#would sell my soul for them to be produced and would buy it in a heartbeat

[arandomnerd810]

As a Caine fan knowing full well she can lie when talking about future lore oh boy

now i’m still keeping my it needs to be 100% confirmed to get too exited over it mindset esp with her posts but i am glad i got the Caine keychain and VA signed poster cause if this is the truth he has a genuinely good shot at staying my favorite TADC character throughout the human’s episodes

(there are some things i’m pretty sure are true because either i don’t know why she would lie about it and it does not seem like a joke such as Ganlge liking to draw or damage control things like Queenie is not Kinger’s sister but alas this is neither of those)

[whamgram]

Charlastor Week - Day 7 - Free Day

 An AU where Charlie and Alastor are podcasters. 🎙️ This one has been percolating in my brain for a while! Plot summary under the cut.

Alastor is the OG overlord of true crime. Back in his college days, he and his roommate Vox started what would become one of the first ever podcasts. With Vox’s tech savviness and Alastor’s knack for dramatic storytelling, The Hazbin Radio Program quickly became the podcast playing in every commuter’s car, gym bro’s headphones, and office jockey’s earbuds. Focusing on crimes where the victim “deserved what they got” might be controversial, but Alastor’s jazzy interludes and old timey radio schtick add a certain kind of whimsy to every episode.

As Vox grew their dorm room recordings into a digital media empire, Alastor struggled to remain authentic in a world being rapidly consumed by social media and influencer culture. The two friends had a huge falling out. Knowing it would mean death for his beloved radio program if he didn’t stay, Alastor remained under contract with Voxtek Entertainment. Years later, his listenership is dwindling, his sponsors are dropping like flies, and his desperation is stronger than ever to finally break away and have complete creative control of his show.

Charlie has big dreams, a bigger heart, and a behemoth of a family legacy she’s trying to separate herself from. The Morningstar family name is synonymous with pain and punishment, as their network of for-profit prisons house nearly every incarcerated individual in the country. But Charlie refuses to let her rich and influential father buy her way into the industry. The Happy Podcast’s moderate success was due to her hard work, passion, and the secondhand recording equipment she bought with her own money. Like every amateur influencer, she dreams of landing a contract with VoxTek Entertainment. Not for the bragging rights or all those sweet endorsement deals, but because she truly believes that her podcast can inspire her listeners to be better people.

The Happy Podcast is a mix of self-help, advocacy, social commentary, and whatever else Charlie feels passionate about that week. This can sometimes cause a bit of controversy, like when her strong feelings about prison reform lead to an unhinged rant about why a recently imprisoned axe murderer “deserves a second chance” because “he was a good guy who volunteered at his local animal shelter”. Despite this, she still snags an invite to the annual VTE Summit and is hoping to get some facetime with the media mogul himself.

It’s at the VTE Summit that Alastor and Charlie meet. Charlie is as starstruck as she is charmed by the mystery man behind her favorite guilty pleasure podcast. Alastor finds himself instantly drawn to the bubbly young woman who knows a surprising amount about true crime. In a cesspool of wannabe celebrities and people who would sell their soul for a brand deal, she feels like the only other person who’s in it for the craft and the content, not the clout.

Be it fate, coincidence, or a bit of meddling on Alastor’s part, they continue to cross paths and eventually agree to help each other out. Alastor teaches Charlie the art of presentation and storytelling while she brings his technical skills into the 21st century so he can start producing his podcast on his own.

As the pair dance around their feelings and look for any excuse to spend time with each other, Charlie asks Alastor to be a guest on her show. It goes so well, he asks her to be a guest on his. Even their audiences can’t deny the chemistry between them. No one would have thought this odd pair of podcasts would work so well together, but the sky-rocketed ratings and influx of sponsorships speak for themselves.

They both are soon to get everything they always wanted. That is, until Charlie starts to wonder exactly how Alastor knows so much about the victims he discusses on his show.

[eternal-echoes]

The poll

I don't think it's just that; I think more and more people are realizing that every child deserves a mother and a father and legalizing gay marriage deliberately deprives a kid of one of them. Orphans and children of single parents always long for their missing parents.

While there are unfortunate circumstances like death of a parent or divorcing an abusive spouse that makes it inevitable, ultimately since children are made through the biological union of a man and woman, their spiritual relationship with them should be preserved.

Since we're not just a material being, we're also of both body and soul. Not Cartesian dualism but Hylomorphism where the union of body and soul makes one nature.

The only two ways a gay couple can have a baby is either through surrogacy and/or adoption. Along with its ethical concerns with buying a baby, a gay couple taking a newly born baby from his/her mother is depriving that child with the much needed bonding time with the mother (i.e. breastfeeding, cuddling, etc). It's illegal to sell a puppy within 8 weeks of birth because it would be too cruel to separate it from its mother,* then how much more devastating would it be when it comes to a human child? And a child's need for a mother doesn't stop when he/she no longer needs to be breastfed, the mother is essential for the child's emotional maturity as well.

Here is a video of Ryan T. Anderson back in 2014. I'll highlight some important points but the whole video is really good.

Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It's based on the biological fact that men and women are distinct and complementary, it's based on the anthropological truth that reproduction requires a man and a woman, it's based on the social reality that children deserve a mother and a father. ... Marriage is the institution that different cultures and societies, across time and place, developed to maximize the likelihood that that man commits to that woman, and then the two of them take responsibility to raise that child. Part of this is based on the reality: there's no such thing as parenting in the abstract; there's mothering and there's fathering. Men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise. Rutgers sociologist professor David Popenoe writes, "The burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender differentiating parenting is important for human development and the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable." He then concludes, "we should disavow the notion that mommies can make good daddies, just as we should disavow the popular notion that daddies can make good mommies. The two sexes are different to the core and each is necessary, culturally and biologically for the optimal development of a human being." ... The impact of marriage. So why does marriage matter for public policy? Perhaps there's no better way to analyze this than looking to our own president, President Barrack Obama: "We know the statistics that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They're more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundation of our community are weaker because of it." ... President Obama sums it up very well: what we've seen in the past 50 years since the War on Poverty began, is that the family has collapsed. At one point in America virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father, those numbers right now: it's more than 50% of Hispanics children are born outside of wedlock, more than 70% of African Americans are born outside of wedlock. And the consequences for those children are really serious. The State's interest in marriage is not that it cares about my love life, or your love life, or anyone's love life just for the sake of romance. The State's interest in marriage is ensuring that those kids have fathers who are involved in their lives. ... If the biggest social problem we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional? ... Think about the social consequences if that's the direction the slippery slope in which marriage redefinition would go. For every additional sexual partner I have, and for the shorter lived those relationships are, the greater the chances that I create children with multiple women, without commitment with either to those mothers or to those kids. It increases the likelihood of creating fragmented families and then big government will step in to pick up the pieces with a host of welfare programs that truly drain the economic prospects of all of our states. ... So for all those reasons this is why the State and all states have an interest in preserving the definition of marriage as a union, permanent and exclusive of a man and a woman.

Also an article supporting some of Ryan T. Anderson's points:

It’s worse to be raised by a single mother, even if you’re not poor.

The reason for this is that fathers tend to be the disciplinarian in the family. They provide the moral framework in his children's lives.

Reminder that even though the Catholic Church does not support gay marriage, it doesn't mean that she hates gay people. There is a ministry called Courage International where people with same-sex attractions are encourage to live chaste and holy lives.

*Original wording taken from here.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Chapter One of “Picks and Shovels” (Part 1)

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

My next novel is Picks and Shovels, out next month. It's tells the origin story of Martin Hench, my hard-charging, scambusting, high-tech forensic accountant, in a 1980s battle over the soul of a PC company:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

I'm currently running a Kickstarter to pre-sell the book in every format: hardcover, DRM-free ebook, and an independently produced, fabulous DRM-free audiobook read by Wil Wheaton, who just nailed the delivery:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/picks-and-shovels-marty-hench-at-the-dawn-of-enshittification

Picks and Shovels opens with a long prologue that recounts Marty's misadventures as a failing computer science student at MIT, his love-affair with computers, and his first disastrous startup venture. It ends with him decamping to Silicon Valley with his roommate Art, a brilliant programmer, to seek their fortune.

Chapter one opens with Marty's first job, working for a weird PC company (there were so many weird PC companies back then!). I've posted Wil's audio reading of chapter one as a teaser for the Kickstarter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGXz1mkAd2Q

(Here it is as an MP3 at the Internet Archive:)

https://ia600607.us.archive.org/5/items/picks-and-shovels-promo/audio.mp3

The audio is great, but I thought I'd also serialize the text of Chapter One here, in five or six chunks. If you enjoy this and want to pre-order the book, please consider backing the Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/picks-and-shovels-marty-hench-at-the-dawn-of-enshittification

Chapter One

Fidelity Computing was the most colorful PC company in Silicon Valley.

A Catholic priest, a Mormon bishop, and an Orthodox rabbi walk into a technology gold rush and start a computer company. The fact that it sounded like the setup for a nerdy joke about the mid-1980s was fantastic for their bottom line. Everyone who heard their story loved it.

As juicy as the story of Fidelity Computing was, they flew under most people’s radar for years, even as they built a wildly profitable technology empire through direct sales through faith groups. The first time most of us heard of them was in 1983, when Byte ran its cover story on Fidelity Computing, unearthing a parallel universe of technology that had grown up while no one was looking.

At first, I thought maybe they were doing something similar to Apple’s new Macintosh: like Apple, they made PCs (the Wise PC), an operating system (Wise DOS), and a whole line of monitors, disk drives, printers, and software.

Like the Mac, none of these things worked with anything else—you needed to buy everything from floppy disks to printer cables specially from them, because nothing anyone else made would work with their system.

And like the Mac, they sold mostly through word of mouth. The big difference was that Mac users were proud to call themselves a cult, while Fidelity Computing’s customers were literally a religion.

Long after Fidelity had been called to the Great Beyond, its most loyal customers gave it an afterlife, nursing their computers along, until the parts and supplies ran out. They’d have kept going even then, if there’d been any way to unlock their machines and use the same stuff the rest of the computing world relied on. But that wasn’t something Fidelity Computing would permit, even from beyond the grave.

I was summoned to Fidelity headquarters—in unfashionable Colma, far from the white-hot start-ups of Palo Alto, Mountain View, and, of course, Cupertino—by a friend of Art’s. Art had a lot more friends than me. I was a skipping stone, working as the part-time bookkeeper/accountant/CFO for half a dozen companies and never spending more than one or two days in the same office.

Art was hardly more stable than me—he switched start-ups all the time, working for as little as two months (and never for more than a year) before moving on. His bosses knew what they were getting: you hired Art Hellman to blaze into your company, take stock of your product plan, root out and correct all of its weak points, build core code libraries, and then move on. He was good enough and sufficiently in demand to command the right to behave this way, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. My view was, it was an extended celebration of his liberation from the legal villainy of Nick Cassidy III: having narrowly escaped a cage, he was determined never to be locked up again.

Art’s “engagements”—as he called them—earned him the respect and camaraderie of half the programmers and hardware engineers in the Valley. This, in spite of the fact that he was a public and ardent member of the Lavender Panthers, wore the badge on his lapel, went to the marches, and brought his boyfriend to all the places where his straight colleagues brought their girlfriends.

He’d come out to me less than a week after I arrived by the simple expedient of introducing the guy he was watching TV with in our living room as Lewis, his boyfriend. Lewis was a Chinese guy about our age, and his wardrobe—plain white tee, tight blue jeans, loafers—matched the new look Art had adopted since leaving Boston. Lewis had a neat, short haircut that matched Art’s new haircut, too.

To call the Art I’d known in Cambridge a slob would be an insult to the natty, fashion-conscious modern slob. He’d favored old band T-shirts with fraying armpit seams, too-big jeans that were either always sliding off his skinny hips or pulled up halfway to his nipples. In the summer, his sneakers had holes in the toes. In the winter, his boots were road-salt-crusted crystalline eruptions. His red curls were too chaotic for a white-boy ’fro and were more of a heap, and he often went days without shaving.

There were members of the Newbury Street Irregulars who were bigger slobs than Art, but they smelled. Art washed, but otherwise, he looked like a homeless person (or a hacker). His transformation to a neatly dressed, clean-shaven fellow with a twenty-five-dollar haircut that he actually used some sort of hairspray on was remarkable. I’d assumed it was about his new life as a grown-up living far from home and doing a real job. It turned out that wasn’t the reason at all.

“Oh,” I said. “That makes a lot of sense.” I shook Lewis’s hand. He laughed. I checked Art. He was playing it cool, but I could tell he was nervous. I remembered Lucille and how she listened, and what it felt like to be heard. I thought about Art, and the things he’d never been able to tell me.

There’d been a woman in the Irregulars who there were rumors about, and there were a pair of guys one floor down in Art’s building who held hands in the elevator, but as far as I knew up until that moment, I hadn’t really ever been introduced to a homosexual person. I didn’t know how I felt about it, but I did know how I wanted to feel about it.

So Art didn’t just get to know all kinds of geeks from his whistle-stop tour of Silicon Valley’s hottest new tech ventures. He was also plugged into this other network of people from the Lavender Panthers, and their boyfriends and girlfriends, and the people he knew from bars and clubs. He and Lewis lasted for a couple of months, and then there were a string of weekends where there was a new guy at the breakfast table, and then he settled down again for a while with Artemis, and then he hit a long dry spell.

I commiserated. I’d been having a dry spell for nearly the whole two years I’d been in California. The closest I came to romance was exchanging a letter with Lucille every couple of weeks—she was a fine pen pal, but that wasn’t really a substitute for a living, breathing woman in my life.

Art threw himself into his volunteer work, and he was only half joking when he said he did it to meet a better class of boys than you got at a club. Sometimes, there’d be a committee meeting in our living room and I’d hear about the congressional committee hearing on the “gay plague” and the new wave of especially vicious attacks. It was pretty much the only time I heard about that stuff—no one I worked with ever brought it up, unless it was to make a terrible joke.

It was Murf, one of the guys from those meetings, who told me that Fidelity Computing was looking for an accountant for a special project. He had stayed after the meeting and he and Art made a pot of coffee and sat down in front of Art’s Apple clone, a Franklin Ace 1200 that he’d scored six months ahead of its official release. After opening the lid to show Murf the interior, Art fired it up and put it through its paces.

I hovered over his shoulder, watching. I’d had a couple of chances to play with the 1200, and I wanted one more than anything in the world except for a girlfriend.

“Marty,” Art said, “Murf was telling me about a job I thought you might be good for.”

The Ace 1200 would have a list price of $2,200. I pulled up a chair.

Fidelity Computing’s business offices were attached to their warehouse, right next to their factory. It took up half of a business park in Colma, and I had to circle it twice to find a parking spot. I was five minutes late and flustered when I presented myself to the receptionist, a blond woman with a ten – years – out – of – date haircut and a modest cardigan over a sensible white shirt buttoned to the collar, ring on her finger.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Marty Hench. I—uh—I’ve got a meeting with the Reverend Sirs.” That was what the executive assistant I’d spoken to on the phone had called them. It sounded weird when he said it. It sounded weirder when I said it.

The receptionist gave me a smile that only went as far as her lips. “Please have a seat,” she said. There were only three chairs in the little reception area, vinyl office chairs with worn wooden armrests. There weren’t any magazines, just glossy catalogs featuring the latest Fidelity Computing systems, accessories, consumables, and software. I browsed one, marveling at the parallel universe of computers in the strange, mauve color that denoted all Fidelity equipment, including the boxes, packaging, and, now that I was attuned to it, the accents and carpet in the small lobby. A side door opened and a young, efficient man in a kippah and wire-rim glasses called for me: “Mr. Hench?” I closed the catalog and returned it to the pile and stood. As I went to shake his hand, I realized that something had been nagging me about the catalog—there were no prices.

“I’m Shlomo,” the man said. “We spoke on the phone. Thank you for coming down. The Reverend Sirs are ready to see you now.”

He wore plain black slacks, hard black shiny shoes, and a white shirt with prayer-shawl tassels poking out of its tails. I followed him through a vast room filled with chest-high Steelcase cubicles finished in yellowing, chipped wood veneer, every scratch pitilessly lit by harsh overhead fluorescents. Most of the workers at the cubicles were women with headsets, speaking in hushed tones. The tops of their heads marked the interfaith delineators: a block of Orthodox headscarves, then a block of nuns’ black and white scarves (I learned to call them “veils” later), then the Mormons’ carefully coiffed, mostly blond dos.

“This way,” Shlomo said, passing through another door and into executive row. The mauve carpets were newer, the nap all swept in one direction. The walls were lined with framed certificates of appreciation, letters from religious and public officials (apparently, the church and state were not separate within the walls of Fidelity Computing), photos of groups of progressively larger groups of people ranked before progressively larger offices—the company history.

We walked all the way to the end of the hall, past closed doors with nameplates, to a corner conference room with a glass wall down one side, showing a partial view of a truck-loading dock behind half-closed vertical blinds. Seated at intervals around a large conference table were the Reverend Sirs themselves, each with his own yellow pad, pencil, and coffee cup.

Shlomo announced me: “Reverend Sirs, this is Marty Hench. Mr. Hench, these are Rabbi Yisrael Finkel, Bishop Leonard Clarke, and Father Marek Tarnowski.” He backed out of the door, leaving me standing, unsure if I should circle the table shaking hands, or take a seat, or—

“Please, sit,” Rabbi Finkel said. He was fiftyish, round-faced and bear-shaped with graying sidelocks and beard and a black suit and tie. His eyes were sharp behind horn-rimmed glasses. He gestured to a chair at the foot of the table.

I sat, then rose a little to undo the button of my sport coat. I hadn’t worn it since my second job interview, when I realized it was making the interviewers uncomfortable. It certainly made me uncomfortable. I fished out the little steno pad and stick pen I’d brought with me.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Hench.” The rabbi had an orator’s voice, that big chest of his serving as a resonating chamber like a double bass.

“Of course,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me. It’s a fascinating company you have here.”

Bishop Clarke smiled at that. He was the best dressed of the three, in a well-cut business suit, his hair short, neat, side-parted. His smile was very white, and very wide. He was the youngest of the three—in his late thirties, I’d guess. “Thank you,” he said. “We know we’re very different from the other computer companies, and we like it that way. We like to think that we see something in computers—a potential—that other people have missed.”

Father Tarnowski scowled. He was cadaverously tall and thin, with the usual dog collar and jacket, and a heavy gold class ring. His half-rim glasses flashed. He was the oldest, maybe sixty, and had a sour look that I took for habitual. “He doesn’t want the press packet, Leonard,” he said. “Let’s get to the point.” He had a broad Chicago accent like a tough-guy gangster in The Untouchables.

Bishop Clarke’s smile blinked off and on for an instant and I was overcome with the sudden knowledge that these two men did not like each other at all, and that there was some kind of long-running argument simmering beneath the surface. “Thank you, Marek, of course. Mr. Hench’s time is valuable.” Father Tarnowski snorted softly at that and the bishop pretended he didn’t hear it, but I saw Rabbi Finkel grimace at his yellow pad.

“What can I help you Reverend Sirs with today?” Reverend Sirs came more easily now, didn’t feel ridiculous at all. The three of them gave the impression of being a quarter inch away from going for each other’s throats, and the formality was a way to keep tensions at a distance.

“We need a certain kind of accountant,” the rabbi said. He’d dated the top of his yellow pad and then circled the date. “A kind of accountant who understands the computer business. Who understands computers, on a technical level. It’s hard to find an accountant like that, believe it or not, even in Silicon Valley.” I didn’t point out that Colma wasn’t in Silicon Valley.

“Well,” I said, carefully. “I think I fit that bill. I’ve only got an associate’s degree in accounting, but I’m a kind of floating CFO for half a dozen companies and I’ve been doing night classes at UCSF Extension to get my bachelor’s. I did a year at MIT and built my own computer a few years back. I program pretty well in BASIC and Pascal and I’ve got a little C, and I’m a pretty darned good debugger, if I do say so myself.”

Bishop Clarke gave a small but audible sigh of relief. “You do indeed sound perfect, and I’m told that Shlomo spoke to your references and they were very enthusiastic about your diligence and . . . discretion.”

I’d given Shlomo a list of four clients I’d done extensive work with, but I hadn’t had “discretion” in mind when I selected them. It’s true that doing a company’s accounts made me privy to some sensitive information—like when two employees with the same job were getting paid very different salaries—but I got the feeling that wasn’t the kind of “discretion” the bishop had in mind.

“I’m pretty good at minding my own business,” I said, and then, “even when I’m being paid to mind someone else’s.” I liked that line, and made a mental note about it. Maybe someday I’d put it on my letterhead. Martin Hench: Confidential CPA.

The bishop favored me with a chuckle. The rabbi nodded thoughtfully. The priest scowled.

“That’s very good,” the bishop said. “What we’d like to discuss today is of a very sensitive nature, and I’m sure you’ll understand if we would like more than your good word to rely on.” He lifted his yellow pad, revealing a single page, grainily photocopied, and slid it over the table to me. “That’s our standard nondisclosure agreement,” he said. He slid a pen along to go with it.

I didn’t say anything. I’d signed a few NDAs, but only after I’d taken a contract. This was something different. I squinted at the page, which was a second- or third-generation copy and blurry in places. I started to read it. The bishop made a disgusted noise. I pretended I didn’t hear him.

I crossed out a few clauses and carefully lettered in an amendment. I initialed the changes and slid the paper back across the table to the bishop, and found the smile was gone from his face. All three of them were now giving me stern looks, wrath-of-God looks, the kind of looks that would make a twenty-one-year-old kid like me very nervous indeed. I felt the nerves rise and firmly pushed them down.

“Mr. Hench,” the bishop said, his tone low and serious, “is there some kind of problem?”

It pissed me off. I’d driven all the way to for-chrissakes Colma and these three weirdo God-botherers had ambushed me with their everything – and – the – kitchen – sink contract. I had plenty of work, and I didn’t need theirs, especially not if this was the way they wanted to deal. This had suddenly become a negotiation, and my old man had always told me the best negotiating position was a willingness to get up from the table. I was going to win this negotiation, one way or another.

“No problem,” I said.

“And yet you appear to have made alterations to our standard agreement.”

“I did,” I said. That’s not a problem for me, I didn’t say.

He gave me more of that stern eyeball-ray stuff. I let my negotiating leverage repel it. “Mr. Hench, our standard agreement can only be altered after review by our general counsel.”

“That sounds like a prudent policy,” I said, and met his stare.

He clucked his tongue. “I can get a fresh one,” he said. “This one is no good.”

I cocked my head. “I think it’d be better to get your general counsel, wouldn’t it?”

The three of them glared at me. I found I was enjoying myself. What’s more, I thought Rabbi Finkel might be suppressing a little smile, though the beard made it hard to tell.

“Let me see it,” he said, holding his hand out.

Bishop Clarke gave a minute shake of his head. The rabbi half rose, reached across the table, and slid it over to himself, holding it at arm’s length and adjusting his glasses. He picked up his pen and initialed next to my changes.

“Those should be fine,” he said, and slid it back to me. “Sign, please.”

“Yisrael,” Bishop Clarke said, an edge in his voice, “changes to the standard agreements need to be reviewed—”

“By our general counsel,” the rabbi finished, waving a dismissive gesture at him. “I know, I know. But these are fine. We should probably make the same changes to all our agreements. Meanwhile, we’ve all now had a demonstration that Mr. Hench is the kind of person who takes his promises seriously. Would you rather have someone who doesn’t read and signs his life away, or someone who makes sure he knows what he’s signing and agrees with it?”

Bishop Clarke’s smile came back, strained at the corners. “That’s an excellent point, Rabbi. Thank you for helping me understand your reasoning.” He collected the now-signed contract from me and tucked it back under his yellow pad.

“Now,” he said, “we can get down to the reason we asked you here today.”

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/09/the-reverend-sirs/#fidelity-computing/

[gloriousburden]

So much fucking AI generated content on Pinterest. It’s every single image when you search something up at this point. It’d be a lot less insufferable (albeit, still insufferable) if it were mandatory for people who “create” and post that shit to put a disclaimer/somehow sort it under AI generated so it could be hidden/filtered through by those who have no interest in it.

If AI generated content HAS to be a thing, it should be organized in a separate division from everyone else. They “create” and enjoy their AI shit amongst their own crowd, and we don’t have to see it. We need restrictions and regulations on it ASAP.

It shouldn’t be mainstream and heavily accepted especially in such an early stage where it is ever evolving, and all these apps/websites should stop pandering. Especially on apps/websites like Pinterest where human creativity and authenticity is supposed to thrive. We’re all supposed to connect due to our shared love of everything from recipes, to anime girl fanart, and AI takes that away.

AI should not replace human passion. It should not replace human creativity and human skills. Learning skills is not an inconvenience, and it is ALWAYS rewarding. Learning how to draw and getting to see your practice and hard work come into fruition is rewarding.

Writing stories/fanfiction and finally getting to start off the plot line you were most excited for after finishing writing the plot line you were becoming really bored with, is rewarding. You learn, and you grow from these experiences, Even “boring” work/practice is rewarding whether you realize it at the moment or not.

Lyrics from one of my favorite Björk songs:

“Lust for comfort

suffocates the soul

Relentless restlessness

Liberates me (Sets me free)

I feel at home

Whenever the unknown surrounds me”

You have to do things that are “boring.” You have to do things that are uncomfortable and foreign. That’s how you learn. Not every part of acquiring new skills or learning something new is going to be easy or make sense immediately.

If some experiences were not boring, then the other experiences would not be enjoyable. If you are constantly comfortable, comfortability loses its appeal. We’ve gotten too reliant on comfortability and instant gratification. (Insert Tom Hiddleston talking about delayed gratification on Sesame Street)

What would be the point if there were no challenges? It would all be quite unfulfilling, and you’d stay the same. You wouldn’t learn to look at things differently and challenge yourself.

And I saw someone selling earrings with AI generated images on them without disclosing the fact that the images were made with AI. It’s kind of a scummy thing to do when people are likely buying your shit because they value authenticity and would like to support a likeminded person with creative passions rather than supporting corporations who mass produce shit with no passion except a passion for greed.

How do corporations nowadays have more passion than someone selling something on a site like Etsy where self made items, diy, and creativity are the main focus? Why stoop that low?

Remember, you’re supposed to be the alternative to PURE greed.

Let’s bring back being passionate about creative hobbies and let’s bring back mastering skills out of love for said skill. Out of love for creativity and expressing yourself through what you created. Let’s bring back authenticity and wanting to share your own authenticity with others.

How does this not scare people? That others are no longer passionate about anything? That human beings have become so fucking lazy, that even some of the most fulfilling things you can do in life are too much work?

So lazy, that they’d be more satisfied with typing prompts into a website so a machine can generate literal internet slop made from preexisting art/images on the internet rather than them creating something themselves and getting to make all the creative choices and have every last detail be theirs to decide.

And I didn’t even get into how fucked up it is that AI has little to no regulation/restriction. It’s fucked up that images can be made depicting public figures of any kind. Anything, and anyone. Singers, Actors, Comedians, Politicians, literally everyone.

It’s fucked up that voices can be made to say anything. To sing anything. To declare anything.

But go on, keep feeding the machine because you were too lazy to pick up a fucking pencil to draw one of your OCs. See where your laziness and lack of passion gets us all.

Mind you, people used to be happy to draw their own OCs. Putting them in new outfits and such and maybe even giving them new haircuts. We have lost every plot, because people are too busy acting out those plot lines out with AI chat bots instead of with other human beings. They’re too busy feeding prompts to a machine before they could even think for themselves about how they would want the plot to go.

TL;DR: FUCK AI!!

[nixie-writes]

Nixie x Zestial p. 2

Extermination day had passed by with many souls dead or mortally injured. Now that the tall spider-esque demon had left, she could do as she needed. Scaling down the building she hopped off a low balcony and began scanning the wreckage. She spotted an angelic weapon poking through a shark demon and nabbed it, wiping off the blood with her hand and examining her face in the metal.

It was a small dagger. About three inches long, small enough to pack in her pocket. Shopping in the Pride ring was always risky near extermination day, the panic buying definitely boosted sales for Vox, who hid in his tower surrounded by guards who would give their lives to protect the walking paycheck. Nixie rolled her eye at the thought of Vox. She hadn't been back to Pride since her nasty breakup with him. Anything with his logo gave her a sour taste.

Speaking of Vox, there he was now, examining...something? Trying to creep closer without being noticed she realized it was a decapitated exorcist. The head was cleanly separated from the body. A blade must have done this. Backing away quietly Nixie tripped on a pebble and fell back on her ass with a thud. Vox turned around to see her, muttering curses under her breath. Velvette approached her, not much shorter than Nixie.

"The hell are you doing around here? Back for a pity party?" Velvette chastised. Nixie snorted, grinning to show her teeth. "Oh please, I could get better sex from one of these corpses. Tell anti-radio to stay far from me and keep his quarrelling to Alastor. I want nothing to do with him," she stated the last piece loud enough for Vox to hear. Standing up and dusting off her clothes she turned and walked away, ignoring Valentino yelling out that he could be a dead corpse for her.

Nixie went on a small trek through Pride, taking in the accents and culture. Then again, this place has been built by those who abused the gift of free will. She wanted nothing to do with them. Though this time it was unavoidable. Walking down an alley Nixie found herself in front of Carmilla Carmine's manor. She softly knocked on the door, waving hi to the security camera. She heard footsteps approaching.

Clara and Odette were at the door. "Come in, Mother says you've made a new friend," Clara spoke gently. Odette took the rear, pulling out her phone and texting someone something. Nixie was confused as to what Clara meant by new friend, until Odette opened the door and revealed Carmilla, examining a piece of angelic metal. Beside her was none other than the mysterious spider demon, who appeared surprised and pleased to see her. Nixie stood in the doorway, a little shocked. These two knew each other?

"It was mine honor to make acquaintance with your biggest supplier," Zestial spoke as he stood up. "I believe I shall take my leave now," he adjusted his tie and passed between Nixie and Odette.

After being zoned out watching Zestial leave, Nixie remembered why she had come. "Oh yes, Carmilla!" She greeted as she entered the fellow Overlord's manor. "It isn't much, and I doubt you can sell it for much with all the damage on it, but this is all I could find," Nixie produced the small dagger. Carmilla took it from Nixie's hand. "Hmm, I can make a weapon with this. Thank you Nixie," she replied, passing Nixie a few bills of money. Turning away, Nixie knew she had to follow Zestial and learn more about him. He intrigued her.

[gideonmedia]

Modest Proposal

I got an email from a distributor. He was asking for scripts that are three minutes long. If your script is accepted, they will then either take the audio you recorded or allow you to record at their space, then they will record an introduction, create an image and release the show.

In return, there's no offer of money. You will then share 50% of the IP of the story with the distributor. There's no mention of who owns the audio, but I'd have to assume the distributor.

This was on a larger list of people and this distributor was respectfully called out for being a predatory IP farmer, and the distributor's response to that was also respectful and curious about what was wrong with the ask, and what a better proposal might be.

(If you feel so compelled, please don't harass or seek out this distributor - I just described the email so I could answer it here.)

Intellectual Property is a really tangly thing. The person who invented the story owns it... but we're all standing on the shoulders of giants and ever since the Medicis, we've all been hoping someone would buy what we make. In the modern capitalistic world, nobody is going to buy anything that they can't sell for more - and that's the rub.

How much more? And who gets to keep it?

If a person creates something and you want to utilize its value, then you either need to allow them to sell it to other people or you have to compensate them. I know this is a very dry way to explain it, but if you want to live on the business side of things then you have to look at the chunks of entertainment as if they are "units that need to be moved".

A writer writes a script. A director crafts that script into a story that can be understood by everyone. Each actor creates a character. Every designer creates the world that the story exists within. So... who owns what?

If you are going to retain ownership of the final product, then your pay-scale should reflect a buy-out of future earnings. If you can't afford a buy-out, then you should negotiate a share of your future earnings.

But let me go back to the emailed proposal I got. The distributor felt that his company's ability to provide an introduction, a "kick-ass image" and distribution was enough to secure 50% ownership of the piece forever. Nobody on the list felt like this was equitable.

A better proposal would be to fund and produce and an entire season of a show - maybe 8-10 25-30 minute episodes - and then share the revenue from ad sales on the feed. If. distributor is willing to do that, then that's a start for a better offer.

Gideon was offered a low-end budget that didn't quite cover the cost of a season of a podcast, then 30% of the ad sales and 33% of the IP when it went to market. The offer they made included huge marquee-name actors, and it was a film company that intended to make it into a movie. After some not very-intense soul-searching, we walked away.

While we don't regret saying no, it's a pretty good deal!!! There was nothing predatory about it and they weren't IP farming, they sought us out and wanted to make *this* show, they weren't just throwing a huge bunch of ideas into the world and waiting to see what would hit.

There's nothing wrong with IP Farming from a business point-of-view. And like any business deal, you have to offer the price you can afford and see if the seller is cool with that. There's no right or wrong here. But the price being offered here isn't, in my opinion, an investment that makes a sale worth it.

[transmandrake]

Unpopular opinion but i kinda hate all those makeship and other plushies by small creators. Especially ones that talk shit about companies and pollution and climate change

And then come out with oh buy my plushie one time only gotta sell 500 to make it happen

Feels just, so wrong. I feel in my soul that maybe only a quarter at best of people buy them out of love for a creator.

Its all FOMO. In 5 years time most people will move on and cringe at what they bought and throw it away or at best sell it or give it away. And what then?

How the fuck do people justify funnelling thousands of plastic pieces of mass produced (and they are mass produced) garbage? Ohhh but they earn money to pay their bills

fuck you. Fuck that. I would be fucking sick to imagine my legacy as yet another fucking fad to fill the bloodstreams of shrimp and choke and choke and choke every last fucking beautiful thing on this planet.

Of course i dont hate anyone. Its the amount. The amount of tiny creators who make one marketable character and get scooped up and turned into panic buy fodder. There must be millions.

But theyre cute. Theyre soft and huggable. Theyre memeable. I have no doubt *you* have bought some you will cherish forever.

But god. How? How do people sell their soul. Its not fair. It shouldnt happen. It shouldnt have to. But it does.

No ethical consumption under capitalism but youre fucking dishing out the meals and shouting to the fucking diners that if they dont eat it RIGHT NOW they wont get to ever again!

And every single fucking person is doing it. Bark bark bark buy my plushie buy my pins made by forced labor jingle jingle isnt it cute sorry sorry too poor to afford an ethical manufacturer (oxymoron) but i still put in the order and i still guilted you and it never ends because no amount of plushies will fill their pockets or your stomach but i wont make my rent if you arent guilty and stressed by my months and months of campaigns and

I just. I cant. I cant follow people like this. Im sorry. I wish you didnt have to. But i dont like you. I dont think its right. The well will run dry and you will be just as fucked but with thousands of piles of plastic running through the fucking bleeding earth

[xenforce]

Prologue Edit! Centennial Bellum - LOZ Fanfic

Hiya! I just wanted to drop in and say I made a small edit to the prologue of my zelda fic. you can read this short extract below or read it on my wattpad or Archive of Our Own

I will update you whenever I make big-enough edits.

It's mostly just little refinements here and there (I'm constantly going back and critiquing my own work LOL). Please enjoy!

––

There is a legend that the people speak of – a legend passed down through countless generations. It tells of a girl and boy who were destined to meet in order to continue a cycle – a cycle that intertwined their very souls to stand beside each other in the face of war, chaos, and bloodshed. Founded on their bond since the beginning of time, this cycle would unchangingly write their fates to bring them together in a timeless battle. While fantasies and fairytales have their happy endings, this legend is many things but that. It tells of a kingdom that lost their princess and hero at the fault of a king whose greed was unmatched. The legend of a princess whose love for her hero was forbidden. The legend of a devastating war that raged on for one hundred years because the hero was simply not there. 

The Legend of Zelda, The One-Hundred-Year War.

Our legend begins in the peaceful kingdom of Hyrule where our two main characters have yet to meet...

The sun was glistening down heavenly on the peaceful market of Hyrule Castle. People all around bustled merrily as they went about their daily business, selling their wares, doing morning chores, or shopping. The young children of Castle Town were joyfully playing with the small dogs and cats running around the town.

Castle Town was a peaceful marketplace where citizens of Hyrule would come from all over the country to buy and sell. Hyrule Castle was a proud grand structure that overlooked the city. The proud town sat right outside it, hence earning the name, 'Castle Town'. The residents of the town were businessmen of all trades – blacksmiths, physicians, bakers, potion-brewers... Entertainment was never short in town. Bowling alleys, puppet shows, folkish music, and frequent festivals made the advanced settlement a place of luxury. Food and drink stalls speckled the streets, steaming with hot aromas, beaming with fresh produce of all colours, enticing both residents and visitors to buy and taste beyond what their bodies required.

Perfectly stiff guards from the castle were stationed at the gateway of the town and scattered through the midst of it, ensuring the peace remained. Apart from a few rebels and bandits from outside of town occasionally kicking up a brief uproar, the Hylians had enjoyed peace for generations. Many of them knew nothing of war, only hearing of such horrors in stories and history lessons.  

The merry sound of the civilians chattering and shuffling decked the streets. But life was not so kind to everyone in Castle Town. Amongst them, one wretched hungry teenaged boy was walking by the food bazaars tentatively peering around to see if he were being noticed. He wore a plain off-white shirt that appeared tattered and worn out, accompanied with a brown belt, trousers and short ankle boots. A black hood hid his face giving him a mysterious facade...

Continue reading here

[mrbexwrites]

Tagged by @duckingwriting here to find enlarge, coin, bill, and angel

Passing the tag over to @elbritch-kit @queen-tashie @at-thezenith @tate-lin (no pressure as always) and leaving an open invite to anyone who wants to. And YOU! Person who stumbles across this on your dash, who wants to share their WIP Snips! I pass the tag over to you as well :)

Your words are: soft, level, bloody, solid

Snippets, as always, below the cut:

Enlarge Bigger:

“Tempting men to heresy,” I tapped the crowbar against my leg as I thought. The imps were an easy win; a good way to ease myself back into the hunt after what had happened last night, but they were not going to earn me my way out of exile.  But a servant of Leviathan…that would be a bigger catch, and might earn me some goodwill. I’d just  have to find him first.

Coin(s) & Angel:

“You actually believe that?” He wiped tears from his eyes, chuckling to himself. “Why would I want souls? They aren’t a currency! I can’t buy and sell them like coins on the stock market! That’s Corporate nonsense if I’ve ever heard it.  All we want is the right to choose what we do, rather than being told how to live our lives by a Tyrant. At the end of the day, you are responsible for your actions, not me, not another demon, an angel or even the One themselves.”

Bill(s):

I kept silent, my face was strained trying to maintain the smile for Nell. Beaufort reached into his suit jacket, and I dug my fingernails into my lap, preparing to launch myself away from the table if he pulled out his gun.  Instead, a money clip, with fifty-pound bills folded neatly, was produced. He took one note out, and slid it to me.

[hiswordsarekisses]

My soul, you really need this, for your lamp will not continue to burn for long without it. Your snuff will smoke and become an offense if light is gone, and gone it will be if you run out of oil. You have no oil well springing up in your human nature, and therefore you must go to them who sell and buy for yourself, or like the foolish virgins you will have to cry, “My lamp has gone out.” Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the tabernacle, they needed to be fed; though no rough winds blew upon them, they required to be trimmed, and your need is just as great. Under the most happy circumstances you cannot give light for another hour unless fresh oil of grace is given to you.

Not every kind of oil could be used in the Lord’s service; neither the petroleum that exudes so plentifully from the earth, nor the produce of fish, nor that extracted from nuts would be accepted; only one oil was selected, and that was the best olive oil. Pretended grace from natural goodness, fancied grace from priestly hands, or imaginary grace from outward ceremonies will never serve the true child of God; he knows that the Lord would not be pleased with rivers of such oil. He goes to the olive-press of Gethsemane and draws his supplies from Him who was crushed there. The oil of gospel grace is pure and free from sediment and dregs, and so the light that is fed by it is clear and bright. Our churches are the Savior’s golden candelabra, and if they are to be lights in this dark world, they must have plenty of holy oil. Let us pray for ourselves, our ministers, and our churches that they may never lack oil for the light. Truth, holiness, joy, knowledge, love—these are all beams of the sacred light; but we cannot send them out into the darkness unless in private we receive oil from God the Holy Spirit.

~ Spurgeon

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: The Tax Man Cometh

Ah, tax season. That time of year when the weather is veering from cold to thunderstorms and otherwise upset, but not nearly as upset as the harrowed souls tangling with the labyrinth that is the U.S. tax code.

Mine needed at least eight separate sheets of paper (any amount of royalties counts as self-employed and that is a lot of paperwork), meaning I always bring the envelope to the post office directly to be weighed and have correct postage applied. If the government loses my forms again, it’s not going to be a fault on my end.

...I had someone ask what I was doing as I was photocopying said forms at the library. Evidently it wasn’t obvious.

“Why would you want to do that?”

In case the government loses the originals. Again.

“But that would never happen!”

For a moment I could only blink at her, because this lady was at least a decade or so older than me, meaning way more than old enough to know better. Because it has to me in the past. On at least three separate occasions. How do people sail through life this oblivious?

...Anyway. If you have a government in your world, you have taxes. Even if it’s something as simple as “I’m the head of this clan, I get first pick of everything.” How taxes are collected, and what they’re used for, make a big difference in how your society works, whether or not trade and technological advancement are supported or discouraged, how upset people are with the government in general, and how much power they have to do anything about it.

One of the ways taxes make a big difference is, are they collected in kind, in a specific produced thing, or in money? In a lot of Asian countries, for example, taxes were often historically collected in rice. In the short term this was relatively convenient for the government, which could assess land for its potential rice production and assign taxes accordingly; not to mention acquiring the rice necessary to feed the court, with extra to sell for everything else. But there are several potential problems. Bad weather and famine years would hit marginal farmers with a double whammy; they couldn’t produce enough rice to pay their own taxes, and they couldn’t buy enough food to stay alive. In contrast good years meant the price of rice dropped and the government was suddenly short of cash. Demanding taxes in rice instead of money also forces more people to stay in agriculture, even if the area is better suited to, say, herding, fishing, or long-distance trade. And one of the things about taxing in rice that was particularly convenient to the Tokugawa Shogunate starting out bit them in the rear big-time over two centuries later.

I’m going to elaborate on this because it’s interesting, especially if you’re a Rurouni Kenshin fan. If you’ve looked into the Bakumatsu, you know two of the major drivers of it were the Satsuma and Choushu domains. What you may not know is that when Tokugawa Ieyasu assigned domains and assessed taxes for the Shogunate (which were then mostly followed for centuries after), is that those two domains in particular had been very hard-hit by the Onin War a century before the whole Tokugawa takeover, and thus had lost a lot of farms, and on top of that had land that was otherwise undeveloped. So... their taxes were assessed relatively low, compared to the farmland they potentially had.

Mind, it took them two centuries to realize the whole potential of what they had. But the Shogunate kept on trucking with the same assessed taxes, counting on alternate attendance to keep the daimyo too poor to make trouble. And eventually Choshu and Satsuma... weren’t that poor. And other nations were knocking on the doors, able and willing to sell firearms, among other things....

Taxes, like everything else government does, have consequences. Give them some thought for your world!

[lindsaywesker]

Good morning! I hope you slept well and feel rested? Currently sitting in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day.

Welcome to the working week although, for those of you working in the NHS, welcome to just another day.

Friday night was pretty chilled. It was too hot to do anything, really! The Americans think we’re mad for not having air-conditioning in our homes but, realistically, how often is the weather like this? I sleep naked and, on Thursday and Friday night, it was so hot, I didn’t even bother getting under the duvet!

Many thanks to everyone that listened to ‘The A-Z Of Mi-Soul Music�� live or listened to the recording on Mixcloud. Most people were probably thinking, “How the hell is he going to fill two hours with The Letter Q?” Well, as it goes, it was a really good blend of tunes! Hope you enjoyed it? Thanks for all your fabulous feedback!

I’m away for Saturday, September 16th, so The Letter R begins on September 23rd. Many thanks to Marcia Haynes G-Champion for being the executive producer on Part One.

Straight after the show, I caught some hot, sweaty underground trains to Camden Town. I didn’t know where the Mi-Soul stage was. I thought to myself, “I’ll just follow the music.” I needn’t have worried. Came out of the tube station and the Mi-Soul stage was right there! Camden Council had shut off Camden High Street for the day. Drivers must have been properly upset! Anyway, who cares about them? Big-up to Camden Council for pedestrianizing the whole area for the day!

The Mi-Soul stage was killing it, as usual! When I got there, just before 5.00, it was still 32 degrees but people were consuming lots of fluids and having a good time. By the time I finished my set, I was done for the day and most of the crowd looked knackered too! Well, they had been drinking and dancing for seven hours! I trudged wearily to Camden Road and caught my train home. Thankfully, my son had made a ton of ‘finger good’ (spring rolls, goujons, fried shrimp, sausage rolls etc.) which I gobbled down greedily and immediately fell asleep!

Didn’t watch the England v. Ukraine game. No West Ham players in the squad. What’s the point?

Congratulations to Ezra Collective for picking up the Mercury Prize 2023. Every school should have music classes, so that kids can catch the music-making bug and hopefully become as good as these brilliant young musicians. The other thing I love above Ezra Collective is they are genuinely genre-defying. You could try to put them in a jazz bag but that would totally be ignoring the funk, salsa, soca and afrobeat. Don’t stream their music! Buy a vinyl or CD album, so the band make some money!

Sunday was brilliant! The Trouble was out at a local craft fair selling jewellery. My son took The Mighty Josiah to a cool, garden party. I had the house to myself. Love that! I made lunch, watched a movie, then got on with some marking. I actually hope to be finished my marking by Tuesday evening so, when I get to the hotel, I can just eat, sleep and swim!

Hope your week goes well? I shall be saying my atheist prayers for you. Have a marvellous and momentous Monday. I love you all.

[10shi-256]

Why did I make this blog?

I've fallen into a habit that many people are guilty of, and, in fact, we are essentially being socially engineered into adopting this habit as a standard set of behavior. I do feel like there is some intentional mechanism steering us towards this behavior, turning us into socioeconomic and political cattle that can be herded one way or another. This gluttony for aesthetics has bottlenecked our intrinsic creative cycles and, in some cases, killed our empathy in pursuit of feeding that hunger.

Allow me to explain in reverse. I believe that the "creative cycle" is a simple loop of production and consumption. We input (read:consume) raw data. Information. Everything we intake with our senses is stored in some way in our minds. But it's not solidified yet. We know what these things are but we don't know how to feel about it. The concepts of the things we have experienced remain in a plastic form until we output (read: produce) a simulacrum of our experiences as only we can relate them, through our unique perspectives. But something has now changed. The version of that concept as we have output it is different than the fundamental, mutable concept that was in our heads. The concept solidifies into the image that we have produced. This is how we process any information we receive, even on the simplest level. Take, for instance, a flower you've observed on a walk. You see it, and it compels your thoughts. "That's a really pretty flower." The action of putting that thought into words is an act of production, no matter how simple. Why use the word "pretty" in place of "beautiful," "alluring," or "captivating?" Why is it a "really" pretty flower, instead of a "very" pretty flower? or just a "pretty" flower? It is healthy and necessary to say what we mean and mean what we say, therefore we should not shy away from eloquence.

So what happens when this cycle that defines the post-industrial human condition is interrupted? When we become stuck in an endless phase of consumption, we lose our ability to convey how we feel about anything, and thus lose our ability to know and understand the world around us. We essentially lose our souls. But who would do such a horrid thing?! Simply, anyone who wants to sell you something with no risk of you deciding for yourself that this isn't something you want to buy. Someone who wants to guide your thought into a direction that you would have otherwise judged against. They would have us become puppets, sheep, opiated masses, whatever ages-old allegory you're more familiar with.

When we scroll for hours, mindlessly sharing things that pique our interest without using that information for anything productive, we are building that dam more and more solidly. It must be broken. So I would like to begin breaking the dam I've built for myself. I want to surf the internet more slowly. When I come across something that piques my interest, I want to dive in and explore its fullest depths and understand why my interest is piqued, what can I do with my newfound knowledge, and hopefully inspire someone else with the research I've gathered. This will be my space to do so. My greatest hope? To invite someone to a dialogue and compare my perspective with theirs. Sharing and exchanging ideas is how we continue to grow internally. I don't ever want to stop growing.

[dearyallfrommatt]

“The Lie That Had to Be Told”

Swamp Dogg - the nome de plume of R&B journeyman songwriter & producer Jerry Williams - put out so many records on so many labels, that it was almost impossible to keep up with all of them until he got ahold of all the rights in the early 2010s. But the time If I Ever Kiss It... He Can Kiss It Goodbye! (and yes, he was talking about exactly what you think he was talking about), he’d released 13 albums since his 1970 debut (as Swamp Dogg) Total Destruction To Your Mind and that isn’t the recording, songwriting, and producing he’d done as “Little” Jerry Williams.

This floats large in my world because I came across it during one of my regular visits to Wuxtry Records, ever on the look for something new but with the Southern Soul I loved. Same thing with country music and, as it turns out, Swamp Dogg wrote the Johnny Paycheck Number Two Smash “She’s All I Got,” but that’s another story. So, I looked him up on the internet and came across another name I was interested in at the time: guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, Del Lord, Blackheart, Duke, & Yayhoo Eric Ambel. He covered “Total Destruction To Your Mind” on his solo debut Roscoe’s Gang.

So, it’s off to Limewire I went. At the time, the Ambel record was out of print and the Swamp Dogg album was only available on CD as part of a two-album collection with his sophomore effort, Rat On, as The Excellent Sides Of Swamp Dogg, Volume One. Another aside, he released all his hard-to-find albums as Excellent Sides and then re-re-released them as individual albums for reasons known only to Swamp Dogg. In any event, you can listen to all the Swamp Dogg.

It’s important we’re all on the same page here about just what makes Swamp Dogg something special. He’s a serviceable Southern soul singer, particularly when you consider he considers his roots more country than R&B. He regularly comes up with some killer groove and nasty funk, but what sets him apart is his lyrics. 

The whole point of Swamp Dogg is that he could say whatever he wanted, so he did. He sings of the variances of the human heart not unfamiliar to soul music, maybe a little nastier than you might expect (or maybe exactly as you expect). However, he applies that same sort of fearless vulgarity to politics and social issues, and he does not give a fuck if it offends someone. His views are all over the place, too, so he’ll probably wind up offending you while making the deepest funk possible.

The general critical consensus is that Swamp’s records fell off in quality after his 1981 effort for Takoma Records (a roots imprint of Chrysalis) I’m Not Selling Out -- I’m Buying In! (The man was not ashamed of exclamation points). That was also his last major label effort and, apart from a 1991 album on a resurrected Stax/Volt label, the last time the Dogg would mess with another label until 2009. Even then he kept his cards close; he knows where the bodies are buried, after all.

He’s still recording and releasing records at 82, and it looks like he’s finally getting his flowers. Though I really didn’t dig it, his 2018 release Love, Loss, & Auto-Tune made him a hipster darling and his excellent country record Sorry You Couldn’t Make It from 2020 featured the last recordings of John Prine before the songwriter’s death due to COVID-19. Fuck you, Donald Trump, yes, I’ll blame you. Dogg’s latest release is a bluegrass album on Prine’s Oh Boy label and is called Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St. because why the hell not.

I think this song belies the idea Dogg was dead musically and lyrically until his 2014 renaissance The White Man Made Me Do It. A cool, minimalist groove with some of the most boldfaced cheatin’ dog lying I’ve ever heard that didn’t involve a steel guitar. When people wonder how I can like old country music and Southern soul, they really don’t understand how connected they truly are deep down where it matters. If they listened to more Swamp Dogg, they’d understand it perfectly.

[everalii]

Btw, I need to update a few thingsssssss....

Business

My business is thriving little by little. I had to buy so many products for the treatments, and it is paying off so good. Many clients are happy, and they feel safe here. Women come for facials and they pour their souls, I had so many of them crying, hugging me seeking validation.

This is how its supposed to be: healing for the body, healing for the heart and healing for the soul.

I had a high school friend (nor stranded, we kept in touch) working with me as a nail tech bc she lost her job and wanted to pursue this career. But she has a son, which is not a problem for me (I'll elaborate later). The problem was the fact that: 1 she changed my entire color pallette without asking but I went along; 2 she came for like a week and then her products were rotting untouched for about a month, she wasn't coming to the clinic bc she didn't had money or clients, which comes to the following item; 3 she wasn't posting anything on social media, wasn't selling any of her procedures and not bringing anyone to the clinic, which was the main reason of why I agreed to lended the place: to get me more visibility and more clients.

When I had enough and kicked her out, she called me a bitch and said I wasn't helping her, I had no empathy for our years of friendship nor for her child. Did I mention that I didn't charge her any rent for the room in MY CLINIC? No? Well... I stated it was 100% professional and not personal matter, but she wanted to turn personal. She can fight with herself in the mirror.

She got her stuff out my clinic and sold her things. Blocked me on every social media and I couldn't care less. I'm good working on my own.

Family

Husband never wanted kids and didn't wanted to be with someone who wanted. Having children wasn't a big thing on my to do list, but I thought it would be nice. However, since it wasn't a great goal of mine, I decided to let it go for the sake of my relationship and I'm very okay with it.

No, he didn't force me. No, he didn't threaten me. He even asked me if I truly wanted bc he would have a child with me to fulfill this "dream." But with global warming, the economy breaking and everything, bringing a child to this world was not a good move, in my opinion, so I truly let it go.

HOWEVER, the gods truly had another plan, as they shoved a 12y girl into my arms. My cousin got the custody of his daughter, but he's recovering from drug addiction, working full-time, and financially broken. Her mother is a junkie and sells her body for drugs.

I decided to step in and help my cousin, and usually, she spent her days here. I take her to and pick her up from school, help with homework, teach her how to cook, sew, play videogames, draw, clean. Take her to the theaters, movies, and concerts.

My husband adores her and spoils the little shit rotten. He's teaching her about mechanics, how to ride a bicycle, and even how to fight in case she needs to defend herself.

She'd blossomed here, and I love her so much. We truly feel like she's our daughter, and she always says how much she loves us.

Even tho I'm not going back in my decision of not producing children, I feel like a childless mother, but the gods found a motherless child for me.

Family is now complete. Oh, and my mother is really a grandma for her!

Spiritual

I've been playing around with my Tarot Deck and we're on good terms, finally.

For context: I have the opinion that oracules are not just tools, but have spirits associated with, every deck has a spirit that talks to you through the cards, much like an Ouija Board; that being said, the spirit that resides in my deck is a hot-headed prick. And usually he's very cruel with me. I don't know if I'm schizophrenic or if I can really hear said spirit shouting at me when I ask something really stupid to the deck.

Also, I'm working with Orixás¹ now, specially Oxóssi² and Iansã³. The Orixás are gods from the Umbanda, a religion born in Brazil with african ancestry, it's based on love, freewill and spread good.

Pronunciation: ¹Orish-As, ²Oshoh-SI, ³Yan-SAN.

Health

Lol what health? Fibromyalgia has been deadly lately due to the heat waves on Brazil. And given my new environmentalist nature worrying about the global warming, my mental health is nit very good. But I'm trying really hard!

I've managed to raise a few people to plant as many trees we could. So far, 200 new trees have been planted and I'm so proud, tomorrow we'll be plating another 30, and mobilizing more people!

We might die due to the overheating in this planet, but we'll die fighting.

I guess that's it, the most important things.