#and also live metaphor

[cottonspotten]

the venn diagram of people who love ‘the garden’ and people who love ‘here i am’ (album) isn’t quite a circle but i do think it has a large centre

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[pirateshelly]

As much as nearly every character she meets tends to act like there's something uniquely broken and wrong with Claudia, at no point does it truly seem to me like there actually really is? I mean, obviously she is extremely fucked up, she straight up went through a serial killer collecting trophies phase, but there's a level of fucked up that's sort of the baseline for every character in the show, and obviously being turned into a vampire as a child puts her at a unique disadvantage. But for all that everyone around her spends their time bemoaning how dreadful and doomed her life is, even Louis who genuinely loves her but also builds so much of his identity around feeling responsible for her Terrible Fate™, I really don't think she's like, fundamentally damaged any more than any of the other vampires are.

But Lestat is so unwilling to be wrong that every time her life hits an inevitable road bump instead of helping her through it he points and says "look! see! she IS a monster, I was right Louis, making her was a mistake!" (and I think he sees his own monstrousness in her but fails to also see her humanity)

And then Armand meets her and sees only someone who will inevitably lose her mind, so of course speeding up the "inevitable" and siding with the coven to plan her death is just a mercy, absolving himself of any blame. (and he projects his own frailty and desire for death onto her, failing to see her strength and her desire for life)

Which makes it so cathartic when she meets Madeleine, admits to her how broken she feels sometimes, and Madeleine's response is just. Well that's normal. Who isn't a little broken these days. Let yourself feel it, move on, let yourself feel it again if you need to. After spending her life having others act as if her emotions are something uniquely dark and worrying, Madeleine's incredibly blase attitude must have been such an incredible breath of fresh air for Claudia!

To spend her whole life being made to feel like something is Wrong™ with her, and then meet someone who's just like, "yeah, and?? Who isn't? Join the club I guess"

Which makes her death so incredibly tragic and frustrating because like. She was fine! She was making a life for herself! She wasn't doomed by her nature, she wasn't "doomed by the narrative" (whatever the fuck that even means), she was doomed for no reason other than that everyone around her (except for Madeleine) preemptively DECIDED she was doomed and never gave her a chance to prove them wrong.

[leupagus]

On Voting in America

So one of the most profound comments on routine chores that I've ever encountered was, hilariously, the Pickle Rick episode of "Rick & Morty," where (after a lot of shenanigans have already ensued) this therapist absolutely lays Rick out:

"I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is: it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose."

I think about this at least once a week — usually while I'm doing my laundry or sweeping or some other task that needs doing and won't get me anything more than clean clothing or a dog-hair-free floor. There's no Pulitzer for wiping down your microwave or scrubbing your toilet; no one's awarding you for getting all the dishes out of the sink. At best you have the satisfaction of crossing it off your list.

Voting is very much the same (and I'm talking about the US here, as an American). Sure, you sometimes get a sticker; but nobody's going to cheer for you. There's no adventure here, no potential for anything more than crossing something off of a list. It's a chore, something that needs doing in order to repair, maintain, and yes even clean. So I get why people don't like doing it.

And I've decided I don't give a shit.

Do it anyway. Your country takes astonishingly little from you — taxes, the once-in-a-blue-moon jury duty, and a theoretical draft that hasn't been used in over half a century and likely will never be again — but it asks you (asks! not requires! not demands!) to vote once or twice a year. It's not always easy; especially in conservative states, the impediments to vote can be ridiculous. But it is once a year and unlike in our nation's all-too-recent past, you will not die if you do it.

In fact, the worst outcome from voting these days is that the person or issue that you vote for loses — but you won't know if they lose until after the election. Polls are less accurate now, for a whole host of reasons; you cannot know until after the election who or what will win. This makes your vote more valuable than possibly ever before.

Use that power. Not because it's exciting or even rewarding, but because your vote is what keeps our country's metaphorical teeth from falling out and our metaphorical ass from stinking.

Brush, wipe, vote.

[sensorydephrivation]

That “compare hand sizes” question from the preshow… we say that dnp are testing boundaries with their audience but never has there been a more direct and obvious example than that moment. Dan asks the audience why they screamed for it, he proposes several ideas (that it represents dick size, that it’s a fetish thing, something about furries), gets the answers “it’s cute” and “flirty”, and then ends up doing it anyway despite not having a better answer than it being a “they touched” moment. What a clear example of trying to find out what kind of freaks (not negative lol) we are and then deciding they don’t care what we think, yet doing the thing anyway.

[lambmotifz]

dean desperately wants to get inside sam but it’s not just about fucking him, it’s also because sam is quite literally his home and dean wants to crawl inside his chest and live in his rib cage, near his heart, where it’s warm and familiar

[blackhholes]

teen wolf meme: [2/2] locations -> the hale house

I've been having dreams. Dreams, or nightmares? Nightmares... About a fire. It's this-this house, and I can hear screaming-

[kourota]

being a writer is just thinking that anything and everything is great writing material. people watching while you wait for your bus? writing material. experiencing something that's gonna scar you for life? writing material. getting chased by chickens and running for your life? writing material.

[jichanxo]

subjugate your shame (uncropped under the cut)

i like yasu's face too much here to not post it uncropped....

[tapestryundone]

thinking about the narrators lines in the beginning of the game

"no more birds"

self explanatory. the long quiet is represented through birds, theough feathers. the narrator is represented through birds, but a more grounded version of them. less draconic. but the princess is tied to birds more abstractly- HEA exemplifies this. the construct is her birdcage

birds are highly symbolic throughout the entirety of slay the princess. they represent death, change, the concept of free will. is it any question that the long quiet is a bird, when he acts of his own free will the most?

"no more trees"

the woods are the first thing the long quiet ever truly sees. before awakening, it is the first thing he even knows. trees are the anchor of the construct, and the last to change as the long quiets perception of the princess changes the construct itself. but they are discarded by the heart of the shifting mound- only the cabin is visible, something created of the woods. trees constructed into something new. trees are not static, even as the narrator relies on them being so

just as significantly, the princess is on occasion depicted through vines, and trees. even the shifting mound is highly reminiscent of the shape of a tree. more specifically, she calls to mind a deciduous tree- a tree that changes through the seasons. life that is not static, but is still sturdy, long lasting

the long quiet, however, hears the narrators description of a forest and immediately thinks of coniferous trees. trees that retain their leaves, and remain relatively static through a year. but they still grow. they are still, but not forever. the construct retains the shape of these even as the cabin and the woods erode away, leaving nothing but the imprint of the woods

and perhaps most problematically of all, no more people

ive discussed this before, just how deeply tied to people that the long quiet and the shifting mound both are, so i wont repeat it all, but above all else, the two are deeply interested in and care about people. people are the reason that the nature of reality is questioned at all, and it is the narrator- the original narrator- who grants them humanity at all. the shape of something human. as far removed as either may be or become, that humanity is never fully lost. it can never be discarded or forgotten

being a person is not a "you are or you arent" thing. the long quiet often thinks of himself as a person, but the shifting mound discards it entirely. they are both right, and they are both wrong. because being a person involves the experience of life, but also the experience of death. and yet it is also the capacity to know what you are experiencing, to feel the world around you and to know that it is. the long quiet and the shifting mound arent 'people' in a literal sense, but how else would one describe the experience of being? the ability to care about others? the ability to care about yourself?

'people' are just one lens that can be looked at to interpret the world. the two are many lenses, but those lenses are all their own people. the voices and the vessels are all people that make up the sum of two vast people

the narrator, within his first moments acting in the construct, is calling to mind all the most important things to the long quiet and the shifting mound immediately, intentionally or not. the capacity for agency and free will and the nature of the self, change and permanence as concepts that can and do coexist as forces in nature, and above it all, how these concepts tie into the experience of life itself. a constant that does not last forever and is experienced by and to life. from a writing perspective, it is incredible how one line feels so powerful with the context of the whole narrative

[nyc-pizza-rat]

okay thinking about her

the tree bark at his back scratches him as he shifts. there are bruises on his skin that sting. he feels the slide of blood at his temple, unsettling and unfamiliar, even after all these years. castiel looks down at his hands, a little calloused, now, and wrinkling, and tries to center himself. there is dirt on his palms, under his fingernails. a small cut on his index finger that is loud and sharp. he curls his fists and tries to reach within himself. the well of his grace has been running low for a while, now, and castiel hasn't been sure of...well, anything.

it's harder to find his dimming grace within, here in purgatory. harder still to coax it to the surface. sweat beads at his brow but castiel keeps his fingers clenched, mumbles to himself in enochian — words to songs of praise and comfort and strength that mean so little now, and yet come to him easy.

there is a thin stream of silver light, and castiel heaves a breath, sinks further into the hollow of the tree. he unclenches his fist, and there are red half-moons carved into his palm. the cut is gone, but there is a scar, still, and castiel cannot stop looking at it. it looks like a thin tear in fabric, like the cracks in between the worlds that let them through. it looks like the beginning of the end.

he rubs his thumb over the scar, feels the slight raise of his skin. his thoughts begin to spin, and all he can focus on is the heat building at the back of his neck, the rushing of blood in his ears. suddenly, then, a ripple within. a breeze by his ear that pull at his core. that compels him to quiet, to listen.

someone, somewhere, is invoking him in prayer.

his grace surges now, easy as it hasn't been in a while, and while it doesn't heal him still, castiel feels more angel than he has in a long time.

Cas, I hope you can hear me... that wherever you are, it's not too late.

castiel sighs, something inside him relaxing. he hadn't even noticed the way his muscles had been pulled taut. hadn't noticed the tendrils of fear creeping into his heart. dean's alive. dean's alive.

I should've stopped you.

castiel swallows. digs his fingers into his thighs. his grace spins out, trying to find the source of the prayer. It's harder than it is on earth, and harder than it should be for an angel of his caliber, but castiel keeps trying.

You're my best friend, but I just let you go. 'Cause it was easier than admitting I was wrong.

castiel wishes dean would stop saying these things. he bites his cheek, listening, following dean's voice. he's always following dean's voice, even when he doesn't want to.

I – Ohh. I don't know why I get so angry. I just know – I know that it's – i-it's just always been there. And when things go bad, it just – it comes out. And I can't -- I can't stop it. No matter how –

dean breaks, and castiel pauses, stares at the blinking doorway that will lead them back onto earth. back into a battle that they are bound to lose. he thinks about jack, lost forever. about chuck, who cannot be beaten. about the pointlessness of what they are doing, the desperation with which he has been clinging to hope.

— how bad I want to, I just can't stop it.

he wishes he could see dean. there is something solid pressing against the back of his throat, like he has swallowed a rock, like it is blocking the air. his eyes sting. he wishes dean would just — just talk to him.

And — And I — I forgive you. Of course I forgive you.

castiel shakes his head. his wings are more bone than anything else, skeletons he lugs around because he cannot bear to sever them from his trueform. now they twitch, twined with his grace as they are. castiel lets them curl inwards, pretends he can feel them whole, their warmth, the comfort of it.

I'm sorry it took me so long – I'm sorry it took me till now to say it. Cas, I'm – I'm so sorry.

castiel forgives him, despite everything. thinks he'd forgiven him long before this, before dean ever thought to ask. he wonders if dean knows that castiel doesn't know how to loathe him, even if he wanted to.

longing surges out to him, the pull of the prayer strengthened by cords of need, of want.

dean thinks he's dead, and he's desperate for him to not be. castiel knows what dean can be like, when he loses those he considers kin, when he's even faced with the prospect of losing them.

Man, I hope you can hear me. I hope you can hear me.

longing can feel a lot like love.

angels were never meant to decipher the nuances of human emotion, and despite all the time he's spent on earth, even castiel is not all that good at it. so when prayer is made with longing, it can feel a lot like love.

and maybe it is. castiel doesn't know.

it's almost unsettling, the way warmth bleeds into his trueform, as dean finishes praying, as he makes his way closer. castiel tries to reign in his weak grace, pulsing away under his skin. tries to not let himself get carried away.

he looks up at the grey sky, the sunless world he is trapped in. he thinks about the empty. he thinks about his son.

maybe it isn't. human love is so complicated, after all.

somewhere to his right, footsteps. castiel breathes, wills his lungs to loosen, his heart to slow. he pulls the leviathan blossom out of his coat pocket. all that fighting and the fidgeting has smushed it a little. he rubs a thumb over one of its strange petals, and puts it back in his coat.

dean is getting closer. castiel can hear him breathing now. can hear the way his heart races.

he gathers himself and pushes out of the hollow of the tree. straightens a little.

"dean," he calls. he sounds tired, even to his own ears. human. god. "you made it."

[mynqzo]

Why do you like vampires specifically, what do you like of them?

the sucking and fucking

[counting-stars-gayly]

They’re not going to rebuild Castle Byers because Will can’t rebuild his childhood, which is the reason he destroyed Castle Byers in the first place. He’d been trying to hold on to a level of carefree ignorance that no longer existed for him. The problems Castle Byers saved him from have been replaced by new problems that are bigger and stronger than a child’s fort. He needs to face them differently. Thank you and goodnight

[t-hal-mothman]

- They say that swans are Pure Creatures, - the Toad asked, - This is true? - Yes, - the Swan answers, arching they neck, showing they pride to the pathetic creature, - Can't you see that for yourself?

- I see... - Toad smiled with they wide muzzle, squinting at the graceful bird, - ...blood on your feathers.

[veinsfullofstars]

Give it up, Mags - it’s like asking a fish to stop swimming.

(ID: Kirby series fanart comic of Magolor and Marx having a typically heated conversation inside the Lor Starcutter. Top panel - Magolor hovers on our left, squinting in frustration with anger lines zigzagging from his head, one hand clenched in a fist at his side, the other pointing forward towards our right. He says, “Marx, if you keep making outdated meme references, I’m kicking you off my ship.” Bottom panel - Marx stands on our right, unbothered by the wizard’s threat, wearing a pair of sunglasses held in place with tape, sparkles flickering by his head. In alternating red and blue letters, he says, “That’s not very cash money of you.” END ID.)

Started 04/20/24, finished 05/13/24, updated for color correction 11/02/24.

[dykedvonte]

wanted to say I appreciate your nuanced takes on MW and especially Curly. i don't get the claim that the fandom is full of Curly apologists when majority (esp yt and tiktok) say he's worse than Jimmy. Yes there's commentary about bro culture defending people, he def messed up in trying to placate Jimmy (tbh "we'll fix this" sounded more like trying to keep someone prone to outbursts like Jim calm and not hurt Anya/himself) but I don't think he did nothing to help Anya, since she continued to confide in him and he had less than a week to resolve it before the crash (I also don't get everyone saying he knew for ages when it seems like Anya told him that same week). I get Jimmy's a pos but saying stuff like Curly should've known he'd crash the ship or that Jim had a criminal record he ignored, reducing them to obviously horrible villain and willfully ignorant sidekick feels like a disservice to the game. If your best friend turned out to be horrible, what would you do in a confined space in the span of a few days to respond? I'd say some of the horror comes from trying to do good but ultimately failing, Curly's state after the crash is meant to be tragic horror not revenge/punishment

Thank you and this is what I want to get across.

A lot of information we have to supplement when it comes to how long things have been happening on this current ship. I think people try to add on to the horror and negligence by making things more obvious so it can feel like it was easier to avoid when, true to life, its not. Jimmy clearly didn't deserve or appreciate what Curly did for him in getting him the job, but do you think if Jimmy was that big of a menace on Earth he would've given him a position where he could have that level of power over people's lives? There's something in the fact he specifically chose to pick a position so close to himself where he could watch Jimmy.

I hate the bro code argument because that is a whole can of worms people really don't get. That sort of mentality is born from the general respect and preference of male matter over female ones. Curly is clearly not that guy, he is absent minded about the issue and inadvertently dismissive but he clearly believes Anya, he just can't understand what she's going through. It's an onslaught of information that no one really reacts right to. Additonally, the entire discussion of her assualt plays to heavy into the idea that there is fault outside of the perpertratior when it comes to SA. It's too close if she only did this or if Curly had protected her better but the fact of the matter is Jimmy did what he did. He did it before any of the conversations with Anya about it and it's why her behavior seemed to change so drastically in those last two days.

He has other conflicting thought and while his role as a Captain should've taken over, people act like it's not a very human thing to have such a toxic presence cloud your judgement. It is never easy to separate friend from coworker once that connection is formed, you want to help them, especially if they were friend first and for a long while like in this case. It's not right, but people act like it would be easy when the game clearly points out that no choice is easy to make, especially when you have to make it for more than one person. You have the weigh the consequences, look at all the options and make a plan. People can headcanon and decide how long things where happening, but if we look at what we were presented through the characters eyes, the only person given time to do that was Jimmy.

He waited two months after the crash to appoint himself Captain. Every time a problem was brought up he immediately took action and refused to sit on it and find a better solution. I think it's important to look at the warped way Jimmy takes initiative where Curly didn't as it works as a good contrast of why you don't just run in to "fix" things. The quickest and easiest option may not be the safest or most beneficial. I think some thoughts on the game suffer from the black and white thinking the game doesn't operate on along with us being voyeurs. We see what exactly led to what but the characters don't. They don't have the hindsight and foresight we do and even ours is scrambled by the non-linear story telling.

Like it's hard to talk abuou those grey zones without sounding like an apologist because you're explaining why taking responsibility isn't easy. It's not and it's weird to act like it would be in a scenerio that led up to the events of the game knowing what we know. We see all these characters in such isolated moments with various things before, in between, after and even during we aren't privy too. The idea that Jimmy is worse than Curly heavily banks on the words Jimmy was saying to Jimmy before he crashed the ship. That whatever happened on the ship was his responsibility to bare, which is true due to his position. But, are they not still not responsible for taking the actions Curly then must bare?

Like i feel like people think that these are situation that become easier with age or when you are in a postion of authority and they aren't. You don't lose your biases or gain some sudden knowledge that makes it easier. It just becomes more tiring as you keep dealing with it. I would be first in line to say Curly fucked up and should've done more but the idea he knew how bad it could get or he really saw the worst in the people around him and ignored it pretty much ignores a huge aspect of his character and the game.