#familiarity in spring

[maryhale1]

Happy Beltane Witches 😍

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Beltane is a Gaelic festival traditionally celebrated on May 1st.

It marks the beginning of summer and is associated with fertility, fire, and new beginnings.

It's a time to celebrate growth, abundance, and the coming together of communities.

Rituals often include lighting bonfires, dancing around maypoles, and feasting.

It's also considered a time for rituals to encourage fertility in crops, livestock, and people.

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[usermoon]

i'm not the type to run, i know that we're having fun but what's the rush? kissing, then my cheeks are so flushed

[thesorceresstemple]

[helyeahmangocheese]

in loving memory of alex fierro... I mean he was dead when I met him but... shit's just not the same without my hyperfixation on you, lil guy

[sohosaturn]

i really like the idea of springtrap containing a normal dude that was just unfortunate enough to die in the suit and rot in a room for 30 years

like in fnaf 3, he’s not trying to kill you, he’s just really confused and doesn’t know how to ask for help

[maybe-boys-do-love]

The On1y One and the Queer History of *Poetic Cinema*

Still thinking about the ending of The On1y One, because that last shot of the pitcher is a clear reference to one of the most discussed shots in cinema history. Just look up "Ozu vase" and you'll see a plethora of written and video essays speculating on the meaning of it. The Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu cut to it in the midst of a climactic conversation in the film Late Spring between a father and daughter about her arranged marriage. Nerdwriter, in one of their better video essays, does a solid run-down of the discourse.

The shot is used as one of the prime examples for Paul Schrader's absurdly significant theory of Transcendental Style in Film. This style is what non-cinephiles will refer to as what's boring, confusing, and pretentious about Art House movies, and they are boring, confusing, and pretentious--intentionally so! When you see the "Poetic Cinema" meme, it comes from the director Andrei Tarkovsky as he's talking about his idea of sculpting time in cinema which is akin to this.

In the video below, Schrader describes, "If you consistently withhold and now the viewer is leaning toward you, now you have to, in a certain moment, free them--do something unexpected."

Freedom, in these instances, is not achieved through the happy ending. It's a spiritual release achieved by breaking the rules and patterns of the established reality.

Not enough is written about the queerness of Ozu and his films (including the possible Boston marriage situation of his muse, Setsuko Hara). Luckily, the some solid pieces exist, and Ozu would be an awesome place for anyone interested in asexual queer practices in film to look at. He's often held up as a symbol of conservative Japan, but his stories about the familial pressures and anxieties of heterosexual marriage and his formal strategies that allow people, if not physical escape, at least spiritual release from the bounds of societal expectations are quite radical.

The On1y One evoked Ozu's spiritual resistance to condemning limits throughout its series and in its final image. The conservative culture of families, marriages, economics, and schooling had locked all these queer men into psychological cages that isolated them and caused them to neglect their own feelings and others. Without fast-forwarding time or writing a fantasy, how can the series free them? The poetry and human-less pillow shots throughout have clued us into an experience of the world bigger than oneself. That final image is the culmination, transcending tragedy, abandonment, and death for a much queerer dream of eternity.

[fr-familiar-bracket]

[youssefguedira]

wrote this instead of doing any of my actual tasks <3 tw for brief mention of animal death (by hunting)

Yusuf has been dreading this since the moment they left for Akkala. He had made as many excuses as he could to stay in Goron City for as long as he could, but every one had run out in the end, and he could no longer put off the inevitable. 

The first time he had walked this road, his father had accompanied him with a platoon of guards, still cautious, still reeling from the attack that had taken Yusuf's mother. The second time there had been fewer, but still many. 

In the years after that, the number of people sent with him had decreased even further until it was only two or three guards, enough to keep him safe. His father stopped accompanying him on these journeys after he turned fourteen and there had been no sign of their worth. 

Now, only Nicolò. 

He follows, keeping a respectful distance away from Yusuf, but closer than he had walked before they had gone to meet Nile, to ask for her help. He doesn't ever ask to stop, or to slow down, letting Yusuf set the pace. He keeps a hand on the hilt of his sword and does not speak. 

What is there to be said? Nicolò knows what lies at the end of this road, even if he does not know what it will mean for Yusuf. 

Yusuf can feel Nicolò's eyes on his back. It is bad enough that the whole kingdom knows he is a failure: he does not need Nicolò to watch him fail and say nothing. 

The sun is low, casting the landscape in burnt orange. It would be beautiful were it not so horribly familiar. There is a cabin nearby, and not far from it, the Spring. They will stay in the cabin tonight; they will leave for the Spring in the morning and spend three days there, then return to Goron City and after that, the castle. 

Yusuf thinks about returning, about his father's inevitable disappointment, and feels sick. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says, sounding uncertain. He is not yet used to calling Yusuf by his name. “We are not far, yes?” 

Yusuf had forgotten that Nicolò does not know every cursed inch of this road the way Yusuf does. “No, not far. In a moment you'll see the cabin.” 

Nicolò says nothing. Yusuf glances back just long enough to meet his eyes before looking away. 

What is Nicolò thinking? Yusuf can never tell. 

Yusuf catches sight of the cabin a moment later. Dread sits like a stone in his stomach. 

When they get closer, Nicolò takes hold of his elbow, gentle. It startles Yusuf all the same - he hadn't realised Nicolò was that close to him. 

“Let me go first,” Nicolò says. “To check. But stay close.” 

Yusuf nods, and lingers barely a handspan from Nicolò's back while he surveys first the outside, then the inside, of the cabin. Once he's satisfied, he gestures for Yusuf to enter. 

“You should rest,” he says, and he is being so gentle with Yusuf it almost hurts. Perhaps Andromache has told him what this will mean for him: she has accompanied him before. 

Yusuf shakes his head, because sleep means dreams, and dreams will be worse. “What are you going to do?” 

“I am going to find something for dinner,” Nicolò says. 

“Let me come with you,” Yusuf says. Anything is better than sitting in this cabin alone with his thoughts.

Nicolò looks at him for a long moment. Perhaps he takes pity on Yusuf, or perhaps he thinks that it will be easier to keep Yusuf safe if he stays with Nicolò. Either way, he nods. “All right.”

----------

Finding something for dinner means that Nicolò leads Yusuf a little way into the woods, far enough that the foliage and the dying sunlight makes it difficult to see, and bids him hide beneath a tree, in a space formed by the roots, while Nicolò crouches beside him with his bow, nocking an arrow in one smooth, seamless motion. From his vantage point, Yusuf can see a small clearing with a few fallen trees.

“Do not move,” Nicolò instructs him in a whisper, “and do not make a sound.”

Yusuf rests his head against the tree and watches the leaves move in the breeze. It is quiet enough that all he can hear is their rustling, the sounds of birds and animals calling to each other, the rushing of the stream nearby. After a moment, and with nothing else to watch, Yusuf begins to watch Nicolò. 

He has gone as still and as quiet as the trees around them, barely breathing, his shoulders rising and falling only slightly, like he has become a part of the forest. Faron Woods is much further south from here, but Yusuf supposes that this forest must be somewhat similar to where Nicolò grew up. He wonders who taught him to hunt; who taught him to be so comfortable in this place. Why he left it behind to travel to the castle and work for the king.

There are a lot of things Yusuf wonders about him. He cannot tell if Nicolò is aware of Yusuf’s watching; he must be. Still, Yusuf cannot help but watch.

It happens faster than Yusuf can track. Nicolò goes entirely still, and draws his bow swiftly, silently. Yusuf holds his breath and so does the forest.

Nicolò lets the arrow fly.

Yusuf doesn’t see whether it finds its mark, but Nicolò looks for a moment and then stands. “Wait here,” he says to Yusuf, and then heads for the clearing. When he returns he’s carrying something behind his back, the arrow in his other hand. Blood drips onto the grass. 

“You can wait inside while I prepare it, if you prefer,” Nicolò says haltingly. Yusuf shakes his head, and so he sits on a log outside while Nicolò skins the rabbit, arms wrapped around his knees and chin drawn up to his chest. Nicolò keeps his back to Yusuf, shielding most of it from view. 

Who taught him this? Yusuf wonders. It is a part of Nicolò he has never seen before.

When it is done, he takes it back inside to cook over the fire, and they eat it alongside the bread and cheese they brought from Goron City, across from each other at the cabin’s little table.

“When do you want to leave, tomorrow?” Nicolò asks softly. 

“I don’t,” Yusuf says before he can stop himself, and then adds, “I don’t know. Early, probably.” The thought bursts the little bubble he’s been in since they arrived. He doesn’t want to leave, could stay here for the three days they’ve been allocated and return to his father without even having tried and it would change nothing. 

“Just after sunrise, then,” Nicolò says. “It is not far, you said?”

Yusuf shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Not far.”

----------

The water is freezing.

It has always been freezing. But Yusuf knows well enough that if he stands in it for long enough, it will start to warm. It reaches to around halfway up his thigh; when he was younger, it felt deeper. 

The stone in front of him offers nothing. No sign, no indication that anything is listening to him except for the water and Nicolò, who has been standing at the gate of the Spring for however long he has been in here. Has he been listening? Has he heard Yusuf pleading for something, anything, dreading the moment he returns to the castle and his father looks down at his left hand and sees nothing there? 

What does Nicolò think of him now? If he did not see a failure before, does he see one now? 

His legs may be going numb. They tremble beneath him, struggling to hold his weight. How long has he been standing here? 

“Tell me what I am doing wrong,” he begs the stone. His voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else. “I know I am not the one you wanted, but I am trying. I am trying. I have given everything. I do not know how much more I have left.”

The stone says nothing.

Nicolò says, “Yusuf.”

Yusuf hears him without listening, falls to his knees in the water and does not even feel the chill. 

“Please,” he pleads. “I cannot return – I cannot give anymore.”

There is a splash behind him, and then there is Nicolò, pulling him to his feet, pulling him from the water. Yusuf tries to hold fast - he cannot leave now or it will have been three days in the Spring with nothing to show for it. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says again. His grip is gentle but unrelenting, and he is warm. Yusuf, shivering as he is, can’t help but lean into it. “You are exhausted. You are going to freeze. Come with me.”

“I can’t,” Yusuf says, even as he lets Nicolò take his weight, lets him guide Yusuf out of the Spring. “I can’t.”

There is a small paved area where their camp is set up. Nicolò has kept the fire going, or restarted it, while Yusuf was in there, and he half-carries Yusuf over to it now. Yusuf’s legs buckle under him the moment Nicolò lets him go, and he sinks onto something soft laid over the paving stones. He blinks, and there is a bowl in his hands, warming even if he does not really taste it. 

“It was never supposed to be me,” Yusuf says without really meaning to. 

From across the fire, Nicolò watches him.

“It was supposed to be my mother,” Yusuf whispers. The only sound between them is the crackling of the fire. Yusuf is so, so tired. He has never said this to anybody else, not even Andromache, but he cannot keep the words from rushing out of him now.

“It came to her when she was nineteen,” he says, “and that’s how they knew it would happen in her lifetime. So she trained, and she mastered it, and we were ready. And then she was killed, and because I was the oldest, it came to me.”

He does not like thinking about this. He has not thought about this in years. They do not speak of it anymore.

Nicolò is still watching him.

“I was asleep when it happened,” Yusuf continues. “I dreamt it as it happened, but I didn’t know until later. The moment she died, I woke up screaming. They told me afterwards that I was– I was glowing, bright enough that nobody could look at me for long or get close enough to see what was happening to me. They just had to wait until I came out of it. It felt like I was burning.” If he closes his eyes, he is there again, twelve years old and terrified.

“That’s how we know it should be me,” he says after a moment. “Who can do it. Because I did, once, but never again, despite all of this.” He waves at the Spring, the water, the stone. 

Exhaustion tugs at him. His eyes will not stay open, but he cannot let himself fall asleep, not yet.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he tells Nicolò. “There’s still time.” It cannot be late yet; the sun has gone down, but it is not quite dark. “Don’t let me.”

“You have to rest,” Nicolò says. It is the first thing he has said to Yusuf since he pulled him from the Spring, and Yusuf cannot tell what he is thinking. 

“I can’t fall asleep,” Yusuf insists.

“At least let yourself warm up first,” Nicolò says. There is a pile of dry clothes in his hands - where did he get them?

Nicolò convinces him to change and to sit back down, to rest a little while longer. This time he  steers Yusuf to sit down on his bedroll instead, and Yusuf’s grip on his arm goes tight.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he says again. 

“You cannot go on like this,” Nicolò says. “Sleep, and I will wake you in a few hours’ time.”

Yes, a few hours. That, Yusuf can afford. “Promise me,” Yusuf says, but his eyes are already closing unbidden. 

Nicolò says nothing.

----------

When Yusuf wakes, it is still dark outside, and there is a cloak that is not his own draped over him. Nicolò is crouched over the fire only a short distance away. He catches Yusuf’s eye, but doesn’t say a word.

It all comes crashing back at once: the water, the stone, Nicolò. Yusuf sits up.

“You didn’t wake me,” he says.

Nicolò watches him for a long moment. “You needed the rest,” he says finally. 

Suddenly his consideration stings. “That wasn’t your decision to make. What time is it?”

Nicolò glances at the sky. “It will be sunrise soon.”

Yusuf’s heart sinks. Sunrise means return, means return to the castle and his father with nothing. He gets up, pushes Nicolò’s cloak aside. “You should have woken me.”

Unexpectedly, Nicolò pushes back. “You would have only made yourself ill. You were barely conscious. I would not have done it if–” “That was not your decision to make,” Yusuf snaps. “I am not a child, Nicolò. I am capable of handling myself. I have lost hours.”

Nicolò does not say anything. Yusuf almost wishes he would keep pushing, but he does not. He simply folds himself back into the same blank expression he always carries, and again, Yusuf cannot read him.

“If the sun will rise soon, there is not much use in staying here for much longer,” Nicolò says eventually, quiet. He doesn’t meet Yusuf’s eyes. Guilt twists his stomach. 

Did Nicolò know? Did Andromache warn him? Or was he just worried?

Yusuf nods. 

They pack up their camp in silence, side by side. By the time they set off on the road back towards Goron City, the sun has risen, and the early light turns the world around them to gold.

Yusuf walks, and Nicolò follows behind him, as always.

[tswwwit]

Due to the nature of the Whump Sequel, it's unfortunate that I can't have a moment where a drugged-to-the-gills Dipper blearily compliments Bill. A thing where he doesn't recognize him and when Bill informs him they're married he goes 'oh shit..... wow '😳Cute moments like that just won't fit, sadly.

[mumblelard]

one hundred forty-four leagues as a crow sails or the diabolical scientist mystified

on tuesday, i found a krewe of caesar doubloon half-buried in the mud on the banks of the chattahoochee river, a place forty years and five hundred miles from its home, but time has been so slippery lately, maybe space is getting in on the fun too

[lemonycranberries]

ngl it's a bit weird to see tori, charlie and oliver together playing mario kart but with oliver as their cousin

[teapotsaregreathats]

Quick painting I made a lil while ago.

[loll3]

✶ perfect spring outfit for all the botanical lovers 🌿🗝️✨

• Magical Hare ~ sew-on patch : available on my shop • Witch's Garden ~ t-shirt // Herbarium ~ cotton tote bag || from @redbubble

[thesorceresstemple]

[inthewychelm]

wait, has anyone done eddie leaving hawkins after the events of season4, be it government pressure or just hightails it bc fuck hawkins, but like instead of going to the city(chicago or indianapolis) or out west to make it big, no he goes south, back to tennessee, he ends up making the right connections with producers and such and eventually makes it big as a musician/songwriter except the party never finds out because he's working under a pseudonym And in a totally different genre (im learning towards folk/bluegrass)

anyway this specific blorbo thought was brought to you by "who will sing for me" by the stanley brothers playing at work a lot recently

[officermorozov]

Ransom never liked spring for a lot of reasons, even less so now with his powers still on lock with the collar the council deemed he needed to keep on for an undetermined amount of time. The thing was getting burdensome as much as the spells others felt like casting for some pointless reason. All they did was make his job harder and it was hard enough. Frustrated with everything he decided to do what he could since sitting behind a desk or behind the wheel was going to do anything.

Changing out of his uniform he decided to go on a run, a long run. He'd already gone ten miles and was still feeling no relief from the flesh spell affecting him currently. Logically he thought he could exhaust himself and whatever it was that was driving the desire in him, but there was nothing logical bout anything that happened in the place. Still he ran, sweat pouring off him, enough so his shirt was wet and rubbing against him, which wasn't helping the situation considering how sensitive his skin was. He paused to pull it off putting it in his back pocket. The cold affected him more so with is powers subdued, but he was hot enough from running and the need to throw someone on the ground it wasn't enough to phase him as he started up at the unrelenting pace ready to do another ten miles. Hell he was ready to do whatever it took not to make another stupid mistake if he could help it.

@familiar-finn