Needed This - Blog Posts
hey. hey. stop scrolling for a sec.
breathe. you’ve made it so far this year. you’ve gotten through so many things that you thought you wouldn’t, and you’ll continue to get though this, whatever it is. i know you can. i believe in you, and i’m so, so proud of you. i know it probably seems impossible, but it’s going to be ok. it’s going to be ok.
breathe in, breath out. and just keep breathing. we’re gonna get there.
breaking down the texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning (2006) opening credits
as i promised, here's a post going through tcm 2006's beginning credits frame-by-frame. buckle up, this is pretty damn long.
[3:59] first shot is one of thomas’ baby photos, it’s in black-and-white and very blurry and there’s no date provided, but it looks like he has a unilateral cleft lip on the left side of his mouth (his left, our right).
remember to take this with a grain of salt due to the fact that the fucked-up cgi baby that luda mae picks up out of the dumpster doesn’t seem to have a cleft lip, and his face reveal in the 2003 movie seems to be lacking one too. so this is something that you can choose to include or exclude from your writing imo.
there seems to be a dark line going down from the left corner of his mouth and down his face??? but it could be something superficial on the photo itself.
[4:01] the same photo of thomas shown previously. here the cleft lip is shown in much better detail, and as you can see, it doesn’t extend up to his nostril. this implies that his particular birth defect isn’t all that extreme, which is why i headcanon him to have a unilateral incomplete cleft lip.
looks like he has his “skin disease” by this point, judging by the markings around his mouth. he looks to be merely an infant in this photo, maybe less than one year old.
that mysterious dark scar (?) remains.
[4:05] thomas’ first medical files are shown, unknown date. the text is partially cut off, but i can make out “deteriorating flesh” and “disfigurement” written with circles drawn around the lower left half of his face.
“disfigurement” can be referring to both his cleft lip and whatever birth defect his affecting his lower left jaw.
[4:09] a picture of an older thomas, i’d say between the ages of 3–5. his face is being covered completely by someone else. i’d argue that those are “man hands”, but honestly, it could go either way. i doubt it’s luda mae, due to her fondness towards thomas, but i do believe it’s a hewitt. this would imply that at least one hewitt was ashamed of thomas in his younger years, and didn’t want him to be visible in pictures.
[4:13] more medical files. roughly reads “patient: thomas hewitt, age: 3, [date of] examination: 7/20/??”
if thomas is three years old, it can be assumed that the year is 1942.
[4:15] another picture of thomas, but this time he’s hiding his face on his own. age is harder to discern here, but he’s definitely under 8–10 years old. he’s already learned to be ashamed of his face.
“age: 6” flashes on screen at [4:19], which can imply that thomas was six years old at the time that the previous photo was taken.
[4:20] first live action shot. thomas is touching his face, which looks to have an open, bleeding wound. initially, this shot looked like some sort of scrape or even bite to me (with the torn skin and all), but it may be psoriasis that’s been scratched at, causing the wounds to reopen over and over and become more severe. this would be the beginning of thomas’ self-harming behavior.
[4:24] yet another photo of thomas, older and with his face uncovered. cleft lip doesn’t look present but as i stated, the filmmakers seem to forget about that fact every now and again. he does, however, seem to have scarring on his left cheek from his skin condition. he’s looking away from the camera.
[4:26] more medical files. from what i can make out, they say “… boy suffers from a degenerative facial disease. … birth defect”
[4:29] shot of thomas picking up some sort of blade with the words “tedency towards self-mutilation” popping up on screen. this seems pretty self-explanatory.
[4:37] longer shot of thomas raising the blade to his face and slicing into the flesh of his cheek.
from [4:41] to [4:51], you can see thomas’ face being wrapped up in some sort of guaze/bandage. due to the bandages covering nearly his entire head, i believe that his wounds were far more extreme than the footage actually shows.
during this time, you can here a voice (presumably charlie’s, though r lee ermy also played what we can assume to be luda mae’s husband in the very beginning of the film) telling thomas “don’t worry about it, tommy. you don’t have to look pretty to work down at the slaughterhouse.” this tells me a couple of things: 1.) if this is charlie, this is the first instance of him comforting thomas, which he continues to do throughout the film (while still manipulating him). this shows that charlie, from at least this point on, is a kind older brother figure to thomas. 2.) it’s already being ingrained in thomas that he isn’t pretty, even if that fact is being delivered through reassurance. 3.) he’s already being set up to work at the slaughterhouse, somewhat implying that he drops out of school to start working. with the hewitts’ poverty, i wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
[4:58] shot of an empty road. “age 9” is overlayed on top of this image, implying that thomas was no older than nine years old when he injured himself and presumably got drawn out of school.
[5:00] very very quick snapshot of a dog (?) carcass, looks like roadkill. thomas is then shown to take interest in the corpse, dragging it away by its tail.
from [5:07] to [5:26], you can see thomas going through the process of creating his first leather mask out of that roadkill. he moves with intention, he doesn’t seem to be skittish or queasy when it comes to corpses and death. there’s a shot of his reflection at [5:20], with only his nose and eyes being visible. they look pretty normal, and you can see that he’s out of his bandages by this point.
[5:28] “12 yrs. old” flashes on screen, again implying that thomas was no older than twelve when he began wearing masks to cover his face.
the frames between [5:31] and [5:37] are hard for me to fully make out, but there looks to be a blade, some sort of flesh, and machinery.
i believe he’s already started working at the slaughterhouse by this point, as at [5:38], you can see thomas trace his fingers over the still blade of a chainsaw—something he later steals from his job in 1969.
his fingers look like they belong to his older self, but i can’t tell exactly when this takes place.
[5:43] thomas takes his apron off of a rack in what i can assume is the slaughterhouse. he’s in his older teens or beyond at this point, i think—his forearms are thick and hairy here, so it’s clear he’s aged significantly.
[5:47] newspaper dated friday, june 9, 1967 flashes on screen, followed by an outside shot of the lee bros meat plant. thomas would be 28 by this point in time.
the meat plant processes not only cows but poultry as well, and was established in 1929.
[5:50] friday, june 9, 1969. exactly two years after the last shot (though in reality, june 9th was a monday that year, but it’s a simple error). here’s what i can read:
MEAT PLANT CONDEMNED, HUNDREDS LEFT JOBLESS
lee bros. meats, fixture (?) of fuller for forty years
unemployment rate near 76% according to mayor clayton
devastating three-year drought has far reaching consequences. some proclaim “second dust bowl”
CLOSED FOR GOOD lee brothers processing plant was … by … on wednesday and forced to suspend all activity on thursday. drought related illness in cattle is sited as the cause of stomach ailments throughout west texas
note: travis county is closer to central-east texas than west texas, so that’s another inconsistency… at this point i don’t know where exactly fuller is.
from what i can understand, a drought had been affecting fuller since 1966. this drought brought sickness to the cattle and other livestock, likely due to undernourishment. this meant less business for the slaughterhouse, which meant less work for the people who worked there, which meant mass unemployment. by the time we reach 1969, there’s over 75% unemployment in fuller and the meat plant finally shuts down.
the article also mentions the meat plant being condemned, which implies that there were underlying safety issues within the building that contributed to its closure.
a dead cow flashes on screen shortly after the shot of the newspaper.
[5:54] okay, this is where the timeline starts jumping around and i don’t like it. according to the friday, march 9, 1968 article of “the fuller bee”, the meat plant is condemned and the town has offically DIED in big, capital letters. this doesn’t make sense, given the article shown literally seconds before and the fact that the audience knows thomas is dismissed from his job in 1969, so i’m choosing to believe this is merely a mistake.
[5:57] newspaper with no date provided, with the headline “DRAFT MORE TROOPS”, likely in reference to the war in vietnam.
shortly after, another headline flashes on screen: “REINSTATED FOR VIETNAM CONFLICT”. this article is dated saturday, december 1, 1969. this is a historical error, as i can’t find anything about the draft being reinstated in 1969. according to wikipedia, the deferment of married men ended suddenly on august 26th, 1965, but that’s the only big change to the draft that i know of around that time. also, if the article was accurate, then it would be reciting events after the film, which takes place in july 1969. you can see why this doesn’t make sense.
from [5:58] to [6:33], thomas can be seen slamming his fist against his baby photos before going on to burn them, with his diagnosis of mental deterioration flashing on screen. i believe this implies that he volunteered for the army, which i already wrote a whole post about here.
these shots are also spliced with scenes of thomas making what i assume to be a new mask. it’s very obviously raw flesh, which by now i know that’s not how leather is Made, but he’s a little freak so what can you expect. maybe this is meant to show thomas leaning in to his shame after being rejected from the army.
this is the longest “scene” by far, showing how the writers really wanted us to know just how much thomas hates himself.
and that’s the end of the opening credits, cutting to july, 1969.
OKAY SO, what have we learned??? here’s a rudimentary tl;dr—
thomas is born 1939 with a cleft lip and possibly an additional birthmark/defect. his “skin disease” looks to be present at birth/in his infancy.
he is diagnosed with “deteriorating flesh” and “disfigurement” by the time he is three years old.
by the age of six, thomas begins showing signs of self-consciousness and low self-esteem.
by the age of nine, thomas has begun engaging in self harm and cuts into his face with a blade, leading to him presumably dropping out of school to work at lee bros. meat processing plant.
by the age of twelve, thomas has begun to use the flesh of roadkill to craft leather masks for himself. i believe he’s also confirmed to be working at the slaughterhouse by this point in time.
a drought hits fuller in 1966 and lasts for at least three years. this drought causes the livestock to become ill, which leads to the closure of the slaughterhouse in 1969. other safety concerns also factor into this closure.
sometime between 1965–1969, thomas volunteers to fight in vietnam but is denied due to his “mental deterioration”. he burns his baby pictures in response.
as we all know, thomas is formally fired in july of 1969. he looks to be the last one left at the slaughterhouse, clinging to the job he’s had for almost twenty years.
i literally went through this fucking film frame-by-frame for this info. i hope this helps at least one of you in your writing!
me: i’m just working at a gas station :( im not doing anything w my life :(
my foremothers bc i’m not working in a field or pregnant:
Some words to use when writing things:
winking
clenching
pulsing
fluttering
contracting
twitching
sucking
quivering
pulsating
throbbing
beating
thumping
thudding
pounding
humming
palpitate
vibrate
grinding
crushing
hammering
lashing
knocking
driving
thrusting
pushing
force
injecting
filling
dilate
stretching
lingering
expanding
bouncing
reaming
elongate
enlarge
unfolding
yielding
sternly
firmly
tightly
harshly
thoroughly
consistently
precision
accuracy
carefully
demanding
strictly
restriction
meticulously
scrupulously
rigorously
rim
edge
lip
circle
band
encircling
enclosing
surrounding
piercing
curl
lock
twist
coil
spiral
whorl
dip
wet
soak
madly
wildly
noisily
rowdily
rambunctiously
decadent
degenerate
immoral
indulgent
accept
take
invite
nook
indentation
niche
depression
indent
depress
delay
tossing
writhing
flailing
squirming
rolling
wriggling
wiggling
thrashing
struggling
grappling
striving
straining
HAVING FUN and ENJOYING the process of writing is so important. Whether you strive to work professionally or write just for the hell of it, remember why you started in the first place. It all comes down to love honestly
If you're prone to anxiety, imagine your f/o coming to hug you, whispering that everything will be fine as they press a gentle kiss to your temple.
You know that they aren't lying, they'd never let anything happen to you. The comfort of their presence calming down the erratic beating of your heart. You're safe, you can breath again.
:(
Quizás necesitas leer esto, así que te lo diré: No seas tan duro contigo mismo. No pasa nada si los demás avanzan y tú no, porque cada persona tiene un ritmo diferente, y si necesitas ir lento, hazlo, pero siempre mira desde tu comodidad, no por seguir al resto. Todo irá bien.
A veces necesitamos un pequeño descanso para poder respirar y luego de eso seguir adelante, más fuertes y con más ganas de comernos el mundo.
There are so so so many ways to experience the gods.
There is no right or wrong way. There is no blunt way. Its all feeling and ephemeral.
If you’ve felt warmth, if you’ve had a dream, if you’ve seen a crow that stares at you for too long, if something inexplicable happens and you’re lucky suddenly, if you’ve caught eyes with a stranger and felt like you knew each other. If the candle flickers a certain way, if one time when you’re singing your voice sounds gorgeous in a way you weren’t expecting, these are all the presence of a god.
God phoning is popular on witchtok but half the time what they’re saying is bullshit. I’ve very very rarely heard a voice and every single time it was my own voice, just suffused with something, saying something I normally wouldn’t say. Or maybe I would. I’ve never heard a clear, distinct, audible voice. Its an invisible world we’re connecting with, its a different plain. We cannot experience it the same way we experience every day life.
We’ll never sit down at a coffee table across from the physical manifestation of our god, and know that its them, not until after. And even then we can never be sure. That’s the nature of it. There are no absolutes, there cannot be. That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s where belief comes in. It isn’t about being good enough or worthy enough or devout enough, that doesn’t exist. That isn’t what its about at all. You are worthy even if the divine doesn’t manifest in a way we’ve been told is the only real way, and you are connecting even if you cant see it now. My most intense spiritual experiences are never something I realize are happening in the moment, its always only after that I can see it clearly.
The gods are all around us.
Andor Appreciation Day 2 - Everyone Has Their Own Rebellion
@andorappreciation
People forget that you can light a bonfire with a candle; that's what this felt like to me.
on endlings, and despair
Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?
If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.
We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.
We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.
Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.
In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.
It worked.
The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.
It worked.
Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.
It worked.
The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.
The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.
This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.
Nothing less.
One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.
For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.
Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.
Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.
It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.
One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.
If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.
All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.
We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.
to lovely humans who were excluded from invitations, left behind when they tied their shoes, forced to walk in the grass when the sidewalk was full, spoken over when you tried to contribute, whispered about or laughed at, given the side eye when you tried to fit in… you are so worthy of love and I’m sorry people have convinced you otherwise. I promise that your people are out there - people who will see the side of you others ignore, people who share weird inside jokes with you, give you affectionate nicknames and go to museums or roadtrips with you and fulfil whatever idea of friendship you’ve always fantasized about. even if you feel like an empty shell of your former self because you’ve hidden yourself away due to shame, this exterior will melt when you accept yourself or let people in and you’ll realize there was nothing wrong with you all along. you have interesting things to say, you deserve new chances and beginnings, your heart is probably made of gold because you know what it’s like to be left out in the cold, and you have so much to give. you are so worthy and someone’s idea of a friend too, and I hope you receive lots of hugs in the future from yourself and others because you’re so lovable.
“Stop cringing — at your future, at your failure, at yourself in the mirror — and stand up and look directly at who you are. Not who you should’ve been, but who you are now. Let that person in. Let her be as mediocre and wrong and shameful and sad and miserable and brilliant and hilarious as she wants to be, because she knows exactly what you need to feel good. She has plans for you. She wants to show you what comes next. She wants to take you into the future you’re dreading and say, “See? You never would’ve imagined this.”
— “Ask Polly: Is Life All Downhill From Here?” by Heather Havrilesky
I will never get over how weird it feels to have tragic and emotional chapters of your life where you just also still go to work, and the grocery store, and see funny videos online all while feeling such paralyzing fear and heartache
life just goes on no matter what
this isn’t all that there is!!! there are sunsets you haven’t seen, people you haven’t met, things you haven’t learned, food you haven’t tried, and places you haven’t visited. life is so much more than what you’re experiencing right now, and there will always be new things coming. there’s so much more out there for you!!
oh, i love the way relationships develop their own personal language of love. when all that joy shows the way they love you. i love when it is a little icon to who they are, to how you get along with them.
my sister takes a picture of a dead bug and sends it to me - this is you. my friend asks me how the move is going; she put a reminder in her phone to check up on me. i put a piece of ice down my friend's back, he returns the favor by holding my phone over my head and making me jump to catch it. jason and i scream-sing green day while going all of 15 miles an hour down country roads. molly is who i go to for a quiet night in with 5 dollar wine.
i go out for dinner with them and have to step outside to take a phone call; when i come back they've ordered my favorite appetizer without needing to be asked. andrew and i have a long-standing tradition of him picking me up to spike me directly into the first soft-looking surface around. i don't even need to speak to my best friend - she and i will just look at each other and have an entire conversation. burst out laughing at 3 PM, high and cackling like we're evil witches. i just moved by myself into a new city - my brother keeps introducing me to his friends that now live close to me. he always says - oh yeah, this is sibling and then pretends to ignore me. for days now, my family has been in and out of my apartment, just tinkering with things; making sure i am settling in nicely.
i usually have watermelon instead of cake for my birthday; kim forces a full yankee candle into the rind so i can have something to blow out and wish on. for 20 minutes on a saturday, all us grown adults crawl into one bed to have a cuddle puddle like we're in high school again. every 20 seconds someone starts giggling, and then we're laughing again. nick calls me from california; we both groan about the price of tickets, agonizing. miranda and i meet up in the city for the first time in years - without discussing it beforehand, the minute we lay eyes on each other, we both strike gruesome little gremlin poses instead of waving. dean always goes for the hug. joe always does a single firm handshake. sometimes i think about my friends and get so happy i just start crying.
oh, how wonderful to live in a world where affection is biologically ingrained in us. how wonderful that affection helps us build our single greatest strength - community. how wonderful that affection is our body's way of saying - thing is good, let's keep. how wonderful, this language, this skein we weave! to show the other person - i might not always say it. but i love that you live in me.
A note to incoming STEM major freshmen and high schoolers who are thinking of pursuing science:
you WILL take more than one STEM class. every single semester. so will every single other STEM major. no one will feel bad if you think you have a hard course load because you’re in more than one STEM class. it’s just not happening.
that being said - here is the god’s honest truth, coming from someone who’s overloaded in courses 4 out of 5 semesters (because they wouldn’t let me do so my first):
1) everything you think you can’t do, you can, and then some
2) everything you think is the hardest thing you’ve experienced, you will overcome, and then face even harder challenges, which you will also overcome
3) if you love what you’re doing - really, truly, love what you’re doing - you’ll be ecstatic that your entire schedule consists of just that. taking only STEM classes is awesome when that’s what you want to devote the rest of your life to
basically what I’m getting at with this is -
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.
Hey, you. Yeah, you. Reading this right now. Stop what you’re doing for a few minutes and read this, okay? It’s important. It’ll only take a few minutes, I promise.
Let me start off by telling you how incredibly brave you are. I’m serious. You’re living in an uncertain world, and you still woke up today. It doesn’t matter if you got out of bed. If you got dressed. You’re awake. You’re here, with us. With the community online that loves you. You’re here. You could have hidden yourself away today. But you didn’t. You were brave and came to be with your friends today.
You know what else, though? You’re a wonderful person. No, don’t argue. Just listen for now. It’s okay. You don’t have to believe it for it to be true. You have been through so much. It has made you stronger. You are so strong. That doesn’t mean you have to be strong all the time, though. You’re allowed to be weak. You’re allowed to need to lean on someone. It’s okay. Nobody is going to judge you for that. If they do, they must have forgotten that they’ve had to lean before, too.
You are not a mistake. You’re not worthless. You bring joy to peoples’ lives. You might not even know the people that you bring joy to, but they’re there. They exist. Just like others bring joy to your life. That’s an important thing to be a part of. We need more joy in the world. I’m so glad that you’re here to help with that. I’m so proud of you for being here.
You are wanted. You are needed. If something were to happen to you, there are people that would miss you. People who would ask what happened to you. There are people that care about your wellbeing. We love you. It’s okay to come to us when everything feels hopeless. You’re not worthless. I promise.
I’m so, so proud of you and so happy that you’re here, reading this right now. I’m so happy that you’re still with us. Please don’t go where your friends can’t follow. Nobody in the world can replace you.
You can keep scrolling now. Just remember that there’s someone out there that cares about you, okay? Have a good rest of your day.