Literally every lyric has so much more Energies if it’s sung to a child I’m gonna die on this hill. “Hey there, Delilah /Don’t you worry about the distance /I’m right there if you get lonely /Give this song another listen” and “Hey there, Delilah/ I know times are gettin’ hard /But just believe me, girl / Someday I’ll pay the bills with this guitar / We’ll have it good /We’ll have the life we knew we would / My word is good” like? He’s trying to get his daughter back? Idk if she’s with the other parent or in foster care or what but it’s So Much I have a lot of feelings about this. The repeated promises, “I’d walk to you if I had no other way” and “I’m right there when you get lonely” when, like, obviously, he’s not, and he’s just sort of desperately hoping that she still understands that he loves her, and that she doesn’t feel abandoned. And then, “Delilah, I can promise you /That by the time that we get through / The world will never ever be the same /And you’re to blame” that’s so fucking sweet? That’s such a sweet thing to say to your daughter. Romance is over. Noncustodial parental love songs are where it’s at.
This is what “death of the author” means. We know that’s not what the song was written about, but what if it was? What if we explored the lyrics as though the speaker was a heartbroken father missing his daughter? It changes EVERYTHING. And it’s so good.
Have always thought that “Hey there Delilah / you be good, and don’t you miss me” is a little creepy and infantilizing if sung to a romantic partner.
But if it’s a father, and he’s saying goodbye to the daughter he never gets to see, and he’s trying so hard to put on a brave face for her, then “You be good, and don’t you miss me” is shattering.
Not really, of course. The planet was still around, humanity was still surviving, but everything you'd ever known was gone. The government had dissolved, taken down by it's own incompetence and machinations. The internet, and the mega-corperations that existed on it, were crumbling to dust.
The dead rose from the streets and walked again. Zombies, the shambling undead, attacked the living under the red moon. Power and water was being shut down all over the country. Many had died.
But not you.
You're not special, you know that. If the zombies got you, you were as good as dead. No immunity for you. But when you heard the news, you ran to the library.
It wasn't like you had much to live for, but the library was all you had left. You loved it. It was more of a home than the apartment you paid too much for was. It would likely get raided, you assumed, and it's knowledge would be lost. It needed to be defended.
So you grabbed your things, grabbed food and water and whatever else you could fit in your small car, and drove to the library. You picked up a gun and ammo along the way. You knew how these stories went, after all. Survivors always needed guns.
The red moon burned overhead as you drove to the building. The streets were full. You could see another car crashed into a pole nearby. The driver was clawing at the door as a zombie crawled it's way inside the broken windshield. You don't stop to help.
The library stands tall against strange stars, defiant in the face of everything. You're surprised to find the door still locked, and you park in front of the doors to block them as you use your key to get inside. The chaos of the outside world seems to disappear as you enter your sanctuary.
That night had been surprisingly calm. Neither zombie nor survivor had even attempted to enter the building. You felt strangely at ease, knowing blood wouldn't be on your hands tonight.
The next morning you had started the process of transforming the library to what it was today. You'd stored non perishables in the staff only rooms, blockaded the windows, and set up a small living space behind the front desk.
The next step would be securing food. The water fountains were still working fine, for now, but that wouldn't mean much if you starved to death. There were decorative gardens outside and on the balconies to the other floors. You could replace the flowers with crops, if you had the seeds.
Thankfully your food stores, mostly consisting of canned foods, were enough to last your for at least a month. You had to hope and pray that you wouldn't be swarmed by a hoard by that point. There were a few stores that sold seeds in town. You'd have to risk and excursion to get them.
In the meantime, you found a book about agriculture and began to read.
----------
You were still there a month after the world ended.
A whole month and nothing had attacked you. No hordes, no survivors, no cannibalistic cults. And that made you worried.
Usually, unless there was a reason for this behavior. This would mean the zombies were regrouping to plan a huge attack. But it wasn't like you hadn't seen them. They hadn't disappeared, they just had no interest in the library.
From the windows you could see them shambling across the street. Once, one had even seen you. You stare at each-other. The zombie swung it's head away from you, silently, moving along. Every one of them did this.
You were very glad you got the 'Walking Dead' variety of zombies. You don't think you'd survive the green flu. Or 'The Last of Us'. Shamblers were your preferable match-up.
Whatever infection had caused this made them avoid trying to get into the library, it seemed. Passing to close to the garden around this place seemed to confuse them. They got turned around, sometimes walking against the hoard instead of with it.
The two options when zombies stopped attacking were that they were either going to launch a full scale attack, or that there was a reason for it. If it wasn't the former, you had to figure out the latter.
You stared a the orchard lilies just outside the library's entrance, blooming pink and white with orange stamen. You've never liked them, being able to smell their sent every spring, even from indoors. It drifted through the doors, burning your nose every time anyone entered or left.
You were starting to think that maybe the zombies didn't like it either.
In most zombie apocalypse movies the military is shown as so proactive about setting up bases and camps. Trying to reestablish the nation and set up quarantines around the infected. They show shots of helicopters, trucks, and men with giant machine guns fighting off the hordes.
3 months in and you still live in silence. Not a plane or military man in sight, just the shambling of zombies as they trudged by the ever expanding garden of the library. Since there was nothing else to do, gardening and reading different 'how to' books had taken up a majority of your time.
You had planted a few different seeds that you had been able to snag from a hardware store. It was possibly the most anxiety you had ever had and the closest you'd ever come to a real zombie. Most of the undead in the store were surrounding an awful smelling bag of ....fertilizer so all you had to do was be fast and quiet.
Cucumbers, beans, squash, carrots, potatoes, and more were all stocked in the garden. You had jerry rigged a sort of watering system using a watering tower nearby.
Days on end you'd work. Although sometimes you weren't sure why. You knew, one day, a zombie would bite you. It would notice you, you'd get sloppy and passive and then all this would be gone. Maybe this garden is only going to be for some poor souls who find it one day and expand on what you could not.
Maybe you do this for them.
4 months in and the flowers were blooming brighter than before.
Honeysuckle, lilacs, lilies, and so many more flowers had all but taken over the out walls of the library. The garden was sprouting, the sun was shining, animals came too and from the small holes in a shabbily made wall. And you were so utterly bored.
If not the zombies your pretty sure your own boredom would be your demise. You'd done some small exploring though you stayed far away from town centers and other places you could tell the groaning masses had taken over.
Never the less you were bored and the books weren't cutting it. So one day you decided to leave. The goal was medicine and maybe more farming supplies, just in case. You'd rather have them and not need them. Plus maybe snatch some perfume or body washes because you haven't properly showered in months.
Smell good or die trying? Some people may laugh it off but you thought it was worth it.
As you were wondering the aisles of the hardware store you noticed a stray zombie from the crowd. When this happened before you held your breath and stepped back and walked away. This time though, it looked at you.
The feeling of your blood truly running cold had escaped you until now. The eyes shone like a dog's in the night and it sniffed the air. It smelled you and it drooled.
Another pair of eyes stared at you behind the first as you slowly realized that there was a horde in the darkness. Though you were the only one alive, you were not alone. You turned and ran, but they had already caught the scent.
Too many at the exit, too many at the back windows. Was this it for you? Survive all this time and then die for what? Gardening supplies and perfume? What an idiotic move. You had to think as you ran to the back of the site towards the garden section.
It didn't smell bad any more.
The stench of the fertilizer was gone and so was the split open bag on the ground. Why were you noticing this? There was god knows how many undead behind you and you were focusing on manure?
Why?
And then it hit you. It was risky, but it was the last choice you had. You grabbed a small rake and plunged it into the unopened bags of fertilizer and any other mulch or rotting bags you could find. You stood behind it all , being careful not to get it on you.
Then they entered. They looked at you....and moved right towards the ripped open bags. You dashed behind some flower pots, trying to keep distance as they funneled into one area. And you ran out of the nearest exit possible wondering what the hell just happened.
Hace unos dias vi en varios grupos que ponian una imagen IA de Perpetua en el estilo de Lisa Frank asi que decidí hacer una yo, hecha por un artista real e inspirada por la iluminación que hay durante MOAC y Dance Macabre. También añadí unos mini Ghouls todos chikitos y bonitos 💖
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Couple of days ago I kept seeing an AI image of Perpetua in the style of Lisa Frank but it was kinda ugly, didn’t really looked like him and everyone was saying shit like "I don’t care is AI it’s so cute 🥺" nah man, its better made by a REAL artist and actual fan than can take inspiration of the real rainbow lighting burning Dance Macabre and MOAC plus a couple mini Ghouls
Godzilla is a pretty good metaphor in a lot of the films that introduce him. Originally, he was a metaphor for how the atomic bomb changed and destroyed a lot of Japan. He later became a metaphor for all sorts of things like how humanity is taking advantage of the earth, the terrors of war (atomic and not), PTSD and how it follows you, and more. He is also used as a narrative device to show the negligence, ignorance, and/or deception of the government.
I think the best example of this is Godzilla Minus One. Especially when it comes to PTSD and corruption of government I think it's one of the best. Godzilla Minus One also touches on culture and how tradition can and should be changed.
It also touches on the horror of allowing yourself to be happy imo. The main character is in this constant struggle with his own mind. He's ashamed cause he's a failed Kamikaze pilot, he's guilty cause he feels like he got people killed and didn't fight back, and he's terrified of not only Godzilla but life overall. Even after he starts taking care of his adopted daughter and gets with his "wife", moments of happiness are hard to come by. Every time he finds something that brings him some amount of joy Godzilla is there to threaten it along with his fear, shame and guilt.
There's an amount of metaphor when it comes to even the 2014 Godzilla movie. It's a story about forgiveness and war of you look into it. The main character has to forgive his father and in doing so work alongside Godzilla. Godzilla, representing nuclear energy as well btw, is similar to what killed his mom but he has to accept and forgive in order to help save lives. Maybe I'm reading too much into this monster movie but I like tbh.
Also Godzilla 2014 shows a lot about deception in governments and later on Monarch only increases the deception up to supervillain territory.
Don't you fucking dare compare TikTok to Vine. ITS NOT THE SAME THING
Vine went away cuz it couldn't afford to stay active
TikTok went away because congress RIPPED it away from us. It let to many activist groups connect faster than ever before; it let too many voices of dissent be heard louder than ever before; and most importantly it was more popular than Facebook, Twitter( cuz fuck that X bullshit), and instagram.
I understand losing both of these platforms hurt, I was alive for vine's death to. But don't let yourself be fooled into a falce equivalence.
how the Supreme Court feels after banning a stupid social media app and doing nothing about school shooting and our horrible economy etc messenger is the WORST with data and privacy but thats not banned? there was a video with a former messenger employee exposing them
Fantasy Is A Metaphor For The Human Condition, a comic about magic, and art, and speculative fiction, and being sick, and how they all intersect. Originally laid out/pencilled November-December 2017, when I was in a very difficult place emotionally as I was relearning how to draw post-brain injury.
See more of my Brain Injury Comix at this link & in Dirty Diamonds #9: Being
