#which I would assume was a hallucination if not for that little ending scene

[daydreamerdrew]

New Comics (1935) #11

[robitherat]

Thinking about the fact that most of Tims character arch is based around him actually dealing with the things from his past

Like a major part of tims character is his denial of the things that happened to him-- his repression of memories, chalking things up to hallucinations, suffering in silence, brushing off any concern from those around him ("Tim what's that?" "Just some medicine I need to take" "Are you sick, do you need to go home?" "No I'm fine.") The fact that he never mentioned his medical history or his time at the hospital to Jay until he was basically forced to.

And what was it that finally made him tell Jay about the hospital? The operator directly attacking him and making him relive scenes from his past. It wasn't until he was forced to realize what was at stake, forced to essentially confront the danger he was in by bottling up his past, that he willingly (at least somewhat) shared that information with someone. I do like to think that maybe Tim opened up to Brian in college, but as far as cannon evidence, we only really see Tim willingly talking to Jay about it. Brian knew, sure, but it's just as easy to assume he found that after the fact-- that he caught Tim in the lie, rather than Tim telling him outright.

And Tim really isn't a great liar, either. Like I know we talk about Jay being a little bit of an idiot (rightfully so) but Tim's main course of lying is. The most obvious deflection in the world. When Jay mentions the tape in his house, Tim's response is to immediately deflect ("I'm a little more worried about my house right now.") which would be a smaller thing if Tim wasn't intimately aware of how important it was to find and watch any tapes they possibly could. Tim's only method to coping with things that happen to him and the people around him is through denial, even in times when it would be infinitely more beneficial to acknowledge the issue at hand.

What's even more interesting to me is that Tim is seemingly the only character that makes any genuine progress in fighting against the operator. But that comes with the caveat that Tim is only able to do so when he actually confronts the operator, and by association, the issues of his past.

The only way he and Jay are able to make amends and move on is by Tim telling Jay about the hospital, which was only spurred on by Tim being forced to relive his trauma. Right after Tim tells Jay to stay out his life, he (by force of tta) has a relapse and ends up paired with Jay anyways. The only way he's able to get Jay and himself away from Alex's house in one piece is by literally physically standing up to the operator. In the fight against Alex, the whole time he's being ported around, he is monologuing about his past-- he's finally acknowledging the things that happened to him, that they weren't his fault, that they affect other people, and that violence isn't the answer to dealing with them-- that isolating yourself and denying the truth of what's happening isn't the answer.

And of course this is all tied back to the metaphor of mental illness: the fact that you cannot deny the things that have happened to you if you have any hope of moving on from them. you can't lash out or harm others because of your trauma if you have any hope of moving past it. The reason Jay, Brian, and ultimately Alex all died is because they were incapable of facing their issues head on; they all turned to anger, isolation, violence, and otherwise feeding into what the operator wanted, or alternatively, feeding into the misery spiral of their mental illness, rather than finding healthy coping mechanisms to heal from and move on from it.

God I need to write a full analysis essay about him OKAY I'm ending it here these aren't all my thoughts this doesn't make sense but I'm ending it here thank you for watching goodbye

[tua-five]

Season 3 Episode 1!!

I am so excited for this season. Especially today's episode.

⚠️⚠️ If you haven't watched any of this season, I'd advise not to read any of my posts in the next 10 days. Get to it! ⚠️⚠️

I am very much so sorry about how long this is. There is a lot to say today. I wish I could've added more gifs, but of course, it limits me to 10.

Let's all be real. We ALL thought the dance off was real. 100%. It's definitely something they would do.

Okay, I'll jump back a bit now. It's a nice touch that they showed Ben being birthed this time. Since the 10-second clip at the end of the last episode, Ben is the biggest anomaly.

And then there's the matter of 16 rather than 43. Which we'll find out why in a couple of episodes. I do wonder, however, if this time, Reginald told the Sparrows about the other 9 powered kids.

Then the next big difference is the Sparrow Academy being introduced as their names and then Aka #1 or etc. It makes me wonder if Grace still named them or if Reginald did it this time.

Also, can we talk about Marcus?? What are his powers? Okay. So, after a quick Google search, he has Superhuman Strength and Enhanced Resilience. But that is the exact same powers as Luther, and somewhere along the way, I believed that that was not possible.

Actually, I want to talk about all of them, so maybe I'll make a separate post for that.

Anyhoo, Ben saying "cute hat Sundance" was really funny.

But Klaus checking to see if everyone could see Ben too was cute, but it was actually sad. He had to make sure they could see him because Klaus didn't believe that he was actually alive. He just thought that Ben was back. That maybe even though (their) Ben is gone, that maybe he came back when they came home.

Luther's love at first sight moment is just like "ugh, again". But it is cute.

I also want to talk about Grace, but that is far too long, and it will veer too far off from today's episode.

Yeah, so the first time around, I definitely thought that the whole footloose scene was real and was definitely gravely disappointed that it wasn't. Luther saying "Protecting our honor, bro" was definitely weird, but I mean... that's the whole show, so.

Speaking of this scene... Jayme's powers.. She has hallucinogenic spit, which first she spits on Diego and then later Five. It is assumed that the spit makes you hallucinate what you desire most, so for Five, it was obviously his "love" Delores. Which then transformed into a human, and of course, he started making out with it. Diego, however, hallucinated a dance off?? I mean, obviously, I could definitely see him wanting that. My point here, though, is that Five acted out his desires/with it. Diego is sweating when he comes out of his delusions, so if it wasn't so bizarre, you could imagine him actually acting it out, running around the house dancing. Although, it didn't actually happen, and he didn't act it out. Because if he did, everyone would be looking at him weird, not only Jayme looking at him. But it's funny to think about him running around dancing to seemingly nothing while the others just watch in astonishment.

Viktor being the one to want to talk it out is so real. He was never one for violence until it was forced out of him. Quite literally.

Also, "Ben-er-ino's" haircut is pretty bad. Klaus wasn't lying.

So much just happened in 3 seconds. Diego calling Christopher a litter box, Diego understanding it?? How?? And him saying his hair is nice and was era appropriate 😭

Even though it's so simple, this will always be one of my favorite lines"

"You're alive, that's great. Or possibly horrible, I'm not really sure yet."

"Is that some kind of weird smack talk?"

"It's more of an existential problem, really, Ben." *Flips hair casually like he's not fighting his supposed to be dead brother.*

Diego is definitely the most unhinged Hargreeves. And that's saying a lot. "Who's your daddy? I'm your daddy! Who's. Your. Daddy?"

There's a lot of great little lines in here, and none of them are appreciated. Like Jayme saying, "Hey short pants... what's up?" In a sing songy voice.

And Marcus and Luther.

"See, bigger isn't always better."

"Is that what you tell your girlfriends?"

Marcus does have a temper tantrum, though. He literally stomps his foot like a little kid on Luther's chest. Makes me want to say "aww, are you a wittle angy? 🥺"

"I'm not your father, young man. Not anymore. Biscuit?" Reggie says it so ominously and then so sweetly, "Biscuit? 🤠"

"I don't know.. I've just never had my ass handed to me like that before. It's like, here you go 🤲 it's your ass 🤲🍑"

I feel bad for Five. Which I've said before, but I'm saying it again. It's always on him. They just got back from being demolished by the Sparrow Academy, and Allison is like, "Shouldn't you know?" Like, no. Not all the time. How is he supposed to know? Yeah, five, it's going to take you more than 20 minutes and a dramatic brain injury to figure things out. Diego is mocking him and how his powers are so hard, and Allison is like, Five, where the hell is the briefcase. Like, how is he supposed to know?? Not everything is his fault.

Grace being infatuated with "God" in the basement will always be weird to me.

Klaus will always be Klaus, though. "I missed you you slutty ol' dame. Absorb her, absorb her into your bosom."

I'd hate to be Patrick, though. Like.. some random lady calls and tells him to tell a Claire that mommy misses her.. and then that random lady breaks into his house. Like um... yikes.

Also, can we talk about the Sparrows running on treadmills and Christopher pretends to, just floating in the air spinning?? What???

Marcus telling Reginald to sit like a dog is crazy though. I do feel bad for him. They've got him hopped up on pills and everything. Even though he turns out to still be manipulative.

"I kissed Sissy goodbye a few hours ago. Give or take 50 years." Viktor 😭 sweetie 😭😭

Viktor went from being sweet and innocent with that little talk with Marcus, to straight-up threatening him. "Because your team is good. Better than mine, maybe. But I don't think you're better than me, Marcus. I ended the world, twice. And you? You're just meat in spandex." Like, dang!! Okay, pop off, I guess.

Also, I love how the siblings make sure Five doesn't feel like a kid even though he looks like one. Or, at least Luther and Diego the most. Luther, on countless occasions, has called Five "old man," and Diego just said, "So sput it out, Boomer!" That was funny, I'll admit.

"So if you ever see your other self—"

"Kill them." Of course, Diego would say this.

"Sleep with them." Klaus???

"😦🫥... Avoid them." Exactly. The only obvious answer??

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I agree, Luther.

"Oh, come on. As if you wouldn't climb Luther-Mountain." No, Klaus. Luther would not do that to himself. That is just crazy.

Lila dropping Stanley on Diego is bizarre, by the way. And claiming he's their son. I can't believe I even believed that. I mean, he's not even the same ethnicity as either of them. Diego was right when he kept saying "alleged son."

I'm really sad that they killed Mr. Pennycrumb in the first episode, though. But at least he made his show from the comics.

It's also sad that Five truly believes that the apocalypse is over. You, my old sir, did not win. Sorry to say.

Gif collection

Okay, I'm going to waste my last 5 gifs on this because it was hilarious, and everyone must relive it again. Moments like these show that they're siblings.

[zeherili-ankhein]

Me needs some Vasant x Apollo queerplatonic hcs for our retelling (where Vasant reminds Apollo of Hyakinthos and almost switches sides for him while Vasant is tryna find a way to tell him that he's aroace 😔)

WHY DO YOU WANT THEM TO SUFFER SO MUCH 😭

Nevermind it's Apollo so it's fine ig...

Also since this is for the retelling I'm just assuming they becer met before and not going by that prev headcanons of Hyakinthos and Vasant being buddies

— the first time Apollo saw Vasant ofcourse he had a dhum tana dhum tana moment 💀 because the similarities in personality and all reminded him of his boyfriend immediately

— Vasant was happy to see him and befriend him because well he's Vasant and he's happy to see everyone

— well ig Apollo won't know that Vasant is aroace because that topic never came up in their entire friendship

— Vasant makes him flower jewelleries and stuffs while rambling on and on about his day and anything and everything, which ofc reminds Apollo of Hyakinthos

— Apollo is NOT in love with Vasant, but rather the resemblance he has with Hyakinthos, like he's trying to find Hyakinthos in Vasant

— and sadly that would make him slip and call Vasant by Hya's name more that quite a few times actually

— Vasant didn't mind it at first cuz he understood Apollo was in PAIN but after sometimes he got concerned and a little qnnoyed too I mean

— Apollo is on the verge of breakdown almost ALMOST hallucinating Vasant as Hyakinthos daily

— he wouldn't know at first that Vasant was on the opposite side, but when he got to know it was a BIG BLOW and he was in a state of shock, he couldn't move and all

— he'd try to change sides immediately, totally out of his mind, mind you, and rambling something about how he ‘loves’ Vasant and all.... He doesn't he just thinks he's talking to Hyakinthos

— Artemis would try to hold him back and stop him from doing something drastic and stupid

— Apollo's breakdown made Vasant SUPER awkward all while he was trying to convince him he's not Hya and how he doesn't loves Apollo and all

— Vasant felt a little bad though sympathizing with Apollo, but he got so uncomfortable he ran away from the scene to hide where Kama and Rati were

— Kama and Rati understood and helped him, telling him what he did was ok and he should do something but not at that moment because boy was beating himself up with guilt 💀😭😔

— when later Apollo calmed down a bit and got a good old scolding from Artemis (not before she hugged and comforted him ofcourse) he decided he'd tell Vasant sorry

— but he was too ashamed of himself and he didn't want to scare away Vasant like that again, he was still his friend I mean

— Well it took a lot of time, maybe weeks or a month or two, but the reconciled where Apollo repeatedly kept sorry, and Vasant did forgive him but set some boundaries ig.. (HE WAS STILL MAJORLY UNCOMFORTABLE THINKING BACK ABOUT THAT)

— but at the end they still became friends and everything was okiii :3

Also on a side note, don't take this man anywhere near the Surya-Vishnu-Lakshmi-Durga frisbee match with Sudarshan Chakra he'd cry from trauma 💀💀🤌

[therealvinelle]

This has been picking my squishy little thought organ.

Submitted to several others for a wide range of potential awnsers

If Jalice had a kid, what are some hypothetical gifts it could have?

I could see it having the gift of giving hallucinations.

(that previous ANON got me thinking, clearly)

Because of his emotional ability--> making them believable. [Fool the emotions all else will follow.] Her visions are quite sporadic at times. ---> crafting the mental space devoted to that.

Environmental Factors---> Bella & her daughter can project, and I think environmental factors will give the gift a push to be able to be casted. INSTEAD of actually just ending up with hyperaphantasia.

"People with hyperphantasia can imagine scenes, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations with great clarity and detail. They may also have enhanced abilities in creativity, memory, and empathy."

Alice & Bella are besties, so they'll spend a considerable amount of time together interacting. So, I think the block Renesme has on the visions will be a giant factor too.

Despite Bella and Alice just not being close it will happen anyway. Cause there's nowhere realistically for her to go.

She's stuck and Alice probably isn't going to get a vision going oh, now is the right time to leave.

Even if you could argue oh, they'll never fight. Most likely right unless we wanna go even more Au... {Which I am 100% ok with}

But I think Alice's slight harboring of resentment for Renesme for blocking her visions will be the key in the lock for this to all work out right.

She isn't going to stop blocking them. Alice already has had time to get over her gift dependency so much but like she won't do that.

Jasper's gift can't be blocked by a shield, but I imagine he's a little immune to Renesme's gift. (Realistically not...? But it's a silly little Tumblr post I don't want to think about the power scale too hard and implode.)

I was hoping you could pick up where I left off about how things realistically work in Twilight.

Besides the whole vampires have a kid despite one being infertile.

But I think this would be a hell-on-wheels problem. Cause while Jasper I'd argue! Has a more moral conscious (at least in the ways we see it.) than Alice. But they're both pretty grey.

Which means they're both pretty ruthless. Like Bella and Edward are for their child.

All i know is this offspring would have to be so lucky to not be snatched by the Volturi.

I think this kid would fare better than Renesme in the short and long term. Even if they were both hybrids. This kid would have parents that would in my opinion actually teach it more.

I think Bella and Edward don't teach Renesme. much.

I think Jasper would make sure his kid had the skills should they be needed to be used. And Alice would support this or just let it happen. I think he's a more active parent than her but that's 100% different bullshit Au type of discussion and I just needed to drop this meta off to blogs for their thoughts.

I am driving myself crazy. I would like to sleep.

Well, I'm not entirely sure how this child would come to be in the first place as Jasper and Alice can't have one.

Assuming, though, that God bestowed one upon them, I subscribe to @smallcatwoman's fellow who has the gift of seeing emotional outcomes, the child would be as delightfully alien as Alice only in a very different way (optimal future-oriented Alice versus happiest outcome-seeker Greige).

As for how the child is raised, I imagine it would have much the same upbringing as Renesmee. If Jasper and Alice are interested in teaching a child, Renesmee is right there and is, by all accounts, The Cullen Child™. They are all devoting every resource to her, raising her communnaly for all that she is officially Bella and Edward's.

A second child with a different set of parents would, if possible, be even more Cullen Communal Property than Renesmee: Bella, at least, had an interest in her child, Alice screams childfree. Oh, she'll be the cool aunt and take the kid shopping, no problem, but parenting? Motherhood?

Esme and Rosalie can do the hard parts, and Jasper and Carlisle too if they want. Alice will be pointing out that God making the child genetically hers was simply a matter of good taste, doesn't mean she should be raising the damn thing.

And the child gets to live in the shadow of Renesmee, who was wanted by her mother, the first and miraculous baby everybody and their cousin were willing to die for, and has a guy imprinted on her. Renesmee, by all accounts, would be the golden child and the other one would be... the other one.

Wasn't supposed to exist, his mother foisted him off and prefers to dress up Renesmee anyway, and his gift is only able to tell him that he can't be happy around his family, so he ignores it.

Perhaps Greige will love Renesmee, but I prefer the timeline where he resents her too much to recognise his cousin for just as unhappy as he is, and Renesmee has no idea why but only knows that she can't meaningfully connect to him.

Drama is had.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 7 Minagoroshi pt. 4

Shortly after this scene at the Irie Clinic Rika and Satoko are off to the local game store to play their board game tournament like they did at the start of Watanagashi.

Seriously, the original art for Hanyuu makes her look like such a pathetic creature, just a real sad sack. Which I guess is a perfectly in-line look to have given her character is a rather gloomy apathetic individual. Hanyuu throughout the early stages of the chapter is constantly telling Rika to not get her hopes up and to basically assume that nothing about her fate is going to change at all ever.

A good portion of the board game tourney here is spent with Rika just overcome with a despair over how repetitious and pointless it all seems. It doesn't really get into it, but there's the distinct impression that she's lived through this tournament a fair number of times throughout the hundred plus year span she's been stuck in the loop. Also for some reason there's an odd change in the dialogue during this section. Rika tells Keiichi that he'll wind up playing the game Billionaire with his group, but when the store owner brings out the game it's a copy of the Game of Life. Which Rika acts like is normal, telling Keiichi that this is how fate always seems to shake out whenever they do this gaming tournament. Keiichi then decides basically, nuts to that and requests a different game for him and his group. Instead of Billionaire/Game of Life, the three play a game called pop-up pirate. Which is a game where you stab little swords into a barrel that has a pirate guy in it. This small change in fate inspires Rika to request a change to her groups game as well. It doesn't say what they change it to, but they do.

This small change in destiny made the visual novel then proceeds to skip over the game tournament. Presumably it happens the same as it did previously. I know Hanyuu is trying to keep Rika's expectations low so she doesn't get hurt by the lack of significant changes in her fate, but I do wonder how she perceives the small microscopic alterations to events like the above. Later on Hanyuu acts like these changes of events won't actually affect anything in the long run, and she advocates a "let's just let nature run its course" type of approach to Rika's situation. But I wonder if she's secretly slightly thrilled at the minor changes because it drags Rika temporarily out of her deep gloom.

It's now after the tournament, when the shop owner gives everyone, sans Mion a doll. I was surprised here because the visual novel offers a choice between whether Rika should try to influence events and convince Keiichi to give Mion the doll, or to observe.

I don't know if there will be ramifications further down the line, but choosing either option results in the same dialogue playing out for the most part. If you go with the try to influence Keiichi option there's a few lines extra about how he seems somewhat aware of your interjection, but otherwise it plays out the same.

I like the insinuation here that Hanyuu might not actually be Oyashiro. Who she would actually be is an interesting question I think, I'm pretty sure she is actually Oyashiro, but the idea that she's just some random horned weirdo who hangs out with Rika is also pretty amusing. Just some divine entity hanging out with the reincarnation of Oyashiro for a lark.

Oh yeah, also in this version of the universe Shion is in Keiichi and so on's class. It seems to be taking place in the hallucination Shion had before she died at the end of Meakashi.

Something that's been slightly bothering me since it came up in Tsumihoroboshi, and gets brought up again here is the change of the food they put the needle in from Onikakushi. They mentioned it was Ohagi, and it just struck me as wrong, because it was something else originally, I thought. So I went back and checked, sure enough in Onikakushi Mion mentions that they made mochi for Keiichi. Now I know this is a really extremely minor thing to get distracted by, but I am just sort of curious about the change here. According to the release dates on GOG and Steam there was four years between the chapters, and maybe it's more accurate this way or something. But there's been quite a few little changes in various aspects of the plots from chapter to chapter. The difference in the corpse tunnel in Watanagashi to Meakashi still being the largest one. It's not really affecting my enjoyment of the series, just a little oddity I've noticed.

Also did I mention Shion's back? She's back, in supporting cast form. And boy howdy do I have some opinions about some actions she takes later on.

[crackedegotheories]

soooo.......

thoughts on the poppy playtime pt. 3?

I'm so proud that Mark is learning to read. It's tough to struggle through words you don't know, but the more you try the more you learn and the more you know...something about half the battle I think?

Sorry, couldn't help it. I'm guessing this is a follow-up on the last ask about the ego hints, in which case: I thought it was interesting.

I guess the big thing was about 7 minutes into the video, where Mark tells Ollie/Gregory "Things are just happening a little out of order for me at the moment, I'm kind of experiencing multiple realities all overlapping." (Sounds like a typical Thursday to me.)

More under the cut which I had to move up to here because Tumblr keeps rearranging all the photos and putting them one by one instead of a cluster like in the draft. It also keeps moving the read more link around, so who knows if it'll actually be here.

And then we get several cuts, each about a frame each, all from ISWM:

In order, we've got the guy in the woods from the Hee Hoo universe, Cecil H. H. Mills, Cryptid!Mark from the timeline where you mocked him for crying (how could you, Captain?), Abe, Chef, Old Man Mark at the restaurant at the end of the universe, Dorene Whitacre in the void, the campfire scene, Lady aiming a gun in your face, and the Invincible II seen from the outside.

I think the reasonable response would be to assume this is one of the editors slipping in a bunch of ISWM references after an off-the-cuff remark. After all, the second year anniversary is coming up in a little over a month, and Mark's been known to drop hints to go back and watch his larger projects before ("When's the last time you visited Yancy? He misses you, you know" or something similar.)

But eh, let's have fun with it and keep going.

Because I think we could tease out some more (very probably unplanned) references to ego stuff.

Take the very beginning of the video, during the elevator bug that started Mark's spin off into other realities. While Poppy and Kissy Missy have trouble with gravity, Poppy continues to speak to Mark--her voice seemingly coming out of nowhere as he gets farther and farther away. Cue Mark begging her to "Get out of my head!"

A similar scenario actually happens in Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache, where Abe is monologuing to himself while driving and Wilford, in the backseat, intrudes on his thoughts. Abe tells Wilford to get out of his head and Wilford tells him to stop shouting without either one actually saying a word out loud, then Abe almost runs into a truck. During a series of red gas induced hallucinations about 11 minutes in, Mark responds to "Poppy's" question and says, "I don't know, how am I alive?"--something Abe also questions during WMLW, until Wilford snaps him out of it.

During the multiple realities reference, Mark mentions not being able to separate fact from fiction, something that comes up again later during a second round of hallucinations when "Poppy" asks, "Do you even know what's real?"

Difficulty separating fact from fiction is a recurring problem for Wilford, and even makes up a central theme when the WAIA is speaking to the viewer during The Warfstache Automated Interview Automaton video.

About an hour and a half into the video, after Mark, eh, successfully defeats Catnap, he says, "Remind me why I was doing this in the first place, because I don't recall," slipping into the Warfstache voice as he does so. Wilford doesn't exactly have the greatest memory, or really know why he does most things it seems like.

(He also slips into the Warfstache voice after he gets the finger gun, but that's par for the course every time Mark gets a surprise gun in a video game and starts getting shooty.)

Back to ISWM, we have the Catnap fight. Or more specifically, Mark's unfortunate choice of words, "And I wait to do it all over again." Cue it becoming the recurring phrase during a montage of Mark's failed attempts to beat the boss until, after an unknown number of retries, finally succeeding.

What is that, if not the exact same thing that the Captain goes through In Space? Whether it's the ultimately futile attempts to save the ship in Part 1, or your choice in the warp core that sends you all the way back to the beginning to try again?

When Mark is greeted by Ollie/Gregory who has the audacity to say things like, "Wow...you did it," "You must feel pretty good," and "This win is yours," he immediately breaks out into a storm of cursing.

Very much the same reaction we see in the Captain after failing and being sent back early in Part 1, but especially after obtaining an "ending" only to go into the light and find themselves right back in the cryopod again.

This is the hand gesture of someone (silently) cursing their existence.

Mark slowly turning to stare into the camera while going through the vents (twice) and suggesting he could come crawling out of the screen is just normal Mark behavior though, not sure what else to say about that.

[delta-queerdrant]

useless desires (Persistence of Vision, s2 e8)

I just realized I posted my drafts out of order! And skipped Persistence of Vision!! So sorry, but also what is time, etc.

"Persistence of Vision" could also be titled “kisses no one wanted to see on television.” There are so many of them! Voyager is a show that is fundamentally bad at romantic subplots, and this episode in particular seems determined to deliver awkward makeout scenes that literally no one asked for.

Truthfully I’m inclined to like this episode - it’s gothic, and it's about feelings, and those are both good things! (Season Two as a whole is strong in the area of feelings-forward episodes, even as it struggles with such matters as “plot.”)

We open with Janeway, modern career woman, losing her cool due to the pressures of command. The Doctor orders her to blow off some steam with a holo-novel, so we’re back to Victorian governess cosplay. 

This show’s conception of self-care is so very nineties - Janeway is a leader, but she’s also a woman, which means that an essential layer in her Maslow’s Pyramid is “putting on a corset and getting snogged by a bargain-basement aristocrat.” The problem with the governess holonovel is that it invokes universalized cliches of gendered desire (bodice-ripper tropes) instead of drilling into what this character, specifically, would look for in a holonovel (my money is on lady doctor/cowboy romance, but I will also accept steampunk adventure, or pirates). Some women dig feeling feminine, but they also want to feel like themselves.

Soon Janeway’s repressed lady psyche, pushed to the brink, begins to spill out into ordinary life. When she dares to enjoy a coffee ice cream (instead of one of her inexplicable cups of soup), she begins to hallucinate. Mark shows up!! A ghostly dog barks!!!

I am usually one to try to get behind a canonical love interest - even if my shippy preferences lie elsewhere, canon relationships shed light on character. But man, I hate this jerk. No doubt real!Mark has many pleasant qualities that phantom!Mark lacks, but let's be real, dude has all the charisma of a bin full of pencil shavings.

Mark (and Mollie) have been on Janeway's mind; we know this because she gave their photo a long, plaintive look before trotting off to the holodeck. Now phantom!Mark declares that, quote, SOMEONE ELSE IS IN YOUR THOUGHTS NOW(!!!) As further evidence of her guilt, a hallucinatory Mrs. Templeton appears and jumps her.

Who the heck is someone else?? One is inclined to assume that we're being setting up for a Janeway/Chakotay romance arc - but it’s hard to feel certain this show isn’t fucking with us, making shippy promises it has no intention of keeping. It seems equally possible that Lord Burleigh is someone else and the writers truly believe that Janeway feels guilty for kissing holograms behind her fiance’s back.

At any rate, atmospherically backlit aliens have shown up; the rest of the crew starts hallucinating, seeing loved ones or, in B’Elanna’s case, a torrid romance with Chakotay?? (I am actually okay with these two as fwb, but their relationship is so fundamentally platonic that, again, it feels like the writers are just messing with us.) Mark shows up and kisses Janeway (gosh, two Janeway kisses in one episode, each one profoundly disappointing).

Only Kes is strong enough to resist these bankrupt conjurings of female desire. Her siren is a Tom Paris who needs to be rescued, which is actually a pretty funny and on the nose interpretation of what Kes is into. Overcoming her urge to engage in some hurt/comfort roleplay, Kes rescues the ship, Medusa-like, by using her telepathic powers to return the awkward to sender.

I enjoy this episode because it’s about women’s personal lives, even though the script seems extremely confused about what those personal lives consist of. Janeway and Torres share a very sweet “welp, that was awkward” scene at the end in which they resolve to be a little less repressed in the future.

Of curse, we can't possibly expect either of them to follow through with their vow; when it comes to nineties television, the richest texts are usually those below the surface. 3/5 surreptitious coffee ice creams.

[anhonest-puck]

tell me about you + your friend’s 80s au?

oh lord where do i even start 😭 i’m about to be yapping for a long time i apologize in advance.

so, me n my group of friends got together and put an 80’s au together called Island Wheels! we’ve all been working on it for a while and i love it dearly i’m ngl. i write ralph’s perspective (might have been obvious..) and basically his whole character so most of the stuff in this ramble will be about his side of the story!! (we also assume that mulberry boy [we named him maxwell], simon, and piggy are still alive and just got really beat up or something)

we assigned each of the boys a type of skating/something on wheels!! so ralph roller skates (i think piggy would attempt to roller skate too? he just wouldn’t like it very much and opt to play the arcade games or smt lolll), jack and roger roller blade, simon and maurice skateboard, and samneric ride bicycles (or only one for both of them sometimes..)! they all hang out at the local skating rink to just get away from everything though.

to start: his family. i hc that ralph is a middle child! his older brother is robert and his younger brother is maxwell. his fathers name is felix allebach and his mothers name was clara, who passed away when ralph was seven. his father remarried to an american woman named trudy jennings. ralph’s full name is ralph rover jennings-allebach. his brothers are amazing; maxwell looks up to ralph like an idol of some sort, and robert would literally kill for his younger brothers. his relationship with his father is also really good too! the allebachs are british-german, making them practically fluent in both languages as they grew up around german speaking family. their family is more lower-middle class, leaning hard on the lower part.

ralph’s character: basically brother has issues. he has ocd, ptsd from the island, anxiety/hallucinations, and he tends to go into depressive slumps every so often; especially when things aren’t clean or ‘manipulated’ to how it wants them to be. this is what my most recent art was about!! he was freaking out because he looks “like a corpse” and how he can’t recognize himself anymore after getting smoked out of the island. yikes.

last section bcz i don’t want to spoil too much!! how did jack and ralph re-meet?: they wound up going to the same boarding school (wow shocker ikr) and ralph becomes distant after figuring that out. but one night during a party at the skating rink, roger shoves jack into ralph which leads into jack spilling his drink all over him. (fun fact this entire scene was inspired by Ribs by Lorde so um. thanks Lorde?) ralph still like hates jack at this time so jack is like “uhmmmmmhhh ill go get paper towels ahaha” and he just ditches and probably punches roger. and then (shocker again) their sophomore year they get put in a dorm together and simply have to Deal With It! they do end up getting along a little while into it though :)

i don’t want to spoil a whole hell of a lot but that’s a little bit of it :,) i’ve been waiting for someone to ask though i’ve been so excited FJSHSJJS. i have so much more i’m so sorry for the literal paragraphs already BAHAHAHA take some soggy ralph as compensation 🥹

please do ask questions if you have any!! i’m very willing to answer any questions about this au hehe

[wingedclouds]

FF 7 Rebirth Theory

Major spoilers for the end of Rebirth, if you haven't played that far yet and want to avoid spoilers, don't read this.

I'd also like to ask people who reblog this to keep the tags spoiler free so no one gets accidentally spoiled.

This is just how I see things, it doesn't mean I think it's a fact, please take it with a grain of salt.

Before I can start the actual theory I need to lay the groundwork so bear with me for a little while.

"When the boundaries of fate are breached, new worlds are born."

That's what Sephiroth tells Cloud when they're viewing events from Remake as well as other worlds in Rebirth.

The boundaries of fate are everything related to how the OG timeline would play out. Aerith dies, Sephiroth gets the Black Materia and summons Meteor. You know the gist.

I strongly believe that Sephiroth came from the Post Advent Children timeline and that Aerith got memories from her future self bestowed upon her once future Aerith noticed that Sephiroth was up to something.

They're both already breaching the boundaries simply by existing like this and doing everything they can in getting the other to stop whatever they're doing.

We know the Whispers have been taking memories from Aerith whenever she touched them. I would wager the guess that they started with future events in order to keep fate in place.

We also know that Sephiroth wants to defy fate, preferably with Cloud at his side.

Sephiroth goes on to explain to Cloud that when worlds die, they return to the planet.

He clearly seems to have an interest in the Lifestream and I assume that is not because he wants to ride around the cosmos.

Sephiroth had the real Black Materia in his hands several times and probably still has it in his possession. [I have another theory lined up about the ending scene too that touches up on this]

Yet he didn't cast Meteor, which is something the OG Sephiroth would have done. So he clearly has a different plan in store this time around.

Now onto the real theory: Aerith's death scene has three outcomes.

When Cloud aims to prevent Sephiroth from stabbing Aerith as he comes down from above, a spark of light with rainbows can be seen. As we already know, this rainbow light thing indicates that something has happened in regards to fate.

Cloud has effectively created a new world where Aerith doesn't die. At least not in the way we would think she'd die.

Sephiroth knew this would happen because the man had been putting that inside Cloud's head since the end of Remake. Most likely because he actually wanted this to happen because it meant one more world that would eventually return to the planet.

The next scene is blood suddenly pooling on the ground and when Sephiroth pulls Masamune out of Aerith, you can once again see the rainbow light in the background.

So this makes outcome number two as well as another world for Sephiroth.

While this scene was confusing at first, what we see in the end is the back and forth switching between the two worlds.

Now comes the third outcome that might be a bit far fetched, especially because the rainbow light never left the scene.

Sephiroth kills Cloud and Aerith.

The only reason I can imagine him doing this is because it adds another world to the Lifestream.

After Sephiroth kills them the static sound can be heard and while I usually view that as an indicator that Cloud is hallucinating or remembering things wrong, I don't think it's the case in this scene.

Especially because the sound continues while it switches between the two worlds so I do think it's possible that Sephiroth did that for the sake of creating another world.

Because Aerith is dead so it adheres to the OG timeline. But Cloud isn't meant to die there, we don't know when and how Cloud dies but it certainly isn't while holding Aerith's dead body in his arms.

So it would once again breach the boundaries of fate and since Sephiroth knows this I honestly wouldn't put it past him to do it.

The only question I'm asking myself is: Why does Sephiroth do this?

I'm not even questioning why he tells Cloud that. It's just a little bit of bait dangling over Cloud's head. A vain hope that there is a way to save Aerith and that events can indeed be altered.

Which obviously plays right into Sephiroth's hands because he wants this to happen. He really is sneaky with his manipulation.

As for why Sephiroth is doing that world creating stuff? I have multiple theories but none are really fleshed out because I honestly feel like we don't know his motives.

He could be trying to not die again at Cloud's hands like he does in the OG. Or he wants to make the Lifestream strong again so when it erupts to stop Meteor, there's more that he can poison. Maybe he's feeling a bit funny and wants to mess around to see what happens.

I don't really see a motive behind his actions yet other that he probably wants things to play out differently.

[lonesomedreamer]

SNW Liveblog: “The Elysian Kingdom”

This episode? Messy af. Spock in a wig? Sexy af.

The scene with M’Benga and Rukiya is precious, as always—though the subtext of it (her desire to change endings and rewrite stories more to her liking) is a little on-the-nose, considering that the writers of SNW are basically rewriting a classic television show to suit their own whims.

If Rukiya is running out of time, in theory all M’Benga has to do is stop materializing her so frequently…assuming that, while her pattern is in the transporter, she’s not conscious/aware. If she IS, that’s an entirely different (and horrifying) can of worms.

The exchange about superstitions between Pike and Spock is nice.

“Drinks are on me.” This is why Pike’s crew seems so undisciplined, imo. We know that Kirk would, and did, drink with his crew. But he wasn’t casually offering to buy them drinks from the captain’s chair.

“You gonna say the thing?” “Hit it.” Thanks, I still hate it.

I miss TOS’s buttons and tactile controls so much. They’re just more visually appealing (and frankly, more practical) than touch screens.

“Perhaps you did, indeed, jinx it.” I love Spock, lmao. (Also, as someone who calls out sports announcers and coworkers for jinxing things regularly…Pike totally jinxed it.)

People falling out of their chairs during turbulence is a real Trek classic!

Great, M’Benga is what, hallucinating?

These kinds of zany episodes on TOS/TNG took place either on a strange planet—like in “Squire of Gothos” or “Shore Leave”—or on the holodeck. Setting this on the Enterprise instead was…well, a choice.

La’an’s princess costume is delightfully ridiculous and sparkly.

It’s kind of a bummer to see that Christina Chong has real acting chops (even if “Princess Thalia” is intentionally way over-the-top), but is denied the chance to do much acting thanks to how flatly her character is written.

Ethan is hot. No notes.

“Maybe I can get us out of here with the help of some powerful magic called science.”

I vastly prefer hammy/possessed Kirk to hammy/possessed Pike. Sorry ’bout it. (Maybe it’s just the actors, or maybe it’s because regular Kirk comes off as so much more sincere than Pike to me?)

Why is Hemmer, an alien with inherent telepathic abilities, immune to whatever’s happening on the Enterprise, whereas Spock, an alien (well, half-alien) with inherent telepathic abilities, succumbed to it? I can hand-wave most plot holes…this one’s just lazy writing, though.

Worth it? Worth it.

I would watch THIS show.

“Truthfully, I should have known it as well…since that’s what he does in the book.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“There’s no such place, my queen, he’s bluffing.”

All those lines were funny and delivered well!

Even though classic tricorders look pretty out-of-place on this redesigned Enterprise, I still love seeing them.

The resolution of the Rukiya subplot reminds me a lot of the end of The Motion Picture.

The moral quandry of it is enormous, way bigger than “storing your daughter’s biological pattern in the transporter to keep her alive,” which raises plenty of ethical questions of its own. M’Benga tells Rukiya that “it’s up to you”—but how can such a young child make such a huge decision: to exist in space as a disembodied consciousness for an infinite amount of time or to wait in stasis for a cure for her human body?! It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the “willing” sacrifice made by the little boy in Episode 6…not really the comparison you want viewers to be drawing, given how that one ended. Children that age can’t give meaningful consent.

Besides, what does M’Benga know about this entity? How do either of them know that they can trust it? It’s been using the Enterprise as a dollhouse for hours out of boredom/loneliness! What might it do to Rukiya’s energy? And how will becoming said disembodied consciousness impact a nine- or ten-year-old human girl? There are actually a number of great science fiction (horror) stories about this, the premise being that human minds are ill-equipped for that kind of existence. For all M’Benga knows, he could find the cure next week. It was teased in Episode 6. All he needs to do is keep Rukiya safely the transporter—which really shouldn’t be a problem unless she is, in fact, conscious in there. But the writers obviously just wanted to wrap this problematic subplot up and move on.

A grown-up version of Rukiya appears to comfort M’Benga and tell him about her many “adventures,” because it turns out time exists differently for her now even though it’s been ~30 seconds of real time…? It cheapens the scene before and makes me feel belittled as a viewer. I’m okay with feeling uneasy about M’Benga’s choice! I’m not okay with being cajoled into thinking that it was the correct choice. When Kirk let Edith Keeler die, her ghost didn’t reappear to assure him that she understood why he had to! He—and by extension, the audience—just had to live with it.

“She’s safe.” He doesn’t and can’t know that for certain. He let an alien consciousness he neither studied/analyzed nor communicated directly with spirit his daughter away after two minutes of deliberation! Anything could be happening to her out there. Though, to be totally fair, she’s not going to die, so…there’s that?

So yes: this episode is messy. I rewatched it after seeing the ending and reading a lot of reviews/commentary and actually revised this liveblog. It’s not as bad as I initially thought! However, I’ve come to think that the Rukiya subplot itself was a poor choice, one full of troubling implications, dubious decision-making, and questionable ethics. I understand why the writers scrambled to get rid of it. And conveptually, this episode wasn’t even a bad send-off for Rukiya! The execution was just lacking. It could’ve been so much more.

But hey…at least we got La’an’s princess dress, Uhura’s evil queen ensemble, and Spock in that wig.

The Good: Gorgeous costumes—the actress playing Rukiya was a delight; I’ll miss her—Spock in general—some very funny lines/delivery—Christina Chong gets to act!

The Bad: The writing, pacing, set design, and some of the acting was all pretty clumsy—for an episode that turned so heavy, the campy fairy tale stuff was too light and took up too much time. Too much of Ortegas and Pike; not enough of La’an and Spock. (I think there’s too much Ortegas on the show, period. She just doesn’t work for me. No judgment towards other people who may feel differently.) Some truly WTF parenting choices made by M’Benga—huge unresolved questions/plot holes by the end.

But the beauty of SNW returning to Trek’s episodic roots is that it’s a standalone episode. Hoping for better (and more Spockstine!) in the next installment.

[oldfacesnewdawnoffical]

soooo i'm not sure if this is okay but:

the story plot for OFND is really really cool! and i have zero creativity at making plots. so is it ok if i try writing for example ignite 1? i probably won't post it online its just for writing practice.

also how does the blackpath radiation sickness (?) work, is it like "on contact you get a status debuff and if it gets into your bloodstream you hecking die" or is it like regular infection?

Oh gosh?? Absolutely, yeah!!! OFND is here to be shared and to inspire, so if you’d like to write out a scene that’s highlighted within the outlines so far, I absolutely encourage you to go right ahead and do so! And, if you do end up sharing it, please tag me so I can read it!! ^^ Though of course there’s no pressure! <3

Admittedly I haven’t worked out all the kinks there just yet; I have plans and ambitions to make full little pages on OFND’s fantasy illnesses, the Darkpath Sickness included (and hopefully given a new, less mouthful of a name lol)! But, as far as I assume it works at the moment, I kind of see it like ARS, also known as Acute Radiation Syndrome.

The whole point of the Darkpath being dangerous is that the road, having been touched by humans and not made by Nature, is charged with immense radiation. The fealty cats aren’t exposed to as much raw radiation as outsiders are, as they’re sequestered within a valley that is fully natural - the only radiation that reaches them is that in the air, and thus it produces some physical traits, but it doesn’t make them sick. Should they come across the Darkpath and touch it with their exposed skin (via their paw pads or through an open wound), then the sickness would take hold.

The symptoms of ARS include high fevers, nausea, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea, and seizures. All of these are also found in the Darkpath Sickness as well, but unique to the Darkpath Sickness are the following additional symptoms: burning sensation within the point of contact, skin/wound discoloration, convulsions, hallucinations, and eventual death. There is no known cure for Darkpath Sickness; all cases have always resulted in death - which is why Rust’s recovery was so miraculous.

[the1northlanderprincess]

The Serpent and the Wings of Night

Well, I finally read one of the more popular romantasy books of recent chatter. It only took a month and a half of waiting on the hold at the library (will probably be longer for the sequel).

I know a lot of people have raved about Oraya and Raihn's relationship, but, honestly, I wasn't sold on it. It just didn't feel as organic as other couples; felt a little too insta-love, especially on his end. That's usually why I'm not fond of couples getting together right away in the first book.

What did feel real and well-developed was Oraya's relationship with Vincent. There were a lot of complex layers. Was he cruel with her at times? Yeah. Dude was a vampire. It's in his nature. But he loved her so much, he wanted to soul-bond with her so she would be less vulnerable to his enemies (at least, that's my interpretation) and have her around longer without having to turn her. Even though he clearly looked down on most humans, he didn't want that fate for her. I can't wait for more answers about the past, and why Vincent didn't follow through with the vampire parent code.

One question that was left unanswered, which has me rather curious, is the vampire with the long black hair she saw in her hallucination/dream. I'm assuming that was the guy who killed her family...?

Overall, a good read. The romance went from warm to super-spicy rather quickly. I'm not really a fan of that anymore. Like, seriously, what's wrong with less descriptive love scenes? Anyway, I would like more books that have the lost daughter/important-but-protective father angle. Even a son. Heck, that's the main draw for me with the Percy Jackson series.

[saucedlx]

Metafuckery in videogames

This is pretty much just copy pasted from my steam review of AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative. It contains major spoilers for that game, so don't click keep reading if that's something you want to avoid.

tbh i don't know how to deliberately make the post cut off so i'm just adding a buncha line breaks and hoping that's enough

seriously there's spoilers for ai the somnium files nirvana initiative below. and also vague allusions to a twist happening in metal gear solid 2. which i know most people prolly know about cause it's been 22 years but i genuienly didn't know that was gonna happen my first time playing last year cause i never was that deep into metal gear

Okay the real post starts here

It's understandable to not like the story but as someone who loves the sorta mindscrew pulled by Metal Gear Solid 2, this is the only other thing that even gets close, so I loved it for that. More specifically the way it slowly builds up the meta fuckery going on, with small incongruent details slowly becoming more noticeable until the big reveal. I could totally understand not liking this sorta thing, since the story very much has to contrive itself to not reveal this too early on (two mizukis) and the game is very intentionally tricking the player. But I think it's worth it if you enjoy media that in part is about its own status as media, that relishes in its own ability to portray things in deliberately unintuitive ways. And personally I think some (not all [two mizukis]) of the misdirections are really clever. For example, the weirdness of 'the two halves of the same body being found 6 years apart' is mentioned with the first body the player finds, but then is never brought up again for the subsequent bodies despite them being presented in an order that would lead you to assume the same thing is going on. I could totally see that being annoying, "I never said the rest of these bodies were found years apart" "come the fuck on you obviously wanted to believe that" "but I never SAID that was the case outside the first one". Personally I loved that kind of stupidly simple trick, but if someone thinks it's just kinda bullshit that's a totally justified reaction.

I love the small details that lead up to the realization the game's initial description of the timelines is inaccurate; the lack of reaction to Date's supposed 6-year disappearence, the offhand mention of Komeji's bowtie being bought a year ago despite him supposedly having been dead for 6 years. Also there's the whole Frayer ending but it's the slow buildup that sticks with me the most. It reminds me of the slow realization of how similar MGS2's plot/progression is to MGS1's, of initially thinking something might be a minor oversight but eventually concluding that it's too blatant to not be deliberate. (although tbh i still don't think the prototype machine suddenly not needing eye removal is a deliberate part of the story).

Anyways this doesn't really go for the same vibe as MGS2; compared to that, AINI feels more lighthearted about its trickery, with the whole Marble scene where the game comes clean about it. The Frayer ending gets closer to that eeriness MGS2's reveal has, but it also feels less consequential to the overall story, and more like a little bonus thing that gets really meta but only within its own space where the game asks "would it even be that interesting for the 'true' solution to be the neatest happiest one". This sequence as well as the Ryuki hallucination moments also do the other thing I most love about MGS2's fuckery; the feeling that the game is collapsing on itself.

I still think MGS2's meta fuckery has something special and unmatched in anything I know of (emphasis on "I know of"; if you know anything like this feel free to give me recommendations cause i love this sorta thing), but at least now I have one other example of a game that does something similar in a way I enjoyed. Also if you're thinking of Undertale/Deltarune now, I love them too but I don't put them in this category of thing because they're way more upfront about their metanarrative stuff from the start. Also there's the Zero Escape series but that does more to try to justify meta gameplay stuff in-universe (the fields, babyyyyy).This kinda turned into a whole essay but TLDR the story does some unconventional stuff, and it's totally understandable to not enjoy it but personally I really like it.

Footnote: Two of them

Maybe I should write something like this except more focused on MGS2. It's been out for way longer and is way more known so I didn't feel compelled to, since people prolly already analyzed the shit out of it. I guess I love most of its ending except the main conclusion of "behind all the conspiracies, there's some shady group that has 99.99% perfect seamless control over everything and if you blink it's because they planned for you to do that a couple decades ago". While personally I'm more of a "there's no big master plan, people in power try to maintain their power through fucked up means but they're not superhuman, they're capable of fucking up" truther. And it feels like a decent amount of people do respond to MGS2 with "this is literally whats happening in real life the Patriots are just like wokeness". And I don't feel like dealing with that shit. But yea I love metafuckery in games.

[thenewblackcanvas]

Be careful who you steal from: The Book

Stealing from Witches!ATZ

Be careful who you steal from masterlist

It’s unclear what brought you to the small shop at the end of the road. Maybe the boredom of the day, maybe the curiosity that peaked as you left the candy shop next door. 

The displays in the window are well done but odd. Skeletons having tea with beautiful clothes draped around them. The scene is decorated with all kinds of expensive yet strange looking things. The one in the opposite window a look into what must lay inside. Odd looking card sets, a doll, a music box open to the tiny woman screaming instead of what you would have assumed would be a ballerina. Then a sign at the bottom. One you would have missed if you hadn’t been so intrigued by the front displays. ‘Do not take from the store that which you have not bought’

A weird way to say no stealing but something about the warning was a bit more ominous than that. 

You venture in anyway. The dimly lit store was even more spacious than you though from the outside. The store extended back quite a ways with racks of older looking clothing and rows of oddities. You browsed about, finding funny gags like a money’s paw sitting like in the old tale. How funny.

Glancing at everything, you hadn’t noticed you reached the back area until there were no more shelves. What lie at the back was much different. 

Three distinct displays.  

Each one was a bit different, having one item as its main piece. They were a little different than the other areas having no price tags anywhere visible. The setup was interesting enough but only one display caught your eye. The dark, heavy looking book on the left display. The material of it looked worn and brown, signs of wear all over the front. In the middle, was an hourglass. It seemed as though it was made into the book. The black sand was out of course. It seemed no one had touched this book in ages, let alone flipped the hourglass. You reached out to do so, not even quite knowing why when you heard the voice. “TAKE IT.”

You stepped back. The voice was yours. It was loud and resounded in your head, assertively again. “TAKE. IT.”

The reason was unknown and the urge was scary coming from no where but after a moment’s hesitation you listened.

Unbeknownst to you, a call was being made by the sharp eyes watching you from above.

As you snatched the book and turned to run, you get a vision of you doing the same thing in another life. Running through the woods with the book, hugging it tightly to your chest. Stopping abruptly as a wall of branches form ahead of you, you realize at first that you’ve made it to the entrance again. But something is wrong. As you blink away the hallucination, you tug on the door only to find it’s locked.

You turn around like a cornered scared animal. The woods reappear as you blink and you see them smiling. Eight men standing to block your exits. The leader speaks.

“Well well well i knew you would come back for it. Called to it even in lives removed. Still taking what’s ours.”

You snap between then and now, seeing rough woods then the dark shop every time you blink.  

“Do you remember what else is ours?”

[cathilde]

excerpt from The Libertines (2019)

It was my sophomore year of college. I had just completed the first day and everything depressed me, especially the shadows of the maple leaves dancing on the wall in my dorm room.

“I’m going out for awhile,” said my roommate, Naomi Carver. I assumed she would be gone for a long while. My homely reflection stared back at me from the rectangular razorblade I held in my hand. I took in the zit on my chin, my black curls, my lackadaisical brown eyes. I turned the blade away from me and reflected the white, utilitarian walls covered in posters of new wave bands, the fake plastic red flowers in a vase on the nightstand, the Russian dolls next to it. The bottom of the blade was still covered in cocaine powder from a night Naomi spent partying at a friend’s apartment. My eyes stung. I moved in slow motion to the bathroom and ran water on my wrist in the sink. The key is not to think, I silently told myself. The key is to gash the vein and not fear what’s beyond. With the past, present and future forgotten, I made a vertical red line on my wrists, tearing into the blue creek of vein beneath my porcelain flesh. It brought forth a mild sting, like a bee’s. Blood spurted like a fountain into the sink, onto the mirror.

When I began to feel weak, I allowed myself to fall to the linoleum and wait for a bright light, a celestial set of golden gates. Before I faded out entirely, I felt a pair of arms pull me up and heard Naomi’s distorted shouting.

“Mildred!”

I blacked out, thinking it was only a hallucination when I saw a girl who looked like me staring at the scene from the entrance to the dorm room. I would see her later, in new circumstances. It turned out that Naomi forgot her phone, which is how she found me attempting to end my dismal life.

They sent me to a local hospital, where they staunched the bloodflow and where I eventually came to. The first thing I remembered was how I used to be such a sweet little girl. I think the most soulless day I had was when I was in junior high and I burned Elena Miller with a lit cigarette, all the world curdling behind my eyes with anger.

“Where do you want it?” I asked Elena, wielding the cigarette like a knife against her arm. “Your skin, or your clothes?” I pointed the tip at the polyester of her blue blouse. At the finality of my outburst, I chose her pale wrist as the target. Elena gasped instead of screaming. I spent two weeks in juvenile detention, was expelled and transferred to another school. As I was recalling this savory memory, a psychiatrist came to evaluate me and she concluded I needed inpatient treatment in the psych ward on the upper level of the hospital. Once I was up there, I frequently threw thermonuclear fits in the blinding fluorescence streaming from the ceiling. They sent me to a place of higher security, a building as old as the 1950s called Astria State Hospital. Located in Astria, Washington, a small country town full of orchards and horses.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I covered my bedroom window with collages and childish colored pencil drawings, one of which was a depiction of me rising above three pastel-colored buildings and into the sky. I wore a black dress and had no legs. Often, I stared up at the sky during cigarette breaks and felt like falling to one of the hollow black holes in outer space, but I was bound by the limitations of earth. My heart felt like hellfire.

“Mildred Swain should burn with fire,” said a patient with wild hair, pointing at me and taking a puff of his cigarette. I could only wonder how he knew my last name, let alone was he was saying this. I had been as friendly as possible since I was admitted into the hospital. As I lay in bed one night, a litany of insults came from both patients and staff passing by the door. They called me ugly, weak and deserving of death. I pulled the blanket over my head and refused to fight back. When I felt they were gone, I emerged from under the blanket, and saw her come in. The girl who looked exactly like me loomed, pale and spectral over my bed. She moved as though she were walking on water.

“Who are you?” I asked her.

“An extension of you,” she said. “You are doomed to be hated until you die. Humans are forever to be your plight. When you go home, they’ll talk about you on the sidewalk, in the park, in the classroom. All you can do is be strong and persevere.”

She went on talking until I fell asleep. When morning came, I felt groggy. The sunshine evaporated me. I felt like a puddle of snow melting beneath my blanket. Slowly, in the midst of the empty room, I willed myself to rise to the ceiling and become united with the camera I felt to be hidden in the light above. I watched myself from the top and there was my strange twin in the branches of the cherry tree outside my window, snapping my picture with a polaroid, the black eye of the lens like the eye of an observant spider.