#invoking terror i mean

[sainamite]

throwesup holy fucking shit i watched s stage play of Life of pi. i’m gonna throw up it was so fucking fantastic i can’t even think the tiger omg tHAUFIVUMWKF i need to read the book

[bleakfortune]

lalala la la lal ala la u dont have to read this your decision heed the warning tag

[certifiablyinsanez]

I really hope that now, the people who have been under-appreciating the class and racial dynamics of the show and Blitz and Stolas’ relationship can now realize that Blitz had every right to have doubts and worries over Stolas’ character when it came to their gap.

Do you know what this episode reminds me of? Authoritarian, dictatorial rule. People have opinions of public execution in the real world. It’s something that actually happens. Even for peoples and societies that don’t currently commit to public executions more than likely have a past history of doing so. And the realities of this very real thing were made clear in this episode. Because Blitz, and even all of IMP, was going to die. And in the real world, you probably don’t have a royal lover to save you at the last second. It is a real tool used by cruel masters to keep people in line, to invoke terror and submission. We all saw their faces.

A family of imps, children watching. The little girl closing her eyes sadly.

His best friend and loved ones watching him get his head lopped off.

Even his scorned ex who he viciously hurt is horrified by this.

Just because we knew Blitz was going to be saved, should in no way erase the seriousness of this event. This is something used to enforce submission, to instill fear. Satan mentions how he created imps to be obedient. This was meant to be a reminder to all the lowly people in hell that their place is in the dirt. Because Blitz is only moderately successful for his race. By the standards of higher classes he would still be seen as a low-rate wannabe business man running a seedy operation. His is not rich by any means. His business only produces enough to moderately support his family and his workers.

And he was about to be killed for it.

He was about to be executed because he was a little too uppity. Because he dared to be anything other than what was designated for his race. Let that sink in. Imagine if you were executed on international television just because you wanted a better career and life. This is the reality in Hell. And the unfairness of it all is so blatantly seen when Stolas is harshly punished but still allowed to live. Not only that, but it was put on public record that he’s silly to think he would be killed because “his life actually has worth”. That’s insane.

And I need everyone to apologize and write Viv and her team love letters because these dynamics EXIST IN REAL LIFE. They are real and have real consequences, and this is real for the POC that lives down the street from you. This is not something that happens in a backwards place 10,000 miles away. It’s in everyone’s backyard. This episode was beautifully written and I look forward to every new episode to come.

[revelboo]

I love Everything Is Alright sm and GOD i feel so bad for Megatron in such a specific way. Imagine you're in charge of a group of astronauts and they keep running off to go fuck the alien fauna, like bestie I'd be losing my shit too.

That’s pretty much what’s going on. 🤣 Poor guy is having a breakdown over all of his followers being deviants. I feel almost bad about how much fun I’m having in traumatizing Megatron- I swear I really do like him. I just also love making it worse. 18+ content

Everything Is Alright Pt 92

IDW Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• Choosing to ignore the furious Seeker, Megatron turns his attention to Soundwave and curls a lip. “For Primus’s sake, cover yourself,” he growls. Hand lifting to run over his face, he gestures at Starscream. Hears the Seeker actually hiss at him, wings flared and he ignores that, too. “That isn’t a pet.” Or maybe you are. A pet they frag. It’s not like this mess can get any worse. “Are both of you bonded to it?”

• It?! Spike still buried inside you, he’s aware of your little hands clinging to him. Of your fear and the way the bond amplifies it. “Keep away from my sparkmate,” he snarls. Stiffening as Megatron turns his stare on him, those cruel optics narrowing in calculation. Trying to figure out how to use you against him. To hurt him. Spark aching when you hide your face against his neck. Painfully aware of how fragile you are and that his frame is all that’s shielding you from Megatron’s anger. So it’s a surprise when Soundwave stands and moves between him and Megatron.

• “My sparkmate,” Soundwave says, hating the lie even as he makes the claim. Knows it’s necessary, though. Because if you only belong to Starscream, you’re as expendable as he is. Aware of Megatron’s dislike for the Seeker and that it isn’t wholly unwarranted. Starscream’s deliberately invoked his wrath so many times with so many plots and schemes. So Soundwave lies to keep you safe. And because he wants that, wants to keep you, hold you in his arms. If keeping the self destructive SIC on a leash is the cost, he’s willing to pay it for you.

• Why does it have to be like this? Holding onto Starscream as Soundwave lies to their leader, you just wish suddenly there was somewhere you could run away to with them both. Just the three of you. But you know how incredibly selfish the thought is as soon as you have it. To ask them to leave everything they know just for you? Star’s spark is still connected to you, tendrils of energy snaring you like he’s trying to hold onto you despite the threat looming over him. The feel of him wrapped around you helping calm the terror, because in his arms you want to believe it’ll be okay as foolish as it is. That feeling of safety singing through you despite the danger.

• “Of course, it is,” Megatron mutters. Two of his commanding officers both sparkbonded to an organic alien. The same alien. Why not? It’s not an epidemic of xenophilia, it’s an epidemic of insanity. “I understand having impulses, but this?” Sees Soundwave stiffen slightly as he gestures at Starscream and the human. His communications officer at least having the decency to look slightly embarrassed about it, the Seeker still glaring and defiant. “You understand that just because you’re fragging it, doesn’t mean it changes anything. You’ll bring me the… pet before reporting to your duties.” And he can try to figure out what you’ve done to both of them. Some sort of pheromones? The interfacing can’t just be that good. So, it must be something you’re doing- some strange human mind control making his Decepticons all crazy. And Shockwave can figure it out since Hook is also compromised now.

• “You think I’m going to hand over my mate?” Starscream snarls, ignoring the warning look Soundwave shoots him. So furious he’s shaking as Megatron stares him down. Not again. Please. He can’t just give you to that sadist. Before Megatron had only thought you were a pet, but now that he knows you matter? Knows what you are to him? Tries to lift up, intending to fight and you cling to him. Hook a leg over his hip. Hears your frightened, little ‘don’t, please’ and his spark hurts with it. Because he’s still connected to you, can feel that fear isn’t for yourself it’s for him. And it tears through him, the unfairness of all of it. That he can’t just have this one thing, the only thing that really matters. “You’re not invincible,” he growls at Megatron, not caring if the warlord hears the threat there. Because to protect his mate? He’ll burn the world down around him.

Previous

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[jackdaw-kraai]

I am. So annoyed. That it feels like a moral obligation to remind Americans, people from a country I do not belong to but am influenced by every day, to vote to not terrorize the world with that shitbag orange man again. And that every post is about “don’t make this country worse for the people living in it” which is valid and true, but also, I see everyone worrying about him getting the nukes and invoking mutually assured destruction. The fear that America will get wiped off the map.

But I never see anyone asking others to vote blue, democrat, safe, whatever you call it, for the people the nukes would hit first. For us. For the people impacted by the US refusing to reduce emissions. For the people who would have to fight WWIII even after the US has long been reduced to rubble for a fight we didn’t start. For the people of the rest of the world.

Maybe it’s just my annoyance talking, maybe there’s a grain of truth to it, but for all that America forces everyone to know what their election means and who is fighting who, it always seems like we, the world, are expected to be silent spectators to it. An audience only sparingly interacted with for bit part extras when international commentary adds to the flavor of intranational drama. But when we’ve said the funny line or expressed the appropriate level of concern, we cease to exist in the American public eye.

Everyone in America seems to worry about when the world will fire nukes back. No one seems concerned about who their nukes would hit first.

[gatheringbones]

[“The two of us have been swimming for a while, past the breakers. But it’s low tide, and the water is shallow and warm. We can stand with our faces above the surface. Curious about depth, I place a tentative foot on the ocean floor. When I do, my brain gets a jolting message. Something isn’t right. Something is burning. “I think I stepped on glass!” I call out with growing alarm, before turning and swimming as fast as I can. It’s not until I reach the shore that I realize I’m in so much pain that I can’t stand up.

As my wife runs to find help, I sit rocking in my black bikini, staring in confused horror at the puncture wound in the bottom of my foot. In this moment, I don’t know if I’ve been snagged by trash or bitten by something predatory. All I know is that the indescribably excruciating sensation is growing, throbbing up my leg. I breathe deep and even to keep from panicking, using a meditation technique I’ve recently learned: repeat to yourself LET on the inhale, and on the exhale think GO. I like the multiple meanings of this mantra: LET reminds me to allow and accept whatever is happening, whether emergency or insomnia, while GO instructs me to keep it moving.

The lifeguard, an absolute porno of a man with effortless abs and tight red shorts, soon appears with a calm explanation: I’ve been stung. In fact, he confirms that so many people have been stung today that his station is out of their safety kits—yellow plastic immersion bags full of hot freshwater, helpfully decorated with red and silver stingrays, in case there was any remaining confusion about the source of our pain.

While the station heats more neutralizing freshwater, I get a lesson on cartilaginous fish. When threatened by, say, being stomped on while it’s minding its own damn business, a stingray will whip its tail, releasing a venomous barb into the offending stomper. The neurotoxic venom, while agonizing, generally does not cause permanent damage to a mammal my size. The pain is, in effect, all in my head. This knowledge is transformative for me. It compartmentalizes my fear from my pain. The threat of the unknown, of being permanently harmed, is its own kind of terror. Pain—just the simple fact of physical pain, with no malice, no predation, nothing to be done except endure—has no more intrinsic moral or emotional meaning for me than any other sensation. And as a practicing sadomasochist, I’m no stranger to this kind of feeling. So on the beach, I cope by invoking Dune’s Paul Atreides with his hand in a ritual box of fire, reciting the “Litany Against Fear” (“I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. I will face my fear. I will let it pass through me. When the fear has gone, there shall be nothing. Only I will remain.”). The sun bakes brine into my skin. I breathe in, trying to imagine every atom relaxing (LET), and out, trying to release everything I don’t need (GO).

I stare at the waves, my foot awkwardly soaking in a stiff plastic bag of hot water. Ignoring the gawkers, I fantasize about synthesizing a neurotoxin to use for the purpose of torturing my fellow masochists, something that could make them feel this all-consuming intensity while they utterly trust that they are safe. Right now, my pain is pointless: the result of a misunderstanding between myself and the natural world. But pain, properly exchanged, can have all kinds of meanings: service, sensualization, entertainment, discipline, catharsis. I’m grateful that my experience with BDSM—first professionally, and then personally—makes this encounter more tolerable, even instructive. When you can empty something of meaning, you can usually fill it up too. Fill it with whatever you want.”]

tina horn, from why are people into that? a cultural investigation of kink, 2024

[whatifitookalilnap]

Korra: *so frustrated she flips a table*

Bolin, sighing and comfortingly patting her shoulder: it’s gonna be okay, Korra

Mako, walking into the room: oh no, why is Korra wrecking the furniture? Did something happen?

Bolin: she’s upset that the Asami girl keeps on flirting with her

Korra, with fury in her eyes: I mean, am I just losing my edge? Am I not scary anymore? Why doesn’t she fear me? I am the Avatar! She should be shaking in her stupidly expensive boots! But noooooo! She just wants to compliment me and ask me out on dates! What do I have to do to invoke some good ol fashioned terror in her?!

Mako, deadpanned: so she’s upset that the tall, rich, hot heiress is hitting on her

Bolin: yeah pretty much. She’s also trying to avoid the fact that she’s so obviously into Asami

Mako: what I would give to have Korra’s problems

[jewish-sideblog]

I have this one friend on another site who is smart in most ways, but she believes all the falsehoods about the I/P conflict and thinks that what Israel is doing to Palestine is as bad as what the Nazis did to Jews. Why do you suppose she believes all that?

I mean the simple answer is that someone told her so, and it matched the preconceptions she had about the situation.

A more detailed answer would go on longer than I'd care to type, but I'm always eager to quote from Guilt, Resentment, and Post-Holocaust Democracy (Lars, 2017):

"The phenomenon of secondary antisemitism may be observed in other delegations and projections of guilt, such as colonial guilt. The wish to negatively portray Jews in the Middle East and Israel as representatives of a "white," colonial, demonic evil empire ruthlessly exterminating the indigenous Arab population may also be explained by the need of citizens of former colonizing countries to be relieved of their nation's historical guilt and complicity in colonial crimes-- or to make up for it.

"The equation of the democratic Jewish State of Israel with Nazism's anti-Jewish terror regime is another marker of such peculiar secondary antisemitism. It demonizes Israelis as it simultaneously downplays the horrors committed against Jews in the past, whereby Israel serves as a "collective Jew" onto which classical antisemitic stereotypes are frequently projected. Commonly invoked Nazi references and inversions vis-a-vis Jews as a collective entity are displayed in phrases like Palestinians are the "victims of the victims," or "Muslims are the Jews of today" (implying that Muslims are persecuted on the same level today in Western societies as Jews were in Nazi Germany). Such inversions may also point, following Critical Theory, to the deep wish to turn the persecuted victims of European history into today's perpetrators. These constructs collectively denigrate Jews and turn them into a morally reprehensible, guilty party by demonizing Israel as a unified, evil entity that represents Jews. These tropes relativize the genocide and the still unmastered legacy of the Holocaust as well as the historical guilt associated with it on the European continent."

[mask131]

Greek monster myths (1)

Various mini-articles loosely translated from the French « Dictionary of Feminine Myths », under the direction of Pierre Brunel. (You could also translate the title as “Dictionary of Female Myths” – the idea being all the myths centered around women)

Article 1: Gorgô

[Note: this mini-article is distinct from the mini-article about “Gorgons”]

The appearance of Gorgô, at the end of the eleventh chant of the Odyssey, is meant to cause fright – not just to Odysseus himself who is just done with invoking the dead, but also to the audience hearing this rhapsody (the Phaeacians listening to Odysseus’ tale), and to the very listener of the Homeric poem. Gorgô forms the dominant peak of this “evocation of the dead” (nekuia), she is the “chlôron déos”, the “green fear”. Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia, just disappeared back again nto the Hades – the hero wishes to summon other shades, such as those of Theseus and of his former companion Pirithous, “but before them, here is that with hellish cries the uncountable tribes of the dead gathered”. And Odysseus adds: “I felt myself becoming green with fear at the thought that, from the depths of the Hades, the noble Persephone might sent us the head of Gorgô, this terrible monster…” (633-635). It is barely an apparition, it is the possibility of an appearance, but it is enough to terrorize the living.

Jean-Pierre Vernant, in his work “La Mort dans les yeux” (Death in the eyes), establishes the link which ties together Gorgô and Medusa. Because Gorgô is more than a singular unification of the three Gorgons: she is a superlative form of Medusa, she is what happens when her petrifying gaze survives beyond death. By studying the depictions of Gorgô in ancient statues, Vernant establishes two fundamental traits: the faciality, and the monstrosity. He explains that “interferences” take place “between the human and the bestial, associated and mixed in diverse ways”. Maybe Gorgô is, as Vernant suggests, “the dark face, the sinister reverse of the Great Goddess, of which Artemis will most notably be the heir”. But Gorgô is also placed in the function of watchful guardian of the world of the dead, a world forbidden to the living. The mask of Gorgô expresses the radical alterity of Death and the dead.

Article 2: The Graeae

Daughters of Keto and Phorkys (they are thus also called “The Phorcydes”), sisters of the Gorgons, these divinities of shadows, which were born as elderly women and doomed to share one eye and one tooth for all three, appear exclusively in the tale of Perseus and Medusa.

The most ancient mention of the Graeae comes from Hesiod’s Theogony, which only counts two of them and names them Pemphredo and Enyo (Enyo was also the name of a goddess of war within Homer’s Iliad). The third of the sisters appears within a fragment of the Athenian logographer Pherecyde: Deino (“The Dreadful”), later called Persis by Hyginus (in his “Preface to fables”). Other authors, like Ovid, prefer to stick with two Graeae. Hesiod makes a quite flattering portrait of them: he makes them elegant goddesses with a “beautiful face”, even though they were “white-haired (understand “having white hair due to old age”) since birth”. And while their very name means “old women”, the Antique iconography actually follows the Hesiodic model: the depictions of the sisters as disfigured by the effects of time are quite rare… At most the artists will just put a few wrinkles. These mysterious hybrids between youth and old age, virginal seduction and sinister ugliness, finds an echo within a few lines from Aeschylus “Prometheus bound”: “Three ancient maidens, with swan bodies, that share a single eye and a single tooth, and who never receive a look from the shinng sun or the crescent of the night.” Aeschylus had an entire tragedy written about them (Phorcydes) which was unfortunately lost – but Aristotle wrote about it in his “Poetics” and implies that the play insisted on their monstrous aspect, placing them within the legendary area known as “the gorgonian fields of Kisthene”, and closely associating them with their sisters, of which they form a reversed image. Indeed, the Gorgons have a very powerful eyesight which no mortal being can face, while the Graeae have an extreme form of blindness. This trinity of women, old by nature, can also be understood as the antithesis of the three Charites, the Graces which embodied eternal youth.

The Graeae seems to have only a role within the myth of Perseus. And, outside of a few details, this legend does not change much from Pherecyde to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, passing by Lycophron, Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, and Hyginus’ Astronomy. In all those versions the Graeae are the jealous keeper of the secret path that leads to the Gorgons, and Perseus must steal their eye in order to obtain the knowledge needed to reach Medusa. However, Pherecyde did change an element: according to him the Graeae do not protect the path leading to the Gorgons, but rather the path leading to the nymphs that hold the magical items Perseus needs to fight Medusa.

Due to their limited presence in Greek mythology, the Graeae have quite a poor cultural posterity. In the 19th century Goethe will remember them: in his “Second Faust”, Mephistopheles appears under the guise of “Phorkyas”, a monster with only one eye and one tooth. In the world of paintings, Edward Burne-Jones, who created a true “Perseus cycle”, had a strong interest for them: he worked for a very long time on a painting of the Graeae. Their face is barely visible, but the cloth that wraps itself around their body is menacing ; they are within an arid desert, under a dark sky heavy with clouds – they perform a sinister dance, in a mockery of the Graces. Perseus comes to steal their eyes, and the grey color that invades all the nuances of the picture symbolizes the unique presence of those strange crones, both disquieting and pitiable.

Article 3: Echidna

Echidna, “the viper”, is according to Hesiod the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, themselves born of Pontos, the Sea, and Gaia, the Earth. Echidna’s sisters are female monsters like her: the Graeae, and the Gorgons. Hesiod describes her as having half of the body of a “fair-cheeked nymph”, while the rest of her body is the one of an enormous, big, cruel, spotted and terrible snake which “lies within the secret depths of the divine earth”. Echidna as such belongs to this large mythological family of snake-women, of which the most famous case in France is the fairy Mélusine. But unlike Mélusine, Echidna can never leave the snake-half of her body, and thus a better French heir would be Marcel Aymé’s depiction of the vouivre with her cohort of vipers.

Theodore de Banville, when he imagines Hesiod scolding him for sanitizing Classical mythology, makes of Echidna the symbol of the archaic mythology: he tells him that he is “making a toy out of the history of the gods” by depicting Love as “a sweet child, free of carnivorous appetites, ignored by the Furies and by bloody Echidna”.

Echidna precisely appears as a being led by an amorous desire within Herodotus’ tales, that he claims to have collected among the Greeks of Pontus Euxinus: as Herakles was sleeping, Echidna steals his horses away. She only agrees to give them back if he sleeps with her. When Herakles leaves her, she tells him that she will bear three sons from their union. He advises them to only keep with her one that would be able to bend a bow just like him, and to force the others to leave. She does that, and this favorite son is supposed to be the one that created the Scythian people. This meeting between Herakles and Echidna might be derived from the famous encounters between Herakles and three of Echidna’s other children: the Nemean Lion, the Hydra of Lerna, and Cerberus.

In Aeschylus, Orestes compares his mother, Clytemnestra, to “a horrible viper”. Sophocles has Creon call Ismene, which he believes to have helped Antigone, “a viper that slid in my house against my will to drink my blood”. These examples show a link between the Ancient metaphorical speech, and the mythological allusions. Indeed, only the context can allow us to determine if these authors meant “viper” as a common name, or as a proper name: as “Viper”, “Echidna”. But it confirms the idea that, in Ancient Greece, Echidna is a monster born of an archaic fear of the women, and embodying their supposed perfidy.

[eretzyisrael]

by Gabby Deutch

Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, the newly appointed president of the Chicago Board of Education, has a lengthy history of posting inflammatory antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas content on social media, according to a review of Johnson’s public and private Facebook posts following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks last year. 

After the 2018 Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, Mitchell added a banner to his Facebook profile picture that said, “Together Against Antisemitism.”

But since Hamas’ terror attack last year, which killed more than 1,200 Israelis, he has used Facebook to share dozens of posts praising the terrorist group, justifying the Oct. 7 attacks and slandering Jews who support Israel. 

“How can a group of people who have suffered from the Holocaust; today join with the Alt Right Community?” Johnson asked in a post last December. 

He continued to invoke the Holocaust in numerous posts that followed. 

“The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” Johnson wrote in February. “The Israeli government offers a renewal of Nazi language once directed toward European Jews, ‘savages, dogs, vermin,’” he wrote in March. 

Johnson’s posts did not just attack Israel and Jews. He routinely made clear his support for Hamas: “I have been saying this since October 2023. People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary!!!” he wrote in March. 

Last Christmas, Johnson shared a video showing Miko Peled, an anti-Zionist writer, defending the Hamas attacks as merely prisoners breaking out of their jail. 

“The single most direct video that has crossed my feed,” Johnson wrote. “I invite my once Jewish friends to respond to this video with honesty, integrity, and morality.” 

Earlier this month, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed Rev. Johnson (no relation) to the Chicago Board of Education amid a turbulent time for the body. 

All seven members of the Board of Education resigned in early October after clashing with the mayor over budgetary and personnel issues. Mayor Johnson replaced them with a new slate of officers, including Rev. Johnson. He can remain as president in January if the mayor allows it. 

Mayor Johnson, a progressive, has clashed with Chicago’s Jewish community in the months following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. In January, he cast the tie-breaking vote on a contentious cease-fire resolution, making Chicago the largest city in the country at the time to back a cease-fire. In August, before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he called Israel’s war in Gaza “genocidal.”

[m2jay]

Soul Touch [Ford x OC]

Here's a little preview of what's in the story. Thanks to the release of "The Book of Bill" and the dating sim game "Swooning Over Stans," I think it was time for me to contribute to the Gravity Falls fandom and write a fanfic. Here's a part of it:

◬◬Bill's POV◬◬

"A X O L O T L! My time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return."

        To think that using the last of my powers in Stanley's mind would lead me to this. That damn con artist is really going to get it this time. As I invoked the strength I had left inside, I managed to survive within the cosmos life other deities are able to do. Banished to a realm amongst the stars, I was met with the AXOLOTL. Though soothing of a presence, it's not my style.

        I crave chaos and destruction, one that leaves me with a good laugh. Seeing the terror amongst humans is absolutely amusing, and it's fun to see how far they'll go for their own selfish desires. They live in a meaningless way. There's nothing good about the world they fight so hard to go on in. Why do they fight so hard for a life that just ultimately has so much struggle in the end? Having infinite power is where it's really at. They're all too stupid to understand.

        The party had stopped. Time was dead and meaning had no meaning. Existence was upside-down and I reigned supreme briefly. I had it all. 

        Everything was in my grasp, even ol' Fordsy too. The fact that I was outsmarted by his lesser half is an absolute embarrassment to my existence. It's not fair, and I will get him back, along with the whole damn Pines family. They will get what's coming to them once I get out.

        I've been locked away in Theraprism in Dimension #5150. It's a neutral zone that's outside of time. If I were stronger, I'd have destroyed this useless place. I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not in order to get out of here.

        I had many crimes against reality against me. I've done memory laundering, breaking and entering the fabric of space-time, chrono-infanti-regicide, multilevel  marketing, psychic torture, the "2nd-Dimension Incident," and Weirdmageddon. Personally, I don't think this is all that bad to keep me locked up in one of the highest wellness centers of space and time.

        People don't change, not even GODS. Wanna know how to get out of a mental ward, kid? It's faking it. You tell them what they want to hear. You mask everything. Don't be your true self. Trust no one.

        My power isn't as strong as the AXOLOTL, but I still got it. I've managed to fabricate a book that will go out into the Pine's family's dimension. I call it "The Book of Bill." Pretty clever, right? It's pretty impressive if I do say so myself.

        If anything, of all gods, why am I here? Isn't there some Christian entity or something that went against the God or whatever. If anything, why not blame all my atrocities on that guy, huh? Don't a lot of people do that anyways to get away with things? I mean seriously, I'm not the embodiment of bad itself or anything. Let's blame it on that Satan guy. There's so many dimensional timelines, I can't be the ONLY BEING THIS BAD HERE! 

        I can't lose my cool completely here. Heck, not even at all. I need to keep up the façade in order to get out. That's right, and I'll be out here soon. I just know it. My all-seeing eye is still capable of looking through the abundant paths people can take. I see the last opportunity and will take it for myself. 

        Sixer, you're in for something that cannot be fixed. I'll make sure you regret not taking my hand to rule dimensions and travel across galaxies at my side. When I get my hands on you again, I will turn you back into a gold statue that'll be erected onto my record player, forever in a musical dance that spins. You'll be sorry.

        As for your good for nothing brother, there's an end for him that I am counting on. Just you wait, Stanley. Punching my eye and breaking my body in the mind space will be the last time you'll ever lay your mortal hands on me.

        I need to smear my mind blank. The SEA ANGEL of the Theraprism is here. Oh, how she's easy to manipulate. I guess it's why you can consider the gal an angel. It's a shame for her, really, because she's so easy to manipulate. The way she thinks I'm actually changing is HILARIOUS! What a shame for them for when their time comes. They'll all see.

        "Bill Cipher, good stars!" The dim-witted SEA ANGEL greeted happily.

        "Yes, good stars! Haha.." I greeted. 'Haha..'

☪︎ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･❂

Links to the fanfics will be listed here so far:

Wattpad

Quotev

[ai-the-broccoli]

if I had a nickel every time an episode in Ace Attorney involves a murder orchestrated by a pair of partners-in-crime where:

the one who wanted the victim dead and who's calling the shots is the yang-esque partner, an orange/red-coloured and explicitly cat-coded villain antagonist man with a misleadingly nice title/nickname/slogan ("tender"; "refreshing" etc) that doesn't suit his real nature + a bright conspicuous motorbike that is currently out of use, whose main thing is acting i.e. playing different characters & roles, and is able to fool many around him with his act, who is the primary antagonist or "real" bad guy in the episode narratively and,

the one who was enlisted by the cat-coded biker to help with the murder is the yin-esque partner, a black/white-coloured character with an ostentatious visible sign of past injury on their head and an eerie aura designated to invoke fear & creepiness from the moment they appear on screen, who consistently makes it sound as if they might kill you or someone else any second when they speak, but is ultimately treated as less antagonistic/more sympathetic than cat biker by the narrative.

and

cat biker stars as the leading role of their murderous two-man act, while the scary accomplice plays a supporting role in the background costumed in the uniform of the service job (e.g. maid, butler, waitress, bellboy) they're disguising themselves in.

despite serving the cat biker, scary accomplice is actually far more powerful in reality and both of them know it. scary accomplice's last name is infamously powerful in the criminal underworld and strikes terror into people's hearts; when brought up to the law enforcement for the first time, the player is told that other outlaws fear them and the police can't reach them.

cat biker acts tough and intimidating with the rogue face he puts on but he's actually a coward absolutely terrified of scary accomplice's actual power, because he knows the only reason they hasn't got him dead yet is that he is still on the accomplice's good side and they trust him.

and

the duo carries out the murder according to cat biker's wish but they're unsatisfied without making sure biker never gets convicted, so they decide to take a step further and mess with the lawyering as well. so they target phoenix wright personally, which eventually becomes their undoing because it just pushes him to find out the truth even more.

moreover, phoenix hates betrayal personally, and during his search he finds out that cat biker has been deceiving scary accomplice all along, despite scary accomplice's strong devotion to and forceful dedication to trusting cat biker. cat biker also even expresses his contempt toward them for this foolish trust behind them

phoenix breaks the truth about this betrayal to scary accomplice but couldn't get through until he provides evidence with the correct explanation, because accomplice has wanted to trust cat biker. after phoenix gets the truth through, scary accomplice completely turns against cat biker and wants him punished, which eventually helps phoenix gets him convicted and jailed with the help of unconventional methods

...I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but,

did you know that AA2: Justice for All was originally going to have 5 episodes, and Recipe for Turnabout was supposed to be 2-4 while Farewell, My Turnabout was originally meant to be 2-5, before they ran out of space and switched Recipe for Turnabout out for AA3 instead?

which means if it went as planned, Recipe for Turnabout would've been right before Farewell, My Turnabout. I wonder if that means this parallel could actually have been not completely unintentional?

anyway it's hilarious to me to think that Farewell, My Turnabout (the Engarde & De Killer case) would've been exactly one case after Recipe for Turnabout (the Tigre & Viola case) and exactly one case before the Dahlia & Phoenix case (Dahlia is a villain tied to the theme of deceit + comparable to Matt, while Phoenix is all about trust and trusting your clients + foils Shelly). fellas is it gay to strongly parallel not one, but multiple doomed godawful dysfunctional canonical m/f romances thematically

[natequarter]

there's nothing particularly unique about the antagonists of the second series of the sarah jane smith audios, i mean they're fairly standard as evil cultists go, but nonetheless what the series does with them is one of the deftest subversions of predestination in doctor who. broadly speaking, a common trope in fantasy is that of a secret supernatural backstory governed by fate. doctor who is a fundamentally science fiction show, but it regularly dips into the realm of fantasy, and this is obvious if you look at audios surrounding the sjs audios: think of something like gallifrey, or master. in master, the death's champion/time's champion business turns the master's existence as of terror of the autons from stemming from a series of moral choices to an innocent victim who is essentially doomed to villainy by being marked for evil. likewise, gallifrey recontextualises much of romana's childhood (and, later, adulthood) into that of a victim of genetic manipulation into the perfect vessel for evil stretching out long before romana ever existed. in other words: the master is evil because... he is chosen for evil. genius. i'm simplifying here for brevity's sake, but you get the idea.

it's not that these ideas are uninteresting; they aren't! there's a lot to be said for the violating nature of being shaped for a wider destiny. but, you know, if you don't buy into ideas of destiny in the first place and happen to like free will, then "this character is the way they are because of a previously unmentioned cosmic force and not because of the choices they've made over the course of their story" is a bit of a bummer.

therefore, what makes the orbus postremo arc so interesting is that it completely undercuts the idea that sarah is in any way destined for any of this. it is perhaps useful to first note that the classic who serial the series is riffing off is, like the series before it, not exactly the one most people would think of if asked to name an appearance of sarah jane smith. the first series uses robot and a group of relatively throwaway antagonistic scientists; good enough. nobody, i imagine, has robot at the top of their list of favourite fourth doctor serials. or their sarah serials. or anything, really. the second series, likewise, uses the masque of mandragora. neither of these are bad serials, but, you know, they're hardly the pyramids of mars or the brain of morbius. they're not classics of the hinchcliffe era. which is instrumental to the point the audios are making: there is no such thing as destiny. fate is not a governing force in sarah's life.

the sarah jane smith audios, by and large, barely even qualify as science fiction, at least of the type doctor who favours - they're often relatively small-scale, low-stakes threats. the world isn't going to end. no aliens are involved. and invoking the masque of mandragora here is, i think, instrumental: the masque of mandragora is all about fate! it's concerned with astrology as a literal alien menace which threatens to overturn the forces of science. and so the choice to have a doomsday cult based off a throwaway line from sarah's time travelling with the doctor (time, spent travelling; travelling, through time) works perfectly here. the cultists don't even know it's sarah they're looking for until, through pure coincidence, she drags herself into what was previously a subplot involving nat, because all they have to go on is her initials. their prophet is a literal unknown quantity for most of their history! their predictions don't even come true - sarah's arrival is after the end of the world was supposed to take place (fittingly at the end of the twentieth century).

sarah wonders, at one point, if her being on earth as she is is fate - that she was always supposed to be here. but at every turn, the narrative rejects this possibility. it would be so, so easy to simply make this into a story about some secret destiny crafted by a vaguely godlike being. but instead, what appears to be fate is largely flukes of chance. will sullivan is disillusioned with the doomsday cult he joined and doesn't really appear to take it seriously; he joined because it seemed funny as the time. josh himself is one of the good guys and a well-intentioned extremist, so to speak - sarah actually remarks on how he's always there when she needs him, and the very reason or that is, of course, that he intentionally befriended her to protect her. even the ultimate prophecy that is fulfilled is largely due to dumb luck combined with people intentionally creating the prophecy they wish to see in the world - it's the crimson chapter who devise a virus to be unleashed on the world in a sort of apocalypse, with sarah being martyred in the process, and it's the white chapter who choose to send sarah into space in a timely coincidence with the mandragora helix - once again, a manifestation of seeming fate which is actually pure coincidence. the helix was going to reappear, but not out of any sense of destiny; that's simply how it operates as an entity. it would be there whether sarah was or not.

at every turn, the series shows the artifice and construction of destiny, and then rejects any idea of fate wholeheartedly. it's one of my absolute favourite plays on destiny in science fiction/fantasy.

[dizzymoods]

[Link to original article]

I do not disagree with the sentiment expressed by Malm in this article nor in the excerpted quote. However, how it is expressed and celebrated is bothersome.

i was in middle school when the war on terror started. The use of "civilian" is not a neutral descriptor. "Civilian" has a connotation denoting whiteness, ascribed with a degree of innocence. Civilians killed by the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, [pick a country] are "collateral damage" not "civilians". We've seen israelis call Palestinian babies born in the months after October 2023, Hamas ie enemy combatants.

Almost all israelis are ex-colonial soldiers. How do we describe them as "civilians" when they partook in violent military action against Palestinians? Those that are not ex-idf still maintain the colonial society. Religious, pacifist objectors to service rarely renounce their citizenship. The idf, even if they brutalize these objectors, nevertheless protect their spot on the land — ironically the very reason for the punishment, "you're only here bc of us dummy". And then you have civilians, who may not be active military but become avatars of the colonial army when they call upon the idf to help them kick Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank.

I met someone who is descended from the family who enslaved my maternal family. We are related and to borrow a phrase from James Baldwin, "my grandmother is not a rapist." Even though slave owners or settler/colonizers may not be official government employees, they authorize the state. We see this expressed in 1776 and 1948, for example.

Calling israelis settlers is not an indictment of their morality or an indication of the level of violence they've personally conducted. It is a descriptor of the violence inherent to their class position in the way bourgeois is. Calling them "civillians" is invoking a moral sentiment that the people they are colonizing, the Palestinians, are not afforded. Zionist rag The Atlantic literally said it is okay to kill babies the day before the firebombing of Rafah where we actually saw people burned alive and decapitated babies. That's one.

Two: Why are we re-litigating 7 October over half a year into a genocide?

"Critically" supporting Palestinian armed resistance 184 days and 75 years after Al-Aqsa Flood is a bit late, no? (Malm's original article was published on 8 April 24) So how is this statement exactly brave when people were supporting Palestinian armed resistance for decades? I mean Wu Tang Clan was rapping about PLO style 31 years ago. Chavez, Mao, Malcolm, the Panthers, Castro, Mandela, Shakur, Jordan etc etc etc have all supported not just the Palestinian cause but the righteousness of their armed struggle. Unequivocally, mind you. It's only been settler-supporters of Palestine that equivocate on this matter.

Liberal supporters of Palestine still wince at the celebrations of Al-Aqsa Flood. And of the Haitian Revolution and of the FLN, ANC, etc etc. They think it is a celebration of killing settler-"civilians". It's not. It's a celebration of the advancement of or the success of the liberation movement.

It sounds callous but everyone has a matter of fact relationship to violence. It's not cause for celebration. it's actually a tragedy. Violence is a sign non-violent means we're ineffective. It means the endurance people have of death without concessions has been exhausted.

The zionist Jabotinsky understood this in 1923. It doesn't matter if the jewish settlers are benevolent or malicious: there is a contradiction between the zionists who want to settle the land and the Palestinians who refuse to cede the land, which can only be reconciled through violence. And if the zionists were to be successful, he said they will need to ceaselessly employ offensively defensive violence to maintain their settlements. Hence the mowing of the lawn in Gaza every two years, the ever expanding settlements in the West Bank. Jabotinsky's analysis is 40 years older than Wretched of the Earth btw. Straight from the colonizer's mouth. So again, what is brave about this statement?

[edited for spelling]

[collapsedsquid]

Let me state this next part very carefully: This is my account of J6, shaped by the circles I operated in. Other activists had different experiences while playing crucial roles in protecting DC. I don’t speak their stories because they’re not my stories to tell and frankly, I don’t know all the details. Myself and other researchers shared the intel we were seeing with the larger community (as defined by the circles we operated in). The debate was brief, the consensus near unanimous, which may be a first for any collection of activists. Trump supporters were coming to DC. Some of them were bringing guns. They were out for blood and spoke freely of murdering members of Congress and any cop that got in their way. The guns were the deciding factor. There was no way in hell we were going anywhere near that. [...] I want to focus for a moment on the guns. In the lead up to J6, a number of well-meaning Democrats and progressives urged activists not to travel to DC and engage with protesters. We tried to explain to them that we didn’t need to travel to DC, we lived here, and that oh by the way, the Trump supporters were planning to storm the Capitol and were terrorizing our neighborhoods. We explained what they could do to help us, such as pressuring hotels to turn away insurrectionists and calling out the right-wing harassment happening in the city. [...] When Trump supporters said they were going to come to DC on January 6 with guns, we believed them. That, more than anything else, determined our response. There was no way we were going to counter-protest a gunfight. That worst case scenario ending up not happening, due to both the police and the insurrectionists not wanting to be the first ones to open fire, a sort of MAD (mutually assured destruction) in miniature serving as deterrence, but the possibility was very much real. If nothing else, we expected the police response to an attempted coup to involve rubber bullets and tear gas, and while we didn’t get the former, we did get some of the latter. We knew it would be a dangerous and volatile situation no matter what. Though I don’t think it was ever stated out right, there was also the understanding that any anti-fascists who did show up at the Capitol to counter-protest would likely be targeted by the police and blamed for the very violence they were trying to prevent, because that’s usually how it went. During both N14 and D12, anti-fascists were the ones arrested after being attacked by the Proud Boys and other Trump supporters. What I don’t remember hearing as me and my fellow activists discussed how to respond to J6 was that Trump wanted us to fight with fascists like the Proud Boys so that he could invoke the Insurrection Act. Reviewing J6 committee and other transcripts, it’s clear Trump hoped for this outcome and did what he could to encourage it, but between the guns, the attempted coup, and the insurrectionists’ plans to murder members of Congress, that aspect of the plot to end our republic got overlooked by us (at least in the circles I operated in). We didn’t counter-protest at the Capitol on J6 because we didn’t want to die in a gunfight, we correctly understood the danger of what the insurrectionists were planning, and that it would likely lead to violence that we could be blamed for.

[monster-rinds]

Chapter 15: open

Felicity heard the sound of a door opening as she took a great big breath, gasping as if she’d come up for air from being underwater.

And then she opened her eyes to find herself looking right into the pupils of Synthia.

She didn’t see much else, because very quickly she wasn’t using either set of eyes herself. Or any other actual nerves.

The process was familiar and reflexive once it got started. She didn’t have to consciously do anything to finish her meal, and soon she’d return to Amber’s deep subconscious. That was, if she wasn’t consumed right along with Synthia by the teratovore entering the room behind her. But maybe she could eat that one from the inside too, if she was fast and wily enough.

So, for the sake of her own existence, she pushed herself to devour her new friend even faster, burrowing as deep into her being as she could.

It was like burying herself in the deep loam of the meanings behind the words of an ancient epic. It was dark, and warm, and timeless, and each bite (such as it could be called) brought with it not just energy but knowledge. Not memories that weren’t hers, as she never could do that, but the knowledge that she might as well be eating time itself.

Something was different, though.

Something was wrong.

A process that normally took a matter of seconds was going on for much longer.

And even though she herself was getting stronger and bigger, possibly more so than she’d ever had been before, Synthia didn’t seem to reduce or thin out.

What was Synthia? What was happening?

Suddenly panicked and filled with an unrelenting and confusing terror, Felicity tried to turn around and escape, to eat her way back out again. But to no avail.

She tried reaching out to Amber’s psyche and invoking the memetic link she had to her, to jump to her mind the way she usually did, but she was locked in the process of eating an unending prey.

She was completely incapable of detaching herself from Synthia, in any way.

With nothing else left to do, she continued struggling.

---

What that felt like from my end was considerably less pleasant. It was also very distracting.

And then, as I faintly heard Amber scream through my fog of pain and monstrous dissociation, a teratovore began to chew on me from behind.

I have a pretty good sense, actually, of how pain feels from human to human, and creature to creature. It’s all pretty similar, with minor variations for neurological differences. The basic purpose and concept of it is the same. And, I’ve also felt the pain of other monsters, back when I fed off of them. And I know how that’s different from how lifeforms tend to feel it. It’s pretty strikingly different, though it serves the same function and can be just as unfortunately incapacitating. Certain teratovores have adapted themselves to invoke a certain level of pain to paralyze their victims with it.

Fuzzy-feet wasn’t that kind of teratovore. It felt like they just sort of became all mouth and started chewing, with the goal being to just eat as much as fast as possible.

And, maybe because of the nature of my origins, I felt pain in a way that was sort of a mix of both the monster fashion and the way complex lifeforms experience it. Which isn’t a great adaptation. It kind of makes it more distracting and intense than it needs to be.

So, the teeth in my back didn’t really faze me, because just prior to that what I felt was something like worm quickly and wrigglingly munching its way through both of my eyes and into a brain I did’t actually have. However it is that my inner structure is actually composed and organized, when I’m pretending to be human the sensations match pretty closely to what humans might experience. At least, how I experience it secondhand through consuming their feelings.

The stinging, searing, prickly, squirming icepick driving its way into my very mind robbed me of my sight and quickly my hearing, and almost all of my focus and faculties.

I not only don’t know what my body did after that, but I lost track of its shape.

My locus of consciousness followed the feeding worm, deeper and deeper, becoming surrounded by sharp and growing agony.

So, when the teratovore’s teeth sank into my back, nearly surrounding me, I felt them like a discomfort on the very outer layer of me, almost more like footsteps on my domain. So removed, I couldn’t feel the urgency of the situation. But, of course, I was already fighting for my existence.

And Amber, if her reflexes were merciful, was hopefully running from the room.

---

Just before opening the last door between himself and his prey, Felix paused to think it was a little strange that she hadn’t put away her cell phone yet. Just holding it out like that while she stood just around the corner from the door with her own prey. What were they doing?

Did she even have a clue that she gave herself away with it, that clumsy over-complicated extension of herself that radiated etherscent? He could smell its location right through the walls!

But then, there were entire spirits that gave off that smell, and who hadn’t learned to mask it. Or didn’t have the good natural luck to be built that way. And he fed off them all the time.

And how could the cell phone not expel its telltale? It had to, in order to interface with the local cell towers.

Grinning with his real teeth in anticipation of his meal, he opened the door to enter the room.

And as he stepped in he thought, maybe too late, that it could be a trap.

But when he looked over, he saw the two of them behind the room’s bar there, standing, facing each other, with the spirit’s back to him, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes.

Aw, a poor human was going to get a full glimpse of his gaping maw and the ethergore it was about to unleash from her ersatz friend.

It would teach her to be more careful about who she dated.

If she was even still intact, as a person. There was no telling what that spirit had managed to do by the time Felix had stepped into the room.

From tip of pseudoforehead to crotch of his protective coloration, he opened his truemouth as wide as he could as he crouched and wiggled his behind for a leap. He could make it clear over the bar and onto the back of that spirit, no problem.

Right then, the human victim came to from her entrancement and caught sight of him. And screamed.

He took that as his cue.

---

Felicity found it strange that she could distantly feel the pain of sixteen teeth sinking into the physical body of Synthia that surrounded her. And, it was so far away.

But she now knew that she’d been too late, and they were both being consumed.

---

I think I had so many memories at the time that I couldn’t feel them disappearing as Felicity ate away at my insides. I felt a certain mortal despair at what was happening that I remember from times I’d been around people who’d been made suddenly aware of their own progressing dementia. Or that one time I was present when someone was diagnosed with a neurotropic nematode.

And that was under and nearly overwhelmed by the pain that still gripped and defined me and my new fleeting existence.

None of these things were helping me, and I needed to act fast.

So, the first thing I did was gather all of my remaining focus and channel it toward adapting, to cut myself off from the pain I was experiencing. Or rather, to alter it to become a different, dispassionate sensation.

And that took precious time and energy, but I found of the two I had copious amounts of the latter. More than I had realized.

I was still being bathed by radiant energy from that con, despite the fact it was winding down and we were separated from it by a few walls and several yards of open space. It had been strong enough that I felt it on the way up to the front door, after all. But that was not enough to explain what I found at my disposal. And neither was Amber’s terrified reaction to the event.

But I didn’t have time to ponder about my reserves, or even spend time feeling about within myself to understand where they were coming from.

I just used them.

And when I tied off the pain of being eaten, I was flooded with the euphoria of its absence. Which, unlike for living beings, didn’t serve me any better than the pain. It was just distracting, so I temporarily tied myself off from that feeling as well.

And then, in the clarity of that moment, I turned to Felicity.

I felt her struggling, trying to break free of me, of her autonomic grip on my being. And I couldn’t exactly help her with that. Not from within her.

But I saw that I could protect myself by changing which parts of myself I put in front of her.

So, I moved her, and surrounded her with my newly found vast and unfathomable energy reserves. And I felt calm relief knowing that she was no longer damaging the parts of me that I knew defined who and what I was. And it looked like I could deal with her sometime later.

At the rate she was growing, I could deal with Fuzzy-feet before she became a problem again.

So, I turned my attention on them, now knowing I was somehow so much bigger than my physical projection.

---

It really took only three convulsions and bites to get most of the spirit into his truemouth, but a foot remained sticking out near the bottom. Ludicrously, it twitched about where his crotch should be, and that mildly frustrated him.

It should have broken off and started dissipating now, but he couldn’t bite through it.

And the human victim had fallen to the floor and backed against the wall, convulsing and screaming uncontrollably.

He needed to figure out how to digest his food, and he couldn’t think with that going on.

He felt like he needed some privacy.

So he closed the top of his mouth and reformed the face of his protective visage so he could speak with his psuedomouth.

“Hey!” he shouted, closing his eyes shut with the effort. “Hey! You’re safe! Stop! Quiet! She can’t hurt you anymore! And I won’t! You can run! Run you little thing, run!” Without the limit of lungs, he was fully capable of overpowering her voice with the volume of his, and he did.

It shut her up, at least. And in the shock of hearing his words, she hyperventilated with blinking eyes that wanted to be as wide as they possibly could be. And she clenched her clawed hands in front of her throat.

She was clearly so traumatized by all of this that it wasn’t likely she’d remember any of it, he thought.

But now he could focus on the lumpy ethermass that filled his truemouth.

He worked his jaws and encircled the ethercorpse with his many multibarbed tongues, and squeezed. He released his own energy reserves into his gullet as a raw entropic force used to digest his food, allowing it to drip out around the leg of his prey where it stuck out of his maw. And when his ethersaliva hit the floor, it hissed and sputtered wastefully. But most of it remained where it should do its work.

And though he began to feel a surge of energy enter his system, telling him he was successfully eating his prize, the ethermass did not begin to shrink.

Instead, it started to grow and bulge.

How could it possibly do that?

Was this spirit still alive and somehow feeding on something he didn’t know about? Was it able to eat multiple things? Emotions, physics, his own entropic juices?

He had never in his existence experienced anything like this. Never even heard of such a thing.

In sudden concern for his own wellbeing, he started to open his mouth to expel his would-be food.

The human let out a little, “eep.”