#My favorite being the bubonic/black plague

[blackoutdays13]

I am the only person here obsessed with the titanic being switched conspiracy theory? A brief summary is there is a theory that the titanic didn’t actually sink and it was the Olympic (one of the titanic sister ships) that actually sunk. Because the Olympic hit a British war ship, and it sunk leaving behind a hole in the Olympic. They then owed money to the owner of the war ship, leaving them in debt. So it is said that they sneakily switch the titanic and the Olympic for money reasons. Know that the Olympic had a big hole in the side, and wouldn’t last a long journey. So when it sunk they could claim the insurance money to pay off the debt. There are also a couple other small theory’s that go along with it, like having certain people they wanted to be unalived on the ship, but I won’t go into depth on that.

So am I the only one who because obsessed with it?

#I am crazy for being really interested in this #I always was intrigued by the history aspect of the titanic so when I stumble across this theory last year I was hooked #I also just love hearing about the history of horrific disasters #My favorite being the bubonic/black plague

[centers-for-disease-control]

Alright, due to popular request, I bring you the break down of the Taiwan Disease Personifications. Also, just so y’all know, the official explanations for the designs are not easy to find, so a lot of this is just from what I notice and what I know about the diseases

To start off, we have everyone’s favorite disease: COVID-19

So, this is one of the designs where I could actually find the artist explanation, so I will be including that information plus a couple things I noticed and how I think it fits the disease. So let’s start with to crown. The reason for the inclusion of the crown is the reflect the name coronavirus, corona being the Latin word for crown. The face is partially obscured because of COVID’s tendency to hide itself. The bean bag chair that they are sitting on has many protrusions signifying the spike proteins. The different digital devices represent how the world went virtual during the pandemic and the news channels behind them represent the media’s freak out when COVID was at its height. The floor has an outline of the world because everywhere was affected by the pandemic. Also, if you look closely, they are wearing little Covid earrings.

Next up, we got Zika:

I could not find an official artist statement for this design, so take my explanation with a grain of salt. So first off the red waist band reminds me of the red stripe that goes down the abdomen of the mosquito species that spreads Zika after it has fed. Also, the white markings on the black are also a characteristic of this species of mosquito. In fact, the design is the stripes on the chest look like the markings these mosquitoes have on their back. She presents female because it’s the female mosquitoes that bite and spread diseases. Her sleeves look like mosquito wings once again a reference to mosquitoes being the primary vectors of Zika. The area behind her has palm fronds to represent that Zika is a disease typically found in tropical climates.

Next up we have: Hansen’s Disease (aka Leprosy)

This is one where I could find the artist statement due to it being a pretty recent one, however, I will say that at least the translation was a bit lacking in describing the reasoning of every detail. She is a mask maker because leprosy changes how people perceive those who are infected but it is something that can easily be removed with modern antibiotics. She has different accessories like the lion and crocodile headpiece that implicate the divine involvement because leprosy has been historically thought to be a punishment of the gods. The scales on her arm look like an allusion to the scaling pattern scars that those with leprosy would develop.

Next up: Rubella

After a lot of digging I found the official profile for this design but it didn’t really explain the design choices so we are going to do more analysis on my end. So the pomegranate and the red dots represent the red rashes that come with rubella infections. The glasses I assume are to show how Rubella can lead to Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) which can occur in children if their mother had rubella while pregnant. One of the symptoms that comes with CRS is cataracts.

Next up: the plague

I found the explanation on this and it just confirmed my own suspicions for certain design choices. So her design is very focused on death and mysticism because of how the Black Plague led to a lot of cultural focus on these two ideas. Behind her are old coins because of the economic impact the plague had on the civilizations of its time. The references to death are the skeletal pattern on her dress, and the scythe behind her and on her belt. The references to mysticism include the tarot cards she is holding and the crosses on her hat. On the tarot cards are designs referencing the three different forms the plague takes (bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic) as well as a posey which was used to try to ward of the plague in old times. On her hat is also a collection of plague doctor masks which is pretty self explanatory as to how that connects.

Next up: Ebola

I couldn’t find the official explanation for this disease, so this is mostly speculation based on my analysis. Her outfit is red because of the hemorrhaging that comes with the disease. Specifically he lips are red because one of the more unique characteristics of Ebola is hiccuping up blood. The accessories seem to be inspired by central and western african traditional jewelry. There appear to be tribal masks on the necklace, I am not well versed in African art unfortunately, so any deeper meaning of these accessories are unfortunately lost on me. There are bats on the headdress because of bats being the natural host of Ebola. Her design is rather demonic because Ebola was so terrible for the areas affected, that people thought it could be caused be some great evil. The skulls are because of the extremely high death rate that comes with ebola. The leaves and fruits shown come from the African jungles which is typically where Ebola outbreaks start.

Next up: Novel Influenza A Virus Infections

I actually found the artist explanation for this design! As a disease closely associated with birds, there are many elements linked to birds. There are many bird shadows, the hair that looks like feathers, and the beak shaped mask, feathers on his tie and a feather tattoo on right arm, and the “H-N” pin (H and N proteins of the influenza virus).

Next up: Dengue Fever

Another one with an artist statement! Since only female mosquitoes bite, the character is set as a female. Her dark red lips represent mosquito’s instinct to bite, and she is holding a poisonous thornapple flower. She has mosquito wings tattooed on her back and thornapple flower tattooed on her arm. I have spent a long time looking into how the thornapple flower relates to dengue, but I haven’t had a lot of luck. From what I have seen is that the roots, seeds, and leaves are used in some traditional medicines, including treatments for malaria, but I have not had luck finding how it is connected to Dengue specifically.

Next up: Japanese Encephalitis

I found the artist statement for this disease as well. The disease is visualized into three characters that form a pop group, with their names reflecting the 3 main Culex mosquito species that spread Japanese encephalitis in Taiwan, which are Culex tritaeniorhynchus (Three), Culex annulus (Ring), and Culex fuscocephala (Shiro). They wear black and white, like the colors of the Culex mosquitoes. Red accessories represent their love for blood. I don’t have much to add outside of the artist explanation.

Last one for now is: Rabies

I found the explanation for this one, but it is not descriptive at all, so I am going to be going into every detail because this is Rabies. The spikes on the jacket and pant legs represent the protein spikes rabies uses to infect nerves. The blue jacket and gloves are representing water as one of the unique characteristics of rabies is hydrophobia (physical repulsion to water). The claw marks on the shirt show the animalistic tendencies the virus brings out. The violin players in the animal mask show how the virus can hide in these animals. The personification of rabies is holding a conductor’s wand showing how rabies controls those who are infected. The teeth necklace shows how it spreads through bites and they are standing on the brain because that is what rabies infects. He has a chain with mammal skulls once again tying back to rabies being a fatal mammalian disease. The belt buckle has a bone on it as bone are associated with bones and rabies is associated with dogs.

#centers for disease control #covid #Zika #hansen’s disease #leprosy #rubella #plague #ebola #influenza #novel influenza a virus infection #japanese encephalitis #rabies #blood mention #taiwan cdc #personified diseases #long post

[fusion-of-fandom]

SO, I was sitting with some friends (i know, shocker) and we were just having fun during lunch.

Eventually we got onto the topic of vampires, and how they are after they die (something like, they get killed by a gunshot wound, so now they have a massive scar in where they got shot, or a drowned victim has unnaturally blue skin and lips etc.) specifically, the Cullen family and how they would have been if that same thing happened to them

...

ANYWAYS, THIS LED TO THE TOPIC OF HEAVILY IMMUNOCOMPRIMISED EDWARD CULLEN

and now, to headcannons :)

note: this is for comedy purposes, so most things are overexaggerated for the mood

◊ Everything in the story of twilight is the exact same

◊ the only difference is the vampire lore

◊ in short, Edward is so immunocompromised that Jacob sends his white twig ass into orbit

◊ just so he doesn't catch them FLEAS

◊ Seeing as he died of the Spanish flu, it could have gone either of 2 ways

◊ 1) he now is immune to everything, and no disease can fuck with him

◊ or 2) my personal favorite his body just contracts every disease over the 108 years he's been alive

◊ causing him to never know bodily peace

◊ and because I can, he can't get rid of it either since it will just come back from his body overreacting to a speck of dust

◊ Just imagine, the scene happens where Bella comes into class and Edward acts as if she's already got the whole school population on her, but he's in one of those massive yellow hazmat suits

◊ not because he's dangerous, oh no

◊ but because he's so immunocompromised that he's all but caught cancer and sickle cell disease

◊ Carries around at least 2 liquid sanitizers and damn near sprays everything he touches

◊ and like I said earlier, Jacob can and will take full advantage of the situation by just running at Edward at mach 6, so Edward goes mach 20

◊ LORD HELP HIS ASS WHEN HE PICKS UP RANDEVOUS FROM SCHOOL

◊ We all know that little kids are the equivalent of walking petri dishes

◊ All I can imagine is Recessive coming out of school and Edward crying over the phone with Bella because he can't even go within 5 feet of her lest he be put out of commission for 5 years

◊ He has one of those showers in his room that sprays the person that comes in with sanitation shit, since he's so ridden with disease

◊ and when I say "ridden with disease"

◊ I mean this man out here with every disease known to man and some even unknown on him 24/7

◊ I like to think every disease takes turns bullying him every day

◊ "Bubonic plague! Its your turn!"

◊ "Aw HELL YEAH! IMMA MAKE HIM THROW UP BLACK MYSTERY SLIME!"

◊ It'd honestly be easier to name something he DOSENT have

◊ man goes near dirt ONCE and now he needs an IV for a good week

◊ And since he's technically dead, he has no way to be rid of the many illnesses that are on him

◊ so he's just perpetually sick

◊ strangely enough though, he has no allergies

◊ dude is just a walking patient 0

◊ Which would eventually lead to Renaissance being immune to damn near everything

◊ Bella has to wear one of those hazmat suits with if they wanna get to making a cgi kid

◊ Carlile makes BANK on him tho

#edward cullen #twilight #the twilight saga #twilight renesmee #headcanon #◊fusion talks ◊ #immunocompromised edward cullen #ic!Edward #new tag #i might draw this #later tho

[crazywolf828]

I posted 24,431 times in 2022

1,937 posts created (8%)

22,494 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/pussypopcorn

@/bigmammallama5

@/jadequarze

@speamyraven

@crazywolf828

I tagged 5,994 of my posts in 2022

#don't mind me - 2,075 posts

#ask - 843 posts

#answered - 843 posts

#anon - 694 posts

#my fics - 134 posts

#rwby - 127 posts

#anyway - 107 posts

#yang xiao long - 106 posts

#fanfiction - 93 posts

#blake belladonna - 91 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#first of its bees schnees so that knocks off a bunch of views then yang has a d even more gone then its also smut by now ive got three peop

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

That fox is clearly to skinny and has mange you need to call animal control and not post about it promoting false ideas that that's a healthy fox

Oh wow. Okay it's fine, it's a teaching moment, let's talk about foxes.

So anon here is talking about this fox I caught on a trail cam in my yard. It's a red fox, a very pretty one too, but is it too skinny? Well first thing first, this fox has it's summer coat, not it's winter coat which leaves them looking much bigger than they are

See the full post

427 notes - Posted July 11, 2022

#4

I zoomed in so you could see the hilarity of this toad walking through the leaf litter. I love him so much.

446 notes - Posted July 15, 2022

#3

In honor of Friday the 13th, I think we deserve some black cat facts!

(it also gives me a chance to show off my kit😅)

We've all heard the myths and ledgends of how black cats are bad luck, but how did that come to be? To understand that, we need to see how it all started.

Of course, one of the earliest connections between cats and humans is ancient Egypt, cats often being seen as divine symbols. There was even an Egyptian goddess, Bastet, who had the head of a cat and a slender female body. She was the goddess of protection, pleasure, and the bringer of good health.

But how did they fall from divinity to being bad luck?

Well, they appear in Greek mythology, specifically related to Hecate, who is the goddess of magic, sorcery, the moon and witchcraft. Hecate was described as having a cat as both a pet and a familiar. (Y'know, the thing witches have in European folklore)

You can probably guess where it's going from here, but why did Europe end up hating them so much?

Well, it was the church (Shocking I know). The church insisted black cats were the incarnation of Satan.

It's also heavily linked to paganism which, as the church grew in power, pagans were considered direct threats to the church and thus accused of being witches.

My personal favorite quote is "Cats, like the women accused of witchcraft, tend to exhibit a healthy disrespect of authority" "They don't fawn, like dogs, upon even the unworthy. In the church, neither independent women, nor independent animals, were to be tolerated."

Of course we know Europe did more than that, but what else was there?

Well for one, they blamed the cats for the bubonic plague and started killing them on sight. Unfortunately we now know it wasn't the cats but the fleas on the rats and with very few cats to kill the rats, the plague spread like wild fire.

That superstition of a black cat crossing your path? Yeah that was also the church. It was supposed that if a black cat crossed your path it could have been a witch sending it's familiar to harm you. Similarly they believed it could have been the devil themself. So these peasants would run to the nearest church to ask for blessings. Naturally the church used this, encouraged it, and endorsed these 'bad omens'

These beliefs were of course brought over to America causing the Salem witch trials and countless more deaths of both people and black cats.

See the full post

514 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

#2

Pyrrha had to die before Ironwood became a 'bad guy' because she would absolutely destroy him thanks to her semblance

529 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Actually I think that we should stop questioning other people's sexuality based on how they present, and I mean everyone. This includes straight cis people. If a straight woman wants to dress more masc she should be able to! If a straight cis man wants to dress more feminine he should be able to! You shouldn't automatically assume someone's sexuality because of how they dress and act.

3,995 notes - Posted June 29, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#Besties what do you mean I tagged myself??? #Also I have no fucking clue what that longest tag post is about #Love that my gender is my number one post tho #Don't mind me

[atombonniebaby]

The procrastinationary info dump you didn't ask for 🤣

I'm big into dark history, folklore and a good ghost story. So naturally one of my OCs occasionally rattles off a spooky story and loves to mess with Mac 😂

Try to weave my favorite topics in where I can and draw connections between Scotland (where my OCs are from) and the world of Fallout 4! (or just general Scotland/America parallels)

I used to do tours wearing my samulet (Supernatural fans will know 😉) and my Fallout 4 pocket watch 🤫

Plague was one of my favorite topics of choice to delve into (made someone faint once talking about that 🤭) I did my research. (I'm talking autistic hyperfocus level research 😂)

That is why I am 100% sure Duncan MacCready has a mutated strain of the Bubonic Plague (the blue flu and Dunc's disease are simply the bubonic and pneumonic/septicemic variants of the black death...)

The nightingales, brought in by Sim Settelments 2, has given me a whole story arc for MacBeth down the line ❤️

The other time I got too descriptive was talking about thumb-screws and Witchcraft trials... I had a bracelet that clacked and if I demonstrated the technique just right it added a good sound effect describing what happens when those things got tightened around yer digits (🤢)

I still find it hilarious that being a redhead was a signifier that someone might be a witch in Scotland and Ireland.

(being left handed, talking to yourself, having moles or birth marks are a few more...basically of you were different to the 'norm' you wanted to keep a low profile...superstition, rivalry and misunderstanding could often lead to someone being accused)

One thing I loved finding out, is the real Old State House has the Unicorn and Lion sitting on its exterior, proclamations being read from the balcony. It's a lot like the Mercat Cross I used to start my tours from. (Unicorn is Scotland's national animal FYI 🤫)

We've also got a statue of Abraham Lincoln in one of our graveyards to commemorate the Scots who fought in the American Civil War

And of course MacCready is very likely a Scottish name (Mac being 'son of')

#Fallout #fallout 4 #fallout maccready #Fallout history #Fallout lore #dark history #ghost tours

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 5

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

They’re sitting in the car outside her mother’s house, and she’s stalling.

“Are we going inside?” Ethan asks with a confused smile, and she nods wearily.

She’s been dreading telling her family. Well, not her mother; Mom will be thrilled, as will Bill. Charlie will act appropriately happy but doesn’t actually care that much. But Missy….Missy will see right through her. She always does.

They exit the car and make their way to the front porch, her stomach twisting in her gut all the way. Ethan knocks, casting her concerned glances intermittently. She knows she’s not playing the part of “recently engaged” very well. She’s told Ethan that it’s just nerves, and that she hates making big announcements, which is true. She’s still trying to convince herself that’s all it is.

The door swings open and Charlie greets them with smiles and quick hugs, and they make their way to the kitchen where Mom is still finishing up dinner.

“Grab some wine and take a seat,” she directs them as they each kiss her on the cheek, “Missy should be here any minute.”

She pours herself a very full glass of wine after asking Ethan if he can drive home, then plants herself in an armchair that only seats one. She’s been craving personal space lately.

Ten minutes later, Missy breezes in the door, giving Dana a skeptical glance; leave it to Missy to immediately pick up on something being off. They better get this over with soon.

They all sit down and say grace. Missy holds her left hand and she can feel the moment her fingers make contact with the ring. Missy yanks on her arm and gives her wide eyes as everyone else at the table thanks the lord for their daily bread. Dana glances at her briefly and then looks away. It will all be out in the open momentarily.

“Before we dig into this lovely meal Mom has prepared for us,” Ethan begins, “Dana and I have some news to share.”

Oh god, here it comes. Maybe the huge glass of wine was a bad idea.

“Am I gonna be an uncle, D?!” Charlie says excitedly, and both she and Maggie shoot him an unamused glare.

“Not just yet, Charlie,” Ethan says with a cautious smile. “Dana and I got engaged. We’re getting married!”

Dana holds up her left hand with a thin smile, and Maggie and Charlie both provide appropriately big, happy reactions complete with hugs and congratulatory slaps on the back. Missy raises her eyebrows and looks at her baby sister with a bemused expression.

“Oh, this is such happy news, I wish your father could be here,” Maggie says, clutching her hand to her chest. “We’ll have to call Bill and Tara after dinner.”

Dana forces bites of pot roast down her throat and avoids her sister’s eye for the following twenty minutes, then leaves Ethan and her mother to share the news with Bill as she escapes to the back porch. Charlie, as usual, finds his way to the couch with a beer.

She’s sitting on the steps of the porch, working on her second glass of wine, when she hears the creak of the screen door behind her. She doesn't need to look to know that it’s Missy; she can hear the swish of her flowy skirt and the jangle of her stacked bracelets. Missy sits down beside her and they are quiet for a few minutes, the dark night illuminated by a waxing crescent moon.

“Is this really what you want, Sis?” Missy asks in a tone that’s soft and concerned.

“Of course, Missy. Ethan and I have been talking about getting married for years,” she says, hoping it sounds more convincing than it feels.

“I know. But…” she trails off and sighs.

“But what?” Dana prods her.

“Look, Sis, Ethan is great. I love him, and he’ll make a great husband. I’m just not sure he’s the right one for you.” Dana can feel her sister looking at her in the dim light, but keeps her eyes on the blooming hydrangea bush at the bottom of the stairs.

“He’s a great guy, Missy. He’s kind, and generous, and he has a stable job. He treats me really well. There’s no reason NOT to marry him,” she offers, taking a big gulp of her wine. “Dad loved him, he’d be so happy to know we got married,” she adds.

Missy scoffs. “Two years underground and you’re still trying to please Dad?”

“He was cremated, Missy,” she replies deadpan, avoiding the point.

“Okay, so two years underwater, then. Doesn’t change the fact that Dad liking him isn’t a reason to marry someone. Neither is them being great husband material. The only reason to marry someone is because you want to marry them. Do you want to marry Ethan?” She can feel Missy’s eyes on her face.

“Yes,” she says in a weak voice, unwilling to elaborate.

Missy sighs. “Okay, if this is what you want, I’ll be here to help you in whatever way you need. But if you change your mind-”

“-I’m not going to change my mind, Missy,” she cuts her off.

“Well,” Missy continues, “whatever happens, I’ll be here. Thick and thin, right?”

Dana looks at her sister then, and smiles as they clasp hands. “Thick and thin.”

&&

The following week, she takes herself out for Sunday afternoon coffee to one of her favorite places near the apartment. She likes to go out alone for coffee or lunch sometimes, just to have some space to think. Lately, she’s been needing a lot of it. The cafe is bustling with the after-church crowd, which makes her feel guilty for not going to mass with her mother. It’s difficult to talk to Mom right now; all she wants to do is talk about the wedding, and that’s the last thing Dana wants to discuss. Ethan wants to get married soon, this fall, and the whole thing is so overwhelming she shuts down every time they try to talk to her about it. She wishes she could pause life for a while, until she can sort out her feelings.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she hears a familiar voice call from beside her, and she looks up to see Mulder, dressed casually in jeans and a grey T-shirt.

She smiles reflexively, the first time she’s felt a real smile tug at her lips in a week or more.

“Mulder, hi,” she says, genuinely pleased to see him. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, this place is right near my dealer’s house,” he responds, and flashes her that boyish grin at her shocked expression. “I was actually just checking out a record store around the corner and decided to grab some coffee. How are you?” The question feels so real, like he actually wants to know how she is. She doesn’t want him to leave.

“I’m well, would you like to sit down?” she says as she gestures to the empty seat across from her, pulling her hand back when she realizes that he’ll likely notice her ring. She surreptitiously slips it off her finger and tucks it into her pants pocket.

He sits, and she can’t help but take in the way his shirt hugs his broad shoulders, and the hint of defined pectorals underneath. He is a seriously good-looking man.

“So, whatcha been up to?” He asks, taking a sip from his to-go cup.

She should tell him the happy news that she’s gotten engaged, but she very much doesn’t want to.

“Not much, just cutting up dead bodies and teaching others how to do the same,” she responds dryly.

“Slicin’ and dicin’,” he says with a nod, and she feels a sense of relief at being able to make such a crass joke to someone who understands the kind of work she does.

“Exactly. How about you, working on anything interesting?” she asks, and never has a social nicety been more genuine.

“That depends on your definition of interesting, I suppose,” he begins, “we’ve got the face mutilator, the acid thrower, and the super-stabber, who you’re familiar with.”

“Quite the line up,” she retorts.

“I realize I didn’t get the chance to ask how you ended up at the Academy,” he inquires.

“Oh, um I was actually recruited out of medical school,” she replies, taking a sip of her coffee.

His eyebrows jump and he leans forward a bit. “You’re a doctor, then?” he asks, and she gauges only that he’s impressed, not surprised, which is a nice change of pace. People don’t seem to realize that it’s not a compliment to express disbelief that she, of all people, would be a medical doctor.

“Mmhmm, all pathologists are trained medical doctors,” she confirms with a nod.

“Your parents must be very proud,” he offers, and she makes a face.

“Not exactly. My father actually passed away a couple years ago, but he was less than pleased with my decision not to pursue medicine as a career. My mom is moderately more supportive, thankfully.”

She catches his eye and is surprised by the intensity of the look he’s giving her.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” he says as though he knew the man, and it catches her off guard a bit. She changes the subject.

“What about the X files, anything interesting happening there?”

“Well, no, given that they don’t exist anymore. You wanna hear about an old one I investigated?”

She nods emphatically.

“There was this team of researchers up in Icy Cape, Alaska. They were geophysicists, drilling ice core samples. They’d been up there a few weeks when there was an odd video communication received from one of the research team members saying “we are not who we are” before he shot himself in the head, then all communication went dark.”

“What happened to them?” Scully asks, leaning towards him. She’s immediately drawn in.

“Well, that’s what we went up there to find out; myself a physician, toxicologist and a geologist. When we got there, the whole crew was dead, only a dog that belonged to one of them survived. He appeared to be rabid, and he attacked me and our pilot. When we examined the dog, he had these black nodules on his skin.”

“That sounds like a symptom of bubonic plague,” Scully offers.

“That’s what Dr. Hodge thought too. Anyway, the pilot ended up getting infected as well, and we had to restrain him and remove this worm-thing from his neck. He died immediately after we removed it.”

“A worm-thing?” Scully asks, “what was it?”

“I’m still not entirely sure. The geologist found an ice core sample that was probably over 250,000 years old, and I think the worm came from the ice. Some kind of prehistoric parasite that overtakes its host. We eventually figured out that to kill it, you have to introduce a second worm into the host, and they’ll destroy each other.”

“Why haven’t I ever heard about this? It seems like the kind of discovery that would make the news, at least in the science community,” her mind is reeling, now with excitement.

“Well, that’s the thing. After we were evacuated, they destroyed the drill site and all the evidence.”

“They?” she inquires. “Who is ‘they’?”

Mulder smiles knowingly and she has the overwhelming urge to touch him.

“That’s the million dollar question, Scully. That’s what the X files sought to answer. Who, or what, is behind the mass coverup of information that would prove the existence of extraterrestrial life?” He says it so casually, like it’s the most irrefutable fact in the world instead of some half-cocked conspiracy theory.

“Huh,” she sits back in her chair. “Are there a lot of cases like that one? In the X files?”

Mulder’s mouth quirks, and she can tell that he’s pleased by her interest in his old work.

“Hundreds, though I only have about fifty in my possession. I took the juiciest ones, of course.”

“What else is there? Tell me about another one,” she asks unabashedly. She’s fascinated.

Mulder looks at his watch and makes a face. “I wish I could, but I have a prior engagement. I have them stored at my apartment, I could show you sometime, if you’d like. Do you like cats?”

Her eyebrows lift. “Is there an X file about cats?” she asks, and he laughs.

“No. Well, actually yes, but I’m asking because I have a cat. You aren’t allergic, are you?”

“Oh, no,” she says as she feels her cheeks warm.

He reaches into his wallet and hands her his business card. “Give me a call, or shoot me an email. I’ll show you what the FBI doesn’t want you to see,” he punctuates this with a wag of his eyebrows as he stands. “It was really good to see you, Scully,” he says with an earnest look, those eyes seemingly seeing right through her.

She swallows hard. “You too, Mulder,” she replies, and watches him walk out the cafe door.

She looks down at the business card in her hands:

Fox W. Mulder

Criminal Behavioral Analyst

Behavioral Science Unit

She wonders what the W stands for. She wonders why she cares.

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files #alternate universe #x files fanfic

[nanshe-of-nina]

Favorite History Books || The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly ★★★★☆

Apocalyptic in scale, the Black Death affected every part of Eurasia, from the bustling ports along the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal, and it produced suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing. In Europe, where the most complete figures are available, in many places the plague claimed a third of the population; in others, half the population; and in a few regions, 60 percent. The affliction was not limited to humans. For a brief moment in the middle of the fourteenth century, the words of Genesis 7—“All flesh died that moved upon the earth”—seemed about to be realized. There are accounts of dogs, cats, birds, camels, even of lions being afflicted by the “boil,” the telltale bubo of bubonic plague. By the time the pestilence ended, vast stretches of the inhabited world had fallen silent, except for the sound of the wind rustling through empty, overgrown fields.

What led me from the book I planned to the book I wrote was an encounter with the literature of the Black Death. Before plunging into a book about the future of epidemic disease, I wanted to acquaint myself with its past, and the medieval plague, as the most famous example of the phenomenon, seemed the appropriate place to start. Thus, in the autumn of 2000 I began shuttling between the main reading room of the New York Public Library and Butler Library at Columbia University. I read a number of excellent academic histories, but it was the original source material, the literature of the Great Mortality—the chronicles, letters, and reminiscences written by contemporaries—that turned my gaze from the future to the past. I had approached this material with some trepidation. If, as an English writer once observed, the past is a foreign country, no part of the past seems more foreign, more “otherly,” to a modern sensibility than the Middle Ages.

My wariness proved unwarranted. Much has changed since the 1340s, the decade the Black Death arrived in Europe, but not human nature. The plague generation wrote about their experiences with a directness and urgency that, seven hundred years after the fact, retains the power to move, astonish, and haunt. After watching packs of wild dogs paw at the newly dug graves of the plague dead, a part-time tax collector in Siena wrote, “This is the end of the world.” His contemporaries provided vivid descriptions of what the end of the world looked like, circa 1348 and 1349. It was corpses packed like “lasagna” in municipal plague pits, collection carts winding through early-morning streets to pick up the previous day’s dead, husbands abandoning dying wives and parents abandoning dying children—for fear of contagion—and knots of people crouched over latrines and sewers inhaling the noxious fumes in hopes of inoculating themselves against the plague. It was dusty roads packed with panicked refugees, ghost ships crewed by corpses, and a feral child running wild in a deserted mountain village. For a moment in the middle of the fourteenth century, millions of people across Eurasia began to contemplate the end of civilization, and with it perhaps the end of the human race.

#historyedit #lit #black death #medieval #asian history #european history #history #horror #history books #nanshe's graphics

[fishmongeringstudies]

twenty two: inter alia

one: the first time i died i was eighteen and it was a mistake. to be fair, most things are a mistake when you're eighteen but when you think of eighteen-year-olds you imagine getting shitfaced at a party or breaking into abandoned factories to take selfies, not falling asleep in the middle of a lake. to be fair, it was 1928, and i didn't believe in anything.

two: shi lian says i have to tell the truth so i guess you should know that i made the whole thing up. i don't remember the first time i died. that's part of the deal. no one remembers how they die because there's nothing after that but cosmic dust, but us? we, who need to know more than anyone else on this blasted planet, we'll never figure it out. we're not allowed to. that's the scariest part. one day you're prowling through a forest with blood in your eyes and the next you're standing in the middle of the industrial revolution with a briefcase you don't remember owning, smoking a cigar you got from a stranger and waiting for a train you've never seen in your life.

three: time flies when you're not counting. i was there for the invention of the sun dial, the clockwork tower, the wristwatch. i saw mankind learn to keep track of itself and delight at the incessant tick-tick-ticking of gears grinding, of teeth falling out. but the opposite is true, too: having learned how to stay on time, it is easier than ever, now, to fall behind. where are you going? i'm staying right here.

four: they say life isn't worth living if it doesn't have an end, but the last time i saw something end it was my favorite line of breath mints and i was sad about it for maybe five minutes. then kyle sent me a sponsored ad he'd gotten on instagram about a new line of breath mints as part of his ongoing campaign to earn my forgiveness for all the succulents he killed over the course of the twentieth century and i remembered that i hadn't replied to PJ since 2015 so i had to get off my couch and stop moping or else he'd call the secret service on me and promise me, you don't want the secret service in your apartment on a sunday morning. it's bad enough when it's just me.

five: my therapist says i'm depressed. joke's on you, i don't have a therapist. therapy didn't get me through the bubonic plague and it won't get me through this. shi lian says i should be more honest about my feelings. i have no idea what she's talking about. i think she should stop dodging her girlfriend's calls. there's going to be an apartment-sized crater in boston at the rate she's going.

six: i'd call this an introduction but i haven't met anyone new in centuries. that's life in the fast lane for you. we're all roadrunners at this point, not by choice, but by nature of who we are. google says there's a word for this and thesaurus.com says the word is apathy but i don't trust the internet to tell me what's true. i don't trust myself, either. that's the fun thing about being me. you don't have to trust anything. you could literally sit on this sofa for the next eighteen years. until last week happened.

seven: there are a lot of versions of god depending on what book you open and who you ask but there's really only one of them, you know what i mean? god has a silver ponytail and a cattish smile. their hair used to be black but once they wore it silver for a party trick and i told them the color looked good on them; i think god wants me dead. i'm not going to walk into a lake and just lie down there, not anymore. it's the twenty-first century and breath mints are going extinct. we need modern solutions for modern problems so after i'm done writing this i'm going to pick up my phone and dial the customer service hotline for waffle house and then i'm going to let it ring until someone picks up.

06.11.21

[tlbodine]

Pandemic and Pandemonium: Sickness in Horror

Well, it’s official: Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, has been declared a pandemic -- ie, a new and widespread infectious disease actively infecting people throughout the world. For most of us currently alive, this is the first time we’ve seen a pandemic. It’s certainly the first time any of us have seen the kind of city-wide or country-wide quarantine measures currently being employed. 

It’s an anxiety-inducing situation for sure. And people are dealing with that fear in different ways. Some folks are hoarding bottled water and toilet paper. Some folks are checking the news compulsively. Some folks are finding 20-second-long songs to sing while washing their hands. 

And some of us are looking for horror fiction that might just mirror our anxieties and give a momentary but welcome catharsis. 

Germs have existed since, well...the beginning of life as we know it. And for as long as humans have been alive, we’ve sometimes gotten sick from these microscopic invaders. It’s just a part of being alive. Everything gets sick sometimes, and humans -- who live in large complex groups and have a lot of casual contact day-by-day -- get sick a lot. 

There’s a lot to fear from widespread illness: 

Germs are invisible to the eye, so you can’t necessarily see the threat coming for you

Because infection is carried from person to person, mistrust and even hostility can grow toward people who appear ill (whether or not they really are sick)

Controlling the spread of disease often requires social isolation and can invite a loss of rights (ie, confinement)

The disease itself can have terrifying effects, from gross symptoms to death 

If enough people get sick, it can disrupt the machinery of society, causing problems with food, electricity, healthcare, law enforcement, you name it. 

Now, in real life, things don’t usually get that bad, especially in modern times when we have advanced healthcare and science and great communication. History’s greatest pandemics, from the Black Death (bubonic plague) of Europe in the 1300s to smallpox in the US in the 1700s to the worldwide Spanish Flu epidemic in the early 1900s, have been devastating -- but obviously, humanity has survived them all, and the numbers have been less terrible each time. With the power of antibiotics and vaccines and anti-virals and advanced medical interventions, we can save a lot of lives. 

But we can’t save all of them -- which is why anxiety still lingers, and why stories about pestilence remain compelling. 

The Magic of Fictional Viruses 

When it comes to fictional illness, viruses usually end up in the spotlight. Some of the nastiest diseases in history have been bacterial infections -- Bubonic Plague, syphilis, typhoid, tuberculosis. Now that we have antibiotics, these once-deadly illnesses are essentially wiped from the modern consciousness. 

But viruses are trickier. We have not yet developed a singular treatment as effective against all viruses as antibiotics are against bacteria. Instead, we rely on vaccines to immunize us against them. But vaccines are individualized, working only for the specific disease they’ve been developed to treat -- and if a new virus pops up, it takes time to craft the response against it. 

Viruses also function in ways that make them especially attuned for horror: 

They are smaller and less complex than other microorganisms, and it’s debatable if they are even, strictly speaking, alive.

Their only method of reproduction is by invading a cell and injecting it with its own genetic material; viruses cannot reproduce without a living host.

Because they reproduce quickly and rely on their host cells, viruses can swiftly mutate and change 

Some people can be carriers, able to spread the virus without ever knowing that they’re sick or showing any symptoms 

It’s little wonder then that viruses in fiction can cause all kinds of things -- zombies, werewolves, insanity, infertility, even turning your body to stone. In modern horror fiction, viruses often fulfill the role previously occupied by magical curses. 

Horror Recommendations for Disease Fiction 

With a global pandemic currently active, the CDC is recommending that people self-isolate whenever possible -- working from home, avoiding large crowds, and abstaining from touching people. So do your part to protect yourself and the vulnerable people around you by staying home and watching movies or reading a book instead. Here are some thematic lists. 

“Realistic” Contagion Stories

If you’d like to watch a tense medical thriller rooted at least partly in realism, try one of these: 

Outbreak - A california town is quarantined to stop the spread of an Ebola-like virus.

Contagion - A woman brings home a deadly virus that triggers a quarantine, complete with social upheaval and looting.

Pontypool - A radio disc jockey reports on a dire, apocalyptic pandemic while in isolation in Ontario

Containment - A TV series about a city that falls under a quarantine to prevent the spread of an Ebola-like disease; it's partly medical drama, partly commentary on social conflict

Apocalyptic Stories 

Curious about what happens after the fall of mankind? So are a lot of authors and filmmakers. 

The Last Man - Did you know Mary Shelley wrote an apocalypstic novel about a world-ending epidemic as a way to process grief about her husband's death?

The Stand - Perhaps Stephen King's greatest epic, the book details the fall of civilization as we know it and its brutal, power-struggle-fueled rebuilding in the wake of a devastating flu.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood conceived of a trilogy of near-future dystopia focused on genetic engineering, a plague, and the horrors of technology. Start with this one and read all three if it grips you.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson's short novel is often adapted, but you can't beat the original. A plague novel, a zombie novel and a vampire novel all rolled into one.

It Comes At Night - A story of isolation following a deadly outbreak, and also a question of sanity and the choices people make in difficult positions. (full disclosure: I didn’t like this movie much, but it’s very well-reviewed so you might like it more) 

Weird Chaos Viruses 

I’ve talked about zombies before at great length, so I won’t recommend anymore traditional zombie tales -- just go read my other list for those recommendations! But sometimes apocalypses come by not-quite-zombies, so let’s talk about those: 

Bird Box - The novel by Josh Malerman or the film starring Sandra Bullock, take your pick. Both are about a woman trying to survive in a world torn asunder by a an eldritch evil that drives you to madness if you see it.

The Happening - One of M. Night Shyamalan's more ridiculous films, but one I can't help but guiltily enjoy. An unexplained event drives people to commit suicide (in increasingly ridiculous ways), creating a world-threatening pandemic.

The Crazies - The original 1973 film and the 2010 remake both deal with an outbreak of a bizarre illness that causes people to go, uh, crazy. In a murder way.

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth’s directorial debut, this is a classic gross-out film franchise about a flesh-eating virus that chews its way through a bunch of young campers. 

Dreamcatcher - Basically exactly the plot of Cabin Fever, except with aliens and some It cross-over cosmic horror. A decent Stephen King novel and a fun, if cringey, film, take your pick. 

Mimic - A sci-fi approach involving cockroaches, genetic engineering, and bad ideas. Did you know this was co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and was the first Norman Reedus movie? 

Cold Storage - A wonderfully gross debut novel by David Koepp featuring mind-controlling fungus. 

The Troop  - Nick Cutter’s gross-out novel is billed as “28 Days Later meets Lord of the Flies” which is basically everything you need to know. Monstrous tapeworms + boyscouts = bad times for all. 

The Thing - A research team encounters a terrible alien parasite in an isolated frozen wasteland. 

Historical Horror

The Black Death is one of the oldest, best-known, most-historically-significant illnesses in the Western world, so lots of people have told stories about it -- but it’s not the only epidemic in town. If you prefer your disease horror with a side of history, try one of these: 

Black Death - Not a great movie, but it has Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne and some exceptional gore, so it gets a vote just for that. It’s not about the plague so much as it’s about witchcraft, but it fits. 

The Masque of the Red Death - One of Edgar Allan Poe’s finest stories, in my opinion. You can read this online in multiple places if you don’t have a Poe collection handy, and there’s a lot of audio and short films for it too so take your pick. 

Love in the Time of Cholera - Like it says on the tin, this is a book about life and love and a cholera epidemic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a masterful writer, so this is well worth picking up for the quality of prose and storytelling alone.

The Plague - Part social commentary, part plague story, this Albert Camus novel is heavy on philosophy, if you’re into that sort of thing. 

Cabin Fever and Isolation 

A lot of the stories already mentioned touch on themes of isolation, quarantine, and cabin fever, but if you’re staring down the long barrel of social distancing and want more stories about going crazy in enclosed spaces, consider adding: 

The Shining  - The Stephen King novel and the Stanley Kubrick film are both excellent in their own ways, and I recommend both. A family makes the unwise decision to stay alone in a haunted hotel through a long snowed-in winter. It ends badly. 

Devil - However bad your life is, it’s probably not as bad as being trapped in an elevator with the literal devil, which is the premise of this film. 

The Cabin at the End of the World -- You didn’t think I’d write about apocalypse scenarios without finding a chance to plug my favorite Paul Tremblay novel, did you? Part home invasion, part psychological horror, part cosmic apocalypse, 100% terrifying. 

Now, go forth and enjoy many a movie night, or curl up and treat yourself. Social distancing never felt so deliciously spooky ;) 

#horror #horror movies #horror books #reading recs #film recs #coronavirus #pandemic #quarantine

[mynameismeowmeow]

pickup lines i made at 16

r u food? cuz i can’t live w/o you and youre making me fat

you won’t be Han SoLO for long if i have anything to say about it

i’m no jedi, but i think the force between us is pretty strong

are you bubonic plague? because *dies*

are you life alert? bc help, i’ve fallen for you and i can’t get up

are you an open heart surgeon wearing winter gloves? cuz you make me all warm and fuzzy inside

are you a particularly large pimple cuz i can’t take my eyes off you

are you sleep? cuz i can’t get enough of you 

i bet you’re poison ivy cuz every time we touch i get hot and bothered

are you hands? cuz there’s a rumbling in my tummy that only you can satisfy

r u ron weasley? cuz you’re a keeper

r u the mechanical pencil my friend lent to me yesterday? cuz i’m keeping you

r u a galaxy cuz youre a swirling blob of rock and gas slowly spiraling into a black hole that will eventually consume us all

r u a  custodian closet me and my friend found found while being chased by the cops, cuz i’m getting pulled in

r u a taser cuz i am stunned

is u sifted flour cuz u is fine

are you an animal attack on discovery planet? cuz i can’t make myself look away

are you 5 hours of sleep? cuz you always leave me wanting more

are you a tornado? cuz you toppled my house and stole all my cows

r u my favorite meal? cuz ur flaming hot and give me gas

r u turbulence? cuz ur giving me butterflies in my tummy

#good times #summer camp #pickup lines #happy valentines day #you can tag your otp or whatever #tag your otp #meme #star wars #harry potter #ron weasley #space #han solo #poison ivy #life alert #puns #jokes #sterek #klance #bumblely #whiterose #arkos #renora #merther

[mister-maiden]

*It Comes At Night* A Palpable Fear

While laying in the confines of my fluffy blankets like that of a stuffed peanut with extra spice, I sit upon my red couch scrolling through the lists of Netflix Films I have already watched, ranging from horror to romantic comedy to Korean Horror Drama (Strangers from Hell on Netflix...FIRE) and here I am to come across one of my favorite films of 2017 yet again.

This is: It Comes At Night (2017)

I shall give you one fair warning before this read. This brief observation is meant for those who have already seen the film. This is not a review nor is it a summary, so I ask you look away now if you wish not to spoil a single detail.

What I wish to look at are the faucets of information we are given in the film to try and explain what “It” is in the film, for we are never actually given a proper explanation for what it is and how it works.

From the beginning, the audience can very well assume from the death of Buddy, the Grandfather, that “It” is referring to the deadly virus which has seemingly contaminated the population, forcing people to group together in their own hubs and depend upon one another for survival. The entire film focuses its central drama on this virus and how it spreads - seemingly through skin to skin contact like that of Cabin Fever’s rash, except this virus seems to cause the blood to corrode and turn black, produce fever, and hallucinations...so you would think “It” is this virus which has killed so many.

But what if I told you “it” represented far more than that?

Going back, scene by scene viewing only scenes in which the family is secluded in darkness do we see the real beast.

The Unknown.

The true antagonist is the very faucet of which produces fear. Allow me to explain. 

We have a completely unknown virus, both to us as the audience and to the characters. The only symptoms they know of are those that came from Buddy. The black boils of festering flesh, rotten blood, and darkened eyes. It’s a rather horrific virus which resembles the decay of the human body and its resources. In my opinion, this seems to be some form of the Bubonic plague as its symptoms are quite similar. Bleeding, weakness, fever, blackening and death of tissue...but we are never able to confirm what it is because this is a simple family. There is no doctor in which can save the world if he has the proper tools...Just a family whose only objective is to survive. 

Inside, we have all that is safe. The lights, food, water. But instead of thinking of the home as a home...let’s think of it as the human mind...And the door as the barriers we place up..The antagonist being the unknown which can tear these barriers to shreds.It’s the things that we remind ourselves everyday to reassure ourselves that everything is fine. The lovely hospitality of a self embrace that protects you, keeps your chest warm and your cheeks rosy...but then darkness falls, and all fades to darkness as paranoia sets in. The doors become hazy lines of paper as whatever protections you believed you had are simply torn apart in the most agonizing moments. For instance: The crimson door of which the family relied on so heavily to keep the evil at bay..was unknowingly opened..and no one knew who. This leads me to discuss the family.

The father heavily relies on his rules to keep the family safe, going so far as to ask the family who they slowly allow through these barriers to follow these rules a T (stick together, don’t go alone, curfew, etc). And he will do anything to keep his family safe. His strict survival has kept the family alive for this long...besides Buddy. Fanatically he strives to keep order, barriers in place to keep the unknown at bay. The sharp clutches of fear digging into the wood every night, slowly digging deeper into the mantel. When his barriers are tested by human/known means, (when the father of the opposite family tries to break in) he knows exactly how to deal with it...But when the door has been opened, and fear has been let into the house through the uncertainty of infection and the loss of trust, the father quickly attempts to establish the same barriers he kept in place from the unknown...only this time he deems the opposite family as the unknown now, keeping them out of his barriers, only this time these barriers are paper thin as fear has already infested the idea that everyone could now be infected...But with no way to be certain, paranoia is produced, and all is lost due to altered perception.

All order breaks down the the removal of these walls. “It” is the unadulterated fear which drives the reasoning of putting these walls in the first place, except “it” is the thing which tears the home apart. 

The unknown of if Will was lying about knowing the men trying to shoot them

The unknown if the family is to be trusted

The unknown of the effects and symptoms of the virus

the unknown of who has the virus

It’s the absolute meltdown of order which fear is a staple for. It’s the doubt which is embedded in  the families after each night..But the thing that is most frightening is that we don’t actually understand how this virus works in regards to its incubation period.

It was mentioned by the father that Buddy had symptoms in a day and was gone, we understand the child, Andrew, it infected and within the day shows symptoms of coughing and fever, and then the day after that Travis has the physical symptoms as well, and thanks to this movie’s ambitiousness, there is no possible way to tell if this is an actual good sign of whether or not someone has the virus for a simple reason. 

Travis is seen having visions of walking around the house quite often...Now pair this with Alex’s sudden want to sleep walk which the opposite family states he has NEVER done before. I believe this is a proper comparison to equal that the virus causes some form of restlessness. Hell, even when all the way infected, Travis seems to be in a near comatose state of being dazed.

My proposal: Travis was sick all along after catching it from the dog who was given it by the grandfather. Travis passed it onto the child, and Andrew showed symptoms before Travis because Travis was young and healthy while Andrew was simply too young to handle the effects. What’s cool about this is that it’s completely unknown if the theory can be true. I can try and explain. 

We understand that the dog was the Grandfather’s dog, so we can assume they spent quite the amount of time with each other. It’s no far fetched theory that the dog was infected by Buddy sometime before he passed because of the amount of time spent with him.This then is passed to Travis who has nightmares, insomnia, and paranoia, all mental symptoms of the virus before succumbing to the physical decomposition of skin and flesh. 

A piece of evidence I would like to point out for both the dog and Travis being infected is the scene in where the dog runs off into the woods because it heard something, which Travis claims to have seen/heard too...yet the two grown men close behind didn’t see nor hear a thing. It’s a small moment in the film but I believe it was the moment in which both the dog’s and Travis’s minds were fluid enough to hallucinate. We already know Travis has had some serious nightmares, so having this type of sensory misfire wouldn’t be too reaching. Then after this as Travis spends more and more time with the other family, he infects Alex without realizing it, causing the child to undergo insomnia, sleep walking, and confusion just as Travis had in his “visions” which were more or less small windows of time he was conscious while sleep walking. For instance: I believe the door was opened after Travis left to the outside to look for his dog, found the dog rather disgustingly mangled by an infected animal, and brought it back before going back to bed and not closing the door.

Could be a reach, but other explanations are just as palpable.

Everything was so perfectly placed to be as vague as possible! It could be as simple as Andrew opened the door for the dog scratching to get inside into the safety of home, touched it and became infected before going back inside frightened of what he saw, Travis then touched Andrew who then got the virus, and it could go from there...but the virus simply doesn’t seem to be the type to be able to move that quickly. No ordinary virus is going to be able to produce such protein decay in a matter of hours. I believe it begins in the mind and slowly seeps further into the system.

That’s what is so amazing of this film. No place can I look at and go “that’s what happened” or “yeah we can easily infer this from this” because there is no factual way to draw proper conclusions, just like there isn’t a way to properly place barriers to protect from the unknown. 

(Hey guys, I know I haven’t been doing much recently. To be honest I’ve been looking for employment and studying for my COMPTIA A+ exam so I can try and find a help desk job somewhere to begin a career into IT. I’m going to try and write more analysis's or observations to further enhance my communication skills. Hope you all have a good night~)

((Also might be recording some singing, so woop))

#It comes at night #Horror movie analysis #Quick writing

[withbloodiedfingertips]

Writer Ask Meme: 2, 26, 51, 54! (Btw I love the aesthetic of this blog!! Its so cool! OwO)

aw thank you so much! i’ve always been a sucker for the whole red and black aesthetic, and i feel like i always do my best making horror themed layouts so i kind of wanted to pull from that for this account’s aesthetic! plus i think the red/black theme goes with my url so i’m glad you love it!

2. my favorite place to write depends, honestly? sometimes i go upstairs into my parents bedroom during the day with a notebook and turn on some music in the background and work on writing something but more often than not, my best writing’s done in the comfort of my own bed, wrapped up in a ton of blankets and a giant cup of tea in the middle of the night. always in the comfort of my own home though! 

26. i always research extensively when it comes to names but honestly, the overall concept of my plague romance book has been probably the most overall research i’ve ever done? i actually am writing about a specific outbreak of the bubonic plague that took place in london in 1665 to 1666 so i’ve been carefully looking up everything i can find about that - fatality rates, all of the symptoms of the plagues, etc - and while it is extremely disturbing and gruesome, it is weirdly interesting to read about it!

51. in real life? i generally give people very vague descriptions to those who ask about it but online? i’m very open with my friends about the books i’m writing! it really depends on how comfortable i am around a person and how much i feel like they’re ready to know, since i don’t want to scare off any new friends i’m making

54. so far i definitely think it’s the plague romance book one that takes the cake for my “favorite” opening, just because it’s? so disturbing? i love the opening of worst case scenario too just because it’s goes from being so full of hope and joy to heartbreaking and vengeful and that’s really the overall tone of the story, how the shattering of hope can completely destroy a person and turn them into someone else entirely. plus i just love writing about little cullom, that boy is my son. 

[scintillating-galaxias]

give ‘em hell, darling

Chapter Two—Step 1

Sandalphon appears to read Aziraphale his charges and to collect him from Earth.

(read it here on ao3!)

“An’, get this angel.”

“What?”

“She told ‘im, ‘nothin’ wrong with the economy, just get your arse up and find a job!’” Crowley hooted loudly, sloshing a considerable amount of wine down the fist gripping the stem of the glass. Aziraphale, glassy-eyed, miracled it back into the cup. “An’ she hasn’t worked in years! ”

Aziraphale shook his head, tutting. “What did you do?”

“Nicked her credit card and left it for the bum.”

“Crowley…! Alright, I would have given him money anyway. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, or something like that.”

“See, you get it.”

A very sharp rapping on the door rudely interrupted Crowley’s drunken rendition of a fool he had made out of a woman on the street criticizing a homeless man.

“Someone’s here,” said Crowley after a minute.

“Obviously,” said Aziraphale. “Doors don’t knock themselves.”

“No, I bloody well know that!” hissed Crowley, drunkenness slurring his vigilance. “Someone’s here! Aren’t you closed right now?” He stiffened abruptly, nostrils flaring slightly. “I can feel it—someone holy. Smells like bleach.”

Oh, dear. Murmuring some very mild curses, Aziraphale quickly sent the alcohol in his system back into the bottles and then told the bottles to return to the dusty cabinets from which they came. He straightened his bow-tie and after he swallowed dryly, called, “One moment, please!”

“What the Heaven do they want? I thought you said they’d leave us alone!” hissed Crowley. He had sobered himself up as well and was agitatedly pacing back and forth, shooting poisonous looks at the closed door, which shuddered fearfully in its doorframe.

“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale said. 

“We’ve wasted enough time already,” said a sharp voice, laced with—glee? That couldn’t be good. Aziraphale pushed down his growing concern and made for the door. “Open up. I know you’re not—ah.”

“Good day, Sandalphon,” Aziraphale greeted tersely. “What business brings you to Earth?”

“You,” Sandalphon answered with a grin that was too wide to be natural. His gold-teeth, hardly having to be changed for his human appearance, glinted. He produced a stack of papers and brandished them. “You’re being recalled to Heaven.”

The shot of dread that fired through Aziraphale’s body made him feel weak-kneed. He resisted stumbling by sheer force of will and managed to coolly ask, “Why?”

Sandalphon stepped inside the room without invitation. He glanced derisively about, empty eyes moving derisively from Aziraphale’s dusty shelf of not-for-sale (read: favorite) books, to the antique rug, and finally, to Crowley, who curled his lip and let his forked tongue flicked menacingly. “Your performance lately has been lacking,” Sandalphon said, refocusing his stony stare on Aziraphale. “Heaven has decided you’re no longer the best suited for this job.”

Crowley snorted ungracefully while Aziraphale blinked disbelievingly.

“You’re kidding,” said Crowley. “Was there another angel who’s secretly been on Earth this whole time?”

“Am I—Am I being fired?” Aziraphale asked incredulously.

Sandalphon’s plastic grin stretched wider, somehow. “No. You’re being recalled. You should be fired, but this is the next most appropriate action to take.”

“That’s not—Never mind.” Aziraphale discreetly wiped his hands on the backside of his coat. “What about my, erm, performance has been failing?”

Sandalphon gestured to Crowley. “Obviously,” he said shortly, “ that has not been permanently banished to the deepest pits of Hell.”

Aziraphale bristled as Crowley loudly said, “I am right here. ”

“And,” Sandalphon continued, unperturbed, “your reports have been disappointingly lackluster. You’ve reported nearly the exact same interactions with humanity from this particular part of the world for the last year, and the year prior to that, and the year prior to that. And the two hundred before that.” He sighed in the morose manner you’d expect from a greedy boss denying you a raise. “Our expectations for you have simply not been met.”

Azirphale gritted his teeth and forced out, “May I see exactly what expectations you are referring to?”

To his surprise, Sandalphon actually handed over the papers. Aziraphale took them, staring suspiciously at first at Sandalphon, then the papers. Crowley’s lip curled as Sandalphon pointed out a paragraph on the first page.

“You’ll see here that the terms to your assignment are laid out quite clearly,” he said. Lines began to highlight themselves in golden light, obviously larger points of discussion. Aziraphale scowled. He filed his own taxes to the point of investigation by the British government, for Heaven’s sake, he knew how to read the small-print. The light only served to amplify the bleak blackness of the curling Enochian. “To begin, you were given the task of protecting the humans of the Garden of Eden from Evil. This included the terrible temptation of Eve.” Sandalphon shot Crowley a nasty look. He shrugged unapologetically. “You were charged with a Holy Blade of Flame by the Almighty to assist you in this task. However, you lost it mere week later, and it ended up in the hands of the one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War.”

“It—That was to help the humans! It was in the name of good!” Aziraphale did not like where this was going. “It was cold. I could not send them back into the Garden after their ejection by the Almighty—but I had to do something.”

“Which brings me to my next point…”

Crowley rolled his eyes. Aziraphale could only grit his teeth and listen as Sandalphon went down a list of his apparent misdemeanors with excruciating detail and slowness. Being unable to keep peace in a small village teeming with anger over a corrupt political situation in 2200 BC, allowing said political situation to become corrupt, warning families of a blight in 13 AD, healing people who Heaven wanted dead in 403 AD, miracling people to full recovery during the Bubonic Plague, and, most recently—

“You’ve been observed to be indulging greatly in the sin of gluttony—”

“Now, just one minute,” Aziraphale interrupted, beginning to feel panicked. 

Sandalphon’s smile turned sour. “Angels can’t sin. This goes without saying. However, you’ve clearly proven yourself to be something else ever since that little stunt with the Hellfire. We don’t know what you are. Obviously not Fallen, but you’re not Unfallen, either. Gluttony is a sin no matter what you are. It’s only appropriate we treat it as such.”

Aziraphale froze. Beside him, Crowley had also gone still. Crowley had recounted exactly what had happened to him while he was in Heaven, including Uriel’s disgusted comment of, “What is he?” Evidently, it had not gone unnoticed. Admittedly, it was a rather logical question to ask. But Aziraphale couldn’t answer, “I don’t know either,” and he couldn’t explain what he and Crowley had done to escape extinction. That would only tell Heaven they could try again, and get the results they wanted this time. He swallowed and said nothing at all.

“So,” drawled Sandalphon, “the sin of gluttony. Gabriel noticed you partaking in some Earthly food while he was here. You explained it was for your human disguise. However, you’ve been recorded sullying your heavenly body with gross matter for centuries now. You don’t need to eat. Therefore, anything you consume can be considered excessive and unnecessarily.”

“That’s bollocks,” Crowley cut in. Both angels turned to him, Sandalphon in annoyance, Aziraphale in surprise.

“What?” said Sandalphon.

“That’s wrong,” Crowley said impatiently. “I’m the demon here, I should know what sin is. Gluttony’s supposed to be, y’know, an excess of food or wealth or whatever withheld from the needy. Sure, he eats a lot for an angel”—Crowley pulled his face into a ‘well, what can I say?’ frown—“ans he eats every day like most humans do. But he’s never sat around and ate big ol’ honeyed hams and wine all day while telling the poor people to piss off. I would know; I’ve been, erm, adversary-ing him for six thousand years.”

Thank you, cried Aziraphale internally, but Sandalphon was not impressed.

“Then what of these books?” he said at once. “Surely you don’t think we haven’t noticed the way he hoards these things. They are a symbol of status he refuses to part with, even for the innocent human pursuit of knowledge.”

“That’s different! Humans don’t need books the same way they need food.”

“Fine,” Sandalphon said with great reluctance. “The food is excluded. Then do tell me, demon; what is the reasoning for his reluctancy?” 

Sandalphon turned to Aziraphale, who had gone quite pale.

“Their contents would be wasted on them,” he said. “It would be a tragedy, really.” He wanted to say collectors only bought them for the name, but he knew that wasn’t true; most collectors were just like him, in reality. The only difference is that Aziraphale has been there, living the events that inspired the legendary books of their times. There was no experience like it. Any modern day collectors were simply grasping for a way to experience a past they never could live. And for as long as a story is passed around humanity, it is eventually lost in the mess. As long as they were with Aziraphale, they were safe.

Sandalphon raised an eyebrow. His bald head was shining in the lamplight. “You wouldn’t even spare that moment of joy for a human? They don’t have forever to indulge themselves.” Sandalphon took Aziraphale’s guilty press of his lips as a victory. His eyes shone triumphantly. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Principality?”

Aziraphale blinked once and let all pretenses of politeness slide off of his face. “Nothing you would sincerely listen to.”

“Aziraphale!” Crowley whirled on him, gripping Aziraphale’s forearm in one hand and gesturing furiously with the other. “Wha’—You can’t just go with him!” he snapped. “There’s—You haven’t hardly got to make a case for yourself!”

Aziraphale forced a weak smile for Crowley. He patted his bony hand gently. “It’s looking like I’m having little choice in the matter, my dear.”

“Hell, even Hell at least has a jury!”

“Yes, well… this is Heaven after all.” Aziraphale leveled an icy glare at Sandalphon who shifted uncomfortably. “They can do no wrong. Can they.”

“No,” Sandalphon said airily, sounding severely less confident. His mouth opened to say something else, only it opened, and then nothing at all came out. In fact, it stayed perfectly still, as did the rest of the room; the dust motes froze mid-flight, the swaying of Sandalphon’s trench-coat was caught in a dramatic turn—

“Crowley?”

“Aziraphale, they can’t take you again!” Crowley had a snarl on his face as he angrily waved his hands in the air. “They brought a demon last time for the Hellfire, they’ll bring another to—to torture you, or something! You won’t last a second! Or they’ll find you over to Hell itself—!” 

“I’m tougher than you think,” Aziraphale assured him gently.

Crowley’s face crumpled. “I want to believe you, angel, I do. But this is Heaven’s punishments we’re talking about.”

Aziraphale’s heart ached at the fear in Crowley’s voice. He took Crowley’s cold hand and folded it tightly in his own two hands, holding it against his chest. “I understand your concern, my dear. But I’ll be alright. They’re operating out of fear, at the moment, I’m sure.”

Crowley furiously shook his head and wrapped his other hand around Aziraphale’s, gripping it as though he would vanish right then and there. Which, Aziraphale thought grimly, he very well might be. “It doesn’t matter what they’re operating out of! They want to get rid of you—”

“That may be so. But I think that Heaven is being a tad ambitious,” Aziraphale said primly. 

Crowley stared at him. Then he took off his sunglasses to really drive in the disbelief shining in his—entirely yellow, Aziraphale noted guiltily—eyes. “Aziraphale, what are you saying?”

“There is no such thing as luck,” he said delicately. It was not a coincidence I found a scrap of prophecy that happened to be exactly what we needed to live another day.”

Crowley’s pupils narrowed to thin lines. “I, you, wh—gh? Can you even hear yourself right now? You think—? Come on, after all of this, you really think She— ?”

The room had slowly begun to move again. Crowley’s miracle was wearing off. 

“How can you be so sure?” he finally asked.

“Crowley, listen to me,” Aziraphale said lowly. “I honestly cannot say I know what they will do. Your guesses are as good as mine. But I know Heaven, and I am not stupid. They don’t believe the failure of the Great Plan was a part of the Ineffable Plan. They’re searching for someone to blame, and, well, I’m a prime candidate.”

“Then they should take me too!” Crowley said indignantly. “I’d rather be trapped in Heaven with you than be on an Earth without you.” Aziraphale’s cheeks grew faintly warm at the intensity and genuinity of that statement, but he had to focus right now. He shoved the tidal wave of adoration towards Crowley as hard as he could and hoped he would feel it.

The sway of Sandalphon’s coat has reached its apex and was now falling the other way.

“The feeling is mutual,” he said honestly. “Heaven does not care for Earth as much as they do about the War. But they do care about what will happen to Earth if Hell is given free-range. They won’t leave you alone. If—when—they take me, they’ll send another angel in my place.”

Crowley made a disgusted sound. 

“Heaven does not appreciate the wonderful stories and intricacies of this place; I believe it is why they were so eager for the end of the world. And if they do send another in my place, it is under the assumption they can use any stuffy old angel to replace me. That anyone can appreciate humanity as I do. Crowley— you need to prove them wrong. ”

Crowley was always a particularly cunning demon. His distressed face went through a complicated series of emotions before ending on a positively, if slightly wobbly, serpentine grin. “And how should I do that, angel?” he purred.

The completely random thought of kissing Crowley dramatically before the miracle ended flirted intensely with Aziraphale. Startled, Aziraphale found himself leaning in to growl, “Give them hell, darling,” and then the miracle’s lifespan was up.

Sandalphon looked incredibly displeased.

“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” he said snidely.

“I delayed the ineffable,” Aziraphale corrected. Sandalphon narrowed his eyes. “Well? Go on, then. List my charges.”

Sandalphon tapped his foot on the ground and the pages went flying back into his outstretched fingers. “It is with these words that I charge thee, Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the First Order of the Lowest Hierarchy, Guardian of the Eastern Gate…”

Aziraphale stopped paying attention as the list of his crimes ( crimes, he thought with a mental eyeroll, this was ridiculous) was read. He nudged Crowley, and hoped the brief contact was enough to convey, I’ll be okay, we’ll be okay, I promise I’ll come back. I won’t leave you behind.

“I still hate this,” murmured Crowley, low enough to go unnoticed by Sandalphon.

Aziraphale gnawed his cheek—a nervous habit gained after reading the phrase from a book and trying to figure out what it meant. “It is not ideal,” he said back just as quietly. He smiled tightly when Sandalphon glanced at him. “But I believe it won’t be long,” he continued. “I’ll be back before you know it. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” 

“...two thousand, seven hundred, and thirty-three accounts of gluttony…”

“Yeesh. You’d get a commendation from Hell for that one.”

“Hush, you.”

Finally, after what felt like a day's worth of monotonous droning, Sandalphon lowered the papers. “Given this evidence, Heaven no longer sees you fit to be the angelic representative of Earth. You will be recalled to Heaven until given further notice, and during this time, Heaven will proceed with any necessary actions. Do you have any questions?”

Aziraphale made a show of looking cowed. “May I say goodbye?”

“To who? The demon?”

“Humans question things when a regularity in their life vanishes without imaginable reason.”

Sandalphon nodded after a very obvious hesitation. “You have one hour.”

And he vanished in a great crackle of lightning. Aziraphale slouched, unaware of how tightly he’d been holding himself up. Crowley squeezed his tense shoulder.

“I should get going,” said Aziraphale. “Clock’s ticking. Will you mind the bookshop for me while I’m gone?”

“‘Course.”

“If anyone asks, I’m on a business trip.” Crowley nodded, a pinched expression crossing his face. “What is it, Crowley?”

He didn’t answer for a pronounced moment. “Just—Don’t do anything stupid, angel.”

“I’ll miss you too, my dear.”

An hour later, after he had exhausted himself teleporting around London hastily explaining his absence to the restaurants he frequented, his manicurist, the bakeries, making phone calls, and leaving voicemails for would-be buyers of his books, Aziraphale was gone.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #aziraphale #crowley #sandalphon #gehd #my writing #drinking #drinking tw

[metridiumfields]

When I first saw No Country For Old Men I certainly liked it as much as anyone else. Even if its conclusion was as baffling as anything, the road to get there was enveloping enough to be worth it. I cannot say I was particularly bothered by the ending anyhow as my favorite movie has been and will always be Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which has an epilogue every bit as abrupt. I always knew there was a point to it all, though. Or I thought there was. The genius of it all is that even though on a surface level the last twenty minutes of this movie are arguably disparate even on first watch you kind of know, on some level, that something meaningful had happened. You had no idea what but it had you thinking.

I don't do much writing, if at all, but it's something I enjoy. Even if I'm just rambling or whining on Tumblr. I'm also not a film critic. I enjoy the work of film critics but as a moviegoer myself I'm pretty much as tourist as the next guy. So I don't come into this thinking I had anything particularly new or interesting to say; I've written this because I wanted to. Because it was fun for me and because this is the first time I've ever gone this deep on a movie. No joke: I've had an epiphany. I spent and entire twelve hour work shift thinking about No Country For Old Men and once I was home and rewatching it with my conclusions in mind it was a completely new experience.

No Country begins with a narration, by Sherriff Ed Tom Bell. The Sherriff describes his promotion at a relatively young age, his grandfather and father being sherrifs, being a Sherriff at the same time as his father, and sherrifs choosing not to carry a firearm. Bell is clearly nostalgic for this time and directly compares it to a recent happening: him being instrumental in the execution of a murderer. This man had killed a fourteen-year-old girl and evidently felt no remorse for it. This is the first look into who Bell is as a character and the story arc he follows.

The next character introduced is Llewelyn Moss, a retired welder and Vietnam veteran. Moss is hunting when he comes across a drug deal gone wrong. It's here that Moss finds the ostensibly "MacGuffin" of the film: a satchel holding two million US dollars. He takes it from a deceased man that had almost escaped from the fracas that had occured. We can only assume what had happened that caused negotiations to go so wrong. Moss takes the money and as he walks away dark storm clouds have gathered above him (it having been bright and sunny moments before) and thunder and lightning crash in the distance.

There's a fascinatingly mythological feel to this opening scene. I had this feeling as though Moss had disturbed some ancient temple of some sort. Stealing from it a precious, powerful artifact that now heralds the release of an equally powerful, equally ancient evil: a man named Anton Chigurh. Indeed, the way in which Chigurh is introduced and the rampage he goes on throughout the beginning of the movie is almost like that of a demon. As if to imply that Moss had opened Pandora's Box itself and let loose something indescriminate and uncontrollable. Chigurh murders everyone around him without any reason given from himself. We first see the assassin being arrested, murdering the officer at the police station, then murdering a second man to change cars so as not to be easily tracked. But the reasoning for his arrest is never given.

We'll see an almost insane level of pragmatism from Chigurh later on (more than once) so we can assume that he must have been arrested as part of his own plan. But why? Who can say really. Granted, there is a reasoning given in the novel, but there is so little cut from the novel my personal belief is that everything removed is removed for a very good reason. There being no reason given immediately gives Chigurh an air of danger and mystery. We don't know why he was arrested but we do know that arresting him doesn't stop him and won't help Moss later (at least, not with only one officer). There is arguably a more meaningful explanation of the scene but it serves best as establishing Chigurh as being almost completely unstoppable.

The "cat-and-mouse" plot between Chigurh and Moss is more man vs nature than anything. Chirgurh and Moss aren't really seen on screen together. The viewer sees Chigurh from Moss's point of view as a spectre or demon. A shadowy figure that strikes from afar and has no interested in a direct confrontration. Indeed, when Moss strikes back and injures Chirgurh, Chigurh backs off immediately. Shrinking back into the mire he slithered out of to lick his wounds until he can lash out again. The entire first act treats Chigurh as cloud of death that has to be put back into its jar. Another assassin, Carson Wells, compares Chigurh to the plague. Your first thought might be the Black (Bubonic) Plague, but my personal interpretation is the Biblical plague. Not so much biological as a force of nature.

Much of the beginning half of the film is spent trying to mitigate Chigurh's rampage or even head him off at the path. Carson Wells is introduced to try and find some sort of solution, even going so far as to try and reason with Moss. Surely these men would rather just murder Moss and get their money but with Chigurh in the mix their money isn't the issue anymore. Carson goes as far as to offer Moss a deal (even offering to let him keep some of it!) just to reconcile the entire mess. Wells struck me as something of a Devil-like character. In the scene he's introduced he points out the building he's in is missing a floor, alluding to the practice of skipping the thirteenth floor because of the number's ties to the occult and "bad luck".

Also, come on: the man wears a white suit and tries to bargain with everyone.

I might be reading too much into that but I like it because Wells' later death is made more interesting by the implication that Chigurh is a force of death greater than the Devil himself. It's more interesting to me, as well, if you expand that line of thinking to interpret Sherriff Bell as God- or Christ-like. Which plays back into the idea that there's a nihilistic subtext to the film which is derived from Chigurh's use of a coin toss to remove himself from responsibility from his actions. Although Chigurh would like you to believe that the result of the coin toss was in some way meaningful, it isn't. This is pointed out by Carla Jean later on when she refuses to call heads or tails. The only meaning in the coin toss is put there by Anton Chigurh himself. To the universe, it's just random chance.

This could only arise with an apathetic God, which is exactly what Bell is. A common interpretation of the epilogue of the film is that Bell lost his innocence then and there but if we take a look back at the beginning narration and follow his actions afterward we see that Bell was jaded and apathetic from the start. Since long before the events of the film. Throughout the film Bell makes little to no real effort, he treats his deputy's gusto with amusement more than anything, and treats his job as just that: a job. I put more effort into being a deli cashier than this man does to being a Sherriff. Don't get me wrong here, Sherriff Bell is well-meaning. But it takes him far too long to get over his pessimism and defeatism to be instrumental in the survival of Llewelyn Moss.

Moss, by the way, dies off-screen to kick off the third act. I think. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure because this is where Bell's apathy is finally confronted. Bell's character arc really sets into gear as he has to look long and hard at himself, his expectations, and where he went wrong as a law enforcement officer.

Sherriff Bell had a lot of expectations when he was promoted. He was Sherriff alongside his father as well as now sharing a title once held by his grandfather. Bell's father was proud of him, we're to understand. This much have been quite the time for him. Bell had the entire world at his feet and a bright future ahead of him. Or so he thought. But instead of that he ended up putting a man to death by electric chair. A man that, by his own admission, had the Devil inside of him and would kill again if allowed to. Sherriff wanted to be the kind of authoritarian that didn't even have to carry a firearm but contrary to that he had to come to terms with the fact that this wasn't the world he actually lived in. Andy Griffith he decidly would not be.

Sherriff Bell blames the world around him but his Uncle Ellis makes it abundantly clear that this idea Bell had was only ever just that: an idea. A fantasy, really. Ellis has to remind Bell that the world has always been a hard place and that never stopped anyone else from trying to what good they could have. Ellis directly confronts Bell's selfishness and inaction with the line, "You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity." In any other movie this would be what jumpstarts the hero's desire to act but here it's too late: Moss is already dead. In the very next scene, Moss's wife puts her mother to rest and then is herself murdered by Chigurh.

There's a distinct possibility that Bell could have prevented these deaths. If he loop back around to the Biblical allusions earlier and apply them to a scene shortly before wherein Chigurh is evidently hiding in the room where Moss died, we can see Chigurh apparently choosing not to do kill Bell. If we interpret Bell as a "divine" figure relative to Llewelyn Moss it's almost as though Bell was the only thing that could have kept him safe. He was evidently the only force strong and world-weary enough to match Anton Chigurh. But as we established, in this story, Llewelyn Moss's God is apathetic. His Death is active and his Salvation is, sadly, passive. It's arguable whether or not there is indeed a country for old men, but Ed Tom Bell is the only one letting that question stop him.

As if to twist the knife further, following his confrontation with Carla Jean, Anton Chigurh flees the scene only be T-boned by a stationwagon running a red light. Chance, for once, frowns upon Chigurh and he's put in a compromising position. If Bell had been more active in his pursuit this would have been where he really could have caught on. Bell knows that Chigurh was at the scene of Moss' murder because of the lock, Moss's wife then turns up dead. Near where she is killed a man is injured in a car accident, is seen by two eyewitnesses, pays one of them a lot of money for his shirt, instructs them that he wasn't seen, and then flees. That could have been the beginning of the end for Anton Chigurh. Indeed it was in the novel, as police are hot on his trail at this point. But we've established already that what little was cut out must have been for a reason and it is my belief that this was to emphasize Bell's apathy creating a missed opportunity.

The film ultimately concluds with Bell describing two dreams he had about his father. One, he states he is given some money, but he thinks he lost it. In the second dream he's riding in the wilderness with his father. It's cold, dark, and his father is carrying fire in a horn. Bell states that it he felt that, no matter what, his father would be out there with that fire. But then Bell punctuates the story with, "And then I woke up."

As if to say, "But then I realized it was all bullshit."

So No Country For Old Men ends with Sherriff Bell attempting to absolve himself of responsibility for the lives of Llewelyn and Carla Jean Moss by explaining to the viewer why he acted in the film the way he did. He's describing in no uncertain terms how he at once had hope for the world he lived in, but then lost it. His hope is represented by his father carrying on before him with a horn of fire. But in the dream before that Bell had been given some sort of responsibility involving money. Money that he lost, presumably disappointing his father, and therefore destroying what hope he had.

#no country for old men #long post #text post #film criticism #essay #film #movies

[crazywolf828]

In honor of Friday the 13th, I think we deserve some black cat facts!

(it also gives me a chance to show off my kit😅)

We've all heard the myths and ledgends of how black cats are bad luck, but how did that come to be? To understand that, we need to see how it all started.

Of course, one of the earliest connections between cats and humans is ancient Egypt, cats often being seen as divine symbols. There was even an Egyptian goddess, Bastet, who had the head of a cat and a slender female body. She was the goddess of protection, pleasure, and the bringer of good health.

But how did they fall from divinity to being bad luck?

Well, they appear in Greek mythology, specifically related to Hecate, who is the goddess of magic, sorcery, the moon and witchcraft. Hecate was described as having a cat as both a pet and a familiar. (Y'know, the thing witches have in European folklore)

You can probably guess where it's going from here, but why did Europe end up hating them so much?

Well, it was the church (Shocking I know). The church insisted black cats were the incarnation of Satan.

It's also heavily linked to paganism which, as the church grew in power, pagans were considered direct threats to the church and thus accused of being witches.

My personal favorite quote is "Cats, like the women accused of witchcraft, tend to exhibit a healthy disrespect of authority" "They don't fawn, like dogs, upon even the unworthy. In the church, neither independent women, nor independent animals, were to be tolerated."

Of course we know Europe did more than that, but what else was there?

Well for one, they blamed the cats for the bubonic plague and started killing them on sight. Unfortunately we now know it wasn't the cats but the fleas on the rats and with very few cats to kill the rats, the plague spread like wild fire.

That superstition of a black cat crossing your path? Yeah that was also the church. It was supposed that if a black cat crossed your path it could have been a witch sending it's familiar to harm you. Similarly they believed it could have been the devil themself. So these peasants would run to the nearest church to ask for blessings. Naturally the church used this, encouraged it, and endorsed these 'bad omens'

These beliefs were of course brought over to America causing the Salem witch trials and countless more deaths of both people and black cats.

But wait! Not everyone thought they were bad!

In fact, they're helpful to your love life! In Japan it's believed single women who own black cats will attract more suitors. And, in Great Britain’s English Midlands, a black cat is the ideal wedding gift. They’re believed to bring good luck and happiness to the bride. (I'd be so happy to get a cat for a wedding gift??)

Not only can it help your love life, but historically sailor's have been known to bring cats, but specifically black cats on ships for mousing (and probably companionship). But why black cats? Well, they're thought to bring safe passage. Plus they've been noted to have a higher catch rate. It makes sense for the black cat to be a better night hunter, blending in and all.

Pirates also had ties with them, though it's a bit tricky. If a black cat was walking towards them it was bad luck, walking away was good luck, and if they jumped on and then off the ship it was thought the ship would sink.

However, black cat arriving at your doorstep signals prosperity, a common belief in Scotland. And a black cat crossing your path signals good luck in England and Ireland!

Okay enough superstitions, what about facts for the actual cat itself?

I'm going to ruin some hearts, but I'm counting this as a black cat fact. There's no such thing as a black panther, there's only melanistic jaguars and leopards. If you look closely they all have spots.

Their black coats may offer them some protection from diseases!

In fact, the mutations causing the black coat affect the same genes that offer HIV resistance to humans.

And since cats can experience some health issues we do (cancer, HIV, Alzheimer's ect.) they make perfect models for studying human disease. By figuring out how cats have evolved to resist diseases, researchers can learn how to prevent disease in humans!

Black cats can change color!If your black cat has a tabby stripe gene and loves to lay in the sun, its fur can turn a brownish color. Why? The sun’s rays break down the pigment in their fur to reveal the underlying tabby stripes.

Here's an example from my black cat! You can see how the half in the sun is far more of a brown color than the side away from it.

This got very long but I hope y'all enjoyed these black cat facts! :)

(and also the pictures of my cat)

#her name is carmen and i love her #i left out some of the more commonly known ones #like shelters being weary of giving out cats in october and such #black cats #cats #friday the 13th #facts #animals #cat facts #animal facts #i hope people see this #i really put effort into this one #superstitions #don't mind me #my facts #carmen #carmen sandiego #my pets

[brassandblue]

I was tagged by: @majorxbennyxboy 

Rules: Answer eleven questions, make eleven questions and tag eleven people.

i was asked:

1) Do you have a favorite historical anecdote? - I really like the time Abraham Lincoln got into fisticuffs with literally anyone.

2) What’s the coolest/funniest/randomest random fact you know? - Not a zinger with you fellow historians, but I love the fact that the Roman Empire was closer in time to the invention of the cell phone than the building of the first Egyptian pyramids; and that when the first Egyptian pyramids were built, mammoths still existed on the planet.

3) Are you writing or have you ever written any original fiction? (stories made up as a kid totally count, as do things you never actually wrote down!) - Yes and yes. Nothing worth talking about, really. I’d like to start a proper writing blog and just... write again. I’ve started writing poetry and maybe I’ll work on a fictional story I’ve had in my head for over a decade. Maybe.

4) What cheers you up the most? - Good sleep, cats, good friends, good music.

5) What’s something you’d like people to know about you? - IRL, I want people to know that I am constantly thinking and observing; I am intelligent. I have a minor stutter, it goes hand in hand with dyslexia so I’ll swap words and letters in my speech and people seem to always take that as a sign of me being a dipshit. In actuality, I just need a speech therapist.

6) Can you swim? - Yes! 

7) Do anything crafty? (any kind of crafty!) - I grew up wanting to be some kind of artist. I say “some kind of” because I never really formed a solid idea outside of “painter/illustrator.” I’ve picked up painting again. When life calms down for me, I’d like to start photography again too.

8) A favorite memory? - Visiting friends in England, Boston, Coventry, Rhode Island. Those, and solitary walks at the house where I grew up that was in the countryside. Those are my favorite memories.

9) Something you’re looking forward to/want to do eventually? - Earn my bachelor’s degree.

10) Do you remember any of your dreams? - Always. I used to frequently have lucid dreams but not so much these days.

11) What are some of your particular interests? - I can do rudimentary painting and sketching, I became fairly good at playing the clarinet and worked through high school with the goal of making it a career (life had other plans), I have various favorite eras in world history, I love writing prose and poetry alike, and sometimes I dabble in baking. Uhhh, I always had a weird obsession with the bubonic plague but in particular the period of the Black Death, like even when I was 7 and learned about it by reading ahead in the history textbook. I also took some time to learn how the 18th century dresses of Europe were made and how ladies tended to dress, from scullery maids to queens. I’d like to reawaken an old passion for Greek mythology and turn it toward other mythologies from different regions. I’m also fascinated by the migration patterns of humans throughout history and want to learn more about the general cultural mixes that tend to get overlooked for more homogenous cultural stereotypes and misconceptions.

i tag: ANYONE. I know some of you have already done a variation of this meme so feel free to ignore. @unshaven-insane @annastrxng @nationsfirstspy @colonelhale @therapardalis @corsicangeneral @majorxbennyxboy @centrelost @sewingamerica @petticoatsandturncoats @strongandtrue

i ask:

1) Who are your favorite historical figures? 2) Even if you don’t subscribe to any particular zodiacs, what are your signs? 3) Do you have a least favorite animal? Not phobias, but maybe you just don’t like bears? 4) What food can you eat even when you’re extremely sick? 5) Do you still live in the same town where you were born/where you grew up? 6) Did you have pets as a kid? 7) If you could be a world class expert in/at one thing, what would it be? 8) What novel had the most impact on you as a kid? 9) What’s your ideal vacation location/activity when you’re there. 10) What color are your eyes? 11) What’s one thing you like that a lot of other people don’t? Like rain, cold days, etc.?

#memes #ooc #personal