#this snippet is really deceptive out of context

[ambiguouspenny]

Inspo Weekend/ Seven Sentence Sunday.

Thank you @freneticfloetry @lemonlyman-dotcom @rmd-writes & @lightningboltreader for the tags this weekend!

From a Canon Divergence Tarlos AU:

“Play nice with Austin’s most eligible,” Paul calls out to them, and Nancy twirls in her denim mini skirt and Dr. Marten platform boots.  “I only play nice, Strickland!” She calls back, arm stretched high with wriggling fingers.  Carlos catches the last of Paul’s final wave goodbye as the crowd of 90s-themed club kids envelopes them both. The music is louder out on the dance floor, but the alcohol in his system makes good company for the vibration of the speakers—spreading like a wave through a gyrating sea of hands and hips.  They’d been doing this for months now — any Friday night they both had off, Nancy and Carlos found themselves here. Not here, as in this specific club. But here, close to drunk and chasing the high of a stranger’s wandering eyes— Nancy backed up against him, the two of them putting on a show for Austin’s most eligible.

Related inspo:

no pressure tagging for the end of the weekend people who may or may not have done either of these already: @hoko-onchi-writes @rosedavid @teeveeyou @heartstringsduet @detective-giggles @catanisspicy @jddryder

Happy to see you :)

[lunanoc]

so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account 

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?  

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

[camillathe6th]

Snippet. None of us are free.

DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Larian and Baldur's Gate 3. CONTEXT:  This is supposed to take place somewhere at the end of act 2 / at the beginning of act 3, when Astarion and Hero were still basking in the unresolvedness of their relationship, and were NOT basking in bickering constantly about Cazador and the meaning of freedom. They're at the point where they're honest enough to know each other (this relationship is real), but not trusting enough to let the other put a blade to their respective throat (is it real?). Deception expertise will do that to you. SOME DETAILS: Hero is a bard and a charlatan, plays the lyre, has a propensity for psychic damage, and appears in other mismatched snippets here. I'm using this to explore both their voices a little, so there's nothing key in here.

Approaching Baldur's Gate, 1492 (Hero)

Watch. I am watching. Not around, around is incidental, around is always shine and dust. Eye-catcher, eye-blinder. No, I watch; I am watching, his beautiful face, which moves like cracking paint around the lies that tug below.

“When we go back to Cazador’s palace…” he whispers.

This is the right moment to do this: night has fallen, and sleep has fallen, and in the haven of the sighing-breathing camp, only the fire crackles, a little way away. I am still seating, my feet tucked beneath the cold weight of his thigh, and from here I can see.

The stars are misted with velvet fog, as Astarion is.

He smiles; on his back, as if abandoned, as if trusting, he closes his eyes, and murmurs—a tip-toe of the tongue, just a slip, a casual talk, a faraway dream. You understand, of course: if it is light, if it is airy, then surely it can’t be dangerous.

Dangerous to you. Dangerous to me.

“You know what would be even more satisfying?”

I take away my eyes—leave him time to snag himself out of hiding.

“Stealing his jewels?” I coo. “I remember talk of a bloodstone tiara, back in the day…”

A laugh: just this side of strained. Don’t joke about this, says the strain. This is serious.

“Good one”, he lies. “But no. Stealing his ritual, rather.”

I arch a brow, mimicking a surprise I don’t feel.  

“Vampire ascendant,” I say, pensive—not pensive at all. “The most powerful of them all…”

“Yes,” he hisses, and thus shows his hand. “Yes. You get it, don’t you? I knew you would.”

A touch to my ankle, as cool as night-dew. His eyes meet mine and clasp them there—another show of faith and trust, there, keep, don’t blink, oh, I can almost hear his thoughts, go on, Astarion, let your mask slip, keep, keep so the mark will see your hunger and mistake it for your soul bared.

Two hundred years of experience, and still so ham-fisted with the changing of his face… Clearly he was not a natural.

Still, I let the semblance of a lying smile shift on my mouth—barely a hint, a little coy, a little flattered. It says, Oh, Astarion, you knew I would get it? My my, we really are soulmates.

“It would become you, it’s true,” I say with a touch of my fingers to his moonshaded knuckles. “After all these years…”

“I deserve it.”

“You deserve it,” I nod.

He does. Of course he does. Don’t we all deserve to sit on the throne of power that haunt our fantasy worlds? Don’t we all deserve to climb above, to sit in the rawness of ubiquity? Why not you? Why not me? Why not us?

It’s as simple as that. Strength. Safety. Beauty. Power. Let your soul spill over the world and shape it in your image. Have you not suffered enough for this? Bled enough for this?

Yes. He’s lying, but he’s not wrong: I do get it. I do get it. I do want it. I want it, every day, I want want want it— But if we all deserve it, that means not one of us can have it. And certainly not…

“Not just I, little lyre. We would take it together, for ourselves. Just for ourselves.”

What? I feel the slip but can’t stop it. For a second, he has me there, promising something I did not expect, an alliance he can’t, wouldn’t, won’t give. For a second, I am pinned and stuck, spider-webbed, and my heart sings louder than my mind.

Just for ourselves. Centuries of power, pulsing in our joined hands. Just for ourselves.

He smiles. Just a second. Just a second. Just a second before I catch myself back.

Tsk-tsk. Be serious now.

“But I wouldn’t become ascendant, would I?”

“I didn’t know you wanted to become a vampire to begin with,” he purrs, following the curve of my calf. “And squander all that lovely vivacity into undeath? Darling…”

“Then,” I smile, darling, sweet as child-blood, “we wouldn’t take it for ourselves really, would we?”

He frowns.

“I would share my power with you. I told you, love. This is real.”

I don’t flinch; I don’t, I know I don’t. Inside my skin I do, but skin is here to screen truth. A smooth and chiseled façade for the bile-and-guts sacks we all are.

Is this real? What binds us, is it real? Me, him, is it real? Is he real? Am I? Together and apart, are we real? The gut-sack might whisper from the depth, pounding like a heart, but it is lying. I know this. I learned this.

Nothing is real. Nothing has ever been real. Promises are smoke waiting to be dispelled. Promises of power, promises of love, promises of intimacy, promises of eternity: a charlatan arsenal, nothing more. Words and lies mould the world.

This cannot be real, and I am not caught. I am not.

I am free.

“It’s a lovely fantasy,” I say, cutting the pantomime to the quick.

And so the illusion breaks. He sits up, he tenses, eyes ruby-sharp.

“It can become reality,” he presses.

What, did he think this was ever a debate?

“No,” I laugh, a last effort at civility in front of the rushing tide. “Because I won’t let you.”

It’s a cheap shot: I know this is exactly the wrong thing to say.

“You won’t let me?”

“What did you expect? That I would encourage you to take over the world?”

“Oh, so this is about you, isn’t it?” he jeers. “You’re afraid that I will take over you. Why can’t you trust me? When I’m Ascendant, I can change you too.”

“Stop,” I clench my teeth. “It’s not about that. I don’t give a damn about ascendancy—”

“You were tempted. You were. Don’t think I don’t see through you, Hero.”

“Then you’ll know I like entertaining what could be, before I decide what should be.”

“But it’s not yours to decide!”

The star-face cracks: the smile is gone, and the composure, and the promises; and the hope. Maybe… Maybe, this is real.

“What? Do you think you’ll defeat Cazador by becoming Cazador?” I ask, harshly.

“I would not—”

“You would! I get it, alright? We’re weak. We are. Fear is guiding you now. You’re a grasping, terrified little—”

“Shut it,” he cleaves.

“No. You need to hear it. This isn’t freedom. You want freedom but you keep missing the point. Freedom is tie-cutting. To be free you need to end him, and with that I will help you unconditionally; but then you need to let it go. Do you think you’ll be free of Cazador as you recreate Cazador? Do you think you’ll be free of your past by enacting it onto others? Do you think you’ll be free at all, carrying the burden of godly power in your hands? It will only control you just like your master controlled you. Gods aren’t free, Asta—”

“Oh please!” he laughs, an ugly laugh now, his face lined, his eyes blazing, his voice as stinging as a poisoned dagger. “What do you know of freedom, Herodias? What do you know of captivity? What do you know of despair? You fled your mommy because you were sad at home, and you think you understand the plight of those who have known real enslavement? You dare preach to me about freedom because you had the guts to—what—leave a golden cage whose door stood open for your escape? Did they even come for you when you disappeared? No. They wanted you to disappear.”

“That’s not—”

“Look at you. You’ve lived nothing. I was tortured for centuries. Thrice as long as your lifetime. Do you understand that? I was used, flayed, insulted, dissected, humiliated, robbed of myself until I was nothing more than pain walking, then numbness walking. Nothing in my mind, nothing in my body, only Cazador. You think you can judge me and understand me? You think you can influence me? Do yourself a favour and keep your cheap tricks for your drunken clientele. What you know of life are stories, only stories. You’re just a brat playing make-believe, but I’m real. My pain is real. My worth is real. I will make my freedom the shape I want it to be.”

There’s a moment then, a moment of floating, ringing like blood in my ears. I’m not sure what my face looks like. I’m not sure what anything looks like, really, not through the blur. Maybe I have draped myself in the singing protection of the weave—the fear is kept at bay, but it cannot muffle the treacherous roiling, roiling—inside.

Inside, usually, I am silent. I am outward, like a shimmering mirror to what lies beyond myself, making it mine. I am, joyfully, a sham—but here, and now, inward, I am—I am—a sham—a, a, a—a sh-sh-shamed.

The tadpole squirms and projects; Astarion, in the fey glow of my unveiled thoughts, has gotten to his feet. 

“You should be,” he spits, and leaves me to sit only with myself, a punishment that fits the crime.

[canarydarity]

hello,, remember that Jimmy centric harbinger of death au I mentioned months back? Have a snippet of a scene from the first chapter :) (which will be posted in full soon!)

“Jimmy, look out!” 

From over his shoulder, he hears it—the spark and a slight buzz, like static; for a weird second, he thinks of the radio and the crackling, the sand in the desert. But he knows better, he knows that hiss, a sound that haunts him both awake and asleep. It doesn’t matter that he was just facing that direction and had seen no sign of any creepers—there was a conditioned response to what he just heard, everyone has one; Jimmy’s is to drop, ducking to the ground hands up and over his head—not that they would’ve done anything to protect him had the threat been real. 

And while nothing happened—no crater dug itself into the ground, no hole ripped itself through his barely-armored body, no gasp as he woke up back in that desert—the panic was most definitely real. Seasoned target of one too many jokes, following the usual progression Jimmy knows the anger comes next; the panic would fade upon the realization that the threat wasn’t real and the annoyance at whatever joke was played would take its place, no less insistent and intense as the feeling before it. But as Jimmy cowers on the ground, catching his breath, his hands frantically cataloging limbs and appendages and understanding he was fine, he doesn’t find that his fear gives way to anger—his fear wasn’t giving away at all. 

His ears are ringing, which is weird because there had been no actual explosion. The noise came from somewhere—probably a disc if he had to guess—but it was pre-recorded, only a playback of some other detonation, it shouldn’t have nearly been enough to do any real damage. And it didn’t seem to for anyone else either, if the laughter he vaguely hears behind him is any sort of indication. The perpetrators are fine, but even so, Jimmy’s head rocks like there had been a blast, like he needs time to recover. 

No matter how many times he repeats to himself that nothing had happened, that it was just a stupid prank, he can’t seem to calm down. 

A hand touches his arm and he flinches hard, blinking up to find Scott just trying to help him to his feet. “Easy, Jimmy, easy.” Jimmy lets Scott pull him until he’s standing, brushing him off. 

Martyn is still laughing at his own prank, wiping a tear from below his eye, practically wheezing; it’s unclear how much of it is real and how much is for show. “I have gotten a one hundred percent success rate with that,” he brags with a happy sigh, hands out to his sides, inviting them to join in on his praise. “I gotta say, I’m pleased.”  

“What was that noise?” Jimmy asks, but his question goes unanswered. 

“He got me as well,” Scott says, but then he turns to look at Jimmy with a smirk. “But not nearly as aggressively as he got you, Jimmy.” 

Jimmy wants to join them in their amusement, he really does, but his heart rate hasn’t quite recovered yet. He’s embarrassed, almost, to still be feeling it. He blinks a few times hoping to clear something in his brain, begging himself to calm down, to chill out before someone notices. 

But of course, the next thing Martyn says is “Just a music disc Tim, jeez, you alright there?” Not sounding at all actually concerned about Jimmy’s state of being; his deceptively kind words more an excuse to poke at Jimmy’s weak spots than actually inquire about his feelings.

He wants to play it cool, to take the joke as easily as he’s sure the others have, but instead on instinct his shock makes him shove his arm in Martyn’s face, crowing “I’ve got goosebumps, Martyn, look!” 

Martyn draws back in his distaste, his own hand coming up to push Jimmy’s arm back down and away. “Yep, I see that alright, thank you.”

Scott pats Jimmy twice on the shoulder, something he’s quickly getting sick of happening in this sort of context.

“I’ve got a few more people to get with it, though, so—” Martyn says, clearly trying to take his leave now that he did what he came here to. “Actually,” he interrupts himself, “have you seen Grian anywhere?”

Scott shakes his head, “No, I—”

And—maybe just a moment behind—Jimmy understands he means to repeat the prank again, and speaks without really thinking about it or meaning to for the second time today. 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, actually.” 

Martyn’s eyes dart away from him and then back again like he's giving some sort of aside to an audience, acknowledging the weirdness of Jimmy’s comment with a 3rd party who’s in on the bit. “Um, what?”

Jimmy ignores the feeling that he’s walking himself into a joke, calling on Martyn to pick him apart like usual—because the feeling of wrong wrong wrong wrong is so much stronger. His ears are still ringing from the explosion that didn’t happen, and he rubs a hand over one of them trying to make it go away before he answers, but for some reason, that only makes it louder. 

He winces, both from the pain and the knowledge that he knows exactly how this conversation is going to go over before he even starts it. 

“I said you oughta stop that.” He tries to be firm, but from the smirk on Martyn’s face, he’s not going to succeed. It makes Jimmy double down, rush the rest of the sentence out of his mouth as quickly as possible, trying to avoid the possibility of being dismissed. “Someone could get seriously hurt!”

“It’s not a real creeper though, is it Timmy?” 

Jimmy feels the helpless frown settle on his face, and the frustration that comes with knowing he's going to lose but not wanting to give up; he acts and speaks with the same level of intensity as he does with everything else, but there's an underlying urgency here that he does not doubt even though he doesn’t quite understand its cause. He doesn’t bother answering Martyn’s question, knowing at least enough to understand that he isn’t meant to. 

“I still don’t think you should be doin’ that though!” He argues, and the worst possible turn the conversation could take begins from there; dismissal of the point that the prank is potentially dangerous for the more amusing idea that Jimmy is a sore participant. 

Martyn rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Oh come on,” he drawls. “Take a joke, take a joke…” 

Jimmy groans, “But Martyn, I think th—”

Martyn groans back, “But Timmy!” 

Scott laughs and Jimmy turns to glare at him, giving up on his sentence halfway through. 

Martyn takes the distraction as his leave, already having jogged halfway across the tiny valley by the time Jimmy looks back in his direction. 

“You’re gonna kill someone with that!” Jimmy yells after him, but Martyn is ignoring him and making really exaggerated gestures of goodbye, like he's just given a performance and the crowd is shouting for an encore. He brings both hands to his mouth and blows a kiss to his imaginary admirers, then clasps his hands together giving a large bow; waving, smiling, mouthing thank you. 

Jimmy calls again “I’m serious Martyn!” But his friend fakes a laugh and says “oh, you’re all too kind!” Before disappearing over the crest of the mountain across them.

[writingsfromspace]

Rewrite tag

Tagged by @kaylinalexanderbooks and @illarian-rambling - thank you!

@kaylinalexanderbooks' snippet:

Jack scrutinized the castle before him. It stretched up, up, up into the sky--and as they were already in the clouds, Jack didn’t want to know how high the tallest tower was above the ground--how he wouldn’t like to be the poor bloke who was defenestrated from it. The castle was made of some sort of dark stone, giving it the unsettling feel of a haunted house. There was the cobblestone path, yes, but on either side of it, Jack realized that yes, they were still on clouds, though where the castle was, the clouds were dark and gray, and when Jack listened closely enough, he realized that there was a booming irregular pulse of thunder that shook the ground ever-so-slightly, enough to cause the stone beneath his shoes to rattle.

My rewrite:

The fact they were already in the clouds made the sheer height of the castle that much worse. Jack didn't even want to know how far the highest towers reached; already his mind was wandering unpleasant places, like how long he could fall if he was unlucky enough to be defenestrated from up there. He didn't recognize the dark stone the building was made of, although he didn't particularly want to, either; it emanated enough of an unsettling feeling Jack thought the answer could only be sinister. The cobblestone path leading up to it seemed firm enough, but on either side, far too close for comfort, there was still nothing but clouds, deceptively solid white and fluffy for something that would drop him like a stone at the first misstep. Under the castle, though, even the clouds turned ominous, dark, grey--and reverberating with forceful booms of thunder, barely audible at this distance, but shaking the very ground under Jack's feet.

@illarian-rambling's snippet:

With a tightness in his chest, Djek got that familiar, sneaking suspicion that he was in way over his head. He’d see it through, of course—his morbid curiosity was always keeping him involved in things normal people would’ve run away from at the first chance. Perhaps he could have a little more caution this time, though. Do a little research. Gods forbid, read something if he had to. It was quite the little maze of secrets he’d found himself in, but he’d make the best of it.

My rewrite:

Djek's chest tightened. Oh, he was in over his head again. Not that that would stop him. Normal people might run away from these situations he seemed to keep finding himself in given half a chance, but his morbid curiosity always ended up getting the better of him. He'd see it through. Perhaps with a little more caution than usual, though. A little research. Some reading even, if absolutely necessary. The secrets twisting around him surely warranted a little extra effort before they could strangle him.

My snippet for you (translated from The king-eaters' grief):

[Fisk is Ignaz' pet Velociraptor, also referred to as a bird here]

They sat down on a bench, and Ignaz showed Muriel how to carefully approach Fisk, how to recognize Fisk was at ease about her presence, and how to stroke through the feathers without disarraying them. It was odd watching the two of them like this. Athanasios himself had never had much of a desire to take care of children, but he didn't have anything against watching one for a while, especially under the supervision of an adulter adult. And Ignaz... he'd never really seen him as a father figure--when they became real friends, his children were already out of the house--but now it truly hit him Ignaz had in fact raised two little ones. When Muriel got bored of petting the bird--far faster than Athanasios would have assumed--Ignaz ordered her to stay within viewing range and sent her off to play.

I was going to keep it shorter but. I figured the first paragraph added some context lkdsjg

Tagging @stories-by-rie, @njnetails, @talesfromaurea, @jezifster, @fixaidea, @gwens-fiction, @cass-writings + an open tag! No pressure as always <3

[winterandwords]

Seven snippets, seven people

@thegreatobsesso and @indecentpause tagged me in this one. Thanks, friends!

Here are seven out of context snips from Project Aria...

1

Spiders’ legs operate on a system of hydraulics, fluid balanced by springs. When a spider dies, its legs curl up. And my hands are fists. Creases in paper, scars and machines.

2

This is Molly Vinh, the dichotomy, the pastel sweet spun sugar deception. Molly who'll save your life but sell your pain to the highest bidder.

3

The couch in the corner’s empty apart from a pizza box, part of a prosthetic arm halfway through being built or taken apart, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

4

I’m awake, but not really. It’s the semi-dissociative kind of awake you are when you slept through most of the day after being on raw death frequencies since the early hours, chugging cans of carbonated caffeine till you lost count.

5

Clothes for jobs that need me to look like a real person hang to the left of my wardrobe, pretending not to be there, probably intimidated as hell by all my other clothes.

6

He’s weird with eye contact, but so am I. It’s either nothing at all or way too much, so we’re kind of looking at each other a lot and then looking at literally anything else, like we both know we’re doing it wrong but it doesn’t matter so much in the right company.

7

I know this isn't what a natural forest looks like. Probably no-one here including me has ever seen one in person other than from the window of a passenger drone flying overhead on the way to some other city that may as well be this one for all the differences there ever are.

Tagging @blind-the-winds, @btranwrites, @cabaretofwords, @catchingbigfish, @charlesjosephwrites, @chayscribbles and @daisywords if you'd like to do it, with an open tag for anyone else who wants to join in 💜

[jellybeanium124]

reverse unpopular opinion: calico jack

wait so I'm confused because I like him does this mean I have to pick something I don't like about him? or since the popular opinion is hating him I should just gush about him? idk I'm gonna do both and also present something just sort of neutrally for comment.

I don't have a problem with jack being turned into a stock evil villain in fics. I did that (in september 2022 which might as well be a lifetime ago) so I can't completely condemn it. but I do wish people tried a little harder with their jacks and didn't just remove his entire personality to replace it with Villain. I don't like it when people do this with izzy either but that's way less common.

I love jack because he is so interesting as is!! as this bundle of traumatized toxic issues who's deceptively good at being manipulative despite the fact that he's a total dumbass who's constantly drunk. where is the sass? the bitchiness? the doing-it-for-a-paycheck-also-to-save-my-ex motivation? people have the right to interpret characters in the most boring possible way, but I prefer to look for the most interesting possibility canon presents us with.

what I hate more is insisting on this interpretation in meta. I firmly believe that what you write in fic does not necessarily need to line up with your serious takes on canon. for example, I wrote a fic where izzy and ed knew each other by age 12 for the sake of a premise that wouldn't work otherwise, when my Serious Opinion on how long they've known each other is about 10 years. someone could write Evil Nothingburger Jack in a fic but have different serious opinions on him. I just don't like people insisting that he's an Evil Nothingburger for real, or that ed there's no possible way ed would ever want to have sex with him.

ok my favorite thing about jack... hmmm well he is really pretty but that's a bit shallow lol. I'd probably have to say the contrast, context, and flavor that he gives to ed and ed's past. like we knew ed's childhood was traumatic, and that piracy is like... traumatizing and rough, but jack lets us get more snippets into ed's youth and learned that even after killing his father he couldn't escape a household ruled by an abusive, evil tyrant. and jack and ed went through a lot of the same trauma, but turned out very different. they both clearly internalized a lot about who they should be as men and how they should act, but jack developed a much more toxic mindset with a much more rigid code for behavior, while ed remained much more kind, open, and optimistic.

I don't think I played the game at all I just talked about my favorite lil cowboy but thank you for the ask 💖💖💖 I do love his stupid face

[xenodile]

I did in fact end up writing a little snippet of Cassia/RT fluff from the perspective of Cassia. It was fun. Also makes me really want to document what all the various colors mean to her.

So far we've got:

Pale Green - Deception, often described as murky or viscous

Dark Green - Anxiety

Yellow - Fear, condescension/pity

Amber - Contentment, safety

Dark Blue - Worry, stress

Bright Blue - Loyalty? Unclear

Grey - Despair, hopelessness; frequently described as taking the form of chains or heavy burdens

Red - Extremely variable, has been used in contexts suggesting anger, panic, violence, shame, terror, arousal, and mechanical rigidness

Violet - The Warp

Lilac - Playfulness, friendly mischief

Gold - Righteousness, exultation and celebration

Turquoise/Light blue - Joy, giddy excitement

White - Sincerity, undiluted honesty

Umber - Suffering, both emotional and physical

Ochre - Misery, resentment, and disgust

Pink - Admiration

Light Pink - Affection, adoration, love

Orange - Undetermined

Maroon - Undetermined

Azure - Satisfaction, pride

Emerald - Undetermined

Silver - Undetermined

I also noticed, in the course of reviewing my collected screenshots of Cassia's dialogue, that she sometimes misinterprets what colors mean, mentioning she once believed light green was geniality and kindness, but is in truth deceit and placation. It also tells me that Cassia does not inherently know what a color means, but has to figure it out based on what she has seen. So in the light green example, it took encountering multiple liars for her to realize it meant deception. May explain why some colors seem to have contradicting meanings or multiple interpretations.

it's really incredible how you can search a post word for word on tumblr and it will just lie and say there's nothing, anyway I played the new fully voiced prologue of Rogue Trader and again got up to recruiting Cassia and I really wanna write a Cassia/RT fic now.

[kckenobi]

hii :) 19 28 30 for the fic asks?

ahh hi cato!! Hope you're doing well :)

19—Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Obi-Wan felt around the back of his head, eyes narrowing. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“We both have them?”

Anakin nodded.

Obi-Wan didn’t look panicked–just pensive. “Is it something you could remove?”

“Me? I’m good with droids, Obi-Wan, not people. Do you really want me messing with something that’s attached directly to your head?”

28—Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

Okay SO I recently had a concussion and it was very shitty BUT one positive is that since I couldn't/still can't read much, I've been listening to audiobooks! And I think that's actually helped me with my writing because it's allowed me to hear the flow of the language and the pacing of it, and helped me think more about how each voice is supposed to sound. So idk if that really qualifies as advice, but it's something that's been helping me recently!

30—Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't.

Oooh hmm.....I started this fic like a year and a half ago where Anakin runs into Obi-Wan right after he finds out Maul is back, which is also right after the Deception arc. So there's a lot of awkwardness and turmoil where Anakin wants to see if Obi-wan's okay but he's also still pissed off and upset about obi-wan faking his death. And I finished it like 75% of the way and then just....,stopped! Who knows, maybe I'll finish it one of these days?

fic asks

[mallowstep]

I’m thinking about writing a short OC piece about Windclan and I’d love to see your notes about its culture and the hymns you’ve written so far, everything you’ve done for Windclan appreciation month has really inspired me :)

hello anon!

alright, first things first: please send me ur piece when ur done if you're comfortable doing so! i will publish it from you, or if you don't want to be associated with it in Any Way, i will also just read it and add it to the queue with no indication why it's there. or if you don't want me to share it at all, i'd still like to read it.

as for your ask,

hymns?

i'm working on it. however, underneath the read more, i'll include a few snippets for u.

culture

alright, i'm just going to post links with some commentary as i go. feel free to ask any more questions you have.

windclan (search) | windclan (tag) | wcam tag | five clans (narrative essays)

i would link the elders den, but there's no windclan stories in there ATM.

moving on, i'm just going to go through posts in reverse chronological order.

tallstar taking a mate admittedly, this is more about cats and sexuality than windclan, but i provide the commentary that windclan...has a particular view on sexuality and fluidity. one thing i haven't explored but should is the role visiting cats have in windclan.

whoops that's a code word, my plug for solacefruit has been activated. okay, as you may be aware, based on the fact that i have a whole tag for it, i'm obsessed with solacefruit. now, i love everything they do, but i would like to point you particularly to "make a mighty sound" for a fantastic exploration of this idea.

i don't want to spoil anything, but i do think windclan, and maybe cats as a whole, but windclan has a certain view towards relationships that very much breaks them into pieces. i'm a "love is a verb" person, so the idea that you can grow to love someone romantically by going through the actions of love makes sense. not to say you will, but you can.

(to be clear i'm not out advocating for arranged marriages just saying that they can work, they're not destined to be bad, and there's a difference between forced marriage and arranged marriage.)

anyway.

this was a lot of words to say, cats do not have a human (and particularly, western/american) understanding of relationships, which makes analyzing them in those terms difficult.

early hymn talk i'll probably say more below, but it is here.

general ibtwicm notes might get you into the headspace for some of my choices in ibtwicm.

i don't have a ton to say because this pretty much all holds, but uh, yeah.

poetry and language this isn't strictly about windclan, but it does explain some of what i think about when writing hymns.

obviously, i'm writing english translations, but these general themes are what i have in mind. it's also part of why i say i don't think i'll ever release a "full hymnal" for windclan, because i don't know if my weak worldbuilding heart could take it if i only had translations.

names part two very much not about windclan, but just some thoughts on names. as i've said before, i support all names and worldbuilding equally, but if you want my thoughts on names, go buckwild.

clan culture fic rec list just stuff i think does a good job, if you want other sources of inspiration.

general clan culture notes this is really old, but it mostly holds.

i've obviously expanded a lot on windclan since i wrote it, so shrug? idk man.

alright, i'm going to move into hymn discussion below the cut, but best of luck! and i hope u have a good time. it makes my brain shut down to read that i inspired you, straight up got brain juice pouring out of my ears, but i'm really, really happy to hear that.

windclan holds a special place in my heart. (i know my oc avatar is from skyclan shhh it's because of the backstory he sees ghosts.) but i grew up in this super sporty household as a lil asthmatic klutz, and running was a sport i couldn't mess up, so of course windclan appealed to me.

they're actually third on my list of favorite clans, but they. it's a special place in my heart that they hold, especially after reading dawn of the clans and moth flight's vision, where i got an asthmatic cat and an adhd cat, both in windclan.

god i should reread dotc it's good.

alright, here's the deal on hymns: i am not going to fight to get duets to post correctly. there's a 0% chance i can in tumblr's wonky ass new editor with no markdown, not to mention how difficult it would have been in the old editor. so i'm going to talk a lil about what i've got, and post some stanzas that i think don't get explored a lot in ibtwicm.

we're discussing these in the order that they go in. a reminder that these are all sections of one epic poem. that said, i don't know where the gaps are. like, i don't know what's between these, if that makes sense.

the wind

the wind, the very first hymn. this is an ode to, well, windclan. it's a song about everything that makes them them. it's filled with poetry about the wind, about the seasons, and it's just...well, it's a bit of a genesis, in a way.

The wind — like the rain, like the river — calls the name of each star in its breath. The wind — like the earth, like the stone — anchors us to our home. The wind — like the sun, like the sky — is knowable only by name.

i wanted to share this stanza because the last line doesn't show up in ibtwicm (at least so far, i cut the reference), and it really, really, makes a difference imo.

anyway, windclan is basically tying the wind in with every other fundamental part of their life here.

they are the wind, and that's that.

the hare

okay, this one has a line that comes up a lot in ch1, but i already talked about that, so instead, i'm going to talk about this stanza

Speak of the earth and the dens, and you will be answered: By the call of the howling gales, the open earth singing in response. But speak of that which grows above, of the grass and field, And you will be answered by the softness of the buds and the roots.

okay, we get deadfoot thinking about this when he's talking to yellowfang.

i like this stanza because it really tells us what the hare is about. now, hares are not something windclan catches. hares are huge, y'all, there's no way they take one down. i take liberties with ecology, but not that many.

(i.e., a team of cats definitely could take one down, but i know too much, and would prefer letting team hunting stay a plot thing, and not fundamentally alter the environment in the way it would.)

now anyway, all of these hymns come from the time of the tunnelers. and the point of this is, even though the work of tunnelers and moor runners is disconnected, they fundamentally affect each other.

a moor runner must trust the hollows of the earth beneath them won't collapse, and a tunneler must trust that the prey they chase up will be caught.

it's all very symbiotic and is, well, in a way, a love poem. plus i really like the line "the open earth singing in response"

of the warrens

so this has one line, one you might not even know is a hymn, in ch1, but i'll share the whole stanza.

And as for the subject of fallow fields: Fallowed fields make for hungry prey, Yet hungry prey makes desperate rabbits, Who leap into our claws.

and ig my big point is, the hymns are a cultural artifact. just like many of the rules in the old testament have to do with hygiene things being codified into religion, this whole hymn is about hunting advice.

the moon on the river

okay, out of all the hymns, this is the most complete, and because ashfoot and deadfoot sing it together, and deadfoot discusses it, i only have one stanza to share.

Under the coldness, you shine back at me, And I do everything to keep the clouds from threatening you.

now, this poem is about love, grief, and being separated. it's a particular kind of grief, and windclan discourages grief, so this is one of only a few ways to really, fully express it.

and this section, in particular, is about love in times of hardship.

i don't have. a lot to say here. but the way hardship changes how you love someone can be particular and intense.

(temporarily, this happens sometime before "Spare for my chosen few / All I have is given towards the distant ground.")

the gorse in the wind

oh shit! i have so fucking much to say okay first.

the series title does not come from this hymn.

second, this is a challenging hymn okay. fuck. i have so much to say. where to start so! moors are actually relatively wet. think british countryside, not, like, a cool desert.

this is something i always knew? i read the secret garden a lot as a kid. but. i've seen stuff about moors being dry, and it's just one of those things that really...starts to eat under your skin. anyway.

okay, so. gorse is a dry plant. it does not like rain. it grows in sandy soil, etc etc, and yet. aside from everything we know about gorse and warriors, it also grows in this moor. because i say so.

okay, so. so so so. the lines quotes here are really deceptive, and i bet no one understood why, and that makes me just a little sad, but i couldn't find a good way to explain it in text, so uh, yeah, anyway. there's an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot: "THE GORSE: You called me the heather and I grew stronger. / THE WIND: I called you the heather and brought rain for you to grow."

so...so do you see? do you see the point? it's about communication, needs, challenging each other. fadskj;l i love this. okay, so. the point is that heather is fragile, soft, pretty, and gorse is the opposite. the part of the wind is trying to be kind and complimentary, but the gorse is saying, fuck that, you are not being kind to me by undercutting my strength.

anyway, this passage is sung by the gorse:

In what good company have I set down roots, That even through snow fall I flower. You called me the heather and yet I've weathered, Far more than your sweet-named love.

so uh, yeah, this adds context. gorse! gorse is a hardy plant that continues to flower basically all season round. it's cool. it's cool. gorse is super cool. fuuuck y'all it's such a small thing and i've contained talking about it until now, but now it's too much. the floodgates are open, and i thought about this small detail too much.

okay. deep breath. gorse is a really easy plant to grow, but it's still adapted for dry environments. so the "even through snow fall I flower" part is a little tongue in cheek: gorse itself will flower in the cold, but snow is a type of precipitation, which as we've covered, is not gorse friendly.

then we have some rhyming and puns in the next line, and finally, "yet I've weathered, / Far more than your sweet-named love." like. yes. love as a form of softness is not necessarily helpful.

i mean, consider the damaging "soft trans boi" problem. same energy.

right. okay. so we've got all that? now if you remember, this is sung when deadfoot thinks ashpaw doesn't respect him, and ashpaw says she'll sing with him if she can sing the gorse, so in essence, she's telling him...not to back off, per se, but that...she is the "hard part" of the relationship. like, okay, i refuse to even bring up gender roles in human relationships, but uh, her point is very much, "i am the gorse, and you are the wind," and it's a very monumental moment.

it's anchored, i believe, in the other scenes, but this is a small thing that matters a lot to me.

like a lot.

okay, now that i've talked about like four lines for the length of this entire post, moving on.

the heather and earth

okay, this is the last hymn i have in concrete terms, and i cut a bit of it from the latest chapter, so yeah. it's also, uh, okay everything i have for it is only a line or two, but i wanted to share this closing line (sung together):

Sing a song of forgiveness, of growing together, and we will make madness, And madness from hence will everything beautiful grow.

and i just like these lines. they got cut, it was initially part of an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot, but i can't share the part of it they talk about, because i'm reusing it for a later chapter and i'll 100% spoil shit if i try to talk about it.

but these lines? mmm they speak to me.

i don't have a ton to say about them, but i just. i like it.

if we apply the same ecology discussion from the gorse and the wind, we see heather is a plant that grows in acidic, infertile soil, and heath (which is not the same as a heather, but also kind of is) is a defining quality of heathland, which is...i'm not kidding, it's hot discourse about the difference between moorland and heathland.

i'm not getting involved, but my point is, if the gorse in the wind is a hymn about finding a working relationship, about mutual respect, etc., then the heather and earth is a hymn about working well together in a terrible situation.

god.

uh, wow! can you tell i like plants? because while parts of my ecology are dubious (see: everything regarding the rabbits in ch1), the plants part are well thought out. this shit is carefully detailed metaphor.

and that's why i won't be releasing a full hymnal. it's hard to as on top of this as i want to be. i'm not kidding, writing even four lines of a hymn usually takes me about twenty minutes, because i pull up a lot of research about how things work, how they interact with each other, etc., and then there's wordsmithing, cat worldview filter, etc.

but i hope this overview of what i've got is a good insight into my general thoughts. and i will eventually release more and more of the hymns i've got written.

[shadowsong26fic]

Writing meme question: 2, 7, and 9. (If it isn't too much) :D

Nope, not at all too much :D

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

...hmmmmmmmmmm...that is a good question, lol. Uh, I’m not necessarily coming up with anything specific? Although I guess there is some stuff that I mostly do in either RP contexts or very private self-indulgent nonsense that it might be nice to treat Properly, so to speak. Things like self-indulgent crossovers and/or AU concepts, random things like wingfic/bonded creatures/etc. (though only in certain contexts and usually fitting those into an otherwise-canon universe), certain H/C tropes...also, not really tropes, but there’s a couple of rarepairs that I’d love to see more of (for which I’d pretty much have to write it myself lol) but either because I’m not sure I have a handle on the character voices involved or just because...pairing-focused stuff is not really where my fic brain lives for the most part, lol.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oooooh, this is a hard one. Uh. Let’s go with this, from a short story set in one of my original worlds, The Farglass Cycle (previously known as Feredar):

The Audience Hall, at least, seemed to be mirrored rather than clear, other than the dais ahead of her. It gave the impression that Queen Kesshare was floating, rather than sitting, when the light hit her right. As if chairs and floors were for mere mortals, like her consort beside her, not for the iron-hard desert Queen with her dark hawk's eyes and deceptively simple and soft-looking silver gown. She looked like a bronze-gilt statue of a harsh Goddess of the Dead, and Sheminne didn't have to be a performer to know that every aspect of the Queen's clothing, posture, Hall, down to her husband slightly behind her, in shadow, on a more-solid throne, the fact that the cavernous room, with its graceful columns and shimmering floor was entirely empty save for the three of them and a handful of silent bodyguards... It was calculated for exactly that impression of ultimate power and doom.

There are some things I would edit here--I know that my Main Writing Flaw is run-on sentences/overuse and abuse of commas, semicolons, emdashes, ellipses...you name it, I love it. [Hi, we’re the Neverending Sentences, and we’ll be here all night]

...anyway, I’m aware of that weakness of mine, and I think I’d do some more editing here (I wrote this...yeesh, nearly ten years ago; and it sticks out as particularly run-on).

But what I like about this is that...I’m also not super good at description? (Like, for example, the fact that I have yet to describe Dr. Naar in Precipice is not only because I still haven’t made up my mind as to whether he’s Human or Besalisk; it’s also at least partly because fitting in descriptions like that is Awkward and I Don’t Like Doing It, lol).

This is, I think, one of my better efforts at description. It tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Kesshare (who, fun fact, is Not actually the villain in this story; but if other events abroad hadn’t upstaged her, she would absolutely be the villain of another story). And it gives you at least a little bit about the nation she rules (the Kingdom of the City of Glass; usually just referred to as Glass or the City of Glass), and something of its wealth/power/relationship with other nations.

Also, see here for a picture I commissioned of Kesshare awhile ago, mostly using the above passage as a reference, lol. (Kesshare is the top picture; the bottom is Taz, another character from the same story).

((Honorable mention, because they’ve been in my head lately either because characters or topic: a bunch of stuff from our faces like a mirror; both in terms of a few key moments that made Bo-Katan into who and what she became when we the audience meet her in TCW, as well as some things about her relationship with Satine and their respective philosophies; a couple snippets of miscellaneous AU bits (like this one, lol)...but I like this one, and it’s nice to draw attention to some of my original stuff sometimes, y’know?))

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Oooooh, good question. Uh. Different things are hard for different reasons? I don’t think any fic has ever been Super Easy (except actually maybe The Devoted; that one flowed pretty smooth once I really got going). So, I guess...I’ll cycle through some of my other SW longfic projects and quick answer because Why Not:

Precipice has its ups and downs, depending on topic and focus. Arc Six was I think the hardest (despite the fact that Arc Seven has taken For Ever to get out, lol), between I’m not good at Sustained Fluff and Saw is a pain in the butt even if I wasn’t using his POV. (I swear, the next/final chapter Will Be Out Soon; I have...like...3-4 hours of work left on it which I swear I’m not using this meme to procrastinate <.< ...of course, then I have all the sequel/interquel stuff planned lol I’m sure I’ll have more Ups And Downs to complain about in the future)

our faces like a mirror, which I mentioned in the last answer, I’ve been working on on and off for, like, three years; it’s hard to balance Bo and Satine’s points of view without vilifying either; also because there is like zero canon definition of the period I’m writing about, there’s a lot of whitespace to fill in. It’s almost closer to writing original fiction in that way--I mean, I don’t have to do the heavy lifting of worldbuilding, and I am focusing on fleshing out something we have a hint of in canon that drew my attention (i.e., how did these two end up where they were/with such diametrically opposite beliefs/what is/was their relationship as sisters; how did bo-katan survive the mandalorian civil war since she pretty clearly was not with satine and the jedi; how much do their separate experiences during that time affect them/inform their future behavior (spoiler: A LOT)); but a lot of the specific events/storyline and even some of the characterization of these two women is pretty much built from scratch.

Distaff, I got stuck on ‘cause I borked my timeline and also haven’t 100% figured out how I wanted it to end.

The Phoenix; getting into Luke’s head was kind of hard; also the ending feels kind of rushed.

for we are a woven thread; find the strand; figuring out what to do with Obi-Wan’s thread was a little hard, also just...getting through the super downer beginning, lol.

SW2021 big bang: finding the actual Story buried in how the three focal characters connect and what that means for them/the rest of the galaxy. AKA lol what is the Plot.

...I’m not sure that actually answers the question, but it’s something in the neighborhood, at least?

Ask me a fic writer question! (Or, frankly, any question, I like to babble about writing to/at people. My writing discord is pretty quiet but I do that there sometimes XD)

[theloniousbach]

A LISTENER'S JOURNAL #21: GOIN' (BACK) TO KANSAS CITY

My best, longest standing jazz friend who is also from Kansas City called my attention to Nathan W. Pearson's Goin' to Kansas City (University of Illinois Press, 1987).  The good old Eden Webster Library had the volume as support for our strong jazz program.  It was checked out a couple of times within a couple of years of publication according to the card in the book and has possibly gone out through electronic check out like mine since or used in the stacks.  Still, a moment's pause on the fate of scholarly books.

It's a shame because the oral history with all of the players captured a dying generation, a passing moment.  They conducted them in the mid-1970s when we were discovering the music generally even if KC swing was hardly our starting place.  Jay McShann was around town as "the last of the Blue Devils;" talk was afoot for a Jazz Hall of Fame to go with revitalizing the 18th and Vine District; and we saw the Count Basie Band at KU (I was close to Freddie Green watching him impassively chording on a possibly unamplified, barely mic'ed arch top, eyebrows only slightly raised as horns crescendoed behind him.  The Count himself showed that beaming smile and turned the band with deceptively simple mostly right handed lines.  The magic was there, but the horns were mostly second or third generation.  Maybe Jimmy Forrest played tenor.).

But, particularly with this return to this music, it is so clear how much of the KC aesthetic informs my sense of jazz: blues, riffs, driving rhythm.Basie was the starting point.  I recall, admittedly hazily, that my dad vouchsafed that he preferred Basis to Ellington.  We had a two record album put out as a fundraiser for the Congress of Racial Equality (that too is a story to unpack because my parents' politics had an influence, even they might say too much influence, on my life) with a whole side of the Basie band that I played often.  I do know that I got the Verve "Essential Count Basis"  album before I got "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," putting those Neal Hefti 1950s charts, Joe Williams blues, and that core repertoire ("April in Paris," "Jumping' at the Woodside," and a proper "One O'Clock Jump" in my brain.  A previous off label album had a long jammed version of "OO'CJ" that only backed into the theme at the end--and that was unacceptable though now I'm curious about how they did it.).

But, man, Basie could swing hard with a brassy swagger.  Those bluesy riffs set up solos, accessible, smart, and succinct.  Basie himself was a presence and there was something about his presence.  I recall vaguely seeing them (and possibly, separately, Ellington) as a kid as a local grocery store had a tiered trailer they could put in a parking lot with the band on it.  That is the probable source of my father's preferences.

So KC jazz through Basie was formative.  The prompt from the book is to get into the bascally 1930s roots of what I heard (and what caught Dad's ear as a teenager).There are just snippets of Walter Page and the Blue Devils and Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy.  But there is some with Basie playing a much bigger two handed piano.  The recordings are earlier, reflecting less developed technology and likely less than ideal studio or remote conditions.  The music is less developed too, so it sounds corny.  Yes, the 4/4 rhythm is insistent, but we sneak things into it now; same with the harmonies in the horn section.  But the blues is there loud and clear with riffs sounding even more focused  because recordings could only be three minutes long.

The real rediscovery is the early Mary Lou Williams.  I knew her some as a revered figure, including as a mentor to Monk and others.  My mother's piano bench has a jazz instruction book by her that I wish I had now.  But in these early recordings  she is strong and varied and defining.  There are even about five trio sides that really showcase her talent.  I can hear the future there, even as I use her to epitomize the KC sound.

But, the KC sound is both distinctive in the moment, but has some of the future in it.  Of course, that is precisely my lens--that jazz is at its heart blues, driving rhythm, and riffs.  But it spurs the transition.I was acutely aware that Charlie Parker was from Kansas City, hitting New York with Jay McShann but cutting his teeth around town at the clubs and union hall.  There was a jazz opera about him that we saw at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art when I was a kid and an antipathy to opera that I haven't shaken.

I am a child of bebop, but I am not steeped in the nuances of Parker's career, certainly the way I am with Monk's.  I saw Dizzy Gillespie a couple of times in the 1970s (maybe even with electric piano and electric bass--not for fusion purposes just that's what people played) but he too is an ebullient presence and huge ears (as important as bebop is, he also promoted Afro-Cuban).  I did of course dig back through Miles to his apprenticeship with Parker, but it's "Birth of the Cool" and the "Cookie'/Relaxin'/Steami'/Workin'" sessions with Coltrane where it starts for me.

It's a revelation to hear Parker this time with KC swing as the context.  It slows down the caricature of harmonic pyrotechnics around the changes and I heard better what he was doing with the changes to create countless beautiful melodies.  I heard a singing Bird--and that's a treat.  I've read of his voracious musical curiosity, exploring the more modern European Art Music Tradition (Stravinsky, Impressionsts) to find melodic ideas.

The other revelation is the connection, including KC, with Lester Young.  I know him (and the other great tenors of the 1930a--Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins--who influenced and transitioned to bebop) too little.  Yes, the Billie Holiday dates but Mingus's "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" tribute is far more familiar in many iterations than what Mingus celebrates.  But Young is another captivating melodist.  There's a delicacy and vulnerability to his playing that I didn't quite expect.  He is a Kansas Citian through and through, but his tone commands a different kind of attention as we lean into it.

Pearson's book also captures the role of the Pendergast machine's corruption that shielded the city from the worst of the Great Depression and allowed the margins where this outlaw music could prosper.

My home town!

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Jukebox reviews part 38! For context, see my post “A Project” under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

Lost in the Echo

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11/25/2017                                   mc ma

Ok, Dian, except that any good Master or Mistress wants their slave(s) to be successful, to be fulfilled. Sure, for some folk that's sexual service, but in *this* economy? Really? Much better to have a dedicated, disciplined slave who thrives at school or work because that's what she's been controlled to do, then who comes home, finishes any work she needs to do, and can just let *go.*

That highly practical point aside, oh, this is GOOD. I'm not at all surprised by the ending - that just feels like the obvious conclusion here, really - but it's the part in between, how her thoughts drag her right back to the reality of her surrender, how every though reminds her of the file she's trying to resist, how even the thought of resistance just reminds her of how lost she already is. It's a wonderful spiral, and a concept I may just steal for my own use (in a much modified form.) 10/10 spirals 

 You’re Not an Ordinary Girl

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12/2/2017                                     mc ff rb

Ah, Charity is SO One Of Us, and that's refreshing to see in the Girls(tm) universe. I mean, I figured some people with Girls(tm) had to be, just given demographics, but still. I never had the Trust in Me moment - I don't know if I ever actually *saw* The Jungle Book - so I don't entirely understand the fascination with Kaa, so that part doesn't resonate for me. But that moment, the "oh, it's *real*" moment? That's a lovely, wonderful moment that makes this story hit in a very satisfying way. And I appreciate the Girls(tm) acknowledging the work that Charity did, the idea, such that they just gave her a Girl(tm). 9/10 spirals. 

 Tunnel Vision

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12/9/2017                                     mc mf md

So. Reading this story makes me want to mention that the classic, Game Boy version, of Tetris is now available with the Nintendo Switch Online expansion pass. In case anyone has access to that and wants to experiment. For Reasons(tm). I definitely understand the zoning out to a video game, though Tetris isn't one that would scratch that itch for me the way some games do. Stardew Valley, or a rhythm game? sure. I lost *hours* to the time sink that was Guitar Hero. But that hyperfocus on a video game is *so* familiar, even if I've never been lucky enough to have a partner hijack that for some fun, as happens here. But the idea of it? Oh, I like it in theory at least. 9/10 spirals. 

 The Kidnap Show

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12/16/2017                                   mc mf md

This one's a bit of a miss for me. The setup just feels *off* in so many ways I can't quite articulate, and it feels creepily predatory in a way I don't like. It's more voyeuristic than I prefer, too, and I think that's part of what feels off. If you're the sort to enjoy one person being conditioned to want to be a slave while watching someone else surrender, this is a good one for you, but... it isn't for me. 4/10 spirals 

 Remember to Remember

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12/23/2017                                   mc mf md

A 50-50 chance always seems pretty reasonable, until you have to get the same result multiple times in a row. Probability's deceptive like that. And this story uses that for a really interesting confusion induction that just overwhelms Judy in a delightful way. I love the look inside her head as she gets overwhelmed not just by the number of combinations, but also the increasing level of abstraction. It's just good, quality hypnosis. 9/10 spirals 

 Juicy Jungle

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12/30/2017                                   mc ff

Oh, this is sweet and tender and adorable and also has a lovely charge of heat to it. Long distance relationships are hard, but a routine, a habit, can make it less hard. Seeing this small snippet of Emily's life, of her relationship with Janelle, is lovely, though I find it more heart-melting than hot, perse. But that's me being a hopeless romantic for you. 10/10 spirals 

 Dogs Can Grow Beards All Over

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1/6/2018                                       mc mf fd

Well, none of those are the mnemonics *I* used for cellular bio, but I suppose they work. Can she come up with a good one for the steps of the Krebs Cycle? that was the hard one for me. It's a clever use of the basic nature of mnemonics to get inside someone's head and work on their mind. But it reminded me of a few too many of my own late nights memorizing biology stuff. (the Chemistry I could handle. It was the bio part of biochem that took doing) 8/10 spirals. 

 Girl Next Door (Jukebox)

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1/20/2018                                     mc mf ff fd ma rb

This one's another voyeurism-based one, so I don't really enjoy it as much as others. It's well set up, and I have to wonder how much the curtains getting left open was an intentional choice on the part of Chandra's Girl(tm). It just feels too perfect to not be intentional. Jeremy's eventual surrender feels inevitable, and I'm admittedly curious just how much Chandra's Girl(tm) was playing things up for Jeremy. 7/10 spirals 

 Stronger

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1/20/2018                                     mc ff

Oh, I love the idea of using someone's strength "against" them, to lead them to surrender. "your strength is my strength now" is... *yes,* I like this line. And taking advantage of exhaustion, too, is such a clever idea. It's less than ethical, and the way Sasha reacts to her bothers me somewhat, but outside of that it's just a delightful view of the inside of Sasha's head as her strength is turned to another's service. 8/10 spirals 

 Choose to Be Me

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1/27/2018                                     mc ff

I *dislike* Francesca. This story is a combination of someone with attitudes I dislike, what feels like serial recruitment, and just cold disdain for someone not fitting a mold. It's well done, and if you like those things you'll almost assuredly like this story, but I just don't. 3/10 spirals

[quarantineroulette]

Suede -- The Blue Hour

The first time I listened to The Blue Hour, I was on a train uptown and slowly losing my concept of space and time. For a split second I didn’t know where I was or how close I was to being late for work. For christ’s sake, when I got out of the subway I was so discombobulated I ordered a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. I felt like I needed about 20 extra minutes before clocking in for the day, so I could sit on the curb and cry like a child whose balloon just floated away. In fact, (and apologies for the horrible simile ahead) I felt how the protagonist of the Scott Walker song “Plastic Palace People” probably felt by the song’s final, deflated verse. 

Both this and my second listen of The Blue Hour made me feel lost, discombobulated and thoroughly unnerved in ways I still don’t totally comprehend. After the second listen, I had to take a walk to collect my thoughts, and I was still almost too blindsided to pick up bagels for my boyfriend and I. A review of the album in The Independent likens The Blue Hour to a post-Britpop version of Hereditary and, perhaps my only moment of clarity in those early listens was that The Blue Hour gave me the same feeling of deep psychological disturbance that many internet commenters had spoken of after watching that film for the first time. 

Why would someone want to repeatedly listen to an album that, if you allow it to, can get under your skin so wickedly? Because at the same time this album is so catchy, so exhilarating, that you can’t help but go back again and again. Imagine Hounds of Love with the big, more straightforward songs and “The Ninth Wave” portion intertwined, and you get the idea (but of course, if that’s not your thing, this may not be for you). 

A good illustration of this statement would be opener “As One” followed by “Wastelands.” The former incorporates perhaps Richard Oakes’ darkest riff ever, a choir, and a million other bells and whistles to give an impression of running through a house of echoes while “Under Ice” is playing in every other room. The latter is the 80th iteration of a Big Anthemic Suede song but the band is so good at that by this point that I would really have to try hard to dislike it. Another beautiful marriage between a stranger cut and a glorious stomper is “Chalk Circles” and “Cold Hands.” Opening with synthesizers strangely reminiscent of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s “Journey to Satchidinanda”*, it evokes some backwards drums and chanting in a palpably foreboding way. But before the listener has time to draw their own protective magick circle, the song morphs into the obscenely punchy “Cold Hands,” a song that walks the line between ridiculous and brilliant so deftly that I’m still too wowed to really let the darkness of its lyrics fully seep in. I’m a hare in the cat’s eyes indeed.

Even moments that sounded a bit cringey on paper (a spoken word track, a snippet of Brett talking with his son) resist all odds to become a meditative eulogy for all the wildlife that has died under the wheels of inattentive commuters and an unnerving bit of dialogue, respectively. My only real issue with the album is “Life is Golden,”; I’m either too cold-hearted to like it or its just a tad too treacly, although I do understand the need for its optimism within the context of the album. 

All the praise I’m withholding for that particular song, however, can be given wholeheartedly to The Blue Hour’s final, stunning, three-song run. “All the Wild Places” is maybe the best Scott Walker homage I have ever heard -- I think a whole essay could be written on just this song, the album’s overarching themes of childhood, and the portrayal of childhood in Walker’s own songs. “The Invisibles” has one of the most deceptively catchy melody lines in recent memory and is lush, heartbreaking balladry at its finest, and “Flytipping” is quickly showing itself as one of Suede’s best songs...Ever. As a song about consumerism or human destruction of the natural world, it’s operatically tragic. Musically it’s...also operatically tragic, but also ethereal, bombastic, and ultimately transformative. 

There is a moment in “Flytipping” that reminds me of a modern-day version of the Pieter Bruegel the Elder painting The Hunters in the Snow.  This is the only time I’m able to tie it to an explicit image, so lost am I in its dense thicket of sounds, narrative(s?), syncretisms, emotions and associations. Am I being hyperbolic? Sure am. Could I be even more hyperbolic? A few more listens and that answer will likely be “Yes.” But I’m fine with staying lost for now. 

Level of Disappointment: 1 - it’s wonderfullll. 

* - thanks Vanessa for pointing this out! 

[advanced-procrastination]

I’m gonna try to answer this as calm-headed as possible, although it has my undies in quite a knot (I’ll explain why). First off, I think you misunderstood my post. I was not saying “oh dear, Card is an uber-conservative asshat who complains about political correctness, i would NEVER have imagined that!” I’ve known for years just how vile of a man he is. I really started digging around the time the movie was in production and people were calling for a boycott. My reaction today wasn’t of surprise, but of being caught off-guard by something I had let myself believe wasn’t going to come up — I thought, so close to the end of a book written by a bunch of other writers, Card’s shitty opinions wouldn’t rear their ugly head. I ended up being wrong about that at a time when my guard was down. Now, to your question. In short, no. Because context matters. Sure, some words — that one being tippy top of the list — have definite predilections towards being inappropriate in more situations than not, but the scene in question was... complicated in that regard. And it all relies in the context of how the word was used. In that scene, the kids are at battle school joking around and being unnecessarily cruel not for the sake of cruelty, but as a perverse wartime form of bonding, much like that that takes place in the armed forces. Alai refers to Shen as “slanty-eyed”, and Ender replies, “we can’t all be n*****s.” Setting aside the sarcastic tone of that reply, it’s not being used in a “you are lesser for having darker skin than me” way — to the contrary, Ender is openly calling out Alai’s racism towards Shen, but in a way that won’t make him a target to the other kids. That’s kind of Ender’s whole schtick: respond to problems and threats in a way that puts the other person in a corner while keeping himself out of the spotlight. Not only is it perfectly in-line with Ender’s character, it’s the exact opposite of what you are suggesting it to be. The whole crux of this problem is that one word, the one neither of us can bring ourselves to actually type out. Honestly, I only know the public sentiment and unease towards the word in modern day. I don’t know the feelings surrounding the word 30 years ago when the book was written. What I do know is that eventually that part was completely removed from subsequent printings, so clearly somebody eventually went “maybe that word shouldn’t be there.” But then the question becomes, should that word have been a death sentence for the whole scene? And I don’t think so. I feel that the scene was a necessary part of establishing what life was like at battle school, while also showing Ender’s strategic tongue at work yet again. I believe instead of removing the scene, they could have simply replaced The Offending Word with a less-charged but still racist term (again, not for the sake of racism, but for the sake of replying in kind to Alai’s own racism). I won’t list any here, but several come to mind immediately. The scene would still have achieved the same goal, without people crying foul play because of that single word. Now, for why your reply got me so heated: John Mulaney called his wife a bitch. So he’s a misogynist, right? The people who took that small snippet out of context to attack him were simply looking for a reason to stir the pot. We all know (at least, I would hope) that when left in context, that quote isn’t about misogyny or hating your wife, it was actually exactly the opposite — Mulaney was (via the medium of stand-up) responding to men who make misogynist attacks towards their wives by announcing that those very things they claim about their wives is why he loves his own so much. Those same people tried to do the same about his whole “my wife is jewish, i know that [they control everything], but how do you know that?” They tried to take his jab at anti-semitic conspiracy theorists out of context, and claim he is anti-semitic. Your comment flashed me back to that shit, where people intentionally took a very small piece of the full scene out of context in order to mount a deceptive attack on something or somebody that could not be further from the truth. Tl;dr: No. There are plenty of other hints towards his existence as a shitty human being, but that scene in Ender’s Game was not one of them. The word choice may have raised some eyebrows more than intended, but the word itself was not being used as any sort of subliminal racism by Card — it was a completely in-character attempt at calling out racism. When something has to be taken out of context in order to evoke the reaction you want, chances are that the context is to the contrary of your desires; otherwise, why remove it? That is to say, you feel the need to focus on that word without context because then you can view it as evidence of racism in the book, because with context it’s not that cut and dry. Context matters.

[sagebodisattva]

Meta Q & A: Part 5 - Nobody Agrees

Meta Q and A, part five. Nobody agrees. So I got an email the other day, and the communication poses a plentitude of complex philosophical questions. So I’ll go ahead and read the missive in it’s entirety, then, after a brief cogitative entr’acte, will jump right in and start penetrating, responding to the query with concise meticulous exactitude. The message comes from an entity traveling under the moniker of “JunkFlex.” And the message goes as follows, quote:

JunkFlex: “Hello Meta Sage, I have been enjoying your channel off and on for a couple of years now. I do hope you have the time to communicate with me!

I go about my life with a small circle of people that I come into contact with. None of which are willing to agree with my viewpoint. I participated in a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test in 2010, it was the 3rd version. The results were not normal. Everyone I try to communicate my viewpoint on existence either can't or won't grasp it, no matter how verbosely I explain myself.

This is what I’ve been saying to people:

"I am not convinced that anything exists because I do not believe that the substance of reality must adhere to my initial basic assumptions as a 'supposed' entity within it"

(That one is more cunning because it states something about myself and my own beliefs and they may be able to swallow it better by first seeing me in the predicament of my own viewpoint then possibly apply that viewpoint to themself on their own accord)

"Existence is but the preoccupation of the existence centric mindset.”

People constantly have to reference a snippet of scientific theory they have heard about or they simply knock on the table in front of them and say "then how can this happen?" others will say, "if I pinch you it will hurt", suggesting that my sensation of physical discomfort or pain is somehow evidence. Even though the further I think about this topic the blurrier the logic seems to get in my head, I am confident that I need very little information but rather only reasoning with a healthy touch of abstraction to get the answer. (It is like I am seeing a blurry version of the logical construct from behind textured glass). I guess this is why many people entering the realm of 'armchair philosophy' will disguise their ideas as questions. So to end this email I will spout a few of those questions for you.

Isn't 'infinite everything' a little too messy to be plausible?

Could the premise of existence be an 'immature' notion?

Why would our surroundings be as simple as we are?

Players of a game must adhere to the rules of the game but does the game also have to adhere to those same rules?

Could the purposelessness of everything be an indicator that it does not actually exist?

In closing I would just like to mention that I did watch your video on existentialism and nihilism and it was comforting for me to listen to. At the end however you said something about my viewpoint.

'Absurdism, Existentialism and Nihilism' 15 Jul 2016.

"And if you want to be stubborn and deny your own existence, then who, may I ask is making this denial?"

And my answer to your question is with my last question:

Can everything actually exist within nothing?

Kind regards,

Junkflex (David).”, unquote.

Hitherto, inquisitive communication. Hereafter, assiduous response. And right off the bat, before we go any further, I want to suspend and smite down a certain phrase that was used several times in this transmission. And that’s this term, “viewpoint.”

Quote:

“None of my friends are willing to agree with my viewpoint.”

“Everyone I try to communicate my viewpoint on existence either can't or won't grasp it.”

“They may be able to swallow it better by first seeing me in the predicament of my own viewpoint then possibly apply that viewpoint to themself on their own accord.”

“At the end however you said something about my viewpoint.”

Unquote.

Alright JunkFlex. I appreciate your interest in philosophy. It’s a good sign. It’s shows that you might have the aptitude to continue on and perhaps one day uncover the truth. But it’s gonna involve a little more then acquiring a “viewpoint.” Indeed, breaching the pass and crawling our way through the treacherous mountains of lies and deception, and finding the way out to total freedom, will involve the surrender of all viewpoints. For, you see, a “viewpoint”, is but personal intellectualism. All but mere thoughts and beliefs inside one’s head. An “opinion.” (Burp sound.) Narrating dialogue, that has absolutely no bearing on the actual truth, which, if all parties involved have surrendered their viewpoints, will never be in variation, and cannot be disagreed upon under any circumstance.

And that’s one of the world’s biggest problems right now. This stupid idea that all beliefs should be afforded equal station and respectability, irrespective of their inherent truth values. That we cannot discriminate against ideas that enable ones to choose to hide in a delusion. That we must expend great time and effort to protect and support everyone’s particular fantasy bubble. That important rights and responsibilities will be granted to those who refuse to participate in the truth, and stubbornly cling to falsehoods, even to the point of detriment and degradation to others. This is what you think we should be fighting to uphold?

So yeah, in case it managed to escape your attention. Nobody agrees. And that can’t be stated enough. It’s nice that they think that they’ve got that luxury, isn’t it? Or, how do they say? We agree to disagree! That’s it. You gotta love that one. We can agree to disagree. In other words: We can easily avoid the truth by all agreeing to disagree about which particular lies we are holding as beliefs. Isn’t that such an efficient use of freedom?

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all lies men tell are created equal.”

Hey, nobody agrees. Except that we all agree to assume falsehoods, ANY falsehoods, over the acknowledgement of the fundamental truth. That’s the only thing we agree on, whole heartedly, but don’t ever bring this up. It’s an unconscious default, whose prevalence must be ignored in order to preserve it. It’s an unspoken rule of engagement, and you are not allowed to operate outside of it. Thus, it’s no real surprise that JunkFlex’s friends don’t agree with him about existence. Not that he’s taking any solid position about it, mind you. At least not with his first irresolution. Here, he’s basically just taking on the role of the skeptic; so there’s really not much for his friends to agree or disagree with; even though they would probably disagree with him anyway, even if he took a position. And why’s that? Because, once again, nobody agrees. And certainly nobody agrees about existence.

And that’s what this is basically about, isn’t it? Existence. It’s not a question of a universe or a god. Those are just ideas in your head. It’s a question of existence. What is existence, exactly. And how is this existence realized existentially. We want so badly for it to be attributable to something extrinsic, don’t we? Otherwise we might have to shoulder some responsibility, and we can’t have that, under any circumstance.

So we can’t expect to ever come to rightly understand the nature of existence if we can’t first establish the proper underlying foundation. And by “proper”, I mean what’s real and true; as opposed to an egoic delusion. That’s a huge difference. This is about embracing the undeniable base, unconditionally; not finding solace in a substitution; wherein you lie to yourself with some abstraction, attributing reality into an objectification, based on some literal interpretation of sensory perception.

Simply put, you can’t go anywhere until you’ve cultivated the clarity that reveals the context of reality to be the mind. Hence, while it’s good that you’re not convinced that anything exists because you do not believe that the substance of reality must adhere to your initial basic assumptions as a supposed entity within it, you should be sure not to let this uncertainty become an impediment to the truth of what’s always absolutely certain. What is the substance of reality? Seems you already suspect that it isn’t any assumed identity. And it seems you also suspect that it isn’t necessarily any object or environment with whom an assumed identity can interact. So if not any of these things, then what else can it be?

In answering, don’t think about it. You’ve made implications that you think you can arrive at truthful conclusions through reasoning and abstractions. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The moment you contemplate, the game is already lost. The murky oppression of the overthinking brain always clouds up the crystal clear vision of pure crisp lucidity. All that needs be done, is to simply become aware; to awaken to reality as the full extent of what is actually always already the case. This brings us to the domain of the pure lucid mind. It’s not a god or a universe. It’s the mind. For, what else would be giving a universe or a god context?

You seem to come a bit closer to this realization with your latter proposition. That is, "Existence is but the preoccupation of the existence centric mindset.”

This is a useful observation; as long as you can resist the unconsciously engrained tendency to always seek to contextualize the field of the mind into some sort of objectification. You think an objectification is a solid, and the content of the mind is abstract, but, in fact, your idea of an objectification is abstract, and the very field of the mind is the true solid. This is a trap that most assumed identities fall into. Beyond the existence created within the imagination of a pure mind, what else would a supposed “entity”, initially assume about the substance of reality? Unfortunately, a whole lot. And this is how the matter becomes quickly misconstrued; as, you can’t rightfully explicate the substance of “existence”, if you are adopting an ideological stance upon a faulty premise. That’s why people think knocking on a table proves something, or that the pain that results from getting pinched is some indication of an objectification. Hence, this is exactly how matter itself also becomes misconstrued; as, the externalization mindset conditioning is hinged on an assumption that physicality is primary and that awareness is a byproduct. This is the foundation of mental slavery.

To keep the truth free and clear, you definitely don’t need logic; so it matters not how blurry or focused the logic becomes. Reality is the substance of pure mind, not an analytical tool used to create equations to be employed as symbolic representations of reality. And the same goes for accumulating information, sensible reasoning, or organizational abstractions. Ontology is concerned with study, and learning about what may exist when considered intellectually. None of that shit deals in the truth of the ontic; that is, the raw truth about what *is*.

And so, we’ve come to the part where you’ve implied the transmutation of your ideas into questions; thus, I will parse and dissect the inquires with systematic comprehensibility.

Question. Isn't 'infinite everything' a little too messy to be plausible?

Answer. It depends on what you mean. Although, I don’t think “messy”, would be the proper descriptor. Is “infinite everything”, plausible as an independently existing concrete physical configuration? Not really. A physical context cannot exist without boundaries, and if there are boundaries, “everything”, can’t be infinite. The mistake is to assume this idea of material objectivity. “Infinite everything”, is completely plausible in the imagination of the pure mind. It’s not that an “infinite everything”, is continually existing in some actual physical location, but that the raw potential for an infinite amount of anythings to manifest, always continually exists in a nowhere. You must come to understand the nuance of this difference.

Question. Could the premise of existence be an 'immature' notion?

Answer. It depends on what the premise is. Although, a premise itself implies the theoretical, which is already way off base. “Notions”, about reality, are not the reality. An “idea”, about existence, isn’t the existence. Is this intellectual practice immature? Certainly. It’s the most common tendency of the novice existential explorer. But the way to maturate out of this impetuous exercise, is to either quiet down the noise of the mind, or to create some space between the clarity of awareness and the noise of the mind. However you foster the break down of the mind’s attachment to the mind’s identity as the noise of the mind, doesn’t matter. As long as you can get the job done, one way or another. The noise of the mind doesn’t determine the sum of an existence. Existence isn’t a hypothesis. The field of the mind itself is the foundation of existence. There is an awareness of phenomena, and this in itself can be called the composition of an existence. It’s quite easy. Even easy peasy. It’s only when you start to formulate theories about the awareness of experience, that you begin to run into trouble.

Question. Why would our surroundings be as simple as we are?

Answer. Who’s “we?” And are “we”, located in surroundings? The issue here is misidentification. There isn’t any objectified surroundings, just as there isn’t any objectified identity. Both are equally illusion, and in this sense, might find an equivalence in their basic simplicity. A molecule, a tree, a rock, water, a biological form, a terrestrial body; all equally comprised of the same composition foundation: Illusion. What is aware of illusion?

Question. Players of a game must adhere to the rules of the game but does the game also have to adhere to those same rules?

Answer. The game provides the player a set of rules, so it would follow that the game would uphold it’s own rules. A game, to even be considered a game, must have framework, and whenever there is a framework, rules will apply. So yes, within a set of borders, there are settings that are going to be consistent, but it’s not really correct to ask if the game has to follow the rules, because the game isn’t a player. The game isn’t in a position to adhere, the game is in the position of provision. The game itself is a field of engagement, which, in this case, is strictly the field of the mind; not an objectified location.

Question. Could the purposelessness of everything be an indicator that it does not actually exist?

Answer. Everything is purposeless? Do you not find the purpose of things? Tell me if you can find purpose in any of these things. (Picture of objects.) Seems anything might serve a purpose, but “things” requires a subject to fulfill this capacity. So, wherein is the purposelessness of everything? But I know what you really mean. You imagine you are located in some cosmological spectrum called a universe, and your consciousness is but a speck of celestial byproduct, and the “universe” is the grand ultimate context, and is an infinite empty vastness, cold and impersonal, with no objective purpose to be found anywhere. And if only this were true, then you’d be completely right. But it isn’t true, because the universe isn’t a physical environment to be occupied by a physical creature. Everything that is apparently manifested does not actually exist, and there’s many indications of this. But a better re-phrase of the question would be: Is a lack of objective purpose an indication of the illusory nature of perceptual phenomena? Yes, and there are many clues available, pointing towards this. The key with this, is understanding what a term like “exist” refers to. Existence isn’t a locality. Existence is the dream of a locality, located in the pure mind. It’s not even located in the pure mind, but is the imagination of the pure mind itself.

And lastly.

Question. Can everything actually exist within nothing?

Answer. Everything doesn’t actually exist. There isn’t any actual objects. The truth, is that the entirety of the perpetual phenomena experience, that we call a “reality”, is all but an illusion of pure mind. Pure mind is your true identity. Pure mind is made out of nothingness.

Smoke on that.