#HORROR TAKES MY HEART

[azucaray]

An angel flies but then falls due to an accident...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

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[good-beansdraws]

They made Alien Stage merch of the singers being treated inhumanely in Anakt Garden? ;__;

Milgram

I'm still reeling that they released such intense art as merch.... At the same time it's not like I'm complaining -- wanting to draw this with 0 hesitation only proved I am also not immune to "Let's put those guys in situations 👁👁"

Small descriptions of these scenes under the cut, then some overall au thoughts because this got my brain going...

Mahiru is always speaking of romance and her heart racing -- the aliens want to test just how fast she can go before "overheating."

Amane always enjoyed singing as part of a choir, but the aliens hope to isolate just her voice, and every piece of it, no matter how long she must stand and sing for them.

Kotoko is quick at improvisation in both her music and in a fight, so they wish to find out exactly what makes her tick in these different areas.

Fuuta's big mouth is what makes him stand out in Alien Stage -- they consider straightening his crooked teeth to make him more marketable before deciding on a fang.

Haruka has always been deceptively strong to the smaller members of Anakt Garden, so the aliens only analyze him in a state of weakness.

Mikoto struggles daily with the breathing and circulation issues from the lab, only allowing himself to break when the cameras are down.

I chose the assignments based on the pics themselves, and only afterwards started looking into the overall au -- compared to typical Milgram assignments, I feel like these made for some really interesting dynamics:

Mahiru meets the prodigy Amane in Anakt Garden and takes her under her wing. She obsesses over romance as a general idea, but it's mainly the vision of a complete, happy family that she's dreaming of. Therefore she's optimistic for a tie, and that the two can become a family at the end of Alien Stage -- until Round 1 stops all her dreams short.

Amane had always spoken of god and the universe, and the others find themselves finally listening only after she’s gone. (It mainly affects Mahiru, but I like the fact that Fuuta can still call her his god.) Mahiru reflects on their time together -- though Amane had a big heart, spending time with her caretakers often left her quiet and stoic. Mahiru remembers meeting her in her perfect, doll-frilled dress and vowing to take care of her.

Someone as strong-willed and rebellious as Kotoko has always hated how 03060809 play along with Alien Stage -- she is their self appointed enemy for aiding the aliens in killing other humans. Deep down, though, Mahiru’s shining light has given her hope. She can hardly admit to herself what strong feelings she's developed for Mahiru, much less tell her outright. She focuses all her efforts to fight aliens and corrupt humans til the end. She isn't afraid to smash guitars and throw some punches along the way.

At the same time, Kotoko has never noticed the person idolizing her in silence: Fuuta. Even when she lashes out at him, he's inspired by her strength and intensity. He can tell she doesn't feel the same toward him, so he keeps his growing, touchstarved crush a secret. He's also willing to fight the whole way, even finding a flaming escape opportunity for them as kids (to which Kotoko argues she isn't a coward, and needs to stay and fight.) It isn't until he sees his idol lose her fire that he finally stops and hands the win over. He gets in one violent, rash show of love before it's all extinguished in the rain.

Alongside them, Mikoto becomes a fan favorite to the public. The asthmatic with a gentle side and violently self-preserving one is a huge hit. (Something about Mikoto’s mvs being the most popular for a while.) He earns win after win, no matter the health and memory issues that haunt him. Any time a performance gets too risky, John takes matters into his own hands to make sure they come out on top.

Though it's harder for him to physically evoke Amane's relationship with Mahiru in round 5, he knows how to play into right lyrics: "make me your god, I can give you everything." It's easier for him to act as Fuuta, giving Kotoko a Deep Cover moment of guilt that she'd gotten him killed by fighting for the wrong things. In a twist of irony from canon, Kotoko says her final words in Mahiru’s arms, and Mahiru is the one left feeling responsible for the loss...

Back in their childhood, Haruka and Mikoto had found themselves outcasts together. Haruka was always afraid of Mikoto after witnessing his violence against the other children (I think it'd be weird to switch around victims so maybe it was both of their faults that Haruka’s suster died.) But at the same time, a part of him kept coming back and seeking Mikoto's attention because he admired him so much.

After being rescued from a disastrous Alien Stage round, the others in the resistance were taken in by Haruka’s innocent shyness. Regardless of his protests at poor public speaking, his heart earned him the spot of leader. He is willing throw himself in the path of danger to protect the people he cares about -- an admired trait until it actually does get him killed.

(And a bonus Yuno for Bones :D)

[wniemocy]

A little update from me in this Invctuscon spirit weekend :>

[j0celynh0rr0r]

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

sam. sam. sammy. started out as a darling 00s emo boy. pretty lad who could've doubled as a frontman in a warped tour band. spiritual baby of my chemical romance's three cheers for sweet revenge. embodiment of his cultural moment and so perceived as too whiny by the narrative and the audience and hated for it. grew up to become a beautiful exhausted woman protagonist for an A24 psychological horror-thriller film. losing her mind. going through exquisite torment. holding it together by a thread, haunted by horrors you would be able to comprehend if the show was still a horror. or at least a drama. too bad she is now stuck in a superhero sitcom where the moment you express a slightly real complex emotion. the audience will start pelting you with tomatoes. for having hysteria.

[rockturbot]

Guess who I modded into World of Horror :3

[psychopomp-namine]

yingdu episode 5 spoilers

ohhh my god this is everything I want from cheng xiaoshi. yes. perfect. sorry, but I'm a cheng xiaoshi whump liker and link click always brings out the best of them in episode 5 of each season.

there's just something cathartic about how when cheng xiaoshi becomes an emotional mess, it's also when he's most disconnected with the people he knows (physically, as he's diving in a photo and his only link to his home timeframe is a disembodied lu guang in his head) but it's also when he's most connected with strangers (when their own personal trauma lines up with his). to me, it's a showcase of empathy and a strange manifestation of his own agency. something about how the disconnect gives him the space to blow up, and the connection heightens it and grants him permission, almost, to express his anger more freely for his own sake and for another person's behalf.

like. listen, okay, I'm gonna ramble now because cheng xiaoshi is my favorite character in this entire show, but listen. sometimes some fans will conflate adjectives to his character that are usually associated with his character archetype, but they aren't necessarily true about him as a character. and I don't mean it in a, "he's not like that because he grows out of those traits" kind of way. I mean it in a, "he was never like that" kind of way.

one of those adjectives, for me, is when people call him immature. he isn't! to me! imo! he's got big emotions, yes, but I personally don't think the presence of big emotions indicates anything about maturity. because you know what? as long as his primary trauma (feelings of abandonment) isn't touched, he is very good at handling interpersonal conflicts, and that's what's interesting to me.

qiao ling hides relevant information from him? he removes himself from the situation to give himself space and sort out his feelings. he tells her he's fine and that he'll be back.

post-earthquake arc? I'll just copy paste what I already said in a previous ask:

what initially got me was when I was first watching S1, I thought the earthquake arc would have devastating effects on [shiguang's] relationship. listen, I didn’t know what I was getting into with link click, but I thought that was expected. it’s ripe for drama! but how do they handle the fight? they put their side business on hold but they still keep being roommates. they still do their day job. they still talk. they’re still upset but they give each other space but not to the point where they can’t stand existing in each other’s spaces. that’s when I realized that oh, they really trust each other. they have a very solid foundation for their relationship that not even the earthquake arc can break. they’re pretty level-headed about this, actually, all things considered? all the doomed yaoi stuff came later, but that’s just the cherry on top. it’s the way they handled conflict and disappointment in S1 that got me.

okay, protect-namine, why go through that whole tangent? BECAUSE! circling back to yingdu episode 5, we finally, finally get to see cheng xiaoshi let out some of his anger. and it's precisely because his primary trauma point was on the table. he can forgive a friend lying, and he can forgive being told not to change the past. because at the end of the day, qiao ling and lu guang stayed. they never left him.

but he cannot handle abandonment. he cannot understand why people leave. he cannot understand why he's been clinging on to false hope this entire time. and more importantly, he cannot understand how someone can be such a hypocrite about it. "a man who'd rather be kind to strangers than face his own son" like fuck man. cheng weimin you fucked up so bad.

it's the disconnect/connect thing again too. thematically, it makes sense. when does cheng xiaoshi blow up? when he's alone, far away from the people that ground him. alone, the feeling he hates the most. he's not even in his own body. he blows up when he's inhabiting a stranger's. he doesn't even get to be angry as cheng xiaoshi.

how fucked up is that. man. I love him so much.

also I'm going crazyyyy over the family themes going on in link click. much to say about the show itself across all seasons (the twins, qiao ling and cheng xiaoshi, even the liu siblings), but for this episode... god. okay this is slight speculation territory now and I'll try to keep this very short, because this is only tangential to the post. but. imagine xia fei getting the good parent figure in cheng weimin that cheng xiaoshi never had. and he doesn't know!! he's bitter inside about his dad and he's having hotpot with xia fei and he doesn't know he was in that school!! fuck that's so good. that's so juicy.

okay, sorry, I have a lot of feelings about cheng xiaoshi. he's my link click blorbo of all time, and I love when he experiences The Horrors™ because it's also when other sides of him gets to shine.

on a brighter note:

VEIN AND CHENG XIAOSHI MEETING AGAIN!!! their greeting was so cute. also omg does xia fei know? that his boss is maybe possibly a cannibal? actually, wait, I don't think I'd be surprised if he does know.

ah and finally. finally:

I've been having many thoughts on how yingdu approaches "friendships" and their transactional nature (mostly with regards to liu xiao) but I mostly thought they're headcanon stuff. but now. I'm so so happy that episode 5 is bringing out more of the quid pro quo theme. liu xiao with the gift giving. wang qing's "friends" (bullies) demanding her to cheat on the exam for them. and now, vein and cheng xiaoshi having a friendly greeting but also exchanging favors. so good. so good. it goes along with how there's so much handshakes and handholding this season (not just with lu guang and cheng xiaoshi, but with cheng xiaoshi and the the antagonist trio too, who have all met him by "helping" him in some way). something something trust and favors. probably something that deserves its own post though, but I wanted to point this out because I am soooo here for that. it's goes hand in hand (ha!) with the whole fraud/lies vs innocence/honesty theme this season, and deals/contracts being an equalizer to the two. very good. very tasty.

edit: ooh they also point to this in the YE6 trailer too. nice, nice. if you knew someone's true colors, would you still be their friend?

man, I love episode 5. it just hits all the stuff I personally wanted to see. the only flaw is that we still haven't seen the older version of wang qing, but yeah I kinda expected that they'll hide her until episode 6. they're giving her the liu xiao treatment from season 2. sigh. really wish she'd keep showing up in S3, we need more female characters in this show 🙏

[rainbow-wolf120]

AU where Rayman accidentally becomes one with André, basically loses control of his body, explodes, and then comes back as a kid 🔥

So chat, this is (temporarily) called the Randré AU. It'll probably be like that until I find a proper AU name lol

Sorta a possession AU? Sorta not? It's a werid thing inspired by some of my favorite tropes (that being guilt and denial for who you were in the past ✌️)

It's like, a horror thing but after the climax it turns into a slice of life so yay wahoo

I like this AU a good amount. I think it's a cool concept. If people like it as well I'll probably lore dump and maybe write a fic I dunno

Here's Randré's full ref is anyone cares (no one does)

K bye he's not having a good time <33

[monkiinart]

blondes have more fun

mild fungi/parasite related body horror in readmore i guess

The perfect match, you and me I adapt, contagious You open up, say welcome Bjork - Virus lyrics because this is the ultimate bios song

[gelatinorifice]

The closet is glass

[laios-thorden]

To them [people who don't read horror] it is a kind of pornography, inducing horripilation instead of erection. And the reader who appears to relish such sensations-why he's an emotional masochist, the slave of an unholy drug, a decadent psychotic beast.

-David Aylward

horror is about catharsis. it is about experiencing fear or pain or shame or suffering via a piece of media, and being able to sigh in relief when it is done. it is about emotion and flesh and the human condition.

the point of the genre of horror is to inflict the emotion called "fear" or the related emotions "discomfort," "disgust" and "shame." if you do not want to experience and explore negative emotions and the stories that they can tell, you do not actually want to engage with horror. the point of horror is that it might make you feel bad or upset or, god forbid, scared. there are stories that rely on that and it doesn't make horror a lesser medium for narrative than any other genre. it just means that you personally might not enjoy horror.

it's fine to not like horror, but don't pretend like it's something it's not because it makes you uncomfortable.

a lot of takes about horror i see are like, "why doesn't horror have x, y, or z" and the answer is it does. you aren't engaging with the medium or searching out stories that have those things because you don't want to deal with the trappings of the genre (being scared/experiencing negative emotions). liking one piece of horror media doesn't mean engaging with the genre as a whole with all its tropes, trappings, and its rich and varied history.

Ursula K Le Guin writes,

A writer sets out to write science fiction but isn’t familiar with the genre, hasn’t read what’s been written. This is a fairly common situation, because science fiction is known to sell well but, as a subliterary genre, is not supposed to be worth study—what’s to learn? It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

the same is true for horror; people who do not engage with horror as a medium, as a genre, as a way to tell stories and convey meaning do not get to reinvent the wheel. doing so won't be met with gratitude by people who do like horror. it's not helpful. it's condescension.

[sleepyseals]

[Image Description: Two unfinished digital paintings / sketches of the hatchling and Hal from outer wilds. they are standing with their arms around each other and the hatchling has their head leaning on hal's shoulder as hal watches the supernova in the distance through the doorway of the museum. the first image is the scene viewed from behind with everything lit in bright blue with dark shadows. the second image shows hal's face looking in fear towards the light and is only partially colored, the rest sketched over a gray background. End Image Description.]

something you'll run back in for when the house burns down

[the-woman-upstairs]

There’s a film currently in theaters that’s a tender and beautiful love story about living in the city, enjoying good food, sharing small acts of kindness, reveling in the wonder of artistic expression, and finding someone to be with (someone who could’ve been the love of your life) when you’re dying and it’s the end of the world. That film? A Quiet Place: Day One.

[icharchivist]

i still mourn the storyline we could have had where instead of a cheap betrayal they went much more deeply into how much Lucanis did want to escape the Crows and wanted Illario to be able to be First Talon and that the one thing that was building against the two of them was Caterina's pressure... guh.

[elliehallers]

Welcome, Julian Grant Reyes! 🌟 (In the Fame AU.)

Born February 14th, 1982. He is a longtime friend of Tara (and her sister, Amy? @xotherwcrldsx) from Nepo Baby circles growing up in Hollywood. His father is a very famous comedic actor, while his mother is a famous singer. He is sort of a Bad Boy, but with a heart of gold. 🫶🏽🥺

He's so Down Bad in love with Tara, but he doesn't want to admit it and he thinks she's too good for him and wouldn't want him, so he fucks around with other girls and guys.

(That's all I know about him so far! He may come into other timelines, but for now, he's solely for the Fame AU.)