#heightened reality

[vulturefriends]

city lights, vol. i //

photography by @somanybats | editing by @blood666bat

[hozierplaying]

Wtfock, this was really well done. Although heartbreaking, this was one of the best clips. The emotions were real. The deep pov was haunting. The music and the red tones. The unreliable narrator vibes of Yasmina perceiving the scene in a much more magnified way. Nora's beautiful performance. Most importantly, respecting logic and good sense with the omission of the og kiss. Nicely done ✅ 💯

[takadasaiko]

After reading a very interesting article this morning I want to write a post about writing in a heightened reality... That may need to go on the agenda for this weekend. 

[alpacaidentitycrisis]

My personal preference for the world of the addams family is the 90s version where they are the weirdos and everything else in the world is a heightened campy normality similar to beetlejuice or Edward scissorhands which to me is more addams family than the dark dreeriness of Wednesday which is also from Tim Burton.

[morepassionthansense]

Life in a Soap Opera

We may have to deal with a lot of weird, fucked up shit, but at least we'd all be gorgeous.

[mistressofthelabyrinth-blog]

Heightened Reality (2) - Part 2.

To Recap: 

Immediately memories came flooding back into my brain, and I was entranced by the sheer force of them. I was transported into what must have been 7 days before. We were outside the familiar structure of a house in my neighborhood. Sam and I walked close as we crossed the street from my car. I wasn’t sure whose house this was or why we were going in. I’d say as I normally do that my instincts told me I had a good idea, but I was really coming up with nothing.  Luckily, Sam had my trust. I got the same feeling on the threshold that I’d gotten as I had entered the warehouse…but a slightly smaller hand accidentally brushed up against my own and I couldn’t dwell on it…

We were greeted by familiar photographs and an older woman as we crossed the back entryway into a still seventies-styled living and dining area. A long breakfast bar separated the kitchen from a homey living space. The woman that led us didn’t take the time to regard us, really. This is what told me that Sam was at home here, and it made me all the more curious because I knew this was not Sam’s home, a place I spent much more time than in my own. The smaller hand brushed up against mine again, with purpose this time. Our eyes met and Sam’s head shook a fraction of an inch, brown hair reacting to the resulting wind just enough to tell me not to worry. I took the time to regard the photographs this time and had to work overtime to retain my neutral facial expression at what I saw.  

Devin’s house. Sam’s burly varsity basketball playing boyfriend with the unconsciously neat black curls and a smile anyone with a beating heart would die to have directed at them stared back at me from every photo and I began to notice the resemblance to the woman that had let us in. We were in Devin’s house. I’d known that his family was quite fond of Sam, and that when things got tense his house was the one that Sam ended up in, even if they were fighting. I also knew –only vaguely because of my frequent disapproval of the relationship- that they had recently broken up, but were attempting to work things out, sort of. Why I was here was still more than a mystery to me, but it did explain the glances in my direction. It seemed we weren’t alone with Devin’s mother, I could hear the sounds of boys and electronic devices in the hallway to the right of us as Devin’s mother disappeared down it, leaving Sam and I alone again. No words were exchanged on top of the annoyingly comfortable disposition of Sam and Devin’s mother, and a sense of understanding seemed to flow freely between everyone in the house-except myself.

I stood awkwardly near the breakfast bar and took the time to regard my friend, who seemed if nothing else to be in a pleasant mood. I could see a twinkle of mischief in Sam’s eyes that said a plan was afoot in the mind so often inaccurately presumed to be innocent. I shook my head, not even attempting to hide my disdain for the expression, and received little more than a smirk in return.  Sam had wanted Devin and I to be friends for as long as I could remember, and his original offense I couldn’t place presently but he just seemed so irrevocably common that I never bothered to offer a kindness to him. He bored me, utterly and completely, and his blatant mediocrity was the only trait that provoked a reaction in me at all. Unfortunately, even this was manifested in mild and off-putting annoyance. Sam nodded towards the hall, gesturing with a wink for me to follow before disappearing down it. I only followed because I couldn’t think of anything more awkward than encountering a stranger in their own home.

When I rounded the corner Sam’s head was ducked into what must’ve been Devin’s room. Out of that same purely idiotic human curiosity I took a place behind my best friend to stick my head in the door, realizing with a surprising lack of fear that our bodies were closer than they should’ve been in the position I had chosen. I stopped breathing, for my own sanity, and it became obvious that before that drive to the warehouse this took the cake as the most human I’d felt in quite a while. A supernatural drawing force was the very last thing I needed in this situation, and lately our connection overpowered my senses in ways I could not and did not wish to explain. It’d be a misnomer to call it awkward, but in Devin’s house it was most definitely out of place, not to mention all push on my end, no pull on Sam’s. Human, mortal, socially awkward, and weird.

Very nice, Charlie.

Devin’s basketball buddies were gathered in front of a nice sized plasma screen TV on beanbags that were scattered around liberally. All of them had headsets and 360 game controllers, and were staring stupidly at the screen as if it held the answers to all of life’s great questions. The game was something that looked like a mix of The Sims, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft. It was nothing I’d ever seen before, and that was saying something. I looked down to see that Sam didn’t look pleased with what we saw, but the boys neither noticed nor acknowledged our presence in the room to answer my silent question of why the sight was upsetting.  The screen showed a burly looking warrior –that I naturally associated with its meat-headed counterpart in the center of the room- running up the stairs to a castle and into what looked to be a bedchamber.  There, smaller, weaker looking warriors, stood, and the options to kill, pillage, or rape popped up on the screen invoked raucous laughter from the band of losers with the headsets. Of course the sexual invasion was chosen first, and I felt my eyes roll and then a peculiar expression creep across my face as Sam and I watched just how…graphic the depictions were in the game. My face then grew hot and I was thankful when Sam took a step backwards, leading us back down the hall and away from the room.

It was disgusting, but it definitely invoked some interesting thoughts…I rolled my eyes at myself and followed Sam back into the living area, careful to keep near the walls and try to shrink my annoyingly large – metaphysical, not physical- presence. I always felt very aware of myself and who I was in situations such as these, and there was no use deluding myself into thinking I could go anywhere unnoticed at this point in my life. Sam had the same presence, it simply manifested itself differently. Where I was intimidating, Sam was endearing. Where I was aggressive, Sam was charming, magnetic, and hypnotic in a way that not even I could avoid with the same...hang-ups, so to speak. There was simply no escaping Sam, it was ridiculous from the beginning to think we wouldn’t come to be this close…

“Do you want anything, honey?”

Devin’s Mom’s nameless voice came chiming from in front of us and I snapped myself out of my thoughts again, just in time to see Sam disconnecting a laptop from the desk in the corner of the room. We were staying, I presumed, not comforted at all by the mother regarding me suspiciously.

“I’m fine, Mom. “

Came Sam’s smiling reply. And, always the charmer, she seemed soothed by Sam’s answer. The mother said something about Devin being out eventually, and the two of them exchanged a feeble laugh about ‘knowing how he is’ which I didn’t hear because Sam was shoving the laptop and its contents on me. I stumbled, something I never do, but excused because of my state of disorientation, and decided to shrug off the faux pas by sitting comfortably on the low sectional couch nearby, sitting the laptop on the coffee table and turning towards it, thankful for the distraction. I didn’t dare look up, but I could feel the mother’s eyes on me. My guess was that Devin had relayed his sentiments about me and my relationship with Sam, and how she was searching for signs of whatever he assumed being true. What she saw, I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t given long enough to begin to care because I felt my position being shifted at that moment. I snapped back into consciousness as Sam pushed one of my legs up on the couch and all but curled up into my lap, receiving in turn my instinctive arm around slightly smaller ones. Sam was never one to be uncomfortable in any situation, and this display of affection would only be natural between us in any other circumstances so I forced myself to ignore the eyes that might be on us, and looked up to see that Devin’s mother had indeed disappeared into the back room.

Back up against my chest, Sam took control of the computer before us and directed us to Youtube.

“The latest project is up.” were Sam’s only words, and they were so soft that if we hadn’t been so very close I wouldn’t have caught them at all. The computer directed itself at Sam’s mouse clicks to our school’s film department’s latest project. Meat-headed or not, Devin was one hell of a Camera Operator. Sam and Devin had initially met in the film department, and the video we were watching now was a collaborative work between the two of them which, as it loaded, I was surprised to see featured me as well. Sam shifted uncomfortably between my legs and I felt the nervousness permeate the space between us. This was my first time seeing this particular project. I suppose Devin would’ve been in the room as well but he seemed occupied at the moment…and now Sam’s plan became clearer, the pieces were finally beginning to fit together and make sense. I smiled reassuringly down at my best friend and rubbed the arm under my fingertips affectionately, once more with a surprising lack of fear for our surroundings. Glances and touches normally saved for our more private moments were going unharnessed today, unaffected by potentially prying eyes. I took a risk and allowed our eyes to meet as the loading icon circled idly on the computer screen…

Mistake.

A smile still played at my features as dull brown met the Oceanic Blue-Green of Sam’s hypnotic eyes. The secret weapon that brought many to their knees broke one heart to many and was all at once the reason for the light behind my own two orbs…those Eyes. I nearly drowned. They held so much of everything; today I just couldn’t tear myself away. Everything in the World was right before me and there was no reason for me to look anywhere else. Today I couldn’t distract myself. There was only Sam. There were only our bodies with no space between them, there were only my sinful and traitorous senses refusing to turn themselves off at my will.  There was only us, and the rest of the Earth could’ve fallen to pieces right then, I’d have told it to wait just one more moment. So it was no surprise when Sam’s face tilted up and our lips met, without parting. Softly stripping away our inhibitions, there was no reprieve, no jolt of consciousness to send us reeling apart in surprise and horror at the line that had just been crossed. There was no guilt. There was only us. An assemblage of supernatural energy that could’ve sent a cyclone hurtling in the opposite direction, I was sure everyone in the house, everyone in the World could feel it. Soft as it was, it was more powerful than anything I’d ever felt in my life. Comfortable as it was, I was sure it’d set the whole World on fire right then and there.

I didn’t care.

   (there's no internet in my rehearsal space, but this is what I've been doing all day. Part 3 -- the conclusion, coming soon.)