#such a monumental win i cannot believe it

[tomgrcg]

this was a joke but i can't believe tom's first decree as ceo king of waystar was firing hugo's ass

i hope greg's first decree as ceo king of waystar is firing hugo's ass

[evelynpr]

bakugou for the character ask game?

Truly the teenage boy, shonen deuteragonist, love interest coded, gay asshole, of all time.

My first impression - Woah I did not understand why people were so into this guy. Like I get it, he's a flawed and loud pretty boy, he gets character development, and probably gay, but seriously him??? His mouth is so fucking foul and he is so up his ass. - I was meh with this character, enjoyed him in fan content, but just did not get why people were sooo into this guy.

My impression now - I cried in "Light Fades To Rain". Twice. - My god his growth...his will, his persistence, and by god his love for Izuku is so ridiculous and powerful I just cannot help but admire the little shithead. - He is also a lot more to me than I expected, with the whole "foul mouth shit", "high expectations bullshit", "violent urges", and "dedicating your whole life and love to someone you love and admire" and that...that makes me feel quite conflicted.

Favorite thing about that character - The thing about Bakugou is that...you just cannot help but wish you had the same kind of persistence, strength, will, and power that he does. I love how all this is initially so shallow and selfish, then grows to wanting to be a better and truer hero. He really learns and changes and is just an unstoppable force of nature, it's genuinely incredible and beautiful to watch.

Least favorite thing - I wished that the overall writing did go harder in making him stop bad-mouthing people and...everything so much. You can tell he did grow to respect and care for people around him more, but by gods he is sooo bad at communicating his feelings right now. (tbf, he is so fucking young and traumatized) - Also, really please stop hitting people. I get a knee-jerk reaction to that kind of physical violence sometimes ngl.

Favorite line/scene - There are so many. I already mentioned his death in "Light Fades to Rain" so I'll mention a different one - Team Bakugou in Class A vs B was so goddamn good, for being a monumental milestone of his character. How much he trusted his teammates and put himself in danger to save others, winning in the end. No injuries, no failures, truly a perfect beautiful victory. How he also pushes Deku to keep getting better afterwards in his usual constipated-ass language too. Man I just love that battle to death.

Favorite interaction that character has with another - (me pulling out scenes that aren't bkdk centered here hahaha) - I fucking LOVED the Bakugou vs Ochako fight. It made me love Ochako so so much as a kid. I really wished we had a follow-up to that battle, and it genuinely changed my life. - I love how it really shows just how focused and rational he is in battle. How he truly respects his opponents, Ochako in this case, and the sports festival really establishes so much about him.

A character that I wish that character would interact with more - Speaking of which...OCHAKO VS BAKUGO 2 COME ONNNN - There is SO MUCH these two need to talk about. How to save people, who they want to save, who saved them, never underestimating each other, how they changed and grew. I just love these two characters to bits, that's why I need them to FIGHT AND TALK SO BADDDD - Additional: Also Toga (see my post on Toga right before this one lmao), Shoto (because I still don't really get their friendship but its hilarious, and I love Shoto)

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character - I legit cannot think of anything here...like for Toga...I am so sorry my brain is blanking T__T - It's hard to be a massive anger-issue filled, victory-focused, die for their lover (twice), amazing chef, all at once, kinda guy...you know?

A headcanon about that character - I am a believer in trans!fem Bakugo in the future. He's so ridiculously angry for some reason, voice always cracking, and just on-edge for some reason. Idk I just think its hilarious and satisfying if he transed his gender in the future and became happier and more comfortable.

A song that reminds of that character - I also have a Bkdk playlist in the making! Here's some bkg focused songs in character development order: - Boys will be Bugs, President Perfect, Top of my School, Oh No!, I'm Gonna Win, The Last of the Real Ones, Skyfall, Die For You, Set Fire to the Rain

An unpopular opinion about that character - Like Toga, he actually isn't possessive. I think he quite well understands and accepts that Izuku is a very loving person that many people are easily drawn to (I mean, he'd be a hypocrite if he didn't understand that). - He is protective instead of possessive. He keeps an eye out for anything and anyone who could possibly actually hurt Izuku, but he doesn't hold him back at all in hanging around with others, and when other people fall for Izuku either. - He is actually quite skinny, and doesn't have the big thick buff guy build. Those go to Izuku and Iida more imo.

Favorite picture - I never really thought of this much??? I love art of him being softer, more solemn, quiet and contemplative even. I guess I'll go pick out some favs right now...

Here they are! Hope you enjoy the post lmao

[vegaseatsass]

My Stand-In Episode 11

AUghhghhhh I can't believe next week is the last week of this series, what am I supposed to do with my life without it? (Meet You At The Blossom, you are my only hyperfixation hope)

I shan't talk about the end of the episode except to say that it feels right that Spiritual Master is the biggest MingJoe antishipper out there. Yes, he's been tirelessly advising this young master on his disastrous love life and its cosmic implications for three years, but that doesn't mean he's rooting for him or thinks the torturous time loop he's trapped everyone in is karmically sound!!!!

I also really can't get over the "every story that's not about a time loop is about a time loop" vibes of the scene too, how it was filmed, the way the master described the cycle they're in, all of it. Good stuff. But beyond that I'm zipping my lips I dare not even speculate on what is coming in episode 12.

What I do want to talk about is the Akarayota family!!

I think it is so brilliant that Ming's dad was kept fully offscreen and out of the picture until episode 10. It made him such an ominous, menacing figure. Like it seems obvious to me now that last episode, when Ing asked about telling his family and Ming said he needed to make sure it was the right time first, he was talking not about emotionally preparing himself or like, winning his family over, but about this blackmail scheme he needed to suck Mike into to "defeat" their father, which he always knew was the only option. Putting aside everything else in the Ming vs. Dad game of family ruthlessness chicken, at the end of this episode, this man was going to get his son killed in a way similar to how Ming got Joe killed: out of stubbornness, out of a refusal to believe long after he was shown that Ming would choose Joe not just over his family but over his own safety, out of a belief that he could control the situation and let Joe perish and lose nothing more than Ming's, like, will to live (but if you keep him locked in the house forever after, that won't matter, right?). You can just really see where Ming gets it from with this guy. I also have to wonder what the FUCK was going on in that household during Ming's childhood that a. the siblings are all so codependent b. Ming has learned to throw up on command c. Ming throwing up on command is something Mike has seen him do and treats as an old familiar trick.

So let's talk about the siblings! Ahhhh!!! My heart!!! When Mike first mentioned a promise, I was sure it was going to be a tit-for-tat trade where Mike owed Ming some kinda life debt (a la May saving Ming from drowning and getting pneumonia) that Ming was cashing in on. My guess was Ming had done some kind of monumental favor for Mike in their youth and Mike Owed him. But no no no! Mike's promise was made in the past three years and as far as we can see was simply borne of not wanting to see his brother in pain. I promise you, Ming, if Joe ever returns I'll do anything to help you be together, so please, for now, move on with your life. How fucking much does he love and prioritize Ming if that's a cash-in-on-able vow he'll break the law and fight their father over? How much of Mike's life is already spent cleaning up after Ming and shielding him? Again, what the fuck was going on in that household in his childhood that the oldest son in the family splits his time between business, Buddhism, and keeping his baby brother out of the line of fire? I had the thought that Ming could go to Mike for money to avoid their father, but Mike telling the loan shark "WE cannot get $500 million to you by tonight" without Ming even needing to ask him kind of said it all. Lowkey wondering if Ming is THE heir and Mike is a half-brother or illegitimate son of some kind since it does seem like the family wealth is concentrated in May and especially Ming's hands, even though Mike does nothing but work for this family lol. And May <3 I have a lot I'm mulling over in her relationship with Tong but the fact that she showed up just to shut down the line of familial manipulation that hinged on her womb was so badass. There's also something about Tong using "you chose your brother over me" as a DIVORCE JUSTIFICATION that makes me wonder if that was an ongoing conversation and threat in their relationship, that she had to prove again and again that she saw Tong as family as much as she did her beloved little brother... I do hope we see a little bit before the very end of Ming reciprocating his siblings' immense devotion to him (in ways other than "fled the country to hide that I was obsessed with your boyfriend's posterior", or tbh even gifting his perfect secretary to the brother who has always wanted him lol). But I am very compelled by what we've seen so far, that the Akarayota siblings consistently choose each other and shield each other from their powerful, terrible parents.

Last but not least, mama Akarayota! Love her writing! I love that the scene where she's accepting Joe and Mingjoe's love comes packaged with "oh yeah I was the one who destroyed your relationship with your mom teehee oops", and she doesn't even seem very sorry about it, she's just sooo happy that Joe passed her little test and loves her son and is making Ming happy and alive, and who really cares what happens to Joe's life or family. I love that she felt the urgency of Ming going to meet with the loan sharks in ways her husband didn't, but instead of working with her son or finding a way to pay the money her son-in-law owed, she just did the impulsive thoughtless rich person move of calling the cops, which escalated literally everything and missed getting Ming killed by a Joe-shaped hair. Why pay $500 million baht to criminals when you can rely on your power and the state? It's just such an automatic, instinctive, realistic choice for her to make and I love love love the consequences it came with. Basically I love that even though Ming's mother has the classic QL parent arc of moving from pressuring her son to marry women to warmly accepting that he loves a man, she does it with so much rich person violence and collateral damage along the way. There's a complexity and realism there I don't often see.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Sol and how moving I found it that he uses "I can't get over you" as a way of connecting with Joe, empathizing with and accepting how obviously Joe is never going to get over Ming, and actually, finally letting him go. About how JOE FUCKING DYING AGAIN does in fact justify his frantic in-denial attempts to block Mingjoe a few episodes ago lol, but how beautiful it is that he was ready to let Joe go and make his own choices in this episode. About how much I wish Ming had!!! TURNED TO SOL!!!! FOR MONEY!!!! TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE MAN THEY BOTH LOVED!!!! but that would I guess be even more of a drastic character change than Tong suddenly caring about his wife and unborn child lmao.

But I have to rewatch the episode with Laura now so we can both suffer so I will end the post here. Augh I love this series, I want it to be next Friday already I want to know what's going to happen but I also don't want it to end, augh augh augh

[adhdo5]

ok i'm curious, what is this TGCFlike house divorce we've been hearing about?

-Terra

OK so play with me in this space: MDZS and TGCF are in many ways about the same things but their conclusions are almost opposite. Super briefly: Xiyao are doomed as hell in MDZS because MDZS is a story about among other things when decency is not enough to overcome the ways in which society is built, and how it fails. But TGCF is about the ways in which it can be. Xiyao cannot be happy together until the revolution and the revolution doesn't happen in MDZS's thematic paradigm but the end of TGCF it does – they deny the artificial divisions and calls to revenge that Jun Wu's heaven is built on and that gives them the power to win; gods and ghosts and beggars come together to build something new and start to forgive each other. The laundry of class disparity is resolved even

So my thesis is as follows: postcanon MDZS fixit straightforwardly doable by letting the world gently transmute into something like TGCF. This is not really a crossover as much as it is "this AU works on TGCF rules" but we DID recently mess around with letting Lan Xichen and the Shi siblings interact so maybe it is a crossover or maybe that isn't canon I don't know I haven't decided

But let us not forget that this AU is called house divorce and I'm constantly whining and also, crucially, TGCF has four books covering eight hundred years of abject misery. SO

Zewu-jun spent some years in meditative seclusion before finally emerging to take up his responsibilities again, wiser and more reserved than before; he led his sect, he cultivated, he was part of the effort to take down Nie Huaisang when the Nie cancellation hit, and in the slow twilight of the power of the jianghu his measured grace and surety and wisdom allowed him to pass his Heavenly Calamity and ascend to the status of the martial god possessed of all the virtues he once allowed his reprobate brothers to take credit for that many know and love to this day. If LQQ is here he's supplanted by Zewu-jun as the Martial God of the East or maybe they're different Easts idk if he's even here point is Gusu is obviously his place of power etc etc

(Lan Xichen spent years in what amounted to devastating clinical depression before, with a monumental effort and the support he did have and a lack of any other option and a desperate desire to not be Qingheng-jun 2, managing to let the snarl of love and care and responsibilityobligation drag him out of his room and slowly back into his duties as sect leader. His reputation recovers like how Jin Guangyao predicted years ago. He takes up the practice of folding his grief inside himself like he takes up Shuoyue again, with an almost physical pain, and he pretends very dutifully that being dutiful to this is something he believes he can do and tolerate, because of course it is, because what else is possibly there, because as harrowed as he is and as much as he has broken pretty much every rule on that wall he cares about them, cares about what they're meant to protect, this matters to him and if he's to have any say in where that bright paved road leads he must walk it; there's no third path)

He's very much on the martial god side of things rather than civil god; he's not a stranger to non-cultivator societal concerns obv and he has non-cultivator worshippers esp as the power of the great sects really declines but he is very much a cultivator god/of that society and worshipped as a cultivator warrior-noble etc etc. He's quite well-liked in the heavens and on earth; he's not really the top of the hierarchy but he's in the leaderboard, doesn't want for merits or lanterns or spiritual power and is generally possessed of a decent reputation if the subject of some envy even if Zewu-jun is a little bit withdrawn; they say he has been since he emerged from seclusion and he's pretty much always perfectly polite and functional. The picture of coping.

Anyway one day 200+ years postcanon he gets sent down to deal with something on the ground; this is possibly whatever NMJ has going on RN for plot economy but I'm still trying to figure out what NMJ's final role in this all is anyway. What I do know is LXC ends up in ghostly territory; once he realizes he is he's like Ah I'll just be surreptitious but he's yet quite quickly met with a clone that, with stiff movements like it's used to moving through debilitating pain but impeccable propriety and an unwavering smile, says that as the lord of this place he doesn't wish for any trouble with Heaven, and invites LXC to negotiate with the local official

Official?

The Ghostly Civil Palace is in fact styled after the heavenly palaces of civil gods. It's slightly more luxurious, but still tasteful and practical enough that it isn't ostentatious; it's large but ordered enough it's not sprawling; it's completely, desertedly empty, even the footsteps of the clone disappearing the second LXC takes his eyes off it once it leads him to the pavilion and dismisses itself

LXC has an impeccably polite and extremely reasonable and productive discussion with the disembodied voice of the Ghostly Civil Official, who is by all appearances pretty genuinely invested in ensuring the wellbeing of his domain and the dead in it and is also concerned about the thing LXC has been sent down to deal with, in this nice understated pavilion. There is a koi pond. There is a single tea setting.

It is against all advised practice to take food from ghosts but LXC is not inclined to be rude as hell to someone who has been nothing but genteel and helpful, even if that someone is a disembodied voice coming from everywhere and nowhere in an ethereal palace, and does in fact accept and praise the tea setting. It's nice tea

The Ghostly Official feels no ways about this unexpected courtesy and will be answering no questions at this time.

He doesn't know if he remembers something like it from when he was alive but spending 100 years as a fierce corpse will do that. It's very nice, and mostly he remembers his life as Jin Guangyao in the ways of raised undead – outlines of despair and rage and unfinished business. It was easier once, but having regained enough spiritual cognition to miss it makes it very much an inconvenience. Troublesome to only remember your own name, your mother, your death in agony. Perhaps remembering more people than the one man whose death haunted you the most would make the search for his mother's probably-desecrated remains more effective, but the outlines of resentment are certainly enough for him to sharply know that he's always been good at working from positions of few advantages

He's doing well enough for himself and has picked up further tasks along the way. The Ghost Realm has AWFUL infrastructure. He's implementing reforms. Well. Forms he's implementing forms. Just because one is dead doesn't mean that having no social safety net is a tenable state of affairs. There's ghost public transportation in his sphere of influence

Anyway as they recognize each other more and more they go more and more Wait. Hey. What the fuck. HEY

JGY recognizes Shuoyue before he recognizes LXC himself. Y'know how it is. They have to lose all hope and divorce 43 times. Return the favor wrt the homoerotic stabbing. LXC gripping the sink looking into the mirror like I'm NOT gay anymore I feel NO ways about how that clone smiles and I am NOT going to fuck that house

Other characters around:

NMJ has also recovered spiritual cognition though he's still very saberbrained and he's currently on a mission from his Nie ancestors to find and thrash some sense into his terrible AWOL little brother who drove their bloodline into the ground

COMPLETELY UNRELATEDLY JGY's social programs include awkward-encounters-with-people-from-your-past insurance and he's got a particular charge from there, a sect leader from ages past who's dodging the spirits of his ancestors, and he's a bit of a mess but he's fun enough company and JGY privately regards him as something like a friend. It's nice. He thinks vaguely he might've known someone like that in life

Wangxian are still around! They cultivated to immortality not in the god way just in the normal way and are Sanrening it up. Every day means every day! Not every day for a normal human lifespan! There's a lot of days in forever!

They are still in some contact with LXC! This is possibly the most genuine interpersonal relationship he has

I don't have roles for Song Lan & co. but I think they're also still around. Waiting in the wings as it were

Idk who the fuck is the heavenly emperor. Is it Jun Wu? Fuck if I know

Lmk if you want to see the LXC+Shiblings thoughts which may or may not be canon

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sam Levine and Lauren Gambino at The Guardian:

Joe Biden has withdrawn from his presidential re-election race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket, an extraordinary decision upending American politics that plunges the Democratic nomination into uncertainty just months before the November election against Donald Trump – a candidate he has warned is an existential threat to US democracy.

“While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter announcing his decision. Biden thanked Harris, in his letter, and later endorsed her as the Democratic nominee for president in a tweet. He said he planned to speak to the nation in more detail later this week. “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice-president. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he said. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

The president made the shocking announcement after a weeks-long pressure campaign by Democratic leaders, organizers and donors who increasingly saw no path to victory so long as the embattled incumbent remained on the ticket. More than 30 Democratic members of Congress had called on Biden to step aside. As recently as Friday, his campaign had insisted he was staying in the race. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 60% of Democrats believed he should end his run. The same poll found nearly 76% of Democrats would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee.

[...] Harris’s nomination is not automatic, and there are other Democrats – including the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker – who could seek the nomination. If any of those candidates were nominated in Chicago next month, they would face the monumental task of introducing themselves to voters, crafting a campaign message and defeating Trump – all in two and a half months.

[...] The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, suggested during appearances on Sunday talkshows that Republicans would bring legal challenges to attempt to block efforts to change the Democratic ticket. Experts are skeptical those efforts will succeed. Johnson was also one of several top Republicans who called on Biden to resign the presidency – something Biden is almost certain not to do. “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately,” Johnson said, adding that election day on 5 November “cannot arrive soon enough”. The Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, made similar comments on Sunday. Biden’s decision to step aside from the race, though remain as president, caps a singular few weeks in American politics, the latest stunning episode in an unusually tumultuous election season.

[...] The president’s withdrawal pushes the Democratic party into largely uncharted waters, with its national convention scheduled to begin on 19 August in Chicago. The nominee will also have a tight window to choose a running mate to take on Trump and Vance. It is not clear how Democrats will choose a new ticket. The 95% of delegates who pledged to support Biden after his big wins in the Democratic primaries are now able to vote for a different candidate. Roughly 4,000 Democratic delegates will convene next month to choose a new nominee, and Kamala Harris will arrive in Chicago as an early favorite in the race to replace Biden. After serving as Biden’s vice-president, Harris, 59, has the largest national profile of any Democratic candidate, and delegates may view her as the safest option with just four months to spare before election day. Campaign finance experts also say that Harris would have the most straightforward legal argument to keep the Biden campaign’s fundraising haul, while another nominee might have to forfeit that money. As of the end of May, the Biden campaign had $91.6m in cash on hand.

This afternoon, President Joe Biden (D) pulled the plug on his re-election bid, endorses Vice President Kamala Harris to be the replacement Democratic nominee.

Harris has a VP pick to make to complete the ticket, and there are several good choices: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, or Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Go Harris Go! Defeat the evil Trump/Vance ticket!

[stilltrails]

Title: The Specters (original ao3 link) Summary:

He remembers her saying—was it in this very room?—‘Be good to me.’ He thinks, if I see her again, perhaps this time I will.   In an alternate universe where Anne Boleyn never loses her head, she and Thomas Cromwell rework their relationship. (A series of mostly unrelated shorts in which they learn to survive together. Sometimes he saves her, sometimes, she saves him. Other times, they save themselves.)

She is pacing across the room as if the fire is already beneath her feet. She wrings her hands together, throws them in front of her and pulls on the ornate fabric of her sleeves. Her eyes have already misted with tears, and her expression is one of pure dread. 

He has told her that the king means to kill her and would expect nothing less from her. Her house of cards has finally fallen. Her hard work ending with her kneeling on the block, or tied to a pyre. 

Though he finds solace in the fact that she is comfortable enough to fall apart in front of him.

It has not been so for some time. He supposes he has offered the first olive branch in their strained relationship, and Anne has latched onto it like a famished soldier on the cusps of desertion. They have kept secrets from the other for so long, working in the shadows against the other. Racing to knock the other off of the pedestal the king had raised them to

He stands in silence, allowing her to absorb the information he’s provided her. Already, it’s too much. The king wants her downfall to be swift, and by his admission of what the Henry has told him, Anne will either fight or flee. She will not survive if she chooses the former. 

“If you decide to fight, you cannot win. He will have me put false charges on you and you will be executed.” He cautions the Queen as the air of ambition rises about her. He does not mean to smother the fight she has left, though he thinks she may take it that way, “I have already gathered evidence against you.” 

“I imagine you had your fun with that,” she snorts, pausing her pacing just to scowl at him. She resumes, her new dog running beneath her skirts. 

“If I had my fun with it, I would not be standing here warning you of your impending downfall. I do so at the risk of my own life,” His retort lacks the harshness that her accusations did, though he is callous and to the point. Should this go more sideways than it already has, he will be killed alongside Anne. For that reason he has not told anyone what he had planned to do. Not even Rafe, who will have most certainly let him know how foolish he was being. 

The decision had been made on a whim. And seldom did he make such rash decisions without properly weighing the consequences. He recalls arriving in his study early that morning. Pouring over the written statements provided to him regarding the Queen’s infidelity. The act of holding a life in his hand should have been more monumentous than it was. But today it was tedious. Henry had made it so. And how else could he live with himself for what he prepared to do to an innocent woman if the act was anything more than tedious? 

It was not five minutes after he settled that he’d heard it. 

Two voices, muffled as if they were speaking just outside of his door. The voices near identical to he and the Queen. “Be good to me–” he managed to make out. The woman–the Queen–was pleading. Had he seen her, she would have been crying. 

“If I see you again, perhaps this time I will.” He was at his feet at the sound of his own voice, throwing the door open immediately.  What he would see, he was unsure of. But it certainly was not an empty hallway. There was a chill in the air, the subtle scene of perfume as if a woman had been lingering outside. 

But he was alone, with only his reflection on the mirror down the hall. 

Presently he remembers the occurrence. He does not give much credit to tales of ghosts and faeries. But he believes in God, and believes there is no need for a priest to officiate His messages. 

Anne has taken the seat. He takes the one opposite of her. Tentatively, he reaches over the table. He holds his breath as she locks eyes with him, and releases it as she extends her hands to his.  

“What will I do, Thomas?” Her tears spill over now.

“I have contacts in Germany. People who you can trust. They will care for you,” he assures her, squeezing her hands, “we can have you out of the country within the next month. I will arrange it all.” 

“My family?” Her eyes sparkle, her voice hitches, “Elizabeth?” The consequences of his impromptu decision stack on him one after the other. He has no particular love for the other Boleyns. Especially the men. “You are her mother, should you wish for her to go with you, I will orchestrate it. But as for your family, they will need to denounce you.” He thinks of the accusers who will no longer be vindicated now that he has thrown their bargaining tool away. But he hasn’t, not really. He will save Anne and keep the charges on the others. He will save Anne, but the Boleyns are still his enemies. 

Be good to me, it is  below a whisper, but loud enough for him to hear. 

“You do not need to decide now, but I will need an answer soon. I will delay the king for as long as I can.” Thomas stands. Anne reaches for his hand as he pulls it away. He hesitates, and lets her savor his touch. He savors hers as well. At a point they were friends. This phantom distance between them did not exist. 

He would like it to be so again. 

He bows to her, deciding what steps to take next. He will not involve his children. He will send Rafe on some fool's errand. Richard will be easy enough to lead on. And Gregory is…well Gregory. 

He thinks back  to the phantom argument outside of his door. He hopes he has satisfied the specters. 

[doctornolonger]

Thoughts on the Vashta Nerada? In general I mean. I think they’re interesting. Though probably very hard to write for. In my mind (that hasn’t stopped Big Finish from trying, idk). What do you think?

If I wanted to write a story about living shadows accompanied by spooky people with skeleton faces, I'd just do another Faction Paradox!

In The Ghost Monument, there's a scene where the camera focuses on a normal-looking pool of water and the Doctor explains that it's full of "flesh-eating microbes, millions of them." This line may have ruined "microorganism swarm" villains for me permanently. Come to think of it, it's the same as midichlorians (The Phantom Menace's intracellular organisms which explain Force sensitivity). Something was undeniably lost when the Force stopped being – to abuse a term – ontologically simple: understood as a monolithic entity rather than something composed of parts. To give George Lucas some credit, I do believe that he would have redeemed midichlorians if the overwhelming fan backlash hadn't prevented him from elaborating further.

But I digress. In Silence and Forest, Moffat stops just short of "flesh-eating microbes". He's too much a poet for that. The Vashta Nerada are "microspores", an "infestation", a "the dust in sunbeams." He's combining ideas here, multiple angles for the old childhood terror / "familiar made uncanny" attack.* And – okay, he also says they're a "man-eating swarm". You can't win them all.

From a purely materialist perspective, a shadow isn't a thing in and of itself. It's the product of an object and a light source, and it cannot exist independently of either of those things. You might say that your shadow is "holding" something, but really that's just shorthand for "I am holding an object, so the shadow I have cast appears to be holding the shadow cast by the object in my hand." It's literally a trick of the light.

But in Peter Pan, shadows are objects in and of themselves. In that story they function not as they exist in material reality but as humans understand them: entities in their own right. Not a "light-object-patterns", a shadow. And in this lens, nothing stops them from existing separate from ourselves. This pivot from reality to the mind's understanding of reality – so to speak, from territory to map – is how ritual works across human societies, and it's what Faction Paradox is all about. In the territory, there were no days between 2 and 14 September 1752. In the map, there's enough to build an Empire.**

Even within the constaints he's built for himself, Moffat can't stop himself from having it both ways. On one hand, Vashta Nerada are allergic to light and hide in the shadows; on the other hand, they can actually encroach on the light and cast shadows themselves for spooky effect. The Doctor tells us, "Count the shadows" – a line straight out of Peter Pan. Or Interference.

*The FP series uses the same "familiar made uncanny" approach in the development of its mythology, but rather than the dust in sunbeams, its targets are the core elements of Doctor Who itself, and science fiction more generally.

**In fact, this is the only sense in which Faction Paradox can be said to be Faction Paradox. Lawrence Miles insisted that the Faction isn't interested in paradoxes at all; it chose the name Paradox not because of what paradoxes are in the territory but because of what the word means in the map: the opposite of the Great Houses' ideology of organized cause and effect.

Both of these bullets are actually the same point, and they're at the heart of what I tried to say in "Crimes Against History"…

***Apropos of nothing, a theory I'd forgotten I posted 6 years ago:

Or, since Faction Paradox may have been wiped from time at the end of the War, are the Vashta Nerada their now-person-less shadows?

[parallel-awhite]

#Slump #Lump

Slump at Lump Gallery / Curated by Jerstin Crosby based on conversations with New York-based artist and LabSpace gallery co-director Julie Torres

SLUMP. Some words do more heavy lifting than others, and I am rather in awe of the sheer tonnage this single-word title manages to bench-press, with meanings that cover "slack," "flaccid," "weak", "defeated," "pathetic," "depressed," "low ebb," and "doldrums" not to mention "bad posture" and "a period of time marked by failure."* This is a show that registers high on the coherence-of-curatorial-intention meter. A show with this title could have ended up as a zone of airless claustrophobic overwhelm, gallery as hoarder space, due to the sheer surfeit of potential work that could have been slotted within the “Slump” rubric. Instead the show is edited with drum-tight precision, each work positioned in the space for maximum flow and impact. This is a show that breathes. Good feng shui. It’s thus paradoxical: a show called "Slump" that is in itself highly articulated - crisp, concise, highly engaged and engaging. Go figure.

An overall note on influence: Mike Kelley's splayed societal/ cultural/ subliminal abjections have inoculated the bloodstream of the body politic of contemporary art, a tribute to the necessary-ness of that artist’s efforts, the validity of which is evidenced by the spectral array of vital and meaningful work that has been made and likely will continue to be made in its wake: artist as shiner-of-light on psychic detritus that has been relegated to the societal dust heap due to collective denial, blindness, greed or best practices. It is thus no surprise that much of the physical [and nonphysical for that matter] material employed in Slump is multiplex and often recycled, repurposed or reconsidered.

Raymond Padrón’s revelatory “Tube Sock” (2023), while made of painted wood (and not literal recycled material), embodies “that which has been lost or discarded.” The single sock that evades capture holds near-mythical status in the unwritten history of laundry. The highly visible tube sock reclining on someone’s floor is another well-known trope. I will add that while “Tube Sock” in its supremely casual and might I add believable pose [why not anthropomorphize a sock?] (as for said pose, I buy its slump-ness, its nonchalance, its actual real-life tossed-ness – it’s a sculptural tour-de-force) as Padrón has rendered it appears clean enough, I cannot stop the onslaught of sock associations, which include dirt and smell. This sensory response to a monumental relief work aggrandizing a single item of bit-player clothing is a win.

Another win: the placement of “Tube Sock” adjacent to Julia Gartrell’s indelible sculptural work “Rib” [undated]. These two works by two artists working within their own bubble of slumpness manage to converge in uncannily similar shaping and sense of weight distribution. “Rib” is a work that manages to immediately attach to the mind like a parasite. I mean this admiringly. Like “Tube Sock,” it is both hilarious and beautiful, surreal and gritty, utterly evident in what it is and yet also deeply mysterious. The premise of “Rib” is simple: a single boot [(the artist’s boot) that carries questions about and signals a uselessness similar to Padrón’s single sock] with a Ruth Asawa-esque reed basketry leg figuration that sort of floats off into nothingness – no body – tethered to no world in particular, to sudden, unexpected abstraction.

Bill Thelen's untitled limp wrist project covers much of the Drawing Room annex wall. These are interactive drawings based on photos people sent to the artist in response to his request for shots of their limp wrists. The project is a canny power move by Thelen – up there with the reclaiming of the term queer in the 80s. The visual reclaiming of body-language cliché epithet celebrates and recalibrates what has historically functioned as a denigrating trope of [specifically gay, male] flamboyance** by creating what feels like a solidarity wall papered over with drawing upon drawing of images of limp wrists en repose, i.e., held aloft, hand and fingers relinquished downward to gravitational pull. The works are not gender-coded, and they’re not color coded; they’re disencoded.*** There is an expanded iteration of the project as part of the exhibition proper, a single outsized limp wrist outlined in relief with woven embroidery floss, tape and pins.

I could write in-depth on each of the works in this substantial and generous show, which was appropriately allowed to inhabit both gallery rooms. But given that it’s the last day of the show and would be nice to post it with at least a few hours left – and in light of inherent limitations of the person writing this – will list the artists here:

Amanda Barr

April Childers

Bill Thelen

Brandon Boan

Celia Gray

Conner Calhoun

Ellen Letcher

Fred Smith

Jasmine Best

Jessica Langley

Julia Gartrell

Julie Torres

Maria Britton

Nico Smith

Rachel Bernstein

Raymond Padron

Skully Gustafson

Terry Hoff

Tonya Solley Thornton

A few final thoughts: As in the conundrumical universe of curatorial practice, every piece in this show held the potential to live within infinite other parallel universes of thought. The “Slump” mindset, however, focuses the mind like hunger – or a strong need one did not know held sway within until it was met. The clarity of intention in this show was so strong it felt like I was walking around the space wearing one of those museum guided-tour headsets.

Can I just add: Slump also works as a riff on the gallery name: Lump. I read this as a kind of evolutionary equation whereby Lump [L] = Lumpen/Unformed ∆ Lump + S/ = S/lump = Slump [SL]

And another thing: A slump is a temporary condition. That will at some point turn around. Hence it posits an undercurrent of hope. With the evolutionary outcome not being verticality or a *straightening* [aka devolving / attaining regressive rigidity] but some mode of as-yet unidentified [fluid] expansion.

April Childers / Brandon Boan

Bill Thelen / Maria Britton

Amanda Barr / Celia Gray

Jasmine Best / Skully Gustafson

Tonya Solley Thornton / Tonya Solley Thornton

Ellen Letcher / Lump Gallery (installation view)

Raymond Padrón / Julia Gartrell

Bill Thelen / Bill Thelen [Drawing Room]

Skully Gustafson / Skully Gustafson

Fred Smith / Fred Smith

___________

* I typically write about work before reading gallery copy and have only just now encountered a list of related salient adjectives supplied by Crosby, which are available elsewhere. However, the fact that there are few overlapping terms in the two lists underscores the fertile elasticity of the premise.

** A word that pings in my head thusly: [flimsy/ flim-flam/ flambé/ flaming/ boy/ buoyancy/ bouyance/ clairvoyance/ (disco ball) dance].

*** My text my rules yes I just made up that word.

[wndaswife]

if you’ll be watching the oscars, do you have any oscar predictions as well as who you want to win?

so after looking at the nominations... cause i only knew a few movies n people that got nominated

i believe avatar may win best picture

if everything everywhere all at once doesn't win best costume design im going to be very angry

i hope angela bassett wins best supporting actress because not only did she do such a phenomenal job in black panther (probably one of the best marvel performances thus far) but her winning would be so monumental seeing as she would be the first marvel actor to get an oscar (and be nominated for one!) while also being a black woman in the very male-dominated industry, especially for a franchise like marvel

i would piss myself actually if mitski's song won an oscar i haven't heard the other nominated songs but i want her to win so bad <//3 hearing her voice after seeing that movie elicited a feeling in me that i cannot with every effort in me even begin to explain, n with her being my favourite artist i do think that's another main reason i'd love for her song to win <33

im sure ana de armas did a great job in blonde idk but i would not feel comfortable with that movie having an academy award attached to its name at all

and lastly it would be very cute if turning red won best animated feature, it was a super cute movie (and cough i live in toronto so... bias maybe)

[writer-by-the-sea]

I don't mind being off anon for this, but I would like the ability to confide in you, Eliott, if I may. I was accepted into my dream university on an (almost) full-ride scholarship. 90% of my tuition is paid for by the school. I'll be majoring in Chemistry to pursue a career in forensic toxicology, and minoring in vocal performance since I cannot stay away from singing and have been unable to for the past 12 years of my life haha. Anyways; since I'm making the transition from high school to college this fall, my parents do not seem one iota proud nor supportive of my decision to attend that college. I have only heard complaints from them, being told I shouldn't go because it's a waste of money, etc... you think of something and I have probably had it said to my face. I worked my ARSE off to get into this school let alone seize the scholarship. the tuition without that scholarship is $200,000+ FOR FOUR YEARS. and I'm doing a Master’s degree in one setting instead of a bachelor's degree, which is also covered by the school. My home life isn't the best, my boyfriend, peers, teachers, coworkers, etc are telling me that what I did is monumental but it truly feels diminished because of my parents' reactions. I just want them to be proud of me. I'd just like some validation and encouragement that I'm doing the right thing for myself basically, or any words of encouragement you have to offer.

Your parents sound similar to my own.

Unsupportive, negative, never there for you, never there to celebrate your wins or to comfort you in your downfalls.

The greatest advice you'll ever learn, is to believe in yourself and never let anyone hold you back.

I may be projecting here, but I'm assuming your parents are jealous of your success and are lashing out because of it. Please don't let them put you down over such an achievement. And don't, for even a second, think that you don't deserve it.

It's going to be hard, extremely hard and very taxing, to pursue a master's -- and it will be worth every blood, swear, and tear.

Another snippet of advice, prepare yourself to receive zero help from them. Apply for that 10% amount of loans ASAP because you WILL need all of their income / tax information in order to apply and they WILL put up a fight. Honestly, consider buying discount notebooks after every holiday and use those throughout the year.

Be proud of yourself and keep pushing forward. Your parents will either come to learn and accept your wins, or they will continue to diminish them.

You're doing great already. Keep it up.

[xhashaseed]

- Its meaningless to live, so live with meaning ...

[WARNING - PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING -]

Before you continue to read this, please know that I am in a healthy place. It's because I am writing things like I am about to, that I am okay. I understand that this stuff can be disturbing to some people, so let me warn you now, this is a musing on nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism. It is not a cry for help but more of a trumpet of hope and love. Regardless of whether you are sensitive to such subjects, skip this post; I'll be back to my usual fare after this.

[WARNING OVER ---]

Why fucking bother?

What's the point?

I'm going to die.

I will be forgotten.

There are no, will be no, monuments in my name. I'm barely even a speck in the world. I didn't win the genetic lottery, I never got hit with that streak of luck. I will never be a superstar, world leader, famous artist, great warrior, or recognized philosopher. Everyone around me reaps more significant rewards and gains more fame for the same things I am doing, and I fall deeper into obscurity as every year rolls by. I am, by the world's standard, mediocrity incarnate.

I am nothing. But I was nothing to begin with. Before I lived, I was nothing, and to nothingness, I will return. Is that so bad? It's funny, to be honest. If immortality is being remembered after you are gone, this, too, is futile. The people who remember will die. My records will decay. All that finds me in the end is Oblivion itself. I am a scratchmark on a piece of paper drawn by an artist, who grew frustrated with it, crumpled up the paper, and threw it into the waste bin.

Would life be any better if it had an undo/redo button? I argue at the same futility. The outcome doesn't change. Let's say I DID become a superstar and lived a life of money, power, and fame. Let's say I became the most loved person on the planet. Let's say I "won" the game of life. Did I win the game of living?

Did the insect I squished the other day reflect on my cosmic social score? Am I a good person because I said "good morning" the other day to someone who looked depressed? I draw pictures people may find amateurish and weak. I write stories with questionable grammar. I compose music of possible quality. I contribute very little to observable reality. Yet here I sit. Trying to make sense of my loneliness and insignificance.

I can only perceive the world through my own eyes like I'm some sort of trapped god unable to bend reality to my will. I cannot honestly know if this world is real, and I cannot honestly know if the people I talk to indeed exist. I am alone in a sea of billions and billions more after I am gone.

So why do I exist? Why bother with the meaning of a game where there are no winners or losers? Why live a life of bland experience. If I cannot become "great" why not just cease to be?

Tomorrow ...

There is always tomorrow ...

And this isn't just some words of hope to myself. I am curious to see how this goofy little life I was given will officially pan out. In a constellation of stars, remarkable heroes, and villains, why was I chosen to see life through the eyes of "just some person" who means nothing? If forums and other social media are to be believed, there are people out there who seek out these types of games and stories.

"I don't want to be the hero, I just want to be some guy..." I will read it sometimes, and laugh. If I am the "not-hero" in my own story, and I can only read it, feel it, through my own body and eyes, like a very open-ended chose-your-own-adventure story, then why not just keep reading?

I should have died a few times I can count. I should have been in prison for a few others. I should be worse off as often as I should have been better off. Upon this thought, I laugh even harder because I am trying to figure out by which standard I am measuring this? The people who I cannot say if they too exist or not? Myself? Why should I feel discontent when nothing is meaningful to measure my success or failure?

There is always tomorrow. You don't know how this lousy movie might end. It could wrap all of this up with one conclusion. I can only watch it once. I can only celebrate successes and failures once. This is a hardcore, one-life-only, let' s-play, and I am the audience.

As self-absorbed as it sounds, I should only be entertaining myself. I like stories that feel good. I like stories where people laugh and cry, love is pure, and villains can be turned into friends. These are the stories I want, so I will keep living to tell that story until I run out of batteries. I may not be a rock star, but I'm still having fun. Even when I am sad and depressed, it is a sweet feeling. I want to see how my story ends, not because I switched off the power, but because I one hundred percent-ed it and got my special ending.

"Xhasha Seed" - 8/25/2024

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 299

The Thing/The Ghost Monument

“The Thing”

Plot Description: Sam and Dean head to a Men of Letters outpost to find a crystal that opens doors between dimensions. Ketch reconsiders his arrangement with Azmodeus

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: I’m hoping I wouldn’t be in this situation but…I can’t tell if she actually died

Dean, you’re basically the entire audience for the post it notes you put on Sam’s back…

Don’t lie, you don’t love books, Dean

Sam, you should get your brother back for….YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW TIL NOW?!

Sam’s so excited to have found the hole in the ground door to this outpost

I can’t believe they only had one bunker for the whole US MoL

Oh she’s anything but dead. She’s over 100 years old but barely looks over 20

Boys, if you thought introducing your mom who died in 1983 to the future was hard, this woman has not seen the surface of the earth since 1925

Did Azmodeus call Ketch in just as a power move?

How…how are there still other MoL in the US and why is one of them working at this random diner?!

And why is her being gone from the outpost a problem?

Marco, you can’t just poison the food!!

Oof, Ketch. I can see why you’re regretting teaming up with Azmodeus. Maybe don’t be an opportunistic bastard next life (he’s not dead…yet, but I bet he kind of wishes he was)

They’re kind of lucky…well, Dean and Sandy are SOMEWHAT lucky some creeps in robes showed up. Sam’s started eating the poisoned or at least drugged food

Oh damn! So Sandy is like a vessel for another dimension’s god…but a literal monstrous one

Is Azmodeus injecting grace into himself?

This speech Azmodeus is giving Ketch isn’t not a little hot. The gist was that they’re not so different and that’s why no matter what Ketch does or where he goes, he belongs to Azmodeus

Ah, poor kid. He didn’t even want to go check outside

Has Azmodeus been siphoning Gabriel’s grace? Oh my fucking god, I can’t tell if Gabriel is resisting this rescue by Ketch or what

That does sound like your kind of Hallmark movie, Dean, one with tentacles

Dean, you weakling, you don’t want to be a betentacled god alongside Sandy? Move over gayboy, I’m bout to get it

Dean, you don’t get to say there’s nothing wrong with “tentacle porn land” (his exact words) after passing up being its god

They really framed that to make you know someone was either already in the bunker or about to arrive just after the boys (Ketch & Gabriel)

The fact that Ketch thinks this bunker is a safe place for him…….honey, you’ve got a big storm coming

DEAN?! I did not expect you to fold to Ketch’s request so easily

Oh good. Ketch is going to apocalypse world with Dean. Lmaoooooooo, love that Dean is so honest about not caring (and in fact hoping) Ketch dies in apocalypse world

This cannot end well

“The Ghost Monument”

Plot Description: can the Doctor and her friends stay alive long enough to solve the mystery of Desolation?

Oh. Oh! Ryan and Graham got picked up by a different ship than Yas and the Doctor after getting zapped to space

Oh good. The ship Yas and the Doctor were on nearly crash landed on top of Ryan and Graham

Ew. This dude makes people race for fun but only one person gets to actually survive and go home at the end

Oh. The ghost monument is actually the TARDIS

I would LOVE to have seen some of the race before these four got here. The hunger games-like history the last two contestants have

Ryan and Graham’s ongoing issues are going to be heartwarming when they get them sorted

So this planet is basically dead but for flesh eating microbes in the water………..and robot guards in some ruins

I hope the guy contestant loses. He’s such an asshole. Like, obviously I hope they all get to leave. I just hope he doesn’t win the prize

Ohhh, horrifyingly, 1) the alien they faced off against last episode seems to be some sort of big bad that will come up again and again this season (maybe), 2) that alien race abducted, tortured, and forced a bunch of scientists to come up with a whole bunch of ways to kill people, 3) some kind of sentient cloth is now suffocating the guy contestant, and 4) there is not enough time left to wrap up this story in this episode

Why does the sentient cloth know how to talk

I’ve heard The Timeless Child get mentioned before

They really went full hunger games with joint winners

I really didn’t think they could wrap this up in this episode

Of course, when all hope seems lost, the companions rally together and then the TARDIS shows up

I don’t know if I like the TARDIS interior redecoration…I need a better view. Ok. It’s cool. We’re back to the warmly lit interior Ten had and Eleven started with, but it has a different vibe all the same

[murlocks]

CHOPPER SWEEP CHOPPER SWEEP. i cannot overstate how much i believe he needs to win. he is the definition of killer robot. hes tiny and horrible and hes like a little tiny lapdog that can and will maul you. reblogging this specifically bc this piece of propaganda was my ask (i type unnecessarily formally when i dont know the people im talking to. um.) and i still stand by all of it. chopper my murderous little garbage can on wheels i believe in you. win or lose you will always be famous. he also made his first Proper live action debut (outside of a tiny little cameo in a movie from a few yrs ago) recently he deserves this win its such a monumental time in his life

Bracket 1, Round C, Attack 9

They kill for a hobby really. A favorite hobby.

C1-10P/Chopper Propaganda

Roberto The Insane Robot Propaganda

[oriandcate]

The List of Raw Quotes immortalized by the Internet:

“People who value any aspect of creation would do well not to pit gods against one another.”

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” 

“I will face God and walk backwards into Hell.”

“Then perish.”

“I have been through Hell and come out singing.”

“Do I look like the kind of man who dies?”

“Do you think God stays in Heaven because He too lives in fear of what He created?”

“To become god is the loneliest achievement of all.”

“You kneel before my throne unaware that it was built on lies.”

“This is Hell’s territory and I am beholden to no gods.”

“Impudent of you to assume that I will meet a mortal end.”

“Bury me shallow, I’ll be back.”

“Take this gift, for the gods surely won’t.”

“One day, you will be face to face with whatever saw fit to let you exist in the universe, and you will have to justify the space you’ve filled.”

“Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?”

“Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable.”

“You cannot kill me in a way that matters.”

“Pick a god and pray.”

“We deserve a soft epilogue, my love.”

“We are the timeline that God has abandoned.”

“Pick a Hell and rot there.”

“Every day we stray further from God’s light.”

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.”

“I’d sell you to Satan for one corn chip.”

“The risk I took was calculated, but man am I bad at math.”

“If the world chooses to become my enemy, I will fight as I always have.”

“I am a monument to all your sins.”

“It’s not about whether you win or lose. Sometimes it’s about how many pages you add to the rulebook.”

“You’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, my friend.”

“The man who sleeps with a machete is a fool every night but one.”

“I don’t believe in divine retribution, but then life throws people like you at me.”

“God wanted me dead, now you get to find out why.”

“The fruits of the earth do not exist to be worth something to us.”

“I’ve got a date with destiny, and it ain’t gonna end with a kiss.”

“Hostage or not, sometimes it’s nice being held.”

“To sit still is to submit to a god who cannot stand to see such power in potentia mere inches from realizing itself and overcoming him.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“…but sadly I am only a little bug and you are a garden.”

“In a society where all adventure has been destroyed, the only adventure left is to destroy that society.”

“How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?”

“So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”

“…For they are a scoundrel and a foul beast of fields untouched by green.”

“Do you not think that Satan, too, has some affection for the inhabitants of Hell?”

“Does poetry flourishing even in the cracks and grime of the world devalue its beauty? Is the divine rendered plain when it becomes commonplace? Would you have the sublime subjected to the gatekeeping of a self-serving elite? Better it should be used and misused as us absurd commoners see fit.”

“Lock your doors and windows. God will forgive your absence.”

“I stand here, a fool of my own making.”

“Canon is but the sandbox in which I strike lightning to form glass. Trouble me no more with your quibbling and quorums, lest I grind you to dust beneath my heel and build stories from the remnants of your bones. Avast, foul fiend.”

“In the end, everyone is aware of this: nobody keeps any of what he has, and life is only a borrowing of bones.”

“’It’s not that deep.’ Maybe not originally, but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig.”

“Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed.”

“Some things don’t belong on this plane of existence and the universe conspires to correct that.”

“Weird is a prerequisite to all things good and entertaining.”

“The sunrise has never caught me sleeping.”

“People are trying to be right no matter how wrong they are, I am here, accepting my primal desires.”

“Swear all you want, but the gods have shut their ears.”

“Tis the nature, curse, and cure of humanity to be forever attracted to the abyss.”

“If you hit a mole over the head for long and hard enough, eventually it learns to mind its own beeswax. Keep whacking.”

“If we built a tower of Babel, in this day and age, no one would stop us. We would build, and build, and one day inevitably breach the gates of heaven. And we would send in a probe, and then an exploratory team, clad in hazmat suits and protective gear, to enter the gates, and lo! before them would be a great, winding mass, a crumbling chitinous mountain range, a swooping winding wormous cavern, pale and sickly and turned to dust. And we will understand why no one stopped us: it will be the exoskeleton of God.”

“I must make time fear me most.”

“My third eye is open but damn it needs a monocle.”

“Some sins follow us, trotting along and planting themselves in dark corners, high shelves, gathering dust like a forgotten potted ficus, forever a part of the inner scenery of our minds. They thrive there. In the dark. Knowing we will someday stumble in. This is why ‘tis unwise to explore the inner chambers of our souls.”

“Ideals are made of gold and light, but human lives are made of blood and tears, and spill with slippery ease; choose carefully what hills to build and die upon.”

“I shall dig my very own shallow grave. Onward.”

“Confidence! A fool’s substitute for intelligence!”

“Weird hill to die on, but at least you’re dead.”

“Our paths may have crossed briefly, but you’ve still had the misfortune of knowing me.”

“What’s a little blood and bone? We all come down to it, in the end.”

“I could set the world on fire and call it rain.”

“War allows us to dress our monsters up as saviors, and many would say I’m one of those monsters.”

“You haven’t learned anything until you learn monsters have nightmares too.”

“To live is to haunt.”

“Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.”

“In the future, you will stand at the grave of God which I dug, weeping, and I will be the only creature you will be able to answer to. You will beg for death, but due to what you said today, I will deprive you of that luxury.”

“I wanted rain and I thought the best way to do that was to make God cry.”

“Love is dead and never existed. All you did was betray me as I lay sick and festering. You are the definition of dread.”

“Here’s the thing about a haunted forest: it’s not going to haunt itself.”

“Your skull is the garden where fact flowers into meaning.”

“I shall use your voice for violin string and serenade your widow.”

“If God had wanted you to live he would not have created me.”

“I’ve heard it said that we only gain wisdom through suffering, and tonight I intend to make you very wise.”

“If I cannot bend heaven, then I will raise hell.”

“Remember that if you go knocking on enough doors asking to see the Devil, eventually he may answer.”

"No one of honor is interred here. The dead are raw materials, and nothing more."

"That there is a feller what sat down on a snake in the grass one day, and it ain't crawled outta his asshole yet."

"Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell."

"All these moments will be lost in time; like tears, in the rain."

"To feel sorrow is to deserve peace."

"No one will know the violence it took to become this gentle."

"There is no light at the end of this tunnel; so it's a good thing we brought matches."

"The answer to despair is action."

"You'll be reduced down to a single atom when I'm done with you."

"What's at the end of a million? Zero, zero, zero; big old hole, with a wall around it. That's all a bank is, you know: a great big old hole you throw money into, and all it ever seems to do is make the walls higher."

"Always strive to eat the stars."

"Why would you want to savor the taste of poison?"

"The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."

"It is better to die standing than to live kneeling."

"The anger in your heart warms you now, but it will leave you cold in your grave."

"Darkness without light is an abyss; light without darkness is blinding. You cannot have a coin with one side."

"We can't have faith for everybody."

"Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars you won."

"To rend one's enemies is to view them as objects: hollow of existence and meaning."

"Your soul sparks with a nonsense that makes this world bearable."

"He ain't one of the creatures God made."

“The unconscious hides in a language like a thief hides a diamond in a chandelier.”

“I just know no fruit has ever tasted as sweet as the ones I ate while bleeding under the blistering summer sun.”

“I pray nobody kills me for the crime of being small.”

“That’s the problem with gods; their pleasure and their wrath often look the same.”

 “If I am killed for simply living, let death be kinder than man.”

“Stupid should hurt.”

“do you think god is nuclear. do you think you cannot look upon deities the same way you cannot look at the center of a mushroom cloud. do you think the energy generated from fission is released from divine clutches. do you think that god exists in the space between the nucleus and the electrons and in the bonds of compounds and in the numbers on the page that got us there. do you think radiation is a warning. do you think it is an eraser. do you think it is wrath or a mistake or a byproduct of entropy. do you think god is plasma, where electrons are wherever you want them to be. do you think that we were supposed to find this out.”

“If you aren’t worthy enough to pull the sword, be strong enough to lift the stone.”

“I can’t go to hell. I’m all out of vacation days.”

“Despite everything, its still you.”

“The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less it will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others.”

“My mother says kissing a man without a mustache is like eating eggs without salt.”

“A character is a ghost, a story is what it haunts.”

“Pain travels through families until someone is ready to feel it.”

“The gods did not breathe the breath of life into us and give us gifts of a shape, a will, and a voice just so we could pay bills and die”

“you gotta have friends who are older than you, not because you’re a dumb kid, but because you’ll be terrified of growing up otherwise.”

“you’ve made me so hard i beg for softness”

“Scorn is more palatable than the howling hunger for things to have been different for you.”

“Being able to endure something does not equal an obligation to withstand it.”

“To live is to haunt.”

“I am a chewy rubber Polly Pocket skirt and God is a four year old girl.”

“The big picture is made up of brush strokes, fool.”

“Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages.”

“these are old bones and i am merely a passing occupant”

“The board is getting dusty but the boogeyman has not yet blinked. when he does, you better make that move.”

“And when we kill the gods neither heaven nor hell will be waiting for them because they created those to imprison us.

“What makes a man a warrior is his willingness to place himself between what he holds dear and anything that threatens it. This is the way.”

“The anchor gives the ship the world to love.”

“In a society where adventure has been destroyed, the only adventure left is to destroy that society.”

“You pretended to be the hero of a story you never saved.”

“this world is a banquet of knowledge and each of us has brought a dish to the table.”

“This is the time of vengeance and no life is worth saving.”

“The ghosts that inhabit this place are more alive than you’ll ever be.”

“May the only thing that dampens the flames of hell for you be God spitting in your face.”

[orange-plum]

As a fellow artist who is also enduring the shift from art as a fun creative medium in fandom spaces, to specific daily content TM.

Do you think it will ever shift back? Or do you think it is going to get worse from here on out? Do you have any thoughts on how artists can feasibly push against this?

Or is it a thing where you think that any real art engagement, is going to have to once again fall back into more traditional normie spheres (?) I don’t know if I explained this properly, but I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any.

Boof. Some of y'all came out swinging with the big art questions lol

Personally, and take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I've been in art/fandom spaces for almost 20 years now. Today's art/fandom climate is drastically different than even 6 years ago, if you can believe it (obv there are consistencies, but I'm esp speaking on how I interacted in both fandom and webcomics),

And I hate to be the glass half empty guy, but unless something monumental changes in the internet climate, with multiple variables, I see it getting worse, not better. But that's partially on how corporations influence/run the apps we all utilize. Right now, I'd even go so far as to say an entire generation is being brought up with fast consumerism which is unfortunately resulting in some sense of entitlement. And it's not just gen-z getting influenced, don't get me wrong. I don't buy into that stupid generational war crap, so I’m not meaning to single anyone out. But I think younger gen-z have been raised on an internet vastly different than what I was. Hell, the entitlement in general on the internet is kind of disheartening.

But to get back to the core route, there has been this weird expectation from multiple apps and companies that art needs to be frequent to be relevant. Comics need fast updates, and even still engagement on virtually any form of art, unless you have a huge following, is so little. For example, back before webcomics became such a bloated industry, so let's say 2016 as an example of this, Satan and Me would get hundreds of comments per episode, and on tumblr it would get even upwards of thousands of notes/reblogs. Nowadays, tumblr SaM gets a few hundred notes, and the updates get anywhere between 20-50 comments. The view count has been axed tremendously.

A lot of these sites have an algorithm set up too, and restrictions. Sites like twitter and instagram feel like they actively work against art promotion. I do think the situation could get better, but it would take a loooot of unified artist pushback, as well as some of these apps changing to accommodate their artists who use them. These are big ifs.

With quick consumerism, less engagement, app dissatisfaction of "slow updates" building that expectation of pumping out art faster for audience consumption, and an overall unwillingness to accommodate artists to promote their work, I can't see the internet art environment getting better any time soon.

My best advice would be: unless you're basing income off of the art you produce, try to get more into self-enjoyment rather than outside sources providing you fulfilment in your art. I'm lucky that I've been able to build a pretty hefty following over the last almost decade, but, god forbid (knock on wood), if that were to all fall away and I had to go back to school for a different career path, I assure you I'd never stop drawing. You simply cannot create good art solely for engagement. I don't believe that's possible; there's no heart in completely corporate art.

I do pray for the art community, tho. I hope someday to see some wins in our corners, cuz it's been so bleak the last IDK 5 or so years.

[your-stoat-stands-unopposed]

actually would it be alright to request reader seriously challenging magnificus for his position because they saw how he treats his students and decided enough is enough, i can't let you keep doing this anymore? like maybe he was only humoring them and didn't expect them to go through with it (or win if they did) but they do and win and he witnesses how attached his students got to the first person to treat them kindly

Let Us Dance.

Pairing: None.

Warnings: Mentions of canon-typical nastiness from Magnificus to his students, but that's about it.

Summary: You're sure you should be terrified; a human standing before a great Scrybe, standing up to him, threatening him even.

"You cannot be serious."

"Oh, I am."

You're sure you should be terrified; a human standing before a great Scrybe, standing up to him, threatening him even. There have been challengers before, those who have faced down the Scrybes in attempts to take their positions...

But you aren't here because you want Magnificus's position as Scrybe of Magicks.

No, you're here because you want Magnificus's position as master: because you want to end his tyranny over his helpless students, because you want to knock this cruel wizard off his lofty perch so that his pupils can go free.

"The way you treat them," you continue, "is awful. You've kept one of them in sensory deprivation for so long that they've gone mad, turned one of them into a ball of goo who's always in pain, made one of them live as a head on a pike cooking over lava..."

Before you, the wizard seems entirely impassive. He makes no move to stop your tirade, to protest against your accusations; he simply allows you to speak.

His lack of response only fuels your anger.

"You broke them," you clench your hands into fists at your sides. "And I can't let it go on any further. I can't."

"Are you done?"

His voice, deep and ancient, is tinged with an amusement that sets you on edge. A chuckle escapes him; the sound of a man completely unfazed.

"You will not be my undoing," he speaks, a wry tone to his voice. "In all my years, among all my premonitions, I am yet to observe a future in which you are the one to bring me down."

...You swallow.

You hadn't thought about that... This guy has an eye that can see into the future; he'll know if you win or not...

But you can't back down. You won't.

"You don't know everything," you mumble, eyes narrowing, skeptical and defiant. "Not now. Not after Leshy took your eye away."

He bristles, and you know you've hit a nerve.

You can't help but feel a flash of pride in your heart.

"So be it," Magnificus says, his eye glaring your way. "We will meet by the monuments tomorrow for a duel. Winner takes all. If you are so eager to make your needless point, so desperate to make a stand and fail... then let us dance."

------

You didn't expect it to be quite such a grand affair; it's as though everyone has arrived to bear witness to this historical moment.

The other three Scrybes and their followers have gathered in a circle around you, observing each and every move you and Magnificus make. Others from far and wide join the audience with baited breath, needing to see this duel with their own eyes to believe it's even happening. Now and then, you can hear the occasional commentary, the occasional murmur of approval, the occasional gasp of surprise...

But you pay no mind to it. You can't afford to.

The three students of your opponent - the three reasons that you're doing all this - are watching from cages suspended in the air above the battlefield; 'so that you may look them in the eyes as you fail, and despair,' Magnificus had said with a cold anger.

Under their gazes... you can't allow yourself to slip up.

You need to win this, for them.

------

That day feels so very long ago now. You can't remember just how long it's been since that battle: it could have been weeks, it could have been months, it could have been years...

All you know, and all you care to know, is that it is over.

You can walk the halls of the tower freely, and so can the students, and this is what matters. They've all flourished since that fateful day; your heart swells with pride and joy each and every time you see them.

The Lonely Wizard flits about from place to place in search of stimulation, dancing and singing and revelling in each and every sensation they can feel... the Pike Wizard managed to talk P03 into giving her parts for a new body, and she's learning to live as an entire person again... Goobert has taken up residence in a nice small space between the slats of the bridge, making friends with whoever passes by...

As for Magnificus himself, you don't know where he got to.

You don't care to know.

All you know... is that, at the end of the dance, you were the one who'd emerged victorious.