#monster fucking on my christian blog? more likely than you might think

[grison-in-space]

Has Biden actually done anything at all? There's evidence going around and I think it's compelling, the alternate to voting is instead doing actual social work and participating in protests and organizing political action, which is a good idea i think

1) Yes. Inarguably this has been the most effective progressive domestic administration since I have been alive, and I'm in my thirties. What in the fuck are you talking about? It's not perfect, but it's better than we've seen in fifty years: Obama tried, but Democratic Congressional organization was just not yet used to working with a completely obstructionist GOP Congress in the wake of the tea party.

Even in terms of foreign policy, this is also pretty much as good as US involvement gets. Sorry. Our foreign policy has been shaped by monsters for decades, and that's even without dealing with our huge and active branch of Christian doom cultists. There ain't a candidate in the world that could stop the entire accumulated momentum of geopolitics with a snap of the finger, and I'm not really willing to pretend that Biden is particularly notable for not managing to fix Israel/Palestine relations.

2) In your own words, anon, what precisely does organizing political action entail without participating in the political process? Do you think that abstaining from the part of the gig where you, the citizen, get to say which official gets the job somehow makes your opinions matter more to your elected public officials? Have you ever organized to get so much as a municipal one-time library project budget expanded? Are you perhaps only skilled at political argument with people who already agree with you on the Internet?

What is your leverage, and could it reasonably be described as "extortion" or "blackmail" or "political corruption?" Because those are pretty much the only things on the table that can work more effectively to drive an elected official than a disciplined coalition of political allies (who can be purchased with, you guessed it, votes) or a reliable bloc of voter support. Your vote matters less than the ones you bring with you, sure. Do you think that not voting yourself somehow helps people organize to drive more votes? Have you perhaps replaced your complex reasoning skills with a rapidly dying jellyfish?

3) Holy passive vagueness, Batman! "Evidence is going around." What a masterpiece of a sentence! How it suggests everything while providing nothing! What evidence? Who collected it? Who is talking about the evidence "going around?" Who is listening? How many of them are there? What did they think before? The more I think, the more questions I have, and damn if they ain't predisposing me to be even less charitable.

Like, this is so catastrophically poorly supported that I have to confess that I not only believe this is probably an ask in bad faith (i.e. by someone who is expecting to piss me off or otherwise engage with me adversarially, probably spammed to a whole host of blogs at once with no expectation of response) but I actively hope that it is. The alternative is to have to grapple with the reality that some people are so uncomfortable with the responsibility of moral agency that they're willing to release useful levers of legal and social power just so that they never do anything problematic with that power. Much better, of course, to wash one's hands of anything that might have the stink of responsibility clinging to it. Might fall from the membership of the Elect if you actually get yourself all muddy by doing things, I reckon.

I don't even believe that voting is the only lever we have when it comes to our elected officials or that votes are necessary to secure change, and I am certainly not talking about the presidential ticket alone when I talk voting. What I do believe is two things: one, that voting is a potential lever of power on the emergent chaos of the society in which we live. And two, that anyone telling me to leave a lever of power on the ground without a damn good reason is either incompetent, malicious, or both.

[leggerefiore]

▽Drider Emmet△

so since multiple people are down for monster hcs... you get them... would u be interested in like mothman ingo as well

○ He, naturally, takes his arachnidian features from Galvantula. Living in abandoned areas of the city or deep within Chargestone cave depending on whether he's close to a mating cycle. He tends to get a bit violent unconsciously during that period, so he prefers to spend it alone in a dark cave. (Ingo still visits him because even in a more feral mindset, he knows his twin isn't a competitor in that way. They are still identical twins, but for some reason only he got the dominant spider genes.) When he's in the city, however, he tends to hide better as hybrids aren't exactly favoured. Especially ones with such an unsettling combination.

○ He takes on orphaned Joltiks as his own spiderlings as spoils them rotten. A few genuinely believe he fathered them biologically. Emmet did not, but deeply appreciates the affection. If you see a large amount of Joltiks within an area of Nimbasa, that means he's nearby. What you do with that information is on you. He wants biological children desperately, but finding a willing mate is extremely difficult. (Elesa and Ingo are out putting up posters, “Are YOU interested in spiders? Would YOU like to kiss a very special spider? Contact us here…”)

○ Like Galvantula, his silken web can have electrical charge. This can be used to a variety of effects… Do be careful, a sticky, net designed to fully paralyzed and immobilise isn't a very fun way to spend your weekend. He's mostly immune to electrical charge, so he might not even realise to web is zapping things. His fur can also be shot out from the spider portion of his form, this also is electrified. This is why he isolates during a cycle; he will likely take someone out unintentionally.

○ Whether you meet him through the strange advertisements posted or just wandering into him and going “oh, neat”. Emmet is ecstatic you aren't terrified of him as most people take a single glance at him before running away screaming. It really hurts him because everyone says he has such a friendly face before they notice his more monstrous features. You sit carefully on his (not electrically charged) web he spun for you and chat casually.

○ It was most unexpected to find a spider hybrid who desires to be a conductor, but you suppose we all have dreams. You remember his brother actually is a conductor, too. (There's an awful joke made, “But you already conduct electricity, Emmet!” He stared at you with soulless eyes and a kind smile.) He proceeds to go into a tirade about trains and different engine types. Then he goes into hypothetical engine types. You begin to realise that his spider hybrid state is literally the only thing preventing this man from achieving his true calling.

○ If you stick around long enough, and he grows interested in you romantically, you're offered a special Joltik he raised from an egg. It's terribly sweet, but please don't take them unless you plan to actually involve yourself like that with him. He's terribly sad if you reject him and may disappear for a short while to work his emotions over. Part of him knows how precious friends are, but another truly has come to love you.

○ Should you agree, however, you are squeezed into a loving embrace while his body vibrates from the sudden increase in electrical power. Emmet is elated to finally have a mate and talks about how he's going to attempt to make you something from his silk. (He makes… a blanket. Anyone who visits your home asks why it smells like spiders. You say nothing wrapped in the lovely gift. It's terribly warm despite the musk.)

○ Move him into your home, and you obtain a spider househusband. He cooks very well and cleans anything that doesn't involve taking down his webs. Have fun, he whines like you're hurting him when you have to. You come home from a long day of work to be cuddled by your boyfriend who coos and caws over every little thing. (At night, Emmet may try to cocoon you. Keep a sharp object handy for freedom because he sleeps in.)

18+ under cut, take precaution!

cw: spider fucking, bondage of sorts and, well, eggs, AFAB reader

○ He warns you of his cycle and how he gets. If you want, he'll leave. Tell him to stay, however, and you best ask for the time off. It's impossible to leave when he keeps blocking off the door. It's a fire hazard, you tell him. He stops promptly and attempts to bind you instead. His face is always flushed while he needs a hand on you constantly. The Joltiks have long since left the room he's hunkered down in.

○ You can choose your bed or his web, either way he restrains you in some way. You're down for it, however; you have chosen to fuck a spider, after all. He's tearing up and terribly hot as he presses his body close to your own. Kisses are placed over every centimetre of skin while he asks if you're truly alright. You wonder how badly he'd whine if you told him to stop. His six eyes stare adoringly at you.

○ You've been alerted to the eggs, and you're informed they don't magically go away overnight. (Ingo gave you this talk like that was a normal thing to do.) So, you're basically about to become pregnant for a shorter term. Something about that is kinda hot. Emmet positions his ovipositer carefully and checks again to make sure you certain. This is the point of no return. You nod, and the alien length is gently pushed inside. He cries out with unexpected loudness. You moan out as it completely stuffs you. There's still so much that can't fit. He begins to thrust, and your brain just stops functioning for a moment.

○ He makes strange clicking noises alongside human moans and groans while you just cry from the foreign pleasure he's giving you so readily. You're going to cum a few times before he even begins to lay the eggs; walls beckoning his actions. Emmet's smile turns extremely venomous as the first egg travels down the shaft. Your body's first instinct is to reject the precious young, but the pressure from the ovipositer and your weakened state from multiple orgasms passes that over quickly. It's laid deep inside your body with a warm gush of liquid. Another is following not long after, then a third and a fourth and a fifth. You're an absolute mess from the sensation and Emmet is pressing loving kisses to your neck and murmuring reassurances.

○ One of his hands rubs your swelling stomach as his eggs come faster and faster down the shaft. You cum again from the sudden bombardment, which moves the eggs quicker once again. You look heavily pregnant by the time he's finished pumping you full of his young. One last gush of warm liquid has you cry out from overstimulation. His ovipositer is retracted, and he's cooing over how full you are. You're, unfortunately, a bit brain-dead at the moment. You feel him begin to cocoon you as he usually does during the night. “Sleep, darling,” he spindles his web across your chest, careful not bind you too tightly (as to not hurt his growing young or you), “I'll take care of everything you'll need.”

[therealvinelle]

The illustrious then-@keerka, who now goes by @troquantary, sent me the following ask. Tumblr, of course, ate it, but luckily for us all I store all my asks on an outside server, so it wasn’t lost.

(A moment of silence for the fact that I took so long to answer this one that the ask was eaten and the asker got a new blog in the meantime.)

This was the ask:

Hi! When you have time, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on the worldbuilding in Twilight and its logical consistency (if that's not too vague a question to even pose). For me it's almost hard to assess because the canon universe feels very...sparse? Kind of undeveloped? But that also means more room to develop headcanons, so I'm not complaining. Curious to know what you think, though!

This is my answer:

I think I’ll divide my answer in two sections, first I’ll give you an example of a franchise that has poor worldbuilding, then get into my thoughts on Meyer’s worldbuilding.

Supernatural.

Low-hanging fruit, but all the better an example for it. 

Supernatural introduces us to a world where everything is real. Everything that goes bump in the night, every myth and every monster, it’s all real, and 99% of them are out to hurt people. Who will stand against this evil, you may ask? Why, a scruffy but all-American bunch of self-declared hunters. These people are not organized, in fact most of them work alone. They are all outlaws. Their expertise is questionable, as Bobby Singer is considered remarkable for the fact that he usually knows what something is.

That’s it.

These people, all of them independent, most of them weird as fuck, are it. You’re in 21st century America, your country wields the most formidable military force in the world, and if something supernatural is wreaking havoc in your town you’d best hope one of these hunter nutjobs happens to have spotted the right newspaper clipping.

We’re offered no explanation as to why the American government doesn’t know about the supernatural, or why the world doesn’t look completely different. In our world, people don’t believe in ghosts because ghosts aren’t real, but in the world of Supernatural, people don’t believe in ghosts because [footage not found].

There’s no demon nor government conspiracy to keep the world at large ignorant, in fact this subject is never broached.

Hunters would make sense if they were bountyhunters, but they’re not. The secrecy could make sense if the angels were behind it, but they’re not.

“Maybe the military does know!” you might say, “it’s just that they don’t let the hunters know they know!” Well, we would have found out in season 5. Dean and Sam were caught up in the apocalypse, the government would definitely have gotten involved with that one.

Then we have the fact that the supernatural entities aren’t internally consistent either. We have angels, demons, humans - good, got it. I know what these three are in relation to each other. But, wait, we have wendigos, banshees, ghosts, witches, vampires, and tricksters as well. How do they all fit into the same world? How does the Christian God and every pagan pantheon, both of which are canon per Supernatural, fit into the same world? Who knows? Not Supernatural.

Supernatural is a world that is written on an episode-to-episode basis, by writers who wanted that gritty bounty-hunter aesthetic for their show about supernatural marks.

Back to Twilight.

Twilight, by comparison, makes a great deal of sense to me. 

I’ll admit that some of this is me reading into the text a lot, but I do that with every fandom I’m in. Twilight is a rare one where I can find an answer to every question.

We have these insanely powerful vampires whose exploits leave no survivors and whose numbers are kept low because it’s so hard to create a new one. They’re kept in line by a powerful organization no one can fight, and new laws are created as Aro discovers new threats (Immortal children, his debate on what to do with Renesmée). There are at least two other supernatural species out there, but of the two mentioned one is in place to protect humans, and the other was run extinct by the very organization that keeps vampires in line as well. None of this is fantheory, this is canon as Meyer created it.

Of course, I’ve gone some strange places in guessing why the Volturi exist, why the world of Twilight looks the same as ours, and why the supernatural world appears so limited. However, all of these things are extrapolated from canon. And I can extrapolate very easily because Twilight canon is consistent.

And this here segues into section two of my reply to you, as I imagine you (and many others reading this) are now saying “It’s not solid worldbuilding if the fans are doing all the work!”

Well, again - the difference between her and a lot of other authors is that when I overthink her work I find satisfying answers. That’s not a given, for instance I can’t do that with GRRM’s A Song and Ice and Fire, and half the point of that series is the worldbuilding! (My complains are many, I had to cut them from this meta, but the big one: why don’t the peasants revolt?)

I can’t think of a single plot hole in Twilight, nor of a logical inconsistency. Something either makes sense right off the bat, or I can look a little closer and easily piece together a logical explanation.

More, there’s no excess. I suppose this is what others don’t like about Meyer’s worldbuilding, but I enjoy it. Characters don’t prattle fun facts about things that ultimately don’t matter to the story, and if they do then it turns out later that yes, it did matter. Quite notably, when Carlisle gives Bella a crash course on vampire history, Meyer skips all of it except the part about immortal children, because that’s what was important. Later in that same book we meet Amun and the Romanians, and learn what the world used to be like, so it’s not like Meyer hadn’t come up with it. She left it out because it would have been off-topic and meandering.

This is where Meyer’s approach to worldbuilding comes in. It seems to me that she created the people and the story first, and then let the world they lived in fall into place around them, rather than the other way around. Now, there’s no right way to worldbuild, but I personally prefer authors who do it this way. To my tastes it generally leads to better stories, as this kind of author will show you the world through the story. We discover it as we go along and it becomes relevant to our characters, and if we don’t learn everything about it then that’s fine, though we’ve been given enough clues to guess. Consistency is key in this.

By contrast, authors who do it the other way around and build the world in full detail first, usually end up with worse stories. They get lost in their worldbuilding more often than not, their worlds end up so complex they’re inconsistent, and the story gets off-topic. Too much worldbuilding distracts from the story while adding nothing.

(There are of course exceptions to both, and I have more thoughts on this, but overall this has been my experience with fiction. Too much worldbuilding is in fact too much.)

The world should always serve the story, not the other way around.

(Again gonna use GRRM as an example. I don’t give a fuck about Aragorn’s tax policy. It’s not important to the story.)

So, these are my rambly thoughts on how I think.

There’s also the fact that, judging by Twilight and The Host, Meyer is just plain good at worldbuilding. She gets very good ideas, and she’s intelligent enough to successfully implement them into a story (look to Supernatural for an un-intelligent way of impleneting good ideas). And that’s all I ask.

[tonyglowheart]

This entire thing is a rant, feel free to ignore it, but I saw your post about how destiel fans can’t win in this context, and yeah. So have some rambles.

I’ve been thinking about the fact we (current spn/destiel fans) can’t win all night... I’ve seen so many people talking about how homophobic it is - and while I would very much like to argue, as every point I’ve seen made by a non-spn fan has been wrong so far, if I did everyone inside the fandom would agree and everyone outside would either call me straight or pity me for believing it’s okay.

(Cas wasn’t even sent to hell lmao. He was sent to angel death (the empty), a place he has escaped in the past. Other points, like that meta about spn has been predicting exactly this for months, that Dean ended up sobbing on the floor because he was so upset, like that death means next to nothing on spn, like that there is two episodes left, etc etc. you feel me right? I just don’t want to post wank to other spn blogs atm, we’re getting enough frustration as it is, no need to add to it.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bar is very, very low. Spn is a prominent TV show - not a Netflix show, or indie, or whatever - and it just said “main character in gay love saved the world”. [insert gif of ghostfacers dude saying that gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day here]

I just saw someone saying that spn having Naomi try to brainwash Cas out of loving dean makes spn homophobic (it is a conversion therapy parallel). My first response to that is that Naomi was the villain lmao? I guess we can’t write villains doing anything homophobic because having villains do homophobic things makes, uh - checks notes - villains look homophobic, and clearly we can’t have that.

There certainly are legitimate things to criticise spn about, but this isn’t it lol.

Also now some people are unironically trying to cancel Jensen because “his acting was homophobic, and so he’s clearly homophobic”, nevermind that he’s an actor and his character struggles with understanding his emotions (which I think he played excellently, myself. That scene had a very Dean delayed emotional response), nevermind the support he’s given to us queers in the past. Like. Idek man.

We would have been laughed at if we got no destiel, too.

It would have been worse, had the writers pulled a dumbledore. At this point I also trust the writers not to pull a GoT - they have explicitly criticised that ending in spn’s canon.

Spn’s writers did that by making the main villain of this season, Chuck / God, say GoT had a good ending. To reiterate a previous point I had: villains do bad things because they’re bad. And the bad things they do make them bad. For the people out there not still following, if someone does something in a story and it makes them a villain, that is explicitly telling you the story (and probably the writers) thinks that thing is bad. In this case, Chuck likes to write things for him, and we the audience have been shown and told that is bad.

Apparently thinking a gay confession is good in 2020 makes me straight. Seems unlikely, but whatever. Sorry for the length, I guess I went overboard, I’ve been holding it in lol. Anyway, DESTIEL IS CANON 💚💙 hope you have a good night

Helloo supernatural anon I hope you are living your best life right now. Yeah I’m like..... skeptical and leery myself but having lived through some absolute garbage discourse that is general purity wank, as well as the C/QL greater fandom here and on Twitter I find myself... much more wanting to question the “general wisdom” of things esp in terms of negativity, bc a lot of the time I find.... it’s wrong? Like so wrong. Or at least presents such an incomplete picture of the whole situation and also presents it in such a removed context that words that have meaning and are operationalized in a certain way for a reason, no longer have meaningful usage.

Anyway I don’t... know too much about the specifics of Spn but someone I follow is into it and talks a lot about the Gnostic stuff and that all was very fascinating to me, and I also have been grappling a lot with cultural Christianity bc of cmedia and the way ppl just *clenches fist* unthinkingly or uncritically slap some Christian norms on it and call it a day 😩 help I’m Tired. My thing here being... I actually got tired of the uncritical “superhell”s at some pt bc I am, in fact, incredibly exhausted with cultural Christianity, and because it does seem like, even possibly(?) without the Gnostic stuff it’s different from a “hell” or other Protestant-derived afterlife concept, and also yeah that it wasn’t seeded out of nowhere, it was set up to happen, which then... lends credence to the idea that whatever the current era of Spn is doing, the current showrunners are doing it with purpose.

And idk I just... refuse to believe the concept that ALL of the fans of Spn - esp the ones who have been following it still, or got back into it and are following it currently, are acting under delusion or are fooling themselves into liking it or thinking it’s good or whatever. I personally find that kinda infantilizing and patronizing and playing into issues of dismissing things women and/or other marginalized identities like.

Plus I find the concept that (from what I think I’ve been seeing Spn fans say) that the current era of the show is quite actively grappling with itself, its past, its legacy. to be very interesting and compelling; it hearkens back to like an old lore kind of feeling, of a thing that has grown into a nigh undefeatable monster and realizing that, also realizing that the only way to defeat itself is through grappling with its own nature and transforming and transmuting itself into something else. I personally find that more plausible and compelling than “Supernatural has been actively and continuously queerbaiting for 15 homophobic homophobic years., so right now we’re all very sorry for you because this maybe is no longer queerbaiting but it’s still homophobic and it can never be anything different ever.” I’ve been sort of tangentially aware of Spn thru the years and didn’t we agree, around the time of that in-universe play about Spn and with the lil Destiel shoutout, that Spn has come a ways as far as coming to terms with its fandom and working to treat its fans better? Why the sudden regression into “oh no, Supernatural is and forever will be homophobic and a hate crime”? 🤔 

The rest under a cut bc the ask is already long and then my rambling will get longer-

But yeah I mean..... I get that the legacy of Supernatural has been certifiably Rough, but I think people also forget how different of a time 2005 was? Hell, how different of a time 2015 was, even, prior to, say, Obergefell v. Hodges. Now I’m not saying that to blanket-excuse Supernatural, but like, you look at mainstream shows from the era and... there’s a lot of shit lmao. The fact that Supernatural has existed this long seems to me like.... maybe we CAN look at how it’s developed through the years vs just insisting it is what it was 15, 10, hell, 5 years ago. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s been showrunner changes? Which seems to me like it would... affect things? I mean honestly, I remember back when I got into Spn for a hot second because of Castiel, I remember watching panel, Q&A, etc vids thru the years, and like... I thought we agreed that... it was the fans who were going a bit far pushing the shipping question like literally ALL the time to the actors, who are not in control of the show and.... like at the time.... that could have had personal implications for them? And yes homophobia bad, and people can still be allies despite that, but again like.... I do feel like - from what I’ve seen - that these guys were NOT ready to deal with a lot of that but they’ve (okay Jensen I’m talking about Jensen here) genuinely grown and learned? Also how many years ago was the essay autograph thing that people keep trotting out, like what year was it in and what year of spn was it, and what were the prevailing opinions on LGBT issues and bisexuality then.

I’ve been seeing some murmurings of identity politicsing surrounding ppl who enjoy Supernatural, and I’m sorry that that’s happening to you, it really fucking sucks and it’s also the dumbest way to “make” or “win” an argument because it shouldn’t ever be a final determiner, just factors to consider when considering what life experiences might have informed someone else’s PoV and views as well as maybe how you can better communicate with them. Instead of it being a “weapon” or “tool” to either dismiss someone or de facto validate an argument.

Also yeah I get it that you don’t want to send discourse to spn blogs bc I imagine you guys ARE actively grappling with all the bs rn and it’s a lot. Even just from like, the stuff I see around, I’m like tired of it. I’m genuinely having more fun with ppl who are having a good time with Supernatural than the ppl who are hating on it, even in this sort of backhanded “oh we’re not clowning YOU we’re clowning the writers and showrunners who think you should be satisfied with this,” when... yeah? the people who HAVE been watching the show and therefore... know what’s up.. DO seem to be? And all this based on *fake gasp* context. And that’s where the backhandedness becomes kind of poisonous to me, because it implies that it IS bad, and that you SHOULDN’T be satisfied, but poor little you are but don’t worry, we’re not making fun of YOU for liking garbage, you’re just the hapless victim who is consuming the garbage bc... idk, whatever reasons ppl are coming up with ig.

idk man it’s 2020. Fandom isn’t activism, performative or otherwise, it’s okay to let people enjoy things even if you think they’re “objectively” bad, and like... I don’t know if people can call something bad when they’re not even working with the whole context and instead are dealing with rumor and reputation. 

[a-dozen-moderate-fragments]

This isn’t going to be a manifesto on healing or mental health or any of those things, and not because I don’t have years of personal experience in those areas, but rather because the only experience I can talk about is personal. The things that worked for me aren’t guaranteed to work for anyone else, but they’re all I have. I just want to write down a bunch of stuff I’m thinking about. The story goes a little something like this:

Up until somewhere around two years ago I was very depressed – and I think it started when I was ten or so? One of the things that makes this so tricky to talk about is that I don’t remember most of it and it feels like I only woke up a few years ago. But that’s for another time. What matters today is that for a pretty decent chunk of my life, to varying degrees, I was not doing so great in the general head region. Around the middle of high school (so like 15-16 years old) this showed up as a gradually worsening spiral into self-hatred, suicidal ideation, and a general lack of function that reached its extreme early senior year (18 yrs old), with a generous helping of shitty behavior throughout. I’ll spare the details, but to briefly summarize: an attempt, a deliberately anonymized and untraceable plea for help, two days of protective hospitalization, and three very awkward sessions with a therapist, with whom I did not even slightly cooperate (lmao Sarah I’m sorry for being such an obstinate little shit, and to anyone who was here for the other blog at the time and saw what I wrote about the experience, you deserve the employee discount), and to an extent those things helped, but, and weird flex incoming, I think what really helped me recover my mind and pull my schoolwork and personal relationships out of the nosedive I’d put them in was laundry. Let me explain.

I started doing my own laundry around age 12. No particular reason; that’s just when I decided I was a ✨big boy✨ or whatever the fuck and asked my mom to teach me how to do it. And for a while it was entirely insignificant, just a thing I did in between all the other things I did. After my \\epic crisis moment// though, the task became more significant. As I sat with the flaming rubble of a self I’d left me, I knew three things: that I wanted to take this wreck and twist it into someone better, that I didn’t have the tools to do the job or even an idea of where to look for them, and that I’d start in the laundry room. The person I’d been had in every measurable way fallen the heck apart, but for some reason none of my issues interfered too badly with my ability to do laundry. Admittedly, it did often happen far closer to the last minute than it needed to, but regardless it always got done. No matter how much of a crisis I was in, by god I was going to at least be having that crisis in clean clothes. So when it came time to rebuild anew, that’s where I started. While I was gathering my dirty clothes to put in the wash, maybe I’d also pick up those papers off the floor, or maybe I’d glance through my email inbox while I was waiting for the dryer so I could have a few hours to prepare myself before I had to actually write an email. It took months and months of concentrated work and lots of fragile progress, but eventually, building outwards from “I am capable of doing laundry,” I made my way into one (1) reasonably stable and functioning human.

There were other factors, of course. Another big thing I did was to surround myself with better things. I removed myself as much as possible from people who might bring me back into my old patterns, and as much as possible surrounded myself with stories of positivity and growth and healing, and I learned to sing, and I found people both real and fictional to live for, and if I’m being honest? Part of it was being here on tumblr reading posts about cherry pies and flowers in the concrete and monsters and heroes blended into one, and I’m also sure there’s symbolism in the laundry ritual to dig into about cleansing and wiping away past transgressions and all that christian bullshit, but all of that stuff’s not really what I’m interested in here. I know at the start I said I only can talk about myself, but I think it’s useful to talk about what I did in general terms, to examine how a broken person with no idea how to mend can do so. These are what I take away from my experience with forcefully rebuilding myself: If you’ve only got one solid thing, you screw in a handhold and cling to it for all you’re worth. It can be the smallest or most unrelated thing and it does not matter; it will still crack open the door to further growth. It’s a fundamentally self-driven effort that takes a long time, but it gets a little easier if there’s another person in the equation, whether they be a friend, a family member, or even a fictional character. It’s far too easy to get frustrated with how little progress you seem to be making and give up, but having another person to fight for so they can have a better version of you can counter that. It might not be the 100% healthiest thing to define yourself by how you benefit others, but it helps. Bonus points if one of those people in the equation is a certified mental health professional. Be aware of what your subconscious is telling you as you go. You’re already in a state of reconstruction, so if there’s something you need to change, this is a good time to do it. If there’s something you find yourself idly thinking about a lot, examine it (hint hint trans hint. Not that that’s an obligatory part of this whole process but like. It was for me lmao). It’s hard and it sucks and progress is not linear nor is it guaranteed to stick 100% of the time but I promise it is so worth it and there will come a day when you no longer feel in danger of slipping and I’m proud of how far you’ve come and how far you’ll go.

And I don’t really have anything meaningful to say but as shit has this year has been in general, for the first time I remember I’m happy that I’m alive and I’m so glad I was able to claw my way to this point and I know I’ve got much farther to go but – and this is a radical statement for me – I genuinely do love who I’ve become and I’m excited to see where I go next, how much more genuinely and readily I can love and how many people I can care about and bring with me.

[monsterfuneral]

monster live reacts to interview with the vampire

Alright I'm about to watch Interview With the Vampire for the first time and I'm gonna live react to it (in one post so I don't blog people's dashboards).

I don't know anything about this movie so :)

A new - Indicates when something new has happened. 

---

- Let me see that fucking scientologist!!!

- WAIT CHRISTIAN SLATER'S IN THIS?! WH-

- I like this *very* dramatic music playing

- ...I don't think I've ever seen Christian in anything other than Heathers so.

- (When Louis turn on the lights) WHY IS HE SO VEINY LMAO.

Okay edward cullen

Ah yes vampire backstory

- Poor guy 😔

- OH SHIT IT'S THE BLONDE BITCH. IS THIS LESTAT??

- Oh shit he's about to get a little sucky sucky... Shit nvm she's dead

OH SHIT WE FLYIN

He's just taking a little swim. Literally how did he survive.

- Oh shit hes back

Just kiss already, fuck dude

- OH. He's a quick little guy, just a little cuddle with my pal

Bleed on his ass. Oh shit he's into it

Oh shit he's turning into a werewolf.

HIS VAMPIRE WHAT. He's got new ass eyes. 

WHAT THE FUCK THE STATUE'S EYES ARE MOVING

- "Coffins are unfortunately a necessity" am I the only one who's like... Totally okay with the idea of sleeping in a coffin or

- Lestat is really pretty 😳

- Oh he's god a nifty little thumb thing, that's very epic of him.

- HE REALLY JUST FUCKING CAUGHT THAY DAMN RAT AND IS NOW EATING IT....

He shook that damn rat out like it was a bottle

- Doggies

READ HER THOUGHTS WHAT

- Oh shit they taking the dogs for walkies

Sir you have lipstick on your nose

NOOOO THE DOGS.

- Oh shit he's mad

LESTAT'S LAUGH LMAO WHAT THE FUCK

- He is fucking hungry. All those chickens gone to waste.

Oh shit

- He's such an asshole omg

OH HE'S MAD

- Oh shit he's giving him the hand. Louis is NOT having Lestat's dramatics right now

- Oh shit THE CRAWFISHNOOOO

Oh shit she's dead. Poor girl :(

- Yes love arson

Lestat is SO DRAMATIC "PERFECT! PERFECT! JUST BURN THE WHOLE PLACE DOWN!" I think that's what he's doing sir.

LMAO "OH SHUT UP LOUIS, COME HERE!" yeah get his ass Lestat

- Oh a cemetery:) this is nice

- Lestat's only moods are: overly dramatic, horny.

Also I absolutely refuse to believe this man is straight

YO THOSE FUCKING CHEEKS ARE *STRAINING* IN THOSE PANTS

- Just me and my big happy vampire family :)

Aww wait okay that's actually kinda cute. Just two dad's spoiling their daughter :) I'm sure nothing bad at all will happen.

LMAOOOOOO "Claudia! Now who will get to finish your dress? A little practicalities, remember, never in your home" AND THE LITTLE HAND SLAPS LMAO. I fucking love him.

AWWW HER LITTLE COFFIN IS SO CUTE

(NOOO MY DRAFT DIDN'T SAVE AND DELETED A FEW THINGS I SAID)

- Anyway, I'm at the part where Claudia is upset over Lestat treating her like a doll. Which I can't blame her, I wouldn't be too pleased about it either if this was how I was treated for the past 30 years.

Oh shit she's throwing the dolls away.

THERE'S SO MANY OMG

Oh shit there's a body on the bed. Lestat is not happy, oh shit he's shaking her around.

LESTAT CALM DOWN DAMN

- Oh shit she's cutting her hair off. You know what you fucking go, stand up for yourself.

It (short hair) actually looks pretty good, we love that for her. 

OH SHIT NVM IT'S BACK SHE IS ANGRY

- I do not blame her at all. Even though she was sick her whole life was still robbed from her, I compl understand the rage, this is an amazing performance.

LESTAT SHUT UP! YOU FUCKING DID THIS DUDE.

OH SHIT SHE'S FUCKING CUTTING HIS ASS

- He just pulled a David line "you will never grow old, and you will never die"

- Louis is such a sweetheart. I love him so much. (I love lestat too he's just a bitch)

- Poor Claudia. She deserved to be happy.

"my love..." 🤢 What.

- Lestat's fucking dramatic piano playing JSWJRKEK

- Lestat is really just Klaus Mikaelson with less rage (maybe)

I feel like she's got a devious little plan.

"we forgive each other then?" He just wants someone to love him man...

OH MY GOD DID SHE JIST DRUG HIM LMAO

OH NO IT'S BC THEY'RE DEAD

OH SHIT!! SHE JUST FUCKING SLIT HIS THROAT! You know even though I love Lestat. I'm proud of Claudia.

"good night, sweet prince" get his ass

- I'm glad she's doing research though, she deserves to know what she is.

- AWW BIRDIES

- Uh oh he god ding dong ditched. 

I'm making a prediction right now: Lestat isn't dead.

choking his ass out fuck. That corpse was dirty as hell but I assume I was right and it was Lestat.

I knew it. He is a little leather bastard now.

- OH SHIT SET HIS ASS ON FIRE

HE'S FLYING WHILE ON FIRE LMAO

Louis you fucking go, king shit.

- Claudia is quite the artist. Shit dude.

They're in paris now :) I have a tiktok for this, will post afterwards.

- I'm so glad they're both happy. I'm sure it totally won't be ruined or anything :)

- Oh shit new Vampire?? Just me and my new pal syncing up

I LEGIT THOUGHT HE WAS ABOUT TO GO THROUGH THE WALL LMAO

OH NVM HE'S JUST DANCING UP IT

- WHO IS THAT 👀 

nvm I don't like him he gives me bad vibes.

- Vampire party?

Just a play nvm.

Oh shit this is fucked up. Hey guys I don't think she's apart of his. 

Nvm she might be idk. (she wasn’t)

YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE A GIF FOR THIS FEEDING SCENE IN THE PLAY

- The dress Claudia is wearing is very pretty though

- THE WAY HE REACTED TO THE OTHER BITE MARKS ON THE KID'S HAND LMAO

- I don't trust this guy.

Oh shit old ass. 400

Oh shit they have what we do in the shadows rules.

- Poor Claudia.

- Oh shit she's going to the doll store 😔

- I AM SHOCKED I JUST REALIZED THIS GUY IS ANTONIO BANDERAS LMAO

Me listening to this guy talk: wait that Antonio Banderas?...

Me: there's no way *starts looking it up*

Me when I look at the cast list, now covering my mouth: ....it's Antonio Banderas....

Louis better not fall for this shit. Claudia needs you dude.

Tbh I wish my nails looked as good as Louis'

- That sidewalk is so fucking skinny man.

- Who's the lady...

Oh shit Claudia 😔 poor thing. She doesn't deserve all this pain.

Oh shit he's gonna do it. 

Oh shit he's doing it. 

OH SHIT HE DID IT.

- Poor Louis 😔 this story is just a "I feel bad for everyone" kinda story huh.

WHAT THE FUCKWHY ARE YOU KISSING HIM HUUUH????? 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

- NOOOO WHAT'S HAPPENING

CLAUDIA NOOO

WHAT IS HAPPENING

This is very not epic of them.

Oh shit are they in like a sun trap or something, like in what we do in the shadows 

DNWKSLSK I WAS RIGHT. I'm a fucking genius.

Oh no 😔 poor Claudia man.

- Oh Armand is actually helping. That's very epic of him. Scared it's 100% too late for Claudia though.

NOOOOOO

Poor Claudia 😔 you'll be missed AND POOR LOUIS THAT WAS HIS ONLY FAMILY >:( angry.

I would say at least Claudia's freed but literally to where... :( I hope she's somewhere happier.

- His eyes are so red omg.

AWW HE'S CRYING

- GET YOUR REVENGE BB

Ooo it was very pleasing to watch that liquid pour down those fancy steps

- YEAH BITCH GET YOUR REVENGE LIGHT THOSE ASSHOLES UP

OH MY GOD???? HE FUCKIN CUT HER HEAD OFF WOOOO. GET THEIR ASSES LOUIS!

This vest on him? Iconic.

OH FUCK JUST CHOPPED THROUGH HIS ASS LIKE NOTHING

YOU GO LOUIS. ICONIC. AMAZING.

- LMAO THE WAY HE THREW HIMSELF INTO THE WINDOW OF THE CARRIAGE

- Oh Louis 😔

- Now he's all alone this is so sad :(

- He’s a movie nerd, understandable.

- He's so pretty

- WAIT OLD DEATH???👀👀👀👀 L-lestat?....

Body in the vines. 

Bats :). 

AAAAAAA I KNEW IT

HE LITERALLY CAN NOT DIE. HOW IS HE ALIVE.

You look a little decrepit my man

"still beautiful Louis" *cries*

THE WAY HE SCOOTS AWAY LMAO

"the more I wanted you" just admit you were in love with him, loser.

"become the old Lestat" well I don't think we need that. Love you though :)

- Mans really just said "but louis I wanna be traumatized too :("

OH SHIT CHOKING HIM ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING

- Oh he's got a nice car though :)

- LESTAT LET HIM GO HE'S DRIVING

HE'S SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN I LOVE HIM

THE END

I really liked it :) a little weird how they made Claudia and Louis’ relationship seem romantic, I didn’t like that, and well some other things too but, you know. 

[atc74]

Making Circles - Month Six

Square(s) Filled: Smiting for @heavenandhellbingo

Warnings: Case angst, being fake married to Dean, arguing, smiting, case level violence, emotional pain

Summary:  Dean and Y/N have to pretend to be married for a case. But this isn’t any ordinary case. Married couples have gone missing from Albert Lea, Minnesota, every six months for the last few years but there is almost zero evidence. People don’t just disappear like that do they? With Bobby and Sam’s help, plus an ally in their new town, they have just under six months to figure it out. Chances are they’ll survive the case, but will their friendship survive their fake marriage?

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1522

Written for: @heavenandhellbingo

Beta’d by: @amanda-teaches, who says the nicest things and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and also keeps me on a straight line. I heart you! And @alleiradayne for letting me bounce ideas off her, like all the time.

A/N: This will be six chapter series, one for each month of the case, plus a bonus epilogue. Loosely based/inspired by the song Making Circles by Christian Kane and I just felt this needed to be written. There will be lyrics dispersed throughout the entire story. I hope you love this as much as I do.

The nicest thing you can do for a writer is reblog their work and tell them, and others, how much you like it!

Making Circles master list

Month Six

Y/N sat in the office pouring over old files, crime scene photos and newspaper clippings, hoping something would jump out at her. They had less than a month to wrap this up before two more people went ‘missing’ into a puff of pink dust. With how things were going with her and Dean, and the fact that Cas didn’t think the Rit Zien knew the difference between emotional and physical pain, it very well could be them next.

It was this dance they were stuck in and they were coming up one more graceful, or at least well practiced, spin. The words were the same each time the song played. She and Dean moving around each other, the same words, the same actions. They were trying to keep up the charade, go through the motions, say the words, but it all worked out the same in the end, didn’t it? After they wrapped the case, where would they be? Back to hunting, best friends and partners. Five months can make you see a person in a whole new light and that was where she found herself now.

Clearing her mind, she returned to the clippings when something caught her eye. She checked another clipping. She double and triple checked the information before she called Dean.

“Hi, Honey, what’s up?” he answered casually.

“You need to come home right now. I think I found something. Something huge.”

“Don’t move. I’m on my way.”

The garage was a fifteen minute drive and Dean made it home in less than ten. “Y/N! Honey! Where are you?” She heard his boots echo through the house, hitting the hardwoods as he ran through the first floor.

“Down here!” Y/N called from the bottom of the stairs.

His footfalls pounded heavy down the wooden staircase as he raced to her. “Tell me you have good news.”

“Look at these clippings,” she requested, handing him a magnifying glass. “Tell me what you see.”

Dean examined each of the eight articles and pictures she had laid out over the desk. He went back and forth, inspecting them over and over. “Son of a bitch.”

“You see it too? I’m not crazy. Tell me I’m not crazy,” she pleaded with him.

“You’re not crazy,” Dean confirmed. “You’re a brilliant, badass hunter, Honey. You did it!” He pulled her in and kissed her. The kiss wasn’t rushed like the first one they shared. As soon as her mind recovered from the shock, she threw her arms around him, eagerly kissing him back. This kiss held more passion and promise than the last.

“Dean…” Y/N breathed, pulling back from his embrace. “I know the last five months have been a roller coaster, but it’s been good. It can’t get much better, but it sure can get worse. Either way we turn, it’s gonna hurt.”

“Y/N, we go round and round trying to work it out, and all we get is hell bent and bound. We’re never far from right where we are. You think that we would get enough, I know there’s a possibility that we’re going to fuck it up. But we’re holding on, and we’re sinking down. We go, round and round, making circles.” Dean read her mind, finishing the thought for her.

“Dean, we circle each other, like partners in a dance or fighters in the ring, it depends on the day. Let’s just focus and finish this thing, then maybe...just maybe we can figure out what this is, or what we even want it to be,” she suggested, holding out hope that they actually got the chance to have that talk. “I’m going to grab us a drink, why don’t you call Cas?”

“Yeah, okay. You’re right, we can wait,” Dean conceded and bowed his head. “Cas, we need you, buddy. We got something here and we need your help. So come on down, you’re the next contestant on Name that Douchebag Angel,” Dean opened his eyes, hoping Cas would have appeared in the room with them.

“Hello, Y/N,” Cas rasped from the doorway to the kitchen, startling her.

“Cas! Don’t do that!” Y/N shrieked.

“I’m sorry. Did you not just pray for me?” Castiel tilted his head like a confused puppy.

“No, Dean did. He’s downstairs,” she led the way, waiting for Cas to follow her.

“No, I am pretty sure I heard you loud and clear, Y/N,” Cas repeated.

“No, Castiel. I did not pray for you, despite what you think you heard. Now, forget about it and let’s finish this shit now!” Y/N growled at him as they entered the office.

Dean had not seen this fire in her since the demon hunt. He was relieved he was not the cause of her anger this time. “Whoa, did you piss in her Cherrios?”

“I don’t understand that reference, Dean,” Cas declared and Dean broke out in laughter. “Dean, I hardly think now is the tim-.”

“Focus, Dean!” Y/N chided him, dragging Castiel to the desk to look over the news articles she had been inspecting. “Cas, we think this might be the angel, the Rit Zien. They are in all the photos from the newspaper. These couples didn’t live in the same neighborhood, so it cannot be a coincidence that this person knew all the couples. We think this is it.”

“We won’t know for sure until they show up. I cannot recognize their grace from a grainy photograph,” he explained. “I will need to see the vessel in person to know if this is the Rit Zien.”

“Well, they are drawn to physical or emotional pain, right?” Dean inquired. “I think we’ve got enough of that right here. They’ll come.”

Days and days passed without incident. To say things were tense around the house would would be putting it lightly. Dean and Y/N worked, came home, ate and went to bed. On the fourth night, she couldn’t take it anymore. She broke.

“What do you want from me, Dean? I need to know where I stand with you,” she cried. “I can’t go back to our normal lives knowing how this feels and how badly I want it to be real.”

“This is the closest we’ll ever get to normal. I want to believe that in our lives, our real lives, that a relationship with you is possible. But, what if we can’t? Aren’t you sick and tired of trying with me? We keep fucking this up, running circles around each other. What if we keep fucking it up out there?” Dean challenged her, afraid of what she was really feeling.

“You know what? I can’t do this right now. I thought I could, but no. Nope. And don’t bother coming to bed. You can sleep in your old room for the night. I need some time,” she sniffed, trying to hide the tears and emotion rolling off of her. She ran up the stairs and slammed the door to the room they had been sharing. Until that night.

Dean wasn’t even sure what happened, but he knew he had said the wrong thing. He usually did. He grabbed a beer and went up to shower before bed. It was going to be a long couple of weeks in this house with her if he couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

Dean closed his eyes as the water pounded down on him. The shower was hot but felt good on his tired muscles. Almost six months of manual labor in the garage had been harder than he thought it would be. But he adjusted, he figured it out. His body acclimated to the job, his mind to their new identities and his emotions to this new life. His eyes flew open, struck with the epiphany of how to fix it. He turned off the water and quickly dried himself off when a scream tore through the house. “Y/N!”

Dean took off down the hall to their room, clad in only his towel, and threw open the door. There in the middle of the room was a strange woman with his wife, his pretend wife. Y/N had always held her own in any fight with any monster they had ever encountered, but she was screaming out of terror. Dean had never seen that look on her face before. He couldn’t help but think he was the cause of at least part of it. The woman never even registered his presence in the room.

“Y/N, it doesn’t have to hurt like this. I can make all of that go away,” she cooed, even as Y/N continued to wail. The woman raised her arm to Y/N’s forehead and Y/N started glowing pink.

Dean had never moved so fast in his life. He grabbed the hidden blade and lunged at the angel, plunging the weapon deep within it’s chest. A bright light burst through the room before the angel disappeared, leaving nothing but the vessel and pair of scorched wings on the carpet. “Keep your hands off my wife, bitch.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, seriously right?! I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

The Whole Enchilada: @iwantthedean @dolphincliffs @mrswhozeewhatsis @meganwinchester1999 @cherrycokegirls1 @closetspngirl  @roxyspearing @flamencodiva @blacktithe7 @sis-tafics @just-another-busyfangirl @evansrogerskitten @amanda-teaches @hannahindie @wotinspntarnation @winchesterprincessbride @winecatsandpizza @kickingitwithkirk  @wi-deangirl77 @hobby27 @mogaruke @gh0stgurl @paintrider13-blog @hunterscabin @alleiradayne @idreamofplaid

The Dean’s List: @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @dean-winchesters-bacon @maddiepants @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @supernatural-jackles @docharleythegeekqueen @adoptdontshoppets @mtngirlforever

Making Circles: @squirrelnotsam @karikatz12481  @deans-baby-momma​

[hannah-writes]

The Semiotics of Roswell (aka why Malex is Endgame because the camera says so)

One of the things I’m most grateful for about the Roswell fandom that I’ve met through Tumblr is the renewed passion I found for my degree subject, something I thought I’d fallen out of love with because of the pain associated with my time at university. Turns out I just needed to separate what I’d learned and what I loved from what I’d experienced. And Roswell (and @signoraviolettavalery, in particular) really helped reshape that.

Now, I know y’all are here for some meta, and this is just boring exposition. I’d originally planned on just keysmashing something as I’ve done in the past on other people’s posts and re-blogs but I thought I better try and be consistent.

One last thing before I dive in, like any other interpretation of a text, semiotics is influenced by the viewer, their experiences, their history and their take. It means that people might - and probably will - disagree with the way that I’ve viewed this, but discourse is discourse and I’d be interested to hear other views. For further reading on semiotics, I’d suggest starting with any of these books ( Metz, Christian (1974). Film language: A semiotics of the cinema. University of Chicago Press. Monaco, James (2000). How to read a film: the world of movies, media, and multimedia: language, history, theory. USA: Oxford University Press. Chandler, Daniel (1994). Semiotics for Beginners.). 

I’m gonna work an episode at a time and will be focusing mainly on the visual narrative of Malex, since that’s predominantly my ship, but also looking at it through the way it’s parallelled with Echo and Michael/Maria which means there will probably be a fair bit of Echo content. What started out as a way of making a friend feel better is now a monster. You can blame her.

This is gonna be image heavy. You have been warned!

The first time we’re introduced to what we know will be a romantic pairing is Max and Liz at the checkpoint. This is a well-known trope for heterosexual couples; two characters of opposite genders meet in a location in the first episode you can be pretty confident that they’ll hook up before the show is over. Same goes for movies; boy meets girl, there’s bound to be love there somewhere. Or at the very least, sex.

What this also does is begins to set up a visual narrative that lasts across the show that can be referenced when we know a romantic pairing is going to be on the screen. (NB: this is important to note that there will always be other shots where characters are in this position that are not romantically linked, however, the regularity of their placement is what is being called out here, and in Malex’s case - which I’ll get to eventually, so stick with me - there’s an absolute consistency in their framing which is too precise to be accidental)

Max is shown on the left-centre of the frame here, and Liz on the right-centre. Compare these two images with the ones below.  

Both are completely on the same side of the shot which in terms of reading the framing indicates that, romantically, they are no longer on the same page. There’s an unevenness in the camera angles here, too which is partly about perspective (i.e. when we look at Max, we’re looking up as Liz is and vice versa) but in a wider context, it also shows a power dynamic (and this is important for later). In this scene, as a police officer, Max has the power. (Think later to the scene in 1x13 where Max and Liz are intimate and a vast majority of the camera angles are shot up at her from Max’s position). 

The closeness of these shots is intimate; if we didn’t know the setting of these, we might not have assumed that there’s a physical barrier between them as there’s no real indication of one. The close-up shots are tight on their faces and not so much on the environment around them, focusing the audience to narrow in on their faces.

It’s also a highly unusual move to have a switching POV shot keeping the same angle regardless of who’s POV we’re seeing the scene from which just further highlights that this is telling us categorically that Max and Liz - though romantically entangled (TV Trope 101) - are not right now on the same page. If they were, ironically, they would be on opposite sides of the screen.

When we bring another character in, Sheriff Valenti is more centralised in her framing, and the angle at which she is shot (from Liz’s POV still as we’re inside the car) is immediately less intimate, there’s more space and as an audience we’re made aware of the barrier of the frame of the car door. The close up is even a little less intense here, we see more of Sheriff Valenti’s shoulder in the over-the-shoulder shot of Liz’s face, and we see more of Liz’s car. It’s a reminder, it’s breaking that spell of MaxandLiz that we had earlier by physically creating distance.

What is important, though, is this shot below and it took me a while to realise but Max is reflected in her car window and here is a perfect example of them sharing a shot with a defined side. It’s literally seconds, but they’re on either side of the shot here and even though we can’t see Max (other than in his reflection - and honestly I only noticed when looking through screencaps), we know she’s looking at him. The obvious imagery here is that Max is, literally, in her rear window; he’s part of her past, but it also shows that he’s a part of her life despite her having attempted to move on.

This image is also key in another way; it sets up the beginning of the visual dynamic for this show’s couples that I’m going to call Your Side My Side.

One of the other on screen romantic (sort of) dynamics set up in this is Liz and Kyle. Comparing their framing (over the shoulder, opposite sides) to the Max and Liz (over the shoulder, same side) gives us a clue into the route their relationship is going to take. He’s framed similarly to Sheriff Valenti; Kyle’s in the middle of the shot here, when it would have been just as easy to have him off to one side of the frame and it would have lost no narrative impact. However, there’s none of the my side your side here, since the two of them share the middle of the screen.

In this shot (haha, and it’s a terrible screencap of Jeanine’s beautiful face and for that I AM SORRY), Liz is pretty much bang-smack in the middle of the shot, but both she and the back of Kyle’s head are sharing the same space in the frame and they’re on the same side of the image. You never see Echo or Malex sharing the same side of the shot while they’re both in it, they’re always paralleled on opposite sides (which we’ll see, for example, in the first toolshed scene where they’re sat side-by-side but on either side of the frame).

What’s set up with Kyle & Liz is a narrative that they are not to be framed romantically. Though they hook up, their shots are largely framed in a similar way with them sharing space in the frame. 

Now, the reason you’re all here: Malex.

This next few screenshots don’t need as much dissection as the kissing ones, but hey, we’ll spend some time looking at everyone’s pretty faces :D 

Michael and Alex have their own sides of the screen - Alex on the right, Michael on the left. What’s interesting here is the closeness of the shots, the character that isn’t in focus is just as dominant on the screen as the one that is; Michael takes up almost half of Alex’s shot (above) and Alex does take up half of Michael’s shot (below)

After they both look at Master Sgt Manes (which is a shot of the two of them in the middle, Master Sgt looking on - setting up the voyeuristic element Malex that I touch on in the video break down) the camera gives them some distance from each other, though the focus and shot type doesn’t change, Alex and Michael barely fit in the frame with each other. 

Though we don’t fully know what’s going on, past Michael’s spiteful comments about being a ‘real Manes man’ (and since he’s set up as a fuck-authority character it’s easy to assume that it’s all it is, he’s angry at the fact that The Man is on his property telling him what to do, fuck the man! Well, fuck that man in particular, please, in the airstream I missed you so much and how dare you be here with him.) it’s not until the ‘run and tell your daddy’ that we as an audience realise that there’s likely more going on here. The shift in framing is indicating that it’s Alex putting distance between them, which is a common theme in their relationship for the rest of the season. His face is still in Michael’s shot (above), but only Michael’s shoulder is in Alex’s (below). 

Though we’re setting up a precedent for Alex putting distance between them, Michael’s the one that shuts down the interaction in this scene by disappearing into the airstream. He’s the first to break it.

Having set up the my-side-your-side dynamic for Malex in their first interaction, their meeting again at the reunion is interesting because it shows a shift - already - in their interactions. We find that the right-left dynamic is constant unless there’s a power shift or something significant, both of which we see before the Malex kiss.

Here, they’re shot on the same side of the frame (Alex’s side). Alex has come to the reunion thinking that Michael’s doing something wildly illegal considering what his scientists found (and honestly, with Carina confirming Alex’s costume was wrong in the pilot and then in 1x02 seeing Alex with Captain Bars on his collar it makes me so happy he’s outranked his shit-bag father). They’re no longer even remotely on the Same Page. Alex is angry and confused and disappointed; Michael is better than some back-alley meth lab in the middle of a dairy ranch. 

The sudden shift in their camera angles - the mid-shot that falls back further when Alex grabs Michael’s arm (as Michael’s looking to get away from Alex again, for the second time in this episode) and holds him close gives us another dizzying shift. 

The my-side-your-side changes (below) and the camera pulls in intimately close for the ‘you’re wasting your life’ and ‘does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old’. 

Alex is turned into Michael (above) but Michael’s not facing Alex, not turned away. “you tryna hold my hand, private?” even though he doesn’t have the physical distance - and the camera doesn’t let him have that either, it’s close and tight and suffocating and Michael can’t escape it even if he wanted to - he can joke, he can look away, he can keep distance between their heads.

Alex has the power in that screenshot above; Alex is the one that grabbed Michael. Alex is the one still holding him.

In the below shot, however - this is a split second before Michael says ‘did it get old for you?’ - we’re treated to the same shot as above but reversed. They’re back on their own sides of the screen and Michael’s reclaimed the power in the scene. When using ‘private’ in an offensively flirtatious manner didn’t work, he drops his voice and all but purrs in Alex’s ear a question (that probably was meant to be mocking and actually ends up being a little more broken than he intended it to be (is that why you left? did you get bored of me? was I not enough?) but it’s enough. Alex is visibly rocked by it and the camera - since it stays so tight on them, swings out a second later to reveal Michael walking away to wrap his arms around another girl, with the framing still being quite visibly your-side-my-side.

Now, let’s talk about the real reason everyone’s here; the Malex kiss. I can’t work out how to embed a youtube video in an already image-heavy post and as I was writing I realised that fuck I have too much to say about it to stick into this already busy as heck post so I’m gonna dissect that separately and focus on stills here, but I’ll link to that post, too. (It’s here, by the way, if you wanna see it and breaks this scene down into TINY PIECES). 

The my-side-your-side is constant here, and honestly, the video post I made explains it in a lot more detail but I’ve started so I’ll finish. The blue wash of this entire scene is meant to encourage a sense of calm - and how we move from Alex being backlit with red (below, where he’s saying ‘we’re not kids anymore, what I want doesn’t matter) to being completely swamped in blue like Michael is is representative of the change in Alex from ‘must not kiss Michael’ to swaying into Michael’s orbit and holding onto him because he needs it as much as Michael does. (You can tear the headcanon that they’re soulmates and linked on a fundamental, cosmic level from my cold dead hands). 

We’re meant to focus more on Alex’s face in this section, which is why Alex has a few more close-up shots (and eh, who can blame us for wanting more of Tyler’s pretty face? Pfft) and we’re able to watch the journey of resistance (red) to acceptance and calm and serenity and home (blue) as he moves forward into Michael’s space and accepts Michael into his. 

This kiss is epic. You can’t deny that. The framing is soft-focused and the camera lingers, allows us to really zoom in on the moment and focus on what’s happening: the intensity of the moment. I’ve talked about this a lot, but the way the camera swings to catch up with Michael as he surges into Alex and then goes still is - imo - representative of how Alex stabilises Michael’s world, soothes it right down. The world rocks on its axis when their lips first touch, when their bodies collide, but then it all goes still and calm as Michael’s entropy changes. The blue helps foster that, too, it’s calming and soothing and tranquil. It’s safety and security. And it’s home.

With Jesse Manes’ words about love being spoken over this (below) shot and not over Echo (who have a cute handprint moment but it’s not the same), the show is choosing to put a focus and emphasis on the fact that this, right here, is a cosmic, epic love that cannot - and will not - be denied. Alex can’t run from who he is (as the soundtrack said while he was looking at a picture of his out-and-proud teenage self) and they can’t run from this (as the soundtrack says, again). This is it for them. And this is it for us, too, as viewers. We’re getting it set up in the very beginning that this is a cosmic love story, that it has history and pain but that it is love. That’s important to remember: we are told at the very beginning that Michael and Alex love each other. It doesn’t matter that they also sets up a paradigm of the two of them almost saying what they mean but never actually saying the words. “What I want doesn’t matter” -  I want you. “I never look away, not really” - I love you. “It was late, I was tired” - I stayed because this is safe for me, you are home. What we are TOLD EXPLICITLY is that Michael and Alex love each other. 

Hold onto that, folks. Because the visual narrative does not change. 

(tagging, by request, @i-never-look-away, @stydiaeverafter, @signoraviolettavalery, @saadiestuff. If you wanna be tagged in future meta, let me know!)

[thereddeath2093-blog]

2020A_CW-210 personal blog post

DOOM

By Steven Bunch

                 I spend a lot of time thinking about doom. It’s a rather abstract concept to preoccupy oneself with, but still I find myself living a “doomed” life. I listen to doom metal, I watch movies and TV shows full of doomed people on doomed worlds, I fantasize about the doom of the planet and my own personal doom. It even gets so much more specific to the point of absurdity; my favorite rapper is MF DOOM, my favorite super villain is Dr. Doom, I even play DOOM the video game.

               Half of my time spent thinking about doom, is trying to understand what the word itself really means. What is doom? What does it mean to be doomed? This as you can imagine inspires all sorts of philosophical questions about life and death, fate and inevitability, as well as many others. For all my pondering, I can’t really come up with a solid answer or something definitive. Sure, I could go with a typical dictionary definition of the idea, but it is more than that to me. It encompasses too much to be summarized and completed in a single or simple string of sentences. It’s an aesthetic, an ideology, and a state of being to me, something transcendental unto itself.

               The aesthetics of Doom are easily recognized but much like the idea itself, abstract and difficult to definitively explain. There are rather obvious tropes and visual elements that appear in art and media that are representative of what I’m talking about; ruined buildings, smoke filled skies, destroyed cities, dead bodies, anything apocalyptic really. However, the idea is much deeper than that. A piece of art, or anything visual, that can inspire feelings of dread, despair, or hopelessness exemplify this aesthetic in its purest forms. This has a place in the greater sense of the word and the idea of Doom itself.

               The ideology of Doom, unlike a lot of ideologies, is not one that is readily “chosen” in the same way one might choose to be a democrat or one would take up the cause of conservation. This is a kind of mentality that people usually fall into, and more so often than they might realize. Unlike the aforementioned aesthetics, the ideology is easily explained and familiar to most people. While chiefly the mentality is signified by feelings of doom or feeling doomed, it is a little more complicated than that. A true ideology of doom comes when this mentality is reflected out into the world as a whole rather than the individual. More than a simple feeling of personal helplessness, an ideology of doom encompasses the whole of humanity, to see the entire human race as doomed. As you can imagine, this is not a particularly hot-take, especially these days. That being said, embracing this fact would be the key difference between someone who is merely cynical and someone who is waiting with baited breathe for the apocalypse. Which is essentially what I’m talking about.

               People would scarcely admit to themselves, and even more so to each other, that they want the world to end. But the fact of the matter is that most people on some level do. Being a “doomer” has even become a popular internet meme. You get a sense of this feeling anytime someone has a particularly fashionable doomsday prophecy or something like this virus breaks out. People talk about “what if this gets worse?” and “what if this is the ‘big one’?” and they do so in very practical sensible ways, but it’s not hard to see something under the practical nervous façade everyone displays. There’s a part of it that is exciting to everyone. There’s a little voice in every one’s head that says “well fuck, if the world ends, I don’t have to go to work on Monday”.

Now that might seem rather funny like a Sunday newspaper comic, but there’s something deep in the psychology of that mindset. People don’t want to have to go to work, but more than that, they don’t want to be expected to participate in the societal machine that makes people go to work and earn money. Part of being an adult is accepting and fulfilling obligations that are somewhat thrust upon you from outside regardless of how one feels about those particular obligations. People are to a degree forced to participate in a society that they don’t agree with, or at the very least, do not like their position in. An apocalypse frees the shit scrubber and the burger flipper to eat his boss and give a finger to the man free of any guilt of any financial or typical consequence. All of us have someone higher on us on the ladder we wouldn’t mind making a meal out of.

Naturally this all extends outside of working relationships and obligations, but to the far reaches of civilization as a whole. Every person from pauper to prince is well aware, that the “system” in place is not only incredibly flawed and corrupt, but also antithetical to the very human soul itself. Obvious injustices such as bigotry, war, poverty; as well as little things like traffic, wasted time, rudeness, all support the notion that something is wrong .“The system” as your local pothead would call it, isn’t designed to crush people into machines and thoughtless consuming automatons, but one can’t be faulted for believing it so, considering how often said system produces such hollow beings. One of the mindset of “Doom” recognizes that the easiest way for these things to change, if they can be changed, is to wipe the slate clean entirely.

                This is the point where most people will close this page because I’m starting to sound like a cultist of some kind. But, those people aren’t remiss to do so. This is the kind of mentality that leads people into cults. Nearly every cult is a “doomsday” cult of some kind. Even Christianity for all its pomp and circumstance, is hardly ever different. Some of the most colorful and interesting passages of the Bible come from the book of Revelations and the prophecy for the end of the world. That’s how natural this all is, how prevalent it is in the human psyche. We have always been waiting for the end of the world, because unlike most animals, we are very poignantly aware of our own mortality, and this awareness manifest itself in strange ways. The strangest of all being embracement.

               This leads to my final point about Doom itself as a state of being, the embracement of death. Now again, I’m not trying to get all death-cult on you, but there is something to be said for not only accepting one’s own mortality, but embracing it. The fact of the matter is, life sucks, and not just these days or in a particular circumstance. Life, on the whole, is a tragedy. We are born into fragile bodies against our will, bodies that will very slowly decay with us trapped inside them. We are born into families we do not choose, with people who do not know but are entrusted with our entire existence, and then as an adult expected to serve someone else entirely. We are expected to work and struggle and to get sick and to suffer until we are physically incapable anymore. And if you whine about it, there will always be someone to chime in and remind you that your particular suffering isn’t even close to the breadth of suffering humans can experience because “someone always has it worse”. This is a world where a good death is considered “getting old”, which is essentially just fermenting and rotting longer than anybody else.  

               To be “Doomed” in this sense is a recognition and rejection of fighting these things. If we are all going to die, then there can be no “good death”. All death is natural, all the world is transient, a passing image. Nothing, least of all people, last forever. You spend a lot more time dead than alive in the grand scheme of things, and in that, being dead is more of the default state. That’s not to say that this is a suicidal feeling at all. This isn’t some philosophy of suicide in so much as it is a philosophy of embracing the inevitable end of all things. Someone in the “doomed” state of being isn’t going to go out and seek the end of their own life, but they aren’t the kind of person to shy away from it either. They allow themselves to fall away and let go of life’s worries much more readily. There is a reason that coming to terms with one’s own mortality is a huge part of Zen and eastern spiritual learning.

Why would you shy away from death and doom if the world is a bag of ass and you’re going to die anyway?

               After many hours wasted thinking, I have come to the conclusion that this is where I draw my artistic inspiration from. All of my world view is painted with a funeral veil. I find myself obsessed with the aesthetics of doom because I constantly live in that state of being. I can’t help but feel a compulsion to drive this aesthetic as far as I can. I feel the innate urge to draw visions of monsters, destroyed cities, and the sky shredded by cosmic terror so naturally. I can’t help but express this feeling through my artwork. Something within me wants to say to people, or remind them; “hey, not only are things like suffering and death very real, but sometimes they are the only thing that is. They are inevitable and they shouldn’t not be cowered from, but embraced and mastered.”

Now, maybe I’m projecting too much. (I tried not to be too first person, oh well). Perhaps I’m just trying to explain my own morbid fascinations I can’t otherwise do so with. Maybe I’m just too edgy for my own good or it’s because I have a very strong belief in the afterlife. Though it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there’s just some people out there (myself chiefly included) who are just sort of depressing, death obsessed freaks. However, I gamble a stamp, that considering how many depressing death obsessed freaks are really out there in the world, that I’m not entirely off-base when I talk about these things being prevalent in the subconscious of the human race as a whole. I believe something deep in the human psyche craves a change, craves destruction to make way for something new. Something in each of us wants these things no matter the cost, something in each of us, craves Doom.

[itsadrizzit]

Happy Birthday to the man who probably saved my life (an ode to Bright Eyes)

14 February on this blog is Christian Eriksen day, but on 15 February we turn to another hugely important figure in my life. Someone who I feel like I’ve known on a deep spiritual level for close to half my life, just via his music, Someone who always knows the right thing to say and exactly what I need to hear.

Do you ever think sometimes that there’s someone out there in the world who you’ve maybe never met (or maybe you have, but not until you were well along your journeys) but somehow they seem to be living a parallel life? They bring the deepest parts of themselves out in their art and it’s exactly the art you would be creating if you knew how to create that art, because those are also the deepest, most raw parts of your soul?

Because I do. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t. I’d say that’s not real or you’re projecting or, in my younger days, that you were speaking twelve kinds of bullshit. EXCEPT! that I have had this person in my life. Different lives and different experiences and different places and different cultures, but at the same time I have never felt so understood by another human being, be it a friend or a complete stranger, than I have by Conor Oberst. And I will always love him for that.

So. Happy Conor Oberst day, friends. As is the tradition, I spent the day working my way through his music catalogue from early days onward. He’s so prolific that I didn’t even include side projects like Desaparecidos or Mystic Valley Band or Monsters of Folk and I didn’t even make it to any of his solo work, so this is Bright Eyes focused, which is fine, because Bright Eyes is the way I love Conor Best.

Behind the cut... a walk through life (mine and Conor’s running in parallel), time, and sound featuring my favourite songs from each album (arbitrarily selected by what felt right at this moment). Now that I am creating my own art, I can see Conor’s influence everywhere in the way I shape my thoughts, my imaginings, and my worldview, and I think that’s the best gift anyone could ever have given me.

First. A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995–1997. 

This is just... when I think about what I was doing from 1995 - 1997 it just... doesn’t even come close to this. Conor was age 15 - 17 at this point. This was all recorded on hi-fi equipment and a four track in his parents’ basement and it’s just... LEVELS above anything 99% of people produce at that age under those conditions. It blows me away. It blows me away and, as we’ve established, when I think about my life at that time, at ages 15 - 17 it just... it’s this. I didn’t know Conor yet, but I wish I had because the idea of someone else GETTING IT the way that he gets it would have made a world of difference to me at that age.

I mean... we have to go with this one. There’s another version of this on a different album, but.... this is the original and the best.

Feb 15 (Happy Birthday to Me) - Links to YouTube

If I had to pick a favourite lyric, I guess it’s this:

I'm sorry about the phone call / And waking you / I know that it's late / But thank you for talking / Cause I needed to / Yeah, some things just can't wait

Second... Letting Off the Happiness

This is the first Bright Eyes album to be produced by Mike Mogis (a man Conor likes to refer to as the Dr, Dre of indie rock, because he has become known as THE producer among certain circles). It’s not a studio album, still having largely been recorded in people’s basements, but this is really the first time we hear Bright Eyes becoming Bright Eyes. And also just... the FEELINGS being conveyed on this album. Once again, I wish I’d had this when it came out in 1998 because damn didn’t I need it.

Musically, this isn’t my favourite song, but lyrically... like... damn if that wasn’t my whole entire life in 1998, seriously.

If Winter Ends - Links to YouTube

Favourite lyrics like... damn if it isn’t the whole song. But as I think back on 1998 me and what she was working through and working with and everything new and trying to fit in and figure out what the fuck was even going on in life and what she needed to do to please everyone or even just SOMEONE just one time... this line rises to the top:

Just get me out of here / But you get six months to adapt / And you get two more to leave town / In the event that you do adapt /  We still might not want you around

Third... we finally get into the studio albums. The albums I love. The time when I found Bright Eyes or Bright Eyes found me or whatever. I love them so much that in 2015 as a gift to myself, despite owning all these albums digitally, on CD, and some of them on vinyl, I bought this:

That, friends, is ELEVEN OF THE MOST DEFINING YEARS OF MY LIFE commemorated on fancy, coloured vinyl.

We begin with...  Fevers and Mirrors

Of all the studio albums, this has slowly grown to be one of my least favourites. That said... there are still moments when I listen to this that I get chills. There are these moments of pure, raw, powerful emotion that I just can’t help but stop what I’m doing and sing along and feel and live and love. My c.a. 2000 self was figuring a lot of things out. She was learning who SHE was versus who she thought everyone else wanted her to be. She was turning into the give no fucks girl she would be in a few years and still is now and Conor helped her do that and I love her and I love him for it.

 Hands down my favourite song is this one:

Arienette - Links to YouTube

As for lyrics... ooooffff I will randomly select some for you, I guess.

So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me / This house, it holds nothing but the memories / And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep

Fourth... Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground 

My favourite Bright Eyes album. Out of all of them. My favourite. 2002 and I was angry at everything and Conor was angry at everything. I was a mess, and so was he. 2002 - 2005 were... important years on my journey. I miss them. I miss that girl. I sometimes think I want her back, but no. I don’t. She had fun, but it was all artificially created, chemically created fun. Without it... without it everything was darkness and anger and sadness and crippling feelings of ABJECT FAILURE. At everything. That girl, she had friends and they loved her, but she didn’t understand that. She had lovers and partners and none of them loved her, but she didn’t understand that. She lived and breathed music, every moment of every day. She made choices (good and bad... mostly bad) that made me who I am today. I wouldn’t be me without her, but because of her I sometimes wondered if I would ever be here. And I wonder what she would think of us now. Would she love this life of stability and security and contentment, or would she hate me for “selling out”, for being boring and old and “too settled”? I think she would hate the idea, but as that girl 17 years later, I can tell you that yeah, sometimes she still hates it, but also whenever she tries to live her old life, she retreats back into her boring life of stability and solitude. I love that girl, and I’m glad she’s still in her me with her defiance and her fire and her passions and her constant quest for something beautiful in the world. I’m not sure if she ever found the one she was looking for, but she sure can see more of it in more places now than she could back then.

Anyway, I love this whole album, but there has never been a question as to which was my favourite:

Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved) - Links to YouTube

I mean, even the title basically sums up where I was in life in 2002. Aside from the fact that the scathing political commentary at the end of this song is STILL HORRIFYINGLY ACCURATE, there’s just so much in here that once again I’m like... Conor are we living the same life? Are we?

Particularly resonant lyrics both now and back then:

And so I've learned to retreat at the first sign of danger / I mean, why wait around, if it's just to surrender? / An ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure / I do not read the reviews, no, I am not singin' for you

FIFTH (I skipped the Christmas Album).  I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

The album that was always my second favourite, and maybe still is. I think it’s the most popular one. The one that sort of launched Bright Eyes full force into the sphere of the indie rock scenesters. It’s their first trend towards a more mature sound. His calmest sounding album. Introspective and thoughtful, but still angry. Bringing in really big name people to collaborate. The production values higher and the budget bigger. Conor having moved from Omaha to New York and bringing with him all those big city sounds and ideas and feelings. This is honestly a GREAT album front to back. Absolutely fantastic. It gets political, it goes deep, it doesn’t pull back. Everything poignant and resonant and tinged with that particular Conor Oberst melancholy that I, too, carried with me throughout life.

This is the album with the most lyrics that at the time, and still do to this day, made me stand up and yell YES, CONOR, THAT!

A sampling, before we get to my favourite:

“We must memorise nine numbers and deny we have a soul.”

“We might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain.”

“What seems so simple in the moonlight by the morning never is.”

“If I don’t come back, I mean if I get sidetracked, it’s only ‘cause I wanted to.”

“I’ll fight like hell to hide that I’ve given up.”

“The world’s got me dizzy again. You’d think after 22 years I’d be used to the spin.”

“The sound of loneliness makes me happier.”

Honestly...there is a solid TIE for my favourite song on this album so I will give you one and then another.

First Day of My Life - Links to YouTube

Honestly like... it’s just a beautiful song. And honestly the sentiments like... damn Conor this is basically what it was like to try to date me at this time in life. And sometimes Jonas and I (even though we knew one another by this time) will still say “I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you” because, honestly, it’s the truth, and it’s something that could easily have happened in our lives, but didn’t.

And then... the song I loved from the opening note and will always love for all time. Because I related to it, and because it’s angry, and because WE’RE STILL THAT ANGRY, honestly.

Road to Joy - Links to YouTube live version with an interview with Conor

Favourite lyrics:

No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter /  Sometimes that’s just the most comfortable place

AND

So when you’re asked to fight a war that’s over nothing /  It’s best to join the side that’s gonna win / And no one’s sure how all of this got started /  But we’re gonna make ‘em goddamn certain how it’s gonna end

Bless, boy. Bless.

SIXTH...  Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

So this album and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning dropped on the same day and they COULD NOT BE MORE DIFFERENT. That is intentional. This is the point where the hardcore Bright Eyes fans divided themselves into factions... and some hated both. This album was a place for Conor to explore and Mike Mogis to SHINE. I... hated it. For a long time. Like, I didn’t even own it. I thought it was TERRIBLE. And... fun fact that will come up a bit later, little beknownst to me, one of Jonas’s friends LOVED this album and would play it non-stop, so THIS (the least “Bright Eyes” album of them all) was the album Jonas associated with Bright Eyes. So whenever I would speak about the band he would make these faces like... I hate that band, OMG why are you obsessed with them, they are TERRIBLE. (More on this in the next album discussion) 

At one point, I caved and bought this on a used CD for ridiculously cheap because I needed to be a completist about my Bright Eyes collection. Then I listened to it again. This was probably around 2011 or 2012 or so. And.. I DID NOT HATE IT. I mean, it’s not my favourite, but also like... I understand it. I feel like I really missed out at the time because there are some great songs here and some great things that my 2005-self would really have related to had she given it a chance.

I’m still not sure if lyrically I have a favourite song, so here’s the catchiest song on the album. One of the bigger singles, and probably the only one anyone who wasn’t super into the album paid attention to.

Take it Easy (Love Nothing) - Links to YouTube (live from SXSW)

Even that title speaks to the me of 2005. Like... if this wasn’t her life at that time I have no idea what was. She was WRONG about this album.

Lyric... like, damn how can you not love this?

Don't take it so bad it is nothing you did. / It's just once something dies you can't make it live. 

SEVENTH -  Cassadaga

Cassa-fucking-daga. Story time.

It’s two years since we’d heard from Bright Eyes. I’m working a real job and in grad school and living away from downtown and starting to settle. I’m at a weird place in life, really, because it’s like I’m trying to grow up and get over my shit and my mis-spent youth and my mistakes, but I’m still in the same city so it’s hard not to fall back into that life. For the first time ever, though, I have a circle of friends who ACTUALLY FUCKING CARE about me and I like them for them and no one is pretentious or fake, we’re just giant fucking nerds, mostly. I did this thing where I stopped being in relationships for a full year because I needed to know I could exist without it. I needed to find ME again. And I did, and it was great, and I wasn’t HAPPY, per se, but I wasn’t the hottest mess in the universe anymore either, so things were looking up. Jonas had gotten back from his time in South Korea and he’d also mostly figured his shit out and he was sometimes living with me after my roommate moved out and I had a rather nice 2BR apartment to myself and sometimes living elsewhere because of his commitments. We were maybe dating and maybe not, because we haven’t ever really defined our relationship like that. I mean, this was after the point in life that I called him and said “It turns out I hate everyone who isn’t you” so I think we define that as the start of our “relationship” AKA elevated friendship/sibling/weird roommate situation.

Also, I had my radio show at this point. Part of our tasks at the radio station were that we had to review CDs that came in (people would send us demos and full albums to pitch their stuff to us and see if we’d play it and all that and we all had to do a certain number of reviews per 6 months or something like that). Usually it wasn’t anything I’d ever heard of before, because when known entities came out the full-time staff would pull it and review because they knew we’d want to play it, so here’s unsuspecting me in late March like ehhhhh I need something to listen to at work, I guess... and what is there on that shelf? BRIGHT EYES - CASSADAGA. Like... how no one else had grabbed it is beyond me, but it was a FULL TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE, so I grabbed that thing and held it close to my chest like it was the fucking One Ring and took it with me. I didn’t listen to it at work, because I wanted the full experience in the privacy of my own home (and also to copy it to my computer so I had it to listen to until I could buy it outright).

This weekend, Jonas happened to be in town. So... unapologetically I told him “I know you hate Bright Eyes for some COMPLETELY MYSTERIOUS REASON, but this isn’t even out yet and I’m going to listen to it very loudly and I don’t care about your life.”

Two songs in, he LOVED this album and honestly kept saying “Wait this is Bright Eyes? No it’s not.” and this is when I learned he’d only ever heard Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. So I like to make fun of him for that whenever we listen to Cassadaga. It’s his favourite Bright Eyes album now.

I like it because the sound matured and the content matured, just like I had. This was an album about feeling unsettled and wanderlust and trying to find your place in the world, which is exactly what I was doing. Just today, in fact, when I was listening to this, I caught the line “ Better find yourself a place to level out “ and once again yelled out “YES, CONOR!” followed by “I NEEDED THAT THEN AND I NEED IT NOW!” 

It’s a different sound, a mature sound, less angry, less ambiance, less driving beat, more... song. A little alt-country. I can hear the Mike Mogis influence and the Nate Walcott influence, and it’s really just a lovely album that I can’t explain WHY I like, but I think it has something to do with it once again being exactly what I needed at the time, while still managing to be something different than all the Bright Eyes that had gone before, just like I was still me while still managing to be something different than before. We’d all done some growing in those two years.

Again, I have two favourite songs (more really) and I refuse to choose right now, so you get both:

If the Brakeman Turns my Way - links to YouTube

I never thought of running /  My feet just led the way

I Must Belong Somewhere - links to YouTube

Everything - it must belong somewhere. / And you know it's true - I wish you'd leave me here. / You know it's true - why don't you leave me here?

FINALLY - The People's Key

2011.. We’d had Mystic Valley Band and Monsters of Folk and solo work and I thought... fine, Bright Eyes is wrapped and done. Everyone has moved on. And that’s fine. Cassadaga was a good send off. Move out of your youth and into adulthood with a bit of wanderlust and feeling unsettled. That quarter-life crisis thing. I certainly got it.

By this time I’m married. I’m living here in Minneapolis. I’m working. I’m settled and re-settled and have more or less become the me that I am today. We’ve gone from the wildness of youth to fondly remembering it as we try to figure out the next steps.

And then Bright Eyes releases an album. On Conor’s birthday. At the time I’m coming up on the next junction of life... moving from my 20s to my 30s and figuring out WTF that means anyway and trying not to feel like I’m old and past it and have wasted my life.

Conor comes along and says something like, we felt like we owed it to all of you to close down that chapter in our lives. Because Conor is a brilliant genius who obviously lives the same life I do.

They put out an album, and it is weird, and it is dancey, and it is poppy, and it is synthy and I dance down the streets of Minneapolis with a giant grin on my face and I don’t care how ridiculous I look. And I go see Bright Eyes live in concert one last time. And I cry... because I am so happy. Because Conor is so happy. He’s an adult and he’s mostly settled and he’s like, hey, everyone, I’m going to be okay and so are you.

Everyone’s favourite song on this album is the track before this one, but this, for whatever reason, is the one I love.

Jejune Stars - links to YouTube official video

Every new day is a gift, it's a song of redemption / Any expression of love is the way to return / To that place that I think of so often, but now never mention / The one the voice in the back of my head says that I don't deserve

AND

Sure I have my doubts /  But I know it now /  We are Jejune stars / So it starts again / At our childhood's end / I'll die young at heart

And so we leave it there. There’s been much more from Conor since, all of it hitting exactly the right notes in my life as we journey on our parallel paths, but if that’s where Bright Eyes leaves me, then what an optimistic and hopeful place to move forward from.

My life, my love, my heart.

[azazelsocks]

you posted a while back that it bugs u that sam says “according to the lore” and like...u rite. but also spn is shit with a lot of that. especially “pagan” stuff? like “vervain and mint? heavy pagan stuff” and “dark ages black magic!” basically: the writers have no idea what they’re doing and I reserve the right to assume Sam is better than the lines he is written with. he would never be that ignorant.

this is a late answer but oh well. i agree that sam is better than “according to the lore” and that the writers don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, and i think that you can absolutely have whatever headcanons or interpretations of sam u like, but i kind of take issue with the rest of this ask?

first of all let’s just get this out of the way i am not actually interested in headcanons venerating sam as the Most Woke Academic Dude. it’s unrealistic. also, it’s everywhere & i’m bored.

anyways.

in my opinion, “heavy pagan” and similar phrasings are perfectly in-character given sam’s background & the way “paganism” is contextualized in usa protestantism esp. farther south. is it wrong & reductionist? yeah. is it a normal thing for sam as a character to be wrong about? also yeah.

also consider that

paganism in the modern sense tends to refer to european polytheistic traditions (and in the older sense referred to all non-christian religions but still mostly the european ones given where christians tended to hang out)

supernatural rarely (never?) uses the word to refer to neopagan movements active in the united states

sam’s research sources early-seasons consist largely of his dad’s personal journal, websites like “Hellhound’s Lair”, random public libraries, and maaaybe a consultation with an actual academic here or there

sam has stated an acceptance of his life/identity as a hunter (which we could argue about but i’m not going to) but in early-seasons and pre-seasons he did not like hunting and he certainly would not have enjoyed reading about/researching for hunting or done it for pleasure

prior to s6 the early seasons, many non-north american monsters were very rare (6x04 weekend at bobby’s)

BOBBY:  Okami?  Where’d you shiv it?

RUFUS:  Get this.  Billings. 

BOBBY:  The only time I ever saw one of these was in Japan.

RUFUS:  Duh. No one’s ever seen one of these except in Japan.

BOBBY:  For what it’s worth, Sam and Dean are tracking a Lamia in Wisconsin.

RUFUS:  Get out.  I thought they never leave Greece.

BOBBY:  Monsters lately.  Is it me, or is it weird?

though probably primarily because of lack of relevance to plot and infrequent featuring as monsters-of-the-week, use of “pagan stuff” “black magic” etc has heavily dropped off

conclusion: not difficult at all to make a case that sam—who is not a medievalist, primarily researches for practical nonacademic purposes, grew up in the midwest in a christian tradition, went to undergrad for law, was not exposed to the right kind of material to have any sort of nuance on the topic, infrequently encountered lore or monsters relating to european polytheism or neopaganism before ~29 (s6), and who does not seem to have had any passion or interest in the topic — used to know less about the history of paganism and now knows more about it. or still doesn’t know anything about it. either way. there’s not necessarily as much in-text justification for him to be up on this as you might think.

on the other hand there is practically no discipline or field of research, amateur or academic, sociological, historic, literary, scientific etc. in which blanket phrases like “according to the lore” etc. is anything other than reductionist and poor practice. so while saying “according to the lore” may be in line with sam not knowing anything about paganism, it is not in line with sam having like, gone to a top-in-the-nation liberal arts college.

that’s why, of all the medievalism and religion-related things that spn is wrong about, i single “the lore” out; i think it’s especially egregious and makes the least sense. ymmv tho! everyone has their own limits about what spn is the worst at & what they’re willing to overlook.

eta: follow-up asks about paganism, deleted bc it's pedantic drama that i don't want on my blog, archived in case i later get called out for shitting on pagans or something lmfao

[imagination-of-a-melted-bitch]

About The Admins

Hello! This is Admin Tay. I am so excited to make this because I’m so excited to have accepted the admins on the blog, they are both very talented individuals and they’re going to bring different styles to the blog so I’m really stoked. Anyway, I’m rambling…under the cut you will find a ton of info on all the admins so please…continue. This will be updated as the other two or three admins join the blog :)

Applications are here xx for anyone who wants to join~

Name: Admin T-Swizzle Swag or Admin Tay

Position: Owner/Writer/Updater

The content you create: Scenarios, Fake Texts, Fake Snaps, Reactions, Audios and I’m working on perfecting moodboards and video imagines.

Genres you work in: Smut, Fluff, Angst

Biases:

Maknae Line (BTS)

Kihyun, Jooheon, Changkyun (Monsta X)

Youngjae and BamBam (Got7)

Changbin, Jisung, Hyunjin (Stray Kids)

Hoshi, Jeonghan, Seungkwan, WoonWoo, Minghao (Seventeen)

Chanyeol, Kyungsoo (EXO)

Mark, Taeyong, Johnny, Yuta, Jaehyun, Taeil (Nct 127)

Wonshik, Taekwoon (VIXX)

Mark, Jisung, Jeno, Chenle (Nct Dream)

Mark, Ten, Taeyong, Jaehyun, Taeil (Nct U)

Kisu, Cory (24k)

Hanbin, Bobby, Junhoe (Ikon)

Moonbin, Mj, Rocky, JinJin (Astro)

Kino, Yeo One (Pentagon)

BigBang as a whole (it’s so hard to choose among these kings)

SHINee as a whole (haha how am I supposed to choose between these kings?)

Yongguk, Zelo (B.a.p)

YoungK (Day6)

Other groups/solo artists:

Jay Park Zico Dean DPR live Monster Woo Christian Yu

Affiliated fandoms:

24U, Aroha, Baby, VIP, ARMY, My Day, EXO-L, I-Got7, IKONIC, Monbebe, Nctzen, Universe, Carat, Shawol, Starlight, (No official name for Stray Kids),

UB:

I don’t have one :(

UB bias wrecker:

I don’t have one :(

Personal blogs:

Well, this is one of my personal blogs, so howdy.

Age:

16

Gender:

female

Sexual orientation:

pansexual

Height:

5'7

Star sign:

Scorpio

Hobbies:

Writing, playing softball, reading, corrupting my friends with kpop, spamming friends with kpop memes,

Favorite American artists/bands:

Too many to name tbh, I just like what I like,

Favorite food(s):

I like all foods besides Sushi, I don’t like the taste of the rice on the Sushi Rolls,

Favorite drink(s):

Dr.Pepper,

Favorite color(s):

I don’t even fucking know, I like all colors, shades, sign me the fuck up–recently I’ve been liking yellow more than anything though,

Favorite animal(s):

Doggos, Kitties, Lions, Shark Whales

3 facts about me:

1.) I am the oldest on my mom’s side and the youngest on my dad’s side,

2.) I live with my mother and my step-dad who might as well be my real dad because he’s the real MVP stepping in and what not,

3.) I have a reputation for being scary, threatening but I’m actually really soft and caring and only get mad if you’re annoying, a bully, or walk too slow in the hallways.

**I write for all the groups listed above under biases and for all soloists above :)

Name: Admin Deby (sorry for the gif, my pictures aren’t that pretty ^^)

Position: Admin/Writer

The content you create: Scenarios, Moodboards, probably gonna try reactions now that I’m here, but who knows lol

Genres you work in: Smut, Fluff, Angst

Biases:

ot7 (BTS)

ot7 (GOT7)

ot4 (Mamamoo)

ot7 (Victon)

Jisung, Felix, Chan (Stray Kids)

Minghao, SeungCheol, Hoshi, WoonWoo (Seventeen)

Baekhyun, Suho, Xiumin (EXO)

Lisa (Blackpink)

ot5 (Day6)

Wonho, Shownu, Minhyuk (Monsta X)

Donghae, Leeteuk, Yesung, Ryeowook, Kyuhyun (Super Junior)

Moonbin, JinJin, Eunwoo (Astro)

Yongguk, Zelo (B.a.p)

Min Hyuk, Jong Hyun (CNBlue)

Other groups/solo artists:

Big Bang Shinee Zico IU Red Velvet Henry Myteen

Affiliated fandoms:

ARMY, I-Got7, Alice, MooMoo, ELF, (No official name for Stray Kids)

UB:

Jungkook (BTS)

UB bias wrecker:

Seokjin (BTS) Donghae (Super Junior)

Personal blogs:

@btsaeipathy

Age:

26

Gender:

female

Sexual orientation:

heterosexual

Height:

5'4

Star sign:

Pisces

Hobbies:

Writing, reading, watching series, movies and asian dramas, talking with my friends

Favorite American artists/bands:

I don’t actually have favorite artists/bands since I like random songs everywhere lol

Favorite food(s):

(same as Tay ^^)

Favorite drink(s):

Coffee

Favorite color(s):

Blue, black, lilic

Favorite animal(s):

Doggos, Kitties, Wolves, Eagles, Tigers (and basically most of the members of the cat family, like lynx, cheetah, etc.)

3 facts about me:

1.) I’ve only met 2-3 people older than me in this world of tumblr fanfics (if you’re older or same age, please let me know, I feel like an ancient lol)

2.) I don’t like to cook so I still live with my parents bc my mom does it for me (and I also don’t have to pay rent which is good for my savings ^^)

3.) I’m a soft, shy girl who actually love to make new friends (and I care about all of them

**I write for all the groups listed above under biases and for all soloists above :)

Name: Admin Kat or just Kat

Position: Admin/Writer

The content you create: Scenarios, Moodboards, Reactions, fake snaps

Genres you work in: Smut, Fluff, Angst

Biases:

Namjoon and Taehyung ( BTS )

ot7 (GOT7)

G-dragon, Daesung ( Bigbang )

Bobby and Junhoe (Ikon )

S.coups, Vernon, DK and Jeonghan (Seventeen)

Sehun, Kai, Yixing (EXO)

Jennie (Blackpink)

ot5 (Day6)

Wonho, Shownu, Kihyun (Monsta X)

Donghae, Leeteuk, Heechul, Eunhyuk (Super Junior)

Taemin, Jonghyun ( Shinee)

Other groups/solo artists:

Zico

Jay Park

Giriboy

Sunmi

Hyuna

Winner

Affiliated fandoms:

I-Got7,ARMY,ELF, VIP, Shawol, IKONIC, Monbebe

UB:

G-Dragon (Bigbang)

UB bias wrecker:

Jinyoung ( GOT7)

Personal blogs:

@k-pop-and-drop-it

Age:

16

Gender:

female

Sexual orientation:

I got no idea

Height:

5'2

Star sign:

Gemini

Hobbies:

Writing, reading, watching stuff , Learning Languages

Favorite American artists/bands:

Arctic Monkeys ( They’re English I know)

The Neighbourhood 

Favorite food(s):

Unlike the other two admins, my asian ass loves rice and I love Sushi. I also really enjoy the combination of chicken and rice.

Favorite drink(s):

Coffee, Cranberry and apple tea ( HNG this shit so good, got me seeing stars)

Favorite color(s):

Lavender, Baby blue, a bright orange

Favorite animal(s):

Dogs!!!( my cutie puppy Tofu ) , Kitties, Wolves, Pikas and owls

3 facts about me:

1. I am super energetic. I’m literally like a bunny on crack and a huge morning person. I actively seek out thrill and love an impromptu adventure or a party.

2. I actually started learning korean before I got into kpop. Its been a solid journey and I really hope to got study there in about a year

3. I’m Multiligual! and I digest languages really quickly so I dabble in some Japanes, chinese and Russian too!

Name: Admin Bethany

Position: Admin/Writer

The content you create: Scenarios, reactions, sometimes snaps,

Genres you work in: Smut, Fluff, Angst

Biases: OH MY LORD ASDFGHJKL

Kihyun - Monsta X

Xiumin, Chen, Sehun (debatable Luhan) - EXO

Yoongi - BTS

Jinyoung - GOT7

G-dragon, Seungri - Bigbang

Joshua, Woozi, Wonwoo - Seventeen

Jennie, Jisoo -  Blackpink

Onew - Shinee

Rocky - Astro

Zelo - B.A.P.

others I’m sure, I just cant think rn.

UB: Kihyun - Monsta X

UB wrecker: Suga - BTS

Personal blogs: @kihyunsbreazy17

Age: 16

Sexual Orientation: beats me.

Star Sign: Aries

Hobbies:

Writing, reading, culinary, makeup, musical theatre

Favorite American artists/bands:

honestly no clue… prolly like Cardi B.. and uhh.. some others? I don’t have much of favorites tbh

Favorite food(s):

seafood, and blueberry scones. not together….ew hhahahaa.

Favorite drink(s):

code red mtn dew… uhhh…. apple juice.

Favorite color(s):

teal (on the greener side) and burgundy/maroon, also any muted colors.

Favorite animal(s):

cats, pigs,

3 facts about me:

1. I’m a living meme. I’m really sensitive and shy tbh.

2. lowkey obsessed with Lab Rats, I’m almost 17 nd I watch a kids show about bionic bitches, they better make new season.

3. my own personal blog isn’t working out and it makes me sad. utterly grateful to be accepted here 3.

[magicofthepen]

Gallifrey Relisten: A Blind Eye

The end of Series 1! (I will admit I had to stop myself from immediately jumping into Lies because that’s when things really get going for me.) Some thoughts:

Mentions of/spoilers for: Neverland, Zagreus, Spirit, Insurgency, Enemy Lines, the Time War audios (but in a vague way).

Romana announces her name and title and then immediately follows that up with “I want no record of my being here” lol.

This episode is the closest we get to “everyone has to dress up fancy for an event” and it’s a shame we don’t get more of this! I would love more off-world and/or dress up episodes that are less......dire probably isn’t the right word because there’s some heavy things going on in this episode...maybe frantic? There is definitely a difference between the degree of tension in A Blind Eye and the degree of tension in the off-world episodes in Time War, for instance. (Also A Blind Eye has more banter.) I’m pretty sure it’s just A Blind Eye and Spirit that capture this sense of “we’re going to do something different for an episode” and I like it! (I feel like this is part of my ongoing push for a post-Enemy Lines, pre-Time War series of misc. CIA missions and shenanigans. Please someone just shove more side adventures into gaps in the timeline.)

The banter! The banter. (“You have your business face on. / You’re a transtemporal crook Arkadian, meeting you could never be a pleasure.”) 1. Arkadian is a supremely entertaining villain, and 2. he’s a tremendously good villain opposite Romana specifically, purely for snark and banter reasons.

I was never a big fan of the Sissy Pollard portrayal — the character’s personality feels too....exaggerated? Over the top? And not in an effective or interesting way.

Romana’s defense of Charley is actually quite sweet, given that they weren’t super friendly in Neverland/Zagreus.

Romana chastises Leela for careless talk, but uhhh if you wanted to keep things subtle and not reveal anything, maybe don’t have Leela suddenly grab Sissy?

“Madam, the Alps are in the other direction.” “Are they? Damn.” / “Be careful, you’ll break it!” “I’ll break you in a minute.” Truly, maximum levels of scathing Romana snark in this episode. 

I have never seen anyone mention this, so I always assumed I’m not hearing it right, but....when the original!timeline train is about to crash into them....does Romana tell Narvin to fuck off?

Andred has a whole scene with no other Time Lord witnesses in which he could have told Leela the truth and yet.

“I am a Guard Commander of Gallifrey” apparently I never paid enough attention to what he actually said here because I think that was the first time I noticed that Andred gave his Chancellery Guard title, not his CIA title.

“Arkadian! You’ve met with that crook!?” Shoutout to Narvin for some A+ false indignation here.

I’m not sure there was a way to write a parallel between between real world Naziism and Leela’s fictional past without having it come off a bit as oversimplifying/cheapening the horrors of Nazi Germany. (But I’m white and raised Christian, so I’m also really not the person to be speaking in depth about the portrayal of Nazis in this episode.)

Does Arkadian know about Andred? I assume that he would just because he generally knows most things, but hmm it adds another layer.

Narvin is genuinely surprised when Romana gives in and agrees to leave lol.

Ms. Joy — it’s funny because we the listeners know that the one random character must be there for a reason, so it feels like the only reason the characters don’t know she’s suspicious is that they don’t know they’re in an audio drama episode and so she must be important to the plot.

Did Narvin really intend for Romana to go with “Torvald”? “At least he’s have been exposed?” Way to throw your President under the bus sir (although possibly he assumed that Torvald wouldn’t actually assassinate the President?)

“See, it is always a monster.” Wait, I take it back, Leela knows she’s in a Doctor Who (adjacent) episode.

“The only name in town where there’s temporal naughtiness to be done” — the Arkadian = Brax crack(?) theory is the most “I can’t unhear this” thing that’s happened to me since Narvin/Torvald. What is it with y’all and Series 1, I’m losing it. 

...does Andred have a plan when he lowkey kidnaps Romana or is he just panicking? He is quite genuinely pleading with Romana to go along with him into the TARDIS and sounds genuinely desperate. But then he seems to regain control and starts more tactically trying to persuade Romana to work along side him without giving her any real answers. Although really, he must know that he’s very close to discovery — maybe he wants to resolve the past!Torvald situation first? Or maybe he’s not thinking that far ahead?

“I have no paws.” Awww K9.

“I think you’re a bad President. I think you’ve willfully sacrificed Gallifreyan influence upon the altar of your own increasingly cranky liberal agenda.” 1. “increasingly cranky liberal agenda” is such a specific insult wow, 2. I can’t tell how much of this is Andred still trying to be Torvald and how much he actually means this? The politics of this incarnation of Andred were always a bit fuzzy to me, even in series 2.

Also. Any conversation between Romana and Andred has a whole weird vibe on relisten when you know about the uhhh future murdering that’s going to happen.

I do love a Dramatic Reveal, and this one is incredibly dramatic.

....does the train crash? Does the train not crash? I’ve always been a bit confused about what happens in that moment — I assume Romana doesn’t actually plan on the train hitting the TARDIS, and we hear the TARDIS dematerialize so I think the train is fine? But it’s a weirdly ambiguous sound/end of scene.

“I can tell you are lying. It’s when your lips move.” Okay Leela snarking at Arkadian is also very good.

It is genuinely so interesting how connected this plot is to Neverland/Zagreus — if I had to pick one “you should listen to this audio before Gallifrey” I'd go for the Apocalypse Element because of the enormous ripples it casts in terms of Romana’s characterization (and also it’s more stand alone), but I imagine this episode would be particularly confusing without Neverland/Zagreus? (Would be curious to hear people’s experiences.)

“I never lie!” Romana, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told. 

The narration of what happened to Andred by Andred and Romana is um. It’s a little bit obviously an info dump for the listener, but I’m not sure it’s the best way for Leela to find out? I mean, hearing the context and explanation probably was a better idea than just “oh btw I’m Andred”.....possibly this felt weird to me because of the acting? It’s very emotionally detached, very “so this is what happened” — Andred manages some emotion afterwards when he’s pleading with Leela but uh. He could have sounded more apologetic here.

Leela. Leela. “You have watched me suffer and worn my enemy’s clothes?” / “The man that I loved is dead.” Goddddd I want to give her a hug so much ughhhhh. Leela just goes through so many awful things throughout....all of Gallifrey actually, and she still remains such a good person with such a genuinely caring heart......give her a break please.

“I think the only person who’d actually benefit from a temporal war would be a...dealer in arms? A trader in secrets? A fixer and a fiddler. A dishonest broker with no scruples and no shame.” / “An interesting theory Madam. Prove it.” I just really like the delivery of this bit. Although: I realize there were several things going on at this point, but really, they just let Arkadian walk away at the end?

And thus ends Series 1. It has some highs and lows but it honestly ranks near the bottom on my constantly-in-flux list of favorite-to-least favorite Gallifrey series. (Weapon of Choice is probably the only episode I actively look forward to relistening to?) I said in my Weapon of Choice post that Series 1 was a nice “palate cleanser” after Apocalypse Element and the Charley arc through Zagreus, and that was true for the first time listening, but I think some of those same attributes mean I’m kinda meh about relistening to it. It just doesn’t hold my interest quite as much as many of the other series. (Series 2 though....👀)

EDIT: I realized I forgot to tell my personal story of my first time listening to the Andred reveal, and I wanted to have some record of that, even if I don’t quite remember the specifics of my reaction. In general, my first listen of Gallifrey was shaped by knowing a lot of major spoilers, which is what happens when you spent a lot of time lurking on Tumblr blogs in advance of listening to the series. (It actually led to a lot of super fascinating experiences of “well I know X happens, but I don’t know how or why” and being really curious to find out how X played out.)

So I knew something about Andred and Torvald going in, and I think I should have known that it was simply Torvald = Andred, but somehow I got it in my head that oh no, no it’s weirder and more complicated than that. But of course there are a lot of hints throughout series 1 that Torvald is Andred, so the first listen was this cycle of me going “I think maybe Torvald is just Andred? Nah, it’s going to be more convoluted than that. But no really, it makes sense that Torvald is Andred...” etc. etc. So it was a weird experience of knowing pretty early on that Torvald might be Andred, but still not being quite sure until the end of series one. The other bit of this is that I can’t remember at what point I knew that Andred died (and how) — I think I may have known he died before I listening to Gallifrey (or at the very least I knew that he was written out in some way or another earlier on), so that may have also confused me further re: the series one question of: what actually happened to Andred? All around, an odd experience of “I was spoiled...but somehow I still wasn’t sure what was going on” and I wasn’t surprised per se but it was still a reveal. 

Next Episode Reaction: Lies

Previous Episode Reaction: The Inquiry

[yourghastlycloseness]

yeah the department meeting depressed the hell out of me and convinced me that i’m terribly unfulfilled at work, but also, that maybe all that comes from within and i will carry this sadness in me everywhere i go

because everyone else my age seems to be coping alright, even if they’re not doing excellently

they actually have dreams and strive for healthy human relationships

meanwhile, i can’t seem to reciprocate or reach out, nor do i really want to

maybe this just isn’t the job for me

my colleagues are sweet and competent people, though. honestly, bosses don’t get better than this

one of them gave me a book voucher today haha which i spent immediately on endo’s silence

‘of course it’s jap lit,’ said C

yes, of course lol. i’d actually like to research japanese literature more seriously

i’ve got women court writers from the heian period like sei shonagon and murasaki shikibu on my reading list

//

was watching a ballet dancer break down yuzuru hanyu’s chopin program at pyeongchang. what i didn’t notice before was how hanyu doesn’t quite breathe through his mouth at the end of a performance; he breathes through his nose instead, so he -- and other figure skaters, i assume -- ends every performance with composure and grace and not like the panting monsters most of us are

what makes hanyu so pleasing to watch? the ballet dancer explained that when you put two dancers of equal ability side-by-side, the one with the ‘better face’ will be chosen. ‘better’ could mean more physically attractive. an expressive face with more structure and definition -- something you should be able to see from afar

that reminded of the heavy make-up they used for the actors in drama club

i can’t deny that part of hanyu’s magnetic appeal is how he looks

i should admit, too, that a part of me is so envious that a person can move the way he does. why do i desire to possess everything that is beautiful? 

years ago, my therapist asked me a question that still sticks with me: ‘can you look at beautiful person and not think about wanting that beauty?’

simply put, my answer is no

i see a beautiful person and i want to be them

i don’t care if they’re dirt poor or if they have tragic family backgrounds or if they’re dumb as fuck or if they’ve raped and murdered 20 people

i want beauty and i want it all à la sharpay evans

//

later caught a podcast on suicide by a catholic pastor -- it wasn’t my intention to catch a christian podcast. i was thinking about killing myself again and wanted to hear people talk about suicide without skirting around the subject

i am only 17 minutes in but i am comforted by what the pastor said

he makes two interesting points

i) that we don’t know where a person who commits suicide ends up, but what we do know is that he goes to jesus, and god will make the judgement -- he does away with this idea of immediate and eternal condemnation for the act of suicide

ii) that doctors and clergymen have to work together to help people out of depression and to stop people from committing suicide

but there are points i disagree with

i) the pastor says that suicide can cut short this ‘plan’ that god has for you (it is believed that god has a plan for everyone) -- OK, but what if the plan was for me to precisely end my life at the age of 25, and to make others realize that this isn’t the right thing to do. alternatively, what if i were a homicidal pedophile in the making, where such tendencies would reach its peak in my thirties? coincidentally, i happen to be struggling with depression and ended up taking my own life before i could harm anyone else. what if suicide was the plan after all? it is a possibility to consider.

ii) the pastor argues very firmly that suicide is ‘sin’ for it brings pain to the people around you -- can you honestly say the same about elderly suicides? or about people who have lost all their family? we have to accept that there are people out there who aren’t loved, whose bodies are replaceable (think foxconn, sweatshops)

we don’t have enough information to make a blanket moral judgement that all suicide is sin

//

i won’t call myself a non-believer; i went through a phase of superficial pantheism haha where i saw god as the universe and the universe as god, but i no longer identify too closely with that, partly because i was working hard to fill a spiritual void back then and pantheism was the closest thing i could find to an antidote

christianity, or any institutionalized religion for that matter, has never made sense to me 

simply for this reason: we don’t know if god exists

when we don’t know, we can choose to: 

i) maintain that we don’t know (ie. god may or may not exist) 

ii) assume the positive (ie. god exists) 

iii) assume the negative (ie. god doesn’t exist)

ii) and iii) never made sense to me at all. this has been the main obstacle for me. i actually tried to get into religion between 2014-2015 lol

something else i don’t believe in: judgement before god

maybe i’m not understanding the bible correctly (frankly, i wanted to fall asleep after the first page of genesis), but how can you judge my lived experience when you have never had to live as a mere mortal with no extraordinary destiny or circumstances yourself?

i refuse to be judged by something like that

//

i cook like a sissy

i hold the spatula at an arm’s length away and i approach the pan from a 45 degree angle so that i don’t get hot oil splattering onto my forearm

//

suicide ideas

a few ways i’m thinking of committing suicide right now. i think i mentioned method #1 on my old blog, but not the others. i’m filing them all here for reference. these are what worked:

1. MBS - death of wilim/willim charles

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/man-who-fell-from-52nd-floor-of-mbs-probably-committed-suicide-coroner

https://www.asiaone.com/print/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20130516-423065.html

A tourist, whose body was badly severed in the fall from the 52nd floor of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel last June, was likely to have committed suicide, a coroner court heard on Tuesday.

The head and torso of Mr Wilim Charles were found on a 17th floor balcony while his legs were found in the fountain on the ground floor. Other parts of him were scattered about.

In his findings, State Coroner Imran Abdul Hamid noted that Mr Charles had used a deck chair to climb over the 1.1m-tall glass barricade of the balcony, stepped onto the planter's box and fallen to his death. 

He was last seen alive smoking a cigar seated at a desk in the suite by the butler who came to carry Ms Lee's bags down at about 4pm. Casino records showed that although he was a Diamond Reward member, he was not a frequent gambler, having last played on April 14 last year. There was also about $43,000 in cash in the suite.

i like how he died. pretty fancy to be described as being ‘last seen alive smoking a cigar seated at a desk’ and having ‘$43,000 in cash in the suite’. i’m getting noir vibes all around haha

i’m not a fan of body parts being scattered about though. so i might want to bring this down to maybe the 30th-40th floor if i decide to attempt it like he did

2. kushiro coast -- death of wei qiu jie

https://japantoday.com/category/national/Body-found-on-Kushiro-coast-may-be-that-of-missing-Chinese-woman

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108965/body-confirmed-be-chinese-tourist-missing-japan

The body of a young woman was discovered along the coastline of Kushiro City, Hokkaido, on Sunday. Police believe the body may be that of Wei Qiu Jie, 26, a Chinese woman who has been missing since July 23.

Around 6 a.m. on Sunday, a man who was kelp fishing along the beach at Katsurakoi, discovered the body that had washed ashore and immediately notified the police, Fuji TV reported. The woman had long hair and was wearing a beige skirt and white blouse, similar to the clothes Wei was wearing when she was last seen.

She had left her hotel in Sapporo on July 22 for the day, leaving some of her luggage behind, but never returned.

Police later discovered she checked into a hotel at Akan Lake, about 300km from Sapporo, the same night she left Sapporo.

Witnesses said she boarded a tour boat at the lake and was last seen on surveillance camera footage at a convenience store in the nearby coastal city of Kushiro on July 23.

i like this one because i’m seeing millais’ ophelia in the water. the painting has been my laptop lock screen wallpaper for years haha

unfortunately, i’m a pretty alright swimmer. i imagine that i’d fight really hard if i tried to drown myself. i’d probably need to weigh myself down with a lot of rocks in my pockets (like virigina woolf) and bind my arms and legs when i go into the water

3. burning coal briquettes in a hotel room -- death of kim jong-hyun

https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/jonghyun-lead-singer-for-south-korean-boyband-shinee-dies-reports

K-pop group SHINee member Kim Jong Hyun, 27, died on Monday (Dec 18) in an apparent suicide, according to local reports.

Police found him unconscious at 6.10pm Korea time in his own apartment located in Cheongdam-dong, in the upscale Gangnam district, after his sister made a report at 4.42pm saying that her brother seemed suicidal.

The YTN news channel, however, reported that Mr Kim had checked into a serviced residence for two nights.

Mr Kim was taken to a nearby hospital, but eventually died.

Reports suggested he died of cardiac arrest from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.

He was found to have burned a coal briquette on a frying pan. Charcoal briquettes can cause carbon monoxide poisoning in closed rooms.

i would probably choose a hotel room that comes with a kitchenette in tokyo. i went to seoul alone to get a feel of the city as a resting place, but it didn’t vibe with me as much as tokyo did

4. yellowknife, ingraham trail - death of atsumi yoshikubo

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/atsumi-yoshikubo-wrote-a-suicide-note-before-leaving-japan-1.2825863

Yoshikubo, 45, was a doctor who enjoyed travelling solo. She was reported missing Oct. 27, 2014 by staff at the Explorer Hotel.

Staff at the Explorer Hotel, where she was staying by herself, found all of her luggage in her room three days after she was supposed to have checked out. They called police, who found she'd missed her flight home to Japan on Oct. 26.

At the time, police said she had been last seen walking away from the city toward Highway 4, also called the Ingraham Trail.

Because investigators found only bone fragments, they couldn't determine exactly what caused Yoshikubo's death.

They did find two notes left by Yoshikubo: one, an apparent suicide note for friends and family in Japan; the other, found by searchers with her possessions in the bush in Yellowknife.

"It included... how much she loved the North, how much she loved Yellowknife, how much she loved the aurora," Menard said. "She expressed her wishes about wanting to be buried here."

unfortunately, we don’t know how exactly yoshikubo died. 

but i imagine there are many ways one could die in the woods. starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, bear attack (if i’m going to go down like leo in the revenant, i expect an afterlife oscar)

i imagine it would be nice to die in the north toohttps://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/jonghyun-lead-singer-for-south-korean-boyband-shinee-dies-reports

//

other suicides cases i’ve read about and will KIV when considering methods: 

kate spade

christine chubbuck

sulli

hara

sylvia plath

krystal aki mizoguchi

daul kim

iris chang

kevin carter

paula goodspeed

keiko fuji

yukiko okada

simone mareuil

hanging is ideal to me. but man, what if i don’t get the knot right lol

[luminousfinn]

This isn't super relevant to your blog, but I'm wondering if you like any other science fiction? I know, I know, Star Wars is more High Fantasy than Sci-Fi, but do you like sci fi stuff outside of it?

Do I ever love science fiction? I used to be a Star Trek blog before switching back to Star Wars full time.

And I bullshitted my bachelor degree, along with a partner, on the differences and similarities between fantasy, science fiction and horror. The conclusion of that huge thing can be summarized in: “A hell of a lot less than most people think”.

Because while it might have made sense to talk about three different genres back at their inception in the mid-lat 19th century, the divide between them is all but gone and the decision into which category something falls is often utterly arbitrary.

I mean, originally we had science fiction, which always had a large science component; horror, which could be either monster horror, psychological horror or a combination of the two; and fantasy, which relies on mythical and legendary elements, most often Christian ones in one disguise or another.

But then came the Sunday matinee shows, which started the tradition of borrowing shit from the other two genres tool kits. Shows like Buck Rodgers and John Carter established the three R’s of cinematic science fiction (Robots, Ray Guns and Rocket Ships) but they also borrowed a hell of a lot from both fantasy and horror stories. That was one of the reason they became so successful - they gave fuck all about genre conventions and just wanted to entertain - but was also one reason they were viewed as such bad media. No one knew what to do with these things that couldn’t be put into a comfortable box, so the solution for the establishment became - as always - to dismiss and denigrate them.

Another major reason where that they were movies, a new media that was looked down upon and seen as inferior to literature.

But once those genre walls had come down, a lot of creative souls saw no reason why they shouldn’t continue using what ever they wanted. I know that Star Trek is seen as classic science fiction and yes it has a major sciency component, but if you go and look at the Original Series there is just as much fantasy and horror tropes in it.

And don’t even start me on Alien. Most people will swear up and down that it’s a science fiction movie, but it’s not. It’s a classic monster horror with psychological elements that dates back to before Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In fact, Alien is nothing so much as a rip off of Dracula, right down to having the heroine being the the one who has to ultimate square off against the monster.

Okay, that was a long and tangential answer to your question. I tend to be passionate about my fiction XD. (And I still can’t bloody believe Alien ripped off Dracula.)

Anyway, yes I love science fiction.

Let me use this opportunity to rec my favorite author, because not hearly enough seem to know her. (Maybe it’s different in the US, but no one in Europe seems to.)

Octavia E Butler, a Black woman who wrote science fiction novels from the early 70s and until her death in 2006. Her books are absolutely fantastic. The first one of hers that I read was Parable of the Sower and though the universe is indeed a dystopia, I can’t remember ever before or since having read a book with so much hope in it.

Yes it has a 15 yo protagonist - Lauren Oya Olamina, a Black girl who¨s the daughter of a pastor - but it’s very much worth reading for adults too. Despite - or because - of the young protagonist, it is not a YA novel. Actually given how the world is going right now, the universe that book is set in feels a little too realistic right now perhaps, despite being published in 1993.

[tessatechaitea]

Trinity #4

This cover is perilously close to an upskirt. It would explain Wonder Woman's stance.

I don't think Diana knows how dreams work.

Dreams have a point of view. And as the protagonist of the dream (whether you're you or somebody else), you are in control of your thoughts and actions. They might not be the same actions you would choose while awake, or they may be stranger thoughts than you're used to having but they all come from your point of view as the protagonist of the dream. What you generally aren't "in control of" is the plot or the locale or the non-player characters. A dream doesn't have to be lucid for the person to be in control of their "character." Lucid just means you're aware that you're dreaming and can then take advantage of dream rules while ignoring the props and backdrop your subconscious has laid out before you. I frequently have sexual dreams where the person I'm about to get intimate with is not the Non-Certified Spouse. Sometimes in the dream, I'll be all, "I can't be doing this! I'm Non-Certifiably Married!" and it ruins the dream. Other times, I think, "Oh wait! This is just a dream! Up periscope, baby!" And sometimes, I'll just not know about my real-life relationships and I'll fuck the vampire until the sun reaches the vampire's head and we climax in a burst of flames! Shut up. You have weird sex dreams too! Probably!

For some reason, this reminds me of my first sexual experience.

Superman's Black Mercy dream was to see his father live. Batman's Black Mercy dream was to see his father die. And now Wonder Woman's Black Mercy dream is to find out the truth about her home and where she came from and whether or not the Amazons really did rape pirates. Probably not since Greg Rucka is in charge of the Amazon's past now. That guy isn't as keen on rape as Azzarello and Wolfman. I don't actually think Azzarello is keen on rape. Notice I didn't qualify what I think about Wolfman's views. The Trinity wind up on Themyscira where they're confronted by Amazons.

So it's kind of like some dialect you have heard before? Thanks for the non-information, Batjerk.

Dream Diana saves Real Diana from the Amazons and the Amazons are all, "Fucking kids. You think you're so wise by stopping bloodshed! Pshaw! You'll soon learn!" Then Diana grows up and learns to kill because adults are just tired of dealing with shit. The end. That wasn't the end of the comic book! That was the end of my side story about growing up! This story continues in the real world where Lois Lane didn't not hit Poison Ivy and her son with the truck when she crashed into the barn. Remember how last issue ended and I was all, "It’s just luck that she doesn’t run them over." Well, um....

Grandmaster Comic Book Reader! Sort of. I mean, well, you know. I totally thought this is what should have happened!

So now Poison Ivy is probably crippled for life thanks to Lois's reckless driving through barn walls. I wanted to spell reckless as "wreckless" because that just seems more correct. I hope Lois remembers to get Poison Ivy to a hospital after this. I'm sure she has internal injuries and a possible skull fracture. Jon is fine though because Poison Ivy pushed him out of the way. She's a hero! A hero in a permanently vegetative state. That's a plant pun! I think! Poison Ivy takes a hit from a car as well as I do because she's immediately up and punching Lois Lane in the kisser. I didn't punch the woman who hit me with her car but I did jump immediately back up and stand in front of her car so she didn't take off. Jerko hit-and-run monsters! Portland is full of them. Back on Dream Themyscira, Queen Hippolyta proposes a challenge for the Super Friends. They must prove themselves in the arena! I don't know what they're trying to prove. That they have a right to be on the island? Because if that's what they're trying to prove, Superman and Batman will fail the Penis Challenge. Luckily for Batman and Superman, the Penis Challenge doesn't take place. I suppose it's not needed since their costumes leave nothing to the imagination anyway. My guess is Batman is circumcised and Superman had multiple attempted circumcisions which ended up in the Kents having to bury another mohel in the field so he doesn't spread word about their uncuttable superbaby. Wonder Woman is allowed to stay on the island but the men must go to the Dark Quarters. Hippolyta doesn't even ask them if they're men. She just sees the penises through the tight suits and assumes they're men. How ancient way of thinking of them! Anyway, Wonder Woman chooses to go with her male allies into the Dark Quarters. That's like her dream subconscious where she'll discover the thing she needs to discover thanks to the Black Mercies. Young Dream Diana also manages to go with them, against the wishes of her mother. The Super Friends make their way deeper into their subconscious worlds where they're attacked by something that is longer than it is wide. It's a sea serpent, you Freudian pervert! The Super Friends are swallowed by the sea serpent and taken even deeper! Now they're in the sub-subconscious! It's full of lots and lots of things that are longer than they are wide!

Technically this is Diana's sub-subconscious. Apparently all she thinks about are penises. That's what happens when you're raised in a culture that bans them!

As you can see from the scan above, Batjerk has more thoughts on the dialect. But I guess those will have to wait. Diana spends the next two pages chopping up the longer than they are wide things. I squirm unpleasantly while reading it. When Diana hacks her way out of the sea serpent, she finds herself face-to-face with Mongul! What a shock! To nobody who reads comic books. I suppose it was a shock to the fake geek girls and the totally real geek boys who just happen to not know about Mongul's connection to the Black Mercies (which is totally understandable). The real surprise twist ending is that Mongul's daughter has come up with this plan. His daughter!? Mongul has a daughter! I hope this revelation that Mongul has a daughter is brand new so that I don't look like one of those totally real geek boys who just happens to have a blindspot in my geek knowledge (which is totally forgivable). I suppose Mongul is still in the Phantom Zone so he had to have his daughter's help from the outside. Unless Mongul got out since Warworld got out. I have no idea what is going on anymore! Fucking Rebirth! It's like continuity is whatever anybody wants it to be! As if some naked blue nuclear man were altering reality in whatever way pleases him the most. The Ranking! +1! Mostly because I love me some Emanuela Lupacchino art!