#VISCERAL EXORCISMS

[askmrtorgue]

WHY THE F*CK DO ALL THESE TINY GHOSTS KEEP TRYING TO STEAL FROM BOWL OF PORCH GRENADES!?!?????!????!??

#EXPLOSIONS #VISCERAL EXORCISMS

[gothedrals]

also. being physically affected by brian may’s guitar work in ways I forgot were possible

#it’s VISCERAL hearing new guitar parts from him #I’m moving like I’m having an exorcism #g

[leafy-m]

not in the fandom, and not out of the fandom, but a secret third thing (haunting it like a ghost)

#Hhhhhhhhhh #When will I be free #Yes this is about D******* It's always about fucking d******** #Posts from 3am because apparently even years later I will still wake up viscerally angry at this series' bullshit #Someone exorcize me

[irisintheafterglow]

I Know I'll Be Living in Vain (gojo x you)

summary: you wake from a nightmare in a state of panic. he's there to ground you back in reality.

wc: 2.2k

cw/tags: hurt/comfort, established relationship with pet names (babe, baby, sweetheart, beautiful), gn reader, found family with megs and satoru, nightmares, panic attack, swearing, mentions of food and eating

notes: so this is part 1 of a little series i'll be doing surrounding the shibuya incident and gojo's uh...absence for all yall anime-only people. based on the song "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" by Taylor Swift and Zayn because it just fits??? so perfectly??? anyway hope you enjoy! this is also for all you found family lovers i see you and i understand you.

likes/reblogs/feedback is always appreciated <3

He feels it viscerally in his body at the same time you do, a wall of unfathomable malice that you were never supposed to feel in the first place. It’s heart stopping, the same realization of making a mistake that ricochets your life in an unpredictable direction. Dread sinks like an anchor into his stomach and he forces down the nauseous lump gathering in his throat. He tries to train his expression into blankness, but he knows better than to deceive the King of Curses. 

“Hmm…” Sukuna’s dark eyes narrow in concentration, thoughts elsewhere instead of the sorcerer in front of him. “Someone is…reading me.” A tense beat of stillness settled between the two fighters, out of place compared to the wasteland of a city that they treaded on. Then, in a blink, both him and Sukuna are gone, racing to get to you first. He’s an eighth of a second too slow and you feel vicious claws dig into the back of your neck from your seat on the ground. Electric blue eyes meet yours, wrought with despair and suppressed rage. You always loved that the most, how his eyes always seemed to give away what he was feeling even if he didn’t say anything. Flashes of memories flicker in your mind like stop-motion film, pulling him closer in your bedroom or intertwining your fingers on a walk back to the school. Every time you looked in his eyes, you could read him; you could read his sorrow, his grief, his wrath, his joy, his love. It was different, now, from any time you’d looked at him before. 

For the first time since you’d met him, Satoru’s eyes were filled with fear. 

You blink, scared to breathe or feel the ache in your legs after being crossed for too long. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen and this meeting would cause catastrophic consequences to the plan in place. First, the non-sorcerers would break from the trance you’d put them in. They would then panic within the confines of the veil, causing the sorcerers within to divert their attention to crowd control rather than exorcizing Curses. Civilian casualties were going to increase exponentially all because you were never supposed to read Sukuna. From the look on Satoru’s face, he knew it too, and he knew it was his fault that the confrontation entered your technique’s radius in the first place. It broke your heart to see him so distraught, overwhelmed by your impending death because he wasn’t careful enough.

“This your little friend, honored one?” Sukuna’s face is a cruel sneer; he knows having you puts Satoru on the defensive. “Well?” Your head is roughly pushed forward and you cry out, face contorting in pain and frustration as Satoru’s fist opens and closes anxiously. You wordlessly pleaded with him to just attack even if you got caught in the crossfire because, as much as he was on the defensive, Sukuna was underestimating his humanity and it left him vulnerable. But ultimately, you were in the wrong–you underestimate how much Satoru needs you. 

“I didn’t think you were one to get distracted, your majesty.” You catch the slightest waver in his voice as he attempts to appear uncaring about your situation. He wasn’t succeeding. 

“Nor did I think you would stop your attacks just because another sorcerer is in your way.”

“Maybe I’m catching my breath ‘cause I didn’t hold back before.”

“Then why do you choose to now?” 

“I’m just giving you some time before we go all out again. My mother always said I had pristine manners.” In any other scenario you would have burst out laughing at the sheer inaccuracy of that statement, but all you could do was choke out a sob of disbelief. His eyes flick to you again and the muscles in his jaw clench. “Beat me first and save your,” an elegant hand waves around aimlessly in a forced show of indifference, “prize for later.” You catch his nervous swallow as his body physically rejects referring to you as an object. 

Sukuna hums in faux-thoughtfulness before his grip tightens enough to draw blood. You gasp at the warmth now dripping down the sides of your neck. “You could have beat me at any point, you know, if you didn’t stop for one measly human.” He spits the last word like it tasted disgusting on his tongue. “For one so godly, you are disappointingly just…a man.”

“Spare their life or I’ll show you just how godly I am.” There’s no more aloofness in Satoru’s body language. He’d given up his asshole-exterior to desperately negotiate for your life. The world would end because Gojo Satoru loved you too much. 

You dodge his gaze like it was a plague and silently will him to stop looking at you, lest he jeopardize both of your positions. It was too late, though. Sukuna shakes his head, patronizingly clicking his tongue in distaste. Satoru’s initial hesitation upon seeing you had given too much away. “Pathetic. The honored one should know better than to waste time on emotional attachment.” 

You feel a scorching hot sensation on the back of your head before your eyes fly open and you shoot upright in bed, hand flying to your mouth to muffle the ragged exhales from your heaving chest. It’s impossible to stop trembling and you struggle out of bed, careful not to wake its other occupant. You’re barely able to make it to the bathroom and splash your face with frigid water before the adrenaline crashes into your body in the form of a strangled cry as you recollect your nightmare. It violently wracks your body in unnatural tremors that have you holding the edge of the sink for dear life, drowning in your own worsening spiral. It wasn’t the first time you’d experienced a nightmare like this, but what frightened you the most was how realistic it felt, especially considering the rumors running around this year’s Halloween. It takes you several minutes to regain control of your body, leaving your head aching from the fluorescent lights in the bathroom. After patting dry your sweat-sticky skin, you quietly re-enter your room to find Satoru awake and waiting for you. You’re grateful to the darkness, for once, because it almost hid your swollen eyes and incessant shaking…almost. 

“Hey, I’m sorry if I woke you.” You try to keep your voice even while you slip back under the covers and his arms instinctually pull you into him. Your body continues running hot and you wiggle free from the blankets, instead searching for his natural warmth. He definitely could hear your racing heart rate but you still force feed normalcy into your words. “You can go back to sleep now. I just needed to pee. Too much water before bed, you know?” It’s quiet for a time and you sigh in relief, thinking you’d successfully fooled your excessively protective boyfriend. You’re on the edge of falling back into unconsciousness when his low voice grounds you back into reality. 

“You had a nightmare.” With eyes still shut, your breath hitches despite the relaxingly lazy circles he traces on your back. “I know you’re still awake, by the way. You breathe differently when you sleep.” You fight down the impulse to teasingly call him a creep and keep your eyes closed. Trying the silent route again, his calming touch abruptly pulls away as does the rest of his body. Groaning in frustration, you surrender and bury yourself further into his chest, muttering how you hated him and his stupid tricks. He huffs out a lighthearted chuckle, fingers returning to work on your skin as you finally look up at him. “Talk to me, beautiful.” 

“It was just a bad dream. I’m fine.” 

“You’re just as terrible of a liar as a fake-sleeper. It’s a good thing you became a sorcerer and not an actor.” He smirks when you glare up at him, eyes shining with triumph at pushing your buttons. 

“If you’re gonna be an asshole, then get out. I’ll call Suguru and Shoko to cuddle me instead.” You flip over and begin crawling out of bed again when lean limbs snake around your body, caging you against him with both his arms and his legs. He breathes an exhausted sigh against your neck that gives you goosebumps. Guess joking-Satoru had enough of your antics.

“I know the difference between when you have a bad dream and when you have a nightmare. Bad dreams don’t have you bolting up and stifling sobs in the bathroom because you think I can’t hear them. I hear them, every single time. It breaks me, you know?” Your heart pangs in sharp guilt but he only pulls you closer. “Please, baby. Talk to me.” You let him rotate your body so that your head rests on his chest and you inhale the unwaveringly strong presence of him. 

“I dreamt something went wrong during an attack on a city. I was evacuating and you were fighting Sukuna and…” Your voice cracks as you relive the dream in your mind’s eye, wincing when you remember the all-too-real look on Satoru’s face as you die. “Sukuna got to me.” His arms tighten around your body and you squeeze your eyes shut to block out the flood of bad dreams that unlocked as a result of this single nightmare. “And I really don’t fucking know, I just–”

“Do you remember that time we took Megumi to a splash pad? Tsumiki was at her first sleepover and we stole him away for the weekend.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the sudden change in the conversation and you look at him, only to see him staring off into the ceiling. “Yeah? I mean, we stole him away for a lot of weekends. Why do you–”

“He hated that place with every fiber of his tiny body.” His eyes fondly flutter shut, pretty mouth curling into a grin. “I remember we had to bribe him with ginger chicken just to get him to stand near one of those fountains. It was for the greater good, though, since I think the universe was trying to roast us alive during that summer.”

You smile at the image of little Megs’ frown and crossed arms as he reluctantly steps closer to the brightly colored water structures, arguing the water is freezing. From your lawn chair in the shade, you remind him that the water was the whole point of bringing him there, to which he further scowled in protest. At some point, both you and Satoru ended up with soaked clothes after running around the playground to escape the unbearable heat, with Megumi finally playing too after your boyfriend slipped and fell. When you asked Satoru why he didn’t use Infinity to avoid getting wet, he shrugged and explained that it was more fun feeling shivery and cold with you. One of your favorite memories of the day came after losing to him in a slide race where he definitely cheated, when you had to stand under a bucket that tipped over once filled with water. But, a second before the bucket could tip, Megumi yanked Satoru’s arm toward you and all three of you ended up getting drenched. “Did we actually end up getting him ginger chicken? I thought we warped back to the school.”

“Mhmm, we did. I was the one who drove across the city to get it in your beat-up sedan.” The corner of his mouth quirks in lighthearted indignance.

Your jaw drops in realization and you can’t help giggling as the memories click into place. After deciding warping was a better alternative than getting your car wet, Satoru went to get your car and drove it back to Jujutsu Tech after all three of you dried off. You put on some random movie for Megs to watch in Satoru’s room and called to ask about dinner, only for him to say he already had it and was pulling into the parking lot. You three ate dinner cross legged on Satoru’s bed and ended up falling asleep there too. “Hey, that beat-up sedan got us lots of places before we started warping everywhere.” 

“Yeah, and it could probably handle every circle of Hell if you needed it to. It would need a new left blinker, though.” 

You lightly poke him in the side and he yelps. “Because you backed it into a telephone pole!” 

“That’s your fault for letting me drive in the first place, sweetheart.”

“You are a menace to society, Gojo Satoru.”

“This menace to society got your mind off that shitty nightmare.” Oh. That’s what he was doing. “Your silence tells me I’m correct.” Your continued stunned silence must be interpreted as contradiction and he’s quick to backtrack on his declaration. “Or at least in the ballpark–” 

“Shh, yes. Yes, you are correct.” You place a finger on his lips to stop his words and close your eyes against his chest, clinging to the happy memories with Satoru and Megumi to force out the intruding scenes from your nightmare. “You really amaze me, do you know that?”

“Sounds like you have a crush on me.” 

“Worship the ground I walk on, Satoru,” you state flatly but can’t help smiling through the end of it. His soft laugh vibrates against your face as you finally start to drift into sleep again, this time confident you could keep the nightmares at bay.  

“I already do.”

#jjk x you #gojo x reader #gojo x you #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #satoru gojo #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #gojo jjk #gojo satoru #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo x y/n #gojo x y/n #jjk angst #jjk hurt/comfort

[after-witch]

Hello hello, do you happen to have any movie/show rec for like dark content...?? I liked YOU but kinda lost interest around the second season lol. I love your work! You do seem to be like a soul who has great taste in media, so I just thought I'd ask. 😅 I could also use some media recs in general! Movies, music, shows, anything you love!Thank you so much! 💖

Hi! I don't really have any recs similar to You (IMO season 1 is the only like.... genuinely good season, though I wish it kept the books visceral darkness at the end) but here's some horror movies with darker content that I like-- (note this films may have graphic violence, sexual assault, other dark themes)

Zoo (2005); horror anthology based on a short story collection by Otsuichi. Some super fucked up stuff here. I also recommend the book!

Cabin By the Lake (2000); about a horror movie writer who gets some very direct inspiration for his works. Absolutely underrated gem!! It's got a bit of an obsessive/dark love feel to it. There is a sequel that is even more OTT, not as good as the first one though, but it's still neat.

The Night House (2020); A suddenly widowed woman starts having disturbing dreams in their shared home. LOVE IT. Actually have a prompt from last year's Horrorfest for this one that I'm working on.

The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); this film gets a bad rap!! It's got some creepy moments, an underlying theme of an obsessive demon... I suppose you should watch the first film before watching this one though.

Suicide Circle (2001); this film was my personality for way too long but it's still a damn good movie. Very dark, bleak, gory but in an OTT way. The sequel, Noriko's Dinner Table, is also very good.

Nightmare on Elm Street Series; I mean, they're classics. I'd say films 1, 2, 3 and "A New Nightmare" are essentials. But especially 1 and A New Nightmare. 2 is drastically different, 3 is when it starts getting silly with quips and gimmicks, but I love the character of Nancy who appears in 1 and 3 so...

So many more but my brain is blanking... hope this gets you started!! I will say "Zoo" and "Suicide Circle" are definitely the more extreme of these movies, maybe not to every horror fan's taste.

#ngl I think I'm bad at providing recs because my taste is just all over the place

[monakisu]

DUDES I WITNESSED A LIVE EXORCISM IN CHURCH TODAY my mom dragged me there and after dancing for freakin 20 minutes straight (like HARDCORE DANCING that had me PANTING and LIGHT-HEADED) they held a little sermon or something then a longass session for ppl to pray and trill like birds (speaking in tongues). then a girl started shrieking as a huge crowd mobbed her and the sermon speaker kept yelling “OUT!!” at her like when u try to wrangle ur unruly dog so she ended up collapsing into a sobbing heap. also there was a guy deadass asleep on the ground right next to the possessed girl. he had a blanket and everything. can u do that in church? just pass out? is that allowed??

and apparently when loads of different people try to pray for me they always burst into tears (thanks mom and co). the pastor plastered herself right up against me (she is a tiny grandma but i still felt viscerally intimidated) and began praying very seriously. unfortunately i am EXTREMELY TICKLISH so her vibrating voice had ME vibrating from BARELY RESTRAINED LAUGHTER and she thought i was crying so she started crying too and that doubled her vibrations so i nearly choked to death in the middle of church!!! i was boutta see my homeboy jesus right then and there!! i never want to go back to church again!!!

but my crush will be there on saturday so maybe 🤔

#im not even christian but i do think of jesus and mary as my cutiepie babygirls #but my sister said that was BLASPHEMOUS #diary of a dead man

[donnyclaws]

leopard is literally my drag monster icon i strive to look like it if i ever do drag shows one day. do you have any central themes for leopards drag other than the sea? id love to see it in like dog/werewolf themed drag

ARUGRGRG HONOURED, he's very much whatever i want to be too. Strap in I'm gonna take this as an excuse to ramble about this and drag persona thoughts. Like I've been trying to define my own persona for a minute, been going hog on pinterest boarding for myself and disparate inspirations, almost too many to wittle down without just getting in and exploring shit obviously. And I felt silly about letting Leopard be my character, but then it's like. What's more drag than having a person in your head that makes you feel powerful and speaks to you. So it's like well I guess it's you then huh. Guess that's gonna be me. I figure it's like fashion in general where I like a lot of it but what I like vs what feels good to wear is a different question.

Anyway yeah Sea themeing is really really central to them. I really like the idea of its fashion being very shredded, body focused, visceral but then also with aspects of like old glamor because it's just cunty, it's compelling and striking. Love love love that kinda heavy droopy hooded eye look and bold lip moment, high brows. Divine is a big insp.

I also LOVE when drag artists have associated textures with their fashion. barnacles, mould, burns, general distress, seaweed textures, old harbor ropes, everything about estuarys and ship docks that are aged ect. diving suits, any kinda cargo jumpsuit, handyman tradie core butchy labor. Second association I've kinda pulled from is lace / religious vibes because it's also reallyyyy compelling to me. Again TEXTURE dense wool, dense lace, weathering, rusty charms, crosses, sheer fabrics weighed down by chains and old belts and boots. THICK material gross denim.

The idea of being "Taken over" by unpleasantness and poor hygeine. I grew up in a way that was like viciously conditional, like trying to isolate the problem to appease but every part of your body has its own separate disappointments and harms, every part of your brain, clothes, presentation, you know. Like Leopard to me is the worst case sceneario to the parent and the abuser, like it's every trait they wish was left at the doorstep and away from them and it's like taking every bissected part of your brain and body that trauma cut into pieces and putting it back into one body that's like. Okay. I'm not in fragments anymore I'm unified by repulsion and indulgence. It's like that whole thing of being trans is like being your own murderer, to your parents idea of you. Leopard's like something that was drowned and came back, it's like all the black stuff purged after an exorcism became a person, you burned it alive and now it lives in smoke, it's a lace bridesmaid haunting you and it's laughing. Right. Warped memory come back to life, it's waking up. I don't really want to call it a vengeful character as much as it's just like. it's taking all those unpleasant cuttings and infections and stitching them back together.

Anyway anyway I'm indecisive, still early days obviously, and I don't have a drag mother so I'm just feeling it out in whatever way I can. uhhhh anyway here's some dogged up leopards. The first one doesn't really Feel like it to me but the 2nd one absolutely is. I'll probably workshop it more, drenched seadog. wouldsmell so bad. Again trying to see how I can include different motifs for it while still coming back to those core themes.

#the audhd beast is being viciously unleashed rn okay #art tag #leopard #blood

[hallucinateonpaperspines]

Is anyone else really disturbed by Breakdown’s end? Like I can’t watch anything zombie adjacent now because of that shit. Like? I respect the hardcore aspect, and it was a deliciously ironic end that, in my opinion, emphasized that no one was a bad/good guy while humanizing the cons. But, mercy on my soul, I STILL can't watch that episode without going into a panic attack.

Doesn’t help that during my first viewing I was young enough that the whole death/torture/desecration concept hadn’t quite hit my little noggin… or the fact that I accidentally skipped a few REALLY important episodes. So I went from “BD is a little banged up, but he’s fine, he’s with his bestie KO” (because child me Sucked at subtexts) to “Why is Breaks strapped down to a table? … why are they looking at him like that? … why is Knocky smiling like that? WAIT- why is he asking Screamy for help? Why is- WHAT THE FICKETY, WHY IS HE VIBRATING AND LOOKING LIKE THIS AND MAKING THAT SOUND?” And noped right out of there as soon as the exorcism vibes kicked in.

Also did not help that this was late at night, I was by myself, and my parents were under the assumption I was sleeping.

I did not, in fact, sleep that night.

I love TFP, I’m still in the fandom, and I’ve done everything but watch the Human Factor and that nightmare of an episode. I've read the scripts, seen reactions, individual clips, literally EVERYTHING but actually sit down and watch it. I tried once, in full daylight, but I had such a visceral reaction that I couldn’t make it past the title card.

I’m not a squeamish person, I’ve seen actual horror movies (more slasher-oriented but the Alien franchise can get me anytime), crime shows, and my major, by default, exposed me to some pretty gnarly stuff for educational purposes.

BTW our bodies are amazingly wonderful things, but please take care of yourselves! Hydrate, take a stretch, take a deep breath.

I’m not squeamish, but that whole thing has made me incredibly sensitive to just this horribly specific vibe of horror. The desecration, sadistic torture, and self-righteous hubris. It makes my skin crawl and I have to physically leave the room. Reading Frankenstein for my English class was a pain until I could figure out a way to mentally compartmentalize it.

My rage at the Doctor may have been slightly biased as a result.

Does anyone else have this? Where a source of childhood comfort also contains one of the foundational pieces that formed your fears?

#tfp #transformers prime #aligned continuity #tfp breakdown #Breakdown's death #rambles #ramblings #I really hate Silas #but that was brutal to everyone #this is how i know im an empath #i cry when robots die

[linkspooky]

Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 201 Thoughts. 

It’s highly ironic the last two chapters are Kenjaku in Geto’s body, making some of Geto’s worst fears come to life. Geto always warned that normal  people could use sheer numbers to exploite and harm sorcerers.  . While Geto’s methodology was entirely in the wrong (murder is bad) people perhaps his fear of the masses who can’t use jujutsu turning against the few who can use jujutsu are not as unfounded as they once seemed. 

When Geto says that the weak oppress the strong with their superior numbers, what does he mean? 

1. Exorcise. Consume. For whom? 

It’s sort of hard to go “Hmm, maybe Geto had a point” because his way of making that point was mass murder, but I think a lot of people understand what the points that Geto was trying to make are. His methodology is godawful, but both his criticisms for the jujutsu world and his fears aren’t completely unfounded. 

Geto’s believes are founded in a fear of the “weak” repressing the “strong”, where the “weak” are those outside the Jujutsu World, common, ordinary every day citizens, while the “strong” are individual Jujutsu Sorcerers. 

The first and visceral response to this idea is obviously, sorcerers are not oppressed. There’s an idea in literature criticism called the X-Men Fallacy. The X-Men Fallacy comes from the X-Men comics, and it’s a caution against using people with superpowers oppressed by their society as a metaphor for oppressed minorities in real life, because it is essentially legitimizing that oppression by giving a reason for it. If people really could shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs, it would make sense people would be cautious of that because it represents a legitimate danger. There’s no legitimate danger of say, a gay person, any violence or oppression against them is senseless. 

Sorcerers don’t work as a 1:1 metaphor for real world oppression of minority groups, but I don’t think that is exactly what Gege is going for. As a group of people Sorcerers are not opppressed by any government structure, there’s no laws against them, etc. etc. (True the americans are targetting them now but I’ll get to that). However, Sorcerers en masse are exploited. 

What do I mean by exploited as opposed to oppressed? In order to prevent the deaths by curses, Jujutsu Sorcerers are expected to fight Curses basically around the clock. Not only do they risk their lives on exorcism missions on a daily basis, they are raised to do this since children. The Jujutsu world is also incredibly insular, Sorcerers rarely have much of a life outside of their duty of exercising curses. There are some people like say certain members of the Zenin clan, (Mai and Maki) who are not even allowed to have a glimpse of a normal life because they are raised with the expectation to be sorcerers so there is no alternative path out of it. 

This works much better as a real world comparison, after all there are plenty of people who work dangerous jobs and are exploited for their labor, and society requires people to do that job for the whole of society to function. This is also imagery we are shown multiple times in the manga itself, sorcerers are referred to as cogs in a wheel, people doing a job eliminating curses so the majority of society can function. Megumi calls Jujutsu sorcerers a cog, Nanami calls Sorcery a “Shit Job” like his nine to five finance job albeit one that helps more people, Yuji calls himself only a cog in the machine that exercises curses. 

This is also something about sorcerer society that is something generally accepted and taken as unchangeable, sorcerers will continue to die fighting curses for the “greater good of all of society. Needs of the many, etc. 

Geto’s main criticism of Sorcerer Society is questioning that exploitation. Why should sorcerers have to continually die, especially in service of an ignorant majority that does not know that sorcerers are fighting these battles for them in the first place? 

Its a legitimate criticism, one that is distorted later on by Geto’s own feelings of sorcerer supremacy. However, Geto’s ideals are pretty clear in the Hidden Inventory arc. He starts out believing similar to both Megumi, Nanami, Yuji, that this is the way things are, sorcerers have to use their abilities to protect the weaker common people from curses.  They are obligated to use their great powers in service of others.

 There’s nothing wrong with that ideal or sense of resposnibility per se, it just doesn’t measure up to the reality that Geto faces. First, that idea is rooted in the idea of sacrifice for the greater good. Utilitarianism etc. The strong should keep the weak in check, Jujutsu Sorcerers should be used to help the greatest amount of people possible. The problem with utilitarianism is how alluring it sounds. It makes sense to sacrifice the few for the many, because that’s numbers right, until you are one of the few who is sacrificed. 

One of the greatest critiques of utilitarianism ideology is as follows, “What do you quantify as an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good?” It’s a question with no real answer because people will argue how much is worth sacrificing over a perceived gain, and who should be doing the sacrificing. 

To name another example, have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemna? 

The prisoner’s dilemma presents a situation where two parties, separated and unable to communicate, must each choose between cooperating with the other or not. The highest reward for each party occurs when both parties choose to co-operate. [SOURCE]

However, the rub is both robgbers can minimize the total jail time that the two of them will do if only they co-operate and stay silent, but they are offered incentives to betray each other that they are faced seperately, which will drive them to defect and end up doing maximum total jail time between the two of hem six years total. 

Another example of the Prisoner’s dilemma is known as the Tragedy of the Commons:

It may be to everyone’s collective advantage to conserve and reinvest in the propagation of a common pool of natural resources in order to be able to continue consuming it, but each individual always has an incentive to instead consume as much as possible as quickly as possible, which then depletes the resource. Finding some way to co-operate would clearly make everyone better off here.

In other words both of these principles show that even in situations where it makes sense logically for people to cooperate for a common good and it would lead to the best result, people will instead act for individual good instead, because humans don’t behave rationally. 

Geto’s ideals that make sense, are then confronted with the senselessness of human behavior. He’s challenged in two ways in the Hidden Inventory arc. First,  when He and Gojo are asked to sacrifice a girl for the common good, Jujutsu Society whose ideal is to protect the weak are essentially asking Geto and Gojo to kill a teenage girl as a sacrifice for the sake of the many.

This is the first time Geto’s ideals don’t hold up to the reality of his job, because he cannot protect the weak individual (Riko) and protect the weak collective (jujutsu world and outside) at the same time. A strict utilitarian would say Geto should accept his mission, and sacrifice Riko for the common good. However, Geto’s ideals don’t lie in utitilarianism, they lie in the fact that Sorcerers are obligated to use their powers to protect the weak. 

So, Geto is asked to do reconcile these two very different ideas. His own ideals on how the ewak should be protected by strong people like him and Gojo. And Sorcerer Society which asks Sorcerers to fight curses and make sacrifices en masse in order to protect the weak. Sacrificing Riko is in allignment with Sorcerer Society’s ideals, but against Geto’s personal ideals. HOWEVER. Geto doesn’t realize this yet, and he attempts to reconcile them. He attempts to have both at once, continue with his duty as a sorcerer, and also protect Riko. His logic being that him and Gojo should simply be strong enough to do both. 

And of course they’re both wrong, because no individual on their own is stronger than society. In the context of the fight, despite caliming they are the strongest, both Gojo and Geto working together were not enough to protect Riko in time even if Gojo did kill Toji by the end of the fight. 

This is the first time that Geto’s high ideals come crashing down in reality. There are two things he believes in, because the strong protect the weak he will be able to protect people like Riko in front of him when he chooses too. Geto can’t live up to that paradigm he puts on himself when he fails to protect her, he has failed in his perceived duty. 

The second is Geto’s belief that the sacrifices sorcerers make for the greater society have a purpose, that they fight to protect the greater majority of people and therefore for that goal any sacrifice is worth it. Which once again, returning to utilitarianism, sacrificing for the greater good is something that seems to make logical sense until you’re the one asked to make the sacrifice.

Geto never abandons his idea of the strong protecting the weak. That people who have power should fight for those who don’t have power. Rather, his idea of who weak people are changes because of what he witnesses. 

Geto sees a little girl murdered, because a cult of rich and powerful people paid for Toji to do it. He’s met with the seneslessnes of the violence. A little girl isn’t even sacrificed for the greater good of stopping the danger of Master Tengen’s evolution, she’s sacrificed because a bunch of sick people with the money to do so killed a little girl for their demented religious beliefs and then applauded their deaths. Jujutsu Sorcerers have strength in the sense that they can shoot laser beams, but they don’t have traditional societal power, they don’t have money or influence, they are in all aspects a fringe group on the edge of society most people don’t even know about. 

At the beginning of the arc Geto says, that the Star religious group are the ones that they don’t need to worry about because they’re not curse users. Only to have it turn out to be them as the ones directly repsonsible for her death, yes Toji killed her, but only because the Star Group paid her too. They used money and societal power, the power of the majority, something Jujutsu Sorcerers don’t have. 

This prompts Geto to ask himself the question, who is really the weak one in this situation? Who is it that he should truly be protecting? 

Geto talks about “reason” because he assumes the world to be rational. Jujutsu Sorcerers assume society runs like a machine that works, when it truly doesn’t. In Geto’s mind, his actions of exorcising curses, should achieve the greater perceivable benefit of a better, safer society. However, instead what Geto witnesses is the opposite. Sorcerers work themselves to the bone exercising curses, only for the situation not to improve at all. “Exorcisms and consumption” especially relates to ideas of laborers as an exploited people in the greater scope of capitalism. Say you’re a factory worker making a product that essentially nobody needs, but is sold anyway, because captialism is desired around a model of endless consumption, people make things, because people buy things. People need to constantly buy things to keep money flowing. However, if you are factory worker A, even if you get paid for your labor, it’s difficult to see your work as amounting to anything if all you do is make a cheap product no one needs. Of course in this case Geto is presented with what seems like a sacred duty, slaying monsters to protect the innocent people.  

Yet in reality, sorcerer’s live extremely short lives, young sorcerers die in hideous and gruesome deaths all the time, and while less people die on a grand scale it’s also true that sorcerers are dying left and right and yet the number of curses made in the world doesn’t decrease. Yuki Tsukumo’s point is that the current system of exercising curses one by one is unsustainable. Geto’s point is that sorcerers will continue to die, and they’re even expected to always make this sacrifice, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over. 

Geto’s snapping point is also, him witnessing again a year later the same thing he witnessed with Riko’s death. Not only is the extreme labor that sorcerers are expected to perform for an unknowing population a violence already performed against sorceers. There are also other ways sorcerers are exposed to violence. Even if sorcerers are individually strong, they are one outnumbered by normal people who can band up together to do violence against them, the way the town of people forms a mob to cage these two little girls based on superstition, and two sorcerers have no real money or political power. 

Mass Murder was Geto’s method. It was the way Geto saw to achieve his ideals. Geto’s ideal is a world where Sorcerers don’t die over and over again exercising curses. A world where this status quo of senseless death and exploitation changes. And yes, sorcerers are exploited at least for their labors.

 They are a fringe group, they have very little say in their lives, they’re expected tow ork and devote their entire lives to that work, and it’s incredibly dangerous and deadly work, even young sorcerers are expected to risk their lives. Geto’s not wrong in the fact that it’s unjust to build an entire society on the sacrifice on these countless nameless sorcerers. And even as Geto’s methods become more murdererous, this idea at the center of his actions is that it’s unfair that sorcerers be expected to make this sacrifice over and over again. Sorcerers are in fact mistreated by society at large, despite the fact that they are indivdually strong (they can shoot laser beams) they are also expected to labor hard all of their lives which usually lead to short lives. It’s like, everyone agrees child labor is bad right, and yet for society to currently function as it does people Yuta’s age are asked to continually go on missions where they may die. 

Geto’s disillusionment just causes him to mistake belive the only response to a society where sorcerers are relatively powerless and stuck with their lot in life is “sorcerer supermacy” that is, to retool society where sorcerers rule. THis is also where Geto falls victim to the same trappings of sorcerer society he pretends to be above. Sorcerer society runs on might makes right. Sorcerers believe that stronger sorcerers are better, stronger sorcery techniques are better, everything is run on individual strength. Geto’s replacing one world where individualism reigns for another, because despite being a radical and seeing clearly there is a problem here he can’t escape the box society has trapped him in. He even uses a might make right methodology. Well, clearly, if the problem is that regular humans who can’t use sorcerer have us outnumbered ten to one, then we should just kill them all, the stronger, better people will rule.

Ignoring the obvious flaw in Geto’s plan that sorcerers are constantly infighting, and sorcerer politics is incredibly conservative and cutthroat Besides the obvious “murder is bad”, Geto seems to ignore the fact that if sorcerers were left as the only ones running the show, all the problems of sorcerer society would still be there and they would still be constantly killing each other over infighting. 

Anyway, my long dive into explaining Geto’s ideals and his critiques of how sorcerer society is ran is eventually leading to this, Geto’s fears that sorcerers may be exploited by the majority are literally coming true as of Kenjaku’s actions. 

Once again this works better as a labor exploitation metaphor, then a minority one. Kenjaku is propopsing that sorcerers can be used, not just as labor to exercise curses, but also as a literal resource. 

The trappings of utilitarianism, what seems to make sense as a sacrifice for the greater good of society, in this case a small sacrifice to create a clean and renewable energy that will solve the energy crisis, seems reasonable until you are the one expected to make the sacrifice. 

Kenjaku even references the tragedy of the commons here. The president is against abduction and human experimentation UNTIL his advisors mention that other countries might want to abduct and experiment on the sorcerers instead. THe common sense solution is that no one experiments on sorcerers. However, when it’s possible that someone else might do it instead, and they might get this resource that we do not have, and therefore put them at advantage over us THEN WE HAVE TO HAVE IT INSTEAD. Tragedy of the commons play out in real time. The logical solution is for no one to conduct experiments and everyone reaps the benefits, the most appealing solution is ONLY WE GET THE BENEFITS. 

This is also Geto’s fear playing out in action, that people outside of the Jujutsu World can use numbers, and resources such as money and political pull that Jujutsu Sorcerers do not have in order to move against Jujutsu Sorcerers. I think Gege uses the word “Minority” with tact here, they’re not an oppressed minority because there is societal oppresion against them, but rather beause they make up a minority of society, beucase they are in small numbers and have no political pull it would be incredibly easy for the president of america to just, send a number of soldiers against them. The small size of the Sorcerer Community makes them vulnerable and unable to protect themselves if and when others on the outside decide to gang up on them in larger numbers. 

Once again, the American's actions aren’t to like, oppress the sorcerers but rather to use them as an exploitable resource. They are already being exploited to exorcise curses, but now the political powers all around the world may do something as inhumane as kidnap them and experiment on them, for some perceived benefit of cleaner energy, or whatever, and they can get away with this because they have the power to do so. 

Geto’s fear revolved around the ideas that this might happen, especially after witnessing it happen twice, an entire small town beating on two little girls and locking them in cages, an incredibly rich cult paying for the deaths of a fifteen year old girl. The majority can find reasons to justify violence against sorcerers, and sorcerers because of their small numbers cannot really defend themselves against that violence. That was always a risk, and now we are seeing it play out in real time. So, let the sorcerer hunt begin. 

#geto suguru #jjk 201 #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen 201 #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 201 spoilers #jjk spoilers #suguru geto #satoru gojo #kenjaku #noritoshi kamo

[veinsglisten]

The Black Dog is heart-wrenching

“shaking” “rain-soaked body” “in the shower”

“was it hazing / for a cruel fraternity I pledged / and I still mean it”

the diction, the scenes it depicts,

the sadness and desperation it conveys

so raw and visceral

“esoteric joke” makes me think of jack’s line on anti-hero about “art bro…talking shit about [his] famous baby”…

missing the smoke, the house on fire

the exorcism and screaming

the imagery it paints

and the dynamic she creates when singing

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #ts ttpd #the black dog #taylor swift ttpd #ttpd references #ttpdpoetryweek #ttpd analysis #ttpd theories #ttpd era #ttpd the anthology #ts11 theories #ts theories #swifties

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“The whole film is about the seduction of fascism, done as a satirical comedy,” says “El Conde” cinematographer Edward Lachman, who alongside director Pablo Larraín spins an alluring horror story about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a bloodthirsty vampire living out his final days. Pinochet’s unchecked power lasted for 17 years beginning in 1973 and influenced every corner of the country, including the church.

Depicting the religious perspective in the narrative is Carmencita (Paula Luchsinger), a nun sent to perform an exorcism who instead is seduced by Pinochet and wants to become a vampire herself. With a single bite she drops her rosary beads and flies outside. Photographing the sequence was done practically over green screen for its realism. A rigging crew specializing in aerial work was brought in to hang Luchsinger from wires attached to a large crane. Camera crews then filmed her performance as she glided through the sky like a bird finding its wings. “Working off what’s there, the light, the wind, her movement in that space, all those things contributed to a visceral experience,” says Lachman. The moment of power doesn’t last long for the character — a fitting warning for those who try to seize it for their own gain.

#LA Times #Cinema #movies #fascism #edward lachman #Pablo Larrain #Augusto Pinochet #vampire

[transenbyconfessions]

Transition (poem)

A possession of the body A body unfit For the ghost inside Who cannot leave

Perform an exorcism Though which one should be only guessed How does a ghost leave a body unfit? How can it leave without knowing to get out?

The body is heavy and hurts to live in Heart made heavier by weight upon the chest It has two hundred fifty reasons to be upset And the number only grows each and every night

But the face is as gorgeous and perfect as nature And change is always visceral and terrifying Maybe the ghost should wait in its body Keep the wretched body to love the gorgeous face

How should the face change if possessing someone else? Should the face be neglected for the sake of the body? Would the ghost love itself if the problem were reversed? If the sacrifice is self-love for self-love, is it worth it to change?

Submitted July 5, 2023

#transgender #trans #enby #nb #nonbinary #non-binary #non binary #enban #dysphoria #gender dysphoria #poem #poetry

[mlobsters]

supernatural s12e8 lotus (w. eugenie ross-leming, brad buckner)

i wanted to revisit that little lucifer!vince meltdown in 12x07 because i thought maybe i was too high to parse what was happening or something. i definitely misunderstood something, but the emotional content still doesn't make sense to me. anyway, details about partial confusion resolution

i didn't think anything was gonna top the leviathans in most loathed (but more in a boring way) villain but british men of letters are bringing the eye rolling heat.

CROWLEY Lucifer's not content with slutting it from one random vessel to the next. He's moving on to blue chips—celebrities, captains of industry. He just got a lot more dangerous. CASTIEL I agree with Agent Zappa. DEAN Oh, will you stop?

i laughed but like, it'd be more fun if cas was trying to rile him up instead of being in clueless robot mode. feels like we get a different cas every episode

there is something amusing about crossing this trope of the catholic church getting infiltrated by the devil and they try to exorcise him with the spn universe where lucifer and exorcism is all a very different kind of beast.

and now he's in the president, of course. they really have defanged lucifer. now he's getting the cartoon villain treatment too. mark played him on this edge of charisma and creepy and ... actually scary, in a way that he felt like a real, solid threat. who had done awful, awful things to our sam specifically, that left him deeply traumatized. anyway, it's not just switching actors, but this story they're wedging him into.

swift kick to the gut while i'm sitting here musing on a president leading a morning prayer that this aired in december 2016.

LUCIFER It's almost like I've never done that before.

???????

i also had a visceral hate of the rape references/"jokes" lucifer repeatedly made to sam (were they all hallucifer? imagine so) this makes ZERO sense. and also, what the fuck, is this a sitcom? oh the literal devil is feeling offkilter because he's just had sex for the first time teehee aww. WHAT

SAM Crowley, can we just get the damn news without the drama? CROWLEY Can I get you without the flannel? No. Still, I endure.

lol good one, crowley

look at me not overreacting about sam sneaking off to make an aborted phone call and trying to hide it. why the fuck is he calling the bad mol people though...???

having serious dick roman flashbacks with this lucifer plotline.

CASTIEL There's been a massive surge in celestial energy. A Nephilim is come into being. It's the offspring of an angel and a human. DEAN And that's big news? CASTIEL Yes, but the power to produce this is immense. It's much, much greater than a typical angel. SAM Lucifer. DEAN W— Lucifer? I didn't know he was dating.

again, are we in a sitcom? tone of the episode is really not meshing with the jokes they're going for, for me. is this gonna be the nephilim i've heard of?

SAM Do we have a plan? DEAN Impeach LOTUS and find Rosemary's Baby.

oh, silly me. i was thinking lotus the car brand, thought the episode might have some car-slant. lucifer of the united states 🥴

seeing them clearly in the car, outside, makes me realize just how much of the driving shown is at night (for production reasons, obviously)

required hair appreciation note. maybe i had to slog through some truly atrocious haircuts/styles and sideburns to fully appreciate getting here

god. i have such a kneejerk queasy reaction to take five by dave brubeck. my brief stint (during a really Bad Time in my life) at university i would kill time between classes at a place near this cd shop on campus. they played take five over and over and over and over. it's a great piece of music but it still immediately throws me back into this really miserable headspace.

that said, i do think it was used well in this scene. and that was a really good little action sequence, nice tight pacing. sam and dean's reaction to the explosion was really good and it felt like they were right there (and magically baby did not get damaged by the explosion right in her face). cas standing in front of it, unbothered, cliche but still fun. but then fucko had to start talking and i mentally checked out.

coulda had fucko drive up in a lotus but no, bentley 😔 probably harder to obtain a lotus in whatever, vancouver

hurray sam's furtive phone call to bad people already addressed in the same episode.

introducing all sorts of goofy ass weapons. sure, why not

is there a snappy name for this team-up?

CASTIEL The thing inside you, it's unholy. It's an abomination.

great. surely she's gonna want to keep the lucifer!baby then

the magical egg scene went on way too long. i guess it was supposed to be high stakes zapping lucifer back to the cage but god it's just all so not.

i really love how crowley's teleportation is silent, no vfx other than cutting so he's just gone. it's surprisingly effective. anyway, kind of hoping they can work out their problems. good pair

the whole dean being somewhat in awe that they got lucifer felt... i dunno. like ok so is this when we find out he didn't actually end up in the cage?

uh. why are dean and sam there just hanging out with the president? and getting arrested? what. great. my fave.

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 12x08 #sam's hair #spn clip #dave brubeck #kinda veered into #spnwhinge

[lovejustforaday]

2023 Year End List - #1

夢之駭客 Dream Hacker - Otay:onii

Main Genres: Post-Industrial, Experimental

A decent sampling of: Neoclassical Darkwave, Electroacoustic, Glitch, Industrial Techno, Drone

Brace yourself, cause from here on out this is mostly just gonna be me fanboying and gushing uncontrollably.

Back in 2021, I had championed the Chinese American singer/songwriter/composer/producer/performance artist Lane Shi Otayonii a.k.a. Otay:onii for her experimental record Ming Ming on that year's roundup, describing her potential to become "one of the greatest producers of the decade". But who is this enigmatic artist?

Lane Shi divides her time and energy between creating and touring with her hardcore noise rock band Elizabeth Colour Wheel, and performing studio black magic with her solo project under the Otay:onii name.

She is also an artist who regularly alternates her base of operations between two worlds, residing at different times in New York City and Shanghai. The duality of her identity as a Chinese American is a narrative thread that appears many times throughout the artist's work, informing some of the thematic elements of her records.

According to a really great interview she did with the YouTuber Heinos, the moniker 'Otayonii' itself is actually a name that was given to the artist when she met a Seneca First Nations man, who asked if he could call her by the name for 'wolf' in his ancestral language. She liked the sound and what it represented, and so decided to own her new given title.

Musically, Otay:onii is primarily a post-industrial project, but Lane Shi regularly incorporates aspects of darkwave, glitch, drone, traditional Chinese music, and electroacoustic music into her work. Her signature sound is equal parts atmospheric, lovecraftian, primordial, playful, and frenetic. She's kinda like if an ancient vengeful demi-god reemerged from the bowels of the Earth, and learned how to download and play around with studio software on a laptop.

As a vocalist, Lane Shi possesses a contralto range, and falls under one of my favourite niche categories of woman singers I like to call "force-of-nature belters", along with the likes of Tanya Tagaq and Björk. She has a trademark lower register that I would describe as a witch's snarl, a gentler middle register, as well as a higher register that she usually reserves for piercing battle cries and wailing like a banshee.

Her 2018 debut Nag was a comparatively more minimalist, grayscale undertaking, heavy on the more ambient and gothic tones of her sound. A genuinely solid first effort, if a bit less memorable than later records, barring the deliciously dreary eponymous song which is still among her very best.

2021's Ming Ming was an upgrade in all respects. Pulling major influences from Chinese folk music and folklore, I described the record in my previous Otay:onii review as a "true Pandora's Box . . . like the story of a mortal who attempts to enter the realm of the gods". Lots of ominous industrial cyber-magic, with a rare few moments that could have perhaps been edited down or omitted altogether to increase the force of its impact.

So, what to make of her latest then?

Dream Hacker is an exorcism. An inferno of ancient eternal flames envelops this absolutely bonkers and surreal listening experience. Each song carries powerful buildups in intensity combined with impossibly elegant structural competence. Far and away one of the most visceral and transcendent records I have ever beheld. This gets into your bloodstream, like an innate, raw instinct towards entropy.

Otay:onii's work has never sounded quite this immediate, energetic, and dynamic, thanks to the incorporation of avant-garde industrial techno beats that gives the whole project a mighty propulsion. Even during its quieter moments, you as the listener are never far from being engulfed in its unruly fire and brimstone. So many little leftfield moments that made me audibly go "what the fuck?" upon my first listen, too.

To me, this is album of the year not just because it poses the best collection of songs from an artist in 2023 (which, to be clear, it does), but also because it forms the most cohesive and fully realized project of the year. Every moment of this record feels intentional, meticulously crafted, and designed to fit accordingly into a larger entity. This is almost a living, breathing organism unto itself.

Lane Shi described how much of the inspiration for Dream Hacker came to her in a dream, or as she sees it, an "astral projection". Within this dream, she says she witnessed stones being thrown by a child until two of them overlapped, followed by a great light which emerged from the center of the overlap. The imagery was profound enough that she ended up naming most of the tracks after different aspects of what she saw in the dream.

The album starts with humble beginnings. "You Do/Rub" is a two-parter, opening with the haunting, softly swirling piano ballad melancholy of "You Do". The lyrics are deeply cutting and vulnerable, as the artist ponders her shaky relationship with her father as a daughter of the generation where China had implemented the one child policy, breeding stigma against female offspring in the more conservative rural communities. Lane Shi wields her voice like a delicate blade, gracefully and artfully interrogating her father's worldview. The progression of the piano's melody suggests a kind of resolution in ambiguity, resisting rigid, narrow-minded answers to multidimensional questions.

Then quite abruptly, "Rub" completely overtakes and drowns out the serenity of the softer piano song, like a sudden onset computer virus infection. What becomes of this part two is honestly one of the most immaculate timbral frequencies I've ever heard. A glitchy, droning wall of madness forms in dark, ominous, tempestuous clouds all across the sky. Warm colours are sucked out of existence by a black hole, leaving only greyish pale blues. The soul is washed with abrasion until all that's left is the ability to observe. Sound design on this is fucking unreal, as though Lane Shi Otayonii is wiping clean of our universe, leaving only a empty slate to form the basis for her own new sonic domain, wherein she is god of all things.

"Light Burst" is the combustion spark of a rebirth of all things that comes immediately after. Lane Shi let's out a shrill cry of tremendous power and agony amidst the grinding dust and debris of an incredibly dense and intricate industrial techno concoction, built upon her long standing love affair with minor second chord progressions. This track does not relent, adding more and more layers to its already colossal tower of babel proportions until, just as suddenly as it came into existence, it vanishes without a trace of detection.

"Two Rocks A Bird" oscillates like an electron creating new electromagnetic waves. Sound particles split into atoms that dance in a mindless frenzy. Even as a regular Arca fan, I don't think I was ready to comprehend something like this the first time I heard it. Subverted all of my expectations. I think the artist may have invented a few completely new sound textures on this track. A highly reactive new form of industrial music.

After deliberating with all of the sheer fucking brilliance to be found on this project, I eventually concluded that "Overlap" was my favourite off of the record. Like the best song on her last LP "Blackheart Breakables", this is an epic midpoint that just continues to build and build, feeding endlessly like a malignant being that cannot be stopped. Hand drum beat patterns are mutated, modulated, and mutilated by industrial electroacoustic mechanisms, while a synthesized flute echos a most forlorn and sinister melody.

Lane Shi takes on the shape of a skillful pyromancer, testing her newfound powers by conjuring a sea of flames that I visualize with my mind's eye as something similar to the Darvaza Gas Crater. Alternatively, I imagine thousand year old stains of bloodshed on the tombs of a ransacked temple, or the ancient terracotta soldiers of Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum brought to life for the purpose of ushering a new war. "Overlap" is just something else, man. My other pick for song of the year.

"Ritualware" opens with a rare calm, dreams swirling on the outskirts of a newborn world that has not reached its zenith. The spacious void bursts to life with a single, literal drop (another brilliant production choice), creating ripples in space-time that give way to a trumpeting sawtooth synths' cacophonous symphony.

"Good Fool" brings things to a stirringly harmonious denouement. The light of the last candle is blown out, and a creeping dusk sets in. Petals of sound float along the wind and promptly dissipate, as everything reaches an uncanny stillness. A hushed, rapid-fire breakdown of bass drums, hand drums, and gongs occurs as the final closing act of the record.

I know I've already said this like a dozen times before about a dozen different artists, but it really needs to be said here - more people should know about Otay:onii. No one I've discovered has been doing anything as consistently exciting, challenging, and infectious as this project in the last few years. As it stands right now, the artist is criminally unknown and criminally underappreciated.

Dream Hacker is the rare ambitious record that dares to be so challenging and not only lives up to all of its potential, but manages to make the old formula of doing things look incredibly obsolete by comparison. Not many avant-garde music albums are this ridiculously fun to listen to, let alone manage to capture sonic worlds that are this truly sublime.

I've probably listened to this at least 40 times in the last year, and I plan on at least doubling that number in the following year. This is not just my album of the year; it is my top album of the 2020s as a decade so far, and already one of my favourites of all time. This record sets my soul ablaze and I simply can't get enough of it. Otay:onii is my new religion, and Dream Hacker is the scripture.

10/10

Highlights: "Overlap", "You Do/Rub", "Light Burst", "Two Rocks A Bird", "Ritualware", "Good Fool"

#album review #music review #list #aoty #year end list #favourite music #favourite albums #aoty2023 #post-industrial #industrial music #otayonii #otay:onii #lane shi otay onii #chinese american music #experimental #experimental music #2023

[sloshed-cinema]

The Medium [ร่างทรง] (2021)

I never want to hear the name ‘Mink’ uttered ever again. This film more than met my quota, screamed out, intoned, shouted, cried, you name it. All of these calls go out to the lost soul and victim-cum-antagonist of the film, a young woman who appears to be the next chosen shaman for the local deity Ba Yan, but is instead the vessel for something much darker. This disproves the enlightened centrism of The Exorcist: Believer—while ceremonies to rid a body of demons may be common the world over in a superficial sense, the procedures required to carry that out are incredibly culturally and spiritually specific. When The Medium gets to its pivotal ceremony, it’s incredibly intricate and chaotic and direct, all webs of white threads and sigils and gongs. This, along with the more formal documentarian style of the opening stretch was what filled me with hope for this film. It didn’t seem to want to resort to cheap, corny found footage nonsense that’s been rehashed infinite times before by this point. It’s disappointing that the film wants to have its cake and eat it too. The immediate leadup to the exorcism is a ClifsNotes version of Paranormal Activity, all spooky scares presented like flash cards, and when things go south with the ceremony it quickly becomes just more shaky-cam chaos as people get killed left and right due to poor decision-making and listening skills. Horror can be pulpy and visceral, but it should still feel original. Tropes are a shorthand tool, not a crutch.

In a way, the film doubly slights the viewer. A central through-line seeks to comment on the conflict between religions in Thailand. In the Isan region, as the opening narration notes, the handling of spirituality is very specific, upheld since time immemorial. Buddhism intertwines with this for many, performed in reserved fashion as the titular shaman Nim favors, or with a more tent-revival flair as fellow practitioner Santi prefers. But Christianity exists, too, and a facet of this trauma emerges from Nim’s sister rejecting her faith for another. This factors into the tragic outcome, Noi repeatedly asked to take Ba Yan back into her heart but never fully accepting. But this operates on a purely surface level. Where a film like The Wailing uses a conflict like this not only on an aesthetic or plot level, but also to comment on social conflicts through a lens of horror, The Medium simply points to a disparity and says “this exists.” Thanks, I kinda noticed that before.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'Mink'.

Someone is standing menacingly in a scene.

Intertitles appear in a scene.

BIG DRINK

Nim cracks an egg.

The documentarians are told to stop filming.

The film needlessly repeats itself.

#drinking games #the medium #rang song #horror #horror & thriller #thai cinema #banjong pisanthanakun #found footage horror #found footage

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A few days ago, I wrote a piece noting that Georgia Republican Senate contender Herschel Walker, who faces Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnoff in a December 6 runoff, owes Peach State voters the release of his medical records. As Walker acknowledges, he has a history of dangerous and reckless behavior. He played Russian roulette with a loaded gun and fantasized viscerally about committing murder, and his ex-wife says he once held an ex-gun to his head. Walker asserts he doesn’t remember that horrific incident, but he claims other troublesome actions and violent thoughts were the result of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which causes a person to have multiple autonomous personalities. (Many mental health experts question whether this disorder truly exists.). And, Walker maintains, he has been cured. So regarding the violence in his past, Walker essentially says, It was my other personalities, and they no longer have a grip on me.

But there’s no proof of any of this.

Walker has not released medical records, which presumably would confirm the initial diagnosis and show the treatment he underwent. They also would disclose his current condition. Might Walker still be afflicted by DID, despite his insistence he has been “healed”? Walker is covering up, providing no documented details of his professed bout with DID or his purported cure.

Georgia voters certainly deserve to know if they might be electing to office a man who still suffers from what was once popularly known as Multiple Identity Disorder—think Sybil—and who could at times be controlled by one or more alternative personalities.

Once upon a time, Walker himself agreed with the notion that political candidates—at least those running for president—ought to demonstrate that they are mentally and physically fit to hold office.

In September 2020, Walker, then almost a year away from announcing his Senate bid, responded to the popular right-wing talking point that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was not mentally acute enough to serve in the White House. Walker proposed that Biden (and Donald Trump) submit to exams to determine each candidate’s physical and mental health. In a tweet, Walker, a former football star, declared,

"I was also thinking then when I played how they used to—we had to take physical and mental tests to make sure that we can take the grueling tasks that we had to do. And now, since everyone is questioning Vice President Biden, I think that”ll be fair to both candidates if before they debate. I think both candidates need to take a physical and mental test to see if they’re up to the task of being president of the United States ’cause this is a grueling, tough position. You know, I’m not saying I’ve ever been president, but I can tell you it’s tough, mentally and physically. So I think it’s only fair that both candidates take a physical and mental test to see if they’re able to do the job they;’e gonna be required to do."

Though the standards may be different for a president than a senator, Walker’s reasoning certainly applies to his own case. He has contended that he once was burdened by a mental disease that led to dangerous conduct and violent thoughts and that could hamper his performance in office. What might happen were he to be elected a senator and his alternative and violent personalities return?

Walker’s medical records would likely indicate whether he truly had DID—as opposed to the possibility that he’s hiding behind it—as well as reveal how effectively he has been treated and whether his “alters,” as they are called, are gone for good. Walker claims that he was cured by a Jerry Mungadze, one of Walker’s “best friends,” who has a Ph.D. in counselor education from the University of North Texas. Mungadze takes an unusual approach to treating DID that includes exorcism as an option. Have any medical doctors been involved in Walker’s treatment? His records should disclose that.

But in lieu of releasing his records, Walker could do what he called for Biden to do in 2020: submit to a mental health examination. After all, being a senator can be a grueling job, perhaps as grueling as playing in the NFL. During that campaign, Biden did disclose a summary of his medical records and the results of a recent physical exam. Walker has not even done that.

Mother Jones contacted Walker’s campaign to see if he planned to take such a test and make the results public. The campaign did not respond. It seems that Walker, who once prescribed testing to ensure the mental fitness of a politician, is now not willing to apply that standard to himself.

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