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voidwritesstuff · 5 months ago

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The Stars have names.

(Part 1) A/N: this is a proof of concept for an original series of mine.Originally it was going to be a youtube series, but after writing this im not sure if thats the format i want to go with. Anyway,ill post this here and be done with breaking the immersion (if everything goes well, I'll post the other parts) Cw:abusive household, abusive parents, cults,body horror,religious imagery and pregnancy imagery.

>reblogs appreciated and encouraged.

I don't know if posting this here is a good idea, but I've realized I'm only putting people in more danger if I keep this to myself. My name isn't important,I know I’ll join them eventually, and by then I will have lost my sense of self. But let's get the main bits of information on the table. I’ve known my friend Orion for most of my life, he is originally from the town of Cometa, to this day he’s never told me where this town is,but I get the feeling I'll find out soon enough.

That should've been the first red flag. One I never recognized until recently.

The second red flag was a little more subtle. He's always been enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge of space,it was his special interest and I always listened because I wanted to be a good friend. It was the way he spoke about it though,there was a casual, almost personal tone to the way he talked about stars, but especially about the planets.

“I know you’ll think it's silly, but they have real names. Not the ones we gave them, Venus,mars,saturn…It's hard to explain,My mom’s better at it but she isn't allowed to talk about it”

When I asked why she wasn't allowed to talk about it, Orion would shrug and say it was “grown up stuff” and he stopped mentioning it as we grew older.I didn't notice it when we were teenagers, I thought he had “grown out” of it somehow.

How wrong i was. How so very wrong I was.

I was supposed to go to Cometa town next summer, Orion was spending the holidays with me and my family, and before he left he had given me one of many manuscripts from the church his town has. I told him I wasn't interested in religion,but he begged me to read them, and I wanted to be a good friend- He's heard me ramble about every single character I found hot many times throughout our friendship,so I figured I could give in and read it.

After all, it's just religious text, isn't it? I remember sitting down one morning,we were snowed in and the sky was dark- I’ve never seen clouds so thick… And yet somehow one single ray of sunlight spilt into my room. It was unusually warm when I extended my hand towards it, and just as I was about to begin reading the lights went out.

Didn't think too much of it, it snowed like crazy, so there I went to sit on the sunny spot in my room for some proper light. The shadows seemed so much darker then, but I just took it as my eyes getting used to the ridiculous amount of light I was being exposed to.

Isn't it crazy how much we deny odd things that happen to us? The text started as any religious text often does,with a long shpeel of poetic words, but then it turned into a journal. There are no dates, so god only knows when this happened-But it does seem quite modern for…Well you’ll see. I’ve also gone and added numbers to each part, it was hard when I first read it- and hey if you're going to go down a spiral of madness then at least I'll leave some road signs,I'm on my way out anyway. Consider this red flag number three, and your one and only warning to stop.

“

Church of Santa Madre de Luz Divina

Tale of Mother Sun.

The stars have names

Not ones that mortals can utter.

Not in any language that you may speak or invent.

For these gods,us your makers, speak in tongues of divine creation,

destruction, light and darkness, that which lies beyond your minds

Broken from the ties of the planets that birthed us.

You behold my light,the one of your mother.

Of the supernova that gave birth to humans.And may the Harvester, though forgotten in time,

come to reap your souls.

Only then shall you know the names of your gods.

It may not look like it

But we have a plan for you.

[Entry 1] I had that dream again. I was floating in darkness for hours,days,millenia…There was nothing around me- I knew there wasn't anything for miles and miles. And then…light. Blinding light,searing heat that oddly enough didn't hurt my skin.

I could only see things zooming past me, I could feel eons going by in the blink of an eye.

The darkness wasn't empty anymore,there were thousands upon thousands of little lights.I realized then, i was in space. But I didn't feel cold, I didn't lack oxygen.

In a way, i breathed with the universe. I could feel the pulse of supernovas, of black holes eating and eating the darkness and turning it into,or taking it into, something I couldn't comprehend or fathom to.

Frozen in time, I couldn't move back or forth, to and fro, I simply floated and watched the existence around me begin to circle me.

Yet it wasnt me,not me specifically. I turned to look behind me, because before me there was nothing- Like a sunflower bending to the light above.

And i woke up.

The therapist said moving would help,that Cometa Town was perfect for someone like me. I want to trust Dawn’s word, she lived there most of her life before moving to Argentina. I guess she outgrew that town,i can relate to that

Dawn had also said that these dreams meant that I was too stressed, feeling like the world was coming undone around me. And she wasn't wrong, after that fight with my dad i couldn't stand being around him. Piece of shit.I don't understand why my mom still thinks I should make up with him. I don't understand how she can still forgive him even after everything, he threw eggs at our door,he had threatened to beat up his parents,my grandparents, and back when they were still together he would argue with her until she couldn't stomach it anymore and puke.

I don't want to end up like her, compelled to forgive and live beside someone who has sucked away all life from me just because I seek acceptance.

Mom promised that Cometa town is nice,and i trust her word,or i try to- But i know she wouldn't’ve moved so far away,countries away, if this town did not speak spanish,she never puts in the effort to do something difficult.

Lord knows there are days where she makes me feel like a burden,every time i talk to her it feels like she’s ignoring me. All the praise I get usually are just one worded responses,an adjective she throws at me without looking up from her phone…

And as much as I try to hate her,I can't. In a way she’s still my mother, I spent months in her stomach,growing. It makes me wonder if I had not been born a month before I was supposed to,would she pay attention to me? Of course it’s a silly claim,but almost after twenty years of being left aside, I’m starting to grasp at straws.

I guess Dawn was right,I need to get some fresh air-I doubt i’ll get a break anyway, i still don't have enough money to move away. Still, here I go. Goodbye Argentina,Hello Cometa.

[Entry 2]

I fell asleep on the plane,no dreams, only peaceful rest… But I have to admit that it felt odd,like a part of me was missing. I felt so cold when I woke up,I usually feel cozy. Maybe it's just the AC of the plane…

Either way,I called dibs on the seat next to the window. I can see the clouds. It gives me vertigo, but in a fun way-Like I could be flying through the clouds like i was the sun… That image gave me peace, hope. It makes me excited to get to my new home,hang up all my posters and paraphernalia.

I may even find a group of people to play D&D with on the weekends…

Maybe this extreme move is going to help.

[Entry 3] Cometa town is so pretty, gardens and gardens of flowers,there are parks with weekly fairs! It's good to know mom will have a place to sell her clothes, and I won't go hungry. I understand now why the therapist recommended this place- Aside from having a university of arts (with a career in film, How lucky!) And it has a cool name too: “Cosmos University of the Arts”.

i will miss Dawn though- maybe i can find a replacement here? I don't know if it'll be the same…fingers crossed? Oh! and The sunset here was just as beautiful too, i can actually see the stars here. I begged my mom to eat dinner outside by the sunflower garden we have and she accepted. No TV,no background sound,just me and her…it's nice.

It would be nicer if she didn't call me by my deadname,though. I’ve told her plenty of times I go by Nova now, but hey- she still doesn't believe im bi,let alone accept I change my pronouns often, so maybe i'm just asking her for the wrong things.

But a new home,a new place, the same old sky… Maybe I should keep that in mind instead.

[Entry 4] Well, the dream came back.

But it's longer now, different.

I saw that same darkness, that same explosion of light, but now when I turned I saw the sun (I expected it,it's the only thing that made sense). I expected the light to burn my eyes, but it didn't. Dream logic? I don't know.

Aside from actually being able to see what's behind me,I noticed something there, growing. Like a seed, looking for something,writhing. The sun was only a shell for whatever was growing in there. Yknow what it reminded me of? A baby, growing in the womb of her mother,kicking and feeling out the warm home she finds herself in. There was no better place for her, I was sure of it, I could almost picture what she looked like.

Body made of divine light, elegant hands that have the opportunity to create,to destroy, I dare say even…artistic. The art of bringing beautiful things to life, the willpower to destroy the imperfections,the mistakes, even if it means throwing out a whole art piece and start from scratch

She's adorned with pure gold that glimmers like endless stars, clothes made of the softest fabrics the world could offer.

Yet..i couldn't see her face, it was either hidden from view or just consuming my whole range of sight.

massive, she was massive, and i was about the size of a vein.

I saw her,whatever she was, take me in her hands and lay me to rest on her chest. I beat her heartbeat, I ate of her blood…it gave me such a rush. I felt..unstoppable, I felt myself breaking out of the shell I forced myself into just so I wouldn't get into trouble,that I would not be hit with my mother’s glare of disappointment that I don't fit her standards for “Being born a woman”.

When I woke up I felt…dizzy, I felt something churning in my stomach,my forehead felt too warm and it throbbed in a way that made me light headed,the sunlight that was falling on my face had this sparkle to it.

Mom came over to ask me if I was alright,it was probably around mid-day when I woke up,which meant that lunch would be done soon and that she was waiting for me. I told her I felt ill and I wondered what had I eaten the night before for me to feel like my body was organizing a mutiny against me. And then I turned to my nightstand, saw my sketchbook opened and stained with chocolate from the wrapper I had tossed on it carelessly the night before.

. . . I need to stop eating sweets before going to bed.

[entry 5]

The dream’s been on my mind as of late, so I've tried to push it to the side by signing up for Cometa town’s university. I thought the bureaucracy was going to be endless,thankfully it wasn't- It was quite easy honestly, just asked for my personal data like name,birth date, ID and the like, it even had a “Preferred name” box i could fill up- It made me happy to know i wouldn't have to use my deadname.

Aside from that I've tried to distract myself by walking around the town, it has a very low crime rate so my mom’s not worried about letting me wander off. It's a nice change from the constant fear of being robbed i had back in Argentina, doesn't mean I don't miss my home though. I miss it terribly,but there's not much I can do but to wait for winter break to visit them again (well,it's winter break for the town- back home it's a ripe,ripe summer. I'll be cooking my ass off while the town lives it up in the snow,lucky)

But back to the walk i took, i wrote down a few places i’d like to visit next time The mall (obviously, it has a bunch of stores,fast food restaurants and even an observatory- I’d say it's a weird addition to the mall but i don't complain, i really like seeing the stars), Also the parks it has to offer, the town center and the one thing that caught my attention the most was this church- I wouldn't know the exact architecture style, but its grand,well decorated and so,so tall and old. I think I saw a telescope peeking out from one of the windows in the main tower.

Hopefully I can visit it soon? Maybe tomorrow will be fun.

[entry 6] After lunch I went to the church, the place was mostly empty (i figured, i mean i did go right after i finished eating lunch) and honestly it made it all the more personal. Hell,even the priest wasn't there roaming around and doing whatever priests do.

But I did meet someone there, they had male features, a chiseled face, olive eyes and pretty reddish brown skin. They were dressed in goth clothes (and fashionably so) so it didn't surprise me to see them at the church.

And in my ogling I noticed their jacket was packed full of patches, I could see the one on the right side of his arm, it read “Still a planet” With an embroidered image of Pluto. I couldn't help but snicker at it They introduced themself as Callum,they looked at me like I was some sort of long lost friend and asked me if I was new around town. I told them that I was and that I had moved in just a few days ago. I could notice the slight hispanic accent in their voice and I asked them if they spoke any Spanish, they said yes and we got to talking in my mother tongue.

It made me happy to know they liked my vest, I couldn't help but think that a punk and a goth went hand in hand. Both appeal to the darker side of the world, for them it was the macabre,the things that go bump in the night. And for me, it was all about how the system was always against you,how the world seems to orchestrate in a way that no matter what you do, you’ll always be on the wrong side of things. Damned if you do,damned if you don’t.

Callum was fun to talk to,I appreciated that since I haven't been able to meet my neighbors yet. I mean I just got here,but I wish I had someone else to talk to that isn’t my mom or includes me sending a text to my friends back in Argentina.

Here's one of the conversations I had with my new “Acquaintance” (translated from english to spanish to keep my privacy. wouldn't be surprised if i left it open some day and my mom reads it out of curiosity):

“So..Why visit the church of all places?” they had asked me as we entered the large cathedral

“Well just getting to see the town really, but i saw it and i knew i had to enter and at least take a peek- I like making art, and i was hoping to draw some of the things around the place” “You make art? that's cool” They smiled with this child-like excitement “I make murals, i go to the university here” “Dude no way,I signed up for the studies in film career!”

“Then we’ll see each other more often, that's good” We introduced each other properly then, they told me about their family and I told them why i moved away- I skipped a few details because i couldn't exactly just drop the fact that i had to move because my father was a manipulative piece of shit.

When we got to the altar section, I hadn't noticed until then that the Vitraux behind the pedestal were not of God or Jesus, instead they were of these massive beings of cosmic light.

And right in front of me was her.

Being of divine light, hands extended towards me, holding the world in their palms, her face got lost in the bright burst of light portrayed on the glass. Shades of red,orange and yellow spilled across my face and in my half blinded state I could swear I saw bright eyes staring back at me. It made me jump back out of reflex, i blinked the light away and turned to see if Callum had seen me embarrass myself like that-

But they weren't.

They were staring at another vitraux, a being of pure darkness and ice, candles of blue flame serving as shoulder pieces with their melted wax with gold jewelry over its shroud. And in the center of their chest,like a ribcage, stood the alchemical symbol for Pluto. Underneath it was a simple plaque that read “The Harvester” It gave me the idea to see the plaque beside it, “Father moon”. Above it stood a vitraux of a male figure with a shawl of stars, a crown of night and time on his bursting face of moonlight. He was holding his hands close to his chest where the alchemical symbol for the moon stood carved in pale gray as he grasped an old sun clock.

Out of curiosity I looked back at the one in front of me, I could still see The Harvester and Father Moon in the corner of my left eye. The plaque underneath the divine lady of sunlight read “Mother Sun”

“You’ve seen ‘em too?” Callum asked out of nowhere, I jumped from my spot as if I was broken from a trance. They looked at me with what seemed like fear and utter dread.

“Excuse you?” They pointed at the vitraux i was looking at “Her,You've seen her” With how they looked at me, i knew lying wouldn't do me any good “Yeah” I Had replied with a slight tremble in my voice “I have” My eyes couldn't meet theirs, I was too ashamed and startled. In my avoidance I noticed that Callum’s jacket had an embroidered patch of Mictecacihuatl, the lady of the dead in Aztec mythology.

“How?” they asked,sounding adamant that they get an answer.

“dreams, you?” something in me pushed me to answer,even if i felt like their question was a little too weird and out of pocket “same”

I blinked at the sordid nature of it. How could I dream of something that I have never seen before? But before I could question that bitch of an existential crisis,We heard shuffling steps from behind us, we turned to see a priest- Old,old man with a wrinkled face, dark black eyes that gleamed with..satisfaction? “May I help you with something?” The old man asked, His voice raspy and with a warmth that felt too unnatural- Like he's trying to overcompensate. I raised my brows in surprise,his voice sounding so familiar, like I heard it in a distant dream.

“No” Callum sounded harsh, they took my bicep and began tugging me along out of the Church,but before they left my sight i read the two other plaques beside Mother sun: “Sister star” and “The Oracle” They didn't speak a word until we were well away from the church, they sat me down at a bench and looked at me like somebody had died.

“I thought there was enough of us already” They whispered, afraid that the trees would grow ears and listen “What?” “There's 3 more others just like you, like us.-Probably more” “Callum, you're not making any sense” “Listen to me,Nova. The stars have names”[entry 7] I came back home late after that, Callum insisted on walking me home and we did so in silence. It felt uncomfortable, like the lack of literally any spoken word was digging under my skin and getting into my bone marrow,expanding it uncomfortably.

Before our weird ass conversation,I actually got along with Callum, like i’ve known them all my life or even well before that…It was odd but..comforting.They’re the first friend i've made since moving here.

They bid me goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, I didn't think too much of it since it's a common way to greet each other back in Argentina- Us latinos are a mixed bag of customs after all.

As soon as I stepped in, My mom was up in arms about where I had been. She was cooking as she yelled at me for being out so late, I told her she needed to calm down and I reminded her about how Cometa town had almost no crime rate.

She glared at me and told me i was just as irresponsible as my father, it made me so angry, it scorched me that she would compare me to my dad, only to turn around and tell me i should make peace with him- She still somehow believed that it was my fault that i fought with him, and not that he looked at me in the eye and said “You're the worst daughter a father could ask for”. It was a petty argument, i don't remember what we were fighting about anymore, In that moment,rage blinded me and I just wanted her to hurt, and before I could wallow my rage,she yelped and jumped away from the oven.She had burnt herself with the flame of the stove.

After that i went to my room, i was so mad and so,so tired. I am exhausted from having to dance on the edge of being a golden child and a scapegoat martyr. I would never be enough for her, and that was starting to dawn on me.

I get that she was worried,that she feared something happened to me- But there are better ways to say so. It makes me sad she never seems to treat me like an actual human.

[Entry 8] I fell asleep as soon as I went to bed.I had consciously forgotten about Callum’s explanation, but a part of me didn't.

As i drifted endlessly on the edge of sleep, i remembered everything my new “Friend” had told me

“ Listen to me,Nova. The stars have names. Not the ones we gave them,Venus,Saturn,pluto. None of that bullshit. They are gods, born from the planets we know, they're only shells of shattered womb,they have no life in them.” “But there's life on earth” I had said “Because they needed a place for their servants to live. Thats us” “And why should I trust your words?” Callum seemed a little amused at my flabbergasted expression

They scoffed before continuing to talk “The whole town is in on it. They are a cult,im sure of it” “How do you even know this stuff?” “I moved here three years ago, my family and I had been practically chased off from our home in Mexico. The bosses of my parents had fired them, I suddenly became the worst student in my school and got kicked out. My buddy Byeol and Archie had been offered a scholarship to the university of this town- This very public university. A scholarship.” they made a pause to steady themself, it felt like they were just word vomiting right now. “Did nothing weird happen to you before you came here?” They continued with a slight anger to them, not directed at me but at whatever was supposedly tugging the strings of this weird cultish plot. “Nothing that feels too much like a coincidence?” I remembered how Dawn had been raised here, how she said the homes here were really cheap,especially to immigrants.Something about a benefit from the state. At the time I doubted it, this country is as capitalist as it gets-Not to mention its clear distaste for non natives. But then we checked and it was an actual thing,so I didn't think too much of it since I just figured my biases had gotten the better of me.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“I know this because I saw it. In my dreams” They raised a finger before I could manage to retort “Let me ask you this, have you heard of any of the gods we saw at the church?” “No,but it could be a niche religion” “Okay then,what about your dreams?” Truth is I was ready to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon,Too soon? maybe. But my mind was looking for a reason to doubt all these good things in my life, a part of me wouldn’t let me accept the nice things that came to me. There is a reason I go to therapy after all.

“see?” Callum added,taking my silence as the answer they needed. “Why would you tell me this?” “Because you're the missing piece. I told you there’s more of us, my friends all had dreams with the gods we saw back there”They answered “I could see you were staring at Mother Sun, so that must be who you see in your dreams, am i mistaken?”I shook my head. “I don't know what they're planning”they continued,sure there was something else unraveling, “i don't know why they want us but it can't be good. This town is too perfect, it makes me sick. Nothing good can come from this,i can just feel it”

I sat there in silence and looked at the floor. I didn't know if I could believe them.A cult? really? And why was I the missing piece? “Then why don’t you leave” “We have nowhere to go, all the times I’ve tried to convince my family to get out something big like a promotion would happen and suddenly my word wasn’t enough”

My heart sank to my feet. ‘No matter what you do, the game is always rigged ’ I thought. “And you haven’t told them about all this?” “I did, but they say that it’s just a product of how our leave from Mexico unfolded”

They say that when you wear rose colored glasses,all red flags are just..flags. Me included, I felt like their whole speech just now was the ramblings of a madman. But they had just enough credibility to them that it made it hard for me to fully reject it.

I sat there in silence for a while,processing everything I had been told. I don’t know if Callum was staring at me,I completely zoned out for a few good minutes. All I could see was that goddess,I could feel her tugging at me somehow,she was eager. A sigh made me snap out of my thoughts, I looked up to see my companion’s face and for a moment I swear they looked incredibly gaunt “Sorry,I know it's a lot to dump on you” they had said with a soft voice and a meek look in their eyes.

“thats the understatement of the fucking century” They scoffed and offered to walk me home as compensation for the wild ride. They also gave me their phone number just in case.

And truth be told I was ready to leave it all behind and make a mental note to never talk to Callum again.

But then I had to fall asleep.

I found myself in the dark expanse again, I knew the drill of creation and destruction, worlds coming and going,and when I stood before the planets spinning around me, I started to notice something. Each planet had a massive crack in the middle, they were creaking and groaning with pain. I could hear their labored breathing as whatever was crawling out of them began to split their shells apart. Like tearing open the placenta that held them. The celestial bodies that house them scream in pain and agony, a horrible choir of death as beings of immense scale rise before me.That same man made of moonlight and time rose from the smallest natural satellite, he was the first one…

I saw him and the sun behind me dance in eternal bliss, with each step I could feel the ripples of space bending, breaking what remained of the planets that only followed the orbit of the giant,divine woman. Though I could never see their faces, there was no face to see.

Or perhaps I was afraid of what I would behold if I stared at the sun for too long.

Mother Sun looked down upon me and I turned away. I could feel her burn a hole through my skull, only stopping when Venus splits open with a screeching choir,birthing a woman with the face of pure starlight, grand insectoid wings that flutter curiously. Then Neptune cracks open with a tidal wave, allowing a large female figure to slither out of it. She had past and future in her eyes- were those her eyes? her face was a gossamer shine that reflected fractals and fractals of what could be or had been.

And long forgotten in time, Pluto is the last one to be born. Cold in the endless vacuum, creaking of bone against bone, feeding from the corpse of his mother, A shrouded figure stood impossibly tall, curling into itself.

More were missing, I Knew that-She knew that.

But I couldn't see the other planets from just how bright she shone in the black void.

Unwilling to look at her, I tried my best to fight her. I wouldn't let her burn my eyes, I don't want to face whatever turned its wretched gaze upon me. I would rather be disintegrated into ash, because when she forced my head to snap to her, using her massive hand to twist me like a doll, I saw my face in her shine.

I woke up screaming,tears falling down my cheeks before I managed to be conscious enough to let them flow. [Entry 9] My mom ran into my room,asking me if I was okay. I told her I had a nightmare, and that I'd be fine. I never talked about my dreams,so she wasn't surprised I didn't want to talk about it. She hung out with me in the kitchen as I made myself some tea. I didn't have the strength to look at her bandaged arm,did I cause that? When she saw me a lot calmer, she returned to sleep. And I decided I had to talk with Callum about all this.

Before I knew it, I was sneaking out of the house and embarking on a midnight adventure with a person I just met, to talk about eldritch beings and horrors. Life really is the gift that keeps on giving.

They took me to a restaurant. “Nebula Dinner”,read the perfect, 50s style neon sign. By this point it's like the town wasn't even bothering to hide it…

“So..”They began once we sat down in the booth placed on one of the corners of the establishment “Do you believe me now?” I snarled at how smug they sounded “Yes” “Good,because it's only going to get worse”

“jeez, how sunny” They shrugged and put their forearms on the table,leaning in a little and using them as support “Tell me about the dream”. And tell them I did, I spared no detail, and it felt oddly nice to be able to share this with somebody other than my therapist. They listened attentively and even went so far as to hold my hand when I began tearing up again. “..why? why us?” I had asked with what little voice I had in me.

“Your guess is as good as mine”They replied, trying to sound nonchalant about it,but I could tell that in a sense, this was like reliving his own trauma. “Look, My dreams started a few months before I moved to Cometa, same with Archie,Byeol and Sammira. Tell me if that's not a cosmic coincidence” I flinched at the word “cosmic” and they apologized.

To my credit, I did try to process everything I had heard. And I failed miserably at it. My brain ran itself in circles trying to reconcile with the idea that gods existed, and that for some damn reason I was suddenly chosen by one of them.

I still couldn't shake off that feeling, like i was breathing alongside somebody, my head buzzed and i still felt like my brain felt like it was being pushed into two different directions. The images are so clear even when it had been just a few hours since I woke up.

A sigh left me as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes,I could have used some more rest-But the thought of having to face that thing again terrified me. “I like god do not play with dice” I quoted, hoping that one of my many vocal stims cheered me up. “And i do not believe in coincidence” They had finished, smiling at me “V for Vendetta”

“You know it?It's a bit old” “I have the compilation of the whole series back in my house,” They answered, clearly enthusiastic about it. “Hey,let me get you something to eat, my treat- We shouldn't be thinking about this without food in our stomachs” “It's like two am” They shrugged and said “Early breakfast,i guess” And I couldn't help myself and said “What about second breakfast?”“I don't think he knows about second breakfast,Pippin '' They answered without missing a beat, accent and all. Suddenly all the tension in the air dissipated as we both laughed,I shook my head at the absurdity of it all, and I gladly accepted the offer of food.

Even though I knew there were a lot more things we needed to discuss, I let it pass by. I needed to feel normal again for a few minutes, and I wouldn't deny this moment.

Callum waved over one of the late night staff, Her name was Solana and she was Callum's older sister. They introduced me to her and we both ordered something to eat after she handed us the menu.

We spent the night talking about comics,movies and games. It felt nice to be a normal twenty something again.

[entry 10] Callum had spent the night at my house, they promised they would sneak off in the morning. It was sunday so my mom would leave to work at the fairs in one of the parks. They said they knew how hard it was to deal with these nightmares, and they wanted to keep me company through it all.

If I had not experienced the worst nightmare of my life, I would've said no. But I didn't want to spend this night alone, I didn't feel safe being on my own. I feel like these dreams will eat me whole, and I can begin to feel something crawling inside my chest already.

When i woke up Callum was gone as they said they would, they had left me a text saying we could hang out later or grab lunch. My home didn't feel safe anymore,it felt like the sunlight was so bright it was eating away all the color,all the life my house had.I accepted their offer in a heartbeat, at least walking through the town I could forget and ignore the shifting shadows out of the corners of my eyes, and how uncomfortably familiar the sunlight felt on my skin, like it was trying to embrace the deepest part of me and for that it needed to tear and carve through my skin,my muscles and straight past my bones.

My new friend wasn't faring any better, they felt incredibly cold to the touch, they avoided being in the shade for too long and they had ripped off their patch about Pluto and we did not talk about our dreams,or what this “cult” might be up to. And it wasn't even out of worry that we could be eavesdropped upon. It was pure,sheer fear of what it would mean if just like the planets, something was growing inside of us.

There was a pull underneath my skin, i could feel it writhe under my intestines,slithering and weaving itself through the pores of my sternum…And as much as i tried to push it away, it would only fade when during our walk we came across a second church,identical to the one we had seen on saturday. “Another one?” I asked confused

Callum nodded“To the other minor gods,Madame Jupiter,Sir Kaos,Professor Mercury and Saint Saturn”

“Those are weird ass names” I tried to joke,relieved that i suddenly felt like myself again “I didn't choose them” He chided “But yes,weird” “I'm kind of curious to see the inside” “That's how horror movies start. We’re latinos,we’re supposed to know better” They joked with a slight smirk

“Well i have some white in me,my grandma’s italian, I can be a bit stupid,as a treat” “If you die in there i'm not retrieving your body” “mean”

Making fun of it did help to ease the tension that had been growing like a weed inside of me.It felt like me and Callum had known each other our whole lives, that there was no need to put our words through a filter. I was going to tug them along to see the interior, but we saw one of the nuns come out from the church, she was looking down at the ground,minding her step. Then she looked at us for a few,long seconds and smiled wide. She raised her hand to wave at us, and we looked at eachother and promptly walked away.

What disturbed me the most is that i felt like i knew her,I knew the sound of her voice even when i have never heard her speak. Just like the old priest I saw at the other cathedral. I felt like i had heard her call my name, which one i didn't know, it made me dizzy trying to figure it out and i was already dealing with feeling watched- Callum kept glancing back and i knew then i wasn't the only one that felt like that

Honestly,If i had not dreamt what i did,i would have chalked it up to paranoia…

But then I looked up straight at the sun. I expected the shine to burn my eyes,but it didn't. I had hoped I'd blind myself for a split second just to confirm something that wasn’t clawing at me at that moment.

Dread settled,my chest felt tight and I felt like the gold light that spilled across this world cupped my face and forced me to face its creator.

The sun was staring right back at me, beckoning me closer.

[entry 11] I woke up a few seconds after,I felt something cold against my back, hard like wood and somebody holding me. Slowly I blinked my eyes open and met the face of Callum, they looked concerned,sweaty, and I could see past them a gray ceiling of carved rock and stained glass.

“How are you?” They had asked,voice shaking.

“Im,..okay? what's up with you?” Before they replied, I heard a raspy, gravelly voice say “Ah,so good to see you're okay” The unnatural welcoming in this male voice made my bones uncomfortable, I felt them pushing against my joints trying to escape. I wanted to peel each strand of my muscles only to distract myself from it.

There stands the priest we saw at the church with the vitraux of the main gods of this cursed pantheon, he opens his arms and says “Our Mother can be quite stern if she wants to, sorry for that. But i have the feeling you’ll soon grow on her” He made a pause,to then clear his throat “Sorry, I meant to say she’ll soon grow in you”

I turned to Callum, who tried to put themself between me and the priest “Callum, what the hell is going on?” Callum turned back briefly to me, they pursed their lips and their eyes looked wild with their pupils as small as a dot “Remember how i said I didn't know what they were planning?” I nodded “...I have the feeling we’re about to find out”

The old priest smirked, his eyes glimmering like the ones of a predator “Don’t worry,we won't hurt you”

“You should hear him out” Came a woman’s voice I knew quite well. Dawn stood there in the same clothes I had seen her wear in our last session together,with a smile so big like she was a kid in a candy store. “I know it's hard to accept good things,especially with everything you’ve been through,but this community welcomes you,both of you, with open arms” She offered a hug,spreading her arms. Her face twitched as if it hurt to grin like that but she couldn't stop.

It reminded me of how sometimes people would feel euphoria when experiencing something divine… We both began to hear multiple sets of steps,we’re surrounded by nuns,townsfolk. They all seem to revere us,and it dawns on me.

“After all, how dare we strike our own gods?”Finished the priest. They had handed me this journal,my journal, to write everything since my midnight meeting with Callum. They say that I had written their holy texts once before, and that they eagerly await the gospel of their mother…

I don't know why they returned me home,why keep up appearances? they had us at the church…

But then in came my mom,all excited telling me about how she had a really good day at work, how she could give me some money to buy myself something pretty. I wouldn't put it past them to harm my mother if I told her about all this? Would she even believe me? Right now i can hear them outside my window, it's a gloomy day, rainy and horrible,almost pitch dark, they hide in the shadows, they are whispering and awing at my writing. Callum is here with me, just as scared as I am.

“Why?” I ask out loud,hoping for an answer, and I get none.

My mind drifted for a second to Callum,their family,their friends.

Friends..

Oh no, There's more like us.

More…vessels? seeds? What are we? Who the hell are we?

I feel now the sun shining down on me. its warmth uncomfortably pressing under my skin,through tunnels already carved straight to my soul. I turn to Callum, they sit in the darkness at the edge of my bed,their back against the mattress, their head hung low. The hood of their jacket is pulled up, I can't see their face, and I don't think I'd see any if they turned to me.

I can feel her crawling up my nerves,up my spine. My head feels dizzy and my face feels incredibly hot like I'm feverish. ‘You’re loved here,don’t you see?’She whispers ‘You won’t be ignored here, you won't be a scapegoat,a martyr. You can be that golden child, the saint you know you are’

Tears begin to fall down my face,staining the pages of the journal. She makes it sound so sweet.

‘Finally you can rest. Why fight against the system?Why don’t you..we join it? we can change it together. We can make something out of ourselves’

I look at Callum, shivering and talking to themself under their breath. I can’t hear them,but I can see their breath condensate.

“I think we’ve known each other for a while” They finally said,soft voice barely carrying over the whispering horde outside.They offer their hand towards me as I hear the creaking of bone against bone, scraping like nails on a chalkboard. Their teeth clack together as if there's no gums,no tongue to soften the impact.I see that their fingers are thin and their skin is barely sticking to their bones.I take it,finding solace in their touch.

I don’t want to be alone. Not again, not ever again.

“We do,don't we?” I replied.

Everything seems clearer now,like sunlight after a storm.

“Do you know my name?” “I think I do,do you know mine?” “i do” “it's good to see you again,Harvester” “it's good to bask in your radiance again,Mother Sun”

[entry 11]

“Church of Santa Madre de Luz Divina

“Heed my words oh servant

For my light will guide your path.

Like it always has during eons past.

I never left,for you still revolve around me

Even if my body hangs limp in the sky.

Like a child within my womb,you writhe and call for me.

Heed my words, you who have waited for our return…

The stars have names.

Not those you could even fathom to pronounce.

We have walked amongst you now.

We have lived what you have.

So welcome this new era.

Welcome us anew.No longer forgotten

And don't fret

for we have a plan for you”

[End of journal] I can see her, through the dark. The sky is looking back through the gloom.

Her light burns me.

My mother is calling.

But I can't give in,not yet, not now. There's four more documents like this,I can transcribe them if any of you want to kamikaze yourself into insanity with me. I’ll be here waiting,patiently. Either way,I know now that no matter what I do, the sun is always watching me,the moon knows all my secrets and in the cold night outside I can see the harvester waiting for me, tapping on his scythe with his candles burning blue.

#oc: nova castro #oc: callum fernandez #the stars have names #original story #writeblr #original writing #writers on tumblr #cosmic horror #cosmic horror writing #writerscommunity #original fiction #horror #fiction

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capricorn-0mnikorn · 1 day ago

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Reposting (rather than reblogging) my "A Visit From Saint Nicholas is a Dream Narrative" analysis.

(Originally posted 20 December, 2018)

Now, that’s far from proof that Santa Claus is fake (we can certainly have dreams about real people and real events). But it does ... loosen ... the scope of possibilities of how Santa Claus really fulfills his mission, each year (For example, the sleigh and reindeer, and chimney, may all be open to negotiation)

Here, let me break the poem down, and show you how I figured this out:

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

So, the narrator and his family are already in bed and, if he himself is not sound asleep, yet, he’s certainly starting to drift off...

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

Wait a minute -- his wife is in the room with him. If this were really happening in the waking world, wouldn’t she wake up when he opens the window in the middle of the night, and lets in all that cold air (and yell at him for it)? I would.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver* so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the housetop the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too— And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

Okay, this whole thing started in the narrator’s bedroom... And now we’re in the main parlor (I think)? I mean, granted, bedrooms had their own fireplaces, back then. But would the children have hung their stockings on their parents’ private mantle? That seems odd for the waking world. But the sudden shift of location like this happens all the time, in dreams.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.

His clothes were covered in soot (from all that chimney bounding), but his beard was pristine (calling back to the snow imagery from before)?

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

If this were happening in the waking world, there is no way the narrator could see Saint Nick get into his sleigh, and it would be very hard, if not impossible, for the narrator to see the sleigh flying away from the roof, while he’s still inside the room.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight— “Happy Christmas** to all, and to all a good night!”

*That explains how he can fit down the chimney so easily: the literary source that gave us the chimney bit of lore also made him tiny enough to fit. It's the fact that we now have fully grown humans acting as Santa Claus's representatives every year that brings in the complications.

**This video, from clothing and fashion historian Abby Cox, explains why this particular version of Santa Claus says "Happy Christmas" instead of Merry Christmas. (~35 minutes. Eye contact. Proper closed captions. BetterHelp sponsorship)

#A visit from St. Nicholas #literary analysis #Christmas traditions #drunkenness #merry christmas you filthy animals #video recommendation

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poussacha · 2 months ago

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Fic Writers: What's your top 5 favourite fanfictions you've ever written?

I should be writing, but I'm gonna do this. I was tagged by absolutely no one I'm just chaotic and thought this would be fun.

Starting with:

5 - ten rings

Rated E | Doctor Who & Iron Man | Tony Stark/Rose Tyler | 29k

Archive Warnings: Violence & Major Character Death

Summary: Tony Stark goes missing on a routine trip to Afghanistan. Rose and Pepper are together when Pepper gets the call.

Why do you like it? This story was from a very different time in my life. I started writing this in 2018, so pre-COVID and it was a story I'd been trying to write in my head for years. But I had this idea that I couldn't write fanfiction because I'm a published author and it would've been wrong so I came up with an entire original story for this and it was this massive multi-media undertaking that really took a lot of time and space when I could've just told this fic from the get-go. This is when my writing started to sort of turn around. It's the 5th part in the collide series (an AU where Tony Stark and Rose Tyler meet and fall in love in Pete's World).

4 - every minute it makes me weaker

Rated E | Loki (TV 2021) | Loki/Mobius M. Mobius | 8k

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Summary: Loki reflects on his past and his relationships while he and Mobius comes to terms with who they are to one another. May or may not contain more metaphors for love.

Why do you like it? I kind of wrote this story as a joke, but then I got caught up in playing with pretty imagery and purple prose. Things I'd never really let myself explore in the past. But Loki is so flowery and dramatic I couldn't help it. This sort of solidified my style moving forward. I like to take a more poetic approach to writing narrative now because of this fic specifically.

3 - what are you after? (some kind of disaster)

Rated G | Boy Meets World | Gen (Morgan & Eric Matthews) | 2k

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Summary: Eric has known for a long time that he's different from other people. He hides it well, pushes himself to fit in, be popular, be the preppy good boy skirt-chaser everyone expects him to be. Except, when he has a rare moment alone, he allows himself the space to become the person Eric wants to be and Morgan just so happens to be around to witness it this time.

Why do you like it? I was rewatching Boy Meets World and wanted to add more context to Eric as a character. I think both Eric and Shawn would be genderfluid/genderqueer and I wish they would've played with that more. So I wrote a story about Eric coming out to Morgan. It's self-indulgent and I have like a million of these in various stages of being written. Even one where Jack has to reconcile his feelings for Eric because he loves him as a girl, but doesn't feel as close to him when he's using he/him pronouns and it's an entire discussion on comphet and internalised homophobia and honestly it's really healing for me to write things like this as a trans person.

2 - coming out of my cage and i've been doing just fine

Rated M | The Santa Clause & The Santa Clauses | Bernard the Arch Elf/Charlie Calvin, Charlie Calvin/Maria Calvin | 25k

Archive Warnings: Underage (Read the tags)

Summary: The first time Charlie Calvin becomes painfully aware of his own queerness, he's sat in Bernard's workshop watching him shake his hair out of his face like he has a million times before. It's so unremarkable, so incredibly mundane, but, to Charlie, it's something momentous.

Why do you like it? When The Santa Clauses came out I was really surprised what they did with Charlie's character. How they gave him this shrill, unrelenting wife and 2.5 kids with a house in Florida. When Charlie was probably one of my biggest queer influences growing up. Like as a kid I really held on to the idea of him being kind of in love with Bernard. I don't know. It also really annoyed me how they just made Maria (her name is Marie I know but fuck that) a shitty one-dimensional sitcom wife character without giving her a better voice and how Charlie spent their entire marriage lying to her about his dad. That didn't sit well with me. So I wrote this to give him a reason to lie. And I gave him the queer awakening he fucking deserved.

1 - After Midnight

Rated T | An Extremely Goofy Movie | Max Goof/Bradley Uppercrust III, Max Goof/Roxanne Rover | 98k

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply (Mind the tags and TW at the top of every chapter)

Summary: It’s Max’s first year at university. She arrives on campus with her two best friends PJ and Bobby in Bobby’s beat up sleeper van from the 1970s that reeks of musk, weed, and boy sweat. She doesn’t know yet what this year has in store, but she hopes it’s something to remember.

Bradley is in his final year in law school. Just trying to graduate, pass the bar, and move on with his life. That is, until someone comes along to change his perspective.

Why do you like it? God. This fic. I started writing it based on an idea foisted upon me by my friend (or well, friends plural sort of) that I should write a fanfic series for AEGM based on Chappell Roan's Midwest Princess album. And Chappell found me at a really hard time in my life. I lost my job, my cat got sick, I was ill, my best friend got ill. It was a lot. So writing this series became a sort of catharsis for me. A way to make myself feel productive while being out of work, but I REALLY wanted to do Chappell justice with my works. She's such an incredible human being I didn't want to just tell easy stories. I wanted to create whole worlds to her lyrics. I wanted to give to her music what she gave to me. The freedom and love I felt every single time I listened to this album. And honestly? This is the best thing I've ever fucking written in my life. So. Thank you Chappell and thank you to my friend(s) who pushed me to write this series.

I tag @madammuffins @writingdreamer @writingbetweenshadows @bellejolras

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xtruss · 11 months ago

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This Might Be The First Newborn Great White Shark Ever Recorded

The 5-foot great white was filmed off the coast of California covered in a strange, milky substance that could be uterine fluid.

— By Jason Bittel | January 29, 2024 | Photographs: By Carlos Gauna

Is this first-ever recorded sighting of a newborn great white shark? A milky white film—which scientists suggest could be a sort of uterine "milk"—flaked off the young shark's tail as it swam off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Photographs By Carlos Gauna

For as much time and money as people have spent studying and filming great white sharks, no one has ever witnessed one being born. But new footage out of California might be the next best thing.

On July 9, 2023, filmmaker Carlos Gauna and organismal biologist Phillip Sternes were following sharks with a drone off the coast of Santa Barbara. They’d already captured footage of a few larger great whites, but then something completely unexpected drifted up out of the murk.

“Toward the end of the day this peculiar-looking white shark appeared, and we were both super excited,” says Sternes, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Riverside.

youtube

At just under five feet long with chubby, rounded fins, the duo knew they were looking at a very young great white. (For comparison, adult great whites can stretch up to 21 feet long.) But as the drone zoomed in, it caught something never seen before—a milky white film that appeared to flake off the young shark’s tail as it swam.

While no one can say for sure what the white material is, Sternes suggests it may be a sort of uterine “milk” used to nourish newborn sharks in the womb. Another possibility is that the shark has a skin condition that has never been described before.

“Both scenarios are highly significant,” says Sternes, who together with Gauna co-authored a study announcing the findings today in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes.

“This is extremely rare. White shark birthing locations have remained extremely elusive for the scientific community,” Sternes tells National Geographic in an email. “We think we have a piece to the puzzle now. If this is a birthing location, conservation aspects must be considered.”

‘A Really Unique Observation’

To understand just how rare a sighting of a newborn great shark is, you need to first understand that we know surprisingly little about how the world’s largest predatory shark reproduces.

“I think it’s incredible,” says Greg Skomal, a shark biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries who was familiar with the footage but not involved with the new study. “People don't realize that some of the most basic questions about white shark reproduction are unanswered.”

Skomal cautioned against making any major conclusions based on the footage, however.

“It’s like any observation. You only have so much information, right? You have the imagery. You got the date, the time, the location. And the rest is speculation,” says Skomal, who is also author of Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark.

That said, Skomal did acknowledge that the facts presented would seem to point toward the shark being a newborn.

Scientists know surprisingly little about the reproduction of great white sharks—so the discovery of a birthing site would go a long way to advancing our understanding of these animals. Photographs By Carlos Gauna

For instance, the area where it was spotted has been thought to be a great white nursery, as first-year sharks have been documented there before. And Skomal says the shark’s coloration, shape, size, as well as the appearance of the milky white fluid all suggest it’s extremely young.

“That’s led researchers to think it’s a newborn white shark, and it probably is,” says Skomal. “The question is, when was it born? Is it hours, or days [old]? We don’t know that.”

What This Means For Research

National Geographic Explorer Gibbs Kuguru, a scientist who studies the DNA of sharks, says that the sighting is “a game-changer”—particularly if the white fluid is what researchers suspect it is.

“The fact that we have a shark in the process of shedding its “amniotic fluid” is compelling evidence that we're looking at a newborn, which is critical because it strongly suggests the shark hasn’t strayed far from its birth site,” he says. “Also, considering the decades of research about finding the elusive mating and birthing locations of Great Whites, stumbling upon a potential pupping ground like this is nothing short of radical.”

Because ocean animals spend the majority of their lives below the water’s surface, sometimes discoveries must wait until scientists happen to be in the right place at the right time. That was certainly the case when scientists witnessed a humpback giving birth for the first time in March 2021.

“We very rarely ever get to see a live newborn white shark, which could have been born within hours,” says Skomal. “And if that’s the case, this is a really unique observation.”

Great white sharks are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with the overall population thought to be decreasing. Learning more about where they start their lives would be critical information for scientists seeking to safeguard the future of the species.

As for Sternes, he says, “I look forward to receiving feedback from the scientific community.”

#Youtube #Animal 🦔 🦓 🦒 🦈#Great White Shark 🦈#Newborn Shark 🦈#Jason Bittel #Research #Researchers #National Geographic Explorer | Gibbs Kuguru #Santa Barbara | California | United States 🇺🇸#University of California | Riverside

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enquiringangel · 1 year ago

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Ooh, could I get a DVD commentary on Sacrilege?

You most certainly can!

From this meme here. The fic in question is here.

Sacrilege

The idea for this one was born from the single image of David and Michael doing the nasty in a church. This in turn was, at least subliminally, inspired by a scene in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime where Ryou Bakura is trying to escape from the evil spirit that frequently possesses him by running into a church. In that scene the church utterly fails to offer him protection just as it does here.

The last time Michael had set foot in a church was for his grandmother’s funeral years before. He’d been eleven.

This is based on a throwaway line by Lucy where she says her mom died eight years ago. As Michael is meant to be going into his senior year after the events of the summer, he's eighteen. Also from dialogue in deleted scenes trips to visit Santa Carla may have happened while he was a kid, but the Emerson kids and Grandpa are very much strangers to one another.

Michael is by his own admission not even a religious person and neither am I, though faith as a topic fascinates me. There are a few pieces of imagery I put in like Michael turning away from the cross and the 'sad-faced saint' that are meant to reflect this and the futility of the whole endeavour.

David's shadow covering up the altar was maybe a little heavy-handed of me, but the devil in folklore (who is not quite the same figure as Satan) is usually depicted as the Man in Black. In Robert Eggers' movie The Witch, he also appears wearing spurs, so the detail of David's spurs jangling was one I had to include.

His mouth was curled in a faint smirk—Caught you, again those lips seemed to say—but the look in his eyes was one of bitter disappointment.

David wants Michael, but it's not enough to have him. He wants Michael to want to be there, of his own volition (because the devil doesn't just take souls, you have to surrender them to him) which in this AU where I imply the vampires won and killed his family, is not something that is likely to happen. They are, as my tags warn, in a deeply dysfunctional relationship.

“You know,” David began conversationally as he plucked a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it. “My folks were Catholic. Went to mass every Sunday, confessed away their many sins. Never did either of them a blind bit of good. Or me.[...]"

This is venturing into entirely made-up headcanon backstory stuff. I pictured that David's grandparents were Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine by coming to America. You will note that while he says his parents were Catholic, he doesn't consider himself to have been so. This is also for backstory reasons that David was largely on his own from a young age and was too focused on surviving to bother about going to church. (Unless it was to steal money from the collection plate.)

The discussion about the church's ineffectiveness at keeping vampires out is a bit of worldbuilding based on a few things. My assumption is that it is the power of faith that gives holy items their sting, rather than Christianity having some special claim to vanquishing evil. But also on a vaguely remembered piece of apocrypha to the effect of 'no building of wood or stone' being necessary to house god because god is everywhere (I cannot for the life of me remember where this comes from and google is failing me). But it's also inspired by the demon BlueFangs in Netflix's Castlevania adaptation, who taunts the corrupt bishop by saying: "God is not here. This is an empty box." (cw: gore)

My cw against misrepresentation of religion is for the discussion of Wicca, where David and Michael assume all Wiccans are women and that they always practice their religion naked. Neither is true, but they are (mentally at least) teenage boys content to indulge in the fiction of conventionally attractive white ladies dancing around ritual bonfires in the nude. Plus it's the 80s and Wicca is an 'alternative religion' and not something most people are likely to be well-informed about unless they have either researched it or dabbled.

The lead up to their coupling is violent with Michael actually maiming David by tearing a lump out of his throat, because I feel like this is how vampires roll, especially if they can heal very quickly. I don't subscribe to the trope that vampire bites feel pleasant per se, at least not to humans. It's more a case of "Hmm, how kinky are you".

Which in Michael's case here, is very.

And of course the closing image is David mocking the very idea of a god who could keep him from Michael.

#my writing talk #answered asks

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believingispowerfulmagic · 1 year ago

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🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

🛒: I realize I like to incorporate dancing into my fics, especially for Outlaw Queen. I love to write them dancing and the romance that can come from those moments.

🎶: No, I really don't. I usually write while watching TV - that's my white noise really. But the song I've been playing on loop lately is "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge and you know that it gives me Outlaw Queen feels.

💋: I love first kiss fics! There's something sweet about them and you need something fluffy every so often.

🙋‍♀️: Well, I've met some of my fandom friends in real life so I guess that counts. I think I've also slipped a few mentions of writing fanfiction into conversations with others in my life so I think they know.

🎃: I do write fics for certain holidays! I love writing Christmas ones, especially thanks to the old OQ Advent Calendar. And I have a few Halloween inspired ones as well as a couple Valentine's Day ones.

Here are some of my favorites that I've written:

A Christmas Wish:

Henry Mills and Roland Locksley are best friends who decide to ask Santa for one thing this Christmas: to be brothers. It's a wish which will have life changing consequences for all, especially their single parents, Regina Mills and Robin Locksley.

The Christmas Engagement:

To secure her company’s future, Regina Mills needs to convince Leopold Blanchard to sell his company to her. He wants to sell to a family-oriented company and has a very conservative view on what family looks like. In a moment of desperation, she makes up a fiancé. When Leopold wants to meet her family, Regina needs to find one STAT.

Enter Robin Locksley, a single father who is unable to move up from his low-paying position. He agrees to play Regina’s fiancé for the holiday season so she can convince Leopold to make the deal. Will their fake engagement fool everyone...or might their feelings turn out to be not-so-fake after all?

The Christmas Cottage:

In Storybrooke, there is a special cottage. It is said that couples who spend a night there at Christmastime will be blessed with happiness and true love for the rest of their lives. Regina Mills doesn't believe in such fairy tales...until she is forced to spend a night there with her ex-boyfriend, Robin Locksley, ahead of their best friends' Christmas wedding.

Able to finally find closure for how their relationship ended years earlier, they decide to give their friendship a second chance. Having Robin back in her life as well as being back home makes Regina question if she is happy with her life and if she has the courage to make the decisions she needs to in order to be truly happy.

Last Christmas:

When Regina gives her heart to the wrong person on Christmas, she suffers a heartbreak that pushes her closer to her new friend, Robin Locksley. As Christmas approaches yet again, will she find that he is the right person to give her heart? Or will she be too scared to take the risk and ruin the wonderful friendship she shares with him and his son?

#once upon a time #asked and answered #userkazoosandfannypacks #outlaw queen #fanfiction

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beverage2000 · 2 years ago

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hey so after rewatching r1ct for the 19th time maybe i should actually get around to sendig asks abt it SO HEY i've been trying to make a more abstract sort of story and it seems i have trouble with ... being abstract in general. i usually can't come up with any sort of weird imagery or storylines without borrowing heavily from something else. it's highly inconvenient. How do you go about the concept process for your films ? any major takeaways from art school or things i should try ? :0

Wow. this is like the last ask i ever expected to get so first of all thank you for watching R1CT....19 times?!?? this may be hyperbole but either way thank you. its a project that went through a lot of stages and changes and difficulties and it means a lot to me

*puts my hands on your shoulders*i have to tell you something. there is no way you can come up with shit without referencing or borrowing from others' work. im working on a zine/book/thing about the entire journey of making it but basically my"concept process" was a 30-month mess that started out with 1 sketch on the train, which became an idea for a way too ambitious yet still half-assed fully hand-drawn second-year film..but put through the play-doh spaghetti machine of covid i started having a different relationship with myself, with my computer, with my computer-self.. and it morphed slowly and weirdly into wut it is i guess. i dont think i could recreate those circumstances if i tried lol. but yea im rambling too much so let me actually try to answer your question

so ya like i said its actually important and beneficial to borrow from other peoples works. i definitely have the privilege of going to art school to help with that cause i was exposed to a variety of different media and art and obscure films i probably wouldnt have seen otherwise. but i will say itll serve u well to branch out and look at art forms other than the one youre studying, even stuff that seems boring or not relevant. and combine the elements that inspire u the most and make something of ur own. some big inspirations that went into the melting pot early on were: the movie la selva oscura by carlos santa, the opening for the 1974 anime majokko megu-chan, the 1983 movie rock & rule, the matrix, movies by gregg araki, roberto rossellini, david lynch(sorry), elaine may, jonni phillips(to whom i owe so much), among many others; the animated series transformers: beast wars, sally cruikshank's quasi at the quackadero, the artworks of fernand leger and leopold survage (both part of the Cubist scene but had a conceptual interest in filmmaking)...... yeah i could go on for a really long time. (i guess i already did). if you look at this stuff you can probably see lots of elements of these things, in r1ct but it still ended up being something at least semi-original.. so yea go to the library look at art books watch old movies, find stuff u hate, find stuff u like. absorb shit and make shit. dont be afraid to do something way different than what youre used to. basically just go crazy

shoutout 2 any1 who managed to read through this whole thing LOL. i encourage you to check out at least one of the things or artists i mentioned here and yea.. thank you again:)i hope you can look forward to more works in the R1CT cinematic univere

#ask #LONG Post #long ass post #question #answer #r1ct #brak-pak #as for the abstract thing #i can attribute it a lot to just.. ideas being shifted and moved around and chopped up and thrown away #and added at the last minute #its a huge clump of thoughts.ideas concepts etc so #its kinda like puzzle pieces scattered #but its still part of something #idk..#ya

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brightoakgame · 2 years ago

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Author’s Marginalia - 3

I am not a solo dev.

I have vast admiration for those that do singlehandedly manage art, writing, coding, and promotion-- it’s quite a load, and those that shoulder it alone are deserving of all praise. Of the other devs I know, whether solo or part of a team, it seems like many of us begin, bright-eyed, with a story we wish to tell and share, and then find ourselves with an ongoing list of fetch quests necessary to fulfill first. Coding is a new language to learn; script edits can take years; artwork is iterated on and iterated on again; few of us who write also have a talent for social media communications.

Among all those, daunting as they are, it seems among the greatest hurdle often proves backgrounds.

(photo taken in Santa Ysabel, California, of an oak snag in grassland against the backdrop of a rolling green hill; granite crops up out of the grass and chapparal in places)

It’s a deceptively simple problem to solve: ostensibly, as long as the necessary set pieces are in place-- tidy rows of desks, perhaps, or an unmade bed, or a castle in the distance-- what more do you really need? Too much detail can distract from the characters or the narrative; after all, this remains a written medium, even if it also relies heavily on imagery. It’s a nature-vs-nurture debate: must we tell, when we can show? Is showing necessary, where telling already occurs? There is no global “right” or “wrong” answer, of course-- only the personal.

I remember once struggling to ascend to the top of a granite boulder, my late uncle lifting me beneath the armpits and helping to hoist me up to a vantage I never before had experienced in my then single-digit lifespan. In a world where everyone and everything seemed Big, the massive granite outcroppings and monumental oaks were simply to scale: grown-ups, cars, movies, feelings, all loomed large and unfathomable. Why wouldn’t trees and rocks require one to tip back one’s head and squint against the afternoon sunshine? Most of it might be well beyond my compass, but within a few short years, I excelled at scrambling up those rocks, and climbing those trees, and worrying my parents, their heads tipped back in turn, squinting into the afternoon sun and telling me to get down again this instant.

On the cusp of adulthood, a massive wildfire laid waste to the older-growth oak trees just outside the city where I grew up; when I returned to my hometown, the landscape I knew from childhood had contracted, not merely in response to my growing larger, but in honest truth. The moments we see an old family friend and think, Ah, they are smaller than I remember-- but now it was not the familiar oaks dotting the hillsides and valleys, but their legacy. The boulders remain, of course; the young oaks have filled in much of what was lost; the survivors of the blaze tower above their surroundings, and when I see them, I think to myself of the memories I share with those trees, in spite of all else that has changed, in my life and theirs.

I do not know another way to inhabit the world, except to believe our surroundings are more than incidental in our stories; they are full characters, and while they may be wordless, nevertheless they influence each and every scene-- and when they are gone or changed, their absence speaks of grief as eloquently in its way as the loss of a loved one.

Because of this, I too find backgrounds-- a great deal of work.

(initial sketch made of the previous image, strongly lined over the snag and horizon lines, but vague where the oak canopy starts)

I adore-- passionately!-- my home state of California. I love the gnarled oaks and the golden grasslands; I love the granite-studded mountains and the unknowable redwood forests; I love the rugged coast and the slubby blanket-fort foothills. I love the small things: the fae circles of mushrooms that crop up; the spires of purple lupine in spring; the fragile poppies the color of flame, which burn out almost as swiftly as they emerge. The Matalija poppies, which in full bloom look like sunny-side-up eggs in a Studio Ghibli film. Manzanita, growing out of rocks and cliff faces, bark like garnet, leaves like jade, flowers like elfin bells. Sage, richly perfuming the air, irresistibly tactile. The phoenix-like ability of native plants to die by fire and yet emerge again anew.

I live in a fairytale landscape, and I do not forget it. I cannot; it gifts me stories to tell myself, and now others. The trouble is not that the place I draw from for Bright Oak is limited, but instead, that it feels in many ways limitless. What is most important? What shall best serve the story? I have hundreds-- if not well over a thousand-- reference photos I have taken over the years at this point, all along the coastal foothills and mountains forming the westernmost ridge of the state. Each background I come to, I shuffle through the deck again, searching out the right trees, the right swell of hills, the right row of buildings, sometimes mixing and rearranging and reformatting until the “face” I see in my head I can find on the screen.

Because as intimately as I know my characters, I also know the landscape they inhabit; their voices are in my mouth, but the oaks and rolling hills are just beneath my skin. And in as much as I crave to share those characters with others, that they might know and (hopefully) love them, I feel similarly regarding Bright Oak itself. It’s the amalgam of memories I carry: the roar of wind, the rasp of summer grass, the hush of leaves underfoot, cricketsong in the evening. The relief of occupying a place where one is not required to speak all the time, but can simply listen. I want to layer it all in, and I aspire to the backgrounds serving as a living part of the narrative, hyper-saturated with all the awe and familiarity-yet-strangeness and sentimentality I can imbue them with. It may be the Technicolor version of the places I hold dearest-- but I suppose in a way that’s to be expected.

After all, it’s California.

(the finished hand-painted watercolor version of the background, re-lined in ink: a patchwork of gold, ochre, and myriad greens, with pops of terracotta red; the sky is robin’s-egg blue with merengue peaks of clouds)

#bright oak #marginalia #author's note #longform #dev notes #background art #backgrounds #interactive fiction #visual novel #oelvn #vn #vn dev #writing

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earthstellar · 3 years ago

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Transformers Analysis: Folklore and Folk Magic in the Mines of Kaon

thinking about Miner Megatron again, as always. here we goooo

So I've been doing some folk magic, as I usually do, and it got me thinking:

Surely, the lower class/caste bots wouldn’t feel welcomed into the more organised Cybertronian temples etc., or might even be outright banned from joining in shared spiritual spaces or rituals.

So it’s time to teach y’all some working class magic history and how we can apply that to Cybertronian spirituality:

Working Class History: Casting Spells on the Job (Just Call it Prayer so the Boss Doesn't Find Out)

Here's a quick history of rural Appalachian folk magic, for some context:

1) The Christian Bible has been used for spellcasting all up and down the rural East Coast in the USA from day one of colonisation.

In Pennsylvania you have Hexenmeisters and the Pennsylvania Dutch practices, for a well-documented example.

2) The working class has done spellcasting with the Bible from the very first day shitty bosses started

This is for several reasons, but primarily because Bibles were common and cheap, you didn't have to know how to read in order to follow along with or change the lyrics of popular hymns and prayers to fit your own needs, and it was very easy to sneak what is essentially localised witchcraft under the radar when it just looks like you're reading the Bible to everyone else.

Catholic materials were used a lot for this, because they were often provided for free by any local churches, and a lot of working class people in Appalachia were Italian (Roman Catholic) or Eastern European (Eastern Orthodox Catholic), which meant there was no shortage of all sorts of votive candles and the like to utilise for what we would now identify as spellcasting.

It's important to note that it wasn't called spellcasting outright by anybody; Sometimes it was called "hexing" or "sweet talking", among other terms, but if you called it spellcasting it was heavily frowned upon.

A lot of people were uncomfortable (and are still uncomfortable) with verbalising it or identifying it as such due to stigma from the more mainstream religious communities or their own religious backgrounds, and of course, historically if the boss found out that all the workers hated their jobs so much they were doing fucking witchcraft about it, it would not have ended well for the workers.

So, stealth it is. And that's why there are so many specific folk practices in a lot of historically working class rural regions/communities-- Not just in Appalachia, but similar things happen in similar communities around the world.

What does this have to do with Megatron?

Everything we know about the lower classes on Cybertron, the lower caste members, and the mines/industrial regions in Tarn and Kaon suggest that a similar folklore likely existed within these working communities.

And any local folk practices likely developed for the exact same reasons that this type of folk practice developed in the real world:

Workers are fucking miserable, "mainstream" religion isn't satisfying their spiritual/emotional/social/material needs or concerns, and close-knit people in small communities spending most of their time together naturally start to sort of do their own thing based on their collective situation.

People get desperate, there's nowhere to turn and nothing to do, so spirituality becomes a lifeline in that it builds solidarity and creates a more appropriate sort of support system.

For example: If we aren't allowed time off work to mourn our friend who was killed by heavy machinery, and we aren't allowed any time to process that or deal with it or take care of each other, then we will invent a ritual that allows us to grieve on the job.

This was, and still is, a common thing.

Which brings us to...

St. Barbara and the Mines + Solus Prime

St. Barbara's backstory can be summarised, roughly, as such (based on the version of this story that I know; keep in mind the details can vary):

She was kept isolated from others by her father, who became furious that she refused an arranged marriage. When she fled, he chased her; She ran into two people working in a field, the first who helped her, and the second who gave her path away to her father.

She was captured, and brought to a prominent local figure (the title varies based on different versions of this story), who had her tortured for escaping and disobeying her father.

However, when imprisoned, they tried to kill her again and again, and every morning she was healed. Fire intended to be used to burn her would cool the second it got near her skin, and daggers used to cut her would go dull when brought near her.

Snakes thrown into her room intended to bite her would then die the instant they went to approach her, and ropes intended to be used to bind and choke her would spontaneously fray and snap before they could be tied.

Eventually, she was condemned to beheading, and a special sword was used to cut her head off, which finally killed her.

Her father is the one who beheaded her, and as divine punishment, he was hit by lightning-- A single bolt that lasted so long that his entire body went up into flames, and his ashes disappeared.

Her gravesite became a place of veneration, where people prayed for protection and safety.

She became known as the patron saint of all people with dangerous jobs or jobs where the bosses don't care about the worker's wellbeing or safety, for obvious reasons: Nothing but the hands of her own father could ever harm her.

(The imagery of St. Barbara being slain only by a special sword is very reminiscent of Solus Prime being slain only by a special sword...)

Workers, especially those with particularly dangerous or shitty jobs but also just anyone working class in general, can interpret this story in several ways which can make it additionally relatable:

Her father = A controlling and aggressive boss who abuses or neglects their workers to death.

The field workers = A pro-union worker (a helper) and an anti-union worker or scab (a betrayer).

So you can see how St. Barbara became immediately adopted as a common worker's saint, and was used in a lot of regional working class folk magic practices (where such folk magic developed within local working communities).

And this is still going strong as a tradition; Crossrail tunnel borers in London consecrated the drilling site in the name of St. Barbara in 2013:

"Several hundred contractors and senior management attended the St Barbara's Day ceremony at the Thames Tunnel (pictured) which will link Plumstead and North Woolwich when completed. The site was so large, that sound engineers put in place an amplification system for the ceremony." - Article here.

"As a long-standing tradition, one of the first tasks for each new tunnelling projects is to establish a small shrine to Santa Barbara at the tunnel portal or at the underground junction into long tunnel headings. This is often followed with a dedication and an invocation to Santa Barbara for protection of all who work on the project during the construction period." - Article here.

And here's a related example of a worker's prayer for St. Barbara, from here:

So this is very much a tradition that is still going strong, and it isn't just Catholic workers who engage with these types of things!

To accommodate more diverse groups and communities of workers, folk practices (including what eventually becomes folk magic) increasingly develop even further away from any one specific religious origin, in order to become more inclusive for the majority of people who can be from all kinds of different spiritual or cultural backgrounds.

Hence, more folk magic is made-- And I believe something like this could absolutely have evolved in a similar way in working communities on Cybertron.

Cybertronian Spirituality: The Primes, The Knights, The Titans

My personal theory/headcanon, and there is not much in canon to support this particularly so please keep that in mind, is that given the average type of manual labour working environment in Tarn and Kaon (dangerous, dark, and deep), it would make sense for the legendary Titans to become worked into some kind of folk practice.

We have this concept of the Titans as these giant and very particular beings, which reminds me somewhat of the Jewish Golem of Prague, in that the Titans are made from raw materials in some kind of mystical or cosmically spiritual manner, then eventually ally themselves to at least one respective Prime who then acts as a director of their actions to achieve victory over cosmic evil(s).

The Titans then go forward and act as guardians of Cybertronian life by combating the origins of these cosmic evil(s) as protectors of their respective polities and regions and eventually colony worlds, called into action by what is essentially a metaphysical and possibly outright spiritual pull of the need of their Prime(s) and later on the needs of the Cybertronian and colony world populations in times of threat or desperation.

These details are peppered throughout canon and vary based on media/franchise, but most recently Titan lore was covered again in IDW’s Optimus Prime series, issue 10, literally titled Origin Myths.

What is interesting is that while the Golem association could be reasonably made, you could also reasonably say that the Three Original Titans (Metroplex, Chela, and Metrotitan) could be associated just as easily with the Catholic concept of the Holy Trinity.

Lots of different interpretations could be applied to this stuff!

Class Stratification Within Cybertronian Religious Institutions

No matter how you may interpret it, we know that the Titans have a similar mystical presence in Cybertronian history and cultural lore to that of the Primes and Knights, and it would make sense for those spurned and disparaged by "mainstream" spiritual practices (which were likely just as stratified by class and caste as everything else was on Cybertron during Megatron's youth) to go ahead and create a folk practice based more around Titans.

This is because the Primes would like be associated directly with their oppressive rulers and upper classes, and the Knights, who are said to be the first Cybertronians to come from the Well, thusly represent a very high class onto their own which may have repelled working class bots who were very likely sick of essentially worshipping those venerated in their class stratified society solely due to the conditions of their creation; The Knights were "born with silver spoons", essentially, and it's hard to sell that to people who suffered due to the conditions of their own creation.

Therefore, the Titans are the other most likely Cybertronian figures of historical lore that could reasonably be adapted into a sort of folk religion for the working classes and lower social caste bots.

The imagery is strong, and relatable: In Megatron's case, the manual labourers and miners all have large frames compared to the average Cybertronian, they all toil invisibly and in relative silence, and they are kept away from the end products of their labour and yet without them, Cybertron planet wide would instantly struggle to sustain their raw material demands.

They are critical workers, yet many of them have no names/designations; It is noted at least once in canon that some Titans are so old or so little known that their designations are not recorded. Yet without these unseen/unknown Titans, it could be the case that cosmic evil could have achieved victory.

While the Titans are critical, they are largely a mystery and unknown in any real detail. They do not normally engage with average Cybertronians, and when they do, it is usually indirectly-- Even though their actions actively impact the lives of nearly everyone.

And though the Primes and Knights are generally never physically present, at least not within living memory, there is real and physical proof of Titans. I feel like that aspect alone may well appeal more to people who are very physically oriented; We also see a stark realist mentality from many of the lower class/caste bots, who are sometimes realistic to the point of nihilism (which is part of why Megatron's writings were so revolutionary, in that they re-introduced hope to people who had previously concluded that there was no realistic possibility of ever rising up).

The Titans being a known, tangible physical reality may well have endeared them as a more interesting folkloric or spiritual focus to this particular cohort of bots.

Just like with St. Barbara in real life, you can see how the Titans may have been interpreted in certain ways by the lower class/caste working bots which may have made them more appealing or more easy to structure into a framework of sorts for their own practices within their local cultures.

A Little Meta: There's a Lot of Various Religious Imagery in Transformers

Like with all media, especially Western media, inevitably some Jesus sneaks in there.

Which usually sucks, because it can be alienating for literally anyone who isn't familiar with Christianity in some way (as some references or parallels are inevitably not going to be as obvious or even detectable at all to people who didn't grow up with all this sometimes very specific shit, resulting in missed thematic elements and so on due to no fault of the viewers but rather the tendency for Western shows to overwhelmingly be written and designed by primarily Western white middle aged cis straight men who tend to throw some Jesus in there when there should not necessarily be any Jesus in there, but I could yell about this all night).

Transformers as a franchise altogether is not immune to this; As with all media, it is made by people, and people are influenced by their social/cultural upbringing, and that includes religious influences.

We could read some of this into the TFP/Aligned Continuity, in regards to the idea of the Thirteen Primes and how that concept is interpreted in TFP.

Transformers Prime: Alpha Trion is Essentially Paul the Apostle

The TFP Primes resemble both the Apostles as well as various Saints, and especially the Fourteen Holy Helpers; These fourteen Saints in particular are elevated above the others in many cases and contexts-- Similar to how the Primes are held up as elevated over other Cybertronians and other figures in Cybertronian history and presumably within certain Cybertronian spiritual practices as well.

For example, Alpha Trion is strongly reminiscent of the Christian figure Paul the Apostle, who was a writer/scribe known for documenting early Christian concerns of faith in his letters, which became extremely important to theological historians in regards to determining early Christian discourse and attempting to create a timeline of early Christianity.

His letters are included the New Testament in thirteen (!) sections called epistles, which are archived forever in various iterations within the Christian Bible.

Now, let’s take a look at the symbolism, using the TFP main illustration of Alpha Trion as featured in the Covenant, and a popular Icon image of Paul the Apostle:

Beard, cloak, book-- Even the pose they are in here is very similar, look at the feet and the way they are both standing. Even the halo of Cybertronian glyphs around Alpha Trion’s head resembles the gold filament of Paul’s halo.

And much like Alpha Trion's questionable ability to write/re-write history and determine events through some kind of cosmically divine power of foresight, the timeline of Paul's letters will likely never be fully verifiable, and of course, there are so many translations and interpretations of these letters along with the rest of the New Testament that while key points remain fairly consistent, there is still no "true" version or exact outline of events or discussions as recorded by Paul-- Primarily because in at least a few cases, Paul's letters are the only allusion to certain events or conversations.

This is extremely similar to how Alpha Trion states outright in the Covenant that he himself doesn't know if what he writes is actually factual anymore, or if he has changed things so many times to try to construct a more favourable narrative of actions and events that reality itself may have been warped by his Quill, either forwards or backwards in time...

You could also argue that Alpha Trion is presented as a God-like figure in TFP (especially when he appears to Optimus in the form of an echoing voice and shimmering spectral figure in a vision caused by what is essentially the equivalent of a holy relic), and Orion Pax would then be comparable to Jesus pre-Crucifixion, with his reformatting into Optimus Prime post-Matrix heavily resembling Jesus in the eyes of his followers post-Resurrection.

The main cast of Autobots in this comparison would then roughly correspond to the Apostles, of whom there were twelve, with Optimus then making Thirteen... And of course, canonically, Optimus is the resurrection of the Thirteenth Prime.

You can also see visual similarities in the depiction of Thirteen in the Covenant; It reminds me heavily of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus:

Both have their right hands raised, their chests emitting a holy/cosmic light.

I'm just saying, it is totally possible to make connections between fictional lore/spiritual figures and real world ones, and TF is loaded with content that can be re-contextualised in this way.

(I also want to point out at this time that it is not my intention to offend anyone with any of this analysis; I am writing from the point of view of someone who grew up with folk spirituality, and I am also a Quaker Attender, just so you are aware of my own personal background. I would love to hear any other interpretations of any spiritual imagery in Transformers media, because there’s a ton of possible ways to read into this stuff!)

In Conclusion: Cast a Hex on Your Boss by Calling Upon the Titans

Just for fun, as someone who has actually done folk magic for my entire life, I've adapted a hex against bad bosses to fit this headcanon. I think this is something that lower class/caste bots would absolutely engage in; It's common in real life as well.

The original I'm basing this off of was actually something I found in one of our old family Bibles before I moved out, and was written in Girard, Pennsylvania sometime between 1920-1930. I believe it was written by a relative of mine who worked either on the farm or on the railways.

Remember that folk magic like this is for and by working class people, so there are no fancy supplies needed; Don't ever buy shit to do magic, you can do it with anything laying around you. No need to spend money.

If you have a shitty boss, please let me know if you hex your boss with this. I always encourage witchcraft, fictional or otherwise.

Here's what you do, if you want to actually try this:

1) Using any old paper that you have lying around, cut it roughly into a square (doesn't need to be perfect.) It doesn't matter what type of paper it is.

2) Grab any pen you like, it can be any type of pen, any type of ink.

3) Draw a square outline on the paper, making a border on the page. This can be big or small as you like, and you can decorate it if you want; Just leave enough space to write inside the square.

4) Fold this paper into a square, any way you'd like as long as it's a square, and take this paper while it's still blank to work in your pocket.

Carry the paper with you for at least one full day at work. If you can, place it in a chest pocket or a pocket where the paper will be fairly close to your body.

It doesn't matter if the paper gets dirty or smudged or torn; In fact, that's even better.

(Some people who do variations of this spell in real life even use the paper to wipe dirt off their hands etc. throughout the day, to really get the energy of a work day settled into the paper. As long as it can still be written on, you can do this if you'd like.)

5) At the end of the work day, take the paper out, and write the following:

Where I have put [X], the word "Lord" was in the original version of this hex which was in my family Bible, but to contextualise it within the fictional headcanon lore here, you can replace this with the word "Titan". (Or you can replace it with anything else that may be appropriate as well, if you would like to actually use this hex!)

"Give us pay for our work, or the poor will plea to the [X] against you, and you will be struck down, cast down.

If you do not give to those who give to you, you will be cursed coming in, and going out.

Just as the [X] can raise you up and lead you to prosper, so too can the [X] turn away from you, and you will be left to have your walls destroyed, your fortress ruined.

Us servants will rejoice, but you will cry out in anguish, you will be put to shame.

Without the toilers, the land is made desolate, the haunt of jackals.

[X], turn your gaze to us, we labourers of all kinds, see our tears and our sweat.

Lay curses upon those who use their hands to hold us down; Kept below water, our tears lost in the flood.

Raise the waters, and surge the shores of their ill-owned kingdom; Bring forth to their memory that the [X] stewards the land, and that all among the land are equal in spirit.

The [X] will cast fury upon the unrighteous and conniving, cast rage and stand among us mightily, each motion casting winds against the oppressor who weakens like fractured stone under the onslaught of rain.

The [X] will make a storm from our anguish, which brings us higher, raises us from desolation. Our tears, become the rain that withers the false tower looming high above us.

Our hands will raise from our tools and duties, and offer high praise to the [X], who guards the disparaged and lowly, who enacts justice against those who have done wrong against us.

Let us be brought high, and those who revel in our struggle, may they be cast down."

6) You may flip the paper over once the ink is dry, and on the back, put three Xs in the upper corners of the paper. You may also add three more XXXs to the centre of the paper, where the crease in the paper is from folding it.

7) Re-fold the paper, and put it in the bottom of your right shoe. If this is too uncomfortable, carry it in any pocket on your right side.

You can also place it in your wallet for safe keeping, as your wallet contains money and possibly a work ID or something similar, which are all tied to work and working.

And there you have it! Fuck shitty bosses, both fictional ones and real ones. Join a union, do some witchcraft.

This post was long as always, but I hope it's interesting to someone out there! <3 Thank you to anyone who actually reads through all of this! <3

#megatron #transformers #tfp #transformers prime #alpha trion #transformers meta #transformers analysis #long post #idw transformers #idw 1 #miner megatron #young megatron #maccadam #tw religion #working class history #witchcraft #spellcasting #hexing #solus prime

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aspoonofsugar · 2 years ago

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Hello! Are you watching RWBY Ice Queendom? How do you like it so far?

Hello anon!

Yes and I am loving it so far! It works really well as a spinoff imo! In general, I love dream landscapes and internal worlds, so the idea of the characters exploring Weiss's mind is just very interesting to me!

I also like how Weiss's internal world is depicted. It is clearly Atlas and it is fun to see so many details of the original packed into it :D

Here are some of my favourite things!

Pyrrha in the dummy cage singing Mirror Mirror

The Snake Statue in the Schnee Manor turning into Uroburos

The Fountain where Weiss fought Winter

The White Trailer invisible people filling Weiss's internal world even in the shape of invisible hands that take away her clothes, etc.

Weiss locking her friends away either in the dummy prison (where she secretly wants to be) or in the Tower. However, she very casually chooses Sleepy Klein as a guard ;) I mean... she clearly wants Ruby and Yang to run away LMAO

How much Blake keeps coming back into her dream to challenge her internalized racism

The use of "relics" as magical objects to look for is both a nod to the initiation cerimony and a hint to RWBY's real plot ;)

The way Weiss's family is represented

The way Weiss's internal world is a mix between Snowhite, the Snow Queen and Santa Claus's imagery... with a little bit of Sleeping Beauty in it. I'll be honest, I think RWBY deals with symbolism in a more original way, so I prefer the main series on this... However, I still find the symbolism in IQ fun :D

Finally, I love how Weiss's dream world is just... it is a cold and lonely dicatorship, but also so so childish... It really fits her! I mean, there is this scary world, but then there are things like the Dummy Prison or 7 different versions of Klein, who are basically comic reliefs... those are ideas you may find in a children book! And the best part is that Weiss is exactly like this, initially. She is a child who tries to look more mature than she is by hiding behind a cold mask. Her moving forward is specifically her accepting this childishness and warmth more :D

In general, I also like how they have clearly integrated a videogame-like dynamic in the series and how Weiss's dream is basically going in cycles. I am excited of Jaune entering into the Nightmare as well and I am curious of Yang's plan to change some parts of the dream-world. Very fascinating!

Speaking of Jaune, I am rather happy of how the characters are used in Ice Queendom so far. I was kind of meh in introducing Sun and Penny for example because they really seem to have very marginal roles. They are useful for the recap eps, but still... However, they used them as helpers figures in the last ep and that worked imo. As for Jaune, I am happy they are keeping his and Weiss's parallelism and foiling, even if the series is meant to be focused on Weiss and her teammates' relationship. I think it is something done rather well!

All in all, it is a spinoff that can easily be integrated into volume 1 lore with very little trouble so far :D It wouldn't have worked in the original show, but as an additional story, it rocks!

Thank you for the ask!

#rwby #rwby ice queendom #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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fascination-street-writing · 4 years ago

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Steadily Emerging with Grace | La Squadra x Ghost!Reader

He opens his mouth to speak again, but nothing comes, for his eyes have fallen to the bruises upon your skin, and your pretty terry dress that seems a decade out of fashion. It was never a secret to any of the men from La Squadra di Esecuzioni - or rather, to anyone who has lived in Napoli long enough - that a young women fitting your description was murdered within the very confines of these walls.

It is an absurd thought to believe in ghosts - but then again, so are the existence of Stands.

- 200 Follower Giveaway Piece II for @elxzyy -

Content Warnings: Not SFW Content, Murder, Past Domestic Violence, Religious Imagery, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Masturbation, & Implied Sexual Content

You were born in 1959: the same year that Ethel Merman took to the stage for her last Broadway production in America, and when Miles Davis released his hit album Kind of Blue; you remember the latter fondly, for it reminds you of weekend car rides to the beaches with your parents – it was, after all, your father’s favorite cassette tape.

At age twenty-two, not long after the discovery of the ever-elusive propaganda due of Milano – headed by Licio Gelli –, you were murdered in the not-so comforts of your own home in Vivo Pallonetto Santa Chiara by a troubled lover who had found his consolation in nose candy and cognac.

You faced death with buoyancy. The afterlife will not be so bad, you had thought. But there was no light, no stairway to heaven, and no pearly gates; only inescapable solitude, and utter loneliness. Your former lover faced no vindication, because having family in the court system paid off. To the public, you were the victim of nothing more than an attempted robbery, gone horribly wrong.

And so, you linger on this plain of the earth with little more to do than watching birds through the panes of the window glass during the day and counting the stars at night. The rumors of a woman’s ghost – your ghost – who haunts this gloomy residence has kept it away from the claws of real estate tycoons. It is true that joggers hold their heads down as they pass, and dogs bark at your face through the crackling windows; school children have dared each other to spend the night inside, but never could get past the boarded front door without being shooed away by pesky neighbors or authorities.

Dust collects on pieces of discarded furniture that you had accumulated from thrift stores and porch sales during your brief stint as a renter. The buffet table beside the front door, which you used to use as a makeshift shelf for wine bottles, had belonged to your grandmother, however. And when that door finally opens for the first time in these lost years that you cannot recall, the knob brushes against an emptied bottle for holding flowers and sends it to the ground with a splintering thud.

It startles you, and though your mind races with questions that will only be answered in due time, you vanish from your perch at the window. Cool air rushes through from the opening; you have forgotten what life smelled like. Surely, you had not expected that the first living being to grace you with their presence once more would be a man of such intimidating stature.

Silver hair, red eyes, and black sclera: if not for your contemptuous curiosity, you might think him to be an angel of death. You follow him through the creaking halls and neglected rooms, waiting for the moment when he will stretch his hand to you for the taking and lead you beyond this world.

The thundering tone of his voice might have been a trumpet’s call if it were true. Before the threshold of the room wherein you met your fate, he stops.

“Leave.”

You frown, but surely you ought to do as he says. He is an angel, after all.

You learn from the calendar hanging above Risotto’s desk – as you have discovered to be the silver-haired man’s name – that it is now the nineties. You do not dwell over how long it has been since your death, because it changes nothing. Your home is full of life again, for that it what it has truly become – a home.

With the passing of time, they come and go, these new men who have taken up residence here. You hide in shadows and observe them as if they are a living depiction of a sitcom and you their only audience member. Talks of assassinations, blood splatters on the carpets, and mysterious wounds from the outside world never bother you anymore. You adore each man for his own endearing ways, but what is more, you admire them for what they are.

A family – albeit an unconventional one.

And so, prompted by perhaps your own desire to fulfill your need of stolen domesticity and a sense of belonging again, you spend your days tending to them; without their knowledge, of course, as you have never made your presence known after the day you first found Risotto. From cooking meals when Prosciutto is too tired to do it himself, or folding the clean laundry that otherwise gets tossed over desk chairs – of which Formaggio is the biggest perpetrator; yet, you tend to it all with the same diligence of your own mother. And, oddly enough, you are glad for it.

Alive, you never cared for these things. Now, you suppose, you simply have nothing better to do. You enjoy watching Prosciutto cook, just so that you can commit his skills to memory and memorize his recipes – and the same has been done with the laundry. With each passing day, you learn a new secret about the men of the house. Tonight, you will learn of Risotto’s unprofessed ailment of night terrors.

Surely, it comes as an unfathomable surprise to him when he wakes before the morning sky has; chills curl his dampened spine and root him in place by what must be an invisible bond. He struggles to catch the breaths that do not stay, and the room around him spins so fast that his stomach lurches with pain.

He does not dream of those whom he has killed – he dreams of everything he has done wrong and more. In this moment, Risotto feels as though he has been suspended from a string that holds him in place between the realm of consciousness and not. If his body could listen to his mind, he would carry himself to the shower and begin the day prematurely.

Standing above him, your skirt swaying from the gentle breeze of the box fan in the window, you soak a cotton cloth in a bowl of cold water and hum to yourself a particular little tune from your childhood. You give him this moment of vulnerability, because he needs it as a reminder that he is only human. But that does not mean he must suffer for it alone.

You stop to wring the cloth back into the bowl before draping it over his glistening forehead. His eyes scan your face for an answer that you are not able to give. In his delirium, he decides that you must be an angel who has come to visit him in his sleep – and even now, this is nothing more than a fantasy. And yet, when he bursts into a sudden coughing fit and begs you for a glass of water, you fetch it without hesitation.

The rim of the cup meets his lips, held to them by your own grasp. In this reverie – this hypnotic daze – he can feel everything, including the soft pads of your fingertips as you comb through his hair and nestle him back down against the pillow. He can smell the faintest perfume of flowers, too. You stay with him until his gasping for air becomes the timbre of gentle snores, and his haunting eyes have drifted shut.

And it fills you with the strangest kind of gratification that makes your heart swell like a blossom in spring.

In truth, you ventured into the bathroom with every intention of mopping the vinyl-tiled floor and bleaching the shower while the men are out. Instead, your cleaning supplies lie neglected in the corner, in an unforeseen bout in which you have become distracted. You stand in front of the mirror with a scowl as you trace the permanent bruises on your neck, left behind by your lover’s hands. You ought to be a woman near forty now, perhaps married to some corporate worker from the retail district – or at least, certainly someone other than him, if you decided to marry at all.

Whatever decision you may have made, you just hope that you would have been happy. Because, if you are utterly and truly happy as you are, then what good is a husband or a wife to share it with? With a sigh, you turn away and effectively tear your gaze away from your reflection. That is, until a peculiar silver hand slips past the paneled mirror and curls around your wrist. Without a moment to spare, you are pulled backwards, and into the precipice of the void.

It is Illuso who stands in front of you in this mirrored realm of what appears to be the bathroom but is not quite so. The lights are darker, and air around you is unsettlingly cold; the thing that holds you still is anything but human. Dark red eyes belonging to a peevishly smirking face peer down at you.

“You know, bella,” he says as he tethers a lock of your hair around a finger. Even if he tore it from your scalp, you would not feel same the pain that others might. Though, that does not stop you from cowering at his touch. “You have some nerve, breaking in when the others are gone. I bet you think you’re the sneaky type, hm? Well, if that’s the case, you aren’t very good at this. So, let me ask something, and if I like your answer, I’ll let you go. Did the Boss send you?”

Your breath hitches.

“Or are you just a lost stray from the streets?”

You fumble in the grasp of that which grips your arms. You have overhead the men in conversation of whom you can only assume is their employer – and, based on the inflections of their tones, you know that they harbor unspeakable resentment towards him. In your silence, Illuso huffs and suddenly you are thrown to the floor. The tiles feel sticky underneath your palms.

He opens his mouth to speak again, but nothing comes, for his eyes have fallen to the bruises upon your skin and your pretty terry dress that seems a decade out of fashion. It was never a secret to any of the men from La Squadra di Esecuzioni – or rather, to anyone who has lived in Napoli long enough – that a young woman fitting your description was murdered within the very confines of these walls.

It is an absurd thought to believe in ghosts – but then again, so are the existence of Stands. In a world where the physical manifestation of one’s own soul is possible, how truly ludicrous would it be for the apparition of a human being to linger, post-mortem? It is plenty good a rationalization for Illuso, and so he crouches down and grasps your chin.

You meet his gaze, reluctantly so.

“So then, you’re the one who burnt dinner last night. You owe Melone an apology; here, we all thought he was to blame.”

Of course, you already knew that.

“You’ve been a busy girl, haven’t you? Now, if I’m not mistaken, you were in the middle of something. I won’t keep you any longer.”

He casts you from his mirror. You land on your knees, just before the empty mop bucket. It is not until you stand that you realize Illuso is still in the mirror, smiling so wickedly again as his hands move to work the buttons of his shirt loose before he turns on the showerhead and steps inside.

The bathroom will have to wait to be cleaned. Besides, you think you have just heard the washing machine chime.

Your unfortunate interaction with Illuso has, to say the least, rubbed you entirely the wrong way; it is merely his condescending self, and therefore, his blame. His nasty jab at your cooking abilities has not helped to fuel any incentive to continue helping. The laundry has gotten backed up, and more often than not, Prosciutto orders takeout for the others rather than spending his own precious time preparing a meal, only to be stuck with the mess of dishes.

Among this all, you have returned to the solitude that was once like a dear, albeit unwanted, friend. Today, you are found amongst crates in the basement with a file that you had snatched from Risotto’s office. It makes for a good bit of reading, and surely, there can be no harm in peaking.

As for Ghiaccio, he has practically torn the apartment apart in his reckless rage to find his missing dossier – which, as he recalls perfectly clearly, he had left on his Capo’s desk for light corrections on the misspelling of the target’s name.

If Pesci were here, he might insist that the ghost stole it. It is a thought that makes Ghiaccio scoff because there is no such thing. He was disappointed to find Risotto’s eagerness to believe Illuso’s insistence on the matter. Prosciutto met the accusation with a roll of his eyes; Formaggio, a dismissive flick of his hand and a laugh; and Melone . . . Well, by that point, Ghiaccio had tuned out the ludicrous conversation entirely.

He stares at the basement door as his fists curl tightly to his gloved palms. It is the last place he had thought to look, for he had no reason to. Although now that he finds himself caving to the frustrations of his missing file, he opens the door and plunges into the dark.

You do not hear him approach – too mesmerized by your choice in reading, of course. When the file in the manilla folder is snatched from your grasp, you frown and meet the fuming stare of Ghiaccio. “Are you serious?” he asks, incredulous. “I’ve been looking for this for hours, no thanks to you.”

When he slams the door, shutting you away without a better source of distraction, you sigh. You should have known better. Maybe when he is done with it, you will borrow it back.

But until then, you think you will pretend to take a nap.

Today is a good day, and you feel like cooking again. You scour the refrigerator and pantry for the ingredients needed to prepare Prosciutto’s salted herring and polenta. You add corn meal to the pot of cold water atop the stove. As the water heats, you throw in a pinch of salt and a spoonful of dried rosemary. It is a simple dish, yet the men eat it all the same.

The floorboards behind you creak under Prosciutto’s weight. He lowers the dangling cigarette from his mouth. Ashes trickle towards the ground and to his shoes. He watches, unsure of what to think of it really, as you take a whisk to the pot. His eyes fall to the jar of pickled herring, and perhaps if he felt so inclined to, he might have smiled.

He stubs the cigarette out and drapes his suit jacket over a chair to the kitchen table. Suddenly cognizant to his intrusion, you drop the whisk on the counter, meaning to flee – until he stops you with a firm grip to your shoulder that encourages you to continue.

“I’ve missed your food,” he confesses with unknown sincerity. “But you have a knack for burning the herring. Let me show you how to do it better, eh?”

Sleeves neatly rolled back to his elbows, he cleanses his hands in the sink. He smells like smoke and death; judging by the subtle unraveling of the buns at the back of his head, you suppose that this must have been a difficult hit. Regardless of whatever may be troubling him, Prosciutto rests a skillet atop the next burner and sets a pat of butter inside it for melting.

Still tense, though you feel yourself relax ever so slightly with the easing of your joints, you return to the polenta and pray that it has not scorched in the absence of your touch. “It was one of my grandmother’s recipes,” he confesses as he adds the first filet to the pan. “The brine for the fish, that is. She died before I ever knew her, but she did leave my father her old recipe book. Not that he ever cooked much, mind you. Regardless, I believe this was too plebeian of a dish for his tastes.”

You do not know how to respond – maybe he is waiting for a confession that you have met his grandmother’s soul, or something else along those lines; however, he will only be disappointed by any semblance of an explanation that this is simply not how spirits work.

Instead, you grate a rind of parmesan into the polenta.

Empty bottles of beer and a shooter of vodka lie discarded on the floor, littering the living room with an unkempt mess that would have sent your mother into a spiral, if she were here to see it. The television flashes as the end credits to whatever rom-com Formaggio decided on roll down the screen. Most of the cast-member’s names are unfamiliar to you, apart from the lead, whom you remember as an upcoming starlet from your childhood. You always thought she was a bore.

With a groan, an unconscious Formaggio turns on the couch. A half-empty peroni dangles precariously from his grasp. You take it before it can spill, and as he sleeps, you gather the rest of his mess for disposal. Once you are done, you switch off the television and hoist the man up. He becomes nothing more than deadweight at your side.

You are halfway to his bedroom when he lurches. In a stumble, he catches himself by grabbing the closest thing within his reach: your breast. You shove his hand away, and his green orbs dart around in an ogling state.

“Hey, bella signora,” he says with a heavy slur to his speech, accompanied by a grin. “Sorry about that . . . You have great tits, y’know?”

You blush. Now in his room, Formaggio falls to the unmade bed; the springs recoil and squeal beneath his body. He pulls a wrinkled blanket to his shoulders. You return with two tachipirina and a bottle of water for him to take up in the morning – or whenever he wakes, for that matter. A hearty breakfast will do him good, too. You certainly will not need to pull his arm to convince him otherwise.

You set the medication upon his nightstand, beside a crushed soda can and an overflowing ashtray.

“Grazie, [Y/N].”

To hear your name spoken again after so many years is something that curls into your heart and tugs it so tightly that your fingers tingle. Formaggio gawks up at you through half-lidded eyes. With a heavy sigh, he falls back asleep without much effort.

No matter his intent, it brings a smile to your face.

You hurry down the hallway, clutching a basket of folded laundry betwixt your arm and torso. The warm linens carry the scent of detergent – ocean breeze, the bottle called it. You are not convinced, for it smells nothing like the ocean you once knew; it is far too fruity and clean.

“No! Get away from me, fantasma!”

You stop. There Pesci stands at the edge of the hallway, his green hair still wet from the shower. He stumbles backwards until his spine meets the wall with a forceful thud that rattles the pictures on the walls.

“Fratello! D – Don’t hurt me, please! Fratello, help me!”

You wonder if Prosciutto will come to his rescue – not that Pesci is truly in need of anything of the sort. Alas, the younger man’s words are startling. Taken aback, you contemplate that perhaps your kindness has been rather unnerving to some, and more than others. His eyes glisten, as if he might cry; the laundry basket feels far too heavy in your grasp now.

“Why would I hurt you?” you ask; you no longer recognize the sound of your own voice, for the sounds of your thoughts carry a different ring. “Why would I want to hurt anyone? If I wanted you dead, don’t you think I would’ve already done it by now?”

With an indignant huff, you make your way towards the bathroom to tuck the fresh towels away. The air is clammy and hot, but it does not bother you.

“I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t – I wasn’t thinking.”

You set the emptied basket down. “Obviously not,” you tell Pesci.

He rubs the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. You wish he would leave, because the uneasiness of presence is unnerving – sweltering, even. “Wait. You’ve been the one doing my laundry?” he asks shyly.

“Yes.”

“You even separated the colors. I can tell because my whites haven’t been turning dark.” His lips pull into a sheepish grin, and his cheeks turn the color of a summer rose. “Thank you.”

Even when you were alive, you chide that you have always been something of a winsome little fool. Dead, you still have not learned any better. And that is why you find yourself standing in front of Melone, frozen in time, as his lithe fingers curl around the base of his manhood that drips from the head. It was an honest mistake on your part – you had entered to deliver an object of some importance without bothering to knock first.

His eyes are screwed shut; otherwise, he might see you standing here at the foot of his bed, your own belly churning in anticipation that you have not felt since you were one of the living. It is a phenomenon of interest that begs you to climb upon the bed next to him – to feel those soft sheets beneath your own skin – and touch yourself. And so, you do.

Your skirt bunches at your waist as you drag your hand towards your folds, panties discarded and dangling from your ankle. Tentative at first, you bite your lip as you graze your hardened pearl before stroking yourself until you are glistening like him. At the sound of Melone’s poorly muffled moan as he bites the back of his knuckles, you slip inside and hook into the warmth that pulsates between your spread thighs.

You are giddy like the young woman you were the first time you had ever indulged in self-pleasure; it is a wicked, sinful desire – or at least, that is what your mother always told you. You never believed much of her volition because you knew she only ever said it when thoughts of impulsive yearning plagued her own mind.

You fumble through velveteen fabric to find the stiff peaks of your breasts; with a sigh that you forget to hold in, you tweak and pinch your nipple as you slip a second finger within your folds and imagine that it is Melone’s shaft pumping in and out of you, with the tenacity of a gentle lover. You time your thrusts with his own until you are hanging on the edge of your own orgasm.

It is a beautiful feeling that you never thought to be possible again. Fuming with spent sex, you cradle your slick hand to your chest and watch as white ribbons lacquer his stomach like the paint of a picket fence. He turns his head away in his own exhaustion after wiping himself down with a towel that was deliberately left beside the bed.

You lean over his still form to admire the handsome structure of his resting face. His lips look so soft, you think – and you wish only to feel them with your own. It is a daring move, but you brush his lavender hair away from his drenched forehead with every intention of doing just that.

Only, as you have found after your tentative stupor, to end up on your back with your arms pinned to the space beside your head in a giving – albeit firm – hold. He nestles his body against yours until you have no choice but to hike your hips up to meet his. His hair dangles above you and abrades the flushed skin of your cheeks.

“I hope you enjoyed the show, mia civetta,” he coos in a tone that suggests his desires. “Because I know I did.”

His hand cups your wet folds, and you find yourself bucking against the touch that could never compare to your own salacious act. You keen and meet him in a kiss halfway, as his fingers plunge within you and your toes curl into the bedding.

You would not mind staying like this forever.

As the millennium turns into the new century, it becomes an unuttered agreement among the men of

La Squadra

that yours is an appreciated and coveted presence – ghost or not, they cherish you as if you are one of their own. And, in a way, you suppose that you are. You are solace to them amidst their troubles and talks of betrayal to the one who first appointed them under Risotto’s leadership.

You have learned that there are two more members of their team: Sorbet and Gelato. Though, they did not come around often, and your interactions with them were far from illustrious. Alas, you knew that they were dead before the frames of formalin arrived.

The paper shredder runs for days, and the unused fireplace roars with the blazes of tattered documents. Formaggio is the first to leave. With his hands stuffed in the pockets of his striped trousers, he saunters over to you at your perch by the living room window. “Addio, bella,” he says to you with a grin that does not quite reach his eyes.

Illuso is next. “I would tell you, ‘I’ll see you around,’ but we both know that isn’t possible,” he huffs; it is a jab at some sense of humor to alleviate the lingering doubt that he swallows like a pill. “Enjoy your little stay-cation, won’t you?”

Then it is Prosciutto, with Pesci following in tow. The green haired man radiates confidence that the blonde does not reciprocate. “Wish us luck, [Y/N!]” the former admonishes as he reaches to pull you into a hug that is tight enough to let you know that he is truly terrified of what is to come.

He does not let go until his superior demands it. After the younger man has left for the car, Prosciutto reaches into his suit jacket and produces a book. The spine has worn out from use and labor, and its pages are crudely held together by brown rubber bands.

It is his grandmother’s recipe book. You take it and cradle it in your arms as if it is a newborn babe, because you fear that anything less than a delicate grasp with make it fall apart. “Take care of yourself, my friend.”

You nod, and he is gone. You spend the night peering over the stained pages, willing yourself to commit its contents to memory so that one day, you might return the favor. On Melone’s day to leave, he bids you adieu with a suggestive tone and a firm pat to your backend. If he had the time to spare, you might have begged him to stay a bit longer – or at least, enough for just one more round of lovemaking. He placates you with a kiss that leaves you craving his touch, instead.

“There’s a few dossiers left in the office, if you still want to read them so badly,” Ghiaccio begrudgingly tells you before he departs. “I convinced Risotto to let you have them for now. Just burn them when you’re done.”

All that remains is you and Risotto – just as it began. It is the way it should be, in a poetic sense of justice wherein the beginning becomes the end; full circle, as they call it. You are not too sure about that, for you are full of bitterness at the crumbling of your familiarity. You sit beside him on the couch, biting your lip in dreadful anticipation for what is to come next. He stares blankly into the space in front of him, perhaps stuck in his own thoughts so much that he cannot separate them from reality.

Eventually, his calloused palm finds your shoulder, in his means of comfort – to reassure you or himself, you are not sure. Whatever he needs, it is his. “Thank you,” he finally says.

Risotto once thought you to be an angel, though he never believed in anything of the sort. Religion has left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“You gave me a purpose,” you confess with a sad simper. “All of you did.”

Just when you think that he might return the gesture, he stands. Despite the traces of uncertainty in their hearts, every man of his team believed that they would return – to the apartment, to Passione, and most importantly, to you.

But he will not dwell on any such idea, because he knows better than to make promises that he cannot keep.

One-by-one, the men trickle home with fresh scars and unspeakable horrors. It is a pretty dream, that the abode where they each possessed the deepest connection to were neither childhood cottages nor the places of their demises – but rather, the place where you exist alone

It irks you to wonder why you ended up here after your death, though you tell yourself that it was just a twist of fate so that you might find them – the ones who needed you the most.

There are no needs for cooking or laundry – the home that once felt scared to you is tense again and filled with brooding silence. When at last Risotto arrives, body littered with seeping bullet wounds and missing a hand, the dam breaks as the men accept their aggrieved failure.

Unbeknownst to you all, it has only been the matter of a few days since they returned to you in haste; you have found that the perception of time for the dead is hazy at best. Soon enough, you find yourself in an empty home again. You are, of course, glad that they have all passed on – that somehow, their deaths have been requited.

The same cannot be said for you. And so, you spend your days on newly neglected furniture and stew, solus – this, you decide, will be your eternity; a lost soul with nothing better to do than to long for that which will never be.

When, months later, the door opens anew, you do not rise; surely you are imagining the blonde boy and the other with an oddly patterned beanie cap who stand under the arch and gape at you like a caged animal in a display. In due time, you will learn of Giorno and Mista’s intentions – for those are their names – of repurposing the townhouse in the name of Passione.

But for now, you greet them like two friends, because the nagging in your old heart tells you to.

| 5160 Words |

#la squadra x reader #la squadra #risotto x reader #prosciutto x reader #melone x reader #formaggio x reader #pesci x reader #ghiaccio x reader

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plut00nline · 4 years ago

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Fuck it im doing it

My 2020 top 20 movie list

(Disclaimer that most of these weren't made in 2020 but I just watched them this year. These aren't also really in a very particular order but they are lowkey ranked) (i also had to be choosey with the images i out cause of the limit, but yeah dont mind that)

20. The perfection

The plot twist in this movie is *chefs kiss* there was no way for me to predict the ending, bug as far as thrillers goes, it is brilliant. And also, lesbians. It can be a pretty triggering movie for ab*se and general gore, but really I love the pacing and the thrill of it.

19. The shining

Ah yes, a classic horror, and though I may feel iffy about Stanley Kubrick, this movie was pretty good. But I am saying this as a person that didn't read the book. The blood rushing down the hallway was really my favourite visual on the movie. It was a movie that made me felt genuinely scared while watching it, like hiding behind my blanket but also sweating scared, the suspense was pretty thrilling though

18. Doctor Sleep

Man do I love Danny Torrance, and Abra, fuck I love them both. Again, I never read the book, but my ignorance keeps me in bliss. The visuals of this movie are also great, and the emotions this movie puts through? I'm just glad headcanons exist, but really I did enjoy this movie even if it wasn't what I was expecting.

17. Birds of prey

Harley deserved a movie, and the fact that it was directed by a woman makes me love it so much more because we just got to see harley doing the things that she fucking wanted. This movie is wlw solidarity, from Margot robbie to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, women with crossbows? Sign me the fuck up. And from all the DC films I've seen, it's so much brighter, in the visual sense, there's colour! There's character! And not everyone is just brooding in darkness, its the type of movie that would make me actually watch and enjoy DC films.

16. Charlie's angels

Firstly, lesbians. Thank you. But really, its a good action comedy and really I'll jump at the chance to see women kick ass.

15. My octopus teacher

I've never cried over an octopus before, so that was an experience. And even though this is technically not a movie, I still wanted to put it on here cause it was really just a great documentary, especially since it happened in my home country and im very oddly proud of that fact.

14. Knives out

Murder mystery and chris evans go so well together. I have made a longer post, but to sum it up, like most of the movies on this list. The colours and the pacing and just the atmosphere of the movie was spectacular, and even though I couldve guessed the ending, I was still on the edge of my seat for most of it

13. Ready or not

I love this new wave of eat the rich media. Samara weaving is a great actor and I am in love with her and this whole movie. It really was something that I hadn't actually seen before and the fact that the whole curse thing at the end was true was really just wow. Along with eat the rich, I love the feral female energy lately, and the whole white clothing slowly but surely being covered in blood.

12. Geralds game

The line "youre only made of moonlight" lives in my head rent free. This movie, was really an experience and for a movie with only two people in it for the majority, it is really well done. I'll always feel iffy about a man writing a woman's experience (specifically) but I do love the way this movie went, yeah I hated the "Hand" scene, but I still enjoyed the after math of it.

11. The old gaurd

Again, more lesbians, what more could I ask for? The concept for this movie is brilliant, immortal mercenaries is the only trope I want from now on, and found family.

10. Parasite

Again with the eat the rich. This movie was mindblowing, and just, the imagery!! And im glad they didn't dub it in English cause fuck that, I enjoyed it perfectly with subtitles.

9. song of the sea

This movie, this movie! Is so precious and I had that song stuck in my head for days.the name Saoirse is also so oddly pleasing to hear. This story is so beautiful, the music is amazing and it makes me want to be a fae.

8. Scott pilgrim vs the world

This movie really did pass what my expectations for what I thought it was gonna be, the music was amazing, the transitions and editing style was *chefs kiss* and even though I felt like I was in a fever dream the whole time, it'd be a fever dream I'd gladly rewatch.

7. The imitation game

Thank you Alan Turing. This movie recked me, like emotionally, I was a mess when I was done with it, but damn was it good, like I really just felt something while watching it, I mean most.of the movies on this list did, but this one just really hit me in some way.

6. Klaus

At least there are still good Christmas movies being made. Actually, I was a mess for this one too, the second that child got that sleigh thing it was over for my emotions. The whole sirge of turning Santa into this big macho dude really is working out and that's how Santa should always be depicted. I could gush about the animation style of this movie all fucking day, I love it so much (and the shadows!!! Ahh the shadows!) It really is just incredible.

5. I'm thinking of ending things

Hey man, I knew this was gonna fuck me up just by looking at the trailer, but there was absolitley no way to prepare for whatever was about to happen. Even after watching it, I have no idea what happened. But I still found it great, I love movies that give me an existential crisis.

4. Spirited away

All I wanted to do, was eat everything in that movie, even if it would turn me into a pig, holy hells this movie is good. There was just this satisfying appeal to it that I can't quite put into words. Its beautiful like everything studio ghibli movie ever.

3. The Willoughbys

I never knew I needed a found family movie with a bunch of kids that were already family. I've made a longer post about this movie, and I dont think I could really say more, this movie is so fucking touching and I love the direction it went in plot wise.

2. Howl's moving castle

Again, I may not have understood wtf was going on, but I'll be damned if I didn't love every second of it. There is no doubt that this movie is stunning, and I really am a suckered for early 2000's 2d animation, because!!! Look at it!!! Studio Ghibli films always just floor me with how good they look. I really wanna read the book, because I would absolutley love to see a feral Sophie giving howl shit for crying over hair.

1. Us

This movie will always be my no. 1 it is amazing and I love everything jordan peele has done with his movies. Especially for it to have a full black cast, and those black people have darker skin than what is normally shown in media. The feral but also calculated nature of each character is beautiful and nothing can ever make me hate this movie

I hope you enjoyed this incoherent "review" of my favourite movies I watched in 2020, its been a shit show and movies really have been a place of comfort for me. But stay safe and happy new year!

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bolddeducktionneverfails · 4 years ago

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Selene’s Statements About Della Duck

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When it comes to Della’s decision with The Spear, we’re meant to believe she was more excited about taking a quick joyride in orbit than prioritizing motherhood. We’re also supposed to believe that Della’s crash-landing was the thing that humbled her into being more family-oriented.

But even with the show being over, there are still some things about this that leave me unconvinced...I mean, yeah, it was very convincing after Scrooge gave his perspective of the ordeal, but as Season 2 progressed, I began to question this retelling...

Although taking the Spear was presented to us as this big, selfish mistake that Della has been trying to make up for and get past, other cases that resembled this story or touched on a contributing factor, didn’t quite treat it as such. Space-related imagery and the like continued to be brought up in the background; even after major events like Della’s return, Lunaris’ defeat and Penny settling her homesickness...it felt like there was something much more important that needed to be said beyond Bradford’s small mention in the finale.

If these other situations in the series truly were inspired by Della’s situation and if she was completely in the wrong, then there would have been more things to further cement this to line up with Scrooge’s perspective. If what he said was exactly what Della was doing, it should be reflected in these other stories as irrefutable no matter how you look at the situation. There shouldn’t be anything that makes us want to second guess...and yet, there’s enough room to think about this.

Dewey and Webby meeting Selene in her garden was one of the first moments I started to question when I looked back at it. As soon as a negative view of Della was said, Selene immediately, without a doubt, went against it by claiming otherwise. At this point in the series, it could have been argued that she was just looking at her friendship with Della in a rose-colored way, but as the time went on, a lot of the information she gave about Della became evident.

In a similar manner, it was once believed both inside and outside of the show that Della had died after getting lost in Space. But the Sphere of Selene itself was hinting towards the opposite; that she was actually alive on the Moon.

Let’s take a deeper look at what Selene was saying about Della here:

“So, we’re back to “she stole Scrooge’s spear and betrayed the family” then. Great.”

“Whaat? No way! She loved her family more than anything in the world!”

This was suggesting that Della was always family oriented, not suddenly after her arrival to the Moon. This is proven through the episodes we’ve seen with her as a child.

In “The First Adventure!”, Della stayed persistent in convincing Scrooge that it would be better to take Donald and her with him, than to search for The Papyrus of Binding by himself. Later after he agreed, both Donald and Della had to get after him for caring more about his business than enjoying the adventure he was having with them. In “Last Christmas!”, Dewey had to explain to Donald why Della was so upset with him. She had planned for the night to be spent going on a mission together but Donald misinterpreted her actions and skipped out to do his own thing.

Even in the Pre-Spear comics IDW provided, it was Della who was chosen to remind Donald about what it means to be family in Issue # 3. And while the comics don’t determine the canon, the writers who developed these stories were given insight about how the show’s universe works and how the characters are supposed to act. The writers in both the show and the comics could have easily slipped something into these stories to demonstrate how wrong Della was to go into outer-space at the time that she did. In the child episodes, they could have highlighted her selfishness directly by making her want to catch Santa to steal all of his presents or having her extremely eager to make her own request with the papyrus. Why would the showrunners miss out on that opportunity...twice? Why are other characters focused on being in the wrong, but she isn’t?

As an adult, it didn’t feel right to have Della fussing at Donald and Louie for taking significant leaves and not being mindful about the impact of their actions, if she basically did the same thing. It never came off as not wanting them to make the mistake she made, it always sounded like she would know better. She was so quick to point out this problem she had with others that it felt like she forgot about herself. On one hand, this makes her look like a hypocrite, but on the other, this gives off the notion that being selfish and leaving her family out of big events, is not initially a part of her nature.

The closest case we have to better reflecting the Spear situation is in “Trickening” where Della’s desire is at a level of uncertainty that could easily be misinterpreted. In this episode, she wanted to join in on what someone else was doing to give the trick-o-treaters a memorable Halloween. She was aiming to share her love of the holiday with them, but she was so caught up in making it special, that she didn’t realize this plan was way too intense.

Donald was completely opposed to it like he was with her space travel proposal. He wanted to make his sister understand that she was doing too much, but she ignored his concern and tried to push past him. If Della was supposed to learn that she should listen to Donald more, you would think she would have taken that into consideration much sooner instead of having a huge relapse. Della showing improvement after a major mistake would be too important of a thing for her to revert on, so, having a similar situation in “Trickening” was more than likely done to help us understand something about the Spear one better. As the twins fought, he begged Della to think of the kids and she stated this was exactly what she was doing. This suggested that Della had the same mindset when it came to her own kids.

So, as both a kid and an adult, she has been portrayed caring more about family than other things like adventure itself or some kind of item she could get out of it. If she loved her family so much, then what on Earth would make her leave during such a crucial time and jeopardize the chances of ever being with them again?

“Last Christmas!” showed us that Della doesn’t adventure out on her own unless she feels like she has to. If she didn’t go out in the snow after Donald refused to come with her, then she would have missed out on her chance to catch Santa as a present for Scrooge. Like her Santa hunt, Della originally intended for her space trip to be a family thing. If a parallel is meant to be made here, then that opens up the possibility that Della took the rocket so that she wouldn’t miss her chance to do something special for her family; more than likely, something for HDL’s birthday that could not wait. That could explain her urgency and lack of detail in the letter she left for Scrooge.

If she was just taking the rocket for a spin, she wouldn’t need to word her letter like that. She would have used it as a way to express her gratitude towards her uncle for having her project built. Why would the showrunners have her letter be like this purely for the sake of suspense if we’re supposed to be looking for clues? This is another thing that is too important for them to have pulled something meaningless here. If she had to leave a letter for Donald about naming the boys for her too, then it sounds like she was doing something that may not have been able to be done in time before their hatching. Or, I suppose, in case she didn’t make it back at all. Either way, both messages showed that she thought about the consequences beforehand.

In addition to the garden meeting on Ithaquack, something else that made me slowly change my mind about Della’s decision was how she had brought her copy of the family photo with her. Having it placed on the dashboard in front of her as she traveled through Space, seemed to imply that family was a driving force in her choice to continue in the direction of a storm she could have easily avoided. In Scrooge’s flashback, it seemed like Della was enjoying the challenge she was faced with before the rocket was struck. But when it came to showing her perspective, she wasn’t having a fun experience at all.

“Aw, Della wasn’t just a good person...she was the greatest! And she made everyone around her better.”

When Launchpad defined what it meant to be a Senior Woodchuck in “Challenge”, I immediately made a connection to what Selene had said. It’s a bit uncertain whether Della became a Senior Woodchuck or not, but she was still a dedicated member of the Junior Woodchucks and that sort of implies that she was someone who often looked out for others. This coincides with how Della encouraged HDLW in “New Gods” and helped to bring the children’s feelings of inferiority to Scrooge’s attention. Della eventually helped to make Penumbra a better person once the lieutenant realized that her jealousy and suspicion advanced Lunaris’ invasion. The betrayal against the pilot made her a hero in the eyes of her fellow Moonlanders again, but it was through a lie and that didn’t settle with her. Acknowledging the fact that she messed up motivated her to regain her heroic title in the right way.

None of the points that I’m bringing up in this is to say that I don’t think Della was flawed or that she isn’t really an impulsive character, but that maybe there was a different kind of mistake she made with her rocket plans than what we were being told.

“Maybe the spear isn’t an artifact...maybe, it’s something else!”

“Your mom did love a good mystery!”

This part makes me think of the riddle from Della that the boys would later find in “Castle”. It led them on a quest to find a lost crown, but similarly to The Spear, they found out that this treasure was never an actual crown--it was a sailor’s hat in a duffle bag. It was within the castle’s catacombs where HDL realized that the riddle was originally intended for Donald; another character who is supposed to be looked at as their parent. An imprint of the Spear’s blueprints were later discovered on the back of the paper Della’s riddle was written on.

The way Selene mentioned mysteries right after Webby wondered about the spear being something else, seems to suggest that Della’s disappearance could have been due to her wanting to solve a mystery of her own. In “Last Crash”, Scrooge did compare Dewey’s hunt for the missing photo piece with how he previously failed to keep his niece safe from the cosmic storm.

“Here. It’s not a spear, but it’s a treasure even Della never found.”

This feels reminiscent of Della’s old journal statement about how she never found Coot’s armory. In this episode, it was explained that her younger self was looking for something in relation to the non-McDuck side of HDL’s family. Webby wanted to follow in Della’s footsteps and bring the boys with her on an epic journey to finally resolve this mystery, but once they reached their destination, it landed them in a room full of corn instead. Because the treasure was expected to be materialistic rather than sentimental, the trip looked like a big waste of time. It wasn’t until a spark was set in motion, that the characters were able to acknowledge the importance of what they discovered.

I noticed many elements in “Coot” that could be paralleling things in relation to Della’s journey. On her side of the story, she was determined to complete the task of celebrating her family at the fort, but a setback prevented her from doing it sooner. There was also an cloudy formation that accompanied a crash as well as there being a moment where her vehicle needed to be reassembled.

If Della was looking for a treasure of some sort in Space, perhaps she didn’t reveal this afterwards because, like Scrooge was with her, she was embarrassed about her failure. Selene implied that Della was usually great at accomplishing cases like these but this one resulted in a major loss that caused a decade of separation.

“Don’t give up, young duck. Your mother never did.”

There is definitely no exaggeration about this. In spite of all her struggles, Della continued to press on until she made it back home.

As I was observing the occurrences in Season 2, I noticed that there were key moments about her departure from the Moon that line up with her departure from Earth. If she was working hard to get back to her family on Earth, then there could have been something about Space that she was working just as hard to get to. If there was a particular goal with Earth that Della wanted to include the Moonlanders with, then there could have been something particular with Space that she wanted to include her family with.

Della had to leave the Moon earlier than expected because an emergency came up. That creates a possibility that there was some kind of emergency that caused Della to launch The Spear from Earth sooner than she intended to. Both departures resulted in leaving groups behind and breaking a promise she made to them. Della was very concerned about what the Moonlanders would think about her being gone and while Donald was the one who made a promise about never spending another Christmas apart, she had to have agreed to it; she’s the one who made a big fuss in the first place. If Lunaris' claim of Della being a traitor was false, then there's a possibility that Scrooge's explanation wasn't true either. What could strengthen this is how he was wrong about Della in “Raiders” during its own parallels to the Spear incident.

Adding on to what I said about “Trickening”, If both of these situations were meant to be reflective of Della taking the Spear, then she wasn’t using the kids to mask a selfish desire, she was seriously doing it for them. Lunaris told the rest of the Moonlanders that Della made up her stories about Earth to trick them into letting their guard down, but that was never part of Della’s plan.

So from evaluating Selene’s statements we can gather:

That Della was always family oriented and that betraying her family for the thrill of adventure or the sake of something materialistic, is considered out of her character

Della doesn’t adventure out on her own unless she feels like she absolutely has to

Della may have taken the rocket so that she wouldn’t miss her chance to do something special for HDL’s birthday

Della’s letters to Scrooge and Donald showed that she thought about the consequences before taking the Spear

Della may have not avoided the storm because there was something in the direction of it that she was trying to get to

That even in the past, Della was someone with the tendency to look out for others and make them better people

There may have been a different kind of mistake she made with her plans than what we were being told

That Della’s disappearance could have been due to her wanting to solve a mystery of her own

That if Della was looking for some type of treasure in Space, there’s a higher chance that it was of sentimental value rather than what we would have normally expected it to be

She was more than likely looking for something in relation to another group of people who would also qualify as being part of HDL’s family

Della might not have revealed this afterwards due to her being embarrassed about her failure

Maybe she didn’t tell Scrooge and Donald the truth about her outer-space proposal because she wanted it to be a surprise

If the kids succeed in finding the armory’s gold with realizing it...perhaps in some strange way, Della may have unknowingly completed her goal too

That Della was always known as someone who persevered whenever she had her heart set on something

Della’s plans to enter Space may have played out in a similar manner to her plans to come back home

An emergency in relation to her goal could have caused Della to leave sooner

There’s a good chance that Scrooge may have been wrong about Della’s intentions

If there was nothing significant shown ahead in the storm, then what was Della working towards? Before this episode aired, there were comments here and there speculating that the cosmic storm was a wormhole that sent her into the future. I think that especially at this point, it could have been some kind of portal. The clouds were in the formation of a tunnel and an underground tunnel was what led to the golden armory, so, whether she realized it or not, the storm could have certainly led to the treasure she was seeking. It could have been a portal to a place that wasn’t easy to realize until you’ve passed through it. The Shadow Realm was a hidden dimension that made Lena seem invisible while she was trapped there. Or, maybe like the wormholes in “Neverrest”, the storm could have been a shortcut to another area of Space.

If Della had a bigger reason for taking the Spear then why didn’t the showrunners go into that before the series ended? Maybe in a similar way to Negaduck’s return, they wanted to get to that but something caused a change. Perhaps there wasn’t enough room to conclude it while also doing the same for Huey and Webby’s F.O.W.L. arc. Interviews with Vulture and SyFy Wire revealed that twenty minutes had been shaved from the original finale script during finalization as well as there being fifty-five-ish episode ideas leftover that we didn’t get to see.

Another potential option for the additional Spear information is that was always set aside in case Disney greenlit a fourth season. All of the other seasons provided something new about The Spear of Selene and the subject matter is deeply tied to the series, so it would be pretty strange to suddenly stop mentioning it in the next continuation. Maybe Huey and Webby’s arc needed to be focused on first because there’s something about Della’s decision that further connects the two. I’m just...really doubtful that we were given so much build up against the narrative with no intention of it paying off at some point.

I would love to go in fuller depth about what I think could be going on with Della’s story, but it’s SOOO much work to put everything together for evaluation...I’m not sure how long it’ll take to get it done. I started a multi-part essay about this two years ago and wanted to have it finished before Season 3 but there was too much left to finalize in the last section….

Right now, I can only manage to make singular posts like these and shorter...but there are older, slightly outdated traces of my theory if you look around my blog long enough.

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newmusickarl · 3 years ago

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Album & EP Recommendations

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey

Halsey’s evolution across her career has been quite something to witness. Having begun her career in pure pop territory, her artistry has developed over time with each new record seeing the American singer-songwriter up the ambition and scope of her music. Now with this her fourth album, Halsey has gone bigger than ever, teaming up with Nine Inch Nails members and Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for her boldest work to date.

Produced entirely by Reznor and Ross, Halsey describes this new record as “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.” Naturally with any concept record there is going to be a cinematic feel, however Halsey has gone one step further and even delivered a full theatrical film to accompany the album, the trailer for which you can watch above. Although I am yet to see the film, there is no doubt that the musical portion is a mightily ambitious and accomplished project, with each song seamlessly segueing into the next despite the array of styles and genres across each track.

It may still be a pop record at the heart, but with the masterful touch of Reznor and Ross, Halsey also brings in some industrial rock elements, as well as a bit of pop punk in places too. However, it is not just sonically that Halsey pushes the boundaries but also thematically as well, using the album’s concept to press the issue of feminism and misogyny within the lyrics. Arguably what’s most striking about this record though is how tightly constructed everything is here – under the watchful eye of Reznor and Ross, the dramatic production is inch-perfect.

Most importantly, the songs here are just fantastic, from the religious imagery and glistening synths that lace the wonderful melody of Bells of Santa Fe, to the raw, grungy guitars of You asked for this. There’s also the atmospheric piano ballad 1121, where Halsey really flexes her impressive vocal cords. Pulsating, stylish electro-pop single I am not a woman, I’m a god is another standout. Once you have been amazed by all of this, the gentle plucking and raindrop like xylophone of stunning closer Ya’aburnee arrives to really blow things away.

In a year packed full of outstanding pop records, Halsey has delivered, for my money, one of the best of the lot. With Reznor and Ross holding the reigns, they help Halsey deliver on her epic vision with both style and control. It’s one thing to attempt a record like this, it’s another thing to pull it off as expertly and vibrantly as this – hats off for this one!

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Screen Violence by CHVRCHES

Also delivering their fourth album this week was Scottish synth-pop group CHVRCHES who, whilst predominantly maintaining their vintage sound, have lyrically pushed themselves into darker territory on this new record. Probably their finest work since their debut, frontwoman Lauren Mayberry takes no prisoners as she tackles sexism and misogyny, calling upon her own experiences within the industry to really illustrate the issues being put front and centre.

This is highlighted best on electric single Good Girls, a track Mayberry wrote “after listening to some friends arguing about the present-day implications of loving certain problematic male artists – I was struck by the lengths that people would go to in order to excuse their heroes and how that was so juxtaposed to my own experiences in the world.”

Other highlights include He Said She Said, a glistening synth-driven pop banger that’s contrasted against razor-sharp lyrics with a defiant message at its core – catchy, but also powerful and thought-provoking. There’s also the superb collaboration with The Cure legend Robert Smith, How Not to Drown, which is a moody, atmospheric, and synth-soaked belter of a track. Although it is incredible right the way through, the real spine-tingling moment comes during the song’s outro thanks to the ghostly vocals of Smith being cast over some hauntingly melodic guitars. Outside of the singles, the rawness of heartbreaking closer Better If You Don’t leaves the biggest impression.

All in all, this album ranks amongst their best work and although it may not be quite as dramatic or impressionable as Halsey’s album, there’s still plenty to which you’ll want to digest and ultimately keep returning.

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How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? By Big Red Machine

The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon have certainly kept themselves busy over lockdown. It seems they weren’t satisfied with just taking Taylor Swift’s music to incredible new heights on 2020’s folklore and evermore, as they have now also released their second album under their Big Red Machine guise. The most noticeable thing about this second record is that the duo have extended their collaboration further this time around, bringing in renowned artists such as Ben Howard, Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan and Fleet Foxes, as well as two more collaborations with Miss Swift herself.

Given the talent involved, it is no surprise that this makes for a really special and stunning collection of songs. There’s wonderful electro-folk track Mimi, which sees singer-songwriter Ilsey Juber join Justin Vernon on lead vocal duties. Phoenix sees Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Anaïs Mitchell join in for a wonderful, horn-backed number. This track in fact isn’t the only time Anaïs Mitchell steals the show, as her beautiful, soothing vocal performances on opener Latter Days and closer New Auburn arguably provide the two best moments of the entire album.

The two tracks with Taylor Swift are also fantastic, with Renegade offering a sweet, pop cut that wouldn’t be out of place on either of Swift’s last two records. The better of the two though is Birch, a piano-driven, string-tinged ballad which sees Swift simply providing back-up vocals to Vernon’s haunting folky croons. It’s stunning and possibly my new favourite collaboration between the three artists.

Ultimately this is just a superb album, with Dessner and Vernon thriving alongside their chosen collaborators for a collection of songs that will frequently both move and astound you.

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Donda by Kanye West

Easily the most talked about album of the week, after several launch events and many, many delays, Kanye West finally released his long-awaited tenth studio album, Donda. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of excessive, bloated albums, so with Donda clocking in at almost 2 hours long it was always going to struggle to win me over.

As expected, this is another West project that struggles with inconsistency, with moments of brilliance balanced out with plenty of moments that ultimately underwhelm. Although it has more high points than Ye and the production is more polished than Jesus Is King, there is no track as good as Ghost Town and sonically I found it less inspired than Jesus Is King in many ways. I’m not sure just yet if this is indeed the worst West album, but it is certainly down there in the bottom half for me.

That said, there are still some great moments to be found here. Once you get passed the massively irritating Donda Chant opener (honestly, so painful!), the Jay-Z featuring Jail offers an anthemic rock-influenced gem to get the album started properly. From there The Weeknd featuring Hurricane, the Lauryn Hill sampling Believe What I Say, the heavenly melody of Kid Cudi feature Moon and the organ-backed closer No Child Left Behind provide some of the other highlights. However possibly the finest moment comes in the form of Jesus Lord, a 9-minute epic that sees West deliver some of his best bars in years, returning to the social-consciousness that made him a star in the first place.

If you are a fan of West’s recent gospel-influenced work, then this album will reward you for your patience if you stick with it. For me, although there are some moments I enjoyed, the length was just too much, with this album having the same inconsistency problem that The Life of Pablo had but without reaching the same heights as that album did when it was at its best. Disappointing, but still somewhat worthwhile.

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The Awesome Album by Mouse Rat

And finally on the albums front, if like me you are a big Parks & Recreation fan, you’ll be pleased to hear that Chris Pratt’s fictional band from the show, Mouse Rat, have finally released their debut album this week. Featuring classics such as 5,000 Candle In The Wind and The Pit, this one is a lot of fun for fans of the show.

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Tracks of the Week

Good Ones by Charli XCX

Coming off the back of the definitive lockdown album How I’m Feeling Now that earned her both a Mercury Prize nomination and a place in my Top 5 albums of 2020, Charli XCX has returned with a new synth-driven banger that packs in an insanely catchy hook and wonderful 80s vibes.

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Family Ties by Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar

Also making his return this week was King Kendrick who delivered a fantastic new collaboration with his cousin Baby Keem. Over a brilliant horn-driven beat, the two family members go toe-to-toe and bar-to-bar across this concise hip-hop banger.

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Alone by Rag N Bone Man & Nothing But Thieves

A remix of a track from Rory Graham’s latest album Life By Misadventure, this version sees Conor Mason of Nothing But Thieves join in on vocals, along with some triumphant rock production that replaces the stripped back nature of the album cut.

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Spirit Power & Soul by Johnny Marr

The brilliant first track from his forthcoming new EP, Spirit Power & Soul finds legendary guitarist Johnny Marr in fine form, sonically calling back to his days with Bernard Sumner in Electronic. Built on a masterful central riff, pulsating synths and a big anthemic chorus, it’s a belter!

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Nothing Else Matters by Chris Stapleton

And finally this week, we’ve had plenty of great, unique covers of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica already this year, with Miley Cyrus and Phoebe Bridgers already offering their own take on the classic song. However, I’ve always got time for another and this 8-minute epic from country singer Chris Stapleton is just as dazzling, thanks to some amazing bluesy guitars and his textured vocal performance.

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