AND WE JUST DONT TALK ABOUT THIS?!?!?!!????

Every time I revisit chapter 86 and the events right after the group talks Marcille down, I'm always struck by this bit here:

In particular, how similar it is to this:

The Winged Lion ate the same desire in both of them, more or less (I'm sure there are some nuances in both flavor and intent, but they are clearly similar things here). The Lion basically used this technique to kill Thistle, and for Marcille it was... not insignificant, but something she and her friends overcame without even fully realizing it was an obstacle.

I feel like this is another small piece of the story that shows how important support and love are - in navigating mental illness, in dealing with abuse or addiction, or in working through any other similar struggle that can be read into the Lion and his eating of desires.

It almost feels like Marcille was able to borrow the desires of her friends. She loves them and she trusts them, so even when she didn't have a desire to free herself from the Lion, the care they had for her well being still mattered to her.

It's the same thing later, with her hair.

She isn't able to notice the way her messy hair is making things harder, let alone do anything about it. But when Chilchuck points it out and then braids it back for her...

It's better. She likes it, things are easier now. Even though it isn't a desire she can feel for herself, it's not something that doesn't effect her. And because her friends care - because they know her well enough to notice the difference - she is given the chance to have a preference and to ask for their help.

We can obviously see some parallel ideas here with Mithrun and Kabru as well, but I'd also like to point out that Thistle gets this grace, too. Thistle, who had no one to help him up once he lost his will to resist, or to encourage him to find new desires once the Lion ate them all.

Thistle says he doesn't need anything, anymore...

But he is given an apology anyways.

It is not a kindness he desires. It is not a kindness he is able to ask for.

But it is a kindness that helps. It is a kindness that matters.

I'm a gaylor myself so this isn't coming from a place of hate but I really don't think karlie and taylor are still together, I think taylor still references her in her art and probably will for quite some time because that relationship -- whatever the nature of it was -- left such a deep impact on her. but I really can't see them still being together, I think she's forced herself to move on from karlie and has since dated a lot of other women. that doesn't mean her feelings for karlie have faded, just that they will probably always be there but they broke up for sure before 2019, I think. folklore and evermore, midnights even, are all breakup albums, I just can't see how they could still be together. especially all her anger and sadness in those songs that are thought of to be for karlie (like my tears ricochet or exile or mad woman) also the cover art being shoot in bedfords, new york, the exact same place where karlie got married feels more like taylor revisiting this place to really say goodbye and mourn her for one last final time so she can move on

sorry, this got a bit long, I just don't understand the appeal or the reasoning for lsk's because taylor has indicated so many times that they are over, she's been mourning her relationship with karlie quite publicly since 2019 (wearing all black during the lover era) so yeah

hi! i don’t usually respond to these but i’m not sensing any ill will so i’ve decided to give a reply a go.

first off, for me, i kinda just interpret her wearing black in the back end of lover era because her masters had gotten bought by scooter. and maybe the fact that she decided to not come out. there can be other reasons, but i really do not think that her breaking up with karlie has to be one of them.

another thing i can’t shake is the fact that it was a very notorious troll/manipulative person on tumblr who spread the first rumor that they broke up in 2019, a fact that is well understood by a lot of OG’s, and this troll got in the head of a few popular kaylor and gaylor swift accounts at the time and in doing so she got a lot of people to fold. she then went on to write all this progressively unhinged fanfiction about taylor and karlie trying to make one another jealous and sleeping with all these women, presented with the same level of seriousness with which she pushed the breakup agenda. even to this day, i see present day gaylors talk about stuff that stems from narratives this account and a few other power hungry accounts spread around many years ago and it honestly just goes to show how a lot of well known gaylors may be platformmed up but that don’t really know what they’re talking about.. i only write this because the troll deactivated about a year ago (maybe they’re lurking on platforms with more malleable minds—once a troll always a troll—but at least they’ve left here), they were a really dangerous person.. and several have wild receipts to prove it.

anyways sorry i recognize that’s a tangent, i guess what i mean to say by it is, a lot of the sentiment surrounding the idea of a 2019 breakup and the reinforcement of the narrative by a gaylor community none the wiser stems from the work of someone with disingenuous intentions. a lot of “masterposts” or “realistic timelines” draw from what this person made up and it’s gone through enough filters for it to seem like credible sentiment but like, if you were there and you read all of what she wrote you know how silly it all sounded and how incoherently it was all written.

okay so to circle back to more of a content-centric angle, in my interpretation of the events that gave us folklore, evermore, and midnights, taylor had so much to be sad about. her mom had been very sick, the pandemic arrived and she had to cancel lover fest, she had to come to terms with scott b having sold her work to her sworn enemy… songs on midnights and folklore, and on her lover era apple music playlist allude to certain other things that may have had her in a mournful mood. things were bad! and i don’t doubt that her and karlie have been through a lot. but for me, when you’ve got a ride or die love, you don’t just break up. this has been something frustrating for me and others, i think, to see so many people treat a relationship as either being all systems go or broken up, as if long term partners can’t experience sadness together, difficulty together, even heartbreak together.

i don’t like getting in to touchy subjects so much but there’s just been too much pointing towards what i consider to be a rather simple narrative that is a natural progression for people committed and in love. how did the lover music video begin and end? whats a randomly specific word in a song she performed at the grammys minutes after someone was announced to the world? what about taylor’s envisioned future stands out about the anti hero music video? i think i’ll stop here but idk man 😆 poke around my archive if you feel like wasting a few days of your life… there’s just been a consistent flow of the same kind of hijinks that we’ve seen from them for years, and i’d say that there are many songs that back up everything i’d want in order to stay invested in seeing if what i believe is true.

now, i know i just wrote what reads like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to people not following kaylor. but im okay with that. i’ve accepted that. and i know that the whole patterns and koincidences and twinning and symbolism beat isn’t for everyone and so i respect people’s decisions to believe they aren’t together, but in closing i’ll just say im sometimes at a loss to see time and time again people suggest that kaylors believe in kaylor because they find it appealing or because they want to ship it. when it’s literally not that— it just makes the most sense to a lot of us!

also, does this look like the face of someone mourning?

some ramblings about the overworld and reusing of the map in totk

i was one of the people that didnt mind revisiting the same map bc i loved the world and would gladly rexplore it all again, i was confident theyd change it up so it felt fresh again .. but it really wasnt, but even if it wasnt i was fine with it bc i was sure theyd HAD to use the build up from botw, with the shiekah and yiga alone theres so much you could do, and a captivating story or characters are more important than any map change to me-

and then, most changes on the surface were artificially stuck onto the world, like some small boulders the size of a large boulder stuck onto a wall, weirdly fusing with it (but thats not relevant and doesnt have a reason either) which really doesnt change anything much, some caves and holes in the ground but nothing really substantial at all, the most changed was death mountain and the gerudo city (while the regions themselves didnt really change either .. no in any interesting way at least to the extend i saw in my what 200+ hours)

im no game dev expert but do know a little and changing up a model and breaking stuff off really isnt THAT much to do so i really dont understand why they dotted the world with useless rocks and little caves that are all extremely similar instead, but then change stuff that is WEIRD to change and would have been easier to leave as it was- like the shrine of life being scraped of the walls, or smoothing over the places were shiekah towers were in botw like they never existed in the first place, and then sometimes adding something for no reason (like apparetly theres a new useless tiny ruin on the akkala fortress??? why?? how?? and i heard someone say they changed how the big hole in one of the peaks of the big mountains looked, like the icy blue texture was removed?? i dont know if i went there in my playthrough but i dont doubt it lol) and instead of the holes of the big shiekah tech pillars being left its just .. filled up with dirt, just like the bit of the calamity ganon arena being jsut rock now and the pit being fileld with just dirt as well-

and theres MORE changes that are arguably MORE time consuming to do but are both unnecessary to do and also WEIRD, erase everything shiekah and say it all vanished into thin air while theres clearly guardian parts in the new, shittier, towers and one decayed left at the hateno institue, the ancient furnace isnt just GONE its filled with rocks that had no way to get there naturally

but then the rest of the world is pretty much the same, with very little changes and if its plopped onto it without actualyl meaning anything, even inconvenience you too, like the path to hateno being blocked by a fortress of monsters so you cant get there via horse, and even if you clear them out, with or without the quest, they just come back with the bloodmoon, i thoguht if i do it with the quest theyd be gone for good and clear the path again, but NO you participating in the fight means nothing but another checkmark bc they will redo it over and over and it will be blocked again anyway (but then the "pirates" which are also a monster fortress .... dont come back ... waht) or the blockage of the bridge at the twin mountains too, you cant actually change anything, the one in the gerudo valley is also just another weird blockage, do you want to force me to build stuff? no thanks ill just walk then and be annoyed about it bc thats way easier

(sidenote, satori being reduced to someone pointing at caves that doesnt even tell you if you did them already or not is so disrespectful, i loved satori bc it wasnt some player helper but a strange and beautiful being, it jsut lived there and you had to be careful to even catch a glimps of it, the atmosphere around it being creepy and otherworldly you dont know what its really capable of, like you are staring at a godly being you cannot talk to but it accepts you when you are there and leaves as soon as you let go of it.... and nows its just a cave pointer...)

so, especially if you played botw, it all very much feels like a retread but with little sprinkles and weird changes (or outright annoying ones like the shrine of life being licked of the walls) here and there and othertimes just plain annoying inconveniences, and then the main points of your quest are .... in the same spot as in botw as well, its at rito village, death mountain, gerudo town, zoras village ... its repetition is entirely unnecessary, you had interesting locations all over the map, put a temple into or under akkala fortress my god that things i BUILD for that, anything in akkala really, put another one high into the mountains, in or UNDER hateno?? the krog forest or the deku tree being one?? kakariko??? no ?? it jsut had to affect each species exactly where they are .. again, and even the temples are there so its not even a thing made there affects the town nearest but still far away enough to be different or the terrain literally leveled the ground and they are gonna have to look to settle elsewhere (the closest is gerudo town but like ... is it), its not just repetetive but also makes the regions feel WAY more disconnected and self contained, none of them care about each other or do anything but defend against the thing that conveniently affects them directly at the same place again and the activities are largely the same too, find shrine find krog

ok then we got the sky, .. which is largely empty with just some repeating minibosses or some get crystal to there thing, its empty and barren of life, not a single NPC ever goes up into the sky aside from two dungeons companions, despite them already using the sonau tech ballooons and what not and having literal bird people there AND being literally obsessed with anything sonau, rarely theres a construct there, a robot with little to tell and not really doing anything, the ruins dont tell a story either, its just .. there

then theres the underground and omg its just as big as the overworld map! and then the .. terrain and look of it is almost always the same (only in the gerudo region is it a little more sandy) with the same kind of sonau thingies being the same everywhere that dont even LOOK ancient, it bothers me so much, are you telling me this building has been here for well over 10 THOUSAND YEARS?? and then the lightroots ... are in the same spot as the shrines .. so its not even a discovery really bc you know where shrine or root is now .. and then every more important place is literally beneath surface important places (even under taburasa .. the town you newly built in botw) which again .. isnt really a discovery then, and then the map itself is just the surface map but inverted, which to some may be a neat thing but, to me ... so its the surface AGAIN but more boring bc it doesnt have any regional differences too and then they have the gall to put the old amiibo stuff there (the labyrinths??? you go throguh all that and its just the renamed same armor from botws DLC??? how dare you), or some crystal things for your battery that are just another currency that has to be exchanged twice to specific people to be most useful- and the big weird magician statues ?? man idk if i should help this one, the giant mech like statue is giving me the creeps, and how the hell is it talking through the statues of thE GODDESS??? HUH´? and then it turns out its just a guys that sells you largely useless stuff for yet another currency you can only use at few specific spots

even the enemies are the same aside from mini- and gigamas, it even repeats the enemies from the surface

the best part of the underground/surface are the yiga, and even they are made kinda boring, in the underground its little outposts that give you some crystal currency and blueprints for autobuild i bet you arent ever gonna use, the most valuable thing is their little diaries and on the bigger spots koga (he is surperior to every single other character, sorry gan) but even kogas questline is like .. removed from everything else, its its own contained thing ocne again ... the arenas that are kinda fun to do but ultimately

you have a barely changed map from botw, a largely empty sky with some rather boring shrines or minibosses that get used over and over and no story to tell really, and then the entire map of the surface again with important points and shrine points being repeated as well

and then you get option over option to skip any traversal of all that too, with ultrahand and the towers and the ceiling jump and fast travel its a repetetive map twice and one largely empty with out skipping from point a to point b

i know how difficult game dev is, but in all those years with a giant team and money this is it? and not even the story has anything to go for? how do you take the addictive exploration of botw and turn it boring

anyway, yet another ramble taking me the entire evenign to write, again, this is not meant as blind hatred but an expression of my feelings and thoughts about it and for this one why it felt so weird and boring to explore ... the thing i like so much about botw ..

In the most recent CR episode I found it really interesting (and really concerning) that it Laudna's truth about wanting Bells Hells to ripcord out of saving the world came hot on the heels of Imogen's truth about not wanting to save the gods

Idk it could just be me, but it seemed like her truth was just another attempt to placate Imogen's moral confusion, while simultaneously pushing those things back onto the whole group

All it makes me think of is the fanon and 4SD discussions about Imogen and Laudna retiring to a farm and living happily ever after. What are either of their reasons for remaining with Bells Hells at this point, if their truths are that they don't want to save the world?

See, that actually seemed fine to me! Fearne had earlier admitted she felt they were ill-equipped for the job and likely to fail, so it's not just them who feel it, and honestly I think that Laudna's confession was one of the more valid ones that I hope get unpacked. Fjord and Jester made a very similar admission to each in both episode 72 and episode 118 of Campaign 2, of "hey, wouldn't it be nice if we just ran away somewhere quiet and never had to deal with this again" and I think that having that admission and then finding a way forward anyway is a really great moment. I didn't write at length about how Orym's "but we have to work together and do this" has also been a really big factor in the party's dysfunction because I covered a lot of that in my discussion of how he handles his own grief well and the grief and pain of others very badly, but honestly it's good that Fearne and Laudna are getting to "we don't have to do this, this was always thrust upon us because an old guy brought us to a cool orc who hired us to look into some stuff and in the process found out that the comparatively small-time political crook was tangentially involved in a a vast cosmic death cult conspiracy that several of our parents are also involved with."

My issue with Imogen is that she literally said two episodes ago she's never prayed and now she's claiming the gods never listened to her, as well as that her reasoning is the horrifyingly self-absorbed "they don't love her", but I actually think it's fine if this party does not wish to save the gods on the grounds of "we feel underqualified and overwhelmed and like we've been at the mercy of many (mortal) masters with no time to pursue our own interests." And I think that Laudna didn't force this specific thing on the rest of the party; she said they could all ripcord, but didn't say who should do it or who felt that way or force them into agreement.

I've talked about the campaign's earlier pacing at length and I don't want to revisit it at length because it evened out, but more so than any other party, Bells Hells has rarely had self-directed adventures. That's a big reason why they're such a mess; they didn't need to develop the tools to come to consensus because Eshteross or Ryn or Keyleth would give them tasks, so we never actually have delved particularly deeply into what most of the party members want to be doing, which is why we're here with this group that's mostly stuck together because they've had jobs to do. I think acknowledging that is an important step, because the task at hand (scouting on Ruidus) is in my opinion within their abilities, but they've been pushed and pushed and have finally reached a point where they can't just keep going. (This by the way is the underlying premise of this post; this is the fundamental reality of Bells Hells as a party. If you like that the most then hell yeah, but a lot of people who claim to love C3 are blaming the entire plot of the campaign for why the party is a mess which is like, so you like the premises of these characters and dislike the vast majority of the actual story in which they exist, and you really just want the story of Campaign 1 or Campaign 2 but Ashton is there.)

With that said though, I do agree that's kind of at the core of Imogen and Laudna. They're so insular, and that's been claimed as a feature, not a bug, for much of the fanon of that relationship. Like, I think Laudna is valid for this specific statement, but unlike Fjord and Jester, who had established in through the course of the campaign both deep ties to each of the rest of the Mighty Nein and a profound sense of responsibility in general, I find myself wondering why Imogen and Laudna don't go off and live in a cottage together and leave the rest of the party to handle this. I mean, Imogen is also impossibly tied up in the fate of Ruidus, but she dithers about the approach so much I wonder why she doesn't decide that perhaps she should stay out of it altogether and retire to that cottage with Laudna until it's all over.

Personally, my thought is that Imogen does in fact secretly like being the special Ruidusborn Exaltant On The Other Side, especially since she's realized her mother wasn't that (as she had hoped). I agree with the fairly common opinion that Imogen and Ashton are in many ways extremely similar people, but whereas Ashton just got a very brutal wake up call of "your parents did fuck up and you're not built different and your desperate attempt to be something special could have hurt everyone" Imogen is still out here going full Javert on everyone's personal thoughts. So I suspect she won't ripcord out in the end, and therefore Laudna won't. But I do think it's valid for Laudna to bring up, and indeed, one of the many things that would make great progress in fixing this party dynamic would be Laudna independently expressing her own needs some more instead of being Imogen's Yes-Woman or projecting her own desires onto other people as I suspect she's doing with Fearne and the shard.

So I went dumpster diving in my tablet for the first lamb I ever drew and WOW... I found a lot of sketches I really don't plan on revisiting. I am jsut gonna dump them below the cut for people to see!! Some of it is lore related, some of it is shit I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HATE, but IDC!!! I will post it anyway for the tumblr users who I keep an eye on my notifs for. (yes, i see you guys. even if i dont always interact I see you and love you guys)

Anyway, here is the earliest drawin I have of me drawing the lamb!! I am going to write a comment under a lot of these to add context to them.

A cute little baby <3333 but I struggled a LOT of figuring out what the lamb was wearing, I eventually figured it out though. (I hope)

if you know, you know. (RIP VAL)

for my BTG AU. I decided I no longer wanted chemach to make the [spoiler] for the lamb, though, so I scrapped this

vaaaal,,,,,, i was still learning how to draw him, i wish i put pants on him but do those even exist in COTL? (yes)

I haven't been able to do much with them because I'm putting other stuff first, but Brear has two kids, Notre and Brejul who Narinder absolutely ADORES. he is the one who babysits.

fun fact but the lamb being touch repulsed is a projection LOL. i hate it when people touch me it feels so tickly and makes me want to bite their faces off. (but i am touch starved and i LOVE to show affection to other ppl, esp thru back rubs)

yes, they have a hoop for personal space. no, ill never use it.

drum corcl,,,, i love the little dancing guy that comes from the drums

more narinder and brear. they're not romantically interested in each other, but he is absolutely head over heels for brear, their brother, and the kids. they even call him dad sometimes.

[no context]

kallamar and leshy before their crowns. the scene i have related to this isn't happening anymore, but it was leshy begging to be taught to swim.

another "the one who baby sits" doodle. the bishops all came into the cult with a very good repuation thanks to narinder. he likes to tell the kids of the cult stories about how amazing his siblings were. at first, it was just to nobre and brejul with stories about leshy(he missed leshy a lot even though he was still mad at him, and the two reminded narinder of his time with leshy), but then it escalated into him hosting storytimes with larger groups after they started repeating some of the stories he'd tell them.

unfinsihed stuff about with the lamb and thier mom. their mom wasn't afraid of the bishops at all, but knew that they were a still a threat to her and her child's life. the lamb did NOT care for anyone thier mom didn't approve of/enthusiastically liked. they were much more afraid of the bishops than their mother.

i do not actually know if i posted this.i dont think so, but i giggle every time i scroll past it

brear and nobre <333

im still workong on BTG shit, and i post a little bit of the characters on here even tho the comics are going to be posted elsewhere. they have a "crownlike" beak, but a body part. there's different creatures who became gods through different ways; crowns are one way but their power is stuck with the crown and they are considered extremely weak compared to other gods. i wont blabber on about it tho.

so many sketches has random lines through em because i work with a tablet,,, i hate it. anyway, narinder and kallamar everybody!

sketches i made but didn't bother to finish of me and merbre,,,,,,,,, my husband #1 <3 them w/ narinder + merbre arent gonna be considered "canon" but damn it ill self-ship with them until i get a follower i can WORK with

i come back to this every few weeks and im never happy with it, i dont know if ill finish this but i think about them........ before the divorce </3

unused from an ask

heartstealer. menace. you can rip my heart out anytime, leshy <3

dreshy. he LOVES dresses and being pretty and cute and pretty. he sucks narinder into a lot and heket will sometimes join in if he demands asks her to <3

another unused drawing from an ask i'll eventually answer. (mildly offended at being called a mutton cube.)

.... aaand WOW! I think that's everything guys!! things are still kinda wild but they're calming down a little bit. idk how much longer it's gonna last like this but I have some energy so I made a way-too-long post showing off art I wasn't supposed to post! Awesome. :D

rory and dean, part three: we’re really just fucking kidding ourselves at this point, or why rory does not deserve 99% of the blame for this disaster

So, OG Gilmore Girls fans may recall that Dean Forester’s ill-advised marriage to his rebound girlfriend was actually an attempt to write him off the show. Jared had filmed a pilot for a Young Macgyver show (you can watch most of it online here), but the WB ultimately passed so we (and Rory) were stuck with Dean for another year and a half. One wonders what would have happened if they hadn’t passed. Would we never have heard from Dean again? Would ASP have roped him into a few guest appearances anyway and attempted to do the same storyline? Would they just have gotten Milo to guest star for season four? Would Rory have run away with Jess in that scenario? Who knows.

Anyway, let’s revisit the issue of Dean vs Jess at the end of season four, after Rory rejects Jess’s plea to run away with him

RORY: Anyway, I left the pub, got back to my dorm, and Jess was there. LANE: What did he want? RORY: He wanted me to come away with him. LANE: Oh, my God! What did you say? RORY: I said -- I don't know. It was so weird. He was just... Jess. I mean, he shows up out of no where with this crazy proposal. It was awful. LANE: It doesn't sound awful. RORY: What are you talking about? Jess bailed on me twice. LANE: I know, but how incredibly romantic to have this guy show up out of the blue and want to take you away with him. RORY: When I first met Jess, I thought, "What could be better than this? He's smart, good taste in books and music, so cute." But Jess is great one minute and then the next - you know, as far as I know, I could have said yes, packed my bag, and by the time I got to the car, he would have changed his mind. LANE: It's part of why he's cute. He's unpredictable. RORY: I guess. You know, when I was with Dean, I always knew that no matter what happened, he would be there. LANE: Dean was very dependable. RORY: It was more than that. He's -- well, he was so... um, I was safe, and he was so nice to me. LANE: He really loved you. RORY: I think I really blew it there, you know? I didn't appreciate it. LANE: Every girl has to fall for a bad boy. It's the rule. It's the reason so many accountants eventually get married.

While this fits nicely with my headcanon that Dave eventually became an accountant, that is neither here nor there. I think this is the only time Rory really is shown processing the breakup with Jess until he shows up again in season 6 and how it led her to the Dean disaster, because as schmoopy as she gets about Dean in the twelve hours or so after she sleeps with him, it’s clear that she’s mostly looking for affirmation and stability, and not to get dragged down by feelings she can’t trust or control.

And of course, she had pretty much zero boundaries with Dean prior to this: crying on his shoulder, haranguing him about not going to college, knowing that Lindsay wouldn’t approve of him hanging out with her at night and doing it anyway. Who was going to tell her she shouldn’t do that, after the example her parents set for her over and over? Anyway. Moving on.

So, let’s go over Dean’s seduction technique, which mostly involves him lying his ass off.

DEAN: It's not working with Lindsay. I can't make it work. I've tried. RORY: Are you sure? Because I've heard that the first two years of marriage are the hardest. DEAN: We're not happy. She's not happy, and I can't make her happy. RORY: I can't imagine that. DEAN: It was a mistake, and I know that now. From the very beginning, it wasn't - RORY: Wasn't what? DEAN: It wasn't... RORY: Maybe you could, um, go see a counselor or go away together. DEAN: No, it's just -- it's over. We both feel it. I know we both feel it. RORY: You and Lindsay? DEAN: Yeah, me and Lindsay. RORY: You both feel it's over? DEAN: I tried. We tried. RORY: Well, if it's over, I'm sorry. DEAN: You are? RORY: I'm sorry you're not happy. DEAN: I'll be happy again. Things happen for a reason, right?

Not to completely absolve Rory for all of this as she definitely should have gone on more than Dean’s word, but he absolutely lied to her face after she gave him three chances in a row to come clean. He made sure to follow her to her house, where she would be alone, and manipulated her into having sex with him. Yet somehow Rory is shamed for being the seductress who tempted him into breaking his vows.

Let’s move on to Lorelai, who is actually speaking sense on matters of morality, for once.

LORELAI: But he's married. RORY: You don't understand the situation. LORELAI: Is he still married? RORY: Yes, but - LORELAI: Then I understand the situation. RORY: It's not working out between them. They're not happy. LORELAI: Oh, Rory. RORY: He tried the best he could, but it didn't work. It's over. LORELAI: [ Sighs ] He told you that? RORY: Yes. LORELAI: He told you he's leaving her? RORY: Well - LORELAI: He told you he's moving out, they're getting divorced, he's got a lawyer, they've divided up the monster-truck season tickets? RORY: We didn't get around to discussing everything.

Yeah, Rory, because he lied and told you exactly what he needed to so that you would fuck him. He never actually made any steps towards leaving his wife, and he won’t until he’s forced to,

RORY: He's not a married guy. He's Dean -- my Dean.

LORELAI: He's not your Dean. He's Lindsay's Dean. You're the other woman. RORY: I told you, it's over. LORELAI: It's not over until he's out of the house with the ring off. RORY: He took the ring off. LORELAI: Oh, my God, I don't believe this. RORY: He's in love with me, not Lindsay. LORELAI: Does Lindsay know that? RORY: She's not good for him, okay? She lets him quit school and work himself to death and - LORELAI: No, Rory, uh-uh, you can't be one of those girls who blames the wife for forcing the husband to cheat.

Funny how Lorelai was exactly like that when Christopher was having problems with Sherry and not only slept with him before he had moved out or officially broken up with her, but bragged about it to Sookie, paraded him all around Stars Hollow, and let everyone she knew about their burgeoning relationship, including her parents. It would be strange if that happened to come up again, right?

LORELAI: This is your first time. It's just not the way your first time was supposed to be. RORY: Oh, and how was my first time supposed to be? LORELAI: Well, first of all, it was supposed to be in a retirement home. And secondly, ideally, it was supposed to be with someone single. RORY: My first time was with someone sweet and kind who loves me. LORELAI: I didn't raise you to be like this. I didn't raise you to be the kind of girl who sleeps with someone else's husband. RORY: You slept with dad when he was with Sherry. LORELAI: He wasn't married to Sherry. RORY: He was engaged, and she was pregnant. LORELAI: So, this is all my fault? I set one crappy example for you, and you have no choice but to follow in my footsteps?

They’re basically one of those old anti-drug PSAs. I learned it from watching you!

I mean, it’s not like Lorelai badgered and pressured Rory into staying with Dean when her attention drifted to Jess and constantly argued for his innate superiority over and over and over.....oh wait, she totally did that. It’s not like Lorelai failed to sit Rory down at some point and explain that the reason their hearts got broken over Christopher not breaking up with his girlfriend is because sometimes when you sleep with other people’s boyfriends, they opt not to choose you in the end. Oh, wait, she didn’t do that, either, because he was her Christopher and they’ve always been connected. So she’s completely entitled to not take any responsibility for that situation and try to vandalize the other woman’s bathroom at her baby shower because she was jealous.

So, let’s just say I kind of understand why Rory gives Lorelai the cold shoulder here. Who is she to lecture, given her track record? And we know it’s only going to get worse.

Before we move on from this, though...

RORY: He was my boyfriend first! LORELAI: But you dumped him! You rejected him! You picked someone else!

Okay, technically it was Dean that dumped her (apparently I am the only one who remembers this) but as much as Rory pretends that Dean was the perfect boyfriend, both of them are significantly overidealizing the halcyon days of their early relationship. They were together for three months, and only reconcile when Rory is badgered into saying that she loves him: then it’s a few more months until Jess shows up and Rory loses almost all interest in Dean whatsoever. So the perfect love that they claim to want to relive never really existed.

Okay, let’s move on to how Dean actually treats his wife he claims to Rory he was completely in the process of breaking up with prior to him boinking his ex.

Upon learning that Lindsay had committed the unpardonable sin of answering her husband’s phone:

DEAN: I mean, you know it's my phone, Lindsay. This isn't your phone. I mean, who was it? LINDSAY: I don't know. They hung up. DEAN: So you didn't take a message? LINDSAY: I told you -- they hung up. DEAN: So, great, uh, you're just answering my phone and not taking messages? That's great, Lindsay. LINDSAY: Dean, wh-- DEAN: Taylor calls on this phone, and Tom. I mean, this phone is for business, okay? That's why I have it! LINDSAY: Fine. DEAN: What if Tom called, and he had an extra shift for me tomorrow, huh? I mean he calls to tell me, and you answer, and he thinks maybe he doesn't have the right number, and he hangs up, and then I just lose out, which means we lose out. God, Lindsay, you know, you don't -- you don't get it, do you? I mean, you have absolutely no respect for me at all. That's just obvious. LINDSAY: I don't want to fight. We always fight. I won't answer your phone anymore. I was asleep. I didn't think. I'm sorry, okay?

Jeebus, she completely sounds like a battered wife here. What a prince Dean is, huh? And yeah, Dean completely doesn’t sound like someone who’s trying really hard to cover his tracks.

Let’s move on. Rory overhears Lindsay trying to prepare dinner in the hopes of smoothing things over with Dean, and she finally accepts that Dean has not left his wife and at this point likely has no intentions to. She writes a break-up letter for Lorelai to deliver to him.

LORELAI: It's a letter for you from Rory. DEAN: What happened? Where is she? LORELAI: Just take the letter. DEAN: She went to Europe, right? Miss Patty said she went to Europe. What happened? What's she doing there? Who is she with? LORELAI: Dean. DEAN: When's she getting back? LORELAI: Soon. Just take it. DEAN: Where is she? LORELAI: Europe. DEAN: With who? LORELAI: Her grandmother. Look, take it. DEAN: No. Why did she go? Whose idea was it? LORELAI: That doesn't matter. DEAN: It does.

Dean, are you still married? Then it’s none of your business who Rory is with. Fuck off, sir. You have no right to ask anything of her.

Lindsay finds the letter and finally gives Dean a small taste of what he deserves.

LINDSAY: I hate you, Dean! I hate everything! DEAN: Let's just talk. LINDSAY: I don't want to talk! I don't want you here! DEAN: I'm sorry, okay? LINDSAY: Sorry? DEAN: Yes, because it'll never happen again.

Sure sounds like a guy who really, really wants to leave his marriage and totally didn’t feed Rory a bunch of bullshit to get her to do what he wants.

Lindsay kicks Dean out and her mom and Lorelai have a blowout in the middle of the street while their kids stand by silently like the teenage girls that they still are.

MRS. LISTER: You! You should be ashamed of yourself -- what you did! LORELAI: Just wait. MRS. LISTER: What did she ever do to you, huh? How did she hurt you? Why are you doing this? LORELAI: Theresa, please. Calm down. MRS. LISTER: Calm down? My little girl has to come home and find your heinous letter in Dean's jacket. LORELAI: Listen, we're in the street -- MRS. LISTER: You little monster! LORELAI: Hey! Pull back, lady! MRS. LISTER: There aren't hundreds of other boys in the world? You have to go after her husband? LORELAI: Okay, stop attacking my daughter right now. You're upset, I get it, but you do not do this. MRS. LISTER: She slept with my son-in-law. She broke up a marriage. Are you proud? LORELAI: She did not break up a marriage. MRS. LISTER: What do you know of this? LORELAI: Enough. I know Rory. MRS. LISTER: All I know is that now my Lindsay is devastated, Dean is back with his parents, lives are destroyed, and you and your daughter can go to hell!

Okay, first of all, this was a predictable end result when two teenagers who don’t know each other that well decide to get married at the age of eighteen. Why did their parents, especially Lindsay’s mother encourage this? And what the fuck is up with blaming Rory for the situation completely? No, she shouldn’t have done it, but Dean is the one who decided to marry Lindsay. He’s the one that decided to cheat. He’s the one that decided to lie to both of them. He is not an innocent bystander. 

Later on, Rory tries to comfort Dean over what has happened.

DEAN: No. It's not a stupid question. Um...let's see. How do I feel? Actually...I feel like an idiot. RORY: Why? DEAN: Why? Because I was married, …Rory. Married. And I threw it all away for someone who dumped me once and then just bailed on me. RORY: I didn't just bail. I -- DEAN: I hurt everybody. I hurt Lindsay, I hurt her parents, I hurt my parents, and now I'm back at home, and you're in Europe with your grandmother. And what the hell was I thinking? I mean, what am I doing? What's wrong with me?

I mean, the correct answer here is that everything is wrong with you, Dean, but....in the first place, Rory didn’t dump you, second of all, and she “bailed” because you lied and had no intention of leaving your wife in the first place. Take responsibility for your own actions, my man.

Rory and Dean eventually date for a month or so. Dean dumps her again because he realizes they have nothing in common. Does he take any steps towards moving on with his life and taking responsibility for his own mistakes? 

DEAN: Your situation is no different from mine. Buddy. LUKE: I've got work to do. DEAN: Then go. They want more than this. Don't you see that? And all you are is this. LUKE: Rory was a kid, Dean. She grew up. She moved on. Accept it. DEAN: You accept it. This town, it's all you are, and it's not enough. She's going to get bored, and you can't take her anywhere. You're here forever. LUKE: It's different. DEAN: It's not different. You and me. Same thing.

Bear in mind this episode takes place in April and Dean dumped Rory the previous November, and yet he’s still bitter, still projecting onto Luke, and still completely blaming Rory for all of his own decisions. He was the one who dumped her the first two times. He was the one that got into a fight with Jess on her behalf. He was the one who proposed to Lindsay to get her to forget about it. He was the one who got married despite his reservations. He was the one who lied to Rory so that she would have sex with him. He was the one who refused to leave his wife. And oh yeah....he was the one who dumped Rory a third time.

That’s the last we see of Dean for eleven years until he shows up in the revival and actually seems emotionally stable for a change.

Somehow Rory gets the brunt of the blame for all of this, but she wasn’t in this alone. I do think she was scared into this by Jess showing up, and if he had any sort of explanation or apology for her either of the times he showed up, she probably wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to the affirmation that Dean offered her. Then she could have had a disappointing first experience with Marty as an alternative.

Which still would have been an improvement over the horror of that Candyman song.

The Damaged and Rage

hello my darlings!! here is another portion of the blood empire for you!! Have a safe and happy fourth of July!!

Trigger Warnings: Sex, anger, drugs, no usage, blood and violence

Word Count: 5.4K

As perusual my dears you do not have permission to copy, translate or use part of my work. if you do ill find you and haunt you for the rest of your days.

August’s pov

“You doing okay?” King asks quietly, studying me with way too fucking much intensity. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” I say, switching lanes. “Not like I’m stuck in a literal pit of hell. Speaking of, why exactly are you visiting Georgia  in July?” “I’m not visiting Georgia,” he says. “I’m visiting you.” “No one asked you to come,” I mutter. “You don’t have to ask,” he says. “I’m your brother.” “Lucky me.” He sighs. “We’re still family, August. Eliza, too. She can’t travel in her third trimester, or she’d be here, too. We can’t bring the baby on the plane for a few months, and I don’t want to be away from them any more than I have to once the baby comes. I didn’t want to wait until Christmas to see you, and you didn’t come to New York this summer, so here I am. Whether you like it or not, I’m still a Walker.” “How the twins doing?” I’d rather talk about them than myself. When they wanted to spend the summer in New York with Ma, it was a blow, but once they were gone, it’s been a relief. They needed to be out of harm’s way, and that means out of my way. They need distance from the guilt, or from the crime, if they don’t feel remorse. Getting them away from any suspicions that might arise in town was the best way to protect them, even if that meant I couldn’t watch over them. So I told them to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. We all needed time apart, anyway. 

A summer to forget, to put it all behind us, so it’s just another shadow lurking in our dark past. Or I hope that’s what they’re doing, that they’re not revisiting the place in their minds like I visit the place north of town, drawn back by some invisible cord tying me to the swamp. I found a dirt road that leads in behind it, so I don’t have to park on the side of the highway. No one ever sees me out there, and if they did, they’re probably backwoods rednecks who wouldn’t think twice about me tromping into the swamp in rubber coveralls that just about bake my balls after ten minutes. The twins aren’t around to ask questions, to demand why I’m going there. They’re not around to talk sense into me and tell me not to go. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. No one’s going to find her now. And if they do, there’s nothing linking us to her. We burned her clothes, and I burned all my notebooks. I don’t write anymore. I don’t want to know what fucked up shit would come out. I still go to the Slaughter Pen every Saturday night, but I don’t go to Hockington. I’m a legitimate part of the Walker empire now, with shares in my name and a spot on the board of directors. King seems happy to fill the drive from the airport with tales of the twins’ exploits, so I let him talk. They’re off partying on our old stomping grounds and getting high on this Alice shit, and I’m here with Dad, learning the business I’ll someday inherit by day. By night, I wander the streets or haunt the swamps like some fucking forlorn specter of revenge. It’s done. I killed her. So why can’t I forget her?

I’ve been by her house a couple times, but I don’t want anyone getting suspicious, so I stopped after the second time. I’ve also asked about her casually when the blue-haired girl who lives next to her was outside. I even tracked down Maverick, the piece of shit she used to fuck before me. She’s not anywhere. “You should come back with me,” King says. “It might do you good to get away, too.” My back stiffens, and I glance at him, trying to figure out what he means, what he knows. The twins swore they wouldn’t tell him what we did, but they trust him enough that they probably spilled it. Whatever. I’ll deal with it. It wasn’t doing them any favors to be around me right now. I’d die before I admitted it to anyone, but everything’s been shit since Harper. My insides are raw, jagged edges. From the start, I only meant to destroy her life, not take it. But after what she did, what choice did I have? I did what anyone in my shoes would have done, what everyone expected of me. She fucking deserved to die. She didn’t just sell my darkest secrets and deepest shames to my enemy. She sold our relationship to him one dirty detail at a time. It was all fake. And she didn’t just play me. She didn’t just make me fall for her. She made me believe that someone could do the same in return. That’s the lie I can never forgive. And it’s not that I care if she’s fucking dead. It’s the fact that she vanished like that, without a trace, just like Crystal… “Just stay the fuck out of my business, okay?” I say, weaving around traffic and pressing my foot harder on the gas pedal, ready to get home and out of this trap. My brother sighs. “You could have come back to New York. Then he shakes his head. “I’m doing what I have to do so that you don't get involved like I did.” “Because if you didn’t work for Al Valenti, I’d have to,” I say flatly. I know it’s the truth, even if no one else has the cajones to come right out and say it. King could have gotten out of working for our great-uncle. Yeah, our parents promised him their first son, but Al’s a reasonable guy. He’d have taken me, the best man for the job, if everyone had told him King wasn’t the right fit. It wasn’t our parents or Al Valenti who insisted on keeping the contract. It was King. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “You have a choice, August. That’s all I’m saying.” “And I made my choice,” I say. “You think you’re the only one who can make sacrifices for our family? The twins don’t graduate for another year.” I’m not leaving them with Dad. I know what he’ll use them for. If it’s the only thing I ever protect them from, at least it’s more than nothing.

“Our brothers told me about Harper,” King says quietly. “Did you tell Dad?” So, there it is. I knew they couldn’t keep their fucking mouths shut. But better to get it all out in New York than to let it slip in this gossipy little town. “No, I didn’t fucking tell Dad,” I snap. “She wasn’t his mark.” “She’s a Darling,” he says. “He’d want to know.” “What, you think he’s doing business with some trailer park junkie? She’s not one of the Darlings he’s concerned with.” “And the ones he is concerned with?” he asks. “You’re telling him about them?” “There’s nothing to tell,” I say, gritting my teeth in irritation at the shit I’ve had to put up with for the past year. Now that I’m working with Dad, I’m starting to understand why it’s necessary. But Preston doesn’t make it easy to leave him alone when he’s constantly fucking with us, poking us, trying to get a reaction. It pisses me the fuck off that there are Darlings walking around this town with impunity. “Maybe that’s a good thing,” King says. He thinks the Darlings paid for Crystal’s death already, and maybe he’s right. But he’s not her twin, and she’s not the only one the Darlings killed that winter. “Until we get the casino running, the Delacroixs are untouchable,” I say. “After that… All bets are off.” Once the twins graduate and I get rid of the Darlings, I’ll be on the first flight out of Georgia. The place makes my skin crawl. There are too many ghosts here, too many reasons to look over my shoulder. The girls who die in this town don’t get funerals, don’t leave bodies. They simply vanish, as if the town itself swallows them alive. The boys don’t get funerals, either, but they don’t disappear. The boys leave bodies—with nothing left inside them. Our ghosts haunt Georgia, too.

Harper’s POV

* A few weeks later*

Every week is the same. I go through the motions, but I’m frozen inside, as if it’s not really me there at all. There’s a Harper-sized doll in my place, someone I used to be but am no longer. The world has forgotten my existence. Only the Phantom remembers. I wait for him, for the clean smell of his house, the polished hardwood, the curl of his hard body around mine, the detachment I feel when he’s inside me that’s the closest thing to freedom I can imagine. When I’m not there, I’m a ghost walking the street at night, waiting for him to come back. He always does. Two days a week, he takes me home, feeds me. He fills half his closet with new clothes for me, shoes, jewelry, an expensive purse to carry my phone and keys and wallet. Everything comes to his house in boxes or bags delivered to the door, so he doesn’t have to leave the house except to get me and take me home. He checks the ring he put through my bellybutton to make sure it’s healed, puts dark-colored contact lenses in my eyes, touching my eyeballs like they are his own. I think maybe he’ll pluck out my eye and replace his blind one. But I don’t move, don’t try to stop him when he reaches between my lids and sets the thin lens over mine. “Good girl,” he says, stroking my cheek. “Beautiful.” He opens the closet door and sets me before the mirror. He tells me I’m perfect now, that I’m ready. I stare at the stranger in the mirror with dark eyes and dark lips and brown-black hair, and I think she looks ready, so he must be right. I don’t ask him what I’m ready for. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

A few weeks later, I notice the dark green field outside the Phantom’s window turning hay colored as the grasses droop in the late summer heat. Daisies and Black-Eyed Susans and wild asters dot the grass now. The Phantom stands there, looking out with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s looking over an empire and not an overgrown field of weeds. “Have the Walkers contacted you?” he asks. I have the same phone number, but no one ever contacts me. Why would they? I haven’t contacted them, either. Everyone texted on the OnlyWords app, and I didn’t download it on my new phone. I didn’t have friends, anyway. Only the Walker boys and their friends got close, and they left me to die. They washed their hands of me, and I have no need to change that. I give my head a single shake, then realize he won’t see it. “No.” He rubs his jaw. I can hear the rasp of stubble. “It’s not enough,” he mutters. At dinner, he gives me a little black dress and tells me to put it on and do my hair. The dress is low-cut but not too revealing, and it hugs my curves and falls around me like it must have cost thousands of dollars. I roll on the stockings and garters he left with it. I put in the diamond teardrop earrings he left sitting on the dresser. I put my hair up the way he instructed and dab on some of the makeup he left sitting there for me. The lipstick is too dark, but I smear it over my lips anyway. I’m no longer startled when I see a stranger staring back at me from behind the closet door. Does it matter who she is? I know she’s a good girl. The Phantom walks behind me and puts a necklace around my neck. I can feel it resting cold against my chest, and it makes me shiver. I touch the charm, a diamond ballerina. He runs his knuckles up the back of my neck, skims his fingertips along my bare shoulders. “You look like…” He bows his head, so I can only see his golden hair, not even his eyes or mouth to give away what he’s thinking. I’ve never wondered what he’s thinking before. It never mattered. After dinner, he orders me to the bed without the usual shower. He doesn’t undress me, just commands me to lie on my back while he pushes up my dress. Then he picks up his phone, angling it so it gets my whole body. “No faces,” I cry, my voice echoing in the high-end apartment. I throw my hands over my face, surprised I can still react that passionately to anything. He’s shot dozens of homemade porn clips of his dick going into me, but he promised me no one would know it was me. Usually he fucks me from behind, anyway. I feel exposed on my back, vulnerable and scared in a way I haven’t felt with him before. Suddenly, I’m shaking all over. “Keep your hands over your face,” he says, laying a reassuring hand on my thigh. “No one will know it’s you.” He plays with my underwear, rubbing his cock against the outside of them, pulling them between my lips, then down my thighs. I pull a pillow over my face. He tugs it a little higher, setting my necklace straight before going back to work. I try not to feel what he’s doing, rubbing his cock between my lips, getting me wet. Finally, he pushes inside me. He lifts my leg and swings it around so I’m lying on my side, so he’s filming my hip with the tattoos. Someone could definitely recognize that. Above my hip, there’s a D branded into my skin. What if my attackers see it and come back for me? “Stop,” I gasp. “I’m almost done,” he says, moving my leg back where it was, so I’m on my back. He cums quickly, shooting once over my belly before pushing back inside me to finish. He doesn’t lower his phone until he’s gotten the whole messy scene. “Good girl,” he says. “You were perfect.” Then he steps into the bathroom, and I hear the shower running.

I get up, my limbs shaking, my pulse racing. Something’s happening to me. Something awakening, some horrible monster that’s rising like a tidal wave inside me, like Godzilla emerging from the ocean. I can’t breathe. I want to race up the ladder onto the roof, to suck in the night and shriek into the sky. I want to sail over the edge, arms and legs wide, and soar to my death below. Some impulse in me rebels at the expensive silk constricting my waist, the heavy pads of the bra. Suddenly, I’m revolted by the body I’m in, by what I’ve allowed to happen to it. I yank off the dress, tearing at the strangling fabric, kick off the heels he put me in, rip off the garters and stockings. I throw them aside and pace the floor in my bare feet, naked as an animal. My heart is skittering erratically around my chest. I feel trapped, caged, though he’s never once told me I couldn’t leave. In fact, he made me leave. I’ve been free all along, and yet, I’m not free. He’s treated me better than anyone ever has, than anyone should, and yet, I think I’ll scream if I see his mask again, if he calls me his good girl one more time. I pull off the earrings and reach for the box they were in, my fingers shaking. I lay them in the jewelry box. There’s a sleek black paper bag with the jeweler’s name on the side because he bought them just for me, maybe just today, and had someone deliver them. There’s a little tag stapled to the bag, the kind that comes on flowers. The kind that tells a delivery person where to send them, since the Phantom never leaves his apartment. There’s a name written on the tag. In looping cursive handwriting, the words Mr. D.

August POV

My phone chimes with a notification on the seat beside me. I check the screen. Lo again. I haven’t seen her all summer. After I found out what Harper did, I was in a bad place for a while. I don’t remember much of the rest of the year. The monster operated in my place, holding space for me until I was ready to come back. When our mission ended, and I had time to think things through, I stopped thinking about what Harper had done and finally looked at the facts behind it. Of course, my mind went straight to the one person who could have told her about Hockington—Gloria Walton. They’d gotten close, thanks to me, and I fucking paid for it. For letting a Darling into my life, letting her get in with my friends. That’s what I get for letting anyone close to me. Still, it’s a dick move on my part not to at least give Lo a chance to defend herself. If she wasn’t the one who told Harper, I cut her off for nothing. Harper could have bribed someone who worked there, seen me leaving with someone and tracked her down, rooted through my stuff or Dad’s when she was at our house and somehow put it together. It’s better this way, though. Better not to have anyone around me who knows shit about my life. When Lo found out about room 504, it felt safer to keep her close, to give her a reason not to tell anyone. Even if we never talked about it, never talked about our families the way I did with Harper or any real shit, our friendship was real. But letting people into my life is a mistake. People blackmail and betray. And if it was her, if she told Harper… Well, Preston can fucking have her. When my phone rings a minute later, I sigh and pick it up. 

We can talk once. Just to clear some things up. I’m not going to give her a ride anywhere, like I used to when she didn’t have gas money. My car smells like a swamp from all the times I’ve dropped my muddy boots and rubber coveralls in here this summer. Gloria would ask questions, and I’m not about to answer. “Hey,” she says. “I figured you’d ghost me again.” “What’s up, Lo?” I ask, my voice sounding weary. “Do you use the OnlyPics app?” “No,” I say flatly, bristling at the insinuation. “Why would I?” “That’s not—I didn’t mean you’d put stuff up.” “Why?” I ask. “You don’t think people would pay to see my dick?” “No!” she says quickly. “I mean, they would, if you wanted to put it up. That’s not why I was asking, though.” “So, you don’t want to see my dick? That’s not how I remember it.” I’m being an asshole, but she’s basically calling me a whore. She knows better than to ask if I use an app that’s basically a sex worker platform. I don’t get paid for sex, and I don’t need to sell pictures of my body for money.

The OnlyPics app was supposed to be a companion to OnlyWords, which is a texting app with, as its name implies, only words in the messages. Everyone likes OnlyWords, but it has no photo sharing capabilities. So the same company made OnlyPics but it was basically a knock-off Instagram where you can’t use captions and the hashtags are hidden, only used by the algorithms to know who to show them to. It probably would have died a quick death if it weren’t for the sex worker industry, who cashed in on three key features—the ability to add a link to profiles, where they added their payment link; the fifteen-second video limit, which let them put up teases to get people hooked; and the private chat feature, which let them send someone the rest of the video for whatever fee they wanted to negotiate or even video chat for a live show. I don’t use the app because I’m not an amateur porn star, and if I want to watch porn, I can do it for free like everyone else. If I need a live feed, I have a phone full of numbers of chicks who would be happy to put on a show for me, and I can do more than watch and jerk off. I’m not interested in that any more than I am this app. “Okay, let’s try this again,” Gloria says. “You remember how Harper disappeared off the face of the earth when you dumped her?” I stiffen in my seat, yanking the wheel to pull off at the nearest exit at the last second. The car behind me lays on the horn, but I ignore it. The noise is almost drowned by the pounding of blood in my ears. “Yeah, what about it?” I ask Gloria. “Well, I think I found her.” “On a porn site?” I ask, hoping like hell someone just uploaded the video of her sucking dick from last year. It fucks with my head to think that one year ago today, I didn’t even know the name Harper Avery. It was another month before I would see her giving head in the parking lot behind the tampon factory. “Hey, don’t judge me,” Gloria says. “Your brothers have been out of town all summer, and you’ve been ignoring me. I’m having a dry spell.” I could tell her the twins are back, but if she ran her mouth to Harper, I don’t want her around my house, running her mouth to my brothers. So I point out the obvious. “There are more than three dicks in this town.” “Once you go Walker, you never go back,” she says lightly. “And anyway, I only saw it because she sent it to Dawson.” I’m glad I pulled over at the exit, because I’d probably run someone off the road right now if I were still driving. I grip the steering wheel with one hand and close my eyes. My voice comes out so normal you’d think I was just a guy who dumped a girl and didn’t give a fuck about what happened to her since. “I’m afraid to ask, but… Does your brother always share porn with you?” “No, you weirdo,” she says. “Someone DM’d him, and I’ve been obsessing about her all summer, so he showed it to me. He thinks it’s funny as shit.” “Why are you obsessing about Harper?” I demand. What the fuck.

 Maybe I should have kept in touch with Lo. She could find out shit, maybe even the truth. “I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s weird that she just… Vanished? I mean, I’m not saying you’re not worth going off the deep end over, or that you couldn’t eviscerate her heart so completely she could never love again. She liked to play it cool, but she really loved you, August. Like, the kind of love that eats you alive, and you’re never the same again.” “Put that shit on a ninety-nine cent Valentines card. You could make real money.” “Keep playing you didn’t feel it, too,” she says. “But y’all broke a lot of hearts when you broke up, not just your own. Everyone figured you’d get back together after spring break.”

“What’s your point?” I snap. I don’t need a fucking lecture about how much I disappointed everyone. She can add it to my fucking tab for all the times I fucked up and pissed off everyone who matters. “My point is, even if Harper was devastated beyond repair, she’s not the kind of chick who would let a breakup destroy her. She’s stronger than that. You may be irreplaceable even to her, but you’re still a boy. And it would take more than one boy to break Harper.” Maybe not one boy. But one boy who shared her with two more against her will? A broken hand and a rope she couldn’t get free of, a swamp full of snakes more poisonous than her? Yeah. That could do it. “Then it obviously had nothing to do with me,” I say. “Maybe she got hooked on Lady Alice or Pearl Lady or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and she’s selling herself to pay for it like a regular junkie. Hell, her mom basically said as much.” “It did blow up the scene right around that time…” Gloria muses. “Maybe she’ll tell you for the right price,” I say flatly. “That’s all she’s ever cared about.” “August…” 

“What?” “Look, I don’t know everything that went down between you, but I know what it’s like to walk away from love. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean your heart wasn’t decimated, too.” My laugh is brittle, like stepping on glass. “You’re funny, Lo.” I could ask her, just come right out and be blunt, like King. Did you tell Harper about Hockington? But I can’t acknowledge that much aloud. The hotel is its own world. When we leave, we don’t mention what goes on there. I don’t tell the school that Gloria is a scholarship kid. I elevate her, take her to prom, win her crowns. And she never tells anyone that I get a room there every few months. Would she risk telling someone, knowing she could lose it all? Even if she hates me, she loves her status too much to risk it. What would make her turn on me like that? Harper didn’t tell that creep where she found out the information. But it has to be Lo. No one else knows. So, I hung up the phone, letting her think this is about a breakup. That it’s not about a murder, not about a girl coming back from the dead, a ghost dragging her broken body from the swamp and crawling back into my brain to fuck with it even more. I open my email, the one connected to the OnlyWords and OnlyPics apps by default because it’s all made by the same company. I barely remember thumbing away the automatic notifications I got when someone sent me a message this summer. I ignored them all, knowing they were porn spam. My chest is hollow as I open one from my spam folder. It tells me I have twenty-four new messages on OnlyPics. I follow the link and open my direct messages. The first one is a thumbnail of a video, sent this evening. If it’s from Harper, she changed her handle from BadApple. For a few seconds, all I see is a closeup of part of her tattoo. I take it in, examining it until I realize it’s her hip crease, and pressed along the back of her thigh, an expanse of pale skin. It takes me a minute to make sense of what I’m seeing. Whoever she’s fucking, he’s got her folded in half like her legs are over his shoulders while he nails her into the bed. There’s no caption, and there are no words even on the messenger, so I have to click on the profile to find an explanation. Apple Cream Pie, $1k/min.

Time seems to skip. Some caveman part of me must take over, because the next thing I know it’s five minutes later, and I’m five thousand dollars lighter, and I’m slamming my phone against the top of the steering wheel over and over. I feel it crunch and snap, but I keep pounding it until there’s nothing left in my hand, and the pieces of it are scattered across my lap and the floor. Time skips again. I’m in my driveway at home. Blood is dripping down the steering wheel and into my lap. I open my hand and find pieces of glass jutting from my palm in a dozen places. And all I think about is that day my car was bombed, and Harper tried to pick the glass from my face with her tiny, careful fingers. I climb out of the car. There’s a black Jaguar parked on the gravel, a tall figure leaning against it. I walked up to him. Something in me seems to have been knocked loose, and I think I might fucking kill him, even though it’s just Oliver Finnegan, who never goes inside. He doesn’t approve of the family business. “Hullo, August,” he says, his Irish accent distorting the words. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears. “Am I in your spot? I can move the car.” “Don’t worry about it.” He cocks his head, his weird, pale eyes taking in the blood on my pants, my hand. “You alright, mate?” I shrug and head for the house. Just as I’m about to step inside, his brother steps out, a black duffle in one hand, probably full of cash or those fucking pearls everyone’s on about. 

Colin Fucking Finnegan. My eyes narrow, my fists clenching until I can feel the glass biting deeper, piercing through my skin and into the muscle and sinew. “Was it you?” I grind out. Part of me knows it’s impossible, but maybe he sent the photo on his way here, or maybe he took it earlier. I need Baron to find the date signature on a video, if it’s even possible. For all I know, Harper’s dead, and she took those videos herself while we were together. If she’d sell my dignity for a scholarship, why wouldn’t she sell videos of herself fucking other guys when she was with me? “Whatever it was, I bet it was me,” Colin says, flashing me a knowing grin that shows off his chipped front tooth. “Are you still sore about that beating you took last spring?” “You know what it’s about.” “If it’s not that, you’re pissed you didn’t get a cut of this,” he says, jiggling the bag. “Don’t fucking push me right now,” I warn. His creepy eyes go smug. “Or… You still on about that whore? I figured that’s what set you off last spring. Everyone in town knows I fucked her first. Are you just finding out?” “Where is she?” I demand, grabbing him around the neck and slamming him up against the wall. “Where the fuck do you have her, you cum guzzling, festering wad of infected dick cheese?” A cocky, defiant grin stretches his lips. “Aww, did you catch something off her?” he asks. “Wasn’t me, mate. I popped that cherry when there were barely three hairs on her pussy. Haven’t touched her since.” I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t see Colin Finnegan in front of me anymore. All I see is red. The next thing I know, my brothers and Dad are holding me down on the steps, and Oliver and their uncle are holding Colin back while he curses and struggles and spits. The white gravel is painted red like the day the Darlings vandalized our house, but this time, it’s blood.

“Let me up,” I growl, shoving off the step and wrenching free of my family. I stalk toward Colin, who writhes like a cat getting a bath. I can feel blood trickling down my face, the jagged edges of a few broken teeth, and the throb of one eye that’s already swelling shut. But I don’t feel pain. The other thing that lives inside me has swallowed it, and I can’t feel a thing. “Come on,” Colin yells, dancing in the grip of his brother. “Let’s do it again. I can go all night. Whoo! I feel alive!” I stop in front of him, ignoring my brothers, who have rushed up behind me to grab me if I lose my shit again. But I’m calm now. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I say to Colin. My lip is broken and swollen so thick my words come out slurred. “If I find out you’re the one who sent those videos, you won’t be alive much longer.” I turn and walk inside. I don’t know why I care. I watched two guys fuck her. I gave them permission. I made sure to watch, so I knew I could never want her again, never think she was mine. I broke her on purpose, but piece by piece, I’m the one falling to pieces.

I have a MDZS question and consider you an expert on all things JGY (he did crimes, good for him) so I hope you have some insight into this: I read that NHS found the Sacrifice Ritual in JGY’s Closet of Wonders, but how did JGY get it? Was it in WWX’s Burial Mounds “library,” and if so do you know where WWX found it?

Thanks, I very much enjoy your content!

hey there anon, it's very kind of you to consider me an expert, but i really am not 😬 i've certainly read, reread, and re-reread both the EXR and 7seas translations of the empathy flashback sequence many, many, many times, in addition to the guanyin temple sequence, because those are the parts of the text where jgy's actions are most frequently criticized and taken out of context. for details like the ones you're asking after, i've got to revisit other parts of the book again because my memory is a tea sieve, and i'm also not immune to medium bleed (no one is). so please bear with me, and keep tabs on the notes of this post for any discussion that follows since my pals often chime in with details i've missed.

first point of contention tho: it is never confirmed how novel canon nhs comes by his knowledge/familiarity of the summoning ritual, though wwx does speculate extensively in the guanyin temple denouement that he hears about the ritual from mo xuanyu himself. i don't think he gets his hands on the ritual himself, and i don't think he has access to the jin sect treasure room either. from vol 5 of the 7seas translation:

So yet another person came to [Nie Huaisang's] mind. Mo Xuanyu, who had been banished from Golden Carp Tower.

In the past, Nie Huaisang might have chatted with Mo Xuanyu to glean information from him. From the mouth of the dejected Mo Xuanyu, Nie Huaisang had clearned that he'd read one of Jin Guangyao's fragmented manuscripts of forbidden magic, in which an ancient, evil ritual was recorded. He had then incited Mo Xuanyu to exact revenge for the humiliation he'd suffered at the hands of his own clan members--to use the forbidden art of the sacrificial ritual to seek retribution.

in vol 1 of the 7seas translation, this is what the text tells us about the sacrificial ritual mo xuanyu uses to summon wei wuxian:

The nature of this "sacrificial ritual" was a type of curse. The caster was to harm themselves with a weapon, making cuts on their body and using their own blood to draw the array and write the spells within. They would then sit in the center of the circle and give up their mortal body to evil spirits, using the annihilation of their soul as the price to summon a nefarious, malicious ghost. This was all done in order to request the fulfillment of a wish. Thus, it was the opposite of "possession."

While both were forbidden magics of ill repute, the difference was that the former was much less popular than the latter. After all, few wishes were so strongly desired as to make someone willingly sacrifice everything they had. This was why the technique had been nearly lost after centuries of disuse. The examples recorded in ancient books had only a handful of cases that were backed by reliable evidence, and every single one of them had been for revenge. Every malicious ghost summoned by the ritual had fulfilled the caster's wishes perfectly, in cruel and bloody ways.

i've been thumbing through the rest of the 7seas volumes as well as the EXR translation, but i don't think there's anything more concrete about where the ritual comes from. i think it is entirely possible that the jin sect found copies of something like this ritual in the burial mounds, sure, but i also wouldn't rule out a ritual like this being contained in the treasure room entirely independent of wwx. there's canon precedent for it; case in point, recall the collection of turmoil in the gusu lan's forbidden section of their library.

anyway that's what i've been able to find today, but i'll keep poking around in the books to see if i trip over a passage that neatly answers all of our questions lol.

Hi! Do you have any romcom (movie) recs? I feel like i hypothetically like the genre, but have a lot of trouble finding ones i enjoy. So many romcoms feel so formulaic (in a dead way) and misogynistic and stale to me. I think they’re a lot easier to do well in the context of a series because there’s actually time to build. Recently i thought rye lane and fire island were fun. I like kdramas when i have the time for all the episodes because i appreciate the build. I need chemistry— people who both convincingly like each other and seem like actual human beings. I thought you might have some good ideas! Thanks <3

HELLO LARGE VOICED ANON <3

I hope you weren't waiting on my recs all day haha i have been. hm. hungover af <3 (i'm going to leave kdramas off this list for now but if you would like specific recs for kdrama romcoms send me another ask and i can try to do them justice!)

I think this is a genre with underrated range! So one thing that I find very interesting about the genre of romcoms is that I think there tends to be a split between romcoms whose goal is, like, to be a fun lighthearted movie with a central romance, vs romcoms whose goal is to Say Something About Love in the vehicle of a funny movie. Both of these categories are represented on this list but for giggles i will not be saying which i think are which <3

anyway recs under the cut <3 i will link my tags for these movies if you want to take a look but be warned for spoilers ofc

I think for your purposes my primary rec would be Lovesick (aka Scrotal Recall). It's a (short) tv show so it would likely give you the chance to get to know the characters and see a slower build. In contrast to the frustration you've had with some more "formulaic" romcoms the writing in this show is very deliberately in conversation with romcoms of the past. Also it's just one of my favorite romcoms ever made so I rec it to everyone. The premise is that a young man, Dylan, is diagnosed with chlamydia and instructed to tell his past partners. Being a hopeless romantic (emphasis on hopeless), he decides to try to turn this into an opportunity to revisit relationships that didn't work out, and try to figure out where he's been going wrong. Two simultaneous storylines play out in each episode, the flashbacks to the exes (and breakups) and the present, where Dylan's best friend is getting married.

Older romcoms: When Harry Met Sally (ive heard this is divisive? but idc its SO funny and so well made), Moonstruck (a romantic-comedy in the operatic sense. also cher <3), The Philadelphia Story (katharine hepburn the woman u r. tw for a classic 1940s gag about punching ur wife in the face), Bringing Up Baby (screwball comedy my beloved), Roman Holiday (audrey hepburn is lethally charming in this movie), Dirty Dancing (someday ill write something this good and then You Will Realize), Much Ado About Nothing (i tend to enjoy either the danielle brooks shakespeare in the park version or the classic tennant/tate combo)

Teen romcoms: 10 things I hate about you (young heath ledger and young julia stiles ur welcome), to all the boys i;ve loved before (lana condor is ADORABLE), The Half of It (my other favorite sort-of romcom of the decade)

More recent-ish: Speed (like its keanu and sandra what more do you want), Strictly Ballroom (i used to watch this literally weekly as a child and I WAS RIGHT TO), Miss Congeniality (sandra bullock what u did for us all <3), Fire Island (thank u 4 my LYFE), The sandra bullock/channing tatum movie that came out last year (i forget what its called but he's so funny in it), Mamma Mia AND Mamma Mia Here We Go Again (beautiful greek islands, abba, cher, what more can you ask for?)

Indian/bollywood: Jab We Met (after dramatically quitting his job, Local Man somehow ends up escorting a woman he meets on the train while she attempts to elope with her boyfriend. aka classic screwball comedy heroine and Guy She Dragged Along For The Ride), khabie khushi khabi gham (multiple generations of romance and family drama featuring Kajol, the Most Beautiful Woman In the World), Band Baaja Baaraat (two wedding planners fall in love--great choice if you want to watch idiots ambushed by their feelings)

Other tv recs: Selfie (john cho and karen gillian in a show canceled far too soon)

merlin S1 rewatch: episode 6

it’s been a hot minute! today’s commentary is about episode 1x06, A Remedy to Cure All Ills. which I re-watched more than a month ago actually, but I’ve been busy.

just some random comments and thoughts (as usual), and not an actual review or analysis.

I think this episode is extremely underrated – I loved it the first time I watched it, and I still thoroughly enjoyed it on my rewatch. yes, it’s kind of a filler episode with a very traditional Villain of the Week format – but it's a great villain.

Julian Rhind-Tutt’s performance as Edwin is great and I love a suave, smooth-talking, scheming villain as much as the next person. The way he manipulates people, never suggesting anything outright but playing on people’s fears and biases, only saying just enough to make them reach the conclusion he wants. Something very Richard III about it. Very Iago.

EDWIN: “No… I shan’t say”

Another thing I love about this episode is the rare (unique?) instance of Merlin showing his magic to another sorcerer whom he isn't suspicious of (the audience knows Edwin is the Bad Guy, of course, but at this point Merlin doesn't).

I can’t think of another moment like this in the series. Freya didn’t actually have magic. There is Gilli, but when Merlin reveals his magic to him he already knows of the boy's intention to kill Uther, and it is a last attempt to stop Gilli from committing regicide without putting him in harm’s way. Merlin's relationship with Mordred and the Druids was always complicated by prophecies and by his role as Emrys.

But there’s none of that here. Edwin tells Merlin that magic can be used for good, and that it can be ENJOYED! which is all Merlin ever wanted to hear. And it’s a bit heartbreaking to see the hope on Merlin's face, knowing all that is going to happen later in the series.

I also loved the previous interaction between Merlin and Edwin:

“It can’t explain love”!! He’s a romantic. He loves love 🥺🥺🥺

I think the writers lost sight of Edwin’s motive a bit by the time they got to the ending. He’s not content with just killing Uther, he also wants to… rule the kingdom? And he tells Merlin they can do it together? (a concept revisited in the Cornelius Sigan episode). I don't think it works well.

I think Edwin’s final evil speech would have been way more impactful if he had tried to appeal to Merlin’s empathetic side, instead of his non-existent thirst for power, and reminded him of all the suffering Uther caused and why he deserved to die. I guess that would be a moral dilemma that deserves more than a few minutes of screen time to be resolved satisfactorily, and we’re already at the end of the episode at this point.

The series does dwell on it in To Kill the King, to be fair, but I think the “why not just let Uther die?” dilemma could have been presented before then. (Merlin's momentarily hesitation at healing Uther at the end is more to do with his fear of being seen using magic by Uther than by an actual reluctance to save the king.)

Anyway. I still think this is a very good episode overall, even with its relatively weak ending.

Other random thoughts:

The random-ass reference to alchemy. Something that wasn’t elaborated on, nor ever mentioned again (??) Missed opportunity imo.

Gaius is made "a free man of Camelot", whatever that means. (Does it mean that he, like Merlin, is not from Camelot? Or is it some kind of special privilege? We don’t know. I think maybe in Love at the Time of Dragons Gaius mentions something about he and Alice coming to Camelot but I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered to check now)

Some excellent display of brotherly concern from Arthur when Morgana falls sick. He's the one pushing for Uther to call for Edwin. We love to see it

Merlin and Gaius all but call each other father and son. DON’T TOUCH ME.

Gaius was 100% ready to let Uther die if it meant saving Merlin’s life. btw.

Gaius and Uther. WHAT ARE THEY

All the heavy hints at Gaius’s acting as a Category Traitor in the Great Purge + the only instance of Gaius talking to Kilgharrah (!!!) I am obsessed with it

The paralles between Uther & Gaius and Arthur & Merlin. I feel absolutely normal about it

“Now, open your eyes, My Lord. I want my face to be the last face you ever see.” -> I don’t care if it’s cliched, this line fucks

MERLIN CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM, AT LAST!! I was starting to worry but finally my baby is back to killing people :)

Bearing another child was an idea I had locked up a long, long time ago, determined never to revisit again.

When my son Dillon was born, I knew right then and there that I had been blessed with the most perfect child. Though unplanned, my then-husband, Jayson, and I welcomed him with open arms and loved him with everything we had.

Dillon was the happiest little baby. Always smiling, always laughing, and barely ever fussed. Not with food, not with toys, not with anything. He liked to learn and explore, finding tiny bursts of happiness in things us adults have long since taken for granted. Our home was filled with his adorable little coos and giggles — the kind of joy we never knew we needed.

But his death... His death came too soon, and out of nowhere.

It was only supposed to be a cold. I mean, every child gets a cold every now and then, right? It would come, and it would go, and the children would go back to being children.

But when the illness came for my Dillon, they left with him, and took my entire world with them. And I haven't been the same since. We had never been the same since.

They say tragedy either brings people together or pushes them apart. Jayson and me? We didn't make it. Grieving for our son was too great a heartache to bear that we forgot we were going through the same hell. We blamed ourselves and each other for a situation that was out of our control. We were so full of anger and pain that we forgot we were supposed to be on the same side, comforting each other. We lost ourselves when we lost him, and eventually, we forgot we loved each other at all.

It was only a matter of time until Jayson and I decided to get a divorce. And since signing the papers, I've never looked back. I wanted to shut that chapter of my life, lock it up and throw it in the sea. I was determined to live life on my own. Never again would I get attached, this I promised myself. Never again will I have history repeating itself.

And it worked for a while. For years, really. And honestly, being a lone wolf wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. To distract me from my grief, I'd work day in and day out, building my business, my empire. I had everything I needed.

Or so, I thought.

Adrian was only supposed to be a one-night-stand. Just like the rest of the men I'd kick out of my hotel room before they had the stupid idea of sleeping over. But all it took was one night with him before I realised, he wasn't, at all, like the rest of them.

Adrian tore down the steel tower wall I had built around myself, bringing me out of my darkness and welcoming me into a life I never thought I deserved. He saw the monster that I am, saw the scared, broken woman at its core, and loved me fiercely anyway. And allowing myself to love Adrian back was the scariest concept, and biggest leap of faith of my life. But without a doubt, the best decision I've ever made.

It is because of him, and the home we've built together, that I felt safe bringing our little Serafina into the world. She brings us so much joy that my heart doesn't feel as broken anymore.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss my baby boy every day. I do, and I know I always will. If only he could be here and meet his little sister, I know he would love her with all his tiny little heart.

So, for him, for me, and for my Adrian, I promise to make sure our daughter is safe at all times, loved at all times, and protected at all times.

I refuse to relive my worst nightmare.

I refuse to lose all that I hold dear, ever again.

This is radically off-topic, but I wanted to share an observance that perhaps hasn't become reality for some of you yet, but maybe the forewarning will help you in the long run.

One of my favorite singers of all time died very suddenly virtually on stage this past october. He was quite young, considering, at 57, and there was no explanation for it other than Fate snappings its fingers to take him away (it was a sudden brain hemorrhage).

This man, at the heigh of his youth, was, I would argue, one of the most beautiful people to have ever graced this Earth. He was gorgeous. His eyes could stop an entire room in its tracks. While inside he seemed quite shy and retiring, he seemed to not help stepping into a space like he commanded it. When he left us, he was still beautiful- no question- but Time, of course, is obliged to do its damage and he was no exception. Truly, none of us are.

My father spent my childhood reminding me that growing older is a privilege not everybody gets, because the alternative to "not growing up" is being dead. Of course, he's right.

After we lost the singer I loved so much, I've spent a lot of time considering beauty, age, entropy, and death. I have thought about who might be next, and how hard it would hit me- would it be just as awful as losing *him*? Or could it be even worse somehow?

My singer's death was sudden, and getting the news straight from an old friend in Tokyo before I even got out of bed was simultaneously like being hit by a truck and having a comforting balm immediately applied. I wonder now if those who go like that, fade away suddenly in a couple of hours, gain the privilege of preemptively comforting others from the other side once the news gets out. This was my impression anyway.

But others we love from afar, be they other musicians or actors or who knows what, are less likely to exit this world so abruptly. My singer once walked this earth as a living, breathing work of art-made-flesh, and while he lived long enough to wilt just enough under time's heavy burden, we did not have to watch him truly grow old. We, as people far removed who loved him no matter the year, were spared that mental dissonance, but the price was his life.

And so I have spent moments revisiting others I have loved since I was in school. The time has not even been that terribly great, in the grand scheme of things, but I have realized that the effects are inescapable. Not just on them, but also for myself. I look into the latest and rare ungarded photo of another I have loved so dearly and see the same wilting- another who walked and looked like a god and whose beauty we relished and appreciated for the living art he is. And I see the signs. It's around his eyes. The uptick of his mouth. And then I look in the mirror at myself, and I see, despite being so much younger, the same early hints of the price of living start to feather and touch my own body.

God willing he will make it to a far advanced age, but the price is losing human art. He will fade, and all we will have are photographs. But at least we will have photographs!!! What do I have for myself? Very little, if I am honest. I think about this sometimes, and wonder if it's too late.

Obviously looks are not the sum of a person, of course they aren't, and **this is not a post arguing that they are**. But they are the calling card and outward identity by which we recognize and interact with and cling to each other. For good or ill. We all walk this planet as unique pieces of art, and we all have individuals whose artistry we particularly love the most. In essence, that is what this post is about- admiration- and coming to the stark realization that, unlike paintings hanging in a museum, the living works of art we love have an expiration date. For myself, I have come to realize that facing the cognative dissonance of the Change is a jarring experience. Especially when it comes to musicians, we tend to cling to them during our worst times, especially as teenagers. They become Fixed Points in our psyches, and to suddenly become confronted with same-but-not-the-same, and god forbid death.....is this what becoming An Adult(tm) means? Not just having to watch what we love fade before our eyes but to also realize, like being thrown into a pool of ice water, that we are next? And that Time and Entropy have already begun to tee us up for our quickly approaching turn?

And so, as we began to love each other from a distance, god willing we will now age into the abyss together from a distance. I have often wondered if the truly elderly are sometimes happy for their turn to go because it at least means they can be reunited, one way or another, with those they also saw as dazzling paragons at their height who have since faded and gone.

This post is not particularly happy and likely comes off as a bit dark, but this is all to say, with my whole chest--- enjoy the era and the times you find yourself in. Enjoy and cherish and go see with your own two eyes the artists and others you love, now, here, as they currently are, while they are, in your mind, perfect. Time does not stop nor tarry for any of us, so you should not either. Don't wait to be with and look with admiration on others- or be too embarrassed to, either, for that matter- because this moment is so short, and soon this time will have passed and will be just a fond memory that you may wonder one day, just as I have done lately, where the ones you loved have gone. And perhaps you will also, like me, scream and cry and curl your fist at the ruthlessness of a universe that forces all of us into the same room together just so we can watch each other grow old and eventually die.

I wrote a short story once, after my grandfather passed ten years ago, about how life was essentially one big waiting room, not dissimilar to a doctor's office. There are toys to play with, magazines to read, sights to see outside of the window, but eventually the nurse will come in, call your name, and you will exit. I suppose I would add to this motif now the advice to don't forget to look around yourself either. Speak to the person sitting next to you. Admire the child and grandmother alike playing on the other side of the room. Tell the cute guy watching them you think he's hot- you'll likely never encounter him again so why not? Or who knows- maybe it'll go somewhere. After all, we are all stuck in this waiting room together. It may seem initially dull, but don't waste this chance. Admire everything with your whole being. This moment will not come again.

Finally finished my untitled Soushin poem I was working on in Doki Doki Literature Club Ceative Writing Club! I'm not good with trigger warnings, but this one is kinda heavy. Topics include implied/referenced abuse, unhealthy dynamics, codependancy, self blame-- typical Soushin but take caution anyway.

Anyway, hope you enjoy. This is for you, fellow Soushin lads.*Ahem*:

The rain beats against the window glass, haphazardly and random

To him it's nothing but mindless staccato, indistinct and humdrum

It's background noise; static fills his waning mind but he listens anyway

The clatter and chatter from the people outdoors has long faded away

It's silent now, save for the cacophony of sounds he takes in without a word

The melonchony orchestra playing the dismal soundtrack of his lonely world

Maybe ''lonely'' is a bit misleading

Does ''grieve'' really describe the emptiness he's feeling?

Those malachite eyes, a smile so sickeningly kind

digs itself out from the deepest pit of his mind

A constant, terrifying presence, day by day

A shadow glued to his side that never goes away

His face pales, his stomach churns-- he shouldn't miss him at all

Shouldn't think of the person he hung up his pictures on their wall

Should never revisit the laughter, the carnage, the violence

The way he let it all go on in ignorance and silence

It's over now, yet he goes through his days lost and dazed

Without purpose, without plans, without the answers he craved

His garden of hopes and dreams lays withered in the aftermath of that fateful fall

And as he ponders and wonders when life will once more flourish here he questions why anything ever withered at all

Sometimes, he recalls those eyes

soaking up his fear as he trembled and cried

Those loathsome hands, pulling, carressing, always on him, never gone

and that satisfied grin at the lack of resistance, the evidence he's won

Sometimes, he still misses him

That love and care, that person, that man

that weird, charasmatic stranger he grew to love when their friendship first began

That cursed scarf around his neck feels akin to a stranglehold

But he can only continue latching on to it, not bold enough to let go

It's a sickness, a plague, but it's his own

Too ravenous, destructive of an illness for one person alone

But it's just him now, alone in the dark

As he lifts his arm, gaze trailing fading marks

The permanet reminders of what he let happen without a fight

stare back him in indifference, the cold truth at its most unbearable at this hour of night

A laugh bubbles from his throat, and another, raspy and crass

As sharp and uninviting as shattered glass

What even was so funny? How utterly hopeless, utterly pointless the situation was?

But there was nothing left, and he laughed

And laughed

And laughed

As Sou is naturally my favourite character he has to suffer just as naturally (affectionate). I didn't plan to write something this grim, but I'm surprisingly alright with how this turned out. This is my first time writing a poem, so please be nice to me. And if you didn't like, then still be be nice. Thanks 👍

i've already seen you talk about this several times but i love it sm so please tell us more about dean getting soul-preggers

brother chef im so sorry for putting this off, I meant to answer this days ago RIP

ANYWAY the main explanation can be found from this ask if you wanna look there too but ill do another recap here

so the wip is basically: cas comes back from the empty, yay they get together, sexy times, emotional times and oops our emotions got a little too metaphysical and now some grace latched onto your soul and is currently forming a nephilim, and now we gotta do a spell, and finally end w some baby fun times. it combines a bunch of tropes and things I like and is overall interesting to me but who knows if it will ever escape the depths of google docs

I have a whole doc with a detailed map of how things would go in it but its unfinished but trust. if I revisit it its over for you all <3

🙃 please wish me luck for tomorrow, I have Yet Another Interview...I've been averaging about 2 a week for the last few weeks and I'm still only 60-75% done with this process. Not even counting all the outreach to set up other interviews in the meantime if these don't pan out. To say I am losing my mind is an understatement. I'm so tired. Trying to be kind to myself during all of this, since this is rather exciting and overwhelming and exhausting but waaughhhh, I'm ready to hibernate for a full week (if my brain would actually let me rest which remains a large problem...) My short term memory continues to be shitty. Forgetting to lock doors, turn off stove burners, I keep forgetting things folks have told me the previous day/week that I really should have remembered (lists are my friends but I keep forgetting to add things to my list). All very ADHD but really it's just... a lot of my anxiety about all this interview stuff. Wake up and it's the first thing on my mind. Last thing on my mind before I go to bed. It's taking up so much brainRAM. I have the myNoise app on my phone to help soothe ye old brainmeats in the evenings, at least. Anyway, amongst the fannish chittering in my brain that is not witcher-related: I remember reading about someone spinning Ted Lasso character's into the Star Wars universe and I could not track down the post. I can't even remember if I read it by someone on twitter, tumblr, or dreamwidth at this point. Or if I had imagined it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? hmm. Next my brain started thinking about Yellowjackets characters in the Star Wars universe and have determined that Misty Quigley would be an amazing secret pirate hunter who occasionally moonlights as a pirate. Next up: I'm almost done with the Disney era Thrawn trilogy reread (it's only taken me like two and a half months wtf) (next will be Heir to the Empire, wheeee). I'm pretty caught up with Grand Admiral Thrawn strategically instilling praise kink and loyalty in the people under his command. I also recently revisited A Black Lady Sketch Show's sketch: The Basic Ball in which I tried casting Ted Lasso characters mental illness/neuroses looks and then my brain melted out of my ears because of previously stated tired. But also my favorite Yellowjackets meow meows showing off their PTSD looks? Love. It.

I would like more brain to finish editing my Witcher wips, to start a few more wips--they're dancing in my periphery. And I'd love to have brain to paint again. To have energy for seeing friends. I'm quite sad I couldn't corral enough focus to finish my VidUKon vid in time for the deadline, but I can just try to finish it later.

Maybe soon I can reclaim some more brainRAM. Free it up from this interviewing stuff. Fingers crossed. 🤞