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wind-sage-serin · 1 year

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Sometimes we have to write things down. For the good of others, yes, but also for the good of ourselves.

Welcome to the corner of tumblr where I share my experiences from the ghost town of a faith I still cherish. I have lived twice in the realms of Hylia before ending up here— once as Wind Sage Fado, and once as Picori Sage “Serin”. The latter name was a nickname given to me by a peculiar person who I’ve since been reacquainted with.

As I currently exist I am human named Matthieu (or Chrome), a trans man, a plural host, and a spiritualist who discovered my identity as the Sage of Wind back in 2009 or so. I was 12 then, but I had dreams as far back as age 10 before I’d even known about the lore.

This is my spiritual blog that branches from my main, located here.

Regarding the plurality, there are a small cast of fellow believers in our system. I’ll make a small list of their identities, their pronouns, and the timeline occurrences that pinpoint them in the fracture or closure of the timeline.

♦️Me (Chrome): Wind Sage both for the Flooded Era as well as covertly for the Calamity Era. Curious to the point of danger-prone. Often socially oblivious.

🖤Daphell: Quarter-Hylian Hero of the Wild, reincarnated after Link’s failure to survive the Shrine of Resurrection. Kidnapped by Yiga at 8 years, fed the Binding Blood which caused him to be bound to Ganon much like his captors. Father is likely Dorian.

🏹Revali: Champion of the Rito, bears the misfortune of having a dual-memory between Daph’s timeline and his Link’s. Came to our system through our summoning pool (which only summons the dead, unmade, and erased). Still cocky, but understands duty.

🌵Ako Ehri: deceased Gerudo King from the Flooded Era, came through the pool. Does not go by his old name as it bears scars. He struggles with English, and his new name is Eheniv for “Wind Prince”.

🌪️Vaati: reformed timeline. He used to visit more than stay, but as his master began to sundown he’s been spending more time here. He’s mischievous, but more level-headed than Serin (Chrome), his master’s alternate successor.

🦈Mipha: Warriors timeline, fought one the final clash before succumbing to fatal wounds. She’s shy but she does her best to help out however she can. She often wonders if she’s doing enough and the answer is that being here is enough for our family.

🦎Daruk: unrelated timeline to anybody else. Seems he survived the attack and lived to be over 100, related to partner sys Link named “Mal”.

🐪Urbosa: literally a manifestation of our Revali’s self-criticism. Doesn’t really speak to many aside from him. She’s not distressed by being a thought form of his.

🌸Zell: royal-blooded Prince, recently began questioning gender. Related to Revali’s Link’s timeline. Still enjoys research, and is just as willing to get in danger for knowledge as the Picori here.

We are fortunate to have as many people as these, even if we are a strange assortment. Most of the posts will be from me (Chrome), but occasionally you may find a difference in tone and a different marker, and that will mean the post is from them.

The likelihood of this place having a lot of viewers is low but we are glad you’re here. If you feel so inclined, we first found our faith in 2009 or so via the Naroin Founder’s Document that I preserved thanks to the Wayback Machine and the Annex Wiki site. Though the proboards site is long gone and the Facebook group is kind of a Ghost Town, we keep moving forward and (Hylia willing) we work to make sense of it.

My main goal is to compile a list of practices to see if it can be codified. Preserving rituals is of serious importance to me.

#zelda pc paganism #pc paganism #zelda #plural stuff #Serin.exe #♦️

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winchester-with-wings · 4 years

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You’re Not Alone

Sam Winchester x Bella (@dreamingforthosewholost)

A Coronavirus-related story.

@dreamingforthosewholost commissioned me!

Request: Unfortunately someone in my immediate family has caught the coronavirus and me myself I’m feeling kind of ill. I’m going to test for it sometime this week. And I would really appreciate it if you could write this fic! So the request is that Sam Winchester is my boyfriend and he is taking care of me.

Word Count: 2200ish!

Author’s Notes: This was an interesting commission! One of the first ones I’ve gotten in a long while and I really appreciate Bella’s support <3 The title is actually kinda relevant too since it’s been such a prominent message during the pandemic. This is personalized with Bella’s name and physical features. promise it’s more fluff and comfort than anything else.

Triggers: family member is covid positive, Bella is assumed positive too.

Wanna get previews, early access and make exclusive requests? Become a Patron! You can follow my Patreon for free too! Can’t become a patron? Please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi (Tips are appreciated!) Commissions are open too!

Mobile Masterlist / Patreon & Commissions Masterlist / Commissions are Open

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Sam and Dean Winchester have officially declared 2020 cancelled.

They'd endured plenty of end-of-world scenarios so far…too many really. But usually there was something for them to do. Something that they could do to stop it, fix it, save the world. It's not really a savior complex when history time and time again proved they were truly heroes.

Not that Bella was going to tell them they were bonafide heroes.

Dean, in particular, didn't need the ego boost, and she didn't want Sam to do something stupid out of obligation to deal with the current situation. Because he couldn't.

The coronavirus, Covid-19, was not of the supernatural realm and couldn't be solved by the best hunters in the world. No, the world was sick and the virus had sprouted from nature and humankind's carelessness. Monsters, ghosts, and demons were now the least of their worries. The creatures even seemed to be sitting it out, doing their own part to give humans a break from hunting and hauntings. This meant that Sam and Dean were left with nothing but terrible headlines, of which they could do nothing about. Humankind's own negligence--failure to react, to test, to take precautions--this was on them. And while the Winchester brothers had been known to face human "monsters," a global pandemic was wildly out of their pay-grade and abilities.

And so over the first few weeks, Sam and Dean read the headlines. Scouring them for anything unrelated to the virus. They came up empty, thankfully.

They took the necessary precautions themselves, going to a "big box store" in town for more than just the supplies often acquired at a gas station convenience store. And as much as Dean loved food, he'd never seen the Impala so loaded with groceries…and toilet paper.

"Dean, we don't need two giant packs of toilet paper," Sam had scolded him, sighing. Dean frowned and had followed through with tossing the toiletry into their cart.

For what it's worth though, the bunker had earned this moniker. All supplies Sam and Dean picked up went towards their stockpile, which had been greatly depleted when they'd taken in refugee hunters from another dimension.

"We'll need this eventually," would be Dean's response to Sam's groans of disapproval as countless bags of chips and cases of beer and frozen packages of meat were piled on.

They'd also expected that more hunters in their newly-formed network would seek shelter for the quarantine. But no one came to the bunker. Instead they stayed away, as recommended, you know…because of social distancing.

Castiel visited when he could, but angel radio was overwhelmed with prayers and he couldn't ignore them for long. Cas had cured someone with the OG plague before, this should be nothing.

Bella--another hunter who lived in town--tried to stay away from the brothers. She'd never forgive herself if breaking quarantine meant weakening them; surely there was some Big Boss fight on the horizon.

Bella had not immersed herself into the hunter's life just yet. She'd recently moved back home and it had only been by a chance meeting in the park during a morning jog that she'd met Sam and soon after, her eyes were opened to the world of the supernatural.

Hell, if she hadn't known any better, Bella would've thought Sam was some sort of god, or an angel. Or a soldier, but no. He was a hunter, and the best way to cultivate her relationship with him had been to become a hunter too, although he hadn't been happy about that. How was she supposed to live life like a normal person, going to work at a restaurant when day-to-day life could be plagued by literal demons? It really put things into perspective. Sam Winchester changed Bella's life, and as long as she was with him, it was for the better.

The quarantine brought with it a personal predicament. Stay home with her family, or with Sam and Dean in the bunker? So far, Bella had only spent time at the bunker during the day in the archives, and even more recently had she spent the night there. But the quarantine could mean practically moving in. Who knew how long it would last? If the articles were to be believed, the rising numbers of infected people could mean at least a month stuck inside.

The stay at home order for Kansas went into effect at the end of March. Yet despite this, Bella's job at a restaurant was considered essential.

"Stay with me," Sam asked her, leaning on the trunk of the Impala. Bella was poised between his legs, his hands resting on her lower back. "We won't get sick and neither will you. It's the best way to keep your family healthy," he reasoned as his thumbs traced a pattern along her back. It was a logical suggestion and she was open to considering it. But how her family would handle the quarantine without her still weighed on her. How could she possibly predict how they'd cope with the isolation? She pressed her forehead into the curve of Sam's neck and nuzzled him.

"But where would I sleep?" she murmured. It's not like she had her own room at the bunker. A deep, throaty chuckle reverberated in Sam's chest and his arms coiled around her.

"Oh I think you know the answer to that."

Bella moved into the bunker that night.

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She stayed in touch with her family, of course, occasionally dropping off food on the front porch and retreating to her car. Phone calls with her grandmother and video chats with her parents too, but then what she'd dreaded came to pass.

Her grandmother tested positive. Her symptoms were rather mild for someone her age, but that didn't stop Bella from worrying. There was a night after a longer shift at work that she came home to the bunker and broke down and cried while Sam held her.

"They're all at risk now!" she cried. Her grandmother had come to stay with her parents so that she wouldn't be all alone. She was both thankful she hadn't stayed there but also felt guilty that now her family was facing the virus without her.

Dean cooked them all a dinner of comfort food and reassured her that he'd reach out to Cas, asking for a miracle.

Even with the orders in place, Bella felt a flexibility that others may not have because of her essential job. Yes, she dealt with rude people who just couldn't cope with the state of things, but she also had a reason for leaving the bunker and being out on the road. Although no one stopped her or questioned her; these stay-at-home orders weren't enforced very well.

She'd put together a care package for her grandmother and, while wearing gloves and a mask (oh and foggy glasses), and managed to stop by her parent's home. Her grandmother had been fortunate enough to not require hospitalization, but the idea that she might be struggling was overwhelming--enough that Bella was willing to take the risk.

She was young and healthy, confident that she could beat the virus as well if it came to it. Still, she planned to stay a safe distance away and avoid touching things. It broke Bella's heart that she couldn't hug her parents, couldn't hold her grandmother's hand.

"You're going to be okay," was the only reassurance she could conjure up.

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Not even two weeks later…

Bella called in sick.

It started with a sore throat. Dean wanted to chalk that up to her snoring.

"I do not snore!" Bella contested. "Sam! Tell him!" His grin was wiped away when called to defend her, and with a serious face, he nodded.

"Yeah Dean, she doesn't snore. I do." Literally behind Bella's back, Sam's eyes widened and he shook his head. "She totally does. So loud." he mouthed to his brother. "Still, just to be safe, babe, you should rest."

Sam went out on a small supply run and when he returned, Bella was laid up in bed, coughing.

"Oh sweetheart," Sam sighed, coming to her bedside. Using the back of his giant hand, he reached out to touch Bella's forehead, gleaming with sweat.

"No, don’t!" She recoiled from his touch. "I think--I think I have it." Saying the name out loud would only make it more real. Sam just smirked and made contact with her skin.

"You're burning up."

"I told you," she said, just before breaking into a fit of coughing.

"We need to get you tested. Come on." Sam scooped Bella into his arms with ease, taking her blanket with them.

He held her hand as he drove her to a testing site in town and held her hand while her sinuses were swabbed. He was wearing a facemask but his reassuring smile reached his hazel eyes; she loved the way they crinkled at the corner when he smiled.

"I should probably stay in another room when we get back," Bella suggested, rather quietly. Was she ashamed? Embarrassed? Or was she just scared? She'd been careful and perhaps even a little cocky that she could handle it, and where did that land her? Sucking wind.

"No. It's fine. I'll crash in another room. I want you to be comfortable." Sam rested his hand on her knee. He looked so good behind the wheel of the impala, such a shame that Dean doesn't let him drive more often. "Besides, your germs are already all over my room."

"I don't want you guys to get sick," Bella mumbled as Sam pulled into the bunker garage.

"Baby, we've already been exposed. We'll be okay. We just need to focus on you getting better now."

Sam opened the passenger door and carried Bella again, despite her complaints.

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The results didn't take very long to come back positive. But it also wasn't a surprise either.

Cas returned to the bunker and with a touch of his hand, he was able to determine that Sam and Dean were healthy and safe.

"Can you help her?" Sam asked the angel. He sat on the bed next to Bella, brushing her long brown hair away from her face. Once, while she was resting and they were streaming something on Sam's laptop, he'd tried to braid her hair. It hadn't been too successful but it did the trick of pulling her hair away from her face and neck, preventing it from frizzing up more than it already did.

Cas sighed. "I can try but it's taking minor miracles to heal the people in the hospitals. Even still, I can't wipe it out of a person's system completely. It would be suspicious and could hinder man's search for proper treatments and cures. But for Bella, I can try." Cas stepped forward with his hand outstretched. Bella's tired brown eyes suddenly widened and held up a hand.

"W-wait, wait no. Stop," she managed to rasp out. Castiel looked utterly confused. Who would refuse a miracle? "If you can heal people. Make them better. Don't waste it on me."

"What? Baby, it's not a waste," Sam argued.

"No, you don't understand." Bella started coughing. "I'll be okay. But if Cas can do this…can I ask that he visit someone else?" Realization ran across Sam's features.

"Your grandmother." Bella nodded.

"Oh, of course," Cas agreed without further questions. Dean led his friend out of the room, offering to get him your address.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I should've thought of that too. I'm sorry," Sam said, his face twisted up in guilt. He settled deeper into the bed beside Bella and she shifted so that she rested her head on his chest rather than a pillow.

"It's okay," Bella said, and she really meant it.

"I can't stand seeing someone I care about in pain." Sam seemed to be speaking into the silence filling his bedroom, the room he'd relinquished to Bella. A room he didn't sleep in right now, but spent just about every other waking moment in. Bella winced as she readjusted, snuggling closer to Sam.

"You care about me?" Sam's chuckle reverberated in his chest, muffling the sound of his heartbeat--Bella's favorite lullaby.

"You must be really sick because you sound crazy. Of course I care about you, sweetheart." Sam pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"My body hurts," Bella said a moment later, the pain bringing tears to her eyes.

"What can I do?"

"Just hold me? Maybe get rid of the blanket?" Just moments ago, she'd been shaking, so cold and sweaty. Now it was too much.

"Yeah, okay." Sam slithered out from under Bella. He did as she asked, removing the duvet and then adjusted her position in bed with more pillows. He turned off the light as well, setting up his laptop per their usual lounging routine nowadays.

"Sam?" His giant figure had been lost to the shadows of his room. But hearing the fear in her voice, Sam returned to the bed.

"Hey, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Bella sighed. "But you could still get sick. You shouldn't be here." Sam removed his shirt. Bella blinked and somehow missed out on watching him change into his pajama pants. And then he climbed into the bed.

"I'm not leaving you. I won't leave you alone. So many people are going through this alone but I won't let you, Bella. I'm not going anywhere."

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Tagging: @abbessolute @book-loving--anime-chick @faithtrustandpixiedust95 @fabinapercabeth4179 @sanya-gryff @softdudebro @thinkwritexpress-official @autoblocked @karazoiel @therealcap @mathle0matle @whoopxd @bookworm4ever99 @geeksareunique @pottxrwolff @ravenhaviland @clockblobber @melaninspice11 @gryffindorable713 @feelmyroarrrr @mrswhozeewhatsis

#my writing #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfic #commission #spn #spn fic #sam winchester fic #sam winchester fluff #covid_19 #coronavirus #comfort fic #fluff

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confessionary77 · 4 years

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‘I Should Have Remembered Them The Way They Were’

The past should be left alone. Re-visiting the best of memories will only ruin them.

Steven learned that on his own when he returned to his childhood hometown and was swept into the life he thought he left behind.

I spoke to an old friend recently and would like to share his story. However, he asked me to make sure he won’t be identified by what I wrote. It’s not as if he shared deep secrets or anything like it, but he rather likes his privacy and peace. Despite my opinion that there’s nothing to hide, I vowed to conceal anything that can eventually point at him. Names and some identifying characteristics therefore had to be changed.

— — —

Steven left his home when he was barely over 20. The country of his youth had just been through a war and emerged scarred, battered and radicalized. As Steven's dreams and plans expanded, his surroundings shrunk, metaphorically, until his future could no longer fit into the limited mould the country was shaping into. He packed his bags, said his farewells and left, leaving behind everything and everyone he knew.

Steven was a gifted wrestler, a middleweight national champion. His wrestling days started when he was eight and naturally all the friends of his youth hailed from the wrestling club. For years they were inseparable—they not only trained together, they also travelled across the continent for competitions and events; they focused their education on sports, went through the same schools and as result spent most of their waking time together. They studied together, partied together, vacationed together, trained together. They knew each other better than parents ever could. Then, three years before he left, Steven suffered a back injury which sidelined him from competition for a few months. When he healed and returned to wrestling, he realized he lost the killer drive that made him a champion, and took up coaching. He spent more times with his pupils than his old teammates, but although it loosened the tight bond they had, their friendship endured in a more mature, less intense form.

When he landed at his new home an ocean away, they kept in touch. Phone calls were expensive back then, the internet was still very young, but emails flew back and forth. His friends wanted to know everything—what was the weather like, how the life there differed from theirs, what are the girls like... Questions were flying thick and fast, emails piling up in his inbox faster than he could reply to them. It was almost as good as having them around. Then, within months, the questions became rarer, the responses to his emails terse and long in coming, until in the second year of his new life they tapered into nothing. Steven was hurt, of course, when his emails went unanswered. But, most of all, he was lonely. Building life in a new country takes great toll and having no one to share the challenges and soothe disappointments was hard. Drawing on the strength of will that made him a champion, he reminded himself that it was his decision to move away. He understood that his mates had their lives, their daily routines, problems and celebrations which didn't involve him any longer. In a way, cutting loose that particular thread of his previous life made him finally immerse himself into his new reality. He found a good job in a good media company and grew with it.

On personal side a girl emerged to help him build dreams. And, using those dreams as blueprint, they built their life together. His wrestling days and wrestling friends became just a story told on late evenings after the second glass of wine. The edges of that story, just like their faces in his memory, got blurred, softer, less real, until, just like the emails all those years earlier, they faded into nothingness.

Life took Steven as far away from wrestling as it was possible to go; he worked an office job dealing with the new media. The only sport he practiced was semi-regular running by himself when he had time or felt like it. That new media programming turned out to be lucrative enough so that at the age of 50 he was ready to retire. His and wife's careful planning made it possible to move back to Steven's childhood town where living was cheaper and their savings would stretch much further.

That's the long background story Steven shared one boozy evening. He was bothered by something, and although we weren't all that close, the conversation rolled smoothly and a minor life's lesson emerged.

"One day," Steven told me, "while out and about finishing some chores, I ran into an old wrestling coach of mine. We were both genuinely happy to see each other. We sat for a while at a cafe catching up, but both of us were busy rushing somewhere, so we exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together and unravel everything that happened in our lives in the last three decades. We hugged, laughed and separated, looking forward to meet again. We have been in touch over the phone once or twice since, but there was always something that made it inconvenient to meet. That same day, or maybe a day after, the coach ran into one of my old wrestling teammates. I imagine he went 'You won't believe whom I met...' and told him about me. That teammate was always known for his curiosity and gossip he liked to share with everyone. He quickly got busy, called the rest of the team to share the news. They still kept in touch and most of them were still involved in or around wrestling. I started getting phone calls from ghosts from the past, all eager to hear something I haven't told the others, so they can compare notes. Those conversations were stunted, riddled with awkward moments and pauses, but it didn't seem to bother them. They all wanted to meet me. Some invited me to a wrestling training."

"Before I left the country I was like them—blunt, chatty, curious. But through time I grew to be more politely distant, less eager to know things that aren't my business and averse to gossip. Wrestling was something I did in my youth. At the time it probably was the most important thing in my life. However, in the past two decades I don't know if I even thought about it, let alone mentioned it. It became as distant for me as the first children's picture-book I read; I vaguely remembered it, but had no desire to revisit it. Those guys, my former teammates, they seemed frozen in the past. They still plotted and schemed against other clubs and wrestlers, their jargon was still the same, their jokes as crude and insulting. To their invitations to the club I kept replying with 'will see,' 'can't right now,' 'too busy,' maybe next time...' I mean, everybody at his right mind would get it—I wasn't into it. And, maybe they did get it, but still wanted to make me say it out loud. So I did, I finally told them that I haven't been near a wrestling mat for 30 years and I still don't miss it, so I would like to keep it that way and keep myself away."

"When that was finally sorted out, they changed the tack. I got a call from Ned. Ned was my sparing partner in the days of my best results. We went to school together and hung out together; we were practically inseparable for four years. He was a brother I never had. Naturally, when he called, I wanted to see him. Not to pick up where we left off—I knew that was impossible—but to see how he's doing and what he made of his life. We went for a drink, him and wife and me and mine. I was around when he met his wife and knew both of them quite well, but I've never seen his two sons. Ned used to be tall, lanky with head full of unruly blond curls girls were crazy about. Ned whom I met now was a prematurely aged bold guy with torso too wide for his long limbs. He spoke like the 16-year-old Ned I remember, and that maybe more than anything else, felt so weird. It seemed that, except the physical change, not much else has changed about him. Nad had forgotten to grow up. While the wives politely tried (and failed, I'll learn later) to find something common to talk about, Ned gabbed about his sons' extreme talent for wrestling. I smiled politely and tried to nod at appropriate places, hoping he'll think that I care. When we finally managed to talk about our lives, the brief sketches of all that happened since I went away, it exposed the gulf so broad and so deep that no amount of small talk could bridge it. Ned was still involved in wrestling, professionally, as a high administrator for the national association. His wife who was just getting into car sales business when I left, was now a senior manager in a dealership. Their life-paths followed the pre-set trajectory. They are now a few steps higher on the same ladder they started climbing back then."

"I, on the other hand, was doing something so completely unrelated and so utterly foreign to them that they couldn't comprehend what I was talking about when I tried to explain. I got an impression they thought it a failure that I did something other than wrestling. After a few minutes there was nothing to talk about. Of course, I could have feigned interest and asked again about his kids' training, which would undoubtedly unleash another tirade of boastful tales, but I could muster no strength for it. When we came home, wife said 'so, that was Ned! I imagined him completely different.' She hit the nail on the head—I, too, remembered him different. Suddenly, I felt a terrible loss. It was as if Ned was a shiny happy memory kept in a special gallery of my mind's archive. He was forever young, forever shy, funny, witty kid with a talent for wrestling and a charming conversation that so smoothly blended with my own. Together, we were a power-pair people wanted to be around. This new-old Ned tainted that picture forever and I was furious with myself for allowing it."

"After meeting Ned, I stopped taking the calls from the gang. Slowly, they tapered off. They taught me a really important lesson: never tried to re-live the memories, they can never live up to the image in your head. All the people I knew from my past are now strangers with whom I have nothing in common. Meeting them only serves the purpose of comparing who aged more gracefully. Keep the memory of your youth precious and NEVER try to reconnect with people you lost touch with. If they were meant to stay in your life, they would have been there all along. Instead, it's like re-reading that old picture-book, one can't help but find it inadequate, lame and strange."

#creative writing #writing #non-fiction #wrestling #wrestlers #short story #storytelling #writers #write #amwriting #writing life #writeblr #writers community #writing community #writers on tumblr

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vrenaewrites · 5 years

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My Favorite Books Ever (2019).

In June 2018, I did a video about my all time favorite books. I included 13 books and only a couple were young adult, which is the genre I write in.

Boy how things change in a year. I’ve read probably 20 books since then which isn’t a lot compared to other people, but you’d be surprised how many of those were absolute knockouts for me, quickly moving into my hall of fame favorites. So let’s revisit my top 10 list.

10. TIE: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee and MATILDA by Roald Dahl.

[previously #5 and #10, respectively]

These books have to be included on the basis of how much they meant to me as a child and young teen who was bookish, compassionate, and open-minded in my rural (read: often racist) southern community. Scout Finch and Matilda Wormwood were little girls I needed as a little girl, and while I may not reach for these “favorites” too often anymore, they’ll be some of the first books I share with my kids of reading age. They made me who I am.

9. THE MERCILESS by Danielle Vega Rollins.

[new addition]

Boy, oh, boy. If you didn’t catch the pop culture influences on my new WIP, you don’t even know what kind of impact this book had on me. If The Exorcist and Mean Girls had a baby written by Stephen King, this would be it. Sofia Flores is welcomed by the popular, virtuous girls at the expense of outcast Brooklyn, and the price for inclusion is higher than anyone could have known. This is a brutal, BRUTAL book. Full of intrigue, pulpy dirty laundry, and tons of gore, it’s not for the faint of heart. But it is right up my alley.

8. SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn.

[previously #8]

This book messed me up so bad I had to let my little sister borrow it so I had someone to talk about it with. It worked. Journalist Camille Preaker returns to her small Midwest town to investigate the disappearance of little girls, she has to reconnect with her toxic, dysfunctional family I’ve mentioned it before: a fucked up family and a strong sister dynamic - good or bad - are two of my favorite elements to read about. SHARP OBJECTS comes through with that in spades, along with questionable allies, mental illness in the protagonist, twist after twist, and the classic Gillian Flynn style of stylistic, highly personal writing.

7. THE EXORCIST by William Peter Blatty.

[previously #6]

I am totally and utterly obsessed with this story. I did see the movie before I read the book because I’m a horror movie junkie and I saw this movie at like, ten years old. Twelve year old Regan MacNeil makes an imaginary friend through a ouija board and things...get...weird from there. But of course, the story isn’t really about Regan. It’s about Father Karras, the titular exorcist who wrestles with the imaginary friend within Regan - the demon Pazuzu - and his own personal demons. The vulgar violence Regan is subjected to during her possession will burn into your brain forever, and the exploration of the relationship between god and man and devil feeds my dogmatic interests like few things really can.

6. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson.

[previously #7]

I can’t overstate how much I love this book. From the queer coding of Theo and Nellie to the unsteady narration, Hill House has been ridiculously impactful on me since I read it almost two years ago. A parapsychologist invites people with paranormal experiences to spend time with him in the titular home, where he plans to prove the existence of paranormal activity. That’s right, this is the start of the ghost hunting trope, guys. Basically, these people get real fuckin’ haunted. As the sanity of each guest of Hill House is threatened and questioned, we as the reader start to wonder what the truth really is.

5. A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by Paul Tremblay.

[previously #4]

Paul Tremblay is a contemporary to Stephen King. I said what I said. The Barrett family is torn apart by the change in Marjorie, the oldest of their two daughters. As signs of acute schizophrenia become more prevalent, the father turns to religion and the mother turns to mental health professionals. As their resources deplete, they are forced to allow a reality tv show to document Marjorie’s affliction for the paycheck, where the reality and sanity of all involved comes unraveled. The narrators. The twists upon twists. The unrelenting tension as you become invested in finding out what is really wrong with Marjorie. It’s a book I wish I wrote.

4. THE FORBIDDEN GAME trilogy by LJ Smith.

[previously #3]

I just don’t know how to explain what this book did for me creatively. It’s 90s pulp horror and it made me realize that I kinda want to write 90s pulp horror...in 2019. It’s engaging, well written, interesting, unique, diverse, and quick. LJ Smith can do no wrong in my book.

3. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN by JK Rowling.

[previously #2]

Do I have to get into this? The introduction of Remus Lupin, my literal father. The introduction of Sirius Black, my literal son. The introduction of not so annoying Hermione, literally me. The Draco punch. Buckbeak. Big baddies on the horizon. The first YA entry in the series. Chef’s kiss. Also the best film, I said what I said.

2. CARRIE by Stephen King.

[previously #1]

I know, I’m shook. Carrie has been dethroned. Don’t tell her though - we don’t want a prom repeat. Stephen King’s debut is ridiculously good - gritty, scary, brutal, sad, and believable despite being about a telekinetic teen who’s abused into massacring most of a town. Spoilers? The book is like 40 years old. Too bad.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Alice Hoffman’s PRACTICAL MAGIC [previously #9]

Grady Hendrix’s MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM [new]

Dhonielle Clayton’s THE BELLES [new]

1. WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson.

[new addition]

Oh my God, y’all. I read this book in one day while I was in upstate NY last month. I read it on a dock, on a lake, in 80 degree weather, and I had goosebumps by the end. Mary Katherine Blackwood and her sister Constance live alone in the Blackwood mansion, hated by the villagers, jeered at in the grocery store, and gossiped about - for good reason. Six years prior, their entire family was poisoned and the prime suspect, Constance, was acquitted to the disdain of the public. But when a long lost cousin hungry for the Blackwood fortune comes to visit, secret after secret is unearthed along with little Merricat’s various treasures of protection. Talk about twists. Jackson has a KNACK for the vicious town opinion - The Lottery, anyone? - and how it can ruin a family, a person, and how there can be no sole responsibility for mob mentality. I just cannot overstate how much I love this book.

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donnerpartyofone · 6 years

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my pal x

for somewhere around a year now (i have trouble with chronology but that’s probably fair), i’ve had this buddy, who recently disappeared. my acquaintance with him began when i started to visit this convenient bar between the end of my work day, and the beginning of the thursday night radio show i co-host with one of my oldest friends. if i don’t get some time all by myself between these two social events, then i’m libel to lose my mind, so i appreciated the presence of this watering hole in the crumbling industrial campus where the radio station is located. i was worried, at first, when one of the bartenders started to make friends with me, just out of regular exposure, since socializing was the opposite of my reason for being there. once i got to know him, though, i was pretty glad for the company.

X was a terrific bartender who, even though he seemed to have been sober for years, could confidently walk me through the bar’s extensive beer program. besides that, he was a smart, funny guy with a lot of deep cultural cuts to share. i discovered that he had a lot in common with many of my most esteemed friends–he knew both high- and low-brow film, had an extensive awareness of rare independent and experimental music, and brandished an intimate knowledge of the scummier side of many major american cities as they existed in the 70s and 80s. we traded legitimate oddities, like recordings of punk and hardcore classics made by groups of little kids under different weird, hilarious circumstances. i still keep plenty of crusty, beer-drenched handwritten notes from him listing obscure bands i needed to check out, even though some are barely legible. i did my best to keep up with him, to give something back; i don’t have a genuinely deep knowledge of much of anything, but i keep a few cool secrets here and there.

as one might guess from some of the above, X was an old junkie. by “old” i really mean something more like “experienced” or “careworn” or something. he was in his 40s, which is not far off from my age, but he’d been through a lot more than i can imagine. we became closer when he asked me if i would read a passage from a book he was trying to write. he didn’t expect that i’d give him extremely detailed copyediting notes, and unwieldy chunks of my personal reactions to his grimy autobiography. although he was initially nervous about exposing the worst parts of his history to his new friend, he seemed pretty thrilled to get so much work and attention out of me, and i was happy to do it. i didn’t really know how to say that i didn’t think this hubert selby jr style of reportage was in style anymore–contemporary readers who are interested in this kind of underground prose are not necessarily interested in straight white male racial commentary and opinions on sex workers and trans people and such. it isn’t that his writing was so aggressively bigoted, but it was heavily colloquial and of its moment and first-person, and i don’t know if many people are interested in that specific perspective anymore. however, his writing was also engagingly florid, grim, funny, and marked by a very interesting ability to shift suddenly between differing timelines and even hallucinations. i was totally pleased to participate. i only worried that it was too stylized, that it was more focused on attention-getting than on, i don’t know, telling the truth. a lot of my direction was aimed at bringing him back to exactly how something felt or looked or smelled at the time–what literally happened–as opposed to how he thought he should sell it to the public. but, the truth, as he told me frankly was, “i’m sick of being broke.” he had a friend who had had a modicum of success selling his own self-published junkie memoir, and was hoping to supplement his rent-paying ability in the same way. personally, i just thought he should keep writing, because he could.

when i met X he was doing basically-ok, but i had a sense that i had encountered him at the midpoint of a downward spiral. shortly before we met, he had broken up with the love of his life. you got that sense from the way he spoke, in spite of whatever conversational restraint, that he knew what he was talking about, that he had really peaked with her. she was a musician in the latest arrangement fronted by a certain famous and influential lady punk, and he still seemed to admire his ex very much. while he was trying to recover from his loss, he was also constantly on the hunt for decent living quarters. he moved from a punk squat in brooklyn to a sublet situation, under some couple. one day i came in to hear that the couple had blown town. X was sitting at home relaxing, when the u.s. marshals burst in to seize the place; the couple had been just taking X’s rent for themselves, for months, and then vanished, leaving my friend basically holding the bag. suddenly he was homeless, penniless, and without a single form of ID. he was couch surfing in new jersey for a few weeks when he managed to bribe his old landlord with his last $50 to be allowed in for just a minute to get his things. he came out with two large garbage bags that he believed contained his belongings, only to discover that the bags ALSO contained a lot of straight up garbage, meaning he had to find a way to do laundry right away. he had also lost all his personal documentation. getting an ID is so incredibly difficult and anxious-making even if you already have all the qualifying papers, i had an impossible time finding an appropriate reaction to what he was telling me. in america, if you are an adult with no ID, you might as well kill yourself. but of course, you don’t say that kind of thing.

X is a survivor, though, clearly, so i had hopes. as i said, he’d been through a lot by the time i met him. one night i was trying to sell him on the astounding experimental prison drama GHOSTS…OF THE CIVIL DEAD, when he asked me if i liked prison movies. Sure, i said, Not categorically, but I like a good one. after a beat, he replied, “man, i HATE JAIL! jail fucking SUCKS! i been to rikers, i been to sing sing, i been to attica…it all SUCKS, MAN!” on the ellipse, he listed a variety of other famous prisons in other states where he’d lived. it would be putting it too strongly to say i was surprised, given his rough and tumble early years, but i was sort of impressed in some way. unfortunately it was only recently, now, that i started watching a lot of documentary material on penal facilities. at the time i ignorantly laughed to myself, “well of course prison sucks, what a hilarious thing to say…” but the reality is that jail, prison, wherever they stick you, sucks a lot more than is obvious from pure theory. besides the basic and well known problems with the very institution, there’s also the smell, the unrelenting noise, the uncompensated labor, the unique pressures of prison society, all sorts of things that a non-con can barely guess at. i wish i still had the opportunity to ask X if he wanted to talk about it some more.

all that said, it was probably too much for me to hope that X would land on his feet. i mean i still hope that, but i feel a little foolish. one night, one of the last times i saw him, i left him an envelope with a hundred bucks in it. he was naturally delighted, but also extremely embarrassed. the next time i saw him, i told him that i was sure he would have said “no” if i asked if he would accept help, and he confirmed that yeah, it was a good thing that i just forced it on him without asking. over the next few months i had my own shit going on–sickness, family death, mandatory travel, whatever–and didn’t get to see him as often as our usual weekly meet up. when i saw him again, something even worse had happened to him that, typically, wasn’t even his fault: he was out of work for a month due to the sudden emergence of a cyst in his leg that got so bad, so quickly, that he had to buy new pants to accommodate it. apparently, it was the result of a car accident he’d suffered in his 20s. at the time, they told him that he could get a plate in his leg, but he would walk with a permanent limp, and he would certainly never run again. as a young, very broke dude, he refused that extra step, and healed just fine on his own. all the while, the potentiality of this cyst was lurking, and suddenly he found himself unable to stand on his own or even wear normal clothes. it was so close to a major artery that they were unable to lance it. luckily, i thought, he reported that it was healing pretty quickly on its own; he had a good relationship with his boss, and he expected to be back to work in a month.

the last time i ever saw him was about a month after he was supposed to have returned to work. he looked sick, flu-ish, and seemed to have a hard time finding something to say. we’d been talking about The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule’s classic true crime novel-cum-memoir about knowing Ted Bundy before and during his career as a serial murderer. as an erstwhile criminal, X had a personal interest in other criminals, especially those who were famous for their personalities. for naive, sheltered people like myself, it’s easy to think about guys like jesse james or whoever, people who represent an archetypal struggle between law and chaos, and whose main battle has to do with money, something anyone can relate to. it isn’t as automatic for general people to relate to the charles mansons and varg vikerneses and henry lee lucases and ed geins of the world. what we law-abiding citizens miss is not really connected to the validity of the philosophies of these criminals, or even the right to life of their victims; the potential appeal of such outlaws is in their loneliness, their permanent and foregone misunderstoodness, and their petulant abuse of a society that barely even supports the people who abide by its rules. joe coleman, the “outsider artist” whose portraits of infamous crooks and perverts have made him famous, has equated his subjects with frankenstein’s monster, and while i have no interest in forgiving misogynistic narcissists like ted bundy, it is still possible for me to understand what coleman must mean. some people, by virtue of their very chemistry, are irrevocably exiled from “normal” society, and then what are they supposed to do? what are WE supposed to do? anyway, the last time i saw X, we met at the bar, and i gave him my copy of The Stranger Beside Me the moment i finished the last page.

at the time, i knew that X had been unable to pay his phone bill, so i didn’t attempt to call or text him. now, it seems that he no longer has access to email, either.

the last time we spoke, X sheepishly admitted that a minister he knew was allowing him to borrow the guy’s private quarters–a bed, a stovetop, a shower–on a temporary basis. i still had hopes. i also had a lot of guilt. i imagined that i should be able to save him. the apartment i keep with my fiance is hilariously small; the door to our bedroom, a room that just barely fits our bed and really doesn’t fit our collective clothing, doesn’t close all the way and makes a loud noise when you open it, and the bathroom door barely closes, and our couch might not even accommodate someone of X’s height. we don’t even have much of a floor to speak of. still, i thought about letting him stay in our hallway, or on our roof, and wondered how long it might be before someone called the cops or our landlord used it as an excuse to kick us out. i also wondered how long it would take for the three of us to be at each other’s throats in this tiny space, if i managed to work this out. i still wonder what i should have done, if i already missed a legitimate opportunity to save this guy’s life.

i never know what to do with people who are in dire need. i see a homeless guy on the subway, and i start thinking, WHAT IS KEEPING ME FROM TAKING THIS GUY HOME TO HAVE SOMEWHERE TO STAY? like what, am i gonna lose my dvd player? couldn’t i live with that? what the fuck is my problem? i finally set up a reoccurring donation to nyc’s coalition for the homeless, but even then i’m constantly asking myself what’s stopping me from doing more. and i mean, i know what’s stopping me from doing more; needing insurance for preexisting conditions, maintaining the private domesticity i’ve committed to with my husband-to-be, fear of being raped, fear of losing my apartment, etc. almost nothing really seems like a good reason, to the fullest extent of my angry imagination. i can’t help imagining that my friend is dead, and there might have been something i could have done about it. it might be a little bit of an overreaction at the moment, but it’s not completely irrational. i don’t know what to think.

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pcrownnewsletterexample · 7 years

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Hey! Below is my Patreon newsletter for October - I’m sharing this one publicly as an example of what I’ve been writing up and posting every month since July. I cover all the game dev & 3D modelling work I’ve done that month and post progress gifs and lil explanations of my progress and such! There’s usually a bunch in em that I don’t post anywhere else too. October’s newsletter is also a good introduction to my current game project, Housepet! If you’d like to support me and read newsletters like this every month, please consider becoming a Patreon here :O At the time of posting this I’m pretty close to my first goal...! Thanks for reading!!

BOO!!! It’s here again, the spookiest time of the year... [THUNDER SFX] When Ghouls and and Devils roam the streets... [WOLF HOWL SFX] That’s right, it’s [AUSTIN POWERS VOICE] Halloween Baby!! Although by the time you’re reading this it’ll be… [GHOST MOAN SFX] NOVEEEMMMBER 2017! Truly, the march of time is the ultimate fright. Speaking of, let me start talking about the work I did this month past.

A reminder of what my current game project is: it’s called Housepet! It’s a game where you decorate the inside of a pet house to attract characters that can become tenants who pay you rent which can be used to buy more furniture. The furniture you place alter your Housepet’s stats and your tenant’s comfort contributes to your Housepet’s mood. You also fight enemy houses in simple RPG style battles, and every tenant you have can be equipped as their own unique attacks to be used in fights. Obviously.

The first thing I did this month was start designing some enemy houses for World 1! Last time I talked about the battle system it was time based, but I’ve since remade it to be turn based and more similar to a pokemon battle system, which I think is generally easier to explain and get into. Here’re some sketches:

Enemy houses have an evil form when you fight them and a good form when you beat them. You cured them by fighting them I guess?? I’m not worrying too much about making stuff make sense at this point, I’m just doing what I think feels funny or game-y. A more cohesive “plot” can be figured out later if I want there to be one.

For the first overworld area I want these guys to be the enemies, going in order of No. 1, Birdnest, Neighbours, Sweetooth, B&B and then the boss, St. Catherine. The theme of the overworld here is like, typical grass intro level and small village/town, so the enemy houses are kinda standard houses/buildings, but it’d definitely be fun to start losing that in later levels.

Battles in Housepet would be pretty special events as opposed to a game where you’re expected to grind by fighting enemies. You have to fight them one at a time to progress through a board, and the stat increases between them will usually mean you’ll need to decorate your house some more or get more tenants before you can win the next fight. Battling here isn’t a focus of the game, but more of a way of marking progression. Beaten houses will drop Catalog Scraps which can be used to unlock new types of furniture as well as rewarding players with a chunk of cash, and there’ll be a simple EXP system that rewards you with new rooms in your Housepet on level up. There’ll also be bonus spaces on the board with rewards and minigames and such. That’s the plan!

Like I mentioned previously, the battle system has been reworked to be more similar to something like Pokemon, but I’ve simplified it. The only stats the Housepet has are HP, POW, DEF and SPD. HP is just health, or House Points (lol...). POW is your attack power, DEF is your defence against being attacked and SPD determines if you should go first in a battle. You might notice there’s no special attack or special defence, since in Housepet attacks won’t have elements tied to them.

In this early gif (the UI is very temporary) you can see you can exit to the overworld from inside the house, pick the enemy to fight, compare stats, choose and make attacks, damage/crit the enemy and have the enemy take turns too. I’ve also implemented winning and losing, progressing to the next enemy after a win, attacks that can damage others/damage self/heal others/heal self and such, as well as a STUN and SLP status. STUN is essentially being paralyzed, meaning there’s a chance you won’t be able to make a move that turn, and SLP means you’ll sleep for a few turns before waking up. I have other statues I want to implement planned too.

I also played about with making a system for controlling the camera during fights, which I think’ll add a cool dramatic element to certain attack animations!

Below is a text example of just how exciting fights can be with the SLP status…!

Obviously here I was just testing - enemies actually have a hidden “urgency” variable that helps determine the chances of what attack they’ll use (above though it was ignored and they were forced to use Birdsong every turn). If their urgency is high, if they have low HP for example, they’ll be more likely to use more advantageous attacks, such as something damaging or something that would heal them. With a low urgency though, say if they had high HP, they might be more lax and more likely to take a turn to try do a non damaging move that might cause a status on the player. Urgency can also be lowered if the player has a status, and if they have one that can be caused by one of the enemies attacks, the chance for them trying to use that attack while you already have the status dips very low. Each enemy has their own unique rules for urgency and their attacks, which means they all act differently! I think that’s cool.

Woah who’s this!! I want Housepet to have lots of different characters you can unlock as tenants, since the character collection to me is a pretty important and fun aspect of the game. This guy’s the Edgy Rival type, look at his cool spikes and brooding, golden eyes...

I’ve come up with a good few tenants so far and plan to make many more. Here’s a look into the Creative Process of coming up with character types:

Right now I have it in my head that you convert Guests (visiting characters attracted to your house) into Tenants (permanent characters in your inventory you can place in your house and use as attacks in battles) by finding them visiting one of your rooms and interacting with them in a short VN/dating game style dialog back-and-forth where they ask questions about the home and, depending on how appealing to them you make it sound with your answers, you’ll “weaken” them. The more weakened they are, the more likely you’ll be able to “catch” them Pokemon GO style by throwing a crumpled up paper lease ball at them. But I also want there to be other ways that are perhaps more secret or multi-staged. For example, there’ll be characters that knock on your front door from time to time, and one of them could start a path like this:

...Listen, it’s fine. This is what people want from games I think.

I spent a good half of the month just on designing a more permanent UI that connects everything together, since that was a big goal of mine for this month. Man, UI is hard…! It’s something that takes a lot of energy for me to do personally at least. I’ve come up with a solid enough solution for now, for inside the house at least, that’ll work something like this:

I’ve started implementing this and so far you can pick items by main category and subcategory, place move rotate and remove furniture and tenants, have tenants activate and move around when not in move or remove mode. I’ve also started to re-implement buying and selling furniture from the catalog.

The last thing worked on this month was starting to add a way to change the floors and walls of a room. I’m thinking I want low res tiling photograph textures for the floors to give it that Petz/early 2000s game feel that has such a charm to it and works well in highlighting the solid colour furniture and characters.

Oh! And! I modeled a victoria sponge cake I ate in Edinburgh castle as an item I want people to be able to place on surfaces. I want a whole sub category of food “furniture” because, it’ll be a good excuse to model a lot of pretty food.

Unrelated to Housepet, here’re the sticker designs I’ll be sending out to this month’s sticker tier backers! I haven’t done pixel stuff for a long time now and I miss it, so it was fun to do these pixel flowers… Very relaxing. I’ll also add in stickers of these pixel roses I did a while ago now (the ones featured on my business cards!) since I think they’ll go nice together…!

[THUNDER SFX, AGAIN] Hah ha ha… Did you enjoy it? My spooky tale of times since past? Thanks for supporting me this month everyone!! I think I made some good progress - it’s definitely fun to compare stuff from the first newsletter I introduced Housepet to how it is here. But for now… [DOOR SQUEAK SFX AS I CREEP OUT] Farewell… And sweet dreams… [NO FURTHER SFX AS I STAND OUTSIDE THE DOOR I LEFT AND WAIT FOR YOU TO LEAVE SO I CAN COME BACK IN AND WORK SOME MORE]

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resonanteye · 4 years

Photo

via https://is.gd/IEusfG

horror movie talk with LFR

My friend Lucy F. R. has really great taste in movies.

I don’t say that lightly. You all know (if you’ve been reading me a while) how fussy I am about horror/weirdshit and how many movies I’ve watched. It’s my actual hobby, unrelated to anything else I do, purely for enjoyment. It’s hard for me to find people to talk about movies with, really- my uncle, who first introduced me to horror movies, and weird cinema, and one or two friends. So I’m really happy to have a conversation here about movies with someone.

Sal doesn’t take any shit from no man. (Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens)

(R: me, L:them)

R: you’re on a grimy southern/grind horror kick right now. But what genre do you like best? What feeling are you after?

LFR: Horror is my favorite genre, I just get very into specific branches. I always want to end up saying to myself “this is a GOOD movie”.

R: What’s the best of the batch you’ve been into recently?

LFR:The Dunwich Horror (the 70’s one), Ghost Galleon, House By The Cemetery, Werewolves On Wheels, and Tourist Trap.

R: Tell me about Werewolves on Wheels. I just watched Dog Soldiers again, and I’ve been on a werewolf kick.

(Swamp Water)

LFR: Wait, you haven’t seen it? It’s about a small biker gang that are on their way to the desert and come across a monastery that they think is abandoned but come to find out it’s not and a mysterious cult interacts with them. The cult takes one of the biker girls and puts her in a ritual. The bikers take her back from them and go back on the road, but don’t know that ~one~ of them is now a werewolf at night.

R: People reading might not have seen it. I usually try to explain a little when I start talking about stuff, especially the lists I make.

I feel like this could turn into a list?

I saw a short film recently also with a werewolf- soldiers are in WWII, surrounded by Nazis in an old police station. There’s a woman in a cell that’s locked herself in and they get stuck in there with her. She’s a werewolf and they turn so they can beat the Nazis.

I feel like- the older werewolf stuff, I think 60s to early 80s, a lot of it was hippie panic. Manson references.

I felt like Werewolves on Wheels is also backlash on feminism, like a lot of gory stuff from that time.

LFR: It felt like a backlash on feminism and hippies.

(Vamp)

R: with werewolves and vampires there’s the whole homophobic/transphobic thing too. “secret monsters” and all that.

what movies would you compare it to? what’s close to it, in feeling?

LFR: In feeling as in how it made me feel while watching it for the first time: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House Of 1,000 Corpses, Ghost Galleon. I just know it’s a movie that I’ll recommend to everyone and watch over and over.

Aesthetics and mood-wise: Warriors, Clockwork Orange, Hammer Film movies.

R:yeah it’s got that grit to it. easy rider/warriors. I actually haven’t seen Ghost Galleon. Rip it up for me a little.

LFR: Oh man, so

I get really into bands and for the past few years I always look up what my favorite band member’s favorite movies are, or movies that feel like the music genre. So recently I’ve just been super into doom and stoner metal, naturally I’ve been listening to a lot of Electric Wizard. I asked a bunch of doom metal fb groups “what’s the most doom metal movie you’ve seen” and eventually I somehow found Ghost Galleon. It’s a movie that is not good. Very low budget. Like Ed Wood status. But it’s REALLY good.

These swim suit models go out on a shoot and stumble across a ship that should not be afloat still and is completely abandoned. They get stuck on the ship so friends come looking for them. But the ship’s crew is a satanic cult and they come alive and, to keep from spoiling, all hell breaks loose. And it’s THE most doom metal movie you will ever watch. It has it all- mood, aesthetic, and story wise.

R:so bad, it’s incredible. sounds perfect.

LFR: it’s on prime.

R: FUCK YEAH

you guys are always using my prime and my Netflix and my Hulu. you think this is a costume? this is a way of life

R:when I started watching musician friends’ recommendations I ended up discovering Green Room.

The last time before that, it was Pighunt, which is to this day one of my favorite movies.

LFR: You told me to watch that one years ago. I recommend it to basically anyone who will listen to me.

R:it’s like the least sexist least racist southern-USA monster movie ever made.

LFR:Les Claypool’s roll in that has forever changed how I see him. When I saw Primus all I could see him as was a hillbilly preacher.

R: yep completely.

let’s talk about art horror. the weird shit. seen anything good there lately?

(The Horde)

LFR:The Girl On The Third Floor. It was weird and a little comical, but I enjoyed it. I Am The Pretty Thing Living In The House is REALLY good but it’s a little weird and a major slow burn. And, Society, but that’s more body horror than art house horror.

R:Society is a classic. Body horror and class war. So amazing. I thought I am the pretty thing was a lot of fluff- I understand the drive to slow-burn right now, it’s nostalgic. But I think it’s one of the movies where they went too far into the slow burn.

If I’m going to wait 90 minutes, that girl better taste some damn butter. You know?

LFR: I can see why but I also saw it as more of a classic gothic horror story so the pace didn’t bother me too much.

R:I kind of got tired of Gothic horror at some point. The slow burn. I think I was too interested in French and Korean extreme and gore for a minute.

LFR: I’m a sucker for gothic horror and black and white universal monsters.

R:I liked Late Phases- that kind of straddled the line for me really well. Which brings us back to werewolves, strangely enough.

I have been seeing more elderly characters in movies, which I like a lot.

LFR: I love creepy old women and demonic children in films. I feel like The Visit sparked people’s interest in elderly characters in horror.

R: yes! I agree. I really like variety- diversity. ” 5 teenagers on a road trip ” movies… it gets tiring. Bland.

not to mention that there’s actually Black people and elderly women in movies now.

LFR: Road trip gone wrong horror is good but, you gotta do it right.

R:tell me about one that you think gets it right.

LFR: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It paved the way.

R: it did pave the way. that there were pockets of deep weird hate in this country- I think the suburbs were really shocked by it. but if you grew up in bumfuck nowhere it was less shocking.

I think Dead End is the ultimate “road trip gone wrong” movie. Urban legend plot, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye. Just incredible pacing.

LFR: I haven’t seen that one, I’ll have to watch it.

R:oh, you’re going to love it.

I feel like the Hills Have Eyes deserves a mention here. though it’s more a “trapped on purpose” movie than a road trip.

LFR: That’s a “vacation gone wrong” horror movie, and it’s definitely one of the best ones. Vacation and road trip movies are two different branches of a genre to me.

R:I think of them as “wrong turn” vs “bad directions”. like they stumbled into trouble is one genre. they were purposely hunted/trapped, is another.

LFR:Yes, exactly!

R: like a vacation movie that’s a trap- hills have eyes a vacation movie that’s an accident- Jurassic Park

Texas chainsaw massacre is both a road trip and a vacation, an accident and a trap.

tell me about a movie that’s got a plot hole, or has kept you thinking afterward, lately. for me it’s been resolution/the endless, and residue. residue in particular. how do they keep that book? why such a dumb ending? resolution/endless bugs me and I have to watch it again- time loops force me to do math, and I end up a little obsessed with figuring out timelines.

(Requiem for a Vampire)

LFR:Horror wise, 3 From Hell. I keep thinking about how different of a movie it originally was going to be. But also, still, HOW did they survive the shoot out from Devil’s Rejects just… miraculously??? And how come this new Firefly brother was never mentioned previously whatsoever??

R:OMG yes. I couldn’t. I got too wrapped up in plot holes to enjoy it!

LFR:I still enjoyed it for what it was but yeah, I was like WAIT WHAT??? every ten minutes.

R:what about not-horror?

LFR: Picnic At Hanging Rock.

We’ve come for the crites.

R: oh yeah. that’s the kind of movie you think hard about the rest of the day. what’s your theory on the ending?

man I just went to find a photo from it and they made a show? what the hell.

have you seen The Fields? It’s set where I grew up, it’s got…a vibe. Stuck with me.

LFR: Honestly? I can’t come up with a theory on what happened. It just really feels like they simply vanished.

I haven’t seen it. Tell me about it.

(The Fields)

R: There’s a menacing thing in the cornfields. A kid has shitty parents and is sent to stay with family. The farm is in the middle of all cornfields… there’s an abandoned little amusement park that lures him. It’s based on an actual place- a tiny amusement park that flooded and was shut down. it’s still there abandoned, right next to the town I grew up in!

cornfields are extremely creepy. it’s so easy to get lost in them.

The main characters- it’s got all the bad mountain people shit going on, abuse, drinking, violence, and then more because of the presence in the fields. pretty good stuff.

not a slow burn. a medium burn.

LFR:I’m definitely watching it

R: you’ll like it. big Jughead mood.

(and then I got tired and they I think did too, so that’s all for today)

I hope I get to do this again soon: I fuckin LOVE to talk horror.

Not your baby.

If you want to support LFR in some way, wear a mask, stay the fuck home, support BLM and trans rights, and get your government reps to continue unemployment payments for gig AND other workers. Seriously.

#halloween #horror #horror art #horror movies #interview with the artist #morbid art #movie reviews #weird #deep thoughts #journal #learning #love #macabre #posts with lists in them #reviews #true stories

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ash2ash · 3 years

Text

Duality of Pride

I don’t know that I have ever experienced pride without shame. I’ve sat with it and marinated in it, but any memory I may have of that experience predates my conscious memory.

My godfather lived in shadow and shame for all of the nine years that I knew him and for every moment that I have continued to love him since. Posthumous love is such a curious thing.

The irony of the safety he found in the shadows is that I have always associated him with late morning sunlight. The gentleness of it that filters in through the lace curtains over my crib with the promise of the unrelenting afternoon sun that would bake the Texas clay later in the day. Kindness that gave way to a strength I have not known in another person since.

He used to sing to me. Not very many people ever did that, even when I was small. I still can’t listen to You Are My Sunshine without the raw ache of grief threatening to swallow me up. I had dreamt once, after he’d sent me adrift on the waves of sleep, that the song meant that someone was going to take me away from him. In the dream large men in suits with mirror black sunglasses and buzzcuts grabbed me away while we cried out to one another to stay. I vaguely remember him shushing me with a sad smile and rocking me back to sleep on his warm chest, humming along to a tune I wish I could recall. I wonder if he’d known then.

I had just grieved the loss of a friend from cancer when Steve sat me down and explained that he was sick, too. I think he expected me to cry. I’m sure if I had then the tears threatening to flood from his eyes would have drowned us both. Destri’s death had been mostly hidden away from me. The only firsthand knowledge I had of his illness was the aphasic seizures he would sometimes have when we played together. One moment we were pirates and the next I was holding his hand while he stared into space. Sometimes he peed his pants. Once I even peed my own to make him feel better about it. I’d seen it on a movie.

Destri’s death was like saying goodbye to someone after the phone had already been slammed down on the receiver. There wasn’t much else an almost five- year- old could tell you about it. He was there and now he was gone. When Steve told me he was sick, I held onto him expecting the same thing. I was afraid that when he walked out our door he would disappear. He looked so sad, all I could do was wrap my tiny arms around his neck and hold on for dear life to try and keep him there. I didn’t cry until he left. Until I thought he was already gone.

I’d heard the word AIDS whispered like a curseword by adults before, I’d seen it spat like it tasted bad by people on TV. I didn’t know what it was any more than I knew what sex was; a tangential sort of comprehension like I’d had it called to me in a dream. I wasn’t supposed to say the word out loud, it was a secret between Steve, my mom, and myself. There wasn’t much in the way of treatment back then and people would be ugly to him if they knew. As the months went on in a sleepy haze, the strong arms that had rocked me to sleep grew thinner, weaker. His uniform hanged too loose and the badge that had shone brightly on his chest now looked down at his boots like saggy tits.

His first stay in the hospital we only visited a few times. It had been a little less than a year from when he had first sat me down. We told everyone that he’d been bitten by a venomous spider; a lie easy for a nature fanatic like myself to remember. It was like Christmas and Halloween all at once when he got to come home, but he was never strong again after that. He got tired too fast when we played and he kept getting skinnier and sadder. My mom was a nurse and had offered to be his caretaker as his condition deteriorated. For me, this meant I got to see him every single day.

He fought to stay strong for four years, every moment of agony hidden behind the prison of his smile. I asked my mom once why he was sick. She told me that he had fallen in love with a boy who was poisonous. I accepted this and filed it away with the rest of his secrets. Secret doctors visits. secret medicines, secret words, secret tears. So many secrets.

There was a lot of shame towards the end. He had to retire from his job and they threw him a big party. He was too sick to eat anything so he slid me his piece of cake when my mom wasn’t looking. I remember looking around at all the badges and thinking that it must not be that bad to lie to the police if it meant protecting someone you loved from getting hurt. My mom had explained that, too. Boys who kiss boys make people scared, especially when they have been poisoned by another boy.

He was in bed a lot after that. He caught pneumonia and sometimes there was blood when he coughed. His coughing fits and wheezing were scary at first and sometimes they made his mouth bleed, but after a while I learned not to run away from his lap when they started. The only thing he ate was rum raisin ice cream, which I thought was pretty cool. I wished I could eat ice cream all the time. The crinkling in his chest meant it was hard for him to sing to me. His arms got as skinny as mine were. He had accidents in bed a lot and it made him cry because he was embarrassed. He cried harder when I told him my little brothers did, too. I didn’t understand why that hurt him but he had so many bruises that I thought everything must hurt all the time. I tried not to cry when he cried, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. One night he told my mother he loved her and she cried all the way home. We must have made an ocean with our tears.

His golden morning light was being drowned out by the sickly green skies that come before tornadoes. The week before his death was just as eerily silent. He was in a special hospital room all to himself and we brought him rum raisin ice cream every day. He always tried to eat a few bites, even when his arms were too tired to hold the spoon. Nobody else ever came to visit with us and his hallway was always too quiet. Everybody whispered and their eyes moved around too fast when we walked by, but my mother never seemed to notice. The doctors were nice to him but it felt like the kind of nice that the popular girls were even though they laughed at you when you walked away.

The last time I saw Steve he was stronger than he had been in a long time. He gathered me up on his lap and he told me that he loved me, that he would always be in my heart, that I was so brave, to remember to be kind, and to take care of my mother. He held me to his chest like he did before his got sick and he sang to me one last time. His voice kept cracking but he sounded happy and also sad, like the last day of school. He hummed to me and rocked for a while after the song was over. He kissed my hair and told me to go out to the hall and get my mom. I didn’t know he was saying goodbye. I remember looking back in the room when we left and the sun was shining through the windows again. His smile went all the way to his eyes and he laid down and closed his eyes like when he used to float on his back in the pool.

My mother knelt by the edge of my bed that night and told me that Steve had gone to look after Destri.

I remember his slow death through the eyes of a frightened child, but his funeral is told with the biting tongue of a jaded adult. His casket was carried by men in uniforms who were scared of boys who were poisoned by kissing other boys. Those men took his body to a plane and flew all the way to Arkansas with it like they would not have turned their backs on him if they had known who he really was beneath the lies. Beneath all the shame.

Steve didn’t die because a virus took away his immune system. Steve died because generations of scared men sowed shame like crops of violently carnivorous invasive plants that choked out all the natural flora and fauna. Such beautiful, thriving ecosystems decimated by fear to make way for their hate.

Steve died of shame. Shame made him hide who he was. Shame made him find love with a stranger under the safety of darkness because he could not love like my mother in the light.

I share Steve’s shameful malady. Before you clutch your pearls, I’m not dying. There are no hospitals or melting pints of rum raisin. I don’t have AIDS, but I am afraid my condition is terminal all the same. I spent years hiding it, trying to choke it out from within lest I end up poisoned as well. Like my godfather before me, I am bisexual.

I was 12 the first time I had a wet dream about a woman. In hindsight, my volleyball coach really was a total babe. I panicked. I spent all day at school sick to my stomach, remembering the smell of Steve’s sick room and the way his frail body was dwarfed by the bed. I remembered the rattle in his chest and shouting cough that was so much louder than his voice had been when he was strong. I confessed to my mom with every tear I had not allowed myself to cry for Steve. She urged me to keep it secret, so I strangled it. For every poisonous thought I biked another mile. By the end of that summer I was lithe and lean like a jungle cat. There were no more dreams, not for thirteen grey years.

It has been almost twenty years since I last heard his voice, but it still echoes between my ears. I am haunted by the ghost of everything he never got to see, taste, smell, hear, and feel. I am shackled by the chains that coiled like snakes beneath his death bed.

You are so brave.

Steve never got to go to Pride, never got to feel pride in who he was beneath the ill fitting mask that kept him safe in a small town. Steve never got to love freely. Steve never got to live his truth. To this day, I am one of few people who can say they ever truly knew him. That every truly loved him.

I owe it to him just as much as I owe it to myself to be brave, to be out, to be proud, to be bisexual.

You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine,

You make me happy,

When skies are grey,

You’ll never know, dear,

How much I love you,

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

#pride #pride month #lgbtq #bi pride #aids #lost generation #grief

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