#enter the ocean

[juniper-clan]

VISION (2/3) (April 1701)

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[montereybayaquarium]

Take a dip beneath the waves 🌊 🦀 🐙

... and investigate interesting intricacies and interactions in the intertidal zone. From shore crabs and anemones to hermit crabs, red octopus, and coralline sculpins, we shore are ready for this tidepool party!

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[domirine]

gave the girlies some lingerie

[vongulli]

Some jojo ladies (and josuke!) 

[spectrumspace]

doggy

[whiskeyswifty]

Honestly, freedom felt like summer then, on the coast has gotta be of the most quintessential Taylor lines ever, I’m telling you. It’s a lesser used motif in Taylor’s songs but I’m so fascinated by her use of “the coast” and “the beach” as and how it has only really surfaced (lol) in her mid to late periods (so far). Both in the safe haven it represents to her on its own but also how it’s often a foil to “the ocean”, and how a commonly used metaphor really works beautifully in her hands and fleshes out her worldview. 

That line really cements this to me where she starts with a broad and abstract simile of “summer” but then zeroes in on what she meant by that by adding specifically “the coast.” Just flat out saying beaches make her feel free, which yes it’s an obvious but great choice to represent freedom. Beaches are seemingly endless when you’re on them, most of the time removed from the markers of modern society, and empty save sand and sky, unencumbered by even nature. And you can see that through line in a lot of her previous work more subtly as well. “Drinking on the beach with you all over me” on an album and song famously depicting her absconding with her lover to places where they’re safe from wandering eyes and free from having to perform what ever fronts they feel they have to put up. Snow on the Beach is an entire song that depicts the beach as this dreamy place of vulnerability, even if the song isn’t specifically set on a literal beach. It’s frequently invoked in the chorus, painting a vast sandy landscape blanketed in snow, as tranquil as the songs production and how peaceful she felt falling for someone at that time. In Gold Rush she does again set the scene on the coast, where “the coastal town we wandered round had never seen a love as pure as this” provides a quiet safe haven to once again feel free to love and express love. Depicting even towns along the coast as less traveled and free of pressure or expectations; places to aimlessly wander, endlessly if you wish. Even in TLGAD she uses it to portray freedom for characters outside of herself, with “The salt box house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis.” The beach provides a freedom and reprieve for Rebekah from the assumed suffocation of a city and all the social expectations that come with it. The beach is so clearly a source of unencumbered happiness for her because it's a place of physical remove, but it’s even better exemplified by how it specifically acts as a foil to the ocean in her work. 

She’s always depicting the ocean as a metaphorical place of helpless tumult and dark unknowns. How she is “out on waves being tossed” in evermore with the ocean as a place without mercy or “if your cascade ocean wave blues come” where it’s an unstoppable force of sadness and unrest. In both of those, people are also physically taken over by the will of the ocean, a depiction of life’s painful inevitabilities that she recognizes as such but feels helpless against. Even how she visually depicts her gripping to her piano in the Cardigan video as the ocean tosses her around with no land in sight. Sometimes she herself is the ocean, with “I’m like the water when your ship rolled in that night. Rough on the surface…” where she is as untamable and damaging as the ocean. She uses the ocean to recognize danger and uncertainty in others, like with “ocean blue eyes looking in mine. I feel like I might sink and drown and die” which is hyperbolic yes, but still. The ocean she sees in their eyes is not beautiful but all consuming and potentially emotionally fatal for her in how it will consume her. Or to recognize the fearlessness in someone like how her boy in Midnight Rain was “jumping off things in the ocean” which is a terrifying place for her, but here he comes off a steady and solid in his ability to jump into it for fun and it doesn’t take him. The ocean is always bigger than her, standing in for the power of letting go with “the battleships will sink beneath the waves” and also standing in for the great unknown of committing yourself to someone with “we were stupid to jump in the ocean separating us.” 

But most exciting to me is when these two metaphorical ideas of ocean and beach meet. “High tide came and brought you in” is a great one because here, she is safe on the shore, no longer putting herself at risk. But then, this great beast of the unknown brings her something; presumably something she wanted and potentially something good. But then “currents swept you out again” as the blue beast took it back. Unable to endure the thrashing ocean herself, she perches on the beach instead and waits. The beach in contrast to the active and churning ocean is a still place, a passive place. Freedom isn’t just an ability to hide from the world or a reprieve from the expectations of the world, but it can also be a reprieve from the expectations you put on yourself. Allowing yourself to rest and let come what may. The beach is also that for her, where she’s free from her own crushing thoughts and worries. Even when she herself is the ocean, thrashing about in her own mind, with “my waves meet your shore” she seeks the quiet and the serenity of the beach to soothe her and calm her. The soft expanse of sand to break her waves on and sink her foamy tide waters into. Control is one of the main things she seems to seek in all aspects of her life, in the way of control of her own story, her own personal space, her own agency, and the people around her in ensuring they won’t abandon her. In many ways, the ocean is outside herself in her use of it, but it’s always an extension of her, be it her fears of that loss of control or just fear of any unknown in life. It’s always a stand in for those parts of her in that way, her dark shadow swelling and swallowing everything whole if she lets it. The beach as her foil that becomes freedom from the grips and weight of the ocean, but also that first gasp of air knowing you are on land again, can find your footing again, solid ground. You can say she’s searching for that beach, that tranquil coast within herself to evade the trappings of the bottomless ocean within herself, but you could also say that in some cases, she is the ocean. Tired of her own restlessness and endless tumult, she’s forever searching for people in her life to be her shore, so she can finally rest on their warm sand, even for just a moment. I feel like that’s something everyone can relate to and is why it’s one of my favorite motifs in her work. 

[penofwildfire]

Had this idea kicking around my head for a while that Nya still feels the call of the sea sometimes, and it makes her really uncomfortable and anxious so when it gets bad (usually when she's otherwise upset) she's got a small piece of vengestone she'll toy with to block her powers and ground herself.

[anchovy]

“I wish the ___ fandom didn’t suck” Look at me. Every fandom sucks. Every single type of media that is large enough to form a fan base will have a negative side. You cannot let a set group of people that will exist under any content ever ruin something for you. Everyone sucks. Just watch the damn show and ignore everyone.

[whos-hotter-jjba]

[ask-the-cyclone]

noel, whats some juicy monique lore that you got

FINALLY! I’m so glad you asked mes amis! {my friends} I’ve been waiting for you all to ask about Monique! Give me a few and she can tell you herself

Well first off I don’t think they consider themselves the same person… it’s kind of like Moon Knight if you’ve seen that show

Yeah, Monique and Noel are two separate lives/personalities, basically

Bonjour! You ask about me? Pardon {forgive me}, for my Anglais {English} is terrible! But, I do live in France after all…

Anyway, I always have some kind of pastry, and Chocolat chaud {hot chocolate} for breakfast. Hmm, what else… ahhh, oui! {yes!}

I spend most of my money on new clothes (because of the red stains), and alcohol, and sometimes drugs.

Speaking of breakfast, I should call it more of a lunch, because of my… eccentric schedule

But eh-what does “juicy” mean?

It means something exciting or mysterious!

Ahh I see, well in that case… i have a modified pair of boots that fit a small knife in the heel, and… do not tell anyone, but I’ve been related to about douze {twelve} murders or disappearances in the last month… but that couldn’t possibly be causation, oui?

Uhh oui?? Sorrey, if I said it wrong!!

No problem, mon amour! I must go now, but sil-vous-plait, and if you have any more questions, please do ask! Au revoir! {Goodbye!}

(Disclaimer: yeah I know technically Monique is dead (by typhoid) but for this one I made her seem alive and well, for the sake of the question)

[outoftoucherlocksholmes]

(american roadside billboard voice) HEAVEN is REAL and it is IN FLORIDA

[morsmortish]

you remind me of being out on rough seas. the wooden floor of the boat creaks under your feet, reminding you just how much is at stake here. despite this, you're calm. you stare at the oncoming wave as it looms over you. expressionless. the ocean was always your home, you've just come to reclaim it.

how do i tag this #rab

[postcard-from-the-past]

Lava entering the ocean on Samoa

German vintage postcard

[riellegaming]

perhaps one of my least favorite things is when a game has two routes but you can tell which one was intended to be played

[introspectionera]

the post vacation blues literally SUCK lol