The Eldritch Horror of Coraline

[@Sibunamember101]

I remember that Neil Gaiman once reblogged a post on Tumblr confirming the story that his editor thought the book was too scary at first. But then editor read the story to her daughters and said they weren't scared. But when Neil got to speak with his editor's daughter and she said that she was actually terrified but wanted to know more about the story. So Coraline was too scary to be published, but exists because a girl lied to her mother.

[@kenichidc]

Holy fuck. That shit goes full circle. Life really does imitates art.

[@nailinthefashion]

i was hoping someone commented this; i've yet to read it because of this (:

[@someone-jf7vj]

@@nailinthefashion Go for it! The first time i read it, i was about 8 or 9..if anything i was fascinated by it more then scared.

[@nailinthefashion]

@@someone-jf7vj one day... (currently cycling between dune and young avenger 2005)

[@sussycecil]

neil homosexual**

[@marsphoto2469]

The way you speak like an enthusiastic college professor that’s ostracized by their department provides me with the chaotic content that I need.

[@KNylen]

highly accurate description

[@yourlocalenth]

They really do have the urgency of an incredibly niche professor who isn't getting nearly as much funding for their very important study/project

[@yviivy]

this is such an accurate description

[@underw777]

those are the best teachers

[@ineshomemcardoso]

Couldn't have defined it better myself

[@TheHedgehogGiraffe]

“Evil hates itself…misery doesn’t love company so much as it hates to be alone, because misery sucks and it knows it.” I HEAVILY fucks with the way your brain works; you’re always so insightful and elaborate without being too overly complicated, with just the right amount of goblin energy

[@tomandonescau7053]

Thank you for writting this, agree!! Is one of my fave things of this channel :D

[@teodorapetkovic]

Some kind soul should write down all of this Oracle-level material of pure wisdom and have us all use it as the True Moral Compass or something. Truth be told I just really like thought-provoking words and this madman spews one existential crisis starter after another without even taking a deep breath inbetween. Marvelous!

[@_imnotgonnacrack]

time stamp?

[@alexandriaroswick8247]

THIS holy shit

[@mars-on-mars]

I was just about to comment on this. This is such a banger quote and he wasn’t even half way through the video

[@boyroy4u]

"Misery doesn't love company, it just doesn't like being alone" what a raw line, im stealing that shit

[@ibear2554]

Satan said, "Misery Loves Company" in Paradise Lost when he decides to bring other people into hell with him.

[@dysmissme7343]

It really is

[@pkbutter]

-james somerton

[@HirschfeldWillamette]

@@pkbutter True

[@nimusehno]

Or you could be considerate and give credit where it’s due

[@realcatfurcoat]

i think the reason "why button eyes" is because the beldam is a dollmaker. what do you do with dolls? you play with them, make up lives for them, pose them as you want and control them. when you get bored with your dolls, you don't play with them anymore. the eyes are also always thought of as "the window to the soul", and eyes are an important part of non-verbal body language cues that can signal things such as dishonesty, anger, hostility etc edit: also, i think she hates cats because in a spiritual sense cats sense and absorb evil energy/spirits

[@HiddenDragon555]

I think the primary reason she hates cats becouse they are able to slip in and out of her 'dollhouse' without her permission.

[@something-from-elsewhere]

@@HiddenDragon555 I don't see how these are necessarily unrelated

[@user-xb5xr8ib8b]

I thought she hated cats because they broke her mice

[@aplant9980]

Honestly I think it's something both more symbolic and more practical- namely because a cat (especially a feral one) _isn't something you can control._ furthermore because it is extremely difficult to earn their trust. She hates anything she can't manipulate.

[@perrilewis180]

Also because cats can easily tear into her dolls. Her dolls are made of soft materials. Something cats can easily destroy due to their claws. And the cat can go in and out of the place and actually talk to her prey. We only know that she had 3 kids or well 3 kids with enough willpower to stay as ghosts.

[@zippydeedoda]

as a camp counselor, you're spot on, however you forgot: listening to them divulge way too personal information and then watch them do a handstand because they just learned how

[@gemhart82]

I am also a camp counselor and it makes me really happy that I can relate to CJ's stories from camp

[@doctorwholover1012]

Nothing hits like a kid going from "35mins of highly personal details of their sibling's most embarrassing injury/puberty/dating experience" and them immediately hitting you with the "AND yesterday I learnt how to make a friendship bracelet from Bethany in bunk 4, do you want me to make you one?" 😅

[@nuclearclarity3778]

“soooo my mom was cheating on my dad but she’s not anymore though bc her boyfriend was doing meth so she had to break up with him buttttt do u wanna buy a fishtail bracelet? i sell them for 25 cents”

[@altacc1724]

@@nuclearclarity3778 omg someone at a camp i went to was talking about how ‘(his) dad cheated on (his) mom with xxx name and she had red hair’ (the same name as a girl who also had red hair) and then we made pride bracelets after :D

[@erinjkrizakk]

FR it really just be like "my mommy says that I was an accident 🤸‍♀️"

[@MadisynBrown]

sending this to every man who has said to me “okay but what’s your actual favorite movie…like a REAL movie?”wym real movie, i wasn’t just watching a baby sensory video for 1h 40mins ?? this the realist piece of cinema you’ll ever get, trust.

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

That or a security camera overlooking traffic ig. Realism is fine but it's weird how so many people *only* like it to the exclusion of all else

[@metanoim]

aye i like ur new song

[@batty_babette]

I agree, but also baby sensory videos are ART.

[@mirmalchik]

@Trexula in my experience, dudes who get extra fixated on categorization questions ("is ping pong a sport?" "Is sushi a sandwich?" etc) don't respond well to people ignoring their fixation or engaging with their fixation i have yet to find a response to these dudes that results in pleasurable interactions, is what i'm saying (edit: currently memorizing Philip Larkin's poem "Aubade" to recite to these dudes, for my next attempt)

[@Dummythick-pq4gi]

And meanwhile their favourite movie is one of the fast and furious movies or some shit

[@dae8665]

I think what's also scary, is in the book, it's implied that one of the ghost children is actually a fairy of some sorts, showing that the Beldam can consume the souls of anyone foolish enough to fall for her tricks, not just humans. It also terrified me that the Beldam so casually mentioned murdering her own mother, because it implies that the Beldam came from something else and isn't the only one of her kind. So then I'm like.. is the tunnel connected to multiple Beldams? Does the tunnel creature eventually eat the Beldams? Or Is the Beldam a child who kills their own parents for not letting her indulge, and that's why she has this insatiable desire to play house and have a structured family? Because she then regrets overindulging but never outgrows that childishness. Iunno. But even the Beldam seems terrified of the tunnel creature. Because it seems like the tunnel is always breathing, so it might be a mouth of some sorts. Which would essentially make the Beldam nothing more than a parasite living in the stomach of something far more powerful than her..

[@Verylengthyapple]

Holy sHit the parasite part is such a good theory

[@rejecthumanityreturntocrab6521]

late to the party but loving the way your brain works

[@KireiC]

All this is why I love how Gaiman writes horrifying things - often with a dose of backstory and history, but not so much that it spells everything out. There's often unspoken motivations and reasons, all these possibilities that you can sit and think about, and get more scared/sad/fascinated by. He gives so much to chew on.

[@LexiPexi15]

My theory is that since she can see through the button eyes of the dolls, she can see through ALL the button eyes. The reason she wants to put buttons in there children's eyes is because she wants to see herself through the eyes of someone who loves her. But of course she's a monster so slowly she doesn't like the way these children see her and instead of blaming herself she discards the child and finds a new one. I think she confuses love with admiration and submission because, as you said, she has a fucked up idea of what a family is supposed to be.

[@elise7650]

goddamn

[@lokiaxel5028]

Elias from the magnus archives but buttons instead of real + artistic interpretations of eyes

[@elliart7432]

I have a good story for the whole "it's scarily easy to gain a child's trust" thing. Back in seventh grade I was in a small choir class of like 5 kids and we all really liked our teacher. He was cool, funny, knew how to teach, etc. He was a big dude with a beard and glasses, yes this is important. So throughout the entire year he would always talk about his twin brother. Not excessively, but just whenever he could in passing, sometimes he'd tell a story involving him, etc, all very casual. So then one day he told us we were gonna have a sub next week, and on that day a man who looked exactly like him but clean shaven and without glasses walked in, claimed to be the brother we've heard about, and started teaching. Well we immediately noticed it was april fools and tried to call his bluff, but as the day went on we got less and less sure of ourselves, and by the end of the day all 5 of us were fully convinced it was his brother. He passed all our tests, had a different demeanor, and even seemed sub par at basic skills in the class. The next day, the "brother" walked in, confirmed that he was infact our teacher and had been the whole time, then revealed that he was an only child. The whole thing ended up being a semester long lesson on how easy we are to manipulate at that age, and how he learned a long time ago the only way to get kids to believe that is to show them safely before someone else tries to take advantage of them for real.

[@chiefofthesky]

um oh my god?! i like it but also that’s insane, how does a person even come up with that

[@hahahahahahahahaa6580]

Props to that teacher holy shit

[@melwhite2023]

ummmm. no that's just gaslighting over a long period of time. anyone can be gaslit. that's a horrible way to teach kids and would give me trust issues with him. should have done something more simple.

[@elliart7432]

@@melwhite2023 well, I liked it and I was actually one of the students. Different strokes I guess. Besides we were seventh graders so we all basically just regarded it as an "epic prank"

[@melwhite2023]

@@elliart7432 i mean yeah but think about it like this. the next time that happens you might blow it off as an "epic prank" again instead of seeing the issue. children are easy to trick but they are also easy to damage.

[@Kotl1ke]

art is not subjective, it is an objective absolute and you are the scale by which i measure it.

[@Afroshoujo]

The wine discovery

[@Cherriheart]

This is the highest compliment

[@maria_zoe_soca4333]

I like potatoes.

[@ioselene9232]

@@maria_zoe_soca4333 but do you like potato potatoes or poTATo potatoes?

[@maria_zoe_soca4333]

@@ioselene9232 Potato potatoes.

[@lureed]

Neil Gaiman is a fucking master of soft magic. There always seems to be a system that the main characters and/or reader aren’t “in on” and it makes all of his works this perfect mix of wondrous and terrifying.

[@kulacute]

i haven’t read much of his work but i completely agree!! i just finished reading Neverwhere and the way he crafts the world and story is exactly how you described it and i love it

[@bluehairedemon]

Yeah, it's very clear in the graveyard book and ocean at the end of the lane, but you can see it in pretty much anything he wrote

[@astrall6541]

Exactly!! I adore his use of soft magic and the way he weaves horror and unease underneath the airy and enigmatic magic

[@Iamjustherek]

So true, it’s very much “there absolutely is magic in this world but magic that your human brain could never possibly understand and honestly you’d probably go crazy trying so let’s not think about it too hard, kay?” type.

[@nkemnoraulmanfredini7286]

@@Iamjustherek magic is knowledge of something that is not knowledgeable by logic only. Magic is creativity, fantasy, imagination, life and..... Well, non logic.

[@beepbeep697]

“Life is non-binary and biracial” the rawest fucking line I’ve ever heard

[@turner15]

@Ur Mama Biracial means two but it doesn’t meant there are only two races, it means an individual who has parents from two races.

[@baxterjaye3984]

he just like me fr

[@skyr5247]

The added realization that there’s been some kids like Wybie’s grandmother’s sister who probably felt added pressure to abandon their real world due to societal circumstances like prejudice or conflicts is so depressing

[@gregjayonnaise8314]

Ikr? As a kid, I was on Coraline’s side, and when the ghosts showed up, I was really surprised and caught off guard. I wondered “why would ANYONE ever agree to have buttons sewn into their eyes? Why would that be worth it?” But the thing is, Coraline is a lower-middle class white girl whose biggest problems is that her family is painfully average and stressed from recently moving. All Coraline wants is to have fun and a family who will spend time with her, so when the Beldam pulls out the button eyes, she’s rightfully horrified. Coraline doesn’t hate her home life, she was just feeling the temporary stress of readjustment and boredom. But the ghost kids could have been suffering from any number of problems; abuse, neglect, poverty, war, and the Beldam’s offer probably was seen as a miracle. Coraline had a home to fight for, but the ghost kids very well might not have. That also makes the Beldam even more of a monster. She wasn’t targeting ungrateful brats, but kids who were so emotionally neglected that they were willing to mutilate themselves so they could have a happy family… only to have the Beldam eat their soul and toss them away once she was done with them.

[@espeon871]

@@gregjayonnaise8314 fr the beldam really out garbaged herself

[@sarahbearbabygirl]

i think this is also a reason they made wybie (and therefore his grandmother) nonwhite. Laika studios is based in portland, OR and therefore knows the area and its history, and the story in the movie is also based in oregon in a traditionally very, very white area. in rural areas, even those that aren’t actively racist can go years without interacting with a nonwhite person simply because of the demographic makeup, so when they do they can unintentionally (or intentionally) be very othering. add on top of that being a nonwhite CHILD in a small white town, children being blunt and sometimes nonsensically cruel, i can’t imagine how that felt on top of everything. nonwhite people (but especially black people) weren’t even allowed to live in oregon legally until after WWII, and even then they were only allowed to live in certain areas of portland for the most part. given wibey’s grandmother’s age, she was probably a child during WWII, and therefore that time. it’s a context that you don’t think about unless you know about the history of the area or if you grew up there, but knowing it adds a whole other layer

[@piss7610]

@@sarahbearbabygirl I thought Wybie was biracial, white and black, or at least one of his parents is biracial.

[@sarahbearbabygirl]

@@piss7610 that’s why i said nonwhite, and his grandmother (and therefore her twin sister) is shown to also be nonwhite.

[@shegohardd7084]

The song the other father sings to Coraline goes: “She’s as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline” This movie is sprinkled with BARS

[@tigerguy529]

And the way the words "button" and "eyes" are vocally emphasized so similarly in a way that almost seems to normalize the concept of having button eyes just rings slighly more sinister on second watch

[@arigadatred5395]

That's cuz it's They Might be Giants. The Other Mother knew what she was doing hiring those guys.

[@Hailey-bz2ym]

@@tigerguy529 he also mentions her being a “doll”

[@Howdyasdo]

That song is burrowed in my brain forever

[@ellesmith1801]

The entire song is a whole ass warning, showing that the Other Father, while a pawn, feels the need to warn Coraline of the Beldam cause he cares and it great. I always felt bad for him.

[@AidanXavier1]

The choice of buttons isn't so arbitrary, it makes her victims into dolls for her to play with. Dolls have had buttons for eyes since before Coraline

[@user-yw8wv5ur4m]

Originally in the book there isn't any doll but the button eyes are still a key feature. So it does come across as a bit arbitrary or just for creepy effect.

[@sennnia]

I think it's just a way to get to the eyes, which are the windows of the soul, so really it's just a way to get to the soul

[@sicksalt7765]

@@user-yw8wv5ur4m I think it still works to communicate the doll-like nature of the other world. The Other people are still the Other Mother's dolls, essentially, and the Pink Palace her dollhouse. It could be arbitrary but it DOES help push that idea.

[@lunamei4420]

@@sicksalt7765 it definitely conveys the doll-like nature!! but i think what cj is saying (and what i agree with) is that it's also interesting to think about how normal buttons are as something in our life that we just see everywhere (on clothes, decorations, purses, etc.), which amplifies the horror

[@nondescriptcat5620]

it's trading reality for illusion, real eyes for false ones that are made for that false reality.

[@IONE_the_Enby]

I think the buttons on the eyes is symbolic. "The eyes are the window to the soul" as they say, and what do buttons do? They're used to close/bind something. Closing the window to their soul, it sounds horrifying. Not only that, but buttons are used for eyes on dolls.. toys. The Beldum views these kids/people as her toys.

[@ratb4st4rd30]

ur a genius

[@mewmew6158]

She's playing family... Quite literally

[@xXxSerpentxXx]

I also believe cats and the reason she hate them is because cats historically are linked to different dimensions, spirits, underworld and being the protectors of human souls, may it be at the gate of the underworld or cats sleeping at the end of the bed.

[@alexandraluster284]

Exactly.

[@Ladyknightthebrave]

I screamed when I saw this. I fucking love Coraline. I can't wait to watch this

[@Ladyknightthebrave]

Okay I feel personally attacked by that line about asexuals going on Twitter instead of starting their essays 🤣

[@hunni2968]

One of the few topics I’m obsessed with and will go on a marathon of watching endless theorizer videos about this animated children’s movie 😩.

[@zcxzcx321]

I KNOW RIGHT. also that ending sequence was so good too

[@justk4929]

omg please analyse Coraline! It can always be analysed - I love your content

[@mrdeer111]

me too

[@royalknightsleipmon2345]

The Beldam feels more like a fairy than a demon to me. Bound by obscure rules, requiring consent to ensnare the victim but free to obtain it by trickery. Not to mention her obsession with games and the idea of fairies kidnapping children. Demons are so often implied to be creatures that tempt and lead people into moral depravity, creatures that embody sin and lead people astray through them, while fairies behave a little differently. What they want or why isn't always obvious, they're much more fickle and unpredictable. They have slight similarities to humans, emotions akin to ours. A fairy may think it loves you, but it doesn't understand love in the way a human does. It believes it loves you, while holding you in the same relationship dynamic as a caged bird and its owner. Seelie fairies, I've heard described, are those who don't fully understand humans or their fragility in comparison to their own immortality, they may unintentionally harm humans in their attempts to show the human love or play with them in the same way as they would with their fellow fairies. Unsee lie fey, meanwhile, understand fully how easily humans can break but just don't really care. They're creatures with an alien sense of morality to us, things we may often see as evil because they hold no regard for human ideals of right and wrong because they aren't human and those ideals don't apply to them as such. I'm willing to bet that the Beldam did believe she loved the children, perhaps even saw herself as a motherly figure to them. She just loves them in the only way she's able to, she loves them as company, she loves them like a child loves a doll, she loves what she can gain from them even if that means hurting them, but I don't think she was actually capable of genuine malice or hate towards them in the way we understand.

[@xanxula8927]

I agree, I think it was slightly hinted at in the movie too, in the beginning when Coraline is looking for the well and Wybie tells her she’s standing on it, she’s standing in a fairy circle.

[@sideways5153]

I think attempting to make the distinction is a mistake. Demons as we understand them come from a millennia-long tradition of treating all supernatural power not derived directly from God as demonic. All that god does is good, and as a result all that does not serve god is acting out of malice or in a way that endangers your soul. It’s that classic abuse tactic of isolation, discouraging polytheism by pitting your faith against all others. On the other hand, fairies stem from polytheistic religious beliefs that never made such a distinction. In every non-Abrahamic European religion I’ve heard of, there are no or almost no unconditional benefactors in the pantheon of gods and beings - just like the real world, any authority figure can act in a way that harms you, any stranger or animal is capable of hurting you, and the world is as capable of destruction as it is of beauty. I feel like trying to analyze the Bedlam from the perspective of the fey requires acknowledging this different paradigm more directly, because the whole point CJ was making with his description of demons was to draw on the well-developed and understood theology of a demon using trickery, deceit, and careful targeting of victims to defile that which was rightfully granted to you. In Coraline, it’s pretty easy to understand the events of the story as a demon using magic to deceive and torment a child in an attempt to steal her soul, and this then allows the analysis to dig even deeper into the text more efficiently. On the other hand, a more fairy-like interpretation would enable a more developed exploration of the non-Bedlam parts of the magic system, which may be a worthwhile pursuit in its own right, but is mostly accounted for by giving some aspects of the story a second pass through the lens of the Lovecraftian. I’d be interested in a robust approach to the story through the lens of the fey and it’s newest offspring, the Lovecraftian, but in this particular work I think the approach may weaken the message. I like the alternate take, tho

[@gregjayonnaise8314]

I remember a line from the book that described the Other Mother (this is a paraphrase); Other Mother: “You know I love you Coraline.” Narration: Coraline knew it was true. The Other Mother did love her. But she loved Coraline like a dragon loves it’s hoard, or a miser loves his gold.” The Other Mother loves Coraline like an object, or material wealth. It’s not about Coraline as an individual, but about how she can brag that she broke Coraline down enough to stay with her, or how she can play with Coraline until she grows bored and tosses her away.

[@highfae]

Fairies aren’t very different from demons actually. They are simply a sect of the fallen angels that decided not to actively seek humanity’s downfall, but instead keep to themselves. However, they still do occasionally cross paths with them, and their morality is neither inherently friendly nor antagonistic. They simply aren’t on anyone’s side but their own.

[@danielblair5970]

@@highfae That certainly assumes that Christianity is correct in an uncomfortable way.

[@duaspontes3716]

i think the most freaking twisted eldritch scene of Coraline is at the end when the cat disappears into the sign post, thereby suggesting that the "real" world has the same kind of weird laws as the demon world

[@rocklee7737]

No, that's just normal cat things.

[@robinroryld]

i saw a theory saying that that means that coraline didn’t actually escape and she just thinks she did

[@keona5560]

I always thought that meant the other world wasn't as closed as we thought

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

I think based on what Neil Gaiman has said about the cat in the book and movies, and the world, that canonically in the Coraline universe, the cat (and most likely all cats) just has the power to traverse through gaps in reality and to other worlds (plural). Also, some mythology says this about cats as well. In the book, the cat actively states that it can leave the Other World through ways in and out that even the Beldam doesn’t know. The reason why the cat, in the book, stayed with Coraline when she went to confront the Beldam after getting all the eyes, instead of just escaping the Other World through those ways, was because, somehow, the Beldam or something suddenly traps the cat in. Once Coraline gets the third child’s eyes, the cat suddenly tenses, and says, “They’re gone. The ways in and out of the place. They just went flat.” Maybe that happened in the movie, too, explaining why the cat came with Coraline to confront the Beldam after getting the third child’s eyes, and used the door to get out of the Other World, instead of just slipping out through another gap, like earlier.

[@FDSignifire]

Thank you Cj for giving me the courage I needed to kill these gnats in my house

[@rg-yg9zz]

OMG my worlds are colliding

[@nightshadetq2453]

legends supporting legends

[@Littlebeth5657]

gnaT

[@novasnearest3541]

I was literally just about to watch your Dave Chappelle video and I see this comment that’s crazy lol

[@Yorokobi224]

@@novasnearest3541 just watched it and sharing ☺️

[@angelicabianca631]

As a young child I was taken by CPS for two years to live with my extended family while my parents took AA, NA and anger management classes. Fun times. Anyway, at the end of these two years, my parents passed all their classes and tests, pee coming back clean consistently and all that. The court asked me, do you want to go back to your parents, or would you like to be permanently adopted by your foster family? My aunt and uncle were nice, stable, had a big nice house in a nice neighborhood, attended church regularly. They loved me and wanted me, my aunt always wanted a daughter and had 2 sons. I had friends there. But they weren’t my real parents. Despite all the uncertainty that came with my parents, the poverty, the memories of abusive, I knew I belonged with them. I made a choice at 7 that forever impacted my life in a huge way. This movie always hits hard for me in that way. I remember not trusting my foster mother/aunt, how nice she was, all the attention she gave me. She really is a good person but it was all so strange in contrast to my “real life”. Shortly after I returned to my parents, my mother killed herself. It was the worst possible thing, but I know if I had chosen to be adopted, she still would have done it, except I would have blamed myself for it. Now at least I know that there was nothing I could have done to save her, for what that’s worth.

[@pamdemonia]

There is something really terrible about having only a thumbs up icon to press to thank you for telling this to the world, but that's what we have.

[@crakhaed]

This is brutal. Thank you for sharing something so raw with us.

[@synesthesia.aesthetic]

I'm so sorry you went thru all of that. I hope you're surrounded by love and healing now.

[@RedSpade37]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

[@danielleshovlin5369]

Damn sometimes KZbin comments give me chills

[@roseivy5956]

CW abuse I was really proud of myself for not being afraid of this story as a child to the same degree that everyone else was, until I realized that it was because my mother was already exactly like the other mother minus the spider parts and button eyes and the idea that kids can trust adults that this film so masterfully exploits our reliance on never existed for me. But I also love it because it's one of the only films I've found that portrays a happy ending at the end of an abusive-adjacent situation, without shying away from how horrific those situations really feel. I think of my own mother every time I watch this film and hear the other mother scream "don't leave me, I'll die without you!" And there's nothing more cathartic than watching her slam the door. Whether that was its original intention or not, it's always going to be one of my favorite movies.

[@jellybean1528]

well shit you made me have a realization

[@constantreader1422]

i was just kind of thinking about something like this! i've seen this movie a few times, but i was a teen the first time and didn't really apply it to myself, and just thought now "oh, right, my parents were abusive so the beldam would have probably gotten my soul pretty easily."

[@Hello-jm3qq]

Adults in my life were varying degrees of this but I was just scared cause the lady looked scary lol.

[@anthonypuuphaus3311]

im glad to know other people felt the same way growing up

[@typosinthebrain5363]

happened to me too.. It's kinda sad and comforting weirdly

[@lekswig3316]

The Beldam reminds me a lot of my grandmother. She isn't purposefully a _bad_ person, but she is incredibly willing to manipulate to gain information, ingratiation, or social status within the family. When I was younger, I'd often go to her house on the weekend, and I remember likening it to Coraline when I was maybe 7-8 without realizing how on the nose I was; she made her house irresistable. Whatever snacks and movies and takeout you wanted, going to the mall whenever, unlimited time on screens... if you could ignore the fact that the whole time, she's basically playing house with you, because she knows she fucked your mom up terribly and she considers you as a do-over and an "in" on her.

[@wandanemer2630]

Oof.

[@pillbugm8914]

Wait why is my grandma exactly like that damn. I think my grandma was too lost in narcissism to be fully in control and conscious of her actions, but yeah she was really horrible to everyone around her.

[@higashiharu]

Saaaame jsus

[@averyeml]

The only thing that this truly makes me terrified of on an existential level is what the Other Mother must’ve done to get that first kid to put the buttons on. Like, she didn’t have much power since she had no souls already, and she has to get a verbal yes to put the buttons on them, so either she found the most TRULY depressed kid or she kept one stuck in that frigid, empty void until it gave her their eyes in a desperate plea to escape.

[@HiddenDragon555]

It could have been the other way around, maybe she took a child's soul and used it as the power source to build herself a safe haven hidden away from the real world. Either way, things were very grim for the first child.

[@antlerthyme]

My first thought it that some of them could have been horribly abused. An abuse situation, to me, could easily lead a child to accept something that seemed terrible but would apparently only hurt for a second. Instead of hurting all the time like you are when you're being abused

[@ellipszilonq]

As an ace currently procrastinating staring my school project I would like to make an official complaint about CJ for coming into my house and punching me right in the face-

[@alexismaynor9528]

This.

[@rafaelsimaro7953]

Same here, and I felt attacked, wtf

[@ithinkflutterawesome6511]

God, this video was hard to watch. Not because it was bad, by any means. Coraline was wonderous to me as child, but when I grew up, and fully understood what the Beldam was doing, and connected it to my own life experience, the way Coraline felt when an adult made themselves out to be trustworthy when in reality they wanted to take something from you... shit, man. I've felt that.

[@EatmySmellyFeet]

feel ya man, Coraline is a story that really does take me on a ride.

[@_gremlinboy]

Yep this. I remember as a 14 year old rewatching coraline right as I was realizing that my stepdad was,,, throwing up red flags, to put it very lightly, and I had a very bad time.

[@nailinthefashion]

have you read the book? it feels like the film except even spookier and disturbing. i've yet to commit to it because of this.

[@itscodyelliot]

I hope you're doing better now

[@spookyho5994]

@@_gremlinboy I hope you’re doing better now, I’m sorry you had to go through that

[@alexandrac6177]

I’ve come to realize that CJ’s stream-of-consciousness-style tangents is actually them saying the same thing multiple times in different ways. It’s as though they write something, and in editing, thinks of 4 other entertaining ways to convey that idea, and just says ‘fuck it, I’ll throw them all in.’ I adore it

[@Armendicus]

Yeah but each time he adds new meaning to it aswell. That's what I call refinement.

[@IONE_the_Enby]

Cj is NB and uses They/them pronouns. But yeah I totally get what you mean. Their tangent way of speaking scratches my ADHD brain-itch.

[@wren3753]

@@IONE_the_Enby their insta says he/they

[@nrnrn999]

@@Armendicus I think that's the important part. Saying the same thing again and again doesn't mean anything, but the fact that each story or extended metaphor refines the message they're trying to say is what makes these videos work so well, in my opinion. Every statement has a point that enhances our understanding of what CJ is trying to say.

[@zerere_]

@@IONE_the_Enby have you checked ig. Where's the info coming from

[@5ft4inprotagonist24]

"look around you. it comes with lore!" is such a fantastic quote

[@grace-4072]

just wanna share that in the book, coraline shares a story (to the kitty) of when her dad took her to the really cool junkyard she always wanted to go to but was too little. when they got there her dad said coraline RUN to the top of the hill now. and she ran to the top and realized there was a wasp nest at the bottom that he had stayed to bait so that they wouldn’t sting her. he dropped his glasses during and had to go back to find them later. coraline asked him weren’t you scared of the wasps when you saw them? you were so brave. and he said no, i wasn’t afraid of the wasps then because i knew they were going to come at me and I had to protect you. but later when I went back for my glasses i felt way more scared since i knew they were there. and that’s bravery-being afraid and still doing the right thing anyway. and idk. hit me.

[@nailinthefashion]

here's a numbered list of things we enjoyed about CJ in this video: 1. the restless shifting 2. fluffy hair, don't care 3. fab spooky makeup looky 4. ace mindset representation 5. eloguence 6. meme timing 7. the other cj fulfilling the sequel lust finally

[@liannsmith7317]

I loved the implication that sexual attraction is analogous to the high of procrastinating. I wonder if sex can actually live up to that

[@sumgirl720]

is "eloguence" like a memey mashup of "elegance" and "eloquence"?

[@nailinthefashion]

@@sumgirl720 yes, actually that's exactly it haha. It's a Michelle Visage meme

[@intrepidolivia482]

@Trexula you must have missed that part in the video, watch it again.

[@CC-xg7pv]

Neil Gaiman LOVES using fairytales and poems from the romantics in his work. The “Belldam” is a reference to Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, it’s a poem about a beautiful woman who tricks men into following her and then high key eats their souls (sound familiar?). The idea of consent/taking souls and strictly abiding by the rules of a game (keeping your word) are also common rules fae follow in Irish mythology :D

[@amelieviljoen6766]

Oh my god, Beldam... Belle Dame... How did I never connect the two

[@aurum3859]

“Demons will stroke your ego while severing your connections to the world around you.” Damn

[@stuckkt5533]

CJ: “For asexuals watching this, sorry for the Freudian verbiage- think about the temptation of going on Twitter instead of starting your essay.” Me, an asexual with crippling adhd: 👁👄👁

[@lunasilvermoon1786]

MY EXACT THOUGHTS AS WELL. i felt so specifically called out lmaoo

[@acemagalor2519]

Same here brother

[@GackleBlax]

I have crippling ADHD as well, but i'm hyper-sexual and i think my borderline addiction to sex is part of my ADHD. It's a stimulating distraction from my overactive mind. Thus, your comment is hard to understand, for me. Would you care to elaborate? I would appreciate it.

[@joez6235]

@@GackleBlax You must imagine that other stimulating distractions are available, like memes, garlic bread and the invasion of Denmark.

[@isabeln1850]

@@joez6235 I thought that was what he was going to say, food, garlic bread specifically. At least we were acknowledged here!

[@404-n4i]

As goofy as the acknowledgment of asexuals is, it's really appreciated. A lot do understand arousal but after a collage prof who talks like sex is universal 💀 nice to be understood

[@sadeez]

the fascinating part of these videos is how you can’t tell if they’re scripted or not

[@Ben10man2]

Yes

[@itsjuno4467]

oh they're totally scripted, it's impressive as hell

[@iciclepopsoldchannel]

They said they talk like this to their friends as well, so maybe a bit of both

[@beckdrennan7783]

i would imagine that they write down talking points, but mostly they probably say things as a train of thought

[@skyehoppers2]

No yall are tripping they are 100% scripted with some ad-libs thrown in while recording

[@danaintern5349]

"worldbuilding is the craft of recreating fantasy in reality's image" is probably the sexiest phrase I've ever heard

[@HannahTuttle]

Coraline just hits different when you had a toxic mother. My mom is much like the Other Mother. She would always buy my affection only to convince me to stay and continue to get abused, telling me that if I left terrible things would happen to us both. My mother controlled my father in the same way The Beldam does. It felt so familiar. I never was able to escape until I was an adult, but watching Coraline slam the door and throw the key down the well felt so powerful- the metaphor of leaving ones abuse and finally having some semblance of closure.

[@madamechicken]

this was why this movie always scared me so much...

[@HannahTuttle]

@@madamechicken oddly enough, my mom thought it was funny to tease me about being scared by this movie…

[@madamechicken]

@@HannahTuttle why am i not surprised?

[@HannahTuttle]

@@madamechicken Tangled hits the same way when your mom says the same shit Mother Gothel does

[@madamechicken]

@@HannahTuttle oh my gosh you have no idea, tangled is my comfort movie and mother knows best is a song that gives me goosebumps. I watch it every month just to remember the songs and to remind myself that there is a good ending, also cj' is the reason why I skip the first five minutes of the movie to get a better experience.. (thanks Cj! you're quick way of speaking gives us serotonin)

[@NightEyeStudio1995]

It's like this analysis was gifted to me with a side of delicious McDonald's fries: finally someone who doesn't use the Cinama Sins style of lazy logic nitpicking and actually talk about the amazing delights of the Soft Magic system. Like with how people question Sophies curse in Howls Moving Castle or question the Beasts magic castle in Beauty and the Beast, the movies sow enough seeds without holding your hands so you can connect the dots yourself. Thank you, thank you, thank you! For this demicious video!

[@jazwhoaskedforthis]

If CJ did Howl I am gonna screech

[@nkbujvytcygvujno6006]

@@jazwhoaskedforthis He did When Marnie Was There, which is a Miyazaki film, I don’t know if it’s Ghibli…

[@PauLtus_B]

Most magical elements are boring unless they represent a literal manifestation of something metaphorical.

[@lazy2452]

awesome video, i think you nailed it x here's a theory: the corridor (and the whole other dimension where the Beldam lives) is something like the internal organs of a multidimensional eldritch horror. my head cannon is that the Beldam was once a human witch or occultist who learned something of the nature of this being/other dimension and decided to live within it, subsisting by luring in children and using their souls as material to alchemically transfigure the structures and illusions of her world. it's especially striking to me how the corridor is described as morphing and resembling the inside of a mouth and other body parts. like that whole dimension of reality is a part of the organic workings of something incomprehensibly older and bigger than human reality can capture, and the bedlam is just a creature that lives within and exploits this environment, maybe even being slowly digested and constantly needing new souls to sustain her form she is a parasite, using the innards of a transdimensional cosmic horror as her den to deceive and prey upon children, to live forever as something more and less than human

[@sunsetsky9885]

I love this theory definitely adds to the the creepy factor, did you come up with it yourself or did you find it? It’s an awesome theory

[@nuclearfurbyy1341]

omg she's diversifying its gut bacteria

[@highfae]

I mean we live _on_ the flesh of a multidimensional being (what we consider a planet) as parasites ourselves… the entire Universe is alive…

[@Sandwich_People]

esophagus moment

[@vivianarojas40]

Yeah, the corridor between the two doors is definitely the main villain of the story. The novella drops hints that the Beldam's first victim was a fae (or some sort of cosmic butterfly thing? idk), so I've always thought of her as some sort of Unseelie spider monster who's latched onto a bigger cosmic horror like a parasite and harnessing their dimension-spanning powers to bring flies into her web.

[@steve7613]

That her first victim is a fae is definitely consistent with Gaimens representation of fantasy, as well as the idea of the Beldam being, at her core, a parasitic being that cannot create on her own.

[@unluckyrabbitsfoot101]

I wouldn’t say the corridor is the main villain, it would still be the Beldam, the corridor/cosmic beings only involvement is that it’s seemingly the source of this dimension and other powers, a lovecraftian esc monster, who doesn’t even care or notice what’s going on around it, because it’s imply to big for that, it is most likely dangerous beyond comprehension, but it’s not the villain, it has no major involvement with the story or it’s characters, it doesn’t have interactions as such, it may be the monster, but with what we see, it does not fit the bill for a villains role

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

I want to push back in the "why buttons" thing. Because its an allusion to the dolls. It's about control and falseness and childhood. The dolls represent all of this. I think its actually an excellent choice as her powers come from her ability to control illusions and pervert childhood

[@oggyboggy8692]

Also sewing being a task we associate with mothers, caretakers. Affection, taking care of a person by fixing their clothes. But it being so dangerous and twisted in Coraline.

[@doctorwholover1012]

Buttons are used to hold and secure things, restrain them etc. What did the other mother want to do to coraline again?........ something about keeping her there forever........

[@orionh5535]

"Laptops are soft magic" Developers: I guess the hardness of a system depends on how much of the sum total you understand?

[@nicoreyes3602]

But the hardness of the system relies heavily on the numerical systems that the universe is governed by and exists by necessity beyond our own understanding

[@janefkrbtt]

@@nicoreyes3602 are you casting a spell?

[@nicoreyes3602]

@@janefkrbtt yes I am performing numerical witchcraft, bring your T184s some graph paper and a fresh sacrifice, the gods of numbers must be satiated

[@Robstafarian]

@@nicoreyes3602 Soft magic is numerology; hard magic is mathematics.

[@thatgal8700]

they don't call it software for nothing

[@iliketurtles6667]

I watched Coraline recently and here's something I noticed - after meeting the Other Mother and being in that world, Coraline is notably a lot harsher to her real parents, and while her dad seems to take it in stride, her mom seems hurt, or at least annoyed, at being compared to this imaginary (as far as she knows) Other Mother, particularly in the scene where she doesn't buy the gloves Coraline wants. However, Coraline's mom never takes it out on her daughter, and makes an effort to smooth the transition of moving for her, like buying groceries so she can cook, and eventually getting Coraline the gloves as a surprise gift. I appreciate that the film, which is meant for kids with a kid protagonist, shows that sometimes kids will thoughtlessly hurt their parents; and it shows that Coraline's mom truly, authentically loves her daughter, even if she isn't as affectionate and attentive as the Other Mother seems.

[@plutototoh]

"Misery doesn't love company so much as it hates to be alone" is the realest way I have ever heard that phrase. I think it would help a lot of people to talk about misery in life in this much more honest and frank way

[@teodorapetkovic]

"laptops are soft magic" yeah actually! Every IT person that knows how they work is technically a tad overpowered because they know what *should* the laptops and phones be doing, but they aren't because of lagging and errors and all that stuff. As an IT major, laptops have evolved into a hard magic for me, but I too agree with the sentiment of it being "like sorcery" in a way it shouldn't be possible and yet somehow is!

[@Niriixa]

It's interesting how technology has started to become something that more and more people need specialized knowledge to understand, let alone control. Of course there's not the same kind of mysticism to it as there is with full on fantasy magic or magical thinking, but I've definitely experienced people with very little knowledge of how their devices work react to others' understanding those devices like they're watching a magic trick. I don't think we'll see an even more massive shift in thinking about technology within our lifetimes, but I wouldn't be surprised if down the line knowledge of increasingly advanced technology will become so specialized that people who possess that knowledge will become more and more rare and general populations more and more removed from even grasping how big and small devices function.

[@mophead_xu]

@@Niriixa well magic is just super developed technologies we've yet to understand anyway, lololol. don't ask who said it; my best mate really liked the quote and that's where i picked it up.

[@80apocryphal13]

I know nothing of computers, but this did make me think about black boxes and the way people talk about 'the algorithm.' The fact we can just feed in some info, and get results, and not even completely understand what's going on in-between gotta be some kinda magic.

[@teodorapetkovic]

@@80apocryphal13 'the algorithm' is peak black magic in my opinion. Everyone says it's evil, but really it's just emotionless and doing the thing it was told to do... to the extreme!

[@teodorapetkovic]

@@Niriixa although this is a humorous response, if you ever witnessed an older person calling you a wizard for pushing the power button twice to reset a Wi-Fi connector... that isn't far off from the wizardry you'd find in a magical word. To those that don't know how to accomplish what you just did, I guess it will always be nothing short of magic. But yeah, our lifetime will be spent on optimization of already created things, rather than new things I'm afraid. Since that's what being funded the most, any groundbreaking feature will either be an accident or just a malfunction someone didn't account for. Still, the way the younger people are just... used to technology now, it sure will create the barrier between consumers and technicians to widen and widen until it's like a canyon that many might not even dare peek over the rocks at, in fear of what's on the other side.

[@charlygrahamcrackers3620]

The fear of adults that do not love you, will not take care of you, and are not your mother really hits in a different way when you know that the adults that do fill that role in your life are in fact not your biological parents.

[@danecarrington4326]

There's a popular interpretation of that Epilogue where it states that the other Mother is actually a spider-like parasite living inside a cosmic monster. Some say it was a cosmic turtle taking reference to the Hexagonal shape of the structure and that it resembles a carapace

[@IONE_the_Enby]

The tunnel was likened to a throat when Coraline passes through the door

[@AlexciaWHY]

was looking for this comment lol that aspect makes the story so creepy

[@em_rip]

When you described how easy it really is to build trust with kids that actually terrified me. That’s why it’s so important to expose kids to stories like Coraline. Kids need to learn that there are dangerous people who don’t have your best interests at heart. They will lure you and hurt you with kind words and promises of love. However, you have the power to stand up to them and protect yourself and others.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

And for those kids who've sadly already been traumatically exposed to that possibility of adult danger & untrustworthiness through abusive parenting etc, I think this G.K. Chesterton quote is applicable to how these types of stories can work?: Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

[@pinkcarnation5667]

The fact that my third grade teacher attempted to groom me by exploiting my love of Coraline - a story of a girl being coerced and manipulated by a monster presenting itself as family - is depressingly ironic.

[@ActuallyNotHayden]

“Halloween, the socially acceptable time to experiment with gender presentation” Miss ONCE I’m begging

[@melon9127]

"Evil hates itself. The only thing evil can do to feel alive is latch onto something beautiful and then drag that thing down, feeding upon it to fill that empty space where evil's heart should be."

[@Kagomai15]

Just started watching but "I don't like horror because I don't see the utility in adding more stress to my life". Totally valid reason to dislike horror. Obviously, it's not for everyone, but if you were curious *why* some folks love the genre, I have heard a lot of folks with anxiety say they like horror because it's controlled and cathartic stress.

[@TheKeyanna]

The horror author Clive Barker goes into this theory in some interviews, as an avid horror movie lover I completely agree, also I really like the paranormal/occult factors as it adds something that is seemingly missing from day-to-day life although I do sense an underlying thread running through my life that does give meaning, this is often only felt in reflection (kind of made up, possibly) and rarely witnessed in the present moment. I would like to add I would not consider gore/slasher movies to have this same effect at all.

[@clownfromclowntown]

I can understand that, but as someone with anxiety I feel the opposite way; horror just exacerbated my already ever-present anxiety I feel as a background to existing. Since I’m already more prone to being upset or fraught by common things, situations like horror games or movies that hone into that feeling just make me more anxious. I guess that goes to show that anxiety effects everyone differently

[@em_rip]

That makes so much sense why I love horror lmao.

[@joselocalau123]

i'm a very anxious person but i do love to get spooked, it's thrilling and exciting

[@Gigi_Ouija]

I personally consume SO much horror content because it's a source of anxiety that doesn't come from my own brain :)

[@Red-Tape-Rending]

"Socially acceptable excuse for you to try out your gender-nonconformity" has me feeling called out and I fucking hate you for it. Subscribed.

[@alicepersson9568]

The fact C's carrying a wine glass full of yknow wine, and their constant need to GESTURE are fun to see at such battle, even if it's just for a few seconds

[@swimmyswim417]

Coraline was one of the first books I ever read that genuinely made me lose sleep. I absolutely adore the movie in all it’s creepy delight, but Neil Gaiman’s writing just burrows under my skin like a hoard of maggots. It was an extremely validating and eye-opening experience for me at the time. I was nine years old, half my family almost died in a car accident, and I had to spend a lot of time on my own while we bounced between houses and hospital visits. Something about Coraline’s loneliness and how it seeped into her bones was so frustratingly relatable.

[@planettsuki]

That book is so captivating. I read it a lot too, as a kid. I’m happy it helped you through a tough time in your life. It’s interesting how such a creepy story can simultaneously be comforting. I guess that’s just the magic of Neil Gaiman. The Graveyard Book was a good one, as well. Almost equally as unsettling/consoling as Coraline.

[@rochellegomes1792]

Hope you're better now

[@LunaVal]

@@planettsuki I'm here for more of the graveyard book lol I've always wanted someone to deep dive into it in a way like this video

[@davidlawrencehawkins775]

“Misery doesn’t love company as a much as it hates to be alone.” Brilliant.

[@beanshotpot]

i saw someone say that people who don't like cats love control. cats don't usually automatically trust people, unlike most dogs, and you can't control how quickly they warm up to you (if they ever will, that is). the other mother always (mostly) in control of her void dimension and the things in it; even her victims being kids adds up for this: easily influenced, immature, and lacking in experience. the other mother not liking cats makes sense because of her thirst for complete control of her environment and the people in it. edit: i apologize for the wording. i didnt mean for the comment to be interpreted as "people who dislike cats are bad at consent". i understand how i came off that way and shouldve spent more time in wording it better.

[@danielmarks9704]

I disagree with the premise and don’t think it used to be as common of a saying. I’ve only heard it on TikTok and Twitter in the past couple months.

[@helens1016]

Bah, that old lukewarm take. Dogs take time to warm up to people too. They can be extremely stubborn and they have preferences and opinions. Cats are just harder to train, but being trainable =/= being controllable. I think her hatred of cats probably has more to do with how they *symbolize* independence.

[@ellakotter6748]

@local enby : YES you put it into words!! Cats embody independence and wariness both in life and in stories. Obviously the Beldam would hate something that can outmaneuver her and doesn’t take anything at face value. I find it interesting that even tho the Other Mother has witchy vibes (her magical world/tricks, desire to eat children, etc) her greatest enemy besides Coraline is a lil black kitty cat, who are famously associated as a witch’s familiar. Maybe he used to be her familiar but was somehow spurned? Or maybe he just likes to hang around and stir random people’s shit up idk

[@beanshotpot]

@@helens1016 thank you for the input!! however, i want to say that where my point stands is just with the way most people characterize dogs and cats to be. i do also agree with your conclusion though :D

[@beanshotpot]

@@danielmarks9704 i'd never heard of the parallels between independence/contol and cats until last year so i dont think its a common saying either, i just thought i was some good food for thought you know? i do want to know what you think about it tho, if youre willing to share :)

[@MelancoliaI]

You're one of those people who will never be mistaken for mediocre. Positively brimming with intelligence and personality.

[@victorthevampire4129]

The thing that always scared me was I knew what the beldam did, I knew how she'd steal and see buttons in your eyes, and yet i knew that I'd let her do it. I knew that for a kid who's life wasn't very good that youd go in a heartbeat, i lived in a household where my parents constantly fought, my dad had issues, I had no friends, and I was lonley, I knew that if someone who looked like my mom but didn't fight, parents that treated me as more than blackmail to chain the other down, it was alluding, a place where the world was not what you had but what you needed mentally, what I'm trying to say is children in abusive/toxic households were scared even more by this movie because we knew it would be our undoing but we'd do it because it was better than the hell that awaited us at home.

[@Sh1garak1s_alt]

jeasus c h r i s t that is way to fucking accurate to my child self when i watched this movie for the first time, like i loved it, but yeah that shit gave me a type of unnerving fear i can’t even explain-

[@thenewdarling1]

“The fear of God? Huh? The show is about grive?” became one of my lizard brain phrases the moment I first watched the Wandavision video, I legit say it out loud every couple of days when I come across a tweet that’s very surface level So when you said “One valued viewer was displeased with this” I audibly gasped knowing what was coming. It was so intense, it was like you’d just challenged me to a game

[@g.j.9515]

it sure is about grive... also became part of my meme riddled brain

[@Pan-optic]

I love to think of real life world-building. I always used to think how if you dropped someone in our timeline they would have no idea what "9/11" was, because we all know what it is. We just mention it as something life-altering and traumatic, but we don't talk about the actual events that much. Whenever someone says something like "after 9/11..." I always wonder "ok, what would I think happened if I had never heard these words before until right now?"

[@Irisverse]

For a while this was me. I mean, I knew what the events of 9/11 were, but I was 5 years old when it happened so the exact day it happened was of no significance to me and the date was not something that stuck in my memory. So when I heard people talking about it it was something of a mystery to me, at least for a couple years until I managed to put 2 and 2 together at the age of 10 or something.

[@s.j7423]

that's really interesting:] yeah i love looking for worldbuilding in media where perhaps it's not meant to be obvious. like in worlds that are very similar to our own, not high-fantasy or sci-fi, in (typically) live action settings. mentioning events or peoples and asking us to infer and understand . anyway yeah

[@ngaire1004]

It's only slightly related but as a child I got numbers mixed up and I thought USA 7/11 stores were named after the terrorist attack (All I knew was that it was something bad, because of vague references to it)

[@The_Keeper_of_Names]

i was born after 9/11 and in Europe so before it was explained in an RE lesson, it was just an unknown nebulous bad thing that happened

[@doctorwholover1012]

@@The_Keeper_of_Names I feel that, 9/11 felt like Chernobyl in terms of historical impact but also space-time distance between me and the actual event when I was a kid, so when I realized when it happened I was stunned tbh

[@WallebyDamned]

Demons love games because of their immortality. In an existence where Game Over is not an option they need new levels to keep them engaged. Losing and isolation are the true pain and death for a demon, but they can't not accept. In a timeless, endless existence in a space often only accessible by outside means (such as whatever the passageway was), competing and capturing souls that must stay with then becomes everything because it lets them feel and gives them others to be perceived by so as to in a way validate their existence. Risking everything is too big of an emotional loot drop if successful that they can't resist. Often it is only those who have reached a certain level of zen acceptance of their position in The All or that have been stung by too many losses/forced isolation that are able to turn away from such temptation. Then again, I don't know any demons so who knows.

[@lukulus-prime]

I think often times as well that demons are our attempts to put a face to the unknowable horrors of real life. They're how we try to see and understand the Eldritch horrors of the IRL wordbuilding. And when we condense these terrifying things into a knowable state, we have to recognize that there is no way for us to overpower them. But what then, we choose to accept that we can't defeat these unknowable monstrosities, even in our stories? Never. So we define simple, and achievable games that the demons are also willing to play. The trope is an expression of our inability as a species to accept that anything could be completely out of our control, or that there are any circumstances in which we can not win, we just have to understand the rules and play better than the other team.

[@GuerillaBunny]

This reminds me of how ancient vampires are described in Vampire: the Masquerade. Once they first become vampires, they go on a power trip, because "holy shit, I'm stronger than them and immortal". But that gets boring eventually. So they start treating people as pieces on a boardgame. They weave schemes that topple cities and nations just to keep themselves entertained. But eventually, if they can't come to terms with their shit, they'll just... kinda fall into a deep sleep, perhaps never to awaken. But if they're powerful enough, even their dreams can affect those of their lineage. And yeah, that's a Lovecraftian trope too. But their dreams only affect an odd number of vampires, and in this universe, actual cosmic horrors slumber elsewhere, their dreams having even more profound ripple effects.

[@songbird6414]

Think about it. Joy comes from anger and sorrow and disappointment. If your life was guaranteed, and thus had no risks, you’d slowly start to forget the feeling of payoff from those risks. If everything is happy… nothing is. A demon who’s faced nothing but monotonous victory, finally getting faced with the possibility of NOT achieving that victory would be too much to ignore. If you’re happy all the time, soon enough you’d be desperate to feel pain once more, if only to remember what that joy truly meant.

[@terraventusaqua123]

34:30 Something else that should be noted about that third visit is that Coraline was asleep when she traveled to that world the first two times. She went there IN HER DREAMS. The third time around, she physically used the key to open the door and went there completely awake with whole body in tow. She couldn’t escape the other world through her sleep because she was physically in that world now. Her only option of escape is going back through the door.

[@vessert2919]

I have ADHD, and I normally cant sit through an entire Video Essay without my small caveman brain craving new stimulus and clicking off to a new enticing thumbnail on the recommended sidebar, but Every single one of your videos is equal parts insightful and engaging so I can actually sit through one and have it be enjoyable and not a chore. Great Stuff!

[@Sh1garak1s_alt]

same right here-

[@joselocalau123]

when i watched this as a kid i genuinely felt very empowered. I remember being terrified of the idea of my parents leaving me when i was a child (i couldn't watch Spirited Away past the scene where the parents turn into pigs for the same reason). But in the movie, Coraline fights and actually saves them. It made me feel as if my fear was actually possible to conquer

[@planettsuki]

THE POWER THEY HOLD. Whipping out god-tier content every single time without fail. I haven’t watched this yet and am already amazed. Thank you CJ ♡ (edit: recently watched Khadija's "content" video-def forgot CJ hates that word when I commented this lmao sry)

[@raquelrodriguez5781]

999⁹⁹999⁹9⁹99⁸9⁹99⁹9999⁹99⁹9999⁹99⁹⁹9⁹9⁹99⁹⁹⁹8⁸8⁸⁸8⁸

[@Songbird-vq6ui]

I can never tell if I’m smart because I fully understand all of his points, or if I’m dumb because I never would have been able to think this deeply about a topic on my own 😂

[@LunaVal]

Thats why analytical videos on media and pop culture are my all time favourite things on KZbin by far out of everything, bc while you're watching you can understand the majority of it, but it's wonderful being able to view it from so many different angles and understandings from your own understanding, the general agreed upon understanding, and the understanding from the specific elements on their own that bring the story it's entirety

[@ItsDylanHarding]

7:42 What's extra scary about the way the "Other Mother" presents herself as such is that it's extremely remniscent of how real-life predators will play into children's naivete in regards to the rules of the world. The way she presents the concept of there being an Other Mother is that this is just a Thing(TM), a common trope of everyone's life that you (Coraline) just happen to have not been acquainted with yet. It has the same energy of a stranger in a van asking a kid to help him find his dog or something, emulating the song and dance of natural social interaction but with a predatory undertone. So upsetting. Great!

[@normanormie]

As someone who has been obsessed with this story for the past 13 years and has tried to consume any and all worthwhile Coraline content, to only see it’s rich story devoured and boiled down to a costume trend on Tik Tok, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your video essay 😊 Great work!

[@thebeetleball]

I loved the acknowledgement towards the absolutely horrifying existence of the other neighbors + father. Something about the other mister B's conversation with coraline before he falls apart is so existentially horrifying

[@ald7282]

coraline for me is so reminiscent of my relationship with my mother vs my father. they divorced when i was very young and had half/half custody of me. at my moms, it was safe, calm, and loving, but we were broke and i never had the things my friends had. with my dad, i had lots of toys and games but i was either left completely alone or chastised. my little mind thought the neglect and abuse was ok because he bought me nice things and that's love too, right? i didn't process that i needed to get out of that house until i was 14.

[@gracebarnes5782]

5:52 "Laptops are magic. Send tweet." This reminds me very much of “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Arthur Clarke)

[@the_marsh_fellow]

The first time I watched Coraline, I immediately had a nightmare that my parents disappeared and I couldn't rely on them any more, having to take care of my little brother all alone in a house that looked like my grandparents', but taller. and the fact that dumbass 10-year-old me *understood some of the themes*, even subconsciously, is a miracle that proves it's an excellent story.

[@andym3312]

"Be brave enough to love those who love you back and wise enough to know that love is not always exciting"

[@briandean5182]

They could stop making videos tomorrow, and I'd still find myself rewatching these video essays on a regular basis-for the rest of my life. There's something intrinsically balanced-both optimistic and grounded-in CJ the X's videos, and I applaud it, with reverence for the wordplay, the method, the madness, and the wisdom.

[@VinceWhitacre]

I have watched The Existential Horror of Cat Valentine more than any other KZbin video, and will continue to watch it semi-frequently. In context, I've only seen like 2 or 3 episodes of Victorious (I watched iCarly with my kid, but she was "too grown up" by the time Victorious and Sam & Cat were a thing) and Ariana has some bangers to be sure, but I'm not exactly her target audience. And yet. Still. Those two hours are everything I want out of content. As is this. It's like CJ as a content creator emerged fully formed from the head of Zeus.

[@yikesoops4157]

CJ talks so fast and has has so much juicy information to convey that a 45 minute video (not even mentioning the clever humor and moments of side tracking) of his feels like at least an hour worth of content. Absolutely love it lmao

[@ren.pfa.99]

It's like an audio that was originally 1 30 hrs long and you sped it up to 1.5, that's why

[@yikesoops4157]

@@ren.pfa.99 even if it is I like to believe he just naturally acts like he did a line of coke before filming

[@stephenstrange4245]

15:14 It could also be said that she targets children because of their raw creative forces. Adulthood tends to diminish that so she'd get more out of feeding on children.

[@d3ada5tronaut]

the way you talk about god in this just absolutely gets at my SOUL because that's how I talk about god too. Because I was raised Catholic I've got this idea of god within me that I am very impassioned about and it's so refreshing to see someone express something that feels so similar.

[@PauLtus_B]

You don't interact with horror to get scared, you interact with it to release fear.

[@SingingSealRiana]

Yeah, that would explain why people WHO are more exposed to real world Horrors and well, anxious people often Love Horror. ITS controlled confrontational therapy . . . . .I am Not easely scared by Horror, I find it comforting Most of the time

[@PauLtus_B]

@@SingingSealRiana It's pretty therapeutic to just feel your way through negative emotions and by the end you can at least give them a spot instead of having the vague discomfort of before.

[@GoodyBadApple]

Idk if someone else has already said this, but the piece of jade(? Werther's Original?) the ladies give to Coraline could be a reference to a witch's/witching stone (tho I've also heard them referred to as God stones). They're rocks that have naturally occurring holes in them, and apparently when you look through them you can see through faerie glamour/magical illusions/unreality. There are a lot of variations on it, which is fun :) Loved the video CJ - Thanks for all your hard work!

[@ratb4st4rd30]

that's what I thought of too!! I learned about witching stones more recently and immediately thought of coraline

[@TheParadoxGamer1]

Fae stones are fun, and are a classic of Irish/Gaelic legend

[@lostboi2271]

45:00 "rent crisis is the real eldritch abomination" sounds like something that should be on a shirt

[@angy3784]

the fear of god explanation is so good. but yea as a kid i almost implicitly trusted all adults, especially if they smiled at me and knew my name. i’m so shocked that didn’t get me in more trouble.

[@gregjayonnaise8314]

Honestly, that’s not super strange. Most kids implicitly trust adults because they are naturally naive and often raised to be kind to others. The only time kids are distrusting of adults is if they’re given reason to; either adults have mistreated them heavily or their parents have it imbedded in them to not trust random people, even if they’re friendly (to varying degrees of reasonability, because while some parents are reasonably protective, some are just paranoid). As a kid myself, I never really thought of whether an adult could hurt me or not. My parents warned me of stranger-danger, but the image of a scary adult was always emphasized, and I never considered that someone who I knew personally would hurt me. My sister was always the smarter one, as, since she was older and our mom emphasized that she should be a bit more responsible, she was very protective and distrustful of adults we didn’t know (sometimes to a silly degree, but you can’t blame her).

[@jf4263]

for whatever reason when i was a kid, Coraline's real dad singing her that little tune hit my heart. to this day i sing it to my cat when i feed him

[@kerimikkelson7746]

I also think it's interesting to note the film's usage of saturation. In the real world, Coraline is the most colorful one there, while everything else is more dulled colors. But in the other world, everything is extremely saturated, more so than Coraline, but it takes on a new meaning of deception. And then in the Belldam's white void dimension, everything is so desaturated that it's greyscale, making the real world's dulled hues a relief from that. As you said, love is not always colorful. Returning to the real world didn't mean finding out it was more saturated, but rather being able to appreciate it more, despite its colors being just as dulled as before.

[@papayapoe]

this means nothing to you, but the timing of you posting this video is incredibly crazy in alignment with my life

[@sandroselladore3506]

SAME WITH MINE MAN

[@angelsoflithium]

same literally wtf just happened😭

[@KNylen]

wdym?

[@Hanklerfishies]

same same same 😩💦💦💦

[@daisyslusher1281]

SAME WHAT

[@tomsparrow1823]

Buttons are used to attach two pieces of cloth together and cover something up. It's not enough to just take away the tools through which she observes the world for herself, she has to replace them with something meant to obscure the reality of this world from her, forever. At least, that's how i always interpreted it.

[@caitlinistired1050]

Edit: CJ basically said this but I took forever to figure out the words so I’m not deleting this comment Something that unsettles me deeply about the Bedlam is that, not only does she never reveal her reasons or true abilities, but she treats everything as though it is simply matter-of-fact. How she says, “I’m your other mother, silly!” as if going, “Everyone has a other mother. You’re safe.” It was what terrified me as a kid and made me think that this was real. Trust me I was imaginative but it was not easy to make me believe in something for THAT LONG as a kid. It took years for me to watch this movie again because of this. To have an adult manipulate a child so easily with not one hint of suspiciousness? Terrifying.

[@CelestiaLily]

From an outside perspective, we teach kids a lot of things that are verifiably true and factual, but so goddamn weird it might as well be nonsense delivered in a matter-of-fact tone. To my kid brain, the existence of "other mothers" makes just as much sense as "too much chocolate somehow makes you sick" or "cars run on the processed remains of extinct plant life" or "seasons come from the big ball we're on having an axial tilt". So I totally get the fear of adults manipulating your entire sense of reality just by saying odd stuff. That misplaced trust is horrifying.

[@AnaRodriguez-vt3sh]

This movie traumatized me as a child. My mom back then looked unsettlingly similar to the other mother and the real mother. The hair, the cooking, overworking, being chained to the computer for hours… I was terrified my mom would one day just stretch out into my worst nightmare and pull my eyes out with a spoon. And every time she was mad at me she just… opened her eyes wide. I was so horrified but it seemed my reaction was funny to her back then. It got so bad that one day I was all alone and felt sharp needles tracing my neck and back. When I turned around I just saw it, the beldam. I felt so shattered and little, like I’d lost something I would never get back. But inevitably things got better. I went to therapy, my mom stopped with the eyes thing, and I was finally able to close doors with a lock. Now years later Coraline is one of my favorite movies. I’m actually quite thankful. I would not be half the person I am today without it. It’s an intrinsic part of me now. Anyway, this little rant had little to nothing to do with the intelligence and magnificence of this essay. The way you even humanized the beldam in a still very twisted way even made me feel bad for her. This idea of misery and hatred being infinite beings destined to cycle and decay over and over again… so beautiful. The way you’ve worded it have me spiraling at 4 am, how very clever. Even though I doubt you’ll read this, I want to thank you, stranger that will never know me.

[@pecanarchy]

Watching this makes me feel like I went to church, had a transcendental experience during the sermon, then partway through the pastor slapped me across the face and asked me for money. 10/10.

[@packman2321]

I actually read a really interesting essay on Neil Gaiman and horror. "Defeating the dragon: In defense of reading Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane as a work of children's gothic horror" does a really good job of defending the idea that Neil Gaiman writes stories that work not by telling children that they have to grow up to face horror but by allowing them to do it now- as children, with childish things. I kept thinking about that while watching the bit where you talk about control and Coraline. There really is a neat push and pull between how much control Coraline has (of the game, of her own cheating in it... In the book, of the picnic she puts together at the well) and those forces that keep pushing and pulling her between worlds. You can't choose where you, but you can act when you get there, I guess.

[@jademoon7938]

The mice and cat are real, they're living creatures taken/visiting from the real world, evidenced by them still being alive when everyone else crumbles into dust or turns grey and deflates. The mice are really rats but they're real animals (when the cat catches one and snaps its neck, it turns it into a rat). This means they're not under the full control of the Beldam like everyone else is (though there's some essence in the creations with some tiny shred of agency left that fades over their enslavement as she takes over). So the mice whisper the truth to Coraline because they know the truth and have the ability to whisper it to her, they're their own creatures, just with glamours to make them look cute and appealing. The cat is entirely real with zero Beldam magic, the implication being that cats are magical creatures in the real world who can talk, they just don't. This ties into cats - particularly black cats - being witch familiars and therefore can see through magic. Meaning the cat has seen the Beldam for what she really is the entire time. The cat's magic allows it to enter and exit The Beldam's realm against her wishes. It's the only creature that easily slips between worlds, and presumably has other ways in and out than the tunnel. The other "people" are essences enslaved to the Beldam, and their origins aren't clear, though it appears as though when the Beldam is distracted, their agency returns slightly, and they can warn Coraline, but they aren't alive like the cat and mice are. Hope that makes enough sense to understand what I'm trying to say. The Beldam can't create life, she can magic things and take an essence and turn it into a puppet, and you can easily see who's alive and who's a puppet. So the Other Father has been enslaved so long his essence barely has any agency left, until the Beldam is far enough away, and then he sneaks hints. The mice and cat can just do that if they want to because they're living beings.

[@allisond1645]

I think there's a difference between the other mother's "mice" and Mr. B's mice. When the cat kills one of the the other mother's mice and it turns into a rat, sand starts spilling out of it similarly to how the Other Wybie's hand disintegrates when he takes off his glove. To me this indicates that the rats are another one of the Other Mother's puppets. In addition the rats/mice in the other world never stop working for the other mother -- they're almost the reason she doesn't get the third eye. This is contrasted by Mr. B's mice, who we never actually see, but who seem to possess the same sense of the agency and the same knowledge as the cat. Maybe the real mice can travel between worlds like the cat can, or maybe they know what's going on some other way, but I don’t think Mr. B's mice are the same as the other mother's.

[@jademoon7938]

@@allisond1645 Ok yeah I edited my comment because of that. My memory was failing me a little and I knew there was a difference with the sand, rat body and disappearing, so I tried to make sense of it, knowing I had something wrong but the point would still stand. Thank you. That makes sense. I appreciate that.

[@girlsnightgirIsnight]

my interpretation was that the more sand in a creation, the more agency they have. i think her mice were different from bobinski’s mice, which is why just like the doll, her mice continue to be spies for her. really, they’re just skins of rats stuffed with a little sand (maybe she took some of bobinski’s mice and that’s how they know she’s evil?). on the other hand, the other father and other wybie have more agency and try to help coraline because they required much more sand to make.

[@calcifiedweatherfrog4945]

One of the reasons she might hate cats is because cats are notorious for hunting bugs and mice/rodents. The beldam has multiple associations with bugs and even appears as a spider like creature. The mice are her servants and carry out her whims. She hates cats because in the real world cats would be more powerful than her and her servants. As well as a need for control. the cat is the only thing in this universe she can't control and thus becomes a dangerous outlier in her perfectly thought out equation.

[@jademoon7938]

@@calcifiedweatherfrog4945 Agreed. That's likely why the cat snaps the rat's neck so casually in the movie. He's accustomed to killing them and he already knows the mouse will turn into a rat when it dies*.

[@TheCrimsonRabbit]

That outro they crafted frightened me on a psychological horror level.

[@tegan6554]

me too. why did i watch this right before going to sleep

[@aiilenox6710]

As someone who saw this movie in theaters when i was a kid and absolutely loved it, and is one of my favorite movies to this day, this video speaks to me. Ive heard a lot of people who come from abusive homes relate to this story in a specific way, and that is true for me too. There is nothing quite like that first realization that your parents are not perfect. That there are things way beyond your control, that you cant trust everyone blindly. And from the perspective of an abused kid waking up to their reality for the first time, sometimes the people you cant trust are your own parents. This story encapsulates that general theme of growing up and maturing in a way that every kid can relate to is so awesome. And the main points that things will not always be easy, and sometimes you just have to be brave despite your fear, and hold onto those who truly do care about you, are so GODDAMN important for *everyone*, but especially children.

[@Kennedy749]

"God calls you towards humility and responsibility to your community, and fulfillment is begotten from this, but demons will stroke your ego while severing your connection to the world around you." *Holy shit*

[@fearstreak7462]

I remember when you were doing a live hangout with chat asking questions and the topic of spirituality and religion came up. It does feel like in many Lefty spaces like punching down on religion and I really appreciate that without offering an opinion, you're recognizing these religious motifs when they add something to the conversation. Edit: omg really loving the fear of god explanation rn

[@Robstafarian]

As someone who has never felt any connection to religion, only giving the benefit of the doubt to people who claim to have opposite experience due to politeness, I can only think of religion as a social hierarchy which has justified the active and passive exploitation of people. Religious people seem to derive a sense of community and higher purpose from their religious practice, whilst letting their actual communities whither and die as they evade their higher purpose of helping their fellow humans and sustaining the world for future generations. I do not count charity as a contradiction to that thesis because charity is exceptional rather than how one lives. Whereas I cannot speak for anyone else, I suspect that many people on the left (the actual left, not neoliberals) punch up religion (the cultural, societal, and financial power of religious institutions being too great to quality for "punching down") because they have developed deeper understandings of helping their fellow humans and the damage done to the world in which we all live.

[@collyflower6623]

@@Robstafarian agree that it's punching up, but I think you miss the point that these stories are part of the language of religion but can exist separately from religious belief. Storytelling is central to all cultures and many stories have a basis in religion, so it's important to recognize those references to fully grasp the material. It's fine to not believe in any god (I don't) but I think you really miss out on opportunities to engage with media when you dismiss religion wholesale.

[@comicconcarne]

Renegade Cut is the best for Christian media analysis and critique, the video on "Left Behind" is so good

[@Guimhj]

@@comicconcarne I listen to that every night, it puts me to sleep, it's so good

[@Guimhj]

It's not punching down when it's Christianity and you live in a majority Christin country.

[@neverhowever3231]

i watched like 8 horror movies in the last two days and this was the only one to actually scare me. something about the animation fucks me up

[@gabibalbino150]

I haven't watched this movie since the first time i did when I was 6 because of how hard it fucked me up then lol, watching this video rn was an act of extreme bravery for me

[@queer-ios3155]

The way there's almost no music too

[@hwimilk]

i love soft magic, because it makes things feel more wondrous and magical. hard magic is sometimes written where it's just like another set of laws, no more magical than somethin physical, like physics. soft magic can be convoluted, but it's more childlike and aCTUALLY MAGICAL *angry coughs* -soft magic is what makes ghibli films so captivating: that "this is not something i can see, or hear, or feel, in its entirety, it's something inexplicable and fluid, and so i kind of have to be a child with it." when you're a kid, explicable or stupid stuff seems cool and amazing because you don't know how it works. the world is fresh and wholly unknown, and all of its edges are open to you. and they can do fucking anything, and that's amazing :0 to me, the world is really full of soft magic. most of the time- like i have two modes- "everything is wonderful and i want to have tea in the forest and live with squirrels and screech at the top of a macdonalds sign at night to assert my dominance and everything has meaning and everything is spooshal and beautiful and animate and has feelings and i have feelings (so much feelings) (so many wow) and i'm just a warm hyper puddle of gay dreams" mode, and then there's "food tastes like cardboard the world is science and i hate science i'm sad and no one loves me and i've disappointed everyone and nothing matters and i can't help anyone and why don't we all just die" mode oh my god where do i plan to go with this oh right!! there's this author called haruki murakami- he wrote "kafka on the shore", "the elephant vanishes", and "the wind up bird chronicle", plus other stuff. his novels also have a lot of soft magic, but less of a childlike sort than ghibli films. they're like wading through literal dreams, instead. ghibli's soft magic is like being a little kid, and murakami's soft magic is like having a complex fever dream with dancing potatoes, and then you wake up, and you're all "oh my god dancing potatoes are real and this lamp is special and being alive is a wonderful experience, not in a "thE WORLD IS AMAZING LET'S GO CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST" way, but in that it's bendable and that there's some strange magic that stirrs around people everywhere. and i don't know how it works, but i know that people are complex islands unto themselves, with mysterious faces, and to get to know them is to spelunk into a whole new world, maybe with different dancing potato varieties (dancing yams? :0) and not just people, but being here, being alive, being myself, and i don't necessarily feel the drive to go out and scream and do things, i'm just happier to be alive because the world is not so solid, because i've been displaced from my vantage point, because a small part of my soul feels so seen, and because previously still, dry parts of the world have been woken up and made alive. i don't want to do everything, i am already in a magical world at a magical crossroads, and i'm just waiting for the small things to come. and they will, because the world is weirdly pretty now. and now if you're excuse me i'm going to get out of bed and stick toothpicks in soft inanimate objects, thank you very much

[@leatherfasesin7717]

I think this is exactly why good soft magic systems are so rare: because making an average adult abandon their callousness and confining rationality and return to that exhilarating sense of wonder where everything is a mystery and everything is amasing is a very difficult thing to pull off, while using hard defined rules that have to be worked with or worked around to achieve literally anything in life is piss easy, since that's what we have to deal with on a daily basis. Well, maybe not exactly piss easy, it still requires a lot of skill and/or talent - you get my meaning. Anyway, hard magic systems can be used to make really great stories, but a great story is not the same as a great experience. Some of my favorite books, and games, and anime/movies never gave me the full explanation on how or why their worlds function - they just do, and that's the end of it. There is some method to their madness, that's for sure, and yet I prefer to just accept those worlds as is and ravel in that mystery, immensly enjoying the fact that, unlike in reality, I can't just google the answer to every question I have, instead of fighting them and imposing arbitrary rules where they don't belong. Sometimes the questions themselves are important, not the truth behind them, if there even is such a thing. I don't need to *know* in order to *understand*.

[@kramenisfalling]

Thank you for the interesting perspective and book recommendations

[@planettsuki]

What a chaotic masterpiece of a comment! I’m just getting into Murakami-currently slowly but surely gobbling up “Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World”-and I think I know what you mean. Whenever I do take the time to read through a couple of chapters, I experience the rest of my day in an almost euphoric mood that (maybe) stems from that perspective shift the book gives me in the form of its world building. There’s something truly engaging about a story that’s so unapologetically out-there, while still being grounded in reality, emotionally at the very least. To anyone who reads this: I’m sending you a high-pitched, barely audible yodel-ay-hee-hoo and some chocolates I recovered from the anthropomorphic raccoon I’m currently feuding with.

[@Jonquil_Studios]

Hmm. What makes "the world is science" associated with the cardboard-taste feeling for you? I feel a sense of wonder most often when I'm exploring using scientific methods, particularly biology. But everyone is different.

[@Shaabun]

This is my first exposure to you or your channel in general and I am definitely sticking around to see more. You speak in such an unabashedly unique format, bringing rhyme and wordplay to some sentences, while others are formal and methodical. What a pleasure to the senses your humorous and witty personality has been.

[@KuncanDastner]

I'm yelling during the entire runtime of this video. This is amazing