#we love. we are loved. this is human nature

[jasper-ontheoffbeat]

I’M UP HATING POP PSYCHOLOGY. MEMEME

to be more serious: i have empathy for the urge to compartmentalize like this. genuinely, i do— for some, processing trauma feels easier when there are ready-made labels for the things/people that hurt them. i so deeply understand the urge to file away overwhelming chaos; to make sense of the cruel and senseless; to be comforted by pop psych “gotcha” moments and cling to categorizations. i know what it feels like to try to neatly reorganize broken self-concepts and horrifying histories. i’ve dealt with this exact issue myself.

that being said… unfortunately, it just. doesn’t. work.

automatically slapping warning labels on ASPD, NPD, BPD, etc is simply not fair nor accurate. the nuances shouldn’t be ignored: does the concept that mental health matters come with conditions? does furthering the stigma really empower victims, or does it drive offenders away from self-awareness and recovery? does it really help to boil human behavior down to lists and labels, or does it just skew our perceptions of ourselves and others even further? is it productive to focus on condensing things, or should we ultimately focus on understanding the complexities that make generalization ultimately impossible?

this is NOT to say that ANYONE has to entertain or forgive abusive people. not at ALL. i’m also not saying those who don’t care to improve should be forgiven and/or granted the opportunity to keep treating others poorly. there is a stark a difference between acknowledging nuance and normalizing/excusing abuse— you can express pain without making harmful blanket statements. in fact, it’s straight up ignorant to disregard those who are working their asses off in recovery. these disorders can be uniquely challenging to live with, and stigma makes everything 10x worse, especially when trauma, defensiveness, and self-hatred are inseparable from disordered beliefs/behaviors. you have EVERY right to cut off shitty individuals and despise them and feel rage and do whatever you need to do to heal— at the same time, people who present in malignant ways won’t get any better if they’re universally met with hostility. after all, 99% of the time, recovery seems like a far better outcome than total shunning. wouldn’t it be so much better if these people had safe spaces in which they could to learn to never abuse other humans again, and to develop healthier self-concepts?

(i say this as someone who’s been abused horribly countless times by people who present like this, developed BPD as a result, and gone through wild amounts of intensive therapy. i no longer meet the criteria for BPD.)

(of course, there are some acts that are UNFORGIVABLE. those require a… unique approach. i don’t feel qualified to go into that territory because personal experiences have left me way too biased; just know that i don’t mean to erase that line.)

also, re: MBTI/love language/brain development/brain gendering/dark empathy/blah blah blah: the same principle applies. individuals’ psychological makeups and backgrounds are too complex to accurately box in. that is the nature of the human condition, and even though it gets overwhelming, at the end of the day, it’s beautiful! there is no linear pathway for anything, and that is a GOOD thing! at best, all of those words can provide useful loose blueprints for furthering introspection; at worst, they create interpersonal divides that are either based on faulty assumptions or entirely non-existent.

we don’t have to fit into boxes to find community. it’s fine to use things like MBTI and love languages as cute, unweighted bonding tools, BUT in order to truly understand each other’s wants, needs, traits, and issues, we simply need to COMMUNICATE. no matter how isolated we feel in our struggles, WE ARE NOT ALONE. we are all mosaics of the experiences that have shaped us, and we each deserve to be understood as works of art, not as sums of our most basic parts.

tl;dr pop psychology egregiously simplifies human behavior and it is Not helpful as it seems

who up hating pop psychology

[thewisedoge]

Jim Carrey's performance as Gerald Robotnik. (A short analysis)

After like a month of Sonic 3 being out and seeing all the love that everyone is throwing at it. (Including me)

I think we're overlooking how good of an actor Jim Carrey really is in it... Specifically with how he played Gerald.

I think the big part of why I think his performance worked so well was the buildup to the reveal of his true intentions and what he really thinks about Ivo as a grandson.

Once they're at the ARK and arrive at the Eclipse Cannon... You can't help but notice the classic Jim Carrey snark and insanity in his voice... is gone. Not only that, if you look closely at how he acts, his entire demeanor has changed.

Specifically you can notice this when the ARK is released and starts rising up into space, Ivo raises his hand for a high five, y'know from his good old grand genome. But... Gerald doesn't notice or is outright ignoring it.

I know this scene is mainly played for laughs but I really think it was smart to have Gerald become cold hearted and stone faced once he's SO CLOSE to achieving his goal. To avenging his dear granddaughter.

Now throughout the films its basically a big joke that the Eggmen is basically insane. Not only that, they're both AWARE they're insane. But in those films it felt more like an obligation for both Eggman's character and the fact he's played by Jim Carrey.

But once Gerald reveals the true power of the Eclipse Cannon and what he plans to do with it. Even EGGMAN of all people is shocked.

I mean, look at the stark contrast of expression between the two.

DOES THIS LOOKS LIKE THE FACE OF SOMEONE WHO IS OKAY WITH THE EVENTS THAT ARE UNFOLDING?

It's a running theme in the games that Eggman wants to rule the world, not destroy it, so it's really cool to see them adapt that into the film as well.

Speaking of adapting things from the games. It's very well known that this game is based on Sonic Adventure 2. But what I didn't expect them to do was to adapt a lore detail that was introduced in the RECENT games... and that is the extra depth added to Eggman.

In Sonic Frontiers, it's revealed in one of the many Egg Memos you can buy from the fishing minigame that once Maria was killed by the GUN soldier on the arc, everyone was mourning the loss of her life... Neglecting young Ivo in the process.

Now I know the Sonic fandom is divided on Ian Flynn as a writer for the franchise, but this has got to be one of the funniest but saddest things he's written for a character.

Like, it'd be natural to assume a character like Eggman to have daddy issues, but if you made it work alongside but emphasizing the sheer weight and impact of another one of the saddest moments in the series. It's really good writing.

In the movie, they basically take inspiration from this and adapt it to work with Gerald's villainous breakdown. Not only that. They casually just write one of the most heartbreaking and shocking scenes to come out of these movies.

It's kind of hard to explain so I'll just write it out using screencaps from the scene lol.

"WHAT!?!"

(laughing) "WE CAN'T ANNIHILATE THE EARTH!"

(this reaction shot SEALS it. It's like Gerald's admiring that despite his grandson's intellect. He's still incredibly naive and blinded by sentiment.)

"By combining our genus we can rule humanity! Together!"

"Humanity is a failed experiment! If anyone should know that it's you."

"All your life you've been rejected by this world. You have nothing down there. No one who cares about you."

"..." "... But I have you now."

"..." "... We're family. We have each other!"

"Oh Ivo..."

(Once again I have to praise Jim Carrey's acting in this scene. Look at the body language, how his eyes move. He looks at Ivo up and down... As if he's reminiscing. Stuck between that state utter comparison and grief. Standing in front of him is someone of his own flesh and blood. Someone who loves him... But Gerald is too overcome by his own insanity, grief and hatred towards humanity. He can't see that anymore. All he can see anytime he looks at Ivo... is her. So he then utters. By far the best line in the movie.)

"You're no Maria."

I mean...

LOOK. AT HIS FACE.

LOOK AT IT!!

Imagine being Ivo in this moment, after years of being neglected, belittled and bullied by schoolmates. You finally find someone who seems at first to genuinely care about you... Only to find out he... Was just like everyone else.

"The moment I lost her my family was GONE FOREVER."

Okay, my one big criticism with this movie is the fact Gerald doesn't see Shadow like a son to him. I can see why they made Gerald the big bad of the movie so Shadow could come back in future installments as a protagonist. So I guess Gerald having to be a manipulative POS will have to do.

"The only way to give Maria's life meaning is to destroy the world that took her from me!"

"SO I'M BURNING IT ALL DOWN!!!"

It's criminal how most of the criticism and the division on this movie comes from the amount of Eggman shenanigans in it. But I can't help but love it since the emotional core becomes strong near the end and has been built up between the love fans have for Eggman in the movies and it was interesting seeing an Eggman centered character arc of him having to choose between blood family or... uh.

His boyfriend. I'm sorry.

There's literally no other term for a relationship like this. "Henchman" my ass. THEY SWAPPED SALIVA I JUST KNOW IT.

Anyway. Yeah. Sonic 3 is really good not just from a game accurate or a fan pleasing perspective, but from a writing perspective as well. Jim Carry as Gerald needs more recognition.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sigal Samuel at Vox:

There’s a dominant narrative in the media about why tech billionaires are sucking up to Donald Trump: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, all of whom have descended on the nation’s capital for the presidential inauguration, either happily support or have largely acquiesced to Trump because they think he’ll offer lower taxes and friendlier regulations. In other words, it’s just about protecting their own selfish business interests. That narrative is not exactly wrong — Trump has in fact promised massive tax cuts for billionaires — but it leaves out the deeper, darker forces at work here. For the tech bros — or as some say, the broligarchs — this is about much more than just maintaining and growing their riches. It’s about ideology. An ideology inspired by science fiction and fantasy. An ideology that says they are supermen, and supermen should not be subject to rules, because they’re doing something incredibly important: remaking the world in their image. It’s this ideology that makes MAGA a godsend for the broligarchs, who include Musk, Zuck, and Bezos as well as the venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. That’s because MAGA is all about granting unchecked power to the powerful. “It’s a sense of complete impunity — including impunity to the laws of nature,” Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College who studies the behavior of the ultra-rich, told me. “They reject constraint in all of its forms.” As Harrington has noted, Trump is the perfect avatar for that worldview. He’s a man who incited an attempted coup, who got convicted on 34 felony counts and still won reelection, who notoriously said in reference to sexual assault, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” So, what is the “anything” that the broligarchs want to do? To understand their vision, we need to realize that their philosophy goes well beyond simple libertarianism. It’s not just that they want a government that won’t tread on them. They want absolutely zero limits on their power. Not those dictated by democratic governments, by financial systems, or by facts. Not even those dictated by death.

The broligarchs’ vision: Science fiction, transhumanism, and immortality

The broligarchs are not a monolith — their politics differ somewhat, and they’ve sometimes been at odds with each other. Remember when Zuck and Musk said they were going to fight each other in a cage match? But here’s something the broligarchs have in common: a passionate love for science fiction and fantasy that has shaped their vision for the future of humanity — and their own roles as its would-be saviors. Zuckerberg’s quest to build the Metaverse, a virtual reality so immersive and compelling that people would want to strap on bulky goggles to interact with each other, is seemingly inspired by the sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. It was actually Stephenson who coined the term “metaverse” in his novel Snow Crash, where characters spend a lot of time interacting in a virtual world of that name. Zuckerberg seems not to have noticed that the book is depicting a dystopia; instead of viewing it as a warning, he’s viewing it as an instruction manual.

Jeff Bezos is inspired by Star Trek, which led him to found a commercial spaceflight venture called Blue Origin, and The High Frontier by physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill, which informs his plan for space colonization (it involves millions of people living in cylindrical tubes). Bezos attended O’Neill’s seminars as an undergraduate at Princeton. Musk, who wants to colonize Mars to “save” humanity from a dying planet, is inspired by one of the masters of American sci-fi, Isaac Asimov. In his Foundation series, Asimov wrote about a hero who must prevent humanity from being thrown into a long dark age after a massive galactic empire collapses. “The lesson I drew from that is you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one,” Musk said. And Andreessen, an early web browser developer who now pushes for aggressive progress in AI with very little regulation, is inspired by superhero stories, writing in his 2023 “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that we should become “technological supermen” whose “Hero’s Journey” involves “conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community.” All of these men see themselves as the heroes or protagonists in their own sci-fi saga. And a key part of being a “technological superman” — or übermensch, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say — is that you’re above the law. Common-sense morality doesn’t apply to you because you’re a superior being on a superior mission. Thiel, it should be noted, is a big Nietzsche fan, though his is an extremely selective reading of the philosopher’s work.

[...]

The broligarchs — because they are in 21st-century Silicon Valley and not 19th-century Germany — have updated and melded this idea with transhumanism, the idea that we can and should use technology to alter human biology and proactively evolve our species.

Transhumanism spread in the mid-1900s thanks to its main popularizer, Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist and president of the British Eugenics Society. Huxley influenced the contemporary futurist Ray Kurzweil, who predicted that we’re approaching a time when human intelligence can merge with machine intelligence, becoming unbelievably powerful. “The human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems … and will be in a position to change the nature of mortality in a postbiological future,” Kurzweil wrote in 1999. Kurzweil, in turn, has influenced Silicon Valley heavyweights like Musk, whose company Neuralink explicitly aims at merging human and machine intelligence. For many transhumanists, part of what it means to transcend our human condition is transcending death. And so you find that the broligarchs are very interested in longevity research. Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Thiel have all reportedly invested in startups that are trying to make it possible to live forever. That makes perfect sense when you consider that death currently imposes a limit on us all, and the goal of the broligarchs is to have zero limits.

Vox has an insightful article on the disastrous vision that broligarchs like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg subscribe to.

[ippipo]

self aware caleb

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

it was crazy. but it was fun. every weekday as soon as you were back home, you would call him and go about your day. doing the laundry, making dinner, cleaning the house, it just came to you naturally with caleb. it was all so domestic.

"yeah, and she was deranged the entire summer," you gossip with him. "and he kept spreading rumours that he was being abused by his ex to get her attention."

"weird way to get a girl," he remarks. "so fucking weird," you add.

"anyway, how's life in your gameland?" you ask, earning a sigh in response. "it's alright, playing out of script is so much better," he replies.

"i wish you were here," you let it out, the longing for a companion getting to you. "me too," he frowns.

the weekend was slow and slightly relieving because you got all the time in the world to relax. holidays were on their way in a bit, and you were so excited to spend it by doing nothing with caleb.

caleb would sometimes monitor your phone, using it to listen to music from your world and play games. sometimes he would search random things about humans on earth on google just for the sake of it. he couldn't care less about anyone except you.

but one day, he stumbled upon your notes app. he didn't know you used it as a journal, and accidentally opened a note of yours.

it was a note from when you were 13. the language wasn't too advanced but for a 13 year old, it was pretty great. he felt bad for invading your privacy, but he noticed the word 'boyfriend' and became curious.

p.s. this is an actual entry of mine from when i was 13 lmao

"dear notes (idk what to call you lol),

i finally got a boyfriend after a thousand years of waiting. he's a little ugly but he's funny, so it's okay. he is shorter than me but he looks pretty, so plus point. we nearly kissed today but i wanted to wait until i turned 16. but in case i end up realising he's too boring for me, this is what i want in a boy.

he should be taller, hotter, stronger, and waaaay more intelligent than these bozos at my school. please make him rich and fancy. i want generational wealth, not trauma. but even if he isn't rich, don't make him ugly and boring, guys at school already do that. if the spirits can see this, i swear to never kiss anyone until i turn 18,

thank you."

he was giggling like a school girl after reading it. he was so invested in reading some of your other notes until he heard your voice. you were arguing with someone, and he couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"no, i told you that i don't like her. she gives me the heebie jeebies," your voice booms in the room. "but she taught you in 6th grade, be nice and just meet her. her son is your age too, maybe you'll finally find someone to date!" an older woman's voice spoke.

caleb felt uncomfortable with the idea of you looking for someone to date. it didn't sit right with him. he shakes the thoughts away and focuses back on the conversation.

"her son is literally dating my friend," you deadpan. your mom, as he assumes her to be, is dumbfounded. "but be respectful and meet her for the love of god," your mom snaps at you. "she used to literally pick on me, if she died, i would wish everyone a happy new year," this remark of yours makes him snort.

".....y/n, do you have a pig in your house?" your mom questions you suspiciously, making caleb freeze. "no? uh...that was just- i farted!" you immediately cover up. caleb was trying so hard not to laugh. "i keep telling you to exercise to control gas but you never listen. did you know how happy i felt when you left for college because i didn't have to bear with the constant farting at home?" your mom nags.

you panic internally, not wanting caleb to hear about this part of your life. you wanted to crawl into a coffin and bury yourself alive. "it's just a natural process, mom. please, just go home now. i need to complete some work."

as soon as your mom leaves, you pick up your phone. "now listen here you piece of shit, you heard nothing, not even a single damn word," you aggressively tell him. "yes, ma'am," he responds from the other side. "but, i recently heard about someone having a farting problem, although i don't know who."

"caleb!" you warn him. you bury your head in your hands from the shame. he laughs out loud at this.

a few minutes later, he remembers what he did, guilty consuming him. "hey, uh, listen," he nervously calls out. "i might have accidentally read your notes, i didn't mean to. i'm so sorry," he frantically apologizes. great, another reason to kill yourself today.

"...what did you read?" you ask helplessly. "just something from when you were thirteen, about your boyfriend and stuff," he replies casually, as if he didn't just read about your inner demons. "it was cute," he remarks.

"caleb, my love, snoop around the notes app again and i'll make sure you don't see the light of day," you threaten him. he apologizes again, but was slightly amused. "i just hope nothing more embarrassing happens after this or i might just jump off the terrace," you groan.

later that night while caleb was once again, unfortunately curious, snooping around your phone. he was just finding out about different apps. he was about to listen to some music when he heard a gasp. alarmed, he began paying attention to the sound, thinking you were in trouble.

"oh, fuck!" you moan out loud when your vibrator's intensity increases. your body convulsing at the stimulation your clit was receiving. your soft gasps were ever so clear to him. his entire body begins warming up, his pants making him uncomfortable.

he intently listens to your whimpers and whines, imagining how it would be to eat you out. devour you fully and deeply till you're nothing but a beautiful mess, all because of him. his boner getting more painful as time passes by, but he just can't stop listening.

it gets worse when he hears your moans getting louder, indicating your climax. good lord, he was so in trouble right now.

if you knew he could hear every little sound you were making, you might have just gone along your earlier statement.

[realityhop]

"Its not that the people are in charge but that the people's desires are in charge." — Stewart Ewen - Historian of Public Relations, The Century of the Self - Part 4 (2002) 53:14

"[Wilhelm] Reich argued that it is abuse if one’s sexuality is repressed or one’s sexual desires are left unaffirmed. Reich agreed with Freud that our sexual well-being is based on our sexual satisfaction. If these needs are not met, Reich suggested, one is oppressed. … People are left without any way to guide their moral judgments other than with their emotions, and those emotions are protected at all costs because not to protect them would be abusive. This notion of abuse explains why the gay rights movement hasn’t been content with acknowledgement but demands to be affirmed in the belief that homosexual behavior is equal to heterosexual relationships, in marriage and beyond, including the adoption of children and the use of surrogacy." — Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us (2023)

"And we are all used to experiencing the sort of mindless joy (which secretly conceals an abysmal emptiness) that accompanies buying anything; when pleasure, permission, and happiness are, for a fleeting moment, determined not by our own mind, but mediated by the purchase. Likewise, we know the same trick can be performed with sexual gratification. It can be reduced to a commodity, in which gazing at an objectified starlet in a film is part of “enjoying” the film. Unconsciously, we have bought permission to leer. … The manufactured impostor not only thrives on what once fed the real need, but attempts to murder its rivals by extinguishing desires for genuine experience." — Dale Beran, It Came From Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office (2019)

"A motivating principle of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation was its correction of Roman Catholicism’s heavy use of images in medieval churches—in statues, paintings, and stained-glass windows. The Protestant reformers reasserted the Ten Commandments’ ban on graven images, idolatrous objects that seduce the soul away from the immaterial divine. The Puritans, a separatist sect that seceded from the too-Catholic Church of England, followed the Reformation imperative of putting the Bible at the center of their faith. … The Puritans’ attitude toward art was conditioned by utilitarian principles of frugality and propriety: art had no inherent purpose except as entertainment, a distraction from duty and ethical action. The Puritans did appreciate beauty in nature, which was “read” like a book for signs of God’s providence. The social environment in England from which the Puritans had emigrated to America (either directly or indirectly via the Netherlands) was overtly iconoclastic." — Camille Paglia, Religion and the Arts in America (2007) in Provocations

"If a rational calculation of utility demands sacrificing something I love – a human being, a non-human animal, a work of art – then to hell with reason and utility." — John N. Gray, Nietzsche, narwhals and the burden of consciousness (Jan 4 2023)

"The ultimate melancholy experience is the experience of the loss of desire itself." — Slavoj Žižek in Perverts Guide to Ideology (2012)

"The trouble is that we are, unless we are careful, flooded with images from outside, particularly ones that stimulate our desire." — Nina Power, What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents (2022)

could consider this a sequel to this post (2023)

Hylas and the Water Nymphs by Henrietta Rae (1909)

[distort-opia]

There's a fascinating aspect of Ellen's character that I've seen some people touch on before, but now that it got into my head I need to go through to it too-- her nature not being of human kind. It's actually one of the very first things Orlok himself says: that Ellen is not human, and he reasserts it later. But then what is she?

"Almost a sylph," Knock says of Ellen. "His little changeling girl," Ellen says her father had described her as, when she wandered off into the forest as a child. "You mustn't be caught up in her fairy ways," Harding admonishes Anna. Hell, in the 2016 script, when the Hardings accompany Ellen on her walk along the sea shore, she and the children dance in a circle while Ellen cries out "round and round the fairy ring". Furthermore, there's more than one explicit reference to Ellen loving the sea in the scripts. Prior to the sea shore walk, Ellen fervently asks Anna to go there, because "it calms her". Later on, Anna herself says that "she loves the sea so". While this didn't make it to the movie in such direct terms, we still see Ellen looking out windows and yearning, again and again... visiting the sea twice, having a seizure in the water itself. "Look at the sky! Look at the sea! Does it never call to you? Urge you?" she cries to Anna.

It's clearly an intentional implication on Eggers' part: that Ellen is some kind of fairy-like nature elemental. The term sylph originates from the works of Paracelsus, and described as a female air spirit, though over time water has been conflated with it too. Changeling also refers to a child kidnapped by supernatural beings (interestingly birthed by the Devil or a water spirit among others, in German mythology) and replaced with... something else. And we could leave it at that-- Ellen is not entirely human. She was born with witchy and fae-like characteristics, an attraction to the wind and the sea.

When she called out in the dark, it's possible Orlok answered also because he recognized this within her. But. There is a type of female nature spirit in Romanian folklore (which ultimately pervades the mythology of Nosferatu) that has specific parallels and a particular relationship to the Solomonar, the kind of sorcerer/supernatural creature Orlok was in life. It feeds into the overarching theme of destiny and fate so beautifully. I find it all very interesting, but I got pretty long already, so I'll put the rest under the cut.

Female nature spirits can be found all over the place in European folklore, and Romania is no different. They can have many names, though the most popular one is probably iele, a name that is literally derived from the female plural "ele". Iele are fae-like feminine spirits associated with the winds and the sky, often seducing and luring men away. What attracted my attention though, is the variation/subtype of vântoase (root word vânt = wind) or the associated vâlvă. In some accounts [1], this supernatural creature is a marked human who was born with the capacity for their spirit to leave their body at night and then go towards the sky, where they wrestle with other vâlve or balauri (which are a Romanian mythical equivalent of dragons, alongside zmei). Their fights are said to be what cause storms, and rains, and other catastrophe-related weather events. When put in contrast with Ellen, the similarities are obvious... especially when it comes to her affinity for nature and her spirit "wandering off". It also must be emphasized that these spirits are not inherently evil: they can do both good and bad, bring luck or misfortune, aligning with Ellen saying that "her spirit cannot be as evil as his [Orlok's]" and that all her life she has "simply heeded her own nature".

But the thing is... a marked human born with powers is also what a Solomonar is: children able to control the weather, ride balauri or zmei, control and turn into different animals-- who are then recruited by the Devil into the school of Șolomanță/Scholomance. Although despite this demonic current association, initially Solomonari were also more of a neutral figure in Romanian folklore. They are theorized, among other hypotheses, to be a later version of Geto-Dacian ktistai, who were selected from priests or kings (Orlok is a count, a prince or voivode) and might've worshipped Zamolxe, a Geto-Dacian God associated with the sky as well as immortality (Ancient Dacian is what Orlok speaks; Zamolxe is written within Orlok's heptagram sigil; on his coat of arms, sigil and coffin there's Dacian wolves as well as balauri-- a serpent-like creature with the head of a wolf which is on the Dacian flag). Some Solomonari were believed to be protecting villages from calamity, and influenced the weather in order to grow crops more easily. But of course, when Christianity spread in the region, things from Pagan times began to be associated with the Devil, hence why the Christian Orthodox Abbess we see in the Nosferatu movie calls Orlok a "black enchanter". More importantly for us though, the Solomonar was also said to leave their body at night in a trance, riding up into the sky to fight the weather spirits. Orlok's Shadow, that we hear so much about, is an integral part of a Solomonar's powers: the ability to project one's spirit away from their body. Them riding balauri is a metaphor for them taming winds, summoning vântoase.

So. Vâlvă, vântoasă, ială and Solomonar share quite a lot of characteristics, don't they? A source I found made the comparison directly, which is what set me on this path [1]. Humans born with powers-- one typically male, one female. But the male one is schooled and part of a cult or hierarchy, taking control of the nature element, while the vâlvă/vântoasă/ială is the nature element.

Yet the expected dynamic between summoner and summoned is so deliciously subverted with Ellen and Orlok! Orlok definitely recognized someone of his own nature in Ellen. Someone born with magic, essentially. Someone not of human kind. But Ellen's power is something Orlok's kind traditionally controls. A Solomonar tames and summons the winds (vântoasele)... and don't we see Orlok's spirit call to Ellen more than once? Orlok asserts his influence through the lilac-scented lock of hair, latching onto Ellen through it. He trespasses in Ellen's dreams, brings her spirit to him in the Castle when he feeds on Thomas, and we see her naked and on top of Thomas too, eerie and with blood spilling out of her mouth (very female-spirit-who-preys-upon-men coded, which is even more directly spelled out later in the scene where Ellen provokes Thomas into having sex with her). All along, we see Ellen overcome by seizures and trances, writhing under Orlok's Shadow. This is the power he has over her.

Hah. But Orlok is not just a Solomonar, Ellen is not just a spirit of the wind, and here's where I think another fascinating layer comes in. In the movie, ultimately, Orlok is a strigoi. The strigoi is a Romanian folk creature that can be vampiric, though that's not always what it does. It's a troubled spirit that rises from the grave to prey upon the living (especially their loved ones, to whom they return to first), by eating/killing their animals, poisoning their crops, drinking their blood and creating all manner of disaster. One can become a strigoi in many ways, including a life of sin, suicide, being cursed by a witch, etc. But importantly, there's also two types of strigoi-- the alive strigoi, and the dead strigoi [2]. The alive type is a sorcerer who in life already slips into these evil behaviors with intent, while the dead type rises from the grave and mindlessly feeds upon their loved ones and their village (the revenant we see killed by the Romani vampire hunter in the film). Orlok is a mix of things that make him unique, much like how Dracula was described as atypical multiple times in Bram Stoker's novel. He was a sorcerer and a Solomonar in life (an alive strigoi, something a source from the 19th century asserted-- that Solomonari were strigoi), who was then risen from the grave by a witch (becoming a dead strigoi). As a result, he has retained all his mental faculties and his magical powers.

But the enchantress who calls upon Orlok as a strigoi is partly an air elemental. She caused him to rise from the grave, and that is how she asserts her power over him. Yet she's of the air, of the wind, of the sea... all the things a Solomonar is a master of! So I think this is a contributing factor to the Covenant Orlok makes with Ellen. When they first meet there is not only recognition of someone similar to himself ("You... You..."), but also of a specific connection between what the two of them are. He immediately seeks a Covenant with Ellen, and then when she breaks it, comes after her in person. When they first talk and Ellen rejects him, he says "You will submit."

As Eggers pointed out too, there is a huge need for possession on Orlok's side. It's left ambiguous if he wants to own her or destroy her or if he loves her... To me, this added aspect illuminates a big part of why Orlok also resents Ellen ("You are my affliction"). It isn't just that a woman has him in her thrall, a man and a Lord who wielded great power in life-- but also that she is air, a vântoasă, the element of his dominion. It's so delicious how there's a bidirectional supernatural element between them... Orlok may feel he is owed possession of Ellen, with the deeper layer of the male sorcerer taming the unknowable chaotic female elemental. But Orlok is a strigoi risen from the grave by Ellen as an enchantress, hence she is owed possession of him as her summoned Creature. So there's two tethers between them, each connected to a different aspect of their natures; Orlok is holding one end, Ellen is holding the other. (To be honest, my headcanon is that when we see Ellen levitate, that's not Orlok, it's her air-related power. She levitates upwards in the very first scene of the film right as Orlok says she isn't human, as if it's a manifestation of that. When Orlok feeds on Thomas and she is there in spirit, we see them levitate; except it's Ellen we see fall down to the ground, while Orlok and Thomas are shown to have always been on the ground. And in every scene with Orlok in person, it could be that she gets on her tiptoes progressively to get closer and closer to his face; but it also looks as if she's floating upwards.)

This ended up a way too long honest-to-God essay, but I just adore all the complexities of this movie. You can tell how much Eggers researched, how many details and references he wove into the story, all meant to connect but kept ambigous enough that multiple theories are possible. While the association between Solomonar and strigoi and vampire was something Stoker did too, that Murnau did too, none of them thought to take it as far as creating a connection to Ellen steeped also in folklore. The vampire has a supernatural hold over his bride, but now so does she. The Enchantress summons the undead Strigoi, the Solomonar summons the Vântoasă. How much more fated can you get?

I'm supplying two more in-depth sources I used below as downloadable pdfs, but fair warning, they're in Romanian:

[1] Mituri pluviale românești în context universal, Silvia Ciubotaru

[2] Șapte Eseuri Despre Strigoi, Marineasa, 1998

[the-daily-bugle-official-blog]

Everybody loves a good redemption arc, we seem to love them a little too much. Yet it seems that we always go a step too far trying to justify the actions of known criminals and murderers. Case and point: Daniella Romanoff, aka the Black Widow.

Miss Romanoff is the sister of Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova, two very dangerous women who have, as expected, been pardoned in the public eye. However she is also the granddaughter of mutant terrorist Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto. It seems her connections could not get worse, but the rabbit hole seems to just get deeper. She was formerly a member of the infamous Red Room, a collection of Russian assassins and spies trained from childhood to be ruthless killers. Along with her and her sisters, we have evidence that many more of these women still live in the United States completely hidden. It is bad enough that the U.S. government is simply allowing these women to walk around free as anything, but especially in Daniella Romanoff's case. She is also classed as an omega level mutant and a witch with extraordinary magical abilities. An anonymous source told the Daily Bugle:

"[Daniella Romanoff] is like a hurricane. She causes destruction and damage wherever she goes and is a threat to national safety" - Anonymous

Miss Romanoff is responsible for a number of famous terror attacks and murders, and her extreme powers cause doubt among the public about whether she is safe to be loose in the streets. She regularly commits mass murders under the name 'The Angel of Death', as well as previous alliances with her grandfather's Brotherhood of Mutants, a militant activist group who want to eradicate all humans .She has also been associated with a very powerful witch by the name of Nyx Dreadwood. New readers may not know who she is but she has been responsible for some of the worst natural disasters in America's history, including the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the Great Flood of 1862, and many more. Two powerful and deadly women working together? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

One thing is for certain, the Daily Bugle will not let her critics be silenced. Here at the Daily Bugle we strive to deliver the truth the they don't want you to know, which is why we have expanded our services beyond print media to the internet. To join our daily newsletter comment underneath one of our posts to be added to the list. Be sure to comment your thoughts about the new and even more dangerous Black Widow below, or leave an anonymous submission to get potentially featured in a later news story.

– J Jonah Jameson

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Editor's note: Trust Mr Jameson to start a witch hunt, if you'll pardon the pun, over some random woman. Her being the sister of Natasha Romanoff does not make her ex-red room, nor does her being the granddaughter of Magneto make her a mutant rights extremist. The 'Angel of Death' connection is not something we have any evidence for besides a few potentially photoshopped images, and the connection with Nyx Dreadwood is only the word of our intern Alex, who went to interview the notorious witch and came back with no tongue. The fact of the matter is Mr Jameson loves nothing more than placing all the blame of the world on a mutant woman, and I'm afraid I may have to double lock the doors of the office tonight. Apologies Miss Romanoff, but outrage and fear sells, and Mr Jameson loves nothing more than to sell stories, no matter how tall. – J.E. - Lead Editor

@official-buckybarnes @the-good-redheaded-witch @random-hufflepuff-marvel-girl

[cupcake669]

I really like the "slutty hippy cult leader Viktor" agenda we have going on in the fanarts buuuut i have another idea for your consideration:

oblivious Viktor + "going insane" Jayce + ecchi anime style shenaningans

I am talking about Jayce falling head first into Viktor's chest, getting stuck together in cramped spaces, Viktor's robes slipping from time to time...and let's not forget his exposed sides and back.

In this fever dream of mine, Jayce joins the compound trying to save the world but gets crazier by the minute because his partner is just so damn pretty and Viktor is entirely unaware of it!

Everyday is a new kind of torture for Jayce. And listen, its not like his attraction towards Viktor is new, oh no, he has been fighting with the demons of bisexuality and unrequitted love for ages and he was doing okeyish. But now Viktor is showing TOO MUCH SKIN (thinks Jayce, like a sheltered victorian who sees ankles for the first time) and even worse: everyone gets to look at it too! Viktor's cult is basically his fanclub and Jayce is their number 1 hater.

Meanwhile Viktor is just happy he has Jayce by his side. He loves him ofc, but there is no way Jayce would like him back. Yes, he might be healthy now, but Jayce doesnt like men (he aint winning prizes for that one) and his body is altered, not human anymore. It's functional and exceptional is some ways, but not attractive in the slightest. Which is fine, because he doesnt need that of course! Why would he? He had time to accept his forever fruitless love towards Jayce, no need to get sentimental about it now!

And yet...strange situations keep happening between the two of them. Everytime they get close Jayce gets visibly uncomfortable. Sometimes he thinks that he can sense Jayce looking at him, but when he looks back Jayce averts his eyes. Is it guilt? Is it disgust? Oh that could be...especially because Jayce used to touch him a lot, in a friendly way mind you, but still. Now he tries to avoid touching Viktor as much as possible. Viktor thinks its natural, he shouldnt expect anything else. But still...everytime they touch by chance, he wishes that it would never end. Its a selfish, unreasonable desire, something he should have left behind with his old, human body... but he just cant help it.

And so they are in a strange limbo, the two of them. Pretending everything is fine, healing others, bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders and having to dance around each other in a way they are not familiar with.

The accidents that bring them together keep increasing. Is the arcane reacting to Viktor's deepest desire or they just naturally gravitate towards the other? Maybe both, maybe neither. Maybe its just the will of an old, tired mage who needs a little bit of entertainment in his life.

[angelseraphines]

ೃ⁀➷ velvet crowbar ˗ˏˋ꒰ 🦢 ꒱

╰┈➤ berlin x lover!reader headcanons

¡!being berlin’s significant other would include¡!

a/n: i would like to give a special thank you to @lumillsie for the layout of this post and for the filter used on the header!

╰┈➤ berlin is immediately captivated by your appearance. there’s a rare elegance about you, an understated beauty that commands attention without trying. it’s unlike anything he’s encountered, and it draws him in effortlessly, leaving him interested to know more.

╰┈➤ while your beauty enthralls him, it’s your wit and charm that truly ensnare him. you have a way with words, a sharpness to your intellect that leaves him yearning for deeper conversations and a desire to unravel every aspect of who you are. you become an enigma he’s determined to solve.

╰┈➤ berlin’s nature is cold and unyielding, a result of two decades spent in the unforgiving confines of a north korean prison camp. his past is a tightly locked door, one he refuses to open at first. it isn’t a matter of trust, it’s his way of protecting himself from a pain he refuses to relive.

╰┈➤ dating berlin is nothing short of extravagant. he has a taste for the finer things in life, and he spares no expense in showing you that. lavish dinners, exclusive outings, and opulent gifts are all part of the experience. his funds, after all, seem endless, given the spoils of his opulent career.

╰┈➤ at the beginning, berlin is purposefully vague about his work. he deceives his around the truth with charisma and calculated deflections. when he finally reveals his identity, a high-profile criminal and a key member of his brother’s gang, you’re understandably shocked. but your love for him is more potent than your fear. he makes it clear that betrayal is not an option, his warning softened by the lingering heat of a kiss that leaves no room for doubt.

╰┈➤ his jealousy is a force of nature, impossible to contain. when he introduces you to his crew, it’s denver’s passing glances and rio’s inappropriate comments that instantly set him off. but what truly unsettles him is your bond with the professor, his brother. there’s something about how easily you and the professor connect, sharing moments outside of berlin’s presence, that claws away at him. he despises the idea of not being the sole center of your world, his need for control over both you and his relationships simmering beneath his polished exterior.

╰┈➤ berlin insists on having you by his side at all times, your presence a source of grounding and pride for him. though he would never risk your safety by involving you in the criminal work of his team, you are always there, his hand firmly holding yours, or you standing beside him, your hand resting on his shoulder, a quiet gesture of his authority and your loyalty. you speak in his defense or offer support when needed, an unspoken understanding between you both. despite your non-involvement in their activities, berlin bestows upon you your own city codename, kabul. it is a choice made with care, reflecting his regard for you and cementing your place within his world.

╰┈➤ there are instances when berlin’s volatile nature becomes a challenge. his mind, scarred by years of torment and isolation, is not entirely stable. his temper flares, and though his anger can be terrifying, he never directs it to harm you intentionally. when the storm within him finally subsides, he is left stricken with guilt, his apologies sincere as he cups your face, searching for forgiveness in your tear-filled eyes. seeing the hurt he has caused tears at whatever remains of his hardened heart, and he vows to try and control himself for your sake.

╰┈➤ the gang is stunned by your existence. berlin has always been a man of logic and control, a figure immune to sentiment or attachment. yet here you are, the one person who has unraveled him, proving that even he possesses a sliver of humanity buried beneath his cold, calculated exterior. you are his achilles’ heel, the one weakness that could undo him, and yet he clings to you as fiercely as he clings to life itself.

╰┈➤ berlin is unapologetically affectionate toward you, even in front of the other gang members. whether it’s pulling you into his lap during a quiet moment, brushing his fingers over your cheek, or pressing an unabashed kiss to your lips as if no one else exists, his displays of affection are bold and deliberate. he wants everyone to know you belong to him and, more importantly, that he belongs to you.

╰┈➤ as planning for the heist begins, you are present for every discussion and strategy session, a silent observer in the shadows of their grand designs. while you outwardly support berlin, deep down, you are uneasy about the plan’s immense scale and the inevitable danger it poses to him. yet you know berlin too well to argue, once his mind is set, there is no persuading him. all you can do is pray that his brilliance and luck will see him through safely.

╰┈➤ for the professor, your presence is an anomaly he hadn’t accounted for. in his meticulous calculations, you are the crack that threatens to destabilize his perfect plan. before the heist begins, he warns you in no uncertain terms, you are not to contact berlin under any circumstances. when the time comes, you will receive specific instructions, and you are expected to follow them to the letter. but that isn’t enough for you. the thought of being kept apart from berlin, especially in the face of such danger, fills you with dread, and you can’t shake the desperate need to protect him, no matter the cost.

a/n: let me know your thoughts or if you have anymore requests!! also part two to scarface is coming soon!! 🤍

[the-raven-and-the-tower]

Viago de Riva; forgotten son with a found family of assassins (a brief but angsty dive)

Born one royal bastard of many to King Fulgeno II of Antiva, Viago was born without a lot of choices, but one very large one;

Exile or the Antivan Crows.

VIago was the only one of all Fulgeno's bastards that chose the Crows, a choice that put him on a path of shadows and blood. Turning his back on the only home he has ever known for the ruthless world of the Crows, Viago had to forge his own house and find his own family, turning his back on a royal lineage that never wanted or acknowledged him.

Viago has walked in both worlds, where betrayal can come from any direction and alliances are often temporary - in either world, his survival has hinged time and time again on his vigilance and natural mistrust of others. More than once, the only thing that has kept him alive was the way he builds tolerance to poisons and insists on testing everything he eats. I have to wonder if Viago has ever truly rested, he's always alert, always keeping one step ahead of all the threats on every side - always in danger, both as a bastard who could be seen as a threat to the legitimate line and as a Crow Talon surrounded by ambitious assassins.

And then there's his relationship with Teia 💜

I love the humanity of Viago's struggle to love and be loved. As a royal bastard, he would have been inherently unwanted and constantly reminded of his illegitimacy - daily reminders to ingrain a perpetual sense of unworthiness and isolation into him. I love the honesty of how he struggles to open up and be vulnerable, even with someone like Teia from within the world of the Crows.

The two of them live in a dangerous world, where personal relationships can become weapons in the wrong hands. Viago has every reason to shy away from Teia (and sometimes does), yet that inherent need for perception and connection drags him out of safety and back into her arms, time and time again.

All of that to say loooooooooooook at this fourth draft of a letter Teia is helping Viago write to send to his dad about the situation in Treviso with the Butcher.

King's Draft: Action on Behalf of Antiva

As Seventh Talon, I give notice that the Antivan Crows have drawn a contract against the enemies of Treviso, the Antaam. (Teia)

Teia, the Seventh Talon, is writing to inform of the situation, rather than Viago (Fifth Talon). We don't know if she's stepping up to protect Viago from his asshole father or if Viago doesn't speak to the king often on principle (he does in prior Dragon Age content), or if this is simply how it is done - maybe there's an existing agreement among the Crows to avoid political complications by keeping the king and his son seperate. Any way the cookie crumbled, I like these crumbs.

It is not the Antaam. (Viago)

We aren't required to give His Majesty a point-by-point, but he's your blood, Viago. It is a courtesy to let him know we are going to war. (Teia)

"He's your blood, Viago." I don't know if this is a reminder of his unique ability to bridge two vastly different worlds or if it is just a reminder of political significance, but either way it struck me as significant. Despite his royal blood being a source of personal pain, it provides Viago leverage in ways that other Crow Talons could never wield, not even Caterina.

The occupying Antaam are strong, driven, fanatical. They cannot be reasoned with because reason is just a weapon to be resisted. They can be killed, of course, but removing a leader does not remove their desire to be led. They are a force we must contend with, but they are NOT Treviso's true enemy. (Viago)

A name, Viago. Contracts require a stabber and a stabbee. (Teia)

Teia (child street thief turned Crow) is the pragmatic and operational, focusing on fulfilling the requirements as a formality, while our baby boi Viago the Strategic is firmly honed in on reality and understanding the details. Teia wants to take the next step to move forward, Viago wants to understand the problem before making the next move. They are so different and I love the way their differences lend their relationship strength, rather than pulling it apart.

Teia, you know my doubts. The Butcher took the city too easily, and there is dealing with the gods there that I dread to know. But I fear that the true enemy of Treviso is not known because they ARE known, merely unrevealed. (Viago)

"The Hand That Leashed Treviso." Is that nebulous enough? (Teia)

I like this. Sarcastic, yet she's showing that she's listening to Viago's concerns and hearing them.

Yes, that is a series of someones we can eventually kill. But not something we can send my father. (Viago)

And he acknowledges being heard, but points out the impracticality of presenting such a target to his father. Again, I think it's fucking significant that he refers to Fulgeno as his father and not as the king. Whether he's tying himself verbally to his unique position, subconsciously reacting to his abandonment by the royal family or just responsing to Teia's "he's your blood" earlier, it feels powerful. Like the kick in the gonads I'd like to five Fulgemo.

On to draft five, then. Neri, begin again. (Teia)

It says a lot to me that they're having this entire conversation in front of their scribe. Doubtless someone sworn to secrecy already, it just strikes me as wholesome that they're comfortable having these disagreements in front of Neri. They may not agree yet, but they're committed to it. And their disagreement has no weight on their opinions of each other.

Viago de Riva, Fifth Talon Andarateia Cantori, Seventh Talo Transcribed: Neri de Acutis

[thatbitchery]

Soooooo children , you remember how I've built this entire Tumblr thing on debunking myths and giving you the truth? Let's do some of that today. While finally answering - okay if your ADHD is that bad how do you get things done.

First, again, if you don't know what minors to take in uni or as a side class or online class or whatever consider evolutionary psychology and human Intelligence. It's the manual to human beings. It's the bad bitch code.

You know how *find your WhY* doesn't work. How finding why you're doing something works for a week then just, drops?? Yeah because that's not how it works. At all. Human beings don't work on purpose we work on urgency. It doesn't matter what you want to do it matters what you need to do. Urgency >> want. Survival species, my love . Survival. Adaptation. You see it. You see it, you see what I'm saying? Exactly. We work on pressure and stress you can not actually have a 'soft life' it'll literally kill you. Why doesn't matter, it's what has the most urgency at this moment?? EVERYONE works best under pressure it's nature. I'm saying, apply pressure.

Problem with that is psychologically speaking it's exhausting because it's a Fight / Flight response and it cant be permanent. Eventually the stressor will run out and you will crash again. Also do you really want to always be under pressure? Obviously not. This is where we automate. Then pressure or no pressure you perform. But this isn't about that this is about the sister to - find your why. It's called :-

Find your what.

Remember like a week ago when I said your problem is you want beef but you're eating the chicken so you have no space left for beef and you're full but not satisfied. You're full yes. Both is meat. But are you satisfied?

The beef is the what.

Here is the thing- you want beef. That's what you want , you want to have beef. Sometimes you're in a vegans house and you can't have beef that's okay you say thanks for the greens gobble them down. Sometimes you get some lamb chops you thank heaven and have them. That doesn't take away the fact that you wanted beef. They could make you full, yes. And even maybe taste great. But. But. Did they satisfy you? Nope. It's not what you wanted. Sometimes you have beef say okay I'll go for some duck for now I've had too much beef. I like it but I'll take duck. Have your duck. Does that mean it's not beef you want? Even when you have consciously chosen to not have beef when it was RIGHT THERE? exactly.

The beef is the what. When I say find your what I'm saying find your beef. I'm saying find the thing you will keep going back to, that you want.

So. Music is your thing. You wanted to be a performer. Mom said look you have to do medicine. Alright that's duck right there. Will you ever regret studying medicine? Of course not. Which has a higher stability and safety option ? Yes medicine. So obviously as someone with a working brain you say thanks mom and go to med school. Med school is duck. It's good. You like it. You chose it. Or it's broccoli- you didn't choose it. Matter of fact you'd have rather not had it but you didn't want to be rude. Still, you will be having it. But what do you want?? You want to be a performer. So we accept with a career in medicine if you even want a foot in the vicinity you have to have a super clean image, and most people performing is low level shit and you will get bullied. This IS an either or kind of situation. It's one or the other you can't be both Tyla and House. What do we do?

We get a guitar and pull a rhianne in our rooms . We get Bandlab and those podcast mics that are so accessible and that keyboard looking thing and we pull and Aryan Shah or whatever his name is. Make your music, faceless, put it on whatever platforms and make your money and get your med school.

See how you are still having your beef alongside the duck ) broccolli?? See how you can have it all? See how you can- I'll study these chapters then when I'm done I'll make a song and upload a masked version? I'll dance in my room with a mask on? Or cap? Or- do you see it? See how that works?

When you come to me my one and only question is - WHAT DO YOU WANT. not what's right. Not what's noble. Not what's acceptable. Not what that morality police in your head is saying you should do. Not what your shame says- I don't caree. What I care is. WHAT DO YOU WANT. that's all I need to know. We are the new kids we can have it all don't worry I'll find a way around it. What. Find your what. Not WHY. WHAT.

Because one way or the other your body will rush to the what that it picks urgency from. And until you fulfil that Nothing, NOTHING else will get done. If watching that BTS live is what you want I promise you you won't be able to focus in class. Because shame and responsibilities are superficial and unnatural and your body is natural it will go where it wants you will digest Nothing, NOTHING until you watch that one MV. You will do Nothing else until whatever your body WANTS and deems urgent is done so. WHAT DO YOU WANT.

That's how you get shit done. Get the want taken care of then we can do needs. First get that beef and have like three bites THEN you can get the veggies in. Or know there's beef at home so have your two bites of duck then head home. The beef . That beef. What's your beef? What do you want?? Work from that. Plan your entire life from that point. Because it's whats urgent to your body and until it gets done or considering everything else will fail.

Automation requires power dynamics and reward / punishment model. You can not automate by yourself. You can't do it with your bestie mom BLA BLA you need fear and the reward has to be normality. Go pay someone a weird amount of money to bully you into it.

Get the WHAT first. Then everything else will follow. No nobility or shame or responsibility or morality or guilt or willpower or discipline or whatever will not hold long term and you know thissssss you know thisss you've been here before. Before you are a person- you are an animal. Whether you want to or not you will function like one no amount of anything will take this away. You are hedonistic by nature you will chase desire & also surviving by nature you will prioritize urgency no you can't David Goggins your way out of this. Have you been able to?? How old are you? In all your life have you been able to????????????

I know what your mom said. And teachers. And that one YouTuber you go to for SeLf iMprOveMenT as if you're some project said yes I know it sounds true I know but. But. Listen to me .mother , mother knows best. :)

[rostekhorn]

I don't know where it stands when compared to Campbell's Hero's Journey idea specifically, but I've always loved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (and the preceding episode of TOS, Space Seed) for going against a hell of a lot of established conventions when it comes to heroism and lone men saving the world.

Khan's entire backstory is that of a guy who thinks the hero's journey is real, and he's the hero, except life stubbornly refuses to conform to his narrative. He's literally the product of an attempt to make superheroes real, and he's internalized the idea that because he's stronger and smarter than everybody else, it's his destiny to rule over them for their own good. ... And real life keeps getting in the way. First, the stupid little muggles back in the 1990s refused to obey him and overthrew his empire. Then, he was unfrozen in the 23rd century, thought he had a second chance, only the stupid little muggles took that away from him again. Then, his attempt to build a new world from scratch on Ceti Alpha V also failed because of a freak natural phenomenon that none of his superior strength and intellect could handle. And then of course, the movie. His hero's journey keeps getting thwarted by, well, the fact that the world isn't actually a superhero movie, and he isn't actually its main character, and the more it happens, the angrier he gets.

But that's just Khan. Then there's Kirk. Who has more than a little of the same ego and hero complex that Khan does, and in this movie, it's all for the worst. His arrogance and belief that he's above the rules gets a whole bunch of his crew killed, ultimately including his best friend, who has to sacrifice himself to finish cleaning up his mess. The entire situation could have been avoided if Kirk had simply followed routine Starfleet procedure (kept the shields raised when encountering Reliant). The only thing that allows him to escape and stage a comeback is more routine Starfleet procedures (Reliant's command codes, and the "for God's sake use codes when you're on an open channel" rule). And when he finally comes back for round 2, the reason he wins is simply that deep space combat is something he's been doing all his life and Khan has never done before. The whole movie celebrates bureaucracy, training, and experience, over innate special individual ability.

If you go back to Space Seed, there's also the whole story about the ship's historian who falls in love with Khan but then betrays him once she realizes what he's about. I don't love all the gender politics that are wrapped up in that storyline, but I recognize the point they were trying to make. She's someone who's completely bought the romanticized vision of past figures like Khan, and has to learn, through exposure to the real thing, that people like that in real life aren't Campbellian heroes, they're brutal thugs. (It also softens the gender politics a little bit that Kirk, McCoy, and the rest of the humans have also swallowed a lot of the romantic kool-aid - not as much as her, but enough to seriously disturb Spock, the only one in this episode who sees clearly right from the start - which kind of foreshadows Kirk's flaws when they next encounter Khan in the movie).

In any case, color me unsurprised that when we got that thoughtful pushback against a bunch of our traditional heroic tropes, it came from Star Trek.

alright, I’m annoyed with the class that I’m taking. it’s about writing novels, and I thought it would have cool stuff about balancing your narrative and developing themes etc, but instead she spent the first class talking about how every book fits into the Hero’s Journey (the monomyth template). and I was somewhat of a contrarian, and said “can you give us examples of books that don’t fit into this template?” and she said “no. because all books fit.”

but I dunno man, I just finished reading this Korean book where the plot is just the character having a string of hookups and reflecting on them without changing in any way. I don’t know if it’s possible to contort that into the Hero’s Journey.

[hopepunk-humanity]

I know in real life i often wax pompous and poetic about this experience i had, but I'm still going to share it here.

a couple years ago, I'd gone to my first out of state electronic music festival. I was nervous about potentially feeling out of place or unwanted, given it was at the time the biggest festival I'd ever been to. There was a short amount of time where me, a friend at the time, and my fiancee had all ducked into an air conditioned tent to cool down in, escape the sun, and decompress. Everyone that was in there graciously welcomed us and anyone else that came in the doors. After we found a place to flop our tired bodies down, I'd noticed that the folks in there were clearly all complete strangers

and yet

everyone was fanning one another, offering water and whatever snacks they got from the food trucks, trading kandi bracelets and trinkets, and chatting away about anything and nothing.

in that moment I'd felt such a profound sense of community and oneness, where everyone was caring for each other like family, that I damn near cried.

this is all longform to say that community and love is out there and to never give up, even if it means going outside your usual routine and fields of comfort (within reason.)

That's something that makes me hopeful about humanity. It seems that making community is a natural behavior for us. All it takes is a shared location (air-conditioned tent) and maybe a shared interest (music).

Of course, sustaining a healthy community takes work, and this behavior can be double-edged (mob violence, bigotry). But the fact that we seem to be predisposed to it is promising.

[meirimerens]

meiri, when we are talking threefold bullet or three and a half fold, what is your take on the dynamic and relationship between stamatwins themselves? i am of the opinion that since they consider each other to be the same, singular person often in text, they basically are, but what is your take? are they the same? are they that different? do you think they're actually close or distant? and if we're talking close, what do you think of, like, interpretation of them as an androgyne, don't really know how it's spelled correctly in english, mythological creature cut in half for hubris which people basically take as "see, romantic soulmates"?

oh this is one of my fave subjects to write about or rather to incorporate in writings where i center on peter going his own loving ways this is gonna be fun

okay i'm responding to the androgyne part right out of the gate: the mythological (Platonician, and i'm guessing you mean the Platonician myth because it is the most well-known and the one in which beings were cut in half) androgyne is half male, half female. [i'm not talking about the historical use of androgyne for intersex people nor the modern sense of androgyne as a gender identity or presentation this is about the MYTHOLOGICAL BEING, FROM PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM]

that's the ethymology of andro/gyne used very literally in plato's symposium (ἀνδρός/andros = man, as in the sexed/gendered being as opposed to άνθρωπος anthropos which is man as in humanity [think "mankind", "caveman" when both of these terms Also Include Woman] and γυνή/gynê = woman) so right out of the gate they're eliminated from the mythological androgyne story by virtue of being both men. and i'd argue them being both men is important to their lore and how they handle of concept of Conception/Creation and how they talk about the Polyhedron specifically (calling it "a child" or "a daughter"). the platonician myth of the androgyne does have the androgynes (and to be fair, all the other "pairs" (male-male, female-female, female-multiple & male-multiple beings) equally) punished for hubris, cleaved in half, and desperatly trying to reunite with their half, but at the core of this myth very much is the etiology of romantic & sexual desire: Eros. quoting Plato’s Symposium translated by Benjamin Jowett :

"Each of us who were separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a human being, and we are always looking for our other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous [Androgynes] are lovers of women; the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; lesbians are of this sort; peoples who were originally of two or more parts are of the sort we call ‘amphiphylóphilos’, ‘lovers of both’, and they are especially favored by Eros."

One of the thing that also happens with the Platonician Androgyne is that, before being cleaved in twain, they would reproduce asexually. upon being cleaved, when reunited, they starve to death and do nothing else from not wanting to do anything apart, so the gods rearrange their genitals around so they can reproduce as the people now do : the platonician myth of the Androgyne (and of the cleaving in twain) is about romantic and sexual desire, the drive for a romantic (soul)mate and reproduction. it is an etiological myth about sexual desire and sexual inclinations (why some women are not attracted (EROS! eros eros eros) to men, but to women: they once were one with another women; why some people are attracted to both men and women: because once a upon a time they were one with a man and a woman or more), as well as how we got to be a sexually reproductive species.

the term "soulmate" does apply to the twins, or rather, andrey tries his hardest for it to apply to them, but the platonician myth of the androgyne is Not about non-romantic soulmates.

tldr : platonician myth of the androgyne out of the equation because

1. it is about a being half male and half female, which the twins are not

2. or rather 1.5. it is thematically and narratively important that the twins are men for, to me, this greatly informs the way they act and speak about artistic Creation (goes for a lot of male artists irl tbh)

3. it is an etiological myth about sexed reproduction and the drive of romantic and sexual desire (EROS!!!!) which does not apply to the twins.

now for Da Other Part :

It's Complicated </3

in my mind andrey is the one most attached to them as a single being. quoting him from PCHD :

- Twins are the two sides of a single person. - I'm quite a quarreller—and I don't want to discredit my soulmate! [he means Peter]

and, interestingly enough, at the beginning, Peter is also quite keen on the "a single person" thing :

- You will make no mistake by calling me Peter. You can call me Andrey too, just for the sake of diversity, and it won't be wrong either.

BUT!!! and this is where i start salivating the evil gears of my mind start turning. on day 10, shit hath broken loose, and dankovsky comes seeking peter :

Dankovsky : Go help your brother. Do you know that he's been arrested? He's killed several people trying to help you. Peter : ...That's fine. I've been suffering for ten years because of him.

now this is soooo delicious je m'en lèche les babines. we can imagine that the "for ten years because of him" refers to the murder of Farkhad which, in PCHD, was Andrey's sole doing (as far as he retells it). it can also be about the Polyhedron's constructin : something they so covetted and so desired that in my mind a man was killed for this, something they so protect and are so protective of, but which has driven peter mad. in these ten years, peter as sunk to the bottom. by day 10, he's trying to self-immolate. he's developped and is sustaining a debilitation alcohol addiction, alcohol of andrey's making.

i think andrey grasping at this belief that they are one (including la fameuse "The furnace of this catastrophe has molded me, my brother, and you into a single person… The fire of war has molded us into a threefold bullet. It's natural. We are one. The three sides of a single process.") because he's guilty. trying to cope with the fact that he has ruined is brother with his liquor, with his murder, with his completion of the polyhedron which, according to all, simply should not exist. and yet it does. haunted twofold. andrey, by presenting himself as peter's other face, is trying 1) cope with the distance that's growing between them, by his fault and 2) trying to protect him. when shit hits the fan, he's running after peter, there are mixups, dankovsky gets taken for him. by being peter's other face, andrey is trying to protect him.

here's what i think it is :

it is less "two sides of the same coin" than it is "two sides of a same shield". also fits with andrey's "I am the battering ram that clears his path." (P2). a shield has two faces: the one that takes the blow of the blade and the one inside. andrey is the face that takes the blade and peter the one inside. or rather he wishes he was.

when i write peterstakh (you're on the peterstakh blog you are told about peterstakh), andrey lives very poorly the fact that his brother is "breaking away" from him. quoting my own self:

“It’s you.” “As much as me can be.” “It is you… right?” “As much as right can be.” Peter noticed the dimple between Rubin’s brows, this worried notch like a knife nick. “Don’t fret. I keep my doors locked.” He paused. “And Andrey wouldn’t want to touch you. Well, except to h—” “Except to hit me.” “He’s needlessly, mindlessly possessive. And a fool. He knows better than anyone else, even than myself, that you’re not fighting for the same honeycomb in me. He just doesn’t want me to get hurt.” “What are you, his? Won’t he let yourself be you?” “Less his than he at all. You already noticed.”

(Tenderopen Be Sir Carrion)

& my own self again :

« Does it surprise you [that I haven't slept with any of my models] ? » Piotr asks [...]. « Quite different from your brother in this way, then—forgive me for getting ahead of myself. I heard he was… generous in his affections. » [...] « He has… a way bigger heart than I do. Full of holes to let the light in… And people through. — Do people compare you two often ?  — Too often for my taste, not often enough for his — or vice-versa, depending on the day. » [...] « He thinks seducing others this much protects me, in a way. That he spares me the woes of love by attracting them to him.  — That's commendable… I suppose. — So do I. »

(Pierrot sur le Rivage, my own translation (it's in french originally lol))

TLDR : they're close. they're really close. to me even, because i love fun, they can do whatever the hell was happening with the Kains by the end of Bachelor's route : hopping back and forth between each other's bodies (<- this is a link to a lorepost i made), swapping consciousnesses. they believe they should have been born as one (conjoined), and where they imagine they once were stuck together in utero, the imaginary scar sometimes burn when they get too high or too drunk. they consider themselves halves of a whole, and it hurts.

it hurts because andrey hurt(s) peter, has been hurting him "for ten years". with the murder, with the alcohol, with the successful(?) construction of the polyhedron. andrey copes with his fault by insisting on his protective role, his front-shield face, his battering-ram head, because it helps ease the guilt of knowing it is his samogon, which he began distilling for selfish reasons, that is slowly making peter lose himself in the whirly depths of the bottle. showing themselves as "both sides of a whole" is a protective measure, yes, to blur where one ends and the other begin, so if they're hunted the hunters have twice as many men to pursue. it's also true.

peter is growing distant because he's in pain, he's sick, he's losing his mind, and gaining a love andrey has no control over.

to quote a fic i've been working on for years on and off

[Rubin] : "If you don't think his heart's big enough to contain the both of us in different chalbers, you can give him a piece of yours. I'll help cutting you up."

[hyohaehyuk]

I think a lot of people are not understanding one thing about this show: Louis have an eating disorder caused by his rejections of being a vampire and a queer man. Eating animals and rejecting eating humans is not a normal diet for vampires and is not the same as veganism/vegetarianism like i have seen some keep saying. In the AR' vampire universe is not just the blood but also the hunt and the memories they get from the victims that get them healthy. Even the way Louis eats in present days is weird af (even tho is consumes more human blood provided by his unethically farm) bc he is forcing himself to eat human food too (the whole thing is weird af. watch it again now with the image of him having a eating disorder in mind and you will see what i am saying)

Everything Lestat was doing (especially between ep 2/3) was trying to make Louis eat properly but all his desperate attempts was just pushing Louis away. The reason he brought Antoinette to their house was to recreate their 1st time with Miss Lily (bc if it worked 1 time surely it work another🤦). I think he was hoping that Louis would feed out of Antoinette and maybe even kill her. Same reason (besides the pride and bad communication) of why he opened their relationship. He was hoping that while he was hooking-up with someone he would feed from it but instead Louis chose someone who it had story (maybe to piss Lestat. I think this will be revised in season 3 bc i remember seeing on twitter that Lestat was next to Antoinette but once he he sees Louis talking with Jonah he is in another place far from her). He was already mad that Louis eating disorder was taking a tool on their relationship (which is why he start cheating 💀) but suddenly Louis was in the mood for some sex with someone else and on top of it Lestat also had to watch him hurting dogs (which maybe we will see in season 3 that human lestat loves dogs) instead of feeding on his hook-up human being.

The saddest thing is that there is nothing Lestat could have done to help (if you watched the last season of heartstopper Nick was dealing with a similar situation with Charlie and everyone's attempting to help him was actually making it worse). Things would only start getting better if the person admit to themselves and others they have a problem and seek for professional help which unfortunately for Louis was a thing that didn't exist at the time. Thankfully Louis at the end of season 2 finally accepted himself so on season 3 we will see a completely new Louis and i don't think Lestat will be ready for that Louis 🤭. Tho I hope Louis is not automatically cured in season 3. I think he will still mess it up occasionally until he gets cured for real.

Anyway, i hope they revise this (and a few other things) in season 3 bc it seems that a lot of people still dont get it. There is a chance of them doing that bc depressed Lestat was also feeding out of rats just like Louis was and maybe they could touch on this when doing connections with Nicky depression. i think we will see a lot of connections related how Lestat dealt with Louis and Claudia bc of his relationship with Nicky and his family, particularly his mother. Since Daniel works like the public voice maybe he will be the one doing those connections especially now that Daniel is a vampire and knows more about how it works.

i do think loustat in the show are monogamous, however given the nature of the vampirism they still have to seduce their victims to feed so i can see them hooking up with the victims before killing them but that dont make them non-monogamous in my eyes bc that would involve them actually having feelings for others.

And no, i dont think Louis was in love with Armand (he was attracted at most. i will not go much in depth into their relationship bc i don't want loum*nd shippers annoying the shit out of me. the only thing i am gonna say is that their relationship was all about Lestat: it started bc of him, continued after Paris bc of him and ended bc of him) and Lestat with Antoinette (she was more like his therapist so he could vent about Louis and Claudia. if he had love her he would have told her she could had attached any human' finger to hers after he made her cut her finger. He only keep her 1st bc she was giving him the devotion Louis was refusing to, 2nd bc it still made Louis' jealous which casually he would show it and then bc he needed her to spy on Louis and Claudia. if you guys noticed Louis was quite undecided in going forward Claudia plan of killing Lestat, until he brought Antoinette. It was then (especially when petty Lestat call her "love") when he made up his mind. That was Lestat worst mistake that night bc he knew about their plan and was trying to make Louis not going through it but then does that 🤦)

louis and lestat wouldn’t even hesitate to walk out into the sun if the other ceased to exist and people think they would ever consider polyamory. it’s just not realistic. they invented monogamy and the soul being irrevocably tied to one other soul for eternity and beyond

[koremakaria]

Embracing the Shadow.

There's still good in him! I know. There's still ... good in him.

And so we come to an end but then all ends are just another beginning. I simply adore this drama and how it deals with embracing the dark side of human nature.

In the epic final fight against the Supreme God, we have both the first incarnation of the Chaos Pearl and Saint Emperor Zhaoming together with the current incarnation of the Chaos Pearl and Demon Lord Zhaoming. It's the beginning and the end working together to effectively end an oppressive regime.

You have on one side the beginning of the cycle and you have on the other side the current/ end product of the great cycle of fate.

When the Supreme God is defeated, the Demon Lord has to make a decision. Endure punishment again or let the world burn. I love that he gets to see his old work station once more. Hello paperwork! .... how I miss you? Said the Demon Lord ... probably. In any case, he got to see the beginning of his life again and be reminded of who he was before Fate effectively cursed him with false memories.

Then he gets to meet his love, again. Pearl is different from Mu Xuanling because she represents innocence, good will, and optimism. While they are the same soul, they are in different stages of life experience. Here, the Demon Lord is glad to see his love but said that he's not the man she loves because he harbors dark thoughts. To be fair, Zhaoming probably had them too but he didn't let the darkness take over the goodness in him.

Demon Lord: 'what if I don't care about the world?'

Pearl: 'then I'll accompany you to the very end. Even if the world throw curses at you. I accept you for who you are'

She embraces the darkness in him knowing that there is still good in him. That's why she's crying the whole time because she has an unbreakable trust in his goodness even when he had already endured so much. Even when he stops believing in himself, she never did. She already knows what he would do. In turn this allows him to embrace his own darkness. Rather than letting it control him, he controls the darkness. Darkness then becomes just another part of him. All three incarnations of him shares one soul and so they are the same person with different experiences. By embracing the shadow he gets to decide who to be and eventually how to live moving forward. Embracing the shadow made whole once more.

I just love that the drama was allowed to portray this. Because the shadow represents dark thoughts and negative emotions we often feel we have to repressed but that we all have. To be human is to have feelings both positive and negative and be mature enough to exert control over them.

My ONE criticism is that they should have included the epilogue from the novel. I only peeked at the end but I really wanted to see the children. Hao Yi and Hao Er ... maybe another time.