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blackswaneuroparedux · 11 months

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If Caravaggio were alive today today, he would have loved the cinema; his paintings take a cinematic approach. We filmmakers became aware of his work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he certainly was an influence on us. The best part for us was that in many cases he painted religious subject-matter but the models were obviously people from the streets; he had prostitutes playing saints. There’s something in Caravaggio that shows a real street knowledge of the sinner; his sacred paintings are profane.

Martin Scorsese on Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi, known to most of us as “Caravaggio,” was born on September 29, 1571 in Milan, Italy, to parents who were from the small town of Caravaggio. In the span of his 38 years long life he revolutionised painting with innovations like a unique use of chiaroscuro - with dark shadows contrasting with dramatic areas of light - and a deep sense of realism that later inspired the Baroque movement. But most of all, he developed such an iconic style that most of us can probably look at a painting and know if it’s a Caravaggio, or Caravaggio-inspired.

Merisi spent the first few years of his life in Milan, studying painting, and later moved to Rome, where his early talent impressed Cardinal Del Monte, who introduced the young painter to other high-profile Catholic figures who became commissioners of some of Caravaggio’s best work. It seemed there was no end to the artist’s creative genius. Caravaggio, much to his patron’s delight, would pump out one masterpiece after another. It seemed the more out of control his personal life became (cheating, brawling and murder were standard fare), the more his art would become more refined, more potent.

In the long list of masterpieces he left behind, both secular and religious works stand out. But it is perhaps in his religious works that the artistic transition of the master is more evident. Caravaggio is, in fact, known to have changed his style after harsh personal life experiences led him to reassess his outlook on life.

In May of 1606 Caravaggio took part in a deadly brawl in Rome and was charged with murder. He fled to Malta, in search of asylum from the Order of Saint John, a Catholic order dedicated to helping the sick and the poor. The order commissioned some of the most important late life works of the Milanese artist.

It is in these works that we notice the shift in Caravaggio’s art, from a strong focus on aesthetics to an interest in the spirituality of his subjects, which critics believe was motivated by his own introspection.

On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and sword fights were regular occurrences. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes.

By representing biblical characters in a naturalistic fashion, typically through signs of aging and poverty, Caravaggio's populist modernisation of religious parables were little short of trailblazing. Although not without his critics within the church, by effectively humanising the divine, Caravaggio made Christianity more relevant to the ordinary viewer.

For some, though, his art was too real. Bare shoulders, plunging necklines, severed heads; this raw humanity didn’t always fly in 17th century Rome. As a result, many of his pieces were rejected as altar pieces and as church hangings. One such piece, the Madonna of Loretto (now hanging in a church in Rome) was widely criticised upon its unveiling. The people of the day were shocked to behold the Mother of God leaning nonchalantly against a wall in her bare feet while holding baby Jesus in her arms.

It is ironic that the very art that today we consider “classical” and “iconic” to the Catholic faith was considered questionable and perhaps void of modesty and virtue. Yet, the fact remains that no individual artist has made such a lasting impression on the world of modern art. Truly, many have called Caravaggio the “first modern artist”. It is no surprise, then, that his style has sparked both widespread admiration and imitation throughout the centuries.

Before Pope John Paul II refined a theology of the body beautiful, Caravaggio's paintings suggested a reverence for the inherent beauty of human form.

Troubled though he may have been, his art speaks eloquently of the dignity of the mundane. Though the original medium may be weathered and cracked, the message of beauty still echoes down the centuries. And this same beauty still fuels, escapes and reduces artists to relentless seekers as surely and as forcefully as it did in Caravaggio's life.

#scorsese #martin scorsese #quote #art #artist #caravaggio #art history #aesthetics #modern #sacred #profane #rome #catholic church #christian #beauty #realism #art of the mundane

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noneorother · 8 months

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The grand unified theory of Good Omens S2 hangs on - you guessed it - a double meaning (and art). *Part 3*

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l The End? This is major spoilers for season 3 territory. You have been warned. I'm also going to split this into parts because wow, I have so many ✨Clues✨! My peeps, before I show you the prestige, we need to discuss Maggie. Maggie is SO WEIRD.

Right up top we get her telling us this. Who loves something since they were a baby? Since you were a kid sure, but how can you remember loving something since you were a baby?

This one's fun. The double meaning here is 1) I was a huge uptight nerd so I never went to parties and/or 2) I wasn't a human teenager so I never got to go to your earth parties. But check out when Nina and Maggie *first* meet in her coffee shop. We spend a lot of time in this scene, because it's framed as a meet cute, but it's also full of weird dialogue.

So i'm not a writer, someone feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but Maggie is remembered by Nina AS A COFFEE. She IS a skinny latte. This works on two levels again. 1) You're not important enough to me to remember you as a person, just as an order. 2) You do not fit into my memory of people I know, but subconsciously I remember you as NOT a regular human.

And then again when she leaves the shop, Nina isn't paying attention and just sort of subconsciously replies:

Again, two meanings. Maggie is unimportant to her, Maggie is also a *coffee*.

Which is weird, because as far as I can tell Maggie never drinks a coffee, or anything for that matter. Sure she orders stuff in the shop, and is offered food and alcohol, but we never see her actually drink or eat any of it. She stirs the tea but never takes a sip.

So what IS Maggie then? Many people have pointed out that Maggie and Nina are a coffeeshop AU of our heroes. Their visual presentation seems to be screaming Nina = Crowley! and Maggie = Aziraphale! And they *work* on opposite sides of the street and everything! So is Maggie just a stand-in for Aziraphale then, to make the parable work? Cool, then what's the parable?

Uh oh. What possible AU fiction ends up with the main love interests breaking up with their toxic ex, dancing in a ball and fighting demons together and then... just not ending up together? An AU written by kind of a bad writer who wants to show the two lovebirds he's trying to separate that it will never work. Oh hey look The Metatron is here:

Now, I think the same guy that has been adding bits and pieces in the past would have no problem adding stuff and/or people in the present to make a point. Maggie also seems to be pretty sure about quite a lot of things that I wouldn't be sure about, given the context.

Maggie's knows it's not going to do any good, but she has to tell them anyway? Tell them what, that Nina and Maggie talked it out and never ended up together? Wow, what a great message. Thanks Maggie. Maggie isn't just a downer of an example though, remember she's also A COFFEE! Shoved in Aziraphael's and Crowley's faces, asking them to take it and help her since the beginning.

There's a concept in magic tricks called a force, where it seems like someone has free will ; to put a card anywhere in a deck, or pick a number, or volunteer, but actually the outcome has been chosen for them by the magician for the trick to work. The actual trick is about getting the person to think they've freely chosen to participate in the trick, not the act of revealing the card. The real trick was never making Maggie and Nina try to fall in love, it was getting Aziraphael to think he had freely chosen to help Maggie get this whole thing going. And if we know one thing about Aziraphael, it's that he's actually terrible at magic. Aziraphael has been primed to take the coffee in S2E6, because he's been taking the coffee the whole season. Ready for the prestige reveal after the force? We're going right to The Metatron in Part 4.

#good omens prime #go season 2 #go3 #good omens s3 #good omens meta #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #go meta #ineffable husbands #art director talks good omens #nina and maggie #coffeeshop au #go spoilers

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buzzkillers · 9 months

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Fables and Parables 2/5

Pairing: Namor x Black!Reader

Chapter Summary: you begin to feel the affects of the curse.

Warning: NON-CON, religious themes, non-consensual voyeurism, magical sex pollen, dream-walking, mentions of abortion, attempted forced pregnancy.

PART ONE

It rained the next day.

It's so bad that you're forced to braid your hair. The gel wasn't working and the frays of your edges curled underneath the humidity.

Lucky you, but that's not where your bad day ended, of course not.

The storm had forced you all inside, the rain battering against the very thin walls of the hostel. All plans for exploration were delayed. Quickly, your discomfort turned into irritation and then your period started. Of course it did. Thankfully, there was no blood yet but it was the beginning of it. You could feel it in the twist of your gut, the odd ache in your pelvis. It's so subtle that it could’ve passed a stomach ache

But you've never felt your stomach twist like this before. Like there was a needle in your guts that pulled and twisted.

So yeah, you were on your period and the weather was shit and you were starving. But you didn’t mind, you really didn't. Until then it rained the next day and the day after that and you never bled.

“It’s global warming,” your roommate whispered, her face still shoved into her book. 'Art and Society of Mayan culture ' it read, the bind of it worn and dirty.

You relaxed in your own bed. Your leg splayed off the edge.“-just think about it,”

“I'm thinking about it,” You lied. Because you’ve actually been reading the same ‘Wikipedia’ page for the last five minutes and you were afraid that if you moved a muscle, something just might burst.

The other didn’t know this though. How could she? So she rolled her eyes, lips pinched. “Im serious,”

“I mean it's May—May," she turned a page, "We're supposed to be touring temples but instead we're-" she looked over at you and then winced. "-I actually don't know what you're doing,"

"Waiting for this bootleg ibuprofen to kick in," you muttered, your phone now fallen asleep. You took a strangled breath.

"I don't think it's working,"

“Are you sure you don't want tea?” she asked cause she was nice and didn’t know that every word she spoke made you want to bite bricks. You shoved your head into the pillow and tried to suffocate yourself. “Nah, rather vomit,” Last night, you only had one cup and instantly spat it out. You’d rather stick to sink water.

“I think I'm just gonna die here,” you groaned, ‘cause it would just be your luck really. Then you curled into a ball, your arms wrapped around your knees. The position only made it worse. Tears pricked in the corner of your eyes.

The woman sucked her teeth, “Right, die in a run down hostel, in the middle of nowhere, that's not inconsiderate,”

“Kindly fuck off,”

“To get tea? Yeah I'm suddenly in the mood,” you shot the woman a glare, and suddenly it's her that's ignoring you. The look on her face smug as she jumped into some trousers and walked out the door.

You took the moment to look out the window. It faced the front streets, above all the pop shops and grocery bags. Below you, people ran to get away from the onslaught. No one wanted to drive today, clearly. People bustled in the streets, business men went home and school children ran with their bags over their heads. Anything to get out of the rain.

Except one, a lone figure at the edge of the sidewalk, who stood straight, unaffected. He did not wear an umbrella or a raincoat for that matter. Instead, his shelter was the leaves of the sidewalk trees. It flicked and fettered over him, it also did a shit poor job of actually keeping him dry. He looked at your Hostel. Unmoving. In your delusion, he was also blue, he looked very very blue.

Your face pinched and then the needle in your stomach twisted and your intestines curled and you forgot all about it. At least some people didn’t mind the rain.

—-

It never stopped raining. Not truly. It might've drizzled, or splashed or allowed a pause within the bulging of clouds and the clap of thunder but it never actually stopped. Not for more than a few minutes anyway.

Time only existed within the ratatat typing of rain. Between the moment where it splashed and melded into the streets.

You didn't know what was more irritating, the cramps or that sound. After a few moments, your roommate picked the sound and that was all you needed to hear before you popped another ibuprofen and migrated to the play rooms of the hostel.

Play room was stretching it though. It was simply a small living room with an ancient boxed tv and folding chairs. It's crowded when the two of you get down there. An odd mix of your classmates and other residents and they’re all watching the news on the weather.

‘Unexpected’ they said, ‘unlikely to stop anytime soon,' which in other words meant your earlier sentiment was right.

You were never leaving this hostel and you were all feeling it. You've never felt so bored, so hungry. And the daily work assignments and sandwiches in the fridge weren't cutting it. You guys were going to have to leave the hostel for food eventually. Maybe that's why you were feeling the way?

It was a good hypothesis as the pangs in your belly tightened. You've never felt a hunger like this before. Strong and potent.

So, a few hours later you're outside now. A few blocks away from the hostel and filled with enough ibuprofen that it might not be the storms that’ll kill you. There's only one grocery store on your street. It's an artificial beacon of fluorescent lights, the door rung when you opened it.

With wobbly knees, you walked inside and the weather followed. A man with a mop looked up and glared at you. You ducked into one of the aisles.

You needed something sweet, something heavy. Bread? No. Ice cream? You ran through each aisle. And then you walked and then your just sort of sludged your way around. Each movement made the world curl into itself, your floor tilted beneath your feet.

By the time you actually got to the front again nothing looked appealing. Tortilla bread suddenly looked too heavy and chorizo looked too much. You looked at your basket, lips downturned.

Maybe you should just get a drink instead. But even that made you want to curl into yourself. Soda was too much. A lemonade too sweet. What about water? At that your stomach twisted and turned, cold than hot. The cashier looked at you plainly.

“¿Eso es todo, señora?" you blinked.

He was an older man, with sunken eyes and gray hair that was long but tied into a tight ponytail. He gave off a scent of artificial pine tree, his fingers battered with callouses. He had a gold tooth and his shirt, although clean, was translucent due to the rain that battered through the window every time a customer came in.

You licked your lips, warmth in your belly overflowed. You wondered if he’d let you get on your knees. If all it would take was a look and sweet words before you led yourself behind the counter-

“señora?” the man's voice boomed you out of your thoughts, you flinched back. “Sorry, I-” you shook your head, “¿Tienes uh agua?”

His eye twitched. “pasillo 10,”

Your mouth went dry. You looked to the back aisle, at the long tiled floors that seemed to drag on forever. On a back shelf the water sat pretty. You licked your lips again. Something in you bloomed. It was exactly what you needed. Water.

With a fevered glance back, you battered your fingers against the counter. One gallon would be just as much as the food. It looked more appetizing too, like it would belly over the thirst that ran in your tummy.

Like a great way to wash the taste of the man off your tongue.

You shook your head, “Actually-”

“-¿Te importaría conseguirlo para mí?” the man just looked at you, their mouth downturned. He looked ready to stay no.

The aisle wasn’t that far away. And anyone with working legs would be able to make it to the back. But something in your face made the man's face relaxed, the corner of his lips pinched. “fine,” then with a glance, “Pero no vomites en mi suelo,”

Unlikely. In fact vomiting was a very real possibility. You felt it in your throat, in the overtone and queasiness that slobbed in your tummy.

You looked at him as he left. Watched the skin on his back, the sweat that twinkled down his spine. Your stomach flipped and turned. Suddenly, your hands were clammy and your lips dry. What kind of hunger was this?

What kind, made you want this? Claws in your back, and kisses on your chest. You wanted it bad, like a bird wanted murder and a plant water, it was a need, a cancer that furloughed in your deepest cavities and bloomed. Ricocheting like a bullet before you fell to your knees and vomited it all out.

—

You don't go out much after that.

#namor x reader #namor x fem!reader #namor x black reader #namor x y/n #namor x you #namor smut #namor x black!reader #namor x f!reader #black panther smut #namor fics #black panther fic #namor lemon #tw: noncon #tw: dark content

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rebeccadumaurier · 5 months

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2023 Books in Review

a tiered ranking of all the books i read in 2023! originally i was going to write up my commentary on each one but then i was like hahaha.....no, so below the cut is just a list of the titles/authors in each tier instead.

changed my brain chemistry

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang

The Borrowed, Chan Ho-kei (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier

Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang (trans. Ken Liu)

The Membranes, Chi Ta-wei (trans. Ari Larissa Heinrich)

Under the Pendulum Sun, Jeannette Ng

Severance, Ling Ma

He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan

Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Network Effect, Martha Wells

top-tier stuff

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell)

Brainwyrms, Alison Rumfitt

The Door, Magda Szabo (trans. Len Rix)

The Lover, Marguerite Duras (trans. Barbara Bray)

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

Strange Beasts of China, Yan Ge (trans. Jeremy Tiang)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

Tell Me I’m Worthless, Alison Rumfitt

Bliss Montage, Ling Ma

How to Read Now, Elaine Castillo

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin

If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin

My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante

The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri

good, well-written

Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu

Life Ceremony, Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Assassin of Reality, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (trans. Julia Meitov Hersey)

Witch King, Martha Wells

Tokyo Ueno Station, Miri Yu (trans. Morgan Giles)

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi

Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

The Pachinko Parlor, Elisa Shua Dusapin (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins)

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse (Murderbot #1-4, #6-7), Martha Wells

Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee

The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Frances Frenaye)

Gods of Want, K-Ming Chang

Paradais, Fernanda Melchor (trans. Sophie Hughes)

The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency, Chen Chen

The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon

Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie

An Unauthorised Fan Treatise, Lauren James

Upstream, Mary Oliver

The Art of Death, Edwidge Danticat

Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane Alison

alphabet, Inger Christensen (trans. Susanna Nied)

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

flawed, but enjoyable

The Wicker King, K. Ancrum

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters

Flux, Jinwoo Chong

Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood

The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Claudia Gray

Natural Beauty, Ling Ling Huang

The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Likeness, Tana French

The Cabinet, Un-su Kim (trans. Sean Lin Halbert)

The Kingdom of Surfaces, Sally Wen Mao

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, Franny Choi

good, well-written, but not my cup of tea

The Good House, Tananarive Due

The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera (trans. Lisa Dillman)

Roadside Picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (trans. Olena Bormashenko)

The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan

At Night All Blood Is Black, David Diop (trans. Anna Moschovakis)

Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg (trans. Jenny McPhee)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo

The Kingdom of This World, Alejo Carpentier (trans. Harriet de Onís)

Against Silence, Frank Bidart

flawed, less enjoyable

Tenth of December, George Saunders

Counterweight, Djuna (trans. Anton Hur)

Authority, Jeff VanderMeer

Comfort Me with Apples, Catherynne M. Valente

Babel, R. F. Kuang

The Genesis of Misery, Neon Yang

Carrie Soto Is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid

not ranking

These are nonfiction and they aren’t literature-related, so it just felt weird trying to rank them.

Visual Thinking, Temple Grandin

On Web Typography, Jason Santa Maria

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (trans. Cathy Hirano)

#ange.log #ange.book

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irusanw4 · 19 days

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Uhhh pinned time ig? I see it a lot so why not

Yo! Call me IrusanW4, mutuals can call me Iru but please don't if we're not mutuals. I use strictly they/them, and I'm asexual and aromantic. I'm autistic and I love things A Lot when I love them, so... fair warning? Read more has details on me n stuff. Don't wanna clog dashboards or anything :3

I don't have a specific DNI but like. Don't hurt people. Don't have a joke for that just don't hurt people. But! DO interact if you are strange, peculiar, freakish, cringe, or otherwise throw social norms to the wind!

I'm always open to civil good-faith discussions about what I've done wrong!

Things I care about too much for my own good: Death Note, My Hero Academia, Chonny Jash, Dungeon Meshi, Pokemon, Digimon, Slay the Princess, the Stanley Parable, Warriors, Wings of Fire, Risk of Rain, Slay the Spire, Portal, psychology, animals, linguistics, space, my place in the universe, death as something to be studied, and much much more.

While I won't do much acknowledging sex (as in the act) myself due to personal discomfort surrounding the topic, I do support the right of people to have sex and have fun so long as all members consent to it!

Also, I do art and writing! I'm IrusanW4 on ao3 too, so feel free to be nosy! I don't share much art outside of Discord, sadly, but yknow! I'm always open to questions about my writing and art, be it original or fan content!

Social justice:

Abortion needs to be accessible to everyone with a uterus. The death sentence shouldn't exist in any way shape or form. A criminal justice system focused on punishment rather than reform should not exist. Capitalism is by existence a system of oppression and must be replaced. The American education system is thoroughly fucked. The genocide of anyone is inexcusable, no matter their origin, and those who fund the slaughter and/or exploitation of Palestinian, Congolese, or any other people are further beyond immoral than I have words for. All cops are bastards.

Miscellaneous:

Vehement supporter of found family. Indie game lover. Indie music lover. Example of gifted kid to burnout who's somehow still gifted just deeply exhausted pipeline. Cat owner. Lover of music. Noodle enjoyer. Asker of questions. Furry. Therian. Mediocre Pokemon player. Registered member of the Satanic Temple. Believer in improvement as a person as a necessary part of life. Friend hoarder. More always to come.

I'm a bad tagger but here's notable tags:

#blorbo street, where I put all my favorite characters together to interact.

#scrunchy friend <3, most of my @therewillbenoromance interactions bc he's scrunchy to me.

#ouroboros universe, a collection of my writing that's all technically within one continuity. I might add more tags specifying which instance, but so far, it's all lumped together.

#pinned info #pinned intro #pinned post #intro post #introductory post #blog intro #is me

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caeruleophile · 2 years

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💙 hii i'm Alkene!! 💙

Hii my name is Alek, but you can call me Alke, Alkene or Chemical Eater! I'm a young artist from Russia 💙 I decided to make this post just to introduce myself.

I have this awesome pic with some random facts about me.

TRANSLATION:

- my pronouns are HE/HIM (please)

- square pictures in the upper right are my fav music albums

- these characters are my KINS!! this is my small kinlist!!

- my height is 157 cm

- i weight about 90 kg (FAT FAT FAT)

- these are my mbti types

💙more info under the cut💙

My music taste (from left to right from top to bottom):

Melanie Martinez - Crybaby

Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping

half•alive – Now, Not Yet

Аквариум - Дети Декабря

sitcom - Be The One You Love

Научно-технический рэп - 10

Дайте танк - Глаза боятся

Bo Burnham - Inside

My highest kins (from left to right from top to bottom):

Richard Hendricks (Silicon Valley)

The Narrator (Fight Club)

Blue (Dick Figures)

Abe Lincoln (Clone High)

Boy (Boy Dog Girl Cat Mouse Cheese)

Kevin (3 out of 10, a playable sitcom on epic games)

Barney (Ron's Gone Wrong)

Jerry (Code Monkeys)

What I like to draw:

Fan art (I often take inspiration from different media).

People (Beautiful creatures, I love people)

Humanoids (If you're not human, but you look like a human, YOU're COOL and I love you. Aliens are especially respected by me.)

Stickmen (Humanoids, but cooler!!)

Robots, mechas (I don't really know how to draw them, but I love to do it)

Cyberpunk (AESTHETIC AND GENRE, not the game)

Landscapes (For relaxation~)

Objects (The ones from different object shows youknow)

Angels, demons, well, religious stuff, hahah

Graphic design!!

I PREFER DIGITAL, I draw traditionally in rare cases when there is no computer nearby!!!

List of all the fandoms I've ever been a part of:

Mario franchise

Cartoon series "Wishfart"

Videogame "No Straight Roads"

Videogame "Mad Rat Dead"

Anime "Ingress The Animation"

Movie "Split"

"Zoolander" / "Zoolander 2" films

TV series "Malcolm in the middle"

TV series "Breaking bad"

Animated series "Grojband"

TV series "The IT crowd"

Animated series "Code Monkeys" (2007)

Playable sitcom "3 out of 10"

MMORPG "Tower of Fantasy"

Mobile 18+ game "Nu:Carnival"

Games "Lucius" / "Lucius 2" / "Lucius 3"

The movie "Fight Club"

The movie "Children of the corn"

The mobile game "Cookie Run Kingdom"

Anime (or animated series idk) "All Saints Street"

Web series "Dick Figures"

Animated film "The Road to El Dorado"

The TV series "It's always sunny in Philadelphia"

Games "OLDTV"/"Plasma TV"/"Back of Space"

YouTuber FЯED (true legend)

Games "Give Up" / "Give Up 2" / "Never Give Up"

Animated film "Ron's Gone Wrong"

The series "Squid Game"

The comic book series "Resident Alien" (including the TV series)

The game "Spore"

Animated series "Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese"

The book-trilogy "Escape Book" by Ivan Tapia

Books and animated series "The Last Kids on Earth"

The game (not yet released) "Worship"

The game "Struggling"

Animated series "Clone High"

Mobile games "Vector" / "Vector 2"

TV series "The Office"

TV series "Silicon Valley"

TV series "Bates Motel"

All "Psycho" movies

A series of games "Five Nights at Freddy's" and everything related to it (even some fan content)

The game "Dialtown"

TV series "Society"

TV Series "The Good Doctor"

TV Series "Black Mirror"

Anime "Black Rock Shooter"

Object Show "Battle For Dream Island"

Object Show "Inanimate Insanity"

The game "Pony Island"

The Game " The Stanley Parable"

"Ingress" Mobile AR game

DC Universe, Teen Titans

Web series "Camp Camp"

The film and the book "Clockwork Orange"

Web series "This is Bob"

The book "Metro 2033"

The game "Bendy and the ink machine"

Web series "Eddsworld"

The game "Undertale"

Animated series "Gravity Falls"

Animated series "Adventure Time"

My Main OCS

The last two OCs are aliens :p And all my OCs represent me in some way, I still call them my other personalities tbh :>

Some of my artworks~

noooo my artstyle is so inconsistent .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

💙 Well i hope now you know a little more about me 💙

Have a nice day, stranger! Thanks for visiting my blog :з

#introducing myself #blog intro #introduction #meet the artist

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staox · 10 months

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Welcome to the Show new Towny!

Hello Hello and Howdy-do there Towny! <:o)

[If you happen to know me personally then please do not share or spread my personal information on any internet platforms, such include my address, full name, deadname, age, school, grades, grade level, voice etc. UNLESS you have my consent to it.]

Hello Hello! My name is Vale/Staox! I'm a Transmasc person that goes by he/him/they/them/it/it's/xe/xim/ze/zim!

Welcome to my blog!

I post lots of random stuff here based off my hyperfixations or whatever makes me happy! <:o) I'm in multiple fandoms aswell! I enjoy posting a vast variety of art not from one fandom specifically!!

I am an aspiring poet and an illustrator!! I have dreams that one day I will be known as a famous poet, painter, artist, and sculptor

I'm an artist and a minor so please no uncomfortable things on my page! (Please.. Kindly watch the words you use when commenting))

I'm still growing and developing as an artist!! Everyday I grow and develop into something new!! I hope you can be patient and enjoy as you watch our little art journey!!

Please, kindly, DO NOT INTERACT if you are: A proshipper/comshipper, ableist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, problematic, a toxic neurological, extremely political, a pedophile, rcta, MAP, apart of the "Art lore", etc. etc.

- Again, I'm a minor, so if you are 18 or above please do NOT send me any disgusting or extremely personal DMS

This is a safe space, so please no toxic topics here! Here, I encourage everyone to support their differences cause everyone is human, I will not tolerate in any way any disgusting and heinous words, especially if they degrade or do discriminate others.

This is a Sfw account! however I do not take art requests! (Although I will draw gore from time to time!)

I will NOT post: NSFW, Intimate stuff, anything 18+, and anything else like this

If you force me to make anything like this, I will not be afraid to permanently block you. I understand if you want or request me to do this if you are unaware, but if you are perfectly and openly aware that I am not comfortable with this, plus if you continuously request and ask me to create it after I refuse, do not expect me to be hesitant whilst blocking. Please, respect my bounderies.

My Special Interests/Hyperfixations! :

* Welcome Home

* Dhmis

* Avenue Q

* Bugbo

* Sesame Street

* Cookie run: Kingdom/Ovenbreak

* Omori

* Good Omens

* Nimona

* Captain Underpants

* Tmc/The Mandela Catalogue

* Twf/The Walten Files

* Fnaf

* The Stanley Parable

* Miracle Musical

* Tally Hall

* T.H.I.S (Tally Hall Internet Show)

* Jack Stauber's Opal

* Shop: A Pop Opera

* Ride the Cyclone (RTC)

* Sundy Stairway

* BBirthday

* The Amazing Digital Circus (TADC)

* Town Folks (my own creation! <:o))

* Trolls

Some of my favorite music artists &/or bands! <:o)

These aren't even all of them yet! (tumblr has a 10 image only thingy!!) I will list them down for you! <:o)

- Jack Stauber

- Weezer

- Will Wood/ Will Wood & the Tapeworms

- Tally Hall

- Miracle Musical

- Chonny Jash

- Elliotly

- Jhariah

- Sodikken

- 6arelyhuman

- H3artcrush

- Rebzyyx

- Laufey

- Mitski

- Mother Mother

- Scowl

- Slipknot

- Soupy Garbage Juice

- Lemon Demon/Neil Cicierega

- S3RL

- Korn

- Pleasentries

- Kikuo

- Ruben the Understander

- The Chats

- The Mountain Goats

- Mindless Self Indulgence

- Oingo Boingo

- Rio Romeo

- Marina

- Drive 45

- Lesley Gore

- Temporex

- Bo En

- Bo Burnham

- Xavlegmao

- Queen

- Lorna Shore

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

Stay safe my fellow Town Folk! I love you very much! <:o)

#pinned post #introduction #intro post #Town Folks #I feel as if this is very wordy!#Oh I've started rambling again!

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dawn-of-worlds · 1 year

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Corobel starts turn 11 with 14 points: 6 (roll) + 3 (nonhoarding) + 5 (left over)

[9 points set aside for resolving the Event and associated actions.]

Command Race/Civilization (-3) to Found City: The Penitent of the western mountains of Lekesh settle into sedate monastic landlordism, each valley ruled by a tiered temple-barracks sprawled on a commanding peak. The well-armed monks practice arts of violence to contest matters of doctrine and land ownership. Fantastic paintings adorn the plastered walls, bleaching in the light of stained-glass windows. Their holy books are dialogues and parables, whose meanings and relations are revealed to the worthy as they ascend the ladder of souls. The stars and planets feature prominently. The monks pay homage to the Great Renouncer (the Atai, Mianen), who travels, on foot and alone, between the villages and monasteries. The layfolk mumble formulaic prayers and keep the holy days, and no more is required of them—save the rent.

The monks say the natural state of man is the eternal quest—that quest their ancestors deserted, casting them into a world of blindness, ignorance, and impurity. They seek to restore that singular and eternal desire which is the telos of all life, by emptying the soul through penance and renunciation and seeking absolute purity of feeling. They do not know the destiny of man, but they know in what direction it lies—the Sun, and the West.

[I’m imagining the mountains/west coast of Lekesh as rainy and temperate, a sort of Ireland/Japan-type climate.]

In the southeastern lowland plains, the market-town of Tlya (“Upper Gate”), a natural point of embarkation/disembarkation for goods flowing into and out of the continental interior, or over the mountain passes to the west, grows into a flourishing city. A multiplicity of sects and schools flourish in this country, and a secular aristocracy pays tribute to the king in Tlya.

Command Avatar to Command Civilization to Found City (-1): The Prodigies, desiring a more ostentatious capital, ask the Oracles where to found one. The Oracles refuse. The Prodigies make a variety of confident and substantial threats. The Oracles give them an answer. Little Ibai of the hyacinths is disassembled, brick by brick, and reassembled—allowing for a few improvements—in a location of astrological, geomantic, and political perfection; the streets around it circle with celestial precision. The clan of the Kingfisher is installed within the Old City, noble lineage restored by the providential discovery of ancient records heretofore concealed. Their station is to keep the rituals of imperial office; they may not leave without permission. [This happens at some point in the career of the Prodigies, which will be posted soon.]

#world 02547 diegesis

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x-heesy · 1 year

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#travelingwithoutmoving#streetart #streetarteverywhere #streetartaddicted #streetartlover #streetartist #streetartphotography #streetartistry #streetartlovers #streetartglobe #streetartdaily #streetartphoto #streetartworldwide #streetartgraffiti #streetartnews @luna-zylum 😘 #streetartandgraffiti #streetartlove #streetarteverywere #streetartists #streetart_daily #streetarthunter #streetart_addiction #streetartporn

Soundtrack: Pleasant by SebastiAn, Charlotte Gainsbourg

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jackhkeynes · 1 year

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19th-century Espionage and the Invention of Software

collected notes on two entirely unrelated works of literature.

Men of Jet and Diamond (originally published in Welsh under the title Dynnon o Vuhuð a Diamont) is an 1890 trevold written by Hasinick Welshman Cadogan Torrior, shortly after he graduated from the University of Nadacou [capital of Hasiny, located not far from the coast on the banks of the *Mississippi] as a scholar of diplomacy.

Published by Blackburn Editions, the work is a rather late member of the first wave of masquira romance. The book was modestly popular in eastern Mendeva [North America], but became much more widely known after being adapted by a New Provence guild into the wildly-succesful 1951 film 'Jet White' (New Provincial Blanc Sabaje).

---

The Parable of the Mute Bookbinder (originally published in Burgund as Fable dew Reillour Mut) is a philosophical treatise written in 1743 by noblewoman Rachel Desselut in response to Vallakis on the problem of the bounded self-duplication of living things (in brief: how can a finite being contain within itself the ability to create a full copy of itself?).

Desselut's work lays out the separation of Form and of Method, and how they allow for the unsculpted duplication of a bounded being. She argues that in order for living matter to duplicate, the Form must contain within itself an explicit Method describing in some readable language its construction. Thus she inferred the existence of a vital language (in her own writing she called it the Divine Word; we now know it as heredian acid [DNA]) present in the cases of the body.

---

(book excerpts under the cut)

Men of Jet and Diamond

It would have been an exaggeration to say that the hotel's lobby was crowded. Nonetheless, Zoe Pentross found she couldn't take a seat without inserting herself into someone's lively conversation or another's relaxed solitude. Instead she remained standing at the bar, keys in her left hand and a gratifyingly-good Empordan wine in her right. "Are you here to see the new King arrive in Nadacou?" A tall, slender man joins Zoe at the bar, signalling the tender for a refill. "Not to see His Grace, per se," Zoe demurs, taking the opportunity to turn and look properly at her new companion. Dark hair, closely-shorn—not typical among those with long family ties in the area, though his complexion suggested he wasn't entirely foreign. "Ah, of course!" The smile that spreads across the man's face is charming and curious. Someone delighted at mystery, perhaps, or at least someone willing to humour it for the sake of conversation. "You plan to stand one street over from tomorrow's parade, I take it?"

Half an hour, far too much shockled cake and a generous glass of limmon acquetta later, Zoe strode out of the new unmanned lifter and peered at the ornate signposts. The key in her hand was helpfully inscribed with a fullaw bird and the number four in neat script, so she turned down the corresponding corridor until she found her door, set discreetly into the wall. Inside, the set of rooms (really, not much more than a small parlour and a bed in an alcove) was decorated in the latest Morrack fashions, all exposed stonework draped in tapestries and curtains. The ewer in the corner even had a handle in the shape of a viper.

The Parable of the Mute Bookbinder

And yet he could not take Marcuccio as his apprentice, for how was he to instruct a pupil in the art of bookbinding? But although Ignazo could not speak, he could write. For a year and a day he wrote, describing all his methods and arts, from the pedigree of sheep for the parchment, to the age of the oak tree for the ink. In this way he taught Marcuccio in detail the production of a book exactly like the one he had himself written, save that the copy would be utterly blank. Upon the last page, Ignazio wrote his final instruction: Et omnia hic scripta scribas illic—And all that is written here, you shall write therein. And thus Marcuccio received the book, and studied from it. And after many months did he return to Ignazio, twin books in his arms.

#conlang #boral #conlanging #boralverse #alternate history #conworld #writing

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chicago-geniza · 2 years

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So Stefania does a lot with Jan and Anna as their corresponding street names in Korzenie (and of course she likens Anna to Salome and Jan to St. John, etc., there are layers to the Salome image too, with her silver dream and Słowacki's mother and and and--), however the Czarytorski museum is important. She's so attentive to art collections, to architecture, to urban geography. In Warszawa-Lwów 1939, the city moves from Kraków to Warsaw, but her approach remains the same. What I am saying is I think this passage, when the day creeps slowly into the room then arrives all at once--when Johanna is parting with Bichette--well. I think the description evokes Rembrandt's "Landscape With Good Samaritan," which was held at the Czarytorski--returned from Dresden in 1920 after its initial theft post-Kosciusko Uprising--and looted in '39. Read her description, then "read" the painting left to right, and consider Jelonka's conversion / relationship to Christian Poland / oft-cited Modlitwa poem re: the Good Samaritan parable and Bichette's reasons for staying behind.

#stefania tag #jelonka tag #warszawa lwow 1939

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queersatanic · 2 years

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"My Satanic Adventure or 'I was a Teenaged Satanist!' " by Isaac Bonewits

The [preceding] was first published in 1975 c.e. in response to a

In the city of Berkeley, California, there is a large T-shaped intersection at the main southern entrance to the campus of the University of California, where I enrolled as a sophomore in the fall of 1967, at the tender age of 17. Here, where Telegraph Avenue runs north into the east-west Bancroft Avenue, there is a large expanse of brick sidewalk between the traffic on Bancroft and the short cement pillars that mark the entry into the plaza between Sproul Hall (the administration building) and the Student Union. It was on those bricks that I spent many leisure hours heckling the preachers who held court there in the late 1960��s.

On a small soapbox (yes, a real, genuine soapbox), “Holy” Hubert Lindsey, gap-toothed, flaming-haired and loud mouthed, would hold forth to the multitudes about how sinful they all were. Mr. and Mrs. Tieman, a middle aged couple, would hold up large white posters covered with alternating lines of red and black magic marker, that told us how sinful and evil we were, while they sang hymns over a small loudspeaker. Off to one corner, the Krishna Consciousness devotees would bang away at their drums and chant on and on and on. Various “Jesus Freaks” would wander around accosting students and subjecting them to impromptu sermons (all carefully memorized). Scientologists would hand out tracts and Marxists passed out picket signs. It was all marvelously exciting.

Naturally, the favorite sport of many Berkeley students was “Let’s heckle the religion nuts!” As a new transfer student with an already strongly developed interest in magic and religion, I jumped right in with my fellows (almost all male) and started bugging the preachers. However, I noticed after a few months that our heckling had very little effect except our own diminishing amusement. The evangelists were immune to all the standard methods of heckling — the catcalls and philosophical paradoxes rolled off them like water off a duck’s back. The evangelical, gospel-spouting approach seemed impervious to all logic and reason. It was in my third quarter at Cal that inspiration hit me.

On a beautiful Spring afternoon in March 1968, I arrived at the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph with a small platform, painted black, a small loudspeaker, also painted black and a piece of black posterboard with alternating lines of red and white lettering. The top line on my sign said “The Devil’s Advocate.” It is impossible to adequately describe the horror and dismay of the preachers as I stood up on my platform, dressed all in black, and began a loud, long, sonorous sermon in my best southern accent — on behalf of the Christian Devil.

What I was preaching that afternoon was what I have since come to call “Liberal Heterodox” Satanism. I preached the Devil as Lucifer, the “Light Bearer,” champion of the intellect against repressive tyrannies on the one hand, and the original “party animal” on the other — sort of a combination of Prometheus, Bacchus and Pan. I had a “Hell” of a good time flaying my audiences for not being sinful enough, and for listening to the preachers. Inside of five minutes there was an audience around my platform larger than any of the evangelists had every raised. Some of them pretended to “heckle” me (and a few Jesus People actually did), but all their arguments were swept aside by classic preacher-think.

That day, and for many days thereafter, I practiced the art of improvisational street theater, using all the standard evangelical lines and parables to ridicule and confuse the preachers. I had been at my platform less than a week when a young woman came up to me and said, in a deliberately erotic voice, “Hi. I’m a Witch. Would you like to join the Church of Satan? You sound like you’d be perfect.”

Since she was rather pretty I quickly replied, “Hi. What’s the Church of Satan?”

“It’s the famous Satanic Church run by Anton LaVey in San Francisco,” she explained.

“Never heard of him,” I replied brightly.

“Well, you’ll like him. He’s into just the same things you are. Why don’t you go see him?” she said, handing me a card with his address and giving me a smoldering look that promised much.

So I went to see him. His hokey black house with the gothic furnishings has been described so many times by reporters that I won’t bother. Suffice it to say that I met the man and liked him very much. He was friendly, smooth talking, played the organ beautifully, and promised me much assistance in my endeavors to torment the campus evangelists. I was invited to join the Church, membership fees were waived, and I was invited to attend his lecture series for free! (The waiving of those fees, as well as those for the weekly meetings, I learned later was almost unheard of.) He handed me a bunch of literature from his Church to hand out and I went back to Berkeley bemused and intrigued by what I was getting into.

Well, three months went by. One of the members of the Church made me a more powerful loudspeaker and thousands of LaVey’s tracts were printed up and handed out. I eventually built a large black throne on wheels, with a tape recorder, microphone and umbrella holder to keep the sun off my head. I called this my “Sinmobile,” and wheeled it across campus every day to the evangelical corner, so that I could preach in comfort. In short, I really had a lot of fun that spring.

During this time, I became a regular at the Church of Satan. I attended LaVey’s lectures, went to his Friday night rituals, and quickly became one of his regular altar boys and a “Satanic Minister.” I’ll never forget the evening when I decided to ad lib some fake “Enochian” invocations during one of the ceremonies. I dramatically intoned a lot of gibberish, using the same guttural tones that Anton always used, and everyone in the ritual acted very impressed. Afterwards, I asked Anton, “How’d you like my Enochian?” and he gave me a look that would have melted sheetrock. He did not, however, warn me of the dangers of mucking with this ceremonial language, as any real Enochian magician would have done out of sheer self-preservation (since they all believe that it is a terribly powerful magical tongue), nor did he complain that I had ruined his magical intent, as he would have done if he had actually been doing any magic. It was at that point that I realized two important things about Anton: he really didn’t know very much about Enochian and he wasn’t actually trying to do magic in his supposedly magical rites. I began to wonder if he even knew how.

But I continued to hang out at the Church, discussing magic, philosophy and Satanic theology with Anton and the other members and trying (unsuccessfully) to seduce some of the rare young women in the Church. Occasionally I would even flirt with Anton’s teenaged daughter — which really flipped him out, despite the fact that she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I never was able to figure out whether he was jealous, worried about protecting her virtue, or concerned that my “commie” attitudes might be contagious.

At one point that spring, some friends of Anton’s showed up with cameras and started filming bits and pieces of faked-up rituals. Since I was still an enthusiastic ritualist, I was drafted to play various silly parts in these. I climbed into a coffin with a naked woman while wearing a bishop’s costume, stabbed a poppet with a knife, asked the high priest (Anton, in his Red Devil costume) for Satanic blessings, etc. I can’t remember any of the dialog at this point, but I do recall Anton telling us that what we said didn’t matter much, since everything was going to be translated into European languages for the “documentaries” the men were making.

Well, he was telling some of the truth for once. Parts of these films did indeed wind up in documentaries, such as “The Occult Experience,” but those parts were in English. These are the films that people in the Neopagan community see every couple of years or so, and which shock them so much — apparently they can’t see that I’m only seventeen in them, so they write me letters full of concern or denouncing me for my “betrayal” of Paganism. The foreign translations, however, were done for the bits that were spliced into pornographic movies sold in Europe. His so-called documentary film producers were actually pornographers, though the films I acted in were pretty tame. I don’t know about the “acting” other Church members might have done then or since, though I’m told that LaVey later earned his living for a few years in the European pornography industry.

To me it was all just another part of the adventure. I continued to listen admiringly to Anton’s tales, though I was somewhat shocked when he claimed that his huge library of occult books had been swindled from rich widows. I was more shocked when I realized that he had read only a tiny fraction of them, and that at seventeen I had read far more books on parapsychology, comparative religion and the occult than he had, despite his twenty years’ head start.

These events and insights did not take place in isolation, though. Like many other Berkeley students, I was gradually becoming a long-haired radical. This caused increasing friction between the rest of the Church and myself. My politics then were basically left wing/anarchist with a mild dash of Nietzsche. Anton’s politics, and those of most of the central members, seemed to be quite a bit more conservative. They’d quote Nietzsche or Hitler or Rand and tell me what it supposedly meant. Then I’d give them what I thought of as a more humanistic and intellectual interpretation. The overlap between our opinions became increasingly smaller and I became increasingly uneasy about my fellow Church members.

Some were bringing authentic Ku Klux Klan robes and Nazi uniforms for the ceremonies. I was assured that the clothes were merely for “Satanic shock value” to “jar people from their usual staid patterns of thinking.” Then I would talk to the men wearing these clothes and realize that they were not pretending anything. I noticed that there were no black members of the Church and only one Asian, and began to ask why.

Then I went away for the summer, living with my eldest brother in southern California and converting him to my brand of Satanism. Since he was an intellectual humanist, this wasn’t hard (he became Wiccan a couple of years later). We had an enjoyable summer, I made a few public appearances on behalf of the Church, then it was time to return to Berkeley.

Upon my return, I found that several of the members of the Church were coming to me for magical advice, instead of to their Glorious Leader. This was apparently the final straw for Anton. It was early in October, shortly after my 18th birthday, that I was called aside for a talk by one of the “Inner Circle” members (one of the pornographers), about my “obnoxious and deviationist tendencies.” I had previously been told about “odd” accidents and arrests that had occurred to others who were purged from the Church, so I tried to be as conciliatory as possible. But crewcut right wingers never have brought out the best in me, so I probably wasn’t very convincing. A week later, after the services, I was ordered to go downstairs to the “orgy room.”

When I arrived in the sanctum unsanctorium, I found thirteen people in black hooded robes sitting around a coffin-table. I was told to stand with my heels against the side of a mattress that was on the floor, with my head directly under a strong light. They then began to berate me for my deviationist thinking. The whole inquisition would have been a lot more impressive except for two factors: firstly, I recognized most of the voices as being those of the same flakes, weirdos and losers I had been meeting all along as members of the headquarters crew. Secondly, I had just finished reading a book on brainwashing techniques — the same methods that were now being used on me to force a “confession and retraction” of my “erroneous ways.” My immediate impulse to laugh was stifled, however, by the fact that I was surrounded and out-numbered by several large men, whose voices were getting increasingly loud and fanatic, and my memories of the supposed Mafia and police connections Anton had.

The smart thing to do was convince them that I was small fry and not worth arranging a fatal accident for. I proceeded to faint back on the mattress. Ignoring the fact that I had repeatedly informed them of my activities as a drama club member in high school, they all laughed and hauled me upstairs. Five minutes later I “revived” and left in a very subdued mood.

A couple of weeks later I sent Anton a suitably wimpy resignation letter, offering to refrain from all public comment about the Church and to return the public address system to the man who had provided it to me (something that never happened, though I waited two years, because members had been forbidden to communicate with me — although several later did).

I went back to my previous ways, continuing for two more years the fascinating game of evangelist-baiting. Several other religious and magical groups recruited me and then kicked me out for heresy. Gradually, I became used to the idea that there were damned few groups around who wanted independent thinkers, and that most of the organizations I infiltrated or joined (from even before I came to Berkeley) were likely to kick me out the second I started deviating from their party line. Fortunately, I discovered the Reformed Druids of North America shortly after being purged from LaVey’s Church, and those tree-hugging Zen anarchists were just what the Goddess ordered. I’ve been a Druid and a Pagan ever since.

I’m still amused more than angered by the cyclical attacks against me in the Pagan press and now on the Net. I’m not sure that my foolishness as a teenager is particularly relevant to my present character, opinions and activities, any more than the foolishness of many other famous Pagans during their adolescence. Shall we all investigate what Starhawk, Selena Fox, Ray Buckland, Oberon and Morning Glory Zell were doing when they were seventeen? For that matter, what were LaVey, Aquino, and Flowers/Thorsson doing during their teenaged years? (Pagan computer hackers take note, this could be an entertaining research project.)

I’m perfectly happy now, as I was then, to admit that I was stupid to get involved with LaVey and his Church, and even more stupid to reveal my precocious knowledge of the occult and to advise members of the group behind the guru’s back.

Yet any magically- or mystically-oriented person must be willing to accept that if they experiment or engage in adventures, they are liable to be made a fool of, be ripped-off or have their reputation smeared by those who belong to or sympathize with the Power Elite. I was curious about LaVey and his group and let them recruit me. I find it difficult to be sorry, although LaVey expected me to be, that no new members were brought into the ranks by my efforts — after all, my chief aim had been to torment and fight evangelists and fascists, not to help them.

I said back in 1974 that people desperate to smear me would inevitably bring up those months with LaVey, for lack of anything better to use, and that prophesy has come true several times. The (re-)publishing of The Enemies of our Enemies, however, brings them out of the woodwork every time. Michael Aquino, the neo-nazi head of the Temple of Set, has been especially active in spreading carefully crafted lies (he’s a career military intelligence officer, after all) about my time with LaVey. His professionally written disinformation is precisely targeted to make feminists, civil libertarians and Neopagans disgusted with me, especially if they are unfamiliar with propaganda techniques. Various other Satanic crackpots, some of whom were denouncing me many years ago, join in with equally ludicrous accusations and sophomoric insults.

The primary claim these folks are making (other than the traditional one most my critics use: “Isaac is a terrible person, don’t listen to him”) is that every one of my opinions about past and current Satanism has supposedly been warped by my “bitter experience” with the Church of Satan when I was seventeen. To this very day, I am supposed to be horribly ashamed of having been purged by them, and using any excuse to attack these innocent philosophers. All of which ignores some glaringly obvious facts.

(1) I’ve been kicked out of lots of occult groups over the years. I haven’t spent much of my time denouncing entire theological movements related to them, because most of them weren’t very representative. Anton, however, along with Montague Summers and Adolph Hitler, was a seminal figure in the modern Satanic movement, as even his enemies and competitors (such as Aquino) cheerfully admit. So LaVey provides one excellent example of just how shallow, patriarchal and fraudulent Satanism is.

(2) As I’ve said before, you can’t be in the occult community for six months, let alone thirty years, without meeting a wide spectrum of Satanists, Setians, Luciferians, Gnostic Dualists, Chthulians, and other proud upholders of the so-called “Left Hand Path.” I’ve met scores of Satanists, “black magicians” and other idiots trying hard to impress me with how philosophical, evil, and/or dangerous they were. After a while, the shallowness of their thinking and the repetitiveness of their dysfunctional personalities becomes stunning in its cliche-ridden banality.

(3) I’m a professional occultist and a scholar of minority belief systems. I’ve read plenty of Satanic/Setian literature and found none of it plausible. I’ve studied the historical record of how the Roman Catholic Church invented modern Satanism. I’ve read the work of genuine authorities and found their academic analyses far more convincing than the self-serving clap-trap produced by folks trying to make big bucks out of conning the rubes.

My knowledge of Setanists and Setanism is observational, historical, philosophical, and extensive. Thus, my comments in “The Enemies of Our Enemies” that Satanists and their ilk tend to be “fascists, jerks and/or psychopaths” who don’t care a fig for anyone’s civil liberties except their own, is accurate, historically sound, and rather mild.

Anyone who bothers to read the trash that LaVey writes (or rather that he puts his name on — he bragged to me about how he had gotten various members of the Church to write the different chapters of his first two books for him) will notice certain familiar attitudes permeating the contents. His version of Satanism, like the Christian mythology it is a part of, is racist and sexist. His right wing nonsense is part and parcel of the patriarchal worldview that Goddess worshippers and Neopagans abhor. If Adolf Hitler had decided to publicize his occult beliefs, they would have wound up sounding much like LaVey’s (or Michael Aquino’s) writings — though with dashes of libertarianism thrown in to make it sound oriented towards individuals.

The “philosophy of Satanism” is deliberately designed to appeal to the KKK or American Nazi Party type of mind: all those ignorant embittered failures who are convinced that “there’s a conspiracy” to keep them from their rightful places as rulers of the world. Even the Satanists who consider themselves “pre-Christian Gnostic Dualists” still accept the same patriarchal worldview that lies(!) behind Christianity, dividing the universe into warring armies of Good and Evil.

Members of the Neopagan community have some fairly simple choices about how to react to disinformation campaigns against me:

They can read my writings on the topics of Satanism/Setianism, Neopaganism and civil liberties, and analyze my arguments to see if they make sense regardless of any biases I might or might not have.

They can decide that a man who has spent his entire adult life as a priest of the Earth Mother may be a more reliable source of information than people who glorify the Christian “Father of Lies,” and reject poison pen letters/newsgroup posts as self-serving Setanic propaganda.

They can decide to believe the worst possible stories about me because I’m a pompous, cantankerous grouch and they would like to see me taken down a peg, regardless of whether the tales are true.

They can choose to ignore the whole controversy as requiring too much mental effort to bother with.

These last two choices may or may not lead to

5. cozying up to the Setanists, joining with them in legal and public relations work, helping to improve their public image and confirming mainstream fears that Satanists and Pagans really are the same after all — thus playing directly into the hands of the people who would like to imprison and/or kill us.

No matter what decisions the members of the community may make, I hope that they will respond in writing to the various Neopagan publications, newsgroups, and chatrooms in which the Setanists usually dominate this discussion. Defending or attacking Isaac Bonewits isn’t anywhere near as important as creating a consensus among Pagans as to what relations — if any — we should have with Satanists and other fundamentalist Christians. That requires strong Pagan positions to be articulated, Pagan arguments to be carefully scrutinized in the light of Pagan polytheology, and Pagan hearts to be looked deeply into.

We don’t let Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell dominate our internal community debates. We shouldn’t let other Christian outsiders do so either.

The [preceding] was first published in 1975 c.e. in response to a number of vitriolic attacks against me by various Satanists. In 1992, I [Isaac Bonewits] was once again the target of a Satanic poison pen campaign, caused by the publishing of my essay The Enemies of Our Enemies (which should be read in conjunction with this). In 1996, I decided to update this essay and to make it available once again to the Neopagan community. Now, it’s 2001, we’re on the Net, and I continue to get nasty mail from Satanists/Setanists, only now it’s obscene email!

By the way, for those who never caught the reference, this essay’s title was a take-off on a famous essay by Israel Regardie, called “My Rosicrucian Adventure.”

#Isaac Bonewits #Church of Satan #Anton LaVey #Setanists #Satanism #paganism

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