#confluence la

[tales-from-the-frame]

Charles-François Daubigny, Mislabelled as Confluence de la Seine et de l'Oise, 1868

[secicrexe]

essaie sur la confluence...

.

Je viens d'acheter deux bouteilles d'eau pour le prix d'une… Le caissier n'a pas levé les yeux… C'était un mot de passe, un passage vers ce club dont on ne parle jamais à voix haute, où l'on arrache des poils sous les dents pour les remplacer par des brins d'herbe rouge, encore !... On m'observe depuis le début… C’est pour ça qu'il n'y a jamais de contrôleur quand je prends le bus… Mes mouvements, mes pensées, écrits dans mes paumes… tout est une étude… Je serai dans l'académie…

Je ne suis pas fou… Je n'oublie jamais mes clés, même lorsque les serrures s’effacent et que les portes prennent pause... J'attrape alors une cuillère, avec toute ma force, en laissant toujours un espace pour les olives… J’ai pitié, à part l'appétit… Puis une piqûre me traverse… Suis-je en formation ?...

Les machines autour de moi se mettent à crier leurs noms… Des usines travaillent sans produit, mais je les entends… Je n'ai pas encore le droit de porter les cartons… Je dois passer par certaines étapes, comme sacrifier un organe… comment sacrifier tous mes organes et vivre sous la terre comme un citoyen gaucher ? Est-ce que je n'ai jamais mangé avec ma droite ?... À part les soupes à neuf heures du matin, je suis souvent attaché… le réconfort est une confusion…

Puis il y a ce souffle derrière moi, qui continue de suivre ses tâches, il est payé… c’est un témoin en quête de mon innocence, je me demande pourquoi les horloges sont rayées ?... C'est un vent qui porte toujours des gants… J’ai entendu dire que les sujets d’essai doivent être verrouillés… Mais il ne s'agit pas d'attendre que je change d'état… À quel prix ?... Je veux échanger nos regards… J’entends dire que fuir est une solution, mais je ne suis pas un lâche…

Et quand je dors par inscription… signé par une insomnie endormie… C’est le moment idéal pour une analyse et affronter un examen qui, en réalité, n'est jamais obligatoire… Tout est facultatif, même la réponse A…

Khalid EL Morabethi

WIP

[mdameninie]

Que faire à Lyon avec des enfants ?

[jossarisfoto]

Lyon | Place Bellecour en La Confluence

Lyon | Place Bellecour en La Confluence

Zaterdag, 27 juli 2019 | Onze laatste dag in Lyon. De wandeling van vandaag staat in het teken van klassieke architectuur en hartstikke moderne architectuur. Qua architectuur kun je bijna geen grotere tegenstellingen bedenken zoals je in de foto’s kunt zien.  Lyon | Place des Jacobins Onze wandeling start wederom om de hoek van ons hotel bij Place des Jacobins en loopt via een bezoek aan het…

[lullabyes22-blog]

Le Rite sacré de l'amour magique - The Sacred Ritual of Magical Love.

Mild NSFW

I feel so sad whenever I read about how this scene was 'cringe' and 'unnecessary' and 'awkward' - given it's visually and narratively a feast of subtext, and full of delicious tidbits about the essential nature of Hex-tech as a magical system.

It also wonderfully highlights the fusion of a pure source powered by the crystallization of celestial bodies with the viscerality of blood as a sacrificial link to esoteric knowledge - but at the cost of forfeiting one's 'tether' to humanity.

We have Viktor literally having a brush with death and nearly transcending the physical plane, while the Hex-gem takes away his life force and infuses it into its internal matrix - a literal melding between man and magic that, sadly, also requires the forfeiture of his fundamental humanity.

All while simultaneously, Jayce and Mel are making love, in a gorgeously animated sequence which is allllll about prioritizing female pleasure (and showing a female orgasm onscreen in a PG-13 kids' show - like, y'all, that takes balls, given if it were a mainstream Hollywood film, it'd earn an NC-17 rating or get slapped with a big ol' R for its trouble.)

And there's so many wonderful interpretive lenses we can apply to the juxtaposition between Viktor and Jayce - all while sex, death and magic are happening onscreen. On one level it represents Jayce's seduction, and by proxy corruption, at the hands of Mel - all while the Hex-core is corrupted by human blood that belongs to a man who has grown up in toxic environs and carries their lived legacy in his body to the point it's killing him from the inside out.

And on the other hand, we can see it as a divergence between the two routes of magical power as a means to channel transcendent knowledge - one through the brutal solitude of Viktor's path, which will ultimately set him in Machine Herald territory, and have him casting off his 'earthly ties' - right down to everything that makes him human. For him, the Hex-core is knowledge to be penetrated and absorbed, and its secrets require a sacrifice of the highest order. And on the other hand, we have Mel and Jayce literally melding together with astral imagery in the background, to show a different route that magic allows one to take, namely where two life-forces come together and engender something sublime between them (or possibly even make a baby? It's a popular fan theory and I can certainly see the potential.)

Magic, for Arcane, seems to be a means of interconnecting different facets into a unified whole (not unlike the way the series mirrors and makes parallels between a host of characters and circumstances, almost like they're different faces of a Hex-gem). And this scene sums up so powerfully what that system of science and magic is about - and the extreme highs and lows it can take you to.

And of course, right at the heels of this intense interplay between sex and death, two different types of la petite mort, we have the ultimate confluence between the two:

Rebirth.

And who better to embody it than two characters who carry their dead selves behind them like corpses shackled to their heels, in different ways?

Tbh I read these scenes as a trilogy for explaining Arcane's magic system - with Jinx being that final spark - literally the Powder - that blasts Hex-tech in all its destructive and yet empowering potential wide open.

Also a separate aside, I find this scene way more uncomfortable than the earlier two, simply because the interactions between Silco and Jinx are so fraught and charged. The first time you watch it, there's that almost-kiss Gotcha! that makes you spit-take, like: Wait are they...? And then the whiplash is so extreme because in a blink it goes from uncomfortably full of romantic undercurrents to strangely tender, verging on reverent. A moment of perfect and pure trust between two monsters whose entire conception of trust has been trampled into shards that they now use to cut others with.

But for me the pinnacle is this scene.

Other fan theories have also stated that they see Jinx as sort of the unwitting embodiment of the Hex-crystal's power paired with the dark potency of Shimmer, and for me this is one of the biggest visual metaphors. This girl, caught in a blissful gyre of fulfillment and serene frenzy, unmade and then remade, as she deciphers the codes of the Hex-gem and feels, for the first time, at one with herself and with her potential to unlock secrets and usher in miracles.

And madness, too, but that's a whole 'nother analysis.

tl;dr - Please Fortiche. Release an art book. I will shell out the big bucks<3

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Don't Lie to Me

Emily Prentiss x fem!reader Warnings: life-threatening situations including a bomb and a Branch Davidians-style cult compound, established relationship, hurt/comfort, explicit language, slight emetophobia warning (nothing graphic) Word Count: 2.8k

Summary: You thought Emily was just going out on a typical case until you heard about the standoff at the religious compound. You knew her job was dangerous, but this is a whole new level of terrifying. And you can do nothing but wait. Takes place during S4.E3.

Emily stabbed at the last bit of scrambled egg on her plate and pointed it at you.

"I'd bet my life those kids are being abused," she said, chewing.

You took her plate to the sink, washing up from the early breakfast you'd made to send Emily off on a new case.

"I mean, isn't that kind of the whole point of cults?" you asked, scrubbing at the plates.

"It certainly seems like it." Emily walked over and placed an arm at the small of your back. "Thank you for breakfast. Do you need any help cleaning up?"

"No, I'm okay." You liked the repetitive nature of dishwashing. "You know," you thought out loud, "I was in a cult once."

Emily froze and stared at you, blazer halfway on. "What!?"

"Not that kind of cult. And I got out pretty quick. But... I did believe a lot of crazy things, and I was asked to do some illegal shit."

"Y/N, what!?" she said, slinging her go-bag over her shoulder, reluctant to leave. "What kind of crazy things?"

"Oh, I don't know," you said, drying your hands. "I carried anointing oil around for a while. And I thought shadows in corners were demons. Turns out that's just how light works."

Emily placed her hands on your shoulders, a slightly stunned expression on her face. "I have to go, but we will pick this up later because, Y/N, what!? A cult!?" She shook her head and kissed you, then once again on the forehead for good measure.

"It was just a little cult!" you joked, as she walked toward the door. "It's way easier to get dragged in than you'd think. I consider myself a pretty smart person, and even I fell for some of that bullshit."

"Mmkay," she said, leaning in the doorway. "Well, I'll do my best not to join a cult this week, but no promises."

You rolled your eyes at her. "I love you, Em. Be safe."

"Love you too, honey," she said. "See you in a few days."

You shook your head as the door shut behind her. You didn't tell many people about your "cult year," as you liked to call it, because it hadn't been nearly as extreme as most cults were and because you'd gotten out quickly. But, god, you'd believed in some stupid things. The confluence of moving to a new place, developing a severe mental illness, and falling wildly in love with the girl who was second in command had been a perfect recipe for cultish devotion. No matter. You'd made it out. And, well, fool me twice...

______________________________________________________________

Part of the beauty of working from home is that you could do whatever you wanted most of the day–no pants, no bra, watching the news or TV during lunch, calling Emily whenever you wanted.

You made yourself a sandwich and sat on the couch, turning on the news so that you could fiddle around with your laptop but still have some background noise.

You were scrolling through an article on the best laundry detergents when the reporter mentioned something about La Plata County. You glanced up and turned up the volume. Wasn't that where Emily and Spencer were?

"What is reportedly being called a routine questions and answers meeting by Colorado Child Services has turned into a violent and deadly standoff between Colorado authorities and a fringe religious group known as the Separatarian Sect. The raid on the compound..."

Your heart started to pound. Maybe you'd gotten the name of the county wrong, and Emily wasn't even close. But she had said she was visiting a religious compound and that she was going with Children's Services...

Breathing rapidly, you pulled out your phone and called Emily. Straight to voicemail. You called her again. No answer. You tried to calm yourself down–no need to panic until you knew for sure. You sent Emily a quick text:

Hey love💕 You haven't been forced into a Waco situation have you? The news is going CRAZY. Please text or call when you get a second so I know you're okay. I love you❤️

You moved your work stuff into the living room, piling it on the coffee table and keeping the volume on the news up. You felt sick to your stomach, but tried to stay calm. There was no reason to think Emily was there. Colorado was a huge state. Probably dozens of religious sects. Why would she be at that one? But the longer you went without a text or call from Emily, the more anxious you grew.

______________________________________________________________

You managed to make it about three hours before losing your goddamned mind with worry. You texted Emily again, called her again, left her an angry voicemail about how people shouldn't worry their girlfriends like this, all with no response. You'd tried Derek, too, but no luck.

Your leg bounced up and down, and you could feel tears forming at the corners of your eyes. You found one of Emily's sweatshirts in the hamper and pulled it over your shirt, balling yourself up on the couch and breathing in the scent of her. She's okay, you told yourself over and over. She's okay, she's okay, she's okay.

A breaking news alert on the TV prompted another update on the La Plata County situation. Your head shot up, and you turned the volume up, not wanting to miss a thing.

"...tactical team into a forced retreat after losing a 30-minute gun battle with sect members. Nobody knows for sure how many people are inside, but it is believed that at least three of the child service members are still trapped in the compound."

You didn't sleep that night. Not even for a moment. You sat on the couch late into the night, waiting for updates on the standoff. With each hour that passed without contact from Emily, you were more and more sure that it was her and Spencer in the compound. You'd tried calling a few more times, but the calls seemed pointless, knowing where she was. You'd waited until a decent hour the next morning to call other team members again–Derek, Penelope, JJ. No one had answered, and you'd only grown more terrified. You were scared to know for sure, but you needed to.

You looked down at your phone and took a deep breath, looking at the one number you'd resisted calling so far: Hotch. You knew Emily'd given you his number for emergencies only, but what was this if not an emergency?

The phone dialed for a few moments before picking up.

"Hotchner."

"Where is she!?" you demanded, all the emotion and fear you'd been putting off for the last day rushing to the forefront.

"Y/N," he sighed, and you could tell just by his voice. "She's–"

"Don't lie to me, Hotch! She's in that compound, isn't she?"

Hotch's words were calm, determined. "We're gonna get her out."

"Don't lie to me." Your voice shook, tears slipping down your face.

"Y/N, I swear to you, I will get her out."

"Okay," you whispered, feeling small and scared.

"I'll call as soon as I can to let you know she's okay, but it's gonna take some time."

"Thank you." You dashed tears from your eyes, sniffling.

"Of course."

The line clicked off and you sat in stunned silence for a few minutes, watching the repeated footage of the compound flash by on the TV. Emily was in there. Emily was in there. And there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.

You paced back and forth for a while, waiting and waiting for news updates, then decided that all this waiting was futile. If Emily couldn't get home to you, you'd go to her. You booked yourself on the next flight to Durango, packed just the essentials, and ran out the door, filling Sergio's bowl and making a mental note to text a friend to check in on him if you were gone for more than a day or two.

______________________________________________________________

The hours you were in the air–with nothing but shitty airplane WiFi service–were the worst for you. You refreshed the live news page over and over again, terrified that at any moment, you'd hear news of a mass death.

When you finally got to Durango that night, you drove the rental car as close to the compound as you could, but ATF had it locked down for miles. For now, this was a close to Emily as you could get.

You booked a nearby hotel and, still wrapped in Emily's sweatshirt, sat moon-faced and bleary-eyed on the edge of the bed, watching the news, and waiting, waiting, waiting.

You'd nearly drifted off to sleep when the room filled with a blinding white-orange light. Your eyes grew wide as you watched the screen. The compound went up in flames, debris flying far and wide.

"Oh my god," you said, covering your mouth. "Oh my god."

You ran to the bathroom and vomited, then sat on the cool floor, shaking. You coughed as you hyperventilated, unable to get enough air into your lungs. You wrapped your hands around your head, rocking. There was no way. No way someone would have survived an explosion like that.

You felt like your heart was being ripped apart. It was the hope that hurt the most. The maybe she hadn't been in there? But almost certainly she was. Maybe she was okay? But probably she wasn't. Most likely, she didn't even exist anymore, had gone up in smoke with the rest of the compound, the thought of which made you vomit again. You couldn't fathom it, couldn't envision a world without Emily. You needed her. You hunched on the floor of the hotel room, leaning into the bed, and waited. Waited for news of Emily's death. You hoped that Hotch would call you first. It'd be so much easier to hear it from him, but the reporters were like vultures, and they often got the news first.

______________________________________________________________

At the compound, a deeply battered Emily, now running out of adrenaline, leaned heavily on Hotch as he walked her to an ambulance.

"You don't have to come with me," she told him, her voice gravelly. "It's not that bad."

"Prentiss, you can barely walk," Hotch protested, watching in concern as she winced climbing into the ambulance. "I wish you'd get on a stretcher."

"I am on a stretcher." Emily gave him a little wave from where she now lay, an EMT strapping her in and taking her vitals.

"I meant before now." Hotch smiled slightly. His team was beat up, but they'd be okay.

He pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contacts. "You need to make a call," he told Emily, putting the phone on speaker as it dialed.

"Oh, god," Emily groaned. "She's gotta be worried sick."

When you picked up, your voice was timid, rough with emotion.

"Hotch?" you whispered, terrified of what he might tell you.

"Hi, honey," Emily said, her voice heavy with love and exhaustion. It hit her, all of a sudden, that there was a good chance she might not have made it out. That she would never have seen you again. The thought brought tears to her eyes.

"Em!" you cried between sobs. "Are you okay!? Are you hurt!?"

"I'm a little banged up, but I'll make it."

"You scared the shit out of me!" you yelled, equal parts furious at her for putting her life in danger and relieved that she was okay. Emotions tumbled through your body like ocean waves.

Emily smiled and wiped a few tears from under her eyes. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Is Spencer there? Is he okay, too?"

Emily exhaled shakily. "Yeah, he's fine. We're all fine."

"Where are you?"

"Uh, in an ambulance."

"Which hospital are they taking you to?" you asked, pulling on your shoes and grabbing your keys off the hotel desk.

"Mercy?" Emily said, repeating what the EMT told her.

"I'll meet you there."

"No, honey, you don't need to come all the way here," Emily protested. "I'm okay. I'll be home in a few days."

"I'm already here, Em. Don't even try to fight me on this."

"You're here!? In Colorado?!"

"At a hotel. As close to the compound as I could get."

"You came?" Emily confirmed, her voice quiet, like she couldn't quite believe someone would love her enough to be there.

"Emily," you breathed. "Of course I did."

A few tears escaped Emily's eyes, and Hotch looked away.

"Now," you said, clearing your throat and trying to pull yourself together. "Please, please, let the doctors take care of you. I'll be there soon, okay?"

"Okay," she sniffled.

"I love you."

"I love you, too," Emily said, before hanging up and handing the phone back to Hotch.

The EMT handed her a paper towel to use as a tissue and she laughed, dabbing at her eyes and nose. "Thanks," she said.

Hotch smiled, watching her.

"What?" she said.

"She really loves you."

"I know."

______________________________________________________________

At the hospital, Emily heard you before she saw you. You were the first thing she heard after waking up from surgery, and she couldn't help but smile. You were giving the nurses a run for their money, which was saying something. You were usually so patient, so accommodating. Not today.

"Look," you railed at the nurse's station. "I've been in the waiting room for hours! I have been awake for three days straight, and my girlfriend has been a cult hostage that whole time! I am not in the mood to be held hostage too! Take me to her now, or I swear to god I will get the fucking FBI director on the line."

Emily's face brightened when you came in the room, but yours fell. She looked awful. Her face was bruised and swollen, bandages covered her body, and her arm was in a cast.

"Oh, Em," you said, your voice breaking, as you grabbed her hand, pressing your palm gently to her cheek.

"I'm okay." But she wasn't, and you could tell.

"It's okay, baby," you reassured her, running your fingers gently through her hair. "You don't have to be okay now, alright? I'm here. I'm here to take care of you."

Her breath hitched, and you could tell she was fighting off tears. It broke your heart. She always felt like she needed to be strong. It was time to let someone else be strong for a change.

You lowered the railing of the hospital bed, and lifted yourself in, gently pulling Emily into you. She grasped desperately at your shirt and fought off sobs.

"Shh," you whispered, cradling her head. "Let it out, love. I'm right here. You're safe now."

You held her while she cried, heartbroken that she'd been so scared and so hurt and, yet, proud that she handled it like no one else in the world could. And for neither the first time nor the last, you felt the immense weight and honor of being someone Emily Prentiss felt safe enough to break down with.

When she quieted, you rocked her and held her and placed small, gentle kisses on her head, trying to convey all your love for her, all your protectiveness toward her through osmosis.

You remembered, quite suddenly, the last conversation you'd had before Emily left, about cults.

"I told you," you whispered, giggling.

"Told me what?"

"That it was easy to get dragged into a cult."

"That is not the same," Emily argued, playfully shoving you. "I was held hostage. You were just dumb."

"Ouch."

"You didn't hoard weapons or anything, did you?"

"No," you scoffed. "Of course not."

"Well, what'd you do?" she pressed.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you did some illegal shit in the cult, so what did you do?"

"Oh," you laughed. "Nothing too serious. We bugged some people's rooms, recorded conversations."

"...Why?"

"We thought they were in cahoots with the devil."

Emily laughed, then grabbed her ribs, wincing. "'Cahoots with the devil!?' God, I'm so glad I found you after your religious days."

"What can I say? You get the very best of me."

Emily beamed up at you, pulling you down by your collar to kiss you. You stayed gentle and soft, mindful of her split lip and bruised face.

You held your forehead to hers, breathing in her scent. That familiar Emily scent that you'd been so sure you'd never get again.

"Don't ever scare me like that again," you whispered.

"I won't," Emily said, burying her face in your chest.

"Don't lie to me."

You felt her smile into your skin. "I'll try."

You sighed and grinned. "I guess that'll do. But only because I love you so much."

[theangelcatalogue]

It's always " I love you! " but never

" Alone at the edge of a universe humming a tune

For merely dreaming we were snow

A siren sounds like the goddess who

Promises endless apologies of paradise

And only she can make it right

So things are different tonight

We'll go together in flight

It's now and never

A reverie endeavor

Awaits somnambulant directives

To take the helm

Believe me, darling

The stars were made for falling

Like melting obelisks

As tall as another realm

Un ensemble d'enfants

La galaxie s'étend

Jardin de l'imagination

Combler la lacune

Voler face à la lune

Vois comme nous évoluons

It feels like flying

But maybe we're dying

A cosmic confluence of

Pyramids hologrammed

She knows you heard her

Staging music murder

In line before the show began

To be where I am

Children born of one emotion

Our devotion's deepest ocean

No division reasoned we'll be free

To know

We are beyond a bow

And lo, the hues arrange to show

It's perfectly clear

You look quite divine tonight

Here among these vibrant lights

Pure delights surround us as we sail

Signed, yours truly, the whale

Joy mirage's kingdom come

No one left at stake

Now that existence is on the wake

Let's see what we can make

The part is wholly ending

A line in any final song

So long, so far

We will be atoning

At last eternal through the past

Above a blinding star

Bye, hi

Sigh, Hawaii

We never meant to part

Sublime, thy art

One light

Higher than the sun

Invisible to some

Until it's time "

[bestworstcase]

Your thoughts about Remnant's kingdoms having imperialistic and expansionist tendencies that don't have anything to do with Salem or Ozma makes me wonder, at least based on what I vaguely remember of the game RWBY Arrowfell:

In Arrowfell, we learn about the existence of ruins outside of Atlas and Mantle with ancient historical artifacts, and that makes me question if Solitas really as empty as it seemed, or was there already indigenous people living there before the displaced settlers of whatever regions of Sanus showed up on their doorstep? Did THEY get destroyed by those settlers?

Did those people live alongside Solitas' Grimm with no issue, and shit only went down AFTER the emotionally repressed imperialists of Sanus came in and wiped out whatever culture they had, imposing their own "Grimm evil emotions bad must repress and subjugate" nonsense onto a culture that might have already figured out a better solution?

I keep thinking about this because of how the settlers of the local settlements there within the game have vastly different appearances, and strongly implied different cultures compared to the likes of Mantle and Atlas.

tumak!

i rotate those ruins in my mind a lot, because the only thing we really know about them is that they predate the great war and they’re a formally-designated “heritage site.” vine talks about artifacts taken from the site as though they’re very ancient, but his statements are framed pretty overtly as bullshit—he comes across more as a new age mumbo jumbo type of hobbyist than someone serious about history. older than the great war just means that the ruins are at least a century old.

so there’s definitely a layer here of atlas—which has probably not been around much longer than a century or two—culturally not having a very accurate sense of historical scale (a la US americans thinking anything older than a century or two is ‘ancient’) and exoticizing The Past. whereas beacon’s professor of history teaches teaches the great war and its aftermath as recent history, because vale is much older.

that said, tumak does look like it’s a few centuries old, because it’s all built of stone. in any other story i’d take it as a given that the people living there were conquered or displaced by mantelian settlers for… the same reasons i take it as a given that mistral being called an “empire” and having “territories” means what it sounds like.

what gives me pause with regard to tumak and mantle is—well, two things:

there were no grimm in western solitas when mantle’s first settlers arrived.

it’s heavily implied that the global industrial revolution began in mantle following the discovery of large dust deposits under the tundra.

now, the one thing we know for certain about grimm is that they eat people and they die in captivity, meaning that they do need to eat. the simplest explanation for there being no grimm in western solitas when the mantelian settlers turned up is that there weren’t any people there for grimm to eat.

the second point matters matters because the industrial revolution is a prerequisite for building anything with steel: before this confluence between practical necessity and a great abundance of underground dust deposits, every large structure on remnant would have been built with timber or stone or clay, or whatever material happened to be abundant in a given region.

(i am making a drastic oversimplification here but, in essence, the main reason we had our industrial revolution when and where we did is england ran out of trees and started digging for coal. coal mines have a lot of coal on site, making coal-powered machines a more cost-effective way to pump water out of deep shafts than manual labor, and then after a certain point these pumps become very efficient and it becomes cost-effective to employ mechanized rotational movement further away from the coal mines, and then you get automated spinning jennies and trains and it all snowballs from there. whether it’s on purpose or not, remnant’s industrial revolution occurred under precisely similar conditions and i think that’s neat.)

one presumes that mantelian settlers didn’t go from living in natural caves or snow shelters to steel-frame construction overnight. the technological innovation needed to build with steel in subzero temperatures would have been a long, iterative process. both tumak and the “ancient monument” built in the same architectural style are also situated on the continent’s western coast, while mantle is at least a few hundred miles inland (although it’s difficult to get an accurate sense of scale from the game map). if i’m right that these settlers were displaced from northeast sanus by valean expansion, the west coast of solitas is where they would have landed.

we also know that mantle itself is built on top of what seems to be an enormous dust mine.

in the WOR episode, the early settlement is represented like this, with people keeping watch over coastal cliffs and grimm being frozen solid by the cold:

the amity arena ice sabyr card indicates that the ice-encrusted solitan grimm adapted to the cold fairly quickly:

These Sabyrs seem to have somehow adapted to Mantle's environment. Gone are the days when the cold kept the Grimm at bay, and now we deal with the ice crusted versions of the Sabyr. Still, there is a burning question in our minds. Didn't these Sabyr… adjust a little too quickly?

(which, lol. it’s dust. solitan grimm incorporate dust into their bodies to give themselves a protective coating against the cold; we’ve seen the geist in the mine use dust to armor itself against attack. a lot of the amity arena grimm cards are fun; the one for seers is literally like “they’re super weird, we have no idea what they do because we’ve only ever found broken husks, but they’re floating crystal balls with tentacles so we assume they must be able to control people. probably.” grimm studies is pseudoscience!)

and then back to the WOR episode, the depicted distance between mantle and alsius is wildly exaggerated:

with mantle located on the southwestern peninsula and alsius being where mantle stands—or stood—in the present day. before playing arrowfell, i always took that to be just a stylistic choice to emphasize the economic separation between mantle and alsius, but:

again, nothing is to scale here, but mantle and the atlesian crater are in the right place, there’s an abandoned dust mine on that southwest peninsula, an outpost with a train on the western island, and tumak and the other ruin along the west coast. so the relocation depicted in the WOR episode—a migration inward from the coastal region to where mantle is today—actually seems to have been literal.

what makes the most sense to me is that these coastal ruins were built by the original settlers a few hundred years ago. both tumak and the “monument” are mainly underground, with these barrow-like stone caps over the entrances: this strikes me as a solidly defensible layout for fending off weakened, scattered packs of grimm, but not one that could withstand the increasing numbers of cold-hardy grimm as time went on.

in the SDC WOR episode, it’s noted that mantle’s existing dust mines were nearly depleted before nicholas schnee discovered new deposits in the mountains to the north. and in arrowfell, if memory serves, the old southwest mine was exhausted and abandoned long ago. taking this to its logical conclusion, the people living in tumak and other coastal settlements had to deal with a relatively fast spike in grimm populations at a time when dust was already becoming scarce, so they abandoned these sites and migrated to a more defensible area—the plain flanked by mountains—where they serendipitously found much larger and deeper dust deposits. and that became mantle and alsius/atlas.

meanwhile, over on the eastern side of the continent…

the geographic separation here is pretty striking! in between mantle and the free towns to the east we have a large inland sea and mountains. these towns are explicitly not part of the kingdom and, as you noted, have a pretty different culture. (including cultural attitudes toward the grimm: a huge megoliath wanders into essen early in the game and the townspeople just… clear out of the immediate area and keep an eye on it from afar, which is probably also how the unnamed village in v4 dealt with that geist. there is also a lady from dormir who goes into GRIMM-INFESTED CAVES, alone, to dig up dust. nothing bad happens to her.)

tellingly, bram thornmane seems to view these free towns as independent polities for the purpose of fueling his persecution complex by treating his residence in essen like a quasi-exile from atlas, but when it’s politically expedient to do so he acts as though these are satellite communities dependent on atlesian protection, hence his use of the grimm lures to attack them as well as atlas and mantle. i imagine that this is a common atlesian attitude.

one of the villagers—cerise claire, who fled from crossed to essen when the former was overwhelmed as a consequence of thornmane’s scheme—mentions having ancestors who fought during the great war; specifically she implies that her ancestors were involved in resistance to the mantelian regime’s prohibition against art and self-expression. the free towns don’t seem to be particularly young—wood and stone, again suggesting pre-industrial construction—so they must have existed before the war.

cerise is also a faunus (i think; it’s hard to tell if the wolfish ears are attached to her head or just to her hood and they’re not the same color as her hair, but they’re a prominent feature of her design and why do that if she’s not meant to be faunus) which certainly. carries a lot of unspoken weight in the remarks she makes about her ancestor bravely keeping a journal of their years fighting in the great war… and if her family lived in crossed back then, well.

gestures at vacuo’s side of the great war being a desperate bid for independence. gestures at the implication that the vytal accords were in large part a decolonial project; vacuo and menagerie became sovereign states, and a huge swath of eastern anima seems to have been freed from mistrali rule.

mantle and mistral formed an alliance during the conquest of northern anima; if if the towns in eastern solitas are older than the great war—which is quite plausible!—then they likely existed during this period of time and it seems reasonable to think that they might have been occupied as well, if not by mantle then by mistral. eastern solitas being under occupation prior to the war and liberated by the accords thanks in part to the efforts of a local rebellion tracks.

but an interesting thought occurs to me: this means the quasi-scientific modern narrative that the grimm “adapted” to the cold unnaturally fast might be baseless. there would have been cold-hardy grimm living east of the mountains already. perhaps the intense hardship and struggle of those early years simply drew an existing population of grimm over the mountains?

[emblazons]

i’m about a month late to the ffvii rebirth fanfare but i saw your study/shot comparison for the ending while scrolling through some tags and was really curious to see if you had come up with any more conclusions since then! i just finished it a couple days ago and still reeling from it and have been enjoying hearing people’s thoughts about what the heck they think is going on. obvs cloud is not ok, but i’m still trying to decide just how much of what we’re seeing is due to his sanity going out the window and how much of it (if any) is aerith actually speaking to him and/or sephiroth messing with him. the way he tells the rest of the party to not look up at the sky though and none of them see what he sees, just clues them all in to the fact that he isn’t entirely all there anymore. a collective very concerned side-eye lol. somebody help him pls.

!!! oh friend, you're in a TON of luck: I actually started a few different commentaries on how I saw the ending on this weeks back, but didn't post them because I got distracted by other fandoms? I'm more than happy to share them though—not as developed as they could be, but some congealing of where my mind went upon finishing the game and rewatching the gameplay.

forewarning: FFVII ending spoilers + a long af post lmao

So I wrote this on my twitter (where I go to see things only on twt lol) the other day because of a bunch of concepts were clarified by the Ultimania + translators, which kinda sums up where my thoughts are:

Which...yeah. As I see it: as of the ending, Aerith is in fact dead in our current world (the one of the player narrative). How I see it, she's died in our primary timeline—though likely "alive" in the same way Zack is in some other timeline, in addition to her connection to every "universe" through the power of her connection to the planet as the last Cetra.

The white whispers (which represent Aerith/the will of the planet) as well as the “confluence of world” colors we see with Sephiroth are all around when Cloud supposedly “sees her alive" during the classic death scene—

—an indicator that the event itself was the "confluence" Sephiroth was trying to achieve, with Cloud experiencing several versions of it due to his own connection to Sephiroth/the lifestream/his fragmented mind. We see this both in what Sephiroth says around the event itself....and also the contrasting experiences of our party with what Cloud sees in the moment (+ through end of the game).

As I see it, Cloud’s consciousness by the end of FFVII:R-II is fully fractured; throughout both Remake & Rebirth he is already seeing visions affected by Sephiroth’s influence on the planet (the black whispers, the way hooded men and thin air turn into Sephiroth before his eyes)—and now, during the “confluence of emotions / worlds / reunion” mentioned (Aerith's death), Cloud’s already broken mind is slipping further into seeing “the middle space” of the worlds joined and prepared for destruction by Sephiroth in real time, rather than following the timeline of events in the world we play—a la the post that inspired your ask. :)

All that said: the reason he’s seeing Aerith (not just sensing her the way Red does in his own Lifestream connection) is because she’s a Cetra, and now (in death) the embodiment of the positive!Will of Gaia across worlds—so because of Cloud's connection to that "middle space" / ability to traverse different versions of reality because of his connection to Sephiroth, Cloud is interacting with her presence…despite it not being there for anyone else.

It’s also why he can see the sky split no one else can.

ADDITIONALLY:

The Aerith we see fight alongside Cloud in the final battle and the one we see walking around everyone as Cid fixes the plane…that’s the spirit of her person (think the Aerith of Advent Children). Aerith didn’t live this game—her spirit can communicate because of Sephiroth's successful confluence, though she’s ALSO "alive" in the same way Zack and Biggs are to us: aka she died in the world she was in but still exists in others, which Sephiroth confirms/explains both when Aerith pulls Cloud into another “doomed” world—

when he’s trying to manipulate Cloud in the Lifestream—

and when you’re fighting Sephiroth alongside Aerith in the void during the final battle (after she’s died).

Even so, Aerith “living on” as the last Cetra/the spirit of the planet + someone with access to multiple worlds through the "reunion" means she’s now as able to infiltrate Cloud's ongoing visions as Sephiroth is...and is likely trying to keep him even somewhat present despite his clearly fractured mind.

I think that’s implied repeatedly by through the hollow Holy Materia (implying both Aerith is no longer “there,” but still present + that cloud himself is now hollow)—

—and why/how the Black Materia (Sephiroth) is still manipulating him and very much driving his fractured thoughts, visions and actions.

As for the rest of the party: it's because no one but his “vessel-connected-to-Sephiroth” self (+ now dead-but-living-on-in-the-Lifestream Aerith) has any idea what he learned about worlds in the Lifestream that what’s happening to Cloud is lost on everyone (and why they look painfully concerned), and also why spirit!Aerith repeatedly gives him reminders to 1) not listen to Sephiroth and 2) focus on finding himself again.

All that said: because Cloud’s actual self is already slipping away from our present game TL by the second half of the game, it will have to be retrieved and rearranged—which we know will happen in game 3 (assuming you know the original FF7 plot where Tifa rearranges him in the Lifesteam) but that has to be changed from “Cloud finds out about Zack and finally cracks" because Cloud already knows about Zack in some capacity by the middle of Rebirth.

I personally think this sets us up for a really interesting resolution in that Tifa is going to probably have spirit!Aerith’s help putting Cloud back together in the Lifestream in game 3—and that she will likely play a bigger part in helping Cloud “find himself” in his own world again because it’s been made more apparent that she’s a full consciousness in the Lifestream/able to affect multiple worlds now because of Sephiroth completing the first step in his plan. That's more just hopeful on my part going into the next game than something rooted in analysis though.

But yes! those are my thoughts! I hope this gives you (more than a little) something. Feel free to ask if something isn’t clear though lol this was like 4 different half-done drafts combined 😂 Regardless, ty so much for the ask / giving me a reason to post them!

[beardedmrbean]

“Anyone else remember when we had that massive blackout over most of the northeast US and a bunch of urbanites were freaking out about weird lights in the night sky because they didn't know what stars looked like.”

No no no no

No no

No no no no no noo

NO NO NO, NU UH, NEIN NEIN NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIN

Urbanites must known what stars are from family road trips like I do. Or from movies, or understand that city pollution covers the stars

If this true, no wonder screenwriting is shit especially in fantasy.

Source on the LA one, r/AskHistorians

Did people actually call 911 or an observatory upon seeing the Milky Way due to the power outage that followed the Northridge Earthquake?

So foreign are the real night skies to Los Angeles that in 1994, after the Northridge earthquake jostled Angelenos awake at 4:31 a.m., the observatory received many calls asking about "the strange sky they had seen after the earthquake."

Yes they did, no 911 just local observatories. Griffith Park observatory I'd guess

The confluence of Jupiter and Venus also managed to get some calls.

_________________________

I'm willing to cut people a little slack on this one because it is abnormal, those are going to be two of the brightest objects in the night sky and if you have no clue what they are other than bright spots I can understand the concern. _____________

But ya, this stuff happens as you see.

[beatricebidelaire]

lemony snicket + french

The French expression “cul-de-sac” describes what the Baudelaire orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word into English. The word “de,” for instance, is a very common French word, so even if I didn’t know a word of French, I would be certain that “de” means “of.” The word “sac” is less common, but I am fairly certain that it means something like “mysterious circumstances.” And the word “cul” is such a rare French word that I am forced to guess at its translation, and my guess is that in this case it would mean “At the end of the dark hallway, the Baudelaire children found an assortment,” so that the expression “cul-de-sac” here means “At the end of the dark hallway, the Baudelaire children found an assortment of mysterious circumstances.” -- tee

__

If you have ever experienced something that feels strangely familiar, as if the exact same thing has happened to you before, then you are experiencing what the French call “déjà vu.” Like most French expressions—“ennui,” which is a fancy term for severe boredom, or “la petite mort,” which describes a feeling that part of you has died—“déjà vu” refers to something that is usually not very pleasant, and it was not pleasant for the Baudelaire orphans to stand outside the freaks’ caravan listening to Count Olaf and experiencing the queasy feeling of déjà vu. -- tcc

__

The word “denouement” is not only the name of a hotel or the family who manages it, particularly nowadays, when the hotel and all its secrets have almost been forgotten, and the surviving members of the family have changed their names and are working in smaller, less glamorous inns. “Denouement” comes from the French, who use the word to describe the act of untying a knot, and it refers to the unraveling of a confusing or mysterious story, such as the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, or anyone else you know whose life is filled with unanswered questions. The denouement is the moment when all of the knots of a story are untied, and all the threads are unraveled, and everything is laid out clearly for the world to see. -- tpp

__

I forced myself to calm down. If someone disappears around a corner, it means they’ve gone into one of the buildings or a giant bird has carried them away. The skies were clear, so I checked doorways. There was an abandoned restaurant, with round tables that were too small to eat at comfortably. I peered through the cracked window and read some words on a chalkboard—LES GOMMES, which was French for who knew what—but the door was nailed shut, tight as a coffin. Before long all doors in town would be that way, with the Knights abandoning their ink business and moving to the city.

Across the street was another closed business. The broken sign read UARIU, which didn’t look like French. -- wdyshl

__

My associate was right. The word “Mayday” does have a French origin. It comes from the term “M’aider,” which in French means “help me.” You could probably see it in my eyes as I stared out at the seaweed that lived when the sea was drained away, for no reason anyone could explain, and that moved in ways so mysterious no one could imagine them. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. -- sybis

__

“It’s at the confluence of two large rivers that turn gray and still at night,” I said. “Winnipeg has been greatly influenced by French culture, so it will be no chore at all to find a good French press. We will drink coffee and watch the river from the balcony of the house of an associate of mine. We will attend masked balls at her castle, and you can get scared then.”

“Castle?” she said.

“My associate is the Duchess of Winnipeg,” I said, “or she will be, when her mother dies.” -- witndfaon

[mutant-distraction]

➤ Valley of Fire State Park is a public recreation and nature preservation area covering nearly 46,000 acres (19,000 ha) located 16 miles (26 km) south of Overton, Nevada. The state park derives its name from red sandstone formations, the Aztec Sandstone, which formed from shifting sand dunes 150 million years ago. These features, which are the centerpiece of the park's attractions, often appear to be on fire when reflecting the sun's rays. It is Nevada's oldest state park, as commemorated with Nevada Historical Marker #150. It was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1968. Valley of Fire is located in the Mojave Desert 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Las Vegas, at an elevation between 1,320–3,009 feet (402–917 m). It abuts the Lake Mead National Recreation Area on the east at the Virgin River confluence. It lies in a 4 by 6 mi (6.4 by 9.7 km) basin.

📷@codymayer22

[mapsontheweb]

Map of the northern part and parts of the southern parts of the America, from the mouth of the Saint Laurent River to the Island of Cayenne, with the new discoveries of the Mississippi (or Colbert) River. This map shows the results of the expeditions of Father Marquette and L. Jolliet (1673) and the Cavelier de la Salle expedition in the Mississippi valley. The map shows three forts built between 1679 and 1680: Conty fort (near Niagara Falls), Miamis Fort (south of Michigan lake), and Crèvecœur fort (Left bank of the Illinois River). Mississippi river course is only shown upstream of Ohio confluence.

[amgerychair]

ON THIS DAY, June 30th, 1992, Epic Records released the Singles: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Primarily focusing on the ascendant Seattle music scene of the early 1990s with songs by Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, and Mother Love Bone. It also features contributions from Seattlites Jimi Hendrix and The Lovemongers, the latter being a side project of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. And reaches further afield with Chicago’s Smashing Pumpkins who sit alongside the first solo material from Minneapolis’ legend Paul Westerberg, after the breakup of The Replacements.

How do you catch lightning in a bottle? Ask Singles director Cameron Crowe. He began his career as a staff writer for Rolling Stone; music was his passion. Having written screenplays for movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) and “The Wild Life” (1984), he struck out as writer/director with the hit movie “Say Anything…” in 1989. A confluence of events most likely led to Crowe championing the music scene of the Pacific Northwest; chief among them would be him marrying Nancy Wilson of Seattle rock pioneers Heart in 1986. Crowe moved to the Emerald City and quickly became enamoured with the local scene.

For his 1989 directorial debut “Say Anything…” starring John Cusack, he compiled a soundtrack of artists that deftly looked back through the annals of rock history while hinting that he may have had some prior knowledge regarding the new alternative rock revolution, which would explode in 1991 with the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind.

The “Say Anything..” soundtrack featured’ 70s/80s rock icons Nancy Wilson and Peter Gabriel alongside future ’90s lollapalooza alumni Fishbone and The Red Hot Chili Peppers (remember both bands were relatively unknown in 1989, and still considered oddities on the landscape of ’80s rock). Crowe also chose to add flannel-wearing Minneapolis firebrands The Replacements, one of the great American rock bands. With a vibrant talent for wrecking their career; The Mats, as they were affectionately known, influenced a generation of alternative rock and punk bands.

Interestingly, Crowe included two bands on the “Say Anything..” soundtrack that didn’t make the official album release but whose songs featured in scenes in the movie itself. Mother Love Bone with Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns sat side by side with Soundgarden’s Toy Box. In 1989, both bands were mere blips on the musical radar. Their additions gave credence to the idea that Crowe wasn’t blind to his new surroundings in Seattle.

His love of seeking out new music and the influence of his wife Nancy Wilson and her sister Ann (who, despite Heart’s worldwide mega-stardom, never lost sight of the local Seattle music scene) led Cameron Crowe to be in a prime position when it came to choosing cutting edge music for his next film, Singles.

Filming for Singles took place in various Seattle locations between March 11th, 1991 and May 24th, 1991. At that time, Alice In Chains had released their debut album, Facelift, that previous summer (August 1990). Pearl Jam had formed mere months before, in late 1990, their debut album Ten would hit shelves in August of 1991. Soundgarden’s opus Badmotorfinger would be released in October of 1991, and Nirvana was in LA recording Nevermind while filming took place. Within one year, these bands would become household names and flip the music world on its head.

However, in early 1991, as filming progressed, the earth-shattering success of these bands still seemed unlikely despite the groundswell of interest. It took Nirvana’s Nevermind and the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” single in September 1991 to crack the lid and shoot the whole scene into the stratosphere.

Crowe assembled the cast for Singles. But rather than feature the songs wafting through various scenes in the background during some dialogue, he featured the bands themselves throughout the movie. Alice In Chains and Soundgarden played live, and due to the awkward acting skills of various band members, the film has many hilarious cameos. Singles felt like a love letter to the Seattle music scene just before it exploded worldwide.

The soundtrack captured the zeitgeist of the time, quite unlike anything that came before it. It’s packed to the brim with incredible songs and performances. On display is the sheer diversity of this close-knit community of musicians. It looks back at the forefathers who influenced its development, and it stretches beyond the borders of the Pacific Northwest to include like-minded artists from other zip codes.

The album opens with “Would?” by Alice In Chains. The song was a first glimpse of new Alice In Chains material from their forthcoming album Dirt, and it didn’t disappoint. Mike Starr’s simple yet memorable bass riff opens proceedings, followed by Sean Kinney’s rolling, tribal drums and Jerry Cantrell’s atmospheric guitar. Jerry takes the lead vocal on the verse before Layne takes command of the chorus. “Would?” was written as a tribute to Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood, who passed away in March 1990.

Pearl Jam’s “Breath” follows, the first of two songs from them to feature on the soundtrack. Rarely has a band found its “sound” with the rapid ease of Pearl Jam. Almost immediately after Eddie Vedder arrived in Seattle from San Diego in 1990, the band pumped out a succession of breathtaking, classic songs, and “Breath” is no exception. Later, the band offered up “State Of Love And Trust,” both songs are a galvanising statement of intent from a band in its infancy but in complete control of its destiny.

Chris Cornell’s “Seasons” is a highwater mark. It’s easy to run out of superlatives to describe the sheer beauty of this song. Infused with a cinematic scale that belies its acoustic instrumentation, “Seasons” continues a streak of more intimate, earthy songs Cornell produced around this time, outside the Soundgarden fold. Similar to the Temple Of The Dog material released in April 1991, it’s one of Cornell’s finest moments and is more convincing evidence that he was one of his generation’s greatest musicians and songwriters.

The addition of Paul Westerberg makes a lot of sense. The Replacements were trailblazers. Rising from the fertile Minneapolis punk scene, these snot-nosed savants left a trail of destruction and a glut of stunning albums and songs in their wake. Highly regarded and massively influential, The Mats embodied the spirit of savage, catchy Rock ‘N Roll and Punk.

Frontman Paul Westerberg’s two songs were the world’s first glimpse at solo material after The Mats disbandment. Largely acoustic, Dyslexic Heart is an infectious pop masterpiece with clever wordplay. “Waiting For Somebody” is equally catchy, vibrant and melodically sophisticated.

The Lovemongers tackle Led Zeppelin’s “Battle Of Evermore” with astonishing results. Ann and Nancy Wilson’s powerhouse vocal performance stands shoulder to shoulder with Robert Plants’. Staying true to the original’s sound and arrangement, they pull off that difficult feat of adding to the song’s legacy with a pitch-perfect, fiery performance of real emotional depth and deep understanding and respect for the source material.

Mother Love Bone’s “Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns” follows. A song of two halves, its unhurried piano intro (Chloe Dancer) accompanies the epic rock masterpiece (Crown Of Thorns). The song’s grandiose scale is matched only by its awe-inspiring ambition. Its blissfully melancholic trancelike build is soaringly uplifting and could easily be regarded as “Stairway To Heaven” for the Gen-X alumni. It’s a fitting epitaph to the late great Andrew Wood.

Soundgarden’s “Birth Ritual” is a juggernaut. Kim Thayil’s behemoth riffs are propelled by Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd’s savage rhythm section. Chris Cornell’s banshee wail shoots spectre-like across the crushing din; it’s the stuff legends are made of. Mudhoney’s “Overblown” is a trashy romp, filled with edge-of-your-seat abandon and lashings of attitude. It’s everything we love about the band condensed into three glorious minutes.

Jimi Hendrix’s “May This Be Love” is a tip of the hat to one of Seattle’s most famous sons. It is a gorgeous track from 1967’s Are You Experienced album; the song’s inclusion is fitting and doesn’t feel out of place. Screaming Trees “Nearly Lost You” is a thunderous track filled with ecstatic energy, immense hooks and Mark Lanegan’s gritty baritone. The song’s runtime perfectly captures the organic beauty of the Screaming Trees sound. Despite the band being one of the forefathers of the Pacific Northwest scene that rose in the 1980s, the inclusion of “Nearly Lost You” on Singles was the first introduction to the band for many.

Smashing Pumpkin’s “Drown” closes out the album in immaculate fashion. It’s a dreamy, blissed-out trip through a gorgeous soundscape that builds beautifully toward a crescendo of swirling feedback. There’s a stunning emotional arc to the song; Billy Corgan sings, “No matter where you are / I can still hear you when you dream,” in a serene vocal cadence before insisting, “Is it something someone said? / Was it something someone said?” in a more urgent timbre. The intensity lifts, allowing Corgan’s breathtaking guitar solo to soar. It’s a fitting end to an impeccably curated album of songs.

Singles helped crystallise the idea of the ‘Seattle scene’ in the mainstream public’s mind. It did so, featuring essentially new work from contemporary artists. It was a huge commercial hit and acted as a catalyst for the breakthrough of alternative rock into popular culture. It’s still a thrilling listen. And all these years later, it retains the power to return the listener to a time when all possibilities seemed endless.

Essential…!

SOURCE: The year grunge broke

[sloshed-cinema]

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Though her role is rather brief, appearing in only two scenes, Fiona Shaw absolutely carries The Black Dahlia on her back in terms of making this movie somewhat watchable. By and large this film is a slog, unsure whether it wants to be a noir pastiche, a police procedural, or a torrid romance. Foundering, it manages to find the worst possible confluence between the three options. The end result is an aimless, boring mess that somehow manages to make one of the most sensationalized murders in Los Angeles history a bit of a shrug. But for a few shining moments, we get to bask in the deranged glow of Ramona Linscott. This old money snob is introduced drunkenly dressing down the visiting policeman. It’s an amusing interlude, but little could prepare us for her final appearance. Bedraggled and still with her hair pinned up, Ramona unloads what can only be described as a Joker-tier rant, manipulating her mouth with her fingers like Silly Putty as she screams about the Dahlia murder. More of this please. Shaw knew more than anyone else in the history of cinema EXACTLY what kind of movie she was shooting.

Because oh right, this is a Brian De Palma flick. While he strives for a slick LA Confidential styling to his crime procedural, he achieves something more like the glossy but bizarre cutscene structure of LA Noire. It slips through the tropes, all hard shadows and sultry trumpet riffs. But at intervals, the director seems to slap himself in the face to wake up and remember that he’s Brian De fucking Palma. Sadly, at this juncture in his career, his trademarks veer more in the direction of unintentional hilarity than operatic excess. Sex scenes in the final act are like the cork popping off a champagne bottle, bodies vigorously slamming against one another, paintings dropped off the wall and tablecloths torn away as the camera retreats from the passion. It’s all the better given how muted and chaste the bulk of the movie preceding it proved to be. Bravura camera moves similarly have a contradictory effect. The initial discovery of the body by a woman is just kind of silly, the camera incidentally capturing her panic as it faffs about. It could be some sort of commentary on how a jarring discovery is taking place within a wider, mundane world. But a movie with this many looming face cross-fades, that weird Final Cut Pro dissolve when our hero gets knocked out, and whatever Hilary Swank’s accent is supposed to be doesn’t get to pretend it’s serious and observational.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'fight' or 'alibi'.

Noir jazz trumpet starts to play in the score.

Josh Hartnett looks like he's about to cry.

The movie cuts to a film recording.

Wipe transition between scenes.

BIG DRINK

Someone names a Hollywood figure or film title.

Aaron Eckhart is BIG MAD

Weird cuckolding behavior.

[askbillchiper]

Alone at the edge of a universe humming a tune

For merely dreaming we were snow

A siren sounds like the goddess who

Promises endless apologies of paradise

And only she can make it right

So things are different tonight

We'll go together in flight

It's now and never

A reverie endeavor

Awaits somnambulant directives

To take the helm

Believe me, darling

The stars were made for falling

Like melting obelisks

As tall as another realm

Un ensemble d'enfants

La galaxie s'étend

Jardin de l'imagination

Combler la lacune

Voler face à la lune

Vois comme nous évoluons

It feels like flying

But maybe we're dying

A cosmic confluence of

Pyramids hologrammed

She knows you heard her

Staging music murder

In line before the show began

To be where I am

Children born of one emotion

Our devotion's deepest ocean

No division reasoned we'll be free

To know

We are beyond a bow

And lo, the hues arrange to show

It's perfectly clear

You look quite divine tonight

Here among these vibrant lights

Pure delights surround us as we sail

Signed, yours truly, the whale

Joy mirage's kingdom come

No one left at stake

Now that existence is on the wake

Let's see what we can make

The part is wholly ending

A line in any final song

So long, so far

We will be atoning

At last eternal through the past

Above a blinding star

Bye, hi

Sigh, Hawaii

We never meant to part

Sublime, thy art

One light

Higher than the sun

Invisible to some

Until it's time

:3

-spiral creature🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

...DREAM SWEET IN SEA MAJOR. ONE OF MY FAVORITES.