#but this time you haunt the narrative instead of doing anything

[johnmalevolent]

im thinking about trigun and suikoden 2 and damn... there are parallels in there

[cobragardens]

5 Good Omens Timefucks that Haunt Me

1.

Why is this here? Why is this line included? Is it just to add texture, to imply that larger world of corporate fascism of which Crowley and Aziraphale are subjects and victims and little worker bees? If so, why "They've started early" specifically? Why not "I wouldn't have expected that shrub to be the first to go" or "Aw, I liked that rock formation"?

Crawly doesn't make this comment in an offhand way: he sounds a bit taken aback and not thrilled that things have kicked off sooner than he anticipated. But it doesn't ultimately seem to make any difference to this scene, so why do we, the audience, need to know Hell started early?

2.

This one I'm not as confident will turn out to be significant, because iirc it appears in the book, which was a complete story when written, and because it serves a narrative purpose: it puts Agnes Nutter in charge of the situation, not her murderers. By backfooting Witchfinder Major Pulsifer, Agnes startles him enough she's able to walk past him without Pulsifer seizing her and discovering the extra 80 lbs of gunpowder and roofing nails in her skirts.

But. Agnes Nutter's sense of time is Nice and Accurate, and she notices the witchburning party are late and remarks on it to herself before she says anything to Pulsifer. So assuming a few minutes to position Agnes, tie her to the stake, and read the charges and conviction against her, Pulsifer and Agnes' neighbors are 12-15 minutes later than they should be. Why?

If the book answers this question, I don't recall; the show does not. And again, it seems to make no ultimate difference to this scene.

I'm not saying this was even purposely included in S1 as a timefuck. I am suggesting that as Gaiman seems to be fucking with time or timelines in this story, even if he and Pratchett didn't plan it like this when discussing the sequel, a retcon is hardly out of the question.

3.

As others have pointed out, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 is 45-55 minutes long. If you're listening to it on 78s instead of LPs because you are a CRAZY PERSON, it's going to take you more like 1 hour 5 minutes, because one side of a 78 holds, at most, 5 minutes of music, so every 5 minutes you have to get up and flip or switch the record.

Shostakovich wrote his 5th symphony in response to criticism in the state newspaper (possibly penned by Stalin himself) that his previous work didn't suck the Communist Party's dick hard enough--the kind of criticism that put him in danger of being sent to prison or killed. At the time it was first performed in 1937, Symphony No. 5 was considered a massive triumph, walking the line perfectly between Shostakovich's artistic standards and the Communist Party's demands of him.

The choice is symbolically significant, but it's a symphony, so whoever's censoring it isn't censoring lyrics or information. Again, why? Why is a 45-55-minute symphony only 21 minutes long? What did the time thief do with the 24-34 minutes?

4.

Here's the rug that covers the portal to Heaven in Episode 1:

Here's the rug in Ep. 2:

Aziraphale does not change this rug for the party. We know this bc we see it in Episode 5 when Mrs Sandwich enters the bookshop and the party is in full swing:

Now here's Aziraphale moving the circular rug to expose the portal to Heaven:

But here's Crowley, putting the rug back:

Why are there two different rugs?

5.

Every end credits track has the first line of "Everyday" embedded in it But after the line from "Everyday," at the end of Episode 4, the theme skips twice like a vinyl record, and then is stopped by whoever controls the turntable and restarted, with several seconds of music having been skipped over.

This is not the first time it has mattered to a character in Good Omens what we in the audience see and hear. I argue here that God asks Aziraphale what he did with the flaming sword She gave him in order to show us the audience who Aziraphale is. God also addresses us the audience directly in S1, not only narrating about characters omnisciently but speaking to us about Herself in first person.

Now we evidently have a second character who has gone meta and is changing what we the audience experience of this story, and--indications are good--the story itself.

[annoyinglandmagazine]

I’ve been thinking about Miriel and her impact on the House of Feanor on the whole, as you do, and I was thinking what if she haunted the narrative even more? I think it’s pretty well established that she was depressed in some shape or form, that there were mental health problems contributing heavily but there were definitely physical aspects as well, ‘But in the bearing of her son Miriel was consumed in spirit and body; and after his birth she yearned for release from the labour of living.’ And I know that Feanor being Feanor was ascribed as a huge cause of this, that he was just so much stronger than the average elf that his birth was particularly taxing but I’m going to go ahead and assume that even if Feanor had been a perfectly normal baby Miriel would have been impacted. It just feels almost like this infant is being blamed for his mother’s death which, while definitely plausible as something that happened in universe, doesn’t really feel fair to him.

I’m theorising Miriel had underlying conditions from long before she became pregnant that made her prone to things like fainting, exhaustion, chronic pain and that in all honesty her having a child was never going to be a good idea. But they wanted a family together and where could be a safer place to raise one? Everything was perfect and safe, why shouldn’t they be able to overcome this little obstacle to doing what everyone else seemed to be doing without issue? Towards the end she was entirely bedridden, not even strong enough to sit at her loom.

Finwë was relieved beyond measure when Feanor seemed to grow almost exceedingly strong and healthy, as if he’d gotten all the strength Miriel had been missing, and he thought that was the matter laid to rest, Feanor was fine and any children of his would be as well. Except they weren’t. Nerdanel’s pregnancies were always a time of great panic, not for her health really because it wasn’t Feanor’s genes they were worried about it was Miriel’s. And Nerdanel was nothing like Miriel but her children…..

Ñolofinwe watches Feanor pacing the palace in a frenzy while a crowd of healers stream in and out of a room down the hall, some five times the standard amount, and he wants to try and reassure him but knows he, with his perfectly healthy baby boy, delivered with no fuss by one midwife just like his two perfectly healthy sons beforehand, to go home to, is the last person in Arda his brother could stand to converse with right now.

The sons and daughters of Fingolfin and Finarfin grew swiftly, strong and athletic with hearty appetites and bright dispositions. Feanor could not bring himself to hate children so he settled for hating his brothers instead. He does not envy them their children, he loves his more than he could ever have loved anything and that’s the problem right there, he loves his sons and he’s absolutely terrified that he’s going to lose them if he lays them down too long. They’re so small and as soon as they leave his or Nerdanel’s arms they seem to tremble with cold so he sleeps with them against his chest for more of the first years of their lives than was usual. After those many sleepless nights he always finds it hard to sleep without being able to feel the rise and fall of their breathing.

Their cousins often do not understand what the difference between them and the Feanorians is, most of them have vague memories of getting scolded within an inch of their lives for fighting one back when they got into childish arguments. Mostly they just resented it or assumed it was favouritism if it were by Finwe or fear of Feanor’s wrath if by their own parents. Angrod did not think too long on how easily Caranthir crumpled to the ground at an unexpected shove, after all he was the older wasn’t he? Surely the rules about being gentle shouldn’t apply? He was equally puzzled when Fingolfin came running and scooped Caranthir into his arms, pale and panicked as Maedhros assured him he’d make certain Feanor wouldn’t hear about the matter if he was alright.

They train and become agile and skilled with blades and bows if not physically broad and strong in the way of their cousins but no matter how their health improves there are always concerns and during their approaching adulthood it becomes clear their worries are not only in body. There are migraines that leave them in dark rooms unable to bear even the sound of footsteps outside, days where Curufin and Maedhros struggle to allow any food past there lips, days where Caranthir sobs for hours with some inexplicable ache, weeks where Maglor cannot find rest no matter how much exhaustion he feels, little cuts and gashes on Celegorm’s arms that seem too frequent to be fully accidental.

If you were to look at this from a modern perspective it would probably be some genetic tendency to bipolar disorder and major depression but they wouldn’t have that kind of language because in my headcanons about Valinor they have very little experience with mental illness and no idea how to respond to it. I’m citing the whole Miriel incident to back me up there.

And just to make this even more angsty have a Tyelko quote from the fic of this I may or may not write ‘Amme always said we were her miracles, that our survival and strength was a blessing from the Valar. I was lucky to make it to my first winter. I wonder now if things wouldn’t have been better for everyone else if I hadn’t.’

[scoobydoodean]

Do you think John ever used to hit Sam and Dean? If so do you think he hit one of specifically or do you think he hit the both of them?

I don't think there's any solid evidence that John hit Sam and Dean. Some people do believe he did at least a few times (maybe when he was drinking—see: 7.03). I can't think of anything that I believe would 100% confirm John hit either of them.

I can think of three episodes that might imply Dean was occasionally physically abused by John:

1.14 "Nightmare": Dean's "All things considered". Haunting little set of screencaps.

5.16 "Dark Side of the Moon": This one is mainly down to jacting joices. When the brothers enter Sam's memory of running away to Flagstaff, Dean gets upset as Sam's lack of memory of the ramifications. Dean says "Well, you don’t remember, do you? You ran away on my watch. I looked everywhere for you. I thought you were dead. And when Dad came home…" The look Dean gives on that last line tends to stick with people.

9.07 "Bad Boys": In the scene where Dean and Sonny first meet, Dean has finger-shaped bruises all over his wrists. Sonny first asks if the deputy harmed Dean, then asks if it was John. Dean says it was a werewolf, but that story doesn't necessarily make sense either.

Another suggestive hint comes from young Sam in 7.03 "Girl Next Door":

YOUNG AMY Yeah, well, she [my mom] has a temper. Sometimes. It's... no big deal. YOUNG SAM My dad does, too. You don't want to see him when he's drinking.

Sam doesn't necessarily understand the implication of physical abuse in this scene, but he later finds out that Amy's mother is physically abusive toward Amy. We also knew that John had a drinking problem long prior to 7.03. Sam in particular resents this to the point of making several references to John's excessive drinking in 1.01 inside his apartment building. He says John's probably just "Working overtime on a Miller Time shift", then tells Jess that John's probably somewhere with "Jim, Jack, and Jose” (these are all brands of alcohol for anyone unfamiliar).

While 7.03 seems potentially damning, Sam explicitly denies that John physically abused him in 1.14 "Nightmare". When confronted with Max's extensive physical abuse, he ends the episode being thankful that they had John instead of some other dad who might not have coped as well:

Well, it coulda gone a whole other way after Mom. A little more tequila and a little less demon hunting and we woulda had Max's childhood. All things considered, we turned out ok. Thanks to him.

One might also consider how Sam responds to hearing about abusive relationships in 1.14 and 2.17 with Max and Madison respectively. He asks Max why he didn't just leave when the abuse continued into his adulthood, and suggests that he doesn't see Madison as the type to be caught up in an abusive relationship (questions that do make one wince, yeah...)

My own thinking is the following: I don't think there's anything wrong with exploring the idea that physical abuse did occur. I think John's well-documented neglect is enough child abuse for me personally. I think 1.14 probably rules out John hitting Sam (but one could argue otherwise). I think some incidents can be used to suit the narrative that John hit Dean, but I don't find any of the hints we're given are concrete proof of physical abuse.

1.14's "All things considered" line might be interpreted as a convincing suggestion that Dean suffered physical abuse, but it also might just represent Dean slowly trading places with Sam over the season as the John Defender, as he becomes more and more angry with their father (especially considering 1.14 comes after both of Dean's pleas for help went unanswered in 1.09 and 1.12, and 1.11 where he says he wishes he could stand up to John).

5.16 comes down to a look that, at the end of the day, could be interpreted a multitude of ways (and if I think about it... it seems to me that words would haunt Dean more at that point in his life than fists).

It seems to me that 9.07 might actually rule out John being responsible for Dean's injuries. John had been gone on a hunt when Dean got caught for stealing, leaving Sam and Dean behind at a motel. John had been gone long enough for Dean to risk gambling to try and get more cash. This suggests John had been gone for a while, meaning Dean and John probably hadn't been in the same room for a while. This also means I'm not sure if I buy Dean's story about a werewolf though (John was on a Rugaru hunt. Dean wasn't with him).

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Screaming from the crypt (or how the past haunts the present on Midnights)

I know it's been discussed so much since Midnights came out but just.

I love how there is such a clear narrative throughout the album (and perhaps especially on the 3am/Vault tracks). About questioning and regret and choices and coming to terms with all of it. It is one long story about how we're all a mosaic of the choices we make, each one taking something from us and leaving something else in its place.

(And now a disclaimer: I'm looking at this mostly through a narrator/subject lens, and trying not to dive too deeply into real-life events or speculation except for in a general sense. For this purpose I like to look at the body of work as art, like literature, because I find it makes it easier to see the common threads in the different songs and cohesion in the narrative.)

In looking at the 3am+ tracks in particular, it's fascinating how some turns of phrases or themes repeat themselves in different songs, in different contexts. (I'm only focusing on the non-standard tracks because there are too many songs and I'd be here all day but I bet I could do a part two lol.) I know many people have pointed out the parallels throughout her discography already and I’m not saying anything groundbreaking by writing this, but I love how these parallels run through in the same album, because it makes it seem like it's one long story, or at least, one long rumination on many different stories that are coalescing into a single narrative.

Battle (let’s go)

For instance, the one that jumped out at me when I started writing this post the other week was, "Tore your banners down, took the battle underground," in The Great War and "If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? Years of tearing down our banners, you and I," in Would've, Could've Should've. It's a story about staying stuck in the same cycle of reliving trauma and coping mechanisms and bad habits over and over again and fantasizing about how taking the “antagonist” out and gaining the upper hand for good would bring closure (WCS), but the truth is that nothing ever will. All that cycle does, though, is repeat itself in other situations, and in this case pushes someone away the narrator cares for (TGW). The difference is that the imagined battle in WCS is a two-way street in her mind (that is ultimately unwinnable because it was never a fair fight), but in TGW it's one-sided -- she's the one fighting dirty, taking shots, the way she'd been doing in her imagination (or nightmares) all these years. But the person in front of her isn't fighting back the way the person in her mind in WCS would, because their intentions are honourable instead of exploitative.

And that's paralleled in another pair of lyrics from the two songs, "And maybe it's the past talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did," (in TGW) and "The tomb won't close, I fight with you in my sleep," (in WCS). In both cases, the funeral imagery makes it seem like this past event should be dead and buried in WCS, but it keeps rising from the dead, haunting her no matter what she does and in TGW, another (or perhaps the same?) tomb that won't close keeps unleashing new ways to hurt her and in turn the new person in her life. In other words, the trauma from the past continues to bleed into the present.

(Again from a literary point of view, I'm not saying the events of the two songs are linked IRL, but they're fascinating textual parallels on the album as a string of chapters, which is why Dear Reader is so compelling, but that's a whole other essay.)

To keep the battle motif going, there’s yet another parallel, this time between TGW’s "[You were a] soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth," and You’re Losing Me’s "All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, fighting in only your army.” In the former, the subject is laying down his armour in the war she’s projecting onto him, waving the white flag, and she realizes that she’s about to destroy something if she doesn’t put her sword down too. By the time we get to YLM, the roles are almost reversed; at the very least they’re supposed to be on the same team, but in this case she’s doing all the heavy lifting, fighting for their relationship in contrast to his apathy killing it. It’s also pretty interesting (if not outright intentional) that one of the 3am+ editions of the albums starts with The Great War, where they find themselves in conflict (even if it’s in her head) that ends in a truce, and ends with You’re Losing Me signalling the end of the relationship, evidence that the resolution in the first song wasn’t an ending but merely a ceasefire before the last battle.

Putting the rest under a cut because this is waaaaay too long now ⤵️

(There’s also another metaphor there in The Great War with its battle imagery: World War I, aka The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars, because loss on its scale was never seen before and when it ended, most thought never again would the world embroil itself in such battle, the horrors and implications were so devastating. Two decades later, the world found itself in WWII, with an even larger scope and more horrific consequences, the intervening time between the two a period of festering conflicts and resentment leading to some of the worst acts the world would see. Bringing real life into it for a second, there’s something a little poetic, though sad, about The Great War the song being about a fight that could have ended the relationship that they ultimately resolved and was meant to be evidence of the strength of their love, but so too did it end up being a period of détente, the greater battle coming for them years later. But that is not the point of this post.)

If one thing had been different

Another major theme in these editions is pondering the "what ifs?" of life, but I think it takes on even more significance in the broader context of the album in the lyrics of "I'm never gonna meet what could've been, would've been, should've been you," in Bigger than the Whole Sky and the repetition of would've/could've in Would've, Could've, Should've (I would've looked away at the first glance, I would've stayed on my knees, I would've gone along with the righteous, I could've gone on as I was, would've could've should've if I'd only played it safe, etc.) In both songs, the narrator is mourning an alternate course their life could have taken* and questioning what they could have done differently, in the aftermath of trauma and loss, and the regret that comes with that loss, and with the loss of agency in the situation because ultimately it was never in their hands. In an album full of questions, wondering about the path not taken, or the forks in the road that have led to a different version of your life, it's digging deeper into the contrast of choice vs. fate, action vs. reaction, dwelling on the past vs. moving on. When you're supposed to let go of the past, what do you do when it is holding your future hostage?

(*I know there are different interpretations/speculation about BTTWS which I am not getting into on main. I'm just saying that whatever the song is about, it's grieving something that never came to be. The literal origin of the song is less important to the album than the sense of loss it portrays. Whatever the inspiration is, it's crafted to tell part of the story of Midnights of ruminating over how, to borrow from her previous work, if one thing had been different, would everything be different?)

(Also I was today years old when I realized that the words are inverted in the two songs. Apparently I've been hearing BTTWS wrong this whole time.)

There's also an interesting tangent in the role of faith in both songs: in WCS, the events of the story cause her to lose her faith (e.g. "All I used to do was pray," "you're a crisis of my faith,") and question all the things she felt had been unquestionable until that point in her life (e.g. "I could have gone along with the righteous"), whereas in BTTWS, she questions whether that very lack of faith is to blame for the loss in that song ("did some force take you because I didn't pray? [...] It's not meant to be, so I'll say words I don't believe"). It's like pinpointing the moment her life changed and upended her beliefs (WCS), but as a result then leaving her unmoored in times of crisis because ultimately there's no explanation or comfort to be taken from what she used to hold true before that (BTTWS). The words she once relied upon to guide her have long since lost their meaning, but in times of trouble it leaves her wondering if that faith she once held then lost could have prevented this pain.

(Shoutout to WCS for being Catholic guilt personified lol.)

To keep on with the vaguely faith-y notions, an obvious parallel is the line in Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve about, “I damn sure never would've danced with the devil at nineteen,” and, "When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss," in Dear Reader. All of WCS is about her fighting with an antagonist who haunts her, with whom she wholly regrets ever becoming involved. DR could be seen as a reflection on that fall from grace, warning the audience that if you choose to go after the person (or thing) haunting you, make sure you do so clearheaded enough to be decisive. Again, these “devils” may not be related in real life: the IRL devil in DR could be speaking about her naysayers, or Kim*ye, or Scott & Scooter B, etc., meaning not to cross your enemies until you know you can win. But taking real life out of it and looking at it textually, I am intrigued by the link between WCS and DR, so that’s what I’m going with here. And perhaps that’s even the point in a wider sense; there will be multiple “devils” in your life, or threats to your well-being. If you’re going to commit to taking them down — whether it’s an actual person, or the demons inside you that refuse to let you go — make sure you have the right ammo so that they can no longer hurt you. (Of course, one lesson from these experiences is that sometimes you can’t win, and you have to live with the fallout.)

(Sidebar: I know that “dancing with the devil” is a turn of phrase that means being led into temptation and engaging in risky behaviour, as opposed to describing the actual person. Given the religious metaphors in the song, that could very well be/is the intention, particularly when it’s preceded by, “I would have stayed on my knees” as in she would have continued to follow her faith — in whatever sense that means — had she never met this person, which could also be a more eloquent way of saying she would have continued to be live her life in a way that was righteous (even naive) and seen the world in black and white. Either way, it’s a force she wholly rejects. Like I said, multiple devils, same fight.)

Regret comes up too: in WCS, she says, "I regret you all the time," obviously directed at the person who manipulated her and led to her perceived downfall, citing him as the one impulse she wished she'd never followed, because it won't leave her no matter how hard she’s tried. In High Infidelity, she tells the person to, "put on your records and regret me," and on the surface, it’s like she’s turning the tables, painting herself as the one now causing the regret in someone else, the one inflicting the pain this time. Yet the verse preceding it and the lines following it in the chorus depict a partner who is also emotionally manipulative and vindictive like in WCS (“you said I was freeloading, I didn’t know you were keeping count,” “put on your headphones and burn my city,”). It’s not so much that she’s intentionally harming the person (the way the person in WCS does to her), but rather that the venom in the subject’s feelings towards her seeps through; she’s imagining the way he’s going to feel about her when she leaves, hating her just for by being who she is. (There could be another tangent about how in both songs she’s there to be a “token” in a game for both of the men, who play her for their own purposes.) The regret is dripping with disdain. It’s as though she’s picturing how the person is going to hate her for doing what she’s thinking of doing the way she hates the person who first hurt her.

Sadness, unsurprisingly, shows up in a few lyrics. In BTTWS, “Everything I touch becomes sick with sadness,” sets the scene of a person so overcome with grief that it permeates everything around them; they cannot see their way out of it and feel like the fog will never lift. In Hits Different, it’s, “My sadness is contagious,” the result of a breakup where the person’s grief again touches everything and everyone around them, pushing them further in their despair and loneliness. The reason behind the grief in either case may vary, but regardless of the source, the feeling is overpowering and isolating. They may be different chapters in the story, but the devastation is hauntingly familiar. (As is a recurring theme in Midnights as a whole: there are situations and feelings that present themselves at different points in her journey and colour in the lines in different ways along the road. Like revisiting an old vice and realizing the hit isn’t quite the same as it was in the past.)

Death by a thousand cuts

She also writes about wounds on this album, which isn't surprising I suppose given that the whole conceit is that these are things that have kept her up at night over the years. WCS is perhaps the driving narrative on this never ending hurt when she sings, “The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign, I regret you all the time,” suggesting that no matter what she does, the pain of this experience has permeated everything she’s done afterwards. (Not unlike the overwhelming grief in BTTWS, for instance.) Elsewhere, in High Infidelity she sings, "Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token," and in Hits Different, "Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding.” Again I'm not suggesting they're about the same events; the line in HI is about a situation where a partner crosses a boundary, hits below the belt, picks at an insecurity (or creates a new one) and treats the relationship like it's transactional, opening the floodgates in turn. In HD, the wound seems to be more self-inflicted, where she's pushed the person away. (Over a situation real or imagined she feels she needs distance from.) But again, something has picked at her like a raw nerve, and just like in the past, she's hurting, even in a different time and place and person. Almost like the wounds of the past break open over and over again to create new scars. If one were to extrapolate further, it wouldn’t be the biggest leap to wonder if the wound open in WCS, then torn apart in HI makes the one in HD hurt even more.

(I once wrote a post about how I think as time goes on, WCS is going to turn into one of those songs that will be found to drive so much of her work, because it’s just… kind of the unsaid thesis statement of so much of her songwriting.)

Another repeated theme is that of the empty home and loneliness. In High Infidelity, she sings, "At the house lonely, good money I'd pay if you just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time," painting a picture of someone who may have everything they'd want to the outside world, but in reality feels metaphorically trapped in their home (or at least alone amidst abundance), a symbol of a relationship gone sour and a failure to build connection. She just wants someone to understand her, want her for her, but as she's written earlier in the song, she's just a pawn in the game, a trophy from the hunt. Home, in this case, is lonely, isolated, an emblem of her fears. In Dear Reader, she continues this thread, then singing, "You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where I pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire." It's the same idea, admitting to listeners that the gilded cage she lived in kept her distanced from her loved ones and real connection, keeping her struggles close to the vest but feeling desperately lonely amidst her crowning success. She's pushed people away and it may have felt like the right thing at the time, but in the end maybe felt like she was trapped. And when you push people away, eventually they take you at your word and stop pushing back; you’re a victim of your own success at isolating yourself. What starts out of self-preservation then further perpetuates the underlying problems.

(There's another interesting link about "home" also feeling unsafe with HI's "Your picket fence is sharp as knives," which further leads into the theme of marriage/domesticity feeling dangerous, which is a whole other thing I won't get into here because it's another discussion and may derail this already gargantuan word salad.)

In a slightly similar vein, we have the metaphor of bad weather for a rocky road or unstable relationship, in High Infidelity again with, "Storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle" and You’re Losing Me’s "every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes.” They aren’t speaking of the same situation or even same kind of breakdown, but it is pretty interesting how the idea of clouds/storms/floods/etc. play such a role in Taylor’s music to signal depression, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, etc. In HI, I think the “storm” coming is the looming threat of commitment to a partner who makes the narrator uneasy (if not fearful). In this case, the idea of making a life with this person is not one that incites joy or comfort, but instead makes the narrator feel that dark times are ahead if she continues down this path. Perhaps in some way, the “storms” in YLM have made good on the threat in HI in a different way; it’s a different home, a different relationship, but the clouds have settled in regardless, and some of her fears have come to fruition in ways she did not expect. The person she once trusted no longer sees her or her struggles (or worse, doesn’t care), and the resentment and pain build with each passing day.

Coming back to heartbreak, one of the obvious "full circle" moments is the beginning of a relationship in Paris, where she says that, "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing," clearly enthralled in a new love that allows her to shut the world out and grow in private, capturing the all-encompassing nature of the relationship. This infatuation has consumed her in the most wonderful way (in contrast to the sorrow of some of the previous songs), and it feels like a life-altering (or even life-sustaining?) force that is so strong she may forget what it’s like to breathe. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) By the end of the album, though, in You're Losing Me, that heart-stopping love has become a threat: "my heart won't start anymore for you." In the former, her racing heart is full of excitement, but by the latter, her heart has given out completely under the weight of the pain she bears. (YLM is full of death/illness imagery which I already wrote about awhile ago so I won't hear, but needless to say that song deserves its own essay for so many reasons.) She's gone from the unbridled joy of the beginnings of a relationship to the unrelenting sorrow of its end, two sides of the same coin.

Love as death appears elsewhere in the music too, for instance, in High Infidelity’s, “You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" and You’re Losing Me’s “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? […] My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick.” Though not completely analogous situations, they both tell the tale of one partner’s apathy (or at least denial) destroying the other. In the former, the partner’s actions (or inaction) are more insidious, if not sinister; in the latter, the lack of momentum (or admission of a problem) is passive. In both cases, the end result is the narrator’s demise; it’s a drawn out affair that chips away at her morale and her health and her sense of self. (Breaking my own rule about bringing in alleged actual events into the discussion, but the idea that the relationship in High Infidelity, which was obviously fraught with unease and even fear, ended in a similarly excruciatingly slow and hurtful death by a thousand cuts as the relationship in You’re Losing Me almost did at that time must have been so painful. It almost feels like YLM is wondering why what used to be a source of light in her life was mirroring a situation that caused her such pain in the past.)

From the same little breaks in your soul

I said early on that part of what is so compelling about Midnights is that it feels like an album about ruminating — on choices, on events, on people — and the two final “bonus” tracks of the album depict that as well. In Hits Different, she sings that, “they say if it’s right, you know,” an ode to the confusion of a breakup and struggling with the aftermath of calling it quits. It’s a line that has always intrigued me, because the typical use of the phrase is in the sense of, “you’ll know when you meet the one,” but here it seems to have a double meaning, a reassurance perhaps from the friends (who later on tell her that "love is a lie") that she’ll know if she’s made the right decision in calling it off, but could also be her wondering if the relationship is right, she’ll know, and want to reconcile. In the final bonus track, You’re Losing Me, she sings, “now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time,” this time leaving no doubt about the dilemma she faces, though it’s no less fraught. She’s wondering, perhaps for the last time, if now is finally the moment to end the relationship for good. They say that if it’s right she’ll know, and now she’s wondering if that feeling inside her (that once told her her partner was the one, which is why it hit differently), is telling her that it’s time to go for good. Wait Alexa play “It’s Time To Go.” These are not only the things that keep her up at night, but the things that play over in her mind like a film reel in her waking hours.

Midnights as a whole is a deeply personal album, as is most of Taylor's work, but the 3am+ edition tracks seem to dig even deeper to a lot of the issues raised on the standard album. Almost like the standard tracks are the things she wonders about on sleepless nights, but the bonus tracks are the things that haunt her in the aftermath. The regret, anger, sadness, grief, relief, even joy— they’re the price she pays for the memories she keeps reliving. Midnights might be the most cohesive narrative of all her albums, and really does feel like we’re watching someone work through her journal over time, stopping short of outright naming those giant fears and intrusive thoughts (except for when she does) but making them plain as day when you connect the songs together, and perhaps never more clearly than in the expanded album. It’s incredible how the songs stand on their own to relay a specific moment in time, but that they are also self-referential to each other (whether thematically or overtly) to weave a larger web over the entire work. We’re so lucky as fans to have these stories and to keep peeling back these layers as time passes. (And my literature-analysis-loving ass loves her even more for it.)

This is obviously by no means an exhaustive list, and I know there are more parallels and probably even stronger links (particularly when you add the standard version into the mix), but these were the ones that particularly struck me and I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to sit with this and think it through. ❤️

[seospicybin]

ON TOUR PREVIEW.

UNPLUGGED.

PART III OF ON TOUR SERIES.

Hyunjin x reader x Felix.

Synopsis: Your best friend, Felix, is in a rock band and he takes you to join him on tour as the band’s photographer. On the road, you learn how to deal with his bandmate, Hyunjin, who’s not very welcoming of you.

Preview under the cut!

...

There's a knock on the door, it must be Lou coming back from putting his best friend to sleep. You open the door without looking and walk back to the desk, "I'll be working all night. You can have the bed," you tell him.

You hear no answer but the sound of the door being closed behind you.

A while later, someone else replies to you, "You don't have to worry, he'll be sleeping in my room tonight."

Who did you let in just now? You know who it is but you refuse to believe that you're right. You take a deep breath before bracing yourself to the grand reveal, that it's him, Hyunjin.

"What are you doing here?" You have the right to be defensive, considering that it's your room, the only private space you have and he came here uninvited.

"I want to talk to you," he calmly replies.

You get up from your chair as he's coming closer and leans against the headrest of the chair.

"About what?"

"About us," he shortly replies.

Your heart starts beating so fast and you don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it, you clear your throat before speaking again.

"I don't think we have something to talk about," you hope he didn't hear how your voice quivers at the end of the sentence.

"Oh, we do," he says while still walking towards you even though he's close enough that you have to start looking up to look at him due to the height difference.

You're not in the mood for his unfriendly words and glares, "We can talk some other time—"

"I want you to know that I have nothing between me and that girl," he says, sharing information that you don't even ask in the first place.

You hold your hands up to stop him from continuing and furtherly thinking that you want to know the truth.

"No, I don't care. I don't want to know," you tell him as best as you can without having to be rude because that's his thing, not yours.

He takes another step closer, eliminating the gap between your bodies and leaving mere inches for you to breathe. How can you think if you can see his beautiful face this close that you can see the tiny mole under his left eye? How can you force your brain to work it's busy playing the recollection of that night in the back of your head, haunting you with how soft his lips feel against yours.

"I want you to know. I want you..." he emphasizes the word you with an intense stare, "to care. I want you to be jealous," he insists his narrative on you and wanted it to be true.

That sounds just so absurd coming from him and it's making you burst into laughter. The most careful and reserved person you ever come across said that. You feel bad to let him know that you could be anything but jealous. In terms of look, yeah, you're jealous that she's much prettier than you but jealous because she's with him...

"I am not jealous," you tell him with a scoff, but that doesn't sound convincing, that sounded like you're offended instead.

"Why should I be jealous? I-I'm—" You lose track of what you're going to say to him. You wince at how you make yourself look like a fool in front of him.

"Our kiss... did you manage to forget it?" He cuts you off with a question that you don't have the answer to.

Slightly tipping his head, Hyunjin leans a little closer to the side of your head you can feel his breath fanning your cheek.

Needing something to hold on to, you grip the edge of the chair behind your back, tightly.

"Why do you care so much whether I forgot about it or not?" Your voice is shaky and small.

He slyly smiles and it looks good on him as if he knows it would scramble your brain, making it hard for you to stay focused. In other words, he knows he's winning.

"If you forgot about it then..." he puts his hand under your chin and angles your head, forcing you to look at him right in the eyes.

"I just have to remind you again," he softly speaks as it takes everything in him to try not to kiss you from the moment he laid your eyes on you.

Now that he leans in closer than before and you can feel his warm breath brushing your lips. As much as you don't want to be reminded, you close your eyes in anticipation of what's coming at you.

As your lips collide in a rapturous, spellbinding kiss that takes your breath away but at the same time, breathes life into you.

Hyunjin kisses you tenderly, savoring the taste that he craves so much. He kisses you slowly because that's how he should treat a beautiful thing.

And a beautiful thing is always fragile. 

...

Full fic will be posted tomorrow!

[phoenixkaptain]

I love Tim’s first appearance in comics. I love it. I adore it. God it’s so perfect in every single way.

First of all: stalking. He’s stalking Bruce, he’s taking incriminating pictures (this is where the photographer Tim thing comes from), he’s stalking the Teen Titans, he knows where Starfire lives. Good golly he’s stalking everyone. Like a little mini Bruce, stalking away. Kori: “How did you know where I live?” Tim: “No time for questions, I’ve got to find Nightwing.” Kori: “???”

I love that Kori’s kind of creeped out. I would be too! A kid just knocked on my door and basically said “Yo, Starfire, do you know where Dick Grayson, known to some as Nightwing, is? No? See ya.” Kori’s right to be creeped out.

(God god god I want I need I yearn please tell me the first time Starfire sees Robin III she says something like “I feel like I’ve met you before…” I need Starfire to realize that Tim is the creepy stalker kid. I need Starfire to be like “Dick, not to judge you or your family, but what?” I neeeed iiiiittttt)

Tim 1.) knows about Dick living with Kori, 2.) knows that Dick kept another apartment, 3.) broke into the safe in Dick’s apartment then replaced the wall that was in front of it, and 4.) it’s heavily implied that he has been doing all of this on his bike with a backpack. Tim has been biking across the country with his dumb little coat and his not very big backpack or, at the very least, he biked all the way to where Haly’s Circus was set up. Maybe he did both! This kid is an absolute maniac and I adore him.

I love that Tim makes every single thing he says as ominous as possible! He’s just: “Dick. You need to return to Batman. He needs your help.” No wonder Dick is confused and a bit concerned and kind of creeped out!

Also, I really like the Haly Circus bit, if only because Tim spends most of his parts of the comic internally fanboying over how cool Dick is, and it’s super cute. Tim at one point is just like “Wow, Dick Grayson really is the very best!” and he’s so happy to spend time with Dick, why is he so cute???

Tim saving Batman and Nightwing from the rubble of a building is a very good visual representation of Tim’s ongoing thematic struggle to keep Bruce and Dick from collapsing under the weight of Jason’s death. It’s hanging over both of them, everything is different, Bruce keeps trying to lock Dick out and pretend everything is find and Dick is trying to help him but can’t do anything because Bruce never gives him the opportunity to. Bruce is on the second floor and Dick is in the basement and Two-Face blows up the building and they’re nearly crushed under the rubble.

Tim coming in at this point is great, because he uses a mixture of what Bruce and Dick both did to enter the house. Dick comments, in the comic directly before this one, that he’s too big to fit in the coal shaft, a narrative mirroring of Dick being too old to be Robin anymore. He doesn’t fit in the costume, but more than that, he doesn’t fit in the role anymore, and nothing can force him to fit. He goes in through a window instead.

Bruce breaks through the front, through a window, as subtly as a bull in a china shop (thank you, Dick Grayson, for your incredibly on the nose comments in times of great crisis). Bruce is trying to hurt himself, he’s been trying to hurt himself for the past issues since Jason’s death, and this is just compounded by the way he’s chasing the feeling of being happy again, the feeling he gets when he swings through the air, the feeling that isn’t the same without Jason by him. This is furthered by him mistakenly calling a young boy “Jason,” and him almost calling Nightwing “Robin” multiple times. He’s stuck in the present while the past haunts him and the future looms in front of him, and he wants to be happy again but can only see making himself happy as hurting himself.

Tim doesn’t take out Two-Face, but Tim does sneak into the rubbled building through the coal shoot that Dick couldn’t fit in (and he’s in the Robin costume! He’s so cute!!). Then, when he finds Batman and Nightwing stuck under the rubble, he’s forced to brute force his way out and move the rubble off of them. It’s a mixture of how Bruce and Dick handled things, but more than that. Bruce went in through the window, a distraction, in a Robin-like move. Dick snuck in through the window, in the shadows, in a Batman-like move. Tim manages to take both roles and mix them together, coming in sneakily but brute-forcing when there’s no other option. Tim has always been the Robin the most similar to Batman, but it all begins here, with Tim being the most prepared character in the comic. More than just the most prepared character, he’s doing the opposite of what Bruce and Dick are doing. While Bruce and Dick keep disappearing without another word, Tim keeps appearing right when the narrative has forgotten him. Instead of being an outright distraction like Dick and Jason were in the past, Tim plays a diversion.

Tim’s whole character in this storyline is someone desperate for things to be balanced again. He’s scared for Bruce because Batman is his hero. He’s scared for Dick because he doesn’t want Dick to hate him. Tim doesn’t want anyone to hate him, which is why, earlier, he’s very polite even as Dick is like “Alfred, this is Tim, he showed up after stalking me for a while and he knows our secret identities.” Tim wants Bruce to keep living. Tim is the one who says the hard truth to Bruce, that he isn’t acting normal and that everyone’s noticed. Tim says it because Alfred and Dick both tried and failed.

And the panel of Tim, in the Robin outfit, standing shadowed by Bruce as Batman is just a brilliant piece of visual storytelling. Even without the captions, you can see that Tim is standing up to Bruce, is out-stubborning Bruce by being simultaneously brutally honest and clever. Tim is supposed to be the ray of light at the end of the tunnel, the light in the darkness, the Robin to Batman, and it’s so good.

Anyway, I really liked this storyline and I really liked Raven appearing to just be like “btw Nightwing, we all love and support you, but we’ll back off if that’s what you really want.” Also the throw-away line in front of Commissioner Gordon: “he found it out while he was inside of your body.” What was Gordon thinking right then? I love it.

I also love Tim, but that much is obvious, let me explain. He took a bunch of pictures of Batman being beat up by Ravager just to show them to Dick to get Dick to realize there’s a problem. Tim does not actually interact with Batman or Bruce Wayne in any way until he rescues Batman and Nightwing. Tim doesn’t set out with the intention of becoming Robin, he sets out with the intention of making Dick Robin again because he believes that Robin is what Batman needs. Batman needs something that makes him stop and hesitate. Something that reminds him that he’s more than just Bruce Wayne.

It also has the unintended side effect of Tim saying the funniest fucking line in the whole storyline: “This was the best day of my life.” Like, excuse me??? You almost died! Multiple times! You drove from Haly’s Circus to Bruce Wayne’s house in the morning, presumably in awkward silence because you told Dick you’d tell him everything on the way to Gotham, but only actually tell him anything when he’s with Alfred. When Dick shows up with Tim, Dick tells Alfred that he barely knows any more than Alfred does! Alfred just met the kid, he only knows his first name! Tim did not tell Dick one single thing on the entire ride to Wayne Manor, he didn’t even tell them his name was Tim Drake! Every single bit of information they get out of Tim is pushed and prodded and pulled out, Tim is the least forthcoming character of all fucking time.

Dick shows Tim the Batcave. For what purpose did he do this? Just to storm out dramatically? I have no idea, why did Dick show the child this, I’m lost. Tim has been sitting with Alfred for hours by the time he finally convinces Alfred to drive him out! Alfred gets a single phone call from the Teen Titans and Tim is still there, so we know he didn’t leave or anything. What were they doing? Did they talk at all? Or was it another Nightwing situation where Tim just sat there in awkward silence?

Not the point, Tim almost gets beaten up by Two-Face, gets yelled at by his hero, has to berate his hero, and he’s still like “What a chamring time this has all been, thank you for the experience, hope Dick has fun being Robin again.” Tim is a maniac, he’s nuts, he’s absolutely buckwild, I love him more than oxygen.

Side note: I love when Alfred (while Tim is berating Batman, like you do) says “The kid would make a good politician.” And Dick says “He’d do more good by Batman’s side.” It made me laugh. I also love Dick: “I couldn’t let a twelve-year-old wander around a circus all by himself!” Tim: “I am NOT twelve! I am thirteen.” Tim also introduces himself to Alfred like “Hello, Mr. Pennyworth, what an honour to meet the man who Batman confides with, the stories you could tell!” and then walks in like that won’t raise any questions. Alfred is confused, Dick is confused, Bruce is confused, Kori is confused, the circus people are confused, the only one not confused is Tim himself because he’s a wild child and he probably had ten contingency plans up his sleeve, just in case.

10/10, pretty good storyline. Batman #440-442 and the New Teen Titans #60-61. It goes like: 440, 60, 441, 61, 442, making it a five parter. It came out in the nineties, I believe, and yes, Dick is wearing his silly little flared collar

[eroticwound]

I love your thoughts on The Bear. Particularly the Berzatto siblings. I was wondering if you could talk about Mikey. And possibly his relationship with Richie. Outside of the internet when I talk to peers about the show people are quick to demonize or dislike Mikey. They cite his behavior with Lee and his taking part in ganging up on Carmy with Donna as reasons why. Also, how Richie was so desperate to get away from the beef.

I would love to hear your opinion about how this could be someone’s impression of Mikey. And how you would describe Mikey to someone who maybe isn’t seeing the whole picture? Or just how you would describe Mikey as a person in general.

And do you think his relationship with Richie was very one sided? Do you think it was always Mikey in the lead? I’ve read some fic that truly makes Mikey terrible to Richie.

Hi anon. Thanks for this incredibly thought out ask. Cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy getting questions like this :)

Michael Berzatto is a complicated guy and he’s a guy we don’t get a lot of screen time with. That’s by design. He’s the character haunting this narrative. Mikey is the Laura Palmer of The Bear (I have that disease where I see everything through the prism of Twin Peaks), and as such we get to know him mostly through people’s grief. Through their imperfect memories. We’re left missing him just as much as any other character. And while I would love a feature length movie showing Mikey’s last days a la Fire Walk with Me, I very much doubt we will get that. So we’re left to figure out this complicated character with scraps.

For these reasons, I do get why people don't understand Mikey. As you mention, they are literally not given anything close to a whole picture. In fact the screen time we have most with him is during Fishes, when he is quite literally at his worst. If people only saw scenes where Carmen was yelling at people in the kitchen or where Richie was being sexist to Syd, I'm sure they'd have a poor opinion of them as well (in fact, being in this fandom after the first season, I can confirm that most of tumblr disliked Richie).

The healthiest we see Michael is in the Ceres flashback in season 1. He’s exactly how everyone describes him: loud, brash, funny. Both Carmy and Richie are just having the best time, completely immersed in the story he's telling. Even Nat’s having a great time, though both brothers stop her from adding raisins, which is Donna’s recipe for the dish they're making (side note, I find it so interesting that Nat is the one trying to follow their mom’s recipe. She's still trying to please Donna, to garner favor, whereas the boys, who Donna relies on in the kitchen and emotionally, feel fine deviating from Donna’s recipe). Even beyond the Ceres flashback, we do get flashes of what makes Mikey great in Fishes: the opening is him checking in on Natalie, he's really sweet and engaging with Carmen in the pantry, and even though Carmy doesn't take Mikey and Richie trying to set him up with Claire well, it's still proof that Mikey cares.

The thing is Mikey is mentally ill, like Donna and like Carmen. He’s dealing with some sort of chemical imbalance (depression or bipolar) on top of the severe parentification he got from Donna. I talk about it at length in my unfinished series delving into the partentification of the Berzatto siblings. As I point out in those posts, Mikey is actually the sibling getting the worst of the parentification, which is a form of abuse where there is a role-reversal between parent and child. Nat can't morph herself easily to accommodate Donna's dysfunction (she un-normalizes it), so she gets Donna's ire instead. Carmen was also parentified, especially when Mikey was out of the house growing up (they have such an age gap), but Mikey was the oldest. He has high EQ and can morph himself to accommodate Donna's dysfunction. It has in fact shaped him into the person he is. Which is someone who is trying to avoid all of the bad: bad outbursts from Donna, bad feelings from his siblings, bad reactions from outsiders to their family dynamic. He's also trying very hard to avoid the bad emotions he's feeling. Michael is looking to avoid all of this through any means necessary, which includes using alcohol and drugs. As I mention in that parentification meta series, using substances is quite literally the only way he's managing his distress.

I want to talk about each point you mention people citing as to why they don't like Michael. But first, I want to preface it by pointing out that Michael has been forced to move back in with Donna. His failed business ventures and poor mental health have forced him back into this scenario that is NOT GOOD FOR HIM. That scene where Cousin Michelle says to Carm that it's not good for him to be in this environment? Well, it's not good for any of the Berzatto siblings. And throughout the episode, you can tell how exhausted Mikey is by it. By having to fulfill his role as Donna's pseudo-partner.

So let's start with Michael and Donna ganging up on Carmen in the kitchen. When Donna and Mikey do this they are functioning as a parental unit. This is the perfect example of Mikey's parentification at work, of Michael acting as Donna's partner. It's what he's been trained to do to maintain the delicate ecosystem of that house. Donna's emotional state is given top priority. Everyone else's emotions fall to the wayside in light of what she's feeling, otherwise you get fallout like her crashing her car into the house. Mikey talks to Nat about this at the start of the episode:

What do you think she's at right now? A 4? A 5? She's not at a 6.

The siblings literally have a rating system for Donna's moods. They're all trying to avoid escalation above all else. Michael in particular. So in that scene with Carm in the kitchen, Mikey is trying to keep things from escalating. This is something Carmen knows too—hell, it's the first thing Carmen asks Mikey to do in Fishes:

Hey Mikey can you come inside and be you for a little bit, I don't know how to deal with these people.

Carmy needs Michael to come fill his role of buffer between guests and their family. Carmy, notably, gets Donna duty—a role I'm sure Mikey filled before Carmen came along. I say this based on Donna calling Carmen "Michael" when he's trying to coax her to the dinner table at the end of the episode. She's implying talking to her like this is what Michael does. When the people you know irl cite this moment, unfortunately this is the rebuttal: this is Mikey's role. Donna needs his emotional support. Otherwise she'd be more abusive towards Nat and Carm. Michael is doing it for the greater good.

As for Lee, that's another great example of soooo much being implied. Lee, along with Cicero, were best friends with their father, and it is heavily implied that Lee and Donna had a fling or two after their dad fucks off (whether Mr. Berzatto is dead or a deadbeat, who’s to say?). When Lee is helping Donna clean shit off the floor, Mikey grabs a beer from the fridge and asks if they are "doing this again." Basically, Lee and Donna have been romantic before. This means Lee would have been around erratically growing up. And it's clear Michael and Lee have a historic antagonism because of this. Lee's first interaction with Michael in the episode has him threatening to "lay [Michael] out." This screams to me that Lee stepped into the man of the house role, and that Mikey and him had altercations that got physically violent. That's why Mikey says at the dinner table, "I can throw forks cuz this is my father's house." That feels very much like something a kid would say to a man who is trying to replace a missing father. And it's especially heated, because it is Michael who has had to consistently step into the man of the house role for Donna and for his siblings! Michael couldn't leave like Lee when Donna and him broke up. Living with Donna and keeping his siblings ok is daily life for Michael.

So all through the episode, Lee is poking a bear (Mikey Bear to be exact). Lee calls him out about telling the same old stories, embarrasses him in front of everyone by revealing he's borrowed money from Cicero and had to move back in with Donna. Lee has been explicitly disrespecting him. And maybe if Mikey was in a better place, he would have been able to roll with it, but as I mentioned before, Mikey is not in a good place. He's depressed, he's been drinking and taking something (pain pills?) to manage the stress he's under. Him throwing forks is not a lucid reaction. Frankly, if people don't also blame Lee for that outburst, then they really weren't paying attention during the episode.

Finally, onto the Richie portion of your question. Richie’s family is something I would *love* to get more canon info about. All we know is that he's not Italian but Polish, his home life wasn’t great, his dad sucked, and Donna allowed him over so often that he’s practically her fourth child.

Richie and Michael grew up together. They're best friends, practically family. It's why Richie is "cousin." Michael's relationship with Richie is his closest relationship. Everyone says Mikey was their best friend, but Mikey's actual best friend was Richie. Period. And there's some complicated jealousy between Carmen and Richie because of what each is to Michael: Carmy's jealous of Richie and Michael's genuine closeness, and Richie is jealous that Mikey has special regard for Carmen as his actual brother. You see this jealousy in the very first episode of the show during that first walk-in fight: Richie was there for Mikey, buried Mikey and took care of Donna, and yet Mikey left the restaurant to Carmen. Left the money in cans for Carmen, so he could fulfill their dream restaurant together. There's honestly some great fic out there that goes into this jealousy. I'll come back to link it if I can find it.

Bottom line is that Richie was the closest person in Mikey's life. They have the same humor, the same life experiences. They had each other's backs. So when you ask if Richie and Michael's relationship was one-sided, I'm going to answer with a resounding no. They're literally besties. It's just by Fishes, Michael has deteriorated. His depression and drug abuse and failures have shrunk his life. Just compare where they're both at: Michael's moved back in with his mom, is single, and is telling the same old stories from their youth. Richie, on the other hand, might have anxiety (the xanax from Dogs <3), but he's in a stable and loving relationship and has a child on the way. That's why Richie asks Cicero for a job—not to get away from Mikey, but to make more money for his expanding family. And yes, he wants to amount to something more than working at a sandwich shop, but hell, so does Mikey. Neither of them want that for the rest of their lives. It's why Michael tried other business ventures. They fail, so he's stuck at The Beef. But it's a weight around his neck bringing him down. He says as much to Carmen when they're in the pantry:

Yeah but the place is no good, Carmy. It's a fucking nightmare. Like trust me I'm doing you a favor.

He even tries to set it on fire for the insurance money! Only Carmen sees the potential.

As for whether it was always Mikey taking the lead, I do think there's some merit to that. Mikey is talked about as more charming than Richie. You see it in Ceres when the edit compares Mikey telling the Bill Murray story to Richie telling the Bill Murray story to his date. Mikey is loud and funny and can "dial a room." Richie can too, but I think Mikey has more finesse. Still, they rely on each other. They back each other up. Michael would hook people with the stories, and Richie would embellish and inject at the right points or reel Mikey in when needed. They supported each other and worked together. I think any fic you might be reading that's demonizing Michael isn't accurate to his character and is actually falling into a pretty common fic trope: if the focus is Character A, then a fic author will cast Character B as the villain in order to serve whatever they're writing, twisting and embellishing the traits of Character B until they’re barely recognizable. Could Mikey be dismissive and hard to contain? Sure, but I don't think that means he didn't love Richie, or was undemonstrative with his affections. Even when Michael was out of it on drugs, they still had a very close relationship—Richie says so. In fact, everything Richie says about Michael supports this. I see zero support in canon for their relationship being one-sided. I'll say it again, they loved each other.

So this is how I would describe Mikey: loud, funny, obnoxious. He could dial a room. He cared deeply for his family, friends, and employees. He suffered parentification and has some sort of chemical imbalance. In fact, because he was charming and loud and funny, people could ignore his deterioration. Even Richie says, "he was Mikey Bear! I thought he'd come out of it," because he was able to come out of it up to that point. But after decades of not treating the problem, the only solution Michael could see was killing himself. He's a complicated character. He's a tragic character. He's the Laura Palmer of The Bear.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Finished A Haunting On the Hill. Assorted thoughts without spoilers:

At first I wondered why Hill House was focusing on all of them equally instead of picking a single victim from the beginning the way it did with Eleanor. Then I realized that bringing it a bunch of traumatized queer theater people is basically like presenting someone with a Golden Corral buffet

My babygirl (32) is all grown up (dead for 60 years) and haunting the narrative (Hill House, only appearing as anything like a distinct figure for like 5 seconds near the end while the story focuses more on a random Merricatcore teen boy OC, in terms of past victims)

This felt like a...different take on HH, I guess? More focused on the house as an unequivocally evil entity whereas in the original, I sympathized with it a bit. HOWEVER. I recognize that the original has one POV and it's that of a woman slowly falling under the house's spell. So I don't hold the altered perspective against it- and there's something of Eleanor's mindset in the house's chosen tribute this time around, as the story unfolds

I thought Eleanor feeling at home there was as much a product of her own independent IssuesTM and outlook on the world as manipulation by the house. However, the way it was presented in the story as purely the latter, this time around, worked for me because that attitude was explored.

I don't prefer the interpretation that it's just one of Hill House's tricks myself- shocker to anyone who knows me -but I can accept it as a valid reading. If that makes sense

This is definitely a more Modern Horror take on the house, which I did not enjoy when it became jarring. No actual body horror/gore, but it leaned way more in that direction a few times than I liked

My biggest complaint: too much showing; not enough leaving things up to the reader's feverish imagination

That was one of the original's biggest strengths and what makes it, still, ranked among the scariest novels of all time. This go-around, you see EVERYTHING the characters see, and they are always within sightline of the Weirdness. No mysterious noises from the other side of a door. Nobody glancing back and shrieking at someone to not do the same. Just "there was an apparition/object moving/sound without a source and the character was in the same room and here's what it was."

Hill House bby who filled you with modern trash furniture. I will kill them and not in a fun, subsume-y way. It's realistic but Thanks I Hate It regardless (not a writing criticism)

I DO adore the genre of "the present looking back on a historical fiction story or a work that has since become historical fiction" so that aspect was fun. Reddit threads about Hill House- I bet they're legendary

Overall: A fun, fast read. Did not reach into my brain and heart and Pull Levers the way Haunting of Hill House did, but I generally enjoyed it

We all get something different out of Hill House- or it gets something different out of us

[blood-injections]

Saw killjoy au infodump post!! Its danger days but my special little bloody guy is there! When I eventually write it it'll be centered around Adam and it mmmight be chainshipping I'm still deciding.

So the bathroom trap. still happens. adam lives in battery city and to make ends meet he takes pictures of people for people, doesnt matter who, he doesn't ask questions. He's taken jobs from better living to follow suspected rebels and hes taken jobs from rebels to follow some high-profile better living person to get more information on them before they take them out. He stays just off the rader and keeps himself just barely useful or not suspicious enough as to not be put into scarecrow training or something. Because he doesn't like better living, but he has to make ends meet. Jigsaw picks him because he thinks hes pathetic and hates how he doesn't pick a side, his tape says how he doesn't take his pills but he cant even bother fighting for anything. he could do anything with his free will and he chooses to throw his life away and this pisses jigsaw off. so will adam watch himself die, throw his life away once and for all, or will he finally use his free will to fight for something? Because in this au jigsaws motive of teaching people to value life comes from being under better livings control instead of having cancer, because better living is a cancer, really. so yeah jigsaw and co. are technically killjoys lol.

Lawrence is still in the trap too. hes a scarecrow who has stopped taking his pills and is becoming aware of his actions for the first time ever as well as coming to to a family, to a wife he cant remember falling in love with, they were probably set up by the city. He has a family, he has a kid, but its all been fake, does he even love them? can he? and hes haunted by the blood on his hands but he wasn't into control he cant really be a murderer if he wasn't in control, right? right. jigsaw even agrees. but hes also a sick bastard with a grudge against better living so he doesn't care. maybe Lawrence wasn't a murderer, not really, but now he will be. by the end if the day there will be blood on his hands that he can no longer deny or write off as someones elses actions. because to jigsaw it doesn't matter who was in control, lawrence still pulled the trigger. No matter what lawrence does, if he kills adam or not, there will still be deaths on his conscience, because he needs to learn a lesson, how it feels, how to be scared. he kills adam and his family will be spared. Don't kill adam? its his family that will die instead. but how can he choose? two people or one. two he thinks he loves, hes supposed to, but he hardly knows them, or one person that he might be falling in love with the more that adam begs for him to stay.

in the end he doesn't have to choose(well. not completely. the shoulder bullet prob still happens lol) and they both make it out because fuck you. also just so you know, in this au jigsaw is Dr Benzedrine and the apprentices are the suitehearts and that will absolutely come into play down the line with a possible frankenghoul cameo, the franken bit the result of being a victim of a trap of his own.

anyway adam, after nearly dying, after realizing he wants to fucking live, has never had plans before but now hes like fuck it, im getting out of here, im getting out of this freaky city with creeps like jigsaw apparently running around. he isnt taking any more chances. So he gets out, he becomes a killjoy. and theres the whole trauma bonding thing so he probably takes lawrence(who is still struggling with the am i a murderer or not thing and thinks he doesn't deserve this second chance. he'll accept it eventually) with him. i dont have any of lawrence's killjoy thought out yet i'll come up with some stuff later it also probably depends on if i decide its chainshipping and if hes even out there or not like i might just fucking adam stanheight final girl it like fuck it he wasn't doomed by the narrative his hacksaw didnt break or he found another way out of his chains and the roles are reversed or maybe he even fucking killed lawrence before lawrence could kill him who knows, i dont lol. theres so many possibilities.

anyway adam stanheight killjoy. his name Hacksaw Jagger(working title) because hacksaw. you know. and jagger because a jagger is another term for a vouyer and i think thats clever. also adam could be a fan of the rolling stones and hed be like lol reference. but yeah, Hacksaw Jagger. depending on how things went in the bathroom he may or may not have a prosthetic leg. he dyes his hair at some point and to me personally. its the worst brassiest ugliest bleached tips youve ever fucking seen and probably like little liberty spikes at some point because. punk adam as well. you agree. anyway he looks pathetic and i love him. he definitely gets into racing at some point and also learns he has a thing for arson and explosives. so yknow. hacksaw+fun ghoul besties at first boom at some point. i also think it'd be fun if he joined/started a band but thats a conversation for another day maybe another au.

anyway thats it for now. also yes, i absolutely fuck with his gender. you're welcome.

[thewitchqueenofharrenhal]

I swear Rhaelyas will cling to their delusions with bloody fingers nails if they can could. Ned Stark doesn't think anything bad about Rhaegar. Like dude, the grand sweeping statement was Rhaegar wasn't the type to go to brothels and then comparing the child prostitute who was asking Ned to tell the king how wonderful their baby is to the memory of Lyanna. And who else doesn't Ned think a lot about? AERYS. Almost like Ned as Trauma and doesn't like to think about it.

Extremely delusional - it serves the narrative for Ned Stark to not think on Rhaegar Targaryen and we are told he actively suppresses him from his mind.

Suddenly, uncomfortably, he found himself recalling Rhaegar Targaryen. Fifteen years dead, yet Robert hates him as much as ever.

For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.

Ned Stark has trauma. Absurd amounts of trauma after he loses his entire family and he suppresses and avoids.

Ned Stark doesn’t spend time lavishing on thoughts of torturing those who are dead. Ned Stark has absurd amounts of grace for those who have wronged him. Ned Stark is compassionate to those he deems innocent.

Ned Stark doesn’t think much on Aerys Targaryen except to describe him as a Mad King? The man who burned his father and brother alive? Not just that but actively emotionally tortured them before their death? Logically wouldn’t he want vengeance on Daenerys Targaryen for what her father did to his beloved father and brother?

He doesn’t because unlike most characters in ASOIAF Ned Stark is satisfied with those he went to war against having died. He doesn’t sit around wishing them ill because that’s simply not his character.

Despite what Aerys did to House Stark Ned speaks in defense of Daenerys Targaryen.

This time, Ned resolved to keep his temper. “Your Grace, the girl is scarcely more than a child. You are no Tywin Lannister, to slaughter innocents.

When Robert retorts something along the lines of what do Targaryens know about honor? Why not ask Lyanna?

Ned responds by first stating Lyanna was avenged

“You avenged Lyanna at the Trident,” Ned said, halting beside the king. Promise me, Ned, she had whispered.

Ned doesn’t actively ever disagree with Robert. He instead sits somewhere in neutrality not praising but not hating.

Perhaps because he is traumatized. Haunted by his sister’s dying wish that we presume was to protect her son. The son of Rhaegar Targaryen. If Robert is right and Targaryens have no honor what does that mean for Jon Snow? For his beloved nephew, for his sister’s son? Her dying wish? Ned loves Robert and knows he’s wrong in this. They can’t all have been bad. Surely Jon is innocent regardless of his father? Surely if Lyanna went willingly he wasn’t all bad?

This is of course disregarding sections of the text that people love to ignore such when he at one point even compares Rhaegar Targaryen to Tywin Lannister romanticizing Robert avenging himself on them.

If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly.

Ned Stark isn’t a clear cut character he’s nuanced and a key point that people ignore in using him to defend Rhaegar is that once again it has nothing to do with Rhaegar and everything to do with Jon Snow & Lyanna. Ned has spent years raising the son of Rhaegar with all the trauma that comes with it and he loves him because of Lyanna. He refuses to think on Rhaegar and when he does what does it serve to speak horribly about the father of his nephew? The boy who is a Targaryen like it or not. The boy whose life he vowed to protect (at least that’s my interpretation).

No Ned makes it clear that when he and Robert rose in rebellion it was just. However it was unjust to blame the likes of Daenerys, Viserys, Rhaenys, Aegon, or Jon Snow for the crimes of their fathers. They are innocent.

Ned never extends that level of innocence to Rhaegar or Aerys - he doesn’t think on what happened to them as unjust - and I think that speaks volumes.

When Ned is horrified at the level of hatred Robert has towards the Targaryens he isn’t horrified on behalf of Rhaegar. He’s horrified on behalf of the innocents like Jon, like brutalized Rhaenys & Aegon.

Ultimately Ned didn’t know Rhaegar and refuses to think of him and when he does what does he have to say? Between remembering the by all reports fine young prince who perhaps in some lights looks like Jon and surely doesn’t visit brothels- does Jon?….. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.…And the man he remembers fondly as having his chest caved him by his best friend. and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly…

Ultimately, I’m of the belief that Lyanna Stark went willingly at first and later realized the gravity of her mistake, seeing as Ned Stark had to fight to the death the guards left by Rhaegar so he could be by her side before she died alone.

In the end she wanted to come home and have her son safe. Ned Stark accomplished that for her and her alone.

[petruchio]

i'm actually kind of interested in the connection between getaway car and guilty as sin? as both detailing this idea that you can't leave someone without a reason -- and that reason in both instances being another person. i guess it's making me think about the idea of intertwining your art so much with your personal life -- because if you have to write an album about it, how can you leave someone because "it just wasn't working out anymore"? how can you just walk away without creating some kind of narrative that can spiral into something bigger than just "we grew apart" -- because a calm, mature, peaceful separation doesn't sell albums, and it probably doesn't inspire them either. so instead, you have to crash and burn and scream and cry and make something so dramatic that the music HAS to pour out of you, even if that means tearing down yourself and the all others involved in the process. you can't leave quietly, because then what would you create? where does the story go from there? in other words, where would the narrative you've been spinning about your life turn? it's like building a railroad track while the train is already running -- you're crafting a narrative about your life while living it at the same time. and so when you've spent decades turning your life into a story, you have to live it that way too. you can't leave without a reason, because things in stories don't happen for no reason. so you have to invent one, even if it means just using someone as an excuse to get out of a relationship with someone else. it's not good, but it's a reason. there's a twisted sort of logic behind it.

and to be clear, i'm not saying any of this is intentional -- but it does just make me wonder, when your art and your personal life are so intertwined, how does one speak to the other and vice versa? do you ultimately, if even subconsciously, craft a life in service of making that art? you create the narrative, and then almost trap yourself into living inside of one? you're doomed by a narrative of your own design. you created yourself, turned yourself into a character in a novel or a film, and now you can't leave without a reason -- you can't do anything without a reason. only, unlike in a story, you as the author can never know what happens at the end. you don't know what it's all building to. but you have to believe it all means something, because otherwise what was this all for? why did any of it happen if it didn't mean anything? you can never leave without a reason -- you can't simply grow apart. the show must go on. the story must develop. but what's left of a real life? can it ever exist? honestly it's haunting.

[sasukesun]

How do you think Naruto views the curse of hatred and Sasuke’s darkness?

oh i think i already gave you a hint about how naruto views that in my curse of hatred ask.

actually, i don’t think naruto knows about the curse of hatred itself, the one that comes from tobirama’s bigoted views, since tobirama only voices that when sasuke is talking to the hokages, and naruto wasn’t present there. but well, do i think naruto believes sasuke is genetically predisposed to evil? lol.

like i said in the curse of hatred ask, something that seems to be very solid in naruto is the idea that people grow “positively” when they get support from others, the good place quote and all. well, naruto himself seems to be the character that understands this idea the most.

naruto understands that he and sasuke could be in each other’s places and he does explain why he thinks that, because naruto got external love from iruka and sasuke (the positive support that allows him to grow) while sasuke didn’t. despite him feeling at ease because of naruto (and naruto doesn’t quite know that), sasuke didn’t get the same support before he left konoha, thanks to orochimaru’s curse seal actively triggering him and itachi coming back and retraumatising him. naruto understands that sasuke did everything he did because he loved his family very much, it’s quite interesting how when sakura brings sasuke’s criminal status, naruto talks about sasuke’s love for his family instead of his anger.

i guess that would be enough to show that naruto doesn’t think sasuke is genetically evil, right? i will talk more, though. another thing that i criticised about kishimoto in that ask is the fact that he uses the narrative to frame sasuke as wrong in a way. that happens in the sage of six paths moment too.

what i think it’s important to say here is that those chapters are shit. seriously, they are retconned and badly written. every time i write posts like this, i reread everything, so let me tell you that i reread the chapters of the sage of the six paths and they sounded worse than they did before, and i don’t know how to express myself here without sounding like “source: trust me bro”, and maybe i shouldn’t worry about it that much since you asked for my opinion, but still, i’m gonna try to be objective and make you look at them critically so you understand why i find them shit.

just starting by the simple fact of how retconned the naruto ending is. chapters 670 and 671 especially are used to introduce kaguya as the new and final villain to the readers, that to me is already iffy as hell for one basic reason: naruto has 700 chapters, do you think it makes sense to introduce the supposed most important villain of the whole story with 30 chapters left for the ending? don’t you find that a little bit rushed? a little bit pulled out of nowhere? take madara in comparison, his first mention as a possible personality able to influence the story (and i mean madara, not obito pretending to be madara) is on chapter 370, a little bit over the half of the manga. and madara’s presence exists even before that, hence vote1 or kurama talking about him in reunion, for example. that is how far his influence on the plot goes, he is a ghost haunting everybody else. and another thing we have to take into consideration is why kaguya even exists? i could give you two reasons: (1) kishimoto wrote himself into a corner when he made madara so damn sexy powerful, to the point he didn’t know how to defeat him and (2) to build the new setting for boruto (since it’s villains are all from her clan), so yeah, pardon me for not taking kaguya’s entire existence in this story seriously.

and it’s not only about that retcon, it’s also about the other retcon that makes her existence so off from anything else in the manga. those chapters also introduce us a new idea which is: power corrupts people and it drives them mad. this isn’t about political power or anything, just raw power. those chapters push for the idea that the problem wasn’t with the shinobi structure or how villages ended as military fortresses, the problem is actually when people are too powerful, the problem is in the ninjutsu, which is different from the “ninshuu”, even though the manga never develops this idea, or explains how they are different and why, it just throws us vague affirmations from a supposed reliable source, since we are talking about the most powerful ninja in history, with no explanations whatsoever. this is a way to build a narrative, and i’m surely not saying that the narrative in question is good or reliable, you have to look at it critically.

so i guess let’s forget any political aspect of the shinobi world, whose worldbuilding started in land of waves, the very first arc of the manga, because the actual problem is that… there is a fruit that turns people powerful and therefore evil, huh? well, that’s not the narrative i’m buying, it’s far from enough to convince me.

and finally we get to how the fuck does that involve sasuke? well, the story tell us that indra was born naturally strong and believed that with power anything was possible, while ashura was only able to reach the same level through hard work and cooperation… so if sasuke has indra’s chakra clinging onto him… do you see where the narrative is trying to go? i have already talked about how it’s bullshit that sasuke was a natural prodigy, so the narrative can’t even get that right, but here they are also hinting that sasuke is corrupted by power. it’s not enough that the narrative is trying to make us forget about the shinobi system problems — and the uchiha massacre and sasuke wanting justice is a very relevant one of those problems — it’s also trying to push for the idea that sasuke is wrong because he is corrupted by power, while centring the morality around naruto. it’s not a “curse of hatred” that sasuke “suffers” from here, but it’s also the idea of power driving people mad and making him irrational and therefore, they are stuck in this cycle of hatred.

now, the narrative and the character are separated entities, a character can be used to build a narrative, a narrative can reinforce the credibility of a character, but i can’t blame naruto as a character for a narrative that tries to frame him as good. besides, what naruto actually thinks of this?

kishimoto made sure to emphasise it at least four times… in less than 30 chapters.

and what is even more ironic is that, even though the sage of the six paths himself is used to build this narrative, he is also used to push for the idea that naruto and sasuke are different from the ones that came before them, that they are their own people. not only the sage of the six paths btw, hashirama as well… who was used to talk about sasuke’s “soul consumed by darkness”, like i said in the curse of hatred ask.

isn’t it just messy?

now, about sasuke’s “darkness” and how naruto views it. another thing i said in the curse of hatred ask is that i don’t think the darkness used in a derogatory way to talk about sasuke wanting justice for his clan is the same darkness of sasuke’s desire to isolate himself. the latter is a darkness that manifests through sasuke’s final plan: a darkness that is about bearing everybody else’s “hatred” (which would be anger against an enemy) all by himself.

i think that’s pretty objective, actually.

and obviously, another thing that is very objective and explicitly stated is that in order to sasuke’s version of hokage to work, he must cut naruto off, he must be alone so he will be able to endure all the hatred himself.

and then we go back to what i talked about in the beginning of this ask. naruto understands that people grow positively with the support they receive from others.

don’t you think it makes sense of naruto to try to give back the love sasuke gave to him in the beginning of the story, since he himself admits that sasuke and iruka changed his heart? well, that’s pretty much textually supported.

“rather… i pray they’re able to reclaim the love they’d lost… not just naruto… but sasuke as well”

even naruto’s explanation of what “friend” means to him is related to not being able to turn his back to sasuke when sasuke is hurting, and he knows sasuke’s isolation is just a way to hurt himself, it is also textually supported that naruto’s issue is with sasuke being alone.

he just can’t turn his back on sasuke, knowing sasuke is perfectly capable of good, like- is there any doubt to naruto that sasuke is good and deserves the positive support (love) like anybody else? sasuke is the one that doubts himself (because of itachi’s influence on his mindset), but naruto doesn’t even hesitate.

i really hope you were able to get my train of thought and understand that even though there is a narrative trying to frame sasuke as wrong one way or another, not every character believes it, nor you should believe it just because it tells you so. i myself can’t take it seriously when i look at it critically.

[vickyvicarious]

I do love the way that the vampires kind of haunt the edges of the novel in London. Like, obviously not forever, we will see direct vampire encounters again (and are beginning to, even now), but...

In his castle, Dracula was a person. A terrible person, but a person. He spoke, he interacted directly with Jonathan, we got to know some things about him and his mentality. He is undoubtedly still a monster, but like several others have commented, the supernatural aspects are kind of bonus to him being an abusive, sadistic asshole. You could remove those aspects and still keep the essence of his character/the horror in that segment.

But as soon as he starts traveling to London, he begins to slip further and further out of the narrative. On the Demeter, he was an unseen (but still undoubtedly present) menace. He begins to show powers we didn't necessarily even know he had, like the mist, and it culminates with him manipulating the very weather into a giant storm before changing shape.

But then in England, he continues this descent out of the narrative. In Whitby Lucy and Mina see him once... by the time we are in London, the most anyone sees is a bat once or twice. No one even remotely connects that to Dracula except Renfield. Van Helsing comes closest but he just knows of the concept of a vampire, not anything about Dracula as a person/individual. Yet all the while, Dracula's presence is choking the narrative. He's killing Lucy, he's twisting good intentions and convenient illnesses, his mere presence is driving Renfield into an obsessive mania.

Dracula in London truly is a supernatural menace. Unseen, unknown, and all the more terrifying for it. He doesn't keep a journal, but more than that – no one interacts directly with him so we don't hear any words out of his mouth at all. (Not really counting Thomas Bilder here since it's very brief and we only hear of it later through the news. But even if you do count it, that's one brief encounter in how much time? And by a stranger who doesn't know the significance.) And one of the ways he has corrupted Lucy is by doing the same thing to her.

As her illness progressed, she stopped writing in her journal. She stopped writing letters. For as much as this whole arc was about saving her, most of the time she was "onscreen" it was asleep or in narration that summed up what people did. She had very little voice for a while there. It was only when she had just received transfusions, or was protected by the garlic flowers that we heard from her - only when Dracula's influence was being actively denied. This culminates in her final memorandum where she sees him at the window and doesn't let him in... only to fall victim to his worst attack yet. She tells us about that, but it's nearly the last we hear from her. She barely speaks the next day, and some of her few words are repeated and twisted by her vampire self. Lucy fights Dracula right to the end, as shown by her thanking/final request to Van Helsing, but then she dies.

We know she's a vampire now, but it's been several days and we don't see her. Instead we hear of the "bloofer lady"... now Lucy has completed her transformation, she too is unseen and distanced. We are learning about her deeds through newspaper articles now. I know it's only logical given the format, but I also just think it's really cool how immediately after she becomes a vampire Lucy also gains this same sense of distance/mystery. We don't know why she is hunting children, why she's leaving them alive, if she is in contact with Dracula, if any part of her is left or if she has become something completely different... we can make guesses but the story doesn't tell us yet.

Of course, this doesn't last. And that's because of Jonathan and Van Helsing. Jonathan, who knows the person Count Dracula, immediately recognizes him on the street which is the impetus for the gang all sharing information and which will eventually lead to more proper encounters. And Van Helsing, who knows the monster Lucy has become, is going to force an encounter there as well. But without the people who know what to look for, the vampires in London would remain complete terrifying mysteries on the peripheral of the story (no matter how much they affect it).

[samueldays]

Evil Undead, revisited

As a veteran GM, I feel that kids these days complain more about the brute fact or moral law of Evil Undead in D&D or similar games, and I get questions from people wanting to use necromancy for good purposes like having tireless skeletons plow a field. Shouldn't that make up for the [Evil] tag on spells like Animate Dead? Why is that tag there, anyway?

With a caveat that "Undead" in fantasy is a kinda vague category which can reasonably have some special cases and cosmological exceptions like repentant ghosts, here's an attempt at describing how "core" undead like skeletons and vampires still count as evil and can be smote with Smite Evil, and making them is evil even if the necromancer has good intent in contemporary terms. This is mostly written with reference to D&D 3.5, which I like for its SRD, but the principles can be used elsewhere.

TL;DR: Making undead is like a faustian bargain but with Death instead of Mephisto, and every hand you lend to Death in the world is a corrupting influence even if you get something good from it.

The TLDR is inaccurate because the implicit contract is with the negative energy plane instead of a demon or avatar. Now for the long version:

In the example of the plowing skeletons, the questioning wizard is presumably treating the plowed field as an end and the skeletons as a means to that end - he's not doing necromancy for its own sake.

So he could cut out the necromancy part. He could use Animate Objects instead of Animate Dead, and make the plow move itself. (Or build a golem, but that's another story.) But notice that Animate Objects is a higher level spell than Animate Dead, as well as being temporary. Making it permanent requires another high-level spell. Wizards (and D&D players) are prone to optimizing towards Animate Dead, because it seems to be an easier and better way to achieve the desired effect.

But why does this lower level spell work better? My answer is that when casting Animate Dead, something else is providing much of the power, and that "something else" is the Negative Energy Plane. It is the plane of annihilating everything that exists, and is not on your team. You should not be contracting with it for power. Casting Animate Dead is evil because it's teaming up with an omnicidal maniac in cosmological form.

The Negative Energy Plane is arguably not strictly speaking able to power anything, because it's negative. It's a convenient shorthand to speak of "negative energy" when referring to a drain on positive energy. An undead creature produced by Animate Dead or a similar spell contains a tiny portal-conduit to the Negative Energy Plane through which light and life and heat are sucked out of the world (=negative energy flowing in) powering a magic "turbine" that makes the undead go.

Some advanced undead creatures have the power or fine control to weaponize this conduit, thus the various life-drain and energy-drain abilities possessed by vampires and wraiths and such. Different undead have different configurations and need to feed on the living more or less often, while others get by with environmental drain. Even the environmental ones can be deadly in large quantities. The Libris Mortis splatbook hints at this, and I've taken some of my inspiration from a discussion thread on that book:

This has a bunch of fun implications that match up with other narrative roles of undead and horror tropes. That crypt (haunted) which seems unusually cold? Undead are sucking the heat out. Candles suddenly blowing out? Undead!

Even though the minor drain of a skeleton doesn't amount to hit-point-damage on the scale of combat-time (the usual metric of D&D effects), it's still a creature that leaks negative energy/sucks the life out of its surroundings. Using that to plow your field is a bad idea.

That's an immediate and practical impact; in a high fantasy setting you can get more fantastic about it. Perhaps the tiny negative-energy conduits in regular undead also serve as windows for necromancers and negative-energy-beings to look on the living world, or worse, perhaps the portal is two-way. A skeleton contains a tiny hole in the planar fabric through which The Unmaker can reach, whether to affect the world directly or to seize control of the undead.

Note: your players may still insist on trying to find a utilitarian use for this sort of life-draining undead, like a haunted refrigerator that stays cold because the ghosts are sucking the heat out of it. If they're insistent, I suggest saying "Yes, but" instead of "No", and then run with the fun implications and second-order effects of binding a dozen ghosts just to store food (obviously one ghost won't cool it enough) and what normal people will think of the Superhaunted Doomfridge. Maybe the paladins will send a complaint letter. Your PCs are Good enough that the paladins will send a letter rather than showing up to Smite Fridge immediately, right? ;-)

And now I'm imagining the Paladin Job Board posting, with the headline saying "Destruction of Evil Artifact" in big letters and the fact of "it's a fridge" in the small print.

[supersoakerfullofblood]

hi!!! hopefully you are having a good day!!! but a quick question-

how can i give insight to a character's backstory without it look liking a word-dump?? especially if the whole story have a diary entry format.

Very good question that honestly really depends on your personal style, but here's what's worked for me.

The best advice I can give is to stop thinking of your character's history as "backstory." That's one of the words that's become so loaded in popular writing discourse as to not mean anything solid anymore, like "worldbuilding," "theme," "protagonist," etc. Words like that are helpful once you've made your own definition for them, but with so many voices in Youtube tutorials and social media posts all saying similar but different things for what these mean, it's best to find a word that better suits how you view the concept. For me, that word is "history," because like how the present is founded on actual history, our characters are only the product of their history. Characters, like people, rarely if ever operate in the present tense.

So--revealing history without the dreaded expository dump. To answer this, we first have to look at why expository dumps are so uninviting. Here's an example of it done poorly (I'm writing this as an example, not taking someone's writing to like, diss on them hah):

Cheryl took the elevator up all five floors of the haunted house, which groaned as she went, the elevator left untouched since the house's last occupants moved out. When they arrived at the penthouse suite, Doctor Gastor explained that the last residents here thought they were wizards and practiced daily at arcana. Their names were Abigail and Horace--he had renamed himself after a demon had told him his true name, so he claimed--and they wintered in this remote, northern sphere to avoid Italian summers. Horace was wealthy, Abigail poor, but he had found her in poverty and saw something of the occult in her movements, so he stole her away one summer, and the two found more in common than they would've thought, for they married the next year. Cheryl paced the floor, picked up and dusted off a book titled in runic chicken scratch, and opened the cover."

This isn't the worst example I could think of, but it has the hallmarks I'm looking for. The first issue with this expository dump ("Doctor Gaston explained... next year") is that it shatters the flow of the passage. As a writer of narrative fiction, the goal of every sentence is to lead smoothly to the next sentence. To do this, we always have to be thinking of what the reader wants to read after a given sentence. If one sentence is about an elevator groaning in a haunted house, the reader probably wants to know how Cheryl reacts to it! Is she scared of ghosts? Does she believe in ghosts? Is she scared of elevators? If so, what does she do? Move to hit a button on the elevator to stop it? If scared of ghosts, how does she internalize this? If not scared, how does she internalize perhaps how Doctor Gaston is shivering? (Is he shivering?) These are all places the reader's mind wants to go to after that sentence. Instead, we get this history about some old wizards (if I had the patience, I would've made it longer to really make it intrude on the narrative, but I don't have the patience). If this is the first time the reader's hearing about the wizards, they probably won't care about them. This synopsis of their story interrupts what the reader actually cares about, which is whatever Cheryl cares about in the moment. To fix this interruption, Cheryl could find the book of runes maybe in the chapter before this, because that gets the reader invested. The reader, just like Cheryl, wants to know why there's a book of runes in the haunted house. So Cheryl asks Doctor Gaston about it, which legitimizes this exposition, because it's also what the reader wants to know.

Another major fault of info dumps is when they don't relate to the character at all. Cheryl's history (let's say she's a girl from the country who wandered into the house on accident) has nothing to do with wizards. Maybe in the narrative, she learns to cast some spells, which makes her care about wizards, but at this point, she doesn't. If Cheryl has nothing to do with wizards, or little to do with them, then why should the audience care? When writing a character's history, you should only include the parts that matter to the character. And this written history should never be too long, because you never want to stunt the flow of the piece (what "too long" means is up to debate and your discretion and style).

Also, exposition only works when it feels genuinely embodied by the character speaking. Is Doctor Gastor explaining the wizard history, or is that the author talking? Some of it sounds like Gastor (the bit between the em dashes sounds like what he would say), but the rest sounds like Gastor is only a mouthpiece for the information I want to put out.

So, solving it. One trick I like to do when giving exposition is to make the exposition into its own mini-scene. You don't want to write, "Carmen was friends with Piper, and they went to the dance once as friends." Instead, give it some space on the page:

She and Piper were the only girls in their group who had gone quiet at curfew. Beatrice’s only crime was in whispering comments in the early hours, short things to guide the group’s banter, never loud enough to warrant arrest. “Not really, no.” “That’s nice.” Carmen nodded and drew his eyes across the crowd. “Did she sleep well?” “Beatrice?” “Yeah.” “I guess.” The path turned up the steep hill on which the dining hall was built. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really slept well.” “Oh.” “It’s just uncomfortable, you know?” “The girls?” She raised an eyebrow. “And the boys aren’t?” “No, they are.” He laughed, and Piper was dragged to the same laugh at Homecoming three months ago. She had requested for the Melpomene band’s recent concert recording to be played after the next pop song, and surprisingly, her request was approved. Carmen laughed as their poor performance boomed from the speakers, laughed at the disruption of a dance, and Piper laughed too. But within the minute, the concert’s strident ballad was supplanted by another chart-topping pop song. But for those forty seconds, music was displaced, and the dancers stopped; city walls fell; Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds. She said now, “It’s just weird, being here. It’s all too happy. Too clean.”

Exposition can work really well in brief flashbacks. And note how the exposition starts: a mirroring of "laugh" because the image is fresh in the reader's mind, so I take them on a sort of dream logic to the past. Note also that this is planting the seeds for some relevant character-building: Piper's growth into an independent woman--"Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds." Here's another example from my current WIP:

He thought of Brynjar the day he had given him the knot. It was the spring of Óskar’s sixth year, and Brynjar had taken him to the docks one morning to watch sailing men fix fresh ropes on their karves and clip pulleys to sails to tie them to the boats’ sides. “Never doubt a weaver woman,” Brynjar said, annunciating each word. “They keep everything afloat.” “‘Floating,” repeated the young Óskar. “If the ropes aren’t strong, a boat’ll flip and spin. Like this!” He lifted Óskar above his head and spun on his heels, and Óskar cackled. The father set the son on his shoulders and smiled. “Yes, we need those ladies.” Óskar felt his father’s shoulders raise, and he knew the man forged something witty in his mind. “It means, Óssie, a man is only as good as his woman. And you can tell your mother I said that.” Eldrid, Óskar’s mother, would leave in her sleep later that year, and the witches would say she was sick, and Brynjar would spend some nights looking through the cracks in his home, remembering the gray wife he woke to that morning. In his memory, Óskar did not know whether this new recollection of his mother’s passing tainted his father’s speech or if he really did turn somber, but all the same, a short silence paused the scene at the dock, and Brynjar coughed to break it. His voice was low now. “Dangerous,” he said, looking with eyes like the beads of a raspberry at the men on the dock, looking through them. His jowls lowered like curtains, forced low with the hill of a frown, and in the memory, his skin blued and bloated. “It’s dangerous out there, Óssie. Be safe.” He sniffed. “Be well.” “Óskar?” Ingrid stole him. He breathed back into the world and saw now that the road had turned down and the rock wall had turned in, and they approached a strip of sea.

In addition to providing a character's history, this also fleshes out the world: the importance of women and boats, the dangers of the sea. Before the flashback, Oskar is thinking about a knot, so he thinks about the day he got the knot, which makes him think about sailing boats. At the end of the flashback, he thinks about the ocean ("looking through [the sailors]," so probably at the ocean), thinks about his father's skin if he drowned, and back in the present-tense, uh oh, Oskar is nearing the ocean. It all flows together; we're guiding our reader.

But these are only small exposition dumps, and sometimes, we need to convey much more information. You can subtly convey much more information than you realize through dialogue and description, because how a character talks and acts is guided by their histories. If a character is short-spoken, they may have had some interpersonal trauma that you can flesh out more when the time is right:

“No,” Sylvia whispered, trapping Chloe again with her stare, desperate. “I can’t sleep over.” “Why not?” Jane asked. “Mom says I have to be home by seven.” She looked down at her empty plate, at the crumbs from one slice of pizza. “But you haven’t asked her,” Jane prodded. She shook her head. “I did before.” Still in disbelief, Jane asked, “What did she say?” “She said I have to be home by seven.” She blushed. “And I can do whatever till then.” “Oh,” Jane said. She slunk back in her chair. Chloe turned back to her parents. “Can you call Jane’s mom?” “Sure thing.” “Thanks!” She swiveled back and, fingering the fruit Phoebe scrambled on her plate, decided to eat it later. She grabbed a second slice from the box. Moments passed as they ate in silence, Sylvia watching her plate, and the muffled television played something in the living room. Mom and dad laughed. “I should go,” Sylvia said. She bumped the table as she stood, reciting, “Thank you for having me.” Jane looked at the clock hovering above the front door. “It’s only six-twenty.” “I need to go home.” “Oh.” Jane stuttered. “I’ll see you next week!” Chloe said the same. “Thank you. See you.” She opened the door and slipped through. It clicked behind her. Chloe and Jane paused their gnawing and looked up at each other, sharing a thought. They hadn’t heard a car grumble on the gravel, didn’t hear anything drive by at all, and neither of them knew how close she lived. They scraped their chairs from the table and crept to the dining room window like characters in a Jones Bones movie, Jane thought. But when they pulled back the curtain, she was gone. No cars drove on the street, and the sidewalk was empty. A golden glare shrouded the street and surrounding houses as the sun lowered behind a roof.

Throughout this book (The Ghosts of Glass Lake, available now ;)), it's implied that Sylvia has a controlling and/or abusive mother. In this scene, Sylvia is curt and direct. You can almost feel the urgency behind her words, how she bumps the table as she stands, and how it almost sounds like she's rehearsed this exit. It's also implied that no one came to pick her up--she walked home, but neither Jane nor Chloe know where she lives, and neither does the reader. Maybe she walked home for miles because her mother didn't pick her up. You can get a lot of meat from implications!

But still, there are times when you just need a lot of dense exposition, usually near the beginning of a book when you need to describe the setting. My best advice, if you ever need to do this, is to keep it as brief as possible, and to pay extra attention to pacing/flow/tempo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it so it doesn't distract, doesn't feel like a chore:

The seventh and eighth graders of Carmen’s church spent one Saturday every winter at Camp Catechism. The campus set its roots in northern Michigan, breathed easterly winds from Lake Huron, and sparked to life as batches of middle schoolers arrived on midnight buses. Cabins formed a bivouac in a birch forest, and one mile to the east lay the lake and the curve of its horizon. It was frozen now, and the limbs of trees wavered slowly under snow, ice eating at chipped, white bark. The chapel the middle schoolers sang in now was a wide A-frame built and reeking of old wood. A low stage headed the room from which stood a pianist, a drummer, and a guitarist, a stage from which Roman Richards would soon discuss Ephesians. The dining hall was a short walk from everywhere and displayed from a wide window the canopy of the burdened forest, ossified waves, and the sun glinting unbearably against it all. Cups of hot chocolate were filled and refilled on a counter at the entrance of the dining hall, and campers drank these violently, abrading their throats as adolescent drunks. Boys and girls separated into two large halls subdivided into tight rooms for each youth group, everything barred entrance from the other sex. As a general rule, phones were banned, as were drugs, candles, and cursing, though the popular boys forged unique methods to circumvent these restrictions, and anyone caught with contraband was witnessed a martyr for a greater sense of vagrancy. Still, most campers lived within their rules, their obligations, just as they always had at church, and any rule breaking (“sin,” as Roman Richards claimed) was relegated quickly to myth, to rumors spread away from pious ears. As such, Carmen and his contemporaries were only loud ostensibly, never committing to a biblical criminal record. This was not to say that anyone at Camp Catechism was reserved—they spilled everything about their lives to their youth group leaders, but no one yet could articulate exactly what they meant, exactly what they felt, and scantily of dreams, ambitions, or desires.

And as all good exposition does, it flows well back into the narrative. The last paragraph above is a bridge between the camp description and a look into Carmen's inner life.

You may also find halfway through your narrative that you need to dump a bunch of character exposition, and you need to do it urgently. My trick for this is to make chapter A flow into the exposition, chapter B be an extended flashback scene, and chapter C to pick up where A left off. For example, if you need to talk about a character's relationship with his father but haven't done that yet in depth, find an easy way to transition into a flashback chapter that does just that. It's an enlarged version of the flashback tool I talked about above!

Now, all of this is what's worked for me, and I write third person distant POV narratives. It sounds like you're writing first person close POV haha. So I don't really have any examples to help with, but the general advice to 1. Keep the pacing/flow/tempo/etc. so exposition doesn't distract, and 2. Write exposition only about what matters to the character, preferably only what matters to the character in that moment, then you should be a-okay. Exposition is only as bad as it distracts, and these are the strategies I've found to distract as little as possible and to use the exposition to meaningfully build my characters as much as possible.

And again, this exposition dump problem doesn't have hard and fast solutions. Every author deals with it in their own way, and I'm sure with practice, you'll find what works best for you and what comes naturally to you, just as I'm always discovering and refining what works for me. The advice in this post is, I think, a solid place to start from :)