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lisafication · 1 year ago

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Digging Graves for your Morals; Or, The Ethical Problem of Outlawry

Hello, yes, I am here again. This one is shorter, I swear (it’s under four thousand words, even). If this is the first post from me you’re seeing, this is a follow-up to my prior essay posted here on the game The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, although it should be able to mostly stand alone.

At the end of my last essay, I touched on both the game’s nearly uncompromising moral scepticism and relativity, but I didn’t really dig into it. I outlined that the game only textually frames actions as ‘morally bad’ in the context of a morality set by the society and the world that has treated them as no better than farm animals raised for the slaughter. Well, I have a lot to say on the topic of ethics on the topic of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, so buckle in, this one’s going to talk about the social contract, moral scepticism and everyone’s favourite topic: Mrs. Graves.

As usual, this was originally posted and formatted for on Sufficient Velocity and you can perhaps more easily read it there. Spoilers abound, and my content warning from last time still applies.

She’s not too hot on either ethics or her mother

The Meat of the Matter

Since a lot of this is optional or otherwise missable information, let’s review the premise the game gives us. If you’re already aware of all of this, I apologise, it won’t take long.

First off the bat, the quarantine at the start of the game was a hoax-driven money-making scheme of which you can pick up more-or-less all the relevant details of. This is entirely missable and by the time it’s possible to discover, our protagonists have better things to dwell on and have dialogue about, so I’ll give you a summary of what you can deduce from reading the notes and thinking about it.

The quarantine is an organ harvesting operation, as per some documents you can discover in the wardens’ office. They entrap the residents, test their blood types and starve to death those they deem surplus to requirements — alternatively the starvation itself could be their method of ‘preparing the harvest’, there’s evidence in both directions and it hardly matters — harvesting the organs of the others for sale. As our protagonists are AB-typed, the ‘universal recipient’ or ‘most selfish blood type’, they’re some of the first on the chopping block.

If you read through the newspapers and the documents in Mr. Washing Machine’s car, you can discover that ultimately ToxiSoda are responsible, and a similar thing is happening in a different city under the guise of a ‘chemical leak’. Should you further investigate matters, you will find mentions of the ‘man behind it all’, the doctor, or the Surgeon, as the fandom have been referring to him — you may recall Mrs. Graves mentioned someone similar! Yeah, he’s the guy who runs ToxiSoda, who are themselves partners with the water company that faked the parasite outbreak in the first place.

It’s all a life insurance scam, apparently

How much the details of the operation matter is something open to interpretation — it might just be something for players to figure out and Episode 3 will not cover the Surgeon at all, or he might play a major part; it's not particularly relevant to this essay. What matters is that it happened at all — indeed, it’s fairly easy to justify Ashley and Andrew in everything they did in Episode 1 (flashbacks aside), arguing that if they’d made any other decisions they’d have died — an argument that the victims dug their own graves, even if the Graves siblings put them in them. How correct that is is a matter of debate, but that you can make the argument at all matters, and we’ll be returning to this later. In my last essay (and again in the introduction here), I made an analogy to farm animals, raised without love and for slaughter. Let’s put a pin in the ‘for slaughter’ part for now and take a look at the ‘without love’ part.

That’s right, it’s time to meet the parents.

As Andrew notes, there are significantly more compelling reasons for you to say that

They Fuck You Up, Your Mum & Dad

They really do.

Our charming protagonists are, as with many things depicted in this game, an exaggerated, almost farcical example of this phenomenon — one that’s just grounded enough to still feel very real, just like the siblings themselves.

The late and lamentable Mrs. Graves is just the same: originally a teen mother, hopelessly out of depth with two difficult children — even if one was good at masking it — and an unreliable, emotionally unavailable (at least to their children) partner who can’t hold down a job, ends up foisting them off on each other and doing a Parental Negligence because she simply Cannot Cope. That’s the real part. The part where she gets paid off by an organ harvesting operation to leave them to die, that’s the borderline-farcical exaggeration that throws all the nooks and crannies of her character into sharp relief.

Mrs. Graves does not have a good relationship with either of her kids. Having self-admittedly fobbed the job of raising Ashley off on her son, to the degree that they did not even celebrate her birthday as kids, both of them hold differing degrees and types of resentment for her.

For Ashley, it’s hate — perhaps not quite so clear cut as that, as it’s her that calls for the eulogy and she shows some potential signs of discomfort while cleaning up her parents’ corpses, but by and large, it’s fairly simple and straightforward, as usual for Ashley. The sentiment is not exactly unreturned, either.

This brings Ashley’s heart great delight!

The most clear incident raising her from everyday ‘neglectful’ to ‘wow she wanted nothing to do with this kid’ is the optional ‘birthday cake’ scene, obtained by finding the present in Ashley’s first ‘transitory world’ dream, in which we see Ashley’s birthday and the founding of a lemon cupcake tradition between Leyley and Andy. She has received nothing from her family, notes that her ‘friends’ would say they were busy before she even told them the schedule and Andy takes her out to buy cupcakes with his pocket money.

This scene gets a callback in Andrew’s dream later. Just remember to Ask Nicely, rather than Kill Her.

Parents of the year, everyone.

So with Ashley it’s as straightforward and obvious as she herself is — she hates her mother, her mother hates her. With Andrew, as with Andrew himself, it’s a fair bit more complicated. His mother is a much more nuanced figure, who is believable in her role as an unfortunate teen parent who was trying her best. He has a degree of trust in her against, seemingly, his own good judgment In her conversation with Andrew, she acknowledges her fault in raising him and seemingly sincerely tries to offer him a ‘way out’, an olive branch.

I think many people have had relationships where they might say this

This scene in particular intrigues me, because she is acknowledging fault in a way that Andrew strictly avoids doing — and well, there’s nothing Andrew likes more than a good way to avoid acknowledging any fault of his own. With her dominant relationship over their father as a model for Andrew to draw comparisons to his own relationship with Ashley with, it’s no surprise that the narrative resonates with him to the point of ‘Accept’ being many people’s first completion.

Of course, that’s not all there is to it. There is a fascinating contrast with her later conversation with Ashley, where she — despite accusing Ashley of brainwashing Andrew — refers to Leyley and Andy as ‘two psychos’ and states that she always knew they were responsible for Nina’s death and that, implicitly, they owe her for not turning them in.

There's something about mother-daughter relationships here that I just do not have the time or reading to dig into, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, when Andrew interrogates her on her possession of their death certificates, she has… an interesting, plausible story about a life insurance scam and claims that she really did think they died in the fire, implicitly denying the claim that she sold them. It’s entirely possible that she’s describing the details of the ‘scam’ correctly — you can even buy that she genuinely does care for Andrew in some way, if not Ashley, but her claim about being an honest, grieving parent shocked at their deaths… doesn’t add up?

This is a very normal reaction to your supposedly dead children showing up in your house.

As Andrew himself notes after hearing her story, she’s full of shit. This gets into speculation, because there are a few ways to read this, but the most plausible ‘gist’ is that she and her partner were paid off in money and jobs to not raise a fuss — the surgeon she mentioned is almost certainly the founder of ToxiSoda, remember?

The overwhelming difference in presentation between how she speaks to Andrew and Ashley invites investigation — and when Andrew turns down her offer and tells her he isn’t interested in her offer in Decline, her reaction isn’t… despair, it’s shock — and well, there’s a good reason for that.

Why do you think she did it in the first place?

This is the happiest we see her

Well — it’s so she can finally fit into society. That white picket fence, that idyllic 1950s life — hell you can call it the American Dream. She wants that, or as close to it as she can get — the working-class teen mother, living in poverty, aspiring to the middle-class. It’s a very common, very real and very grounded motivation.

And to that end, she effectively sold off her children. It’s no wonder she can’t fathom why Andrew wouldn’t choose the same.

That’s the part that makes you think — just like the deaths in Episode 1, well- maybe the siblings are justified here, too. It’s a weaker argument, but it’s still one you can make under many common moral paradigms today — what goes around comes around, all that jazz. Just look at how awful she was to Ashley.

She’s finally found what she’s been striving for.

Here’s the thing, here’s the thing though — what, reasonably, could she have done? Andrew and Ashley briefly highlight this in conversation about Ashley’s ‘friends’ in Episode 1 — was she supposed to fight gunmen to try and break them out? Throw food to the balcony from four stories?

Moreover, as she herself says to Andrew… would anyone really have been able to do better than her in her position? She was seventeen when Ashley was born, living in poverty with a partner who couldn’t even remember Andrew’s name when he was a kid. Anyone would have had difficulty, let alone with these kids.

Her evils are — they’re not any deliberate action, but rather… prompted inaction. She didn’t have the emotional energy, resources or plain capability to properly parent her children, she didn’t have any solutions to their murder of Nina in a state so blatantly hostile to its underclass, she didn’t have a way to connect with Ashley and she took the money rather than fight a futile and likely suicidal battle against a corporation and its armed goons in a dystopian setting.

Ashley, notably, does not deny this.

Her sin is the one we’re all, I think, guilty of — that of not trying hard enough, that of inaction in the face of difficult tasks, of not standing up on principle because it’s just too much that day and you don’t have the spoons, you’ll do it tomorrow (no you won’t). It’s a petty, everyday kind of evil — that of not doing enough.

Is that enough to condemn her? Certainly, there’s a pretty manipulative read of her that likely has some truth to it — in the locked door in Ashley’s dream in ‘Decay’ you can discover that she has a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul — but consider that lens — the game won’t make up your mind for you, so you’ll need to choose that for yourself.

The dad is interesting in terms of negative space — but he’s mostly important in that he doesn’t matter, so I decided to not fit him in here. He has art, though — just no sprite, because, well, he’s never mattered to either sibling.

The Contract We Call Society

Right, it’s time to get a little bit Theoretical in here. Not much, but a little. Social contract theory is a complex topic with a lot of nuance, much of which I will be eliding in the name of not writing a twenty thousand word paper on semiotics, law, and anthropology, but the short analogy is… the idea that as long as you play by society’s rules, as long as you are a good citizen, a good person, the state, or the community, will take care of you.

In a number of ways, the harshest penalty levied by many historical states and legal codes was not death, but rather the criminal status of outlawry, a practice that’s cropped up a number of times in history — the practice of no longer being protected by the law. This meant one could be killed or worse with impunity — you were no longer protected by mob justice and, while overexaggerated as a term of reference, certain texts from Medieval England refer to outlaws as bearing a wolfshead, ‘for the wolf is a beast hated by all folk’. Never minding that wolves are actually delightful, this was a time when wolves were actively hunted and sold by people — and the same was intended to happen to outlaws. They were ‘fair targets’ as far as society was concerned, no longer to be treated as your fellow citizens.

This was the gravest punishment on the books, for most of these legal codes — something saved for those who had broken the social contract so completely that there could be no turning back (civil outlawry is… a bit different, that’s not the topic here). Among others, a modern critique of the concept is that it offers no incentive for improvement, no incentive to change or to cease harming society — if an outlaw has none of the social contract’s protections, what reason do they have to obey… any of the social contract? If that seems familiar, well, let me ask you this:

What if the state or community fails its end first? What responsibility does the innocent outlaw have to that contract?

It’s an interesting phrasing, that the world is better off.

It’s time to talk about the incest, and part of why it’s there. The cannibalism too, but that’s less impactful here. If you’ve seen me elsewhere, you might have seen me say that the incest is a load-bearing narrative pillar — in large part due to it being a critical facet of the siblings’ relationship, but in another large part due to it being an equally critical part of how the game uses taboo.

A taboo is in this context something that is considered repulsive and to be avoided by society. It’s a more complex term than that — you can also use it for certain sacred actions or utterances that are only permitted to certain people, for example — but that’s what it is here. Swearing, premarital sex, BDSM and murder are, approximately from weak to strong, some example taboos held in modern Anglospheric society.

Strong taboos are a staple of horror — they shock, they disgust, they draw people’s attention and it’s that last one that’s critical here. Incest is a very strong taboo — while I am absolutely not segueing into its historical context, the very well-established Westermarck effect gives it a certain timelessness and immunity to desensitisation that most other taboos don’t have — murder, to contrast, is a taboo we’re largely desensitised to in modern media and works of modern media have to put in actual work to make a murder seem horrifying — through atmosphere, cinematography, evocative prose etc.

And this is important because the use of taboo I’m covering in this essay is that the incest is used to invite judgment — it is so ingrained as a ‘wrong thing’ in people’s brains almost regardless of background that it forces the player to engage with the work morally. And that’s where the fun starts.

I’ve mentioned before, very briefly, about the juxtaposition of tone between the Burial & Decay endings, contrasting with the very monstrous difference in morality. Burial is remarkably light-hearted — they play around with the drain blockage, they joke about their mother’s personality and this is further exaggerated on the Love path, where Andrew is much more comfortable with casual contact and the two make a game out of how far they can throw their parents’ skulls, the humour is directly contrasted against their abhorrent actions.

I’ll be real Ashley is far more merciful than I, I’m shuddering at the thought of that gunk in my hair

In comparison, Decay is… bleak. I’ve seen it being referred to as being ‘emotionally sandblasted’ and, yeah I think that’s fair — it’s uncomfortable, it’s heavy and it’s just not fun. And this is the route in which, if you chose Trust into Accept, Andrew has bought into the narrative that his mother’s offered — that he can fit just fine into society if he wasn’t stuck, if not for Ashley — the route that ‘fits’ most closely to the social contract, to Andrew feeling the guilt that we think he should and hating the monsters that they’ve become, as the social contract deems them. Given the pains the game takes to attach the player to the protagonists, this normative moral ending is very easily interpreted as the bad ending.

And well, isn’t it?

Thing is, as mentioned above, the social contract has never held up its end for them. The game takes careful pains to point out to a viewer that they’ve never had the life that society promises people, so why do its moral standards apply?

The game invites you to judge the characters, and in the same motion, asks you from what principles you judge them, making a pretty good guess in that, like most people who haven’t spent a large amount of time navel-gazing and reading some very boring books by very dusty old men, they come from the society around you.

Love even has Ashley express this sentiment directly after the incestuous dream — she asks you — well, Andrew, but this is also something for the player to mull over — why this is what’s engaged your morality or sense of revulsion, rather than the desecration, cannibalism or murder.

Andrew and Ashley are both very funny and very fascinating in this scene.

And that’s the framing that it casts all of its own moral judgement in — even the ‘tar-soul’ aspect is… well, it’s unclear what it even means. Mrs. Graves was a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul, after all. Other than that, it’s society and the world being better off without them, rather than any kind of assertion of objective morality. Due to the present of ‘soul colour’, we’ll presumably see the game make some moral statements in Episode 3, but as it stands?

It’s nearly completely morally sceptical, in and of itself — it’s not interested in moral assertions or education, it’s interested in making you question your own morals. Deconstructive (not that kind), rather than dialectic, to be mildly pretentious.

It uses taboo and shock to invite moral judgement, but then uses tone, charm and our instinct to look for the happiest end for our blorbos to get you to recognise that these are principles you yourself brought into the game, rather than any it’s handed you.

To summarise: you’ve brought these principles in from society, but what do the siblings, the protagonists, the villains to the world, owe society? Enough that they should follow them? It failed them first, after all.

Closing Thoughts

This one is a bit less energetic than the last, tragically — my sleeping schedule is the stuff of nightmares recently, I love windy weather. Wait, no the opposite. Huge thank you to everyone who commented on the last one, you are the wind beneath my wings and the main reason I managed to get this out this week.

This essay is a bit more interpretative than my last one — certainly, there are alternative readings and I’ve been toying with the idea of deliberately taking a reading I don’t like very much and writing from that perspective as a demonstrative exercise recently — mostly that you shouldn’t just take my word for things!

Otherwise, if the last bit at the end seemed murky, I apologise — I did try to write a more detailed version, but firstly, it was three thousand words and secondly, I re-read it the next day and I could not understand what the fuck I was talking about. Personally, I blame Derrida — suffice to say that I strongly recommend playing through it with an eye towards considering culpability, morality and why you think certain characters are more or less forgivable than others, and for what deeds. See what you get out of it.

I managed to keep one particular thread open to wrap up with here — I try to keep speculation on Episode 3 content to a minimum in the main essays, but it should be fine here — you might have noticed that I refer to Episode 1 and Episode 2 being on something of a spectrum of justifiability, with the siblings’ actions being ‘more’ justifiable in Episode 1 and ‘less’ justifiable — but still justifiable if you try — in Episode 2.

To continue the thought of the happiest ending being the one in which they step the furthest away from common morality and to further jar the viewers’ sense of morality by contrasting societal morality and blorbo-oriented morality, Episode 3: Burial could continue this trend in having a major victim be someone who, well, has done nothing wrong and isn’t even guilty of bystander syndrome.

I wonder if there’s any good candidates, someone who’s sweet, harmless and will indisputably be an innocent victim…

…I’m sure she’ll be fine

#the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #analysis #essay #ashley graves #andrew graves #mrs graves #nnnnot sure what the next topic will be #might do a deranged take on purpose #this one and the last one have been very grounded #I'll get to my asks tomorrow #probably #I've been busy sorry

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joyce-stick · 11 months ago

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An Essay About Slash Review of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, A Video Game Which is Very Good

(and also: has prompted many quite wrong rather bad takes)

An essay by Audrey of the joystick system

The very bad discourse and drama around The Coffin of Andy and Leyley has served to obscure the simple fact that it is quite a very good video game and this video essay is here to tell you about that.

Video version:

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Previous video essay: Lost Judgment's Lost Plot

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Transcript:

Hi everyone. So. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is really, really fucking good.

If you’ve heard of this game, you’ve probably heard of it in the context of memes, screenshots divorced from context, and/or capricious moral outrage. If you’ve not heard of this game, well, you’re hearing of it now! And good thing, too, because much of the coverage and discussion around this game that already exists has… been, let’s just say, not particularly earnest. I hope to remedy that at least somewhat with this video.

If you’ve heard about this game because of discourse, and come here expecting drama and hot takes, then, this may not be your video. Or your YouTube channel, even. Or maybe it is, if you’d like the delicious comments section. If you’re that sort of clicker, though— welcome! I’m Audrey of the joystick system, and this is the place where I (and my headmates) talk honestly about things we care about, and I hope you’ll hear me out a little and maybe consider staying and improving our viewer retention. Thanks, if you do.

So, to writ: My purpose today is to gush. I will be gushing here. For most of it. And as for what I will be gushing about, some of it will be gushing BLOOD, GUTS, AND DELICIOUS DEATH. I am entirely serious. The subject of today’s presentation contains mature content, including copious foul language and themes slash depictions of death, cannibalism, cultism, demon summoning rituals, parricide, dystopian social decay, and heterosexuality. Oh, and also a little bit of incest as a treat, I guess, but the incest is heterosexual, and that’s worse.

[long pause]

Excellent. You’re still here. So. This morbidly beautiful video game may not be for everyone, but that’s good, because it is instead for exactly me! A short plot synopsis of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley might go as follows:

if you're not watching the video listen to this for extra effect

Siblings Andrew and Ashley Graves are forcibly quarantined inside their apartment by the local authorities, with no food and even less hope for rescue. Their parents have abandoned them. Absolutely no one is coming to save them. In order to survive and escape this awful situation, they butcher and consume the fresh flesh of some guy who got himself soul vored by a demon that he summoned without a plan.

This conspicuously carnivorous crime, and their effort to cover their tracks, puts them in a fair bit of a deeper shithole than they are already in. So naturally they keep digging themselves deeper by committing even more crimes, AND in the process, also dig themselves deeper into their toxic codependent sibling relationship, which is going just great, thank you. Sure, Andrew almost killed his sister, but he didn’t, and that’s what matters! And she still loves him, so it’s all good!

This is of course a joke.

First thing I absolutely love about this game is the writing. It’s witty, intelligent, uncompromising, and just generally delicious. It holds nothing back in depicting the toxicity of the two leads and their relationship, resulting in two compelling characters whose flaws and few virtues perfectly complement slash exacerbate one another, resulting in a beautiful train wreck of a relationship dynamic that proves equal parts disturbing, mesmerizing, and hilarious.

The charming darkly comedic bite of the writing style also lends a lot of great character to the setting. This sardonically presented dystopian world is both richly detailed and fleetingly elaborated on, a commendable balance to have achieved, in my opinion. The first chapter of this game is hilarious not just because of the banter between Ashley and Andrew (which is terrific), but because it presents such a sharp satire of current year bullshit.

As just an example, I give you, one of my favorite jokes in the game:

I probably don’t need to explain the thing this is making fun of to you, but I will anyway.

The situation presented in The Coffin of Andy and Leyley’s first episode is very easily readable as an allegory for how disasters that are a direct result of ongoing 2020s late capitalist decay continuously fuck people over. In particular, this scenario feels like a direct commentary on both the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Flint, Michigan water crisis. The former obviously has affected way more people but what both have in common is that they are crises created and exacerbated by malfeasance and/or negligence committed in the name of for-profit interests, and that the “response,” to them, such as there was one, has amounted to dehumanizing and marginalizing the victims while minimizing the issue, forcing the victims out of society’s wider view, and being reticent to punish the individuals responsible.

Just as the authorities responded to the water crisis and the worst excesses of the pandemic in real life, the authorities in The Coffin of Andy and Leyley impose half-measures designed to further restrict the freedom of the dirty undesirables who bear the worst damages, while merely shielding the upper echelons of society from the disaster rather than actually addressing or attempting to solve the issue. Most of you who lived through 2020 in the United States probably have experienced the frustration of being on the receiving end of this kind of policy.

During the pandemic, the quarantine was supposed to protect us, but for a lot of people it ended up doing quite the opposite. A lot of folks didn’t have any savings, and couldn’t get any since the employment market wasn’t exactly on fire, and our representatives had to be bothered way too much just to put out a pithy economic stimulus just to save face. Not to say that this all has stopped, exactly, as all that’s changed now is that we’re just, living with this situation, but.

It wasn’t literally a cop outside everyone’s door preventing them from going outside to not die, but for a lot of people, it might as well have been that! Never mind those who, y’know, had no inside to retreat to. Or were imprisoned during the pandemic and left even more unprotected! Or thrown out by their landlords! And so on. And, y’know, the big chain grocery stores keep throwing out all the perfectly good unsold food, so they’re already sending this message in all but, well… these exact words.

So, that’s why I think this joke lands. It’s exaggerated, but familiarly rooted, and that’s just good satire! It’s a joke which feels lifted right out of Invader Zim, which, I would put The Coffin of Andy and Leyley right about on the level of as far as both the tone it’s going for and the quality of its execution. Which of course, brings us to the extremes that these circumstances push its characters, and its plot, to.

Okay, so, also like Invader Zim, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is hardly a polemic, nor is it a morality tale. Sure, there’s social commentary in it, but that’s just a nice side thing. It’s not a story about the otherwise innocent victims of an unjust society who are pushed to do terrible things by circumstances outside their control— it is, rather a story of terrible people, who, both because of their character failings, and the desperate situations they find themselves in, find themselves doing even worse things.

Andrew and Ashley commit the cannibalism the first time in large part because they kind of have to do it. No food! Cop outside their door actively deterring them from getting food! Out of options! So they do it. They could probably be excused, if only they were given a fair trial. Which they realize they’re not going to get. So yeah. It’s understandable that they do it. And that they kill this one cop, who very much has it coming.

But they do not have to keep doing it! And gosh grief, do they keep fucking doing it— so many its. They really do not stop digging that hole that they are in. Even the first time that they do the cannibalism, when they kind of really have to do the cannibalism, Ashley is just a little bit more excited about doing the cannibalism than she probably should be.

I love this kind of delicious edgy dark humor. I love stories that go for it, imagine the worst possible people they can, and also try to make that funny. I love this about Invader Zim, that it presents a character who is unquestionably a monster, but also has relatable human desires like wanting to fit in and being concerned about looking weird or abnormal, but has those feelings for very different reasons and acts on them by committing some very despicable crimes. It really gets at a deep-seated darkness that I and a lot of other fucked up traumatized queer people who were little kids when this show aired have, the catharsis of visualizing some of our worst intrusive thoughts while evoking the emotions that pushed us to imagine this kind of fucked up shit.

I’ve loved this kind of thing since we saw Heathers when we were 14. Heathers is an absolutely incredible film that you should check out, by the way, and about which we failed to properly or interestingly articulate our thoughts a few years back. Its lead protagonists, Jason “J.D.” Dean and Veronica Sawyer, are similarly relatable characters who have familiar feeling flaws and emotionally resonant trauma hangups, and also function as very toxic enablers of each other’s worst traits, leading them to work through those feelings by, y’know, murdering their classmates!

Heathers made us realize just how exactly mentally ill of a 14 year old we really were when we were 14, and I love it for that. So. So fucking much.

That was ten years and change ago.

We are still a mentally ill 24 year old.

And Andrew and Ashley Graves, if I had to sum them up, are basically J.D. and Veronica, if they were in their twenties, siblings, and also way, way, way worse.

And I love them.

So, obviously. Ashley and Andrew are hilarious. At least, I find them to be such. They’re terrible, and awful, and amazing, and Ashley is such a girlboss. She is one of the most God Forbid Women Do Anything characters ever.

Anyway! I’ve talked about the cannibalism, and the dystopia, and the characters, and why all of that’s good. I’ve also forgotten to talk about the part where they evade an assassin, and, also a host of other things.

I love that this game has so many fun little optional interactions with NPCs, objects, and items, that you can totally miss. I love how the narration hints at the solutions to puzzles by snarkily referring to things you can interact with as what their purpose is to the characters rather than what they are, this quip about the mop that you clean up a murder scene with, the interactions that Andrew has with these cultists who suck at demon summoning, the excellent in-game art and the brilliant visual duality of Andrew and Ashley’s character designs, this line where Andrew is upset that life is so hard for them as fugitives from the law because they can only find this one shitty motel that takes cash and doesn’t ask them for their ID, and also the music, which is royalty free music made by people unassociated with the developer but is nonetheless perfectly suited for the game.

So much about this game is stuff I find so completely brilliant, and I have so little to criticize, that I think we’d probably be here all day if I kept going. So.

Let’s spend a thousand ish more words talking about the parents.

When The Coffin of Andy and Leyley begins, the protagonists’ parents are absent. You can optionally find two early references to them early on— one, if you interact with the bed in their bedroom, and encounter the shocking revelation that “Your parents have FUCKED on this bed.”

The second, is if you interact with the phone, the game dutifully informs you that,

You’re probably less than five minutes into the game at this point, barely begun solving the first puzzle, which prompted you to “find nutrients to not die.” And of course, this says about all you need to know. These children have been abandoned. But if it needed to be any clearer, the game later delivers unto you a flashback to prior in the story, when Ashley desperately calls Mrs. Graves for help after they leave and go move to a hotel, and later a new house, to which the kids are of course not invited. And this specific scene, specific line, here, fucking hit me:

“And I don’t want to hear these lies about starving anymore.”

Emphasis mine.

Even as Ashley and Andrew escalate the severity of their crimes which gradually come to have less and less to do with their need to survive as the story goes on, I find it very hard to not be on their side at least a little bit, and this is easily the biggest reason why.

I have had this phone call.

Not this exact specific phone call, of course. Obviously, I’ve never been locked up in an apartment with an armed patrol outside my door whose job it was to gaslight me while ensuring that I starved to death. Obviously, my mom has never said those exact words.

But gosh grief and fuck me if it’s never felt like she has. She may as well have fucking told me that, with all the things she told me I was lying about. And who fucking knows, maybe she did say those exact words to us, and we repressed them. I don’t know. I am very not done working through all the bullshit that she gaslit us over.

*sighs, preparing to vent*

I have called our mother and had to beg her to pay for food. I have called her and had to beg to pay for our rent, while our parents were supposed to be supporting us studying abroad. I have called her and begged her to forgive me for daring to use just a few of the thirty dollars our parents used to send us to live with every month back then, to buy a drink or a movie ticket or something. I have had to concede to our parents financially holding us hostage, had to go the last week of the month on a shoestring diet while waiting for them to graciously deposit another thirty dollars into our bank account... so that we could continue eating. I used to relish February, the shortest month, for being the one part of the year in which I had to stretch out that thirty dollars the least. And once, I pleaded with our mother to pay for us to move to another apartment when the landlord suddenly kicked us out of the current one, abruptly and obligatorily switching gears from arguing with her to kissing her ass through our gritted teeth, under threat of our parents cutting off their financial support of us completely, abandoning us in a foreign country where we had no money, no job, and barely spoke the language.

And one day, after I stopped dancing to their tune, they just stopped listening, stopped even pretending to want to help. After nineteen years of escalating emotional and physical abuse and neglect, they abandoned us. And one day, after I spent months working 10 hour days every week Ubering food around for tips, sending my resume, filling applications, making calls, stopping into places to ask for work, all to no avail, for months, and desperately plugging the Patreon page of this very YouTube channel praying that some generous soul with money to burn would solve all our problems. All of this still wasn’t enough, and wasn’t going anywhere, and I’d run out of money and was short on rent on the one sublet room we could get that cost exactly three hundred dollars…

And I called her, and I asked her for help. I really didn’t want to. I wanted to hear nothing of her again. And she said to stop lying. To stop bullshitting her that I couldn’t get enough money, or find a job.

Not too long after, I swore off all contact with her, and eventually also with our father. And every time I have spoken to either of them since, I have made no secret of how I feel. Because if I get nothing out of kissing their ass, why fucking pretend.

My family is not poor. They own their house. They own, and leased out, a second house. Their house is full of fancy IKEA furniture and various other niceties, they’ve renovated the place at least twice, they live in a nice, safe neighborhood, they have an attic and a basement, they at one point paid for multiple plane tickets for us per year while still refusing to let us eat on any more than thirty five dollars, an extra five dollars we also had to beg them for. Our dad has a lucrative tech job. All of this, and they insisted, while refusing to answer questions about their finances in any detail, that they couldn’t afford to help us go to where we wanted to go for college, that they had no place for us in their house, that they couldn’t afford three hundred dollars of rent to help us have a roof over our head for one more month.

So when I read this delightful jaunt of a chapter of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, where Andrew and Ashley break into their parents’ new huge house to steal all their shit, and Ashley says “This is some rich people stuff!” about their fireplace,

And when their mom says, “there’s no room to keep housing you here indefinitely,” and the internal monologue says, “even though it’s way bigger than the old house.” It’s both an entertaining mockery of the attitude of the typical American family, how first you’re your parents’ property for eighteen years and then you’re turned out on your own to face the world without their support, and how the fuck are you supposed to live like that, to figure out how to live your life in the face of that, to meaningfully be a fulfilled person in that situation, especially in a time, when, no, mom, I can’t pay a college tuition on a waitress salary like you did back in the fucking nineties, you c--t,

Even though they have an extra bed in their basement and a perfectly good couch and plenty of space for another bed besides, and a vegetable garden, and a kitchen, and all these other middle-class petty bougie niceties, the Graves mom says, “sorry, we can’t keep helping you,” and. And. I read all this, and I think,

“I understand why Ashley wants to fucking flay these people. I understand why she wants to K1!L them.”

I cannot tell you how much catharsis the ending of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley episode 2 gave me. I cannot convey the weight of my gratitude that someone out there validated my anger and my specific fucked up power fantasy with their art. I didn’t even ask them to. I probably would’ve eventually done it on my own. But I’m so glad that someone did it for me.

If I ever hypothetically meet Nemlei, somehow, and have some cash, I will happily buy them a drink. Hopefully, by paying this excellent game’s ten dollar cover price, I already have!

I know you’re not watching this, but on the off chance this reaches your ears, I just wanna say thanks. For giving me a safe, legal, regret-free, socially acceptable, non-violent outlet for the rage I feel towards my parents.

Well.

Mostly socially acceptable.

Meow.

This game is not finished, as you may have noticed if you’ve gone to check it out on Steam. It ends on an ambiguous and open note, but in my opinion, a perfectly satisfying one. Nemlei could disappear absolutely, never release the proper ending of this game, and never make another game again, and I would not be mad. I've already got more than my money’s worth and then some. So. Yeah. I’m happy. Count me as happy!

I kinda wanna start talking a bit more about the branches of the second episode. I wanna say how it’s a brilliant idea to have two separate story arcs for the two variations of this episode’s ending, and how I hope that that’s executed on as beautifully as the rest of the game already is. I wanna talk about the ways in which Andrew and Ashley’s mom is ambiguously humanized despite being so obviously terrible. I wanna talk about the dialogue Andrew does when his parents offer him a chance to make amends, and he has doubts, if you choose to let him have them, and how I would probably also have doubts in his position, and not be able to follow through without my lovely evil cannibal sister pushing me towards… the thing. I wanna talk about this line, where Ashley talks about why she likes eating people, and how it’s so equal parts poetic and macabre and edgy bullshit and that that’s such a beautifully balanced cocktail of emotion to nail and Nemlei totally fucking nails it

I WANT TO GUSH FOREVER. ABOUT THIS GAME. AND I WANT NO ONE TO STOP ME.

Alas, I will stop myself.

And move on to the elephant in the room!

THE FUCKING.

Mom: “But that-.... That doesn’t make any sense.” Mom: “Why would you not-......” Mom: “Ah, I get it.” Andrew: “..........??” Mom: “You fuck her.” Andrew: “Wha— HUUUUH?!?!!?” Mom: “Oh that is disgusting! Andrew, she’s your sister for god’s sake!” Andrew: “I haven’t done anything!? What the hell, mom!?” Mom: “Then what does she give you that makes it worth all this?” Andrew: “W-well that’s none of your business, is it??” Mom: “I knew something was off… How did I fuck up so bad? I’m the worst mother ever..!” Andrew: “No! I mean yes you are, but I have never—!” Ashley: “I’m baaaa-ack!!!” Andrew: “Now of all times!?” Ashley: “I got the money! Did you miss me, handsome?? Did you? Did you??” Mom: “...........................” Andrew: “(I WANT TO DIE!!!!!!)”

Okay. So. I said I didn’t want to talk about this. But I’m talking about this game. I can’t not talk about it.

Yep, it’s hot takes and drama time!

So, not too long ago, Nemlei deleted their Twitter, their Itch.io, their everything, their entire online presence. The Steam page for The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, which used to list Nemlei as the developer and publisher, now lists “Kit9 Studio.” It is the only game to their name on the platform. A community forum post from said entity known as Kit9 announces that “the developer” (no name given) “has decided to permanently and completely terminate their activities online from here on.”

I don’t know exactly what happened, or why they did this. There’s a lot of people around who sure think they know. But in brief, as neutrally as possible: Nemlei, or someone close to them, was doxxed, or at least sought out as a doxxing target, by one or multiple users of an online forum. Their supposed crime? Making a video game “for degenerates.”

I don’t know who did the doxxing. I don’t know what their motive was, and for my own sanity, I am not going to look. I am choosing not to care. The most important and most obvious fact at hand here is that Nemlei’s creation has been met with controversy amongst social media users, and about one or two hack video game outrage journalists, who seem to have nothing better to do or say. And it seems clear that the doxxing wouldn’t have happened had they not been met with this negative attention. And all because of this.

Not the cannibalism, not the parricide, not the demon sacrifices. No, um, the one implied sex scene.

And it doesn’t even actually happen! It’s just a premonition of a possible future event that Ashley and Andrew supernaturally receive. It’s not particularly graphic, it doesn’t yet go anywhere, and it’s a short scene on an optional route that the game actively forewarns you about. You have to be trying to see it on purpose.

Well, that’s all true. It is indeed a minor and avoidable scene, and the discourse about it has absolutely poisoned the well when it comes to the conversation about the game. But also, “uhh, it’s optional and not a big thing,” is inadequate as a defense. This is still content in the game that Nemlei actively chose to put in the game, and even discounting this, the themes of incest are all over the game. Ashley speaks flirtatiously to Andrew at basically every turn. Even if you avoid this specific scene, the incest themes are not something you’re going to just not notice, if you’re paying attention to the text.

All that being said, it’s not like this content comes as a surprise. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley’s Steam store page accurately represents the product! A brother and sister. Codependency and cannibalism. It’s not as if you don’t know what you’re paying for and choosing to play. You came here for this! Most of the people playing this are here for this! You have to figure that if they are fine with killing and eating people, they’re probably fine with fucking each other, or, eventually possibly eventually going to be, at least.

So you’d think, except that many people seem to unironically believe that the cannibalism is more moral than the incest.

Oh, god, I’m doing this right now, aren’t I.

So, I get it. While I’m pretty skeptical of the notion that cannibalism is not as bad as incest, I do realize that incest is, at the very least, the more taboo of these things, and that a lot of people are more uncomfortable with it than they are with the cannibalism and the murder. To quote the one positive and in-depth review available in any media outlet at the time of this writing, from Destructoid:

“This aspect is undoubtedly the most controversial element about The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, and I understand why. While cannibalism is a taboo subject, it’s present in mainstream games like Fallout as an option for players. Having incestuous themes crosses over into Drakengard territory, and even then, no option allows Caim to reciprocate Furiae’s feelings for him.”

"The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is horrifying and I can’t get enough of it" Andrea Gonzalez, Destructoid, November 12 2023

So, yeah, I. y’know. Get it. I know why. However.

I can point to a lot of things that Andrew and Ashley do wrong in this game. They are, as per the game’s premise, very not okay, not as individuals, and not together. Andrew is way too attached to Ashley, and Ashley is generally an awful person who is way too attached herself, and also, all too quick on the draw to take advantage of Andrew’s attachment to her to make him do what she wants. This is not a healthy relationship. And we’re here for it! It’s compelling!

But, I think it’s worth asking why it’s such a toxic dynamic. Is it because they’re siblings? Well, not really. It’s a dynamic that’s specifically possible with them being siblings, but it’s not because of their sibling connection.

The actual reason why Andrew and Ashley’s relationship turns abusive isn’t because their relationship is abusive by necessity or nature, but because Ashley abuses their relationship. And she is doing this for basically the whole game. Like, it is abusive the whole time. It doesn’t become abusive when their relationship takes its romantic turn. Does it become more abusive? I mean. Maybe. Maybe the romance exacerbates the abuse. I dunno, we’ll have to wait and see what the next episode says.

So, then, why is the notion of them possibly in the future having sex the elephant in the room here, when before that, they do so many objectively worse things that cause much more harm both to themselves and others? Is that really so much more of a bigger deal than the murder and the people eating?

Or. To phrase it Ashley’s way. You played a game about mutilating and eating your parents’ corpses, and getting laid is what you’re freaking out about?

Is the incest really that much more extreme, or are you just more disgusted with it?

And even if you are more disgusted with it. Even if we grant that it is, actually, somehow, more harmful for siblings to have sex with each other, than to do murder and cannibalism. Is this the hill you’re dying on? What you’ve decided is of such utmost importance and injustice that you decide to go harass some random indie dev who just wants to make a silly video game about a couple of siblings eating people?

Does it truly make sense to let your kneejerk moral disgust guide you to the conclusion that the creator of this game deserves to be persecuted for merely writing about and drawing a thing you don’t like?

Well, to answer that, we have to get into the question of whether or not “immoral fiction” is harmful, or “normalizing” things that are wrong. Does fictionally depicting an immoral action actually cause harm?

I could dance around in circles for a little while about the edge cases, and certain writers who are publishing bad or hateful material in bad faith, or fascist propaganda, which is of course always bad, or whatever other example I could use to qualify my point or list out an exception to appease the people who disagree with me, but, I’ll just cut right to the chase, and tell you the answer

No!

The answer is NO!

The thing about taboos is that they don’t make us more safe. They don’t protect us from bad things. All they do is protect people’s comfort by silencing people they don’t want to understand, and enable bad actors by keeping their victims in the dark, and denying them the ability to talk about it.

The only thing we end up doing by censoring stories about these uncomfortable topics, and making it socially unacceptable to talk about them, is make it harder to know. We deny ourselves knowledge. We deny ourselves a conversation about these subjects, we deny ourselves the ability to meaningfully understand them. We deny ourselves power, what little we have, as readers, to understand, and to critique, to reason.

There’s a tumblr post I really like. Well, a number of them, I really like, on this topic, but I’m picking this one, because it’s got a quote I really like. It talks about Lolita. That Lolita. And, now, I’ve never read Lolita, at least not yet. Lolita is a novel about child sexual abuse, told from the perspective of an abuser. It’s an uncomfortable book with an uncomfortable topic, and it’s not wrong to be uncomfortable with it. The author of this post acknowledges that.

But they talk about it. They talk about how it shines a light on its subject matter. The why and the how of abusers and their actions. The ways in which their victims suffer. How it shows all of this in a way that it only could from the perspective it takes. And, I’m just going to quote them. I can’t do anything else. They said it better than I could, right now.

“Embrace disgusting fiction and then fucking talk about why it’s nasty. Now YOU have the power over reality.” - tumblr user legsdemandias

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley has been ridiculed, joked about, hot taked on, made a target, drama-ed over, and so on, but it’s hardly been criticized. No one I’ve seen admitting to not liking it talks critically about why it’s disgusting to them, or tries to understand why it exists, or what it’s for. And this is most people’s reaction to most media that deals seriously with anything taboo. “I don’t get it. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t exist. Get it away from me.”

I’m annoyed that the medium, the art form, of video games, is valued so little by so many that this is the wide reaction when something like this gets popular. That the mainstream games journalism media ridicules it, and the creator gets threatened by an internet mob, and it falls on the weirdos and the freaks and the no-name YouTube uwu girls, to give it the serious consideration and recognition it deserves.

To summarize, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is, in my opinion, a very good video game, and on its behalf, I am mad at video games.

Now, go on. You made it through this video. I told you the plot! You can probably stomach the plot! So go, go. Shoo. Go buy Nemlei a drink. If you want to.

Or, buy us, the joystick system, a drink! You can do that at patreon dot com slash joycestick, or, ko-fi dot com slash joycestick. You can buy us drinks in both of those places.

I’ve been Audrey. Thank you for listening.

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olderthannetfic · 10 months ago

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I would never defend them - at least not the ones who actually harass people - but I do wonder if there's some antis out there who genuinely come from good intentions.

Super serious and genuinely shameful confession: I'm an ex-radfem. I went into those circles in the first place bc I liked some of Dworkin's works. And while I obviously do not recommend anyone ever get into radical feminism, I will say this: If haven’t been down that very specific rabbit hole of ideology yourself - especially in online settings - you cannot even begin to imagine how fucking INSANELY pervasive the ideas are. Even if you've been a victim of radfem hate, if you haven't been a radfem yourself, I'm truly inclined to think you have no idea what those spaces are actually like. Sorta like how if you've been a victim of fundie hate, that is awful and it fucking sucks, but if you haven't been raised fundie yourself, you really don't know what it's like to be IN those circles, just a VICTIM of those circles.

I hate to throw around words like “hivemind” or “groupthink” but it is that. I went into radfem spaces thinking that I was above believing certain things that they believed but I clearly wasnt, it is so fucking toxic and that’s why i’ll never believe that “TIRF” (trans inclusionary radfem - something I tried and failed to be) can be a real thing. And then these same people have the audacity to call trans rights a cult, but you know, it's whatever.

Obviously terfs are more serious in the "real world" than antis are, but there are some parallels in the way that both groups feel about kink/porn discourse. (No, I'm not saying that antis "believe TERF ideology" or anything, but I do think in the specific context of sex stuff, there ARE alot of parallels.)

I am not defending radfems either, but I will say that I got into it because I was genuinely worried about things such as: PH and how they just steal content from sex workers, the abuse going on in the sex work industry, the phenomenon of young girls who are waiting to turn 18 so they can start an OF account, romance novels that were not marketed as dark but should've been considering they straight up romanticized abuse and rape.

I really do think that most antis are of a similar mindset -- people, typically young traumatized people (not trying to pull the neurodivergent minor card, it's just that statistically speaking, that label CAN describe most antis) who are truly worried that, like, idk, some young girl is gonna watch Twilight or read Reylo fic and think that an overly possessive bf is #goals. Again, I'm NOT trying to defend this ideology or line of thinking at all, I'm just saying that i DO think most of them really don't realize the harm that they're doing, and actually think they're doing good.

I actually kinda feel bad for them, but like my earlier comparisons, I feel bad for them in the same way I feel bad for fundies or evangelicals. I feel bad that they hold such an awful ideology while thinking they're doing good things, but I stop feeling bad once they start ACTUALLY hurting people and I'll always feel worse for the people who they harass and harm.

And like I'd never want to be a radfem again and I hate that I was one once but, between myself and your ~10k (ballpark estimate lol) followers, I think that my time spend in that belief system gave me some really good insight to cult mindsets, which was something I didn't understand before or have much sympathy towards, and I've emerged with a lot of empathy for people who ARE stuck in bad ideologies. I could've been born into a hate group. I could've been preyed on by alt-right people and sucked in that way. Instead, it was reading radblr during quarantine that got me. Before I fell into it, I just mindlessly hated everyone in that group, and now I just feel sorry for them (still without justifying any of their actions).

It's honestly a really, really, complicated thing to try to grapple with. Anyone, yes including you reading this, can be brainwashed into hate. The second you think you're too good for that, you've lost.

This was more of a vent than a discourse ask. I guess my tl;dr is: I hate antis, terfs, fundamentalists, etc, as much as the next guy, but I also recognize that some of those people truly truly do think they're on the right side of history, and some of those people have been sucked into an ideology they never would've believed otherwise if not for xyz factors. While hate groups will never deserve pity, there are some vulnerable people in hate groups who for some reason believe they're doing good, and I wish I could help all of those people.

Yeah, I assume many antis are perfectly sincere in their desire to protect people. They're just wrong about what will work.

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mochicrackersss · 6 months ago

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Blog Post - Convention Preview ᯓᡣ𐭩‧₊˚ ⊹

I've always enjoyed participating in fandom experiences! Though, I haven't been to anything crazy, like Comic-Con or Anime Expo. My most notable were just a few local Florida conventions. But they were still fun overall and gave a great look into youth culture and fandom communities with its vast amount of participants around the globe and things tailored for each fandom.

My first convention was PolyCon at Florida Polytechnic University. I don't remember much about it because it was a couple of years ago, but would say it was a good time! The convention itself was pretty quaint with not a lot to do and not many people attending besides Polytechnic students. But for being my first exposure to convention life, I was enamored. There was also a student-run maid cafe that was amusing to go to, specifically because my dad came to the convention with me. Younger me had absolutely no idea how to explain to my dad why a bunch of college students were in cat ears, maid costumes, and doing intricate dance routines. He was so confused... it was lowkey hilarious but also embarrassing.

I'd say the most memorable convention memory I have is when I went to Mega Con in 2021! It wasn't super long after the COVID quarantine got lifted, and so until then, I hadn't gone to anything or seen many people for what felt like a long time. Being able to go to a convention (of course, by then it was safe to be in public spaces) and simultaneously going with my best friend for her first time was just what I needed. However, it was very different with COVID regulations still in place, like masks and social distancing. But I did notice the convention felt like a sense of normalcy for many con-goers after the pandemic. Everyone I met was so kind (and that's rare because you're bound to run into a few bad eggs or creeps), and every cosplayer I saw, even with the masks, made the most out of their costumes! My best friend and I also tried to cosplay as our favorite characters from Demon Slayer because the anime was a huge comfort to us while we holed up inside our homes with nothing to do. Yes, I think my costume was horrible because I am no professional, and I lowkey hate looking at pictures of it, but it did act as a nice escape from the COVID-filled reality at the time. Because of that, I was so happy to spend that precious time with my best friend! And buy a lot of stuff in the artist alley because Mega Con's is so big lol.

Another convention I went to earlier this year was the University of Florida convention, Swamp Con! I never knew until later in my first semester that UF held its own convention, and I think more students should know about it! Swamp Con is an event completely run by students in the Reitz Union, which I think is super impressive based on how many activities there were to do! There were panels, quizzes, performances, cosplay contests, an artist alley, outdoor games, special foods and drinks, and even a maid cafe (which was so funny to see a second time in a college). I also cosplayed again for this convention as Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle, which is such a huge shocker based on my Tumblr.

Overall, the convention setting on a college campus took an unseen pressure off, which is something I also remembered feeling at PolyCon. I thought that would be an interesting thing to point out compared to venue conventions!

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bakugoushotwife · 2 months ago

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happy thanksgiving everyone that celebrates. to me this day is just about eating and appreciating the good things in life especially today when those things seem fewer and farther between. so thank you, to each one of my followers that reads my work, supports it, and supports me even if i’m a bit slow to publish. thank you to everyone that makes this place cozy to be in still.

and of course my absolute angel gets a special section. i’ve always been an obnoxious kid. i was a theater kid and that tells you enough. my parents even reinforced the notion that i was horribly annoying and hard to love. so i’ve found it hard to be any authentic version of myself for a long time, because sooner or later, people become exhausted with me. my emotions are up and down. i’m dramatic. i’m a rambler. i have adhd so i bounce from subject to subject. sometimes i’m selfish. sometimes i’m so selfless it’s to my detriment. i’m impulsive and catty and the biggest arrogant brat on the planet. i also hate myself. so i always understood why people decided to back away, to decide the good things weren’t worth the bad. especially once quarantine happened, i was sure i’d never have a real friend. i met my boyfriend a bit after covid and i decided he was as good a connection as i would ever get.

so imagine my surprise once i come back to tumblr after a couple years away and start writing again, this time for jjk, and i happen upon a discord invite link in the tags one day. it was impulsivity that made me curious, i suppose. i thought if nothing else, i’d make surface level writing mutuals and that would be nice. but i met my absolute soulmate, and my bestest friend. she meets my criticisms about myself with total aghast. she loves that i like to talk and keep conversations bouncing around. she enjoys the fact that i am pretty clingy and won’t ever let her ghost me even if she wanted to. she’d have to buy a new phone. everything i’ve ever disliked about myself she has turned into something beautiful and i’d like to say i’ve done the same. she is inspiring and incredibly resilient, so brilliant in so many ways. she’s hilarious and honest and hardworking, protective and so loyal. i love her so very much and i don’t know how i ever survived without her :3 @suguru-getos

so for as much as jjk has done to me and as much as i hate how things ended, and have a PERSONAL vendetta for gege—i must admit he’s given me a lot more than he’s taken away.

and as far as sappy love posts go, @thekatsuki @theshoutotodoroki @ryomensukunax , i will be in your inboxes :3

#sappy thanksgiving post #kyleetapsmic #thank you for this year 🫶🏻

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tetedurfarm · 2 months ago

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i have been full worm mode since getting back (those last two days in kentucky were a NIGHTMARE) but i'm feeling more alive today. my spouse has been caring for everyone and giving me the updates, and I can happily say that the bunnies are doing great, even the freshly weaned growouts. Granted they aren't fully out of the woods yet, but the 99% hay diet seems to be working well for them. Besides that they're RAVENOUS and this will absolutely affect their growth rates....but hopefully their genetics will make up for it once they are back on a normal pellet ration. Gonna slowly up over the next few weeks and hope that by the time they're closer to 12wks they'll be eating me out of house and home again.

i am very excited to have hotots to bring to shows again...i really want to do wcc next year...this year they had some hotots there for the first time since i started going and i regret not bringing some then (and ofc the hotot lady last week was like 'yeah idk that week is the same week as elop nationals....' PLEASE i want competition 😭) but i'm not sure i'll go to indy next year....i am excited for reno because we obviously go every year anyway, but this trip to kentucky was. expensive. more expensive than my usual yearly trips because at least when i'm going to philly to visit the mütter and independance hall i'm not buying $700 of animals and transport for them to get home on top of plane/hotel/food/activities haha. but i wanna show at a show with other hotots and meet the easterly pals that i didn't get to meet this year :((((

convention always just makes me want to really knuckle down and work hard to make something good that i can start putting on the table and be proud of. the last couple of years have been rough between the enterotoxaemia issues and just having really bad luck with making typey animals, especially in the himis but i *think* i know what is going on there now, finally, and i have learned what good hotot fur should look like as well which will really make a difference.

so! i am very excited for my bunnies to arrive and to get out of quarantine so i can start working with them. of course it's fall now and there is no more sun, but i should still get a couple of litters through winter to play with. and hopefully the hay diet will work :')

#ag talk #just rambling about rabbits in a disjointed manner. must be friday

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jesusbutbetterrr · 6 months ago

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books are so great man I remember the last time I got sucked into one

u got a favorite book or series?

seriously there's nothing more beautiful than getting lost in a book, it's almost religious

(I'm gonna put the rest of this under the cut bc boy am I about to RAMBLE)

I can't quite say I have a favorite book series because just about every book series I've read through was only because it became my new favorite series for the time being.

I'm going to be so real though, I mostly read YA (although it's been a hot ass minute in general). I will say the biggest series out of my favorites are either the Shadowhunter series by Cassandra Clare or the Percy Jackson series stuff.

Percy Jackson was like the starting point for me. I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for those books. It probably would've taken me 5 more years to figure out I was bi without them tbh.

this is by far not a great series, but one that is kinda nostalgic to me, the infamous Twilight series. Everyone knows it (accept certain people, but that's a different topic lmao). I feel like everyone has to experience it, it's a shitty coming of age thing that is just bad enough for it to be funny.

There's also the Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard. I actually read it the winter before quarantine so I honestly can't remember much of it. but I do remember enjoying it and that's what matters most.

Another series I don't fully remember, but I know I enjoyed it, is the Cruel Prince series by Holly Black. Although I distinctly remember the main character being so incredibly stupid at multiple times. but also im addicted to that shitty ass enemies to lovers trope. Not to say that the series was horrible, but like jesus christ. even I've done stupid things because of love, but I didn't lose my critical thinking skills in the process.

and of course there's the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas that I'm currently reading. and holy shit I love watching these idiots complicate things by falling in love. like the love triangle is great, I'm tearing it up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, even that little midnight snack if I'm feeling it. but also it's kinda weird bc me and this one character share a name and it's kinda trippy low-key. its great tho, I've started the third book already and I'm thriving

#nonny tag #jesus responds

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azimachra · 6 months ago

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You know what’s annoying? The fact that people are right about exercise. For years and years I told myself that I wasn’t an athlete. I’d tried more sports than I could count on my fingers and I was bad or disliked all of them. I’m slow so track didn’t work. Ice skating was fun but everyone started so much younger than I did and I felt like I would never catch up. My hand eye coordination and reaction time are actually terrible so tennis was a disaster. The list goes on.

Eventually I convinced myself that sports just weren’t for me. Everyone told me that being active in some way or another would improve my mood and help me get better sleep. I knew from experience that sports and being active would do nothing but make me (more) miserable. I relegated myself to the position of the eternal nerd. I didn’t need *sports* to live a fulfilled life or to feel good in my body.

Cut to a year and a half ago. I had some childhood experience with martial arts (I stopped in middle school because it wasn’t feminine enough or something like that) and decided after some of the quarantine restrictions lifted that I wanted to try again. the place I trained when I was younger went under during the height of covid and that sport was pretty rare so there was nowhere else to train. I chose a martial art I’d heard about at random - Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - and tried it.

I’d like to say that I was a prodigy, that I understood the sport instinctually, that I was praised by my coaches for my natural talent. That, unfortunately, would be a lie. I was downright terrible when I started. Everything was so difficult. Other people understood the principles and applications in a way that I couldn’t. It seemed like everyone was either way more advanced than me or twice my size. The first few months, I was learning techniques and training but I still didn’t get it. My coach told me that the instinct would come with time. I was worried that this would just be another piece of proof that I’m not athletic, that I don’t have the body or mental fortitude. I was scared of failing, but I loved the sport. Since then, I’ve massively improved. Some things that I struggled with before have fallen into place and I’ve found new things to struggle with. I’m competent for my level and I even competed in a tournament. Has it been easy? No. Do I always feel confident in my ability? Absolutely not. But BJJ has undeniably changed my life for the better. I feel more comfortable in my body, I’ve gotten stronger and more resilient, found a new community, and yes it totally has helped with my sleep schedule and emotional wellbeing.

While I love BJJ I am not promising that you will too (although it is amazing for self defense, a skill everyone benefits from but is extra useful to women and femme presenting folks in our current society). What I’m trying to say is that despite my years of disbelief it turns out that everyone was in fact correct about physical activity/sports being good for you. It also turns out that I was wrong about my belief that I was inherently un-athletic. I also want to say that you can do this on your terms. There are so many more ways to move your body than just hitting a ball with a stick or running in circles. Don’t let yourself stay trapped in a cage with fictional bars; in an 80’s movie trope where you can only be a jock or a nerd; in a mindset that limits you from being happy and healthy. Find something that makes you excited to do because I promise, it is out there.

#An added benefit #Is that I can tell my friends #That I multiclassed into monk #Bjj #brazilian jiu jitsu #martial arts #ramble #sports #I’m a nerd

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missin-you-already · 1 month ago

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10, 11, and 12 ?

Thank you for the ask <33

10. Favorite & least favorite character in Apocalypse?

Favorite? Jill Valentine. I am also a huge Jill fangirl when it comes to the games and love both versions of 3 to death, so not really a surprise there. Sienna Guillory was the perfect choice for her. She kicks ass but also has that moment of emotional vulnerability with Peyton's death. If you've ever listened to the commentary, Sienna goes on about how important that moment was for her character. Love when she walks up to Alice until the barrel of her pistol is pressed into her neck to protect Peyton, zero shits given. The line "Those were some pretty slick moves back there. I'm good, but I'm not that good," is burned into my brain.

And on a vaguely unrelated note, the fact that Alice shields Angie with the fire blanket but lets Jill go flying into a table is really funny to me.

For the sake of not repeating my easy answer to part of the next question, I'll say Major Cain is my least favorite. I do like the added stuff about how he knew One from the novels, and how many characters we see in the security division wouldn't have been hired if not for him, but we don't get that in Apocalypse so he's the most boring villain we get to see Imo.

I would've loved if those characters reacted to Cain's face if they learned that he decided the quarantine efforts were to be abandoned.

11. Favorite & least favorite character in Extinction?

Favorite? K-Mart! That kid is queer-coded as hell. The scene where she gives Alice one of her rainbow bracelets is pretty adorable. Claire says everyone was freaked out by Alice's crazy mind powers, but K-Mart is just waiting in the room for her to wake up like "Hi :D" lol. The part where she cries and hugs Carlos goodbye always gets me too.

Least favorite? Dr. J. Isaacs. I am his number 1 hater, I'm pretty sure. I dislike him more than Alexander Isaacs or his other weird clone with the same name. It feels like he directly put Alice through more pain and bs than either of them. He was also obsessed with her in a way they weren't, going so far as to clone her over a hundred times to try and replicate her, filling a ditch with their dead bodies when they weren't good enough. It wasn't just about the Super Undead and altering how the T-virus affected people, man. And he only went to kill the real Alice when it became apparent he couldn't keep her leashed.

12. Favorite & least favorite character in Afterlife?

Favorite? Luther West. Luther is just a cool dude. Incredibly friend-shaped. Good heart. "Resident superstar".

We're talking about Afterlife here, but I do wanna bring up how I love him being a part of Wesker's strike team in Retribution. Leon and Barry have military/law enforcement backgrounds, Sergei is the tech guy, Tony is probably military or some shit, and Luther is simply a dude who used to play basketball. He's here because he heard his friend Alice is here. Wesker probably picked him because his presence would make her agree quicker.

Least favorite? Bennett Sinclair. He's one of those weasely, pathetic bad guys and I'm generally not crazy about those types of characters. Shocked Wesker didn't kill him or shove him in a tube with the others when he arrived on the Arcadia. He isn't the type to be like "Hm... yes... I need help handling Project Alice, whom I slammed around easily in Tokyo and rendered essentially human after neutralizing her T-virus abilities, and Chris and Claire Redfield, two humans. More specifically, I need the help of this snivelly loser." I mean, Wesker did lose in the end, but he sees himself as too superior to have foreseen an outcome like that, and I don't see what benefit he got out of allowing Bennett to help him. Not having to move from his cool bad guy pose in his chair and lift a gun at Alice himself?

#ask #anon

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sgtmickeyslaughter · 10 months ago

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Weekly Tag Wednesday!

happy wednesday everyone, thanks for tagging me @lingy910y, @mybrainismelted and @creepkinginc

how is your day going? uh good-ish. yeah, i woke up feeling weird and kind of isolated but its not based in reality i have like 12 texts from friends im definitely not ignoring for some unknown reason (eek) and plans this weekend but i still just felt very far away from everyone, anyone get that?

are you okay? yeah! overall im good

what is your favourite shade of your favourite colour? deep, rich olive

are you single? no but my gf has been out of the country for over a month (!!!) luckily shes getting back this weekend so im pretty excited

are you happy about that? yeeee im a certified lovergirl

what age do you feel in your brain? what a question. I turned 21 while in quarantine living in my parents attic which set me back a few years mentally, but im the youngest person at my firm and i boss around adults all day so i do feel a little older so i guess my age but with a lot of caveats

do you feel like the good times are behind you or ahead of you? um both? i hope?

do you have a best friend? i only have best friends and acquaintances, no in between

did you have a childhood pet? yeah we had 6 dogs at different parts of my childhood, my dad was banned from visiting the humane society alone after #5

do you sing or whistle around the house? i sing a lot! I have a nice voice for singing around the house

do you light candles or incense? im a big incense girl, but the scent has to be super light

are you busy Friday night? im busy every friday night, i wfh friday and do all my work in advance so i can use that time to do chores between meetings so friday nights are my order take out, smoke some [redacted] and watch movies night to decompress

if you were a circus performer which act would you be in? i would be the bad bitch that throws knives at the dude on a spinning wheel

what is your favourite outfit? usually i wear jeans and a sweater over a collared shirt and cute sneakers, all very neutral

what's the last thing you created? this wedding drawing was the last thing i posted, but this week i finished another drawing i have to say is pretty stunning that ill probably post sometime this weekend :)

what is your favourite fic or book of all time? the vegetarian by han kang is my favorite book of all time

what are you looking forward to? my gf :) is coming back :)

what can put you immediately in a better mood? a little time to myself and a nice long run

do you like hugs? eh very much depends on who

what is something you wish people understood about you? do not let the resting bitch face fool you i am very fun and kind and lovely!

tagging @iansw0rld @energievie @gallovichhhh @mickeym4ndy @gallawitchxx @stocious @krysmiss @softmick @mickeysgaymom @metalheadmickey @heymrspatel @jrooc @softmick

#sgt says #tag game

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fyeahdprian · 3 years ago

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[AV Club] Head In The Clouds

Head In The Clouds is the biggest festival you haven't heard of (yet)

The festival, a celebration of Asian heritage in music, featured performances from CL, Saweetie, DPR Live, DPR Ian, and more

By Shanicka Anderson | November 11, 2021 | 8:04pm

Until we meet again, Rose Bowl Photo: Shanicka Anderson

The last concert I attended was way back in January 2020. (It was Seventeen, at the Prudential Center in New Jersey). At the time, I had no idea it was going to be my last show for almost two years. So the opportunity for me to fly out to L.A. to attend 88Rising’s third Head In The Clouds festival—and its lineup that boasted CL, the queen of K-pop, along with Saweetie, Rich Brian, DPR Live, DPR Ian, Japanese Breakfast and many others—seemed like the perfect event for me to reenter the world of live music.

Additionally, West Coast Asian and Asian-American culture has influenced and directly birthed so much of the music I love, so I was stoked to finally attend a festival that celebrated it. For the uninitiated, 88Rising is a music company with a simple goal for its fest: It tries to round up the best and brightest acts from the Asian continent and the Asian diaspora. And after nearly two years of increased violence and prejudice against the Asian community in the wake of COVID-19, a celebration of its culture felt even more necessary.

Following my five-hour flight (which included a very yappy Pomeranian who barked the entire trip) I was shuttled through LAX into an Uber (I know everyone says you have to drive everywhere in L.A., but damn, y’all really have to drive everywhere) and deposited at my swanky hotel in Koreatown this past Friday night.

Of course, Friday night was also the night of Astroworld, which means I received the horrific news just as I was getting ready to start my own festival weekend. It’s very dizzy and unsettling to prepare for a music fest so soon after learning of the tragedy and the deaths that transpired there, and I’m sure it was something that also weighed heavily on HITC organizers and security guards’ minds as we all headed into the weekend.

Head In The Clouds, day one (DPR Live and DPR Ian, eaJ, Saweetie, CL, and Illenium)

3:15 p.m.

Well, the vibes are off to a bad start. After getting dropped off at the Rose Bowl, I notice immediately that line for will call is very long. Like, probably the longest box office line I’ve ever seen at a concert before, or has possibly ever existed in human history. When I join, I ask around to find out if there’s a separate line for media. They tell me, no, it’s all one line.

Which of course means that, about 40 minutes later, when I finally get close enough to speak to someone else the the box office, I realized that there is, in fact, a completely different line for media. I walk over to that window and get my wristbands in five minutes flat. Sigh.

4:00 p.m.

When I make it past the gates, I am immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. After over a year of being in quarantine and avoiding crowds, I’ve forgotten how to be around a crowd larger than ten people. And as I walk awkwardly and stiffly across the grassy field, I’m pretty sure it shows.

I walk past the merch stalls and take stock of the food vendor options (I notice a boba stall, a dim sum stall, one place that serves pork belly buns and another place that makes mapo tater tots at first pass), heading towards the main “88Rising” stage.

I also survey the crowd. It’s a pretty eclectic mix: There are the guys who look like frat boys from a state college, couples who already can’t keep their hands off of each other, girls in fishnets and mesh who look dressed for a rave, and people who look ready to party like it’s 2019. I’m not totally sure how many people are expected to turn out this weekend but I already know that this will easily be the largest festival I’ve ever attended.

4:30 p.m.

DPR Live and DPR Ian’s joint set was the one I was looking forward to the most. Live’s music is more firmly hip hop-based; I’ve listened to him for years, and his set was full of crowd pleasers like “Martini Blue,” “Text Me,” and “To Myself.” (For that last one, just picture thousands of people screaming along to, “DPR, we gang gang!”) Live and Ian were joined by Korean-American musician eaJ for their collaboration “Jam & Butterfly,” and I was absolutely thrilled—I’m interviewing eaJ later, so it was good to get a little a preview before his own HITC slot tomorrow.

Ian’s contribution to the DPR set included “Nerves,” “Scaredy Cat,” and his powerhouse debut single, “So Beautiful.” This was also Ian’s first time performing a show—ever. A pretty rad stage debut, if you ask me.

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6:00 p.m.

Saweetie has just kicked off her set, and with the light work and projection screen illuminating the crowd, I can see how much the main stage area has filled out. My friends and I pick a less crowded patch of grass in the VIP section of the field to hang out for the evening. Also, it’s finally dark out, so it feels more like a concert now; the energy has ratcheted up.

Saweetie is one of those artists I never though I’d see live, so having her on this lineup is a treat. During her set she expresses appreciation for HITC and gives a special shoutout to her “Asian king and queens” in the crowd, delivering a set list that includes “My Type,” “Tap In,” and “Best Friend” (sadly, she performs that last one solo, without Doja Cat).

7:30 p.m.

My interview with eaJ goes smoothly (you can check that out when it goes up this weekend) but I was nervous that I would miss the main draw: CL. As I leave the media clubhouse and hurry out to the stage, it all kind of happens in slow motion: CL starts singing my favorite song “+DONE161201+,” I power-walk to the grass, and plant myself among a group of concertgoers who have decided to enjoy the show while sprawled out on top of some picnic blankets.

By the time CL brings Ian and Live out on stage to do “No Blueberries,” I’m getting a little embarrassingly emotional over how much I fucking missed live music. I forgot what it was like to listen to a song over and over again in your room alone, for months, and then go to a show and have the chance to scream the song with a bunch of strangers who love it just as much as you do. It’s so damn powerful.

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8:00 p.m.

This is when the night takes a turn for the worse.

After CL’s performance, I meet back up with my friends, and we all decide it’s finally time to get food. All of the lines for the food stalls are incredibly long, so we decide to hop on the Korean barbecue line. After 20 minutes in line, we get to the cashier, only for me to discover they’re out of their only vegetarian option—which for me, a vegetarian, sucks. And to add the most brutal insult to injury, though I didn’t know it yet: It was time for Illenium’s set.

8:20 p.m.

To be honest, before Head In The Clouds, I’d never listened to Illenium. After HITC, I realized that my ignorance was bliss. Illenium is a DJ who makes some of the most grating EDM I have ever heard in my life. Maybe the people who aren’t covering this festival for work and who are on multiple recreational substances can appreciate his set, but for me, it’s awful. As his performance continues, I leave the field and seek refuge in the media clubhouse.

9:20 p.m.

With the vibes of the evening thoroughly destroyed by Illenium (the only white dude performer on the lineup, and he sent our mood and energy levels into a nosedive!), I decide to call it a night. After all, I have to be back the next afternoon to do this all over again.

As I’m leaving the Rose Bowl, I walk past the Double Happiness stage. Japanese Breakfast is in the tail end of her set; the crowd is more subdued over at this stage, but they’re super-engaged, and I can tell that JBrekkie’s set was the polar opposite of… whatever the hell Illenium had going on.

We left the Rose Bowl and only had a slightly sketchy and mildly terrifying experience with the fake “cab company” that took us back to our Airbnb. The L.A. experience, baby! A rich tapestry!

Head In The Clouds, day two (Feelghoodmusic, Keshi, eaJ, Niki, Joji)

4:30 p.m.

The Feelghoodmusic set is another combination, featuring MFBTY and Bibi—artists from the Feel Ghood Music label, created by Tiger JK in 2013. Tiger JK, his wife and bandmate Yoon Mi-rae, and Bizzy—all of the OG K-hip hop group, MFBTY—take the stage, and they don’t let us forget their long history in the industry. “We’re old as shit,” Tiger JK tells the crowd.

However, that doesn’t stop them from dialing up the energy as we head into the second evening of the festival. The group’s enthusiasm is so infectious, I watch two separate breakdancing circles open up just on the other side of the VIP fence. And I mean honest-to-god breakdancing—people are doing handstands and backflips! Tiger JK doesn’t seem eager to leave the crowd, because he blatantly ignores his cue to end their set until the music is cut, the projection screen goes black, and the metaphorical rug is pulled out from under them.

For Bibi’s half of the Feelghoodmusic set, she keeps the momentum going but adds a layer of slightly unhinged sex appeal. “Who’s having sex tonight?” she asks before shoving a hand into the giant beige purse she brought onstage with her; it’s filled with condoms and she gleefully throws handful after handful into the crowd. (I find out later that she actually hopped down off the stage, walked over to the barriers, and smooched one of the festivalgoers right on the mouth.) A part of me is obsessed with the chaotic and powerful energy of that… but a far bigger part of me is, uhhhh, horrified at the idea of kissing a stranger, in the middle of a crowd, in the middle of a pandemic.

5:38 p.m.

One of the best things about a festival is when you stumble onto performance you hadn’t planned to watch, and end up walking away with a brand new music obsession. That’s what happened with me and Keshi.

Before he comes out, the crowd starts chanting his name. No performer yet has inspired such a reaction, so my interest is piqued. When he starts the first line of “Beside you,” every single person has their phone up and is recording. Again, no other artist other has had this much of the crowd completely enamored, all at once—and to be honest, I’m hooked too. He keeps the audience in the palm of his charismatic hand, even when his mic goes out.

Keshi’s stage presence was especially shocking for me because the music he makes is pretty low key, lo-fi R&B. “It’s quarantine music,” my friend tells me. My other friend agrees: “Yeah, everyone got super into Keshi” during the pandemic. The way everyone around me is screaming Keshi’s own lyrics back at him seems like evidence enough.

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6:30 p.m.

eaJ has a way of building rapport with a crowd. When I saw him perform with his group Day6 back in November 2019, it was the first thing I noticed. The way he bantered with his fans while on stage felt incredibly intimate. I wonder if he’ll be able to recreate that relationship with this massive festival crowd, especially given it’s a solo stage this time around.

I quickly got my answer: Yes. When he gets on stage, eaJ jokes about the arrangement of his setlist, “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m stupid and I make bad decisions. The energy transfer [and] how I divided between songs is not good. I don’t know who the fuck made the track list… I did. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He also playfully laments his fans and their purposefully embarrassing handmade signs. “Why are all my fans always meme-ing on me, bro? Y’all are whack!”

But he isn’t all quips and no substance. Somehow, eaJ—who still technically doesn’t have any songs available on streaming platforms—commands the crowd. He brings Keshi back out onstage to perform their song “Pillows,” and when it’s time to do fan-favorite “50 Proof,” eaJ pulls off a gut-wrenching rendition that feels like I’m being taken to church. “I know some of y’all don’t know me but I know you fuck with me now,” he tells the audience at one point. Amen.

7:33 p.m.

Niki is a goddamn superstar. For those who don’t yet know this artist, she’s a 22-year-old singer from Indonesia and who’s been releasing music with 88Rising since 2017.

And from the moment she walks out onstage, Head In The Clouds becomes The Niki Show. First of all, she has not one, but three outfit changes (first a sparkly sequin outfit with matching eyeshadow, then a pink ruffled dress, and finally a gold romper with matching gold duster jacket). She cycles between doing choreography with her dancers, playing the piano, and playing the guitar. It’s riveting. Keshi comes onstage with her (his third stage appearance of the night) but his mic is still messed up. His mic issues have lasted for hours; what the hell?!

8:48 p.m.

It’s time for headliner Joji’s set, but after reaching the end of these two days, I am tired. Tired enough that I tell my friends to go ahead into the crowd while I sit this one out. And I mean literally sit it out—right here, on the plush faux-suede couches just outside of the media clubhouse.

As I watch Joji’s set, I find myself again filled with the same emotions I felt this time last night. I missed live music, and I’m so beyond grateful to be here. I’m also a nostalgia monster—so naturally, I’m already mourning the end of this festival and this weekend, even while I’m still here.

It’s hard to describe the West Coast Asian-American music scene, but I’m struck by how very L.A. this festival has been. From the warm and sunny weather, to stalls selling spiked boba, to the festival’s lineup itself: Many of these performers are from overseas, and yet they were able to draw massive crowds of people who likely wouldn’t get to see these artists live outside of HITC.

After seeing the enthusiastic crowd this weekend and witnessing how smoothly things went (terrible box office experience notwithstanding), I have high hopes for this festival next year. I imagine that—following the huge turnout and the fact that the entire show was livestreamed on Amazon—Head In the Clouds 2022 will be bigger, better, and have an even more impressive lineup. (Especially if we are finally freed of COVID and its subsequent travel restrictions.)

So, I’ll be back next year… but I’m renting a car.

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hamstermastersamster · 1 year ago

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As I often am when I'm rotating in The Bad Place, I'm drawn to old loves and nostalgia for comfort, which is why I'm currently rereading the Dragonriders of Pern series.

I've already made my peace with some of the more eyebrow-raising scenes in my childhood beloved books (Anne was a 2nd wave feminist in the 60s, what can I say), but I'm up to Moreta and, oh my god it hits so different after the pandemic. AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

Titular protagonist Moreta, dragonlady of Pern. Such a Pernese legend that they wrote ballads about her that would be sung for generations to come.

And only now do I somehow see that she's a fucking idiot.

Seriously! She's Fort Weyr's healer, would have become a Master Healer if she hadn't become a dragonrider first. But she touches a mysteriously dying runnerbeast without any caution or even washing her damn hands afterwards (something she later admits to herself she only did to impress her new boy toy Alessan).

THEN because she doesn't want to face the fact that she may be infected, she instead questions the judgement of the fucking Masterhealer of Pern in calling a quarantine and flits about interacting with everyone as if nothing bad could ever happen. Her whole justification for this is "dragonriders are healthy, we simply won't get sick". WHAT. I'M SORRY?! You're a HEALER?! Do you know ANYTHING?!

The Pern setting is a little dark ages in the sense that, despite this being far in humanity's future, Pern's population has effectively regressed and forgotten a lot of science (and gender equality . . .). But even so, we can't pretend the healers don't know enough to understand the basic dos and don'ts of serious illnesses.

We know this because there is one person besides the Masterhealer who takes the situation seriously. And that is Sh'gall - Fort Weyrleader. He is rightly anxious about the prospect of a pandemic, he responsibly social-distances himself from other people in the Weyr because he knows he may have been infected, and he furiously enforces the quarantine, destroying his already utter lack of popularity.

And everyone, including the narrative, take the absolute piss out of him for it. Oh, silly Sh'gall! Such a worrywort. So over the top. Talk about exaggerating the risk. What a whiny pissbaby, says Moreta internally in not so many words.

Even after his concerns prove true, nobody acknowledges it. It's just "Oh well, it's done now, Sh'gall. Deal with it," from Miss I'm-Such-A-Great-Healer-I-Spread-Pandemic-To-My-Entire-Weyr.

Lmao.

Well, Sh'gall, it is years too late but I see you now. The title of this book should actually be Sh'gall: Smartest Dragonrider of Pern.

Let's hope the rest of the book redeems Moreta because at the moment I cannot like her anymore xD

#hamster reads #i guess? xD #dragonriders of pern #i cannot stress how many times i've read these books and never noticed this

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lsdunesarchive · 1 year ago

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Past Lives album notes, by Anthony Green - Apple Music

(video credit)

When Thursday drummer Tucker Rule sent Circa Survive and Saosin vocalist Anthony Green some songs to check out during COVID lockdown, the singer wasn’t aware that he was being recruited for an emo supergroup. “When the pandemic hit, every band out there was trying to figure out how to stay alive,” Green tells Apple Music. “I was freaking out, so I was trying to stay busy. Tucker said he had a project with a couple friends and asked me to sing on it. The songs were really good, so I went for it.”

It wasn’t until after Green had recorded vocals for a few songs that Rule revealed the rest of the band’s lineup: My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero, Coheed and Cambria guitarist Travis Stever and Thursday bassist Tim Payne. “I’m glad he didn’t tell me,” Green says. “I would’ve felt so much more pressure.” Below, the singer details each track on L.S. Dunes’ debut.

2022

“It’s definitely one of the most personal songs I’ve ever written. I guess all the songs are personal, but the heaviness of that song is about wondering if I would’ve been better off dead than alive. I know a lot of people go through that—it’s not just me—but it’s a hard song for me to play because it makes me feel all the feelings I had when I wrote it. All that insecurity and all that fucking heaviness comes back. If I could not play it, I would, but the band really loves that song.”

Antibodies

“That was one of the first songs I put vocals to for Dunes. It was at the beginning of quarantine, everyone was isolated and there was a rift between people who were like, ‘I’ll do whatever I can to try to make this thing less brutal on people with compromised immune systems and people that are more susceptible to getting bad COVID’ and people who were like, ‘I don’t give a shit, and I don’t think it’s that bad.’ So, the song comes from feeling isolated and trying to get my head around the idea that some people didn’t give a shit if someone’s grandma or father or mother was gonna die.”

Grey Veins

“I’ve been in a lot of projects with a lot of people, and when I sat down to write this song, I was thinking a lot about whether or not I was doing too much. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Am I going to make people sick of me? Am I doing too many things?’ I kind of answered that question with this song being like, ‘Fuck, no’. I’m just going to fucking play and make as much music as I can here, and I don’t have to explain it to anybody or to live up to anybody else’s standards. I just need to do what makes me happy and to do it as fearlessly as I possibly can.”

Like Forever

“I’ve been going through addiction stuff my entire life. As you get older and the more you work on it, you get a little time clean and then something happens, and you relapse. That’s not part of everybody’s story, but it was part of my journey—and man, it sucks. Having to explain it to somebody, having to deal with the hurt and confusion you cause other people when you relapse…maybe some people don’t want to talk to you after that. They don’t want to be in your life because they don’t want to deal with the stress of loving you. This song deals with that shame and trying to figure out how to get back on a healthy path.”

Blender

“This song is so stoney and heavy. Lyrically, it has to do with my mental health issues and being bipolar. It’s funny because the song is bipolar in and of itself because the verses are very low, and then the choruses are at the very top of my range. It’s not an accident that it goes from one extreme to the other. It very much symbolises the theme of the song, which is me wrestling and coming to grips with the nature of my mood swings, my personality and my fears.”

Past Lives

“This song was inspired by the statues of Confederate soldiers and Christopher Columbus coming down, and the idea of history writing itself rather than going down this lane of total bullshit. Being able to change the narrative in schools so that people are learning the truth about the foundation of this country and the violence at the core of it. It should be taught in school that we massacred people and decimated cultures. I have to deal with parents in my kids' school who think that it’s bad to teach kids about slavery. It’s wild that people don’t want to teach the truth about something.”

It Takes Time

“I wrote this song about Frank. He was in an accident and really fucked up his wrist and hand, and he had to get surgery during the recording of the album. We had to take a big break from sharing music because he couldn’t play guitar. I don’t think he knew if he was ever going to be able to play again. So, I was thinking about him and his relationship with his instrument. The song opens up with, ‘Hello? I’m not sure if you remember, we connected a long time ago.’ That’s him talking to his guitar and his muse. I don’t always write a song for someone else from their perspective, but I did that with this.”

Bombsquad

“This is another one that came up around politics during COVID. I was thinking about how people were lying through their teeth about stuff just to save face—just making shit up, essentially. And the ability that some people had to just detach from reality and pretend that their shithead president was actually helping. It has a lot to do with QAnon and some of the people in my life that were falling for that shit.”

Grifter

“This is one of my favourites. I wrote this song about trying to start over. With each of these projects that I’m doing, I’m digging and I’m trying to find something. Music is a religion to me, and I think that ‘Grifter’ is questioning whether I’ve made it into a religion in a way that’s unhealthy. I centre everything around music and rely on it a lot, and it’s turned into something I worship. I’m sort of questioning whether or not that’s a healthy thing.”

Permanent Rebellion

“This is another song that’s 100 per cent about trying to drop the baggage of our old bands and trying to do something a little bit different with different people.”

Sleep Cult

“I did an interview where I talked a little bit about suicide, and then I realised that my kids were going to see that. There’re things that I’m realising my kids are going to see and hear, and I want to jump in front of it and go to them and explain myself and really let them know me, so they don’t ever see or hear anything where they’re like, ‘Oh shit, this is really heavy.’ I just want to make sure I’m creating an environment for them where they know me and they can talk to me about anything they need, so they don’t ever feel like they’re alone in this world.”

#ls dunes #l.s. dunes #m: anthony green #lsd: 2022 #in: nov/22 #t: video #t: text #t: audio #misc: past lives #misc: duneslore #archive[ane]

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ladybugjournal · 5 months ago

Text

I'm not giving up. I'm just moving on.

3 August 2024

TW: talk of mental illness (a brief non descriptive and non explicit mention of an attempt on one's life)

I'm not giving up. I'm just moving on.

I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not giving up. Taking myself out of a bad situation, leaving a place I don't feel safe in, and moving towards a new goal does not mean I'm giving up on what I currently have. What I have is over. It's done.

That chapter is completed.

18 year old me made a plan and set certain goals. Along the way, that plan changed (mainly because of covid) but I adapted, changed the plan, made new goals. Still, I did what I set out to do. I graduated my first choice college with honors, made two short films (and worked on a many others), I got a job and have been working there for more than five years now, I made friends, I went to parties (I have never really been a party person so this was a big goal of mine. My mother even wanted me to go to parties lol), I went on dates, I went on adventures, and I grew up.

I don't regret this last chapter. Not at all. Honestly, I wouldn't change any of it. It's weird to say that because a lot of it has been shitty and I had more mental breakdowns than was healthy, but I made it through. I learned, I grew, I became me.

This last chapter of my life has been a dream. Some of it a nightmare, honestly, a lot of it was a nightmare, but still, a dream. A fever dream, really.

In 2018, I was 18 years old. I moved 1100 miles from home, alone, to a place I knew no one. I moved in with a stranger (my first roommate), I got my first job (that wasn't a summer job as a camp councilor), I got in my first fender bender (it wasn't my fault), I went on my first date after breaking up with my longterm high school boyfriend. I went to classes, had a 4.0, and I survived.

I survived moving (with that same first roommate) because our school fucked up and had to put us in with another roommate (this one wasn't good and though we only cohabitated for 3 months it was far too long). I made more friends and lost friends. I moved again with my first roommate.

It's important to note that each move was a downgrade by the school. My first roommate and I went from having separate rooms in a 2 bed 2 bath with a full kitchen, living room, and dining room. To sharing a room and bathroom and walk in closet in the second 2 bed 2 bath apartment across the living room from our other (unstable) roommate. To living on a first floor studio apartment we called "the concrete box" that had barely half a kitchen, a rod between 2 broken shelves for a closet, a bathroom we shared with our neighbor we never met (with a shower that would flood from the drain and spill into our room), where the fire alarms would go off almost every night at 2 - 4 AM. We were there when covid started which was great because we had bunkbeds and couldn't quarantine from each other if we needed to (luckily we didn't need to).

I took a break and moved back in with my parents when Covid got really bad. I did zoom classes from my parents living room while my mother worked from home from the kitchen table and my father worked from home from the kitchen island. I got drunk a lot, hung out with my high school friends when I could. It honestly wasn't horrible for me. I'm lucky to have been able to do that.

When I had to go back, I ended up moving into a 4 bedroom 2 bath apartment. There were 5 of us. I shared a room with my friend from college/work and everyone else had their own room. It wasn't horrible. Not really. Not always. I was closer with two of my roommates, but really only friends with the one I shared my room with at first. Three of us worked together, which was nice except it was covid times and one of our little trio always thought they were sick so the other two of us were forced to isolate. The other two roommates were not great, they fought like children, screaming at each other and throwing fits. One of them continuously threatened to hit me, which I did not enjoy. But I was trying to make the most of it and just get through zoom university.

One night, one of the two outside of the trio tried to take their own life. I won't go into details, not now, maybe not ever, but I had to fix it. I was asked to "fix it". I called dispatch, I talked to the paramedics, I had to keep myself held together even when I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my own skin. But, even in what could possibly be one of the most traumatic nights of my life, I still have fond memories. I played tag in the parking lot with my friend. We were distracting ourselves, grounding ourselves, trying to keep our shit together and do something, anything, that would keep us from spiraling.

Even now, years later. Even now that I'm no longer close with that friend and I don't talk to that roommate ever since we had to kick them out. Even now, I look back on that night and even though it's so dark and so horrible, even though it still makes me sick to my stomach. I still smile when I think of playing tag in the parking lot. I still laugh thinking about sitting outside of the diner at 2 am, freezing while cupping my coffee, while I distracted everyone by telling stupid stories and quizzing them on random kids movies. Those moments are light. They're special. They wouldn't have happened if it wasn't peak pandemic when the ER wouldn't let anyone sit in the waiting room, or when the diner only had outside seating.

It was horrible and I was in therapy over it for a long time, but still, I wouldn't change it.

I wouldn't change moving out in a rush because we had to break our lease. I wouldn't change our downstairs neighbor who was paranoid and horrible and threatened to have her grown children beat us, and who called the cops on us while we were sleeping for "rolling bowling balls". I wouldn't change getting sick. I wouldn't change knowing something was wrong between be and my trio but having them lie to me every time I asked. I wouldn't change feeling like I was going crazy for over a year because of their lies and their mind games.

I wouldn't change any of that because I learned the truth. I learned the truth after another horrible night where I felt rage for the first time in years. I wouldn't change finding myself once I learned the truth and realized that two people I thought were my best friends were actually not my friends at all. I wouldn't change any of that because it made me find myself.

I wouldn't change any of the bad, because then I wouldn't have any of the good.

I wouldn't have the friendship I have with my very first roommate. I wouldn't have all the memories. I wouldn't have my cat, my baby boy, I rescued from that first 4 bedroom apartment. I wouldn't know I can pack all my shit and move within a week (I had to do this twice). I wouldn't be confident that no matter what happens, I can stay calm in a crisis. I wouldn't know that I can move out on my own, completely alone (or with my cat) and still be fine.

I wouldn't be me without the good and the bad.

I wouldn't go back and change the 1-2 hour commute to campus when my school moved in my senior year. Because of that, I really don't care how long it takes me to get somewhere, anything is better than a 45 minute drive turning into a 2 hour drive when you're already late for class and then showing up to campus only to find there is no parking in the public parking that you have to pay for so you just give up and go home and cry to your mother on the way because you're having your third panic attack that week and it's only Monday. (Yeah, I still wouldn't change that).

I met my twin™️ and our other friend at that campus. We went on adventures down town because if we were going to make that drive might as well explore. I will always cherish them. We're still close and that's really nice.

Honestly, I wouldn't change going to that stupid party where everything went to shit, because that's how I found out the truth. That's what snapped me out of the blind love I had for my friends.

So yeah, it sucked, a lot of it sucked, but a lot of it was great and I wouldn't change it.

I just have to remember that leaving, starting a new chapter, going on a new adventure, getting out and going some where new, is not giving up. I didn't give up. I had so many opportunities to give up over the last six years, but I didn't. This is not giving up. This is moving on.

This is not giving up. This is moving on.

I am not giving up. I'm just moving on.

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rotzaprachim · 2 years ago

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on another note on something i am SURE media analysis has been done On but which has really been digging into my brain is the whole zombie apocalypse as distinctly bush-era and onward conservative fantasy. it’s about the situation where 99% of the world dies but the Guy with a Gun lives and there being almost a sick enjoyment, sometimes, but if not that then the world weary sigh about how This is what it Takes to keep living. it’s about the literal creation of a world in which there’s some reason one HAS to have guns to survive, HAS to put up walls around every inch of their *space* to keep those Guys out. a lot has been written about lovecraft’s violent racism and imperialism in terms of how he saw the Hordes of literlaly everyone not a white anglo-saxon, but to me there’s something in the whole zombie plague of internal invasion and home invasion that really plays into the most violent aspects of anti-immigration sentiments - and of course, those guys have to be shot. there’s a lot to say too i think about the zombie genre therefor as evolution from the frontier-thesis western genre. if there is no more obvious enemy at our borders one comes from the inside.

and it’s all really interesting, and has aged in fascinating ways in terms of how i think us-based conservatism itself has shown a collection of ideologies incredibly brittle in the fact of pandemic and upheavel. (this isn’t so much about the broader structures of corporate-capitalism, obviously, which i think can be said to be both brittle and disturbingly strong in how it can feast off disaster and instability in terms of financial gain and control of power, which is... not something i can think of zombie narratives discussing much?) i’m taking more about individual people and communities. i don’t think the zombie genre is paradoxical to conservatism’s brittle nature, but rather, part of it entirely. it’s the odd fantasy- what if there was a problem we could SHOOT? we live in a world in which conservatism has refused to prepare adequately for financial crisis (many insurance measures are of course Bad for Business) and ultimately turned a completely blind eye to the very real apocalyptic nature of climate change - so much as it might be bad for Business, the climate change hoax narrative has very much been swallowed by many in the working class without systemic benefit from that business and much to loose from climatic disaster. and in recent history us conservatism turned a completely blind eye to coronavirus. what do we do with a real pandemic when there’s no one to shoot? looking back retrospectively at the last fifteen years of zombie media comes with the weird realisation that with a supposed virus on, no one is wearing a mask- and if anyone is quarantining or practicing social distancing, it’s never the good guys.

which leads to the odd feeling that the zombie apocalypse genre provides an odd catharsis, even fantasy. we live in a world facing apocalyptic times and with many global governments (not to mention corporate-capitalist structures) doing exceptionally poorly in the midst of it. the zombie apocalypse genre takes that existential fear and recognises it through the prism of conservative and settler colonial ideologies, but also through comic book and horror movie and video game logic. the end of the world may come, you can shoot the end of the world! it’s the worst case scenario written down in a Comprehensible way. i find the fantasy elements therefor entwined fascinating. the zombie virus on whole is both wildly more contagious, kill-everyone, world-endingly terrible than any virus in human history (or rather, it appeals to a sense of Absolute Extremism that... 80% of the world dies immediately or whatever rather than looking to the very real fact that a few percent of infected dying is STILL AN AWFUL LOT OF PEOPLE and the mechanics of social breakdown in the fact of pandemic throughout history are complex and horrific within those *lower* death rates) but also less contagious than most viruses because our Protagonists have to be scratched or bitten in order to be Infected - those up close knock-em-down hatchet fights that leave already scratched-up protags covered in zombie organs or blood don’t pose a real threat of infection! the end of the world virus has to be.. a lot less infectious than many real world viruses. a watered down virus.

likewise a lot of the issues of social organisation and supplies. zombie apocalypse narratives rarely venture into legitimate exploration of post apocalyptic agriculture, pharmaceuticals, energy or medicine- all those pesky aspects of human existence that highlight how interdependent and fragile our needs may be, and how complex communal structure would have to be to build anything anew- so people live off Raided items years out into the apocalypse. they drive massive cars and tankers years past the apocalypse even though most gasoline has a six month to three year shelf life, depending. they rarely need insulin or b12 injections or thyroid medication, and if a medical problem comes up can usually just take the raided drugs for it, regardless of any need for medical equipment or facilities. they can also just eat canned goods decades past their point of edibility. the fact that for a Zombie apocalypse things to WORK a lot of the day to day struggles with survival have to be glossed over fascinates me. i think it even further reflects aspects of the white male conservative working and middle american worldview, which sees itself as particularly up-by-the-bootstraps fending for ourselves TOUGH when living in a social and system that softens their lives through the exploitation of the labour of people of color and women and global us-based exploiation. who cares about who farms the food or does the cooking in an apocalypse? but to elude those questions - and also zig zag around the whole nature of the post-apocalyptic feudal societies humanity is narratively edging into being based around agriculture- requires living in a world where canned goods last ten years past when they probably would be edible. but at least you might not have to talk to your neighbors

#meta #this isn't about specific properties so much as the genre in general #a lot has been written about the western as part of the whole complex of settler ideologies and violence but like #for the 21st century i can't help but think there's something here with zombie apocalypses #rants and maybe essays? i'm thinking about the post apocalyptic chore chart #as a fun aside my friend and i were digging into a televangelist selling stuff for the apocalypse and like YEAH #my brain is tired it's late but much thoughts many #the fantasy of the end of the world in which you could.. just build a wall #also note the men's rights guys just salivating for a collapse #and the wierd wierd intake of some of these ideologies with leftists anyway

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