#now with biblically accurate size difference

[hustlebonezzz]

I have a new BIG big girl job which means no time for anything with the exception of one thing... 🐻‍❄️💌🐍

Find me on Bsky

[walpu]

[Kicks down door. Gets in. Fixes the door. Sits down and puts this on the table]

Aventurine x Halovian!reader, your honor.

Halovians, stars and icons across the universe. Shrewd, charismatic, and few can peer past their mysterious and elegant smiles. Not to mention the radiating frequencies of their halo can convey the nature of their thoughts in the form of telepathy.

Tldr: Aventurine can't decipher what's on their mind for shit unless they convey so.

Such beauty, such grace, but they will be a lost finch like it's another Tuesday. Despite the common knowledge that Halovians are stars and icons across the universe, they're more... Free and out in the wild (no responsibility to serve The Family, travels the cosmos alone, etc etc) and is unafraid to convey their emotions in another way.

Their wings would brush his face for giggles. When agitated they'd plop their head on a table and flap their wings, tapping the table rapidly, same goes with happiness. Although shrewd, and won't let anyone sense their true feelings they'd cup his face and give him smooches. Asking how's his day? Anything new happening? They brought something and he might've like it because it reminded them of him.

Their heart would sing with joy and mourn with his sadness. What did he do to score an angel such as them?

(Hmmm, cheese-)

- 🪽

I'm a blind rat and at first I misread Halovian as Heliobus and was like huh okay it's something to think about actually 😭

I really like the idea, it was fun to write!

Aventurine x Halovian!reader

characters - Aventurine

notes - gn!reader, fluffy, a bit of a hurt/comfort, no beta

Okay first of all since Halovians quite literally can translate their thoughts and feelings to someone, not to mention how shrewd they are, I feel like Aven would have hard time relaxing around you at first. He is used to be the one who can see through people while hiding behind the nonchalant mask. And now not only he's the one being read like an open book, he also can't decipher you.

It's sort of a challenge for him at first. He learns to see even the smallest changes in the way you act, how your voice trembles ever so slightly, how your wings flap adorably when you experience intense emotions. He doesn't notice when he starts observing you not out of desire to protect himself but out of curiosity and then out of adoration.

Man he falls hard.

There's just something so precious to him how you never use your abilities against him. Yes it's a bare minimum but it's still something special to him okay.

He would absolutely adore your wings. Wouldn't touch them without your permission of course, but once he knows you're comfortable with this he always tries to caress them in some ways.

Would try to spread them carefully to admire them.

If you don't take offense in being compared to birds, he would give you some bird-relared nickname.

Someone on twitter pointed out that female Halovians have bigger wings but smaller hallows and it's the opposite for the male Halovians.

So he would pick a bird to nickname you after depending in the size of your wings lol

And if you think it would be some cute bird, then, well, you're not wrong, it's usually something endearing BUT he would NOT hesitate to call you his pigeon or pelican when he feels like teasing you.

While Aventurine never hides his origin and is, sadly, used to people's comments about him being an Avgin, it would still hit very differently when people would whisper about you, a Halovian, being with an Avgin. He usually doesn't say anything about it, just hiding behind his smile. Even if the mask cracks, showing obvious discomfort. Remember the face he made when Ratio brought up his origin? Yeah, this.

Please shut everyone up. Doesn't matter if you give them an unsettling biblically accurate angel looking ass smile and tell them to Be Quite or if you straight up tell them to stfu, just let Aven see that you are willing to defend him and your relationship.

Reassure him too. He will laugh softly and tell you that you worry too much, that he knows you love him, but he would still treasure your words.

Okay back to positive stuff, he would help you to groom your wings!!! Would learn all about it too. Please compliment his needy ass on his wing-grooming skills, he didn't sleep for the whole night trying to learn how to do it correctly.

Be ready for a lot of silly questions he asks just to pester you and get your attention.

"darling, my darling, and what would happen if you'd throw your hallow as a frisbee? would it come back?" "it's sharp enough to cut through rock, Aven". "ohhh, pretty but deadly, just how I like it~"

Adores it when you tickle his face with your wings, he always leans into the caress with the expression of a spoiled lapcat.

Would find it funny if you'd use your telepathy for silly things. Like he takes you to some business meeting with him or, on the country, you take him somewhere with you, and it's just boring as hell. So you sit there, smile mysteriously, all while telepathically whinig to Aventurine how this place sucks and how you hate all those people. It takes a lot for him not to laugh.

If you flap your wings during kisses then it's the end of him I fear.

[ozzgin]

I had another funny thought about our beloved whore of a reader…

Imagine there being a “Hall of Fame” located in a really important government building or something, that’s dedicated to her monster lovers. All the monsters that’ve successfully become her baby daddies are admitted to that special club. And there’s loads of memorabilia too. Like positive pregnancy tests (if those exist in the monster realm), soiled bedsheets that were fucked upon, etc.

It’s a place that monster visitors in the town, and out of town go to as a tourist attraction. After all, it’s a place that records a lot of important history. Potential monster baby daddies also go there to fantasize and seek out motivation for winning the next monster games. Gotta keep motivation when doing all those sets/reps of weighted hip thrust exercises in the gym 🤭

And something I’ve been wondering too, who is the mayor of the monster town? Is it the same monster who had tentacles and changed sizes in the original story post? Or is it a different guy? And how come the charms of reader don’t work on him? He immune?

-👘

I-

Perhaps it's my turn to look into the camera nervously. (I'm kidding anon, bless your creativity)

On the topic of Monstertown Mayor, I had a brief discussion with my partner about it (he likes to be involved) and he suggested an abstract, eternally burning existence similar to a biblically accurate angel. Because, see, who would believe him to be neutral or objective when dealing with Reader matters if he, himself, was shagging her behind the scenes? Some monsters have a physical form fit for mating, others less so.

But the Mayor, he's an amorphous, surreal blasphemy, a depthless sphere of darkness and blight with no beginning or end. Which, now that I think about it, makes the birthday scene even more hilarious. A spiraling dimension of eyes, sarcastically glancing at the cameraman every now and then, and conjuring some visible appendage to hold the coffee mug at his colossal office desk (no chair because he's just floating around). His speech is a foreign amalgamation of quantum vibrations, so they just added subtitles for everyone else at home.

[icycoldninja]

Me again 😭 I know you said you’re swamped right now so take however long as you need

Another request for the same fallen angel like last time, and ofc with Vergil but with more details??

So yk how they have their devil trigger forms, Angel has that too but in like a biblically accurate angel form and is so so much taller than Vergil.

Angel also has an unsettling vibes abt her, she didn’t do anything but it’s like when a creepy doll looking at you. This is how Angel looks at Vergil, with the neck bending, wide grin and everything 😂 like she wants to eat him but is just admiring him (in a creepy way)

And the last thing is that she can sew anything back together, literally anything. Like when Nero got his arm cut off again, she just sew it back to his body and it’s like it’s never been severed

Sorry I request a lot of things 😭🙏 take as long as u need

hey that's not creepy it's actually pretty cool. And don't worry about frequent requesting. Enjoy 💜

Vergil x Fem!Angel!Reader Angel Trigger headcannons

-When you first showed him your Angel Trigger, Vergil was quite surprised. Never in his life has he met a woman taller than him; (which makes sense cause the guy is a giant) having to look up at his girlfriend is a new experience indeed.

-Honestly, once he did look up at you, he wished he didn't. You remind him of a creepy haunted doll he might find in an old house's basement that wakes up at 3 AM and walks around trying to kill him.

-Those eyes of yours too...they're so unsettling.

-Vergil tries really hard not to show how much your strange appearance is creeping him out, and does this by reminding himself that under all the pointed teeth, oddly wide eyes and gruesome smile, you're still you, and you still love him...right?

-When he sees how your neck can bend in all these different angles, how your smile never seems to change, and how you're always staring at him, he wonders if perhaps you're sizing him up to see if you can eat him.

-That's not the case, though, the truth of the matter is, you're just admiring him in your own, weird way.

-He does kinda want to touch your wings, though, to see if the feathers are nice and soft.

-Upon seeing your amazing, miraculous sewing power, and how it can be used on limbs, Vergil is tempted to give Nero back his arm, but remembers he needs that arm because it's also the Yamato.

-Still, if he ever loses a limb in combat, (which is highly unlikely but there's still a chance) he knows who to call.

[sunrotdropbrain]

Biblically accurate Sundrop and Moondrop are actually only 6' tall... lol

Honestly I haven't been able to find anything concrete about their height but it's totally possible you're right

I've seen a variety of heights suggested from 7 feet to 10 feet

For now ig it's just up to the person how they determine their height. I definitely couldn't keep up with their height and size difference of like 10 feet lol

But I would love to see any biblically accurate proof of their height! /gen

[suppuration]

so... on vesility and fumbling to articulate the interstices of my kintype, gender, sex, disability, and abandon knows what else

tl;dr housekin jokes were not jokes

i do have to wonder how commonplace it is to have "inanimate object" as part of one's kin definition

over the years, i've resonated with statuesᵗᵃˡᵏᶦⁿᵍ ʰᵉᵃᵈˢ, structuresᵐᵉᵗʳᵒ ⁿᵒᶦˢᵉˢ, and houseplantsᵈᶦᵈⁿ'ᵗ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ᵗᵒ ʰᵘʳᵗ ᵗʰᵉᵐ. i often feel more like a placeⁿᵒ ᵉˢᵗᵉᵉᵐᵉᵈ ᵈᵉᵉᵈ ᶦˢ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉᵐᵒʳᵃᵗᵉᵈ ʰᵉʳᵉ than a person

i keep returning to thoughts most would consider object fetishism, i suppose is the best term for it. not quite object TF where the subject becomes an object, but rather a mundane fetishism of identifying as an object. (mundane, in the sense that it's everyday, that it's nonsexual, that it's not uniquely isolated to fantasies/daydreaming, etc.) i do have some degree of interest in the concept sexually, of things like object TF and furniture bondage, but they feel like distinctly different notions than what i'm trying to articulate through my kin/gen(der)/venn vesility

§ my current kintype is something of an eldritch, opalescent glass statue. capable of fluidity, but favoring inertia... and, where applicable, momentum. волосы еленыᶜᵒʳᶦᵘᵐ comes to mind. a psychologist recently described me as having a "stubborn gear shift [i.e. manual stick transmission]"... and, yeah. yeah. strong overlap between my disability, neurodivergence, and alterhumanity there.

§ i've experienced a wide array of phantom limb sensations since my teens, both the presence of extra-body limbs and the absence of those which are technically still attached to me. i can't quite define every single limb i think this body doesn't account for, but inversely, i resonate with the idea that i sometimes lose awareness/recognition of part or all of some limbs because i am at that moment mounted to (or even clipped into) a surface, and that surface cropped me. i felt the latter thing for a long time prior to ever seeing the illustration for it, but i feel like this magic card's art explains things quite well.ˣ in the painting, the merging was done for vengeance, but i typically view this aspect of myself as neutral

i just... frequently feel like i lack parts of myself altogether, and it's not like they've gone missing. it's simply that they were never there to begin with, or weren't supposed to be there at all?

§ this isn't to owe myself to any deprecation or pejorative, in referring to myself by it/its. i'm an object like your favorite shirt. a concept like a sunset witnessed from a parking lot. a place like comfort.

(i aspire to be, anyway.)

§ i consider some of my features similar to those typical of depictions of biblically accurate angels. however, i neither define my aspect as divine in any earthly sense, nor necessarily associated with any particular holiness. i've had people describe me in hagiographical conceit in the past, but i'm more of a relic or reliquaryᵇᵒʳⁿ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿ ʰᵉʳᵉ

§ i resonate strongly with many aspects of the conceit of baphomet. multiple kintypes and fursonas over the years have had caprinid features, and the goat is probably the animal i identify with most closely... (that, and rabbits. and jackalopes.) i only just tonight encountered the terms salmacian/aphrodisian, and it describes my sentiments quite succinctly, in that my transition goals are a blending of sex characteristics

my ideal bottom surgery doesn't look anything like a phallus, and most closely approximates nullo or negation. now that my facial hair has started to come in and my voice has deepened, my biggest source of anatomical dysphoria comes from having what i consider a small chest. i've extensively researched all my possible options for augmenting my breast size. i'm at a loss how to discuss this dysphoria with medical providers, in a way they'll understand that it's gender affirmative care.

unpleasant, then, for my most common repose to be comprised of little more than a bust

...bust. my gender is bust, isn't it

i lost my plot. i'm just... gonna hit send post and hope i'm entertaining

___________

occlupanids as included here:

talking heads: yeah i know just about every turn of this ergodic mess is steeped in fallout occultism. you're welcome to leave if you can

metro noises: i tonight encountered the term aldernic, which defines having or aspiring to have a form which deviates from societal norms. the coincidence sticks out to me strongly that 1. i resonate with fallout's metro sculptures, 2. this term aldernic as a means to describe my gender, 3. the fact i call the metromen in my fallout mall the aldermen.

didn't want to hurt them: vesica urentis

no esteemed deed is commemorated here: the atomic priesthood

corium: elephant-chan's upper biological shield

born again here: no longer just a false memory now

x art by tyler jacobson

[rosewatergrapefruit]

2027 Liam is performing at 1000 size venues for the be here now reunion tour (biblically accurate three hour long shows) (he loses his voice by the end of the first gig and each show becomes a karaoke sing along) (I step up to the mic and perform I got the fever) I feel like I was going to make a different point with this post and forgot it. Oh hey yeah Noel should sing I got the fever (he’s on his knees)

[thesoulesscollection]

do tell! I had an old, old, OLD AU of an angel charles so i'm soo down to listen to anyone's ideas for their own AU!

Here's some angel Charles lore I've got to share. Now I hope you all enjoy it and I'm always open to share more I've got for this. 

I do apologize for the wait here and if this is a messy ramble that may be confusing here but I really wanted to share as much as I can in the post. It's more about what makes up them as a whole then Charles themselves. 

So if anyone wants to know more don't hesitate as I would love to share all I've got about this lore.

So Charles isn't the only person of his kind. As there was once many others like himself that were called the Angelics. Many centuries prior, they were simply regular, everyday people who've been blessed with the gift by an all knowing, powerful deity 

The said entity that gifted them with such power is long been forgotten by now for many outside though in their culture, the entity was always celebrated as a good thing who'll protect them 

Apperance:

- They usually come in all shapes and sizes though more commonly there much taller, lithe with sharper features then the average human. But outliers of this do come about and are seen as just as equally desirable 

- Naturally born with thick/wavy curls, coming in colors such as white, gray, or black. Sometimes it can be two or tricolored 

- Unnaturally wide eyes that can see clearly in the night and glows quite radiantly. As well, if they have freckles, moles, scars, birthmarks and so on, they have the same competent to glow 

- Sharp, dagger like teeth that can peirce through nearly any surface with ease like a knife to butter. 

^ Often from the outside looking in beside what's stated above they do appear similair to humans but do have a higher, more power 'true' form. A form that I base off the more biblically accurate angels but it tends to scare people off and very few angelics can actually do this anyways so the form is rarely used 

Examples of the powers they're gifted with are; enlongated lifespan, quicker regenerative healing, as well, an higher endurance to pain, transformation, weather/nature control, aura projection, and a natual knack for magic (ie. Healing is most common but there's more out there).

They can unfortunately still get hurt and die. As they're not exempt from either or. As well can suffer from certain illness too critical for even them to heal from

When their blood is spilt, it has a clear, glowing hue to it that if it comes to contact with anyone, non-angel can be quite addictive 

^ Also, they're naturally born to be charismatic, friendly group willing to help people in need and the type that can draw anyone in from their peacefully calming aura. They have a lucky and easygoing streak to them

In game/canon characters I Hc as Angelics, full blooded are Charles & Cloudface with all the gifted abilities  

^ Nowadays there's people who are more distantly related to them without the natural borne powers then there are actual natural-born, first generation angels. 

Their overall biology is contrastingly different to humans yet almost similair. (Honestly I'm still figuring it all out myself in that one)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

More than two miles long and 1,142 feet tall, Uluru, the red sandstone rock formation in Australia’s Northern Territory, wows travelers during the day.

But now, a new night spectacle Wintjiri Wiru illuminates the darkness adjacent to the monolith in a way that reveals Indigenous culture while dazzling with high-tech sound and lights.

“Humans are drawn to light—just think of how compelling sunsets are,” says Melbourne light artist Bruce Ramus, who designed the work in collaboration with the local Anangu people and Voyages Indigenous Tourism.

Wintjiri Wiru is just the latest offering—and newest technology — in the tradition of son et lumière (sound and light) shows, grand public spectacles projected on to (or close to) historic buildings and natural wonders.

These mash-ups of pageantry, culture, and art are experiencing a boom fueled by digital advances and tourist sites looking to attract visitors after dark.

Here’s where to see the latest shows, plus why visitors love these “virtual campfires.”

How did sound and light shows start?

Paul Robert-Houdin created the first sound and light show in 1952 at France’s Château de Chambord.

Music and narration played while slide projectors splashed colored lights on the 16th-century palace.

“We had the feeling that a new way of discovering and understanding monumental heritage was perhaps being born,” one observer wrote in Le Figaro newspaper.

The concept was a hit.

“Standing in the dark and being immersed in sounds and images creates a sense of enchantment,” says Jane Lovell, a professor of tourism at Canterbury Christ Church University in England.

In the following decades, other storied sites harnessed that magic, such as the Red Fort in Delhi, India, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

“There were captive audiences for these attractions, so the efforts were minimal—just light up these beautiful things that already existed,” says California light show producer Ryan Miziker.

Early technology was expensive and bulky: sofa-sized slide carousels, finicky stereo speakers that malfunctioned in bad weather.

The storytelling, if mostly historically accurate, could be clunky and lecturing.

At Egypt’s Pyramids at Giza, the still-running circa-1961 show features the Sphinx “narrating” a lofty spiel about ancient life as murky colored lights wash over the monuments.

https://youtu.be/anLYLqMyK1I

How tech took over light shows

“Son et lumieres started out as pretty rudimentary things—a castle would be lit up and a soundtrack would say, ‘this tower was built in 1592,’” says Ross Ashton of London’s Projection Studio, which designs extravaganzas for attractions from Welsh castles to Indian fortresses.

But by the 1990s, innovations in video, lasers, and audio meant creators could screen riveting, mind-bending shows.

“Digital video changed everything,” says Miziker.

“We had software to do 3-D mapping, which takes a round object like a globe and flattens it, or wraps any structure in overlapping, blending geometry.”

Sound evolved, too.

“Bells, spoken voices from different directions, or a fireball rolling, you can layer sound up, so it feels like a tapestry,” says Projection Studio’s sound artist Karen Monid.

Today’s sound and light shows are like mini action movies screened on historic buildings or natural wonders.

San Antonio’s The Saga wraps the 18th-century San Fernando Cathedral in sound effects (mariachi ballads, cannon blasts) and painterly images (folk dancers, renderings of the Alamo) to tell the story of the Texas city.

In Jerusalem, Israel, the ancient Tower of David has two night shows, one on city history and the other about the biblical shepherd-turned-ruler that gave the site its name.

Wintjiri Wiru harnesses LED lights, lasers, sound, and 1,100 drones to recount a legend from the Anangu, who consider Uluru sacred.

The show depicts mala (wallaby-rabbit) beings battling a gigantic devil dog spirit.

“Combine light with sound—in this case Anangu songs and other effects—and it’s like the desert is speaking,” says Ramus.

Other projects are more abstract, such as the new Aura Invalides show at Les Invalides in Paris, which fills the grand interiors of the historic military monument with surreal rays of colored light and outlines architectural elements in laser graffiti.

“People move around within the building, making it more like a 360-degree immersion than something didactical,” says Manon McHugh, a spokesperson for Moment Factory, the studio that created the show.

Why travelers love spectacles

Experts think people are drawn to these shows for their sense of wonder and spectacle.

“Sound and light shows are like fireworks—it’s impossible to look away,” says Miziker.

"Since audiences are sitting in the dark, there’s cognitive dissonance, with the atmosphere almost becoming its own entity,” says Lovell.

https://youtu.be/FV3XdOda3zM

Plus, in this age of Instagram, sound and light spectacles make ideal selfie backdrops or video ops.

“When Moment Factory started doing shows, we didn’t want people to have their phones out,” says McHugh.

Now, other digital production studios build in elements like photo booths to encourage participants to share their experiences.

How sound and light shows help tourist sites

Sound and light shows can be expensive and time-consuming to design.

(Wintjiri Wiru was developed over several years and cost $10 million.)

But many tourist attractions and cities are willing to shell out.

“They produce new income streams,” says Ashton. “People normally go home at night, but if you sell them a ticket to an illumination, they’ll come back.”

Many sound and light experiences in public, urban spaces — outside cathedrals, on city halls, across skyscrapers — are free, but paid for by cities to give visitors an excuse to stay an extra night.

“We used to think of tourism as a daytime activity, but there has been this tourist-ification of the night,” says Andrew Smith, a professor of urban experiences at England’s University of Westminster.

“Now cities want to attract people and keep them in town. It’s a commodification of the night, a way to extend economic and cultural activity.”

Studies indicate that these shows might even make city downtowns feel safer. “It starts to dematerialize the buildings,” says Ramus.

“You just see the lights, and our cities become transparent. They feel gentler.”

[slaughterofangels]

For school i had to write three different art analyses. I then turned it into an essay. If you care to know about what inspires me and my art then this is for you!

For my analyses i chose "An UnPierced World" by Lizz Hamilton, "Droommeisje" by Manon Uphoff, and "Self" by Marc Quinn. I've attachted pictures of the works and the excerpt i mention.

Throughout the writing process of my gathering assignment's I've for sure made a big turn from where I started. Reading back my first analysis now, I cannot believe i managed to write so little about a piece I love so much. There is so much to say about the whole concept of giving a new skin to the dead, one could be trying to make it live again. Or perhaps wrap it up to bring it to piece as we should with a human body. Maybe we're try to highlight the beauty of death. There’ endless possibilities of the meaning and goal behind An Unpierced World and I feel my first writing did not do it justice. The concept of working with animal remains in art to me is a very hard practice, as I don’t want to disrespect the animal in way, shape or form. Hamilton is in my opinion an artist who holds these same values and treats the remains with respect. I feel this way because her work is also closely related to Catholicism and religion in general, this overlaps with her use of animal remains. An Unpierced World feels like a religious work to me. It’s a celebration for the animal’s life, but a funeral at the same time. It’s very powerful and almost glows to me, this double sided agony and beauty is like the artist’s religion.

 

I may not be religious but I find my personal work to have strong connotations with religion. My personal theory is that the feelings or message I want to portray are so powerful that I can only describe them as religious. I also have a huge fascination with angels, all their different shapes and sizes interest me. Especially the more unknown biblically accurate variations as these are often terrifying and almost indescribable. Not because we can’t imagine what they look like, but because I find it hard to imagine it existing in front of me as a living breathing thing. This feeling of a fleeting dream thing brings me to my second analysis.

 

I had not known about Droommeisje by Manon Uphoff before I first saw it in Stedelijk Museum a couple of weeks back. I chose it for my assignment because of a couple of things: the connection with insect pins holding up the painting, as I’m very into taxidermy. And the title, Droommeisje. As mentioned prior I’m very interested in the concept of dream things. One of my favourite book series’, the Raven Cycle and the Dreamer Trilogy include a character that can take objects out of his dreams. One chapter in particular, he tries to dream the essence of a dream. It results in something that cannot be looked at directly. It’s everything and nothing at once. It’s fascinated me every since reading it. I often find my dreams as inspiration for my art work, they have this certain atmosphere that is so indescribable to anyone else that I can only share it through visual art. My dreams feel so real sometimes, that I cannot separate them from reality. When I wake up I’m in-between dreaming and reality. That is a feeling I wish to capture in some of my work.

 

Lastly, we come to Self by Marc Quinn. In contrast of the others, this work doesn’t necessarily invoke strong feelings in me. I’m more intrigued by the material choice, and the continuation of the art work. The remaking every five years fascinated me. I’m very prone to obsessions. With music, art, books, colours, people, everything. I love to remake my old work and idea’s over and over again. Partly this is part of my autism, we are known to enjoy same-ness and routine, but Quinn also seemed to feel the explicit need to remake his work. On his website he says it’s to do with the passing of time. I find this interesting because that indicates change, in his face sure, but also in his self view and experiences. I really wonder how he changed as a person between the making of his works. Like I said before  I tend to rework the same idea’s in my art. It’s often about mental health. I’ve found that I’m stuck in this cycle of getting better where I simply have to meet the limits of what I can’t and cannot do. I constantly have the find these lines, it is a recurrent process that I can’t escape. I’ve gotten a little obsessed with this art wise, but it’s such a big theme in my life that I can't quite let it go. I’d like to share an excerpt of Richard Hugo’s “Essay of poetic theory: The Triggering Town"

My obsessions mark my work forever. What makes me obsessed is a good question, I have not figured that out yet. Perhaps another time.

 

Sources:

Hamilton, L.  Retrieved 17-12-2023 from https://lizzhamilton.com/home.html

[th3-bl00d-on-yr-hands-rom3o]

0, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 19, 22, 26, 29, 36, 44!!! for the ask game!!

-links

so basically all of them lol,

0: Height. 170 something centimetres. im actually not 100% sure.

2: Shoe size. US womens 7

6: Age you get mistaken for. like somewhere between 18 and 20. and people at resturants always try to serve me alcohol and then im like "hey buddy im a child" and theyre like "WHAT". one time someone thought me and my mum were sisters and im like no dude shes like 40 something and im her teenage daughter, we r not the same.

8: Want any tattoos? hell yeah (dont tell my parents or irl friends who are on here lol) one day i will get a bunch of tattoos and dissapoint my mother. possibly. (<- is deathly afraid of needles) (<- has never tried getting a tattoo but probably will not be able to sit still long enough while getting tattooed without throwing up) (we shall see tho cause needles in different settings are different levels of scary, sewing is fine and as you will see i have multiple piercings). Anyway, I want angel wings on my back i think that'd be pretty epic - and like a proper biblically accurate angel with 6 of them, and obviously i want the triforce on my hand, i want a six leaf clover somewhere, and "art is the weapon"(cause i think the statement is cool and meaningful not just cause mcr said it, although danger days is one of my favourite albums of all time), and a goldfish, and probably a venus flytrap, and a bunch of other random stuff. probably the lyric that's in the bio of this blog. but not tooooo many i dont want them all over, they need space to breathe and not look all squished up (<- studies art and appreciates the importance of composition and framing).

9: Got any piercings? I have a few. (<- guy who has 7 holes stabbed in his ears) (although the regular lobe piercings should really be counted in pairs as one piercing each) (which would make 5) only on my ears tho. I've got normal ear lobe piercings, and then second ear lobe piercings and ive got 2 helix piercings on one side and 1 on the other.

10: Want any piercings? Yes ehe. i will get more (: One day im gonna get an eyebrow piercing, and possibly a lip piercing. but right now my father will not let me ):

11: Best friend? this is a rlly hard question i have like 3 best friends. I dont really do one individual person bff i just have a few close friends

16: I’ll love you if… you talk to me about any of my interests

19: A fact about your personality. I talk a looooott

22: What I want to be when I get older. aaaaa i never know. (<- is very much in their "what will i do with my life" existential crisis era) I wanna do art but idk how to get a job in that and i really hate graphic design. id like to be a botanist plant science is cool. tbh i wanna like run a random really niche shop that sells something I like. or i wanna be in a band or actually get paid to just do my art, but that doesnt count as real career aspirations.

26: My biggest pet peeves. when people leave powerpoints switched on when theres nothing plugged in.

29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend. really boring but i lied to my friend about who i do/dont actually have a crush on. no one will ever know (except the one friend who does know)

44: A random fact about anything. Fancy goldfish have an average lifespan of 10-15 years, which is actually longer than a domestic cat.

[icarus-suraki]

ask game numbers if you please: 5, 7, 8, 21, 24, 29

5. favorite form of potato?

This is so hard because I love POTATOE.

But, if I have to choose: FRIED. French fries, hash browns, latkes, homefries, steak fries, potato chips, potato hash, those little coin-shaped potatoes that are basically sautéed

A close second are these marvelous little potato stacks that my mom makes at Christmas. Stack up the sliced potatoes (she uses a mandolin), brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and rosemary, and bake. They're so good!

Twice-baked potatoes can come along too but, much like baked potatoes, they're best as a platform for toppings.

(Fuck potatoes au gratin, though. I hate them.)

7. what animal do you look forward to seeing when you visit an aquarium?

Colorful fish are fun, algae-eaters are neat, turtles are really cool. But for me, probably the skates and rays. I especially like the aquariums that let you touch their backs as they glide by. They're like the hawks of the ocean. I'd think about how they'd just glide along when I'd swim in the neighborhood pool.

I went to the Baltimore aquarium with some friends when we went to Otakon a good 10+ years ago (Christ, I'm old) and that aquarium had the most amazing tank area for the rays. They were just...everywhere! They had acres of water to glide around in and ways for visitors to just about stand in the midst of all their tanks, or over their tanks, or alongside the tanks. I mean, you could get a view from every angle as they went by. We got there during a feeding time too, as I recall. But, yeah, there they were, all different sizes, just gliding through the water, like strange angels. Or maybe like biblically accurate angels?

8. do you change into specific clothes for the house when you get home?

Oh my gosh yes! I didn't some years ago but I started changing into either loose shorts or leggings (depending on weather) when I got home. I think it's mostly because I get tired of wearing real pants or jeans. Jeans will sometimes bother me to a weird degree, especially if I feel them behind my knees too much. I blame the ADHD/sensory stuff.

21. a number that weirds you out?

Ugh, probably one of those numbers that looks prime but is actually divisible by something.

I will say that 10am and 10pm never seem quite real to me. I don't know why. It just struck me as a kid in maybe 3rd or 4th grade that 10am didn't seem like a "real" time. It wasn't really morning and it wasn't really noontime. And 10pm didn't exist because I was asleep by then, unless it was a weird situation. I still feel like the 9s are valid and the 11s are valid, but 10 is this weird twilight zone whether AM or PM.

24. which do you find yourself using, american or british english?

'Murican, I'm afraid. Well, Southern US American, which is a unique dialect with a similar vowel triangle to British English, which is kind of cool. But, yeah, no: American English.

My brother has been living in the UK for a few years now and he sort of flips back and forth in spelling. His pronunciation is still definitely USAmerican but he sometimes has this British intonation to his speaking, especially in questions.

29. preferred pasta noodle?

Okay, cheese tortellini, definitely. Those are The Best according to me. But if filled pasta isn't allowed...

Giant shells are fun because, yeah, giant edible shell! And my mom would make (a probably non-Italian) manicotti in them sometimes which I love. Big ol' rigatoni are nicknamed "sewer pipes" in our family (long story) so they're a favorite because of the story. Creste di Gallo is kind of rare but is a neat shape (cascatelli is similar and also fun). There was a brand of pasta that made tiny, tiny stars and tiny, tiny letters that I ate as a kid that had a nice mouthfeel. Fettuccine can sometimes get extra al dente if two noodles stick together, and that's fun to bite on. Campanelle, cavatappi, farfalle, lanterne, radiatori, rotelle... All fun.

I like pasta with "weird" shapes--like extra twists or ripples or ruffles. Like, plain penne or elbows are fine, but I'm looking at the list of pasta on Wikipedia and I really want to try fiori and festoni now. 

Weirdly specific and unrelated asks...

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

Hello! I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfy but I was wondering if I could get a bit of advice? From your recent posts, you said you left your home from toxicity and just bad things in general.

I’m in a similar situation, but my dad will be taking me away from my mom. And I just know it’ll be a shit show. And I’m absolutely terrified when we tell her and what the backlash will be afterwards towards my brothers and me and dad in general

How did you do it? How did you take the leap? Do you possibly have any advice on how to deal ?

Hello, friend!! ☀️

Thank you so much for reaching out, it means a lot that you value my advice <3

Hmm, okay from what I can tell of your situation, that is indeed a tricky one, but nothing can’t be overcome!

It’s important to remember, though, I was 19 when I left (now 20), so the way I handled things is going to be a lot different than how a minor can handle things (legally at least, feel free to replicate my insane stunts lmao)

Advice below the cut! (family violence trigger warning, I suppose?)

My entire family was and is extremely volatile, and I don’t speak to any of them anymore except for my older brother, but I’ll be cutting him off in 3 weeks too when I move.

Fortunately, my dad and brother were both kicked out of the house years ago due to violence, which left me with my mother, who’s quite insidious herself (just watch any Conjuring movie and that’ll give a good idea of what it was like living in that house lol)

I get the same feeling watching this scene as when I was around her in that house. Granted she didn’t try to change my gender, but the hatred for my father getting taken out on me is pretty accurate lol, paired with the immediate “motherly love” afterwards (she never hit me though, pleased to say — she wasn’t physically violent, just emotionally, financially, mentally and verbally. She did try to run my dad over once though, so, there’s that too)

Yikes…yeahh the same eerie feeling for sure, still makes all my hairs stand upright in memory.

(For further context this clip reminds me of my father and this one of my brother)

In the clip about my father, he definitely reminds me of Frank Gallagher, except he despises my mother instead of revering her. He’s a workaholic instead of a drug addict, too. But the mannerisms are the same. I always handled him in the way Fiona does.

Regarding my brother, I think everything about our family hit him the hardest, despite being the oldest. He developed a very violent streak, and has very poor impulse control. I love him dearly but he’s a snake in the grass, and has thrown me under the bus multiple times to get ahead in life. I mostly just pity him, since I know what our life was like growing up. But still, I can’t defend him forever, especially not at the cost of myself. Literally yesterday I woke up to a text from him asking me to come pick him up because he got arrested for starting a fight at a bar and smashing their windows.

When things started getting pretty bad with my mother earlier this year, I started to realise in my heart that there was no way I could go forth in life with her in it. I focused on the future relationships I would have one day when far away from this town — romantic partner, children, friends etc

I sort of realised one day I’d care about them a lot more than I care about my mother, because those future people would care about me. That in turn got me realising that I do deserve love, despite how my mother made me feel, and that I don’t want her to deprive another second of that in my life.

Something very unique that triggered this too was going to go visit an old family psychic, who’s basically just the Gandalf to my Frodo (ily, Chris <3). He very accurately predicted my birth years ago after my mother was told she was infertile — he got the date, year and time right three years in advance, and even knew ahead of time what my personality would be like, which he was spot-on about.

Well, I went and visited him a few months ago because I was lost with my direction, and he ended up pausing and had a sudden feeling, which led to him telling me that he’d just found out I would be having twin boys one day.

Normally I don’t buy into that stuff, but this Gandalf dude…well I knew he was right.

Knowing I’d have sons of my own one day took me from a scared daughter mindset and into a maternal mother bear in an instant, and I knew I didn’t want any children of mine around my mother or the rest of my family, for their safety alone, which made me realise, “Well, if I wouldn’t allow my own children near them, why do I allow myself?”

I started grey-rocking her in the lead-up to me leaving, which of course frustrated her (she’s a malignant narcissist), but it was a necessary step to start emotionally detaching myself from her.

It all bottled over one night after a pretty distressing argument (I had locked myself in my room to avoid it, but she was still at my door carrying on).

My cat, who’s been my best friend for years, was sitting on the floor next to me, and sort of looked up and I swear he spoke with his eyes, saying, “You know we can’t keep doing this, right? You know this abuse has an expiry date?”

I agreed with my cat and knew right then and there that I’d be leaving that night after my mother fell asleep.

Well, when she was finally done (with threats that there’d be more in stock in the morning, mind you) I went to bed early and set my alarm to 3am (was a little inside joke with myself, since that’s biblically the “witching devil hour”)

I started quietly packing my quilt and cat up (I’d already been secretly packing the boot of my car up with all sentimental and important items weeks in advance, except she caught on and took all my baby albums and more to her boyfriend’s house, so I don’t have any baby photos or information on me when I was a baby anymore, like first words, size and just general things I’d have liked to compare to my own kids one day, rip)

Once that was all in my car, I quietly said goodbye to the old family dog and cat (they weren’t mine to take, not that I could’ve anyways, since it was troubling enough taking Buddy, who’s actually my pet and not the family one). That was pretty heartbreaking, as I knew that’d be the last time I’d see them (I grew up with them and was the only one who took care of them — mother neglects kids and pets alike lmao).

Once that was over, I looked around my house with my hand on the front door and was very melancholy, but knew Buddy was right: it had all reached its expiry date.

I left very quietly and drove to McDonalds for a coffee, as I had a long drive ahead (I had organised to be a nanny in this rich family’s house far away in the city — two hours drive). Luckily they were away on their country farm 4 hours away, so I had time to sneak Buddy in.

The nanny thing recently backfired horribly because they discovered Buddy, which led to more AM escapes with my car, but I’m staying with my older brother and his gf for 3 more weeks only. Something I’ve been working towards for months now is moving to a wilderness island to live in my country’s equivalent of Bag End — a beautiful country cottage, amazing job and fantastic study opportunities.

Best feature yet: it’s 60 hours away from my hometown by car, and then you’d have to take a boat for 10 more hours!! They shall never find me hahaha

One of my friends has also told me recently that my mother has started spreading horrible, defamatory rumours about me around town, but I don’t care anymore because I’m almost out.

So, although I can’t offer any practical advice (idk if you’re a minor or not, but regardless it’s great your dad is helping you!) this is the best advice I can offer:

Find a dream and hold onto it, one that doesn’t involve your immediate family. For me it’s moving to that island and enjoying all the fresh air. It’ll push you forwards and remind you of what you’re fighting for when at your lowest.

Remind yourself there will be other people in your life, whether a spouse, friends, children or even a dog! (I’m getting a golden retriever next year 🐾) And then remember that you deserve all of them and the unconditional love they offer you.

Remember that if you don’t want your mother/family screwing those people over by proxy of her/their relationship to you, then there’s no way in hell you alone should put up with it either, as I guarantee those future people only want good things for you ☀️

There is a good life after abuse, I’ve seen it, and I know you can achieve it, too!

Be prepared for tons of backlash and bullshit — it’s inescapable when dealing with people like this, but I recommend educating yourself on narcissistic parents and tactics to deal with them.

Finding a good therapist who deals in PTSD regarding childhood abuse is important, too. I found an amazing one in the town I’m moving to, who had nearly the same upbringing as me!

So while I’m still struggling with a lot of fear (scared my mother will find where I’m working and living one day) and guilt (I feel horrible about leaving the family dog and cat behind, especially when they need veterinary help, only to then go and get myself another puppy) I understand I’ve done the best I can in a very abnormal situation, and that I can only do better from here.

Also, this song has been a saving grace when going all angsty over wanting to leave your current situation:

It’s from my favourite Broadway Musical, “Newsies”, and lemme tell you — discovering this as a 17-year-old when I was just starting to realise the severity of my situation was pure divinity.

Jeremy Jordan, my beloved Broadway Bard <3

When I finally get my cottage, I’m getting a wooden plaque with the name “Santa Fe” engraved on it, and am hanging it on my front door.

I wish you much luck and love, my little anonymous friend! And please know my inbox is open any time you need anything — vent, advice, a laugh or something else, ANYTHING, it feels good to know my past can maybe help someone else’s present ☀️

Please update me, too! I’m following your story along ardently now! (Also, be sure to take your sentimental items and store them somewhere safe away from your mother — ie baby albums, birth certificates, other paraphernalia/memorabilia etc).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must hit the road. DESTINY AWAITS!

[thejudgingtrash]

Dodecahedron for the fanfic asks!!! (Jk, jk, not really. Actual word is, um, strawberries!! Cause why not!)

Oooh! Good one!

The Chosen One

“Where am I?” murmured Percy. The drugs, the calmative… whatever it was it slowly wore off. Percy felt that he wasn’t standing, neither was he laying. There was no hard matter underneath his Converse shoes. He was… floating? It felt like swimming in his father’s domain only that there was no water, no sea, no ocean and certainly not anything that tied itself to his father.

What Percy saw in front of him was the vast openness of space. Millions and millions of dots sparkled in the pitch-black darkness surrounding him, giving him some source of light. Dozens of orbs were floating in the background, circling around a larger yellow one at an unseen speed. Our galaxy? Percy thought sluggishly. Whatever he had in his drink; it still wore an effect.

Percy felt how an invisible force turned him around as if he were a grumpy toddler. His head was held high by a power that wasn’t he. Contours and shapes formed themselves in front of the student, but only barely. A shoulder or was it the chin? Was it a cheek or was it a knee?

“Perseus Jackson,” said the being. No skin color, no hair color, nothing. Percy’s mind was unable to process the fast information that was brought forward to him. His thoughts were the ones of a mere mortal, not that any immortal being would have been in a better position.

A large pair of eyes formed and opened themselves in front of him in the nothingness. Eyes as large as the moon and its craters. They blinked slowly but it felt forced. As if the being was mimicking and acting. Percy had the feeling they didn’t had to pretend to be a human or demigod like, but they did it anyway just for the sake of being polite. They weren’t human. They were as far away from being human as the dead that had withered away millennia ago.

Red, blue, violet and golden swirls functioned as the iris. Eyelashes as large as Jupiter’s ring gave them a more human look. A gaze as warm as Mercury rested in the large orbs. Then another pair of eyes opened themselves above. A fifth larger eye on top opened and blinked synchronized with the other four. Percy froze with fear. All five eyes were on him. They all eyed him from a different angle, one eye was more curious, the other rather bored, another one had a stare as cold as Athena’s, another one was neutral.

A mouth appeared from thin air. The shifting lips were pulled into a grin although it resembled more the frightening smear of a clown. Teeth in all shapes in sizes came forward. They shone as bright as ten yellow suns. The young man squinted.

“Who are you?” asked Percy. A redundant question. He didn’t have a haunch – he knew who the being in front of him was. What the son of Poseidon did not know was what they wanted from him.

The young demigod felt a ground underneath him now. For a brief second Percy looked to his now floor. A golden path was drawn in front of him and behind him. It took a few seconds for him to understand that he was standing on one crease of the large shape of a hand.

Instinctively the demigod reached into his pocket only to find his sword missing. The being in front of him laughed, as if it knew what Percy’s ever thoughts were. The mouth never moved. The grin was still there. A multitude of sounds echoed from the new voice in Percy’s head. Their voice was filled with the grim of a soldier, the love of a mother, the sigh of an elder and the laugh of a child.

A scent crawled into the nose of the college student. The vastness of space smell like rust and burned matter but the endlessness of the being had a different odor. The sweetness of a ripe strawberry, the bitterness of coffee, the sourness of a lemon… It was an obtuse mix that didn’t make sense and didn’t corelate yet was it cohesive in its nature.

Percy’s heart stopped beating for a second. The frown on his mouth froze. Biblically accurate angels had nothing on them.

They were Chaos, the originator. Chaos, the life force. Chaos, mother and father alike. Chaos the first – the being before the Olympians, before the Titans, even before the Primordials.

Am I seriously writing Chaos fics in the year 2020? Well yes 👀

What else can I say? 😅🙆🏾‍♀️ Thanks for asking me!

Fanfiction Work-In-Progress Guessing Game

[imuybemovoko]

A profoundly bad childhood experience

I ...don’t have a whole lot of specific memories of my childhood. The things I do remember, I tend to lack good detail on. I think a good deal of this is because a lot of weird shit happened that I just don’t think about until something makes me think about it. A few months ago I was forced to think about some of the weird shit. I might be a bit lacking in specifics here, it’s been around 15 years since this happened and I don’t always have detailed memories from this period in my life, but I’ll do my best.

I’m writing a large document about my years of experience with Christianity and my eventual exit from it. I decided to write this in roughly chronological order, as best I could remember it, and trying to write about my early childhood in a small-town United Methodist church in upstate New York brought this experience crashing back in ...most of its weird sad glory. 

For those unfamiliar with this kind of environment, many churches run week long summer programs to indoctrinate children, calling them “vacation bible school”. In my experience, it was a week long, typically in June at this church, and was a bit different under like seven or eight years old than it was between then and sixth grade or so. The younger kids just like heard cutesy messages about Jesus and played little games all day, and the older kids moved around between like four or five little stations consisting of crafts, Jesus messages, music that even my kid brain found lame and awkward, a 20 minute TV show of a traumatizing chipmunk puppet called Chadder, and some teaching that took place in the context of an adult LARPing and setting up scenery. 

That’s Chadder. He’s fucking terrifying and his voice is annoying. He talks about Jesus entirely too much.

The first year I was old enough for this more mature version of VBS, on like the second day of the five, the theme was Jonah and the whale. For the blessed uninitiated, the story is basically that of a prophet called to yell at the city of Nineveh for their sins who runs away in a ship, then God throws a nice little hurricane at him, the crew of the ship yeets him overboard, and he spends three days inside of a whale, at which point he repents and goes to yell at Nineveh. (And then gets pissed off at God for sparing the city from destruction after they repent, but somehow that part isn’t taught to children and the rest of it is.) 

The adult who did the LARPing for this program every year was this lady about my mom’s age who I’ll call “Sharon” for anonymity. (I don’t remember her first name but it’s probably not that.) She always went all out with the costumes and got really into character, and the settings were usually pretty damn well thought out too. On this day, she’d set up an entire scene that fit with the theme of Jonah’s experience. Her scenes were always set up in this atrium area behind the sanctuary that could be closed off with one of those collapsible walls. 

Like this, but in a church. That fucking building was full of those, and even seeing them in person mildly triggers me half the time. :^) There was this atrium area behind it that people tended to gather in to talk before service got started, but for VBS Sharon repurposed it for scenes. The lights were generally pretty low, though I don’t think that was their only setting in there. The room also had this little hallway that was next to one of the narrow ends of it, with a door both going into the sanctuary and into this atrium, and attaching to the front door of the church with a crumbling stone staircase to the uneven sidewalk. 

They tend to break the kids up into small groups, the number and size of these groups depending on the number of kids in the program. I think there were eight or ten of us in each group this year, and we rotated through the stations they set up. They recruit the kids older than about 13 to escort us around all day. I think we were like the second group to go to the LARPing station this day, but I’m not completely sure. We came to the door from the corridor to the sanctuary and the teen leader knocked. Sharon came out dressed in this biblical-style outfit, trying her absolute best to look like the prophet might’ve. She may or may not have worn a stick-on beard or maybe one that hangs on and attaches behind the ears. She was easily dedicated enough to pull something like that. She certainly had one of these outfits going on: 

And definitely one of the male-styled ones with headwear. She led us into the corridor, acting all frantic. The corridor was very dimly lit this day, and as nervous as she was, I started to lowkey freak out too. I had no idea what was coming.

Sharon ushered us into the atrium thing, which was now very different from its ordinary state. My memory of the exact conditions in here isn’t perfect, so I’ll explain this as best as I remember it. The entire fucking room was dimly lit and lined with black plastic, I think she ripped up some trash bags and stuck them to the walls and ceiling in there. She was running some kind of high-octane humidifier and fan in there I think, because the whole place was dark and wet and humid. I’m a bit less certain on these two details, but she might’ve brought some pungent fish into the place to make it smell weird and played loud ass whale song on one of those little boombox/CD player/radio things that were common around that time. I think the other kids could handle it a bit better than I did, but this was a terrifying environment. Then she started talking about how the reason we’re in here is because she ran away from God (as Jonah; remember, she got real in character) and maybe this is her chance to repent and it’s so bad that she didn’t follow God’s command the first time. At some point in this display I freaked the fuck out and had to leave this place. They took me back to some room where the younger kids were doing something so I could cool off. My parents, and I think some of the other adults, expressed some disappointment about this. I don’t remember specific words; I do remember being shamed for being afraid of this ...intentionally scary display. And then when I was calm and they were done with all that bullshit, they brought me back in for Chadder of all things. 

I had a recurring nightmare for a while in elementary school. Every time I had this, it came in threes. I’d enter a dim, sweaty room where some faint, horribly distorted voices were crying out and have to climb a slope. I’d pass the first, shallow one fairly easily, but I’d go straight from that into a darker, sweatier, louder room with a steeper incline. I’d pass this trial too somehow, by this point being stressed and scared every time, and come straight into something so, so fucking much worse. This room was extremely dark, the incline was goddamn near to vertical, it was wet in there to the point where everything was dripping (or, in some cases, at least I was; I kind of think the scenery other than the light levels, sounds, and inclines varied quite a bit from instance to instance), and the voices. The fucking voices. They sounded like people yelling, except... through insane levels of distortion, to the point where everything was echo except the vowel sound, usually like the one in “sleep” or maybe a bit retracted. After the fact I’m inclined to project everything from coherent phrases to my first name onto the sounds, but I don’t remember them having any actual definition after all the distortion. These calls would kind of burrow into my consciousness as I tried (and, somehow, often partially succeeded) to climb this fucking smooth, deep slope, and when it all got too overwhelming I’d wake up sweating and terrified. (And usually I’d have to pee.) After I remembered this incident from VBS, I made a connection with this recurring nightmare and I kind of strongly suspect that it was a major contributing factor to these. This may or may not be accurate, but it bears some chilling similarities to Sharon’s whale stomach display: wet, loud, scary, dark.

I often have a fairly hard time writing about this. This shit had me shaking and unable to sleep for hours when I remembered it after apparently somehow repressing it for over a decade. Writing about it was easier this time, but I still kind of shake and struggle talking about it. It’s a whole time. I think I might need some therapy because of this and other fucky little incidents that happened during my childhood and when I was older and, for around five years, fully embraced Christianity and yeeted myself into some of its darker branches. But the more bullshit I remember from my childhood, the more I learn about the foundation, even from what I remember as a somewhat more progressive than average environment, that led me down my dark path. So that’s food for thought I guess.

Have a deepfried Chadder and a good day.

Chadder takes his mask off (2020, colorized)

[tacittherapist]

Tenebrium: A Treatise on Multiverse

Preamble: Lengthy as this text may be, do not presume any of it to be of importance. In fact, simply due to its length and the subsequent lugubriousness of slogging through the entire thing, this work as a whole may be dismissed forthwith given it bears no canonical weight either.

Like the much sought-after Grail, ‘canon’ is ephemeral at best and oppressive at worst. Having glimpsed into the swirling ether that is the spacetime continuum iterated across near infinite possibilities, I find myself in a unique position; one which may opine upon the nature of what we consider foundation and what we consider auxiliary. Consider for a moment: your favorite dog. What does it look like? Black? White? Some shade in between? Small? Large? How long is its fur? Its snout? Its tail? Unless you have an incredibly generic schema for the idea of your favorite dog, chances are you had a specific breed in mind. Of course, I put my finger on the scale with the keyword ‘favorite’ in the preceding suggestion. ‘Consider a dog’ instead suggests a more generic dog idea. However, if I were to make this suggestion for narrative purposes, such a story would be lacking were I not to include the key details such as color, size, shape, etc. And therein lies the crux of this relationship: you, as the reader, are subject to the whims of myself, the narrator.

Suppose I led you on a wild, fantastic journey involving this dog. The dog knew happiness, heartbreak, forlorn, terror, rage, fulfillment, it spun the gamut of possible organic emotion into an intricate web of adventure and derring-do. And now that dog is actually a villain. Actually? That dog is dead. Hold on, now the dog is alive again, and they’re the hero again, but now they’re committing acts of atrocity despite still being the hero. Actually, you know what? Fuck you. There was never a dog. It was actually a sentient footstool this entire time. And now that stool is just sitting at home, reading an article about how to make your own soap. End story, full stop.

The aforementioned dumpster fire of a narrative arc represents exactly how I, the narrator of this text, may quickly subvert an ordinary story into a confusing, arbitrarily executed mess. There’s much to unpack, but let’s address the surface first. We must first address the idea of an ‘unreliable narrator.’ Such a concept is presupposed on the idea that the person recounting the story cannot be trusted by the audience to tell with complete accuracy the reality of events included therein. However, such a concept falls flat when you understand that the very idea of an ‘unreliable narrator’ is actually still an extension of the true narrator’s will. An unreliable narrator is made unreliable on purpose, specifically to sew the seeds of doubt in the audience. By erasing, whether subtly or overt, the faith the audience has in the veracity of the retelling, the ultimate narrator is allowed to shift some portion of the burden to the audience in regards to actually telling the story. After all, if the narrator is unreliable, the audience is free, to some degree, to fill in the gaps. Perhaps you don’t trust that the dog actually died earlier. You instead are free to imagine that the dog went through rehabilitation in order to reclaim the title of hero... and then relapsed, which then explains the acts of atrocity committed thereafter. But hold your metaphysical horses for just one second: that’s a connection I, the ultimate narrator, never explicitly confirmed. We’ll touch on that now, and you have it in good faith that this is no longer part of the narrative I was peddling earlier.

This brings us to the idea of canon. In general, ‘canon’ does not interact with any ideas the audience has come up with to fill in the gaps left either on purpose or by accident. After all, the narrator is the one telling the story -- even if the reader has some semblance of participation by suggesting avenues of plot, they are still at the end of the day subject to the whims of the narrator. Let us consider the original source of ‘canon.’ In a Biblical sense, ‘canon’ is studied, hotly contested, and even subject to scrutiny resting on technology that may better clarify the pretenses under which the original scripts were written. Yes, we know key figures and key events, but timelines, precise details, locations, and even some quotes are conflicting and at some points contradictory to each other. Under some dogmas, Jesus was a carpenter that fed the poor and cured the ill. Under others, Jesus was a rocking twink with an ass that just wouldn’t quit who spent time with prostitutes and chased people around with a whip. Which of these is closer to ‘canon?’ Hard to say, given the narrators of the Bible were not only unreliable, but also of different backgrounds, levels of literacy, maturity, sanity, and wrote the compilation known today as the Bible in a dead language. Thus, it falls to institutions to bring forward what they believe to be is closest to ‘canon’ within this pretext. Without such institutions, canon would then be left to individual readers to determine. However, when these institutions existed, even those canonical interpretations often clashed with one another, even further commodifying any understanding of ‘true’ canon. So how then, can an audience accurately determine canon? The only succinct answer is that they cannot. ‘Canon’ exists wherever the audience decides, not the narrator, because it is ultimately the audience that is perceiving the events. This places the audience at the end-all be-all of storytelling. A narrator decanting even the finest story into a void has accomplished nothing; has decanted nothing. An audience is required for the narrator-story transaction to take place at all, and thus has final word on what is and what isn’t ‘canon.’

Now, where is this all leading to? I must unfortunately address the issue of one sad orange man and his proclivity to fill the void left by society with an abundance of self-aggrandizing horseshit. And no, not the first one that had an unhealthy obsession with cobalt teens. Whether by ‘fate’ or by ‘chaos’, it seems this clementine libertine’s idea of ‘canon’ has been elevated by a monopolized institution over the ‘canon’ that audiences may have created before him. I posit, in defiance, that despite my own lowly existence outside of his elevated canon, that his interpretation is flawed; colored by his own predispositions towards tired Japanese animation conventions and shitty storytelling motifs lifted from a defunct online encyclopedia. In its place, I offer an interpretation of canon that doesn’t conform to any one particular telling; An understanding of canon that extends beyond whatever trite nonsense is deemed worthy enough to be elevated by any institution; A canon flexible and strong like a tongue, verbose in its many facets of story. I posit this understanding in lieu of any specific story in order to underline the fundamental purpose of story: to resonate and engender in the audience a sense of wonder. A story does not need to be joyful, sorrowful, exciting, or even eventful so long as the audience may find wonder in it. And what can be said about the story propped up by a particular iteration of one Prince is not that it inspires wonder, and is thus not fit for canon. Thus, ascribing to this thesis, you as the reader are freed from the shackles of canonical burden; you need not concern yourselves with any anxiety over the veracity of any particular story. Be as the Wind, and take yourselves wherever and whenever your own whims desire -- seek wonder where it lives, and chase it to your heart’s content. You’re welcome.