#dead girls who haunt the narrative lets go !!!

[ghostdrinkssoup]

thinking about how abigail only has one real double in the show. sure she has the other dead girls, but they’re just copies of her. fakes. they weren’t real in the eyes of her father. they’re so hollow we don’t know anything about them other than their likeness to abigail, and abigail foils no one else. except one other girl: mischa. hannibal’s golden ticket. the only girl that really matters. the girl will has to chase the ghost of because he desperately wants to understand hannibal, and he knows this is the only way he can, so he visits his ancestral home and finds chiyoh. because ultimately abigail wasn’t the girl all the other girls were mirroring, at least not from a narrative point of view. to hannibal, her new father, she was just another copy of a girl who died a long time ago and could never really replace

[horrortember]

Calling all lovers of darkfic, grimdarks, creepypastas, and scary stories! I had yet to see a monthly writing event themed around horror, so I made one! The event will occur in September, so you have plenty of time to get ready.

If you feel like participating, tag your fills with #horrortember2024, and I'll reblog as many as I can! Fanfic is strongly encouraged, but original fiction is accepted as well. And, depending on how many people join, I'll post a list of completionists or participants at the end of the month!

A written list of prompts is under the cut:

1. AND THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN WHAT I DESERVE, FOR MY TEETH TO JUST FALL OUT: body horror, parasite, gore

2. BUT THEY SAW SOMETHING THAT’S REAL: pretending to be human, identical, visceral

3. WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF: vampires, zombies, werewolves

4. IT’S ALWAYS BEST WHEN THE LIGHTS ARE OFF: music, silence, echoes

5. BURIED ABOVE THE GROUND: dust, overgrown, forgotten

6. WHAT HAVE I DONE: losing memories, possession, cursed

7. DREAMLESS SLEEP: sick, survivor, injury

8. NOW ONLY DOGS WILL FOLLOW ME: cannibalism, eaten alive, maggots

9. HAVE YOU HEARD THE STORY OF THE RABBIT IN THE MOON: meta, cosmic horror, forbidden knowledge

10. WE DIDN’T GO IN THERE ALONE: hunted, solitary, darkness

11. YOU CAN’T RUN FROM ME FOREVER: obsession, yandere, overpowering emotions

12. I WEEP AND SAY GOODNIGHT, LOVE, AS MY ORGANS PACK IT IN: doomsday, apocalypse, certain death

13. WHAT DO YOU KNOW: nightmare, prophecy, inevitable

14. I CAN MAKE THE WORLD SEEM SLOW: polaroid, motel, record player

15. DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE: doll, reflection, facet

16. NEVER SHALL WE DIE: immortality, decay, cyclical

17. WHAT DID YOU BURY BEFORE THOSE HANDS PULLED ME FROM THE EARTH: oops, self-made monster, playing god

18. SHE’LL SAY SHE LOVES YOU, EVEN THOUGH SHE ONLY WANTS TO STEAL YOUR SOUL: haunting the narrative, inseparable, devotion

19. ARE YOU ALIVE, AM I AWAKE: chills, hallucinations, paranoia

20. IN THE RED, YOU’RE BETTER OFF DEAD: hunger, craving, unconventional needs

21. HOW DO I BREAK YOU BEFORE YOU BREAK ME: unreliable narrator, serial killer, manipulation

22. THERE IS NO END: help isn’t coming, final girl, trauma

23. LIFE CAN BE LIKE A DREAM: gone wrong, descent into madness, distrust

24. HEAR THEM LAUGHING UNDERNEATH: hollow, below the surface, remnants

25. I’LL SAY GOODBYE SOON: timeloop, lesson learned, consequence

26. NO CURE IS COMING NEAR: animals, rabies, primal fears

27. WHY DON’T YOU LET ME BE FREE: hanahaki, soulmates, trope inversion

28. AND THEN HE STARTED LAUGHING UNTIL HE CRACKED HIS JAW: butterflies, roses, sunshine

29. WHERE LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL ALL THE TIME: man-made, perfection, out of place

30. YOU ARE CALLED TO THE TREES: climb, descend, mass migration

[lacyscabinet]

Willow Waly

A/N: okay so I'm not dead (to the people who asked me that in my inbox, I see you) 🙌🏻🤗 but I have no inspiration to write requests, I'm in deep emotional despair and I don't want this blog to slowly die soooooo enjoy this nat x ghost reader fic 🤍 the song I quote in the fic is "Willow Waly" if you don't know the song then you probably haven't seen the hunting of Bly manor (would recommend!!)👀👀👀 written in about 15 minutes while I was bawling my eyes out 🎀

Summary: reader is a ghost that hunts an old mansion in Wiskayok and Nat is dumb enough to break in and face her destiny :) also special thank you to Shauna for being an amazing narrative expedient :))))) (people with cars are cool @pinkmoonzzz)

Special thanks to @jollyreginaldrancher my favorite typo spotter 🤍🤍🤍

WARNINGS: death!, reader is dead, Natalie dies.

Enjoy 🤍🤍

"Isn't it violation of..."

"Shauna" Natalie said with a stone cold gaze, fiddling with the straps of her backpack while sitting in Shauna's passenger seat "That house is empty from like...a decade"

Parking her car at the side of the road, Shauna's head tilted and looked directly at Natalie "Yeah because of that story old people tell kids to scare them away" she chuckled "Scary ghosts"

Natalie's brows furrowed, she didn't know what Shauna was talking about at all "What?" she asked in confusion, causing Shauna to let out a big sigh "Guess I'll have to tell you the whole story then" she spoke with a fake mysterious tone, causing Nat to roll her eyes.

"A family moved there in the 70s, mother, father and daughter, I'm talking about rich ass people that ended up gambling all their money way, and, one night, the daughter was killed, they found out the parents did it, apparently she was dating someone and her parents didn't approve their relationship" she took a deep breath. "The legend says that the girl's ghost is still there attempting to kill everyone who gets inside the house to find herself a new lover" she finished off with a dramatic voice

"Damn" Nat exclaimed "Wiskayok has lore, who would've imagined" she said giggling before going back to her usual cold stare "I'm not scared, and it's a free place for me to stay, my father was a real asshole today" Natalie said as she opened the door and got up from her seat, turning on the torchlight and pointing it in the mansion's direction.

"I told you you could stay at my place" Shauna scoffed.

Natalie just shook her head, it didn't matter how much her friend insisted, she couldn't help but feel like her presence would intrude. So she just plastered a small smile on her lips and a wave of hand before closing the door "Thanks for the ride Shauna"

And now that Shauna was driving away, she was alone.

Walking towards the ruined wooden door, she could hear the porch cracking under her feet, screeching and almost crumbling under her weight.

Once the door was reached, she opened it with ease, multiple years of sneaking into places led her to mastering her bobby pin tecniques.

And the second the door was halfway open, she immediately realized that she was wrong, the house wasn't empty at all, several pieces of furniture and decorations still adorned the inside, covered in dust and cobwebs, carrying signs of the time passing while everything remained still and frozen in time, untouched.

That's when the unsettling feeling kicked in.

Taking a last look outside, she started to think that maybe it wasn't a good idea, but what was left for her outside? a bridge? a street? the trailer?

The allegedly haunted house seemed more welcoming than any of the above.

So she closed the door behind her.

Deciding to explore the remains of the house, she felt like she was transported back in time, the calendar dated back to 1975, and after entering the huge kitchen, she didn't fail to notice the old toaster and other visibly dated furniture.

Until her eyes landed on something. Something she wished she never saw.

"Holy shit" she whispered, looking at the knife holder, noticing one single big kitchen knife missing.

It sent chills down her spine, especially after what Shauna told her, so she backed up and decided to go upstairs and find a place to get some rest, trying to ignore it, it's not real anyways, or at least that's what her mind kept telling her.

Turning around, she noticed a big fancy wooden staircase that headed upstairs, old and dirty blue carpet guiding her way up as she cautiously walked up the stairs, noticing the little intricate details.

And then.

Blood.

Big stains of blood caught her attention as she reached the second floor, her breathing grew heavier as she thought about whatever it could be, some animal hunting a prey and leving traces behind?...in Natalie's mind it made sense. After all it was just a legend. Right?

But as her eyes shifted she started noticing that the blood trailed from the top of the stairs to a closed rusty door.

She was already inside the house, curiosity taking over, the urge to explore was too much, she didn't believe in ghosts anyways, but the thought of exploring a crime scene was thrilling enough to convince her to go further.

So she took a couple of steps foreward and opened the door. Instantly regretting it, eyes meeting an unmade and messy bed on the wall right opposite to her, her eyes immediately landing on the sheets, they were almost completely covered in blood.

Natalie gasped in horror, torch falling on the ground and her trembling hands reaching up to cover her mouth, wide eyes darting away from to obscene sight and a grimaced expression written all over her face.

And then she heard it, a soft mumble, a hum, a weak broken whisper echoing both in the room and in her terrified mind, it took her a while to realize that it came from upstairs.

The attic

She didn't understand why, almost as her feet started moving on their own, she found herself climbing up the tiny ladder at the end of the corridor, pushing open the small door on the ceiling and finally reaching the attic.

Now she could hear it vividly, someone was singing, but even there, she couldn't see who it was, some old boxes blocking her view.

" We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow, but now alone I lie and weep beside the tree..."

The stranger's voice trembling and on the verge of tears, almost sobbing.

"Singing oh willow waly by the tree that weeps with me, singing oh willow waly till my lover return to me..."

Nat's hands trembled, curiosity replaced by fear and fear replaced by terror in a matter of seconds.

"We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow, a broken heart I have, oh willow I die, oh willow I die"

The stranger kept singing. Louder.

Taking a deep breath Natalie quickly got back to the second floor, not even hesitating for a second and immediately sprinting out and running for the door, the creature's chants echoed throughout the whole house, making Nat's head spin as panic filled her whole body, almost making her legs give out as she ran down the stairs.

"Singing oh willow waly by the tree that weeps with me, singing oh willow waly till my lover return to me..."

Finally she could see the door, finally grasping onto some hope, but of course it didn't last long. Because as soon as she tried to open it just like she perviously did to get in, she relized that it wouldn't budge. It was locked.

Curses left her mouth as she kicked and threw fists at the door, her only result a bruise on her knuckles.

Tears of frustration streaming down her face as she started to feel a presence getting closer and closer to her, hunting her down and refusing to let her go.

Then, all of a sudden all the rage, the panic, the desperation and the misery she felt were replaced by a feeling of extreme emptiness and coldness, she felt lighter as if her body was slowly detaching from her soul, even though she swore she didn't take acids that night.

And then she heard it. Closer then before.

"We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow, a broken heart I have, oh willow I die, oh willow I die."

[zeephyre]

CRITICAL ROLE CAMPAIGN 3 EPISODE 85 SPOILERS

IM LITERALLY ABOUT TO LOSE MY MIND YALL

Where do I even ??? start ???

I haven't been posting c3 as the episodes dropped in...a while actually, like right before they went to the feywild. i have many thoughts and many feelings about so many things that have happened since then and I'll summarise them so I can get to THIS episode.

fearne and ashton - love their shard powers, they're literally royalty and terrifying, and i want them to make-out. i can't wait to see them go full primordial again in a real combat situation.

imogen - save her. literally save her. free her, even. i love everything about the call of ruidus when it comes to imogen on a narrative standpoint, but...God I get so worried that we're gonna lose her. I don't mean she's gonna betray the hells, but...ruidus could take her and then i would simply perish.

laudna - before i really get into wtf went down this episode with her and she who must not be named, i gotta say... im worried. very very worried. however, that fireball was objectively the best shit ever.

fcg - i can't even really remember anything stand out abt fcg except what Sam pulled last night so.

chetney - still the heart of the team, still my baby girl, still my favourite. love him to bits.

orym - i think laudna is going to beat his ass one of these days and im... even more concerned about that after this episode. his nana morri powers are cool as fuck tho... does that make him a warlock now? i know he isn't multi-classing but wouldn't that be cool

ANYWAY WE'RE ON THE FUCKING MOON AND WE GOT MOON LORE AND EVERYTHING WAS SHITTY THEN FUN THEN SHITTY THEN FUN AGAIN THEN REALLY FUCKING SAD THEN IT ALL WENT TO SHIT AGAIN.

the moment imogen reached out to ruidus and matt mentioned that she could sense where other ruidusborn were i fucking knew that otohan was high tailing it in their direction, and i thought they instinctively knew that too but they probably got so distracted.

we were travelling for hours and had a huge fight that almost got them captured (not to be confused with the OTHER two fights that almost got them captured) and I was begging and screaming and crying for them to get a long rest safely hidden away AND THEN THEY SPLIT THE PARTY WITH BARELY ANY SPELL SLOTS OR HIT POINTS AFTER BEING DRAINED FROM ANOTHER BATTLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM

(Sidenote, the willmaster really opened up the door to the further increase in moral pondering in a certain number of hellians. i do think using the harness is disgusting and hypocritical, but i don't condemn them for it, it just...makes me wanna vomit thinking abt what ludinus did with it. not to mention the HUNGER parallels between laudna and ludinus...its just not good yall. also??? objectively funny that fcg seemed weirded out by the idea of killing the willmaster, not just with the harness but in general, considering how many people they've killed up to this point)

idk if its just the inherent terror that an evil old hot lady can inspire that makes otohan so much more terrifying to me than ludinus. like, objectively, ludinus is a worse threat and could wipe them out EASILY but jesus otohan is like the damn reaper to me. it's the trauma from the laudna, fearne, orym massacre mixed with the underlying little drop from their uthodurn romp that let us know that resurrection spells are NOT working and idk if that got fixed bc of time passing or distance from the leylines but i really did not want to test that shit out in real time

thank...god that sam riegel is a damn genius player, that banishment of fcg and fearne was the ONLY reason fcg survived. and thank GOD FOR KEYLETH BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT CLOUD SPELL BELLS HELLS WOULD BE VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY DEAD RN.

God, "otohan has us. run." is going to haunt me just as much, if not more than the almost tpk. it just...shot me straight back to bassuras and the plan to run that just...immediately fell apart.

god fcg truly could have died there. and fearne would be captured. i know the hells would be too stupid and too brave and too loyal to leave fearne with otohan in their cloud form but can you imagine a world where fcg was gone, fearne was captured and the hells had to switch from recon to rescue... itd be stressful but pretty fun.

thankfully it didn't come to that and some good came from the shit.

ruidus is so beautiful. i was worried they'd end being trapped under ruidus while they explored (not that I wasn't on board with the detours, I wish this wasn't a time sensitive mission), but matt's imagery of the fossilized elven structure and garden made me sad but also happy that we got to see it.

i cannot believe that the stupid plan to shove fearne up a water hole happened AGAIN and it ended up with us FINDING A BACK HOLE TO RUIDUS GOD I LOVE THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS WHEN IS THE NEXT EPISODE MATT YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME. WHERE EVEN ARE THEY??? IS IT EVEN EXANDRIA???? WHAT DO WE DO IF IT IS EXANDRIA??? WHERE DID THIS HOLE EVEN COME FROM???? DOES IT CLOSE AND REOPEN??? IS IT STAGNANT?????? IS IT FUCKING STABLE?!?!?!?!?!

God...we could go back to keyleth and the others and actually invade ruidus without encountering the ruby vanguard. (that's if they're alright because otohan did go out onto the battlefield and we don't know what fhe fuck she did when the illusion fell through)

GOD. IS IT THURSDAY YET??? WE HAVENT EVEN FOUND THE RESISTANCE????

[winter-kh-sideblog]

The thing with Kairi is, for all of the “she has no autonomy and is barely a character” jokes, she is so so interesting if you are willing to put a little bit of effort into understanding her. And this is kingdom hearts, the fandom of digging through offhand comments from games across every console imaginable to put together snippets of backstories, so like, I KNOW there’s an audience of people willing to put in effort? So here is my little essay on why Kairi has so much potential

I think a lot of people get lost because they assume that Kairi is Sora’s girlfriend? And they say “oh well the narrative doesn’t show that, the narrative is giving us more reasons they should move on than that they should stay togehter” and it’s like!!! You’re correct!!!! The narrative IS saying that!!! This is because Kairi is not, and never was Sora’s girlfriend!!!

Most people (correctly, sadly) get the “thrown to the side, no autonomy, barely a character” vibes from Kairi. But then they just go “oh she’s a one-dimentional stock Woman ™ character” and don’t think farther

i think that, a LOT of Kairi’s canon treatment makes more sense when you realize she’s not the “hot popular girl who’s a prize to be won” trope that people think she is. She’s the dead wife.

This sounds wild at first, because she 

Is a teenager

Has never been in a relationship, let alone married

Is ALIVE

So it’s like. What the heck. How could she be the dead wife. But she IS. and i think it’s impossible to unsee once you realize it.

She’s been dead from the beginning. She’s always haunting the narrative. She’s barely present and doesn’t get to make decisions, but the things that happen to her catalyze the entire plot of almost every game?

The thing is, her stock cliche ending is not, and never was “she ends up with Sora bc she’s the Prize and the symbol of Winning and they live heteronormatively ever after.” Her ending was always. She is perfect and innocent and pure. She dies. Everyone is sad and angry for a bit. They fight for justice. Then they move on. The happy ending is catalyzed by her and she gets credit, but she doesn’t do anything, she doesn’t have autonomy, and she doesn’t get to stick around for the ending. 

And this is a REPEATING motif in her life. When she was FOUR years old she was sent ahead to stop the apocalypse. She is basically dead to her homeworld. They weren’t getting her back. She lost her memories and her family and her life.

In kingdom hearts one, she dies in the apocolypse and becomes motivation and a prop for Sora and Riku. She doesn’t get to fight, she doesn’t get blood on her hands, she isn’t faced with messy decisions.

In kingdom hearts 2, she’s again kidnapped to start the plot. She doesnt get to be with sora or riku or even know what’s happening for most of the game.

And then of course in kingdom hearts 3, she’s literally killed, and it’s like. It’s not even a fight. She’s literally just slaughtered for no reason other than Sora fight motivation.

She’s the symbol of home and family to Sora. It’s not just a matter of romance, there’s not even romance between them? Not really? It’s about childhood and closeness and the promise of forever.

And the thing is. She clearly doesn’t want to be the dead wife character. I don’t think anyone would??? But it is ALL she’s good at. And that’s the problem. She’s a princess of heart, which is defined by absence. She doesn’t have darkness. She doesn’t have evil or badness or anger or malice or anything. And it’s just so?????? She’s narratively destined to die young before she has the chance to get older and get involved in anything messy or morally dubious. Her “job” is to be perfect and good enough that people miss her when she’s gone.

And then???? They don’t????? That’s the whole thing with melody of memory. They let her stay in a coma for an ENTIRE YEAR. Her friends are upset when she dies, but Sora’s the only one actually fighting to bring her back. No one else makes an effort to be with her???? It doesn’t seem like Riku makes any effort to contact her at all in the time between kh1 and kh2 when Sora’s in a coma for an entire year???? They fight and kill to wake Sora up but not Kairi anymore?????

They can't even make a kairi GAME without making her basically dead because that's her Role.

And it’s like????? What do you do when you’re the dead wife. When everyone theoretically loves you but only for what you’re not. When they love you because you’re fragile and pure and have never done anything wrong. When you’re not allowed the chance to live enough to become anything complicated, and people act like that’s for the best?

What do you do when you’ve been dead since the beginning, when everyone has already mourned you??? When they've all reached the acceptance phase and you're not sure if they want you back? They've spent too long learning to be Without you to remember how to be With you and now you're an inconvenience and a reminder of closed wounds?

What do you do when you’re alive but you never learned How to be alive, because you weren’t Supposed To survive????? What do you do when no one knows what to do with you??????

I think a lot of people who want Kairi to break free from the narrative are the ones who keep saying things like “oh she needs to move on from Sora and get better friends” but Sora is one of the only people who gets it?????? He’s been one of the only people that we see onscreen???? making any kind of attempt????? To love her like she’s alive?????? Its not much but its literally ALL shes given?????? And i dont fault her for holding onto that?????? And cherishing it????

And I do think it can be very cool to see her move on???? But i dont think people understand that,,,, if Sora and Kairi were to end up together, it wouldn’t be playing into the cliche, expected ending. Kairi LIVING is already breaking free of the tropes. Kairi being allowed to be messy and hurt and heartbroken,,,, being allowed to want things for herself,,,, being able to ask for help IN THE MOMENT instead of having people guess what she would have wanted after she’s gone,,,, being loved as a person rather than as an idea,,,,, Thats breaking free of the narrative tropes in such a profound way. And i don’t even think it matters much whether it’s romantic or as bffs or as teammates???? It’s just about being chersished as a human person and given a support system.

So yes, i do want to see Kairi make new friends and get some self confidence and move past her layers and layers of survivors guilt and make an identity for herself that doesn’t revolve around a man???? But also????? I think that its 2023 and people should stop pretending that sokai is inherently the boring or cliche expected ending when they’re LITERALLY doomed by the narrative already. Like do you guys actually not realize how subversive it would be if they were to end up together. The romance of staying alive for each other and breaking the cycle out of pure love and spite. The rebellious act of LIVING and taking up space while you're alive, of being a person instead of a concept to be idealized.

You can ship what you want and whatever sparks joy but PLEASE for the love of everything do not call sokai the boring ending. Please stop saying that letting kairi continue to exist and be alive will make the games suck or be cliche. Please.  Just like put a little bit of effort into themes and narratives i beg of you. It is so much more fun.

[goetiiaprince]

Just another lyric prompt!

Send one of the lyrics below to say to my muse and see how they react! Feel free to change pronouns or add/remove names as necessary to better fit your narrative and muse(s).

"I couldn't utter my love when it counted."

"So love me now or let me go."

"You could be the one to make me feel something."

"I am the one that's holding grudges."

"Go one and say what you want."

"I've begged you to come back in, but I can't do this again."

"I fell in love with a girl I met in Hell."

"I ain't Hades, but I'm the King."

"Seen any miracles lately?"

"Maybe you should reflect on your own piety."

"I'll be there when the sky falls down."

"Let me go."

"I bet that if we never met that you'd still haunt my soul."

"Oh, whatever you do, don't come back for me."

"Love is not enough."

"When you're here, it breaks my heart."

"Here's my confession, I've got a death wish."

"You're never changing."

"I know you're nothing but a parasite."

"Look who's crawling back again."

"I'm uncontrollable, emotional, chaotically proportional."

"I'll make you want me."

"Baby, tonight I take you dead or alive."

"If you have the answer, let me know."

"There's nowhere to run when all is coming undone."

"I don't wanna see you anymore."

"So, you wanna start a war?"

"So, you wanna be immortal?"

"Why don't you hurt me a little bit more?"

"I can see the end in sight."

"Don't leave me behind."

"I don't want the world to turn without you."

"I'm in love with the way you hate me."

"Oh, this feels like the end."

"This is exhausting, leave me for dead."

"I swear I only fell for you on accident."

"Tell me it gets easier."

"I'm stuck with you."

"I'd leave you for someone else."

"Loosen your grip before I choke."

"This is a wild game of survival."

"And there's nothing that I can do except bury my love for you."

"I long to hear your voice."

"You never met someone like me."

"My heart has teeth."

[the-entity-down-the-street]

"Splice" is a better Frankenstein adaptation than "Poor Things" because:

SPOILERS FOR BOTH FILMS

A) the mad scientists face consequences for their unethical genetic fuckery instead of dying peacefully. Elsa is left traumatized, with her loved ones dead as a result of this experiment. Sure, she's getting a lot of money, but that's not going to undo the mental scars that will no doubt haunt her to the grave.

B) The female monster is actually fucking monstrous. Dren does have some typically attractive traits like symmetrical features, smooth skin, etc, but still. If you're going to make an abomination against science, MAKE THE ABOMINATION. Don't give me some pretty girl in a frilly dress and call that a monster, okay? Cowards.

C) They don't frame the dubious consent/noncon as liberating. Elsa is disgusted with Clive for sleeping with Dren, and when Dren assaults Elsa in her male form, it's a traumatic experience. Bella's assaults (because that's what they are. She has the mind of a literal toddler. I don't care if she is enthusastic about it if she doesn't have the cognitive capacity to understand what's happening.) are framed as sexual liberation and it makes me want to hurl a chair at somebody. Calling sex "furious jumping" because she's not mature enough to fully understand sex. The fact that her fiancé wants to marry her when she's a fucking toddler. Gross. Disgusting. I hate it.

D) Splice is a true gender swap of the Frankenstein narrative, because both the scientist and the creature are female. Clive helps, but let's be real, Elsa is pulling the strings and convincing him to go along with it. Splice doesn't claim to be a feminist retelling like Poor Things does, but it's more narratively driven by women who are allowed moral complexity and agency. There's no bullshit girlboss moment either (the goat brain swap).

E) This one is just a personal gripe, but the whole "bringing back a dead woman with the brain of an infant she was forced to carry" thing? And somehow, this is a feminist retelling? Hate. Get it away from me. Not saying Dren was created ethically (Clive didn't even have fully informed consent because he didn't know it was Elsa's DNA), but goddamn, at least the mother of the child had agency in the child's creation. There is absolutely nothing feminist about using an unwilling woman's body as a vessel for the baby she didn't want. What in the pro-life bullshit is this? Ew. Ew. Ew.

Rant over. Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.

[tuxedokit]

Tell me everything about Della Duck 👀

ILL TRY MY BEST BUT I WILL MOST CERTAINLY NOT SUCCEED!!!!! SHE IS SO COMPLEX AND VAST AND I wanna kiss her on he mouth I MEAN WHAT WHO SAID THAT

ok SO!!!! heres the tuxsys / luna infodumps about della duck post!!! this is my interpretation, uhhh yeah lets go

shes donald ducks twin sister, and mother of huey, dewey and louie duck. she is described as persustent, headstrong, bold... she would never let people tell her she couldnt do ghings just cause shes a girl. shes a pilot as well

shes not present in her sons lives, at least up until their canon ages of roughly 10 years old. in the older canons, it is simply left there, however eventually in one comic it was expanded upon and revealed that she is on the moon! i believe in this continuity she has no idea 10 years have passed, and is shown in one to only believe herself to have been away for 15 minutes. truly tragic, considering no one has the heart to tell her.

in ducktales 2017, thats where my expertise shines cause my autism show, she haunts the narrative for the entire 1st season, and is presumed to be dead. at the end of the season, it is revealed that her disappearance caused a major rift in scrooge and donalds relationship, with them going no contact from before the boys hatch up until the shows pilot. also, like before, shes on the moon. idk why im talking so formally.

the second season we finally get to meet della and she fucking rules. she reminds me of my mom personality wise, which computes to me as that is a woman who never got an adhd or autism diagnosis and very likely needed one. shes silly, shes brave, shes impulsive, shes reckless. she learned her uncle was making her a surprise rocket ship and stole it for a joyride before it was done. roughly a week before her kids hatched. i have thoughts about that, but thats for later or maybe another ask.

ANYWAY. evidently, stealing an unfinished rocket ship is a Bad Idea; it gets swept up in a cosmis storm and she crashes on the moon. her leg is pinned under some debris of her ship, and she is forced to amputate it. keep in mind she is Completely Alone. then she spends the next ten years, still alone, slowly trying to find a way home to her kids. she has a picture of her, scrooge, donald and the eggs taped up the the wall and she drew what she thinks her kids might look like on the back of it. she went from building SOS signs to trying to rebuild the ship herself (teaching herself ROCKET SCIENCE in the process)

shes in rhe final stretch and then she meets moon aliens who have been here the whole time and also have a thriving society and all the materials she would need to rebuild her ship. because of course theyve been right there the whole time. sure. ten years of solitude and theres been guys here the whole time. at least one of them is a hot butch like twice her height?

the moonlanders help her rebuild her ship and she finally gets to go home and see her family. donald is sent away until the finale because they dont want me to be happy /j fr tho the twins reunion was underwhelming but its wtv i can cope

the reunion of della and scrooge is magnificent though!! along with her meeting her kids <333 they spend a few scattered episodes briefly exploring how she missed so much of their lives and ultimately doesnt know how to be a mom, but theyre a family and theyll work to figure it out. they make like... 2 brief nods to how she spent a decade alone on the moon, but judging by the appearances of younger della in flashback stories, it seems as if shes nearly completely unaffected (i call bullshit but wtv. ill write it myself)

uhhh yeah! theres a LOT of details i didnt touch on this is just a brief synopsis

ALSO!!!! i think shes an aromantic lesbian AND shes my wife bc wheeeee

[juniperhillpatient]

thinking about how yellowjackets portrays sex & sexual situations gender & the… not unique but certainly rare way this show focuses on men versus women & I know we’re all tired of phrases like “male gaze” & “female gaze” but I think the show almost like… purposefully repurposes the male gaze from the perspective of its female characters.

jackie’s introduction pretty much is a sexual situation but it’s not a fun hot scene. it’s uncomfortable & awkward because it’s very clear jackie isn’t being pleasured. jeff just kind of looks like a tool. then later we get the sex scene between jeff & shauna & it’s different because both characters are into it but also it’s all about shauna, & the focus is mainly on her making jeff tell her that he loves her. it sort of reminds me of the scene in buffy the vampire slayer when buffy is feeling down because she just saw her most annoying ex living his best life so she demands spike tell her he loves her. it’s not a healthy situation. it’s… concerning & toxic. and even a bit manipulative & predatory to use someone that way.

and the other thing we know due to the focused shots of shauna looking at jackie is that this is not about jeff at all. he’s just the guy who happened to be between these two girls. when I first watched the show I disliked him but more & more I’m realizing… this is all about shauna & jackie. this entire relationship between shauna & jeff that turns into a marriage never has much to do with jeff himself at all. jeff is the epitome of literally just Some Guy.

anyway. I’m getting off track. I wanted to discuss jackie’s introduction versus her death. jackie being left to die because she had sex, on the surface seems like misogynistic writing. typical “female character is punished for sex” (not to harp on buffy again but..) trope. especially because the other girls are angry when they see the blood stain from her lost virginity.

but… the other girls aren’t angry at jackie because of sex. it’s because she’s “taken what didn’t belong to her.” & it’s interesting how none of the other girls care about or are invested in natalie & travis’ romance until this point. because it’s not about that. they objectify travis to the point of seeing him as literal food.

the framing of the jackie/travis sex scene is fascinating, the way it’s shot back & forth with the girls in the forest going feral. and the way in the end, travis is disoriented & confused & immediately following this the other girls begin sexual assaulting him & hunting him like an animal. like everything about travis & his arc, it’s such a subversion of the way female characters are so often treated in media.

and that brings me to travis & natalie & how they subvert gender roles. travis starts off seeming a bit sexist but the more we learn the more it’s clear he’s just an inexperienced teenager. he’s a virgin scared for his first time & he’s falling for the experienced bad girl who’s kinda scary. we literally always see that set up but with the shy inexperienced girl falling for the bad boy. even the way travis haunts the narrative & serves as part of natalie’s pain arc is reminiscent of the dead girlfriend trope. he is to natalie as jess from supernatural is to sam winchester. he’s fridged but the boy version. & that’s why he’s a babygirl to me <3

and like… we could talk all day about the pine cone in travis’ mouth & the sexual assault blood orgy scenes but let’s move on to the most functional couple of the entire show with some of the only sex scenes that actually seem like a fun sexy time where it’s just two people in love having sex

taissa & van! their conflict develops throughout the season as van is almost eaten by wolves because taissa is busy being possessed by the wood spirit & taissa’s frustration with van’s belief in something supernatural grows but… beyond that? they’re actually just super into each other. they are constantly talking about how gorgeous the other is, being all over each other, skinny dipping & doing more typically fun & romantic activities than all the other characters. & it’s 2 women

from shauna having sex with adam who ends up dead to whatever the fuck misty has going on with ben (not to mention adult! misty’s introductory scene where she manipulates a man into coming home with her by faking insecurities - or perhaps playing them up & using them, it’s unclear) it’s just totally fascinating to me the way this show subverts expectations with gender & sex

[liiistennnn]

this is a post about black sails where I talk a lot about buffy the vampire slayer

my friend just watched hbo girls (four of us are moving to brooklyn and he's doing cultural research dont cancel me) and was saying how the show felt like it should have ended with the penultimate episode where they're all fighting in the bathroom of shosh's engagement party, but then there's another episode, and you're like, what! it was such a tidy narrative arc closing loop and now there's more? and its weird and feels kind of separate? the whole pregnancy arc felt out of phase or whatever. and that's because the girls are moving out of their own genre!!! these stunted immature women are finally trying to grow up. on the show about how they refuse to grow up. so it starts to feel off, disjointed, and bad writing might be part of that, but I think it really works. tidy ending followed by disconcerting life

(the monastery I was at had all these discussion group guidelines and one of them is to expect and accept a lack of closure)

its the same as what happens with buffy the vampire slayer after season 5. and how people love to hate on season 7. and how I saw the tv glow takes place in the afterlife limbo between season 5 and season 6 of buffy. even supernatural was supposed to end after 5 seasons. how if black sails ended at season 3 it could have been an uplifting story of coming together in solidarity for a cause bigger than yourself. with the possibility of overthrowing empire just over the horizon! vane's martyrdom and that incredible battle and the creation of long john silver. but season 4 comes and everyone is repeating choices from season 1 but different people are making them and the story was always going to end like this and hope was there and it didn't change anything but it was there and when they get to skeleton island you finally realize the genre has changed. treasure island prequel. miranda's death haunting season 3 vs a moment of true connection friendship trust between flint and silver haunting season 4. when everything is shit what haunts you is when everything wasn't. and poisoning the past searching for the seeds of everything becoming shit. equal footing slipping to unequal. withholding backstory because we are in his backstory because we are in a prequel.

(billy died at the end of season 1 and came back without his naïveté. silver died at the beginning of season 4 and came back a pirate king. how does death work on black sails?)

season 6 of buffy is so incredible and the came back wrong motif is so captivating because resurrection is just an opportunity to let the facade drop. she doesn't have to pretend anymore or she finally can't pretend anymore. to be ok. I saw the tv glow said sometimes to save your life you have to bury yourself alive and die and then claw your way out of that grave. death is not about rest its about finding a way to live. spike is the only one who knows what its like to come back and she fucks him because he loves her and because she thinks there's something wrong with her. but she's always felt that way its not actually about the rebirth. its about joyce dying from something buffy can't fight which is about growing up which is about having to accept that you have to live in the world. you can't kill yourself (they'll just bring you back) and nobody else is going to pay your bills. and season 7 is so weird and they are renegotiating so much worldbuilding and vibechanging and taking them right back to the start. buffy works at the high school and becomes joyce-giles to all those slayers and then at the end, all three of their partners dead, buffy and willow and xander are back at high school, single and fifteen. they won they finally grew up and now they get to be young again, in the last shot they're the kids with giles looking over them. and this time faith and dawn are there, buffy's noun name sisters (faith is sister and faith is angel and faith is spike). but you can't go home again (the odyssey) and she looks changed. old. season 5 felt like an ending because she died. finally allowed to rest. season 7 feels like real life. even though they beat the big bad of the season you know the wheel will keep spinning forever and there will always be a new monster of the week. idk,,, what happens after the story is over if you're still alive?

(I had so much trouble watching season 4 of buffy the first time around I was like what do you mean they're not in high school?)

is flint's death truer because he was unmade? is rackham right and it doesn't matter if he was shot or sent to the farm because what matters is that he is out of frame? finally free of the story, against his will. can't believe silver names his parrot after him though. not out of frame completely

(but even though it's silver's prequel - it's literally the story of his becoming - he unmakes himself at the end of black sails too. not just flint. they created the pirate king the legend they named him long john and he was a king of war. when he ended the war he unmade himself too)

[fortunesfavours]

time travel in ten - sequential narrative collage piece done for my class, Artifact.

ramblings below the cut for those interested in the process/life update for friends who have noticed i've been gone

right lmao. i had two weeks to do this project and had a completely different idea that i just could not get myself to be excited about. emailed my prof in desperation, but it being like 10 pm meant that she was not about to respond. within 30 minutes, as it goes, i got struck with divine inspiration by whatever force of nature governs procrastination-induced genius, and i promptly spent the next 12 waking hours non-stop working on this.

my class, artifact, is a requirement for the foundation year at the college i attend. it centers around time-based media, ranging from the sequential illustration here to video later in the semester, and a bunch of other projects designed to get us thinking in 4d. artifact is the theme of the class - my peers are doing the same projects under a variety of different themes (tragically, haunting filled up too quickly and i missed out on enrollment in that one).

our first project was designing an artifact and doing a write-up of the story behind it. the girl to my left made beaded spiders members of a fictional cult carried. the guy across from me made an amulet of a long-dead god. you get the vibes. mine, which I still need to take professional photos of, is a pocketwatch that lets you time travel. cause, yknow. i'm me. it was gonna be about time travel.

i had originally intended to do a bunch of drawings of the watch's owner, building out her backstory and the world she lives in, and explaining why the watch exists,,,, then i couldn't bring myself to pick up the stylus. I just can't seem to find the energy for my usual digital art (sorry friends i miss yall i'm still here i swear).

here's the bit about my life so feel free to stop reading if you just care about the art 👍

I haven't drawn fanart or my ocs in months now, since last semester, and I miss it a whole bunch but right now that creative energy just. is not happening. i don't plan on abandoning it forever by any means, but p much everything i have is going towards school right now. sad as that is, i'm having so much fun, and i'm so proud of the technical improvements i've made. I've got so many things i want to create, mostly for my ocs. i still love crit role, but i've fallen of campaign three. i don't have the time, and the story hasn't been engaging me for a bit.

i've been really into dr who lately, and am eagerly waiting for the spare time to sit and watch all of candela obscura. i'm in a new dnd game. i've got friends! real life friends! irl friends who called me the wizard friend within a few hours of knowing me before i even opened my mouth about dnd lmao. i've discovered a new love of collage, and i've just declared my major in something unique to my school, a program called Studio for Interrelated Media. i'll be learning about illustration still through the extra electives i'll have room for, but i also get to explore printmaking in more depth, as well as event planning, installation, curation, and theatre work as well.

i miss being on here a whole bunch and want to be more active when i get more time. don't plan on abandoning this blog by any means. boston has been kind to me, and though i have had some Real Low Points, i've also been living the life i've hoped for since i was a kid. i'm good, really really good.

to my friends, ily, i miss you, and i hope you're well. can't wait to catch up on all yalls art and fic. sending all my love. <3

[dalekofchaos]

Crying Child should have been Golden Freddy/The One You Should not have killed, not Cassidy and sure as fuck not Andrew

I love Cassidy and honestly fuck Andrew's existence, but to me it would've been more impactful if Crying Child was the one to be TOYSNHK.

Here's why it works

William did not kill CC, but was traumatized by William's experiments/animatronics and killed by his animatronic did. It was by William's design. He may not have been killed by William directly, but it was still his machines and everything that transpired after his death is because of William

CC was killed by Fredbear aka Golden Freddy

Golden Freddy tried to kill Michael, the one who killed him

"These are my friends" William killed his friends. It's just a headcanon/theory, but many people speculate that the MCI and Charlie were CC's friends and William being the murderer would just fuel the agony and rage of his son

You look me in the dead eyes and tell me that TOYSNHK from UCN does not look like CC

The claim that William did all this for CC and Elizabeth is the excuse he uses and CC is consumed by vengeance for his friends. He will not let his father use his name for all the kids his father murdered. He will not let him go. He will make him suffer, like they've suffered. Again, again and again.

Unless you read the books or the Ultimate Guide, no one would know who Cassidy was and Andrew was not in the cards because Fazbear Frights was not made by UCN.

The way Cassidy is described is a girl with black hair and pigtails. What we got in UCN looks nothing like Cassidy is descrbed.

Not only would that be very poetic as Evan was the first dead child that started everything and now he's the last child who's still holding on to torturing his own father, but it also makes the story so much more personal. That Evan who was forced to live in this hell over and over again because as his father said he'd put him back together is now forcing his father to endure what Evan and so many others had to endure as well, either way the spirit within Fredbear is still holding on andforcing William to endure their own torment rather than passing on to the other side and if you manage to complete UCN on 50/20 mode, you get a final scene of Golden Freddy just sitting there twitching as the camera fades out and this is a representation that Golden Freddy is going to continue to fight and torture William forever. But what if Evan finally let go? What if Michael became Old Man Consequence and comforted his brother to let the demon to his demons and let go, finally the brothers find peace and leave their father to suffer in the lake forever.

I love Golden Duo as much as the next person, but that is clearly not the direction and Scott has not given any hints that this was made canon. So if we could only have one vengeful spirit, I would've preferred it to be CC.

This honestly would've been the perfect way to end the story of the Crying Child. He possesses Golden Freddy, he haunts Michael, he tortures William and with his brother bringing him peace, he lets go and has his Happiest Day. But for whatever reason, Scott dropped Crying Child from the narrative entirely and to me that was the worst mistake he made in the franchise.

[writing-for-life]

Let's go choose violence:

3, 8, 9, 25 for The Sandman :3c

Rubs hands gleefully…

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr 

Of course not screenshotting as everyone’s entitled to their opinion, so this is just a thing *I* find hard to understand/get my head around:

“Neil Gaiman ran out of ideas, and that’s why he killed off Morpheus.”

I mean, you could say he wanted to conclude his arc, and with that I agree. And thank fuck he did, because if Murphy were still alive, we would need to suffer the horrible takes that DC has foisted upon us ever since. But it is so completely incomprehensible to me when I read that there was no sign that Morpheus would off himself before World’s End or TKO. That it came out of nowhere, that it made the whole thing completely depressing and insufferable and sends a "bad" message. 

It all was right there, from the start. You can’t read "The Sound of her Wings" and not see that he’s absolutely haunted by the narrative, and how much comfort he finds in her. And you don’t need to read the whole thing and then just see it in hindsight (it's something I hear/read quite often). It’s clear as day if you are willing to go down the line of thinking that the Endless aren’t people but concepts. I personally think that’s where people can trip up. And I even get it--of course we want to humanise them because we are human. But they are not. They are mirrors and foils that are supposed to make us think about our own humanity (and we recognise it in them, but that still doesn’t make them human--they just show us human traits and what this mortal coil is about. Carry it and abandon it in equal measures).

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about 

Everyone apart from me of course 😂

"Hob Gadling is any shape or form the personification of hope, and his sole purpose is to (squee! UwU) save Murphy from his bleak existence".

No he ain’t. Hope is Hope, and she is a little girl (blows a raspberry right in your face). If Hob''s anything, he is humanity in a nutshell: ugly, self-serving, opportunist, but also feeling, caring and redeemable. But especially the first part is harder to woobify.

Did I also mention I have this take that making Dream's relationship to Hob all about romance and sex forgets about the importance of friendship, and why it's actually so important for the plot? Plus, that we have a tendency to erase male friendship and hence lean into toxic masculinity if we make every glance and every touch and every close emotional bond about: "Oh, they want to fuck?", and that's decidedly *not* progressive? Yeah, about that... (ship them, it's fine, no problem whatsoever, just be aware it's not the *only* take, and I will stick my neck out now and say: it won't be canon).

9. worst part of canon

That’s a tricky one because I can make sense of pretty much everything to be fair, but if I had to choose, it’s that Morpheus’ failed relationship to Nada created ripples that basically doomed every black woman connected to his arc (not *all* black women, I think that’s actually a misinterpretation, as is that Morpheus is racist, which he conceptually can't be). And as soon as he’s dead, we get token Gwen who isn’t doomed by the narrative anymore. And said Gwen *really* is a token black woman with no true agency of her own—her entire purpose is to serve the redemption of the slave trader. And that Neil actually confirmed this was *intentional* in The Sandman Companion. I get why he made that narrative choice, but to me, it still looks bad. I have hopes though he moved on from that take and we don’t get to see it in the show (the signs are there, so fingers crossed).

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Ties in with 3: That The Sandman should have a different, “more hopeful” ending. 

But quite a few others: 

You *should* write fanfics about XYZ because there’s not enough of it. 

You *should* elevate supporting characters to main characters because they are ABC.

You *shouldn’t* focus so much on the main character because he’s a guy/male-presenting (I mean, he’s the protagonist, so there’s that).

You *should* ship m/m because it makes problematic dynamics less problematic. 

You *shouldn’t* ship m/f because it’s heteronormative. My favourite: Johanna Constantine is bi, you *shouldn’t* ship her with a guy, because again: Heteronormative. Erm, I hate to break it to people (and speaking from experience): That’s how being bi works, and we like m, f and nb equally? And we happen to want sex with m, f and nb? And we pretty much have blinkers on when it comes to falling in love with a *person*, or what we find hot/sexually arousing? And I swear if I read shit like that once more, I’ll get heteronormative out of sheer spite and will smite people.

You *should* or *shouldn't* ship. Both fine. And/but there's certainly more to The Sandman than blorbofication and allosexualisation of everything.

So yeah, pretty much anything that involves a *should*. You can do whatever the fuck you like as long as you don’t lose your ability to critically engage with it. Plus, the space has to be welcoming for everyone, and that’s sometimes hard for creators and people who don’s serve/like the main flavour. And therein lies the problem, because critical engagement doesn’t always happen, and a lot of good stuff disappears in amongst the noise…

[alltheprettygirlsintheworld]

So, I’ve been reading Harrow the Ninth, and I am currently on page 60 so what I am operating on here is based on what I have read so far and what I have seen from spoilers. I have not yet read Nona, so this is all conjecture. 

However, I think it is interesting that Harrow decided to rewrite her ENTIRE EXISTENCE because she could not fathom Gideon’s death. This girl, this poor, lonely, heartbroken girl, decided that she would rather gaslight her self and destroy her own brain rather than remember that the girl she loved had died for her. 

The narrative leads you to think that while Gideon is painfully in love with Harrow, Harrow is in love with The Body and therefore can’t love Gideon back. However, we do know two things about our lovely protagonists. 

1) They are incredibly codependent

2) They are notoriously unreliable narrators. 

I haven’t finished Harrow yet, but I can already tell that her narrative towards herself as she exists post-lobotomy is incredibly skewed and may (or may not) be entirely accurate to the events that are actually occurring). In Gideon’s case, we have her whole “bravado and swagger” narrative style that actively understates the intensity of any emotion Gideon feels by hiding it behind the sex jokes and the eternal flirting with every woman with a pair of legs (see, Gideon focusing on how Ianthe and Corona were wearing nightgowns instead of paying attention to the literal dead bodies in front of them). 

My argument is that Harrow is just as pitifully in love with Gideon as Gideon is with her, and she hates herself for it. She hates herself for falling in love with the one person who wasn’t killed for the cause of her birth, and she hates herself for letting that love die in front of her. This is the same girl who puppeted around the corpses of her parents for a decade, you think she doesn’t have attachment issues? In this case, there wasn’t a body left to puppet and play house left. There was NOTHING. Not even bones that Harrow could wrap herself in and hide behind. Harrow just couldn’t handle it. So she begged Ianthe to mutilate her mind so that she didn’t have to remember why she could never escape her all-consuming grief (I’ll talk more about Ianthe when I finish the book because she’s a whole other conversation) and she decided to recreate herself because she didn’t want to die yet (she is two hundred dead children. How could she kill them again?) but she didn’t know how to live anymore either. 

Love doesn’t come from nowhere. It doesn’t just disappear. It lingers and it haunts even when you can’t remember when it started (even if all you want to do is let it go). The Body was a creation in Harrows mind in reaction to the love she felt. She had to put it somewhere, and the only other thing Harrow had ever loved was her House and the girl in the Tomb. So she replaced Gideon with the only other thing she knew how to love, and decided that it was better to exist in insanity than acknowledge the depths of her pain and what she had lost.

And even when she can’t remember who Gideon is, she is obsessed with her... just slightly differently. In this case, it’s through the sword. She is carrying around Gideon’s sword like a teddy bear and she won’t let anyone (even GOD) touch it without going into a full rage and she doesn’t even know why other than that it feels important. She goes on and on about how it weighs her down, but we’ve seen her carry the sword before in Gideon’s novel, so we know that she can absolutely do it. The burden is only half-physical (I say half because Harrow is only barely more than a skeleton herself). Yes the sword is heavy, but the burden it represents is even heavier. She hates her sword. She complains about it constantly. And she loves it beyond measure. And she wishes she was good enough to deserve it

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. 

[scaly-freaks]

Wow I NEED that fic so bad you don’t even know. I'm surely going to be dreaming about this lol. How do you see their story end? Would it be a 'everyone is happy and we're all friends' type of ending where aegon and amara plan their double-wedding with alys and aemond?

And would someone die in this?? If you had to choose one character to kill off, who would it be and how would it fit into the story 🧐 don’t know why but lately i've been craving some murder mistery stories so maybe I would kill off aemond?? And since the whole world has been talking about aegon being (very obviously) into amara and jealous of aemond, on top of being an addict doing crazy stuff all the time, he would look very very guilty..

This went kind of off topic lol oopsies

Ehehehe....you might not like this answer but....I'd kill Amara.

She would HAUNT that fucking narrative like the ghost to end all ghosts. I don't really think of endings tbh, and mine tend to be very shitty (I think Burning Jasmine was my only happy one in a long time). Alys is going to string Aemond along till the end of time and then suddenly cut him loose altogether, so no, he's not getting his happy ending with her. Maybe if Aegon's feeling kind in later years, he might let Aemond climb into the bed for a cuddle with him and Amara idk (granted the Targaryen incest thing is in this AU because everyone's like...okay we get that you're in a rock band and it's all grit and sex, but ya'll are brothers, why are you grinding up on each other like that).

But yeah if Amara did die, it'd probably be a murder-suicide at Aegon's hands tbh (think Sid and Nancy). And then for years, there are documentaries and true crime Youtube videos lasting 2 hours, and reddit forums, and conspiracy theories, and just picking apart wtf was wrong with these two people to implode that spectacularly.

The rabbit hole would get deep, because everyone in Amara's life knows she was very much a good girl and wouldn't touch drugs (except weed) with a bargepole. But the fans turn her into a Nancy Spungen/Courtney Love figure, and accuse her of driving Aegon to harder drugs (he goes from coke to heroin in a pretty short space of time when they get together). Truth is, he got her into the dope, and it went downhill from there. They'd have entire weeks of not getting out of bed, barely eating, and instead fucking and getting high at the same time. Aegon comes up with his best work during that time, mostly because he's not sober, and he's constantly in the presence of a muse that makes his head crash into a kaleidoscope of orgasmic proportions.

But yeah, they definitely end up dead.

[no-where-new-hero]

Okay, time for the movie rant because Kilmeny needs more processing time—

So, a few weeks ago, I saw this movie called 비상 (Flight/Fly High), and it was one of those movies that was kind of mediocre but had just enough promise for good to stick irresistibly in my brain, because it was one of the most thematically rich movies I’ve seen in a while. Mind you, I saw it in about five pixels on someone’s YouTube upload because the movie is obscure and ancient, but analysis here we go (cw for discussing attempted suicide and death)

Plot: Boy meets Sad Girl. Boy falls in love with Sad Girl. Sad Girl attempts to kill herself because of some traumatic history with her parents that’s very poorly explained. Because Boy loves her, he makes himself responsible for her care as she recovers from her psychic break. Boy turns to a life in the underworld to get the money to support her, becomes a male escort, later joins a gang, and eventually becomes the Biggest Boss after a gratuitously long fistfight. He renounces his life of crime and resolves to build a life with Sad Girl (who is still Sad and suffering through reams of trauma that is never adequately resolved). As Boy and Girl flee in the middle of the night, a mysterious nobody jumps out of the shadows and stabs Boy to death. Exeunt dramatis personae, Finis.

Now, at like two a.m. when I finished watching this, I just kind of sat there for five minutes being like—what the fuck did I just watch? Is he really dead? And what was the point of crafting a hundred minute movie if it was going to end with him dying in the last two minutes of it?

But then the whole film kept haunting me, and I realized that the end really wasn’t random at all, that Boy had been doomed by the narrative from the start, and that this was, in fact, one of the better examples I’ve seen of that kind of tragedy. See, near the beginning, Boy—who wanted to become an actor before all the other things he was forced to do—acts out a scene in front of Girl that directly mirrors his actual death scene (getting stabbed and dying like a dog in the rain). Girl gets angry that he’s making light of death, as someone who was going to invite it herself, but already, Boy was taking the fall for her. He was the one knocking on the door asking for the devil, and finally, at the end, the devil decided to answer. The fact that it comes at the hands of someone unknown or invisible, only a shadow on the screen, makes it all the more symbolic: it’s anonymous, the striking force of fate. Once you walk into the darkness, the darkness will never let you go. Once you get your hands dirty, you can’t live clean again.

There was another suggestive scene about halfway through: while Boy was an escort, he befriended another sex worker who kind of shits on him for pretending he’s different from her and throws a glass of whiskey in his face. In defiance, he upends the entire bottle of whiskey over his head and flicks on a lighter, as though he was going to set himself on fire (yes, I was also like Sir Stop Being So Extra This is a Wendy’s.) “I have someone to protect,” he tells the worker. He has someone he’s willing to die for, as though Girl being an open flame in his hands would make him pure—as though having someone to be noble for would save him. He’s idealistic, stupidly idealistic for his life. Because nobility has no currency in this world. He makes bad choices for the right reason—love—but love is also insufficient here. Many characters tell him that, that love won’t be enough, and we see, repeatedly through side characters, that neither will friendship or loyalty. And they aren’t; true things can’t be. In this world, it’s the performance that’s important. It’s the illusion of violence and intimidation and power. The sex worker tells him this when she confesses her story to him early on. Even Boy lies to Girl about how he’s making his money in order to preserve her innocence or make himself look better. All of life is performance, and the performance is life. He was doomed to die as soon as he made a farce of it, before the whole weight of the story mowed him down.

There are other moments—the sex worker desperately wanting someone to love and being punished for it. Boy lying at the edge of the sea like Girl when she tried to die. The two actress who play the sex worker and Girl look eerily similar to each other, as though they represent parallel lives separated only by circumstance and bridged by Boy’s existence. The three of them are caught in a triangle of false hope and certain death. It’s incredibly potent and honestly some fabulous thematic structuring. There was almost a little too much theme and not enough else, in some ways, which is why some other aspects of the movie fell flat: it reduced motivation and character development, to have this insistent sense of fate and doom hanging over everyone. But as far as tragedies go, it was weirdly fulfilling.