The Hidden Moon

*Crowley in Hell in 1943*

Crowley: So the idea is to make this massive super center where people can buy everything and anything for their home at unreasonably low prices...

Ligur: That doesn't sound very evil...

Crowley: EXACTLY! Too good to be true, right? Until you get there. Then you're shuffled through this endless maze of choices and ideas and inspiration for all of your decorating needs. You end up spending hours there, drudging from show room to show room.

Ligur: I still fail to see what about that...

Crowley: Are you kidding me?!? Husbands and wives arguing over which dining room set best matches their living room. Kids crying for cheap toys that mum and dad keep saying 'no' to. GIANT shopping bags that allow for a bunch of the tiny household and office appliances you didn't know you needed, but they're oh so cheap!!! Everyone leaves frustrated, compromised, and broke! I'm effectively turning their freedom of choice against them! And the best part? Once they've endured all of that... They have to go home and build the furniture themselves, spending even more hours decoded the instructions and diagrams!

Hastur: But if people are going to get so frustrated and angry, then why won't they just leave?

Crowley: They can't! I purposely influenced the chief architect to create a pathway that they are literally herded though like cattle! They can't leave until they walk all the way through!

Beelzebub: But why would people go there if they know it's going to take them hours to shop?

Crowley: I'm actually quite proud of this bit; we put a resturaunt right in the middle! Swedish food, Swedish dishes, and desserts so rich that the children are wound back up and bouncing off the walls for the rest of the trek! They break things, demand for more toys, and frustrate their parents even more!

Hastur: Why Swedish?

Crowley: Why not?

Hastur:

Ligur:

Beelzebub:

Like I said, the museum was a pretty snotty institution. It’s got a LOT of objects it’s way famous for possessing, but nobody knew about the absolutely massive collection of Moche erotic pottery it had because the curators were totally embarrassed by this stuff.

Some examples:

Pretty hot shit, right? They never, ever put any of this stuff on public view or published it in any catalogues but - we legit had like several hundred pieces of Moche ceramics in the “dirty pots” category. Anyway, I was left alone to just do my job with regard to the database for several years, ok? And I figured, well, these’re accessioned objects in the museum’s collection - better get down to bidness. 

I catalogued every goddamn bestiality, necrophiliac, cocksucking, buttfucking, detached penis, and giant vulva drinking cup in that collection. I’d be like, 

A drinking vessel in form of a standing man wearing a tunic and cap. He holds an oversized erection in his hands and stares into the distance (note I did not say “like he’s hella-constipated”). The vessel has a hole at both the tip of the penis as well as around the rim of the figure’s head, thus forcing the drinker to drink only from the penis or risk spilling wine all over themselves from the top of the vessel. Red and orange slip covers the surface of the piece.

Pretty straightforward, right? Apparently the deep seated fear of these objects that the curators exhibited was meant to spread to me as well, but - no one ever gave me that memo, because I guess Midwesterners reproduce asexually. When the curators understood that I had catalogued all of these objects in addition to the other, non-sexy pieces in the collection, they were apparently livid, but knew they had no legs to stand on in terms of getting pissed at me for it. 

I visited the museum’s online public access database a few years back and - every single description I wrote of these pieces has been totally neutered to say something like Male figural vase. 

https://phallus.is/en/

The Menstruatin’ with Satan program, founded by The Satanic Temple Arizona, is collecting donations of pads, tampons, and other menstrual supplies for incarcerated women, as well as fighting to raise the monthly allotment of products!

If you’re not in AZ, you can help out the Temple by buying them products on their Amazon Wish List, here.

A lot of peer reviews are double-blind, which means the reviewer doesn’t know whose work they’re reading in order to prevent bias. (Especially in STEM, where the Good Old Boys tend to dismiss the expertise of women.)

Other fields are starting to employ double-blind methods as well, such as auditions for prestigious orchestras, where bias also leans toward white men.

In any case, what this means to Dr. Gotian is that the peer reviewer had read her work extensively enough to be like “HOLY SHIT SOMEONE IS PLAGIARIZING MY FAVE!!!! HOW DARE THEY!!!!” and told the “writer” (who happened to be the reviewer’s fave :D) that they really ought to properly credit their research.

It also means that the reviewer refused to let someone benefit from Dr. Gotian’s research without crediting her, which is huge. I think some reviewers would have let this slide.

vampire: *pausing mid-bite* why… does it matter?

WOMAN (angrily) They’re marigolds!

MAN 2 God! I think she’s right! They are marigolds!

Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi — completely ignored & disregarded the 3-film narrative arc J.J. Abrams has planned out for the sequel trilogy, and instead developed his own messy narrative full of subversions for the sake of subversion, and completely disrespected the legacy of Luke Skywalker’s character (Mark Hamill himself has reported several times that he doesn’t recognize the character).

Russos, MCU — give out fake scripts, actors play against green screens and are cut & pasted together in post, show fake/edited scenes in trailers, throw away previous character development (Thor, Ragnarok vs Infinity War and especially Endgame).

D&D, Game of Thrones — throw away a decade of foreshadowing and character development for shock value, not to mention they missed a whole ass Starbucks cup in a shot in 8x03 (either on set or in post, somebody should’ve noticed this).

I’m sick and tired of this. It’s not good writing, and it’s no longer entertaining to fans when the characters they know and love become complete strangers. There’s good shock value — “No, I am your father,” for example — and then there’s ignoring years of character development and turning a kind and caring character into a murderous maniac. There’s a difference, and I think writers still know what that difference is, but they’re pressured to create an ending that fans can’t predict because of this mass panic over “no spoilers”.

This needs to stop. Give me a happy ending. Who the fuck cares if we guess what comes next? That means the writers have done their fucking jobs. If we can guess what comes next that means the writers have successfully developed their characters and foreshadowed future events as you’re supposed to do in a well-written narrative.