#she needs to linger

[fictionadventurer]

Elizabeth Gaskell has the kind of brilliance that makes you forget how brilliant she is until you come back to her work after reading inferior authors. Her type of talent is understated skill that does everything so well that it looks easy.

She has prose that's descriptive without being flowery. Plots that take their time but also keep pulling you along. She writes about everyday life in a way that makes it enthralling without over-romanticizing it. She can take what would be stock characters in the hands of other writers and explore their upbringing and history so thoroughly that they become real, nuanced individuals. And she does it all so simply that you barely even notice how much talent it takes to write like that.

[trrenchertrash]

I was thinking about “I am the dirt under your nails” and first of all I don’t think it can be ignored that the title of e9 is derived from this line. Considering that, this line is evidently not meant to be a cutesy throwaway line between Cait and Vi, it has huge thematic weight and implications. If you think about the title “The Dirt Under Your Nails” in this context, it’s clear that it’s meant to refer to the fact that all of our characters have dirt under their nails. As in, their hands aren’t clean. They’ve all committed wrongs, because they’re all human, which is obviously a major theme of this season/show. The second part of this dialogue is “nothing’s gonna clean me out,” which fits with what Caitlyn says about how no amount of good deeds can undo those wrongs. This line is about accountability.

And there’s a reason why it’s Vi who says this line to Cait. The most obvious is that Caitlyn has wronged her, but it goes deeper than that. In e8, Vi asks Caitlyn who gets to decide who gets a second chance. There are multiple ways to interpret how this idea impacts the narrative. I’ve seen it said that Caitlyn allows Vi to free Jinx because in giving Jinx a second chance she also gives herself one, and that’s an important point for Caitlyn’s character, but I think Vi would’ve found a way to free Jinx no matter what. Cait just made it easy for her. What the narrative shows us is that Vi is the one who gets to decide who gets a second chance by having her decide to give one to both Jinx and Cait. I’ve seen people talk about how’s Vi’s role is that of the witness — to be the constant that observes all the change and corruption that happens around her, and to be burdened with the memory of all that has transpired. And that’s true, but there’s more to it as well. Remember this promotional poster? It has 3 different titles/captions associated with it (that I saw):

1) Horrors I’ve Seen

2) Everyone is Guilty, Vi

3) It’s Too Late to Point the Finger Now

The first one obviously reinforces Vi’s position as the witness. But the second two are about accountability. It always struck me that the second caption brings the collective guilt of our cast to Vi’s attention specifically. Now it makes sense: she is both witness and judge. The character with the “good heart,” the only one who remains largely uncorrupted/unchanged by the end. Who is motivated purely by her desire to protect while the vast majority of the characters around her are twisted by revenge and ambition. It’s absolutely intentional that she is the one who says that line.

[cacturnia]

i think about this scene constantly

[sashabeloved]

Spy has come to visit his wife. He's brought her favorite flowers of course.

His wife is reapplying her mascara from having cried most of it off.

[nyehilismwriting]

obligatory note that while I don't tend to post nice messages abt updates I do see them and appreciate them and if you've ever said a nice thing to me I am kissing you on the mouth. with tongue

[andromeda3116]

my grandmother had a stroke yesterday. alive, as of yesterday evening, and aware, but nonverbal, which is unlikely to change. there's nothing they can really do for her since she's in hospice and has a dnr/decided several years ago that she no longer wanted any heroic measures to save her life if something happened, so they sent her back to the home we moved her to a few weeks ago (which is so much better than the place we moved her from, and much better place to die). there was talk of an mri today, to see the extent of the damage, but idk if that's actually going to happen. it seems like it would just be putting her through an agitating, uncomfortable experience for something that won't change anything except sating our curiosity.

i went to see her saturday, because i had gotten a cold and missed her birthday party the weekend before, and wanted to make sure that i went and wished her a happy birthday and assured her that it had just been a cold and i was fine and...

she was kind of all over the place from the dementia, but she knew me. she babbled a lot and jumped from topic to topic, and she went on a tangent about sex that was uncomfortable, but i realized was actually more that she wanted to make sure that i was in a good and positive relationship rather than with someone who would ignore my needs or treat me badly, so i assured her that we communicate clearly and we're always on the same page, which definitely made her happy to hear.

we had lunch outside on the patio of the little home. it was a beautiful sunny day, temps in the 60s/low 70s. there was a nice breeze. i held her hands and we chatted and she was... maybe 55% coherent. but calm.

it was a good day.

her last words to me were "i love you sweetheart."

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[thiswildernessismyhome]

Naomi flirting her face off @ Drummer

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking thoughts about Abuela being back and with this backstory about her being taken in by charlatans and Eddies whole catholic guilt thing and how the two things kind of play into one another as an exploration of faith and being taken in by something.

Abuela giving all her money to the tarot card readers etc because she was searching for something - for connection (with Abuelo) - trying to recapture what she had lost, and How Eddie has spoken about trying to re-find the magic he had with Shannon - how Eddie hasn't actually fully reconciled the Shannon of it all when it comes to relationships and how his Catholic guilt connects into that.

How Marisol as a physical representation of Catholicism is part of that narrative - how Eddie is entering a place where he has to chose his path - in order to move on from Shannon he needs to fully square the hole - catholic or non catholic. And how that needs to happen first - before he can begin his queer journey!

[presiding]

you'll never guess which level we're up to in this dishonored 2 rewrite

[eeblouissant]

agh agh okay … i know I’m supposed to be on a break (and I have been! And enjoying it at that) but this little moment !!!!! I needed somewhere to scream about it quick because !!!!!!!!!! Do !!!! You see!!!!!! Dorothy’s face !!!!!!!!!!!

[chronurgy]

ORIN GHOST STORY HELLO?

But Vesper's Sight was the fly in the ointment. They had never spoken of it much, at least not to her, never deigned to share their visions and understandings with any other. At least that had been what she had thought. Perhaps they had shared with that lordling that had captured their attentions so. But not with her. Never with her. And so she did not know the shape of it, did not know what caused their mind-matter to flicker and spasm with variations of the unfolding world. She could do no more than lean on her own pounding blood in the face of it, carry the belief that her sharpened blades would slice and dice even through such unneeded artifice. She had. She had, in the end. But they had smiled.

This is set after orin deposes the Dark Urge and takes on the role of Bhaal's chosen and leader of the cult. It's sort of a ghost story that isn't quite a ghost story, because orin feels haunted by Vesper but we (the readers) all know that Vesper isn't dead. It's about blurring the lines between an actual haunting and a mental haunting, about knowing someone well enough to know exactly what they'd say about what you're doing, about second guessing yourself and your choices, about feeling like they're standing over your shoulder and judging you even though they can't actually be there..... right? Orin's room is vesper's old room and so much memory of them would linger there and her new allies were originally vesper's allies and her cult was originally vesper's cult and the people in it loved Vesper and aren't sure if they love her yet so everywhere she looks she's seeing and hearing about Vesper. How much of this is orin's own mind and how much is vesper's ghost or some horrible psychological trap they laid just for her?

[deva-arts]

Small Worldbuilding tick.

Halcyon is a drug found in Systema, known for it's properties as both a psychedelic, analgesic stimulant. Also known as Noctis' drug of choice, simply because it ticks all those yummy boxes.

It's commonly mistaken as an easy route to pleasure due to it's lower risks (at low, microgram doses), but the newfound availability of this drug has led to a lot of deaths from recreational overindulgence, as well as an uptick in violent crime and assault.

Do not operate any vehicles within two days of taking Halcyon. Please keep out of reach of children and teens under the age of 25. Beware of feeding children candied Halcyon.

Please contact a doctor or specialist if you experience any of the following symptoms after one or more uses of HALCYON:

Profuse sweating, rapid heart rate, muscle tremors, severe pupil dilation, temporary blindness in bright light, nosebleeds, jaw clenching, skin rashes, dehydration, chemical burns at injection sites. Violent vomiting, dry heaving, paralysis of extremities, migraines, uncontrollable euphoria, psychosis, auditory and visual hallucinations, severe paranoia, impulsive, reckless behavior, emotional overstimulation, memory blackouts, temporary aphasia, hypersexual encounters, Irreversible kidney damage, cardiovascular damage (aneurysms), skin ulcers, necrosis, premature aging, chronic depression, early-onset dementia, neural damage, serotonin depletion, uncontrollable addiction, seizures, coma, emotional detachment, inability to form relationships, isolation, financial ruin, sensory overload, neural implant malfunctions, false augmented reality experiences, rejection of bio-cybernetic interfaces, “Neurofire” sensation, screaming fits, burning neural pathways, corrosion of cybernetic limbs.

Consider HYPNOS if deciding to withdraw from continued use of Halcyon, as symptoms may include:

Immediate Withdrawal: Intense cravings, irritability, restlessness, muscle aches, chills, excessive sweating.

Short-term Withdrawal: Nausea, vomiting, severe headaches, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, anxiety attacks, irritability, mood swings.

Long-term Withdrawal: Severe depression, suicidal ideation, paranoia, hallucinations, violent outbursts, extreme fatigue, insomnia, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal distress, weakness, sensitivity to light and sound, difficulty speaking coherently, cognitive impairment and dissonance, neural instability, tremors, neuralgia, increased pain perception, memory loss, emotional numbness, blurred vision.

It may take up to two years for symptoms to fully clear.

Thank you for your extended patronage. Praise GEAR.

[baylardo]

ive been revamping some old headworld Tenebres OCs of mine recently :) their little story revolves around a prestigious magic school that outcasts all of them in different ways.

ethel and juneau (the older ladies) were both once professors and colleagues. ethel taught potionmaking (she’s unsurprisingly a marvelous cook) and juneau excelled everything about in curses (very big on puzzles). juneau was disapproved of for her unconventional methods when it came to cursebreaking which mostly involved inflicting herself with the curses she was trying to break. through enough exposure to that practice in addition to likely a few curses she could never resolve, she now sometimes turns into a mindless beast. consequently shes a risk to students so she got kicked out. after getting fired she takes up being a plague doctor as an occupation which involves cleaning up magic breaches in addition to the stuff shes already good at which is curse removals, just without the funding of her school. its a pretty isolated job so whenever her monsterous side comes out, there arent too many people at risk. she lives in a lil unkempt hermit shack.

ethel was a bit more “by the book,” more of a rule follower, tended never to deviate from standard practice. she never liked or respected juneau and was rather relieved when she finally left, thinking her colleague to be quite the liability to the school. ethel’s field of magic in potions comes with its own different yet similar risks however. and while experimenting with some of her own new concoctions, something went wrong and she began turning into a monster herself. i think with her affliction it’d start as a small blemish that she keeps trying to magically remove/repair and she keeps making it worse which makes her frantic and keep trying fix things until she becomes this irreparable and permanent monster herself. and unwilling to face the same humiliation and rejection as her colleague, ethel fakes her death, making it seem like she died in a chemical explosion of her own making, and flees lol. eventually she seeks out juneau and the two become reluctant roommates in the shack juneau lives in.

and then Agnes the young one was a student whod worked very hard to make it into the school, probably doesnt come from a well-known family or anything but shes top of her class and has high hopes for her future, but one day during an exam in front of her peers and professors it comes to light that she’s (unbeknownst to herself) a familiar as she starts turning into a rabbit. shes expelled on the grounds that she hid her condition and familiars are not allowed to pursue such high forms of magic. in her determination to not fail and still achieve the status shes wanted all her life, she tries to seek out any mage who will teach a familiar any magic. eventually she finds juneau (and ethel by proxy) and the two reluctantly decide to take the familiar girl on as a student.

[aparticularbandit]

Called the self-sacrifice. Feel proud of that.

Gonna sit on this ending for a bit longer because there was some very religious imagery in ep. 8 with Agatha that I caught.

....

Also don't mind me bring Nicky back for Finding Family stuff BECAUSE I CAN.

[eggmeralda]

do you ever feel casually suicidal? like you're not depressed or anything you're doing fine but also it feels like a convenient option