#than a thing I could actually do. it's like my brain can't connect the concept of the action to the act of doing it

[thethingything]

I'm fatigued, my back hurts, I accidentally spent like 3 hours sat downstairs in a chair that made our back feel worse because our executive dysfunction prevented me getting up and going back upstairs even though I only went down there to get one thing, and now I really need to lay down but if I accidentally fall asleep again I feel like I'll wake up, realise I fell asleep and also that I feel like I wasted a big chunk of the day, and I'll end up feeling even worse again

[kathaynesart]

Replica Holiday Special Winners!

Happy Holidays everyone! It's that time of year and you know what that means! Time to announce the winners for the DTIYS Replica Holiday Special Cover!

I received so many wonderful submissions. Far more than I had anticipated! They were all so unique and creative and it was an absolute joy to look at each and every one of them! I really underestimated however how difficult it would be to choose with them all being so unique from each other. In the end, I decided to gauge the top picks on how well their cover captured the "essence" of what this Special is going to be like! Without further ado, here are the winners.

HONORABLE MENTION - @matchstique

Buddy! I love this piece so dang much! It has so much character and perfectly displays the wacky hijinks we can expect as well as the huge amount of stress our poor boys are under during these trying, pregnancy times. The movement and colors work so well and make me excited for what comes next! Seldom do I see pregnant females shown as the badasses they are, but you have gone and turned Cassandra into an absolute icon with this piece! Bless you!

3RD PLACE - @thegunnsara

Sara, the shear amount of craft you put into your art is STAGGERING. Every scuff on Raph's shell and wisp of smoke screams of a quality I can only hope to attain someday. I literally want to be you when I grow up! That said, the concept of this piece is also fantastic. One of the things I'm must excited about for this Special is getting to see Raph and Casey as they were and witnessing the strong bond they share. I love them dearly and this cover captures their strength and tenacity so perfectly. Gods among men.

2ND PLACE - @cupcakeslushie

Slushie, this cover is so damn fun and dynamic that I can't stop looking at it! Your attention to detail and composition are masterful and the fact that you could fit such a bombastic battle into such a limited space speaks to how crazy talented you are! You also do a wonderful job of retaining both the intensity of the apocalypse but also that playful edge that Rise always manages to retain! It's definitely the cover that would catch my eye on a shelf and make me want to turn the page to see what happens next!

1ST PLACE - @abbeyofcyn

Cyn, the moment I saw this cover, I gasped! It's funny because this is both a piece I could have totally seen myself doing had I done the cover, yet crafted in a unique way I could have never come up with on my own! On top of that, this slick composition scratches my little designer brain juuust right. The use of the hands motif is such a great element because to me, it encapsulates the conflicting themes of family/parenthood with the drama of what it means to be human. On top of that, having each character as one of the digits both connected to and encircling Casey is such a wonderful touch that really drives the symbolism home. Somehow, you managed to peer into the future and perfectly capture how the finale of this special is going to feel. Thank you so much Cyn for such a wonderful piece!

~~~~~~~~~

Now that I think about it, looking back on these winners as a set, all four them actually do an amazing job as individual covers for each of the four "acts" that will make up this special. That was not at all my intention, but it kind of worked out perfectly for that. Gets me all emotional!

I also definitely want to put a spotlight on the other amazing submissions, many of which made it SO close to the top slots! I was going to post these pieces individually but I was worried people wouldn't then go to their blogs to view the covers, so instead have a compilation and links to the full versions! Please check out everyones amazing covers and give them some love. They all worked really hard and it means so much to me. Thank you everyone!

@dreamundraws - LINK @honeylief - LINK @gemini-forest - LINK @memorydarkness - LINK @skullythefriendlyskullface - LINK @v-albion - LINK @its-wabby-stuff - LINK @yris-latteyi - LINK @reagi-df - LINK @chaoscontrol50 - LINK / LINK @murasakibonnet - LINK @hitwiththetmnt - LINK @xandriagreat - LINK @karonkar - LINK @sunydays - LINK (sorry my dear, yours did not appear on my hashtag reference at first! D: But still love it!) @quailaz - LINK @delicatechildwitch - LINK

Thank you again all of you! You all did such an amazing job!

[angy-grrr]

i understand ppl getting disappointing over today's ep, even tho I was expecting something like that it still look me by surprise too. But honestly, we got spoiled -we have been for a long time.

It means a lot to me the parallels between ep 7 season 7 and the memories ep where Izuku can't use black whip against Katsuki. Its so, so crazy. In this chat about romance, Midoriya gets extremely embarrassed over the concept of being someone's boyfriend, and Present Mic (one of the common narrators of the show) adds a little build up: he is really amazing and has earned great achievements, but for all of his triumphs, he is still, just a damn nerd.

He is still Izuku, that awkward kid whose childhood friend considers too nerdy to see or understand concepts like romance, boyfriend, and him getting involved in them. This call back to Katsuki is unnecessary, even more so considering he is not the narrator, but still, Present Mic considered the best way to describe him is to use the words his closest person says. With Izuku getting confessed, and him explaining what he considers to be a boyfriend's role, Katsuki's presence is still part of the scene. But what's even more interesting is the way he is also linked to the other part of the scene: what Izuku thinks about admiration and love.

When the word boyfriend comes out of Himiko's mouth is like his whole brain can just think about cheesy, typical movie stuff (thats what a boyfriend is, right? someone you hold hands with, share crepes and go to the amusement park with, right?) instead of feelings. Idk about how different the idea of love is in Japan compared to the one im used to, but Izuku seems to not know that, to be a boyfriend, first there are usually some feelings that make you want to become that -affection, curiosity, even love*. That word, boyfriend, is associated with many concepts, and instead of asking "boyfriend?! Like someone who makes you feel butterflies in your stomach?!" he focuses first on actions the boyfriend does -boyfriend is the one you hold hands with, the one who you share crepes with, the one who goes with you to the amusement park**.

But once Himiko explains her own idea of love and admiration he gets to focus on the latter part of the conversation, he does get what it feels like, but not like her. When its not associated with romance, its almost like he is allowed to express more freely about his emotions and opinions about love; he actually reveals some interesting stuff.

So first of all, Izuku seems to start thinking about it more deeply when Himiko explains that to her, being a couple means becoming the person she likes. That immediately reminds him of his own feelings towards his mentor -he does want to be like him, he gets that satisfaction, but not how that could be romance duh lmao, and he is the one who brings up the admiration aspect. He doesnt see it as a couple thing, or a romantic feeling, because he immediately associates it to pure admiration.

"Yeah I want to be like All Might my biggest idol, so I get how great it is to try it". That's his way of connecting to her, creating a bridge of understanding each other's perspectives -"I get this part, but I cant understand how you could not want to share the feelings of the person you love".

Then he follows it with "I dont want to hurt the person I love".

So, for Izuku, there's something more going on than just being completely clueless about everything -he does have an idea about what he wouldnt want to do to the person he loves, and an idea about what he does.

When he focus on the boyfriend or couple side, he gets all flustered, because those are embarrassing topics, and immediately jumps into a general, superficial idea about what those mean. Because... he doesnt get it when is described with those names -those names are related to things that look so unapproachable for a nerd like him. However, when he has something he relates to ("becoming the person... oh! like the admiration I have for All Might!"), he has a chance to actually explain his feelings and opinion about her confession.

Once this reaches an emotion he does understand, he spills how he wants to share the feelings the person he loves has. Which is... not that different from what Himiko feels. After all they both want to be closer to the people they love by having something the person has in common*** He also wants that kind of connection on a deeper, emotional level, rather than the superficial description he gave before; he is more free to express this when he can ignore the big name and connotation "couple" or "boyfriend" has.

When Izuku thinks about love without thinking about Love, he has an idea of what comes natural to him: to get closer to the person. Maybe thats why he doesnt think about Tenko the way Ochako does with Himiko -he feels empathy for his past and terrible present, currently he feels guilt over not being able to do more, reach out sooner, save... but he doesnt talk about feelings he wants to share with him like that. So, it makes sense thats how he views it.

For him, love is not only understanding the other, is sharing feelings of love. And the other key to Izuku's love is one Himiko cant ever reach: not wanting to hurt the person he loves.

This paralleling extra content shouldn't be that important, but considering Izuku is unable to use black whip when remembering Katsuki's sacrifice to him... doesnt it sound relevant?

Izuku confesses he doesnt want to hurt someone he loves, and it parallels a scene of him being... scared of hurting Kacchan the way AFO did, and deciding not to -whether it was consciously or not, black whip decided to not attack him.

He can train with him perfectly okay until his own quirk reminds him of Kacchan hurting.

Am i crazy? EDIT: alright I think I see some stuff about Izuku’s idea of love, and this will be the short, quirk version of this whole thing:

Admiration and wanting to be like someone, solely, it’s not enough for Izuku to consider it love —that’s what he does when it comes to All Might, and he knows he doesnt feel that way.

However, sharing the same feelings and not wanting to hurt them, thats way more important to him when it comes to love. Those, at least right now, are cores to his perspective of love.

He rejects Himiko's love because it has nothing to do with his from his point of view: she wants to hurt the people she loves, the biggest deal breaker, she doesnt share the same feelings as him, and she also considers imitation and admiration good enough to be considered love.

*it doesnt have to be romantic love, as platonic and queer platonic love and relationships can also start and continue to date and be wonderful for the people involved. Im adding this just to clarify there are multiple possibilities for a feeling of love, and its completely okay.

You can also date anyone for any reason really, including being confused by your feelings, expectations, social and peer pressure, etc., but im talking about what in theory would be the best case scenarios.

** This is in case we take into consideration the original meaning from the manga. In the anime, if the phrasing is actually different in Japanese as the subs suggest, then it would be "what a couple does".

*** The main issue that separates them is the abuse Toga has suffered that led to her seeing herself as a unlovable monster. For her, deep inside, she has to become the other person in order to be loved, bc she sees the goodness and precious things in others, and the only way she could ever be that... is if she literally stops being herself AAAAA MY POOR BABY

[vegaseatsass]

Rewatched My Stand-In eps 2 and 3 tonight, and I'm definitely newly fascinated with Ming POV/Ming's internal concept of what was happening between him and Joe that entire time. I forgot just how much we got of Ming's home life and family in episode 2, and my brain is abuzz trying to connect all the dots. His relationship with May is so interesting. She clocks that he and Joe are together on Christmas, and is immediately careful to conceal it not just from their parents but from Tong. May and Ming have this "us against the world" vibe where they protect and cover for each other, going back to May giving herself pneumonia saving Ming from drowning. I absolutely believe there's more going on in their family than mom pressuring Ming to marry women any time he goes home - I actually suspect things about his family are being obscured for future painful reveals - but May is a safe space for him. Until Tong is added into the picture, and Ming has to flee the country for four years to get away from his big feelings. It's just kind of bonkers to me that he had this intense, safe and presumably very grounding relationship with his sister, but made his obsession with a random movie star the centerpiece of his world instead. Why did he imprint on Tong? Is it really just Joe's sexy back muscles that drew him in? Did he think if he could land a famous movie star his parents would accept him being with a man? Was it subconscious self-sabotage of his only safe relationship lol? I genuinely have no idea!! What I am stuck on though is when he told May he was working through something, and would tell her when he was ready, but he promised he'd get through it. On rewatch, it seems very obvious that what he's talking about is the torch he's carrying for Tong, so to me that's a reveal that he's deliberately trying to move on with Joe - not using him as a sex doll replacement, but throwing himself into something real. (What's messy obviously is that Ming started this for the proxyfucking, but I think overhearing Joe confess his love for Ming to Sol is when Ming started making a determined effort to choose Joe.) There's also his reaction to Joe's Christmas gift where the watch becomes a metaphor for Joe himself (vs. Tong): Ming doesn't need the "top" one, why can't he want the "normal" one?

The first time I was watching this, I assumed that Ming just has no internal awareness of how important Joe is to him, he just feels pure need and acts very very normal when his emotional support stand-in is ripped away. I assumed Ming believes he's in love with Tong and thinks he's just passing some time with Joe. It doesn't help that every time Joe presses him on anything emotional Ming shuts him down or outright negs him lolllll

But like for example, in the scene where they're shopping together and Joe gets excited about the couple mugs, first Ming snaps "What makes you think we're a couple?", then he tries to mitigate his slip by playing it off: "after living with me, you'll realize you don't want me as a boyfriend." His kneejerk impulse to shut Joe down and say cruel things is imo a defense mechanism, a really maladaptive one that helps convince Joe later on that there was never any love there, but I'm starting to think it's triggered in response to actually wanting the intimacy and primacy that Joe is pushing for, and being terrified of that.

It would make so much sense for somebody who is terrified of needing anybody else, of being vulnerable or feeling anything real, to decide they're in love with a complete asshole movie star who uses their family for money and them personally for favors, and shape their life around that. Especially now that I understand how young Ming was when he first fixated on Tong (17ish??), I just feel like that entire imprinting is your classic teenager-who-is-not-ready-to-be-in-a-real-relationship parasocial spiral. I used to do it with male celebrities too!!! (I am a lesbian. lmfaooo)

It's interesting because while there's something conceptually romantic about the back Ming first got obsessed with being Joe's all along, it ultimately doesn't really matter to me WHO the onscreen person that he fixated upon was. What matters is how ill-equipped Ming has proven to handle real feelings for a real person in front of him, and the journey he has from here to learn how to human. I can't wait. P.S. Other thing I forgot happened in episode 2: - Ming made drunk!Joe sleep on the floor of Joe's own home - BEFORE Ming moved in or had any claim to the space - AFTER Ming told Sol he would take "really really good care of Joe" as a way of trying to claim Joe in front of the competition His journey to human is going to be a loooooooooooooooooong one, methinks... 😈

[bomberqueen17]

the gay dolphins are too powerful

yesterday i was facing the facts that i do need to actually work out the technical mcguffins in this novel. like, i have some vague notion that there's a problem with the radio network because of solar flares and our heroes are going to... somehow... fix it. idk.

plot and worldbuilding wittering behind the cut

this was the main plot in the solarpunk mammoths novel too, and i had a vague notion that a problem on such a global scale as that would need to like. it would need to be solved by more than one person. and so my nebulous notion is that possibly several sets of characters could work on it in these loosely-connected novels where really i'm just exploring different ecosystems.

idk i just-- y'all know about the Turkey City Lexicon right? I got it as a hand-out in college creative writing class and of course it reshaped my brain, but. one of the Tropes To Beware they've got is the Cozy Catastrophe, which is startlingly prevalent and once you see it you can't unsee-- "the world is ending! all of humanity will die! unless... Jeff and Suzy, you're our only hope!" and our two everyman protagonists somehow are the only resources the entire world can muster and honestly the entire world seems to consist of one American city block with about three hundred people in it at most. Hm.

so i was like yah this catastrophe is way too cozy.

meanwhile i forget how it came up but @sonnetsandsinging, helpfully spitballing, said something about space whales and i was like

OMG in a world with genetically-engineered mammoths with radio collars that translate their brain waves to allow them to speak in human language it is ABSURD that they are the only species of animal that has been given this treatment

so like. what other animals do we try to talk to all the time besides elephants?

DOLPHINS

so now this world has genetically-engineered dolphins with brainwaves-to-speech dorsal fin attachments. like duh of course it does. i can't believe I hadn't thought of that.

there should be other animals too but i can't decide which ones, currently taking submissions. What Else Should Slightly-Disconcertingly Speak.

(My criteria: should be an animal intelligent enough to have successful communication with humans already, something relatively long-lived, something that couldn't use sign language or other methods already. My concept, which is not scientific really, is that it's been well-studied that while many animals have complex communication systems, humans are the only ones whose brains are structured specifically for language, so the Magic Fictional Science here is that they've had that ability genetically-engineered in, but of course the physical production of human-intelligible language is beyond the physical structure of most animals, hence the brainwave-interface collars. which btw could also be used on profoundly disabled humans, and that might be a plot point at some point; i do have some disabled characters in this story. I know I researched those like, communication board things that nonverbal humans can use and I settled on Magical Radio-Networked Interfaces that speak out loud instead for the simple expedient of streamlining things because like how is a mammoth going to carry a communication board around that it can like get out and point at. how is a dolphin going to carry anything. so, this is just where I ended up.)

(I was thinking parrots but then parrots wouldn't need the collar because they can actually make human-speech noises on their own. so that's a fun variation. maybe in this world african grey parrots actually just talk.)

Anyway back when I first started the solarpunk mammoths novel I researched Asian elephants a lot and studied their social structures and read up on their physical abilities etc., so in between trying to find out how radio waves and semiconductors work (i get the radio waves thing & think i have my mcguffin sorted out but semiconductors made my eyes glaze over and then begin weeping so i gave up) (also supercapacitors i don't understand u sorry bye) (do i know any electronics engineers who want to explain this in normal languages? shit i do know a chemical engineer maybe she knows. heck) ... ok i wandered away from this post to text her and then forgot i was making it. i did not get a lot of sleep last night the amphetamines are not being kind this go-round but i must continue the experiment. uhhhhh where was i

GAY DOLPHINS

too powerful

Yeah so I started researching dolphins, because if I'm going to have named-and-speaking dolphin characters, I need to know a little bit about how they work.

Now I have a slight head-start on this, just as I did on mammoths. Mammoths, I've been obsessed with since I was a toddler. But dolphins. For a while I used to go to SCA camping events and there was this guy who used to be a Navy diver and then worked for Sea World and he. well he was really good at telling stories, was his deal. And he had Seen Some Shit, and some of that shit was about interacting with dolphins. And the thing about dolphins is that. Well, they're violent little chaos gremlins, and just in the course of going about their normal lives, one of the things they do to interact with the world is, well. they have sex with things.

when they do this to people it is generally not a positive experience for the person. but. so i knew that going in. and most of the information on the internet about dolphins is really like. earnest and loving and whatever, which is great. but the thing is that dolphins are chaos gremlins who will fuck anything they can't eat, eat anything they can't fuck, or sometimes do both to the same unfortunate object if it proves to be possible.

what i'm saying is, these are going to be really entertaining characters to work with. because elephants, conversely, do not have recreational sex. they do a lot of things, but they just don't really do that. so dolphins are like. inverse-elephants, culturally.

Elephants also tend to have a strong matriarch, strong bonds between females, and then the males tend to be largely solitary, but will congregate more loosely, often around an older male who will teach them manners. (A well-mannered bull is MUCH more likely to be allowed to mate with desirable females, who have little patience with male foibles.)

Dolphins have looser gender roles; on the whole, the females tend to loosely congregate, and pregnant females usually go back to their mother's pod to birth and raise young, not dissimilar to elephants, but the males--

male dolphins very, very frequently will pair-bond. Two males of similar age-- adult males have very little to do with juveniles of either sex, generally-- will pair-bond and will be inseparable for the rest of their lives. If one of them dies, the other will mourn-- mourning behavior is well-documented in dolphins-- and then will seek to pair off with another adult male, because male dolphins prefer to work in pairs, for survival and companionship. (Dolphin "pods" are also more loosely-organized than elephant herds; dolphins will have a couple of core companions, but then will freely associate and disassociate with other individuals and groups over short periods of time without much fuss, depending on the situation.)

The pair-bonded males are the ones who in the wild do the behavior you see in shows, where they do like synchronized jumps and very-close fast-precise swimming and such, which in the wild are apparently courtship or threat displays-- i.e. "look how tight we are, you can't fight us" or, alternately, "isn't that hot" because

yes that's often how they court females. The pair will corral a desirable female and herd her away from other dolphins so they can both mate with her, and keep her from mating with anybody else.

(other females have been observed collaborating to free a corralled female who did not want this to happen, so it's not quite as rapey as it sounds. though, i mean. dolphins. what can you do.)

anyway dolphin threesomes are canon. but that derailed the rest of my night and i was unable to concentrate on anything else because the gay-- I should say really bisexual dolphins are too powerful.

so anyway i wrote a test scene with a dolphin character, and i had my main character take his wife and baby down to the jetty to introduce them to his dolphin pals, and a bonded male pair he'd known for years showed up and immediately tried to steal the wife, and then expressed shock that he didn't have his male best friend with him, because in their experience breeding was THEE most important time to have your buddy with you. He explains that his buddy is off on a long-term work assignment, and they're like hmph next time you breed you MUST include him, it is so much easier trust us. and the wife is like hmmmmm!

henceforth i will refer to m/m/f threesomes as "dolphin style" you're welcome

[bonesbonesbones69]

A HARROW THE NINTH FANMIX

I know I’ve put out a number of fan mixes at this point but this is my favorite one.

Track list:

New York (St. Vincent)

Moderation (Florence + The Machine)

Heavy Cross (Gossip)

How To Be Eaten By A Woman (The Glitch Mob)

Ballad of the Thin Man (Bob Dylan)

Spent Gladiator 2 (The Mountain Goats)

Foreign Object (The Mountain Goats)

Drive It Like You Stole It (Glitch Mob)

Cosmic Love (Florence + The Machine)

Francesca (Hozier)

Wear Black (The Mountain Goats)

I'm about to get VERBOSE under the cut, join me if you want a deep dive on why I chose these songs. Or just listen to the playlist and draw your own conclusions :)

NEW YORK (St. Vincent)

You know how Gideon's death kind of haunts the entire 'Harrow the Ninth' narrative, because you can't stop thinking about it even though Harrow doesn't remember it and the book isn't mentioning it? But it's so present, the negative space in the story creating a very clear Gideon-shaped outline?

This song is first to set the tone for the playlist in the same way. It's a good song about grieving someone who fit with you in a way nobody else did or ever could.

It's about the bits that go:

you're the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me /can stand me /forgives me

It makes me a little crazy. Especially the forgiveness bit. Kind of brings forward the depth of what Harrow lost when Gideon died.

MODERATION (Florence and the Machine)

Like a fine wine, this song pairs excellently with thinking about harrow giving herself a lobotomy.

Want me to love you in moderation? Do I look moderate to you?

I've never heard of anyone loving someone LESS moderately than harrow when she carved up her own brain about a girl. Someone said in a tumblr post somewhere that 'most people just get breakup bangs'. YEAH THEY DO. but that's our mistake for thinking harrow was going to do anything other than the most insane possible thing.

This song is ominous and heavy, evokes religion and fear, the concept of love used as a threat.

It's perfect.

Actually let's talk real quick about the religion part. This isn't going to be hugely cohesive but it's important to me and I think you'll get what I'm going for:

The lines:

Bow your head in the house of God Little girl, who do you think you are

Can be read like the narrative voice is taking on the persona of God, loving in the powerful and unknowable way God might love. Loving in a way you have no say over. Interpreting Harrow's actions with this lens is like a fucked up mirror, consider: Gideon spent her childhood beaten down by a heavily religious society, the figurehead of which was Harrow herself, beating Gideon down sometimes literally but more importantly, figuratively. Now Harrow continues the role of religiously executing power over Gideon's experience, this time with absolutely ferocious love.

Also LAST THING I PROMISE but there's a quiet vein of self-hatred in this song, lurking just behind all of it. A real judgement of the self for having this power and impulse.

So it's perfect.

HEAVY CROSS (Gossip)

Actually you know what lets have MORE songs about harrow's lobotomy. It's a rich vein.

Most of the songs on this playlist make me a little crazy, and this is absolutely one of them. The manic, dangerous, committed tone (and religious undertones) continues from moderation to heavy cross - but what heavy cross brings to the table is the CHOICE.

We can play it safe, or play it cool Follow the leader or make up all the rules Whatever you want, the choice is yours So choose I checked you If it's already been done, undo it

THE CHOICE

And also, oh my god, "it's already been done, undo it". This song made the cut just for that line, and over time I just liked it more and more on here.

I'm skipping over saying a lot of the obvious stuff as I talk about these songs - assuming you're already connecting "whatever you want, the choice is yours, so choose" to harrow making the choice to stop the lyctoral process. And choosing to undo what's already been done. Right? Are we both there already? Cool just making sure.

HOW TO BE EATEN BY A WOMAN (The Glitch Mob)

I'm not done with songs about harrow's lobotomy yet. But this one's a little about Gideon

Ok also I feel the need to say - YES I did put a six minute electronic instrumental in a fanmix, but give it a chance!! It's evocative.

I went to the glitch mob specifically when I was putting this playlist together because I wanted music that felt confusing and dark and bad (the good kind of bad, in the way music can be). Something to mirror the way it felt to read harrow the ninth.

And then I saw there was a song titled 'how to be eaten by a woman' and I added it to the playlist without even listening to it first. And then I listened to it 50 times and now it's going to be on my Spotify top 100 I just know it.

Anyways this one stayed in the playlist as an homage to the confusing and inarticulate things that happened to Gideon and Harrow, as Gideon both was and was not quite eaten by a woman.

BALLAD OF A THIN MAN (Bob Dylan)

Ballad of a thin man is my all time favorite Bob Dylan song and it is exactly the same amount of stupidly ominously confusing as the events of harrow the ninth.

Now could I go on and on about this song?

Yes, and I will.

I’ve never found a source concretely sharing what the fuck this song is actually about. To me, it’s about being confused, outside, and alone. To Wikipedia and opinionated blogs it’s about the mainstream man encountering counter-culture, maybe queer culture. Sometimes theorists think it's about sex but there's not really enough evidence to say concretely.

In the context of this fanmix it’s about not knowing what the fuck is going on because you forgot you gave yourself a lobotomy.

Also frankly sometimes the way this whole series is written feels like one of the interactions described in this song:

You raise up your head and you ask, ‘is this where it is?’ And somebody points to you and says, ‘it’s his.’ And you say, ‘what’s mine?’ And somebody else says, ‘well, what is?’ And you say ‘oh my god, am I here all alone?’

I mean what the fuck is that about??

Like you're trying to have a conversation, but the person you're talking to is clearly having a completely different conversation and is not interested in explaining themselves one bit. Which is something that's happened many times in Harrow the Ninth.

And I mean - the REFRAIN -

You know something's happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones.

I love that the song speaks directly at Mr. Jones, that he's a specifically named man rather than a general figure.

It makes the tone of the song so cruel and damning - you, Mr. Jones, are dumb as fuck and alone. You think you're smart, you're used to being smart and knowing what's happening, but you don't anymore. You're a lost idiot now. And nobody is going to help you.

Harrow is Mr. Jones that's what I'm saying. Do you get it. Do you agree. She's Mr. Jones.

SPENT GLADIATOR 2 (The Mountain Goats)

This is the title track because nothing else sums up the wretchedness of harrows existence on the mithraeum like this does:

Stay in the game. Just try to play through the pain Like a fighter who’s been told it’s finally time for him to quit Show up in shining colors and then stand there and get hit

I barely know what else to say about it.

The next song in this playlist is also a mountain goats song. As a best practice I think it’s a little gauche to put two songs by one artist back to back on a playlist, but these two absolutely HAVE to be back to back.

The reason is the joy I feel coming out of this song, and hearing the first couple notes of the next song, and thinking… yeah, it’s time to go fucking crazy.

FOREIGN OBJECT (The Mountain Goats)

This one is about the time harrow stabs someone in the eye with a foreign object

I personally will stab you in the eye with a foreign object

It's about harrow jamming her own teeth into the saint of duty's eyes, and also about the soup thing. This song is about being backed into a corner and fighting desperately with unexpected weapons.

Fun fact, the song itself was written explicitly about wrestling - which means that the term 'foreign object' should be translated in the wrestling context, meaning an object from outside of the ring. For example, a classic folding chair. So, considering this, we must admit that harrow doesn't actually literally use a foreign object. She uses her own teeth and bone marrow. Her objects are downright domestic.

But I think we can all agree she's got the spirit.

DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT (The Glitch Mob)

OK OK I PUT A SECOND SIX MINUTE LONG ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTAL ON THE FANMIX!!!! BUT -

really there's so much general bad feeling happening in harrow the ninth that having chaotic instrumentals feels like the only way to even START to capture it.

So here's a song about Gideon waking up in Harrow's body and trying to figure out that weird and upsetting event while also fighting some fucked up bees and learning some weird stuff about her parents and also dying like at least 4 times while all this was happening.

COSMIC LOVE (Florence and the Machine)

I like my playlists to be a bit chronological - it's an urge I can never quite thwart, I love to mirror a narrative. So all the songs about Gideon are at the end of the playlist, when she shows up. Man, we all missed her. I missed her. Didn't you miss her??

The stars, the moon they have all been blown out you left me in the dark

I don't have that much to say about this one, I find it incredibly self-evident. I'll make up for how fucking long-winded I was about 'Moderation' and 'Ballad of a Thin Man' by cutting this short.

FRANCESCA (Hozier)

Some of these songs are so exactly what I want on this playlist that I actually have LESS to say about them, because I think you can interpret the same things I'm interpreting just by listening to the song.

So listen to the song and then lets be insane about it together!!

This is about Gideon's sacrifice, and Harrow's rejection of that sacrifice. And Gideon's butthurt feelings about that.

My life was a storm, since I was born How could I fear any hurricane? If someone asked me at the end I'd tell them put me back in it (Darling) I would do it again.

I mean

"I gave you my sword. I gave you myself. I did it while knowing I'd do it all again, without hesitation, because all I ever wanted you to do was eat me."

Are you insane about it yet? I'm insane about it.

WEAR BLACK (The Mountain Goats)

The playlist is coming to an end.

Let's let ourselves be gently outro'd by the soft waves of John Darnielle sharing with us what it means to carry mourning with you throughout your life.

Wear black wherever I go Wear black wherever you are

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted AU: Star: 🌟

Yeah, I finally got to the boy! Took long enough, huh? 😂 So I dud make a short character inspiration from a reblog chain a few weeks ago, so I'll go more into Star's character here:

So, much like the film itself, Star comes to Earth because of Asha's wish was so powerful, and aids her save Rosas. However, for "Wish Granted", he has no idea how to actually grant her wish. She basically fills him in on what's going on, and agrees to help. But he doesn't really understand why they need help. From his point of view, most of the humans on this part of Earth, and especially in Rosas look happy enough. He's just utterly fascinated with the animals, the trees, Asha, and just experiencing what humans see everyday.

But then he visits the Hamlet (in an animal disguise) when Asha wants to say goodbye to her Saba and mother. Star sees how sick Sabino has gotten, and the fear Sakina has for her daughter going back into danger. The Starboy sees that Asha's wish is entirely to help her family and community. (Its greatly emphasized once he gets to Rosas itself too) He partially understands and gladly accepts the task to help her. Asha can't believe this magical boy is a Star, it should be impossible. But just as her father said, the stars are there to believe in possibility. Star here is the impossible, made possible! Its no wonder his loveable and joyous personality leads her to falling for him! 😆

I took inspiration from this segment of the concept art book where they attempted to give plushie Star some kind of depth and character arc leftover from Starboy. They really tried to give Star something more than just being a toy, and Disney said "nah, a toy is good enough. Kids will love it." So Star's arc will be he starts off naive about the world and thinks everything is perfect. But once he starts seeing more of the people having other emotions other than happiness, he's processing how a human feels this. It hits harder when he actually feels a wish get destroyed, he feels their pain for a while after he connects with them. This is all going to connect to "At All Costs" when finally get that love confession scene! 😉

Now, my favorite part: POWERS!!! Star can shapeshift into different animals he sees, with his telltale sign of him being gold with white fur/hair. (Example image below) He's got a white six pointed star on his parts of his body that glow slightly, even in a human form, its just covered up by his black caped outfit.

I still kind of hate that Disney actually thought Star was too similar Genie just because he changes into animals. Like, what are you talking about? (I actually thought of MK or Beast Boy more than Genie.) Yeah, Genie could do that too, but he also changed costumes, size, shape, face, broke the 4th wall and did impersonations of movie actors of the time. Star didn't do all that. Besides, YOU MADE MAUI CHANGE INTO ANIMALS AND APPROVED OF IT!

Rant aside, He can change into any animal, but only has one human form. That's not only because there's way too many variations of people for him to adapt and he's not at that level of power yet. He mainly choose this particular human form because.... he thought Asha would like it. (He even gets the cape idea after he sees a picture of Magnifico. He just LOVED how that looked) Think of it as a boy trying make himself look better for the girl he has a crush on. 😂 His design is inspired by these three pieces of concept art combined with a dash of a superhero vibe. (Superheroes are hardwired into my brain, I tried my best NOT to do that! 😂)

Star can make animals talk, at least for a limited time, like when be has his big introduction song and the forest animals are his band. Animals are naturally attracted to Star, because he literally radiates pure joy and love. Those little critters just adore him! Think of this scene here:

One last thing to add is that once he's on Earth, and gets into Rosas, thus is when he gets the most attached to the planet. He has a big family with the stars, but he really wanted to be where the people are. He wants to see them dancing, ect...Meeting great people didn't just end with Asha, but also meeting the 7 Teens. He learns about their wishes as one desires, while confused on Simon's sleepiness/sadness. He actually attempts to heal Simon and can gain a new power. Star is not sure on how to react to Dahlia, who doesn't seem to have a wish. She seems happy cooking for the king (whom she has a crush on) and queen, no questions asked. Although, Dahlia does seem particularly curious about Star, even before finding out his magical side. She even tries to tell him to give up on granting Asha's wish, but he's definitely not doing that. 😂

When he meets the King and Queen, let's just say there's going to be a lot of angst/comedy with that. But when he has the mini stand off with Amaya. OH BOY, he's going to understand way more heavy emotions after meeting her...

(Star in this version is voiced by Jeremy Jordan, because he's a musical and VA legend! Plus he sounds so fun in every role he's in!)

Aaaand, that does it for Star! I mentioned in another post how when you look into his eyes, you can see microscopic galaxies or mini stars in eyes, like you can see the universe in his eyes! (When it gets to the At All Costs song, Asha can be seen in his eyes like she becomes part his universe) Any other bits will be revealed later, but I wanted to flesh the guy out here! He's a lot of fun to write and draw!

Now next up are the King, Queen and their ferocious yet spoiled pet Lynx! 😉

@signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @chillwildwave @lazytitans-world @emillyverse @annymation @kstarsarts @uva124

[donnerpartyofone]

This morning I went over to the church to see my favorite guy, who is so often surprising and challenging. He seemed a little out of sorts today, stammering and losing his place; I sometimes worry about this old guy, and I was paying attention. Then at the end of the mass he said that they're having air quality problems in the rectory and the EPA is involved. I hope he's not getting brain damage!

It was sort of funny, though, because the homily was about having trouble focusing--not being able to concentrate, and having anxiety about the future. That was pretty relevant to me, medically and otherwise. I'm writing this on the morning of the new moon, just to be extra flaky, about how much trouble I have forming goals.

Pursuing goals is also hard, but step one should be having a vision, and that's the really impossible part. When I was a little kid I had two ambitions: to be a writer, and to be dead. The latter thing represents one of the main motivating forces in my life, which is pain avoidance. I think this is the chief motivator of many people without them even realizing it; comfort-seeking itself can be a form of pain avoidance. Pain avoidance is not a legitimate goal, it's more of a reflex, and it can become a preoccupying distraction from any kind of actual ambition (especially as fulfilling ambitions often involves some amount of discomfort). Focusing on what you do not want is not equivalent to focusing on what you do want.

I never had a very good idea of what I want. I found this out when I went into therapy as an adult; I couldn't formulate any notion of what I wanted out of life. I couldn't even come up with any masturbatory, pie in the sky fantasies. I might vaguely be able to say something like "a bigger, nicer apartment", but I can't come up with any compelling ideas about what that would even look like. I try, but I know I'm faking it. Certainly part of my interest in religion and occultism is the idea that I could train myself to really clearly conceptualize any kind of goals or desires. In the case of occultism specifically (and, let's be honest, many forms of self-help), visualization is always a key element. In recent years I learned that I am abnormally incapable of forming mental images, and I have come to believe that this is intimately connected to my inability to figure out what I want or how to get it.

Nearly all of my thinking is verbal. I found out what aphantasia was while talking to my dad, who is extremely visual with an excellent grasp of spacial relations (something I have almost no concept of). He was shocked when I said I can't really picture anything, asking me "Then how do you do anything?" He said when he decides to make a sandwich, for instance, he automatically sees himself performing the actions of sandwich-making, and sees the aspirational sandwich in his mind's eye. Visualizing is essential to his entire executive process. It so happens that I am aphantasic and I have a lot of executive dysfunction. I no longer think this is coincidental.

(I'm also very faceblind, and I think this is connected; something to do with the ability to reconstitute a visual memory and relate it to something that is presently in front of me. But anyway...)

Perhaps oddly, I am an artist, or at least I have been. But I've never been able to draw from my imagination, like at all. The best work I've ever done is all swipes; I am a great believer in swipes, it can reveal a lot about your personal style and obsessions and when you re-draw someone else's art. But I can't just sit and think up something fun to draw, even when I try to just doodle I'm usually responding more to the lines I see emerging on the paper than anything I'm thinking or feeling. I think this is related to the fact that I'm an obsessive scopophile; I take in a lot of detail from my environment, and I watch movies with the same attitude and frequency with which most people listen to music. Recently I started to joke that I have an image deficiency and that's why I have to consume huge amounts of visual media, I need the external infusion. But like, it's not that much of a joke, maybe.

In my 30s I randomly developed this condition where scar tissue grows over your corneas, and I had to have a series of freaky eye surgeries. My doctors always asked if I grew up somewhere warm and sunny and windy, if I do a lot of outdoor sports (sometimes this condition is called "surfer's eye"); I thought this was pretty funny since I couldn't be more of an indoor kid, although maybe cycling is somewhat at fault. Still, my preferred diagnosis is that I watch so much trashy and violent crap that it literally scars my eyes. It's as good an explanation as any! And it does have this weird synergy with my other visual problems.

Anyway, it's not as if I've done absolutely nothing with my life. Quite a few personal achievements piled up in just the last couple of years; certainly I've benefited a lot from luck and the good will of others, but nothing would have happened without my own creativity and commitment. I just wish I had more, you know. Vision. I spend too much of my life "taking one day at a time" and waiting for things to happen to me, assuming I don't have much control over my experiences. I'd rather be able to imagine something that I want to happen and act on it; regardless of whether the thing is going to happen, I'd like to be able to formulate a goal other than paying the rent, or like, not waking up and going to sleep in a state of stark terror. I'm not sure how to get myself to that place, but maybe saying that that's what I want can count for something.

Anyway here are some photos of the thoughtfully planted shrubbery from the church. I missed the full bloom of the weeping cherries, but as soon as they die off the shrubs below turn bright red, pink, yellow, and white. It's pretty inviting I must say.

[buriedpentacles]

hello!! can I have your input and share my thoughts with you? i personally can’t get myself to believe in any gods, but I do feel strongly connected to nature and I love the idea of Mother Earth. I would want to worship her, but i don’t think I can make myself believe in her as a god even if I want to. I don’t know how. i love the idea of worshipping(?) nature/the earth and even celestial bodies. not sure if worship is the right word. It’s a strong one. idk if I believe in spirits/souls, but objects and such do feel alive,, I know logically they have no heart and brain but it’s a feeling. and I want to believe in ghosts. I relate to pantheism and animism. I love the concept of reincarnation and I feel connected to certain places and animals in a deep strange way, but don’t know if I actually believe in it. I’m worried about culturally appropriating by being an animist though. overall I feel left out because I don’t believe in gods, and I hear that others do not like when you worship them more so as metaphors/personifications rather than as actual gods. I feel wrong doing so. but today hearing that some people worship Gaia makes me want to. but what would worship even mean? I’m not exactly interested in praying, magic, or rituals. I just like being in nature and feeling and respecting it. I’d maybe like an altar. but I worry if I try to worship Gaia or anything, I’d feel fake and silly because I don’t believe in gods. and I worry people would just see me as an “atheist trying to be special” or worse,, I worry about cultural appropriation. I really don’t want to cause any harm to anyone!

add on to the last ask. I love the idea of magic and I even have tarot cards and feel like maybe they can help psychologically orrr possibly they mean something spiritually/magically? And I feel like I have precognition. but I’m not interested in doing spells. and don’t know how much I rlly believe in. so then what magic/practices are left for me? would it still make me a witch or something? and can magic be like a personification rather than hard belief as well? just thinking. I’m sorry I am typing so much I just feel excited and curious

First, there is nothing wrong with not believing in the Gods - please do not feel guilty or bad if you don't believe in them. At the end of the day, you can't force a belief in deities, and that's okay!!

Secondly, animism is not cultural appropriation - animism is the belief that everything has a spiritual essence, it is not a belief that belongs to one specific culture or religion (though it is a prevalent belief across many modern and ancient Indigenous cultures).

As for worshipping Nature (as a Mother figure or otherwise) I say to go for it. Nature is a tangible, real thing - no belief necessary - and if you feel like you want to worship and revere it then do. Make an altar, leave offerings, care for nature, devote your time and energy to it. Deity or otherwise, it will be appreciated. "Worship" is whatever you make it, so do what feels right- trial and error and is more than okay, take your time to figure out what calls to you.

Personally, I don't see any issue with worshipping metaphors/personifications. If you want to Worship the Moon - not Selene, not Artemis, not Máni - just the moon, then do it. If you want to Worship nature as *just nature* then do it.

Rituals, magic and all of that can be fun and fascinating, but it also isn't for everyone and there is no pressure for you to do it. If your Worship looks like sitting outside and appreciating nature for existing, then that is what you should do.

Rituals and spells also don't have to be "magical", they can just be symbolic if you wanted to dabble in them. Taking a cermaic plate with an ex-friends name on it and smashing it could be a spell, it could be a magical way to break the connection between you two, BUT it can also just be a symbolic way of ending your friendship and processing your feelings about that.

Tarot can absolutely be a psychological tool rather than a spiritual one! There's quite a few articles and papers online about people use Tarot as a therapeutic and psychological tool.

The important thing to remember is that you can experiment. You don't have to have it all figured out *right now*. Worship nature for a while, mess around with tarot cards and simple spells - discover what works for you, what feels right and slowly your beliefs will fall into place. Besides, beliefs change all the time, they're meant to evolve and shift as you grow and learn so don't be afraid of that, don't be afraid of being "an atheist who wants to be special" because no-one has the right to judge you.

Feel free to reply to this, message me, or send me more asks if you want to discuss this further, ask questions etc! But I hope you feel more confident in figuring out your path forwards.

[allycat75]

Hey Boston Dumb Fuck 👋! I've been seeing scenes from your lazy-as-fuck exercise in futility, Ghosted, lately and it has triggered a few things.

(A bit of a long one, so buckle up)

I don't know, maybe because the scenes I have seen of Jack in Red One remind me of Cole's cranky twin, or hearing your Nepo director go on about how impressed he is with himself reinventing Santa and how he's going to blow our minds with his genius, but it seems of late rich, mostly white men are just really turned on by their own mediocrity. Just walking around with blue balls because of it and the lack of oxygen to their brains is making them hypoxic. Even sweet Ryan Reynolds got high off his own supply when promoting the recent Deadpool. It was OK, but he and Hugh were making it out like this was the Citizen Cane of R rated Marvel movies (I still think they were throwing you a pity bone by casting you, BDF, and all I see when I look at your part is not Johnny Storm, but the worst version of Christopher Robert Evans, just slightly more horrible than you have been in real life the past few years, if you can call what you are doing living really. Was it a cry for help?).

I can't blame you for Red One. You are just a shitty actor looking for that sweet, sweet paycheck while The Rock and his minions run the show, so let your team set your program to "total bullshit bro douche" in a few weeks so you can get through the press junket without weeping at the fact you murdered Christmas, along with your fanbase that would have blindly seen this festering turd of a movie if you hadn't gaslit them all, making them look and feel stupid and crazy.

But I do blame you, from pillar to post, for Ghosted. You may think that Producer credit was for vanity and a bump in pay, but when push comes to shove, it actually means something. Just ask another Hollywood phony (and someone who was actually invited to the SNL X-mas party last year) Alec Baldwin. On Rust, he may not have been held responsible as the actor who shot the cinematographer dead, but as the producer he sure had the responsibility and accountability for all the things that went wrong, leading up to that preventable tragedy. And I know for you coddled princes, this idea of accountability is a new and scary concept, but woman up and get used to it, you fucking coward.

So, as producer of Ghosted, you should understand that you buy the premise, you buy the bit. How does the movie start- we see a beautiful woman named Sadie (in an ugly ass wig, by the way) at a farmer's market after just discussing with her boss that she is lost after a friend's death. The friend, a workaholic like her, didn't even have food in her house, but had a plant, which is more than Sadie has. Looking pensive and sad, but with a full basket of food she finds he way to the plants only to be confronted by a dickhead who treats her like shit at the worst possible time and tells her she should get a cactus because they are prickly and don't need much attention or care.

So I will stop there, because after this there is something only a male writer, producer and director would think they just saw- those two want to FUCK! Where most women (and to their credit, probably some men) would say, "Boy, if he would just apologize for being a complete and total asshole and make a kind gesture, because anyone with eyes could see she looked really sad, he could make her day better." And that is where it falls apart. Not that it would have really been any better because Cole is selfish in thinking he is everything she needs and doesn't consider maybe she has shit going on in her life that doesn't involve him, but it could have started on a better path if instead of running after her and saying, "Hey, I think we made a connection" (to which most women would have gotten out the pepper spray), he said "Hey, I want to apologize. I was out of line. It is none of my business what type of plant you should get and I should have been more respectful. Can I buy you a coffee to make up for it?". But heaven forbid a man ever apologize and make amends, especially for something they know they did wrong (none of that bullshit you said in the SMA article that came off like just apologize because she is upset and it will shut her up).

Even better would have been to get a few females looking at this script (maybe Scarlet did and that is why she jumped) and even totally flip the script to make it from Sadie's point of view. It would have been much more interesting watching a female special agent who had to target a friend and one of the few female colleagues she had, exploring the aftermath and getting back to her first mission since it happened. And to add insult to injury, also having to deal with this egomaniac one night stand, who hopelessly followed her, convincing him it isn't all about him and that he has no idea what it is like to be her. He has no right to judge. It could even still be funny (or start to be funny, because with the exception of Sebastian Stan, this movie had no Rom and no Com), but there is so much depth that could have been explored that was sacrificed for the male gaze. Instead of being empowering, because Cole was supposed to be the "damsel in distress", Sadie still remained the object that helped moved the story along for the boring, one-dimensional male protagonist.

One could say, "who the fuck cares- this movie (and its leading actor, after a string of current and future failures, both professionally and personally) are completely inconsequential", and I would agree, save for the fact that this is just one example of a larger problem we have seen over and over of men failing upward (I also include almost anything by Coppola and Scorsese- just look at Megalopolis for the former, and the latter only wrote his first decent female character last year). Unless there are consequenses for these kinds of epic failures Hollywood will continue to churn out more and more empty calories, drowning out real voices of all shapes, sizes, genders and colors. We need to call out these flaws instead of excusing them away so we can fix them for a more satisfying, authentic experience for everyone.

Side note...

Also, the last thing I remember about Ghosted was how you got shafted at the premiere and we're forced to give your little stevia (fake sugar) baby a spin on the red carpet, but no one was happy with you in the end- Ana and Dexter looked like they wanted to kill you, and your precious Nazi Succubus sure got her revenge for being shuffled back stage and out the door after only a few pictures without you. Remember, they forced you to fake marry the arrogant, racist, antimemtic, fatshaming, lazy, childish dumb dumb (everything opposite of what you said you wanted, even as recent as that stupid SMA article, but you are now an established pathological liar, so who knows what is true about you anymore).

You even had two kinda fake ceremonies- so, remind me again who you are trying to make seem insane in this narrative? Because it looks less and less like your former fans and more like you and your team with those pathological lies and ridiculous stunts. Even got your nuts so tight in a vice, they humiliatingly got you to make up for that red carpet debacle and sealed your fate as Hollywood's latest pathetic joke, spending 20 minutes on the Oscar (Conde Naste) Vanity Fair red carpet, where no one wanted to talk to you and you couldn't easily wipe your mouth when you had to kiss the little tantrum throwing wifey on the mouth for the cameras, like a good little CAA automoton. And I still don't know if I can forgive you for being so fucking careless and dissociated from your own life and moral fiber that you wore the colors of the Nazi Flag while parading the precious antisemite for your debut. Actions matter and for a smart man you do some really stupid things!

I know it seems I took a bit of a turn at the end there- just a reminder you really suck right now as a human being so you may want to think about how you can change all that, just like how Ghosted could have been better if you had your head out of your ass.

Have a great day, you prick 🫶!

[kohakhearts]

okay so what if mew *was* goh's first pokemon somehow - it chooses to stick around him for reasons unknown after that first time they meet, maybe he doesn't necessarily catch it but it humors him and listens to his commands for the most part. i'm thinking so hard about what Being Chosen By Mew At Six Years Old would do to his ego

OH MY GOD WHAT I LOVE THIS!!! THIS CONCEPT IS LIVING RENT-FREE IN MY BRAIN NOW

((ok tangentially before i get into this i just want to say in the deep lost osa pokemon au i haven't actually worked on in forever, this is exactly what happens to poseidon LMAO mew is my chaos analog so enter: 12 year old boy and his mythical drama cat dealing psychic damage to everyone within a ten-mile radius of them. mew is such a little shit of a pokemon so like. theres that))

anyway. GOH.........actually, i do think obviously this would over-inflate his ego quite a bit. but at the same time, i think it's important to consider that like...goh's confidence is a projection. he's incredibly insecure, and all of that has to do with his lack of relationships. if he were chosen by mew at a young age - and mew being a little chaos-wreaking jokester, too - would probably only make things harder for him. i don't think his friendship with chloe would survive it and i think that would mess him up in a lot of ways because on a deep, very human level like. of course he cares about her more than he cares about mew. but on the psychological level of someone with such a deep Need to be Special, i don't think it's something he could turn away from.

so in like this weird, complicated way - i think he would resent mew a bit? like this is a lot of pressure put on him suddenly! sure, mew listens to him for the most part, but it's also an incredibly powerful pokemon that likes to play practical jokes and sometimes takes it too far. goh is a kid who can't seem to connect with people. in canon, he blames other people for leaving him, because they think they're better than him or whatever. but on a deeper level, i think he has some awareness that it's something about him (i say this because in his relationship with ash, their arguments really centre around things that ash does "wrong" that goh caused himself, or otherwise also did "wrong" - especially their last big argument, where he had this idea of leaving and he was upset with ash for saying it first. because ash doesn't get to leave him. it has to be on his terms - i really don't think he's upset at ash's decision simply because he's afraid of being abandoned. i think he's upset more because he's been feeling Complicated about his own choice but it's such an easy decision for ash to make. if that makes sense? and it's the same thing at the beginning of jn, with the ivysaur. he's angry at ash for not listening to him, he's annoyed because ash is ignoring the fact that pokemon need to be able to do things for themselves. he's angry about this because if a person can help pokemon, a group of creatures he identifies STRONGLY with in lieu of like, actual human relationships lmao, then that means people can also help Him, but they don't. and he justifies this as needing agency more than he needs help. in 90% of their conflicts, ash did literally nothing lmao. i think goh knows this intrinsically). in this case, i think it'd be a little more complicated? like...undeniably, mew is at fault for the fact that people don't talk to him. and it's not just thinking he's weird or anything - they'd probably be a bit afraid of him.

so what would he do? he'd rationalize it of course and make it into a "good" thing. i.e. to deal with feeling like everyone is fucking terrified of him and his crazy pink monstrosity, he'd tell himself they're jealous, or in awe, of him. jealous, especially, with chloe i think. it would be a huge disconnect between them. it makes zero sense. she doesn't even want a pokemon - why would she be jealous? i actually think they'd become...pretty bitter enemies, lmao. but at the same time, professor cerise would absolutely not be ok with goh just. secreting mew away. a) that's a child whose parents are notoriously Not Around Much and b) that's a mythical pokemon that has not been very studied at all, really. so i do think that he would try to establish a connection with goh because well...that's his daughter's best friend and he knows the reason she's acting like she hates him so much is really because she feels hurt and upset at the fact that he's not really being a good friend to her, and also like. it'd be very clear that the pressure of looking after a mythical pokemon is way too much for a kid to deal with. even one who is as well-researched and "prepared" as goh (spoiler: he is not really prepared at all LMAO, he just thinks he is).

so the situation is kind of like...chloe has this extra layer of Issue with her dad because he wants to help goh even though he was a huge jerk to her and cerise knows that, but at the same time goh is even more isolated than in canon. in fact, he's probably of the opinion he doesn't Need friends because he has mew. mew is his friend and that's all that matters. does mew protect him? honestly, maybe. he's got Big Feelings and mew is a psychic-type, so it probably reacts to them on some level. that's a good reason for his peers to fear him (is he allowed to have a pokemon at school? probably not - so that would be why he'd just stop showing up LMAO). on the other hand, i actually think his parents would worry about him less because they think he seems very happy AND he's got a playmate who hangs out with him all the time and seems to look after him. they are not involved enough in his life to see that it's cause significant rifts between him and other people his age, and since he's on email terms with professor cerise, they probably never even find out that he and chloe aren't friends anymore.

all in all - he would be a whole different flavour of insecure, with the added bonus of like...he achieved something so great, but he actually isn't happy about his achievement because in many ways, it's making him miserable. he doesn't want to blame mew, even though he knows mew is to blame. idk if it's possible for him to become more cynical, but he probably would somehow.

i doubt he'd have a fateful lugia encounted with ash à la canon, but they could still meet in similar circumstances. maybe when cerise opens his lab, research done on mew would be like...something he specifically mentions. since ash was invited by professor oak to check it out, he'd meet the trainer who "caught" mew - and they would absolutely get into it beacuse goh would be crazy protective of his role as mew's Person, but lets be real...mew would take a real shine to ash LMAO. in a way, they might actually have more in common, except ironically ash is like undeniably Chosen One MaterialTM and absolutely refuses to claim the title becaue he's content being Just Some Guy (but who is nonetheless epic in a pokemon battle), meanwhile goh has the chosen one complex without...really being much of a chosen one. he would have to realize that he doesn't Have to be special, and that he can have both a relationship with a pokemon like mew AND with people, but he's got to be like. more aware of the fact that mew doesn't listen to him out of genuine affection and respect - and that's something he has to work to earn from it, in order to be listened to by it. i cannot think of anyone more equipped to help him learn that particular lesson than ash and pikachu tbh!

anyway yeah this would change a lot of things - it's worth noting that meeting mew for the first time was what kickstarted his obsession, so if mew stuck by him from that moment on, his obsessing would be of a very different flavour. at the end of the day though...he's still an insecure obsessive know-it-all (AFFECTIONATE. EXTREMELY AFFECTIONATE) so he'd probably still hole himself up in his room for research just as much as before, lol

[pretentious-art-love]

Album Reviews #46 - Be Here Now by Oasis

I am a person who is completely deep into excess, I love excess and I am indulged by excess, my soul, my being, it is dominated by excess, and if there are times where I need to find a middle ground, my brain fails to compute at all, I live for excess and I breathe and transpire excess, so this album, being an ode to excess in its own musical sphere, becomes such a shining gem that is just deeply satisfying for the bottomless barrel that is my stomach, it just keeps unloading more and more stuff in every front, and I just can't help but keep eating, because my being demands more, more, more!

The songs are longer than ever, just like Disintegration, thanks to the creative spirit of their songwriters, most songs are longer than 5 minutes, making them feel more like symphonic screams played through a megaphone, with only two songs being close to 5 minutes alone, and it is fascinating, because if there is one thing that always haunts me is how the songs I love eventually will just end, and sometimes when I am really needing that song to comfort me, I cry because I don't want it to abandon me, and when I am happy, I will do whatever possible to not break my vibe, because I want to stay at the top, and live at the top for the longest I can. I can always repeat a song, and yeah, most of the times, I will usually do that and repeat them, but we all know it is not the same, right? Repeating a song carries its consequences in our pattern recognition brains, and there is only so many connections our neurons can make until we eventually go numb with a song, wouldn't it be better if the songs were as long as possible on their own? Wouldn't it be better if they were stretched towards the complete infinite?

That is something I want to live, and if there is always an idea I love, I will always want to stretch it toward its extreme logical conclusion, stretch it so hard until it breaks completely, I always want to go beyond, go further, further and see the end of that concept alone, I want to live it, I want to experience it! This is what Be Here Now is, it is a tribute to excess, the songs just keep going, they are absolute monsters that will continue forever and ever, and won't stop until you feel a little bit satiated, and what is funny is that you could go even longer! What if we took all those hooks and choruses and stretched them even longer? What if we made them repeat for 10, 20 minutes as the most well known drone pieces? What if we slowly changed the verses until we reached the bridge of the song around the 35 minute mark as if it was a minimalist piece, just with hooks and vocals? Or just not use a bridge at all? Do you imagine a pop song that lasts an hour? Wait! That already exists! The result is actually interesting too! Totalism focuses in this kind of Minimalism sound with a more pop approach, as seen in albums like Dennis Cleveland, and the result? I can tell you, it is really pretty great.

Oasis excess reaches this point alone, songs that reach their climax around the 4 minutes, and then they keep climaxing for 5 minutes straight, and even then, even then, they are still pop songs with all that fluff that comes with pop music fanfare, the catchy lyrics, the upbeat rhythm, it is on the verge of being happier than life itself. Aside of the structure and parts of the songs, we still have all the great elements that make me enjoy Oasis, the noise pop, almost Shoegaze sound, which is just abrasive here, so abrasive, that there will be moments where you will feel Les Rallizes Dénudés possessed Noel, so abrasive that you will feel showered in a rain of sound, Be Here Now comes is an ode to excess, not just in song, but also in sound. Liam's voice is also a plus, as always, nasal high pitched voices reach the point that make everything feel unreal, and here they follow the tradition that could already been seen in the 90s with some other bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Waltari.

If there is one thing I can agree with is the flow of the album is not the best, at least, for me, we start with these triumphant, uplifting songs for the first 2 tracks, and then we continue with the third track, Magic Pie, which is nostalgic and wistful, and feels more like an ending song than one you would put at the beginning. This is a strategy most albums follow, you get similar tracks at the end of a recording session, so you scatter them through the album so you do not get the same thing for a whole chunk, and it feels more varied all around. That usually works a lot, it helps, but sometimes I just like to keep all tracks that are similar and structure them in a way that they flow together from similar track to similar track, and they evolve slowly as if you were creating a suite, the tracks will feel the same, blending together, and creating a bigger sense of excess, as it if it was a one big song, that just doesn't stop until you feel numb.

If you want to try it out, as always, I can leave my track list as an example, I also added the Around the World demo and chopped it a bit so the final bridge only appears at the song proper, connecting the album together and reaching an even bigger climax. This is what Be Here Now is for me, starting with a single lonely song (tracks 1) and then kicking with the most uplifting, carefree and optimistic tracks (2 to 5), slowly descending into the songs with a confident, challenging attitude (tracks 6 to 9), and then the most emotional and wistful, sad songs (tracks 10 to 14) to finally resurface in the triumphant, larger than life songs (tracks 15 to 17), that is the Be Here Now Suite, a suite, and album, about excess, an album of epic proportions that it is more happy that you could ever, ever bare.

1.01. All Around the World (demo) 1.02. D'You Know What I Mean 1.03. My Big Mouth 1.04. I Hope, I Think, I Know 1.05. The Fame 1.06. Be Here Now 1.07. My Sister Lover 1.08. Street Fighting Man 1.09. (I Got) The Fever 1.10. Stay Young 1.11. Going Nowhere 1.12. Fade Away (Warchild Version)

2.01. Angel Child (Demo) 2.02. Sad Song 2.03. Fade In-Out 2.04. Stand By Me 2.05. Flashbax 2.06. The Girl In The Dirty Shirt 2.07. Don't Go Away 2.08. Magic Pie 2.09. All Around The World 2.10. It's Gettin' Better (Man!!) 2.11. All Around the World (reprise)

8/10

[brazenautomaton]

re gender dysphoria: what are those other criteria, though, do you think? i share your intuition that the number of people who claim to have dysphoria may be higher than the number of people who really do, but i struggle to think of a better way to ID those who do other than "ask them if they have it." do we just disregard their "yes" if it comes with the caveat "and also i think we should broaden that concept to include people who want to go by 'they' sometimes but otherwise change nothing"?

see now that's the tricky part, figuring out how many people are lying or mistaken about a completely subjective experience

as I understand it the neurological origin of transgenderism is that your body develops one way if there's sufficient testosterone present, and another way if there isn't. this is what SRY-activated genes are. everyone contains a complete genetic blueprint for themselves as a man and themselves as a woman, and it's the presence of testosterone that determines which one to use.

your brain forms at a different time than the rest of your body, and if the testosterone level goes above/below the line between those two points, then you have mismatch. your sense of self and your sense of your own body are made for a body you don't have. you literally have a man's/woman's brain in a woman's/man's body. since you cannot change the nature of someone's identity, and it would be evil if you could, the solution is to change the body.

as I understand it, there is a part of the brain you can look at to determine if it's male or female and in trans people it's much more likely to be mismatched, but the part is so small you can't really see it unless you do an autopsy, and no research on this has been done in like 30 years and if it had been it'd be too ideologically captured to be useful.

so I believe that trans people do exist and it is a real condition and it has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone's culture, opinions, decisions, or ideology. it has nothing to do with gender roles, it has nothing to do with how you are seen, it's that your nervous system is wired for a different model and is constantly reporting "there's this thing here that isn't supposed to be here, and stuff is missing, and your balance is off, and and and..."

you don't have to have an ideological declaration of the true ungraspable essence of gender-truth, and before trans rights became devoured, this is what I observed: "dude I don't know what it is that makes a True Man or True Woman I just know I'm the wrong fucking one."

this was ideologically inconvenient, so it's not the story any more. now the experience has to match what the ideology wants to be true, which is that there is no subjective experience of gender whatsoever and it's only contemptible, punishable sexists who ever think otherwise.

so now we have to have to repeat that there's "so many genders" and accept it as "scientific fact" even though it's based on nothing but devouring. there's two genders and they're "SRY-activated" and "not SRY-activated" and they exist independent of any opinion or culture or identity. no matter what cultures associate with them, the fact that different things can be associated with it does not change underlying material reality. but we're not allowed to notice that because it would mean sexism isn't maximally easy to solve and might require something other than yelling and making demands.

this is all only vaguely connected. my conclusion is that there are in theory ways you could screen for it like "has this been a thing you have felt since you were young and only recently were able to put a name to" and "did you develop strong opinions in gender politics before or after you realized you were trans" or "if every other human being on Earth died and you were doing some I Am Legend shit, would you continue to present as this gender and would you seek HRT in the apocalyptic Afterscape?"

but it is impossible to actually communicate "no you have to answer this question honestly instead of repeating the thing that affirms your ingroup status" and even if you could, it's impossible to have the people looking at those answers care about the truth instead of playing cruelty games and telling flattering stories to themselves about their ideology

[sky-forest-inn]

getting out of school for one last time and enjoying summer break is cool and all but something altered my brain and made it so that all of my headmates gradually faded as the summer went on and now I can't even see them much less feel their presence anymore :( I think this is what people call fading

and it SUCKS!! because we're a small system and pretty much everyone disappeared as well as our headspace which turned back into a void, another person formed(?) during the time but it feels more like an alter ego rather than their own headmate considering I feel wayy too connected to them to actually separate myself from them

when this first happened it was only for a few days and I thought I was "normal" again considering being a system was a foreign concept I was still grasping at the time (+I thought being a system separated my connection to the body, making the body a vessel I was merely puppeteering). now that I've actually experienced what it's like I don't ever regret being a system ☝️ if anything I'd hit that guy again just so I could see them again /j

I genuinely hate how my brain "fixed" me, being a singlet again isn't the positive some people think it is (at least that's how I feel personally), it's to the point where I genuinely dislike using I/Me pronouns in regards to me as a "singlet" rather than me as an individual headmate. however, I also don't want to "take away" people's resources?? (as silly as that sounds) and also "fakeclaim"?? beyond this point even though my experiences as a system were genuine (I don't want to say "former", I'm still in denial about it)

I've been having some wonderful experiences irl and as much as I love what I'm doing right now, I simply WISH they were here to see it. if someone were to give me the option to choose a life without that incident occurring or to keep my plurality, I'm choosing my plurality even if it means going through the same painful experience again

sorry this is 5 paragraphs long LOL, take y'alls time to respond especially since it's artfight and I'm sure you guys want to draw as many people as possible (goodluck btw!!)

—🌌 [ST]

yay summer break (not for me its winter for me)

it happens!!! we get it a lot and it's pretty normal!! there are chances they may come back!!!!

i love punching guys

FR i agree with you wholly we love our inn to death and we'd sacrifice it for NOTHING we love each other so much and im 99% sure cyco wouldve esc r enter'd if he was never a system so i get it entirely

ooiooiioooohhhh youre stealing SHARED resources oughhhh the miserrryyyy /sarc /silly

we dont mind asks like this!!! also i was busy arcaning the odyssey which is why i didnt see this til now bwehehaha

hope things get better for you(y'all's), be safe and allat

[cozza-frenzy]

Something very strange happened last night...

We've always known Chaos was much bigger than it appeared. Being a Gatekeeper, it's not just a someone (or something), it's not just a part, it's also something that our brain can do. It's the ability to control which parts are conscious and which ones aren't, and how deep we are into the collective subconscious that is our Inner World. Our mind has layers, and Chaos is the one that connects any point in our Inner World to any other point. So when I "fell out" of the fronting room and ended up on the wrong layer following an intense dissociative episode, I wasn't expecting to see this part of it. The picture doesn't even do justice to its size - looking up was like trying to see the top of a skyscraper from the ground, if a skyscraper could lean over and look down at you. And even then, Chaos has confirmed this isn't the actual truth, but rather a "convenient lie" - it appeared as big to me as the biggest thing I could imagine, but theoretically it has no limit. It has no shape. You can't give a shape or a size to the part of our mind that makes connections between all the other parts; it's merely a concept, something that exists in the sparks between neurons in our brain. But our mind tried I guess, after I ended up in there, connected to a part of our mind that I shouldn't be. I saw lines stretching on forever, branching into fractals, every single connection that's ever been made between parts of the Inner World. Chaos "caught" me as I "fell" - there is no up or down in a place like this - and I saw how its fingers curled around me and simultaneously stretched and folded in on themselves infinitely. It told me later that it doesn't have hands or a face in this form, but rather I interpreted it as having them so I could better understand what it was doing. "You can see me? ...Are you afraid of me?" "No. You're still you; you're still kind, I can feel it coming off of you. And I love you."

Chaos is my partner in our system, and I saw how it unfolded into lines and angles like an eldritch angel. Sal is slowly unleashing more of the potential they've been holding back from the system out of fear, so it won't be without consequences - so even though we're back to some semblance of "normal" following this, I won't be able to see Chaos the same way again. I know that behind that smirking face and that tendency to Cause Problems On Purpose is something I can hardly comprehend; the kind of thing your brain keeps suppressed because it'd drive you mad having it there all the time. We're not supposed to be fully aware of what our subconscious mind is doing and how it's doing it, and Chaos reached out and severed the accidental connection between me and that part of it as soon as it was able to. Doesn't mean I don't still love it, though. I saw deeper into our subconscious mind than should normally be possible, met a part of a part of us that remains hidden for a good reason, and it was kind. It saved me, stopped me from sinking so far I might not come out again. It put me back gently to where I'm supposed to be. And whether I'm as small as I look or secretly as huge as it it, I know it loves me too. - Terry

[bhawk-goose]

I've been thinking about golems some lately and I know I'm not going to actually write about it so I'll just share my ideas so my brain shuts up about them(if you want to use these feel free, I'd prefer you tell me but I'm not gonna use them anyway so it's fine).

first, a general concept, golems are very powerful, very strong and fast, and maybe able to use powerful magic/reinforce themselves with magic, but many of the older golems stay out of conflicts because they can't regenerate energy. If a golem punches you, the energy they used to punch you is gone permanently. Young golems rarely think about this cuz they have almost all their energy still, but after a while they'll almost always have a realization, they can't keep doing this forever. They can't keep fighting every war anymore, because everything they do causes them to lose energy.

A golems energy is stored in a crystal(can be inside them or exposed, but inside would make more sense), and if that crystal is cracked the energy stored inside will flood out through the crack, and that rapid flow of energy will cause the crack to expand, until the crystal ends up just exploding, though this generally doesn't look like that due to how fast it happens, unless a golem is REALLY low on energy it'll look more like something hit their gem and then it instantly exploded.

While there isn't a way for golems to regain energy, there is a way for them to come back with more energy. When a golem dies, another golem can use a massive amount of energy(like the amount that cuts a couple hundred years of their lifespan) to revive them. This can only be done if they've died recently(like less than 10 minutes ago), and it doesn't actually fully revive them, but instead create a black gem called a mourning gem. This mourning gem only contains around 2 thirds of the energy used to make it, since it takes a lot of energy to make a gem. Mourning gems can be used to make new golems, and these new golems minds are almost identical to their past life, except they're missing a large chunk of their memory, meaning many golems will have to rebuild their connections. Which memory is lost depends on how important the golems subconcious found that memory, so more basic knowledge that they consider essential like how to walk or speak is kept, but more recent information or information their subconcious didn't consider essential, like loved ones, is lost.

Now for more specific ideas. First, a golem could be brought back with a mourning gem and remember one of the other characters as a demonstration of their love(platonic or romantic), though with multiple it could feel like you're just cheating to avoid consequences.

This next idea is one I came up as a robot, so I'll talk about this as a sci-fi thing, specifically Star Trek cuz I'm pretty sure seeing a bunch of posts from @etherealspacejelly about Star Trek characters(I think it's Spock and Kirk but I'm not entirely sure) being basically in love but not completely confirmed is what gave me this idea. Anyway, this is another show of love(once again, platonic or romantic) where there's the robot and the human(doesn't actually have to be a human, just a non robot, but I'm calling them the human for this idea). There's a battle going on with a villain, and the human is in the battle, but the robot is too scared of shortening their lifespan with every movement that they're still on the ship, but then the human dies(or at least the robot thinks they died) and the robot stops caring. They go up to one of the guys running the ship and demand to be teleported down(I'm gonna get pretty detailed with this cuz I did a lot of detailed thought with this, but feel free to change it if you wanna use it. Once again, do whatever with it cuz I'm not gonna use it anyway) and the guy might agree, but if they're like "no, I can't just randomly teleport people down there" than the robot basically says that if they aren't teleported down, they will tear through the hull of the ship to get there. Not as a threat, but instead just warning them that it's their backup plan, and so they get teleported down, and then end up fucking wailing on the villain. Depending how scary you want the villain to be you could have them defend at first, but this is an angry robot using years of energy in upwards of a minute, this defense isn't going to maintain for very long. In the end, the villain's defeated, and the robot runs out of energy beating the shit out of them.

I personally think this works best as the end of the character arc, and life along with it, but if you want you can have the crew find a way to refuel the robot, and revive them, but maybe the robot needs a lot of energy, so they're in a severely weakened state(AKA now about as powerful as the other crew members), or you could have the crew find a way to extract the robots AI and put it an a new body, or if you want to make a bigger change to their power you could have them get uploaded to the ship, or maybe a smaller device that the human they're in love with takes with them, and become like an advisor/assistant.