Do you ever long for the Dreamer Trilogy that could have been? If the publisher let Maggie do what she wanted? Like she said the whole moderator thing was not the plan. What was?? Ache for what would have happened if people hadn't been so weird and horrible about Adam for years to that point that she doesn't even want to mention his name? If people hadn't posted her address online and went to her house to yell at her over how she wrote TRC? I do, every single day

Me when I remember that barbwireblonde and her horrific kaidon addon exist:

There's nothing he can't do. Yet.

(Thank you to everyone who participated in the poll!)

oh merrill...

going to read wuthering heights chapter 3 and 4 today :-) im intentionally limiting myself so i don't read it in one sitting and can enjoy it more. heathcliff sobbing for catherine to come haunt him, and her not doing that... i feel like i need to draw five illustrations for this scene alone. god it's so good

Every day I am haunted by the fact the Saw franchise would've been a masterpiece if they focused on the cult themes in Jigsaw and his apprentices. it doesn't matter if morality the movies preach make no sense, it was created to prey on the weak and vulnerable and give them something to believe in

all i've ever wanted is to make something fucking last

anywhere with you - maggie rogers

[PRIVATE BROADCAST: 1 Anonymous participant (BC, NS)]

BC: With all the talk about your work on finding the solution NS, I would want to ask-

BC: What research do you conduct? What recent iterations have you completed?

BC: I seem to find another that still has not given up on the problem. I am one of those too.

BC: Personally, I specialize more in simulations. How about you?

I’ve always tried to partake in a little bit of everything. I create programs, run simulations…and yet, my main area of expertise have always been calculations. Not objective, tangible ones, no—theoretical. Math that exists in a hypothetical state. While it might sound…paradoxical, I suppose, considering my stance on such subjects, calculating the statistical possibilities of certain events happening has always been my biggest focus.

…I understand that might not be fully getting the point across. Now, allow me to try and reimagine this in clearer terms: my research centers around alternate universes. Around their possible existence, of course, along with if it is plausible to somehow travel to said universes; along with the nature of the Cycle—if it is, perhaps, a pocket dimension of its own, duplicating in on itself, and particularly if it even exists as a concept in other universes. If it doesn’t, perhaps that might’ve been the Answer this whole time—if, somehow, there was a feasible way to transmit oneself to a universe such as that…well. That would’ve been it.

...But, as you can clearly see, I am still just standing here, unable to provide you with a proper answer—despite all my time and effort, as much as I loathe to admit it, my research has been rather futile. It has lead me nowhere—universes, the Cycle…it’s just dead-end after dead-end. Perhaps it is because I’ve never been one for entertaining pointless mind exercises such as these, but once upon a time even I had some hope for a project like this to—

…

Apologies. I shouldn’t bring my own personal feelings into this, even if the lack of concrete results is very frustrating. However, has left me no choice but to continue my endeavors, no matter how tired of this back-and-forth I’ve become.

Lark says "Hi, dad" and it is cold. Tired. Distant. That's all that's left between them-- "Dad" is a hollow thing. There's nothing there. Or, well, maybe one thing is there: Blame. It's someone's fault, and maybe it's Lark's, maybe it's Henry's, but someone's to blame. Maybe both of them are.

Sparrow says "Hi, dad" but what he's really saying is "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He's begging, pleading, and later, when he finds himself all but CLINGING to his father, he knows his apologies are hollow things, and no one is listening. Because yes, Sparrow is his father's son, but oh, Henry is his brother's father, and both have had enough of begging, of boundaries built and broken. But all Sparrow has are apologies--that's all that's left.

Guilt--that's all that's left between the three of them.

Re-Uploaded from r/thehauntedmansion , but here's new Tarot Card themed character posters for the new movie. Specifically the ones featuring the ghosts!

Here's the link to the original post with all the character posters (mostly featuring foolish mortals)

Anyway, thoughts?

omg rm9 was kinda fun To Me. i enjoyed mulder and scully going on a sushi date, scully being SOOOOO embarrassingly down bad for a man she’s known over 20 years, and of course the restaurant attacking them because mulder is a bad tipper. it’s also just nice to see them living life, you know??

i had a blast with rm9 tbh, a classic s11 well! have no idea what happened there! but i enjoyed myself! episode. just talked about it a bit but yes!! just seeing them living life!! literally the majority of s11 isn't even them going on cases they're just like. existing. and falling into Situations. in rm9 all they wanted to do was go to this sushi place. scully is of course always embarrassing as hell but what i loved loved loved loved about her in rm9 (and consequently throughout s11) is that last moment at the diner when they're both on their phones, and she puts hers away and just kinda leans over to his shoulder and takes his hand, and he puts his phone down.

i was so floored to see her do that, to ask for his attention like that. so much of the original series is scully...almost quietly suffocating, sometimes? being on the edge of his myopia and focus? wanting him to see her so bad, and then lashing out (READ: fucking serial killers) to either rebel, or get him to notice? but it's been a long time and he has been many more things to her since and now she just grabs his hand and makes him turn to her. in forehead sweat when she whines that he needs to feed her or she's leaving!! and then she does leave!!! in plus one when they aren't even "back together" yet, and she sneaks into his motel room and asks him to hold her.

scully in the revival has left him. she has struck out on her own, had her own career, lived on her own, been a doctor. and she's back and they're back because there's work to be done, and because, as james wong says: "She’s in love with him that way. She had a different career as a doctor, but she came back, because this is so important to him—she’s coming back to be there for him."

she's back, and they're back, because they're always choosing each other, and they've proven it, and they've done the work. she complains about his stakeouts. she cracks jokes about being sure he's on his meds!! she knows that their son is "guiding" them both, somehow. she doesn't question it.

she's embarrassingly down bad even after 25 years because she's never anything but adored him, but there's so much more availability now. she can openly check him out and invite him back into her room and giggle at him and sleep on his jacket in bars. she used to cry, every single time that he was present with her. she used to be so overwhelmed that she couldn't speak, when he was focused on her. this is the inverse reaction of the stability and peace that mulder has found, there's a steady foundation for scully to grow on.

reminiscing.

yearning

shakespeare snobs still aren't ready for this conversation but revenge of the sith is the closest western media has to a modern equivalent of a shakespearean tragedy

- entertainment created for mass appeal

- effectively utilizes comic relief despite overall serious tone and/or subject matter

- the audience knows it's a tragedy going in

- utilizes, as shakespeare did, the elements of the greek tragedies which came before him, ie:

- the tragic hero is virtuous but for a fatal flaw

- the audience fears for and roots for the hero despite said flaw and their knowledge that the story is a tragedy

- in his attempts to escape his destiny, the hero unknowingly runs toward it, even brings it about himself

- it's entertainment for the masses even though the masses know it's a tragedy before it even starts

The absolute sadness the engulfs me when I think about a Sam who was never told the autobots were distancing themselves from humans. One day waking up to see all traces of the bots gone. To hear the news call them decepticons and terrorists. To see the world forget them as he desperately rallies against local and government officials and forces to find his friends. Being shown ratchets and Bumblees supposed deaths. Ultimately feeling as insane as his ancestor…

To just giving up and being taken by another shadow company doing evil with stolen cybertronian tech, bodies anything they can find of the aliens and keeping Sam like a specimen or trophy.

To Sam being laughed at and mocked about was any of this even real? Or legitimate? Or did his parents sign him over to an insane asylum of nightmares.



To him watching one day as the facility lights up in alarm and sirens. Watching as three kids run by his box, maybe they see him, maybe they don’t. Maybe one sees him and thinks him a ghost from an old photo he found swept into a corner crevice. Listening to the kids fading voices that “the autobots have to be just outside right? They had to set off the power!”.

But maybe he didn’t watch as Jack raf and Miko ran to an escape he only saw when the building began collapsing…

But some universe was kinder and killed him before he knew a life like that of the allspark he destroyed. Trapped in a cube as the world around changed to burning and dying.

Whenever I feel my age in hockey fandom, I remind myself firmly: no matter what, Marc-Édouard Vlasic will always be older than you. Pictures - 1) Kitty Cat Max on patrol; 2) Magnus Chrona (6'5) standing next to a U6 goalie at the anthem; 3) full moon at night.

okay posting this now because i feel like the surprise song combo was so intentional and i hope we get to hear more about it on ttpd !! the getaway car/august/other side of the door mashup got my gears turning and now i can’t get them to stop.

the common thread between those three songs is the third party — i wanted leave him i needed a reason, you weren’t mine to lose, was she worth this? — and i know that basically ever since the breakup people have wondered if joe cheated, and this seemed like it could have confirmed it. while i definitely see the evidence for that, it hasn’t quite seemed like the right fit to me, and after this surprise song combo i finally figured out why. i don’t think that the third party she was singing about in melbourne was an actual person, but the idea of a person.

a huge theme on midnights is what led her to being who she is now. she is both the anti-hero and bejeweled, a mastermind and the unreliable narrator in dead reader… there are so many different versions of herself. clearly she was contemplating these different versions and the implications of being each of them.

a huge theme in gothic literature are characters that are not present in the setting, but the idea of them and what they would do is so strong that they end up influencing the story anyways. this happens in rebecca, the novel that inspired tolerate it, where the main character is haunted by living in the glorious shadow that rebecca cast, an impossible standard to live up to, despite the fact that rebecca died and actually, crucially, wasn’t as great as everyone made her out to be. but it doesn’t matter that she wasn’t that great or that she’s never actually there to be truly compared to because it’s the IDEA of rebecca that’s so powerful. it’s the GHOST that haunts the narrative.

and i wonder if that was part of what drove taylor and joe apart? not an actual ~other woman~ but the idea of who taylor could have been instead. all of the other versions of herself she contemplated on midnights. the third party she seemed to be singing about. even on other albums, before this, she’s contemplated what version of herself could be loved — “i’ve been the archer, i’ve been the prey, who could ever leave me darling but who could stay?” i wonder if there was an idea of taylor (a taylor that isn’t “too big to hang out”) that was so palpable, so real, that it ended up taking up the space of another person and haunting their narrative anyways? because, like the main character in rebecca, how could she live up to the idea of a perfect life?

basically: how can you say that you love someone you can’t tell has died? did you love the real me or the version of me in your head that perfectly fit into your world?