#parent

[bxrn-thc-pxgcs]

Tags: Ignea

[medusaesque]

Kim Kitsuragi and the pale-

Kim has a unique relationship to the pale, I tried dissecting it and making sense of it. Reposting with more thoughts after some good conversations with @binomech.

Warning- it's insanely long.

1. After life, death

One of the first thing you can learn about Kim is that he would hurl himself in death's way to save you. From the very first moment, Kim is related to sacrifice and death, it follows him wherever he goes-

The slaughterhouse.

He lost his parents at two years old. He worked a year in Processing (here's good post about that by @renmorris and @spilledkaleidoscope). He lost his partner, Eyes. People have taken a bullet that was meant for his more than once. His survivor's guilt is insane. He's killed six people. He's afraid of killing recklessly, and has a deeply unhealthy relationship with his gun (made another embarrassingly long post about that).

Kim also hears pale 'ghosts' on the police radio all the time, talks about it like it's normal, and says he doesn't believe in ghosts.

If harry is with Noid during the Moralist dream quest (more on it later), Harry can even wonder if Kim himself is a ghost, prompting this beautiful exchange-

And he's not entirely wrong. When Harry gets shot, after Kim fulfills Espirit's promise and stands in death's way for him, you can ask as you fall into darkness what will happen to you-

It's the living who are ghosts. You can leave them behind and rest. Go into the wild pale yonder, along with everyone else Kim has ever cared about. Or at least you can try to.

When death is at the door, you have two options-

2. After death, life again

Kim might associate himself with death, but Harry associates him with life again and again- Death is darkness, Kim has a light bulb halo. Death is a sunset, Kim is a sunrise. Death is where you are when the game start, it's ready to take you, and then- a clarion call, the sound of a motor carriage, a detective arriving on the scene, and you open your eyes.

Of course Kim is no actual saint, no guardian angel, but it's really telling that even in harry's deification the symbols of Kim's holiness are worldly, almost mundane, the matters of every day life- a celling's fan lightbulb, the engine of a car..

Or the way @binomech said it when discussing Kim's portrait: this is the only thing keeping you from the full brunt of the world in your mind #but truly you are already in the world #and he is just a man #and that's just a car and that's just a ceiling fan

The game is very clear about Harry being a ceaseless agent of the world, but he's not the only one. Harry stands at death's door twice, and Kim is his way back to the world both times.

3. After the world, the pale

So what is Kim's relationship with the pale?

As casual as he might try to appear, Kim is clearly uncomfortable with the pale, afraid of it even. When Harry brings up the pale, he intervenes, genuinely worried for the fragile stability of his mind, trying to protect him-

It's no more terrifying than water or death or that we're stuck behind our eyes for all eternity?? Sounds pretty terrifying Kim...

I think the key is in the moralist vision quest, When Harry attempts to reach the Committee of Responsibility, and he hears the pale crosstalk coming through the radio, when suddenly-

"Pale is a shroud of memories and it doesn't really distinguish to whom those memories belong to. You could hear anything." You could hear anything, but you hear Kim. Soona even says that the odds of us hearing him, out of all the voices in the pale, are astronomically low.

We know the past has not been harmless to Kim, we know it's full of ghosts and cold winters, but that's not the thing that's eating at him-

Kim is afraid of forgetting. He's constantly writing, he thinks through his notebook, always recording, so he wouldn't lose anything. That's why the pale is so terrifying to him.

4. After the pale. the world again

The world is what it is. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

That leads me to the expeditions through the pale-

Volta do Mar is a skill unique to Kim, according to the stats of this pilot jackets, and it's a Physique skill.

It's driving me crazy to think how Kim wanted to be revolutionary pilot as a kid, and is walking around dressed like a pilot as an adult, to give himself the ability to navigate the pale. To return from the sea-

DISTANT ENEMY OF HIMSELF?? kim....

Seeing how Volta do Mar is strengthened by his jackets, and the items' descriptions point out that most of the people who used to wear this jacket are long gone (alongside what they represented) and considering that the only real advance in pale transit is the speed with which an aerostatic craft can pierce it, is seems fitting that returning from the 'sea' requires the kind of armor that ghosts wear- the ghost of who you wanted to be but never could, of a home that was never yours. Glory to them.

@binomech said it best in this conversation we had about Kim's skills: "your traitorous race. your traitorous job. your traitorous parents. your traitorous senses. distant enemy of yourself: seolite, communist, cripple, faggot. and you wear it as armor"

Kim is equipped for Volta do Mar, he armors himself for it every day, for the thing that makes it possible to return sane, and discover a new world-

This is one of the most touching Kim moments in the game to me- putting his hand in the rain, looking up to the sky, mouth open, welcoming the spring rain, even knowing it'll bring death and destruction with it. He is devoted to this world and the role he has to play in it, or at least the role he thinks he has to play-

But we know Kim has a bigger role to play, he's trying to do his part right there, getting Harry to stay-

His connection to Harry can keep him on this world once again- keeping the two of them together. Their real work is down here, him and Harry are Revachol's only hope. If they stick together they might be able to keep her on this earth.

UNITY AMONG THE RANKS IS PARAMOUNT.

I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT.

I LOVE YOU.

[ameasureofseperation]

So, like, I want Clarion to be happy. He's undead, sure, but he should get to be happy and loved and get to be a family man and a good dad and good spouse and partner and-

Clarion is dealing with a lot of undead symptoms, but I think he should also get to enjoy being in the world again and getting a chance to be a father.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI’s productivity theater

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

When I took my kid to New Zealand with me on a book-tour, I was delighted to learn that grocery stores had special aisles where all the kids'-eye-level candy had been removed, to minimize nagging. What a great idea!

Related: countries around the world limit advertising to children, for two reasons:

1) Kids may not be stupid, but they are inexperienced, and that makes them gullible; and

2) Kids don't have money of their own, so their path to getting the stuff they see in ads is nagging their parents, which creates a natural constituency to support limits on kids' advertising (nagged parents).

There's something especially annoying about ads targeted at getting credulous people to coerce or torment other people on behalf of the advertiser. For example, AI companies spent millions targeting your boss in an effort to convince them that you can be replaced with a chatbot that absolutely, positively cannot do your job.

Your boss has no idea what your job entails, and is (not so) secretly convinced that you're a featherbedding parasite who only shows up for work because you fear the breadline, and not because your job is a) challenging, or b) rewarding:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

That makes them prime marks for chatbot-peddling AI pitchmen. Your boss would love to fire you and replace you with a chatbot. Chatbots don't unionize, they don't backtalk about stupid orders, and they don't experience any inconvenient moral injury when ordered to enshittify the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

Bosses are Bizarro-world Marxists. Like Marxists, your boss's worldview is organized around the principle that every dollar you take home in wages is a dollar that isn't available for executive bonuses, stock buybacks or dividends. That's why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software. Software is cheaper, and it doesn't advocate for higher wages.

That makes your boss such an easy mark for AI pitchmen, which explains the vast gap between the valuation of AI companies and the utility of AI to the customers that buy those companies' products. As an investor, buying shares in AI might represent a bet the usefulness of AI – but for many of those investors, backing an AI company is actually a bet on your boss's credulity and contempt for you and your job.

But bosses' resemblance to toddlers doesn't end with their credulity. A toddler's path to getting that eye-height candy-bar goes through their exhausted parents. Your boss's path to realizing the productivity gains promised by an AI salesman runs through you.

A new research report from the Upwork Research Institute offers a look into the bizarre situation unfolding in workplaces where bosses have been conned into buying AI and now face the challenge of getting it to work as advertised:

https://www.upwork.com/research/ai-enhanced-work-models

The headline findings tell the whole story:

96% of bosses expect that AI will make their workers more productive;

85% of companies are either requiring or strongly encouraging workers to use AI;

49% of workers have no idea how AI is supposed to increase their productivity;

77% of workers say using AI decreases their productivity.

Working at an AI-equipped workplaces is like being the parent of a furious toddler who has bought a million Sea Monkey farms off the back page of a comic book, and is now destroying your life with demands that you figure out how to get the brine shrimp he ordered from a notorious Holocaust denier to wear little crowns like they do in the ad:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2004/hitler-and-sea-monkeys

Bosses spend a lot of time thinking about your productivity. The "productivity paradox" shows a rapid, persistent decline in American worker productivity, starting in the 1970s and continuing to this day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

The "paradox" refers to the growth of IT, which is sold as a productivity-increasing miracle. There are many theories to explain this paradox. One especially good theory came from the late David Graeber (rest in power), in his 2012 essay, "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit":

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

Graeber proposes that the growth of IT was part of a wider shift in research approaches. Research was once dominated by weirdos (e.g. Jack Parsons, Oppenheimer, etc) who operated with relatively little red tape. The rise of IT coincides with the rise of "managerialism," the McKinseyoid drive to monitor, quantify and – above all – discipline the workforce. IT made it easier to generate these records, which also made it normal to expect these records.

Before long, every employee – including the "creatives" whose ideas were credited with the productivity gains of the American century until the 70s – was spending a huge amount of time (sometimes the majority of their working days) filling in forms, documenting their work, and generally producing a legible account of their day's work. All this data gave rise to a ballooning class of managers, who colonized every kind of institution – not just corporations, but also universities and government agencies, which were structured to resemble corporations (down to referring to voters or students as "customers").

Even if you think all that record-keeping might be useful, there's no denying that the more time you spend documenting your work, the less time you have to do your work. The solution to this was inevitably more IT, sold as a way to make the record-keeping easier. But adding IT to a bureaucracy is like adding lanes to a highway: the easier it is to demand fine-grained record-keeping, the more record-keeping will be demanded of you.

But that's not all that IT did for the workplace. There are a couple areas in which IT absolutely increased the profitability of the companies that invested in it.

First, IT allowed corporations to outsource production to low-waged countries in the global south, usually places with worse labor protection, weaker environmental laws, and easily bribed regulators. It's really hard to produce things in factories thousands of miles away, or to oversee remote workers in another country. But IT makes it possible to annihilate distance, time zone gaps, and language barriers. Corporations that figured out how to use IT to fire workers at home and exploit workers and despoil the environment in distant lands thrived. Executives who oversaw these projects rose through the ranks. For example, Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple thanks to his successes in moving production out of the USA and into China.

https://archive.is/M17qq

Outsourcing provided a sugar high that compensated for declining productivity…for a while. But eventually, all the gains to be had from outsourcing were realized, and companies needed a new source of cheap gains. That's where "bossware" came in: the automation of workforce monitoring and discipline. Bossware made it possible to monitor workers at the finest-grained levels, measuring everything from keystrokes to eyeball movements.

What's more, the declining power of the American worker – a nice bonus of the project to fire huge numbers of workers and ship their jobs overseas, which made the remainder terrified of losing their jobs and thus willing to eat a rasher of shit and ask for seconds – meant that bossware could be used to tie wages to metrics. It's not just gig workers who don't score consistent five star ratings from app users whose pay gets docked – it's also creative workers whose Youtube and Tiktok wages are cut for violating rules that they aren't allowed to know, because that might help them break the rules without being detected and punished:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

Bossware dominates workplaces from public schools to hospitals, restaurants to call centers, and extends to your home and car, if you're working from home (AKA "living at work") or driving for Uber or Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/02/chickenized-by-arise/#arise

In providing a pretense for stealing wages, IT can increase profits, even as it reduces productivity:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

One way to think about how this works is through the automation-theory metaphor of a "centaur" and a "reverse centaur." In automation circles, a "centaur" is someone who is assisted by an automation tool – for example, when your boss uses AI to monitor your eyeballs in order to find excuses to steal your wages, they are a centaur, a human head atop a machine body that does all the hard work, far in excess of any human's capacity.

A "reverse centaur" is a worker who acts as an assistant to an automation system. The worker who is ridden by an AI that monitors their eyeballs, bathroom breaks, and keystrokes is a reverse centaur, being used (and eventually, used up) by a machine to perform the tasks that the machine can't perform unassisted:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But there's only so much work you can squeeze out of a human in this fashion before they are ruined for the job. Amazon's internal research reveals that the company has calculated that it ruins workers so quickly that it is in danger of using up every able-bodied worker in America:

https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage

Which explains the other major findings from the Upwork study:

81% of bosses have increased the demands they make on their workers over the past year; and

71% of workers are "burned out."

Bosses' answer to "AI making workers feel burned out" is the same as "IT-driven form-filling makes workers unproductive" – do more of the same, but go harder. Cisco has a new product that tries to detect when workers are about to snap after absorbing abuse from furious customers and then gives them a "Zen" moment in which they are showed a "soothing" photo of their family:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-bringing-zen-first-horizons-192010166.html

This is just the latest in a series of increasingly sweaty and cruel "workplace wellness" technologies that spy on workers and try to help them "manage their stress," all of which have the (totally predictable) effect of increasing workplace stress:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying

The only person who wouldn't predict that being closely monitored by an AI that snitches on you to your boss would increase your stress levels is your boss. Unfortunately for you, AI pitchmen know this, too, and they're more than happy to sell your boss the reverse-centaur automation tool that makes you want to die, and then sell your boss another automation tool that is supposed to restore your will to live.

The "productivity paradox" is being resolved before our eyes. American per-worker productivity fell because it was more profitable to ship American jobs to regulatory free-fire zones and exploit the resulting precarity to abuse the workers left onshore. Workers who resented this arrangement were condemned for having a shitty "work ethic" – even as the number of hours worked by the average US worker rose by 13% between 1976 and 2016:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

AI is just a successor gimmick at the terminal end of 40 years of increasing profits by taking them out of workers' hides rather than improving efficiency. That arrangement didn't come out of nowhere: it was a direct result of a Reagan-era theory of corporate power called "consumer welfare." Under the "consumer welfare" approach to antitrust, monopolies were encouraged, provided that they used their market power to lower wages and screw suppliers, while lowering costs to consumers.

"Consumer welfare" supposed that we could somehow separate our identities as "workers" from our identities as "shoppers" – that our stagnating wages and worsening conditions ceased mattering to us when we clocked out at 5PM (or, you know, 9PM) and bought a $0.99 Meal Deal at McDonald's whose low, low price was only possible because it was cooked by someone sleeping in their car and collecting food-stamps.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/20/disneyland-workers-anaheim-california-authorize-strike

But we're reaching the end of the road for consumer welfare. Sure, your toddler-boss can be tricked into buying AI and firing half of your co-workers and demanding that the remainder use AI to do their jobs. But if AI can't do their jobs (it can't), no amount of demanding that you figure out how to make the Sea Monkeys act like they did in the comic-book ad is doing to make that work.

As screwing workers and suppliers produces fewer and fewer gains, companies are increasingly turning on their customers. It's not just that you're getting worse service from chatbots or the humans who are reverse-centaured into their workflow. You're also paying more for that, as algorithmic surveillance pricing uses automation to gouge you on prices in realtime:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

This is – in the memorable phrase of David Dayen and Lindsay Owens, the "age of recoupment," in which companies end their practice of splitting the gains from suppressing labor with their customers:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-03-age-of-recoupment/

It's a bet that the tolerance for monopolies made these companies too big to fail, and that means they're too big to jail, so they can cheat their customers as well as their workers.

AI may be a bet that your boss can be suckered into buying a chatbot that can't do your job, but investors are souring on that bet. Goldman Sachs, who once trumpeted AI as a multi-trillion dollar sector with unlimited growth, is now publishing reports describing how companies who buy AI can't figure out what to do with it:

https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit/report.pdf

Fine, investment banks are supposed to be a little conservative. But VCs? They're the ones with all the appetite for risk, right? Well, maybe so, but Sequoia Capital, a top-tier Silicon Valley VC, is also publicly questioning whether anyone will make AI investments pay off:

https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/

I can't tell you how great it was to take my kid down a grocery checkout aisle from which all the eye-level candy had been removed. Alas, I can't figure out how we keep the nation's executive toddlers from being dazzled by shiny AI pitches that leave us stuck with the consequences of their impulse purchases.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[radiance1]

Crack idea Klarion is the son of the Fright Night, Pandora, and Lady Gotham

They were in a romantic relationship with each other back during period dark war times

Klarion is that child he's also best friends with deage Dan and Ellie is 8 years old while Dan is 6 and a half Klarion like 11 years old in ghost years

Anywho Klarion is taking King phantoms kids with him on an adventure as a babysitting job

Ever since he quit his job from the light. He's been looking for something to do and got the job to protect / babysit King Phantom's children so he's been taking them around and doing like chaos with them

Since Klarion passes as a human he doesn't have to worry that much really about the anti-ecto acts at least that much in his own opinion

That's when the Justice League find out that Klarion been going around with two powerful beings and after finding out that their ghost they summon the ghost King

When Danny gets there he decides to call clarion's parents to come and get their kid while he's getting his

Klarion while that is happening it's kind of being cornered by the Giw because he left some of his own etco signature

I just like the idea of Klarion being a neverborn and babysitting Dan and Ellie funny

Klarion? Cornered by the GIW?

I'm sorry but I cannot see that happening here, maybe he's playing around with them but if it actually came down to it he would probably just teleport away or just, beat them up, or something. Cause, since you haven't outright stated it, I assume he's still a chaos lord so-

Anyways this probably leads to the GIW being known to the Justice League and at behest of king phantom they crack down on it and stuff.

[ladyblueberrymuffin]

Still thinking about how we're just not expected to care that Rachel basically gave her whole life away. She can't go to the same school as her best friend, she has to go to a finishing school her parents chose for her to 'fix her' into the perfect daughter they want. And then she has to give up any chance to find love in order to be the Oracle, which is a responsibility placed on her against her will that she takes in stride because she knows it's important, she knows she will be saving lives and she respects the previous Oracles that came before her. Then, Percy drifts apart from her.

People talk about Percy giving up immortality, how it's a sign of his maturity and the love he has for his friends and Earth and Annabeth. What Rachel did might have been an ever greater feat, because she had to give up what turned Percy away from immortality—a normal life. A chance to live the life she wanted.

She gave up so much, and we're supposed to not care. She gave up so much for these stupid powers and then the Triumvirate corrupts them so they don't even work. Apollo just abandons her and she is just there to endure this deafeaning silence. She gave up everything and she's left with less than how she started. The light goes out of her. She destroys her art, and she couldn't care less, because she can't even remember what it feels like to like art. They won. They've finally broken her. Congratulations, Mr. Dare.

Rachel should've been the secondary protagonist of Trials of Apollo, instead she gets thrown a bone at the end of the series, which is too little too late.

Why can't Percy and Rachel hang out? Why can't she quit Clarion Academy? Why is she not allowed to be upset over all of this?

[victusinveritas]

Writing advice from Nick Mamatas.

Some science fiction/fantasy creative writing students I have encountered, a field guide

1. World-Savers: these are generally older students, have no real interest in SF/F, are writing a book to express political or metaphysical ideas they consider to be radical and necessary for the future of life on Earth. In reality, they're writing long Platonic dialogues about their ideas, and authority from various culture and pop culture tropes (aliens, noble savages, fairies, resurrected presidents)–to the extent that their work has a plot at all, it involves a Christ figure transforming the world via a sacrifice. The ideas aren't very radical either: "pollute less" and "love your neighbor, unless they're a dick" are common. Occasionally the message for the world has to do with something more prosaic: reverse budgeting, the evils of Affirmative Action, the importance of installing solar panels, how dare Eileen divorce me and fuck like three guys in the six months after she moved out, etc. These students are utterly confused by actually existing SF/F stories they read, and often interpret them in bizarrely sexual ways. They don't believe in numbering the pages of their manuscripts, and often attempt to submit work in PDF so it won't be stolen.

2. Children with Money: recent college grads, or drop-outs, these people have read Harry Potter, Twilight, and perhaps three or four other best-selling young adult series and nothing else. They are easily upset, especially when someone suggests reading more. Their main interests are YouTube personalities, video games, and a sort of Puritanical pansexuality that actually makes smut boring. They often "forget" to read the work of other students, and have no idea how to use a printer. They warn the other students that their story might be "too intense" because it contains, for example, a depiction of a car accident. Their stories are routinely awful, and always contain a character named "Aidan." Sometimes their parents come to class to make sure I am "not a serial killer", as though they could possibly tell from looking at me. (Oh, "Mamatas" IS a white person name...I guess?)

3. Anointed Ones: They contact me, or the people running the workshop, beforehand, to make sure that "the class is right" for them. They have file cabinets full of their stuff, and after many decades of toil, they are ready to reveal their work to the world. They just need a mentor, and an ally—could I be the one they've been searching for lo these many years? Prior workshops were full of callow teachers and jealous students. Why they were only allowed to submit ten pages a week! Some of them have actually read fairly widely, but you wouldn't know it from their work: three adjectives per noun, a fetish for speech tags other than the word "said" or no tags at all. Often these stories include as characters philosophical prostitutes with very sensitive nipples. They never miss a class and often show up more than thirty minutes early. One time, I had to hide in a closet to avoid an extensive pre-class conversation with one.

4. Frightened Proles: These have read Stephen King and Dean Koontz and sometimes even horror writers from this century. They generally have working-class jobs and write about working people who encounter the supernatural on the late shift. They really hope they can sell their novel soon, but they know it'll take a lot of work. (Ten more drafts oughta do it!) They wear baseball hats to class and look like enormous eight-year-olds. They get very excited when I mention professional wrestling or do a taiji move in class. Their significant others are often nameless—"my girlfriend" "my wife." They buy my books and bring them to class for autographs. Some of them get published after, especially flash fiction.

5. Repairables: decent writers, often involved in the SFF "scene", who need to be fixed after a bad experience with Clarion or another workshop or an overeager editor at a semipro magazine who told them some idiot nonsense they decided to believe because they were told it was "unprofessional" not to consider editorial feedback. These either get published...or lost to MFA programs, video game jobs, fandom, podcasts, or other writing-shaped pursuits. Most of them are ferocious name-droppers; the ones who heard of me beforehand know to keep quiet though.

[shoshiwrites]

MEET THE OCS — MOTA EDITION!

Decided to make a little masterpost for Jo's MotA adventures — for convenience's sake, and to have a little aesthetic, as a treat. Jo is my BoB OC who's taking a MotA detour (in a jeep, most likely). Born to German parents in Pittsburgh, Jo moved to Philadelphia in her teens. A keen observer with a sharp and thoughtful voice, Jo tends to live life behind the notepad (she also hasn't gotten a good night's sleep since 1937). In this universe, she heads overseas as a reporter for The Philadelphia Clarion along with her fiancé, where she tries her best to work around a certain major who has a few thoughts about how said fiancé's been treating her.

Jo's main tag | MotA 'verse tag | Prompts on Ao3 | BoB story tag

FICS AND FILLED PROMPTS!

➥ Into the Wind (introduction) ➥ "hospital bed" ➥ "maraschino cherries" ➥ "pinky" ➥ "grabbing the other’s hand to pull them back from something" ➥ "orange sunsets" ➥ "grabbing the other's hand to pull them back to them" ➥ close to you ("gamble" / "quiet" / "kissing out where nobody can catch them") ➥ "pushing a strand of hair behind their ear" ➥ "hiding face in neck" / "kissing the top of their head" (NSFW) ➥ "whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin" ➥ "pinky swear" ➥ "touching foreheads" ➥ the nearness of you (NSFW) ➥ leading with my heart again (mildly NSFW) ➥ september song

ALSO IN THE TAG:

➥ Kay x DeMarco ➥ Ship memes ➥ Answered asks ➥ Graphics and moodboards ➥ AUs ➥ And much more!:)

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways to Give:

Grumpywitch is a Black, queer disabled woman whose partner has been unemployed and jobsearching since last August; they have a small handmade jewelry business but don't sell enough to live on, and they're fundraising to cover expenses. You can support the fundraiser here or buy from her shop here.

cztacks has been accepted into the selective and prestigious Clarion West Writer's Workshop, but will need to travel from Australia to attend, and the AUD/USD exchange rate will not be in their favor once they arrive; they are fundraising to be able to cover costs of travel and attendance. You can read more, find giving options, and reblog here, check out their work here, or support the fundraiser here.

Something I thought was cool was that Clarion West also allows donors to buy goods and meals for the students as a group, or donate travel points -- you can check that out here with options ranging from $20-$250.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for pangur-and-grim/Greer, who is facing a $9K veterinarian bill when their cats Pangur and Grim both got pancreatitis after Grim got into kitten food for the new kitten and the resulting problems stressed Pangur out. Greer is bringing back old pin designs on their website; you can read more and reblog here (scroll down, the top part of the post is about the tattoos that inspired the design) or preorder/purchase here (including a tip jar at the shop here.

I recently found out about the Zinn Education Project and their Teach Truth Day of Action, which is coming up on June 8th; it supports teachers who are speaking out about anti-history education bills and history education censorship. You can read more about it here including ways to get involved, support teachers, and sign up to host a table or booth yourself. The page also has a donation link in the upper-right corner if you'd like to support their efforts financially.

Recurring Needs:

loversdoom is a college student from the Philippines, studying away from her family, and her parents are unexpectedly unable to support her education; she is dealing with a number of expenses and is now looking at costly medical procedures as well. You can read more and reblog here or give to the fundraiser here.

onedollopofsourcream is raising funds to help with food, transportation, medication for their family, and other expenses after a string of financial issues; they are also currently dealing with an abusive home situation including food control. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

rilee16 is raising funds to get out of an abusive home situation; with irregular work hours and a tax debt due on top of chronic illness issues, they also need funds to repair their phone, which is dying, and cover utility bills. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

[docgold13]

Batman: The Animated Series - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles

Klarion

A powerful dark sorcerer of unknown origins, Klarion appears to be an adolescent lad who somehow came to possess tremendous magical powers.  At some point he had crossed paths with Jason Blood and the two began a longstanding feud.  It is said that Klarion had used his magic to transform his parents into mice who then fed to his pet cat and familiar, Teekle.  

Klarion stole the mystic totem known as the Branding Iron of Morgaine Le Fay.  He used the brand to separate Jason Blood from the Demon, Etrigon, making the demon his pawn.  Separated from The Demon Jason began to age rapidly and would soon perish while Clarion used The Demon to run amok throughout Gotham City.  

Batman leapt into action so to save his friend and put an end to Klarion’s mayhem.  Outmatched in the realm of magic and sorcery, Batman was aided by Jason who used his own magic to help Batman fight off The Demon.  Batman was finally able to destroy the Brand thus freeing The Demon.  Etrigan re-bonded with Jason and he used his magic to imprison Klarion in a pocket dimension.  

Actor Stephen Wolfe Smith provided the voice the witch boy, appearing in the tenth episode of the first season of The New Batman Adventures, ‘The Demon Within.’  

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Rhian, drop your morning/night routine!

Rhian: In the morning, I don't "wake up" like most do. Instead, I simply get out of bed since I'm usually up all night attempting to fall asleep. Repose rarely overtakes me, and my mind's always reeling. I may have to commission a sleeping draught from a witch one day.

At this stage of the morning, Rafal is usually still out cold, and it doesn't matter how loud I am, so I listen to the morning Kingdom Council spellcast reports from a mirror I've ensorcelled at full volume and review the Putsi market trends as I start on my routine.

The Gillikin Gazette's updates about its ongoing cathedral construction are my favorites though—its flying buttresses rival Camelot's dated, heavier Romanesque designs. I only manage to catch those reports on Saturdays though since I have to be out of the tower and on my way at an early hour most days. Oh, and I tend to cast a spell, so my bed makes itself while I busy myself with more important tasks.

Firstly, I need my ermine slippers and silk dressing gown. I shower and usually start with a facial, rosewater, or whichever magical cure-all I'm currently using to remove my under-eye shadows with.

Though, Rafal's been a bother about the cucumbers I go through. He thinks I'll drain the Woods' supply and that he won't have any left for his sandwiches. Mind you, that isn't true in the least.

I use charcoal imported from Akgul to remove impurities of the skin, and that's been rather effective as of late. I also ice my pores, page through Maxine's progress reports, and keep tabs on the lackadaisical performers. Tracking's very important at a School like ours, you know.

On some occasions, I do my own makeup, but really, it seems to me that only the Evergirls care if they notice at all. These days, I've been fond of whipped beetroot tinctures and orchid cologne. Then, I arrange my hair, dress suitably for the day's activities in whichever clothes I pressed the night before, and polish my boots. I polish Rafal's too. He doesn't notice or care—thinks we're immune to disease and scrutiny—but he's missing the point. It's about image, of course. And I worry that he'll bring bird mites from his Stymphs indoors, and that would not only be unseemly for a School Master, but a disaster of inordinate proportions, even if our health isn't at risk. Think of the parent complaints we'd receive, if we had an infestation. The picket-lines would never end!

When I head out, Rafal's almost always still asleep, so I bring us back breakfast, and wake him then.

Well, I say "wake him," but rousing him isn't as simple as I've likely led you to believe. By now, it's turned into an awfully elaborate burlesque. I switch mirror channels to the Jaunt Jolie Music Hall's Cricket and Brass orchestra production of the day. If that fails, I bang a ladle on our breakfast's silver cloche over him. And if all else fails, I shout "FIRE," "INVASION," or even "PIRATES" if I'm desperate and running late, and that does the trick. I still haven't figured out if he's been deluding me though, or if it's his dreams that leave him with those horrid little grins.

Yet, this particular song-and-dance of sorts has been more of a recent development. His clarion-belled alarm clock from Geppetto's broke last month, and he hasn't had the time to replace it. The flight's a day's trip, and this new class of Nevers cannot be left alone for more than a day because he's sure there'll be either an outbreak of some pox or of some general pandemonium since he doesn't think I'm capable of maintaining order. I'm more than capable in truth.

We eat then, he in his pajama shorts and shirt and black stockings with the runs I chastise him about throwing out everyday, and me in my typical smart attire.

At the end, I wash up, sit, and wait for him to set the dishes to scrubbing themselves, comb his hair, and dress. After that, we split off to our respective sides for the day, and I see him again at dusk.

"Bye." or "Morning, brother." is as talkative as he gets at this time of day before he vanishes into the Tunnel of Trees or crosses the Halfway Bridge into the smog, unless he has a storybook victory to congratulate himself over or another point to bolster his side of an argument with—arguments I naively believed we'd already put to bed the night before.

After a full day of overseeing classes, Rafal legs it over the window sill when he returns and showers immediately when he gets back. Then, he grades papers and exams. On days when he's exhausted by puppeteering mock battle raids or Storian knows what he subjects those poor children to, he passes out in bed fully-clothed without showering, and showers in the morning.

All the while, I perform my nightly skin- and hair care routines, snuff out the candles, and get in bed with an eye mask, in my attempt to get a good night's sleep, often sooner than he goes to bed because he reads news updates and whatever musty tome he's tearing through late into the night.

Sometimes, I wake in the middle of a night terror and realize he's still up marking or reading or scheming, so I confiscate the candles at that point and force him to sleep. Rarely does he listen, and I've stopped bothering most of the time as he reads by the light of his fingerglow instead, contrary to all sound advice. He doesn't view sleep as necessary seeing as the Storian sustains us, but he has no sleep troubles, so I suppose that's an easy conclusion to form if you're him. The latest remedy I've resorted to is tucking lavender into my pillowcase, but I've had not a drop of luck.

[tideswept]

Written for @veloursdor, one evil-doll-exposure-therapy-by-way-of-Obikin-nonsense coming up!

thy fearful symmetry

(2k words: spooky Obikin AU. Dolls, childhood, loneliness, and forgotten memories that never leave.)

👻🕯🎃🕸🦇⛓🖤🕷🥀🪦🐈‍⬛💀🌙⚰🍁🕸️

The doll.

Christ, the doll. 

Obi-Wan froze with his foot on the first step of the staircase, staring unseeingly at the second landing. He had only just come back from burying his father and speaking with the solicitor.

Obi-Wan’s chest rose in a shuddering breath. The house, and everything inside of it, belonged to him.

Which included the doll.

Anakin.

Nausea rose up his throat like a high tide. Obi-Wan retreated. Up the stairs was Qui-Gon’s study, the place that he hadn’t been allowed to enter, not after the incident that had started it all. 

Fuck. How had he forgotten? He supposed that it shouldn’t matter, not anymore. Qui-Gon was gone. There was to be no heartfelt reconciliation between father and son. No probing questions about had truly gone on between Qui-Gon and Tahl, no explanations. With Tahl also gone, it was only him left.

The liquor cabinet was unlocked. If it hadn’t been, Obi-Wan would have taken a hammer and cracked the glass. He was in no mood to be sober. He tossed the keys onto the dusty dining room table—there was dust everywhere, implying Qui-Gon’s habit of locking himself up in his office hadn’t changed—and grabbed a bottle of rum.

Prize in hand, he settled on the steps of the backporch. The shrill mating call of grasshoppers seeped through his brain, another reminder that he was back in Stewjon, even more so than the copse of trees facing the property. Somewhere, out there, were all his old hiding spots—where he’d go to escape the arguments, the cold silences. 

Better the hush of the uncaring forest than the emptiness of his foster parent’s dissolving marriage. 

The first sip of rum burned. So did the second.

Obi-Wan tipped his head back, the bottle pressed to his lips like a clarion, and swallowed all the fire and bitterness that he could take until he was nothing but ashes, bombed out and numb. 

He hung his head forward, shoulders slumped. Receiving the news—Cody’s apologetic expression, right on the heels of what should have been a victory for them, a major contract signed that meant they were now playing in the big leagues—the plane ride, the other papers signed. The calls and texts from friends to extend their condolences, well-meant, but like being punched with a screwdriver each time his phone rang. Putting on the mask of the famed Negotiator to reassure them that he was doing as well as could be expected, that his father had been in his seventies, a heart attack was shocking but not that much of a shock—

He took another drag of the rum. His fingers twitched restlessly. So did his mouth, craving a cigarette. He should have stopped by the convenience store. But the funeral arrangements. The ceremony. The solicitor. All of it in a whirlwind of two days. 

And the fucking doll was the first thing that popped into his head the moment that he was alone. Figured.

Anakin. A name he hadn’t allowed himself to think of in forever. Referring to it as the doll had been easier, and then it’d been easier still to sweep up those memories into a dark corner of his mind. Banished along with the rest of his childish fears, to be suppressed in favor of bigger, more important worries. Getting into a good school. Getting along with his roommate. Getting laid. Getting a job. Getting out of Stewjon. 

Not necessarily in that order.

Two hours later, he was still sitting there. Above him the sky was an endless expanse of dark, clouds shrouding the moon and the stars that still glittered like gems, undisturbed by light pollution. Obi-Wan had cycled through grief, anger, and exhaustion until his eyes ached, eyelids drooped, and his stomach was an empty pit. 

He felt like he stood on the set of a play. If he got to his feet and walked over to the trees, he’d discover them to be two-dimensional, made up of plywood, painted with care to trick the eye. That if he pushed through, he’d wind up backstage, where he’d find…

Obi-Wan blinked, startled. He jerked as if yanked out of a deep sleep. 

“Fuck,” he swore softly. The rum bottle was empty. His grieving suit was hopelessly rumpled. 

Time to call an end to this day from hell. 

He rose to his feet, overly cautious, and felt his way into the house, turning on the lights and then leaving them on as he traveled. Climbing the stairs in his condition was a fool’s gamble, his center of balance was definitely skewed to the left, and if the floor didn’t stop lurching underneath his feet like a capsizing ship, Obi-Wan would throw up. 

Eventually, it did stop. Mostly because he collapsed on the sofa. 

Displaced dust fluttered in the air. Obi-Wan turned his head and coughed. “Jesus, dad.” When was the last time Qui-Gon had been in the living room? Who lived like this? 

A crazy man, whispered an insidious little voice. 

No. He wasn’t going there. Tomorrow, fine, whatever. He could deal with that tomorrow. 

He could deal with Anakin tomorrow.

—

“Want to play?”

Obi-Wan plucked at the hem of his shorts and then looked up, surprised. There was a young man blocking out the sun. Obi-Wan didn’t know him.

But then, Obi-Wan didn’t know anyone. This was his third foster family in as many months. 

He pressed his lips together, doubtful. People were sometimes nice to him, only to then be mean. Best if he kept his distance. Even if this wasn’t a trap, what was the point in talking to someone he’d never see again?

A minute passed. Obi-Wan plucked at his shorts again. They were too big for him. His new foster mom had bought them thinking he was the normal size for a five-year-old boy, but he wasn’t. He was scrawny and gaunt. Food had been scarce at the last house, that was why they’d taken him away. 

“Cat got your tongue?”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose and, unbidden, blurted out: “Cats don’t eat tongues. Cats are nice.” 

Then he cringed. Crap. 

“Cats are nice,” agreed the young man, and knelt down on the grass. His eyes were a deep blue, darker than Obi-Wan’s own. Even kneeling, and with Obi-Wan sitting at the bottom of the back steps, he was slightly taller. He offered his hand the way adults did. “Would you like to see some kittens?” 

Obi-Wan was suspicious. He didn’t shake the hand. Instead, he crossed his arms, tucking his arms under his armpits. “No.” 

“Are you sure?” came the playful rejoinder. “They’re very cute.” 

Obi-Wan firmed up his chin. There weren’t any kittens. This was a lie. A trick. “No, thank you.” 

His strange visitor… pouted. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how to react to that. “Um,” he said, a little breathlessly, because oh, no, was the young man actually sad? He was wiping at his eyes like there were tears there, and Obi-Wan’s sense of compassion—and guilt—was immediate and all-consuming. 

“I’m sorry! I—I do want to see the kittens. B-but I don’t know you. I should stay here.” Within sight of the back door, like Tahl had told him.

“Oh, is that all? But I live here, too.”

“Um. Do you?”

“Oh, yes. For a…” The young man stopped. A line formed on his brow. “You know, I don’t remember how long I’ve been here. Isn’t that funny?” he shrugged, as if it wasn’t really that important. “I’m Anakin.” 

“I’m… Obi-Wan.” 

The smile Anakin gave him was sweet, mischievous. “Well, we won’t go anywhere, if you’re not comfortable,” he announced. “But that means we’re not strangers anymore, right?”

There was a certain logic to that, Obi-Wan supposed. But when he opened his mouth to agree, the door behind him creaked open on its hinges. 

“Obi-Wan? Are you hungry? I’ve made snacks,” Tahl said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Obi-Wan automatically said, and then turned back to Anakin. If he really lived there, shouldn’t Tahl have made snacks for him as well? 

But Anakin was gone.

— 

He’d sell the doll, Obi-Wan decided the next day, after the hangover had stopped pounding nails into his skull. As much as he wanted to throw it in the bin, he couldn’t. It’d meant so much to Qui-Gon, and it had historical value and… 

Why destroy something out of pettiness? He was a better man than that. For God’s sake, he wasn’t a kid anymore. There was enough gray in his hair that he was considering dyeing it, but then he’d questioned himself why he’d bother. 

The rest of the house would also have to go. Donated. Or whatever. There were probably museums that would salivate at the chance to go through Qui-Gon Jinn’s collection. The man had been both well-respected and infamous in certain circles, loved and hated—if not hated, by the end. Surely if he reached out, they’d send someone to evaluate what was worth preserving… they could have all of it, really. Obi-Wan didn’t care.

But before that could be set into motion, he needed to go into Qui-Gon’s study. 

He left the house to pick up something to eat, and came back with caffeine. He’d need it. 

Unlike the rest of the house, the upstairs hallway was clean. Obi-Wan placed his hand on the doorknob to Qui-Gon’s study and cast a worried glance around, reduced to being nine years old again, and sneaking into his then-father’s study. 

Sneaking in to see… to see Anakin.

Obi-Wan exhaled sharply through his nose. The doll. Sneaking in to see the doll. Anakin had never existed. Anakin was the product of a young child’s overactive mind. He’d overheard Qui-Gon at some point talking about the doll, and then his mind had filled in the gaps.

That was all. Logical. 

And yet. He couldn’t turn the knob. Not out of fear that Qui-Gon was around the corner and would find out, but out of a strange swirl of anticipation in his gut. The doll was his now.

(Anakin was his now.)

Obi-Wan opened the door. 

—

“Why is Qui-Gon so mad?” Obi-Wan’s voice trembled, along with his lips, his hands. Even his breath squeezed in his lungs. He didn’t want Qui-Gon to be angry. Qui-Gon was the best foster dad he’d ever had; he always had something to teach Obi-Wan, some curious stone or feather to show him. He never sighed and rolled his eyes at any of Obi-Wan’s questions, no matter how dumb. 

Fear sat like a block of ice in his chest. “I d-don’t get it.” To his despair, tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes. Obi-Wan scrunched them shut, but they rolled down his cheeks. 

Anakin was quiet. Then his hand brushed the top of Obi-Wan’s head. “I don’t know,” he confessed, and he sounded young even to Obi-Wan. “I don’t think he’s mad at you. If anyone—” Anakin broke off. “He’s probably angry with me.” 

With Anakin? 

The fear melted with the heat of indignation. He scrambled off the bed. “He can’t make you go away.” Obi-Wan wouldn’t let him send Anakin away, he’d—he’d tell Tahl, even though she was just as weird about Anakin. He’d—

“No,” said Anakin, with a strange, resigned expression. He was usually lively, if moody, and Obi-Wan didn’t like the change. “No, he can’t. So don’t worry about it, alright? Cry if you need to, and then let’s go visit the Open Circle.” 

“Boys don’t cry.” Obi-Wan sniffed. 

Anakin’s smile was lopsided. “I cry all the time. And I’m just as much a boy as you.” 

This was not the revelation Obi-Wan expected. First, Qui-Gon angry with Anakin, now Anakin, somewhere, crying? Where Obi-Wan couldn’t see? 

“You can’t cry anymore,” Obi-Wan told him. What he really meant to say was you can’t cry if I’m not with you, but his young mind couldn’t translate his thoughts into words without losing something along the way. 

But Anakin understood. 

Anakin always understood him. 

—

Obi-Wan flipped the light switch. And there, under a large glass cloche on Qui-Gon’s desk, was the doll that his father had destroyed his life for. 

God, how he hated it. 

— 

(Anakin could never leave him alone again.) 

[medusaesque]

Lt. Kim Kitsuragi and the pale-

Warning- it's insanely long.

1. After life, death

One of the first thing you can learn about Kim is that he would hurl himself in death's way to save you. From the very first moment, Kim is related to sacrifice and death, it follows him wherever he goes-

The slaughterhouse.

He lost his parents at two years old. He worked a year in Processing (here's good post about that by @renmorris and @spilledkaleidoscope). He lost his partner, Eyes. People have taken a bullet that was meant for his more than once. His survivor's guilt is insane. He's killed six people. He's afraid of killing recklessly, and has a deeply unhealthy relationship with his gun (made another embarrassingly long post about that).

Kim also hears pale 'ghosts' on the police radio all the time, and talks about it like it's normal, and says he doesn't believe in ghosts.

If harry is with Noid during the Moralist dream quest (more on it later), Harry can even wonder if Kim is a ghost, prompting this beautiful exchange-

And he's not entirely wrong. When Harry gets shot, after Kim fulfills Espirit's promise he'll stand in death's way for him, you can ask as you fall into darkness what will happen to you-

It's the living who are ghosts. You can leave them behind and rest. Go into the wild pale yonder, along with everyone else Kim has ever cared about. Or at least you can try to.

When death is at the door, you have two options-

2. After death, life again

Kim might associate himself with death, but Harry associates him with life again and again- Death is darkness, Kim has a light bulb halo. Death is a sunset, Kim is a sunrise. Death is where you are when the game start, it's ready to take you, and then- a clarion call, the sound of a motor carriage, a detective arriving on the scene, and you open your eyes.

The game is very clear about Harry being a ceaseless agent of the world (here's a good compilation by @junawer) but he's not the only one. Harry stands at death's door twice, and Kim is his way back to the world both times.

3. After the world, the pale

So what is Kim's relationship with the pale?

As casual as he might try to appear, Kim is clearly uncomfortable with the pale, attempting to protect Harry from it. When Harry brings up the pale, he intervenes, genuinely worried for the fragile stability of his mind.

It's no more terrifying than water or death or that we're stuck behind our eyes for all eternity?? Sounds pretty terrifying Kim...

The key is in the moralist vision quest, When Harry attempts to each the Committee of Responsibility, and he hears the pale crosstalk coming through the radio, when suddenly-

"Pale is a shroud of memories and it doesn't really distinguish to whom those memories belong to. You could hear anything." You could hear anything, but you hear Kim. If he isn't with you, Soona even says that the odds of us hearing him, out of all the voices in the pale, are astronomically low.

We know the past has not been harmless to Kim, we know it's full of ghosts and cold winters, but that's not the thing that's eating at him-

Kim is afraid of forgetting. He's constantly writing, he thinks through his notebook, always recording, so he wouldn't lose anything. That's why the pale is so terrifying.

4. After the pale. the world again

The world is what it is. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

Volta do mar is a skill unique to Kim, according to the stats of this pilot jackets-

It makes sense, seeing how the only real advance in pale transit is the speed with which an aerostatic craft can pierce it.

His Black jacket is a bit more complicated-

DISTANT ENEMY OF HIMSELF?? kim.... The connections to Seol is intriguing here, considering how Kim tries to distant himself from it. I'm also not sure what 'sitting down for volta' would mean in this context, would love to hear some of you guys' thoughts.

It's driving me crazy to think how Kim wanted to be pilot as a kid, and is walking around dressed like a pilot as an adult, to give himself the ability to navigate the pale. To return from the sea and fulfill the role he has to play in the world, the thing Harry thought about a million times-

But we know Kim has a bigger role to play, he's trying to do his part right now, convincing Harry to stay-

His connection to Harry can keep him on this world once again. Keeping the two of them together. Your real work is down here, both of you-

Kim was right, each of them has a role to play in the world, but it's not a minor one. Him and Harry are Revachol's only hope. If they stick together they could keep her on this earth, stop the end of the world.

UNITY AMONG THE RANKS IS PARAMOUNT.

I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT.

I LOVE YOU.

[kaythefloppa]

Something that 5-10 year old me would've loved to see in Jake and the Neverland Pirates is the fairies from the Tinker Bell prequels. I understand that Disney probably didn't want to connect the show with their direct-to-video movies because of separate branding, (and both properties were slowly coming to an end in the mid-10's) but they were making those movies at the same time as the show. Not only that, the fairies are said to communicate to the NeverLand Pirates from Pixie Hollow through a rock. And it's repeatedly noted that Izzy got her pixie dust from "The Fairies" - Faries that Peter Pan knows... the same Peter Pan who is friends with a fairy... a fairy from Fairy Hollow.

The opportunities were right there. I'm thinking off the top of my head a potential episode (probably Season 2 or 3, fuck Season 4 lmao) - with all these ideas

Rosetta meeting Tick-Tock all grown up,

Zarina teaching Izzy Pixie Dust Alchemy,

Fawn playing with Patch the Pirate Pup,

Silver-Mist turning Mermaid Lagoon into a waterpark for the mermaids,

Iridessa and Brightly the Firefly having a lightshow,

Vidia bullying the absolute SHIT out of Captain Hook and Mr. Smee (and possibly Sharky and Bones) to the point where even the popinjays are crying (don't tell me that wouldn't happen)

Clank, Bobble, just being completely confused with the existence of Bucky but loving him anyways.

Queen Clarion and Lord Milori being like protective mini-parents to the puny pirates

Peter and Tink actually revealing how they met (i.e. the prequel we SHOULD'VE gotten to end off the Tink series)

And my personal favorite, (angst ahead) all of them flying to Pixie Hollow to visit Gruff's cave to visit him in hibernation.

Okay maybe not all of them would've happened, but just food for thought.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

#15yrsago Teach kids to be safe on the net by getting them to think critically about censorware https://web.archive.org/web/20090728034546/http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=179505&

#10yrsago The apology letter Google SHOULD have used to announce the end of G+ “Real Names” https://web.archive.org/web/20140716222946/https://infotrope.net/2014/07/16/meanwhile-in-an-alternate-universe/

#10yrsago White House caught secretly tracking Web visitors with sneaky spyware https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/white-house-website-includes-unique-non-cookie-tracker-despite-privacy-policy

#10yrsago Fewer than 10% of UK families opt into “parental” filters https://web.archive.org/web/20140724004309/www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/389926/those-parental-control-filters-as-few-as-4-are-signing-up

#10yrsago Profile of a NYC pickpocket https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/nyregion/the-pickpockets-tale.html

#10yrsago EFF unveils secure, sharing-friendly, privacy-minded router OS https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/building-open-wireless-router

#5yrsago J Michael Straczynski’s “Becoming Superman”: a memoir of horrific abuse, war crimes, perseverance, trauma, triumph and doing what’s right https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/j-michael-straczynskis-becoming-superman-a-memoir-of-horrific-abuse-war-crimes-perseverance-trauma-triumph-and-doing-whats-right/

#5yrsago Clever hack that will end badly: playing copyrighted music during Nazis rallies so they can’t be posted to Youtube https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

#5yrsago Steve Bannon used nonconsensually harvested location data to advertise to people who’d been to a Catholic church https://www.techdirt.com/2019/07/23/steve-bannon-latest-to-abuse-consumer-location-data/

#5yrsago Women are much more likely to be injured in car crashes, probably because crash-test dummies are mostly male-shaped https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-18/why-women-are-likelier-to-be-hurt-in-a-car-crash

#5yrsago A deep dive into Elizabeth Warren’s plan to tame private equity https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/elizabeth-warren-seeks-to-cut-private-equity-down-to-size.html

#5yrsago Facebook’s alleged growth is largely coming from countries where Facebook says it has a fake account problem https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/facebook-mark-zuckerbergs-fake-accounts-ponzi-scheme.html

#5yrsago From #TelegramGate to #RickyLeaks: Puerto Rico is on fire https://web.archive.org/web/20190719213344/https://www.thenation.com/article/puerto-rico-protests-scandal-rossello/

#1yrago When the Town Square Shatters https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/when-the-town-square-shatters/

[remembertheplunge]

Greg P. , a homeless encounter and mural art

Saturday 4/15/2017

9:47pm

Quiet House.

Alone.

Greg P. Is gone.

He asked to stay a few days.

He loved his bed.

But, I never intended for him to stay the night here.

Our agreement was that I would take him to the Mission shelter  at 6pm when I gave him the initial ride at the gas station.

I offered at 6pm to take him to the Mission.

His parents offered to come and pick him up. Take him home. Greg said "No."

Greg was intense. Non stop, mostly, delusional chatter.

Obsessed with finding Brook. Tormented by a relentless team of voices in his head.. Constantly seeing symbols.

 But, he was a fascinating guy.

Loving. Bright. Insightful.

He gave me a tour of the Clarion mural wall.. It portrayed his entire life from beginning to end.  The mural included symbols of his lost love Brook.

The mural was on a fence that ran about a football field in length. It included work by other muralists. It was located between a business parking lot and the Clarion Hotel in Modesto, California. It is where his parents found him after they traveled here from New York. I told them he might be there. And , he was. It was a miraculous find. Greg could have been anywhere in town.

This blog is related to my August 27, 2024 blogs