#It covers 666 years and covers them genuinely well

[wonder-worker]

"Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England 400-1066" by Marc Morris has single-handedly revived my interest in the Anglo-Saxons like damn

[crystallizedkingdoms]

TAZ NC: Laugh

Despite what most of the Bureau thinks, Johann does laugh. Avi knows it by heart.

wc: 666

you can also read it on ao3 <3

another fic for the @taznovembercelebration! I was struggling today with writing, so I opted for a simple, sweet johavi piece. thank you johavi for being there for me to fall back on. I love them dearly and I hope you guys do too. anyway enjoy 👍

Johann laughs.

People don’t believe Avi when he says that Johann had the prettiest laugh he’s ever heard. They all think he’s playing some kind of joke on them or that he’s just saying it because he’s in love. Maybe the latter half might be true, but it comes from the same assumption as the former: that Johann never laughs. That it’s some kind of freaky omen to hear him laugh, a sign of good luck (or bad luck, depends on who you ask) to hear him laugh because it’s just that rare.

To that, Avi says, maybe you guys aren’t that funny. They’ll laugh awkwardly, so easily, and pretend he is joking, when everyone knows that Avi does not joke like that.

Maybe it’s true that Johann does not laugh as easily as many Bureau members. Especially when standing right next to Avi, who is so expressive and openly emotional compared to him. His tone is flat and so is his humour, dishing out sarcasm yet seeming unable to recognize when it is thrown right back at him. His lips are tightly sealed, his eyes almost empty when someone cracks a joke near him. All these worthless comments from cruller coworkers make Avi’s eyes roll, but even he can admit he knows where they come from.

But Avi knows something that the rest of the Bureau of Balance does not. He knows Johann. He truly knows Johann.

Avi knows the corner of Johann’s lips twitch upwards. Avi knows the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shake of Johann’s shoulders. Avi knows the low rumble in Johann’s chest and the gentle sigh that slips past his soft lips that follows soon after. Avi knows the hand flying up to Johann’s mouth to cover his toothy grin. Avi knows the shifting glances, the flat tone that quivers in subtle delight, the loving eye roll, the ‘blank’ eyes of gods do that again you adorable idiot. Avi knows it all like the back of his hand.

Yet those subtleties are not all that Johann is, Avi tries to convince even further. Who is anyone to reduce such a man to his quietest traits? There are times, Avi insists, where he cracks the perfect joke or kisses Johann in just the right spot (gods know how annoyingly ticklish that man can be) that he bursts into laughter that can only be described as pretty.

What does it sound like? the coworkers, usually closer friends like Carey and Killian, ask. They only ask because they know it’s the only way to really get Avi to focus on his actual job afterwards, but also, there’s always a certain satisfaction in watching your friend gush about his boyfriend in the most saccharine way conceivable.

Well, Avi says with a dreamy sigh, it sounds like music. It is low, like Johann’s voice always is, and it sounds flat at first. But then it builds up in his chest, a crescendo of genuine joy and pleasure that explodes into song greater than Johann’s own compositions. Loud, yet soft. A rumble and an explosion. Intoxicating in all the right ways. Johann’s laugh is a perfect encapsulation of his own person, Avi realizes, and he knows in his heart that he can never get enough of it. What a wonderful sound, and yet everyone acts like only I can hear it.

In a way, Avi’s coworkers are not wrong. From the few slips of genuine, loud laughter Johann lets out over the next year of the Bureau, it sounds nothing out of the ordinary. Many would still find it uniquely monotonous, stilted, somehow even forced. It sounds almost discordant in some areas; far from the musical symphony that Avi has made it out to be. People don’t believe Avi when he says that Johann had the prettiest laugh he’s ever heard.

But Avi doesn’t care for proving anything for anybody else. He is only glad he can hear— truly hear— the simple fact of the love of his life:

Johann laughs.

[coridallasmultipass]

Tmi / personal / endometriosis and menstrual issues / surgery / long post / venting ... I finally had a laparoscopic surgery done yesterday and they were able to confirm for me that i have endometriosis and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted! All my fucking life ive dealt with excruciating cramps and heavy bleeding during menstruation and i just wish i could go back in time and give a big 'fuck you' to everyone who ever told me "cramps are like this for everyone!" Or "just exercise, it helps!" Or "orgasms help with cramping!" Like hooooooh boy I knew it and im so glad to have all the cysts out of me now. I had previously tried numerous birth control options to prevent cramping and bleeding and got excruciating cramps with literally All of them and constant bleeding with the depo shot. (I had a very painful internal ultrasound done, to hopefully diagnose endo by that route, but it was inconclusive - variations in the thickness of the endometrium, which could be endo or it could just be normal...) Most recent birth control was an iud and i had to go to the er the same evening because my body couldnt stand to have it in there causing so much pain, i couldnt stop screaming and it sucked. The iud was a few weeks ago ((and the proceedure to insert it was the worst pain ive ever felt in my life, and the same sharp pain continued through the following days until i got it removed) and i havent been able to sit straight since, i have to keep sitting to one side in order to not feel like having an ice pick jammed in me. Its gotten better since the iud was removed, but i still get a sharp pain when i have to sit on something hard. My doctor recommended me to have a diagnostic laparoscopy with cystectomy ASAP because of the iud problems and all my failed birth control attempts. Everyone in my family freaked out and kept pushing me to not go through with it, but I knew i needed to know what was causing me so much pain, like tbh, as a trans man, id prefer just a straight up hysterectomy, but yknow either way this is a step in that direction anyway. I have an aunt who had to have the same proceedure twice because of complications, and kept telling me her horror story about how painful recovery was and i was like 'trust me its not going to be worse than an iud because i thought i was dying' and she blew me off like 'its going to be wAY worse' like uh no bc an iud was 666/10 on the pain scale for me, i genuinely thought i was dying or would have a heart attack with how bad the pain was; plus ive had surgeries before and was completely fine after... Anyway fuck what my family said i went through with it anyway and it wasnt that bad of a proceedure to wake up from! My first thought was 'oh no, did they hospitalize me? I feel like ive been asleep for weeks!!' But it was just the recovery room. Ive usually done pretty well with recovery, and this was no different. The worst part of the recovery room was the sensation of needing to cough from where they had inserted the breathing tube for anesthesia. (Today my throat is still a bit sore, and my voice hoarse, but warm mint tea has been helping a lot for that.) I was also feeling cramps similar to mild-moderate menstrual cramping, (no where near the sharp shooting pain of the iud, and no where near my normal, unmedicated cramping which has had me doubled over screaming in pain until the medicine kicks in in the past), and of course a bit of soreness from the incision sites and the general soreness of having gas trapped in my body. (They have to pump a bit of gas inside you so its easier to look around, and some of it stays trapped in you after.) Its a pain similar to what ive felt before just from my fibromyalgia in general, so i was very relieved for the most part. I also felt myself bleeding a bit while i was still in the recovery room. (Gross and tmi, but im still having a spot of blood only when i wipe today, so thats a relief after having been bleeding a majority of the days over the past few months trying different BC options.) Strangely, when i got home i didnt feel groggy or in need of a nap like i have for surgeries in the past. I was also warned of having nausea from the anesthesia, but i had none at all!! And i was warned by multiple sources that i wouldnt have an appetite, but boy i ate almost Everything in the kitchen yesterday im pretty sure ive gone through a whole box of protein bars since yesterday too. Multiple sources (including my family member who had the same proceedure) warned of a sudden bad mood drop immediately after the proceedure, And i dont wanna jinx it, but I have been in such a good fucking mood since i got home yesterday, but maybe thats just the painkillers talking, but still I was at a total low point, like, cant-get-any-lower low point in terms of mood, but i just... feel so good (besides the aching and incision site pain lmao) On to the pain now... The worst of it was waking up this morning after the surgery day. I had quite a bit of the trapped gas pain when i first lied down at night (and when i tried to lie on my side) but the feeling doubled when i tried to get up. Im very bloated still. While the bloating itself isnt very painful, it feels like the stretching of my stomach is pulling at the medical tape covering my incisions which is making them hurt. Im not getting the trapped-gas-roaming-my-body feeling As Often, but its obviously still trying to dissipate. I feel it most while trying to take a deep breath like a bubble pressing against my ribs, but easing a deep breath slowly in and out moves it around and makes it less uncomfortable. Light exercise, like slow walking, is supposed to help your body absorb/dissolve/release the trapped gas. So i did 5 minutes on, 5 off for 3 times on the slowest treadmill setting earlier and im going to try again tomorrow for the same. (I feel like it made my bloating worse, so i had to go back to resting after, but ive been getting up and down to get food for my insatiable appetite lmao) Now the actual tmi and gross stuff: It is really fucking hard to pee. Straight up i have to concentrate so hard. Normally i lean over on my arm to help push it all out at once, but i cant do that with the incisions over my belly lmao. Shitting is just as hard, but the Shit Gods have blessed me with the Antibiotic Runs this morning so im all set for today lmao. Im really bummed tho they put a bandage over where my belly piercing is supposed to go, so i couldnt put it back in after the surgery. The whole, not being able to bend over thing, is reminding me of what its like to have a fresh belly piercing, and im groaning bc im gonna have to go thru with it again to get it back.... and i feel like i jUSt got it done... (it was summer last year) ughhhhhh.... oh well, like at least this time it should go in straight i hope? Also, obligatory vent that... having a fucking uterus does not make me a woman i wish doctors and nurses would use gender neutral language... TLDR; had a laparoscopic surgery to diagnose endometriosis and remove the uterine cysts caused by it, having a great recovery so far!! Still waiting on follow up from the doctor for my next step, but im feeling a lot better than when i was suffering cramps from every birth control i tried to get Rid of cramps

[lacefedora]

@poplitealqueen tagged me in a thing and I'm currently not fucking asleep so I may as well. But seriously thanks for tagging me frude. These are good for brain distractions.

Note this is all typed on my phone.

Name: Lace

Age: 29- 30 in exactly a week

Country: USA

Fave Color: Dark saturated blue. I also love mint, teal, and I look very good in eggplant

When did you make your Blog: January 2011

Follower count: 659. Everytime I get to 660 it's a porn blog and I have to block them. I'll never reach 666 =(

Super power: I want the ability to make exactly the food I want appear out of thin air at any given time.

Fave drink: Coca-Cola. I also adore Shirley Temples.

Song you love right now: been enjoying nostalgia lately and trying to hunt down the DiC Sailor Moon music. It breaks my heart they never released it.

Dream Career: I'd love to make more hats. Also like book covers? I like making covers.

Dream vacation: somewhere with fucking trees. Though atm I will settle for a vacation that is not with my family.

Hogwarts house: Gryffinpuff

Fave Character of the week: Elim Garak from Deep space nine. One of the most complex and interesting characters to ever grave the screen. I've also been rediscovering my genuine love for Jack Skellington. I love that dang skeleton so much.

How do you keep you hair: short pixie cut, parted to the right. Bangs cut short enough that they don't fall against my glasses but you can't see my widow's peak. It's also usually a fun color. Atm it's mostly my natural blonde with light teal ends as it grows out from my last color. People keep asking how I got my hair to do that when I just didn't redye it for like 4 months.

Christmas or Halloween: I adore Halloween it's always my top holiday. I got to go to one of the Halloween parties in Disneyland this year and it was so fun!

I like some things about Xmas but it's a bit much for me sometimes.

[tweetermixtapeclub]

“My “Best of 2016” Mix

Hey guys! ThingsFallAfart here (aka Kathleen).

For my first mixtape post, I’m cheating a little and sharing with you something I made back in February: my favorite songs of 2016. The notable exception here is anything from Lemonade, since that’s not available on Spotify. That might be a blessing, though, because I don’t think I could pick one song off that album anyway!

I also want to note that these are NOT in order of how much I like them, but rather I tried to make them flow into each other well.

1. “Identikit” by Radiohead. There’s a lot of baggage that comes along with being a Radiohead fan. I hate talking about them, because people tend to either think that they’re the new Beatles or that they’re overrated, both of which are boring opinions to me. I’m much more interested in how music makes me feel, physically, than in what Pitchfork thinks. And so, what I actually want to say: the layered voices in this song are so beautiful. And I love the echo-y effects. And I love how full and rich it sounds. I want to turn this up so loud and let it resonate in me. Do you know the feeling when a concert starts and you can feel the soundwaves in your chest? That’s the closest thing I have to religion, and this song does it for me.

2. “Jesus Alone” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. I don’t know if this is common knowledge for this particular audience, but Nick Cave’s teenaged son fell off a cliff and died in 2015 when they were recording this album. It’s such an unimaginable tragedy, and a lot of fans thought he would just be done with everything after that. But then they released this album, and it’s so haunting and tragic and grief-stricken, and it affected me almost as much as Blackstar did (which was a lot). I’m extremely attached to Nick Cave, and the droning guitars incite an almost meditative state in me.

3. “Father’s Child” by Michael Kiwanuka. This guy deserves to be huge. When the backup vocals and strings fill in the background of this song, my chest fills up. I love the dancey-soul beat and the way that he sings and the guitar work and the piano and the strings and the gospel-y backup singers. Talking about music is so hard! I’m trying to be more specific than “it sounds good”, but that’s, like, what music is, man.

4. “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)” by David Bowie. Were you affected by Bowie’s death? I was. I saw the news as soon as I woke up that day and collapsed into a sobbing heap. I’m one of the millions (billions?) of people who consider David Bowie to be one of the key elements of my identity. He changed the world. I couldn’t listen to this album for the first couple days he was gone, and then I listened to it every spare second for months, crying every time. Then I stopped crying, and I still kept listening. This album would’ve been one of the best albums I’ve heard even without the tragic circumstances. But it’s still inextricably bound to his death, and it will always make me sad, and I’m glad that we have this to remember him by. Why did I pick this track? I don’t know. They’re all perfect. This one got stuck in my head a lot. I love the driving beat and the minor key and the intensity behind “I kissed your face / I touched your face / Sue, goodbye”. Let’s move on to something less depressing!

5. “On the Level” by Leonard Cohen. Oh my god, come on. I’m sorry. 2016 sucked, you guys. So, here’s my Leonard Cohen journey: I have almost exclusively listened to his releases as an elderly man. I’m not very familiar with his actual hits. I’m very attached to the style he settled on as an old man, where he gravels his poetry with women singing gospel-type vocals behind him. His younger performances have those aspects, but he really leans into it the older he gets. If you like this track, I highly recommend his Live in London album from 2009. I like this particular song a lot. When I listen to it, I feel like he’s conspiratorially confessing to me at the beginning, and, when it takes off with the backing vocals, he’s practically joyful about his triumph over temptation. Leonard Cohen was an enormously important figure to me. His philosophy and spirituality and poetry have been my compass for many years.

6. “666 ʇ” by Bon Iver. Okay! Bon Iver! My husband hates him! He hates his high-pitched voice and the droning instrumentation! My husband is WRONG. I have loved every single Bon Iver release. This album is so weird and unexpected. Bon Iver has always had such a cool and unique sound, and with this album it got even cooler. The thing that binds together my musical taste is creativity, or, to be more specific, I like artists that get bored easily. I like artists who need to constantly change their sound. That willingness to experiment is, to me, a prime indication of talent. And also, related, I also get bored easily, so when I hear an album that surprises me, I fall in love. And I fell in love with 22, A Million.

7. “Sweet As Sweet Comes” by Robbie Fulks. Americana is a genre that I have trouble talking about. I love the country sound, with the focus on vocals and guitar and straightforward songwriting. I love the sound of Robbie Fulks’ voice. I want to see him live in a very small venue. This song makes me calm and happy.

8. “About to Find Out” by Margo Price. Okay, as much as Bowie and Cohen are part of my identity, classic country women like Loretta, Dolly, and Tammy are also integral to my life. I grew up on a farm in an extremely conservative county, and so, wouldn’t you know it, I’ve always been totally enamored by charming women using catchy songs and humor and incredible singing talent to lead a feminist revolt from inside the rural conservative culture. I genuinely believe that “The Pill” by Loretta Lynn is one of the most influential feminist works in American history. So I was thrilled to hear this album by Margo Price, who brings the same humor and talent and attitude to her music in what is clearly a direct homage to these incredible women (especially “Fist City”, which is one of the greatest songs of all time).

9. “Sun Don’t Shine” by Drive-By Truckers. I just saw these guys in concert, which I’ve been dying to do since Decoration Day in 2003, and they did not disappoint. This band splits the songwriting and lead vocals between Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, and I love them both, but Patterson (who sings this song) is my personal favorite. He has such an evocative voice, and his songwriting tends to speak to me in a personal way. These lyrics are more obscure than a lot of their songs, and this song is a simple expression of an emotion. If you listen to the entire album, which I highly recommend, this song serves as an intermission for an album full of angry protest songs about Tr*mp, gun violence, and police brutality. Every song on this album is incredible, but I chose this one because it... feels good to me.

10. “Call to Arms” by Sturgill Simpson. Oh man. Sturgill. I said earlier how much I like classic country, right? Metamodern Sounds is one of my very favorite albums, and the reason is a combo of incredible songs and the fact that he sounds like the son of Waylon and Merle. And THIS album? He took those incredible songs and that classic country sound and added in HORNS and DANCE BEATS and it is SO FUN! When he released his cover of “In Bloom” (which you should go listen to), I didn’t think it could get better. I listened to it over and over and over. And then this album came out, and oh my god, I went nuts. This song is so frantic and is like the epitome of what I want in a rock n’ roll song.

11. “The Three of Me” by William Bell. This is a really wonderful classic soul-sounding song. I’m so glad that the music industry is back into this sound again. Soul has never really gone away, but in recent years there’s definitely been a resurgence, which allows old-timers like William Bell to put out new stuff. I love the horns, I love the lyrics, I love the beat.

12. “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia” by Car Seat Headrest. I’m sure you all know how great this album is. This song is mildly operatic and super long and super rewarding. I can’t believe they used the ridiculous cruise chip crash as a metaphor for life. I can’t believe it. It should be so dumb, but instead it’s so so good. I love that this song has acts, like The Decemberists wrote something important and modern (I love The Decemberists, but I also like making gentle fun of them). I love when the song gets confused and angry and loud in the second half before launching into a driving rock beat. There’s a lot to be written about this song, and I can’t do it justice. There’s so much. It’s overwhelmingly dense and rich and incredible.

13. “Never Be Mine” by Angel Olsen. Haha, jgleduc already used this song on his mix! I like everything he said about this song: “[it] reminds me of a contemporary take on the songs the Beatles started to do on their own but still heavily under the influence of girl group, the staccato guitar chords, guitar effects, and drum rolls especially.” I love the retro sound of this song, and the whole album is really really amazing.

14. “Once More to See You” by Mitski. Another sort of retro-sounding song, like if Phil Spector produced Lykke Li. Did you know that you wanted that combination? Well, here it is. It sounds like it belongs in the Twin Peaks reboot, which is a guaranteed way for me to love a song.

15. “Close to You” by Frank Ocean. Everyone loves Frank Ocean! I spent months exclusively listening to Channel Orange when it came out, and I was one of those people complaining about how long he was taking to release the follow-up. Thank goodness Blond is AMAZING. I had trouble choosing what song to pick, but this one always stuck out to me a lot. I like that he hides behind the synths, and I like that it doesn’t resolve. It’s just this little fragment of a song that feels like a shard of his personality.

16. “Gods” by Maxwell. Oh man, I love Maxwell. His voice is absolutely beautiful, and this song has a beat that really gets me. I’m really picky about R&B, and this whole album is perfect to me.

17. “Unfamiliar” by Common. Maybe I talk to the wrong people, but I don’t think this album got enough attention. Common has had a couple duds in his career, but I think this album is as good as his classics, like Be. Like the Drive-By Truckers track above, this song is a brief respite on an album of intense protest songs. Maybe I indulge too much in escapism? Whatever, this is a great song.

18. “Mad” by Solange. There were so many Important Albums released in 2016. I think Solange’s was the most surprising, though. She’s always been really good, but this album is a genuine masterpiece. It’s personal and intelligent and creative and insightful and fun and an integral part of the conversation. Also, thank you, Solange, for giving us a really great Lil Wayne verse. Those are hard to come by. (Side note: I’m seeing Solange in concert in two days and I’m so frickin’ hyped.)

19. “Solid Wall of Sound” by A Tribe Called Quest. Okay, A of all, Q-Tip is one of my all-time favorite producers. B of all, this song features Busta, who is one of my all-time favorite rappers. C of all, Elton John recorded a new verse for them, and it brings me unending happiness when hip-hop artists get dad rock guys to contribute to their songs. This album is required listening, and I honestly feel privileged that I get to experience it.

20. “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” by Run the Jewels. Killer Mike & El-P are such important figures in the world right now. I don’t know your political beliefs, reader, but I think that these two consistently release work that is intelligent and striking and crucial.

(via https://open.spotify.com/user/thingsfallafart/playlist/2jDBx6YGpy0GQsFCHMfhHb)

[duke-michael-blog]

The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized . . . and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark.

Stephen King, “Why We Crave Horror”

Essay III: The Universe of Paranormal Activity Movies 

Horror movies are fears, unexplained events, demonic possession, the darker workings of our mind. The occult of figuring out what is real or paranormal. The Paranormal Activity movies play on different sub-genres of the demonic possession, the occult, the coven and paranormal. We may never know if these movies are genuinely based on real events or just an excellent storyline. 

A brief analysis of the movies, Paranormal Activity plays on an entity that is haunting Katie and Maciah. The film starts off with Micah purchasing a camera to catch what is happening throughout the house. The events start out small with keys on the floor and then progresses to noises around the house. Micah conducts an EVP session to catches a grunting sound. One night Katie just wakes ups and stands up beside the bed, walks out of the room and goes downstairs. Micah wakes up and goes downstairs and finds Katie outside on the swing,  doesn't want to go inside and wants to stay out, Micah goes to get blankets and Kaite is back inside, going to bed. Wakes up the next morning and has no recognition of what happened the night before. Date Night and Micah buys an Ouija board, and Katie flips out on him, leaves Ouija board on the coffee table, and planchette moves and strange noises, scratching sound, the wind is blowing in the living room, ouija board catches on fire. Micah places powder on the floor to find footprints, massive footprints come into the room and leave. \Micah and Katie wake up and leaves the room, following in the footsteps of the closet to find attic is open and Micah looks and see pictures of 15 years old Katie, burned around the edges. Katie gets dragged downstairs and gets be bitten on her side. Katie wants to leave and is very adamant about wanting to go but then changes her mind about wanting to stay and says “it's better if we stay.” The final night 21, Katie stands up and moves to Micah’s side of the bed. Goes downstairs and screams Micah’s name and struggle are happening and dragging noise upstairs and Micah's body is thrown into the camera. Katie standing in doorway covered in blood, crawls and sniffs Micah and then face turns demonic, film ends.   

Paranormal Activity 2, takes place in Carlsbad, CA, where Daniel and Kristi Rey live (Katie’s sister), daughter Ali and newborn son Hunter. These events that take place are before Katie and Micah. Right from the start of the movie and intruder comes into the house and breaks in and destroys everything, to only take a book of old VHS that Katie brought over. Mysteriously the picture that was found in Micah and Katie's attic was in Kristi’s photo album. Nanny is watching Hunter and hears a loud BANG! Hunter wakes up crying, she is now holding Hunter and is sages in the house and saying prayers. To rid of the evil spirits and keep the good spirits. Most of the activity revolves around Hunter, which is a clear sign that he is the target for the entity to target next. Most of the events that happen in this movie are similarily parallel to the first movie. Kristi hears noise in the kitchen and goes to check is out a pot falls from racking. Kristi freaks out and tells her husband, and he doesn’t even believe her. She then has various events happen to her, making her almost seem crazy. She is then alone in the house with Hunter one night, the camera shits to the living room and the basement door opens, she then senses a precise outside the door. The entity knocks Kristi off her feet and tries to drag her downstairs, she then fights and thinks she is free, but he grabs her again and pulls her all the way to the basement. She is down there for a long time and then comes back up. Everyone returns home, and Kristi is acting extraordinary husband checks her out and has a but mark as well. Kristi is very overprotective of Hunter. Dad then calls the nanny back to help get Kristi back, she tells him that the only way to save her is to pass it to a blood relative who would be Katie. Then takes a cross and holy water, they fight with Kristi in the basement, and she screams a demonic scream and then a women screams, she is back. Three weeks later, Katie returns to get Hunter and kills Kristi and Daniel Rey in the process. Ali is away from the house. 

Paranormal Activity 3, is set in 1998 where Kristi and Katie are younger children. Katie brings up Toby her imaginary friend (demon). Entity appears in-house right from the start and shows in Dennis and Julies room from dust from the earthquake, then disappears. Toby is clearly talking more to Kristi than Katie and keeps asking her to do things. Dennis finds drawing in the closet a triangle with a circle in it. The babysitter has experience with Toby and gets shoves by the entity. Kristi disagrees to not do what Toby wants anymore and then get really sick. Taken to the hospital and Randy watches over Kristi, she wants to play Bloody Mary in the bathroom, and Rany receives scratched on his side, the girl's room gets turned upside down, and Toby is clearly rattling the door to get to Katie. The kitchen is literally above the ground and comes crashing down, and they go to Grandma’s house. The night at grandma’s house; Dennis wakes up to noise and Julie goes to check it out, gone for a long time. Dennis goes to check it out and fines women's coven behind paintings and devils pentagram, is the chase around the house and finds Kristi, Katie is crying at the bottom of the staircase, has black eyes and screams and forces Dennis flying. Dennis is crawling on the floor, and grandma appears, and Kristi is passing in and out of the camera frame. Dennis is forced down by Toby and then gets bent in half. Grandma calls out for Kristi and Katie is already by her side. Kristi asks Toby to join them upstairs. 

The next three films will just go over the main findings that will help understand what is actually going on. In Paranormal Activity 4, Alex finds the symbol that is drawn all over her brother Wyatt aka Hunter. The logo belongs to the women cult called the midwives.”Hasttusac symbol of fertility- often present in sacred rituals after that a demon would take possession of the male. For the demon to enter the host, the Hittites believed three stages had to be completed. 1) Actuation- the host will begin to exhibit signs of preternatural ability. 2) The host would have to prove preternatural ability to the demon. 3) Sacrifice-  the host will be compelled to spill the blood of an inviolate (a being that had not been profaned and remains pure)”. In Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Marisol and Hector meet with Ali, tells them about the sign of the midwives. The Midwives with mark an unborn male in utero, wait until the baby matures to be possessed. 666=18 ( age of maturity). Transformation is described as like fighting an infection and perform a final ritual, and then Jesse goes back to normal, but he's not Jesse anymore. At the midwives house, Hector goes through a doorway that leads to Katie and Micah’s house and is then killed by Jesse, the door leads to unholy places only. In Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, the family finds a camera with special effects, the house is built on the midwives house, and Katie and Kristi grandma’s house that had burnt down and the new house was built on top of it. The entity is stronger and shows more demon-like features. Strange Markings appear over Leila's bed, opens up to a portal. Skylar looking at Ryan’s research; Revelation 5:6- The slain lamb will be used against God, for the blood of the chosen ones will taint it and help give life to one of the seven princes of hell. Each prince shall return through the blood of the two born of the same moon. Meaning Leila and Toby will give Toby human form. Father Todd comes back to the house to exterminate the home of the entity, it all fails, and mom goes through the portal and is in Katie and Kristi’s old house and is killed by Toby. Toby has taken human-form and walks off camera with Leila. 

In the beginning, we can relate this to the feeling of “uncanny, the fact that people differ greatly in their sensitivity to this kind of feeling” (Freud, 124). This has a complicated and diverse theme throughout all six movies that this entity is haunting and has a clear understanding of what it wants. The American Gothic plays a role in introducing a new sub-genre of a new psyche, being able to be possessed and have the ability to transfer demons from one blood relative to another is a strong power. The American Gothic plays on this idea that we usually go in a place that is somewhere else and doesn’t happen in our own homes. The entity shows that is clearly tied to a person and not things like a house. “The seven princes” are on a mission provided by the midwives to live on earth in a human form. “The gothic enables the objects of terror and torture to haunt, a subject who can articulate the meaning of their own suffering.” (Battista). The entity definitely plays the roles of torture and has a strong male precise of making itself known through violence and physical force. 

In the second movie, we learn to see a version of magic that is not seen but can be noticeable through the works of passing the demon onto another blood relative. This is a form of imitative magic relies on creating a link with it victim by making an image of him/ her of wax, clay, rags, or whatever materials is to hand, usually including his hair or nail clippings, blood, or sweat, which retain their connection with him”. (Wendish,17). This happens when Kristi becomes possessed, and the only way to pass the demon onto someone else is by a blood relative, and that would be Katie. The ritual is complete, and they have to burn the 15-year-old photo os Katie to make everything finalized. We usually only see this in witch movies but to see it happen in a paranormal film, to save a life is very strange. 

A common theme for these movies is that it shows the importance of male and female roles. It relates not only to the nuclear family but also the position are more reversed. I think of this a when researching tribes and their ritual practices the women are purer and are closer to the ground, representing that they are closer to the earth and connected spiritually more. This plays a huge role for the women in Paranormal Activity, the women are the one ones that are more in charge and have more control and say of what they are destined to become or to play out their roles properly. The male is just kind of in the way. Unless they're the marked ones, then they are destined to protect the women and that is their only job to serve them so their protected. This is reverse when we think of the nuclear family in modern socirty in the 70s but it has changed over the years and women have just as much power as men do now.  

Works Cited: 

Cavendish, Richard. The Black Arts. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974 

Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII (1917-1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works.

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