#like as an institution they are fascinating

[historicity-was-already-taken]

In the middle of a really fascinating back and forth with sneezymeanderings (who tumblr won’t allow me to tag) in the replies.

They feel/felt that I was being reprehensibly unfair here with regard to federal and civil service staff who are NOT down with the MAGA agenda. And you know, that’s fair.

It’s been hard for me to avoid extremely emotional posting lately, and when I post emotionally I don’t take the time, as I do in more formal posts, to explain how I frame my words and reactions. And while I think, in light of current events, that these raw emotional reactions are important and….valid (for lack of a better word), I do have the responsibility to give you context for my ideological/philosophical starting point.

Basically, my personal views on bureaucracies are shaped by a fusion of Foucault and Arendt. I see them, in the context of authoritarianism, as institutions which inherently erase the agency and intentions of those individuals working within them, and supercede that individual agency to push the goals of the regime.

It’s kind of like when you see people join the police force with amazing intentions and see them either: a. Become complacent and accept corruption and abuse as a necessary evil; b. face retaliation and end up in a position where they have no power to impact anything; or c. Leave the force. Because the institution crushes the individual.

At least, that’s my theoretical model.

So I don’t think all IRS staffers are evil collaborationists. Fuck no. And it want not fair of me to post material directly implicating those present staffer. But I do think that if the USA continues down its current path, most of those workers will end up doing the banal desk work which facilitates evil. That’s an important distinction, and next time I’ll be much more mindful of that.

Anyway, a lot to chew on (for me, at least)

A whole-ass bureaucracy just going along with it and handing over data to the regime = the banality of evil. This is what Hannah Arendt was talking about. It’s not Donald Trump spluttering on stage; it’s not Elon Musk throwing a temper tantrum; it’s bureaucracies full of random individuals just going along with it without asking questions.

Just following orders.

[presidentkamala]

More cancellable thoughts incoming while we wait for our turn at this SSA office

Ok so the AOC/Bernie online gas machine is starting up in a big way

Bernie has repeatedly demonstrated that he will chase after what we all have decided is the "white working class" demo (thor voice but is it though dot gif) like ok at least its white. And male! Largely.

I can't wait to be lectured to about how we need to tone down the "idpol" (read: civil rights) and i just need to suck it up in order to defeat the fascists FROM THE SAME PEOPLE WHO CALLED ME ZIONIST SCUM AND REFUSED TO LOOK OUT FOR ANY PART OF THE COALITION for daring to point out that Kamala Harris is the best choice for president. lol.

That being said, do I want to see where this goes? Yes.

Do I want Dems to fall for the same mistakes (thinking that Bernie can lead these guys into the greater democratic tent without immediately pushing out black women and jewish voters) NO!!!! when will we learn!!!!

If Bernie and AOC for that matter want to make meaningful strides in the next few months they NEED to start making a powerful case for not just class war but also anti corruption, pro-democracy measures by strengthening our badly damaged institutions and reaffirming the centrality of civil rights to our society. Which is an anathema to the people most responsive to Bernie's Current Thing. Lol.

Hasan Piker needs to go away. I would love to go to his big beautiful 3.6 million dollar LA house and make him answer for literaly ANYTHING he's said for the past 8 years.

I DO THINK THAT we have to move past idpol in the sense of like. What factors largely define voting blocks like ~racial depolarization~ Its just that when THESE guys talk abt idpol it means Civil Rights specifically. Like wow silly me im just a hysterical identity politics pilled SJW for not wanting to bleed to death on the operating table while medical professionals twiddle their thumbs next to my body. For Instance.

BOOMERS and GEN X are coming thru rn in a way that GenZ just isnt capable of so i like stand by what i said earlier in terms of making sure they get catered to messaging wise first.

GenZ men......i would LOVE to test some messaging on them like im so fascinated. They are so hyper reactionary i think we can outcrazy them back to normal. What if i paid some creatine addicted gym rats to start waxing poetic about how Real Men need to think long term and be Strong In Silence and also social media is for beta cucks etc.

GenZ women on the other hand. I am slapping your face and then clutching your shoulders. You DO in fact. Want your own income. And your own bank account.

[thislovintime]

Peter with his dorm mates (from the fourth floor of Burton Hall), Carleton College, 1963; photo courtesy of the Carleton College Archives. Pictured with Peter are, according to the yearbook caption: (second row) P. Cook, H. Bluhm, P. Schwartz, (first row) R: Crider, F. Bara, J. Keenan, W. Pope, I. Johnson (in front) J. Johnsen.

“Funny about that name. You’d never think that there could be two Peter Thorkelsons in any one place at the same time. But there were actually two Peter Thorkelsons in my freshman class. The only difference was their middle initials and the fact that Peter pronounced the first part of his name ‘TORK’ while the other pronounced his ‘Thork.’ Peter usually used his middle initial to keep their identities separate.” - Steve Pope, Flip, October 1967 “As a matter of fact, the interesting thing is that it [Tork] came about because in my Greenwich Village days, I was wearing my father’s high school sweatshirt and it said ‘Tork’ on the back of it because it was his nickname. [Thorkelson] got shortened that way, and for a long time, I wasn’t even Peter Tork, I was just Tork. And some of my friends from back then still just call me Tork as though it were my first name, which is kind of funny.” - Peter Tork, DGB, February 12, 2006 “About the only place where Peter didn’t take his banjo was class, when he went to class. When he did attend classes, he usually went barefooted. All the teachers and professors thought that he was tremendously intelligent, but they would get mad at him because he wouldn’t study. He’d get ‘A’s’ on all his papers, and then ruin all his brilliance by not studying for the final.” - Steve Pope, Flip, October 1967 “While at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., [Bob] Middleton’s roommate was future rock star Peter Tork, who taught him to play the guitar. [Subsequently, in Greenwich Village] Middleton played with Tork and with Peter, Paul and Mary, and briefly with Joan Baez.” - Ellwood City Ledger, July 3, 2019 “[Peter] does not like school. He said: ‘Look at it this way. Schools — public, private and colleges — are strictly vocational institutions. Yeah, you got to have degrees if you want to get somewhere. ‘If you want to think, you do that someplace else. There is no compulsion for schools to teach knowledge. They do not teach wisdom. They do not teach people how to think.’” - Winston-Salem Journal, December 1966 “I studied, but I kept going off on tangents, particularly in my favorite subject, educational psychology. I was interested in so many aspects of it that I couldn’t organize myself. I failed, but I don’t regret it at all. I learned more from educational psychology class than anything else I ever took. I’m sure if I ever teach, it will have helped me a great deal.” - Peter Tork, Seventeen, August 1967 “I wanted desperately to learn, but I was too interested and I kept drifting off into daydreams. Some of the teachers understood, but they couldn’t save me from being thrown out. Grades are the thing. Education is being made as full as a cold fish.” - Peter Tork, Fabulous 208, January 1968 “During his final term [at Carleton], Tork was fascinated by an educational psychology course. ‘I’d be assigned one chapter of a book and I’d read the whole book and skip all of the other assignments,’ he recalls. ‘I was really disorganized — absolutely incapable of doing what was wanted of me.’” - Carletonian, November 1982

[ghost-bxrd]

I read the ask about dimensional travel in owl song before the preview post showed up in my feed. I also happened to be standing in the security line at the airport at the time. I was all like wtf wtf wtf WTF, frantically scrolling through tumblr, while the poor TSA agent was all, ‘Ma’am I need to scan your boarding pass’ and in my head I was like ‘I have more important things to worry about!!!’ Luckily I chose not to create an international incident and surrendered my phone so they could scan my boarding pass. It was a close call though.

✨🦉🎶✨

Lmaoooooo, yeah that pesky security always wanting your phone right? 😭 hehe no really tho this made me grin like a little kid presented with a cupcake. I love to see that people enjoy Owl Song as much as I do writing it 💚💚💚💚🦉

[nintendont2502]

got up to MAG 53. so many thoughts already

i love paranoid jon. love him and his stupid fucking supplementals and tapes hidden under the floorboards and the way hes so insanely suspicious of everyone that he thinks his boss is up to something when he (reasonably enough) tells him to stop following people home. incredible. no ones doing it like him. im still fully on team 'jons going to snap and try to kill someone/potentially himself' bc wow hes not doing much to convince me otherwise

MICHAEL !! MICHAEL APPEARANCE!! MICHAEL VOICE REVEAL!! MICHAEL BEING A THREATENING FUCKASS. MICHAEL STABBING PEOPLE

love that guy. what is its fucking DEAL

"i am not a who, archivist. I am a what." incredible

^ ALSO. calling jon "Archivist". i was so fucking right when i said its a far more important title than just a regular job. thats your identity now jonny boy have fun with that

also also. "the loss of this place wouldve unbalanced the struggle too early" cool! great! what the fuck does that mean!!

basira is great. tim thinking her and jon are together has peak me and my also closeted gay friends in highschool energy

jon admitting out loud that he believes a statement is true. ough

why are there so many michaels. michael spiral yaoi hands my beloved. mike crew lookin for leitners. michael salesa who i am endlessly fascinated by. the fuck is he up to

i still dont know how to feel about the institute. i still dont trust it.

cant help but draw connections between leitner's books and the archive's statements,,, someone mentioning that ever since leitners books have been released to the market, rare book dealers keep disappearing or dying (presumably because they own them). a statement giver owning one briefly and clearly being mentally affected (constant vertigo. an almost manic impulse to chase down someone who stole "his" book to get it back). i cant tell if they contain knowledge that outside forces dont want people to know about or if the books themselves dont want people to know whats inside but either way theres clearly something malevolent and harmful going on there.... so how the FUCK can gerard keay and mike crew and jurgen fucking leitner own so many of them and be. alive (because theres no way these freaks are mentally fine). how can LEITNER own that many for YEARS. what th efuck

anyway. the leitner -> tape connection. Archivists are clearly in danger by just reading/recording statements. jon mentions feeling like hes being watched when he just *reads* them. prentiss directly targeted him and the statements in her attack. something out there clearly doesnt want this shit archived and that fascinates me

and. the main thing. the thing i cant stop thinking about

theres,,, categories. very clear very distinct categories that all the statements seem to fall under - and a hell of a lot of those categories seem to have an associated paranormal/otherwordly figure to go along with them? (obviously not all of them so far but im fully expecting more to show up as this progresses) i cant fully figure out what the relationship between the two is (do the figures manifest their respective categories? are the figures created *from* the manifestations of their categories? do they get power from them or do they fuel them? augh). the concrete ones ive managed to figure out so far (with a huge asterisk because im very much aware that theres still 150 episodes left to prove me wrong and i have an insanely limited sample size atm) are:

worms. bugs. potentially rot/decay/meat(??? huge asterisk on this one). obviously prentiss aligned but,,, idk. im honestly leaning more towards the *worms* being the figurehead for this one bc like. jane was a real human person yk. before she got wormed she just... existed normally. in my mind its less jane prentiss as the manifestation of the rot/decay category/fear/whatever and more her just being... a vessel for it, i guess

spirals, hallways, rooms that shouldnt exist. michael yaoi hands

uncanny valley/fake people/people acting unnaturally/wrong. no figurehead so far, but definitely has something to do with circus of the other/whatever the fuck not!sasha is. im not sure whether to categorise statements like the boatswains call (where its real normal people who are just,,, compelled by some outside force to act unnaturally) under this category, but its all i got so far so. shrugs

webs/maybe spiders. feels very archive aligned so far - webs in the tunnels. webs on the tape recorder. webs around gertrudes body. someone describing the archive itself as a web thats captured all of them in MAG 39. feels very much like. the unknown. mysteries. something greater than you that youre trapped within. table that makes you dissociate has a web design. the lighter jon was given from that one statement is described as having a web design. i dont know what to make of that. no figurehead so far

"the vast"? sky too big. sea too big. potentially buildings/rooms too big. insanely linked to ex altoria (or however you spell it. fuck ass leitner book) - the description of the huge creature coming to destroy something that just keeps getting closer and closer and becoming larger and larger until its incomprehensibly huge and *still growing*. that literally manifesting in that one diver statement where she sees the unknowably huge thing (within a section of ocean thats impossibly large and deep when it physically shouldnt be). the sky eating people. anything thats bigger than it should be, almost impossibly so. the lightning figure in MAG 46 (and by extension mike crew) feels incredibly connected to this one (the figure being driven away (??) by ex altoria which is clearly a manifestation/documentation/??? of this particular category) but i cant tell if thats because its the figurehead for it or if its related to something else that hates the vast (like. pokemon type matchup style yk /hj)

darkness. manifests as rooms too dark for any light to get into, lights going out, potentially eyes being clawed out/missing/generally being blind. figurehead feels like it could be that shadow demon thing that robert montauk was killing people to defeat (? somehow) and was later killed by. associations with that cult from the same episode that has the closed eye symbol + the cult that someones girlfriends roommate joined

fire. a lot of fire. a lot of things heating up unnaturally and without any specific cause, a lot of mysterious rituals with scorch marks and burnt animals, that fucking lighter. also a lot of fire destroying other manifestations of other categories/fears which is interesting. im not sure what to make of this one yet. i feel like theres a leitner involved somehow but i cant remember so take that one with a grain of salt

i dont know if this is along the same lines as the rest of these, but. theres something with archives. something watching them. MAG 53 all but confirmed that for me - the alexandria archive having that same feeling of being watched that jon feels (and gertrude, from what i could tell by her reaction). fuck, the soldier outright saying that the feeling in the magnus archives is the same feeling he got in the alexandria archive. im assuming he got that feeling because he was the only living thing in the alexandria archive and tried to read something in there, making him an Archivist by proxy? only explanation i can come up with for why he feels the watching feeling and no other statement giver or institute staff does (unless they do and havent mentioned it). no associations yet (maybe that long fingered one eyed thing in the alexandria archive, but,,,, eh. idk. i get the feeling this thing wouldnt manifest physically), feels very archive specific. feels very Archivist specific. i really want someone who isnt an Archivist to try reading/recording a statement (that isnt their own) to see if they get the same feeling. the watcherr

and then a few loose ones that im not really confident defining as set categories but. theyre something:

theres a lot of tunnels. a weird amount of tunnels. a weird amount of tunnels consistently described as feeling both disturbingly natural and disturbingly manmade. id say this has something to do with robert smirke (since iirc he was definitely linked to the ones under the leitner bulding and *maybe* had something to do with the ones under the magnus institute?) or his apprentice, but - the ones in alexandria.... unless those were made by someone using the same paranormal methods he was. much to think about. if i had to align them under a preexisting category itd probably be michaels but..... idk. it doesnt really seem to fit.

theres something with meat. im tempted to just consider it an offshoot or the rot/bugs/decay/prentiss category but. hm. idk. theres been a few statements that are solely focused on meat. no rot no decay. jon even says something about "its description puts me in the mind of some more... meaty statements" which is. yeah. it implies im on the right track with considering meat as something seperate to rot and decay but. hm. idk

weird mind shit/unreality feels like something? thats definitely been a running theme (vase that gaslights you. guy with the prophetic death dreams) but also < not really much evidence for it so far. feels too vague. temporary placeholder category until i can fully narrow down what the fuck its deal is

finished season one of tma last night ! just gonna dump my thoughts here before i start season two (so i can come back and see how wrong i was lmao)

jon's va is a PHENOMENAL actor, holy shit. like dont get me wrong theyre all amazing, but oh my GOD

speaking of, while im sure the out of universe reasoning for jon putting his entire archivussy into the statements is just bc it makes them more interesting to listen to, i still personally choose to believe that the institute purely hired him for his voice acting skills

theres something.... interesting with jons role that i cant stop thinking about. jane prentiss only referring to him as "archivist". the transcripts (or at least, the ones im using) only referring to him as "archivist". his first impulse being to grab the tape recorder during jane's attack and record the entire thing. the title of archivist is kinda beginning to feel more like... a mask i guess? something that takes over and kinda overshadows your old identity. youre not jon, youre not gertrude - youre just "archivist"

(also something about martin being forced to move into the archives (almost becoming part of the archives) and sasha literally having her identity subsumed and stolen by. whatever the fuck not!sasha is. both of those occurrences only happening because they were acting on behalf of the institute. kinda noticing a trend of identities being lost or stolen or changed because of (and maybe by) the institute, but that could just be a "i connected two dots" "you didnt connect shit" moment yk)

i fully believe the role of archivist is cursed. like one hundred percent. theres something up with that shit and theres no way in hell theyre being paid enough to make up for it

tbf theres no way in hell anyone heres being paid enough to make up for the bullshit they go through. id say they should quit but,,, i dont think they can

except maybe martin. please martin. go live a normal life and write your poetry and stop needing to corkscrew worms out of yourself

"i refuse to become another goddamn mystery" :((

i dont trust the institute. at all. i think at best theyre just a shitty workplace willing to turn a blind eye to some things for the good of their research, and at worst theyre actively hiding something or lying about what they are. theres just been. so many small details that rub me the wrong way yk - the archive team not being allowed to research cases that involve the lukas family in case they pull funding, sasha mentioning research students testing artefacts, the way MAG 37/Burnt Offering starts with jason begging the institute to save his son before acknowledging that theyll never do anything (makes me wonder how many statements they read and dismiss. how many statements they never read. how many people have died because of them?) - and i mean fuck just the general regard for employee health and safety seems to be non existent. also. yk. someone in the building probably murdering gertrude. thats a big thing

worms and rot and decay in the walls and a dead body in the basement. i dont trust them at all

this is definitely just me picking up what the episode was clearly laying out but holy shit gertrudes death feels *wrong*. all this build up, all the signs pointing towards it being something supernatural (the archive being filled with veins (?) in The Dreamers, the ritual site filled with photos of her in Burnt Offering, jane directly threatening the archivist in her statement (which wouldve been gertrude at the time if im not mistaken)) and then its just?? a gun?? and no one finds her body for a year???

that being said the mental image of jane and her merry band of worms sneaking into the archive just to shoot gertrude with a Regular Ass Gun is fucking hilarious

the only episode that really got to me was A Sturdy Lock, and i think that was just bc i got unlucky enough to listen to it on the one night i was home alone. woke up at 4 am, stared at my doorknob for a few minutes and forced myself to go back to sleep

favourite statement is probably a tie between The Dreamers (i love how perfectly it captured the distorted, off, slightly... disturbing vibes i get in my dreams, and as someone who was really vivid really weird dreams - it hit close to home) and Hive (bc holy SHIT jons acting in this was insane. jesus christ. the writing was incredible too holy fuck)

favourite *episode* is Infestation, just bc im a sucker for hearing Jon out of character (for lack of a better term - its fuckin *weird* hearing him emote. i love it) and i love getting more of the other archive staff (especially martin. martin my beloved martin my light more martin forever please and thank you). also jon admitting that he does believe most of the statements and hes fucking terrified of them hits like a truck when youve been making "jon doesnt believe something - take a shot" jokes for the last 38 episodes like i was

jons such a bitch /aff i love him. pathetic wet cat of a man

i fully expect him to try and kill someone next season. potentially himself. hopefully not martin

leitner and your fuck ass books when I Fucking Get You

where is sasha. where is my girl. give her back.

mahtiin :(((

[rexonalapis]

it is very telling that average genshin players cannot comprehend seeing an actual mature, qualified leader that is actually good at taking her job seriously after meeting archons who either is still childish, clowning whimsically, or straight up incompetent.

[pmpknsoup]

i actually am a defender of georgie and melanie and basira being mean or rude to jon bc that man really needed to be put in his place sometimes. like i understand that they were also wrong sometimes— basira is hypocritical and the other two could be nastier than necessary, but i literally cannot blame them at all. jon was so out of line sometimes

[cookinguptales]

I was trying to learn more about Japan's parapsychology craze in the 80s and 90s and was having a surprisingly difficult time finding good sources on Google. So I kept trying different search terms and finally this comes up

cia??? freedom of information act???

Anyway!! I clicked on it and the page is "down for maintenance" and I have never been more consumed with curiosity lmao.

I had no idea that Google would search through FOIA documents...

[mantictiger]

I'm fascinated by Gwendolyn Bouchard for a multitude of reasons (love me a girlfailure) but what I'm the most curious about is why she's so hellbent on having Lena's position at the OIAR. It's been established that the Bouchards are a very well-off family (I can't remember if thats tmagp-specific lore or if that was mentioned in tma as well) so it's not like Gwen needs the job, especially a job that doesn't seem very glamorous. She seems incredibly dedicated to it though (her being so insistent with specific filing of cases in episode 1 I believe? is what piqued my interest) and is so insistent on climbing a corporate ladder that only seems to lead to Lena's position for no real reason. I get the OIAR is a part of the UK government and that could look good if she's trying to get higher-up positions, but the OIAR is certainly far from a respected or well-known organization (as far as I am aware) so I'm not really sure what her goal is here, and I really hope we find out

[lesbian-space-fish]

If you are for whatever reason (money) deciding to make a dexter cinematic universe™️ why would you not make a show about brian?? Girl he’s right there

[dilfssi]

on the haunting of fc barcelona

[basiliomagnus]

Hi, can you do a full-body pic of State Army General

https://www.tumblr.com/brobluebears/776609847324082176/are-there-any-fanartists-for-metaphor-refantazio?source=share

im not doing all that for a full body but sometimes you wake up to an ask at 3 am and go what the hell. sure

[whentherewerebicycles]

man oh man i have so many thoughts about how insistently (and i think kind of blindly/uncritically) my university pushes us to frame absolutely every type of learning experience we offer to students in the language of "career readiness" and "career-connected learning" and "professional development." i totally get that we have a large first-gen student population who are making a big investment of time & money in a college degree and who want to be sure that doing so will grant them access to greater socioeconomic mobility. and i DO think it is important for us to think about like, ok, long-term, what comes after these experiences or after this four years in college, and what can we be doing to set students up for success as they transition out of college and into the rest of their lives. but like. idk man. i find it really bleak sometimes. just this relentless messaging that the only thing that matters in your adult life is how competitive you are on the job market. and i also think it pushes us to just like, kind of warp or distort the things we are offering students to make them fit under that rubric, or that particular framework for valuing things? like if we want to convince a student to study abroad we can't be like, living abroad is one of the most amazing things you can do. it's so fun/scary/exhilarating/awesome and it will expand your horizons in ways you can't even anticipate and it will expose you to different ways of seeing the world and you will get to interact with people whose perspectives have been shaped by totally different cultures & contexts and it will help you become more independent and more confident in your ability to handle unfamiliar situations and it will give you stories you will remember all your life and you will build strong friendships with the people you meet and you will take cool pictures or buy little knickknacks that remind you of those experiences in your daily life forever and it will motivate you to travel more and when/if you have kids of your own you will probably make it a priority to travel with them if you can or to encourage them to study abroad when they're older because you know how amazing that experience is and you want them to have access to those kinds of life-changing opportunities. like instead of saying any of that we have to say oh this will develop your skills in time management and project management and professional communication with your supervisors and it will give you something impressive to talk about on your resume or in job interviews and blah blah blah. or even if you use a more capacious definition of career readiness that focuses more on habits of mind (like, in the workplace you will sometimes have to navigate complex situations where expectations are not fully clear! you will also likely have this experience living abroad!), it's still just like... idk man... i find it so reductive lol like yeah sure but "get a skill that applies to your job as a project manager or an IT professional or whatever" just feels so much... Less... than the more humanistic appeal to like, this will enrich your life in so many ways, and you will, through these experiences, just become an all-around more emotionally mature, confident, and interesting human being who has engaged in an experience that challenged you and helped you grow. but then i am all in on the humanities and humanism in general so maybe i am biased here and someone who wants to be a software engineer or whatever would be wholly unmoved by that kind of appeal. idk. anyway. it looks like our team is going to be subsumed into our career center in the next year or two so like. what can you really do except to inwardly say "wow i kinda hate this"

[the-magpie-archives]

The thing about blood is that once you've seen it you can never really get it out. It has a tendancy to linger, to drip into those places impossible to reach, a slow unnoticeable movement breaking its stagnation. Even if you think you've got all of it, chances are you haven't. The smell lingers, a sickly sweet fuzzy smell tinged with iron that somehow sticks in the back of your throat.

Imagine how much blood there was when Jared Hopworth attacked the institute. We know the boneturner is capable of removing bones with no blood at all but why would he when what he wants to cause is fear? He says that they undid the institute staff for parts, so I'd say they took a hell of a lot more than bones.

That's not to mention Melanie's attack with the knife, God knows how much blood Jared and his "perfect" friends had in their eldritch bodies, but if that knife hurt I'm willing to bet that blood was spilled. A lot of blood.

There's something uncanny about a place where something that awful's happened. Something in the foundations of the place. In a place with a history as messy as the institute I'm sure there was always something on the air, but that amount of bloodshed never really fades.

Even if you can't see or smell it I think there's something in the soul that knows it. Growing up there was a small park near where I lived, I always knew of it, walked past it, but never once had any desire to go near it. I don't know if I avoided it, but I never wanted to go into it. I found out a few years back that a girl died there. I won't go into detail but it was the kind of death that leaves that mark, and when I did eventually end up in that park the weight in the air was palpable.

I wonder if Jon could feel that sense of something when he came back to the institute after his coma. Does otherworldly sight stretch into the realms of the metaphysical? Could he see the residual fear of an entity so different to his own lingering in dark corners and clinging to his coworkers? Or could he simply sense it, that slight wrongness that would be so easy to attribute to being away for so long.

Jon didn't get a warm welcome, and perhaps he returned to a place that didn't even feel like the prison it'd been before. There's a comfort in the horrors we face daily, and even positive changes can make it feel even worse than it did before. The behaviour of his friends changed so much, and somehow so did the behaviour of his workplace.

It begs the question, is it better to know or to be oblivious? To be blind or to seek knowledge relentlessly? That feeling, that slight instinct that something happened here, there's something to know; how could one bear that after six months of knowing nothing real at all? Jon didn't know about the attack, and him knowing didn't help, but did he feel it? Was it there in that sea of knowledge the whole time but he couldn't bring himself to reach out and grasp it?

Because the thing with blood is that it lingers, and once you smell it, it never really goes away.

[attila-werther]

ngl the thing that was missing from leverage redemption for me was this undercurrent of seething hatred for these people they were up against, but they got it back with the oil rig arc. that is a pretty nifty shift of tone, I do admire a story that can pull you along and then abruptly shove you down a flight of stairs.

[badolmen]

Morbidly fascinated by the insight I have into the college republicans’ prayer priorities. Don’t get me wrong having a discord channel specifically for prayer requests is already an interesting social experiment sandbox (what do you consider worth asking others to pray for? what are you willing to share in that regard? how do you frame your desires versus your submission to the will of God?) but add in the fact that many of these Catholics are so far removed from the Church that they actively hold heresies? Captivating stuff.

For example, re: divestment protests from the Palestinian Coalition on campus. As shaken as I was I made a note to include in my prayer request an intention for those arrested as well as for the law enforcement who arrested them. This is an inherently neutral request at face value - my intentions for the arrested is unstated (charges dropped and recovery physically and emotionally from the police brutality they were subject to during the arrests) as are my intentions for the police (quit your job quit your job quit your job open your eyes see what you are doing be a better person please).

Contrast this with a CR’s prayer request in response to some graffiti criticizing the university’s refusal to divest found this morning focusing on a) the groundskeepers who have to clean up the paint but also…b) the ‘historic’ building itself? (The front door and stairs are concrete and particle board installed as early as the 80s if I had to guess. There was no structural damage, just graffiti.) They had no concern or intentions for the soul of the perpetrator. Just, absolutely enthralls me to peek inside their skulls and see white supremacy rattling around in there like a marble in a pinball machine. You really live like this?