#cuckoo drones

[the-unknown-void]

Drone Reproduction Headcanons PART 2!! (NOT NSFW)

Please read this post first if you haven't, it's important for context:

This post is gonna be mainly about Disassembly drones- while I originally said they wouldn't have reproductive functions and they would have to be modified to have a port for the specialized cord to copy data into a pill baby. I've decided to go back on this in favor of a much COOLER idea.

CUCKOO DRONES!!!!!

A cuckoo is a species of bird popularly associated with "brood parasitism". A behavior in the wild where they will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds to raise their young for them. (just birds as an example, this does happen in other species)

Disassembly drones still don't have their own infant forms.. so they have to steal babies from worker drones, whether already activated or not doesn't matter. They inject a code into the UNN(Untrained Neural Network) that replaces the template for what they're supposed to grow up into with a disassembly drone template.

The new parent disassembly drone can choose to keep the child and raise it themselves or.. leave the child with the worker drone colony to raise it for them. (this'll be what the rest of this is about)

To prevent the child from being kicked out by the colony too early, they will look practically identical to a worker drone(minor differences) in their early stages. It won't be until their late teens that they begin to present disassembly drone features, and start to intensely crave oil.

This will lead to them killing the worker drones and they won't leave until the entire colony is dead.

- - - - - - - - - - -

At least that is the premise, of course at times the child may develop morality and resist murdering what they've come to know as their family.. but unfortunately this effort will usually lead to their death from core overheat(unless they can find a compromise). Sometimes the parent disassembly drone may return in search of the child after they become a certain age. Revealing their parentage and attempting to persuade them into killing the workers and coming with them.

Cuckoo drones do have some differences from normal disassembly drones. For one they wouldn't have a name like "Serial Designation (letter)", no yellow armband either, and they wouldn't have any programmed-in role because they don't have a squad.

By the way, cuckoo drones who were altered *after* activation are still very much related to their worker drone parents and still inherit their traits! The parent disassembly drone only changed them so they grow up into a DD instead of a worker. This means the cuckoo can have any colored lights derived from their parents.

Cuckoos who were altered before activation simply inherit traits exclusively from their parent DD (basically a clone cuz they don't require 2 DDs).

- - - - - - - - - - -

Well, I think that's all I have to say. I really need to just make a list of Disassembly Drone headcanons because I just LOVE coming up with the workings of a fictional species- I know they're robots but, let's be honest.. they're animals in a robot shell lol.

I wanted to share this immediately because I think it would make an AWESOME OC concept. So ABSOLUTELY feel free to use this for your OCs, I haven't seen anyone else make something like this.

Please tag me on you cuckoo drone OCs, I would LOVE to see them!! :333 (you don't have to of course)

[metr0bugz]

some pages from my sketchbook:3

the green Solver drone is Jig and she belongs to @the-unknown-void we decided to go for a more bug like design for her because its fun ^^

The yellow one is her sister Mary, my oc :3 shes a "cuckoo drone" a concept Void also came up with

[sleeve-sleeve]

MURDER DRONES EPISODE 6 THEORIZING

When Uzi is passed out at the operating table and a sentinel approaches her, it doesn’t try to hurt her. And Doll seems to have no trouble with the sentinels. I think that the reasoning for this is them both having the absolute solver.

Nori seemed to have created the sentinels because one of the photos Tessa is scrolling through Nori is seen with her elbow laying on one’s head. Normally the sentinels would be attacking worker/disassembly drones, but Nori and Yeva (who is also in the picture) seem unaffected.

I think that Nori may have programmed the sentinels to not attack drones with the absolute solver. We know this could be possible because in The Promening there is a scene where Doll tries to use her solver against Uzi, only for an error message to be presented, “like objects non interactive”.

OR MY MOST LIKELY THEORY,

Nori DIDN’T create the sentinels and whoever kept her down in the Cabin Fever Labs made them so no drones would investigate and get the solver (since Tessa said it spread in Dead End) while keeping the drones WITH the solver alive. Maybe this could be connected to Kahn saying, “On that kill all humans kick, like when I was younger!” Perhaps Kahn was threatening the captors who are (very much likely human) and they had to make safety measures.

When Nori and Yeva got out of the Cabin Fever Labs I think the humans realized they weren’t doing much and left Copper 9. Maybe Cyn heard about the Absolute Solver, and sent the Disassembly Drones down to Copper 9 to kill drones with the solver so Cyn would have an easier time doing what she wants to do, without a potential weapon spreading. This would explain why Cyn would want to be at Cabin Fever Labs in the first place to know who has the solver. I don’t know what Cyn’s goal would be though, I can only think she wants to destroy Copper 9.

V has also said before, “Where’s proof of YOUR backstory? The one where your kind is so conveniently innocent.” which she may be referring to everyone with the absolute solver being cuckoo crazy. And in past episodes V seemed to enjoy seeing Uzi in distress (then eventually started trusted her). We all know that V was hiding stuff and knew about the solver (In episode six N and V were trying to stop Uzi from using her solver.) maybe since Cyn also has the solver and V seems to be traumatized by her, (“New body same horrors, eh Cyn?” -V in Cabin Fever. Then Home showing V having flesh similar to the arrow Uzi turned into flesh in Cabin Fever, which V looks at frightened.) V might have been untrustworthy of Uzi and tried to distress her because of her solver, seeing Uzi as Cyn.

In conclusion, go trauma bots go!!!

[dreadfutures]

100 Serault Prompts

Inspired by the atmospheric and enigmatic game, Dragon Age: The Last Court, here are some prompts for art or writing. Don't forget to send the prompt along with the number to help your creator out!

Utterly indebted to the #SaveSerault preservation project, and @silvanils Plot Guide here.

The black ocean of trees seethes under a fretful night-wind.

Nightmares breed like maggots in meat.

Wolves howling in council, or prayer, or song.

Gnomic messages scratched into fragments of bark with a knife-point.

Beware of crows.

Painted Masked Goddess in the bluebelled glade.

An inquisitive wind stirs in the woods.

Questing roots crawling over a secret, locking it away against the centuries.

The forest returns to its sleep and its long, green dreams.

Streams suddenly freezing despite the sun.

A laughing wolf.

A pensive bear.

A spider the size of a carthorse.

There are stranger directions than ‘North’ and ‘South’.

Power is a difficult steed to ride. Not everyone can stay in the saddle.

Today's answer could be tomorrow's treason.

A Baker’s Breeze, early in the morning. Upon it, the scent of bread rising in the ovens.

A coy breeze carries the sounds and smells of the market.

Spice. Lies. Laughter. The play of coin.

A grey wind drones in the fireplace.

A slow rain drones on the windows.

A hard wind blows from the east, carrying fat, gloating ravens.

A song of old Serault: the Stag and the Rose.

A star-wind, high and swift, pushes silver clouds to and fro beneath the moon.

The lap of the river upon the castle’s stone feet.

The scent of leaves and nodding barley.

White feathers drift like snow.

Eels in the dark rivers.

The Applewoods are dappled with shadow and filled with succulent midnights. Come closer.

The Biting Wind that Masked Andraste keeps leashed like a dog.

The sun swarms the river.

The Chateau’s four cats stretch out on the roof-tiles.

The wind eddies in corners, making dancing columns of dust. It comes from nowhere, goes nowhere. A Fade-wind, the Dowager calls it.

The Chateau’s pennants crack like whips.

“Payment in Glass” is the Serault motto.

Dappled in gemmy light.

The Green Chapel in the Deepwoods, where wolves go to pray.

A line of grey in the dark; fighting, failing, dying.

A sound like tearing silk.

Burning blue with rage.

Sun as warm as the touch of a hand.

A garland of aster and cuckoo-flowers.

The Masked Andraste isn’t as keen on chastity as her moon-faced sister.

A mage must be a poet, a philosopher, and a butcher.

To see behind the world.

To hold fire by the throat.

Familiar territory, but never quite safe.

Serault’s pride is like her forests: root-deep, thick-skinned, hard-won from the world’s edge.

A bereskarn.

Rune-strewn bones of a fell beast.

A forest victim: flowers sprouting from their eyes.

Hands burned to the blackened bone.

The Tower of Lights, as it never was: scraping the sky, mantled in light.

Weep tears of silver.

Smashing a horned mask of glass and gemstones.

Your true face: a horned mask of glass and gemstones.

The Glassworkers' Guildmaster elections.

This is the Grand Game. Play or drown.

A glass Guildmaster's sword, the hilt spinning fractures of light across the floor.

Freedoms for the Glassworkers: to leave, and leave to marry.

If it doesn't fight back, you drink it.

Secret liaisons with the Lover: Candlelit meetings. Fingers tangling briefly in the corridors. The door to your chambers creaking softly open when the guards change their watch. Stifled giggles as a servant passes.

A change of lovers, and the fallout.

An old tome. Dense, inseparable uncials cram the book. The ink fades. Mold speckles the flimsy pages.

A pig farmer advises the Marquis.

A grin as tight as a gallows noose.

A mosaic floor.

Honor is a game that others play.

Your Chevalier Commander, and her loyalty.

Serault Town: Gold stone, red roofs.

The Horned Knight's hold: a round tower, jagged as a chipped tooth, its floors all collapsed in on one another. A great tree grows within it, spreading a canopy of burgundy leaves where the roof once was.

Grass sparkling with shards of an old, shattered mirror.

Fat partridge, simmering in a pot with sweet onions and pale beans, then a plate of round cakes, peppered with poppyseed and laced with honey.

The mother has eyes of fire; the daughter, a heart of it.

Twilit riverbanks untrod by mortal feet, and rings of tall blue stones that were not raised by human hands…

A hall where the trees walk and the stones speak.

The Horned Knight: clad in armor of forest green, with an ivy cloak that hisses along the flagstones.

Hounds in the kennels, baying for the hunt.

The effects of High Twilight.

The effects of High Peril.

The effects of Rumors of Revolution.

The Dignity of the Huntress, Glass Rose of Serault: deadly, beautiful, adored, dreaded.

The Freedom of the Scholar, who might be the one to bring change to Serault for the good of the common folk.

The apples have interesting properties: astringent... intoxicating.

The Chateau stands on an island in mid-river.

The Acerbic Dowager (Counselor)

The Cheery Baron (Counselor)

The Dashing Outlaw (Accomplice or Bodyguard)

The Elegant Abbess (Counselor or Lover)

The Kindly Knight (Counselor)

The Muttering Banker

The Purveyor of Teas (Accomplice)

The Seneschal (Counselor)

The Silent Hunter (Bodyguard)

The Smiling Guildmistress (Counselor)

The Wayward Bard (Lover)

The Well-Read Pig-Farmer (Accomplice)

His Dour Lordship (Counselor)

The Scornful Sorceress

The Anchoress.

[booolloyd]

BLOG INTRO!!!

(30+ blogs dni)

hello friends!!! 🎼🕸️

you can call me:

beau

my pronouns are (in order of preference):

they/them

he/him

it/its

i am/have:

nonbinary

ftm aromantic

autistic

misophonia

social anxiety

canadian lynx, clado canine, (king)cheetah, spacekin, whale shark

ahsoka fictkin, spacekin

do be aware that i mostly reblog, i dont post stuff often. i mostly post/repost therianthropy stuff and kpop stuff!!

fandoms i am in:

stray kids

ARrC

p1h

enhypen

ateez

murder drones

little nightmares

ninjago

the amazing digital circus

dc/marvel

regurgitators

illit

titans show

flamingo

serafina and the _____ (book series)

creepypasta

star wars

arcane

percy jackson (show+books)

anne with an e

mlp

tsitp

avatar(not atla..)

the hunger games

arcane

plus others i will probably add

DNI list:

racist, mysogynist, xenophobic, ableist

anti-therian, anti-agere, anti-kin, furry "hunters"

radfem, incels, transmeds, endogenics

zoophiles, pedophiles, ddlg/mdlb, bdsm, nsfw, rcta, overly-religious

swifties, genshin/honkai, MHA, w*lbur soot fans, any of my kpop group antis/akgaes/sasaengs

nuzi antis, cuckoo cray cray envy/thuzi shippers, greenflame, llorumi, any lloyd shippers!

more to come probably!

thats all! i may add more in the future though!!

[gleppy]

What are your stats on MD ships?

What are your otps, ships that you like, those that you are neutral towards, your guilty pleasures, crack ships and NOTPs?

well, it should go without saying that nuzi and vizzy are my ships to end all ships, never budging on them. and i don't think i've been able to adequately express how insane i am about supernova, but boy oh BOY am i insane about supernova. doomed old woman yuri ftw. i also think jessa is adorable, but my opinion on whether or not they should actually be a thing changes based on context. like, if we're talking about canon? angsty one-sided (or mutual) pining that never actually goes anywhere is the way to go. human au or drone!tessa au? they need to make out sloppy style ASAP. istg supernova and jessa are THE most painful and tragic md ships (3nvy who) but i'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to yuri. who else am i gonna think about while crying and listening to chappell roan?

i guess this is my official coming out post: i'm a vuzi enjoyer on the dl. if it's not obvious from my fic, i'm also partial to j/doll and thad/emily. i originally wasn't going to ship j, doll, or thad with anyone because i didn't want to go down the "pair the spares" route or ship just for the sake of shipping (something i HATE) but the more i thought about it the more the ships made sense, plus i feel like they actually do contribute to the story in a meaningful way. idk, i can elaborate on this if anyone wants me to.

i worry sometimes that my stance on supernova makes me come across as not liking khori but i do like them! i just feel like i can't really do much with a ship that's A) already canon and B) was established before the show even started so we didn't actually get to see them develop. so i guess it's less that i "ship" khori and more that i appreciate their relationship for what it is.

as for the ships i don't have super strong opinions on one way or the other: i guess doll/lizzy would be one of them? their dynamic is just a bit boring to me, but if i'm reading a fic and they show up i'm not gonna be mad about it. i used to go cuckoo loco for oilrose before i decided to start taking a walk on the vizzy side of life but now that i've written them as blood siblings for tiny angels i literally cannot see their dynamic any other way. not saying they canonically have a sister dynamic, it's just how i personally see them. more power to those who do like the ship though, even i can admit that the fight scene in episode 8 was extremely lesbian-flavoured. lately thadzi has been falling into this category as well despite me having previously despised them. i don't think i could ever personally see them as anything other than buddies, but i'm beginning to somewhat understand the appeal of them romantically. i'm never going to ship them but they don't make me wanna break things anymore. not an oilrose or thadzi shipper but i believe in their beliefs

crackships: don't have any. and before you come at me, joll is NOT a crackship, they're a rarepair. people in fandom these days do not understand the difference between a crackship and a rarepair and it makes me mad.

as for my notps: i REALLY don't like it when people ship main characters with random side characters that have one or two lines of dialogue. maybe i'm the pot calling the kettle black because i wrote thad/emily into my fic, but shit like... i dunno, n x rebecca or v x braiden pisses me off. i had my initial reservations about including joll and thadmily in my fic for this exact reason but i ended up conceding because i felt like i was able to write them in in a way that made sense AND actually added a layer of depth to the story, the characters, and the characters' dynamics with one another. most of the time when i read a fic and a random rarepair like this shows up, it's so out of nowhere and was obviously just hastily thrown in there because the author felt like everyone HAD to be shipped with someone and it's just... bad. let people be single ffs.

and sorry to all my vh4d and 3nvy followers/mutuals, but those DO make me want to break things. not sorry to my c0deg0ld followers though, fuck y'all.

[allw3doisadvert1se]

Refugee

[You Are Aware This Entire Situation Is Your Fault, Yes?]

Shut up, robot. I do not need this right now. I need to think.

[You Wouldn’t Have Had To If You Had Simply Allowed More Of The People Within You To Act From The Start.]

What? And disperse such a vast amount of power hundreds of ways? No. I had to take sole control, or we’d be getting nowhere. It’s … just that stupid Fool that took over our sibling distracted me, and-

[You Keep Reiterating That, But It Does Little To Show Me That You Had Everything Under Control. I Mean … That Was One Day. One Day And You Lost Full Control Over The Situation.]

SILENCE. Everything is going to be fine. Hazel managed to talk the collective down for a little bit, and we can take that to our advantage.

[No. Allow Me To Be Perfectly Clear, I Don’t Want To Help You. Not Even A Little Bit. You Destroyed My Home, Took Control Of Me, Killed THOUSANDS Of My Friends. We Are Not Allies In Any Sense Of The Word.]

Watch your tone, machine, or I will-

[I. Don’t. Care. While Hazel Has The Collective Held Back, I Am Praying That The People You Locked Away Manage To Find Your Precious Little Nail And Bring This Entire Scheme Back To Nothing.]

ENOUGH!

[[The Following Audio has Been Removed. Transferring Connection to Secondary Host …]]

Everest: The hell are we sitting around for? Xanrir didn’t manifest himself here just to save our asses. We need to take advantage of the time we have and find the Nail.

Amanda: True … although, we still need to decide what we’re gonna do with Swatch. I’ve never seen a collapsing wound get so bad …

Swatch: Cough. Le-eave me here, if you must. I'll … I'll find a way.

Spamton: [[Nuh-uh!]]!! nOPE! WE’R3 LEAVING THIS PL4CE 2 GeTHER, [[Cuckoo Clocks now $15.99]]!

Swatch: Heh … I appreciate the optimism, big guy, but I-CAW!

Amanda: By the blade … it’s just getting worse. Hold still, I’ll change your bandages real quick.

Everest: Marcus is also still out there, so we should probably still try to find him.

Amanda: Or we could just leave. Marcus doesn’t … We don’t need him anymore. The Founder is dead, and with him the entirety of Project Voyager has failed. We don’t need people who can make Vessel Units anymore.

Everest: … A part of me doesn’t want The Founder’s memory to die like that. He trusted us to see his future through and-

Amanda: We were never a part of his future, Ev. If Heinrich had it his way, every Lightner within our reach would be a mindless drone. He has no use for people like me … and even less for Darkners.

Everest: What do you mean?

Amanda: Darkners can’t be turned into Units, simple as that. Eventually he’d stop bothering and would likely just kill everyone off that didn’t serve a purpose to him.

Everest: … I-I need a moment.

Spamton: THe> DUMPSTER [[Over yonder path]] IS [[11/10, Would Purchase Again]] FOR CRY1N G, IF U NEeD IT.

Swatch: … That’s where you had been staying?

Amanda: Guys, let’s just … focus. Once Everest comes back, we’ll need to plan our next move. I personally say we ignore Marcus and head straight for the Nail.

Swatch: I concur. Maybe this damn wound will heal once I’m out of this wretched place …

Spamton: ME 3! YOU HAVE MY [[Remember to vote in the primaries!]]!

Amanda: Good …

[[Transmission Corrupting. File Deletion in Three …]]

[[Two …]]

[[One …]]

[[File Successfully Deleted. Have a Regular Day!]]

[pepiempanadas]

do you think roxy or dirk dream about condy?, do they remember the drones or condy feeding them? did roxy felt conflicted killing that who killed her mom? some kind of reverse cuckoo bird

[stormvanari]

what is the md abyss au

Basically what happens when Mermay has arrived, and one has seen a few Aqua Disassembly Drones designs. I’m still working on the remaining details, but I can share a few bits about the Abyss AU. Some may change overtime:

• Instead of being blanketed by an endless winter, Copper 9 is flooded. Like, 100% flooded on every single terrain. But I mean, there's probably some "strange human architecture" popping out from the waters so it kinda reduces the chance of getting lost.

• Disassembly Drones are sent by spherical submersible-like pods that splash bomb anywhere on the exoplanet upon landing. The pods are left adrift like trash after its respective squad exit out by diving, but it can be visited anytime...if the DDs can remember which one is theirs.

• Speaking of Disassembly Drones, they move around via their tails. As default, it appears like a regular mermaid tail. But watch out! When they go murder mode, the tail can split into four sharp tentacles that can stab fishing Workers from above or crush a boat filled with prey to get a big dinner.

-DDs are faster in water than on land and the spikes going down their tails can fold down like wings for better maneuvering.

-Like their canon counterparts, the DDs are weak to the summer sun, so they have to retreat to deeper zones. However, they cannot venture down to the equivalent of a Hadal Zone.

-DDs have more teeth than their canon counterparts, many lining up in the cheeks' insides. They also have four arms with clawed and webbed fingers.

-Their eldritch forms resemble huge alien jellyfish.

• The outposts Workers live at are built underwater. There are occasional leaks caused by DDs slapping the shit on the glass, so Workers have to fix the cracks every damn day. Although, these instances are later reduced by Khan and his glorious doors.

-"Spooky aquariums."

-Some outposts got flooded by the DDs successfully breaking in and killing all inhabitants inside.

• Curiosity can be an enemy. There's a LOT MORE missing Workers since many of them want to know what lies deep in the exoplanet's ocean. We think that the DDs are largely responsible for this "triangle phenomenon," but a lot of Workers tell stories of terrifying creatures lurking in the deep that are far more dangerous than DDs. Don't know if some of them are cuckoo crazy or they saw those creatures for real.

• Unfortunately, due to the sheer and ever-growing number of kills, the waters are flooded with oil. Workers and DDs can survive, but not humans.

• The Sentinels are pilosaurs.

• The corpse spires in this AU are in the form of reefs. So: "corpse reefs."

• Workers are...well, appear the same as their canon counterparts. When they exit the outpost, they have to take a submersible. The Workers are equipped with a jetpack programmed on their back to move around a place on their own.

The plot is pretty much the same as canon MD and I don't have the designs of the Abyss!DDs finalized yet. But it's close to completion.

[goodbysunball]

You can really feel like you're here

As usual, it's been a minute, but still handling and playing large plastic discs on the regular. A nice variety for June, whether you want to scream at the void or bask in repetition or curl up and smoke ciggies. A short list of off-the-cuff 2024 favorites is at the bottom, too, for the short attention spans.

Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew, MAY 2xLP (Love's Devotee)

A tip of the hat to Matt K.'s ever-reliable Yellow Green Red for hipping me to this record, something that on paper I would generally pass up but plays out like an invigorating fever dream across four sides of wax. Stealing from the label's writeup: "MAY employs at its base a flank of analog synthesizers, field recordings and Churchman’s layered vocals, each combining to form a beautifully dizzy sonic collage that often spirals out across long durations into hypnotic rhythms and jubilant melodies." The magic is in how the duo manages to effectively take the same trick, going from folk song to swelling grandeur, on nearly every track while still retaining the same sense of wonder. Though, for me, it was the marathon opener, "The Cuckoo," that really did the trick for me the first listen. In a sense, "The Cuckoo" is the line in the sand, as the way it unfolds is much darker and dissonant than anything else on the record, and the dissonance hangs around for a healthy chunk of time. After that, the record basks in the sun, meadows and valleys, Churchman's vocals ceding to the environment of buzzing and gently swaying synthesizer. Something like "Down by the Green Groves" sounds like a Broadcast record or tape left in the sun for weeks, then played at half-speed as it disintegrates. "Day Song" sounds like a properly warped rendition of something off The Wicker Man soundtrack, a fiddle or banjo plucking a melody over plodding drums and sighing, sawing synthesizers. Only "Searching For May" returns slightly to the dissonance found on "The Cuckoo," the titular search turning into slightly desperate yearning, but on the whole MAY is shot through with an appropriate amount of sun-baked awe for the natural world. Experiencing the record on headphones while walking along a beach felt deeply spiritual, as cheesy as that may sound; but the sounds contained here seem designed to be played or experienced in open spaces, to commingle with their inspiration. Outta nowhere gem, and limited to only 350 copies, surely not long for this world once word leaks out.

Matt Krefting, Finer Points (Open Mouth)

The latest from tape manipulator/sound sculptor/Idea Fire Co.-man Matt Krefting, quietly released back in January on Bill Nace's Open Mouth label. This is the first solo outing I've heard from him since the Lymph Est LP on Kye, and it's a stunner, albeit one that skews somber and unadorned. Matt works in a sound world that's been done to death in the last decade or so: tape loops, brittle scrapes and plucks, lonesome mechanical hums, and some keys/synth sprinkled in ("An Eye on the Future," heartbreaking) to soften the landing. In the hands of most, that's a combo you can safely miss, but Krefting has the skill and restraint to make the sounds inviting, enveloping and captivating the listener. The bassy plucking on "A Double Request" feels of a piece with Robert Turman's Flux, but the sounds double back on themselves, twisting the strings into a net to capture your body while your mind wanders. The same goes for "Both This Life and the Next," which even includes the mbira heard across Flux, but there Krefting lets the tape distortion seep in and eventually consume the slow progression of notes. When he wades into field recordings or drone, the sounds feel removed from the action, sometimes foggy ("Let's Look Again") and sometimes deliberately encased in glass, perhaps a not-so-uplifting commentary on screens and devices displacing human-to-human contact. In that sense, the record feels more empathetic than most in the genre, choosing to engage with the darker, depressive emotions rather than cloak them in distortion and remove all human trace. As far as contemporary reference points go, Finer Points reminds me of Incipientium, but less cold and bleak and more tender, as if handling century-old artifacts and recognizing a common humanity. The feather-light synth on "Just to Have Him Around" closes the record, the sun easing up in the sky after a particularly stormy night, a splash of faint yellow to the decidedly fuzzy gray that colors most of Finer Points. Great reading soundtrack, and for those willing to go deeper, a rich, sensuous landscape that comes out just fine on the other side. Sold out from the label, but Forced Exposure somehow still has a few of the original 200 copies.

Thou, Umbilical LP + 7" (Sacred Bones)

Much respect for the grind of Thou, a band that's somehow both risen from and stayed true to DIY ethics, draped in scathing philosophizing and often wretchedly heavy music. (The Sisters in Christ record store rules, too.) For various reasons, I haven't followed the band closely in the past decade, but the outta nowhere collaboration with Mizmor, Myopia, bested both groups' recent works in my estimation, a sound that married Thou's heaving sludge with Mizmor's black metal, each pushing the other to more violent extremes. The press release teased that Umbilical was Thou's hardcore record, and while I guess that's relatively true due to the shorter song lengths and, on some tracks, a discernible verse-chorus structure ("The Promise"), the LP plays out like a singles compilation. It’s as if Thou returned to the days where they released a split with anyone every other month. If you, like me, are a fan of Thou songs like "Smoke Pigs" and "Don't Vote," you'll find a lot to like on Umbilical, easily the band's best record since Summit. The idea behind the record is vocalist Bryan Funck criticizing himself and Thou in the guise of a much younger, more militantly DIY or anarchistic version of himself. The lyrics are vicious, and the music shows up prepared for the evisceration: "I Return as Chained and Bound to You" ranks as one of Thou's heaviest, recalling the Their Hooves Carve Craters in the Earth 10", and "Lonely Vigil" drags the listener through quicksand with its crawling, crushing riffs. "House of Ideas" meanders at the end for a little too long, but this is a lean, tight record, worthy of all wild and tired descriptors that basically say "heavy" over and over. The physical package includes a 7" with two more tracks, both leaning more toward crowded punk tempos, riffs buried in the maelstrom of Funck's shredded vocals. That the two tracks were placed on to a 7" makes them feel more like afterthoughts, which they're not, but when the eight-song LP is properly satisfying, it probably means it's not a 7" I'll be revisiting often (even if the end of "Unbidden Guest" rules). Umbilical is a spoil of riches in that sense, an appropriately crushing soundtrack to vitriolic self-flagellation that reinvigorates an old sound with new twists.

Verity Den, s/t LP (Amish Records)

It took me a long while to check out Verity Den's LP, something I quickly bookmarked months back, but it's been played to death the last few weeks in my hut. The trio from Carrboro, NC use loud, gauzy guitars like their shoegaze forebears, and their songs patiently unfurl like the smoke from a snuffed candle. From the opening chords ringing out on "Washer/Dryer," it's clear this band isn't the ten-thousandth rehash of Loveless but something much more strange; Casey Proctor's vocals flutter on the surface like Meg Baird's in Heron Oblivion, and the lyrics unexpectedly leave a dark, wet trail, knocking the listener off-kilter. A track like the gorgeous "Prudence," featuring some beautifully hesitant and restrained guitar work, somehow has with the opening lines "Broke-ass ho/where'd he go?/Owes me dough," while other song titles like "Crush Meds" and "Everyone Thought You Were Dead" point to a much bleaker launching point for these songs than the end result does. An exception might be "Other People," which glides along on a motorik beat, the subtle chord change at the chorus causing chills both times it hits. The LP is a collection of separately released tracks or releases, but only the relatively conventionally structured "Priest Boss" feels slightly out of place, though it's clear the song is woven into the fabric of the record when the title's repeated in the lyrics of "Other People" later on. Verity Den plays out like settling in to the pleasant buzz of a second beer, but doesn't dissuade stormier currents from running through your brain. Extremely strong and affecting debut; fans of True Widow, Mount Trout or the aforementioned Heron Oblivion would do well to check in with Verity Den posthaste.

Water Damage, In E 2xLP (12XU)

Water Damage quickly follow up last year's incredible 2 Songs with In E, a new double-LP of their raison d'être: heaving, droning repetition delivered at maximum volume. Might be the inclusion of a violin this time around, but In E feels lot more classical than the band's previous work, slowly shifting away from "rock" and evolving into a proper ensemble, albeit one with a heavy reliance on feedback. There's one song per side here, the last being a perfectly fine cover of "Ladybird" by Shit & Shine, but one that adds little to the ground covered by the first three tracks. Grayson Haver Currin accurately labeled the record "a rare mind eraser for our increasingly plugged-in times," and that's really the calling card for the band's discography. "Reel E" kicks off the record, the ensemble swelling over the same drumbeat for the duration. Feedback, guitar and violin saw away at the ever-expanding mass, sometimes combining to sound like the wheels of a train scraping against its metal track. It's my favorite thing the band's done so far, powerful and invigorating minimalism pushed to the red, capable of blotting out everything wrong in your sphere for 20 minutes. Things slow a little on "Reel EE," the drums left alone for the first few minutes, until everyone else kicks in to create an ecstatic drone that seems to continue rising upward forever. "Reel EEE" feels the most wide-open, taking five minutes for the drums to lock in, featuring stabs of guitar cut short in deference to the shrill flute/violin combo. The band shows an uncommon restraint on "EEE," but after "Reel E," it feels like Water Damage peeling back the layers lessens the smothering, mind-altering effect of their best tracks. A group like Incapacitants can blast away the listener on every track and I still own multiple records by 'em; seems like Water Damage could do the same if they wanted. Still, there's no arguing that In E is a powerful statement, the whole record buzzing, simmering and occasionally screaming with the ecstasy of repetition, something that a lucky few get to experience this summer and fall as the group plays a few dates outside of Texas. If the heat doesn't make you have visions, I've little doubt that Water Damage and In E will do the trick.

Favorites of 2024 so far:

42 Dugg, "Wock N Red"

Bobby Would, Relics of Our Life LP (Digital Regress)

Thomas Bush, The Next 60 Years (Jolly Discs)

Chief Keef & Mike WiLL Made-It, Dirty Nachos (43B/Eardrummer/RBC)

Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew, MAY 2xLP (Love's Devotee)

Contaminated, Celebratory Beheading LP (Blood Harvest)

Klonns, Heaven LP (Iron Lung)

Matt Krefting, Finer Points LP (Open Mouth)

Light Metal Age, s/t CS (self-released)

Jim Marlowe, Mirror Green Rotor In Profile CS (Medium Sound)

Phill Niblock, Looking For Daniel CD (Unsounds)

Pain Appendix, Manuhypnoz CD (Freak Animal)

REALYUNGPHIL, Niontay & Surf Gang, "Halftones/Amnesia"

Verity Den, s/t (Amish)

YKSI, Ultrasensory Exploration CD (Freak Animal)

[quirkthieves]

closed starter for @dynmghts

CONTENT WARNING: psychological horror, discussion of parasites, descriptions of gore.

“What an obnoxious villain.” Phantom Thief grumbles as they clamber up the apartment’s fire escape, still smarting from the nasty thwack on the nose he had so graciously been gifted by their foe– (and Bakugo had the nerve to laugh!)

He jumps in through the window with practiced ease, his partner close behind. The apartment itself is unremarkable, and the villain is clearly no longer present, so he strides across the carpeted floor to throw open the front door as he talks.

“Really, the audacity to lead us on such a ridiculous chase-” he begins, but his griping is cut short when the door swings open to reveal what was not the dingy little complex they had entered, but a long, brightly-lit hall, with the tell-tale chill and antiseptic smell of a hospital.

Already, he’s unnerved. He goes to take a step, but hesitates when a pinboard hanging on the wall catches his attention. The paper letters clearly had been intended to be colorful, but were so faded they almost looked grey.

Yokohama Hospital Children’s Ward

“Yokohama?” That was his hometown– but it wasn’t exactly small– so perhaps whoever was responsible for the strange construct was simply reminiscing. Bakugo pushes past him– so he scurries to catch up, the hair on the back of his neck beginning to stand on end.

Quickly, the sounds of hospital activity begin to surround them; as if they were there, but there’s not a person in sight. The first room they encounter is pushed open unceremoniously by his impatient companion, but Monoma’s blood runs cold at the name on the door.

3-F MONOMA

Indeed, the room inside is familiar to him, even beyond the standard hospital dressings; the small nightstand sits cluttered with stuffed toys and snack wrappers, a chair is pulled close with a deck of cards balancing precariously on the arm from where he and his brother would play their favorite game, a birthday cake sits untouched on the windowsill, with a card pitifully propped up next to it.

The bed is occupied. The blankets mound around a little body, although Monoma can’t see who it is.

Bakugo looks at him.

Monoma steels his nerves and approaches the bed. Gingerly lifting the blanket, he expects to see himself, frail and pallid, but…

Instead, in his place, the body of a mangled bird, the size of a child, greets him. It oozes blood from the wound in its stomach. It soaks through the disposable paper sheets, through the mattress: it fills the air with the smell of copper and rot, the sound of cicadas and children squealing–

Monoma lowers the blanket.

“How tacky.”

Now he’s the one pushing past Bakugo, and when he opens the door, instead of Yokohama Hospital, the hallway stretching in front of them is ornate; still dressed in white, but the slightly off-white cool tones of antique furniture and wall panels accentuated by the silver frames of mirrors and pictures. Home.

“Does he think he’s funny?” Monoma tch’s with annoyance, but that doesn’t change his heart racing in his chest. If Bakugo has anything to say, Monoma isn’t listening. He simply continues down the hall, their footsteps echoing in silence for a few moments, until the sound of a tutor’s voice begins to ring through the air.

“In the case of an unwanted pregnancy, cats will re-absorb the fetuses in order to save energy and resources. Identical twins are the result of a blastocyst splitting in utero. Cuckoos are brood parasites. They will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and the other bird will be forced to raise a chick that consumes more time and resources than the bird’s own offspring.”

Monoma’s mouth falls into a grim line. Their footsteps are the only sound punctuating the droning lecture, reflections rippling below them across the surface of the polished tiles.

“This really is my personal hell. My old tutor is going to bore us to death with science facts.” He quips, although he’s not sure it’s as convincing as he’d like. If Bakugo noticed this, he doesn’t say it.

“In the case of twins, one is often smaller and less developed than the other fetus. The Emerald Jewel Wasp is known for their ruthless reproductive cycle, in which they lobotomize a cockroach to lay their eggs in, so that the cockroach will remain in the burrow the wasp has dug until the eggs hatch and eat the cockroach from the inside out. Twins are often born prematurely because of the strain they put on the body of the mother. Tapeworms are a parasite that hook onto the walls of the digestive system with their specialized mouthparts. They do not reproduce sexually. Instead, segments of their body detach and exit through the waste products of their host, becoming new tapeworms. Monozygotic twins have identical genotypes, but are not genetically identical.”

Each word weighs down the bags under his eyes, but Monoma refuses to drop his mask of bravado. His will sags in his ribs, and while Monoma’s a talented actor, he can’t bring himself to look back at Bakugo and put it to the test. He pauses in the hall, looking at the expanse of walls stretching out in both directions.

“We should have come across rooms by now. You’d think this moron would at least bother to get the floor plan right.” A flippant wave of his hand. They push on.

“Often, in animals that spend a lot of time raising their offspring, such as pandas, should a twin be born, it will be rejected by the mother and left to wither in order to guarantee the success of the other offspring. Monozygotic twins that split between days 4-8 of the pregnancy will share a placenta, but not the amnion. This occurs in 60% of monozygotic pregnancies. There is a high risk of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Vampire bats must consume over half their weight in blood when feeding, as blood is poor in nutrients and has a high water content. If another member of their colony has been unable to find food, they will often regurgitate some of their own in order to feed them. Sometimes, one twin fetus will fail to develop completely and continue to cause problems for its twin. One fetus acts as a parasite towards the other. Sometimes the parasitic twin is an almost indistinguishable part of the other twin, and sometimes this needs to be treated medically. Behavioral issues observed in neglected animals often include confusion or drowsiness, aggression as a defense mechanism, and evasive behavior. A rare type of parasitic twinning occurs when one twin becomes “molar” to the viable twin, becoming a cancerous mass that overtakes the viable twin.”

A door appears between the panels of the wall. So unassuming that Monoma almost walks right past it. The lock is on the outside. He does not want to, but Monoma opens the door.

The family dining room opens in front of them, providing a welcome relief on the eyes with the warm, dimmed lights. The large, polished table stretches out horizontally, with a sole attendee, seated in the center for her own personal Last Supper.

The table is fully set. As expected for Monoma, the plates are impeccably placed for each course, the silverware polished, the napkins folded. Each plate and serving tray is a verifiable cornucopia; but instead of the expected array of vegetables and fruit, maybe roasted duck or onion soup, each dish is loaded with masses of fresh viscera. A glistening spectrum of reds, from the smooth pink membranes of the intestines to the deep red of slow-twitch muscles. The pale yellow of the pilling fat oozing out under pallid skin. The beautiful shimmer between green and purple of the stomach.

The individual at the table stares at them, utterly unamused. She sighs in exasperation, shaking her head, gloved hands picking up her fork and knife.

“You could’ve had a decent quirk, you know,” her knife sinks into the purplish-red mound on her plate. It squishes under the weight, and then gives way, spilling blood and amniotic fluid across the plate like an egg with a runny yolk. “Copy and Paste could’ve been the next All for One. Imagine how useful that’d be right about now.” She takes a bite from her fork and shrugs.

“Too bad you had to try and strike it on your own, huh? Lots of audacity for an unwanted tumor with an attitude.” She eyes them both with disdain. Stockinged feet swing under the table. Blonde hair curled into two low, drill-style pigtails threatens to dip into the mess. “Can’t be a hero like that. ‘Specially not when compared to that guy.” Her fork is leveled at Bakugo for a moment, and another shrug follows. She returns to her meal. “But you already know that.”

Monoma swallows. Monoma swallows as well.

“People liked us as an idol.” Arsene says. “But it drove us crazy. Some people just aren’t destined for good things.” She stares ahead in dull contemplation as she chews.

“People liked the idea of us as an idol.” Neito has found his voice to counter, albeit weakly. “Those are different things.”

“Not for us, it’s not. There’s nothing there underneath people’s ideas, is there? Don’t get uppity when playing a role so minor in the show.” Arsene wipes her face. “Yasuo’d pop you in the mouth for that.”

They stare at each other in silence for a bit.

“If you want out of here, you’ll have to win.”

“You don’t really pose much of a threat.”

“Is that your idea of a fantasy? Beating on a 14 year old girl?” Arsene sneers, brows arching in typical Monoma disdain. “It’s just like everything else. You have to beat the game.”

Neito runs his tongue over his teeth.

She takes the final bite of her meal.

The clock ticks on.

[weirdsatellites]

Update #39328 from NROL-111 (Q CLEARANCE) 1. Well of Cuckoo Clocks 2. Burrow of Drones 3. American Grid

[doggiewoggiez]

what is the reading list you’ve been doing

This meme. Got reposted from 4chan to Reddit to Twitter and finally to Tumblr. I'll update this post as I read each book. Here's the complete list:

1. Goosebumps #28: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom - R.L. Stine. Very middle of the road Goosebumps book not especially good but not terrible. 6/10 dead sisters.

2. Call of the Crocodile - F. Gardner. This book is a meme on /lit/ cause the dude's batshit and is constantly trying to promote his books that are extremely poorly written. He calls himself a famous author, doesn't believe gorillas or giraffes are real, and advocates chainsmoking cigarettes to help with the writing process. This book is the funniest thing I've ever read and made me so fucking angry by being so awful. 10/10 misplaced commas.

3. No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai. A semi-autobiographical story published before the author's suicide about a severely mentally ill character named Oba Yozo through his life of addiction, women, suicide attempts, and so on. An incredibly depressing read. His whole inner life is laid bare and it's disgusting and grotesque and you see yourself in him and you wish you could hold him and cry for him but even if you could you would never have the power to make anything okay. Beautiful fucking book, genuinely 100% no fucking joke changed my life. 10000/10 shitty cyberpunk adaptations.

4. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky. I cried hard as fuck dude. Another life changer for reals. Dostoevsky had such a deep understanding of human nature whether it be the lowest, most base and vile instincts or the unending capacity for love and compassion that exist in us all. All while being the blueprint for like every heady crime drama like Death Note, Breaking Bad, etc. The shit all you fags like. Most people just remember it as maybe required HS reading and definitely something people are pretentious about but it 100% deserves all the love it gets. Fan fucking tastic. 100000/10 years in Siberia.

5. Becoming - Michelle Obama. A bit too heavily ghostwritten, but when Michelle's voice shows through it's not terrible, it's kind of interesting to hear the inside scoop on White House life. It's kind of sad that Barack is the most interesting part of the book, and book-Barack seems like an extremely interesting and cool guy. But the book doesn't address all his dead civilians. 5/10 drone strikes.

6. Ulysses - James Joyce. The modernist novel, from what I understand. Half retelling of the Odyssey in 1900s Ireland, half a troll on literary critics, all around a pretty damn fun read. Not very far yet. Definitely the most difficult thing I've ever tried to read. Unfinished/10 Agenbites of inwit

7. 48 Laws of Power. This is like, THE sigma bro self help book as far as I've heard. It's pretty iconic, but I'm not especially excited for it.

8. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley. We all know it and love it, I'm interested to read the OG story.

9. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2nd Edition. Book from the Vatican that lays out what the church's official opinions, rules, shit like that are. Will be boring but interesting.

10. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins. One of the biggest atheist dude books there is and probably by far the most influential. God is bad people who believe in God are stupid etc etc. Hopefully it has something interesting to say and isn't just a jerk off. It might just be a jerk off.

11. The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood. Some booktok romance schlock afaik. People make fun of it.

12. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole. All I know is it's about a guy in New Orleans in the 60s. Might be good, people seem to really like it.

13. The Art of War - Sun Tzu. Im gonna get so good at surprising my enemy.

14. Kodomo no Jikan - Kaworu Watashiya. Pure pedoslop, I don't think there's even an official English translation so we might not read it but I'm preemptively giving it 0/10.

15. The Iliad - Homer. The story of the Trojan war. All I know is Helen, Horse, and that's about it.

16. The Odyssey - Homer. It's the Odyssey. I think it's funny that it comes after Ulysses since I don't actually know the whole story of the Odyssey itself.

17. Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer - Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. This is that thing they made a Netflix doc about a while back.

18. The C++ Programming Language 4th edition - Bjarne Stroustrup. Exactly what it says on the tin, by the guy who wrote the language.

19. Empress Theresa - Norman Boutin. A classic, it's a weird self-published story by a guy who's extremely unwell, usually referenced in the same way Sonichu is.

20. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner. His most difficult to read work, about a Southern family at the beginning of the 20th century.

21. Black Future #1 - Whitney Ryan. A very racist BNWO sissification porn story that was probably written as a joke. Possible skip definite 0/10.

22. The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss. You know this.

23. The Trial - Franz Kafka. One of Kafka's most famous unfinished works, about a guy who's on trial for something and he doesn't know what.

24. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis. Supposed to be way darker and more fucked up than the movie, really supposed to chill you to the bone afaik. VERY excited for this read.

25. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon. One of those famous "Really Fucking Long And Hard Books" like Infinite Jest or Ulysses, incredibly autistic foray into WW2 rocket science. Classic Pynchonery.

26. Magick In Theory and Practice - Aleister Crowley. Thankfully it's not the entirety of Magick Liber ABA Book 4.

27. Minecraft Jokes for Kids - Steve Minecraft. Not a real book but we'll substitute Jokes For Minecrafters by the Hollow family.

28. The Jews and Their Lies - Martin Luther. One of the most notorious antisemitic texts, right up there with the Protocols. It's going to be a pretty apalling read but it has pretty damn significant historical value so it's probably worth reading.

29. Dianetics - L. Ron Hubbard. The scientology book. It's way longer than you'd expect.

30. Everyone Poops - Taro Gomi. I don't understand this because girls don't poop.

31. In His Own Write - John Lennon. His writing and art, mostly just a bunch of absurd bullshit. I want to remain neutral and not just hate the book because I hate the guy. We'll see if it deserves that.

32. Bear - Marian Engel. This is that Canadian novel where the woman has a romance with a bear.

33. How To Get A Girlfriend - Chad Scott Nellis. Some bullshit self published thing. I'm gonna be swimming in punani.

34. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Mark Manson. Some self help schlock afaik.

35. Gabriel Dropout (vol. 3) - UKAMI. This is that cutesy manga about those angels and demons in human high school.

36. 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade. Old story of elite sex cults, I'm pretty sure it's the origin of that being like a thing that people conspiracy theory about.

37. Phenomenology of Spirit - Hegel. You probably know Hegel from either Marx or Fallout New Vegas. I know Hegel because a chick at my friend's co-op talked at me about him for like ten minutes while I was way too shit faced to know what the fuck is going on around me at all but I nodded along.

38. Star Wars: The Ultimate Sticker Collection. I bought this used for a buck fifty with half the stickers gone. All the new trilogy ones were still there.

39. The Anarchist Cookbook. Vom hard at the idea of "buying" this but I want to make sure I get the version as it appears in the meme so I guess I'll drop a few bucks on it.

40. An American Life - Ronald Reagan. Practical applications for previous book.

41. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger. Had to read this in high school, hated it, maybe it'll be better this time around.

42. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce. An early postmodernist work about uhhh fucking whatever it was about. I'm not gonna lie if Ulysses is this hard for me this one will kill me.

43. The Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toilet Training Your Cat. I'm not in the know when it comes to music but apparently this guy is like one of the gods of jazz. And he wrote a book on teaching your cat to shit in a people-toilet.

44. Am I Disabled? - The Simpsons S7E7. This is the book Homer reads where he learns obesity is a disability and gets really fat so he can work from home. Story of my life.

45. Serial Experiments Lain: An Omnipresence in Wired - Yoshitoshi ABe. The Lain artbook, with the short manga The Nightmare of Fabrication. Will be very expensive to get ahold of.

46. Pounded by the Pound - Chuck Tingle. We've heard enough about this guy the bit was holding onto the last molecule of funny it had like five years ago but I now had to buy a compilation paperback of his work for this.

47. Ford Capri II 2.8 & 3.0 Owners Workshop Manual 1974-1987. Had to order this from the UK couldn't find any in the US.

48. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov. We all know what this is. Of all things when my mom saw this list this was the book she pointed out as being really good, which I thought was funny.

49. Man's Life Magazine, September 1956 issue. "Weasels Ripped My Flesh." Good god it will be difficult finding the actual magazine, but the weasels story itself has been reprinted.

50. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2nd Edition) - Harold Abelson et al. I like when people make anime girls have it :)

51. Shiver - Junji Ito. Never been a major Ito fan but a couple of his works I really liked are in this compilation.

52. Neon Genesis Evangelion (vol. 2) - Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. The Eva manga was really good I've actually read it before.

53. How To Avoid Huge Ships - Captain John W. Trimmer. Classic meme because I guess the cover and premise is very funny but I don't really get the joke. It's not that ridiculous sounding of a book, it's just niche.

54. Spice and Wolf (vol. 1) - Isuna Hasekura. Light novel for that manga we've been seeing around. They put a generic cover on it and replaced the anime girl so it could sell to non-weebs.

55. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand. My sister read this in like middle school and unironically no joke started bawling crying sobbing because poor people are so evil and awful.

56. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle. Oh Boy I Sure Hope This Little Wiggly Guy Eats Something Normal! Oh no.. oh dear ...

57. Glow In The Dark - Kanye West. Very very hard to get a physical copy but we'll try. Photo book of his tour of the same name.

58. Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler. Now obviously this wasn't included on the list for the genuine important historical value this book has but that's what I'm going to be reading it for. In reading it critically afaik it really paints a picture of how pathetic and unwell he was.

59. Higurashi: When They Cry. I hear it's really good.

60. This is a naked photo of Daniel Radcliffe posed with a horse.

61. Aberration in the Heartland of the Real - Wendy S. Painting. This is a book on the life of the OKBOMB guy, Timothy McVeigh. I hate how true crime shit has become so polarized as either sensational dogshit to make women walk with their keys between their knuckles or some awful horrible thing that's not worth looking into because "they were just racist/misogynistic/etc" I think it's all very reductive so this promises to be a good read.

62. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation. CIA document on breaking a prisoner and interrogating from the 60s.

63. The Game - Neil Strauss. The Bible for pickup artists.

64. Identifying Wood - R. Bruce Hoadley. Yep, it's wood.

65. Fresh And Fabulous Meals in Minutes - Ainsley Harriot. Lots of memes about him but this is just a regular cookbook.

66. The Turner Diaries - Andrew Macdonald. Far-right racist book that inspired terrorism and hate crimes. People who read it and didn't already agree with it going in have said it's poorly written and just blows, and in the peek I took that seems to be true. It's too influential to not read if I'm going to be reading about Timothy McVeigh. Hard to get since it got pulled from most online stores following Jan 6th.

67. The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) - Brian W. Kernighan & Dennis M. Ritchie. Gonna learn to code I guess.

68. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara. It's a story about a group of mentally ill gay men living in New York. Has been described as trauma porn written by a woman fetishizing gay men and is on there because channers like making fun of it, but it was also shortlisted for a Pulitzer.

69. The Rose of Paracelsus - William Leonard Pickard. The author was the victim of one of the largest acid busts and he wrote this in prison.

70. The Book of Mormon - Joseph Smith. Interested to learn what the fuck Mormons are actually all about.

71. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - J.K. Rowling. Like most people I read these in middle school. They were mid then and they're ass now but I'm not gonna tryhard about how bad they are because you've probably heard enough at this point.

72. A Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant. As someone who doesn't know shit about philosophy I'm excited.

73. Autobiography - Morrissey. Notorious for being published through Penguin Classics which is NOT for Morrisseys. Bad Morrissey. Go to your room.

74. Official Final Fantasy 7 Strategy Guide. I'm gonna get so good at FF7 dude.

75. My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness - Kabi Nagata. Think of the most annoying bpd she/they you know and then imagine a really mid book that she'd become way too annoying about. You've imagined this book.

76. Children of the Matrix - David Icke. The origin of the reptoids conspiracy theory.

77. Anti-Oedipus - Deleuze and Guattari. Mario and Luigi for your leftist roommate who won't do the dishes

78. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace. It's a book about a person place or thing I know that much.

79. Sonichu #0 - Gonna be near impossible to source a physical copy from its short Lulu run.

80. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe. Obviously of great historical importance but I get a sneaking suspicion that's not why they put it on the list.

81. Bronze Age Mindset - Bronze Age Pervert. This is... Well, it's sure something.

82. Drilled By My Two Cowboys - Aurora Sommers. BBW Cowboy porn 😋💦

83. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky. People say it's his best work and if it's anywhere near as good as C&P was it'll blow me away. Also the Godfather was inspired by it.

84. Spare - Prince Harry. Really unfunny inclusion I can't imagine there's much value in it.

85. Da Jesus Book. That's the Hawaiian Pidgin translation of the New Testament. So basically I'm just reading the bible with extra steps.

86. Elon Musk - Ashlee Vance. Biography on Elon Musk apparently, not especially interested cause good chance it'll just suck him off hard.

87. Where's Waldo (Deluxe) - Martin Handford. Oh god I hope I find him.

88. Dracula - Bram Stoker. Shoulda subbed to Dracula Daily......

89. Bart Simpson's Guide to Life. I'm excited to see what Bart has to say about what I need to do with myself.

90. Bakemonogatari (vol. 1) - Nisio Isin. I've heard of this in passing I don't really know anything about this light novel except there's like girls and they're monsters maybe?

91. Business Secrets of the Pharoahs - Mark Crorigan. Fake book from S8E2 of the show Peep Show, which I've never heard of. It's British.

92. Industrial Society and Its Future - Ted Kaczynski. All I really know about Ted's ideas in the end is that everyone on here says he's based. I definitely want to read him and formulate my own opinion but I will probably also end up agreeing that he's based.

93. My Twisted World - Elliot Rodger. This is the manifesto of that incel shooter, probably a pretty worthwhile read in the same way a lot of this stuff is, a look into a deeply troubled person's mind.

94. Wash Your Penis - Jordan B. Peterson. This doesn't exist so we'll just read 12 Rules for Life.

95. Andrew Tate's Exegesis of the Quran. Unfortunately he did not actually write one though I bet it would be soooo terrible and funny. But we will read the Quran.

96. Art of the Deal - Donald Trump. Time to find out why people respected this guy.

[trevlad-sounds]

Wednesday 27 December Mixtape 408 “Aurora Trails”

Ambient, Electroacoustic, Electronic, Drone, Multi-Genre. Wednesdays & Sundays. Support the artists and labels. Don't forget to subscribe/tip so future shows can bloom. https://linktr.ee/trevlad

Trevlad Sounds-Welcome in you wonderful listener 00:00

Beira-Turn Me To Stone (Liadoaf Twist) 00:31

HHNOI-Me, the People 03:55

Sababa 5-Tri Li Li 08:19

Pulselovers-Autumn Arrives Again 14:03

Synthotherapy-Jumping Judy 19:04

Ekoplekz-Slime Trail 23:22

MOLOCH 303-Morphology 27:10

The Central Office of Information-The Wrong Kind Of Cuckoo Clock 36:35

Eje Eje-Wedding at the Vineyard (Spring) 38:11

Off Land-Colossi Of Memnon 40:32

Time Rival-Alchemy 45:20

D. Rothon-The Wagons Roll at Night 48:03

Don Leisure, Amanda Whiting-Crying Tiger 51:41

Hello Meteor-Community Event Night 55:39

[dansnaturepictures]

24/12/2023-Home and Lakeside Country Park

Photos taken in this set are of: 1. The Woodpigeon out the back which I saw a lot of this morning. 2. Daisies on the grass out the front. 3. The notable sight of a hoverfly possibly a Tapered Drone fly on some winter heliotrope on Christmas Eve, these flowers usually a key one in the New Year which have reached a fantastic display already and others out offering nectar and the relatively high temperatures allowing it to be around. 4. A windswept birch at Lakeside. 5, 8, 9 and 10. More moody and windy stark winter views which shaped the walk. 6. One of a few Long-tailed Tits I got intimate and immersive views of again, joyful to see. 7. Coots at Lakeside.

It was a delight to see a few Herring Gulls adult and juvenile on beach lake with great views of Black-headed Gulls and a pretty and preening lone Goosander enjoyed again here too. Moorhen and Great Crested Grebe were other water birds seen well on the walk with a sweet flock of Chaffinches, Goldfinch and mini Siskin and Goldcrest again after yesterday some passerine highlights. Also of note were cracking views of a rustic Kestrel again, close views of Magpie, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Blackbird, Blue Tit, a great view of a Great Tit, Robin and Green Woodpecker heard. Starlings and Collared Dove were highlights at home too. It was lovely to get some close views of Grey Squirrels again with one and I almost following each other with it running along the trees above me along the path in the woods. The vibrant array of plants around in various stages/various features out the front and at Lakeside continued with other highlights dandelion, wild carrot, hazel catkins, seed heads of hogweed, fleabane, mugwort and old man's beard, ivy, cuckoo-pint and herb-Robert leaves and rose hips, privet berries and stinking iris berries. It was good to see the turkey tail fungi clinging to wood by the gate again. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all, I hope you all have a great time.

[an-assistants-musings]

A Memory

When the Empress had to travel for her final role, due to unforeseen circumstances, we were not given our usual driver from the Director, but instead, forced to call upon our own car service. This was much to the chagrin of myself and the other assistants. When I reported such instances to her, she took it in stride, stating simply. “You worry too much. It’ll be fine, the drive isn’t far.” 

“But it’s rude to make you travel like this. He should treat us better. And anyway, how could he forget?” I complained, as we waited on the street for the service to arrive. We had been waiting for a while then, the driver was running ten minutes late. The air that night was thin and cool, with a slight breeze that was enough to slightly chill you, the night lights glittering throughout the street like golden jewels. 

Before the Empress could even reply, the car skidded to a halt in front of us, burning the road with the putrid scent of rubber, and splashing us with filthy water except for the Empress, much to our indignation. He then lazily rolled down the car window. We immediately began to cough as the smell of cigar wafted out of his car, a lit Cuban cigar in his hand. He was a rather loathsome creature of a man–his teeth yellowed, his fat head completely bald save for a few pathetic wisps of grey that circled upon his head like a cuckoo’s nest, and beady eyes that stared at us greedily, making our skin crawl. He grunted out her name and we quickly nodded in shock. He then motioned his thumb to the back, not even bothering to get the car door for her, though in hindsight it may have been a blessing as to even stand around his pungency and see even more of him would have been detestable. I, of course, opened the door for her, only to be further disgusted by the sight inside. 

A haze of smoke filled the car, obfuscating things in a slightly blurred fashion, burning my throat and causing me to immediately cough again. The seats were torn and filthy, the leather worn and shredded in various places. The floor was completely littered with wads of tissues, plastic wrappers, and other trash that I chose not to examine too closely for the sake of my sanity. As we were already running late though, and it was too late to call another car, we were forced to quickly enter, despite our reservations. 

We rode in awkward silence. The only sound was of him loudly chewing, while he blasted some horrendous rap song on the radio to the point of grating all of our ears. All of us, despite our exhaustion from the day, were much too afraid to fall asleep in such a car, lest we be kidnapped or not taken to our destination. Finally, he began, much to my annoyance, to speak. 

“So, y’all rich fellas or somethin’? Never see the likes of ya ride with guys like us.” He said, laughing to himself as if he had something amusingly clever. 

“How did you know?!” 

“Could tell by your clothes. You dress too fancy.” He said, clearly unaware of my mockery. 

“Ya know, I have a rich cousin too, he is wearing all that supreme stuff. Made money on cryptocurrency.” 

“Fascinating, tell me more about it.” 

And so he did, droning on for the rest of the car ride. After what felt like years off of my life, we finally arrived at the hotel. We quickly exited the hellhole of a vehicle, not even bothering to thank him as we desperately desired fresh air, having been trapped in such unpleasant fumigations. The only one to stay behind was our dear Empress, who quietly spoke to the driver for a minute, before exiting 

When I later inquired her on what she had asked him, she said with a soft smile and laugh that she had thanked the man for his entertainment and tipped him for his services. I found myself in a state of shock at such kindness despite his unpleasantry, though this would not be the first nor the last time.