a stretch of road at dusk, trees and greenery around it. two shadows loom into the frame. the image is distorted by VCR static. text reads:
[010] THE ROAD BETWEEN. A CALLER BECOMES A WITNESS. THE HOST UNABANDONS A HOUSE.
listen here, or anywhere. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
[crickets chirping]
I’m coming to you chilly from my studio, which is what i like to call the front porch of this abandoned house. [crow cawing in distance, or perhaps frog croaking] How long abandoned, I can't exactly tell. The yard is overgrown - or maybe just grown, the way it was always supposed to be. Someone’s thrown a rock through the windowpane behind me and shattered it. But the porch swing is still holding. I can hear the chains squeaking, so I don't think it’s that safe for me to be sitting on it right now. But I’m going to trust it to hold, I think. [crow caws] What else is there to do? Everything, if you think it through to its final existential point, is an act of trust.
So what is Thin Places Radio?
Well, you can call in about anything strange that you've got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Do you keep thinking about a bird that doesn't really exist anymore? Did you drive past a puddle of blood on the road? Are you sure? Are you stuck somewhere in the past - your own, or someone else’s?
Call in, get it off your chest. When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other.
Let's close that gap a little bit more. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail]
Hi. Um, there’s this stretch of road between my friend’s house and mine that always feels like it belongs somewhere else, in the middle of the night. And, one of my friends and I have driven back and forth on it a bunch of times, and it always feels strange, like we passed a car that was just a normal pickup truck, but when it passed us, we looked at each other and we were like, that was a really menacing car. But one time, we were driving - I was driving, and I thought I saw something in the woods. And I mentioned it to him, I said, did you see that? I think there was a deer in the woods. And he went, no, but, did you see the big puddle of blood on the road? And I said, no. And I don’t know if we saw two sides of one story, or something else. But anyways, I just drove back alone tonight, in my car, and every turn I made felt like it was the wrong turn, and every part of it felt like a place I hadn’t been before, but I still got to the place that I was going. And I’m home now. And just wanted to call. I love you. Goodnight.
[click]
Oh. Th- thank you, listener. I don’t remember the last time someone told me they loved me? [pause] I love you, too. I love all of you, on the other end of the line, even though I can't see you. An act of trust, that you're there at all. It's almost like praying.
You're right that there are two sides to every story - more, even. There are as many sides to a story as there are people to witness it, and then a couple more. If a deer runs through the woods and no one sees it, did it run? Yes. The deer saw. If an accident, or something more purposeful, spills someone's blood into the road and no one sees it, did it happen? Yes, of course. The two of them are co-witnesses. And then, after everything, the road remembers. The earth under the asphalt does, too. [animal croaking] There is always a witness. This is why we have to believe one another, and be honest with each other. [animal croaking] [searching music]
We're all on our own journey, and we can only bring ourselves to it. We're stronger when we travel together. But we are still the only people who can make our own turns. Who can try to find our way back home, in the end. I'm so glad you got there. The road knew where to take you, and so did you, even if you didn't know it. You trusted it to get you where you needed to go. [porch swing creaks] The road provided. But you still have to move the wheel.
The future can be terrifying. Because out of all the things that could happen, only one thing will. [animal croaking, porch swing creaking] The future will exist. But, like the past, it doesn't, right now. The only thing we have at all, really, is this present moment, the dark stretch of road we're on right now, with the next 300 feet lit dimly, if we're lucky. But we don't know what will dart out in front of us. We don't know which turn we thought was right that will lead us to a felled tree, or which lost turn might take us home. But that's all the future. We can't get there yet. We're suspended in the present, preserved in amber. So we might as well make a home here, too.
[click]
Something weird, listeners:
This list i just found. [rustling] Eggs. hummus. Toothpaste. Okay, it’s a shopping list. Great handwriting. New spatula. Lemons. Tarp. Duct tape. Chips. Latex gloves. Rubber gloves. Hacksaw. Pressure cooker (large). Lye (285 gallons).
Y’know. I don’t love this.
[click]
[crickets] [animal croaking]
The empty house behind me is silent, save the sounds of nature that have started creeping in. It remembers what happened here, though. It witnessed it. And so did I, in some small way.
But it's time for me to take my next wrong turn, wherever the road wants to take me. I don't think I'm going home, though. I don't know where I'm going.
[click]
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That's 717.382.8093. Until next time. I'll be here.
And, I love you.
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: ]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of your host is Kristen O’Neal. Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Jessie McNiel.
Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA.
If you have a story to tell or a question to ask, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
[Thin Places Theme outro]
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okay but real talk i personally reeeally do not like the evil miquella theories especially the mIqUelLa is gRiFiTh ones i have to roll my eyes 😒
imo it just.,,, completely goes against his character??????
like his whole thing from the very beginning was to cure malenia from her crippling rot and then created a haven for outcasts of the golden order, so he's had nothing but good intentions from the very beginning. and if he were to become evil or some shit out of nowhere, it would be so contradictory to him and what the lore says he stands for and it feels like it would be just a cheap "pull out the rug from under you" moment :/
the one thing that i do like is that yeah, he has compelling powers and uses love to win people over, BUT THAT DOESNT HAVE TO BE A BAD OR EVIL THING????? AND THERES SO MANY PEOPLE THAT SEE IT AS SUCH AND IM JUST LIKE
and honestly it would be even better for miquellas character if he was acutely aware of his powers to compel affection and he too saw it as a little shmarmy and tried to mitigate his abilities
and this whole line here makes me firmly believe that miquella, as he is now, does not have a shred those compelling abilities or anything for that matter.
so Miquella literally gave up EVERYTHING to even be able to come to this world of shadow because there is something here that he sees as extremely important for the fate of the world.
Miquella is literally the epitome of a being who is both kind and humble.
And that is what makes Miquellas character so interesting. Because in the context of all the Souls games where ruin and depression is practically the norm, a character that stands for hope and actually has the power/chance to grant hope to the rest of the world is so incredibly special.
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