#which is extremely creepy to attach to either of these ladies HOWEVER

[prozac-shaped-urn]

.......i get it now

le sigh

wasn't until i saw donna in fishnets that it clicked. saw that and went 'hey wait a sec marie wore fishnets at some point where is that photo????' i then promptly found it on my tumblr and sure enough my amygdala went holy mommy issues batman so that'll be a fun thing to dissect with my therapist next week. wish i'd made this realization sooner so i could've used our time today to do that but ALAS MY BRAIN IS STUPIDLY FUCKING SLOW

anyway isn't it funny these two played anna in the king and i? that's so wild to me. wild mainly because i know marie from her country music but i've seen her live and she has ONE HELL of a voice. extremely dynamic and versatile. she calls it adhd lmaooooo

ok it's like 3:30a i need to sleep g'night fuckos (affectionate)

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : David Lynch (1946-present)

Film is definitely an art, and yet, it seems to be distinct from other forms of visual art such as painting or sculpture.  Perhaps that is what makes David Lynch such a fascinating director, as he has the ability to tap into the surreal stimulus often found in the most famous paintings and transform it into brain-bending moments on film.  Whether it his fear-fueled fascination with fatherhood present in his debut film Eraserhead, his ruminations on Hollywood society present in Inland Empire, or any of the stopping points in-between, it’s safe to say that David Lynch sits in the rarified air of directors like Ingmar Bergman, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the other few who can turn film into something deeper, more visceral and more meaningful.

With one of the most unique collections of films credited to his name, including a couple of curveballs in the early portion of his career, ranking the films of David Lynch is as perplexing as it is entertaining... so, without further ado, we attempt to climb that hill.  I’m not even going to pretend that I can break down all of the symbolism and meanings of these films, but I can give my honest opinion about them.

10. Dune (1984) For a film that is supposed to be such a science-fiction gem, it’s a bit funny that nobody can seem to make a coherent, entertaining version of Dune.  After nearly 15 years in pre-production hell (and three iconic names attached to versions of the production), the film landed in the laps of Dino De Laurentiis and Ridley Scott, but after another extended period delaying production, Scott bowed out, leaving the door open for David Lynch to step in.  For what it’s worth, he did bring a huge list of names to the project, but the fact that the directing credit for Dune belongs to the throwaway pseudonym Alan Smithee should clue in any perceptive viewer that the project may not be one that Lynch cares to stand behind.

9. Inland Empire (2006) David Lynch isn’t the type of director that revisit ground he’s already covered, which is what makes Inland Empire (the seemingly final film from Lynch) such a confusing choice.  Had this film not been released after a five year gap between it and the stellar Mullholland Drive, another film that focuses on the dark underbelly of Hollywood, fame and the tolls of the acting craft, perhaps it would hit a little different to me.  That’s not to say that the film isn’t good, as it is definitely a slight adjustment from the style that Lynch basically trademarked, but when a director like Lynch experiments on what feels like general principle, it makes experiments that feel like a step backward lose impact.

8. Lost Highway (1997) Technically, you could count all of the Lynch “mystery” films as noir in some capacity, but Lost Highway feels like a direct skewing of what we know as the traditional noir structure.  At its core, the film is a simple murder mystery, but it doesn’t take long for the Lynch signatures to begin appearing in every form from a mysterious, unnamed character to our protagonist literally changing into another person with no base explanation provided.  Perhaps the latter choice was a look into split personalities and the disassociated nature that can come with brutal crimes... as I said before, I’m not here to try and decode the David Lynch mystery.  While Lost Highway serves as a good entry point into the David Lynch catalog, it sits on the back half of the rankings due to no fault of its own... it’s more of a situation where the other mysteries are so stellar, that even the strange seems simplistic by comparison.

7. The Straight Story (1999) If you played a game of “one of these things is not like the other” with the films of David Lynch, it would not be difficult to make a winning choice, as The Straight Story is clearly the most accessible and standard of all the Lynch fare.  What the film lacks in oddness and style, however, is more than made up for in terms of heart and performance.  The use of a lawnmower as the main source of travel allows for some beautiful landscape cinematography, and the sheer force of will exhibited by Richard Farnsworth pays off in spades when he is reunited with Harry Dean Stanton.  If you’re looking for something creepy, eclectic and mind-warping from Lynch, there are plenty of other films to choose from, but if you are looking for an excuse to shed a tear or two, this is the film for you.

6. The Elephant Man (1980) It’s funny to think that if not for The Straight Story, the Joseph Merrick biopic The Elephant Man would serve as the most normal film of the Lynch canon.  This sophomore film dialed back on the abstractions present in Eraserhead, but it brought some extraordinary makeup and costuming to the table, not to mention it gifted viewers with a powerfully moving performance from John Hurt.  Though memorable in its own right, the film really made its mark by tying Raging Bull at the 53rd Academy Awards, garnering eight nominations (and sadly losing in all categories, going home empty-handed).  The backlash for the Academy’s lack of giving The Elephant Man special praise for its makeup effects also led to the creation of a Best Makeup award for the Oscars.  It is quite possible that the combination of shock from Eraserhead in tandem with the skill and prowess shown in The Elephant Man opened all of the creative control doors for David Lynch, as not even Dune could derail his career and artistic oddness. 

5. Blue Velvet (1986) While Twin Peaks is where I first heard the name David Lynch, it was Blue Velvet where I first got a taste of why Lynch was held in such high regard.  The suburban paradise presented in the opening credits is immediately shattered by the discovery of a random ear, and the weirdness rabbit-hole gets deeper and deeper from that point on.  The classic look of the film stands in powerfully beautiful contrast to the extreme darkness of the narrative, and Dennis Hopper turned it all the way up to 11 for his performance in the film.  If Lost Highway serves as the best introductory film for those curious about Lynch, then Blue Velvet serves as a good midpoint to determine how much weirdness, abrasiveness and shock you can handle in a Lynch film.

4. Mulholland Drive (2001) I really and truly do not know where to begin with this insane rollercoaster ride of a film.  The first time I watched this film, I thought I had everything figured out, every mystery solved and every bait and switch identified, but upon repeat viewings of Mullholland Drive, I’ve determined that I either had a brief moment of harmonic brilliance or I was fooling myself.  The film makes sense at its root, if really and truly dissected, but when taken at face value and in real time, it’s almost impossible not to get completely lost in the sheer immersive nature of everything thrown at you.  Naomi Watts is brilliant as the viewer guide through the film, and it’s good that she is so powerful in her lead role and guiding task, because Mullholland Drive is not afraid to get downright bonkers on more than one occasion.  While films about the trappings of Hollywood and stardom are nothing new, I’m hard pressed to think of another film that approaches these in a manner even remotely close to that of Mullholland Drive. 

3. Wild at Heart (1990) Quite possibly the most enjoyable of all the David Lynch films, despite some downright brutal moments of celebratory violence sprinkled throughout.  The combination of Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern is nothing short of electric, and the presence of Willem Dafoe as antagonist is the perfect spark to ignite an already volatile mixture of leads.  The energy level of this film starts on ten and only continues to rise as the film progresses.  If/when I ever get the chance to program theater showings, I am putting this film on a double bill with Natural Born Killers immediately.  While I can’t say that Wild at Heart is my favorite David Lynch film, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it’s my favorite Lynch film to gush about with other fans.

2. Eraserhead (1977) More often than not, directors the caliber of David Lynch have stunning debut films to their name, and Lynch certainly exploded onto the scene with a gamebreaker in the form of Eraserhead.  Upon first viewing, there is enough “WTF?!” going on to confuse most people, but for those brave enough to watch the film more than once, it becomes painfully obvious that all of the madness and shocking imagery on display is a clear metaphor for Lynch’s fear of fatherhood.  The simple act of taking a fear that resonates with most humans and turning it into the equivalent of a black and white bad drug trip works perfectly, and Jack Nance’s iconic look and performance are almost recognizable enough to know without knowledge of the film.  Eraserhead is one of those films that leaves you different than you were prior to watching it.

1. Twin Peaks : Fire Walk with Me (1992) In all honesty, was there every any doubt that Twin Peaks : Fire Walk with Me wouldn’t be in the top spot?  Of all the properties that the David Lynch name is connected to, none of them have even come remotely close to touching the sheer size of the lore and fandom that has emerged from this modern day masterpiece.  The story of the high school princess with deep, dark secrets to hide is not new territory, but the way that Lynch handles it all with Twin Peaks takes the familiar to all new realms of weirdness, including the creation of iconic places and characters like the Black Lodge, the Log Lady, the production mistake that created the infamous Bob, and the eternally iconic Laura Palmer, and oh yeah, the film’s not half bad either.  I doubt that David Lynch ever had any intention of reaching the heights of fame that Twin Peaks : Fire Walk with Me afforded him, but it would be dumb to think that he isn’t impressed with the magnitude of the world he created based on that single idea for a film.

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (Ch.1)

This is the Dazai x OC/”reader” with bits of Kunikida x OC/”reader” fic I created.

I’m just gonna post the entire text of first chapter below the cut bc even tho it’s at zero hits, I still feel there’s people out there who might want to read it...

OC is based off “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, the basis for the movie “Arrival” w Amy Adams.

Shout-out to @discoten for Beta-ing this first part :)

*************************************************************************

Pale gold. Rose red. Dusky purple.

My eyes traveled from one brightly colored glass panel to the next, finally landing upon the deep azure blue of the Virgin Mary’s veil. I kept my eyes trained on her face, trying to stay focused on the massive stained-glass windows, the beautiful art shining all around me, anything to pretend I was at this gallery under different circumstances. Shafts of colored light as bright as shattered gemstones danced across the floor in the late afternoon sun, flitting over the black-clad bodies of the two men who lay prone nearby, their silent forms looking unnaturally still against the vibrant carpet.

I swallowed uneasily, a familiar sort of nausea creeping up from the pit of my stomach as I watched the dark pool of liquid around them grow wider and wider, the smell of iron heavy in the air...

Squeezing my eyes shut momentarily, I wrenched my attention away from them, trying to go back to staring at the windows but found myself looking once again into a pair of steel-gray eyes. There, at the entrance of the gallery, standing so still he may was well be a statue himself, was the young man who’d slain the two security guards lying on the floor nearby. With his pale face, stark-white cravat, and torn black overcoat, he reminded me of a vampire, or maybe even a god of death—his very image called to mind a painting of the Grim Reaper I’d passed on my way into this room. If only I had heeded the warning...

If I had, then maybe I wouldn’t be staring into a pair of piercing red eyes right now—the eyes of a shadowy monster attached to the back of this man’s cloak. As if sensing my thoughts, the demonic creature bared its dagger-like fangs and growled, its bloody, gaping maw stretching wide.

I kept my hands in the air. My cold, sweaty palms trembled on either side of my face as I returned my attention to the stained-glass windows around me. I’d had my hands in the air for so long that my arms were getting tired but I couldn’t drop them—I didn’t want to think about what would happen next if I did. Then the headlines tomorrow would read: “Attack at the South Pier Art Gallery. Three dead: two curators and one visitor.” In perhaps a day or two, they’d identify my corpse as “Kusunoki Kyou, aged twenty, a college drop-out and local shut-in.” They wouldn’t be able to get a hold of my parents; they were overseas and I hadn’t seen the rest of my family in so long, I wasn’t even sure if they were still in Chiba any more. Maybe the reporters would interview one or two of my former classmates... But would they even be able to find anybody who still wanted to talk about me after I shut myself away so abruptly?

“Hey, how have you been? Akutagawa-kun?” the man behind me called out brightly, the lilting tenor of his voice jarring, given our current situation.

I kind of figured he was crazy from the moment we met, but not this crazy.

What kind of man tries to play catch up with a friend (acquaintance? I honestly had no idea how they knew each other) while holding a gun to somebody’s head—my head? Even though I couldn’t turn around to see his face, I could picture his cheerful smile, the twinkle in his intelligent brown eyes, the layers of bandages wrapped around his neck. I could practically hear the gears in his head turning behind me as he watched Akutagawa and calculated his next move, the tone of his voice giving absolutely nothing away.

There was a tiny click—the sound of the safety being shut off—and I grimaced as I felt the metallic chill of the handgun’s muzzle pressing more firmly against the back of my head. Akutagawa immediately shot a dirty glance over my head at the person holding me hostage. He spat out a single name:

“Dazai-san.”

I went back to staring at the windows.

I really shouldn’t have left my apartment this morning.

***

Ramen.

Instant ramen was the reason I decided to venture out of my glorified broom closet for the first time in probably weeks. Had I known that the craving for convenience store food would lead to my being shot to death in six hours’ time, I would’ve ignored the growling of my stomach and taken my chances with starving at home instead.

Maybe.

I’d stayed up far too late the night before binge-watching the latest season of a new anime I’d picked up and my best guess for when I’d finally fallen asleep at my computer was probably around three in the morning. When I finally woke up (sometime around noon), I had Pocky crumbs in my hair, my pajamas were sticking unpleasantly to my skin and my stomach was grumbling from the lack of real food in who knows how long. Unfortunately, my pantry was empty, so I did what any normal person in my situation would do: put off going outside for another couple hours by picking another anime to watch. I only realized I really needed to get going when I finally reached into my giant bag of snacks and found it empty.

Dread building in the pit of my stomach at the mere thought of going outside, I threw off the pink bunny pajamas that I hadn’t changed out of in a while and tossed them on the growing pile of clothes on the floor. I hadn’t done the laundry in weeks and it was anyone’s guess which pile was “clean” and which was “dirty” (I’d lost track of which was which days ago). However, I didn’t have a real need to distinguish between the two until today... I stepped into the bathroom, walking right past the tiny cracked mirror above the sink without really looking into it and pulled the shower curtain closed. I knew what I would see: a greasy, dead-eyed otaku version of the creepy girl from The Ring, with long black hair and reddish-brown eyes, only instead of a haunted child, I’d see an adult who failed to get her life together after just two years of moving out of her relatives’ house.

Half an hour later, I’d dressed myself in an old pair of jeans and a large sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of a magical girl anime and was desperately fishing around in my kitchen drawer for the thing I needed most: a pair of gloves. I hadn’t needed to go outside in so long that I’d forgotten to stock up on nitrile gloves and it was with an enormous amount of relief that I finally retrieved an old pair at the bottom of the drawer.

I was too tired and hungry to notice the small hole in one of the gloves when I pulled them on, nor did I notice when I put on my face mask and tied up my hair. Honestly, I was just lucky the torn one didn’t rip completely away from my hand when I was putting on my shoes but maybe it would’ve been better if it did. Maybe then I wouldn’t have ended up at the art gallery...

But I wasn’t thinking about my gloves when I prepared for my short trip; I was thinking about food. After all, it was supposed to be a quick trip, just a short walk through the hallway and down the street to the nearest convenience store, then back. It honestly might not have been so bad if everything that happened after hadn’t gone so horribly wrong.

The first thing that went wrong happened the moment I stepped out of the building. Blinded by the sudden appearance of sunlight, I smacked right into an old lady walking in front of my building and immediately fell on my butt.

“Oh my, Kyou-chan!”

I groaned as I slowly got back to my feet.

“Is that you, Kyou-chan? Nobody’s seen you in weeks; it’s been so quiet on your end of the floor that we thought maybe you moved out!”

“No, I’m still here, Yamazaki-san,” I replied, recognizing the woman’s face before her voice.

Mrs. Yamazaki lived on the same floor as me and was kind of a busybody, but a caring one. The evening I’d first moved into the building, she’d knocked on my door around dinner time and asked if I knew how to play Mah-Jong. One of her friends had canceled on their group last minute and they’d needed a fourth. I’d declined as politely as I could but was still somehow dragged out of my room by the boisterous old woman and forcibly socialized over a cup of hot genmai-cha. I’d meant to return the favor by dropping by with some kind of snack in hand but never got around to it.

I could feel the guilt curling in the pit of my stomach as I took in her tiny form, her smiling face but all I could do was smile weakly as she remarked on how malnourished I looked and how long my hair had grown since she’d last seen me. Then she spotted the tote bag in my hand.

“Kyou-chan! Are you going shopping?”

“Not really, just getting some ramen at the convenience store.”

Mrs. Yamazaki’s eyes widened.

“Is that all you’ve been eating these days?” she asked, sounding concerned.

“N-no. I’ve had...”

I thought back to my box of strawberry Pocky.

“...Other things.”

She frowned.

“That won’t do,” she declared.

Without waiting for me to respond, she grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the nearest crosswalk.

“Yamazaki-san!” I tried to wrench my arm out of her grip but she was surprisingly strong for her age. Or maybe—I cringed—maybe I’d just become extremely weak after months of being a shut-in and not getting any proper exercise. Drawing commissions hardly worked the arms.

“This isn’t the way to the convenience store! Yamazaki-san!!”

Before long, we were inside an actual grocery, Mrs. Yamazaki chatting away merrily as she pulled vegetables off the shelves and tucked them away into her own basket (I’d run into her just as she was about to go anyway). Occasionally, she’d grab something green and leafy and stick it into the basket she’d forced into my hands, and she kept doing it until she’d buried the thick layer of ramen and junk food that lay at the bottom of the bag. When she was satisfied with the composition of my groceries, she nodded approvingly and hurried me towards the cash registers.

“There now,” she laughed once we were outside and I was carrying a very heavy bag of things I hadn’t actually intended to buy. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She stepped off the sidewalk and two things happened very quickly: one, a truck ran a red light, barreling towards her as she attempted to cross the street, and two, as I dropped my groceries and rushed forward to save her, my right glove caught on something sticking out of my bag and finally ripped.

“Yamazaki-san!”

I reached out—my fingers stretched towards her.

“Look out!!”

Several onlookers screamed as I seized Mrs. Yamazaki by the back of her jacket and yanked her back. We fell to the ground, crashing down onto the sidewalk just as the truck sped through the intersection, honking madly as it flew by. Somebody behind us was yelling for the cops, several people had taken out their cell phones and as one of the grocery store employees rushed over to help us up, I felt an odd stinging sensation in my right hand.

I looked down and saw that my right glove had been completely shredded. Though I still had coverage on most of my fingers, much of the pale blue nitrile was hanging off my right hand in thin, ragged tatters and there were several long scratches on the palm of my hand from where I’d scraped it against the sidewalk when I fell.

The store employee, a stout, middle-aged man with bulky arms, helped a very shaken Mrs. Yamazaki to her feet, and though I could feel her trembling as she clung to me, I tried to shift my posture as she leaned on me. I couldn’t let her touch any part of my bare hand.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” the man from the store asked.

“Y-yes, I’m fine,” Mrs. Yamazaki answered, her voice quavering as she looked up at the man and then at me.

Tears sprang to her eyes and before I could stop her, she got down on her knees and bowed deeply, touching her forehead to the ground in gratitude.

“Y-Yamazaki-san?”

“Thank you!” she whispered, her voice cracking. “You saved my life, Kyou-chan!”

“Yamazaki-san, please,” I dropped to my knees as well and tried to help her up. “You don’t need to do that. Please, get up.”

As the store employee and I raised Mrs. Yamazaki to her feet, she chuckled, her eyes wide with wonder as she looked at me.

“And to think, if I hadn’t met you on your way out this morning, I might be...”

She shook her head slowly and I exchanged a worried glance with the man who’d come to help.

“I don’t know where I would be if you weren’t here, Kyou-chan,” Mrs. Yamazaki breathed. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Though she seemed to be completely fine, with no broken bones or serious injuries, she continued to cling to me, and I felt her grip on my arm tighten as the employee informed her the police were on their way and we may want to stay to give a statement. Panic slowly rose in my chest as I felt my uncovered wrist coming out of my sleeve but as I carefully began to extricate myself from Mrs. Yamazaki’s grip, she suddenly turned to me and looked me up and down. She gasped.

“Oh, Kyou-chan!”

Her eyes had fallen upon my scratched palm.

“You’re bleeding!”

I yanked my hand away.

“I’m fine, ma’am.”

“Let me see it,” she demanded, grabbing my wrist. “I insist.”

As the store employee ran inside to get some band-aids, Mrs. Yamazaki gently picked up the edges of the ripped nitrile, pulling it away from my bloody, scratched-up palm, oblivious to my attempts to get away. As the glove gradually peeled away from my hand, I felt the warmth of her wrinkled skin brush against my fingers.

And then it happened.

The sound of canned laughter echoes throughout the room. Flickering green and white light casts odd shadows upon the walls. The cat-shaped clock above the television reads half past eleven in the middle of the night but there is another sound that is audible over the muffled noises from the TV. It beats in time with the clock and it sounds like something dripping, something liquid and warm.

Tick.

Tick.

T i ck.

The clock cat’s eyes shine with unnatural green light— light reflected from the television screen. They are blank , open, and staring, just like the eyes of the woman draped oddly over the side of the television set, her eyes wide with fear and shock.

Mrs. Yamazaki clutches at her chest. Blood dribbles thickly from between her fingers, her breath comes in wheezes and gurgled gasps as she slumps further and further down the side of her TV set. She leaves a bloody hand print on the side panel and falls to the ground.

Someone is laughing.

I am laughing.

The sound is deep, unfamiliar. There is a large, bloody kitchen knife held fast in my fingers, which are thick and hairy. I move my arm to check the wound Mrs. Yamazaki had inflicted on me and I see the vivid tattoo of a monstrous green snake, its fangs sinking deeply into a cracked human skull.

The television returns to its regularly scheduled programming. A time stamp appears in the upper right hand corner...

I came to, to the sound of somebody calling my name and immediately let out a sharp hiss of pain. While I was out, I had dropped to my knees, scuffing my jeans, and I could feel the thin skin over my kneecaps bruising horribly against the concrete sidewalk. Thankfully, that was all but my hands were shaking and I had a massive headache. Looking alarmed, Mrs. Yamazaki, not a single knife wound visible on her body, held my hand in both of hers with a troubled expression on her face. She had been the one calling me.

“Oh my goodness! Are you alright, Kyou-chan? You’re as white as a sheet.”

I immediately ripped my hand away and stuffed it into my pocket, just as the store employee returned with bandages. As he stuck out his hand to give me the bandages, I took a step back, shrinking away from the two of them.

“I’m fine.”

I stuffed my hand deeper into my pocket, ignoring the stickiness of the drying blood.

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Yamazaki asked, worry clouding her voice.

“I SAID I’M FINE!!”

That came out way louder than I’d meant it to. The people around me looked startled. I could hear the whispers. My Ability, “The Story of Your Life,” the curse of seeing visions of the future of those I touched, had manifested at the worst possible moment. I picked my bag off the sidewalk and ran.

[donnerpartyofone]

#4

In 2018, with the help of some concerned and informed people in my life, I discovered that I’m probably pretty autistic. The driving factors were not what you might expect (I didn’t, anyway)--chiefly, a kind of persistent clumsiness, disorientation, organizational difficulty, trouble learning certain practical tasks--but it helped explain a lot of things about me that one might otherwise consider “quirks”. I had always taken for granted, for instance, that I have a lot of trouble recognizing faces, including ubiquitously famous actors, or members of my own family. I have also been accused from time to time of taking things “too literally” (to which I usually reply something like, “But this is literally what’s going on in reality, how does literalness make it dismissible?” I really don’t get it). Also, most typically, I have never liked being touched. “You’re just like Dave Letterman!” my dad chortles, an interpretation I don’t mind. I think it might also be pretty autistic of me to be so averse to family. I don’t have the slightest inclination toward maternity, which one could guess from the previous passages, but it’s more than neurosis. I know intellectually that people care about their families; the same way most people burst with pleasure at the sight of a baby, any baby, they also respond automatically to the very idea of blood relatives. As a kid, I was always baffled by the obsession other kids seemed to have with their cousins, or how in love they could be with their grandparents. In my world, you obsess over people to whom you have something to say; people who share your taste in art, your politics, your philosophies, your passions and phobias. I don’t understand relationships that are based on blood alone, on being trapped in the same place and time by virtue of pure circumstances.

Today, as my friends are all having babies one after another, I find myself strangely fascinated by them. Some of these people have struggled all their lives to find a sense of belonging or purpose, and having children has given them a sense of meaning beyond anything they previously hoped for. As someone who continuously struggles to find a sense of purpose, which I base exclusively on my intellectual and artistic pursuits, I’m amazed by the idea that I could potentially put all my existential confusion behind me if I were willing or able to become a mother. I can estimate how profound it must feel to create life, and then to become responsible for turning that life into something good. But, I remain unable to attach meaning to the idea of something being “a part of me” on a purely biological basis. I have insurmountable trouble thinking of my biological predecessors as being “where I come from” on the identity level. I can’t imagine being so sentimental about being an organism in a colony of like-organisms, not the way I am about people who have brought me experience and taught me to think.

So, even if I were without the mother-related trauma heretofore detailed, I still think there is something about who I am as a person, that would have made me recoil from my grandmother. My mother’s mother was the platonic ideal grandmother, a plump, pleasant old lady with a syrupy southern drawl who seemed to have stepped out of a cookie commercial. Excessively generous with money, food and affection, she presented as a person any family would welcome in their household. However, I always detected something oppressive about her. I was raised to be guiltily dutiful toward her, so as a child, I thought my suspicion and repulsion was just a problem with me. It must make me an asshole, that I don’t want her to hug me with her entire body for such a long time that I can’t figure out what’s going on anymore and I’m suffocating from the heat. I must be a dick, that I don’t want someone chasing me around, staring at me, posing me and jostling me like a baby, which I haven’t been for years. Maybe it was my problem, that I didn’t want her to burst into the bathroom and shriek with glee at the sight of me on the toilet trying to take a single solitary piss. Maybe I was just being a jerky teenager when I froze in horror while my grandmother sat next to me at the dinner table, gazing smolderingly into my eyes like a lover and caressing my hair non-verbally when I was perfectly capable of having a respectful adult conversation.

As I grew up a little more, I began to pick up on the fact that she drove both of my parents nuts. All of this motherly pageantry was incredibly manipulative, and really a way of controlling people. The creepy coddling I received as her granddaughter was really something she did to everyone. She was bright, incredibly shrewd really, a person whose hard work and frugality produced a self-made millionaire, though this didn’t reflect in her humble home. She was a dyed in the wool republican who was capable of watching the Daily Show with appropriate delight. Actually, she had a weird sadistic sense of humor; I always thought she got a little too much joy out of seeing little boys get smacked in the nuts by speeding baseballs on America’s Funniest Home Videos. That probably bothered me because of how she unforgettably screamed with laughter at my flinching when she took me to get my ears pierced. Everything indicated that, regardless of her age and conservatism, she wasn’t a vulnerable, senile old biddy, but a keenly intelligent woman very much in touch with the real world. This made it endlessly disturbing to me that she so insisted that everyone around her act like a little baby, adults and children alike, so she could rule us all as the ultimate mommy. Her aversion to grownup conversations and self-reliance was a way of forcing everyone into a Rockwellian time capsule in which everything was predictable and hygienic, in which mother knows best. Literally any admission of imperfection could trigger an outburst that would enslave everyone to the process of cheering her up. I recently heard a story about a Christmas visit during which she and her husband were lavishing attention on my brother as if I wasn’t even there. Concerned that I might be lonely, my father suggested that they include me in this play session. At this recommendation, my grandmother burst into hysterical tears, and my parents had to spend the rest of the night apologizing for accusing her of being neglectful.

Eventually, I learned little by little that she was more than just a prototypically clingy old lady with a keen talent for doling out guilt. It was a little weirder than that, and ultimately, a lot darker. First, there were the things I had heard about my mother’s life as her daughter. I remember a story my mother told about a birthday party that her mother threw for her when she was little, sometime in grade school I think. Her mother said that she had hired a gypsy woman to tell everyone’s fortunes, which was extremely exciting. A little carnival tent was set up in the back yard, and all the kids lined up to hear about their futures. When my mother’s turn came up, she walked in, only to find her mother in there in a turban talking with a corny accent, as if her own child wouldn’t know who she was--let alone any of her friends. My mother told this story to explain how embarrassing her mother was, but what I picked up from this was less a funny story about how parents traditionally humiliate their kids, and more like evidence that my grandmother’s identity is completely rooted in her position as an apex matriarch, well beyond anyone else’s intelligence or control.

The way she infantilized me was not an ordinary byproduct of having a grandchild, but something she did to everyone in her life, historically, up to and including my adult parents. She certainly continued to do it to me as an adult, and she insisted on a childish sort of positivity that I could barely muster. I thought, if she wants us to have a relationship, I should talk about my life, which sometimes includes complaints--or simply categorizing things as just-ok, or business as usual. Of course, she found this extremely irritating for some reason, and would pressure me to change my story with declarations like “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SO MISERABLE!” One Christmas when I was really in a bind, I called to thank her for the holiday check she had sent me, saying that it gave me much-needed help in making my rent at that time. “Oh...well, I thought you would do something nice with it,” she said in a strange tone that let me know she was sort of angry with me for some reason. I had to sort of bend the truth into a story about some special treat I supposedly got myself in order to get her to cut it out.

A better example of what was really going on with her also had to do with Christmas. You know Christmas: If you’re a little kid, you get up at about four in the morning, you beeline for the tree and try to peak into the openings in the wrapping paper, you wake up your parents either by force or by the shockwaves coming off of your person, you all open presents together in a sleep-deprived daze, and you’re basically all back in bed by 10am. Well, this might happen with my mother, but once my grandmother was awake, a ritual began. First, she would get out her camera, and follow my mother back into the bedroom. There, my mother would get back into bed, and pretend to be asleep. Then my grandmother would take a picture of my mother “waking up.” Then, another picture of her theatrically delighted expression when she “remembers” that it’s Christmas. Then a picture of my mother entering the living room and exploding with joy when she sees the tree for “the first time”. Then pictures of the presents being opened, then etc...this whole completely artificial passion play of my grandmother’s little family having the perfect Christmas.

Much, much later, I would find out what all this debasement was probably really about. It had to do with my great aunt. I knew that this woman, who I have rarely ever met in my life, and her daughter both suffer from brutalizing clinical depression. The daughter actually has an electronic device in her brain that acts like a pacemaker for depressive episodes. I had never even heard of something like that before, but it made perfect sense to me that this person and I would be in the same gene pool. Naturally, though, my grandmother would not have found such a dour defect so sympathetic. My grandmother and her sister seemed to have some kind of amorphous feud going on. My grandmother complained relentlessly that her sister refused to spend enough time with her, and I usually thought about how unfair she was being to a woman who has had cancer multiple times, whose energy is leached away by depression, and whose daughter is also routinely sick and almost uncontrollably suicidal. Apparently there was a history of slights and passive aggressions between the two women, though none of it topped the thing I ultimately learned about their family. At some point in their lives, my long suffering great aunt admitted to her sister that she had been raped by their father. I never knew the man, but he was supposed to have been sort of a son of a bitch, and there were other reasons that this made all the sense in the world to me. I remembered a story about how, after he died, his daughters found years’ worth of private writing that he had produced. It sounded like they were really raunchy violent western stories, which my parents were naturally interested in seeing, until they discovered that my grandmother had burned it all. “It was PORNOGRAPHY!” she declared. It’s a little hard to tell whether she was simply appalled by this rather un-Rockwellian artistic deviance, or if she was especially bothered because she knew him to be real life predator. In any case, it would have been impossible to know, because when her sister confessed that their father had violated her, my grandmother basically gave her the finger. Or rather, she gave that whole upsetting topic the finger, and then insisted that her poor destroyed sister continue to be her faithful companion as if none of it had ever happened. “It’s so painful!” my grandmother cried when her sister refused her most recent invite to brunch, and it took everything in me not to say, “Yeah, well, can you think of any reasons by yourself why she might not be fucking dying to hang out with you all the time?”

So it became clear to me why my grandmother might be so controlling and belittling, why she might try to force everyone into a performance of endless childhood, why she might expel from her life anything that smacks of imperfection. It still remained very difficult for me to just suck it up and be what she wanted me to be, not so much because I’m especially proud of my personality--a personality that in every way would repel her if I were to reveal my private world of crime, horror movies, pornography, fetishism, occultism, anti-capitalist sentiment, and of course, suicidal ideation. I also had trouble being the granddaughter she needed because of this autism of mine; it doesn’t make any sense to me to dissimulate, I’ll never become a smooth enough liar to pretend to be somebody’s innocent little baby, even if it would benefit me to do so. Making things up makes no more sense to me, than it does for someone to say “I love you” without meaning “I’m impressed with your personality, your intelligence, your culture, your morality, your humor, your...” It doesn’t make sense to me for someone to say, “I don’t care who you are, I love you because you’re my baby.” I made my best efforts in her last years, but nothing will stop me from feeling guilty toward her for the rest of my life. The way that she died fucked me up so badly that I’m only beginning to realize it now.

[wowheadquarters]

Interview with Genn

Q: If Anduin was able to bring back the dead, would you ask him with extreme politeness if he could bring back great warriors of Gilneas? Yes that includes Liam

Genn: The dead should stay dead and rest. And that includes Liam.

Q: How do you feel about Tess being part of the Uncrowned?

Genn: Tess is part of what now? Tess: (Wildly gesturing “He has no idea, shut up!” behind Genn’s back)

Q: What do you think about the heroes?

Genn: Powerful. Useful. Sometimes toying with things that shouldn’t be toyed with. Sort of... unreliable.

Q: How do you feel about Death Knight Worgen?

Genn: I mean, being Worgen is bad enough, they didn’t choose to be dead murderous machines either. I guess... I have an understanding. But no sympathy.

Q: How much do you hate Nathanos Blightcaller?

Genn: On a scale from 1 to 10 there isn’t any number that would be big enough.

Q: Does Anduin reminds you of Liam? If so, its painful to watch him and remember your son?

Genn: No. Liam was a warrior. A leader. Anduin is a whinny ninny who likes books too much for his own good.

Q: Do you think, at some point that Tess will become queen, and if yes, what queen do you think she will be?

Genn: She is the daughter of a king, of course she will become a queen. Genn: It is going to be problematic with her. She wants to be her, as she says it, her own woman. She doesn’t understand she isn’t meant to be in the front line doing things. Women should stay home and safe while we protect them! Genn: I am... I am not saying that she wouldn’t be able to go and kick asses. I just. Don’t like that idea. She is a lady, for Light’s sake. She should be the caring one.

Q: Do you love your daughter? Because sometimes it feels like you don’t.

Genn: Of course I love my daughter! What kind of father doesn’t love his daughter? I’d do anything for Tess!

Q: I always wondered if the transformation into Worgen was hurting?

Genn: It isn’t painful. It is more like... sneezing with all your body at once.

Q: Why with such attachment in Anduin verse?

Genn: He has lost his father. I am the only competent father around. And he needs a strong man as a model and a teacher. Just look at him! On his own he would either start wearing skirts or even worse, entered a monastery, which also includes wearing skirts. And he is being a friend with that blasted black dragon! Black dragons are evil!

Q: Do you ever feel insecure about Gilneas being destroyed and having to go to Stormwind and follow a new, young, and inexperienced king and not being able to rise like you used to?

Genn: Actually, since I’ve got my ass out of Darnassus, things are getting better. Genn: Anduin has always been opened to take advice from someone more experienced. Unlike Tyrande. Genn: Who might be more experienced. But also, she is a gentle woman and a priestess, nothing made for this cruel wartime.

Q: Do you still keep in touch with Crowley?

Genn: Oh. Yeah. Not really. We have... differing opinions. Genn: However, Tess is very befriended with the whole family, which is good for all kinds of diplomacy.

Q: Do you ever get flashbacks of the Battle for Gilneas?

Genn: Yeah. It’s called nightmares.

Q: What was your opinion on Varian?

Genn: Good king. Good warrior. Good friend. More liberal then I am, but then, it has been brought to my attention that against all new things I tend to build a wall. Sometimes literal. Genn: I know I don’t have to be always right about things, and that times change. But I am too old for changing. Varian was younger than I and has been taught different values.

Q: How did the worgen react to him being the Chosen of Goldrinn?

Genn: Actually, we didn’t give a fuck. Like, not our problem, really.

Q: How would you react if Anduin actually fell in love with Tess?

Genn: That would be wonderful. Mia and I have actually been thinking about bringing the two of them together. I have discussed it with Varian, too, but he always insisted that it is Anduin’s problem, not his. Genn: So overall, I would be very pleased. Love isn’t required in a marriage, but it certainly helps things.

Q: What do you think about Katherine Proudmoore?

Genn: I didn’t really bother making an opinion. Knowing the Proudmoores’ luck, she is gonna get struck by a meteor or something before this whole war is over.

Q: What is your opinion on the night elves?

Genn: They whole society is upside down of what I have been taught and what I know! Women warriors? Friendly nature? Have they heard of proper walls and doors? Why are they so damn tall?

Q: Did Gilneans like Darnassus (before Sylvanas burned it down)?

Genn: Ummm... you know, there was this gigantic wall thing and Kalimdor being not a really discovered continent until recently. Genn: Although I admit, the Draenei were way more surprising.

Q: How do you feel about new allied races that recently joined the Alliance?

Genn: Evil, insane, creepy, and all of above. Silver coin for you if you can guess which is which.

Q: Does your mind sometimes shift between forms, even if your body doesn't?

Genn: No, not really. I don’t think my mind shifts at all... It is more like... In Worgen form, I can get away with way more things I wouldn’t as a human. Such as, say, tearing out the jugular vein with my bare teeth out of a Troll’s neck.

Q: What's your opinion on Jaina Proudmoore?

Genn: Batshit crazy. But it was a long time coming. Genn: There was this whole Arthas thing, then she lost her father, then there was Arthas again, the Theramore got destroyed... Jaine deserves support and a bit of pity. Not condemnation. Pushing her away because she is insane and sangerous is going to make things worse. Genn: She needs help. But I don’t know how to help her.

Q: Since being able to shift at will between human and worgen, which form you like the most?

Genn: I am still favouring my human form, because it is more, well, human. Although, the Worgen one is... more practical in many ways. Except small spaces, I can’t fit anywhere like that.

Q: Also, any special carw for that glorious mane/fur of yours in the BfA trailer?

Genn: Fleas-Flee shampoo. I don’t want to hear any comments.

Q: Genn Greymane is a fitting name, innit? Did anyone ever... point that out?

Genn: Well, the only person who did was Taedal. I consider it some kind of a demon insult. Because he laughed.

Q: Favourite food?

Genn: Roasted quails. With a touch of roasted almonds, maybe?

Q: Did your preferences in cuisine change after you wee affected by the curse?

Genn: Well... I used to like my meat medium rare, but now I am more into well done. And I dirnk far more water than I used to.

Q: In how much trouble would one be, if one were to call you daddy? Asking for a friend. *cough* daddy *cough*

Genn: Unless it was my children, I’d hand them over to the guards.

Q: How's the wife? Haven't seen her out in public lately, and with you out and away so much,  I sure hope she is alright.

Genn: Mia is good. Mia is good. War front isn’t any place for gentle women. She is staying back in Darnassus. Genn: Which caught fire... Genn: On that matter, she’s got a new haircut, because her hair got kind of... scorched. Genn: But otherwise she is doing good. I feel bad for neglecting her. But you know. There is a war going on.

[gaiapaia]

Kermit And Friends: Never Meet Your Hero

Never meet your hero, or never meet your fans?

That’s the conundrum Elisa Jordana finds herself in after having yet another bad experience meeting a fan of Kermit and Friends. She’s had some good times with fans too, but the bad really seems to outweigh the good and Elisa is fed up with it.

A caller by the name of ‘Dipshit Mike’ phoned into the show yesterday to inform Elisa about the things Kleenex said about her when he met with Kleenex just a few days after Kleenex met Elisa.

Mike claims Kleenex showed him pictures and videos Kleenex took inside of Elisa’s apartment complex. Elisa never invited Kleenex to her place so it’s beyond creepy that Kleenex would be in her apartment lobby taking pictures and shooting videos. Mike also accused Kleenex of saying Elisa wears too much make up, looks old, and she has a “Fupa,” which is extra fat in the groin area.

For the record, Kleenex denies all of this, but it’s believable enough when he basically called Elisa unattractive and old on another show before last week’s episode. Either way, Elisa now has even more of a sour taste in her mouth not just for Kleenex, but at the thought of meeting any KAF fans going forward.

Yesterday’s special co-host, Morgan Presley, however feels differently. Morgan’s best friend is a fan of hers she met on TikTok! So for every horrible story you can find about meeting your fans or heroes, I’m sure there’s a positive story right around the corner from someone else.

Morgan Presley is a TikTok superstar with nearly 5 million followers and over 200 million likes combined. Those are spectacular numbers, to say the least.

Elisa played a montage video of some of Morgan Presley’s most popular videos. Morgan’s brand of humor is very unique as it mostly deals with ladies bathroom jokes. Elisa could be labeled a comedian but the thought of her making jokes like that frightens Elisa due to the embarrassment or awkwardness she would feel saying it in front of an audience. I think that’s why you could tell Elisa genuinely admired and adored Morgan as much as she did. If Elisa could ever attain Morgan’s confidence, the sky would be the limit for her.

Morgan is very awesome though. Everyone loved her. She appeared with a straw hat and painted-on beard, and was just as blissful of a person as you could ever hope to meet. She was truly a perfect co-host for Elisa and I desperately hope Morgan becomes a regular on the show.

Yesterday’s other special guest was Rob Cortis, a guy who has a “Trump Unity” bridge attached to his truck that he drives across the country in an effort to unify everyone under former President Trump.

Rob has been featured on The Drew and Mike Podcast, and TBob seemed like an expert on the guy. TBob was revved up with questions about Rob’s true intentions, and at one point Bob even insinuated that Rob uses his Unity Bridge as a money laundering scheme for drug dealing.

Personally, I don’t think TBob’s information was correct about Rob. It’s most likely that Rob is just a huge Donald Trump fan and he wants everyone else to be a Trump fan too. Nothing more, nothing less.

Eric Riggs made a splash on yesterday’s show when he called in to inform Elisa that he and one of Elisa’s closest real life friends, Elaine, have become an item. Eric claimed he went to Hawaii and made passionate love to Elaine while there.

Elaine, a person you can find in the KAF chatroom on most Sundays, posted in the chat that Eric was being silly and what he said wasn’t true. Elisa got a bit peeved at Eric though. This is the second friend of Elisa’s that Eric has gone after sexually. I think Elisa wouldn’t mind at all if Eric truly fell in love with one of her friends and lived happily ever after with them, but Eric is specifically targeting Elisa’s friends in an attempt to make Elisa jealous. Elisa does not want her friends to be preyed upon like that, nor does Elisa want to be Eric’s obsession.

Speaking of Eric, the person he hates the most returned to Kermit and Friends yesterday... Andy Dick.

Andy was being drove around in an Uber with a mask on his face that he was forced to wear by the driver. Andy seemed pretty grumpy during his short appearance.

Elisa asked Andy about his feelings on Norm MacDonald’s passing, to which Andy replied that he himself also died last week but refused to go into details. Did Andy OD? Suicide attempt? Who knows... maybe we’ll find out next week.

Now I must address the dark part of the show, where Elisa told a heartbreaking story where her beloved Fozzie was attacked in an elevator by another dog last week.

Let me tell you guys something I know about Elisa that most of you probably don’t realize. In late 2018 when she first started working at her Gold job, Elisa worked from 7AM to 7PM pretty much every weekday. Even though Elisa was extremely successful and made tons of money, it did not come without its sacrifices, including losing precious time with Kermit and Fozzie. 

The best thing COVID did was allow Elisa to work at home so she could spend those last few months with Kermit while Kermit was still alive. That was a huge blessing for both of them, but I know Elisa regrets how much she worked before that time, and she learned a lesson.

Since returning to work full time, Elisa has worked less hours, takes Fozzie to her office sometimes, visits him during lunch, and after work takes him to the dog park. She’s giving her best effort to make up for the time she lost with him and Kermit in 2019. It’s incredibly sweet and heartwarming, and it shows you how much Elisa loves her son Fozzie.

So after their regular dog park visit sometime last week, Elisa took Fozzie into an elevator where her neighbor and his Poodle were also going to ride up with them. All of the sudden, the poodle latched on to Fozzie’s neck and started yanking him back and forth. Thank goodness Elisa managed to get Fozzie out of the little bastard’s mouth and no devastating damage was done. 

Fozzie was still injured and required stiches, now being forced to wear a dog cone until his neck heals. Poor guy.

The entire thing was caught on security footage but the building hasn’t given Elisa a copy yet. Cops were no help, either. And the neighbor, who she was close friends with, seemed apathetic about the whole ordeal, which made Elisa even more upset.

We demand #JusticeForFozzie so that Satanic poodle can’t cause harm to anyone else in Elisa’s apartment complex! I’m doing my best in securing a picture of the rotten devil and will make flyers for Elisa to tape inside and outside of her building, warning everyone to avoid that demonic Poodle if they ever see him at the dog park or especially in the elevator.

Another week, another emotional roller coaster on Kermit and Friends. The quirkiness and drama seems to expand every show, and I’m positive next week will be no different. ‘Til then... avoid poodles named August at all costs so you can live to see another episode!

[undergroundwubwubmaster]

hello!! you said that Tomie has a strange way to woo ladies, so can you tell us about how she would go about seducing someone? im hoping accordion solos and loving (intense) stares. i love Tomie

The thing with that is, she doesn’t really … woo ladies? 

Tomie is reclusive by choice. She’s constantly looking behind her back and covering her tracks so nobody can trail her. Wiping out entire gangs tends to get you on the shit-list of any survivors - or law-enforcers.

She actively avoids getting into meaningful relationships (romantic or platonic ) because it just means another loose end she needs to worry about, not even mentioning how anyone wishing revenge on her would use people close to her for that. It has happened before and Tomie isn’t willing to repeat history.

I’m not sure what she’s like if actively flirting. Either extremely awkward or a force so powerful it rivals natural disasters. There’s no in-between.

That doesn’t mean however, that Tomie doesn’t crush on people on occasions. Because oh she does. She has a weakness for cute lil’ ladies in sundresses.

It’s just her way of indulging into those crushes that get’s tad … creepy. Tomie’s affection is rather one-sided and selfish, mostly done for entertainment.

I’m putting rest of this under a cut cuz’ it got long, dun wanna clog anyone’s dash! - there is also artwork under cut ! 

Ok for the sake of example let’s say you’re a lady of her type.

- For the first weeks to even couple months, you wouldn’t even know anything. Tomie is excellent at espionage and detective work after all. If she were to find you attractive enough, she would start trailing you and finding things about you until she has a “profile”, not unlike what she makes of her targets. She would know your routines, paths to school / home / work and closest contacts. She can easily get very close to you while out on town since hey, it’s not like you recognize her.

This is most common level of crush she has, and it happens often enough. usually it doesn’t go further than that, and the object of desire never finds out about it. Tomie entertains her with the detective work to your life until the sparks disappears and she burns whatever evidence there is. Consider it practice for her legit missions.

- If she continues on, it turns more invasive. You still have no idea who she is but you might notice some changes. Maybe those men who tended to cat-call you and your friends are now oddly quiet. Your nasty boss or a teacher suddenly got all polite and weirdly sweaty. That one neighbor or a classmate / coworker who has been giving you hell appears at your door panicking, saying sorry for how they’ve treated you.

Did you or your parents have some debt-issues? Oh wow, the person holding those debts dropped the sum required, or did they let it go all together? The merchants are surely treating you nicely lately, giving you good deals and sneak- peeks into the limited products. 

Also the bars and clubs you spent evenings with your friends have started to play lot of accordion music - looks like the town has a traveling musician that happens to choose same places as you by sheer coincidence.

You can’t tell what’s happened, but it feels like you have a guardian angel … that has a gun.

After Tomie has lifted your QoL a bit she tends to leave you alone, and the “burn evidence and resume normal living” repeats from earlier.

- Third tier on the dumpster fire that is Tomie Having a Crush happens rarely. If you have shown to be rather accepting of the sudden changes and don’t seem like doing something that might cause issues to Tomie, she may start outright gifting you things.

First gift is always a way to test the ice, something you like or have wanted for a while - whatever Tomie has figured out. You find it on your window-till, from your balcony, under the porch, etc- Tomie is bound to be somewhere near but good luck spotting her. If you seem pleasantly surprised, Tomie might continue on, but getting alarmed by a sudden, possibly expensive gift (which is totally sane thing to feel, this is basically stalking at this point) will make her retreat. Que “ burn everything” .

She might attach some notes to her packages, but it’s always very short and vague. “ heard you liked these. “ - “ This would look good on you “ - “ It’s going to be cold soon, have this “ - “ happy birthday “ etc etc etc.

Tomie continuing this trend depends on solely what she feels like doing. Usually the gifts and notes stop after a year, as the one-sided affection kinda takes a toll on anyone - Tomie isn’t stone, she wants to be loved as anyone else, but won’t allow that to happen.

- Only way to escalate things would be for you to try reaching out in turn. Leaving notes and letters of your own in some discreet places or trying to catch her red-handed near you, which is difficult, and the moment she notices you trying she know how to avoid that, with changing tactics and using couriers.

She enjoys it when you write to her or try catching her. It’s like a game of cat and mouse where the roles are reversed every week or so. She has fun and it makes her smile.

If you actually managed to catch her and rope her into a equal relationship, you’re gonna be the most pampered and safest bugger in the whole town, ain’t nobody gonna mess with you ��� unless someone want’s to mess with Tomie.

Tomie is not a cold person, simply someone who refuses to get close to people.  A big softie with a hard outer shell.

[mysynthfetish]

Rhapsody in Blue? AKA: Novation Revisitation

Visible at the bottom there is a my recentmost acquisition: a Novation Nova II X. I’ve been a fan of Novation synths ever synth I first played around with one. Ahem. Since. Anyway, um, where was I? Oh yeah. Actually the first Novation synth I owned was a Bass Station, the original one, that I bought new when they first came out. Of course, I was hoping it would live up to the hype and be a good sit-in for a 303, which I couldn’t afford at the time (though I would buy one not so long thereafter, from a shop in NYC, for like $900). Well, it didn’t, not exactly. I mean, it was a very good monosynth, no doubt about it, but as far as replacing or duplicating the 303 sound? Not so much. And I can say so because of having the 303 I mentioned a few lines back at the same time as I had the Bass Station. Blah blah woof woof. What did I like the most about the Bass Station though? The filter, oh man, the filter! it was good, and somehow different from the other synths I’d used until then. Just recently I found out that the Bass Station filter was actually the same as in the Wasp, which was a creepy oddball monosynth released by UK-based EDP. Seems Chris Huggett, the designer of the Wasp, took part in the designing of the Bass Station (and also the OS for every AKAI sampler from the S-1000 through the S-3200). Well then!

Actually, I had a Nova desktop module for a few years, maybe I bought it 5 years ago, but I sold it after picking up a Virus TI. Oops. I also had a K-Station for a while. Last September I built two Jaspers—DIY clones of the Wasp—and I’m sure I posted here about it. I’ve been rearranging my setup basically non-stop for the past year and a half (need to cut this shit out already) and was thinking I wanted a polysynth that was different from the standard Roland Korg Yamaha stuff (new and old) and Novation popped into my head. I found an X-Station 25 for a very reasonable price so I bought it. It definitely had the Nova DNA, but with a bit fewer programming options and somewhat lesser DSP power than the desktop Nova I had before. In any case, it sounded good! It was the Nova sound—a sound I really liked, though I never really got all that deep into programming the desktop when I had it. And come to think of it, the one thing I remember liking the most about the Nova was that you could build a Performance, with up to eight separate programs across up to eight separate MIDI channels, and each program would retain the up to six effects used per program, if I recall correctly. Even now, this is virtually unheard of. It was a great module for using both in the studio and live. The only problems it had were jumpy encoders and a power supply issue that would have it cycle on and off by itself (usually a jiggle to the power cable took care of that).

Jumpy encoders. Ugh. My K-Station suffered from this too. I sent an email to Novation Support asking if they’d provide me with a part number so I could fix the thing, and what do you know? They sent me a replacement part for free!!! FREE!? Insanity!

Back to the Nova II X. I’d had my eye on this one for a while. It was listed on the auction here as an as-is deal. Jumpy encoders, and an on-the-verge-of-breaking-off Sustain slider, though the seller had obtained a replacement part but never got around to installing it. Well… Hmmmm. Ah what the hell why not? I bid on it and won obviously, nobody else bid. It hadn’t even been in the house for ten minutes and I had the thing disassembled and swapped out the slider.

There you can see the old one. On the verge of breaking? Sheeeeeit that fucker was broke off! The previous owner had super-glued it as a temporary fix. Popped right off. Nice one. Hmmph. So after it was all back together I gave it a thorough test drive and guess what. Jumpy encoders. AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I contacted Novation Support in the UK, but this time they gave me the contact info for the distributor in Japan. Ah this is where it gets fun. I sent an email, and in a very un-Japanese fashion, did not receive a reply even a week later. So I decided to call them up. The first person I spoke with was a lady who wasn’t all that helpful, and left me with the idea that they didn’t wanna have anything to do with service or repair, I mean she flat out told me “…the Nova II X was never officially sold in Japan, so we can’t really help you out with your problem.” Say WHAT? So I said “..actually I contacted Novation in the UK and the service rep gave me your contact info, and told me you’d take care of it. Guess I’ll get back in touch with him then.” At which point I was asked to hold. The next person to get on the phone was a guy actually in the service department. He told me they were behind on answering their emails after I said I’d been waiting for a week for a response, so that explains that (but doesn’t excuse it). I told the guy about my positive experience with Novation Support when I had problems with the encoder on the K-Station, but I made it clear that I had no problem paying for a pair of replacement encoders, given the age of the synth and the probable difficulty of finding parts. The rep said hold on a sec lemme check, yeah ok there is stock available but it’ll be after the New Year holiday that we can get them in. So I should be hearing back from them again soon, seeing as it’s January 6th already, and today was the first day back to work for the majority of the country (though there are some companies that won’t open again until the 10th, as next Monday is a national holiday). In the meantime, I thought maybe I could just pop open the encoders, clean them out, clamp them back together again and see what happens.

Wow, nice pixelated text there. The lighting wasn’t so great either for the “After” shot, so the thing actually looks worse. Whatever, You can see the encoders still attached to the PCB at top left. They were much easier to pop open this way, than if I’d desoldered them (I’ve done that before, not fun). At top right, you can see inside the body. There are three pins that ride on the surface of the spinny part. The lone pin at far left had drifted over towards the sorta pair of pins in the middle (on both encoders), so I gently straightened it out with the help of a 20x loupe and a pair of VERY sharp tweezers. I then used contact cleaner on the spinny thing, finally putting the encoders back together after a very careful wipe down. Well, waddaya know? Works like new. So, it doesn’t really matter if the peeps in Tokyo who’ve been stuck with being the ‘service’ provider for Novation here in Japan get back to me about the encoders really. Though it would be nice to have an extra pair just in case.

After it was back in good running order, I spent about two weeks straight programming a patch or two every night. Goodness. This is a programmer’s synth, make no mistake. The trickery this thing is capable of, well, it almost gives my Xpander a run for the money. You know, actually, if the matrix mod on the Nova was as flexible as that of the Xpander… well, and if it had five EGs and five LFOs (it has three EGs and two LFOs as it is though). In any case, once you get your head around the way it works, it is such a good synth. Some of it is just brilliant. For example, using sync doesn’t require two oscillators (the sync parameter just builds a synced waveform at the source). Or you can use sync skew and change the formant width too (the Nova manual explains all of this in such great detail that it’s worth a look even if you don’t have a Nova). Of course these are destinations in the Mod Matrix. All this just makes it possible to cook up some really unique, interesting, evolving, organic sounds. And then with effects? It’s a sound designer’s dream and then some.

I did however run into a problem I experienced with the desktop Nova I had though, although it was more a programmer error than any real fault of the synth. The problem was that the patches were SO quick to distort (this happened on the Nord Lead 3 too). It’s easily fixed by lowering the mix level of the oscillators, and/or lowering the effects sends. No big deal. And now that I’ve spent time with it, I think the synth engine is extremely powerful, obviously, but it also requires a certain amount of finesse while programming as opposed to a brute-force methodology, if that makes sense at all. An added bonus is that this synth has the most LEDs of any synth I’ve owned, I think, which along with the almost one-knob-or-slider-per-function interface, makes it a breeze to program. Having said that, there is a certain unavoidable amount of menu diving, but only if you want to control things at a sort of maniacal level (like the stuff I talked about in the previous paragraph). For your everyday synth sounds, though, you can leave your scuba gear alone as no diving is required. What a great synth.

Wow, this turned into a long post! Right then. Til next time!

[laseroy89]

Recalled

Franklin Road has been closed for as long as I could remember. The fence spanning it has rusted over years of rain and shine, and the “STOP” and “ROAD CLOSED” signs hung onto the small little grilles by a flimsy chain. Three huge concrete blocks stood in front of the fence, their warning black and yellow lines flaking off. Oddly for an abandoned road, there were no visible potholes expected from a long period of no maintenance. There was however a layer of dead leaves and twigs, as nature slowly encroached on the tarmac, in the form of overgrown trees and numerous weeds at the roadside.

I passed by Franklin Road everyday on my way to and from school, and sometimes when I wasn’t too rushed, I would just pause at the fence, and peer into the unknown. Even though the signs had faded and dulled over time, they still reflected much of the sun’s rays and would have obliterated my retinae if not for my hands constantly shielding my eyes. The trees were sorely in need of trimming; they extended their thick branches over the road, blocking much of the sunlight like a colossal green umbrella. The minuscule gaps in the canopy let in a little light that shone on the mounds of dead leaves, giving the effect of a large speckled carpet laid across the lane. It would have looked welcoming if not for the gloomy atmosphere clinging to that place, probably due to the complete absence of birds, or any animal for that matter. It was just dead silent, a stark contrast to the bustling road just beyond the fence.

I tried to think of it as a normal closed road, or as normal as a closed road could get. However, there was something odd about it that I can’t put my finger on. It wasn’t the overbearing silence, nor the general creepiness of the place; it was something else that I felt like I should know, but I had completely no idea what it was. That nagging feeling lurked at the back of my mind, like there was a finger slightly depressing the alarm button in my head, not enough to set off my alarm bells, but deep enough to cause an insatiable itch.

Why was it that no one had ever talked about it explicitly to me? Whenever I mentioned Franklin Road, everyone would either fall silent, or change the subject suddenly, stopping me from pressing on the topic further. Even my parents. It was confusing, and it made me uncomfortable, as if I’ve violated some unspoken rule. Which is by the way absolutely absurd. I’ve lived in this neighbourhood my entire life, I know almost everyone in this place, and no one has ever taught me about any rule.

The very first person I coaxed into talking about Franklin Road was my new friend Megan, who just moved in from….not really sure, some place west. She confirmed my suspicions that there was indeed some special rule.

“They told me not to talk to you about it.”

“Really? Who’s they?”

“Your friends, the teachers….everyone. Everyone told me not to talk about it - and they didn’t tell me why, just said so in a really serious tone. Which is kinda stupid - how can they expect me to follow what they say without telling me why?” She wringed her hands in mock exasperation.

Now this made matters more interesting. It’s like a conspiracy theory against me….for some meaningless forgotten road?

“You know….how ‘bout we go find out what the hell this is about after school?”

She nodded her agreement. Goddamn, what a way to ask a girl out.

We met at the fence of Franklin Road at around 9pm. Under the cover of night, the creepiness took on a new level of intensity. In the absence of light, the thin grilles of the fence were almost invisible, an unseen barrier between the secrets locked within and the world outside. The dull signs hung ominously, as if warning us that no good would come out of this venture. I switched on my torchlight, and it failed to pierce beyond five metres into the inky darkness beyond.

It was surprisingly easy to overcome the fence - just hop on the concrete block and clamber over the top, and we were in.

Once on the other side, looking back at the brightly-lit street was surreal, a perspective that I’ve imagined but never experienced. The view of the water from a fish stranded on land - vulnerable in a strange new environment, gazing back at the world we left behind.

We proceeded forward, my torchlight a little beacon bobbling in a sea of darkness, barely probing it. Our movement slowed down to a snail’s pace, with hands outstretched, feeling for any obstacles. It didn’t help that our footsteps crunching through the dead plant matter were magnified tenfold, due to the lack of any other sound. It was eerie, to hear absolutely nothing but our own movement, like the area had intentionally quietened down in order to survey us newcomers. Were there malicious monsters hiding behind the cloak of darkness, observing our every move, waiting for the right moment to strike? In an environment devoid of sound, sometimes imagination just gets restless, starts running wild and plants all sorts of crazy ideas in one’s head. We both focused on moving forward.

We concentrated so much on the thin sliver of light emitted from my pathetic torchlight, that it took quite a while before we realised that we had walked into a clearing. I shut off my light, and let my eyes adjust to the ambient moonlight. Over here, there were much less leaves on the ground, and the night sky could be seen without obstruction.

Megan nudged me and pointed to my left. I squinted my eyes, and could barely discern a gaping hole of blackness - a small road that linked to Franklin Road. “Cool, so this place was once a Y-junction.”

“Yeah, but look at that.”

I stared a little longer at the spot before I found what she referred to. It was an extremely faint patch of white which escaped my attention the first time round. Odd, considering that the roadside should be a predominantly wooded area.

My curiosity aroused, I strode over to the white patch. As I got closer, I could make out more and more white, mixed in with a little grey - it seemed to be some sort of car wreckage, half-hidden in the bushes. I immediately clicked on my torchlight to investigate this interesting finding, but couldn’t turn it on. Strange, I could’ve sworn I brought full batteries.

The white patch turned out not to be a car wreckage, but seemed to be some sort of huge white van. Only the metal frames and the bottom half of the body still remained. The top appeared to have burnt off, as deduced from charred ends on the bottom half. The wheels were in no great condition either - three of them had fallen out and all of them were punctured.

“It’s alright, kid. I’ll get you out.” Warm, burnt hands loosened the straps around my chest, but left those on my legs. A blackened face appeared in front of me. That person slowly pushed my gurney upright. My head rolled to the side and hit one of the many boxes they had onboard. I groaned in pain, my vision momentarily swimming. “Sorry, kid. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.” The same tired, yet kindly voice spoke in my ear again, sounding much weaker than before.

I shook my head and rubbed my temples. I had no idea why that scene flashed through my head.

“There’s some wording at the side - but it’s too dark, can’t really read it.”

Throwing whatever just happened to the back of my mind, I walked slowly to where Megan was. Sure enough, there were some huge white letters printed against a dark red background, nearly obscured by large, deep gashes. This van has been through some shit. I stepped closer to read the words, and stepped on something round with a loud crack. A light - a flashing light, one that is normally attached to emergency vehicles like fire engines and - ambulances.

A flurry of noises soon cleared out into distinct sounds. A lady screaming somewhere. A lot of male voices shouting at each other. Not really clear enough to hear what they were saying though. Oh, and lots of metal clanging, making my head throb even more. Man, that was pain. And what’s that beeping on my chest? Something electrical. Oooooh, eeeeeelectrical. And -

Blinding white light. Oh my gosh, so fucking bright. This heaven or somethin’? Not even whatever God there was could be this bright. Can’t really blind your followers - unless they are already blind. Hahaha - ooooooooh I’m on a bed with wheels. I just realised. This is really cool - I can go anywhere I want now while lying down. Oh my head has a white cloth wrapped around it, that stinks of alcohol. Oh - and hey I’m going upslope!! And the light is gone - only to be replaced by another bright light. I think father calls it flourescent, or something like that. And hey I’m moving but my bed isn’t moving. Oh I know what’s going on, I’m in a moving van!!! Hahahahahaha this is some exciting shit - why the FUCK AM I IN AN AMBULANCE?

“Bryan? You there?” Megan’s words brought me back to reality. That seemed so real, so vivid, as if I was actually there. I felt everything - the lightheadedness, the confusion at what was going on, the dull throbbing of my head, the pungent stink of rubbing alcohol, the cacophony of fuzzy voices. It felt familiar, yet foreign.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” I answered without conviction, but she had moved on into the interior of the wreckage. I followed uncertainly, gripping the sides to support myself in case the visions came again. Inside the ambulance, there was a charred gurney, some first aid boxes, burnt cloth that looked like bandages, and a pair of defibrillators. And wedged in the ambulance left, almost completely hidden by the bushes, was another car carcass. Only the front half could be seen, and the bonnet was stuck halfway into what remained of the ambulance’s left wall.

There was a bandage over half of my head. I guess that’s why I was in this ambulance.

The ceiling shook. The flourescent lights shook. My gurney shook. My body shook. My IV line shook. Everything shook, along with the loud revving and the muffled sirens of the ambulance. Everything except for the hand holding mine. “You’re gonna be alright kid, just a minor head injury. We’ll reach the hospital soon, just need do a little patching up and you’re good to go.” The deep kindly voice said to my right ear. Another hand patted my stomach. I couldn’t feel any pain, but I felt like some bits of my face was missing. Or just numb. Oh man, I hope it was the latter -

I couldn’t hear it - I guess my ears were blown out. There was some kind of shrill ringing in my ears, other than that I couldn’t really hear much. But I could definitely feel the impact of something huge ramming into the side of the vehicle. My head flew to the side and hit the railing. I slipped in and out of consciousness. It was hard to observe my surroundings now. The light went out. Some orange glow at my feet - fire. Some boxes had fallen on me. My head was tilted in an uncomfortable angle. I had no control over my body.

“It’s alright, kid. I’ll get you out.” Warm, blackened hands loosened the straps around my chest, but left those on my legs. The paramedic pulled himself from underneath me. In the orange glow of the fire, I could see that he was injured, and was drenched in blood. I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t move a muscle. His blackened face gave me a charred smile. He slowly pushed my gurney upright, grunting with pain and exhaustion. My head rolled to the side and hit one of the many boxes they had onboard. I groaned in pain, my vision momentarily swimming. “Sorry, kid. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.” The same tired, yet kindly voice spoke in my ear again, sounding much weaker than before.

He propped himself up next to me, and pushed open the ambulance door. Bright light flooded the cabin. “Get clear, brace yourself, yeah?” His voice rang with a tone of finality. I felt a tug and a push, and suddenly my gurney was set free. I rolled out from the ambulance, the bright sunlight momentarily blinding me. As I rolled away from the vehicle, I felt a wave of warmth cascade over me. Did the ambulance explode? There was something hot - hot flames licked my feet. Wait. Hot flames licked my feet. HOT FLAMES LICKED MY FEET!!!

I struggled with the flaming hand that grabbed my ankle. No, no, no, no, this was real life now - the entire ambulance was ablaze and I was lying right there in the centre. A fiery spectre had crawled out of where the collided car’s windscreen used to be. Its entire body was just a skeleton that was burning with an orange flame, and its skeletal hand was now grabbing my left leg. I yowled in pain as the flames from his hand scorched my skin. The flaming corpse cocked its head and looked at me, its charred eyeholes bored into me with fierce desperation.

“SET ME FREE.” It begged in a deep, raspy voice.

“Get off me!” I continued to struggle, the heat almost unbearable. My ankle was definitely a goner now, and the agony seared through me like a red-hot iron. No, I’m not gonna die like this.

“SET ME FREE!!! SET ME FREE!!! SET ME FREEEEEEE!!!” Its begging shed its pleading tone and started to fill with anger, rising in pitch and intensity until it became a scream. “SET ME FREEEEEE!!!”

“Megan!!” I shouted for help, only to realise she was nowhere to be seen. Had she already been devoured by this demon? No, this is getting worse by the minute. The flames ate their way up my calf, my skin starting to peel off and my flesh starting to char. Oh shit -

“It’s alright, kid. I’ll get you out.” Where have I heard that one before? A white human apparition appeared to my right. It bent over and gently pried the burning hands off my calf. I gingerly pulled myself away, gritting my teeth at the intense pain.

“Just need to do a little patching up and you’re good to go.” The being gently patted my wound, and I felt the skin in that area start to cool down. My flesh slowly lost its blackness, and my skin was slowly putting itself back. It was healing me.

“Get clear, brace yourself, yeah?” He nodded at me knowingly, and I acknowledged. I crawled backwards as fast as I could, retreating from the ambulance.

The ghostly paramedic grabbed the fiery spectre and forced it back into the car, kicking and punching it. Upon reaching the windscreen, it stuffed the spectre’s head into the car’s cabin, and squeezed in as well. The two spirits grappled with each other, and the spectre’s head was forced into the dashboard of the car multiple times before the wreckages exploded. A familiar wave of warmth cascaded over me as I blacked out.

I woke up to the sight of a weeping Megan and my concerned parents kneeling over me. Apparently, Megan had been investigating the wreckage, and was so engrossed in probing round the remains that it was about an hour before she noticed she was alone. She had to find her way out by herself, which took about two hours due to the spoilt flashlight function and the dim screen of her mobile phone. She only called my parents and the police after climbing over the fence, due to the poor reception in the area.

There was no wreckage at all; all remains were removed within two days of the accident, and the road was closed. Not really sure why, and don’t really care why. I know what I saw was real to me, and that was what really mattered. I confronted my parents about what happened, kinda pissed at why they blocked everything from me, found out that my brain had somehow blocked the memories and to prevent any traumatic flashbacks, they decided to do what they did and got everyone in on it too. At least they told me where the paramedic rested in peace.

I visit the paramedic, Scott, any time I could. I owe him my life, and my memory. It wasn’t enough to respond to my accident at home, then sacrifice himself to save me in the ensuing ambulance accident - he literally came back from the dead to save me again. Thanks Scott, for going beyond the call of duty.