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Two Headed Mother in the context of Mother Horse Eyes.

I don't care that this is just for me and my own obsession. When listening to Creepcast's reading of Mother Horse Eyes, all I could think about was Two Headed Mother by Ethel Cain. In my mind, they tell such a similar story. So this is me going lyric-by-lyric and linking it to the story of Mother Horse Eyes;

"you know..." Repeated over and over in the opening of the song, almost mockingly. The whole story of Mother Horse Eyes is told through the narrator, as a kind of prophet, who knows an overwhelming truth about all of humanity, and humanities that could (never) be, and have (never) been. This voice is Mother taunting him throughout the time in his life that he stifles what he already knows, and has known from a child.

"You think that you create the waves, But I create you." The multiple groups that create "flesh interfaces", or the future of "hygiene beds" and such, want to be in control of their creation. Nations try and warp the flesh interfaces into weapons, tools for their own gain. Or a device for any person's own perverse fantasies - a Nozick's Machine. But these are all acts of hubris, and futile. It is the Mother that creates.-Note: There are even multiple times interfaces are linked to large bodies of water, and whales. Which seems like an even more perfect link to "waves."

"Two Headed Mother in your bed, you know she hates you." In this reading, the "Two Headed Mother" obviously becomes Mother Horse Eyes. A twisted Anti-Christ figure. Both loving, and horrifyingly uncaring. She is seen caring for the narrator in the final passages, as a stand-in for his own mother. But she is trying to manipulate him, turn the stones into bread. Not for his gain, but for her's. She is repeatedly and explicitly linked to the Devil. "In your bed" for me shows how close Mother is, always. She is with the narrator his whole life, and she is dictating every part of humanity. But of course, "she hates you."

"Kissing tyrannical heads spitting at you babe, fire you wade through. The ways that I fuck myself and get down good never need to mind you." The Mother Horse Eyes narrative frequently talks about sex, and masturbation, often as a symbol of a broken down and addicted psyche. The people in the hygiene beds, who are living whatever narrative they want online, cant help but resort to stories of only sex. Upon leaving the bed, they become addicted to masturbation, because that is all they know, that is all they want - a constant flow of serotonin. The flesh interfaces are once bluntly described as similar to a vagina - horrifically twisting biology into a disgusting and overwhelming "thing." The images of sex disgusting and shocking throughout the story. It is ultimately put at the centre of the perverse and addicted minds of humanity.

"I've loved before, I'll kill again. You're just the worst of all my men." For me, this relates to the circularity of the narrative. Constantly flickering between different points in time that perfectly mirror each other. Humanity is endlessly repeating itself, never achieving anything greater, always committing the same acts. The narrator also mirrors this, always going back to substances. Hopelessly addicted. Possibly not a prophet at all, just manically insane. He is "the worst of all men."

"I'm not gon' pull you out the den so they don't bite you." Mother is an unloving, uncaring god. Mother never aids the narrator, she never aids anyone. The "den" I see as flesh interfaces, eating and re-birthing people. These "dens" are seemingly part of Mother, she consumes and births all of humanity. Without sympathy.

"I wont feel good again until I'm up inside you." The last lyric of the song that is said fully intelligibly, it seems threatening, and sick. Maybe representing the visions the narrator is given from Mother, as she tries to use him in some way, turn him into something, possibly part of her. It could also be more about the flesh interfaces, that consume beings, and birth them again. The Mother is again becoming part of people, and taking over.

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I'll love till' I'm sore. I don't love you, I don't love you, I don't love you anymore." This, to me, mirrors the strange role of the Mother, as the mother of all humanities and civilisations, but to what goal? it seems to contradict itself, that the Mother of the universe is not God, but The Devil. What could she possibly want with creation? Mothering all of humanity, but not out of love. If not love, then what?

"Two Headed Mother pulled you from the black, and she can send you back." Ultimately, Mother is a god. A god of civilisation. Maybe birthing every person, dictating every person's life, then ultimately consuming them back. She is the one in control. Life is at her will.

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aphids

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love her sm. forgot how fun it is to draw real fast and messy

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Dream collaboration: Akira Yamaoka and Ethel Cain

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incredible finale aside, the big question for me that NO ONE is talking about is how did gemma end up at lumon? and how did mark identify her body if she never died?

did gemma know that the car crash was fake, and that she was going to fake her death- so that her husband can put her back together over the span of years, and advance severance technology? seems weird because why the fuck would she do that? even though lumon stalks their whole relationship, and maybe even pushes them together, mark and gemma don't have any allegiance to lumon before so there's no reason she would agree to do that,

but if she doesn't know she's going to "die", then the car crash must still have been caused by lumon, and then they force her into being a severance lab rat? but that seems quite out of character, because lumon don't really force against will, they more manipulate people into agreeing on their own accord, i suppose they could still do that in that scenario, but it feels like gemma would have had to be somewhat aware she was faking her death, and she wasn't just kidnapped and forced onto the testing floor. or maybe lumon actually didn't cause the crash - and just saw it as a great opportunity, but that seems very unlikely.

and the question still remains of how did mark identify her body????

he very clearly says to devon that he saw her dead body - that's why he's so certain she's dead. but like how the fuck did that happen???? because no she isn't??? did she die and was then resurrected? that's insane? is there an "innie" of gemma that is just fucking dead? did they make her pretend? is mark lying? why would he lie??

and the timeline here is crazy as well - gemma "dies" then mark doesn't get severed for 2 years, and then it takes him a couple years working there to finish cold harbour - we're like 4 / 5 years since gemma's "death" in the show. so where was gemma for the 2 years mark wasn't at lumon? just chilling on the testing floor? how does lumon even know mark will get severed? lucky guess? HOW DID GEMMA GET THERE BRO AND WHYYYY SEASON 3 CANT COME SOONER

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severance s2 finale was the sickest thing ever, there's so much i want to say because i wanted to SCREAM the whole time but honestly the only thing i can say is "omg that was so cool it's so cool omg"

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My Love For The Abandoned Villa Savoye. The Rotten Point.

An admittedly nicher interest of mine is abandoned (modern) architecture. I find something romantic, even erotic about it. My greatest love in this category, is the Villa Savoye. (which I will briefly give you some background on before getting to my real point) (and include some yummy photos)

Built around 1930 by Le Corbusier on the outskirts of Paris for the Savoye couple, The Villa Savoye is widely renowned as one of the great modernist buildings. But my love for the building really comes from the 20 odd years it spent abandoned.

The building was only inhabited for 9 years before the Savoyes evacuated Paris at the start of World War Two. During the war, the building was occupied by first German, then American soldiers. During this time the house was completely looted and defaced.

After the war, The Savoyes were billed for the repairs needed to make the home habitable again, and maybe because the home was bordering uninhabitable before the war (that's another story) the family never did repair it, and left the building to ruin.

Post war The Villa Savoye was used as hay storage by the town, later it was almost demolished to make way for the school nearby - but this project failed. It mostly just sat - peeling and rotting, covered in graffiti and piss. Until eventually in 1965, after campaigns from Corbusier, it became France's first modernist listed building, and was then restored over the next couple decades.

(okay real points now)

The Villa Savoye is beautiful in its intended state, but I find something so entrancing about its lifespan from the 40s-60s. A church to modern technology, left for dead.

On my deep dives into the building in this state I found an article by Tschumi, that spoke to me like a diary. In 'Architecture and Transgression' Tschumi talks about a lot of things rather cryptically, but in brief - the nature of architecture, it's reflection to humanity, the taboo of life and death, and even links architecture to the erotic as I had felt. All of which is encapsulated in the Villa Savoye.

Tschumi mentions his visit to the Villa Savoye in it's derelict state in the 60's, saying: "The Villa Savoye was never so moving as when the plaster fell off it's concrete blocks."

And I think hes right. There is something so emotional, so visceral about a building that rots. Especially modernist buildings - that were so scared of showing the passage of time. Of course, modernism was in part a response to the first world war - a want, a need for a new Utopian world. There is thus an underlying fear of death in modernism that is un-ignorable in the strive for hygienic perfection in it's architecture. Seeing the Villa Savoye in a state of rot and disrepair highlights for me, mankind's futile effort to ignore death, war comes again, we inevitably deface what is in front of us. Time passes.

But even this emotional weight aside. It is absolutely beautiful. Tschumi refers to 'eROTisicm' (I found this pun quite funny.) And in a sense, this is talking about how there is eroticism in death. And many philosophers (like Bataille) have noted that. But Tschumi links this to architecture. How architecture is an erotic act, indulging in the art, the pleasure beyond the initial function of a space. And when a building begins to rot, that doesn't diminish. If anything, it makes it more powerful. Your reaction to the space becomes something so different when there is evidence of time, when the space around you lives because it dies. There is, for me, a sense of god in that. To feel the presence of something so much bigger in a structure man made, taken over by natural cause. (I want to mention I am using sections of Tschumi's arcticle, and blending his thoughts with mine. He writes about a lot of other topics as well, and I have reached my own conclusion based on my thoughts and his. I encourage you to read it yourself!) It is difficult to put into words. But there is just something about the derelict Villa Savoye that is undoubtedly beautiful, erotic, terrifying, and godly. It creates something for me that nothing else has ever come close to.

and it only existed for 20 years. im so sad ill never meet my abandoned-occupied-haystorage-concrete boyfriend </3

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you ever get so overwhelmed you actually hope it is hormonal because if my rationale is actually reasonable i'm sooooo fucked

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helly saying "don't you mean helly e?" after insisting she is not the same person as helena eagan, actively rejecting her, begging the others to see her as a different person. but to then take her name? try and use it as leverage? when she doesn't even believe it? or does she? is she starting to accept that she is the same person, for better or worse?? could helly reintegrate through self acceptance? 😭😭

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WAIT

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moved my mirror to a different place in my room.

feel like a new person. like i had forgotten what i looked like, and now i've remembered. like i'm looking at myself for the first time somehow.

guess it literally is about perspective sometimes lol

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something soooooo sexy about an abandoned building. i have a real love for the rusted, aged and weathered. objects that have lived, and are alive, and are dying. I LOOOOOVEEEEEEE. and when that object is a BUILDING? something that encompasses you and completely becomes how you feel in that moment?? your very environment ? SOOOO SEXY.

big abandoned medical buildings with peeling paint, and long eerie hallways, and tall ceilings, and rusted wire bed frames, and dusty floorboards, and forgotten clutter that just sits there, and strange creaking from the floor above??? IM HARD. I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT BECOMES EROTIC. NOTHING SEXIER THAN AN ABANDONED BUILDING. OR A BIG INDUSTRIAL FAN BUT THATS ANOTHER TOPIC.

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what’s your profile picture?? i can only make out a hand but the anatomy is confusing me

lol it's a side on view of lifting up grey underwear over brown shorts. taken at a costume party i was way too drunk at. i love how unreadable it is, when i first saw it the morning after i didn't know what i was looking at either.

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two bad bitches

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i loved cobels episode, if for nothing else just because of how beautiful it all was.

it felt like half the storytelling was done in the location - such a bleak, cold, unforgiving landscape but so beautiful at the same time. and the rundown shabby town that was so lonely apart from a few people, either drug addicts or elderly. like not only the physical town but the people have been forgotten as well. such an incredible way of showing the effects of lumon on the world outside the office. "sucking the land of its resources, including its people" is i think what they said in the post credits or smth like that.

the aesthetics of it was absolutely gorgeous, and the narrative was heartbreaking. very typical of me to think of ethel cains music (bc i always am) but i couldn't help thinking of golden age / inbred when watching. all that kind of bleakness, angst, emo, god stuff yk. "i'm gonna die all alone next to you in this piece of shit town" "i'm not scared of god i'm scared he was gone all along" "two-headed mother in your bed" "they'll put holes in all we own and in our heads, pumped full of lead" all felt very fitting.

anyway i just thought it was an incredible change of pace and really set the backdrop of the type of world lumon exists in i was a big fan