#unfinished pyramid

[yaoiconnoisseur]

You can’t out run your sins, James.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This is actually a good deal- 2 A-frames (pyramids) for the price of one, and they're under $300k. The homes are surprisingly roomy inside and need a little clean-up and some work, but I think it's a bargain. 14 bedrooms(!), 6 baths, 4,280 sq ft + 10.32 acres of land, $279,900.

There's a deck going around the house, plus the 2 decorative cement balls. This could look cool w/some landscaping.

That green stove! The cabinets are sturdy and the sink is in the permanent island. The kitchen is surprisingly large.

And, look at the size of the pantry.

They're in the process of packing up, but this is a cute little wood stove in the living room.

There's a small half bath on the 1st level.

A small ladder going up to another bedroom.

There's a built-in bed and some cabinets, but it needs some work.

Bath with a double sink.

This unfinished room looks like it could be a closet.

It's listed as a single family house, but this large, multi-level deck joins the 2 structures, and there's also a canopy connecting them.

It's a little confusing, b/c several of the 14 bedrooms are in this building. They must be for guests. Looks like it may have been some sort of a camp or retreat at one time, b/c there's a cross on one of the buildings,

But, these rooms actually look occupied.

There's the cross.

This dorm style building has a kitchenette.

The bedrooms in the A-frames look pretty big and they don't have slanted walls.

The photos are all jumbled and at terrible angles, but this is the 2nd house. You can see that it has a large kitchen area and living room combo.

The kitchen has a cute vintage stove.

I would say that each A-frame has at least 2 bedrooms.

With over 10 acres of land, there's lots of potential.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/573-575-Immanuel-Rd-Jerusalem-AR-72080/346908631_zpid/?

[kathaynesart]

What’s your take on Pyramid Head Leo? Basically a Silent Hill AU take of Future!Leo which looks neat lol

Hahaha actually back in early 2023, I was listening to Silent Hill 2 music while looking at fan art of Leo with a triangle head when the idea suddenly struck me and I looked to my poor cat and yelled Pyramid Head Leo!!! (WIPS below, please ignore horrible colors/perspective)

For me it was the funnest mashup idea I’d ever had, but I just assumed that no one in this fandom would recognize or care about the connection. So my feverish WIPs went unfinished for months. Had to dig these up to post here. I’m happy to see that Pyramid Head Leo at least has found a place in the community haha!

Most people don’t know that I’m a HUGE Silent Hill 2 fan. I was actually concocting an AU idea of Donnie going through the town of Silent Hill, facing off against hauntingly familiar monstrosities in a nightmarish diesel-punk iteration of the town as he grapples with his survivor’s guilt. But again, I just didn’t have the time to focus on it. Still fun to think about though.

[evilminji]

:O !!! Wait a second... GHOST DINOSAURS!!!

They died. There are ghost animals. You CAN NOT tell me getting fuckin nuked from space by a GIANT rock that blasted you and everything you've ever known into near instantaneous oblivion, wouldn't leave some Unfinished Business and a shit ton of Ectoplasm.

BILLIONS of things died all at once.

Did most move on? Probably. We're any of them sentient? We have no idea! Maybe! Unlikely, but maybe! Still a MASSIVE, countries wide, molten earth lined, crater of instant death. World shaking and history making. Death in the blink of an eye.

If you're lucky.

But! I hear the arguments now. That was one event. The X or Y dinosaur lived before that! What I'm interested in came AFTER! Good points! But not RELAVENT!!! Because you know what ELSE that giant fuck-off meteor is good for? Aside for Death(tm)?

Television.

Makes for some damn good documentaries. Exciting graphics and neato visual effects. Ooooh~ look at our dramatic recreation! The cute baby animals, unsuspecting of their Doomed Fate~! Tense music! And now, a world from our advertisers!

You know who LIKES Space Documentaries? Danny. He's all ABOUT that Science Channel. Granted, they've been pulling more and more of these mid-tear "aliens built the pyramids" and "look at these swords!" Shows... but! Still! He grew up on this channel! He doesn't WANT to give up on it!

And, yeah, this is... kinda hammy... but it's still watchable!

He's enjoying the live tweeting from paleontologists who are ROASTING the thing to a lovely golden brown. Has choked on his noodles like three times already. It's great! But now? They are arguing over what the dinosaurs actually looked like again... and??

And, look, maybe it's the good mood and boredom. Maybe it's having the house to himself. Maybe it's his parents finally encouraging him to use his "ghostiness" for SCIENCE(tm)(!) the other day. Could even be his bad idea impulse acting up again, buuuuut.....

Teeeeechnically?

Nothing? Is STOPPING him? From finding out? He DOES have Zone compatible cameras. And can probably back trace where they should-ish be? He can find out. The colors might be off, but it's a starting point? Right? And heck, he's pretty sure inverse coloration in standard unless someone's shape-shifting, so he'd just have to inverse it AGAIN to get an approximately correct coloration for them!

....eh, as long as he leaves a "not exact, this was the best I could get" note, it should be fine.

Road Trip time! Better call Dani and see if she wants to ride a few giant mammals and some lizards!

(Needless to say? Some researchers get VERY exciting emails. And only accept they are POSSIBLE, because this is a DC crossover. So there is aliens and magic regularly popping up in their field of expertise, so WHY NOT? Just the other day, a whole ass TOWN that has been wiped out... got UN-wiped out! 23 years later! It's made headlines. Weird shit happens.

So gib. Release to them the Dinosaurs, mystery email man. Fork them over before they begin biting. You think this corduroy jacket means they won't hunt you down? HA! You know NOTHING of academics! WHERE ARE THE EXTINCT ANIMALS? Where are you hiding them!?!?)

@the-witchhunter @hypewinter @nerdpoe @ailithnight @hdgnj @mutable-manifestation

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zuckerberg in the dock

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH on May 15 at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE. More tour dates here.

It's been more than a decade in the making, but Facebook – or, if you prefer, Meta – is going on trial for antitrust violations, with the highest possible stakes and the worst possible evidence (for Facebook).

The Big Tech On Trial blog was started to follow the Google antitrust case, the biggest antitrust case of the century, which was barely noticed by most of the press. Partly that was down to the 40 year period in which antitrust was not enforced, a prolonged induced coma that caused the press's antitrust muscles to waste away. Partly, it was because Judge Amit Mehta was comically deferential to Google's demands for secrecy about the trial and its exhibits, which added complexity and obscurity to the proceedings. Despite this, the DoJ prevailed, and Mehta ruled that "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." Now, Google faces break-up, and Trump's DoJ has confirmed that it will seek nothing less:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/technology/trump-google-search-antitrust.html

The Biden administration may have been run by a president who'd spent his career kowtowing to giant, predatory corporations, but the left of the Democratic coalition forced him to install the most skilled and aggressive antitrust enforcers in generations:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/10/solidarity-forever-2/#oligarchism

They racked up an impressive series of wins, but too many of their cases were unfinished when the Democrats lost the election through a series of unforced errors that have left the country – and the world – teetering on the brink of a whole Bronze Age prophesy's worth of omnishambolic polycrises. There are so many important and good things imperiled by the Mad King presidency, and the DOJ and FTC's groundbreaking antitrust cases are certainly among them.

In some ways, this is normal. Vicious, criminal corporate bosses have long employed a delay/deny/defer strategy to draw out the antitrust cases against them, betting that a change in government will let them off the hook. This worked for Amway, which drew out its FTC prosecution for being a pyramid scheme until Richard Nixon resigned and was replaced by Gerry Ford, who had been the congressman to Amway founders Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos. Ford ordered the FTC to let Amway off, so the FTC crafted the "Amway rule," which defines a list of of ruinously exploitative and dishonest tactics that are nevertheless legal. Every pyramid scheme since has been designed to fit within the confines of this rule. Whenever you hear from an old classmate hoping to sell you "leadership coaching," essential oils, tights, or any other gewgaw, know that they are the progeny of Gerry Ford and the Amway rule.

This delaying tactic also works for antitrust. When the DoJ sued IBM for its monopoly tactics, the company spent billions procuring delays. The case lasted for 12 years, from 1970-1982, and in each of those 12 years, the IBM spent more on outside counsel to fight the US government than the DoJ spent on all the lawyers fighting all the antitrust cases in the country. They called it "antitrust's Vietnam," and (unlike the actual Vietnam war) it paid off. After Reagan was elected, he ordered the DoJ to let IBM off the hook, and the company lived to monopolize another day.

Microsoft pulled off this gambit too, drawing out the proceedings and appeals after it was convicted of illegal monopolization. They delayed the process until GW Bush was elected, and then Dubya ordered his enforcers to drop their opposition to Microsoft's appeal, and the company got off scot free.

So the big question now is, "Will Trump let Facebook walk?" There's not really any question that Facebook is guilty as hell, but Trump is practitioner of "boss politics." He's made it clear that, guilty or not, he is willing to protect you if you suck up to him. He's created several channels that corporations and individuals can bribe him: there's the Trump memecoin, a virtual tipjar for the Oval Office. There's his bizarre gambit of suing companies he wishes to demand fealty from (like Disney), inviting the companies settle the suits for tens of millions of dollars more than is reasonable, as a way to legally shuffle eight-figure bribes into the president's personal bank account.

Appropriately enough, Trump inaugurated his bribery program with his inauguration, soliciting million dollar "donations" to the inauguration fund from corporate leaders seeking favors from his government. Big Tech bosses – including Zuck – broke all land-speed records in the race for their checkbooks. But Trump isn't an "honest politician" (in the Heinlein sense of "he stays bought"). Last week, Trump lopped $733 billion off Apple's market cap, which was a hell of a way to thank CEO Tim Cook for his $1m "donation."

Zuck's got other ways to bribe Trump, of course. His pivot-to-culture-war-bullshit announcement – in which he declared an end to Meta's "feminine" use of fact checkers and moderation policies – was a naked gift to Trump, a guarantee that Trump and his henchmen could lie about anything from Haitians eating dogs to gay barbers being members of fearsome international terrorist gangs without threat of moderation or correction on Meta's platforms. For a compulsive liar like Trump, any relaxation of fact checking is a naked bribe:

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/01/12/mark-zuckerberg-wants-more-masculine-energy-and-less-diversity-policy_6736961_19.html

So, will Trump's FTC take Facebook down? It's hard to say. On the one hand, Trump claims to have fired the two Democratic FTC commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. A unanimous Supreme Court ruling makes it clear that the president doesn't have the legal authority to fire FTC commissioners without cause, and Bedoya and Slaughter still consider themselves to be on the job, though they've been locked out of the building and their email:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey%27s_Executor_v._United_States

The weak GOP rump on the Commission are far from the best America has to offer. On his first day, Trump FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson killed a swathe of investigations and enforcement actions, walking away from the FTC's fights on things like "surveillance pricing" and "predatory pricing." In their place, Ferguson instituted a snitch-line where FTC employees could rat each other out for "wokeness":

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-01-24-executive-action-reaction-day-4/

But despite this, Ferguson has also indicated that he will selectively carry on the unprecedented work of Biden's FTC. For example, he affirmed that his FTC would continue to use the Biden era merger guidelines, which put far stricter limits on corporate mergers than we've seen since the 1980s. And he's publicly declared that he will fight Meta to the bitter end, praising the FTC lawyers on the case as "some of the best" in the agency:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-17/ftc-has-the-resources-to-take-on-big-tech-chairman-says

Writing for Big Tech on Trial, antitrust litigator Brendan Benedict lays out the stakes and odds in the case:

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/zuckerberg-on-the-stand-the-trial

One thing is clear from Benedict's excellent, comprehensive piece: there is a lot of extremely damning evidence against Meta. Some of this evidence comes from company insiders, like the whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, whose tell-all memoir of her decade running Facebook's foreign policy team is filled with stomach churning revelations about top management's deliberate, ugly, vicious disregard for its users and the world:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250391230/carelesspeople/

Meta did Wynn-Williams a huge favor by forcing her into arbitration and securing a legally binding order requiring her to cease publicly commenting on her book, a move that triggered massive, worldwide interest in her book (it's why I picked it up!). This, in turn, led to Wynn-Williams being invited to testify before Congress, where her revelations about Zuckerberg's shameless, endless sucking up to the Chinese government and Xi Jinping caught the interest of Trumpland stalwarts like Josh Hawley and Chuck Grassley:

https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-former-exec-sarah-wynnwilliams-testifies-on-facebooks-courtship-of-china/

Assuming this political will persists, Trump's FTC will have to prove that Meta deliberately set out to create and maintain a monopoly. In this regard, they will be greatly aided by the best possible witness for the prosecution: Mark Zuckerberg and his giant, flapping fucking mouth. Zuckerberg has repeatedly, explicitly confessed, in writing, in economic and legal terms, to pursuing a growth strategy based on blatantly illegal anticompetitive actions. As Careless People makes clear, Zuck is an arrogant, out-of-touch crank who cannot stop tripping over his own dick.

The first hurdle the FTC will have to clear is the "relevant market" question. For a company to be a monopolist, it has to dominate a given sector. So what's Meta's sector? In its courtroom filings, Meta claims that it competes with the entire internet and on that basis, it is a minor player indeed. Market definition is a thorny problem in Big Tech antitrust cases, because the companies are such sprawling conglomerates that they can claim that they compete with just about everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/borked/#zucked

But those claims are greatly undermined when the company itself contradicts them, in writing. Back in 2011, Facebook told advertisers that it was "now 95% of all social media in the US."

Zuckerberg – the company's founder and CEO, who controls a majority of its voting stock – then proceeded to pen a series of memos affirming the company's deliberate monopolization strategy. For example, in justifying his decision to purchase Instagram – a company with 12 employees – for $1 billion, Zuckerberg described how "network effects" would keep Facebook from competing with Insta, so he planned on buying the company to capture those network effects and create a market where competitors' "new products won’t get much traction."

Other memos describe the company's deliberate plans to create high "switching costs" to make customers' departure as painful as possible, ensuring that companies with better products will struggle to attract users:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/28/talking-hard-work-blues/#hostage-takers

As if that wasn't enough, Zuck sent another memo contrasting Google+ with Instagram, writing, "One thing about startups though is you can often acquire them. I think that is a good outcome for everyone." This was just a restatement of Zuck's longstanding – and again, written – rule of business, "It is better to buy than to compete."

Things are not looking good for Meta. Having failed in a series of increasingly desperate maneuvers to get the case dismissed, the company has fallen back on gambits like writing Trump a check for a million bucks – and hiring Mark Hansen, the trial judge's former clerk, as its courtroom counsel.

Meta is a repeat offender. In 2019, Facebook paid the largest-ever corporate penalty of any kind, $5 billion, for lying about its users' privacy. The reason that settlement was so large? The company had already admitted to lying about user privacy and had made a legally binding promise not to do it again (they did it again) (and again) (and again).

Wynn-Williams called her book "Careless People," but there's plenty of evidence that Zuckerberg's offenses are deliberate, not carelessness. That evidence comes straight from Zuck's own keyboard, in memos where (for example) he discusses "using M&A to build a competitive moat around us on mobile and ads…[let's] spend $1-2 billion over the next couple of years on acquisitions."

Early in Facebook's history, Zuckerberg gave a speech explaining that he didn't want to sell Facebook because "Having media corporations owned by conglomerates is just not an attractive idea to me." Apparently it got more attractive after Zuck started to buy companies by the bushel.

This coincided with Meta increasing both the "ad-load" and the "unconnected posts" (boosted content from accounts you don't follow) in its products. Meta doesn't charge its users money, it charges them attention (which it then sells to advertisers and publishers) The (attentional) price of using Meta products has skyrocketed, at the expense of quality – a textbook proof of monopolization.

The timing of the release of Careless People and the trial couldn't be better (for us – not Meta!). I'm in the middle of Careless People right now (look for my review soon), and I agree with the Trashfuture panel who talked about how validating it was to have my longstanding suspicions that Facebook's many catastrophic blunders had to be the result of a deliberate decision to trade its users', customers' and society's wellbeing for its own profits:

https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-3c2y8-1879998

Much has been made of Facebook's role in multiple genocides, starting with the Rohinga genocide in Myanmar. The company's maneuvers since then are a mix of Wynn-Williams's "carelessness" and actual malice. Facebook's traumatized moderators call themselves the company's "tonsils" – a sacrificial organ whose role is to absorb pathogens and protect the body corporate:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/19/tonsilitis/#mod-traum

Meanwhile, the company touts its laughably bad "genocide filters":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/23/false-genocide-negative/#metacrap

Even as it bullies and threatens watchdogs that monitor its moderation systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sovkitsch/#adobserver

Facebook is a company that spent most of its history in a race to become too big to jail, seeking to shape regulations to keep smaller companies from growing to be competitive threats. This is why Zuckerberg has been such a vocal critic of Section 230, a law that people mistakenly view as a gift to Big Tech:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/25/facebook-has-a-facebook-problem/#played-for-zuckers

The company has curried favor with the world's dictators, creating a wave of "Facebook politicians" primarily drawn from the far right, including the brutal dictator of Cambodia:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#hun-sen

But in becoming too big to jail, the company also became too big to care (convenient for a firm whose executive ranks are filled with people who are manifestly lacking in any empathy). Thus the world's dominant social media platform has become a place where anyone who talks publicly about their cancer diagnosis will be bombarded with ads for snake-oil fake cancer cures that will drain their wallets and keep them from seeking life-saving therapy:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/13/youre-still-the-product/#targeting

Thus we have a company where insiders routinely use Meta's extensive commercial surveillance apparatus to casually stalk their romantic interests and anyone else they want to know more about:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/14/who-watches-the-zuckmen/#pecksniffs

Thus we have a company that systematically defrauded the entire media industry with its "pivot to video," creating a wave of bankruptcies in news organizations around the world, a mass extinction event we're still reeling from today (and then the company tried to do it again, with the disastrous "pivot to metaverse"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

Thus we have a company that threatened to walk away from the EU before it would obey the trading bloc's privacy laws:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/22/uncivvl/#fb-v-eu

(Ironically, the company insists upon the utmost secrecy when it negotiates with regulators, because nothing is more important than (Meta's) privacy):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/27/viral-colonialism/#ico-schtum

Meta's own employees are clearly keenly aware of its toxic nature. It's not just Sarah Wynn-Williams: departing Facebookers' "badge posts" – where they publicly take stock of their careers at Facebook – are a litany of recriminations and regrets:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#badge-posts

How will this case go? Well, it's hard to say. The judge – James Boasberg – just rejected a bid by Meta to keep its exhibits secret from the press and the public, seemingly having learned a lesson from Mehta's mistakes in the Google case.

And Meta has undergone spasms of antitrust fervor, like when Apple cut off third-party commercial surveillance by mobile apps, even as Apple spied on its own customers to fuel targeted ads. This prompted Zuckerberg to go on the warpath, telling anyone who'd listen that Apple was a dangerous tech monopoly and that the government really ought to do something about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/29/chickenized-home-to-roost/#chickenizers-come-home-to-roost

Yup.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/11/it-is-better-to-buy/#than-to-compete

[studioeisa]

svt & love poems they'd give you.

★ footnotes: decided to marry the two halves of my heart this valentine's: svt and poetry. this is unashamedly inspired by the brilliant @heartepub, whose constant intersection of svt x poetry inspires me to no end. viv, you are an entire poem in itself; i would give you all the pretty words in the world, if i could. + happy carat day, everyone!

seungcheol ★ Isn't Every Love Poem an Unfinished Love Poem?, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Praise the caps of your shoulders, my lips pressed against them.

Praise the poem I was trying to finish when you showed up

at my door.

jeonghan ★ If I Had Three Lives, Sarah Russell

If I had three lives, I'd marry you in two. The other? Perhaps that life over there at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing—a memoir, maybe a novel or this poem. […] I'd walk the beach at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks water makes in sand. And I'd wonder sometimes if I'd ever find you.

joshua ★ True Love, Sharon Olds

I quietly call to you and you come and hold my hand and I say I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.

junhui ★ February & my love is in another state, José Olivarez

stay with me. while the sky is still golden, hold the ladder so i can climb, & from the highest rung, i can scrape away a drizzle of light to wear around my neck. alone

is the star i follow. in love & in solitude: alone is the home with the warmest glow.

soonyoung ★ Variations on the Word Love, Margaret Atwood

This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. this word is not enough but it will have to do.

wonwoo ★ The Leash, Ada Limón

But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move my living limbs into the world without too much pain, can still marvel at how the dog runs straight toward the pickup trucks break-necking down the road, because she thinks she loves them, because she’s sure, without a doubt, that the loud roaring things will love her back,

jihoon ★ You Do Not Have To Love Me, Leonard Cohen

I wrote all these songs for you I burned red and black candles shaped like a man and a woman I married the smoke of two pyramids of sandalwood I prayed for you I prayed that you would love me and that you would not love me

seokmin ★ Watching you talk on the phone, I consider the empty space around atoms–, Rhiannon McGavin

To make my birthday cake from scratch, you wouldn’t just plant strawberries: you’d create another universe. I wanted you

warm and close as fresh laundry and here we are, Tuesday. Of course you love me, you’re wearing one of my socks.

mingyu ★ O Small Sad Ecstasy of Love, Anne Carson

I did a road trip all over my mind and heart and there you were kneeling by the roadside with your little toolkit fixing something.

Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.

minghao ★ The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel

Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know she’s used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times.

seungkwan ★ A Walk Round the Park, Sandra Lim

We did not say much to each other but

we grinned, because this love was so good you sucked the

rib bones

and I licked my fingers like a cat.

Now I’m omniscient. I’m going to skip past

the hard

parts that go on for a very long time.

vernon ★ Guilty of Dust, Frank Bidart

the voice in my head said

LOVE IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE

chan ★ First Date, Megan Williams

I want the warmth of your gaze to convince me that living is worth the discomfort. That other people can like me. That the bottlenecked bridge full of squealing tires & suckers who can't merge is a small price to pay for a hand in mine.

[stereopticons]

On This Day in Schitt's Creek...

Well, hello, you! Were you wondering what fanworks were posted on this day in the Ao3 Schitt's Creek tag? Were you looking to read some older fics you missed or perhaps re-read an old favorite? Well, look no further! Each day, I will post all the fics that were posted Ao3 on that date from 2017 to 2024! Give some of them a read and show the authors some love! At the end of each month, I also plan to post some stats about the fics posted in that month.

Multi-chaptered works or unfinished WIPs will be posted on the date they were last updated. All fanworks included in the tag for that date will be included in the post.

2020

Designated Grape [david/patrick, M, 1,097] by bellalafrella

This is my idea of what went down on that car ride back to the motel after Patrick came to get his drunk fiancé from Herb's fruit winery.

Filling in the Blanks [stevie & patrick, M, 4,493] by Aelia_Gioia

A series of random text conversations that fill in some blank spaces.

In Moira Rosé Veritas [david/patrick, T, 2,283] by Aelia_Gioia

After David and Moira sample all the fruit wine, after Johnny and Patrick have a heart to heart, it all culminates in Room 6.

More under the cut!

Morning Rosé [david/patrick, T, 532] by whetherwoman

Somewhere Near [david/patrick, T, 20,777] by alldaydream

Patrick Brewer suffers from amnesia that has erased six months of his life, forcing him to move back home with his parents. No one knows about the life he spent in Elmdale, so he goes chasing after his lost memories there only to end up in Schitt's Creek instead, taken by the handsome owner of the general store he's supposedly never met before. Before 4x07 The Barbecue

sustineo [david/patrick, E, 10,056] by @rockinhamburger

The bad thing about being a world-famous contemporary artist is… actually, there are many bad things. The clout-chasers and users. The frenzied hoards of tabloid “reporters” and paparazzi vultures. The pressure from interviewers, curators, collectors, and art critics to pigeon-hole himself, or, at the very least, be consistent enough for them to do it for him. The neverending demands that he ascribe an approved meaning to his art. The elitist club at the very top of the art world pyramid, which David has never been a member of, what with his postmodern, mixed-media, performance piece style of art that in equal parts seems to shock and disgust and enthrall. Or, an alternate universe where David is a famous, reclusive modern contemporary artist and Patrick is the art critic who is interviewing him about his new exhibition.

Synchronicity [david/patrick, T, 2,966] by @landofsonlali

david and patrick have a conversation after leaving jake's apartment.

2021

[art] The Roses Reunited [david/patrick, NR, art] by @frizzlenox

The Rose family poses for a portrait at the Emmys when Moira is nominated for Sunrise Bay.

Assistant Direction [stevie & moira, T, 2,378] by bigficenergy

Stevie's lazy morning with Ruth is interrupted by repeated phone calls from Moira, who is nervous about her first day of filming the Sunrise Bay reboot and simply must talk to Stevie.

China [gen, G, 300] by Rosey_Peach

Come Away with Me [david/patrick, M, 6,034] by @flowerfan2

There’s a beauty to David that’s hard to define in words. Patrick prefers to tell him with long, slow kisses and the kind of gentle, drawn-out love-making that gets David to drop his defenses. He had sort of hoped that this weekend would lend itself to a night like that, alone in a fancy hotel in the L.A. he had imagined. It’s a lot less likely to happen in their subpar Airbnb. David and Patrick take a trip to L.A. for the Sunrise Bay premiere. It isn’t exactly what Patrick expected.

Free Marcy Hugs [david/patrick, G, 803] by @goodiecornbread

Marcy Brewer is a hugger. So she puts her mom hugs to good use. TW for implied homophobia/transphobia, but no phobic or harmful language is used.

kiss away the pain [david/patrick, T, 1,008] by @lastchancecafe13

“I can’t say that was something I would have ever wanted to see. I know you’ve told me stories but hearing and having it laid out in front of me like that. And he stood there with that smirk on his face--” Patrick's voice trailed off as he pressed a kiss to David’s lips. Patrick's thumbs traced the tear tracks down David's cheeks. He wiped them away before continuing, "I can’t believe after all that that you’re here and you’re so good David. After all that that you were willing to open your heart to me--" Tumblr kiss prompt #39 kissing the tears from someone else's face

Leaning on Somebody Isn't Easy [david/patrick, G, 2,976] by lucianowriter

A Continuation of “Hate To Say That I Miss You.” It’s been three weeks since the phone call and David finds himself single and at a bar where Patrick is. A conversation happens. Will they get back together or is there too much baggage? Based off Ben Platt’s Temporary Love

The Diamond and the Duke [david/patrick, E, 4,005] by asoftplacetoland

Patrick plans a very special roleplay for David for Valentine's Day based on his latest television obsession.

Mine Own Weak Moments [stevie & moira, 6, 3,644] by @treepyful

When her phone buzzed with a silent call for the third time in eight minutes, Stevie debated throwing it out her open window.

The Moira Rose Story [johnny/moira, G, art] by WrathoftheStag

It's the poster for the upcoming, and highly anticipated, Interflix movie The Moira Rose Story.

this is my confession [david/patrick, T, 791] by @blackandwhiteandrose

Patrick finds a way to tell David the things he wants to say before David is ready to hear them.

2022

About a Boy [david/patrick, T, 13,507, CW: MCD] by the_same_but_different

"How about mac and cheese?” “I’m very uninterested in that option.” “RJ.” “Patrick, I’m sorry, but these lunch selections you’re offering me are just…” “Incorrect?” “You said it, not me.” Patrick’s relationship with Roland Moira Schitt Jr over the years. (With bonus audio commentary from David Rose.)

Make a Wish [david/patrick, T, 1,330] by @goodiecornbread

After having a birthday lunch with Stevie, David planned on sitting alone at the motel, smoking weed and eating cake. Then Patrick offers to join him.

2023

Itty Bitty Living Space [david & alexis, NR, 100] by mallpretzles

David is at his wit’s end with sharing 300 sq feet with Alexis.

Wallpaper Whispers [david/patrick, G, 100] by @legalgal421

Patrick takes one last look at his room at Ray’s.

2024

Easy [david/patrick, G, 1,154] by obsessedwithdavrick

David loves his husband and enjoys his Sunday sleep-in. Patrick loves to spoil David. They both are taking time to enjoy their slow time together.

Making Everything Okay [david/patrick, T, 1,064] by obsessedwithdavrick

After many years of marriage, Patrick could pretend to be okay as much as he wanted. But David knew when his husband wasn't okay, and sometimes he just had to be the one to take charge.

oh honey, you can have me when you want me [david/patrick, E, 2,990] by stereopticons

“Such a good little slut.” He gives Patrick's ass a light slap. “So here's what I'm thinking. I think that you put on that dirty little sweatshirt because you wanted me to bend you over this table and fuck you, isn't that right?” David accidentally buys Patrick a joke hoodie. Patrick wears it, to great effect.

Rosewood [david/patrick, M, 40,050] by @beaiola

Inspired by Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Patrick and David have been friends for years, their bond deep and undeniable, and there's no one whose opinion David values more. So when a new family moves into the neighbourhood, it's only natural that David should turn to his oldest friend for his advice and support as he tries to work out what this could mean for him and his future. Patrick, on the other hand, isn't as instantly taken with Sebastien and Klair Raine but David's sure when they all get to know each other things will be different. But there's no way he could forsee the impact the Raine siblings will have on the residents of Rosewood.

Stats:

No fanworks for 2017, 2018, or 2019 2020: 7 fics/39,238 words 2021: 11 fanworks (9 fics, 2 fanart)/22,254 words 2022: 2 fics/14,837 words 2023: 2 fics/200 words 2024: 4 fics/45,258 words Total: 26 fanworks (24 fics, 2 fanart)/121,787 words

[tbob-enthusiast]

"Safe..."

In honor of the release of TBOB, I've made a silly AU and I want to share it! Rather lengthy explanation ahead:

I call this baby "Absolem Ford": in which the twin switcheroo in the end of Weirdmageddon never happens, and Ford accepts Bill into his mind... as well as his body and soul. That was a trick, causing them to permanently fuse into a single being. Ford believed that if they fused, they would become mortal, and therefore humanity would stand a chance at defeating Bill — and, per the terms of their deal, his family would remain safe regardless of the outcome.

In the end, they became something incredibly abnormal: an amalgamation of limbs, thoughts, morals, experiences, and the feelings attached to them. They feel Bill's madness, his desire to conquer Everything, clashing directly against Ford's morals and hero complex. It is, by definition, a mind built by conflict. Needless to say, they're really not the most stable fella out there, hahahee. They have no more legs, but have twelve arms and all of them have six fingers except a single pair, which has four fingers on each hand! They have three eyes and are smiling 99% of the time.

They DO feel an incredible amount of care towards Ford's family (plus, their deal did say they had to be kept safe and sound from all sorts of harm...), so, they turned them all into golden statues and kept them in the very top of their pyramid, as it's the safest place they know. The remains of the Shack and the tapestries made out of the rest of the Zodiac are kept inside as well!

Ironically, this also served well to make them understand each other better. Absolem understands now, what Bill was thinking when he put Ford through hell, and they understand what Ford felt like while he was going through that. Absolem understood the difference between love (warm, comforting, like looking up and seeing the stars for the very first time, all the time) and fear (thorny and painful, like finding out who you really were). And they loved it (and they hated it).

Stanford lied when he said he knew how to break out of Gravity Falls. So, Absolem stays inside, and as self-proclaimed King of All Weirdness, they allowed all creatures to run free inside their town, including their Henchmaniacs (who really don't like their new boss all that much anymore*) and the average townsfolk.

Absolem is often found either crawling rapidly around town and freaking everybody out (as they may or may not eat/stomp/tear creatures apart along their way), or they're holed up in their pyramid, thinking about what they have become, holding their family close. It's comforting to have them there.

(*Absolem has succumbed to the scientific curiosity of "what exactly are these creatures made of?", and has vivisected each and every one of the Henchmaniacs. In their defense: which dignified scientist wouldn't be curious to see the inner workings of, say, Teeth?)

Absolem and the rest of the Nightmare creatures remain quarantined inside Gravity Falls, just waiting to be found again...

Anyway, here's an unfinished, crappy sketch I got of them! Malachite-looking creature HAHEHE. They can open their body up and swallow you whole!

[prettysurethatsakidney]

I have recently became obsessed with Gravity falls again specifically bill cipher and Stanford Pines and every time I try to draw I keep going back to them so here are all my unfinished bill fanart😋🫶

Starting from my first then to my most recent

This was my first attempt at a human design for him I took a lot inspiration from other designs I loved I also wanted to give him a rat kinda vibe cause he’s a rat man imo

Drawing 1) This is my LEAST favourite I was kinda in a art block and completely forgot how to draw so it turned out disgusting didn’t even finish colouring it I was already over it he’s giving dutch van der lin vibes tbh feel like he’s gonna make me hand over all my money only to tell me he needs more money also I decided the way the scars on his face sat in this one

Drawing 2) Don’t really like this one ether it’s wonky and the proportion are all off it’s also the first time I drew Stanford I tried doing bill with long hair but I just wasn’t feeling this drawing so I scraped it

This one I really like it’s simple but whatever this is when I was getting more used to drawing him

This one I scraped as well I was trying to design an outfit but failed I do like the cane and the hat tho I’ll try keep those in his design

This this is where it got good omg I like this design a lot I took inspiration on Egyptian/Arab clothing mostly cause I was running out of ideas but then I saw a design of an Egyptian Bill Cipher cause yknow he’s a pyramid and those are Egypt… yeah anyway I added more triangles to the design just cause

I hope you liked my designs and all

[music-box-bill]

🩰✨🎶 Music Box Bill 🎶✨🩰 Gravity Falls: The Musical Au

Background on the AU: As kids Stanley and Stanford talked about starting a band, Stan taught himself to play guitar and Ford was enrolled in piano lessons because of his 6-fingered hands. Ford is still interested in the paranormal, he is just much more secretive about it. Ford turns out to be a musical prodigy and as he grows up he is aiming to go to a top college for classical music but Stan accidently ruins an important piano recital for Ford. Stan gets kicked out and tries to make it as a solo "rockstar" (mullet stan still gets chased out of multiple towns for shenanigans). Ford still manages to earn a degree in classical music but from a far less renowned school. He relocates to Gravity Falls after college for the towns seclusion as he works to write a symphony. While struggling to write and compose music Ford comes across an odd pyramid shaped music box. Ford takes it home and tries to fix it but the box won't open and nothing happens when he uses the boxes wind-up key. However, later when he falls asleep at his piano he meets Bill in his dreams. Bill explains that he's a muse that has been trapped in the music box and if Ford is able to finish an interdimensional unfinished piece of music then Bill will be freed. Bill is trapped in his small size and his soul is bound to the box so he can't get very far away from it. 🎶✨🧚🩰 Bonus info about Music Box Bill Cipher 🎶✨🧚🩰 🎵Bill is a literal muse; he can sing, dance, and play any instrument. 🎵Can enter a person’s dreams. 🎵Is bound to stay near the music box. 🎵Is six-inches tall (but is around 4"8 in people's dreams) 🎵Is fascinated by human stuff. 🎵Is technically male, just likes to dress pretty ((aka I just like to draw Bill in dresses)) 🎵Makes Bell sounds with each step. 🎵Can float around like any other Bill. Leaves a trail of pixie dust wherever he flys. 🎵Likes sweets. 🎵mostly glows yellow but can change color based on extreme moods (example: turns red when angry) 🎵During Ford's dreams Bill will perform ballet for him to the classical music ford is working on. 🎵Ford still calls Bill “Muse/My Muse” & Bill calls Ford “Maestro/My Maestro” 🎵 Musical Falls

[cm-lily]

I read a fanfic once, I forgot which one. But in that fic, they have this idea where Gem and Grian's base has this... Foggy vibe to it. Like compare it to the cherry mountain that's all pink and petals and then you have these two bases which are straight up The Horrors™

I Just love that idea

So much I've been thinking, what if the whole Magic Mountain is surrounded by fog? A magic fog and mist that just always surround the area and got thicker as the sun set further. The area always seems cloudy. As if there is an eternal cloud forever covering the mountains. It's either raining, or storm, or cloudy. The only time it's clear is when Grian finally got his mending book, the pink snail arrive, and it switch to storm when Scar got the mending book. (He got struck by lightning a few time if he reaches that area)

Joel's base not only has lantern illuminating it, but souls as well. They didn't stay idle, but never went too far. Some of them even transform, Into tanuki or fox or wolves and even Koi fish and Axolotl. That fly in the air instead of water, obviously.

Sometimes there's things passing by on Impulse's build. Something tall and slender, with long limbs and sharp claws. They're not Enderman, Enderman don't crawl. Impulse said they're cool if you pretend they didn't exist and just let them... Lurks around.

Something is wrong with Mumbo's base. I want to call it decaying, but it's not. It's more like redstone veins appear around the blackened grass, the air smells like gunpowder and something acid. Or maybe copper.

Many hermits had reported seeing the sight of a statue angel that just appear on top of Skizz's unfinished Pyramid. It appear when they're looking at it, but then they look around and it's gone. The statue has never been in the same position everytime someone look at it.

Most people don't like going to Scar's base at night, not only because of how creepy it look like surrounded by those fog. Like the rest of them, something strange always happens. Like animals looking bigger and more beast-like the moment night arrive, ever seen a cow just grows multiple horns and it sounds like those horn are breaking out of it's skull? Or that one time, one time his horse stand up on two feet? Probably not. Scar said they're harmless. Except for the snail—he said. The snail isn't his. That's why they damaged his build and become a nuisance.

(There was once a time, a time where clouds whirled around his ore pillar, clouds that are made of limbs and hand and eyes and it just stretched and climb down from the pillar. It never reach the ground, fortunately.)

Grian never stopped fishing. Even if it rains or stormed outside. He's smelly and that's why snails like him and his horse don't. Totally not because Pluto saw him turn into giant mer-man with many eyes and tails and sharp tooth. Definitely not. Don't feel weird when you feel like you're being watched. Or because shadow-like silhouette wander around his wheat farm, or a silhouette of something massive that was illuminated everytime lightning strikes, looking down from the cherry mountain toward his and Gem's base and, occasionally, you felt like you found a body you recognize in the water—

And that's where Gem comes in! Gem is someone who stopped you before you decide to jump in the water and check who's that corpse is. And the one who shooed off the many eyes that lurk in the muddy river side of Grian's base. Grian hates her for that but there's nothing he can do. Gem, like Grian, is someone who can walk in the middle of the storm unharmed. Most of the time, she make sure that none of the hermits fell into the trick of her other neighbors.

just don't let that distract you from the fact one of her build is actually sentient and breathing and is always staring at you. Or the fact there's blood around the rocky shores if you squint into the dark river/soon-to-be-ocean. Or the fact that, just like the angler, the skull always felt like it's watching even if there's no actually eyes in it's socket. Gem is always present when you want to have a tour or just so happened to passed that area, but... If she's not there to guide you, would it even be worth it to be stabbed with a trident and got dragged into the water?

[hellsgate-roadhouse]

Abandoned hotel

North Korea 🇰🇵

It was supposed to become the world's tallest hotel. Instead, it became the world's tallest abandoned building. The pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel is 330 metres (1,080 ft) tall and one of the most prominent features of Pyongyang's skyline. The structure consists of 105 floors and it was originally intended to house five revolving restaurants, and between 3,000 to 7,665 guest rooms

Construction began in 1987 and it was North Korea's response to other high-rise development taking place in cities around the West and Asia during the Cold War. For North Korean leadership, it was also an attempt to bring western investors into the marketplace. The hotel was scheduled to open in June 1989 for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, but problems with building methods and materials delayed completion.

In 1992, after it reached its architectural height, construction halted due to the economic crisis and famine in North Korea following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. By then, the hotel's construction cost $750 million, consuming 2% of North Korea's GDP. For over a decade, the unfinished building sat vacant and without windows, fixtures, or fittings, appearing as a massive concrete shell while A rusting construction crane remained at the top.

In 2008, construction resumed by the Egyptian Orascom company. The company had also made a deal to operate North Korea's telecommunications network and installed antennas on top of the building. By 2011 work had finished. Ryogyong Hotel was fitted with windows but not much work had taken place in the hotel's interior. Since then, there have been many rumors of the hotel finally opening but until today it remains unoccupied.

[layla4567]

I'm just a librarian ✿

Steven Grant/Marc Spector x Fem!Reader

Summary: You work in a library in the middle of London, you get paid well and you love your little reading space surrounded by books that rise to the highest ceiling. But one day your normality will be turned upside down when a guy comes looking for some books on Egyptian history.

A/N: Ok first of all I must say that this idea arose from a little dream I had (and I also wanted to use the image from the movie The Mummy, I mean, just look at her, she is beautiful, she looks like Belle) second, I don't know if this will have more parts the truth is I'm not good at making long stories because then I leave them unfinished or I run out of ideas so, yes, I'm building this as I go along, sorry.

Part 2

And here I am once again, sitting behind the counter where you could see an old green lamp, a couple of books stacked one on top of the other, a typewriter and a little badge where you could read my name. With my legs crossed I moved my airborne foot rhythmically back and forth following a silent melody while my face rested lazily on my hand. My view was always directed towards the large windows that were near the line where the roof began. They were in the shape of a half circle and had a nice drawing similar to a stained glass window through which the sunlight passed in a warm way.

I loved being around libraries just for the sake of being a bookworm. I could spend hours reading old books sitting in a comfortable chair enjoying the silence without realizing it. But it was kind of boring to sit and wait for people to arrive so that you could help them with whatever they needed. I had already finished arranging the books with the help of the ladder, I loved doing it, it was fun to slide from one side to the other, it was almost like skating.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't realize someone had entered the library until they were in front of me so I gave a little jump in my seat.

"Oh so sorry! did I scare you? It wasn't my intention"

The person who addressed me was a very polite and kind middle-aged man, he had an innocent look in those pretty dark eyes he had. He was wearing a jean jacket and underneath was a white shirt, he was also wearing khaki pants and had a brown shoulder strap on one side.

"Don't worry, It's okay, I was just thinking, can I help you with something?"

I could not stop seeing his eyes, his look gave off a peculiar innocence glow, I could sense a genuinely beautiful aura like that of a child

"Well, yes. I was looking for books on Egyptian history, you know, gods and pharaohs, myths, pyramids, etc."

Every time he spoke his face would light up with enthusiasm, it was admirable to see

"Sure, we have several. Follow me please"- I said while my smile deepened

I led him through the aisles looking for the "Ancient Egypt" section by the gigantic shelves. The man meekly followed me like a lap dog without taking his eyes off me as he clung to his backpack. When we had reached the section, I took out 4 books, stacking them one on top of the other and numbering them as I handed them over to him.

" "History of Egypt", "Gods and mythologies", "Encyclopedia of the pyramids" and "The 10 most famous figures of ancient Egypt" And remember to return everything within 15 days "

I piled the books in the arms of that man who tried with effort to hold them since they were quite large and hardcover while I raised a finger and recited the prayer from memory. Even though the books were about to fall out of his hands, the man looked from the books to me with a beaming smile.

"Of course, yes, miss, I will do so. Thank you very much for your help"

I smiled generously at the man's good manners and walked him to my desk to finish the paperwork. I sat as the middle-aged man patiently watched me with his books in his arms like a child waiting for his Christmas present.

"Ok, I will give you a paper with the exact date where you must return the books along with our address, I would only need to know your name to write it down please"- I looked at him expectantly

"Steven Grant, Steven with a V"

I couldn't help but laugh at the clarification as if I didn't know how to write his name

"I clarify it just in case. A lot of people always misspell it, sometimes they call me Stephen. But surely you wrote it well, you seem to have nice handwriting hehe"

Steven giggled nervously as I smirked in amusement. What a singular man that Steven was

"No problem, what a nice name you have"- I smiled warmly

Steven got more nervous and his face begins to take on a cute reddish color as he stuttered and mumbled a thank you.

"By the way, my name is Y/n"

I told him, pointing with a fingernail to my badge that was resting on the desk. He looked at it for a while and smiled

"Now I won't forget"

And with one free hand he gave me a childish wave as he uttered a sweet "Laters gators" and headed for the exit. With one elbow on the table and my hand resting on my cheek, I watched him until he disappeared through the door.

"Steven.."

I pronounced his name slowly delighting myself with the syllables, it was sweet as honey and resonant as a bell. I was wondering if I would see him around here more often. I sighed with a lopsided smile and went back to staring at the stained glass windows waiting for someone else to come and help them.

The days passed and I didn't hear from Steven, he hadn't returned the books within the agreed period and I was beginning to worry. He supposed that this man was a little distracted or had forgotten or was busy with something important, anyway it was very common for people not to return the books on time and to be a little late. My head was full of thoughts hoping nothing bad happened to Steven and hoping to see him again when someone stormed through the library entrance.

"I'm really sorry!! I got there as fast as I could, apparently I fell asleep and woke up in a place full of sand. I have a sleep disorder, I'm sorry"

Steven was talking fast, spitting out the words like a machine gun, he looked agitated and his hair was messy. And on his face you could see the nervousness and concern. I tried to reassure him

"Steven, Steven calm down, it's okay. I get it, you don't have to apologize."

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard trying to provide warmth and protection. Steven giggled nervously and his cheeks turned pink, it was adorable.

"Oh by the way, here are the books"

Steven took out of his bag the books in perfect condition that I had given him. At least he was a man of his word

"Thank you very much Steven, do you want any other books?"

"Well actually yes, if it's not a bother, wouldn't you have one that talks about the moon god Khonsu?"-he said something nervous

I laughed in amusement

"Of course! We have many books on Egyptian gods, take the ones you want"-I said tenderly

Steven for some reason gave me a strange feeling, a maternal need to protect him, he looked so helpless at times. I can't even imagine how chaotic his life must be

"You know something? Why don't I buy you a coffee? I'll give you the new books and then we can hang out and chat, I have a break in 15 minutes."

Apparently Steven didn't expect that so he got even more red.

"I-Is it some kind of date?"

"If you want to see it that way, yes"

Steven smiled like a kid in a toy store and followed me back to the bookshelves. After giving him everything he needed, he waited for me at the entrance of the library like a true gentleman. I left my position in charge of my partner Selma who answered me with a grunt and left with Steven towards the nearest cafeteria.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

We sat at a table close to the street. The cafeteria was decorated with flowers and vines, it was my favorite, it made it look Parisian. We both ordered a simple latte and to eat I ordered a croissant with chocolate and he asked for a kind of vegan burrito, then he explained to me that he doesn't eat anything that comes from animals.

"Well Steven tell me something about yourself, do you have a job?"

"Yes, I'm working in a gift shop at the British Museum. But I would really love to be the one who makes the guides"

"Really? Amazing! who'd say? You are a museum and history enthusiast and I am a bookworm willing to provide you with all the information you want."

We both laughed happily forgetting what was happening around us. Steven's laugh was like sweet nectar to my ears that made all my worries disappear. Except for one that was still on my mind

"Wait a second, how come you woke up in a place full of sand? Where exactly?"

"I have no idea, I wish I knew. But it's not the first time it's happened to me, one day I woke up on top of Everest"

Steven started laughing downplaying it and I laughed too but with less enthusiasm. I was worried about him.

"Well I think I should go back to my work, thanks for everything I really needed to talk to someone and distract myself"

I looked at Steven tenderly, thinking that I was probably the only person he could talk to broke my heart.

"Anytime Steven. Anyway, I also have to go back to work, the time flies by when you talk"

I left a tip on the table and was about to go to the library when Steven stopped me with a question.

"Would you like to visit me one day at the museum? It's that I always visit you...-"

"I'd love to"

We said goodbye with a smile as if we were lifelong friends and each one went their own way to continue with their work on that beautiful afternoon in London.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sorry if it was boring and there wasn't much interaction with Steven but this is just the first part of the story

[sicksweetcreamy]

Candy Witch Hand Puppet pattern from CoStume MODE Magazine Edition 9, 2011

The face (white) and body (black) should IDEALLY be fleece. I haven't tried using a different fabric type, but I believe it wouldn't look as good. Feel free to try if you plan on making a mock up, though.

Most everything else can also be substituted with fleece, EXCEPT for the teeth and mouth. You'll want to use the stiffest felt available.

The pattern said to use twill as the lining, but I didn't have that and used Symphony Broadcloth instead. It worked out fine.

INSTRUCTIONS UNFINISHED BECAUSE I'M LAZYYY IM SORRY MAYBE SOMEDAY ILL MUSTER UP THE STRENGTH TO RETURN TO IT

Google Translated Instructions with personal additions under the cut.

How to Make - unless otherwise instructed, either regular back stitch by hand/machine straight stitch will be used. *generally, sew with insides of fabric facing out (more commonly known as "right sides together"), and then turn inside out later.

Add Seam Allowance for the Face. Trace the face/front and face/inside pattern onto fabric, and draw on a 0.5 cm seam allowance all around.

2. Sew the Face Sew the darts on each piece. Sew together the Face/Front pieces, (at the edges). Sew together the Face/Inside pieces, (at the edges).

3. Make the Tongue and Mouth For the tongue, cut out 2 pieces of felt and sew them together, and turn them inside out. Iron on 2-3 pieces of fusible interfacing to the mouth to make it firm. Make a cut in the center and sew the tongue in between.

If you do not use fusible interfacing, it will lose shape when you play with it (true).

4-7. The part I had the most difficulty with. I need to make another mock up and write the instructions in tandem, but I'm really lazy so it might be months before I get around to it.

8. Create a Plump Body Sew the darts on the body, for the outer and lining. Then sew the outer and lining fabrics together. Make it into a cylinder (sew down the long edge) and [sew the ends temporarily?] *leave the part where you will stuff the cotton. 9. Sew up the Neck Turn it right side out and [baste around where the face will be?] (8 and 9. This is what the magazine instructions translated to. It didn't work out very well for me. There's a better way to do it I feel but I need to actually make it and then write out the way to do so in tandem.)

10. Combine Hand sew the face onto the body.

11. Make a Nose Sew the ends of the fan shape together to form a triangular pyramid shape (I turned it inside out, personally) and fill with cotton. The flower can be needle felted, or cut from regular felt and sewn to the tip.

12. Make (Wing) Decoration Cut out and glue together three pieces of the wing pattern. (You can sew them together instead, if you'd like) Make a blue and red wing.

13. Make Eyes You can print the eye pattern with your computer onto fabric transfer paper, then iron onto fabric and cut out; or make the eyes by layering colored felt.

14. Attach Parts Sew the nose and head decorations onto face, and sew on the cheeks.

15. Put Cotton Inside the Neck If you put a layer of cotton around the neck, [the eyes and cheeks will become 3D?] and the neck will sit and stabilize.

16. Add Pattern (spots) Cut out felt and glue onto the body in a pattern.

And it's complete!

[byjove]

How long do ghosts linger after the person dies? Certainly more than 4,000 years, the pyramids of Egypt are very much haunted. Our oldest ghosts usually date to the Neolithic era. You don’t really see any Mesolithic ghosts. Cairns and chamber tombs and things like that are haunted but caves that we find the remains of early modern humans and Neanderthals in aren’t really all that haunted. I’ve never heard of a caveman ghost spotting. I’m sure we had souls and unfinished business and things back then so I think there were probably cavemen ghosts at one point but they’re gone now. You hear about ghost dogs and ghost humans but you never hear about ghost dinosaurs or ghost Australopithecus (Australopitheci?) do you? I’m sure they’d be haunting us if they could, especially dinosaurs, they went out angry. I think the expiry point may be around 15,000 years after death? Unless I’m wrong and you have cool extinct hominid ghost stories.

[cleolinda]

Silent Hill 2 commentary: Wood Side Apartments (2)

PREVIOUSLY ON: My Favorite Monster, mannequin moves, lots of Mary symbolism, and the coin puzzle unveiled.

Spoiler policy: Just about anything but That One Big Thing near the end of the game, particularly information about characters, their motives, and their dynamics. The game’s eight endings may also be discussed. Content notes are below the cut.

Content notes: For this post, we get the handgun and meet Pyramid Head. We find a body--covered with a sheet, but a lot of blood visible; I mistake it for a suicide in the video, then discuss it here as a murder scene.

The combat involves body horror, some particularly gruesome lying figures, acid vomit, realistic amounts of blood, and some oversized insects to crush. We start out with a wooden plank, then get the gun.

36:45: Here is the origin of James’ beef with an eight-year-old: Laura, the sassiest orphan to ever stomp on your hand. Suffice it to say: 1) she runs around Silent Hill like she owns it, and 2) she knew Mary. Laura, Angela, and Eddie (we’ll meet him soon) are the only other "real" people in town besides James—and sometimes I wonder about Laura. Half the time I think she might actually be a ghost; other times I think she must be as alive as James is (whatever that's worth), and it sounds like this was the game's intention (she came to Silent Hill with Eddie?). 

39:00: Laura has opened a door, maybe not for us, but it helps. Did not mention: I point out that she’s having a grand time while the rest of us are fighting for our lives, but what I don’t go into is the fact that everyone seems to see Silent Hill differently. Everyone has their own demons—literally, their own monsters. But I don’t think Laura has any. I think she’s here because she has unfinished business (a long story for later, but: Mary was never able to adopt Laura the way she’d hoped to), not because she has any wrongdoing on her conscience. So, for Laura, Silent Hill is just one big playground where sometimes adults start freaking the fuck out about nothing. 

Something I only realized later: the banging noises in the hall are a lying figure trying to break out of room 106. 

40:00: Regarding Laura, I’m looking for Apartment 107. 108 is not 107, but it does have a blue-flowered sheet. You’ll see this one sheet over and over through the building (and also in the combat tutorial house, I think), and I’d thought it was one from James and Mary’s home—but we see that one later, and it’s not the same print. So I don’t quite know what to make of the persistence of sheets with blue flowers. 

Apartment 108 is actually more important than 107—it has a golden apple door handle we need for 208. Ian has an “Adam and Eve” idea/motif that he expands on in his third stream. (But also, he notes, a golden apple in particular could evoke the Apple of Discord from Greek mythology—who is the fairest, Mary or Maria?) I’ll just go on and point out that the coins we’re looking for are the Man, the Woman, and the Snake. 

41:32: The wardrobe has a white dress inside; people tend to assume it was Mary’s wedding dress, but I’ve heard one or two people say it has something to do with SH1. I asked Ian—maybe the final boss, he says? "Wedding dress,” in conjunction with a “wedding handkerchief” in 201, is more likely, but I'm throwing it out there. 

44:45: Finally, I remember we’re here to pick up the key that Laura kicked out of James’ reach. 

Did not mention: Here’s how smart I am: the first time I played the game, I saw that James drew a “!” on the map, where the hall is blocked by bars. I assumed the “!” meant “THAT’S WHERE THIS LITTLE SHIT KICKED ME, DON’T GO BACK TO THAT SIDE,” and that the key was on the other side of the bars. So I spent I don’t even know how long AVOIDING that side of the hall, increasingly frustrated that I couldn’t find the key. Yes, this is the same building where I got lost looking for canned juice. Yes, I do have neurological damage from long covid, and we’re all going to make a study of how the fuck my brain works now.  

45:00: The lying figure has broken out of 106. I spent two videos scolding these monsters, but in Wood Side, they do funny little boogies when they’re blocked into one place, and… I’m starting to become fond of them? 

Did not mention: After I recorded this, I had one of those random shower thoughts: all the lying figures’ other features/behaviors either threaten James (combat moves, body horror) or seemingly mock what he might like to look at ("sexy" legs and platform shoes). Why does the game take the time to have them do a gyrating little dance?

We end up at a strip club later. Is the "boogie" meant to be… a parody of pole dancing?  

46:30: Apartment 106: After seeing it in Eurogamer's "What Was Life Like in Silent Hill 2 Before Its Downfall?" video, I was determined to show it to y'all. There's a young family (evidenced by children’s toys) in this apartment; a note left behind asks someone (maybe one parent to the other?) to check on "Mrs. Milley" in Apartment 102. She seems to be a recent widow: "She’s been cooped up all alone with his belongings for days on end." I knew exactly which apartment Eurogamer was talking about—but it's this note in 106 that adds the context that Mr. Milley has passed away. 

Meanwhile, we get bitten by creepers, to my irritation. "I'M TRYING TO READ!" 

49:30: "Are you gonna get back up? WHOA!! OH MY GOD!" Like, I knew the lying figure was still out in the hall, but I didn’t realize it was going to be standing there STARING AT ME. New Game+ hits different, apparently.

50:45: A different lying figure’s gurgling draws my attention to a first-floor wing that’s now unlocked. 

51:00: Apartment 102, where the Milleys lived. We can tell an elderly couple lived here by the:

Walker in the bedroom (the main detail I'd noticed)

Accessibility handles by the toilet and in the shower

Rolling TV tray they ate from 

Vintage wedding portrait on the wall, and a photo of an older couple (I think?) on the nightstand

There's also that blue-flowered sheet again, which I'm still convinced symbolizes or alludes to Mary, even if it's not The Sheet. More importantly, there's a Strange Photo (again, credit to u/DaleRobinson on Reddit): "Valentine's Day."

And it's a picture of a bouquet we'll see in Apartment 201.

All images are ©2024 Konami Digital Entertainment, and captured from my gameplay in January-March 2025.

I'll go ahead and say here that I'm convinced that 201 either has features from James and Mary's home, or it is wholly their home manifested into Silent Hill. And I'll point out all the decor that makes me think so when we get there. But what the Strange Photo does is tie 102 and 201 together (and notice, the numbers are the reverse of each other). I think 102 is here to say, "This is the elderly couple that James and Mary will never become." I think it's also notable that it's Mrs. Milley who's grieving her husband, flipping the genders from James grieving Mary; it shouldn't have been Mary who died. (We'll talk about it later.) Whether it's James' subconscious projecting all these things, or Silent Hill pulling them out of him, I feel like the overall message here is regret. Remorse, even. 

55:50: Outside, there's a particularly gruesome lying figure in wait, with a long cut down the middle of its body. My first thought was some kind of autopsy imagery to match the "body bag" inspiration, and then I remembered that we see bodies slashed like this much, much later in Pyramid Head's "inner sanctum." 

58:00: I can't remember what I'm looking for next. "'Where are we going?' is a very authentic SH2 experience."

58:40: Up to the second floor, where we meet… Pyramid Head. "Oh..." 

I posted some rough voice audio on Patreon from the first time I played the game ("JAMES. GET THE CAR"), but here is the clip from this commentary. I don't think I can really say it more concisely than I do right there:

[Tiny meek voice:] Oh... Hey. How ya doin'. What's good…?  I was truly not afraid of Pyramid Head before I played this game. I'm not even sure I was afraid of Pyramid Head when I watched other people play it. It just.... he freaks me out. All I knew about Silent Hill was that, oh, Pyramid Head, guy with a pyramid, I don't know why, it seems fine. You know, for some 20 years, and then I play this—oh, okay, it's fine, guy with a pyramid, ehhh, it seems fine. He scares me so bad because he's just implacable? You can't talk to him. You can't beg. He's not... like, a human villain—since I recapped Hannibal, if you're confronted with Hannibal Lecter, you could at least try to talk to him. You could at least try to get him interested in, like, 'Oh, I'll just play with my food for a while, you're fine, okay, you can live a little longer.' Pyramid Head doesn't give a shit. He doesn't care. He doesn't have any human [facial] features, like no face, eyes, mouth, ears, nothing. He does not care. He is here to kill you. He is not going to stop. It's very... Terminator energy, it's just... And like, what's... what's going on with him? Like, what's the black substance that was on the doorknob, and it's all over him, and... why are his fingers melded together? Where does he get gloves to fit that from? Isn't—isn't the pyramid helmet heavy? Like does that not... bother you at all? I don't know, he freaks me out so bad. This is why I had to fight him an extra 12 times. Because it was just upsetting, and I literally started having panic attacks. Okay, you just hang out. Um. That's cool. 

1:01:30: Ian actually found an interview with Bloober designer Monika Chmura about recreating this moment from the original game; she talks about how this first appearance sets off a chain of events that the team wanted to keep intact, which both Ian and I will discuss at length. And the next step in this sequence is some very strange, foreboding music, mostly distorted tones that repeat, and Ian goes full music theory with the keyboard overlay around an hour into his stream about what this is, how you can drop the pitch of samples to create a completely different sound, and why this works psychologically. Which I appreciated, because over on my video, I'm just like "IT'S SO FUCKED UP, I DON'T KNOW WHY."

So while the tones are intoning, we're going to take a good look at the current state of this apartment. According to the Dan Allen Gaming video, the Glimpse of the Past here (an empty, scraped wall) acknowledges that the clock puzzle, which we'll see it at the end of this video, has been moved. 

1:03:20: Way off in a corner, there's a book lying around titled Pets Under Our Garden. Again, I'll just transcribe what I said:

So here's some fucked-up book. I don't know what this is about. By "Pablo Gato"—"gato" means cat [in Spanish and Portuguese]. There's a cat on the cover, which is doing some kind of weird time travel loop, black hole thing—not "black hole," but you know what I'm getting at. [Did I mean "wormhole"?] Like, what's going on with that cat? And it's called Pets Under Our Garden? Like... what in the Pet Sematary is going on with that? That doesn't sound good—like it's one thing if they're saying, oh, earthworms would make wonderful "pets" for your garden, the "pets under our"—no, it's got a cat on it. They're talking about... pets you might bury. 

So once again, I emailed Ian all like "CATS IN SILENT HILL???" There was only one cat he could think of, and it was [checks notes] "a fully regular-ass cat" in SH1. I can't think of any cats in the remake—as opposed to birds, dogs, or rabbits—except maybe one or two that Laura draws. At which point we're putting some kind of "LAURA IS DEAD!!!" connection on the corkboard that's just way too tenuous for me. 

1:04:20: A padlocked door on the third floor, and a notice that tells us that we can't go up to the third floor, which means we will be going up to the third floor. 

1:05:30: Apartment 217. Our first firearm, the handgun! I love shooting things from a distance and not getting vomited on so very, very much. According to Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle, the fact that you find the handgun sitting openly in the middle of the room in a shopping cart (of a bright Pyramid Head red, in fact), is a "satire of guns in American society." I didn't remember that verbatim, but I don't think I was off-base in saying that it's a commentary on how easy it is to buy guns in the U.S. "I'm just like, yeah. They sell them at Walmart."

I had seen a whole theory in easter-egg compilation videos about an "accidental misfire" phenomenon regarding James' lack of trigger discipline, but it never happened for me; Ian then explained that it only goes off if you have the handgun out near the TV. And (often broken) television sets are a symbol of difficult truths in this game.

Just after that, I talk about how the Apartment Association is a bunch of liars about 217 not having any guns, adding, "Maybe the James dimension is bleeding through." But what Ian points out here, and then again for Apartment 201, is that maybe that's genuinely what's happening, and it's almost like James (or various time-loop iterations of James) are "haunting" Wood Side.

1:08:50: A strange yell; James looks around in alarm. I really don't put the importance on this that I should have. 

So I'm going to post some pictures from this scene because I think it looks incredible, but it's also The Scariest Scene in the Whole Game to me—but in a very ineffable, Lynchian way, with those tones intoning. In terms of content notes for the video, there's a very bloody body covered with a cloth of some kind—it's discreet, but in a way that might be scarier than actual gore. In the video, I discuss this as a potential suicide (I'm wrong). Right here, I just want to show you the incredible use of light and shadow:

What I say originally is that this is a version of James (the jeans and boots are clearly his, though everything else is obscured) sitting in front of a TV that's now both turned on and broken, and that he's taken his own life in a tableau very like a climactic moment at the Lakeview Hotel near the end of the game. (It's not something James actually does, but he learns a very dark truth that he has been suppressing.) And at the time, I ask, who covered his face? 

Did not mention: While I was reviewing the video to do this writeup, I noticed something: I said that the chair has been pushed roughly across the room, knocking over a table and shoving away the rug. You can see how roughly, because the chair has left broad drag marks across the floor. And suddenly it hit me: those marks are in blood. The man in that chair didn't push it himself; he was already in it, bleeding. So when you look at it from a "crime scene analysis" perspective—I am completely wrong about this being a "suicide." 

(Ian has the benefit of not being completely wrong when he goes into "CSI: Pyramid Head.")

So, in a follow-up video, I take us on a field trip back to Apartment 213 and walk through what I think happened, more or less: Pyramid Head came in, found this person (Time Loop James or not), and they were either already sitting in this chair against the wall, or he shoved them into it. The man yells out when Pyramid Head... stabs? slices? spears?... him. Pyramid Head then shoves the chair towards the television. Either he covers the man's face, or Silent Hill as a reality-bending entity (who knows) does it so that our James won't see his own face. I think the tableau is to suggest to James, You are going to sit down in front of a TV in the Lakeview Hotel many hours from now and you are going to watch it and you are going to learn the truth, or else. Maybe this truth will "kill" James' delusions. Maybe it will "kill" his desire to live. But I feel like TV sets represent "learning the truth," even if it's a broken TV and a truth that "breaks" him, and Pyramid Head, in trying to "help" James, is going to make sure that this happens. And that is a very, very different symbolic statement than a simple "Time Loop James sat down in front of this TV, couldn't handle what he saw, and shot himself (with a gun that is now in another room)." And I honestly don't know how I didn't see this, except that the record store had primed me to see "suicidal ideation" symbolism. 

Bonus: there's a ceiling fan overhead, for extra "cycles and repetition" symbolism. How many times has Pyramid Head tried to get James' attention in previous loops?

1:09:15: So this is the scariest scene in the game to me, in a very Lynchian way; between the darkness and the slow camera work and the ominous music, it feels like we are seeing something very, very wrong. I'm still not sure which David Lynch movie I'm thinking of, except maybe [something involving Diane] in Mulholland Drive. 

Anyway, we pick up the key to Apartment 212, which wasn't here before. 

Next post: Wrangling the party balloon achievement and getting out of "a prison of your own making"; "What is going on in this building! What is happening!" 

(SH2R commentary master post)