#and it not being something even a significant part of the day whatsoever.

[cicidraws]

having emetophobia its getting easier with games to see/hear pukin and all that

however when it lingers or i know its coming its kinda difficult. and also movies and shows are not easy for me still. again though it depends on the day or how im feeling and stuff. but sometimes movies push it alittle too real for me, like the insidious red door thing. that actually made me need to leave the theater.

silent hill 2 has barfin and the 'monsters' doing that isnt bad at all, but the sounds in it from eddie, it kinda messes with me still. its all a big ol spectrum for me what i can handle but im working hard on it. umu;

[rightpastnowhere]

more thoughts on TLOVM season 3 episode 3. still insane.

PART TWO: that TLOVM perc'ahlia scene, mostly in terms of its TLOVM context, with some campaign 1 comparisons

spoilers below the cut for TLOVM AND campaign one moments that will likely happen this season lol

her initiating this fling is fascinating to me. we all know vex has a fear of commitment and being hurt by relationships right? EXCEPT!! except, i think this is her trying to deal with that. which is insane but it makes sense for her in TLOVM. To Me.

cause like. in the first two episodes we have MULTIPLE close calls with percy, which are technically happening all in the same day?? and you have vex, who's admitted to a creepy fey and herself that her heart is not her own, who takes these, processes these, and says, "thinking i lost him even now was awful; if i start a relationship with him, it will only hurt me 100 times worse in the end. so i'll just fuck him casually and pretend i have no emotions about it whatsoever."

which i think can have TWO possible explanations, yknow beyond the way she's afraid of relationships and considering herself a bad omen - explanations that explain why sex is a line she's willing to cross before emotional confession, almost instead of it, whereas in the campaign she won't cross either.

one: she's trying to convince herself that she can just. make it casual. force it into something different, choke the feelings down until they fade away eventually. i don't have as many thoughts on this idea but it DOES bring me insurmountable pain to think about.

two: she's basically struck a bargain with herself.

after two episodes of multiple close calls with percy, it’s almost like she’s trying to wrestle herself into a deal. she looks at her hungry heart which doesn't belong to her anymore, and is terrified of the decision it wants to make, terrified of the idea of a relationship with percy that will one day crumble, and she says, “okay. one thing. we can have one thing. we can have a casual fling, some friends with benefits, we’ll know what it’s like to kiss him and have sex with him and even wake up next to him but that’s it. we’ll pretend we’re asleep in the morning. we’ll distance ourself from him the next day. we’ll pull back, keep enough of a barrier to not let him any closer, but sex can be casual, right? it doesn’t have to mean anything. it won't mean anything. it's casual.”

and even then it’s only “casual” in the sense that they’ve agreed not to say anything about how they feel. they both know how the other feels, they’ve said it in every way you could without explicitly saying i love you. percy downright admits that he feels something and knows there is something between them and he wants emotional connection. vex says that she cares for him, that she can’t say what he wants to hear, and that everyone she’s ever loved, it ends badly - implying, all but directly saying, that he’s one of those people!! she ends up admitting it even more directly than he does!!!! this is so sad it’s almost hilarious. they’re both admitting and committing to the facade of a casual fling. vex because she’s terrified, and percy because he would do anything for her.

she would rather have a facade of a casual relationship, would rather ask percy to help her lie, help her pretend this means nothing, even as she lies there and admits that it does mean something but she's too scared to let it become anything significant. and even that statement, where she refuses to show vulnerability, is showing so much vulnerability. she's trusting percy with this fear she's kept close to her chest, she's trusting percy with her fear of trust. asking percy to hold that fear and keep it safe, hold it close to his chest, right where his heart sits. where her heart sits, now. the amount of trust it takes to do that. the way those words had to be clawed out of her, only when she was lying down, hurt, and couldn't run anymore. she trusts percy with this thing she's only trusted her brother with, if that - and at the same time, she can't even trust herself with loving and being loved without ruining it all.

it’s like. if she doesn’t get too close, it won’t hurt as much when he eventually, inevitably, leaves. whether he dies or walks away or makes a deal with a demon or a death goddess or whatever, he will leave, because they always leave, and the further she is, the less distance she’ll have to fall from. the softer the landing will be.

and then, if this is going the way i think it is, if we are building up to glintshore and the resurrection, then it won’t be soft at all. percy is going to die, and it is going to hurt vex so fucking horribly, and the distance will have meant nothing. all it will do is give her less memories to hold onto, now that he's gone. she will not hurt for the size of the hole in her heart, but rather for the lack of memory she has to fill it. a hole torn further open by the weight of the breadth of love unspent.

and then they're going to try and bring him back. and she will beg for another chance to do it right this time. she will give him her heart and everything she has, because she tried to do the casual distance, and she's learned that it hadn't done anything but hurt the both of them.

but she's not going to make that same mistake again.

[atlitudes]

I'm Cataloging Every Occurrence of the Piano in Malevolent in a Spreadsheet for Leitmotif Analysis. No, I'm Not Kidding.

As the title of this post reads, I've spent the last few weeks listening to every episode of Malevolent and logging every time the piano is heard (both within the story and as background score), to analyze the data for leitmotif/music based theory-crafting. I originally was planning on getting through the entire series before posting anything, but I am very quickly realizing that this is going to take me a while, and I start a new semester in two weeks, so there is a high likelihood I will not finish before I get too busy to chug through as many episodes a day as I am now. I'm on episode 16/44 and I've already logged 137 instances of piano music. I'm not even halfway done. And this is all I've been doing for the past multiple days. For this reason, I've decided to post the link to the spreadsheet before finishing.

If you're familiar with Malevolent, and just how much music is in it, you might be asking, "OP, are you utterly fucking insane?" And well, dear reader, the answer to that is probably yes, but while you might call it madness, I call it love. So, before getting into the meat of things, I wanted to explain why I even decided to do this. Spoilers ahead for Malevolent (obvious, but yeah). If you don't give a single shit about why I did this and want to get straight to the sheet, scroll to the bottom for the link.

So. About 2 weeks ago I finished my first listen-through of Malevolent. One thing about the most recent episodes struck me as very very significant: John and Arthur's "collective force" being titled as the Dies Irae.

Now, a full-bodied explanation of why I find this so important and the possible implications will come at a later date, but long story short, the Dies Irae is a very significant piece of musical literature-- it is, perhaps, the most commonly quoted leitmotif of the past 800 years, and it symbolizes death. So, understandably, the Themes of this kinda sent me down a spiral.

But the Dies Irae being mentioned in such a way also got me thinking: music is a pretty integral part of Malevolent. So, is the Dies Irae quoted anywhere in its soundtrack? I suddenly got very very excited at this prospect, particularly if it might be in Faroe's Song, because well... god that would hurt lol. I scoured the available songs on the bandcamp aaaaand... no luck (as far as I can tell). Regardless, even if the Dies Irae wasn't a part of the soundtrack, I became curious about what kind of leitmotifs were in the podcast, and what they might mean. And so, the spreadsheet was born.

I explain this in the User Guide part of the sheet (please read it before going through the rest btw), but I only track the piano parts of the podcast. The reason for this is two-fold:

First, score wise, piano is very easy for me to pick apart, and I don't see a lot of significance in the suspenseful string music for horror moments (though I don't deny there might be something to it, I simply won't be able to find it.) To me, the piano is also significantly more important than the strings because it's a notable part of the story-- Arthur and his relation to the instrument is a key part of the plot, and multiple of the piano compositions are made by him. For this reason, I found tracking the piano in the podcast worthwhile.

Second, I also don't touch any of the non-original radio tracks in the podcast (i.e. You Call It Madness (I Call It Love)) because this video by The Final Fantasmagorie already does an excellent job of covering them (please check it out!!), and I felt it would be redundant, especially considering the astronomical amount of ground I already have to cover. If these tracks start being featured as leitmotifs in the piano music then... well, I might change my mind, but so far, no dice.

If I noticed a non-piano piece of music (such as the wraith humming in Ep3) that I haven't found any analysis of whatsoever, I also noted it just so there was some record. Other than that, just piano tracks.

Explanations and disclaimers out of the way, here is the link to the spreadsheet. I might open it up to comments and/or editors at some point, but for now, it's just available to viewers. Once again, please read the disclaimer and user guide before the rest of the sheets.

Thanks for reading, I know this was a very long post, and I appreciate it if you've beared with me! Enjoy!

[kvohru]

miss you terribly - maiko week '24 day 2

prompt - separation. in which zuko (accidentally) sends mai a bunch of letters while traveling. still pathetically in love.

Spending time away from Mai was hard. That was, Zuko thought, a universal truth.

Needless to say, Zuko hated spending time away from her, but, much to his dismay, with him being the newly appointed Firelord (with a mission of uniting the four nations and bringing peace, no less), he had a lot of political affairs to take care of, which included far too much traveling and time away from his darling. So, to combat the pure, unfathomable agony that was having to sleep in a bed all lonely and alone and in his lonesome—he deserved massive compensation and many pats on the back for surviving these trying times, truly— he’d taken to writing letters.

At first, he had started writing them as a way to fill his time and cope with the boredom of traveling alone, and he would just keep them in a small pocket in his luggage— that is, he was too shy to send them to her. He knew that, rationally, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. It was normal to send letters to your significant other when you were away, dammit! But he still couldn’t let go of that small part of him that was afraid she would, worst case scenario, think it was weird and corny, or, best case scenario, wouldn’t care much for the notion altogether.

He knew that that, too, was completely irrational. Irrational to an embarrassing extent, even.

Mai loved and accepted him. She’d shown that time and time again. She’d supported him and stood by him through the worst times of his life. Times when, he thought, he absolutely did not deserve that unconditional love from her. He still thought he didn’t deserve that, sometimes. So thinking she would judge him for writing letters was just plain stupid honestly, but for now, he was satisfied keeping them hidden.

“Firelord Zuko,” his personal assistant called out, interrupting his train of thought. He sighed and put away the piece of parchment he’d just finished signing off; it was another letter. The fourth or fifth one this week, if he had to guess. Not that he was setting aside time daily to write them or anything. Or that he’d started that ritual months ago, and by now had probably accumulated over a thousand letters. Totally not that whatsoever. Absolutely not.

“Come in.”

“Sir, you are required in the meeting hall.”

He held back the urge to snort. Yeah, sure, require him in the meeting hall, why don’t you?

He shoved the letter among a small stack of papers on his desk, official documents he’d have to send out and such. It was frustrating when fellow nation leaders treated him like a child. Sure, he was only eighteen, but it seemed that everyone conveniently forgot that he practically saved the world with the Avatar.

“I will be right with you,” he replied tightly, effectively dismissing his assistant.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Mai was in her chambers when she got a knock on the door, and Ty Lee, who was hanging out with her that day and had stepped out momentarily to retrieve a package that had just arrived in the mail, told her that something had arrived for her.

A stack of letters.

“From Zuko?” she asked, repeating what her friend had just said in confusion.

“Yup!” Ty Lee grinned and tossed the large stack of envelopes onto her friend’s bed. “Boyfie’s clearly been missing you then.”

Mai smiled, huffing out an amused breath. She’d wondered if he’d ever get the courage to send her those letters.

She’d stumbled upon some letters a while back, when Zuko had asked her to retrieve something from his room, and she ended up accidentally looking through the wrong set of drawers. She didn’t read them of course, though she’d noticed they were all addressed to her and dated over something like seven months’ time, out of respect for him.

So it was safe to say she was at least a little happy that he’d sent her some. Mai excitedly grabbed the letters, unable to hold back the giddy grin on her face. She had really missed him. “I’m so glad,” she said truthfully, counting the envelopes in her hand.

“Oh, my God, this must be, like, a letter for everyday he’s been gone,” Ty Lee said in amazement, having been counting along with her friend. “See? I told you you had nothing to worry about!”

Mai smiled, blush rising on her cheeks. Ty Lee was referring to a concern Mai had brought up to her earlier. She was talking about how it kind of upset her when Zuko would go on trips without her and they’d have to go so long without any form of contact. She knew he enjoyed writing letters, and that to him, it wasn’t just one of those things he did out of necessity. He appreciated the intimacy of exchanging handwritten letters, said there was something special about getting to see the little ink splotches, the differences in penmanship, the scratched out words and phrases when someone has a change of mind, the misspelled words, even the different type of paper everyone used said so much about them.

“So then why doesn’t he send me any?” she’d complained to Ty Lee, burying her face in her pillow, frustrated.

Mai was the type to bottle her feelings, and she wasn’t really much for having heart-to-hearts. Of course, she was always willing to lend a listening ear to her friends, and was very empathetic and caring, contrary to what people might think, but she rarely talked about her own feelings. She’d always been that way, never really knew how to articulate her feelings well, and felt weird doing it, too, so at some point she’d just stopped trying altogether.

So for her to be telling Ty Lee about this right now really spoke to how hurt she must’ve been feeling, even if she wanted to play it off as some casual thought that had occurred to her.

Ty Lee had told her that she was probably just overthinking it and that there was nothing to worry about, but she’d felt incredibly for her friend.

“Well, I’ll leave you to read those.” Ty Lee winked at Mai, grinning. “I need to head back now anyway.”

Mai frowned, not wanting her friend to leave so soon, but Ty Lee insisted that she really did need to go, so Mai begrudgingly walked her out. Once back in her room, though, Mai shut the door and jumped onto her bed, grabbing for the letters again.

She gingerly opened the first one and started reading.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

Mai,

How are you, my love?

I trust that everything is well over at the Fire Nation, mostly because no one has sent me any concerning correspondences, but more than that, I trust you wholeheartedly. More importantly, though, I hope you’re doing well.

I, for one, am not.

I miss you terribly. This trip so far has been unbearable, and I wish very badly that you were here. At least then these meetings wouldn’t be as utterly boring. Did you know that they wish to impose sanctions on cabbage selling here? I thought it was quite the odd thing to take issue with, at first, but apparently there is a ‘bigger picture’ or something.

Anyway, today is our half-anniversary. And I know you don’t get the concept of half-anniversaries, because ‘why celebrate prematurely?’—yes, I am still salty about that— but I still think it is worth celebrating. I think love is always worth celebrating, especially ours. This is why I thought of sending over a gift anyway, but I was afraid it would get lost on the way.

Regardless, happy half-anniversary. I love you and I miss you and I cannot wait to get home so I can look at your pretty face.

Yours always,

Zuko

˗ ♡ ˗

Mai,

Did you know that some turtleducks can live up to thousands of years? I learnt that from a particularly riveting trivia book I found in our library, years ago. It was back when we had broken up, that one time. I was so miserable I filled my time with reading through the palace’s collection of books. Some were admittedly a lot more entertaining than others, but I ended up amassing a lot of random facts about wholly unrelated topics, so I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste.

For example, did you know that kissing someone you love prolongs your lifetime exponentially? As in, the more kisses the better.

Okay, I totally just made that up as an excuse to get more kisses, but you believed it for a second there, didn’t you? It sounds believable enough, if you ask me. (And hey, better safe than sorry, right?)

There’s really no purpose for this letter, if I’m completely honest. There’s nothing for me to report on, and there’s nothing specific on my mind I want to share with you or anything, but I believe there is something to be said about the beauty in the mundane; something about being able to appreciate the ordinary things with the people you love most. Something about those meaningless conversations where the sound of a lover’s voice matters more than what they’re actually saying. Something about listening for the sake of listening. Loving for the sake of loving. Ceaselessly and unconditionally.

I don’t think I could ever tire of hearing you talk.

Yours always,

Zuko

˗ ♡ ˗

Mai,

I suspect this will be a shorter letter, because I really only have one thing to tell you. I don’t think I say it enough, and even though I don’t presently plan on showing you these letters, I think I’d like to say it anyway.

Thank you.

Thank you for being there. Thank you for staying. Thank you for not giving up on me even when you had every right to. Thank you for loving me, even when I don’t deserve it. Thank you for allowing me to love you. Thank you for accepting my love. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for showing me time and time again that I don’t need to constantly try so hard around you, but still unintentionally pushing me to be my best regardless. Thank you for putting me in my place when I’m an asshole. Thank you for calling me out on my shortcomings, but always being impossibly loving about it. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for laughing at my jokes. Thank you for staying up to talk on those nights I can’t sleep. Thank you for soothing my worries away when they get too suffocating. Thank you for listening. Thank you for talking.

I could go on, but I probably don’t have enough paper on me right now, so I’ll settle for saying this: Thank you for existing. You’re my favourite person, by a long shot. I love you. I’m glad you exist.

Yours always,

Zuko

˗ ♡ ˗

Mai,

What do you think about marriage?

I know we’ve talked about this before, but it always seemed like a faraway possibility. We were so young then, but now, we’re, well… older..?

God, I suck at this.

What I’m trying to say is: Are you still open to the idea of marrying me?

This is not me proposing, of course, but it has admittedly been on my mind a lot lately. To clarify, I know we’re in it for the long haul. I am absolutely and utterly and hopelessly devoted to you, marriage or not. I don’t care about titles, for I don’t think any official title could add to or take away from the brilliance of our love. I am yours as long as you will have me.

But sometimes I worry I am depriving you of something you might long for. So, please, answer me this. Would you do me the honour of marrying me, someday? It could be extravagant, full of big, fancy fruit tarts or whatever it is you may desire, or it could be a private affair with just us. Whatever it is, I am at your service. That is, of course, only if you want to. I don’t think I need an official document to prove what I feel for you (though I think it may be beneficial for you on a political front, too, with me being Firelord and all?), but if it is something you desire, I would be more than happy to oblige.

This letter is weird, and I suppose this is me saying that I want so desperately to marry you. I love loving you, and I want to be able to do it until my last breath, if you’ll allow me. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m glad you exist. I am forever and always—

Yours,

Zuko

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

And so the letters went on. They varied in length and content. Some had her laughing and blushing, while others had her heart aching.

She concluded that these letters were probably sent mistakenly, but she realised she didn’t really mind. He was bound to have noticed this by now, so it was only a matter of time before he sent some indication of that. Either in the form of another letter, or just him coming home and them having a conversation about this.

It would probably be the latter, though, if she was honest.

Unless… A thought occurred to her.

She was going to write a letter of her own.

She let out a quiet giggle, he was so not gonna see this coming.

Pulling out a piece of her really special letter paper (the kind she only saved for really special occasions), she sighed, her mind already constructing and reconstructing the letter she was going to write. When she began writing, she realised why Zuko liked exchanging letters so much. It was much more special than she’d anticipated.

Maybe—hopefully—they’d make this a habit. She really loved this boy, didn’t she?

----

@/kvohru on twt & ao3!

[buckybarnesss]

Newer fans latching onto Theo is, like, kind of baffling to me, because the moment I saw him I was like, "This is a low-rent, generic version of season 1 Derek."

And that thought just never went away.

Admittedly, I don't like any of the new characters except for Liam (even though he is just Jackson-lite.) Mason is Diet Danny. Hayden, the white boys I can't remember (there are like three or four characters I could not pick out of a line-up if you put a gun to my fucking head), and Theo's pack are just... they're okay, but I have no opinions on them whatsoever.

I famously do not like Malia, and I'd rather watch Malia struggle with her homework than watch the baby wolves. To this day, I have not seen all of season 6A and my interest in 6B ends and begins with "Oh, Derek's back!!"

apparently it's a bit controversial to say theo was purposefully presented by the narrative to be a derek mirror.

derek's absence in season 5 is a vacuum. he was such a huge, significant part of the narrative that his absence is a black hole. like, there was a purpose to scott bringing derek up to stiles and for stiles's to get all gooey at seeing the initials DH at senior scribe.

it set up how stiles and scott are coping with derek's absence.

scott is trying but he didn't realize how much he learned from derek, how much he leaned on derek's knowledge and experience and how for granted he took derek's presence. which is realistic to their relationship.

stiles is straight up Not Dealing With It and it's Going Badly.

teen wolf loves, loves, loves to reference, reframe and repeat it's own narrative. the issue stiles and scott have with theo is exactly their whole difference of opinion about derek from s1-2 but in a shorter time frame.

theo is exactly what scott thought derek was early on: a lying, power hungry sister-killer. but scott was wrong about derek and in trying to course correct that error he is wrong about theo.

the other function theo performs narratively in season 5 is being a dark stiles mirror.

both stiles and scott in both season 5 and 6a are scared of change. they are scared of their relationships changing. their rapidly approaching adulthood is scary.

the nogitsune changed stiles and it's something neither scott or stiles have really confronted. theo is obsessed with void stiles and prods at that trauma for stiles while he presents himself as scott's long-lost bestie tapping into scott's fears about stiles and the longing for the friendship they had before all this started.

theo's doing a lot of things in season 5 tbh. he's got so many assignments lol.

theo's pack is just kind of there because for theo they were merely a means to an end. the only ones that mattered in the end were hayden and corey.

i do like corey when he's around and hayden was just wasted in my opinion.

(bonus: i once mentioned that liam and mason were jackson and danny but like three spaces to the left on the subreddit and people were very confused by that and i was like "....do other people not see this?" jeff notoriously keeps throwing spaghetti at the wall till it sticks)

[brineffxiv]

The Final Days have come to Thavnair.

Can you see this, Emet-Selch? Or are you simply remembering your own horror? What would you think, to know the Final Days have come again?

That tracks with what we've been led to expect the Final Days would bring.

Pardon me, I must scream now. This is the sin eaters all over again. Is it contagious like that too?

(Indeed, it turns out that it is, in fact, contagious. Except it's worse, because the monsters don't even have to touch you. They've just gotta give you the bad vibes)

You'd think this dungeon would remind me of Amaurot, and you'd be correct, but what it reminded me even more of was Holminster Switch. It had the same excellently immersive atmosphere of horror, but more than that, the setting was similar: running through a destroyed/burning village, watching former residents transform into abominations, a horrific fiend waiting at the end... The significant difference this time being that there were no survivors to save... Great dungeon. Can't recommend it enough. Hope I don't have to play it again any time soon.

And then I got it again for daily roulettes, oops.

Eugh. Gotta give it to you, game, you really know how to make things horrifying. This was a person.

Yeah, I gathered from your comments during the dungeon that there was something wrong with the monsters' aether. You fought quite well for not being able to see them.

How is that possible? If they're not made of aether... How do they even exist? Are they just empty, or made of something else instead?

What. What do you mean by that. You mean...?

Then, this isn't... This can't be simply stagnation of aether. The sin eaters, the Flood of light, that was stagnated aether. There's something more going on than just that. Right?

Motherfucker. That's. That's horrible. What the hell. Souls can just be... Destroyed? So not only do these poor people get turned into monsters... They don't even get their promised rest. There's no reincarnation, no becoming part of the star. All the people we just saw transformed, they're just. Gone.

Poor Vrtra. He loves his people so much. And now all this pain. First the tower, now this.

Ahewann urges Vrtra to reveal their secret and openly be the great leader he has been from the shadows this entire time.

But, Vrtra will not consider it. He believes that revealing himself will do naught but cause further confusion and chaos.

Vrtra and Estinien take to the skies to continue doing battle with the horde of beasts. The rest of us Scions will accompany Ahewann back to the capital to render what assistance we may.

Back in Radz-at-Han, the Scions split up into small groups to investigate the origins of the initial blasphemy. To my horror, it is revealed that the one who transformed into the monster was Khalzhal; the man who ran the consortium in which I first met Matsya.

Through talking to his neighbors and business associates we eventually piece together the story. Khalzahl had fallen on desperate times, but had just been contracted to transport a shipment of luxury fabrics. At the last moment, the deal fell through, and the despair and hopelessness this created seems to have been the trigger for his transformation. As well, people who became overcome with similar emotions also transformed: simply seeing the blasphemy was enough to trigger the change in others.

Which means that this could potentially start up anywhere, at any time, with no warning whatsoever.

...

And just as we're realizing this, shit hits the fan.

Ahewann has arrived and is trying to console a crowd of his people, one of whom is a grandmother worried about her grandson who had gone to Palaka's Stand.

Quite suddenly, Matsya arrives, asking for help, and bringing news that Palaka's Stand has been overrun by beasts.

The grandmother is overcome by her fear, and transforms.

...Setting off a chain reaction. Numerous people within the crowd begin changing, and we scramble to kill them fast enough, before it spreads further.

A young boy, running with his father, trips in front of a monster. He too transforms...

And is crushed beneath the foot of the beast, which advances upon his father, now paralyzed with fear.

Ahewann jumps in between the two, sword in hand...

But the beast picks him up.

As he meets my eyes and begs me to save his people, the blasphemy eats him.

Seven hells.

The man Ahewann died to save is beginning to lose it. He's going to change too. But then, G'raha is there. G'raha gets through to him.

G'raha is the goddamn Exarch and he takes charge and he is beautiful.

He delegates, he delivers orders. He is in control, and through his steady hand, restores calm and confidence. The beasts are being brought down.

I love this game for not forgetting that G'raha led an entire city through a century of crisis, and letting him use those skills when they're desperately needed. Goddamn, this was fantastic.

Thancred tells Alphinaud and Alisaie to accompany Matsya to Palaka's Stand, and render aid there, and G'raha bids me accompany them. We set off at a run.

[winwinwrites]

Love to get lost in you

Pariring: Enya (human Oc)/liminal spaces (backrooms)

Word count: 2.8k

Summary:

Enya and her life with a deep fascination with liminal spaces.

Notes: The main Character Enya (she/xe) can be read as any gender; is also Aplatonic, Aromantic and Asexual

Read on Ao3 || My Ao3 || Other Os/Or works

Creepypastas, horror stories, any and all kind of morbid stuff is nothing new to Enya, well teenage Enya that is. Xe was engrossed in all those fandoms, looking at all types of creepy and gory stuff which wouldn't let her sleep at night, not worrying what lasting effects it might have on her young and vulnerable not quite fully developed brain.

Though while scrolling an unhealthy amount of time through social media on a not so special day she stumbled onto something strange, something new which piqued her interest.

Enya doesn't remember exactly that many uneventful day to day activities, many hours spend on the internet gone from her memory just like that, but one, to any onlooker seeming insignificant, moment stands out clear as day, a day which shaped her in a way which impacted the way she lives today as an adult. Maybe not xis proudest moment, but it isn't a moment that she regrets. Would not trade anything in the world for it to have turned out another way for her.

The concept of liminal spaces, places in which someone seemingly slips into a realm beyond any human understanding, for no rhyme or reason really, is not something new per say. On paper it actually sounds like something quite intimidating, a force to be reckoned with indeed. A higher power of pure coincidence which one could not argue with at all.

After all humans are used to everything existing, being and experiencing everything for a reason, or at least for the experience of said everything being real, comprehensible for a person, the lack of this certainty, of his unknown, strips us bare, tugs the carpet from under our shaky unaware feet, takes away the safety net of knowing 'why?'.

But the liminal could care less, doesn't care, in fact spits in everyone's faces laughing at our foolish facade of security, at the people who got glitched into it and the ones who breath out in relieve that they haven't been the next victim. In actuality it is not like it even enjoys it, people just feels like that, it feels like whoever is "chosen" gets to be sucked away from the comfort of reality into the greedy hands of the liminal void has a reason to be picked, but there is an even more cruel way for how it functions.

It is random.

There is no rhyme or reason why anyone should glitch into the in between, well maybe if one was someplace where it would be reminiscent of the backrooms for example one might have a higher chance to disappear, but other than that no one is safe ever and the inability to change that, to tip the cards in your favour is scary. The helplessness of it all, to just deal with the cards you have been given until you get dragged away from the game in the first place or you can just continue as always. It is weird to think about being somewhere where someone might have been taken from the earth mare moments ago.

Perhaps people feel more diminished in value because it is random, there is nothing that chose you for anything, nothing of significance which has led you up in the liminal spaces, it could have been the neighbour or someone completely unrelated to ones life and it would make no notable change whatsoever. Not being important or special enough.

But that is all that there is to it, it is just a concept. Something scary to share with people and move on to more mundane parts of life. It could have been that, Enya could have read through the post, maybe looked a bit into it and be done with it, not let its impact linger on xim, but it did.

The thrill of life was raised a bit that day, only a little bit by the paranoia of something like that actually happening to her, as fictional and unlikely as it seems, but that has stopped no one from fearing monsters of other scales. Just because something isn't real doesn't mean that the fear tied to it will magically disappear, maybe lessen, but it might remind there stubborn while one overthinks. Actually the most rational thing would be to accept that it isn't real and move on like always, but the fear of a 'what if...' would always linger and catch one off guard when one least expects it. This constant anxiety which crept up Enyas younger-self back and whispered uncertainties into her already overthinking mind.

Even though believing in the backrooms and the liminal spaces overall seems like something more than an intimidating concept at its core, Enya can't help but somehow still feel drawn to it after all those years, maybe even believe in its existence, even if it is just wishful thinking. That topic is still very dear to her after a good chunk of years. Interests shifted, just like she as a person changed, but that little thing of xis, she never managed to shake of her adoration for it all.

At this point Enyas believe could be regarded as conspiracy, but in the end xe would not be surprised if the government would be hiding the existence of liminal spaces for selfish gain or just to not cause an outbreak of panic within the common public. Covering up random unexplainable disappearances as just that, nothing abnormal, to soothe the average person. Though that is just a silly theory that she has made up. Though it is nice to think about it.

Like a fantasy she likes to pretend.

Though it isn't on xis mind constantly, just how one wouldn't always think about a shark attack, only while swimming in the ocean does the minuscule chance of it happening enter your thoughts; it is similarly with liminal spaces and being sucked into them for her. Most often when xe is somewhere where it reminds her of it does xe feel a strange pull.

Though the difference between those situation is that Enya likes to bask in the moment whenever it happens, if there is a chance to do so. Let xemself linger, take action via taking pictures of spaces which make her feel this nostalgic or eerie way. It was a habit xe developed soon after starting to follow a few liminal spaces accounts after finding out about it.

Maybe that is why Enya hasn't made the safest choices while going home on a few occasions, a little bit more than she would like to name, traversing through dark alleyways and so on, but still xe tries to be as cautious as possible. The feeling of an ever looming threat and this comfort which came from the familiarity of recognition calming xim whenever it is present, subduing her awareness, that's why she likes to not get too carried away with such risky encounters. Nothing bad has happened yet, but xe would like it to remain this way.

Of course dark and dangerous places weren't the only ones which Enya feels drawn to. Not all spaces make her feel the same, with a few years already engorssed into exploring different spaces she has learned a lot about xis prefrences. For example xe has come to realise that walking through empty neighbourhoods fill her with more dread than a snowy forest devoid of life does in a different way. Possibly due to how unusual it was to see a neighbourhood just so uncomfortably quiet. Still, that doesn't stop you from enjoying the high of the thrill.

In both spaces, those calming or intimidating moments xe likes to pretend that she is just traversing the world of liminality.

Which does feel silly at times, embarrassing really when she first used to actively seek out places reminiscent of the many pictures she has come to adore as a teen. But back then xe has been way more insecure about her likes and felt like everyone would judge her, no one would be friends with her and what not.

Now she is much more secure about herself, about xis likes and being as a person, realising that it doesn't matter what anyone does and that she doesn't need other people in xis life to enjoy it. In fact Enya enjoyed it most when she could just be alone most of the time, sure company here and there wasn't unwelcome, her family still was a blast to hang around with, but only in moderation, to a certain degree.

Enyas lack of deeper friendships made it easier to move from the city she has grew up in and lived in for all her life to somewhere more quieter. It is easier to find those moments of positive solitude while out in nature where no one pesters xim. In cities there are hardly ever times where xe is able to just take a stroll and find the place to be devoid of humans. Though the night time does provide her with it, xe wouldn't consider it safe enough to be intimidated by the state of the lack of humans presence only. There is a higher chance of someone lurking in the dark who is ready to do unspeakable things to xim, which scares you more and takes away from the liminal magical bubble xe would like to engross herself in.

Liminal spaces are scary, but humans have proven themselves to be able to be scarier sometimes.

Personally Enya has grown a bigger appreciation for the woods or other nature rich places more because of it, the loud hustle and bustle of the city was just not doing it for xim, makes you feel more disconnected with her interests. It feels like people that she doesn't know are third-wheeling her and that mysterious something from far away, but still not far enough.

Though xe will have to admit that corridors of different buildings do appeal to her, but there is only so many buildings xe can enter without having to pay first, like a hotel room for example. She only earns that much to sleep out that much.

Besides, Enya has got caught one to many times trying to take a picture of a hallway, just for a person to exit a room and look at her weirdly and with judgement, which is weird in her opinion, since they clearly didn't know what they were for.

Nature is just a judgement free zone.

In most cases anyway.

That is why Enya moved to a village, it has been a drastic change for some aspects of her life. Like the way to work being longer than usual, the public transport coming in more rare intervals than she is used to and that there was just generally more nature surrounding her. Though xe doesn't mind at all. All possible inconveniences which could possibly come up were nothing in comparison what she has gained in return.

For example there are plenty of empty fields, woods and mountainous areas nearby for xim to just bask in and live her fantasies out in full, without having to worry that someone might walk down the street every five seconds like in the city. This kind of chosen loneliness does bring a kind of peace with it which she slowly became accustomed too quickly to be considered healthy.

Enya doesn't mind interacting with people and people she has learned to consider acquaintances, but mostly xe thrives the most while alone in liminal spaces, even if it is just in her mind. Hobbies like writing, reading, drawing, photography have all found appeal to xim, because she can share them with the space xe so fondly spends her time with so much. Picnics and just spending her time sitting in clearings in the woods became just as natural as other parts of her routine. It doesn't have to be somewhere different each time, it is special no matter where the feeling of uncanny valley pulls her in.

Hours have been spent doing whatever Enya felt like doing that day just enjoying the looming presence which she can't put a finger on, but it feels familiar in a way. In those moments xe feels the most safe and protected. It seems silly really, but xe likes it, she likes to just exist in her little bubble, free from anything other than the presence of the unknown.

For now, since Enya moved, she lives alone, there is a possibility of her looking for a possible roommate again, but xe has noticed that it isn't for xim. Not that her past roommate, when she was still in collage wasn't lovely, quite the opposite, but she just prefers the peace and quiet that comes with not having one. Also the lack of judgement from coming home late at night or the amount of time, or the lack off, spend in the actual living quarters.

Besides she isn't really looking for friends all that much either, still. It is quite weird actually when it comes to her and friendships. Xe can't really recall a time where she was the first one to walk up to someone with the clear intention to garner a new friend since childhood, a kid just content with her own toys. Of course most people had other plans and did indeed plan on befriending xim some, on rare occasions, succeeding. It is not like she is going out of xis way to be unpleasant to people or god forbid rude, xe isn't; it is just that she really isn't going out of xis way to get friends. Now xe has a handful of people xe is comfortable with considering friends, which she enjoys to talk to every now and again, even meeting up with them for a fun game night or two.

Something similar is the case for Enya and romantic partners. People do display interest in xim sometimes, which flatters xim, but xe always manages to turn them down for a certain distressed which xe gets with the whole romantical display with another human. It simply isn't for xim, which there haven been statement about that which has made it easy to exclude certain people from xis life.

That realisation didn't come easy to Enya in the beginning, xe is mature to admit it that she didn't have everything figured out. It was a bumpy and not pretty road accepting the fact that xe will never experience romantic or sexual attraction to another human and that is A okay. Self hatred came, looking back on it embarassingly, easy back when she was still a teen with friendships and romantic relationships being engrained within society. Love is indeed a big driving factor for a lot of people, heck, xis love for liminal spaces led her to live in a lovely village xe has learned to adore to call home, but that love rarely translates well for her towards other humans, only reserved for some of your family and a couple of friends coming to mind, but those are rare exceptions in her life. But xe wouldn't want it any other way. Enya has learned to be okay.

But it isn't always cupcakes and rainbows.

The critique xe has got from some relatives and some past friends regarding her love life and xe seeming "apathetic" towards friendships in general soured some of xis, already small amount, past relationships and days to come. For those off hand comments that they made, which didn't even probably seem rude to them and more of a joke, hurt xim and left her selfconcious. Left feeling like xe was wrong for not being inclined to jump at any opportunity to just spew love all around herself via platonic or romantic affection. It is not because xe is unable to, it is just that she just doesn't feel the urge to do so.

Towards humans mostly that is.

Something harder to realise than that whole fiasco, was the fact that she actually had this love reserved for someone, or should xe say something other entirely.

It does seem easy, in movies and shows, books and many stories alike a declaration of love, to accept that one loves someone appears to be as easy as blinking, but reality and fiction in this case were nothing alike for xim. Especially when it comes to such an "unconventional" type of love. For something that can't actually be touched, for something that doesn't really exist.

Well that is not right either, because it exists to xim, exists in xis mind and heart.

No one could sooth quite like the infinite timeless space does. It is quite funny to her to see people change and morph it into something that it is not, a place filled with monsters and such, a mockery of its original devoid of life space, but there is nothing she could do about it other than think of those as just other versions which other people have come to adore, even when it differs so much to xis vision. From the beginning, from their meeting it was well known that this isn't only hers to have and xe is fine with that.

Enya will just enjoy her little life, in her little village, with something that she holds very dearly to xis heart.

[mythvoiced]

this time, the text from wendy comes in the middle of the day, though it's still being sent from lí chényǔ's phone.

[ text / 徐文哲 ]: winnie-gege ! its wendy on chenchen's phone. guess what !

[ text / 徐文哲 ]: it was "bring your hero to school day" and chenchen actually took a couple hrs off work to do a demo for my class. he wasnt gonna but then i cried and he felt guilty :(

[ text / 徐文哲 ]: look ! its chenchen ! [ tap to view video. ]

in the video, lí chényǔ wields a wooden staff as if it were an extension of himself; he leaps and spins effortlessly, dark hair tumbling into his eyes --- and even smiles briefly when a few of wendy's classmates squeal in awe as the staff swishes through in a graceful, controlled arc. at the end, the children and teachers alike erupt into applause, and lí chényǔ instantly turns tomato-red, holding up his hands as if he means to wave off any compliments, coupled with a shy and sweet, "aiya ... zhēn de ma ? shì ma ? bùxíng, bùxíng ... "

[ text / 徐文哲 ]: incase u wanted to see bc i know he doesnt show off much or at all, hes so shy lol. did u know he trained at shaolin temple before him and mama left china ??? im pretty sure he was there for awhile too. he doesnt talk about it much tho at least to me. but maybe for u he would ???

[ text / 徐文哲 ]: ok gotta go ! have a good day winnie-gege !

[ for wenzhe, from lí chényǔ / @xiianxias ! ]

@xinxiins | ending my life tbh

It's taking him far too long to start adding numbers again.

His last phone had seen its untimely demise at his own hands. He'd enjoyed the practice in a way human only does when it provides catharsis. Most modern phones don't break from falling alone, oh no. They need to be worked to shatter. You need to put in the effort, the belief, you need to have as much pent up something and everything as Wenzhe had and does, to truly make it unusable.

So he had.

Cathartic indeed.

But this... this is something else.

He doesn't know how to describe it. He's never been a man of words, after all, they stay as firmly lodged in his throat as they do in his mind. It's not an easy feat, describing all the different ways whatever lives inside him overwhelms him.

As he stares at his phone, lips parted around the bite from his crepe he's forgetting to take, he fails. He watches, and he fails. It builds up from within. It's warm and enough to make his chest rise. He's smiling before he can tell he is and feels creepy for it moments later.

No amount of trying to drag the corners of his lips back down helps, though, they keep twitching up, keep trying to lift themselves like a man climbing out of quicksand, over a fence, to run across a plain sea of sand and into his lover's arms.

He flinches at the first crack echoing through the room displayed on his phone screen, and laughs in pure delight. He flinches at that, too.

He crouches down on the floor, aborts the attempt to put his wrapped crepe on the ground a few more times before he finally connects with the reality that he should not abandon food he intends to eat on cement, but he'd so very much like to hold the device with both hands.

Drag it closer to his face.

Make it wider, maybe.

Is that creepy? Is he allowed? Is it okay? Especially considering the slight frown dragging his eyebrows together, all while having no significant impact on his smile whatsoever. He's trying to reconcile the Lí Chényǔ he knows with the one performing here.

They're the same, yet just different enough. The sight of him mirrors what Wenzhe hopes to see occasionally, something prouder than what Lí Chényǔ seemingly allows himself to be. There's pride to be had here, even beyond the video, which somehow Wenzhe replays a few more times before he realizes he should reply.

Lí Chényǔ has so many fucking reasons to be proud. His strength, his bravery, all the many things he shouldn't have to be proud of solely because their existence implies the cough, and the way his hand would fit so easily around his wrist, the dismissal and the sickly skin, the long hours and the bags - under eyes and on shoulders both.

But there is pride. He fights, he thrives, he wins even if the world keeps punishing him for it, even if the world says, good job, you made it out alive yet another day, why don't you do that again, so we can all feast upon the sight and feel better about ourselves?

Judge you from our golden thrones?

The crepe tastes stale, suddenly. He's lost his appetite.

But he watches and listens to the crack, and the video always ends on that same sheepish note, and it twists uncomfortably in Wenzhe's guts.

If Lí Chényǔ found out Wendy'd sent him this, would he instinctively wonder if Wenzhe liked it, or would he instinctively wonder if he found it odd?

Wenzhe doesn't flinch at the crack cracking through the room anymore, but he winces and smiles, grows cold and warm when his mother's tongue rolls off Lí Chényǔ's in notes of embarrassment of, 'gosh' and 'undeserving' and all the ways he thinks dying every day is all right because it's better than Wendy and Michael dying for a second only.

He hovers.

His thumb over the first few letters of his reply, his other hand over the bin. He can't throw the crepe away. It'll clank like coins on a golden throne.

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] thank you for sending me this, Wendy! i loved it, it looks amazing, your brother is very cool

What should he say? What should he ask?

Can I see more? Is it okay to ask? Does he miss it? Is it still home for him? How can I make it better?

But maybe for you he would?

Wenzhe sighs, warm and cold, full and empty. He's in so much trouble.

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] i'm gonna ask him about it. i want to know more. your brother is an incredible person. i know it's not my place to say this, but thank you for bringing him as your hero

He chews on his bottom lip, then on a minuscule bite of his crepe. If he's tearing up, and thinking about brushing some of those black strands out of his face, that's his own business.

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] sorry if i'm speaking out of line. thank you, though. really.

...

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] do you guys like crepes? they're french pastry. you can fill them with chocolate, strawberries, more flavors i don't know probably haha.

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] if you like them i'd like to treat you guys to some. maybe soon if you have time? or we could surprise your brother at his corner, what do you think? hope you're still getting this. have a lovely day.

...

[ text to | 😖😵‍💫🥺 ] thank you again

[berlinbabylon]

review of s4 (skip if you don’t want to read criticism)

SPOILER WARNING

so, i finished season 4 a couple of days ago and... i liked some parts of it and one episode was good (episode 8) but for the most part i really absolutely hated this season and i never thought i would say that. in my opinion, it actually got worse towards the end! i must be living in a different reality from everyone else.

i’m sorry. i really am. but i have to get this off my chest:

- charlotte double-wielding guns and shooting up those white hand idiots like she’s in a john woo movie? awesome! except... it was dumb af. this could have been so good, i’m a huge genre fan of this type of action, but not at the expense of a character’s intelligence. there was zero reason for her to barge in there when she did. at least make it seem like they’re just about to kill the good pathologist, have them string him up or whatever and she sees and has absolutely no alternative but to intervene. or have them conclude their meeting and start making for the door. please, i’m begging, just anything to make her desperate actions make sense.

- malu taking a shot for kiddie fiddler wendt? thanks, i fucking hate it. for that matter, i hate what they did to wendt’s character.

- for that matter, awesome lgbt+ rep or uhmm not. reinhold and fred don’t even get a kiss or any significant scene together (the couples date at the very end is cute but too little too late) although fred actually has a fairly important role to play this season. we never even really get to see them talk about his decision to work for that nazi paper. like, what. okay, fred quits at the end, good for him, but does this qualify as a character arc now?

- speaking of lgbt+ rep, them blowing up the esther/edgar/walter polycule only to have walter go “well whattaya gonna do. i loved him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” right as he croaks was the most ridiculous thing i’ve seen in a long while and didn’t land at all. i actually cackled. i can’t believe they turned the complex dynamic they had introduced in s3 into this clichéd jealousy mess that had no nuance whatsoever. i’m stunned people preferred their storyline this season. it didn’t track at all. neither did edgar showing up again (as i had predicted) and gereon believing him about wanting to broker peace in the underworld. el oh el.

- also edgar being like “oh btw we need to kill doktor schmidt, he’s an evil mastermind” was an absolutely ridiculous and lame way to try and advance that storyline. it also just got dumped in there and you don’t get any sense that it’s influencing gereon or his character actions at all. not that he has much of an arc or anything this season anyway but back when the show was still good (and by good i mean exceptional), his drug addiction and guilt complex was a major driving force behind much of what he did, how he behaved at work etc. here, in s4, you have to be grateful that they belatedly remember to send him to confession because he’s a catholic but that scene also just unceremoniously gets dumped in there. not to compare but since we have already seen an absolutely outstanding confession scene this tv season (in interview with the vampire, fabulously acted by jacob anderson), i couldn’t help but notice how the confession with gereon was neither written well, nor particularly acted well, nor integrated in its episode well, nor, in fact, scored well.

- max raabe’s ein tag wie gold is a bop but other than that, this season was not scored well and i say that as someone who owns the first two soundtrack releases on vinyl. there were many times when i noticed that something was off, where the music actively worked against the scene it was supposed to be enhancing. the song at the shabbat dinner was nice but as a jewish friend who i watched it with pointed out, them playing piano on shabbat is very sus, even if they’re a reform household. there was a woman with a wig which indicates (ultra) orthodox. not going to nitpick that scene any further though because the shabbat dinner and abe goldstein’s character in general were a highlight (although i loathed the storyline he was stuck in).

- tell me you don’t want to write actors out of the show without telling me. nyssen and helga have long overstayed their welcome. nyssen they could justify by having him pop up from time to time in connection to the rocket science “plot”. but he’s lars eidinger (who’s great), so. helga has just become whatever they needed her to be. anne marie’s actress had some extremely dodgy acting going on this season, sorry to say. i don’t even want to talk about the idiocy of how they wrote this storyline which could have been extremely good and important. i’ll just say that i laughed my ass off when anne marie clocked abe with her flute but generally it was not a good choice to play these kidnappings for laughs (and i guess these rich people just have no security whatsoever, even after the first kidnapping). there’s a time and a place and this storyline wasn’t it. but rich people, funny, or something. well, they are ridiculous.

- the whole story with the butler. talk about wasting screentime. his götz von berlichingen monologue was also really bad although i was delighted when i heard the verses. it just didn’t land. that goes for many scenes this season imo. i don’t know if it was the directing or what but even stuff that looks interesting on paper just does not come across well. it just comes across as ridiculous and manieriert. but not in the good way. (there is a way to do this well and the show used to walk that line very well. not anymore, it seems.)

- (side note: the frivolity of the movie industry provided the perfect pastiche for that sort of thing in s3. which is why i really vibe with it, as someone who’s a huge fan of 1930s movies. didn’t even mind that they relocated the apex of expressionism into the late 1920s when that’s very ahistorical. but anyway that’s a different topic.)

- actually as a last point on the nyssen storyline, abe goldstein shooting a hole in the ship instead of shooting anne marie in the head made me groan. it was so obviously written that way just to give her a chance to pop up later again. it made absolutely no sense, even if you try to handwave it as an attempt at poetic justice. neither did helga leaving her down there make any sense. she had no way of knowing that abe would kill her or make it seem like he killed her. at that point, helga still looked like she could think straight, she didn’t tumble around deliriously, she made a clear choice. and they just did it for the twist, not because it made sense for the character in that moment.

- the show was always very drunk on coincidences, twists of fate etc in that 19th century charles dickens / victor hugo way and i could dig that for the most part because they had this rich tapestry of social commentary going on. while i can still appreciate the breadth of society that they’re trying to show, it now comes across as shallow, there’s no immersion, i was extremely distanced from everything going on and couldn’t have cared less, which is a damn shame considering that this is where we should start feeling even more involved.

- as for one storyline that i couldn’t have cared less about: everything to do with toni. in fact, i think it would have been far more poignant if we hadn’t seen her for a season and hadn’t known what had become of her after running away and then when we least expect it, charlotte comes across her living on the streets, maybe while chasing a suspect or something. now that’s a coincidence i could buy. and such a scene would play like a gut punch. but they rob themselves of any dramatic impact by wanting to overexplain and overshow and being all pedagogical which is a huge problem in the writing of german tv shows and s4 of babylon berlin has started showing all the hallmarks of mediocre german tv and it makes me feel sick, considering how stylish and epic the previous seasons were.

- toni’s actress is not good. i’m sorry. i just have to say it. but also, they stuck her in a nothing storyline. moritz’ actor fares better but if they wanted to pair off the spares and get rid of them, they needed to do that in a way that would’ve left more screentime for the interesting and/or relevant stuff. like, uhm, everything to do with malu/litten/charlotte etc. it’s a damn crime that they didn’t do anything with lotte being fired from the police and then hired by litten. nothing. she gets to mope around at the bar a little bit and poor jacky gets to be her hapless sounding board (he deserves better, so many characters and actors in this cast deserve better). and then she gets to be gereon’s emotional support system. once again, charlotte is deprived of any and all agency and no, the double-wielding scene does not make up for it. the scenes in that haus sonneborn institution were well-shot, the horror film genre influence was clear, but unfortunately i don’t much care for horror films and i also, at that point, did not much care for toni or her friend or the pathologist (f*ck him for getting rudi killed in a very lame rip-off of stephan’s much superior exit) and we all knew lotte wasn’t going to die. that’s what i mean by immersiveness: where in previous seasons i’d have been on the edge of my seat with tension and dread, this didn’t elicit much emotion from me at all. except for the groan when lotte did her thing at the end there. the only good thing to come out of that was her conversation with gereon about her guilt which was the only time in the entire season where i believed a scene between them, emotionally, and was invested.

- i guess that, on the bright side, she got to be happy. i support that. even though i don’t believe it should have to come at the expense of the show being good. and she still had to go through that awful ordeal of the dance marathon. (one of the few memorable scenes of the season, at the very least.)

- random but i very much liked the actor playing oskar. and he was very much underutilized. really, don’t get me started on the entire debacle that was malu’s storyline. i think i’d rather have watched an entire season set on that zeppelin than what we ended up with.

- litten not even being in the finale should actually be considered a crime against humanity considering he’s literally the best character on the show at this point. for that matter, the trial against katelbach and the undermining of the legal system and the press should have been a much bigger arc and point. katelbach still being a comic relief character only used to bumble about not knowing whether he did propose to behnke or not is absolutely ridiculous. these are the characters we’ve come to know and care about and they were paid absolute dirt in s4. behnke’s best scene was the train heist and even that was not edited or scored well but hey, at least it was amusing and they did something with some sort of flair there.

- going back to lotte for a moment. i’m happy for the charlotte/gereon shippers that they got so much fucking out of them this season (to be crude, then again so is the show) but i can’t be the only one who thought they were awkward as all hell together. i never shipped them but i did always like their dynamic and i thought their kiss in s3 was magical. what they did with them here did absolutely nothing for me, i cringed when she visited him at the station and their idea of sexy talk in between kisses was discussing case-related work. none of it had the levity, flirtation or charm you’d see in a lubitsch film (one of the alleged inspos for this season) although liv lisa fries sold the hell out of her infatuated smiles and looks. volker bruch trying to smile was physically painful to me, however. sure, it could be charming that he’s an awkward turtle duck but considering everything we know about the bts issues, it really didn’t endear me any further. i dread having to watch them be awkward together in future seasons and i absolutely dread lotte’s only purpose being tied up in that. for that matter, how did she earn her badge back at the end? surely not with her double-wielding gun action? but it’s not like the show really cared to pursue this as a storyline or her as a character this season, so why should i care.

- the way they threw rukeli in there at the very end of the season was almost offensively bad. i was extremely excited for him to show up ever since they had insinuated that he’s her half-brother in s3. the actor here was fine (i wouldn’t count on him being accurately or sensitively cast bc german productions usually don’t do this, haven’t checked it, however) but you’re really going to do a whole season where boxing is at the very least on the periphery and you’re only going to throw him in at the end to make some sort of point? we didn’t even get to stay with him and lotte during their first meeting? we’re just supposed to believe they have some sort of relationship now after that camera shot panned out, showing them through the window of the café? i’m sorry but what?

- worst of all: them having him use chalk as white paint to mock the nazis in the audience to make a point. you can’t make a character we’ve barely even met the dramatic and emotional high point of the season. and i’m sorry but rukeli was a real person and in real life he was forced to present himself with bleached hair and white paint in an “aryanized” form, this was part of the abuse he suffered!!! it makes me absolutely mad to think about how they tried to turn this into some kind of empowerment thing here. nevermind that at this point in time, audiences were still overwhelmingly on his side and actually protested against fights being rigged against him. i just absolutely hate everything this scene chooses to be. i also hate how gereon walks up to that one guy who can command~ the crowd and we get a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, like, just 30 minutes earlier, to remind us that this is the guy he refused to shoot so they can defuse the situation in the dumbest most construed way possible. i feel like i’m losing my mind when i see people say that this is good writing. good writing would have involved audiences not needing a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, just because almost nothing in this season is giving anything resembling the appropriate weight and focus.

- speaking of which, the case of the season was so uninteresting and lame i even forgot to talk about it. and i still don’t have anything to say. except one thing: why did weintraub not immediately suspect that something was up with max (the henchman) when that car bomb went up killing the other henchman? because weintraub arrived in the car, went inside, came back outside and suddenly a bomb has been attached to his car in the meantime and max was standing there all the time? like, what?? this season is littered with this dumb shit and maybe it was prevalent in the other seasons as well and i just chose to overlook it because there was so much for me to love but i genuinely can’t believe five adults wrote this season and struggled so much with thinking any of it through. it feels like they just had little chess figures with pictures of the characters attached to them and tried moving them across a board.

- oh and one more thing about the flashback issue. böhm and his family being in that apartment at the very end was an absolutely ridiculous scene. his money issues were well-telegraphed, a little too well-telegraphed if you ask me, and his involvement in the shoot-up was already extremely obvious by the time his wife demands to know where he’s got his money from. that bit where he collapses against the wall and we get all these flashbacks to things an audience that’s half-way intelligent and half-way paying attention has already gotten long ago was just embarrassing for the show. the issue wasn’t just with the flashback, however, it was also with the way it was shot and edited. so many scenes this season really don’t land as intended. i feel bad for the actors because they’re doing their best and they’re also not at fault for this weird issue in german shows where they do really bad ADR (re-dubbing scenes when there were sound issues in the footage from set, it makes dialogue sound very unnatural and strange and the show always had this issue in certain scenes but in this season it’s amplified to the max, i almost couldn’t watch the edgar/gereon reunion because of the bad sound engineering). but woof that böhm family scene could have been a highlight but the way he creepily said something to the effect of them never being separated (probably telegraphing an eventual fate that we call “erweiterter suizid” in german where usually a man kills his family and then himself) and then the show just straight up cutting to the nyssen last will scene without giving any of it the time to sink in was absolutely comical. i’m sorry. but there are scenes this season that feel amateur and i don’t think you can blame it on covid when the editing is at issue.

- having said all of that, i was excited for gereon’s arc this season and imo they never did anything of note with him undercover in the SA. why not have him befriend stennes for real, become conflicted about what he’s trying to do (and, well, in fact him and the police president do want stennes to succeed so it wouldn’t even have been that outlandish). him talking to the police president about the mission at home while his very much indoctrinated nephew is in listening distance was so so dumb omg.

- the stennes putsch which i also was very much looking forward to was such a flop that fizzled out without any real spark. his confrontation with wendt was lame af. the actor is awesome, his interactions with wendt in s3 were intriguing and this what it all leads up to? gdi. i can’t believe they wasted so much time on that homophobic blackmail material plot when it was never even picked up again after it got stennes out of prison. he never should have gone to prison before the putsch, he already had his conflict with wendt from last season, they could have saved so much time on this and dedicated it to something actually interesting. and if you actually want to get into the messiness of homophobia and homosexuality in the SA, röhm and all, you better be prepared to bring on figures like magnus hirschfeld (it’s honestly ridiculous he hasn’t even been referenced on the show yet because he was super famous in berlin and germany in general and also a favorite target of the nazis). reference the harden-eulenburg affair. do something with this. not just have wendt buggering a kid in a park. i like that gräf was quietly pissed at gereon about the whole thing but this should never have been a storyline in the way it was implemented.

- it really ruined wendt on top of things. not that it made him worse as a person because he was already bad before (though lbr it did make him worse ofc) but it made him a whole lot more uninteresting as a villain (he only seemed to find his groove back in the last two episodes). the interesting part of his dynamic with malu in s3 was the intellectual clash of ideologies. while i did not and do not ship them, i was very intrigued to see where they would take that in s4. well, i have my answer. they skipped any and all interesting and relevant development and turned it into an extremely clichéd and lame honey trap plot because we all know communists loved honey traps. groan. (yes, i watched the americans.) also, rilke is my favourite poet and has been for many many years and wendt needs to keep his words out of his damn mouth. i can’t believe they revealed that wendt used to sexually abuse underaged boys and still wanted us to think that his relationship with malu is in any way romantic, cute or intriguing?

- i was so rooting for doktor völcker to get him and then malu just had to take a bullet for him. bruh. just when i thought i couldn’t hate this season more. i know i already mentioned it but still. at least she didn’t die from it, small blessings, but her getting shot straight through the chest and then being back to spy shenanigans on the zeppelin not much later was just the height of ridiculousness. i always hated the train confrontation between gereon and bruno and it seems that the show is very very determined to evermore move towards that pulpy comic book-y version of the show that i can barely tolerate in order to get to the good stuff. but when there’s barely any good stuff to get to, it gets tough.

- do i even want to talk about edgar? him taking the kids away from esther was lame. anything to do with esther was lame. i can’t even muster more to say and edgar/gereon was one of my absolute favourite dynamics in s1/2 so i should’ve been overjoyed to see it make a return here. but, in the eternal words of the matrix: not like this.

- finally, doktor schmidt, eh? well. where to begin. first of all, jens harzer is one of the best living german actors, he’s phenomenal, and the fact that he still gets so little development is a fucking joke, frankly speaking. i might have liked his scene with alfred lying on the floor best. at least it was funny. his sessions with gereon were hamfisted in their analogies. his last scene with gereon also didn’t land, it was just groan-worthy. gereon repeating back his words just made it all the more obvious how much of their luster they have lost at this point. i can’t believe someone spoke schmidt’s platitudes in a serious way like some sort of cool mic drop when the “quelle der angst” stuff only works in that hypnotic evil drugged out therapy session way jens harzer says it. the cgi was also bad but that’s neither here nor there (there was a surprising number of badly lit and framed scenes in this season, idk if they changed cinematographers but even the staple shot of following a centered gereon with his hat around became extremely overused). the thing is that i’ve long been convinced that doktor schmidt isn’t actually anno / gereon’s brother, so i should be happy that he seems to be finally be revealed as a svengali type which i also find very fitting for the movies and culture the show references as well as the history it tries to reflect (in fact, this season was as thematically rich as ever, with many metaphors and analogies for the rise of evil etc etc but what good is that if it’s all pedagogical and the actual character writing is either non-existent or utter bullshit?). they’ve dragged this out for too long now. they also, and this might be the worst offense, have completely lost the connection gereon is supposed to have to this plot. nevermind helga or moritz. have doktor schmidt be a svengali figure, fine, love that, i vibe with it, but that doesn’t mean this plot should have no advancement. it really feels like they treaded water for as long as they could because they only had a very vague idea of where they wanted to go with this and still needed to figure out the details. well, hire some fucking writers (and by that i don’t mean hire your wife, like one of the director/writers did for s4).

- i’ve really come to loathe this very german tradition of producers, directors and others thinking they can write scripts themselves and that there are barely any decent writers around who are just that, writers. we have some that are barely okay but the structural issues of underpayment etc ensure that the talent that exists can’t turn this into a job. instead you really just have nepotism and all those people who think they can write but where the wheels eventually come off. now i’ve loved babylon berlin for a very long time, i’ve been there since the beginning, i’ve actually been there since the first press announcement (the show spent a lot of time in production hell before s1/2 saw the light of day, the budget kept ballooning etc). and i will say that i think the first three seasons featured some of the best that german tv has to offer. (s3 slightly less so but it was still entertaining and i think they did a really good job introducing a number of great characters like malu and litten in it, plus sabin tambrea is always fun!) but i must now question whether i was not more so taken in by the direction, the music, the style, and some very expertly shot and executed scenes that the show either cannot or does not want to afford anymore. the type of scenes that are needed to let the wild and often nonsensical plotting breathe and give the characters a chance to shine, to give all of it depth and resonance. i’m really so profoundly sad by the direction this show’s quality has taken and i have no idea whether it’s because one of the directors did more this season than the others, whether it was because of the new writers (i hope not). whatever happened, they had enough prep time and this just ain’t it.

- last point: i know how annoying it is when a show that you love gets hated on by others, so this is the last thing i’ll say about that. but i really needed to get this off my chest because i’ve been loving the show for a very long time, i’ve been investing a lot of time (not so much in recent years but before that) into spreading the word, at least here on tumblr and irl where i got several people into the show who all disliked s4 as well btw, i loved making gifs (which is also why i’d say i have a very good eye for the cinematography and style of the show and all the finer details but gif-making isn’t a real credential ofc lol). and i’m usually quite chill about stuff, i’m neither a super stan even when i love something (which is also why i didn’t watch it first thing it came out) nor am i a hater when i don’t like something but a case like this, where i genuinely loved something and it turns sour, that hurts, man. i’ll probably watch the next season - if there’s a next season! - because i still hold out hope that it might be better, i think it’s an important history to tell and the show had everything set up in order to tell it. there are two gif sets i want to make of this season (which is also always a good gauge for me to tell how i feel about something, and even those sets aren’t sets i absolutely want to do but i’ll do them nonetheless at some point; probably). after that i don’t think i will use this blog much anymore but i’ll keep it online for as long as tumblr is online because i always find it annoying when other people delete their stuff.

so long und auf wiedersehen!

[spacemission13]

Laika Starr Doc

This is a (wip!) doc I made awhile ago dedicated to the development of my comic. Please give it a peek when you can!

DOC

~~~~~~~~

Preview:

One aspect of his [Marley’s] story I kind of touched on but never really delved into is the importance of motherhood and what it can mean to different people.

In Marley’s case specifically, his mother passed the day he was born and his father labeled him a curse for it. Growing up – and even into his adulthood – Marley puts his mother on a pedestal and dreams about the kind of person she was, and the kind of mother she could have been, had she survived .... He is convinced her death is the root of all of his problems / flaws; that having a mother around would magically make his life and person better.

Marley views motherhood as something up to par with godliness, which is why he earns the subtle white markings throughout his teens [when he spends most of his time thinking about her]. His white fur represents motherhood just as it represents holiness [1], because to him they are equal and in the same

It's kind of interesting, too, when you really delve into Hush’s part in his story. I developed Hush specifically to replicate the same warmth, love, and comfort motherhood is often associated with – and, well – if you really wanted to delve into Hush's religious symbolism and the frequent association they often have with motherhood this discussion could go a little deeper.

They take care of Marley when he's on the brink of death, where he's so out of it he's entirely convinced Hush is his actual mother. When he survives the whole ordeal, he grows additional white fur, both because of his time spent around a holy being AND his lifelong worship of motherhood.

~~~~~~~~

[additional ramble] … I've been working on the symbolism in his [Marley’s] story some more, and I've added some more to it. 

I think his fur changes over time. When Marley is a young child he has majority black fur, kind of representing his poor childhood experiences [and inherent negative view of the world]. Growing up Marley is pretty pessimistic and a bit of a menace; he doesn't have parents and has to fend for himself which doesn't help whatsoever. In general, he has a very "survival of the fittest" way of living life. SUPER selfish, will kick a grandma for a good meal. 

But he does have a few white markings – that little bit of good within himself, that tiny bit of humanity.

When he gets older Marley meets Hush – even if only briefly – after he joins in on the war and loses his eye [2]. His plane is shot down and he's left stranded but not alone. He doesn't know this person nor where they came from, but he feels safe and relaxed, so accepts their company. 

Kind of a silly fact [that makes way more sense in the actual plot], but Hush's gentle comforting nature really reminds Marley of his mother, not explicitly in a "wow this person looks like my mom" way but mostly a "I am remembering all these moments spent with her that my brain had locked away" kind of way. Motherhood in of itself had its own symbolism in the story.

After this encounter Marley walks away with a LOT more white fur. 50/50. Beforehand Marley had hardly experienced any sort of love or safety, rendering him pretty bitter and hateful towards the world, but Hush's brief moments of care provided a significant [positive] impact on him + his worldview. While I don't think it massively changes who he is as an individual, in terms of personality, for certain the way he thinks and perceives his future.

Still, the circumstances surrounding Marley’s unfortunate life manage to drive him mad, and after merging himself with the universe itself [3], his fur becomes completely white. Not necessarily because he is good, or because he has changed for the better, but because he has become an all-powerful being on-par with Hush or Halo. 

Out of madness and grief Marley tries to alter the world in a way that suits his wants and dreams, but instead is forced to face the reality of his actions and the harm he has brought upon others - his entire life and every action has been fueled by nothing but suffering, selfishness, and the desire to inflict hurt and seek revenge.

Marley's white fur does not represent purity of holiness. In reality it is black as the night – a reflection of humanity's worst -- but bleached white. It is a facade. None of it is real, right down to his own perspective of reality. I guess it perfectly mirrors how Marley views himself... He is awful and cruel, but continuously portrays himself as the victim of every given situation, completely unaware of the truth at hand.

~~~~~~~~

ex. His time spent with Hush making the markings bigger ; his fur bleaching pure white when he literally becomes a god.

Laikas war-time injury was originally eye related - the change is super recent!

Merging himself with the universe renders him a ‘God’ of sorts, as in this story, the universe is ‘God’; while not necessarily a person, or entirely sentient, it controls everything.

[tonysaintborgi]

Genuinely I'm so surprised how annoyed I am by seeing the European dance memes. I saw it for the first time less than 12 hours ago how is it possibly overdone already?!

It's literally vanilla extract all over again

it's literally going so quick I didn't get a chance to be annoyed?? which is a new speed record. i went from going "that's mildly clever yeah" and then i scrolled down and like two posts later was one of those kind of "jokes" you see tumblr users make when the source has been drained of humor but people still wanna be making jokes and getting notes about it like. like. how do you guys do it. how has the meme life cycle become so accelerated that within 15 minutes of seeing the funny thing I'm running into multiple posts that absolutely lack a punchline beyond being a reference to it. and i know my own posts suck; glass houses and all that, the most i should throw is aquarium gravel, but like... damn yeah

I'm praying to god something significant to the zeitgeist happens very soon lest we be subjected to this meme for the next two weeks. like mitchy m baby please die of chronic racism poisoning or something so we can move on and I don't need to spend the next two weeks scrolling past non-jokes because unlike It's Me The PS5 or Vanilla Extract or It Was A Gougar you Know this meme is not going to be filterable whatsoever lmao

edit: and the worst part is I'm not even annoyed! i really ain't! I'm more flabbergasted that meme acceleration has picked up SO MUCH that a meme is basically dead on arrival these days! because back in my day we would take pictures of cats in the middle of jumping and title it INVISIBLE (object) and that joke lasted us years

[aardvark-123]

~Excessively Twee Macbeth Headcanons~

Macbeth had an unfortunate weakness for bad decisions. There were many times when he'd stay up too late or drink too much, thinking to himself "I shouldn't be doing this" all the while, but decidedly Not Stopping until the sun rose or he passed out. He had a big appetite too, especially for haggis and pie. Sometimes it seemed like no amount of food could satisfy him.

When they were children, the Weird Sisters loved playing together in the Devil's back garden. They made mud pies and daisy chains, caught frogs, danced and sang nursery rhymes, cursed other children who'd been mean to them, tortured people with poppet dolls, and so on. They've always been close and taken good care of each other.

Banquo was an upstanding, strait-laced chap who, despite being a brilliant warrior, took no pleasure in violence. His one significant vice was buying too many clothes and dressing up Fleance as a lovely little gentleman. For the most part he set Fleance a good example of healthy masculinity and raised him well, but the fancy clothes were always a bugbear.

Lady Macbeth hated to second-guess herself and hated being wrong even more. Sometimes she wouldn't even first-guess herself. She talked her husband (Macbeth) into having the castle painted dark purple with glow-in-the-dark stars, and it was only when she saw it from a distance that she realised it was hideous. She then acted as if having it painted grey again was her own original idea.

Lord and Lady Macbeth had a way of amplifying and feeding off each other's bad decisions while finding each other painfully sexy, and that was usually enough to smooth over their disagreements.

The porter was Susano-o no Mikoto, who was just there for the drama.

Malcolm and Donalbain weren't really noticed during their teenage years, which worked to their advantage. They were both good listeners, learning a lot about courtly life while they sat at their father's table, and they talked often about politics and their fellow noblemen at night.

As a king, Macbeth was tough but hopeless. On good days, he demanded loyalty from his court and ordered brutal attacks on Scotland's enemies, but couldn't be bothered with the actual management of the country. On bad days he argued with ghosts and didn't get any politics done whatsoever.

Macduff was kind of a warrior-poet, not easily stirred to action but terrifying when roused. The murder of his wife and children broke his heart and turned him into the Thanedom of Fife's official Macbeth Killer. He later came to see Donalbain and Malcolm as something like his sons, but life would never go back to the way it was.

Lady Macduff and her witty son, we barely knew. Lord Macduff never forgave himself for leaving them unprotected.

Lady Macbeth disguised herself sometimes as a man. She'd wear a false beard, speak in a deep voice, get drunk and fight the servants, but it never felt quite right. She wished she could be more, but more of what she couldn't say. So she bought platform boots and kilts embroidered with spider's webs, listened to sad music, and tried to pretend everything was fine.

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Yellowjackets episode 2.04 "Old Wounds"

Title sequences are so important. If it’s a good one, you shouldn’t have to look any further to get a sense of what the show is ‘about’, in the philosophical sense of the word. I’ve been so impressed with the Yellowjackets title sequence from the beginning, so when they played a different version of the theme song for this episode only, I knew there was a reason. The title sequence is off-putting, jarring, and jumping through time in every way possible from frame sizes to character ages- a fast paced dose of the overarching tone of the show. They really put a lot of work into it, so throwing in a new version of the theme song is certainly deliberate. And doing it for just one episode doesn’t mark the beginning of a new direction in the story, as I thought before watching the next episode; it means this one in particular is significant.

So what’s so special about this episode? I would argue that the confirmation of there being ‘something’ in those woods came and went in season one when pilot Laura Lee exploded moments after takeoff. Leonard the teddy bear ignited for no reason whatsoever, and that explosion is the first major event with no real logical explanation. While that was a blow, and things have certainly been pretty eerie since the shrooms doomcoming party, I think the events of this episode are the real turning point in the Yellowjackets’ time in the wilderness.

Liv Hewson and Jasmin Savoy Brown in "Old Wounds". Image courtesy of Showtime.

A few things happen, but most loaded is Natalie and Lottie’s duel to bring home the most food. The survivors have created such an emotional division into two camps of logic vs spirituality, with Lottie being the fearless leader of the latter, but I don’t think the situation- or Lottie- is that cut and dry. Natalie’s biggest gripe with Lottie is her perception that she and Travis are the only ones providing for the group, but I have to say that both Laura Lee and Lottie are very spiritual people who don’t overlook physical needs and their physical solutions. Laura Lee wasn’t waiting for divine intervention to rescue them; she read a technical manual and learned how to fly a plane. I don’t know yet what all Lottie is getting herself into (and I don’t think she does either), but she’s only ever tried to enable the group’s vital, practical chores. When Natalie scoffs at her pre-hunting ritual, she replies “you’ve come back alive every time, haven’t you?”.

But, like most cult leaders I suppose, teenage Lottie has found herself some followers more insistent than she is herself, and she agrees to this head-to-head between her and Natalie. The two part ways in the woods, Nat with the gun, Lottie with a little knife to perform a blood sacrifice. As they press on, they both make some pretty crazy discoveries. I’ll start with Lottie’s: the plane we all watched explode in midair, intact right where they found it. She gets inside and opens a hatch, revealing a ladder down into a well-lit, clean, cozy restaurant. She descends and joins her friends, including Laura Lee, at a table, but soon she’s shivering again, covered in snow, soaking wet, and seemingly in another world from her friends despite sitting right next to them. Finally, it’s Laura Lee who tells her she needs to go, or she’ll freeze to death. She pushes Lottie, who falls backwards into the snow, where there is no evidence of her experience in sight. Not even the plane. Whole thing was a hypothermia-induced hallucination from the start.

Courtney Eaton in "Old Wounds". Image courtesy of Showtime.

Nat, meanwhile, has been much more productive. She found a moose frozen into the surface of the lake- the same moose she saw for an instant while out hunting the other day, confirming that she is in her right mind, then and now. She rushes back to the cabin to enlist help breaking the ice and pulling it out. Some people (ahem, Misty) aren’t pleased with Nat getting help in what was supposed to be a one-on-one competition, but everyone else instantly puts the contest aside, as I’m confident Lottie would herself. The group is great at teamwork, honestly, and they’re a well-oiled machine working to break the ice, tie ropes to the moose’s antlers, and heave in unison. Yet despite a truly great effort, they lose their grip and the moose sinks down to the unreachable depths of the lake. Nat is devastated, contest or no contest, just sobbing “we need it” over and over.

This is a really emotional moment, and a huge blow for the group emotionally and physically. This was the first glimmer of hope they’ve had in so long, and now the question still remains: what are they going to eat? I don’t know exactly how things are going to progress, but we all know where this show is going, right? I really think this event is going to be the turning point that sends things in that direction. The thing that really puts into perspective that they are out of options. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear Nat say at some point that none of the unspeakable things they did in those woods would have happened if they hadn’t dropped that moose.

After a demoralizing, empty handed return, the group returns to the cabin to find Lottie still isn’t back. Nat recovers in a warm bath while team Lottie goes looking for her. When they stumble back in, Lottie barely conscious, Nat jumps out and helps Lottie into the tub. The two hold hands, no hard feelings. The group has made them the symbols of two very different philosophies, but really, Nat and Lottie are both pro survival. They just have different skills.

The results of this competition seem to suggest that Nat, and everything she’s come to represent, are correct. The woods made a fool of Lottie, and even though they both came back empty handed I don’t think anyone can disagree that Nat came out on top. The pair’s present-day storyline also plays a big role in this episode, and I think the timelines really come together well to take us a solid step forward towards understanding what’s going on in the wilderness.

Present-day Natalie has found the cult of the purple people, and their leader Lottie. Clearly some bad blood has formed between the two of them since their good-natured competition because Nat is hell bent on exposing Lottie’s cult. But so far, Lottie seems bulletproof. Her followers know what they’re getting themselves into and honestly Lottie is so likable that I find myself rooting for her even though I’m sure the rest of the gang’s skepticism of her will be warranted in due time. A lot goes on within the cult in this episode, but the really significant part comes at the very end. Lottie is outside in the dark alone, slicing her hand open and dripping blood into an altar, just like she did in the woods, but this time she’s saying, “please let this be enough”.

Teenage Lottie has no idea what she’s praying to, and the events of their hunting competition suggest that the answer might be nothing. But this present-day development sheds a new light on those events: there is something in the woods, but it is not a friend.

But Van and Taissa already knew that. Taissa is staunchly team Natalie- I’d say because she doesn’t want to acknowledge what she already knows deep down- but she indulges Van by attending Lottie’s little spiritual groups. On a personal note, Van is the best character, and I am thrilled to see her join the present-day timeline- played by Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose no less.

Lauren Ambrose in Yellowjackets. Image courtesy of Deadline.

I can’t ignore that major development, but while Taissa’s storyline is the most terrifying, it’s also maybe the least complex. The Leftovers comparisons abound with her character- the practical, good-natured bystander who’s been chosen by a force against their will and beyond their understanding. And the fallout gets worse the longer they ignore it.

So, after hiding from her nighttime escapades that have already left her son terrified of her, adult Taissa wakes up in her car with no gas and no cell phone battery. She deduces her alter ego’s destination and hitchhikes to Van’s place- something that will surely be reaching the press very soon. Whatever’s lying in the woods, Taissa will be the one really in the center of it. Her and Van’s discovery of Javi in the wilderness, in the exact spot that Van and Nighttime Taissa knew was significant, confirm that.

The really interesting thing about this show to me is that I really can’t figure out who to root for. Shauna, Natalie, and Taissa seem to be the heroes, but these ladies are all so nutty. Right now, we still have a lot to learn about what exactly goes down in these woods, but we have a pretty good idea and it’s safe to say that no one survived without getting their hands dirty.

But the best thing about this show is that literally anything goes! So what do you think is next for the Yellowjackets? Which characters are the kind of crazy you can get behind? What will become of poor coach Ben? And dare I even plant the seed that Shauna might eat her baby…

And I’ll end with a friendly reminder to support TV writers! The creators of Yellowjackets have closed the writer’s room for season 3 that had only just gotten started last week and are now picketing as I type. The Writer’s Guild strike means we might get an abridged season 3, as is the case for many current shows, but writers are getting shafted in this behemoth of an industry, and they’re fighting for the conditions that will let them both do their best work and live their best lives.

[storyhunter19]

The blood-moon [part-1]

A “blood moon” happens when Earth’s moon is in a total lunar eclipse. While it has no special astronomical significance, the view in the sky is striking as the usually whitish moon becomes red or ruddy-brown. There are so many beliefs and myths, legends about blood moon like “the blood moon prophecies.” There once lived people who believed that when the moon turns blood red, it is the end of the world. They believed it happens because the god is angry. Let’s add one more myth to this blood moon.

Long time ago, there used to be an island where some tribes lived. They didn’t have any connection with the outside world. They believed that the world is their island only. They believed there’s no other world beyond that island. Every newborn among them were forced to believe that. No one is allowed to even think otherwise. People there just lived their lives according to the rules and beliefs existed there. Their language, their names, life-style, everything was so unique and peerless from the world that we now see. [For the purpose of this story, name and language is made in English so that it may seem less weird.] The whole belief system that existed there revolves around the moon, especially the blood moon. The people there believed that in every blood moon they should sacrifice a girl who just hit the puberty as an oblation to the God, as the legend say, to make the God happy so that the red moon doesn’t become too much bloody as a blood moon. They believed that as a way to communicate and gladden to the God. Foolish people! But so are we. Up until a decade ago, the widows of the dead husbands used to be burned to death as in the name of “Sati”. So people believed that they will be reunited in the heavens. Even now people are getting killed in the name of religions, social position, complexion, and whatsoever. And we the civilized people are driven by hatred and all, even though the world has come so forward. So who are we to judge them? Religion was and is a problem. So let’s mind our own business and come back to the story.

One month prior to every blood-moon, all the females who hit puberty in that year will be called upon. There will be a special kind of ritual that takes place to decide who will be the next sacrificial lamb/human for the pleasing of god on the day of blood-moon. Along with this, the male children of five years old will be sent to the deep forest with the hunters and they’re not to return until they are of well trained by the hunting trainer. And they should reach the age of 18 by that time. 13 years of training and then they are allowed to return on the day after the blood moon and they will be married off immediately. It was all part of their beliefs. Anyone who opposes will not be spared. It is a great sin to go against the rules of the men, they believed. So everyone believed this rules of the men, no questions asked!

So there once was a guy who was born in that village. After all I’m telling this story in English so I’ll name him an English name. For the sake of the story, let’s call him Duke. At the age of five, he too was thrown out of that village. It was still the developing age for him and he was snatched away from his parents and his home along with many others. It was out of the grasp of a five year old like him to understand what’s going on in there, but still he got to understand something. That night when he was about to go in the woods with others to be trained as a hunter, his elder sister Eera was selected for something. She was standing in a row of so many other girls probably of her age. And then suddenly when the drums stopped and she was being praised by everyone and still she was not at all happy about it. Her face looked scared and sad. Her skin was pale. He was not sure what’s going on, but still he managed to understand that whatever is going on is not at all good for his sister. He was taken by the senior hunting students along with others to the woods before he could reach her. Still he kept staring at her as long as he could see her. And eventually she was nowhere to see. So the next day when the little Duke woke up he overheard some guys talking about his sister being selected as the next sacrifice to the god. He didn’t quite understand it, but the gist of it. And there he was sitting quietly near the ocean with so many other young new admissions taking bath there. Suddenly one child supposedly of same age group comes to him and asks him why sitting alone. Duke said he heard of something happening to his sister, still doesn’t know why? That guy talked to him and told him that his sister is going to die for the god. At first Duke didn’t believe him but deep inside he already knew. He had a question, why? But there was no acceptable answer. “It’s the rule of the men” was all the answer he got. The little guy introduced himself. His name was Keith. He also got into that jungle yesterday. He wants to become a first class hunter and return to his parents and make them proud. Marrying a beautiful girl is also on his list. Friends are the kind of people to whom we rely on when things are hard. That day even though he was taken away from his family and he got to know that his sister is about to die, he found himself comfort with making that Keith his friend.

About a month later he saw the belongings of his sister floating on the surface of ocean. It was not a nice view. Even though Keith tried to console him he was not ready to accept the fact that she was gone. He tried to get close to it, but he didn’t know swimming that much well in the first place. They were just starting to learn the basics of swimming, hunting, and all little by little. His attempt was all for nothing. Even before reaching halfway close to it, he started drowning. Hunters came running hearing the screams of Keith. Was it luck or not, we never know but still it was fortunate of him being alive. From that moment onwards the biggest fear of Duke was the ocean. Eventually he made his peace with swimming. But still he is afraid to go to the depths of the sea. Don’t get me wrong when I say ‘afraid’. He still can go to the lengths if he has company. But alone, not much guts he had. Throughout his training he learned to hunt, use of tools [like bow and arrow, stick, etc.], and much more. I am not getting deep into those parts, leaving all that to your imagination! Although, his life had its ups and downs. He was happy and had good moments at time, as well as sad and had bad times too. Instead of going to the logistics of it, why don’t I tell you the important parts?

[continued in the next part ]

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #217

　10 HOW’S

How did you get one of your scars? Surgery directly above my asscrack lmfao

How did you celebrate your last birthday? Uh... I don't remember everything, other than Girt came over and we went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner as a family.

How are you feeling at this moment? I'm okay. My stomach's sorta bothering me, but.

How did your night go last night? Fine. I've actually been having issues with random flares of panic when I'm lying down to sleep (I have NO idea why, and I'm not even panicking over something specific), but this didn't happen last night. I read for a long time.

How did you do in high school? Academically, excellent. I was a very good student that was especially recognized for my writing. But I was dealing with very bad depression and anxiety to the point I was often suicidal.

How did you get the shirt you’re wearing? Oh I have no idea. Realistically it was probably at Wal-Mart, likely during Halloweentime haha.

How often do you see your best friend? Usually once or twice a week.

How much money did you spend last month? Zero. I don't have any money whatsoever.

How old do you want to be when you get married? I don't have a specific age in mind, I think that's weird. I get married when I'm ready to get married.

How old will you be at your next birthday? 29. Yikes...

　9 WHAT’S

What is the most important part of your life? My mental health/improving it. Girt and being a good girlfriend, working towards building our own life.

What did you do last weekend? dude I don't remember, I don't remember what I did yesterday basically

What did you last cry over? My mom being a bitch.

What are you worried about? Finances. Not having a job.

What is your mother’s name? Donna.

What always makes you feel better when you’re upset? Nothing infallibly works like that.

What would you rather be doing? I'm fine right now, I guess.

What’s the most important thing you look for in a significant other? Compassion, understanding, patience, general kindness. I would never be able to date a largely politically right-wing person, like it just wouldn't work.

What did you have for breakfast? I had Krave cereal.

　8 HAVE YOU’S

Have you ever done something outrageously dumb? Who hasn't?????

Have you ever had sex on the beach? God no, this sounds so uncomfortable, even if the beach was empty. Sand??????? Everywhere????????

Have you ever been backstabbed by a friend? Colleen absolutely bad-mouthed me behind my back, and to my knowledge, that counts as backstabbing. I wouldn't be shocked if Sara ever did the same thing when we were considered friends the dozen times we tried to be friends.

Have you ever been out of the country? No, sadly.

Have you ever dated someone younger than you? Not much younger, but yes. Sara was two years younger than me.

Have you ever liked someone who already had somebody? Yup.

Have you ever been brokenhearted? Oh y'all know lmao

Have you ever read an entire book in one day? I think so.

　7 WHO’S

Who is the last person you saw? My mom.

Who is the last person that you texted? My mom.

Who called you last? Uh... I can't remember. That I actually answered, anyway.

Who is the last person you hung out with? Girt.

Who did you hug last? Girt.

Who is the last person that texted you? Mom.

Who was the last person you said “I love you” to? Girt.

　6 WHERE’S

Where does your best friend live? Here, in NC. I'm obviously not sharing his city.

Where is your favorite place to be? I mean it depends.

Where did you sleep last night? My bed.

Where did you last hang out? My sister's house for my niece's birthday party.

Where do/did you go to school? Here in NC. I'm still not sharing cities.

Where did you last adventure to? Raleigh's big Pride event.

　5 DO’S/DOES

Do you ever wish you were someone else? Not exactly, no. I just wish I was a better me.

Do you think anyone despises you? I know very well Sara does. Colleen probably doesn't care anymore, but maybe. She was always very hateful.

Do you like someone right now? I'm in love with someone.

Does the future scare you? It terrifies me.

Do you have any secret powers? Don't ask dumb questions on surveys where it doesn't make sense for me to remove questions lol

　4 WHY’S

Why are you best friends with your best friend(s)? Because he's been there for me more than anyone, other than obviously my mom. He cares genuinely about me and my progress and seems to sincerely enjoying talking to/being around me. He inspires me. He's absolutely hilarious and I appreciate that.

Why did your parents give you the name you have? I dunno, they liked it.

Why did you get a MySpace? Probably because my friends were getting it and it sounded fun.

Why are you doing this survey? I was bored and it's been a minute.

　3 IF’S

If you could have one super power what would it be? Healing.

If you could go back in time and change one thing, would you? Yes. There are multiple things I would change.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Blue Ridge Mountains here in NC, probably.

　2 WOULD-YOU-EVER’S

Would you ever shave your head to save someone you love? ... How would shaving my hair do that, though? I mean I WOULD in whatever situation this would work, but it's an impractical situation.

Would you ever get back together with any of your exes if they asked you? Hell no.

　LAST 1

Are you happy with how your life has turned out? Ultimately, no.

[brutalmasks]

🐷 +🐉?

hello, helloooo, my friend @divingdownthehole! thank you so much for the ask!! i really appreciate all of y'alls continued support of this account, honestly, and answering these always makes me happy. but i'm going to stop gushing now and start talking about the prompts you sent me LOL so, let's talk about what bunny mask's favorite animal is first. it may seem like it's cats because of just how much i talk about them on this account but i have to say... bunny mask's favorite animal actually is in her namesake, which would be the rabbit, or bunny. this is mostly due to them being a symbol of rebirth and good luck, as well as resourcefulness. though perhaps the most important meaning out of all three of those for bunny mask is rebirth. because they are often thought of to be symbolic of the moon, which was once thought to govern the cycles of life and death, they have a rather deep spiritual significance in some cultures; and bunny mask thinks it's important to be kind to yourself by giving yourself the opportunity for a new beginning if you feel alone, and / or lost, which kind of ties back into the rabbit being a symbol of rebirth.

especially considering that she was in that spot once herself where everything felt wrong and bunny mask felt as if, because she was stuck in the past of when man wasn't even roaming the earth, that she didn't belong among humans whatsoever. but she soon realized that the concept of ' deserving ' something was one that was only bringing her sorrow; so, she shed the belief that she is less worthy to walk the earth than everyone else, and allowed new people into her life as well as entirely new concepts of human culture which actually enriched her experience here far more than she ever could've guessed it would. and so... bunny mask believes that a lot about humanity is beautiful, along with it's world ( the earth ), and she wants to convince everyone she can that might be struggling that there is light at the end of the tunnel + you can start anew despite how intimidating it may seem at first.

now, as for her favorite mythical creature, i have to say that it's probably going to have to be the firebird. this is a creature in russian mythology that, like it's name suggests, looks like it consists of flames as it's feathers shimmer and glow like them. and because the firebird is regarded as a creature who may look intimidating at first, but is actually gentle and benevolent, since it often uses its powers to help those in need — bunny mask feels somewhat of a connection to it as a concept as she has been considered to be frightening by some people because of her claw-like fingers and her overall otherworldly aura, + her propensity to use violence as a way to enact justice on human's oppressors. but all she really wants to do is help people. though, it may or may not be in the best way. and due to the fact that is is a benevolent creature, it brings hope to humanity as a whole. which is exactly something that bunny mask wants to do.

and honestly, just the fact that it's a fiercely independent but also simultaneously good creature is so cool to bunny mask. plus, it is a very interesting part of russian folklore, in her opinion. it can also serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of greed after all and how you should be content with what you have... as those who have captured the firebird in the stories usually have a rather terrible fate befall them physically, as well as even morally sometimes. but anyhow, i think that about wraps up my answer to your questions for now. i hope you liked it and that you have a good rest of your day as well!