Pleased to report that after a day of this i am not longer craving caper brine and my mouth is not dry as usual. There's some good suggestions in the notes too that I want to try.
-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)
-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt
Was really interested going into this movie because as someone who isn’t very up to speed on any backrooms lore besides the og post I like the backrooms best when there are no monsters, but the environment itself makes you feel unsafe. You’re paranoid and panicking but then you get out and realize that there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing was even there to chase you in the first place it was just your mind tricking itself.
So I think it’s so interesting that this movie did both- there is a monster but it’s You. It’s a monster you made up it’s a physical manifestation of your fear. It hurts people because you hurt people. You’re unsafe because you created the environment and that means your fear is out to get you.
my first thought when going in was “i really hope it isn’t too much focus on the entities and more focus on the ambience of the environment” but the way they utilize monsters is so good and much better than some big creature with no meaning behind it
having the monsters have connections to the characters is one of my favorite things the movie did
reading reviews and tags of backrooms (2026) makes me so fucking angry omfg. did the message go over everyone’s head????? cycles of abuse????? the immorality of the psychiatric and medical systems???? the horrors of being a woman in patriarchal society???? the horrors of being an abuse victim trying to navigate the world?????? the consequences of trying to ‘fix people’, especially men as a woman, and especially abusers as a survivor????? how trying to fix the abusive system you live under using the tools of that same system doesn’t work??????? how destructive enabling abusive behaviour, even as part of healing to ‘fix’ an abuser, can be????? is anyone listening or do you only care about the random white man!???!?!!!?????
I loved that you brought up these themes/concepts b/c I didn’t consider them on the first watch
All I got was how memory is fallible and our resistance to change will doom us to make the same mistakes in different ways and remaining the same is impossible in a life that is constantly changing
I hate it, I hate to constantly have to explain myself, I hate that I don't have the energy to answer to people I love, I don't have the energy to eat and prepare myself meals, I don't have the energy to do stuff I love, to read, to try to find and keep a Job, I'm a failure
having long lasting depression is so fucking boring. how many times can I tell someone that I’m going through something, like does it even count as a crisis if it’s constant
2026 has been a great year for me in terms of discovering new stuff I love, talking specially about Sorry Ghost and in a completely different way Simon Hanselmann's comics.
In the early 70s Sesame Street was created with an eye towards educating poor, inner-city children for free, and became a massive hit with all children. In 2016, faced with going off the air forever after facing conservative efforts to destroy public broadcasting since basically its beginning, new episodes became a timed exclusive for premium cable network HBO. In 2022 HBO Max, newly merged with and taken over by reality TV channel Discovery, removed Sesame Street episodes and spin-offs from streaming as a tax write-off and scheme to avoid paying residuals.
I also want to put in a plug for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, spearheaded by GBH in Boston to preserve and make available public funded programming from around the country. More than 7000 public television and radio programs are available to stream through the website, with more than 40000 hours of programming archived and available to researchers and educators through the Library of Congress and GBH itself.
Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group
It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.
Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.
In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.
Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:
Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)
Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)
How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)
Gardening
Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)
Country/Rural Living:
Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)
"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)
Sewing/Mending:
Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)
Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)
Sustainability/Land Stewardship
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)
Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)
Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"
Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.
"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)
Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)
These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!
A daily game that challenges our understanding of human cultures. Ten objects. 5,000 years of human history. Guess where and when each artif
An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.
Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.
Anthropeum.com · Jun 8 2026
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79,001 · top 3% of players today!
#tfw you want to write a long essay about something you saw and really loved, but you are hit with an inexplicable wave of tiredness. (post writing note: "does he know?" /ref)
Anyways, I'm probably exaggerating because I have a literature teacher brain; I thoroughly enjoyed Backrooms (2026) and found it to be a deeply moving metaphor for alcohol addiction. It is about the complete corrosion of the self into the darkest pits of one's mind, and the devastating ripple effects that decay has on everyone else (while also being based on the concept of infinite empty rooms).
The film establishes this metaphor from the very first frame. When Clark first enters the complex, the first things he sees are a pile of furniture and televisions. At this point in the story, the furniture store, where he lives, is his identity and main priority. In fact, when he leaves the rooms for the first time, he immediately goes back inside just to retrieve an item for his store. However, as he delves deeper into the complex, this priority is quickly abandoned. Even when the exploration becomes openly dangerous, he pushes his real-world responsibilities aside to chase something deeper.
We learn from his very first therapy session that Clark has a short temper, struggles with severe alcohol addiction, and holds intense grudges against anyone he thinks has wronged him. When he walks into Mary's office, he proudly shares that he has found and mapped this unknown complex, noting that he has been sober "since Friday."
This specific timeline is a massive psychological tell. In medical reality, sudden alcohol withdrawal within the first 48 hours causes severe, vivid hallucinations. The person experiencing them can feel that something is deeply wrong with their head, yet the visions feel entirely real. The Backrooms are essentially the physical manifestation of Clark's sudden sobriety. When Mary tries to gently check on his mental state, Clark instantly flips. He becomes furious and lashes out at Mary. He even demands an apology from her and is set on proving Mary wrong by finding proof that these rooms exist. He very much wants validation that his distorted reality is correct, and that everyone else is wrong.
This toxic infatuation with mapping his own mind, a place filled with misremembered details and warped versions of reality, quickly spreads to the people around him. Clark drags his young adult employees, Kat and Bobby, into exploring and recording the rooms. These two young people never wanted to be involved; both of them openly expressed their reluctance to enter the space or feed into Clark’s new obsession.
Tragically, neither of them makes it out alive. They are hunted down and killed by a creature residing in the rooms. Yet, even this horrifying incident fails to stop Clark. He is already too far gone into the Backrooms to care about the lives he just ruined. In a chilling display of how addiction completely replaces human empathy, Clark doesn't even mourn them normally. He keeps Kat's physical remains around just to keep him company in the empty space.
Once some time has passed, Clark leaves a final voicemail for his therapist, Mary. He states that he will not be returning to their sessions because he has "opened up a new window." This alarming message prompts immediate concern within her, leading her to check in at his store. The scene Mary encounters perfectly captures the quiet aftermath of someone who has willingly abandoned their own life. His store was left completely unlocked with weeks of unread mail piling up at the bottom of the doors. Clark's voicemail reads like a final note more than anything.
Mary’s own background, given through vague flashbacks, explains why she steps across just to find Clark. Having faced a harsh childhood where she ultimately reported and institutionalized her own mother, Mary carries an immense weight of guilt. Seeing her mother left in a dull state has driven Mary to take on a self-imposed savior complex. She tolerates Clark's toxicity because she is trying to retroactively compensate for being unable to save her mother. Driven by this burden, she descends into the basement and enters the complex. After discovering a disturbing mural by Clark, she finally locates him. Clark is now in a totally unhinged state of mind, entirely stripped of his past self-restraint. The moment Mary tries to intervene, Clark does something he never would have done beforehand: he violently chokes her until she passes out.
Mary wakes up tied to a chair at a surreal dinner table, surrounded by Clark and several disfigured human entities known as "still-lifes." Clark explains that he has found total solace in the Backrooms. He notes that the complex remembers everything that ever was, but "not quite right", which is a perfect metaphor for how memory deteriorates under chronic substance abuse. Furthermore, Clark thoroughly enjoys that these still-lifes are essentially non-sentient and unresponsive objects. He treats them as furniture and even food, claiming that eating them is the best part. By bragging that these entities have no ego or feelings, Clark exposes the ultimate fantasy of an egocentric addict: a world where he can completely consume and dehumanize everyone around him without any emotional consequences.
The breaking point arrives when Clark scalps a female still-life to use her hair as a wig for Mary. He forces her to roleplay the exact night his wife kicked him out, like in the beginning of the film. However, Mary refuses to act as a prop in his delusion. No longer willing to tolerate his mental state, she finally snaps and yells the truth at him: he always looks for excuses to blame others, while never taking accountability for anything he does. Confronted with his total separation from reality, Clark finally admits that he doesn't want to change or leave the Backrooms. He believes he belongs in this empty abyss.
It is at this exact moment, after Mary confirms that he doesn't have to change, that Clark's delusion completely shatters. The scalped female still-life is the literal manifestation of his ex-wife's memory. She flees from the scene in sheer terror as something approaches. This sudden act of survival proves Clark's previous statements wrong; she does have an ego and feels fear. By running away at the exact moment the monster appears, her flight exposes a dark reality. Clark's wife didn't just "kick him out" because of a simple drinking habit; she fled to escape the objectifying domestic abuse born from his egocentrism.
Her escape reveals a monstrous version of Clark dressed up as his furniture store mascot, a beast Clark has befriended. The mascot is a mockery of Clark's human likeness and a physical representation of all his horrid qualities. In fact, it is the only entity that seems to possess any sentience, though it is purely animalistic. After all, alcoholism is a monster that never asks you to change and accepts you exactly for who you are. As long as it can keep hurting you, it will remain happy with you.
Clark tries to introduce Mary to the creature, claiming she is safe because she doesn't require either of them to change. But just as Clark's issues consumed his mind, the mascot takes a violent bite out of his shoulder, inevitably consuming the last bit of life from him.
Horrified, Mary flees the creature to escape the complex. As she runs through the distorted memory of the furniture store, she uses a rock from her childhood home to defend herself. By smashing the creature and breaking the rock, she metaphorically destroys the generational guilt and the self-imposed burden that forced her to try and save Clark, and the monster that destroyed her client and now wants to destroy her, too.
Yet, the film denies us a happy ending. Even though Mary physically escapes the complex and is saved by a group of professionals, her mind remains trapped within those minimal walls. The overwhelming guilt and the trauma of witnessing Clark's decline are permanently ingrained in her mind, proving that survivors of a loved one's addiction can rarely move on clean.
I really did like the ending of the Backrooms 2026, actually. The twist that the Backrooms is a space that you can physically exit but a part of you mentally will always be trapped in is a great subversion and really effectively inverts the concept. The main scientist character looks directly into the camera and reveals he is still caught in the same nostalgia trap that Clark was, stuck in a repetitive motion and going nowhere. Mary got out but she's still in there. You can leave but you can never escape
The most fascinating thing I felt right after watching the backrooms movie was feeling in awe about everything around me, being able to recreate a memory of the mall I saw it in, and recreating that memory over and over and watch it all collapse in yellow, I thought about others people's memories of the place, the reason why there might be "spaces" that survive more
I saw the streets become endless in my mind, and the people around me became mannequins
