#maybe someone else can explore his nihilism

[deardoomedworld]

Talking about how affable yet ruthless Inayat "tyrant of love" Khan is has made me start thinking about Jesper and how prickly he is. He's so mean, even purposefully vicious - think of how he talks to Anita when he leaves, and how after that harrowing conversation, he's literally fantasising about how he could've been even meaner - he seems to find some sort of satisfaction/relief in being mean, in the little bit of power and control it temporarily gives him (over someone else's emotions, which is better than nothing when you feel powerless).

When we first meet them as adults, Jesper seems more detached from the other two (or alternatively, Khan and Tereesz seem closer), not just because of an earlier falling out with Khan but because he seems more put together. Tereesz' and Khan's careers/lives are more obviously shaped by their childhood trauma, while Jesper is succesful, rich, and famous. He seems better adjusted and perhaps like he moved on more than the others. Jesper's jabs towards Tereesz and Khan (think of how he tells them that them visiting the Lund girls' mother is sad/pathetic while he did the same thing; or the "those of us whose profession does not include ditches and missing children" comment) seem specifically meant to make himself look more normal. He's wearing white. He's not sullied.

This is of course just a facade. Later on in the book, it becomes clear (at least that's my interpretation) that Jesper is just as, if perhaps not more fucked up than the others, and keeps them at arms length because he's trying to hide this. His privilege - his wealth and his looks (as a blonde, blue-eyed Vaasan) - plays a big role in him succeeding in this. The other two are constantly reminded that they're immigrants, and already have to put in more effort than Jesper just to be treated normally (Tereesz is very good at this when he's not inebriated, as he seems to have dumped a bunch of skill points in composure & authority. Khan not so much), let aside when they're unraveling.

But back to his prickly exterior, his meanness. I find it interesting that as unlikeable as he is, he also seems to completely break down once Tereesz gets shot. He builts a little tomb for Tereesz' gun and then sets off to, apparently, do coke for two months and then disappear himself (we get a nice close-up of his passport, his identity, burning up before he enters the Lungs of Graad). As much as he mocked Tereesz and Khan, he seemed completely on board to leave his life behind and go with Khan's plan, but then he just abandons that after the events or chapter 18. Because... "It's become too morbid for Jesper."

Behind his likeability, Khan is revealed to be somewhat ruthless- there's nothing he won't do for this cause, nothing that can stand in his way. Jesper, vicious as he was, breaks down quickly, because his meanness was for hiding vulnerability. He was trying so hard to be normal. ("This is sad? It's all totally great!") The Ibex English translation uses the word morbid a few times, and it's often in relation to Jesper. ("I don't collect anything, you morbos.") So, behind his prickliness, is Jesper the one made of mushier stuff, who can't handle the bad stuff well? The soft one who just breaks, in the end? The sentimental one, holding onto scrunchies and service weapons.

It's counterintuitive because he's so mean, but maybe Jesper is in white because he's more innocent, more childlike? ("To this day, he hates adult sexuality. (...) Realistically, and in a paradoxical way, this makes him a p*dophile.") After all, if you search the word white through the Ibex translation, almost all instances of its use are used to refer to a Lund girl, or Jesper.

Is. Is this anything.

[mymarifae]

it's a pretty popular fanon idea that aventurine has abandoned his birth name and no longer thinks himself worthy of it which i guess seems fitting given how deep his own self-loathing runs but tbh? "selfishly" (whether it's actually selfish or not is irrelevant because that good ol' self-loathing clouds his objective judgement) clinging onto the things he feels he doesn't deserve is just as in character for him. and like

i've said this before but i really do think his future self calling him kakavasha indicates that he primarily thinks of himself by that name. sunday's order fuckery be damned, everything he hallucinates in this segment comes from himself. idk, i guess we'll never know unless we get another visualization of his inner monologues, but i prefer the idea that while both names are his now, kakavasha is the one he defaults to. it's the name his mama gave him; you really think he'd let himself abandon it? like, this is the guy who has clung onto the scraps of his papa's old shirt, even through allllll the shit he's gone through over the years, just to have something - ANYTHING - to remember him by. it's not an aspect of his character that was explored a ton, but it's still obvious: his family is extremely important to him, and he will always treasure every possible connection he still has to them, even if all that remains is rags, a charm, and a name.

he's come to accept it as his also but aventurine is... secondary, and the only reason why people don't know him as kakavasha First is because he doesn't trust anyone enough to give them such an important piece of his heart. as he moves forward, post- nihility and acheron, and tries to cherish his life a little more, maybe he'll figure out how to be vulnerable. to let someone else in, for once. and he can be kakavasha again, to at least one person other than himself

[silverandarsenic-hcs]

so i saw you had the ghouls kinks what about the papas + copia's kinks

i feel like dan howell with the amount i post but the refusal to outright leave. how could i leave? when i get to write things like this?

NSFW

Papa I: everyone got insanely mad over me saying the oldest emeritus brother is, in fact, too old to do sex. (seven people explicitly told me leave peepaw alone, but im standing my ground). now BACK IN THE DAY this man was down for whatever. There was nothing you could bring to him, no matter how taboo, that he would turn away. BDSM, bondage, butt stuff, some things involving various liquids, he would do it all. But because Nihil had such a tight leash on him, ;), he never actually got to experience most of these things. All of his adult life was spend as Papa and before that, preparation to one day become Papa. A lot of his youth was lost to growing pains, leaving so many pent up feelings. Given, maybe on a particularly good day, if you caught him at the right time, you could give him a hand with that, hm? Maybe you could help him live out every little fantasy he's been sitting with all these years. Make him feel young again. He dares you.

Papa II: There's nothing he hasn't done. While he, in some aspects of life, prefers he to err on the side of caution and maintain the status quo, in others, he says try anything once. Once just to see if you like it, twice to make sure, and a third time to reealllyyy know for sure. In all that experimenting over the years, he's still a classic. BDSM-ish things, and total domination will always be his favorite. He wants total control over his partner. He wants them to totally and completely give themselves over to him, and in return, he will make them feel things they've never even heard of before. He'll string you up on a St. Andrew's cross and just... watch you. Wouldn't it be so easy to give him the lead? When he's sitting back in his favorite leather chair, dim light from lamps casting warm shadows over his stern smirk, sipping something not quite as sweet as you but twice as strong, with the sleeves of his pressed white shirt rolled up to the elbow? Wouldn't it be so easy to just... let him take over? (next thing you know he's locked you in a box, thrown away the key, and sat on top to finish his drink. Can't you quite down? He's watching something.)

Papa III: Hear me out. His kink is complete intimacy. Only when you love and trust someone with your entire heart can you truly open up, and when you open up, what comes out of you and flows between you can be magical. In that perfect realm of acceptance and trust, you'll find where you can explore your inner most desires, no matter how shameful they may be. When Papa III can really let go, that's where you'll find the biggest and best in him. While he does like dominating, he also loves when his partner takes control. He loves when both of you are fighting for top just to try and pleasure each other more, such feverish lust coursing through your bodies you're almost vibrating at the slightest touch. He wants both of you to go to the extremes, see what a body can really do, put everything to the test in the name of a good sensation. That overwhelming thought of oh god, this feels amazing, I thought no mortal pleasures like this could exist short of Heaven, but here I am in my bed with you, and this must be where Heaven is. That's what gets him off. Also, choke him.

Copia: Top him. Just do it. He wants someone who is gonna sit on his face until they are done, and keep him going until they have had enough. He wants someone to make him forget about everything else and just take control. He's... open minded, but more than anything wants someone he can touch. Someone who he can grab, someone physical, something he can hold onto while he's whimpering into your shoulder, shuddering and shaking, wondering how much longer he can keep this up before he just dissolves. He wants you to keep him going until he's busting dust and left a mess on the bed. Or the couch. Or the desk. Or... wherever. He likes when his partners make him do embarrassing tasks, either alone in the bedroom or a few lighter things in public.

[btsslowburnfic]

Chthonic Love 22

Series Summary: A Greek Mythology AU featuring Yoongi/Suga as Hades and reader as Persephone. Olympian ruler Namjoon has delivered you, Persephone, as a gift for his brother, lord of Death, Yoongi

Chapter Summary: You and Yoongi find each other in Inferno

Previous chapter here

Yoongi gingerly stood up in the boat, monitoring the rocking. “It’s been what, a few hundred years?” He said smugly as he gazed across the icy dead-filled sea. He smirked at the arch-demon, Lucifer.

 Lucifer completely stopped beating his huge leathery, causing the Cocytus Sea to fall still. His form was that of a giant Beast; the head of a dragon and the body of a griffin. His lower half was encased in an icy miasma. His taloned arms flailed and clawed at the ice, trying to drag his lower half out of the sea. “Almost a thousand. Let me out!” He roared in Anger, venom dripping from his mouth.

 Yoongi stood there, he didn’t have time for this. Acting bored, he sighed. “No. I don’t think I will. Did another living being pass through here?” He attempted to remain calm.

 Lucifer laughed, a deep and terrible sound.  “And if someone did? Why would I tell you? You and your brother put me here to torture me.” He struggled once more, “Release Me!”

 “My brother and I put you there because you fought for the Titans.” Yoongi paused; remembering the end of the Titan wars, he shuddered.  “You have at least another millennia of penance.”

 The dragon snarled, assessing Yoongi with his golden eyes. “Who can say the girl is still alive? Perhaps she succumbed to the wailing souls and slipped into the sea.”

 Yoongi felt nauseous at the thought, and yet he knew in his heat you were still alive. He snorted in disgust at Lucifer and angrily sat down, grabbing the oars. "Then it would seem we have nothing to discuss.”

 “Wait! Wait! Let me out!!!” Lucifer continued to claw at the ice. “If you release me I’ll help find that Goddess. She’s probably in the middle of the Inferno right now. You won’t be able to reach her in time.”

 Yoongi bit his lip wondering what his chances were. Wondering what your chances were.  Lucifer was responsible for keeping the souls in Cocytus. Was there someone else who could do it? He cursed in irritation that he had to make this decision. Why did he tell you to leave? Fuck. Lucifer has tortured thousands of mortals when he was free. He had ripped apart lesser gods and goddesses.

 Yoongi sighed, “No.” He said decisively. “I’ll see you in another thousand years.” He started to row further East, feeling the temperature increase almost immediately.

 “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” He heard the dragon roar, but it was too late. He knew you wouldn’t approve of releasing a monster, even if it meant saving you. And he hated it. Because for you, he would have done it.

--------

Beyond the Cocytus Sea lies something far more treacherous. Beyond the wailing souls and the icy waves, you will find the Inferno. Saved for the souls of tyrants, the fire is so hot that at first it feels cold. The caldera of Magma is fed through channels that run deep through the Underworld. Flames rise up through poisonous geysers , threatening to suffocate anyone who breathes the air. 

 It would seem this chapter in the Compendium had not been an exaggeration. You had dipped your cloak in the water of Cocytus when you saw that you were approaching the lake of fire. You wrapped the damp fabric around yourself and began to say your prayers to Athena. Silent tears fell down your face. Would the boat catch on fire? You had no way of knowing. You tried in vain to paddle against the wind, but the Cocytus breeze was unrelenting; the pull of the Inferno unyielding. You took a deep breath as the boat quietly slipped from the seawater into the lava. You waited for the boat to melt; for the wood to catch fire. It did not.

 You looked around. The sky was pitch black. The surface of the Lake was molten lava. And it was so very hot.  In the distance you could make out the silhouette of rock features, geysers rising and spewing noxious fumes into the air. You laid down on the bottom of the boat. It had gotten you through Cocytus, maybe you could float through Inferno. 

 Time passed by slowly as you felt the boat rock gently. You recounted your youth, playing with Hoseok, your mother braiding your hair, helping mortals with their gardens. Really, you had lived a good life. You hadn’t planned on coming to the Underworld. But you were happy you did. Other than today. Even then, this morning had been great. You breathed shakily as you remembered resting your back against Yoongi’s chest; his fingers exploring your body. You really thought you had a future with the Lord of the Underworld. You hadn’t thought your future was to die down here. At least not for several thousand years. They say for mortals their life flashes before their eyes before they die. Was this the same thing? The tears evaporated off your face almost as soon as they fell. Your lips began to feel exceedingly dry; unable to keep saliva in your mouth anymore. It was so hot.

 To your surprise, you felt the boat suddenly and decisively change direction. Your eyes went wide as you sat up and saw a cave entrance, carved into a sheer rock wall. The mouth of the cave was dripping with magma, looking like the jaws of a fiery beast. In your heart you knew that all that lay on the other side of this entrance was nothingness. This was the end. No. Nonononono. You started trying to row against the pull. 

 Yoongi sailed through the rest of Cocytus easily, his powers regenerated when he paused for his chat with Lucifer. Once he entered Inferno though, the magma pushed against the boat trying to keep him out. He scanned the horizon in annoyance. What good was being the Lord of the Underworld when everything down here attempted to defy him? Annoyed, he removed his shirt and prepared to shift. He had little use for his true immortal form. The monsters that lurked in the Underworld for enough. He much preferred the comfortable form of a human. He winced in pain as he allowed the skin on his back and shoulders to rip apart. 

 “Ahhhh….” He cried out. It had been hundreds of years since he used his wings. The last time was in a contest with Jungkook. He had lost and swore off ever using the useless things ever again. The midnight black appendages unfolded, flanking his back. He stood up and flapped them several times. Just like riding a horse, he reassured himself. He took a deep breath and leapt up, allowing his wings to beat down against the air. He slowly became airborne. 

 Where were you? He flew up higher, attempting to study the flow of the magma. He saw you finally. The small boat was a few meters from the Nihil Cave. No. Anything that went into that cave became nothing. No Elysium. No Underworld. Just nothing. He swooped down, too fast too fast.

 You turned your attention from the cave mouth behind you where you had heard a whooshing sound, followed by a splash.  What? Your surprise turned to horror as you saw Yoongi pop up on the surface of the magma.

 “Yoongi!?!” You cried, as best you could with your parched throat, trying to row over towards him.

 Yoongi resisted the urge to gasp for air, keeping his mouth tightly shut. He was immortal, but he felt pain. He imagined magma down the throat would be extremely painful. He felt his skin start to burn.

 “Oh my God.” You cried, seeing Yoongi’s skin melt off, revealing red and black underneath.  Your eyes stung with tears. “I’m coming.” You said, but the oars wouldn’t budge. 

 Yoongi’s eyes widened with fear as he watched you throw the cloak to the bottom of the boat and look at him. “Persephone. No. No.” He started to swim frantically towards the boat.

 You jumped in. The Compendium was right. It was cold for a split second before you felt the fire erupt around you. Fuck this was a bad idea. You swam up towards the top of the caldera. You looked around frantically when you finally surfaced. Yoongi, Yoongi, fuck this hurt. Ouch.

 You felt something pull on your shoulders.  “Hold on,” you heard Yoongi say gruffly. You barely had time to comprehend before you felt yourself being plucked out of the magma and soon flying over it. You didn’t have time to register being dropped unceremoniously into the row boat you could only assume was Yoongi’s. 

 Yoongi plopped down in front of you, breathing heavily. His wings were tattered and his human skin sloughing off his body. In their place was a mix of red and black seared flesh. He had such beautiful skin, and now it looked like burnt meat. Your eyes filled with tears not for the pain that was traveling through your own body, but for what he must be feeling.

 You looked around. This vessel was between Cocytus and Inferno. You looked back over at Yoongi. "Yoongi,” you cried out. You wanted to embrace him but you weren’t sure with the condition he was in. “I can fix this. I can fix this.” You said, more to yourself than him.

 “Just leave it,” he yelled. He fell to his knees, exhausted. The injured wings folded in and he took a deep breath, willing the boat to change directions. The boat slowly turned back towards Cocytus.

 “Yoongi,” You slowly extended your hands towards his, trying desperately to start healing him.

 “LUCIFER,” You heard Yoongi bellow. “Helps us cross and I’ll take 200 years off your sentence.”

 The wind died down. You peered through the mist.  Was that a dragon? You were so confused. The creature began to cackle.

 “Not looking so smug now are we Yoongi?” The dragon tapped it’s claws against the ice block surrounding it’s torso. 

 “That’s Lord Yoongi you ungrateful bastard, now take the deal or don’t,” Yoongi cried, clutching his side in agony.

 “Make it 500 years.” The dragon snapped.

 Yoongi tried to stay standing, but his one leg gave out underneath him, causing him to kneel. 

 Lucifer bellowed. “The Lord of the Underworld kneels before me. Ahahaha. You should have accepted my help when I offered it to you.”

 Fuck. You stood up, trying hard to not rock the boat. “250 year or nothing. Now help us sail back to the Stygian Sea. Now.” 

 Lucifer laughed, “Do you give this woman the authority to speak for you, Lord Yoongi?”

 “I do,” he gritted out.

 “Very well, it is done.” He inhaled and blew his icy breath, causing the boat to abruptly change it’s speed and direction, towards the Stygian sea. Yoongi collapsed onto the bottom of the boat.   

 “Yoongi, Oh no.” You knelt down next to him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have waited and left with Hoseok. 

 "Shut up. I was an idiot." Yoongi coughed. “I shouldn’t have told you to leave.”

 “It’s fine. All I do is hurt people. I’ll go. It’s fine. Let me fix this.” Your body wracked with sobs as you placed your hands onto his chest.

 The boast slipped back into the Stygian Sea. Sensing Yoongi’s dominion, the sea gently began to push the boat back towards the estuary. 

 "I'm so sorry," you sobbed. "Holly, help me," you asked as the boat approached the gates. Holly whimpered and very gently used one of his mouths to pick up Yoongi and place him gently on the black sand. 

 You clamored out of the vessel and threw yourself down next to him. You conjured as much energy as you could. You were used to healing flowers and plants, not people; not Olympians. "Please Yoongi. I'm so sorry. Please." you placed your hands on his arm and chest where the fire had burned him. 

 His skin slowly started to return, a pale patchwork at first and then a whole canvas. You continued, feeling some of his energy mixing with yours. He was coming back. He would be ok. Energy flowed out of you, a purple glow emanated into his chest and arm. Purple leaves and vines spread out over his pale skin. In exchange, flame snapped at the energy, sending a burning sensation up into your hand. 

 "Ow," you cried out as more tears fell involuntarily. 

 Yoongi tried to push your hands off him. "If it hurts stop," he coughed. 

 "No. I love you. I have to fix this." You pushed your hands down even harder against his protests ,the flames growing up your arms. "I can fix this." you whispered more to yourself than him. You don't know how long you stayed that way, the pain changing from sharp shooting pain to a dull throb. Before long you were exhausted, the energy barely glowing. The last thing you saw before you blacked out was a pattern of purple and clack chrysanthemums on Yoongi's chest. @sugas-bbygirl  @twilight-loveer

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Oh gosh i literally LOVE your analysis thank you. And what about Majima??

Awww, thank you very much ^^; I’ve been having a good time writing these, I”m glad people are enjoying them. And everybody’s free to ask for seconds too, if interested. *breathes deep* Hoo boy, you pulling out the big guns there. Okay lads, settle down, it’ll be awhile. 

character: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS

I would give my life for Majima Goro. But I won’t because that would trigger him to fuck and back. Best boy, golden son, I am mad fucked up about him. I don’t even have time to explain all my feelings about Majima fucking Goro. You can tell because I can’t go a single fucking post without mentioning him. *whispers* I love him. 

ship with: Y’know how sometimes things are popular and you don’t get why? This is not one of those times. It’s cliche, but Kiryu Kazuma is the popular option here For A Reason. Like, I started Zero not knowing a fucking thing about Yakuza, as I think many do. And I wasn’t at all sure how Majima and Kiryu were going to be with each other, I had heard that they were the going ship and that seemed legit enough. Kiryu’s a nice boy, Majima’s a nice boy, they’d probably get on. But you make it through Zero and they don’t meet, not even once. They vaguely hear about each other and if they thought enough about it, they’d probably figure out that each other was holding the other half of their story, but there’s only that 5 second meeting in the epilogue, after the entire game is already fucking over and... Oh Shit. 

That, my many gendered gentry, was an imprinting in live time. 

But first, let’s back up a second, because I bet you’re all wondering about the Other important love in Majima’s life. So Makoto, Makoto... As I discussed in my Saejima post, after Anagura, Majima is living to die. That’s it, that’s his only goal in life, to get back into Tojo and wait there so his brother knows where to find him when he comes to kill him. He’s not looking for any other attachments in life. Because that’s the way Majima loves, body and soul, his whole existence dedicated around one thing. And he’s already signed himself up for sacrificing himself as repayment for Saejima’s sins and wasted years in prison. But then this... tragedy happens. This hit that isn’t a hit, this villain that’s really a victim. Everything goes wrong and Majima is left with do I commit the unthinkable to shorten my wait for my brother or do I forgo my brother’s rightful revenge to save this innocent? And Majima can’t. He can’t. 

He could never kill and he can’t turn his back on someone who needs help. And she does need him, specifically, there’s no one else. Anyone else couldn’t be trusted, or if they can be trusted, they’re dead. Majima is the only person he and Makoto can trust so he’s just here, doing his best, trying to keep her alive in the face of everything he wants and all the power and hate the underworld of Japan can offer. He would sacrifice his one goal of staying alive for his brother if it means keeping Makoto safe. Is that love? Oh yes, but not the livable kind. You don’t come back from that kind of dedication. Majima loves Makoto as gods love: completely. It is without judgment and without reason. That’s not the love of one finite person to another finite person, admitting, exploring, and cherishing all the flaws and limits therein, it’s not even the love of a parent to a child or vice versa. It is infinite love, all-consuming and all-destroying. It is not cognizant of personality, worthiness, or risk. It just is. In many ways, Majima does not know Makoto, he doesn’t see her, neither, ironically, does she see him. These are not two equals of mutual interest enjoying who each other is. This is a far less personal and far more profound experience. It’s like a calling, a quest. And it’s not something a stable relationship can be built on because it doesn’t actually have anything to do with who Makoto is in her day-to-day life or who Majima is in his embodied, finite experience. This is love as a philosophical point, as a moral decision. 

It is the greatest thing I’ve seen in my life that he lets her go. That sort of love will destroy you if you let it, it crushes your existence, your personality and sense of self, entirely into that of another. And you can’t live as a part of someone else, you cannot actually live for someone else, not sustainably, no matter how badly you want to. It’s the strongest thing I’ve ever seen done that Majima has the power to walk away from her and walk away from that sweet, blinding death. To choose a finite, flawed, embodied, but his own individual existence rather than let himself be consumed in an idea. And that they walk away from each other where they can both survive it. Where the idea of what was and what might have been doesn’t drive them into despair of all earthly, finite joys. Because who would choose to have a normal, dirty, working life where you are required each day to be an individual with your own wants and desires that are spurned and rewarded by turns of luck rather than the pure, golden existence of perfect moral agape? And I’m so glad that they walked away before they could be blinded by it, again, ironically enough. 

But the fact that Majima is capable of that level of love is truly terrifying. And then how fascinating that he walks away from it. That he chooses a harder, darker life that will have the normal range of joys and disappointments. The restraint it takes. The incredible, unbending sense of self and to decide that there are selfish, individual things worth caring about, even if you had the chance to become selfless for the rest of your life. I don’t think we talk about or think about that Majima walking away there was a moral choice. He wasn’t walking away from happiness, he was walking towards a different happiness. And, most importantly of all, even though he is still waiting to be killed by his brother, the fact that he walked away means that Majima is much healthier and much less self-destructive than he was at the beginning of Zero. He could have escaped it all if he went with her. But he doesn’t. And that fucking blows my mind.

I love that Majima grows after Zero. That his absolute nihilism changes as he allows himself to care about people again, maybe even care about himself again. Especially after Shimano’s death, he starts to develop relationships and things that he cares about as soon as it is safe to do so. He decides that he isn’t going to waste away waiting for his brother, he will live in this time, even if it has an expiration date. He will build something he cares about. And I think, in no small part, knowing Kiryu gives him the courage and the will to do so.

Because Kiryu is this shooting star in the dark night of Majima’s world. He is this mighty pillar standing amidst slag and waste. Kiryu does things that are right because they are right, with no thought to his own gain or risk. Kiryu does things that are right at tremendous personal risk and will fight through people trying to stop him. And Kiryu will win. Not only does Kiryu agree with the way Majima thinks and feels but, mother of god, eh actually has the power and strength to survive. 

Think about that. You’re Majima Goro and every day since you became yakuza, you have been kicked down, tortured, and abused just because you wanted to do the right thing. You have watched countless friends, allies, and enemies be shot and killed in front of you because they were trying to do the right thing. You have no choice but to do right in the secret places of your heart, to do good only in ways that can never be traced back to you, in ways no one would confuse for being good, kind things. Because it will get you killed, or worse, it will get the people around you killed. It’s not paranoia, you’ve seen it happen, your nightmares are filled to the brim with the blood and horror or good people dying just because they were good and it’s your fault, it’s all your fault because you didn’t warn them, you let them get close, you let them see you were a good person and you can NEVER. EVER. let that happen to anyone again. 

And then there’s Kiryu. Stupid, mutton-headed freak with the arms of a lumberjack and a heart as white as lilies. He’ll be dead tomorrow, you know it. He’s too good, he’s too kind, and he’s not afraid. He’s not damn near afraid enough. He has no idea what’s waiting out there to snap him to pieces. But he’s there tomorrow. Not even a scratch on him, still standing, still strong. You try to warn him, you try to beat him in a way he can survive so that he learns to never try to be good again. But he beats you. He actually fucking beats you and what the fuck are you supposed to do with that? He’ll still die anyway, there’s no way he’ll live where so many have been slaughtered. And he’s still there tomorrow. You pester him, you follow him, you watch him closely, to see what he does, who he is, how is it he’s still alive? It must be some trick, he’s either not as good as you think he is or not as strong or, or... something! Because it’s impossible, it’s impossible that anyone could, that anyone could... 

And he smiles. He smiles at you, like he can see right down to that tiny, beating, pure heart you’re trying every second to wrap in barbed wire. And you’re done. You’re fucking done for. He smiles and... it’s all fucking over. Whatever happens now, whether he dies or lives, it’s too late. He’s everything you ever wanted and it breaks you that he, somehow, wants you too. Because who would smile at you if they didn’t know you? Oh, he’s dumb as rocks still, but... the way he looks at you, in those moments when you fuck up, in those moments that if someone was watching, they would see you. And he sees you. And worse, he thinks he likes it. And... oh god. You love him. This will all end in tears. 

But it doesn’t. Kiryu’s alive and the same and that’s... that’s wonderful. And that’s the love of two people, two people who see each other and know each other and, god help them, like each other. Despite it all, the risk and worry and the problems, they just... get along. That’s why I ship it. 

(I also ship Kiryu/Majima/Tachibana sometimes and we’ll save my essay on that for an entirely different post.)

brotp: Saejima Taiga, obvs. I will not repeat my sentiments on why that’s the brotp here, there’s the Saejima post for that. But I also put Nishida and Kage right up there as Majima’s best bros. You got Nishida out here doing his best to keep his boss from dying and facilitating Majima’s ridiculous courtship ploys and trying to articulate Majima’s feelings for him when Majima Won’t because Nishida cares So Fucking Much about Majima. And he knows that Mjima hates it when people care about him, he knows Majima actively does tno want you to like him but... Nishida’ worked with him for too long not to know what a good, kind person Majima really sis, even if he’s trying his best not to show it. And god damn it, but Nishida’s not going to let him live in misery when he’s got a heart of gold like that. 

And Kage too, he and Majima look out for each other. They enjoy the odd cage match and a morose drink of fine liquor. They’ve both seen tragedy in their lives and Kage tries his best to convince Majima not to give up all hope. That Kiryu boy, he really likes him. Even Kage can see it. He’d be happy to... no, no, alright. Just thought he’d say. 

Because Majima has that effect on people. He makes friends wherever he goes because he’s a good time, he’s generous and kind and has a knack for picking up people who are down. And he’d do anything for you if you didn’t have a friend in the world. He has so much love to gives and slowly, slowly, with time and healing, with the death of Shimano and the return of his brother, slowly Majima is allowed to feel safe in loving people once more. And it warms everyone’s heart to see him happy and whole with a family and friends. Everyone he’s touched just wants him to be okay, after all he’s done for the world, please, just give him this little bit. It’s all he ever wanted.

general opinions: I Am Love. I LOvE HiM. I lOVe. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE. I Love HIm. *sobs*

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Dorm Decisions

Starting at the top. Juudai eyed Obelisk Blue, trying hard not to lick his lips in anticipation. He’d looked forward to doing this for weeks. Now it was time.

Edo stood next to him, arms crossed, staring impassively at the elegant building in front of them. Then he glanced to Juudai. “Do you want me to do this?”

Juudai shook his head. “It’ll work best if I do. Your job will come afterward.” He rested one hand on Edo’s shoulder. “I have a lot of work for you to do eventually.”

Edo nodded; Juudai needed nothing more than that to keep Edo pacified. It was quite sweet how Edo served him so eagerly. For now, though, he had work to do.

Yubel flickered into view next to him, one clawed hand resting on his own shoulder. “Are you ready for this?” They wanted to know. Juudai offered a smile. Really, it had been too long since he’d seen them. He’d missed them far more than he’d realized until he had them back again.

“Ready,” he murmured. Yubel faded away, invisible to mortal eyes. Juudai could have seen them if he wanted to put in the effort, but for now, he moved forward.

He’d never liked Obelisk Blue. So full of arrogant fools who were convinced that since they were in the highest dorm that they didn’t need to work at all and yet they should receive all the benefits that money and privilege offered. There were only a tiny handful who thought otherwise.

Those wouldn’t be spared. He’d already decided on the one person he wouldn’t touch and she wasn’t even here.

As he strode closer, he focused his thoughts and the glowing white energies within him, creating a shield of sorts. He wasn’t sure of what else to call it. But anyone who saw him who didn’t know that he was the one standing there wouldn’t know that it was him.

An Obelisk Blue student, a second year he thought, glanced towards him as the two of them strode closer. Juudai knew that what this student saw would be Edo Phoenix and someone else in pure white, someone whose face couldn’t be clearly seen. Exactly as he wanted it. He reached harder, and the Light whispered the name to him: Kishimoto Yori.

“What do you want?” Kishimoto asked, reaching up to rub his eyes. Juudai smiled, raising his duel disk.

“I want to duel. And when we’re done, you’re going to belong to me, Kishimoto.”

Kishimoto tensed; he knew that he’d never given his name to this ‘stranger’. But Juudai didn’t give him any time to think about it. Yubel dug deep into the darkness of Kishimoto’s heart, whispering information to Juudai. Kishimoto himself believed that he didn’t belong in Obelisk Blue, that he’d only achieved his rank by luck and having wealthy parents.

Time to teach him just how right he was.

And to teach the rest of Obelisk Blue the same lesson.

It took longer than he thought, if only because Obelisk Blue had the most students in it, and even he had to eat and drink and rest. He did allow Edo to convert a few of the Blue students into White, just to have the process go faster. Yubel wanted to help, but Juudai remained firm on that. Yubel needed to remain hidden – his secret ace, the unknown trump card.

He wondered if Flame Wingman or Neos would be bothered by this. Oh, well, they’d get over it. Yubel would eternally be far more than a simple card, even more than a duel spirit. He’d woken up in their arms every morning since defeating DD and claiming their card back from him.

But now Blue didn’t exist anymore. There was nothing but Obelisk White now – the only two that he’d spared were the Tenjoins. They were his friends. He wasn’t going to make them into his servants – it wasn’t as if he needed to, anyway. They would help him in their own way when the time came.

Though truth to tell, he wasn’t entirely certain if he could make Fubuki into his servant anyway. He could still feel the sensation of the Darkness of Nihility around whenever he looked at Fubuki. He would walk carefully there.

Now he and Edo and Yubel stood outside of the second dorm - Ra Yellow. This one he liked a little better than he had Blue. The students here weren’t quite as stuck up as those in Blue had been.

Not that those students were very stuck up anymore. He’d crushed their will and whenever he walked near them, everyone who wore white now crumpled to their knees and begged to be allowed to serve him. He liked that far more than he would have a year earlier.

Ra Yellow had a few people that he liked. More of them would be spared – at least three of them. Marufuji Shou, Tyranno Kenzan, and Misawa Daichi. Again, he would have other tasks for them – especially for Misawa. He’d already seen the signs of Misawa being so useful in the future. They’d been showing up since shortly after the other’s duel against Taniya.

But that lay in the future. For now, he reached for the one he wanted to start this with. He considered, then smiled. Perfect.

“Sorano Daigo.” His voice reverberated throughout the Ra building. “Come out and duel me.”

All remained silent for several minutes. One by one other Ra Yellow students stumbled their way out, followed at last by Sorano himself, the one who had scored highest on his entry tests. All rumor said that he would be promoted to Obelisk Blue within a matter of months.

Juudai suspected it wouldn’t quite work out that way.

“Who are you?” Sorano peered at the light-wrapped figure in front of him. Juudai bared his teeth in a feral smirk.

“You can call me the Lightborn. Ready to duel?” He activated his duel disk. “Because I am.”

Because he always was – and because this was still just the beginning steps of his greater plan.

He might have liked being part of Ra Yellow, but it still had too many requirements for his tastes. Ra students could only miss a certain amount of days and they had to maintain a certain average on their grades as well. Too much effort for his taste.

Not that it would matter much longer. Soon Ra would be as white as snow.

Another turning of the moon. He wondered if anyone had ever noticed that he struck on the full moon. He could have hit them at any other time, but he liked the symbology of hitting when the full moon rose to drench them all in glorious white light.

“Have you heard the rumors?” Shou whispered, glancing from one side to the other, shoulders hunched over. He kept his yellow jacket wrapped close as if expecting it to fly away if he didn’t. “That scary guy – the Lightborn -”

Juudai stretched out underneath his favorite tree, a lay smile on his lips. “What about him?”

“They say he might attack Osiris Red. We’re the only ones left.” Shou tried to sit so that no one could sneak up on him. “Aniki, what are we going to do?”

Juudai rubbed the back of his head. “I dunno. What can we do?” Nothing. He already knew the answer to that. There wasn’t anything they could do. Then he shrugged. “Don’t you mean Red’s the only one left?” He reached out to tweak Shou’s jacket. “You’re already safe, aren’t you?”

Shou ducked his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there that day.” He cast his eyes down. “I feel like he’s going to pop up somewhere and the next thing I know I’m going to be wearing white and chanting about how awesome he is.”

“Wish I could duel him,” Juudai said, resettling himself under his favorite tree. He could see Yubel gazing at him, somewhat amused. As if he could duel himself. But some secrets didn’t need to be revealed just yet.

He would have to figure out how to get Osiris Red under his thumb without giving the game away. Oh, wait. There was an idea.

Juudai pulled himself up a little. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. That one guy said that Edo was with this “Lightborn” both times, right?”

Shou blinked at him. “Yeah.” Then his eyes widened. “You think Edo knows something?”

“Maybe. You go get Kenzan and Misawa and go keep an eye on Edo. If anyone would know if what’s his name is going to hit here, then Edo would.”

Not that Edo did. Juudai knew he would stay out of the way until Juudai summoned him. But this would keep those three out of his hair for a little while. Asuka and Fubuki lurked around the girl’s dorm; they wouldn’t see a thing either.

Juudai waited no longer than half an hour after Shou hurried off before he got up, wrapped himself in light, and headed back to Red. This time he didn’t call for anyone in particular. They were all peering outside anyway, and he could almost hear their terrified squeaks when he strolled up.

“Students of Red,” he said, voice echoing. “I’ve defeated your champion Yuuki Juudai. Now it’s time for the rest of you.”

It didn’t take long. Once he was done, and there wasn’t a single Red student left. All of them lay scattered before the dorm, unconscious, their clothing bleached white from the force of his will.

The Lightborn smiled. How sweet it was to rule the entire school. He’d always liked being in Osiris Red. He could be as lazy as he wanted to be. No pressure, no stress. Even now he could do whatever he wanted and there wasn’t anyone there who could stop him.

The teachers would probably be annoyed about this. They would get over it. He already had Napoleon dancing to his tune and the others would be soon enough. Then he would send Edo to the Pro Leagues to bring those under his banner as well.

Only one act remained.

He drove his hand, flaring with the energies of destruction, down onto his duel disk. The disk itself shattered, cracking in half. This meant he would have to buy a new one.

Perhaps he’d choose something in pure white.

The End

Notes: Honestly, I like all the dorms. Each one has good and bad parts. Juudai likes Red the best because it’s where he can be lazy. And we want Juudai to be lazy, don’t we?

[linkspooky]

One Bad Day - League of Villains

can you explain the meaning of all it takes is one bad day meaning my hero academia? I saw it used with twice but i thought that it might appy to some of the villians we saw in the manga. 

In the most recent arc “My Villain Academia” the story flipped to the villain’s side rather than the heroes and we saw the world through their eyes. In that same arc, Hori made several allusions to The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, a comic that explores a darker take on the relationship between batman and the joker and one potential take on the Joker’s Character. It just like My Villain Academia is a story told mainly through the villain’s eyes rather than the hero’s, and it’s all about the narrative a villain tells himself. 

What was Hori’s purpose in referencing the killing joke? Did he take inspiration from the story? Is he just a nerd making a comic book reference? Did he believes the themes espoused in the Killing Joke to be true? Let’s take a look under the cut. 

1. The Killing Joke

The most logical place to start is with the material Horikoshi is referencing himself. I read the Killing Joke several years ago, and reread it for the purpose of this meta. The funny thing about the killing joke (har har) as it’s one of those stories that gets misinterpreted a lot by fans. 

It’s actually a pet peeve of mine when people blame the original work itself, like saying it’s Fight Club’s fault that people misread it. The common misreading of the text is that Joker is right, that he’s actually this really deep person that sees through the lies of society. Even when the entire point of the story is that Joker is wrong, the characters even say this out loud as direct  dialogue. This story is the exact opposite of subtle, it’s very in your face with it’s themes, almost too loud.

 People confuse the Joker’s own personal narrative, that he sees through these things and is therefore deeper and more aware than anybody else, with the framing of the story that frames Joker as petty and shallow. But, you could have Joker wear a t-shirt that says “I am wrong and a hypocrite” the entire work and people would still misread it. 

The point of this preamble being, I don’t think Hori misinterpreted the killing Joke. I do not think his reading of the story is so shallow he referenced it because the joker is a cool villain who says cool things. I hope that will show as I continue, that there is a lot of thought put into these connections. Even if it’s not a direct adaptation of the themes of the killing work the two separate works make for a really interesting comparison. 

Joker says many things about the world., but the killing Joke isn’t about the world at all, nor does Joker really care about the world. The Killing Joke is not a comment on society, it’s a character study, primarily about the relationship between Batman and the Joker. It starts and ends with the titular killing joke. 

See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum, and one night, one night they decide they don’t like living in the asylum anymore. They decide they’re going to escape. So, like, they get up on the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town stretching away in the moonlight, stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem but his friend, his friend daredn’t make the leap, y’see. Y’see he’s afraid of falling. So then the first guy has an idea. He says “Hey, I have my flashlight with me. I’ll shine it across the gape between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me.” But the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says. He says “wh-what do you think I am, crazy? You’d turn it off when I was halfway across.” 

The Joker's joke, which is an analogy of how hopeless it is for one insane man to try saving another insane man. It's so sadly relevant, Batman can't help but join the Monster in bitter laughter. The entire story is a character study of the foiling between Batman and the Joker, and how both of their actions, becoming a hero, becoming a villain, is a response to meaningless tragedy in their lives. Yet, even if Batman recognizes that they’re both victims in a way he can’t save joker, because it’s impossible for one insane man to save another. 

That is the main theme, of the Killing Joke. In a way it’s a failure of empathy, because batman’s methods won’t save the joker, punching him in the face won’t fix him. That is also what I believe Horikoshi disagrees with.

The main conflict of the Killing Joke is that the Joker is trying to make a point. That he’s not that different from everybody else, that anyobdy when exposed to the meaningless tragedy of the world would go insane. That it’s the right response and everybody else, clinging to to society, and it’s made up rules are the ones who are really man. 

It’s basically what is called moral nihilism. 

Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that ethical claims are generall false. It holds that there are no objective moral facts, or true propositions - that nothing is morally good, bad, right, wrong, because there are no moral truths. 

Basically, because morals are made up ideas by human beings therefore morals cannot exist. The thing is while it insists there is no value to the things we believe are proper and right about the world, it’s not Nihilism or not in the nietzschian sense of the word. 

See, the thing is Joker is right that all of these institutions are meaningless, that they’re not as set in stone as humans would like to pretend they are, that the earth under your feet could fall out under you at any time. 

But that realization is not necessarily something that leads to evil, or even madness. Like, nihilism is very subversive of power structures. People use the idea of meaning, they use ideas, they use the way the world currently is as unfair as it is to insist that the world has always been that way, to keep in power. Therefore, rejecting what you are told by existing power structures and finding their words meaningless and thinking critically instead is something that could lead into something better. The formation of new ideas inevitably involves the rejection of old ones as meaningless. 

However, the joker isn’t interested in any of that. Nothing he says is subversive of power structures at all. He doesn’t care about the injustice of the world, or the way power structures let people like him fall through the cracks. In fact, Joker recreates the same power structures he is trying so hard to subvert and laugh at. 

Joker’s entire (possible?) backstory is that he was a victim of poverty that the world didn’t really care about, was utterly indifferent to, and the realization of the world’s indifference to him is what drove him mad in the end. However, the thing about the Joker is, he sucks at telling jokes. His attempted parody or satire just ends up recreating the same ideas of the society he is trying so hard to say that he’s above. 

In his backstory, the Joker makes a pretty misogynist joke. While a victim of poverty himself, he looks down on women victims of poverty who sell their own bodies and try to live just like he is. Joker’s problem isn’t society itself, it’s that he’s the one being stepped on, and not the one stepping on others because he thinks it should be the other way around. A guy like him should have never ended up society’s victim, society’s punchline. 

Which is why he insists that he’s normal. He’s the same as everybody else. And in a way he’s right, Joker reflects the attitudes of society, he’s sexist, he looks down at the poor, it’s implied he takes his feelings of inferiority out on his wife.  He’s normal for all of those reasons, not because it would be normal to go insane. 

Also, this is just a side tangent but there’s a lot of philosophy on whether normal people are good or bad which is too lengthy to get into, but whether people are born good or bad by default, normal people will carry within them the ideas society raised them in. 

“You must stop your fooling around with women. You’ve gone far enough. Society won’t stand for more.”  What, I wondered, did he mean by “Society?” The plural of human beings? 

No longer Human, Osamu Dazai. 

Society is the plural of human beings. Joker is a part of the same society, a reflection of the same society, a response to it, just like any other person is, and in that way he’s normal and not as outside of society as he believes himself to be. 

The work then goes on to make the point that while this may be our society, there are also people who try to be better even in situations like these. Gordon the entire time, tells Batman it’s wrong even if Joker is a bad person who murders people, to beat him up because police brutality is wrong. 

So we finally reach the scene which Hori is quoting. Joker’s speech to Batman, the grand point that he is trying to prove. That everybody is the same as he is, they just haven’t realized it yet. That anybody would have gone mad being put through what he was put through, the revelation that everything was meaningless. 

However, once again Joker doesn’t actually care whether society is meaningless or not. In fact, his actions are the opposite of NIhilism. He is trying to make a point. A point, as in, the opposite of meaninglessness. He thinks there are ideas that are correct, that there’s such a thing as being right about this world. 

Which is why we see is his slow breakdown amidst his own monologue. What he really wants is to prove to someone else his perspective is correct. So that he can finally feel justified in it, and maybe because batman isn’t responding he has to pause a minute and consider that he’s wrong?

What Joker fears is true meaninglessness. So everything he does isn’t reveling in meaninglessness like he supposes, it’s the opposite of it. He’s trying to create a narrative to life, he’s trying to give it themes, he wants to teach a lesson. Joker’s views are just a reflection of the society that created him. Joker thinks everybody else is wrong, but the idea that he himself might be wrong genuinely breaks him. 

Which is why Batman’s line here is so important. Because I’ve heard it before. What Joker says is no different from society. He carries the same attitudes. Society isn’t just some idea floating out there, it’s made up of human beings, people like the Joker. 

So, the work of the Killing Joke itself is subversive to the idea that one bad day is all it takes to turn anyone into a villain. However, at the same time the Killing Joke is not trying to make a point about society, or insanity, or victimhood and trauma or anything like that. All of those ideas present in the work, but they are basically just window dressing because the central part of the story is a character study between Joker and Batman, two people who let their entire lives be ruined by one bad day. 

However, at the same time Killing Joke is heavily flawed. Just like the joker is misogynist, etc. etc, the work itself is rife with the nineties it was made in. On that front it’s much more a product of its time than ahead of its time in any signficiant way. Like, there’s the obvious fridging of Barbara Gordon, but also as I said the point they are trying to make isn’t reflective of mental illness or trauma or anything like that. The joker went mad because he was a bad person to begin with. 

See the thing is I also believe that mentally ill people are perfectly capable of being bad people at the same time. There’s nuance there. No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai is an example of this. The main character isn’t a bad person because they are mentally ill. The fact that they are a victim of trauma never goes away throughout the book. Yet at the same time, you see the person just uses other people as things for them to cope with, they could care less about the feelings of others, they see no one else as an individual. The way they cope with their mental illness when they are given access to healthier alternatives, is what makes them a bad person. 

While yes that is also a part of the Joker’s character, he’s always been double sided as a bully, as someone who is looking for an excuse to exploit others not really to make any kind of point. Which is why the ideas of mental illness and victimhood and whether society is at fault for creating people like this by the act of letting people fall through the cracks isn’t really suited to a character like the joker. This is something Alan Moore himself admits. 

I’ve never really liked my story in The Killing Joke. I think it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it. It was too nasty, it was too physically violent. There were some good things about it, but in terms of my writing, it’s not one of me favorite pieces.

“Alan Moore”

There are a lot of ideas about society brought up in the Killing Joke, but none of them are substantial, and none of them really matter because the work itself is not trying to develop them. 

However, the ideas themselves are still good which is why I like to think Hori’s work in My Hero Academia, his insistence that one bad day is what created people like Shigaraki, Twice, and Redestro is not a misinterpretation of Alan Moore’s message but in fact an interesting response. 

2. Shigaraki’s Bad Day 

There are a lot of connections between Shigaraki, the character and the Joker for instance, it’s pointed out right a way in the same sense as the Joker is throughout the entire Killing Joke comic, that he does not really mean what he says and he isn’t actually trying to prove any kind of point through his actions. 

However, Horikoshi’s writing and humanization of Shigaraki is really different and takes a different direction than the Joker. Here let’s talk about good victim bad victim again. 

The reason good victim bad victim is bad, because it basically tries to strip away victimhood of characters in order to render them in black and white ways. It gives the implication that reacting certain ways to trauma makes you a bad person. The feelings of the victim are entirely stripped away and they’re stopped from being seen as a human being, because other people want to fit them into a simpler black and white narrative.  Nuance is the best way to approach these scenes. So, let’s look at this scene with what we now know. Shigaraki is a victim of abuse. Not only that but he became a punching bag for his father, directly because All Might’s Master abandoned his father to raise All Might Instead. He was raised in domestic violence, and then adopted by a violent person and molded into becoming more violent raised with no stability, no home and constantly exposed to danger that would threaten his life.

So, yes Shigaraki’s words might be nonsense but the feelings behind them are still real. This is what All Might’s Mistake is, he could not care any less about the feelings that the person he is fighting has, and he just sees them as someone to punch in the face. This is also something that bites him later when he realizes that Shigaraki actually was someone he was connected to. 

Of course All Might is trying to save a bunch of kids, does he really have time to listen to the feelings of somebody threatening to kill kids? Who knows. That’s the thing about reality, it is mesy and indefinite, there are more important questions to ask then whether victims are good or bad. You could also say at the same time that All Might is completely oblivious to the feelings of victims of abuse. That he still fails to see what kind of person Endeavor is, and insists he has good things to teach people, because Endeavor is a part of the same sytem that heroes is. 

Anyway, the point of that tangent was to establish a good aspect of Hori’s writing, characters are people first. Shigaraki is a victim first before the question of whether he is a good person or a bad person is even asked. 

Shigaraki is also, someone like the joker thinks he seees above society because he sees it from an outsider’s perspective. He views other people as clinging onto meaningless ideals and unable to see or think for themselves, because they’re too concerned with the illusion of safety. 

Shigaraki also shares the same relationship with Deku that the joker does with Batman. Even though they do not know or understand each other, the two of them are set up as mortal enemies and keep fighting each other because their masters pushed them into this fight. Deku even denounces Shigaraki the same way that Batman does the Joker. 

Shigaraki and the joker both experience a moment where they snap. Almost as if their entire lives have been defined by one bad day, where a lot of it amounted to coincidence. Joker loses his whole family in one day and falls in the chemical tank, Tenko’s quirk activates after a particularly bad day of abuse in his abusive household and his family is caught up in an accident, and then when his father attacks him he tries to defend himself. 

Here is the primary difference though. With Joker there’s the idea written that Joker was like that all along, that he wanted to hurt people and take out his shitty life on others, and that his madness just revealed feelings that were already there. This mostly works in the case of the joker because he’s a bully, a bad person, that’s who he’s always been. 

But, Shigaraki is 1) five years old, and 2) we see the kind of person Shigaraki is before trauma. 

He’s a kid who is in fact, victimized by the patriarchical ideas of society. Unlike the joker who believed he deserved more, not only was Tenko literally just a kid trying to be himself and follow his own dream who was abused by patriarchical authority figure in his own house, but Tenko even as a victim still cared about the feelings of other people, fellow people who were being excluded like him and he went out of his way to look out for them. 

There are absolutely no hints that Tenko was simply a bad person all along, and that he was looking for the excuse to simply act on his impulses to hurt other people and destroy things. In fact this idea itself appears in story as a narrative that All for One feeds him in order to manipulate. The Joker’s ideas appear in the story, but the one that uses them, the one that’s just a bully taking advantage of weaker people is All for One, not Shigaraki. 

Shigaraki is deliberately raised not to have empathy for others, to only act on his own impulsive feelings to destroy, to be impulsive, to act to hurt whoever he wants, whenever he wants. 

Now, I don’t know if there are truly good or evil people in this world. Good and evil might not even be real, but, at the same time jerks are real, and they’re out there in the world being jerks. For the sake of simplicity let’s just define a jerk as somebody who does not care about the feelings of other people in the least, especially when it comes secondary to their own feelings. Shigaraki does not fit that criteria. 

Shigaraki listens to the people around him, he treats them with care. Even though Shigaraki suffered one bad day, and then several bad days after that, the part of Shigaraki that All for One tried so hard to destroy where he actually wants to reach out and connect to others and stand up for them is still there. 

So, in a way Horikoshi is using Shigaraki for a much more empathic take of one bad day, which sort of validates both sides of the argument. Yes, someone’s entire life can be ruined by one day and they can fall through the cracks that easily and the society that was supposed to take care of them won’t. It’s a stance that acknowledges that villains are made, and trauma exists and will always affect people whether they are good or bad people. 

However, at the same time that does not necessarily mean the person you are will be gone forever. One bad day cannot destroy you. The Joker’s view is pessimistic because he believes there’s no hope for someone like him, that both he and batman are completely broken and will have their lifes defined by their one bad day their entire life. Whereas, not only are the good parts fo Shigaraki still in there, but he also is someone slowly recovering from his trauma when placed in a much healthier environment. The Shigaraki at the beginning of the manga, and the Shigaraki we know now are different, because Shigaraki does not want to be stuck in one bad day his whole life, he’s trying desperately to become his own person outside of his trauma. 

In the end, one bad day can in fact ruin your entire life. Which is why the message of the Killing Joke ends up coming off as a little ableist, by saying that if you were a good person you would not have let it ruin you. It’s kind of like saying that Dabi is a bad person because he chose to be a villain in response to Endeavor’s abuse, even though Shouto was abused and chose to become a hero. Like, that’s a pointless argument to make, and holds Dabi accountable for his own abuse instead of holding Endeavor accountable for the people he abused. 

Shigaraki isn’t the joker, because Shigaraki is a lot more human than the joker as a character. 

2. Twice’s Bad Day

The other fundamental difference between the Joker and The League of VIllains is that the Joker really is not trying to make any kind of anti-establishment point, nor does he really care about the society around him, whereas the League of Villains definitely does care. The Killing Joke isn’t actually about society, but My Hero Academia, the central conflict of the story is about the society the story takes place in, a society that basically manufactures it’s own villains. 

Twice, just like the joker, and just like Shigaraki is someone who is driven insane by one bad day. Specifically because society as a whole neglected him and let him fall through the cracks. He’s also like the joker, someone who while at the same time as being insane, genuinely is able to observe the world around him from an outsider’s viewpoint and pick up on things. He tends to be more aware than the other characters, even while babbling like he’s just comedic relief. 

However, Twice’s views are also in direct contrast with the Joker’s. Twice himself believes that it’s fine that normal people are able to enjoy their normal everyday lives, and that people exist in this society who have no problem fitting in at all. 

Whereas, the joker loathes normal people and anyobdy else who can fit into society in a way that he cannot. He dismisses them all as idiots and laughs at them. That’s because, as a character Twice is far more self aware, unlike the Joker who is in denial of his want for people to understand him that’s exactly what Twice wants and admits to wanting. He knows his views are outside of normal society, so instead of trying to prove that he’s right, Twice seeks out people who are like him. 

He also knows that society will not try to save or sympathize with a person like his. The thing is the things Twice is saying aren’t grandiose claims to the true meaning of the world or seeing through everything, instead they’re much more grounded observations that are true because My Hero Academia is trying to prove a society that has failed people like Twice. 

Twice’s story even mirrors the joker in several ways. He is basically the same, a guy down on his luck, dealing with poverty who eventually resorts to crime when all of his other options fall through. 

Let us count the actual societal injustices that are present in Twice’s Backstory. Twice obeyed the law, and the person he hit did not. However, because the person he hit was a rich person and Twice was not, Twice was the one who was punished instead. Almost as if laws that supposedly protect everybody favor rich people and people with power already. 

The foster system left Twice alone when his parents died from a villain attack. 

Not only is Jin given a permanent record which affects all of his future employment because society treats felons like they are not people, but rather a lower class, but he also was fired from his job because someone abused the power they had in society to carry out a personal grudge against Twice. That person got away scott free and Twice lost his entire livelihood. 

Twice retaliates and he turns to crime in order to survive, and yes there were better ways that Twice could have responded, but the only reason that Twice was put into the situation in the first place was several abuses of power in society directed towards him. People like to insist over and over again that victims should always just remain good people forever, without lashing out, or hurting others in order to survive but then not say how they are supposed to survive in those situations. 

Twice however, takes full responsibility for his actions and realizes that his lashing out, his decision to live selfishly and steal and try to live the good life abusing his quirk was not what he wanted at all. His actions result directly in his bad day. 

However, Twice too is given an option to recover. All it takes is one bad day, and anyone can become a villain is not the Joker trying to point in the context of My Hero Academia, it’s a statement of empathy. That Twice, Shigaraki are not alone in their trauma. That they are both able to find each other, and start to see themselves as human when they realize they were people driven to be this way and not bad people who were always this way. In Horikoshi’s writing it becomes a much more humanizing statement. 

The sense of understanding that Joker is depserately trying to find in batman by proving a point, by forcing him to see the world this way, Twice and Shigaraki find in each other.

The Joker’s descent into madness is  sign that he is permanently broken, whereas when Twice imitates that same pose and expression it’s used in a moment of healing for him. It’s him realizing broken as he is, he’s still here, he survived his one bad day. 

As a final note, while portraying this humanizing message Horikoshi also manages to succesfully illsutrate the original point of the killing joke as well. It’s almost like having multiple examples of mental illness present in your stories, you can better explore the more negative reactions to mental ilness as well without coming off as ablist. 

The commentary that Joker is a part of the society he thinks himself better in, that he repeats what he’s trying to subvert, that he entirely fails at sattire is something that is repeated in Rikiya. 

Rikiya and Joker are both capable of observing the society around them. They know the society around them is wrong. RIkiya’s ideals as Re-Destro that people should not be judged by their quirks and that quirk society as a whole tends to restrict people entirely based on their quirks, something that they are born with and cannot control, and that society should be trying to adapt to people and change rather than just putting certain people down for the benefit of the people who can fit in better. 

However, both the joker and Rikiya are shown explicity not really to have attachment to the other people around them, or see them as people. They are jerks. Rikiya sees people as dispoable sacrifices to his great goal of reforming society. 

Rikiya however speaks of how evil society’s prejudgices is, and then he goes and repeats them. He looks down on the league of villains for being poor and disabled when he himself is a wealthy businessman. He suggests that Shigaraki is uneducated as an insult to put him in his place. 

His followers who espouse how people should not be judged by their meta abilities, judge the league as worthless and unworthy people because of their quirks. 

Destro says not to judge people by their quirks, and then goes and immediately insists that Shigaraki can only be a bad person who wants to destroy people, because he happened to be born that way. 

Re-Destro claims to be anti-establishment, but not only does Rikiya thrive in this exact kind of society (he’s a wealthy businessman he’s on the top of society, punching down at people who fell through cracks and were living as genuinely homeless going day to day for survival), but even if he were succesful at destroying the current society his ideals would just recreate the same unbalanced society just with him at the top. 

Rikiya would create a society where people are still discriminated on based by their quirks, he would create a society where people with stronger, flashier, quirks are able to have more freedom in life, and find more success and people with weaker quirks cannot amount to anything. How is that any different from the society he’s a part of? 

Rikiya is a part of the society he is trying to destroy. Yet, even he is still a victim in a way, he was raised in a cult to think that way and told that he had to believe these things because of who his father was, and he’s constantly at conflict with himself because of it. 

Rikiya, Shigaraki, and Twice in addition to other members of the League of Villains who fell through the cracks, all of these characters read as responses to different aspects of the jokers character and different ideas he presented in The Killing Joke. Rather than just a reference though, it is an intelligent response, that Horikoshi clearly made these ideas his own and shows off his priorities in wanting us as the audience to forget that these characters we call villains are human first. 

In the end the Killing Joke and My Villain Academia play with the same ideas to come to different conclusions. The Killing Joke ends with the idea that an insane person cannot save another insane person. Batman cannot save the joker. The joker is not someone who can be saved, and at the realization of that batman starts to strangle him and gives into his worst instincts to commit police brutality. 

My Hero Academia uses those same ideas to tell a story where insane people can save other insane people. Unlike Batman and the Joker, I genuinely believe that Horikoshi is writing towards a conclusion where Shigaraki is someone who can be saved by Deku, not someone he is meant to continually fight with until one of them dies or the other. 

In the end they are two different stories one of them illsutrates a failure of empathy and the other illustrates how empathy among insane people brought them together. 

[korora12]

Ladybug Week Day 8 - Free Day

Day 7

Word Count: 2381

Narrow-beam transmission from the direction of the Draconis system, picked up by a receiver on Patch, the only moon of the planet Vale. Transcription as follows:

I went to a funeral today. I’ve been to funerals before, of course; Grandma’s was the most recent. But this one was different. Have you ever been to the funeral of a man you killed?

His name was Adam. I’ll save the full story of how we met him for another time, but I can give you a quick summary. In brief, we took a job from a biologist named Doctor Merlot, things got weird, Weiss and I rode a dinosaur into battle, Blake’s ex-boyfriend showed up, attacked us, and then died. I don’t know the full story of what happened between the two of them. I might never know, and I think I’m okay with that. There’s comfort in knowing someone so well that you can predict what they’ll do before they do it. A solidarity that comes with knowing someone else sees the same world you do, even if you have to borrow their eyes to see it. But the danger of knowing everything about someone is that they can no longer surprise you. Blake has an air of mystery about her, and I’ll be happy if that never goes away. It’s one of her more attractive features.

Whatever mysterious past the two shared that culminated in deadly violence, Blake still felt some connection to him. Enough that she didn’t want to leave him out to the elements. Or maybe she just didn’t want his face to see the stars anymore. Either way, we buried him ourselves. She didn’t speak the entire time we worked, nor did she glance back at his body even once. I didn’t want to interrupt her thoughts, so we dug in silence. It wasn’t until the hole was filled again, slightly fuller than before, that she found her words.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that FAUNIS are unfeeling machines, because I���ve held their emotions in my arms and cleaned them from their face. Their emotions are just as wet, messy, and wild as ours.

Blake seemed better after that. There was a party later that evening; we’d saved an entire town at some point during that mess, so they made us guests of honor at their celebration. Blake smiled during the night, and even let me dance with her a bit! There was a huge bonfire in the center of town and the townspeople were playing instruments and singing. After a few drinks I swept her into my arms and we danced around the fire. She laughed the whole time! It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard and, lit by firelight, she was the most beautiful thing in all the universe. A thought hit me as we twirled away: I could do this forever.

I almost tripped as soon as I realized what I’d just thought. Is that what my counterpart, the queen in that other universe, felt when she danced on her wedding night?

I’m sitting in Crescent Rose’s cockpit now. Everyone else has gone off to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come talk to you. Maybe I can work through some of the thoughts these last few days have brought.

The universe is huge and empty. You really get a feel for how big it is when you’re out here. We took a job last month to escort a survey ship to one of the nearest stars; it was uneventful, but I’m sure I mentioned it to you in passing. We warped space around us until we were falling through the void too fast for light to keep up, and even then it took weeks round-trip. Lightyears of empty space broken only by a brief flash of starlight up close.

It was a stroke of luck that humans and qedem first found each other, and their later discovery of the materia was just as unlikely. We found each other’s radio transmissions and honed in on each other like missiles. But we didn’t fight each other; we were too happy to have found someone else, too afraid to risk facing the boogeyman of the unknown alone. Solidarity in familiarity.

Since then we’ve colonized over a hundred systems and surveyed and explored thousands more, yet we haven’t found anyone else. We don’t even use radio waves much anymore, so our odds of finding anyone may have actually gone down. In order to get a fourth intelligent species, we had to make them from scratch.

And then there’s the grimm. Monsters whose only goal is destruction, not unthinking but also not able to be negotiated with. I don’t need to explain the grimm to you; you know them better than most. Some people say that grimm are proof that the universe is actively hostile and doesn’t want us in it. That it sees life, or at least intelligent life, as something that warrants stamping out.

I don’t think that’s true.

There’s another theory out there, less common since we found the grimm but one that still gets bandied about. It says that intelligent life is the universe’s way of understanding itself. It’s a pretty notion that posits some special place in existence for us few, special things whose atoms aligned in just such a way. Those who hold this belief, like their more pessimistic counterparts, also believe that the universe has some sense or intelligence and has noticed our existence.

I killed a man today, watched up close as life left his eyes. Then, a few hours later, I danced and laughed and realized the depths of my love for a woman. And I don’t think the universe cared about either of those things. There is no higher power watching us and judging how we live our lives, but conversely, there’s no one who cares if we die. We could keep on going.

I could do this forever, and the universe wouldn’t care.

It’s been said before that nothing matters. But it’s also been said that it doesn’t matter that nothing matters. You don’t need some great, overarching meaning to live your life.

When I first met Blake, she asked me why I wanted to make a life in the middle of nowhere. I told her I wanted to be a hero and she latched on to that part. And it’s true, I do want to be a hero. Not because I think it’s inherently the right thing to do; I don’t believe that there’s some absolute value of justice or goodness baked into the fabric of reality. I just want to live in a world where heroes exist. I want to live in a world where people help each other not because they have to, but because they can. And the only way I know of to make that world is to play my part and live by example.

I also told Blake that I was out here to have fun. I think Yang, thrill-seeker that she is, understands that reason better than Blake. Happiness, pleasure, love, joy, these things aren’t any more meaningful than anything else. But I prefer them to the alternative. A life spent buried in good books, surrounded by friends, and elbow-deep in the guts of a ship engine, trying to figure out why it won’t work this month is just as valid of a lifestyle as someone who spends every waking moment fighting for the rights of people he’ll never meet, even if he uses violent methods and intends to benefit himself more than the ones he helps. However, that equality in validity doesn’t mean I have to take his actions lying down.

Nihilism isn’t an excuse to be an asshole. We wouldn’t have made it where we are today without empathy and cooperation. Without that we’d still live in a world where the stars were out of reach, and I don’t want to be stuck like that. I want to run the length of the universe and see every speck of light it holds.

I will fight for the world I want to live in, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter. Because I am here. Not in spite of the universe, and not because of it either. I just am.

I wish you were here too, mom.

…

Do me a favor? Don’t tell dad anything I just said. I don’t want him to worry about me. Oh! We’ve decided to pay a visit to civilized space, so we’ll be stopping by when we hit Vale. I look forward to seeing you and dad again soon, and introducing you to Blake in person.

Until then, this is Ruby Rose, captain of the Crescent Rose, signing off.

I love you.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

CGT transmission, pre-recorded video sent from node 72.97457.4452.4698 in the Draconis system to node 55.13896.3481.7774 in the Menagerie system. Transcription as follows:

Hi mom, hi dad.

I know. I haven’t talked to you in years, and now, when I finally reach out, I send a video instead of calling. I’m sorry.

I wanted to let you know that I’m doing alright. I left the White Fang. Actually, I haven’t been with them for a couple years now. After I cut ties I went and got a decent job on Vale that paid for food and an apartment. I made friends and started making a home for myself.

Then I threw all of that away for a woman I’d only just met.

God, you should meet her. She’s amazing. She’s smart, strong, cute, funny, heroic; basically everything I wanted Adam to be, way back when.

You were right about him, by the way. Of course you were. You don’t have to worry about him anymore, though. No one will have to worry about him ever again.

Anyway, the woman. Her name is Ruby Rose and she’s human. When I first met her, she offered me the opportunity to live in a tiny room on a small ship, where I could enjoy an inconsistent workload that occasionally involved fighting for my life against hordes of grimm. For some reason, I said yes, and it might’ve been the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.

I’ve since upgraded to sharing the captain’s room with her. Actually, we knocked down the wall between our rooms to make one big room, but same effect.

Life isn’t perfect, but I’m happy now. I haven’t been happy in a long time. I was angry for so long, and then I was mostly scared. I thought I didn’t know how to be happy anymore, but it’s so easy here. I woke up this morning and Ruby was laying there next to me, curled in a ball and snoring, and it was the most perfect thing ever. If I could wake up every day and have her face be the first thing I saw, I think that’d be enough.

…

Oh god, I can’t believe I just said that.

I’ve been living only in the present for years, but now I’m starting to think about the future again, and every picture in my head has her in it. I can’t imagine my life without her anymore. There’s a part of me I lost, carved out bit by bit by a hundred different hands, that I’ve managed to find again. She’s given me some of her hope, to fill in the gap where mine used to be.

When I was young, I used to believe in a higher power and concepts like right and wrong. I thought that there was some cosmic scale to be balanced, and if we just did enough good things, the universe would tip in our favor and everything would be okay. But everything I’ve seen since leaving Menagerie suggests otherwise. You can fill your life with one good deed after another, and you’re never guaranteed to get good things in return. So after a while, I stopped expecting good things to happen to me. It seemed like all the cruelties I faced, whether from strangers or from people I trusted, were just an inevitable and unavoidable part of life.

I kept trying to help people anyway. It wasn’t until the White Fang started going too far, hurting the people we were supposed to be helping and hurting strangers as collateral damage, that I realized I couldn’t keep considering myself a good person if I stayed with them. I was lost for a while, not sure where to go or what to do, and then Ruby was there, like a life preserver in a storm.

When I’m with her, it’s easier to believe that things might be okay someday. It might not ever be perfect. Maybe we can only ever trade one inequality for another. Maybe society can’t function without someone on top, and someone else crushed beneath their heel. Maybe no one deserves more than they can fight for and grasp with their own two hands. But that doesn’t mean you don’t try to make things better. There is value in the effort. Perfection isn’t a goal but a direction you choose to march in, and what’s important is that you keep marching.

I can carve out a place for myself where I can be okay, and then I can use what energy is left to help others carve their own place. I don’t have to fix the world, I just have to try. I just have to be okay. And I think, someday soon, I will be.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drop all that on you like that. I just wanted you to know that I’m in a good place right now. I may not be changing the world out here, but I’m helping. There are people who would be less happy and less healthy if I hadn’t come out here. I’d like to tell you all about them some day.

We’re going to be taking a break soon, heading back into better-charted space. If it’s okay with you, I was hoping to pay you a visit. You could meet my crewmates and I could see what you’ve done with Kuo Kuana since I left.

I love you guys. Hope to hear from you soon.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

*dies*

That is, by my count, a total of 31,413 words written in a single month, or about 1000 words per day. Dear god am I exhausted. This was the largest single writing project I’ve ever completed, and I’m really glad to know that I can do it. That being said, I very much plan on cutting back my daily word count following this.

Ladybug week may be over, but I don’t plan on giving up on this AU. I do, however, want to take a break. I’ve got some work to do in the background, worldbuilding and what-not, as well as other projects I’d like to work on. If we can get an @freezerburn-week going again this year, I’d love to revisit this world then. I really didn’t do enough with Weiss and Yang in these bits, and I’ve got ideas for freezerburn content meandering about my skull.

Regardless, if I’ve sparked your interest, keep an eye out for more of The Last Frontier here, or on my FF or AO3 accounts.

[chiseler]

Nick Tosches’ Final Interview

On Sunday, October 20th, 2019, three days before his seventieth birthday, Nick Tosches died in his TriBeCa apartment. As of this writing, no cause of death has been specified. It represents an Immeasurable loss to the world of literature. The below, conducted this past July, was the last full interview Tosches ever gave. 

***

In Where Dead Voices Gather, his peripatetic 2001 anti-biography of minstrel singer Emmett Miller, Nick Tosches wrote: “The deeper we seek, the more we descend from knowledge to mystery, which is the only place where true wisdom abides.” It’s an apt summation of Tosches’ own life and work.

Journalist, poet, novelist, biographer and historian Nick Tosches has been called the last of our literary outlaws, thanks in part to his reputation as a hardboiled character with a history of personal excesses. But he’s far more than that—he’s one of those writers other writers wish they could be. He’s seen it all first-hand, moved in some of the most dangerous circles on earth, and is blessed with the genius to put it down with a sharp elegance that’s earned him a seat in the Pantheon.

Born in 1949, Tosches was raised in the working class neighborhoods of Newark and Jersey City, where his father ran a bar. Despite barely finishing high school, he fell into the writing game at nineteen, shortly after relocating to New York. He quickly earned a reputation as a brilliant music journalist, writing for Rolling Stone and authoring Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ’N Roll (1977), the Jerry Lee Lewis biography Hellfire (1982) and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll (1984). After that he staked out his own territory, exploring and illuminating the deeply-shadowed corners of the culture and the human spirit. He’s written biographies of sinister Italian financier Michele Sindona, Sonny Liston, Dean Martin and near-mythical crime boss Arnold Rothstein. He’s published poetry and books about opium. His debut novel, Cut Numbers (1988) focused on the numbers racket, and his most recent, Under Tiberius (2015) presented Jesus as a con artist with a good p.r. man.

While often citing Faulkner, Charles Olsen, Dante and the Greeks as his primary literary influences, over the past fifty years Tosches’ own style has evolved from the flash and swagger of his early music writing into a singular and inimitable prose which blends the two-fisted nihilism of the crime pulps with an elegant and lyrical formalism. Like Joyce, Tosches takes clear joy in the measured, poetic flow of language, and like Dostoevsky, his writing, regardless of the topic at hand, wrestles with the Big Issues: Good and Evil, Truth and Falsehood, the Sacred and the Profane, and our pathetic place in a universe gone mad.

For years now, Tosches’ official bio has stated he “lives in what used to be New York.” It only makes sense then that we would meet amid the tangled web of tiny sidestreets that make up SoHo at what remains one of the last bars in New York where we could smoke. Tosches, now sixty-nine, smoked a cigar and drank a bottle of forty-year-old tawny port as we discussed his work, publishing, religion, the Internet, this godforsaken city, fear, and how a confirmed heretic goes about obtaining Vatican credentials.

Jim Knipfel: When I initially contacted you about an interview last year, my first question was going to be about retirement. You’d been hinting for awhile, at least since Me and the Devil in 2012, that you planned to retire from writing at sixty-five. And since Under Tiberius came out, there’d been silence. But shortly after I got in touch, we had to put things on hold because you’d started working on a new project. As you put it then, “I find myself becoming lost again in the cursed woods of words and writing.”

Nick Tosches: It is unlike any other project. I am indulging myself, knowing nobody has paid me money up front. Is it a project? Yeah, I guess anything that’s not come to a recognizable fruition is a project. So yeah. I do consider the actual writing of books to be behind me.

JK: Did thinking about retirement have anything to do with what we’ll generously call the dispiriting nature of contemporary publishing?

NT: Oh, very much so. Very much.

JK: There’s a remarkable section in the middle of In The Hand of Dante, it just comes out of nowhere, in which you launch into this frontal attack on what’s become of the industry. I went back and read it again last week, and it’s so beautiful and so perfect, and as I was reading I couldn’t help but think, “Who the hell else could get away with this?” Dropping a very personal screed like that in the middle of a novel? And a novel released by a major publisher, in this case Little, Brown. Was there any kind of reaction from your editor?

NT: Okay, is this the same passage where I talk about all these people with fat asses?

JK: Yeah, that’s part of it.

NT: Okay, my agent at the time, Russ Galen, said he heard from {Michael} Pietsch, the editor who’s now the Chief Executive Officer of North America. And the moment he became so, he went from being my lifelong friend to “yeah, I heard of him.” He complained about the fat ass comment, and my agent told him, “If you go for a walk with Nick Tosches, you might get rained on.” Apart from that, no. And I have to say, he considers that one of his favorite novels, ever. When I tried to get the rights back because of a movie deal, he said “no I won’t do that.” I said “Why?” And he said because it was one of his favorite books. So no, there was no real backlash. A lot of comments like your own. A lot of people saying “Boy, that was great.”

JK: As we both know, marketing departments make all the editorial decisions at publishing houses nowadays, and over the years you must have driven them nuts. There’s no easy label to slap on you. You hear there’s a new Nick Tosches book coming out, it could be a novel, it could be poetry, it could be a biography or history or anything at all. I’m trying to imagine all these marketing people sitting around asking, “So what’s our targeted demographic for The Last Opium Den?”

NT: I just set out to do what I wanted to do. If they wanted to cling to the delusion that they could somehow control sales or predict the future of taste, fine, let them go ahead and do it. I’ve always found it’s the books that gather the attention, they just try to coordinate things. All they’re doing is covering their own jobs. If they can wrangle you an interview with Modern Farming, well, there’s something to put on a list they hand out at one of their meetings… They’re all illiterate. Thirty years ago there was still a sense of independence among publishers. Now they’re just vestigial remnants that mean nothing because they’re all owned by these huge media conglomerates.

JK: To whom publishing is irrelevant.

NT: Right. It’s all just a joke.  

JK: I guess what matters is that the people who read you will read whatever you put out. If you put out a book of cake decorating tips, I’d be the first in line to buy it. Actually I’d love to see what you could do with Nick’s Best Cakes Ever, right? It’s something to consider.

NT: Maybe not that particular instance, but what you have so kindly referred to as my current project, which is very…eccentric. It’s the herd of my obsessions that will not remain corralled as I intended.

JK: What brought you back to writing? You’ve said in the past that writing is a very tough habit to kick.

NT: Well, what brought me back? I have no idea. Maybe just actual, utter, desperate boredom. There was none of this Romantic need to express myself. Just a lot of little obsessions, that’s all. As I said…well, I didn’t say this at all. There’s nothing at stake. There’s no money, there’s not going to be any money. There’s no one I need to give a second thought of offending or pleasing. But that having been said, I’m taking as much care with it as I have with everything else. I’ve always thought of myself as the only editor. And having had the good fortune to work with good titular editors, which means their job consists of perhaps making a suggestion or stating a preference or notifying me that they do not understand certain things, and beyond that leaving it be. As I told one editor,I forget when or where or why, “Why don’t you go write you’re own fuckin’ book and leave mine be?” He had all these great ideas. The best editors are the ones that aren’t frustrated authors.

JK: I was lucky enough to work with two editors like that. One had a nervous breakdown and is out of the business, the other just vanished one day.

NT: Well, you’re fortunate. Not only do most editors, a majority of editors, which are bad editors, like the majority of anything, really. If they don’t interfere with something, and nine times out of ten make it worse, they’re not justifying their jobs. The other thing is, we’re recently at the point where the new type of writers, which are the writers who are willing to do it for free, think the editor’s the chief mark of the whole racket. But it’s not—he’s not, she’s not. Their job is to get you paid and leave you alone. That’s the thing. Now you got pseudo editors, pseudo writers. If you think of a writer such as William Faulkner. Now there’s a guy who just screamed out to be edited. Fortunately the editors were willing to publish him and leave him alone, which is why we have William Faulkner. That was the editor’s great contribution, protecting William Faulkner from that nonsense. People speak about, what’s that phrase applied to Maxwell Perkins? “Editor of Genius.” Well, the genius was you find someone who can write really well, and don’t fuck with ‘em. There’s something to be said about that. It’s to Perkins’ credit.

JK: If I can step back a ways to your early years. You were a streetwise kid who grew up in Jersey City and Newark. Your father discouraged you from reading, but you read anyway. So what was the attraction to books? Or was it simple contrariness on your part because you’d been told to avoid them?

NT: I got lost in them. It was dope before I copped dope. I used to love to drift away, in my mind, my imagination. I loved books. My father was not an anti-book person, but he was the first generation of our family to be born in this country. A working class neighborhood where okay, this guy worked in this factory, and that guy owned a bar, and that guy delivered the mail. Nobody was going any further than this. And I remember my father saying, “These books are gonna put ideas in your head.” I guess I enjoyed that they did. Terrible books, some of them. Terrible books, but it didn’t matter.

JK: You’ve also said that very early on you wanted to be a writer.

NT: Yes.

JK: Or a farmer.

NT: Or a garbage man or an archaeologist. Those were my childhood aspirations.

JK: Considering the environment you were coming out of, three of those seem counterintuitive.

NT: Garbage men got to ride on the side of the truck, and that looked great. Archaeologists, wow. I didn’t know they were spending years just coming up with little splintered shards of urns. Yeah, writer. Writing had a great attraction for me, because writing seemed a great coward’s way out. You can communicate anything while facing a corner, with no one seeing you, no one hearing you, you didn’t have to look anyone in the eye. It’s a great coward’s form of expressing yourself. That coupled with the fact that what I felt a need to express was inchoate. I didn’t even understand what it was I wanted to express. Sometimes I still don’t.

JK: You’ve also said that in your teens you started to listen to country music, which given the time and place also seems counterintuitive.

NT: Did I say my teens? Maybe I was nineteen or twenty. Yeah, I never listened to country music until the jukebox at the place on Park Avenue and West Side Avenue in Jersey City.

JK: It was right around that time, when you were nineteen, twenty, that you published your first story in the music magazine Fusion. Which means we’re right around the fiftieth anniversary of your start in this racket.

NT: Let’s see…that was 1969, so yeah, I guess so. Fifty years ago.

JK: Then for the next fifteen-plus years you wrote mainly about music. You were at Rolling Stone  and other magazines, and you put out Country, Hellfire and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n Roll. So How early on were you thinking about branching out? About writing about the mob, or the Vatican, or anything else that interested you?

NT: Before I ever wrote anything. You have to understand, these so-called rock’n’roll magazines provided two great things. First as an outlet for young writers whose phone calls to The New Yorker would not be accepted. And they all, back then before they caught the capitalist disease, offered complete freedom of speech. So yes, in the course of writing about music you could…or actually, forget about writing about music, because nobody even knew anything about music. We were just fucking around.

JK: I remember an early piece you did for Rolling Stone back in 1971. It was a review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album, but all it was was a description of a blasphemous Satanic orgy straight out of De Sade.

NT: Yeah, I remember that one.

JK: It was pretty amazing, and even that early, your writing was several steps beyond everything else that was happening at the time. But from an outsider’s perspective, your first big step away from music journalism was actually a huge fucking leap, and a potentially deadly one. So how do you go from Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll to Power on Earth, about Italian financier Michele Sindona?

NT: After Hellfire, someone wanted to pay me a lot of money to write another biography. But I realized there was absolutely no one on the face of the earth whom I found interesting enough to write about other than Jerry Lee Lewis. I’d caught sort of a glimpse of Sindona on television. My friend Judith suggested “Why don’t you write about him?” But how am I gonna get in touch with a guy like that? And she said I should write him a letter.

JK: He was in prison at that point?

NT: Yes, he was in prison the entire time I knew him, until his death. He died before the book was published. I met him in prison here in New York, then they shipped him back to Italy to be imprisoned, and I went over there.

JK: You were dealing with The Vatican, the mob, and the shadowy world of international high finance. Were there moments while you were working on the book when you found yourself thinking, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

NT: Well, yes, because the story was too immense and too complicated to be told.    

JK: Something I’ve always been curious about. Publishing house libel lawyers have been the bane of my existence. Whenever I write non-fiction, they set upon the manuscript like jackals, tearing it apart line-by-line in search of anything that anyone anywhere might conceivably consider suing over. And I wasn’t writing about the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Michele Sindona.

NT: “Conceivably” is the key word in this country, where anyone can sue anyone without punitive repercussions. That’s the key phrase. What these libel lawyers are also doing above all else is protecting their own jobs.    

JK: Were you forced to cut a lot of material for legal reasons?

NT: Yes, including proven, irrefutable facts. So yes I did. And it’s not because it was libelous, but because it was subject to being accused of being libelous. It’s a shame. Some of the things were just outrageous. I once threw a fictive element into a description that involved a black dog. “Well, how do you know there was a black dog there?” I said there probably wasn’t, that it was just creating a mood. “Well, we gotta cut that out.” So what’s offensive about a black dog? It sets a precedent. Misrepresentative facts? Morality? I don’t know. These guys.  

JK: I don’t know if this was the case with you as well, but I found out I could write exactly the same thing, and just as honestly, but if I called it a novel instead of nom-fiction. They didn’t touch a word. Didn’t even want to look at it. As it happens, your first novel, Cut Numbers, came out next. Had that been written before Power on Earth?

NT: Let me think for a moment…Well, the order in which my books were published is the order in which they were written. The only putative exception may be Where Dead Voices Gather, because that was written over a span of years with no intention of it being a book. So yeah, Cut Numbers. What year was that?

JK: I think that was 1988. I love that novel. There’s a 1948 John Garfield picture about the numbers racket, Force of Evil.

NT: Yeah, I’ve seen that.

JK: But of course they had to glamorize it, because it was Hollywood and it was John Garfield.

NT: I like John Garfield. Terrible movies, but a great actor.

JK: What I love about Cut Numbers is that it’s so un-glamorous. It’s not The Godfather. It’s very street-level. And I’ve always had the sense it was very autobiographical.

NT: I’ve never written anything that wasn’t autobiographical in some way, shape or form. The world in which Cut Numbers is set was my auto-biographical world. “Auto,” self and “bio,” life. My auto-biographical world. The world I lived in and the world I knew. It’s a world that no longer exists. Like every other aspect of the world I once knew. Except taxes. Which I found is a really great upside to having no income. I’m serious.

JK: Oh. I know all too well.

NT: I mean, but It comes with “Jeeze, I wish I could afford another case of this tawny port.”

JK: A few years later, after Dino, you released your second novel, Trinities. While Cut Numbers took place on a very small scale. Trinities was epic—the story spans the globe and pulls in the mob, the Vatican, high finance. You crammed an awful lot of material in there. It almost feels like a culmination.

NT: I wanted to capture the whole sweep of that vanishing, dying world. It was written during a dark period of my life, and I was drawn to a beautifully profound but unanswerable question, which had first been voiced by a Chinese philosopher—sounds like a joke but it’s true: “What if what man believes is good, God believes is evil?” Or vice versa. And we can go from there, the whole mythology, the concept of the need for God. To what extend is our idea of evil just a device? We don’t want anybody to fuck our wives. So God says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. We don’t want to be killed, so thou shalt not kill. It’s a bunch of “don’t do this, because I don’t want to suffer that.” I don’t want to get robbed. I dunno, what the hell. Yeah, this has something to do with Trinities, and I somehow knew as I wrote Trinities I was saying goodbye to a whole world, not because I was leaving it. It was basically half memory, as opposed to present day reality.

JK: I remember when I first read it, recognizing so many locales and situations and characters. At least from the New York scenes. That was right at the cusp, when all these things began disappearing.

NT: Yes, and now it has to such an extent that I walk past all these locales, and it’s a walk among the ghosts. That was a club, now it’s a Korean laundry. This was another place I used to go, now it’s Tibetan handicrafts.    

JK: I don’t even recognize the Village anymore. I used to work in the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston. Landmark building, right? It’s since been gutted completely and turned into some kind of high-end fashion store.

NT: Yeah, it’s all dead.

JK: Now, when Trinities was released, I was astonished to see the publisher was marketing it like a mainstream pop thriller. You even got the mass market paperback with the embossed cover treatment. I love the idea of some middle management type on his way to a convention in Scranton picking it up at the airport thinking he was getting something like Robert Ludlum,, and diving headlong into, well, you.

NT: I can explain why all that was. It was volume. It was the same publisher as Dino. They were happy with Dino. Dino was a great success. I think that was 1992, because that was when my father died. This is now, what, 2019? There has not been a single day where that book has not sold. Not that I could buy a bottle of tawny port with it. So whereas with Cut Numbers I was paid a small amount and eagerly accepted it. Eagerly. In fact it’s one of the few times I told the editor, ran into him at a bar, and said all I want is this, and he said “Nah, that’s not enough, we’ll pay you twice that.” Then Dino was double that. And look, I really want to do this book Trinities   and be paid a small fortune for it. They had to say yes. They had to believe this was going to be the next, I dunno. Yeah, mainstream. Most of these things are ancillary and coincidental to the actual writing.

JK: There were a lot of strings dangling at the end of the novel, and I remember reading rumors you were working on a sequel. You don’t seem much the sequel type. So was there any truth to that?

NT: Not that I was aware of. I’m sure that if they’d come back and said, “Well, we pulled it off,” and offered twice that, there would’ve been a sequel. Because I loved that book, so if they were going to offer me more to write more, I would have. I hated saying good bye to that world and the past.

JK: Maybe you’ve noticed this, but the people who read you often tend to make a very sharp distinction between your fiction and your non-fiction, which never made a lot of sense to me. To me they’re a continuum, and any line dividing them is a very porous, fuzzy one. Do you approach them in different ways?

NT: Oh, god. Do I approach them differently? Yes. In a way, I approach the fiction with a sense of unbounded freedom. But parallel to that, that blank page is scarier knowing that there is not a single datum you can place on it that will gain or achieve balance. With non-fiction, I am constrained by truth to a certain extent. That’s also true in fiction. They just use different forms of writing. There are poems that have more cuttingly diligent actuality than most history works. It comes down to wielding words. Tools being appointed with different weights and cutting edges and colors. Words, beautiful words. Without the words, no writing in prose is gonna be worth a damn. Used to be, I get in a cab, and back then cab drivers were from New York, and they’d ask me what I did. Now I don’t think they really know what city they’re in. They know it’s not Bangladesh. But if I told them what I did, it was always, “Oh, I could write a book.”  Yeah, you’re gonna write a book. Your life is interesting. So what’re you gonna write about? Great tippers, great fares? Become a reader first. Read the Greeks sometime. I decided next time a cab driver asks me what I do for a living. I’m gonna tell him I’m a plumber. “Oh, my brother-in-law’s a plumber!”

JK: As varied as your published works are, there are two I’ve always been curious about. Two complete anomalies. The first was the Hall and Oates book, Dangerous Dances, which always struck me—and correct me if I’m wromg—as the result of a whopping check for services rendered. And the other. From thirty years later, is Johnny’s First Cigarette. Which is, what would you call it? A children’s book? A young adult book?  

NT: Right. Of course they’re many years apart. Okay, Hall and Oates, Dangerous Dances. I knew a woman who was what you’d call a book packager. I owed money to the government. Tommy Mottola, who was at the time the manager of Hall and Oates, wanted a Hall and Oates book. She asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said yeah, but it’s gonna cost this much. And Tommy Mottola, in one of the great moments of literary judgment, was like, “How come he costs more than the other people?” She said something very nice about me. He has got on his desk a paperweight that’s a check for a million dollars in lucite. We weren’t talking nearly that much. So I came up with the title Dangerous Dances. I had never heard a Hall and Oates record. So I met them. It was over the course of a summer. So I did that and made the government happy. That’s one book I try not to espouse. But everyone knows I wrote that, it has my name on it. As I wanted, as my ex-agent says.

Now. Johnny’s Last Cigarette, which as I said was many years later. I don’t even think that was ten years ago.

JK: I think that came out in 2014, between Me and the Devil and Under Tiberius.

NT: I get so sick of all this political correctness. I mean, every man. Every woman was once a child. And there are all these good. Beautiful childhood moments and feelings. Which is the greatest step on earth that we lose. It’s not a nefarious book like Kill Your mother—which may not be a bad idea—but sweet. Why do we rob these kids of the dreaminess of the truth? So Johnny’s first Cigarette, Johnny’s First whatever. I was living in Paris at the time when I wrote that.. I knew a woman who was one of my best translators into French. We put the idea together with a publisher I knew in Marseilles and a wonderful artist-illustrator we found and were so excited about.

To tell you the truth I think the idea of legislating feeling is like…How the fuck do you legislate feeling? And forbidden words. It may have been Aristotle who said, when men fear words, times are dark. You and I have spoken about this. Sometimes we don’t even understand what it is about this or that word. It’s like that joke—a guy goes in for a Rorschach test, and the psychologist tells him. “Has anyone ever told you you have a sexually obsessed mind?” And the guy says, “Well, what about you, showing me all these dirty pictures?” What do these words mean? I don’t know. Why is it a crime to call a black man a crocodile? I have always consciously stood against performing any kind of political correctness. And I have written some long letters to people I felt deserved an explanation of my feelings.

JK: Whenever people get outraged because some comedian cracked an “inappropriate” joke, and they say, “How could he say such a thing?” I always respond, “Well, someone has to, right?”

NT: Yeah. So one book came from the government’s desire to have their share of what I’m making. We’re all government employees. The other was, why can’t I write something that’s soft and sweet with a child’s vocabulary that’s not politically correct?  

JK: If Dangerous Dances and Johnny’s First Cigarette were anomalies, I’ve always considered another two of your books companion pieces. Or at least cousins. King of the Jews an Where Dead Voices Gather are both biographies, or maybe anti-biographies, of men about whom very little—or at least very little that’s credible—is known: Arnold Rothstein and Emmett Miller. And that gives you the freedom to run in a thousand directions at once. They’re books made up of detours and parentheticals and digressions, and what we end up with are essentially compact histories of the world with these figures at the center. They strike me as your purest works, and certainly very personal works. More than any of your other books, it’s these two that allow readers to take a peek inside your head. Does that make any sense to you?

NT: Yes, it makes perfect sense. In fact I couldn’t have put it any better myself. This whole myth of what they called the Mafia in the United States—there’s no mafia outside of Sicily. Or called organized crime, was always Italians. The Italians dressed the part, but the Jews made the shirts. It was always an Italian-Jewish consortium. And this Irish mayor wants to play ball? So now it’s Irish. Total equal opportunity. It was basically…Well, Arnold Rothstein was the son of shirt makers. Not only did he control, but he invented what was organized crime in New York. He had the whole political system of New York in his pocket. Emmet Miller was this guy who made these old records that went on to be so influential without his being known. Nobody even knew where or when he was born. The appeal to me was as both an investigator and then to proceed forward with other perspicuities, musings and theories. I never thought of them before as companion works until you mentioned it, but they are.

JK: People have tended to focus on the amount of obsessive research you do. Which is on full display in these books, but what they too often overlook, which is also on full display here, is that you contain a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. It’s like you’ve fully absorbed everything you’ve ever read, and it just spills out of you. These forgotten histories and unexpected connections.

NT: I’ve always kept very strange notebooks. I still do, except now it’s on the computer. There’s no rhyme or reason to these notebooks, it’s just,”don’t want to forget this one.”

JK: Speaking of research, has your methodology changed in the Internet Age? I’m trying to imagine you working on Under Tiberius and looking up”First Century Judea” on Wikipedia.

NT: The Internet demands master navigation. There are sites which have reproduced great scholarly, as opposed to academic, works. There’s also every lie and untruth brought to you by the Such-and Such Authority of North America. This is what they call themselves. I experienced this within the past week. It was not only complete misinformation, but presented in the shoddiest fashion, such as “Historians agree…” I mean, what historians? I couldn’t find a one of them.

So my methodology. I love Ezra Pound’s phrase, “the luminous detail.” Something you find somewhere or learn somewhere…They don’t even have a card catalog at New York Public Library anymore, let alone books. You want an actual book, they have to bring it in from New Jersey. Who cares anymore? What they care about is who’s in a TV series, and they whip out their Mickey Mouse toys and, “look, there he is!”

JK: I was thinking about this on the way over. You and I both remember a time when if you were looking for a specific record or book or bit of information, you could spend months or years searching, scouring used bookstores an libraries. There was a challenge to it.

NT: It was not just a challenge. It was a whole illuminating process unto itself, because of what you come to by accident. So in looking for one fact or one insight, you would gather an untold amount. That is what it’s about.

JK: Nowadays if I’m looking for, say, a specific edition of a specific book, I take two minutes, go online, and there it is. I hit a button, and it’s mailed to me at my home. Somehow it diminishes the value, as opposed to finally finding something I’d been searching for for years. Nothing has any value anymore.

NT: No, definitely not. When I was living down in Tennessee, all those Sunday drives, guys selling stuff out of their garages. Every once in awhile you hit on something, or find something you didn’t even know existed. Now education on every level, especially on the institutional, but even on a personal level, is diminished. People are getting stupider, and that probably includes myself.

JK: And me too. Now, if I could change course here, you’re a man of many contradictions. Maybe dichotomies is a better term. A streetwise Italian kid who’s a bookworm. A misanthrope who seeks out the company of others. A libertine who is also a highly disciplined, self-educated man of letters. It’s even reflected in your prose—someone who is always swinging between the stars and the gutter. It’s led some people to say there are two Nick Tosches. Is this something you recognize in yourself?

NT: Yes. It’s never been a goal, it’s just…

JK: How you are?

NT: Yeah. I’ve noticed it, and much to my consternation and displeasure and inconvenience, yeah. But there’s no reward in seeking to explain or justify it.

JK: One of the most intriguing and complex of these is the savage heretic who keeps returning to religious themes, the secrets of the Church and the sacred texts. And of course the devil in one guise or another is lurking through much of your work. Again it’s led some people to argue that since you were raised Catholic, this may represent some kind of striving for redemption. You give any credence to that?

NT: No. Absolutely not.

JK: Yeah, it would seem Under Tiberius would’ve put the kibosh on that idea.

NT: I don’t even consider myself having been raised Catholic, in the modern made-for-TV sense of that phrase. I was told to go to church on Sundays and confession on Saturdays, and I usually went to the candy store instead. I was confirmed, I had communion. To me, it was a much deeper, much more experiential passage when I came to the conclusion that there was no Santa Clause than when I came to the conclusion there was no God. I remember emotionally expressing my suspicions about Santa Claus to my mother. Toward the end of his life, I was talking to my father one day, and I said, “By the way, do you believe in God?” And he said no. I said me neither. And that was about the only real religious conversation we ever had. I think religion, without a doubt since its invention—and God was an invention of man—is a huge indefensible evil force in this world. When people believe in a religion which calls for vengeance upon those whose beliefs are different, it’s not a good sign. Not a good sign.          

JK: This is something I’ve been curious about. Two of your novels—In the Hand of Dante and Under Tiberius—are predicated on the idea that you come into possession of manuscripts pilfered from the Vatican library. The library comes up a few other times as well. You write about it in such detail and with an insider’s knowledge. Either I was fooled by your skills as a convincing fiction writer, or you’ve spent your share of time there. And if the latter, how does a heretic like you end up with Vatican credentials?

NT: Okay. You go buy yourself a very beautiful, very important let’s say, leather portfolio with silk ribbon corner stays that keeps the documents there. Then you set about…Well, my friend Jim Merlis’ father-in-law, for instance, won the Nobel Prize in physics right around then. So I went to Jim and said, “Hey Jim, do you suppose you could get your father-in-law to write me a letter of recommendation? I know I never met the man.” Had a tough life, but won the Nobel Prize. Did a beautiful letter for me. I don’t even know that I kept it. You put together five letters that only Jesus Christ could’ve gathered. And he probably couldn’t have because he was unwashed. It was twice as difficult for me, because I had no academic affiliation, not even a college degree. But the Vatican was so nice. There are two libraries. One involves a photo I.D. and the other one doesn’t. They gave me two cards, and they made me a doctor. That’s how you get in. So what do you do once you’re in? They have the greatest retrieval library I’ve ever seen. The people that you meet. One guy was a composer. Wanted to see this exact original musical manuscript because he wanted to make sure of one note that may have changed. So this was all real—I just hallucinated the rest. If you can use a real setting, you’re one step closer to gaining credibility with the person who reads you. I still have my membership cards, though I think they must’ve expired. They were great. You go to a hotel and they ask you to show them photo ID? “Ohhh…”

JK: One of the themes that runs throughout your work is fear. Fear as maybe the most fundamental motivating human emotion.

NT: Any man who thinks he’s a tough guy is either a fool or a liar. Fear is I think one of the fundamental formative elements. And I’m just speaking of myself becoming a writer. Choosing to express yourself with great subtlety in some cases, when what you want to express is so inchoate. But that was a long time ago. I still believed in the great charade. These days I’m just living the lie. But it’s so much better than fear. To convey fear. The more universal the feeling, the easier it is to convey powerful emotions. There was a line in Cut Numbers; “He thought the worst thing a man can think.” Michael Pietsch my editor said, “What is that thing?” And I said “Michael, every person who reads that will have a different idea.” It’s an invocation of the Worst Thing. One woman might read it and think of raping her two-year-old son. Some guy might think of robbing his father. To you or I it might not be that bad a thing, but to that person it’s the Worst Thing.

JK: That’s the magic of reading.

NT: That is the magic of reading. That’s the bottom line. Writing is a two-man job. It takes someone to write it and Someone to read it who’s not yourself.

JK: Exactly. Readers bring what they have to a book, and take away from it what they need, what interpretation  has meaning for them.

NT: It’s also possible to write certain very exact phrases and have them be evocative of nothing but a thirst for an answer that the person who wrote them doesn’t know. Readers never give themselves enough credit. Now all the experiential and soulful depths of all our finite wanderings, roaming imaginations and questions thereof are relegated to a Mickey Mouse toy. That’s what I see, people who interact with these toys instead of another person. I don’t care. I was here for the good times.

JK: There’s another idea that’s come up a few times in various forms and various contexts in your work, where you say, in essence, “once you give up hope, life becomes more pleasant,” which is a wonderful twist on Dante.

NT: It’s true!

JK: I know, and I’m in full agreement with you. Hope, faith, belief, are all great destroyers. But I’m wonderinh, when did you come to that conclusion?

NT: A lot of the things I write or think I do put in that notebook I mentioned, and I usually put the date. That was one where I did not put down the date. I do believe it’s true. People say, “never give up hope.” Why the hell not? If you don’t give up hope, it leads you, at a craps table, betting you’re aunt’s car. Where did hope ever get anybody? It’s terrible.  

JK: Now, there are two quotes which have appeared and reappeared throughout your work, and I think you know which two I’m talking about. The first is from Pound’s Canto CXX: “I have tried to write Paradise// Do not move/ Let the wind speak/ that is paradise.” And the other’s from the Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” As you look at your life and work now, and look back over the last half century, do you think you’re closing in on that point where Pound and Thomas finally come together?

NT: Yes. I never thought of that phrase you choose, “come together,” but yes. They’ve become more and more deeply a part of my consciousness. Yes, every day I pause. And I still hold the 120th Canto to be the final one. It was just one person who insisted no, this is not how he would have ended. Which is why the current modern edition of the Cantos goes two cantos more. There’s this line that is so bad. It’s hilariously bad. The joke of history. The line that Pound was supposed to have written to go beyond that beautiful line was, “Courage, thy name is Olga.” The other of course, the meaning of that line, that line being the one you were referring to, if you bring forth what is within you it will save you, if you do not bring forth it will destroy you. Of a hundred translations from the Coptic, that, to me, is the perfect translation. What is that thing? That’s what everybody wants to know. That’s me. That thing is just the truth of yourself. If you do live in fear, that will destroy you. If I speak the truth, the worst it’s going to do is frighten another. That will save you. That will set you free. Those two things, yes. And there’s another element, if I can add it unsolicited. I’ve noticed this pattern with people such as Pound and people such as Samuel Beckett. The greatest depth, the most majestic wielders of language as a communication form, slowly trail off to silence. Which is what Pound refers to in what I know is the last Canto. Be still. Paradise. Ezra Pound’s own daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, translated The Cantos into Italian. Her translation had moments when it was an improvement on his phraseology. In Italian, “Non ti muovere” is much better than “be still.” Books, reading, writing, lend themselves to interpretive subtleties which are by no means pointless. What can people get out of an app?

by Jim Knipfel

[getaroomyouheck]

wrote a review for The Glow Pt. 2 by The Microphones

(i hope yall can give it a read!)

When I think of The Glow Pt. 2, what thoughts spur to forward consciousness are always earthen and powerful in natures all encompassing wrath, in human futility and struggle. Of course this album has a conceptual narrative (a man breaks up with his girlfriend, learns to cope, and gets mauled in the woods by a bear). And yes, I know the foghorn connection that links this to Mount Eerie as essentially brother/sister albums. Yet when I listen to Glow Pt. 2, what comes to my mind the most, is how Phil Elvrum and crew convey with such potency, how meaningless and nothing we are in the open mouth, swathing expanses of what nature truly is. The album itself represents longevity of nature, and the short term impact of what humanity really is. Each instrumental, each warm and cold spot, each lyric sung, is a slice of natures infinite lifespan, and represents how purely inconsequential human life is to the inexorable march of time. That all of you is a temporary distraction to forget what little you really mean. All of this starts with the opener and one of my fav songs of all time, I Want Wind to Blow. I Want Wind to Blow and by extension the entire album achieves something that's truly incredible to me. I'm always blown away by just how eclectic and diverse the soundscape of the record is, yet it always achieves this earthen, bountiful sound that conveys nature. Each song on this album has such a rich texture and tapestry of terrestrial sound. From the sound of creaking on snare hits from I Want Wind to Blow to the field recording of trees swaying and birds chirping at the end of My Warm Blood, this albums bone, breath, and blood is the sound of wildlife and earthen glory. The opener starts gently with plucked guitar strings, but as it progresses it becomes a dirge of solemnity, one of the most pleasant yet strangely melancholic tunes on the whole album. The distorted crashes of cymbals in the 2nd half feel representative of thunder, crashing through the gentle wind of the nylon plucks. Eventually that all gives way to the opening to The Glow Pt. 2, which is this fucking wild drum crashing and smashing, distorted and bass intense. Tumbling and scattering dirt as it cascades, the tornado to I Want Wind's calm wind. Leading from this crashing intro is one of the most intense drones on the album, underscoring the soft vocals of Phil as he sings forlornly of the meaningless of his own emotions. "I'm not dead. There is no end. My face is red. My blood flows harshly". Surprisingly, what follows is an incredibly gentle moment. Soft bell taps and a delicately pretty guitar line take center stage as it's swallowed by the end. Thus forth from Glow Pt. 2, comes so many different moments that are wonderful highlights of the austere meaningless of man through the magnifying lens of the world at large The Moon is maybe my favorite cut on the album, this intro of an odd dozen different nylon guitars plucking and plucking, creating a cacophonous maelstrom of warmth and splendor feels of the warmth of spring. Sharply contrasted by one of the most driving and chaotically frenetic drumbeats on the entire album, it's a sword of both ice cold pain and warm meaningless, the dichotomy in both aspects of nihilism. Headless Horseman is an incredibly soft cut punctuated by forlorn lyrics speaking of a failed relationship, becoming a "headless horseman" as a representation of losing the one he loved most. The Mansion speaks of depression and meaningless, speaking how "there is no dawn" carried forward by a very lo-fi yet also human instrumental. Layering vocals sharply cut into an almost heavenly sound of constantly ascending and descending guitar plucks and swells of bass, it almost sounds of leaving a mortal coil and leaving to whatever lies beyond. So on and so forth, from The Gleam Pt. 2's almost hopeful sound of exploring the light mountainsides; to Map's very heavily distorted bagpipe intro showing a struggling journey forward to some kind of self meaning undercut by jangling piano chords and a marching drum that sounds like its coming from another room; to I Felt My Size's portrayal of utter fucking meaninglessness on how small and nothing we are. Eventually, we arrive at 2 of the most important songs on the album, Samurai Sword and My Warm Blood. Samurai Sword is one of the most loud and fucked up songs I've ever heard, the sound of the guitar and drums feels almost like a deep fried jpeg, heavily crunchy and bass heavy; it almost feels like an earthquake portrayed by sound. Lyrically that's followed up powerfully, of our protagonist, in futility, attempting to fight a bear, declaring himself as a samurai in the face of an impossible conflict, the song itself feels a final stand against the bear, in itself a representation of the sheer scale of nature. The outcome of which, is given by My Warm Blood While it's one of the most low key tracks, I feel this song is what encompasses what this album is truly the best. It's a chilling, despondent way to close the album, the lyrics simply showing our protagonist lying in the hot, muddied earth, insects buzzing by as blood seeps from his lifeless body, leaving the world forevermore. The rest of the song being sounds of nature, slight flashes of various other songs from the album, almost as if they are memories scattering the lifeless remains, before the eerie sounds and austere world consumes them. A testament to how in the cosmic scale of what reality is, we are simply just another nameless cog. No one cares who we are, what we are, our emotions and feelings: If we get mauled to death, no one will be there to say even a word for our lifeless bones. Glow Pt. 2 might not be obsessed with death and depression the same way Giles Corey or Deathconsciousness or The Queen is Dead or other more forlorn albums are, but I feel no album conveys the same sense of utter meaninglessness, better than this album does. It's a fucking oddity of a record, lo-fi in almost every sense of the term, noisy, cavernous, chaotic and unceasing, and a 80 minute long statement about how as all the stars burn out, as the world turns and we slowly become frigid dust naught to be remembered, that you, me, all of us, are simply a footnote, a grain of sand in the desert of the universe, and that all of what we are, is a temporary distraction to save us from our own self-devouring meaningless. We are an ouroboros of emotion, both the center of our own world, and yet also completely nothing Of course we truly aren't just nothing, as if we exist in some capacity we mean something to someone, somewhere. I feel the later work Phil does after the Mount Eerie album and other albums he would make under that name do convey that (Winds Poem, Dawn, ACLAM, Now Only, etc), but this album really is just an unabashed look into that unassailable, inquantifiable small scale that we as humans truly do have in the role of the cosmic sense of it all. In the best way, this album is an earthen, craggy portrayal of the sheer meaningless existences we live. It is rough, abrasive, and above all else, soul rending. And it is for these many reasons, that I adore this album and will always continue to do so. It might not be one I come back to as I dont often like feeling that utterly worthless, but what this album means and says, will always have an iron lock on my heart. One of the most important and best albums of all time, must listen Favorite tracks: I Want Wind to Blow, The Glow Pt. 2, The Moon (standout), Headless Horseman, The Mansion, The Gleam Pt. 2, Map, I Want to be Cold, I Am Bored, I Felt My Size, Samurai Sword, My Warm Blood Least favorite tracks: N/A

[ghostheadcanons]

Papas + Copia: Honeymoons!

Anonymous said:

You are giving me so much life with your writing ahhh!!! I especially love the proposals/weddings!!! With that being said how would the honeymoon go with the papas and cardinal? ❤ Ps- thank you for existing 😭😭😭

Thank you, thank you!! Hee, all you flatterers....you’re just saying that because you’re thirsty and I’ve got the juice. >:P!

First came the proposals....then came the ceremonies....so what comes next?

Here we go, folks!!

+18 Below, as we talk of consummating marriages and things!

Papa Nihil:

A cruise to Italy! 

You can bet the pair of you are going to consummate the marriage in your cabin. Don’t rock the boat, now....

Sister Imperator and some of the ghouls come with you, but she lets the two of you have your alone time. She’s just there in case something goes wrong.

Once you actually get to Italy, he’ll give you a personal tour of his home city. Reminiscing about when he was a boy, showing you all of his old favorite haunts...

You’ll dine in nice restaurants, stay in a nice hotel, and be bought so many presents that you’ll need a nameless ghoul to carry them all back to your room. The two of you browse the little shops here and there. You want this necklace, cara mia? It’s yours! 

You learn more about Nihil than almost anyone has in years. You’re almost on par with Sister Imperator herself at this point. 

It’s sad when you have to go back to the Ministry, but now you have your husband at your side. 

Papa I:

Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

The two of you have ritual sex to consummate your marriage and devote the rest of the week to thoroughly exploring one another...both spiritually and physically. As is the custom.

It’s just the two of you. Together as one, praying, singing, indulging....

Things will go back to normal once the week is up. It takes some getting used to, now that you’ve bound your soul someone else’s....but it’s nice.

Even when you can’t see him, it feels like you’re never alone. 

Papa II: 

He’d take you to another country--but one that he hadn’t taken you to on the trip before he proposed. 

You’d dine out and maybe see the sights, but let’s be honest here...you’re going to be spending most of your honeymoon in the bedroom. 

It’s intense. Sublime. You now belong to this man, utterly and totally, and he will make sure you know it. 

But he is a good dom. He’s good with aftercare and making sure you get enough rest between sessions, along with plenty of water and praise.

You know you’re safe with him. 

Papa III:

After that fiasco of a wedding? Papa III wants to get as far away from the Ministry as possible for a little while. His father and Sister Imperator both agree, seeing as how the two of you could have been killed. 

You need someplace to lie low. 

The two get your vows exchanged properly, and to your surprise, he turns and asks “Well, where do you want to go?”

He lets you have a say in where the pair of you are having a honeymoon. Eventually you both agree on Transylvania. 

The one thing he really wants to do there and would be sad if he didn’t get to is see Dracula’s castle. Holding his hand while you go in with him, you can tell how excited he is to be here. 

Other than that, you’d be dancing, dining, and overall celebrating, even if it’s not the most extravagant. It’s just the two of you (along with Papa III’s nameless ghouls). 

Oh, and bring your Bride of Dracula costume. You’re going to need it. ;)

Cardinal Copia:

For the first time in centuries, Papa Nihil gives the Cardinal time off. He has a week to himself! 

And for a week, you have him to yourself.

All in all, I think it would be a very chill, relaxing honeymoon compared to the others--staying in, eating homecooked dinner, just being in one another’s company....

You spend the days either lounging on the couch with him, cuddled up and watching TV/reading, or doing something for your hobbies, like practicing dancing. 

You can see the stress melting away from Copia, even if he was a little lost on what to do at first (he’s almost always been working constantly, after all!). 

And the nights are tender and loving. 

All good things have to come to an end. But for the moment, the two of you can be content in knowing that you have no obligations or responsibilities. 

Just eachother. 

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Exhalation by Ted Chiang: A Reflection

In the simplest of synopsis, Ted Chiang’s most recent short story anthology is about free will vs fate. It is a high-thought premise that utilizes futuristic, complex technology which surrounds very basic philosophical questions man has been toiling against since he first became self-aware.

The illusion of choice, the narratives in which we cling to in order to reinforce or deny those narratives, and the meaninglessness of it all.

Is Chiang’s anthology pessimistic? My own biases say no, but there are no real happy endings in any of his short stories, so others might unequivocally say yes, he is—but I don’t think Chiang’s objective is to ever offer sentimental condolences to his readers. There’s a reason why man has lamented for generations about “the meaning of life”, or “what is love”. Why we have collectively struggled with rationalizing existence in the midst of impending and certain death, or felt conflicted with accepting both the chaos and randomness of existence while also searching for and seeking out a higher power or order to life. Unfortunately, Chiang doesn’t necessarily offer a definitive yes or no, at least not in such crude terms, but I think, very clearly, he establishes (rather convincingly) that there is no real free will, that we are instead on fated paths and the lesson and greater call for meaning comes instead from not just our acceptance and willingness to embrace fate, but in our intentional living and walking of said fated paths.

There are two distinct approaches when presented with this argument of there being no such thing as free will, and I don’t think each is felt the same or at all by everyone, or by even the individual in contemplation. There is acceptance and there is denial, and even within acceptance there are two distinct resolutions. Atrophy or True Acceptance—you are either destroyed by the truth, or you accept it as the reality it has always been and carry on as you have always have, because that is what you were always fated to do.

So what then, is denial?

There is a final story within Chiang’s anthology titled, “Anxiety Is The Dizziness of Freedom,” where the concept of parallel lives further encapsulates the argument of fate vs free will. Essentially it is a story that speaks of the core of a person, what makes you, you, and how that core self is never corrupted or altered, even amongst the infinite possibilities of all the yous that could ever exist. How, at our core, we are who we are, and only small steps—nearly imperceptible movements of will—can lead to our chosen destination, good or bad, but how it is ultimately fated and how our own personal narratives, as impermanent as they are, fit within the structured stories of our lives which always had a fated destination. The crux of the story comes into play with denial, with our fear—our need to impress upon fate, our own will.

If you could see into your future and the reality presented to you reflected one that you hated, do you think you could avoid it, or by the act of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in your attempts to avoid it, run headlong into it?

Believing that everything is already predestined bears its own heavy weight. If we are not masters of our fate, does that automatically mean that there is someone else who is in charge? Is our hunger for order in the certainty of chaos indicative of a higher power, or just our need for belief in one. If there is no god, what does that say for the meaning of existence, of the meaning our own own individual lives? If there is no meaning, does that also mean that there is no purpose? And if there is no purpose, why choose to continue existing at all?

There is the material question of why, and then there is the cosmic question of why. And while Chiang in so many ways answers that material question, the cosmic why remains elusive. I stay alive in my day-to-day because of xyz—my family, my dog, the way the sun feels so good when a breeze passes and I have no other choice but to find pause and delight in the beauty and simplicity of this moment. But why?

I think in the growing pessimistic nihilism of current and upcoming generations, that “why” becomes more elusive, especially as we collectively move away from the cushion of assumed certainty and meaning offered by religion, and into the chaos of existence where we grapple with there being no bigger picture. There is a reason why man, upon the first chance he had, created something to believe in, why rejection of religion has moved to exploration of “spirituality”. We are (or at least assume ourselves to be) creatures who rely upon meaning in order to justify our existence. We say that we are authors of our own destinies—but also find ourselves admitting to the seemingly inescapable influence of factors outside our control; biology and our environments.

When a child asks “why”, are they looking for meaning, or explanation? Is it merely curiosity that drives the why, or is it fear? If I don’t know, does that illicit awe at the complexity of simplicity, or am I suffocated by the immensity of my not knowing—of my hunger to create the illusion of knowing, lest I be lost to the black hole of my own unknowing.

There is a theory, that the universe will eventually end in a similar way that it began, giving rise to a brand new universe in the wake of its death, that we are essentially barreling towards a fated end that is beyond our influence to affect or alter. Does knowing that, change what you will decide to eat for breakfast? Does it matter? The absurdity of existence, is that we have a very defined beginning and end—just like the universe we occupy—and yet we either deny it (fate), create mythologies to bring comfort to that truth, or we try to create work arounds of cognitive dissonance that keep that truth just enough at bay to go on with our lives. We create meaning and convince ourselves of that meaning, and look to the world around us as evidence of said meaning. And in doing so we create our own absurdities. Money, wars, the rights and wrongs of loving same sex vs a different sex. In trying to create order out of chaos we have chained ourselves to truths that aren’t even real, missing the mark completely. We deny ourselves the ability to accept what is. We make it impossible to occupy a space that is safe for us to be the dynamic entities of chaos, barreling towards a fixed ending, that we are. We cling to this idea that there has to be meaning, and that this meaning must be applicable to the whole, and ostracize and defy those who do not follow and accept this status quo of existence. We fight against the idea of there being no free will, but chain ourselves to the constraints and absolutes of fate, and to grapple against fate, is to grapple with the image man has created of himself and projected throughout each proceeding generation. That we matter more. That our existence takes precedence over all else. And that if a god exists, they would not only imbue only ourselves with sentience and consciousness, but find only us worthy of redeeming and consequently saving, as well. To strip away that illusion of ego, to essentially kill it and call it false, means to strip away a facet of ourselves we have mistakingly attributed as not just essential, but the crux of our entire existence. We have become so fixated on absolutes, on blacks and whites that we wholly dismiss the third option, because it is scary, it is uncertain, and it exists outside of our realm of perceived control.

I used to repeat to myself as mantra: I can endure anything, as long as it has meaning. And I began to hinge my life on just that, that either everything had meaning and there was some grand bigger picture that I just couldn’t yet see, or that nothing at all held meaning. In doing so, I eventually backed myself into a corner. I found it increasingly difficult to deny the absurdity of life, to create meaning out of suffering, to attribute the unfolding of life to some higher, benign entity. And so I eventually lost all meaning for my own existence. I had been indoctrinated with this idea that everything had to make sense, and when I came face-to-face with that senselessness it destroyed the very foundation upon which my entire life rested upon. To create meaning, has become synonymous with, a will to live. Perhaps it always has been. But if nothing matters, if things are, regardless of what we do or do not do, if life will take its destined path regardless of our actions—if those actions fit like puzzle pieces that illustrate step-by-step, how we get from here-to there—is meaning really the thing we should be after? Maybe, it instead, should have been our curiosity, our inquisitive nature, that we should have been fostering since the dawn of man, and not our supposed need for order. Maybe it is the awe of standing in the sun when a cool breeze passes, that calls us to do nothing but give pause and delight in the moment we are existing within, that should be our greater “meaning”.

To “contemplate this moment of existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so”. Because we have no other choice. Because this is what we have always been fated, to do.

[askfreddiemercury]

Freeside is a slum that surrounds New Vegas, it’s inhabited by junkies and drunk people almost all the time. Some points of interest are The King’s School of Impersonation, the Atomic Wrangler casino, and Silver Rush, a place for all your energy weapon needs.

But we decide to visit the Old Mormon Fort first, this is the home of The Followers of the Apocalypse, these people try and help those in need in and around Freeside with what they can. And someone I need to be on good terms with.

Boone: What are we doing here?

Freddie: I’m just exploring, Boone, I want to get a feel for Freeside before we find a way into the strip to find Benny.

Boone: We’re gonna help the people here, right?

Freddie: Yes, absolutely.

But not long after we get attacked by muggers! They don’t last very long against us so after dealing with them we can continue to make our way to the oldest place standing in Freeside.

~~~~~

Walking inside the walled fort there’s a pretty large camp set up inside, a flag with the Follower’s logo on it a cross inside a circle, tents all around the camp, and a sandbag barricade in front. We all take a look around and greet the people, I make my way to the southwestern tent to greet a man with blonde hair.

Freddie: Hello.

He turns around, holy moly.

Arcade: Hi. If you're looking for medical help, try the other doctors. I'm just a researcher. Not even a particularly good one.

I shake my head and focus.

Freddie: What kind of research?

Arcade: Oh, you know. Finding alternative treatments for common illnesses and injuries. Stimpaks out of barrel cacti and other fantastic improbabilities. As far as fruitless wastes of time go, it's quite noble in its aims.

Freddie: What’s the goal?

Arcade: For the past hundred years or so, the Followers have managed to get by using salvaged medical supplies from the Old World. But the side effect of medical success is that more people live longer. Funny how that works.

He then looks sad.

Arcade: Eventually, we'll run out of hospitals to loot. We need new ways to produce those supplies. Or maybe old ways, if this research goes anywhere.

Freddie: What kinds of illnesses and injuries?

Arcade: Cuts, lacerations, broken bones. Infections resulting from all of the above. Common cold, influenza. Take your pick. There are plenty of ways to die out here, and most of them, surprisingly, don't have anything to do with war. Just common human fragility.

Freddie: You don't sound too enthusiastic about it.

I tilt my head as he pushes up his glasses.

Arcade: I'm enthusiastic about helping people, but nihil novi sub sole.

Freddie: Nihi-what?

Arcade: Oh. Sorry. "There is nothing new under the sun." If agave and mesquite were that miraculous, the locals would have figured it out a few thousand years ago.

This guy is starting to sound like someone in the Legion.

Freddie: Isn't that the language that Caesar's Legion speaks?

Arcade: Caesar can cite Cato to suit his purpose. Many people have spoken Latin. Some of them were quite pleasant. It's unfortunate that the language is now associated with the gentlemen across the river.

Wow, this guy is so smart and so handsome. No wait, I have to be serious here. Ahem.

Freddie: Where did you learn that?

Arcade: Not from the Legion, if that's what you're getting at. Books. Sheet music. Gladiator movie holotapes. Bits and pieces here and there. The Followers have extensive libraries, but we all draw water from the same old well. Even Caesar.

Freddie: So why do you do research instead of providing medical assistance?

Arcade: Not all Followers are "people persons." Besides, someone needs to do research. I have no problem with Julie sticking me back here. Out of sight, out of mind. There are worse things one can be, though I do admit, it is a bit boring. Though it has a noble goal, I don't think this research will yield much fruit. No pun intended.

Freddie: Well Arcade, do you and the Followers need any help?

Arcade: Me, specifically? No. I'm sure Julie Farkas does, though. Lab coat, pointy hair. Answers to the name "Julie Farkas," strangely enough.

Freddie: Why don't you come with me?

Arcade: No offense intended, but why should I go anywhere with you?

Time to work your magic, Freddie.

[Confirmed Bachelor] Freddie: I need a good-looking doctor to help take care of me in the big, bad wasteland.

With that, he laughs and places a hand over his glasses. I got him.

Arcade: Overt flirtation will get you everywhere, you know. On a slightly more serious note, if you're interested in helping out with the troubles plaguing Freeside, I can come with you. Just don't do anything obnoxious, like trying to help Caesar's Legion, and we should be fine. Understood?

Freddie: I’d never help the Legion, my other companion would have my head if I did especially after everything I did for him. After I get what was taken from me back from some guy on the strip, I plan on terrorizing the Legion just like they do us.

Arcade: Heh, I don’t think the Legion is going to be scared of you. Unless you take out Caesar and his legate, Lanius. But seeing as you’re asking me to come with you. You aren’t going to be doing that any time soon. Don’t get too cocky now.

When I go tell Boone the good news about Arcade, I can’t help but notice that he’s staring down ED-E. Does he have a problem with him? Maybe he’s seen ED-E before.

Freddie: Hey, Arcade, I can’t help notice that you seem to have a problem with ED-E here, what’s up?

Arcade: it just seems a bit twitchy. Some of these robots, you look at them the wrong way, don’t screw in a vacuum tube right… The next thing you know you’re a pile of ash on the floor and someone’s stepping out of a vertibird to sweep your remains into a Nuka-Cola bottle.

Freddie: Oooo-kay, I’ll keep my eye on him.

Arcade: Safety first. That’s all I’m saying.

Freddie: Let’s get going then.

~~~~~

We all head southwest towards the gate until an old man stops us.

Old Ben: You look new to Freeside, so here’s a little advice, friend. Don’t go past the South Gate greeter without talking to it first.

Freddie: Going past it seems rude, why wouldn’t I want to go past the greeter?

Old Ben: Those bots are programmed to vaporize anyone who enters the fenced-in area without authorization from the greeter.

Freddie: Thanks for the advice.

He smiles and walks away towards a campfire near the gate. Let’s see what this robot says. I walk to the Securitron Gatekeeper.

Securitron Gatekeeper: Submit to a credit check or present your passport before proceeding to the gate. Trespassers will be shot.

Freddie: Credit check? What’s that for?

Securitron Gatekeeper: Admission to the Strip requires an official passport or proof that you are carrying the required minimum balance.

Freddie: What’s the minimum balance?

Securitron Gatekeeper: 2,000 caps.

Freddie: 2,000 caps?! I don’t have that kind of cash! Uh, what else can I do?

Securitron Gatekeeper: If you are unable to meet the minimum balance requirement, an official passport is an acceptable alternative.

But after telling me about the passport he doesn’t say where I can get one, wow thanks robot. The gang takes a step back.

Arcade: I heard of a shop called “Mick and Ralph’s” who sells things you can’t buy anywhere else.

Freddie: You think I can buy an unofficial official passport from them?

Arcade: Who’s to say?

Arcade tries to act very sly about it, after all, I did flirt with him so he could join my team because he wasn’t convinced I was good enough to travel with. Guess I must just have a thing for doctors. Or researchers, whatever he is. Lab coat people.

~~~~~

Ralph: If you’re looking for guns, talk to Mick. Otherwise, I’ve got a nice selection of general supplies.

Freddie: Do you offer any other services?

Ralph: I only offer services if The King gives the okay. Impress him and we can talk.

I’ll do whatever the King’s have in store for me another time, maybe I can get the passport out of this guy in a different way.

[Speech 50] Freddie: A resource fellow such as yourself must have something on the side.

[Succeeded] Ralph: All right. Yeah, I’ve got a little side business going, but what I am about to share with you does not leave this room, eh? Over the years, I’ve gradually perfected my craft to the point of perfection. No one can distinguish between my work and the real thing. What I am referring to is a passport. If you’ve got the caps, I can whip up a Strip passport which will fool even the most well-trained eye.

Freddie: Ah, now I see why you want to keep this low key.

Ralph: Hey, if you’re interested and have the caps, they go for 500. Any less and it ain’t worth the risk of getting caught. What do you say? You game?

You’ve gotta be kidding me… Looks like I’ll have to barter with him.

[Barter 50] Freddie: No way your material and expenses require that. How about half?

[Succeeded] Ralph: Hah! I like your style, kid, but the best I can do is meet you halfway. 375 caps, and we can call it a deal.

He says with much enthusiasm.

Freddie: 375 works great. Okay, I’ll take one.

I hand over the caps and he hands over the passport. Sweet! I bid Mick and Ralph goodbye and make the way back to gate.

[Passport] Freddie: I’ve got a passport.

Securitron Gatekeeper: Thank you, sir. You may proceed.

With that, we can finally open the main gate to New Vegas.

~~~~~

Before I can stare at New Vegas in awe, I’m approached by a familiar face.

Victor: Howdy, pardner! You’ve come a far piece, haven’t you? Welcome to New Vegas!

What the hell is this guy’s deal?! Why is he everywhere I go?!

Boone: Why is this robot following us?

Freddie: He’s the one who dug me out of my grave after all. What are you doing here?

Victor: Consider me your personal welcome wagon! Now hear this - the head honcho of New Vegas, Mr. House, is itching to make your acquaintance.

Arcade: Did he just say Mr. House?

Freddie: It seems like you pop up everywhere.

Victor: Aw shucks, pardner. I suppose it can’t hurt to let you in on my little secret! Old Victor wouldn’t be much use stuck inside just one Securitron! No, I can move from one to another with the snap of a finger! Pretty nice trick, ain’t it? Just don’t ask me how I do it, because I don’t know!

Freddie: All right, I’ll go meet Mr. House right now.

Victor: Yeehaw, pardner! That’s the spirit. He’ll be waiting for you.

He quickly makes his way to the front of the Lucky 38 casino and I follow behind him.

Victor: Boss is waiting for ya upstairs, so get a move on!

A massive gate behind him opens up and we all walk on inside.

[funkymbtifiction]

MBTI - ENNEAGRAM PORTRAITS: HEAD CENTRE TYPE 5

AUTHORED BY ENTP MOD.

5w4: Thinkers with a profound sense of aesthetics. Fives fear being put on the spot. They would always prefer to have all the information in hand, before acting. They believe that their resources are finite, and are therefore afraid of being overwhelmed. So they hoard and withhold from the world. Be it information, emotional expression or something else. Avarice is often the keyword associated with Fives. The Four is equally a shut-in, so this produces a very introverted, artistic individual who is a deep and original thinker, capable of melding functionality and design if he is a creator or innovator. There is an emphasis on beauty and/in melancholy because these individuals possess the psychological depth to process painful experiences and shape them into works of art or offer new lines of thought. They love to surround themselves with things of beauty, often sparse in coloring or expression and quite minimalist. They try to combine functionality and aesthetics, when it comes to making decisions. These people view themselves as being separate from the “normies” and take pride at it. They despair of the frailty of the human condition, and aspire to transcend. There is a tendency towards cynicism and nihilism in these individuals, which is usually brought about in their artistic creations. This is someone who has more of a focus on identity exploration than being group centric or behaving in a community oriented manner.  Preemptively reject others from fear of being rejected because of their belief that their true self won’t be understood by, or accepted by people. Will not compromise their true self in order to seek acceptance. May hold controversial and elitist views about humanity. 5w4 is the scientist, who is also a poet or artist at heart. A prime example of 5w4 would be Vittoria Vetra, and her father in Angels and Demons. 5w4 seeks symmetrical structure in art, and the beauty of asymmetry in science. 5w4 is the ascetic aesthete.

5w6: These Fives apart from being investigative, cynical and isolationist are also excellent at identifying potential risks and mitigating them. They are very good troubleshooters. There is an emphasis on an analytical and investigative bent of mind, so they are doubly cautious and reserved in their actions. If the 5w4 can be compared to the scientist who is also an aesthete, the 5w6 is the innovator/inventor and thinker who wants to use their knowledge to benefit the community and resolve issues. Their bent of mind is highly technical and precise which makes them well suited for STEM professions, particularly engineering. With such a focus on problem solving, very little attention is paid to emotions and emotional expression, hence the 5w6 gets a bad rap about being cold or emotionless. However, 5w6 can be deeply loyal and oriented towards the welfare of the small groups that they slowly let in, over time or feel at home with. 5w6 while being loyal can be skeptical of other people’s loyalty and hold them at arms distance, afraid that they will reveal too much of themselves to someone who may prove unworthy of trust, in the future. It may never happen but Sixes are always planning for eventualities that may or may not play out. The way a 5w6 deals with fear is largely by scanning for constant signs of trouble, anticipating it and heading it off with the massive database they have collected. Sherlock Holmes is a great example of a 5w6. He is so focused on troubleshooting, scientific accuracy and precision that he is able to anticipate case complications and crack them with his arsenal of information tucked away in the mind palace.

If they aren’t careful or don’t have someone to drag them out to engage with the external world every now and then, Fives can end up being completely cut off from the world. In case of those with a 4-wing, such unhealthy isolationism can lead to a falsely inflated sense of self. Those with a 6-wing could find themselves growing increasingly suspicious and paranoid about society; unhealthily they could end up finally going off the rails and generate conspiracy theories, lose total faith in all systems and attempt to live off the grid.

Fives and the Perceiving function axis:

NeSi, SiNe: The influence of Five on Ne will expand the individual’s curiosity and thirst for information. They will have a broad understanding, based on the very specific and precise data they collect about a multitude of subjects. In lower Ne users, it may exacerbate fears of being taken advantage of or imposed upon/manipulated, so they will cling to what they know to be true and comforting. High Si users will store away information, never feeling confident enough to share it with others. High Ne users may be a bit more inclined towards sharing information with others.

NiSe, SeNi: Ni + 5 will make the individual focus on attaining a depth of knowledge as opposed to breadth of knowledge, as can be seen in high Ne users. These individuals will spend most of their lines in planning and preparing, because of inferior Se they aren’t quick to action. Five doesn’t think of acting till they believe they have all the data necessary to take a call. They will suffer from indecision about interacting with the sensory elements in the real world. Five disintegrating to Seven can cause an eruption of typical impulsive and reckless behaviors characteristic of unhealthy Se users (in this case, a spurt of inferior Se). Five cramps Se’s style, and will make them slower to act. One of the ways they will take in and store information will be visual and sensory data they collect from their external environment and then process it. Excellent observers of their physical surroundings. Substance abuse and addictive behaviors possible, when the Five disintegrates to a Seven upon the Five not receiving sufficient mental stimulation.

Fives and the Judging function axis:

FiTe, TeFi: Adds a hint of intense emotionalism to the Five which will nonetheless not express it. The Five will be quick to come down in judgment by isolating themselves from those who have violated their Fi values. It gives a sense of fake Ti, because the Five is intent on understanding the world, because knowledge of the world makes them competent and prepared to handle anything the world may throw at them. The values of these individuals is largely tied to intellectual integrity and whenever they feel anything too strongly, they withdraw because they aren’t used to emotional expression. Five will just enhance the love of privacy even more ( especially in high Fi users). High Te users can be very harsh and blunt when it comes to criticizing people who they believe to be their intellectual inferiors, or on encountering incompetent people. Higher Fi users can wallow in their bleak outlook, how they cope with it maybe dependent on the wing to the core Five.

FeTi, TiFe: These individuals are afraid of imposing upon others, as they think others may view this as an invitation to mutually share confidences. Fives hate being intruded upon. Fives largely disregard their feelings. It is not that they are not aware of them. They choose not to acknowledge them and tend to view it as a crutch. They loathe emotional behavior in general, even though they do understand it. They aren’t good at making emotional decisions. High Fe users of this type may shut off their feelings or choose not to dwell on it when someone hurts them, choosing instead to immerse themselves in some intellectual hobbies/interests which they prefer to enjoy by themselves. In TiFe users, Five amplifies the Ti to a great extent because both have total understanding as their aim and complement one another very well.  They could bypass their emotions entirely in favor of intellectual stimulation, satisfaction or tending towards towards intellectualizing their emotions instead because it is less uncomfortable for them. Even high Fe users will prefer logical approach and may get uncomfortable if someone tries to elicit an emotional response from them, regardless of the psychological closeness/distance the Five shares with that individual. Prolonged and repeated exposure to such behavior will make the Five less amenable towards such emotional people, ultimately choosing to withdraw into their own selves.

[kiruuuuu]

Blitz/Rook oneshot in which they’re on the beach. (Rating G, fluff fluff fluff, ~1.6k words) - written for @magehir because it’s been too long since I wrote your favs being adorable 💕

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Coming to the beach was a good idea, Blitz concludes. Even if it might not be the beautiful Mediterranean sea and even if they’re not in as desperate a need for a splash in the cool water as they were the week before when they half-heartedly made plans until Sledge actually looked up the shortest way to the sea from Hereford, it was still very much a brilliant idea. Blitz was hesitant at first since he’s not someone who prefers going on vacations to the beach, he’d rather explore the rest of the world and marvel at all the wonders it offers, so an accumulation of sand on Wales’ shores isn’t high on his list of must-sees – but they’re only staying for one weekend anyway. Besides, everyone else’s good mood is contagious.

Not everyone was interested, not everyone got the chance to join them and so they’re mostly comprised of the GSG9, SAS and a few others who share small holiday apartments into which enough beds have been crammed that they house up to five people each though they’re admittedly so crowded it’s hard not to trip over each other when they’re all present. Blitz is rooming with the younger operators, namely Mute, Rook and Glaz, the trio which sticks together like glue, Mute with biting yet entertaining sarcasm, Rook with unending enthusiasm and Glaz with fierce loyalty and patience. The German has become fond of them and watching them desperately trying to protect their sandcastle is a joy.

They earned some mocking remarks upon Glaz announcing the three of them would spend the better part of the afternoon engaging in an activity more suited for kids, though when Smoke jokingly called them manchildren, Mute drily countered that they at least don’t literally start crying whenever a wasp lands on them and successfully prevented all further attempts at making fun of them by simply pointing out an easier target. Blitz could barely hold back a grin whenever someone made a buzzing sound near Smoke’s ear.

So the younglings were free to buy spades and spend an inordinate amount of time on planning where to actually erect their pleasure palace, judging the markings of the tide but also keeping a future thrill in mind of having to defend it against the rising flood – if they built it where the sea wouldn’t reach, there’d be no danger, yet if they built it too low they’d risk being overwhelmed too early. This is when Blitz left them to it, wishing them the best of luck and gallivanting off with Sledge and whoever his friend dragged along.

When he came back a few minutes ago, he was greeted by an impressive structure, the design undoubtedly decided by Mute though the other two decorated and adorned the plain sand with seashells, algae, cuttlebones and even a dead jellyfish on a throne overlooking their efforts. And as sightly as it is, right now it’s being threatened by the approaching tide, every other wave filling up the first moat around the structure and clogging the drain with more sand, necessitating Rook to try and shovel it free in between jumping away from the saltwater with a shriek.

“How long do you think it’s going to hold up?”, Blitz addresses no one in particular, hands pushed into his pockets as he watches the bustling from only a few steps away, a smile playing on his lips.

“As long as we don’t give up hope!”, Glaz replies passionately and reclaims one of his feet which had begun to slowly get stuck in the wet sand.

“I’m never giving up”, Rook adds with a decisive nod while aggressively paddling the water out of the moat with his spade, “if need be, I’ll go down with it.”

“The moat won’t do much like this, we can try to build an impromptu wall and re-dig it while it holds off the waves”, Mute suggests and immediately begins delegating, starts to dig with a ferocity he’ll indubitably feel the next day. “Did the others bore you to death or did you come here to laugh at our efforts which will be inevitably in vain?”

“Neither nor”, Blitz responds. “James and Seamus wanted to go drinking in a local pub and are currently part of a shirtless push-up contest which I did not want to be part of.”

The digging stops, as expected. The three throw each other a series of meaningful glances that amuse Blitz to no end while a wave, uncharacteristically unnoticed, tears down the small lumps of sand designed to be a wall but ending up as a sad excuse instead. He feels his eyebrows rise the more pained Mute and Glaz glance at their companion who eventually rolls his eyes with a sigh. “Go ahead, then.”

“Which pub?”, the young Brit wants to know and Blitz readily gives him directions, acutely aware of how nonchalant Glaz is trying to look. “Ta, I owe you. Let’s go, pine cone.”

Blitz extends a hand and accepts Glaz’ spade, watching after the two hurrying up to the promenade from where he came just a few minutes prior.

“You’re a bad liar”, Rook tells him and he doesn’t need to turn around to hear the grin in his voice.

“I was telling mostly the truth.” The Frenchman’s cheeks are an endearing shade of red and Blitz’ follow suit despite how much he tries to suppress it. “They weren’t shirtless though. Still, the two will probably get an eyeful regardless.”

“And you get to protect Queen Squishy with me. Come on, start shovelling.” They both pick up the pace, Blitz familiarising himself with the feel of his tool first before he begins complying with Rook’s orders. The sea is moving in more insistently now, daring them to divert their attention for a second so it can flood their shoes but they manage to stay alert for now. During a lull in conversation which centres mainly on their immediate task and sometimes includes tangents about the trip itself, Rook looks up and asks quietly: “Did you really just want to spend some time alone with me?”

They both know the answer to it – how could they not when it’s this multifaceted, pre-emptively provided by a series of conversations begun casually in the presence of others and ended sometimes in the dead of night, in hushed voices, in one of their flats because they somehow stuck together like velcro and separating would’ve been too much effort for too little reward. And so they gravitated along before realising that no, normally, people don’t talk about their favourite childhood cartoons while lounging on the floor, propped up against perfectly fine furniture and trying to throw M&Ms into each other’s mouths. The answer is comprised of shy glances, standing just a tad too closely, faces lighting up for no reason other than seeing a certain name in their phone’s notifications. It feels flighty but isn’t, it’s a bird which returns when called but otherwise stays just out of reach. And Rook just called it to make sure it’s still there.

It is. Blitz nods. “I did”, he says. “And I still do.”

The swears Rook shouts across the beach when the first cold splashes get absorbed by his socks make Blitz laugh so much he has to stop trying to save the second moat for a few seconds. It doesn’t take long until he, too, notices his soaked trouser legs caked with wet sand and from then on, it only goes downhill. Walls fall after being eroded by the merciless sea, moats are flooded and ornaments washed away despite their best efforts. Blitz’ arms hurt and he tastes the salty air on his lips, grimaces at the way his shoes start squelching after a while. Queen Squishy sadly witnesses the fall of her kingdom, bravely awaiting the moment she, too, gets carried away by the neverending flood.

He gets caught up in Rook’s joyous energy nonetheless, smiles at his squeaks and yelps, grins whenever he lets out a heartfelt curse and soon they’re both giggling and dramatically narrating the castle being swallowed by The Deep, describing in detail how some residents spontaneously develop the ability to breathe underwater and realise this is where they belong. This is where they should’ve been all along.

And they look at each other with a spark in their eyes.

Eventually, they fail. It was inevitable when they chose their spot, allowing future generations of sandcastle builders to try their hand at the impossible and though the whole endeavour should feel futile, has an air of nihilism to it, there’s more. Because while it seems as though all they have to show for an entire afternoon is sand in Rook’s hair, wet feet and aching muscles, memories can’t be quantified nor seen. And so the result is rich and worth all the effort.

“She got a burial at sea”, Rook says wistfully. “Befitting a monarch.”

The grin they share is pure and familiar and knowing and Blitz’ gaze is drawn to the way the young man’s lips bend around his next words even though he catches none of them, his brain too preoccupied with a question – a question which, once having entered his mind, demands immediate satisfaction, declares itself highest priority and so Blitz has no choice but to give in. He does not yet think of returning to their tiny flat, taking turns in the shower, washing off the sea clinging to them and maybe having some time alone still. He does not yet consider the possibility of cuddling in a bed or leaning against each other on the sofa.

Because right now, he’s content with knowing that yes, Rook’s lips do, in fact, taste of salt and sun and intimacy. Just as he thought.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #162

“in catholic school, vicious as roman rule, i got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black, and i held my tongue as she told me, ‘son, fear is the heart of love,’ so i never went back.”

Has a rainy day ever ruined your plans? I'm guessing at some point. Do you think you could survive a month of solitary confinement? HAHAHAHA NO I'd lose my fucking mind. What is something that you find utterly boring? TV in most cases. It's honestly really difficult for me to get into shows and be consistently entertained by them. What noise/sound can put you to sleep? Rain. When you are upset, do you tend to shut others out? It depends. Sometimes I seek comfort in others, other times I isolate. When was the last time you felt abandoned by someone? Recently. Does the sight of blood gross you out? Nope. Do you like red roses, or do you prefer another color? No preference, really. What is something you like to eat that is red? Strawberries. Have you ever gone through a red light? No. Do you fail to stop for stop signs, sometimes? No. When was the last time you were near the ocean? A couple months ago. What is your favorite eye color in the opposite sex? Bright blue. During which year of your life were you the most unhappy? 2016 was born of Satan himself. Have you ever seen a bluejay in person? Yeah, but now they give me a somewhat uncomfortable vibe, all the while thinking they're beautiful. Jason's nickname was "J Bird" by his father, and I collected feathers when I found them outside. Have you ever consumed a blue-colored drink? Mountain Dew Voltage is actually holy water. Is there anything you recycle, or should recycle? Ugh, we did recycle cans, but don't now.  Mom got tired of going to do it. However, we do keep plastic bags for cleaning up a mess the dogs might make, and I also use it when changing Roman's litter. Do you like leaves better in the summer/spring, or in the fall? Is ANYONE going to answer with other than fall??? What is your favorite aspect of life? Just. Experiencing it, experiencing the emotions, feeling alive and real and valid even with how incredibly fleeting we are in the eternal universe. I really can't stand nihilism. Like make a DIFFERENCE, because enough of those change the world. When was the last time you were purposely amongst nature? Not since going out on that walk like... forever ago. I can't do this heat, but here, I don't really. Have anywhere to go. What do you think of global warming & the greenhouse effect? If you don't believe in them, honestly, just don't talk to me. Do you typically like green-colored candies? Yessss, apple-flavored. <3 Who is the most energetic and happy person you know of? Hmmm, that I personally know? I'm not sure. Who makes you smile the most often? Sara and Mark can do it at a snap of the finger. Magicians. How do you express your happiness? I become very vocally affectionate and obsessively express love for others, care more than ever at cheering others up, and I smile, laugh, and talk more. Has someone helped you out in a big way, recently? I don't know about /big/ way recently. Do you like to sing? I think I'm starting to??? I don't like my voice, but. It feels good to do. Where is somewhere that holds fond memories for you? This fishing spot deep in the woods that Dad and I would go to a lot to catch mostly striper. I loved that it was in the core of nature. Sometimes I would just stop fishing to explore. Do you like to watch the setting/rising sun? Always when I get the opportunity. Do you know of anyone who is going down the wrong track? Shit, most people I know. Most people I was friends with. Have you ever encountered a black widow? I believe so? Pretty positive at least once. They're so pretty to me, buuut not touchin'. What scares you, more than anything else? Losing those that mean most to me. I fear them leaving me in life by choice more than them dying, possibly. If there was no afterlife, could you handle it? Uh, I have to???? I wouldn't be aware of anything????? When in life did you feel the most care-free? Obviously as a child. Are you well-hydrated? Do you like water? Technically, no. I drink about two bottles a day I'd say, but that's not actually enough. I'm not a big fan of water, but. I do it for my health. Has an animal ever peed on you? Lol Venus did once when she was chilling on me for a long time, and some rodents I've had probably have. What would make a cool substitute color for the sun? Let her be p i n k. Which do you prefer: purple or pink? Can you guess??? What is your favorite color of the sunset/sunrise? *screams in pink* Is purple a good color for a car? Yaaaas. Do you prefer green or purple/red grapes? Purple. The green ones usually aren't firm enough for my taste. What color is your birthstone? Purple. Do you prefer hardly toasted at all or burnt toast? Barely toasted. Do you prefer guitar or piano music? Guitar if it's electric, but otherwise usually piano. Have your parents ever suspected something untrue about you? I don't believe so. Have you ever wished you’d been born someplace else? Yup. I'd far rather prefer to have not been born here. Have you ever had, or wanted, a pet ferret? Wanted. What’s a habit you find gross? Smoking. What’s the worst tattoo you’ve ever seen? This girl got her boyfriend's name a c r o s s  h e r  f a c e. What’s your favorite name ever? Alessandra. Think of how you used to be 3 years ago: how do you feel about who you were back then? Depressed as fuck. What’s the strangest fortune you’ve ever gotten from a fortune cookie? None come to mind. Do people ever force you to eat? Biiiitch you ain't gotta force me lmao. Is there a TV show you’ve wanted to start watching but never gotten around to? When I actually watched TV, uh... I'm not sure. When’s the last time you felt pressured to do something you didn’t really want to do? Not sure. Who was the last person to mess with your feelings? Mini. When was the last time you were in denial about something? What about? Boy, so many "I dunno"-type answers lol. I'm not really one for denial. Is there any certain style of architecture you really enjoy? GOTHIC. What was the last thing you gave up on? Colleen. 110% done with her ass. How easy is it for you to talk to someone else about your feelings? IT'S HARD. If you watch Parks and Recreation, who is your favorite character? Don't watch. Do you like watching documentaries? About animals, yes. What’s the last DIY project you did, if any? If you can’t remember, what’s something you’d be interested in doing? I've never done one. I suppose I'd like some Halloween ones I've seen. When’s the last time you had a problem that nobody could help you with? Recently. Friendship stuff. Do you have any siblings you absolutely despise? Why do you despise them? No. How many times a week do you shower? Is this a healthy thing for you? Four, usually. It's good for me. How many times a day do you eat a full meal? Is this a healthy thing to you?  Like... maybe only once. Or none. What’s your favorite movie? Why do you like this movie so much? The Lion King. Who doesn't love it??? What’s your favorite genre of movies? Why is this?  Horror. They just give me adrenaline, and I think about what if that actually happened. How many times a day do you say I love you? Who to usually? Always before bed to Sara. Sometimes multiple times a day to her. Always to Mom if she's leaving to go somewhere for a while. Do you prefer hoodies or jackets? Why do you prefer this choice? Hoodies. Just more comfy to me. Have you ever contemplated suicide before? Ever attempted it before? Contemplated a million times. Attempted once. Do knives scare you? Is it from watching scary movies? Yes, and no. They have horrifying potential to cause serious pain and warrant torture. Then I was running to slit my throat the night of the breakup, but Mom had to physically stop me, so I'm just. Uncomfortable around them. What would you consider to be the worst television channel out there? MTV. Have you ever had anyone drop off animals at your house and what kind? No. Do you remember when some of the Walmarts had a McDonald’s in them? Both the two in my area still do. When was the last time you were stung by a bee and what kind was it? Early spring, maybe? It was a bumblebee. Do you know anyone personally who had their house burn down before? Yes. Do you think the media can further manipulate our teenagers anymore? HAHAHAHA IT'LL NEVER END. Have you ever had someone sympathetically lie to make you feel better? Probably. Do you know anyone who has their septum pierced and does it look painful? Yes, and for me personally, yes, because I have thick cartilage. Has anyone ever kissed you in the rain and did it seem romantic at the time? Yeah, and I guess. When was the last time you listened to a genre of you music you despise? A couple days ago in the car. "IDFC" by Blackbear came on and I love that song okay. Have you ever taken a pregnancy test? No. Does your ex still think about you? Probably not. Honestly, who is the last person to tell you that they love you? Sara. Have you ever made out for more than a half hour straight? More like literally all night with a few pauses. What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Black. Have you ever been to an auto show? When I was very young because our family friend invited us to one. I was too young to stay home alone. Do you know anyone who still doesn’t have a smart phone? Maybe. Have you ever been on a cruise? No. Have you ever had an x-ray? Yes. What is your favorite Thanksgiving food? Honey ham, but I can't eat it anymore. What letter does your surname begin with? "D." Did you have a New Years kiss this year? No. Do you prefer to eat carrots raw or cooked? I hate carrots so much. What was the first video game you remember playing? Spyro. What is your favorite flavor of Skittles? Red. Have you ever met a famous political figure? No. What’s your go-to website when you’re really bored? I guess Facebook if it's been some hours since I looked. What is your favorite chocolate bar? The Reeses one made of little rectangles. But if you mean like, a *traditional* bar, Milky Way. What is your least favorite Sour Patch Kids color? Orange. Have you ever seen the movie Matilda? Yesss, adore it. Are you allergic to nuts or diary products? No. Do you have trust issues? "Pistanthrophobia: fear of trusting people due to past experience and relationships gone wrong." Do you think age matters in relationships? In romantic ones, yes it does if one is a juvenile. I can't find anything morally wrong with adults and big gaps, but they creep me out regardless. Has anyone ever called the cops on you? No. Have you ever had your nails so long that they curved down at the ends?
 Omg no. Do you always wear flip flops no matter what the weather is? Is this??????? A direct attack????????? Has anyone ever told you that you have pretty feet? No, but it'd creep me the fuck out. If you don’t have one already, would you consider getting an iPhone? I want one. Who would you consider your favorite stand-up comedian? Living, not sure. Actually, probably Gabriel Iglesias. Would you say you’re too experienced or too inexperienced for your age? The latter. What is your favorite neon color? Ever buy nail polish that color? Pink. I don't paint my nails. Has anyone ever mistaken you to be a member of the opposite sex? No. Would you ever consider yourself over-dramatic? Not usually, but I can be. How often do you text people? Who do you text the most? Everyday, and Sara. What would you consider your second choice as a dream career? I really don't know. Both my dream jobs aren't obtainable for me, but uh. I guess something involving art. What is the longest amount of time you’ve played video games consecutively? Ha, definitely when a new WoW expansion came out. Can't remember if I played WoD or Legion longer in one go. Do you ever use cheats when you play video games? The kind that makes shit easier, no. Aesthetic changes, sure. Does your family go 'all out’ during the holidays? No. What’s your favorite kind of lunch meat to put on a sandwich? Ham, when I ate meat. When will you next see the person you love or are in love with? OCTOBER 3RD. Do you have anything that’s limited edition?
 Maybe? How well can you handle vulgar things (i.e. gore, disturbing images, etc)?
 I have a pretty high tolerance. But not so much at like disgusting medical issues. Would you marry someone if they were unable to have sex? I'm most likely marrying a girl. And I'm a girl, so. Who was the last male you hung out with? My dad! Who is your favorite person to text? Sara. She texts just like she talks, so I actually have interesting and more "real" conversations with her. What’s one nickname your family calls you? Just "Britt," really. Has anyone ever mistaken you for being gay/lesbian/bi? I had a therapist once who thought I was gay in middle school, so before I realized I was bi. Explain why you last threw up? A medicine I was on REALLY didn't like me. Ever kissed your best friend's significant other? That would be me. :'D But if you don't count Sara, no. Everyone deserves a second chance, right? Nooope. Would you ever want to ride in a canoe? I'd love to!!! Gay marriage: love is love or a horrible stand against God? Fuck any "loving" god who thinks consensual, sincere love is evil. Honestly. I will never be able to fathom how I was once against it. Do people tell you that you have an accent? No. Have you ever had an eating disorder? No. Do you prefer road trips or traveling on an airplane? Road triiiips! Do you enjoy tanning? Not at all. Have you ever seen The Breakfast Club and what’s your opinion of it? I didn't get the hype at all. Have you ever touched a dead body? Dead pets. Which of the seven deadly sins do you commit the most? Sloth. Did you have a Furby when you were younger? Yes. Demonic creatures. What part of your body are you self-conscious about? Everything???? But my stomach more than anything. Have you ever made out on a couch? Yeah. Have you ever been drunk at school or work? Nah. Have you finished school yet? I'm resuming college in January. What is your favorite kind of fruit juice? Mango and peach. Have you ever used a muscle stimulator before? Did it hurt? No. Have you ever done anything dangerous enough to have risked your life? Overdosing. Other things that we don't really think about too, like driving. Do you consider yourself egotistical? Do people call you egotistical? Not at all. I don't think anyone has? What gives you anxiety? So much, but I'll try to list those I can think of. Socializing (especially with those I don't know well), deciding the appropriate amount of eye contact when talking, making phone calls, driving, public speaking, being beside 18-wheelers, talking about things I'm really really passionate about, asking for things, awkward silences, answering the door for anyone (like when pizza is delivered and such), most men making even the slightest move that could be seen as flirting, and the list goes on and on. Could you ever be a medical guinea pig? Fuck that. Whats your favorite letter of the alphabet? "Z," maybe. Or "x." Whats your favorite Disney movie? TLK. "Finding Nemo" is right behind it. Have you ever handled a snake? Plenty of times. Could you ever be a living organ donor? For my mom, Dad, Sara, or my sisters, yes. Mom only has one kidney so I'd give up one of mine in a heartbeat if the last one was going. Have you ever contemplated suing someone? No. Have you ever drawn on a sleeping or inebriated person? No. Is it acceptable or unacceptable to smack a child as form of discipline? Fuck no. What’s your favorite way to dress? I feel most like myself in a gothic or metalhead look. What movie/game/etc. helps you calm down? My best bet of calming down via media is watch Mark. Probably go to old favorites. No movie is guaranteed to help me. Playing Silent Hill can soothe me, though. Ironically. Primarily the second. I think its the subtle ambiance and the steady footsteps that just relax me a bit. BUT SH2 also has my favorite soundtrack, so the actual music in it just does it for me. Do you believe in auras? I think I might? The concept is very interesting and some people really are talented at picking up the vibes of others. Animals are especially talented at that. What instrument do you wish you could master? Guitar. What do you put on hotdogs? When I ate them, ketchup and mustard. Do you have an unpopular opinion? What is it? Guacamole is fucking disgusting. Have you ever legitimately saved a person's life? No. What's your favorite book genre? Tbh, if I was to start reading again, I almost feel like it'd be something like teen/young adult romance???? Or fantasy, idk. Actually why not both. Do dogs like you? No joke, I've never had a dog be wary of me for more than a minute or so when first meeting me, rarely even that. Even when I go to others' houses and they have a usually uncertain dog, it's always pointed out that it's strange how (s)he takes to me so quickly.