This comment on one of my recent posts pretty much sums up what I am going through as an american Jew.

My post was about the pain I have experienced navigating within my community and in leftist circles. It was about how I feel unsafe and hurt by people I thought were close to me. It was about how the escapism I was using to cope is being infiltrated by antisemitic rhetoric.

I was at a house show the evening of October 7th and people in my small leftist town CHEERED for the murder and rape of people like me. How am I supposed to feel safe knowing that lives like mine are considered disposable? That nobody would have cared if I was gunned down at a music festival, just because citizens in Gaza have it worse. That doesn't cancel out the fact that Jewish people everywhere are struggling. Just because it's not as bad as being in a war zone, doesn't mean that it's not real.

It's been said so many times that many things can be simultaneously true that I want to tear my hair out.

This is the ultimate gaslighting and so reductionist that I don't even know how to where to begin. The idea that we all lived together peacefully before Israel was established is bullshit.

If your response to suffering is to invalidate their lived experiences, make fun of them, put words in their mouth, or accuse them of faking it, you are fucked in the head.

Propaganda is working on you.

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

okay, so! @thebisexualpirate brought to my attention that I haven’t done a wip introduction for Groundhog Day for a while! so, to old followers that want a reminder, and to new followers just starting out, let me introduce you to the light of my writing life, Groundhog Day!

on a meta level, dual video games were released. Fields of Fara, a classic rpg fantasy, and Fara Falls, a more gritty counter-game. these games take place in lands that are almost the same, with characters that are almost the same. they are part of a larger set - the Fara Chronicles - in which every game model is based off of Fields of Fara.

on a level that is far more pertaining to the story, we follow a motley cast of characters within the confines of their two versions of Fara, as their games glitch up horrible, and they are set down a path no one expected.

a long time before the story begins, the First Glitch descends on the world of Fara. at this point in time, the kingdom loses their king, their prince, and their princess...and in her grief, the Queen takes off to lands unknown, trying desperately to hold her HEART together, and leaves the kingdom in a state of disarray. so when Midnight, a queen from lands forgotten, comes to offer her aid, they happily hand her the crown.

and for a time, all is well. at least, that’s what the masses think. but then the First Glitch evolves, and suddenly, the time loop that the kingdom is trapped in can be remembered by more than just Aba, the plant elemental forced into a villain’s role. suddenly, Blue, a paladin that doubles as a Royal Scientist, can remember the loops, too. and, suddenly, more glitches are cropping up all over the land.

this is where the story begins - with a new glitch, one that sends Blue into the neighboring game of Fara Falls, and his counter part, Red, into Fields of Fara. what follows is a race to get home before Blue meets his Game Over that quickly turns into something else, as new bonds are made, family is forged in coding and Hope, and a New War threatens to shake Fields of Fara to its very core.

who’s the cast?

Queen Midnight, of Fields of Fara: the most beautiful woman in all the lands, and a refugee from Twill, a land deleted during the Beta Wars. she seeks to turn Fara into a utopia, where no one ever ages, where no one ever dies, and will do anything to preserve her kingdom...even kill off half of it.

Blue: a paladin in Fields of Fara that works as a scientist in the Royal Labs, helping research the Code of the World and, in his free time, studying the multi-verse theory. hit by a glitch that has him at one HP indefinately, fighting is far from his mind. he can summon Looney Tune style black holes to cross throguh the Void.

Locke: a knight-in-training from Fields of Fara, and the Goodest Good Boi in all the lands. he’s dating Blue, and they’ve been living together for years. fights with bone magic and fire magic. has a thing about killing, and is always looking for the best in people.

Motti: one of the Butterfly People from Fields of Fara, and Blue’s lab partner. she’s a tired little worker moth that doesn’t have time for any of this bullshit.

Flame: a fire elemental and the general for the Fields of Fara Royal Guard. he’s a war hero from the Delta Wars that drinks too much and lives alone with his bird dragon, Wrinkles. his loyalty is wrapped up in too many promises, and he’s something of a personal mentor to Locke.

Polynya: a water elemental and captain of Fields of Fara’s Royal Guard. she’s the Queen of the Seafire and led the guard through the Delta Wars. she will do anything not to have to fight in another war. dating Ginia.

Ginia: a plant elemental that runs a flower shop in the Capitol. she was a paladin during the Delta War, and now dates Polynya. during the story, she’s wrangled into the position of Royal Gardener.

Aba: the first character to be caught in the glitch. his coding has been altered by Kee, forcing him into a plant elemental state, as well as changing his title from HERO to VILLAIN. near fifteen years of dying and loops has left his mental state altered, his HEART damaged, and his code fractured.

Kee: the villain. don’t trust her.

other people of note in Fields of Fara include Miss Denna, Razzle, Cordial, Cocoa, the Collector, the Butterfly People, and the Witch of the Woods!

Queen Midnight, of Fara Falls: lost to her Level, she is a fracture of her former self, twisted and bitter and violent. she rules the kingdom with an iron fist, and hosts balls that double as executions. her Level is 100.

Red: a paladin who lost his magic due to a head injury when he was younger, he’s been living with Bolte since they were just kids. he’s a fixer, of clothes and flesh, and tries his best to patch Bolte up when he comes home bloody. bitter and filled with a lot of inner turmoil.

Bolte: the General for Fara Falls’ Royal Guard, a knight that fights with bone and fire magic. with a Level in his 30s, and a lot of scars under his belt, he’s traded in his Goodness and Hope for the world, in favor of keeping Red alive. would burn the country down for Red. very brusque. comes off as an asshole.

Captain: head of the Royal Guard, a crocodile woman with more scars than scales. missing an eye, and with a booming voice, she cuts an intimidating figure. very close with Bolte, and biding her time until she can over throw the Queen.

Celeste: the genderfluid spider bard that runs the Casino, and a host of other illicit activities. sometimes snacks on people, with a flair for fashion and a strange fondness for Blue. they’re better than you.

other people of note in Fara Falls include Denna, Castor, Rattcliffe, Anna, and the Corrupted!

a brief glossary of terms

HEART: the physical embodiment of your life force

Game Over: dying

Inventory: an endless space where you can store items

EXP: points gained for killing someone

Level: the weight of your HEART

finally adding my tags to this! going through the “Tag later” tag oops

@writings-of-a-narwhal @elaynab-writing @writersloth  @cometworks @deadlyessencewhispers @nora-wrote-a book @georgiacambrielwritblr @rmorada  @drabbleitout @inked-foundry @srazar  @salvasti @a-place-of-babble @lady-redshield-writes@ohlooksheswriting@bookish-actor @indecentpause @kobalt-ink @marniebalboa @carmenwrites @quilloftheclouds @shadeshadow234  @ethilite @livvywrites @maple-writes @writings-of-a-narwhal @krisseycrystal @writting-with-you @inkpot-dreamer @thebisexualpirate @caitwritesstuff @dove-actually @writersloth @writing-with-roses​ @tabbykatwrites @leave-her-a-tome @antique-symbolism

I will express this coherently at some point but to summarise;

this became longer than anticipated.

some common criticisms of the finale and why I politely think that, for the most part, they’re (respectfully) fucking wrong

what was the point of the whole show if not the Targaryen storyline?! The ascension of House Stark. The entire series is about the ascension of House Stark. How Bran the Broken’s forefather rejected the throne and died a traitor, like his fathers before him; how Arya escaped King’s Landing and returned as (however which way, or accidentally) a lauded hero, there to save others; how Lady Stark, who was mercilessly abused at the hands of Joffrey and held accountable for the sins of the Lannisters butchering her family, took forward their cause and everything that they died for. Love. Respect. Honour. The North. I’m fucking fine ok no I’m not my baby I’m emOTIONAL

there were good parts but it was a shitty ending! so anti-climactic! It’s the final episode. The penultimate episode of GoT is always the big one; the dramatic fight, the huge scenes. The ending is always quiet. It’s always about the aftermath. The but what is the result of that? That’s the GoT structure. GoT is about politics, human nature, cunning. If you expected anything more than that in the final episode of the final season, you haven’t been paying attention.

Drogon didn’t kill Jon! The argument that Drogon has always showed slight (albeit significantly less than with Dany) deference to Jon; we see he’s wary of him and I guess we all knew that when it came down to it, it would take something fantastic for Drogon to allow Jon to ride him, but we see it as Jon enters the castle and in multiple scenes throughout the season. Him not reacting to Jon isn’t well explained, but there’s an argument there that Drogon senses Jon is at least part Targ. And fire cannot kill a dragon.

what was even the point of Jon being a Targaryen if he’s not king? ... All of it. He chooses to be a Stark first. He denounces fire and blood. He denounces his own free will and choices, even if it means saving whatever remainder is left of House Stark. This is about the rise of House Stark. It always has been. Their suffering, their loss, their triumphs. I can’t remember when, but i remember posting once that as much as fans argue otherwise, we travel with the narrative. Our two narrative threads, that we’re led to follow as an audience, are the Starks and Daenerys. Jon symbolises that; more than that, he IS that. He is us in that world. The world isn’t that simple. Also, he goes down in history as the man who saves Westeros.

they played us with Dany. Right. No, they didn’t... And yes, they did. Her storyline has been there from the start. The schism between dual supporters of House Stark and House Targaryen only started around season 7, which was when Daenerys conveniently started exhibiting behaviour that indicated she wasn’t as stable as we’d been led to believe/before. I’m not anti-Daenerys, but there have been breadcrumbs this whole time. I’d go so far as to say that the writers probably overestimated the intelligence of their audience; that’s not me being abrasive, that’s fact. The nuggets people looked for in earlier seasons is based on source material. The nuances people enjoyed became ignored for the ‘bigger picture’ - but everyone assumed what that was based on the monolith that the show became (past tense! urgh), not on what the show has always been/was meant to continue to be this season. Was it poorly written? Yes. Absolutely. I felt betrayed by the voice over in the penultimate episode. It was lazy and shoddy. I may not like what Daenerys has become, but she deserved so much more. Also, there was a lack of consistency. This episode highlights her belief in her own benevolence and yes, it’s meant to be ironic and show us how stupid we’ve been - with Jon - and I would’ve respected it more if she’d been written to stand by her fury. But she’s also not her brother. She will purposefully not act that way whilst ignorant to her own faults. She’s delusional. I could write a whole essay on Daenerys’ mental health (did the show write it as misogyny? Yeah, I see it. Is that the basis of her character’s madness as a narrative? Um, no)

what the fuck was Tyrion’s speech? The writers assumed the audience was smarter (in their sense of the word) than they are. So they spelled it out for us, just in case. Clunky, lazy, etc? Yes. Fitting for that scene? Also yes.

lol the episode was so bad, the only good part was Jon petting Ghost It now makes sense why they didn’t have the budget for two Ghost scenes (you know about 70% of their CGI budget went on Drogon in this episode). There’s a reason for that; the season structure of GoT so far [see above], and the reminder of the true theme here - House Stark’s rise [see above]. Jon is at home in the North. At the Wall, he’s not a Targaryen, or a Stark; he’s Jon. It’s the only place where he can be just that. And that includes being half a Stark (ironically, the only consistent thing in his life), but not only that. Does it make relatively little narrative sense to have the Unsullied be invited to stay in Westeros, just to demand Jon is made a prisoner and then leave? True - but the point is, the door is kept open. That’s life. People move, people change, cultures adapt. The Unsullied are now a part of Westeros, no matter how far they go. Plus, Jon in the Wall... Knowing Bran knows the future... urgh, I see it. Poor writing, badly executed (props to the actors and production teams for doing a fantastic job with the material given), but I see the point being made.

the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives - what bullshit! Incorrect. Everyone assumes that’s meant literally; that’s only in times of war, that it’s literal (which is why it’s all we’ve seen so far; it’s eight seasons of war  against the Starks, or involving them). They are together. They are united. They are safe and they are happy. Personally, it’s all I’ve ever wanted from this series. I see others’ disappointment, I do. But Sansa is home. People saying she’s lonely and suffering the burden of ruling... No. Yes, she’s alone. But she’s not lonely. She’s home. With people who love her. With not just her father’s and forefathers’ legacy behind her, including in rebellion against the Targaryen’s for independence of the North/the ‘greater good’; but her mother’s and Robb’s, too. She’s always been somebody else’s. “x’s wife”. “x’s assistant”. “x’s chess piece”. Like Jon beyond the wall, she is just Sansa Stark in Winterfell. Like Jon, it was a legacy she craved - a home - and now she has it, without being the forced bystander she was as a child. Same with Arya. She always wanted to be free to do as she pleased, without losing her identity. House Stark is no longer against the world, fighting to survive. It has. They are a family. Your family aren’t dictated by who’s closest to you. They have survived. They’re not alone. This is the beginning of the series whilst it isn’t, because what’s changed? They know their loyalties lie. The pack must always survive. They have. They know that, after this, no matter what, they always will.

I could go on for hours but you get the point.

It wasn’t the greatest season. My favourite will always be seven. But that finale was one of the best episodes this season, because, as much as it may not feel like enough, it tied the strings relevant to the story it set out to be; which was ALWAYS about House Stark. 

The promo? Of their statues in Winterfell’s crypts? They bury their old selves. They become someone unrecognisable, born from who they were at the beginning.

But the point remains, they are, and always will be Starks first. Daenerys will always be a Targaryen first. You cannot escape your family. You can try and do better, but you can never escape who you are and how who that is affects you.

I fucking love it. Everything else can - bad pun intended - burn. The story this was meant to be got its ending. The stories in between may not have and that’s dissatisfying; but the ending to the original story was there.

Angerme in Paris: the AG account, pre-concert

So by most reasonings, Americans shouldn't have gone all the way to Paris just for a single concert, when that money could be equally spent on a Japan trip, instead. Nonetheless, I managed to get two friends to join me for this concert, so long as we had Premium tickets. I'm still very peeved that American Airline shenanigans on the day the flight tanked my schedule, so that we might have been able to meet the girls on Saturday at the Eiffel, except that I ended up arriving late. Ugh. Pre-concert camping: morning At any rate, we decided against hitting up the La Cigale area on Saturday. The policy set out by 33Degrees, the agency arranging the concert, was that fans would received a numbered bracelet by staff at 10:30, so that they wouldn't need to camp afterwards. So we arrived around 7AM on Sunday, only to find that there were already 70+ people in line. One of the women towards the start of the line, a local fan, had started an informal "sharpie on hand" numbering system, and the count had begun with fans that showed up the previous night. Later, we would learn some of those that had gotten sharpie numbers the night before didn't actually camp overnight, but left and came back way later, which is kind of bullshit. As more people showed up and received sharpie numbers, there was more mingling between the people in line. There were french fans, Japanese fans, Korean fans, (there was a group behind us of Japanese and Korean people that got into a Kpop discussion lol), and relevant to us English-speaking Yanks, UK fans, who we eventually hung out with the most. Of the three of us, two were based on the JPHIP forum, while the other was based on MM-BBS, so at one point we also hung out with a local MM-BBSer. Local fans also handed out sheets with the lyrics to Taiki Bansei and Tomo Yo's choruses on them, for us to sing along with during the concerts, as well as offering pink glowsticks for us to use during Kananan's intro MC for her birthday. Very sadly, I did not manage to snag a TTZZ CD that one of the J-fen were handing out. But we did all sign the Kananan birthday banner. I wrote that since Kananan was now 21, she should come to America to drink alcohol. One of the great incidents was that people had brought some signs of their oshi loyalty, which include the dual-member towels Angerme recently sold, so at one point a Kassa-oshi with the Kassa-Moe towel found 3 other people, including my friend, with the same towel, and there was much "YASS KASSA OSHIS" (except one of them was a Moe oshi lol). There's nothing like sharing fandom terminology to bridge the language gap, as I made a joke that my friend was a DD and we were all like "OOOOOOH DD LOL" together. Another funny bit was that when the Angerme Paris concert goods list came out, we were all pretty aghast at how shit the T-shirt design was: just a white T-shirt that said "Angerme at Paris La Cigale June 3rd 2018" or something in a hideous red font that might actually be worse than Comic Sans. Some fans reacted by printing "Angerme at Paris Bonjour Baguette Croissant Or Something" on paper and taping it to their own T-shirts as a parody, hah. Still better than the actual design. A member of Amaitsuki, the cover dance troupe that would be the opening act for the concert, served at the staff member who relayed instructions for passing out the bracelets in both French and Japanese. Inevitably, there were assholes cutting the line when the bracelets were actually handed out. Ours were about 10-13 numbers behind what sharpie numbers we had received. Honestly, this is still about 1000x more orderly than the bullshit that always happens at idol concerts in America, but the UK fans kept griping about how UK queuing is so much more orderly and that this kind of thing always happens in France, hah. One UK lady in particular with a sharpie number in the 100s used that to justify getting her bracelet in the 80s along with us, lol. I believe there were 250 or more Premium attendees. As we were finishing up receiving our bracelets, a Japanese fan came up to the local MM-BBSer and asked her how to say "Kekkon shite kudasai" in French, so he could tell his oshi that in the handshake, LOL. She had to write it for him in katakana. It was awesome. And then we went off to do our own thing. Pre-concert camping: afternoon The concert was scheduled for 8PM, the time for when the doors wouldn't open was never announced, but both in the document explaining the bracelet system, and at the tiem of handing them out, we were told to come back and line up at 4:30PM. As we got back close to that time, my group just missed the girls entering the side entrance of the theater. (There are Youtube clips of it, though) But, other than as a time for when the girls would arrive, telling us to line up at 4:30 was really bullshit, because they didn't let Premium in until 7:00, so that's over two hours wasted camping when we didn't need to, since we had bracelet numbers, especially when the temperature outside was the in the high 20s°C/mid-80s°F. Yeah, we were all pretty gross and sweaty when the time rolled around. So once they moved the Premium line from the avenue island to actually against the theater exterior wall, we still waited for probably another half hour. At this time, we three Americans (possibly the only three Americans there) were all in line with this one UK fan, and a group of Japanese fans behind us. I think we freaked the J-fen out with the depth of our knowledge, with all of the memes and terminology we were spouting that they could understand amongst the english. This included ranting about Ichioka Factory and much joking about and stressing out over what we would say to the girls at the handshake, such as doing the viral Satoyama Murodance for Murotan, busting out the Happy Summer Wedding CONGRATULATIONS to Dawa about her graduation, and such. I could hear the Japanese fans reacting to what we were saying, especially when at one point I snarked about how Dawa was leaving, that bitch, and they were like "Kowai!!!"

HOCUS POCUS!

Pick a card, any card…

 Snape, visibly losing patience: “All right…”

Little Donny Dumblefuck: “Five of clubs!”

Snape: “Holy Hufflepuff, are you kidding me!? Are you fucking kidding me!?  Even Weasley can manage this one for Slytherins sake!”

Little Donny: “OK, OK, let me show you the three cups and a chestnut…”

Snape: “You tried that one yesterday and I gave you three chances!  Exactly what can you do?”

Little Donny: “Well, I can make really stupid people believe anything I say…”

Snape: “Oh really – and what is the incantation may I ask?”

Little Donny: “Fake News!”

 Yes, Little Donny wasn’t much of a wizard, and failing that, a pretty inept and lazy magician, but he was blessed with a really stupid and gullible audience.

 I knew we were in trouble early on in this nightmare administration when I first heard blond bimbo/magician’s assistant, Kellyanne Conway, use the phrase “alternative reality” - as in dual reality.  Now there’s a concept you don’t often hear mentioned outside of science fiction or quantum physics.

 But that’s all a little complex for the simpleminded, so like with so much about this merry band of fumblefucks, they had to dumb it down – hmmm, we need a catch phrase, something simple that even he can remember…GOT IT!  FAKE NEWS!

 Now most aspiring despots worth their salt, past and present, follow the first rule of creating an autocracy: control the media; the message to the rabble.  And when dealing with people a little smarter than the Trumpkins, you go with the direct approach: achieve military authority and neuter the free press by force, leaving only one unified, state run media outlet to carefully craft and control the propaganda machine (see N. Korea).

 Aww jeez, that sounds like a lot of work though - let’s just try this: whenever the king hears something he doesn’t like, something critical, or other than outright praise for his greatness, he simply says “FAKE NEWS!”

 “Hmm, I dunno… you think they’ll buy it?  Is anyone really that stupid?”

 “Come on!  Have you seen this crowd?  Hell yes they’ll buy it!”

 You can pick any of countless times over the last three and a half years that this has been proven true, so today let’s stick with the current topic on everyone’s mind – the Covid-19 virus.

 Last week I read a sadly horrifying and grim editorial by Timothy Egan in the NY Times (you know, that “failing” news outlet), which pretty much could be viewed as a report card on the U.S. response to the virus so far, and how our once great nation is now viewed by the rest of the modern world - I highly encourage you to read it.  Among the statistics sited:

 Within 1.3 million reported cases, the United States, just 5% of the world’s population, has 33% of the sick.  As we approach 100,000 deaths, we’re also at the front of the pack in that catagory.

 Globally, the average death is 34 people per million. In the United States, it’s more than six times higher – 232 per million.

 By the end of April, new cases in S. Korea were down to less than 10 a day.  In the United States at that time, the pandemic raged at a daily rate of more than 25,000 newly sick.

 And yet, here in the United States we spend more on health care, per capita, than any other modern, developed nation.

 Brief interlude here: even as I typed this recap, I thought, looking around today and reading the news - can we really still call ourselves the “United” States?

 But that’s another story – meanwhile, this cheap shyster with clown hair and more than a few parts loose in his dusty cranium continues to insist his government has done a “spectacular job” with the Covid-19 pandemic.  “And I’ll tell you, the whole world is excited watching us because we’re leading the world.”

 What – in doing a shitty job?

 So again I have to ask myself, as I have so many times during this sham of an administration: “How does he perform and maintain this level of mind control without some mass hypnosis, or serious pharmaceuticals in the drinking water?”  How could anyone continue to put their faith in this petulant, narcissistic moron who at any given moment can state that “I never did that”, or “I never said that”, when every one of these incidences of ignorance and buffoonery are filmed and recorded, broadcast for all to see daily?  You’re the fucking president, not the schoolyard gossip. Everything you say and do concerning this country is recorded!   No, this isn’t an episode of one of your reality shows, where we can creatively – and I mean creatively - make sense of it later in the editing suite.  

 Throughout most of January, Captain Assclown wasn’t even mentioning the virus, until finally, on the 22nd, when he proclaimed “We have it totally under control.  It’s one person coming in from China.  It’s going to be just fine.” By mid-February it became something that “will go away by April”, magically dissipating like old snow with the spring warmth.  On the 24th it was “Very much under control in the USA…”  He also tweeted, “Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”  While addressing a group of African American leaders at the White House on the 27th, he once again turned into a mystical Nostradamus, saying, “It’s going to disappear.  One day – it’s like a miracle - it will disappear.”  

 In Charleston, N.C. on the 28th, at his last Trumpapalooza RA-RA Rally (before the shit really hit the fan and lockdowns started) his rabid, red meat crowd was told the whole thing was simply the latest hoax, perpetrated by the Dems to finally bring him down.

 “Watch the tiny hands closely – nothing up my sleeve, aaaaand Abra Cadabra, GONE!”  

 Watch out though, remember who’s driving the car! Hang on!  In mid-March famous demolition derby driver Donny Crash, who insists on not wearing a helmet, comes out with this head-spinning, WTF gearshift moment: “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

 Sigh - you can’t make this shit up.

 How about a current assessment, Crash?  Glad to! Just last week (May 8) Donny tells the press, “I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests.  This is going to go away without a vaccine.  It’s going to go away and we’re not going to see it again.” Wow…

 Is there anything this sack of soggy, mashed French fries with clown makeup could say that would make his followers pause and think, “Hmmm - I don’t know about that one…”?  If he said the Earth was flat, would they believe it?  

 Oh, never mind – we all know the answer to that.

 This goes way beyond loyalty to a person or a party; it’s much closer to zealous and blind religious fealty.  This high priest of pandemonium and bullshit once again has absolutely no plan or clue; he makes decisions about this country like he’s approaching an All-U-Can-Eat fast food buffet: “Let’s see, gimme a Whopper first, and one of those fried pies!  No, nope, I’ll take the bucket of chicken with the mashed potatoes!  Nooo, wait a minute!  Give me the jumbo McDonald’s fries, yeah, that’s it!  DOH, I changed my mind, I want the McNuggets first! Yeah, gimme the McNuggets!  OH, OH, what are those, over there behind the chicken!?”

His thoughts randomly bounce and pop around erratically in his head like farts in a bathtub.  His brain is a broken pinball machine with a dozen paddles and no hole.

 And I can think of no better example of his fans than a quote I recently read from washed-up actor who hasn’t been in a decent movie since 1972’s “Deliverance”, Jon Voight – who surprise, surprise was last November awarded the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities by the White House.  That’s right my feeble-minded minions – say something flattering about me and you might just get a shiny prize!  Or maybe even a job on my team!  For some reason there always seems to be an opening…

 So let’s crack that Trump loving skull, raise the hood, and take a peek at the gears, hoses, wiring, and pistons that drive your average everyday Trump acolyte:

 “We see President Trump as a magnificent soul, raising up this nation… He will go down as the historic president of this millennium. He will be etched in stone with a gold medal, a hero and a president of the United States who won the battle. The war of 2020.  He is Donald Trump.  God bless.”

 I rest my case.

Fuckstrology: Pisces Play

Helios– Is it wet in here or is it just me? Oh, wait no- It’s Pisces. Sign of dreams, delusions, and fantasy, Pisces is always chasing some ephemeral love and is completely unsatisfied with anything less than a transcendent experience. An orgasm that doesn’t shake them to their very soul just won’t do. Then again, sex to Pisces is almost… not worth it? No, your typical Pisces is far more about the connection that they have with you. While with Geminis you have to bed their mind first, Pisces you have to win their heart before you get anywhere else.

With Pisces, it’s always best to be sort of simple. Pisces love direct people, they shine out to them like a lighthouse guiding them in off the chaotic seas of this confusing world. The more that they can understand you and feel like they know you, the better. The best example of Pisces that I know comes from the movie 500 Days of Summer. The titular character is Zoey Deschanel, and she plays a dreamier, more manipulative version of herself. There is this whole bit about her having this big, secret world that only she resides in, and it keeps her safe from the world. All Pisces have this. If they feel like they can find a refuge in you than you will be their one person in the world that they trust, and share everything with. Obviously that can go very wrong very quickly if it is not mutual.

In fact, Pisces gets used and abused more than any other sign (except maybe Cancer), but truth be told it happens so much that they start to enjoy it. Pisces has all the fun kinks (don’t tell Scorpio!) like the B and M parts of BDSM, Slutty Nurse and sexy doctor, Pirates… any kind of roleplay, really! Pisces also rules porn in general, and they LOVE making sex tapes. Strippers and any other fantasy work is squarely Pisces, and boy howdy do they love making your dreams come true!

Now, I have never actually had a significant relationship with a Pisces, so I can’t quite call this sign a failure yet. I have, however, had more than my fair share of almost-loves with Pisces; Situations that came close but never actually became more than sparks. If that’s not Pisces in and of itself, I don’t know what is. There’s the makeup artist gamer guy who timing and distance didn’t really allow me to be much more than fuck buddies with (even though I wanted more), the stunningly gorgeous work wife who very nearly became something awesome before the Aqua ex (#3) ended up getting me fired (thanks homophobia and lack of federal protections!), and the beach bum from my high school days who washed up into my DMs randomly and we were flirting without me even realizing he was into me…. I could go on. None of them truly became more than a dream though, to varying degrees of unfortunate.

Artemis- Oh Phucking Pisces, this is going to be easier than shooting fish in a barrel.  Pisces, ruled by the king of illusions (that would be Neptune), is quite the magical sign.  One could even say so magical they are “charming.”  They make you feel special, like you are the only one in the world and you are somehow living in a strange and seductive fairy tale (similar in some ways to Libra).  You meet them and you instantly feel enchanted, and even the shy Pisces exude a sexual energy that they may not be aware of.  There is no imagination like a Pisces imagination, and they will construct a world so real between the two of you that you will begin to wonder if in fact it really does exist… or they really do exist?

There are two types of Pisces – the bullshit believers and the bullshit artists.  Either way, there is a lot of bullshit involved.  Here’s the thing – all Pisces begin to believe their own bullshit at some point, but a good majority of Pisces will believe your bullshit, too (unless they have something in their chart negating this – like a Mercury in Capricorn). Unlike their fellow water sign, Scorpio, who wont let you in without vetting the fuck out of you first, Pisces is extremely likely to fall in love with someone new every single day.  Love is just so fucking exciting for them, and every Pisces – whether they admit it or not – is an extreme hopeless romantic. And each new love encounter is like their very first, bringing love songs and glittery eyes for days to come.  They are also notorious for having chronic whip lash – I mean, dat ass, amirite?  More than anything, Pisces wants to live in a state of awe and constant seduction.  The Bullshit Artist Pisces are one of the prime seducers of the Zodiac.  No one can lay game like a Pisces.  They will be able to intuitively pick up on your personal fantasy, and they will act it out to perfection.  This can be quite fun (if you are into an element of fantasy), or it could be extremely off putting for people who are looking for extreme genuineness.  But, then again, Pisces is extremely genuine about not believing in an objective reality!  So, if you aren’t a story teller or fantasy oriented, Pisces may not be your game.

Do you want to seduce a Pisces? Tell them what a tortured individual you are! They will eat that fucking shit up. Pisces have a habit of taking in the wounded.  They want to heal their lovers (they like to play nurse like Virgo), so the damaged are usually their first choice for relationships. But Pisces, being a mutable sign, also has a problem with losing themselves in their lover’s problems and descending further into their depressive behavior. So strong boundaries with a Pisces are necessary not just for you, but for them too.  All of that incredible emotion that allows Pisces to be the intuitive, passionate artists that they are also brings them into the darkest layers of the void.  You will have to be able to deal with the immense amounts of emotional purging that is necessary for Pisces in order for them to continuously transform.  If you can keep up the pace, and give them a beautiful enough story to create with you, you will feel like gods crafting your own universe – growing stronger and more volatile as the days pass.  If you can’t keep up with them, prepare to become a major part of their depression.  You need to push your Pisces lover to create – both in their artistic life plus in the bedroom.  If you aren’t exploring each other like an astronaut exploring a universe, and if you aren’t constantly seeking new ways to open emotional depth, Pisces will grow bored, depressed, and restless.  They don’t find commitment and loyalty sexy like Taurus/ Scorpio/ Capricorn/ Cancer. They find romance sexy – so keep it alive.  If not, Pisces are notorious cheaters (unless they have heavy earth in their charts).  They get swept up in romantic situations so fully they may forget where they are and who they are, so of course they aren’t going to remember you! But when their emotions aren’t getting the better of them, Pisces can be tremendously thoughtful and sensitive to your needs.  This dual nature makes them extremely frustrating, unless they can find a lover that can help them gain control over their emotional currents.   They must learn to surf their emotions instead of constantly drowning in them – holding their breath as each new wave topples them over into a brand new world – cutting ties with where they had just once been.

Pisces’ love a good use of imagination in bed. They want to play games, they love to roleplay (like their opposite, Virgo), and they are extremely open to trying new things (very much like Aqua). Pisces have an ethereal way about them. They can command a magnetic personality, or they can slide into the background completely unnoticed – this is a part of their mutable nature. This also makes it easy for them to ghost the fuck out of your life (yay mutables! this is why I drink, because of mutables). But if a Pisces has had a considerable love relationship with you, they will never be able to forget you. They aren’t like Aquarius who can say “you are fucking dead to me,” when the relationship is over and really fucking mean it.  A Pisces heart is like a haunted house with ghosts of ex’s past, which can be extremely annoying for lovers in their present. They will reminisce and will hold their lovers on a pedestal even if they were brutal toward them; all because they struck that deep, romantic cord with Pisces (and were probably a tortured individual Pisces tried to save).

But once Pisces realizes that there are plenty of fish in the sea, they become “Playful Pisces” or “Player Pisces” instead of “crying about my ex’s into an empty carton of Ben and Jerry’s Pisces.” We all know “Player Pisces.”  Yeah, that shitbag who will romance the fuck out of multiple women/men, go to a party where all of them are present and make out with someone new.  There is literally no room you have ever been in with this Pisces where a woman or a man doesn’t end up storming out balling their eyes out.  These are the Pisces who don’t realize that love is not a game, and professing false feelings is called “lying” not, “I was just having fun!”

“Playful Pisces” realizes the true potential of their intuitive powers.  I once knew a fully sexually realized Pisces who could command a room like a celebrity had just walked in it.  She had men shoving bottles of Pepsi up their ass just to be in her presence (did I mention she was a dominatrix?), and she would write the most amazing erotica I have ever had the honor to read.  She had a bit of an obsession with “obsession,” showing me how deep and far (haha) and all prevailing love could be.  She was truly a romantic at heart.  With her moon in Leo, she had a glorious red mane and eyes that were like pools of water lit on fucking fire.  She infused me with a sense of self esteem and enough confidence to leave a very sexually unfulfilling relationship.  Essentially, she knighted me into the kingdom of being both emotionally and sexually fulfilled and how important that is for an artist.  She taught me that a romantic relationship can also be heavily sexually charged, and that I didn’t need to take shit from anyone about who I was.  This Pisces knew how important the “story” was for lovers to surrender enough to ecstatic sexual states, and she constructed that story like a god damn orchestral production.

Speaking of orchestra, both of the Pisces I have been with have been musicians – and both have been singers (good lord, the irony).  Let’s call them “Pisces A” and “Pisces B.”  Both seemed to intuitively know exactly what I was looking for at the time (hookups as I had just ended serious relationships before each one of them).  Both had a dreamy quality to them that I could never quite figure out the source of.  One minute I would be conversing normally with them, smoking a blunt with one of them or taking shot after shot with the other, and then I’d be under them furiously making out with their pants unzipped and their hands up my shirt with me thinking, “WHEN THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?”  

Which actually just triggered a memory for me.  I have actually slept with 3 Pisces, one being the one and only dude I ever slept with.  Let’s call him “Pisces C”.  He was nice and sweet and considerate, and stopped when he knew it just wasn’t fucking working for me at all (I mean, I had my eyes glued shut and was literally fantasizing about women while it happened – I was probably cringing and he said he was turned off by how turned off I was LOL).  We laughed, smoked a joint, and I told him he had to work on his giving head game.  When he asked me why I slept with him, I told him I essentially wanted to put the question to rest in my mind once and for all and tell everyone who told me “just give it a try” to shove it, and I thanked him for not being a fucktard about it.  When my friends asked me about the situation, I told them (to famously quote the lesbian super model Gia), “I could have done that with a German Shepard.”  So, in a funny way, a Pisces taught me that I should follow my heart and actually fucking trust in it and my desires instead of succumbing to peer pressure.    

Ironically, I slept with all 3 Pisces after huge breakups in my life, and I was either extremely wasted or high during the process (because, you know, Pisces rules over intoxication).  Pisces A was extremely feminine and had a sort of Stevie Nicks vibe to her.  She was a barista at this coffee shop I frequented in New York City and was essentially one of those uber spiritual festival going girls who hula hooped with fire and sang in an experimental electronica band.  She would make it a point to make eyes and flirt very visibly with me every time I came in, but I never responded due to being in a committed relationship at the time.  Once my girlfriend and I broke up though, I engaged one day and asked her out on a date.  We ended up drinking a ton of martini’s one night and hooking up – though I barely remember much of it because of how many martini’s we both drank.  We continued a flirtatious back and forth for over a year after that, but never really hooked up again.  I guess I really enjoyed the idea of her, but I couldn’t stand the fact that I didn’t believe a god damn thing that came out of her mouth.  I mean, I wanted to believe, but every element of her persona seemed contrived – like she was attempting to construct this perfect fantasy for me instead of ever truly giving me her raw, true self.  So I dropped that shit.

Pisces B was an amazing musician with a deep spirituality that spoke to me on many levels.  We would spend hours up on hours working on music, cracking each other up, and delving into philosophy and mysticism.  She taught me how to construct music (something I was never taught by my musician father), and helped me get in tune with “past lives.”  She built up my self esteem at a time when I desperately needed it, and supported my art like a true friend.  We ended up hooking up after a long round of blunts, and although she was not necessarily the type of woman I go for (I am a sucker for the feminine women), she had a sexual energy that I could not deny and was in dire need of at the time.  Jesus, that’s a trend isn’t it?  Pisces being able to mutable their way around my usual type.  Anyway, this Pisces could command an audience (very much like my dominatrix Pisces friend).  She had women practically drooling in her presence, and my female friends were constantly asking me how they can find themselves in her bed.  Which, you know, got me thinking, “WTF am I, chopped liver?”  She had some of the most gorgeous, intelligent and talented women throwing themselves on her, and her music thrived off of this influx of sexual energy (she knows how to channel that shit).  Like, she literally fucking had groupies and you best not bring her around your girlfriend (you don’t want to learn that lesson).  Although Pisces B and I never found ourselves in a state where we ever would be in a relationship, a beautiful and strong friendship developed between us and we both shared our secrets of seduction and mysticism like two Queens in their own right.  To this day I consider Pisces B a strong influence on building up my self esteem – with divine and selfless love (ah that actualized Pisces!).

So yeah, Pisces can be slippery fucking slime-balls that will make you rue the day you believed in romance, or they can also raise you to new levels and heal you like a divine healer sent from the gods themselves.  It all depends on how they handle their own darkness and if they have found a sturdy enough anchor in their lives (like Pisces B and her music).  But no matter what, they want to know what’s your f-f-fantasyyyyy!

Fuckstrology: Pisces Play was originally published on Heretical Oracles