I think it was on Christmas Eve, late at night, after all the excitement was over, that I went outside for a little bit alone for some air. You can see stars in the city, at least my part of the city, but I had forgotten what it's like, when the night is perfectly crystal clear and there are no lights to interfere. Not just stars, but like you'd taken a handful of glitter and spread across the skies; all those small stars that you never see in the city because the sky is lit up too much. It gets so dark here on the countryside, so completely dark it engulfs you in an otherworldly feeling. It took my by surprise.

For a moment I felt completely alone in the world, and the incomprehensible vastness of space made the reality of my own mortality well up from the beast beneath. The intelligent mind likes to push it away, but the beast knows. I got tears in my eyes, maybe because the insignificance of my life and death in comparison to the stars was a bit too much for me, but mostly because everything was so beautiful. Mortality, death, distance - and the sky. It frightened me, but made me wish for more.

Beauty is cold. It is not a warm red Santa, or the glimmer in a child's eyes, or the warmth of a hug. It has nothing to do with love or generosity. Beauty is a cold mistress, a crystal constellation; beauty is smooth, hard ice and deep impenetrable darkness and distant, uncaring light. Those who confess to the god of beauty will live like skulking wolves in the borderlands of the glowing crystal ice, forever struggling against their fear of light to get a glimpse of their most beloved mistress.

My beast stared up at the stars, and for a moment it shared with me the absolute obedience and loyalty that only beasts can know. It let me feel the fear that only beasts can fear, at the border between light and darkness, and it showed me how the light burned against its skin and how it still longed and longed for it. Perhaps it was my totem sign, marking my belonging to the church of glass and razorblades. But then again, we all knew that already.

Lövet och Stjärnorna

Jag är ett löv på stora havets vågor
och driver fram och åter som det vill.
Man säger mig att jag kan växa åror
om jag är modig och stark och lite till.

Man säger att där finns ett träd jag kom från,
och någonstans jag kanske blir ett träd.
Och likt ett legendariskt barn på halmstrån,
Tre Vise Männen kan visa mig min väg.

Man säger, du som kan se stjärnor
du borde ro dit stjärnskådarna bor.
Att driva runt är som med svin och pärlor;
varför va löv när man kan vara stor?

Men jag är blott ett löv på havets vida vågor,
jag ser stjärnor när de själva ror förbi.
Jag varit båt om jag var ment för åror
- men jag är Löv, och löv ska jag förbli.

Pony Aliens

This:

Now that I have your attention, that is indeed a My Little Pony gone Alien.

There's an awesome artist doing pony versions of popular culture

figures, ranging from Batman to Marilyn Monroe, go check out

Sippo on DeviantArt!

Not a common cover

Wish I could have done this one better, because it's awesome (and also cheating - genderflipping Witchblade is like shooting paralyzed ducks with a homing rocket launcher) but it's got way too much detail and stuff so I just preserved some general moody darkness.

I can't actually remember ever seeing a graphic novel with this kind of cover. Yaoi can possibly have scantily clad guys in compromising positions on the cover, but not quite like this actually, even if that's how they end up in the pages. And for a woman to get this kind of position? No boob, hip or neck exposure and with a serious, dark expression... also notice her lips being closed, while the dude (you might not see this because it's so small) has his scandalously slightly open.

Looking closely also made me notice other things. Like that her blade-tentacle-censor thingy is drawn as if it's hands grabbing her boobs. And I have no idea what the snake has to do with anything. The dude (whose name is Darkness) actually doesn't have *that* crazy shoulders to be a comic book dude. Lately I've realized that to make men look even impossibly more buff, they draw their heads smaller relative to their bodies which, when you start thinking about it, makes them look more silly than cool actually - just like I think Witchblade and all her boob-job friends look silly. I'm not saying all artists draw either gender that way however, there are plenty doing a fine job of applying cool comic style without drinking too deep from the more-is-better-fountain and falling off the tower of exaggeration in their drunken stupor.

Amnesia

It's been around for a while, but I haven't talked about it so I will now. I'm gonna recommend Amnesia: The Dark Descent. And if you're not going to play it, or am too much of a wuss like me to play it, I'm going to recommend watching Day9 play it. It's not only very amusing, it's like a crash course in fantastic game design, and fear.

I found it very interesting, on top of getting to "play the game" through him, to see my own reactions together with his and see where they overlapped and stuff. It's obviously very different playing the game and watching someone else do it, but watching it is as much as my nerves can take (I am a huge scardycat in games) and I knew from the earlier games from the company that they are absolutely awesome at what they do - which is to slowly, gently, carefully wrap you in dread and leave you standing in front of a door going "no, fuck this, no, no no I'm not gonna open it, no".

It also struck me that you have to accept the conditions of fear to actually feel fear. It becomes very obvious in a game or movie, because you can go "this is just a game, those are just pixels, I'm not going to care" and kill the whole game, pretty much. It's harder in a game because you're going through the motions, which fools your brain into thinking that it's actually happening more than just watching a movie. And it can still freak you out once or twice, but only because nobody's completely immune to surprise. However, most of the game builds of dread, and dread only works if you play along with the conditions. I am scared as fuck in games because I can be scared as fuck in games, it's okay. In real life a little fear is a good way to protect yourself, but being scared out of your mind is mostly detrimental to the effort, so I try to cast off the conditions as best I can. Neither of those two are chosen; it's just how my brain has decided it should be, so I can't play scary games and I dismiss most real life fear within seconds - the more abstract the harder to dismiss. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the conditions are; it's clearly something about wanting a certain outcome, like survival, and being only partially or only under the illusion of control of the situation, yet not leaving it completely to chance, and that there must be a chance of success however small.

Anyway enough rambling. If you're going to ignore both recommendations, go look up a "best moments of day9 playing Amnesia" on youtube or something because it's really too good to miss.

Why gays make perfect parents (but lesbians don't)!

Boys apparently need fathers to show them what it really means to be a man. I'm quite sure I had a mother, in exact terms I have two; although one is absent that clearly does not remove a father's label so it shouldn't hers. But can someone please explain to me what it really means to be a woman? I think I have a better idea of what it means to be a man, in fact, which I find an itsy bitsy bit amusing. Maybe our fathers are supposed to educate us on that matter too? Since they're all-knowing on the subject of manliness, they should reversely know what is womanliness, since it's all about polarization and stuff. No pressure, boys. It's not manly to get nervous, or have insecurities, or fail. Even women know to teach their sons that.