#i feel like that would still be less damaging to my psyche

[xxplastic-cubexx]

just read the new mutants issue where Charles chose to stay behind in space and my god the juxtaposition between Charles trusting Erik and Erik joining the hellfire club and wondering at his own trust worthiness. I wonder how much of Charles decision was him ultimately trying to avoid the fact that his first class had seemingly betrayed mutant kind and not be willing to face them and how much of it was Dani and Illyana's reaction to him having Karma mind control Illyana. the fact that Illyana was depending on him to ease her mind through limbo and in choosing to stay he forced karma to do it instead, probably fucking up their relationship in the process.

I love him, this is crazy, how much of this is him trying to runaway and how much is this him not trusting himself to fix things and how much is it just him trusting Erik?

i keep trying to put into words my exact thoughts about the sitch but there really is a lot for one issue aintit... oh charles you and your brain...

[beifong-brainrot]

I think my main 'issue' with Azula's portrayal in the Ashes of the Academy isn't that it's completely implausible that she was your stereotypical cruel, mean girl, but rather the fact that it's the most straightforward, uninovative thing you can do with her character.

And honestly the plushie burning was just comically over the top. Though she also did Wilhelm Tell her friend with fire in the flashbacks in the og show so who knows.

Which isn't a bad thing, perse. I find it absolutely plausible that Azula was an absolute monster in middle school. Azula was an innocent child that was manupulated by Ozai from a young age. But children are also notoriously assholes, especially if that behaviour was encouraged, which it was in Azula's case.

But I can understand why some people aren't totally jazzed about it. We sympathise with Azula, and many of us see ourselves in her. I see a lot of my child self in her, too. And I, of course, primarily see her as a victim of Ozai and the Fire Nation's ideals. She's very young, and was groomed through her childhood to be Ozai's weapon, which severely damaged her psyche. She's not pure evil, obviously not.

And I think that's why seeing her portrayed as an asshole rubs people the wrong way, especially in flashbacks, because it feels like villainsing a very young, very vulnerable victim.

But I think the older I get, the more ok I am with Azula being mean, cruel, etc. It doesn't erase her status as a victim and doesn't make her any less tragic to me.

I don't care whether Azula was an innocent, sweet kid that suddenly flipped the switch and became daddy's little weapon, or whether she was an absolute nightmare of a child that burned toys and bullied other children. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, tbh, but on either extreme, she is still a victim of an environment that hurt her and groomed her to hurt others and she deserves sympathy for it.

Hell, when I attended a shitty, pretentious, all girl's middle school, I met girls very similar to how Azula was at the time. The comic stresses multiple times that the Academy is an incredibly volatile place that encourages student infighting and rivalry.

And that's some serious rethoric, that of course would do some serious damage to a kid's worldview. And, of course, Azula, who fits into the system well, is rewarded for participating in it, while also seeing others who don't punished, will inernalise this.

While I don't think Ursa "lost" Azula when she entered the Academy, it certainly reinforced the seeds Ozai seemed to have been planting within Azula from when she started firebending. If we want to get technical about it, Ursa "lost" Azula whenever she decided or was forced to let Ozai influence Azula.

This is aggresively on the nose though. It feels vaguely ooc but not Excessively so. Let's chalk it up to emotional vulnerability due to what's happening to her.

And while nothing would make me happier than to see Azula get a redemption arc, I'm also not as set on it as I was a few years ago. I want healing for Azula, and I don't think she's too fargone for one. I don't think the creators do either. While she's still being presented as an antagonist and an overall mean person, especially in the recent comic, I think it's not veered into "irredeemable" territory quite yet.

The hard truth is that Azula truly having a redemption would require her to admit that she was wrong, certain fundamental truths of her life were wrong and she was, and likely still is, a very bad person. A victim, and a person deserving of help, and care, but still bad. Those two aren't mutually exclusive. Which is incredibly difficult for most people, but with the indoctrination Azula would be subjected to as a child, she would have even more resistance to it.

Like, while we do meme on Zuko getting physically sick after doing 1 good thing, it's a very good representation of how difficult it can be to change when you've had certain morals and ideals so rigorously ingrained into you from such a young age.

And Zuko, arguably, had much less incentive to be faithful to the Fire Nation and Ozai than Azula.

I don't think Ashes of the Academy was awful in the way it portrayed Azula. It certainly wasn't the best, and it was, let's be honest, rather lazy and uncreative. But it wasn't some huge blow to her character.

I'll also leave some links to my other metas concerning Azula:

How Azula became isolated from Ursa and opened up to Ozai's grooming

Why Zuko and Kuvira got redemptions and why Azula didn't? Hint: it has nothing to do with morality

[impale-me-radio-daddy]

The Lookalike (Part 6)

☒ Summary: The first thing you remembered after your death was an argument. “No, this isn’t one of my fucking sluts.” The man behind you exhaled, frustrated. “This is a present for you. Something to help you work through your Alastor fixation.” You awaken in Hell as the near-spitting image of a certain infamous radio host. Unfortunately for you, you immediately fall into the clutches of his nemesis, and then into the arms of the Radio Demon himself. 

☒ Warnings: hermaphrodite!reader, deer!reader, reader x Alastor, reader x Vox, Vox x Alastor, they/them pronouns used, explicit sexual content, reader is in Hell for a reason, Valentino, canon typical scenarios.

☒ Series links: Part I Part2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 6 BONUS SCENE Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Epilogue

Post coital Alastor was different to how you had expected him. You’d thought he would be aloof, to peel himself from your body and your fluids and your stickiness and not deign to touch you for the rest of the night, leaving you to your own devices. Instead, he was cuddly, almost kittenish, pressing his face to the crook of your neck, your collar, your chest, his arms possessive around you. You kissed the tips of his antlers, which brought forth a hum of pleasure from him; nothing sexual, but a sound of satisfaction that you could feel through your lips as you pressed them to his prongs, his slight frame relaxing against yours. You stroked his hair, letting him nuzzle against you, and stroked his back, feeling the edges of the bandages he wore beneath his clothes and delicately avoiding them.

Even after both of you had washed up and changed for bed, he returned to embracing you, his face on your shoulder and the length of his body pressed up against yours, warm and comfortable as both of you settled for sleep.

“Are you always like this?” you asked, carding your fingers through his silky hair.

Alastor curled himself against you further, smiling into the fabric of your pajamas. “I can’t say I recall,” he said, eyes briefly meeting yours with a look that made your heart flutter.

What was he trying to achieve? To seduce you now made little sense, considering the power imbalance between you and your willingness to fuck him. Perhaps like you he enjoyed a warm body next to him. Or perhaps, like you, he was becoming a little attached.

You slept with long limbs tangled, you careful not to put weight on Alastor’s injuries, he careful not to damage your nascent antlers, and when you woke Alastor was still half on top of you, his face against your chest, arms round you, hugging you like you had hugged his pillows previously.

It was hard for Alastor to describe the sensation of touch after its long absence. Sex had been exquisite, of course, the soft squeeze of your thighs and then the heat of your cunt around him, but it had been serving an immediate need, the drug an insistent pull on his hindbrain. To hold you, though, to relax into languid almost-stupor with your warm body against him, that was for him. It was a long drink of clear water after years in the desert, soothing a psyche he had forgotten was parched.

He touched people all the time, of course. An arm around the shoulders, a casual hand on the back, a dance or two. But he was always the instigator, always in control. For an animal demon, to be petted was an act of ultimate subservience, and as the Radio Demon, he couldn’t afford to be seen in such a way. Couldn’t afford to be seen as anything less than monstrous.

Sometimes the lack became too much, and he would find himself a few drinks in, demanding waltzes and tangos with friends, his poor dehydrated heart palpitating with each new touch. But he never really let his guard down; this was Hell, after all, and one couldn’t trust anyone here. His early years had taught him that lesson, before Vox had hammered it home.

But you? You were his mirror, your face devoid of guile and your frequency in tune with his own. Would people think he was weak, if they found out he had slept in your arms, your fingers in his hair? No, they would think it was fucking creepy, and that, in Alastor’s opinion, was just fine and dandy.

You kept a professional distance from each other outside of your shared bedroom, which suited you just fine. Behind that closed door was warmth, and quiet companionship, neither of you demanding much of the other. If this was romance, it was a backwards sort of romance; getting to know a man in the afterglow of fucking, your first dates in the comfort of his bed. You talked about safe things- Alastor’s voice fizzing with a quiet delight when he found out you could play an instrument or two- but both of you skirting around the subject of your mortal lives. Neither of you talking about your methods, or your rationale, or the dark urges that crept beneath your skins.

Each morning as you lay in bed, Alastor would examine your antlers, fingers delicate over your velvet, and each morning he would purse his lips and shake his head, not yet, before kissing you softly good morning.

It was inevitable, of course, that your confinement in the hotel would begin to chafe.

Killing cockroaches with Niffty barely put a dent in your appetites, but you did it anyway to fill your time, until you were able to casually fling a knife across a room and pin a roach to a wall. There was a certain satisfaction to the crunch that they made as they died, but no fear in their eyes, no chase, no hunt. You took one to Alastor’s room to dissect it, Alastor turning up to watch curiously as you did; the carapace of the insect came away in neat segments to reveal organs that looked no different to those of an earthly beetle, right down to the fine tubules that formed its guts. You even cut a sliver of the meat from its back and tasted it, but it was bitter, so you packed up the unfortunate creature, cleaned the tools you had used and took it out to the garbage.

Though you had shown no ability to magically control shadows, you found that the ventilation system in the hotel could be used to much the same effect as Alastor’s teleportation. If you were clever about it, you could vanish from one room and drop from the ceiling in another, and you amused yourself for a good day and a half practicing Alastor’s nonchalant walk and grin as you did this.

Finally your chores were done and your insects dead, leaving you with nothing to do until your antlers grew in. Small things started to irritate you, more than they should.

“Can you stop pacing?” said Husk, as you stalked the length of the lobby for the twentieth time that day. “You’re giving me the creeps.”

You turned to Husk, frowning. He’d never been anything other than gruffly deferential to Alastor.

“You’re not him,” said Husk, tilting his head to one side. “So don’t expect me to treat you the same.”

“How do you know I’m not him?”

“You’re not smiling, for one,” said Husk. “And for the second, you’re wearing a novelty fez with definitely not Alastor embroidered on it.”

Turning to Husk, you removed the fez from your hair, leaving your head bare, and gave him a smile. “And Alastor definitely wouldn’t stop smiling, even if it benefited him in some way, hm?”

“Are you two fucking?”

You raised an eyebrow. “None of your business.”

“See, that’s how I know you’re not him.” Husk stacked the glass he had been cleaning onto the shelf. “He would be halfway through eviscerating me by now. You’re more in control than that.”

It was probably true- you had seen it. Alastor’s temper was easily frayed; even a mention of Vox set him on edge, his eyes glowing dials and his fingernails long. “Seems pretty risky to provoke someone like that,” you said.

“What can I say, I’m a gambling man.” Husk smiled to himself, leaning onto his side of the bar. “What good am I if I can’t trust a gut feeling once in a while?”

You took a seat at the bar, noting that Angel was absent from his usual spot. No sign of either Alastor or his shadow- perhaps he was dealing with something outside the hotel. “What do you know about him?”

“About Alastor?” Husk’s expression darkened, his eyes going to the shadowy corners you had scanned a moment before. “You’re the one sharing his bedroom.”

It was a cheap deflection. Possible that he was under a magical nondisclosure agreement regarding Alastor’s affairs. Equally possible that he was just being a good retainer. You pushed anyway “And you’ve worked for him a long time now. You must know something.”

Husk raised one long eyebrow. “You’re planning an escape?

“What?” The question caught you unguarded. Why would you want to surrender what you had now? Memory of how Alastor had felt curled against you came to mind, how soft his hair was between your fingers. “You must be kidding.”

Husk snorted. “You actually like that psychopath.”

“What can I say? He reminds me of me.”

“Yeah, you are a creepshow alright.”

“Someone less generous might assume you were still trying to provoke me.”

“I’m telling it like I see it,” said Husk, darkly “That’s all. And right now what I see is someone who looks like my psychopath employer’s creepy twin pacing around like a junkie on the prowl for their next fix.”

A junkie. If only it were that simple. The skin beneath your fingernails itched. You gave Husk a wry smile. “I’m just bored, stuck in here,” you lied.

“Then fuckin’ leave,” said Husk. “He won’t be back until nightfall.”

You looked for a long moment at the stained glass of the hotel doors, then shook your head. You were frustrated, yes, but you’d believed Alastor when he had talked about the vulnerabilities of your anatomy. It was the same as his own, after all. You just needed patience. “I shouldn’t,” you said. “I’ll just find something to occupy my hands for now,” you said, and you saw Husk look at you sharply, probably remembering Alastor’s comment, actually I think they’re more of a strangler.

Unwilling to alienate the hotel staff further, you returned to Alastor’s room, and looked for something to do, and your gaze settled on the gramophone on the table in the corner. You had talked about music in bed, idly, Alastor rattling off a list of recommendations, some timeless and some lost to history, but he’d never offered to play you anything. Since he was usually demonstrative, that probably meant the player was broken, and sure enough, when you inspected it, the turntable was stiff, unable to spin. It was an old model, entirely mechanical in nature, and obviously well-used, given the marks on the handles of the cover where the chrome plating had been rubbed from the brass.

You fetched tools and materials from one of the unoccupied rooms you’d found on your rounds, and set to work dismantling the piece, lining up the screws in order as you took them out. The felt on the turntable had seen better days, but that was only cosmetic. The real problems were likely to be the motor and spring fro the turntable, and given the age of the device, possibly perishing on the rubber components.

Methodically, you cleaned and polished each piece, applying new grease as needed. You let memory take over as you worked, an odd sort of peace overcoming you as your focus narrowed to the task at hand. The rubber diaphragms on the soundbox were in a bad state but not unusable; the major problem was, as you had suspected, the spring that powered the turntable itself. Stress had weakened a certain point on the spring, and repeated use had sheared the metal, leaving it hanging limp.

Taking some of the sheet metal you had taken from the mystery workshop room, you cut and turned a fresh spring for the turntable, testing its strength with your fingers. The task didn’t exactly remove the itch you felt, but it occupied you as the hours passed, the outside world fading into irrelevance.

“What, exactly,” said Alastor from behind you, his voice cold. “Do you think you are doing?”

The hair on the back of your neck stood on end; you hadn’t even registered Alastor entering the room. You’d overstepped. The gramophone had been precious to him, and you hadn’t realized. You raised your hands. “I was fixing it. The turntable-

“You weren’t-” Alastor’s eyes were dials. “-upgrading it, by any chance.”

“Of course not, I was restoring it,” you said, a little archness creeping into your own tone, and you felt your own body shift a little in response to your emotional state, antlers curling. “That is a Pathé Olotonal and once I replace the spring it’ll work fine. Why the fuck would I want to upgrade it?”

Alastor looked at the neatly disassembled parts on the table, and the tools you had put down, his antlers slowly retracting. “Oh? You were an antiquarian?”

“Close. I used to curate a museum.” This was as close as you’d come to talking about your mortal life since you’d come here, and you suspected that Hell was much like jail, in that people didn’t tend to talk about what they’d done before they died.

“I was a radio host,” offered Alastor, and it felt like he was putting the information forward as a gift. Not a secret, exactly, but something for you to know about him in exchange. “I’d like to watch,” he said, nodding to the table. “If that’s alright with you?”

“That’s fine. Do you have a record I can test it on?” you asked. “Nothing too precious, please.”

Alastor polished his claws on his jacket. “I suppose I have one or two I could part with.”

You finished the job as Alastor watched, smiling with satisfaction as you wound the mechanism and the turntable began to spin evenly. Alastor handed you a record, some contemporary jazz, and you placed it down, lowering the needle carefully so as to not damage it.

And you listened to the music. Both of you listened, Alastor looking down so fondly at the little turntable that you almost offered to give him a moment alone with it.

There was an edge to the sound that you hadn’t expected, an almost tinny sound. Electronic. You frowned, lowering your head to the horn, but the sound wasn’t coming from the gramophone. It was feedback. Alastor seemed troubled too, his ear twitching. Not just one source, but many, all broadcasting the music on the turntable.

You looked at him, not voicing your concerns, but your eyes questioning. Given that his room lacked even an electrical socket, you doubted he had anything to do with an array of microphones. The light in the room turned to a dim, angry red at Alastor’s silent bidding, and you caught the gleam of lenses embedded in the room around you.

“I think,” said Alastor, his smile strained. “There may be something wrong with this record. I have more in my tower, if you would care to accompany me.”

You nodded, trying not to sound stilted now that you knew you were being recorded. “Of course.”

No sooner had you agreed than Alastor swallowed you up in his shadow, spitting you out into the floor of the control room of his radio tower, absent any pretense of calm.

“You did this. You’re working for him.” Alastor’s voice was thick with distortion. “Fucking Vox.” He spat the name, like it was a bad taste in his mouth.

Your ears flattened against your skull as you picked yourself up. “I’m not working for Vox. Fuck that guy.”

“Oh, you seem to have that covered,” said Alastor, his smile cruel and his eyes glowing. “Judging by what I saw of you.”

Fury rose to the surface. You’d tried not to let it show how the photos had bothered you, but Alastor had seen, and now he was twisting the knife. You didn’t trust yourself with words- that would just make it worse, but a hiss of static escaped from between your bared teeth.

“I let you in my bed, and you betrayed me,” Alastor continued, rounding on you. There was an edge to his voice, a crack there. You wanted to touch his shoulder and comfort him, but the part of your brain that was still halfway rational told you that would only make him think worse of you.

You needed to think. You needed to stop him, before he made up his mind to kick you to the curb. Whoever had planted the cameras had betrayed both of you, and if you could convince him you were on his side, you could work together. Mentally, you reviewed the terms of your contract. No physical or metaphysical harm to those within the hotel. That meant you couldn’t hurt Alastor, not that you stood much of a chance against him with his shadow powers. But the way he had spoken hinted that his own obligations imposed similar limitations upon him.

You stared into Alastor’s dials as he approached, steeling yourself as you felt your own antlers unfurling, the buzz of your own static in your throat. All you needed was for Alastor to be surprised for a moment, to be rational, and listen. Keeping eye contact, you stepped within Alastor’s reach, and with a quick jerk of your head, locked your antlers with his.

Pain. That was the first thing you felt, dizzying hot and sharp, like a knife slicing the skin. A rivulet of blood ran down the left side of your face, your eyes inches from Alastor’s. You could feel him through your antlers and through his, his body freezing in place, the vibration of his heart, his rage and his hurt. He grunted at the contact, eyes horrid and wide.

“Alastor, please help me,” you said, dead-eyed, invoking your own contract with him as another stream of blood crept down over your forehead. “I’m being attacked.”

Alastor snarled through his grin, an awful, distorted noise that made the bleeding tines of your antlers ache in time with it, but he did not move his head. Could not, you suspected as the terms of your deal required him to aid you. But now he was captive. Now he might listen to reason.

You breathed out, blinking away blood that flowed into your eye, struggling to keep your voice steady. “I’m flattered that you think I’m capable of bugging our bedroom like that, but I’m really not. You stripped me naked when you brought me here, you’ve been watching me this whole time, and I’ve not left the fucking building.”

Alastor breathed out through his open mouth, teeth wicked sharp, but his eyes no longer maddened. “You’re an idiot.”

“Precisely.” You smiled, blood dripping down over your nose and lips. “Now, what are we going to do about Vox?”

“Oi, are you even payin’ attention?” Velvette snapped her fingers in front of Vox’s face.

Vox sighed. The truth was, he hadn’t been. The truth was, he had been cycling through the feeds of the drones he’d posted around the hotel, looking for Alastor.

“I’m sure whatever you said is the correct thing,” he said, waving her back. Fake Alastor had just fixed Alastor’s record player, and there was bound to be a sexy thank-you for that, right? But they were gone, vanished in a blob of shadow.

“You’re a massive knobhead, you know that?” said Velvette.

“I haven’t had knobs since the early nineties,” replied Vox, deadpan. “What do you want?”

“What I want is for you to quit fucking around on whatever your fucking secret santa wank workshop is and actually fucking contribute to our fucking strategy meeting,” said Velvette.

“I don’t see that there’s much to say. Cannibal town is weak, move the fuck in already.”

“See?” Valentino gesticulated. “That’s what I’ve been fucking saying, for the past fucking hour. He agrees with me.”

“Yeah, right.” Velvette put one hand on her hip. “He just said he agrees with me.”

“Ay, he wasn’t paying a-fucking-ttention,” said Valentino. “You just pointed that out.”

“Ladies. Please.” Vox spread his claws. “I’m sure you can both be right.”

It was always like this, with the three of them. Val was capable of picking a fight with furniture if he was left in a room with it for long enough, and while Velvette wasn’t that bad, she had approximately zero patience for what she termed, not inaccurately, Valentino’s bullshit. They needed Vox to mediate, always. Reluctantly, Vox tore himself from reviewing drone footage and put his talents to work making Valentino and Velvette feel valued, so they didn’t tear each other apart.

By the time he was done and had returned to his control room, all of the feeds to Alastor’s room were dead. The fuck? Vox hissed in frustration, checking the recorded files, and scanning the video back and forth to find the point at which the feed cut.

Alastor carrying you back into the bedroom, both of you covered in blood. Alastor, throwing you down onto the bed. Alastor, crawling over you, tentacles extending from his back. Then, nothing. Vox wound to the point just before the feed cut, playing at normal speed and turning on the audio.

“Hello, old chum.” Alastor turned his neck uncannily and looked directly at the hidden camera, smiling. “I find that these things are really best enjoyed in person. So, if you want to come along-” he treated the camera to a salacious wink. “-you know exactly where to find me.”

The feed cut in a burst of eldritch static, and Vox stared at the blank screen for a good thirty seconds, rock hard in his pants.

[cicerfics]

Q's 10 Favorite Jumpers, Rated and Reviewed By 007

With Rebuttals (and Revised Rebuttals) from the Quartermaster Himself

Gifted to @foxsoulcourt over on Station Pacific, just for being awesome!

Fits Q like a glove and the shade sets off Q's lovely winter complexion. 9/10.

Didn't this ridiculous business of seasonal color analysis go out when I was still in primary school? You're dating yourself, 007.

Well, somebody has to, since you wouldn't let me take you out for a drink last night.

...

Color less garish than usual, but fuzzy texture makes Q look like he's growing mold. Off-putting. At least, as off-putting as is possible for a man of Q's caliber. 6/10.

It's mohair, you heathen, not mold!

And stop talking about my 'caliber' if you

...

The color washes out your complexion. You ought to stick to darker shades, dear. Still, this one fits you snugly and the knit is thin enough that I can see your nipples when it's chilly in the server room. 8/10, it'd look even better on my bedroom floor.

You are no longer allowed in the server room when I'm in there, effective immediately, lest I file a complaint with Human Resources. Stop looking at my nipples. (And there's a phrase I never thought I'd have to use when addressing a colleague at Her Majesty's Secret Service.)

I live to defy expectations.

Color does marvelous things for Q's eyes but the squiggles give me vertigo. 5/10.

Get your eyes checked, old man, and stop blaming my jumpers for your vision difficulties!

Ranking has dropped to 4/10 due to Q's insolence. Be nicer to me, or I'll be the one to file a complaint with HR. Age discrimination is against regulations, my dear.

Stop calling me that

I don't really think you're that old

You do need reading glasses though

I never thought I'd see the day 007 cites regulations to me.

Why are there so many bars and blocks? Why isn't the jumper one harmonious shade of gray? Atrocious. 3/10.

It's comfortable

It reminds me of that time you

Don't lie, I've caught you looking at me when I was wearing th

It's considered artistic, 007, but of course you wouldn't know anything about that.

Grand old warship, Q. Nothing more.

Don't be ridiculous, of course you're more than

...

Reminds me of my grandfather. Deeply disturbing that I still want to shag Q even when he dresses like my grandfather. 2/10, will be reporting the quartermaster to Dr. Wilson for damaging my psyche.

You will do no such thing. That poor woman has enough to bear as it is. Overseeing your routine psych screenings is enough to warrant hazard pay.

I've caught you looking at me in this one too

You don't own this one, but you should. Let me buy it for you, darling. 10/10, would tug you into a broom cupboard during your lunch hour and undo the buttons with my teeth.

What is your obsession with Tom Ford

I don't see why

You say things like this but then you never follow throu

Why did you cancel our dinner the other nigh

I am not the sort of gentleman who permits himself to be despoiled in broom cupboards, thank you very much.

Puts me in mind of those odd little sailor suits posh people used to make their children wear. I think someone put me in one, once, ages ago. 1/10, you already look young enough to make me feel like a filthy old man, no need to make it worse.

I wouldn't mind if you were a bit 'filthier', actua

Well, if the shoe fits.

And you scold me about wasting money with damaged equipment and bloodied suits. Look at the price tag on this. Outrageous. 10/10, worth every penny, you're delectable in this one.

I only bought it to treat myself after

It was my birthday and i

You said you were taking me out for dinner for the occasion but then you

…Thank you.

I'd ask what I've done to deserve this torture, but I suppose I already know the answer to that. 0/10, I will have burned this one by the time you've read this list, and I apologize for nothing.

You know exactly what you've done, yes.

Three million pounds of my department funding for heaven's sake

Not to mention the fact that you canceled our dinner after I

And I hardly bought this to torture you. I don't buy my clothes with you in mind, 007. Don't be so arrogant.

And if that isn't an empty threat and you've actually broken into my flat and destroyed my personal property, I'll have your head.

My. How forward of you, Q. Well, I'll have to insist you take me out to dinner first. Then you can have whatever bits of me you like.

Don't be vulgar, you menace.

Not unless you're going to follow through on

You're the one who backed out of the dinn

Did you really burn it?

It was a threat to national security. Could sear a man's eyes right out of his skull. It had to go.

The cats agreed with me. They didn't put up any protest when I pilfered from your wardrobe.

For heaven's sake.

Then they're getting their least favorite flavor of tinned food for supper. And you're not getting dinner from me at all.

Now, I hope I'm not being punished for cancelling on you last week.

Of course I'm not

I don't see why you

You

...

You're being punished for wasting your day reviewing my jumpers rather than completing your overdue AARs. Please allow me to direct your attention to the rather large pile of paperwork with your name on it.

Sod the paperwork.

Q. I'm sorry I cancelled. You have no idea how sorry. But something came up.

I'm sure it did.

Something to do with the job.

...

Some internal business. Something had to be taken care of.

Somebody had to be taken care of.

...

Mallory told me not to discuss it with any of the department heads just yet. I handled it, but the job won't be declassified until tomorrow. Expect Tanner to call you and the others in for a meeting in the morning.

...Oh.

Well.

You should've told me sooner.

Q, I'm shocked! You're saying I should've gone against Mallory's direct orders and disclosed classified material to you against his will?

Of course that what I'm saying, you filthy hypocrite. You could've told me. I would've been discreet.

I know you would've been. That's not the point.

...

...Bond?

I'm trying to keep you out of trouble these days.

Trying not to be the man who ruins your career.

You've never

If that's how you feel then why

Even if you did, I'd

Rather unflattering that you assume I can't take care of myself.

I can, I'll have you know. And I never asked you to protect me. I can protect myself...and I can protect you in the bargain, thank you very much. I'm rather good at it, in fact.

Well, I can't argue with you there.

...

...?

Suppose we don't wait for tomorrow's meeting.

Suppose I take you out to dinner and tell you all about the whole sordid business tonight.

...You're planning on disclosing confidential intel in the middle of an Italian restaurant?!

Suppose we skip the restaurant.

Suppose I bring a couple of curries round to your flat and we talk about it there.

The flat you recently burglarized.

Let's not dwell on the past, dear.

Besides, I think the cats are warming up to me.

And I've got an overdue birthday present for you.

...Dare I ask what it is?

A replacement for the jumper I burned. A whole new ensemble, in fact.

Something much better than anything in your wardrobe. Much worthier of you. Something to show off those good looks of yours.

Will you let me give it to you this evening?

...Ah.

Well, I was going to ask what I should wear when you come over, since you have such strong opinions on the matter.

But if you're bringing a new outfit along, perhaps I shouldn't bother to put anything on at all?

Darling, I always said you were a genius.

19:00 tonight, your place. I'd say 'dress to impress', but I think your idea is best.

There's no improving on perfection, after all.

Do you really

I want you to

For God's sake, if you don't make good on your promises this time, I'll

19:00, then. I trust you know the address

Please try to be on time, 007.

For you, Q?

I'll be early.

[snippydippy]

While I'm still on this Tiktok thing

It is also worth noting that alongside Facebook creating a verified Tiktok page after six years of being staunch competitors, Tiktok got a few UI updates that look suspiciously similar to Facebook/Meta's features. Instagram also reformatted to make your page look like a Tiktok account a few days ago.

Meta is 100% the company who either merged with, or bought Tiktok to "save the app", and only right on time to make Trump look better.

TikTok was only down for 10 hours. Which, suspiciously again, is the amount of time it would take for a highly trafficked app to switch over servers if company hands were changed.

It did not go down because of the ban deadline. It happened early, and lasted as long as it did to distress its American users and give time for server maintenance while these changes took place.

FB's algorithm is known to have been designed to enrage you, rather than show you things you enjoy. Research has shown that being angry keeps a user engaged with an app more so than being happy.

Meta has taken this and ran with it to make sure their engagement is as high as possible.

Personal anecdote on this; I only use Facebook once every other week or so for this exact reason. The moment I go onto my timeline there, all I see are posts from the opposite political party, bad faith opinions on art I enjoy (music, shows, movies, etc), and blatant bait looking to make people argue. It's been this way for years, and why I stopped going there except to drop a drawing and life update here and there. I don't engage with my timeline because I recognized the damage it was doing to my mental health (and my blood pressure lol) a long time ago.

TikTok has worked on the opposite principle. Their algorithm is based on dopamine. It shows you things you find funny, interesting, or is related to the things you already enjoy. It keeps user retention based on enjoyment. This comes with its own set of problems, of course. Addiction and dependency can stem from this, but imo it's less damaging to a person's psyche overall than rage bait.

With Meta taking over (and I will absolutely eat my shoe live on camera if I'm wrong about this), I fear Tiktok's algorithm will change to fit what Meta does. I feel it may already be happening, with my FYP today being almost entirely about the ban/return rather than my usual artwork, edits, gaming clips & funny sketches.

We may have effectively lost Tiktok anyway with all of this.

170 million Americans is a demographic any politician of any party would literally ki11 for. If anyone doubts that everything surrounding Tiktok's ban was anything other than an elaborate plan from the beginning...idk what to tell you. It may not have gone exactly the way it was intended, but the result is the same regardless.

It's my belief that those who voted for this ban, the vast majority of which having shares in Meta, did so because it was a threat to one of their biggest financial investments. They wanted to back TikTok into a corner and force them to make a move that benefited THEIR wallets, all the American people they screwed over in the meantime be damned.

While it looked to us like Tiktok wouldn't budge and would call their bluff, taking the ban rather than selling out to an American company only to find a solution in the last moments, this was obviously not the case. They did sell. They sold to the very company most threatened by its success to Zuck's benefit, the senators and representatives with shares in his company, and to the benefit of a politician with the absolute most to gain with an abysmal approval rating, and an audience of half the country who just got a notification expressing gratitude to him for "saving" an app he actively campaigned against for four fucking years.

Taking away something you enjoy, and giving it back to earn your praise is textbook psychological manipulation.

This whole thing just fucking reeks to me, and I wish billionaires would keep their fingers out of politics, and that politicians of all kinds would stop meddling in every single fucking thing that we do.

This country is run by money, and money alone.

I'm so mad about this whole thing, man. Angrier still at the "it's just an app, stop being dramatic" takes I'm seeing on my FB timeline (aforementioned rage baiting in action lmao). It's NOT just an app. It's a platform of One Hundred and Seventy Million God Damn People that, up until this point, has been an unprecedented tool in connection and information accessibility. A platform that now runs the risk of showing half the country only what one company wants to show them based on its ideas for how the app should work, and with a bias towards political ideals like funneling content that only pushes you harder to one side or the other, maintaining and deepening the rift between political parties that benefit Meta and the reps/senators invested in it.

Yeah it's an App that shows you funny videos and dances but PLEASE I'M BEGGING FOR ONE CRUMB OF CRITICAL THOUGHT ON THE SIZE OF THIS FUCKING THING ALONE

[interstellar-productions]

So this is probably unimportant to anyone who reads this but i feel like i need to explain my though process here, I’m a psych major specializing in abnormal psych with interest in creative writing and art. Very much an art, science and history girlie. Im saying this so there’s some context to the way I visualize certain things.

I want to elaborate on my view of the foxes in a less scientific and more artistic view, metaphors and imagery.

I see Aaron very much as someone who internalizes his hurts. My brain conjures up the example that as he was growing up he was the type that every time a piece of him cracked off he picked it up, at first perhaps to use as a weapon. Taking the jagged edge and using it to lash out but that only got him bad things growing up with Tilda. (Who I imagine as the embodiment of catholic guilt, she knows what she’s doing is wrong but she’s so consumed by her hatred and bad choices the only way she can internalize it is through violence. Specifically directed at Aaron.) So as he got a little older he took those edges and hurt himself with them.

Aaron would have known from living with Tilda that physical marks raise questions that cause trouble, so it wouldn’t have been the same form of self harm that Andrew and some of the others used. But he i image he would have taken those edges and used them to hurt himself mentally, self hatred and self harm that doesn’t leave lasting marks.

Then Andrew and Nicky and Luther start getting in the picture. Tilda was always to strung out to notice and the men she brought around didn’t care. So Aaron learn to carefully shave the edges of his jagged pieces down, purposefully cutting up the parts of himself that remain and taking tape to stick it all back together. Trying to form some semblance of a human being that wont make people ask questions. The pieces don’t fit right though, some pieces are still jagged, some pieces are too smooth, some he cut down too much to be able to put them back right.

By the time AFTG is taking place Aaron has probably caused himself so much damage by trying to self internalize he issues that he more so resembles a stained glass piece before its soldered together. Just pieces that loosely sort of fit together that might be something one day but could also just as easily smash into a million pieces. 

Aaron lives his life being one step from the edge. A minor inconvenience could send him spiraling, a change in his routine throwing his entire day off. But he barely registers major incidents. Because for Aaron ignoring the big things is how he survives and yet the things that keeps him alive is focusing on the small details. The little things here or there that convince both him and everyone else that he’s perfectly normal. Sort of like how you can take a piece of glass and drop it from a pretty significant height and it’ll be fine so long as it lands in a way that distributes the impact. Where as if you drop a piece of glass from a small height but it lands on the wrong corner it shaders.

Aaron knows that if he can’t be normal, if he can’t convince himself or others that he is, he’ll fall apart. And if his pieces fall apart there will be no glueing them back together. There will be no getting back up. That’s part of the reason why the foxes put him on edge so much. He’s a unsoldered stained glass piece and the foxes are a swinging hammer. If they collide the foxes will survive but Aaron wont.

[blindmagdalena]

Apologize if you’ve fielded an ask or twenty about this before, but how do you think HL would take it if Vought hired a masseuse to come in to work on him once in a while. Is he touch-starved or touch-averse? or both lol? Is he averse to having to take his top off? Since his muscles probably don’t actually get sore from anything does he pretend they do to get certain types of contact? - 🥰

i do think he's both touch-starved and touch-averse! every so often the idea comes up that there isn't any good reason Homelander isn't regularly drowning in physical affection/sex given how rabid of a fanbase he has, and i think that comes down to several factors:

his brand! it doesn't fit his brand to be sleeping around, especially with fans. i'm willing to bet this was strongly discouraged by Madelyn, along with any other "deviant" behaviors.

his deadly combo of superiority/inferiority complex. from the first episode, Homelander doesn't care about human life. even though he craves the general concept of love and approval on a mass scale, individual lives simply don't matter to him. they're beneath him, and he has a pretty high level of disgust towards people. he doesn't like touching them without his gloves.

i headcanon Homelander to be demisexual. i really don't think he experiences the desire to be touched by specific people unless the person in question has elevated themselves in some way in his mind, or he's formed SOME level of an emotional connection/dependency, even if it's completely one sided/imaginary.

absolutely his body issues are a factor. barely seems to like getting naked with partners, let alone strangers.

when i wrote Eat Your Ego, it didn't matter that he sought her out as an escort. he still entered that encounter hostile until he could find something in his twisted psyche to elevate a human enough to deem them worthy of touching him. the sequence of events in my mind was more or less: step 1, initial physical attraction. step 2, projection. step 3, antagonize/determine worth. step 4, form an abrupt and unhealthy attachment based solely on delusion and wish fulfilment. step 5, profit??? live happily ever after?? still figuring that part out.

i feel like the same would apply to this situation. he definitely WANTS tactile comfort. he likes the idea of someone touching him with the sole intent of bringing him pleasure/helping him relax, even in a non-sexual context. but if he was put in some situation where he was directly told to have a massage for some reason and he did comply, he would be a huge asshole about it until he settled into it. like a cat who wants to be pet but keeps swatting and hissing every time you try because he's so damaged.

once he was settled though? that's HIS masseuse now. daily sessions. he's their only client.

[iceyrukia]

anti-makeup long rambling under the cut

Whenever even some rfs or GCs try to downplay the bad effects that wearing makeup has on women's psyche and just say it's bad because women are forced to wear it but otherwise it wouldn't be harmful (and they cite like human history of humans decorating each other) I can't help but disagree because I think there is something distinctly damaging about painting over your facial features.

Your face is something that gives of strong indicators of human emotion, people look at your face so the slightest clue in how to read you, it gives people first impressions of you as a person and to always have a "beautified" version on display, whether for art or sex appeal inevitably makes the "neutral" bare-face seem like an inferior downgrade. Your "bare" face suddenly becomes undecorated or a blank canvas when it shouldn't be. The term "bareface" even existing without question from many women proves it, even if some women do in fact walk around makeup-less and it's not actually that uncommon.

Not to mention makeup is used to express something and it's not always a good thing because humans use items and beauty standards as class signifiers - and painting your face is one of them....Which is why I don't think that even if we (by whatever miracle) get to a point where woman are never pressured to wear it -whatever that tangibly means - it would still be damaging because it will ALWAYS be remembered in HISTORY and we will see these images of women as beauty standards to emulate as they are symbolic and are inherently tied to some form of beautification. The damage is already done and individual women are bound to like their "makeup face" better so I don't think there is any way it won't be damaging. Even a non-male influenced version would cause harm as even in this current patriarchy women are enablers (gotta be honest) and invent new forms of competition via appearances. Men have very little complexes about "barefaces" (it's not even a concept to them) because they is NOTHING to compare their "bare" faces to in the first place. Young boys do not have an absurd right of passages where they feel the need to become "men" (and bloom into these sexual beings via appearances) like young girls transitioning into women go through. The libfem "expressing my sexuality" via wearing hyper-sexualized clothing (and other aesthetic modifiers) mentality is a perfect example of how women pick up appearance as an expression of sexuality, something men aren't socialized to do or perform. So saying makeup is harmless is pretty shortsighted IMO as it will delve into something women are tacitly pressured via trends to participate in - the only thing that changes is male control of these social pressures.

I just think women are better off not messing with their faces to enhance features and shouldn't be common practice PERIOD.

[indigiqueers]

there's a line in this book "what [is] genuine liberation and what [is] just un-tempered psychic chaos?" and i'm thinking about armand alone. without a coven without a companion. constantly inviting in other figures to liberate him from subservient roles—roles that he imposes on himself, btw, because as a survivor 1. he still retains that to submit is to survive but 2. in choosing to submit he remains in control. the issue is he deludes himself into believing he can take the role off at any time. the issue is that he doesn't, and can't, because it is easier to remain motionless, frozen, and masking the trauma that's formed his psyche.

becoming a maker/choosing a fledgling signals a promising initiation of a new cycle in his mind, saving face from the end of a relationship that surely had met it's expiration (or more likely, saving the monotony of a relationship where two people had become more or less complacent with one another). my theory is daniel molloy is a 70 year man who is, in this iteration of himself, is uninterested in facade. completely turned off by the lie. unsurprised that armand would choose to bind them together, given his damage—but having no memory of a relationship or meaningful tie other than 6 days at divasidero and how many weeks in dubai, he has no reason to seek out a relationship armand, unless it's to write another book (so something transactional). to daniel: yeah, it'd be nice if armand stuck around to show him the ropes, but he's a manipulator, sooo. he's got louis du lac to call up. and eventually, lestat. he's not alone in the vampiric world. he's fine on his own.

all of this to say: i want to see the shattering of armand's psyche upon realizing that he fucked himself, actually. he doesn't have anywhere to go after this. yeah, he's free. but at what cost.

with no persona to build upon (unanticipated fracture of his relationship with louis caused by the one he'd hoped to become their third/child/fledgling), he could create a new persona. or he could regress. move backward. reckon with the fact that he has substantive dissociative fractures that affect his identity and relationships. you know how people are sometimes forced to reckon with the wounds of their inner child upon becoming a parent—well, show me the vicious helplessness of armand looking upon daniel, his fledgling, the love of his life, someone he'd hoped to become a constant in his life, and seeing zero ways he can form a meaningful connection without utter manipulation (that daniel easily dodges, sneers at, unpacks). show me armand being helpless to his own desires and the ways the bond re-activates a kind of psychic vampiric nervous system, lighting his entire body on fire, erupting the bodily shame and fear that is hundreds of years old, anxious to finally be heard and seen.

and daniel is still an asshole, i think, but i suspect he's forced to empathize through the bond. let him see and feel all that chaos and ruin of armand's psyche and decide: armand is self-destructing. armand is losing his fucking mind and cannot process the meaning of his own story. but i can.

[drdemonprince]

resource anon again here, i just read the ask where you talked about how you fantasise about a time you were abused in which you had an involuntary orgasm. i just wanted to say that it's... helpful to see someone talk about that aspect of sexual abuse in a chill way. the fact that i orgasmed, or experienced some degree of sexual pleasure during some of my assaults fucked me up for YEEEAAARRSSS. i used to be able to come so fast but now if someone else is pleasuring me i literally cannot orgasm sooner than like 1 hour and it takes unfathomable focus. and 99% of the time it's unsatisfying because it's not intuitive, shame-free, non-judgemental. i'm like fighting tooth and claw against painful intrusive memories and obsessive thoughts and it just leaves me exhausted in a bad way. i didn't even share with ANYONE that i experienced sexual pleasure during assault/s until my current psych and it was like a year after i started seeing her, i opened up about it once and that was it. it was so completely tied in with shame and disgust. anyway thanks again, this was my Confession. i hope i can fuck wild n free one day without the burden of these messy confusing thoughts and feelings

Hey anon, thanks for your message, and I am so sorry that you have been made to feel so much shame about an involuntary reaction that is not your fault, and happens to a whole lot more sexual assault survivors than gets widely talked about. It is just a thing that happens, and in fact may be a physically protective measure, because if a person's body is aroused during the experience of being assaulted, it is less likely they will experience physical damage to that area.

Our sexual responses are unusual and unexpected sometimes, and we don't always get to choose what we enjoy or how our bodies react. Your sexual assault isn't any less of a violation because you orgasmed from it. And it's not weird or gross that you did.

My experience with sexual responsiveness following the assault was something of the mirror image of yours, which I'll share because I think it's useful again in normalizing such things. The orgasm that I had while being assaulted was so sudden and intense that it cast a long shadow over all my sexual experiences afterward for while. I didn't get triggered during vanilla, consensual sex in the way people normally expect that to mean -- instead, I craved the intensity and overwhelm of the assault experience. It's not that uncommon for survivors to go numb and check out during sex, of course. But I would actively bring myself to orgasm during these moments by thinking about getting assaulted, and recalling things that were said and done to me moment-by-moment during the assault that brought me to orgasm. I would also masturbate replaying the assault for a very long time, and every now and then it's still something I'll reach for.

I don't feel any shame about this. The brain does unusual things, and draws all kinds of funny and upsetting connections at times. Perhaps this doesn't jar me so much because I have always had intrusive thoughts of violence and death but also of tenderness and childish happiness and random absurdity. I don't feel fully in control of my mind, and never have, so I can go along for the ride with what it has to offer me sometimes.

The person who assaulted me isn't able to hurt me anymore, and I feel relief and a sense of victory from the fact that I have extracted from this awful experience a ton of pleasure. At this point, almost 13 years later, I can say that jerking off to the idea of the assault has brought me so much pleasure collectively over the years that it overwhelms any pain the initial experience had. And I think that's pretty cool.

I hope that you can work through your understandable feelings of disgust and shame about your body's reaction to your assault on your own terms and in whatever way works for you. Some people cope with assault and its aftermath by age regressing, others by being celibate, others by finding a completely new sexual identity or role from what they previously enjoyed, some by becoming super vanilla, others by becoming kinky, some people just wait it out with time, and some people find a way to live with the trauma and darkness running alongside them in parallel to their life for as long as it will. There are no rules. Whatever works and feels natural to you.

I'm sure many a psychiatrist would consider me super duper fucked up for jerking off about my rape for over a decade afterward, but i'm having great orgasms and indulging my penchant for being controlled and used far more healthfully now in my relationships because I've embraced what feels like a true rush of aliveness for me, so like, fuck them and their profession as usual lol.

[bawwsadface]

THERE WILL BE NO EQUILIBRIUM

content warning for discussions of: death, depression, suicide, family trauma, and general vibes of apocalypse and destruction

prologue: chemicals can't be trusted

every day we fight an ongoing war of attrition being waged between mind and body. the mind's desire to be free and the body's need to be controlled by its circulatory systems of fluids and chemicals. either side in contention with the other causing the tethered threads between the two to wane. creating an antagonistic stalemate between physical corporeal necessities and the abstract yearnings of conscious thought.

and while it is true that the body keeps the score, when the interwoven stitching of our makeup is not in synchrony, neural pathways get carved into the roots of the brain that make the development of both sides uniquely centrifugal. creating disparities that go on to greatly affect our every day lives. when the digressions start, the balance can never fully be restored. all that's left in moving forward is to strategize how to level the playing field whenever possible.

finding stability in life is difficult. the longer our time on earth goes on, the more we are besieged by powers outside our control. trapping us into archaic response cycles that shield attacks from the unloving and immutable world around us. but it is not impossible to dig a path through that keeps our heads above water. one that gives us a vantage point to see beyond the trenches of dynamic warfare.

focused choices and changes will create fresh neural pathways with intention dug into them. paths that allow for more space to breathe, time to think, and energy to focus. finding out how and to what degree to get the neurons firing can cement progress in ways far more efficient than waging war on the self. and this disarming of that which is deployed deep within our psyche will expand our vision on which directions we wish to walk.

but there is always a homing beacon. a lighthouse guiding every fork in the road back to a collective, conclusive terminus. the distant glimmer shining towards that one being which we all eventually come to know. perhaps the only universality among man. waiting for the very moment our journey ends.

chapter one: she comes for us all

on january 2nd, 2002, my grandfather passed away. i'm told he went peacefully, but i was not there to witness it. being informed of his passing at age seven was my first memory of honest to goodness depression, not just sadness. it was also my first real encounter with death.

a few weeks prior, we visited grandpa in the hospital for christmas. my dad surprised him dressed up as santa claus and everything. i didn't know until many years later that he was initially hospitalized there after suffering a series of strokes. nor did i know that at the first hospital he was admitted to they gave him an irresponsibly strong dose of sedatives. sending him into a PTSD war flashback psychosis that permanently damaged his brain and nearly killed him on the spot.

but grandma's passing eleven years later was much more visible to me. after grandpa went, she had to be put in assisted living. succumbing to worsening dementia and monitored for 24 hours by overworked and underpaid nursing staff passing through the place like a revolving door. my dad would take the 6 hour roundtrip drive nearly every weekend to see her, talk to her, and just keep the gears in her head going as best he could while she still had time. but there wasn't much any of us could do to quell what we all knew was coming.

in 2013 she passed away. her slow descent into end of life twisted my world view of how cruel death can be. with grandpa the adults in my life kept his suffering less visible to us. but with grandma i had to witness the fun loving granny with sassy t-shirts who played checkers with me as a kid get mercilessly stripped away from illness year after year. and all i could see by the time it was over was the dying light of someone who i feel didn't deserve to lose their humanity. it was devastating.

"it comes for us all," they say. but death can hardly feel real until you see signs of her peering into your world. stealing your loved ones away for what surely feels like a trip to the other side unjustly taken. death can be cruel that way. but she's a harsh mistress with which we all flirt. throughout our lives we come to form a foundational bond together. i feel she is a misunderstood figure in the land of the living. her likeness, her specter, and the experience of leaving with her all separate facets that too often get lost in the dialogue of our conversations.

there's much to glean from how we connect with death. a deconstruction of our relationship casting a reflection back on what we are pouring our energies into. perhaps death needn't be scary, nebulous, nor all-encompassing. perhaps she can instead be: a friend. maybe there is more to discover by affording ourselves the opportunity to listen to what she has to say.

chapter two: we must destroy ourselves to save ourselves

to know death is to see her as an equal. to be in conversation with her is to accept her as part of our community. to grow beside her inviting the questioning of the vagaries constructing our confused existence. it's in this bond that we can come to define the self, understand our actions, and see the world we are cultivating.

as we develop in early life, we learn to perceive outside forces gradually. eventually landing on distinctions that make us unique from our environment; however facetious their definitions may actually be. it is in this process that the self takes shape, habitually forming an identity as we evolve. it is an inescapable part of the human experience.

but what shape ends up being created is entirely in the artist's hands. our clay has malleability and is molded out of the cumulative experiences of everything that crosses our path. each a fresh notch in our cosmic design. death's touch, one we "brush shoulders with" as they say, is a precious resource to be gained in this evolution. helping concoct an overall picture of ourselves that is fluid, yet nonetheless recognizable. a self that is distinct, but still entrenched in its surroundings.

precious few choose to make bedfellows with death in this life. so rarely building settlement for her to be our familiars in. most wish to deny her touch. creating a shadow over their journey that becomes perniciously warped with time. it is here where we are introduced to her specter. the cloak of a ghost cast wide and immune to even the strongest resistance. we cannot truly know death if we are stuck in the shadow of this rejection.

for millennia our species has painted death's portrait in as many ways as we've depicted images of christ. hoping to understand her in the same way we seek to know the holiness of the lord. and to paint an image of death, there must confer a meaning onto what she represents. there must be a desire to categorize her; to create myth. but in so doing she has become less understood as a corporeal form made manifest by the visions of the inspired, and more the tortured reflections of the painters behind the canvas.

our sympathy for death's plight relies on the freedom of radical acceptance. to understand ourselves as a partner in her dance, not her adversary. but the crosses we bear too often act as karmic debts throwing us into paths of least resistance. away from this freeing embrace and into the very concepts of shame and judgement that blind us. from here death can only remain a shadowed figure. her abstraction granting her omniscience; lest she run afoul the perceptions of fallibility. this veil of mystery primarily representative of our fears of the unknown more than anything she speaks into the wild.

we need not be occupied by the questions of what lies beyond our grasp. we must trust what is present and within reach. death is trying to help us. she may not have the most deft hand, but she still makes statements. her words seeking to create balance where there has been great disparity. and we can choose in these moments to see her as a punishing deity or as a force for great dynamic change, for equalization. one who helps us comes to grips with what we are and how we act. in this acceptance we can come to know her more intimately. it is here, where we can begin to call her our friend.

--

our lives are built on fractions of time. a bevy of mistakes and embarrassments that grant us humanity. in the transparency of playing the fool we can find something meaningful nested in those blurs that make the world spin. the qualities of life that keep our momentum, a rhythm bringing tranquility to an existence that is dizzying. one that is painfully unknowable, chaotically entangled with every other soul on earth, but one that is no less poetic in its interconnectivity.

life's limited scope is what gives it meaning. we can feel emotions more intensely when they are small enough to be personal. to most, abstraction is necessary to manufacture comfort. there will never be enough time to know every soul. we cannot build universes of knowledge in our brains as complete as ancient libraries, and we shouldn't try to. but a shared dialectic of what is ours and what is outside our scope helps us grapple with the trials at a more comprehensible scale. we simply must settle in with life's confusing limitations and understand them as worthy of appreciation, of love. to believe anything less discards notions that any of it is worth experiencing at all.

we cannot build homes in the darkness. each light we carry casts definition onto our character and shadow. there is no need to wear a mask. we are always going to be what we are. no matter how much change comes about. to exist is to be seen. to be alive is to be known. and we cannot nurture ourselves without seeing each other. we must endure the torture of recognition. we must brace the trials of being naked. we must know the shame of being human. only in this open display can we make any sort of connection at all.

it is all too prescient that we take these lessons with us as we go. to surrender our pride, individualism, and resistance to liberation in the face of a dying world. there is still hope out there, found in the uplifting spirit of untold numbers working in harmony to create a brighter vision. a better world for all. it's imperative that we interlock arms with these bandied masses and push back against the great flames fanning the atmosphere. because god, you and i both know, those flames are very, very tall.

chapter three: apocalypse is inevitable

when i was younger, i sketched an idea for the perfect performance of ritualistic suicide. conceptualizing the peak of an idealized enlightenment and inner peace that granted me the opportunity to exit this earth on my own terms. beginning the cycle of death and rebirth by walking directly into the sea at sunset, like godzilla retreating homeward bound, alone and in synchronous harmony with death and mother earth all at once.

but tantalizing as it may be to fantasize of total bliss in death, these days that dream has lost its desirability to me. i have seen too much to know that this sensation of complete balance will never come. my understanding of death's presence now more a reaction to her hand taking those around me and showing them her kingdom than an opaque desire to be her most trusted ally. instead, i choose to be linked to the world death is constantly eyeing. my voice just another in the cacophony of pained cries vibrating through the airwaves, but one i still hope is heard by the others screaming in harmony.

is there really room to find peace in this noise?

i think shifting focus to a pastoral understanding affords a broader perspective, sure. we cannot save our world alone. nor can we feel connected to it if we don't consider the others who occupy it. but in the tangible here and now it is paramount that we also consider the worst possible outcome: our own annihilation. complete and total destruction of everything and everyone around us happening as we speak. no future for the generations being born right now. what are we to do then, when the ground we walk on gets burned and the shores swallowed by the ocean? how exactly do we fan those flames?

if you trace the paths of those who have become swallowed by death's specter you will find settlements built in the thickest of glass houses. fortresses for our species' most spineless and cruel. those who abandoned their souls to nurture fortified structures of power and caste. hierarchical systems that have damned the very soil we walk on and cast pestilence into the very air our screams get caught up in. there is more that is terrifying in our current moment than in the mystery of a ponderous future. more worrying and apocalyptic in the traditions and hegemonies of man's own selfish wrought that exist right in front of us.

we know it's here and we've known it's coming. our species' great evangelism for industrialization expediently propelling us toward collective genocide. the capitalists have stripped our home of everything that makes her whole. choosing to dredge up the sludge and bones buried deep within her bounds and count them like coins. funneling every last morsel back into the slaughterhouses that churn endless bodies to dust over decades of unvalued labor. catastrophe is here. the result of this harrowed ritualistic sacrifice for the false gods of capital. the fallout of pushing the very concept of "civilization" to its extremes. they have thrust the anthropocene upon us, and so our hand is forced in the process.

our mother earth has no preoccupations with tradition. she ebbs and flows in response to the planets outside her. in community with that which is greater than her. without our presence she knows the passage of time as only the erosion of the rocks and shifting of the tides. mother earth exists as we were meant to. free from systems and the rigid calculus of pattern recognition. if we all listened to her, we would live for hundreds of thousands more years in lockstep with her ongoing transformations.

but man, in his hubris, has made manifest horrors beyond mother earth's conception. terrors that death could not even hope to conjure by herself. this myth of the "great man," a callous framework for justifying destruction heretofore unfathomable. for centuries now, we've been the occupiers. we've colonized that which is supposed to move with us. creating grounds stillborn for other thieves, rent-seekers and sooners to tear apart and paint over ad nauseam.

now much of our home is no more trees and desert than it is brick and cement. we've broken the agreement to dance in step with mother earth. choosing instead to conquer her. placing down roots and forcing out life we see as unworthy of settling beside us. filling the air with methane and salting the earth with toxins. it never had to be this way, but the exiling of the people who sought to listen to the land has turned what's left into occupied territory.

there will be no equilibrium to keep our world from being sullied by those who wish to plunder it, and none can be found from within while the earth is being killed. the desire to maximize creature comfort over human connection for the sake of profit has turned us into bitter beings. the powerful hierarchies forged to keep man in his place doing little to balance a craving for blood, nor to satiate the tortured masses. the myth of the individual is what haunts this planet, not death. dooming a great many to a fate they had no hand in earning.

there is blood in the fields, blood in the factories, blood in the trucks, blood in the air and the water and the mangled manufactured harvest of that which is entirely unnatural; unholy. we're not supposed to live like this. we're not made to fulfill the pipe dreams of autocratic fools. the ugly and cruel ideals of soulless demagogues who wish for a world where the strawberries never go out of season. a world where it doesn't snow. a world where the trees burn so that we are forced not to lay under them. there is no happiness left to be found in their world. only a warm gun.

i fear our species is reaching its Great Dying. a self-inflicted wound of capital and colonization that paved the way for desolation. a great bleeding out of a population poised to reach closer to the sun than any other has come, only to meet the same fate as icarus. the sky is falling and none of us have arms big enough to catch it, much less put it back in its natural place. there is no lord that can forgive us in this wake, for we knew exactly what we were doing. and yet, we just did not care.

when we reach the kingdom of heaven, will we be judged on our role in this destruction of god's creation? are we as a people to blame for the hubris of the few? why must we be sacrificed for the dreams of those with blood in their eyes and rage in their hearts? surely, there is room for something else before it all comes crashing down. something equitable and agreeable that could be better, while there’s still precious time. there must be something in the collective that can at least make the bombs raining down feel less painful. i'd hope that in dying times, death more than anyone, could be our friend.

chapter four: god doesn't build bombs

it can be tempting to become antagonistic in the face of total darkness. to want to form an equally great armament for mutual destruction as a counterattack. a crimson wave come to cleanse the earth of her colonizers. there is something comforting in the idea of being pulled into abyss to give mother earth a clean slate.

but if you are willing to breed annihilation, where will you hide when there are no trees left? when no tall blades of grass can obscure the faces of those who soiled the earth, will you feel any different than they who built the tanks and pipelines? will you find peace when the reckoning comes? will you give yourself up to be swept in mother earth's call to reset?

nihilism is purely theoretical in our world. entirely inactionable in a space where existing alone grants itself purpose. you can break the code of your identity, but you can never escape from it. martyrdom not historically faring much better. what we should never be beneath this crushing boot is complacent. giving up autonomy in service of a moral high ground will get you nowhere. gods and pharaohs will do nothing to hasten the apotheosis of our extinction. they serve only to fall back into the very myth of individual that got us here in the first place. you cannot claim to be outside the radius of the bombs. you're in the warpath just as much as the rest of us.

we don't live in an imagined past where theory can overcome ideology without praxis. maybe in times of antiquity war could be romantic. there could be nobility in sacrificing one's self for a perceived greater good. but the power funneled into creating that placation mechanism for generations was merely a facade to mask the bloodshed. we know too much now. claiming ignorance is no longer an option. we've seen how the jokers at the top play with us like toy soldiers. and we cannot unsee their naked displays of greed. we can't opt out of apocalypse.

in times of hardship, only those with the ability to form bonds can survive. we humans are pro-social. it's the only reason we've lasted long enough to have this dialogue. so we must answer the ever daunting call to organize in order to continue on. to forge coalition for peoples who need the utmost protection. we have to be vulnerable, we have to be honest, and we have to see beyond the masks. we need strength in numbers. enough of us in a greek phalanx who will fend off the cataclysm of the few that wish to tear us apart. and we need to push and shove until the line moves and the bastards topple from their thrones.

this means slipping and falling and getting back up again. it means making mistakes. it means admitting failures. it means taking accountability. it means trusting our fellow fighter. learning and unlearning and going back to the drawing board many times over. creating this line of defense will be uncomfortable and new. but we must not shy away. we must poke and prod at each other until we have something cohesive. something consistent and able to stand on its own. but also something transient, ever-evolving. we cannot move through this fog without our high beams on. so we must be ready to adapt and change for any circumstance that arrives. be malleable.

you won't get anywhere lying to yourself or keeping things from others. sure, you need not be an open book to be accepted. but you should be able to find out which people and in what situations you can share your emotions with. find the safe spaces where you can yell and cry and be completely unfiltered when you need it. create something sacred out of the fractured pieces that we all carry with us. use your skills to strengthen your bonds and you will never feel truly alone. because we all deserve to find our home. we are all empathetic creatures who understand nuance and can hold dialectics. there should always be space to find a home within each other.

we have to be ready to show up when the going gets tough. lend our bodies and our spirits to heal the wounds when the time comes. everyone has something to offer. maybe you can drive, cook, sew, provide shelter, or tell a good story. no displays of kindness will go unnoticed. you have to pitch in and be vulnerable. be willing to connect with strangers. be willing to do tasks for others. be willing to inconvenience yourself to support your people. it's only in our reciprocity of love and care that we can grow alongside each other. be a security blanket and the winters will seem less cold.

and yes, we must fight. everything that is precious and worth holding close is in constant danger of being destroyed. we must strategize how and when to lob crushing blows at our oppressors. they need to be stripped of their power, deplatformed from their influence, held at trial and fed back into the very death machines they built to be torn limb from limb when all is said and done. nobody should govern above the people. they should be buried beneath them if they even try. we must be tactical in how we send this message. because the earth is crying out every day for someone to speak up and save her. choose to be her ally, not theirs.

but be weary in your methodology. understand each move as just one piece in your arsenal for fighting back. no singular outlet will make change happen on its own. many have tried and failed in your wake. don't be the fool that plays the hero. commit yourself to being part of something greater. that is the only way we can bring down the towers, by working hand in hand. the most effective ways to dethrone power rely on working together, not going rogue. so remember, a death drive will always arrive at the same terminus. have fun staring god in the face if that's what you wish, but god's seen more than you have.

chapter five: let yourself have it

everything you do will be imperfect. there will be no overarching standard of singularity to the self you craft. a consistency will be built over years of radically diverse experiences. the great balancing act one that you take on, finding whatever ballast you need to keep yourself moving forward. let yourself be what you already are. be broken and bruised and scarred and let it all shape the face you wear every day. because the world will keep on spinning anyway. give yourself some grace and be true to what you have inside. nurture your inner child and make peace with your mortality. you cannot connect with the world without connecting with yourself.

you don't have to have all the answers. nobody does. not even death, not even god. but you should keep asking questions. find the threads woven tightly within your psyche and learn when it is valuable to pull on them. challenge what you know, why you think what you think, and what you may be projecting onto others. the world is friendlier than you may have thought. your people will be more accepting of you if you are accepting of yourself and of them.

you are allowed to have it. you are allowed to be loved. you are allowed to be who you really are, at your worst, at your lowest, and still find peace. you can do it. i believe in you. no matter who you are or what you're going through. i believe that you can make it out of this hell. in a storm of bullets or walking like godzilla into the sunset. you will find a life worth living in this twisted cavalcade of madness that we all slog through. it will never feel complete and many days will still feel unconquerable, but you will move through them all the same.

so keep going. for yourself, for your community, for your world, keep on fighting the good fight. your efforts will not go unnoticed. mother earth, death, they will watch as the days roll on. you are in good company if you look back upon them. if you embrace your time in this life then you will go peacefully into the next. and they will bury you with flowers in the end. take care, take time, and take one for the team when you can. we will all be better for having known each other when the war is over. so embrace the darkness, and let it guide you toward the light.

[albentelisa]

Hey! I've got an ask for you and I don't mind if it takes a while, because I know that you've probably got so many asks in your inbox, but I wanted to know how do you think Jim would (if he ever did) progress to become a villain and no one realises it until too late?

(I'm feeling a bit angsty this week)

Also, btw, I love your hcs- they're actually really cool and really well thought over, and some of them just really get my creative juices flowing. They always make me smile, especially when I've had a bad today so just... thank you 💙)

Hi! Thank you for your kind words ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Actually, I have some 'bad end scenarios' with Jim ending as a villain (or sorta).

Grit-shaka. Let's say, Jim never managed to get to Bular in Young Atlas, so he never realizes the true importance of fear. Sure thing, Grit-shaka caused some complications, but those were more or less minor. Jim decides to use Grit-shaka in battles occasionally. Unfortunately for him, it seems like a great decision at first as he gets several victories (against goblins and several changelings). However, as Grit-shaka is a Gumm-Gumm object, it's actually harmful, not only taking away Jim's fears but slowly eroding his moral brakes, so eventually Jim reaches the point where anyone getting hurt doesn't even matter. That's where Toby and even Draal start to realize the extent of the damage done (Blinky is against Grit-shaka from the very start but no one is listening). However, it's already too late because Jim gets too addicted to Grit-shaka and cannot function without it at all. Grit-shaka also gives him some horrible ideas, culminating in him freeing Gunmar and letting him take over the Trollmarket (and get the power up after absorbing the Heartstone energy) so that Jim can fight Gunmar in his prime. It ends as bad as you can imagine.

Decimaar mind control. So, the trip to the Darklands leaves Jim with an unexpected 'baggage' - it turns out that Gunmar's attempt to mind control him wasn't a total failure. Neither it is a full success, yet Jim has short blackouts sometimes when he cannot remember his actions. It turns out that Gunmar has managed to instill his will upon Jim's soul, basically creating a separate personality who is loyal to Gunmar. Jim isn't aware of it for a long time (he chalks everything to stress and overexhaustion). Meanwhile, his other personality keeps spying for Gunmar and helping him in the incoming takeover of the Trollmarket. When Jim comes to Gunmar for the first time, Gunmar initially wants to make him his puppet, but seeing the second personality who is loyal to him, makes him amused, so he decides to nurture that one instead, strengthening it during each visit. Jim's friends realize that something is very wrong when Jim isn't able to remember some of his actions or conversations they had. However, everyone thinks that it can be an infiltration from a polymorph like Otto. So, the team designs a special code to be able to tell apart the real Jim from the fake. The problem is that Jim's second personality knows code as well, so it's pointless. Eventually, Gunmar takes over the Trollmarket and erases Jim's initial personality, keeping him by his side as his loyal champion.

Aspectus Stone and Hunter Jim. This one isn't much of the villain one, but still nasty for Jim. So, Jim manages to send all of his copies back, and at first, everything is back to normal. However, Jim isn't aware that the experience was damaging to his psyche and now his soul is imbalanced. He turns more mission-focused, gradually losing his other interests. It's pretty minor at first so his team easily chalks it to Jim feeling guilty because of Gunmar's escape. He starts to skip school, refuses fun activities, and is rarely at home at night. Blinky tries to talk to him about it, but Jim just waves him off. Toby starts to panic when Jim stops cooking, and Claire notices how cold Jim becomes towards her and basically everyone else. She encounters him and asks if he is Hunter Jim (as she is the only one who has met that one), but Jim tells her he is the only Jim. That's when everyone realizes that something is really off, but it's too late. Jim cuts ties with everyone and goes alone to fight Gunmar, only to be defeated and fall under his mind control.

Gravesand. So, in this scenario, Blinky doesn't stop Jim's training with gravesand in time, so it causes some permanent damage, leaving Jim with some troll traits and a feral mind. Moreover, Jim gets addicted to the gravesand, stealing it from Strickler (who has already realized his mistake and tries his best to keep it away from Jim). The gravesand makes Jim attack everyone as he gets highly aggressive. He doesn't even remember his role as the protector anymore, simply enjoying battles and carnage. He ends up killing several Gumm-gumms and good trolls and for him, it's no different. Gunmar finds him in this state and finds it amusing, so he decides to keep Jim as his feral pet and force him to fight his enemies.

Merlin taking 'his champion' thing too far. Another not-that-much villain scenario, but well... So in this one, Jim's friends and family never reach him at the rooftop, and Merlin is the one who finds him there. It is the moment of ultimate vulnerability for Jim, and instead of support, he gets the manipulator. Jim confesses that it's too much for him to realize what exactly he has lost (😢) and Merlin proposes the solution - which is basically wiping out all Jim's memories except ones concerning his mission. When everyone reaches Jim, it's already too late, and the irreversible damage is done. In his state Jim has no trouble defeating Gunmar, however, it turns out that he's highly vulnerable to Morgana's manipulations and she makes him change sides, convincing him that she is the one who tries to build the perfect world for trolls (and in Jim's mind, he is the champion of the trollkind, meaning that he has to protect them first). Morgana makes Jim her new champion and uses him to hunt her opponents.

Obsidian shard's corruption. This one is post-Wizards. It turns out that while Claire managed to turn Jim human, the evil influence residue remained. It's unnoticeable at first, with Jim simply being easily annoyed, which everyone explains as a consequence of his transformations and losing the amulet. However, Jim is haunted by his memories of Camelot times and the abuse trolls faced there. Those ignite some rage inside his soul and it takes a while until Jim can calm down (which gradually becomes more and more difficult). He also starts to feel some odd repulsion towards humans. Barbara and Toby suffer from it the most (Claire and Douxie are fine because they are wizards, and Jim doesn't treat them differently). It ends up with the Arcane Order contacting Jim and convincing him to join their side and build a better world for magical beings.

[halite-jones-reblog]

I realize that I been ranty for a long time about negative stuff that's happened to me in the past, and even though I feel like I've got every right to rant, I don't really want to live like the universe owes me. It's true that I've been through a lot, but not acknowledging the fact that I've been able to recover from a lot of things is cutting myself short.

I was damaged very deeply by someone I mistakenly placed a lot of trust in, and I am able to admit 20 years later that if I hadn't been so gullible or desperate for engagement, I might not have fallen for it, but what was offered to me (and then revoked) seemed worth the sacrifice and discomfort at the time.

There was very little notion within my own family about going to therapy or upkeep of mental health. We just all toughed everything out despite the generational trauma. When I was hospitalized on New Year's in 2005, it was the first time the thought occurred to my parents that I needed therapy. I was 22.

Therapy hasn't been a cure-all, and neither has meds, but 2005 was a turning point for me. I could have just given up and let myself get institutionalized, but the small stay in the psych ward where people were just guessing at what was wrong made me realize that if I gave my power to someone else, the consequences would be that I would never be truly advocated for, and I really didn't want that for myself, not after having survived FF7 House. I didn't want to give FF7 House Jen the satisfaction or confirmation that she broke me, or made me like her. I worked instead on getting back to basics - got my car back, got my job back, went back to school. All of these were modest things, based on the income levels and physical health I had access to. I worked at Wawa, my car was used, and the school was a community college. I had local friends I could rely on, and most of them supported me after I came back to my mom's hometown to start over.

20 years later, I'm married and have cats and a house that's okay. I have a cool job that's also okay. Most of my needs are met, and I'm able to work on creative projects on my own, despite losing myself to a few stumbling blocks during the pandemic. Sometimes I'll trip on something that turns out to have been a trauma trigger, and sometimes I'll spiral. I almost lost myself to a strain of The Discourse that came close to overwriting my interests in the name of trying to seem "acceptable" to other people, but I got better.

I have a better sense of my own worth these days, and this year, I've tried to focus less on things that make me upset and send me spiraling. It's always a work in progress.

I didn't want to post this on New Years just in case the trauma anniversary overpowered the notion of how far I've come. I get tripped up and lost in things that happened to me in the past a lot, because it's very easy for me to forget my own accomplishments when I'm stressed.

Anyway, it's nice to still be here, and nice to see everything that's come of my recovery. I want to focus less on what was lost and more on what I've gained post-recovery. FF7 House happened to me when I was 17-21, and in 2026, I'll have lived in this recovery era longer than I lived pre-disaster, and I think that counts for something.

[friendly-books]

Turn Coat live blog

Turn Coat live blog

“I answered it and Morgan, half his face covered in blood, gasped, “The Wardens are coming. Hide me. Please.”

His eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed.

Oh

Super.” pg. 15 Ha and what a way to start the book. 

“Truth be told, I still had nightmares occasionally, about being pursued by an implacable killer in a gray cloak,” pg. 18 Yep Morgan is the worst.

“Last place anyone would look for him be my guess.” pg. 18 Yep

“Oh bite me, wizard boy,” pg. 19 Ha

“I am. I’m helping him because I know what it feels like to have the Wardens on your ass for something you haven’t done.” pg. 22 Yep 

“So. How are the headaches?” pg. 22 Bonnie! Would Bonnie’s conception count as an immaculate conception?

“Thank you-“

“Oh shut up” I said, shuddering. “Neither of us wants that conversation.” pg. 28 Ha

“Aleron LaFortier is dead.” pg. 29 I’m not too sad that he’s dead. 

“Gosh. That was irrational of them, to jump to that conclusion.” pg. 30 Ha

“I went to bed two nights ago. I woke up at LaFortier’s private study in Edinburgh, with a lump on the back of my head and a bloody dagger in my hand. pg. 31 Suspicious 

“Stars and stones. What on God’s green earth  was that thing?” pg. 45 What did Harry see? Harry think of your poor brain and psyche. He’s got to stop poking things with his Sight. It’s bad for him. You’ve got brain damage now you’ve got to be careful. 

Oh good Harry got to Georgia and Billy’s house 

What is Harry muttering about the numbers?

Well now Harry’s using horrible memories to get use to the Sight of the Skinwalker. 

“Kirby was the only clearly lit object in sight-an ideal target.” pg. 56 Oh no

Oh no Kirby :( 

How long does someone need to be dead for it to be considered necromancy and not resurrection? 

“You nuked it” pg. 77 So cool

Zero is strange 

“That’s why this place is called Zero, I realized. Zero limits. Zero inhibitions. Zero restraints. It was a place of perfect, focused abandon, of indulgence, and it was intriguing and hideous, nauseating and viscerally hungry.” pg. 88 Not a fan of Zero

They seriously got a wanted poster for Morgan. Old school wild west style. Ha

Madeline? Like back in White Night with the thrall? 

“You are Jessica Rabbit, right?” I asked. “All slinky and overblown and obvious?” pg. 102 Ha

Good for Thomas and Justine for attacking Madeline

“You aren’t doing her any favors by going easy on her, Dresden,” he said, more quietly “You aren’t preparing her for exams. She doesn’t receive a bad mark if she fails.” pg. 129 What happens if Molly fails the exam?

“She threw stones at me” pg. 129 Luccio why would you do that? Why not snowballs or water balloons? Does Luccio and Morgan have a  paternal substitute similar to Harry and Ebenezar? Maybe that’s why Morgan lost it back in Dead Beat?

“Pain is an excellent motivator,” he said “And teaches one to control one’s emotions at the same time.” pg. 129 No that’s stupid. 

Morgan stop calling Thomas a “it” 

“You did a bad thing once” I said “It doesn’t make you a monster”

“What if it does?” pg. 134 No Molly isn’t a monster. Now Molly feels like a monster. I’m reminded of when Harry had similar thoughts back in Proven Guilty. Morgan sucks 

“The Council is not divided” pg. 139 Oh Morgan you sweet summer child. Open your eyes and stop being such a Council supporter.

“You two play nice.” pg. 142 Ha

Alright let’s see if I can sus out this traitor. So it’s got to be one of the senior council members or staff. Merlin, McCoy, Listen-to-Winds, Librety, Mai, Gatekeeper, and Peabody. I don’t think it’s McCoy as he’s trying to get rid of the black council. I don’t think it’s Listen-to-Winds as he’s got a friendly raccoon buddy. I don’t think it’s Merlin as why would he be the traitor he’s in charge? I don’t think it’s Gatekeeper as he seems to be on Harry’s side. I don’t think it’s Mai as she’s got those guardian temple dogs. I don’t know enough about Liberty and Peabody. But Liberty seems to be on Harry’s side. So by some less than logical reasoning I thinks it’s Peabody as he’s the White Council scribe so he probably knows things. And he talked to Merlin at Molly’s trial. 

“The only wizard I see less frequently than he is you.” pg. 153 Interesting I wonder why?

 “When I’d been young man, hauled before the Council to be tried as a violator of the First Law of Magic, they brought me to Edinburgh. The musty, wet, mineral smell of the place had been almost all I knew while I waited, hooded and bound, in a cell for a full day. I remember being horribly cold and tortured by the knots my muscles worked themselves into after so many hours tried hand and foot. I remember feeling more alone than ever in my life, while I awaited whatever was going to happen. 

I had been scared. So scared. I was sixteen. It was the same smell, and that scent had the power to animate the corpses of some of my darkest memories and bring them lurching back into the front of my thoughts.

Psychological necromancy.” pg. 158 Therapy please. This is trauma. 

“You have too much history with Morgan. This has got to be dispassionate, and you’re just about the lest dispassionate person I know.” pg. 161 Ha

“As the mind grows older, it gets established.” pg. 161 

Interesting that with time a person can’t be mind controlled. That does bring into question Luccio and her schrodinger cat position. As while her soul and personhood is centuries old the body she’s in isn’t. So would she be able to be mind controlled?

“Peabody gulped” pg. 164 Suspicious 

“What he doses isn’t dramatic, but his organizational skills have been a critical asset since the outbreak of the war.” pg. 164 That would make him a good spy.

How did Ebenezar know that Harry was holding Morgan?

Did LaFortier not use a death curse? Why didn’t he use it? 

So LaFortier was the point between the White Council and the other countries that weren’t in the Council. 

In every scene Peabody in so far he’s having people sign paper. Could it be part of his plan? Hmm 

“Peabody stopped before the Merlin, blinking.” pg. 182 Suspicious 

“You are an untidy person.”

“I put my hand over my heart, grinning at him “Ow” pg. 184 Ha

Why does Peabody keep wanting to get people to sign paper? Is that part of his plan? An inkwell, seriously? Is it the inkwell? Is it an evil magic inkwell? I bet it is. Who uses inkwells nowadays. Just use a pen. There is such a thing as taking an aesthetic too far. 

“Either LaFortier chose not to use it, or he was incapable of using it.” pg. 191 Interesting

So either LaFortier didn’t use his death curse or he couldn’t use it. If he couldn’t use it there aren’t many ways to counter a death curse. A sniper rifle could do it like what Kincaid said. But the wounds were defensive and no gunshot wounds. There aren’t many melee weapons that could stop magic. Wait hold up isn’t the Warden swords anti magic. So they can fight warlocks. So anyone with a sword could have killed LaFortier. The people who we’ve seen have swords are Morgan, Carlos, and Luccio. I don’t think it would be someone we don’t know. It isn’t Morgan as he claims he didn’t do it. And came to Harry for help. I don’t think it’s Carlos as he hasn’t really been mentioned. So that just leaves Luccio. With the mention of mind control magic and Peabody I think he mind controlled Luccio and got her to kill LaFortier. That brings us to Morgan and his suspicions of two day unconsciousness. I don’t think he was unconscious. I think he saw Luccio either kill LaFortier or stand over his body and take the blame. 

Oh no Thomas is in trouble 

Binder what kind of name is that?

“Binder gave me a gimlet stare. Then he rolled his eyes and shot a brief glance over his shoulder-then did a double take as his mouth dropped open.” pg. 212 Ha

“Ernest Armand Tinswhistle” pg. 213 Never mind his real name is so much worse.

“The sliver oak leaf.” pg. 222 Oh no

“Titania’s retainer told me. The entire Summer court has been laughing about it for months.” pg. 222 Ha

“I took it and pitched it into the haunted woods.” pg. 223 Ha

Toot-toot! 

“‘Accomplice is an ugly word. So is ‘penitentiary’” pg. 233 Ha

“He is kind of a drama queen.” pg. 237 Ha

“Who said anything about magic?” pg. 237 What else is Molly going to do?

“I think your mother would scream bloody murder” pg. 237 I’m screaming bloody murder.

“Morgan made a low, appreciative sound as the door closed.” pg. 237 MORGAN NO 

“Maybe. But that was just…just wrong.” pg. 237 Yep I agree completely. Wrong 

“Received, one six foot traditional Ozark walking club from Mr. Smart-ass.

That’s Doctor Smart-ass to you. I didn’t spend eight years in insult collage to be called Mister.” pg. 241 Ha

“I’m sorry sir,” she said “but the addition-counseling center is on twenty-six.” pg. 242 Ha

“I debated several answers and decided to start things off by annoying her.

I know. Me. Shocking, right?” pg. 245 Ha

“Her eyes were wide, her expression a mixture of terror and awe as she stared up me.” pg. 252 Evelyn what did you see in the soul gaze. Why terror and awe? 

Oh lovely another Mexican stand off now with Luccio. 

“There are monsters from whom I’d expect better behavior, once they had accepted my hospitality. What’s more, they’d give it to me.” pg. 257 Ha

“Bitch, I know you didn’t just say that.” pg. 258 Whoa there Molly let’s calm down.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” I said. “So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered talking when you’ve got a problem?” pg. 259 Ha

“Sorry,” I told him at once. “Four-footed nonvocalizing company expected.” pg. 260 Ha

“You,” I asked “and Morgan?” pg. 262 What? I didn’t clock that at all. I’m just as bad as Harry. I didn’t see Luccio/Harry, Lara/Harry, and now Morgan/Luccio. So Morgan loves Luccio romantically. He must be so upset that Luccio and Harry are dating. 

“Who do I look like Kissinger?” pg. 266 I hope not. Kissinger is a terrible person. He commented war crimes.

“Is there any reason this can’t be civil visit?” pg. 270 Yes you brought Harry with you.

“Well. I couldn’t argue with that, but the words made Anastasia’s eyes narrow dangerously.” 277 I’m with Harry and Lara on their views on the White Council. 

“It was Thomas’s necklace.” pg. 296 Oh no Thomas 

“Because people in helpless situations come to you for help on a regular basis. And you help them. It’s what you do.” pg. 300 Yep that’s Harry in a nutshell.

“I always enjoy dealing with a man possessing  a well-developed sense if self-worth.” pg. 302 Harry doesn’t have that. 

“At what point did you forget that I am a vampire Dresden? A monster. A habitually neat, polite, civil, and effective monster. Her eyes drifted down the hallway, to where a well-muscled young man was being helped sit down, while a medic secured bandages over his eyes. Lara stared intently at him, the color of her eyes lightening to silver, her lips parted slightly. “So am I” pg. 307 Lara is scary

“He always worried that he’d never be able to talk to you. That the world he came from was so different. That he wouldn’t know enough about being human to relate. That he wouldn’t know about being a br-“ pg. 310 Aw Thomas 

“You’re like family to me, Harry. You always care.” pg. 310 Aw :)

“She focused sharply on Anastasia for a moment-and then upon me. 

Lara’s eyes flicked several shades paler as her ripe lips parted in dawning realization. A very slow smile crept over her mouth as she stared at me.” pg. 313 So Harry doesn’t have true love’s protection anymore. So that means Luccio doesn’t love him :( 

“Margret. You selfish bitch.” pg. 315 Whoa Luccio not a fan of Margaret I see.

I kinda agree with Margret about the council.

I don’t agree with Luccio. That’s a whole separate comment about her argument. 

“As harsh an experience as it created for you, Harry, the Laws of Magic are not about justice. The White Council is not about justice. They are about restraining power.” pg.  319 That’s my main issue with the White Council. I think they should be more about justice than they are. 

“Over. My. Dead. Body.” pg. 321 Yep Harry cares about his family. I wonder how Luccio figured it out but not Elaine. While Luccio had help from Justine it’s surprising that Luccio was able to piece it together but not Harry’s other friends. 

“Because you need your brother to be alright” pg. 325 Yep see previous comment. 

“Then if you want my help, things are going to change. I’m not charging blindfold again. Not ever.” pg. 337 Yep stop keeping your friends in the dark. 

“Then I made a fist and slugged his smug face hard enough to knock him over backward in the chair.” pg. 351 Ha

“The mighty Harry Dresden. Subcontracting detective work.” pg. 363 Ha

“Bear in mind that someone like him can do everything I can do and considerable besides. And even people on the bloody Council are nervous about that one.” pg. 367 Yep Harry can be scary.

“You lost a fight to one overgrown Boy Scout and one pint-sized mortal women, got yourself locked up by the police, of all the ridiculous things, and missed your chance to earn the reward.” pg. 369 Ha Harry is an overgrown Boy Scout. Why is it that these morally dubious people know that but the Council thinks he’s a black sheep/warlock? 

“The air smelled of cordite. Mouse’s fur, all down his left foreleg, was matted and caked with blood.” pg. 380 Oh no Mouse :( 

Oh no Molly broke a Law again. The same on too. 

“I promise that I’ll be beside you,” I said. “I can’t promise anything else. Only that I’ll stand beside you for as long as I can.” 

“Okay,” she whispered. She leaned against me.” pg. 393 Aw 

So subtle mind control. Maybe that’s what Peabody is doing with the inkwell. I don’t trust anyone who uses an inkwell. Just use a pen. 

“I think someone has tampered with Captain Luccio. I’d bet my life on it.” pg. 394 I knew it 

“You were acting?” I said “To make it hit Molly harder?” pg. 394 Good for Mouse.

“A real party. Practically everyone who’d wanted to kill me lately would be there.” pg. 399 Harry given your track record with parties I don’t see this going well.

“That is the plan” I confirmed. Then I bent down and kissed her forehead and her mouth, gently, and leaned my forehead against hers. “Love you too,” I whispered.” pg. 492 Yay Harry/Murph moment! 

“And yet here I am about to pop you in the nose,” I muttered. “Am I daring or what?” pg. 410 Ha and if it works on sharks it should work on Demonreach. 

“It rocked back at the impact. Not much. Maybe half an inch, though that column of fire  would have blown apart a brick wall. But I had moved it that half inch. There was no doubt about that.” pg. 418 So cool

“I am Harry Dresden, and I give thee a name, honored spirit. From this day on, be thou called Demonreach.” pg. 418 So cool

Demonreach is so cool. Harry names another. I wonder how this will play out. 

“I slid will into my voice as I said, simply, “Thank you.” pg. 419 Aw :) Harry being nice to Deamonreach. 

“I’ve got nothing going on in here at the moment.”

I realized what I had said just as the last word left my mouth, and glanced at Morgan. He lay on the bunk with his eyes closed. His mouth was turned up in small smile. “Too easy.” 

Molly fought not to grin.” pg. 426 Ha

So cool that Harry challenged the entire Senior Council. 

I like Toot-toot 

Gatekeeper! 

“I cannot decide,” he said “whether you are the most magnificent liar I’ve ever encountered in my life-or if you truly are as ignorant as you appear.”

I looked at him for a minute. Then I hooked my thumb up at my ridiculous head bandage.

“Dude” pg. 452 Ha

“There is the world that should be,” he growled, “and the world that is. We live in one.” 

“And must create the other,” Ebenezar retorted “if it is ever to be” pg. 469 So cool

“And then it hit me. They were dealing with something far more dangerous than me, Harry Dresden, whose battered old Volkswagen was currently in the city impound. They were dealing with the potential demonic dark lord nightmare warlock they’d been busy fearing since I turned sixteen. They were dealing with the wizard who had faced the Heirs of Kemmler riding a zombie dinosaur, and emerged victorious from a fight that had flattened Morgan and Captain Luccio  before they had even reached it. They were dealing with the man who had dropped a challenge to the entire Senior Council, and who had then actually showed, apparently willing to fight-on the shores of an entirely too creepy island in the middle of a freshwater sea.” pg. 471 So cool! 

Not a fan of ancient Mai 

“He was not truly your apprentice. You kept watch over him for a mere two years.” pg. 473 Yes Harry was an Ebenezer apprentice and it was an important two years!

I love that we got a glimpse into Harry’s appearance time. Yeah, having killed Justin a bunch of bully teenagers isn't all that scary in comparison. 

“Lady Raith,” Ebenezer said, calmly. “Touch that boy again and only things left for your kin to bury will be your five-hundred-dollar shoes.” pg. 479 So cool! I love how much love Ebenezer has for Harry and vice versa. 

“Wile E. Coyote” I said to him soberly. “Suuuuuuper Genius.” pg. 483 Ha 

Ebenezer used a force choke. It was cool.

Ahhhhh!!!! Lara is terrifying. Madeline didn’t deserve that. Why would you do that Lara? I’m going to have nightmares. Lara is definitely a monster. I don’t want her anywhere near Maggie.

“Someone had to be human.” pg. 512 Yep 

Poor Thomas :( 

“Bring it! Bring it, you dickless freak!” pg. 530 Ha 

Toot-toot to the rescue! 

“Mother says you have no place here.” 

“Father says you are ugly” pg. 539 Ha

“Just gonna kick your ass up between your ears.” pg. 540 Ha and Listen-to-winds is so cool. 

“Retribution,” Ebenezer said. “Not justice” pg. 555 It definitely isn’t justice. It’s retribution and vengeance. 

“I remind you that Dresden and his apprentice  aided and abetted a fugitive from justice.” pg. 556 Stop calling it justice it’s not justice.

“Little guy like that, taking on something so far out of his weight class. That was a sight to see.” 

Ebenezer snorted. “Yeah. Wonder where the pixie learned that.” pg. 558 Ha and where do you think Harry learned it from. Definitely not Justin. 

I think Harry should learn from Listen-to-winds. 

Oh no Ebenezer doesn’t know about Thomas. Maybe Harry and sit him down and they actually have a conversation about Thomas. I can dream ok. 

Oh no poor Thomas what happened to you?

“Wile E. Coyote,” I said wisely. “ Suuuuuuper genius” pg. 569 Ha 

“Ebenezar was of the opinion that apprentices were always hungry. Can’t imagine where he got that idea from.” pg. 576 Ha

Ebenezer is a cool bookworm. I wonder if Harry got being a bookworm from Ebenezer.

“The Merlin has demanded that we put the boy under surveillance at once. I think he’s a damn fool.” pg. 578 Ebenezar is right. Harry would not be happy about that. White Council looks like a police state. 

“But then again, I trusted Maggie’s too” pg. 578 Maggie as in Harry’s mom? Did Ebenezer teach Harry’s mom? Do they have a parental substitute dynamic? Actual parent and child? Look I’m going to get one of these relationships right I swear. 

“Merlin,” pg. 579 As in the original Merlin?

“Mai looked daggers at Injun Joe” pg. 584 Not a fan of Ancient Mai

“Mai looked as if someone had hit her between the eyes with a sledgehammer. “That,” she said, in a breathless tone “is a Foo dog.” She stared at me “Where did you get such a thing? And why were you allowed to keep it?” pg. 588 First of all Mouse isn’t a thing or an it. He was the best boy there ever was. Second of all Harry didn’t pick Mouse, Mouse picked Harry. 

“It is my belief that Peabody has been drugging the ink for the purpose of attempting greater mental influence over the decisions of members of the Senior Council, and that it is entirely possible that he has compromised the free will of the younger members of the Council tonight.” pg. 588 I was right!? I knew that inkwell was evil. Never trust an inkwell. 

I will begrudgingly admit that Merlin is a little bit cool with the whole telepathy thing. Incredibly begrudgingly :/

Morgan, what are you doing about it? You should be resting. Keep doing this and it’ll kill you. Go line down. 

I can’t believe I was right about Luccio's mind control. And with Peabody. Maybe I can be a P. I. like Harry lol 

“I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens.” pg. 600 He admits it.

“He died less than a minute later.” pg. 600 He died! :0 Morgan’s died? What? 

Harry’s got a cool eye scar now. 

The Gray Council is cool.

“That the only alternative is to stand around and watch everything go to hell.” His voice hardened. “We’re not going to do that.” 

“Damn right we’re not.” pg. 616 Good

“You’re not even forty.” pg. 622 So Harry’s still in his thirties. He’s grown so much.

Poor Thomas 

Glad that Butters is joining Harry’s D&D group. 

Final thoughts 

Great way to start the book. No Bi Harry moments. I thought the book was funny. I wish we got more Marcone to see who he is and if he’s picked up the coin. My working theory is that he picked it up in the last book. Unsure if he touched it bare handed and just has it in his possession or if he has it and hasn’t given in like with Harry. They both have a lot of willpower. He partnered up with Namshiel after Harry died and there was no longer a wizard in Chicago. I hope he shows up in the next book. I loved Mouse in this. I loved the Harry and Murphy moment. I’m shocked I was right about Peabody. That wasn’t anywhere close to a logical conclusion in my deduction. The inkwell was a total guess on my end. Lara is terrifying. I’m sad that Morgan died and what happened to Luccio. Didn’t like the Morgan and Molly thing. Poor poor Thomas. I hope he can come back from this. Loved Toot-toot in this. Not the biggest fan of ancient Mai and glad she was shocked by Mouse. I’m glad Morgan sort of apologized to Harry at the end there. Harry’s reputation grows among the supernatural community. I loved all the Ebenezer and Harry moments in this book especially with the force choke on Lara. Interesting that Peabody had the stuff from outside reality. So this Black Council is in league with the Outsiders(Is that what they’re called?) my question is why? Presumably the Outsiders want to destroy reality so why would anyone want to side with them? Are they possessed? Also if they’re so bad how did Harry defeat one at 16? Glad Harry and Ebenezar are forming the Gray Council if Merlin isn’t going to do anything. Love that has a cool eye scar. Ebenezer really shaped how Harry views magic and life. That must have been such an important two years. Hope we get more glimpse into it. I’ll probably make a whole different comment on Luccio's argument and why I think it’s wrong. 

Onto the next book! Oh boy it’s the big one.

[goodbysunball]

Illegal life forever

Sleep's hard to come by these days, but important new music is not. Really excited about all of these albums, though I think a lot more people would be into the J.R.C.G. and Weak Signal records if they heard 'em. Feels wild to be alive in a time where this much new music hits a nerve.

J.R.C.G., Grim Iconic (Sadistic Mantra) LP (Sub Pop) Second album post-Dreamdecay from Justin R. Cruz Gallego, and it's a monster step forward from Ajo Sunshine. While sonically the two albums are drowning in layers of tom-forward drumming, buzzing synths, and effects-garbled vocals, Grim Iconic (Sadistic Mantra) puts all the pieces into a coherent whole. For whatever coherence is present, this is still a deeply adventurous, genreless, psych-damaged, electronics-rich album with enough twists and left turns to hogtie any attempts to pigeonhole it. My favorite songs, "Drummy" and "World i," are lush, heavy meditations on a single theme, driven forward by Gallego's nimble drum patterns and padded with enough synths to glide smoother than a limousine, even where blasts of white noise and black metal vocals come in. Then there's "Liv," in which Happy Songs For Happy People-era Mogwai splits open to reveal a warped vision of '00s dance-punk, or "Junk Corrido," where what sounds like a Goblin track falls off a cliff into eerie ambience, complete with thin, shallow woodwind exhalations. The album can feel just as impenetrable as it is approachable, but all the pieces fit, even where they normally wouldn't, a credit to the production of Gallego and Seth Manchester. Whether you're interested in pulling the million audio-instrumental threads stuffed into Grim Iconic (Sadistic Mantra) or you, like me, just want to listen to "Party People (Heaven)" at maximum volume and never leave its luscious confines, it's one of the year's must-hear records, and one that's scarcely left my listening rotation for months.

Jim Marlowe, Mirror Green Rotor in Profile CS (Medium Sound) From way back in January, a second solo cassette release from Louisville's most active musician, he of Sapat, Equipment Pointed Ankh, Tropical Trash, and now a member of Ryan Davis' Roadhouse Band. Where Time Out on the Miracle Index (Haha Tapes, 2022) veered more toward drone and ambient, Mirror Green Rotor in Profile triangulates on the surface somewhere between Vince Guaraldi, ZNR when they let their guard down, and the oft-orchestra'd crescendos of 00's indie. The latter is woven into a decidedly psychedelic tapestry, stripped of its sometimes embarrassing vocals and melodrama, revealing the many moving parts and layers intertwined and churning beneath. Hooks seem to fall right out of Marlowe's brain and hands, augmented by tumbling drums and hammered piano and a litany of other instruments I'm doomed to misidentify. The tracks that jump out on early listens, like "Imaginate Me" and "64 Deluxe: Plank Ring," are inventive and cartoonish like the cover art, both music and art reminiscent of animation for children from the '60s and '70s. The more pensive moments ("Bud Morton's All Gone," "Pink Rotor Mist") feel no less bright and vivid, the rich, warm percussion-heavy sound stringing together the short vignettes. The noted lack of cynicism, dropped in favor of a bright, punchy sound, shows where Marlowe contributes to Equipment Pointed Ankh, and anyone who liked either or both of their albums last year ought to be right at home on MIrror Green Rotor in Profile. The rest'll find something to hang their hat on across the albums 30 minutes, as these quick, unassumingly busy tracks reward both cursory and repeat listens. My favorite cassette of the year so far.

Mordecai, Seeds From the Furthest Vine LP (Petty Bunco) Sixth LP from America's finest purveyors of lo-fi scuzzy jangly rock, and if you thought they'd clean up with age, breathe a sigh of relief. The band has regrouped to deliver their best and most enjoyable LP yet, even with its members now spread out worldwide, far from their Montana roots. Seeds From the Furthest Vine eschews any crisp production techniques, arriving instead chock full of vocals that sound as if they were recorded through an oscillating fan, cardboard box drums, and guitar solos that wriggle violently like eels out of the players' grasp. While sonic similarities to their forebears can be spotted - Rep/Shepard/Jay, early Pavement, and a splash of the Galbraith/Russell corner of the NZ underground - there simply aren't many groups left that sound like Mordecai, let alone deliver on the promise of that suite of influences. Peep how the soft jangle of "Oval Door" collides with the sharp, clattering noise of "Meat on a Stick," or how the piercing woodwind of "Seeds From the Furthest Vine Pt. II" presages the Fall-indebted blare of "Never Get Ahead." Then there's the audacious seven minutes of garbage heap clang and manic vocals on "Down In an Alley," delivered over a warm harmonium and serving as the speaker-crackling comedown on a rather brilliant album. While it can sound like the group records spontaneously, using whatever means at hand when the situation demands it, the fact that the whole record flows effortlessly belies a logic behind the album's construction. The fragments of lyrics I can make out indicate a thoughtful, poignant core, roughed up and resilient, though more often they're buried and indecipherable ("When You Know Them As"). Vocals are an instrument, too, so whether you're comfortable with that fact or not, Seeds From the Furthest Vine's a winner, capable of floating on the fringes of your consciousness as much as it is enveloping it like a rough wool blanket.

Negative Gears, Moraliser LP (Static Shock) Second record from Sydney's Negative Gears, arriving after five long years, and it couldn't be more suited to the moment. The band sits within the dark grooves laid down by Crisis, Siekiera (both mentioned by the label) or Juju, fleshing that framework out with multiple guitars, keyboards and vocals dripping with contempt. They frame the moment through a psychological lens, lending fresh eyes to all the seemingly unsolvable problems everyone acknowledges: crushing workloads, social media-begotten loneliness, and keeping up appearances that everything's fine through it all. While their sound is certainly of a contemporary Australian lineage (equal parts Total Control, Constant Mongrel and Low Life), they keep it fresh and stand out on their own by bringing wild energy to the topics at hand, eyes bulging through the swelling, driving noise on "Room With a Mirror" and "Lifestyle Damages." Moraliser's catchy as hell in spite of its lyrical evisceration of society, late-stage capitalism and themselves, which they cover right off with "Negative Gear." Despite the dour topics tackled, there's an undeniable itchiness and movement about these songs; you could probably dance to "Ants" or "Connect," and I imagine they'll be crowd favorites in no time, tightly wound construction leading to anthemic release. Even though the music might lend itself to movement, there are long, moody tails at the end of each side to drive home the real state of things, conjuring visions of empty city streets, drizzle, wet trash rolling around, the unavoidable mess humans leave when they're gone. The earth will be fine even if we won't, and it's hard not to have some optimism about younger generations' action and impact, but on days when it feels like all's lost, Moraliser is the album to lean on.

Vampire, What Seems Forever Can Be Broken LP (Televised Suicide) It's been a bumper crop year for bands on the Amebix-Rudimentary Peni sound axis, and amongst the bunch that I've heard, Vampire's What Seems Forever Can Be Broken stands tall as my favorite. Any fan of Death Church is gonna find a lot to like here: tom drums pound, the bass threads vicious lines around each hit, and the guitar’s a distorted buzz saw. Where Vampire really distinguish themselves is their vocals, placed right up front and enunciated clearly despite the rage and bile bubbling underneath. Sounds like each of the three members takes turns, but the feral gnashing and their more melodic foil are the two vocalists that make the most appearances. The best vocal performance has to be the opening verse on "Endless Chain," where it sounds like the one vocalist is chewing off and spitting out each syllable, blood dripping from the corners of their mouth. "The Letter" is another standout, a disarming takedown of shamers and abusers set to an absolutely bulldozing riff. The band keeps things trim, with most songs snuffed out after two minutes, and that extends to the lyrics, too: “We’re looking for a future/there’s nothing to hold” hits the nail. There's a respect for their anarcho forebears, but Vampire veers slightly more toward hardcore, except with audio so crisp you can feel the sweat and spit coming out of the speakers. The production allows tracks like "Human Market Capital" to hit that much harder, all tightly wound tension and release squeezed inside 90 seconds. Gotten a ton of mileage out of What Seems Forever Can Be Broken, as much of an adrenaline boost and it is an unfortunate reflection of our current moment. Apropos now, and probably forever.

Weak Signal, Fine LP (12XU) If there is one band you should hear this year, it's Weak Signal, the quietly prolific trio from NYC. Fine already feels like a future classic, the kind of record that I listen to multiple times a day and still find more time to listen to again. The trio is brutally efficient: drums hammer rudimentary patterns, locked down by the bass, and the guitar chugs along with crunchy, muted notes and chords until a solo breaks free. The band's lyrics and Bones' straight, baritone delivery cut to the quick with the bite of Denis Johnson, unpretentious sentiments that are washed and tumbled from half-a-lifetime of experience, as cynical and biting as they are heartbreaking in their economy. They can cut both ways at once, like "I only love my friends/that's why I leave them be" from "Baby," or the chorus to "Wannabe," where Bones manages to sound both at peace and deflated. They even reach for a bit of unapologetic hedonism on "Rich Junkie" and all without a whiff of condescension, a fleeting thought given space and squashed in the span of two minutes. The lyrical efforts would all be for naught if the music wasn't up to snuff, but the band has doubled down on their streamlined grunge sound, excess grime wiped clean and even given a bit of polish with acoustic guitar and mellotron accents. There are blasts of noise that open up each side of the record, rock star moves from a group that deserves to make 'em, but they're tamped down in favor of choruses and guitar lines that both stick in your craw. The combination of the music and lyrics connects in such a primal, satisfactory way that it's almost beyond words, but when the solo on "Disappearing" hits, or "A Little Hum" leaves you with a lump in your throat, you just know this is it. Feels like a big moment for a band that deserves a bit of recognition - a fact wryly acknowledged by Bones a few times on the album - and here's hoping Fine is the album that does it.

[mental-mario]

Sibling Rivalry, Favoritism, and Multiplayer

Hey all, it's been an upsetting week for me, not gonna lie. I'm gonna skip the spiel and just get into it, so I'll just say that if you can relate then please Like and Follow and be sure to tip your struggling blogger. Also I'm lonely and need friends, so send me a request on Switch and message me on here as well! My mental issues make it difficult for me to sustain friendships, but I'd love a pen pal or 10k of them!

I'll be opening up more about things as I get more comfortable with this whole self-awareness and vulnerability thing, so subscribe and bear with me, but let's just say for now as a quick background that my mother is a narcissist, my dad is the flying monkey, my brother is the golden boy, and he married a conniving narcissist as well, so as to continue the cycle of abuse to his two kids. I am the damaged scapegoat who is trying to navigate away to healthier dynamics for my spouse and kids. I'm currently no-contact with my brother and his family as well as my mother and any relatives whatsoever. I do meet up with my dad occasionally for pancakes, but it is very much about sticking heads in the sand and pretending like we aren't estranged. I was no-contact with him as well until my wife informed him I was in the psych ward a couple months ago. I'm willing to answer questions as we go...

Anyway, he recently sent me $500 since I finally got up the nerve to put my pride and ego aside and outright ask him for help; something that has been instilled as a big source of shame for me to ever do because my mom especially would verbally berate me about how incompetent I am and how I would die alone and unwanted. Anyways, I digress, you may be asking what I would have to complain about? While I am thankful for any help I can get, let's just say $500 is chump change when it comes to my parents. They have money that I have been long since cut off from but that my brother and his family still very much access unabashedly, at the age of 32. I am 38. Also important to note is that he works a lucrative career where he has been able to make similar or better money as me over the past decade. The difference has been that my wife and I have been smart and careful with our money, while they have spent it recklessly. I always tend to leave out background details inadvertently, so I'm trying to recall as much as I can so as to not sound like unjustified soured grapes.

After years of no contact, our wives started communicating again, and it eventually got to where they decided to move to the south where we had relocated, originally in order to get away from them all. I wasn't thrilled about this, but I didn't want to deny my wife a chance at a friendship. My brother was reluctant to move here too, for reasons that I will get into someday as I work up the nerve to do so. My mom said I should take that said reason to the grave, but I'm not going to do that. They lived in an apartment for 6 months while making excellent money, by most people's standards, but they then exited out of the lease and moved into my parents' house, yet again, rent free, until they could buy a house of their own (or at least, that was how it was phrased to me when I decided to go nc with my parents yet again, due to the emotional pain of yet again seeing him and his family completely chosen over me and mine). They had to get out of their lease because they are assholes and got a bit too brazen with their neighbors. Despite being brazen in the past with neighbors who produced guns in their faces, they still find it rather funny to try and cave their downstairs neighbor's ceiling in by purposely jumping around as hard as they could out of spite. So long story short, another awful neighbor who couldn't take a joke decided to make them feel less than safe for their choices.

With the money and assets they have, there should've been no reason why they couldn't just pivot into another short term lease or something, but my parents ate up the chance to get into that abusive dynamic yet again, telling themselves that they couldn't let their son and his family go homeless (I can't say that without laughing because that is hardly the only other choice in this scenario). Regardless, we have come back into this situation because my parents decided to move those who we are once again no longer in contact with into their own house, essentially choosing a side once again. Of course, the explanation evolved from this being a temporary thing to suddenly they can't afford a down payment on anything because they don't have any money saved, meaning they would be living with them indefinitely. My only satisfaction in this was knowing that my mom's vicious lap dog, who she refuses to rehome because she spent $6k from a breeder, would be biting the shit out of all of them. Despite the dog being a barrier to letting my kids stay over my parents or anything of the sort, you can at least cordon a dog off for someone to visit. Sadly, they refuse to kennel my brother's wife.

Anyways, my spouse has some acquaintances in the real estate industry, since we have bought and sold a number of homes over the years. She got a message from one of them, asking her if she was aware how terribly entitled and obnoxious her in-laws are. Despite having to search numerous banks for a loan due to their awful credit rating, they still have the nerve to act like they are rich and powerful somehow. They were apparently searching originally for a house priced in the $300's but could not get a mortgage unless my parents cosigned and put up their retirement assets as collateral. They refused that, but they did cosign a mortgage for $200k. This after having always told me about how they would never cosign a loan for anyone ever. So basically, my parents bought my fully grown ass brother and his family a house, because when push comes to shove they will definitely stop paying the mortgage payment and could care less if they force my parents into doing so. Of course, I am sitting on this knowledge since before I was gifted $500 by my parents, and my parents won't ever tell me they did this. To answer your question, if you are asking it, I do intend to call my dad out on this, and it may be the last time I ever speak to him, depending on how that conversation goes.

My parents for the longest time would act like they did so evenly for both their kids and their grandkids, but I've called them out on that enough over the years so that they don't even make that claim anymore. From money to time spent to emotional support (if you can call it that), his family got 99.9%, and I'm an ingrate to complain about not getting my 0.1%. To clarify, I could care less except for the impact it all has had on my kids, but I do acknowledge that it's a blessing in disguise that my kids are growing up without that toxic influence so prevalent in their lives. Just makes me sad because if they would cosign a $200k mortgage for me like that, I'd be set for life, but bro's family gets rewarded for their recklessness while mine gets punished for trying to do things "the right way."

I want to shift gears now before I become too bitter, but I will just ask you to comment or message me, do you have experience with being the black sheep? If so, how's it going? Conversely, do you have experience being the golden child and self-aware of it? How has that been like for you??

To channel my inner Cranky Kong: kids these days experience multiplayer gaming far different than we did as young bloods. In my day *groans as he shifts in his recliner* multiplayer meant your friend or sibling played a single player game while you waited and rooted for them to screw up so you could have your turn to play! SMB3 made some progress in this by establishing a cooperative level progression, despite continuing the alternating turns system of play, but it was still waiting impatiently for your turn to play. Other games that did have simultaneous co-op could be frustrating if you had a younger sibling who couldn't hold up to your skill level. Nowadays, you got co-op where players don't get in each other's way, and you even got games that are accessible for players who can't coordinate keeping the acceleration button held down in Mario Kart. I may sound like I'm complaining, but I assure you this is quite the opposite. I might have had better interpersonal relationships growing up if it was more about this level of inclusive play and bonding rather than the confusing cooperative yet competitive setup that led to a rather passive aggressive style of friendships and relationships that I experienced.

A quick update before I wrap this up: I will be going away for a couple of weeks without access to internet, so know that I am okay during this time and will post more when I get back. I would like to ask, has anyone reading this ever called the suicide hotline, and what was that experience like for you? I have not yet called, but I do have them in my contacts (it's 988 in the US for anyone who doesn't know).

The holiday season is filled with controlling propaganda for family, friends, and other such obligations disguised as tradition, so if you are like me and can't conform to society's expectations, just know you aren't alone and that this is a safe spot to share and discuss. You don't have to feel shame and guilt for putting your own health and quality of life first. Trauma sucks, but we all have it. Understand that your own personal experience is valid and that you aren't lesser than anyone else. I hope you are able to find peace and comfort this season in your spirituality because that's far stronger than worrying about the company you keep, possessions you have, or living a lifestyle by others' standards. What's the point in living that way if it just adds to your stress? Family sucks, and that is why I have opted out. If you are considering doing the same but haven't yet, I hope you survive this year. If you are considering breaking free, I'm happy to lend a friendly ear and chat!