So, a few minutes ago, I made this poem, and I just wanted to rant about my mental space here. But in order to do that, I need to give backstory to everything. So-
CWs: death, suicide, depression, self harm,
A few years ago, in 2019, over summer break(the month of May), a close friend of mine committed suicide. She was the smartest, funniest, kindest, person I have ever met. And for the longest time, I was mad at everything, and in a way I still am. I got to a point where the next year, I started hurting myself. On purpose. I've stopped since then, with a few relapses. Anyways, I was upset. This is something that effected me deeply so fucking deeply. The difference from a death in the family from expected or unexpected causes, to a friend committing suicide is huge. It's big. And I've always had trouble with accepting death. But it's so much different when it's a suicide, at least to me. And I think it's because with expected/unexpected causes it's not the person deciding they were done with everything, in fact the person had no say in it, vs. suicide which they decided to go. They decided that everything would be better if they weren't there. And that makes it worse somehow(to me at least, I know everyone is different). Anyways, my mental health wasn't great to say the least. And I think in a way, when my friend died, I died. Which hadn't happened with the other deaths in the family, like it was sad and I was depressed. But I could still feel joy. Anyways, when she died, in a sense I died to. But because I wasn't literally dead, I could at least try to live again. Only I didn't realize this until now. I didn't realize that in a sense I was dead. Lying in a coffin of my own sorrows and depression(I want to be more descriptive on this, but I don't know how so I hope you understand what I mean). Until now, and it's not something that I'm going to be able to get up from and walk away. It's something that I need to work on, and get to by myself. Not by myself as in no one can help me, but by myself in a sense that the journey is my own, and people can come with if they want. It's going to be slow, and I might not ever get back to living. But making the effort to get better, helps in a sense, I know it does. I've done that before, on a much much smaller scale, but I have done it before. And I think the journey I need to take is through poetry, and maybe abstract art. But poetry helps more for some reason. Anyways, this is a long winded way of saying, that I will be actively trying to get better from now on, just bear with me please?
i genuinely cant develop this further but simon fucks you so good and so hard and so much (it lasts for many hours) before every mission because hes scared that this is his last time he’ll get to fuck you. it’s all inadvertent when he got you addicted to his cock and his love-making because, to be honest, these sessions are more for him than for you. his grunts and his pleasured rumbles and his dirty talk? theyre not to make you dizzy with pleasure, theyre to make him cum. he gets so lost in his own euphoria that its truly but an added bonus that you cum with him.
I have a fascination with death. Not how it happens, not what happens after. I have a fascination with how death is handled by the ones left living.
I talked at length about it in the Egyptian gallery with you, surrounded by bodies misplaced. "Most of history we learn through the way we treat our dead." Which is true, I think, for the most part.
We have written and oral history. We have the skeletons of buildings and cultures left behind for us to interpret. But before that, before the corpses of civilizations we're still able to uncover, we have our own.
The oldest body ever found is argued to be 230,000 years old. Hundreds of millennia, a culture so lost to time and decay we can't hope to uncover significant artifacts.
Our bodies become the artifact. The way we were buried, where, with what, with who. Was there care put into our final resting spot? Was there effort put into the ends of our lives?
Most often, there was. Our bodies tell our descendants our status. Our injuries. Our community. Our loves.
Perhaps they'll debate. Perhaps they'll misinterpret. But millennia later, your body might tell someone how we lived. How we loved. What we cared about at our core. What we thought would help us after death. What we thought we'd want to continue our comfort. What the living needed to let us pass on from their lives.
You tell me you still think about what I said.
Many people talk about becoming a tree when they pass. It is a beautiful notion, one I've considered. A natural, living reminder of a life lived. A place for their loved ones to share a connection with. In a way, the continuation of a life; albeit in a different form.
But I don't want to become a tree. I'd rather become a forest.
Maybe it's a notion toward the state of our world. The lack of top soil is one of the prevalent factors of our declining environment. The way we've stripped it of the nutrients of decay.
There are ways to decompose naturally. In the ground with nothing but a natural shroud is the oldest and easiest way. A new, human composting method has been created for an urban option when the easiest is unavailable. An alternative to cremating. One that can give back to the earth.
My body might not be one that tells the story of my time alive on this planet. My body might tell a joke, or rest peacefully, or ideally decay away. My DNA will dissolve into nitrogen and an assortment of other elements. I will become no different or better than the dirt that lies around me. What was me will become something else entirely.
I'd rather become the top soil. I'd rather become the forest.
TIME - ELO: my mum's favourite album that i first Properly listened to when i was 13. it's just the best sci-fi concept album ever....i love you jeff!!
13 Tales of Love & Revenge - The Pierces: sexy indie duo, most known for the song Secret, which isn't even in the top 5 of the best songs of the album. a treasure from when i was 11, and just figuring out i like girls.
Greatest Hits - The Eagles: again, my mum's interests becoming my own. it was really hard to pick between this and Long Road Out of Eden, but ultimately the greatest hits r that for a reason.
Laurel Hell - Mitski: my fave mitski album, heat lightning is underappreciated!!! and yeah just. its about solitude. recognition but not in the way you wanted or expected. emotional rollercoaster. im not eloquent enough to describe it and mitski does it better in under 2 minutes anyway.
Strange Trails - Lord Huron: again another hard toss between this and long lost but st wins out purely bc the transitions rule, and meet me in the woods + the yawning grave make me crazyyyy. so happy i got to hear those live in jan. lord huron is like what if a cowboy was also a ghost. thats the only way i can describe it.
Electra Heart - Marina and the Diamonds: i am not immune to music i heard at 12 years old. shame she's never made anything as good as this again.
Are We Having Fun Yet? - Black/Colin Vearncombe: another one of mum's. She found this guy when someone at Sanity was playing the album over the store speakers. loved it ever since, and introduced it to me. wistful ballads, jazzy touches, a little bit sexy.
Coyote Stories - The Crane Wives: this was a 2016-18 discovery maybe? i just know i was in school. im into folk indie i cant help it.
Wasteland, Baby! - Hozier: shout out to afro-elf for posting about movement n the whole ep, which is what spurred me to actually try this dude's music. and now i love him. but wasteland baby is immaculate: no skips, he roars in some songs and is as gentle as drizzle in others.
also on the topic of meaningful consequences re: character death I don't understand the take that death in fantasy requires physical permanency to matter or give a story "stakes". death is permanent regardless. Do you really think that if they get her back, they'll just go back to normal? That these characters are not forever fundamentally changed from this, that Laudna will not be fundamentally changed from this?
That Imogen's world will be less fractured, that she won't be even more of an anxious wreck now that what she stands to lose has been put into vivid clarity? That Orym won't still carry the guilt of being the chosen, that he will be less haunted by the connections he drew to his own grief with Will to Imogen's with Laudna? That Fearne won't look at Laudna and think of that coin flip, of her choice, and what that means for her and how she loves? That FCG and Ashton won't think to this and be reminded of the people they've hurt or been hurt by, and what this effort and what this grief means for how they view the hells?
That Laudna, who has been so blasé about life and if she's alive and what being alive even means for someone like her, won't wake up surrounded by family and by love and be driven to reexamine everything she's taught herself in 28 years of isolation to cope with the trauma of Whitestone? That this, maybe, will be the driving force she needed to realize that there are things she wants to live for?
It might be that I'm just biased, but I'm not sure what stakes Laudna perma-dying adds aside from just presenting the characters with the knowledge they all already have that they can, in fact, die. that what they're up against is incomprehensibly powerful and dangerous. The stakes already feel so impossibly high when you think of what and who they are preparing to face. frankly the aftermath of this combat alone, even if everything had gone perfect and everyone had gotten back up a-okay, would have set that tone.
I don't know, regardless I'll be happy to watch whatever story they choose to tell unfold as it does, but it strikes me that so many people seem to think that death only matters if there is a physical absence.
Thinking about Daniel and blood kisses and their possible comedown symptoms... 🥲
I know it’s never really discussed but personally I have to believe that the blood has some sort of effect on the user’s brain chemistry (ie. intense euphoria) so there has to be some kind of comedown. My first inclination is that it’s something like coming down from coke…
ie. After the initial high, it leaves the person just miserable and depressed, which makes me wonder if any of the misery/madness that Daniel experienced in DM’s is due to that.
Like... he spent so long (years?) in a constant state of either euphoria or depression -- and was completely reliant on Armand to bring him back to euphoria. We don’t know how often Armand shared his blood with Daniel but I'm inclined to think that it was pretty often (Daniel was probably constantly begging for it + Armand likely didn't realize the negative effect it was having on him the same way he didn't realize the negative effect alcohol was having on him until it was too late).
Obviously, Daniel found Armand alluring even before he got the blood for the first time (so I don't think that Daniel was only with Armand for his blood) but I still have to wonder to what extent he was addicted to Armand’s blood and if maybe that had something to do with his rapid decline over the last few years of his mortal life.
" There you go again with your... delusions. You really DO live in some sort of self erected fairytale land, don't you? " To some extent, Astarion envies him. PITIES him, mostly, but... there is envy to be had in the way he sees the hope and promise in things long since drained of it. " I push and push, yet you hang on. I hiss and snarl and bare my teeth, yet there you stand, UNMOVING, from behind that cloud that makes me out to be something I am not. "
this is based on information the show's s1 gave us. this can and will most likely change once the next seasons release.
disclaimer: this is not a ship analysis. you can read it however you like, but it's not intended for ship purposes
SPOILERS AHEAD ↓
Even before Vox was introduced, it was made clear that Alastor has a... distaste for modern electronics. Even so, he seems to know how to navigate them. He's familiar with TVs and their mechanics, watching and making commercials.
So let's start with:
Radio vs. TV
By default, both represent different eras of media: the Radio and the TV.
It's a very old classical tale of old vs. new that to this day, there's debates on it. Alastor and Vox are exactly that. The debate of which is better. The old and reliable way or the new developed way. The one that doesn't appreciate the changes being made and the one who embraces it. A Radio Demon and a TV Demon.
And they are that simple old vs. new dynamic. Different but similar.
Alastor vs. Vox
Vox first gets mentioned through the title of the Vees by Sir Pentious. And even with Alastor's response, "Oh, nobody important." we're hinted at a dynamic, in this case indifference, which is mostly how Alastor tends to treat and act towards Vox. Mostly...
On the other hand, Vox is obsessed. From knowing that Alastor was gone for 7 years, the hate drawing, the 'fuck alastor' mug, the cameras, the ripped photo, you can even go as far as saying their outfits– he's not subtle about it.
As soon as Vox learns about Alastor's return, he has an overdramatic response with his nails digging into the table, voice changing, and his cameras instantly on Alastor. In general, Vox has cameras probably all over hell, but keeping an eye on Alastor is tricky when the man glitches every time he's being recorded etc, etc. This is also stated by the fact that in the 7 years Alastor had been gone, not even Vox knew where he was.
And Alastor is very aware of the fact that Vox is watching him. So aware that he even posed for the camera (you can argue all you want, he posed). Midly encouraging the behavior as such. Either by the pose or by saying that Vox needs to try harder in his endeavor.
This is where I say that Alastor is also obsessed. In a different way but not any less.
Here's a core attribute the two demons share: Attention.
They want attention, to be the center of it. And although Alastor barely, if at all, provides Vox with it... Vox certainly does provide to the fullest, and Alastor is more than happy to let it happen. With that being said, when Vox was broadcasting the tarnishing of his name, it was a different story. He went back to his tower as quickly as possible - grabbing a cup of coffee on his way - and more or less owned Vox's ass.
Speaking of the song, it's worth noting that Alastor perfectly responded to the part of the song that was never broadcasted, the beginning. It could have been for thematic purposes. It could have been that he somehow knew, the how alludes me.
Let's bring up a certain picture:
Throughout episode 2, much of their relationship was hinted and kept mostly hostile, but this picture gave a whole new meaning to it all.
Alastor, the demon that distorts devices and renders them unable to capture him on film, has a photograph taken of him without any glitches. And next to him in that photograph is none other than Vox.
Meaning:
Alastor allowed the picture to be taken.
Alastor and Vox were close.
They had formed a bond, and the closest thing we can call it, is a friendship. But between the then and the now, something broke that bond.
One thing could have been Alastor's dislike for modern technology vs. Vox's like for evolution, which could have played a role in their fallout. As such, a chain reaction of events begins to unfold.
If it was that dislike, resulting to disagreements, where it started or not, we don't know, but we do know that their relationship fell apart after Vox asked Alastor to join his team, and he refused. They became hostile towards each other, most likely beyond repair since, before Alastor disappeared, they had a fight.
We don't know how brutal the fight was, but we do have the line, "You still pissed he almost beat you that time?". Keyword: Almost. Alastor ALMOST beat Vox but decidedly did not. From Alastor's backstory, we know he's more than capable of defeating overlords without a second thought.
Here's a question: Why didn't he kill Vox?
Maybe it's for stupid reasons. Maybe it's not. Who knows, but we know that he didn't kill him and that Vox was resilient enough to not be easily beaten.
One thing is for sure, the picture re-contextualizes behaviors and actions.
Although at its core, their relationship is a rivalry, adding a possible friendship changes the initial view they gave us of them.
And I'll end it by saying that Alastor calls Vox 'old pal'. If that means something or absolutely nothing, I don't know.
BTW! Calling Alastor obsessed isn't in the same context as Vox. Alastor is obsessed with the never-ending attention while Vox is obsessed with Alastor himself. Just a clarification. Though I wonder how many people stuck this long to read, it's not like I'm saying something new here. I can't wait for all of this to be trashed and debunked somehow in the future.
Regardless of power this time; I want to know what about the two episodes we got with Lucifer implied he was an idiot?? Like I've read a number of fanfics now that have him falling for the barest manipulations and like
I understand he's out of touch with the times(the level of which is up to interpretation) but there's no evidence that he's completely ignorant of what's going on around him.
Like there's a difference between misunderstanding current day slang, or being easily angered when someone's deliberately pushing buttons, but that doesn't mean he's easily manipulated, does it?
If there's something I missed please let me know, but I've seen nothing that implies he's as stupid as some people write him to be.