#live at the witch trials

[evil-wawe-form]

The Fall - Futures and Pasts (1979)

[guerrilla-operator]

The Fall // Industrial Estate

Yeah, yeah, industrial estate And the crap in the air will fuck up your face (Yeah, yeah, industrial estate) Boss can bloody take most of your wage (Yeah, yeah, industrial estate) And if you get a bit of depression (Yeah, yeah, industrial estate) Ask the doctor for some valium (Yeah, yeah, industrial estate)

[spilladabalia]

The Fall - Frightened

[page-28]

[theelaggers]

[interdimensionalhellscapeportal]

[lunarharp]

Very important conferences.

[petrichormore]

Another thing: for those wondering why Bad didn’t just confess to stealing furniture in the past and give back some random ass furniture so Forever would let him out uhhh

1. He legit probably doesn’t have most of it and also some of the furniture that he stole in the past he returned soon after. And some of it was stolen from him.

2. That would be officially confessing. To stealing furniture. right when a law specifically outlawing that is being passed. And he would also be admitting the furniture isn’t his and that he did in fact steal and not ‘liberate.’

q!Bad is smart enough to know why that’s a bad idea especially when he’s already in a jail cell. Getting arrested for a crime you didn’t commit and then formally agreeing that actually you have committed that crime? Nah mate he’s not that stupid.

[not-mary-sue]

Live theatre lets me experience some great audience reactions but my current favourite is when I was watching The Crucible and somebody went 'oooooh' when John forgot to say adultery in the ten commandments.

[mimzaucracks]

Superquest doodles

I'm an ardent the-other-three-1987-turtles-would-just-laugh-at-Raphael-and-his-misfortunes-in-the-episode truther, which resulted in possibly one of my most fun and favourite doodle dumps.

These drawings are specifically how I imagine the 1987 turtles would've/could've been in that episode.

[lil-oreo-crumbles]

As much as I appreciate the historical context of what actually happened during the Salem Witch Trials and what it brings to the table when discussing The Crucible, I hate it when it’s brought up during my discussions with others about the play.

As a huge defender and unapologetic lover of Abigail Williams, and someone who tends to hyperfocus on the aspect of The Crucible involving her and the John Proctor affair plot, she’s the topic that’s the most relevant when this happens. I hate it when I’m happily discussing the play and going through her characterization and backstory, along with the uncomfortable aspects of the Proctor affair, and someone brings up history. “You know that she was 11 in history and John Proctor was in his 60s, so the affair never actually happened, right?”

Yes. I know. I’m aware.

We can iron out and discuss all of the weird implications in Arthur Miller aging Abigail up and aging John down to enhance the dramatic (fictional) affair between the two of them all we want, but that is a different discussion entirely. I don’t appreciate it when it’s lumped in during a discussion of the text itself. Yes, I know Abigail was 11 in history, but I’m not talking about that Abigail Williams. I’m talking about the 17 year old Abigail Williams portrayed in The Crucible, a fictional character. A character who I read as fictional. The play isn’t history; it was never supposed to be history. It was supposed to be a parallel to the mass hysteria happening around the time it was written: The Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Hollywood Blacklist. A mass hysteria that Miller drew parallels to the Salem Witch Trials. The affair was added for dramatics, to make the story more compelling and add personal motivation to Abigail leading the girls to accuse the supposed “witches” of Salem. It’s supposed to reflect history, not be a 1 for 1 retelling of historical events.

The Crucible is a piece of fiction, a story, and when I speak about it I’m talking exclusively about it as a piece of fiction. The Abigail I discuss is the Abigail in The Crucible with the given personality and backstory the play provides.

I frankly do not give a shit about the real Abigail Williams when talking about The Crucible’s Abby, she’s irrelevant and almost completely removed from this variant of her. The version of Abigail in my Crucible rewrite “Salem’s Bond” is taken exclusively from The Crucible with no ties to reality.

The Crucible is a piece of fiction, and when talking about it I intend to treat it as such, and only bring up history when relevant.

[nectar-cellar]

need a freak like this

no one:

me at 8:44am: ARE YOU HUNG?

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

"you were born evil" but you still named her agatha.

thinking about that process, because it took 18 years right. you have a baby and you call her good and she turns out to be smarter than you, more powerful than you, and it scares you, you dont know how to handle that especially in a world that hates you and her already. the things about her that scare you, will scare the outside world who understands even less than you do ten times more. you dont know how to protect her so you try to control her which is like number one bad idea human response to things that scare us.

obviously this backfires and she gets even more furious in her quest for knowledge, every door you close she finds a window, every place you warn away from she gets into, talking to people she shouldnt be talking to, trying out magic she shouldnt be trying. every step she takes is one further out of your control, further out of anyone's control, every new thing she learns makes her dangerous, puts her in danger, puts your coven in danger, shes exposing all of you along with herself. shes in danger, shes a danger, shes a teenager and she knows more than you, of course shes not gonna listen to you anymore, about anything. of course shes not gonna hear a warning, and if she did she wouldnt take it, just to spite you.

what are you gonna do? youre not the only one whos scared. of her, for her. youve got an entire coven getting panicky about the way shes exposing all of you, the risks shes taking that she may or may not be able to fully understand (maybe shes never seen one of you burned before, maybe shes her own first). and if she were on her own that would be her decision to make, but you are still responsible for your coven and you are responsible for her, for her safety and for the threat she poses. so what do you do? do you even have a choice? or is this just where the mob turns. kick a scapegoat onto a pyre and hope fortune turns for the rest of us. if she cant stick to the rules in place for the safety of all, then shes a ticking timebomb. if it's not her at the stake, sooner or later it's all of you. so what can you do? what are you expected to do?

punish agatha.

[singing-not-sleeping-beauty]

The 2nd live action monster high has now joined the ranks of movies that couldn't be fucked to fact check the salem witch trials

Love it

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!”

-- Arthur Miller, “The Crucible”

--

The Salem Witch Trials came about entirely as a result of crazy, vicious little girls who took on the mantle of victim, claiming to being plagued by dark forces supposedly inflicted upon them by “witches.” These claims pivoted on “spectral evidence” - visions claimed by the girls that nobody but they could see, which could therefore not be refuted by anyone else, since they were inaccessible and unverifiable. What we would know as “lived experience.”

These purported “victims,” these crazy little girls, were the most powerful individuals in Salem, with the entire town terrified of being the next to be accused. To express doubt was to invite suspicion onto yourself. Although that didn’t stop the crazy girls from accusing whomever they wanted for reasons of their own. All the while continuing to play the victim.

The entire saga only came to a halt when people, particularly those in power, stopped collaborating with delusions of “spectral evidence,” and stopped pretending that they believed the claims, simply to keep the spotlight from being pointed in their direction.

By the time the trials came to an end, more than two hundred people had been accused, nineteen had been hanged, five others had perished in jail, and the farmer Giles Corey had been pressed to death with large boulders for refusing to enter a plea. In the throes of victimhood, these children had found the means to become the most powerful members of the community. They could see their fellow citizens executed on the basis of ‘spectral evidence’ alone, what we might today refer to as ‘lived experience’. Those who attempted to apply reason and logic to the events as they unfolded were liable to find themselves accused, and so for the sake of self-preservation most left their doubts unuttered. The fantasies of the few were propagated by the elites: judges and ministers who had lost sight of reality, or had no inclination to see it restored. [..]

The willingness of the villagers to believe the girls’ visions serves as a reminder of the human susceptibility to false narratives, particularly if they are more readily comprehensible than complicated truths. When bad ideas are allowed to spread unchecked they take on an illusion of incontrovertibility, and when figures of authority are captured by dangerous ideologies, resistance becomes a feat of courage that few will dare to attempt. But perhaps the aspect of Salem most redolent to today’s cultural skirmishes is the development of an intense climate of fear and mistrust. This episode in history offers a stark example of the conflicting loyalties and tribal instincts that can manifest in any society if the conditions are right.

-- Andrew Doyle, “The New Puritans”

We’re all Salem now, living under the rule of fantasists.

Why did we ever give the keys to the little crazy children?

[noahtally-famous]

not me popping back on here with a post after months of semi-inactivity (uni is being a bitch) just to reiterate how much i love writing the pahkitew island cast.

aside from sammy and amy (obviously), literally everyone else can be shipped with one another and it'd make sense to some degree, like it takes skill to create a group of people so inherently shippable (platonically and/or romantically) and ofc the writers didn't know it they just shoved a bunch of random ppl together and dusted their hands off on it but fr tho 😭

(yeah im planning out my leonave 'stranger things inspired' au, and the gears are turning, and i forgot just how much i love writing for this dumbass group)

(i swear im working on the next chapter of a guide to surviving the apocalypse too)