#its really easy to fall into the intellectual trap of like

[shaanks]

Okay. Apologies in advance because this is going to be long and I'm not willing to cut anything out or put it under a readmore. So. Here we go.

The reason you can't be both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel is because those things are not equivalent in terms (there are many many other reasons but we'll focus on that one for now). To be pro-Palestine is to be in favor of the liberation of the state of Palestine, and the Palestinian people.

There is no state of Israel to be in favor of. Israel is a violent, long-standing occupation force, which has been recognized to be in violation of international law for the entirety of its existence. There are no Israeli people, because every single family in Israel is a transplant from somewhere else, incentivized to move there (either out of falsely purported religious devotion or with actual moving grants) by an occupying force desperate to legitimize their claim on the region. They are living in housing stolen from displaced and murdered Palestinians. They have no right to be there.

This is a very well-documented move on the part of militaristic invading forces, for example Germany pulled that one with what they called "lebensraum" where they decided that parts of Africa needed to belong to Germany, so they went and killed or displaced all the people actually living there and then moved civilian German families in so they could go "But look :(((( we need to be there :(((( it would make these normal families so sad to leave their new homes!!! :(((("

You will notice that the suggestion of a two-state solution didn't fly there, either.

Additionally, while it is understandable to have the reaction of "both the Israeli government and Hamas are bad, they are both terrorists and all terrorists are bad" this demands looking at the events of October 7th in a vacuum as an isolated incident, which is both dangerously reductive and really unhelpful, especially in light of literally all the events leading up to that day, and everything that has happened since.

In an ideal world, where Palestine is free and there is no longer a violent aggression going on, should Hamas continue to exist? No. And likely they would not, at least not in the way they exist now. They are a response to 75+ years of sustained violence, displacement, and genocide by the Israeli military and governing apparatus.

Imagine you spent your whole life hearing stories about what your neighborhood used to be like, before this group of people started showing up. The other group of people wanted to live in that neighborhood too, but all the houses already had people living in them. So, rather than finding a neighborhood with houses for sale, they organized, got backing from the neighboring state's police force, and started dragging people out of their homes at gunpoint.

The ones who complied were displaced, the ones who weren't were imprisoned or killed, children were kidnapped, women were assaulted. Nobody who was thrown out of their homes ever got to go back. And you grew up not only hearing those stories, but watching it happen, hearing from news organizations about what important good guys the people who were stealing houses in your neighborhood were, about their rights as new homeowners. and nothing about yours. Imagine growing up in that atmosphere and praying every day that it wasn't going to be your dad shot, your mom assaulted, you kidnapped or killed.

Until one day, it was your family that they came after. And you, in rage and terror, picked up a rock and beat a couple of them to death with it...only for the news on every outlet you can access to go INSANE.

"He's a TERRORIST. HOW AWFUL. HE AND EVERYONE LIKE HIM SHOULD BE DESTROYED. TERRORISM SHOULD BE ROOTED OUT AT ITS SOURCE, STOP AT NOTHING." About you. For not wanting someone with a gun to come in and drag you and your family out into the street, because they want your house.

Now, make that on the scale of an entire people displaced. an entire people having to raise children with stories of homes they can't go back to. an entire people listening to the world philosophize about whether or not the people violently displacing them have a right to what they stole, too.

Has Hamas committed acts of violence? Yeah man, sure. But trying to paint what Hamas has done--and what they're capable of--as in any way equivalent to what the settler colony of Israel has done to Palestine (with the backing of the world's most dangerous military, who has a vested economic and strategic interest in Israel's continued occupation of the area), is just. Crazy. And wrong.

The insistence that no violence is ever justified is oppressor talk. You look anywhere in the world where one group has their boot on the other one's throat, and you'll hear that moralizing pearl-clutching talk. but if the international community is only capable of wringing their hands while the Palestinians are pushed further and further out of existence, tell me why they shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves.

Also, and not for nothing, but last I checked Hamas hasn't fired any hellfire missiles into any children's hospitals. or dropped white phosphorus on any apartment buildings. If you're reading this and you're still on the fence about this, go look up what a hellfire missile is. That on its own ought to be enough to put this whole debate to bed, but who knows anymore.

There should be a tag for where you’re both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel. Like, I hate Hamas and I want them to be dismantled and replaced with a non-terrorist organization. I hate the Israel government and it needs some SERIOUS fixing. I want the 2 state solution. I want the return of the hostages immediately. I want those who participated in October 7th to be punished. I want children in Gaza and Palestine to not be taught in preschool to want to kill Jews.

There should be a tag that encompasses all of that. That both deserve to exist.

[blookmallow]

ok here is the Post Of Morbid Questions im trying to find answers for due to fallout ocs.... if anyone has any ideas or knows how to find answers on these let me know bc i have Not been successful

what might the Courier's bullet scar look like, and what longterm side effects might they be coping with after taking a bullet to the head

the game's answer to this seems to just be handwavy "stimpacks fixed it" since you don't visibly have a scar when the player character's face is visible, but i want my own designs to reflect that injury and i cannot find a clear answer on what it might look like. mostly it seems like they should've been missing a lot more skull than they were. best answer i could come up with for the side effects is that brain trauma can lead to memory loss, seizures, problems with impulse control/emotional regulation, vision problems, and a whole lot of other things. so ive tried to consider that for my new vegas characters. i havent really done much with anyone other than bonnie though. anyway my attempts at researching this mostly have come up with "you'd just be dead" but what if you DIDN'T dead, though. what happens then

also, as a sidenote question, would it be possible that doc mitchell (i keep calling him doc marten. why am i doing this. stop it) could have extracted the bullet intact enough for the courier to keep it. i want bonnie to have it on a necklace but i cant get a clear answer on that either

2. how exactly would chems work / how would it affect them

i dont really know anything about real world drugs so im not really sure how to approach this subject. i know a little about how addiction and withdrawal works, but not much other than vague awareness of how people act when high on weed, and lsd makes you hallucinate. i dont really know what it feels like, why someone might use them, what longterm effects it might have

i learned med-x is pretty much just morphine, which is intended as a pain killer, also apparently can cause "feelings of euphoria," so that sounds like it would be a very likely addiction in the wasteland. makes it all hurt less. makes you feel good. i think initially taking it for pain (justifiable, it is medicine, after all) and then developing an addiction would be an easy trap for wastelanders to fall into. i think both my fallout 4 protags would be susceptible to this especially if they hang around hancock and get talked into it

psycho seems to cause some kind of... berserker mode mind break, so it makes sense that would be popular with raiders, but im not sure why you'd want to use it otherwise. just sounds like a great way to get yourself killed to me. i never use it in-game so im not really sure what its for

as far as i can tell buffout is just steroids, so. desire to be strong/push yourself to the limit/unbeatable is obvious living in wasteland conditions

mentats seem to be like. adderoll, or something? increased focus and cognition. im not sure why hancock uses them, though. he's told me it's his favorite ("makes me feel intellectual") but im not really sure what recreational purpose that serves if he's not using them to focus on tasks or something. i think im not fully understanding what these do. i think it makes sense for my courier, struggling with cognitive damage after the head injury, to use them pretty regularly though (and new vegas gives you a lot of situations where you can use them to help pass intelligence/perception checks so i Do use them)

jet is the one i really dont understand. i see this one a Lot with in-game chem addicts/find them all over the place in raider drug dens so it's clearly popular but i do not understand what it does. game mechanics-wise it functions to make time appear to slow down, but i don't know why you would want that outside of a combat situation where you need to be able to react fast. the wiki says it also provides a rush/high, i suppose. could just be that it's the easiest to get your hands on

it's also made from fertilizer. so there's that. no one talks about that and i dont know why

3. what changes or long-term effects would the vault 111 survivor have after being frozen for so long

i cant find anything on this and i guess it's probably due to "we don't know" since that kind of cryogenic technology doesn't really exist in the real world. we've never frozen someone for 200 years and then let them out again. the game doesn't acknowledge this having any effect on them at all, and i just can't believe there wouldn't be something. what's preventing them from going into shock and just dying of hypothermia / extreme frostbite. i dont really understand the science of how cryostasis would work. even if we just accept "it just works" i still feel like there should be some kind of longterm side effects. nerve damage, maybe? i think ruby (my first fallout 4 protag) at least has some trauma around feeling too cold or feeling like she can't move. cryo mines/grenades probably fuck her up.

4. follow up question, the absolute most SPECIFIC one i cannot figure out to save my life: if someone were to have an open wound, and then suddenly enter cryostasis for, say, several hundred years, what would happen

i ask this because i think lucas (my second fallout 4 oc) would have reacted violently to his wife's murder. he would have been fighting to get out of that pod until he was bleeding and it wouldn't even have slowed him down. i think he severely fucked up his hands, and then immediately got frozen again. so my question is, what would that do

if we can assume cryostasis does not cause frostbite damage to normal tissue, would it also not damage open/exposed tissue? or would the ice soak in and destroy the cells in that part of your skin. would you just unfreeze and it would resume bleeding again like it just happened seconds ago? would it heal while it was frozen?

my best guess is that it would sort of... heal wrong, like a poorly set broken bone (and if he broke his fingers, it certainly would have) or get infected, at least. i want to say whatever happened caused him to lose a few fingers but i cannot figure out if that's viable or not. i like the image of him stumbling out of the vault confused and angry and broken with several dead fingers he now has to find a way to cut off. i want lucas doing horrendously ill-advised surgery on himself to be a recurring theme

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Fiddling

We'd always pulled strings. That had been our role: to tempt the innocents into sin, like a spider luring flies into its web, ensnared on gossamer strands of pride or wrath. Not that I'd use that analogy in front of my boss, Beelzebub, given how many of his entourage he's lost to corners strung with silk. There's a guy who carries a feather duster everywhere he goes.

I just made it more literal. As Lucifer targeted European intellectuals with his self-titled 'Enlightenment' campaign, I was charged with corrupting the great and good in the realm of music, and I took to it like a hellhound to magma. It was my first above-ground assignment, and I was determined to make an impression, or at least make a decent impresario.

I toured the violin circuits with Tartini one century, Paganini the next, and picked up a few moves of my own along the way. I found the actual tempting pretty easy - these virtuosos were hardly virtuous in the first place - and that left plenty of time for them to influence me in return. I fell in love with this lifestyle, this music, and resolved to learn such mastery for myself. After all, I had an eternity to practice.

I had to hide it from my bosses, though. They tended to frown on this sort of thing, worried that human behaviour was a slippery slope to empathy, and I had to describe my cargo as catgut and bowstrings to get it it past the boatman on my visits back home. I know some of my colleagues heard me practice, although they luckily mistook it as the screeches of the damned. I suppose that listening might have been a form of torture in itself.

When the campaign ended, I moved to the American South, where even mankind's oldest vices had survived the journey to the New World, just as they persisted to the afterlife - a man of wealth couldn't take his fortune with him, but he retained his greed for eternity, coveting the gold we decked him in, at least until it melted with his skin.

After several lifetimes in the company of composers, I had developed a taste for more creative methods of entrapment. I began to challenge my targets to musical duels for their soul, fiddle in hand, knowing that even if they won it wouldn't be the end of the world. The Pyrrhic victors couldn't help but boast of besting me, their vanity inflated to ridiculous proportions, and that resultant pride was usually enough to condemn them in itself. I made a point of being there to greet them for the fall.

As the fledgling culture found its feet, it seemed that even playing to my own tune was enough to make the sinners dance their way into the pit. Music, my music, became synonymous with wrongdoing - drink and drugs, sax and violins. I set myself up in speakeasies and private clubs, my burgeoning talent the lure to a trap, and simply let them come to me - like moths into an open flame.

I no longer had to work to encourage any sort of vice, other than providing the backing soundtrack. It was too easy, really. I was able to focus on my new vocation, and grew lax when it came to my actual craft. A little sloth on my own part, I suppose. I ended up fiddling the books as well, claiming the fallen for my own, even though I was only pulling their heartstrings at best. Well, together with the catgut.

Eventually, my truancy grew so complete that I couldn't even cover for it. I was addicted. I had to fake my own exorcism, move around the world again... all so that I could convert full-time to music. It was a risk, but the decision was already made. I was already somebody else. In a way, perhaps that exorcism had been real, and I'd been reborn to the sound of harps and harpsichords.

I worried that my former colleagues would catch me, fiddling whilst hell burned, but nobody came. I was free. Am free. This is my life, my after-afterlife, and it is mine to do with what I will. For the rest of my endless days, I am devoted to the muse, and play the strings with none attached; no ulterior motive. Not buying a stairway to heaven, nor paving a road to hell - only the fiddler on its roof.

On opening night, I sit with the orchestra in a different sort of pit. I cannot help but see the pride of the lead actress, the envy of her understudy, the lust of the stage-hand, but I make no note of them tonight - they do not concern me anymore, and fade under the artificial scenes of virtue they portray. My role is only to provide the backing music to their sins, and allow others to dictate the script, or direct how it unfolds. Their performance is their own concern. I only play them out.

[coldflasher]

i see the crickets on this one... they hated jesus, for he spoke the truth

there are so many parallels that work out PERFECTLY

like reconsider Eobard’s timelessness and frustration of being trapped in the future, but in the inverse. instead of being a time traveller born hundreds of years in the future and living in a city populated by the ghosts of people who were nothing but dust before he was even conceived, he’s a centuries-old vampire surrounded by people he views to be children, intellectual inferiors not just due to their general inability to match his intelligence level but also because he was old before they were born. in our timeline, he's from a future we couldn't even imagine. as a vampire, he's old beyond the comprehension of his peers, forced to watch everything he recognizes fall into ruin and obscurity and be forgotten as the world moves on around him, while he is left untouched... and it’s even worse for him because unlike speedster!eobard, he has no hope of returning to that time. it's already slipped through his fingers and there's no going back. he’s left constantly obsessing over and mourning a reality that no longer exists (Flashpoint/erased timeline parallels, anyone??)

the murder of Barry’s mother could very obviously be turned on its head as Eobard feeding on her and killing her in that way, and then the obvious continuation is Barry becoming obsessed with hunting down this creature that killed her, which is probably how they come together. dealer's choice as to whether eobard had already discovered barry and killed nora because he was after barry (if i recall, book!lestat at the very least had one young man that he lured into his and louis' home and who he'd manipulated into hanging onto his every word and basically falling in love with him so that checks out) but that's probably how it would pan out

we could also potentially have Eobard stalking Barry and being perfectly positioned that when Barry gets caught in an inopportune storm and gets struck by lightning and his life hangs in the balance, Eobard is there to "save" him by turning him into a vampire, and then we initiate the mentor-mentee relationship a la flash season 1 but with this vulnerable and resentful but entirely dependent newly turned vampire Barry...

i don’t think the show goes into it as much from my memories of the first season but certainly book!Lestat deliberately withholds information from Louis about his abilities and the rules of vampirism as a method of control and tell me Eobard wouldn’t also do that. If it hadn’t been for needing Barry’s speed to get home, Eobard would absolutely have intentionally held Barry back and kept his abilities stunted to ensure Barry’s power would remain inferior to his imo

so I then like to imagine the “vanishes in crisis” thing as Barry faking his death, maybe in a fire similar to the plantation fire (i think? god my memory is so bad, reading that book was like pulling teeth im sorry) and/or the church fire in the show so that people will stop looking for him and assume he died. except like Louis, Barry is unable to let go of his family so he’s constantly keeping tabs on Iris and Nora but of course, like the season 1 thing, not trusting Iris with the secret “for her safety” so he’s never interacting with them directly.

and then when Nora falls ill to some mysterious illness and she’s about to die, Barry goes begging to Eobard to save her (as Eobard knew he would... did Eobard poison her to make this happen? who knows. i wouldn't put it past him) so he turns her, too. Nora then takes on the Claudia role, giving Eobard yet another thing to hold over Barry to manipulate him >:)

so we have also an impulsive teenage vampire Nora who has inherited Barry’s impulsiveness and poor decision-making and despite years of experience never really grows out of it, AND she’s being corrupted by Eobard (again, negative speedforce parallels, Eobard manipulates her with the promise of this easy power that Barry shies away from as he subsides on rats alone)

look i don't usually go here but in honour of interview with the vampire season 2 and the recent uptick in vampire/buffy-inspired AUs i've seen floating around on my dash... eobarry interview with the vampire AU?? 👀

eobard is lestat, as if that doesn't go without saying

[tipsydipsydo]

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Gender of the Reader: female

Word Count: 3.5k

Rating: 18+

Genre: Angst; Fluff; Smut

AU: Historical/Middle Age! AU

Warnings: arranged + forced marriage; gender roles according to the period; sexual themes + sexual language; Praising; Body-Worship; Nipple Play; Fingering; First experience of an orgasm; Loss of virginity (unprotected Sex)

Summary: You're getting married tomorrow and you want to say goodbye to your mare. There you met the stable boy Taehyung for the last time, who's your best friend and childhood crush at the same time. You will experience a stormy night full of love and passion and you'll give the biggest proof of love to him...

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With a thumping heart you peep around the corner, but the cold hallway with high stone walls lies quietly in front of you, only a few candles in their stands lit up the long corridor. The servants must have finally retired to their own rooms and even the last noises in the courtyard has fallen silent. It must be close to midnight, but you couldn't sneak away earlier. The danger of being caught has been too big. But now you grab the  thin skirt of your white night gown and lift it a little bit up, so that you could walk as silently as possible along the corridor, across the courtyard to the horse stable. Light-footed you quickly put one foot in front of the other, the bright Full Moon guides you with its light the way to the stable. Quietly you open the small side door and slip in, where you’re greeted the familiar smell of horse, hay and leather. 

Here, too, the torches were extinguished late. Just thinking about what a momentous day tomorrow will be will make you sick and silent tears run down your cheeks. Tomorrow you will be your wedding with a man who was already over thirty years old when you were born and whom you didn't even really know. He was here once two months ago so that you two could „get acquainted" with each other. Theobald, as he is called, has a bald head, an ugly potbelly and with every, almost frightening smirk you could get a glimpse of yellow teeth. At your first meeting, he had already patterned you with such a disgustingly lustful look that a cold shudder ran down your back and still makes you nauseous at the thought of it. 

Your eyes are slowly getting used to the darkness, fortunately some Moonlight falls through the small ventilation hatches, so you can reach the last Box without tripping over something. Securely you open the door and gently push the butt of my beloved Grey Mare Estrilda to the side. Curiously, she lifts her big, noble head and turns a little to you. As if she knows what will happen to you tomorrow, she tenderly presses her head against your chest. Until now you had only cried quietly for yourself, but now, you bury your face in her soft, long mane and let your feelings run free. Why didn't your mother, when you were born, take action against being promised to such an old man? 

But every time you asked her, she just shrugged with her shoulders helplessly and murmured softly,"that's just how it is, Y/N. I wanted to talk to your father, but he only saw the opportunity in finally reconciling two hostile Empires. With this marriage. You have to believe me, dear. I was hoping for something different for you. That you will be happier than I am. That you can live your life more in more freedom." 

You have always been different, your curiosity, your stubbornness and your self-confidence do not correspond to the expectations one has of a daughter of the noble family. You love horses and riding, you can't do anything with jewelry, dresses out of expensive silk and velvet or perfumes. You loved to ride in the big hunt at least once a year and go hunting with your falcon Alan. You are not interested in the easy, comfortable life as the wife of a nobleman. You would much rather have helped once in the kitchen and learned how to cook a meal. But this was strictly forbidden to you, after all you are not a maid! Your wish is simply to be allowed to be as you want it to be. You do not care whether it is appropriate for a woman of your rank or not. 

Your body slowly calms down from the convulsion and one last time you take the smell of your beloved mare deep into your lungs. Because she will stay here while you return to his estate with your new husband. That would become your new home. Although the wedding party will be celebrated here... but you will spend our wedding night with him on his castle. Then you will be trapped in the clutches of a sadistic, cruel and heartless ruler. You have heard some whisperings and rumors from the other Kingdom. The thought lies like a bitter, putrid taste on your tongue and your stomach twists at the thought that you have to show yourself naked to this disgusting man. You would rather burn at the stake as a wicked whore than surrender your virginity to him. 

Suddenly, you hear the clatter of a fallen bucket and a dull cursing behind you, which is why you‘re startled and push yourself out of instinct into the darkest corner of the horse box. In vain, because the shadowy figure steps closer and opens the box door. Your heart beats fast, who is that and would he betray you for wandering around in the stable at night? But your anxious heart romptly calms down as you look into the soft and gentle face of Taehyung, the stable boy. 

"Y/N? What are you doing here, wouldn't you have to sleep since a long time? After all, tomorrow is your wedding.", the last sentence spit Taehyung literally out. A relieved smile comes to your lips when you see your only and best friend. "Taehyung...", you murmur and fall into his arms, trying your best to suppress a sob. His  muscular arms are wrapping themself around you, holding you and run tenderly his fingers through your hair. 

The first time you met was on your eleventh birthday when you received Estrilda as a birthday present and he was assigned to look after the welfare of your horse. At that time he had already been fifteen, and now, nine years later, he has matured into a handsome twenty-Four year old man. He is the only one who ever understood you and even offered to run away with him when you found out about your marriage. But you would be looked for all over the country and everything would be more like a deadly skewer, which is why you sadly but thankfully refused. Above all, you do not want to expose your beloved mother to the cruel anger of your father, he would blame her if one morning you could no longer be found. It is inevitable that you must marry this disgusting, sadistic devil, whether you like it or not. But one thing you will decide for yourself...

Taehyung's masculine smell of sweat and horse calms you down more than ever and you snuggle up sobbing at his chest, steeled muscles from the daily hard work. You let your feelings run free and enjoys the gentle caresses he gives you. He is even more against the wedding than you and you have already guessed the reason for a long time. He develops feelings for you, which would go beyond your normal friendship-relationship. This assumption triggers a gentle flutter in your stomach and you wish you could be even closer to him than you already are. You both knew it, but you have never really said it out loud. For this fact requires no words. You’re in love with each other. 

It was clear from the beginning that this fragile love has no future, and yet it feels so right, even though it is completely wrong. But he gives you the affection and attention that even your own mother could never give to you. Tonight, you want to give something to Taehyung that would belong to himcompletely alone. Nobody could ever steal it from him, this gift is irreplaceable.

It would be your virginity. If you have to marry such a cruel man, you want to give your innocence to someone who has proved to be worthy enough. Taehyung is worthy for it. 

You detach yourself a little from his chest and look up into those beautiful dark brown eyes in which you‘re threaten to drown every time. Your fingers glide up to his strong neck, through his soft, black curls and tug on them gently until he moans softly. 

“Tae... From tomorrow we will not see each other again. We only have this night left. I have already given you my heart, it will remain yours forever. But tonight I want to give you something else... My virginity shall be yours.”, you breathe softly against his lips. 

Taehyung startles and looks down at you in disbelief. "B-But Y/N...I-I could never accept something like this! Such a thing like your virginity belongs to Theo-", he rambles overwhelmed and want to turn your opinion against that idea,but you just press your lips almost violently onto his.

"No. It should never belong to Theobald. If I already have to make the marriage covenant with him, then I want to be able to decide by whom my virginity will be token!", you reply to your lover and bite him hard into the lower lip. 

He is still visibly surprised, but now your passion reaches him too and he respond with the same desire to your kiss. Your tongues find each other and starts a wild catching game. Heat rises in your bodies, reaches every pore of your body and makes this unknown feeling of pleasure pulsate through your veins. You long for Taehyung's love, one last time you want to feel his affection before you go to hell tomorrow. At least once you want to see heaven before you are banished to hell for the Rest of your life. The breath of your loved one becomes faster, he is panting, this kiss alone pushes you both in such a tremendous passion, which you have kept so forcibly hidden from each other otherwise. 

"L-Let‘s go to the hayloft...", Taehyung murmurs at your neck in a deep, hoarse voice. You nod breathlessly, you are completely overwhelmed by the feelings that a simple kiss can trigger in you if you just love someone with your whole heart. Securely, you climb one by one the narrow wooden ladder up to the hayloft and you two throw tightly wrapped up into the hay. Your lips can hardly keep away from each other. The desire and longing for Taehyung increases every moment.

"Please...", you whisper in a whimpering voice, your body feels like it's on fire and this unknown longing for union drags you into a swirl. But Taehyung wants to get to know you and your breathtaking body, trying to memorize as much as possible. He never wants to forget how you look, feel, smell and taste. The cords of your nightgown are opened unnoticed by him, suddenly you just feel the scratchy hay under you and his loving hands on your skin. 

"Beautiful.... So beautiful...", he mutters again and again under his breath. His eyes wanders over your exposed body,  blown out eyes lingering on your breasts. Taehyung admired you silently since you’ve met for the first time, you always took his breath with your beauty away. Especially the last few years he realized what kind of effect you have on him, how you’ve grown up from the little wild princess to a confident young Lady. How his own and your Body has changed of the years and with it, how his maybe not so innocent desires awakened in him. 

You are gorgeous, he can’t even describe your majestic body in words properly, you leave him speechless. You look better than in his sinfully fantasies he has at night, tossing his sweaty and needy Self around in Bed, trying to prevent those indecent thoughts about his own best friend. Well, his love of his life. He shouldn’t think that way about the princess, is he insane or something?! Still, he couldn’t reject his feelings for you, neither you could. 

You both will end up in hell, you’re doing so sinful things right now but why they’re feeling so good? Why is it a sin to have such desires, to have the need to feel so close to each other, why are you sinning when you feel so much love, desire and pleasure that you couldn’t bear it anymore? You couldn’t understand and you would never.

„My royal highness, m-may I ask if you allow me to touch your Breasts?”, stutter Taehyung out, gulping hard and biting his lower lip in desperation. He knows he would hurt you somehow through fusion of your bodies but alone the thought of it hurts him right in his heart. Taehyung doesn’t wants to be the one who’s hurting you, he wants that you’ll keep this night as good as possible in your memory. 

„O-Oh my god, Taehyung... d-don’t call me that, please just call me by my Name. ...and please, oh please touch me, I want to feel your Hands all over my Body!”, you pant out whimpering, arching your spine to encourage Taehyung in his actions. 

A deep, longing moans leaves his lips, finally touching and kissing every conceivable part of your body. For the first time and probably also for the last time in your life, you will learn what this true love is. Something of which so many Minnesingers always sing about. It feels so indescribably good that the tears are just running down your cheeks, you can’t hold them anymore, you feel too good, too loved. Only this night you want to see heaven before you have to burn in hell as a deflowered whore until the end of your life. But this one time is worthy for you to sin. A lustful moan escapes your lips as his lips enclose one of your nipples and caress them tenderly with his tongue. 

Countless whispers and pleads are falling from your slightly parted lips, you’re chanting his name like a mantra. Every noise that comes from your tongue let Taehyung‘s need to pleasure you even more grow. Almost helpless, as if you’re drowning, you grab Tae‘s strong Biceps and look up to him. Your eyes are sparkling from the tears which ran down your cheeks, the unconditional love in them is crushing Taehyung‘s Soul. 

"Oh Y/N, I love you so much... I don’t know how to express them so they would portray the pure feelings I have for you in my chest, in my soul. Please let me show you something else...", he wispers into your ear, nibbling tenderly on your earlobe. 

His other hand glides through the valley of your breasts, over your stomach down your sweet and hot center. You whine softly, you’re a little flustered, nobody touched you down there in such a way before. Almost automatically your thighs want to close again, just Taehyung’s gentle and caressing hand keep you from doing so. 

"Shhh, my precious Angel, don’t be ashamed... you’re gorgeous and so beautiful, you can’t imagine how bad I want you. You smell so delicious, you’re driving me insane! Would you like to continue or should I stop? I will do whatever you want, just tell me..", murmurs Taehyung’s low voice, you can clearly hear the tremble of arousal in it. After you took a few deep breaths to calm your oversensitive nerves, you’re spreading slowly your thighs for him. 

Taehyung‘s eyes are fixated on your face, watching patiently your facial reactions for any discomfort. Now, his hand is coming to life again and moves forward until it disappeared between your legs. His fingertips moves incredibly gentle over your soft pussy lips, slowly parting them and let his fingers soak in your lust juice. They run up and down, teasing your clit and preparing your entrance for his length. 

Waves of Lust electrify your whole Body, every fiber and nerve is pumped full of sexual desire and you’re gasping for air. You’ve never felt that way before, you have no clue what kind of sweet spot that is but you want Taehyung to touch it over and over again. 

Why does sinning feels so incredible good? You’re fallen for the devils work, you love sinning when it feels that amazing. 

"Please, please, please... Taehyung, do that again, it feels so good-", you sob out, holding on his broad shoulders as if your life depends on him. Honestly, it does. 

"Yeah? Does that feel good, my Princess? Do you want more?", rasps your beloved Taehyung. His fingers speeds up, flicking your cute little pearl with his thumb in a rapid pace now. His middle and ringfinger is pounding into your tight, pulsating channel and is stretching you open. His movement creates lewd squelching noises which makes you a little blush. The coil of lust in your abdomen grows unstoppable, you don’t know to handle this unfamiliar feeling. Your Body is shaking, whimpers and choked out whines filling the hay loft. You don’t understand what is happening, just pure unfiltered need and desire clouded your mind and you can’t think straight anymore. 

"Oh my- Oh my god, Tae... I-I am... I don’t know what is happening-"

"I know Baby, everything is okay, just let yourself go... I‘m here, I will catch you when you’re falling apart..."

It just needs a few more strokes of his thumb on your oversensitive clit until the ball of pleasure bursts open and fills every pore of your body with pure ecstasy. You can’t hold your tears of pleasure back anymore, the small and so precious diamonds are rolling out of the corner of your eye until Taehyung’s Lips are catching them. 

"Baby... are you alright? Did it felt good?", he asks quietly and rubs soothingly over the top of your thighs. Avoiding your center on purpose, he doesn’t want to overstimulate you even further.

"T-Tae... that- that felt so good... h-how did you do that? I-I can’t hold my tears back, I am sorry!" A weak sob leaves your lips and you bury your face into Taehyung’s chest. He caress you gently, whispering sweet nothings and praises into your ear, worshipping you to the fullest. Promising you to show you how you can make yourself feeling that good, teaching you how you can make love to yourself. 

After you came down from your high, you gently grab the soft baby hair in his nape and move his face towards you. 

"Taehyung, I want to feel you as close as possible, I want to merge with you, I want to make love to you- ...I want you.", you whisper and hold his face in your hands, looking him deep into his eyes. 

"Oh, I will... I will serve you with everything you wants,my Dear. Please lay down and spread those beautiful legs for me again...", he answers and smile softly at you. The sweet love names he picked for you makes your stomach flutter und the blush on your cheeks is darkening. Taehyung gives you a last sweet smile full of love before your lips meet again and he pushes into you. 

A short, stabbing pain flares through your body, but that was all. He holds still into you until you give him the permission to move. At first, it was a slow and gentle rhythm but your sweet moans and whimpers encourage him to go faster and in the end he looses all his control over his suppressed sexual needs. Making love to you in the most passionate way possible. 

He shows you the heaven on earth and love takes on a whole new meaning for you. You trust him unconditionally and he shows you that you are equal. You are an equal woman, an equal person for him. He loves and respects you. All this is the most beautiful thing you have ever experienced in your life. You have given him your virginity and he has given you a son with these wonderful brown eyes and dark curls. 

"Mother, why do you always cry when you see me? I didn't do anything today... ", asks your little six-year-old son and looked at you questioningly with those chocolate brown eyes that bring you to tears every time.

"You look so much like your father. Your real father."you say quietly.

"Did he hurt you, Mommy?", he asks with big fearfully eyes and you quickly shake your head. 

"No, not at all! H-He had been the only man who had ever really loved me...“ 

„...the only one to whom my heart will forever belong."will you bring barely audible over your lips. 

[deadmomjokes]

Every so often I remember my Beetle Jar from, like, 2nd grade, so here have a story about Tiny Weirdgirl Me for literally no other reason than I miss my Beetle Jar.

So where I grew up these gorgeous child’s-thumb-sized black beetles (Rhinoceros Beetles, and/or Hermit Flower Beetles) used to come out at night and swarm any light source they could find. We had a light on our porch, and in the mornings during warm weather there would be dozens of the things stuck to the screen on our storm door. Their little leggies were full of tiny spines and textures, and it made it easy for them to get trapped in the mesh.

I would spend each morning before the school bus came picking beetles off the screen. I would pry them out as gently as possible and set them in a thick patch of grass and old wood chips off the side of the porch, which I made sure that my dad left explicitly for this reason. Sometimes the beetles would have struggled so much in the night that they had ripped legs off, or damaged their wing cases or antennae. When I found an injured or disabled beetle, I would put it into my Beetle Jar.

The Beetle Jar was an industrial-sized glass pickle jar into the lid of which my dad had graciously drilled holes, for air circulation. I set this thing up with tall sticks, strips of felty cloth for easy climbing, some mulch, some leaves, a layer of dirt, a little mayonnaise jar lid with water and little pebbles for them to climb on and drink, a little blackout curtain drape cloth... Everything was climbable and crawl-able because they could generally no longer fly. I made a whole terrarium for these disabled beetles so they could live out their lives in an accessible environment. Any time I noticed a beetle looking strong and healthy enough, or regaining its flying ability (usually after a day’s rest for the shock to wear off), I released it back to the wild.

Each beetle had a name, and I had a little notebook with their names, descriptions, date of admittance to the Beetle Jar, and notes on their recovery and behavior. Think, “Mr. Fuzzy. Missing right third leg, and right antenna. Birthday: September 13th. He doesn’t like the berries. :( Mr. Fuzzy went to visit the water today! :D He might be blind, he keeps falling off the same stick. :(”

One day in science class I had occasion to mention the Beetle Jar, since we were talking about insects and habitats and same such 2nd-grade life science. My teacher suggested I could bring the Beetle Jar to school to show them off, which was the highlight of my educational career up to that point. (Bless that teacher for doing what she could to support the weird bug girl’s interests and intellectual pursuits.)

Turns out most other second graders don’t really like the idea of a torso-sized pickle jar full of disabled beetles. There was lots of squealing and “ew gross”ing, and, most distressingly, threats of bodily harm to my “nasty stupid bugs”. The Beetle Jar was eventually relegated to the far end of the extra work table in the corner of the room for the rest of the day. I, of course, begged to keep my beetles under my desk, because I was worried that my classmates might actually try to hurt them. The teacher assured me that they’d be plenty safe in their jar, and she wouldn’t let anyone touch the jar. (She was probably worried I’d get beaten up if I kept that jar in my near vicinity, which, honestly, fair. But still.)

Nobody touched the jar, but in their tiny-machismo attempts to get as close as possible to the jar and see how long they could stare at the oh-so-scary beetles, two boys leaned on the wobbly end of the table and the legs gave out. My Beetle Jar shattered and the beetles went everywhere. There was lots of screaming, and my teacher, bless her soul forever, was able to just barely stop the horde of panic- and schadenfreude-stricken heathens from stomping my terrified beetles to death on the newly waxed linoleum while I tried to round them up around bits of shattered glass. I was forced to release them all onto the playground, regardless of their recovery or fitness status. I bawled my eyes out.

Idk why this came back to me now, and I know those beetles only live about 6 months tops anyway, but I’d like to formally apologize to the memories of Silky, Midnight, Mr. Fuzzy, Hobble, Stumpy, Feather, Chip, and Linus for trusting a bunch of second graders around a huge glass jar full of bugs.

(Yes I’m still bitter about it. Cameron and Dustin broke my Beetle Jar!!)

[rookisaknight]

Raf Tanager, meet Hope County

⤘⤘⤘There’s a new Deputy in Town⬽⬽⬽

So as a side benefit of getting into this fandom again with a brand new gender and a brand new vibe: a brand new deputy. Excited to introduce you all to my boy, they were developed for a joint Deputy au with @ophiebot​ (who will do this for their Deputy Elijah Rook if so inclined). Not exactly reinventing any wheels here, but this time its about the indulgence.

FYI, Molly is still extant, but her story I think has been explored in my brainspace as much as it needs to be. 

➷The Basics

1. Give their full name, and describe them or post a picture! (Height, build, hair, eye, and skin color, etc.)

Rafael "Raf" Tanager (birth name REDACTED). 5'4", prone to chub but hardening up with the frequent exercise, solid build. Freckles on cheeks that darken as time goes on. Short hair kept red by some truly obsessive hairdye upkeep, which is harder than you might think. Hazel eyes. Burns and shrapnel scars around the eyes and mouth.

2. How old are they?

24

3. Sexuality and gender?

Bisexual, transmasc genderqueer. She/they/he but a preference for they/he when he doesnt trust the person using them.

➵Pre-Game

1. How did they end up at the Hope County Sheriff’s Department? How long have they worked there?

Raf grew up closer to Missoula, but he’s still a Montana native. They’ve been at this for around 8 months, pretty much right out of graduating college. Even they honestly aren’t sure how they ended up here, just the latest in a series of adrift jobs after graduating, taken primarily to avoid any potential financial dependence on their  family. Probably would have resigned soon were it not for. Everything.

2. Relationship with Pratt, Hudson, and Whitehorse?

Pratt: Used to hate his guts. The teasing felt too much like flirting for their comfort and he was honestly kind of a bully. Now its trickier. He's pathetic in a way that’s hard for them to be around, as awful as that is, because it hits too close to home.

Hudson: Had a massive crush on her for most of their early days that pretty much went out the window post Eden’s Gate. They still try a little too hard to impress her though.

Whitehorse: Intellectually, they resent his passivity since it means a lot of Eden’s Gate ended up falling in their lap and he’s STILL insistent that maybe they should have left it alone when they’ve all had months to realize why that was a bad idea in the first place. Emotionally, well, they’re maybe a little in need of a father figure or two.

Elijah Rook: The former Rookie. They were quietly a little intimidated by him prior to all this and that’s never fully gone away, but they’ve now been able to witness more of his dorky side that makes it a little harder to take him seriously. You try chaperoning this guy from one end of Hope County and considering him at all frightening.

3. Do they have an education?

They have a MASTERS and its never relevant to anything because its a humanities degree, specifically the classics. Part of the reason they’re a little adrift currently, there was no easy dismount out of college. Just a hell of a lot of debt.

4. Where are they from? Did they speak a different language there?

Missoula, or close enough to it. They picked up some Latin and Greek from their degree. The Latin comes in handy more often than you’d think, what with the cult stuff, but the reading material is a real bummer.

5. Is there anyone outside the valley that might have come looking for them?

They’ve never had many friends in college and high school that could outlast physical proximity and they basically ghosted their family since that was easier than coming out to them at a certain point. So no, no one they want to find them is looking.

6. Did they have a religious background of any kind?

His father is a preacher, and while there’s some baggage there they would still describe themselves as broadly religious. Or at the very least superstitious.

➷Inside Hope County

1. What was going through their head when the helicopter went down and during the subsequent chase?

The crash was honestly the easiest part. That was just panic. The chase was the hard part. The helicopter exploding ended up catching them in the face, leaving them with burns and scarring that would remain for the rest of their life. She's lucky she wasn’t blinded. Still, he was forced to stumble out of the woods in intense pain and bleeding out. Had it not been for Elijah they definitely would have been taken then and there.

2. Were they afraid of Joseph and Eden’s Gate? Angry?

Terrified. Not just because of what they’ve done but because Raf knows intuitively that he's susceptible to it. As early as their first encounter they have a hard time breaking the hold Joseph gets on their mind. Even though they’re conscious of HOW they’re being manipulated, its hard to resist it.

3. Did they trust Dutch?

At that point Raf would’ve happily taken literally anyone who seemed to know what they’re doing and wasn’t holding a gun to his head.

4. How did they feel about their team being taken by the cult, did they count them as lost, did they want them back, did they not care?

Absolutely the nightmare scenario: people’s lives depending on them and their ability to be decisive. Had it not been for Elijah they probably would’ve high tailed it out of there and tried to find someone higher up the authority chain to deal with this mess. Still, just abandoning them all didn’t sit right with him either, and by the time they’d liberated Fall’s End even he had to admit he was there by his own choice.

5. How did they take to the idea of being part of, if not leading, the resistance?

Again, Raf doesn’t really do well with people depending on them. Alone. they probably would have found it a lot more miserable, but Elijah significantly helped lighten that load for them in terms of having a direction. They’ve found out they’re accidentally pretty good at working with a variety of people and can even be inspiring without meaning to. Still, in their ideal world they would’ve been left alone, or at least remained a foot soldier.

6. Which companions did they recruit, and who did they travel with the most?

All guns for hire were recruited, but Sharky and Nick were their go-to’s, Sharky for personal reasons and Nick for air support. Grace was usually the adult supervision when Nick couldn’t make it but. To be frank Raf's aim isn’t great and it drives Grace a little nuts on prolonged missions. She’s tried teaching them but it never really seems to stick.

7. Did they have time to find romance amidst the chaos? How did they do it?

Sharky. That relationship was a bit of a cold opener  (and don’t bother, Sharky already beat you to that joke). After getting their face fucked up during the escape they’ve had a pretty healthy aversion to fire and explosives, making his recruitment a little harrowing. Still, Sharky's sweet in his way, makes them laugh and breathe a little easier when the pressure gets to them, and operates on a pretty similar brainwave. They’ve been joined at the hip since their first few months in Holland Valley. They’re both a little on the codependent side, but really, who are they to complain.

8. Feelings about Joseph?

Joseph taps into a lot of vulnerabilities inside of Raf intuitively. The absence of a strong support system, the loneliness, the fear, the directionlessness, the relationship with their own spirituality, it all provides him a unique entryway into their psyche that he is exactly the kind of person to exploit. As a result, he tends to fixate on them over Elijah, usually to their detriment. Still, that connection can sometimes go both ways, and there are things about Joseph that Raf understands which even his brothers never fully do.

9. Feelings about the other Seeds?

John: They have a unique capacity for antagonizing him. Probably because as an oldest child themselves they know exactly how to jab at the youngest child insecurities. Still, that relationship didn’t stem any deeper and he focused his energies a little more on Elijah. Still, they have him to thank for the Sloth scars on their arm, thanks for that. They’re starting to run out of unmarked skin.

Faith: Faith, meanwhile, was a little more directly focused on Raf, partly because her region was the first time they had to operate a little more on their own. For personal reasons, Elijah wasn’t particularly able to engage with the Bliss. Meaning if Burke was ever going to get saved Raf had to be the one to go in there, again and again. Faith, like Joseph, can tap a lot of that loneliness that Raf has, as well as some gender and sexuality stuff Joseph can’t touch. Suffice to say Sharky had a pretty good reason for being as overbearing as he was during those months, even though he was eventually able to do the job. As a side note, they haven’t had access to their ADHD meds for MONTHS and it doesn’t help when the cult drug is the first thing to make your head feel clear in a while.

Jacob: Jacob was utterly uninterested in Raf and the feeling was mostly mutual. He doesn’t really get him or what he’s about, just knows that the county would be better off when he was put down. Transition goals, though (don’t tell Staci they said that).

10. How did they handle having to kill animals and other humans? Had they done it before?

Animals yeah, you don’t live in Montana as long as they did without hunting occasionally. People....well. You can get used to it.

11. Which canon ending did they choose in-game, and would you have changed the ending at all?

Resist. I wouldn’t. Raf might.

➷Personal

1. Favorite weapon(s)?

They usually prefer to show up to spots early and lay traps, try to minimize the direct combat involvement. When it can’t be avoided though, their pistol isn’t ever far and neither is a hunting knife.

2. Stealth or firepower?

Stealth, one hundred percent. Sharky and Eli are here to do the firepower.

3. How did they spend their time, when not fighting peggies?

A lot of bad movies with the boyfriend and a LOT of poker, one of their more unknown talents. Resistance isn’t gonna fund itself.

4. Where did they live during the events of the game?

Wherever there was a bed they could fall into. Their little trailer they’d been living in prior to all this got absolutely decimated while they were healing up on Dutch’s island.

5. Any other facts you want to share about your Deputy!

He’s got almost supernatural luck to the point that a couple of their guns for hire have gotten superstitious about bringing him to certain events. Including fishing. The catch just always seems somehow a little better. Also he’s privately obsessed with the 1998 recording of Cats and is terrified of anyone finding out.

[wrongfullythinking]

Twitter and the “Public Forum”

There is a very large looming legal question about whether or not social media sites, such as Twitter, are “Public Forums.”  Most would agree that they are not... at least... not yet.  But the question is... should they be?

First, a look into why it matters.

In a public forum, all First Amendment protections apply.  So you can say any number of very objectionable things (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12634874511090553174) and be protected.  In a private forum, this is not so.  I can kick you out of my house for wearing an Abercrombie shirt, and you have no Free Speech/Expression reason to contest my staggeringly good decision-making.

Second, the public forum cannot be policed for any content that may be stated.  This is why if you go to reserve time at a public park, you don’t have to tell the Parks and Rec department what your event is for.  Just things like how many people, how long the event will last, etc.  This is well-established and well-backed by many years of precedent.

Finally, there is the very serious matter of personal liability.  In certain circumstances, officials can be held personally liable if their policies deliberately and knowingly infringe upon Bill of Rights protections (most often First Amendment protections).  This means that you could literally sue for the property and assets of a person.  (Also, this is why those of us who own either physical property [like a house] or intellectual property [like a book] buy “Umbrella Coverage” from insurances... I recommend State Farm, but that’s totally irrelevant and I’m not getting any kickbacks for that shill =P.)

But hang on... so if the government owns a billboard and rents it out to whomever can pay, can I rent it and post a naked lady?

You could try, and you might win!  What you can’t do is post something obscene.  And yes, whether or not a naked person is obscene is staggeringly controversial.  There’s a 3-part test from the Burger court, a host of vague terms like “average person” and “contemporary community standards,” and “lacks serious artistic/literary/political/scientific value.”  And then there are protections for children, a whole separate piece, as well as child pornography, which is always classified as obscene... except when it is not, like in the cases of naked cherubs in church windows.  So, confused yet?  We’re off topic, but I make this point to explain that even in public forums, where First Amendment rights are fiercely protected, there are still outstanding issues of content censorship.

So, is Twitter / Facebook / Tumblr a public forum?

At this point, the answer is no.  They are privately controlled by companies, not owned by the feds or states or local municipalities, and thus can make almost any policy they want.  The idea here is that the free market dictates the life or death of these platforms... and that idea tends to hold true!  Tumblr itself is a good case-in-point, because it has lost millions of dollars in value due to bad leadership decisions, and at least partially because of censorship.  There are countless examples of others... I remember when Yahoo! was the primary search engine of the internet and Xanga was the biggest blogging platform.  While you can still Yahoo, I’m not sure there are more than a few hundred people on Xanga, if it still exists in any useful format.  So, since places like this are subject to the free market, and thus can die... they should be allowed to make all the good or bad decisions they want about their content.  Or at least, that is how the theory runs.

But really... ARE they subject to the market?  Now we’re getting into the really interesting territory.  If Facebook shut down tomorrow, would it be a problem?  Maybe, but life would continue.  But if Google shut down tomorrow?  Well, millions of schoolchildren are in GoogleClassrooms right now, so that would certainly be a problem.  It would at least cause massive disruption... and Facebook shutting down would cause some disruption.  Likewise, Twitter controls so much speech that instead of publishing headlines from Newspapers, newspapers publish headlines from Twitter!  The 14-year-old looks at that line like “well, duh” and the 44-year old reads that line like “wow, we’ve come a long way,” and the 84-year-old reads that line with just a sad headshake.

So, now we’ve joined one of the most controversial points of the last 20 years... the Fannie Mae “Too Big to Fail” problem.  Basically, a set of banks and big mortgage companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) made a bunch of bad decisions in about 1995 - 2008.  [As an aside, whether or not Fannie Mae {technically, the “Federal National Mortgage Association”} is actually a company comes up as an issue... it originated as a government program, but is today a publicly-traded company and has been since the late 60s, though it was delisted from NYSE and is only traded off-exchange].  And the government had to step in.  You can read all about that issue at another time, the bottom line is that actually Fannie Mae has paid back more than it borrowed, but there was a ballooning of the debt ceiling by over 800 billion.  Some people care about the national debt, some don’t, and again, not the subject of this commentary.  The point is that it set a very odd precedent, whereas a company could make extremely bad decisions and then the burden would be placed on the taxpayers to fix their decision, because the company itself was a part of so many people’s lives.  Would social media fall under this guidance?  Unlikely, and I think we would all run from state-sponsored social media... but hey, what do I know.

So... get to the point.  Should they be public forums, or not?

My two cents always comes down against censorship, especially censorship by entities that don’t have my best interests at heart... so basically, everybody else.  I think that it is so easy to self-censor the internet at the personal end (for example, by installing filters and blocking services for objectionable content), that companies should not be unilaterally making these decisions, especially if those companies want to be venues for mass public communication.

Let’s go with another example... let’s say you wanted to call up your buddy and have a nice long phonesex session.  Good for you.  Or just chat with them about the latest Dr. Doe video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgT8WXaPUY), because enthusiasm is important.  Would you be okay with Verizon telling a robot to monitor your call, and then automatically hang up if you said “penis” too much?  Or “Trump”?  Or “Black Lives Matter?”  What about “Nazi,” “Rohypnol,” “Mary Jane,” “negritos” [I’ve got your back, Mr. Cavani], “snowbunny,” or “Insane Clown Posse”?  I think most people would be upset about any of those, and they would rightfully tell Verizon that they will find another provider.  So Verizon doesn’t do that, although it could.  But Twitter does do that.  And the availability of another Twitter is in question.  Will something succeed Twitter?  Absolutely.  But right now, Twitter is under no market pressure, so it is succeeding at taking off its platform any number of conversations that it probably should not be policing.

There’s also a social-justice side of this.  So, let’s say that we all decide Twitter is a bad platform and move to something else.  And that something else costs us 10$ a month.  I wouldn’t notice this fee.  Others would.  So that’s an access issue.  Or, let’s say that some people start migrating to a new platform, and they only tell their friends about it.  That’s okay, right?  Absolutely... but imagine that college student who is trapped at home in a pandemic right now who cannot get any viewpoints outside of what her parents approved of, and previously used Twitter to explore and challenge her upbringing.  If she doesn’t get an invite to the new platform, is she just lost?

And that brings up the Pandemic.  Many, many common public forums have been shut down due to the pandemic.  This alone has caused serious controversy (see: BLM protests on crowded streets where state governors participated, while those same governors implemented executive orders enforcing 6-foot distancing in churches and stores), so the argument for Twitter censorship “but you have many other public forums!” is tough to substantiate during the COVID-era.  And this is a HUGE problem.  Historically, taking away public forums is always an early move of totalitarian regimes.  Taking away rights to assembly and speech follows soon after.  We’re now in Phase 2 there... and our governors keep assuring us it is temporary... while at the same time, encouraging Twitter to take off any viewpoints they don’t like, under the guise of “false or misleading information.”  Soon, they start moving into the schools, and that leads to...

SCIENCE!!!

So, to talk about what rigorous debate means, we need to understand a bit about Science.  And specifically, the philosophy of science, what scientific discourse looks like, and why review and critique are parts of the scientific process.

Point 1: “Scientific consensus” is hogwash.  Yes, we all agree that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun itself moves, but beyond that, there isn’t much scientific consensus.  If you see an article that starts with the phrase “Expert say,” you can go ahead and close your browser window right there.  The rest is bull****.

Point 2: The limits of science are boundless.  Any specific scientific paper is, by necessity and the peer review process, very strictly bounded.  “Whether or not a vaccine is efficient” is an entirely different paper than one titled “Whether or not 80-year-olds with lung cancer should get the vaccine,” and both of those are different than “How the US should achieve herd immunity, and if it is even possible for COVID-19 before significant mutations cause current immunizations to be ineffective,” and all three of those are different from “Do we need to vaccinate our cats from COVID in order to reach herd immunity?”

Point 3: There is no “finalized” science.  The answers are never finished.  What is “cutting edge” science today is out-of-date tomorrow, barbaric and backwards by the end of the year, and grounds for an abuse lawsuit by the end of the decade.  The best examples of this are from Psych treatments.

Point 4: I get very worried when anybody starts to censor scientific content... especially those without any qualifications.  Okay, so this one is a personal sentence (note the “I”), but I’m going to go ahead and guess that Twitter robots and interns flagging posts don’t have any idea the difference between sensitivity and specificity, the background as to why the FDA has never approved an mRNA vaccine previously, the difference between statistical and clinical significance, and how to read a limitations section.  The people who are qualified to do so are peer reviewers... and in the case where those fail (which happens!), the rest of the writer’s peers.  And we do that.  Anything published is open to critique, which leads to the final point, that...

Point 5: Critique and Review are THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS of scientific publishing.  If a piece is published without review, it is called an “opinion” and not science.  Even more worrisome than the censoring of unpopular papers is the censoring of the opinions of scientists on the papers of their peers.  Should someone publish a paper where I believe they overstretched their claims, it is a HUGE part of my job to call that out.  For an agency like Twitter to be able to say “you don’t have the right to say that they overstated their claim, because expressing a concern about a vaccine is against our Terms of Use” is a very big problem for science.

The flipside is that you get into the part where now a company can, through its policy, dictate what science gets done.  For example, lets say I wanted to examine an unpopular question... and I’m a social scientist, so there are plenty of those, but say I wanted to do something semi-controversial but apolitical.  I’ll say my research question is “How do the happiness of those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships compare to the happiness of people in similar economic and social situations but in closed marriages where additional intimate partnerships would be viewed as grounds for relationship termination?”  There are plenty of ways I could conduct this study and I’ll spare you my methodological musings, but safe to say there are platforms who would not want me to publish my results.  And that’s fine. 

But let’s say that I did publish my results, and a commenter took to Twitter.  And their response was “I read your paper, and I see your conclusion that those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships score no differently on a happiness scale than those in the closed marriages.  However, I disagree with your use of this scale, because it was tested on populations of retirees, and most of the people in your sample are in their late 20s or early 30s.”

That is an EXCELLENT and VALID critique.  And let’s say that Twitter was heavily into the social justice and had a policy that said “you can’t say negative things about polyamory.”  And they deleted this person’s comment.  Now, Twitter has interfered with the scientific process.  That comment IS PART of the dialogue and that dialogue is part of Science.  Yes, there are other places that those comments could be made, and not be censored... but we should not be encouraging that censorship ANYWHERE.  And Twitter has vastly overstepped the line on this point.  Random Twitter employees have no business removing professional critiques about a study, even if there are other platforms for those critiques.

Other Thoughts

1) Generally, you can’t prohibit meetings in a public forum based on prior behavior.  Thus, “X group was violent in the past” is not a reason to prohibit X group from accessing a public forum for speech.  So there’s no saying “Proud Boys were violent once, so no Proud Boys on Twitter” if it were to be declared a public forum.

2) I’m really not aware of any large precedents for taking a private company and declaring it a public forum.  That may seem redundant (obviously, if there was precedent, this wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue), but it bears specific mention.

[doomonfilm]

Thoughts : Tusk (2014)

This one has been in the queue for quite a while.  I’ve been a fan of Kevin Smith since the late 1990s, and it has been a pleasure to watch him grow as a screenwriter and filmmaker.  His brand of humor has always stood out as unique, but the word I was hearing prior to finally seeing Tusk was that it was unlike most any film folks had seen.  

Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) and Teddy Craft (Haley Joel Osmet) are the hosts of The Not-See Party, a popular podcast where the two discuss social media influencers and viral videos before Wallace travels to interview the subjects.  Wallace travels to Canada to meet the Kill Bill Kid (Doug Banks), a young man who accidentally cut off one of his legs with a katana, but Wallace arrives just in time for the Kill Bill Kid’s funeral due to his choice to commit suicide.  Stranded in Canada with no story, Wallace stumbles across a letter on a corkboard from Howard Howe (Michael Parks), an eccentric explorer searching for a lodger who promises endless personal tales of his adventures.  Desperate for an interview, Wallace seeks out Howe, not realizing that he is walking into a trap more bizarre than anything his imagination is capable of creating.

While Tusk is certainly not Kevin Smith’s first foray into the world of high concept contemplation, this is his first true dive into a realm as specific as body horror.  The high concept comes into play as he examines Wallace through the lens of bad life choices, and how these choices have ripple effects that can leave an individual isolated before they realize for far gone they’ve spun out.  Wallace is presented to us as egotistical, boorish, opportunistic and unfaithful, but in one of the rare tender moments he shares with his girlfriend Ally, we are told that he did possess desirable and admirable qualities at one time.  Based on his character choices, and his job as a host of The Not-See Party Podcast (a show name that creates a self-imposed hurdle), his turn into danger plays out in a perfect “boy who cried wolf” scenario.

Perhaps the most interesting and impressive aspect of the film is how Kevin Smith is able to serve as a bridge between the comedic stylings he made his name with and the high-level skills he has gleaned from two decades in the film industry.  A mix of absurdist, intellectual and low-brow humor is a given with a Kevin Smith affair, and Tusk provides it in spades.  Canada not only serves as the butt of a few jokes, but it manages to dish out a few zingers and quips full of Canadian personality.  Several characters are given carte blanche to embody outrageous characters and go nuts in that skin, with Michael Parks specifically getting the chance to show a handful of these looks.  The premise of the story is a randomly obtuse mix of Misery and The Human Centipede, and the periphery of the main narrative is peppered with mini-narratives that are proportionally ridiculous in their own right.  What really stands out amongst all of this, however, is the high production value of the film, as Smith finds a middle balance between the big budget comedy look of Cop Out and the darker, edgier look of Red State.

Tusk continues a streak of stellar, rejuvenated writing that began with Clerks II (if you’re willing to ignore Cop Out’s poor performance and critical reception), with Smith finding new and unique ways to expand his voice and naturally gifted ability to tell stories.  The production value on the Howard Howe home is stellar as well, with everything from the living quarters to the walrus dungeon providing a jarring tonal shift at each point of appearance.  The walrus effects and costuming are bold, but the final result is one that creates an image that will forever be burned into the minds of viewers.  The scoring is also strong, standing up to the high bar set with his previous film, the brilliant Red State.  The expository insert shots that accompany the Michael Parks monologues are a nice touch.

Justin Long jumps off of the screen with his ridiculousness broadness, with everything from his hilarious mustache down to his outlandish behavior setting viewers up for a shared journey down a path of darkness that could not be further from that initial stance.  Michael Parks plays equally ridiculous in his diabolicalness, with his madness and obsessiveness played so large that it nears the brink of insanity, and yet somehow, he finds a way to ground it all so that he plays sinister enough to incite fear.  Haley Joel Osmet finally gets a chance to break out of what seemed to be an eternal typecast as he gets to bask in a humorous light.  Genesis Rodriguez brings the emotion to the table, with her unconditional ability to share tenderness and be vulnerable making the main protagonist trio engaging.  Johnny Depp completes the trinity of ridiculousness, with his measured and specific take on his Inspector Clouseau-like character adding a different shade to the spectrum of humor in the film.  Appearances by Ralph Garman, Harley Morenstein, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Harley Quinn Smith, Lily-Rose Depp, Doug Banks, Zak Knutson and Ashley Greene also stand out.

BONUS THOUGHTS : Yoga Hosers (2016)

As if Tusk weren’t weird enough as a standalone, Kevin Smith followed it up with a comedic horror for kids in the form of Yoga Hosers.  Part lore expander and part “let’s throw a movie together with famous friends”, the film famously divided fans of Smith and the View Aswkewniverse, mostly due to the lead roles of the Colleens in the form of Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith (the daughters of Johnny Depp and Smith, respectively).

Colleen C. (Lily-Rose Depp) and Colleen M. (Harley Quinn Smith) are a pair of friends whose job at the Eh-2-Zed convenience store has brought them minor fame due to their involvement in the rescue of a “man turned to manatee”.  One evening after sneaking in a practice for their band Glamthrax with drummer Ichabod (Adam Brody) while on the clock, the girls are invited to a Grade 12 party by seniors Hunter Calloway (Austin Butler) and Gordon Greenleaf (Tyler Posey).  The girls accept, but on the night of the party, Colleen C.’s father Bob (Tony Hale) is invited to Niagara Falls by his girlfriend (and Eh-2-Zed manager) Tabitha (Natasha Lyonne), leaving the girls to cover the store and miss out on the party.  In a last ditch effort to exert control, the girls invite the seniors to move the party to Eh-2-Zed, but the Colleens have no clue of what was in store for them.

If held up to the standards of other Kevin Smith films, it’s easy to pick this one apart, as the tone is much more juvenile than films like Mallrats or the Jay and Silent Bob films.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however, as it seems like this film was not meant to be taken seriously or held as high art… this film does, however, totally read as a gift to two daughters whose fathers believed in their desires to act, and due to their rare ability to facilitate those dreams, were given the chance to fulfill a wish.  You can see both actresses progress and become more comfortable as the film progresses, with Harley Quinn Smith especially showcasing that intangible growth where an actor or actress can visualize their place within a frame while on the set.  It’s also very fun to see a litany of familiar faces and famous friends pop in and out of the film.

Certain creature design choices and production design continuously serve as reminders of this film’s connection to the Tusk world, though the two films have very unique rhythms.  Much of the writing and humor drives home how the film is meant to be perceived as a bit of a “human cartoon”, with literal references to cartoons and comics sprinkled throughout.  Keen viewers will be able to spot the numerous references to nearly every other Kevin Smith film that are presented.

It’s safe to say that words and descriptions cannot do the film Tusk justice… this film is one that simply must be seen in order to be believed, and even then, it is still rather unbelievable.  Yoga Hosers is fun in its own right, but you REALLY have to be a fan of not only Kevin Smith the filmmaker, but Kevin Smith the family man to truly enjoy it… it’s definitely the one folks will see simply out of a need to be a completionist.  I may or may not be writing on Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, as I watched it on the same day, but I can say that I have not laughed that hard at a movie in a long time.  

[themattress]

Danganronpa Chapter Ranking

Ranking all 18 chapters across the three games. 

First, I will rank each corresponding chapters over one another.

Chapter 1:

1. Welcome to Dangan Island + Destination Despair (DR2)

DR2 is the technical best of the series and it definitely has the strongest opening. While I actually prefer DR1′s prologue, DR2 definitely ups the stakes when it comes to the actual introductory murder mystery, creating a spooky nighttime locked room situation right off the bat and keeping you guessing as to how the murder went down. The high point, of course, is the revelation of Nagito’s true nature, which let you know that this is a guy to watch out for.

2. Welcome to Despair + To Survive (DR1)

Like I said, the prologue to DR1 is my favorite one - just the opening scene alone perfectly sets the tone for all that’s to follow, I also really enjoy getting to explore the school and interacting with the adorable Sayaka Maizono. The problem with this chapter is when Sayaka gets killed. Not only is the investigation a very standard one, but the mystery is too easily solved - Sayaka even wrote her killer’s freaking name down and most players will figure that out well before any of the characters do! I know this is the first case and all, but come on!

3. Ultimate Revival + My Class Trial, Our Class Trial (DRV3)

If DR1′s first chapter problem was being too easy to solve, this one’s problem is that it’s impossible to solve because the game withholds the key evidence for the sake of a twist - evidence that exposes the female protagonist you are playing as, Kaede, as the culprit! It’s a shame - despite some issues here and there (goddamn Monokubs...), I was liking the atmosphere this chapter was setting up with its ticking clock factor, the Ultimate Academy was well designed and kept distinct from Hope’s Peak, and Kaede was a wonderful, lovable protagonist the likes of which we hadn’t seen before in this series. But that one ending twist which results in her getting taken from us in favor of some dude ruins the whole chapter.

Chapter 2:

1. Boy’s Life of Despair (DR1)

Only DR1 manages to have its second chapter be an improvement over the first: with not only expansions on all of the characters and even the school itself, but a mystery that isn’t so easily solved because a certain rich douchebag deliberately tampered with the crime scene in order to make the case more challenging. The only mark I have against this one is the weird gender politics at play, and even then it’s not insulting or anything: Mondo’s toxic masculinity is even highlighted as his fatal flaw. And of course, this chapter gave us Genocide Jack. WIN.

2. Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts (DR2)

While a step down from the preceding chapter, it’s not by much: this is still a quality chapter with quality character and plot development and a quality murder mystery. My biggest gripes are that it becomes obvious who the culprit is early into the trial and how they committed the murder but it takes a long time for the characters to decide on those things. If that wasn’t enough, the revelation of the killer’s motives is ridiculous, with two shocking swerves on top of each other, one of them a lie and the other one the truth. The actual scene leading to the execution, however, more than makes up for that with how emotional it is, with one of Derek Stephen Prince’s best performances in his career as Fuyuhiko reveals his inner vulnerability.

3. A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell (DRV3)

This second chapter is a HUGE step down from the first one. Shuichi is immediately a far blander, less compelling protagonist than Kaede was, there are too many detours before the murder happens, the mystery is way too convoluted and the culprit’s motivation is an even bigger shocking swerve than DR2′s, and the execution just goes full Saw to the point of being almost too uncomfortable to watch. In the end, it doesn’t even feel like this case mattered, it was all a drawn-out way of revealing the underwhelming “twist” to Maki’s true identity which only ended up working against her character. The best part of this chapter would have to be the body discovery, which is one of the most shocking and effective in the whole series.

Chapter 3:

1. A Next Generation Legend! Stand Tall, Galactic Hero! (DR1)

Third Case Syndrome hits DR1 the least out of all the games, as despite the problem of the class trial’s pay-off not matching the intensity of the build-up, it still doesn’t cheat the player in any way. The mystery is still well designed and on paper the crime is brilliant, and even the way it falls apart in execution makes logical sense given what has been established about Celestia and Hifumi throughout the game. There’s even fun to be had in the trial given Celestia’s legendary breakdown, plus her execution being among the series’ funniest.

2. Trapped by the Ocean Scent (DR2)

I like some things about this chapter, particularly early on: Fuyuhiko’s character development, Ibuki’s concert, Nekomaru’s sacrifice, Nagito continuing to be his delightfully twisted self, and Monokuma’s hilarious “Wizard of Monomi” movie. The build-up to the body discovery with that supposed suicide video is also legitimately scary. But it all falls apart in the class trial to a comical degree, with the revelation of the culprit having so much wrong with it I hardly know where to begin. Everything about Despair Disease in general feels like filler and a way to ax off three characters that Kodaka had no idea what to do with. It’s just a glaringly bad chapter.

3. Transfer Student From Beyond the Grave (DRV3)

This is where Third Case Syndrome hits its nadir: once again some legitimately good and scary build-up (including the requisite second murder happening halfway through the investigation when you’re not expecting it to) is destroyed by a farcical class trial that is riddled with plot holes, convoluted mechanics, and random extreme character turns that makes it clear that Kodaka was just doing all this to kill off characters he felt had reached their limits rather than staying consistent with what came before. Special mention must go to Korekiyo’s motives. While Celestia and Mikan’s motives aren’t sympathetic either, there are sympathetic reasons behind them. But with Kiyo, the reasoning behind his serial killing is...incest. Literal brother-sister incest. We had a potentially interesting, creepy character in Kiyo, but he was utterly squandered and turned into one big incest/see-saw meme. Such a waste!

Chapter 4:

1. Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Clockwork? (DR2)

One of the most challenging yet also one of the most unique and rewarding chapters in the whole series. The Strawberry / Grape funhouse is the stuff of nightmares, and the game doesn’t pull any punches in how horrific the situation inside it is, with the characters slowly starving to death and with the only way out being to either kill someone or brave a creepy life-threatening escape room. Then once the murder happens you get to play as Nagito during the investigation, getting further insight into his fucked-up mind before he pulls a morbidly hilarious 180 on his attitude and becomes a total condescending jerkwad rather than a creepy self-denigrating suck-up. And the investigation and trial amounting to figuring out how the funhouse is structured and how that structure was utilized in the murder is intellectually stimulating in the best way. Add to that one of the most emotional culprit revelations and executions and you have one of the greatest chapters ever put in a mystery-solving game.

2. All*Star*Apologies (DR1)

DR2′s fourth chapter is better, but DR1′s comes extremely close. Not only is it a locked room mystery where just about everyone except the protagonist and deuteragonist are a feasible suspect which leads to the most fun, challenging and satisfying class trial in the game, but it also ends up being the story’s emotional high point. The reveal of who actually killed Sakura and why, the reasoning behind why an innocent party tried to take the blame for it, and the long-overdue uniting of the Killing Game’s participants (even Byakuya!) against their true enemy, Monokuma...it’s powerful stuff that lingers in your memory long after it’s finished.

3. Live and Let the Languid World Live (DRV3)

Now don’t get me wrong: this chapter was the best one in DRV3 since the first chapter, but I feel like it’s trying too hard to recapture the glory of the previous games’ fourth chapters and mostly failing. The virtual world and trying to figure out how it works is a blatant copy of the funhouse from DR2, except that we barely spend time in the virtual world compared to the funhouse and whereas figuring out the structure of the funhouse actually took a lot of thinking, the secret of the virtual world is painfully easy to deduce and leads to another instance of the player being several steps ahead of the characters. Kokichi as a Nagito-esque antagonist just doesn’t work and it’s frustrating to watch him play all the other characters like fiddles when it’s so transparently obvious what he is doing. Lastly, while the deaths of Sakura, Alter-Ego Chihiro, Nekomaru and Gundham were sad, there was still a note of triumph and hope in them as well. There’s none of that in the deaths of Miu, Gonta and his Alter-Ego. These deaths are just sad, depressing wastes, even moreso in retrospect after Chapter 6.

Chapter 5:

1. Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair (DR2)

Nagito was right: DR2′s Chapter 4 was merely “the opening act” for THE best chapter in both the game and the entire series. Seeing Nagito finally go full-on batshit insane and carve out a path of destruction that leads to his own death is enthralling, as is figuring out the hows and the whys of his death, peeling back the layers of his madness and malice until you arrive at the horrifying truth, all culminating in one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the series when Chiaki finally reveals the truth about herself and offers herself up as a sacrifice to stop Nagito’s heinous scheme from coming to fruition. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it! The bizarre triangular dynamic between Hajime, Chiaki and Nagito really made this game’s story as good as it is despite uneven writing early on, and this chapter is the culmination of it.

2. Voyage Without Passion or Purpose (DRV3)

When it comes to the game’s overarching story, I don’t really care much for the events that transpire in this chapter. But when taken as a stand-alone, it’s excellent. Someone has been killed and someone is responsible for it, but for the first time in the series you aren’t just unsure about the culprit, but the victim as well! To make matters worse, the culprit shows up to the class trial inside a mech suit that has a voice changer, and he keeps changing his voice between Kaito and Kokichi’s to further muddle which one of them is actually dead. And to top it all off, not even Monokuma knows the solution to this mystery and you actually have to work together with him in order to solve it! Gotta hand it to Kodaka: this move was inspired. If only I actually gave a damn about Kaito, Kokichi and Maki, this case would hit much harder.

3. 100 Mile Dash; Pain of a Junk Food Junkie (DR1)

This time, the opposite holds true: I like these events as part of the over-arching story, especially everything that happens from the execution (the scariest one in the whole game, IMO) and onward. But when taken on its own, this chapter is a mess. Not only is the mystery and trial literally contrived by Monokuma in order to set a trap for one character, but it tips its hand too early by showing the discovery of the victim’s dead body well before it’s time for that scene to happen, and the constant flashing back to Kyoko telling Makoto about the existence of Mukuro Ikusaba is somewhere between comical and infuriating. I think the worst part is that there’s no permanent consequences for anyone: nobody actually dies in this chapter! Not the supposed victim Mukuro, not Monokuma, not Kyoko and not Makoto. It even turns out that Alter-Ego Chihiro managed to kind of survive its execution in the previous chapter! WTF? We’ve spent a whole game getting used to the finality of death, but now death is cheap!

Chapter 6:

1. Ultimate Despair + Goodbye Despair High School (DR1)

I think that DR2′s final chapter is arguably better, more epic and more conclusive than DR1′s, but I still can’t help but prefer DR1′s, similar to how I prefer Phoenix Wright’s “Turnabout Goodbyes” to Trial & Tribulations’ “Bridge to the Turnabout”. Everything about the overarching story and its mystery comes together perfectly here, Junko Enoshima never had the same villainous impact that she does here, and the conclusion where Makoto saves the day by becoming the Ultimate Hope, Junko puts herself through every execution in the game, and the surviving students open the door to an uncertain yet still hopeful future is just iconic.

2. This is the End, Goodbye Academy of Despair + The Day Before the Future (DR2)

Like I said, this one might be superior on a technical level, as it pulls out even bigger plot twists, features even deeper emotions and a greater sense of closure and catharsis, has a grander sense of scope, and Junko being given an even more final defeat since she’s a villain that if you want to defeat you can’t just kill physically but spiritually as well. Chiaki’s role here especially gets me choked up, and Hajime’s narration in the epilogue is the perfect note to end the story on....both the story of DR2 and the conjoined story of DR0, DR1 and DR2.  

3. Goodbye Danganronpa + Everyone’s Killing Game, Closing Ceremony (DRV3)

This is an ending that’s better watched than it is played. Watching it, it’s comedy gold in how absurd it is. But actually playing through it is a chore, and having to do such a chore for the sake of an ending that is intentionally designed to piss you off is no fun at all. While I’d say the game’s third chapter is technically worst, this one is definitely my least favorite, especially when you take that god-awful, pointless epilogue into account. Kodaka, if you want to end Danganronpa, then go all the way and end it on your terms; don’t pussy out with that crap!

And now, my final ranking of all the chapters is as follows:

1. Smile at Hope in the Name of Despair (DR2) 2. Do Ultimate Robots Dream of Clockwork (DR2) 3. All*Star* Apologies (DR1) 4. Boy's Life of Despair (DR1) 5. Welcome to Dangan Island + Destination Despair (DR2) 6. Welcome to Despair + To Survive (DR1) 7. Ultimate Despair + Goodbye Despair (DR1) 8. This is the End, Goodbye Academy of Despair + The Day Before the Future (DR2) 9. Sea and Punishment, Sin and Coconuts (DR2) 10. Voyage Without Passion or Purpose (DRV3) 11. A Next Generation Legend! Stand Tall, Galactic Hero! (DR1) 12. Live and Let the Languid World Live (DRV3) 13. Ultimate Revival + My Class Trial, Our Class Trial (DRV3) 14. Trapped by the Ocean Scent (DR2) 15. 100 Mile Dash; Pain of a Junk Food Junkie (DR1) 16. A Thin Line Divides Heaven and Hell (DRV3) 17. The Transfer Student From Beyond the Grave (DRV3) 18. Goodbye Danganronpa + Everyone's Killing Game, Closing Ceremony (DRV3)

1-9 are the “strong chapters”, while 10-18 are the “weak chapters”.

[fuckheadwitha]

Listening to Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All Time

Rolling Stone released an updated list of their top 500 albums of all time and being trapped in the purgatory of covid quarantine this seems like the perfect moment to tackle what an almost completely irrelevant former counter-culture institution has to say about music (we can’t actually blame Rolling Stone for this list, a huge number of musicians and critics voted to make it). I am going to listen to every single one of these, all the way through, with a level of attention that's not super intense but I'm definitely not having them on in the background as simple aural wallpaper. Two caveats though: I can make an executive decision to skip any album if I feel the experience is sufficiently miserable, and I'm also going to be skipping the compilation albums that I feel aren't really worth slots (best ofs, etc.). In addition, I will be ordering them as I go, creating a top 500 of the top 500 (it will be less than 500 since we've already established I'm skipping some of these).

Here are 500-490:

#500 Arcade Fire - Funeral

I can already tell I'm going to be at odds with this list if one of the most important albums of my high school years is at the bottom. That being said, I haven't actually given this whole thing a listen since probably the early 2010s, before Arcade Fire fatigue set in and the hipsterati appointed band of a generation just kinda seemed to fade from popular consciousness. I actually dreaded re-experiencing it, since the synthesis of anthemic rock and quirky folk instrumentation which Arcade Fire brought mainstream has now become the common shorthand of insufferable spotify friendly folk pop. Blessedly, the first half of the album easily holds up, largely propelled by dirty fast rhythm guitar, orchestration that's tuneful rather than obnoxious, and lyrics which come off as earnest rather than pretentious. The middle gets a little sappy and “Crown of Love”, a song I definitely used to like, really starts the grate. And then we get to “Wake Up”, whose cultural saturation spawned thousands of dorky indie rock outfits that confused layered strings and horns with power and meaning. This song definitely hasn't survived the film trailers and commercials which it so ubiquitously overlayed, but the line about "a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust" still attacks the part of my brain capable of sincere emotion. This album is probably going to hold the top spot for a while, because although so many elements of Funeral that made it feel so meaningful, that made it stand out so much in 2004, have been seamlessly assimilated into an intellectually and emotionally bankrupt indie pop industrial complex, the album itself still has a genuine vulnerability and bangers that still manage to rip.

#499

Rufus, Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus

Before she became a name in her own right, Chaka Khan was the voice of the band Rufus, and it’s definitely her voice that shines amongst some spritely vibey funk. That’s not to say that these aren’t some jams on their own. “At Midnight” is a banging opener with a sprint to the finish, and although the explicitly named but kinda boring “Slow Screw Against the Wall” feels weak, this wasn’t really supposed to be an album of barn burners. This was something people put on their vinyl record players while they chilled on vinyl furniture after a night of doing cocaine. “Everlasting Love” is a bop with a bassline like a Sega Genesis game, and the twinkling piano on “Hollywood” adds a playful levity to lyrics that are supposed to be both tackily optimistic about making it big out in LA and subtly realistic about the kind of nightmare world showbiz can be. “Better Days” is another track that manages to be a bittersweet jam with a catchy sour saxophone and playful synths under Chaka Khan’s vamping. This album definitely belongs on a ‘chill funk to study and relax to’ playlist.

#498

Suicide - Suicide

We’ve hit the first album that could be rightly called a progenitor for multiple genres that followed it. Someone could say there’s a self-serving element of this being on a Rolling Stone list (the band was one of the first to adopt the label ‘Punk’ after seeing it in a Lester Bangs article) but the album’s legacy is basically indisputable. EBM, industrial, punk, post-punk, new wave, new whatever all have a genealogy that connects to Suicide, and it’s easy to hear the band in everything that followed. But what the band actually is is two guys, one with an electric organ and one with a spooky voice, doing spooky simple riffs and saying spooky simple things. Simplicity is definitely not a dis here. The opener “Ghost Rider” makes a banger out of four notes and one instrument, and the refrain ‘America America is killing its youth’ is really all the lyrical complexity you need to fucking get it. “Cheree” and “Girl” have almost identical lyrics (‘oh baby’ vs ‘oh girl’) but “Cheree” is more like a fairy tale and “Girl” is more like a sonic handjob. “Frankie Teardrop” has the audacity to tell a ten minute story with its lyrics, but of course there is intermittent, actually way too loud screaming breaking up the narrative of a guy who loses everything then kills his family and himself. The song is basically a novelty, and I think you can probably say the whole album is a novelty between its brevity and character. But for a bite sized snack this album casts a huge shadow.

#497

Various Artists - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto

The fact that this particular compilation always ends up in the canon has a lot to do with the cultural context it existed in, being America’s first encounter with South African contemporary music during the decline of apartheid (it wouldn’t end until a decade later in 1994 with the country’s first multi-racial elections). Music journos often bring up the fact Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the all male choir singing on the album ender “Nansi Imali”, sang on Paul Simon’s Graceland like their virtue is they helped Paul Simon get over his depression and not, like, the actual music. But also like, how is the actual music? Jams. Ubiquitous, hooky guitars propel the songs along with bright choruses over low lead vocals, but I didn’t expect the synthesizer on the bop “Qhude Manikiniki”, nor the discordant hoedown violin on “Sobabamba”. “Holotelani” is a groove to walk into the sunset to.

#496

Shakira - Donde Estan los Ladrones

So this is the first head scratcher on the list. It’s not like it sucks. And I think I prefer this 90s guitar pop driven spanish language Shakira to modern superstar Shakira. But I mean, it’s an album of late nineties latin pop minivan music, with a thick syrupy middle that doesn’t do anything for me. The opener and closer stand out though.  ‘Ciega, Sordomuda’, one of the biggest pop songs of the 90s (it was #1 on the charts of literally every country in Latin America), has a galloping acoustic guitar and horn hits with Shakira’s vocals at their most percussive.

#495

Boyz II Men - II

So, if you were alive in the 90s you know Boyz II Men were fucking huge, and the worst song on the album is the second track “All Around the World”, basically a love song to their own success, and also the women they’ve banged. You can tell it was written specifically so that the crowd could go fucking wild when they heard their state/city/country mentioned in the song, and I’m not gonna double check but I’m sure they hit all fifty states. Once you’re over that hump though you basically have an hour of songs to fuck to. “U Know” keeps it catchy with propulsive midi guitar and synth horns, “Jezzebel” starts with a skit and ends with a richly layered jazz tune about falling in love on a train, and “On Bended Knee” has a Ragnarok Online type beat. Honestly this album can drag, but you’re not supposed to be listening to it alone in a state of analysis, you’re supposed to have it on during a date that’s going really, really well.

#494

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

A singles compilation of the Ronettes, the only ones I immediately recognized were ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘Going to the Chapel of Love’, the latter of which I didn’t know existed since the version of the song I knew was by the Dixie Cups, which was apparently a source of drama since the Ronettes did it first but producer Phil Spector refused to release it. I feel like as a retro trip to sixties girl groups it’s full of enough songs about breaking up (for example “Breaking Up”) getting back together (for example “Breaking Up”) and wanting to get married but you can’t, because you’re a teenager (“So Young”).

#493

Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear

This album only exists because Marvin was required by his divorce settlement to make it and provide all of the royalties to his ex-wife and motown executive Anna Gordy Gaye. It’s absolutely bizarre, phoned in mid tempo funk whose lyrics range from the passive aggressive (“This is what you wanted right?”) to the petulant (“Why do I have to pay attorney’s fees?”). There is a seething realness here that crosses well past the border of uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s an amazing album to listen to, but it’s an amazing album to exist: Marvin Gaye is legally obligated to throw his own divorce pity party, and everyone's invited.

#492

Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time

I have never heard of Bonnie Raitt before but apparently this album won several grammys including album of the year in 1989 and sold 5 million copies, which I guess goes to show that no award provides less long term relevance than the grammys. The story around the album is pretty heartwarming, it was her first massive hit after a career of whiffs, and Bonnie Raitt herself is apparently a social activist and neat human being. I say all this because this sort of 80s country blues rock doesn't really connect with me, but the artist obviously deserves more than that. I unequivocally like the title track though, a hand-clap backed winding electric piano groove about literally finding love before your eggs dry up.

#491

Harry Styles - Fine Line

I do not think I have ever heard a one direction song because I am an adult who only listens to public radio. I’m totally open to pop bands or boy bands or boy band refugee solo artists, but I don’t like anything here. It’s like a mixtape of the worst pop trends of the decade, from glam rock that sounds like it belongs in a car commercial to folky bullshit that sounds like it belongs in a more family focused car commercial. This gets my first DNP (Does Not Place).

#490

Linda Ronstadt - Heart Like a Wheel

Another soft-rock blues and country album which just doesn’t land with me. But the opener “You’re No Good” is like a soul/country hybrid which still goes hard and the title track hits with the lyrics “And it's only love and it's only love / That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out”.

Current Ranking, which is weirdly almost like an inverse of the rolling stones list so far;

[theliterateape]

Hell in a Handbasket

By David Himmel

SHE TAKES ONE LAST LONG DRAG FROM HER CIGARETTE. She pushes the smoke past her gleaming teeth and full lips and crushes the thing beneath her boot. Her black coffee has finally cooled to a barely drinkable temperature. She takes a sip as she enters the radio station. Another fucking morning show. This one in San Francisco. It’s still dark out and, between the cigarette and the coffee and all of the whiskey she drank last night, she has the worst morning breath in recorded human history.

She didn’t have time to brush her teeth. She overslept and was rushed out of her hotel room by Gavin the tour manager. The clothes she had worn at last night’s show were strewn across the floor. Gavin threw the jeans and Superman t-shirt at her as she struggled to get her naked body out of bed. She didn’t have to fuss with makeup or her hair; she looks the same at five in the morning in the grips of a hangover as she does at eleven at night when she’s in the grips of stage lights and adoring fans.

Way back before she was famous and had dreams of being interviewed by radio deejays, it didn’t matter what you looked like as much. The listeners couldn’t see you and the deejays looked just barely put together themselves. But today, everything is visual, and if this show is anything like all of the others, they’ll be recording the interview for the radio station’s YouTube page. She hates the beautification and objectification of women in the entertainment industry. However, she sees nothing wrong with not wanting to look like hammered rat shit, which is exactly how she feels. This morning, as she has been most mornings this past year, she’s self-aware enough to be thankful for her easy-to-manage looks.

Gavin makes the introductions in the studio. She smiles her big, brilliant smile—the one that makes men and women fall in love with her—and begins to charm the three morning show hosts.

“Good morning. I’m really happy to be here,” she says into the microphone. Her mouth is dry and it tastes like a circus floor. She reaches for the bottle of water one of the hosts handed her when she walked in. She thinks she should have had a piece of gum instead of that cigarette.

“You’re wearing a Superman t-shirt,” the fatter of the hosts says. “Are you a fan of the comics?”

“This isn’t a Superman t-shirt,” she says. “It’s a Supergirl t-shirt.”

“Hear, hear, sister!” says the woman host.

“And yes, I’m a fan of the comics.”

“For those of you just tuning in, we’ve got Jane Hadley in the studio with us this morning,” the thin host says in a well-rehearsed broadcaster’s voice. “If you’re not familiar with Jane Hadley then you’ve likely been in a coma trapped in a mine shaft for the past year. Her debut album, Hell in a Handbasket, is this year’s runaway hit and iTunes’ most downloaded album ever. Right now, Jane Hadley is a bigger deal than Taylor, Adele and Beyoncé.”

“Combined,” Fat Host says.

“And she’s performing a sold-out show at Decker Hall tonight,” Thin Host continues.

“But don’t worry,” Lady Host says, “if you didn’t get tickets for the show, we’ll be giving a pair away a little later on this morning. And I think—Jane, correct me if I’m wrong—that these tickets also include a backstage meet and greet.”

“They do,” Jane says. “I’ve even got my Selfie-Stick for photos.”

“Did you bring that Selfie-Stick with you this morning?” Fat Host asks. “I’d love to get a photo with you. You have to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen this early in the morning.”

Jane smiles and laughs a hearty laugh that not even the most high-tech lie detector test could determine its authenticity one way or the other. “I didn’t bring it but I’m sure we’ll find a way to take a photo without it.”

“And you’re going to play a few songs for us this morning, too, right?” Lady Host asks.

“I brought my guitar and will even take requests.”

The three hosts celebrate over this surprise. Thin Host says, “You hear that, K–POP listeners? The beautiful and talented, Goddess of Rock Jane Hadley will be taking your requests for a live, in-studio acoustic session! Don’t go anywhere. You’re listening to the Manic Morning Show on 97.1, K–POP.”

Thin Hosts glances at Fat Host who taps a series of buttons on the control board and clicks a wireless mouse linked to the monitors. A station bump plays followed by a commercial break beginning with an ad for a local diamond dealer. The hosts take their headphones off.

“Do people actually listen this early?” Jane asks as she also removes her headphones.

“Not anymore,” Thin Host says.

“We’ll replay everything with you in the eight o’clock hour,” Lady Host says.

This is not how Jane saw her life. For one thing, she never thought she’d be a smoker. But divorce can promote bad habits as diversions from the heartache. And for another thing, she never thought she’d be divorced at thirty-seven years old, though she was only thirty-five when it all happened, which only makes it worse. She is too young to be divorced and too old to only now find herself at rockstar status. Unfortunately, without the divorce, the fame and fortune—and morning radio show interviews—would have continued to elude her.

Before she was Jane Hadley, the rock ’n’ roll singer/songwriter—the Goddess of Rock, bigger than Taylor, Adele, and Beyoncé combined, she was Jane Hadley, the folk ’n’ roll singer/songwriter who never sold more than a thousand albums and a few hundred t-shirts. Before she had a #1 album flying off the shelves and being downloaded to the Cloud by millions, and an entire merchandising department, she was just a girl who played in a few bands: the Stargazers, Rosie’s Dream Catcher, Jane and the Jaded Cowboys.

None of these were good band names and she knew it. But she liked the music they made. Sweet, folky, only as loud as the all-acoustic gear would allow. All her bands looked the same. Jane played rhythm guitar and sang lead. The lead guitar, keyboard, upright bass and percussion were played by men. This wasn’t intentional, it’s just how things played out. They sounded similar, too, although each incarnation sounded more practiced than the last, a byproduct of age and gig experience.

The Stargazers was her high school band. It lasted long enough to play mostly Simon & Garfunkel covers at a few garage shows and the school’s Battle of the Bands. She formed Rosie’s Dream Catcher in college with her then boyfriend, keyboardist Matt. They recorded one CD of ten original songs. They sold all one hundred copies for two bucks a piece by the time the band, and Jane and Matt, split three years later.

She wonders why they are waxing intellectual about Kurt Cobain and the meaning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit?” She just wants to plug tonight’s show, play a few songs, maybe answer a call and give vague, recycled answers about what inspired her to write the album. Instead, she’s bemoaning about the trappings of fame and denying any intention of making an album that will last the test of time. How Gen X of her. How Fiona Apple of her. How awful of her.

Jane always figured that if success in the music business was ever going to come to her it would have been with Jane and the Jaded Cowboys. It took her a little while to become comfortable with her name being segregated from the band name. She didn’t want to be a Diana Ross or Gloria Estefan but Adam, the guitarist, thought they should capitalize on the gender difference and put their radiant leader out front while her boys backed her up. Adam was a marketing major in college and while he was a gifted guitarist, his real talent was in hype.

Jane and the Jaded Cowboys were prolific. Their songwriting was a science. Jane would come to practice with lyrics ripped from her many tattered Moleskin journals and a tune she thought worked with the words. From there, all five would flesh the thing out until they had a nice little folky pop song. They were a good team and their musical tastes and abilities complemented each other well.

With the freedom provided by quarter-life adulthood, they toured a lot in the sixteen years they were together. They earned fans but none who would bleed for them, really. They played the festivals and a few of the storied concert halls spread throughout the country. They headlined some shows and shared the bill with acts that would go on to the kind of fame and success that Jane and the Jaded Cowboys were chasing but never caught up to.

Because being in the band didn’t pay a livable wage, everyone had real jobs. Jane tended bar at Queen Lizzie, a hipster hotspot in Chicago where the drinks are overpriced and the customers happily overpay. She hated the place and the customers but the money was too good to walk away from. She was able to afford the necessities: instruments, rent, food, clothes, tour van, gas money for the tour van and Moleskin journals. She even managed to save a fair amount and really hack away at her student loans. Not that her degree in art history was worth more than the paper the degree was printed on.

The songs she wrote reflected her life. They featured themes of loneliness, desire, road trips and regret. The songs weren’t bad. But they weren’t great either. Their most popular song among their few loyal fans is called “Photographic Art History.” It’s about wasting time and energy. One critic, writing for an online publication about the lineup of a summer festival in Chicago, described Jane and the Jaded Cowboys as, “a band that makes perfect background music for the perfect lazy day of napping.” On the band’s Facebook page, Adam spun the opinion by posting the review and writing, “IndieRock.com says ‘Jane and the Jaded Cowboys makes perfect music for the perfect day!’”

Jane hated the hype. But it was the best her band ever got.

And speaking of hype…

“Rolling Stone called you the voice of women of this generation,” Thin Host says. They are back from commercial break. “That seems like it could come with a lot of responsibility. Do you feel responsible to speak for your generation?”

Since Hell in a Handbasket dropped, many critics had echoed Rolling Stone’s claim. Jane used to see herself as a Joni Mitchell type, or Carole King or Carly Simon. Women from a very different generation. And one that isn’t hers. She isn’t even sure which generation the critics are talking about. At thirty-seven years old, she’s no longer part of the youth culture but she’s too young, still, and new to fame, to be a music veteran. And in the entertainment industry, the young and the old were the major markets. Everyone in the middle is white noise. Jane feels that if she’s the voice of any generation right now, it’s the White Noise Generation. But she can’t say that.

“First of all, it’s an insanely flattering thing to say about someone,” Jane answers. “But it’s also an insanely broad generalization and a little presumptuous. I didn’t make this record to be a statement about women or for all women or anything like that. And if we look at music history, we don’t ever really know how representative a musician was or wasn’t to her generation—or his—until the music has had time to mature and that generation, or whatever, has adapted from it in some way.”

“Well, take Kurt Cobain. In a way, your situation is similar to Cobain’s,” Thin Host says. “He was considered the voice of Generation X right out of the gate. And he was dead before his music and his generation really even had a chance to—what did you call it?—mature. But everyone was right. Kurt Cobain was, and still is considered to be, the voice of his generation.”

“So if you don’t already have a heroin addiction, you better get on that,” Fat Host says.

“No, then she’d just be compared to Courtney Love. And no woman wants to be compared to Courtney Love,” Lady Host says.

“Yikes. God no. That’s even worse than being compared to Yoko Ono,” Jane says.

“There are so many awful women in rock ’n’ roll,” Fat Host says.

“You named two,” Jane says. “The awful men in rock ’n’ roll still outweigh us twenty-to-one.”

“And that’s why she wears that t-shirt,” Lady Host says.

They all have a laugh as Jane glances at the clock on the studio wall. She’s booked for an hour. It’s only been eleven minutes. She wants to go back to sleep. The coffee isn’t working. She considers what it would be like if she did start using heroin. It’s cheaper than booze, cigarettes and even coffee. And on the road, it’s often easier to get.

“Okay, I understand that you’re reluctant to accept your influential role in today’s culture,” Thin Host says.

“It’s not a reluctance,” she says.

“A rejection then,” he says.

“No. I mean, they’re just songs.”

“But don’t you want your songs to mean something? Isn’t that what every artist wants?”

“Sure. In a way. This album means what it means to me. I can’t control what it means to anyone else. It’s nice that it’s been so well received. I’m touched that people are finding their own meanings in the songs.”

“So you’re saying that the song, the first single, ‘Onward,’ isn’t symbolic of the woman’s place in today’s society.”

“I think Hemingway said something about the foolishness of trying to include symbols in your work on purpose,” Jane says.

“So no.”

“‘Onward’ is a song about my ex-husband moving out of our apartment and me, a woman, having to make sense of what he, a man, had left behind. If that is perceived as anything other than that—”

“I understood it as a break-up song,” Lady Host says.

“But things can be perceived by any number of people in any number of ways. That’s the great thing about art. Let me ask you guys a question. Since you brought him up, what does ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ mean to you? What’s that song about?”

“Making trouble,” Thin Host says.

“Cheerleaders,” Fat Host says.

“Disaffected youth,” Lady Host says.

“All I ever think about when I hear that song is deodorant. That song is a deodorant jingle to me. Because when that song came out, I was eleven years old and Teen Spirit was the brand of deodorant I used.”

“Commerce,” Fat Host says. “Cobain is rolling over in his grave.”

“Nah,” Jane says. “He knew damn well what he was doing when he titled that song. He was being funny—Oh crap, can I say the ‘D’ word?”

The hosts laugh. “Yes, ‘damn’ is allowed. ‘Crap,’ is not,” Thin Host says. They laugh some more then he presses on. “Symbols or not, this album is incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“I doubt that you’d call it a concept album.”

“Not in the traditional meaning of concept album, no. I mean, it’s not The Wall. But it was conceived by specific events. There’s a theme.”

“It’s a break up album,” Lady Host says.

“It is indeed a break up album. A break up and all of the, um, crap, that comes with it.”

She knows she sounds like a pedantic blowhard. They are baiting her into it and she is too strung out on exhaustion and weak coffee to resist. She wonders why they are waxing intellectual about Kurt Cobain and the meaning of “Smells Like Teen Spirit?” She just wants to plug tonight’s show, play a few songs, maybe answer a call and give vague, recycled answers about what inspired her to write the album. Instead, she’s bemoaning about the trappings of fame and denying any intention of making an album that will last the test of time. How Gen X of her. How Fiona Apple of her. How awful of her.

But after two weeks of horrendous heartbreak, isolation, and alcoholism, Jane had come to one conclusion: right or not, fuck Keith.

She is saved from falling deeper into these asinine rock critic musings when the hosts go to break again. They’ve cued listeners to call in with questions and requests. The first three callers request “Onward,” to no one’s surprise. Jane pulls her guitar from its case and gives it a gentle tuning. She gets the familiar sinking knot in her stomach as she does.

Her departure from acoustic folk to electric rock was the best way for her to get through the pain of her divorce. It allowed her to turn the deafening sadness into rollicking anger. And every time she plays these songs with an electric guitar and her banging, thrumming, clanging tour band alongside her, she becomes more and more removed from the origin of the source material. She’s healed each night. And in quieter moments in between cities on the bus, when she finds herself descending toward that sadness and regret, she can listen to the album at top volume through her headphones and relive the anger and gravitate toward getting over the goddamn thing.

But there’s no escaping the raw bones of truth when she plays the songs acoustically on radio shows like this. She wanted to bring the band with her and at least have a bigger sound so the songs weren’t so stripped down and she didn’t feel so naked. But her management vetoed it. The fans wanted Jane Hadley naked. And that’s what they were getting. And every time she tunes the guitar to play “Onward,” she is rocketed into a wretched reverie of when she first tuned the guitar to write the song.

Keith had just closed the door of the apartment with his last box of stuff under his arm. It had been the first time they’d seen each other since he asked for a divorce two weeks before and fled to wherever he had been staying. Jane spent those two weeks crying, substituting alcohol and cigarettes for meals, sleeping on the living room floor because she couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping alone in their bed and didn’t feel that she deserved the comfort of the couch. She was emotionally destroyed and she thought it best to destroy herself physically, too.

He said some pretty nasty things when he left. There were accusations of infidelity because she played songs that weren’t about him. He blamed her for his inability to secure a steady and well-paying gig because she was not supportive enough. He called her a manipulator and a user and chastised her for having more friends than he had.

None of these accusations were true and he was clearly taking his own self-loathing out on her. How could someone’s likability make her unlikable? Keith had found a way. The two therapists they had seen every week since getting married eight months before, called it projecting. Keith denied it and Jane believed everything he said.

But after two weeks of horrendous heartbreak, isolation, and alcoholism, Jane had come to one conclusion: right or not, fuck Keith. Watching him leave with a box of his mother’s old stained Tupperware was enough to pull her off of the floor and begin writing music again. “Onward” became Jane’s life’s statement of purpose. And as the first single and the album’s first track, it became the album’s statement of purpose, too. And thus, it became a generation of women’s statement of purpose.

She didn’t even have to write the lyrics down and work them out in her notebook like usual. She just played and sang and it all came together. She scribbled it down once she was done and the song, at first, resembled every other song she had written. Soft, slow, melancholy. She didn’t want that. She wanted something different. Because the same old song hadn’t done her much good for her career or her internal struggle. She didn’t feel soft, slow or melancholy. She felt hard, fast and fucking pissed. She dusted off her electric Gibson and amp and played the song faster and louder. She felt alive again. She felt angry. She felt inspired.

She lit a cigarette and played it again. She recorded it and upon listening back, she heard a voice she didn’t recognize but loved. The chorus made her smile, even though it felt strange on her face.

You took my love And let it burn Scorched and ashen I move onward

✶

SHE MET KEITH LESTINGHOUSE AT A SHOW IN PEORIA, ILLINOIS. He was a videographer and had been hired to document the headlining band, the Dandelions, who a year later would win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Keith’s art direction in the documentary was lauded for its grit, the way it “captured the essence of budding rock ’n’ roll success,” according to some well-respected blogger somewhere online.

She found Keith smart and funny, and thought his patchy beard and thin, lanky body made him handsome. He seemed to genuinely like Jane’s music and her band. And he seemed to like her. By the end of their first date, they realized that they had been a match on each other’s online dating profiles.

“Why didn’t you ever send me a message?” she asked him.

“Why didn’t you ever send me one?” he replied.

He was a feminist and she liked that about him, too.

Six months in, they were engaged. Two months after that, they were married. It was a small ceremony held in her parents’ barn at their farm in Dowagiac, Michigan. She wore cowboy boots with her consignment wedding dress, he wore black Chuck Taylor sneakers with his new suit from an online custom clothier. An hour before the wedding, Jane cried all of her makeup away when Keith requested that her father not walk her down the aisle. Well, he didn’t have any family at the wedding, therefore, her father’s obvious presence was her way of rubbing it in that he was an estranged son. Jane conceded. Then Keith decided that it was okay for her dad to walk her down the aisle after all. This was the first crack in the façade of perfection Jane had placed Keith behind. Then, at the reception, Jane and the Jaded Cowboys played a song she wrote just for Keith, just for their wedding. Drunk, he mistook it for a song about some other guy and stormed off into the Dowagiac fields. Jane—the consummate professional—finished the song then ran into the fields after her husband. When she found him, he continued accusing her of infidelity until she managed to convince him otherwise and they screwed right there in rows of soybeans.

He moved into her place. His video equipment crowded and nearly ousted her music equipment. Space in the small Chicago apartment was the crux of their Cold War—Keith acting like Reagan with his finger constantly on he Button and Jane acting as Gorbachev, desperate for some kind of peaceful and reasonable resolution.

Two weeks later, they were in therapy. The only discussion they could have without Keith’s demanding a therapist’s intervention was about what they’d have for dinner. It helped that Keith’s veganism limited their dining options. Keith was a volunteer for Greenpeace and convinced Jane to sell her 1967 Pontiac GTO. It was left to her in her grandfather’s will. It was her grandfather who taught her to play guitar and encouraged her to pursue a career in music. He was a sound tech for bands like the Byrds, Leslie Gore, the Lovin’ Spoonful and even the Beatles once. Anywhere she had to be, Keith told her, she could ride a bike, walk, run or use public transportation, if she must. And that inspired the second song on the album, “Red Meat Wishes and Gasoline Car Dreams.”

You’re sidewalk stalking Good people on God’s green earth I honk and rev my motor And slide back a Quarter Pounder

Still, Jane loved him. But what Jane loved more than Keith was love itself. Though she was never far from her friends or family and had an incredible bond and unwavering trust with her bandmates, Jane feared being alone. Alone in that romantic sense. It was that fear that empowered her to stay with Keith, which left her otherwise powerless. And that’s where “Distracted by Loneliness,” the album’s third song, came from.

Covered in hearts Well wishes from friends and family Their undying love can’t compare to the misery you give to me I’d rather be lonely with you than never alone again

✶

WHEN THEY RETURN FROM THE BREAK, JANE PLAYS “ONWARD.” Fat Host cues up another recorded caller and the conversation they had with her during the break.

“Hi, Jane. I’m Claire. I think you are so talented.”

“Hi, Claire. Thank you.”

“I just broke up with my boyfriend of three years.”

“This ought to be good,” Fat Host says.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Claire,” Jane says.

“No, please, it’s for the best. I was miserable. We both were. Your album inspired me to leave him. Funny thing was, it was his record. He bought the album.”

“Men love her, too,” Thin Host says. “Is there a song you’d like Jane Hadley to play?”

“I’d love to hear ‘Two Week’s Notice,’” says Claire. “I quit my job last week, too. This song inspired me to do that.”

“This song isn’t about quitting a job,” Jane says. “It’s about the abortion I had.” The studio goes quiet—never a good thing in radio. Jane recognizes the silence and quickly readjusts her response. “But, uh, sure thing, Claire. Let me know if you need a reference or anything.”

The recording ends and Lady Host throws her finger at Jane like a stage manager would on the set of a live news show. Jane plays the first chord and sings “Two Week’s Notice.”

It’s not something I am ready for I’m sure neither are you I’ve already got a child I can’t raise two It makes no sense to drag this out It’s the right thing to do I’ve already got a child That child is you

“I’m not really sure how that song would inspire someone to quit their job,” Thin Host says when Jane is done playing. “I bet you get a lot of that. You know, people mistaking the intentions of your songs for something else.”

“Like we were saying earlier, that’s what happens with music and art,” Jane says. “People listen to music in different ways. Claire, I guess, doesn’t listen to the lyrics all that closely. And that’s fine. I just hope she find a new job soon and lands on her feet.”

“Guess you can’t judge a song by its title,” Fat Host says.

“We’re going to take another quick break and we’ll be right back with more music by request from our in-studio guest Jane Hadley, who is performing at Decker Hall tonight and we’ll be giving away that pair of tickets to see her. You’re listening to the Manic Morning Show on 97.1 K–WOW.”

There it is, the missing piece to Jane and Keith’s old fight, his calm condescension. Finding herself in familiar territory, she habitually lights a cigarette in her mouth.

They never take calls live on-air. It’s a recipe for disaster. You could get a Baba Booey or a suicide or someone who just wants to yell “Fuck” on the radio. Answering calls off-air lets the hosts screen and edit the calls for the best possible radio. Fat Host takes the next caller.

“Hi, Jane. Since you’re single, maybe we can hook up after your show tonight. I’m hung.”

Fat Host immediately hangs up on the caller.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Jane says. “Maybe he was cute.”

She’s joking but only a little bit. Among the whiskey and cigarettes, her after-show parties have been filled with men. Lots of men. At least one every night. The show in L.A. had two, the one in Salt Lake had three.

Two more calls, both women, both requesting “Onward.” The third call is a man.

“97.1, Manic Morning Show,” Lady Host says.

“Jane?” the caller asks like he was calling Jane directly and not a San Francisco morning radio show.

“Hi, do you have a request for Jane Hadley?” Lady Host tries again.

“Jane. Are you there?”

“Okay, weirdo, goodbye,” Lady Host says as she signals Fat Host to drop the call.

“Wait,” Jane says. Lady Host looks at Thin Host who nods as a sign to let Jane play this one out. “Keith?”

The three hosts look at each other with confusion before Thin Host chimes in, “Jane, you’ve got a friend here in San Francisco. And a K-WOW listener to boot!”

“Keith is my ex-husband.” The three hosts drop their jaws and sit back in their chairs like they’re ready to watch the unbelievable, certain shit show commence. “Keith, what are you doing?”

“I was listening to the radio and heard you.”

“What are you doing in San Francisco?”

“I’m living with my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

 “I have three brothers.”

“Three!? Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why weren’t they at the wedding?”

“My family is complicated.”

Jane is stunned. She, too, is now sitting with her mouth agape in disbelief. “So you’re living here now?”

“For the moment. There was a job, so…”

“What’s the job?”

“It’s a documentary about San Francisco suicides that don’t take place on the Golden Gate. There’s a large population of suicidals that is overlooked because of the attention that the Bridge gets. It’s tragic. And these people aren’t even polluting the bay when they kill themselves. It’s an important topic.”

Thin Host jumps in again. “So, Keith—Keith, right?—would you like to hear a song by Jane Hadley?” Jane shoots Thin Host a look that says, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Let’s hear that one about abortion again.”

Jane cringes. She is no longer stunned, now she’s pissed. Of course she never told him about the pregnancy. By their third date, it was clear that he had baby fever. Because Keith had such a foul and complicated relationship with his own family, he was desperate to build a new one. And though Jane wasn’t opposed to being a parent someday, she was in no immediate rush, but also knew, deep in her gut, that Keith would make a terrible father. That having a child would provide him with another person to manipulate and break down until nothing was left but a desiccated husk of a human. He would do to his child what his parents did to him and what he had nearly done to Jane.

Jane and the hosts are frozen but the digital phone recorder rolls along.

“Can I hear it? Can I hear the song about you killing my child?”

 “Whoa!” Thin Host says as Fat Host laughs in shock.

“She didn’t kill your child,” Lady Host says. “She’s the mother and she has the right to make any decision she wants related to her body.”

“I agree,” Keith says. “But in the interest of true sexual and gender fairness and whatever, doesn’t the father have a right to know and at least be part of the discussion? When were you pregnant, Jane? Were we married? Because if so, then you absolutely owed me that.”

Lady Host defends her. “She doesn’t owe you anything.”

“No, he’s right,” Jane says. “I probably should have said something. I agonized over telling you about it for two weeks before.”

“Oh, you agonized, did you? That was my child.”

She can hear his special brand of angry panic in his voice. She knows she should have the deejays hang up. But that anger and panic of his was always delicious bait to her. She can’t help herself from engaging. “It wasn’t a child, Keith. And if it had been, it would have been ours. And that, that right there is why I didn’t tell you. I mean, I knew I couldn’t keep it because of your selfishness and controlling impulses. I would have had the abortion twenty minutes after I peed on the stick but I held off, debating if you should be there with me. But I knew that you’d never agree to it and that the idea of it would only lead to this.”

“And what’s this?”

“You accusing me of killing your child.”

Thin Host speaks up. “So Keith, what do you think about the rest of the album?”

“I didn’t know she could play electric guitar.”

There it is, the missing piece to Jane and Keith’s old fight, his calm condescension. Finding herself in familiar territory, she habitually lights a cigarette in her mouth.

“Uh, Jane, you can’t smoke that in here,” Fat Host says.

She exhales a large cloud of smoke emphasizing it with two small rings at the end. “I’ll make you a deal,” she says, “you promise not to air this and I’ll put it out.”

“It’s just that, well, it’s a federal regulation that you can’t smoke inside of buildings. It’s nothing personal. Hell, we all smoke,” Fat Host says.

“Promise me.”

Fat Host looks at Lady Host and Thin Host. Thin Host nods and fat Host says, “Promise.” Jane snuffs the cigarette out on the bottom of her boot. She walks to the small trashcan across the studio, drops the cigarette in and pours a few ounces of coffee on it for safety. She returns back to her microphone and puts her headphones back on.

“What do you want, Keith?” she asks.

Silence.

“Keith? Are you still with us, Keith?” Thin Host asks.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“What is it you want, Keith?” Thin Host asks again as if Jane’s voice was the problem the first time.

“I want you back,” Keith says.

Jane bursts out in laughter. “Are you fucking kidding me!?” The hosts are shocked. “Sorry,” she says to them.

“It’s okay, we’re not live,” Lady Host says. She leans over to Fat Host and whispers, “Bleep it out.”

“Duh,” Fat Host whispers back.

“I’ve missed you and I have a new therapist out here who says that I’m ready to be in a relationship with you again.”

“Then sue your therapist for malpractice,” Jane says, “because he’s a fucking quack.”

Fat Host holds up his arm to grab attention and says, “We are coming out of break.” He turns on his microphone, does a quick station I.D. and lets the audience know that Jane Hadley is in the studio and that they’ll be back with more from her, then plays music. As he finishes and the red ON-AIR light outside of the studio door turns off, Gavin, Jane’s tour manager storms in.

“I think we’re done here,” he says. Everyone ignores him. This is something he’s used to so he shrinks back out of the studio.

“Jane, I—”

“Shut up, Keith. It’s not happening. But I’ll put your name on the will call list at the door tonight if you want to come see the show.” She looks at Fat Host. “Hang up on him.”

Fat Host again looks around at his co-hosts for a confirmation. They both deny her request. Jane sees this and as Keith begins pleading to her in a breathy panic, she stands up, throws her headphones on the console, walks around to the control board where Fat Host is sitting and rummages around with her eyes for the phone. “Hang up. Where is it? Hang up on him. There’s nothing more to say.” Fat Host uses his bulk to keep her away. “Okay then, I guess you don’t want those backstage tickets to my sold out show tonight for your listeners. I guess you’d rather fuck with me than keep a promise to your listeners. Fine then.”

She walks back around to her guitar and coffee, puts the guitar in its case, throws the nearly empty coffee cup into the trashcan. She lights another cigarette before storming out of the studio, the station, and into the parking lot where Gavin is waiting.

“I need a drink,” she says.

It’s barely past six-thirty in the morning so Gavin suggests hotel room service. Jane agrees. She admits that after a few mini bottles of Dewar’s and Tanqueray she’ll be ready for a nap.

✶         

IN THE HOTEL ROOM, GAVIN SLEEPS IN THE DESK CHAIR WITH HIS FEET PROPPED UP ON THE DESK, a small bottle of gin delicately rests in his curved fingers of his dangling arm. It’s eight-thirty and Jane lays drunk in bed. She’s tuned the nightstand clock radio to 97.1 FM, K–WOW. The idiots are playing the phone call with Keith. They’ve bleeped out her cursing. They’ve edited it to make her seem more erratic than she thought she had been. She’s pissed about it but she knows that this is only going to help her reputation and lead to more album and concert ticket sales.

She fumbles for her phone and calls Keith. After recording Hell in a Handbasket, Jane set out to remove any traces of him from her life. She built a fire in the alley behind her apartment next to the dumpster burning anything associated with their time together. Photos, a pair of his socks she loved to sleep in, the Dandelions t-shirt she bought at the show the night they met, that stupid crystal duck he gave to her on their first Christmas together. She never understood the significance of it. He was so excited to give it to her, so proud of himself that she never bothered to ask him why he thought she might like it. Of course, the crystal duck didn’t burn, so Jane smashed it to pieces with a hammer. The one thing she didn’t do during her Keith purge was delete his contact information from her phone. He answered her call before the first ring finished.

“Come to the show tonight,” she says to him.

“Do you want to get back together?”

“No. But I want to see you. Actually, if you can, come to my hotel right now. I’ll text you the address.”

She hangs up before he can respond and sends the text. She knows she has made a destructive decision and that there is no way any of this will end well. But that’s not what Jane wants. Keith has reopened her wounds as easily as if they’d never healed at all. Jane wants to bask in the familiarity of the disrespect and jealousy and anger that defined their relationship. One more chug of the poison, she tells herself, then she’ll be done. She’ll even delete him from her phone.

Keith texts back that he’s on his way. Jane wakes Gavin up and kicks him out of her room.

“You called Keith, didn’t you?” Gavin asks.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, closing the door in his face.

She picks up her guitar and writes a new song. It comes to her as easily as “Onward” did. Maybe even easier. She realizes that Keith is her muse. The thought of that is a good reason to open another mini bottle of whiskey. Maybe she won’t delete him from her phone. Just in case her creativity ever runs dry.

This is not the type of musician or person she thought she’d be but it’s the one the music industry needs, the one her generation needs—whatever generation that is. And certainly, it is the one she needs to be in order to remain being anything at all.

[drugs-and-deadlines]

she & her

You are haunted by the manic female NYC writer trope. Not a trope, really, because that feels like a reduction of her wiles, her slipperiness, her popularity, her perseverance, and her sex. It is a certain kind of ghost, progressive and beguiling, her kink as boundary pushing as the prose lifting up her personal narrative. She sculpts meaning-making out of every lived moment in her life, but most especially the young ones, because those are more thrilling for her audience, wherein she oscillated from a teetering cocktail of stimulants and alcohol, between egotist self-aggrandizing and pure self-flagellation. 

You know exactly who she is, because her definition and her very body is composed of the resistance to definition, most especially the questions and expectations of femininity. She is by turns lithe, waifish, possibly sick; by turns defying categorization with a smirk and a firm muscular body; by turns unafraid of her fatness in brain and body to take up space. When she generally speaks of her body, it is to make a philosophical point about the world at large and the place of female-bodied people in it; she skewers her feelings about her own corporal form with analysis. You know her because you have flirted with her in a literal sense, but also a figurative one -- you have let your body, fashion, and being explore each of the categories but none of them ever stuck. And a big part of you has feared why that is -- perhaps you don’t know yourself, perhaps your indecisiveness outstrips your ambition, a thoroughly un-manic trait. Perhaps, most horrifyingly, you fall too cleanly into a Freudian ball of neuroses to allow yourself to ever be you and thus will always be chasing the best way to present yourself. And meanwhile, while you’re asking yourself all these questions, she is writing.

She is not just writing. She is staying up late, refining the same sentence with rigor, stripping it further down to its essentials while you stare up at the ceiling, wondering at the opportunities you’ve missed. She is a ghost because she is able to slip through all the cracks of the house that is your life. She creates a mythos of every doorway she’s passed through. Even in her floundering, even in her telling of her own failures, there is a sort of certitude that each bumbling embarrassment served the narrative purpose of bringing her right to this moment: a moment of fame, of byline, of acknowledged brimming talent. 

If you had little money or privilege growing up, she had all of it, spending summers on a family boat in Greek waters, inviting friends from your liberal arts college to come along and therefore fall in love with her for years. She deliberately chose not to apply to the Ivies because she wanted a less conventional path; you chose not to apply because you never thought you could get in. She ends up dating the women from your past and you watch the thirst traps and inside jokes filter their way through Instagram and Twitter, a life you might have lived but weren’t brave enough or wealthy enough to attract. You cannot offer anyone a good time consistently because it exhausts you along with the other trappings of the class you were born into. You eventually grow out of resenting that which you never had, but the injustice of how the rich always have extra time still stings. Time seems to be everything a writer needs. 

If you did grow up with privilege or money, the ghost shapeshifts. She worked her way through undergrad as a server, or possibly a dominatrix or a stripper, a woman aware of the power of her own body and the ability to turn society’s preying into a currency she could use. She is always embodied, all her couplings and couplets enviable because of the bravery that surrounds them. When she is tired in her classes the next morning, it is only because she worked a double the night before. Her voice still leads your class’s intellectual thought, she openly confesses that she fell asleep in her work uniform with Plato’s Republic two pages away from the end of the reading assignment sometime around 2am. She does this in your 8am class. You’d hope to catch her for lunch, but she always has work to do, is always begging off invitations, and you hope desperately that it’s true and not because you’re not cool enough. And on the weekends, she always seems to have friends from work and beyond inviting her out. They have nothing to do with your age group or with the school you both attend. She is rapacious in her discipline but still somehow has time to try all the drugs you haven’t tried and are too afraid to. How is she so unafraid? Her fortitude and coolness with hard work is a currency too, making up for all the things she didn’t grow up with. Every privilege you’ve ever had only seems to undercut your sense of whether you earned anything. She is raw, willing to say the first absurd thing that comes in her head. Her poetry takes risks yours cannot. 

And you are pissed. Because regardless of where you come from, you are confronted with all these Instagram realities (that only make larger the actual realities), which is mostly that the rules are still the same. You avoided trying to be a cool girl as a child and a teenager because you knew you could not accomplish it, and so you strove to satisfy yourself with being an intellectual. You decided to give up on being an actor or a singer or a dancer and plunge yourself into letters because you thought it would be a refuge from constant performance. Constant performance required constant realigning to the changing modes of cool, and so you thought writing would suit you better. How wrong you were. 

Writing in itself is a more complete performance: if you are serious about it, you must be an intellectual builder of words in every moment of self-narrative, whether spoken, written, or posted. You listen to tales of “dressing for the muse” and showing up at the writing desk at 6am. You also listen to tales of complete slobbishness, writing on the floor with crayons, unafraid to make mistakes while creating in underwear and a tank top. Sex and danger, especially when both can be intertwined, are palpable in every sentence and interaction the manic girl has. It is part of her attraction. No knows if she’s going to want to fuck or fight, or, best of all, floatingly let you know she thinks you are full of your own light. The latter ideal scenario happens right before she leaves you to stride home, empowered enough to tromp through the late night New York City streetlamps dappling through the trees, deciding to walk with your now ever-aggrandizing thoughts rather than take the MTA. She is most thrilling when she leaves you wanting more, which is always. Your thoughts ping around your head with a velocity borrowed from her own. 

Once home, you look up all the writers she mentioned and see them all connected by several nodes: one MFA program or a particular residency, publishing house, or theater company. You become determined that this node is the epicenter, which will be true for a time until you’ve penetrated it and find another node of hot writers beyond your reach. 

There are always conversations happening without you. There are always people fucking without you. There will always have been a better time to be in New York, some time well before you were here, when it would’ve been easy to meet these intellectuals and be friends with them and the real estate was cheaper therefore making the creation of art and myth more accessible. You will always have missed the boat by five years or more, something you curse your age or attachment to another city before this one for. They took time away from the pulsing magnetism of your true love for this city, and you resent that, because now you are less attractive, less energetic, less manic than you were when you were younger. You cannot stay out for so long without chemical dependence & when you do, you bemoan that you should’ve been writing. But when you stay home to write, you invariably miss the moment when you would’ve met the right person who would’ve fallen in love with you & asked to read you.

You alternate with being obsessed with her, wanting in some way to possess her as a friend or ally or lover, to actually being possessed by her. The need to write what you know are brilliant fucking things infecting every moment -- prose pooling into an appetizing puddle at the bar, waiting for you to mop it up, poetry lingering on the steering wheel, electrifying your hands when you touch it to go go go go go fly to paper, even in those moments when you are fully possessed by her and become her, it is not enough, there is a time when you were more brilliant, more boundary pushing, more consumed by the manic need for a narrative that you simultaneously sculpted in your own life and committed opulently to paper. The poetry monster is always hungry. There is always a better-worded performance of the myth of your own making and you begin practicing by interviewing yourself. The graphomania can always, always, always increase its acceleration. But better that than a pandemic-inspired staring at the ceiling, this moment when you are certain you missed your chance and it will never come again, that there will never be a doing coke in the Village with some rich folks you barely know, the bumps wrapping you in cynicism and excitement for your new friend group all at once. No, in your pandemic reality, and perhaps before, clout is only gained via social media and you seem to be especially bad at that. The manic NYC female writer is better at it. She is genderbending her own performance of herself, twisting her depression and isolation somewhere in Connecticut or New Hampshire or her Manhattan fire escape as something to be envied.

How, you wonder, how how how how how

And then it becomes obvious

Her performance of self is nimble like white supremacy, resilient like the virus itself, always finding a new way to shapeshift her experience into something artful. You should be using this moment, because she certainly is. Because what the manic NYC female writer has is an obsession and possession of talent, a haunting that allows her to keep working at the problem into the late hours, when hers is the only light left on. And then there are moments when she obsesses instead of possesses, moments when the light is off but she is still awake, questioning this ceiling, her choices, and the fact that she’s chosen a stable partner beside her in bed instead of an ever-shifting existence that allows for new narratives to come in. She questions her life with the same rigor she does her stories, every choice that does not suit the performance and pursuit of her potential.

And, to that end, all of her/your characters become you/her or are versions of you/her -- and that is the only constant. The feedback she/you get(s) in workshops is that your/her main characters are too similar and that is precisely the point -- you are her and she is you and you both see one another on every street corner and every passage, only a few centimeters to the left in an alternate universe. The Quantumness of it all exhausts you and haunts the many yearning yous, the whole network of them, so overwhelming that then you must return to the facts of your autobiography to find stable ground before your own architecting of your autobiography shifts it again.

[killerqueenwidow]

Discover the Animal in You!

FOX CHARACTERISTICS: Autonomous • Generous • Creative • Flirtatious • Procrastinating SCIENTIFIC NAME: Vulpes vulpes COLLECTIVE TERM: A skulk of foxes

THE ASTUTE FOX

The fox personality is very much a creature of the night and, along with its dog relatives, is among the most gregarious of the carnivores. These agile-minded personalities are always active and -- although they never go out of their way to harm others -- have developed an unfair reputation for slyness and manipulation. The female of the species is called a vixen for good reason: with a sharp mind and equally sharp tongue, it’s best to stay on her good side, especially since she’s like to rise to the top of her chosen field.

CHARMING CARNIVORES

Appealing, cerebral and of average size, the fox is a close relative of both the wolf and dog personalities and displays the typical canine qualities of loyalty, passion and creativity. Largely misunderstood to be a shy, retreating individual, it's the fox's stature as a small carnivore that defines its survival strategy. Because it cannot succeed using brute force alone, the fox must rely on its sharp mind and engaging personality to garner resources. Because it spends so much time in its head -- giving the impression that it's trying to outsmart everyone – the fox isn’t surprised that others find its intellectual pursuits quite intimidating (and often annoying).

Foxes are fussy eaters and, with an appreciation for the finer things in life, demand quality in entertainment, food, and friends. Their love of exploration dovetails with their passion for overcoming challenges, which is why foxes are often found mountain climbing or journeying to exotic, forbidden places.

FOXES CAN BE SUBTLE

Flamboyance is not the fox's style; it prefers to remain inconspicuous in a small, cozy house, which is usually organized and neat.   Choosing subtlety and cunning over brute strength, they are unquestionably hunter personalities and are usually in good physical shape and perform well in pastimes that challenge both mind and body.

Foxes are typically successful in the workplace, but their competitiveness and ambition sometimes make coworkers feel belittled. While they would never deliberately take advantage of others, their single-mindedness often blinds them to the feelings of others. Foxes thrive when running their own businesses, but will usually seek a trusted partner in these ventures. Although they prefer consensus in partnership decisions, they usually dominate discussions and steer plans to reflect their own agenda. Competent in a wide range of fields, foxes are particularly well suited for a career as computer programmers, lawyers, doctors or politicians.

FOXES IN THE WILD

Foxes are closely related to dogs and jackals and comprise a number of distinct species; each with its unique range. Assessing the worldwide population of foxes is difficult as these animals mainly go about their business at night and are skilled at staying out of sight, although they sometimes fall prey to coyotes and wolves. Today its main enemy is man... and because of its tree-climbing habit, it is an easy animal to trap, although most species are not considered endangered.  During the day, foxes rest in thick brush or in the hollows of tree.  The fox is the only member of the canine family to routinely climb trees and often escapes danger by running up the trunk of a sturdy tree and navigating overhanging branches.

Foxes are not particularly fast runners, nor do they have the endurance for long chases... relying instead on their keen intelligence to make their living.

CAREERS & HOBBIES

Computer programmer • Lawyer • Doctor • Advertising Chess • Gambling • Debating • Jeopardy

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

As lovers, foxes are passionate and inventive, with their agile minds and bodies leading to exciting romps. Yet, because foxes are generally uncomfortable with the idea of emotional neediness, they rely on their partners to generate the romance and safe harbor.

Despite their roguish reputations, foxes are quite discerning in their choice of mates. They are particularly attracted to the creativity and gumption of eagles, zebras and wild dogs... creatures with which they are physically and temperamentally well -matched. Foxes should avoid wildcats and tigers, however, for while these aggressive carnivores provide immediate carnal gratification, their feline characteristics clash with the fox's canine essence.

Beneath its even-handed exterior is a deeply emotional core that the fox keeps well-guarded. Lovers quickly realize that the fox prefers nurturing to being nurtured, which is really just a fox ploy to avoid intimacy... a fox will never reveal its vulnerabilities unless it finds a mate who it intellectually respects, and emotionally trusts.

Tagged By: @the-mjolnir-owner

Tagging: WHOEVER WANTS TO DO IT!

[nottobecrossed]

DISCOVER YOUR ANIMAL PERSONALITY !

Eden

FOX CHARACTERISTICS: Autonomous • Generous • Creative • Flirtatious • Procrastinating SCIENTIFIC NAME: Vulpes vulpes COLLECTIVE TERM: A skulk of foxes

THE ASTUTE FOX

The fox personality is very much a creature of the night and, along with its dog relatives, is among the most gregarious of the carnivores. These agile-minded personalities are always active and -- although they never go out of their way to harm others -- have developed an unfair reputation for slyness and manipulation. The female of the species is called a vixen for good reason: with a sharp mind and equally sharp tongue, it’s best to stay on her good side, especially since she’s like to rise to the top of her chosen field.

CHARMING CARNIVORES

Appealing, cerebral and of average size, the fox is a close relative of both the wolf and dog personalities and displays the typical canine qualities of loyalty, passion and creativity. Largely misunderstood to be a shy, retreating individual, it's the fox's stature as a small carnivore that defines its survival strategy. Because it cannot succeed using brute force alone, the fox must rely on its sharp mind and engaging personality to garner resources. Because it spends so much time in its head -- giving the impression that it's trying to outsmart everyone – the fox isn’t surprised that others find its intellectual pursuits quite intimidating (and often annoying).

Foxes are fussy eaters and, with an appreciation for the finer things in life, demand quality in entertainment, food, and friends. Their love of exploration dovetails with their passion for overcoming challenges, which is why foxes are often found mountain climbing or journeying to exotic, forbidden places.

FOXES CAN BE SUBTLE

Flamboyance is not the fox's style; it prefers to remain inconspicuous in a small, cozy house, which is usually organized and neat.   Choosing subtlety and cunning over brute strength, they are unquestionably hunter personalities and are usually in good physical shape and perform well in pastimes that challenge both mind and body.

Foxes are typically successful in the workplace, but their competitiveness and ambition sometimes make coworkers feel belittled. While they would never deliberately take advantage of others, their single-mindedness often blinds them to the feelings of others. Foxes thrive when running their own businesses, but will usually seek a trusted partner in these ventures. Although they prefer consensus in partnership decisions, they usually dominate discussions and steer plans to reflect their own agenda. Competent in a wide range of fields, foxes are particularly well suited for a career as computer programmers, lawyers, doctors or politicians.

FOXES IN THE WILD

Foxes are closely related to dogs and jackals and comprise a number of distinct species; each with its unique range. Assessing the worldwide population of foxes is difficult as these animals mainly go about their business at night and are skilled at staying out of sight, although they sometimes fall prey to coyotes and wolves. Today its main enemy is man... and because of its tree-climbing habit, it is an easy animal to trap, although most species are not considered endangered.  During the day, foxes rest in thick brush or in the hollows of tree.  The fox is the only member of the canine family to routinely climb trees and often escapes danger by running up the trunk of a sturdy tree and navigating overhanging branches.

Foxes are not particularly fast runners, nor do they have the endurance for long chases... relying instead on their keen intelligence to make their living.

CAREERS & HOBBIES

Computer programmer • Lawyer • Doctor • Advertising Chess • Gambling • Debating • Jeopardy

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

As lovers, foxes are passionate and inventive, with their agile minds and bodies leading to exciting romps. Yet, because foxes are generally uncomfortable with the idea of emotional neediness, they rely on their partners to generate the romance and safe harbor.

Despite their roguish reputations, foxes are quite discerning in their choice of mates. They are particularly attracted to the creativity and gumption of eagles, zebras and wild dogs... creatures with which they are physically and temperamentally well -matched. Foxes should avoid wildcats and tigers, however, for while these aggressive carnivores provide immediate carnal gratification, their feline characteristics clash with the fox's canine essence.

Beneath its even-handed exterior is a deeply emotional core that the fox keeps well-guarded. Lovers quickly realize that the fox prefers nurturing to being nurtured, which is really just a fox ploy to avoid intimacy... a fox will never reveal its vulnerabilities unless it finds a mate who it intellectually respects, and emotionally trusts.

tagged by: @adsagsona​

tagging: @fiercehearts​ , @tothedevilsshow​ , @divinelygifted​ , @trashedrps​ , @anditsxsorrows​ , @aquamanandfriends​

[annelixa]

Trust Chapter 8

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Can also be read on AO3

Summary: Cassandra seeks Varian shortly after she stole the Moonstone so that she can use his intellectual gifts. Lucky for her, no one seems to be telling him what happened at the Dark Kingdom and he still sees her as the wise and trusted person he always knew. Utilizing that image of herself, she takes him for herself while under the guise of protection.

Fandom: Tangled the Series

Before the Sun had risen that morning, Cass had slipped out of the cottage. She wasn’t worried about Varian wondering where she gone at this point. With all she had to do, she didn’t spend too much time in the small cottage with him so he was used to it. Instead of looking for her, he’d go to the kitchen to find a note explaining when she should expect to return. They had started the system weeks ago and it was working well for them.

Not wasting any time, she jumped into the balloon that she had prepared the previous night and slowly rose into the sky with her mentor at her side. Currently the girl was leaning against the side, examining her gloves.

“What is your plan exactly?” she asked.

“It’ll be simple,” the warrior replied, sure of herself. “I know what the Keeper looks like so I’ll disguise myself as him using that cloak you told me about then question her about the location of the Mind Trap. Calliope is easy to fool and if I lure her into a false sense of security, she’ll simply lead us to what we want.” Cass quickly checked the hot air balloon’s controls to make sure they were functioning properly. “We should be in and out in less than half an hour.” She paused for a moment then rolled her eyes. “An hour at the longest. It depends on how much she talks.”

The girl had approved and the rest of the trip was spent in silence.

Sneaking into the Keeper’s home had been simple and the cloak had been spotted only seconds after entering; it was the only cloak in sight. It was slipped on and she felt an odd tingling as her form change to appear as the aged Keeper of the Spire. Her bones lengthened to reach his taller height but also weakened, especially in her back as she hunched over slightly. The form was not comfortable, she felt strange aches and pains all over her body and it kept trying to fold in on itself seemingly only from her meager weight. This Keeper really needed to get some exercise before he dropped, she thought. Trying to hurry things up, she hobbled over to the door and slammed it closed. If Calliope was home, she would surely hear that and come to investigate.

On cue, the short woman suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, running down them.

“Keeper!” she called, excited to see her mentor.

Cass forced a smile onto the Keeper’s face, trying to make it look as sincere as possible as the other woman’s voice already threatened to annoy her.

“Good morning, Calliope,” she called kindly. “I came to check in on you. I’ve heard rumors of thieves in the area and wanted to make sure and our artifacts were safe.”

“Thieves?” the student cried indignantly. “Well I can promise you they haven’t gotten in here. I’ve been keeping everything safe.”

She started to walk around the room, indicating and explaining several items. Starting to lose her patience, Cass cut her off.

“It does seem that all seems to be in place here but what about in the Spire? You are aware we keep the most important and dangerous artifacts in there. If any were to go missing, it would be disastrous.”

She tried to mimic the way the other believed the word was meant to be pronounced. It seemed to work because Calliope didn’t comment on it or find anything off. Instead, she hurried to lead them to the top. Lucky for Cass, she seemed to have learned a faster way up from the real Keeper and the climb did not take nearly as long as the previous trip.

“Here we are!” she announced, stopping in front of the large doors. A key was pulled off her belt and used to unlock the doors. They stepped inside and the pair started to check that nothing was missing. Cass picked up a small box and behind her, her mentor confirmed this was the box they were searching for. She called the woman over.

“Calliope. We must make sure that the Mind Trap is still here. We cannot allow it to fall into the wrong hands.”

Nodding, another key was fished out and the box popped open only moments later. A fake sigh of relief escaped her mouth as she stared at the object she had come to steal. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her mentor reach forward and knock one of the artifacts to the ground. Surprised, Calliope spun on her heel to see what had happened. Using her momentary distraction, the warrior slipped the blue stone from the box and hid it under the cloak. Closing the box, she set it back on its shelf and approached the student.

Calliope was picking up a small orb and setting it carefully back on the correct shelf.

“Thank goodness that didn’t shatter,” Cass called.

“Seriously,” Calliope agreed, going on to explain what the artifact did but Cass didn’t pay attention. She had what she came for and was ready to get back before she was discovered.

“Everything appears to still be here. Good work, Calliope. I feel the Spire is safe in your hands.” Brightening at the compliment, Calliope didn’t even think to double check the box she had opened. “I must leave you here though. I still have much to do and you have to return to your studies.”

The pair left the large vault, the student securely locking the door once more, before separating.

A grin crossed Cass’ face as she returned to where she had stored the balloon. All went according to plan.

* * *

The Sun was high in the sky as she stepped back into the cottage. Once again, Varian was waiting for her, Ruddiger wrapped around his neck.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted which he returned.

“I’ve been working hard,” Varian started. “I designed some new halberds that shouldn’t break so easily.”

Smiling at him, she ruffled his hair.

“I look forward to seeing it.” From a pocket of the cloak she still had draped around her shoulders, she retrieved the large stone. “We need to keep this safe. My father snuck it to me this morning. He said that it’s an old royal family heirloom that they were worried could be stolen. It’s a very powerful magical artifact that could be devastating if used against them.” She held it out to him and he was able to study the stone closer. It was light blue with a symbol of some kind etched into it. It seemed familiar but he couldn’t place it. “Since we are in an impenetrable building they thought it would be safe with us. Can you put this in my room while I see what you made today?” she asked sincerely.

Excited to be trusted with something so significant, Varian grabbed the stone and hurried to her room. It was carefully placed on what he assumed to be her desk. He started to turn to leave the room when something caught his eye.

Something was laying on the floor, somewhat concealed by the bed. Normally he wasn’t one to dig through other people’s belongings but an odd thought was nagging at him.

Crossing the room quickly, he grabbed a crumpled piece of paper and straightened it out.

His own face stared up at him under the word ‘Missing’.

Shocked, he nearly dropped the paper.

“Varian?” he heard Cass call from behind him and he turned to face her in a daze. “You did a good job today. Can you help me move it to the door so I can take it to Raps?”

The young alchemist’s mind didn’t even register what she had said, too focused on the paper.

“Cass, what’s this?” he asked slowly, afraid of the answer.

“What?” She looked at the paper in his hands. “Oh that?” She laughed. “It’s nothing! You left suddenly and since you’ve been here for the last few weeks, people haven’t seen you in a while and some got nervous that the Saporians had gotten to you. Rapunzel smoothed the whole thing out. Don’t worry!”

Still confused, he asked, “Then why do you have it?”

“I thought it was something you might want for later. Something you could laugh at once the Saporians are caught. The rest were all torn down already and I was lucky to find this one.”

“Okay…”

Sensing his unease, she continued, “Come on. Let’s get everything moved then we can have some dinner. That’ll make you feel better.”

Nodding, he watched Cass leave the room. He took one last glance at the paper and shoved it into his pocket before hurrying after her.

All that he had created that morning was dragged to the door while Cass moved it outside to where he assumed she would store it until she could get it to Rapunzel. After everything was moved, Cass thanked him and closed the entrance. With a smirk, she walked to a large shed also constructed from the rocks that was out of Varian’s sight.

She parted the rocks and smiled.

In front of her, stretching for hundreds of yards, was everything that Varian had built so far. Things were going smoothly.