#cynic

Love isn't blind it just learns the angles tilts its head and edits out the wreckage

It's a salesman in a good suit with a cracked grin handing you a contract written in disappearing ink telling you, this one's different like that sentence hasn't ruined a thousand lives already

You buy it Of course you do Everyone does

You step into it like a warm room in winter like a story you've heard before but want to believe ends better this time

It never does

Love is a sick joke with a slow delivery a patient cruelty that waits until you've unpacked before it starts the fire

It teaches you a language made entirely of promises no one can keep

"I'll stay" "I won't hurt you" "You're the only one"

Words that sound holy until you realize they're just currency cheap, overprinted passed from mouth to mouth until they're worth less than silence

And still we build altars out of each other

We memorize the curve of a smile like it's scripture trace fingers over skin like it's something permanent like bodies don't decay like feelings don't rot the second they're left in the dark

We call it intimacy this slow excavation of everything that can be used against us later

Because that's the trick, right?

Love makes you soft in all the places like taught you to armor

It studies you maps out your fault lines learns exactly where to press when it's time to collapse you

And it always becomes that time

What starts as gravity end as weight

What starts as warmth ends as something that burns without light

You wake up one day next to a stranger who knows your secrets your tells your quiet ways of breaking and uses them with surgical precision

Or worse you become that person

You start aiming your words like weapons you swore you'd never pick up watching them land with a satisfaction that tastes like guilt and doesn't stop you anyway

Because loves doesn't just hurt you it teaches you how to hurt back

That's the real punchline

Not the leaving not the cheating not the slow fade into silence

but the way it rewrites you into someone capable of the same damage you once thought would kill you

And still still we line up for it again

Different face same fuckin' script

We call it hope like it's noble like it's not just denial with better branding

We say, this time will last as if time itself isn't the thing that ruins everything

Because forever is just a word people use when they're too afraid to say until it breaks

and it always breaks

Love is a joke we tell ourselves to make the loneliness feel intentional

A beautiful lie we dress up in meaning so we don't have to admit how temporary we are how replaceable how easy it is to become a memory someone avoids thinking about

So we kiss like it matters

We hold on like we can stop the slipping

We say "I love you" like it's a shield like it's not just another line in a script that's been ending the same way since the first person mistook need for destiny

And when it falls apart because it will we stand in the wreckage holding pieces that don't fit anymore wondering how something that felt so real could vanish so completely

But that's the joke

It was always real just never permanent

And permanence was the only part we actually needed

So yeah love isn't blind

It sees exactly what it's doing

And we let it

With a new passenger aboard the Astral Express, everyone has to get adjusted to the new circumstances and make an occasional sacrifice for the benefit of their new guest. Especially Sirius.

Overcome The Thorns (and insomnia) is a Siriel/Sulliel au comic inspired by Sunstelle, Galladay and Claudrien and is based on @wisteriasymphony 's Honkai: Star Rail X Miraculous Ladybug au

Table of Contents

《PART 1》 《PART 2》 coming soon...

Miscellaneous

The Crew

Siriji kiss + Ariel meltdown, Ex-in-law, Rules are made to be broken!

Cast

Ancient Death: Ego Dissolution (2025)

Even with my intermittent and undisciplined modern-day music discovery process (a far cry from the almost scientific assiduousness of my youth), it was easy to see that Ancient Death's Ego Dissolution was one of the most frequently praised heavy metal releases of 2025.

And when I gazed upon the eyeball-smothered, otherwordly wonder of its cover art (*) I was assaulted by fond memories of Sepultura's Arise, Obituary's Cause of Death, and other classic death metal albums, and pretty much sold before I heard a single note.

But I wasn't disappointed once I did, because this retro-minded quartet from Walpole, MA's consistently backed up their aesthetically-nostalgic imagery with an equally period-correct blend of OSDM (Old School Death Metal) influences.

Uh, they ARE called Ancient Death, after all!

After forming in 2021, vocalist/guitarist Jerry Witunsky (**), guitarist Ray Brouwer, bassist/vocalist Jasmine Alexander, and drummer Derek Moniz dropped a few singles and an EP to hone their sound, but waited until last year to record this, their first long-player.

It was produced with analog authenticity by Seth Manchester (not yet known for his work with a bunch of bands you've barely heard of) at Pawtucket, RI's Machines with Magnets studio; but if you'd told me it had been recorded by Scott Burns at Tampa's Morrisound, instead, I might have bought that.

For, you see, in Ancient Death's carefully constructed '90s simulacrum, bestial brutality and semi-progressive structures balance to perfection on the title track, "Breaking the Barriers of Hope," and "Violet Light Decays" evoking globally-widespread forerunners like Death, Edge of Sanity, Sepultura, and Entombed.

And because sinister melodies and Alexander's breathy, ethereal goth vocals are generously distributed among these violent death metal trademarks and Witunsky's Cookie Monster growls, long-winded, esoteric fare like "Breathe - Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever)" and "Echoing Chambers Within the Dismal Mind" is as accessible as death metal gets.

Even the album's two instrumentals, "Journey to the Inner Soul" and "Discarnate," are very well-crafted and nicely complement (along with another highlight, "Unspoken Oath") an album that, albeit on the short side (just 35 minutes), is consistently engaging, as advertised.

And yet, I fear my natural attraction to Ego Dissolution may rely on familiarity and a sentimental hankering for the days when "old school death metal" was "fresh groundbreaking death metal," and that my enthusiasm may fade once I rack this record with 3,000 more.

But we'll see about that, and don't let this closing misgiving dampen my preceding endorsement of Ancient Death's debut, which still ranks among the best metal albums of any stripe that I heard in 2025.

* Designed by the talented Maegan LeMay.

** Witunsky also performs live with the current formation of death/jazz iconoclasts Atheist.