X (Xen/Cole McCade)🏳️‍⚧️He/Him🏳️‍🌈

@thisblackmagic.bsky.social

3017 Followers 656 Following

The dead make better companions. Queer romance author + artist. IndigiBlAsian POC. Call me X. Level 44 Xennial himbo. Audiophile. Bone witch of the woods. FFXIV Mateus. AuDHD🏳️‍⚧️demigray disaster bi. 🔞Minors DNI. https://ko-fi.com/thisblackmagic

A screenshot of gameplay from the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn...okay, I'll stop. The screenshot shows the Rogue's Guild headquarters in Limsa Lominsa, a lamplit room with walls and floors of wood, stone, metal, and plaster, dotted with things such as notices and maps, with sacks, ropes, and crates stacked and strewn around the edges. In the center of the room is a wooden table with a large document spread over it and several wooden chairs pulled out from it. Three characters stand around the table: a lalafell with tan skin and white hair, wearing bandages for a shirt, green cropped pants, and a green du-rag to the left; a Caucasian human man in a similar outfit save for the top, which is a poet's shirt open under a green vest, his hair brown under the du-rag; and, seen from behind, a tan male Au Ra with a black ponytail and a black sleeveless top wearing *very* tight leather pants.

Text:

Gerard was a big tomcat, why wasn’t he meowing, why didn’t Jedd see even a paw peeking out, Gerard should be yowling by now and disgruntled and angry and—
It’s not Gerard.
It’s her.
Her waiting, her watching, her crouched and huddled and dead dead dead with her dead brittle fingernails and dead hair so dry it crisped and crunched to the touch. Shriveled skin and open eyes gone dry and dull—that was the worst, when someone died with their eyes open. It always pissed Jedd off, in movies and TV; sometimes even in books. They always depicted those wide-open eyes as gleaming and bright, wet, reflective; shining mirrors of the soul. Usually because—at least in film and television—it was a living person, holding their breath and locking their muscles and hoping they wouldn’t sweat through their corpse makeup before the shoot was over.
But the real dead…
They were dead.
Their mucous membranes didn’t function anymore.

A manga-style neck-up black and white drawing of a young man with cat ears with his head tilted up, one eye squinted, upper lip curled, one ear lowered. He has messy hair in a sidesweep. Underneath the black lines can be seen faint blue and pink sketch lines from previous layers.

A still of Michael Jordan sitting in a white stuffed easy chair with a wooden side table next to him with whiskey and some kind of food on it, with a blurred backdrop of an all-white living room with plants and large windows. He's wearing a loose purple t-shirt, dark pants, and a metal watch. His hands are spread as he's captured mid-speech, with the caption below in white reading "...and I took that personally"

A screenshot of the bookshelf page from the Amazon KDP self-publishing interface. On the left is a thumbnail version of the CI S3E4 cover, showing a toned Seong-Jae stripping out of a black shirt, his head cropped above the chin. The status details show "PREORDER IN REVIEW" and "Scheduled for April 15th, 2024" and a price of $1.99 (I'm discounting it until the end of the month as a thank you for being so patient).

A portrait image in 6:9 ratio that's mostly a pale mottled pink gradient with paper texture; a diagonal rip going from top right to bottom left with a drop shadow underneath reveals a glimpse of the CI S3E4 cover, with the stylized pink CRIMINAL INTENTIONS partially visible (showing only MINAL TIONS) above a dash of pink banner with white "DE FOUR" against it and below that, "SLOW." Behind it is a glimpse of the arm and abdomen of a man with golden skin and tight musculature, presumably Yoon Seong-Jae, and a glimpse of a black sleeve sliding down from the visible shoulder against a dark backdrop.

A photograph of my brown tabby female half Maine Coon cat, Mab. The photo is taken from above, showing her curled into croissant pose against a tangle of pink, brown, and tan fleece blankets--but her head is cocked at an odd angle, her golden eyes half open, her forepaws crossed and partially upraised and stretched out in front of her, one of her hind legs hidden, the other hind leg stretched out and resting across from her head. Her tail is tucked into her body and mostly not visible.

A landscape photograph of my 2 1/2 year old brown tabby half Maine Coon cat, Mab. She's sleeping partially on her back and partially on her side against a gray fleece set atop another black fleece, cutely curled with her head slightly tipped back, her forepaws tucked up against her fluffy chest, her creamy light brow underbelly exposed, and her little hind paws up. Her tail is curled to the side and partially up her body. She's wearing a purple collar with silver patterns, and a purple heart-shaped tag with her name rests against her chest fluff and the fleece.

A Twitter screencap from user Kinking It With Kindness (@kinkinwkindness) that reads:

"i don't care that you're weird

no, that's a lie

i care ✨deeply✨ that you're weird

but it's a ✨good✨ thing"

Timestamped 12:07 PM 10 Jul 23.

A screencap of an Excel worksheet designed to track progress and estimate time to complete over a thousand books, with columns showing titles and series by Cole McCade with a story notes field and tracking for wordcount done, target wordcount, and remaining; completed titles have been grayed and struck out. At the top is a tracker for stories done (87), stories to write (1,062); total wordcount written (6.6M+), target wordcount to write (101M+), and the combined total; the current date (3/10/2024); the target end date (4/10/2055), net work days left (8,110), and estimated wordcount per day to achieve goal (12,544). There's also a small side list labeled "TOP TEN PRIORITIES" showing various Criminal Intentions episodes, Nine Moons in a River of Stars, and some blacked out for confidentiality/NDAs. Below in the free space to the right are various titles and notes that appear to have yet to be assigned a slot in the main tracker. At the bottom is a rainbow assortment of tabs with months.

Black square with white block centered text reading "POST THIS AND LET YOUR MUTUALS DECIDE WHAT YOU'RE MOST KNOWN FOR."

A landscape photograph of a rather bedraggled, dirty fluffy gray cat with green eyes, sitting upright primly with his tail stretched behind him, looking at the camera with his ears perked. He has long, curly white whiskers that curve in all directions. Behind him is the bottom corner of a black wicker screen with a hint of a white cable curving against the hardwood floor beneath it, and a glimpse of a foot post for an upholstered item of furniture with a white sheet covering it.

The same photo of a cat as in the quoted tweet, with Mab perched in loaf mode atop the black woven wicker screen divider close to the ceiling, only this time the flash is on so her left eye glows brilliant yellow, the right a baleful reflective blue.

A slightly grainy (because my phone is old and my camera sucks) photo of a brown tabby half Maine Coone cat with a fluffy ruff sitting in loaf mode perfectly balanced atop a woven black wicker screen divider, just inches from the white ceiling. She's looking directly at the camera, calm and unbothered. In the background are a ceiling vent, a slice of pale yellow wall, and a section of white-painted window frame.

A crop of the same painting as in the above tweet, this time focusing on the upper torso; all that's visible is the pectorals, the armpits, raised arms cut off to either side, neck cut off to either side, cropped just below the ribs, a leather strap with a buckle stretching diagonally down from the left shoulder to the right side (as the viewer sees it). The pectorals are...odd...too small, geometrically boxy, no real separation between them, far too raised, and the nipples are precise points on the corners of the rectangle the pecs form.

A very close crop on Thomas Lawrence's painting "Satan Summoning His Legions," showing only Lucifer's face--which is stylized to the point of ridiculousness, with enormous green calf-eyes under weird shelves of angry humped brows, a thick ridge of a nose with a bulbous, smoothly phallic tip and oddly articulated distinct nostrils, and a crumpled-up mouth that looks more like a meme distortion or a YouTube cap set in a half-pouty, half-angry line. His chin and jaw are very wide and thick above an even thicker neck. It's dramatically lit in red-gold; red-gold curls frame his face, while part of a pointed helmet is visible above.

A picture of a medium-hair gray cat with a white muzzle, chest, paws, and belly on his side with his paws stretched out, squinting at the camera. He's resting against a black and white stripe/square patterned comforter with hardwood floors in the background, and has a red metal collar tag visible against his chest fluff.

Two shots of Nicole Kidman outside, in her wavy redhead arc, wearing a transparent patterned pink floral V-neck 3/4 sleeve top over a knee-length green pencil skirt with pink trim with green and brown sneakers and a little pinkish-tan backpack. The left shot is a full-body shot of her mid-step, the right from the hips up taken at a 3/4 angle, but in both she has her arms spread and eyes closed with an expression of pure joy. These shots were reportedly taken by paparazzi immediately after she signed her divorce papers from Tom Cruise.

Jared Leto as the Joker from Suicide Squad--white face paint, green-dyed short hair, green eyes surrounded by red and shadow, red lips, silver-capped teeth, tattoos, chuuni edgelord.

A warning sign reading DANGER - CHOKING HAZARD in all caps, with the DANGER in white on a red oval with a white border that is *also* bordered by a black rectangle, while the text for CHOKING HAZARD below is simple black on white. All text is sans serif.

Brief screenshot clipped from Word showing an incomplete sentence followed by a line of gibberish:

"sympathetic, but so is her being pissed off by his fumbles affecting his job.
ZAaqsZSDx/"

A shot of two mechas fighting from the anime Karas: The Prophecy, lit starkly in flaming gradient gold with sparks and flame everywhere as one mecha with a sword descends foot-first toward the other on the ground.

Karl Urban from...probably The Boys, if I watched more TV I'd know. But he's sitting in the driver's seat of a car, wearing a black leather coat opened over a blue and gold patterned button-down shirt, one arm against the window, the other slung back over the pale blue leather seat, looking to the side skeptically. He is scruffy and bearded and gorgeous.

Screencap from: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.spoutible.com?stars=1

1-star review of Spoutible by Philipp--quite long, full text at the link, covers data breaches and lack of compliance with various privacy standards, as well as bad behavior by CEO, including past crypto scams. With the following reply from Spoutible:

"We know who you are and that you are the ringleader behind the attacks on Spoutible. We also know you are connected to the security incident at Spoutible. We will be giving all this information to the FBI."

A foil-lined pan containing a layered mountain of tortilla chips, chili, melted cheese, refried beans, sweet corn, banana peppers, and sliced black olives topped in guacamole, sour cream, cheese shreds, and more olives.

A photograph of a pan lined in foil at the entrance to a countertop oven. In the pan are layers of tortilla chips (almost invisible under everything else), chili, refried beans, corn, shredded cheese, sliced black olives, and sliced banana pepper rings.

A screencap from Spoutible of user Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy), the founder and owner, reading:

"An outlet that has ignored much of everything we have done here has written about the security incident. When we release something groundbreaking, they ignore us, but when we have a security incident, it's newsworthy?"

Two side-by-side frames of Spongebob, an anthropomorphized yellow sponge with wide blue eyes framed by fanning eyelashes, a thin long nose with a bulbous tip, and two buck teeth overhanging his lip, wearing a white collared shirt with a red tie, square brown pants, white socks, and shiny black dress shoes.

In the first frame he's got both hands stretched out and clasped together, his expression blank; in the second frame he's brought his clasped hands before his mouth with the same expression. The implication is of a long sigh with a hint of "Nicca if you don't--"

I have been getting far too much use out of this image lately.

A photo of light brown fingers and a thumb holding a white tube with a white and brown label, and a safety seal on top with a clear pull tab with blue text. In the background is a blurred laptop, out of focus, though the screen is pretty obviously the BlueSky notifications tab even if it's unreadable.

The meme of a black and white image of Michael Jordan's face with "Fuck them kids." in white text in the center.

Pikachu, one ear flopped down, mouth open, face rather "...bruh."

A landscape photo of my female brown tabby half Maine Coon, Mab, on my bed. The bed is covered in a light tan fleece that's been bunched up into a ridge; she's fitted herself into a curve of the ridge, stretched out on her side with her head mooshed into the blanket and he forepaws stretched out cutely, her hips slightly twisted so that her upward-flipped tail rests against her leg and stomach, partially obscuring her hind leg. Aaaaaall her belly floof is showing, disarrayed and very fluffy. A light green fuzzy toy is in the lower right corner of the shot; in the background against the far wall are a partially visible printer, some boxes, and a wooden trunk supporting a partially visible TV.

Aged Steve/Captain America from Avengers: Endgame saying "No, I don't think I will."

A very small screencap from MS word, black TNR on white, reading:
“I will make you love me.”
“And if I refuse?”
“This entire realm will burn.”
“Then let it burn.”

Twitter screencap of my handle and display name in black on white. Says "X(Xen/Cole McCade) - Too Gay to Be Wrong™" above the twitter @ of @thisblackmagic.

Word screencap, black TNR text on white, reading:

"Malcolm. Malcolm, no."
"What else do we have on hand?"
"Malcolm, *no.*"
"Just help me."
"I cannot believe I am enabling this."

A landscape photo of both of my cats on my bed, taken in high flash/night mode. The shot is bisected in half by a deep maroon fleece on the bottom, the gray duvet with a white grid pattern on top, the camera turned sideways so the head of the bed is on the right and the foot is on the left with shadowed glimpses of the room beyond the foot. The cats are right on the dividing line between the blankets, with Mercy on the left in loaf position and Mab stretched out on her side on the right, making herself very loooooong. She's positioned herself to nestle her head against his side, with her forepaws draped and curled cutely over his back and the back of his neck; her tail is curled up over her hind paws. A hint of a pale frondy fuzzy toy is snuggled against her belly. For reference, Mercutio is a medium gray ball of fuzzy dryer lint with a white underbelly, while Mab is a brown tabby half Maine Coon with a fluffy caramel underbelly.

A landscape photo of my almost-adult-but-surprisingly-petite brown tabby female Maine Coon, Mab. She's perched sitting inside an otherwise empty open brown cardboard box, looking quite winsomely up at the camera with wide golden eyes; you can see a glimpse of her bronze collar bell and purple metal heart-shaped tag past her ruff. The backdrop is just a honey-colored wood floor that really needs mopping (don't you look at me like that, I'm tired) and glimpses of other cardboard boxes.

A photo of a brown tabby Maine Coon adolescent, Mab, curled in a tucked position against red and grey fleeces strewn across a gray comforter with thin white perpendicular lines forming squares. She's looking up at the camera with wide green-gold eyes, her expression alert and her tufted ears pricked.

A picture of a girl with wild red hair sleeping wrapped up in multiple fleeces on the carpeted floor and against multiple pillows, her face hidden and a gatorade bottle near her head. A tiny brown tabby kitten, aka my baby Mab, is curled up asleep against the small of her back.

Tumblr screenshot with light gray text on a mid-blue background, reading:

anonymous asked "you should be addicted to shutting the fuck up"

with greenmossloveisreal1998iloveyou replying

"You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid"

A screenshot of a Chase bank account alert showing my account ending in 9572 was overdrawn by $697.01 as of August 4th, 2023 at 8:03AM ET.

A still from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of three men in medieval armor on a grassy embankment, screaming. The caption is very large bold white all-caps sans serif text reading "RUN AWAY!!!" at the bottom.

A transparent PNG of title text reading "KILLER IN THE MIRROR" in a sharp white sans serif font where the K at the start and R on the end are larger and hanging below the rest of the line of text. The white text has a thin black outline and faint teal drop shadow. It's underlined in white, with much, much smaller text in a different white sans serif font below, centered and reading "COLE MCCADE." A brilliant pink and yellow gloriosa lily with its frilled petals flared and large stamen prominent has been photoshopped to appear is if it's poking through the opening of the O in "mirror," with the stem behind the O and the underline but the petals overlapping the O and the upper left corner of the R.

A very close up shot of my adolescent female half Maine Coon, Mab. Her face is taking up much of the right half of the screen, canted toward the camera with a sleepy, content look in her green-gold eyes. Her brown tabby chest floof can be seen puffing out, with a hint of a purple metal collar tag and a gold collar bell. Past her pricked ears a brown hand and forearm (mine) rest against her, obscuring most of her body stretched down my torso; past her a pair of golden brown legs (again, mine) can be seen bent and pressed together.

Uta from Tokyo Ghoul--a black and white manga-style drawing showing him from the ribs up. His head is shaved on one side, black hair jaw-length and swept over to the side on the other; his eyes have black sclera and in the image are colored in glowing pink, with pink sparkles around his head. He's wearing an open black shirt; his arms and chest are tattooed. His face and ears are pierced. Forearms crossed in an X in front of him, fingers playing around his open mouth, tongue to one side.

Screenshot of a high-res cutscene bust shot of Meteor from FFXIV from the most recent trailer, with a new look giving him shoulder-length dark brown hair pulled back into a half-loose man-bun with a few tendrils in his face. He's a handsome, rugged man with light, weathered skin, blue eyes, sharp eyebrows, and stubble; his multi-layered clothing, mostly dirty white save for a dark brown and crimson collar, is open over a strong throat. Blurred hints of a sail and water can be seen in the background. It's subtitle in Japanese. I am too lazy to translate and my kanji isn't that strong.

A picture of my longhaired dryer lint mutt of a cat, Mercutio, sleeping on his side with his paws drawn up to his chest and his pale fuzzy belly exposed. He's a ball of gray fluff with a white belly, his tail curled in to almost fully hide his curled hind paws. He's resting on top of my gray and white comforter on the bed, with a bit of a red fleece visible in the lower left and the darkened screen of my Kindle right next to his head. In the background you can see a white doorframe, a yellow wall, and partial view of black cubbies with white stenciled leaf patterns. Through the doorframe you can see pale honey hardwood floors with a pink feather (thanks Mab) resting randomly in the middle.

A shot taken from below of a partial wall festooned in hanging plastic green ivy vines and strings of fake roses in various shades of pink. The wall behind it is a light creamy dun shade. The ceiling above is white. Where the wall turns a corner partway to the left, you can see a frosted glass dome light with a bronze rim and...uh...whatever that nipple-shaped thing at the tip is, affixed to the ceiling.

A distressed trans pride flag hanging on a pale yellow wall. In red digitized font it says "IF YOU WANT ME DEAD, FUCKING KILL ME YOURSELF" where the colors of "YOURSELF" run down to the bottom edge of the flag.

Screenshot of a page from Volume Six of the graphic novel version of Solo Leveling, showing the guild master of White Tiger in his S-rank beast form: a massive anthropomorphic white lion, shirtless in blue pants, absolutely *ripped* abs and delts, massive biceps, glowing yellow eyes, glowing long white claws on his fingertips. His teeth are bared to show long, clenched fangs. His mane flares around his face in a cloud of glowing white, rather long, with a few black streaks. Thought bubbles say "I don't care about revealing my ugly appearance..." and "...if it means killing these damn bugs!"

Word screenshot excerpt 1/3, depicting text:

Firstname Graves prepared to die an impermanent death.

He’d been prepared to die a solid, rather inescapable death for so long he didn’t quite know what to do with the idea of an impermanent one. He supposed, as he stared up at the reflective white tiles of the ceiling while liquid ice slid from the IV, through the needle, and into his veins that he should be feeling something cataclysmic. An emotional catharsis.

Hope.

Hope that when the cryo-chamber spat him back out in a year or two years or five, the inoperable tumor in his brain would no longer be inoperable because a frozen metal tube and an alarming amount of money had bought him more than the days, perhaps weeks, that he had left. Had bought time for medical advancements that could, if he was lucky, turn inoperable tumors into minor inconveniences.

And if that never happened, well.

Portrait photo of my adolescent female brown tabby Maine Coon, Mab. She's curled against rumpled red and gray fleeces atop my gray comforter; she's nestled herself at a bit of a slant with her forepaws curled under her chest, her tail curled against her hind legs, while she looks winsomely up at the camera with alert, cute green-gold eyes and her tufty ears pricked.

A portrait photo of my cats, Mab and Mercutio, atop a rumpled red fleece and glimpses of other assorted pink and gray blankets scattered over my gray comforter with thin perpendicular white stripes. Mercutio, a ball of gray and white floof with curly white whiskers, is square in the middle of the red fleece, kind of sitting on his haunches and turned slightly toward the camera, green eyes visible, tail curled around toward his front.

Mab, my brown tabby half Maine Coon adolescent baby girl, is on her side on the gray perpendicular striped comforter above and to his right, looking wide-eyed off toward something to the right, her belly floof showing and her paws curled into her body.

A landscape photo of my adolescent brown tabby Maine Coon, Mab. She's asleep on top of a gray comforter with horizontal and vertical thin white stripes, and to her left is a hint of a red fleece.

She's curled partially on her side, her face mooshed against the comforter, a hint of her purple collar visible past her ruff. Her paws are invisible inside her fluff, but a hint of her tail can be seen curling around to her side.

There's something black angled against her butt (my Kindle, it's vague in the photo but it's my Kindle, why does she like to sleep with her butt mooshed on my Kindle). In the background a hint of black shelves with books is visible.

A portrait oriented photograph depicting my adolescent brown tabby Maine Coon, Mab. She's at the bottom of the frame, curled up in loaf position inside a wooden planter box, her head cocked cutely as golden eyes stare right at the camera. Straggles of last year's impatiens trickle down the side of the box. They were fine until SHE STARTED SLEEPING ON THEM. The majority of the backdrop behind her is taken up by sunlit, bright green leafy overgrowth seen through a window.