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ravens-two · 4 months

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PAC: What your Future Spouse will be like and how will you meet them?

This reading includes:

your FS's personality, vibes, and general info

how and where you will meet them for the first time

songs that represent the vibe of this relationship

The extended reading includes:

your FS's first impressions of you

your first impressions of your FS

a little moodboard

(this first extended reading is available for free!)

Disclaimer: this is just for entertainment purposes, and as a pick-a-card reading it may not resonate for everyone.

TIPS | BOOK A READING WITH ME | PATREON | LINKTREE | SUGGEST A PAC TOPIC

Pile 1

Hierophant, Hermit and Page of Swords

"Love/I said real love, it's like feeling no fear"

How will your FS be like?

Your FS has a lot of earth energy, for me it feels mainly like Capricorn and Virgo, but there's also Taurus here. This doesn't have to be their zodiac sign, I actually think it's more their overall vibe. They're responsible, down-to-earth, grounded and tend to take things seriously. They also seem to be more traditional, or at least they're someone that respects authority and think that you should follow the rules. Despite being traditional, I think that they're pretty open-minded and open to new experiences. In fact, they like to try new things, they give me scientist vibes tbh. It's like they'll try anything at least once, just to see what it will be like.

When it comes to their work they might work in STEM, law enforcement or in management. I also think that they really like to read, mainly non-fiction because they're always trying to acquire more knowledge. If they're not really readers, then this is more of a nerdy vibe when it comes to their favorite hobby. If they love cinema, then they really like cinema and will be telling you about behind the scenes and production stuff every time you two watch a movie.

I feel like they have a hard time expressing their feelings though. It's not that they're thinkers rather than feelers, it's more like they don't feel comfortable being vulnerable, however I also think that they'll do their best to work through this. These people will not cheat on you and they also do not tolerate cheating or any perceived betrayal. They are very loyal. They're in this to actually get married and stay together, not just to play around.

Also, this is very specific but I also think that they're atheists, but they're very attracted to the occult and spiritual - it's like they really want to believe in something, but they can't believe in something they can't prove.

How will you meet them?

I feel like this will be quite different for everyone, but I'm getting two main things. For some of you, you might meet your person through the internet. This could be through a dating app, social media, some of you will even meet them through an online game I'm seeing (I'm actually seeing you being really frustrated with your person, maybe they're playing against you and winning lmao). For this group your relationship might start long-distance or you and your person might have to travel a lot to see each other.

For the other group I see you meeting this person while you're away from home, this almost has an adventure vibe to it. For some, you might be going away on vacation and you meet someone there. For others, this could be a work trip and this person could be somewhat related to your work. I'm also seeing that some of you aren't exactly traveling, but you're out of town, like the city next to yours or something like that.

your vibes in songs

Cherry - Lana del Rey

Like Real People Do - Hozier

Heavenly - Cigarettes After Sex

Blackbird - Beatles

Francesca - Hozier

(checkout the first extended reading on my patreon - available for free)

Pile 2

Seven of Wands, Nine of Pentacles, Two of Cups

"put your life out on the line/you're crazy all the time"

How will your FS be like?

Oh right away your person attracts other people's attention and jealousy. They're probably very beautiful, visually striking or they've got money or status. Either way people can't take their eyes off of them. For some of you, this attention isn't for the best reasons. People might feel wary or scared by your person.

This is someone that doesn't take shit from anyone. They are assertive and have high self-esteem. People might try to put them down, but it's literally impossible. I'm actually feeling Leo, Libra and a bit of Taurus vibes here. They're like the brightest star in the room. They also believe that they're the best - not in the sense that they're better than other people, but more in a self-motivation way.

If they've got money and status - like a good job for example (I also think that they're known for their job and they are very good at it) - it's because they worked really hard for it. They don't really come from money, they worked hard for what they have. That's the other thing they are hard workers and will not settle for less than what they have envisioned. They also don't like lazy people or debbie-downers. They firmly believe that everyone makes their own destiny. (for some reason I'm also getting that they like the movie Brave lol).

When it comes to the relationship they love to shower you with gifts, it might be their love language. Also, something that they will do is support your goals and motivate you when you're feeling down.

I also get a bit of a secretive vibe from them, it's almost like they make you look at the brightest parts of them to distract you from the shadows. They sometimes might struggle mentally, I feel like this might come from some childhood trauma or anxiety. Despite this, they're fighters and don't stop trying to get better.

How will you meet them?

Unlike pile 1, I feel like this is a very old-fashioned type of meeting. You might meet in a public place, like going out to a party or to a restaurant or something like that and you see them and they will start a conversation with you and ask for your number.

Others of you will meet your person through someone else, like a friend or a co-worker will introduce you to them. I don't think that this will be match-making, but you two will be instantly attracted to each other.

Either way, this feels like a more traditional courtship type of situation lmao. You'll both take your time getting to know and really dating each other. I feel like this will be very romantic.

your vibes in songs

Art Deco - Lana del Rey

Angels - The XX

Mystery of Love - Sufjan Stevens

Yellow - Coldplay

Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones

(checkout the first extended reading on my patreon - available for free)

Pile 3

Tower, Knight of Swords, Eight of Pentacles

"they say I'm too young to love you/they say I'm too dumb to see"

How will your FS be like?

Talk about scorpionic energy. Your person is a force of nature, pile 3. They might have a lot of Pluto or Scorpio influence in their chart. I feel like this is the bad boy/girl pile - in a good way though. If this is a woman she is the embodiment of that dark feminine aesthetic, think Megan Fox for example. In general, they give me dark, edgy, goth vibes. But some lean more towards a romantic, Byron-esque energy. These are the type of people who will seduce you with their gaze and then with their words. They have a very intense sexual energy.

Your person isn't afraid of change, in fact, I think that they crave change. They might start out as being a bit commitment-phobic actually. Your person has also been through a lot, they might be the tortured artist type. They are deep thinkers and love to talk. Like they will talk and talk and talk. Honestly, they're happy to talk about anything, but especially about philosophical stuff or conspiracy theories or that type of thing. Also, as they are so open minded they will be open to talk about anything and are really good listeners. Like, for example, you might love Star Wars but they've never seen it, they're still super happy to talk to you about it and will know about it enough to hold a conversation. They have this gemini energy that they know a little bit about everything. They are very supportive and whenever you have a problem or are feeling down they'll sit you down and ask you to tell them everything.

I get the feeling that they know more than one language and they might actually work as translators, editors or linguists. In general though, I think that this person works freelance and does a lot of different stuff. They want to try as many professions as possible.

They love poetry or music and will either read poetry or sing for you. Again, there's an artist vibe here. They might not be an artist by profession, but they love the arts.

When it comes to their love and emotions they are very passionate. They might express their feelings in really over the top ways. It's like when they're happy they're really happy, but when they're sad they're also really sad. They feel things deeply. Being loved by them is something all-consuming.

How will you meet them?

I actually feel like most of you will meet your person through work. This might mean that you will be co-workers or that you will meet them whilst you or them are working. Let's say that you work as a lawyer for example they might become your client and that's how you get to know each other. Of course, nothing can really happen whilst they're your client, but it will happen afterwards.

For other people, you will meet them during a period that you are very focused on your career and/or you have a lot of work to do. For some people, I'm even seeing that this will be while you're doing your thesis. You're completely focused on something, maybe even feeling a bit stressed and you just meet them randomly. You won't really have time for them right away, but they'll be persistent and keep showing up on your radar until you have enough time to actually get to know each other.

your vibes in songs

Brooklyn Baby - Lana del Rey

West Coast - Lana del Rey

Can't Catch Me Now - Olivia Rodrigo

The Louvre - Lorde

Patience - Guns N' Roses

(checkout the first extended reading on my patreon - available for free)

Pile 4

Queen of Wands, Fool rx, Nine of Swords rx

"I live to love you/and I love to love you"

How will your FS be like?

Right away I can see that your person is very stubborn and strong-willed, pile 4. This manifests in both a good and a bad way. It means that they are persistent and don't change their minds without good reason. But, it also means that once they have their mind set it's very hard to make them come around.

This person is very fiery. Mainly I see Aries and Leo energy here. They are extroverted, confident and some of them are a bit brash, while others are charmers. They are also very confident in their charm and sexuality, and it's probably what will draw you to them at first.

I also see them as wanting to boost your self-esteem and show you off to others. They love some jealousy lmao (you being jealous, and also others being jealous of them and your relationship). They are absolute drama queens/kings. It amuses them to blow things out of proportion and they love it even more when you do it back at them. Okay, the scenario I'm getting is they trying to make you jealous by doing something silly or talking about an old partner, they would then love it if you were super dramatic about it and pretended to be really upset. They like to argue for fun as well. Like, honestly you need to rein them in at the dinner table so that they don't push your families/friend's buttons. They are very passionate.

I also think that they are a bit pessimistic at times, but when they really feel like that they will try to keep it to themselves instead of being overtly dramatic. I also think that they're looking for stability and a serious relationship after a time of not having it.

They really don't like surprises. And might not be too excited about change. They would prefer if everything always stayed as it is. I also, feel like sometimes they have a hard time balancing between feeling adventurous and not feeling like leaving their safe space.

I think that most of them speak really fast, and often without thinking. Which ends up with them regretting their words more often than not. Also, acting without thinking.

How will you meet them?

I'm not getting a place/physical circumstance as much as the other piles. But, I think that you will meet your person after you have been through a really hard time. Perhaps you have been struggling a lot with anxiety and are now recovering and then you randomly meet them. I feel like you'll know it's them because they will give you a feeling of calmness and peace.

For others I think that this will be a really difficult situation like the loss of a friend, family member, pet, or even a job. It will take you a long time to recover and you will still be quite vulnerable when you meet your person. You might also be a bit anxious about getting into a relationship at first.

your vibes in songs

Music To Watch Boys To - Lana del Rey

Religion - Lana del Rey

More Than Words - Extreme

She - Elvis Costello

National Anthem - Lana del Rey

(checkout the first extended reading on my patreon - available for free)

#pac #pick a card #pick a card reading #pick a pile #future spouse #fs pac #fs pick a pile

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bad268 · 6 months

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Hey. I love your blog. It's amazing. Is it possible for you to write about actress reader x colby brock. Like they are each others favorite and Sam and colby invite her to one of their investigations. Like in one of her interviews found out that their her favorite YouTubers and colby might ask her on a date?

Thank you so much 💗

Tweets (Colby Brock X Actor! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/Sam and Colby & Co.

Requested: Clearly (I had a little too much fun with this one lol)

Warnings: none.

Pronouns: First person (I/me)

W.C. 1087

Summary: An unearthed tweet leads to shocking revelations (with a best friend's intervention).

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^@/Colby's insta from November 16, 2023)

It all started with a resurfaced tweet from 2015…

I can’t say it was a lie, but it was before my big break, and I didn't have a manager running my social media accounts 24/7. I was just a normal teenager on Vine with time to kill. And now, I thought it was coming back to haunt me, pun intended.

That was until I received a DM from Colby himself asking me to be a part of their yearly tradition, Hell Week. At first, I was starstruck, but I would have been crazy to decline.

So that’s where we are now: preparing for the Conjuring House. A place of extremes. A place I told myself I would never go to because of how insane it is, yet here I am. And, of course, it’s going to be for a week.

I was invited to Sam and Colby’s place to go over the specifics of the trip. I had just finished filming my latest movie, which was coincidentally being filmed in Las Vegas, so as soon as my scenes were wrapped up, I set off for their house.

By the time I got there, everyone else who was invited was already there. At least, I assumed with the number of cars in the driveway. I was still in stage make-up, but thankfully, I had changed into something more comfortable before I left the set. I grabbed my backpack before jumping out of my car, locking it, and walking up to the door, ringing the doorbell.

Almost immediately, the door is being opened, and I am face to face with Colby. After a beat of us just staring, speechless, at each other, I cleared my throat. I chuckled nervously before saying, “Hi, apologies for being late. Filming ran a little longer than I originally planned. I hope I didn’t hold you all up too long.”

“Nah, don’t even worry about it,” he dismissed quickly as he stepped aside and ushered me inside. “Come in, and I’ll show you where you can put your stuff. You’re staying and going with Sam, Seth, and me to Rhode Island, right?”

“If that’s still alright with you guys,” I replied, walking in step with Colby up the stairs. “I don’t want to impose on your personal spaces. I can go home, just say the word.”

“I would never kick you out,” he laughed, leading me down the hall and stopping just before the end. “Here is your room. There is a bathroom attached. It’s right next to the closet, and if you need anything, my room is right there.” He paused as he pointed to the room at the very end of the hall. “I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. If you need anything, let me know.”

“I’ll feel bad if it’s the middle of the night, but I will keep that in mind. Thank you,” I replied as I walked in to set my bag down on the vanity. “I’m just going to take my make-up off and meet you guys downstairs if that’s alright.”

“No problem,” he said, “We’ll be in the living room and we’ll either order food later or go out. We’ll see how everyone feels.”

“Ok, cool, thank you!” I said enthusiastically as he left down the hall. I closed the door over as I walked deeper into the room. I grabbed out my micellar water, cotton pads, and hydrater before walking into the ensuite to clean my face. As I set them on the counter, I noticed a piece of paper.

It was a printed screenshot of Twitter. A specific tweet from Colby in 2016 read, “Give me a chance y/n.” The back of the paper had its own handwritten note.

“You have been Colby’s celebrity crush for years. I know you posted a tweet in 2015 asking if he was single, and I don’t know if it was a joke or not. I didn’t show him the tweet, but I can say he’s single now if that tweet is still true. Please just get him to shut up. -Sam”

I chuckled at the note before quickly cleaning my face to head downstairs. Everyone was sitting on the couch or on the floor facing the TV. Everyone except Colby. I glanced around the room, trying to find him, only to see him standing in the kitchen. He was looking through the fridge, so I walked up behind him.

“Can you hand me a water?” I asked, startling him in the process. He jumped up straight, sucking in a quick breath as he snapped around to look at me. “Did I scare you or is that residual energy from the Conjuring House?”

“No, I just…” he trailed off for a second. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting you down here just yet.”

“Kinda like how you didn’t expect me to see this?” I teased as I pulled the paper out from behind my back. Colby’s eyes grew wide as his jaw dropped. He stammered, trying to come up with a reason behind it, but he could not get a cohesive thought out. “Don’t worry. I’d give you a chance.”

Colby stopped entirely. I could see the gears turning in his mind before he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He opened his eyes, immediately meeting mine as he reached out to take the paper from my hands, setting it on the counter. He held my hands in his as he closed the distance between us.

“Y/n, will you go out with me?” Colby whispered as he bit his lip in nervousness.

“Of course, I will,” I whispered back as a smile spread across both of our faces.

“How about after this meeting we get out of here and do mini golf and dinner?” He offered, leaning his head down to rest our foreheads together.

“I will take you down,” I laughed as I leaned more into his body. “Truth be told, I’m great at mini golf.”

“Okay, lovebirds, we get it,” Sam interrupted from the living room. “We get it.”

“Shush, Sam,” I quipped back as I snapped my head to look at the group on the couch, still holding Colby’s hands. “You’re the one that left the note in my bathroom.”

“Wait, there’s a note?!” Colby shouted as he immediately let go of one of my hands to flip the paper over, reading through the note. “Sam, I told you this in confidence!”

~~~~~

#colby brock x reader #colby brock x y/n #colby brock imagine #colby brock #sam and colby #actor reader #actress reader #colby x reader #colby x y/n #colby brock x you #colby x you #bad268 #ship268 #thing268 #youtuber oneshot #youtubers #youtube

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geoffrard · 2 years

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My Chemical Romance, Hardcore Sexual Repression, and the Lemon Stealing Whore

[Content warning for non-graphic references to pornography, sex, sexual violence, and negative attitudes towards sex work. There is no explicit nudity but you might not want to read this in front of your boss. All images have descriptions in alt text. See sources here. Read this essay on my Dreamwidth here.]

It’s the setup of a joke: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Matt Pelissier, and a porn actress huddle around a leather couch in a dingy room as a camera rolls. The actress, a young and bright-eyed Joanna Angel, asks each member of My Chemical Romance in the room, “Do you guys watch porn?”

Most of us have seen the interview. If not, stop and watch it now, because nothing else I say will make sense otherwise. (And here, just for you, I’ve reuploaded the video with at least 10% more pixels. Watch below, or read a transcript here.)

youtube

The fact that My Chemical Romance, whose faces have decorated shirts at Hot Topic for over fifteen years, whose songs have saved lives and inspired memes, who all have wives and children, would end up associated with an alt porn website like Burning Angel often baffles fans watching the interview for the first time.

For example, see these comments left on the original video uploaded to YouTube:

These comments, though more than a few years old, generally represent how a lot fans understand the interview. Other people think it’s funny and perhaps a little out of left field, but don’t question how four members wound up on a porn site like Burning Angel. Both attitudes are a pretty typical example of the MCR fandom’s ignorance about the New Jersey hardcore scene, as well reflecting general weirdness about sex work.

Since I cannot turn my historian brain off, I wanted to provide some of the extremely interesting historical context behind the video. The post I had originally planned to make very, very briefly outlined how MCR ended up being interviewed by Joanna Angel, founder and longtime CEO of Burning Angel. But the more I looked into it, the more I fell down a rabbit hole. This eventually turned into something of a mammoth manifesto about women and sexuality in the late 90s hardcore scene that gave My Chemical Romance and Joanna Angel careers. I will warn you: this is long. But it’s also important historical background information that rarely gets discussed at all—especially by MCR fans.

(So, with all that said, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I say here! Sources for will be posted on a different post which I will link at the end, and I have been quite thorough, though not as thorough as I could have been.)

Tl;dr: Joanna Angel came up in the exact same scene as My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown, a scene which stigmatized open sexual expression, at the expense of women and queer people—especially those involved in sex work. When she started her porn site, Burning Angel, she applied the same DIY values that her peers did to their own bands, but faced violence and ostracization from a subculture much too repressed to embrace such blatant expression of female sexuality. In this context, the My Chemical Romance interview with Burning Angel in 2004 was not only a group of guys doing a favor for someone they had probably known for years at that point; it can also be read as a somewhat controversial act that pushed back against this aversion to sexuality, and that helped legitimize and popularize both the site and Joanna Angel’s career.

Burning Angel: the Movie (2005)

Say you’re a diehard My Chemical Romance fan in 2005—if you really want to watch your favorite band discuss their porn-viewing habits, you’ll have to travel to either your local adult entertainment store or go to the hardcore porn site BurningAngel.com and order their first DVD, appropriately titled Burning Angel: The Movie. Once you have the disc, you’ll have to fast forward through several sex scenes and interviews with other bands before you arrive at what you wanted: the actress who you’ve just seen in hardcore sex scenes asking Gerard, Frank, Mikey and Otter questions about their preferences in adult entertainment.

The DVD was Burning Angel’s first attempt at more professional pornography, and Joanna’s first foray into full participation in filmed, live-action sex. Joanna Angel would later go on to be one of the most well-known porn stars of our time—in Virgin Territory (2006), for example, she played a lemon stealing whore; you might have seen the video—and Burning Angel would be credited with the popularization of the “alt” porn genre, which broke from the exploitative mainstream porn model and typically featured models representative of subcultures.

But in 2005 her alt porn empire was still in its infancy, and Joanna was still struggling to rectify her recent full expulsion from the local New Jersey hardcore social scene with her enduring devotion to DIY values—and the fact that members of the sexually repressed subculture that had ostracized Joanna were her site’s target audience.

Joanna Angel on the Scene

Any thoughts of a future career in adult entertainment and the last name Angel were far from her mind when Joanna Mostov enrolled in Rutgers University in 1998.

Though she often pushed back against the wishes of her religious orthodox Jewish family, the extent of her adolescent rebellion had ended at sneaking out to punk shows and getting piercings her mother wouldn’t approve of. At Rutgers, Joanna quickly became enmeshed in the New Brunswick hardcore scene, putting her in the same circles as a host of people whose names you might recognize: Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who ran hundreds of shows out of his basement), Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship, and Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records.

Geoff Rickly: Well, you know, the funny thing is that, at the time, Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, was playing in her goth bands with chelsea haircuts and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they’d bring out people and stuff, and I’d put touring bands on that show, and so it’s funny to me how, weirdly, DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird associations then. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

The NJ hardcore scene was close-knit enough that while she only has documented friendships with some of these people, she had to have crossed paths with most of them multiple times (for example, Joanna was at the show on December 31, 1998 where Thursday and Midtown played their first real sets). She went to every show she could and hosted some in her own basement.

While we don’t necessarily have a written record of her friendship with Frank Iero and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance, the fact that Joanna attended plenty of shows in the North Jersey area and also spent a lot of time at the Eyeball House (Alex was a close friend; and Pencey Prep was on his label) suggests that, at the the very least, Joanna, Frank, and Mikey were aware of each other’s presence in these early years. They were peers in the same scene, just as they were with everyone else who frequented the same venues or played in the same basements.

For years, the hardcore scene mattered to her more than anything else; it was her social life and what she based her values upon.

Those hardcore values and a growing curiosity about her own sexuality lead Joanna to sex-positive feminist activism and a writing internship with Nerve.com, an online magazine which explored topics related to sex and romantic relationships. From there, her interest in expressing her own sexuality continued to develop.

[Suicidegirls in 2001]

So, in 2002, when her roommate and friend asked her if she wanted to start a porn site that offered more explicit content than sites like SuicideGirls, which featured punk aesthetics and band interviews but stayed away from anything more than simple nudity, Joanna agreed.

BurningAngel.com went live in April 2002. It wanted to do things differently than other porn sites. While not necessarily pushing the boundaries of beauty standards, the site used models who were beautiful but in a more approachable, average sense. Joanna has said that since she had little experience even watching porn prior to starting the site, she wanted the site to mimic the kind of sex she was having with actors who looked like the people she was having sex with.

Joanna: When we started the website, it was a reflection of ourselves. It still is to this day. There's band interviews on the website, the style of girl that we use is not your average typical porn star and the personality on the website is a little bit different. All the members interact with each other, all of the girls have blogs and profiles, and people become friends with each other. It's more of a community and a reflection of a subculture rather than just being a website with content to jerk-off to and never think about again. [source: Complex: Interview: Joanna Angel Talks Alt Porn, Piracy, And Her Blow-Up Doll, 2011]

[Burning Angel’s homepage in June 2002]

Hardcore Punk Reacts to Hardcore Porn

Her longtime involvement in the scene and her application of DIY ethics to her porn business did not mean that the hardcore culture actively nurtured Joanna Angel’s career in porn. In reality, many parts of the scene were actively hostile towards Joanna and the site once Burning Angel went live.

This backlash isn’t incredibly surprising within the context of late 90s hardcore, a subculture that by and large refused to acknowledge sexuality of any kind.

The sexual repression in hardcore reflected several different aspects of its culture: a negative perception of women active in the scene; a reaction against the violence of tristate hardcore in the early 90s; and, more than anything else, the general privilege of those involved in the underground.

Like Joanna, Geoff Rickly, and Frank Iero, most people involved in New Brunswick hardcore were enrolled at Rutgers, and white, middle-class male college students dominated the scene. For many of them, applying DIY values to their own lives meant distancing themselves from their socioeconomic upper-hand. Consequently, the scene as a whole developed an attitude of asceticism, rejecting anything that served no purpose beyond pleasure or personal enjoyment. (Of course, it was easy for them to reject their social privileges, especially when they could just as easily cast off their aesthetic of poverty and self-denial for an adulthood of relative comfort.)

To do anything just because you enjoyed it, or because it brought you happiness in the moment, was seen to be a betrayal of hardcore’s higher intellectual goals—and that included sex. You can see this trend, for example, in lyrics from NJ hardcore bands, which focused on things like political issues or childhood traumas instead of the common themes of sexual and romantic desire found in mainstream music.

Joanna spoke about finding comfort in the general sexual repression of the scene because of her own adolescent insecurities:

Joanna: Me being very sexually not advanced and insecure, [90s hardcore] was the perfect place for me, because I could ignore [sexuality]. I was getting older, I don’t know, I wanted to explore myself more. So I began to write these graphic sex stories. My roommate, Mitch, knew about it, and I remember him getting a kick out of it. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

For another salient example, Geoff Rickly of Thursday has spoken about his own struggles with the hardcore scene’s repression, especially in regards to the shame he felt about writing sexually explicit stories for pay:

Geoff Rickly: You have to think, this is the 90s punk scene. It's not now. Nobody would openly talk about sex in DIY punk. It was such a repressed PC time, where — I mean, a lot of that stuff is my heart, like the political activism that was still such a part of punk, and actually just giving a shit about things that matter, and modes of how you're doing what you're doing. Those things seemed to matter back then, and I appreciated that side, but it was also so uptight. So repressed. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

While its general aversion to sexuality might have been born out of an initial desire to reform the violent misogyny of other hardcore cultures, it created the conditions for certain social problems to go completely unaddressed. After all, how can you address the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence in your community if any acknowledgement of sexuality is taboo?

(For a brief but interesting perspective on the impact of hardcore sexual repression upon queer people in the scene, check out Episode #4 of Geoff Rickly’s podcast Dark Blue, in which Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon discuss their experiences as gay musicians in the scene.)

Of course, these issues aren’t confined to the New Jersey hardcore, nor were they unique to the late 1990s. This particular brand of sex-averse misogyny reflects important threads within the feminism of the time which villainized open female sexuality—especially when it concerned sex work. Left-leaning spaces like music undergrounds adopted this sex-negative, misogynistic attitude as a part of their feminism—not in opposition to it.

In particular, the Riot Grrrl movement of the late 80s/early 90s pushed back against a culture (and a subculture) that shamed women for publicly expressing their sexuality. Following that, early fanzines and performance practices addressed the mistreatment of sex workers in hardcore as one way that female bodily autonomy was limited and women’s bodies were policed. Bikini Kill frontwoman and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna has spoken about her past in sex work, the hostility she endured for openly discussing it, and the importance of that experience in shaping the form of Riot Grrrl’s protest.

Kathleen Hanna: “Whenever we were written about in the press, I wanted my sex-work history to be part of the description, because I wanted other women whom I danced at clubs with (and who never knew my real name) to see themselves reflected in some way. A lot of women who are doing music now have been sex-trade workers, prostitutes, dancers; I thought it was really important that I didn’t hide that. But I also didn’t want to glamorize that experience in being a super-cool thing in itself. I just wanted other women who work in the sex industry to remember that we can be sex-trade workers and be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, or whatever. [Andrea Juno, Angry Women in Rock (1996)]

Riot Grrrl gained significant traction and nation-wide attention. In the decade or so after Kathleen Hanna and her peers catalyzed the movement, bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile remained incredibly popular, and likely contributed a lot to shifting attitudes towards sexuality in music subcultures.

Still, these sex-negative attitudes prevailed among enough people involved in local underground scenes that, when Burning Angel launched in 2002 and Joanna started marketing it in local hardcore spaces, the site received a lot of attention—both good and bad. The positive attention fueled the site and allowed it to expand beyond just photographs, text interviews, and low-budget personal sex tapes that characterized its early content.

However, the negative attention Joanna and her site received was vocal, targeted, and occasionally involved literal physical violence. As Kathleen Hanna had faced moral condemnation for her time in sex work, Joanna Angel faced criticism from fellow members of her subculture who thought sex work to be completely antithetical to their social justice goals. She has spoken about how difficult it was to see a community she had cared about for years turn her back on her completely for engaging in a type of work that she found enjoyable, and that she thought could be done with moral integrity.

Joanna Angel: People were calling me ugly, calling me all sorts of mean shit, how [Burning Angel was] making a profit, [we were] exploiting women, blah blah blah. And I was so bummed. I was like, you know, this isn’t fair! I always support every fucking band in the punk scene. Even if I don’t like the band, I support them—I go to their shows, I would hand out fliers for their shows. I thought it was like a code, in the punk scene, that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. If this is part of the scene, you accept it, and you help it, and you love it—and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember being very hurt, you know? I was like, dude, I didn’t violate any punk laws by starting this. My friend from my computer class is the one who put it online. All the other girls on the site—all three of them— were punk chicks and part of the scene. And I felt really bad; people were insulting the other girls, and I really thought I was starting this cool thing where girls could just explore their sexuality. And mind you, at the time, the beginning of Burning Angel was just photos, not even videos. People were getting all up in this upheaval because of a handful of naked photos on the internet. It’s crazy to think about now. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Amidst the mounting antagonism and after an incident at Hellfest 2004, Joanna officially decided to leave the hardcore scene that she’d been involved with for over five years.

Joanna Angel: I remember going to Hellfest one year. Maybe it was like 2004?…these girls were throwing water balloons at us because we had a booth there. Because we used to get booths at some of these shows and sell tshirts. We didn’t even have any DVDs—we’d literally get in a booth and sell tshirts and hand out fliers and stickers. And these other girls were throwing water balloons at us and calling us sluts. I was like, “Hey, that sucks, can you stop doing that?” And one of my friends—he owned a record label. He owned Eyeball Records, Alex…he saw the girls picking on us, and he went over to the girls, and said, “Hey, can you cool it? They have a booth here—let them do their thing. They’re not gonna get in your way.” And then those girls and their boyfriends beat him up, and he wound up in the hospital. He almost died. It was terrible. And I was like, we have to get out here. Let’s just stay away. If we’re a porn site, let’s just be a porn site. Let’s promote ourselves with other porn companies; let’s step away for a little while. Everyone in the punk scene knows who we are. They’ve made their decision about if they like us or not. I’m still gonna interview bands, still gonna do that thing—but I’m done. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Joanna and Burning Angel’s separation from the NJ hardcore scene in 2004 finally brings me to Burning Angel: The Movie, My Chemical Romance, and that interview.

So, 2004: after over two years spent largely behind the camera and slowly expanding her porn site, Joanna finally decided to get in front of the camera and produce a more intentionally crafted alt porn video that retained the feel of the website. Thus Burning Angel: the Movie was born.

As Joanna explains in the interview, the general idea of the DVD was that different self-contained pornographic scenes would be interspersed with band interviews. One of the key features of Burning Angel, like Suicide Girls before it, was the band interviews subscribers could access alongside the porn, so it made sense to preserve this aspect of the site on the DVD experience. Joanna interviewed five bands in early 2005: Killswitch Engage, Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and, of course, My Chemical Romance—all bands that Joanna admired, and who had been involved in the same scene that she had recently left because of very real threats to her emotional and physical well-being.

Within this context, My Chemical Romance’s decision to participate in the Burning Angel interview was a statement, as they put their support behind an enterprise that was highly controversial within the social circle most immediately relevant to them.

Fresh off the 2004 Warped Tour and promoted Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance might have appeared to be largely divorced from their scene of origin, but they still acted in response to those politics—politics that impacted American culture at large more than you’d think—in both intentional and incidental ways.

That is not to say that MCR was being overtly political; they’ve made a clear effort to distance themselves from the clear-cut political imagery and goals of some of their peers in hardcore. Still, the band (Gerard especially) very obviously cared a lot about using their music and stage presence to express shades of sexuality that they perceived to be lacking from some forms of music.

Gerard: I also wanted, at the same time, [for] the record to be a testament to self-expression, and putting stuff in there like that, while not being a homosexual myself, but expressing myself in a homosexual way, is either going to push your buttons in a negative way or you’re going to identify with it. [AP: Well, this whole scene wants you to be sensitive, but not too sensitive.] It is extremely homoerotic, especially the whole emo-sensitive thing. Everyone’s wearing women’s pants; everyone’s got women’s haircuts; everyone’s wearing youth-medium shirts. I don’t want to come out and say it. It’s blatantly obvious. Wearing a leather jacket is an extremely masculine thing to do in this scene. Even the hardcore bands, the really hard ones, you see them in makeup and stuff. I like that. I think it keeps it dangerous. It keeps it exciting. In a way, sex has really been missing from rock, especially because of all the sensitivity. That’s what I really wanted to convey on the record, too. I wanted the record to be very dangerous and sexy at the same time. There’s such a lack of sex in music. It’s been more about getting in touch with your feelings and being there for each other, which is great, but it’s definitely lacking this sexual duality. [Source: Alternative Press #193, Aug 2004; emphasis mine]

Additionally, many of their moments of explicit sexuality on stage were designed to be somewhat incendiary and polarizing.

But it’s important to remember that, just as late 90s New Jersey hardcore was not the first subculture with issues of sexual repression, My Chemical Romance does not represent the first attempt to push back at this asexual culture and definitely weren’t leading that particular conversation. Gerard took inspiration from artists already pushing those boundaries and incorporating sexual expression into their art. He has spoken, for example, about the impact of Riot Grrrl acts upon his music and stage presence (Joanna Angel has similarly pointed to bands like Bikini Kill as significant influences). These bands had already incorporated resistance against harmful sexual repression, values which Gerard and his band mates took on when they adopted their styles into My Chemical Romance.

(I also want to mention briefly that other significant people in the hardcore world have spoken out against pornography, such as Ian MacKaye of the formative post-hardcore band Fugazi. MacKaye owned Dischord Records, the definitive underground music label, to which a young Frank Iero unsuccessfully attempted to get his band Sector 12 signed. The matter of pornography and its role within the hardcore world was not one upon which you could maintain a neutral stance after, say, appearing on a porn DVD.)

As shitty as it was that they needed approval from the men in the scene, My Chemical Romance, along with other bands, supported Burning Angel, a new kind of porn, and helped legitimize Joanna Angel’s claim that what she was doing was not backwards or exploitative but had integrity.

Have you had an issue with people you grew up with when they find out you're in the adult industry? Joanna: At first people had problem[s], but not anymore. Once the cool kids in bands said, "I think what she's doing is cool" all the others turned around. Everyone I ever respected didn't have an issue with it and all the stupid, annoying hardcore kids had a problem. For as much shit as I got, I also got a lot of support. [Source: Hustlerworld Interview: Joanna Angel]

I don’t mean to glamorize the porn industry or to depict Joanna Angel as some savior of female sexuality in the early 2000s. But, as Kathleen Hanna points out, sex work is legitimate work, and sex workers deserve to have workplaces that treat them with dignity and communities that recognize their humanity. The reality was that NJ hardcore as a community did not support sex workers. Fundamentally, these were the barriers that caused Joanna and Burning Angel to make an exodus from the local hardcore scene—and they are the attitudes we risk reproducing when we express discomfort that a band we admire has interacted with a sex worker.

My intentions with this post (which turned out longer than I had ever anticipated, so Jesus, thank you for reading) were to shed light on the historical context of one moment in My Chemical Romance’s history. I’ve found that the average MCR fan, even those with a specific fondness for their early years, doesn’t actually know much at all about it—so I hope this has given some clarity.

I’ll end on this note: Without bands supporting Burning Angel, who knows—we might have never seen the lemon stealing whore. At the very least, the culture surrounding porn would look a lot different. That might not mean it would look better or worse—though you can’t deny the role that Joanna Angel played, nor the role that bands from the New Jersey Hardcore scene like My Chemical Romance played in shaping the American culture of pornography.

Find sources for this post here.

[acknowledgements: thank you so much for reading! my forever thanks, as always, to nic @raytorosaurus, sophia @sendmyresignation, vyn @bringmoreknives, and maddy @8thnotes for their continued cheerleading as i spent over a month writing this long, long post. additional thanks to wes @killrockstar for very kindly offering some incredibly helpful guidance about riot grrrl and sending me resources about kathleen hanna. and much gratitude to merlin @void-flesh and @transmascfrankiero for their feedback on the final draft of this essay.]

#mcr #my chemical romance #joanna angel #mcr meta #my post

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max1461 · 3 days

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Non-exhaustive list of things that seem to be really popular online, or at least in "extremely online" circles, or at least... if not popular per se, of widely understood appeal. Like someone might go "oh I'm not into that but I get it, or it's adjacent to things I'm into". Anyway non-exhaustive list of things like that that I'm not into, and basically don't get, and at some level feel alienated by the online commonality of:

DnD

Denial kinks e.g. cuckolding and chastity

Isaac Asimov Foundation/Edward Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire style "civilizational" thinking

Fandom. How do you guys fucking... remember what happens in books and shit? I swear to god when I watch a movie or read I book I just immediately forget what fucking happened in it. Even some of my favorites, like FMA:B, I don't actually remember the plot of that show really. It's very loose in my mind. I remember lots of scenes and events though.

Dark Souls

I'll add more if I think of them. Just don't really understand these things. I've posted lists before of shit that I like before and said "hey can anybody figure out the commonality here because I can't". Well this is the hatermode (or nonunderstandermode) version of that. Does anyone have a coherent theory of what these things have in common that makes me not get them, even though evidently many people get them?

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centaurianthropology · 2 months

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Oh man, I think the Circle of the Crimson Mirror might just be MY Candela circle. I enjoyed the goofy schlock horror with the Circle of the Vassal and the Veil, and really enjoyed the amping up of horror in The Circle of Needle and Thread (though the horrors of war theming was not specifically for me, it was still well done). I haven’t gotten to watch the Circle of Tide and Bone because life happened, but from what I’ve heard it was very good.

But I was laughing out loud with glee for the first episode of the Circle of the Crimson Mirror. All these characters are delightful. The setting is fascinating (starting out OUTSIDE of Newfaire and expanding the world was really fun), the theming of Irish folklore horror gives a folk horror mixed with cosmic horror vibe that I’m really excited for. And Liam is just the sort of ruthless DM that is perfect for a horror game. Because for me, keeping your players wrapped up in the horror, making them at least a little genuinely afraid (after talking through Lines and Veils of course) in a fun and contained way IS the heart of playing a horror game. It’s the same as watching a horror movie, in that you WANT to be scared, that’s part of the enjoyment, but in a horror game the fun is having it happen to you.

And both folk horror and cosmic horror are some of my favorite subgenres, so this is hitting all my favorite sorts of horror. And because it’s me, see below for my much longer thoughts about this first episode and the characters. Because I’ve never found a topic I enjoy that I can’t write an essay about.

Liam comes for everyone straight out of the gate, doesn’t he? While I found the train cold open in chapter 2 exciting, I found this even more harrowing. With NPCs we barely know constantly imperiled, all the investigators are really sketched so clearly right off the bat with their actions rather than their more open explanations later. I love that all of them lean heavily into being out of their depth, even sometimes making poor choices because of it. The players are aware they are in a horror game. The characters are not.

So let’s talk about those characters:

MALCOLM TRILLS

Imari Williams was the player at the table I had no prior experience with, and I love what he’s doing here. He puts his whole body into acting out the scene, even at the table. Even before we know he was a Sole Survivor of a massacre during the war (and I found it deeply entertaining that Imari couldn’t help but dump his backstory all over the floor. Liam’s gently encouraging everyone to hold it back for dramatic moments, and Imari is just so excited he’s like “NO! HERE IT IS!” not once but twice in the very first episode), we knew that. Because Imari is clearly dedicated to acting that out through what Malcolm chooses to do. He believes in saving others, especially after losing his entire squad. He has to do it, even (or maybe especially) for those civilians he doesn’t know. His entire point in being in Candela is saving people. So when Liam dunks two unnamed sailors in the ocean, Malcolm goes in. His friends are horrified. They love and value him, and they value him more than two randos. But to him, the randos are the point. Saving people is the point. So no matter how many disappointed dad-lectures he gets from Leo (and this is clearly not the first one he’s gotten), Malcolm is always going to be this way. He’s always going to try to play the hero in a horror setting, which is such a delicious choice for a horror player to make. Everyone at that table knows how perilous it is, but Imari is fully committed, and I love it.

We already know a lot of his background, but there are things we don’t know. We don’t know his relationship with his family, or why Leo is so disdainful of the Trills as a group. There seems to be an implication that the Trills are old money in Newfaire, perhaps, or at least a legendary family for other reasons. And apparently reckless heroism is a family trait. But what does Malcolm do in his day-to-day? He’s the one we don’t have a career or life for back in Newfaire yet, and I am interested to see who he is when he’s not playing the hero for Candela.

LEO AMICUS

I love the description of “I’m going to lie a little and say ‘early forties’” as an explanation for Leo’s age. It tells me a lot about his character right off the bat. We know he’s older (but not how much) and that he doesn’t want to admit he’s older. There’s just a touch of vanity already there, and given that he’s also a man in a dressing gown on a ship in a severe storm, who thinks that his presence is deeply inappropriate? Who asks if there’s a bar on a tramp steamer? We know so much about Leo already, and I love it all. Taliesin plays a dandy so well, his table reactions are so expressive, and it’s so clear that a setting like this is NOT where Leo shines. He shines in social situations, in parties and bars and places where his charms mean something beyond keeping a crewmember calm long enough that she can be knocked unconscious. But he’s so great in being totally overwhelmed and being useless in an action sequence.

And once the storm is over? We find out that Leo is very much the mother hen of the group (probably the oldest member). He knows Malcolm well, and treats Grimoria like a beloved niece. We haven’t gotten a lot of interactions between him and Edgar, but I’m excited to see what their relationship is like, as the two more cautious members of the group.

It was in his interactions with the other members of the circle that I realized how much like family this circle is. They are VERY close, despite ostensibly just being coworkers. There is such a deep care and concern for one another here and I love knowing how dangerous that also is in a horror game. And Leo is the one most open about his attachments here. We know he doesn’t have much blood family, and doesn’t talk to them. We know he looks at these people as his family.

And I love that, for that family, we see a REALLY different side of Leo. While he was overwhelmed and trying not to look at the blood on the boat, the second the Murphy girls (or whatever was masquerading as them) tried to murder Malcolm and the others, Leo was grabbing kitchen knives and trying to kill them. His perspective from his talk with Malcolm also remains consistent: you put your family first. When his family is threatened, meek Leo melts away and we have a man who will do whatever is necessary, kill whoever is necessary, or let anyone die to protect them. He seems to have few moral convictions, but an enormous amount of love, and that excites me for this character.

And I love that we actually know very little about him right now. We know he lives in Red Lamp (because of course he does) and that his apartment doubles as their chapterhouse. So he can be Team Dad at every meeting.

Also congrats to him for getting laid in the very first episode. Hot sailor dude propositions him, and Leo is all about that life. This Professional Man of Leisure is clearly gay catnip.

DR. EDGAR LYCORIS

I was so excited that Alex was finally going to be in a filmed Candela game (he was apparently one of the play-testers during its development, and it’s so clear he knows the rules). Dr. Lycoris is cool, calm, almost robotic in his presentation. He’s definitely a classic Alex character with his calm and his normal-guy-in-a-group-of-weirdos vibe (while secretly being very much a weirdo himself), and filled with casual competence and rudeness. But at the same time there are hints of how much he cares about this circle too. Him quietly calling Grimoria ‘Grim’ when she’s unconscious and he’s tending to her, telling her, “You can’t sleep forever, Grim,” in such a fond tone. The two of them clearly have some quiet history together, and there is a real softness between them that I’m excited to see them dig into as they get deeper into the game. There’s clearly a long-standing connection with Malcolm too, with both of them extremely aware of one another’s skills and weaknesses, working together seamlessly, especially in moments of extreme stress. I want to see more of these soft moments, these personal moments when his icy demeanor cracks, and I imagine we’re going to get plenty of them, given that THIS is how intense the first episode was.

He and Leo are the two characters we know the least about at this point. We know that Edgar is a surgeon working in the main hospital in Newfaire. We know that he is cool under pressure, and that he is both used to fighting (his immediate shift into using his scalpel as a precision weapon to go after arteries and tendons is such a nice touch for the character), but also can really be shocked by sudden violence (I love that he totally freezes after THAT happened to Declan’s mother). He states that he wears nice and fashionable clothing, but the clothing is almost wearing him rather than the other way around, like someone picked them out for him. I want to know who that other person is (is it Leo???). I want to know who he is when he’s not trying to wear what other people expect of him.

I am so excited to get to know Dr. Lycoris.

GRIMORIA

Likely a stage name, and I do wonder if we'll get her birth name, or if that even matters to her at this point. Mechanically, I am thrilled to see a Candela player try to homebrew a multiclass in this system. She’s essentially gone for a Medium/Magician hybrid. We know she works as a procurer of esoteric artifacts. She performs shows with smoke bombs, so likely is a stage magician, and that she has been able to channel spirits since she was a small child.

And we know that she’s 18. In a group in which consists of a man who is at least in his mid-forties, a man who is 32, and a man who is a surgeon (so has at least obtained advanced training, and is probably in his late twenties at minimum, and is likely in his thirties given the hints that he served as a battlefield surgeon during the war), Grimoria is YOUNG. Absurdly so. The guys care about her in a different way than they do one another. They look out for her in subtle ways, though are all very careful not to treat her as a child. The softness between her and Edgar is reflected in the overtly familial way that Leo talks to her, treating her like a very clever niece, but also the person he finds the most calming in the group. It’s fun to see that, even though he treats her as his relative, he doesn’t treat her as a child. She’s the one he goes to when he needs to clear his head. He just wants to listen to her read aloud. He finds talking with her soothing, and it’s clear why. She has a good head on her shoulders, and is rising to the occasion, so while he is caring for her, he also intrinsically understands her need to care for him as well. And Aimee really sells that in-between nature of being 18. It’s such a great portrayal of someone on the verge of being an adult, but not quite there yet. Someone her friends want to care for, but also want to treat like an adult and like any other member of the group. There is a tension in those relationships purely because of her age.

I also like that she’s the most pure investigator of the group. She’s the one who pushes for information, who has a burning desire to KNOW. And that’s a great flaw and danger for a character in a horror setting. The desire for knowledge in cosmic horror is so dangerous. Her willingness to channel spirits right off the bat is dangerous. She is, in her own quieter way, just as reckless as Malcolm and I love to see it. Aimee is throwing herself into this, playing a character who doesn’t know she has limits let, and is eager to push every boundary. I can’t wait to get to know her even more.

CONCLUSIONS

I love that we have two cautious characters and two reckless characters. I love that we have a balance, and we have a group that instantly portrays exactly how close they all are to one another. We’re not sure how these bonds were forged, but they are so well portrayed and so clear. These people love one another. They would do terrible things for one another, and I can’t wait to see what they go through together.

Count me very excited and very eager for next month’s addition to their story (and count me already sad we only get three episodes with them).

#candela obscura #circle of the crimson mirror #I love them all so much already #Malcolm Trills #Leo Amicus #Edgar Lycoris #Grimoria #Imari Williams #Taliesin Jaffe #Alex Ward #Aimee Carrero

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faelapis · 8 months

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pmmm rebellion: the flower scene

*inhales*

i like pmmm rebellion. a lot. i'd go so far as to say it’s one of my favorite movies. but i've never liked the interpretation from some, of this scene. the flower scene. essentially, the idea is that homura was right in how madoka was "miserable" as a god. because madoka "agreed with her" in the flower scene.

as a baseline, i will say right off the bat that i think pmmm is a franchise where you can never fully escape tragedy. i think any ending to this story will be bittersweet, and there is a certain amount of sacrifice and misery inherent in its very concept.

that being said. i don't think madoka becoming a god was as tragic as homura makes it out to be. i don't think its just a hero sacrificing herself for the greater good. i think it's more. and i think this scene, as much as it is a conversation, is also an act of self-delusion.

this one-note interpretation of madoka as a tragic sacrifice (in how she herself feels) is ignoring... well. the context of the whole series. which homura herself is also ignoring. by which i mean, she was a quite the unreliable narrator in how she described the sacrifice / miracle madoka would go on to perform.

for the record, i think there is something both selfish and selfless to homura. i think she genuinely believes she is helping madoka. and i think homura thinks that's all she wants. this is not an attempt to slander her - but more about how i think she has an incomplete understanding of madoka, and what madoka wants in life.

basically, i'm not trying to argue here that madoka's sacrifice is just good "for the world." obviously, it is. we already know that. what i'm trying to argue is that i think it - in some ways - is also good for madoka herself. not in an uncomplicated way, but that its not all bad. that she gets something out of being this godlike being. at the very least, i think it is better for madoka than the world homura creates.

okay. so. flower scene. homura pretty vaguely just says “you’re going to be separated from everyone you love." which, on its own, is pretty sad. she mentions that there's something "only (madoka) can do". and that madoka, being selfless, would do this because she feels she has to. that it is a tragedy.

what homura doesn't mention is madoka becoming this godlike, conceptual being who is everywhere at all times. which is a pretty big fucking thing to leave out. homura might as well have said “you’re going to be separate from ME, and that’s going to make ME sad” for how honest she was about the context of the situation.

in short, homura is framing the situation as tragically as possible because she wants madoka to say what she wants to hear. she wants to be told that it was miserable. because homura was miserable.

essentially, what homura says will happen: you'll be away from everyone forever. it will accomplish ~something~, but i will not tell you what. it will make me very sad. please comfort me. (which madoka does, because of course. lest we forget part of what she says is she would never want to make someone as strong as homura sad.)

what actually happens: you will have the power to save every magical girl from suffering. you will become a conceptual god, which will remove you from your human life. but you will also be with every magical girl, always, and give them comfort. you will not only have your own agency, but make sure that the wishes of magical girls everywhere MATTER and don't end in despair. including your own. even when you would become a witch and despair, you will save yourself. and when i die, i will be with you as well.

i think by framing it this way, homura IS being honest about how it "felt" to her. but homura also misunderstands what madoka wants.

first of all, madoka's life as a regular human... well, i'm not going to say it was unhappy. but i think it was unfulfilled. i think madoka was an insecure girl without much sense of what she wanted in life. and it was also ignorant. ignorant of the pain of the world, of the suffering that other magical girls had gone through. it was privileged, but it was also, in this way, empty.

madoka’s self-actualization (in the series) has a lot to do with helplessness vs being able to make a difference. in short, she wants agency. what her wish does is give her that agency, which she trades for her life as a normal human.

what homura’s wish does is the reverse. it’s giving madoka her humanity back, but in return, she no longer has agency. she doesn’t get to do the self-actualization of becoming someone with the power to help others. she is, in that sense, suppressed.

so. like. yes, THAT “regular magical girl who knows zero context of her own character arc” version of madoka? of COURSE she doesn’t want to leave everyone behind. big duh. she isn’t told what it would accomplish (in any specific terms), she isnt aware of how it would create a version of herself with the power to change the world. nor is she acquainted with the non-magical girl version of her in the pmmm series, who had no agency at all until she chose to become a god.

in the series, that is not a moment of despair for madoka. that is when she finds hope. that is when she attains a world where she can give rest to all magical girls. and give herself a reason to fight. that hope and determination carries her, and she is with it forever.

it’s also worth noting, rebellion!madoka's not just saying it would make her sad. she is also doubting herself. she's saying she is far “too spineless” to do it. how she's this weak, helpless person who would never be able to leave people for a greater calling.

putting aside how she’s not really gone / at least exists in this abstract way - she is also demonstrating how she doesn't believe in herself. so even this "happy" magical girl version of madoka still has some of the helpless insecurity of her series counterpart. she may live a relatively peaceful life, but she is not fulfilled. she lacks the purpose, determination and hope of her series counterpart.

in other words, even this version of madoka needs to self-actualize. and part of her knows that. in homura's "happy" new realm, madoka "feels wrong." she seems shy and insecure. ill at ease. uncomfortable. like she's at the start of her arc, not the end. yet the godlike power within her refuses to be erased. it can only be held back. for now.

in a way, i see homura trapping madoka a bit like the symbolism of not letting someone grow up. sure, adulthood might not be as "simple and happy" as childhood, but it also gives you knowledge and agency in life. it allows you to learn & grow, understand the world as it is, make educated choices in who you want to be, and become that best version of yourself. THAT is what madoka is denied. that is how she feels wrong in this “happy” illusion realm that homura creates.

also. god madoka would definitely be a lot happier if she could be with homura in heaven and have the ability to save her lol.

but there's a problem with that, for homura. and that problem is, that would give madoka the agency in the situation, and leave homura the passive receiver of blessings. which is at odds with homura’s own desire for control. like madoka, she wants to not be helpless and have the ability to affect the story. after all, she did fail to stop madoka in the series. i think homura wants some of that agency, too. hence the imagery of her soul gem going from a pawn to a queen.

essentially, i see this as a conflict between two sides who want to be in charge of their own destinies. they've been stripped of their agency by the world, and they want to have it back - no matter what it would cost. this is what they have in common.

when homura refused to join madoka in "magical girl heaven", she was ultimately refusing happiness for the sake of agency. for the sake of being able to be "madoka's hero." that's what she always wanted to be, and failed to be in the original series.

tl;dr: there is something tragic in madoka's wish. for sure. but i think it gives madoka agency in the world, which she always wanted. i think being able to help others can be genuinely fulfilling for the individual, rather than just a sacrifice. it’s empowering, as much as it is the loss of old self. and i think homura wants to feel like that kind of hero, too - no matter what. they both do.

*exhales*

#pmmm #madoka kaname #homura akemi #madoka #puella magi madoka magica #not su /#long post /#for the record we all agree that in an ideal world none of this would fall on the shoulders of middle schoolers #but that’s not why these stories are written #in madoka as with any young anime protagonist it has as much to do with the world of being the burdened protagonist 14 yr olds want to see #and to the symbolic fears dangers and perils that come with being 14. learning about the world and shedding childhoods naïveté etc

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ventiswampwater · 7 months

Text

subterranean

FANDOM : house of wax (2005) PAIRING : bo sinclair x afab!fem!reader RATING : explicit 🔞 WORDCOUNT : 3.9k

Reader POV. Basement fuckery. He tells you it's to keep you humble. It’s really just to keep you scared. The distinction doesn’t matter. You end up here again and again, knees biting into the concrete.

Crossposted on A03 here.

⚠️ Stockholm Syndrome. VERY dubious consent under duress. This was supposed to just be porn without plot. But then I lost my goddamn mind. Oops. Decent amount of weird prose. Depersonalization and derealization. Pet play (but make it weird and kinda metaphorical). Collaring. Forced boot riding. Vibrator and anal plug use. Bondage/gagging/edging. Bo at his absolute WORST (his natural state), being smug and mean and awful. Dirty talk dialed ALL the way up. Extremely dehumanizing and degrading language. Mind break elements. LOTS of backhanded praise. ⚠️

You always got too comfortable.

A lifetime before—when you were first here—you sat on this mattress with him, swallowing down mouthfuls of cold beef and carrots. You can remember the soup swirling in the can, murky and brown like a puddle of stagnant rainwater. He hadn't bothered to warm it up for you, but it hadn’t mattered. The food was something. Sometimes it felt like everything.

You licked the broth off the spoon as he plugged another tape into the VCR.

“One of my favorites.” He told you. Of course it was. Every movie he showed you down here was one of his favorites. Every can of soup might be the last. It was always the same things, over and over.

That’s when you started to lose track of time, you think—when you’d started to cling onto all that nothing.

Time wasn’t all that bad of a thing to lose, was it? Who needed it when his thumb was rubbing against your knee, stroking up your skin? The soup was cold, and his hand was warm. You traded one for the other and you liked it.

Funny. Thoughts like that always felt like they came with an or else tacked at the end.

A chunk of potato sat unpleasantly on your tongue—almost bitter, gravel in your mouth. Just like everything else, you swallowed it down.

He pressed play, his fingers drifting up your thigh. The TV quality was fuzzy, interrupted by the occasional flicker of static. Sometimes the films he chose would start in the middle of scenes. You’d get brief glimpses of things he’d recorded over—the triumphant blare of a talk show theme cutting off mid-note, dropping you in media res. He always assured you that you weren’t missing anything. At least that was one thing he didn’t bother lying about.

The movie wasn’t why you remembered that day, though. It was because of something he’d asked you.

“Where’d ya’ grow up?”

You hadn’t known what to say. He never asked you things like that. Your confusion only deepened when you turned towards him. There was no tension in his jaw, no furrowing of his brow. He looked, for the first time, wholly and startlingly calm.

When you failed to answer, he leaned forward and switched the TV off. He never did that either.

“Tell me ‘bout it. Whatchu do out there, anyway?”

You always regret not lying to him.

The world had shrunk down so much in the time you’d been in the town that it almost felt like you could gather it up and stuff it in your pocket.

You think about home. It looks different now.

Spidery tendrils of dust cling to the gaps between the balusters. It’s so difficult to get light in the house. No matter how many windows you open, there are always corners lost to shadow.

It’s strange how you could be up there one day, replacing the bulb under a fringed lampshade—and the next, you’d be tumbled back underground.

Just last week, you were lying on the couch in the living room.

The dog had padded into the room. She’d been gone for the better part of the day. With the doors unlocked, she went wherever she pleased. It had worried you at first, but it didn't anymore. She'd never leave town. She knew better.

At least, that’s what he’d said.

“Come here, beautiful.”

Jumping up, she curled into the space beside you. You wrapped your arm around her, wrinkling your nose. She reeked terribly of dog, stale corn chips and dirt and musk. You wondered if she might let you give her a bath now that you were in her good graces. It took a while to get there, but she came around. In a manner of speaking, the same thing had happened with you.

Pretty funny, huh?

Earlier, you'd been thinking about the puppies in the pet store window. Did she know about them? Slumbering away behind glass and dust, forever only a couple breaths old. Click. A switch was flipped, and they were as alive as they would ever be, nestled on newspaper shavings. On days like this, did she ever make her way down the hill to see them?

“Girls don’t last in this town.” You murmured, scratching behind her ear. “Just me and you, yeah?”

With a huff, she buried her head in the crook of your neck. It seemed like she was done listening to you.

That was fair, really. Half the time you weren’t even saying what you were really thinking anymore—and when you did, you weren't entirely sure that you made much sense. So much of yourself was locked up in your head and you kept forgetting where you left the keys. It all got clogged up inside your skull and oozed out of your mouth in a trail of sickly platitudes. You were just so thankful, so grateful.

“Sorry.” You whispered. You were always sorry for something, and sometimes you even meant it.

The rays of light were receding off of the arm of the couch, crawling up the wall. Your thoughts filled the living room. You could almost see them floating through the air, bouncing off each other like bubbles. Fleeting, effervescent things, popping as soon as you tried to track their paths. When you turned your head, you could smell his cologne. It was his jacket, hanging discarded over the couch cushions.

For a sudden, terrifying moment, you missed him.

That’s when you said the prayer. You didn't know where you meant for it to go. You guessed it was for whoever was around to hear it. Most days it was him and some of the time it was his mother. Both choices rang false. If God was still in this town, it was here, caught in these beams of light. Or maybe God was the dog heavy on top of you, her breath a rhythmic rumble against your throat.

Maybe you wouldn’t last long. Maybe it was all just wishful thinking.

Today, Bo fastens the collar around your neck. The leather feels heavy against your skin.

He tells you it’s to keep you humble. It’s really just to keep you scared. The distinction doesn’t matter. All the light bulbs you screw in will eventually need to be replaced. Wiping away the dust only gives way to more dust. You'll end up here again and again, knees biting into the concrete.

This almost feels more like his room than the one he sleeps in up at the house. Here, you can feel him more than anywhere else. There's more of you down here too. Real, tangible parts of yourself. Look around. There you are in the stain on the mattress, the blood crusted on the vinyl.

Welcome back, baby.

You keep your gaze on the ground, searching for something to bore your eyes into. Your eyes land on his shoes. Flecked with dirt, they bear obvious signs of wear. There’s a sizable hole in the toe of one of them. You focus in on that as he readjusts the collar, tightening the strap around your neck.

Embarrassment heats your cheeks as you hear him click the leash into place. Even without looking up at him, you can picture the expression on his face. It isn’t a good one. You still can’t decide if he looks more or less like himself when he screws his face up like that.

Tugging roughly at the leash, he forces you to look up at him. Wrists bound; your hands flex uselessly against your back.

“Please—”

Without warning, he sticks his fingers into your mouth, forcing them to the back of your throat. You choke, your hands flexing in panic behind your back. When he pulls them out, you cough, eyes watering.

“Now, normally I like hearin’ you, baby.” He says, smiling down at you. His face is a discordant thing. All American, boy next door. A slice of apple pie that someone put a cigarette out in. “But you know somethin’—”

He crouches down in front of you, still smiling. You watch him silently, shifting anxiously on your knees.

“I never did meet a dog who could talk.” Reaching over, he flicks at the metal ring on the collar. “Feels wrong.”

Dropping the leash, he gets to his feet, striding away. You crane your neck to the side as he rustles around behind you. After a moment, he lets out an affirmative grunt.

Quickly, you pivot your head back to the front. Making his way back to stand in front of you, your eyes flash to the item in his hands. Seemingly amused by your concern, he dangles it in front of you.

It’s a ball gag, shiny and black—noticeably a hair newer than the rest of the junk down here. Maybe he bought it just for you. It’d make a pretty lousy gift, but then again, he was always shit at stuff like that.

He had an incredible knack for getting you shit that you never asked for. Everything came with conditions, a laundry list of provisos and conditions that you didn't remember signing up for. Everything he gave you was actually for him.

“Open up, baby.”

Before you can think to do as he asks, his thumb forces your mouth open, pressing down on your teeth. You sputter as he forces the gag into your mouth, securing it around the back of your neck.

“That’s better, yeah?” He asks, grabbing hold of the leash again.

You stare up at him, exhaling tight bursts of air through your nose. You tilt your head a bit, working your jaw around the ball. Your teeth rest uncomfortably on the rubber.

“You been so good today, think we outta give that pussy some attention, huh?” He smirks. “Whatchu think?”

You whine, the noise coming out in an embarrassingly wet gurgle. Spit runs out of your mouth, dripping down your chin and trickling onto your neck.

“So cute.” His voice is syrupy sweet. He can play at authenticity, but never with you.

He kicks your thighs apart with his foot, nudging the tip of his boot between your legs. His eyebrows shoot up expectantly as he nods down at you.

“Go on, then.”

Disgust is an old friend. She disappears for months at a time, only to show up unexpectedly as if no time has passed. She’s back again, turning your stomach around in her hands. You tilt your hips down. Rubbing yourself against the tip of his shoe, you wonder if he’s doing this for old times' sake.

Rocking forward, you imagine a glossy magazine cover. You could see him on the cover of one. He does have the face for it, when he bothers to put it on.

Bored? 50 Ways to Keep the Spark Alive!

Your jaw is beginning to ache. Bo's hand strokes softly at the top of your head. You hate that the pressure against your clit almost feels good. Your mind unhelpfully supplies more article titles, bubbling up in your mind in obnoxiously curly lettering.

10 Mouth Exercises For The Modern Woman. Have You Tried Screaming? It’s All The Rage in This Town. Once You Start, You Won’t Want to STOP!

“That’s it.” He grins. “What a little slut.”

You look up at him pleadingly, another dribble of spit running down your chin.

“Always got told ya’ shouldn’t let dogs up on the bed.” He muses, the amusement plain in his voice. “But you been on your best behavior, huh?”

Last week, you fell asleep on the couch. You woke up somewhere else.

It was dark and you were pressed against something warm. Not the dog, not the light. Those were both gone. His jacket hanging off the side of the couch, maybe. But it was moving now, and so were you.

“Gotta getcha to bed.” He’d muttered, carrying you up the stairs.

You lay across Bo's lap, the side of your cheek against the dirty mattress. You shudder, your legs shaking.

“Pretty girl.” Reaching over, he tugs you up by the leash, forcing your head back.

Every breath you take seems to make your muscles clench around the plug in your ass. He works it in and out of you slowly and you gulp, shallow breaths whistling out of your nostrils. Every time you jolt forward you can feel him press against you, hard against your belly.

“Hey. What’s wrong, baby? That hurt?”

You nod frantically.

“Huh. Funny…'cuz I don't think it does. You wanna know how I know?” You feel him spread you open, fingers dipping into your pussy. “You’re wet for it, baby.”

He pushes the plug deeper, and your head spins at the sensation. A warbling moan pitches out of your mouth as you feel it sink fully into you. You shiver uncontrollably, whimpering around the gag. Saliva gathers on your tongue, and you feel it spill out of the side of your mouth, pooling under your cheek.

“Good.” He rumbles out, stroking his knuckles along your back. “That’s my good girl.”

You squeeze your eyes shut when you feel him nudge something between your legs. With a click, the vibrator buzzes to life. You let out a startled cry as he strokes it along your pussy.

“It’s nice, huh?” He chuckles. “Don’tchu act like I never gave you anything.”

The vibrator teases against your clit in short bursts, pressing down just long enough to leave you panting before he pulls it away. Almost enough, not quite. You arch back uselessly, chasing after that glittery warm sensation. He laughs a bit, holding the vibrator just above your clit.

You can feel the edge of pleasure, but it’s nothing more than a distant dull thrum. He keeps you hovering over it for what feels like forever, squirming over a feeling that’s hardly there. You bite down on the gag, your sob watery and muffled around the rubber.

“This body’s all mine, girl.” He murmurs, running his thumb down your spine. “I ain’t gotta make it feel good.”

With a hum, he rests the vibrator fully onto your clit. The sensation you’ve been chasing envelopes you, shimmering through your core. Nasally, high-pitched whines escape you in quick, desperate succession.

“But I do, don’t I? ‘Cuz I’m just so sweet.”

You open your eyes, staring up at him in bleary gratitude. He presses down on the plug. The discomfort has crested over and all you feel now is loose and pliant. You moan around the gag, your eyes fluttering.

“You like having somethin’ in your ass while I play with this pussy?”

And you nod, humming out your agreement.

“Mmm-hmm? Yeah?” He teases, mimicking your garbled reply. "That's good, baby. That's real good. Reckoned I’d fuck your ass today, but that pussy’s gettin’ nice and wet for me. Whatchu think? Which hole you want fucked?”

You mumble incoherently through the gag.

“All of ‘em?” He exclaims, the grin evident in his voice. “Well, ain’t that real sweet. Good answer, baby.”

He keeps talking, but it’s getting harder to focus on what he’s saying.

“Next crew that comes through here—maybe I’ll tell ‘em I got a slut who needs breakin’ in. You spread those legs so nice, sure you’d fuckin’ love it.”

The image flashes through your mind. Hands everywhere, laughter and heat and friction from a kaleidoscope of people destined for death. You’re in the middle of all of those faceless people—a tribute to be used up, one last meal for a parade of living corpses.

You’re all destined for the same end, but theirs is closer than they know. Yours is prolonged, tied around touches and salt.

Bo would be in the corner, lighting another cigarette—watching, because he’s always watching. Mouth twitching into a smile because he’s right again. You’re exactly what he thinks you are. You’ll keep your eyes on him because you can’t look at anyone else. After all, if it isn’t his hands, could you even feel it? Would it even count?

The panic is sudden and hot, twisting inside your chest. A desperate little whine builds at the back of your throat.

If I’m everybody else's, I can’t be yours.

“I’d have a hard time sharin’, though.”

Relief. The vibrator pulses against your clit and your eyes go unfocused.

“’S funny. Gotchu down here—and nobody knows.”

Between your legs, your pussy feels pathetically wet, sloppily sliding along the vibrator. You almost wish he’d keep you like this forever, jolts of pleasure lapping hungrily between your legs.

“If there’s even anybody out there lookin’ for ya’…” He muses. “Wish they could see ya’ now, huh? Don’t think they’d feel bad for you, baby.”

Pleasure rolls dizzily through you, electric licks of sensation as he rubs the vibrator against your clit. The rubber in your mouth is an anchor, it feels good on your teeth.

“Betchu thought you were really somethin’ out there.” He chuckles. “How’s it feel to find out you ain’t? Feels good, don’t it?”

You open your eyes and nod up at him, panting out your agreement. Through the haze, you see him smirk. It’s a cruel, cold thing. You’re all full and useless, but he doesn’t need you to say it, because he knows. Thoughtlessly, you shift in his lap, trying desperately to spread your legs wider for him.

“Nothin’ but a little fucktoy.” He coos. “That’s all you are, baby. Want you to remember that.”

He doesn’t need to worry. You remember everything, except what counts.

“Good girls cum, baby. They can’t help it.”

You’re hurtling higher and higher, the pleasure battering against your brain. That’s where the memories are, where the time used to be. It feels better to fill it with this. But then again, you’ve known that from the start.

“Go on, baby. Cum all pretty for me, yeah?”

And you do, a million times over.

He keeps the vibrator pressed firmly against your clit as you tense up, your hands clenching into tight fists behind your back. Your orgasm is a bone-deep shiver, wracking your legs with uncontrollable chills. The pleasure throttles through the last of your coherency, prizing a desperate noise from your throat. Maybe it’s a word. It might be his name. It might just be the time. Maybe this is how you find it again.

The buzz of the vibrator goes dim and far away as he holds it against you. You’re twitching somewhere above it. Each involuntary movement you make brings with it a new hiccup of sensation. Around you, the room seems to spin—whirling into a terrific blur of green and yellow.

It can be beautiful down here, if you squint.

When he lifts the vibrator off your clit, you pitch forward, warbling out a dizzy laugh behind the gag. You wait for the sound of the wand powering off. It doesn't come. Behind you, the buzzing is a low, incessant drone. You’ve barely managed to ground yourself when you hear it kick up a notch.

Click.

The sheets smell like all the thousand versions of you, each one answering questions she shouldn’t. Four walls surround you and they feel like they’re collapsing down on all sides. They could be made of plaster or stone, but they might just be something else. Your limbs, your heart, your mind, him. Separate appendages, but all linked. All part of the same crumbling structure.

A scream builds at the back of your throat as you feel him set it back on your clit.

“We ain’t done, baby.”

Your sleep is deep. Quiet. Only one dream.

Bo’s sitting on the edge of the bed, an inky blot in the gray morning light. He makes a move to stand up and you grab onto his arm.

“Go back to bed, angel.” He murmurs.

It almost sounds real enough.

When you wake up, you're alone. You try the door and find it unlocked.

Figures.

Upstairs, the shop is empty. There’s a can of unopened Coke on the counter. You crack it open and take a sip. Lukewarm bubbles of carbonation fizz over your tongue. God, he really was shit with gifts.

Walking up the hill, you catch your reflection in the window of a sedan. You look haggard, your hair a raggedy clump around your shoulders. You try the handle and it cracks open easily. Crawling into the dirty belly of the car, you wince as you lower yourself down into the seat. You sit with one leg dangling out, absentmindedly studying the dusty speedometer.

There are cars in other towns, parked on different streets. There are places without dust. There are always other futures. Sometimes you turn down the wrong road, and sometimes you die. Sometimes you don’t.

That’s just the way these things go.

You imagine the town collapsing in on itself like a pop-up book. There’s Bo, frowning down at it. He seemed like he’d been the type of kid that wasn’t allowed to check those kinds of things out from the library. He’d bring them back with pages ripped out, scrawled with pen marks. Pilled white card stock where faces used to be.

God, you’re miserably sore. It’s impossible to narrow down the ache to a certain part of you.

Lifting your leg into the car, you pull the door shut. The dust inside tickles your nose. Unthinkingly, you reach up, your fingers brushing against the metal buckle of the seatbelt. The sting is sharp and immediate. You pull your hand away with a hiss, your hand smarting. When you reach for the seatbelt again, you’re careful to avoid the clip.

You buckle yourself in. Click. Alive again, now more than ever. Wrapping your hands around the steering wheel, you close your eyes. The leather is hot against your palms, and it hurts a bit. Just a little. That’s just the pain again, but you don’t really mind. It’s something you can keep. It’s all yours.

Nothin’ you can’t handle, girl.

That’s what he said last night. Afterwards.

You were laying with your head in his lap, the itchy crust of dried spit against your cheek. It was then that you decided that you were so ugly that you had to be beautiful. You had to be worth looking at. You’d rolled over on your back, looking up at him through swollen eyes. That’s when he said it, so low and quiet that you almost didn’t register it. There’d been a an edge of pride to his voice.

Nothin’ at all.

A lick of pleasure thrums between your legs and your eyes flash open. You unbuckle the seatbelt and scramble out of the car, ignoring the pain that sings through your limbs.

Things like that? They always came with an or else tacked at the end. You remember that, don’t you? You couldn’t have forgotten.

Looming above you, the house is a dark blot of ink against the blue sky.

There were no collars for dogs in this town—they didn’t need them. They’d always find their way back home, pawing at the door for some scraps. The only leash is the one that exists in your mind. You can almost see it, trailing off your neck and up the hill, looped messily around the front doorknob.

You were going to die here with all that wetness between your legs, begging him to take out more of you with his teeth.

It's like he said.

You don’t need to tie up a dog if it loves you.

#I FINALLY finished this shit. it's horrific. tysm for coming there are drinks n snacks @ the door #we're goin back 2 ambrose I'm sorry 2 say #and our first stop? oh. just down these stairs #house of wax #bo sinclair #bo sinclair x reader #slashers x reader #slasher community #x reader #my fics #in his basement like damn bitch u live like this #shit is dis cos tang #r/malelivingspace for fuckin real #I've stared @ these bingo bongo ass words for far too long. so I'm sure there's errors. but I will fix them when BRAINCELL lmao

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lucimiir · 1 month

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MY FAV DUNE PT 2 COSTUMES

And my (mostly visual/aesthetic) reasoning

(In no particular order)

Ok starting off STRONG with this Irulan look:

It’s simple, it’s classy, it looks comfy AND elegant. I love the beadwork on the headpiece and how it’s Bene Gesserit-adjacent but you can still completely see her face and hair. The light colors look good on her and that collar made me question it for just long enough to make it better.

Next up is Jessica’s early sayyadina look, and I loooooove this robe. The earth colors are nice, I like how it kinda blends in with the sietch while emphasizing her eyes, and the fabric is very rough and functional looking while still being beautiful. Mostly I’m psyched about the patterns in the weaving (I think it’s woven) and the way that creates continuity with her tattoos.

I had trouble finding good pictures for this, but

Everything about this scene was GORGEOUS. I swear I didn’t breathe for the first ten minutes of the movie, and these Harkonnen uniforms were part of it. The colors here are amazing and make the black look so harsh and unnatural compared to the sand and rocks and the Fremen clothing. Their shiny helmets are terrifying and sterile and buglike and I am living for it. (Little me would have gotten nightmares)

Obviously we’ve all acknowledged Lady Margot’s amazing dress, but it’s just That Good. The structure! The open shoulders and low neck + hood! The color! Sinister and sexy. And despite the fact that I loved the color, I might love this even more in the black and white scenes because it shows off the construction so well and the opera glasses honestly tie it all together.

Ok bringing back Jessica because she Doesn’t Miss:

I loooove this. The gold printing (?) around the hood might be my favorite part, and the beads under the collar are awesome without weighing down her whole face like the outfit she wears for most of the film with all the metal on the forehead. I also like how the structure and design of it is extra similar to Reverend Mother Mohiam, with the giant rectangular hood, but the color and the face beading are actually more reminiscent of the gown she wears when the Atreides arrive on Arrakis in part one.

A shoutout for Feyd-Rautha’s armor in the duel:

Idk I just really like how shiny it is. All the Harkonnen stuff reminds me of bugs (those evil looking shiny black beetles) I like how this is actually very much like a stillsuit and really similar to what Paul’s wearing, but more evil and shiny.

Last but CERTAINLY not least is just Chani’s blue scarf. BOY does this pull its visual weight. Like symbolism and meaning aside, it’s such a necessary piece of color in the all the desert scenes, and adds visual interest to what is a largely beige movie. In tons of the scenes most of the color is bright bright blue in the characters’ eyes and this scarf. And I think it adds a lot of joy and lightness to Chani’s appearance, which obviously symbolically changes as she does.

I just love costumes! This was a visually stunning film! I’m feeling very happy!

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amemenojaku · 2 months

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I saw umineko stage ep3 today!! it was amazing. the quality level is insane. I got goosebumps several times and it even managed to make me tear up... everyone's performances felt like they all know their characters so well now 🥺🙏 the lights, costumes and choreography were all perfect too

some thoughts (major umineko spoilers obviously):

young eva/evatrice's performance in particular was just. literally perfect? the way she delivered her lines, carried herself, her laugh resounding onstage and the little things she did when she wasn't the center of attention were all 100% in character. she was adorable during the ceremony where she becomes the new beatrice, introducing herself to the goats and giggling w the 7 sisters, and she was absolutely terrifying in rosa's and maria's death scene. also mad props to the costume designer(s) who did her sailor outfit that turns into the witch outfit almost instantly

everything beato's actress did had me go :] there's a lot of cute beato scenes in ep3 and she was adorable in the goofy, endearing way og beato is in the story while still being cool and fun when needed in the other scenes

and last but not least eva's actress did an amazing job too, especially during the emotional scenes of her character (when she solves the riddle, finds the gold, hideyoshi's & george's deaths). her lungs' strength is impressive lol. it's been 4 hours and I still clearly remember her screams

overall I loved the way so many of the actors and actresses would just do little things when they were on stage but not in the spotlight/not talking, like the chiesters whispering in each others bunny ears instead of their human ears/covering their bunny ears because of loud noises, or the 7 sisters just jumping around and messing w each other, maria taking her notebook out of her bag and reading it, etc. they weren't just standing doing nothing and it always felt very in character, too. there was always something new no matter which part of the stage you're looking at

rudolf's actor looked and acted like he came straight out of a yakuza movie? ik he was already like that in the previous episodes but for some reason I felt it even more this time. might be because of the fight against the sisters before he and kyrie die (which was probably my favorite action scene btw. really cool choreography). I'm not complaining though. made me like the character even more

speaking of rudolf. at some point during one of the scenes where the adults discuss beato's first letter, he just... started massaging hideyoshi's shoulders? he did that for at least a full minute before hideyoshi's actor nodded as thanks and he stopped. I have no idea if this was part of the script or if the guys just decided it on their own??

when gohda does his night check of the mansion right before his death he was actually walking in the aisles with his lantern before he got up on stage!! he got to tell a joke and do some fun stuff before being killed and never being relevant again. rip

beato asking battler to give her a new name now that evatrice inherited hers, ronove on the side of the stage writing a stupid nickname on some paper to show her only for her to get annoyed, rip the paper from his hands and stomp on it

I don't know if this was done on purpose or not, but when eva fires the shot that blinds jessica and jessica accuses her of being the culprit, pointing at some random direction since she can't see anymore, she actually pointed at shannon's corpse on the sofa behind her. it could very well just be a coincidence. but. yea

krauss drinking straight from the fucking bottle during the golden land party scene at the end and getting completely smashed

ange!! she was so cool and cute. she punched the goats. I can't wait to see her in ep4 😭

battler literally Just Standing There at the very end, when ange and beato start duking it out before the episode's over 🧍

the curtain call was super cute. everyone got together to pose for the cameras before they realised beato wasn't here so they had kinzo cry for her in the infamous kinzo way and she graced them (and us) with her presence :)

battler's actor: "so we'll need your support -and- your gold for episode 4 to happen"

cat nanjo be upon ye

#umineko #sorry mobile users.

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tyrantisterror · 3 months

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My Personal History with My Good Friend, Satan

My first encounter with The Devil - that I can remember, at least - came when I was about three or so. My mom liked to borrow VHS tapes from libraries to show me and my siblings a lot, and one of the libraries she used was the one at our church. It was a small and obviously very religion-centric collection, but it left a notable mark on me - like, that's where I saw this weird, kinda shitty cartoon version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe which might be responsible for irreconcilably fucking up my taste in women? I just have this distinct memory of watching the scene where Edmund is tempted by the White Witch and thinking, "Yeah, he's making the right call." If anything I was frustrated that he hesitated - three year old me was already simping for this woman. Just imagine a child channeling Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters and growling, "When a terrifying and beautiful woman offers you candy and a private sleigh ride, you say YES!" and that's basically me as a kid.

Where was I? Right, Satan. So, the other video from that library I remember was this cartoon retelling of Bible stories, and really I just remember the Adam and Eve part. The temptation scene had this huge, super gnarly-looking demonic red snake in it, and he was so cool and badass and I was already predisposed to like snakes anyway, so of course he was my instant favorite. But, like almost all media featuring reptiles that captured my little child heart, he turned out to be the bad guy - literally The Devil, in this case - and was punished at the end of the story. And that pissed me off.

Sometime shortly thereafter - or at least that's how I remember it, this was over thirty years ago so things might be smushed closer together than they really were by the fog of ages - some of the kids in my preschool chastised me for liking snakes. "Don't you know the devil is a snake? Snakes are evil!" I remembered the movie, and it made me angry.

Because snakes aren't evil, and as a kid I knew that because my parents taught me it. Snakes were just animals, they don't know right from wrong, and to call them evil it to judge them for what they are, not what they do. That experience taught me a very important lesson: The Devil is a tool to make people hate the innocent. And as I'd later learn, snakes were far from the only innocents people would vilify because of a demonic association.

The second time I met the devil came a few years later, when I was six or seven or so. My Grampa and Grams liked to take us up North to Mackinac City and the Upper Peninsula each summer, and I have a lot of fond memories of those trips, but there was one in particular that's relevant to this discussion. We saw a sign for a "laser light show" in the shopping district, and I got to stay up late to see it with my family. The show in question was basically a cartoon projected into the night sky adapting the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It was super primitive and hokey and cornball and terrible and I loved every second of it. I was enchanted, absolutely delighted with the spectacle and the silly song where the devil was less a force of evil and more a comically bumbling inept supervillain - one of my favorite archetypes, even back then. So that's the second lesson about the devil I learned: The Devil can be fun sometimes.

Now, Godzilla, one of the few reptile characters I encountered as a kid who didn't end up a villain (at least not in the first movie of his I saw, Godzilla vs. Megalon), had already set me on the path to loving monsters of all stripes and, by extension, horror fiction in general, so as I grew up I had many more encounters with the devil. But while I warmed up quickly to most monster archetypes, like vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc., I always felt dismissive of demons. It kind of coincided with me becoming disillusioned with Christianity as a whole, in fact. A story about fighting evil, Christian-style demons is ultimately an allegory for fighting evil as defined by Christianity, and Christianity's definition of what evil is, well, sucks. It's bad! They got some things right, but some things horribly wrong. The devil is the tool Christianity uses to make you hate the innocent, and I struggled to enjoy a lot of demon stories because of that. Still do with some, in fact.

There were exceptions, of course - I loved The Evil Dead series as soon as I saw it at too-early-of-an-age, but then, the demons in it aren't super Christian. They aren't repelled by holy water or crucifixes or prayer, and in fact God and Jesus barely get mentioned in the series and never come up as a potential solution. They're kind of secular as demons go, and maybe that made them easier to stomach. But overall, demons ranked pretty low in the hierarchy of monsters to me - they were too tainted by the religion that spawned them for me to enjoy.

Until college, anyway. I quietly renounced my faith during my Freshmen year, and then, as if seeking one last chance at redemption in my eyes, the devil came to me again the following year. That's when I had a class on Medieval literature, and was exposed to far older devil stories than I had ever seen before. And Medieval devils kick ass. They have so much more personality and variety than I had come to expect, and some are downright affable, even sympathetic to a degree. It was one of many moments in college when I realized there was much more to a topic I'd previously written off as boring and trite.

This is when I read Dante's The Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost and Marlowe's Faust and Ben Johnson's The Devil Is An Ass. It's when I read early Gothic Horror novels like Matthew Gregory Lewis's The Monk, and dived into The Twilight Zone, which has more than a few episodes that are updates of medieval-style devil folktales in a more modern (i.e. 1960's) setting. And so many of these works presented the Devil not as a stand-in for everything Christianity hates, but as a person - a deeply flawed person, yes, but a person with actual wants and feelings and thoughts of his own, a person who was interesting and compelling - and sometimes funny, and sometimes charming, and sometimes really sad. There was, dare I say... sympathy for the devil growing in my heart.

In the last year of my undergraduate studies, I attended my college's yearly Medieval Studies Congress, where people from all over the world came to Kalamazoo just to share their research papers on medieval history and literature. One girl's thesis paper was on the subject of "rueful devils," i.e. depictions of demons in literature where they wanted to repent their sins and redeem themselves, which uniformly ended with the devils' hopes being dashed as they could not fully repent. This idea... possessed me. The idea that the devil could repent, or at least try to - that there could be hope even in the most debauched sinner. It was such a good narrative trope in my eyes - why did it die out centuries ago?

Well, because the church didn't like it, you see. If the devil can repent - if the Absolute King of Evil can choose to become a good person - then he's not very useful as a tool to make people hate the innocent anymore. The devil MUST be "pure evil" to work as intended. A rueful devil, a repentant devil, a devil that can be redeemed, forces us to be more forgiving and kind. It forces us to be better. It prevents us from hating people because an old book says so. And some people just couldn't have that, and so the trope died.

...

After I got my bachelor's degree, I entered the job market and, after applying to fifty different places or so, was finally hired as a high school english teacher about two weeks before the school year started. Said school year was the worst year of my life. Like, I've had extreme self loathing issues and suicidal ideation since, like, sixth grade, but holy shit it was NEVER as bad as it was in that nine month stretch between 2012 and 2013. There was this bridge I had to cross on the way to work each morning, and about two months in the job was so stressful that part of my morning routine was thinking, "You know, if I just swerve to the right, this can all be over and I'll never have to worry again." About halfway in I began drastically losing weight despite not changing my diet or getting more exercise and it was so traumatic that to this day whenever my weight starts to drop my initial reaction is dread rather than excitement. I impulse bought the first two Kung-Fu Panda movies and, after watching each for the first time and crying hideously, proceeded to watch them on repeat for an entire weekend while sobbing myself hoarse for reasons I couldn't comprehend at the time.

I was in Hell. And the devil met me there.

I started writing a story during that year. I didn't get very far, just a couple chapters, but it was one of the few things that gave me a sense of accomplishment. Despite all the stress and sadness and misery, I made something. It was a story about demons, and Hell, and trying to make your life better even when the world around you seems deadset on making you suffer as much as possible.

When my bosses called me into their office at the end of that year and told me that I had to quit my job so the assistant principal could take my teaching position and survive the downsizing they'd get next year, and that if I didn't quit they'd give me the lowest teacher evaluation they could and make it supremely difficult for me to get hired elsewhere... I was relieved. I'd been let out of Hell. After a handful of months left to finish out the year, I was free.

And then I went home, with nothing. No job, no desire to pursue the career for which I'd spent five years and an ungodly amount of money getting a degree to pursue, no nest egg, nothing. Nothing except a few chapters of a book.

The years that followed were hard. I did a lot of temp work, it took me a very long time to find something that worked for me. I may have left the worst year of my life, but there was still a lot of misery waiting for me. And through it all, I felt the need to accomplish... something, ANYTHING. I had to make something to prove I had a reason to exist, even if it was something that only had value to me.

With three years of work, those chapters became my first novel, No Sympathies: A Tale of Those Who Trespass Against Us. It was about the devil, and Hell, and finding salvation even when things seem inescapably bleak. It was my first novel, and now, eight years later, it's the first of five.

The devil saved my life. He saw me at my lowest, lifted me up, whispered, "It'll be ok. You have to keep going. I'll be with you, but you have to keep going," and goddammit, he kept me from swerving right.

That's when I learned the greatest truth about the devil, at least to me. The devil is a tool to make people hate the innocent, yes, this is true, but because of that, the devil can be a savior for the broken, the beaten, and the damned. You can feel like you're worthless, wretched, and doomed. But if the devil can rise from Hell, if the devil can choose to change, if people are willing to pray for the one sinner who needs it most - then there's hope for you too, isn't there?

Demons are creatures of rebellion - against God, against nature, against the powers that be, against doom and damnation itself. They were made to be a tool to hurt the innocent, but that's not what they have to be. Devils can lift us up, because no matter how far you fall, no one can say whether it's the end for you except you.

...I would like to point out that I am being figurative here. The devil does not literally exist, at least not in my view of things. He's a fictional character, nothing more. But he's a prolific fictional character, and how we portray him can say so much about us. And, to me, he is a dear friend, despite being imaginary, because the devil was there for me when I was low, and it was on his wings that I rose from doom.

...again, figuratively, not literally.

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riddlerosehearts · 9 months

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idia/vil is such a sweet and interesting ship to me and does not deserve to be a rarepair i'm serious. this might end up a bit incoherent and disorganized because i'm not great with words, but listen. the thing is that while on a surface level idia shroud and vil schoenheit--a nerdy shut-in with anxiety who likes to game all day and a mega famous celebrity who's strict about self-improvement--might seem completely incompatible, their actual interactions show us that that just isn't true!!

like, for example idia's starsending robes vignette is a big one!! the way that vil sees idia trying to hide when he's supposed to be at the ceremony, and idia says he's terrified that people will make fun of him, that he's not like vil and can't just go out and not care what anyone think the way he does. and then vil... tells him he's wrong, that it's the opposite, that he cares so much what other people think but has enough of a grip on himself that he can ignore it and appear confidently in public. the way vil admits to idia that they are so much more alike that he thinks.

also, the way that (in this fan translation at least, as well as in other TLs i've seen--the localization translates it to have the complete opposite meaning, for whatever reason) idia then says "so in other words, you've got to level up your ignore skill", and instead of getting annoyed at him for translating his advice into video game terms vil just says "isn't that obvious?". he's going out of his way to try and give idia genuine advice and is willing to speak his language to get him to understand it. he even does a similar thing later on in book 6, when he tells idia that it's worth taking chances because after all, the star rogue protagonist took his chances and went from zero to a hero.

and on that note, book 6 is so good for them. book 6 has idia get all excited and carried away while infodumping about star rogue, only to abruptly lose his enthusiasm and start talking quietly and stuttering. and who is it that tells him he shouldn't act so embarrassed and that they weren't judging him? it's none other than vil. vil who also shows an interest in gaming, much to the surprise of idia who believed, in his own words, that a "sparkly, gorgeous supermodel" like vil couldn't possibly like any of the same things as him! but no, vil wanted to try out the games they had and vil expressed a desire for idia to talk about his passions without fear of being judged. vil enjoyed playing star rogue and he was glad to discuss the movie adaptation with idia and ortho.

it's also vil who, when idia expresses his disappointment at the star rogue sequel being canceled and his wish for the original team to get back together and create a sequel that would be made with passion behind it, is the only one to genuinely understand where he's coming from (as opposed to jamil who's like "is it really that complicated?" and leona who suggests that he just throw money at the creators). vil is the one who encourages him to take a chance at doing what he can to make that wish a reality, to let the original team know that there's a passionate and loyal fanbase waiting for a sequel, and tells him that he just generally shouldn't give up on changing his future and achieving his dreams before he's even tried. of course ortho heard this advice too and took it very much the wrong way, but vil showed a surprising amount of understanding and support for idia and i feel like it was exactly the kind of thing he needed to hear.

also. remember the scene in disney's hercules where hercules temporarily gives up his godhood and his youth by diving into the underworld to save megara? because vil literally did the same thing to save idia. yeah, he may say he only did it for plot reasons, but like come on, how am i supposed to just not ship them after they parallel one of my favorite disney couples like that? vil is a world famous actor and model who was terrified of aging, and he still took such an insane risk!! i'm sure idia would have a crush on him after that.

i'm trying to wrap this up now because it's already too long but also idia has actually been said to have great fashion sense as his online persona and shown to enjoy cosplay and dressing up on occasion (for example, he went all out on his pumpkin knight costume and this hasn't made it to EN yet but he liked wearing the masquerade outfit). vil had pretty high praise for his design sense when he saw ortho's burst gear. and vil gets along incredibly well with ortho and is in the film club with him post-book 6, which is something i imagine idia would appreciate a lot. the contrast between them and the things they unexpectedly have in common are just so neat to me.

so, in conclusion,

i love them and i think they should be boyfriends

#twisted wonderland #idia shroud #vil schoenheit #vildia #idiavil #vilidia #i am once again forcing everyone to think about my favorite rarepair #okay also i didn't think this was relevant to the main post but like. consider.#height differences make everything better right??#but vildia doesn't have a height difference! they're both 183 cm!#EXCEPT. apparently vil usually appears to be taller because of his 13cm/5in heels #which means they CAN have a super cute height difference. idia can lean on vil's shoulder...#also i think it would be fun if vil finds out idia actually has a bit of interest in fashion and is like SUPER surprised by it #like the reverse of idia finding out vil is interested in gaming #and they should play animal crossing and do couples cosplay together #also i have no idea if the localization for that one vignette is more accurate than the fan TLs i've seen or not??#but the fan TL version just makes more sense to me #okay i'm done now sorry #idia x vil #vil x idia

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