#stories of strange happenings

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Rita Golden Gelman - ESP: Stories of Strange Happenings - Scholastic Book Services - 1981

[mammalsofaction]

Something incredibly annoying when dealing with non-pnf stans when discussing with PnF is discussion of Candace being accidentally gaslit by her mother. In that they assume everyone is in on the fact to make Candace feel like she's crazy. NOBODY ELSE is doing that. In fact, nobody BUT Candace seems to understand the whole brunt of the situation.

The backyard gang are not "bullying" Candace or keeping her from telling her mom. In fact, they tell Linda about it themselves MULTIPLE TIMES. They talk about it off handedly a bunch of times too. Theyre just also 10, and Linda thinks it's part of the "games". She thinks theyre being imaginative. Theyre NOT. The backyard gang is NOT lying to her, and they are NOT perpetuating the assumption that Candace is crazy. Linda just doesnt believe them. The backyard gang doesn't KNOW this. THEY ALL THINK LINDA KNOWS.

LAWRENCE is not perpetuating the idea that Candace is crazy. He ALSO thinks Linda knows. HE HAS SEEN the backyard projects a bunch of times, and HE TELLS Linda about them TOO. However, and this is important, he only ever sees the cute, relaxed and sweet projects, and never the potentially dangerous or fatal ones, so he thinks Candace is being anxious and overprotective. Which she is, but that's a separate issue. LAWRENCE is not lying. HE thinks Linda knows.

JEREMY has seen the projects and parties. He talks about them at length, and how cool Phineas and Ferb are! He's never lied. He thinks Linda knows.

STACY has seen the projects and parties. She FREQUENTLY vouches for Candace. But shes Candace's best friend, so of course Linda doesnt believe her.

EVERYBODY EITHER THINKS LINDA ALREADY KNOWS, OR HAVE CLOSE ATTACHMENTS TO CANDACE SO LINDA DOESNT BELIEVE THEM ANYWAY.

Linda isnt doing it on purpose. NOBODY is lying.

DO i think Linda should believe her daughter now and then? And should Lawrence stick up for her more? Of course I do. But it's not malicious. Just....a bit neglectful. But Candace's assumption that everyone is against her is largely perpetuated in her own head and anxieties and miseries. She ISN'T alone. People ARE on her side, and she has more allies than she thinks. There are MULTIPLE episodes where Phineas and Ferb try to bust THEMSELVES (AKA attempt to show Linda their project with her own eyes) when she simply asks them to. A lot of people think she's really cool, and caring, and her brothers think shes unironically, absolutely AWESOME. Which has been the point of many episodes, AS WELL AS Candace against the Universe.

[jojo-schmo]

I'm updating my personal ref sheets and it's really hitting me just how SMOL Kirby, Bandee, and Elfilis really are compared to the rest of the cast.

[tennessoui]

prompt list but it’s just sentences I’ve gotten wrong in duolingo

[patheticlogic]

yan wushi's betrayal is necessary, his cruelty is the point!!! much like the audience, shen qiao believes that there's kindness in yan wushi, and with time spent together, it will eventually show, no matter how small. that although they walk different paths, shen qiao's is the ultimate truth.

shen qiao's character flaw is not his kindness. it's his ignorance. and he doesn't truly accept (we, the audience, don't truly understand) this until yan wushi betrays him.

[thealexchen]

So we sacrificed an entire town only to be called "high school sweethearts" in the past tense

Also what do you MEAN "high school sweethearts" Deck Nine?? They were childhood best friends, there's a DIFFERENCE

[mariesbee]

why can't i enjoy things like a normal person? casually, just a few episodes/chapters here and there, then move on with my life. but no, whatever it is, it worms its way into my brain, consumes my thoughts and it slowly drives me insane. i am unable to think about anything else but the Thing of the week, or month, sometimes year(s) if it gets that bad.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[lulu2992]

Today is the fourth anniversary of HITMAN 3, the last game in the World of Assassination trilogy!

I’ve wanted to write something about it for a while because I love it, but as much as I enjoyed playing it, taking my time exploring the levels, finding useful objects, taking notes, completing challenges, listening to conversations, following my targets, and being as stealthy as I could to reach “perfection” in each mission, what I’d like to talk about today is the scenario. Indeed, this trilogy doesn’t just have good gameplay, a nice soundtrack, and pretty visuals, it also has a great story.

My favorite thing about Hitman, at least in the most recent games (the first I played was the divisive Hitman: Absolution), also happens to be one of the main focuses of this trilogy: the relationship between the protagonist, Agent 47, and his handler (I would even say the deuteragonist), Diana Burnwood.

To me, their bond is just so special, unique, and compelling, so nearly four years after finishing HITMAN 3, I decided to write this post as an attempt to finally organize my many thoughts about it, but also and mostly, about them.

My relationship with theirs: how it started vs. how it’s going.

When I want to summarize what’s going on between Diana and 47, I usually like to describe their connection as “platonic, but more in the French acceptation of the term”... which must sound rather confusing or boring to most of you, especially if you’re a native English speaker, but I’m not, so let me explain what it means to me.

I must digress for a moment here but, the first few times I saw people use the term “platonic” in English to talk about friends or even family, I was quite confused. In French, if we say a relationship is “platonique”, there’s only a small chance that what we mean is, “They’re just friends” and a much higher probability that what we’re actually saying is, “They’re having a soulmates-level of romance so deep and spiritual that carnality is completely unnecessary” instead. I’d find it weird to use that word to describe relationships that are inherently not sexual; it mostly refers to a “special” kind of romance in French.

And this is what Diana and 47’s relationship is to me: something powerful and unconventional that I don’t think can reasonably be described as definitely romantic but that simultaneously manages to be, somehow, the ultimate form of romance.

So, as a fan of this unusual and seemingly unbreakable bond, playing through the entire trilogy was a delight. There were a few scenes in the first two games that made me smile like an idiot (such as this one), but in HITMAN 3 in particular, there were even more moments to enjoy.

I was pleased to see 47 get a bit upset when he realized Lucas didn’t fully trust Diana and to hear him affirm she would make things right because “she always does”, felt vindicated when she told Edwards he was “delusional” if he thought she could betray 47, was touched when Olivia said she understood why he wanted to “protect her”, then both surprised by the bluntness and happy with the assertiveness of 47’s “You don’t know her” after she questioned Diana’s allegiance, and I even pretty much turned into that “excited Kermit” reaction GIF when Diana explained she was 47’s only weakness even though that was exactly what I expected her to say.

Finally, in Mendoza, the most exciting mission for me despite its worrying name (“The Farewell”), I loved their conversation at the beginning, was glad to hear that he was right about her true intentions and loyalty all along, and much like he clearly was, caught off guard when she touched his hand. In the rest of the level, I enjoyed following her around and found their banter and synergy quite delightful, especially at the end. Then, of course, there was also the tango.

But when the “Necessary Evil” cutscene happened, I was… upset. Well, the first time I saw it, at least, because there is so, so much more depth and beauty to this scene than I initially realized, as concerned as part of me was that yet another franchise I love had forgotten its own lore and was collapsing in on itself before my eyes, ripping away from me what I loved most about it. Thankfully, that was not what was happening.

Looking at what I know of their history, I was and still am very much confident that Diana and 47 would rather turn against the rest of the world (and do it together) than be disloyal to each other, so even though I kept telling myself that her betrayal was fake and she had a plan, I was disappointed to see that, contrary to what I thought, they weren’t past the point of pretending to deceive and/or kill each other as a way to fool and bring down powerful people and organizations. She “killed” him in Blood Money, he “killed” her in Absolution; they were even. She most likely thought things had to happen this way to truly work, but I hoped they were done keeping secrets from one another. I’m still sad she had to trick him, and even more so that, even for just a moment, he genuinely thought she was serious and that he had lost her too.

In the toxin-induced and introspective hallucination that follows, 47 faces his worst fears... and some happen to be Diana deriding, belittling, and abandoning him. This was painful to watch because those are distressing thoughts for him, but to be honest, I also liked seeing just how much she meant to him. When he watches her dancing with Edwards, I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Polarized, the fifth episode of Life is Strange, in which Max, also drugged, has a nightmare and sees her “special friend” Chloe criticizing and replacing her. Fortunately, 47 quickly reconsiders the situation, talking some sense into himself with the help of “Lucas”. The other voice in his mind, Diana’s, encourages him to trust his intuition, and so he finally understands what he has to do.

Although she partly left him in the dark about her strategy and there are certain things she didn’t say, rewatching “Necessary Evil” made me appreciate how much Diana did say and how significant all of that was. Indeed, despite the apparent disingenuity of her act, the context suggesting, at first glance, that she’s either backstabbing him or purely playing a character, and the rather contemptuous tone she made sure to use to fool her audience, it’s since become apparent to me that she meant every single word she said.

She makes it sound like she’s turning against him and doesn’t want to see him anymore, but what she’s actually saying is that he, like everyone else, should be free to forge his own path. Even though she meant no harm and believed it was what he needed when she recruited him, she felt she used him, that he was only a tool, a weapon she controlled, and it was not right. He didn’t object when she chose him as her agent 20 years earlier, but had he not lost his memory and been truly able to make an informed decision, what would he have chosen?

And when she says she knows it was 47 who killed her parents, which is something he (and the players) only recently discovered, although she doesn’t even blame him for it, he apologizes. He sincerely apologizes, with an unusual and palpable pain in his voice. He’s genuinely sorry for what happened (so much so that he thinks that’s reason enough for her to want him dead), and maybe also for not having had the courage to tell her the horrifying truth. She deserved to know, but maybe out of shame, because he didn’t want her to suffer or for their relationship to be affected, he chose not to say anything. Had she known the full story sooner, though, what would she have chosen?

Diana’s last words before she leaves and he loses consciousness are, “This is a kindness. Goodbye... agent”. “Goodbye”, not “farewell”. “Agent”, not “47”. This is the end of the partnership she realized she imposed on him, but whether or not it’s also the end of the friendship they nonetheless built along the way is up to him. She’s been the one making most of the choices this whole time, and now it’s his turn. Calling what she’s just done a “kindness” isn’t a lie or emotional manipulation; it’s a fact. In their “own special way”, they care about each other, deeply and earnestly, but both of them also made selfish decisions they convinced themselves were in the other’s best interest. In that scene, they’re finally facing their past(s) and accepting the truth, freeing themselves and each other in the process.

“Necessary Evil” was initially worrying to watch, but what it shows isn’t the brutal and grim end of a 20-year partnership; it’s a moment of pure honesty, maybe even the most heart-to-heart conversation Diana and 47 have ever had. After this “last tango”, she sets him free, allowing him to live the life he wants. At last.

Although, again, I would have preferred her to do things differently and spare him that suffering, I also absolutely love the fact she didn’t even need to reveal her full plan for him to figure out what it was and carry it out exactly the way she expected him to. I suppose it’s not that surprising since he’s already demonstrated many times in many ways that he knows her better than anyone else does (and vice versa, probably), but it’s still fascinating. They don’t need words to communicate anymore, yet the few they exchanged before leaving Mendoza were salutary. A necessary evil, indeed.

In the last scene of the game, one year later, 47 recontacts Diana and informs her of his decision to go back to doing his former job, but this time by choice and on his own terms. “It’s good to be back”, he says with a smile (yes, a smile) on his face. There was one on mine too as I realized this was a callback to the very first “Announcement Trailer” for the World of Assassination trilogy. In the video, however, it was Diana who said, “Good to have you back” while he remained silent the whole time. In more than one way, the trilogy ends the way it started, but the major difference is that 47 now truly has a voice.

“I choose him”, confidently said Diana in the prologue, thus starting their productive partnership. More than 20 years later, he’s back in business, not because he has to but because he wants to, believing his mission is not done and wishing to continue it… but not alone. Finally free to do whatever he pleases and having had time to decide what he wanted his life to be, 47 came to a conclusion, and what he tells Diana in the epilogue, implicitly but assuredly, is, “I choose you.”

Almost six years after it was first announced, the trilogy has come full circle, and it feels like IO Interactive had it all planned out from the start. Diana and 47 are back to being partners, and by embracing their past, they can build their future on better, stronger, and healthier foundations. Now, more than ever, it’s them together against the rest of the world. As a fan of their duo, as well as nicely wrapped-up and carefully written stories in general, I don’t know if I could have dreamt of a more satisfying ending.

Perfectly executed.

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[hotvintagepoll]

Oh no I missed coffee night!!!!

I wanted to ask you about Hitchcock 😔 If you're willing to answer, which movies of his do you think are overrated and which do you think are actually good? He's my most watched director (because film school) but I only genuinely like a few of his films and always disagreed with my classmates about which ones were the best

I feel like I'm holding up a Daffy Duck style sign that says "shoot me" because Hitchcock is so well thought of by cinephiles versus me, the basic horny mod who watches movies with hot people in them. With that said, I remember Rope, Dial M for Murder, North by Northwest, and To Catch a Thief all left me a bit flat, because I felt like he was prioritizing pushing technical limits or creating extravagant images over deeper characters and relationships. I love a good technical limit-pushing, but it needs to serve the story! And sometimes I feel like he has an idea he wants to try or an image he wants to show and puts so much focus on developing it that characters' reality and interest kind of falls by the wayside—they become pawns navigating his situations, instead of interesting characters in their own right.

To be fair, this is more a characteristic of his later work than his early work—The Lady Vanishes is one of my favorite movies, and I remember Notorious and Spellbound both being enjoyable when I watched them a few years ago. Again, basic film watcher here. Don't show this post to the Criterion collection.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Last Hour Between Worlds

fantasy locked room murder mystery

set in a world with alternate universes that bleed into it that get increasingly more eldritch as they go down, following a woman able to step between them

she’s on leave to take care of her newborn, but decides to attend a new years’ party to give herself a short break to socialise

but when everyone is murdered - only to suddenly be alive again, but with the whole building shifted one echo down, she realises she’s caught in a dangerous looping game and will have to find a way to stop them from dying permanently…. with the help of her rival slash almost-ex

very lightly demi-coded bi MC, f/f

[purple--queen]

sooo if Billy hadn't the signil Wanda could have found him with the darkhold

[xxxdestieltrutherxxx]

YOU GUYS WONT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED TO ME

something INSANE just happened. ok, so, I was on the bus watching @strange-aeons video on the croaker when a girl with long dark ebony hair with purple streaks and red tips sat beside me. she was SO CUTE AND GOTH!!!!! so, she glances at my phone and says "omg. is that father strange??" I WAS SCREAMING. SHE KNEW A STRANGE AEONS AND SHE WAS LIKE SO PERFECT IN EVERY WAY. So naturally I said yes, this is strange's video on the croaker and complimented her goth outfit. We literally spent like 17 minutes talking ab the croaker when a group of em*s got in the bus. The perfect girl that sat beside me (lets call her S) was like ughhhh I hate em*s. which SAME they're literally posers that don't even dress well but ok. anyway, so the em*s got in front of us and started talking among themselves like the squirmy little rats they are, and then the leader (let's call him dumble door) said "you goths are posers. get out of the way" and S said "Ummm we're literally just minding our business. please be respectful." by now most of the bus was watching us, but they were watching more at us than the em*s. they said "this is a em*s zone, you can't be here. goths are posers because they don't live the em* lifestyle, you're just a phase and nothing more" I was furious. so, I said "well actually the bus is public transport, and public means that any person of the populous can use it. so clearly you don't know what public means and are just using your harmful em* rhetoric to harm goths. also, we goths have a very extensive culture and historical background, which you clearly dont know. if your so keen on ignorance then you should get out on the next stop (the next stop was next to a school)" the bus WENT WILD, even the old lady (there was an old lady) was cheering us on. Then one of the emos started crying and got out of the bus while it was moving. I guess we made our point VERY clear. The other emos just moved away to some seats far from us. anyway, a few minutes later me and S got out of the bus and decided to head towards my home to marathon strange's vids. but when we arrived at my house, S said "so... there's something I haven't told you...." then she TOOK OF HER WIG. turns out S, wasn't S at all. She was actually. Strange Aeons. Her hair was also more ebony than the wig. It was also her birthday so I made a cake with blood (we're goth) and celebrated the rest of the day by watching destiel edits (I'm a heller). Yeah, I guess I can say I had a crazy day.

[ganondoodle]

and here i was, thinking that the majority of people following me are here for the zelda/comic stuff O.o

[ruvviks]

// wip day.

i'm working on a new project that is (for once) not connected to any of my bigger original universes, so i thought i'd share some of the writing i have for it! taglist down below, feel free to take this opportunity to share your own wips (in a separate post of course) if you have any!! the first part is a sort of introduction to the story, from the perspective of main character marshall! the second part is a snippet from a scene much further into the story, to kind of paint a picture (for both you and myself lol) of what the setting and the tone of the story is gonna be like. it's a bit different writing than what you're used to from me so please take a moment to read the warnings first!! warnings >> blood, cult, death, implied cannibalism, gore, religion, violence

God won't speak to me.

He spoke to my sister when we were eleven, her howls echoing through the backyard of our childhood home as the venom of a wasp spread quickly through her veins.

He spoke to my mother the day we buried her oldest son, the hem of her alcohol-stained dress torn where it had caught on the thorns of a blackberry bush she had blankly passed through.

He spoke to my father the day he put the barrel of a .44 in his mouth, reenacting what he had classified a sin for all the wrong reasons, his trembling finger on the trigger strong enough to rip apart the last tendon holding our family together yet not to finish the job.

I was eighteen, when I was found on the river bank near Overture, Louisiana, the sharp end of a jagged knife plunged deep within my side and my bloodied hands clutching the cross necklace of my brother, my breathing akin to the ice cold shallow water grazing at my ankles as I stared up at the star-spotted sky with glazed over eyes, blue chapped lips shaped in the final hum of a prayer.

A black abyss stared back, a strained vacuum without comfort, leaving me with a plea unheard and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

And God did not answer.

'Gotta dig… Just gotta dig. Gotta get 'em out of there… Gotta take 'em home…'

The physical distance between Marshall and the grave did not muffle the continuous mumbling, the shaky voice of the young priest clear as day like a whisper directly in his ear as the eerie silence looming over the church's cemetery left him with not much else to focus on. He knew he should turn around and leave, at that hour of the night— get back in his car and return to Posey in the motel, get some sleep while he still could— yet curiosity held him tight within its grasp, and each step he took pushed him closer into the wrong direction.

'Just the bones… Just the bones…'

The man was hunched over, back turned towards Marshall and partially obscured by the few last rows of gravestones stood between the two of them. His neck twitched— a sudden and unexpected movement at an angle Marshall did not hold for possible, yet it had happened entirely too fast for him to clearly see.

'Hey, is everything alright?' he called out; well against his better judgment, hairs on his forearms standing up straight as his feet carried him another few inches closer to the priest.

And the closer he got, the more he wished he had listened to himself.

If he had just turned away, he wouldn't have had to notice the unusual and unplaceable noises bubbling up from the priest's direction. He wouldn't have had to realize the priest was sat next to a coffin, yet to be lowered into an undug grave. (A curious practice, but Marshall was not one to judge— Overture'd had to endure a rather tiresome series of curiosities as of late, and an unburied corpse in the middle of bumfuck Louisiana in the midst of a yet to be explained power cut would be the least of its problems.)

'Just the bones…. Gotta dig… Gotta bring 'em home.'

'Do you need help?' Marshall persistently asked, his voice muffled by the thrumming of his own heart in his eardrums while his eyes trailed over the coffin— splintered and shattered at the lid, the glimmer of the distant church lights barely enough to reveal the outline of an axe resting on the dirt at the priest's ankles.

'Have to do it, there's no other way. Gotta dig, gotta dig, gotta dig—'

'Hey!'

Marshall should have never stayed in town.

He realized that now, as the priest's obsessive muttering came to a sudden stop forcing Marshall to hold still too— yet he had already approached too closely, and realized that no dirt had been dug in at all, and realized that the priest's hands were instead stuck inside the coffin repeatedly plunging deeper and deeper into the rotting remains of the corpse inside, once white vestment covered in blood and gore and he stared up at Marshall with a faint glow in two milky white eyes and with a wide grin exposing bloodied and shattered teeth, much akin to a predator looking at its next prey.

'Just the bones,' he repeated, the nodding of his head nearly belittling— as if to convince Marshall this was how it was supposed to be, as if to convince him the Word of God was not to be neglected and his fate as a sinner was a gift to the Divine Light and as if to convince him as long as he would not struggle it would all be over soon.

'Gotta dig.'

Marshall could not move, lamb to the slaughter as the priest rose to his feet with the axe in his hand.

'Just the bones! Gotta take 'em home.'

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel