Valethian (Nicholas Jolie)
@valethian.bsky.social
Composer, mystic, and writer conjuring visions of sound, language, and spirit. My current works—in progress—seek to merge the sensual with the sacred, the orchestral with the esoteric. A world is forming. You’re welcome to glimpse it as it unfolds.
Pinned
“If your dream still lives, if that castle gleams just as brightly in your eyes, then it is your obligation to lay the stones that surround you now.”
— Void, Berserk
#Berserk #Void #Griffith #Eclipse #CastleOfDreams #KentaroMiura #DarkFantasy #MangaQuotes
— Void, Berserk
#Berserk #Void #Griffith #Eclipse #CastleOfDreams #KentaroMiura #DarkFantasy #MangaQuotes
Some inventions roar. Soap dominates silently—entering history through the smallest human act: the hand touching another. In my latest essay, I trace how cleanliness became sovereignty, how intimacy became safer, and how civilization learned discipline through foam. Full piece on Substack. ✍️
The Sacred Bar of Civilization
Soap did not merely clean humanity; it rewrote the terms of dignity, disease, and daily power.
substack.com
January 11, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Some inventions roar. Soap dominates silently—entering history through the smallest human act: the hand touching another. In my latest essay, I trace how cleanliness became sovereignty, how intimacy became safer, and how civilization learned discipline through foam. Full piece on Substack. ✍️
Cleanliness is not innocence. Cleanliness is power.
Soap is civilization’s most intimate weapon: it reduces infection, refines proximity, makes the human body less dangerous to itself. The modern world is built on repetition—lather, friction, rinse—like liturgy.
Soap is civilization’s most intimate weapon: it reduces infection, refines proximity, makes the human body less dangerous to itself. The modern world is built on repetition—lather, friction, rinse—like liturgy.
January 11, 2026 at 7:30 AM
Cleanliness is not innocence. Cleanliness is power.
Soap is civilization’s most intimate weapon: it reduces infection, refines proximity, makes the human body less dangerous to itself. The modern world is built on repetition—lather, friction, rinse—like liturgy.
Soap is civilization’s most intimate weapon: it reduces infection, refines proximity, makes the human body less dangerous to itself. The modern world is built on repetition—lather, friction, rinse—like liturgy.
The past was not romantic. The past was odorous.
Perfume wasn’t seduction—it was camouflage. Silk over rot. Rosewater over residue. Soap did what empires could not: it interrupted contamination at the level of intimacy. History changed in the sink.
Perfume wasn’t seduction—it was camouflage. Silk over rot. Rosewater over residue. Soap did what empires could not: it interrupted contamination at the level of intimacy. History changed in the sink.
January 11, 2026 at 7:30 AM
The past was not romantic. The past was odorous.
Perfume wasn’t seduction—it was camouflage. Silk over rot. Rosewater over residue. Soap did what empires could not: it interrupted contamination at the level of intimacy. History changed in the sink.
Perfume wasn’t seduction—it was camouflage. Silk over rot. Rosewater over residue. Soap did what empires could not: it interrupted contamination at the level of intimacy. History changed in the sink.
Soap is not a product. It is a verdict.
The quiet technology that made dignity scalable—no speeches, no spectacle—only discipline, foam, and consequence. Civilization didn’t rise by monument alone. It rose because our hands stopped carrying death.
The quiet technology that made dignity scalable—no speeches, no spectacle—only discipline, foam, and consequence. Civilization didn’t rise by monument alone. It rose because our hands stopped carrying death.
January 11, 2026 at 7:30 AM
Soap is not a product. It is a verdict.
The quiet technology that made dignity scalable—no speeches, no spectacle—only discipline, foam, and consequence. Civilization didn’t rise by monument alone. It rose because our hands stopped carrying death.
The quiet technology that made dignity scalable—no speeches, no spectacle—only discipline, foam, and consequence. Civilization didn’t rise by monument alone. It rose because our hands stopped carrying death.
These fragments are drawn from my essay GREEN FIRE UNDER GLASS — a meditation on discipline, decadence, and the luxury of control: pleasure not as escape, but as jurisdiction; luxury not as display, but as refinement sharpened into law. Read the full piece on Substack. ✍️
GREEN FIRE UNDER GLASS
The Fine Art of Dangerous Pleasure
substack.com
January 11, 2026 at 3:16 AM
These fragments are drawn from my essay GREEN FIRE UNDER GLASS — a meditation on discipline, decadence, and the luxury of control: pleasure not as escape, but as jurisdiction; luxury not as display, but as refinement sharpened into law. Read the full piece on Substack. ✍️
Absinthe was never feared because it intoxicated—history has always tolerated drunkenness. It was feared because it demanded intelligence: delirium curated into method. It does not soothe. It accuses. In its green fire, the mind becomes impossible to anesthetize.
January 11, 2026 at 3:15 AM
Absinthe was never feared because it intoxicated—history has always tolerated drunkenness. It was feared because it demanded intelligence: delirium curated into method. It does not soothe. It accuses. In its green fire, the mind becomes impossible to anesthetize.
The table is not indulgence. It is a tribunal. Charcuterie, cheese, wine—each bite a verdict, each sip a measurement. Nothing comforts. Nothing forgives. Pleasure here is not softness; it is control with teeth: érotique par la précision.
January 11, 2026 at 3:15 AM
The table is not indulgence. It is a tribunal. Charcuterie, cheese, wine—each bite a verdict, each sip a measurement. Nothing comforts. Nothing forgives. Pleasure here is not softness; it is control with teeth: érotique par la précision.
Luxury is not abundance. It is selection as violence. It edits. It tightens. It withholds. It requires no audience because it assumes intelligence as prerequisite. Real luxury does not expand. It seals—like molten green fixed beneath glass.
January 11, 2026 at 3:15 AM
Luxury is not abundance. It is selection as violence. It edits. It tightens. It withholds. It requires no audience because it assumes intelligence as prerequisite. Real luxury does not expand. It seals—like molten green fixed beneath glass.
Pleasure is not the opposite of discipline. It is discipline made tactile—intelligence pressed through flesh until thought acquires grain and consequence. The vulgar call this repression. The intelligent recognize it as precision: appetite trained until it becomes fate.
January 11, 2026 at 3:14 AM
Pleasure is not the opposite of discipline. It is discipline made tactile—intelligence pressed through flesh until thought acquires grain and consequence. The vulgar call this repression. The intelligent recognize it as precision: appetite trained until it becomes fate.
I love the irony: the people convinced they’re doing the Lord’s work somehow end up on the Devil’s payroll, while the ones just minding their business get labeled satanic for the unforgivable crimes of common sense, empathy, and basic human decency. Funny how that works.
January 9, 2026 at 5:59 AM
I love the irony: the people convinced they’re doing the Lord’s work somehow end up on the Devil’s payroll, while the ones just minding their business get labeled satanic for the unforgivable crimes of common sense, empathy, and basic human decency. Funny how that works.
✍🏻 Luxury isn’t excess. It’s the courage to be clear. This essay examines refinement not as status or morality, but as psychological permission—how beauty, order, and discernment emerge when survival identities finally loosen their grip. Read the full piece on Substack.
The Permission to Be Legible
Luxury Isn’t Excess. It’s the Courage to Be Clear.
substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 4:14 AM
✍🏻 Luxury isn’t excess. It’s the courage to be clear. This essay examines refinement not as status or morality, but as psychological permission—how beauty, order, and discernment emerge when survival identities finally loosen their grip. Read the full piece on Substack.
Refinement is not subtraction. It is precision. Releasing what no longer reflects you without apology, narration, or consensus. What remains is not emptiness but legibility—a life that can hold its shape under inspection.
January 8, 2026 at 4:12 AM
Refinement is not subtraction. It is precision. Releasing what no longer reflects you without apology, narration, or consensus. What remains is not emptiness but legibility—a life that can hold its shape under inspection.
Money does not create discernment. It amplifies whatever is already unresolved. Without permission, abundance swells into spectacle—new materials forced into obsolete architectures. Expansion without clarity is not growth. It is edema.
January 8, 2026 at 4:11 AM
Money does not create discernment. It amplifies whatever is already unresolved. Without permission, abundance swells into spectacle—new materials forced into obsolete architectures. Expansion without clarity is not growth. It is edema.
Clutter is not a failure of taste. It is unfinished history. Objects linger when identities are never formally retired. What looks like attachment is often timing gone stale—survival habits refusing to stand down.
January 8, 2026 at 4:09 AM
Clutter is not a failure of taste. It is unfinished history. Objects linger when identities are never formally retired. What looks like attachment is often timing gone stale—survival habits refusing to stand down.
Luxury is not indulgence. It is nervous-system literacy. The moment when clarity stops feeling like danger and begins to feel like relief. Excess hoards sensation. Refinement edits until the body can breathe without bracing.
January 8, 2026 at 4:09 AM
Luxury is not indulgence. It is nervous-system literacy. The moment when clarity stops feeling like danger and begins to feel like relief. Excess hoards sensation. Refinement edits until the body can breathe without bracing.
✍️ What happens when a culture loses its tolerance for dangerous beauty?
This essay traces Wagner, Tristan, Ludwig II, and the quiet death of listening without anesthesia. Not nostalgia—bereavement. Read the full piece, “The Right to Dangerous Beauty,” now on Substack.
This essay traces Wagner, Tristan, Ludwig II, and the quiet death of listening without anesthesia. Not nostalgia—bereavement. Read the full piece, “The Right to Dangerous Beauty,” now on Substack.
THE RIGHT TO DANGEROUS BEAUTY
Tristan, the Swan King, and the Crime of Listening Without Anesthesia
substack.com
January 5, 2026 at 10:48 PM
✍️ What happens when a culture loses its tolerance for dangerous beauty?
This essay traces Wagner, Tristan, Ludwig II, and the quiet death of listening without anesthesia. Not nostalgia—bereavement. Read the full piece, “The Right to Dangerous Beauty,” now on Substack.
This essay traces Wagner, Tristan, Ludwig II, and the quiet death of listening without anesthesia. Not nostalgia—bereavement. Read the full piece, “The Right to Dangerous Beauty,” now on Substack.
Once, beauty was permitted to be dangerous—erotic, absolute, unshielded. We did not apologize for intensity when it exceeded comfort. We endured sensation long enough for it to transform us. Some art does not ask to be understood. It demands habitation.
January 5, 2026 at 10:47 PM
Once, beauty was permitted to be dangerous—erotic, absolute, unshielded. We did not apologize for intensity when it exceeded comfort. We endured sensation long enough for it to transform us. Some art does not ask to be understood. It demands habitation.
Tristan does not delay time; it densifies it. Desire is denied closure and stretched beyond pleasure into being itself. Harmony ceases to function as destination and becomes condition. What sounds like immobility is exposure—sensuality prolonged past safety, into ontology.
January 5, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Tristan does not delay time; it densifies it. Desire is denied closure and stretched beyond pleasure into being itself. Harmony ceases to function as destination and becomes condition. What sounds like immobility is exposure—sensuality prolonged past safety, into ontology.
Wagner did not compose diversion. He engineered interior climates—sealed, pressurized systems of sound charged with erotic voltage. Listening was not leisure or consumption. Attention was presumed. To enter the music was to accept risk, knowing something would be taken in exchange.
January 5, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Wagner did not compose diversion. He engineered interior climates—sealed, pressurized systems of sound charged with erotic voltage. Listening was not leisure or consumption. Attention was presumed. To enter the music was to accept risk, knowing something would be taken in exchange.
Why does refinement feel so punishing? Not for technical reasons, but existential ones. For composers who think through sound rather than structure, notation tools often stop listening. The fracture isn’t aesthetic—it’s infrastructural.
✍️ (Full essay on Substack.)
✍️ (Full essay on Substack.)
Toward an Eloquent Intelligence
On Music, Memory, and the Need for a New Instrument
When the Music Is Finished but the Work Is Not
substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:29 AM
Why does refinement feel so punishing? Not for technical reasons, but existential ones. For composers who think through sound rather than structure, notation tools often stop listening. The fracture isn’t aesthetic—it’s infrastructural.
✍️ (Full essay on Substack.)
✍️ (Full essay on Substack.)
Some music doesn’t ask to be louder. It asks to be placed. Our tools still don’t know the difference.
January 2, 2026 at 10:28 AM
Some music doesn’t ask to be louder. It asks to be placed. Our tools still don’t know the difference.
The work is no longer composition. It is refinement—ethical, surgical, unforgiving. And our tools still treat listening as optional. For music built from timbre and restraint, that isn’t inefficiency. It’s erasure.
January 2, 2026 at 10:27 AM
The work is no longer composition. It is refinement—ethical, surgical, unforgiving. And our tools still treat listening as optional. For music built from timbre and restraint, that isn’t inefficiency. It’s erasure.
There is a particular exhaustion that comes not from making music, but from finishing it—from carrying refinement alone in tools that were never designed to listen. When sound itself is meaning, notation without audition becomes an act of faith. And faith, eventually, corrodes.
January 2, 2026 at 10:26 AM
There is a particular exhaustion that comes not from making music, but from finishing it—from carrying refinement alone in tools that were never designed to listen. When sound itself is meaning, notation without audition becomes an act of faith. And faith, eventually, corrodes.
I’m a Montanan, born and raised. This story shows how absurd politics have become: conservatives censured for agreeing with Democrats on basic common sense. Montana has always lived in the gray—now blind party loyalty punishes reason over real people.
Meet the Montana GOP lawmakers who were kicked out of their party for voting with Democrats
YouTube video by CBS Mornings
youtu.be
December 31, 2025 at 8:41 PM
I’m a Montanan, born and raised. This story shows how absurd politics have become: conservatives censured for agreeing with Democrats on basic common sense. Montana has always lived in the gray—now blind party loyalty punishes reason over real people.
Reposted by Valethian (Nicholas Jolie)
Timeline compressing faster than public discourse acknowledges. Not decades away. Right fucking now.
edwinexeter.substack.com/p/architect-...
edwinexeter.substack.com/p/architect-...
Architect or Oracle - A Metaphysical Reframing of AGI
Beyond Simulation Or Why the Engineer Cannot See What He's Summoning
edwinexeter.substack.com
December 25, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Timeline compressing faster than public discourse acknowledges. Not decades away. Right fucking now.
edwinexeter.substack.com/p/architect-...
edwinexeter.substack.com/p/architect-...