Book 7, Chapter 7, Episode 103
Malleus made a zombieland lmao
Ok so remember last episode that mom mentioned that Ortho has a time limit of 20 minutes? Yeah, Malleus' magic is so complicated that it takes a super computer like Ortho 17 minutes to gather data. He's pressed on time, so he gets to work... UNTIL
???: "My my... And I was wondering what anomaly might be happening in my domain..."
Malleus: "You... Your appearance has changed, but you are the Littler Shroud, are you not?"
Ortho: "Malleus Draconia..! I knew it... So you did overblot."
Doggy 1: "GRRRR..."
Malleus wonders what Ortho was doing there, because he was quite sure the boy's sleeping soundly at Diasomnia. Ortho explains that it's too bad for Malleus because that body's already empty. He's escaped through the school's wireless LAN.
Ortho: "I'm just a self-driven AI program data... But even if I say that, you wouldn't really understand right."
Malleus: "In other words, your consciousness is that of a ghost that left its body to settle into another vessel... Did I get that right?"
Ortho: "Oh~! So that's how fairies would interpret data transmission!"
(HELP? WHAT KIND OF CONVERSATION IS THIS)
Ortho confirms that yeaaaah, that's basically how it works. So he can move through electronic waves to basically anywhere, even outer space! He also explains that he probed through underwater cables too, but everything was blocked by magic... but through his desperation he realized that wireless waves were accessible to him because
"Magic is the power of one's imagination. You need to understand something to conjure it... So naturally, you can't do something about things "you don't know about"."
Ortho found Malleus' weakness and exploited it! Malleus knows what cables are, but he doesn't know about the concept of wifi. He got outsmarted because of his ignorance omfg.
Ortho: "Aren't your cybersecurity awareness a bit dull? I recommend setting up a UTM in your magic domain."
LITTLE BOY'S DISSING THE OLD MAN OMFG!! FUCKING BURNED SDAKNJSDAKLAS
Malleus: "Yuuteeehm... Is that some sort of abbreviation for a technique?"
(He's actually talking to him in a civil manner??? Malleus is surprisingly in control of the clarity of his intellect...)
Ortho: "Ehh~ you don't know what that is? That's why you're getting tricked by a junior like me. You're one of the top 5 mages in the realm and a master of unknown ancient magic but... It doesn't matter."
HE'S SO MEAN??
"I WON'T FALL ASLEEP UNDER YOUR SPELL!"
Malleus: "Hm... I see. Well, then..."
Malleus: "An unsleeping, noisy mechanical doll can be silenced by shattering it to pieces."
HE'S SUDDENLY SO MORBID
Ortho: "If you try to do that, then... "I'll show you STYX's... Humanity's greatest technological power!"
Ortho notes to himself that Malleus seems to be ignoring the data-collecting machines he's brought with him. He has 13 minutes left before the data gathering completes, so he MUST buy time until then!
Malleus: "May I ask all uninvited guests to leave at once."
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👉👈 Hi friends! I have a long, serious post made just for you(!) that isn't full of spoilers, smut or mooning lawn gnomes. Please read if you can, this is a 💥 mutual aid request 💥
It has been a horribly painful and long while as most people following/keeping up with me know. and in a few days I'm going to be down $1500, which is basically all my fucking $
I can't afford Christmas for anybody, which sucks and I'm very sorry. I can't even take care of myself and haven't been, which also sucks and I'm very sorry
Landlords spontaneously raised rent on me more than halfway through this month as punishment for not getting to my house chores and not communicating, to be totally honest with you. I feel ashamed and awful about it but I didn't want to clean the place while multiple ppl living here had tested positive for COVID and kept walking around unmasked... I am not fully vaxxed because I've been too depressed to get any kind of necessary medical care done and I didn't want to catch COVID in the middle of my finals week for the semester. I woke up to being angrily and rudely bitched at first thing after the last of my finals (I passed at least). It wasn't a humanizing text. Fuck the mistreatment though. Rent is now almost doubled and it won't be lowered
There was no room for negotiation and I truly believe they've resorted to pricing me out of living here because the group of renters psychologically tormenting me wasn't effective (actually- putting a picture of my rapist on the fridge rly was super effective in getting me to isolate myself in my room all day and so was outing me as trans to the transphobic ass neighbors.... But I didn't and still don't have any place better to move out to, like the way they were hoping I would. Yes, I have looked and BEGGED btw)
I want out of here NOW, but I can't leave. I tried and had to come back because it was the best option. I can't afford to stay in a motel/hotel/BnB just to get away from them for a day or two during Christmas. I don't have any friends who I can spend the holiday with either. During the semester, I resorted to convincing classmates with keys to locked buildings to let me crash in them while they worked at night and I would leave before anybody showed up. Now that school is out, I can't do that. I don't have any family I can reach out to for support or friends who I can depend on for immediate help. I have been crying day in and day out for weeks. I have records of it posted throughout my blog. Literally crying for days on end. I'm being so fucking transparent
All that lump of text is to explain to whoever is out there, who might be listening and willing and able, to please consider helping me, if and ONLY IF able. I know times are tough and if you'd rather use your $ for other reasons or just don't have any to spare, don't sweat it and take care! 🫂
I've thought about what I could do for a long time and have helped myself how I can. It isn't enough. I've applied for so much assistance. Been approved and been sabotaged by my inhumane mom (who does not love me) via stealing my legal documents and letters and hiding them for months. My mind jumps to grim places but I'm clinging for dear life to whatever hope I have left that says things will get better. I wish I knew somebody with a business that I could work for. Part of me feels so fucking terrible for asking for help because I feel like a waste of all your resources. I feel like I shouldn't ask, like I really do not fucking deserve help, but there are friends online who care, who I know mentioned being interested in helping in whatever ways they can
So to the people who care to seriously me, I'm ready to accept it: please send me nice words to get through this and feel less alone. It feels pathetic to ask but I would love a nice letter. A nice card even. Kind words of any kind would go a long way. It means more to me than food. I have felt so broken and every day feels like a test to figure out how badly I actually want to live
I'm also leaving my cash app and paypal here in case anybody would like to do more than what I'm comfortable asking but probably very likely will inevitably need very very soon. I will be left with fucking nothing and I will have no idea what to do once rent is paid
Thank you to those of you who have sent love, offered to listen and heard me out. I really wish it wasn't so hard to survive. I'm trying to feel better knowing there are people out there who are also without help and hoping the best, but it doesn't make me feel any better or comforted tbh. I just wish the help was there for us. I wish there was a place to go for spare love, care, compassion, empathy, kindness, humanity, generosity... I need that more than I need $. Call me stupid but that's what I live for. I don't live for paying to survive in terrible conditions. I live for love and to smile with friends
I hope to write back to the friends who have already been so kind as to message me soon btw. I'm sorry for not replying sooner. Your overwhelming support is sincerely sweet and sometimes I cry because I can't believe people are so nice (to me???). It'll give me something to do that doesn't make me feel like dying! :') so thank you thank you thank you *fist bump*
Hope you're all doing as well as you can and that somehow things get better. Hope anybody else struggling like me doesn't make the mistake of isolating like a sick and dying animal. You deserve love. You deserve support. Don't be like me. Have the courage to reach out to the people who care about you for help as early on into your emergency as possible. Don't let your situation snowball because you spend so long trying to figure out if you're worth it!!! This Random Tumblr user is here to tell you that YOU ARE. Sending my infinite everlasting unconditional love. Be nice to yourselves. Be nice to each other. Fuck the hateful assholes who wish I would just kill myself already. Tell your friends you love them. Happy Holidays!!!
And here's a single picture of a mooning lawn gnome at the very end, as a treat! I told you this post wasn't full of it.... It just ended with it 👉👉
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"Time will pass anyway". It is so crazy to me that I will make it to 30. That I will outlive the expiration date I set for myself. That I am not merely surviving but I have a 5 year plan (For the first time ever!). I am not just surviving but expecting myself to want to live. To dare to achieve goals, some small and some so big it scares me.
Honestly just so overwhelmed in a good way. Things are looking up even if I'm still taking life one day at a time.
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popping on my Complaining Platform to complain about how i have less than 100 euros on my account atm, how my uni and work suck, and how, while i'm trying to get myself into a better situation, it all seems kinda sucky now and it's hard to imagine it working. i feel so blergh ughhhh, and i have no time to feel blergh bc i have to fucking WORK. and people tell me not to work so much, thinking i'm some sort of a workaholic that wants to be productive for the sake of productivity, uwu self-care, but i do not, in fact, work so much to satisfy some imaginary productivity gods, but to get myself out of this misery. i'm responsible for myself and my happiness, and the only thing i figured might work is to like. work hard so i elevate my skillset and get more money in order to get out of here. yes yes i realise you cannot work if you're falling apart, but then i take a short break and i can push again so uhhhh hope i manage pray for me lol (also i am very much not above begging for money, so if anyone can spare a dime for my education thing, my ko-fi is my bio!)
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art rant bc i just talked myself to tears
i dont think i’ll hate art by any means. bc i love doing it and i love pouring out my ideas onto canvases. but i am so. fucking tired.
i HATE this. i love doing commissions in the sense of ‘oh extra money’ but i HATE monetising smth i love just to be able to NOT be homeless. or maybe eat for two days out of the week. i hate it SO FUCKING MUCH it makes me SICK
i dont hate my commissioners, bc i love you guys so much. but i hate knowing that i cant even really ENJOY the thing that i love anymore, bc i have to keep taking on more & more work bc if i dont, oh suddenly im homeless & starving bc NOTHING IS WORKING.
i wanna be sick & just crawl in a corner and cry bc i cant reiterate how much i HATE this situation
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I know I say this every time I read my own work, but Speak for the Dead really is the best chapter in ILM.
“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?”
Jane Romero was smiling at him, sitting propped up against a tree in what had sort of become her usual ‘therapy’ corner in the past almost two weeks. And she was right, it did feel like fall. The air wasn’t as sharply cold as normal, and honestly ‘sharply’ cold was a nice break in and of itself when it happened—usually the weather here was somehow just cold—cold with no adjectives attached. But today it was nicer. It was the kind of waiting fall cold that came when it wasn’t biting outside yet, and it was almost pleasant. A promise of a change in the seasons. Tapp wondered why.
The trees hadn’t started to change color with it, or fall in piles, and as far as he’d gathered there weren’t seasons in here. Everything looked the same. Tall, thick woods, undergrowth and moss and rocks and fallen logs, a slight breeze on and off. Dark sky overhead, full moon, at this point long since throwing off everyone’s idea of what day and night were supposed to mean. All the usual. Except, somehow, the kind of cold in the weather. Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.
LIKE. Those opening lines mean nothing but environmental flavor when you read them. But they’re a lead in for the thesis of the entire chapter.
“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?” - A promise of a change in the seasons. - Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.
Like that’s it. Speak for the Dead is about a lot of things, but at its heart it’s about healing. It’s about forgiveness and healing, that exists between the living and the dead. It’s about how you can only speak for them, by speaking for them. Not how you want to punish yourself or live for them, but by how you know they would forgive you, or would ask you to live. Very little other than exchanges of information happen, but so much happens at the same time. All of it significant. It’s hope. It’s about how Tapp (and Meg) have spent every day here fighting in their own way to cope with the agony and failure of their lives, and the loss of people they couldn’t save, and have only dug their wounds deeper. About love. About nothing stoping the lambs from screaming except accepting that they want to let you go.
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Super hot take, but why do we take Flint at his word for his big speech about bringing down Nassau and uniting the pirates and maroons in XXIII? He actively talks about how he’s too tired to lie to survive before getting a second wind from the dream/Silver’s trust/Scott’s appearance, since episode I we know he’s adept at giving giant soul moving speeches that are not entirely truthful, and his interaction with Silver afterwards (”I didn’t think that was going to work. “Neither did I”) positions the speech as a tool to generate enough trust to get off the island and back to the ship, rather than a legitimate cause.
His actions afterwards indicate he intends to follow through to an extent, and he certainly finds his way to believing that it is the right path forward, but on three watches now, I can’t really trust that he fully means what he says. A few months ago he was equally as enthusiastic and convincing about going to Charlestown and getting everyone pardons, a few weeks before that he was equally convincing about destroying the fort to spite Vane, etc etc. Silver gets a lot of flak for lying all the time, but Flint isn’t a particularly truthful person and he’s never been above a obscuring the truth to get what he wants and ensure his own survival.
Honestly, I don’t know one way or the other. I think we are supposed to see the ambiguity in it. It’s enticing to think that Flint, after going (almost literally) through Hell and back, returns to the world of the living as a crusader for all oppressed people but I’m skeptical. I think perhaps the In the Darkness There is Freedom speech is his culmination of experiences and not his raison d'etre throughout, as is often discussed.
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