Elon’s Head

My boyfriend just woke from his slumber to tell me about a dream.  I was a security guard again and Elon Musk got the top of his head blown off by an assassin.  Somehow people didn’t immediately know who the body was and I had access to abscond with it.  He didn’t know why I wanted Elon’s body but he went along with it.

Then it transitioned to an annoyance dream, where I had given up on whatever designs I had for the corpse, and we were just trying to figure out where to get rid of it.  While we were doing that, I asked him to look on the internet, find out if people knew he was dead yet.  Reddit was the first place he looked, and no, the world was not yet hip to the scheme.

Anyway, he’s trying to go back to sleep now.  Good luck, my dude, and may the bodies lie concealed forever.
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Those Go-Go’s

The video for “Head Over Heels” is clearly trying to be a romp, a fun showcase for fun girls’ fun personalities.  Belinda is spunky and chipper, Jane is sensitive and romantic, and the other ones…  What is it saying about them?  Red-haired bassist Kathy is just sorta there.  Mullety keyboardist Charlotte is a nervous dorkwad who is afraid you’ll shove her in a locker if she stops rocking.

And what is the video saying about drummer Gina, with her plaid shirt, secretive glances at Belinda, knowing smiles with Jane, and uncanny resemblance to future celeb Kate McKinnon?  She’s the lesbian.  Isn’t that a hoot?  Actually, I do think that’s fun.  I don’t object.  I’m just finding it noteworthy.  This is me noting it.

MonsterHearts Days Two and Three

Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 2 — DEMONIC

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Horror Content, it’s a Spoopy Event Yo.

TITLE:  DER HEXENFLUG

CHARACTERS:  Young Marthe and demonic Dorothea.

PREMISE:  Marthe is invited to an artist’s commune in the Black Forest, and joins for the prospect of relative freedom from a repressive sexist culture.  But freedom was a trap!  The patriarchs were right, libertines are really demons that wanna drown you in devil sauce.  Dorothea seduces her with lust, of course, but also the power of flight.  There’s something about flying naked through the summer night that gets her ronks off.

THE HOOK:  Like Leánnan last year, there’s the romance of the succubus.  Is this sinister creature capable of genuine affection?  Marthe doesn’t know, but it feels like it.  It’s so passionate.  But then, it has to be a ruse, to drag her soul into hell.  When she lets herself be taken into the night sky by Dorothea, who knows if she will disappear into the darkness forever?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

book cover for concept "Der Hexenflug"

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 3 — NAUTICAL

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Colonizers Depicted Romantically, at Least Not Actively Colonizing as of Moment in Story.  Also War, and the Usual Horror Content.  Body Horror?  Sure, why not?

TITLE:  MEN OF WAR

CHARACTERS:  João and António, young Portuguese sailors who are star-crossed lovers.

PREMISE:  The characters are separated for most of the story, which won’t do for a romance.  Probably this could be accommodated with past / present intercutting.  In the past, the poor boys join a Portuguese merchant ship out of economic desperation.  They fall in love.  Classic sailor goof.  Then a Spanish ship attacks, killing everybody onboard.

João survives drifting on a hunk of wood until rescued.  Heralded for surviving those bastardy Spaniards, he goes to work in an admiral’s office.  He finds out Spanish ships are mysteriously having their crews wiped out by an unknown malefactor.  The admiral is cool with Spaniards dying, but wants to know why, for strategic reasons.  João volunteers to investigate by going undercover in the Spanish navy.

Meanwhile António survived by being mysteriously resurrected by an aquatic hive mind, a massively overdeveloped physaliid cnidarian.  He is incorporated into the hive mind, but empowered with lethal stinging tentacles, he crawls aboard Spanish ships in the night to kill everybody.

THE HOOK:  João’s Spanish ship is attacked by António and the lovers are reunited.  It’s cool, but it seems António is suffering more than just his monstrous condition.  They discover his vengeance is harming the hive mind, and he must return to sea.  Can João convince him to give up his vengeance?  If he does, will they be forever parted?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

book cover for concept "Men of War"

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MonsterHearts Day One

Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 1 — ELDRITCH

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Disability as a Plot Device, Theosophy

TITLE:  TULIP MY TULPA

CHARACTERS: Zach, a cool guy who can barely move and cannot speak.  Tulip, a being with her own spiritual reality, born from his mind.

PREMISE:  Zach was living the cool guy life until the motorcycle accident and the traumatic brain injury.  Living at home and barely alive, his mom the medical woo-meistress talks to him about the things one can do with their mind.  Things like creating a real separate person from yourself, with whom you can keep company while too crippled to speak aloud.

He does the deed, creating a tulpa in his mind named Tulip.  She’s great, in a way, everything he wishes he could be.  But Tulip does have a mind of her own, one bent to love and nurture Zach.  They realize at some point the esoteric spiritual exercise has granted Zach the possibility of recovery from his locked-in state.  But there is a cost.

THE HOOK:  Zach’s mind-body connection is toast, but if he replaces his own mind with that of Tulip, he’ll be able to speak and move more normally again.  But to do that, he’d have to let his own mind dissolve completely.  Tulip loves him too much to let him do that, but also loves him too much to let him stay locked-in forever.  What’s a girl to do?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

book cover for concept "Tulip My Tulpa"

USA, More Weimar Than Weimar

A few years ago it was hot to compare the USA to the short-lived Weimar Republic of Germany, the one that was replaced by the nazis.  The situation in Germany was largely attributed to the punitive treatment of country after World War One.  Somehow (demonizing socialism, never meaningfully addressing any crimes the US committed, never willing to face the hateful core of America’s real values), we did this to ourselves, no major military loss necessary.  Congrats?  Anyway, the comparison never stopped being valid.

Right now we are even closer to nazi rule than we were under Trump himself.  The way power is structured in this country guarantees the GOP a seat at the table, and they’ve gone full goosestep.  Many states are already falling under laws that are equivalent to the book burning at the Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  Don’t say pronouns law?  Rampant book banning?  The dismantling of a single university in Florida under that state’s governor?  The exact mirror of Bolsonaro’s raids on universities in Brazil.  Expect it to go nationwide as soon as we have a nazi president.  I’d say republican but at this point that is fully redundant.

The howling jackals of fascism are gearing up for total conquest, and all they need is the executive branch to clinch the end of our weak-ass imitation of a democracy.  It’s just a matter of time.  They will get the presidency again.  One possible way to prevent a future nazi president from devastating this country with executive orders would be to curtail the powers of the president substantially.  I’d like to see that happen, but power fucken looooves power, and will never put meaningful restrictions on new powers that have been allowed.  The same way we can’t make meaningful taxes happen on the rich once they’ve been given breaks.

I was put in mind of this by the way there are good things happening right now, mostly from executive action.  There are executive orders, but also appointed heads of government agencies making progressive policies within their remit – like the way you can, for the moment, change your gender marker on your Social Security card or passport without need for proof documents.  Expect all of that to be reversed with a single pen stroke under the next nazi president.

It’s best to just be prepared for it, emotionally and physically.  Think, what will my role be under nazism?  We can’t all be armed fighters.  Some of us will have to settle for smaller acts of resistance.  As republicans expand their hate campaigns and shore them up in the legal systems of their states, anybody who murders a trans person, no matter how flagrantly, will be let off the hook – like Emmett Till’s killers.  For that matter, expect all reproach or rebuke for killer cops to end.  Many who have already been jailed will probably get pardoned.  At least the white ones.  Under a republican president, we may see concentration camps for trans people (we never stopped having them for immigrants), probably gay folk as well.  The idea has already been floated, in Arizona I think?  Jewish people will be far from safe.  I have no idea what kind of crack fucks like Ben Shapiro are smoking, that they are willing propagandists for the nazi side.

That’s the obvious stuff, the stuff they’re already announcing as future plans.  But what about the stuff that hasn’t been stated yet?  That is historically part of the fascist agenda?  Military conquest.  Fascism fucks a country up, and to maintain the illusion it’s a reasonable way to do things, they need to sack resources from other countries.  The easiest targets will be Cuba, Haiti, and other Caribbean countries.  Might see an Axis-type alliance with Brazil if things go sideways there again.  Ultimately Canada and Mexico would be occupied territory.  Hopefully no nukes will be used, but given the expansion of first strike capabilities under Trump, it’s anybody’s guess.  I’m guessing the Mexican resistance will do some righteous terrorism on our asses.  Maybe the resistance under Vichy Canada will also impress?

Eventually US fascism will fall to whatever nonsense comes next.  But consider this.  Even in nazi germany, some people could live almost sorta kinda normal lives.  Have love, have children, work, nurture, make art, etc.  Bad things will happen on a terrible scale, but life will go on, and eventually the worst things will pass.  Fight if you can, live if you can’t.  Don’t give up hope, because, ultimately, anything can happen – including your own happily ever after.

As always, long live the fighters.  Death to fascism.

The Satanic Temple is Still Bullshit

I remember this cute chubby wild-eyed dude breathlessly extolling satanic ideals when The Satanic Temple was newer, on some TV interview, I feel like it was in the great lakes area?  Principled blasphemy seemed their higher calling, something I can really get behind.  So when I found out they were egregiously exaggerating their ability to help people get abortions to snake funds from real abortion activists, that the founders are an unashamedly ableist eugenicist and a buddy to alt reich fucks, that they are shady as all hell on the business side, and that they are willing to dump millions of donated dollars into SLAPP suits against their detractors?  I was like.  Fuck.  I’m fed up with living in a world run by liars and thieves.  I gotta go take a nap.

But shitheads never sleep, so they’ve appealed the latest round of their repeatedly failed SLAPP suit against some queer satanic people in my home state, while still also suing a half dozen other people who don’t deserve it.  Give if you can, to my homies or to anybody who is opposing these crypto-fascist con artists.

edit to add: SRSLY THO

Anybody not bothering to read this for comprehension because it’s about those guys that made you chuckle one time, consider that if I had more traffic on this blog, they would already have hit FtB with another SLAPP suit, like the Richard-Carrier-ass hateful bitches they are.

 

Wanna be a Mastodon?

I’m not joining Comrade Hornbeck’s FreethoughBlogs-flavored Mastodon Instance myself for a few reasons, most notably that I didn’t have a Twitter to replace, never found that school of social media-ing appealing.  But if you want to join, you can comment here with the handle you’d prefer.  I can see your email in my admin panel and pass along word to HJ within 24 hours or so, and help him vet entrants with the relevant info.
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With Ecstatic Music On

That’s a Björk reference in the title to this post.  And she had an album called Post, so you know, approps.  I’m getting little episodes of mania, not necessarily rising to the level of needing treatment, but they give me glimpses of a worse life.  Insights.  I think this is a good example of the way mania messes with artistic types:  I have a novel to be writing.  So far it’s gone well, I was feeling the character and the action was compelling.  But as I have time to write on it this morning, I just want to listen to wild music, daydream about being a rock star.  Or at least doing cronchy electro-goth covers of The Go-gos, Danzig, Van Halen, and Madonna, doing videos for yewchoob where I act like a freak.  That’s what I’ll do with my life, yeah…  Fucken useless.
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Hobo Flotilla vs Hamster Plague

Another night during my battles with insomnia I had a vivid dream with cinematic scope.  Kyle MacLachlan in Dale Cooper mode played a government bureaucrat who by twist of fate was put in charge of a British industrial ship, during a time when a weather crisis had messed up global trade.  Most of the ship’s crew had been allowed to go home with a generous buyout, so the skeleton crew that remained was able to just maintain the boat in a lazy mode.

The plot of the movie revolved around a decision by Kyle to have the crew do something positive with their idle time.  This was treated feel-good and uplifting.  He got them to build a floating city to help with homelessness.  It was originally going to be in a foreign country – they got the parts somewhere like Indonesia or the Philippines – but they negotiated to have it parked outside San Francisco instead.  The city charged $100 rent to floating city tenants.

Years later Kyle was married to somebody from that crew and looking at retirement.  The couple were toodling around the ocean on a personal craft, and by talking to some aquatic hobo, found out the floating city was then moored in the neighborhood of Long Island.  They went to visit and found various people of limited means living there.  The landlord types had complaints about the students being rowdy and polluting.  They also talked about other issues in the community, like finding a humane solution for pest control, since feral hamsters had become the city’s rats.

Despite not being a class of people who would ever need income restricted housing, the couple settled there, for poetic reasons.  At this point in the dream the couple became my boyfriend and myself, and my brother was hanging around as well.  I had to take care of my cats, which included the late Momo.  For some kind of basic care, I had to routinely cut off all of Hecubus‘s legs.  It’s OK; they would grow back.  I was pondering to myself that maybe I could get away with not cutting off those legs this time around, or only cutting off one of them, and my brother was finding it bizarre that I ever had to do it in the first place.
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Mo FtB Mo Problems

I’ve been having the insomnias, and with only 2 days of sick leave in tha bank, I needed to get it under control.  I’ve been doing Zzzquil and melatonin every night.  Well, until last night.  I was so tired, I felt like, maybe I can do this with just a lil’ help.  So I only did the melatonin.  I woke up at 5:30 and it took a while to sleep again.

When I finally did get to the land of nod, it was a furious mash of dream waste.  Stock BS in elaborate detail.  I was at some kind of christmas event in the gold-drenched lobby of a hotel that was grading into a mall.  Looking for a place to sit I found some show for kids was the best spot, and took a seat there.  Conscious of the possibility I’d be seen as a pedo, I avoided looking at anything but the show.  I had a ziploc bag full of melty holiday cookies to eat.  The show was live entertainment at first but became a montage of celebs in holiday specials.  Charles Bronson was in the mix, with a grotesquely squishy face and surprisingly high singing voice.

At some point the dream switched to being about FreethoughtBlogs and the administration thereof.  One of the bloggers that posts less often was on a tear.  This wasn’t a real FtBer, but was something of a median persona as a middle-aged dude.  He had a regular enough post about politics or computer programming or something, but randomly at the end of it and without warning, he embedded a video of himself fully naked, masturbating to completion.

Seeing a chubby middle-aged dude masturbate to completion is not a turn-off for me when I’m awake, so in the dream I was copacetic with it, the full ethical ramifications beyond my sleeping mind.  I did, however, consider the possibility other people may be bothered, and wondered if I’d have to go in the back channel to reconvene an FtB ethics committee about it.  I think he was starting to attract comments from people wondering what the hell he was thinking by the time the alarm got me.

Possibly something in waking life put the kernel of that dream in my mind.  Who can say?
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