#this got really long sorry lmao

[cookinguptales]

Okay so now that I've had some time to digest and think about Late Night with the Devil, some thoughts.

Sorry in advance, this got really, REALLY long as I rambled about all-male secret societies, who and what was possessing whom throughout this movie, literal and metaphorical hauntings, how fame and fortune tempt us all to give up our humanity, and uh. Family youtubers.

I really enjoyed the film, but I do have to wonder, to start with, if other people will get all the allusions...? I didn't think about it until later when I was reading confused posts by other viewers, but I guess the film does kind of predicate on a lot of somewhat arcane knowledge. Like you can understand what's going on without it, but I do think you get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you have a good working understanding of, like, the Satanic Panic of the 70s, the parapsychology/esper craze, James Randi's whole thing, Anton LaVey, Waco, late night hosts like Johnny Carson, and of course the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is kind of... like, obviously a lot of the people making up conspiracy theories about that recently are alt-right assholes (see: Alex Jones), but it is very much a real thing. It's kind of a modern Masonic situation, imo, where you get these big groups of rich, influential men together and they do silly, juvenile vaguely pagan frat boy shit. It's edgelord stuff. But because they are secretive and they are powerful, people come up with all of these conspiracy theories about them.

(I mean lbr that's kind of the history of the occult in general, isn't it? lmao. People ask me if I was afraid when I was studying secret societies and occultism and it's like -- no, these were by and large just rich assholes fighting over headcanons about rituals that they made up based off of deeply faulty scholarship. But I digress.)

The fact of the matter, though, is even if the actual rituals and stuff are kind of silly, the main focus is really rich, powerful men meeting up with other rich, powerful men and networking like crazy. It does keep the rich rich, the powerful powerful, and political resources focused on men. Like the Masons, women aren't allowed in the Bohemian Grove -- and women in politics have bitterly criticized the way that they're being excluded from this kind of networking.

(God, it's so fratty. It's so fucking fratty.)

So in that respect, it is kind of something to be feared.

And... I do think you see that aspect of it reflected in Late Night with the Devil. The consolidation of power, the networking with shitty people, and the way that women are "sacrificed."

[massive spoilers for the entire film to follow!]

I do think I want to see this movie again to firm up some of my ideas, because I suspect that there are a lot of details that I missed the first time I watched this. (And I really should have watched the open captioned version of this; I couldn't understand a lot of what the demon was saying, rip.) But here are some initial thoughts.

The heart of this, obviously, is the demonic presence at the Grove and the way that men go there to sell their soul for power. In a very literal sense, that's what's happening in this film and it's what happened to Jack Delroy. He made a deal with a demon for fame, and that demon ended up taking everything from him to achieve that.

But... metaphorically speaking, it seems clear that Jack Delroy was very willing to make human sacrifices in his day-to-day life. He may have literally (and I think accidentally) sacrificed his wife's life to a demon at the Grove, but he very consciously and willingly sacrificed her for fame when she was alive, too. I mean... imagine having a spouse who is actively dying of cancer and making her make an appearance on your show two weeks before she passes. For ratings. Imagine how much it must have physically taxed her. Imagine how difficult it must have been for them both emotionally. It even could have hastened her death. But he was still willing to do all that for views. He sacrificed his wife, his home life, and his overall privacy for views.

(Family youtubers, anyone? 🙃)

He's also willing to sacrifice his girlfriend, his crew, his audience, and a little girl for ratings. Gus, his voice of reason. He was willing to humiliate him onstage and wouldn't let him go home when he was scared. His audience, whose trauma he was entirely willing to capitalize on through Christou's act. His gf, who I'd argue was probably using Lilly as well, was totally thrown to the wolves when he realized it'd make good television.

Like -- yes, there were supernatural forces at play. Supernatural forces claimed these lives. But Jack sure as shit wasn't being very careful with them, and these supernatural sacrifices always, always mirrored his mundane ones.

(I mean... he performed a human sacrifice of a little girl on national television while in a hallucination about using the sacrificial dagger on his dying wife. It wasn't subtle. lmao)

Moreover, the producers of the show were also very willing to put people in harm's way and capitalize on tragedy for ratings. So... there's a really unsubtle message here about fame and capitalism and the way it tempts you to sacrifice your humanity to get ahead.

(MAYBE LIKE UNDERMINING YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY BY USING AI INSTEAD OF HIRING ARTISTS, IDK)

I'd in fact argue that pretty much everyone who got on that stage that night sacrificed their humanity a bit for fame, with the possible exception of Gus. Gus was the voice of reason, but I mean... he was still there. Maybe a message about how once you get in, you can't get out. :(

But yeah, Jack's obvious, but also Christou, who was willing to use people's trauma for fame. June, who was willing to use a little girl's incredible trauma to advertise for her new book. Carmichael, who got off on humiliating people just to make himself seem smart.

Like... they all started with a kernel of something good (wanting to help the grieving, wanting to help traumatized children, wanting to stop charlatans) but in the end, show biz turned all those urges into the most amoral, selfish, and cruel versions of themselves.

And all of those people crumbled when they were confronted with something real.

(Side note, our theater was in hysterics when Carmichael tried to offer the demon the check. lmao)

Truthfully, it felt like all of them had made their own individual deals with the devil years ago. Halloween 1977 was just the devil finally coming to take his due.

That's the main message of the movie, I think, but there are still some smaller details I want to talk about.

The Grove itself was an obvious allusion to the Bohemian Grove, which is a secret society of powerful men who meet amongst the redwoods in Northern California. Their mascot has always been an owl, which is why you repeatedly see the owl motif throughout the movie. (Happy Owl-ween, the owl mask, etc.)

Abrasax makes sense as a demon to choose (the strong historical associations with magic and demonology, the reoccurrences in many world religions (and occult groups), the role in Gnosticism, etc.) but there seem to be vibes of Stolas, an owl deity who communicates arcane knowledge to humans in exchange for their souls, as well. I noticed a lot of little allusions to Abrasax throughout the film even before Lilly started manifesting, like the movie being shown after the show being about Abrasax.

Lilly... She was rescued from a cult that seems to be a hybrid of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and the Branch Davidians who died during a siege by the US government in Waco, TX. (Like the cultists in the movie, their compound caught fire when they were being raided. IRL, it's unclear whether the fire was started as a suicide cult situation or if it was started by the actions of the government as they tried to flush people out.) In this cult, girls were sacrificed at age 13, and all who witnessed that sacrifice would fall under the control of Abrasax.

So... she was rescued at age 10. Three years have passed. So she is now 13, the age at which these girls were sacrificed. She was due, in other words. Who and what was possessing her... that's the question, I guess. Demons, historically speaking, were known to speak foreign languages, speak in the voice of other humans, have psychic knowledge their hosts shouldn't know, etc. So she did exhibit symptoms like that.

I think... there are a couple of options here. There's Abrasax specifically, there's June's theory that she was possessed by a minor demon, and there's Minnie. Or a combination of the three.

It's pretty clear that Minnie's presence is felt throughout the whole taping. You can see her reflection various times throughout the movie, she manifested through Christou, and obviously you see her in the tape playback.

(And when I say my theater YELLED. lmao)

The question is, though... Is it really Minnie? And if it is, what does she want? Has she been haunting Jack all along? Is she there because, as it's the first Halloween after her death, it's her last chance to deal with her unfinished business? Did the demon allow her to manifest? Or was the whole thing an illusion created by the demon all along?

(I'd like to note here that, historically speaking, there was a theory that ghosts aren't actually real. They're actually demons masquerading as the spirits of departed loved ones, and they want you to summon them and listen to them so they can tempt you away from God. You can read this in the writings of a lot of the ancient Christian theologians. Or you could have talked to my grandmother, who also told me this when I was a kid! :') But she's dead now so I guess you'd have to do a summoning and find out for yourself.)

All that said... I come down between two current theories. I'd have to watch it again to firm up my ideas.

The first theory is that she's been trapped on earth for the past year, but because it's Halloween, she can haunt them. They mention at the beginning of the film that Halloween is a recent spirit's last chance to take care of unfinished business. So this could have been the case with Minnie. That said... what exactly was her unfinished business? Was she trying to protect Jack and the others? Or hurt them? Was she angry, or was she just, as Christou said, sad? Was her "an unmarried man wearing a wedding ring" referring to the way that Jack was grieving her and still wearing his ring, or the way that he wasn't much of a husband to her when she was alive?

The second theory is that, when she was sacrificed to Abrasax, she became a part of that legion. She was, like Lilly and the other little girls, essentially raised to be sacrificed, and once she was, she joined everyone else who is under the control of the deity. It's still hard to sense whether she was trying to help or hurt throughout the broadcast, but it explains her presence (she came with Lilly, not Jack) and how she was used during Jack's hallucinations to ultimately get him to perform the sacrifice on Lilly, thus bringing all audience members (both in the studio and at home) under Abrasax's control.

Either way, Minnie, in this film, is literal ghost haunting the stage -- but also a metaphorical one. The ghost of all of Jack's past misdeeds and the humanity he's sacrificed to get ahead. She's guilt and she's shame and she's desperate grief, and I guess it's no wonder that the negativity surrounding her was enough to kill Christou when he touched it.

I do think it's fascinating that all of the women in this movie are, in a very real and physical sense, sacrificed for the aspirations of men. (The little girls are sacrificed, Minnie died of a mysterious cancer, June dies because Jack pushed for her to stay, etc.) But metaphorically speaking that seems to be the case as well. They're constantly expected to put their own comfort and safety aside for the men in their lives, and their own aspirations are consumed by the men's.

Like I said, it feels very telling that women aren't allowed at the Grove. Women are constantly being denied power in this movie (or are only allowed power when it's in service to a male costar/deity) and it's largely because they just don't have the connections that the men do. The deals were made while they weren't in the room, essentially.

I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice being made, but it does seem to dovetail nicely with the strong, strong sexism and male privilege present in real-life secret societies of powerful men that disallow women. Like June only getting to shill for her book because Jack let her, women are only allowed at the real-life Bohemian Grove in very limited areas -- and only as a male member's guest.

Um... back to Lilly, though. What the hell is possessing her? She speaks as Minnie a few times, but that could be because Minnie is a part of their legion or just because she's trying to freak out Jack. Demons are known to lie using the voices of loved ones. Minnie's presence could have been influencing her, but I definitely don't think that's all that was in there.

The question, really, seems to arise from what June said about Lilly changing like a week ago and how she started talking about Jack nonstop. At least one presence in Lilly seems to be the same deity that Jack spoke to in the Grove when he was making his deal with the devil (so to speak) because it mentioned that encounter. But is that the only one in there? Is it the same deity that's always been in there? Or did it come to her only a week ago as a way to get to Jack and complete their contract? ("It is done.")

Lilly refers to her demon as Mr. Wriggles (which feels like an Exorcist allusion) and it seems like she has a pretty good lid on it. And when that demon is brought out of her by June, it seems confused and frightened. But Lilly is pretty clearly possessed the entire rest of the broadcast, so really the two options are that she was faking the entire time just to fuck with them (entirely possible) or there were two different deities, perhaps the original (lesser) one put in her in the cult and Abrasax(?) newly arrived to claim Jack and his audience.

It's fascinating watching her, because you can see her slip in and out of a possessed state several times when people aren't paying attention to her (jerking, spacing out, etc.) but it's hard to tell whether that's different presences coming in and out of control, her "talking" to what's inside her, etc. Again, this is a thing I think would benefit from multiple viewings. I'm really not sure if the Grove creature is new to her body or if it's been there all along biding its time, and it's only changing its behavior now because it wanted to be on tv.

While her recently changed behavior seems to lean towards the former, I am sort of stuck on the detail that Jack said early on, that he read June's book and couldn't stop thinking about it. That could just be normal fascination (and he did end up having an affair with her) but it could also be demonic intervention. That would indicate that the demon was manipulating him into putting Lilly on TV long before a week ago.

What is not really up for debate is that the presence inside Lilly now is one that has connections to Jack through the Grove and promised him fame. Lilly (before she was visibly possessed) alludes to this promise by telling Jack that he'll be very famous after tonight. And once the ritual starts, she is seen taking electrical energy from the set and cameras. She is literally getting her power from the audience viewing the sacrifice. (It's very Ringu.) And after Jack stabs Lilly, the studio audience, audience at home, and presumably real-life audience watching this movie, are all put under Abrasax's control.

("Hail Abrasax" is seen multiple times throughout the film, which might also imply that the documentarians themselves are trying to spread this contagion after watching the video.)

Uh... a few more small things.

Carmichael Haig is obviously James Randi. Like Houdini before him, Randi was also a stage magician who dedicated his life to exposing "supernatural" charlatans. He did indeed offer a huge sum of money to whoever could prove him wrong. Carmichael even looked like James Randi. (Though I'd point out that "Haig" is the name of the man who constructed the owl statue at the real-life Bohemian Grove!) I suppose it makes sense that he'd be such an asshole in a world where demonic possession does actually exist.

The one thing I'd say is... it's hard to say whether this was a case of the filmmakers not thinking through implications or if this really was a nasty joke, but Randi was, IRL, gay. He came out late in life and got married to a man shortly before he died. So the implication that Carmichael, in the movie, wanted to join the Grove largely because he was perverted is... iffy. Carmichael was never stated to be gay in the movie (that I noticed) and it's hard to suss out whether the orgies he was talking about were relating to the all-male membership of the Grove (i.e. a gay orgy) or the women that these powerful men had hanging all over them (i.e. a... less gay orgy) and I do think which they were implying has major implications for what they were saying about a man who was, IRL, gay.

Like... if the implication was that he must've been willing to hurt people in order to have wild sex because he's gay, that's uh! Not great! But if the creators didn't realize that aspect of Randi's life (it was less publicized because, as I mentioned, it happened later in his life) then they might have just been pushing on that trope of powerful men using women.

Really, really hard to say.

Next, Christou. Christou... it's hard to say whether the man was psychic at all. It's clear that he was doing a lot of fake-ass cold reading beforehand (though I do want to go back through it and see if there really was any allusion to a Peter- character involving the skeleton) and was using interviews to find grieving audience members. (Two practices that James Randi talked about a lot IRL.) But he also did have a very real experience when he sensed Minnie and, while overwhelmed, didn't seem particularly shocked by it.

If I had to guess, I think that Christou does have some psychic powers (which is why I want to investigate the Peter thing) but can't control them well and is easily overwhelmed by real phenomena. He plays things up for the cameras (I noticed his accent slipped when he had his real experience, lmao) but I wouldn't be surprised if, like everyone else on stage, there's a kernel of something real in him.

Finally... that fucking skeleton! I want to do an entire watch through just to examine that guy. He was in the flashbacks about the Grove, so I think it's likely that he might've been a member of that. He also is the only one who refuses to take off his mask, which seems to relate to the dialogue at the beginning of the film about wearing a mask to protect yourself from spirits during Halloween. I think he's definitely in on what's going on, to some extent, but it's hard to figure out exactly in what capacity. Was it a Grove member, or maybe a cult member? A follower of Abraxas? Was it actually the personification of Death?

Hard! To! Say!

Like I said, I really do want to rewatch this movie to pay more attention to small details I might've missed in the theater. I'm also looking forward to seeing it with subtitles. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was intriguing and original enough that I really enjoyed it and want to watch it again to puzzle through it. Really, the one big mark against it was the brief use of AI, which is just -- god, it's infuriating.

It's such a small part, so it would have been so easy to not do. (Apparently it wasn't even IN the first festival showing.) But it kind of pollutes the whole movie, especially when such a large message is not fucking over real people in the quest for success in the media landscape.

Plus, it just kind of looked like shit.

I know it's probably a lost cause, but I would be thrilled if they hired a real artist and redid those images for the Shudder release. It would be so easy to fix, and it would make the movie a lot better. Those commercial breaks were so funny and if they had better interstitials (that didn't make you feel icky just looking at them) then it would boost an already great film.

I just. I don't even know why they did it in the first place. I'm guessing, based on the fact that they weren't in the original screenings, that they were pressed for time to finish things...? But come on, surely you can find some artist who can do something quick for you. It wasn't even a moving image.

So uh... yeah, I guess that's where I'm at. It was an interesting (if slightly hokey) movie pulling together a lot of threads to make something cool and mysterious, I liked a lot of the acting (particularly Jack Delroy's) and set design, I wanna chat with people about it -- but I can't really in good conscience fully recommend it because of the AI thing. It's just such a disgrace to artistic integrity. Here's hoping they hire a real fucking artist.

#this got really long sorry lmao #really though more than anything this just made me feel like #damn why did I stop coming out to the bourse and east #like yeah they're a little further than the PFS center and the amc but not by much #I felt so nostalgic there #I gotta get back into seeing weird indie movies I miss it #late night with the devil

[rollercoasterwords]

I’m so genuinely intrigued and curious abt that post you made abt reaching out to the authors when you find a paper you want to read bc.. how are you finding these papers in the first place?? Do they show up on your tiktok fyp?? Do you just search up whatever topic you wanna read about on google scholar? I think that that’s really cool that you do that and I also would like to read about research that like actually interests me and not just papers assigned in class but I dunno where I would start looking for them. Sorry this ask is probably so random but do you have any tips?? lmao 😭

WHAT a fun question!!! of course i have tips!!!

first of all....free urself from the tiktok fyp i am begging u <3 like. ok i am sure there are people on there who are sharing academic articles and such but....more often with tiktok at least in my experience u just end up getting stuck in an endless scroll rather than actually following up on any interesting reading/research suggestions. also i think it is just like. a valuable and enriching skill to be able to think of things on ur own that u want to learn about and then go and find resources urself! like. approach tiktok w caution perhaps it could be helpful for some but i worry a bit that we are all becoming a little too reliant on algorithms to feed us Content, y'know?

anyway! as for how i find papers 2 read that interest me! most often it is a matter of finding something that sparks my interest + then going down a rabbit hole. and there are soooooo many ways to do this!! the internet is an amazing resource!!!! here is a list of some ways that i find interesting articles:

tumblr <3 lol i follow various blogs that post interesting stuff abt theory + academia every so often, and if i see a quote that interests me i'll go and try to find the article it came from! (you could also use tiktok this way if you've found some good people to follow! my main hesitation w tiktok is just that. it's an endless scroll + an algorithm which are both 2 things that i find distracting, and why i prefer tumblr)

substack - same kinda deal as tumblr; i subscribe to bloggers who write about topics that interest me and if they cite research in their posts i'll go try to find that research to read it myself

news articles/blog posts/essays that i come across online - again, if there's some interesting research cited, i'll go and try to find it

search by writer - if you keep hearing about an academic or someone suggests "oh read some so-and-so," go and look up so-and-so and see what they've written + what u can find online for free! most really famous/influential academics will have some free pdfs of their more influential work floating around online, and for smaller/niche academics--email them!

along the same lines - if u find an article or essay or speech by an academic and u like it, go find their biography page on the website of whatever school they teach at! schools will usually list professors' work, or at least a few examples, and you can find more stuff to read from that same person whose article you enjoyed. this is especially helpful if ur researching something kinda niche

wikipedia! people shit on wikipedia all the time as if it's not a "real source" but that's simply false! wikipedia is a great jumping-off point if you're interested in a broad topic but don't know where to start. go scroll through the wikipedia article about said topic and see what's cited there to get an idea of where you might be able to find some interesting articles/research to narrow ur focus!

look through the bibliography/citations on other research! if ur reading a book or article on an interesting topic + want to learn more, actually take a minute to scan through the citations and see if any titles catch ur eye!

ask people for recommendations! if u have an old/current professor or a friend or something who u know is interested in the same topic as u, ask if they have any reading recommendations!

if ur a university student--take advantage of that shit!!! look thru the papers on ur syllabus and scan the citations of the most interesting ones for further reading or go look up the writers u like best from the course to find more stuff they've written! look at the class listings for classes u aren't taking and if ur interested, ask those professors if they'd be willing to share their reading lists with you! keep an eye out for free lectures or events on new topics that interest you as a jumping-off point for finding new things to learn about! ask ur friends in other majors what they're learning about and go look it up if it interests you!

go to the library and look through the nonfiction section for topics ur interested in; check out books with cool titles! if they're boring, u can just return them

go to thrift stores or used bookstores and do the same thing! look for nonfiction books with interesting titles! i loooooooooove love love love looking through gender studies sections of bookstores for nonfiction--and then if i find a book i like, guess what that book's gonna cite?? more articles + books!!!!!! there is so much research + knowledge in the world just waiting to be shared!!!!

anyway. these are just some ways that i have found interesting new things to learn about! it sounds like u are currently a student--and like, trust me, i get that when ur constantly being assigned readings for classes it can just become a drag. but college is an AMAZING resource; i still go back and reference old notes from school to find research that i'm interested in, and some of my classes introduced me to articles that i still return to + cite today. research can be so so so fun + rewarding when ur just doing it for the joy of learning; the key really is to treat it like a little spiderweb. maybe most of ur assignments are boring, but this one article for class was really interesting and u actually find urself wanting to learn more--look at the research that article cited! google the names of the writers to see what else they've written! ask ur prof if they have any more suggestions similar to that article! the possibilities are endless!!

+ if ur a student, ur institution probably has access to a whole bunch of research databases where u can find articles + books for free, which is amaaaaaaaazing take advantage of that shit. but i am not currently a student, so my process for finding articles usually goes:

google + see if a free pdf magically pops up (happens more often than you'd think honestly)

failing that -- if it's a book, i check the online collection at my library + also on openlibrary and project gutenberg and zlibrary; for articles i usually check library genesis (sometimes i look for books here too) or sci-hub (usually works best if you search by doi)

failing that -- if it's an article, i go hunt down the email address of whoever wrote it and email them to ask for access! for books, if you really really want to read it you can usually put in a request at your local library for them to get it, but sometimes i do just have to give up if i can't find a book for free online anywhere :(

hopefully some of this was helpful !! and if ur looking for nonfiction book recs i have a post here with some stuff i've read over the past year or two and i also have a post here with like...some suggestions for intro gender studies/queer theory reading (mostly articles)!

#ask #this got really long sorry lmao #i just. love researching! and looking things up! and reading about them! #learning can be sooooooooo fun guys i know school kinda sucks the joy out of it a lot of the time but. it's soooooo fun trust me #and i also personally just. really feel a sense of accomplishment when i'm seeking something out + reading + thinking about it myself #as opposed to just like. only ever letting other people summarize stuff for me #which i think kinda happens if ur only engaging with theory through like....social media + not ever actually reading it urself #summarizing is good and helpful sometimes!! it's just not enough on its own if u wanna learn abt a topic in-depth

[llondonfog]

No pls 😭 i hate the idea that raising Silver was a fun experiment out of curiosity to see if he could love a human or not, and that the answer still isnt clear. I hate the idea of Silver, the son of their enemy, being raised to be nothing but a soldier to serve Malleus in some poetic irony. I feel there’s love there but I’ve almost been transported into Silver’s mind where everything is melancholy and unclear. Does he matter as much as I believe he does 😭😭😭 or is it just a cruel tale of some foundling human always meant to be put somewhere else when the fairies are done with them

The thing is, is Silver capable of accepting the fact that Lilia's happiest moment is Malleus' hatching? Yeah, of course, who wouldn't. The man suffered for years, absolutely driven mad with guilt over Meleanor's death and the fear that he wouldn't be able to keep his promise and hatch the one thing that remained of her, the proof of her existence and love. He had to hatch Malleus, because Meleanor believed that he could, that he somehow carried enough love in those tired, aching, and emptied bones, a love that she saw in him when he couldn't even believe it of himself. If he couldn't, it would be one more insult to her name, a failure yet again, a last betrayal of her trust that he couldn't afford and wouldn't survive.

So that weeping? He's so damn dizzy with relief and love and affection for this silly creature inside that's a symbol of the love of the most important people in his life, how could one react in any other way? How fragile and vulnerable, to know that the happiest moment in Lilia's life is to realize after hundreds of years, he was capable of that love all along.

And Silver sees this— he sees the lengths that Lilia went to in order to hatch Malleus, the horrible abuse he stoically suffered from the Senate, the massive disrespect for all that he had lost and sacrificed. Of course he'd accept that this is Lilia's pivotal moment, the bittersweet reward for centuries of despair.

But on the other hand, Silver; a boy who has lost equally, if not more. He's been cast out of his own time, four hundred years into the future, where everyone and anyone who might have known him or his family (save for Lilia) has been long since dead, the kingdom he might have ruled long crumbled to dust. Is it even a footnote in the history textbook he reads? Is there any mention of the Knight of Dawn, of Princess Leia? Anything at all besides the ring in his hand and Lilia's memories to prove that they existed, that they were real, that they loved and wanted him as much as Meleanor had loved Malleus?

All he has, all he's known, is Lilia. Lilia, who found him, who woke him from the spell as the one fated to truly love him. Lilia who thought of killing him upon learning who had sired him, Lilia who raised him to be a guard, to serve those his father once stood against. Lilia who wondered if he could ever love a human, a question that I agree hasn't fully been answered (or acknowledged by Lilia himself) if we are to associate the fact Silver still bears the effects of the sleeping curse with the belief that either Lilia hasn't called him his son and confessed his love, or if Silver still struggles with self-love himself (and we can get into a whole debate over his self-worth and his view as a sacrificial tool, that's an endless discussion).

Lilia . . . whose happiest moment has nothing to do with the boy who calls himself Lilia's one and only son.

And regardless of how I fully understand why Malleus' hatching is that moment, it's still so fucking sad to me.

Your whole life is centered around this one person whom you love more than anyone else— your short, human life— and in reality, you didn't even feature in that person's dream. We only saw Silver's past due to the blot, memories that were completely out of order and not in sync with Lilia's true dream at all.

And Silver will never harbor resentment over this, he will always place his family and loved ones first, but damn it, I can be a little miserable about it. All that trauma we went through with the last update, and now we learn that finding Silver and learning to love the son of his greatest enemy (the son of the person that killed Meleanor!) wasn't Lilia's happiest moment?

Was it just for the poetic irony? I really hope not. I really hope that TWST gives the conversation that Lilia and Silver need to have the due gravity it deserves, because Lilia needs, whether Silver realizes it or not, to look that boy in the eye and tell him that he loves him, he's always been his son, and no matter what their pasts may show, he's been Silver Vanrouge all along.

#lettie's asks #twisted wonderland #twst spoilers #twisted wonderland silver #twst silver #lilia vanrouge #twst lilia #gingerly places this in the tags #but i finally was able to put my emotions about this update into words #this got really long lmao sorry about that

[yourwagonisaflame]

never watching nightmare time and then watching npmd is so funny like. who are these fucked up wiggly knock offs

#I KNOW WHO THEY ARE I READ THE WIKI #im sorry yall im not watching a bunch of episodes that r an hour long lmao #i think the hatchetfield universe is really interesting my ass just does not have the attention span #maybe someday who knows #ive been down a nightmare time wiki rabbit hole today #what do u mean ted tgwdlm is petes brother and his got put in An Evil Box #and hes also the homeless guy? thats so fucked up i love it #ben talks #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #nightmare time

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

#asks #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #marcille donato #manga panel analysis #this is probably riddled with typos sorry #readmore cut bc it got long lmao #i ended up babbling about it bc it's such an important character detail to me #bc like... wow. she's so normal about it. she's literally just chilling. #the only thing that really bothers her is the material reality of it and how people treat her #the stereotypes the stigma etc. etc. #otherwise it just.. #literally doesn't factor into her criteria for self-worth at all #the basic truth is that marcille likes herself on a fundamental level #she's not plagued by a deep and festering self-loathing the way a lot of characters in her archetype are #she likes herself and is proud of her successes and accomplishments #its just that shes terrified of failure and can have *episodes* of self-loathing when she fucks up #but who doesn't yknow #i know its a very slight nuance that makes very little difference in how her 'overachiever' problems manifest but its there #the sword of abandonment issues that hangs over her head has nothing to do with her self-worth or self-esteem or meeting her own standards #it has to do with the fear of not living up to *other* people's expectations and not being useful enough to be worth keeping around #she's good enough for herself but she's always so so so scared that she's not good enough for other people #i wont say much about what ryoko kui is saying using this as an allegory for real world racial biases but #dungeon meshi's treatment of marcille's relationship with her being half-elf is so incredibly important to me because it gets it so right. #a trauma about inferiority or being a half-being isn't inherent to the experience of being 'of two worlds' at all #that's something that's unfairly drilled into people by their environment #the *inherent* anguish is the loneliness. the constant longing. the fact that you are always homesick no matter where you are #always just a little bit of an outsider and never fully at home #and dungeon meshi gets that. #edit: cleaned it up a little

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

#peeta mellark #thg #the hunger games #the hunger games meta #anyway wow this got so long and I literally read it through one (1) time so uhhh sorry if this makes no sense!! #as I was doing my one read through and realized that one of my other thoughts on this is that yeah I can much more easily see the #headcanon that peeta like sells baked goods (probably at cost with no profit) out of his kitchen because that’s much more flexible #and I think that would work a lot better with what like I guess I’d call his psychiatric disability post mockingjay #and how he’d certainly want to take care of Katniss too #like that sort of flexibility makes a lot more sense for him and it’s like. if he doesn’t bake for a few days or however long then it’s fin #it’s not a formal brick and mortar business #it’s just something he’s doing because it’s a way to be involved with people and a way to do something he’s passionate about #without there being waste and while covering some of the costs #and he doesn’t have to like keep books or do payroll or any of the things I can’t see him being very passionate about #as far as like bakery management goes Lmao he can just bake!! #but then I started getting into this whole thing about how that quote-unquote ‘running a business’ like that (informally from your house) #is actually a really common practice for people living in poverty so probably something that Katniss and peeta would’ve been familiar wirh #anyway and then this whole rant about how the emphasis on the brick and mortar bakery often goes hand in hand with #this widespread fandom thing of having a fundamental misunderstanding of how rural poverty works and what it looks like #but then I was too deep into it and said you know what? never mind! and deleted it lmao

[vynnyal]

This is likely the hardest I've laughed in rain world yet. Basically, you can glitch a spear into a quantum state using a dead bat body, allowing stabbed enemies to follow you through tunnels. So I tried bringing a leviathan to Moon. And the game really, really didn't like that

#rainworld #rain world #game clips #I cut out the moment I died because the footage froze for a solid 20 seconds right at that moment #I was so close!! But I accidentally went back through the tunnel and got crushed. #And for some reason while grinding this out I somehow glitched the game into thinking I died 200 times #So my score is like -130 which is really funny. Like I can casually speedrun hunter with 1 or 2 deaths to this point #Game fr said ''skill issue'' #God no am I gonna try actually speedrunning this game. The actual advanced movement tech is crazy hard #Anyways welcome to my gaming channel please like and subscribe /j #I posted a hk highlight clip but then realized that since I'm shifting fandoms I'm likely spoiling the hell out of my new followers #Sorry if you saw that LMAO #I have another video of torturing moon that I found really funny but it's like 5 minutes long #And no way do y'all have the patience to watch that. Especially without context #So that's a friend-exclusive #Or maybe I'll put it on my literal YouTube channel with like 300 subs for. Some reason #OR THE ART ONE LMAO ''it's been three years check out this completely unrelated video''

[steveshairychest]

tw: mentions of death

Eddie will forever be grateful that he got a second chance but now he's starting to feel the consequences of his immortality.

Steve's old enough to be his dad now. His hair is almost completely grey at 45; he says the stress of babysitting 6 kids really sped up the process. Eddie still thinks he's the most beautiful person alive, he's aging like fine wine right before his eyes and he's so glad that he gets to spend every second of his immortal life with Steve.

He just wished they'd grow old together.

Dustin's kids think it's weird that their dad is friends with someone who's only just 'freshly 21' but Eddie thinks it's weird that they've never questioned why the man they've known since they were infants hasn't aged a day. He's starting to realise that children are very oblivious, especially if you bring gifts everytime you visit.

He still DMs for the party except now their children join in too. They like to remind Eddie that his rules are very outdated. He gets a disappointed frown from one of his friends when he kills their kid's character just because they annoyed him.

He thought explaining his eternal youth to his friend's kids was going to be the hardest part but he was wrong.

The hardest part was watching all his friends die.

It never got easier. He held their hands, whispered words of comfort as he listened to their hearts slowly stop. He cursed his abilities in these moments; wished he couldn't smell the illness in their blood and hear their hearts get weaker and weaker as they grew older.

Steve went sooner than he expected.

It came on so suddenly, he had no time to prepare himself, no time to figure out a way to go with him.

"See the world for me." Steve whispers to him. He's smiling, he's fucking dying and he has the audacity to smile at Eddie.

"I don't want to live in a world without you." Eddie's voice cracks and he scoots his chair closer so that he can gently rest his head on Steve's stomach. Steve weakly plays with his hair, that stupid smile still on his face.

"Always so dramatic." Steve traces Eddie's face, runs his fingers over his eyes, his nose, his lips, the scar on the side of his face from the bats; something that feels like a lifetime ago. "I love you, Eds, I won't be mad if you find someone else. Just make sure you visit and tell me about them." Eddie's sobbing now, his body shaking as he cries and grips Steve's hand tighter. He can hear it. He can fucking hear his heart slow. It's a sound he'll never be able to forget.

"My heart belongs to you... in this life.. and the next." And then he's gone.

Eddie's ears ring and he knows he's causing a scene, knows that screaming Steve's name won't magically drag him back from whatever place he's gone to, but he can't stop. He has to be forcefully dragged out of the room which is a struggle because Eddie is stronger than the average human.

He hates the silence, hates that he'll never hear the calming, steady beat of his lovers heart. He doesn't sleep for weeks, it feels wrong to sleep in their bed without Steve. He doesn't eat, can't even bring himself to open the fridge and drink the last bit of blood Steve had put aside for him.

It gets to a point where Dustin's oldest kid, Julie, comes to visit and finds him curled up on the floor, hunger so bad he's unable to move, to speak.

"Steve wouldn't want this." She chides and force feeds him the blood from the fridge. He doesn't know when Dustin told her about him, doesn't really care at that point. All he can do is sob weakly as Steve's blood fills his mouth and brings him back from the edge. "Come on. We're going to visit dad."

Dustin's in a retirement home now.

He'd gone downhill after his wife died and the kids had their own lives, they didn't have time to look after him 24/7. Eddie would have taken him in if he'd known, but he's been in a state of limbo for 2 months now. He'd collapsed on the kitchen floor a week ago and would have stayed there if Julie hadn't shown up, his body can withstand neglect a lot better than he thought.

He's missed Robin's 70th birthday.

He's missed the birth of Mike and El's 4th grand kid.

He's missed the release of Will's final book in his series.

He's missed so much life while mourning Steve. He didn't realise so much could happen in just 2 months.

"Hey, dad, I've brought a visitor." Julie says softly, making sure not to startle Dustin. He's sitting on the small lounge next to the window, an old fantasy book in his hands, and seeing him sit there brings back memories of when they were younger. When Dustin used to come by Steve's house just to be near Eddie, to remind himself that Eddie was okay. They'd sit in the bay window in Steve's lounge room and read together for hours. Steve would walk by and flick the lamp on for them because they wouldn't even notice that the sun had set.

He can still see that little kid in the old man in front of him, he's hidden under the wrinkles and grey hair, but when his eyes light up and his smile takes over his face, Eddie sees the kid that he risked his life for. "Eddie!"

Julie leaves them to talk, says that she'll grab them all a cup of coffee. Eddie declines. He hasn't been able to drink coffee since Steve died. It reminds him too much of waking up to quiet humming from the kitchen and coffee flavoured kisses.

Dustin scolds Eddie for neglecting himself, for not calling him or coming to see him so that they could mourn together. It feels strange to be scolded by someone that you used to babysit.

"He told me to move on." Eddie says quietly, bitterly. "But I don't think I'll ever be able to forget him."

"You don't have to forget him." Dustin scoots closer to Eddie on the cramped lounge and makes him look him in the eyes. "You're going to be around for a long time, Eds. You can't be that stereotypical vampire that mourns his long lost love for centuries."

"Maybe I want to."

"Steve would strangle me when I see him next if I let you do that."

When I see him next.

That makes Eddie ache. Will he ever get to see Steve again? Can he even die? He doesn't want Dustin to leave him too but he knows Steve is probably lonely wherever he is. He never liked being on his own for very long.

Eddie leans against his friend's shoulder and sighs shakily. He doesn't want to cry again. He's tired of crying. "I feel hollow, Dustin. I think Steve took a part of me with him."

"He was always quite greedy when it came to you."

Eddie smiles for the first time in 2 months. "He was, wasn't he. He always stole your time with me." He playfully jabbed Dustin in the side and it felt good to laugh with him, to smile and see the familiar twinkle of joy in his friend's eyes.

When they stop laughing and the room fills with a comfortable silence, Eddie asks quietly, "Do you really think you'll see him again?"

Dustin hums and leans back into the lounge, a knowing smile on his lips. "You'll see him again, Eddie. I know it."

Eddie scoffs with a smile. "Why? Because you're old and wise?"

"Precisely."

Eddie knows Dustin is just saying what he wants to hear, what he thinks he needs to move on with his life, but a small part of himself hopes it's true.

He hopes that after he's seen the world, he'll be able to tell Steve all about it.

#SORRY THIS IS LIKE REALLY LONG #I GOT CARRIED AWAY LMAO #steddie #kas eddie munson #eddie munson #stranger things #steve harrington #st4 vol2 #steveddie #dustin henderson #tw mentions of death

[marclef]

THE EYHM COLLECTION GROWS!!!! managed to make some space without having to move too much so they can all be together!!

(i made the smaller ones into stickers bc i'm running out of picture frames!! hope that's ok!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE WHO'S GIFTED THESE TO ME THOUGH!!! I'M CALLING ALL OF YOU OUT HERE BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!! ❤❤❤❤❤

*sharp inhale* @eskariolis-con-salsa @oddpizza @woobab @the-little-knight @moon9931 @misdreavusplush @noodletime @witch-tower-au !!!!!!!

hope you all have a good holiday season!! love you all! *MWAH*

#don't worry about the fish tanks they'll keep the kitties company! there's literally almost nowhere else good to put these lmao #but!! i think they look good there at least!! AND IN GENERAL THEY ALL LOOK SO GOOD THANK YOU #BUT NOW AFTER THIS I REALLY NEED TO FIND MORE SPOTS IF I GET MORE EYHMS BECAUSE THERE'S NO SPACE LEFT THERE! #....maybe i can move some of the pokemon posters i have by my bed lol. they're just kinda. there rn. #but yeah!! i never expected people to like this cat this much and i'm kinda freaking out!!! but thank you again so much!! #i'll say it 1000 times if i have to!!!!!! #eyhm stuff #gift eyhms #basically ALL of the gift eyhms i've gotten lmao. there's a couple that're in progress but they'll hopefully join the others soon-ish! #quick side ramble! i've got a couple more drawing things planned this year but they might take a couple days because Chrimbo and all! #but there's a couple pizza tower things/gifts and. maybe finally my About Me post? gotta figure out how i'm gonna make that heh #OK I'VE BEEN TALKING TOO LONG SORRY BUT I'M JUST SO HAPPY ABOUT THESE AAAHHHHHHH

[crossbackpoke-check]

Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman

part one | part two

#me when everybody is posting the maple leafs sad narratives and i am furiously generating this like HOLD ONNNN HOLD ONNNNNNN #honestly i could've been SOOOO MEAN about this because i saw this poem & alexandra got the preview on the poetry blog #where i just reblogged the first half of this poem point blank with the tags #kyle dubas #toronto maple leafs #& got yelled at aksdaksf & it literally only didn't go on this blog bc i usually write more & then it was percolating & i looked up the poe #& it was only the FIRST PART i'd reblogged i didn't know there was more & then brain immediately went brrrrr ok time for an edit. #this is a long one lol & i also have no idea if it makes sense to anybody but me but because y'all know me i will always overexplain so!! #my reasoning for the reasons obvi kyle. that's a given i hope he's doing well i hope he & his family r good but man is not coming in to wor #the second edit took me a stupid amount of time bc i am nitpicky but also i learned how to do the layers & transparency from the claude edi #that actually y'all don't know about lmao but i lost my mind when i saw how perfectly those pictures align i was scrolling getty & was like #ok december i'm gonna do a headline one (in my brain with the november/june quote about choosing to die again) w/ maple leafs playoff odds #how they say at winter break you know who's gonna be in the playoffs & who'll win & they thought they had a shot but it's mitchie overlaid #the 2003-04 team who'd last won a playoff round with the atlantic division stats from dec for 22-23 & how long it's been & dec headlines #i wanted breakup/recent/never loved to be a recent trade acquisition somebody who bounced around & somebody else so i almost had simmer #brodie & zar but then i wanted to make murray for breakup at any time &i forgot zar & him were on the pens together &it hit me like a truc #bc there's a photo of the two of them EXACTLY the same so close it's scary of this one but them as pens so they had to be it & i did always #know never loved again was mitchie. sorry. also mitchie in the penalty box the last game but i couldn't find footage of it & this one works #no i could not find a photo of tyler bertuzzi fighting a leaf for a dog looked at me yes i tried. #i almost made the bunting photo jt but instead it's 'bunting a rat etc' anyway the one i really feel unhinged about is dead pets bc at firs #i was gonna make it the handshake line & look to see if the leafs had drafted anybody on the panthers (dead pet former draft pick) #& they had & it was carter verhaeghe & i couldn't get a good pic of matthews & verhaeghe but it's fine bc i thought about the mo/luke schen #narrative (in which they are a perfect d pair long lost) & schenn was drafted by the leafs & that line fits jut trust me. also how i feel #about the kniesy luminous line that one possessed me it had to be kniesy idk why. i almost put gussy as girls are too pretty though ALSO #did u like my joke. daylight SAVINGS time on the goalie. thank u. also my photo magic on the jt (me very poorly editing in him as an isle) #OK ALSO HOLD ONNNNN there is a part two but i have to wait for the Content i want it will come out as soon as [redacted] or sooner #if i get bad at waiting &everyone will pretend like it is always the way it will be once i have the photos i want. speaking of did the leaf #simply not take a team photo this year?? it Does Not Exist for me i have tried very hard to look for it also i'm excited for part 2 #one of them is named oh you're so unhinged for this one & the finished product is you're unhinged in ways you didn't even know u were sorry #liv in the replies

[b4kuch1n]

wizard looking for a way home (aka wizard of dark space)

#pokemon #swsh #champion leon #wizard leon babeyy! #thank u to cosme for hangin out with me while I figure this one out lol #this! is the piece I used for the ''speedpaint'' thingy btw. I'll try to put together the video over the next month or so #lol. usually when I make wizard leon designs I riff with what comes up and think abt like. maybe his affinity in this set #like ''oh he'd do fabric talismans. oh he'd levitate. he does poppet stuff'' #that at most. but this. the moment I started fleshing this one out I was like #oh he's really lost. for a very long time. to the point he's learned so much he's forgotten what many of the things on his suit does #like lmao I guess I can Not be normal about any astronaut leon huh!! its chronic for me #I couldnt get to some of the questions folks asked with this one. so this video will probably not be comprehensive #but I'll make another when those things come up!! #fksjdfk sorry lads most of u guys asked abt colors but idk if this ones the best for that. its got a preddy concrete palette #guess I can save talking about the more insane color stuff for when that comes up too... #we'll see!! hope it's gonna happen #for now. one more wizard leon for the book. have a good night lads! #tie a yarn round ur wrist dont forget the way back

[steponmesilco]

Thought I'd share a little teaser of something I've been working on for ages.

#I still got quite a bit to do #but im inching closer and closer each day #also #sorry Verbs that this taking so long #i just want it to be perfect and so im really taking my time to work on it #the final product is way bigger than this #and waaay more interesting lmao #silco #my art #silco my beloved #silco fanart #arcane #arcane silco

[upperranktwo]

☆Anya Forger | Telepath☆

#sxfedit #sxfsource #dailyanime #anisource #Spy X Family #sxf #anya forger #sky colours #i'm sorrryyyy if these look messsyyyy!!! I'm not sure if I really love them but they took soooooo long to do!!! #I was gonna do yor first but I got distracted with this one but that one is half done so I'll have it up sooonnn!!!! #she is very cute I hope I at least did her a little justice <3 #so much pink!!!! #I wanted to keep the colours consistent throughout which is why each image has the exact same colours!!!! #shading black is always so difficult sometimes it shows and sometime it doesn't !!!!!!!!! smh!!! #also her lashes are hard to line lmao!!!! #sorry for posting like 1 colouring a month they just take me so long to do :( but I'm working on them #anyway I hope these look semi okay #shading on the skin looks extra pink but it's okay when it's her <3333

[siover]

i may be just gasping at straws here but there is something just. so insane about how the nature of kendall and shiv’s relationship is somewhat cannibalistic. like shiv spitting in his drink and kendall drinking it anyway and the ‘i love you but i cannot fucking stomach you’ and the idea of kendall being the sacrificial lamb in 2x10 + shiv’s ‘can’t eat’ . like the whole consumption aspect of it all.. just wondering if you had any thoughts on it i suppose!!

YES very true. the kitchen scene is a callback to their childhood in more ways than one--it reflects the siblings' relationship with each other and with food and how they're linked (dyou remember the summer of competitive eating disorders:)). its notable that only shiv and kendall say they're hungry despite none of them having eaten dinner, and that kendall is the only one who ends up eating anything. roman licks the cheese as a joke, passes the ingredients to shiv, who actually blends the discordant foods together, and together they feed kendall this drink that is definitely terrible for him. siblings ! no but i do think its an unsubtle metaphor but it works ! kendalls position as the heir has always relied on roman being the weaker dog bolstering his position, on shiv being the baby who will never get it bc shes a girl. and if he wont drink the rest, they'll drench him with it, turn his own promised position against him in jealousy and self interest and a mistaken notion of love

and shiv spitting in it was very much foreshadowing, yeah. i liked how it was a callback to her spitting in kendalls notebook after the "rape me/i'm not the only one," incident during her speech--it was a childish act then, and its one now, and it shows how any attempts at enmity or solidarity come from the same place of shared abuse, of seeing someone better than you see yourself and punishing them for the traits you share. kendall drinking it again reflects how his position will never be untinged by shivs simultaneous understanding as well as animosity. mirror traps real

the way this all relates to the characters' relationships with food is also ofc very interesting. roman doesnt eat at all, he denies his body and sees it as evidence of his failure to be logan's son. he never wanted ceo, it couldn't have been him, dad's death cements the impossibility of the love he craved by which proximity to the ceo position was made valuable at all. shiv admitted she was starving but never ate anything, only asked her mom if there was food. she brings up food only as a move, only as something that can serve her, because to acknowledge it otherwise would be weakness. ofc this is reflective of her relationship with power, and love--she'll bring it up first so she's noted as being aware of the cards at play without showing her hand. but she never actually gets it because when she's said the quiet part out loud, voiced her ambition, there's nothing stopping the quiet parts of her weaknesses in this world from being consumed i.e. her womanhood :) in the end all she can do is acknowledge the fact of her starvation, and spit into the poisonous food bowl while still hungry.

ofc its kendalls bowl she's spitting into. he sees food as fuel, as something that gets him where he needs to go, but never actually enjoys it, and sees such enjoyment as juvenile--we're not at buckley anymore--but his firm belief in rationality and health corresponding to awareness means its another step to the ideal position that doesn't really exist. at the end of the day he will drink the concoction because he considers himself stronger for it. i did a fucking year in shangai, i'm ready, etc

ultimately this is reflected in their choices in the endings. roman says yes first then retracts with shiv. i think hes the one who says shiv has no stomach for admin which is like, him pinning the decision to support kendall as well as the consideration to kill him onto shiv lol. SHIV doesnt have the stomach for admin, and SHIV cannot stomach kendall, and it comes down to the same thing--shiv shutting kendall out bc she's never been able to digest his choices. this DOES relate to pierce ofc and logan throwing up at the breakfast and ultimately waystar being a declining corporation that could never have eaten up pierce. do you see what im saying do you see how it makes sense from this angle that shiv was the only one who ended up still "in," even if only as the ceo's wife. shiv being unable to stomach kendall is the final nail in the coffin--its acceptance of this fact. of the death of waystar, and by extension logan. anyway i keep thinking about how when they all trooped into the kitchen, wet through, kids again, there was never really any real food in the fridge :)

#shiv roy #kendall roy #roman roy #machinery #usually i would just tag this sibs but its not really abt them as siblings more abt them individually rip. organized blog at what cost #hopefully this makes sense lmao i rehashed some stuff but truly the kitchen scene is one of my favs and not just bc theyre having fun <3 #i barely touched the surface when it came to pierce waystar being eaten etc etc but i hope the connections r clear. girls when METAPHORS #anyway. ty for the ask i enjoyed answering this <33 #sorry it got so long lol i could go on honestly theres aspects i missed #answered #did not proofread btw so if you see spelling errors etc no you dont <3

[cheridraws]

might I offer you an ishimondo sketch dump in these trying times

#I know it’s long I’m sorry lol #I put this in order of drawing them so #you can kinda see my progression of learning how to draw them #I really don’t like the first one #the later ones are definite favs tho #I think I’m getting it #can’t wait to keep drawing them hehe #this ship has got me going #danganronpa #dr1 trigger happy havoc #trigger happy havoc #ishimondo #mondo owada #kiyotaka ishimaru #dr1 mondo #dr1 kiyotaka #chdoodles #guest appearance for taka’s dad since I needed someone for that last comic lmao #(it was based off a luca comic I saw once) #posting at 12:27 at night ✌️ #I need. sleep

[heartbreakprincewille]

What’s your favourite scene of each season and why?

HIII EMMA💜

Oh shit, this question got me thinking for a solid 15 minutes. There are so many scenes ahhhh.

Season 1: The Football Field Scene

I don't think I need to explain this. This scene is so many things at once- a raw look at just how deep Wilhelm's pain was, his hopelessness about his situation coming out in its messy, ugly drunkenness; Wilhelm remembering Simon of all people when he's literally not in his senses, confessing all the storm of his feelings crystal clear: I like you, and that is not fake; Simon showing up for Wilhelm, the fact that even as the audience you felt their relationship sinking into doom before but then there's this spark of hope that ignites within us, within Wille when Simon shows up and take Wille with him, with a soundtrack of "Let's start a revolution, how beautiful it is?". I think that scene was the first catalyst in the story and the first glimpse of Wilhelm and Simon choosing each other against all odds.

Season 2: Wilhelm and Simon discussing Kris in S2 E5

Look, I was this close to put the Valentine's Ball kiss here but the Kris scene is my favorite for a reason.

I think S2, in hindsight, did a really great job of giving us hope for Wilhelm and Simon as a couple, that they have the ability to look past their own situation and try to understand the other's perspective. It is an important foundation for any relationship, and it makes their S3 ending more believable because we have seen them do that.

And as much as I love the Valentine's kiss and how it was such a triumphant rush of emotions for them, it was still a rush of emotions. They had so much issues to course through, and the Kris conversation achieves that. Simon understands Wilhelm's relationship with his position and Wilhelm understands his own accountability in his situation. They are calm and understanding about it, and the beautiful irony is that the subtext of a novel managed to do what direct words couldn't. It's just beautiful.

S3: The lantern-by-the-window conversation in S3 E4

For me, it's the sweetest interaction between Wilhelm and Simon in the whole season because it's the first and probably the only glimpse we get of how their relationship would be after Wilhelm renounced his position. They don't talk about the monarchy or any other outside influences that loom over their relationship, they talk about themselves and their own tendencies because they are so different as people, the way Simon goes all soft when Wilhelm tells him that he learns from Simon (and later we learn that it is true), the way physical touch has been a sort of avoidance mechanism for them in the first three episodes but it does not feel like that in that scene with Wilhelm holding Simon's hand, the silent understanding flowing between them, Simon messing with Wilhelm when we have seen him stifling himself under all the pressure and hate. I don't know, I just love that scene very much.

#young royals #I'm really sorry this got way too long lmao #wilmon