ah, but consider this: Azul is known to enact overelaborate schemes in order to cover for the fact that he is consistently getting like. negative points in physical education. therefore, I posit that he is in fact the mastermind behind the magical assault practicals in the first place, having waged an entire psychological war with Crowley to make him think it was his own idea. this includes spending months carefully dropping particular keywords into casual conversation whenever Crowley is walking by, so that his phone's Mira will pick up on them and start targeted advertising to Crowley in a way that seems innocuous but will ultimately help lead to Azul getting that sweet, sweet extra credit without having to run a single lap.
which is to say: Azul would sign the waiver, because he wrote the waiver (under an assumed name, filtered through three different shell companies, each of which charged a separate consulting fee) (this is just how Azul WORKS okay).
pathologic but it's a lost 1920s german expressionist film [id under cut]
[id:
image 1: a digital drawing of a fake poster, using bright colours and rough, painterly brushstrokes. the title, 'pest' (german for 'plague'), is written at the top in spiky black text. in the foreground a man dressed as a tragedian is staring intently at the viewer, his hands raised and splayed as if in horror. in the background, the town is framed against a red sky, with the polyhedron in yellow behind.
images 2 and 3: fake casting sheets for the film, with the names of the actors and the characters they are playing above a black-and-white portrait photograph of them. all the text is in german. in english it reads:
'Pest', a film by Robert Wiene
Alfred Abel as Victor Kain
Ernst Busch as Grief
Lil Dagover as Katerina Saburova
Ernst Deutsch as the Bachelor
Carl de Vogt as Vlad the Younger
Marlene Dietrich as the Inquisitor
Willy Fritsch as Mark Immortell
Alexander Granach as Andrey and Peter Stamatin
Bernhard Goetzke as General Block
Dolly Haas as the Changeling
Ludwig Hartau as the Haruspex
Brigitte Helm as Anna Angel
Brigitte Horney as Maria Kaina
Emil Jannings as Big Vlad
Gerda Maurus as Yulia Lyuricheva
Lothar Menhert as Georgiy Kain
Asta Nielsen as Lara Ravel
Ossi Oswalda as Eva Yan
Fritz Rasp as Stanislas Rubin
Conrad Veidt as Alexander Saburov and Tragedian
Paul Wegener as Oyun
Gertrud Welcker as Aspity
image 4: four digital sketches of set designs for various locations. all are strongly influenced by expressionist imagery, using extreme angles, warped perspective, and dramatic shapes. they are labelled 'street 1' (a street lined with houses), 'street 2' (a square with a lamppost and a set of steps), 'polyhedron exterior' (the polyhedron walkway), and 'cathedral interior' (the dais at the far end of the cathedral).
image 5: four digital drawings in a black-and-white watercolour style, showing fake stills from the film. all are similarly distorted and lit by dramatic lighting. the first shows katerina's bedroom, with katerina standing in the centre of the floor. the second shows the interior of an infected house. the third shows daniil staring out of the frame in horror, one hand on his head and the other raised as if to ward something off. the fourth shows an intertitle with jagged white text reading 'the first day' against a dark background.
I'm planning out a Drifting Stars fic rn, so here's a snippet of the first chapter because I need to post something about this fic. This is a first draft so it may change but I'm pretty happy with it for now
“Woah, woah, hey what’s going on? Stanford!”
--------------
Stanley watched, anger melting to fear as his twin brother began to float backwards, as if being pulled by some invisible hand towards the glowing machine
He watched as his brothers face contorted into an expression of fear he had never seen on his face before. All those years, and Stanley had never seen his bother look so afraid. Not like this. Not even as a kid hiding himself from the other kids their age, as a teenager watching him out the window of a house no longer a home, not even just a few minutes prior, so overcome with paranoia that he would think Stanley would ever want to hurt him. No, Ford had never looked so scared in his life, and Stanley had never known a fear like this himself
“Stanley! Stanley, help me!”
“Help me!!”
His brother, his twin brother, was floating away too fast and too slow all at once. His brother, who had grown up with him, who had abandoned him, who had came to him for help when he didn’t know who else to trust, was floating backwards into an oblivion of light, and Stanley felt powerless to do anything
“Oh no, what do I do?”
“What do we do?”
“Stanley! Stanley!”
Ford was thrashing in the air, desperately trying to push himself forward, but to no avail. He kept drifting backwards, and now he was beginning to submerge into the portal, the light around him rippling like he was being lowered into a pool
“Do something!”
“We gotta do something!”
Stan looked around for something, anything that he could use. A rope, a pole, something for Ford to hold onto, to keep him out of whatever hell was on the other side of the portal, but there was nothing he could use. And his brother continued to drift backwards, slowly being consumed by swirling blue light
“Stanley!”
“Grunkle Stan!”
Stan looked at his great-niece, his sweet great-niece who wore hand-made sweaters, and knitted him “Our Hero” banners, who named a pig Waddles and was so excited to start highschool, and he saw the same fear in her eyes as his brother all those years ago
He was held back by more than his own uselessness this time, gravity crushing him into the pipe behind him, keeping him in place, keeping him from running forward, from shutting down the damn portal, keeping him from saving another piece of his world pulled into the unknown back by the same cruel hand that had held his brother
“Grunkle Stan, how do we stop it? How do we save her?” Dippers voice was so far away yet so clear, and yet Stan couldn’t say a word
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen
She was just a kid
It was like 30 years had never passed, and he was still the same piece of shit who couldn’t protect his family
She was looking straight at him, and the look on her face would be burnt into his mind for the rest of this life. Begging him to do something, anything, to help her somehow
“Mabel, grab something! Anything!”
But he couldn’t
“I can’t!”
Goddamn it, he couldn’t do anything
“We gotta shut it down, we gotta shut it down!!”
Curse this stupid gravity, he had to help her!
“I can’t move, dude!”
He couldn’t take losing one more person
“Help me!!”
Not her, please god not her
“Mabel!”
No, no, no!!
“Dipper!!”
Blinding light. Complete silence.
Then everything came crashing down at once. And Mabel was gone
I’m taking this time to apologize to my moots and just my followers in general. I don’t know what happened to me these past couple of weeks, I’ve been through so much (STILL I’M) and I’m glad you’ve been with me through this poolverine brain rot journey…willingly or not.
I hope one day we can all look at the Honda odyssey as just a simple family minivan again. One day… in the distant future 😩
I can't stop thinking about Colin on his travels. Colin, alone, on a journey to 17 different cities, across several countries. Colin on his own.
Colin who writes letter after letter, to his family, to his friends, and barely gets a response back. How long before he understands that they didn't get lost in the mail? How long until he realizes that, just like when he was a boy, no one has the time for him? The space for him? How many letters unanswered before he lets it finally take root and fester in his mind?
He could have died on that tour.
Would they even notice? Would they see when the letters slow until they cease? Would they wonder why? His mum, surely (maybe, possibly, but she has enough on her hands, besides, and he's never been a concern, in need of her assistance, before), but anyone else? Anthony on his honeymoon, Eloise a stormcloud personified, Benedict taking on the familial responsibilities, Fran preparing for the marriage mart and in Bath, regardless. Daphne, his closest sister, a mum running her own estate.
Greg and Hyacinth who enjoy his stories, but are children.
Pen who ignores him. No explanation, no goodbye.
Colin who has no one in his corner. Colin who travels city to city, putting on personas. Will they like me? What about now? Colin who has hardly anything to read from the people he loves. Who do not think of him.
And yet he thinks of them. Brings them back gifts, writes his recollections for them until it hits him that, oh, they don't care. They don't care what he's doing, how he's doing. They didn't want to hear it before, when he was there with them, and they do not want to hear it now, either. Did they even open those envelopes? Did they see them come through the post, just as proof he's alive, and shrug off the contents? Did they look? Once, Colin sends an empty page. No one notices. Easier, then, to send just the outsides. People only ever care about the outsides. Pretty and prim in neat packages, uncaring of what lies beneath. Sea sick on the rocking boats, staring up at stars on the continent, Colin grows aware, but not bitter. Sad, but resigned.
He loves his family, he loves Pen, loves them to grace, loves them to it's okay. It was him, he determines. Too chatty, his letters too long, uninteresting, his passions dull or droll, or else, worse, he's displeased them in some way. Colin who takes refuge in stranger's arms and homes, who dreams and tries to sate his curiosity. Colin who pretends, because anyone, anyone but him would be received better, he's sure of it. Colin who must talk too much, surely, and with no one to listen. Colin who learns to hush.
Yes. Remarkable- as in, I have many remarks about it.
How many times did he go to excitedly write of what he did that week, and stopped himself, knowing it was a waste? How many times did he write and throw into the fire a letter asking Why don't you see me? Why don't you care?
If he didn't make it, how long would it take for anyone to notice? A month? Two? A year? Would they wave it off as his frivolity, denounce him as a flake and fume about the funds? Would they wonder where it was he had lost himself off at?
He cannot fall into that, so, he writes in his journal, instead. Of the ache of it, of how he longs for connection, for understanding, for someone to take him seriously. He keeps it with him, this log of his discontent, of his folly and felicity, of his pitfalls and pains.
If he didn't make it, would they realize all that's left of him is what he sent them, not even a body to bury? Did he look over the side of a bow of a boat and look at the churn of the ocean and think of how many bones it held? Did he tip his face to the sun? How many new scars did he earn? Who did he befriend?
Who did he become?
Somewhere along the line, Colin learned. He learned the real him wasn't wanted.
Somewhere along the line, somewhere between Patmos and Paris, Colin left Colin behind.
And, somewhere along the line, Colin laid face to face with loneliness in his bed, and it wrapped its arms around him.
The guy at the post office couldn’t care less about proof of residence he was openly shouting ‘mam do you have anything to prove you live at this address’, before whispering ‘i don’t actually care’
and as i was scrolling trying to find an energy bill he just looked over my phone went: OKAY GREAT and handed me my package with a quiet don’t tell my boss
I’m rotating the “his name is Bren, and he is very intelligent” scene in my head again, but not for the reason you think.
Essek’s vibes in that scene are very different compared the ostensibly similar interaction from episode 95: Essek makes passing reference to a partner, Bells Hells inquires further, Essek answers. But while his response in e95 exudes warmth and affection, now he is strangely… matter-of-fact? oddly serious? distracted? without apparent cause for this change.
I used the transcript version to label the scene, but in reality, the cadence is more like, “His name is Bren. And he is, um… very intelligent.” And during that pause, his brow furrows and he looks down, and his face stays there for the rest of the sentence and halfway into the next one.
I’m struggling to triangulate the tone of voice because it’s not quite dismissive, but it does seem like he is trying to sate their curiosity and be done with it, which is, again, quite unlike how he spoke about Caleb in e95.
Then he sighs and says, “I’m sorry. If my anxiety shows, there’s something about—I dislike not knowing what’s coming, especially given the stakes […]. There are few things I hate more than not knowing.” And I thought that was interesting because 1) relatable, but more importantly 2) he made a mental jump over the course of that sigh and I needed to know what it was.
It’s an easy enough conclusion to come to: his vibes were off because he was anxious. He’s anxious because he’s dealing with a lot of unknowns.
It’s a small character detail and it’s not new, but this instance of it has been spinning in my brain all day. Essek shutters himself a bit when he’s anxious and in new situations. He isn’t necessarily short in his answers and he doesn’t quite have a flat affect, but there is an emotional shuttering. I’m not sure if he’s cutting himself off from his emotions as well or just others—that could be an interesting facet to explore—but it makes him hard to read and he comes off weird. And I love it, it’s such a tasty character beat om nom nom nom
And! While I think it was pretty obvious that he was doing this conscious letting down of walls a lot as he befriended the m9, look at how quick he is now to articulate what’s happening and adjust accordingly! It’s still a little awkward and disjointed, but he’s been practicing over these seven years!!! I’m proud of him!!!!
When your weird uncle loves you even if you're a weird lil' gremlin teen
hiII I KNOW IT'S JUST A SILLY DOODLE BUT- i did want to draw something for you (idk if you got my previous ask, maybe it didn't send) to show my love for your works and art, sooo have my beloved uncle-niece relationship dynamic!! youre the best ok byyyyyeee ❤❤❤❤
(ps. this is the first time i draw hisuian ingo and akari i hope it looks ok for a doodle lol)
OHHH MY GOODNESS LOOK AT THEM!!! ;0; <3 Akari’s doing her best and even if it’s sometimes weird or unconventional Ingo still recognizes the effort haha
thank you so much for drawing and sending this to me OP!! It’s such an adorable artstyle; I’m so glad you like my works, it means a lot to hear that!! ;v; thank you for the kind words!!