it really is interesting how most adults really only see child sexual assault through the lens of how it makes THEM feel. it's not really about the actual harm that comes to the children, it's about how they, the adult (the real victim) feels about the fact that a child or children got abused and taken advantage of.
like one time I saw a vid of some dudes who tricked some guys into thinking they were going to meet up with minors, instead they forced the two dudes to fight on camera. it's voyeurism, it's not about protecting children it's about the good feeling YOU, the viewer, get inside when you watch this happen.
or like I was arguing with some people about CSA being punishable by death. i don't care if child abusers die, let me say that. wouldn't care if they all killed themselves to a person. but there is a REASON child advocacy organizations will tell you that executing convicted pedophiles is a bad idea, and that's because it will lead to more children being killed to hide the crimes of the abuser.
But if you argue against THE STATE executing pedophiles, people start pulling the "ohhhh wow defending pedophiles. this the hill you wanna die on?" like no dude I just think about the effects of policy outside of the fucking feel-good yummies in my tummy I get from seeing someone I don't like punished.
Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.
Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.
As someone who has taught college, please send those emails because 1) We WILL believe that; no one would write that on purpose and 2) we need a laugh sometimes.
On the other side of this, once after getting taken to the ER by ambulance, I got an email from the professor whose class I’d passed out in, and the message had no text, just the subject line “you good?”
Claritin makes me weird, but I have allergies so there’s about a month and a half block of time where I’m taking Claritin and am just weird most of the time.
Anyway, my last year of college, I got the flu or something in late March and was also taking Mucinex. I told my professor I couldn’t come to class one day by email except I couldnt think of what to say, so my medicated ass decided to make a Fry meme. I think it said something like “Not sure if I can go to class with a head the size of Texas, bottom text.” I didn’t think until the next day that it probably wasn’t socially-acceptable to tell your philosophy professor you weren’t coming to class via Tumblr style memes. When i got back to class, i found that she’d printed it out and taped it to the classroom bulletin board.
Once emailed a professor from my hospital bed high on painkillers after a really bad car crash which my heart actually stopped the email “Dead cant class sory”
The patriarchy teaches men to be violent, to express their emotions through violence, to celebrate violence in other men and demonize it in women, so that they perform their role of oppressor.
The patriarchy teaches women to be nonviolent, to not express their emotions through violence, to celebrate violence in men and demonize it in women, so that they perform their role of oppressed.
Also, when women have power, they're just as violent. Women spank their children. Women with jobs as caregivers to disabled people abuse them. Women openly support Trump and the fascist violence he's inflicting. When women become cops, they're just as violent as male cops. White women can be massively racist and play the victim, resulting in violence against people of color.
i heard those lines and was immediately inspired to make something sad lol
~
Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.
Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.
Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.
It’s not enough to just stop, the shakes and the headaches nip at him constantly, and he reluctantly concludes that bad habits need to replaced by better ones.
That’s where the cycling comes in, to start with.
It’s exercise, it’s eco-friendly, and he can pretend he is literally leaving his cravings behind him as he pushes hard on the pedals.
He does his homework first, researching what is the best option for city cycling, for his budget, for someone that hasn’t ridden a bike since they were nine.
He plots out his paths to the office, the shops, and the nearest puncture repair centre, just in case. He even makes a spreadsheet to keep track of them.
He is sure Tim would poke fun at him for it, if they were still talking, but the organisation keeps his twitching fingers busy and his roaming mind away from the half-finished box of cigarettes in his desk drawer that he promises he will throw away any day now.
What all that planning fails to account for, as soon as he actually gets onto the road, is the rest of the world moving around him.
Every stereotype he has heard about antagonistic drivers is proven ten-fold as he dodges swerving cars and gets sworn at for whizzing past stalled traffic. He soon learns to sneer through tinted windows.
Pedestrians are almost worse. They seem blind to him, stepping out directly in front of his wheels and making him wobble as he overcorrects. As if a bike can’t still do some damage if he were to actually hit someone. Once, he clips the edge of a pram and stops in the street to shout some sense into the careless father pushing it.
He bitches openly about this during his lunches and his coworkers only roll their eyes at him sometimes.
The cycling becomes a bit of running joke in the office when they spot him coming in with his bike shorts and change of outfit, but he ignores them. The shorts are practical. For some reason, telling them that only makes them laugh harder.
He takes the fastest route into the office and a scenic one home. It winds through quiet well-off estates, before opening out to one of the less well-known urban parks. It’s calming, almost meditative, to roll through the cool shade the cluttered trees offer after another meaningless day of data entry.
In those times, he doesn’t think of his empty flat or his dead-end job, he forgets his sniggering coworkers and his ever-dwindling contact list. It’s just him and the wind.
The only thing that could make those moments better, he admits to himself, is a smoke.
The only problem with this particular path is how hard it is to see around corners in the park. There is some national re-wilding initiative in the works and the foliage looms over the roads in a way that block his line of sight.
He checks every turn, even though it is rare to encounter a car in this area. Better safe than sorry.
The night he dies is warm but overcast.
He follows his usual route and cranes his neck to see around the overgrown corner he is approaching. A drooping branch grazes his head and something falls from the tree onto his neck.
It could be a leaf, or a twig, or a ladybird, but Jon feels the whisper-touch of something small at his throat and his only thought is: spider.
He has been afraid of them since he was very young and terrified instinct immediately beats any reason. One hand flies up from the handlebars to bat away at his collar. He swerves. Fear makes him pedal faster and the bike speeds onto the junction.
He is so scared of the potential at his throat that he never even sees the delivery truck.
The bike is sent flying from the impact, Jon falls under the wheels.
The driver, to his credit, calls emergency services immediately, distraught.
The ambulance is there within five minutes, but they needn’t have bothered. Jon is declared dead at the scene with a broken neck.
What few friends he has left comfort each other with that fact.
At least it was quick.
~
Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.
This is a good thing, Martin reminds himself, more than once. It is Good that his mother is alive.
It doesn’t matter that the nurses need to attend to her around-the-clock now. It doesn’t matter that the care home bills have skyrocketed. He is grateful that she is still with him.
He starts looking for a third job. The admin work during the day and the shelf-stocking at night barely covered his previous bills. He’ll have to look for some flexible positions to cram into his schedule.
In the meantime, he cuts back. Eats cheaply, eats less. Cancels overdue check-ups and doesn’t touch the heating.
His days are a current of constant worry, occasionally breached by a wave of panic that he tries to quell by hiding in the office bathroom and digging his nails into his legs.
Panic won’t pay the rent or keep the lights on or remember to call Mum every Sunday. He smothers it deep in his chest and ignores the spasm of pain he gets whenever he forces it down.
He has been getting those more often; sharp, sudden chest pains, numb fingers, dizzy spells, an aching back, shortness of breath.
He had been going to ask the doctor about it all before he cancelled the appointment but. Well. Needs must.
He has his first heart attack on the evening shift.
Pulling a box of washing up tablets from the top shelf in Aisle 4 causes such a rush of agony in his chest that he dares to ask the manager to take his 15-minute break early.
He doesn’t make it to the back room before he collapses.
In the hospital, after he wakes, the doctors ask if there is a family history of heart problems.
If he didn’t feel so weak he would laugh.
He has more in common with his mother then he likes to admit. Of course they share a bad heart.
Or maybe it came from his father. Mum always said he was heartless. Maybe there’s a hole where Dad’s DNA should be.
When the medical team leaves him to rest, all he can think is how much this will cost him.
The NHS is no charity no matter what their marketing says, not to mention how much money he will lose by recovering. He can’t afford six weeks of not working. His first job doesn’t have that much sick leave and his second doesn’t have any.
He runs the numbers in his head, tries to find what else he can hack out of his life to keep his head above water. Occasionally his thoughts swerve, self-recriminating and barbed. He is so stupid for letting this happen at all.
It’s all his fault.
Mum is going to be so angry with him.
His heart pulses in keen pain, bitter and broken.
Somehow, he drifts off, counting figures instead of sheep.
The second heart attack kills him in his sleep.
~
They die on the same day, at nearly the same time (Jon rushes ahead, always too eager, Martin follows inevitably after him).
Their death certificates are filed away alphabetically by a bored clerk in the dusty management system of the General Register Office.
Twenty years later, Samama Khalid exhumes them and examines them, with more curiosity than sense, only to be disappointed by the mundanity of their ends.
He returns them together, heedless of any organisation.
Jon and Martin meet, in the quiet and the dark.
The filing cabinet is a shared headstone, their names rest side-by-side.
You stumble into the bedroom at this awful, spirit-soaked party. You are drunk, you are heartbroken, you are alone. And yet, there is a presence here. You call out to it: "I am A NOBODY. I am looking for FAME & GLORY, in order to WIN BACK SOMEONE I LOST. You will help me by MAKING ME GREAT."
You have been slumbering here for so long, in the cracks between reality. You have almost given up, when a hand reaches towards you, bathing you in unbearably bright reality. You call out to it: "I am SOMETHING UNKNOWABLE. I am looking for DEEP FEAR, in order to BECOME REAL. You will help me by SPREADING DREAD."
You seal your pact sloppily -- a palm cut on a broken bottle and a blackness seeping into your veins. You feel it within you, this unknowable thing, your new Patron. Your power grows.
You have a body. It's a bright, beating thing. Unruly, perhaps, but that will soon be amended. Your Warlock walks with shadow in its step, and you bleed into reality. Your power grows.
Together, you can TAKE ON THE WORLD.
~~
The beta test for my 2-player Warlock/Patron TTRPG is up! You can check it out right now for free on itch.io -- all you need to play is a d8, a deck of cards, a handful of tokens.
I made these muppet Michael and Gerry stickers for my friend @clairebearsparkles's birthday this year and was advised that tumblr would enjoy the designs as well.
[ID: Two drawings of characters from the Magnus Archives as Muppets. The first is Michael Shelley as a pink muppet with long, curly light blue hair and an orange scarf on. There are three swirls in pink, blue, and yellow colors floating around his head. He is waving his hands around excitedly.
The second is of Gerard Keay as a yellow muppet. He has green eyelids and a green top, wearing a purple leather jacket with patches over it. His purple and blond hair is straight, reaching his shoulders. He has an eye print on his neck.
[ID: Four sequential drawings. Martin Blackwood, from the Magnus Archives, has been transformed as an orange cat by mysterious forces.
Image 1) Martin the cat has his paws on his furry face in despair. Behind him are written his thoughts: "Ack! I'm a cat!!! How could I be so stupid! A Leitner?! Really?!? Come on Blackwood, you can't be THAT careless! If Jon finds me like this I would-"
Image 2) Steps come from behind Martin and he turns to them, thinking "Oh, no." A brown shoe comes into frame.
Image 3) A suites figure holding files and a tape recorder looks above the cat. They say "A cat? In the Archives?"
Image 4) A close up on Martin's face. His eyes are teary and he is sweating as his nerves heighten. He lets out a little "mew" sound. Meanwhile his thoughts read "I'm doomed." in a dark thought bubble.
If you recognise the username, that's cause I was the guy behind the big Discord that popped up during RQ's announcement ARG for The Magnus Protocol.
That server is still active (all ages, SFW, chill place to vibe and talk Magnus), but with the understanding that this coming ARG will be restricted to people 18+, the mod team made the decision to create a side server. This new server functions both as a hub for solving the ARG (when it starts), and as a place for adults to more comfortably have their own discussions about Magnus!
I'm making this post so that people know that there's a place to discuss everything when the ARG starts on the 15th! If you're under 18, you're also welcome in the all-ages server, where we'll be sharing relevant updates about the ARG as they come!
ARG/18+ Server (please note: it's still a SFW server!) -- https://discord.gg/rBDg4HqrSC
All Ages Server -- https://discord.gg/h6bkdqc5yd
If you join the adult server and we find out you're underage, you will be banned and blacklisted from both servers!
Looking for somewhere to talk about Magnus? Want to find fic recs, share ideas about fanart, or chat about headcanons?
Why not hang out in the Statement Remains server! We're a mid-sized server with a great modding team and plenty of channels to sate the hungriest Magnus fan!
