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sunshine-jesse · 3 months

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In defense of Andrew Graves: Facing Yourself

Alt title: Andrew Graves: The Will to Plow Her

I think my analysis of Andrew is one of the best essays I've written so far. But since then, I think I've expanded my understanding of his character in a way that urges me to add on to my prior essay. What I intend on doing is further fleshing out my reading of Burial, and going deeper in detail on why I think Decay ends up panning out the way it does. This essay will end up sharing a lot of text with my prior one, but will add enough scattered throughout that I think it merits a complete reread instead of just scrolling down and seeing what's new.

I've focused a lot on Ashley in my past writings. She's my favorite character in the story (and depending on how episode 3 pans out, maybe ever) and I'm pretty mortified by how some parts of the fandom have reacted towards her, so I pretty much made it my life's mission to push back against that. From highlighting the ways Andrew mistreats her, to coming up with justifications for her behavior that aren't just being a manipulative bitch, I really wanted to prove that a more favorable picture of her could be painted than most were willing to.

But in doing so, I've left Andrew in the dust.

In highlighting his flaws and the ways he mistreats Ashley, I think I've implied a level of intentionality to his actions that I don't believe he has. When I say that Ashley did nothing wrong, it's in direct response to the idea that she holds the most responsibility and agency in how their dynamic plays out, when in reality, I believe she has very little. Most of her actions in-story are in reaction to a variety of stimuli that come directly from Andrew, that he has control over and are aware of how Ashley feels about. His refusal to use clear and direct language to deny her most toxic tendencies causes her more and more stress as time goes on, and instead of giving her clear answers he opts to be catty, passive-aggressive, or, at his worst, threatening. Never direct and never clear, except when establishing boundaries over his name after the choking scene. Andrew fails to help Ashley be better in some frankly depressing ways throughout the whole story, especially in their childhoods, so we never get to see where she'd fall short if given a better influence.

...

Kind of. More on that later!

In mentioning his thing about preferring to be called Andrew instead of Andy, I also implicitly mention one of the places where Ashley falls short in their dynamic and could stand to do better: recognition.

This scene says a lot. It's the most heartbreaking scene in the game, if you ask me, and probably the single most profound and well-written moment in the entire story. I could write a whole 2000 word essay on it alone, but I've already said most of what I have to say about it through what I've said in other essays, so I'll spare you all that. Instead, I'll use it to highlight something:

"I had fun."

Their dysfunction is fun to her. She's so used to abuse and alienation that even the most awful, stressful (as far as we know) route of the game is still fun to her. And that's not a sign of her being a secret evil sociopath or whatever; that's actually not abnormal behavior to develop for a lifelong victim of abuse. Those highs and lows, those strong emotional highs and lows are -addicting-. They're -fun.- Part of why abuse victims get into so many abusive relationships is because it's easy to pick up on those patterns of thought and take advantage of them, and the cycle of abuse is often furthered when a victim of abuse tries to draw out mutually abusive behaviors in someone with no interest in having that kind of dynamic.

This is where I'm willing to acknowledge Ashley's manipulative tendencies. Not just as a matter of controlling Andrew for its own sake, purely out of jealousy or possessiveness, but as a matter of trying to further the only dynamic she's ever known in her life. Better the devil you know, right?

That push and pull- that emotional rollercoaster- is all many of us know. And it's all Ashley knows. This dynamic is something she's so used to that she reacts incredibly harshly to any attempt to change it, because she doesn't know that things can be better. Because of this, she refuses to engage with who Andrew really is, and tells herself- and him- that she *hates* Andrew:

This scene is almost as heartbreaking as the above one in a lot of ways.

Andrew putting his foot down about the Andy/Andrew name dichotomy wasn't arbitrary and it wasn't just about his comfort. It was about Andrew giving a clear indication about what needs to happen for their relationship to improve. He's recognizing the cycle between them and wants to put a stop to it, because he's confident that things between them CAN get better and evolve into something healthier. Ashley, not understanding that their dynamic can get better, because their "fun" little push and pull of abuse is all she knows, rejects that. She rejects the unknown, and says- in Andrew's mind at least- that she'll never accept that new dynamic, nor will she accept who he really is.

Ouch. No wonder he looks so sad in that screenshot.

They have a conflict of understanding here, and I think it's fair to pin most of the responsibility on Ashley. Andrew was clear in what he wanted, and Ashley just... Didn't. She didn't see the importance of it ("...whatever that means in practice") and didn't really ask. This gap in communication, perfectly displayed in this scene, is likely what causes the Decay ending. He wants things to be better, and wants to treat Ashley better, and whether or not he understands the ways in which she communicates with him is in part what determines what he sees her as.

But there's a lot of evidence that he always wanted things to be better, that he always wanted to treat her better. But external factors have made it very, very difficult, and I think there are two key points in which he started to shed the importance of those external factors and seek that better relationship, both of which happening in the apartment: The killing of the warden and the 302 lady. In the first case, he was forced to do it to protect Ashley in a way he hadn't done before, or depending on how you look at it, since the death of Nina. But the intentionality was the key point here. After this point, he calls Ashley Leyley, which may or may not seem important at this point, but it's something I'll draw attention to later, so keep that in mind.

Next is the killing of the 302 lady, which is the much, much bigger point. We don't learn much about it until later on- as at first he just gives an excuse about the nail gun that doesn't line up with what we see on the map- but during the dream, it's revealed it was a calculated, intentional killing that he did to make sure there was no evidence left behind, and because Ashley (supposedly) would've wanted him to do it anyway. I say supposedly because Ashley herself doesn't seem to ever want Andrew to kill for her past Nina's death, because he only ever kills for her to defend one or both of them. If you want more evidence that violence for violence's sake isn't something she wants, look at this part in the final dream:

A knife isn't what opens the door, despite it being placed on the ground in that very map. While it seems obvious that the knife (violence) would be the key to solving the puzzle, it's put there explicitly to show you that it isn't. It's not what she wants; what she wants is a flower.

So, why is this important? Why am I centering Ashley- again- when this essay is supposed to be about Andrew?

It's because these two killings are when Andrew's self-delusion over who he really is starts to break down. It's still there, mind, as he still relies upon Ashley as an excuse to justify it, but, as well as what I've said before, the name ultimatum is an implicit confession that the normalcy he finds comfort in is starting to lose its grasp on him. There's a lot that's been said about Andy being something close to a "moral impulse" for Andrew, given his child self's reaction to Nina's death being the only thing he does that approximates a normal moral response to his and Ashley's actions, but if you do think that- which I think is a reasonable thing to think even if I don't necessarily agree- there's something you must also keep in mind:

-He- is the one who doesn't want to be called that anymore. -He- is the one who wants to let that moral impulse go, and Ashley is the one making it difficult.

That reading is assuming that Andy is a moral impulse, which I think is... either wrong or too simplistic. Every time I see that reading, it's from someone who's trying to paint him too sympathetically and absolve him of most moral responsibility. I also find it infantilizing to equate morality with childhood in such a way? But that's another tangent that I didn't sign up to talk about. What I do think, however, is that it's a useful framing device to display his own relationship with morality; the allegory to his child self doesn't have to be there for the general pattern to exist.

When Ashley starts to grill Andrew over the killing of the 302 lady, he gets mad. Very mad. Ashley sees it as pointless, as him covering his own ass, but he genuinely did it for her sake, because he thought that's what she wanted, and that it'd make her happy. But what makes her happy isn't violence- or any similarly extreme action for that matter- it's attention and validation. Something he's always reluctant to give her, despite the fact that he always chose her over the alternatives. But despite making that choice, it's always empty and meaningless, because in Ashley's mind, he never did it for her sake.

And hoo boy, does he not like it being framed like this.

He is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to keep them happy and safe... but only for her sake. It has to be for her sake. He still needs that traditional role, and he still needs to have a narrative in which he's the good guy- a protector. Because it can't be for his sake. It can't be because that's what he wants. He has to uphold that romantic (in the literary tradition sense) ideal. His darkly romantic idealistic streak colors many of his actions and beliefs. This is most plainly visible in his quip about a double suicide being romantic, but it's also visible within the symbolism present within his dream, such as how he can only pave his own path in blood unless Ashley lights the way. It's visible within his appreciation for poetry, and it's visible with how the cultist within the dream speaks in Shakespearean English.

But the transient nature of this ideal is also revealed within this dream, because there's never a cohesive, guided path, even with Ashley there to light it up. Contrary to Ashley's dream, where you literally have maps showing you where to go, Andrew's dream has many more dead ends and no map to guide him. The symbolic role he acts out gives him no clarity, and there's no overarching narrative; merely a bunch of disconnected symbols.

This is contrasted with Ashley's dream, which has narratives so clear that the story literally gives the dream an episode title.

In a sense, he wants to view himself as an actor acting out a role in a story. He wants his life to be poetic, to represent something greater, and to have a cohesive narrative. This is why he's so disconnected from his true desires: He's more concerned with acting as a representative of an ideal than a person with agency. But every time the mask drops, every time he stops acting, his true self becomes visible. He naturally settles into being comfortable around Ashley, in treating her with warmth and kindness, and their banter becomes much less toxic. As intent as he is on acting out his role, it does nothing for him, and as his dream sequence shows, it doesn't even form a cohesive narrative, because he can't act one out. It's too contrary to who he really is, and what he really wants. But that idealization doesn't just apply to himself, it also applies to Ashley. Specifically, who Ashley is, vs who he wants her to be.

In his unique dream sequence, he sees two versions of Ashley; the child version of her- Leyley- and the adult version of her- Ashley. And the differences in the ways he interacts with the two of them are stunning. Leyley is an obstinate, annoying child. She's the one he NEEDS to take care of, and he hates that. He hates Leyley for what she did for his childhood. He hates that he needs to provide for her. He has the option of trying to kill her, even, over something as small as a candle!

But in the room with all the murders, the gilded cage, he sees Ashley as an adult. This version of Ashley is stuck in a closet that he himself has to open- and to choose to see. Their interactions are calm and friendly. She teases him a bit, sure, but she's still helpful, and they have fun together. He doesn't need her, and she doesn't need him. He needed Leyley- needed the candle- but here, there are other limbs strewn about for him to take. And, crucially, he doesn't even have the option to kill this Ashley for one of the limbs.

And during the choking scene, he lets her go the moment she acknowledges that he doesn't need her anymore. This is the first time we know of that he seems comfortable enough to set a clear boundary, which is acknowledging that their prior dynamic is dead and that they're now Andrew and Ashley, not Andy and Leyley. It's a bit late to express a clear boundary -after- literally acting like he was going to kill someone, but it's the first time we know of that he sets a clear standard for what, in his mind, would improve his relationship with Ashley.

After all, what he wants is to want her, not need her. He wants Ashley for Ashley's sake. Not for what she can provide him. He doesn't even need her for sleep, he just wants her. But Ashley has trouble acknowledging this, because he's never before shown that WANT. Only a NEED. She keeps trying to find ways to make him need her, because she's never seen what his desire for her is really like. She's only ever seen him desiring someone else, someone other than her.

She's only ever seen him as Andy, because she's never truly seen Andrew, only the violence he can inflict on others. But Andrew can see both:

He can see Leyley, the needy, bratty child who always needs his attention, that he needs to provide for. The one he hates and wants to get rid of. The one he kills for to protect.

And he can see Ashley, the one who engages in friendly and cute banter with him. Who comforts and shows him physical affection. The one he loves. The one he kills for to make happy.

He just can't choose which one he wants to see. Every outside influence- from his parents, to Julia, to Nina- makes him see her as Leyley. Ashley herself makes him see her as Leyley too, whenever she brings up all the things he did for her, and calls him Andy, his child self, instead of Andrew, his current self. And as long as he sees that child, he feels like one too, and can never give Ashley anything that comes from the heart.

But he really, really wants to see Ashley as an adult. He wants to take pride in her, how much she's grown, and how driven and competent she really is.

But god damn, does that bitch ever make it hard, because there IS no real difference between Ashley and Leyley. She's grown and changed over time, taking more adult (and stereotypically feminine) responsibility upon herself, but the fact that her temperament and personality hasn't changed much obfuscates that growth. When you talk to Ashley in the closet during the dream after getting the limb, Andrew asks Ashley to come out of the closet, but she refuses to come out because he won't invite Leyley over to play, which is a pretty strong metaphor for how he interfaces with different aspects of Ashley's personality and refuses to accept others. But the reality is that he needs to accept both, or rather, see her whole self as Ashley, rather than just the parts he likes.

In the end, it's him who has to make the choice how to see her. Ashley can only see what she's been shown, but Andrew can choose.

And in the basement scene, he makes that choice.

If Ashley refuses to leave him alone with their parents, that's it. In one of the most critical and important moments of his life, she couldn't give him the space needed to make up his own mind. She couldn't treat him as an adult. She couldn't see him as Andrew. If she does give him that choice, she chooses to acknowledge that Andrew is an adult who can be trusted to make his own decisions, even though she (perhaps foolishly) believes that this choice lines up with her own interests. And frankly it does either way, but in accepting their mom's offer, her chooses to see her as Leyley once and for all. He chooses not to reciprocate what Ashley showed him. He does it because he needs to, not because he wants to. Because it's his duty, not his desire.

This is what results in the Decay ending. Through his inability to see Ashley as an adult, he surrenders his agency and views all of his actions as an extension of his responsibilities, his role, which he no longer wishes to uphold. He dissociates fully from who he really is, acting in accordance with that disconnected, barely-cohesive narrative that exists only within his mind. The game starts to resemble the heartwrenching tragedy that many seem to take for granted that it is, as their dynamic fully doubles down on its painful toxicity. And, in an example of a poetic book end, Ashley's dream shows a double suicide, closing the book on their tragic tale.

It's tragic. It's heartwrenching. It's poetic. It's beautiful.

...Except it's not. Not at all.

It's actually fucking stupid, pointless, and brutal, and Burial shows us that. When we view their spiral as beautiful, we project the same darkly romantic ideal that Andrew possesses onto the story.

But the actual reality is horrifying.

Ashley spends most of Decay terrified of Andrew, the one person she found comfort in. He acts cold, distant, and aggressive towards her, showing pointless cruelty instead of any warmth. All she wants is comfort; all she wants is to not die. She doesn't want to engage in this death spiral at all, and, in her dream sequence, shows none of the same willingness to die alongside Andrew that Andrew does with her. The moment we stop focusing on the end of the Decay dream sequence, which has very striking imagery, and if you choose not to shoot, one of the most beautiful scenes in the game, we can see it for what it really is:

A scared animal running away from a predator.

The moment you see Decay through Ashley's eyes, and not the perspective of some romantic ideal, Decay becomes terrifying, tense, and painful. There is no catharsis to be had in this tragedy. It's easily avoidable as long as Andrew chooses to engage with reality, and not the empty promises of his mother and incoherent narrative of his ideal.

Finding beauty and meaning in tragedy is how we cope with the harshness of reality. But there is no coherent narrative to the tragedies we experience, just like there's no coherent narrative to the ideal Andrew wishes to uphold. It's something we create- that he creates- but it's not something that actually exists.

And when Andrew casts aside his desire for that ideal, and the responsibilities it shackles him to, it grants him clarity that he never had before. He sees the world for how it really is, and acknowledges that nobody- the least of which their mother- is as different from Ashley as they pretend to be.

They're no better than her, and he's tired of people pretending that they are. People are all the same, no matter what ideals they try to uphold and represent. They still sacrifice others in the name of advancing themselves, still punch down whenever they can, and still lay blame on those beneath them rather than try to take control of their lives. They just use those ideals to justify themselves, but Ashley, and now Andrew, reject even the need for that justification.

This is why I believe the story is nihilistic. Not in that it asserts the inherent meaninglessness of life, but in that it grapples with the ideals we uphold and how they obfuscate the reality of the world we live in. The story, intentionally or not, highlights how ideals are often but a pretense we use to justify what we were likely going to do regardless, and how holding to them too strongly can lead to our ruin- and how monstrous they make us look to those who do not share them.

Consequently, this is how I view the part of the fanbase who thinks Decay is a good ending.

(the characters themselves represent existentialism rather than nihilism but i couldn't really fit that analysis in here without it feeling forced so i might cover that another time)

From that point on, their relationship becomes a lot more friendly, lighthearted, and playful. They ironically start acting more like children, but to quote CS Lewis:

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence."

He's not ashamed of being playful with Ashley, or showing affection towards her. He's grown up. He finally sees her, and himself, as an adult- although he still doesn't show that in full until much later on (more or that later). But in Decay, he still sees her as a child, and to an extent, probably himself. Let's compare the ways in which he reacts to being called Andy. In Decay, he lashes out at Ashley and gets angry, even threatening her. But in Questionable Burial, he calmly says that Andy is dead and doesn't need Ashley's comfort, but still tries to reassure her that she's still needed. He's not ashamed of or hostile towards their prior dynamic, because he's grown past it. He still acknowledges Ashley's need to feel needed, but here, he recognizes its importance to her, whereas he was hostile towards it before.

It's a display of respect towards her feelings.

This interaction doesn't happen in the Sane ending, however. He doesn't play games with her and is just a lot less fun to be around all together. Why is that? Because he still hasn't yet shaken viewing Ashley as Leyley there. He still views her as a burden, as someone who needs taking care of. He's calmly accepted that, too, mind you, but he lacks respect for her because she's still a child, in his mind. But in Questionable?

The vision did more than just make him extremely embarrassed and lay his deepest desires bare. It forced him to recognize Ashley as an adult. When choosing between "Never" and "Never say never," if Never is chosen, the burden of thought is lifted off of him. But if Ashley chooses "Never say never!", he has to reckon with the fact that Ashley is an adult, someone who can consent to those kinds of things. Someone who MIGHT. Someone who has agency, and can make her own decisions. And more importantly… someone who can trust him to make his own.

Whether he desires sex or not is secondary; he's always had those feelings and has always been ashamed of them. But now that the part of him where that shame came from is dead and buried, there's no childish impulse to grow up. There's no attachment to the hate and bitterness he had before. Look at what he worries about when he picks up that she's uncertain or confused about who he is now:

It's her feelings.

He wants to be fun to be around. He wants to make Ashley happy. He loves her, and not as a romantic interest or even as a sibling. He loves her independent of all that baggage.

He loves her as a person.

Their relationship runs contrary to societal ideals in some pretty huge ways. So contrary, in fact, that it's hard for some to accept it as anything good, that it can ever be best for the people involved. It's incestuous. It involves them killing and eating their parents. It involves them distancing themselves so much from society that it's hard to believe they'll ever fit in it again. It's chaotic, it's messy, it's codependent, and maybe even toxic. And yet, here they are. They're coexisting. They're happy. They're healing. They're navigating the world in the only way they can: together.

Meanwhile, in Decay, Andrew refuses to allow himself to get closer to Ashley. He surrenders all agency to her, buys into his own narrative, drinks his own Kool-Aid, and may or may not condemn one or both of them to death in the process. Like it or not, the only path where Andrew takes ownership of his life is the one where he's closest to his sister. It's the one where he decides where they will go next, the one where he decides his own feelings matter, and acts in accordance with what he wants instead of how he thinks he should act.

His agency, his freedom, and his growth don't happen in spite of his codependency; they're happen because of it. They can't grow alone. They can't heal alone.

In reading the story, one must interrogate how important those societal ideals are in the face of the realities of what makes people happy. Are those ideals worth upholding in spite of this? Can we really allow people to fall through the cracks in the name of social norms? Can we blame people for taking rash actions when the social contract has failed them?

Or are we so blinded by those ideals that we can't see that people can be happy while blatantly disregarding them?

All I know is that in Burial, Andrew, having cast aside normalcy, now appears to be truly happy for the first time in his life.

Who are we to take that from him?

#the coffin of andy and leyley #andrew graves #ashley graves #tcoaal #gaming #gravecest #tcoaal essay

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ms-demeanor · 7 months

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it's hard to find legitimate data on risks associated with alcohol--a lot of results from religious organizations w/ vested financial interest in evangelical cult-type shit comes up when i try. i drink heavily occasionally, mostly because i just really like the experience of getting blasted with close friends once every few months--any advice on tracking down actual *reputable* data on the risks of that?

(tamping down on the urge to anonymously defend my actions in my favorite anarchism blogger's inbox but i *will* allow myself to defensively note that i never drink to the point of blacking out or puking. this isn't really relevant to the question i just have brain problems where i feel compelled to defend myself against imaginary assumptions.)

Okay i want to start this out by pointing out that I'm not particularly judgemental about drug use. Any drug use.

Basically, you do you. As long as you're not drinking and driving or otherwise doing harm (for instance, attempting to provide childcare while too intoxicated to do so safely) the only thing you have to worry about is what alcohol is doing to *you* and I was a smoker for like twenty years knowing full well how awful for me it was. If you want to drink and you know the risks, do what you want.

So, all that said, I mean this very gently (because it's clear that this is a sensitive issue for you) but it is not particularly difficult to find good data about risks associated with alcohol from sources less biased than American evangelicals.

For some research on the overall risks of alcohol consumption, here are some good, comprehensive, recent papers about the effects of alcohol on both individuals and populations.

Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599,912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies

Population-level risks of alcohol consumption by amount, geography, age, sex, and year: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020

Alcohol consumption and risks of more than 200 diseases in Chinese men

Getting occasionally blasted with friends is what's called "binge drinking" - which is defined as five or more drinks within two hours for men or four or more drinks in two hours for women, or reaching a BAC of .08 (the legal limit for driving in the US). This is a lot lower than most people think of when they think of "binge drinking" - that's five beers, an average bottle of wine, or two strong cocktails like a long island iced tea. Five or more drinks wouldn't put most people into blacking out or puking territory, and if you're a seasoned drinker a BAC of .08 may not feel like anything over the top or ridiculous, but it is a drinking binge nonetheless and there are specific risks associated with binge drinking. Here are some write-ups on binge drinking specifically:

Binge drinking: Burden of liver disease and beyond

Binge Drinking’s Effects on the Body

Effects of Repeated Binge Drinking on Blood Pressure Levels and Other Cardiovascular Health Metrics in Young Adults

I get the urge to feel defensive, it sounds like this is something that's concerning you and from the tone of your ask it seems like this is something that you were not aware of and has made you uneasy. (And it sounds like you're around a lot of people who ARE judgemental about alcohol consumption for reasons that have to do with them imposing their morality on you, which is a shitty position to be in)

But hey i wouldn't be a very good marginal anarchist if I wasn't about making sure that people have informed interactions with the world.

I still go out and get shitfaced every once in a while because it's fun and there are things that I can do to mitigate the risks (like making sure I'm around safe people, don't have access to a motor vehicle, and don't do it often) but I do so with the awareness that what I am doing could have some pretty bad consequences and I need to make sure to watch out for my health to keep an eye on the systems that drinking like that might impact. If you're gonna drink, you should be keeping an eye on yourself generally. If you're gonna drink heavily (even if it's only every couple of months), you have got to keep an eye on your liver, pancreas, and heart specifically.

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yanderes-galore · 6 months

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Requests open? RAAA 🦅

May I request a yautja x reader oneshot if that's okay :3 couldn't decide on a yandere prompts so sorry

Hm, I wasn't sure what to do for plot so I chose a basic stalking plot since Yautja spend a lot of time stalking their prey. It's short as I was exploring how to write them.

If anyone wants me to make a Yautja OC I can probably make that work :)

Prey Analysis

Yandere! Male! Yautja Short

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Stalking, Yautja/Human pairing, Thoughts of kidnapping, Violence, Murder, Possessive behavior, Mentions of "Mate", Forced relationship.

Weak prey is not worth the kill. Yautja typically look for armed humans as their prey to kill, that is what is considered an honorable kill. If that was their way of life...

Why was this one so insistent on a weaker human?

Perhaps the young Yautja hunter himself wasn't sure. For some reason during his hunt he found you. There was no urge to kill you as you weren't armed... but he couldn't stop watching.

You appeared to be some sort of medic in a group of armed humans. He could tell that you weren't the violent type and simply tended to those who were. Vulnerable prey out in the middle of a hunting ground.

Even if you weren't physically strong you still were seen catering to those who were. You expressed concern when your fellow humans went missing. You appeared caring... yet even that isn't what caught his interest fully.

When he was sloppy with his work due to being a newer hunter, you tried to confront him. The Yautja could tell you were no match for him. Despite this... you showed bravery and determination to fight the foreign creature before you to save your friend.

The Yautja saw this trait as respectful... desirable. He still took away your friend as the hunt must go on, but not before pushing you out of the way. You had tried to attack him with a small blade and grapple him... unfortunately he towers over you and quickly made his escape.

Not without a few scratches, however.

The Yautja reflected on this as he hid away again. Ever since he collected his new trophy and tended to his wounds, he's watched you. You are no warrior... but you have commendable traits.

After your first encounter the Yautja always lingered near. Cloaked in invisibility he watched every movement you made. You noticed you try to suffocate your fear and reassure your fellow humans, yet your bravery was quickly shaken when he stole another away.

Part of the Yautja felt prideful at his work. Hunts were normally exhilarating. Although, this one felt different.

The Yautja wasn't quite sure why but he felt rage when you were close to other humans. Killing the humans around you and taking their trophies felt better than the usual kill. Pretty soon... you may be all that's left.

Which makes the prideful feeling swell again.

The Yautja knew at some point he'd have to depart this planet. His hunt was coming to an end and he's collected enough trophies. However... his gaze continues to linger on you.

By the final day of the hunt he knew he couldn't just leave you here. No, there was one final trophy the Yautja felt he had to claim. A human pet... or maybe even a human mate?

Either way... the Yautja knew he had to have you and take you home.

Before you know it the final hunt begins. You gather what weapons you can as you expect the monster to come back. After that, you're on the run.

Then he gives chase.

Internally the Yautja gives you praise for trying to fight. Unfortunately, you just don't seem to be the type. Your shots sometimes miss and he's too fast.

Even when he corners you... you still try to make him bleed. You fight him like cornered prey should. That fight of yours has potential....

He'll definitely be keeping you.

By the end of the hunt your fight dwindles. When the Yautja has you in his grasp your struggling becomes weak. Like a sack... he hangs you over his shoulder and looks for his ship again.

The Yautja considers this hunt successful.

Not only does he have many trophies as proof of his capabilities...

But he also has a worthy human to do with as he pleases.

#yandere predator movie #yandere predator #yandere yautja #yandere male yautja #yandere alien vs predator #yandere avp #yandere alien

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moonswolfie · 7 months

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HQ!! Boys with a poet S/O

hey hey hey guess who's back with a super self indulgent piece of shit fic (i am joking, this is my humour)

also let's just say the reader does not write about cute lightearted things (but if you'd like to see a version where the reader writes cute stuff lmk!!)

so, yk TW for implied mental turmoil and an overall angsty hurt/comfort mood for these

Characters featured: Oikawa, Akaashi, Kageyama, Bokuto, Iwa chan

OIKAWA honestly wouldn't believe that those poems were written by you at first. When you excitedly gave him some of your poems to read, he thought they would be cutesy love poems dedicated to him and only him, not this. "What...? Are they bad?" You seemed worried at his wide-eyed expression. "Baby, are you ...okay?" He asked out of the blue, the genuine worry in his tone knocking the wind out of you. "Hahaha, it feels so weird hearing you say that...!" You tried your best to not let any more laughter escape you. "What?! Am I not allowed to be a good boyfriend now?!" He was offended by your reaction, slightly clutching the poems in his hands. "No, it's just... unusual to see you this concerned about me." You said with a half-smile. You had gotten so used to Oikawa's light-hearted flirty attitude, that you sort of forgot just what kind of person he is. "Just what do you think of me?" He sighed, suddenly pulling you in for a hug. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" All you did was nod, feeling relieved that he understands.

AKAASHI 's eyes would widen gradually as he read the contents of your poem. You gave him 5, but he already feels horrible, and he's only on the first one. He almost doesn't want to believe you wrote this. He becomes worried about you, doing a deep analysis on your poem since he wants to understand every part before approaching you with his worries. The next day when you greet him happily, he simply hugs you. "I'm sorry for not noticing..." is all he says, and though it takes you a bit to understand what he means, you feel overwhelmingly relieved he isn't judging you for what happened. "It's okay, I didn't tell you, you couldn't have known..." you assured him, knowing your boyfriend's tendency to overthink, he would beat himself up if you said nothing. "Next time, please please tell me about things like this. I can't stand the thought of you suffering alone." He squeezed you tighter.

KAGEYAMA is confused. Reading and understanding poems was never his strong suit, but yours are especially confusing to him. You laughed a little at his concentration face, and he handed you your poem back, still confused. "What does this even mean...?" He asked, eyebrows furrowed. "Ahaha, don't worry about it too much... I wrote it like that on purpose." You made your poem vague and messy on purpouse, something you knew Kageyama probably couldn't understand properly. Awkward silence filled the room, and Kageyama silently hugged you all of a sudden. "I don't get why, but I got the random urge to hug you just now..." he mumbled silently, squeezing you in his grip. He must have noticed the sadness behind your voice and just doesn't know how to properly comfort you. "You said that out loud, Tobio." You smiled. "Shit..."

BOKUTO 's smile drops suddenly as he reads your poem. When he found you writing it, he insisted that he must read it no matter what. But what in the world was this? Why were you writing about all this sad stuff? "Babe...." his hands trembled slightly as he looked at you while you were smiling as you usually do. "Why would you say that about yourself?" He was very very saddened right now, and you weren't sure who's going to end up comforting who. You felt your bones being crushed in his impulsive hug. "It isn't true!! You're literally the best person I know!! So don't you dare say that again!!" He put his forearm over his eyes, tears stinging at his eyes. He has to be strong for you, he can't cry now. "Kou-" "I've decided! From today on, you're getting complimented every day!! No excuses!!" He looked very determined.

IWAIZUMI understood the content of your poems very well. And it angered him. Why didn't you tell him this happened?! "Idiot." He let the word escape his lips, clutching the paper in his hands. "You should have told me. I would have protected you." He looked to you. You weren't scared since you knew that your boyfriend was genuinely concerned right now, and that was just his way of expressing it. "Dammit, why do you always insist on keeping your problems to yourself..." he pulled you to his side, looking ahead. "I'll tell you next time..." you looked down to the ground. "You better. Or I'll beat you up." He huffed, but you saw the relief flashing in his eyes. He didn't really show it, but somehow, you could tell his heart sank when he read it.

I'm okay :)

#˗ˏˋ ★ ☁︎ 「Wolfie’s works」 ☾ ★ ˎˊ˗#oikawa tooru x reader #bokuto x reader #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi hajime x reader #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x reader #oikawa x reader #kageyama x reader #kageyama tobio x reader #bokuto x you #bokuto koutaro x reader #x gender neutral reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader

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09lover · 4 months

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@mulberriesandtea vs @burstvoid

propagandas under the cut!!

MULBERRIESANDTEA / 04DISSECTION

PROPAGANDA FOR KRIS MULBERRIESANDTEA also known as 04dissection

Do you want to see somrjing beautiful? Do you want to rest your eyes a bit after scrolling throufh this dull tumblr dash filled with all sorts of unhinged things. Or mayhaps you jsut opened your tumvlr app after a long day of seeing enough in the real world. I got you.

Look at this pretty blog. Warm, welcoming, soothing color palette. They have a very aeathetically pleasant tagging system on top of that. Okay but this is only the mobile version.

Look at this SICK desktop version. It can be warm and tender but it can be absolutely FUNKY. The decoration of this blog perfectly captures the personality of this multifaceted individual. As you see their blog is also surrounded with muu which may influence your decision in different ways however it's undoubted that their dedication is truly impressive and inspiring for the whole fandom. Stare at it for long enough snd you can feel the growing urge to decorate your entire blog around your fsvorite character.

They also have CAT(!) and can send us cat pixtures. A splendid example that will render you speechless:

their other talents include, but are not limited to:

🔥 DRAWING

✏️ MAKING MILGRAM ANALYSIS

❣️ BEING DEDICATED TO MILGRAM WOMEN

🔎 CREATING THEIR OCGRAM

📍 MAKING THE PHONEGRAM DRAWING THAT LED TO THE MILGRAM SMART FRIDGE MEME. Can you imagine? If not for Kris' art achievements we might jave never had that ezxtrmeely impoetant part of the milgramblr daily life. Their input to our culture is inseparable and incomparable.

Takr this all in mind and vote for kris mulberriesandtea 04dissection ONLY TOMORROW! (or today i guess depending on when this will be posyed)

— PROPAGANDA BY TSUMI!!

+ https://youtu.be/WhtpH3BciDY?si=7y1m7EZxt0s4Vxqw

youtube

————

BURSTVOID

PROPAGANDA FOR PUPA BURSTVOID

Now you might see the moots battle and feel torn on how to vote. there are so many options, so many marvelous talents to consider. Puzzled, you nevertheless want to commit your voting duty as a proper eslover followers citizen.

May I perhaps interest you in this limited edition PATHETIC CREATURE?

they're a jirai kei patheticgirl. they're an ouji loserboy. They once cried in my dms brcause they didnt want to accepr they relate to fuuta even though they had fuuta pfp the first time we met. They're the jackalope pfp star on milgramblr christmas tree. they're a cat with four (!) beauitufl strong women cats living in their house and one gay ass male cat coming to their house unprompted. They might be kind enough to show you photos of all of these beautiful strong women (!!!).

their size is PERFECT to be put in a blender (80x60 cm). Their texture is suitable to get soaked in milk and only becomes better with it if applied in moderste amoubts (recommended to soak rhem 1 liter of milk per day). they make a splendid thump sound once thrown at a wall.

Their other hideen talents include DRAWING, WRITING, OC CREATION, SINGING and INFODUMPING PEOPLE ON POLITICS. An astonishingly versatile individial.

this is what they look like ↓

don't these big wet eyes captivate you?

this LIMITED EDITION PATHETIC CREATURE can bring a lot of coziness and fun to your house. Be sure to be online and vote for them available only TOMORROW!

— PROPAGANDA ALSO BY TSUMI!!

and that is all, enjoy your voting for round 1.

#es’ moot battle #best of luck! tumblr died when i did this post up #Youtube

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anneangel · 5 months

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Sherlock Holmes explaining, or grumbling, about why John Watson's writing dismays him, canon:

"To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, "it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes celebres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province."

"And yet," said I, smiling, "I cannot quite hold myself absolved from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records."

"You have erred, perhaps," he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood—"you have erred perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing."

"It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter," I remarked with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend's singular character.

"No, it is not selfishness or conceit," said he, answering, as was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words. "If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing—a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales."

Sherlock Holmes (...) emerged in no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.

"At the same time," he remarked after a pause, during which he had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, "you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. (...) But in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the trivial."

"The end may have been so," I answered, "but the methods I hold to have been novel and of interest."

"Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, can barely tell the difference (...) They do not care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality”.

And

"I must admit, Watson, that you have some power of selection which atones for much which I deplore in your narratives. Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.”

“Why do you not write them yourself?” I said, with some bitterness.

"I will, my dear Watson, I will. At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my declining years to the composition of a text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume".

#sherlock holmes #dr. john watson #arthur conan doyle #acd canon #holmes canon #I'm sorry to tell you Holmes but you'll be more interested in beekeeping later on #Holmes seems angry here but actually encourages Watson to write more in other cases #sherlock holmes/john watson #The Adventure of the Copper Beeches case #The Adventure of the Abbey Grange case

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ala-baguette · 1 month

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Just finished reading Knowing Where to Look, what a beautiful piece of fiction!! Congrats on finally finishing it, you must feel very accomplished :)

... and if you ever feel inspired to write a whole fic about Ben Harrows, the love of my life, nobody will try to stop you 😂

There is no surer form of flattery than someone telling me they love one of my OCs even one tiny iota as much as they love the canon characters. Thank you! While a whole fic about Ben Harrows is unlikely (tempting, but that would be a rather niche target audience), I have no doubt Ben will have a few cameos in future fics here and there. I love him too much to say a true goodbye to Ben. However...while not exactly a fic, what I can offer you now is an excerpt from my initial outline (circa 2009) containing the character analysis and (rather depressing) backstory I wrote for Ben. Definite KwtL spoilers, so if you have not read it, proceed at your own risk!

Ben, at first glance appears to be a highly open, out-going, fun-loving sort of individual who says what he thinks. He is all goofy smiles and wit and charm and is loved by everyone who meets him. The truth of the matter is, however, in certain areas, Ben is quite the reverse from what people think. Early on, he discovered subconsciously or otherwise, that if he was loquacious and friendly, those around him received the impression that he had told them everything, and thus they did not bother to look deeper. If he talked about the insignificant enough, they forgot to ask about the significant. There are certain aspects of his life which he discusses with no one. He is, in reality, extremely private when it comes to these things. This is a product of his upbringing and, of course, past trauma.

Ben, born ‘Brian O’Harrow’, was born in Belfast in 1972. He is, in the technical definition of the word, Muggle-born, however, he was never ignorant of magic.

Ben’s mother, Fiona, was the younger sister of a Muggle-born wizard, Eamon O’Callaghan. Growing up, Fiona and Eamon were very close and Eamon was very protective of his little sister. Fiona, therefore, heard all about the magical world and everything that happened at Hogwarts whenever her brother came home for the holidays.

Fiona left her family home in Cork to attend university in Belfast when she was eighteen. There she met Kevin O’Harrow. They fell in love, married, and settled down together in Belfast and had Ben a few years later. This was, unfortunately, just as the Troubles were gearing up. Kevin was young, idealistic, and nationalistic—he was eager to be in the thick of things at this time, but Fiona was much more reticent and worried about her small family’s safety. As the violence escaladed, she frequently suggested they move back to Cork, but Kevin was insistent they stay.

Ben began displaying signs of magic at a young age, and Fiona immediately recognised it for what it was. At Fiona’s urging, Eamon, who had no partner or children of his own, came to settle down in Belfast to be near his sister and to support Ben. Fiona promoted a strong connection between her son and her brother; knowing Ben would eventually enter the wizarding world, she wanted him to have someone to go to with any problems that she knew she and Kevin would be ill equipped to help him with.

Meanwhile, the first war against Voldemort was underway. Eamon, as a Muggle-born now had a target on his back. He was very idealistic and considered himself to have less to lose than most; he took it upon himself to do everything in his power to waylay the Death Eaters, working largely independently, loath to put anyone else at risk. Even so, Fiona found herself trapped between two very separate wars without really being a part of either. She lived in constant fear for her family and especially Ben who straddled these two worlds, both of which were full of danger for him.

Heedless of his sister’s warning, Eamon continued his quiet rebellion. When Ben was six years old, Eamon snuck into a Death Eater gathering place and stole some parchments detailing meeting times, locations, and certain members. As he made his escape, however, he was seen and recognised by someone with whom he had gone to Hogwarts.

The Death Eaters had recently acquired a new recruit, a young boy, only seventeen years old. They decided that it would be a good and relatively simple test to send the boy to kill Eamon and retrieve these documents. Eamon, however, was not at home when the young Death Eater broke into his flat—something the Death Eater was quite relieved about, though he wouldn’t have admitted it. He set about ransacking the place, searching everywhere he could think of for the papers, secretly hoping that he could find them quickly and return them to his colleagues before Eamon came home and that maybe they would forget about the whole killing part of the assignment.

Fiona, who had been passing nearby Eamon’s flat at the time with her son in tow, decided to stop in and say hello to her brother and see if he might be available to watch Ben while she did some shopping as a six-year-old really does slow down the process. After going up the stairs to Eamon’s flat and letting herself in, she followed the sounds of rummaging coming from her brother’s study. When the door opened, the young Death Eater, on high nerves, whipped around and let loose a Killing Curse without even looking to see who it was.

When he saw what he had done, the young Death Eater was horrified. He stood there and stared at the young woman he had just murdered in cold blood and her six-year-old son who was kneeling on the floor looking confused and in shock, still holding her hand. It was the first person Regulus Black had ever killed and it was the first in a line of occurrences that would eventually turn him to give his life to destroy a horcrux. Regulus ran from the house, determined to tell the Death Eaters that the parchment wasn’t in there. Eamon later came home to find his sister dead on the floor and Ben still beside her, still holding her hand.

Kevin O’Harrow did his best to raise his son after that. He loved Ben very much, but he was well beyond depressed after the death of his wife. He was detached and no longer seemed to be able to muster the energy to show his son how much he cared, something he knew Ben needed to see. After a few months, Kevin realised he couldn’t give his son what he needed, and he sent Ben to live with his Uncle Eamon. Kevin, in turn, channelled his anger deeper into the Northern Ireland conflict, diving into the fight for his country’s independence.

Eamon was also crushed by the death of the sister he had loved so much, most in particular because he was convinced it was his fault. He took his responsibilities toward Ben very seriously, however. He was determined to raise and love him like a son and to do everything in his power to make it up to his sister. He immediately cut off his risky, anti-Death Eater life style, but quickly realised it was too late; he had already made a name for himself as being outspoken against Voldemort. War ranging on both sides, he decided to take Ben away and go into hiding. Eamon tried to convince Kevin to go with them, but Kevin insisted that “Ireland was the only thing left in my life that’s worth fighting for.” These words Ben would carry with him for the rest of his life.

Eamon took Ben to England where a friend from school had offered him a safehouse. Fearful of public perception of the Irish, he anglicized Ben’s name and taught him to speak with an English accent. Eamon cared and loved Ben like his own son and did everything in his power to ensure he had a safe and happy childhood going forward. Knowing the risks to Muggle-borns, Eamon even had forged documents drawn up to claim Ben was his biological son. It was these documents that would later save Ben in the second war when the Death Eaters started their purge at the Ministry.

A year after going into hiding, Voldemort was defeated by the Boy Who Lived and the political climate began to calm, at least in the wizarding world, if not so much in the Muggle one. Eamon and Ben emerged from hiding to discover that Kevin O’Harrow had died a few months previous in a car bomb explosion. Reports from those who knew him suggested that he had been intentionally putting himself in danger for quite some time.

The years passed and Eamon did as he had promised and raised Ben as a son, supporting him through his years at Hogwarts and later through his Auror training. A year and a half after Ben qualified as an Auror, Eamon O’Callaghan passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. Ben mourned him like he would a father, but was grateful that he had lived long enough to see what Ben had become.

At the time of this story, Ben is now twenty-six years old, only having qualified to be an Auror five years previous, not long before Tonks. He has no political aspirations and is included in the initial meetings at Grimmauld Place merely as a body guard. He was chosen because Kingsley has worked with him in the past, trusts him, and quite simply, likes him.

Since qualifying, Ben has been discretely using his connections as an Auror to discover the identity of the Death Eater who was responsible for the death of his mother. The trauma-clouded memories of a six-year old boy, however, did not prove enough, and he never found out anything more about it. Until the evening in the Black family home when he stumbled upon an old photograph of Regulus Black. I want you to understand the turmoil in his mind at learning that the man he had spent the past twenty years hating had, in fact, reformed and given his life to help defeat Voldemort.

Early on, I had a lot of questions about why he (and other characters) stayed at the Ministry even after it fell, and to that I will say this: While very idealistic, he is also practical. Eamon was careful to teach him this, learning from his own mistakes. Ben is as influenced by his trauma in the first war as Gawain is, though in a different way. Moreover, with Eamon gone, Ben has no family and, while many friends, none who would risk their lives for him if he were to get on the wrong side of the Death Eaters. That is not to say he didn’t find his own ways to fight back. Remember Yaxley’s raining office in “Magic is Might” DH? That was all him.

And, as a bonus, here's an AI generated image that very roughly looks like the Ben in my head, for those interested. Very roughly... this bloke is a little too classically handsome for my liking, but AI can only seem to manage handsome or deranged and nothing in between.

#harry potter fanfiction #ocs #knowing where to look #writing process #character building #character analysis #backstory #somebody please give him a hug #poor bloke caught between the first wizarding war and the northern ireland conflict

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seeasweetsmile · 10 months

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To my miraculous fans followers

I'm sorry but more the serie continues, more I’m turning myself into the dark side (aka the ml salt).

Maybe you saw that I didn’t reblog gifs from episodes since S4 (just a few) like I did for S1-S3 and to be honest, the wait between seasons/episodes and the way I’m slowly detached myself from the show to discover others cartoons or animes didn’t help either.

For S4 and mostly S5, the traitement of the characters, the Ladynoir/Adrinette chaotic relationship, the way Lukanette and Adrigami were killed at the first two episodes of S4, Marinette’s hypocrisy, Gabriel’s madness and his growth grudge towards Marinette, Chloé’s caricatural treatment, Lila being mastermind, no adult has a brain anymore, even if there’s globaly good ideas and so much potential, the fact they were awkwardly or badly executed were a pain to watch.

And you know what is the most painful? I loved that show.

Because is that : I loved that show.

It’s been 7 YEARS (almost 8 years in september if I remember correctly) since the serie debut, and like so many fans, I grew attached to the worldbuilding, the characters, the bond between all of them, the humor or the banters, the lore about the miraculous, the design of the superheros and the supervilains, their powers and how complex/funny/interesting they were... and if you have the inevitable urge to read/write fanfics, look/create the fanarts, or even read analysis/meta post about the episodes, you grow even more attached to the characters and the show!

But when you watch from a objective point of view, you realize there’s so much problems consistency issues (I don’t list them, others fans on tumblr and salty hashtags do it better).

Like I said in a previous reblog, if the writers didn’t want to make episodes just for shocked the viewers (remember when they said each episodes of S4 were equivalent of Chat Blanc??) because all the excessive drama around ladynoir or adrinette, if they didn’t push these things to the extra way, if they didn’t get anyone involved (Alya, classmates, adults) to tell Adrien and Marinette what to think or what to do, it could have been so much better. I firmly believe that friendship is a fondamental piliar to any relation. Adrinette started with a good way (cf origines), but they shaped Marinette into another girl who idolazed Adrien without sincerly knowing him (and when they start to give Marinette some retrospective of her behaviour, what we got? we got Alya to tell her she kNoW AdRiEn instead of listening genuinely her best friend and step back), and Adrien, even though he sincerely liked Marinette and held her in high esteem, he ends up becoming the perfect boy madly in love with her who forgets everything as soon as she is in his field of vision or as soon she breathes. If the others characters had LISTENED to Marinette when she questioned herself and preferred to remain friends with Adrien because she realized she didn’t fully know him, and if the others characters had LISTENED to Adrien when he told them he wasn’t agree with their crazy plans (they didn’t listen and the MCs sighed, abandonned their spine column when the classmates insisted a little bit too much), I repeat myself ; it. could. have. been. so. much. better.

To leave Marinette and Adrien figuring out how to do the things at their own rythm. Instead of a healthy, good and solid friendship that transform into romance, we get a forced ship. Because “ThEy MaDe FoR eAcH oThEr” like everyone said in millions times (I was temped to rewatch since the beggining to counts exactly how much the characters say this stupid sentence but I’m not strong enough). And they say this as if we were dumb and we didn’t know Adrinette was the endgame since day one.

Also, another thing that bug me : since S4 to S5 –and I don’t know if anyone felt that– but I have this distrubing impression that Marinette and Adrien mostly were just puppets in the theater/playhouse and they didn’t have a soul. Sometimes it push me out of the show when I watch the episodes.

Anyways, if you made it until here, thank you for reading my rant post. Two more episodes to left for S5 that will air early july (I read the script of the finale and boy...) and I still don’t know if I will watch the S6. With Gabe and Chloe out of the picture, Lila stepping as main vilain (still wait for her background) and Emilie being here, maybe they’ll do something correct ? But as I said in a previous post, if I watch the first few episodes and if it irrated me, I’ll stop.

I’m tired to hurting myself.

#ml salt #ml writers salt #ml spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #adrinette salt #ml fandom salt #my post

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the-malfunctioning-somnambulist · 2 years

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As much as I agree with jokes and genuine analysis about Irwing being the inspiration for Dracula, what I've been thinking about since starting 'Leaves of Grass' and since reading Bram Stoker's letter to Walt Whitman in full, is another possible parallel: between Stoker's relationship with Whitman and Seward's relationship with Van Helsing.

Van Helsing is a foreigner, like Whitman was to Stoker, but to Seward he too embodies universal human ideals - "an absolutely open mind", "indomitable resolution", "the kindliest and truest heart that beats" etc. As for his funky speech, well, there's that part of the letter...

"More than a year after I heard two men in College talking of you. One of them had your book (Rossetti’s edition) and was reading aloud some passages at which both laughed. They chose only those passages which are most foreign to British ears and made fun of them. Something struck me that I had judged you hastily. I took home the volume and read far into the night."

Also Stoker writes to Whitman:

"I have not addressed you in any form as I hear that you dislike to a certain degree the conventional forms in letters."

Compare it to the way Renfield first addresses Van Helsing while asking to be let out:

"What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. "

There is no objection from Van Helsing at that - everyone in the group is indicated to be impressed by the whole speech, which means Van Helsing, like Whitman, does not mind this disregard for titles.

Did someone say big blue eyes? As well as bushy eyebrows and a broad fine forehead with hair fallling naturally back and to the sides? If you look up a couple photos of Whitman, they do deliver. Between him and Irwing, is it me or did Stoker have a thing for eyebrows?

And well, throughout the book, Van Helsing is described by Seward as a great teacher - and as very much a man. (Drinking game for each time Seward uses the epithet "iron" for his jaw or for other aspects of him, seriously). Again, let me quote from the letter:

"You are a true man, and I would like to be one myself, and so I would be towards you as a brother and as a pupil to his master."

And:

"How sweet a thing it is for a strong healthy man with a woman’s eye and a child’s wishes to feel that he can speak to a man who can be if he wishes father, and brother and wife to his soul."

Seward as a character is someone who has a bunch of icky urges (ahem, experimenting on your inmates, ahem, getting jealous that your crush took less blood from you than from her actual husband, AHEM), but at the same time Seward wouldn't risk losing his social position and perceived moral purity to fully give in to those urges. Stoker displays the same kind of caution in his first message to Whitman:

"If you are going to read this letter any further I should tell you that I am not prepared to “give up all else” so far as words go. The only thing I am prepared to give up is prejudice..."

And there's this, fandom bullshit aside, truly heartbreaking sentence in the letter:

"But be assured of this Walt Whitman — that a man of less than half your own age, reared a conservative in a conservative country, and who has always heard your name cried down by the great mass of people who mention it, here felt his heart leap towards you across the Atlantic and his soul swelling at the words or rather the thoughts."

Stoker's first letter is very naive in how it calls to Whitman and challenges him for even a moment of attention. It's a heartwrenching mess of defensive anxiety and hopeless honesty. It very much sounds like the voice of someone who never left the closet, before or after thirty.

(Marrying in his thirtieth year means he was an old bachelor by the era's standard. Seward is twenty-nine when he proposes to Lucy.)

And then Whitman responded to all that, and the tone of the letter feels largely friendzone-y. "My dear young man", flattered and honored but in a more impersonal way, please don't idealize my image because by now I'm just an old man living in the woods and suffering after paralysis. Something lukewarm.

Is it then really such a stretch to suggest that Jonathan and Dracula's isn't the only relationship Stoker, perhaps inadvertently, channeled something more personal into? A fantasy where your idol and mentor comes all the way from another country just because you asked him to, shares his toil with you and trusts you with his innermost thoughts while still avoiding complete and definitive interpretation because he is no common man?

I do think the two Johns parallel each other a bit as focal characters who often center their narratives on striking older guys showing them affection in weird but not fully unwelcome ways.

... anyway, this is why I headcanon Seward as the same kind of watchful dark-eyed thing that Stoker was in photographs

#dracula #dracula daily spoilers #john seward #abraham van helsing #john seward x abramam van helsing #dracula daily #also in his poems whitman praises positivism and is gay and goes skinny dipping a lot #i wonder how much the last two would be true for vh #helward

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