#bly manor ghosts

[myfakeplasticlove13]

You know I didn’t want to, have to haunt you, but what a ghostly scene

[hauntedbythenarrative]

It's not grief, one woman posted, it's more like a haunting.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Mike Flanagan//Our wives under the sea (2022), Julia Armfield

[willowgarlands]

Grief is the ghost of love...

"Most times, a ghost is a wish."

""I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that's all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn't matter. It’s the love that stays."

“I'm in the hallway again, I'm in the hallway. The radio's playing my favorite song. Leave the lights on. Keep talking. I'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice."

"you can’t take loved away. time and death and mistakes take people from you, but nothing and no one can take back that love... everything changes irreversibly with every second that passes, but nothing and no one can change the fact that i was loved and i loved back... you can’t take it away from me. i was loved. i was loved."

"At the root of every ghost, a yearning. A tug, in which a living person reaches so fervently toward something absent, that the absence becomes bodied. As anyone who has known loss understands full well, lack is not in fact, an absence at all. It is a presence. A person we love dies, or leaves, or changes, and a gap forms. It takes on their shape. Mimics their movement. Echoes their voice like a mockingbird. We feel this gap take up space, filling every place our lost one once was, and now isn’t. It reflects in mirrors. Flickers in candle flames. A phantom."

The Amazing Devil, Inkpot Gods//Jamie Anderson//Haunting of Hill House//twitter user @tothedeaths//Lang Leav, Memories//@boymartyr//Mike Flanagan//Xie Lei, Blow//Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd (tr. Christina MacSweeney)//Haunting of Hill House//Richard Silken, You Are Jeff//Henri Nouwen//Spiritfarer//@boymiffy & @petrichara//Amanda Lovelace, to drink coffee with a ghost//Max LL, What You Leave Behind//@nickyandmikey//The Newton Brothers//@wifegideonnav//Shannon Barry//GennaRose Nethercott, “A Ghost Is a Memory.” On Bodies, Belief, and the Places Ghost Stories Live

[marzipanandminutiae]

Apparently Mike Flanagan is working on an adaptation of Carrie, and everyone is saying things along the lines of "I know he's going to be the one to give us a book-accurate Carrie" and that's insane to me because a) he has never worked with any plus sized actors as far as I can remember and b) the closest he ever gets to book accuracy in anything is looking at the book once, maybe

Carrie is thin and conventionally attractive. but she's gay! not for Sue Snell, though; that would make too much thematic and narrative sense. she's gay for [throws dart at board] Donna Kellogg, a character who never appears in person in the book, and who is actively friends with the villain. This Makes Sense! Representation Win!

(although the one thing I will say re: Carrie's size is that the book does pull a But Not TOO Fat on her at one point, mentioning that "her body chemistry won't let her get past a certain size" or whatever. And some people who see her in her prom dress think she's pretty, which in the 1970s came with a weight limit even more than it does now. So she's not thin, for sure, but as written she's probably more average-sized than actually heavy)

[parksnark]

tragic dementia metaphor horror lesbians my beloved <3

[crem-briu-le]

«It's you. it's me. it's us.»

[fiestylittlebeetle]

Idea for a malware pre-trouble helix comic called "Home of the Lonely" that recaps his time from the start of his life through his abandonment.

Starts with Azmuth setting him up with his own home that other mechamorphs avoid, and has a lab and medical facility just for malware. And for a few years Azmuth does try to help him, and Malware is, receptive to him. Maybe even enjoys having the company since he has no peers

After a couple years, Gradually azmuth stops showing up, and when he does he's more distant and unengaged with Malware as a person, and makes him feel more like a problem

Gradually Azmuth's visits are replaced solely by a team of Galvan he left in charge of Malware, who exclusively view him as a problem child more then a person deserving of dignity, and when running tests or "helping" him mostly ignore his protests of discomfort saying "it's just part of the process"

Malware is constantly asking "When is azmuth coming back", and at first the Galvan reiterate the same tired "he's busy with something more urgent" and maybe malware actually tries to respect that at first, after all azmuth did tell him that a cure may take a very long time and he is a leader too after all

He messages azmuth almost every single day, sometimes to try to just talk, sometimes to try and tell him that his Galvan guardians have hurt him in some way, although azmuth does reply usually in an impersonal manner, he me also be ignored

After azmuth disappears he still asks when azmuth is going to return but now the answer is "he's gone and we don't know where too but probably somewhere important for something important" the Galvan are annoyed by the questions

Malware tries to contact azmuth more and goes completely unheard

Gradually the Galvan team stops spending time on malware. Seeing him as a lost cause, only offering more lief that keeps gradually failing. And Where at one point there was always a few around all day, gradually turns into only a couple once a day, to once a week, to a month, to a year, till none at all visit. (This covering a few hundred years)

Eventually malware is left alone to his own devices. He tries to contact Azmuth about his abandonment, nothing. He even tries to go get help from other mechamorphs and cannot even get them to talk to him like a person

He hermits himself away, rereads the same literature, over and over, tries to sooth his own pain. Message Azmuth nonstop. He ends up spending allot of time just sleeping his life away because he doesn't have anything to do, and no one to talk to. Roaming the labs, empty halls, and rooms of what once once a place of care for him now turned into a box shoved into Azmuth's metaphorical attic. Hoping above all else that someone will come for him.

He gets angry occasionally and destroys stuff out of frustration. He devours the tech left behind out of spite. Halls and walls covered in claw marks of frustration. And sleeping again.

(and if you're familiar with Bly Manor) He wakes, He walks, he sleeps.

Eventually when azmuth does return he gets a small spark of hope again, excitement even! Is it time? Will he see him again? Will he be fixed? He waits again. Weeks pass and he starts to become frustrated. Until he final FINALLY completely snaps and Trouble Helix happens.

[agentark]

a purely self indulgent whatever this is about a vibe I love

there's just something about an eerie town, a few old friends, a slowly building sense of dread, radio static, an outsider, I think we're being watched, remembering

oxenfree 🤝 the fernweh saga

Aelsa Trevelyan - The Fernweh Saga, Book 1 // The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms // Oxenfree - Night School Studio // Paramore - Figure 8 // Aelsa Trevelyan - The Fernweh Saga, Book 1 // Oxenfree - Night School Studio // Trocadero feat. Meredith Hagan - Contact Redux // unknown // Aelsa Trevelyan - The Fernweh Saga, Book 1

[marlocandeea]

Haunted Houses in Gothic Cinema, for Degenderate no.4

If every house is a character, then each one has its own identity, starting with its gender. My suggestion is that there are houses with a feminine tendency and houses with a masculine tendency, from architectural structure to character movements, down to the story’s meaning.

After watching Spencer at the Venice Film Festival, I thought: haunted house stories will never die. The biopic by P. Larraín on Lady Diana, half character study and half psychological drama, is filmed with a Shining aesthetic. And the combination works, for reasons that are almost anthropological. Wherever there is a building, an unconfessable secret, and a gallery of isolated characters, a haunted house story emerges naturally.

Judging by the success of American Horror Story, The Haunting, and reboots of cult classics like Picnic at Hanging Rock or The Turn of the Screw, pop culture today continues to embrace the gothic. Gothic is older than horror by at least a century; it's more than just a subgenre—it's a way of thinking. It's a distinctly Western sensitivity towards family, hierarchies, gender roles, and sexuality. The haunted house story, in particular, distills these conflicts to their smallest unit: the space where people cohabit.

A house lives in multiple dimensions. It is a space, of course, but it's also a time—the sum of the events that have occurred there, and the events possible within it. Space shapes action: if there is a staircase, it can be climbed or descended; if there is a door, it can be opened. If irregularities occur—such as a ghost passing through a wall—even the violation has a meaning inseparable from that of the rule itself.

The same duality applies to characters. A building can be "haunted," meaning bewitched, but a person can also be "haunted" by doubts, secrets, or guilt. Every house has its cast of residents with various intentions, sympathies, and antipathies, but if we widen the perspective, we realize that the house itself is a character—a radiograph of a personality full of conflicting instincts or a fractured, combative society. At the heart of the story, we often find a young woman who enters the house and eventually wants to escape. But what exactly is she escaping from?

It depends on the house. If every house is a character, then each one has its own identity, starting with its gender. My suggestion is, there are houses with a feminine tendency and houses with a masculine tendency, from architectural structure to character movements, down to the story’s meaning.

Feminine Houses A clear example of a feminine house in cinema is Argento's Suspiria. It is not a normal dwelling but a dance school, with minimal masculine presence. Authority is entirely feminine, and even the danger takes the face of a matriarch.

As the protagonist arrives, another girl is seen fleeing in the opposite direction. The main tension in feminine houses is outside-inside/inside-outside—a horizontal movement evoking a vortex, like the contractions of a womb. The secret to be revealed has a location within this space, and in feminine houses, it often lies in a double layer, a fourth dimension at the core of the building. Feminine monsters—typically witches, vamps, and other unsettling or cannibalistic figures—have their lair in the hidden heart of the house. The young woman's spiral journey to the antagonist’s den is the most famous sequence in the film, with a haunting synergy between the soundtrack and the labyrinthine journey of the protagonist as she (the celesta) weaves through the hostile walls of the house-hag (the bass sound, possibly a drone).

In feminine houses, the heroine encounters her own shadow—the oppressive shadow of the mother, the destructive potential in her femininity, even in relation to other women. The moral of these stories oscillates between responsibility and repression: defeating the monster means, depending on the case, accepting adulthood or renouncing personal agency. Failure in this test means withering away, never blossoming. Female ghosts are often depicted descending or ascending the stairs to the ground floor, forever drawn to the house's secret heart, unable to fully enter or exit.

Masculine Houses A sense of verticality, a high-low/low-high movement, characterizes masculine houses. Today, they might be skyscrapers or experimental projects hidden in the mountains (Ex Machina); once, they were monasteries, colleges, or palaces. The masculine house exists where private power overlaps with public and social power. Dracula's castle is perhaps the most famous example, the benevolent fairy tale king turned into a monster.

An anxiety over social, sexual and family hierarchies pervades these stories, mingling the fear and desire to defeat or be defeated. The dangerous secret lies in the lowest or highest point of the building because it’s a secret of power. In horror films, the most destructive hauntings, like demonic possessions, usually originate in the attic or basement.

The protagonist of these stories is often a young man dealing with a more powerful tyrant, struggling between the need to defeat him, the fear of becoming like him, and the ambiguity of their bond. When the protagonist is a young woman, the gothic veers towards the dark fairy tale and romance, revealing its ancient ancestor: Bluebeard. Just as Dracula bites at the neck, Bluebeard marries women only to slit their throats and hang their bodies in a forbidden room, indistinguishable from his other beautiful and precious possessions.

Queer Houses These aren't rules but themes to play with. When a film, series, or novel invents something new, it’s just another piece to add to the infinite puzzle. Gothic has a long queer tradition. The monster as a metaphor for irregular identities and desires is one of its richest tropes, and the blending of masculine and feminine elements is often used to provoke unexpected reactions of attraction and repulsion in the mainstream audience.

For this reason, most haunted houses, while tending more toward masculine or feminine, are ultimately always queer: only when the status quo is challenged can a story emerge. The house in Spencer, Sandringham House, is in many ways queer. Prince Charles is not entirely a Bluebeard, nor can the ambiguous Queen Elizabeth be considered a witch. We do not know to what extent Diana is being controlled or protected by maids, cooks, and butlers. Nor do we fully understand her relationship with her wardrobe maid, Maggie. What matters is that Diana can make her choice, as long as she accepts the consequences, and escape from imprisonment to freedom, from past to present, from the gothic to History, from the role of helpless girl to that of woman and mother.

References:

George Haggerty, Queer Gothic, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 2006. Anne Williams, Art of Darkness: A Poetics of the Gothic, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995. Dario Argento, Suspiria, Seda, Italy, 1977. Alex Garland, Ex Machina, DNA Films, United Kingdom, 2014. Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, Warner Bros, United States, United Kingdom, 1980. Pablo Larraín, Spencer, Komplizen Films, Fabula, Shoebox Films, Germany, Chile, United Kingdom, 2021. Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Australia Film Commission, McElroy & McElroy, Picnic Productions Pty, Ltd. EZ, Australia, 1975. Alexis Martin Woodall, Patrick McKee, Robert M. Williams Jr., Ned Martel, Lou Eyrich, Evan Peters, American Horror Story, 20th Television, United States, 2011-present. Dan Kaplow, Kathy Gilroy, The Haunting, Amblin Television, Paramount Television, Intrepid Pictures, United States, 2018-2020. Michael Rymer, Larysa Kondracki, Amanda Brotchie, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Freemantle Media Australia, 2018.

[polarprude]

actually I do not hate bly manor . reviews kept saying it was horrible

[novelconcepts]

I really don’t know if any ship will ever reach the emotional peak that is Dani and Jamie for me. I will forever be chasing the high of watching Bly for the first time and going, “Oh. Oh.”

[ghostbustermelanieking]

dani watching her poor wife sleep in a chair every night: jamie... jamie, baby... please sleep in a bed... i'll be right beside you i promise please go lie down for the sake of your SPINE

[randomcactaceae]

bly manor rewatch and I'm going back to fic writing (fr this time!!))

[gray-paladin]

I think I made the mistake of watching Haunting of Bly Manor during a windy storm and now I'm jumping at every single creak I hear. However Bly Manor is one of my favorite Flanagan works so it’s worth it.

[atopvisenyashill]

post gifs of your 10 favorite shows without the names, then tag some people

i was tagged by @riana-one im gonna tag @allyriadayne @comrademango @maegorsbignaturals @saltywinteradult @backjustforberena @aemondstark also if u see this and the spirit moves you go ahead and do it, feel free to tag me in it i love to binge watch a show

[horygory]

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)