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xplrvibes · 3 years

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I honestly wasn't going to do this. 😭

But, I just...I have thoughts. I can't help myself. So, I wrote another entire ass review of the 3rd installment of this Sam and Colby Season 1.

A couple of quick overall thoughts before I break it down:

I actually do think Sam, Colby and Seth are my favorite combo. Seth is just so chill, and he works really well off of snc. And they feed off his chillness and tone it down to a level that is acceptable for my old ass.

According to things that snc were posting on xplrclub while they were filming these videos, Colby was a bit under the weather (just a cold!) while filming, so if he seems off (tired, acting odd, when he was talking about having chills at the end), I think it can be attributed to his immune system more than anything paranormal (only mentioning this because i saw some youtube comments saying they thought Colby seemed "off").

They finally listened to us and brought a second camera!! This means there's hope for them listening to us about filming videos alone (as in, just snc), and figuring out a way to record what the spirit box is saying during the Estes Method! That's progress.

Remember my disclaimer: Any thoughts, criticisms, or reviews expressed in this post are my own opinions. The definition of opinion is: “A view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.”

All of my more detailed thoughts are available for purchase under the cut (no purchase necessary):

So, as you all know, I did not like the first two installments of season 1, at all. I really didn’t have very high hopes for this one either, solely because of how “meh” I was about one and two...but this one surprised me. I have a few criticisms, but overall- this was far more in line with the content I enjoy from snc. I have zero complaints or critiques about their editing or filming this time, so I won’t even cover any of that.

Instead, I’m going to cover the following 4 areas:

1. Storytelling/History

2. Equipment

3. Paranormal

4. Let’s Talk About Energies, Baby!

Let’s start from the Storytelling/History, shall we?

First, I just have to say: after all of the years of them half assedly telling horribly researched and completely untrue stories, they finally actually start getting better at the research and storytelling- and that’s when they decide to start running disclaimers at the bottom of the screen. Respect.

That being said- can I just say that I do not buy the story of this house? This house, and the owner, gives me "we're upside down on our mortgage so we quick made up an urban legend haunting to sell to the masses to make the house profitable" vibes.

And this is coming from someone, btw, who used to go to Centralia, PA on school field trips as a kid. I've seen what coal mine fires can do to towns and homes and lives. Portals to hell are way low on the list of dangers.

Now, this "psychic" business with this Edwin guy- if any of that is true (and again- sounds a bit urban legendy to me), that's more likely the cause for any possible issues in the house than anything else. When people who aren't well equipped to protect themselves play with that kind of fire (pun intended), they get burned.

Also, sidenote- you don't just decide to jump into a career of being a psychic, the way you would decide to jump into a career of being a mechanic. You either are a psychic, or you aren't. That's not a skill you can go to college to learn- it's your body and mind's inherent ability to see/feel/communicate with the paranormal. You can hone that skill in particular ways, you can learn how to protect yourself, or how to better communicate with the other side- but if you don't already have that natural born ability...you aren't just going to be able to just figure it out as you go along. And honestly? Trying to do so is more dangerous than anything else.

Anyway, soap box moment over. Let's talk Equipment.

First of all- I watched this video twice, because I missed a few things on the first watch. Even after the second watch was over, I found myself sitting there going, "Ok, but what was the purpose of their little disco tambourine?" Like, why do they have that and why did it bring it along?

I don't know why they had so much rave gear (light up tambourines, light up rings?) in this episode, but they can just leave that shit for Coachella. None of it served any purpose. I’m deducting a few points for using shit you could buy at Spencer’s Gifts in 1997 as “equipment” (but adding the points right back on because it reminded me of a time in my youth when we were all at Spencer’s Gifts buying these little glow sticks that you could put in your mouth and we would just walk around with our mouths glowing neon green all day, which explains a lot about why children of the 90s are the way we are now, lol).

Again- you start to lose me when you start relying on too many pieces of equipment that have no basis in the paranormal, especially when the equipment is being supplied by the house. Like, the owners of this house are relying on you, the paranormal content creators/visitors, to believe that their house is mega haunted. The more they can promote that, the more money is coming in. Who’s to say their equipment isn’t rigged in some way? I would honestly discount- or at the very least, be extremely cautious with- pretty much any piece of equipment supplied to me by the people who own the place I am investigating.

And as far as equipment in general goes- look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be using any equipment at all. Use your rem pod and your creepy little music box, fine (bonus: Sam exclaiming: “That’s the creepiest music box ever! We need that one!” about the music box that was supplied by the owners of the house made me laugh). I actually think the spirit box/Estes session is cool, if a little ambiguous at times. But a talking teddy bear? Disco tambourine? The wacky flashlight tricks? Pretty much anything built by Steve Huff? Eh.

That being said- objectively speaking, that portal box thing was creepy as shit. Do I believe in it? Again...eh. I don't quite get how it works, but them voices were creepy. Why did they all have to be so...sinister sounding? And why do these spirits always seem to be screaming Colby’s name?

Speaking of the Paranormal...

The seance. Creepy portal box aside, I have to admit that I laughed when the lady who owns the house started invoking random angels (Did she mention Uriel? Is this Supernatural? Who's next- Castiel?) and Colby just pops his head up and stares wide eyed at the camera, and then at her for a second. Like, me too, my dude.

Also, this idea that there's no such thing as coincidences: I mean, coincidences are cool, and fun, and weird sometimes. But sometimes, a penny on the floor is just a penny on the floor, you know?

I have to say that the concept of them (Sam, whoever) potentially being targeted by an entity that has been following them since long before the Sallie House is intriguing to me. It would explain why they seemingly have more interesting things happen to them in places that aren’t necessarily haunted than most. They have a long and storied history of fucking with shit that they do not understand/know how to protect themselves against (see: my rant about psychics and playing with fire), so they could have picked something up anywhere along the line.

Hell, Sam is a known skeptic who has brazenly done some fucked up shit during his “3 AM Challenges” for years. Who the hell knows what is really going on with them. I never thought it was “Sallie,” and I’m glad they are starting to kind of distance themselves from that thought a bit, as well.

Let’s talk about energies, baby!

Any of you who know me/read my nonsense ramblings, know that I have opinions when it comes to these two and their abilities/energies. Let me quick break it down for you here (again: opinions. Not fact):

Sam: Sam is a skeptic, and seems to have a mind and walls like a steel trap. He rarely seems to have the same feelings as others (Colby, Kat Seth, etc) when they are in these situations, and I largely think its down to his skepticism and his inability to let his walls down, more than anything else. This man wants the science and the equipment to explain it all to him, and doesn’t trust the intuitive process as much as he sometimes like to seem he does. I also think his skepticism and his need to experience something for himself before he’ll totally buy into it, is what makes him so open to an attachment. He won’t safeguard himself as much, and he’ll do just about anything for the views (those 3AM Challenges are not something anyone who believes in this shit would fuck with). He is the person in the horror movies who jokes about the slasher being around the corner because he doesn’t believe- only for the slasher to pop up behind him and rip his head off. He is opening himself up to attachments with his demeanor, his skepticism, and his inability to take any precautions against what they are doing. The more he dabbles in this stuff, and the more attachments he acquires (like Pokeman, gotta catch them all!), the more in-tune he would, in theory, become to what is going on around him. He just needs to open himself up to it and give up control a little more- something that I think he struggles with.

Colby: Colby has very big, very intense energy (possibly stemming from being an old soul). We’ve spoken about this before, but that man is a bug light, and every creature on this earth, living or dead, is a moth that is just drawn to that energy. That energy can intimidate other entities (living and dead) in different ways- some entities find safety or comfort in that level of energy, some find it off-putting. It does explain why it seems like so many entities (and living creatures) have such over the top, odd reactions to being in Colby’s presence- its all a reaction to his output of intense energy. Now, what Colby is giving out in energy, he has to be pulling back in, in some measure. I think he has the same intuitive ability as Kat and Seth, in a sense- that he can feel the energy changes and shifts in a room, and can draw on it just as much as other entities draw on him. In short- he is something of a “lightning rod” of energy. It also has to be said, that while he does approach some situations with a modicum of logic, he is a believer in the spiritual world, and does truly believe in his faith and that he has the power of God behind him. That’s important. That helps him protect himself, helps keep him cautious and wary of taking things too far (disclaimer: again, from a religious standpoint- I am not advocating for or against any religion. I think the belief of religion in general can be a very strong safeguard for people). Between that and his intensity, it’s no wonder entities aren’t lining up to attach themselves to him, but that they are drawn to him.

Also, as a sidenote: it really is a good thing Sam and Colby found one another. Their energies really just align in a way that is of benefit to them both.

One of my (many) gripes about the previous episodes, was that I got screwed out of hearing Colby talk more about his feelings on the matter of energies and his intuition. So, you have no idea how happy I was when the subject came up again in this episode- and wasn’t immediately shot down.

First of all- I love how casual this man was about someone telling him that he intimidates ghosts with his sheer presence. “Oh yea, I’ve had a lot of people tell me that.” HAVE YOU? And why have you been working overtime to gloss over it this entire time?? The only other time I remember this coming up in conversation on camera was when Amanda mentioned that the ghost at Lizzie Borden was “scared” of Colby (which my psychic ladies I watch on youtube attributed to the spirit there being...wait for it...intimidated by Colby’s energy).

Mind you, the last thing I want Colby to do is go full Amanda, or do what Kat and Celina were doing in the last episode and get too far into his own head about it and start taking it too far- but damn, dude. You can lean a little bit farther into this, you know?

It’s just so interesting that there have been multiple instances of ghosts clearly being drawn to Colby (Maddie at the Shanley, his name being repeatedly said multiple times in places like the Conjuring and in this most recent episode, Amanda mentioning that the ghosts at both the Queen Mary and the Hotel Del Coronado “really seemed to love” him, etc); and yet, Sam seems to come away with the attachments. It really does point to Colby having big energy, but far more power in that energy and in his convictions that nothing can harm him, while Sam is the definition of “fuck around and find out” when it comes to playing with the paranormal, and closes himself off to intuition that could save him, while opening himself up to intuition that could get him into trouble.

Its fascinates me!

They need help, lol. Both of them.

I would be extremely interested in seeing both of them sit down with a trained psychic who could help them figure out what is going on with them, and how to both protect themselves better (mostly Sam) and use their energy in a way that would be more productive on these paranormal investigations (Colby). Imagine what they could do, if they knew what they were doing?!

Overall, this episode really intrigued me, and I’m glad they followed up the absurd shit sandwich of the first two with something like this, which I feel is far more suited to them. I’ll give this one a solid 7.5/10.

A couple of quick little random things I enjoyed:

Colby's complete and utter inability to climb steps. Go little rockstar, indeed.

"If this gets 300k likes, Seth is going to the basement by himself." Seth: 😐

I love how excited they were that they finally brought a second camera, and the second camera thing actually worked in their favor. That's what we've been telling you guys! Listen to us more.

Colby just fucking with Sam at the beginning when Sam was saying that the Bellaire House was one of the top 10 most haunted houses...such sibling energy, with these two.

Sam: "We would have a billion views on this video if a ghost solved this rubik's cube in front of our eyes." Honestly, you'd get a billion views on the video if YOU solved the rubik's cube in front of our eyes. That shit is hard!

Anyway, next week looks a bit filler- which is ok! Not everything has to be better than the one that came before- so we'll see if I feel the need to go in depth on that one. But if you ever want to read any of my previous reviews, I use the tag snc video review for them all.

Also, lmk what you thought!

#sam and colby #colby brock #sam golbach #xplr #snc video review

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melyzard · 4 years

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The World Is Amazing, Actually Pt4

(Or: “Why Constantly Talking About How It Ought to All Burn Is Really Narrow Minded and Probably A Strategy By Your Enemy To Make You Useless In Your Despair”)

Today’s Wild Place (the Earth is an alien planet):

Vinicunca “The Rainbow Mountains” (Peru) [Source: Rainbow Mountain Peru official website]

(Where is my high-budget space opera set in this alien landscape? Why must I settle for yet another “everything is flat and white” Ice Planet? Give me Rainbow Planet!)

Today’s Incredible Feat of Engineering (look! at what! we made!)

The Great Mosque of Djenne (Mali) [Source: smarthistory.com]

(It’s constantly in danger of erosion and flooding, so the local community is constantly maintaining, tweaking, rebuilding this ancient temple. It’s as alive as the people who live here).

[Bonus: An article about the renaissance of traditional african architecture, with lots of interesting pictures) [Source: archidatum.com]

Today’s Abandoned City (reality tells the best ghost stories):

Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA - The Town That’s Still Burning [Source: ripleys.com]

It’s been on fire for more than 50 years and still going strong [source: history.com]

(The video game “Silent Hill” was based on this place, right down to the spooky abandoned church and the clouds of toxic smoke everywhere. The game is mostly greys and browns, but in reality, the town’s been covered with colorful graffiti because humans never did see a flat surface that we didn’t want to cover in our names, beliefs, and sense of humor.)

Today’s Interesting Living Creature (the rare, the beautiful, the WTF):

The Shoebill Stork (aka the living muppet) [Source: shoebillbird.org]

Bonus: Shoebills Are Metal [Source: youtube]. Look at how this giant animatronic dinosaur moves. It’s both hilarious and haunting. Nature is weird and so is this bird.

Today’s Act of Humanity (psst, that meteor you’re wishing for would kill these people too):

Jhalandar Nayak carved through a mountain with a pickaxe to build a road so local children could get to school [Source: the Guardian]

Bonus: “Random Acts of Kindness compilation” [Source: youtube], put together by The Sound Project, showcasing a variety of people just...being people, all around the world. [small note: there is a quick clip somewhere in the middle of a young black man hugging riot armored USA cops. That imagery can be conflicting for a lot of people, myself included, but it is a thing that happened, and I believe it came from a good place in that young man].

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#planet earth #people are okay #vinicunca #rainbow mountains #peru #great mosque of djenne #mali #centralia pennsylvania #shoebill stork #jhalandar nayak #random acts of kindness #the sound project #we are not our worst impulses #we are not just our lowest points

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goat-yells-at-everything · 4 years

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Final Thoughts: Silent Hill (pt 1)

What to say about these movies… Do I need to have a spoiler warning on this? The first movie came out in 2006 and the game the second was based on came out *looks* 3 years before that.

Wait…THE SOURCE FOR THE SECOND MOVIE WAS OUT BEFORE THE FIRST ONE WAS MADE?!?!?!?!

*goat OS has stopped working*

Finding that out makes me even more angry at the second movie and its BS. Buckle up cowboys case I aint holding back ANYTHING in this rant.

[Disclaimer: If you hadn’t seen my live blog this last night you may not have seen that I have not played the SH games. While I really enjoy horror movies, horror games are not for me. Hell, I downloaded FNaF 6 and had a panic attack at the first night. Ok. Not really. But I didn’t really enjoy it, either.]

First things first.

Silent Hill

The first movie was a confusing but enjoyable romp.

The beginning was way too rushed and didn’t bother to set up the premise for people new to the franchise. I’ve been told that it did make sense if you played the games but thats not really fair to the viewers. Thats like making “Captain America Civil War” without making “Winter Soldier” and saying “well, if you’d read the comics you would understand.” The movie is over 2 hours long. It should have a proper beginning. All it really needed was a short bit between the sleepwalking scene and the scene in the field. I still don’t really understand why the synopsis says they thought she was dying. I guess maybe Sharron was dying being cut off from her other self? I’m not really sure. If anyone knows anything on that, I’d love to hear it.

Moving on! Other than that part, the majority of the movie was pretty well written. Yes, still confusing as heck but the whole TOWN is supposed to be confusing as heck until you know about Alessa. You’re caught with Rose trying to figure out what in the world is happening and why town shifts back and forth between the nightmare world and …reality?

Thats another confusing part of the story, though, and I can’t decide if its a good confusion or a bad confusion. On one hand you seem to have 3 worlds. True reality where Liam Christopher and officer Gucci are seen looking for Rose in the abandoned town. Silent Hill “reality” thats the grey, ash covered apocalypse cut off from the rest of the world. And, finally, the Nightmare where the demons and monsters roam. The later two, though, seem to have a lot of crossover. That seems like a no brainer, sure, but its confusing when you’re trying to tell who did what. Like the body in the school bathroom. Pretty sure thats the janitor that molested/raped Alessa so you’d think it was the demons who strung him up, right. He’s even strung up with barbed wire like Alessa uses in climax. But the demons don’t seem to be around in the Silent Hill reality and other bodies littered around the town seem to look more like Brethren killings than demon killings. Its very odd.

Its something I’d have liked to be more explained in the second movie.

It wasn’t.

But lets not start that yet!

I loved all the small references to coal mining. If you didn’t know, the town of Silent Hill is based on Centralia, Pennsylvania. Centralia was a booming coal mining town that, at its peak, had nearly 3000 people living and working in the town and it was massive, especially for the time. In 1962 a massive fire caught in the coal mines and has continued to burn ever since because the kind of coal found under Centralia had a carbon content of over 90% and while hard to ignite, it will burn for a very long time as long as its supplied with oxygen. Centralia was so littered with mines that all the vents, both natural and manmade, have yet to be found and sealed.

I loved the climax. A little bit confusing with some of the symbolism, (what was the point of the wires going up through Christabellas hoohoo anyway???) but still very good. And you can tell the cgi people had a lot of fun with the razor wire.

I HATE the ending. I mean, I love it in that it gets you invested in a sequel but I HATE it because the sequel made no attempt to stick to the rules laid out in the first movie!

Overall, I think the first movie was very good. Flawed, yes, but still very good. I would 100% recommend it.

-----

Sorry it took so long after watching to get my thoughts down. This was a really interesting movie and has earned a place on my “must have” list. I dont often watch horror movies more than once. My enjoyment of most horror drops off after I’ve gone through all the scares. Its got to do something really well to get me to watch it twice, let alone wanting it in my physical library.

The sequel..... god I have so many mixed feelings about the sequel. Thats why I had to split the commentary. While writing this one I had the first movie playing in the background and I feel like I should do the same for the second, if only to be fair to the parts I did think were good. Yes, surprisingly, I did like some things in the sequel.

So I’ll get back to this tomorrow morning and wrap up my thoughts on the whole thing as well as my hopes for the announced 3rd installation.

#goat yells at horror movies #final thoughts #Silent Hill

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niteshade925 · 6 years

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EMH and House of Leaves Pt.1: References/Details/Parallels

WARNING: If you haven’t at least seen the Night Mind summaries of EMH or read HoL, and don’t want spoilers, then please stop reading now. I won’t be spending a lot of time explaining HoL either (too long), so it would be best if you already read HoL.

************MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD**************

(I’m probably just reading too deep into it. If I sound like I’m talking nonsense, that’s probably true.)

Not a lot of people have touched on the many, many references to House of Leaves (HoL) within the series, so I’m going to just point out all the connections I can catch.

And just to clarify, while I do think there are connections and parallels, I think the parallels only apply to a degree: just to some characters, some aspects. When you look at them both as a whole and try to compare them, then it doesn’t really make sense.

Meaning of House:

It’s pretty well established now that the “Leaves” in the title of HoL can refer to paper, making the “House” the book itself. In “Bridge to Nowhere” (Tribetwelve), HABIT’s sarcastic “let’s run from him (HABIT) in his own house” can very well be interpreted the same way, but with this “house” being the EMH show. However, I do not think the “house” here is truly his, and I will come back to this later.

The Growing and Shifting of the House/ Impossible Geometry:

In HoL, the House on Ash Tree Lane contains an impossible dark maze that changes its layout constantly (presumably based on the changing mindset of the person trapped within). In EMH we experience this first hand in the video “The property”, where Vinny goes to different houses just by walking through them, as if the house was changing its own layout and appearances.

The METAness of “Authorship”:

Self-explanatory. Either way you look at the theories in HoL, they all theorize that Zampano, Johnny Truant, or Pelafina is the author of the entire book, when in fact it is Mark Z. Danielewski who is the actual author in the real world. EMH is the same, except as of the latest video, the possibility that HABIT is the editor and director in-universe is being called into question.

Iterations and Mazes:

Everyone knows how the iterations work in EMH so I’ll skip to HoL. In HoL, there’s no iterations, but there are mazes. And what’s more, the maze IS the house. Remember that the book is the house? “a=b=c, therefore a=c”. The book is also the maze. The entire fiction is the maze where the characters wander about, progressing their story. EMH is the same. The iterations repeat, always ending in Hamlet-esque tragedy (“everyone dies, the end”), like a tragic play production performing over and over again, with small bits tweaked here and there each time, except the characters are trapped inside. The EMH series, the EMH “house”, is a maze. It’s also a maze with ash-colored walls. Which brings us to………..

Ashes, Ashes everywhere:

Oh boy is it everywhere. In EMH there's Ashen wasteland (presumed to be Centralia after the mine fire disaster), Ashland (an actual town just south of Centralia), and “half acre of ash” (first brought up by Stephanie and now the title of a video).

In HoL there's Ashtree lane (where the house is), there's the ash-colored hallways of the ever-changing maze within the house, and there's the Yggdrasil mentioned at the very end, which is an ash tree. Personally, I believe the “ashes” in EMH is more of a clue that we should look to HoL for direction, but nothing more, since it does not have the connections to ash trees like HoL does.

Found Footage/ Cinema Vérité:

Page 4 of The Navidson Record (TNR) in HoL:

“The Navidson Record did not first appear as it does today. Nearly seven years ago what surfaced was ‘The Five and a Half Minute Hallway’--a five and a half minute optical illusion barely exceeding the abilities of any NYU film school graduate. The problem, of course, was the accompanying statement that claimed all of it was true.”

That is basically a description of the found footage horror genre. Read the beginning of House of Leaves and you will find that its description of TNR is stunningly similar to EMH. To quote bits from the first chapter:

“Where one might expect horror, the supernatural, or traditional paroxysms of dread and fear, one discovers disturbing sadness, a sequence of radioactive isotopes, or even laughter over a Simpsons episode” (HoL page 3)

“The structure of ‘Exploration #4’ is highly discontinuous, jarring, and as evidenced by many poor edits, even hurried. The first shot catches Navidson mid-phrase.” (HoL page 5)

“There are several more shots. Trees in winter. Blood on the kitchen floor. One shot of a child (Daisy) crying.” (HoL page 5)

So, jarring structure. Sometimes continuous shots. Sometimes all jump cuts. Very documentary-like to give a realistic quality. Home video-esque feel. Disregarding the different plot/story, stylistically EMH is practically TNR brought to life. And when you add in the ARG element of EMH, it becomes more interesting: perhaps EMH is just like TNR of the book. And I will be expanding on this idea in my theory.

Fictional Sources

This is more of a META aspect thing. The Navidson Record in the HoL world was said to be nonexistent, 100% fiction. The characters, the interviews of the characters in TNR…...also pure fiction in the HoL world. Now think about the Corenthal papers, the articles…...they are a part of the ARG, and therefore also 100% fiction.

Unreliable Narrators

Also self-explanatory. In EMH, neither HABIT nor Vinny are completely honest with the audience in their videos. And in HoL there are three: Johnny (lies, mental illness), Zampano (if he’s the author), and Pelafina (mental illness, and if she’s the author).

L’esprit de L’escalier

It’s a French phrase for “spirit of the staircase”, meaning thinking of the perfect response but it’s already too late. In the EMH episode titled with this phrase, Evan met Vinny as himself (temporarily released by HABIT) for the first time after the killing spree happened. In HoL, the phrase comes in page 72 of TNR, in Johnny’s footnotes:

“Now though, I realize what I should of said--in the spirit of the dark; in the spirit of the staircase--

‘Known some call is air am’

Which is to say --

‘I am not what I used to be’”

This quote comes right after Johnny’s account of his first major panic attack from fear, where he accidentally made a mess at the tattoo shop he worked at because of his panic episode. Curiously, something (presumably the monster whose presence he felt) also put a long bloody scratch on the back of his neck. When asked, he said nothing, but the above quote was what he think he should have said, in retrospect. This matches up exactly with the meaning of the phrase.

The phrase also appeared in page 618 in original French, but I can't see any connection there in terms of plot or meaning.

And although the phrase didn’t make a lot of sense to me as the title of the EMH episode, it does now. The connection here is the line “I am not what I used to be”. That was the whole gist of what Evan wanted to tell Vinny. At the time of the episode, Evan has now become the “danger” due to being HABIT’s favorite human puppet, has already committed atrocities under HABIT’s control, and received the healing factor that made him unable to die. Evan is not what he used to be.

Guns, Rifles, and Insanity

I don't think I've seen HABIT actually use a gun except that clip where he pointed one at the back of Vinny's neck. HABIT’s thing has always been about blades: knives, saws, chainsaws, etc. But now a gun is becoming relevant. Two characters in HoL also resorted to guns as their sanity deteriorated: Holloway and Johnny. The former accidentally shot and killed one of his two companions before he killed himself with it, and the latter’s fate is unknown. There are two theories: Johnny died, though not by the gun; and Johnny lived because he’s finally freed from the burden of putting the book together.

The North Star.

North Star has become prominent in the latest videos of EMH. And it is also present in the book. The cover of the book has a red and yellow symbol (probably a compass rose) that looks like a North Star. Page 29 mentions the North Star by name, calling the lamp in the children's room the North Star. Vinny found the North Star drawing within Fairmount, where the Mining Town Four spent their iteration as kids.

Page 545 of the book has a more alarming message, however:

“Stars to live by. Stars to steer by. Stars to die by.”

And by “all good things”, this has been confirmed. HABIT and Vinny both died in this iteration by the knife and gun with the North Star branded on them.

So is it a coincidence that the EverymanHYBRID symbol looks like a North Star? I don’t think so. The EMH story was meant to end in tragedy all along.

The Radiation Detector

Yes, in TNR, Navidson also had a radiation detector that ticked . And the following quote:

“Navidson turns to the time telling tick of radioactive isotopes to deny the darkness eviscerating him from within” (HoL page 381)

Evan doesn’t really try to “deny” the darkness (HABIT) within him in “Sigma”, but of course, there’s still purple duct tape on his bandage.

The Quote Jeff Circled

“Why did god create a dual universe?

So he might say,

‘Be not like me, I am alone.’

And it might be heard” (HoL page 45)

This quote, by itself, is confusing as hell. One has to put it in context of the chapter to make any sense of it, just for the book alone. The chapter it appears in, nicknamed the “Echoes chapter”, is one of the most important chapters of HoL. Basically it explores the concept of echoes, what it is, what it implies, in various different aspects. Echoing is indicative of a closed, finite space, and there are no echoes in infinite space. Echoing can also create a sort of illusion that someone is there, repeating your words. So the quote above can mean the loneliness of god, the duality that comes with echoes, the universal need for social interaction, the universal need to be individuals,.........etc etc.

The “be not like me, I am alone” part also came up on Steph’s blog.

This quote, I haven’t quite figured out what it really means in the context of EMH, but I have a guess.

Leaning Against a Tree

Just an interesting bit I’ve noticed that might have some significance. In the end of HoL, if you believe Johnny died, then he died leaning against an ash tree. Holloway also died leaning against the ash-en walls of the maze, by gun, although it was suicide (the book also talks about Holloway suffering for a minute after he shot himself). Both HABIT and Vinny died leaning against a tree in “All good things”. Hmm.

Apartment 3103 and the abyss

In the climax of TNR, Navidson is trapped within the endless abyss of the maze, where the ashen walls and floor disappear gradually until he’s on a small platform, with only a book to keep him company. Navidson was literally in an endless isolation chamber. Sounds very much like Vinny when he was trapped in Apartment 3103 for two years.

Can You See The Words

This one has been covered by the EMH wikia. CYSTW does have a formatting style similar to HoL.

Water, Drowning, and Insanity

In earlier videos (hidden videos), Evan has been shown to be drowning in water. There were also clips of flooding. In HoL, the person who talks about drowning and the hopelessness of it is Johnny. As Johnny spirals downward mentally, both the number of times he mentions drowning go up, each time with greater detail. Water here is symbolic of madness.

Interestingly, water is also crossed out in CYSTW, similar to passages about the Minotaur in HoL. The Minotaur is the imaginary monster in the house/maze. This gives weight to the theory that HABIT was just Evan’s insane alter ego.

Falsity of Images

Page 527 of HoL has the following quote:

“they (images) may be heartwarming but what they imply rings false.”

As of “All good things”, this quote becomes very interesting when applied to Vinny.

CYSTW and The Whalestoe Letters

Steph’s blog is very reminiscent of The Whalestoe Letters section in HoL. The cryptic messages, the way her character feels like Pelafina.

Finding Fairmount/ Finding Whalestoe

Johnny’s journey to find Whalestoe (HoL pages 503-504) is very similar to Vinny’s journey to find Fairmount. Whalestoe was a mental institute, where Johnny’s mother, Pelafina, use to live. When Johnny got there, however, the institute has long been abandoned, with graffiti on the walls. Just like Fairmount.

“This is no longer their game. Consider yourself marked.”

This message could only be found by tilting the screen while looking at Steph’s blog. In HoL, at least one of Pelafina’s letters are entirely in code, and one letter leaves decoding instructions.

And finally, a note on the META aspect

In HoL, TNR is discussed among scholars who wrote works after works arguing over details in the film. Taking into account that EMH is like TNR…..and everyone who took part in the ARG or discussed EMH theories, including me and this post, also becomes part of the story. It’s pretty crazy.

#emh #house of leaves #part 1

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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The land they walk through seems almost ordinary at first. Trees grow in a messy tangle along the side of the road; weeds push up through the cracks in the pavement. It's greener here than it was in Colorado, and if there's fire beneath them now, Jesse can't feel it.

But when they get further into town, the signs of decay are more evident. They pass a school with boards over every window, a church with slats missing from the walls. One house sags so much under the weight of mold and vines that its roof has caved in. Jesse shivers. The streets are utterly empty.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," murmurs Claire, but nothing answers. They walk on.

The air is getting colder. Jesse turns left at the next cross-street without really knowing why. The overcast sky seems darker now, the outlines of the far-off hills grayer and less distinct. A little ways further, half the road shears off into a hole waist-deep, billowing steam.

half this section is really just scenery porn. our fake centralia was inspired by silent hill which was inspired by the real centralia! an ouroboros of spooky ghost towns (literally).

when we first conceptualized the idea of purgatory in early 2011, it hadn’t had any canonical appearances except the moment the girl gets thrown into the fire to get possessed by eve. we figured if heaven was supposed to be a paradise and hell was supposed to be eternal torture, purgatory would be “in-between,” not happy or horrible, just...nothing really. flat and gray and lifeless and ghostlike. (we had an entire argument about whether it would be appropriate to include dead trees, since that implied they had once been living - i was for, cally against. i finally won her over, but then we forgot to put the trees in in two separate drafts so it didn’t wind up mattering.) anyway, centralia/fake centralia/silent hill was the perfect visual inspiration and it became the place we put the gate (not knowing, back then, how the gates would function in canon - that it could be opened from anywhere with the right spell).

it actually wound up informing the plot, because of a real life time capsule left to be opened in 2016 - we decided this was the year sam and dean would disappear, and that the gate could only be opened every 50 years, perhaps with something inside the time capsule. we get into it more in the prequel, but here’s a picture anyway:

and some more pictures of irl centralia:

and some from the 2006 silent hill movie, lol (dw nothing scary):

and finally, some “”concept art”” of centralia/purgatory we threw together near the beginning of this verse’s creation (some of which use real pictures as bases):

(this is the blog’s icon! we never bothered to change it lol)

(this last one is my favorite bc it’s the closest to my mental picture)

#long post #cambion lb #personal #sorry i just couldn't bring myself to add a cut #it should be shorter posts from here on out

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olympianpandback · 3 years

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May 15

You are reading this entry so late because we were in several “dead” zones the last few days in or near the National Park that Verizon has service in but not ATT and Wi-fi is not very good in most RV parks☹

We took a walk in the misty, cold, damp and foggy morning with new recruits doing their PT across the parade field from us at the National Guard training Facility we stayed at. Brought back good and not so good memories. The walk around the parade ground was about a mile then we headed for mount Saint Helens. Most if not all of the visitor centers at the national parks in Washington State are closed. A ranger gave us some information as we entered the park. It's hard to describe the destruction in words or pictures. After 41 years there is minimal forest growth or landscape blow the eruption. Below the crater it's more grey dirt or earth than brown dirt. It's amazing how calm it looks now. You can see how at least 1/4 of the mountain is gone. As you know it didn't erupt upward, it erupted outward and blew out the side of the conical shape of the Volcano. It took most of the day to get to mount Saint Helens and back down to a campground. It wasn't the nicest campground we have been in but it wasn't the worst. May 16

We headed to Mount Rainier. I guess that since it was Saturday there was a 30 minute wait to get into the park at the ranger station. We then zoomed up to the part we could see which is about 10 miles into the park. The road ended at the Paradise visitors center and café. We got lucky an and found a decent parking spot to have lunch before we went to look around. People were taking their sleds, skis other things to go up on the snow pack which was pretty hard and probably icy. On the way down, we stopped at a waterfall but didn't go down to the base because the trail is 3' of snow. We saw people who were slipping and sliding down to the waterfall but we just took pictures from above. If you have seen one waterfall you’ve seen them all. It was another long day but not very tiring and we got to a campground in Centralia Washington around 5 o'clock. It was very nice and we decided to spend another night just to catch up. The weather was nice and the cooked out on the grill.

May 17

In the morning, we decided to go to Safeway for shopping to get some provisions and then go to a local park which was a fort back in the day to have lunch and look around. Here's the interesting part. After lunch we decided to go back to Safeway to get some coffee and beer which we had forgotten. Everything went well until I decided to back out of the parking spot. Cars were racing by in the parking lane to get a spot and I was concentrating on them and missed a small car on my right side in my convex mirror. Unfortunately, the RV didn't miss it and my running light on the right side scraped the kid’s rear door. All we lost was the cover for the light and he will get a new door probably from USAA. My head is usually on a swivel and my eyes are everywhere, especially in a parking lot, but I missed this one. I always told the girls that a parking lot is the most dangerous place to drive!

May 18

I got a new running light at AutoZone, and the kid will get his 2006 Chevy fixed. I would buff it out and keep the money baby. I walked him through the process with the USAA representative so he knew I wasn't going to cheat him and he was happy because it was his mother's car. Lesson learned. Keep your eyes, ears and nose working when your back out of tight parking space in a grocery parking lot. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I just don't like to have accidents that are avoidable. Hopefully we are paying for accident forgiveness. Our insurance won't go up for a year because we just paid a full year premium the 30th of April.

18 May

We drove to Forks, Washington to a campground just outside town and in shouting distance of the Hoh Rain Forest. We got there fairly early and got a campsite close proximity to the bathrooms and the office. It was warm enough to grill some hot dogs for dinner and eat outside for a change. We knew it will be cold in the morning but we didn't know we it would be 39. We drove down to the Hoh Rain Forest (It’s the largest rain forest on North America) about 40 miles South of us to look around the area and walk on some of the trails. We took a 30 minute walk along the 15 mile trail that goes all the way up to the glacier and then turned around. We saw a lot of interesting Flora and some elk scat in the trail. We were excited but wished we had been 15 minutes earlier because the elk was walking toward us right on the trail. We had lunch and decided to go on the Mossy trail which was allegedly closed. The night before we went to the Hoh Rain Forest we went across the road to another campground just to look around and talked to the owner. She remembered talking to me after I mentioned my name because we decided not to stay there because the bathrooms were closed. We had a good talk and we found out she was born in Calumet, Oklahoma. She had moved to Montana after high school and met her husband who had left his home in Bremerton, Washington to move to Montana. They got married and had 3 children and ended up moving back to Washington to take care of his ailing parents. Then they found an opportunity to buy some property near Forks and they developed a campground. They usually spend part of the year in Alaska where they have another Homestead. She said that he really goes up there to fish and hunt, but says he’s going to work on the house. She's OK with that and flies up to meet him once in a while. They hope to retire one day, buy a smaller RV like ours and travel around the country. We agreed to bring our RV over to show her the morning we left but when we got to the office, she was not there so we motored on. We called her to tell her what we that we came by but she was out on the property and sorry she missed us. She was interested in the tables I fashioned for RV that are very functional. After our hour long walk in the forest, we decided to go on the Mossy trail. We went backwards on the trail because at the beginning of the one-way trail sign some people came down the trail and said they were some elk in the woods 500' North of us. Having been somewhat a contrarian all my life, we decided to go for the Elk sighting opportunity backwards. We saw a few cows but no bulls. We went backwards on the trail and we ran into another couple who were going the wrong way on the trail. We ended up having nice conversation with them for 20 or so minutes standing on the trail. John and Falaah had a lot of interesting information about what to do in Eastern Washington. They live in the Seattle area. It started raining so we headed back to the visitor center and it started hailing. Small but hail. When we got back to the parking lot we asked John and Falaah to join us for coffee as it was about 3 o'clock. We all got in the RV and warmed up and dried off while we had coffee and a bread with walnut and cranberries. We ended up having a 2 hour conversation about our travels and work experiences cetera. It was almost like we've known them all our lives. We laughed and laughed and related a lot of great stories from both sides. We gave them both our cards and Falaah emailed us the next day saying how much they enjoyed the meeting and look forward to seeing us again in the future.

May 20th

We took an hour and a half drive eastward along the 101 to Port Angeles. We saw a couple of interesting things but really wanted to get to a campground. We picked one at random and found out it is excellent campground with a very friendly camp post named David. He told us we could have all the lettuce we wanted for our dinner from the garden in front of the office. What a deal. We had planned to have macaroni with sausages so having a fresh salad was right up our alley. We booked a whale watching tour out of Port Townsend and a ferry ride over to the mainland on Sunday and Monday. We did take a short drive to a waterfall and to an area that the visitor center people told us to go see where the Elwha river meets the Straight of San Juan De Fuca and runs in to the ocean. It was interesting to see a river flow in straight to the shore which had waves lapping against it and the river ran into the waves. There were even surfers trying to ride the 3-4 foot waves. While getting ready for dinner, a lady walked by and waved at us so we talked to her. She said are you the LTV Van that waved to us as we were coming North and they were going South and I said yes. We great conversation about Leisure Travel Vans (RVs). They live in Denver not far from Concetta and Matt. They got a great deal on their LTV RV from someone who had bought it new, travelled for several months during the pandemic and just sold it at a greatly reduced price. They have ordered a brand new LTV that suits their needs and will make money on selling the used one they bought at a discount. Sound like something that would happen to me but not this time. Jan asked us to come see them when were in Denver to sit around the fire and tell some stories. We can't wait except for the fire were not good with smoke.

May 21

I went to the campground office to make sure they had charged our credit card for the second night. Chris, the owner of the campground said that David had booked us for the 19th and 20th not the 20th and 21st. There was someone who had reserved our spot a year ago starting today for a week so we had to move. She was so grateful I came in because someone could have booked the site she moved us in and we would have come back to a full campsite after sightseeing. The world works in mysterious ways. She is also interested in seeing our RV because they want to buy one like it when they retire.

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