#Dead and Lovely

[weirdlookindog]

Tom Waits - Dead and Lovely

#tom waits #dead and lovely #Youtube

[hereliescorri]

Weekend in Knoxville

An unintended side effect of moving back to the East Coast has been getting the chance to explore the South more than I ever really had before. My friend Lian and I went to Arkansas in ninth grade. I went to Austin once a year to see my friend Chelsea in the Beforetimes. And like everyone else, I’ve had many a layover in Atlanta. Someone joked this weekend, in fact, that when you die, your first stop on your way to the afterlife is Atlanta. That’s pretty much the entirety of my Southern experience, though, aside from last year when I also got to travel out to West Virginia to research the Mothman.

Thus, it’s been delightful to be able to journey to Knoxville, TN two years in a row for the Dead and Lovely podcast meetup. The 10.5 hour drive there is a fun opportunity to see other states we don’t have much experience with. Or, well, rather it’s mostly an opportunity to see a fuckload of Virginia, because that state goes FOREVER. I’ll make a separate post. But anyway.

Like last year, it was a magical time with phenomenal people. I have always found the sort of happenstance ways in which we meet folks who become super important to us fascinating. I met Mark, for example, when he tweeted about Krampus before everyone and their mom knew who Krampus was. Someone must’ve (manually) RT’d him into my timeline, and now hundreds of people listen to us talk shit every week.

Similarly, I somehow came across Dead and Lovely in my search for horror podcasts, stuck with it, joined their social groups, and in my lockdown loneliness, decided to dive into their Friday night Discord chats. And now I have amazing friends. Sometimes the Internet rules. Which feels like an absurd thing to say the week that Apartheid Clyde is systematically dismantling the only social network I’ve ever truly loved since Livejournal, but I guess I’m taking this opportunity to bask in the nostalgia of what was and what could have been.

Anyway, Knoxville is a cool ass city, if also a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive to stay there. This year we managed to find the tiniest of AirBnBs for a marginally reasonable rate — $208 for two nights in a full bed in a room the size of a large closet with a check-in time of 5pm. Hotels in the city under $150 a night are hard to come by, and most are considerably more than that, especially once they hit you with the fees. It’s bizarre because the city itself isn’t a hugely expensive place. At least not compared to up here in NYC. Everyone you meet who moved there from out of town is eager to tell you how much bang they get for their buck, but as a tourist, fuckin yikes.

This also brings up one of the other downsides of Knoxville. It’s pretty conservative, and if you do meet someone who moved there from elsewhere, there’s a solid chance they’re an asshole. Like, they moved from wherever they were specifically to be in one of the most conservative states they could find, which doesn’t bode well. On this trip, we were particularly unfortunate to end up with an Uber driver from Seattle who simply could not be dissuaded from expounding upon the tyranny of “the shot.” Even after I explained we’re “huge leftists” and despite the fact that I was wearing a mask in her car, no matter what topic we tried to shift to, she had some way to bring it back to the evils of the COVID vaccine. It was… exhausting.

We also had a girl on the street attempt to pray with us for an Astros win in Game 6 of the World Series which like, a) hard pass. Fuck the Astros, and b) did not go over well with the table of goths she’d accosted. When Kate told her we don’t believe in her god, she was clearly quite shaken and scooted off in a hurry, like it had never occurred to her such people existed in the real world and she was realizing for the first time that her pastor’s warnings were correct.

That said, there’s clearly a vibrant community of liberals and leftists in town and plenty of warm and welcoming places to go for a good time. In fact, I noticed several women around town wearing pro-Roe shirts and sweatshirts — a fairly ballsy move in a state with trigger laws that essentially outlawed abortion. Wearing pro-abortion apparel in North Jersey is no big ‘cause the vast majority of people probably agree with you. It takes some gumption to roll up to a bar full of folks getting drunk and watching a big football game rocking pro-choice garb. Respect.

Those little caveats aside, though, Knoxville is a delight, and Steve and Ben are well-connected to the scene and know the hoppin’ spots. Or the less hoppin’ ones for when we all notice we’re old and exhausted and just want to sit quietly and sip an old fashioned.

Some highlights:

Merchants of Beer

The ol’ standby, if you will. Great big patio. Full bar. Food truck with INCREDIBLE pulled jackfruit. Listen, it is not always easy to find vegetarian options in the South. We went to one spot in Virginia on the way back with only salad and nachos on the menu without meat, and they were out of lettuce. The food truck here let you substitute any of the meats with jackfruit. I got jackfruit mac and it was a goddamn revelation. Plus, there was so much of it, I ate part, Anna ate part, and there was still plenty left over. They’ve got cornhole and games and whatnot, and a zillion beers. It was a lovely joint to hit up two nights in a row, especially so that Steve could watch the sportsball while the rest of us sat in the corner like high school misfits.

Central Cinema

Ummmm, this place rules. It was started by the folks who created the Knoxville Horror Film Fest, and it’s basically a giant ode to horror culture. Tons of memorabilia, DVDs and even VHS tapes of horror movies, horror soundtracks on vinyl, kitschy little decorations, and an absolutely glorious amount of Jaws related art. We watched Psycho Goreman together, and seeing it on the big screen was next level. Their snack selection is also off the charts. This is what every movie theater should be like.

Rami’s Cafe

Just a cute little diner that was about an eight minute walk from our rental. It was absolutely poppin’ in there with folks decked out in orange for the UT game. We went straight to the counter and sat down where a lovely server took care of us immediately. I had an omelet with potatoes in it, and I swear to you, I will be dreaming about it. Obviously my whole point in writing any of this down is to remember for next time I go, and holy shit. Rami’s, I’ll be back for you and your soft, perfectly seasoned potatoes.

That’s probably enough rambling to myself about Knoxville. Proud of me for remembering to write shit down.

#Knoxville #knoxvilletn #travel #horror movies #horror podcast #dead and lovely #travel blog #food #the south

[waitineedaname]

I simply don't think that's true eBooks.com but thank you anyway

#i love getting automated emails from book stores #about authors who have been dead for decades ajdbfkdjdj #i had to read nietzsche for my existentialism class. god what a pretentious dude

[molt3ngold]

#pedro pascal #supernatural #jensen ackles #dean winchester #spn #man i love dilfs #castiel #misha collins #joel miller #sam winchester #hannibal #will graham #the walking dead #Daryl Dixon #rick grimes #Norman Reedus #andrew lincoln #ao3 #tumblr #fanfic #fanfiction #archive of our own #fanfiction.net #smut

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Quotes by Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath

#sylvia path #love #words #poem #poetry #typography #literature #book quotes #literature quotes #lit #english literature #academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #dark acadamia quotes #classic literature #writing #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #dead poets society #light academia #romanticism #romantic academia #chaotic academia #quotes #books and libraries #writeblr #book #poems on tumblr #quote #web weaving

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

#obligatory disclaimer that this really really obviously is not universal #I do live in a major progressive city #there's definitely a level of a liberal bubble effect here #but it's still really powerful to see it #because even in a major liberal enclave there were so many limits on the gender roles and homophobia etc. etc. fronts #and also the limits of the oppressive weight of obligatory teen apathy lol #seriously go gen z. so glad you guys decided cringe is dead. I love you for that so much #and I love it for you #not news #life #hope #homophobia #sexism #teens #teenagers #progress #gen z #btw if it wasn't clear I'm a #millennial #plush toy #plushie #squishmallows #build a bear #stuffed animal #like the idea of almost any teenager much less teenage boys #saying IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS #that they are excited about their STUFFED ANIMALS #when I was a teenager #????? #cannot imagine that ever happening.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

The Bronx Zoo has just released Flaco's necropsy results.

He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of "freedom" claimed.

He was poisoned.

He was sick.

He was suffering.

"Freedom" would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.

"Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy. Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building. The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.   No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed. Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting."

The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a "free, wild, pure life" cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it's "better" for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.

Flaco's life didn't have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.

Flaco's death didn't have to be tragic.

But once the idea of "freedom" entered the chat, Flaco's fate was unavoidable.

#flaco #tw animal death #tw animal sickness #better dead than fed is a horrific mindset #zoo animal welfare #screenshot feat the WCS's inability to remember to remove their editorial template from highly sensitive press releases round 2 #colored text #people who loved the ideal of him more than the reality of him #congrats #you killed this owl #I'm still so mad that people who wanted him to stay loose got all sorts of media attention for the elegies they wrote when he died

[parkore]

made a guy btw

#comes back from the dead a lil evil but he still has sm love in his heart so its okay #dnd #my art

[droids-in-disguise]

Via twitter

#stede would end up dead I love him but sorry it’s the truth #iwtv #glass onion #ofmd #hannibal #lestat de lioncourt #stede bonnet #benoit blanc

[pokeberry5]

boy hostage (spiritual successor to this)

big brother to the rescue:

#back at it again at krispy kreme #sart #tim drake #dick grayson #dc #dick & tim #some of my favorite things about canon are a) dick being (ferally) protective of tim #and b) that gotham villains refer to robin and nightwing as brothers #idk i love drawing tim a little bloody #he's ok!!! dick got to him on time im realizing he kinda looks dead #oh OTHER favorite thing is those panels of vigilantes where all u can make out of their features are their glowing eyes #(my excuse for not drawing tim's belt is that if he had it he'd've escaped so they must have gotten it off him)

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

#i literally JUST finished hill house a few days ago and i already want to reread. Badly. it's sooo so so soo sooooooooo good <33333!!!!! #also completely enamored by shirley jackson's writing style i NEED to read everything she has written ever like right now.. #opening lines of ALL TIME btw 👆❗❗❗ #r.txt #the haunting of hill house #ALSO i've seen commentary videos on the tv show they made of hill house but from what i remember of it it's SO different from the book??? #i think they were all siblings in the show which is??????? like why would you change that part?? i love sibling relationships as much as the #next guy but i feel like the fact that none of them knew each other was such an essential part of the story like why would u change it.... #also eleanor was like. an entirely different character who was also already dead in the show i believe??? and dr. montague doesn't exist?? #hill house could've been really good as a show idk why they changed it up like that...like was the original story not interesting enough for #you or something?? WHO decided to make that change i just wanna talk 🤨

[whimsifae]

the five homoerotic love languages:

- intimate stabbing

- outright obsession

- confused pining

- "no one knows me like you do"

- lifelong promises that always sound suspiciously like wedding vows

#the secret history #henry winter #writing #dead poets society #dark academia #writeblr #obsessive love #dark romanticism #marauders

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!! #my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her) #hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet. #i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!! #i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art. #i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

[nipuni]

Silence in the library

A speedpaint video of this will be available at my Patreon on february 1st!

#doctor who #david tennant #tenth doctor #10th doctor #ten #DW #hate how this turned out but #I love Silence in the library/Forest of the dead so much so I don't care #top 3 DW episodes for sure #the whole 'you just killed someone I liked that's not a safe place to stand' #'I'm the doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up' #MAN he was so cool!! and watching the shadows retreat!! #AAA I miss Ten #my art

[nenayaquisieras]

Simon has always been confused on why you gift him toys. Sure, most of the gifts you gave him were some of the things he liked. Bourbon, masks, gloves, make up for him to smudge his eyes with, some daggers and knives. Things that we're useful for him, just him. But later, you gifted him a toy airplane. He makes a comment about it, saying he is not a child anymore and you were better off giving it to Johnny instead.

"No, this is specifically for you, take it."

When he gets to him room, he walks toward his trash can, opening it with the tip of his boot. He gives one more look at the toy, his mood souring before throwing it into the trash. He goes on about his day, training, signing paper work, drills. Doing anything to ignore the pain stinging memories that the toy brought back. Emotions that were buried thousands of feet deep it could reach hell itself. Later, he lies awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, avoiding looking at the cylinder shape that's calling for him in his peripheral.

Fuck.

He pulls the covers off vigorously and stomps over to the trash can. He is standing over it like he's trying to intimidate it, as if it was an enemy he's trying to get rid of in battle. To anyone else, the scene would look comical.

He sighs to himself and reaches down to take out the toy he so cruelly threw away. He sets it on his desk and quickly walks toward his bed, facing away from his desk.

The next day, he wakes up feeling different. He swears he sees his room more vibrant, more lively. That energy follows him through out the day, having his other teammates notice his rather bright mood.

You catch him in the hallway. Pulling him aside to ask him about the paper work you left at his desk this morning. Of course, he notices the way you smile brightly, more so than usual. But he notices that you're not looking at him. More like looking at something next to him.

"What's got you so cheery?"

You turn to look up at him, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"I just..." You take a quick glance at the spot next to him, before bringing your eyes back upon his.

"I just hope you liked your gift." The same bright smile appearing on your face.

He stares at you, examining your words. Your expression.

You think you see his eyes crinkle a bit.

"Yea,"

"I liked it."

#call of duty #cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost #simon riley x reader #medium!reader #Joseph really liked his toy airplane #Honestly this was her way of giving his nephew toys without her bring up that she sees dead people #she can't be like “Ghost let me gift Joseph something” #he would be like “How the fawk you know who that is??” #sorry for errors its so late #but yea ill have more soon #I just cant figure out how to traumatize Gaz and Soap #Only Ghost and Price #love to see the old men suffer #ghost simon riley #ghost x reader

[dcangel]

!!pjo spoilers!!

percy jackson IS morally grey, but only when it come to annabeth’s safety

#bros the original ‘‘touch her and you’re dead’’ #would love to see a full morally grey percy #percy pjo #percy series #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #percabeth #percy and annabeth #percy jackson pjo