Moth to the Light

Small monster. Writing, fussing, gothic-punk fripperies. They/Them. 30s.

[silkenred]

Call me J or Red. Early 30s. I was put on this earth mostly to speak in sentences. Endure my syntax.

I like Vampire: the Masquerade (and some other WoD and CofD things), clothes, books, food, and parentheses.

I talk a lot about Silk and Tula on here, the player characters in Self Control, the story and VtM chronicle I write with Lydia-Too-Late. There's more about the characters and story in the tags linked above. There's also an amazing portrait of Silk by Aztarion.

This is where I think and talk about other things.

This is where I post my writing.

I also cook and think about cooking sometimes. Here's where I post that.

The rest will piece itself together.

[americaisdead]

gallup, n. mex. october 2025

© tag christof

[silkenred]

Prayer circle to give my landlord kidney stones and acid reflux and his nose bitten off in his sleep by a creature he never sees clearly but fears in every dark room he enters for the rest of his life please and thank you.

[contremineur]

This morning I will not comb my tangled hair, for it has lain pillowed on the hand of my lover.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (late 7th or early 8th century)

transcribed (and possibly adapted) from a book of early Japanese poetry in the shadowy stacks of Cambridge University Library thirty years ago – any thoughts on a more detailed source would be much appreciated

[travvma]

romangerri + hands (part 2)

[an-ruraiocht]

Ballet, like opera, is wonderful because it is monstrous, the hyper-development of skills nobody needs, a twisting of human bodies and souls into impossible positions, the purchase of light with blood.

Irina Dumitrescu, "Swan, Late: The unexpected joys of adult beginner ballet."

[nosferaboo]

This is my coterie. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

@grizguts , @diableriedoll, Dan and Pat!

Art by the awesome @crownedinmarigolds

[micro-usb-deactivated20230625]

[nattyjayna]

embarrassment has good bones

[loneberry]

Alice Notley

[thematicparallel]

There is a difference between acting out their story, and truly obeying their story. Do you know what it is?

BARU CORMORANT ✴ cormorant fishing

[random-brushstrokes]

Norman Lindsay - Man and leopard-woman in a room (1900s)

[metamorphesque]

Adam and Eve, Fall, oil painting by Artur Mirzoyan

[cipheramnesia]

I think "slop" is a strong contender for world of the year 2025, as it seems to be universally recognizable as a description for the majority of output produced in the name of Return on Investment.

Sure it means algorithmically generative slop now, but look at housing construction, durable appliances, food, automobiles, you name it and tell me it's not just more slop. If enshittification is the process, slop is the result.

[1995lahaine]

don’t make me tap the jen silverman essay!!!!

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Their essay in full.

[aetherograph]

This is literally just the Victorian era all over again, I’ve been saying:

“Mr Oscar Wilde has again been writing stuff that were better unwritten; and while The Picture of Dorian Gray, which he contributes to Lippincott’s, is ingenious, interesting, full of cleverness, plainly the work of a man of letters, it is false art–for its interest is medico-legal; it is false to human nature–for its hero is a devil; it is false to morality–for it is not made sufficiently clear that the writer does not prefer a course of unnatural iniquity to a life of cleanliness, health, and sanity. The story–which deals with matters only fitted for the Criminal Investigation Department or a hearing in camera [nb: out of public scrutiny]–it is discreditable alike to author and editor. Mr Wilde has brains, and art, and style; but if he can write for none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys, the sooner he takes to tailoring (or some other decent trade) the better for his own reputation and the public morals.” –WE Henley, Scots Observer, 5 July 1890

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

[mumblingsage]

That in turn reminds me of a (substack?) post I can’t track down at the moment, but which said in effect: “We know stories that end in neat moral lessons where good wins and evil is defeated don’t create kinder societies. We know this because the Victorians had a ton of stories like that while being a real-life evil empire.”

[tomoleary]

Voyage d’Hermès, subtitled “Les Mondes Élémentaires: Un Voyage Imaginé et Dessiné par Moebius” or “The Elemental Worlds: An Imagined and Drawn Journey by Moebius“ (2010) Source

[berlogauwu]

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