just catney and pretty pc
One can see if im brainrotting about something new if i have reblogged multiple things about it in the span of a few minutes
(Hurt/Comfort, unspecified about what happened for the Hurt part, angst to comfort, soft and probably ooc ? Reca who is crazy but dead serious when something bothers his beloved (because people need to take those who need comfort seriously), have a 🍪 if you got the reference in the title)
Today had been a long day. It had been so long, and filled with unfortunate circumstances that you simply couldn't deal with it anymore.
When you came home, you flopped right into bed, and let tears fall freely. It had started off so well, why did it become like this?!
(Maybe your friend Chaikaew was right. Maybe you are bound to get both good and bad stuff during a day to balance it out. But, then again, she had a lot of sayings that barely made any sense whatsoever anyway.)
A ring interrupted your train of thought, and you reluctantly turned to grab your phone. What greeted you was a silly picture of your dear director (your lock screen) and a message from him, asking if you were still okay with tonight's schedule.
Shoot! You had forgotten that you planned a date tonight with the guy, and you had been looking forward to it all week!
You looked at yourself, and then back at the screen. You simply didn't have the energy for this, so you reluctantly told him that you didn't feel up to it because, well, you were too tired to do anything, and clicked send.
Now, you felt even worse.
As you layed down again, another ring interrupted you. Someone was calling. You decided to pick up, if just to make your phone shut up.
"Hello?"
The voice on the other side was unmistakable.
"I'm coming over."
"Wha- Reca, you know you don't have to-"
The line on the other side clicked dead. You tried calling him again, but to no avail.
A couple of minutes later, the eccentric man appeared on your doorstep, armed with your favourite beverage and casual wear. As you opened the door, he extended his arms and invited you in for a hug. As he closed the door, he rubbed your back, his warmth and care and obvious love showing, and the dam couldn't hold itself and broke. You sobbed in his arms as he gently shushed you, tracing circles on your back and kissing away your tears.
As you calmed down from crying and hiccuped, you looked at him.
"Do you want to talk about it?'' he asked gently.
You shook your head, ready to leave this day behind. He guided you on the couch and choose one of the many movies in his collection (that he allowed you to borrow). He selected one of your favourite comedies and inserted it in the player, before returning by your side and embracing you, encouraging you to cuddle him.
As you laid your head on his chest, you could hear his gentle heartbeat as the film started. His soft breaths and attentive rubs comforted you after this horrible, horrible day. For once, maybe everything will be fine as long as he was here.
(Yeah, maybe your data obsessed friend was right, after the storm there is always calm to be seen)
The Trailblazer is so so silly! I wonder what hijinks they'll get up to next!
The Trailblazer is a catalyst of destruction, every part of them screams out in pain as their body stabilizes the stellaron inside them yet they will never feel a moment of calm. 'course, they lie to March and Dan Heng so that they aren't concerned but Welt knows. he knows Trailblazer's pain.
they will continuously poison the worlds they go to through the fact that they truly are destruction incarnate, though they may hold the capability of all paths, they will always be destructive. they truly are alone in their pain, for no one could have predicted it.
they are faced with The Stellaron Hunters and have to wonder what their connection is to them because no information is in their brain, they were like a small, pitiful baby at the start of HSR but now hold three (3) paths. they recognize Blade, Kafka, and Silver Wolf but just barely, they are shadows of a haunted past in their mind.
The Trailblazer will suffer like this over and over until eventually their body gives out and they die, releasing the Stellaron which holds 7 paths inside it. technically, the stellaron in them is the only thing protecting them from becoming a lifeless husk, as they were a constructed body before modeled after someone the Hunters used to know.
they use humor as a coping mechanism because every day they get closer to their death date and then, when it happens, all around them will suffer. they cannot allow themself to get closer to others because what would happen? could they be infected and harmed, too? so many questions whirl around the trailblazer's brain, and even then, there's so little time and answers.
they are destined to die. with each day, the strands of life in their body break and strain. truly, their body is the form of one of the enigmata for it was a shell, forged together with new life.
The Trailblazer can't escape their fate. they do not want to hurt anyone else. they are sorry for the pain they have and will cause.
I love the Trailblazer!!! so silly!!!
Here's the thing. "Renheng but Blade is immortal and nothing goes wrong" goes totally against the themes set up in HSR. But it's so fucking funny.
So, Dan Feng loves Yingxing whatever. They decide to make Yingxing immortal together and then BAM no one finds out (so no big crime to be arrested for) but there's two ways to play it. Either they have to slowly gaslight everyone into believing YX was a long life species this whole time, or they have to somehow pretend this is not YX, this is some other 100% naturally immortal dude and Dan Feng just has the Most specific type ever, to the point that he basically got his exes twin but immortal with a cooler haircut.
And with the gaslighting idea - I think it could work. No one's gonna notice that YX isn't aging for at least a few years, probably more since everyone they know is long-life and they likely have a warped perception of how regular aging works. So DF & YX just gotta wait like 5-10 years, slowly dropping hints that "oh yeah can't wait till our 150th anniversary!!" And Jing Yuan is like "... Hmm is that normal? That's probably normal?".
Cos also. Who's gonna mention it? Like it's gonna take so long for anyone to notice, is Jingliu gonna eventually sit them down like "you did a big sin didn't you" and then YX and DF just play dumb: "what??? Jingliu what are you on about? Is Mara eating all your memories of YX definitely being immortal this whole time?" So that's not good for Jingliu's mental health but whatever.
Anyway so Dan Feng and Yingxing have successfully scammed everyone but DF is still definitely the High Elder and absolutely no one wants him to be dating this guy. Also the dragon heart is missing cos it's in YX's chest and surely the Preceptors would check up on that? Like a renewal service? Some sort of 200-year check-up? Does DF have to take his bf with him so the aura is nearby? It's just a game of "how dumb are these guys?" Until all those preceptors reincarnate into ones who DF can convince "oh no the High Elder is supposed to give the dragon heart to their beloved. Yeah it's a ritual. Oh the immortality uh no Yingxing had that forever obviously".
Eventually YX is gonna get stabbed and he's definitely more immortal than everyone else. More gaslighting ensues probably, cos otherwise it's like?? He's just an abundance monstrosity (Jingliu is seeing red rn) and Jing Yuan has sussed it out at this point but yknow he likes YX; he prefers him being alive than dead. Jingliu is gonna stab YX for being an undying monstrosity and JY steps in - "nooo don't you know I mean ig your parents never told you but if uhhhh you suck enough dragon dick this is totally normal -" and anyway Sanctus Medicus get a lil fetishy sex crazed from that conspiracy theory.
Then later DF has to be reborn which is sad, but I like to think YX just takes like. A gap year from their relationship. He's a divorced old man he deserves a mid life crisis while DH gets the "plss don't fall in love this idiot guy again" speech from the other Vidyadhara but it's working like reverse psychology, DH is all "pshh I'm way too put-together for that!!" And anyway YX is still a hot piece of ass so DH fails immediately.
One day DH gets a dream memory about the whole sinning part of their relationship and has to come to terms with That™ meanwhile YX is sipping a mimosa while he's having a moral dilemma. "No babe it's fine it's like. Yeah it is a hellish sin but it's cute that you're so worried about it. No they can't try us for crimes we did so long ago don't worry" meanwhile JY is still dealing with the paperwork nightmare from YX's birth certificate definitely not being that of a long-life person's but ehh.
Basically fluffy unproblematic renheng where no one gets amnesiaed or tortured is great and good even if it laughs in the face of canon.
I am so in fucking love with the stairway to heaven animation and the only ways I can express that is to either say I am bricked the FUCK up, or I give in to the uber instincts of my uber autism and write an essay on what I THINK are some of the references/inspirations used in the animation. I chose the essay because I need people to know why I am "bricked up."
I am fully willing to accept if I am wrong/reaching for some of these but even then, I think it's cool that I can still connect certain moments with things I enjoy. With that out of the way, behold my analysis/breakdown of Stairway to Heaven!
Spoilers below the cut not just for the animation, but also minor spoilers for Kane Pixel's backrooms series, Liminal Land, Skinamarink, and Mandela Catalogue. Also just a warning for the incoherent ramblings of a guy who's abnormal about analog/indie horror. Please please please please PLEASE go watch the animation if you haven't.
First, "subject 087" is in reference to SCP-087, the never ending staircase SCP. I actually didn't even catch that the first time until I scrolled down to the comments lmao. In my defense, when SCP was blowing up in the mid 2010s I wasn't really old enough to appreciate it or find the format interesting (and honestly it is still hard for me to really get into it, but that's more of a me thing. Conceptually a clinical approach to horror like with SCPs or in All Tomorrows is fascinating, but it can be a bit of a slog for me), so I only knew the main three's numbers. (173, 096, and 682).
"Motion detected" has been used in just about every analog horror series now, but Mandela Catalogue is probably the main series that popularized the trope when analog horror first started getting popular.
The backrooms is, obviously, the backrooms. You can probably assume it's Kane Pixels' backrooms because his version really blew up but it feels more like early days backrooms before we got all those monsters and almond water stuff. (Which btw it's so funny we got "almond water" from whoever the first person to say the air smells like almonds was. For reference, almonds smell like cyanide. OP was trying to say the air smells toxic, not that almonds are the safest thing to consume in the backrooms.)
This shot just reminded me of The Oldest View, ALSO from Kane Pixels. Tbh that's probably just me but I thought it was neat.
Next up, the door. Aside from the obvious 333 angel numbers which also appear very prominently in Mandela Catalogue (this series is going to pop up a lot, I'm sorry), but for some reason it reminded me of the Silent Hill 4 door. Again, that's just the tism probably.
Skinamarink ahh shot, was honestly expecting the door to just poof, disappear.
Next, the shot with all the houses. While KP's Backrooms do have that creepy neighbourhood, this exact shot and set up feels closer to H.O.M.E. from Liminal Land.
And then our most darling biblically accurate horror icon Columbina would make False Gabriel proud, and just... she is so fucking cool and creepy in this and I love her so much.
This whole sequence was for one absolutely horrifying and beautiful, but what caught MY attention were the settings and locations shown. These are standard creepy liminal spaces and analog horror gore censorship, yes, but they also reminded me of the locations Trevor Henderson uses in his art pieces, so suffice to say I think Columbina looks RIGHT AT HOME regardless of how you wanna look at these shots. And the animation on her face opening up into wings and eyes is just an absolute chef's kiss moment. Props to the animators, man.
This trope, the whole main character monologue overlaying the screen moment, very common in analog horror but for me, again popularized by its use in the Mandela Catalogue.
The smudged picture is a reference to one of the ending shots in Skinamarink, where it pans over the childhood photos only for their heads and faces to now be missing, which most agree is the movie's way of saying these kids were trapped her for so long they eventually just stopped existing/faded into nothingness.
And finally, the classic ending scene of KP's first Backrooms video.
I know for a fact there are probably other references to liminal spaces/analog horror that I either missed or they're like general concepts/tropes used in analog horror. I did almost mention the mill in petscop because of Columbina's "two in the mill, one taken, one left" because that phrasing felt really specific, but it doesn't quite fit the vibes of all the other references. Also her only being seen in the camera is a trope used in all manner of horror media. My first thought was the forest scene in VHS (2012) where the murderer could only be seen in the film static.
I just wanted to get the especially cool/unique moments out there. I didn't even touch on the storyline but that's because it seems pretty straightforward. I'm also aware not many people are gonna read my red string corkboard ramblings, which I'm fine with. I just needed to get this out of my system, but I do appreciate those who did take the time to indulge my ramblings!
That's all for now, back to whatever the hell I had planned for today.
Tears fall in my heart Rain falls on the town; what is this numb hurt that enters my heart?
Ah,the soft sound of rain on roofs, on the ground! To a dulled heart they came, ah, the song of the rain!
Tears without reason in the disheartened heart. What? no trace of treason? This grief's without reason.
It's far the worst pain to never know why without love or disdain my heart has such pain!
- Paul Verlaine, Tears Fall In My Heart
why does the doa wear so many layers
what point in the year is it, how do they not overheat
Those delusions and fallacies have been shattered. He wanted to be the sun of the whole world, yet He fell from the sky.
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