An interesting observation on The Coffin of Andy and Leyley:
Ashley is a Tar Soul and Andrew is a Grime Soul, right. And the demon tells you at one point, upon seeing a police officer's soul and wondering why it's not all evil too, that souls are defined primarily how the person sees themself, not how others see them. Thus, because the officer saw himself as a good person and believed his actions were justified, his soul is still pure.
And it's a pretty clear gesture toward the fact that Ashley, more than just being a bad person, fully believes herself to be a bad person. She is tar, her very essence is something dark and sticky that corrupts all it touches--and she fully accepts and agrees with that. For all of her bluster and ravado, her grandiose presentation of her self-esteem, she really has an incredibly low opinion of herself, at least in a moral sense. She's a lost cause; she believes that she's a lost cause. She acts like it doesn't bother her, because it's the only thing she thinks she can do anymore. She is trapped by the unhealthy coping mechanisms she developed to deal with an exceptionally unhealthy, abusive, and neglectful childhood.
And the demon likes that. The demon can take advantage of that, because that's the kind of person that will collect souls for it without blinking an eye. None of this namby-pamby ethical dilemma bullshit. It doesn't care. It wants souls. It needs a human that doesn't care, either.
But what are we meant to think of Andrew as grime, then? Grime is different from tar. Grime is the stuff that makes other things dirty, tarnishes what was once clean. I think Andrew, at his core, doesn't actually believe himself to be a bad person. He thinks of himself as a good person made bad by outside circumstances. By their parents, by their grandparents, by poverty, by isolation, by bullying, by the shit-fucked society we live in--and most of all, by Leyley. He has done awful, heinous things, and unlike Ashley, who simply brushes these things off, he will go to the ends of the earth to justify them. He's not a bad person. It's not actually his fault. It's never his fault, really. It's all the bullshit that made him this way.
These are both incredibly common worldviews for people caught up in cycles of generational abuse. "There's something fundamentally Wrong with me, so I will become the monster I was always meant to be" vs "none of it's my fault, my abuse made me this way, so all of my actions must be justified as a reaction to that abuse".
if cities are vampires then small towns are ghosts i think. cities constantly hunger for fresh blood, but the blood that sustains a small town is an old and dried stain that you can never entirely scrub out. a city will feed on you, but if you truly want to leave, it can't keep you. a small town will follow you anywhere. it lingers like a chill at every threshold. once it has you, it has no intention of ever letting you go.
I know this is very quick, but! Maybe some quick thoughts (cough analysis cough) about the parents and how the sisters cope by not going outside, especially how it seems they arenβt given time at all to process Ceciliaβs death.
A theory I really like is that Ceciliaβs second (successful) attempt could have been an accident, or even a murder. So I would like to hear your thoughts on that, too. >:3
putting this under the cut because it's kinda long lmao. i love tvs soooo sososo much
hcs in pink, analysis in regular font
my key thoughts about the period of time in between cecilia's death and the death of her sisters, especially the months the sisters spend locked inside their own home, can probably best be summarised as ideas of stagnation, escapism, and a slow rot.
there's a lot of emphasis put on the lisbon house itself throughout the book, whether it's portrayed as a prison or some sort of exclusive location only the lucky can enter. i think the house itself is sort of metonymic for the sisters themselves: the boys/narrators can see the polished outside, but not what is truly occuring within. in the end, we as readers and the narrators themselves get very few glimpses into the house, just as we get very few direct glimpses into the inner lives of the lisbon sisters. thus i think the imagery of progressive decay attacking the house is sort of symbolic of the decay of the lisbon sisters themselves as they are kept in a house that is rotting from the inside out.
the house is the sisters and the sisters are the house, if that makes sense. my thoughts about it are very visual and i always have this imagery of flesh literally merging with floorboards, mycelium networks reaching through walls and wriggling under dirty fingernails.
i think cecilia's room would probably be taken by the rot first. the window is constantly open thanks to her candle altar so i imagine bugs and rain would get swept in really easily, causing mold, infestations, etc.
as for the lisbons themselves, i think there would be a variety of different reactions.
i always imagine mrs. lisbon as somewhat stepford wife-ish and really trying to embody the ideal 1950s nuclear family. i feel like any reactions she had to cecilia's death would be sort of muted, pre-emptively shoved down and repressed. despite cecilia being her daughter, i do think that in the end, she values projecting a certain image to her community above all. that said, i do think she would experience maybe even greater levels of distress as she feels the cognitive dissonance between "oh my god my daughter just died" and "my daughter being a suicide is shameful and the tragedy of her death does not line up with my perception of how life should be." i do think she really feels torn, but in the end winds up trying to fix her image in the community as a form of coping, just trying to be normal. (idk if any of that made sense lol) based on that, i think during the confinement she imposes on her family she really tries to make everything appear normal but her mind is still in this sort of shock that she can't really act normal. she probably makes appointments to neighbours' tupperware parties and barbequeue cookouts but she doesn't ever show up. she announces that she's cooking roast chicken and lets it burn then lets the carcass rot in the oven. the neighbours themselves are too caught up themselves in helping her project that image of normalcy, so desperate to pretend that what's happening in the lisbon house isn't actually happening/as bad as it is that they probably just go along with it.
in particular i think this mental and emotional split is indicated in the book when two of the neighbourhood women go to visit mrs lisbon shortly after cecilia's first attempt. when the boys/narrators interview them about the visit years later, they give conflicting narratives: one that mrs lisbon was unwelcoming, hiding away the girls, and one that she seemed βnormal.β in my opinion this really hints at how she reacts to the girlsβ successive suicides: split between wanting to act like everything is normal, and trying to βprotectβ her family by isolating. i think it's easy to villainise her as this authoritative, controlling and repressive figure, which she is, but you have to take in the added nuance that she is legitimately doing it because she thinks it's what will help her children.
mr lisbon i think tries similarly to act as normal as possible but is additionally stuck on loop. i feel like he would shut himself in a room everyday from 9 AM to 9 PM claiming he's correcting papers. obviously though he's lying. sometimes he just locks himself in the garage for hours claiming he needs to fix the boiler or the car or whatever he can invent. but he probably just sits there numb. lux sometimes comes down to the garage as well but she can't stand it for long and usually leaves after 30 minutes. (also i think listening to her dad absentmindedly talk about his car and his tools probably gave her the idea to kill herself through carbon monoxide poisoning but that's too angsty so i won't go there) both of the parents i think would try and project this image of normalcy which probably only aggravates the situation further. i don't think the daughters and the parents really talked about cecilia's death because they don't have that relationship of emotional trust built up that would enable them to discuss it in a healthy manner.
as for the lisbon sisters themselves, i think they all have vastly different methods of coping over their six-ish months of 'virtual house arrest.'
lux obviously exhibits hypersexual tendencies, self-destructively having sex with strangers on the roof of the house. i think initially her sisters were unaware of what was happening, until she fakes appendicitis to see if she's pregnant and that whole debacle. at that point they begin to realise how self-destructive she's gotten and have an intervention with her. only then does she begin to realise that she was groomed by trip and actually starts processing the trauma of cecilia's death + her grooming. what really convinces me of this is the note she sends via the neighbourhood boys, "Dear whoever, Tell Trip Iβm over him. Heβs a creep." to me this shows her romanticised view of trip is gone and she's realised that he is, indeed, a creep.
i think bonnie gets really quiet. she's always been more interested in stories than reality and i think given the incredibly isolated environment she's forced into she would probably wind up maladaptively daydreaming a lot of the time. she's probably the one who started ordering travel catalogues to the house to fuel her daydreams. her sisters are probably concerned about how quiet she gets but at the same time i think as time goes on they begin to indulge in similar patterns of maladaptive daydreaming. it's crucial to remember that by the time that they die, the sisters have lost all hope; i think avoiding reality through daydreaming really embodies their desire to escape that house, while the sisters' suicides embodies their lack of hope of escaping the house through alternate methods. over the course of the six-ish months the sisters are locked up, i think they would all progress from escapism (in various forms) to depression as they realised their unhealthy coping mechanisms couldn't save them, and finally suicide. while i think this was a broader phenomenon affecting all the sisters, i think bonnie would probably be the most affected. i honestly would not be surprised at all if she began developing psychosis-like symptoms or delusions related to her daydreams. personality wise i imagine her being somewhat similar to cecilia... maybe when she hung herself she didn't think she would actually die. "when she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly" <- do you see my vision
mary is pretty explicitly stated in the book to spend most of her confinement getting really into makeup and fashion, and i figure the confinement period would probably just be her preexisting interest in fashion/beauty accentuated to the maximum. however i think this would also lead to her becoming even more dysmorphic. in the book bonnie and lux are both described as becoming very thin, and i wouldn't be surprised if mary encouraged self-destructive eating disorders to her sisters as a way to meet the beauty standards she imposed on herself. i could equally see her sisters just copying her behaviour without her input. basically i think her confinement and grieving would, similarly to bonnie, lead her to turn inwards, but then like lux, externalise her pain in self-destructive ways (if that makes sense).
therese i think is probably the only one of the sisters that stayed somewhat 'normal.' we can see her making an effort to reach out for help over her ham radio, attempting to discuss her experience with others who have lost others to suicide. (you can tell i'm really normal about this because my url is from one of her intercepted ham radio conversations lol) i think out of all of the sisters, i think she's probably the one most likely to realise that there's something seriously wrong with their situation and try to get help. that said, i don't think she necessarily recognises it as abuse. i think her understanding is probably limited to 'someone in my family died, this is bad' while not necessarily having the ability to be actually angry at the adults around her because she's been raised to see adults as trustworthy. i think that, in her mind, the title of 'parent' absolves mrs lisbon of her behaviour and justifies it. even when lux is abused and grounded by trip (although i doubt she realises what's happening) she sees lux being grounded as the rational thing to do, fair punishment for her actions. what she doesn't expect is the rest of the sisters being punished as well. i think her faith in her parents, the adults around her and by extension society as a whole, gradually crumbles as their isolation continues. her suicide is the sign of her having finally given up on being saved, her illusion of 'trusted adults' vanishing as her parents continue to abuse her as no one cares. i think the boys' rare messages might even reinforce this for her, making her realise that even if she could get out of the house, the only world waiting for her is one that objectifies her and isn't willing to be anything more than superficial, seeing her as a prized possession rather than a traumatised young woman or even just a person.
---------------
now onto the next section of this ask: the circumstances of cecilia's death.
i'm prefacing all of this with the fact i haven't seen the film yet. i can't fully buy into the cecilia's suicide was murder theory because in the book everyone is explicitly stated to be in the basement when she jumps. that said, i could potentially see her suicide being an accident.
i actually think there's a fair amount of evidence supporting this in the book. in particular, there is a repetition of the number thirteen: cecilia is thirteen when she dies, mary dies thirteen months after her, etc. the number thirteen is also repeated at other seemingly unrelated points as well but i'm not going to list all of those. thirteen is a classic symbol of bad luck: is it possible that cecilia's death was simply a stroke of bad luck, falling out of a window?
while i could buy that cecilia's final death was an accident, i could certainly see her initial attempt being attempted murder. rather than the more obvious tool of the kitchen knife, why did she choose to use her father's razor? however i do think it's a bit flimsy. if someone else cut her arteries, why would she then climb into the bath with the laminated photo of the virgin mary? besides, her father's razor could have simply been the most accessible tool. mrs lisbon would surely notice a missing knife, and as seen from mary's secret hair wax stash, the girls weren't allowed to shave themselves. since she was known for taking long baths, it's reasonable that cecilia just grabbed what was right in front of her, mr lisbon's razor. that said, i do think murder/accident theories for her death are really interesting and it's possible that this is implied more firmly in the film.
cecilia's death to me is really interesting to me from a storytelling perspective as well. as mentioned by @cassiusbunny in this post (hope you don't mind the tag!), cecilia's alternate suicide attempts mimic ancient greco-roman methods of suicide. her interest in ancient greece and particularly rome is possibly what her friends interpreted as a crush on dominic palazzolo, an italian immigrant.
following her death, her sisters adopt similar behaviour that mimics ancient greco-roman tradition. bonnie could be argued to be taking the role of a vestal virgin, ensuring the sacrificial flames of ceel's candle altar stay lit; the girls altogether appear to form this unified being that is transcends to the heavens in their ritualised collective suicide. the way the sisters are locked up with little food could even be argued to mimic the death of famous mythological figures like antigone.
as a sidenote: i hc cecilia as transmasc in some direction and i find it interesting how her first attempt is more 'feminine,' while her second attempt is more 'masculine,' as mentioned by cassiusbunny.
My sycamore tree began life in the gravel at the edge of a parking lot. If trees can feel pain, that is a painful, unlucky death. I carefully dug it up and put it in a pot I made out of a disposable cup.
Hello small one. This world may be cruel, but I will not be.
I decided to take care of it, not expecting it to survive, and when my sycamore tree unfurled one tiny leaf and then another, it chiseled a tiny foothold in my terrified brain, the kind of brain that doesn't remember a world before the atomic bomb and before 9/11.
I googled the lifespans of trees. My neurons had to stretch and expand to accommodate what I learned: My sycamore tree may live five hundred years. It's hard to think something so big. In twenty years, my baby sycamore tree will be three stories tall, and the home of many creatures. In five years, my sycamore tree will be taller than I am. In one year, it will be summer.
There's this concept called sense of foreshortened future where people who have lived through trauma can't conceptualize a future for themselves because deep down they don't expect to survive, When I look forward, all I see is fire and death, melting ice and burning sky. We were raised Evangelical. All we see is Judgment Day, except there is no heaven.
But now there is a tiny gap in the wall, a crack in the door of my cell
and on the other side, I see a tree
There is, in the future, a great old sycamore tree, full of clean winds and the stir of a thousand wings. A hundred years from now. Fifty years from now. There will be forests in that world. There will be a world.
It takes courage, but we have to imagine it.
Most tree species can live in excess of three or four hundred years. I think I'm learning something. I think there are ancient voices saying hello small one, touch the dirt and the leaves, for now you are part of something that cannot die
in 2030 I will be thirty years old and the world will not have ended and there will still be hummingbirds, and we will have photos of the stars more beautiful than we can now imagine.
I planted an Eastern Redcedar; they may live nine hundred years. There will be nine hundred years. The people in that time will remember us. Maybe we will meet the aliens (hi aliens!).
I will blow out the candles on many birthday cakes in a world where there are wolves in dark forests far from home. I am learning to imagine the future. I learned recently that elk were reintroduced to the Appalachian Mountains after over a hundred years of extirpation, and that they are expanding their range.
That tiny crack I can see through now opens a tiny bit more:
Maybe elk will pass through my hometown, maybe there will be a forest where the pasture is on the high hill that I can see from my home
say it, say it, say it: ten years, thirty years, a hundred years from now
I am learning to imagine the future. There is a crack in the wall of this prison, of this machine, of this darkness, and through it, I see a tree.
This is not about politics. If armed settlers threaten U.S. citizens and soldiers help detain them, wouldn't that merit an investigation?
If we believe that every civilian deserves equal protection under the law, then the same standards must apply everywhere, including in Gaza. Accountability should not be based on nationality, politics, or where victims live.
I'm sorry I know Gaza has become irrelevant to many people but when your father is in hospital and his condition is difficult you should do Anything to save him! And this is my family's condition. We are very sad and unable to do anything Please donate to me and my family. Please don't ignore me if you have read You've saved our lives many times. I hope you do that now.. Again, please donate
Hi My name is Ibrahim, a young man from the Gaza Strip. I'm li⦠Ibrahim Family needs your support for Donate to help ibrahim and his family
"average person in teyvat smokes 3 cigarettes a day" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person in teyvat smokes 0 cigarettes a day. Feofan Sergeyevich Veksel, who lives in Snezhnaya & smokes over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
He had hyperdontia when he was alive. Aside from his wisdom teeth popping out, he had a bunch of other extra teeth that made his shiny tv-ready smile look crowded.
It's something he felt very insecure about when he was younger (combined with his heterochromia and the white streak in his hair), but he eventually grew to embrace it. Becoming a household name allowed him to convince his audience that heterochromia and hyperdontia are sexy masculine traits B)
Que Alastor quietly seething with envy because he wants extra teeth too! >:( Sure, he has unnaturally sharp canines but more teeth means less trouble chewing human meat
started thinking about a genshin x breaking bad au because scara's VA pat pedraza posted a pic of him with giancarlo (gus' actor), and then i drew a normal amount of it
When I was 14 I finished my confirmation classes and went through the confirmation ceremony. At that point I became a voting βadultβ member of my church. Technically I couldβve run for church council.
Was I an adult though? Lol no I wasnβt about to run for council at 14 are you kidding me whoβs practically gonna let a 14 year old in on a budget meeting
People call Vladimir Nabokov a disgusting creep for writing from the perspective of a pedophile when in reality if you read the book, Humbert Humbert is not likeable in the slightest. He's an unreliable narrator that's so stuck in his own delusions that he can't see how miserable dolores is because of him. Nabokov is an incredible writer and lolita is really well written- it's dreamy and poetic because that's what Humbert Humbert wants you to see but occasionally the mask slips and the horrifying reality of the situation peaks through, it's your responsibility as the reader to read in between the lines to see the story for what it is- not a romance. It's a great satire in the sense that it's pathetic to see Humbert Humbert think he's oh so charming and these "nymphets" are oh so in love with him. Dolores' trauma is obvious to any competent reader, I don't know how people are so charmed by Humbert Humbert that they can't see how dolores' defiance which he refers to as "teenage rebellion" or "tantrums" is a very apparent cry for help. Lolita is a Gothic horror, a cautionary tale. It's a genius work of art and what's most horrific about it lies in the aftermath of its release, how it's so normalised to sexualise little girls that blatant pedophilia is interpreted as a tragic love story. Nabokov himself referred to dolores as his "poor little girl". He had a lot of empathy for her and it is so heartbreaking to see her being portrayed as this temptress when in reality she is a 12 year old tomboy who likes comics and playing in the dirt. Catherine Demongeot (image on the left) is what Nabokov imagined lolita to look like while on the right is how lolita is perceived by the media. The images speak for themselves.
When I first read the virgin suicides I thought it was a great work of satire. I adore the Lisbon girls with all my heart, I see a part of myself in all of them by varying degrees. The boys who claimed they loved these girls, only saw them as some fantasy. Even in death they never truly respected any of them. How when they found Cecelia's diary, instead of trying to make sense of why she killed herself, they selfishly searched for their own names. I loved the irony of the boys claiming that they loved these girls when they didn't know anything about them. It showed how shallow and surface level their βloveβ was. I thought the author, Jeffery Eugenides really understood me because as a girl it feels as though youβre only loved if youβre sexualised and how much sympathy you deserve is dependent on how attractive you are, as if thatβs the only value you have to offer. But in reality he didn't mean any of the things the boys did to be interpreted as satire. According to him, peaking through windows, stealing used tampons, joking about groping dead girls, these grown men still picturing those little girls years later while they had sex with their wives etc was supposed to show that teenage boys are not disgusting horny dogs, but romantic softies (if anything this made me think teenage boys are much more repulsive than i thought). According to Eugenides the book is satire, but in the sense that you never know what was going through a person's head when they committed suicide and you can't make sense of it no matter how hard you try. Everything about how the boys viewed the girls was not satire and was to be taken at face value. This really broke my heart, an author who I thought really did get me and understood me, ended up making me feel watched instead of seen. I guess this is where "death of the author" comes into play. La mort de l'auteur is a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes that basically argues that instead of only viewing a work of art through the artist's eyes and keeping only their intent in mind, the viewer can interpret the art through their own eyes regardless of what the artist originally intended. I want to, I really do but I can't help but feel that intention matters and no matter how hard I try to separate the art from the artist I simply cannot.
It's so fascinating to me how Lolita which is supposed to be from the perspective of an unreliable narrator was taken at face value and the virgin suicides which was to be taken at face value was perceived as satire.
The same irony can also be seen in the movies. The director of Lolita didn't get her at all, even he thought she was some kind of a seductress instead of a child that was raped and abused repeatedly by a man that was supposed to be a father figure while the virgin suicides movie was so much better than the book, Sofia Coppola, the director, understood the Lisbon girls so well and she did them justice.
This is a such a great look at the ways literature can be molded by society and your own beliefs. I really did feel the same way about the writing of the Lisbon girls. They make me so sad and so raw. I wish I could go into the universe and hug them all.
What you learn at 20, we learn it at 13: an analysis of The Virgin Suicides through its soundtrack
βGodhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believedβ. (Kristin Chang).
Living without being able to breathe
Female adolescence isnβt a phase: itβs a battlefield. In The Virgin Suicide, Sofia Coppola portrays it as that emotional confinement, the restrained desire, and the silences that scream. She captures the experience of growing up as a girl in a world that watches, judges, and traps. And if thereβs one thing that conveys this with almost visceral precision, itβs the soundtrack.
Itβs an experience lived through the body, through intuition and through fear. Coppola depicts that invisible universe where girls learn far too early what the world expects of them. The film builds a sonic universe that reflects the emotional state of the Lisbon sisters: trapped, desired and misunderstood.
Composed by the French duo Air, the soundtrack doesnβt just accompany the story, it defines it. When the chords of βPlayground Loveβ begin to play, the melancholic scene of Lux waking up alone on a football field becomes the memory of a youth caught between desire and repression. Soft synthesizers, slow rhythms, and enveloping atmospheres create a sonic space where the Lisbon girls breathe what they cannot say. The electronic sounds, dense and melancholic, intensify the heaviest scenes.
The music isnβt decorative. Itβs the echo of a house turned prison, of parents who impose silence, and of a society that watches without understanding. Itβs not there to beautify, but to remind us that something is wrong, even if everything looks beautiful.
Each musical piece feels like an emotional capsule. In the scene of Ceciliaβs suicide attempt, the music doesnβt dramatize: it accompanies with a floating, almost anesthetized sadness. Itβs the sound of a life fading away, with no one knowing how to stop it.
The soundtrack conveys the sensation of living without being able to breathe. As if each note were a held breath, an anguish disguised as beauty.
Trapped in desire
In a society that silences teenage girls, music becomes their secret language. Itβs the channel through which what cannot be said aloud filters through: desire, rage, sadness, incomprehension, and more. Sofia Coppola understands this with a sensitivity that transcends narrative. In The Virgin Suicides, music isnβt a backdrop: itβs an alternative voice, a form of silent resistance. Itβs as if the soundtrack were the girlsβ true diary, the only place where they can exist without being watched, judged, or reduced to symbols of desire or tragedy.
Whatβs curious βand deeply significantβ is that the story isnβt told by them. The voice guiding the narrative belongs to the neighborhood boys, now adults, who remember the Lisbon sisters with a mix of fascination, guilt, and nostalgia. They reconstruct what they think happened, but never fully understand it. The Lisbon girls remain enigmas, idealized figures, reflections of a femininity that overwhelmed them.
Music, then, becomes the secret language of silenced teenage girls. A language that doesnβt explain, but moves. That doesnβt translate, but connects.
The soundtrack is feminine not because of who composed it, but because of how it feels: vulnerable, intense, contradictory. Like adolescence itself.
Itβs not just the story of five sisters trapped in a house, in a family, in a time. Itβs an elegy about what it means to grow up as a girl in an environment that doesnβt know how to care for you, that watches but doesnβt listen, that idealizes but doesnβt understand. The Lisbon sisters arenβt just characters, theyβre symbols of every teenage girl who has felt the world is too tight a fit.
Airβs music acts like a constant sigh, a voice that translates what the protagonists cannot say. Itβs a language that doesnβt need words, because some things canβt be explainedβbut they can be felt. The synthesizers, the ethereal melodies, the silences loaded with meaningβ¦ everything in the soundtrack seems to float between life and death, between the desire to escape and the impossibility of doing so.
And in that in-between space βbetween what is lived and what is imaginedβ art appears as refuge. Because sometimes, the only way to survive that stage is through beauty. Through a song, an image, a film that tells you: βYouβre not alone. I felt that tooβ.
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
