#rand is spiral because. dude

[gilliontidestriderchampionoftheu]

grand finale ! BITB!! rand is the spiral. kian is the corruption. rolan is the stranger.

#my post #THIS IS MY FAVORITE ONE I THINK. THE ONLY ONE IM 100% CONFIDENT ON #rand is spiral because. dude #hes already losing it before the campaign starts bcus hes spent this whole time mourning his sister blaming himself and trying to figure ou #what the fuck even happened to her. hes deep in research into the occult and cults and conspiracies. #he thinks the mindflayer from dnd is real and in his hometown. #and then of course. the fucking ending. 0 sanity he doesnt know if hes real if his sister is real if hes dead or if any of that happened. #hes the spiral. #kian was very nearly also the spiral but in the opposite direction. where instead of not knowing what was real he was the one doing all the #lying. HOWEVER hes the corruption. #from the tma wiki- the corruption is the 'fear of the feelings of disgust revulsion and the things that might evoke such feelings' #he doesnt tell anyone he never made it as a rockstar that he has a boring desk job. he couldnt. how could he possibly tell them. what would #they THINK of him. kian stone who gave up on his dream and is playing pretend? he couldnt. #ANDDDDDD rolan (/the hive) stranger!!! #i very much almost made these guys the corruption because theyre bugs. and while that does fit i think theyre more stranger. #the fear of the uncanny the unknown the unfamilliar. #the wearing the faces and taking the places of people theyve killed is also such a stranger thing. #'come back to us as our rolan' but he couldnt because he never was. #its worse that he got away and tried to differentiate himself. at the end of the day he was still just a part of the stranger and couldnt #escape being pulled in to the show. #also?? something something. the stranger is associated with performance and bees communicate through dance #also thinking about how originally corruption was Hive and Filth. i think if itd stayed like that they couldve been Hive.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 29: Eyes Without Pity

Hello and welcome to my rewatch of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds! Despite being entirely about Alfred Hitchcock and not fantasy novels, this post contains massive spoilers for the series The Wheel of Time, from book 0 to book 14. If I could spoil books -2, -1, and 15 through 17 I would, but spoiler alert: They're never going to happen. Very sad.

This chapter starts with a wolf icon, which is a reflection of all of the new wolf powers that Perrin is going to be unwillingly developing this chapter. It's pretty straightforward.

Perrin exchanged glances with Egwene. She stuck her tongue out at Elyas’s back. Neither of them said anything. The one time Egwene had protested that Elyas was the one who wanted to go around the hills and he should not blame them, it got her a lecture on how sound carried, delivered in a growl that could have been heard a mile off.

Elyas is going above and beyond in terms of trying to keep these two kids safe, but he's yet another dude who is completely biting Egwene's head off. Girl puts up with way too much crap in this first book. And way worse in the next book. Thank goodness it'll be her turn to be awful in book three I guess.

“We’re wasting time,” he said, starting to stand, and a flock of ravens burst out of the trees below, fifty, a hundred black birds, spiraling into the sky. He froze in a crouch as they milled over the trees. The Dark One’s Eyes. Did they see me? Sweat trickled down his face.

More corvid slander, but I'll take it because they're about to be genuinely terrifying in a book filled with a lot of competition.

Elyas shook his head. “In the Borderlands I’ve seen sweeps with a thousand ravens to the flock. Not too often—there’s a bounty on ravens there—but it has happened.” He was still looking north. “Hush, now.”

It would be absolutely hilarious if one of the reasons that the Blightborder was constantly expanding was that the removal of carrion eaters from the ecosystem encouraged the exact kind of unnatural ecologies that thrive in the Blight.

Abruptly a fox burst out of the trees, running hard. Ravens poured from the branches after it. The beat of their wings almost drowned out a desperate whining from the fox. A black whirlwind dove and swirled around it. The fox’s jaws snapped at them, but they darted in, and darted away untouched, black beaks glistening wetly. The fox turned back toward the trees, seeking the safety of its den. It ran awkwardly now, head low, fur dark and bloody, and the ravens flapped around it, more and more of them at once, the fluttering mass thickening until it hid the fox completely. As suddenly as they had descended the ravens rose, wheeled, and vanished over the next rise to the south. A misshapen lump of torn fur marked what had been the fox.

A list of the Shadows' most competent servants:

Semirhage, for sending a super continent into civil war and coming closest to making Rand undo existence

Graendal, for almost winning the Last Battle single-handedly

These ravens

A second-to-last-place tie between virtually everyone else

Belal

Thank you I will not be taking notes.

Think, if you want to stay alive. Fear will kill you if you don’t control it.

Good advice, Elyas. Sadly, completely wasted on these two, as Perrin's fears never come close to killing him and Egwene's uncontrolled ones are entirely post-traumatic and not really her fault.

Moving in a stumbling trot, Perrin exchanged a glance with Elyas. The man’s yellow eyes were expressionless, but he knew. He said nothing, just watched Perrin and waited, all the while maintaining that effortless lope.

On the one hand, Elyas really doesn't seem to appreciate that this isn't the time. On the other hand, he's the only person who makes Perrin take any steps towards his personal growth, so it's hard to be that mad at him for it.

The wolves had no notions of time the way men did, no reasons to divide a day into hours. The seasons were time enough for them, and the light and the dark. No need for more. Finally Perrin worked out an image of where the sun would stand in the sky when the ravens overran them from behind. He glanced over his shoulder at the setting sun, and licked his lips with a dry tongue. In an hour the ravens would be on them, maybe less. An hour, and it was a good two hours to sunset, at least two to full dark.

I just love stuff this whole sequence. I don't have much to say about it, it's all just... grim and tense. Everything feels hopeless and I know for a fact that things are going to be all right.

Perrin looked at Egwene again and blinked away hot tears. He touched his axe and wondered if he had the courage. In the last minutes, when the ravens descended on them, when all hope was gone, would he have the courage to spare her the death the fox had died?

This is an interesting semi-recurring issue in Perrin's arc, one that kinda steps on Rand's toes and clashes with a few things; his having to learn the things that aren't his calls to make, whether it's marrying off his staff or deciding when to put someone out of their misery. It's something that could have been a better character beat if it had been focused on instead of his refusal to take responsibility, but like I said it's just weirdly clashing with that instead.

I think it's an artifact of the fact that the three ta'veren boys were originally going to be one character, maybe? Perrin was clearly the grab bag choice for overflow, either because Jordan had an intermediate step of trying to do two ta'veren before realizing even that was too much or because once he did the split he wanted to do three and didn't notice how the third leg of the tripod was shorter than the others.

Safety, that’s what. We made it, you bloody fools. No raven will cross that line . . . not one that carries the Dark One’s eyes, anyways. A Trolloc would have to be driven across, and there’d need to be something fierce pushing the Myrddraal to make him do the driving. 

Thanks for telling them that salvation was on the way, Elyas. The terror they felt being completely unnecessary is clearly very funny to you!

“A stedding,” Elyas roared. “You never listen to stories? Of course, there hasn’t been an Ogier here in three thousand odd years, not since the Breaking of the World, but it’s the stedding makes the Ogier, not the Ogier make the stedding.”

I believe this claim of Elyas's, since this particular stedding probably has the best documented history of the uninhabited one. It does make me wonder though why this one was overlooked the whole time. It was empty in Hawkwing's day when the population crisis wasn't anywhere near what it is now, and it's good enough land for the Ogier to work.

No questions. Not now. No explanations. Not ever. But a small voice taunted him. But you would have done it, wouldn’t you?

I'm trying so hard to not be unfair to Perrin, so let's just leave things at "Dude obviously cracked under the stress of their situation", but like... Jeez bro. It's a fucked up thing to think, even under the stress.

Artur Paendrag Tanreall, Artur Hawkwing, the High King, united all the lands from the Great Blight to the Sea of Storms, from the Aryth Ocean to the Aiel Waste, and even some beyond the Waste. He even sent armies the other side of the Aryth Ocean. The stories say he ruled the whole world, but what he really did rule was enough for any man outside of a story.

Is this another story having grown in the telling or early installment weirdness? In the established canon, the fleet that Artur sent to Shara never accomplished anything, which is really the more sensible outcome of a naval assault on an incredibly defensive nation. But it's been a thousand years and Shara's such a mystery that people definitely could believe it. I'm just not sure if Jordan believed it at the time too.

Artur Hawkwing died the very day the statue was finished, and his sons and the rest of his blood fought over who would sit on Hawkwing’s throne. The statue stood alone in the midst of these hills. The sons and the nephews and the cousins died, and the last of the Hawkwing’s blood vanished from the earth—except maybe for some of those who went over the Aryth Ocean.

Ishamael must really love these cruel ironies. He can be a real Bysshe!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #perrin aybara #elyas machera #egwene al'vere

[dommesticpet]

Dude, Incredible

On Friday Echo and I went to the movies to see Pixar’s highly-rated clandestine valentine to objectivism with a veneer of mind control, Incredibles 2.  Tiny Ayn Rand rejoined the family with the trappings of modern day super hero films, minus some of the snark that made the original so memorable.

But you want to know if there’s a lot of hypnosis, without spoiling the plot.   There’s a lot of hypnosis.   That’s what the movie is about.  You get mind control almost from the word “go.”

Spirals, clocks, goggles, the works - big screens and blinking lights are all here to ensure you get your fix.  “Indictions” are almost instant, so you see people get caught and go blank in about the same amount of time it takes you to swallow.   If you squint in some scenes, you can see backgrounds with all kinds of books on hypnosis with posters and other knick-knacks in the background - I assume those in the future will enjoy making the most of the pause button during one specific sequence.  True to Pixar form, there’s a lot of stuff in the background.  As a pal of mine around here said, “I think they might be one of us.”

It might make you squirmy, it might not.  You get a lot of blank faces, and none of the weird pleasure trance faces, so you might be able to get through this without making a fool of yourself.

There are some comments I’d like to make about casting that would spoil stuff.  So after you see the movie, look at the cast, and you will smile and nod.  

Unrelated to kinkdom, did anyone else get a Janet Varney vibe from Voyd?   (We’re fans.  Stan Against Evil has been great.  And everything else.)

The movie was snappy and wonderfully crafted, with that mid-century look that’s so popular at all the antique furnishing stores these days.   It’s superficially stupendous, with some quality gags and a lot of     The score was good.  The designs were great.  The architecture would make you jealous.   It’s always interesting to see how what I assume are Brad Bird’s politics inform a lot of his work - especially his recent work - in ways that you don’t get from other recent and slightly more shallow franchise adventures.

You’ll probably have a good time.  Especially if you read blogs like mine by people who are me.   I’ve often wondered if a lot of the current growing crop of hypnosis kinksters existed because of stuff on G.I. Joe, Jungle Book, Robin Hood, and every 1980s kid show plus whatever weird kinky stuff is going on with Totally Spies.   I assumed the increasingly decentralized nature of media in the 21st century might mean reduced exposure to the kinds of things we all saw on TV as kids, but I guess Disney is working hard to make sure you can’t escape hypno kink training wheels.

#Movies #Hypnosis

[kalinara]

You know, Iron Fist is actually pretty watchable as long as you’re paying attention to characters that aren’t Danny.

Like Colleen has by far the most interesting arc and development of the show.  And she’s a more convincing fighter too.  Why isn’t this a Daughter(s) of the Dragon show again?

Runner up goes to Ward Meachum, who has a surprisingly compelling antagonist to protagonist arc.  I don’t want to call it a redemption arc, because I don’t really think he’s earned that.  He started out a total douchebag and while he basically suffered non-stop for about thirteen episodes, he still ended the series as kind of a total douchebag.  I don’t think he really learned or grew so much as he realized “hey, I hate my abusive zombie dad more than I hate this dude, maybe we should team up.”

But I bought it.  It made sense.  And, for all that Ward’s motives amount to self-centered pragmatism, I think I do believe that he’ll continue to be an ally to Danny going forward.

The downside is, where Ward got a really good arc, poor Joy Meachum ended up with the most nonsensical heel turn known to man.  I understood why she was angry at her dad and her brother.  I even understood why she initially sided more with her father than her brother.  From an outside perspective it’s very obvious that most of Ward’s Charybdis level downward spiral was due to having to manage his abusive zombie dad since he was a fifteen year old child, but Joy had been kept in the dark about all of that and there’s a lot to process.

I’m not sure how any of this leads to her sitting with angry monk dude plan Danny Rand’s death though.  Her life may have fallen apart after his arrival, but it really had less to do with that than the fact that her dad got zombified fifteen years ago.  Danny was more than a few years away from punching a dragon at that point.

It just doesn’t make sense.  Revenge against Ward, sure.  But Danny?

There was also Claire.  Claire is always awesome.  Though I swear there were times where she was like “Is it wrong that I’m starting to miss stitching up my blind asshole ex right now, because I’m pretty sure he was saner than this is.”  

#iron fist #some commentary #I FINALLY sat through to the end of the season

[orchestratetheopensky]

As my values and self image change, so does my taste in men

You heard it here first.

“Mina doesn’t have a type!”  Damn straight, Mina doesn’t have a list of like top 10 things I NEED in a man etched on a huge ceremonial stone in my living room and worship occasionally. 

I read in an Ayn Rand book (and yes, I’ve read multiple) some quote about how one’s sexual choices are revealing about your core values.  Your choice, your taste in men is a reflection of who YOU are and how you perceive the world around you.

So it makes sense that my taste in men has changed so dramatically in such a relatively short period of time.  I’ve had a really rough past like 5 years! I wouldn’t recognize my 5 years ago version of myself AS MYSELF if I met her face to face today, just like I wouldn’t be seriously into the same guys I was into when I was 5 years younger than I am now.  Times change, I change, and I like different kinds of men. 

I don’t text post very often anymore and that’s largely due to the fact that I am in love with memes and I spend a lot of energy on more important things than the internet (HA half truths)...but I felt like this was important.

Last week I was out with a girlfriend at a local bar, known for being slightly ratchet but like a young, spoiled, ‘i just graduated from college’ version of ratchet... anyway, so I met a guy.  It always comes down to stories that start with “I met a guy.” SO THIS GUY... I didn’t notice him at first and honestly I spent a lot of the night dodging his advances while still engaging socially.  There was a little bit of flirting involved on my end, maybe not the most honest thing to do, but we’re only human right? Earlier in the night I had picked him out for my friend- basically IMMEDIATELY when he entered the room, and this is because he’s tall. My friend is a tall woman, about 6 ft, so when an attractive and super tall male enters the room I feel obligated to do the shoulder nudge and whisper (loudly) to her, “I FOUND ONE!!!!” followed by a pointed finger, that is subtle to Drunk Me but really obvious and embarrassing for Less Drunk Mina’s Friend and Varying Degrees of Drunk fellow bar homies.  My friend and the tall dude hit it off, and his friend was into me. I kept the socializing going mostly, in my mind, so that my friend and the tall dude could continue to hit it off without being pulled away by their friends.  I wasn’t initially into this guy, tall dude’s friend, let’s call him Bill, because: A) I am kind of dating two guys long distance- not that those will probably ever pan out, but it’s hard to let go for practical reasons when two people care about each other and there’s no reason to break up other than something stupid like distance, yet distance is still a big deal (whatever) B) My initial impression was that he wasn’t my ‘type.’

He has a big nose, ok? It doesn’t bother me now, but it did at that time. Part of me didn’t want to entertain being interested in someone else and another part of me was adhering to my Drunk Type instead of my Actual Type. I think everybody’s Drunk Type is just very primal, based purely on physical attraction.  Some people’s Actual Type is the same, but those people aren’t very intelligent people. My Actual Type is extremely different from my Drunk Type. 

So it turns out this guy is definitely more my Actual Type, despite not being my Drunk Type.

My Actual Type has changed so much.  A good indicator for me to pick up on what those changes are is...what turns me on. Weird things turn me on now.  Things like responsibility, low drama, MEMES (Bill and I bonded over memes and mutual hatred for Donald Trump and it was very, very attractive), when dudes are COURTEOUS, etc.

Weird phenomenon, but the bottom line is: When I was insecure, believed whole heartedly in western beauty standards for all genders, tied my self worth to my success, my appearance, and how many guys were interested in me, my Actual Type was basically my Drunk Type- Attractive.  Plus douchey, emotionally unavailable, dramatic, dark, and a tease. I liked that.  I liked not being able to actually have what I wanted, and it always reinforced in my mind that I wasn’t good enough- but that was addicting. Very unhealthy cycle.

Fast forward to now.  My Actual Type includes a baseline level of attractiveness, largely screwed by whatever his personality traits are and how he socializes, kind, responsible yet humble, nonembarrassing in social situations, low drama, fun, up for adventures like I am. It’s more based around what they can do for me, based on what I can offer in a relationship. Instead of finding somebody who will ‘fix’ me, or solidify my underlying ideas about my own self worth, or somebody who connects with me on dark shit and together we can just magnify it and spiral into the abyss together. NO. None of that shit anymore.  I’m old and tired, life is hard, love is harder, and I just want a nice guy who believes in God, isn’t a dick, doesn’t embarrass me in public, can laugh, actually follows through on plans, and has a job (not because I need the money, but because I also have a job and I just want somebody who’s on that same playing field as I’m on. A compatibility/life situation synchronization thing).  Surprisingly there are many men who fit the above criteria and that’s proving to be a whole new kind of challenge for me, as I’m dating multiple people. While that concept is solid and I believe in it as being a good thing, I don’t think that’s standard procedure for society anymore, or at least for my generation. I don’t think these guys know how to live in that limbo between ‘hey i just met you’ and ‘we are together and might get married within the next 5-10 years’.  There is a happy medium, live in it, love it, abide by its non-rules of exclusivity of which there are none, hence ‘non-rules’.  

I like this Bill guy.  I have gone out with him a few times this past week and he is great, he wants to keep seeing me.  I haven’t figured out yet how to bridge the conversation of ‘I’m dating other guys and even if this goes well, I have a dude I’m dating visiting me from CA in a month and a half so I can’t be exclusive or anything before then no matter what. I have a schedule for these things.  By the way he’s sending me a valentine in the mail too.”

What the hell am I supposed to do for Valentines Day? I’m just gonna assume Nothing, unless proven otherwise by some human OTHER than myself. 

And because I lost the overall direction of this text post in the first place and i’m already in stream of consciousness mode.... my ex Adam (his real name, because fuck you Adam, not that you’ll ever see this but it’s still satisfying) keeps texting me that he misses me and wants to talk and see me again and he’s sorry etc etc etc after 5 MONTHS OF ABSOLUTE SILENCE.  I had deleted me on fb, I have a request from him just chillin in my friend requests list.  I didn’t have his number in my phone anymore, I am not adding his name as a contact.  I’m mentally referring to him as the last 5 digits of his phone number, like Jean Valjean in Les Mis, 24601. 

Happy scrolling and yes, there’s a person running this shit blog :) 

#life blurb

[smokeybrand]

For the People

Like, I'm a black dude in America, right, so I don't trust anything remotely government. I'm suspect of this entire system because empirical evidence proves that it's suspect of me. We are literally gunned down in the street by the people charged to protect us, just for existing. Cats can follow the letter of the law but because I am a big, black, dude, i can be killed in cold blood because some b*tch with a badge, was intimidated by my swagger and wanted to prove to themselves that their dick wasn't microscopic. That's my reality. I live that everyday.

This Wuha has made everyone black. Every disadvantage I've ever had growing up; the economic disproportion, the difficult access to insurance and healthcare, the constant harassment by authority figures, the laughably low employment and retention rate for people that look like me, all of that. Everyone is feeling that hurt now, not just us darkies. Everyone is losing their jobs and being denied unemployment. Cats are out here losing their health insurance and the ability to literally keep the lights on. Motherf*ckers can’t eat right now, man. That constant anxiety you feel about this flu and not about your human rights being slowly siphoned away because you're distracted by the fear mongering press? I have that every day just by waking up. I don't trust the government. I don't trust authority. I don't trust this country. I was asked once if I'm a patriot. I'm not. I love this country about as much as it loves me and, historically, that ain't much.

The funny thing is, this pandemic proves this country loves you about as much as it loves me, too, and if you think otherwise, you're an idiot. Keep walking partisan lines. Keep hurling sh*t across the aisle. Keep on eating each other while these assholes on top that don't care, eat you. Ignore them as they steal your life one 40 hour work week at a time, hoard your hard earned wealth, and take advantage of your labor. Yeah, it's the brown people that took your job not the profiteering, slave-like workloads, and despicable wage gap that keeps you in poverty and Bezos in billions. They make these motherf*ckers in Amazon procurement warehouses, piss in jars because they lose too much productivity, too much profit, if they take a restroom break. Buy into that dream of a middle class life even though the middle class doesn't exist anymore. Distract yourself with news of a killed stimulus that wouldn't benefit you in the long run anyway and was structured to illegally further the reach of an administration that condones Nazis, while cats mobilize the national guard and pass legislation making it legal to detain you indefinitely with no trial. Complain about the “open” borders and how legit asylum seekers are a leech on the country while cats pass legislation on the hush that would effectively make it legal to openly spy on you and prosecute anything you say against the state. Yeah, keep waving that MAGA hat or whatever while they quietly spiral your dumbass into a facist police state. That will make America great, right?

America has never been great. It was built with the forced labor of my stolen people, on the corpses of the the First Peoples. Everything about this country is based upon the blood and sweat of the working class and yet, we are the ones constantly suffering. Think I’m joking? Go and try to get a Covid-19 test right now. Bet your doctor doesn’t have one for you. Guess who got one though? Rand Paul. Guess who voted against legislation that would get you that test? Rand Paul. But go off with your partisan bullsh*t. Keep focusing on the misdirection while these motherf*ckers dismantle the liberty and freedom you assholes claim to value so much. America is dying and you idiots are too stupid to even understand that sh*t.