I’ll probably forget to post early tomorrow so doing it now instead.

happy Valentine’s Day!!! ❤️ I love you all.

if you’re one of the people who feel lonely on this day, I’ll feel lonely with you, lmao.

I may post another Kuzuhina valentines thing as a little doodle if I can

OH YEAH ALSO HEART THINGY AND WHATEVER BY STAINEDGE ORGINALLY, MAINLY ON YT AND INSTA. (Check her out if you like horror, fnaf, or something, I’m begging shushwhhahagagfdfdfdfdf)

Stainedge rules bro 💥💥💥

Escaping Expulsion Thoughts (once again very stream of conscious-like while i rewatched the episode so there’s a bunch of stuff here)

i fucking knew odalia was gonna be an oracle, i knew and i hate that for her family. i’m not sure if this necklace thing is specifically a form of oracle magic or not but im assuming it is, and either way the second i saw it happen that made my stomach twist. the fact that she just keeps this direct line to her daughter at all times feels so disturbing

so, i get that the joke with glyph lessons here is that eda and lilith are probably acting the exact same way they did when they were younger, but it does also feel a little odd for me. in my post for episode 1 i talked about how it felt like lilith probably missed the structure of the coven, and maybe even having an authority figure, and it does concern me a bit that it could be projected on to luz here. 

also, i saw someone mention that they thought lilith could be regressing a bit, which is interesting seeing as she’s been in the coven since basically being a child and now that she’s out, she could be going backwards because that was probably the last time she had a personality of her own instead of one that was carefully crafted to be socially acceptable for others. and to be fair, the few moments in season 1 when we see glimpses into the true lilith, she is pretty childish.

anyways lilith has such pretty handwriting i love it

gus!! witch puberty!! do not worry buddy eda will get your name eventually. probably.

amity went out and murdered those fairies for luz didn’t she

i need to know why the heck bump has no choice in the matter of the expulsion. typically a pta (or pca in this case) wouldn’t have power that much stronger than the principa?? so i wonder if the blights have something over bump, or if its even just something such as donation money they’d withdraw

odalia blight you gaslighting bitch “I’m appalled you’re not in class right now what are you thinking” YOU MADE HER COME HERE

PLEASE i know gus and willow are sad here but the whole “live off the land” thing and “water you one last time, with my tears” are so fucking funny ok

GO LUZ, YOU TELL OFF ODALIA

i feel like alador doesn’t really care what’s going on and just wants to be back home making his abomination inventions, also he seems to have an affinity for different creatures as well which is an interesting detail

i love that willow stated they would get back in on their own right in front of alador and odalia. these people fucked up her friendship and caused her a lot of trouble that she shouldn’t have had to deal with so i love that she’s unafraid to speak like that in front of them

between the first & second episode, and some of the seasons trailer, it seems like Lilith may have an affinity for ice magic? which is interesting seeing as eda was always a fan of her “spicy toss” aka some fire magic. interesting to see the two of them as fire & ice basically

i LOVE how much bump loves luz, willow, and gus. it’s kinda really sweet, but again it feels so concerning that he had no choice in the matter. makes me think he’s more likely to eventually rebel against the standards that have been in place for so long at some point. (also abominations coven for bump!! interesting!! i appreciate seeing the coven marks included on the adults so far)

what is it with these kids and being dragged off by their hoods in this episode

love that the blights address includes “right arm”, also i took a quick look up of the word “bruegal” which is boulevard they live on, and it’s probably just a coincidence but the first google result was actually for a european think tank that specializes in economics

yknow i actually have wondered about layering glyphs on top of each other and making a super glyph the way eda did, so good to know that would NOT work out

luz you’re really gonna give the blights their own flowers??????

it goes by so fast but please take a moment to take in and appreciate the design of that blight entry room/living room-esque area and it’s combination of abomination and oracle decor. also the blight family portrait.

i could talk about alador and odalia and their relationship dynamic here, when luz is meeting with them, but i think it’s best to save for the end, but i will say i don’t think it’s just odalia controlling everything (though she does control a lot) and alador just suffering and being silent. 

the more i stare at odalia’s hair the more i feel like she has an odd receding hairline

love that the abomination kept the cat shape luz gave it and that amity knew immediately from that

WILLOW’S DADS!!! I LOVE THEM! I love how much they want their daughter to have a great education even if they have to be the ones to do it! (even if it could come across as a little intense) Although, the fact that they’re prepared to teach plant magic to her makes me question why they put her in abominations once again. (wish we could’ve gotten a glimpse of their coven marks!)

odalia is definitely the one who handles more of the parenting and alador is more distant. at least that’s what i get based on the twins specifying to amity not to tell their mom specifically

absolutely insane that odalia is just letting the abomiton destroy the whole place to kill a child

“stay away from my luz!” oh my god,ohmy GOD 

i like how lilith can’t tell if these are normal noises or distress ones. really sums up life in the owl house. also lilith? kicking doors in?? this combined with “I AM A WITCH, UNHINGED” tells me she’ll be as chaotic as the rest of the owl house in no time and i am here for it.

the music when amity jumps in to protect luz is absolutely killing it here i need a soundtrack now

YES AMITY DESTROY THE NECKLACE (and oh god please don’t let odalia give you something even harder to remove or destroy)

Luz is blushing!! The feelings are starting to be returned!!!

“Luz, Willow, and Gus are my friends!” love it. love the open declaration. love that she’s telling her mother off. love that i have something to check off my bingo board already.

okay, i know a lot of people have already suggested that alador is smiling here because he can tell luz and amity like each other, but i’m pretty sure it’s only because he’s noticing how much amity’s magic has grown and improved

small detail but i love the smoke from the units order sign filling the background while odalia is fuming herself

oh? alador has had the ability to tell odalia off and successfully calm her down this whole time? and chose not to use it till now? yeah he sucks too. he very clearly has a plan for amity as much as odalia does as well, but he’s much better at seeing the long-term goal

“the glyph combo, copyright me, lilith” im screaming, lilith you DORK

ok i really wish eda or lilith asked where luz had been. i’d kill for these sisters to go off about how much they hated the alador and odalia in school, as well as threaten to hurt them for hurting luz.

the statue lilith made and her reaction to the gold star she received re-emphasizes my concern about her need for approval and for an authority figure. (ok but her noise at the gold star WAS very cute tho)

alright lets get down to business on the blight parents. so far i definitely do not view their relationship as being one-sided with odalia in control. honestly, i think they do have a sense of mutual respect for the other. to me it seems like all alador really wants to do is focus on his work and nothing else, and odalia seems not only more than happy to let him do so, but willing to take care of everything else the company needs, and he seems fine with that and going along with whatever because he only has to do his part. and clearly his abomination tech combined with her showmanship/advertising (and honestly probably some oracle magic) has clearly made them successful. 

so what im saying is that i think their power in their relationship is actually pretty balanced, if it looks otherwise that’s just because that’s how they best function together, with odalia being more forward and alador being more distant, and therefore they’re very much both to blame for shitty parenting. 

also I know some people have joked about the blight family name coming from odalia (which is also a dumb joke like why is it funny if the family name comes from the woman and not the man) but anyways I definitely do think blight is aladors family name and odalia married in simply because he takes the whole blights keep up their end of the deal thing much more seriously than odalia. probably something that’s been taught to him since he was a kid yknow, whereas she was super ready to ignore it when it inconvenienced her.

as for the very final scene with them and the golden guard, i had an interpretation of it that i saw, but it seems that everyone else ive see react to it so far saw something different than me so maybe i’m just plain wrong. but like, i have this feeling that maybe the blight parents, while they do want power, might not be as aligned with the emperor and his coven as we may think?? not saying they’re good people, just that there could be more going on here. but idk, i’ve seen no one else interpret it that way yet so i won’t go off about it unless either someone wants to know more of what i thought or if i ever actually make myself get around to making a separate post about it. 

In which Obi lets Shirayuki sleep

A part of the Flatmate AU (one, two, three, in accidental order)

Jesus fucking christ.

At one point in his life, Obi had decided to restrain himself from cursing as soon as he became a professional and started working. It was only to his benefit if he could quit the bad habit before it starts to manifest itself at work. That’s what he thought an exemplary adult should do.

He entered the working world around six years ago. A couple of years of rude patients and whiny co-workers later he revisited the thought and rephrased his intention to stop cursing as soon as he turned thirty – this time for sure. Changing workplace might also help.

Last year he turned thirty. And he had changed his workplace. Twice. Good thing he never told anyone about this particular resolution, seeing that the amount of cursing was, if anything, increasing. Especially in the past one year and three months, ever since he shared his living space with a certain redhead.

Now, Obi had always been a perfect gentleman towards his flatmate. Never did he use dirty words in any form whatsoever whenever Shirayuki was around. Even when he once stubbed his toe on the new washing machine she had installed into their bathroom he managed to merely let out an incomprehensible sound instead of the usual ‘FUCK!’. Boy, did he patted himself proudly on the back after that.

No. Especially at home, that increasing amount of cursing was inaudible, though not less loud inside his head. These were usually directed towards situations he would never believe could happen if he hadn't experienced them himself.

Right now was a perfect example.

Obi was lying on the couch under the colourful blanket Shirayuki’s grandma had quilted for her. The living space was dark and toasty. Through the window, Obi could see the snowflakes slowly piling on the balcony.

There was cheeky accordion music playing in the background. Onto the wall, the projector was beaming the end credit of Amélie, one of Shirayuki’s favourite movies to watch when she was upset (and when she was happy – actually, it’s her all-time favourite movie ever). Shirayuki herself was lying beside him, under the same blanket, sleeping peacefully.

Would that be reason enough for Obi to curse? Well, half a year ago it would. 

In fact, Obi had cursed when Shirayuki had started to sit closer to him so that their knees touched whenever they did their movie nights. He had also cursed when a couple of movie nights later she suddenly suggested they could just lie down for watching. “It’s more comfortable this way”, she had told him, and who was he to say no when it’s true? 

When she next casually tangled their legs together like it’s the most natural thing in the world Obi thought his curses should have finally reached the heavens’ ears since the torture level didn’t step up further after that.

And so Obi thought he was over it. He thought he had hardened up until all that had become quite a normality. He could finally enjoy Shirayuki’s closeness and body heat without having his heart jumping up and down like a happy puppy in his ribcage all the time.

Until tonight. Tonight was the end of it. He must have done something to awaken the heavens’ wrath that they decided to continue his punishment.

Obi glanced down at his sleeping flatmate, whose head was nestling comfortably on his shoulder. Both her arms were encircling his right arm – in fact, her whole tiny body was snuggling up to him. Her right leg was rested rudely on top of his right leg like it belonged there, her knee dangerously close to his crotch. He could feel her breasts where they pressed way too innocently against his arm, rising and falling softly with each breath she took. She was purring lightly, like a tired little kitten.

What the fuck did I do in my previous life to deserve this.

He had been lying entirely still ever since Shirayuki fell asleep, not even five minutes after the movie had started. That was more or less two hours ago. Despite years of practice, neither yoga breathing nor meditation could make him relax his stiff body. This was just a different level of suffering.

Carefully, Obi turned his head to his right while contemplating whether he should just wake up his snoring flatmate. His nose almost brushed the top of her head and he caught a whiff of her shampoo. Correction. His shampoo. Because when a wet, crying, wrapped-only-in-a-towel girl announced angrily that she was out of shampoo and that she was going to use yours, you nod and let her use yours. No questions asked.

Just, what the hell even happened?

When Obi arrived home that night, instead of the usual ‘welcome home’ he was greeted by a sobbing pile of pillows and blanket on the couch. A bit of prodding and shaking didn’t award him with anything much, only that the pile curled further up into a messy ball.

He was about to leave it be when suddenly his flatmate’s head emerged from the heap – red hair sticking out staticky in all directions, eyes puffy and still leaking. She declared her intent to use the shower in a hiccupy voice and stormed into the bathroom.

After she got out – fully clothed, to Obi’s relief – Shirayuki planted herself back onto the couch. She threw her flatmate a somewhat commanding glare while she patted the empty space beside her.

As much as a wannabe-dominant Shirayuki was an amusing view, Obi schooled his expression to neutral and refrain himself from teasing her. Clearly, she was very upset about something and Obi didn’t want to agitate her even further.

And so he took his cue and rolled onto the couch beside her. Wordlessly, Shirayuki started the laptop, the projector, spread the blanket over them, then leaned back and cuddle up to him when the movie started.

They lay like that for a while, as hundreds of questions raced in Obi’s mind.

What on earth happened? Did someone hurt you? Should I call Yuzuri? Or the police? Since when do you hog me like it’s absolutely nothing? Do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing to me? What the hell is going on? Do I even have any say in this?

What he finally settled with was a soft, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

His answer was a little pout on her lips and a small head shake. Then Shirayuki’s gaze shifted back to the screen. She inched closer to him, making herself comfortable and him even more uncomfortable. But Obi didn’t push. He hadn’t known his flatmate for a very long time, but he knew enough that she would talk when she felt like it. So he held his tongue and let her take what she needed.

Which brought him to now.

Closing his eyes, Obi immersed himself in the fragrance – a unique mixture between Shirayuki’s own scent and his shampoo. If more girls knew how sexy it was to smell masculine, all those girly toiletries brands out there might go broke in next to no time. Either that or Obi was just an exception to be so goddamned turned on by it. 

Again, he cursed inwardly as he felt all his blood rushing south, where he noticed a small tent slowly building up. If he knew Shirayuki was going to throw herself to him tonight he would’ve chosen a tighter pair of boxers.

And maybe have a shower first.

Obi gave himself a mental slap on the back of his head. Surely this was not the time to feel aroused when the little miss was feeling miserable for whatever reason. He must get a grip on himself.

As if sensing that he was thinking about her, Shirayuki stirred, and one of her arms slid up to his chest, clutching lightly on his shirt. Obi’s breath hitched. If the other was awake Obi was sure she could feel his rapid heartbeat under her palm. 

She was so close now she was practically using him as a body pillow. He was helplessly trapped with nowhere to move and no one to hear the silent, frustrated screams in his head. Obi lifted his left hand and pressed the bridge of his nose, sinking his head deeper into the pillow.

Why don’t you just fucking kill me already.

Nietzsche said ‘to live is to suffer’, and life with Shirayuki had given suffering a new meaning. Sure, she first appeared as a timid, cute little miss pharmacist who loves plants. While Obi liked plants, he was not sure how to deal with a green army of 50+ potted plants invading his flat. Especially that one big fellow sitting seemingly unobtrusive in the corner while slowly stretching its long branches until it now almost trespassed the screen boundary of the projector.

Only after a short while, his new flatmate emerged as an online-shopper addict for ‘useful’ household stuff. Some are truly useful, for example, that LED night light with motion detector for the corridor, albeit in the shape of a puppy head. Some, like the egg separator, gave Obi reasons to try out his gentle eye-rolling with her. “I’ll teach you how to separate eggs with just your hands”, he had told her as he hid the abomination in the back of the bottom kitchen drawer.

Before Shirayuki Obi had only ten utensils in his kitchen. Despite being half Japanese, he didn’t even own a rice cooker. You can guess three times who introduced one into the kitchen. It’s the same person who brought the juicer, the mixer, the blender and the waffle iron. Yes, her waffles are a delight on Sunday mornings but that’s not the point here.

To be fair, he was honestly thankful for her washing machine, even though it made their mini bathroom even more cramped. At least he didn’t have to go outside of the flat to do laundry anymore. But he still thought the dishwasher was an overkill. Contrary to other people, Obi liked doing dishes. It freed his thoughts, almost like a meditation. “You could still do the big pots by hand,” she tried to reason with him. Yea, well, when they already have a dishwasher, he’d rather have the machine do the big stuff, thank you very much.

Whenever Obi came home from his late shift he often found Shirayuki fast asleep at the dining table with work materials piled and scattered around her. He was quick to learn that in those cases there was nothing he could to do to wake her up. But of course, the physiotherapist inside him would never forgive himself for letting her just sleep there. Which left him no other choices than to carry her to her bed. 

Speaking of suffering, Obi had always wondered why his roommate always behaved so carefree towards him. Granted, he never gave her any reasons to be cautious around him. He did like to tease her a lot, but never to the point that she was seriously uncomfortable with it. Nevertheless, did it never occur to her that he was a MAN, no matter how tame and harmless he seemed in front of her? Never before had Obi met a woman who was as completely unguarded as she was.

Anyway, the suffering has reached a new level today and Obi didn’t want to know what would come next.

Suddenly, a hum. Obi looked down and was met with two sleepy, half-open emerald eyes.

“Mmm...Obi?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Have Amélie and Nino met yet?”

“Un.”

“Are they happy now?”

“Un. Like always.”

“Good.”

Then silence followed. Just when Obi thought the dream of Amélie and Nino had claimed Shirayuki back to sleep she murmured further.

“What time is it?”

“A little after midnight.” Obi allowed himself to gently place his chin on her head. “Shall we go to bed?”

A grunt. The tiny woman shook her head, nestled herself impossibly closer still to him and wrapped her arm completely around him.

“Mmm...You’re so warm.”

With that, her breath went back to its steady rhythm as she fell back asleep.

Sighing, Obi awkwardly reached to grab the remote control and turned off the projector. Then he pulled the blanket higher and tried to adjust himself to a more comfortable position for all the tangling limbs. He closed his eyes and gradually resigned to his fate. 

Guess that means no shower for me tonight.

Obi took a deep breath in from his nose and released it slowly through his mouth. 

In and out. 

In and out.

I am the master of my fucking cock.

——————–

Note:

The 10 kitchen utensils Obi owned before Shirayuki came to his life were...

a knife

a cutting board

a pot

a frying pan

a kettle (not an electric one)

a spatula

a ladle

a pair of cooking chopstick

a rice spoon

a grater

...just in case you were wondering >:3

gotta vent about my day real quick

highlights of the day

> be professional ghostwriter.

Agreed to edit a 25000 word segment of a finished manuscript for a much loved regular client, who said the MC’s dialogue needed to be punched up. Easy enough. I figured it would take a few hours.

Was briefly excited to discover the manuscript was for a concept I had outlined and written several chapters for a few months ago.

Excitement rapidly dwindles as I realize that beloved client has hired another ghostwriter to write the majority of the book. Which would be fine, except this other ghostwriter has no fucking idea what they are doing.

Formatting is a god damn disaster and I spend several hours just getting the document into a workable condition.

You ever open a word doc, look at the navigation pane, and just see a wall of blank links, because someone applied the header formatting somewhere and then just hit enter a million times instead of using a page break like a civilized god damn human being?

in the middle of this forest of blank headers, actual chapter titles are scattered at random, and also they only applied the header to roughly one out of every five chapters or so, you know, just, when they felt like it. when the spirit took them. when the stars aligned. when the feng shui was right.

Also, apparently they like the way first line indenting looks but don’t know how to make word do that (spoiler: its easy as shit and takes like two clicks) so every once in a while they start manually hitting tab before every line, until they get distracted and stop for a while, luring you into a false sense of security before they remember and start doing it again.

Sometimes, when a scene transitions but they dont want to just end the chapter for some reason, they break it up with spaces. Other times, they like to use asterisks. Once or twice, just for flavor, they throw in one of those page width lines that word makes when you type a line of hyphens.

There is random highlighting in places, for no discernible reason.

Once I have the document formatted in a way I can bear to work with, I start actually reading through it. About the first seven chapters were written by the client. They’re cheesy but solid.

Then I get to chapter eight, and the suspicions i had begun to form while putting the formatting through traction (namely that whoever did this was a fuckwit) quickly crystallized into a shining certainty that my beloved client had mistakenly hired An Ass Clown.

Not just An Ass Clown, but An Ass Clown who thought 50 Shades was a beautiful love story, actually.

And they gave This Ass Clown, this literary reprobate, this paste eating remedial english mother fucker, my outline.

let me clarify that i did not expect to have sole control of this story when i produced the outline for beloved client, and I was okay with that. That’s how it works. If I’d been dead set on writing this myself, i wouldn’t have sold the outilne to beloved client. but it really rubs salt in the wound to have spent hours of my life crafting the bones of this story, which i really liked and was excited to see take shape

and then find out it has been put into the pie fondling hands

of An Ass Clown.

first hint that something has gone drastically wrong: the arrival of completely unnecessary and ridiculous fantasy names for things.

“oh we dont drink coffee in this book. it’s kofee. at least until three chapters from now when i forget and it becomes kofe. Oh, and watch out for those thornaby bushes! I’m going to misspell that one literally every time I use it! It’s entirely possible that this isn’t a fantasy name at all and I just have a small seizure whenever I try to type the word thorn bush!”

second omen of my impending anuerism: phonetically written accents which are so comically stereotypical and inaccurate that native speakers of that accent should be entitled to financial compensation, except they can’t even stick to the stereotype accurately, producing gems such as  “It’s not safe in that there pen with ‘em swine, young miss.” I don’t even know what accent that’s supposed to represent. To top it off these accent abominations are sprinkled in with all the consistency and reliability of a lactose intolerant cheese enthusiast’s bowel movements.

But this, I tell myself, moving on, is not my problem. I just need to punch up the mcs dialogue. It’ll be fine. I can do this. I just need to take this shit: “A fond idea, but I doubt I have that ability.” I joked. “I can’t imagine living without true sunshine. Even the triplet moons must shine less brightly without their sister sun.” and make it… not like that.

Except, and here’s where I start hitting the real roadblock guys

this book is in first person.

essentially, the entire novel is the MC talking.

So sure I can change the spoken lines, but her internal monologue

which is, i remind you, the entire narrative

her internal monologue is going to keep being maggie gyllenhal’s character from The Secretary if her copy of the script had been swapped with just a binder full of sonnets written by a middle school english class during the Shakespeare unit.

I get to chapter ten around three in the afternoon. I have been working steadily, with an unusual degree of focus thanks to my recent adderal prescription, since ten in the morning.

this is where shit begins to go truly bananas.

this is a YA beauty and the beast type fantasy

that good fun indulgent shit that’s almost as enjoyable to write as it is to read

usually. previously. before i had to endure this traumatic twelve hour experience.

Chapter ten is the first big “dinner” scene. this book isn’t being shy about pulling from the source material, but that’s fine. the beast “apologizes” (heavy quotes there) for having earlier used magic to force the heroine to answer his questions truthfully. They talk and almost seem to making progress for a bit, and then have a fight and storm off. Standard stuff.

Except, uh, the beast’s apology is, essentially “Yeah I shouldn’t have done that.” “so you’re apologizing?” “no but it’s the best you’re going to get so deal with it.”

and the headstrong, independent heroine who wears pants and wrestles pigs and dont need no man

just kinda rolls with this. There’s giggling.

They have their big dramatic fight, exit stage left, much angst and todo.

The next morning heroine wakes up to find the beast has (presumably) snuck into her room while she was sleeping and dumped a bunch of new dresses on her. he has also (apparently) replaced her brain with Bella Swan’s more vapid cousin.

She forgives him instantly. Because pretty dresses. She also starts calling him master, because why not. She has, over night, become the darling submissive Tumblr doms dream of.

This is not a bdsm book. I am eighty percent certain it doesn’t even include soft core smut. I’m telling you this so that you understand this transformation was not a contrivance in order to facilitate kinky sex. I have written a contrived set up to a sex scene or two in my day. This is not that. This is Not what is in the outline. I know, because i wrote the outline. It is My Outline.

No, The Ass Clown just… decided to do this. Apropos of nothing. I’m beginning to think the Ass Clown’s decision making process involves whipping pies at a comically large dartboard. And all the options on the dartboard are just “lol whatever”

By the time I get to chapter eleven, wherein our newly lobotomized heroine is “excited to wear a new frock and please the master!” - direct quote I have given up any pretense of editing dialogue and I am just straight up rewriting shit using the previous garbage as a loose outline.

I have eaten, maybe, three bites of a bowl of oatmeal all day. I have not taken a bathroom break since before noon. I have missed my deadline. Beloved client is concerned. I’m sure I can still do this, I just need a few more hours.

the words sound like truth but my soul knows i am a liar

I frantically restructure scene after scene, deceiving myself each time that it will be the last, and I will be able to get this crazy train back on the rails. But this crazy train has no interest in being on the rails. It’s a direct line no stops right off the edge of the cliffs of insanity.

The beast jumps unpredictably from homicidal rage and threats of violence to jokes and flirting as though he did not just declare her his property and threaten to rip her tongue out a few paragraphs ago. Heroine swoons and sighs and giggles regardless of whether she is dealing with Dr.Jekyll or Christian Gray on PCP.

But I’m still sure I can do this. I’ll just adjust these two full chapters to make her appropriately scared and angry, and then replace this weird conversation here with a heartfelt apology from him and an effort to do better. That will totally work. Unless, you know, it turns out that conversation I want to replace only starts out with them joking and laughing together, and turns into him berating and abusing her mid paragraph of a fuckin montage a page later! But, haha! Why would The Ass Clown ever do that? It would be completely irrational, tonally jarring and out of character! Only a seltzer slinging rainbow suspender-ed peanut butter fumbling son of six fucks would do that.

so of course The Ass Clown did that.

It’s eleven at night. I know when I’m beaten.

I inform beloved client that the Ass Clown has bested me and I can do no more.

She is very understanding.

I send her what I managed and I check the added word count while im at it

i added a full 6,000 words to that manuscript just trying to patch up this sloppy motherfucker’s lopsided prose and gossamer thin understanding of narrative structure

son of a bitch had about as firm a grasp of romance as i currently have on the trembling shreds of my sanity.

their grip on character writing could not be more tenuous if they had first dipped the target brand Hulk Hands which I assume they always have on their person into a barrel of adult-film-grade silicon lubricant and then taken their Leapfrog 2-in-1 Leaptop Touch down a waterslide.

Do you know how much I usually make for 6000 words?

$180.

Do you know how much I made for enduring this ass blasting, which I naively believed I could tackle in a matter of hours?

$100.

You owe me $80 Ass Clown. And I aim to collect.

Also I lost my damn mind for a minute and said the words "i dont know shit about fuck my guy” to my actual father on facebook

so there’s that.

we talked a little about this an age ago, but Angel of Brahma AU where the Guardian Angel System is an eldrich abomination?

I have been hacking away at this for weeks, and it turned into a bit of a monster as I went. So this is part 1 of 3. 

As with all of my horror stuff, expect blood, gore, and unpleasantness. 

Juno isn’t sure how long the two of them have been in this goddamn tomb. Hours, at least. Days, maybe? It’s hard to tell this deep below ground. All he knows is that he wakes up in this cell with Nureyev, and he’s barely ever awake for more than a few minutes before he’s dragged back to that table for another round of that goddamned game until he passes out, and then it starts all over again.

Most of the time Nureyev is right by his side when he wakes up, easing him up and cleaning the blood off his face and urging him to drink something. But this time when Juno’s eyes drag open, he’s staring at the ceiling, and Nureyev isn’t there. 

Adrenaline wakes him up fast. Did something happen to him? Did Miasma decide that he isn’t worth keeping as a hostage? Did she actually kill him this time?

He yanks himself to his feet, already halfway into a frenzy. He’ll kill Miasma. Goddammit, he’ll kill her. He’ll–

And then he sees Nureyev, and his anger deflates. He’s lying down, so close to one of the brighter hieroglyphics that he was lost in the glare. Even asleep, he still manages to disappear.

Juno might tell him that when he wakes up. It might make him smile.

He’s out cold but clearly alive, based on the rise and fall of his chest. Juno gets a clearer look at that chest than he usually gets; Nureyev’s layers are gone, stripped to all but his undershirt. Juno glances back to where he was lying: there’s the outer shirt, folded into a makeshift pillow where Juno’s head used to be, and the jacket looked like it had been draped over him like a blanket. Meanwhile Nureyev is uncovered and his head is resting on his own folded arm. 

It makes Juno’s chest ache a little bit. 

Nureyev looks too cold to stay uncovered for the rest of… whatever this is, the night or naptime or whatever.  He gathers up the jacket and dusts it off, and then kneels to drape it over Nureyev’s sleeping form.

That’s the first time that he notices the tattoos. 

It’s funny– he would have assumed that tattoos would have been a liability for someone who changes identities as casually as Nureyev does, but here they are, starting just above his elbows and climbing up his shoulders to disappear under the straps of his shirt. The tattoos continue across his collarbone and peek out, the dark strikingly visible across that gap of bare skin where his shirt’s come untucked from his pants. He recognizes symbols from a handful of religions, alphabets from at least a dozen different languages, none of which he can read. Some of the tattoos are huge; others are tiny, squeezed into the space between letters and pictograms. He’s surprised he never noticed them before– but then, he’s never seen Nureyev show this much skin before, has he? It was always high collars and long sleeves with him, even if those sleeves were sometimes rolled up to the elbow– only that far, never any further. Even in that hotel, he was wearing long-sleeved pajamas. 

It occurs to Juno that he should look away. It’s obvious Nureyev’s been trying to conceal these tattoos; staring at them now when Nureyev’s unconscious feels invasive.

He drapes the jacket over Nureyev, careful to cover the ink. 

Nureyev’s scared.

He’s trying not to show it, but it’s hard to hide that sort of thing from the guy who’s rooting around inside his head. And that makes sense– you’d have to be crazy not to be terrified down here– except that it’s not Miasma he’s afraid of.

He freezes every time her assistants step through the door and approach the cell, but that tension fades away when he sees those awful masks on their faces. It might be him putting on a show, but he almost seems relieved to be dragged back into their endless torture.

Juno’s the only person he knows who hates himself that much, and even he’s not happy to see these goons.

Pretty soon it’s not just the door that has Nureyev jumpy. It’s any sudden move, any unexpected sound. The pipes retrofitted into the ancient tomb creak and shift every time they’re used, and each time Nureyev jerks like he’s been grabbed. 

There’s not much Juno can do about it, so he talks. Not because he wants to, but because it seems to give Nureyev something to focus on that isn’t the distant sounds of footsteps and the ominous creak of bad plumbing. 

The light flickers again, leaving their cell dark except for the hieroglyphics on the tomb walls. The light from those is harsh and sickly, and it casts long shadows that twist and writhe and stretch out in unnatural directions.  

Nureyev tenses. He reaches for the pockets of a coat that’s been long since confiscated by Miasma’s assistants, and his head whips around, searching the shadows for… Juno doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. 

“Hey,” he says, but Nureyev doesn’t seem to hear him. He raises his voice, grabbing at Nureyev’s hand. “Hey.”

“Hm?” Nureyev tries to sound casual, but his voice is an octave higher than it should be, and his palm is damp with sweat. “Did you need something, Juno?”

Normally this would be a good time to let go of Nureyev and pretend his hand just slipped or something, but the fear is too sharp on Nureyev’s face. It would be cruel to pull away right now.

So he grunts. “Those goddamn walls give me the creeps.”

Nureyev squeezes his hand. “Yes, those carvings are… unsettling, aren’t they? The writings of an extinct species: symbols and even ideas from minds millions of years gone.”

Right now Juno really couldn’t care less what they say. Nureyev’s turned to look at the hieroglyphics, and their eerie light is less sinister when it’s reflected in his eyes. 

Turns out Nureyev wasn’t just pretending to be a nerd when he was Rex Glass. He knows a whole lot about a whole lot, and he seems to calm down a bit when he’s rambling about people who are deader than they are.

And hey, at least it’s giving Juno an education. 

There’s a creak in the pipes, and Nureyev starts to shift in his sleep. A few more seconds and he’ll be awake, and that won’t work. Neither one of them is in good enough shape to start skipping nap time. 

Juno wraps an arm around Nureyev’s chest and pulls him closer, offering him something between a hum and a grunt. It’s not exactly the most soothing of sounds, but it’s enough to ease Nureyev back into a peaceful rest. 

They’re sharing space now when they sleep, because it’s easier to keep warm when they’re huddled together under the makeshift blankets, and because it’s the only way Nureyev can sleep at all anymore.

Nureyev’s paranoia is getting worse. Maybe it’s a thief thing– one of those habits that keeps a man from getting caught after a lifetime on the run – or maybe he’s run out of a prescription he isn’t getting down here, or maybe it’s the obvious reaction to being locked up by a woman who very much wants to kill them. It isn’t helping at all that Miasma hired a bunch of amateurs to retrofit this goddamn tomb with basic fucking amenities. Every creaking pipe and flickering light threatens to send him into an anxiety attack, and probably for good reason: they’re at least a mile underground, dependent on electrolyzers and carbon scrubbers to keep them supplied with air. If those life support systems fail, then it’s only a matter of time before everyone down here asphyxiates in the dark– assuming Miasma doesn’t kill them all herself. Juno never really thought he’d make it to fifty, but this isn’t the way he expected to go.

After all, he always assumed he would be the little spoon.

“Well, Miasma, I can see you couldn’t afford to keep a nurse on staff. This one couldn’t inject a sedative into the broad… side of a…” And then Nureyev goes silent.

He said sedative. He said sedative. Not poison, not lethal injection. Sedative. This is for that… stage two Miasma was talking about.

He’s going to be okay. Please let him be okay.

But Juno knows he won’t be– not if he stops being useful to Miasma. Not if Juno doesn’t do what she says.

He has no choice.

So he closes his eyes and reaches out. He can feel the edges where Nureyev’s mind meets his, the warmth of it spiked with veins of fear. Of course it is. He’s got a plenty to be afraid of right here. But Juno swears he’s going to do everything he can to protect Nureyev from that. From Miasma.

And so he opens the door into Nureyev’s head, and he steps inside.

On the other side there is red.

So much red. It clings to every surface, so thick on the ground that his shoes sink in up to the heel, splatted across Nureyev’s face, hot and wet on his hands. One of those hands is braced against the shoulder of an older man– bigger, broader, with a full beard and big owlish eyes that would be imposing if they weren’t wide and terrified. He stumbles backward away from the teenage boy, his knees buckling as his back hits the wall. Every inch of him is shaking, but he holds up a hand.

“Please,” he whispers, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. There are tears in his eyes. “Pete, please–”

Nureyev’s hand tightens around the handle of a knife. The blade is embedded deep in the larger man’s chest.

The man reaches out and touches Nureyev’s cheek. Tenderly. Lovingly.

Nureyev flinches away from that hand as if it’s a hot poker, and he pulls the knife out of the man’s chest. For a moment he stares at the knife, and then he slashes it across the man’s throat.

The man lets out a bubbling, wheezing breath as he slides down the wall, so slowly that there’s barely a splash as the pool swallows him.

Nureyev steps away from him, his grip tightening on the knife. And on the knife, on his hands, splattered across his face, there is nothing but red.

Juno wakes up feeling like he’s rotting from the inside. He rolls over to retch, but there’s not enough in him to come out. He’s left on his hands and knees, dry heaving onto the cold floor. 

The fit is barely over before lean arms are gathering him against a warm chest, and a water bottle is pressed to his lips. 

“Drink something,” Nureyev murmurs, and Juno gratefully obeys, gulping down as much as he can handle. The cold water feels alien and unpleasant in his empty stomach, sloshing around like it doesn’t belong there, but it beats the hell out of the sticky, sickly feeling that was clinging to him before. He can’t remember the last time somebody held him like that when he was sick, and he’s halfway thinking that it might be worth it, almost throwing up to be held this way–

And then he remembers who’s holding him, and he feels like he’s rotting all over again. He shoves Nureyev away and falls backward, breathing heavy.

That wasn’t just a dream. 

“Juno?” For an instant, Nureyev looks hurt… or concerned? It’s hard to tell; Juno’s head is swimming. “Juno, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Juno says too sharply. “I’m fine.”

“You hardly look–” Nureyev reaches for him again, and Juno pulls out of his grasp. 

“You wanna get your hands off me? This isn’t a goddamn honeymoon suite.”

Nureyev’s features smooth over into something carefully blank. Juno knows that look well by now; it’s the expression Nureyev makes when he’s hurt. “…Alright.” 

A part of him wants to feel bad about it, but too much of him feels sick. 

Not a honeymoon suite. That’s a laugh. The two of them have been holding hands and cuddling and fucking spooning as long as they’ve been down here. Even now, knowing what he knows, Juno wants to reach out to him, too, but he keeps seeing the owl-eyed man in his mind’s eye, begging for his life. Nureyev’s hands weren’t so gentle when they slit his throat.

Nureyev’s a murderer. A monster. And Juno can justify working with him to get out of here alive, but it needs to end there. He can’t let himself get close to someone like that. He can’t get comfortable. He can’t. He won’t.

The lights flicker, and Nureyev is bathed in the eerie glow of the hieroglyphics again. Their awful, unnatural light was always creepy, but now it feels too red, too sticky, too much like another light in another room, and the way it hits Nureyev’s face–

It doesn’t do a thing to hide the fear in his eyes. Nureyev’s hands open compulsively, as if he’s reaching for something– Juno’s hand? or a knife? Not that it matters, because Miasma’s assistants got rid of all their weapons when they arrived, and Juno shoves his own hands into his pockets. He’s not letting himself get pulled back in that easily.

He expects Nureyev to say something about that, but he doesn’t. He just swallows and glances over his shoulders. “They really should do something about the wiring down here. It’s atrocious.”

“I don’t know about you, but I want out of here before Miasma gets around to calling an electrician.” He takes a few steps away, just to rid himself of temptation. “So how are we gonna get out of here, anyway? Master of break-ins isn’t worth much if he can’t break out.”

It’s a petty jab, but Nureyev doesn’t react to it. “We’ll escape when the opportunity presents itself. No guard patrol is–” He’s interrupted by a creak from one of the pipes, so long and low that it sounds more like a growl. For an instant, Nureyev goes still and pale. It takes a long moment to collect himself. “As I was saying. The guards will make a mistake eventually.” He doesn’t reach for Juno, doesn’t try to swoon into his arms, doesn’t try to play up the part of the damsel for the big damn hero to fawn over. The color doesn’t return to his face. 

It’s hard to watch, so Juno looks away. 

Booktober Week 2: Fave Books!

Welcome back to Booktober! Booktober is a month were I’m talking about books, specifically books in the horror/paranormal genres. Anything with ‘horror’-esque creatures counts and as long as they are books. No television shows. Or movies. Books!

If you want to also do Booktober, I’ve placed prompts on my twitter and on my tumblr.

Back when I was first getting into things that were considered more horror and paranormal, things like urban fantasy books were still in the horror section of bookstores. Only later were they moved off into science fiction and fantasy. (I don’t know why, but that is the way it was.) I’m not going to talk about ‘classic’ horror books right now because that’s week four.

Horror to me has always been described as a creepy uncomfortable sensation that can also be fascinating. It’s not necessarily to scare you or make you jump. It’s to grab your attention and make you uncomfortable. If that is the case, to me the best horror books would be Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books for many, many reasons.

Anne Bishop calls herself a writer of dark fantasy, and she is. On the other hand, the first books of the Black Jewels deal with a lot of issues that are meant to make you uncomfortable. There is a lot of kink like age gaps, and blood giving with vampire and demon imagery. And there is also sexual slavery, castration, child abuse, pedophilia (mostly not shown,) and lots and lots of death. Granted, this is all shown to be horrible and bad. It’s still uncomfortable and horrible. A huge arc of the first three books is the child heroine growing up to defeat the awful people who are the root of the problem. Not that the problem goes away entirely because those awful people had followers who weren’t as awful but could be in the right circumstances.

Men and women both suffer in the books, as well as talking animals. So, obviously, I do not recommend those books to people who love fantasy without a very long conversation about what dark fantasy when it comes to Anne Bishop actually means. However, if you put them into the lens of horror, they fit rather nicely.

I went in unaware for a plane trip between California and New York (a red eye) and ended up devouring the first two of them pretty much nonstop in a way you can’t look away from a train wreck. Fortunately, the last book does have a triumphant ending. Then the later books are ‘softer’ unless they’re the prequel book, but they can still stray into ‘dark’ quickly.

For actual Dark Fantasy of hers, I prefer the Others series. It’s an interesting take on werecreatures and if werecreatures were actually the dominant life form on Earth rather than humans. I really enjoyed the first three books for their characters, world building, and storytelling style. They’re more slice of life than ‘oh we must defeat the big bad.’ The fifth book though left a very bad taste in my mouth as it took a major step back for our main character and going ahead to see if the sweet romance between her and the wolf shifter was going to happen, I just can’t justify it to myself. Which is sad. Because I really enjoyed the set up and the storytelling as a ‘slice of life’ style writer myself. (This happens a lot to me with series. You’ll notice this is a trend.) I’d use Anne Bishop’s storytelling in the Others as a comparison book for my Heathens series.

One of the book series I enjoyed for the world building more than the longer overall story that I found first in the horror section but was actually kitchen sink urban fantasy was Kim Harrison’s “The Hollows” series. The titles first intrigued me being they were takes on Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name movies and the concept of two women running an agency to solve magical problems sounded really cool to me. Unfortunately as the series progressed it was less about solving magical problems and more about how special the main character was and how messed up her social life kept getting with the final pairing obviously chosen for ‘hotness’ reasons rather than it actually making sense to the narrative.

Look, if it had stayed Rachel and Ivy solving magical problems as they both actually learned from their mistakes and being bad ass and Rachel ended up with the vampire guy who actually respected her and didn’t keep her in a cage like the Fae guy did, I would have gone along with it. It didn’t.

The world building though, I put ahead of something like the Dresden Files because the Hollows worked with the idea the “masquerade” keeping everyone secret had been ripped away and how does a world look if vampires, werewolves, and witches and little Fae have to all co-exist with each other. (The pixie was my favorite character and she did him dirty too.) Werewolves needing extra high basketball hoops and vampires blacking out their basement windows to sleep downstairs. Magic was used more frequently too as Rachel used charms, and circles, and potions on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy Dresden for his research into creatures and such. However, at some point, it became less about witchcraft in general and more about Harry shouting invocations at everyone. Gritty Harry Potter style.

Paranormal Romance exploded after urban fantasy became popular. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell the difference between the two except that paranormal romances sold in the romance section have unabashed sex, while urban fantasy sold in the science fiction and fantasy section tend to not. I think the best paranormal romance I came across was Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series. My favorite has to be the first book Dragon Bound with Pia and Dragos. None of her other couples quite captivated me as much as those two. Pia gets herself in a mess and even though Dragos is extremely overbearing, she doesn’t take his nonsense and does what she wants anyways. She needs his strength, and he needs her magical abilities.

The Elder Races series also uses a lot of races I don’t really see in other books, like Medusa. (I’m pretty sure it was her.) Which to me was really cool. I mean the definition of Wyr meant everything from dragons to gryphons on top of wolves and whatever. The Fae were pretty standard Fae for books. I wish her other couples had grabbed me as much as Pia and Dragos. I really would enjoy a series of the adventures of Pia and Dragos. At least they got like three books and several short stories.

Let’s talk about visual books and interactive storytelling to wrap this up. And for manga, I bet you’re going to say ‘Hellsing’ and yes, I did enjoy Hellsing as much as the next person, but no, I’m going with Judal’s Vampire Game. In Vampire Game, the Vampire is trying to get revenge on the reincarnation/soul of the guy who killed him and ending up in the body of a kitten who is taken in by the teenage princess who is this guy’s ancestor. Instead of holding this revenge plot against him, the princess who hates her family decides to help. There’s lots of shape shifting and there are monsters and I didn’t really expect the ending. It’s funny and the princess is a lot smarter and cleverer than her caretakers give her credit for. It was put out by Tokyo Pop and I’m not entirely sure if you can find it anymore. But if you can, I definitely recommend it.

The web comic that I’ve stayed with the longest that involves paranormal and some horror elements is definitely Girl Genius. Girl Genius is considered a Gas lamp fantasy and has definite steampunk elements. It also has werewolves, monsters, mad science, scary ghost like creatures everyone runs away from, eldritch abominations, and the talking emperor of all cats. I know it’s rather a huge deal given how many Hugos it’s won and all, but it’s still one of the comics I still keep coming back to because they keep delivering a good story.

On the interactive side of storytelling, I’m going to stray away from World of Darkness and talk about Firefly: the RPG instead. Yes, Firefly/Serenity has a role playing game! I actually have both and Firefly book has more backstory and lore than the Serenity book, but the Serenity book does a better job of summarizing the elements of the series that are important such as ship as character and the big damn hero crew.

The reason I put this under horror and paranormal even though it is a scifi western is space is pretty scary and reavers and the Blue Sun Corporation with their Hands of Blue make it more so. You could really play around with the horror elements of just being in space, being lost in space or your engine going out like in Out of Gas. And then there’s the different planets with the mining and what else is Blue Sun up to? There’s a lot of wiggle room to make the game and story extremely terrifying and horrifying that didn’t get explored as much in the series or the movie. (And given some of the stuff that’s come out after, maybe it’s a good thing.)

Now some of these recommendations you might be thinking “How can these be your fave? You didn’t like the story completely!” Look, if we’re going to talk absolute faves all I would do is rave about my books and that is just no fun. Plus, I don’t have enough books to cover all the bases. There may be things in these books that I didn’t like, that you might not mind. These are things I’ve read and are traditionally published I can recommend over other things.

Next week, I’m going to talk about more books and specifically about creatures. What books have I read that do creatures the best, in my opinion!  You can join in too. Here is an image, use totally optional. Happy Booktober and happy reading!

Mystery Kids, Bloodborne, children and alien gods, the Nightmare Frontier, Kubo and Stanford Pines as hunters, Bill Cipher’s father, etc.

Lovecraft readers are gonna give me hell for this. But I’m doing it, I’m making dumb headcanons. I’m gonna sound like an idiot, but whatever. I’ll be making mention of Psychonauts, Gravity Falls, Coraline, Paranorman, Kubo, Over the Garden Wall, Bloodborne and stuff they have in common that make them so much more interesting when put together(I’m excluding Invader Zim and Danny Phantom as I write this since I have yet to watch them again). I wanted Kubo to be part of the group and I just want to make it clear why. My idea was that the majority of the Mystery Kids: The Eldritch Truth takes place where Kubo ended up traveling towards shortly after the spiritual departure of his parents. He lived as a lone child warrior, and soon headed off in wonder how his extended family was able to transcend into godhood when they sacrificed their eyes and allowed themselves to go mad, and to see if it was possible to get his parents back in the physical world, and he found himself eventually stuck in the same timeless dimension where Stanford Pines was hurled into for 30 years, never to come out of it and age at all. This was the city of the damned, Yharnam, a place stuck between reality and the mindscape, and a frontier of interdimensional beings. The main story happens after the finale of Gravity Falls, and after Bill Cipher made a comeback and the portal to Yharnam had to be reopened.

This is all so difficult to process and put into words that make sense, I mean even for myself, as the concepts in Bloodborne and Lovecraftian horror are enough to make my head explode, but let me break down some things so that it makes sense that the Mystery Kids belong in the same universe. Hear me out. And I might repeat the same things just for the sake of context so bear with my monotony if it comes to that. And I’m going to be mentioning the names of 2 specific gods here, a lot. Their Lovecraftian names and their counterparts in Bloodborne and in Mystery Kids.

Lovecraft’s work had the outer gods Azathoth and his son Nyarlathotep, among other eldritch abominations. To put it simply, Azathoth was the ruler of the outer gods. He’s mostly just there but his mere presence influenced a lot of chaos. He WAS the cosmos, and the center of everything, and Nyarlathotep just loved fucking with humans and his own father and getting into people’s business for the lolz. He was the only outer god who showed interest in humans. Now just substitute Azathoth with Oedon and Nyarlathotep with Oedon’s implied offspring in Bloodborne, the Moon Presence. And it’s gonna get more fucked up when we substitute the Moon Presence with Bill Cipher. I’m gonna lay out 3 similar situations here, the 3rd one I’m sticking out with for context of MK: The Eldritch Truth. 1.) In Lovecraft’s writing, Azathoth and Nyarlathotep, already explained above. Azathoth not necessarily evil but he was just so unfathomable his mere presence caused madness. Nyarlathotep indeed the evil one, and he loved fucking around with Azathoth. It’s easier to think about them as God and Satan. 2.) In Bloodborne, Oedon and the Moon Presence, in which the Moon Presence makes a pact with Yharnam hunters(notably the paleblood hunter Gehrman) to rid the city of Yharnam of the plague caused by Oedon because apparently Oedon impregnated people with alien babies and caused Yharnam to go bonkers just by being there and the Moon Presence is like “You’re going down, dad. That’s fucked up. You can’t do that.”, even though Oedon is actually mindless and probably doesn’t know what the hell he was doing other than being an unfathomable blob of cosmic energy and caused the Yharnam population to go on a mad frenzy. But the Moon Presence, the earthbound son of Oedon, had good intentions for humanity. 3.) in MK: The Eldritch Truth, Oedon and Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher being another offspring of Oedon but still a nod to Nyarlathotep(because Bill loved making deals just like Nyarlathotep) in which Bill keeps getting involved in human pursuits with the intent to eliminate Oedon and take his place as the one and only bad guy in the entire universe. This is why Bill burned his own dimension along with his parents(as indicated in Journal 3 in Gravity Falls), or so he thought. His father and more of his kin remained alive. Oedon and Bill has had a long running feud for eons that has never stopped until Yharnam and Gravity Falls. Now...for the things I’ve observed...

Eyes, Insight, Madness, Dream realms, Souls, Lanterns, Bells, Voices, Underwater themes, Ancient civilizations, and Portals 1.)In Psychonauts, there was a mineral from a crashed meteorite called the psitanium. Prolonged exposure to it either caused someone to go mad or develop a stronger brain. It gave people exposed to it an immense amount of insight. Psitanium was probably organic and an alien element, as it was literally called the Whispering Rock and spoke in an inhuman tongue and into a person’s mind. People who were able to withstand the effects of it were elevated to superhuman status(the psychics), and they can percieve things normal people can’t and even influence memories. Dream realms were an alternate reality. They were as tangible as the physical world. The psychics in Psychonauts had enough mental prowess to transmigrate between worlds. Whatever was done in the dream world directly influences physical reality. Psycho-Portals were likely forged out of the remains of the Whispering Rock. These are little door-shaped devices that psychics use to traverse through dimensions. With it, they can, at will enter the mindscape and escape out of it. All the psychics of the known world in Psychonauts were probably descendants from the Lake Oblongata settlers who were directly affected by the psitanium 500 years before the events of the game. The psitanium meteorite most likely fell right in the middle of Lake Oblongata. It’s where the camp is as well because it’s easier to train possible psychics there where the main concentration of psitanuim is. It may be a coincidence that it fell into the water but it’s going to be a recurring theme here that dream realms can be found underwater, so I’m going to say it’s not just a coincidence. And note the family of psychics who cursed Razputin’s family to always die by drowning. My guess is that the influence of the psitanium for this other family was so strong that they started believing growning is a way to transcend into a godlike state. They most likely died out themselves by drowning. And this family was evidently close to Raz’s family as there was an obvious falling out between them and Raz’s father, Augustus Aquato. 2.)Kubo’s story had his extended family sacrifice their eyes in exchange for godhood, but in doing so they went mad in the process. Eyes were windows to the soul, and in that sense giving up their souls meant giving up their humanity. Kubo’s grandfather infiltrated one of the boy’s dreams to influence his decisions. That’s literally the same thing the psychics do in Psychonauts. Kubo’s mother literally has the same sensitivity to the universe as her family. But she didn’t give up her eyes, so she didn’t lose her humanity. When her body fell, she had the choice to transcend but she chose to stay earthbound in another vessel and protect her son. The soul is eternal, and with the aid of the lanterns in the Bon festival, they can move to another plane, the dream plane where the gods reside. The mindscape and physical reality can be easily traversed through by people with a heightened enough sensitivity of the known universe, while risking insanity if their minds aren’t strong enough. In MK: The Eldritch Truth, Kubo’s grandfather communed with the same god that turned Yharnam into a hellhole, the god Oedon. By the time the story of Kubo(in the movie) ends, he remained dismayed by the departure of his parents, so he traveled looking for them until he found himself eventually in Yharnam. The ringing of giant bells was significant in the Bon festival, and it’s that idea that leads Kubo to Yharnam. Bell ringing either summons souls from the dream world or puts them back there. That was literally the function of his father, Hanzo’s, helmet, the Helmet Invulnerable. It served as the bell that ushered souls into the spirit world when the Bon festival was held, and it was also weaponized by Hanzo to drive back evil elements, namely Kubo’s grandfather and aunts. Okay now moving on, Kubo finally arrives in Yharnam. By the time he enters it, Stanford Pines was already teleported towards it and trapped inside. I’ll explain why Kubo is the only one who doesn’t age. Stanford Pines was already bound to Bill by the time he was teleported out of Gravity Falls, and thus cannot forge a deal with the Moon Presence against Oedon. Stanford then cannot operate within the dream realms confined in Yharnam, making time for him as real as it was when he was in Gravity Falls. This will stand for 30 years. That’s why when he walked out of the portal he was dressed as a hunter. And he was already halfway through the 30 year lapse of time when Kubo arrived. Kubo, however like the paleblood hunter Gehrman who served under the Moon Presence in Yharnam, would find himself working under both Gehrman and the Moon Presence as another paleblood hunter, able to operate in the nightmare frontier within Yharnam. Paleblood is a title given to those akin with the Moon Presence. The term pale blood may allude to how blood has mercury content in it, specifically the gods’ blood, but I’ll expound on that later. In this timeline, Kubo and Stanford would be working in tandem against Oedon and until Stanford would be teleported back to Gravity Falls. Kubo remains in Yharnam and doesn’t age. Lastly, the eye monster in the Long Lake was likely an eldritch abomination itself. It looked like a shoggoth but I’m not pushing for it. It was able to whisper and read into Kubo’s mind. And it’s a monster that lives in deep water. And I’m willing to bet that monster was a representative of Oedon(though I kinda won’t push for that either). 3.)In Gravity Falls, Fiddleford McGuckett lost his mind after his head was hurled into the portal. Considering that the other side of the portal is Yharnam, and since it was riddled with eldritch abominations, McGuckett’s mind became ruptured with cosmic energy and inhuman knowledge. He wasn’t ready for it. That’s how he babbled gibberish when he was pulled out and eventually slipped into madness(even without the help of the memory eraser gun). In Dreamscaperers, Dipper was completely within the cosmic realm, that’s how he was able to fight Bill back with superpowers, and at that time, he was sort of akin to the gods, but compare it to when Bill made that one deal with Dipper in the episode Sock Opera, he inhabited the boy’s body leaving his soul in a state of limbo in the physical world. Dipper was helpless. It wasn’t a higher state of being. This is the case of the spirits in Paranorman who refuse to leave the physical world. Without a physical body, Bill was also useless in committing physical actions, that’s why he needed a host, and that’s how he was so clumsy when he inhabited Dipper’s body for a short period. Mabel was able to overpower him later on showing his then weakness in a physical state of being, as Dipper was weaker in the mindscape compared to Bill in Dreamscaperers. Physicality at that time was foreign to Bill. In the finale though, when the rift broke and Bill was both in tune with the physical and nightmare world, he was able to unleash hell. He achieved duality, though not the kind that humans posses i.e. being a man/woman. Rather he achieved complete transcendence. He was already an elder god. But elder gods’ functions are to influence the mind and physical surrounding and not actually commit physical actions. So when Bill had both a physical and form and a form shaped by the cosmos, he became unstoppable. Well, almost. Similar to the Psychonauts, the key to another dimension was the Rift. As the wiki states, it’s a byproduct or a leftover of the reactivation of the portal. It’s a tangible key to the nightmare frontier. And just like the psychics in Psychonauts who can traverse between the physical world and the mindscape at will with the help of the Psycho-Portal, Bill Cipher can do the same thing with the use of the Rift. That’s why he wanted to get a hold of it so bad. The Rift was of the cosmos, and only a cosmic being such as Bill can use it correctly. Now let’s look at the episode “Dipper and Mabel vs the Future”. Stanford made Gravity Falls as the final destination of his research because it had the strongest concentration of cosmic energy that he could find. He hit a roadblock in his research and with enough searching, he found a cave  where he accidentally called out Bill Cipher. It wasn’t said what this civilization was, but I’m taking a wild guess here that it’s the same aliens who landed in Gravity Falls millions of years before the events of the story. The aliens who owned the ship that Stanford looted for parts for the portal he constructed. There was a warning in the cave writings not to summon Bill. Considering all that, you can guess what actually wiped out the aliens who were drawn to and decided to settle in Gravity Falls. Bill Cipher himself. These warnings are of the same nature in Bloodborne, the saying “Fear the old blood”, which leads me too... 4.)Bloodborne, the cursed city Yharnam had people who argued over the use of either blood ministration or autoenucleation and the collection of eyes to commune with and become one with the gods, as these practices gained them inhuman insight. It also made people with weak mental constitutions to go insane. First, the blood. There was a school in Yharnam that had scholars who discovered alien blood used by an ancient civilization. It was headed by a man who frowned upon blood ministration because he knew of the side effects of it, and that it caused the complete purge of that old civilization. He conjured up the saying “Fear the old blood.” That’s literally the same warning in Gravity Falls that Stanford ignored when he read “don’t summon Bill Cipher, you idiot”. So, when people disagreed with this man, they split into groups that openly accepted the use of the blood ministration, and it brought demise to Yharnam the same way it killed off the civilization before it. That man who didn’t wan’t to do this leaned instead towards autoenucleation, severing his own eyes so that he can see within the confines of his mind and later on, the cosmos, and it worked, but in the process he became bound to a rocking chair and couldn’t talk. Autoenucleation was the thing Kubo’s grandfather became obsessed with and eventually made the old man a kin of the gods. Not a god, but a kin of the gods. It was heavily implied in Bloodborne that no man can really become a god, but only elevate his kindredness with the gods, and usually with overbearing futility in the end. Yharnam was overrun by the influence caused by the presence of Oedon and it’s stuck in an everpresent state of timelessness and deteriorated humanity. Also note that the gods that are present in Yharnam never operate within the physical world and are only present in the nightmare frontier though their influence caused a total cosmetic deterioration of Yharnam and the insanity that came along with it, like how Bill Cipher can only operate and be in his strongest and the nightmare realm and that the only remnants of his energy in the physical world were the strange happenings in Gravity Falls. The paleblood hunters who are stuck in Yharnam who serve Oedon’s son the Moon Presence can also transmigrate between dream realms and reality through the use of lanterns. Bloodborne also used the idea of lanterns, like in Kubo and the Bon festival, but in this case specifically sentient winter lanterns, as ways to guide souls toward the dream realm. There are many key characters in Bloodborne whose physical bodies have died without their knowing because they stayed in the nightmare frontier for too long. One such individual who was cursed to keep watch over the nightmare frontier forever was the paleblood hunter Gehrman. He serves as the chief hunter for the Moon Presence and is under the care of a sentient winter lantern who embodies someone he loved. Bloodborne also has large themes of an entire body of the cosmos and the dream frontier being found underwater. The blood of Oedon, and an artifact of the cosmos, the Eye of the Blood-Drunk Hunter, functions relatively the same as the Rift in Gravity Falls. The blood was a direct link to the cosmos like the Rift. The Eye was a little different. It grants access to a version of the nightmare frontier that one of the hunters in Yharnam lived in. It’s an artifact of a memory, and in it, a distorted image of Yharnam can be seen underneath an endless body of water, suggesting that Yharnam was indeed stuck in a timeless dimension underneath the dimension of the gods. And it also is revealed inside that memory that one of the reasons that Yharnam was under the scourge of angry gods was because a fishing village some distance away from Yharnam butchered an eldritch god that they found underwater and its corpse was delivered to the same man who committed autoenucleation on his own eyes. Moreso, the culture of bell ringing in Yharnam was a major reason Kubo went there, as he was in pursuit of getting his parents back prior to ending up there. A subcity in Yharnam, Loran, was part of an ancient civilization(the same that was wiped out by blood ministration) that abused the bell ringing ritual to bring back the dead(and mostly to humanity’s demise). 5.)Paranorman - I’m willing to bet that Bill Cipher was the reason Agatha Prenderghast and her descendants can see dead people. Aggie was already an odd and naive child by default, and was likely an easy target for Bill Cipher. Okay now consider Bill Cipher as a nod to the Lovecraftian outer god Nyarlathotep, we already established that. Nyarlathotep roamed the earth a lot disguised as a man dressed in black(remember that), and is responsible for fucking with people like the demon Satan. In the movie The Witch, the witch in said movie made a deal with the devil(who looked like a man dressed in black when he revealed himself) in order for her to commune with him and elevate her being. This may have been the same case with Aggie and how plenty if not all of the Prenderghast descendants are cursed to be in tune with people who have already transcended into another plane of existence. Aggie’s case was special. Notice how other souls that Norman saw were only in a state of limbo similar to Dipper’s soul in the episode Sock Opera. And Aggie’s soul interfered with the energy with Blithe Hollow, and not just because she was mad and the way she died, oh no, but because that was cosmic energy. That’s ridiculous, you may say, but look at the soul of the soldier who was drowned in the beginning of the movie. That’s a pretty fucked up way to die too, so why wasn’t he like Aggie? Right? Norman probably will have this power as well when he transcends into the dreamscape. That old man Uncle Prenderghast probably had it too but he just doesn’t care. I’m going to throw in a wild card here and say Aggie’s father probably died from an illness, and this made her mother undergo severe depression. In her desperation, Aggie met Bill Cipher, disguised as a man, and he gave her a deal. She would be able to talk to her father, but Bill didn’t tell her this would curse her family forever, and cause the inhabitants of Blithe Hollow to go on a frenzy from witchcraft hysteria. Aggie was most likely a nod to one of the most notable victims of the witchcraft craziness in Massachusetts, Ann Glover. Ann Glover was executed before the Salem trials actually happened, but was the only victim of the witchcraft trials that was given a tribute day 300 years after her execution. Aggie probably even handed documents of spectral evidence to the judges when they tried her, much like Ann Glover did, but to no avail. Her madness would take effect when she herself was already in the dream realm, just like Kubo’s grandfather, and it was only amplified by the rage and betrayal she felt when she was ostracized and finally executed without mercy. In any case, Aggie and Norman’s sixth sense came from an alien source. At least that’s my headcanon for this story. Why did Bill do this? Because he’s a fucking asshole, that’s why, just like Nyarlathotep, and just like Satan. 7.)Over the Garden Wall- Everybody knows OTGW had a lot of similarities between Dante’s Inferno and the stages of hell. Someone here already made a concrete writeup about that and their observations were quite tactful and impressive. I am however making this about the rift between our world and the mindscape, the same place where the Beast resides in. Much like Dipper’s out-of-body experience in Gravity Falls, the souls of Wirt and his brother Greg went into a state of limbo when they drowned in a nearby river. And like Dipper and the wandering souls in Paranorman, they had no clue what to do because their minds weren’t in an elevated state in the majority of the story. Wirt, though, later on realized during his confrontation with the Beast that the only way to get him and his brother’s minds and bodies back is that if they take their power back through sheer force of will, in a sense, elevating his state of mind in the process. The will to exist was what the Beast preyed on, and Wirt denied him of it. This is how the dynamics of insight work as well in the other stories, is that people with strong convictions(our heroes) are the ones with superior mental consitutions and can face evil, in this case, meddling godlike beings. It’s not usually the book smart ones, with Stanford and Dipper Pines as exceptions because they’re already book smart by default, but they have heart. A strong will to exist in all these stories was a key element to surviving against the baddest of the bad. Note that Wirt’s travels in the dreamscape happen underwater, and that time was irrelevant in it, much like how in Bloodborne, the cosmos can be found underwater, and that the city of Yharnam remained timeless because of the outer gods. The outer god in the case of OTGW, is the Beast. The woods in his dimension didn’t have the concept of time, either. I’m also willing to bet that the town Wirt lived in was inhabited by Puritans some hundreds of years ago, like Blithe Hollow in Paranorman. It’s evident from how the people in the woods dressed and lived. The character Wirt met in the dreamscape, Quincy Endicott, was already dead for sometime, as evidenced by his gravestone in episode 9. He was a resident there. This town was also likely involved in a plague caused by an outer god that preyed on them. This caused a mass hysteria so bad in the town that the inhabitants of it went mad and either died or merged their existence with the dreamscape as a result. This was how many of the characters in the woods are out of their minds and can’t seem to find any resolve to their problems. They’re ordinary people without a clue and caught in an endless cycle. And just like Bloodborne’s Gherman who does service to the Moon Presence under the care of a winter lantern in a land where time is meaningless, OTGW’s Woodsman does service to the Beast with the task of carrying a soul lantern around in a Puritan settlement where other poor souls like him are lost in their existence as a result of cosmic interference. It’s a pretty big deal how these ideas fall parallel to each other. If you don’t believe me yet, look at the Moon Presence, and the true form of the Beast, and now look at artist interpretations of the Lovecraftian outer god Nyarlathotep. They all look the same. The ringing of bells was also referenced, but once, in the episode “The Ringing of the Bell”. Auntie Whispers kept a malevolent spirit inside Lorna at bay for short periods of time, unlike the crazed out Loran haindmaidens in Yharnam who used bells to bring back spirits of the dead.She used it to drive back evil like Kubo’s father Hanzo did with the Helmet Invulnerable. 8.)Coraline also played with the idea of eyes and dream realms. The Beldam is the ruler of the Other World, a nightmare realm disguised in hedonistic pleasures. She blinds weakened children from reality and cause them to lose themselves to her, this was her racket until she fell to Coraline. The Beldam operated similarly to how the devil worked in The Witch, a temptress. However in Coraline, the Beldam never grants the children any enlightenment after making the deal with them. Instead she consumes them to sustain her existence and entraps them in her world, like the Beast in OTGW. And of course there also had to be a portal to her world, the weird door in the Pink Palace, and it’s different from the other portals mentioned so far in a way that this was under her control the whole time, although her control was only focused around the Pink Palace itself and nowhere else. Also similar to Bloodborne and the story of Kubo, giving up your eyes means giving up your humanity. The Beldam was obsessed with it. She may be an earthbound cosmic entity herself, and just as devious and fixated on messing with people as Bill, the Beast and Nyarlathotep. She may have existed even before the Pink Palace built over the physical place where her dimension was. Also note that the snowglobe where the Beldam trapped Coraline’s parents functioned the same way as the Eye of the Blood Drunk Hunter in Bloodborne. It’s an artifact of a memory of the nightmare realm, and when it shattered in the end, the memories of Coraline’s parents being abducted by the Beldam disappeared with it. And her victims, 100% of the time it’s children. Thinking about all this, why are these monsters so interested in children? This leads me to my next observation.

Eldritch gods and children Bloodborne-the god Oedon was kinda just there all the time not doing much, though his presence influenced so much chaos and disorder. 3 women in Bloodborne were affected by the plague Oedon caused in such a way that they became pregnant with alien babies(yay!). Eldritch beings cannot reproduce.  While omnipotent, they don’t possess the duality and physicality of man. They operate in the dream world, or the mindscape, or the nightmare frontier, or whatever you want to call it. They can’t just have sex and say heyyyyy we have a new alien baby that’s gonna last another eleventy billion years. No, they can’t do that. They’ll find a way to form a surrogate child, and it’s usually through a human woman, a virgin, a whore, doesn’t matter. In Catholicism(please don’t kill me, I’m Catholic, okay?) it’s the birth of Jesus Christ through the virgin Mary. In Star Wars, it’s Anakin Skywalker. All theories for Jesus and Anakin Skywalker and similar cases aside, it all comes with the thought that they’ll bring balance, peace, order, etc. A rebirth that is heralded by them if you will. But Oedon, being the mindless fuck that he is(like the Lovecraftian god Azathoth), wasn’t really doing anything, but it was the Yharnamites’ prerogative due to his influence to administer his blood in themselves that eventually well, some of them had to be impregnated, and most of them just went nuts. Ironic that one of the impregnated women was a whore, which only cemented the helplessness and volatility of humankind as opposed to the gods of the universe. And now these aliens have a bastard child, if nobody comes around to step on the poor thing anyway. It won’t be just an ordinary alien baby, either. It’s the herald of a new, anarchic age. This is why the Moon Presence intends to put an end to it. Ironic that in Bloodborne, you fight the Moon Presence as a final boss, but when you think about it in a more thorough context, this guy who’s supposed to represent Nyarlathotep or Satan was just doing humanity a solid against another interdimensional being who’s supposed to represent Azathoth or God. This further suggests the futility of human-centric thinking.

In Kubo’s story, his grandfather was hellbent on taking the boy’s other eye. He wasn’t interested in blood ministration like the crazed out populous of Yharnam. He focused on the other way, which was autoenucleation. What more did the old man want? He’s already akin to the gods. My guess is that he and his other two daughters achieved enlightenment much later in their lives, and it’s a safe bet that their transcendence fell a little short. So, with Kubo’s humanity out of the way before he even learns to talk, they thought, he’ll be able to achieve a higher state of being than them. It was all about being part of the nightmare realm and his grandson achieving god status. That’s why his grandfather wants that other eye so bad. Infants are always the ones who have the strongest potential to shape the future of the universe when alien gods are involved. And with Kubo at the helm, the old man can rule beside him.

Coraline’s Beldam and OTGW’s the Beast are both inclined towards consuming children. Both are omnipotent only in their own dimension and are reliant on sharing an existence with someone with duality(because they have no concept of it despite their claimed perfection), and someone they can watch over, much like the Moon Presence is to Gehrman in Bloodborne. The Beldam gets her life source from neglected and possibly codependent children she tempts with fantasies and traps them in her nightmare world. My guess is that she doesn’t kill the children outright once their eyes are replaced with buttons. They’ll stay there for a while until they get smart and want to leave. That’s when she eats them and find another source of supply, leaving the eyes/souls of the damned children to be imprisoned there forever, and codependent children are easy to fool and groom. Coraline was wise enough to see it early and that was the cause of the Beldam’s downfall. After all, like Gehrman, it’s more a curse than an honor to be indebted to an outer god. You can’t just get out whenever you want. When you want to get out, you have to eliminate the source of the problem with your own hands. You have to kill a god and claim an existence greater than it. This is what Wirt did in OTGW.

In OTGW, it was likely the Woodsman’s daughter making a deal with the Beast that caused the hysteria in the woods to begin with and forced it in the state that it was in then into an everpresent dimension of damnation like the city of Yharnam in Bloodborne, and all before Wirt’s generation inhabited that town. The Beast saw it fit to be his new home, but in order to sustain it, the Woodsman had to keep a very specific lantern lit, the soul lantern, and it is lit only by edelwood, which was revealed later in the story to be souls of lost children. The Beast, being an outer god, cannot operate past his dimension, and has to wait for children to fall into accidents in order for their souls to wander there. This is where he wears them out and forces them into a state of submission so he could exist. Wirt was strong enough to withstand this. Everybody knows, in the story, before the Beast was confronted by Wirt and annihilated after, the Woodsman’s daughter was revealed to be dead the entire time and it wasn’t her soul that was in the lantern, but the Beast’s. The Woodsman was fooled into servitude thinking there was an end to keeping it lit. But it was Wirt who said this. This is going to be controversial, but bear with me on this one. Wirt MAY have been wrong in the sense that it was the Beast’s soul that was in the lantern. The Beast was an outer god. He had no soul, he consumed them in the form of children’s remains as edelwood trees. Wirt called him out on his bullshit, sure, and it led to the Woodsman coming to his senses and Wirt’s escape with Greg, but you can bet a million bucks that it was the Woodsman’s daughter that was indeed in that same lantern. Refer to the above paragraphs when I stated that in Bloodborne, while Gherman was serving the Moon Presence, a winter lantern representing a person he loved kept watch over him the entire time. You can literally say it’s the same case with the Woodsman, and it’s his daughter’s soul in the lantern keeping him company for the entire duration of his suffering, along with the rest of the other children that were fed to the Beast over time. The lantern also could’ve been getting brighter and brighter for every edelwood that was fed to it, making the Beast stronger and making the Woodsman even more blind to what was really going on, like how the Beldam in Coraline blinds codependent children to her lies and how Bill Cipher twists deals so he can break the Rift and open the nightmare frontier. The lantern was merely a representation of a deal. And killing the fire in it meant freeing the Woodsman’s daughter, himself, and everyone in the woods of the curse. That’s why when the credits roll the woods is finally in a state of peace and everyone is back to normal and regained their sanity. And again if you look at the edelwood trees, the Beast’s true form and artist interpretations of the outer god Nyarlathotep, you’d be surprised how many striking similarities there are with them, design-wise. And what did he look like 99% of the time as a disguise? A man dressed in black. Also, chopping down edelwood meant that the Woodsman was, in a way, killing children without him knowing, which, if we tie it with Bloodborne again, is similar to how Gehrman and the other hunters are tasked to end Oedon’s curse that was going to produce alien babies, but without them knowing as well. It was the Moon Presence who knew of it. Except the Beast is a selfish asshole and the Moon Presence is a bro.

Lastly(and I’ll keep it short for some because I think I explained most of everything already)

Interdimensional influences on the immediate world around them Okay now Bloodborne was so smooth in dealing with this because the premise was that Yharnam was a city festering with what was known as the “Scourge of the Beast”. Even the smartest cookies would think, oh that’s kinda like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, right? Werewolves, Mr. Hyde, Witches, Vampires, etc. But halfway into the story it was actually revealed that this beastly scourge happened because the inhabitants of Yharnam thought it was a good idea to practice autoenucleation and blood ministration using Oedon’s blood and commune with the heavens. Oedon’s blood was hidden in the Yharnam subcities that were buried a long time ago and tomb prospectors and scholars just thought hey this looks neat I’m gonna inject myself with this now and make a religion out of it bye. Bad idea. There was one Yharnamite who was sensitive to Oedon’s speech despite it being incomprehensible to the rest of the world. This was the runesmith Caryll, and when he etched a symbol for Oedon it contained the symbol for the woman’s vagina(the impregnation of Yharnamite women and the alien babies) and the periodic symbol for mercury.  Uh oh, that means Oedon’s blood had mercury in it. Look above in the earlier sections for when I mentioned mercury. Mercury was toxic for, well, anyone. It causes a complete meltdown of the central nervous system. So when the Yharnamites used it in blood ministration, they actually killed their entire civilization, and not only that , their humanity as well, and almost everyone in Yharnam turned into monsters as a permanent result. They were so obsessed with communing with the gods that they got it, and couldn’t handle it, and lost themselves in the process. Some of the stronger-willed residents became akin with the gods, on a much lower level however, just like Kubo’s grandfather, and lived either in the nightmare frontier working for Gehrman and the Moon Presence as paleblood hunters, or still drunk with the pursuit of enlightenment in the physical Yharnam. And when some of them bled, they would bleed out mercury. People became the werewolves, the Mr. Hydes, the witches, the wraiths, etc. all because of humans trifling with things they shouldn’t have. In addition to all this, the term paleblood may also allude to how it’s a designation only given BY the Moon Presence to hunters. And pale blood means white blood, and white blood cells, in biology, are our body’s repair cells. Meaning that the Moon Presence was trying to undo the disease that Oedon’s corrupt blood is spreading, but that may be stretching it another way, too.

Psychonauts- the psitanium. For the longest time a lot of the inhabitants around Lake Oblongata suffered because of this and caused the mass hysteria that would eventually lead to the building of an asylum within it and the generations of free-roaming psychics across the earth. Lake Oblongata and the Whispering Rock campgrounds were a hotspot for cosmic energy and everyone and everything in it were effected. Hell, even the animals developed psychic powers.

Paranorman, assuming that Aggie’s curse was also the cause of an elder god, it directly affected Blithe Hollow for 300 years.

Gravity Falls, where Bill Cipher was, strange monsters roamed about. The closest to an eldritch abomination like Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls was the island monster in the mini episode “The Tooth”. I may be wrong but I think it’s the only other entity there that speaks backwards, a trait owned by Bill and an actual requirement to summon him. It’s a language the nightmare frontier understands. It’s not just me. There’s just too many things in pop culture that says backward talking equals demonic chanting. Hell, it’s in the movie The Exorcist. And so far all I’ve observed was the devil = a cosmic entity who just loves punking everyone including other cosmic entities. And the island monster resided in the center of the lake, and underwater. Again, there’s your underwater theme. In any case, it was mostly Bill Cipher and the leakage of the nightmare realm that were the causes of the strange happenings in Gravity Falls, and it only got worse when the Rift broke. The aliens who settled in Gravity Falls we probably scientists who investigated the place themselves, and got destroyed by Bill Cipher when they knew too much. Stanford only repeated their mistakes. It’s the same with the Yharnamites in Bloodborne repeating the same mistakes as the ancient civilization before it. Oh and you know what other movie that had eldritch gods punking humanity and are actually the sole reason monsters roam the earth? Cabin in the Woods. It’s fucking amazing.

OTGW- the dimension where the Beast entraps people and children also experienced some form of deterioration over time. It probably began in the same state the woods was in before the Beast made the deal with the Woodsman’s daughter(considering a deal was made anyway). It was soon filled with monsters and the people in it became mad. Some even turned into animals. And the children who ended up in that dimension soon gave up existing after feeling lost for too long and became edelwood as food for the Beast.

Coraline-The Pink Palace was placed under a dome of cosmic energy that the Beldam inhabited, much like Oedon was to Yharnam, Bill Cipher was to Gravity Falls, and how The Beast was in OTGW. Strange how their omnipotence is still confined within a closed space, when all that they’re supposed to be are otherwise. But that’s my human brain rationalizing things. Notice how the Pink Palace and the immediate vicinity around it seem so barren. It’s like the place was purposely rid of life so that the children who’ll live in it will become bored and eventually fall prey to the Beldam and her lush temptations. The Beldam was controlling the entire plantation surrounding the Pink Palace. It makes sense that Coraline’s family knew some farming and that they were able to plant things easily after the story, because the Beldam then already died and had no more influence around the Pink Palace.

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That about sums up everything I’ve observed. Fucking hell I’ve been writing and rewriting all these for days, and I’m pretty sure I missed a million other things because I’m just an idiot maybe and I’m actually not that smart. But I hope a lot of it still makes sense especially  as to why it actually works when the characters in these stories are put in situations where they interact. That’s because they live in the same universe. That’s how it is to me and many others.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. I’m so tired now hhhhhhh my mind is going to explode from all the thinking I did

No Place Like Home

Time to approach the mystery that is Dawn directly for the first time this season! Hopefully, we get them approaching the person that is Dawn here too. 1. Running monks! Run monks, run! They have candles! They are very, very scared. It’s two months ago, and someone’s trying to kill them. They have to protect the Key. Whatever’s after them is breaking down the very heavy door. They finished whatever they were doing just before the door gave. I’m assuming they’re dead. 2. Buffy fighting a very large vampire. And bantering. And winning. Dusted! But now she has a glowy ball. She doesn’t know what it is. Opening credits! 3. As I watch the credits, I’m eating McDonalds’s new Mac Junior. It’s not bad. It’s kinda a tiny Big Mac. I know McDonalds is bad for me, but it’s tasty and in this fallen world we take what joy we can. Especially since my favorite fast food growing up was Chik-fil-a, and they kinda spend substantial money on advocating against my family’s existence, so… can’t really eat there. 4. Buffy is making breakfast for Joyce. Joyce is still sick. Her problem is still undiagnosed. Huh… they’re talking about nicknames. Joyce never had any for Buffy, which doesn’t surprise me. Giles is opening the Magic Box today! Joyce wants Buffy to go and have fun, and bring her back a flying broomstick. Dawn complains that flying broomsticks never work. Dawn and Joyce have a book club, an idea to which Buffy reacts with horror. I’m amazed she’ll glance at a book without recoiling after Pat. Dawn’s going with Buffy to the Magic Box. 5. Magic Box! Giles is wearing a wizard hat. Such wonderful stares. Dawn comes in after Buffy. She’s impressed with the store. Giles has no customers yet. Riley and Willow just arrived. Buffy is showing them her ball. Riley wants to go with Buffy to find more balls. Dawn just made Riley feel bad. She’s taking the old Cordy “voice unpleasant truths to people” job. Buffy wishes she was an only child. Dawn broke something. 6. Buffy and Dawn back at home. Joyce’s head hurts. Joyce doesn’t want to go to the doctor. Buffy’s getting her pills. Ran into Ben. There’s also a patient on a rolly bed… he’s a little odd. He doesn’t belong there, and is calling everyone Fascists. Huh… it’s the security guard. “Doesn’t even help. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.” He was looking at the pills. “They’re coming at you. They come through the family. They get you through the family.” Buffy thinks someone’s doing this to Joyce. 7. In a building. There’s a monk drawing circles on a map. And door opens. He’s terrified… whatever’s after them - the Beast - is there. She’s tall, leggy, and very, very blonde, and the monk is trembling. 8. Magic Box. Giles sold a thing. He’s delighted. Anya can get Giles a direct line to the troll who sheds conjuring powder. And Buffy’s there. She’s telling them about the guard. Giles is skeptical but willing to help. 9. The building… huh. The one the guard was guarding. The Beast has tied the monk to a chair and is walking around him complaining about how hard he’s making her life. She wants to leave the universe because it sucks. She wants the Key. She wants him to tell her where the Key is. But he’s not telling her, The security guard she’s tied up is pleading for his life. Wow, I think she’s breaking time with her upset. And… she put her hands in the guard’s head and… something? She seems to be in better shape. 10. The Magic Box is VERY busy. Giles is being overwhelmed. Anya is working the register. Buffy is still doing research. Willow is bad at gift wrapping. Anya’s going to take that over. She’s good at things. Anya also knows about a spell to see magic. That seems useful. It’s dangerous but Buffy can do it, and Riley’s helping her with the spell. His insecurity is getting on things again. He’s doing better with it, though, a bit. Kissy time, then she’s going to do the ritual. Her magic circle is shaped more… oblong squarey thing with round corners? Dawn wants to see her do the ritual, but she needs Dawn out of the room. Now ritual time. I do love her shirt. I think the ritual’s done after a bit of a montage… so she should be all trancy now. 11. Yep. Trancy. Eyes all black. She looks lost, but she’s walking through the house. No spells yet. She found Joyce. No spells on her. Wait… Buffy’s looking at a picture of the three of them. Dawn keeps vanishing. Dawn is vanishing from all the pictures. This is creepy, visually, and very well-shot. Buffy’s upstairs again, going to Dawn’s door. Opens it. Walks into Dawn’s room. It’s supposed to be an art studio. Sees Dawn. She’s… vanishing, too. “You’re not my sister.” They were about to fight, but Giles called. He’s learned about the orb, which is the Dagon Sphere. It has a very long history as a protective device that wards off ancient evil - “That Which Cannot Be Named.” She’s about to tell Giles what she saw, but Dawn is behind her. Dawn is being creepy. Buffy says she’ll be back before Joyce gets there. She’s going back to where she found the Orb. 12. And she found Spike hanging out outside her house. She punched Spike. Spike’s insult game is off, and he was out there for a long time judging by the pile of cigarette butts on the ground. 13. At the factory. Buffy’s going inside. No guard on duty now. Of course, the Beast ate two guards already. Buffy found the giant door the Beast broke down. Joyce, meanwhile, came home before Buffy got back, and is looking for her daughters. Dawn is there, and made tea. Says Joyce doesn’t need to worry about Buffy. Buffy continues her exploration of the factory, and found a monk. Tells him she got the Sphere. The Beast is there… and just slapped Buffy across the room. Fight time. 14. Magic Box. Everyone but Anya is exhausted but Anya is delighted. Giles hired her. She’s very, very happy. 15. Buffy’s getting beaten up by the Beast. Very, very badly. Even full-strength hits aren’t doing much. She did manage something with a headbutt. But the Beast isn’t even slowed down. She JUST noticed Buffy has powers. Wow, this is the most severe beating she’s ever survived. She jumped out a window, and the Beast had to stop chasing her because the heel of her shoe broke. And the BEast just broke the building and collapsed it on herself. Buffy’s too hurt to get the monk away. He tells her she has to keep the Key safe. The Key is energy. It’s not the Dagon Sphere. He’s calling the Beat an abomination. They had to hide the Key. They made it human and sent it to Buffy to keep safe. They put the Key in her house. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t even know… what is she?” “Human. Human, and helpless. Please. She is an innocent in this. She needs you.” “She’s not my sister.” “She doesn’t know that.” Oh god, monks, well-played. Utter dick move - like, wow, you’re terrible - but well-played. 16. Buffy gets home. Dawn stomps upstairs. Joyce asks what it was about; Buffy says “Sister stuff.” Now she’s at Dawn’s room apologizing. Wow, Buffy’s face when she starts to recount a Dawn memory. Dawn wants to know what’s wrong with Joyce, but Buffy doesn’t know. Overall: A lot of people don’t like Dawn - they find her annoying. But I actually like that about her. She’s fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds are annoying - and she was created, by the monks, to be a convincing fourteen-year-old She should be annoying. Michelle Trachtenberg is seriously great in the role. She’s actually the only cast member among those playing teenagers in the show who matches her character’s age. The thing with the monks editing Buffy and Joyce’s memories… ehhhhhhh. Buffy is meant to be a piece of feminist art, a story about a powerful woman who has agency, but it spends a lot of its time stripping her of that. The very nature of the Calling strips her of agency; she did not choose it. It chose her. And now she’s had another Calling stacked on her - the monks bored into her feelings and inserted someone into her heart. That’s pretty awful. Thankfully, Sarah Michelle Gellar responds to it in a way that makes sense for Buffy - immense anger at the man who did it to her, and, once she knows what’s going on, none for Dawn, who is a fellow victim in the conflict between the Beast and the monks. The episode? Frankly emotional, with some lovely bits in the Magic Box, including using Anya really, really well. Have I mentioned I adore Anya? It’s good, is what I’m saying. Maybe a bit triggering, but Dawn’s story is inherently so. The episode’s good. The story about Joyce's illness continues here, too. I think I'm supposed to empathize with Joyce, but honestly I've watched her stomp through this show spreading about as much suffering as any human manages, and it's not even funny suffering like Ethan's work. I empathize with Buffy and Dawn having to watch someone they love be very, very ill, but not really with Joyce.