#Yield Inversion

[kevinmmiller]

The Beginning of the Return of Healthy Bond and Credit Markets in the United States 2025

I’ve been a devoted reader of James Bianco and his online postings on LinkedIn however I must disagree with his recent assessment of the current state of US Bond Markets, particularly with relation to the pricing and cumulative assets under management...

Photo by Masood Aslami on Pexels.com I’ve been a devoted reader of James Bianco and his online postings on LinkedIn however I must disagree with his recent assessment of the current state of US Bond Markets, particularly with relation to the pricing and cumulative assets under management in $TLT #ETF. A major United States Bond 20-Year Spread ETF, that is currently under the management of the…

[signode-blog]

Signs of Recession

In the complex world of economics, recessions are inevitable yet challenging events that can have far-reaching consequences on individuals, businesses, and entire nations. Recognizing the signs of an impending recession is crucial for making informed decisions and mitigating potential risks. In this blog post, we will delve into the key indicators and signals that economists and policymakers…

[rappaccini]

k third viewing and a notepad yielded a lot of thoughts re: remmick, musical motifs, the songs he's associated with and what they say about his character and the greater themes sinners uses him to explore: white saviorism, appropriation and assimilation, and how allyship and solidarity are often fleeting in the face of systemic pressure.

first of all, goransson establishes the vampire motif with the booming electric guitar, choir and bell. it always announces the presence of a vampire, from remmick revealing himself at the farm to mary getting caught to stack running out of the juke. it's dramatic, it's ominous, it's anachronistic (the electric guitar was invented in 1932, the year the movie takes place, and definitely didn't make it to rural mississippi yet), it's ancient, it has elements often seen in christian church music like an organ because of the colonization metaphor, and the feeling of religious ecstacy the vampires feel from being free of death and intimately connected to each others' memories and feelings.

but three other songs are associated with him: the rocky road to dublin, wild mountain thyme (called will ye go lassie, go? in the soundtrack), and pick poor robin clean.

the first glimpses of duality

the very first time we hear the rocky road to dublin is in annie's opening monologue about the filidh, the firekeepers and the griot. before we even hear the vampire motif, it's the human one, about being forced to leave home to escape hardship, and finding others who've been through the same (...and it isn't remmick’s voice, because he isn't a fili).

when remmick’s trying to enter the shack, the first sting of rocky road to dublin plays; it immediately identifies him as an irishman, and portrays him in a vulnerable and lonely light... as he is telling the sharecroppers about how he tried to approach the choctaw and they drove him away.

for context: the choctaw gifted the irish during their famine as a show of solidarity, and the famine is what sent most of the irish population modern irish-americans descend from to america. remmick is a gaelic pagan who is old enough to remember being colonized by the british, forced to convert to christianity, and he has coins from the middle ages at the latest. so he was definitely around when this gift was given in the 1850s. then after he migrated to america, he made his way south, and probably approached the choctaw to begin with because he would have remembered the solidarity they offered his people.

he probably did the exact same thing he did at the juke joint: was drawn to them by a fire-keeper, tried to offer them his 'gift' of immortality, and was driven out.

his nature is twofold: he cannot help but try to consume and assimilate people, because he can't change his nature as a vampire. but he also can't change his nature as a person: he keeps reaching out to people, asking them to let him into their family.

the movie literally defines vampires as creatures whose souls are trapped in their bodies. their souls by definition cannot be divorced from their monstrosity. they are not soulless, and they do keep their human desires, motivations and personalities. that's the scariest thing about them: that they do care, it isn't enough to change anything, and yet it still matters.

so honestly? he's probably not lying about how upset he is that the choctaw are hunting him. doesn't change that he definitely has it coming, or that he's playing 'vulnerable white man beset by savages' to get inside. still matters.

every time the rocky road motif plays in the film, it's when remmick is being sincere and his humanity is on display. it's the inverse of whenever we hear the heavy metal guitars of his vampire theme, which signal to us when he's being monstrous.

and we keep hearing those motifs close together throughout the movie because both sides of him are entwined.

when he first approaches the juke joint, the vampire motif closes out sammie's i lied to you performance... but when remmick gets to the front door to ask to enter, it's rocky road to dublin again.

the duality kicks in as he seeks to enter a community again-- he's here to change sammie and consume his talent. but the reason he's doing it is that through sammie, he has a chance at seeing his own people again.

this is the moment the story becomes a tragedy and it is all his fault. the ball's in his court and he's going to drop it.

because here's the thing: remmick does share a lot of similar experiences with the jukegoers. he does have empathy for them. he does understand the threat they're facing.

but he's going to blow any chance at creating true solidarity with them because he wants to insert himself into their group and be treated like a savior more than he wants to protect them by dealing with the existential threat coming to kill them all-- including him.

if remmick hadn't shown up at all or just kept walking, the klan would have killed everyone in the morning. even if smoke and stack shot them like they intended to, they would've regrouped and violently punished clarksdale's entire black population in retaliation. "if only the vampire never came at all everything would have been great" is a nice thought and i get why people are saying it... but it's simply not the reality they were dealing with.

if remmick had changed everyone (he wouldn't have; see: annie), the only place they could hide during the day together is the sawmill. which the klan was going to raid the very next morning. and if the kkk found a mostly-black integrated community of people who don't die when they're shot and are strong enough to threaten them, they would never have let them go even if remmick, bert and joanie were there. the klan would have burned the whole thing down and the vampires would have been trapped there because the sun's out.

if he only changed some of them, the plot of the movie ensues: the solidarity splinters, the marginalized people all turn on one another, and they kill each other before the klan even shows up.

the only way for everyone to walk out of this story alive is if the vampire does show up, but he respects their boundaries, approaches them with honesty about the klan coming to kill them in the morning, and offers to help them on their terms (he has the power to help them handle the klan without facing retribution not because he's a vampire-- because he's a white man). everyone could have left with their lives, the threat breathing down everyone's necks could have been warded off at no risk to the people most vulnerable to it, and remmick could have gained the trust of the community he's searching for. the entire tragedy could have been averted.

what i'm getting at is: the onus of destroying white supremacy is on white people but too often white people choose to let it remain intact so they can present themselves as a solution to it (while still reaping its benefits) rather than lose the privileges it does provide them.

that is what remmick is about to do. that is why this story is a tragedy.

the actual most racist song in the movie

pick poor robin clean is that duality rolled into a single song.

a vampire masking his violent intentions with a polite request to enter a safe place is represented metaphorically in the menace under a layer of goofy show music.

the performance is awkward and a little bit creepy because remmick can't hide how unnatural this music is to him, or how dishonest his intention is. he can't even keep his accent straight.

this is a song remmick probably appropriated from the kkkouple. it's an american folk song with roots in blues music (so, it would've been originally performed by black people) that was likely played in minstrel shows (yeah uh he dodged that second verse for a reason).

this song would have been appropriated by white people, for other white people, with the intention of humiliating black people for entertainment. sanitizing it cannot remove it from that context.

no wonder the juke joint was immediately repulsed by his act. except stack 🤡.

if anything, editing out the slurs but choosing to still perform it anyway shows that remmick does know what the problem with it is, but he still refuses to let go of it.

it's the same as scrubbing the racism out of the kkkouple, but still turning up to the juke with them anyway. remmick thinks he's special enough to be the exception, and to make anything racist he touches magically okay because of his influence, but that arrogance means he absolutely isn't.

he's a white guy who's more interested in performing allyship to gain access to a black space than being a genuine ally. that is what's happening here.

and that is why the whole thing's off the rails after this point. he wants to be a white savior so bad he'd rather let everyone (including himself) die than do something he won't benefit from and risk not being centered in the community he wants to join.

he wants them to be part of his community but he isn’t considering how he could be part of theirs.

and in context... he's here to "pick [sammie] clean" of his humanity.

but if he can't get sammie he'll still "be satisfied having a family."

(the original lyric is "having your family." even creepier.)

... and who does annie call "family" in that same scene? who does remmick immediately notice is the odd one out of the group? who comes out to talk to them? mary.

the first time he's completely sincere

when mary goes outside to talk to the vampires, she finds them playing wild mountain thyme.

this is the oldest song in the movie-- first written down in 1957 but with its origins dating back to the british isles in the 1820s. the only person who could possibly know this song is remmick. he brought it from home, and he's feeding it to the others through the hivemind.

it's a song that typically changes gender from "lassie" to "laddie" depending on whether men or women sing it-- but joan doesn't adjust the lyrics because when mary approaches, they're singing specifically to her, to get her to come to them so they can change her.

though it should be pointed out: they were singing before they even saw her. they were doing this for themselves. then they adjusted when they saw her coming.

it's a love song, asking the subject if they're going to pick wild mountain thyme-- an herb often worn at the time the song was written to attract a suitor-- and if the singer can accompany them.

the exact intent varies: is the singer simply offering companionship as they work on a shared goal, or saying they want to be the suitor and are checking if the subject's in a romantic mood? (and to a vampire, whose desire is all-consuming, is there a difference?)

and what's mary doing? trying to attract stack and prove her worth to him by approaching them in the first place.

the second verse is the singer telling the subject he'll give her all the flowers on the mountain. he is literally promising her all the love that's possible to give. and when mary turns, remmick will pour his consciousness into her, giving her all of himself.

and what's mary dealing with? a suitor who won't give her anything because he doesn't think he has anything to give, when all she wants is him.

(there are two more verses not in the film, but still on the soundtrack. they're here for a reason:)

the third verse: a promise that the singer will travel far, but always return with those flowers.

... and what was mary angry about just a few hours ago? smoke and stack traveling far away, and never sending flowers to her mother's funeral.

the fourth: "if my true love, she won't come / then i'll surely find another." sung by remmick, who wants to bring back his lost loved ones. who has been wearing a wedding ring since he first appeared. he references having had a wife to the kkkouple and lied about her being hurt by the choctaw to gain their sympathy... but was he lying about being married? did he loot the ring from a past victim? or was he married once, a long time ago? could his wife be one of the people he's desperate to see again?

(the final refrain does make it into the film:)

"we'll all go together" -- that promise of companionship. you're looking for love? so are we. let's look for it (and find it) together. through the vampire hivemind.

and mary wanted to leave with stack to be with him, but was denied the choice. she wanted to stay with the black community, but they pushed her away as she grew up. all she wants is for the people she loves to never leave her.

of course she sits down.

it's the first time remmick gets one of the jukegoers to listen to and appreciate him-- not by flashing money to get into a space that isn't meant for him, and waiting for a pat on the head for scribbling a slur out of the lyrics, insisting he doesn't see color and that he's One Of The Good Ones and that his racist friends are cool, actually. by playing something authentic to where he comes from, that speaks to a true desire of his.

there's a softness and sincerity to the performance that's completely missing in pick poor robin clean. that one was a stilted, uncomfortable routine because he didn't mean it. now he does.

shouldn’t be a surprise that another sting of the rocky road to dublin springs up right after, when mary and remmick reminisce about loss. the death of mary's mother means she has no familial link to clarksdale's black population anymore, so as far as she knows, once she gets on that train, she's never coming back and will live severed from her home and culture forever, unable to reach the people she loves ever again. he knows how that feels.

what he's offering mary is genuine and comes from the deepest part of himself. it also isn't enough.

the rocky road to dublin.

when rocky road to dublin finally plays in its full glory, finally sung out loud with full orchestral accompaniment and a dance circle, we see remmick at the height of his power.

and there is a Lot going on here that people are missing. this scene begins as one thing and ends as something entirely different. there's a whole narrative arc going on during this dance.

yes, he's having a group of almost entirely black people he changed against their will performing a song and dance relevant to his culture, with himself at the center. metaphorically, he's a white guy who lost his culture to assimilation centuries ago, who's been trying to recreate that connection by inserting himself into a black culture and using them to replicate his. and this is the moment he gets to do it.

yes, it's supposed to be a dark mirror to sammie's performance.

and i'm not gonna exclude people's readings of the scene as intended to resemble a kkk cross burning from afar, or a black mass. that was definitely on the creatives' minds and the former would absolutely be what smoke and sammie are thinking of when they see them from the doorway.

but even then, it's more complicated than that.

the rocky road to dublin is an irish ballad from the mid-1800s, which would've been the time of the potato famine, and when remmick would have likely traveled to america.

the song is about an irishman reluctantly leaving home to seek wealth, arriving in liverpool, an english city that was a port many irishmen passed through, being greeted with prejudice by the english, and being defended by other irishmen who made the same journey. it's a song about the struggles the irish people faced, that's also about the resilience and community one finds through enduring hardship together.

this is an experience shared by the black characters, particularly mary, smoke and stack: leaving home to seek wealth and better fortunes in arkansas and chicago, only to find more racism, which ultimately led them back to each other. remmick is relating to them on their terms again and mary and stack love it.

the number starts slow and sad, with remmick singing alone, reflecting how he's lived for centuries. the emotion in his voice is genuine: his yearning for a home he can never reach is palpable.

it's also when his irish accent is clearest (apart from when he's 'baptizing' sammie at the end). he's fully shaking off his cover of being a southerner from north carolina-- which was flimsy to begin with-- and loudly and proudly claiming an identity we later learn he was once abused and marginalized for.

(so much for assimilation wiping out your culture. it didn’t work on the black vampires and it didn’t work on remmick either.)

then it picks up and becomes lively. remember when delta slim finished recounting the lynching of his friend, and started humming to lighten the mood? same idea. same coping mechanism.

remember the first time rocky road to dublin plays in the film as the fili sings? it's like remmick’s trying to recreate sammie's performance and summon in his contemporaries through song on his own. right down to identifying who he is and where he's from right at the start of the song, and needing the support of a crowd to fully unleash his talent.

and the performances are framed as opposites: sammie's performance is bright, warm and packed with spirits in a safe, inviting place where everyone relates to his sound in their own way. remmick’s is cold, dark, outside under a thunderstorm, centered on performing the song in one way and full of space for spirits that never come. it's the difference between a kaleidoscope and a melting pot.

that probably has nothing to do with him being a vampire, since if being a vampire means you can't summon spirits anymore, remmick wouldn't be trying to change sammie in the first place. it's simply that remmick doesn't have sammie's gift. he never could have done it even if he were still human.

... but here's where it gets complicated: someone is answering him.

as the number progresses, the black vampires not only join in, but their voices build until they're the ones singing the climax, with their original accents and vocal styles bleeding back in. they start the song emulating his style, and end transforming it into their own.

regarding the dance itself: it's an irish jig for sure. but another form of jig was developed by black slaves in the 1840s, (edit: and the references to the ring shout pointed out here are definitely intentional in the structure of the dance). the dance is appropriation, assimilation and cultural exchange all at once.

an 808 beat rises in the music itself until it replaces the drumming.

(ludwig goransson scored both this film and black panther, which both use 808 beats in the main theme of the film's antagonist, who is a complex and tragic antivillain shaped by structural oppression into someone convinced he's breaking the cycle as he continues it. erik killmonger and remmick are absolutely in conversation with each other. they even both die at sunrise.)

to state the obvious difference between a physical drum and an 808 machine, one is an instrument performed in the moment by a human and the other's programmed. not a coincidence that the undead are being represented by the latter.

remember the vampire couples instantly resuming their romances from before they were turned? the white duo's accents returning after spending half the movie imitating remmick’s? mary immediately changing stack when remmick only wanted sammie, and leaving the barn battle when annie dies? stack being unable to hurt smoke even when the man who turned them is still alive? same principle. they're no longer mortal, but they're still the people they were before they were bitten and it only takes a short time for them to remember that. it's still them. the vampires aren't brainwashed, they have autonomy. the 808s aren't 'alive,' but that's still their sound. they are contributing to the music on their terms.

when do the vampires join in fully? when we reach the verse about... well. being packed into a ship with livestock, wishing you were dead and taken far from the home you never wanted to leave. they enter the song by relating the lyrics to their own experience with the middle passage.

that verse isn't in the film, but it was left in the ost for a reason.

the final verse of the song is where the vampires join in during the scene. it's about the protagonist arriving in that hostile territory, and finding community when his countrymen "[join] in the affray" because they recognize him as one of their own and want to defend him. the final layer of instrumentation is added as all the vampires have committed to joining remmick’s upcoming conflict with the juke joint survivors.

it's by this time that everyone's rushed into the circle to dance with and embrace remmick. he isn't alone in the center anymore, singing into the void, clinging to his culture in isolation.

edit: he even steps aside to let them have the limelight and hypes them up in an alternate cut of the scene. the footage didn't make it to theatrical, but it was shot, meaning it was intended for rocky road to be a lot more mutual than people give it credit for. remmick likes when they express themselves on their terms and he's willing to make room for them. he’s not lying about seeing them as family.

the whole routine takes on this feeling of a war circle psyching itself up before they head in to do battle. note the emphasis on "hunt the hare" and singing "cut a stout blackthorn for to banish ghosts and goblins?" as the juke survivors are currently sharpening wooden weapons to banish the evil spirits that are right outside? the vampires are hyping themselves up to commit more bloodshed, and letting their victims know 'we're outside, we outnumber you, your weapons don't scare us, and we're coming to kill you.' i lied to you was the power of community at its best. this is community at it's darkest.

in the same way the vampires' personalities and culture are starting to reemerge from the irish/white hive mind-- because the music is bringing it out of them-- remmick in turn is accepting black culture into irish culture. for the first time, he's letting them in, instead of asking them to let him in. (remember how one scene later, he's speaking perfect chinese to grace? the connection runs both ways and he's embracing that for the first time.)

the melding of the irish/scottish folk tradition and african-american beats and spiritual melodies, aka the components of country and blues, is how rock music was made. to go even further… we have rhymed poetic speech with a percussive and quick vocal delivery, lyrics discussing enduring institutional oppression, an electronic drumbeat and an emphasis on a dance style featuring a soloist surrounded by a circle of supporters hyping him on: it’s prehistoric hip hop. they can't go in to the party so they tried reinventing the blues outside but ended up making something new.

and to point out the obvious, much in the same way the electric guitar (remmick’s vampire motif calling card) wasn’t around yet, neither was the 808 machine (now the black vampires have one too). it's a summoning circle, but instead of successfully bringing back the past, they stumbled across the future. one where they do find solidarity. they can't reach their ancestors and they've given up passing their culture on to their descendants, but they aren't alone at all and there is community here.

we witness a full narrative arc to the vampire coven just in this performance: they start separated, with remmick using the black vampires as a means to replicate his own culture, and end together as one unified group with their cultures fused into something there literally isn't a word for yet.

which is still a form of assimilation: combining two traditions into one instead of letting them exist side by side. it's that melting pot metaphor we were all sold on.

and it also shows the futility of assimilation: even if you do surrender your identity, you can never get rid of all of it. it bubbles back up and it leads to moments like this, where the part of you that you thought you had to get rid of to be accepted is what ultimately connects you with others the most. these characters were made into vampires to be freed of the burdens their oppressors placed on them for being irish and black, yet their irishness and blackness are what helps them truly connect.

it feels like a parallel to the montage of the characters setting up the juke at the end of the film: people from different backgrounds, all marginalized but convinced they can't belong together and using each other as a means to an end, momentarily letting go of the boundaries they impose on themselves and finding connection, freedom and happiness as they try to build a space to belong together, just before it's destroyed again.

(just like the humans in the juke itself, this tiny bit of community they've found is doomed because they would've been killed no matter what.)

and like that montage, the moment doesn't last, the prejudice bubbles back up and sets the dominoes falling on their community imploding. (at the end, remmick looks around, like he’s expecting someone to show up… and then leans into the group as they swarm him. he has community again… but these still aren’t the people he intended to reach. which is why he’ll be back on his bullshit in the next scene.)

it wasn't enough, but the care still matters because it made that moment exist.

and those moments keep coming back. they're what the characters chase throughout the movie: mary staying an extra day to go to the juke or sitting down to talk to remmick, who hints at his heritage to a human for the first time because he senses that same loneliness in her. everyone on the dance floor as sammie plays, and remmick following that sound for a chance to see his countrymen again. the party preparation. that gesture of friendship from the choctaw to remmick’s people a hundred years ago, that made such a strong impression on him that he traveled who knows how far to see if he could relive it. stack, mary and sammie finding each other sixty years later, reminiscing about that day and still considering it the best of their lives because it might have been temporary, but the freedom was still real.

those moments of freedom and connection make the horror bearable-- for humans and monsters. and this scene shows you that fundamentally, they are the same.

pick poor robin clean ii:

and the vampires, just like humans, want more of those moments so badly that they'll create more horror to get them.

they are still predatory assimilationists. they're going to give back in to the urge to consume more vulnerable people and absorb their uniqueness into themselves, even when we've already seen that it doesn't work. in the exact same way that grace chow is about to give in to the urge to separate her own interests from the black characters', the divide is coming back.

and once again-- it's remmick's fault. he caught a glimpse of belonging with the community he just made, and he's still prioritizing his whiteness over it. shouldn't be a surprise that the faux-southern accent is back.

speaking of. pick poor robin clean returns, sung by the vampires as they close in to attack the juke. just like the first time this song was sung, the vampires are blowing a chance for true community for something consumptive and selfish where only one homogenized perspective is allowed to survive.

they drew the wrong conclusion from their dance circle: instead of realizing their cultures shouldn't be erased, they simply fused them together for a more watered-down whole. assimilation.

again, layers:

the group just bonded and found, for a moment, solidarity and true community. they really are satisfied. they do have a family. they did build something and they did have fellowship.

... but it's still that racist song. this is still a colonization and assimilation metaphor. they're going to force their new (whiter) way of life on a group of people of color who don't want to give up their identities to adhere to it, they'll kill anyone who doesn't comply, and they still want sammie the most.

this is a mob gathered to kill a group of black people, singing something racist to get under their skins. and it works.

this is coming right after they told grace they'll turn lisa if they don't surrender. hearing dozens of her former neighbors, who she didn't trust until just a few hours ago, gleefully singing about how they'll kill her child and damn her soul pretty understandably psychs grace out and makes her turn on the others. which is the goal. they're singing pick poor robin clean as a means to an end for the second time.

the first time around, it was an ugly intention masked by a goofy song. a vampire politely asking for an invitation into a party so he can consume a kid inside. now they're not hiding it: forcing their way in by terrifying the group into begging them to come get it over with. specifically by preying on the preexisting racial tension between the delta chinese and black sharecroppers, to get the odd member out of the group to turn on the others.

the action is still evil, but the intention has changed, because the influence of the majority on remmick does matter. before they danced together, he just wanted sammie and saw the others as a means to getting him. now that he does see them as family, they're coming for everyone. they're dividing the group one last time, before they never have to be divided again.

still irredeemably bad. but still different from where we were at the start.

the final push, where the duality returns

the climax is filled with the vampire motif. obviously.

when remmick’s staked and burning alive, the final sting of rocky road to dublin hits right as he realizes he's going to die. as his mortality returns, so does his humanity (and his native accent), and that simple desire to find people who remind him of home.

but it's infused with the vampire motif, because he's dying a vampire's death. he's a victim of colonization, assimilation and oppression, who has become an oppressor bent on assimilating another marginalized person's culture to fill the void he feels because he can't go home to his own.

smoke gets to be with annie and their baby forever and sammie can conjure them anytime he wants with his music, but remmick will never find the people he left behind and his soul will be gone to oblivion because once his body burns up, it will too.

... but in a way, he did get what he wanted, just for a moment.

mary and stack escaped, and they have his memories, so he (and all the other vampires) will live on through them.

and remember wild mountain thyme? "if my true love, she won't come / then i'll surely find another?" -- he didn't find a way home to his own people. but he found someone else to love for the first time since he left ireland. and almost all of them went together.

and he didn't even realize it.

this is kind of an add-on, but a lot of the instrumentation associated with the vampire motif has one final evolution: it scores when smoke thinks about that moment of freedom and community when the group created the juke joint. full circle. what the vampires and humans wanted were the same fleeting moments of belonging in the face of a lonely, hostile existence in the margins of a world that wants to destroy them. and just like the vampires, the humans blew it because they couldn't hold onto that solidarity in the face of the overwhelming pressure to abide by the boundaries that separate them. and just like the vampires, even if they had made it to dawn with everyone holding together, they still would have had that safe space obliterated by the exact same oppressors.

and finally, the synthy michael myers-esque guitar stings as he prepares to kill the kkk. he's taking on this instrumentation because he's becoming as terrifying a boogeyman to the klan as remmick was to him. the people the vampires left behind in clarksdale will have no idea remmick was ever there or what happened to their loved ones. but they will remember that smoke killed dozens of klansmen and went out literally slaying a grand dragon. even his death is crucial; the klan may not seek revenge on his family and the rest of the community if they think they got the guy who did it and therefore feel like they 'won.'

over the course of the movie, the monster became human, and now a human's becoming a monster-- and in doing so, smoke is fulfilling the role remmick could have played for the people of the juke if he at any point had understood how to be a true ally to them: by using his power to eliminate the oppressors threatening their community and redirecting the violence away from the people they hurt with no regard for how he will benefit from doing so.

[haintxblue]

idk man i read the ea robinson arthuriana poems a couple nights ago

yall know i hate lancelot i dont gotta linger on that ok fuck lancelot i despise the man but i have always had COMPLICATED GUINEVERE FEELINGS and boy does ea robinson *really fucking get it* on that score

"bought" the keyword here is bought

not seduced or charmed or loved or even won but BOUGHT, like property, because that is what you are, as the daughter of a king, you are just some token to be pawned around, some object for the furtherance of men's aims

and this is really the whole allure of courtly love as a myth to me: it's the inversion of power. by day you are property but to one man, even if he is pretending, even if it's a game, you have something like power.

(even her court and her servants are not truly in her power! they are in the king's! they hate and despise her!)

and who are we! are we so fucking arrogant! to condemn her! to condemn a woman who has been treated as property, for falling in love with a man who voluntarily makes himself a slave to her! her infidelity wasn't just for sex or even love! it was for some awful scrap of wretched secret power and agency for the first time in her godforsaken life where she is always perceived as an ideal object! what a fucking relief to command! what a fucking relief even to be cruel!

(this is all the eroticism and the emotionality of courtly love! this is what it is! all the yearning isn't just yearning for a person! of course a woman traded like a coin between kings yearns to have some man yield to her! and not just any man, but a man with power, a man with strength! and of course a man who has everything given to him, who is adored and idolized, who has to constantly epitomize strength and awful power, of course when he bends a knee it feels like buckling to a fucking relief! of course it does! this is why courtly love is just bdsm in a fancy coat! the relief of being cruel to one and of being soft to another! a feast of fucking crumbs to have nothing but the touch of a hand to look forward to when you have nothing else!)

and all those years of fucking guilt that she acted on her own need for agency and it wronged a man she couldn't even yet justifiably hate! because he was not cruel to her! he was kind to her! he loved her, imperfectly and terribly, because he is a man and a king and he does not know any other way to love! and so to choke on your own frantic desperation and pretend that it is gratitude! to feel guilt, when you betray that man!

he finds out - he is so angry that he tries to kill you, not just swiftly, but slowly and painfully. you are going to see the stake in front of you and the flames around you every day for the rest of your life. his actions are so base and cruel that the men he conscripts to guard your execution, men who love him, are disgusted and refuse to even arm themselves, and when your lover comes who has made himself a slave to you he strikes them down where they stand, all this senseless fucking death and bloodshed!

and you! are! relieved!

it is awful but how can she not be relieved? how can you not feel some fucking shred of relief that you have the justification of hatred now! how can you not sink into that disgust and hatred and embrace it!

and then this other man, this man you love, this man that has always been a slave to you, he, in all his more perfect, less unassailable, less qualified guilt - he in his more total sin, in his inexcusable betrayal, with a conscience more tormented than yours can ever be if you are honest to yourself - he looks on all this bloodshed and he is cold, and all he wants is peace, now. he sits in the consequences of all his willful wrongs and he loves you, but he only loves you imperfectly and terribly because that is the only way that a man can

and you, who have always been able to command this man unthinkingly - the only command you have ever had; the only agency and power you have ever had, yielded up to you voluntarily and therefore to be voluntarily removed - look at him growing cold and you throw yourself to your knees and you beg in the way he used to beg you, but it's not a game anymore

and now that you finally have the relief of hating your husband, your lover makes you into property again - sends you back to him again, a coin traded between men - and like a fucking knife, calls it freedom

in a few short years of having power, in some secret thing that was your entire life but was only a game, you had your brief life and now it is over. and what can you say?

you can say nothing. he already said it to you.

jesus christ.

[howlingday]

Yang: Ahem~! Allow me to take this one, Weissy.

Yang: Once upon a time, The Rusted Knight encountered The Tarnished Spartan, a dark inverse mirror being that was his perfectly exact opposite, except in strength.

Yang: Now, initially, she put him on his back in just six minutes, but he came back stronger than ever in round two, hitting her over and over again for hours on end! Some even say they went until dawn! That's a full twelve hours of all-out Rusted Knight on Tarnished Spartan pounding! At most!

Yang: (Nods, Folds arms) Respect...

Weiss: Hm... That would theoreticallly make The Rusted Knight 120 times stronger in round two than in round one. Calculating that yields a result of 960 duovigintilluon joules! That is a ridiculous number! And this was all from just one battle?

Yang: Battle?! Oh, sweet, summer child... That wasn't the kind of "pounding" I was talking about~.

Weiss: ...You've got to be kidding me.

Yang: I think we just found a new field of science! The science of fucksics!

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

Weird hypothetical not to be taken seriously, a thought experiment if you will: since ghosts can just keep their elements apparently (case in point: Morro) if Nya became a ghost, and kept her element... how's that work? She can control water but not touch it? She's a superpowered immune ghost that cannot be defeated? Being a ghost automatically disqualifies her from having an element now? What do you think lmao

Counterpoint— my reasons for why Morro was able to keep his element into death is because he was just so damn stubborn about it (i.e. a similar case as to why the Element of Ice didn’t pass from Brice to Aurora). Otherwise the inverse —ghosts in general just keeping their elements upon dying/becoming a ghost/entering the dead realms— would imply that there’d be a lot more cases of EMs keeping elements after death. So Morro to me seems like more of the exception to the rule rather than the evidence for why the rule exists…..

…anyway, disregarding all that, Ghost!Nya, woo!

If she could control water but not touch it, that would work as a double-edged sword for her, I think. She’d automatically become the biggest threat for ghost-kind, given that she could wipe them all out if she so desired (and has lmao), but her greatest strength is also her biggest weakness. Would yield very interesting dynamic opportunities.

If she’s immune, either with element-granted immunity or just her having the ability to stop water from touching her in the first place, then yeah she’s probably on track to being a water ghost goddess

And third, if she was stubborn enough to keep her element upon death (extremely viable for Nya actually), then I don’t think there’s a magic ghost-override to take that away from her flskfkdkflsdld

But that being said, now imagine an au where Nya is the one cursed to be a ghost and she can’t even train with her element because it’s too dangerous for her hnnnnng

[edmcmayonnaise]

Months ago, I wrote "biographies" for Edwin and Simon in the style of the Edwardian (Third Edition published in 1915) study on "Sexual Inversion" (medical phrasing that pre-dates the term "homosexuality") in the style of Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis. This book can be found for free online and is a treasure trove due to the collection of biographies written by queer people.

Maybe against my better judgment, I will share them now for Simon Appreciation Week, as they capture to some extent how I perceive their interpersonal dynamics.

HISTORY E.P. - English, student at public boarding school, aged 16. His father, who comes from an unremarkable middle class lineage, is a physician. His father has been deployed to France since 1914 for wartime service. His mother’s family has a history notable for hysteria in his maternal grandmother, and his mother he describes as a high-strung and nervous woman who herself has been intermittently institutionalized for afflictions of mood. 

He has no siblings, and describes the relationship with his parents as distant. He lived most of his early childhood life in the care of a nanny. At age seven, was sent away to boarding school. 

He has never been attracted to girls or women, though had minimal contact with girls his age, He takes little interest in women or in their society. There is nothing markedly feminine in his general appearance, but he does believe that his general kinesthetic disposition is not viewed by others as manly. Specifically, he says that he is concerned that the animated way in which his hands is too recognizable as a symptom of what he considers to be his congenital condition. 

He is of average height and medium-slim build, but generally normatively developed and healthy. He considers himself to lack skill in athletic pursuits with the exception of fencing, but is an omnivorous reader and excels in academics. 

In his own words:

“I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends, even) find me curiously cold. For obvious reasons I have been unable to speak as to why this is. I fear being cruelly misunderstood, and I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of the morally reprehensible python of inversion.

"I find myself cut off from others, feel myself to be an outcast, and, amongst others my age, am intensely withdrawn. Privately, I am miserable. The desire to love and be loved is hard to drown, especially when treading through a veritable pool of ‘what-ifs’ as I am surrounded by male virality in all aspects of my life at school.

“I am not sure entirely what it is for which I am longing. Certainly, my parents neglected to impart to me any sort of knowledge of the adult modus vivendi. The only thing I do know with confidence is that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at the cost of another person’s distress or degradation, including my own.

“At my school, I have heard rumor, and in fact been the subject of rumor, regarding attachments and gratifications with other boys, which are all untrue. As with any topic that is discussed only behind cupped hands and in whispers, the stories become more and more fantastical as they are shared from schoolmate to schoolmate. Upon my truest promise, I have never yielded to the temptation of any sort of intercrural connection. I have preserved strict chastity. I do not know how long my mind can hold back the instincts of my heart and body, but I am terrified that I will soon lose this seemingly never ending battle.”

Shortly after E.P. submitted his history for publication in this book, it was reported that he and several other boys at his school went missing in what the school is calling an Act of God. Any additional information about what may have happened to this youth and his friends is not forthcoming at this time. 

~

HISTORY S.M. - English, student at a public boarding school, aged 17. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the former. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy and companionship, when he is at home. He is the third of four siblings, all boys, and he suspects that his next elder brother is also inverted.

In early life, S.M. was of delicate constitution and his studies were often interrupted by illness. Though living under mostly happy conditions he was shy and nervous, often depressed. This he attributes to having been on several occasions mishandled by his next elder brother; concedes that his brother is prone to foul and violent moods. However, his brother is well-liked, by his father and other siblings, he says, because of his masculine character. His brother has many friends at school. Though S.M. does report that he does have some influence over some of his classmates, he has few close friends.

Of his inversion, he reports the following:

“There is a boy in my year who has become the absorbing thought of my school days, and who comes to me in my dreams almost nightly. I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully his beauty affects me. He is well-formed, lean, shy, and in my dream he sits beside me, allowing our legs to touch and for me to caress his thigh. He looks at me with desire in his eyes, green, but clouded over dark with his want for me to kiss him. And I do want to kiss him– on his wrist, and his palm, and into the gentle, milky curve of his neck, and to leave my lover’s mark on him, to say to anyone who might pursue him that he is mine and mine only. 

“I keep my feelings hidden, however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being found out. His bed is next to mine, and the rest of the dormitory is boisterous and lewd, and there is a good deal of bullying, which I cannot bear to have directed my way.

“I have tried to tell myself that these dreams are not due to a moral failing of my own, but indeed this boy’s own influence upon me. I love him and I resent him. His seeming indifference towards my existence, as he has never responded well when I have plucked up my courage to speak with him, angers me. I want him to look towards me and love me, too.”

S.M. was involved in the same incident as E.P.,  where he and several other boys went missing from their school. It is reported that their last known whereabouts were their school dormitory rooms.

[achromatophoric]

🎶 The braid 🦴 is connected to the—braid 🦴 🎶

Testing out Inverse Kinematics for the braids has yielded positive results. Now to finish Wednesday’s 👄 in vector and then… return to harvesting @gretchenrng’s Enid.

…

At least Enid doesn’t have braids. 😭

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-Fi prompt from Isabelo:

Hi! I'm new to the workforce and now that I have some money I'm worried it's losing its value to inflation just sitting in my bank. I wanted to ask if you have ideas on how to counteract inflation, maybe through investing?

I've been putting this off for a long time because...

I am not a finance person. I am not an investments person. I actually kinda turned and ran from that whole sector of the business world, at first because I didn't understand it, and then once I did understand it, because I disagreed with much of it on a fundamental level.

But... I can describe some factors and options, and hope to get you started.

I AM NOT LEGALLY QUALIFIED TO GIVE FINANCIAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

What is inflation, and what impacts it?

Inflation is the rate at which money loses value over time. It's the reason something that cost 50 cents in the 1840s costs $50 now.

A lot of things do impact inflation, like housing costs and wage increases and supply chains, but the big one that is relevant here is federal interest rates. The short version: if you borrow money from the government, you have to pay it back. The higher the interest rates on those loans, the lower inflation is. This is for... a lot of reasons that are complicated. The reason I bring it up is less so:

The government offers investments:

So yeah, the feds can impact inflation, but they also offer investment opportunities. There are three common types available to the average person: Bonds, Bills, and Notes. I'll link to an article on Investopedia again, but the summary is as follows: You buy a bill, bond, or note from the government. You have loaned them money, as if you are the bank. Then, they give it back, with interest.

Treasury Bills: shortest timeframe (four weeks to a year), and lowest return on investment. You buy it at a discount (let's say $475), and then the government returns the "full value" that the bond is, nominally (let's say $500). You don't earn twice-yearly interest, but you did earn $25 on the basis of Loaning The Government Some Cash.

Treasury Notes: 2-10 year timeframe. Very popular, very stable. Banks watch it to see how they should plan the interest rates for mortgages and other large loans. Also pretty high liquidity, which means you can sell it to someone else if you suddenly need the cash before your ten-year waiting period is up. You get interest payments twice a year.

Treasury Bonds: 20-30 years. This is like... the inverse of a house mortgage. It takes forever, but it does have the highest yield. You get interest payments twice a year.

Why invest money into the US Treasury department, whether through the above or a different government paper? (Savings bonds aren't on sold the set schedule that treasury bonds are, but they only come in 30-year terms.)

It is very, very low risk. It is pretty much the lowest risk investment a person can make, at least in the US. (I'm afraid I don't know if you're American, but if you're not, your country probably has something similar.)

Interest rates do change, often in reaction or in relation to inflation. If your primary concern is inflation, not getting a high return on investment, I would look into government papers as a way to ensure your money is not losing value on you.

This is the website that tells you the government's own data for current yield and sales, etc. You can find a schedule for upcoming auctions, as well.

High-yield bank accounts:

Savings accounts can come with a pretty unremarkable but steady return on investment; you just need to make sure you find one that suits you. Some of the higher-yield accounts require a minimum balance or a yearly fee... but if you've got a good enough chunk of cash to start with, that might be worth it for you.

They are almost as reliable as government bonds, and are insured by the government up to $250,000. Right now, they come with a lower ROI than most bonds/bills/notes (federal interest rates are pretty high at the moment, to combat inflation). Unlike government papers, though, you can deposit and withdraw money from a savings account pretty much any time.

Certificates of Deposit:

Okay, imagine you are loaning money to your bank, with the fixed term of "I will get this money back with interest, but only in ten years when the contract is up" like the Treasury Notes.

That's what this is.

Also, Investopedia updates near-daily with the highest rates of the moment, which is pretty cool.

Property:

Honestly, if you're coming to me for advice, you almost definitely cannot afford to treat real estate as an investment thing. You would be going to an actual financial professional. As such... IDK, people definitely do it, and it's a standby for a reason, but it's not... you don't want to be a victim of the housing bubble, you know? And me giving advice would probably make you one. So. Talk to a professional if this is the route you want to take.

Retirement accounts:

Pension accounts are a kind of savings account. You've heard of a 401(k)? It's that. Basically, you put your money in a savings account with a company that specializes in pensions, and they invest it in a variety of different fields and markets (you can generally choose some of this) in order to ensure that the money grows enough that you can hopefully retire on it in fifty years. The ROI is usually higher than inflation.

These kinds of accounts have a higher potential for returns than bonds or treasury notes, buuuuut they're less reliable and more sensitive to market fluctuations.

However, your employer may pay into it, matching your contribution. If they agree to match up to 4%, and you pay 4% of your paycheck into an pension fund, then they will pay that same amount and you are functionally getting 8% of your paycheck put into retirement while only paying for half of it yourself.

Mutual Funds:

I've definitely linked this article before, but the short version is:

An investment company buys 100 shares of stock: 10 shares each in 10 different "general" companies. You, who cannot afford a share of each of these companies, buy 1 singular share of that investment company. That share is then treated as one-tenth of a share of each of those 10 "general" companies. You are one of 100 people who has each bought "one stock" that is actually one tenth of ten different stocks.

Most retirement funds are actually a form of mutual fund that includes employer contributions.

Pros: It's more stable than investing directly in the stock market, because you can diversify without having to pay the full price of a share in each company you invest in.

Cons: The investment company does get a cut, and they are... often not great influences on the economy at large. Mutual funds are technically supposed to be more regulated than hedge funds (which are, you know, often venture capital/private equity), but a lot of mutual funds like insurance companies and pension funds will invest a portion of their own money into hedge funds, which is... technically their job. But, you know, capitalism.

Directly investing in the stock market:

Follow people who actually know what they're doing and are not Evil Finance Bros who only care about the bottom line. I haven't watched more than a few videos yet, but The Financial Diet has had good energy on this topic from what I've seen so far, and I enjoy the very general trends I hear about on Morning Brew.

That said, we are not talking about speculative capital gains. We are talking about making sure inflation doesn't screw with you.

DIVIDENDS are profit that the company shares to investors every quarter. Did the company make $2 billion after paying its mortgages, employees, energy bill, etc? Great, that $2 billion will be shared out among the hundreds of thousands of stocks. You'll probably only get a few cents back per stock (e.g. Walmart has been trading at $50-$60 for the past six months, and their dividends have been 57 cents and then 20.75 cents), but it adds up... sort of. The Walmart example is listed as having dividends that are lower than inflation, so you're actually losing money. It's part of why people rely on capital gains so much, rather than dividends, when it comes to building wealth.

Blue Chip Stocks: These are old, stable companies that you can expect to return on your investment at a steady rate. You probably aren't going to see your share jump from $5 to $50 in a year, but you also probably won't see it do the reverse. You will most likely get reliable, if not amazing, dividends.

Preferred Stocks: These are stock shares that have more reliable dividends, but no voting rights. Since you are, presumably, not a billionaire that can theoretically gain a controlling share, I can't imagine the voting rights in a given company are all that important anyway.

Anyway, hope this much-delayed Intro To Investing was, if not worth the wait, at least, a bit longer than you expected.

Hey! You got interest on the word count! It's topical! Ish.

[treethymes]

In my landmark analysis of The Wind Rises, I interpreted the film in terms of Miyazaki working through his feelings on his life’s work—perhaps regret and shame thinking of all the sacrifices from others it took to bring his work to fruition, to pursue his desires and ideals; his ideas on what “beauty” is and perhaps how glad he is that it exists/is created in spite of all the suffering that may be attached to it. I did not talk about the relatively more straightforward ways of reading the film, which is of course about Japan during World War II: Miyazaki reflecting on the factors that drive history, what it means to live through, to be embedded in—and to look back on—so much violence; Miyazaki reckoning with his own family’s role in the imperialist war effort as well as his lifelong infatuation with the aesthetics of military machinery. Considering these modes of interpretation together yields a portrait of a man and his art—Where does it come from? What does it value? Where does it want to go? As such, The Wind Rises is arguably a very rich and fitting swan song. And yet, with its grounded, adult perspective on the war, the film also sticks out like a sore thumb in Miyazaki’s oeuvre and maybe always sat uncomfortably as a conclusion to it.

For those who feel that way, The Boy and the Heron should come as a welcome addition to Miyazaki’s filmography. It is, after all, a return to fantasy adventure with a child protagonist—something that feels, at least more so than a quasi-biopic of an aircraft engineer does, like quintessential Miyazaki. But crucially for our purposes, the film is not just a return to a familiar form (often quite literally a sum of everything that came before it), it is an extension of and second half to The Wind Rises. Through the lens of my interpretation of The Wind Rises, The Boy and the Heron is like an inversion of The Wind Rises in that it foregrounds the concerns with artistry and legacy while keeping the war in the background and frame of the narrative.

Two scenes in The Boy and the Heron in particular reminded me of The Wind Rises. First is the scene of the dying pelican, which visually recalls the scene of the ill man in Princess Mononoke but in terms of the content of the dialogue reminds me more of the scene in The Wind Rises of the children turning down Jiro’s offer of castella cake. It is a reflection on poverty, pride, and survival. In the context of these films, we are led to consider specifically the condition of the Japanese people, the things they were driven to do, and are left to draw our own conclusions with regard to the nuances.

The other scene, of course, is the brief moment of Mahito looking at the windshields his father brings to the house and remarking on how beautiful they are. This scene embeds in The Boy and the Heron Miyazaki’s preoccupation with the aesthetic allure of aircraft originally designed for warfare, a contradiction between beauty and violence that is mirrored in the dream world that Mahito ultimately decides to reject.

In the dream world in The Boy and the Heron, there are so many echoes of past Miyazaki and Ghibli films it is deafening. Seemingly contrary to Jiro’s solemn resignation to the world of pyramids, Mahito rejects the dream world he’s inherited and ventures to build something new in the real world. But I’m not sure they are so far removed from each other. They are complimentary views of the same object (Miyazaki’s legacy), one from his own perspective and one from the perspective he hopes for future generations to take—one of not overly attaching themselves to some old fool’s dreams. In The Wind Rises, perhaps Miyazaki tries to celebrate his life’s work without celebrating it. In The Boy and the Heron, he gives us the greatest hits slideshow we wanted and then some—a celebration of the joys and tribulations of the creative act he so compulsively pursued—but not without gesturing to us nonetheless to peer beyond the curtain.

[kallie-den]

Renewable Energy

Ziratha, an intrepid young succubus researcher, finds the ultimate solution to the looking Succubus Energy Crisis: a device that brainwashes its subjects back into nourishing, delicious, easily-flustered virgins - even rough, experienced, punk trans girls like Vivi

This was a delightful commission from GrillFan65, one of my patrons, and features a very, very fun TF ;)

If you enjoy my work and are looking for more, or you want to support me, I strongly encourage you to check out my Patreon! I write erotica full-time, which means I need your patronage to keep creating, and my Patrons also get benefits like early access to my stories, extra stories, and the ability to vote on what I write next! So, if that sounds good to you, head over and join the couple hundred patrons I already have :)

---

“Wow. This is a succubus’s lab?” The crust punk trans girl looked around Ziratha’s research laboratory and sniffed. “I would have expected more candles. Magic circles. Maybe a few jars of goat semen or something.”

Ziratha the succubus rolled her eyes as the punk laughed at her own bad joke. “That’s a stereotype. You’d think humans would know better now. We’ve been living amongst your kind for decades now, and-“

“And succubi are simply people just like us, living perfectly normal lives, except for the whole needing sex for subsistence thing,” the punk interrupted. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the history lesson before.”

Ziratha had to suppress a groan. Alongside her PhD research, a full-time job in its own right, she worked part-time as an adjunct making minimum wage. She’d forgotten what a good night’s sleep felt like. Half her blood was coffee. She was way too tired for this.

Unfortunately for her, this punk girl - Vivi - was the best shot she was going to get at seeing her research reach fruition.

“Anyway,” Vivi piped up, “hurry up and tell me why I’m here already.”

“You’re here,” Ziratha replied tersely, “because I caught you breaking a window at the back of the lab. Probably looking for something to sell. And because if you help me out, I can delete the feed from the security camera. Got it?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Vivi shot back. “HRT ain’t free, you know?”

Ziratha sighed. In truth, she didn’t hold the attempted theft against her. It was simply that the succubus really, really needed just one single research subject. One was surely all it would take to get the funding board to sit up and pay attention.

“So, c’mon,” Vivi insisted. “What do you need me to do?”

Ziratha took a very, very deep breath. “OK, let me explain. Firstly, what do you know about the SEC?”

Vivi sniffed. “Sounds familiar.

“The Succubus Energy Crisis,” Ziratha told her patiently. “We succubi depend on energy harvested from our sexual partners. You clearly know that much. However, what you may not know is that sexual energy isn’t a sustainable resource.”

“How’s that?” Vivi seemed more interested in scoping out Ziratha’s messy lab than in the answer.

“The amount of energy a succubus harvests from her partner is inversely proportional to their sexual experience,” Ziratha went on. Reciting this was practically automatic. She’d been over it a hundred times in class. “The potency of sexual energy declines after, well, sex. Especially sex with succubi. The more we take, the less they have to give. Sex with ‘well-used’ partners yields negligible energy - and furthermore, might actually kill the human.”

“OK.” Vivi laughed offhandedly. “So what? There will always be more virgins, right?”

“That’s what people used to say about coal and oil,” Ziratha pointed out. “As it turns out, no. Thanks to a declining birth rate, an increasingly sexualized culture, and a constant expansion of liberal sexual mores into untapped parts of the world, reserves are depleting faster than they can naturally refill. Humanity’s store of sexual energy is trending towards zero. Starvation for succubuskind.”

“Right…” Vivi said skeptically, before shrugging. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with me.”

“I was getting to that,” Ziratha retorted. “I’m working on a solution, OK? See, traditional succubic magiscience holds that the depletion of sexual energy following virginity loss is a spiritual-metaphysical phenomenon. In other words, completely and totally irreversible. But that’s bullshit!”

Vivi looked up sharply at the sudden outburst of passion from the succubus.

“Those idiots in the academy just don’t want to let go of their precious little doctrines!” Ziratha fumed. “They’d rather sink billions into pipe dreams than admit the textbooks could be wrong.  I mean, the SuperCharm Collider? Seriously? It’s a joke! But once I get my funding, I’ll be the one who’s laughing!”

She let out a loud, rich cackle worthy of her demonic forebears.

“See, my research indicates that the source of this problem is purely neural-psychological,” Ziratha ranted. “In other words: if you can turn back the clock on someone’s mind, you can completely refill their sexual energy. It’s a perfect solution. Renewable energy for all, forever. But the Institutional Review Board won’t give me the damn funding for a proper set of clinical trials.”

“Hold up,” Vivi broke in. “Are you about to tell me that I’m your guinea pig? And… you want to turn me back into a virgin?”

Ziratha grinned, her eyes flashing behind her nerdy glasses. “Exactly! Behold my Transcranial Magical Stimulation Unit. Which I expect to be known more widely as: the revirginization helmet!”

Reaching over to her workbench, she picked up something that looked halfway between an old VR headset and a military-issue tin foil hat.

Vivi folded her arms over her battle vest. “There’s no way I’m wearing that.”

“It’s safe!” Ziratha insisted defensively. “I made sure of it. If it wasn’t, this would kill my entire career.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Vivi replied, unconvinced. Then, she tilted her head to one side, and a crafty, dirty grin slowly spread across her face. “Hey. How about you and I go someplace comfortable and find a solution to a different kind of energy crisis?”

“Huh?” Ziratha blinked.

Vivi kept grinning and winked.

“Oh, I see.” Ziratha smiled wearily. “You want to have sex.”

Vivi giggled and nodded. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” the punk girl said, “but you look like you could do with a little top-off.”

Ziratha frowned. “Rude!”

In truth, though, she couldn’t be too offended. It had been a long time since Ziratha had fed properly, and it showed. Proper, nourishing partners weren’t easy to come by. Her deep red skin had taken on a slightly unhealthy pallor, her horns were nubs, and her tail was just a thin, dainty little thing. It was a far cry from the kind of overbearingly transhuman appearance succubi could have if they were permitted to glut themselves to their hearts’ content.

Admittedly, Ziratha wasn’t exactly playing to her own strengths. Instead of anything particularly alluring, she was dressed in the universal uniform of the overworked grad student: an old t-shirt, grey sweatpants and comfy sneakers, with a lab coat over top. Her hair was tied back in a hasty ponytail, her huge, round glasses made her look like exactly the nerd she was, and she hadn’t bothered with any makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes.

Beneath it all, though, she still had a killer body. She was still a succubus, after all.

“What do you say?” Vivi proposed. She glanced pointedly at Ziratha’s chest. “Wanna turn those C-cups into something bigger?”

Ziratha was surprised Vivi knew so much about how energy levels affected succubi. “You’ve slept with my kind before?”

“Sure have.” Vivi’s smirk was infuriatingly cocky. “A few times. And don’t worry - they were never disappointed. I know just how to treat a girl - mortal or demon.”

Ziratha rolled her eyes at the lewd comments, but she was smiling too. This made Vivi the ideal test subject. It was what Ziratha had been hoping for when she’d first laid eyes on her. Vivi was tall, hot, and confident, and while Ziratha knew better than to judge a book by its cover, Vivi did look like someone with a certain amount of ‘experience’.

She was pure punk, top to bottom. Vivi was wearing a battle vest covered in patches and spikes over a simple, loose-fitting top, and beneath the belt she had on a pleated skirt, some torn stockings, and an impressive pair of boots. A lot of the skin she was showing was covered in ink, and both sides of her head were shaven, leaving her with a messy streak of hair that was dyed neon blue.

Ziratha would have been pretty shocked if Vivi had told her she was a virgin.

“As attractive an offer as that is, I’ll have to decline.” Ziratha didn’t bother to conceal her weary sarcasm. “You’re a guinea pig.”

Vivi rolled her eyes. “Fine. I guess I can think of worse things than getting my ‘sexual energy’ replenished - whatever that’s gonna feel like.”

“Great. Great!” Ziratha immediately started ushering Vivi deeper into her lab before the punk could change her mind. “Take a seat, please.”

She gestured towards a chair that looked like it had been ripped out of a hospital examination room, with all kinds of wires and machines hooked up to it. Vivi glanced at the chair dubiously, but still moved to sit down.

“What’s all this, huh?” she asked, settling.

“Just monitoring equipment,” Ziratha explained. “Taking your vitals, measuring neural readings. That kind of stuff.”

“Nerd stuff, got it.” Vivi winked. “OK. I’m ready, I guess.”

Ziratha could barely contain her excitement. This was it. Her breakthrough. Her triumph. But the succubus was too much of a scientist to count her chickens before they hatched. “Here. Put this on.”

She handed Vivi the helmet she’d spent hundreds of hours designing and building. The punk looked at the strange, ramshackle device even more dubiously than she had at the chair, but she did as she was told. Once the helmet was properly adjusted, the screen mounted to it hung in front of Vivi’s face, obscuring most of her vision.

Ziratha tapped a few keys on her laptop and the screen came to life. A few lights and indicators on the helmet started to glow and flash, and the whole apparatus began to hum as the large capacitors mounted to it started to charge.

“Hey, so, how long is this going to take, anyway?” Vivi asked. The punk sounded a little less brash and a little more uncertain now. “Is this, like, some kind of long-ass meditation thing? Because I have places to be.”

“No, don’t worry,” Ziratha answered. “It’s much quicker than that.”

The succubus tapped a few more keys, checked a few readouts, and then hammered the space bar.

There was a huge, bright flash, like an old camera going off.

Vivi went still and stiff for a moment, and then groaned faintly.

“What the fuck?” she complained. “What… was that it?”

“That was it,” Ziratha confirmed. Her tail was very straight, and her voice was thick with anticipation. “How do you feel?”

“My head is throbbing.” Vivi slipped the helmet off her head and blinked as her eyes readjusted. “You could have given me some real warning, you know. So, did it work?”

Ziratha glanced at her laptop screen. “According to the diagnostics, it should have worked.”

“How’s my, uh, energy?” Vivi asked, a faintly mocking smile on her face. “Any of your fancy instruments tell you that?”

Ziratha simply returned the smile. “Oh, I don’t need any instruments for that at all.”

The succubus reached out and took Vivi’s hand, and let her demonic sixth sense for energy tell her everything she needed to know. Her smile immediately became a wide grin. Oh yes, it had worked. Succubi could always tell when someone would make a good meal. It was no different from any other predator’s sense of smell, although physical contact made it far more precise. Right now, Vivi had the scent of a ripe, untouched virgin.

This was it. The breakthrough Ziratha had long searched for. Her invention was about to change the world.

Despite such heady thoughts, though, Ziratha wasn’t celebrating. Something else had caught her attention. There was something very strange about the way Vivi was reacting.

The punk girl was trying not to let it show, but she kept squirming and shifting in her seat. A distinct pink blush was showing in her cheeks, and Ziratha could feel Vivi’s palm starting to turn hot and sweaty as they held hands.

The succubus tilted her head. Now this was very, very interesting.

“Vivi,” Ziratha said. “How do you feel now?”

Vivi couldn’t seem to meet her gaze. “I-I’m fine,” she blurted out in reply. “It’s nothing.”

Ziratha wasn’t buying that for an instant. She had a succubus’s instincts. She could tell when someone was seriously flustered. Experimentally, Ziratha lent in closer and squeezed Vivi’s hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Jeez!” Vivi’s voice was a little too strained. Under Ziratha’s watchful gaze, she twitched tellingly. “You’re just being kind of l-lewd.”

Lewd? Just by holding her hand? “Fascinating…” Ziratha murmured.

The succubus pulled away, allowing Vivi to breathe a sigh of relief, and inspected some of her equipment readouts more carefully.

“It clearly worked,” she said, as much to herself as to her test subject. “But there’s signs of something else, too… hey, Vivi. Remind me: you’ve had sex, right?”

In contrast to her earlier, cocksure attitude, Vivi now looked like a deer in headlights at the question. “W-w-well, yeah! Of c-course!”

“So your memory hasn’t been affected, just…” Ziratha murmured, before turning back to Vivi and clapping her hands. “I think I know what’s happened!”

“What?” Vivi demanded. “I mean, uh, nothing. Obviously. But what?”

“Just as I was hoping, my revirginizer helmet completely returned you to a virgin state regarding your reserve of sexual energy,” Ziratha explained. “But I theorize that it also affected some of your closely-related inhibitions, skills, and arousal responses.”

Vivi blinked. “And what does that mean? English please.”

“Well, do you remember being a blushing, nervous, inexperienced teenager, years ago? Remember how much ‘steam’ you had to blow off on a daily basis? Remember how it made you feel when a girl so much as looked at you?”

Vivi nodded, and waited for Ziratha to say something else. But when Ziratha just glanced at her significantly, the punk girl turned as white as a sheet.

“N-no way,” Vivi protested. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m afraid so.” Ziratha giggled. “It’s all connected, it seems. Congratulations. In just about every way that counts, you’re a virgin again.”

Vivi turned from white back to red upon hearing the v-word said out loud. She made to stand up. “I-I can’t believe you did this to me. I gotta get out of here.”

“Wait, wait,” Ziratha urged. She moved to Vivi’s side and calmed her with a simple hand on her arm. “I should really run a few more tests. Just to make sure.”

The succubus’s nostrils flared. She was shocked at how potent Vivi’s energy now felt. It was palpable, even when they weren’t touching. She could sense it in the air. Clearly, she had to investigate further. All in the name of science, of course.

Vivi was back to looking flustered, but she still threw a mutinous glare at Ziratha. “Y-you’re crazy! I can’t believe I even…”

Ziratha swiftly decided that if the betterment of succubuskind wasn’t a good enough reason for Vivi, she’d have to resort to other forms of persuasion. She bent down at the waist, putting her face close to the punk’s, and made her eyes very big and alluring.

“Please?” she whispered, in a voice that was suddenly soft and intimate. “Won’t you stay with me?”

Vivi looked like her body temperature had just shot up ten degrees, and Ziratha noticed that she couldn’t seem to meet her gaze properly. The succubus was sure she wouldn’t have fallen for that five minutes ago, but now she was a total sucker. “S-s-sure,” Vivi managed, in a strained voice.

“Wonderful.” Ziratha licked her lips. The distinctive virgin-scent Vivi was starting to give off was just delicious. “These readings - and reactions - are extraordinary. And I’ve done nothing more than hold your hand.”

Vivi whimpered plaintively.

“I can’t help but wonder,” the succubus murmured, “what kind of yields you might produce with slightly more purposeful stimulation.”

Vivi’s eyes registered alarm but, before she could protest, Ziratha slipped closer and planted a kiss on the punk girl’s cheek.

Her reaction was as immediate as it was striking. Vivi let out a faint gasp and her back arched slightly, even though she was clearly trying as hard as possible not to show it. But even more striking was the intensified deer-in-headlights look in her eyes, like she was desperately struggling to figure out what this meant and what she should do about it, even as she was so devastatingly flustered she couldn’t even manage basic addition.

Ziratha’s nostrils flared again. This was amazing, and she was starting to become aware of just how long it had been since she’d had a real feeding.

“Wow,” she said teasingly, momentarily letting her instincts get the better of her. “Just from one little kiss, huh?”

Vivi whined indignantly. "I-it’s not… that’s… t-this is nothing!”

“Yeah?” Ziratha couldn’t resist a giggle. “It’s just so funny - you seemed so cocky before. So experienced.”

“I am experienced!” Vivi tried to insist. “I’ve f… um… fu… I mean, you know… I’ve had s-s-s-“

Ziratha’s grin just kept growing as she watched the previously fierce punk trail off, her blush growing steadily deeper as she struggled to bring herself to actually say it. The transformation was quite the sight to behold. She had to keep pushing Vivi further. She just had to. It was part of the experiment, somehow, she reasoned. The succubus took advantage of Vivi’s helpless spluttering to press closer still and put her lips right by her ear.

“Sex?” Ziratha breathed, pouring as much suggestion and seductive glee as she possibly could into that one, single word.

Vivi looked like she was about to explode.

“You see?” Ziratha drew back, smirking victoriously. “You’re not experienced. Not really. Not anymore. You can remember that you’ve had sex before - but that’s it. And you can barely even bring yourself to think about those memories, because you might get too worked up. Neither your mind nor your body knows how to handle it.” She giggled. “Typical virgin.”

“I-I’m not…!” For a moment she thought Vivi was about to start tearing up, but then the punk girl managed to rally herself. “Y-you’re just messing with me! That’s all! It’s your stupid little machine, making me all confused. T-that’s the only reason I can’t think straight right now. I’m not, um, w-worked up.”

“Yeah?” Ziratha challenged. “Then explain this for me, please.”

She reached down and rested her hand firmly on the big, unmistakable tent in Vivi’s skirt.

Immediately, Vivi went as white as a sheet. Clearly, until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the huge hard-on she was sporting. She attempted a protest, or perhaps an explanation, but all that came out was a few strangled, incoherent sounds.

“My, my.” Ziratha licked her lips again, without even realizing it. She was so very hungry. “You see? You’ve become so adorably excitable.”

Vivi whined as Ziratha started stroking her fingertips along the surface of her bulge. “Y-you can’t just… what the hell are you d-doing? This is harassment!”

“I’m a scientist, Vivi,” Ziratha chided, in a voice that made her sound anything but scientific. “After my experiment, it’s only natural for me to give you a nice, thorough examination.”

The punk girl let out another whimpered protest, seeming to sense Ziratha’s ulterior motive, but under the succubus’s ministrations that soon gave way to a weak, pitiful moan. The new virgin was like putty in Ziratha’s hands. The power, the energy, the scent - it was all intoxicating.

“In particular,” Ziratha decided, “I think it’s only proper that I get a reading on your, ah, endurance. I really think - I really do think - it could be very, very scientifically interesting.”

Science was increasingly slipping out of view. Ziratha’s gaze was set firmly on the huge tent in Vivi’s skirt, and it was getting harder and harder to think clearly. After a little teasing, that sweet, sweet virgin energy was coming off Vivi in waves. The laboratory was thick with its scent.

Vivi was still giving the succubus that achingly alluring deer-in-headlights look, but after a moment, her willpower started to wane. She nodded. Ziratha’s nostrils flared. That made sense too. What kind of virgin had the resolve to say ‘no’ to a succubus?

In exchange, Ziratha decided, maybe it was time to make good use of some of the inherent succubic talents she’d spent all of grad school neglecting.

Ziratha straightened up and, as Vivi watched, shrugged out of her heavy lab coat. As it fell to the ground, she reached up and removed her hair tie, shaking her head to make sure her hair cascaded down around her face. Vivi was all but hypnotized by the sight.

But that was only the beginning.

Next, Ziratha took her t-shirt by its hem and lifted it off over her head. She moved slowly, though, letting the helpless punk watching her savor the sight of her tummy and cleavage being revealed. The way she slipped out of her sweatpants was even more seductive. She made a dance of it, swinging her hips from side to side as she peeled them away from her body to expose her long, sculpted legs.

The striptease left Vivi with a little trail of drool escaping one corner of her mouth. She couldn’t seem to stop leering. Her eyes were shining like she couldn’t believe her luck, and the tent in her skirt was now marked with a growing spot of damp precum.

Underneath her clothes, Ziratha wasn’t wearing lingerie, merely a comfy sports bra and a matching pair of boxers. But that, she decided, was plenty to work with when it came to a virgin.

And from the look on Vivi’s face, she was right.

“Tell me,” Ziratha panted, “have you ever gotten a lap dance before?”

Vivi looked almost panicked as she shook her head.

“Great,” Ziratha purred. “Then I suppose this will be a genuine first.”

Effortlessly, the succubus eased her weight into the examination chair, and backed up inch by inch until her naturally huge, curvy ass was pressed right up against Vivi’s hard bulge.

Vivi squeaked like a mouse.

At this point, her every little noise and twitch was like a red rag to a bull. The newly-restored virgin’s scent was so thick in the air Ziratha could taste it. Her hunger was awakening instincts she’d never known she had. Moving to the sound of unheard music, she started grinding and gyrating like she’d been doing it all her life.

The effect the lap dance had on Vivi was nothing short of explosive.

The punk looked like every bit the virgin she now was. Her eyes were wide and practically bulging, and her mouth was contorted into a goofy, uneven shape halfway between an amazed grin and a look of desperate, anxious disbelief.

She looked like she was about to blow.

“C’mon,” Ziratha mocked, in a voice dripping with honey and brimstone. “You can do better than this, right, virgin?”

Her teasing elicited another strangled whimper that just made the succubus want to push Vivi further and further. She danced her way up the punk girl’s body and turned to face her, rolling her hips as she pushed her ass back out behind her to grind into her throbbing bulge.

“Be a good girl,” she teased. “Hold on a little longer for me.”

Vivi just nodded haplessly. Her eyes were scrunched up closed, and she was gripping the sides of the chair so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Ziratha could just imagine what was going on in her head. Baseball scores. Times tables. Whatever she needed to help not utterly humiliate herself.

“Let’s see if you can handle something a little more… direct.”

Ziratha arched her and straightened her tail, daring the virgin punk writhing beneath her to open her eyes and stare at her amazing tits. Then, she reached back and used her deft fingertips to unfasten Vivi’s skirt. Vivi let out a moan that was as much protest as eagerness, but it didn’t stop Ziratha from using the motion of her hips and thighs to slide the garment out of the way, and then pull aside her panties until her hard, leaking cock was completely exposed.

Zirath’s long, forked tongue lolled out of her mouth as she stared at it, dripping drool down onto Vivi.

She needed it.

“Good news, punk,” she breathed, shivering. “You’re about to get your cherry popped.”

“W-w-what?” Vivi exclaimed pitifully.

“It’s, uh, for the experiment,” Ziratha reasoned. She was frenzied as she tore off her bra and panties. “I need to sample, uh… and, well, get a reading on the volume of…” She rolled her eyes and licked her lips. “Actually, forget the science. I’m just hungry, and you’re ripe for the eating.”

“B-b-but!” the trans girl spluttered, as Ziratha positioned herself against her cock. “I-I don’t know if I’m ready yet!”

“Yeah?” Ziratha paused, bemused.

"I mean… uh…” A bashful look came over Vivi’s face. “It’s just… I maybe… I wanted it to be special. You know?”

“Oh my god.” Ziratha snorted a laugh, and grinned wickedly. “You are going to be just delicious.”

In a single motion, she dropped her hips and impaled herself on Vivi’s cock.

Immediately, Vivi’s voice shot up an octave, and she let out a girlish cry of absolute pleasure. Right after, Ziratha’s rich, gleeful moans joined the chorus. The succubus couldn’t believe how good the virgin’s cock felt. It wasn’t just the sensation. It was the sustenance. Merely being in Vivi’s presence for the last few minutes had made Ziratha fiercely hungry. Now, at last, that hunger was being sated.

Once she recovered from the initial hit, Ziratha started moving her hips and bouncing greedily on the end of Vivi’s shaft. With each bounce, the punk girl underneath her thrashed madly in a clumsy, instinctive attempt to meet Ziratha thrust for thrust.

She mostly failed. But the attempt, at least, was adorable.

As she rode the sensitive, inexperienced punk, Ziratha started howling with glee. She’d never had the pleasure before, but it was true what they said - there was nothing like milking a virgin. Her body was humming with energy, and every time she buried Vivi’s cock to the hilt inside her pussy, the sensation got sweeter and sweeter. Something about the flavor of a virgin’s energy was utterly transcendent, and it was made all more nourishing by what it represented.

Ziratha’s complete and total victory.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before Vivi’s moans started to peak, signaling that she was at the edge. Clearly, despite her memories, the virgin had absolutely no stamina. Ziratha wasn’t going to complain. The orgasm was the sweetest part of the meal.

“Go ahead!” Ziratha urged. “Blow your load already. We both know you can’t hold back anymore.”

With a cry of absolute, mortified bliss, Vivi exploded inside her.

Ziratha’s moans peaked too when she felt Vivi’s virile, nourishing cum paint her insides. It was better than anything she’d ever felt before. The power, the pleasure, the feeding - all of it. Ziratha could already feel her body priming itself to swell and change with the infusion of fresh energy.

The ecstatic rush of it made her greedy. She wanted more. She wanted it all. Ziratha squeezed down on Vivi and started riding her harder and faster than ever. Every bounce, every thrust, coaxed more and more sweet, sweet cum from the virgin’s cock, until Vivi was whining in blissful agony as she came down from the high of orgasm. Eventually, Vivi’s eyes rolled back  into her head and simply passed out, her mind overwhelmed past its limits by sheer pleasure.

Ziratha kept riding her all the same. The succubus didn’t stop until she’d milked her for every last drop.

Eventually, though, once her hunger was sated, she slumped down next to the punk girl, giggling intermittently in giddy, light-headed glee. The succubus’s head was already filling with daydreams of fame and wealth when Vivi came to and pulled her into a hesitant, needy embrace.

“Hey, u-um,” Vivi whispered earnestly, in a voice that was anything but punk. “W-was it good for you too?”

“Huh?” Ziratha roused herself. There was something strange about the way Vivi sounded. No; about the way she felt. Ziratha had expected her to start returning to something closer to her normal behavior.

“I-I-I just, uh…” Vivi was once again turning bright red. “I-I thought it was really special. You know? Like, um, maybe we really have a connection.”

Ziratha seized Vivi’s hand again and, as Vivi stared at her hopefully, paid close attention to what she could sense from the punk girl. When the penny dropped, she started cackling.

“Oh my god!” she howled. “I can’t believe it. You’re still the same way. As fresh as ever.”

“What do you mean?” Vivi sounded defensive.

“I’m definitely going to need to hold you for some… oversight observation. Just to make sure.” Ziratha licked her lips suggestively. “But I can already tell. It’s like your brain can’t adapt anymore. Not just your energy levels. Your social skills. Your inhibitions. Your stamina. Everything.”

“What?” Vivi pressed anxiously.

“It’s the revirginization,” Ziratha pronounced. “All of it. It’s permanent.”

***

Mere weeks later, it was a very different Ziratha that stood upon the stage to make her big pitch to a room packed full of succubus leaders and investors. It wasn’t just the confidence - although she had that in spades, now that her Nobel prize was apparently all but assured. Her body had changed too. She stood taller. Grander. She exuded power and presence, and all of her body’s assets had gone from merely ‘hot’ to inhumanly mouth-watering. Her horns were a massive, knotted crown upon her head, and her tail was as deft as a whip and as thick as an anaconda.

All thanks to her favorite little meal.

Vivi was standing a little way behind her on the stage, and while physically she was unchanged, she seemed to have shrunk just as Ziratha had grown. She exuded a fragile, nebbish submissiveness despite all tattoos and piercings. She wore a choker collar bearing Ziratha’s name around her neck, and she was wearing a dress.

Ziratha liked her that way. And Vivi was no longer able to argue with the succubus.

“So, as you can see from our data, our early clinical trials have borne out the most promising of my invention’s results,” Ziratha was saying, as she rounded off her speech. “The regression to maiden status is, both psychologically and metaphysically speaking, permanent. The process isn’t damaging, but the subject’s mind naturally sheds its ability to develop new sexual skills or comfort zones, physical or social. Accordingly, their energy levels remain at peak capacity and potency - forever.”

Ziratha paused for a beat, letting the crowd of succubi sitting in front of her drink that in.

“In short,” she concluded, “they’re helpless perma-virgins. Isn’t that right, Vivi?”

Vivi blushed an incredibly deep red and looked down at the floor, but nodded.

“So!” Ziratha clapped her hands. “It’s safe to say that we’re ready to move into pre-production. Soon enough, each and every one of you could have one of my devices in your very own hands - assuming you’re willing to provide me with funding, of course. What do you say, ladies? A future of infinite, renewable energy awaits us!”

As expected, the auditorium was immediately filled with thunderous applause.

The age of the Succubus Energy Crisis was over.

The age of perma-virgin mortals and succubus dominance was about to begin.

---

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[realjonahofficial]

Ruminations on boss monster SOUL power transfer and aging

So, uh. That one bit of Gerson dialogue. What did he mean by this???

Taken from Hushbugger's Undertale Dialogue Dump page on Github.

There are a few different headcanons/theories about how exactly this piece of lore should be interpreted – and, specifically, what its implications are regarding the children's growth rates in different scenarios. So, let's discuss it.

Personally, I'm REALLY not a big fan of the one that implies a boss monster whose parents die would be stuck as a child forever??? For instance, how would this theory of power transfer work with boss monster families that have 3+ children? Because like. Some couples having at least 3 children would be the only way for the population to to ever grow in size (unless we also headcanon that new boss monsters just spontaneously appear sometimes or something, which has absolutely no basis in canon lore). And by that logic, generations of this happening would eventually yield boss monsters who stop aging stupidly young. Not to mention, what about boss monster kids like Asriel, with no biological siblings? Would them getting both of their parents' SOUL power mean they go through super-puberty that turns them into double-mature adults??? So, yeah, not only would this all have pretty horrific implications regarding boss monster dating, but it'd also just be... really cursed worldbuilding that falls apart when you give it in any amount of serious thought. That's why I think it's a lot more likely that SOUL power transfer is simply that: a transfer of power.

I think Gerson's word choice is key here: "causing the child to grow" – rather than "mature", "age", or " develop" – "as the parents age" – as in, "into old age", becoming physically weaker due to giving up SOUL power.

I believe it's FAR more likely that, if a boss monster was orphaned, their growth would be stunted and their power would never reach its full potential – something more akin to malnutrition, rather than them literally being frozen in time; this would also happen, but to a lesser extent, to a boss monster who has to share their parents' SOUL power with more than one other sibling – and, inversely, a boss monster who's an only child would inherit both of their parents' power, growing far stronger than either of them separately by the time they become an adult.

This would also explain Asgore's absurdly high stats compared to Toriel's – like. ok. he has 8 times her total HP??? If we are to assume Asgore started out with similar stats to Toriel, plugging the numbers into the LV-based HP calculation formula the game uses for Frisk – 3/4 base HP + (1/4 base HP * LV) – gives us this equation: 330 + 110*LV = 3500. Solving for Asgore's hypothetical LV, then, gives us LV of roughly 29. Which might not sound that bad... until you realize the EXP required for getting to LV 19 is more than than all of the EXP it takes to get to LV 18 combined. Even assuming the EXP you get from killing just one human is equivalent to killing every monster in the Underground, while also assuming that the amount of EXP you need to level up no longer increases after you've reached LV 20 for some reason... it still wouldn't be enough to explain Asgore's dummy thicc HP bar after killing only 6 humans, if we are to assume his base HP is at all similar to that of Toriel. (Accounting for the possibility that monster history books lied, or at the very least didn't tell the full truth when stating that "not a single human SOUL was taken" during the war just leaves us with another problem: Toriel's also a veteran, and in fact seems a lot more comfortable with the idea of actively going to war as opposed to Asgore's approach of stalling for as long as possible, so if monsters actually were getting insane amounts of EXP by killing humans during the war, how come her stats are still so low? Killing even just a few humans would beef her up quite a bit; again, it's only once the numbers get higher that you see the sharp increase in EXP required to level up.)

I think Asgore was born into royalty, and Toriel married into it. Again: if a pair of boss monsters had only one child, that child would have the combined power of their 2 parents – now, let's suppose a family decided to do that for many generations.... with each new kid in such a family, the base power of the resulting offspring would grow more and more and more, wouldn't it? Perhaps one such family also has the means and prestige that allows them to easily find suitably strong partners for their kids, further increasing the rate at which the family's power would grow. (Also, the idea of Toriel originally being a commoner is further reinforced by the fact that the surname "Dreemurr" is confirmed to come from Asgore's side and, at least as far as we know, Toriel just... doesn't have her own surname, as she switches to just going by "Toriel" after the two break up. Given that we only have about 3 examples of surnames within the Entirety Of The Underground, it appears that family names just aren't really a thing used within monster society, unless said family is really notable in some way).

...I may or may not be overthinking boss monster biology.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

What Rafal's Physical and Immaterial Coolness Could Represent

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As a forewarning, this post is more... observational and has less of a singular, hard-hitting point to it. (Also, see Conan Gray's "Fight or Flight" song for reference, as, most of this post occurred to me in relation to that very song, if you interpret parts of it as representing Rafal's internal monologue on the subject of Rhian's substitutes during Rise.)

Also, this is a long post, so it's going under a cut.

⸻

Why is Rafal's immediate response to personal hurt avoidance of all things? Isn't that kind of a heightened, overly instinctive, clearly "uncool" reaction to have?

And yet, strangely, we still classify it as in character for him. His leaving was, arguably, the most iconic and true-to-self thing he did across both prequels. So, I want to ask: why is that?

That he just up and left seems apathetic and could be construed as part of his cold, cool nature, of course, but still—when we look at what his reaction truly is: he chose flight.

(Flight as opposed to the alternative fight, freeze, or fawn responses.)

FLIGHT! Like, can you believe it? This man, who's so headstrong and willing to stare down anything, chose flight. Let that revelation sink in. (Maybe this is more obvious than I think, but I can't believe I hadn't thought of this weird discrepancy before. Flight!)

Anyway, to explain Rafal's reaction to (potentially) having been emotionally hurt by his argument and corresponding bet with Rhian at the start, I'm going to reference a theory from an old post, as it has suddenly become relevant once again.

In short, the idea is about how Rhian's expressions of authority are personal while Rafal's are nearly always impersonal. Rhian is a master of social dynamics, considering how deftly he lies in Fall to gain favor from others and influence their views of him. And, this makes sense because he once cared so much about how he was perceived, as we take into account his original self-consciousness and his high-minded, conscionable tendencies from Rise. He is the one who wields interpersonal power as Rafal, correspondingly, wields impersonal (often more tangible and brutish) power.

If anyone would like more elaboration, here's an excerpt from that old post:

The strange thing is, in Fall, Rafal admits to having conceded a lot of the time to Rhian in the past, in the face of smaller, pettier arguments, a trend which also represents his yielding to Rhian's (supposedly nonexistent) authority in the early days. That tendency seems self-contradictory of Rafal, but perhaps, even Rafal's authority is situational. He's capable of exercising it over everything and world, but not over his own brother. He can't rein Rhian, the inevitable force, the "fatal" (to invoke both death and "fate") tides of change, the Prime Mover, in. Meanwhile, Rhian is the inverse of that. Rhian cannot exercise authority over everything and the world, but he can do so over his own brother. Besides, Rafal, often by sorcery or by outright manhandling, manipulates and exerts his physicality over others and his environment while Rhian rarely does. And yet, Rafal (from what I remember) never so much as lays a hand on Rhian during Rise (in Fall, everything changes and escalates). I don't yet know why this is, but I think this observation is true most of the time. At least, I haven't thought of any exceptions yet. The working hypothesis I have is that Rhian (being the brother who chose to stay in the comfort and limited confines of the home, according to the Bettelheim text's ideas) only initially felt comfortable to do anything there. To act, and exercise his authority in an intimate, narrow, personal way. By contrast, Rafal (the more worldly, well-traveled, and inconstant brother) wants to gain independence from their stifling "home" life, under the Storian, and, as a result, upon his return, could've felt like a stranger in his own home and with Rhian (who's also changed in his brother's absence regardless). Thus, while Rafal can certainly exercise his authority impersonally, he doesn't feel at ease exercising authority over the familiar because it could be too close for comfort, too unsettling, unsettlingly different and the same, like he can't shed the disbelonging that drove him out of the fairy-tale construct of the "home" as a safe, childhood refuge in the first place—when Rhian first questioned his very core purpose and Evil's existence.

Thus, again, Rafal's ability to wield power is, without exception (I think), always impersonal.

The closest he comes to Rhian's brand of power, which involves acting on a smaller scale or more on an individual, one-to-one level and being intimate, are his interactions with Hook and Midas. And, despite those seductive instances, Rhian is still the master of all the smaller scale exploits, like with Hephaestus and the Pirate Captain rescuing him from the Doom Room where he'd been "abandoned," whenever these acts are in fact intentional.

Yes, Rafal possibly unwittingly, by being more open with his victims, has broader appeal, but that side of him isn't all pure strategy, done with intentionality. Part of it is just how he is. Rhian, unlike his brother, strikes at something inside people that doesn't just rely on scare tactics and classic, one-dimensional intimidation. In Fall, he gains a creepiness factor and the ability to lie convincingly, importantly, without blushing.

Also, I want to commentate a little on Rafal's novel instance of blushing during Fall, which was quite unlike his usual self.

First, here's some context about physical coolness, the socially-perceived "cool factor," and how blushing can only ever be sincere and is valuable because it is involuntary from Quiet by Susan Cain:

I suspect Fall aimed to establish Rafal as more "trustworthy," and as more subject to having humility thrust upon him, than he had been in Rise, when he had previously been insurmountable.

Yet then, after that "invulnerable," unaffected precedent he set about himself, he started blushing, signaling that he suddenly began to care, and that the opposite was true of Rhian as Rhian changed throughout Fall and became more immune to his old, constant feelings of shame that originally must've formed his moral compass.

Also, Rafal gets more points towards being an actual sociopath! He just partially lost his former, low-reactive temperament when he turned "Good."

One other thought of note:

Has anyone ever headcanoned Rafal as having an avoidant attachment style? To complement that, Rhian would probably have an anxious attachment style.

Essentially, the traits of these attachment styles are Rafal and Rhian personified.

Rafal:

Rhian:

[fury-brand]

I think ultimately my disappointment with Bloodborne comes from expecting there to be more to it than there was. It's a very thoughtfully designed game, but it's hard to feel that the narrative amounts to more than a puzzle box.

Digging around on the internet hasn't really led me to any analysis that puts the component parts of Bloodborne's story together in a way that feels cohesive, and most aren't even interested in doing that so much as they are assembling the puzzle of what actually happens in the story. If anybody out there has an interesting read/watch, definitely send it my way, but my search has yet to yield anything compelling.

I'm still chewing on it and coming up with my own meaning, but what I find isn't always very satisfying. I think the core of the whole story probably began with something like "pregnancy itself is kind of an eldritch horror," and like yeah, no doubt, that shit's terrifying... But at the same time they don't really do a lot with that. The perspective on pregnancy and childbirth is all very external and I don't feel like the game has anything particularly interesting or insightful to say about motherhood; in fact I think it has a tendency to treat mothers as synonymous with the eldritch and unknowable beasts that can't meaningfully share their perspectives.

It kind of makes me roll my eyes a bit. The ambitions, the diverse perspectives on the situation that create the consequential camps of the games - these all come from men, and academic ones. Pregnancy is such a pivotal concept for this game but myriad perspectives on it are not represented or reflected - the writing is much more comfortable sticking to the eldritch horror side of the metaphor and creating characters with perspectives on that, and it comes off to me as a little cowardly. Lady Maria's role in the story plays into this dynamic. Of the characters whose actions we feel the consequences of, Maria's the only woman, and stands out as being the only one who managed compassion. It's an interesting role but a very gendered one.

As for the other narrative elements, there's a common thread of mania, obsession, frenzy, xenophobia, overindulgence, that will all lead to an inevitably terrible end but there's not really a lot to that either. I guess you could say it's an inversion of the usual cosmic horror tropes - the madness isn't the horrific outcome, rather it's the inception of the horror - but like. They're not saying an awful lot with that, in the same way it doesn't feel like they're saying a lot with the rest of it.

I think I had this impression for a while and I kept looking for something which would supercede it but it kind of just is what it is and I'll have to accept it.

[elsandifer]

Hey. No idea if you've done this before, or if you even do this sort of thing, but what the hell. I thought I'd ask. You got a list of your favourite Doctor Who episodes somewhere? Like a top 10 or top 25 list or something? Recently found your work and it's like seeing my own thoughts put to paper but actually smart. Also fellow anarchist is always dope. Hope you're having it good.

The last time I did a ranking seems to have been for the 60th, and yielded the following top 25. I’m sure if I did it now there’d be some changes (I already look at it and disagree with myself in places) but the broad strokes still accurately reflect my taste.

Hell Bent

The Curse of Fenric

The Ribos Operation

City of Death

Dark Water / Death in Heaven

The Power of the Daleks

Kill the Moon

The Time Meddler

Remembrance of the Daleks

Paradise Towers

The Mind Robber

The Eleventh Hour

The Rescue

Ghost Light

The Ark in Space

The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar

The Brain of Morbius

The War Games

The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

The Sun Makers

Listen

The Face of Evil

The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

The Caves of Androzani

The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

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