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phoenixmosheh · 9 months

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Do you want to play a game?

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If you are at least 18 years or older...you have the option of switching on your "mature" tumblr settings. If you do not turn on these settings you may miss some of the exposures of people who are praying you don't turn on your mature settings.

How do I know?

This blogs been reported several times prompting them to flag some blog post as mature. Which is why this blog post exist. Oh and I have no followers ...use your brain.

RULES: No cheating & No copying. OK? We care about your safety until you give us a reason not to.

(This is a slap in the face screenshot for the people who are being led astray by a bitter pastor and his cult leaders masquerading themselves as ushers who will try to send their congregation to this blog and point out little bits and pieces from this blog in order to convince them how I am a hypocrite and man user like his niece who is a witch, who I'd also the reason I have to be shackled and chained to these narcisstic men I stay with and don't have sex with. Its not my fault these men have this biblical desire to provide for me with no strings attached

I put in my two week notice Pastor. Did you?

Researching the whole story on your own is imperative to not being misled by Satan people. Stop being lazy. God Bless.

King Elias finds his real wife playing Homemaker to a random guy due to his ex-wifes black magic

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The Talk - OHhhhh... now that you find out your ex-wifes a witch doing spells so you have no free will and her private parts are totaled like my car which she also tried to copy you want to talk?

https://youtu.be/My2FRPA3Gf8 - Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus

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God trying to explain to Elias' real wife through a movie what heavy spellwork over someone's mind can do to a person (and to forgive him)

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https://youtu.be/hJGnpjPfUUI - It's Payback Time - Tarot (aka Spiritual CIA/FBI Readings)

God watching Elias' wife take out her laptop halfway through this movie as she starts researching something on the internet

God: What are you doing?

Elias' Wife: I'm going to order a hazmat suit so I can safely K.O his ex-wife, so that I won't need a tetanus shot after.

https://youtu.be/cJc7xWJbwJw - Press - Cardi B (a song for you polygamous, blabber mouth, uneducated, fake mask wearing, money hungry, dont know who the daddy is, side chicks)

True Story:

While I was on tour in these homeless women shelters (prison). I kept asking God "why do these women keep thinking they can bully and jump me?" Is it my size? Do I look like a child? Am I being too nice? Many delusional Goliath's found out real quick, I don't care if they tower over me or under me...they better pick and choose how they want me to treat them. Make sure you pass that on to your sister (Stephania). The last person that told me they were going to knock me out flat on the floor, ended up flat outside a homeless shelter. Pull up if you want to...I can be classy or hood you pick? (and I don't need anyone to hold me back, come find out if you want to, those veneers in your mouth will be smiling at you on concrete, if they havent already started falling out). So if you are coming, you better hurry up and catch me while I'm pregnant and throwing up... otherwise (sips tea).

Moving on:

Sorry about that...How unprofessional of me! Are you familiar with The Matrix Movies? (if not, fortunately for you, Google knows everything, look it up and study its main characters)...

Neos name means "New". His wife is Trinity (God in three persons) When you put both names together it is code for "The New Trinity. God in three persons. Gods spirit (One Spirit) is made up of masculine and feminine counterparts which house this one spirit (Gods spirit). The two (1 masculine counterpart and 1 feminine counterpart) will be made one (married/joined together.) In a human body, these counterparts are called Melchizedek. What God has put together, let no man seperate not even a bitter stalker std carrying ex-wife. Sorry Stephania.

Sparknotes gets it

"Even Neo's Matrix name, Thomas Anderson, suggests a parallel with Christ. “Anderson” literally means “son of man,” a phrase used to describe Christ in the Gospels. “Thomas” suggests the New Testament figure of the disciple Thomas who won't believe in Christ's resurrection until he sees proof with his own eyes"

God hid The story of the Melchizedek in your human psyche (mind) so that you would retell their stories (prophecy) in your entertainment i.e books, movies, music...etc. Too many people have had their hands on your bibles to keep all hidden knowledge in these books..but "they" still have not figured out how to fully control, touch, transfer and change your minds. So God hid fragments of the truth (story) in the minds of believers and non-believers.

(So yes, a lot of the music and movies we chose to use are old school, because lets just be real, very few of you are authentic due to trend following and slave curriculums, they even make you draw the same in art class.

But thank you for your cooperation, we needed someone to tell The True Story of Our Bible over and over again..so that we could put your fragmented bits and pieces in order for the blind and hard of hearing upon our (The Melchizedek) awakening 😇 ...now thats team work! (Whats that dear ? You like stories about us but not who the stories are actually about... nobody cares sore loser). The Bible did say we would be hated amongst men...hmmm I wonder why? Thanks God.

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Disclaimer:

Please do not go around attacking religious people, churchgoers or people that believe in something different than you. Allow them to have the free will to study and come to the same conclusion as you. If they never come to that conclusion, it really isn't any of your business and you should just continue to live your life. However ... if someone attacks you, you have every right to defend yourself.

Warning:

Do not copy our work, you can share it, you can ignore it. BUT do not pretend you came up with these theories or our ideas. Everyone has a brain, if you know your brain did not come up with these ideas and you think because you have a big following or congregation that you can masquerade as the creator of said idea. We will watch you like a sad reality TV show, just like we watched Elias' ex-wife , her family of masonics disguised as pastorial humanitarians and his greedy ungrateful family lose everything, after 3 years of thinking they were getting away with it. All while watching you look like complete fools as you lose your little following and misguided congregation because they find out you are a liar. We don't care if you support, follow, sneeze, wheeze, unfollow, pinch your nose when we walk past, racial slurs blah blah blah...just don't copy and share without giving us credit. Great talk.

You're Welcome

Timestamp 7/27/23 ( omg..I think I'm finally done...that took like what 4 months to shut down?) Rusty. 🌬)

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https://youtu.be/lsDMWvDDGpY - Backin it up 👆

Elias' Wife: Pssst Elias (slips Elias a note) ♥

https://youtu.be/dlEdFJpQ8-c

God: whoa hey, hey whoa whoa you freaky amateurs

https://youtu.be/hMs8RKGZ7kM

Elias & His Wife: Yes, but but but but then... you promised 😢 😭

https://youtu.be/DIpQ4AZSAf8

God: Yeah. Yeah.

https://youtu.be/Go8nTmfrQd8

#Youtube

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weaselle · 3 years

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Ant Cthulhu

Tumblr ate my story! Goodbye to. just. so many thousands of notes. This was one of my first stories that people on tumblr liked. So I’m making it a new post, so that people can find it. Plus, of all the thousands who read the first one or two installments, not nearly as many discovered that I had written a third and final installment that ends the story, so here is a chance at that.

The story was inspired by a pair of observations on Tumblr, where users probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole said, respectively

“if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.” and “Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“

It gets just a little dark, but any story named for Cthulhu surely must have some death and destruction, right?

ANT CTHULHU

That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name. And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor. And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?” and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever. And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …. _____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful.

Your beloved Naya doesn’t understand your fascination with the ants at all, but you easily train her to leave them alone. She’s such a good dog. The ants are horrified that you command such a beast.

You begin to realize can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to all the time. When would you watch Netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also though, you’ll show up to just your name, if you’re bored and you hear it. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson. So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks.

He actually tries to blame it on Naya. What a prick. You insist with wide eyes that the ants must have found it somehow — maybe he shouldn’t leave soda pop laying around his room. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last. “The Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” she manages, and then she dies. Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay. Like some kind of movie villain, you pet your loving Naya and say out loud “Oh yes, and pay he will.”

But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name.

He’s made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom. Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate. Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open… To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.

It’s the end of their world. Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. It will take time to integrate them- your ants have to get access to the new ants’ scent marker chemicals and go undercover. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything. … You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition. There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight. “O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well. Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes. “O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week. “Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?” “Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.” “Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?” “Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.” “Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.” “Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, ah, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, but they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some of us nervous - not me! - but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become… concerned.” Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…” The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing. The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human than the ants , who themselves had turned out to be such surprising little beings. So. The orders for the heinous deed did in fact come from him. Now, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding and get to work. In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause. “I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her. The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King. He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty. “Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?” Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing. “Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts. “You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg” You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway. Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard. A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul. The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. A small line of ants brings the peels back to the colony larder. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it. The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight. END

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so, looking back, I feel I should tell you that when I wrote the final chapter of this I had just become homeless and had to leave my dog in a better home than I could provide. It’s cool, we still see each other a lot these days, I was just real sad about it and it effected what I wrote. Anyway, that’s the Ant Cthulhu story

#ant cthulhu #ant #ants #writing #fiction #story

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tearyeye-private-i · 2 years

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【 ☀ 𝙂𝙮𝙢 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙪𝙣 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨... 𝟐 】

•.° Fire/Alien theme: #billyleeriley

•°. Grass: #sonnyburgess

•.° Ice: #charlierich

•°. Ghost/Fairy: #warrensmith

•.° Ice: #malcomyelvington

•°. Fighting/Circus theme: #barbarapitman

Inspired by einaussenseiter & peeyonce, Tumblr.

These are easy to edit but it was so much of a hassle yesterday. 🥴 It's hard balancing new occurrences in personal life and making posts. So, I'm going to call off my 12 Days of Christmas challenge/tradition, this year. This will be the last post I share for a while until Christmas or before.

I tried to be creative and use Pokemon I haven't had on a team, and I love how these came out. 😍 When it comes to backstories, unlike Carl, John, Roy, and Jerry Lee, this crew wouldn't be gym leaders. Instead, a tourney was held at Sun Records, the prize was a higher priority in the recording studio. There was already a weird pecking order, so it makes sense Sam would make a game out of it. 🙄

In their young years, they were all wild, crazy, and chasing dreams of becoming the next champion, even close to it. Though for this group, that wasn't in the cards and that's okay.

Billy Lee tied in a battle with Jerry Lee, a double knock-out. Yet Sam declared Jerry Lee the winner. The slight never sat well with Billy, and to prove he was the best, he pushed himself harder. As the years went by, his dreams faded and he settled into retirement. When invited to a festival in Galar, his love of music and battling was renewed.

Sonny always looked at the bright side of any bad situation. When everything at Sun fell apart, he moved on to Pokémon contests. He enjoyed assembling teams and taking part in his Pokémon's performances. After ending so many fights at Sun Records, being a referee came naturally, he became a battle judge. He'd also retire until receiving the festival invitation.

Charlie had a successful career as an entertainer, with the help of his wife. He could've been a gym leader but the opportunity fell through. It was for the best, as he and his team preferred Pokémon contests over battling. Though, whenever at Jerry Lee's gym, "the Fireball Lounge," he never declined a challenge.

Warren had the talent, to be a great performer and had a good shot at becoming champion with his Ghost/Fairy team. When all fell apart at Sun, he went down a bad path and joined Team Rocket. He quickly climbed the ranks, from a grunt to one of the strongest leaders in the organization. He drew the line at using a machine, that stole Pokémon, to drug them. Thanks to his old friends from Sun, he was able to break free from Team Rocket. He settled into retirement, and the festival invitation surprised him.

Malcolm had big dreams. He held his own against his younger contemporaries, but he wasn't a young buck anymore. He had responsibilities, his rowdy days as a trainer and performer needed to conclude. When putting his days at Sun behind him, he found a Togepi, on his way home and brought it back to his wife and kids. He took it as a sign and retired early. When invited to the festival, he took to battling and performing, as if no time had passed. His one regret was not challenging Charlie Rich, as they were the only two Ice-type users at Sun.

Barbara could beat all the guys at Sun, in a fistfight, especially Jerry Lee. Being the only woman and one of the youngest at Sun, meant everything was hard-earned. She preferred Fighting-types, her time working for a traveling circus, influenced her team. When Sun fell apart, she took to contests. Helping other trainers prepare, becoming a contestant herself, then a judge. This led her to work in Pokéstar Studios, (the Pokémon version of Hollywood). She and her team would feature in a few cult classics, in acting roles and stunts. She'd retire from being a stunt coordinator, to live peacefully in her seaside home, then travel to the festival.

This music & battling festival, in the Galar region, was one of the most exciting times of their lives. Reminiscent to the old days at Sun Records, performing then battling, to the cheers of a big crowd. The ones who went had returned with a fresh outlook, with new team members, and peace of mind. That only being together could've brought.

#Pokemon #Pokemon Teams #//MyPosts #//Edits #Sun Records #Billy Lee Riley #Barbara Pittman #Charlie Rich #Sonny Burgess #Warren Smith #Malcolm Yelvington #Sun//Together

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captainkirbypunch · 3 years

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My love has left tumblr once again.

As many of you may know, the account under the name MDZADR, has left tumblr. They felt unsafe in their fandom, and as such have deleted their tumblr and AO3 account due to the bad memories linked to them.

As a part of their departure, they have asked me to post something in their name, as follows.

If you want more details about how I came to this realization, continue to read. If not, here is your summary:

TL;DR: For the safety and health of this fandom, I wanted to spread the word that Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and MelodyoftheVoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don’t “ship zadr correctly.” She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is.

Full story below.

I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. Nobody did anything to me today, but this just wasn’t worth it.

My AO3 and tumblr are both gone. I didn’t say goodbye because I didn’t want to look like an attention seeker.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t going to name drop, but you guys need to know the truth. I’m instructing my boyfriend (hi y’all) to turn asks off for his own safety after this because this is going to be a nightmare, but... allow me to tell you the full story. I’ll try to break up the text so it’s less difficult to read, but this is important. I’m sorry to air discourse so publicly, but please... I need you to listen to me.

I’ll start from the beginning, without being vague anymore about who “she” is. I request that you please read the whole thing and not skip parts of it. The whole story matters.

I finally returned to the fandom about two months or so ago. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t do well in my thoughts while left alone too long, so I posted saying I would stop messaging people I knew because I didn’t want to bother them. There were only two people I was talking to at the time, but one of them is famous so I didn’t want to message her directly saying that. Doing so would have put her in a position of feeling obligated to say “you’re not bothering me” rather than just simply being able to sigh with relief from no longer being contacted.

But the first person to contact me was the famous person, and she asked if I was okay, and told me she liked talking to me.

God, I actually cried.

But, that’s just her. Melodyofthevoid is the type of person to talk to people in the fandom, totally unaware of her demigod status. She comments on stories, interacts on posts, messages first... a pillar of kindness, so it seemed.

But let the story continue.

Over time, we were talking more often.

Mostly sending memes (cause everyone I knew, myself included, aren’t exactly great at holding conversations. No shade. Memes are a love language). I was still in the hero worship stage of our relationship, so my view of her was that that was perfect.

Now, let me bridge a connection with a new story idea I got around December 28th or so, and my thinking she was perfect.

I had recently finished watching Madoka and questioned “If I had magical powers, what would they be?” It then turned into its own story idea, basing creators’ powers around the strengths and weaknesses in creations. I actually realized “oh fuck. My stuff is incoherent. My friends’ works aren’t too different...”

Thus spawned the name “Incoherent” for the project.

What does that have to do with this? Well, here’s the thing that really fucked everything up quickly.

This was not on purpose, because originally the project (which I had told nobody of yet at the time) was all about improving your works, making platonic friends, dressing our personas in cute outfits, and writing fun magic.

While listening to music and thinking of the story one day, my brain accidentally shipped my persona with hers, and I couldn’t unsee it. And I’m lousy at keeping my own secrets (other’s are different) so she found out on probably day one or two about my weird crush because of an ask meme of all things.

She didn’t try to put me off any, which was another problem for future things to come, and so I decided that since Incoherent was finally making me feel alive again and feeling the euphoric feelings of love wouldn’t hurt anything (I figured they’d mellow out on their own eventually because that’s how infatuation works) since they helped fuel my inspiration, and then we would just continue from friends to better friends one day and this part of our lives would be over.

Besides, the forbidden is attractive somehow, and makes stories more entertaining. She’s aro/ace, so I had no chance anyway. Someone safe to crush on, in her own way.

This isn’t a story of a love betrayal however. There was no such thing. But it’s important to the story because Incoherent is where my mistakes were made, and hers brought to light.

By this time, I had a handful of people I was talking to, and I created a discord server for the project. Only my boyfriend (hi!) and I were in it at the time. I was not-so-subtly asking my friends what they’d look like if they were a magical person, what their names would be... I thought I would have had to lure Melody in to make her want to join us, but I managed to get her in very easily. Everyone was happy and excited! It was a no obligation, no time limit thing for us to enjoy, a little sandbox to play around in.

Sure there were plans to make it bigger and I was working on art to the best of my ability, but it was gonna be a fun thing mostly. No pressure on anyone.

And how things started becoming a problem was that the rest of us posted publicly about the project and interacted with each other’s posts relating to the story, but she had started to interact publicly less and less with our things, and everyone noticed it.

It wasn’t because we were greedy and wanted the popular girl to reblog our things. It’s because we had a feeling she was ashamed of being seen publicly with us. The reason we were worried before then and started making that connection was because I mentioned I was going to ask another user if they were interested in joining Incoherent. Melody was the only one that seemed uncomfortable, and I messaged her asking about it. We agreed I wouldn’t invite that person but I knew things were off about it.

That person is like me. How long until Melody didn’t want to talk to me anymore? A few days ago, the other shoe finally dropped. A member of our little group and I were talking and (let’s call them Friend for simplicity. They asked to not be name dropped here) Friend was worried they had made Melody upset by tagging her in a meme picture they drew of her persona, and the two had agreed that Friend remove the tag. This spawned an anxiety-filled conversation where Friend and I expressed our concerns about Melody not interacting with the project, or us.

So since I wanted reassurance that that wasn’t the case, I messaged Melody with my concerns. I told her I had the feeling she was ashamed of being seen in public with us because of her friends, and she didn’t refute me. She simply told me to go get some rest. I messaged back with “I’m right.”

I deleted Discord off my phone for hours and nearly deleted my Tumblr, AO3, and the server after my boyfriend helped pass messages between us. Melody confessed that was the case because her friends expressed discomfort with my works, and she was playing both sides.

Her words, not mine.

Melody told me she would be withdrawing from the Incoherent project because it wasn’t fair to us if her heart wasn’t in it.

She didn’t stand up on my behalf when they said things about me. Her friends are the type who talk behind creators’ backs for shipping zadr “incorrectly.” Worse than antis because they actually participate in the “pro-shipping” side of the fandom. I broke that day and messaged her at 3 am.

We finally spoke at 3pm. We both missed each other. I tried to understand more. I wanted it to be more like a conversation rather than an interrogation. It was only one-sided however, and she never opened up further. And I made some mistakes and poor choices of words, and we ended up parting ways permanently right there.

I nearly deleted everything, but much like a coma patient attached to many machines on a hospital bed, my blog was kept alive a little longer by people sending kind words in droves. I was briefly fuelled by spite, wishing to watch the world burn by making everyone on the "correct" side of the fandom upset by posting the worst, most vile content this fandom has ever seen.

I was also welcomed with open arms by a very kind server with fellow degenerates, all of them screaming and crying and partying when they managed to get me in their server. It was so heartwarming...

But as I spoke to others about my situation, I realized something. A disturbing pattern.

People telling me horror stories about how Mooping-10 was cult-like. How the people running it were antis. I was even told once that they have a secondary server where they go to have their talks and do their work, likely the place where the real bashing is held.

The server itself has rules against such behavior, but I suppose it's different when they do it.

One person (and this is the most unnerving part for me, personally) told me Melody actually set off alarm bells in their head without having even done anything yet, and the most disturbing part of the story was that one of the moderators was afraid and upset because they got Covid, and received basically no moral support at all. Only getting told "spoiler that. Sorry you got Covid".

I was horrified. That server has 100 people in it. How many of them are the same? They act like popular kids in school who picked up an unpopular main character and then bash others, and the main character joined in because they don't want to be left behind by their new "friends".

To put it short, back to my point:

TL;DR: I simply only wanted to spread the word that: Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and Melodyofthevoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don't "ship zadr correctly". She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is.

#Invader Zim #zadr #tagr #rapr #zagr #mdzadr #MelodyoftheVoid

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yeocult · 3 years

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check in tag!!

tagged by the lovely @k-hongjoong TYSM!!! and i’ll tag @miniyeo, @harubirus, @fromercury and whoever wants to do this :>

under the cut cuz it’s a little long hehe

1. Why did you choose your url?

yeosang cult lmaoo (i don’t know why cult but i rmbr it being popular with users on twt so i joined the bandwagon lol)

2. Any sideblogs? If you have them name them and why you have them

yes!! it’s @yeosangz!! for aes, poems and art, anime, anything other than ateez and kpop!

3. How long have you’ve been on tumblr?

been on ever since 2018 but didn’t actively use it until the pandemic started lol

4. Do you have a queue tag?

just the letter “q” because silent letters are confusing

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

tbh i don’t rmbr, started for some haikyuu and anime stuff but i began to post for ateez stuff

6. Why did you choose your icon?

HONGJOONG SEXY MULLET PAINTED NAILS AND CROP TOP SITTING IN HIS MAKEUP CHAIR BEING THE SEXY PERSON HE JS

7. Why did you choose your header?

whatever matches my icon~~

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

this one!! it’s a moodboard (?)/compilation of hongjoong wearing a skirt during inception and it has a little over 2k :D (kinda funny since i posted it right before bed and woke up famous😎😎)

9. How many mutuals do you have?

TBH IDK!!!! i love every interactions i get and i love you all (yes you reading this!!) <333

10. How many followers do you have?

numbers are fake cuz i’m pretty sure most of them are p*rn blogs and inactive people but i just recently hit a big milestone :D

11. How many people do you follow?

107!

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

every now and then i have something to say lol

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

according to my screen time this week; 1hr 48 mins

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

uhh nope

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

ehhhhh no feelings

16. Do you like tag games?

yES <3 mutuals who tag me <3 i love you, mwah let’s get married!

17. Do you like ask games?

yes <3 very..i love interacting every now and then

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

UHM GEEE IDK😭😭

19. Do I have a crush on a mutual?

the ateez data blog when they post pics of hongjoong😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️and the sf9net when they post taeyang ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

#tagged #she’s a long one...

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vanishingpod · 4 years

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We took a little break last week from our Podcast Rec Sundays because production stuff took over our lives a bit, but we’re BACK with four shows we think you should check out!

The Amelia Project: With season 3 right around the corner, now is the perfect time to jump into this dark, British comedy headfirst like we have. The show is set at The Amelia Project, an agency where people go to disappear--if their story and reason for disappearing is deemed interesting enough by the staff. Every episode tends to take the format of a client making their plea to be disappeared, including the planning stages...at least, to begin with. The amazing thing about this show is how it slowly escalates and spins out in absurdity, without ever feeling like it’s made a huge leap out of the world it’s set up. It’s a world where a woman wanting revenge for a cheating husband, a cult leader in over his head, an advanced AI, a self-aware fictional character with an existential crisis, and the Loch Ness Monster, all end up seeming pretty much par for the course, and the genre can swerve from comedy to satire to conspiracy to meta-commentary to mystery in the blink of an eye. We couldn’t recommend this more--oh, and you’ll want cocoa on hand. Trust us. (Find them @ameliapodcast)

Seren: If you’re looking for a sci-fi exploration story about the human spirit, this is where you go. We start the story, and spend most of the run time, with Seren, our protagonist, who has been sent on a single-occupancy spacecraft away from her home to join a colony on a distant planet. Not much more is known about the situation than that at the outset, and we are only slowly revealed more through the audio logs of Seren as she makes the journey, cycling through boredom, fear, desperation, loneliness, regret, and hope as she parses through her life up to this point and what she thinks she’ll be heading towards. An incredibly intimate story set in the vast of space. Seren is bold yet subtle, bleak yet hopeful, incredibly lonely yet inspiring immediate connection with the protagonist. The design, production, acting, and writing are all gorgeous, paced beautifully, and deeply felt. This is a show that always feels like it is barreling towards something but isn't afraid to let you live with Seren for a bit, feel what she's feeling, breathe with her, care for her, become her for a moment--it's an incredibly cathartic show in so many ways. (Find them @serenpod)

Valence: Alright, who wants some urban fantasy? We certainly do! Who wants a ragtag bunch of characters? We also do! Who wants to do crimes, but like, for the good of humanity? WE DO! There’s a level of tense glee throughout Valence. You could attribute it to the hyper specific and all-enveloping soundscape that bring the world of New Candler to life or even the excellent vocal performances throughout that make this heightened sci-fi/fantasy world feel grounded and navigated by flawed, 3-dimensional characters. Whatever it is, Valence presents a full experience. Through the story of Liam Alden wrestling with his birthright as a Magic User (‘muse’ in the show) there is a palpable sense of us vs. them, science vs. magic, industry vs. human interest, haves vs. have-nots, that make the story feel relevant and accessible. Honestly I found myself thinking a lot of the Uncanny X-Men and Mr. Robot as I listened to the storylines involving tech heists (HEISTS, we LOVE heists) and assembling a ragtag group of outsiders (again, we LOVE a ragtag bunch!) who are all galvanized to action against a technology conglomerate set on making life easier for some, by jeopardizing it for others. It’s a grand adventure, a call to action, and a fuck you to capitalism, and who doesn’t love that? (Not on tumblr, but you can find them on Twitter here.)

The Godshead Incidental: It’s tricky to put The Godhead Incidental under any one genre because it juggles a little bit of everything while also subverting a lot of the expectations of the genres it uses. It’s a sitcom, but also a conspiracy drama, a slice of life story that also features a world filled with literal gods, a workplace comedy and an emotional dramedy that deals with stuff like agoraphobia and millennial ennui. Also, there are pigeons, just SO many pigeons. We got sucked in by their amazing cover art and stayed for the instantly lovable, vivid cast of characters. Some of our faves are Em, our protagonist, a perpetually Over This advice columnist at the titular publication; Lorem Ipsum (a particular fave of ours), a mysterious, fast-talking thief that takes over every single conversation; and Tervis, Em’s agoraphobic landlord, who has a backstory that is both incredible and underwhelming all at once. The show is brilliantly produced, beginning to end, and is SO easy to immerse yourself in--we really don’t see any way you wouldn’t like it, to be honest. (Find them @godsheadincidental)

If you love any of these shows, please consider leaving them a review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or wherever you listen to podcasts--you can also (depending on when you’re seeing this post) nominate them for Audio Verse Awards!

Previous recs: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

#podcast recommendations #audio drama #podcast #the amelia project #seren podcast #the godshead incidental #valence podcast

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sanctamater · 3 years

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i’ll set the fires of hell upon them myself: a comprehensive timeline of an alternate universe in which lady c.omstock raises elizabeth in comstock house and joins booker de.witt when he comes to columbia in an effort to save her daughter.

welcome to yet another timeline post by tumblr user sanctamater. this one is perhaps the peak alternate reality.

1892: amelia is indoctrinated into the cult and is courted by zachary. she introduces him to senators, congressmen, governors, and other cogs in machine politics as her intended, giving him access to resources he lacks; enabling him to indoctrinate some politicians into the cult and secure funding for rosalind, who is able to now communicate with robert and eventually create the lutece machine. zachary then uses this for his prophecies.

1893: amelia and zachary marry in january. columbia is now well under construction and set to launch at the world’s exhibition fair in may of that year. zachary tells amelia that she is to bear their messiah. use of the lutece machine to peer into alternate realties has rendered zachary sterile. outwardly, he blames amelia for their inability to produce a child, and seeks the help of lutece. at first, she refuses; but at the prospect of being united with her other self robert, she accepts, and agrees to have robert procure anna dewitt. offering to wash booker of his debts in exchange for the girl, booker accepts; only to regret it at the last minute. in the struggle between booker and zachary, anna loses her pinkie finger as the door between universes closes. on october 8th, 1893, anna is brought to columbia, and renamed elizabeth at zachary’s behest. elizabeth is brought to amelia, and zachary claims the child is cut from the holy cloth. amelia, obviously, does not buy it; and noting that zachary spends unorthadox amounts of time with chief scientist rosalind lutece, accuses him of having an affair with her, and that elizabeth is the product of that union. rosalind tells amelia the truth of elizabeth’s birth. it’s not clear in the canon voxophone rosalind leaves behind, but - “Lady Comstock seems to believe the child is a result of some errant act of carnality between myself and her beloved Prophet. I told the poor woman the truth: that the child was a product of our little contraption. But I think she found that less believable than her delusion.” rosalind, in my canon, was very clear in the fact that elizabeth is amelia’s daughter. in many worlds, amelia rejects this, and claims that rosalind is still lying to her. in others, she does see the truth for what it is; and chooses to raise elizabeth as her own in an attempt to protect her only child from the prophet’s designs.

1894: with elizabeth’s arrival, tears begin to appear in columbia as her powers manifest. with exposure to tears comes consequences: columbia, by the time the game takes place, has fertility issues and high cancer rates for those who have been exposed to tears. zachary begins to make plans to monitor, control, and suppress this power while amelia is left to raise the child.

1897: comstock house centre opens. comstock house is a research and “rehabilitation” centre that focuses on ridding man of sin, which columbia considers to be a symptom of illness. what goes on in comstock house is likely very intentionally left vague by canon sources; but “heretics” who are caught are subjected to forced lobotomies and mental conditioning in order to make them exemplary members of columbian society. comstock house now contains zachary, amelia, the lamb, their servants, and the doctors and their medical staff that work below. in addition to comstock house opening, zachary installs a large siphon in comstock house meant to stabilise and drain elizabeth of her power. from an early age, elizabeth is cautioned by amelia to use her power sparingly, if at all; and that she will get in trouble with her father if she is caught opening tears.

1901: the boxer rebellion occurs and columbia displays its considerable military power in an attack against beijing. after being ordered to return to the usa to answer for its unsanctioned attack, columbia simply ascends into the clouds and proclaims sovereignty. elizabeth and amelia are now rarely allowed outside of comstock house unless it is a state holiday or larger religious occasion in which parading the holy mother and messiah around would be beneficial for the prophet’s image. amelia attempts to be content with the situation, though wishes elizabeth were allowed playmates. elizabeth grows restless. the luteces are enlisted to help educate elizabeth in tandem with her mother.

1907: elizabeth’s powers continue to manifest and comstock house becomes dangerous due to electrical blowouts and the mysterious, accidental deaths of several servants, administrative workers, low level politicians, lawmakers, and guards. zachary’s response is to section elizabeth off to the wing of comstock house that lady comstock occupies and keep her there with amelia and a larger siphon. elizabeth becomes resentful of this situation, though amelia knows her hands are tied in the matter.

1909: daisy fitzroy, now leader of the vox populi, is captured and brought to comstock house. amelia attempts to see her, but is denied. she is interviewed by dr. pinchot, who is fascinated by her. fitzroy later escapes and kills several doctors in the process. rosalind and robert lutece come to an ultimatum to send elizabeth back to the world she came from, in order to prevent the razing of the united states in the future. zachary sabotages their machine to explode and kill them “accidentally”. the funeral is a quiet one. elizabeth is distraught at the loss of her tutors, and amelia comes to the revelation that the only way either of them can be happy and the only way elizabeth can be safe is if she is far away from zachary, and out of the city.

pre timeline ends here. game events reconstructed/rewritten are below.

booker dewitt comes to columbia on succession day; one of the only times that the lady comstock and the lamb are allowed outside of comstock house and are able to be seen by the public. it is one of elizabeth’s favourite days for this reason, and amelia will spoil her with treats until it is time to return home to comstock house. sheltered, shy, and wanting for nothing; elizabeth is still a rebellious teenager who has much bigger plans than becoming the prophet’s heir.

in the chaos of the raffle, elizabeth and amelia are hustled on to an airship to be delivered safely back to comstock house. booker, however, boards the ship and takes out their guards. booker’s only task is to deliver elizabeth to new york city, not her mother - and much to his surprise, the sainted lady grabs a gun from a fallen guard and aims it at booker without hesitation. in a stand off, amelia says if he is to take elizabeth out of the city, then that she must come with her daughter as well. booker agrees. songbird attempts to disable the airship and the three fall into battleship bay.

travelling with the lady comstock and messiah is not easy. amelia is easily recognizable even in a dishevelled state and both must take precautions not to be seen - either by wrapping their hair up or obscuring their faces - or else the guards will be called. stealth is now initiated in passive levels. it is known throughout the city that the lady comstock and messiah are missing, and that the prophet Fears The Worst for his Beloved(TM) and child.

amelia, while rusty, is handy with some small guns like pistols and handcanons, given her upbringing and the leisurely hours spent at shooting ranges and hunts (which were a sport of the american elite). she’s a sharp shooter who does not hesitate when her daughter is involved, and despite the violence surrounding them, wishes to protect her from witnessing it.

amelia gives elizabeth permission to use tears to aid the party in its travels as it is revealed how useful this power would be.

the hall of heroes goes about the same; though the first lady’s memorial is now an exhibit on the holy couple’s endeavours against the vox populi. by the end of the hall of heroes/battleship bay, the pa system now treats lady comstock as an enemy of the state as well; and states that elizabeth has been kidnapped by the treacherous first lady and the maniacal false shepherd. zachary expresses his disappointment over the pa in soldier’s field, to which amelia tells him to ‘choke on his sermon’.

liz knocking out booker with a wrench scares the shit out of amelia and only strengthens her resolve that elizabeth needs to leave. with booker incapacitated and neither no longer trusting him after the whole new york v paris debacle, the two set off on their own and are captured and await for the arrival of the prophet’s men to escort them both back to comstock house.

the rest of the level progresses as normal with the reunion in shanty town, aside from yet another deviation -

elizabeth is forced to kill a founder soldier who disarms amelia and goes to shoot her. she is traumatised by this action and inconsolable.

once again, daisy does not die. amelia is able to talk with daisy given their former friendship years ago and agrees that the three of them will join the vox in order to take down the prophet and leave columbia in good hands, as amelia makes it plain they simply want to leave the city; and that amelia has no intentions of her daughter staying to rule the city. daisy agrees.

amelia helps elizabeth to cut her hair and step into her old relics (her dress) within the airship. the airship is knocked out of the sky and crashes in emporia, which is in the middle of evacuating.

instead of fighting the siren, as amelia does not die in this world, the three go to uncover truths that the prophet has long since buried.

in the lutece’s laboratories, it is revealed that elizabeth was brought to columbia via tear; something amelia tearfully professes and apologizes for; saying that she will always be her daughter; in this world or the next.

in the bank, after elizabeth opens a tear that reveals that in many worlds, amelia has been murdered, amelia’s nose begins to bleed. ‘the prophet... killed me?’ ‘mother, your nose is bleeding.’

with comstock house’s gate now firmly closed to them both, booker and amelia devise a plan to blow the gate in to gain access. it works. they continue on, but the songbird takes both amelia and elizabeth to comstock house.

elizabeth begs the prophet not to hurt her mother, and says she will be his daughter so long as he does not harm her. amelia is placed in comstock house asylum, and elizabeth is tortured by the prophet as he makes ready to install the leash.

booker is brought through to 1913 from the prophet elizabeth timeline, and rescues amelia from the asylums first before the two make their way into the depths of comstock house to save elizabeth. both daughter and mother agree that zachary hale comstock must die for what he has done, and that the vox will aid them in this.

the trio fights their way into zachary’s zeppelin with the help of the vox populi, and make their way up to the prophet’s sanctuary.

amelia inserts herself between zachary and elizabeth when he begins to get physically aggressive and a fight between the three breaks out. booker intervenes and slams zachary’s head into the baptismal font, ending his life. elizabeth comes to the conclusion that they must leave this timeline and destroy the siphon in its entirety.

the vox and songbird help the trio battle off the last of the founders and return to comstock house, where they destroy the large siphon that exists there.

the sea of doors occurs. it is revealed in one tear where booker and amelia find themselves dancing together that they were, in another timeline, lovers; and eventually married. it is then revealed that amelia did indeed birth elizabeth, and die during the process - and that booker sold anna/elizabeth to zachary.

amelia is not pleased. they have an argument on the boat. elizabeth just wants her parents to shut up because she’s monologuing. the luteces are grateful that this is not a common outcome in the sea of doors.

elizabeth drowns booker/zachary in the baptismal river with amelia’s hand on her shoulder. she is the last figure to vanish before elizabeth is left alone.

burial at sea does not happen but the cutscene shows all three of them together in a universe where amelia does not die and they are all very happy thank u good night.

#this is the LONGEST one #LAST ONE IM SORRY #violence tw //#abuse tw //#drowning tw //#murder tw //#🕊️❝ sanctify them by truth: your word is truth ( headcanons. )

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teamwindsorroyals · 5 years

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I am personally annoyed as hell with the people saying shes faking the pregnancy. I don’t care for Markle but she is pregnant no doubt. I do think she was padding early on though.

Another note, I don’t like some of the articles that have been put out against her as some have had racial undertones but others have been legit criticisms that Kate has also gotten and people still label that as racist which it isn’t. I even had one person accuse me of jealousy and racism when I said that Meghans spending was bad optics. Apparently saying something is “bad optics” means your jealous and racist. I understand royals want to look like “royalty” but there’s simply no reason to spend 500k on clothes in less than a year on clothes.

I think it’s sad to see her fans have this misconception about royalty and think royals have to spend thousands on top designer brands just to look ‘royal’ when that’s simply not the case. It’s like they think the royal family is the live version of all the disney films where they need to be in jewels all the time or something. It’s like they don’t realize that’s there’s good brands, good quality clothes that don’t cost thousands and you can still look like a royal. It’s not just the clothes, it’s also the way the royal carries themselves and takes care of themselves. Showing up to an engagement with a messy bun and ill-fitted clothes isn’t a good look. People think it’s “chic” but this is royalty not hollywood or high school. They also say that her spending is justified with the amount of engagements shes doing but that is also NOT justified. This is where Meghan needs to take a page out of Kate’s book and realize that there are certain events that do not require a 5k outfit. The other excuse is “building royal wardrobe” like really? No other royal has had the need to spend 500k in one year on clothes & they do more engagements than she does.

My other note, I don’t think the marriage will last. I never thought it would last since the statement was put out. Harry always seemed like the type who would be the one to divorce atleast twice. Hes not stable like his brother & unfortunately never has been. I definitely see divorce rumors by next year.

I don’t consider myself one of those crazy tinhatters but I didn’t need anyone to tell me this marriage was doomed from the beginning. They both rushed into things and had too many misconceptions about married life. There’s too many other red flags as well. It’s a shame.

I’ve stood up for Meghan regarding some of the racial undertoned articles but in regards to the sexist & classist articles, her fans should be looking in the mirror with how they treat Kate & the Middletons before bitching about the “sexist & classist” articles against Meghan. The shit they’ve called Kate & the Middletons is disgusting especially when they turn around and bitch about a “sexist” article against Markle, like really? Kate has been bashed for over a decade, so Meghan fans need to grow the fuck up and realize that all royal wives get hammered by the press.

Cont.

I’m not saying all crap articles against Meghan are warranted but her fans are absolutely atrocious.

They’ve called Kate & Carole sluts, hags, crinkly bitches etc all over twitter and then five minutes later will tweet an article thats “sexist” against Meghan and will go into pure rage. Clearly these fans haven’t seen the crap Kate has been put through and those who say that they have, yet still complain on articles about Meghan, are the biggest liars.

Her fans refuse to accept any ounce of negativity towards Meghan and that right there is toxic and the definition of a cult! It’s unhealthy.

Her fans think she’s been treated unfairly yet she got an engagement with the Queen right off the bat, a more expensive wedding than the future King/Queen that the RF paid for no less, christmas with the RF as a fiance as well as other engagements as a fiance that nobody else got, she got quite a few patronages from the Queen within 6 months of marrying. Shes gotten so much that others haven’t, her fans have no room to complain. She’s spending more than any other royal and her fans say shes being treated unfairly? PU-LEASE!!

ok I’ve done my rant for the day.

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Hi, Anon, Thanks for your submission 😊 I’m just going to edit in my reply.

*********

OK, I resorted to going on my desktop as my phone was driving me crazy. Probably better as I’m a fast typist.

I started my Tumblr five years ago. When Cressida and Prince Harry broke up, I chose to not rebrand my Tumblr. I’m happy with the various themes I tend to share. Of course if there is anything about Cressida that I want to share, I do. I thought she was (and she is) a class act and her family are fascinating. They’re this fascinating, blended (as in half siblings) family who are related by marriage to the equally fascinating Bransons.

So five years ago and later, I did check Twitter more. But TBH I prefer Tumblr as people curate interesting content here. Some of it is recent and some of it is historical. And some of the Tumblr users in the Royal Fandom are extremely knowledgeable. I’ve learnt a lot! I also prefer the more visual format.

I do use Twitter just a touch and recently I had someone send a tweet my way with vitriol about CB? Why? What is CB to this person? I checked that person’s Twitter feed and it was a whole bunch of obsessive nonsense in support of one Royal and against everyone else. I think if you’re thinking about a celebrity or royal that much, you simply have too much time on your hands and you need a hobby. I don’t even bother engaging with such people. It’s an immediate call for blocking.

I was surprised the other day to read someone’s comment that they were too young to remember PW and the DofC’s wedding. Wow! That set me back a bit. Lately, people have been sharing videos showing what the DofC went through with the hoardes of paparazzi while she was dating for the better part of a decade. I think it’s important to know that about her. Chelsy also had these issues. And for two years Cressida had to struggle with it as well and still experiences the after effects of her dating PH years.

I think that you can compare the Middletons and MM. Both sides are self made in their own way. The Middletons are the British version of living the American Dream. MM made a meteoric leap from being a suitcase woman in a slinky dress to a supporting actress and aspirational lifestyle blogger/Instagrammer. From there she parlayed her way into circles in little ol Toronto that included every person in town who knows PH. Plus she was chummy with JT (Justin Trudeau). She certainly knows how to work her social connections. So if you don’t like the Middletons for their “rise” in society, then you can’t like MM, and vice versa.

I’m not sure why people choose to hurl such vitriol at the Middletons. And with such language. And I’ve seen the B word put under MM’s photo too along with a lot of critique about her looks. I always cringe when I hear the age 40 hurled at her as if it’s an insult. If these people are not someone’s cup of tea, fine. Then focus on something else.

As for MM, it was PH’s choice to want to get married after a relatively short courting period that was mostly done at a distance. I think that they should have waited longer. But they made the decision and now they need to make it work as they continue to get to know each other.

My rule of thumb is to never write anything about anyone - including Royals - that you wouldn’t say to their face.

Also, I think if you are fan and you want your favourite Royal to survive in the BRF over the long run, you should encourage harmony and getting along. On the side of the fandom and hopefully wishing for the same within the BRF. You should celebrate the positive and not encourage division.

Of course there is room for constructive critique. MM said she wasn’t really aware of the BRF before she got married. (TBH I don’t believe that.) But many fans have been following the BRF for years and even decades. Of course that is looking in from the outside. But they’ve seen all the drama unfold and know that while it’s not easy to marry into a large and affluent family, it’s even harder to marry into something like the BRF. As is the case with most large and wealthy families, individuals are in their own silos looking after their own concerns and interests. You have to tread carefully so as not to threaten anybody or step on their toes. So if MM is making repeated missteps and outsiders can see them, it’s fair to call out the problems.

Leaking to the press? Not a good idea. Being seen to be more demanding of staff members or spending more money than others? Also not a good idea. Of course these just might be spin jobs from other camps but we know how perception is 9/10s of reality as far as onlookers are concerned. I think it’s better to put your head low and keep a simple profile. They say a good leader will join a company and will spend six months walking the halls and getting to know the employees before making any major changes.

It’s also been my observation that whether you’re Prince Philip, Princess Diana, the Duchess of Cornwall or the Duchess of Cambridge, if you’ve married into the BRF you can’t take the spotlight away from your spouse. That’s just how it works. If you choose to not heed this advice, you will encounter push back.

The fashion part is an interesting one. I don’t like this notion of “oh there’s an event tomorrow. Let’s see what the young and senior female royal is wearing”. They aren’t clothes hangers. Their first priority is to visit a charity or represent a charity. Promoting a fashion brand (hopefully from the Commonwealth) is an extra perk. Many of the senior BRF wear expensive clothes - both casual and fancy. The Duchess of Cornwall is very well dressed and is a leading example of looking fabulous in her 70s. Even the casual clothes they wear can be expensive. EG boy are the Le Chameau rainboots that the DofC wears expensive. But then for the average person, most of those clothes are expensive. Even a L350 dress would seem too much. And if the Royals had to wear dresses under L100 for example, like most of us do, they would have to choose from over priced and poorly constructed dresses made out of thin fabric. (Such is the reality of fast fashion these days. The struggle is real when we hit the shops. I prefer thrift stores, as a result.)

I don’t think they have to wear clothes from Britain and the Commonwealth all the time but, if you think about it, there’s a vast array of options from Britain and the Commonwealth. There are some gorgeous clothes out there that could inject interest into Brand Britain and also designers from other countries. MM has worn some Canadian brands and that’s great. But it’s a good idea to switch it up and not look like she might be connected to Jessica Mulroney’s business interests. That perception is out there strongly and that needs to be axed. If JM is offering styling advice for free, you have to ask - what is the benefit for JM financially?

I’m a bit surprised by the amount of negative press circulating right now. Maybe that’s the reality of having so many more fast moving and soft news outlets like social media. I hope that it will get better after the Sussex baby is born. Maybe having the Sussexes move off into a little cottage in the woods of Windsor is a good idea after all.

Thanks for your submission. I hope I expanded on the main topics you raised.

#brf #prince phillip #princess margaret #duchess of sussex #duchess of cambridge #duke of cambridge #duchess of cornwall #british royal family #kate middleton #meghan markle #british fashion #prince harry #submission

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lynchgirl90 · 6 years

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The #TwinPeaks Season 3 Blu-ray is a Wonderful Package for 2017’s Greatest Piece of Narrative Entertainment

David Lynch‘s stunning Twin Peaks season 3, also known as Twin Peaks: The Return, comes to Blu-ray as a must-have box set loaded with fascinating and revealing looks behind the production. Just as they did so many years ago, David Lynch and Mark Frost have created a TV event unlike any other before, and probably unlike anything that will ever come after it. Here, as one cohesive Blu-ray, we have the chance to watch the saga unfold from beginning to end, which might very well be the best way to experience the show. Our Twin Peaks season 3 Blu-ray review below pulls back the red curtain and journeys into the unknown. Join me?

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

The greatest piece of narrative entertainment from 2017 was not in movie theaters, but rather playing on Showtime over the course of one weird, wild summer. Defying the odds, premium cable channel Showtime parked a large amount of money on David Lynch’s doorstep and convinced him to come out of semi-retirement to resurrect his cult TV series Twin Peaks. The results were stunning.

Lynch, the brilliant, mad mind behind Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and more, hadn’t made a film since 2006’s Inland Empire, yet any fears that the iconic filmmaker might have grown rusty in his time off were quickly assuaged as the beginning of the new Twin Peaks unfolded. Lynch and Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost had pulled out all the stops to return audiences to a place both wonderful and strange, and we all got a lot more than we could’ve possibly bargained for.

The importance of the original Twin Peaks can not be overstated. TV as we know it today, everything we lump into the “Peak TV” category of high quality, cinematic television, can trace its roots back to what Lynch and Frost did with the original Twin Peaks. He brought the auteur theory and the avant-garde to mainstream primetime TV, and television has been paying tribute ever since. The original Peaks only lasted two seasons, but after its cancellation in 1991, the show took on a life of its own, its cult fandom growing to monolithic proportions. Lynch revisited the town with 1992’s prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which polarized audiences and took the mythology of the series into even stranger, near-indecipherable directions. Something curious happened after that: the show became even more popular, but the show that newer fans seemed to latch onto wasn’t actually the show that Lynch had created.

A meme-ification of Twin Peaks had set in, fueled by the Tumblr generation fond of sharing out of context screen grabs and quick gifs that may look amazing but don’t even come close to capturing the aura of what Lynch was going for. So when Lynch and Frost announced that “That gum you like is going to come back in style,” there was an uneasiness with how modern TV viewers would react to whatever it was they were about to witness. We live in the age of the live-tweet, where audiences have trouble putting their phone down to entirely focus on their entertainment, and are instead prone to firing off an instant reaction with the hopes of raking up a few “likes.” This is not the ideal type of viewing experience for something created by Lynch, and if audiences thought they were going to be in for instant gratification with the new Twin Peaks, they were setting themselves up for failure.

The same foul fate would befall the aforementioned Tumblr generation, who apparently wanted nothing deeper than endless shots of cherry pie, black coffee, and Audrey Horne’s saddle shoes. Anyone who dares to cruise the Twin Peakshashtag on Tumblr while the new series was airing likely found themselves in a world of woe, with Tumblr users bemoaning that the new Twin Peaks was denying them their dream of Special Agent Dale Cooper and Audrey Horne finally falling into each other’s arms at the Double R Diner while Shelly Johnson serves them up a slice of pie. In short, what they wanted was fan service. And fan service is not what David Lynch traffics in. I doubt the term even exists in his vocabulary.

Instead, Lynch provided viewers with one of the most audacious 18 hours ever committed to television. A daring, mind-warping journey back to the town of Twin Peaks and beyond. He blew a big, black hole into the very mythology of the show, and created something stranger than anyone viewing the original series would’ve imagined.

I Am Dead Yet I Live

The original Twin Peaks began as a procedural drama, then blossomed into something nearly unclassifiable. After local teen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) is found murdered, FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives in town to investigate. Cooper gets to know the town, and the townsfolk, as he tries to crack the Palmer case.

And then things get weird.

Twin Peaks made what many consider to be a huge mistake by wrapping up the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer rather quickly, and then becoming stranger and stranger until it found itself canceled. The problem: the series ended on one major cliffhanger, with Cooper trapped in The Black Lodge, an eerie, extra-dimensional location populated with backward-talking people, billowing red curtains, and flashes of lighting. Meanwhile, an evil Cooper doppelgänger, connected to the malevolent force known as BOB, took the real Cooper’s place back in the real world.

There was never any real chance that Lynch and Frost would quickly sew up this dangling thread, however. Instead, when Twin Peaks returned to Showtime, it expanded the mythology of the series and took viewers on a long journey that was all part of Cooper’s return to the real world. But Cooper isn’t the real focus of Twin Peaks. Laura Palmer is. For Lynch, Laura Palmer is a representation of horribly wronged innocence. Fire Walk With Me revealed the traumatic events leading up to Laura’s death, and Lynch’s focus seems to be on the cosmic injustice of it all. The cruel blindness of fate. Laura Palmer is a force of something pure and good in the universe, and no matter how hard Cooper might try, he can never really save her. But perhaps that’s not what’s important. Perhaps what’s important is that he’ll keep trying.

Twin Peaks season 3 has Cooper escape the Black Lodge by taking the place of hapless, corrupt Las Vegas dwelling insurance salesman Dougie Jones (also played by MacLachlan). In reality, Dougie is a “tulpa” – a being created from the selected thoughts of different individuals. Tibetan mythology describe tulpas as “extra bodies that were created from one person’s mind in order to travel to spiritual realms.”

Rather than have Cooper escape the Black Lodge and come back to the real world acting like his old self, Lynch and Frost have the agent stuck in a childlike state, as if all the years stuck in an alternate dimension has blasted away a part of his consciousness. Then, in the most delightfully devious twist of all, Lynch proceeds to keep Cooper in this state through nearly the entire series. There are triggers that we keep expecting will snap Cooper out of his Dougie state: coffee, pie, etc. But Lynch isn’t interested in an easy way out. Instead, he engrosses us into the life of Dougie Jones, as the traumatized Cooper adapts to his new reality with Dougie’s wife Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and son Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon).

You could practically hear the groans of certain viewers as Lynch refused to break Cooper out of the Jones family mold, yet this material provides us with some of the most incredible moments of the revival series, and gives Kyle MacLachlan a chance to shine, playing up both the comic relief elements of Dougie Jones (see: Dougie in a casino yelling “Hello-oooooo!” at slot machines) mixed with more heartbreaking scenes (see: Dougie watching Sonny Jim with a look of profound sadness on his face).

Twin Peaks sets up a horde of new characters, almost all of which become memorable almost instantaneously – a feat few other shows can pull off. There’s the Mitchum Brothers (Jim Belushi and Robert Knepper), who are both trying to murder Dougie Jones before growing fond of him on the basis of a dream. There are two assassins (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Roth), who spend most of their time in a van shooting the breeze when they’re not shooting people. And most important of all, there’s Diane (Laura Dern), Cooper’s old flame who teams up with FBI Director Gordon Cole (Lynch) and company to find out what happened to the real Cooper. Dern, with her various wigs, foul mouth, chain smoking and multi-colored manicure, steals every scene she appears in.

But what of Twin Peaks, the town that started it all? Lynch brings us back to the town, and gives us a glimpse into the lives of old favorites: Shelly (Mädchen Amick), Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), Big Ed (Everett McGill), Norma (Peggy Lipton), Andy (Harry Goaz), Lucy (Kimmy Robertson), Hawk (Michael Horse), Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), and more, but the new season isn’t so much interested in closing out their stories as it is showing the effects of the passage of time. That’s not to say there aren’t narrative conclusions. In one of the new season’s most satisfying moments, Big Ed and Norma finally seal the deal on their romance after years apart. Lynch stages this in a lovely way, with Norma’s hands coming from just off frame onto Big Ed’s shoulders, while Big Ed closes his eyes in contentment.

These lovely moments are contrasted with stark, disturbing horror. In the opening episode alone, a nameless, shapeless monster escapes a containment unit and lays waste to a pair of lovers in a scene drenched in blood and confusion. And at the center of the series as a whole is the terrifying notion that evil, in all its forms, will almost always come out ahead. After nearly 18 hours, Cooper manages to alter time and save Laura Palmer from her teenage demise. Yet the aftershocks of this change are not ideal – the world as Cooper (and by extension, the audience) knows it has been altered forever. The final few seconds of the series find Cooper and Laura in a state of limbo, with Cooper absently wondering “What year is this?” before Laura, looking up at the house that once held such trauma and abuse for her in another life, emits a piercing, blood-chilling scream that seems to be echoing across time and space itself (note: if there was an award for Best Scream, Sheryl Lee would be the clear winner).

What are we to make of this cryptic, haunting conclusion? The beauty of Twin Peaks is that Lynch and Frost aren’t interested in providing us with clear answers. One of the quotes from the revival series states, “We are like the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream.” This is as clear a Twin Peaks mission statement as we’ll ever receive. The series as a whole is a dream that the audience is living inside, and like dreams, the narrative is open to endless interpretation. And best of all, no interpretation can really be considered incorrect. You can take away a million different morals from Twin Peaks as a whole, but I think a strong case can be made for the unsettling message that evil – in all its forms – will frequently come out ahead. The important thing is for committed, determined people like Dale Cooper to continue to try to stop it anyway. Cooper may not always succeed, but we can take some sort of cold comfort in the fact that he’ll try anyway.

Phenomenon

The Blu-ray special feature Phenomenon is broken into three distinct parts: Creation, Life After Death and Renaissance. As a whole, this feature is a fun but mostly boilerplate look at the series as a whole. It’s quick and to the point, and was likely originally cut to serve as more of a commercial for the revival series than a truly in-depth look at Twin Peaks. Creation looks at the show’s origins, from its time on ABC to the fan reaction, including the popular “watching parties” that had audiences coming together to experience each weekly episode as a group. Life After Death examines the growing cult fandom that sprung up after the show had been canceled. Fan magazines and conventions gave Twin Peaks whole new life and kept the series alive for an entire new generation born after the first show had long been canceled. Renaissance is a crash-course in bringing the show back to life on Showtime. Again, there’s no real insight here or depth. Lynch and frost pop-up for quick soundbites, but anyone hoping for the creators to delve into the process of bringing Twin Peaks back from the dead need look elsewhere.

Behind the Red Curtain and I Had Bad Milk in Dehradun

Richard Beymer, who plays Twin Peaks character Ben Horne, shot these two mini-documentaries that appear in the Blu-ray special features. There’s no narrative thread to these two features. Instead, they provide a raw, uncensored look at Lynch and company on the Black Lodge set, setting up shots. These two features provide us with what will become a running theme of the behind-the-scenes footage provided on the Blu-ray: shot after shot of Lynch at work.

If you ever wanted to sit back and watch David Lynch direct, the features provided here are a gold mine. They also provide an amusing, even charming look at how normal it all is. Lynch deals with such strange, dark, violent material that it can be easy to think of him as a dark, brooding weirdo, but the footage here shows him as an affable, laid-back fellow who knows exactly what he wants from a scene and how to get it. These slice-of-life moments give us an opportunity to see Lynch help Kyle MacLachlan tie a necktie, or give Sherilyn Fenn a cigarette as he talks with her about her character. Speaking of cigarettes, get ready to see a lot of them. Lynch is constantly smoking in these behind-the-scenes moments, an American Spirit cigarette always perched in his mouth or resting between his fingers. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself longing for a smoke after watching all of this.

The only downside to this, and other behind-the-scenes features is that some of the magic of the show is lost. We’re peeling back the red curtain here, and seeing how the sausage is made. The otherworldly nature of Twin Peaks drops away as we see numerous crew members making everything come together. In one amusing moment, we see Lynch and company watching a clip from the original Twin Peaks on YouTube so they can match a shot up to a new scene

In A Very Lovely Dream: One Week in Twin Peaks

Filmmaker Charles DeLauzirika put together this on-location feature that goes behind the scenes. Not much of the material here is very comprehensive, but it does provide a fly-on-the-wall look at the production, including actors discussing how strange it was to step back into roles they hadn’t played in more than two decades. The best moments come when we get to watch Lynch direct – almost always through a megaphone. If you’re looking for a bit more, however, this isn’t the feature for you. Instead, you should move quickly to IMPRESSIONS: A Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks.

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IMPRESSIONS: A Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks

Without question, the best features on the new Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series Blu-ray release are the series of behind-the-scenes films bundled together as IMPRESSIONS: A Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks. Longtime Lynch documentarian and friend Jason S. shot these 10 revealing, fascinating films (each runs about 30 minutes), covering almost the entire filming schedule of the new series.

Once again, we have Lynch constantly smoking his American Spirit cigarettes, but these features are much more in-depth than Behind the Red Curtain and I Had Bad Milk in Dehradun. We get to watch as Lynch and his crew come up with character names on the fly, and cracking up when he thinks up silly-sounding names. This feature also reveals how hands-on Lynch is: at one point, we see him sculpting one of the show’s props himself – a spout made of styrofoam that will eventually serve as the giant teapot-like contraption that took the place of the dearly departed David Bowie.

Again, the best moments are those when we get to watch Lynch direct, like a sequence where he chats with Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern in a motel room set. Lynch has nicknames for all his actors, and it’s charming to listen to him refer to Dern as “Tidbit” and MacLachlan as “Kale.” Later, he has to talk Dern into letting makeup artists cover her face in bread dough. After the scene is complete, Dern gets payback by applying the same dough to Lynch’s face. It’s a charming, funny glimpse into the carefree, friendly atmosphere prevalent on Lynch’s sets. “I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for David,” MacLachlan said once. “He pretty much brought me up in the film world and spoiled me; we’ve all spoken about how the set is, he creates the environment and the joyfulness and the creativity. I’ve been spoiled forever working with David.” The footage here is proof positive of that statement.

Still, there are moments where Lynch can lose his temper. In one sequence, not filmed on set but rather in a meeting with his crew, Lynch gets frustrated when he’s told that they’ll only be able to film in one location for two days. The filmmaker grows apoplectic at this time constraint, shouting, “Why do I only have two fucking days?” and complaining that given the chance, he could spend “weeks” on certain sets “dreaming up new ideas.”

The only negative thing I’ll say about this feature: the footage is (sporadically) narrated by Josef Maria Schäfers, in what I presume is an attempt to mock (or perhaps pay loving tribute to) the existential narration that filmmaker Werner Herzog usually gives his documentaries. The narration here is unnecessary and distracting and grows truly tiresome after a while.

Goodbye, Margaret

Other features on the Blu-ray include a series of David Lynch produced promos for the series. Lynch managed to avoid having to cut a proper trailer for the Showtime revival, and instead put together these abstract clips that teased the tone without giving anything away. Also included is a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, a series of alternating versions of the Rancho Rosa production logo that started each episode, and the full San Diego Comic-Con 2017 Twin Peaks Panel, which you can watch in full above.

As a whole, the Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series Blu-ray is a must-own for any David Lynch or Twin Peaks fan. There’s a wealth of material here beyond the series itself, but best of all is the opportunity to watch the episodes back-to-back, and watch as the create an elaborate, hypnotic saga the likes of which we’ll never see again.

Full list of special features:

BLU-RAY AND DVD:

IMPRESSIONS: A Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks

Phenomenon

Rancho Rosa Logos (2:25)

San Diego Comic-Con 2017 Twin Peaks Panel (61:26)

David Lynch Produced Promos

The Man with the Grey Elevated Hair (29:40)

Tell it Martin (29:08)

Two Blue Balls (24:14)

The Number of Completion (29:17)

Bad Binoculars (28:08)

See You on the Other Side Dear Friend (30:00)

Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers (26:44)

A Bloody Finger in Your Mouth (26:49)

The Polish Accountant (28:05)

A Pot of Boiling Oil (38:32)

Part 1: Creation (4:40)

Part 2: Life After Death (4:50)

Part 3: Renaissance (4:50)

Behind-the-scenes Photo Gallery

Piano (1:02)

Donut (:32)

Woods (:32)

People (:32)

Places (:32)

Albert (1:02)

In – cinema (1:32)

BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE:

A Very Lovely Dream: One Week in Twin Peaks (27:09)

Behind the Red Curtain (29:17)

I Had Bad Milk in Dehradun (28:11)

Link (TP)

#Twin Peaks #David Lynch #Mark Frost #Kyle MacLachlan #SlashFilm #bluray

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whenislunch · 6 years

Video

This summer I saw my favorite artist perform live on an island off of Manhattan that used to serve as a jail/mental health institution.

When Frank Ocean came out with his screen grabbed text file posted as a “photo” on Tumblr in 2012, I knew the platform was something special - the one niche he could safely post something so revealing and vulnerable and still not open himself to the direct hate-filled or homophobic comments of any other forum. I had signed up for Tumblr the year prior. I joined with the fantasy of becoming a famous food blogger (and later as a nail artist) so I could quit my publicity job and score all of the PR perks that I so readily dished out to any 'mommy' with a touch of digital pretense.

Personal space on the vast internet was never my craving. I resisted being too present, and enjoyed the ability to control how much I “put myself out there” on facebook, twitter, and later Instagram. With my original two tumblrs, like Frank, I could focus on sharing and following the things I cared the most about: in early cases, it was fan art of Bill Murray, gifs of Daft Punk, and mostly photos of food I had eaten from the everyday life of a new New Yorker discovering the cult nature of the restaurant scene (a similar practice to my behavior as a teen taking shitty photos at punk shows in St Pete, Florida to pin on my bedroom wall). Tumblr became my collection of “curated cool," and nobody cared how hard I was trying or what I put up there, except for me, and it became my favorite place on the internet. Eventually, I realized all of the writers I was admiring on The Awl were including their Tumblrs in their bios, and I was there to follow them. I saw Rebecca Black become a meme before her one-hit would become a wedding band wonder. If sitting at the open kitchen counter at an edison bulb-lit restaurant was the closest you could get to a food industry version of “backstage”, then a Tumblr dashboard filled with all of the blogging generation of the “fake news media” was the analogy. It’s human nature to want to be seen and understood. Selfies perform better than friendies on Instagram - and GPOY’s on Tumblr… well I challenge anybody on music.ly to define the acronym without that peeking at the Childish Gambino Genius page first.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg for where I stand with Tumblr now. After three years of hanging out in the same field, they invited me to meet them at the dugout. After four months of interviewing and pitching challenges and pretending like I was at a digital optimization workshop, I was offered a job. After five years, or nearly, I’m ready for another one. I had the BEST time and the BEST TEAM working at Tumblr. Sentiment is incalculable, and being the Comms professionals that we are, we can swear to the moon that the effect of press results on a brand is unquantifiable when one piece can qualitatively alter the nature of the public’s perception versus the reality of a goal. And I had the the immeasurable luxury to be surrounded by the smartest, most creative, intensely productive, and to borrow a food world phrase - hardiest colleagues in the history of the internet.

My first day at Tumblr also belonged to six others - together we endured a questionable onboarding interaction and then were sent with laptops and branded hoodies to our respective seats at our superdesks on various floors. There were dogs everywhere. I was told that I’d be introduced to the company on Friday and to submit two truths and a lie to help them get to know me. Here they are:

I have photo credits in the New York Times and New York Magazine

I appeared as a backup dancer in a rap video in high school

I watercolor paintings of crustaceans as a hobby

Leave your guess in the comments (oh wait, it’s Tumblr, you can’t).

Friday lunches were my lifeblood for a couple of months. Every week for at least seven thereafter unloaded a new set of amazing humans to be introduced in some absurd way by Sean from recruiting. I remember @sexpigeon vs Homer’s owner in game of pictionary, Johnny and Jake quickly competing for my heart as #1 engineer dudes, and of course, the instant classic game of Mark Coatney/ Marc Cote/ Marked Coat. Tumblr ramped up fast thanks to Lee, a fundraising series and at the tireless behest of my personal champion, Lindsey Dole.

Meanwhile, more magic was brewing in the cauldron. I heard @amandalynferri talking about some game she invented called Pretty Little Lasagna box, or I heard Maddie recalling the time she had her palm read in 14th street psychic's booth seeking refuge from a snowstorm, or @lexkap who sat on the other side of the building with a dog on her lap DM’d me on hip chat to show me her own nail art blog. Then a few of us won a chance to see a sneak preview of a new arthouse film by Harmony Korine and featuring an ensemble cast of former Disney talent that had been filmed in my hometown with a y2k airbrushed aesthetic - there was something innately emotional tied to each of us with this first viewing of Spring Breakers. When we left the midtown theater alongside the ATL Twins, I realized that this company had curated a community to match the intended behavior of its user base. We all connected on a level beyond any workplace I had experienced before.

And there was the professional side to the job - the work wins came quick because I was so lucky to sit under leaders who wanted the team to succeed. Rick Webb and Katherine encouraged me to dig in, and get deep with these shiny new toys called “evangelists” - Valentine, Nate, Liba, Annie, Max, Rachel, Jen, and briefly DCH. An enviable group of brilliant minds and creative energy who have all gone on to accomplish even more for their respective industries than a marketing budget at a start up could have enabled - and I had the pleasure to help share their Tumblr stories with the world - from a puppy bowl to annual southby's to groundbreaking art auctions to thirteen fucking fashion weeks to 35+ art and music shows (brrr)?

And then Tumblr got acquired and the Jenna Wortham turned the New York Times blue, and I got to do something I’m sure will never happen again in my entire career: I threw a party where the goody bag included a free tattoo, and multiple brave souls got them (Tyler, @bryanasortino, Megan & Johnny, among others).

And then Karen (aka #takingitallin aka @beautifulliving) joined, and me and Katherine gained a new teammate at the same time that I gained a new soul sister (and because of her self-described passion for advertising I never had to write an announcement about a new ad product ever again.) I’ve never been more challenged to succeed as I have over the three years I sat next to Karen - a generous and driven woman with endless dreams of supporting others (literally, ask her about the gap in the undergarment sector), who will always find a spot to squeeze me into a photobooth. Even at her wedding.

And lucky us, because then we invited @lilders into the #teamcomms fold and wow, wow, wow was life good. It was my honor working with Lily as she grew from FIT intern into somebody we should all aspire to work for someday.

Which leads to me to the poker faced improv master of all - Katherine. Allora @alittlespace! I am so lucky she believed that this girl who came into talk about a hypothetical strategy to get Eleven Madison Park on Tumblr and then pitched her a fantasy football launch party hosted by Nick Kroll and Mark Duplass could fit in and have the privilege to join the Tumblr Communications team. KB - I’ve already written you the dopiest thank you letter and shared my orchid growing miracle secrets - but it can’t be said enough - I am so grateful to have worked for you for all of these years. You are the best boss, and we will always be the #bestteam.

Because of Tumblr (and @david), I had the pleasure of working with so many additional incomparable people on projects outside of my designated Marketing Comms position, wearing more hats than we even produced for branded activation swag:

Designing and contenting for months with the relaunch of the precious Staff blog with David, Peter, Damien, Tag, Toph, among others

Setting the inaugural year in review with Danielle, Amanda, Christine loose (and then doing it again and again and again, with the wonderful team at DKC - especially that time we added a serving Kale to America’s breakfast.

Marathoning dozens of events with amazing producers like Julia, Suzanne and Magic - and encountering the native talent that thrives on Tumblr like Humans of New York, Chloe Wise, Sam Cannon, Johnny McLaughlin, Jillian Mercado, to a point where I can honestly say “I knew them when.”

Participating in the first ever Sales Offsite aka the greatest bar mitzvah ever thrown by Lee Brown, Dan Walsh and Sarah Won and the rest of the coolest sales team ever assembled (here’s to you @katemaxx, @jeffdtaylor, Meredith, Ari, Kira, and so many more)

Reaching back into my fashion bag of tricks and launching three different clothing lines.

Creating partnerships to show off super surprises at nerd parties at Comic Con and another breaking the internet for Art Basel

Interviewing the CEO of Shake Shack for the one-time-only live episode of “5 with a side of fries" in front of the whole company.

Urgently dealing with Legal, Ads, Trust and Safety on one of the definitive news story of a generation after nine months of back channeling and reporting.

DOING IT FOR THE CULTURE: Racing with the content and analytics teams for stats on the contentious day of #thedress, and then bling rings, witches, boneghazi, superwholockians, wholesome memes, studyblr, emojis, and of course, the toe thing! Thus redefining what it means to “go viral.”

Cleaned a ball pit for the dude from the 1975 to make a splash into them and trolled a legacy music publication

And wow - it took me this long to mention Post It Forward…I am so proud of everyone who helped make Tumblr the most empathetic community on the internet: Nicole Blumenfeld, Jeff D’Onofrio, @skiphursh “Dolphin", @dougrichard, Andy Sebela, Jess Frank, Sarah Won @swon, @pauwow, the brilliant and diligent Michelle Johnson. From building the blog, commissioning the art, recruiting and onboarding the partners, writing the endless number of give/gets, planning the sponsored posts and social content, running the day to day on the blog (and bequeathing that role to Lily), then doing it again with the Mental Health Quilt and IRL with the Post It Forward Summit - I’ve found my new track as a special projects person who can take on any issue, even suicidal teens. If this is my legacy, I’ve planted seeds in the garden I might never see. And special thanks to Victoria, who allowed me to speak at Obama’s White House about why kids need a place on the internet that can help heal - so long as they can find each other.

As it turns out, adults need that, too. From tailing Frank Ocean’s Ferrari to the most woke, mentally aware community and on to, thank god, a bonafide company to match - I will forever cherish my time at Tumblr and I’ll forever been asking #whenislunch. But from every tomorrow on, it will be somewhere else. And you can find me on the internet!

Here’s my LinkedIn, I’m looking.

#bye tumblr #good luck david karp #this is my job #this is my life #memes #tumblr hq #tumblr staff

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khalix-hyetology · 7 years

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Belief systems in The Testament of New Ezekiel and Temple Gate

I wanted to analyse some of the belief systems in Temple Gate, particularly The Testament of New Ezekiel. This does not exclude Val’s beliefs as their narrative is entwined with what made the Heretics. The Gospels of Knoth are a tricky business because they follow Christian imagery and certain Abrahamic formats, however, they are pretty disingenuous in many ways with Christianity and other Abrahamic formats.

This is evidenced by some of the imagery present and the words used. In fact, I think some Youtuber and Tumblr users specifically pointed out that gospels used the words “cunt” too much than actually proper sentences/words. Seeing “cunt” is a slang we can definitely see how this is a cultish text far removed from usual religious language, motifs, lexicon and imagery. Similarly, a point I wanted to mention and adjoin from the beginning is the phrase “breach hell’s cunt” is similar to Outlast’s “spirit breach.” I mentioned this before on another post. We can definitely see the use of semantics, contexts and lexicon favours a Murkoff setting and ambience rather than a traditional or even free-thinking Christian setting.

This post is long and I want to try to understand the Gospels of Knoth; so bear with me pals. We don’t get the gospels in chronological order, there are 15, so I tried to place some things chronologically. In conjunction, I want to include Val’s journals and such as Val, like Marta, is an indispensable figure in understanding Knoth’s gospels and also The Testament of New Ezekiel.

In the very first Gospel of Knoth there are these lines:

“6.For the seed of Prophet shall root the Enemy, that the Prophet may strike down with furious vengeance the bastard of lies begot in his own sin cleansed by his own blood, spilled of his own issue.” Knoth 1:6

Basically, Knoth is supposed to be the father of the Antichrist of Temple Gate. Though, definitely, the entire story is contradicted by Lynn being the mother. Lynn hasn’t slept with Blake in months. Unless, Knoth did something Lynn can’t be pregnant. Also, Blake is called “The Spiller of foul seed”, “rut-mate” to the “devil’s whore” and “The father.” Basically, the belief system definitely has literal problems rather than semantic ones.

Also, Knoth is “elected” prophet by “the blood wept in revelation” (1:2) which is completely strange and is not there in Christian Faith or Abrahamic tenets. Furthermore:

“4. O. Zion, Zion, thou that stonest the prophets sent unto you so that your house is desolate and the blood of your ill-got children is sprinkled upon the earth to feed the wheat that fattens your brood for slaughter. 5. For all flesh is grass to fatten the sacrificial ox or sacrilegious calf, O Ba’al, O El, O Guaglana, O Moloch, but grass left to wither and fertilised with blood will to seed and spread.” Knoth 1: 4&5

Well, you can see basically infanticide is stated in the very first gospel. And now we can understand why Blake coming to Temple Gate meeting the shadows heard them speak “All flesh is grass to fatten oxen. Sacrifice. Sacrifice.” by one guy and then Corgan, the guy who says “I’ll bleed you in the yard”, goes like “Consume the flesh, spice it well, burn the bones.” It is like they are performing a cycle of killing and infanticide to please their “god.” Additionally, the carrion of animals is considered to be food for “the wheat” as well, making them kill anything, after the tribulations to the end of days start. Marta herself talks about this, I believe, as “the saviour’s wedding supper.” which would be filled with “flayed carrion” and rotten women.

Knoth’s second gospel is pretty much reiterating this message. It talks about the holy mission of killing the antichrist as important. That any other understanding is antithetical to this mission on the grounds that “the line of Adam corrupted beyond salvation by the line of Cain” (2:3) which is also antithetical to regular Christian practices and also Abrahamic tenets. It talks about not being overwhelmed by lust and to be ready for the antichrist who is also described as such: “defend His Heaven by the spilling of the heart’s blood of the spider-eyed lamb, The Enemy, the unborn prince of lies.” (2:6) Reiterating that the people of Temple Gate are good stating: “ye holy, for I am holy.” (2:7).

The Third chapter is actually about Sullivan Knoth’s awakening. Basically, he was, as Outlast wiki also states, 34 years old and in debt and residing in Albuquerque. Knoth was apparently a shoe salesman when he started hearing the voices. However, these things also happened to him:

“13. And I silenced the voice and looked, and beheld unseen a great fire enfolding itself in the brightness of the rising sun, and out of the midst thereof a color out of space; 14. And my frenzied eyes cast back in unworthy gulfs of darkness, away from knowledge unbearable to man, and noise of the fury of the Lord came upon me; 15. And my ears bled as the member of a child at circumcision, and the Lord made known by this our covenant is made which ye shall keep. 16. He that hears where words cannot be spoke shall abide until time is no more, and the Enemy born of thine own issue shall be thy charge for my vengeance.” Knoth 3: 13,14,15 & 16

Sound familiar? It should. The light and the noise part, as gamers we experience as Blake. The rising sun cloaked with an obscure light, well, Blake faces that in the end and is swept away in some place. That is probably Murkoff’s way of indoctrination and showing levels of indoctrination. The Third gospel pretty much explains levels of indoctrination by Murkoff’s Towers. However, we can only piece this by the end as things happen gradually to our protagonist Blake.

The fourth gospel pretty much commands Knoth to do his duties. One particular paragraph:

“6. Turn ye from your evil ways, turn ye from your unsired rutting, take not pleasure in women unmarked by their natural blood covenant with the Lord. but fuck and multiply as the act was designed by the Lord.” Knoth 4:6

The language is coarse. It is also misogynistic. It talks about not sleeping with women, I understand, who don’t wish to conceive as that is “natural blood covenant.” These articles are also pretty isolationist. In the second chapter of Knoth’s gospels there is also that instruction of always being ready to holy purpose and never to stray away from it in idle conversations with family and such. Pretty much building an environment where infanticide and other violations can occur.

This is also reiterated in the school’s lesson plan in which the aim is stated “The children should fear their duty but celebrate it as a guaranteed entrance to Heaven”: obviously, this is how cults operate. The indoctrination is repeated with the bold title of “ENEMY: Your fear is a tool of The Enemy. God knows best.” Basically, also saying that their lives belong to papa and also “god”, is pretty much like cultist behaviour. Infanticide is a sin in Abrahamic tenets. One statement in the school lesson that completely erases Christian beliefs and Abrahamic tenets is this line: “Abrahamic killed Isaac in his heart.” This solidifies that abandonment by their parents and also by everyone is a religious cause whereas nowhere in Christianity or Abrahamic principles is this stated. It is obviously a belief system that evolved from being indoctrinated by Murkoff;s Towers.

Knoth’s fifth gospel follows on talking about their awakening. The light that he sees is:

“1. And I looked, and a gyre unwound from the night, a fire turned inward, burning from all directions towards the center, and drew the light from the walls of my room so that I hung in a void that shone in rainbows like oil upon a black mirror.” Knoth 5:1

I do like the metaphors in this one so kudos to the creative team. However, if you see the imagery and read the metaphors you will see that some of this imagery is inconsistent with what we define as “light.” It feels almost like a dark mass, almost Walrider like in nature (which Outlast wiki says the developers called “Nano Cloud”). It gives the players some interesting food for thought on what could have actually emerged and what was Knoth seeing. It continues towards the end with a long list of descriptions which I include to emphasize the “Nano” phenomenon:

“5. And their faces were innumerable and joined to one another, a thousand eyes and everything a mouth, with wings and jaws inseparable even in sight, and the purpose of the eyes and the purpose of the jaws was both for a more perfect consumption. 6. Thus were their faces, and in the next moment, they were the bones of the Four Horses of the Apocalypse and the bones of the Horsemen, too. 7. And in the moment that followed their faces were the sex organs of angels, and in the moment that followed a bonfire of flame with voices singing in beauty to rend the mind, and in the moment that followed a reflection in silvered glass. 8. For their faces were all of these things at once, and their wings were joined one to another and as they flapped woke to arrest time and I could not take air into my body.” Knoth 5: 5,6,7&8

As we can see this is where the idea of consumption of flesh and all of that figures so powerfully in Temple Gate. Basically, this is also why everything felt like an inevitable dream but as stated “not mine.” which is effaced on the Temple Gate town plaque. This is why Laird also believes that the Scalled Messiah will come down in locust wings. Furthermore, this is why Val commented how this all seemed like a message but nothing holy. This could also be why the letter from the cultist Lisa talks about thousands of cocks raping the earth. Abrahamic beliefs don’t necessarily have gendered angels so what sex organs did Knoth see is questionable and brings back the nano Cloud of Outlast. This entire thing also reminds me of Loutermilch demon being a mutilated, mutated demon chasing Blake in another dimension. It brings back the Outlast concept of Lucid Dreamers as well who are heavily affected by the Morphogenic Engine.

The description of the images also happens in Knoth’s sixth gospel. The wheels of Ezekiel becomes reference because the voice(s) pretty much tells Knoth about Ezekiel. Also, there are creatures upon wheels which Knoth sees. However, this part got me:

“6. The rings of the wheels were dreadful, and full of eyes round about them four, thousands of eyes and none of them human, but black and intelligent and shining like the eyes of beasts ready for slaughter. 7. And where the unfaced creatures looked, the eyes of the rings focused, for the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels, and the spirit of the wheels was in the creature.” Knoth 6:6&7

The eyes were not human and they were black. The wheels were moving and they seem the creature and the wheels were one. A reading of the Walrider in the Outlast wiki pretty much surmises that the nano cloud phenomenon of the Walrider is pretty much something that moves around and can dissipate. Thus, this imagery feels pretty much allusions to a creature like a Walrider in my opinion.

The seventh gospel is amusing at the end because it completely states something that goes against what it has been saying. What Knoth talks about and the indoctrination that is concomitant with what Variants say in Mount Massive:

“2. And the spirit entered the cunt of my mind and made seed there, and I became as the chorus of screams in the movement of the wheels.” Knoth 7:2

This is interesting that Knoth would call his mind a “cunt” as well and almost like Val he is talking about “a membrane seeking penetration” (Val 4) Also he was hearing voices and seeing things that is correlated to patients at Mount Massive.

What is amusing are these lines that come after:

“7. For if you worship Me but partway you are as the parent who cuts away the limbs of his child to better love what remains. 8. And that child will die and I will hate thee as a killer of little children.” Knoth 7: 7&8

For a cult, that rejoices in the “ecstasy of the lord” by blatant infanticide, murder, mutilation and rape I find that to be ironic. However, it seems that children already grown cannot be mutilated. Which could make sense seeing they may already be nullified as the probable antichrist. So, that can be another belief in Temple Gate.

The eighth and ninth gospels deal with the formation of Temple Gate. The lines that interested me the most is “you have not cut away thine eye, but the scale you took for an eye, and now you may see.” (8:7) and “lord spilled such vision into my split and bleeding orb, as man issuing seed into the split sex of a blossomed woman.” (9:9) The fact he would sexual scenes is pretty much now kind of staple. At the same time in the ninth chapter he stated:

“1.And the hand of the Lord took me by the roots of my innards and put a hook in my jaw and lifted me away from the bones of the dead Zion and shit of Publican swine. 2. And in the murk of outer dark I became as a cloud that covers the land and saw many things:” Knoth 9:1&2

Knoth is talking imagery similar to the Walrider again. Of being possessed by a demonic like entity. However, it does end with him thinking of the formation of Temple Gate.

The tenth gospel is interesting because it talks about cases involving women and Knoth’s somewhat “celibate” or unmarried life. Basically, they were pursued by authorities, after all their hideout in Lydia Deagan’s ranch was ruined, if we remember Knoth’s backstory that is online. Basically Knoth took on anyone in his cult:

“4. The Lord gave to Ezekiel more wives than brothers, though I turned away none; neither thief, whore, rapist, addict, murderer, pedophile, cripple.” Knoth 10: 4

I don’t know if “wives” meant that Knoth had numerous wives or basically if he meant he was sleeping with people and that meant they became his wives. Though the women part and the proclivity towards incest is later on stated. Basically, Knoth asked what he can do about getting the temptations to have many wives. Then this was told:

“6. It is simply commanded that you take no woman as rival to her sister, do not uncover ones nakedness while the other is alive. 7. Nor take your daughter as rivals to their mothers before their blood or while the elder is alive. 8. And of your wives and daughters you will have your greatest warriors, in wimples with weapons that censer. 9. And it shall be yours to multiply, to make children upon a legion of women, and children upon those children, and upon those children, until your line is a nation. 10. For from your nation the Enemy shall emerge.” Knoth 10:6,7,8,9&10, my highlights.

I highlighted the parts where incest is addressed as lawful in The Testament of New Ezekiel. Incest is outlawed in Abrahamic tenets and Christian Faith. Knoth practices sexual practices with every women who are even wives of other people. As one cult member I heard say in the barn, after we pass the first cornfield, talking about parentage of children: “I knew you was mine even if Papa furrowed your mama.” Basically, this is completely against anything Abrahamic but Knoth is told by the voice to do so. So, Murkoff wanted incest and this sort of sexual practices to happen. Perhaps, as I mentioned before, to allow the “ecstatic rage” and “proximity to death” as Rudolph Wernicke once stated. In fact:

“2. And I gathered my disciples, from the land of Al-Barquq, and the town of Holy Faith, and from the impotent apocalyptans in Los Alamos.” Knoth 10:2

Los Alamos is where Wernicke’s exit interview occurred in the 60s I believe around the time Knoth was also leaving. If you think about it, this converges aspects of Outlast and Outlast 2.

The eleventh gospel begins with another imagery. Though, it is of the antichrist:

“1.The fruit of destruction shall ripen within the foul womb of the martyred mother, the spider eyed lamb shall bring judgment of the lesser whore onto even the great whore who sitteth upon many waters.” Knoth 11:1

Basically, this could be the reason Marta calls Blake “the spider-eyed lamb” as Lynn is the “martyred mother.” Whoever brings the person who is supposed to bear the antichrist becomes the spider-eyed lamb. This could be anyone who is connected to the martyred mother. Lesser whores and greater whores: reminds me of Val personally.

The gospel keeps on going on how there will be people who will have “strong delusions” but these are all lies. And, those who do fall for them will be damned. This is somewhat like Abrahamic tenets but also completely perverted. The “delusions” that the cultists face are all for the towers. They may be “lies” or gateways that don’t matter to our own dimension but they can be dangerous so the cultists wanting to discuss them as Val stated was considerably smart thinking. Another perversion:

“9. For God has said the flesh of beast is yours only in sacrifice to me, even unto the flesh of your offspring.” Knoth 11:9

Of course, infanticide cannot be compared to making meat religiously edible. Thus this is total corruption of Christianity and of Abrahamic principles.

Chapter twelve talks about the coming of the antichrist but it is completely replete in pretty chaotic imagery and also contradictions. Saying to “harden thy hearts and thy hands, and sharpen thine blades” (12:2) so that they can finish the “bloody work”. What is disturbing is this is mentioned:

“4. Fear not the dreams that walk outside sleep, that by which ye shall be imprisoned and tortured; that shall dredge from the prisons of thy memory of your unrepentant sins... 7. And the air shall be as thick with locusts as will choke thy breath. 8. And ye shall be ravaged with boils and sickness; your body a temple and city to pestilence, and thy sex will wither and rot as flesh for carrion bird.” Knoth 12: 4, 7&8

Some of those things did happen for the radio signals of The Towers and the syphilis. It seems Murkoff had some way planned this or hypothesized, as the Old Traveler document showed, that the parallax and the feedback loop would definitely augment homicidal, hypersexual and chaotic thoughts.

The contradiction is “for all things must die when God finds no perfection even in his own perfection.” (12:10) This goes against Abrahamic principles and pretty much shows that “god” can only be Murkoff getting rid of its Subjects and Projectors after their use has been done.

Chapter Thirteen talks about heretics coming about and also the “hated of God, shall commune with the Enemy, shall bathe in the seed of the spider-eyed lamb” (13:5): Which pretty much sounds like Val’s orgy. Though, because it was already determined by the Old Traveler that Jenny Roland and other scientists predictable lascivious and voracious sexual appetite for the feedback loop this can explained by that.

The 14th Chapter states some things that are clearly carried out in the context of the game showing that signals may have had some of this information:

“1. And in the moments before her birth the Antichrist shall wake, eve in in the womb, and her woe and misery will bleed and corrupt the earth.” Knoth 14:1

The antichrist is a female child and Lynn also thought she was having a girl. This is interesting, Perhaps, a patriarchal, incestuous cult would consider a woman to be the harbinger of destruction. I wonder if Val, to celebrate this occasion, also made breasts and a vagina on their body out of mud (this could also be them reclaiming their intersex origins or showing they are trans woman). Val also wore “crowns of the earth” as in crown of thorns on their head. Could be a desire to be enveloped by the antichrist. Thus Val seeking penetration by a female antichrist is both a non-gender normative imagery and also a queer one.

The gospel continues with some of the things that were already happening:

“6. And the angels shall be carrion birds, who feast upon the flesh of kings, the flesh of mothers, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and them that sit on them, the flesh of free men and slaves. 7. And if they feed on the flesh of that damned child, then heaven is yours. 8. But if the child draws breath; if the eyes of the antichrist are allowed to take in the light of the world, they shall swallow the light of the world. 9. Then death shall reign again, and the endless suffering shall reward those who revel in suffering, and endless regret shall torture the righteous in the immedicable regrets of sin and shame.” Knoth 14: 6, 7, 8 & 9

The game pretty much fulfills these prophecies probably because they were bound a bit to happen or theorised as such. There were already birds dying as Blake saw them around. Marta also talks about the lines about eating the flesh of kings and strong men. The unused dialogue that talked of Val’s death talked about them happy about going to a hell thus “revel in suffering.” In the end, the child is not completely real as Lynn says there’s nothing there. However, Blake sees the sun being swallowed up and is swallowed into the gateway with Jessica where she says she will never let him and go and knows he won’t let her go either. So, Blake could have succumbed completely into the alternate dimension made by the radio signals. Perhaps, that is what happened.

Personally, Blake’s own history coincides with the gospels. Loutermilch also thought of Jessica as a culpable figure though being obsessed with her like anything. If radio signals talk about antichrist as female and all of that there is a chance that the belief of such things is Blake’s indoctrination to the signal being passed onto Jessica. I still think The Towers may create demons that walk out of dreams to also torture and get rid of possible “variants” outside the engine. Blake still could have become a lucid dreamer. The thing is the heretics and cultists are still pretty much bound by these visions and gospels which are all courtesy of Murkoff.

The fifteenth and last gospel is just an adherence to these gospels saying that they should be copied exactly and their lives should be lived righteously under Knoth as “ye shall climb the tree of life or be crucified upon it.” (15:7)

Already, we can see detractions from that. Either the radio signals are getting choppy after the storm or people are losing it. The New Gospels for instance are a sign of such a detraction. The new Gospels talk about Val and includes Val’s name into it, mixing it with the leader of the heretics and condemning them to damnation. The New Gospels Part 1 and 2 are a rewrite of the 11th gospel of Knoth.

There is also “Laird’s Gospel” or “Gospel of The Scalled Christ.” It is the gospel Blake picks up after escaping crucifixion and being buried alive. It seems Laird also fancied himself as a prophet or saint. Basically, there is also sexual imagery there which talks about Laird’s mind being too tight that the Lord’s penis would probably split it with the knowledge. I am not kidding you. That is exactly what is written there.

“17. And the Scalled Messiah shall rise from the grave, conquering sickness and conquering death, and those afflicted shall call him Immanuel. 18. And the Scalled Messiah shall say: this is my flesh, eat of it and be healed. Whoever eats of my flesh shall have eternal life. 19. And they shall proclaim the glory of Laird, who lead them to salvation.” The Gospel of the Scalled Christ 17,18 &19

It is completely obvious that Christian Faith or Abrahamic tenets do not speak of cannibalism. Laird got that on his own. ‘

In the midst of all of these things, Val ‘s journals are a secret. We know that paper is considered a luxurious commodity of Temple Gate. That only when copying the gospels they could be used or when some other instructed purpose. Val being a deacon has access to paper and is well educated. Their grammar, syntax and imagery is pretty salient and goes with the person they are. Val’s journals touch me at first as very emotional and moving. One can read them and realised they are looking at a person with a lot of emotional energy and intelligence, only they are becoming exhausted.

The first journal talks about having to take care of more children, seven to be exact. They are taking care of more than forty orphans.

“[W]ho love me desperately, as only can a child abandoned by the parents they thought were as natural and dependable a fact as the rising sun. And I love them. As I will never have children of my own, and have so much love to give. When God leaves them, too, I will be there with comforts and guidance.

What do these dreams mean?” Val 1

We can see already that Val is a kind and compassionate person. They are able to understand that what is happening to the children is unfair. However, Val’s journals also show the contradictions at Temple Fate. This first entry implies that either Val is infertile, told to be celibate or has been castrated. There has been no specifications about this. Was Knoth the only person who was able to have children? I don’t think so. So if Val is intersex it can be reason for them not being able to have children though if they were castrated it seems to go against Temple Gate’s understandings of birth and order.

The second journal is a horrific account of infanticide.

“ March 9

A quiet sky. Six more of my own children (though no blood of my own) met the blade this morning. I wept as at the slaughter of the issue of my own loins. I cut Marcus’ throat deep enough for the knife to scrape against spine, but still he was writhing on the pyre. And Papa smiled and sang about gathering at the river. All the voices of Temple Gate joined in chorus.

One one voice was absent, and conspicuously so.

God should have answered by now. Whether by words or action. God please give us an answer. Fulfill the promises of your prophet.

We have sent such oblations into the earth by blood and into the sky by flesh burnt to smoke that this continued silence is a message in itself. Do any love God as I do? As often as I do?” Val 2 (highlights my own).

This is a very graphic account of infanticide. Of actually feeling the pain of killing children. Val is wondering if “god” can love if “god” wants this. They have loved so much and yet they must do this. It feels barbaric and ruthless and completely inhuman. And, it is.

In fact, the killings always have been hard deaths. Val is not the only one who faced a child “writhing on the pyre.” When Blake crosses the first corn field and comes about the shed with the two cultists in them, one of them keeps on talking, the same one who says they knew the child was theirs if even Knoth slept with their wife says he can hear the voice of the girl he killed and tells her to tell God that he didn’t hurt her as much. The cultists says things like “Some cut too deep and got the windpipe and not the arteries. That makes a long time dying.” and “Laughing. Carrying on. Clear as a bell because I didn’t cut that windpipe.” These statements make me wonder if some of them try to sneak up on the kids and kill them so that they feel no pain or don’t want their children to look at them with questioning or accusatory looks.

Val’s third journal entry is also from March 9th. Though Knoth tells them that they will find the killed children in heaven; Val doesn’t really like any of this. This obviously starts making them go insane.

“But my dreams are nothing but the murder of my children. And I wake laughing, and aroused, and often wet with the involuntary lust of sleep.

I woke this morning thinking I was wetted with the blood of a child’s slit throat. But it was wetness of my own making.

The others are having similar dreams. We have dug a tunnel so that we may meet in secret. We gather and share our visions and wonder at their meaning,

I feel increasingly this is a message. But nothing holy.” Val 3

I think Blake and us gamers stumble upon the underground tunnel which is one of the first heretics caves we see and Blake thinks is a church or a heretic temple. It seems some people were obviously dumbstruck at what was happening at Temple Gate. Val, obviously, being one of them.

In June 17th, Val’s fourth journal entry, the penultimate one, it is short and full of aroused feelings and figuring out the voices are not God:

“Give me pleasure. Fuck me and cut my skin. Burn me and caress me. I am a membrane seeking penetration. Be aroused at my awe. Let my fear give you appetite. I love you, I love you, I love you. Tell me what you want. Tell me your name and I am yours.” Val 4

The fact Val wants to feel the voice with their fear obviously brings back the parameters of the Morphogenic Engine. The different names of the Walrider comes into mind. Val may be listening on a different frequency now. Could the Heretics be a lighter version of the Variants? In theory they have some similarities.

Val’s last journal entry is in June 19th. It is the 5th one before the letter telling Knoth “Come after us. Hunt us down. We are waiting and eager to murder and fuck every body you send up that mountain...My God is no god at all. But he is true...I do not ask you that you join us. I tell you: you will join us. Because our love is greater than you can ever imagine.” So. the last entry was telling val is “filled with sex and appetite” and tells the voice “You love me. I am yours.”

The image here that sticks out to me here is mountain. Even in Outlast wiki the Walrider is thus named also because it is a creature that lives up on Mountains. Mount Massive is built in a mountain thus it creates those connections. Val also has taken shelter in a mountain. The Walrider and mountain imagery seemed to collide. Thus another connection between the trilogy perhaps can be established.

We have seen Murkoff likes twisting religion, it likes brainwashing people using images and radio signals and that it likes to make base camps in mountains. The belief system of Temple Gate: The Testament of New Ezekiel, The Scalled and The Heretics are all groups that adhere in some way to the gospels of Knoth which are indoctrinated “planned” radio signals by Murkoff. It makes sense that these groups are obviously broke off from the same roots. Even though they borrow things from Christianity and Abrahamic tenets they are not really Christians nor of Abrahamic Faiths. They seem to have formed their new ideologies and Faiths based on also what Murkoff was encouraging them to do. It is interesting, however, to look at the subtle conjunctions between the games.

I wanna THANK EVERYONE who read this entire piece.

#Outlast #Outlast 2 #The Testament of New Ezekial #The Heretics #The Scalled #Lucid Dreamers #Walrider #Knoth #Marta #Val #Blake #meta #long post #long reads #this is a very long post alright #Thanks for reading everyone

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forestwater87 · 7 years

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CULT CAMP MASTERPOST PT 1: ATTACK OF THE GWENFACES

Okay, so who else is FREAKING THE FUCK OUT OVER THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 2?! I AM! And I have so much to share -- and by “so much” I mean screenshots and screaming!

I know not everyone’s seen it yet, so all screenshots are below the cut, but while I’m not gonna recap the plot or anything I’m going to be screaming about things related to the episode (a lot. Like a lot a lot), so there will be spoilers. Below. Just . . . you know, be warned.

First, have a precious sleeping nugget for all your Precious Sleeping Nugget needs. Also this appears to put to bed (ha, pun) my “this is a dildo” theory from the trailer. Seems to be a teddy log. That’s kinda a relief, to be honest.

Well okay, clearly the counselors share a bedroom. My fanfic is no longer canon-compliant and I’m not happy about it. Can we have a chat about Gwen’s calendar though? And David framing his “positivity” note, implying that after the first season he considers Max a success? Can we talk about how adorable that is for a few minutes?

HEY YOU GUYSSSSS know what’s the best thing about this episode? All of it. The musical number. But ALSO the most beautiful character in the entire world: Chipper Gwen!

SHE’S SO FUCKING HAPPY!

WHEN GWEN’S HAPPY ANGELS SING AND BLUEBIRDS FALL OUT OF THE SKY

(also David sleeps in his clothes and a nightcap and wakes up doing the shocker Campbell salute because he is a loser. Everyone laugh at him for being a loser, that adorable loser.)

Adorable. Loser.

(Seriously 90% of this is gonna be stills of David’s face. If you don’t want that now is the time to leave.)

(The other 10% is shipping. HE’S MAKING THAT FACE BECAUSE HE HOPES SHE WANTS TO STAY AT CAMP FOREVER AND HOW CUTE IS THAT IT’S ALL THE CUTE THAT’S THE ANSWER.)

Pretty sure this is the only time in the show so far that these two have been happy at the same time. It will likely be the last.

easing up on the caps to say let’s all appreciate this newspaper. that’s clever.

Gwen is bae. Look at this smooth motherfucker and tell me she isn’t adorable.

Me: kiss kiss kiss kisskisskiss

The show: *didn’t fucking do that. Probably a good call, really*

I recognize that there are fans of this show who don’t like Gwen, and I respect your opinion. I can see how her violence could be considered annoying, and maybe you don’t relate to her “nerdy fangirl on a rampage” thing. Maybe you think she’s too gloomy. Maybe you’re tired of that one obnoxious tumblr user who spams AO3 with shitty Gwenvid fics and the campcamp tag with her endless screenshot posts.

I get it, really. I’d just like to know: how does it feel being so wrong? does it hurt?

In case I didn’t make it abundantly clear, I’m screenshotting everything. All of the episode. It’s like watching it, but without the animation and clever writing and amazing voice acting.

Just, you know, me. Screaming.

(But lookit their faces. So cute!)

You know how David kept dropping Gwen the first episode? I’m just . . . gonna leave this here. Because she is David in these first few minutes and it is glorious.

I hope you’ve been enjoying the overwhelming adorableness that is Chipper Gwen! Because this is the last you’ll see of it until the very end of the episode.

Gwen doesn’t get to be happy, you see. Ever.

Luckily for us (well, for me) she has the best horrified faces. They’re even better than her happy faces. Join me on a journey through a thousand fabulous faces, won’t you?

What an expressive angel.

These are the people in charge. God save these counselors.

We’re gonna take a quick break from Gwen’s Parade of Faces to have some David pushing her over, because he’s a douchebag and we love him for it:

And with that last one we seamlessly shift back into why every face Gwen ever makes is so hilarious I want to tattoo it onto my forehead. Onward!

By the way, there are two Davids in this episode.

Gwen’s face is absolutely the correct response to two Davids.

I just want to hug her, because we’ve moved from “so adorable I wanna cry” to “still adorable, but she’s so traumatized and it hurts me.”

And so Gwen makes her escape, leaving behind only a series of beautiful, beautiful faces.

Seriously though, she’s an absolute delight this episode and I hope we get more of her. I don’t even need more Chipper Gwen, though I’d love it. Just . . . more. Her reactions are priceless.

You know what? We’re not even like halfway through (we might not even be a third; I have a lot of screenshots) and tumblr is freezing and just losing its fucking mind because there are too many pictures and too many feelings to be contained in one post. You know what that means?

I’ll see you in part 2, babes. If any of you are around for part 2, anyway. Get ready for more faces.

#campcamp #campcamp season 2 #cc david #cc gwen #gwenvid #campcamp masterpost #my stuff

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graytear-exchange · 7 years

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Fanfiction list, FFN and AO3

This is just a search of GrayTear filters on FFN and AO3, sorted by author. I haven’t gone through anything that was posted only on Tumblr. I haven’t read all of them, so in some cases it’s hard to tell if something is/is not actually gen. Obviously, not curated for quality or content.

01/04/2017

Kyogre (mod privilege is to be first and above the cut!)

Meeting Against Fate (Complete) By chance, Gray encounters Ultear while she is still on the Magic Council. Will their meeting change fate, or is it only starcrossed? (GrayTear, Gray and Erza friendship)

The Game (Complete) Gray and Ultear pretend to date. Also, hunt a secret cult. And also, politics. (GrayTear, post-Tenrou, slight AU)

Love, and Live On (gen, oneshot) Fairy Tail 476 oneshot. Ultear conveys one final message to Meldy and Gray - thank you, and goodbye.

Chance (oneshot) Prompt: Gray comes back to look for Ultear after he spotted her somewhere. (Adult canon ver.)

(the rest below)

myshippingdock

Brief Interludes (ongoing) Fleeting interludes between Gray and Ultear. set in canon. one-shots. two-shots. etc.

Gray and Ultear Vignettes (ongoing) It was incurable. He just got butterflies no matter what she did. The good kind and the bad kind and the every sort of thing in between kind. He got so many butterflies in his tummy from her, Gray thought he was going to explode and be sick someday. GrayTear. Shorter drabbles. AU or canon compliant.

The Pursuit Of You (oneshot) Modern AU University setting. Gray X Ultear.

He Cried (oneshot) He cried for her but he came to me. She vowed then to herself that she would fix him, for Ultear-san too. She would make Gray-sama want to live again and she would make sure to live for him so he would never have to cry again. Gray X Ultear and Gray X Juvia.

My Best Girl (oneshot) He placed a tender kiss on the top of her head. "I just couldn't leave my best girl." She smiled into his neck and snuggled closer, more than satisfied with his answer, a sweet permeating peace descending on her. She didn't think she deserved to be his best girl. But a dazed, happy fire warmed her down to the tip of her tingly toes that he did.

QuatroPuppy

Before Her Time Runs Out (going) Ultear always knew that her time was precious, and that has never been more apparent than when she happens to encounter a very confused, beaten and cursed Gray. The question is: will she use that time to admit her growing feelings for him or will her heart stay forever frozen? The only problem being that Gray's time - and hence Ultear's time is running out.

Her Pretty Smile

Evanescence (ongoing) {AU} She's a dark angel who takes souls out of dying people and collects their hearts. He's one of those certain people, but he begs her to let him live for forty-nine days so that he can fulfill his goal. She agrees, but only on the condition that she has to always be by his side. ["And so, the search for the killer now begins; who might it be?"] —GxU, LxJ

Demonwithasoul

Frozen hearts (ongoing) Both are Ice mages, both suffered tragic pasts. They have little in common but at the same time they are more alike than anyone else. Can they unfreeze each other's heart and finally attain the happiness that was taken from them?

Bound by Fate (ongoing, 243K??) During a mission, Lisanna is gravely hurt and to save her life Natsu does the only thing he can: he binds her life to his. What consequences will this bring to both of them? Lisanna x Natsu x Angel x Yukino / Ultear x Gray x Cana x Juvia / with slight crossover elements from Devil May Cry

Phenomiracle

Path to Redemption (ongoing) Ultear has been given a new leash on life. To protect and care for the one her mother sacrificed her life for. This story reenvisions the three months after Fairy Tail's return from Tenrou up to the start of the Grand Magic Games. GrayTear

Akiko_Natsuko

Gray x Ultear + 'Scars' (oneshot)

GrayTear + 'Time' (oneshot)

lady lutka

ultravice (oneshot) The immortality and immorality of Gray Fullbuster, infamous death demon and harbinger of a wicked vice. This is the story of a broken boy and how he was coaxed into the iron maiden-embrace of villainy. —gray&ultear /partner to ultraviolence/ ganglife!fic/ /modernAU/ (Note: ultraviolence is gr//uvia)

AYSHAS

The Tear Freezes (ongoing) Ul, had a tear. She name her Ultear. Ultear felt betrayed by the eye she fell from, after hearing the truth she changed her ways. Will the tear freeze once she gets close to ice-make user Gray Fullbuster? Also hints of Jerza :). GrayxUltear

TheDemonMirajane

I love you (oneshot) He has to say it five times before she believes it.

Fullbusterrulesmyheart

Smile hiding her tears (oneshot) She would hide her tears with a smile. UltearxGray.

Fire and Firefly (oneshot) He tried to convince her that they could be together and she did not need to suffer the pain of isolation alone, but she wanted him to be safe. Even if she just had to watch him from afar. GRAY X ULTEAR.

Thunder Explosion

One Last Sin (ongoing, gen) She saved his life even though he had ruined hers. Now she was knocking on deaths door because of it. He refused to let her go out like that. He will do whatever it takes to save her.

Daerunia

Arc of Night (oneshot, gen) And there, clinging to the warmth of her once-mother's hand and blinking snowflakes away with her teardrops, Ultear realized the weight of her sins. Thankfully, there are some nightmares that one can forget when dawn breaks. Takes place after Ultear's loss to Gray on Tenroujima.

Arc of Frost (oneshot, gen) Her nightmares became her waking horrors, ghosts and wisps of what she loved moved through the remnants of her life. A dying Ultear, living alone and with the regrets of her decision during the Dragon Festival, finds herself once again unable to tell falsehood from reality as she is visited by what feels like a ghost of the past that she aches for. Sequel to Arc of Night.

ScarredNotBroken

One Minute (oneshot, gen) Because he couldn't let her die before she knew just how much one minute could change everything. Spoilers for Ch. 335.

Guardian Angel (twoshot) Things once lost have a habit of returning in time - even if they may not return in the way one might want. GrayxUltear if you squint.

guitarstrings0187

One Last Minute (oneshot) Gray was supposed to die, but is suddenly alive and sees one minute into his future. He thinks that this was done by the woman that he loves, Ultear Milkovich. He rushes out in order to find her so that he can finally tell her how he feels before she dies. GrayxUltear

Dawnie'B

Hesitance (oneshot) The sound of the river was evident, creating a calm atmosphere for the two. They were both fully aware these moments would be sparse; Ultear's fugitive status meant they needed to be cautious. Ultear's relationship with Gray causes hesitance from her side. She counts up the factors and informs him, he counters each. Graytear. Set during the GMG arc.

whoeverIamloves

What Couldn't Have Been (oneshot, gen) A vignette of the moment in episode 200 or 201 where Gray realizes what happened during that battle.

RadioRegicide

Garden of Winter (Ongoing, gen) When a little girl stumbles out from a cluster of trees the world will suffer the consequences for her selfish choice because without the pebble there can be no ripples. With no ripples the waves that shape the future cannot come to be and leave only darkness. Fate is a scornful mistress and sometimes the absence of a lesser evil only serves to give way to a greater one.

Mnemosyne's Elegy

One Minute's Worth (oneshot, gen) Gray didn't recognize the little old lady on the side of the road at first, but when he did, he stopped the carriage. After all, Ultear shouldn't have to think that her life was only worth a single minute unless she knows how valuable that one minute really was.

Down in the Rose Garden (oneshot, gen) Perhaps Ultear still had a few lingering regrets or a moment of doubt and sadness every once in a while, but for the most part, she's settled into her new life quite happily. And then one day someone from her old life drops by unexpectedly for a visit.

The Ultimate Penguin

Ultear's Restart (ongoing, gen) When Ultear sacrifices her self to stop the Dragons she over powers the last ages spell and ends up in the past she now has a chance to go with her mother instead of joining grimor heart

SummerRain63

When Time Passes (oneshot) The hero of the nation has one last chance to save the world. When all that she had was ripped from her, she has to make one last sacrifice in order to ensure the worlds safety. (AU/Gray and Ultear)

#graytear #fanfic

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

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The Myspace-era bands keeping the internet's weirdest music genre alive

The internet can be a deeply unsettling place, especially when you stumble upon videos that you probably should've left alone. But, if you were like me in 2011, you sought out the weirdest of websites and the creepiest of pastas, then shared your intel with all your post-emo friends.

By 2016, I was surfing the internet for some quality spooky material during my college years when I stumbled across something called witch house.

SEE ALSO: Meet the man who makes music with vegetables

It was a musical genre most had pronounced dead — and yet was still surviving and thriving in the weirdest corners of the internet. Two major artists from the early days of witch house, known as White Ring and Ritualz, have been instrumental in helping keep the genre going.

"I really don't know if witch house was ever really alive honestly," Bryan Kurkimilis, one-third of White Ring admits. "It seems like it's always going to be in a perpetual adolescence when it came out 10 years ago, and it's kind of stuck there now."

Kurkimilis' White Ring started off back in 2006 as a duo featuring him and vocalist Kendra Malia. In 2011, the duo went on hiatus, and in 2016 Adina Viarengo joined the band to serve as the group's second vocalist. Now in 2018, with their debut album Gate of Grief finally complete, White Ring is back on track and very much determined to keep witch house relevant.

According to Vulture, witch house music was birthed during the late 2000s and early 2010s during the end of the Myspace era. But the genre's deep, dark electro-wave sound, and the occult imagery in its lyrics, fashion, and music videos have continued to draw fans in well past the genre's prime.

youtube

Early witch house artists typically produced spooky tracks that sampled from '90s and '00s horror films and hip-hop records. They layered these samples with heavy bass riffs, lots of synth, and sometimes vocals. Visually and aesthetically, people in the community reflected this dark music by incorporating magic symbols, upside down crosses, and pentagrams into all black hip-hop clothing.

Like many things created on the internet, witch house had a relatively short shelf life. The term itself appears to have come about in 2009. Travis Egedy (known as Pictureplane) used it in an interview to describe the music he and his friends were producing.

"Mark our words, 2010 will be straight up witchy," Egedy wrote in Pitchfork.

Travis Egedy in his warehouse/studio

Image: Denver Post via Getty Images

He wasn't wrong about 2010, but mainstream interest in witch house didn't last long. The genre tapered off in the early '10s when it was overshadowed by vaporwave, another internet-fueled genre of music.

"I think people are still looking and hoping for witch house bands that have gone away to find a way to come back," Adina Viarengo of White Ring said. "I feel like there's a really devoted base that wants more of this kind of stuff. There's a need for it right now."

The demand for this type of music is something that drives artists like JC Lobo of Ritualz to continue to producing tracks. He started his career on Myspace in late 2009 with just a computer, and to this day Lobo continues to make music that is influenced by this largely forgotten era of music. He released a Ritualz album titled Doom earlier this year.

"It's really different now because witch house isn't as visual anymore because everyone's been a part of the scene for a while," Lobo explained in a phone call. "But the music is different. It's definitely a lot more techno and ravey compared to its earlier hip-hop sound."

"I'm not really a part of the scene anymore," Lobo said. "But when I'm on tour, I play witch house songs and all of the kids from the community come out and listen along."

Lobo posing for the camera.

Image: Courtesy of JC Lobo / Taken by Francisco Mendez

"Witch house was innovative," Lobo said. "It was new and dark, which was really important because it had been a long time since that kind of music was appealing to a large audience."

What made witch house such a strange phenomenon was its purposeful obscurity. Witch house musicians hid. When I accidentally stumbled upon the genre after listening to a witch house remix of a Charli XCX song by BLVCK CEILING, I was happy to know there were a ton of artists and tracks out there — even if they were hiding their names behind band names made up of random symbols.

youtube

While BLVCK CEILING was my own personal introduction to the genre, other artists from the community have made their mark on the scene, some even as early as the Myspace era. A few notable artists from the community include GR†LLGR†LL (pronounced GrillGrill), oOoOO, and Salem.

Artist names featuring crosses and inscrutable symbols are typical. For someone outside of the scene, it's a challenge to find specific tracks or musicians. While Ritualz hid behind the logo "†‡†," White Ring had an all-white Myspace page that required the user to highlight the entire page to see text about new tracks and announcements.

"I always think of it as having a punk spirit where everything is always a 'fuck you,'" Kurkimilis said. "It's like I'm gonna release a song, but I'm gonna do it in this weird way."

Having an immortal punk spirit is obviously cool and all, but the people who helped cultivate it eventually moved onto other projects. While White Ring and Ritualz are the only major figures to release full albums in recent years, other notable artists in the community find interesting ways to stay relevant.

Image: Nigel Ryan / Courtesy of white ring

Take witch house rapper Gvcci Hvcci (pronounced Goo-chee Hoo-chee), who was a major figure back in 2011. As one of the very few prominent women producing witch house tracks, Gvcci amassed a cult following.

In 2012, a post on crvckhouse, a Tumblr page dedicated to promoting witch house artists, claimed that Gvcci Hvcci had passed away. Lobo, who was apparently the last person to collaborate with the rapper, was the first to speak about the news, and confirmed her "death."

"Shortly after our track came out, people kept asking me where she was," Lobo said. "I eventually just started to say 'she's dead' because I was friends with her producer who said she closed all of her accounts and was going to stop releasing tracks."

Prior to her "death," Kurkimilis says he actually had a brief interaction with the mysterious figure in 2011 over the phone. Around this time, rumors began to circulate that the pictures Gvcci Hvcci had used to promote herself were fake. Her entire identity was in question.

youtube

"I know for sure it's an actual girl," Kurkimilis claims. "She was not the girl in the photos, because a friend of hers showed me a real picture of her. I know she's a real person."

After seemingly catfishing everyone in the community, Gvcci Hvcci had made a name for herself. Her infamy would continue to grow after her supposed "death."

Just two short years later, to everyone's shock, Gvcci Hvcci released a track titled "Bullet in the Head." The witch house community went into a frenzy. The rapper, who was now revealed to be alive, took advantage of the cultural moment. As the lyrics go, Gvcci was officially "back from the dead."

youtube

Had Gvcci Hvcci really faked her own death for recognition? The answer is murky. Some community members aren't convinced that the Gvcci Hvcci who returned is the same artist from 2011.

"I just never denied anything and I was playing along with the myth of Gvcci Hvcci," Lobo admitted. "The producer found a different girl, or unreleased tracks, I'm not sure which. I didn't really keep up with the story but it's funny how people are still speculating years later."

These days Gvcci Hvcci is relatively silent. An unfinished track titled "ttryan" which was released in January of this year serves as her most recent published work on Soundcloud. When we approached her on Facebook for a statement, the anonymous rapper responded with: "Guess what? Chicken butt," and sent a link to her Go Fund Me page.

Gvcci Hvcci continuing to troll in 2018

Image: Mashable / Xavier Piedra

On the page, Gvcci Hvcci is asking for $2,500 to help produce and release her work-in-progress track, "Issa night." In the past six months, Gvcci Hvcci has raised $130 from three people of her $2,500. As of September 2018, there have been no updates on production of the new song.

Song titles hiding behind symbols and artists with mysterious personas are what makes witch house unique — and what's kept the genre fresh.

When musicians like Gvcci Hvcci fake their deaths, or when artists like White Ring return from a years-long hiatus, it helps revitalize the community. Like any dedicated fanbase, lovers of the niche genre get excited when they hear news about their favorite artists, good or bad.

Without witch house, we wouldn't have mainstream artists like Charli XCX, Chvrches, and Grimes, who've attributed parts of their style and sound to this genre of music.

"It’s hip-hop for goths," Charli said during an interview with Self-titled magazine in 2012. "I like the whole scene – the cult imagery, the upside down crosses. I love witch house."

Charli XCX during the early days of her career in 2013.

Image: Caitlin Mogridge / Getty Images

Despite its age, witch house still has a place within our culture. While the dark aesthetic and sound might not appeal to everyone, witch house continues to persist, especially on the internet. In fact, Lobo's a firm believer that witch house marks a major chapter in the history of internet culture and music.

"I think witch house has amazing value as being one of the first generations of music born from the internet," Lobo said. "Before then you didn't have any dark or ambient music, so it was a really good balance for internet music genres like chillwave and vaporwave that had mainstream appeal."

The sound itself has shifted a bit over the past ten years, and whether or not it's a positive change is up for debate. Shifting from its hip-hop-inspired sound, witch house has become more clubby and electronic than ever. Lobo attributes this change to the need for faster music that people can dance to.

"I wish it would go back a bit to the days of droning sounds and anonymous artists," Lobo said. "It seems like a lot of people are trying to make it about dancing, and I notice that's a big focus for producers. But the appeal at first was to listen to this weird and dark ambient noise."

But why should anyone listen to this music in 2018? "I think its good to have a balance in your life especially with music," Lobo explained. "Listening to different music will help you understand different people and communities, so it's important you give it a chance and try a bit of everything."

Image: Courtesy of Ritualz / Taken by Daniela Quant

Like any genre of music, witch house has cultivated a community of followers who are dedicated to their favorite artists. Specifically within the witch house Reddit community, the page stays somewhat active as new artists create and share new tracks, or when, for example, White Ring makes an unexpected return.

"Once a genre is created, it can never really go away," Viarengo said. "I know there are pockets of people all over the world who are into witch house that are going to continue experimenting with it."

Lobo agrees and believes that witch house's hip-hop and electronic roots will allow it to evolve alongside these genres.

"I don't think it will ever get stuck," Lobo said. "Hip-hop and electronic music has been changing over the past 30 years, and witch house's sound will continue to be influenced by those two styles of music. Audience-wise it might get stuck, but it can get bigger still, it just need some more time."

With White Ring and Ritualz at the recent forefront of the witch house movement, the community and genre are still in good hands. While I wait for more tracks to feed my goth fantasies, I'll be casting spells to Gate of Grief and Doom on repeat.

WATCH: We made that scene from 'The Shining' a lot less scary with bad foley

#_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_uuid:27f8414d-b812-3775-884b-9510965d9ccb #_author:Xavier Piedra #_revsp:news.mashable

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