#tallie's poem | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sweetracha · 9 months

Text

Dollhouse Chapter 1: God Meets Barbie

Product Details: Physiological Horror, Angst & Manipulative Fluff

Choking Hazard: Themes of stalking and premeditated crimes, kidnapping, obsession, Stockholm syndrome, delusional fantasies, and illusions to murder

A special thank you to my beautiful bug @goblinracha. This crazy dream world would not be a reality without you. Thank you for staying by my side all this time. Love you bug 💗

Spring flowers bloomed like paint on a blank canvas. Yellow tulips bleed into red roses, accented by violets and stark white daisies. A handcrafted bench sat in a stone clearing, outlined by dewy moss. The setting of the tea shop was perfect for Minho. Every day after work he would visit the small business, get his cup of tea and a blueberry scone, then sit on his bench. So, one day when someone was in his spot he stopped in his tracks. He was about to tell you to leave, that you were ruining his daydream. But then, the light hit your face just right.

Honey gold sunlight dripped from your features. He could tell your skin was soft as silk. Your hair was framed by a beautiful white bow. The dress you wore reminded him of a romantic picnic. It was strawberry red with white squares. The way it flared at your waist gave the most stunning illusion. The skirt pillowed your lap where your smooth legs crossed over one another. Sweet little high heels sat on your feet. The femineity that emanated from your stature excited Minho. A poetry book perched in one hand while a cup of herbal tea sat in the other. You looked like a doll to him—the most beautiful Barbie doll.

He couldn’t help but stare at you, so lost in your own little world. Minho wondered what words you read when your red-lined lips turned up into a sweet smile. What made your pretty cheeks blush all of a sudden? When you paused and looked around, were you deep in thought about the poetic words before you? Questions slowly began to morph into worries. Were you safe? Why would a dolly be by herself in public? Someone could hurt you! Someone could break you! What if you got a scratch on your sweet skin? If no one was going to collect you, he would. Minho would be a perfect God controlling your world so nothing could come near you. God’s plan takes time, Minho knew you were worth the wait.

The first step in his plan? To get a copy of the book you were reading. He must admit the poems were crafted beautifully, however, some of these words were too big for a dolly such as yourself to understand. How could you understand the concept of love if Minho wasn’t showing it to you? He bets no one had ever loved you the way a doll was meant to be cherished. Soon enough he began seeing you every day, even coming 10 minutes earlier just to be there when you arrived. Minho stopped sitting at the bench deciding it was truly meant for you. His routine was always the same. He would sit down at the metal garden table and wait for you to walk in. Some days you even flashed him a little smile and a wave. You were handcrafted perfection. Then once you sit down and pull out your book, Minho would jot down the tea you were drinking. You always left the tag handing out, silly girl. The chart was neat with tallies keeping track of your favorites. Recently you began enjoying a berry hibiscus blend over your typical honey camomile, he believed it was for the changing seasons. Then after you were fully immersed in the world of your book, Minho would get up to grab his order. This meant he would have to walk behind you and smell your perfume, florals, and sugar-coated berries. He couldn’t get too distracted however, he was on a mission. Mentally Minho would take note of what page you were on. Once he had his order in hand and made his way back to his table, he pulled out his copy. Obviously, he put a different book sleeve over the original, Dolly couldn’t know he was watching her. God just had to make sure his dolly wasn’t reading anything her glass eyes shouldn’t see.

Spring finally turned to summer, and day in and day out Minho fell more and more in love. He was convinced at this point you were purposely picking love poems just for him. You were skipping multiple pages just to re-read the words you chose for him. His favorite poem was the one in which the lover declares that he is forever devoted to his lady love. Minho saw it as a confession, that you wanted this just as much as he does. Even the love interest in the story described you as a picture-perfect match…almost too accurately. Something felt off to Minho.

Something was wrong, something was very wrong right now. He heard the classic click of your heels on the stone pathway as you took your rightful display. Minho looked up to see what outfit you decided to grace him with today, soon his emotions soured. The tight black cocktail dress hugged your body in ways that he did not approve of. He did not like how the sleeves fell off your shoulders, exposing your bare skin to the harsh light. It was far too short to cover your silky legs, leaving you open to being scuffed up. No not his dolly! His dolly was limited edition, 1 out of 1 ever made. You would never do this on purpose. Who was corrupting his prized possession?

His answer soon walked in dressed like the definition of a prick. Tall lanky features strolled in, taking up too much sunlight. A mop of blonde and brown curls sat heavily at the front of this head. Thin round frames circled his deceiving eyes. The combination of brown slacks and a red sweater assaulted Minho’s vision. Then the foul creature of a man stopped at you. Not only did he stop in front of Minho’s love, but he also had the nerve to talk to you. Then he dared to sit down next to you. The sounds you made as the creature attacked your exposed skin were clearly a call for help. Despite you clearly not wanting him around, it kissed you. You were in so much shock you didn’t pull away.

Infuriated and filled with rage Minho got up and stormed behind you two, tripping on his way. Minho smirked on his way down to the cobblestone as his tea flew from his hand, straight onto the beast. He shot up with a roaring yell and you quickly followed suit. However, instead of inspecting the man who had you trapped, you went to the poor soul laying on the floor.

“Are you okay?” you reached out a hand to the stranger. Minho gladly accepted it.

“I'm fine, just tripped over some loose pathway” He replied like it wasn’t all planned.

“Oh, they can be such a hassle! My heels get stuck every day” Your giggle was like a master symphony. “I should go check on him if you are alright.” All Minho did was nod in response and bask in your glow as you graciously smiled at him while bidding goodbye.

Minho stood and straightened himself out. You were worth a few cuts to the hands, you were worth all the pain in the world. On the bench next to a soiled napkin laid an unassuming notebook. One Minho had never seen you carry before, it must be that awful man Minho thought. He would do you a favor and take it far away. It probably contained information not suited for a dolly such as yourself. Minho decided it was better to leave early today. That way he can spend more time figuring out how to save you. He could tell by the glint in your eye you were a damsel in distress.

Later that night as Minho was preparing to go to sleep, something intoxicated his mind. There was a voice telling him, not commanding him, to read the notebook. Whatever was inside was vital to your rescue. When he cracked open the worn leather bindings he was appalled at what he read. Word for word, line for line, beat by beat, tempo by tempo, this notebook followed your poetry. The stories you picked for Minho to read were embedded on the pages in front of him, not in print, but in ink.

Minho rummaged through his bag to find his own copy, the one with the false cover. Like something from a nightmare, he analyzed the covers. The ‘property of’ label identically matched the author's signature. That's why the poems seemed so specific, why they painted the pure image of his lady love. You were the muse behind the pen. Enraged Minho threw the book against the wall, shattering a glass frame in the process. He didn’t take kindly to theft and being a criminal meant consequences.

It hurt Minho to see the glass tears fall down your splotchy face. Another bootleg dress was now soiled in mascara. He knew why your face glistened in sadness. That foul beast tricked you into a false sense of love and it's hard for him to continue his games when he is 6 feet in the ground. Like a perfect God, however, where there is death there is life. From the cracked foundation of your heart, he would grow a royal garden.

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind but something seems to be troubling you” Minho stands beside you with silk cloth in hand. He reached out to offer you a small gift.

“Oh-Hi sorry for ruining your tea time. I am okay.” The sniffles that left you made Minho smile wickedly.

“Sweetheart, I can tell something is wrong. I know I am just a stranger but I am also willing to listen” He took a seat next to you. He buzzed in excitement at his proximity to your beauty.

“You aren’t a stranger” Your light blush looked stunning on you. Minho will remember that shade for the future. “I see you here all the time. Honestly, I should thank you for spilling tea on that asshole yesterday” That giggle could cure all diseases.

“Oh? You two seemed happy yesterday” His questioning tone was laced with sarcasm.

“Yeah, I thought so too! Then I show up today to a breakup poem. A POEM! What kind of artsy shit would break up through a poem!” A poem that Minho deliberately crafted for hours after analyzing all of that creature's writings.

“That's awful! Here, you tell me all about it and I’ll listen” The blush on your face deepened as he took the cloth from you are dried your sculpted face. “Im Minho by the way”

“Y/n”

“That is a lovely name, Doll”

Before either of you realized then summer weather began to be followed by a chilling breeze. The trees that surrounded the courtyard colored the atmosphere with browns, yellows, and reds. Day in and day out you were comforted by the sweet man you knew as Minho. You couldn’t deny the butterflies he gave you. Those bunny teeth that flashed through his smile and his cat-like antics made you swoon. He would fight you on every little thing but immediately follow it up with a lingering hug. Even the nicknames he gave you made you feel special. Dolly, he always called you Dolly. Oh, how you wished to be HIS dolly but you weren’t sure if he even felt the same way. It was clear Minho guarded his emotions. Something was off with him but in a charming and curious way. If only you could peek into that mind of his.

Storm clouds erased the sky while cracks of lightning rang in the distance. What started as the little pitter-patter of droplets on stone became a downpour. Minho couldn’t tell if the thumbing in his ears was the sound of hail or his own heartbeat as you snuggled into him for protection. He covered you as best he could with his jacket, not wanting your custom paint job to smudge. Fixing your hair might take some work, and the outfit is better off trashed than repaired, but Minho was willing to do anything to keep his doll pristine. He caged you in a tight embrace as another boom of thunder came too close for comfort.

“Dolly, I think we better get you somewhere warm and dry. Poor thing you are shaking” He wished he could transfer all his heat to you, blue wasn’t the color he assigned to you. No, you were pinks, blushes, peaches, and roses. “Let’s go back to my place, hm? I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”

Minho’s house was the same on the inside as he was on the outside. Cozy, quiet, a little unassuming, but absolutely charming. Soft browns and ivory whites seemed to be the palate of choice. You sat at the oak table waiting for him to come back from the kitchen. Your hands felt the grooves closely, Minho sure had an attention to detail even if he didn’t show it. He wore the same pair of gray joggers and a white tee almost every day. You wondered how many identical copies he owned.

“I had it made back when I lived in Korea, an old friend of mine is a woodworker” he broke you out of your spell. The cup of tea he set in front of you was an odd color, candy pink with the smell of something like medicine. You weren’t going to be rude, however, maybe his choice of tea was just unusual.

“It’s beautiful Minho” he smiled as you sipped some more.

‘Not as beautiful as you, Dolly”

You didn’t know how to react, a deep dark blush taking hits place on your cheeks.

“There is that blush I love so much. My pretty pink princess.” was it just you or did the room seem to be getting blurry? A loud thumb snapped you out of your hazed thoughts.

“What was that?” When did your voice become slurred?

“Oh, probably an old piece in this house settling. Doll you look sleepy, why don’t you shut your eyes.” You wanted to protest but the weight of your eyelids was unbearable at this point. As your head rushed to the table you caught a glimpse of something familiar. Was that your ex’s journal on Minho’s bookshelf?

“Shhhhh good girl Dolly, go to sleep. Mommy is about to show you your real world, Barbie.”

The headache you woke up with was unbearable, maybe the weather got to you more than you thought. You blinked at what sleep was still left in your eye and tried to take in your surroundings. When blue and pink hues spotted your vision in blinding circles you were scared. This can’t be Minho’s room. Speaking of Minho, where was he? You believed you could see a figure sitting on the bed in front of you…almost posed. Now that your sight was clearing you saw hands folded in their lap. Their feet were perfectly pointed forward and their back was pin-straight.

“Minho? Minho! Where am I? Minho please!” You cried out but only got a curious hum back. Then the figure looked panicked.

Next, you could make out what he was wearing. This was something you never in a million years could have seen him in. An oversized white sweater with a brown vintage teddy printed on the front. Blue cotton overalls were buttoned up but one strap hung loose. Frilly blue socks sat on those pointed feet. Then came his hair, soft brown, unlike Minho’s dark chocolate. The hair pillowed in volume, it looked soft to the touch. Finally, you saw his face. He wore a joyful smile similar to a patient kid on their birthday. Brown eyes look in every last detail.

‘WHO ARE YOU” you scrambled back behind the bed.

“I um…I…” he stuttered as if he couldn’t speak, or rather, wasn’t allowed to.

You tried to study the room, to plot your escape but your senses were overwhelmed. Surrounding the mystery man-child was a sea of blues. He sat on a star-themed bed and was now cuddling a fuzzy white star pillow for comfort. It was blue for as far as your eyes could see, then you looked down. Not only down but up, side to side, and behind. You wanted to scream at the assault of pink to the mind. The bed you awoke in was almost identical to the other but where there were stars, there were now hearts. You even had a fluffy white heart pillow waiting for you. Actually, their two sides were exactly identical. Blue walls and pink walls. Blue desk and pink desk. Blue makeup and pink makeup. Even blue and pink waste bins. You started to panic.

“Barbie barbie please calm down” Your eyes darted to Minho walking into the horror show. You slowly backed to the Pepto wall. So the stranger was named Barbie?

“Mommy, she is scared” You cringed at the whining concern in ‘Barbie’s’ voice.

“Ken it's okay, Mommy is going to get it all fixed. Mommy always makes everything better, right? Be a good boy and stay here while Mommy tried to talk to our pretty doll”

Ken? If his name was Ken…then who was Barbie. As if written in a script, your eyes flashed to the wall behind your bed. Big white letters spelled “B-A-R-B-I-E”. You were Barbie.

“Minho what is this? Where are we? Who is that—” your frantic game of 20 questions was cut short.

“Mommy.”

“Huh?”

“I am Mommy” His voice was cold without any room for negotiation. “This is Ken” the softer man gives you a sweet wave. He felt safe to you, you weren’t sure why. “And you, my dear, are Barbie”

“I’m y/n!! What are you on Minho! This isn��t you! Haha funny joke, but its over now.” The hysterically frightened laughter that left you scared even yourself.

“Barbie” with each step forward, you sunk lower. “Why is this not me? This is what I’ve been planning all along. This world I created is for you, for you and Ken to enjoy. I will do nothing but love you here. I will love you, cherish you, care for you; Barbie I will do everything for you! You will never have to lift a pretty finger again! Work is gone, heartbreak is over!” he stooped in front of your trembling body. Slowly Minho kneeled as if you were a hurt animal.

You fought with your mind. A part of you wanted to kick him and run. Another part wanted to take his outstretched hand. It mimicked the one that dried your tears many weeks ago. Did he cause those tears? You were sure what was real and what wasn’t. Why was he looking at you like that? Like he truly loved you. What kind of sick person would do this to someone they loved? What if this is what love was? What if he was true love?

No! Snap out of it, he kidnapped you! He probably kidnapped the poor boy who you were pretty sure wasn’t named Ken. Minho was twisted in the head! You wished you never wondered what went through his mind when he looked at you. This is what he saw. You were nothing more to him than some doll to take his fantasies out on.

But then why did Ken look so happy? Why did he wear that goofy shy smile on his face? Why did he keep asking Minho if you were okay? Did he worry he was the one scaring you? Ken looked normal besides his tailored clothes and abnormal positioning. Did he want to be here? Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

“Barbie, get out of that pretty head of yours. Here, stand up. Let Mommy help you.” Your hand gravitated towards his against your will.

“Minho-”

“Mommy.”

“Min-”

“Mommy, Barbie. It’s Mommy”

“Mi-”

“MOMMY!” that was the first time you ever heard him shout. You coiled back at his sharp tone.

“Mommy…Please explain what this all is…”

“Oh, my sweet innocent Barbie. This is your world. My whole life I’ve been looking for the most unique dolls to love and care for. I met Ken a while back at work. The poor boy lost his job and I felt it deep inside me that it was meant to be. When he came to live with me our lives just fit. He was made for me. Then I saw you, and I felt the same. You are so precious, made of glass my love. I can see right through you. Every emotion is worn on your sleeve. The world was not right for you. So I created a new one. All I ask is that you follow the rules. Be a good doll for Mommy, and Mommy will love you endlessly.”

Your doe eyes met his dark ones. Once again Minho left you lost. Would you ever be able to read him? This offer was tempting and you had no clue why. You felt your heart tighten in your chest at the thought of staying, but it also broke at the thought of leaving him. However, with the look on Ken’s face, you were pretty sure you didn’t have a choice. You would play for now. Barbie could be anything right? Then Barbie will play the role written for her. Only until she could find a way out.

“Doll, let me show you what your world has to offer” Minho pulled you in like a dancer. He got close to your ear and whispered “Let us love you.”

@smally97 @lixiesweetbrownie @seo--changbin @lyramundana @j-onedrabbles @hyuniebeez @jisunglyricist @chvngi @hanjisunginc @whatudowhennooneseesyou @sugarmelin @felixsramen @koala-wonderland @lookitsjess @lxerhan @dwaekki081199 @camixiez @dutchessskarma @stvrfir3

You lay in bed designated for you. Intoxicated by battling emotions, you just stared at the pink void of the ceiling. How were you ever going to get sleep now? Does anyone even know you were gone? Maybe Minho took care of them too. Pent-up frustration brimmed in your eyes. "Han" the creaking floors sounded like they spoke.

"My name is Han" You looked over to the other bed to see the sweet man beginning to turn away.

Before you could turn back around a faint buzz caught your attention. Opening the drawer you found a mysterious phone and a text from Minho to a group chat called "Dollhouse" as well as the list of rules Minho promised you. Following them meant eventual freedom, you needed to remind yourself. The phone couldn't do much besides call and text both Mommy and Ken...Minho and Han. You tossed it in the drawer and turned back, hoping to get a little rest.

Laying face up in the pink bedside table, the phone was brought to life.

Incoming message from

<click to decode message>.

#{dollhouse au 🏩}#stray kids #skz #stray kids smut #skz smut #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #lee know #han jisung #minsung

189 notes · View notes

that-bi-fan · 11 months

Text

a poem that came to me in a dream

roses are red I miss tally hall your mother is a basketball

#b says things #tally hall #your mother is a basketball #joe hawley #odd dreams

301 notes · View notes

architectuul · 1 year

Text

Salaspils: A Soviet Memorial To Nazi Victims In Latvia

Eighteen kilometres out of Riga, a series of stone giants stand frozen in a forest clearing to mark a place that some would rather forget.

The forested approach to the Salaspils Memorial.

The road to the Salaspils Memorial Ensemble stops near the rail tracks, and visitors must walk the final stretch – through forests of pine, and birch that in autumn explodes into canopies of red and gold, the sunlight slicing sideways between trunks that shed their crisp white bark like snakeskin.

The gallery building measuring 100 metres long by 12.5 metres high.

In the clearing beyond stands the Salaspils Memorial Ensemble.

The forest feels alive, almost supernaturally so, making it all the more abrupt to find the path suddenly barred by a looming concrete crossbeam, 100 metres long and more than 12 metres tall. This concrete barrier is a visitor building, an abstract Brutalist gallery that marks the symbolic threshold between life and death. It stands in the place where once there was a guardhouse ringed in barbed wire, the entrance to a former Nazi labour camp that operated for four years here amidst the picturesque Baltic birch. Through the arch, a clearing opens up between the trees; the camp barracks long gone, to be replaced by angular Soviet forms, towering, blocky figures stood as tall as the trees that surround them.

Above the entrance, a Latvian slogan is spelled out on the concrete flank of the gallery “Beyond these gates the land groans”, a line from a poem, written by a former prisoner of this place.

Part of the original wall of Camp Kurtenhof.

SS-Sturmbannführer Rudolf Lange, who was appointed in 1941 a commander of both the Nazi Security Service and the Security Police for occupied Latvia, that same year proposed the creation of a detention facility in the region. It was named Camp Kurtenhof, from the German name for the town of Salaspils, and located for convenience just off the main rail track between Latvia’s two largest cities: Riga and Daugavpils. It was designated a Police Prison and Labour Correctional Camp.

A symbolic tally etched into the gallery building counts time inside the prison.

Work on the camp began in late 1941, and it was built largely by the hands of Jewish prisoners deported from occupied Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. At least a thousand Jews were transported from the Riga Ghetto to join the construction team in January 1942. Offered little in the way of comfort, nutrition or sanitary facilities, they were overworked and many would die to that first harsh Baltic winter.

Symbols of Soviet defiance raised on the grounds of the former camp.

These workers were amongst the only Jews to ever set foot in the Salaspils camp. Unlike the Reich’s concentration camps, which answered to their own central administration in Berlin, the Police Prison Camp at Salaspils was under the direct control of local Security Police Commander Rudolf Lange. Its inmates were political prisoners and Baltic dissidents, expanding in summer 1942 to provide ‘labour correction’ to those caught avoiding work regulations; and from 1943 the camp began taking in Baltic police officers and military personnel convicted in SS courts. The Salaspils camp also operated as an intermediary transit camp for prisoners being transported from Belarus and Russia, to forced labour projects in Germany. A large number of children were imprisoned at the camp too, allegedly in dedicated children’s barracks.

youtube

By the later part of 1942 the camp consisted of 15 barracks that between them housed 1,800 prisoners. By summer 1943, there were 30 barracks. Prisoners here were involved in the digging and processing of peat, and according to survivors’ accounts, regardless of its specific ‘Police Prison’ designation, the organisation of work, and treatment of prisoners at Salaspils, was just as brutal as any of the other Nazi camps in the region.

From left to right: Solidarity, The Oath and Red Front.

The official website for the Salaspils Memorial states that, during its years of operation, roughly 23,000 people were imprisoned at the camp. It reports that from May 1942 until September 1944, up to 500 prisoners died of diseases, as many as 150 from exhaustion or brutal punishment regimes, and a further 30 were shot while attempting to escape. The younger prisoners were particularly susceptible to the diseases (such as measles and typhoid fever) that ran rife through the inmate population. It is believed that half the camp’s children died from illness, and after liberation, a mass grave was discovered containing the corpses of 632 children aged 5-9 years old. The Salaspils website suggests that, including the Jewish forced labourers who died during construction, the final death toll of the Salaspils camp stood at more than 3,000 people.

Left: The Unbroken; right: The Mother.

The Salaspils camp was liberated by the Soviets in September 1944. The fences were brought down, the barracks destroyed, but it wasn’t until two decades later that they constructed a grand memorial complex on the site where the camp once stood. A competition was held to select a design for the Salaspils Memorial Ensemble, as it was known, with the winning entry submitted by a team of seven: the architects Gunārs Asaris (who would also create the Monument to the Sailors and Fishermen Lost at Sea, at Liepāja), Oļģerts Ostenbergs, Ivars Strautmanis and Oļegs Zakamennijs, along with the sculptors Levs Bukovskis, Oļegs Skarainis and Jānis Zariņš. The park opened in 1967, and in 1970 its creators would receive the prestigious Lenin Award for their work – in the same ceremony that saw architect Yevgeny Vuchetich awarded for his famous monument at Volgograd: The Motherland Calls.

The opening ceremony was a grand, flower-laden affair, and the Salaspils Memorial Ensemble would go on to be considered one of the most important Soviet memorial sites in the Baltics.

The sculpture called Humiliated.

Today it is not a particularly easy place to visit, and emerging from the trees into the clearing is a sobering moment. The simplicity of these concrete forms invites imagination. Instead of telling you what happened here, this place tries to make you feel it. I found myself reminded of my visit to Auschwitz – a visit I made on a warm summer’s day, birds singing, woodland flowers in bloom. If anything the setting for Salaspils was even more picturesque than that, and I felt a sense of emotional whiplash, after a while, constantly trying to square what I knew about this place with the information my senses were providing me.

The ensemble is built around nine concrete titans (in six installations), who tower over the neat lawns and were said to represent the different types of prisoner kept in the camp. ‘The Unbroken’ lies on his belly, pushing himself up with his last strength. ‘The Mother’ has a look of defiance, standing square to shield the infants that cower by her side. ‘The Humiliated’ kneels, her face partially hidden by an arm raised in a defensive gesture. In the very centre of the lawn, three forms are arranged side-by-side: ‘Solidarity’ shows one prisoner helping another to stand; ‘The Oath’ is a man stood tall stretching his arms into the air; while ‘Red Front’ likely represents a fighter from the paramilitary wing of the German Communist Party – the ‘Rotfrontkämpferbund’ – a group who used the same single-handed fist salute depicted here.

A memorial block where the camp’s gallows once stood.

The Salaspils Memorial features hardly a written word of information but that does not make it a quick place to visit. The monuments that decorate the lawn demand consideration. A single notable script appears on a stone block placed off to the right, between the central figures and the entry gate, marking the location of the former camp gallows. Its inscription in Russian and Latvian reads: “Here humans were executed for being innocent… Here humans were executed for every one of them being a human and loving the Motherland.”

Fragments of the original barrack walls.

At the opposite side of the Road of Death – as the designers named the walking path that circles their concrete giants – a black granite pedestal is designated as the place for laying flowers and memorial wreaths. From somewhere out of sight comes the ticking of a metronome. Intended to suggest life, and the eternal passage of time, the sound is rather like a heartbeat, and lends an uncanny atmosphere to my time amongst the statues.

The old camp buildings may be gone, but here and there, fragments of the outermost walls remain. Some are bare, but others are piled with tributes: plastic angels, Orthodox icons, a selection of sad-looking children’s toys. It feels like an effective memorialisation technique – bulldozing the camp, symbolically destroying its physical legacy, while leaving just enough of its form behind to suggest a historical record of its size and inner geography. Just a year before the Salaspils Memorial opened, the Yugoslav architect Bogdan Bogdanović had accomplished something similar at his Jasenovac Memorial Site, in what is now Croatia: the buildings of the old concentration camp were destroyed, but there, the ground was landscaped into mounds and craters that recorded the location and function of the various different buildings.

Text across the wall of the gallery “Beyond these gates the land groans.”

The only building at Salaspils now is the gallery – entered by an inclined walkway that passes through the length of the imposing concrete arch above the entrance. The space inside is oppressive and claustrophobic, presumably by design. This effect of sensory deprivation allows the visitor time to meditate, perhaps, and process the meaning of the monumental forms outside. When natural light does break through the side walls, it spills in at viewing slots reminiscent of wartime pillboxes. I peer outside, for a panoramic view of the figures on the lawn.

All the while, the sounds of the forest seem amplified as they reverberate though this enclosed space. There is birdsong, the noise of distant dogs barking, and somewhere nearby, where the original tracks cut lines through the trees, the shunting and hissing of cargo trains.

The walkway through the Brutalist gallery building.

The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble, seen from the gallery.

There is something inherently totalitarian about the form of remembrance prescribed by the Salaspils park. The sheer concrete, the lack of information. These twisted human figures tell visitors how they should feel, but the park never provided the tools for a two-way conversation. At Auschwitz visitors are shown piles of shoes, and suitcases, visual triggers designed to encourage an engagement with the numbers. At the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv, Ukraine, a similar effect was achieved with grains of corn – arranged in a heaped display where one grain stands for one Ukrainian life lost. Salaspils, in contrast, simply says: these people were punished for loving the Motherland.

Commenting on the Soviet Union’s choice to memorialise Salaspils, Peter Hohenhaus notes how “other, even worse sites of the Holocaust such as Biķernieki received no commemoration at all.” It is perhaps no coincidence though, that the Soviets chose to create such a prestigious memorial over the remains of a camp which had less relation than most to the Jewish Holocaust. (Aside from the construction team, it is reported there were only 12 Jewish prisoners at Salaspils).

Following the war, the Soviet Union severely downplayed the significance of the Holocaust, to present the Soviet citizen, instead, as the chief target of Nazi aggression. Any specific commemoration of the Jewish tragedy was at least discouraged. For example there was a Holocaust memorial built in Minsk, Belarus, named ‘the Pit’; an obelisk on the site where 5,000 prisoners from the nearby Minsk Ghetto were executed by fascists in 1942. Its creators, the stonemason Morduch Sprishen and the poet Haim Maltinsky (who wrote the Yiddish inscription), were both later convicted on charges of Jewish nationalism, and after that, the authorities treated all visitors to the Pit memorial with suspicion. At Babyn Yar meanwhile, a ravine in Kyiv were tens of thousands of Jews were massacred, the victims of the Holocaust are still yet to be recognised with a proper memorial.

The USSR’s post-WWII efforts to ideologically bond its member republics through a shared sense of victimhood, and victory, was felt not least strongly in places like the Baltics – countries who were new Soviet subjects, and uneasy subjects at best. What better place then, for a grand Soviet memorial park, than Salaspils: a police camp that had chiefly housed antifascist Baltic dissidents, and Soviet citizens from Russia and Belarus. It was a place where Latvians and Russians had suffered together, side by side, and of all the dark places left to this region in the wake of Nazi occupation, this was the one whose memorialisation best supported the post-war political narratives of the Soviet Union.

The Salaspils Memorial is recognised as part of the Latvian Culture Canon and in 2017, it was declared a monument of national significance. Despite this recognition however, it doesn’t feel like a place that is cherished, so much as observed. Visitors often report having trouble locating the place, and it hardly seems to be promoted as a tourist destination of note. When compared to videos showing the park’s opening ceremony (crowds of people, neatly trimmed lawns, and the forest pruned back around them), Salaspils today appears somewhat lonely and dishevelled.

Contemporary additions and modifications to the park have seemingly challenged the innate Sovietness of the place. A cemetery for German POWs was added in 2008, adjacent to the main memorial grounds. More recent is the installation of the Salaspils Memorial Exposition. Housed inside the Brutalist gallery building, the collection has been open to visitors since February 2018, and features information and video clips available in Latvian, German, English and Russian.

Tributes left by visitors to the Salaspils Memorial.

Elsewhere around the park, and dotted along the ‘Road of Death,’ new information panels have been installed to give context to the park’s otherwise sparse concrete symbolism. The memorial architecture of the park tells the story of Soviet people who fell victim to the Nazis. It is somewhat jarring then, to read contemporary panels that describe both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as “occupying regimes.” This is, of course, how the Latvians officially remember that portion of their history: as a violent occupation by a foreign power that would maintain a political and cultural stranglehold over Latvia for the next 45 years. If it seems strange to foreign visitors that a site as significant as this – and so close to the capital – should feel quiet, hidden away, and poorly advertised, then perhaps this is why: from a Latvian perspective, the Salaspils Memorial might very well feel like a monument built by one trespasser to present themselves as the chief victim of the previous one.

The main gallery space inside the visitors’ building. Below: the staircase inside the inclined viewing gallery.

According to the website, the new exhibition “provides visitors with information based on historical facts and the conclusions of the latest scientific studies,” in an effort to “dispel misconceptions about the Camp and the Memorial.”

Those “misconceptions” presumably include certain claims made in the Russian-language media. Many on that side of the border still believe the former Soviet account, which once stated that over 100,000 people had died at Salaspils (compared to the 3,000 cited today by the Latvians). There were stories, too, that the Nazis drained blood from children here to use in transfusions for German soldiers – though these seem to have since been largely debunked. Nevertheless, news outlets like RuBaltic.ru and Ukraina.ru accuse the park’s Latvian management of downplaying the numbers, rewriting history, and more generally of presenting the Nazi presence in Latvia as having been less harmful than that of the Soviets who liberated this camp. They refer to a new information panel at the Salaspils Memorial, which shows respective death tolls for the periods of Nazi and Soviet occupation; the Soviet number being the larger of the two.

While obviously Latvia can and should be having these conversations, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t slightly antagonistic (at least, to the ethnic Russians who make up a quarter of Latvia’s population), to have them here; to stand on the symbolic graves of dead Soviets while comparing them to the Nazis.

‘The Humiliated’ is partially hidden now, behind a tree not part of the original design for the memorial.

Memorials should serve a simple task, in theory: they remind us of things that we must not forget. They preserve important stories for those who were not there, and in societal terms, they serve to reclaim – to re-consecrate – ground once bloodied by violence. Danger zones become places of (re)education. But the invisible memory wars that continue to be waged across this quiet lawn in Latvia are anything but simple, and they hint at some of the greater cultural conflicts at large today in the post-Soviet Baltic states.

The last thing I saw before I left was another new, post-Soviet addition to the park. In 2004, a former prisoner at Salaspils named Larry Pik funded the creation of a new monument to the Jewish victims of the camp – the prisoners who built it. Accompanied by the Star of David, an inscription in Hebrew, German and Latvian reads: “To honour the dead and as a warning to the living. In memory of the Jews deported from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, who from December 1941 to June 1942 died from hunger, cold and inhumanity and have found eternal rest in the Salaspils forest.”

Flowers left in memory of the camp’s victims.

The cover of a 1969 commemorative book about Salaspils.

Left: a newspaper announces the Lenin Award given to the Salaspils design team. Right: ‘The Mother’ under construction.

‘The Unbroken,’ under construction, and then completed.

The gate to the Salaspils Memorial (late 1960s).

Visitors queue to enter (late 1960s).

The memorial plaza at Salaspils (1968).

Left: Salaspils in 1975. Right: Cover of the 1985 Salaspils brochure.

The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble in 1970.

–

by Darmon Richter

[adapted with permission from an article at Ex Utopia]

#monuments #ex utopia

244 notes · View notes

mantrabay · 8 days

Text

Upbeat Day Ahead Part Two

Extra stanza at the end plus new photographs

I hail each red, brionze,and blue coloured dawn

as pulsing heart mould torch flame of bliss,

to gaze across some awestruck mint sprig lawn,

that golden birthright never goes amiss

Eye beam urban verve one duly savours,

coruscating joie de vivre street life,

bursts of swift dash coffee’s hazel flavours,

cell-phone upbeat day ahead hubbub rife

Blue robin high pitch chirp from chimney top,

sets the tone for morning wonders brightly,

activate those spark prompt hunches nonstop,

schedules met in narrow windows tightly

In suburb or in city centre fair,

skies and pavements segue with deft flourish,

your dreamland ticket ace broad daylight flair,

groundbreaking spurt fantastic, let us nourish

Dynamic itch to stray amid blind alley,

lurk within some parboiled notion latent,

steel clad zone that mosaic sculpted tally,

animated focus me the claimant

Laughter rippling over noonday stream glow

sidewalk crayon etcher on whirled noodle

April footsteps morph timpani sunbow

gleeful busker catalytic bugle

Photographs and quatrain poem all my own work

Dedicated to amazing sister Jay A Pallen

Heartfelt thanks to everyone on tumbrl

#made with tumblr #original photography #poetry

21 notes · View notes

persephoneshellhounds · 1 year

Text

"Every morning I wake up and I think that I never want to be far from you. And under your influence, since you’re so goo with words, I’ve composed a poem. It’s entitled…‘Oh, Sick and Miserable Heart, Be Still’.”

— Tallie to Abigail, The World to Come (2020) // Dir. Mona Fastvold

#the world to come #mona fastvold #sapphic films #sapphics #wlw #women loving women #wlw film #sapphic longing #poetry #poets

335 notes · View notes

enigmasandepiphanies · 1 year

Text

I hope 2023 is about the kitchen because the kitchen is a laboratory for generating new means to say I love you. I hope 2023 is about car rides where the moon decides to hum along your loud karaoke sessions. I hope 2023 is about peeling oranges and feeding people. I hope 2023 is about pages flipping as stories grip your heart into overdrive. I hope 2023 is about finding belonging in stomach aching laughters and mascara stained pillows. I hope 2023 is about shared sense of humanity in music. I hope 2023 is about art and its sustenance more than it's luxury. I hope 2023 is about warm hugs, entwined pinkies, acknowledging nods and 'oh I see you' smiles. I hope 2023 is about finding faith in colors. I hope 2023 is about satisfying cravings and meeting angels in the neon lights of the microwave. I hope 2023 is about tracing the cartography of joy with the compass of warmth. I hope 2023 is about finding a shelf, perhaps a poem sliced in half, to place your sadness and grief. I hope 2023 is about sunset walks and sunrise cups. I hope 2023 is about dry cleaning blankets of nostalgia. I hope 2023 is gentle, allowing you to gently fold scarfs of grief, hurt, death and despair. I hope 2023 is about crossing the tally mark tattoos of your ambitions. I hope 2023 is about finding comfort in your dreamscapes and daydreams. I hope 2023 is about self hugs and being kind to your heart and body. I hope 2023 is about realizations and making amends with restlessness. I hope 2023 is about soup and sleep. I hope 2023 is about remedies of home, healing your hauntings and hurtings. I hope 2023 is about people putting their heads on your shoulders. I hope 2023 is about you putting your head on people's shoulders. I hope 2023 is about finding home in beating hearts, overworn pajamas and bonfires in wilderness. And I hope 2023 is about continuing to nurture that home. But most of all I hope 2023 is about hands — hands dancing, hands waving, hands folding, hands wiping, hands playing, hands moulding, hands scribbling, hands playing music, hands clenching, hands picking up, hands eating, hands patting, hands yearning, hands loving, hands holding, hands suffering with hope.

~ enigma

#eni tag #2023 #happy new year #new year #spilled ink #poetry #spilled poetry #romanticism #romantic academia #literature #words #hope #yearning #hands #cottagecore #lovecore #home #love #txt

198 notes · View notes

1moreff-creator · 8 months

Text

Is anyone still trying to figure out the final code on the MV? The one with (the world of abnormal sentiment dances)? No judgement, I have no idea what's going on with it either, but I'm surprised there's so little discussion of it. I’m making this post to share some observations, and some of the things I’ve tried as I go insane over this MV. Warning, don’t expect anything too revolutionary.

+First, the code doesn't have a direct parallel in the original LGI MV, so no clues there.

+But I did find something possibly peculiar. You know the "find the 'n'" bit that shows up right after it? Well, it's lifted straight from the original LGI video, but the symbol you're supposed to find there is somewhere else.

That's the equivalent from the og LGI.

And there's the n. It's in a completely different spot, which makes me wonder if it's somehow related to the code. The n does pretty much coincide with a number of the images. Here's a transcription of the numbers, with the numbers related to the n in blue (you should still check I didn't fuck anything up though). Italics and bold means I'm not completely sure about the number.

1 4 6 3 1 4 8 4 2 6 8

1 7 3 7 4 1 0 2 0 1 4

3 0 3 6 4 5 1 1 7 5 9

2 3 3 6 8 6 3 6 2 7 8

9 3 0 4 0 4 9 2 3 7 4

3 0 8 2 4 3 6 7 7 2 0

6 9 7 0 5 2 1 7 3 2 6

4 3 6 0 7 8 8 6 5 0 3

7 1 8 8 1 1 5 2 5 7 9

8 7 6 4 3 2 1 6 8 6 4

9 5 6 2 8 0 7 1 3 5 3

0 8 5 9 5 6 3 3 0 7 1

7 5 8 1 4 9 8 3 7 5 2

9 1 4 4 4 1 0 0 5 2 6

Does it mean anything? Hell if I know! I have no idea how any of this works!

+Perhaps a more out there possibility is the changed alphabet. I've mentioned it before, but there's a point in the David MV where a modified alphabet shows up.

In case you can't tell, not only are letters listed in both capital and non-capital form, the alphabet ends W-U-X instead of W-X-Y-Z. This changed alphabet is not in the original LGI.

This is the equivalent scene. You can see it's perfectly fine, and as far as I can tell (aka: zero Japanese, just the translation and vibes) the letters aren't listed twice. And this is the video the David MV is based on, there are a lot of similarities.

This would imply, in my mind at least, that the alphabet was changed for a reason. I've seen it interpreted as another sign David doesn't see himself as human, as he doesn't even use the same alphabet, but it feels like a weird way to go about showing that to me.

So, uh, if you're trying something, and some words don't look right, maybe this can help?

+I have no idea what footnote 14 is supposed to be. "Hint: word length of 256". I've seen it suggested that it relates back to Hamlet's "To be or not to be" thing, but... while I think I did see one source with 256 words once, the word count is highly inconsistent throughout the internet, and almost none of them have it as 256 words. I checked with wordcounter.net.

-Wikipedia: 275 words.

-Poetry Foundation: 259 words.

-Poets.org: 276 words.

-Nosweatshakespeare: 275 words.

-Representative Poetry Online: 265 words

-Shakespeare Resource Center: 261 words.

-Litcharts: 273 words.

See the issue here? And now I don't have any idea what footnote 14 is. Here's some other things that it isn't.

+Literature Girl Insane: >256 words.

+Colored lyrics in the MV: ~190 words

+Lemon: Way more than 256 words

+The part of lemon in the MV: 113 words.

+The defense of Socrates: Way more than 256 words.

+The defense of Socrates, but only the part in the MV, and extended to the next end of sentence: I want to cry. 257 words. 257. One off. Why? Why are you like this? Please, someone check the fucking text and tell me I accidentally pasted in a word I shouldn't have. PLEASE-

+That part of the Little Prince in that one part before the tally 5 code: 198 words.

+Undefeated by the Rain poem: 139 words (in English Wikipedia, or 180, in the English translation found in Spanish Wikipedia, because my life can't just be easy so apparently the English version of the poem is different in different languages of Wikipedia what-)

+Just the correct/incorrect code: The most is 247 characters, if you include "correct13" and "incorrect".

+Yamanashi, the story "kapukapu" comes from: Thousands of words.

I didn't check anything else, but I can't for the life of me find what this is referring to. And it feels important, seeing as it's on the goddamn equal sign. Maybe it’s one of those excerpts from that part of the MV right before the “correct/incorrect” code? I don’t know.

If it helps, I’m pretty sure the code’s going to translate to something related to Xander, seeing as his numeral flashes on screen right before that. And because of that, it’s possible this 256 word thing refers to some kind of revolutionary speech or text or something the like.

How would the footnote matter? Well, you know the ampersand symbol (&) that shows up between the numbers?

Maybe, if we put the numbers on both rows together:

14 43 66 30 17 48 88 46 25 60 83

17 71 38 78 41 11 05 22 05 17 49

38 07 36 64 43 52 11 16 78 56 94

29 35 36 62 88 60 37 61 23 75 83

90 38 05 49 05 46 93 23 30 77 41

37 05 88 21 44 39 68 73 77 25 02

69 91 74 04 54 21 10 70 35 22 66

Then reference whatever text is 256 words long, we can assign each number a word. Possibly, we would only start where the n appears, just to give that some meaning.

Like, here's what you get if you do that with the Wikipedia version of "To be or not to be", starting with the 05 the n represents (starting from the beginning gives you a completely nonsensical message, I didn't even go all the way).

to - sleep - to - and - dream - of - against - to - die - opposing - to - that - and - no - them - consummation - to - to - fortune - be - devoutly - death - die - not - the - and - question - to - and - arrows - ‘tis

Like, that almost sounds like it works, but obviously we would need to find the actual text of 256 words, which isn’t the Wikipedia version of the Hamlet speech. I also tried with the Socrates text, but I don't think it works (from the n you get, like, "O - but - O - word - ashamed", and that's going to be in there even if you start from the beginning).

I also tried some kind of alphabet cypher thing, both with the regular alphabet and with the modified alphabet, and while I would like second opinions on account of my skill issues, I didn’t get anything.

If that’s not what the ampersand is for, here's what you get if you add the numbers together instead of just putting them next to each other:

5 7 12 3 8 12 16 10 7 6 11

8 8 11 15 5 2 5 4 5 8 13

11 7 9 10 7 7 2 7 15 11 13

11 8 9 8 16 6 10 7 5 12 11

9 11 5 13 5 10 12 5 3 14 5

10 5 16 3 8 12 14 10 14 7 2

15 10 11 4 9 3 1 7 8 4 12

It looks like it could be translated to hex almost perfectly, with the 16s possibly just translated to 10s, but I don't know what to do with it. I tried converting to hex and just putting it in as a Tumblr image URL, but nothing. Though there’s a chance I just didn’t do it right, I guess. I even took the first part up to the "n" and put it in th goddamn tally 5 page just in case it did something, but no. I tried the "word association" thing with the Hamlet thing as well, but nothing. Also tried alphabet cypher, even with the modified alphabet, and nothing. But again, any cypher cracking I tried to do should be taken with a grain of salt, since I’m a bit of an idiot at it.

One thing I didn’t do, simply because I don’t know how to, is try to use column cyphers. You can look them up and try them yourself, but I sorta doubt that’s the answer.

Finally, it’s a possibility “world length of 256” is actually some kind of cypher key. Like, not whatever it’s referencing, just “word length of 256” as a key. I severely doubt it, but if anyone wants to try it, be my guest.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I kinda just wanted to tell someone, I guess. I’m going insane over most of the MV anyways, might as well share a bit of the madness. Also because of the content drought caused by me working on the MV video which is coming I promise but it’s going to take a while-

Anyways, thanks for reading my inane ramblings for so long! Take care!

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt mv #can you even call this a theory?#it’s just a series of failures #like my life #/j

56 notes · View notes