from hypocritepoet

Go forth into the day And make it yours. Hollow it out, live there wholly.

Celebrate being such a light That if cut, you would shine!

Be the bread And the knife,

The goblet And the wine.

2024-09-16 21:30:21

 
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from hypocritepoet

For peace without, first find peace within

—

He Didn’t get the message that was sent,

He received the message he looked for.

Instead of listening to the whisper, that constant

voice from the great beyond.

Or maybe it was the message sent,

In that case then, he heard the message as intended.

Garden to garden unseen, but known.

 
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from Blog of Sand

Inbetweeners Part 13- The Beeple

The Beeple is short for Bee People, and they were a spontaneous idea that ended up becoming the cornerstone of the campaign. To understand their inception you must first understand Domilia. She entered the group a little later than the other players, I think right after the Desecrated Temple battle. She was an eleven cleric, beautiful and powerful, follower of Chauntea and a typical do gooder. She wanted to slay evil and help the innocent. Her parents were killed by the Cult of the Dragon, so that was some background motivation that we will deal with later. I believe she herself as also killed by the Cult of the Dragon, but brought back by the Interloper. The other members of the group were a goblin and human circus performing duo, a fox person, a hobgoblin samurai and a half orc druid, so she kind of stuck out. However, she was very useful when diplomacy was necessary.

One issue with Domilia's character as far as group dynamics go is that she was very suspicious of the Interloper or any of his “gifts.” She preferred to rely on her own powers, so it was more difficult to reward her. However, before she died, there was a village Domilia was looking after. They were facing a terrible plague, and without her, their prospects were grim. For her first “reward”, she asked the Interloper to heal the villagers. He infused a nearby beehive with Far Realm energy, and the bees left and one stung every member of the village. Almost immediately, their symptoms began abating. More than that, the villagers had newfound energy, far beyond that of a normal human. After a few weeks, when the players were able to visit the village, they discover it has been entirely reorganized. The villagers are far more efficient, and are now living communally and dramatically expanding their industries and economic output. However, some peculiar things start to crop up. Occasionally they buzz while speaking, and the children seem to be growing antennae. Furthermore, one room that is heavily guarded in the village seems to have children emerging from it at a far faster rate than a normal village could reproduce. Still, the people were happy, healthy and incredibly grateful. If anything, these transformation made them more altruistic.

Some time later though, issues arose. The people continued transforming, becoming more bee like. This attracted the attention of nearby elves, who viewed this as an abomination against nature and felt the only option was to eradicate the village-hive. The players were called in to intervene, the Interloper could create a temporary portal to this area— so this is the first real digression from “the rooms” portion of the campaign. The players were mixed as to how to handle the elves that wanted to wipe out the villagers. Uzo wanted to simply kill them, but Domilia, herself an elf, wanted to find a peaceful solution rather than do battle with rangers and druids who would otherwise be on the same side. I forget exactly what conclusion they came to, I think they intimidated the “naturalists” into temporarily retreating, buying them an hour to prepare for an attack. I figured they would set traps and it could be a sort of siege type session, but the players had other ideas. The portal to the apiary village was high in the sky, an error by the interloper. They had the Beeple form a chain to let people climb up into it and using the amulets were able to evacuate the entire village, queen included, into the Grey Room. I hadn't expected this but it was a delightful surprise. By the time the Naturalists arrived, the village was abandon and they figured the issue was resolved. The Beeple Queen who had developed at this point was large, so moving her was a logistical challenge the players had to solve. The question was, what to do with the entire Beeple hive now? They had hundreds of members, and while the Interloper could freely expand or retract the size of the Grey Room, it wasn't exactly a hospitable environment in the long term.

Fortunately, the players had recently discovered a new room that branched off from this room- The Sad Giant's hut. A solitary, depressed giant lived in a massive hut on a lonely mountain. It was remote, had plenty of land and resources, and was the perfect place to establish a new hive. The Giant was too depressed to care, so the Beeple set to building a new society on the mountain top, safe from any threats. From here, the Beeple exploded in population. Refugees from the players various adventures, people they rescued, etc, joined the hive and it grew. The Giant himself was eventually indoctrinated into the hive. From here on out the Beeple became an important fixture in the story, and an alternate “home base” for the players. Domilia and Rotlog in particular bonded with the hive.

Later, the hive would be threatened by the players' enemies, showing that it was a vulnerability for them as well as an asset. They relocate to Sigil at some point under the Lady of Pain's protection. Ultimately the Beeple Queen ascends to godhood when Domilia is granted an unbounded wish by the Interloper. From there, their relevance to the plot really explodes. I'll probably do an entire post on the Beeple Queen later on down the line. Here were some early statblocks for the first Bee People, before the hive grew in size and complexity:

Villager-Bee Worker

AC: 12 HP: 13 STR: 10, DEX: 14 CON: 10 INT/WIS/CHA 8-14 (varies) EXP: 100

Attack: Sting +4 to hit, 1d6 + 2 damage. Con DC 11 or take 3d6 poison damage. Paralysis occurs if 0 HP reached.

Villager-Bee Soldier

AC: 15 HP: 44 Speed: 30 ft/30 ft fly STR: 14, DEX: 16, CON14, INT/WIS/CHA (varies) EXP: 450

Attack: 2 claws (1d6 + 2 each), 1 Sting (1d8 + 4 damage) (all +6 to hit) Con DC 13 or take 6d6 posion damage. Paralysis if 0 HP hit.

Acid Spittle Targets make reflex save DC 13 or take 6d6 acid damage. Recharge 3

Villager-Bee Queen

AC: 10 HP: 250 Speed: 10 ft EXP: 1800

Con Save +10, Ref Save -4, Wis Save +9

STR: 10, DEX: 2, CON: 20, INT: 16, WIS 18, CHA: 14

Abilities: Telepathy, immune to charm and mind influencing effects, can coordinate all other villagers.

Attack: Kinesis 2d6 x 5 thrown objects +7 to hit

Dominate: Wis DC 14: Failure and Queen has mind control over target. Gets another save every time they take damage or the queen is incapacitated.

Sacrifice: Can trigger up to 3 workers or soldiers in the vicinity to self-destruct. Players must make Ref DC 14 save, failure and they take 3d6 per worker and 6d6 per soldier. 15 foot radius.

I moved away from them literally being just Bee People and into something much more. Ultimately, the hive became a mix of actual Bee People born into the hive who resembled humanoid bees and a mixture of other races that chose to live in the hive because of its safety and prosperity. Eventually, they took on the name “The Harmonium” and held altruism and prosperity as their ultimate tenants. They created “meat honey”, a delicious compound made from them consuming various local flora and fauna and producing a honey that had all the nutrients a being required to survive. This was their first major product that they began trading with, actually setting up a stand at the Spider Lady's shop in the market. Right before the Protectors of the Weave discovered the Interloper's location, there were supply lines regularly running through the Grey room.

The Beeple represent how improv can grow into a full blown major narrative arc in a free form RPG format. I never intended to have the Bee People be part of the story, but once they were present the story coalesced around them.

 
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from Shad0w's Echos

Aiesha Exposes Herself

#nsfw #Aiesha

Aiesha decided to go walking. Not for fitness, but to find places in her city that aligned with her new purpose. She wanted to indulge in some nighttime adventures. Exposed. But first, she needed to see where she could go for her new perverted hobby.

On the weekends, Aiesha would go out in a sundress or other minimalist clothing. Pretending to be naked, imagining the stares. She would have her headphones in, playing her porn audio, moving among people as if her actions were perfectly normal.

Her eyes were on a swivel, scanning for places to sit, locations away from the main footpath, and areas that remained open after hours. She was on a mission to find the perfect spots to live out her fantasies. Then it dawned on her—maybe parks weren’t the best option. What about apartments? Places where you’re more likely to see people at any time of day? Spaces that were easier to access at all hours and drew less suspicion.

So she turned her attention to apartments, but with a twist. She decided to incorporate some exposure on these scouting trips. Even though they were in the early evenings after work, she still wanted to have a short thrill.

She decided to get a pair of brown yoga pants, cut out the crotch, and wear a dark-colored shirt that barely covered her pussy. She wanted to look like she belonged there (as though she lived there) and experience the thrill of having her pussy exposed at all times. More risky than a sundress, more original, and closer to her true nature.

The dark colors matched her skin tone and concealed the fact that her pussy was essentially out in the open. The shirts lifted occasionally as she felt a noticeable breeze waft over her navel. She didn’t try to cover up or hide. No one was around when it happened, really, and hardly anyone paid much attention to her. The dark colors, glasses, and generally homely appearance created a stealth mode for her. But her pussy was throbbing.

It was an extremely satisfying and arousing sensation. She got so wet that she had to sit on a towel in her car, because she was leaving wet spots while driving through traffic. Sitting on park benches and other common areas gave her a quiet thrill, knowing that in just a few minutes she would be “marking her territory” as she scrolled porn in public after walking for a few miles. She would slowly part her legs, let the breeze caress her lips, and sit there, fully aroused, letting her pussy leak through the hole in her crotch and onto the bench, daring anyone to notice. They never did.

It felt great to look like a normal, everyday woman, when in fact, she was scouting the entire city for places to get naked in public while listening to porn.

Perversion was giving her so much purpose.

Over time, she normalized exposing her pussy. The only time she covered herself completely was at work, and even then, that was becoming a problem.

She would squeeze her legs together. She would take breaks more often. She would scroll through porn idly on her phone at her desk, brazenly. She had a closed office so all of this was surprisingly easy. No one none noticed a thing. All the while, she squirmed in her clothes, rested her hand between her legs in between meetings and phone calls, and wished her pussy was truly free.

“I'm so far gone, I love it,” Aiesha thought to herself one day.

After about a month of her 'pussy-out' activities, she was ready for the next step. She found the apartment complex that was perfect for her first true public nudity outing.

Before she started her adventure, she decided to do something she had not done in months. She was going to do her makeup. Her hair was natural and curly; there was little to do there, as it was healthy, well-nourished, and dandruff-free. She had a basic skincare routine, always soft and glowing. But she decided to add a touch of spice to make the evening out special: just a little bit of lip gloss, some light blush, a hint of eyeliner, and a flick of her favorite fragrance.

Aiesha looked at her naked body one more time before she put on her outfit for the night: a burgundy fitted shirt, a black cardigan, a pair of Converse sneakers, nothing else. The fitted shirt was exactly as described—it barely covered her hips, leaving just enough fabric to hide her pussy, barely an inch. The cardigan served as a way to conceal her state of undress from the back and provided a pinch of modesty if she truly needed it. She was essentially going out bottomless in public.

This was her first night out after all that. Her grand plan was to gradually normalize public exposure and continue escalating as long as it felt good. Right now, her pussy was buzzing and throbbing almost uncontrollably. The thought of leaving her house practically bottomless gave her butterflies. She was experiencing a full-body high of excitement, arousal, anticipation, and peace.

She wasn't going to bring any backup clothing.

As she grabbed her car keys, she took a look at herself one more time in the mirror. She loved the look. She gave herself a full body hug, smiled, and stepped out in the hallway locking her door. Her heart pounding. Blood rushing in her ears.

Even though it was almost midnight on a Wednesday, there was still some chance of encountering someone. She didn't close the cardigan. She let it flow open like a cape, like she was a superwoman, feeling her inner thighs get wet and sticky with her arousal. Her body spray masked the gentle waft of her womanly musk. The weather was fair, not too hot, not too cold. She decided to take the stairs, gliding down from her 3rd floor to the parking level. Taking the long way around to get to her car, she tested the waters and imagined what it would feel like to be truly exposed at her flashing destination.

When she got to her car, she took off the cardigan and folded it in a compact square. She loved the idea of leaking everywhere, but she was going to protect her leather seats. She paid good money for this used car and she was proud of it. As her bare ass settled in the seat, she parted her legs slightly and started touching herself. Her porn playlist started. Sexual moans blending in with the rumble of the engine. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath taking in the sounds and the sensations of her public exposure.

With her eyes closed, she took a deep breath and reached for her clit. She spoke her mantra for the night. Planned for this exact moment. She cooed as she rubbed her pussy.

“This is normal,” she said over and over. She said it 10 times, then opened her eyes hazy with arousal, put the car in gear and drove to her destination. This was the beginning of her first night out.

 
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from M.A.G. blog, signed by Lydia

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Crocs in the Boardroom? Who is Diane von Fürstenberg, Are you backing up? Package leaflet / Patient information leaflet (PIL) / package insert / drug facts label / package insert, and Lunch at Elmina Castle

Crocs in the Boardroom? The Accra Corporate Girl Said Yes! Let’s be honest: there was a time when Crocs were strictly for quick errands, hospital shifts, beach trips, or that “I’m not leaving the house for anything serious” mood. But fashion has officially changed the rules, and the Accra corporate girl is ready to clock in—with comfort and style. Yes, sis. Crocs can enter the corporate conversation. The secret? Styling them intentionally. The Corporate Crocs Formula: Forget the loud, overly decorated pairs for a moment. For the office, think neutral shades, sleek silhouettes, and elevated styling. Black, cream, beige, brown, navy, and even muted pastels can blend beautifully into a corporate wardrobe. Keep the Rest of the Outfit Polished: Crocs are already making a statement, so let the rest of your outfit say, “Yes, I planned this.” Add a structured handbag, neat hair, simple jewellery, and a clean, well-tailored outfit. The goal is not to look like you forgot your office shoes at home. The goal is to look like you knew exactly what you were doing. Jibbitz? Office Appropriate Edition: Personalising your Crocs can be fun, but maybe don’t turn your shoes into a full amusement park before your Monday morning presentation. Choose a few stylish charms—minimal, chic, and relevant to your personality. Remember: corporate, but make it fun. Who is Diane von Fürstenberg to be awarded the 2026 Couture Council Award from the Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). Born Diane Simone Michele Halfin in Belgium in 1946 (she will be 80 in December), she is best known for her wrap dress. After finishing a strictly non-fashion schooling, she worked as an assistant to fashion photographer's agent Albert Koski in Paris, then moved to Italy to apprentice with the textile manufacturer Angelo Ferretti, where she learned about cut, color and fabric. Here she designed her first wrap tops and skirts as separates, and after seeing a customer wearing the pieces together, Fürstenberg converted the design to a one-piece dress. It is included in the collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She opted to first advertise the wrap dress in Women's Wear Daily in 1974, and included the tagline: “Feel like a woman, wear a dress!” Soon after the launch, 25,000 dresses were selling each week; one million dresses had been sold by 1976. After the success of the wrap dress, von Fürstenberg was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1976. The accompanying article declared her “the most marketable woman since Coco Chanel.” Fürstenberg relaunched her company in 1997, and reintroduced the wrap dress, which gained popularity with a new generation of women. Her fashion company, Diane von Furstenberg (DvF), is available in over 70 countries and 45 free-standing shops worldwide, with the company's headquarters and flagship boutique located in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Von Fürstenberg at the 2008 New York Fashion Week

Are you backing up? Yes? In the cloud? Your phone(s)? And your laptop or Ipad? I often see whatsapp postings like: lost all my data, repeat all messages, lost all my numbers etc. So not everyone is doing the right thing. Personally I do write phone numbers of those who are really dear to me on an old fashioned piece of paper. And I do small size prints of pictures of very memorial people and events, I don't trust that cloud too much and I don't trust myself too much. I adore an Accra painter, Nii Korley and have bought some of his paintings to adorn my walls. Recently he contacted me, he‘d lost all the pictures of his paintings, his life's work. I sent back a few things he had sent to me earlier and I got a warm so grateful for giving me something important to take me back my studio of creativity. I replied: I'll find some more and got thank you so much for your sacrifice despite your busy schedule. The man is obviously in pain and now contacting anyone who might have pictures of his work. I know a TV program creator. She’s originated things like Ghana's Most Beautiful and many other well known programs. Because I have a few very smart computer friends she came to me, her hard disc had crashed, could I get it repaired? We couldn't. She’d lost 3 month of recordings. And I asked a fashion model for some pictures of her previous catwalk shows. Lost my phone, she answered. Backing up?

Package leaflet / Patient information leaflet (PIL) / package insert / drug facts label / package insert. Most of us don't even know the word for this. It’s that folded paper with fine print in the box of medicines you bought. And the majority of us don't read it anyway. Wrong. Let’s say you have a headache and have decided to take paracetamol. It’s an over-the-counter drug, OTC, so you don't need a prescription. Next to pharmacies, which are supposed to always have a qualified pharmacist present to always advise you about the drug you buy and the ailment you have, ordinary chemical sellers are also allowed to sell it. So much blah-blah text for simple paracetamol? Yes. If you would read that “PIL” (Patient information leaflet), you would learn that the maximum you can take is maximum one 1000 mg tablet per minimum 4 hours, and not more than 4000 mg per day. And that it can make you vomit, give stomach upset, rash, itching, swelling of face and lips, and dizziness. Here’s the interesting part: you had a headache, but now you have itching and a swollen face as well, so you rush back to the pharmacy, for another pill (and more money spent). Whilst stopping the paracetamol would also have done the trick. So read the PIL and recognize a side effect as a side effect, rather than a strange disease. And if you take more than that 4000 mg? It may be toxic to your liver, cause liver failure, and even death. Chemical seller did not tell you? He just sells PILS?

Lunch at Elmina Castle. This is on the World Heritage list (something passed down from past generations, including traditions, culture, property, and values) of UNESCO, meaning the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It draws a fair crowd of tourists, including busloads of school children. Unfortunately, often the bus leaves Accra late and the road currently is very bad for a big part, so once arrived late at the castle, the kids can take a selfie and then the journey goes back home. Pity, it is worth a visit and with the guides one gets a better understanding of Ghana’s history. A worthwhile recent addition is the café, Anomansa Restaurant. After the visit, one can take a decent jollof, and the spring rolls are crackling fresh, at reasonable prices. Service is prompt. Seating inside, quiet, or a bit up, outside with a splendid look over Elmina’s fishing harbour, which in itself is worth a UNESCO World Heritage nomination. And Ghana has many places worth visiting, for the locals and for the foreign tourists. Shame that mostly the hotel service is poor and not up to the international standards the tourists expect.

Lydia...

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from hypocritepoet

rambling

The water's running. Need to remember to turn it off so I don't flood the yard. The yard. Esh. I never did get momentum to turn it into anything other than a haven for weeds.

Headaches back this morning. Water. Need water. High quality H20.

Ants are back too. Defeated in the kitchen. Defeated in the living room. Defeated in the bathroom. Defeated in the studios.

Now... the art room. Zero chemicals... just takes time. Need to plan for the spring. Maybe borax/sugar traps outside.

Maybe move away from hell.

principle stenciil

–

Meeting last night. Eeesh. Part of it was my dark mood. But a bigger part was the teaching. I just tell myself, 'I chose this' and laugh. What's strange is, I aren't rilly wehry'd abert me. It's everyone else. My friends. Then again, maybe they're fine and i'm just insane.

Uh. don't like that word. It's almost a curse word. Unsettled? Imbalanced? Nuts?

scott c dinos

Maybe I'm just not thinking positively enough. Getting ready for art shows is always stressful and physically demanding. Ng cut the end of her finger off yesterday trimming a print.

“Should I go get it sutured?”

I laughed. I've cut the ends or side of my own digits off a dozen times over the years. Sometimes cleanly, once or twice like a badger chewed on it. And I suppose a surgeon could sew that flap back on. But what they'd more likely do is trim off the flap and bandage it.

I never bothered with the hospital. I just bandage it up and nurse it until the wound closes or the flap breaks free.

That which does not kill you, teaches you to be more careful with an x-acto blade.

At least it was sharp.

hokusai seuss

Bad news from the mechanic on Van. Looks like I'll be replacing that fuel pump myself. No way I'm shelling out more than my parents paid for their first home for a six hour job. Sheesh.

How come everyone in the universe is quadrupling their prices while my clients are asking me to lower mine?

Money. a satanic construct to allow the powerful to manipulate the stupid.

Interesting conversation last night about Rebekah (from the Bible). Genesis 24:1-67 is her account.

I love how she introduces herself when asked “who are you?”

“I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.”

Dad and grandparents, that's who I am. Smart. For a young woman who hasn't yet made a name for herself, but also establishes 'i've got people'. So not just social, there's some security as well.

Prosaically it's nice too: sort of archaic as opposed to way we speak now, 'Oh, hi, I'm Jack.'

In the account, she's praised for her hardworking-ness, her beauty and her obedience to God.

From modern eyes, it's a weird account. She's basically sold into a marriage. Which is kind of distasteful from our western POV. Where's the romance? Where's the falling in love? The 'I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.'?

Things were different.

Right? We're not sold into marriage any more? Women are not assets, ornaments, baubles or trade devices. According to 1 Peter 5:8 at least, their supposed to be considered superior in many ways.

I'm sure good parents would love to have a say in choosing a mate for their children. Rebekah's dad, we will find out later, was a bit of a scoundrel when it came to marrying off Rebekah's younger sisters.

It was a good study of the material. but the crowd just wasn't there. There were HUGE opportunities to discuss the importance and power of cooperation and respect. But mostly, we just talked about watering camels.

Yes, yes, it's an interesting point that she hauled up a couple of hundred gallons of water. She was clearly a very hard-working young woman.

But her willingness to follow what appeared to be God's direction was way more impressive. To leave her family and comfort (well, relative comfort) and join a whole new team... impressive.

And it worked out well. But she couldn't have known that.

Except that it was God's will.

Sometimes that's easy. Do God's will and it will work out.

Sometimes... it would be easier to walk over molten glass.

Sometimes you feel like Sisyphus.

—

But Rebekah. She was a swell gal. She respected others. If there's currency, real currency... it's respect and love.

—

Slept well. Unsettling dreams. Someone was angry at me and someone else chased. Someone was calling me a psycho.

Don't like this format of oldest posts at the end of the blog. A lot of unnecessary clicking to get to the end of the line. I was going to abandon this and move my energy else where. But I need somehere I can just blah blah blah and then pull from this for more sanitized presentation.

Let's switch back.

dream pepepr

-

Maybe bring back the diary format. What the hell. Why not.

The world is a big place. Wherever you are, dear reader, hope your day is filled with joy and gladness. Even if the sun isn't quite as bright as it could be, you can always find happiness in your heart.

Like Joe Dirt says, “you can't have no in your heart.” joe dirt

I better get to work. I could sit here all day long rambling away.

But you know? this helps. talking to you. I was pretty dour an hour ago... now? Feeling positively springy... sometimes you just got to exorcise a little.

night fire

—

 
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from sector7-signal-Inkari

It has been a while...

Apparently it takes a nationally watched murder trial, two deadlock notes, a disputed holdout juror, and seven days of deliberations to drag me back to the keyboard.

Not exactly the triumphant return I had planned.

As of this writing (9/4/26), the jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is entering its seventh day without a unanimous verdict. Deliberations began August 27 in Plymouth Superior Court after nearly six weeks of testimony before Judge William Sullivan. The panel — nine women and three men — has already told the court twice that it cannot agree. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has publicly described the split as 11–1 and asked the judge to remove a juror he says “spurned the instructions” on reasonable doubt. The judge declined Thursday. An inquiry of that juror was expected Friday morning. A mistrial is possible. A verdict is also possible. Neither has arrived.

That is the news.

Here is what is not in dispute:

On January 24, 2023, in a house in Duxbury, Massachusetts, Cora Clancy, five years old; Dawson Clancy, three years old; and Callan Clancy, eight months old, were strangled with exercise bands. Lindsay Clancy does not deny causing their deaths. Afterward she cut herself and jumped from a second-story window. She survived. She is now paralyzed from the waist down and has been held at Tewksbury Hospital. The children did not survive. Callan died days later. The strangulation counts were later dropped as redundant with the murder charges. The trial is about the three murders.

The legal question before the jury is not whether the children are dead. It is whether Clancy was criminally responsible when she killed them. Massachusetts law allows a finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility if a mental disease or defect left her unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or unable to conform it to the law. The defense says postpartum psychosis — and a disastrous course of psychiatric treatment — did exactly that. Prosecutors say she planned it: she sent her husband, Patrick, out for takeout and medication, then used the window of time. A first-degree murder conviction carries life without parole. A finding of no criminal responsibility would not send her home. It would ordinarily mean commitment to a state psychiatric facility, subject to review. Those are the stakes in the room. And before someone adjusts their glasses, clears their throat, opens Outlook, and begins composing an email titled Actually, Inkari… Yes.

I know!

The jury is not sitting in a room debating whether murdering children is morally acceptable. They are answering a specific and difficult legal question about criminal responsibility under Massachusetts law. Thank you, imaginary commenter.

You may lower your hand now. Because I am talking about something larger than twelve jurors in Plymouth. I am talking about us. I am talking about a culture so terrified of making a moral judgment that every clear sentence now requires seventeen disclaimers, three diagnoses, six specialists, a flowchart, a podcast miniseries, and a laminated permission slip before anyone is allowed to say:

Killing children is wrong.

There.

I typed it.

The ceiling did not collapse.

The internet probably survived.

You will too.

Remember their names Cora was five.

Dawson was three.

Callan was eight months old. Remember those names. Because if we are going to spend weeks talking about Lindsay Clancy’s mind, Lindsay Clancy’s medications, Lindsay Clancy’s treatment, Lindsay Clancy’s suffering, Lindsay Clancy’s diagnosis, Lindsay Clancy’s legal responsibility, Lindsay Clancy’s doctors, and Lindsay Clancy’s psychiatric history, perhaps somewhere in all that sophisticated discussion we could remember one inconvenient detail: There were three other human beings in that house. Three children.

Three victims.

Three little people who depended entirely on the adults around them to keep them safe. And they are dead.

We collect explanations like coupons Somewhere along the way, our culture developed a peculiar allergy to moral clarity. We love explanations.

We collect them like coupons. Trauma.

Mental illness.

Childhood.

Medication.

Hormones.

Stress.

Environment.

Systems.

Diagnosis. Every one of those things can matter.

Some of them matter enormously here. Nobody needs to pretend Lindsay Clancy was mentally well. Her struggles are not a last-minute courtroom invention. The prosecution and defense disagree over her condition and what it did to her criminal responsibility. Serious concerns about her mental health and psychiatric treatment are part of the established history of this case. Mental illness is real. Postpartum psychosis is real. People can become profoundly disconnected from reality. Psychiatric care can fail. Doctors can make mistakes. Medication can be complicated. Families can miss warning signs. Systems built to catch people before catastrophe can fail spectacularly. I am not interested in pretending otherwise. But can we please remember that Lindsay was not the only person hurting? Imagine that.

Apparently this is the revolutionary contribution Inkari has returned from hiatus to provide. Yes.

Lindsay was hurting mentally.

We know.

We have discussed it.

Experts have testified about it.

Lawyers have argued about it.

News programs have dissected it.

Millions of strangers have debated it. Her suffering has received articles, interviews, court days, expert analysis, and endless commentary. Now here is my apparently outrageous question: Has anybody stopped long enough to think about how the children were hurting? Cora.

Dawson.

Callan. The conversation keeps orbiting the suffering of the adult who killed them while the children she killed are slowly pushed toward the edge of their own story. They become “the three children.”

“The victims.”

“The Clancy children.”

A sentence halfway down an article before we return to psychiatric medications. No. They had names.

They had bodies.

They could experience pain.

They depended on their mother.

They were completely vulnerable to the adults responsible for protecting them.

They were the ones physically harmed.

They were the ones whose lives ended.

They were the ones who never got to sit in a courtroom and explain what happened to them. And somehow we have become so sophisticated in our compassion that we are in danger of compassioning the victims straight out of their own murder case.

The question underneath the case Does mental illness suddenly erase a person’s responsibility not to kill another human being? If your answer is simply yes, with no qualification and no further thought required, then I need you to understand the size of the thing you just said. Mental illness can affect judgment.

It can distort perception.

It can interfere with someone’s ability to distinguish reality from delusion.

Severe psychiatric illness can affect legal culpability. And yes — there are circumstances under American law where a person can commit a horrific act and nevertheless be found not criminally responsible because of their mental state. That legal concept exists for a reason. Fine.

Take it seriously. But stop turning that legal question into a moral magic trick where three children disappear beneath the tablecloth. Their lives mattered.

Their suffering mattered.

What happened to them mattered.

They were hurting too. Except they don’t get psychiatrists.

They don’t get attorneys.

They don’t get expert witnesses.

They don’t get sympathetic profiles explaining the complexities surrounding that night.

They don’t get years afterward to process what happened.

They don’t get another morning. So perhaps, for five minutes, we could let them occupy the center of the conversation. Because somewhere between understanding why someone did something and deciding what that means, America appears to have driven the family minivan directly through the guardrail. Explanation became exoneration.

Context became absolution.

Compassion became an excuse to mumble when we should speak plainly.

And nuance, once a useful tool for understanding complicated things, has been promoted to Supreme Moral Emperor of Everything. Say that an action was evil and someone immediately assumes you believe mental illness is fictional.

Acknowledge mental illness and somebody else assumes you have declared the action morally neutral.

Express compassion for the perpetrator and you are accused of forgetting the victims.

Demand justice for the victims and someone concludes you have no compassion for the mentally ill. Apparently the human brain is now capable of holding precisely one thought at a time. Very advanced species we have become.

Two things can be true Lindsay Clancy may have been profoundly mentally ill.

And killing Cora, Dawson, and Callan was wrong. The healthcare system may have failed her.

And three children were still killed. Her psychiatric condition matters when determining criminal responsibility.

And their deaths do not become less horrific because her mind may have been severely disordered. We can investigate failures in her treatment. We should.

We can ask whether her doctors recognized what was happening. We should.

We can study postpartum mental illness more seriously. We absolutely should.

We can build better systems for mothers in psychiatric emergency. Please, for the love of all things sane, we should. And while doing every one of those things, we can maintain the apparently endangered belief that parents possess a responsibility not to kill their children. These thoughts do not cancel each other out.

They are not mortal enemies.

They can sit at the same table. Compassion matters.

Justice matters.

Mental health matters.

Personal responsibility matters.

Context matters.

Right and wrong still exist.

Humans are complicated.

Morality does not therefore evaporate. That distinction matters because mental illness is not imaginary.

But neither is morality. And I am deeply uncomfortable with a culture increasingly convinced that acknowledging one requires dismantling the other. Because where exactly does that road end? If every explanation eventually becomes an excuse, accountability becomes impossible. There will always be a reason. Always. Trauma somewhere. A wound. A fear. An ideology. A diagnosis. A childhood. A chemical. An influence. A circumstance. A desire. A pressure. A biological process. Human beings do not commit wrongdoing inside sterile laboratory vacuums.

Every sinner has a biography.

That has never meant sin does not exist.

Scripture already knew this tension Christianity, inconveniently for modern sensibilities, has understood this for a long time. Scripture does not present humanity as a collection of cartoon villains twirling mustaches in dark alleyways. It presents people as broken. Wounded. Deceived. Tempted. Afraid. Angry. Sick. Selfish. Sometimes oppressed. Sometimes oppressing someone else. Sometimes victimized. Sometimes victimizing others. Frequently several of those things before breakfast. And yet Scripture never concludes: Well, everyone is complicated, so I suppose good and evil are canceled. Quite the opposite. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;

Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

— Isaiah 5:20, NASB 1995 Grace means something because sin is real.

Mercy means something because judgment is real.

Forgiveness means something because there is actually something requiring forgiveness. You cannot preserve biblical compassion by deleting biblical accountability.

That is not mercy.

That is moral anesthesia. And America seems increasingly determined to sedate its conscience. Paul did not treat the moral law as a niche religious hobby. He said even those without the written Law still show it at work in them: “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”

— Romans 2:14–15, NASB 1995 That is why the simplest sentence in this whole affair still rings. Not because a jury said it. Because conscience does. We are perfectly comfortable proclaiming MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS when mental illness is marketable. When it looks like anxiety beneath a weighted blanket. When it is depression expressed through a tasteful pastel infographic. When it is someone bravely admitting they are struggling while gentle piano music plays underneath. Good.

Have those conversations.

Please.

I mean that. Mental-health awareness matters. People should be able to ask for help without shame. But severe mental illness is not always photogenic. Sometimes it is terrifying. Sometimes someone loses contact with reality. Sometimes someone becomes dangerous to themselves. Sometimes someone becomes dangerous to other people. Sometimes people are harmed. Sometimes people die. If our compassion for mental illness evaporates the moment illness becomes frightening, then we never actually cared about severe mental illness.

We cared about branding. Listen carefully, because the opposite error is sitting directly across the aisle. Acknowledging severe mental illness does not require pretending actions lose all moral significance. We should be capable of saying:

“This person may have been extraordinarily sick.”

And:

“This should never have happened.”

Without our heads exploding. We should be able to investigate psychiatric failures without turning Cora, Dawson, and Callan into collateral damage in a policy argument.

We should be able to discuss postpartum psychosis seriously without allowing three children to become supporting characters in the story of the person who killed them.

We should be able to recognize diminished criminal responsibility where the law determines it exists without rewriting the underlying act into something harmless. That is not contradiction.

That is adulthood. Justice without mercy becomes brutality.

Mercy without truth becomes sentimentality.

Compassion without moral clarity eventually becomes cowardice.

Moral clarity without compassion becomes cruelty. We need all of them.

At the same time. Annoying, isn’t it?

Humans keep insisting on being complicated. Micah already refused the false choice: “He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the LORD require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?”

— Micah 6:8, NASB 1995 Justice.

Kindness.

Humility.

Not one of those words devouring the other two.

One thing here is not complicated Three children should still be alive. Cora.

Five years old. Dawson.

Three years old. Callan.

Eight months old. Perhaps before we spend another day arguing over which ideological tribe gets custody of this tragedy, we could remember them. Not as evidence.

Not as Exhibit Whatever.

Not as symbols in a debate about maternal mental health.

Not as ammunition for whichever side of the internet woke up angry this morning. Children.

A little girl.

A little boy.

A baby.

Whatever comes from that courtroom, I hope we possess enough moral backbone to resist turning it into something it isn’t. A guilty verdict would not prove mental illness is fake.

A verdict finding her not criminally responsible would not make killing children morally acceptable.

A mistrial would not transform disagreement about a legal standard into disagreement about whether three children’s deaths were horrific. The jury has a difficult question.

They should answer it carefully.

That is their responsibility. The rest of us have another. Do not become so intoxicated with explanation that you forget explanation has limits. Understanding an action does not automatically sanctify it.

Diagnosing something does not baptize it.

Finding the wound does not resurrect the people injured by it.

Having compassion for someone’s broken mind does not require gouging out your moral compass and throwing it into the nearest river.

And caring deeply about mental illness does not require looking at three dead children and suddenly becoming frightened of the word wrong. “Deliver those who are being taken away to death,

And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.

If you say, ‘See, we did not know this,’

Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts?

And does He not know it who keeps your soul?

And will He not render to man according to his work?”

— Proverbs 24:11–12, NASB 1995 The children cannot be held back now.

That is the horror.

What remains is whether we will pretend we did not know what we were looking at.

Seven days and counting.

Take the law seriously.

Take psychiatric illness seriously.

Take postpartum psychosis seriously.

Investigate the doctors.

Investigate the medications.

Investigate the system.

Ask whether warning signs were missed.

Ask whether better intervention could have prevented this.

Ask every uncomfortable question available. Please ask them. Maybe answering those questions saves the next mother.

Maybe it saves the next child. But for the love of everything holy, stop acting as though complexity requires moral paralysis. Some actions can be understood and still condemned.

Someone can deserve compassion while the thing they did deserves judgment.

Someone’s suffering can matter without mattering more than the suffering of the people they harmed.

Mercy and justice can occupy the same room.

Mental illness and moral responsibility can exist in the same conversation. And sometimes the bravest sentence left in a culture drowning beneath qualifications is the simplest one: What happened was wrong. Lindsay was hurting.

Yes. So were they.

And they do not get to tell us about it. Three children should be alive.

No diagnosis changes that.

No verdict changes that.

No amount of nuance changes that. So before you remember the defendant’s diagnosis —

before you remember the lawyers —

before you remember the experts —

before you remember the arguments —

before you remember the holdout juror, the deadlock notes, the Friday inquiry, the possible mistrial — Remember their names. Cora.

Dawson.

Callan. Everything else comes after.

Yep, the classic one was: — inkari 🧵⚡

Sector Δ7

Data Recovered — Romans 1:20

Note on the record: As of Friday morning, September 4, 2026, there is still no verdict. The 11–1 figure is the defense’s characterization, not a court finding. A finding of no criminal responsibility would not equal walking free. The children’s names and ages follow the established public record of the case. Scripture quoted from the New American Standard Bible, 1995.

 
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from Trollish Delver

With AI being the potential downfall of creativity, now more than ever we need to be making shit that AI just could never. All AI will ever give you is middle-of-the-road milquetoast rot. “Designers” out there are generating images and text of modules and calling it a day. And the more that happens, the more LLMs train on that data and you have a cycle of shite.

Weirdo jank is the way forward. AI can’t do weirdo jank. It has to make everything ‘just so’. “Oh but I want to play serious games where there’s mechanical stability and balance” – do you though? Or do you want to throw some dice and have a laugh coming up with nonsense with your friends? Ok, maybe you do want serious, and that’s ok, but I dunno – I think we need to start getting really strange with it. Cut your restraints. Go against convention. Don’t listen to the likes of Reddit who have 1000 reasons you shouldn’t do something. They’re mostly children. Stop talking yourself out of weird jank and embrace it.

Corpos hate you and they want everyone to be little automatons without a mind of their own. Roleplaying games can save us from that. Horrible little artpunk nonsense games that stop use from scrolling or buying a thing from an ad (likely AI generated). AI companies hate you because they want everyone to be smooth-brained idiots sloshing around in the slop bucket, drinking from the slop bucket. Original ideas are in danger.

“Oh but I’m not a game designer” – yes you are. If you have an idea, put it out there. Draw it in crayon and scan it. You don’t need to know stats and maths. It’s JANK. Let the act of creativity be one of rebellion against the robots and the suits.

Commission artists, if you can. If you can’t, hack up stock photos. Use old book illustrations. Draw some shit yourself – whatever you do will be leagues better than what the robots spill out of their rancid shafts. Limitation breeds creativity, and that’s the opposite of AI which seeks unlimited data, which just becomes a shit blancmange.

Make your nasty little jank game on a bit of tissue. Play it with strangers. They’ll probably have a lot of fun and you might make some friends. AI is not a friend.

Bathe the world in creative detritus and laugh.

Get my own jank on Patreon.

 
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from Blog of Sand

White Whale of a Blog Update

I believe this is the 85th post on the Blog of Sand thus far. I will say the frequency of posting and amount of content most likely won't remain at this level... I'm more working through a backlog of ideas and content I've built up over the years.

That said, the Blog has surpassed the length of Moby Dick! By my calculation, Moby Dick is approximately 1,233,760 characters, and this blog currently has 1,469,670 characters. By far the largest contributing series to the bulk of this blog is the Starcraft Co. series. It is 25 posts long so far, with three more planned posts (more if I decide to break them up like I did post 23) and it accounts for approximately 41% of the bulk of the Blog at this point. However, once it is completed that percent will dwindle over time as new content gets posted. The Inbetweener Series is 12 posts long and accounts for about 12.5% of the blogs content, but I fully anticipate it to be the longest and richest post series in terms of the number of installments and amount of content before I'm done.

The next milestone I have targeted is beating the King James Bible in terms of character count. That may take quite a while. The text file I downloaded for it is 4,638,061, so I'm less than a 1/3 of the way there and will probably need to take some substantial breaks before then. We will see though, it's hard to predict post inspiration.

So coming down the line we have the following:

-The epic conclusion to Starcraft Co. -Continuing the Inbetweeners Series -A number of academic analyses I have planned -A few short stories -Experimental RPG systems -Math related posts -A liminal space series, inspired partially by The Backrooms -much much more...

 
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from hypocritepoet

I can't believe it

https://open.spotify.com/track/24KqWcpyrY1COcRPYt2ef5?si=c55c6353ed204b5a

“Oh My God”

Time on your side that will never end The most beautiful thing you can ever spend But you work in a shirt with your name tag on it Drifting apart like a plate tectonic It don't matter to me 'Cos all I wanted to be Was a million miles from here Somewhere more familiar Too much time spent dragging the past up I didn't see you not looking when I messed up Settling down in your early twenties Sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist It don't matter to me 'Cos all I wanted to be Is a million miles from here Somewhere more familiar Oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home Great rulers make for greater glory The only thing growing is our history Knock me down I'll get right back up again I'll come back stronger than a powered up Pac-Man It don't matter to me 'Cos all I wanted to be Was a million miles from here Somewhere more familiar Oh my god, I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home

[Instrumental Break]

Oh my, god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home And oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home

 
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from The Essayist's Notebook

“In good faith”

or “Of good faith”?

I'm working in my barn.

Midway between a church founded by Eleanor of Aquitaine, Huguenot at the time Michel de Montaigne was writing, and the home I now occupy, formerly the sixteenth-century home of the choirmaster appointed by a Catholic hierarchy to win the local protestant congregation back to the Catholic Church.

One wall of my barn is likely the remains of the tourelle of the château of the Abbé Laïque, the lay-abbot of this village, and my potager is outside the former tithe yard of the enclosure. And the seigneur to whom they would all have owed fealty was none other than Henri of Navarre – first a Protestant, then the Catholic King of France, and the man who eventually brought an end to the Wars of Religion; exemplified in the small village landscape in which I am currently toiling.

As the labour proceeds I am reflecting on the English-language Wikipedia article I have just read on Michel de Montaigne and his Essays. Montaigne's famous Avis au lecteur opens with a declaration that he presents himself to the reader de bonne foi. English translations almost invariably render this as “in good faith”. The translation is perfectly defensible.

But as I put away my tools there is a tiny nag, and it will not go away. In modern English, in my experience, in good faith usually refers to the manner of an action. If I act in good faith, I act honestly, sincerely, without intent to deceive. The emphasis falls on conduct. I may be mistaken, but my intentions are honourable.

Yet I find myself hearing the French de bonne foi slightly differently.

Perhaps this is partly because of where I am. I have Irish and Basque friends, and Breton ones too. And perhaps living amongst people whose languages have developed in such different relationships to French and English has made me more attentive to the nominal structures of language – to the way prepositions and nouns can carry meaning together rather than simply marking grammatical relationships that modern English would treat as incidental.

It has also made me wary of assuming that the grammars of modern English, and of modern French, transparent windows onto an older language. We have compressed some things that earlier languages allowed to remain more spacious.

The old association between preposition and noun can carry something that a modern grammatical analysis is inclined to tidy away. And de seems to me to be one of those small words whose apparent simplicity becomes less certain the longer one looks at it. I am not suggesting that de simply means from here. In fact, of is perhaps what interests me first.

Un livre de bonne foi. – A book of good faith.

Even as I write this, that reads a little differently to the Wikipedia article. That sentence seems to me to ask a different question from a book written in good faith. In good faith asks something about the manner in which Montaigne writes. But of good faith seems to ask something about the constitution of the work itself: What kind of book is this? And if I allow myself to take the thought one step further, another question appears: From where does Montaigne speak?

I don't mean that de bonne foi should therefore be translated from good faith. That would be to make the speculation do more work than the language warrants. Rather, the awkwardness of the thought has made me stop.

And now I look through the opening in the barn wall towards the old church. The architecture reveals its history without needing to explain it. Catholic, Huguenot, Catholic again. The old structures of land and authority remain in the landscape, even though the people who inhabited them and the allegiances they carried have long since changed.

And suddenly the word foi begins to trouble me more than de. Because here foi isn't an abstract word. Faith has been lived here. It has been believed and imposed, defended and abandoned, inherited and converted, even woo'd by music. It has been bound up with allegiance, authority and trust. And perhaps that is why Montaigne's little phrase catches me.

The Avis au lecteur is unusual. Montaigne tells the reader that his book has no grand public purpose beyond presenting himself honestly to his family and friends. He has not written to seek fame, instruction or public approval. Instead, he offers a plain and unadorned portrait of his character, habits and thoughts, preserving a record of himself as he is.

The book's subject is not simply the world. It is Montaigne himself encountering the world. And so he asks the reader not to expect anything more than a sincere self-portrait written de bonne foi.

As the author of essayism.org, I grasp his intention. The Avis au lecteur may even be an inspiration for essayism.org itself. Only now do I realize this. And now the nag is becoming hesitation. Past hesitation now, reluctance itself. I cannot quite accept the conventional translation without qualification.

In good faith can make Montaigne sound like a conscientious reporter of facts. Yet the Essays are not reports. They are attempts to establish a position from which a human being may speak truthfully about their own experience despite uncertainty. The essay is not founded on certainty but on a fidelity (foi ?) to experience.

I pick up a carpenter's pencil lying on my bench, take a rag and wipe away an area of decaying seventeenth-century plaster. And adopt the old habit I and Montaigne both share: writing to clarify.

In good faith asks: How is Montaigne speaking? Of good faith asks: What kind of work is this? From good faith asks: From where does Montaigne speak?

I wonder if the final question might be the most significant. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Because I have begun by worrying about de, and now I find myself worrying about foi. And foi seems to open onto a much larger territory than I had intended to enter...

Faith. – Fidelity. – Trust. – Allegiance. The keeping of one's word. – Perhaps even the conditions under which one person can speak to another and ask to be believed without pretending to possess certainty.

Montaigne lived through the French Wars of Religion. Henri of Navarre, whose name is written into the history of this landscape, was first Protestant and then Catholic King of France. The very distinction between faith and allegiance was not as clean as we might now imagine.

But I don't want to resolve that here. The historical landscape has already done what it needs to do. It has made the word feel heavier. I began with de. I thought I was wondering whether in good faith was quite the right way to hear de bonne foi.

Now I find myself wondering what Montaigne's foi actually asks of the reader. That is probably another note. For now, I will leave the thread where I found it. – De bonne foi.

And go back to the work- the land demands attention.

 
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