#the order of the good death

[ripeteeth]

i would love to grab a drink with caitlin doughty and just listen to her talk about dead bodies

[altarflame]

“In America, where I live, death has been big business since the turn of the twentieth century. A century has proven the perfect amount of time for its citizens to forget what funerals once were - family and community-run affairs. In the nineteenth century no one would have questioned Josephine’s daughter preparing her mother’s body - it would have seemed strange if she didn’t. No one would have questioned a wife washing and dressing the body of her husband or a father carrying his son to the grave in a homemade coffin. In an impressively short time, America’s funeral industry has become more expensive, more corporate, and more bureaucratic than any other funeral industry on earth. If we can be called best at anything, it would be at keeping our grieving families from their dead.”

-Caitlin Doughty, in “From Here to Eternity”

[patoune-prod]

This page is absolutely glorious and this comics was my first time I learned about transgenre, and I don't want to derail the post but please, watch this Caitlin Doughty video.

The examples are painful to hear, but there is solutions to avoid Wanda's situation now. There is resources in the video's comment and on the Order of the Good Death's website.

was talking to my gf about my fear of dying young for being trans and my mom putting my deadname on my gravestone, and she said "i hope that never happens, but if it does, i will carve your name into your grave myself if i have to." and i think theres something extremely raw about that sentiment and trans community in general. you can kill only our bodies, but you cant kill transsexuality

[berattelse]

Things reached a head in 1828 when Burke and Hare made themselves infamous in Edinburgh for skipping the exhumation and going straight to murder, with payment on delivery. Burke was executed for his sixteen suffocations and sentenced to dissection as an ironic post-mortem punishment. His skeleton still stands in the anatomical museum in the University of Edinburgh with a paper sign pinned to his rib: (IRISH MALE) The skeleton of WILLIAM BURKE, THE NOTORIOUS MURDERER. Some 332 miles south, a piece of his brain sits at the bottom of a jar in the Wellcome Collection in London, pale and shrunken. When I saw it in an exhibition in 2012, it was place on the same shelf as a slice of Einstein's brain. Genius or villain, the mind as matter looks much the same.

Campbell, Hayley. All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work. St. Martin's Press, 2022.

[keferon]

Isn’t Vortex a fucking torture freak tho? 👀👀👀

Yep. He is. He is a lot of things actually. The more you learn about him the more fucked up it gets

[surreal-duck]

es rarepair week 2024 day 1 | AU/future

lil ghostic au of mine!!! yuzuru and the rest of fine are long since trapped souls in an abandoned mansion of which rst come across while looking for shelter during a storm :] it doesnt um. particularly end well

[kizzer55555]

The Tournament

Trigger Warning for Violence

So you know how Danny is portrayed as the ghost king automatically after Pariah is defeated? What if there was more too it. Let’s say that Danny has joined a new hero team and is having fun and then there is some kind of ripple in the infinite realms that all magic users can feel. A tournament is being held to choose the new king. The reason it wasn’t held immediately upon Pariah’s defeat is because it took some time to get into contact with all the participants. Anyone eligible can attend the tournament. This includes those with royal blood, other ancients, anyone who meets a certain power level, anyone that have their own kingdom and people to rule over, or those who faught and sealed Pariah in the first place. Aka, Danny and Vlad. So Danny gets an invite to the tournament.

Now this can go two ways. One is that those ‘invited’ are obligated to attend. Like their core physically hurts if they try to refuse. And the tournament is dangerous. Creatures and demons and eldritch horrors from all over the infinite realms are attending.

Second option. The tournament is optional because it is very cut throat and usually a battle to the death (or in this case, until someone’s core is shattered) and with ghosts being able to survive a lot, the battles often end with missing limbs, spines ripped out, impailment, decapitation, and disembowelment to name a few. So many refuse to participate, not wanting to risk ceasing to exist. The problem though is that a dangerous person is participating (could be Vlad, could be another demonic villain of the JL) and unless they want this person to gain unlimited power through the crown and ring plus an army of undead, Danny has to participate. Or the world is doomed. And each time Danny goes through a trial or battle, (because there could be both.) he returns to the hero group with injures that would have killed a normal person. Practically drenched in his own ecto blood. (That’s if the heroes weren’t forced to watch their friend mid battle, unable to interfere. Man. That would suck if they had to watch his spine get ripped out or something. The screams alone. Maybe split the group so Danny can only bring a certain number of ‘guests’ and they rotate who goes?) And like, imagine what kind of conversation Danny would have. His team panicking about the impending threat of the new ghost king and Dany having to reveal that he is eligible to participate (if some outside force doesn’t reveal it for him) and being forced to compete in a tournament where you either die, or become a murderer.

[asukiess]

this parallel kills me. the way they've existed around each other for 15 years is insane.

[sausage-rolll]

thinking long and hard about Godwyn and Fortissax's friendship like

>the dragons begin a war with the golden order

>Godwyn and Fortissax become “good friends” which brings an era of peace between the golden order and the dragons

>Godwyn goes on to begin the golden lineage with a completely unmentioned partner

>dragons are known to take the form of humans and even have relations with them, as seen with Vyke and Fortissax's sister Lanssax

>One of Godwyn’s many descendants is Godrick, who refers to the dragon in his arena as “kindred one”

>While Godwyn was the first demigod to fall during the night of the black knives, it’s implied that many others followed at the hands of the assassins. Due to the rest of the known descendants of Marika being alive, and no one else having a child pre-shattering it can be inferred that Godwyn's bloodline was specifically targeted for some reason. Since those are the only other demigods that existed at the time.

>Godwyn is assassinated and because him and Fortissax are such “Good friends” Fortissax proceeds to enter godwyns mind and spends decades, possibly centuries attempting to fight off the deathblight from within him, eventually succumbing to it themselves but still unwilling to abandon their “good friend” regardless.

[scringee]

I think this is what their conversations were like

[blueskittlesart]

How do you feel about concepts for redeemed/good guy Ganondorf? I don't remember if you've said anything on it before, so I am curious to see what sorts of thoughts you have to share or if you've thought about the idea before (especially since you've worked on SoF so I assume you've thought about many possibilities of a "what if" Zelda game)

For my part: I have mixed feelings, and I think a lot of concepts end up being "I want a buff guy to ship Link with"; I also think a lot of criticisms of the racism in many depictions of Ganondorf have merit (though I don't speak on them in depth because I'm white) and would love to see a more favorable/complex portrayal of him and other characters of color in LoZ. I personally haven't seen many versions of good guy/redeemed Ganondorf that really engage with the base structure of the LoZ games but I would love to see one that did.

Anyways I love your blog and analysis and I love seeing someone who finds analysis as inherently a part of their engagement with fandom as me, it's really nice :) I hope you're having a good day

I never posted about it much but sof did actually have a somewhat redeemed ganondorf, or as close to "good guy" as i'm willing to go with him in my own writing. sof was/is very much about me exploring the religious aspects of the lore and issues of fate vs self-determination, so my ganondorf was a much younger version of the character (similar in age to link and zelda) born into an extremist hylia-worshipping doomsday cult. in sof, ganondorf finds the remains of DEMISE'S sword and believes it to be the master sword, so when it starts ordering him around he follows the orders without question, believing that he's hearing the voice of hylia, and basically everyone in his life affirms to him that this is the correct choice and he's hylia's chosen one. Because of the intensity of the religious doctrine he was raised with, he has no problem following the sword's orders even when they become progressively more and more violent, and by the time link and zelda get to him he's nearly past the point of no return. (this is also partially a product of the setting I chose to put sof in--it's one of if not the first cycles after sksw, so the hyruleans' understanding of the reincarnation cycle and their own general history isn't super solid.) So that's my personal take on a "good guy" ganondorf, and, i think, the way i'd like to see it done in canon if ever they choose to go that route--because loz deals so much with the concepts of fate and cycles, I think leaning into a ganondorf who isn't inherently evil but can't escape the fate that waits for him is a fun way to take it.

[tiger-grace]

every time I try to discuss the Spyral arc with someone for the Nightwing comics I have to take the Sisyphus route of going “one must imagine Bruce Wayne to be a bad father…”

[irenespring]

Maybe House has made me more in-tune to the secret unhinged side of my favorite characters but I'm watching SVU and Alex Cabot is a menace. (/pos)

"I have to enforce the law, and the law is not always about justice" except random times when she disagrees and will fully become the lawyer for an opposing party in full defiance of her bosses.

"Your honor I simply do not vibe with the law" and will say so in court to the point where she once got held in contempt.

Started her legendary string of "Go After The Large Company Instead of the Obvious Target" cases just because Liv asked.

She will actually do literally anything that Olivia asks...sometimes when she does something especially unhinged I go to check the scene before and 90% of the time she's doing whatever it is to appease some vague whim of Liv's.

Ride or die for the SVU squad as a whole after working with them for less than a year and knowing that they have cost her like all her political capital (something that was very important to her...she says so in her introductory scene).

Exactly predicted fetal personhood legal issues 25 years before the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

Wanted to execute a woman for the first time in NY history for feminism reasons.

Spends like 80% of all work meetings, with other people in the room who are often actively talking to her, just staring at Olivia.

Always down for a Crazy Scheme (especially when she gets to deceive others).

She has a lot of moments of understanding the law as a weapon (ie how to I use it to my own ends as opposed to viewing it as a holy ideal) that is only now actually becoming a common philosophy in law school circles.

WAY more loose-cannon moments in general than I remembered.

Also I feel the need to reiterate just how many bridges she will burn and loops she will jump through for the slightest hint of approval from Olivia. Just...so gay.

Seriously just like how in House a casual viewer may get distracted by Wilson's "Definitely a Normal Person" disguise and miss how he is just as crazy as House, Alex is just as batshit as known exhibitionist-asphyxiation-in-the-middle-of-the-courtroom fan Rafael. And I love her dearly.

[bizarrelittlemew]

Interview with Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi about OFMD S1 (March 2022)

Source: The Project NZ

[berattelse]

[...] I can't remember a time before death existed. Death was just there, everywhere, always.

Campbell, Hayley. Introduction to All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work. St. Martin's Press, 2022.

[bumblingbabooshka]

People who act like Seven of Nine is a naive child being taken advantage of when it comes to c/7 but not j/7 hmm...examine that.