iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ah yes, the three diagnoses

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Most of you agree with me about ugly things

Poll results showing that 4 people voted for ugly things, 3 people voted for beautiful things, and 3 people voted for a third thing I will explain later (which they never did) in my poll asking which of those things people preferred.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I noticed Reddit signed me out when it suddenly started showing me pictures of maple syrup and Prince Edward Island because my VPN is set to Canada

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I don’t know how this happened, but I assume the cat was involved

Bottle of stain remover somehow balanced in its head by the washing machine

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

WHO asked for this AI image of Octavio Paz? I have to know who the audience for this is

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Got my copy of Little Wolf in the Storm by @adikgraves.bsky.social today! I had the pleasure of beta reading and helping to edit this one, so I can safely say you should rush out to buy it rn! www.amazon.com/Little-Wolf-...

Paperback copy of Little Wolf in the Storm by adik graves

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Does anyone speak Italian here?? What offensive thing did I say to the language-learning AI? Have I unknowingly sexually harassed the AI cameriere (or is it just wrong again like it’s wrong about everything)?

Busuu AI conversation:

Quale carne desidera?

Abbiamo vitello, pollo, manzo, agnello e bistecca.
* Non mangio vitello. Avete il maiale?
Avete il maiale?

Per favore, niente linguaggio offensivo.
Continuiamo!

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

My dad sent me this message about Will Anderson's contract extension to my work email. It is a matter of professional import that I know how much my boy is getting paid ASAP.

Email from my father:

FTI (N.b. I assume he means FYI)

Will Anderson Jr. will be the highest-paid non-quarterback ever in the NFL after he agreed to a 3-year, $150 million extension with the Texans.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Is this what the British think? Is this why they are the way that they are?

Text from Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory”:

'Oh yes, yes. I'll be off.' But he didn't stir: it was the child who came to him.
She stood in the doorway watching them with a look of immense responsibility. Before her serious gaze they became a boy you couldn't trust and a ghost you could almost puff away, a piece of frightened air. She was very young - about thirteen - and at that age you are not afraid of many things, age and death, all the things which may turn up, snake-bite and fever and rats and a bad smell. Life hadn't got at her yet; she had a false air of impregnability. But she had been reduced already, as it were, to the smallest terms - everything was there but on the thinnest lines. That was what the sun did to a child, reduced it to a framework. The gold bangle on the bony wrist was like a padlock on a canvas door which a fist could break.
She said, 'I told the policeman you were home." old dad?'
'Oh yes, yes,' Captain Fellows said. 'Got a kiss for your She came solemnly across the room and kissed him formally upon the forehead - he could feel the lack of meaning. She had other things to think about. She said, I told cook that Mother wai

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

I love my man Joe and all, but I don’t understand how this is possible unless everyone polled was a 35-year-old married father of three from the Baltimore suburbs hoping to prove something to his wife.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Joe Burrow and Max Scherzer? This is what fantasy sports should be.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

I want Kiké Hernandez to be my weird uncle.

Uncle Kiké looking like he woke up late for his cocaine deal after the Grateful Dead concert. But honestly I love his style

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

So the source of all these dragon myths is just someone’s drunk uncle? Yeah, my uncle slayed a dragon, too, buddy. Go get him a Lone Star and a pack of smokes and he’ll tell you all about it.

From Russian Myths by Elizabeth Warner: “where a vengeful mother dragon pursues the hero who has destroyed her sons.
The dragon in byliny
In the Kievan cycle of byliny, which dates to the tenth to fourteenth centuries and deals with the heroic defence of Kievan Rus against its external enemies, the dragon-slayer is Dobrynya Nikitich, often identified with the historical figure of Dobrynya who lived in the second half of the tenth century and was uncle to Vladimir I of Kiev.
The bylina about Dobrynya's fight with the dragon was a popular one, existing in more than one hundred versions. It usually begins with a parental warning. Dobrynya's mother forbids him to go bathing in the dangerous River…”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

I made this meme about how John was Jesus’s favorite disciple for my bff but they didn’t care, so I’m taking it back from them and giving it to y’all instead

“Mom who’s your favorite?” meme but it’s Jesus and John the Evangelist

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Poetry is gay. Knights are gay. War is gay.

“Both their shields are pierced and shattered....
The brave knights grapple, by and by, Black dust thrown high into the sky, As their steeds themselves engage, The combatants, twined, motionless, Clasp each other; tis war they wage, Yet glued to their saddles, no less, Their limbs squeezed near to excess.
Rigid now, locked tight together,
Swift fiery blood runs through each vein, Yet breast to breast, they toil in vain...
But both weaken now, and waver, One soon must fall - and, suddenly, With iron hand, our knight, tears free, Ousts from the saddle his tired foe, In his arms he lifts him, wholly, And hurls him to the waves below,
'Die then, my envious rival, go, Drown deep!' he cries maliciously.”

From Ruslan and Ludmila by Alexander Pushkin, trans. A.S. Kline

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Wow, this Bog (leaving it, better title anyway) Dead Energy book sure does keep ending up on staff picks lists; I wonder if it’s any good! tapas.io/series/Big-D...

Tapas community staff picks list with a bunch of novels including Big Dead Energy, which I wrote. Which you can read for free on Tapas!

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

I have always wanted to post a Notes app screed. I would link the accounts I'm talking about so this would make more sense, but there's no point now, really, is there?

Anyway, I haven’t written Harry Potter fanfiction in years. I’m not going to rhapsodize about what the series meant to me as a child. There are other books—lots of them, in fact. I’ve even read a couple! What I will rhapsodize a bit about is how much writing these fanfics I’m about to take down meant to me. I loved it. All of it. I spent years writing these stories, and to say they helped me develop as a writer would be gross understatement. They made me the writer I am. There are things in them that make me cringe, and plenty of things I wouldn’t write now. But that just shows how they helped me learn, grow, and mature.

I loved these stories when I wrote them, and I love every person who has read and liked and commented on them over the years. Even now, decades after I wrote the first words of “The Life You Lose” (I must have been sixteen? It was far from my first fic), I still get sporadic emails saying someone has left kudos on it or written a comment. It makes my day, every single time.

Ironically but unsurprisingly, writing these Harry Potter fanfiction was a huge part of my transition. I used writing from a male POV—from Regulus’s POV, from Sirius’s POV—as escapism. I spent so much time in their worlds, in their skins, so I could avoid being in my own. They helped me realize that, while I couldn’t live in fictional skins all the time, I could make my own more comfortable. I could change my own world. It’s a story a lot of us have. I’m happy now, for the most part.

We comfort ourselves, sometimes, with the idea that the rich are cruel because they are unhappy, because there is some fathomless well inside of them that no amount of gold shoveled in will ever fill. Money can’t buy happiness and various other platitudes. And while I do believe that fathomless well exists, I don’t think it means the rich and cruel are unhappy. I think many—perhaps most, perhaps all—of the rich and cruel are too emotionally and mentally shallow to recognize their own hollowness. I think they are happy, in their own vapid way. I think being cruel gives them great joy and satisfaction. They’ve constructed realities in which their cruelty is justified and their wealth their earned reward. It’s impossible to be that wealthy and remain that wealthy without assigning yourself outsize importance far beyond the due of any single human being.

Look, me taking down a few fanfics that I love and some other people over the years have loved (or at least liked!) is not going to affect J.K. Rowling in any appreciable way. So why do it? Well, as a small act of spite, for one. Small acts of spite bring me joy, too. But it’s mostly because of those sporadic emails that used to bring me much greater joy. It’s mostly because occasionally, people are still stumbling on these fics, and I can’t stomach the idea that anyone might read something I wrote and be encouraged to stay engaged with Harry Potter and its fandom and ultimately to give Rowling any more money and attention—through merchandise, tickets to Universal, streaming numbers for the reboot, whatever various, nefarious revenue streams these goons have; I’m not an accountant—that she’ll use to humiliate, degrade, and strip the rights away from my trans sisters.

It’s a symbolic gesture. But it’s mine, and I’m making it.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Xerxes screaming, "Serenity now!" as he whips the Hellespont

"What is right, that is my wish. I am no friend of the man who is a follower of the Lie.4
I am not hot-tempered. When I feel anger rising, I keep that under control by my
thinking power. I control firmly my impulses."

17. The kingly qualities
DNb; XP1. Two inscriptions, virtually identical in content, one inscribed on Darius I's tomb at
Naqsh-i Rustam (DNb), the other, in Xerxes' name, found 2 km north of Persepolis (XP1).
The Darius inscription is trilingual, the Xerxes one only survives in Old Persian: Kent, DNb;
editio princeps of XP1, Gharib 1967; Schmitt 2000, DNb; XP1.1
Translations: Lecoq 1997: 221—4; 259—61; Brosius 2000, no. 103.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Have we tried this yet? This can’t be a worse way to put forward a candidate than whatever the DNC has been doing

85
THE HISTORIES
for Otanes only; they also agreed upon another to be shared by all: permission, namely, for any of the seven to enter the royal presence unannounced, except when the king was in bed with a woman. They further agreed that the king should not marry outside the families of the seven confederates. To choose which should be king, they proposed to mount their horses on the outskirts of the city, and he whose horse neighed first after the sun was up should have the throne.
Darius had a clever groom called Oebares. After the meeting had broken up, he went to see this fellow, and told him of the arrangement they had come to, whereby they should sit on their horses' backs and the throne chould ho horse neioh.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

The Herodotus-posting will continue until morale improves

Herodotus: “…criticizing these theories, I must express an opinion myself about a matter so obscure as the reason why the Nile floods in summer, I would say (to put the whole thing in the fewest words) that during winter the sun is driven out of his course by storms towards the upper parts of Libya. It stands to reason that the country nearest to, and most directly under, the sun should be most short of water, and that the streams which feed the rivers in that neighbourhood should most readily dry up.
But let me explain in somewhat greater detail my view of…”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Well this is for sure the plot of my next novel

Herodotus: “a
Rhampsinitus possessed a vast fortune in silver, so great that no subsequent king came anywhere near it - let alone surpassed it. In order to keep the treasure safe, he proposed to have a stone building put up, with one of its walls forming a part of the outer wall of his palace. The builder he employed had designs upon the treasure and ingeniously contrived to construct the wall in such a way that one of the stone blocks of which it was composed could easily be removed by a couple of men - or even by one.
When the new treasury was ready, the king's money was stored away in it; and after the lapse of some years the builder, then on his death-bed, called his two sons and told them how clever he had been, saying that he had planned the device of the moveable stone entirely for their benefit, that they might live in affluence. Then he gave the precise measurements, and instructions for its removal, and told them that if only they kept the secret well, they would be the Royal Treasurers as long as they lived. So the father died and his sons lost no time in setting to work; they came by night to the palace, found the stone in the treasury wall, took it out easily enough and got away with a good haul of silver. The king, on his next visit to the treasury, was surprised to see that some of the vessels in which the money was stored were no longer full, but as the seals were unbroken…”

Herodotus: “and all the locks in perfect order, he was at a loss to find the culprit. When the same thing happened again, and yet again, and he found that each time he visited the chamber the level of the money in the jars had still further fallen, he ordered traps to be made and set near the money-jars. The thieves came as usual, and one of them made his way into the chamber; but, as soon as he approached the money-jar he was after, the trap got him. Realizing his plight, he at once called out to his brother to tell him what had happened, and begged him to come in as quickly as he could and cut off his head, lest the recognition of his dead body should involve both of them in ruin. The brother, seeing the sense of this request, acted upon it without delay; then, having fitted the stone back in its place, went home taking the severed head with him. Next morning the king visited his treasury, and what was his astonishment when he saw in the trap the headless body of the thief, and no sign of damage to the building, or any apparent means of entrance or exit! Much perplexed, he finally decided to have the thief's body hung up outside the wall, and a guard set with orders to arrest and bring before him anyone they might see thereabouts in tears, or showing signs of mourning. Now the young man's mother was deeply distressed by this treatment of her dead son's body, and begged the one who was still alive to do all he possibly could to think of some way of getting it back, and even threatened, if he refused to listen to her, to go to the king and denounce him as the thief. The young man made many excuses, but to no purpose; his mother continued to pester him, until at last he thought of a way out of the difficulty. He filled some skins with wine and loaded them on to donkeys, which he drove to the place where the soldiers were guarding his brother's corpse. Arrived there, he gave a pull on the necks of two or three of the skins, which undid the fastenings.

e
-44
THE HISTORIU
finally he changed his tune, and, appearing to have recovered his temper, drove the donkeys out of the roadway and began to rearrange the wineskins on their backs. Meanwhile, as he chatted with the soldiers, one of them cracked a joke at his expense and made him laugh, whereupon he made them a present of a wineskin, and without more ado they all sat down to enjoy themselves, and urged their benefactor to join the party and share the drink. The young man let himself be persuaded, and soon, as cup succeeded cup and the soldiers treated him with increasing familiarity, he gave them another skin. Such a quantity of wine was too much for the guards; very drunk and drowsy, they stretched themselves out at full length and fal asleep on the spot. It was now well after dark, and the thief took down his brother's body and as an insult shaved the right check of each of the guards. Then he put the corpse on the donkeys' backs and returned home, having done successfully what his mother demanded.
The king was very angry when he learnt that the thief's body had been stolen, and determined at any cost to catch the man who had been clever enough to bring off such a coup. I find it hard to believe the priests' account of the means he employed to catch him - but here it is: he sent his own daughter to a brothel with orders to admit all comers, and to compel each applicant, before granting him her favours, to tell her what was the cleverest and wickedest thing that he had ever done; and if anyone told her the story of the thief, she was to get hold of him and not allow him to escape. The girl obeyed her father's orders, and the thief, when he came to know the reason for what she was doing, could not resist the temptation to go one better than the king in ingenuity. He cut the hand and arm from the body of a man who had just died, and, putting them under his cloak, went to visit the king's daughter in her brothel. When she asked him the question which she had asked al…

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Found trying to clean out my Notes app

Notes app screenshot: “Gifts
の
Bitterness in this conclave is the opposite of love in this club”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

It’s a real knee-slapper, for sure

From Herodotus: “This same queen was also the perpetrator of a grim practical joke. She had a tomb made for herself over one of the main gateways of the city, right high up above the actual entrance and caused the following inscription to be cut on it: If any king of Babylon hereafter is short of money, let him open my tomb and take as much as he likes. But this must be done only in case of need. Whoever opens my tomb under any other circumstances will get no good of it. The tomb remained undisturbed til the reign of Darius, who resented being unable to use one of the city gates - for he never did use the one under the tomb because, had he done so, he would have had to drive directly under the corpse; moreover, he thought it was absurd, when treasure was lying there asking to be taken, not to take it. So he opened the tomb. He found, however, not a penny inside - but only the body of the queen and another inscription, which read: ‘If you had not been insatiably greedy and eager to get money by the most despicable means, you would never have opened the tomb of the dead.’ So much, then, for the character of Nicotris.”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

I love how fucking stupid our lawmakers are

Screenshot of a bill introduced in the Texas House which would prohibit “public institutions of higher education from providing instruction regarding the use of gender pronouns.”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

For anyone wondering, the scene in question (with spoilers blurred): tapas.io/episode/3104...

“We dug graves for XXX and XXX. Buried
their bones where they died. I was happy to give his broken skull a proper resting place, happy to cover it with dirt and let him return to the land. I took a fingerbone with me. The smallest knuckle from his smallest finger. I didn't tell XXX about it. I dropped it in my
pocket and felt its weight like the bottle of returner I had treasured and worried. When I slipped my hand in after it, it nestled next to my pinky.”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Last entry in the Catalogue of Nipples. Sadly it comes a full seven books before the end, in Book Seventeen. I think I missed a few prior to Book Five. Next up, I will analyze who succumbed to wounds of the nipple and present conclusions

guest friends was dearest to Hektor, and lived at home in Abydos. In the likeness of this man far-striking Apollo spoke to him:
'Hektor, what other Achaian now shall be frightened before you?
See, you have shrunk before Menelaos, who in times before this was a soft spearfighter; and now he has gone taking off single-handed
a body from among the Trojans. He has killed your trusted companion, valiant among the champions, Podes, the son of Eition.
He spoke, and the dark cloud of sorrow closed over Hektor.
He took his way among the champions helmed in the shining bronze. And now the son of Kronos caught up the betasselled glaring aegis, and shrouded Ida in mists. He let go s9s a lightning flash and a loud thunderstroke, shaking the mountain, gave victory to the Trojans, and terrified the Achaians.
First to begin the flight was Peneleos the Boiotian.
For he, turning always toward the attack, was hit in the shoulder's end, a slight wound, but the spear of Poulydamas, who had thrown it o from a stance very close to him, had grated the bone's edge.
Then Hektor wounded in the hand by the wrist Leitos, the son of great-hearted Alektryon, and halted his warcraft, and he drew back staring about him since his spirit had hope no longer of holding a spear steady in his hand to fight with the Trojans.
Gos Now as Hektor made a rush for Leitos, Idomeneus struck him on the corselet over the chest by the nipple, but the long shaft was broken behind the head, and the Trojans shouted. Now Hektor made a cast at Deukalian Idomeneus as he stood in his chariot, and missed him by only a little, but struck the follower and charioteer of Meriones,
Koiranos, who had come with him from strong-founded Lyktos.
Now Idomeneus at the first had come on foot, leaving the oarswep. ships, and now would have given the Trojans a mighty triumph, had not Koiranos swiftly come up with the fast-running horses;
Is came as light to the other and beat from him the day without pity, but himself lost his life at the…

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Big Dead Energy is a staff pick on Tapas this week! Thank you, Tapas staff, for recognizing the urgency of stories about sucking and blowing loads of energy all over the place. (Actually it’s mostly about greed and power and how revolutions are hard to do; most of the loads blown are metaphorical)

Screenshot of Tapas staff picks page showing that Big Dead Energy is indeed a staff pick again!

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Book Fifteen, Melanippos struck in the nipple. Sad but predictable. 😔

and have considerator u
since more come through alive when men consider each other, and there is no glory when they give way, nor warcraft either?
He spoke, and they likewise grew furious in their defence, and put his word away in their hearts, and fenced in their vessels in a circle of bronze, but Zeus against them wakened the Trojans.
Then Menelaos of the great war cry stirred on Antilochos:
'Antilochos, no other Achaian is younger than you are, s70 nor faster on his feet, nor strong as you are in fighting.
You could make an outrush and strike down some man of the Troans.
So speaking, he hastened back but stirred Antilochos onward, and he sprang forth from the champions and hefted the shining javelin, glaring round about him, and the Trojans gave way in the face s75 of the man throwing with the spear. And he made no vain cast but struck Hiketaon's son, Melanippos the high-hearted, in the chest next to the nipple as he swept into the fighting.
He fell, thunderously, and darkness closed over both eyes.
Antilochos sprang forth against him, as a hound rushes 580 against a stricken fawn that as he broke from his covert a hunter has shot at, and hit, and broken his limbs' strength.
So Antilochos stubborn in battle sprang, Melanippos,
(324 ]

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

In a nipple drought. We will have to make do with a buttock from Book Thirteen.

one to will satistaction
than in war; but in this the Trojans cannot be glutted.
640
So Menelaos the blameless spoke, and stripping the bloody armour away from his body gave it to his companions, and turned back himself to merge in the ranks of the champions.
Now there sprang forth against him the son of King Pylaimenes, Harpalion, who had followed his father into the fighting 64s at Troy, and did not come home again to the land of his fathers.
He from close up stabbed with his spear at the shield of Atreides in the middle, but could not drive the bronze all the way through it.
To avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions, looking all about him, for fear somebody might wound him with the
bronze;
650 but as he went back Meriones let fly at him with a bronze-shod arrow, and hit him beside the right buttock, so that the arrow was driven on through under the bone to fix in the bladder.
There, sitting among the arms of his beloved companions, he gasped out his life, then lay like a worm extended
( 288 ]

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Hurled by the nipple! Book Eleven is rich with them

BOOK ELEVEN
we shall not have our way for long, since Zeus the cloud-gatherer would wish to give the power to the Trojans rather than to us.' He spoke, and hurled down Thymbraios to the ground from his horses 320 with a stroke of the spear by the left nipple. Meanwhile Odysseus killed this lord of battle's henchman, godlike Molion.
They left these to lie there, since they had ended their fighting, then went into the ranks and wrought havoc, as when two wild boars hurl themselves in their pride upon the hounds who pursue them.
325
So they whirled on the Trojans again and destroyed them. Meanwhile the Achaians gladly drew breath again after their flight from great Hektor.
There they took a chariot and two men, lords in their countryside, sons both of Merops of Perkote, who beyond all men knew the art of prophecy, and tried to prevent his two sons
330
from going into the battle where men die. Yet these would not listen, for the spirits of dark death were driving them onward.
'ydeu' son, Diomedes of the renowned spear, stripped them of life and spirit, and took away their glorious armour while Odysseus killed Hypeirochos and Hippodamos.
There the son of Kronos strained the battle even between then
335
as he looked down from Ida. They went on killing each other.
Now Tydeus' son stabbed with the spear Agastrophos, a chief and son of Paion, striking at the hip joint. His horses
raged on amo
had a henchman holding them aside, while he, dismounted,
340

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Rejoice! Book Eleven heralds the return of the nipple, accompanied by splattered brains.

Book 11: “BOOK ELEVEN
with the sharp spear, nor did helm's bronze-heavy edge hold it, but the spearhead passed through this and the bone, and the inward brain was all spattered forth. So he beat him down in his fury, and Agamemnon the lord of men left them lying there and their white bodies showing, since he had stripped off their tunics.
Then he went on to kill and strip Isos and Antiphos, two sons of Priam, bastard one and one lawful, both riding in a single chariot. The bastard, Isos, was charioteer and renowned Antiphos rode beside him. Before this Achilleus had caught these two at the knees of Ida, and bound them in pliant willows as they watched by their sheep, and released them for ransom This time the son of Atreus, wide-powerful Agamemnon, struck Isos with the thrown spear in the chest above the nipple and hit Antiphos by the ear with the sword and hurled him from his
horses,
and in eager haste he stripped off from these their glorious armour which he knew; he had seen these two before by the fast ships when Achilles of the swift feet had brought them in from Ida.
And as a lion seizes the innocent young of the running deer, and easily crunches and breaks them caught in the strong teeth when he has invaded their lair, and rips out the soft heart from ther and even if the doe be very near, still she has no strength to help for the ghastly shivers of fear are upon her also and suddenly she dashes away through the glades and the timber sweating in her sneed away from the
so there was no or”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Book Nine is all talking, no nipples, but it does have this #relatable tale that the aged horseman Phoinix relates I guess for the same reason any old man tells irrelevant stories to people who didn’t ask

Passage from Book Nine of the Iliad with this text highlighted: “who hated me for the sake of a fair-haired mistress. For he made love to her himself, and dishonoured his own wife my mother; who was forever taking my knees and entreating me to lie with this mistress instead so that she would hate the old man.
I was persuaded and did it;”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

This one is also Book Eight and different from the instance above, I promise

“OuBylon Whose mother was lovely Kastianeira,
30s Priam's bride from Aisyme, with the form of a goddess.
He bent drooping his head to one side, as a garden poppy bends beneath the weight of its yield and the rains of springime; so his head bent slack to one side beneath the helm's weight.
But Teukros now let fly another shaft from the bowstring, 310 straight for Hektor, and all his heart was straining to hít him, yet missed his man once again as Apollo faltered his arrow, and struck Archeptolemos, bold charioteer of Hektor, in the chest next to the nipple as he charged into the fighting.
He fell out of the chariot, and the fast-footed horses
315
shied away. And there his life and his strength were scattered.
And bitter sorrow closed over Hektor's heart for his driver, yet grieving as he did for his friend he left him to lie there, and called to his brother Kebriones who stood near to take up the reins of the horses, nor did he disobey him. But Hektor 320 himself vaulted down to the ground from the shining chariot crying a terrible cry and in his hand caught up a great stone, and went straight for Teukros, heart urgent to hit him. Now Teu had drawn a bitter arrow out of his quiver, and laid it”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

This one’s somewhere in Book Eight but I took a bad picture

Screenshot from the Iliad: steer these against the Trojans, breakers of horses, so Hek even may know if my spear also rages in my hands' grip
He spoke, and Nestor the Gerenian horseman obeyed Thereon the two strong henchmen, Sthenelos and the co Eurymedon, looked after the horses of Nestor. The othe both together mounted the chariot of Diomedes.
Nestor in his hands took up the glittering reins, then lashed the horses on, and soon they were close to Hektor and as he raged straight forward the son of Tydeus threv and missed his man, but struck the charioteer, his henchr Eniopeus, the son of high-hearted Thebaios, striking hin in the chest next to the nipple as he gripped the reins of l He fell out of the chariot, and the fast-footed horses shied away. And there his life and his strength were scatt And bitter sorrow closed over Hektor's heart for his driv yet grieving as he did for his friend he left him to lie the and went on after another bold charioteer; and it was no long that the horses went lacking a driver, since soon he rcheptolemos, bold son of Iphitos, and gave into his ha e reir
unted him behind the fast-running hor: would have been fighting beyond con re been driven and penned like sheep
sharply perceived

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Skeeting every instance of the word “nipple” in The Iliad, Part 1. Book Five, line 145

Screenshot of a page from The Iliad: BOOK FIVE
whom the shepherd among his fleecy flocks in the wild lands grazed as he leapt the fence of the fold, but has not killed him, but only stirred up the lion's strength, and can no more fight him
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off, but hides in the steading, and the frightened sheep are forsaken, and these are piled pell-mell on each other in heaps, while the lion raging still leaps out again over the fence of the deep yard; such was the rage of strong Diomedes as he closed with the Trojans Next he killed Astynoös and Hypeiron, shepherd of the people,
145 striking one with the bronze-heeled spear above the nipple,
I45
and cutting the other beside the shoulder through the collar-bone with the great sword, so that neck and back were hewn free of the
shoulder.
He left these men, and went on after Polyidos and Abas, sons of the aged dream-interpreter, Eurydamas;
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yet for these two as they went forth the old man did not answer their dreams, but Diomedes the powerful s went after the two sone

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Me, every time I log on to this site to find some new horror has come to pass

The Iliad, trans Lattirmore: “BOOK ONE
He spoke thus and sat down again, and among them stood up Atreus' son the hero wide-ruling Agamemnon raging, the heart within filled black to the brim with anger from beneath, but his two eyes showed like fire in their blazing.
Ios First of all he eyed Kalchas bitterly and spoke to him:
'Seer of evil: never yet have you told me a good thing.
Always the evil things are dear to your heart to prophesy, but nothing excellent have you said nor ever accomplished, Now once more you make divination to the Danaans, argue rio forth your reason why he who strikes from afar afflicts them, because I for the sake of the girl Chryseis would not take the shining ransom; and indeed I wish greatly to have her in my own house; since I like her better than Klytaimestra my own wife, for in truth she is no way inferior, us neither in build nor stature nor wit, not in accomplishment.”

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

I'm going through my Google Drive and saving things to an external hard drive, and I found this chart in a paper I apparently turned in and everything in undergrad

Chart of Satanists vs. Anti-Satanists over time

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

I guess perhaps I should take a break from being a football account to promote my book. It's free on Tapas! It's about being gay and doing crimes (against humanity)! tapas.io/series/Big-D... The artwork is by the talented @lorian.bsky.social! They are very good at art and stories

Image of two people standing in front of a sunset with text in front of it:
"So this could kill someone? That could be useful."
He gave me an affronted look.
“What! We have to kill things sometimes. We could use ghosts to kill other ghosts, maybe. We’re so conservative with myortva here, imagine what we could do if we didn’t have to be.”
“You can do what you need with the myortva you have.”
“Sanya! That’s not the point, Sanya!”
He did not ask what the point was.
“And I can’t. There is a lot I want to do that I can’t with the myortva I have, and anyway, aren’t you curious?” I leaned in.
His eyes only met mine for a moment, and then he looked back down to stoke the fire, but it was enough.

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

@lorian.bsky.social drew this!! It's the main characters from Big Dead Energy! They captured Sanya's extremely skeptical energy and how that skepticism is absolute catnip to Iyu so perfectly. And I just love the lighting and their hair and their clothes and their faces and everything about it 😭

Really awesome drawing of two long-haired men, one serious and one an idiot, in very pretty morning light!

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

New Year’s Resolution: listen to more Ludacris.

Spotify wrapped top 5: Kendrick Lamar, the clash, The Weeknd, Ludacris, Beyonce

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August @king-goldfish.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

MDZS meets Dead Souls and yes, I'm saying that with a straight face. It's the only straight thing about me or this.

One of those Canva "this book has tropes!" images only I can't play anything straight so all the little arrow go around clockwise to convey this message:
1: 450,000 words of butting your head up against power structures that stood for hundreds of years before you were born and will stand for hundreds of years after your death
2: Your first death, anyway
3: But your head is pretty hard
4: (So much so that you rarely learn from your mistakes)
5: And that makes it a decent battering ram, as far as heads go
6: And nothing gets better as long as no one tries
7: So fingers crossed for that second life

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