#writing and ruminating

[chaoticmemelover]

Spring with the burn of the Sun that gets lost in the wintry winds of the shade, the bloom of a million flowers from the cracked earth of the desolate days of the past, the renewal of life and spirit, the wandering feet changing paths enchanted by the bounty of nature, the hope that germinates from the ruins of past, the crunch of fallen yellow leaves beneath my boots, the green of budding leaves that dominate the pupil of the eye, the time for choosing between cold coffee (probable cold and cough) and hot lemon tea (probable burn of the throat), the joys of laying on the lawn with grass sticking to hoddies that would bid farewell soon (unless you're weird enough to wear 'em in summer cause HOODIES duh), the lazy lay in sun cause cats do have a lot in common with humans...

[avelera]

Headcanon that after they vanish into the rune, Jayce and Viktor travel the multiverse averting Hextech in multiple universes and it's remarkably easy to get past-Viktor to stop in a number of places, because Viktor had an emergency cease-and-desist code phrase for himself if he ever fucked up with science so bad his future self had to come back and warn him against it.

(Jayce thinks this is the coolest fucking thing he's ever heard. Everyone else is wondering why Viktor was so sure he'd fuck up with universe-altering science that he'd need a code word with himself to stop it.)

[edenspoem]

older!divorced!neighbor!ellie who holds ur hair back when ur giving the strap she casually wears around you a blowjob.. fucks your throat raw a little WHAAAAT

[spread-the-influence]

AITA for giving a [GIFT] to my (F30) adult friends?

I've been living in (well, trapped in, to be exact,) a circus for the past 7 years of my life. For reasons I don't want to delve into, it ruined my mental health to an irreparable degree. So when I was given a [GIFT] that cured me of all my pain, I wanted to give it to everyone else.

However, my friends weren't enthused about it. Particularly Z (NB22), who would always complain about how I 'trapped them in a box', even though they told me they wanted to feel whole when it comes to their body. And P (F25) keeps telling me that it's 'actually a virus' and that it's 'seriously hurting everyone' which is ridiculous. If it was a virus, I would know it's a virus by now.

But I'm starting to think that I might be in the wrong here. The [GIFT] is supposed to make them happy, so if it's doing the opposite, then there must be something wrong. AITA?

EDIT: I put Z in a box because I thought it would help them. Now that I read the replies, I realized it probably wasn't a good idea, but every time I tried to undo my mistake they would rip my stitches off. So they're residing in Boxland until further notice. Any suggestions to calm down an angsty triangle would be appreciated.

EDIT: Okay, I may or may not have left out that I gave the [GIFT] by mutilating them. But in my defense, none of them died, so does it matter that one of them can't use her legs anymore?

( if you think it'll be funny to respond for some reason , please do it in the replies or reblogs , not the ask box ! )

[pencilofawesomeness]

How Fairy Tail could have had a really cool thematic parallel if they Committed to the Bit:

I often joke about my constant urge to spew essays on characters and topics I have thought too much about, but I refrain because translating all the thoughts in my head to words takes time and effort, and sometimes I am speaking to the void. However. I am spinning in my chair, gnawing at the bars of my enclosure, and frankly thinking way too much right now so I must scream.

It would have been so impactful if Fairy Tail emphasized Jellal being brainwashed.

Jellal is my boy, of course, but I’m not even just talking about the impact to his character: I mean the impact of the entire plot. This, of course, if we went the whole mile with the theming. The machination of being controlled, emotionally or magically influenced, or even unable to fulfill a desire due to an insurmountable obstacle, comes up numerous times throughout the plot, to both primary characters, supporting characters, and antagonists. While Fairy Tail is absolutely a series about friendship, it is also about choosing your path, with a large recurring theme of, regardless of connotation, about being selfish, and what that means on both ends of the spectrum. It’s a matter of free will, and the antithesis to this is all manner of external control. So really, it makes sense that this should be a thoroughly explored theme.

I could talk all day about all the different examples and aspects of this but I came here to talk about Jellal. First, the slavery aspect really hits the nail on the head, so we’re off to a great start—this, of course, applicable to multiple characters, which I really enjoy. Things go wild, however, when Jellal effectively chooses to trade himself for Erza in the punishment game and gets the ever-living shit beat out of him at the ripe age of eleven or twelve years old. He is, understandably, not in a good place, and he comes to the stunning conclusion that… he hates the slavers. Yeah. Checks out. Then, he hears the voice of ‘Zeref’ spewing rhetoric about hate, and it overwhelms; this, we know in hindsight especially, to be Ultear casting a mind-fuck spell in order to manipulate him, under the guise of pretending to be a figure young Jellal believed to be a god. 

When I first saw this flashback, watching the anime, I was unbelievably hyped. For all of Fairy Tail’s odd relationship with foreshadowing, I got the gist of it as soon as the magic went into his right eye and overwhelmed him. In Japanese media especially (largely due to the prevailing symbolism of the daruma doll), the right eye is a huge indicator of free will and the future—namely one’s goals. Creepy magic ghost entering the right eye with magic-bind looking things and immediately warping Jellal’s goal? A+ delivery. Of course, at the time Zeref—an unrevealed ‘evil’ entity—seemed a likely culprit, but Ultear being the puppeteer changes little of the result. In fact, it actually creates a super interesting parallel, but more on that later.

First, there are the consequences of Jellal being an antagonist who is not in control of his actions. I see people lament that it “cheapens” the severity of the arc and provides a cop-out redemption for Jellal, and while the execution of the latter certainly could have been different, I don’t think the premise of mind alteration cheapens the overall plot and theme of Fairy Tail at all; on the contrary, it could have been used to further emphasize intra- and inter- character conflict as well as provide a super engaging parallel for the end of the series. The theme of nakama, family, and friendship is huge, so what better way to emphasize that than to show a twisted example of it?

Jellal goes from ride-or-die loyal and ‘good’ to circumstantially loyal to an ideal (and the people attached to it) and ‘evil’ with the flip of a magic switch. Erza gets the immediate short of the stick when she is the first victim (aside from Jellal himself) to this meddling, and the caring friend she had seen days or weeks before is now cruel, insane, and full of threats—threats she takes heed to as she is cast from the island. Now, Erza is also a child, and one full of trauma, so I am not trying to invalidate her fear or blame her for any outcome. This also does not dive into the intricacies of saving friends at cost to oneself, and all of the conflict thereof; if anything, the complication of the matter bolsters the drama and impact. And then, we have the rest of the squad. Sho, Wally, and Milliana buy into the idea without any trouble, and they continue to buy into it as they get older. Beyond morality, it’s a power fantasy, and those are easy for formerly powerless people to latch onto. However, Simon is the only one who realizes that something is fundamentally wrong and twisted with Jellal… and his ultimate goal, developed over the course of roughly seven to eight years, is to wait it out until he finds the opportunity to kill him, or get somebody else to do it. Ultear, even after integrating herself into the group out of nowhere, gets away with her plan, because ultimately nobody questions that Jellal’s sudden change was anything but a result of trauma and his own will—even in a world with magic, where the very first arc revolves around the use and mistreatment of charm magic.

(Now, as an aside, I unfortunately have some experience in friends suddenly changing. In real life, it is rarely so sudden and obvious, of course, and the culprit is usually those horrible little signals and hormones within the mind, and nothing so fanciful or external as magic. I had a friend take a nosedive into some truly batshit ideas—cult-starting worthy—and exhibit wild mood swings and displays of unprecedented behavior. It admittedly took me a moment to ascertain it among the known issues, but once the pieces clicked, it clicked. I wished I had noticed sooner, and even though she was more culpable of her choices than a person supernaturally influenced by an outside force, I still can’t hate her for all the harm done. This is all just to say that I have, especially in recent years, a personal perspective on this trope and an appreciation for the painful nuance.) 

Refusing to reveal this mindfuckery in the arc diminishes the severity of it a great deal, I fear. We, along with the characters, spend time believing he died an insane villain… and then when he comes back amnesiac, it softens his character but does nothing to contradict how awful he had been. It’s not until years later, arcs later, that we get this random instance of the long overdue reveal to tell us that the manipulation has been discovered off screen. Not only is this utterly underwhelming, but Jellal is now actively working with Ultear and is fine with it! He’s still (understandably, after all this damn time thinking otherwise) blaming himself and lighting his own pyre to atone for things started by a factor completely outside of his control, and every character lets him. The discussion of autonomy is wasted. So, too, is all the juicy emotional fallout. We don’t see Jellal grapple with the horrifying reality that he has not been himself, that years of his life were wasted as a mental slave instead of a physical one; we don’t see Erza beat herself up (likely unnecessarily) because she could have potentially protected him but she hadn’t out of fear, and then she condemned him unknowingly; we don’t see the others truly come to terms with the fact that Jellal had been stolen from under their noses and they never noticed; we don’t even get more than a glimpse in Ultear’s head, who committed the deed because she thought her means wouldn’t matter and then they did. 

It’s horrifying. It’s tragic. It was, perhaps, preventable—in that the problem was a punchable one, to a degree—except the people involved were just children, just human, and it wasn’t enough. Friendship and flashy magic power could not trump trauma and entrapment, not this time. No matter how I think the series could have and should have handled it (and I have several ideas, of course), Jellal’s story provides a haunting case of failure regarding the themes of friendship/community and freedom that our protagonists embody. 

Which brings me to the perfect opportunity to follow up this occurrence of stripped autonomy and loss of freedom with a culmination of the affected themes, plot points, and more: the books of Zeref. 

Namely, the idea that the etherious—sapient, cognizant, and fully capable of autonomy via every depiction given of them, from Tartaros to even Lullaby to especially Natsu—can be and have been resolutely manipulated and controlled via the books by Zeref. Now Zeref, infamously hands-off up until the finale, barely utilized this. The most we ever see is instilling a directive and supernatural need to kill Zeref in the texts, which serves as an externally imposed goal. (Sound familiar, yet?) Provided Larcade clearly doesn’t have these instincts, it is not a guaranteed addition either, which further adds to the sense of deliberation. Natsu experiences this only in the last arc, in what I assume is supposed to be a very tense and jarring plot of a friend and protagonist suddenly losing himself, but it does not get expounded on for long enough to hammer the point home. The plot point of reclaiming the book becomes about saving his life only, and not his autonomy. Not only could this have been emphasized to be properly horrifying and devastating, but the effect—and the suspense—would be doubled with the prior establishment of Jellal’s arc and the tragedy therein. 

To back up for a moment, this parallel is further accentuated by the fact that Ultear and Zeref are clear mirrors of each other. Ultear was afflicted by a magic condition outside of her control and she was enslaved as a lab rat for it. When she broke free, she perceived her mother to have abandoned her, so Ultear, in her unresolved anger and grief, aims her entire goal to rectifying it, which culminated in planning to undo the entire timeline in order to make the one she wanted all along. Any casualties, any cruelties—including the mental enslavement of a slave child—are means to an end, and will ultimately be forgotten. Zeref lost his entire family to tragedy, and in his grief, he refused to forfeit the idea of regaining what was lost, namely his brother. He became afflicted with a curse—a magic condition outside of his control—and experienced cognitive dissonance for it. Ultimately, this miserable existence culminated in the idea of erasing the timeline entirely and forging his own. Any casualties, any cruelties—including subjecting his creations to the same lack of complete cognitive control—are means to an end, and will not matter. 

I mentioned that selfishness is also a recurring theme and this is a prime example of the dark side of it. For Lucy, claiming her independence and following her own path against the wishes of her estate, it is a wondrous thing. Freedom cannot be achieved without some selfishness, and this is a wonderfully handled theme in Fairy Tail, where our protagonists unabashedly put their friends above concrete morals and follow a creed to live their life to the fullest—the eternal adventure. For characters like Ultear and Zeref, their personal desires—born of horrible tragedy and frankly understandable things to want—come at the cost of the autonomy of everyone else, especially the pawns they use to further their goal. This, in true fictional hyperbole, begs the question of where the line in the sand is to be drawn, of what is acceptable on a moral standard and what is not. It is, of course, colored by the protagonist’s point of view as clear antagonism, but as a viewer of the media it provides to us to question when protecting one’s ideal becomes irrevocably an attack on the sanctity of others. 

Which brings us back to the matter of the books. The intended horror of Natsu losing control of himself, I think, could have been really emphasized in order to highlight these aforementioned themes. Imagine if, instead of a complete menagerie of new characters as the final invading force, Zeref’s key piece of his invasion was Natsu. With the intended goal of undoing time, having Natsu kill him is no longer necessary, so it would be more pragmatic to use Natsu instead as a weapon of mass destruction for his goal. Not only is he inside of Fairy Tail, but Zeref is, theoretically, doing this for Natsu too, and he won’t remember this upon success—nevermind that the Natsu we know, that presently exists, that we have watched develop over the entirety of the series, would be forever erased regardless. 

Armed with the knowledge of what happened to Jellal, and how he ultimately had no one to intervene for him, this increases the urgency within the characters and will likely expedite their discovery of why Natsu turned against them out of nowhere. This time, a resistance is launched, and characters have the chance to intervene on the behalf of a friend. Gray couldn’t save Ur, Lucy spent years ensnared by the will of a family member, Erza didn’t recognize Jellal’s plight until it was too late, but they can save Natsu, and save him quickly. Fairy Tail, Team Natsu especially, can rewrite the book of E.N.D. solely for the great cause of freeing their friend and handing him back his free will, and in the process, Fairy Tail saves their own future as well. This doesn’t preclude the ability to free Zeref from his curse, but with or without that we have a beautiful culmination of fighting for the sake of a friend, for the individual and for the whole group. This time, friendship wins. 

I just think it could have been really cool.

[zorosdimples]

“Thank you.”

The words are gentle—soft as a lullaby—a lyrical utterance that doesn’t disturb the moon’s lonely watch over the velvet sky. But the stars don’t reach you; your bedroom is a haven cocooned in darkness, your body wrapped in the embrace of your love. No tragedy can tear at the silk of this blissful moment or cut the threads of your fate, helplessly interwoven. His chilly lips graze your forehead.

“Thank you,” Choso repeats, even quieter.

You can’t see his face: the ripened plum of his gaze, the striking gash across the bridge of his nose, and the plump curve of his lower lip are lost in the pitch. But his visage is embroidered in the fabric of your heart. You know his eyes are closed, his hair a shadowy halo against the pillow. He presses a kiss to your head, lingering. It’s another thank you—silent, this time. And sweeter. You can almost taste it.

A chuckle tumbles from your lips and you crane your head upward as though you can see him. “Why are you thanking me?”

His strong arms tighten around you; he pulls you closer, nearly on top of himself, then dips down to speak into your ear. “I want to say ‘for everything’ even though it sounds…silly,” he admits. His breath is hot—alive—and it makes you tremble. “But mostly, I want to thank you for loving me.”

“Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” you murmur. You nestle against his chest, umber hair tickling your cheek. Choso tangles his legs with yours and runs a cool palm up and down your back.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The shroud of midnight is ephemeral, but your love stretches it out, makes it burst at the seams.

[lunalejanaa]

The streets—they don’t make sense.

They all curve in such peculiar ways.

And the houses… how would you know which blue one?

There are thirty shades of it.

Anyway, which limb was it? Your long left arm, covered in silly tattoos?

Or the right calf—the one with all the cramps?

Which one do you prefer?

I want my atria back. You can keep my right hand.

No use for it if I can’t feel yours in mine anymore anyway.

I’ll meet you at the prussian blue house then, the one filled with all your thoughts—where you always seem to go.

I just hope I don’t get lost.

[crows-king]

I've been thinking a bit about how Galinda and Fiyero work as foils(?), and the contrast between their goals, personality, and their relationship to social influence individually change how they navigate their specific social situations.

And why it puzzles me when people judgmentally compare them and what they'd do in "What-If" scenarios as a gotcha to make one seem better/worst. Because in my mind they are similar but not comparable, because they fundamentally have very different personal stakes.

Primarily because of the difference in how they act in an Active (Galinda) vs Passive (Fiyero) approach to social engineering. And also, because one of them in writing is more developed as an individual than the other.

I'LL MOSTLY BE TALKING ABOUT: WICKED MOVIE - PART 1

Galinda is inherently Active. She has wants and desires that she's driven to achieve, and so actively plays the part of the good socialite because it will help her become more popular and to eventually become "Galinda the GoodSorceress". "It's not about aptitude, it's about the way you're viewed", and so on. It’s the one thing she knows she’s good at.

Of course, she also likes the attention and validation, but her charms doesn't come as naturally as she wants others, and probably herself, to believe. (I love that quote Ariana said somewhere about how "Galinda sees herself as a graceful swan, when she's actually a very stiff, but still beautiful swan", or something of that sort). She's insecure that she’ll lose people's favour and thus her most important asset, so she continually appeals to them. It's an act that she simultaneously enjoys doing for the most part, but also traps her from ever being truly close to anybody for fear of being known and not meeting expectations and losing that adoration. Until Elphaba that is.

Because of her drive to fulfill her dreams and to keep her best asset, and personal desperate need for validation, she has a much more obvious internal conflicts when she has to choose between Elphaba/the moral good vs keeping with the good graces of authority and/or the public. She's more prone to being influenced by others, and many of her choices become a calculated risk. She’s often times selfish and chooses her own desires, but it’s what makes her such an interesting and very human character. The struggle she balances when she’s forced to choose for better or worse.

In contrast

Fiyero is Passive. Dancing Through Life is literally him telling others that being lazy and not thinking is the best way to cope and enjoy life by ignoring problems. He is discontent with his life, but doesn't really acknowledge it until Elphaba reads him. Much like Galinda he is also playing a part, but it's not as tightly controlled as Galinda because he doesn't have an end goal for it.

Of course, while he probably doesn't want to lose his princely privileges. His passive "brainless" approach doesn't really put him in risky situations that would put him in conflict leading to losing things he cares about, because he really doesn't have a lot to lose. (Which is a byproduct of the fact he is primarily written as a love interest side character without much of an arc or motives outside his love triangle relationship to Elphaba and Galinda).

What confounds me is when people compare them and judge what their choices would be in if they were placed in pivotal moments, because we never really see them in situations with similar stakes.

For example, the Lion Cub scene. Most people interpret this scene as an act of braverism and heroics by Fiyero. And in some part it is, he's spurred on to save the cub, and he and Elphaba do. But it's telling that he only does this after everyone is asleep and there are virtually no risks. Any present social or physical conflicts that could arise? POOF! Gone. The worst that could probably be done to them is being punished, or even kicked out, if they’re discovered afterwards. Which Fiyero is not new to and doesn't really care about, and while maybe uncertain for Elphaba, is also unlikely because she's Morrible's irreplaceable pupil.

Some people use this scene as evidence that under his facade, Fiyero is secretly valiant like Elphaba thinks so. But I think in actuality tells the opposite. It reveals that Fiyero does care about the Animals, yes. But, the fact he only acts when prompted and there are no longer any present risks initially makes him seem less brave than Elphaba, and even Galinda. Because it contrasts with the Ozdust dance scene between the girls. Where Galinda had to make an active choice to do the risky and brave thing as an apology for hurting Elphaba, and offer to truly connect with her in front of everyone with the possibility of social out casting. She has an obvious internal conflict and risk assessment where she ends up picking the moral good over her personal comfort and social appeal. I'm genuinely curious on what kind of choices Elphaba, Galinda, and Fiyero might have done in that situation if they weren't given the perfect out by the magic poppies.

Would Galinda have helped in with the lion cub if she were awake? Probably, but who knows? Because in the narrative, Galinda isn't really put in a situation where she could choose good without being watched or without someone breathing down her neck. The prospect of being punished and kicked out from Shiz would also be most plausible and ruinous for Galinda. Morrible would definitely use it as an excuse to kick her out, or at the very least punish her, if she could, and it could throw away her only chance of achieving her dream of becoming a sorceress. She would have probably joined them in the end, though. If only to make sure they were safe. Compared to Fiyero, she has more conflicts of interests because she has personal aspirations and influence based on her reputation, and thus have more fears and consequences to consider in losing it.

Would Fiyero have joined Elphaba on the broom? Maybe, mostly likely. Because narratively, he’s never given a reason why he shouldn’t. He doesn’t see his worth and his skills intrinsically tied to public influence and opinion. He doesn’t have any wants or wishes he would have to abandon. He’ll have to leave his friends and family, but it’s not shown how close they really are to him outside Feldspar, his Horse friend, and he’s probably joining them anyway. He’s definitely more equipped to survive on the run compared to Glinda. Unlike Glinda, who is proven right in the end to being most useful when she can wield her powerful social influence For Good, Fiyero would probably be most useful as a sidekick to Elphaba. He was always written to be Elphaba’s follower, it’s no surprise. It’s also easier to take risks when you don’t have much to lose. But I think most people would agree that would make a less interesting story.

[godsentfailure]

[foxmuldeer]

alternate TUA s3 where instead of the moms dying/kugelblitz stuff: Five finds himself stuck in a timeloop once they jump back to 2019 - the loop itself could be a day/couple days/week. The events would still revolve around the hotel and conflict with the sparrows, but ultimately it's more focused on the consequences of fucking with the timeline(s) and how do you 'solve' something that's unsolvable (sorry Five but the answer is: there is no right answer).

[grhmwtts]

lately,

i’ve been trying to hold space for the harsh realities—the limitations, regulations—i must impose on myself. i spent the past decade unlearning what my church had taught me to be definitively “good” or definitively “bad” and, in such, unleashed a brutal and intoxicating world onto my feeble, pastel body. in said liberation was a newfound understanding that there is no place for objectivity in regards to the good, the bad—but there is, and must be, subjectivity to the good, to the bad. i soon thereafter considered myself a hedonist, indulging in the endless search for pleasure with a fixation on the pursuit of a higher fix each time, because i had believed that since i had the capacity, the ability to do all things then i must do all things. i suppose, herein i shall introduce emotional intelligence, making its entrance in stride, arm-locked, with a sense of identity. somewhere, in the place where their skin meets, warm by their intertwining arms, resides desire—futile, pulsating—escaping. this is where i find myself now: captivated by their entrance, rotten as intrusive thoughts darken the stained glass windows of the church of my mind. what ceremony is this—i dare not ask. but i am keen, and i am ruined, like never before. my veins rupture, an aneurysm of a divinity, where the “good” and the “bad” seek to tear apart each ligament of mine. in these spaces between possibility is the understanding that anything can reside within it, for the specifics do not dictate the general picture—the microaggressions do not typically overtake the one’s impression of character—but certain matter does make a knee capable of bending or in need of replacement. as such, it is within our own genetic, emotional, makeup which suggests what matter might be best for our personal functionality, ease of existence. and only, through the desire brought by contact of emotional intelligence and a sense of identity, their two independent entities and the room that is this church that is this world, that this life of a mind, do we begin to understand how exactly to piece together this body, this world, this life of self. in this process, i find myself. in this process, i find myself questioning my individuality, examining it through a lens and finding in what ways it differs to that of the general understanding, the inundation of mass media. but only in the quietude can i find myself. so i hold space for the harsh realities—the understandings crippling my adolescent-views of self, world. and i allow myself to accept—radically, theatrically, screeching in beauty and terror—that what is “good” for me is good for me, what is “bad” for me is bad for me, and neither of these standards decree a general “good” or a general “bad”. they instead eradicate judgement, eradicate fear, and invite empathy and honor to each outlook. i, still worry-minded and adolescent-angsted, wish to know how good/bad works for other people, hope that i am not the only one to feel so alienated by the way the world apparently works. but in the most minute senses: i must think of these guideposts as allergies. varying in intensity from discomfort to death, i must know the risks and remedies. i must accept that my body, my brain, might not take to 0T7 very well. even if 0T7 is commonly revered, i must instead respect my own limitations, and see them for what they are: understandings which enable me to find my own ease of existence, embrace my personal functionality at its best. it’s a long, hard-fought battle to recognize one’s own capacities and shortcomings. tis an arduous process, what most call life. and i am thankful to recognize that these specifics contribute to what makes me me, similar to the atoms, to my genetics, a glorious collision suggesting life, i get to embrace my own harsh realities. for the world is vast and we can lose ourselves within it. the self is vast and we can find our world within it.

[prosebyday]

Stuck in the past I miss you when you’re not here But when I have you, I’m a ghost A shell of myself. How can I be present? I know this is hurting you It’s hurting me too I’m pushing you away I love you I can’t get out of this loop Rumination is ruining me.

Rumination // Grazia Curcuru

[tinylongwing]

Vide Noir's dual narrative structure

All right, here it is, me making good on at least one of my meta threats. Lord Huron's album Vide Noir can be interpreted as an album with two parallel, contrasting narratives - that of the lead protagonist Buck Vernon, as well as that of Johnnie Redmayne.

Disclaimer: this is an interpretation I think is pretty sound and well-reasoned, but I make no claim to any of this being proven canon information.

---

For those unfamiliar or who need a reminder, the primary narrative is this: the year is 1967, and we start near the end of Buck's journey, as he awakens from being black-brained (Lost in Time and Space). Having just suffered an overdose on the drug vide noir, his memories are slow to return to him, but return they do - his fiancee, Leigh/Lee Green (from here on Leigh but both spellings have been used), left him without a word one night, and he decided to follow, heading west to Los Angeles from their home town of Detroit, Michigan. He's been struggling to find her, checking every bar in the city in case she was booked to sing at one as her move was the result of her chasing her dream of becoming a singer. He doesn't remember a lot about himself, really, after that overdose, but he remembers her, and his love for her makes him desperate to find her.

We're then taken back to the night he left to find her (Never Ever) and his journey is mostly linear from there - he meets a fortune teller, Lady Moonbeam, who tells him that pursuing Leigh will end in his ruin, but he refuses to accept her advice and pushes on (Ancient Names I & II). He laments that he's been some kind of fuckup, that maybe he chased Leigh away through his own behavior, but that he still loves her and begs for her to return (Wait By the River). At some point around here he also learns of the drug vide noir and contemplates using it himself for clues.

(Note that unlike in the movie, in the album, nothing suggests that Buck suffered from a murder attempt by Z'Oiseau's henchmen but that instead he may have overdosed himself in an attempt to find Lee. However, there's plenty of reason to suspect that the film is the canon interpretation here anyway and the henchmen kidnapping Buck just doesn't make for a song I guess.)

One way or another, he winds up black-brained, where some deep existential truths of the universe are revealed to him (Secret of Life - namely that everyone and everything dies in the end, and that a human life is brief, fleeting, and ultimately meaningless within the context of the universe as a whole). He somehow reawakens rather than dying (Back from the Edge) and, again, understands that nothing he does will ever matter, has never mattered*, but that *even though* he's suffered greatly already on this quest, he's still committed to trying to find Leigh, pitting himself against that careless universe (The Balancer's Eye).

So he keeps searching (When the Night is Over) until he finds a clue, or a helping hand of some sort, that leads him on the right path to his beloved Leigh (Moonbeam). We get one more reminder of the forces at work here - vide noir is some awful stuff, it nearly killed him, Leigh herself is hooked on it now, it shows you terrible truths and nightmares beyond human comprehension (Vide Noir) - and when all is said and done, as Buck thinks he's about to "rescue" Leigh from her fate and bring her back to his fantasy of a perfect happy life together, she rejects him. He came all this way through time and space, and she doesn't love him at all in the end (Emerald Star).

---

I consider this the primary narrative here because it makes use of all the songs on the album, it has a clear start and ending and a mostly linear structure, and the album basically serves as a soundtrack to Buck's fool's errand. The film agrees - every scene is centered around his journey, after all. But we have context from Lord Huron's other albums, as well as the lyrics and musical stylings of multiple songs on Vide Noir, that show us that Buck isn't necessarily the only narrator on this album. Strange Trails, of course, came out three years prior, and features songs by multiple fictional bands performing songs which serve as narration for a diverse cast of characters. Unlike on Strange Trails, where each track has a writer or band specifically named and assigned to it as well as a character narrative, Vide Noir does not give us such conclusive information, but we can still put clues together to understand at least some of who the in-universe performers might be on Vide Noir.

Most likely, multiple of these songs are by the Buck Vernon Band - this is pretty obvious. Buck's semi-autobiographical music is all over Strange Trails, usually referencing a girl he loves, sometimes referencing that the girl left him, often giving her different names, all starting with L (Fool For Love's "Lily", and "Louisa").

But the other band that we can easily identify as performers on Vide Noir are the Phantom Riders. For those who need an introduction, this is the band composed of four members of the World Enders gang, with Dale Redmayne at the helm as lead writer. They were seen previously on Strange Trails as well, with banger surf/rockabilly hits like Hurricane, Until the Night Turns, and The World Ender. As a storytelling tool, they are primarily brought in to tell us about the man-turned-undead horror entity known as The World Ender himself, and then otherwise mostly we get their songs about Dale's brother Johnnie Redmayne, who is introduced to us in Strange Trails as a fun-loving and presumably fairly young guy, a thrillseeker and hedonist, who lives for the moment as if the world could end any day. The Buck Vernon Band jumps in between some of these songs with an interjection to tell us that wait, Johnnie is dead, or was, but he got back up. In Dead Man's Hand, Buck speculates that Johnnie could have been murdered or may have killed himself, accidentally or intentionally, upon first seeing him. It's in Vide Noir that we actually learn more about the circumstances of Johnnie's death.

Before we get to that, let's first identify which Vide Noir songs are by the Phantom Riders. This isn't all that hard to do. Any song that references The World Ender is presumably theirs - that gives us Secret of Life right away ("I sit alone in the dark, and I try to remember the words you spoke when you summoned the Ender"). This is reinforced in the Alive From Whispering Pines webseries, episode 423 - Secret of Life, when played, shows a skeleton prop the band has jokingly referred to as Cobb Avery on their social media posts in the past, and after the song ends in this episode, the tune continues in a slowed and distorted fashion through a clip of a WBUB movie version of Dead Man's Hand showing Johnnie rising from the pavement when Buck is about to bury him.

Ancient Names Parts I and II are presumably written by the same band as a two-part song. In the Vide Noir film, the Phantom Riders are performing Part II in the underground club. Additionally, in Alive From Whispering Pines episode 426, after Tubbs Tarbell is done reminiscing about the band and their nihilism, Ancient Names Part II is the next song covered - and often in this series, the structure of the segments between songs are intentional and related to either the song they precede or the song they follow, so it's likely that the placement of the Phantom Riders' appearance followed by a track they're associated with is meant to help confirm them as the performers. In addition, Ancient Names Part I references a fortune teller, and we know from the film that the fortune teller in question, Lady Moonbeam, is associated with the World Enders and knows the Redmaynes.

The last track on Vide Noir that is most likely theirs is the title track, Vide Noir. We have two points of evidence for this - one lyrical ("Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys" which feels like a pretty direct reference to the World Enders' nighttime violence) and one musical - the main melody of Vide Noir is identical to that of Ancient Names (and Fortune Teller's Theme, actually). In Strange Trails, using the same melody for multiple songs was an easy way to tie Frankie Lou's songs together, and here we can see that it ties two Phantom Riders tracks together directly, indicating that not only are they both by the same band, but that Vide Noir is a followup to Ancient Names part I, in which our fortune teller did warn us things would go very, very wrong.

(And besides all of that, the Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir all tend to be similar in musical style - psychedelia-flavored garage rock with a heavy bass line, in contrast to other songs on the album.)

With those songs identified, we should also be aware of just how much Lord Huron seem to love their dual narratives. In Strange Trails, we have a really concrete example of this with The Night We Met. This song was in-universe written by Frankie Lou, presumably about her doomed relationship with Z'Oiseau and how much she wishes she had never met him to begin with (as she echoes in her dialogue in the Vide Noir film when speaking to Buck in her dressing room). However, the music video for this song shows not Frankie and Z'Oiseau, but instead Buck, driving west, while reflecting on his own failure to keep Leigh, wishing he could go back in time and fix things, and meanwhile kind of hallucinating her as he goes. In the album Long Lost, we get another dual narrative in I Lied, which is performed by Donny and Midge but is also sung by Leigh in Vide Noir, foreshadowing her breakup with and lack of love for Buck. There are certainly other dual narratives in both of those albums to be found as well - so what we should keep in mind here is that often, songs can be written and performed by a character or band in order to narrate for themselves or someone close to them, but that just as in our real-world movie soundtracks or our favorite character playlists on spotify, those songs can be applied to other characters in different (but somewhat similar) situations than the ones they were written for.

So! We have four Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir, all of which were presumably not written originally in-universe about Buck Vernon, because why would they be, Buck and the World Enders only briefly cross paths and at the very least we know that Ancient Names Part II was written well before he ever met them. Instead, it makes the most sense if like the bulk of the Phantom Riders songs, these tracks serve Johnnie's narration instead.

---

If that's the case, what does that give us? Winding around and through Buck's journey is this second storyline. Johnnie Redmayne, having used and enjoyed vide noir himself abundantly ("I had a vision tonight that the world was ending" as one probable example), decides it's time to get his hands on bulk quantities so as to get the Enders in on controlling the flow of the drug in LA rather than letting Z'Oiseau maintain a monopoly, thereby also increasing revenue for the members of the gang.

It's Moonbeam who warns him to knock it off first. We know, thanks to the film, that he'd spoken to her at some point about his plans to investigate the source of the drug at Tobey's arcade and try to get his hands on some to sell. Whatever his exact plan was, in Ancient Names Part 1, Moonbeam warns him that pursuing this is going to get him killed. Vide noir isn't just a drug, it's something extremely dangerous, tied to dangerous people, and he needs to get away from "her" (and note that frequently throughout music history, drugs have been personified as a "her" or an unnamed lover, whether for poetic reasons or to evade censorship that might come from talking directly about drug use - and Cursed, off Strange Trails, is one more in-universe example, where "her" refers both to Leigh Green and to drug use, specifically vide noir).

Immediately afterward, Ancient Names Part 2, in addition to serving as a very classic sort of World Enders nihilism anthem, can easily be interpreted as Johnnie saying "fuck that, I do what I want, you only live one life anyway and even if it kills me, I want to make my mark before I go out." Death is something hypothetical - sure, it'll get him some day, it gets everyone, and maybe Moonbeam is even right, but he isn't going to let her warning stop him.

On Strange Trails, Buck and Johnnie cross paths at Dead Man's Hand. On this album they only cross thematically, and the pivotal moment of intersection might be Secret of Life. This song may be the point at which Buck learns some forbidden secrets revealed by taking vide noir as discussed above, but its lyrics speak a lot more specifically to Johnnie's experience, implying some connection between him, vide noir, and the World Ender.

It may be that as we see with Buck in the film, perhaps Johnnie too has suffered the effects of being black-brained prior to taking it due to the time and space-bending effects of the drug (notice, for example, in Strange Trails we get Johnnie's story in a scrambled chronological order) and here he's confronted with the harsh truths of what those past visions of his possible future mean for him: he has been set on a path that is no longer avoidable due to his eventual future overdose. So perhaps it's at this point that he acknowledges that he is going to die sooner rather than later and that his life and death will not have meant anything to the greater cosmos, but this information, which was new to Buck, is not something Johnnie fears. Johnnie is hardly new to this point of view. He's seen past echoes of the knowledge imparted by vide noir throughout his life, both in his future visions of the end of the world (again see Until The Night Turns) and in the knowledge passed on through other World Enders, including their own motto ("The fair, the brave, the good must die", or in Secret of Life here, "The darkness comes for all of us").

(As an aside, there's still a lot to unravel with Secret of Life that I haven't touched on here. It's a fascinating song with some really mysterious lyrics. I've speculated at length in the LH discord about some additional interpretations this song could yield but won't veer off topic here.)

And yet despite what looks like a very certain and dire end, Johnnie maintains hope that perhaps he, too, will live past this. Because if Cobb Avery did, why can't he? This is part of the gang's core mythos - their founder is a dead man. He clawed his way back out of the grave for revenge, they thought it was just so fucking cool that he was unkillable that they had to join him, and together they dismantled the Winthrop Corporation, one murder at a time. When the police finally caught up to him, they lynched him - but the noose did nothing, for he was already dead, and now in the form of a skeleton, he called the gang to his side (see Strange Trails: The World Ender comic book). In the ensuing chaos, he flees, the gang heads west and relocates to east Los Angeles, and in the time contemporary with the events of Vide Noir, he is still present among them but this appears to be unknown to the public (Daily Trails prop, by Kim Berens, used in both Vide Noir and Alive From Whispering Pines where it was modified to Ten years later).

Whether The World Ender is readily visible to and known by most members of the gang at this point is unknown, but we know that those who were black-brained can see him (in the film, Buck sees him approaching, bumps into him, plunges into a hallucination of his own future, and when he comes too, the Ender is gone). Given the Secret of Life lyrics, it's reasonable to guess that Johnnie at least can see the World Ender just fine and one way or another, in speaking with him and in conjunction with consuming vide noir, has learned enough secret knowledge to make some kind of choice - and this is what later enables him, too, to drag his way back to the world of the living.

Fate catches up to Johnnie and as we learn in the film, his death was at the hands of Z'Oiseau's henchmen for trying to gain access to dealing in vide noir. Like Buck, he is black-brained - forced to swallow enough of the drug to kill him. And so the track Vide Noir opens with the Fortune Teller's Theme previously heard in Ancient Names Part 1, and that tune is woven through the track - Moonbeam's "I warned you, I told you so" to both of these fools who disregarded her advice. Although, again, the lyrics are clearly meant primarily to narrate for Johnnie - "Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys, getting high on a pure black void" sounds a lot more like what Johnnie gets up to than Buck. We are given a glimpse of his last words and final thoughts as life slips away and his consciousness is sent straight to the final edge of the cosmos.

---

So ultimately, this is what we're left with:

Vide Noir is an album that tells the story of Buck Vernon, whose fiancee has left him. His journey culminates in a near-brush with death, in finding Leigh, and in learning that she does not love him and that he's nothing, his life is worth nothing more than dust and that none of it mattered or will ever matter, that once he eventually dies he will vanish and be forgotten in time.

Vide Noir also tells the story of Johnnie Redmayne, who for once tries to do something that isn't just for his own hedonistic pleasure but that might actually help bring in money to support his friends and family, but he's too headstrong and impulsive to listen to the warnings he's given, and is killed in the attempt.

One lives who probably shouldn't have and comes out at rock bottom and now has to work out how to move on from here, and one dies a nihilist who should presumably just accept the inevitability of death, but has the knowledge and absolute stubborn determination to enable his eventual return, following in the footsteps of Cobb Avery.

And what happens to both of them afterward? Well, we don't know. Hopefully some day (SOON?? BEN PLEASE) we'll get the opportunity to find out!

[jack-kellys]

He’s pretty when he lies.

More than pretty, perhaps. There’s a stunning quality to it that takes Daveys breath away- and it’s more than Jack simply having the goddamn audacity. It’s this glimmer the boy gets in his eye, no matter his expression, as if he’s casting a spell merely with his voice. It’s a far too compelling sound to Davey’s ears that slowly eases his thoughts to quiet and his gaze to fall deep into Jack’s, encourages him to simply nod and agree.

And the worst part of it is that Davey doesn’t think Jack has any idea. Jack knows he’s a liar, and he knows he’s pretty in a sense, but Jack can’t seem to understand how damn persuasive he really is in a way Davey can never be. Davey will always need his words, need something he invents to be his backup, but Jack- can get away with things, with a glance and a smile and a glint that only Davey seems to know is one of a false diamond.

And Davey decides right then, at least for now, that he hates it.

[whump-tr0pes]

Something that I've fallen out of habit of doing - and my writing output has absolutely suffered for it - is taking deliberate time out of my schedule to just sit down and imagine things in my story.

For the past several months, pretty much the only time I even think about my story is when I'm facilitating my writing groups. And even then, I'm not giving my story my full attention, because I'm facilitating. And even then, I'm usually only writing for 15 minutes at a time, because we only ever do sprints in one of the groups. Either way, I'm not imagining. I'm not playing pretend.

And holy shit, is it clear in what I've been writing. My two characters have been going in circles talking about nothing for almost 10k words. They don't know what to say or do because I don't know what they're saying or doing. I know what's happening a few scenes from now, but not in the next scene. Usually I would set aside the time where I drive to and from work to just brainstorm the story, but it's been hard to be alone with my thoughts what with... *waves at the general state of things*

But I think that imagining stage is so important during all phases of writing a story. I made myself sit down and just think about what came next this week and just like that, I suddenly had a fix for an awkward POV shift, the idea for the next action set piece, and the solution for how I'm going to start seeding the final twist. Because I sat on my ass and just thought about my story.

[alistair-blackwood]

kabru's relationship with his eyes makes for suuuuuch a fantastic trans allegory (an aspect of your body alienating you from your community, being compelled to understand the perspective of someone who also has a complicated relationship with their body in the hopes that you'll better understand your own, people straight up misunderstanding biology) it makes me kind of insane because now I feel like I can't dig into any complicated feelings he might have about his body in relation to his gender without feeling like im just ... double dipping?? like fifjpejgh ryoko kui straight up already told that story in a way that exquisitely fucks??