby–a screwdriver–and jabbed it into his stomach.

He stumbled back, hand gripping at the handle sticking out of his abdomen. Some of his skin flickered between snake scales, animal fur, and then back to his current human form. A shapeshifter.

Some dangerous, some not, but she didn’t stick around to find out. She fled down corridors, using her hybrid senses as best she could to locate other hybrids that were escaping. Her limbs were jelly from being held in suspension for months, and her senses were quickly being overwhelmed from both underuse and the amount of scents in the air.

Blood covered some corridors, occasionally a mangled body in the midst of it. She did her best to escape, knowing if she didn’t she’d either be captured by the lab-coats or the shifter she’d stabbed. Neither were favorable.

Pain bloomed through her ankle as she tripped over something. She suspected it was probably more like someone based on the texture and sound, but she didn’t look back to find out. Large double doors appeared like a dream up ahead and she chanced a moment to catch her breath. Not too long, in fear that the loss of adrenaline would increase her pain, just a moment to allow her to conceptualize the outside world. Her freedom.

Footsteps echoed nearer, and she took off again down the hall. Her hand landed on the bar, pushing her way outside, at the same time as an unknown hand landed on her shoulder, pulling her back.

[fredseibertdotcom]

Next New Networks, Part 2 : “YouTube will be our distributor.”

I’m going to try, in as few posts as possible, to create a coherent timeline of the short, eventful life of Next New Networks, an early, consequential moment in streaming video history. 

From Part 1: There was almost no “professional” quality video on iTunes in November 2005. The result for us? 1 million downloads in the first 30 days! We had some hits! 

Part 2: Early 2006 

Wait! What? iTunes? What about YouTube?! 

Let’s set the scene of online video in late 2005. The consumer internet is still coming into its own. Broadband connections, which will supercharge video consumption, have barely made themselves known. Vimeo is first, but starved by its corporate parent, YouTube is going to be the big thing, but it’s still independent, Google has launched its own (ultimately failed) competitor. No one understands who/what online video is for. 

In our case, we announced Channel Frederator and VOD Cars as “video podcasts” and YouTube was wedding videos and baby’s birthday party. Apple iTunes was the place for podcasts, and Emil and David Karp were the only two people who’d pointed out to me that iTunes had recently been optimized to handle video, not just audio. 

What did it all mean to me? Who the fuck knows? I had no particular plan, neither did Emil. Things just seemed cool, it was fun. I had a loose professional agenda, but it was a cartoon agenda, not particularly an online video strategy. 

That said, as our numbers kept growing, and Steve Jobs used our logo in live presentations for the Video iPod, I said to Emil: 

“You know, if we could launch 100 of these channels with this kind of performance, we could have our own media company!” Emil nodded, and we decided to register www.NextNewNetworks.com in January 2006. What the hey! 

Like a lot of people, I was intrigued with the notion that the internet would allow everyone to watch "television" (video?) everywhere. Emil pushed me along as early as 2001, showing me how internet TV would be better served with a user interface like early AOL, prophetically the same as we now have with so-called "smart TVs."

Well, great! But still, no plan. 

Jed Simmons @Next New Networks 2009

Until Jed Simmons started showing up. 

Jed and I had been partners at Turner Broadcasting, the top two dogs running Hanna-Barbera Cartoons for Ted Turner until he sold his whole company to Time Warner (now WBD). He’d moved to the UK, got involved in venture, moved back to NewYork, I moved back to NY to run MTV’s online business for a minute, quit and opened Frederator/NY in addition to LA’s Frederator Studios. I suggested that he take a desk in our office and we could get into trouble together. The office was an open plan (I didn’t want to spend money to put up walls) so he could hear everything my big mouth spouted. 

There might have been any plan, no strategy, but it sure was exciting. Thousands of views a day, hundreds of submissions of animated shorts –people still hadn’t realized that they could control the internet as well as well could– it was a brave new world. I would tell anyone who would listen how neat it all was. 

Jed would ask me about what I was going to do with it all, I pushed him away. One day, he asked if I’d talked to any VCs. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He patiently explained and told me that a buddy we’d worked with at Turner was a venture capital guy now, Jed would invite him in. Sure. 

Within a few days we were describing how we did what we did and why we thought it could be expanded. He blubbered about how YouTube would beat us, blah blah blah. 

“YouTube is going to be our distributor,” Emil piped in. I had no idea what he was talking about. Distributor, what?! But, experience had already proved to me that Emil was always right about these things, so I blah blah’d about it myself. Our friend was not at all impressed (he rarely was when I had an idea at Turner either), and then he left. So be it. 

Then, a couple weeks later, he was back. But, this time he came with Santo Politi, one of his bosses, a founder and general partner at Spark Capital in Boston. We were at lunch downstairs in the French restaurant (owned by Anthony Bourdain’s partner and the ex-boyfriend of a former MTV colleague) and I went into what had become a 20 minute blah blah. In 10 minutes, Santo interrupted.

“OK, we’re in.” 

What? 

“We’re in. We’ll syndicate an $8 million, A Round.” 

Emil, Jed and I looked at each other. What???

(More next time.) Part 1 here. 

Next New Networks -by Tim Shey by Fred Seibert

[monkeywiki]

HOW TO REFORMAT YOUR RESUME TO MAKE IT EASY FOR RECRUITERS TO SEE IT

Your name, email, contact should be at the top.

Poop Poop | phone number | Email

include 3 REFERENCES of people you trust, teachers, colleagues, even online friends, anyone who would vouch for you, and format.

References 

Blah Blah | College Of Poop and Farts | Lab Tech balhablah@gmail.com 3842348394

Blah Blah | College Of Poop and Farts | Lab Tech balhablah@gmail.com 3842348394

Blah Blah | College Of Poop and Farts | Lab Tech balhablah@gmail.com 3842348394

Education (I recommend putting this next, OR make it the very last thing on your resume.)

Early Graduate Diploma – EebyHS | 2018

Excelled in the Eeby High School Proficiency Exam earning a certificate of diploma prior to most peers in the graduate class.

Experience (notice putting about 2-3 is optimal and fine, if you have none whatsoever, consider volunteer efforts, charity events when you were younger, art clubs you hosted, and consider framing them as Leadership initiatives. Done art commissions? Handling confidential client information and transactions. Pet sitting, helping someone with their homework, babysitting, lawn mowing, anything can be re-framed into buzzword friendly search terms that show you have the diligence and willingness to learn more.)

Job title | Company | Location | Year

Brand Ambassador | Eeby Deeby Programs | Or, Bo | 2019

Utilized PC technology to quickhand troubleshoot technical issues, lead IT support

Camera and photography operations, lead marketing, staging, lighting and merchandising.

IOS maintenance 

POS operation lead, customer & client assurance, tendering sales

TIP: What did this company advocate for? What were your goals and what did your work accomplish? 

Certified Onboarder | Ourga Bourga | Port, Borba | 2018

Coordinates onboarding & training for new hires to successfully transition into their new roles accordingly and within a timely manner.

Communicates effectively to responsibly manage and maintain workflow between the front of house and kitchen.

Leading to ensure customer satisfaction by managing staff’s ticket fulfillment to company standards and to order.

Go to indeed, create a resume and do their skill assessment tests if you want to add more buff to this, however, first you need to look inward. Have you been online your whole life? Welcome to the first step! your next thing on your resume is your :

Skills

(do a wpm test and put your result)

Windows OS & IOS technology

Microsoft technology

Proficient in Word, Excel, Powerpoint 

POS terminals & technology (better way of saying "i was a cashier")

IT support (same thing)

Experience in supervisory, management and training (ever run your own discord? ever recruited for a zine? hosted a re-animated project? No need to say it straight.)

Proficient in marketing, merchandising & staging (AKA: setting up store displays, making sure burgers look Like They're Suppose to, making store aisles clean and products are pulled forward)

(also might help to use indeed, do their resume and their proficiency tests and include those on your resume)

Proficient in OSHA and FDA regulations in food safety control environments (aka i worked foodservice, i have cleaned toilets)

Quality assurance (literally everything ever)

Bonus points if you've worked any place that has access to cleaning products, you can say the following:

Proficient in Ecolab standard protocols.

It's important to consider that recruiters are sifting through hundreds of resumes.

short-term your experience with simple, but BUZZWORD friendly language. Why?

Not only do recruiters want to pick up what you can do Likely within the first few seconds of viewing your application, your application is more likely to be seen by websites like indeed if you use keywords and buzzwords that make your resume relevant to the website's search algorithm.

Sentences are not important. Experience is, and you likely have more than you give yourself credit for. good luck

[wyrmghost]

FANTASY PERIOD DRAMA??? YES PLEASE TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT

okay so that’s for my pair of oldest ocs

Right is Mariette a middle/upper class French woman

left is Pierre a working class individual with the makings of an inventor

The story takes place quite a bit before the French Revolution, but does have some related things going on that lead up to it like the American revolution which is talked about by many of the characters. Pierre is a witch which isn’t uncommon among the working class, a majority of the population are witches to varying degrees. Mariette is a shifter, she can become a rabbit, shifters are believed to be blessed by the gods and carry their traits in familial lines, Mariette specifically is blessed by the goddess of fertility who is often represented by a rabbit in religious iconography .(this fantasy France is still heavily influenced by the church but with a different religion where all the gods are related to a core ideal in their society)

the story revolves around self identity, social classes, heavy classism and social disparities are touched on, religion, optimism despite hard times, and a budding romance that is incredibly confusing for those involved based on a number of factors including the gender identity of both main characters, the social classes they belong to, along with things like responsibilities and family.

Pierre meets Mariette after he sees her fall in a fountain after tripping, no one was helping her since it would be seen as disrespectful and crude for the lower class folk to offer her a hand, Pierre couldn’t care less about that and helps get Mariette out of the fountain with some effort (a soaked 18th century dress is incredibly heavy), she thanked him afterwards and he told her that she should get out of the wet clothing since it was hard to walk in, she wasn’t too keen on this idea but followed him to his work shop where he was an apprentice and allowed him to bring her a dress he claims belonged to his sister, she dresses and leaves, people are a little more than surprised to see her wearing a much less expensive gown but she makes her way home, later on seeing Pierre again and they slowly learn more about each other.

side note:

Mariette feels her responsibility to her family strongly and wants to do her best to make her father happy but struggles with following his ideals and choices while trying to find herself she wants to be a good daughter but also wants to be an independent driving force in her own life. On top of all of this she feels a duty to her religion and one that she can not feel she can fully fulfill in more than one way.

Pierre wants to be an inventor and hopes to bring his family the best life he can afford and legally obtain (blah blah blah laws not allowing peasants to buy nice things and more) hense his apprenticeship, his is hopelessly optimistic and does his best to keep his head held high, he hopes to improve his social standings once he becomes a well known inventor, but he struggles with poverty and due to his kind hearted attitude will throw himself in harms way to try and break up fights or help people that may not have his best interest in mind.

There’s a whole lot of other things like the man who Pierre trains under and Pierre and Mariette’s families especially her father that I can’t really fit in here, but it’s one of my stories that I live a lot and would do a comic for if it wasn’t so important for me to be mostly historically accurate especially when it comes to visuals with a few liberties taken, I may write a book for it one day.

[neixins]

yona of the dawn ofc :3

help i typed up whole paragraphs and then my browser crashed and none of it got saved 😭 i won’t be stopped though!

My rating (1-10): if it ends the way i think (hope) it will 10/10 no notes perfect historical fantasy shoujo series <3 if it doesn’t i hope we all explode

My favourite character: predictable answer but yona really is THEE protagonist of all time. she’s such a vibrant character even before she begins her journey and seeing her grow throughout the series is just so !!!! she cares so much and is ready to do anything to protect everyone and she’s clever and kind of insane but also silly and i love her so much!! also honorable mention to my special little guy gija <3 i adore his relentless optimism and how No Rational Thoughts Only Emotions And Actions he is 99% of the time. also he’s just so relatable To Me when he’s in poor little guy mode. i adore the entire hhb though, and so so so many of the side characters. they’re all just so well-written, it’s impossible not to love them

My least favourite character: probably chagol, mostly bc i keep seeing theories about how he’s not really dead and blah blah blah (in the famous words of kesha) and i’m sick of it. he’s a good villain and while i believe kusanagi could pull off his resurrection well if she so chose, as a meinyan fan, i LIKE that her abuser died so unceremoniously. let him rot, i say! even if he does get resurrected he’ll always be Just Some Gross Loser Guy to me

The character I think I'd be friends with: gija :) we’d get along so well on account of The Neuroses and The Only Child-isms

The character I think I won't hit off with: keishuk doesn’t seem like someone who’d appreciate my whimsy tbh

My favourite episode/scene: (don’t say gijaeha love potion shenanigans don’t say gijaeha love potion shenanigans) trying to pick One Scene in a 40+ volume series pains me so i’m gonna cheat and pick five (in no particular order) :3 (1) this scene from ch 163. all the hakyona scenes are so fucking good but this one’s just so so so sweet and i think about it all the time + it encapsulates so many elements of their relationship that i love, mainly how deeply they care about each other and help each other grow (where’s the post about austenian romance as a mechanism for self-actualization…), but also how goofy hak acts when he wants to cheer yona up

(2) yona getting the south kai envoys to admit to the shit they’ve been doing in kohka and then going “okie dokie now let’s get this meeting started shall we :)” she’s an icon and a legend <3 (3) gija in ch 252. absolutely devastating chapter and i need my guys back posthaste but OHHHH!!!!!!! i have so many thoughts about gija and monstrousness but i’m just gonna link to this post lest i go on too many tangents again…. (4) the hot springs chapter of course OF COURSE what kind of gijaeha enthusiast would i be if i didn’t bring that chapter up. it’s one of the most crucial chapters for the development of their relationship and it so perfectly captures how different yet similar they are + getting to see so much of jaeha’s thoughts on page really helps contextualize a lot of his actions in general (also i find his tendency to overanalyze and act on his assumptions instead of just. talking to the guy who’s been nothing if not remarkably earnest from day one lest he accidentally makes the situation worse to be both very endearing and very funny). (5) the “he’s stronger than i am” moment in ch 168. actually that whole battle scene Fucks Severely on so many levels but that!!!! line!!!!!! it makes me so crazy like. jaeha’s not just trying to stall for time, he genuinely thinks gija’s stronger than him (“from good morning to good night” bonus chapter) but like. looking at it purely physically they Are equals. but gija doesn’t hold back like jaeha does (ch 75, ch 170) and also it’s clear from the hot springs chapter that jaeha admires gija for not letting himself get shackled by his past (even though he’s Literally Being Haunted). also the moment right before that, when jaeha fucking. obliterates the bow of the soldier who tries to shoot gija (he’s doing SUCH a good job pretending that they’re enemies btw) is soooOOUGHHH like jaeha doesn’t get angry often but he’s FURIOUS in that moment and it’s so delicious (i think it’s the “let’s deliver him as a gift to lord kuelbo” part specifically that gets to him bc like gija can dodge one (1) arrow just fine without help but he risked the whole plan—) (getting vaudeville hooked off the stage) wait i lied :) (6) the blue forest mini arc is soooo good and so dear to me i HAVE to mention it!! it really showcases how caring sinha is + there’s also the lore drops about ghosts and the hakyona/gijaeha parallels, both of which make me wanna explode <3

Whose clothing style I like best: jaeha. the slutty little crop top wins by a landslide <3 i wish we got to see it more often (wistful sigh)

Times I watched it (and if I would again): once all the way through but i’ve reread parts of it many times for fic research and while theorizing. i definitely wanna reread it front to back though, all the parallels and foreshadowing make it so perfect for rereads

[barrenclan]

God, Daffodilpaw...... also that art of her with the scorpion on her face is. Haunting, 10/10

THANK YOU!! That's the cover I was talking about when I mentioned being an arachnophobe, haha. Screaming crying throwing up etc as I carefully sketched over a very close-up picture of a scorpion. But I loved the symbolism and image of it too much not to. Something something, putting on an outward face of optimism and ignoring the blatant trauma you display, blah blah blah.

I think it's my favorite cover so far, though. I really like how it turned out.