#i remember this was one of the scariest parts of the book when i first read it but the idea of him being so fucking fed up that he just

[lena--beana]

Dracula, tapping on the window: "hey babe can I drink your blood"

Lucy: "haha noooo my mom is over"

Dracula: *overhands a bigass wolf through the window*

Dracula: "okay how about now"

#dracula daily #i just caught up after being like a week behind but oh my god i couldn't stop laughing #i remember this was one of the scariest parts of the book when i first read it but the idea of him being so fucking fed up that he just #spends a whole day at the zoo to find the most chuckable animal #truly iconic

[mythrilthread]

My magnum opus, the jewel of my Binderary round-up, the result of four months of hard work (that is to say, a lot of force applied over distance), the project affectionately known as The Motherfuckers (because it was rather unclear if I was going to finish these books or if they were going to be the end of me).

Force over Distance by cleanwhiteroom. It is currently also on AO3.

I was first introduced to this incredible story by a dear friend, who first sold me on actually watching SGU, and then said that they remember this fic since like 2011, which is always a promising sign. I went digging and found out I was in luck - the story was being rewritten and reuploaded on the author's blog. The next two weeks are described by the same friend as "one of the scariest moments in our cohabitation" as I'd spent literally every waking moment injecting the story directly into my eyeballs, and let me tell you, I'd not been doing a lot of sleeping at that time.

Then I gathered up my courage and reached out to CWR re: my burning desire to bind this story. And the rest, well. Let's dig into it, shall we?

This was my first time typesetting 540k words. Considering I tend to prefer larger font sizes for increased legibility, it was immediately obvious that this was going to be a multivolume project. I settled on three, as it's the relationship between three individuals that forms the core of the story.

I also knew I wanted to keep the typeset in black and white, but play around with light and dark a lot. So I did. One of the first design idea I actually had was the way I wanted to handle projected speech. Mental link between Young, Rush and Destiny is THE most vital part of the story, and I wanted to make it immediatly obvious. I also wanted to be able to take one glance at the page and tell how much of the action is actually just two guys staring each other down :) Hence the blackout effect of thoughts being represented as light over darkness.

I also wanted to preserve as much of my reading experience as possible. So I saved all the chapter quotes/summaries in the TOC, and hid the chapter content warnings in the frame of the gate that marks the beginning of each chapter. For most of the chapter the warnings stay the same, so after a while you stop really noticing them, but then you open a new chapter and see that the familiar shape of the words has changed, and get this UH-OH feeling. Which, I think is very much how it works in my design, because when the warnings change there's usually another line of text added.

For flashbacks and dream sequences I switched from italics to a lighter shade of gray. I woudn't say it's more legible per say, but it's in keeping with the overall light/dark theme.

There are instances of people using handwritten notes in the story. I collected more than a dozen of assorted handwriting fonts, with each character having their own "handwriting". So when, for example, someone begins writing in someone else's hand, you immediately know it.

The most insane, labor-intensive part of the typeset, however, was the way I decided to handle the Ancient translations. CWR's gone through the trouble of setting up hover-to-discover for it, which gives you a very different reading experience than, say, having the translations in the endnotes. So, naturally, I said to myself that I want to replicate that, and footnotes just won't do the trick. So. Every instance of Ancient in the text has an underlay of light gray Ancient script. And an OVERLAY of paper vellum with the translation printed in blue. Now, not to toot my own horn too much, but if looks SICK AS FUCK. You also MAYBE SHOULD NOT LIVE LIKE THIS. For the two copies of this work I had to cut up 10 sheets of vellum into strips, and then spent from 20 minutes to an hour per volume tipping the strips in their proper places. I then had to wear kinetic tape on both my hands to help with the joint pain. (It was worth it.)

Now for the title spread. It is also paper vellum that you see as soon as you turn the first page (the half-title), and see it covering the title of the book and author's name. And then you turn it. And the shields sing the matter wave of Destiny through the black. And yeah, I think that's very, very clever of me, actually.

Then, of course, were the endpapers. All 12 of them are unique abstract paintings done on black cardstock by hand with brush pens and correction tape, I scanned a sample of each set for posterity. All of them are my interpretations of characters' midscapes. For volume 1 I went with the fire wind of Rush's thoughts. Volume 2 was for Young, and I went for the reverse blackout poetry effect (because for all the mental talking they do, the unprojected thoughts are opaque to their counterparts) and all the loops, hairpins and blocks he does. Volume 3 is for the combination - Rush's fire wind, changing its color to match the circuitry pattern of Destiny's AI.

The rest, in comparison, is easy. All volumes are stitched with 3 strands of embroidery floss, a combination of black, blue and silvery-gray. The French double-core endbands are sewn in the same color scheme (though with a different shade of blue and gray switched for white for added contrast). The edges are painted and splattered to look like space.

The covers feature my (signature at this point, I guess) half-cloth river pattern, with the base being dark blue linen and the printed parts being Spitzer telescope images of the W51 star forge, Jack-O'-Lantern Nebula and the Eagle Nebula (courtesy of NASA), waxed by hand for added sheen. The spines are foiled in silver with a foil quill.

Each set is 5 pound of solid hand-crafted book, with one set being my personal copy, and the other sent as a gift to the author.

And that's it, folks! This has been an incredible project to work on, and I'm very proud of what I achieved with it.

#mythril thread books #bookbinding #ficbinding #fanbinding #binderary2024 #stargate universe #sgu #force over distance #stargate

[amiascv]

"My greatest enemy, scoring a date!"

Alastor × F!Reader —

tags: enemies to lovers, no established relationship yet. <more platonic than romantic>

content warning: includes swearing, ooc alastor, ooc everyone really, your regular hazbin hotel content.

series?: <i think?>

START!

. . . "Y/N! Alastor! Please could you put off your bantering for one moment. I really, like, really need to focus and I just can't with all the noise right now!" Charlie raged at the two overlords standing behind her as she was busy planning her next course of action to get the Hazbin Hotel to attract more sinners.

"Of course, sweetie! I wouldn't dare imagine causing you no good!" Y/N, the Library Demon, babied her princess. But not out of pure love, Heav- or more fittingly, Hell no! It was out of spite against the Radio Demon beside her.

However, why were they fighting in the first place? You see...

"Our little princess seems to be quite the hardworker lately! Isn't she, Ali?" Sing-songed Y/N, admiring the heir to the throne of Hell as she researched and scoured all the books gave to her on how to attract more sinners towards the Hotel. (courtesy of her, the Library Demon, obviously!)

"She certainly is, N/N! At this rate she'll gain more knowledge and power than ever before! Power which I can guide..." Voiced out Alastor as static soon took over most of his vocal cords in excitement. Excitement which didn't go unnoticed by his dear overlord buddy.

"Aha... aha... Say that part one more time for me?" She threated which caught his amusement. Y/N had a lot of powers, but controlling her temper when it comes to her possessions? Nope, no, nuh uh! Not one of her traits, that's for sure! But Alastor? He definitely took advantage of this weakness of hers every single chance he got. Like now, actually!

"Hmm? I do believe I've made myself clear, sweetheart, having ear trouble? I know a good otolaryngologist around these parts if you're interested, my dear!" He teased. Y/N wasn't really this easy to be shoved and pushed around, but why could he do it like it's his one true purpose in life? It infuriated the Librarian even more. So much that she'd even attack the little shit right here and now.

She didn't even need Charlie's power, she just wanted it out of boredom. So why was she so affected?

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU RADIO DEMON!"

Hours past after she apologized to Charlie, and now she was busy taking off her steam at Rosie's side of town. Cannibal town!

"And then he just laughs it off?! He laughs at the sight of ME?!" She rants, demon horns coming out of her head and scaring off other sinners and hell-born alike trying to approach Rosie. Her listener only laughs in amusement at her friend's retelling. It was certainly amusing when she knew both sides to the story. It's like trying to solve a puzzle knowing the end would be a masterpiece to remember!

Her giggles die down as she soon replies, "Deary me, have you tried telling our old friend to stop? Maybe he could if you ask!" She almost choked at her statement. Ask one of the scariest overlords? To stop messing with her? Fuck no! Y/N was prideful of her capabilities, but not too ignorant enough to ask Alastor to just stop.

"If you wanted me to get killed that badly, love, then say so!"

"Well I know for certain you could get something off of asking him!"

"Like what?"

"Maybe... a deal, darling?"

"A deal with the cannibal with shits for brains?"

"Uh-huh! Maybe he's pushing you to your limits so you can have a one on one talk!" She convinces her even further. She does know him better than her... so maybe, it wouldn't hurt to try.

"... If I'm dead by tomorrow you know why," And with that, pages flew around you, enveloping you in their magic and transporting you back to the hotel. Meanwhile with Rosie...

"Alastor, dear, better not blow this thing sideways with her!" She calls out to the shadow hiding behind her. Making his entrance, his smile not faltering, he brushes off the dust he's collected from listening on the two delightful women's conversation.

"Oh don't you worry, my lovely! I wouldn't dream of wasting your opportunity given to me!"

"You better not."

#alastor #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel x reader #radio demon #alastor the radio demon #alastor x you #x reader #x you #imagine #how do i tag this

[mayleitz]

I don’t ever post here. I dunno why I’m posting now. We hate posting. No one should be posting. Yet here I am posting.

So I took a break from my career to pick up another one. It worked. This was fucking crazy to me. I gave everything up so fast for a chance at the life I really wanted. It worked. I felt caught for the first real time in my life. I could move forward successfully.

So when Fluids blew up I didn’t really know how to process it for a long time. I’m still trying to process it. The more I learn, the more I see how huge of a moment that was and how I couldn’t even comprehend causing it myself. I’ve always seen myself as a small indie person and never someone with broad appeal. Yet I did get broad appeal.

I felt crazy starting to write another one instead of just going back to my regular stagnation. But then it fueled my year. I wrote that book in my home, on planes, in studios, in hotels in several states, during some of the most beautiful moments of my life, during some of the worst and scariest times I’ve ever experienced. When I look back on my year, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t giving my all to Girl Flesh. I sat and wrote that book nearly every day since Fluids dropped. I’ve never stopped writing.

The crazy part is the part where I’m nervous. I look at what I’ve done now and I can’t even imagine what the reaction could be or what it will bring. I can’t picture it. When Fluids came out I didn’t anticipate a reaction at all. I thought I’d do a couple hundred and be done. That’s not how it shook out. How will this shake out? What is the book going to say about me? How is the world going to accept this nakedness? Not to say that anything I’ve done is great, but it is vulnerable. I hope I feel that same catch that I did before.

I just really hope you all enjoy it. It’s a huge piece of my everything. I hope you accept this piece of me.

[redheadspark]

#9 with Jack Russell for the January prompt, please? 🧡

A/N - Thanks for requesting this, anon!

Open

Summary - You had to keep people an arm's length away from you. Not Jack

Warnings - Just some fluff

“You remember what we talked about that night…back at the motel in France?”

You hummed, looking up from the book you were reading and over at Jack whom was in the bathroom, changing his pajamas.  You pondered, wondering what in fact he was talking about as the cool air was coming in thanks to the breeze from the ocean.  The small sounds of the crashing waves filled the room, even the softer sounds of people chatting as they walked by your hotel window though you were on the fourth floor. 

“As I recall we have stayed in plenty of motels in France,” You commented, hearing Jack laugh from the bathroom as he then walked out. He was sporting a thin shirt and low hanging pajamas pants with his slat and pepper hair still damp, but a freshly shaven face and a twinkle in his eyes as he grinned at you.

“Two years ago day,” He went on some more, “That little shack of a motel near the Lavender Fields outside of Paris?”

Ah, now you were remembering perfectly what he was talking about.  It was clear in your mind as you smiled.  That very night was one of the most thrilling nights of your life, let alone one of the scariest.  

The motel itself was nothing pleasant, almost like a hole-in-the-hall place along the countryside.  Both yourself and Jack were on the run from a couple of poachers that were on your tail, though you lost them a few miles back with the makeshift pick up truck Jack rented for the job.  Although now the truck was on its last legs, and since it was too late to jump on a flight in Paris to get back to the states, It was your idea to find a motel to lay low in.  

After paying the receptionist with a handful go cash that was shoved in your backpacker, you and Jack grabbed the room on the second floor.  It seemed like such a joke to find that there was only one bed in the hotel room that had decent sheets and an old TV perched on the dresser.  But then again you two were too tired and caked in dirt and blood to argue about it.  You and Jack look at one another, you seeing the worn look on his face and along his cheeks as he sees the blood still on your pants and along your shoes.

You both are thinking it: You were glad to be alive.

Jack made you shower first as he was getting both of your old clothes thrown away and counted the money that you both got from the job. It was a decent amount for the two of you to split down the middle.  Even with the lack of water pressure from the shower and the faint smell of mildew in the air, you were glad to be a change of pajamas.  And after Jack had his own shower, you both were beyond exhausted to do anything else.

Then again, Jack took the remote and flicked through some of the channels as you both were on the bed shoulder to shoulder.  Maybe you both were trying to hold out in going to sleep since there was still a small chance that you both would be found by your packers.  But Jack finally stumbled on a channel that was showing a French soap opera, thinking it was better than watching the news.

Within minutes you two were roaring in laughter. 

The thought of the job and how it went south was melting away in your head as you were with Jack in that mediocre motel room.  It’s always been this way with you when you and Jack were together, the negative would melt away and the positive would take over within seconds.  Of course, you took a chance to work with Jack since monster hunters rarely worked together and were colleagues.  It was an isolated career, which was what you wanted to whole time.  Not being tied down with a boss, not being in stuck in an office or a cubicle for hours and hours on end.  This job was meant for the one who wanted to roam, who wanted to make good money by risking their necks, and especially for those willing to be alone.

But that last part was now compromised since you were battling your feelings for Jack. 

You were smitten from the moment you two shook hands and agreed to work together months ago.  You never meant to be taken by him instantly, blaming his charm and his way of making you feel at ease.  He was far different from other monster hunters who were more rogue and rough around the edges.  Before you knew it, you both were leaning on each other, beyond monster hunting and beyond running around the world.  

You were friends through and through, which made your crush deepen.

It would be suicide to be with another hunter, things could go wrong instantly and you could lose your life because of it.  Plenty of stories of hunters turning on each other would float around, killing each other over money or territory, even both.  Although you knew deep down that Jack would never do such a thing to you or anyone for that matter, you still strived to be careful and keep him at arm’s length.  You had to wonder if you needed to walk away from the profession altogether if your feelings were going to jeopardize what you had to do in the field. If you had to defend yourself again Jack, were you willing to make that choice yourself?

As your laughter was dying down that night, you saw Jack peering over at you from his spot on his side of the bed.  You were still grinning, pushing away the tears that you got from the constant laughing as you shrugged at him, “What?”

His smile alone made your stomach turn as he shook his head, his eyes almost scanning yours as you both were gazing at one another in comfortable silence.  Carefully, and as if he was waiting for you to be spooked, he reached down to lace your fingers together between yourselves and rested it on the blanket.

“I appreciate being here with you,” he said, his voice soft as he spoke to you, “It’s just been a while since I’ve had a close friendship like this, that’s all,” 

To hear that he loved this friendship with you, this relationship that you both groomed and grew together over the months, and knowing each other.  Relying on each other and having each other’s backs when times were tough and things got hairy.  You’ve always wondered what was going on in his own head, how he felt working with you and being partners with you.  But now hearing something very simple like this from him, at 2 in the morning outside of Paris, it moved you more than you could ever imagine.  

And as he leaned over to kiss you softly and with so much gentleness it made you ache, you felt your heart finally open for someone else in your life.

You were brought to reality again from the past memory flooding your mind, Jack peppering your cheek and neck with lingering and sweet kisses from his lips. You giggled, trying to move away from him as he wrapped you in his arms and pulled you close to him.  You let him, as you have done in the past as you wrapped your own arms around his neck and peered into his eyes.  

To see how far you two have come within one year of confessing your love for one another, after months of denying it and thinking it would never happen.  Jack was now in your life, in your heart, and now a part of your soul.  He never once took you for granted, nor did he wish to keep you arm's length away from him.  He adored you, bringing a new light into your life and showing you a new way to be in love.

“Happy First Anniversary to us, Amor,” He said to you as he nuzzled your nose with his.  You grinned widely, pulling closer to kiss him passionately while his fingers started to drift under your pajama shirt with ease.  

The End.

January Prompt Session

#jack russell x y/n #jack russell x you #jack russell x fem!reader #jack russell x reader #jack russell #werewolf by night fanfiction #werewolf by night #werewolf by night fandom #mcu writing #mcu phase 4 #mcu fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe #marvel cinematic universe fanfiction #marvel fanfic writer #marvel writing #marvel fanfiction #fanfiction #writing

[probablyanalienindisguise]

Remembering Tumblr is a place of art, writings and ideas. So here's an entire ramble about the Jurassic Park movies and why the inaccuracy of the dinosaurs is a part of the plot

Anyways so the movies revolve around dinosaurs and stuff right? The usual plot points are always there, but it's a sci-fi thriller movie about dinosaurs and people tend to forget about the whole sci-fi part. I mean the scientists created dinosaurs but never had the complete strand of DNA as stated in the first movie, leading them to replace the rest of it with frog DNA by filling in the gaps. Which later turned into a whole problem in itself with the thing with the fact that they can breed by switching around a few things with their gender, similarly to some species of frog when faced with a female dominant environment.

Such asssss the dinosaurs ‼️

But the whole problem wasn't the dinosaur DNA, nono it was the frog DNA being mixed around with others to fill in said gaps.

It's my leading point as to why I don't understand why people hate Jurassic Park simply because the dinosaurs aren't accurate, when that was the whole POINT.

They ARENT dinosaurs.

They're amalgamations of different DNA strands combined to RESEMBLE a dinosaur, with maybe a little dino dna in place to create a base. And in later movies revealed to be even more fucked up combinations of DNA to keep the publics interest.

They're monsters made to look like dinosaurs, where intelligent and dangerous are key factors that the scientists like putting into creatures that weren't meant to exhibit such thoughts at such a level.

The premise of these animals in the movies was always "Are they actually alive?"

Because yes dinosaur, but also not dinosaur.

They're talked about constantly like objects, even though they are very much alive and living. Yet are constantly in a state of being created to look and act scarier in order to keep the quota that they're nothing but assets on a building board.

But really the scariest part is "Oh, what's scarier than teeth?"

Teeth and intelligence.

As the movies move on, these scientists create the dinosaurs to be stronger and smarter. Feeding into the amalgamation with the idea of a dinosaur in order to create what would be a marvel; not a stability.

Instead of mindless killings, the dinosaurs are aware of what they're doing. Which is considerably worse than if they ever were just instinctual actions.

Both Jurassic world movies had at least someone point something out, basically just saying that the splices of DNA weren't real dinosaurs.

Notice how it's quite often pointed out with subtleness of a simple sentence yet is used to determine the point of the movies. That once again, they aren't dinosaurs.

Both Indos were there in order to bring the plot point to closure, making it simpler to understand.

That amalgamations of DNA will never be a real dinosaur no matter how much it resembles one.

The books did a much better job getting this point across though I must say, as they enjoyed bringing the horror aspect of it all there. Just showing even more how they're obviously lab created monsters.

Anyways shout out to all the little kids out there who were absolutely convinced the dilo could spit venom because of Jurassic Park. (Me fr) 🥰

#rambles #writing #jurassic park #jurassic world #movie essay

[theaudacitytowrite]

Could you do 32 and 55, maybe angst but with a fluff ending?

#32: "Can I sleep here, just for tonight."

#55: "When are you planning on going back to sleep in your bed?"

You know I had to make a part 3 to the Jotunheim Saga ^^

His head was pounding as he made himself ready for bed. He had clenched his jaw all day long as he tried to reason with the Jotuns. Earning their respect would take much longer and much more patience than he had anticipated.

All he wanted to do now was to lay down in his comfortable bed and forget about the arguments he had with the stubborn council.

Loki walked into his room only to find you already sitting on his bed, reading one of his books like it was the most normal thing.

He studied you for a moment but when you didn't react he slipped under the cover with a growl.

"When are you planning on going back to sleep in your bed?" Loki asked as his gaze was fixed on the ceiling.

"What do you mean?" you asked bewildered by his tone but didn't bother looking up from the book.

"It's been 2 weeks now... the storm has passed long ago," Loki grumbled.

"So?" Loki turned his icy gaze to you.

"So? I still can remember the first night when you said 'Can I sleep here, just for tonight.'" Loki mimicked your voice.

"And I can remind you of that one night I wasn't going to bed with you and you barged into my room to get me." you defended yourself, not sure if he was joking. Where had all this anger come from all of a sudden?

"It was still storming then, you'd have come anyway. I just didn't want you to disturb my sleep again." he sneered.

"Sure." you chuckled, "As if you didn't actually enjoy our sleepovers."

"It just would be nice to have a bed to myself again."

"You could've just told me and I would've-"

"I told you from the start that I didn't want you here!" he snapped, raising his voice at you.

"Oh. Ok." you shut the book softly, laying it beside you on the bed. You gathered your belongings that had found their way into Lokis chamber over the weeks. Loki watched you silently, already regretting his outburst.

"Good night, Loki. I hope you have a restful sleep." you wished him dryly.

"Y/N..." he lowly huffed.

"No, it's ok. I will leave tomorrow if that's better for you."

"I didn't-" Loki's words halted. You nodded sadly and left his room.

---

You hadn't settled down in bed for long, your candle beside your bed still lit, when a soft knock echoed through your bedroom.

"Come in." you sat back up against the headboard. Loki slowly shuffled into your room, his head hung low.

"I'm sorry." he mumbled as he stepped closer, "I didn't mean to yell at you. Today has been difficult and instead of talking about it, I let it out on you like an immature child... it's no excuse but I'm so sorry."

"It's already forgiven and forgotten." you waved him off, "But thank you for your apology. I know it has to be quite stressful for you at the moment so I understand that you need time for yourself, to process everything. I will call Thor first thing in the morning and then you're free of me."

"No! Don't go." Loki surprised you with his appeal, "Will you stay, please? You make my stay here so much more bearable. Now I have at least someone who accepts me and listens to me."

"If you really want that and I won't annoy you, of course."

"Thank you." Loki sighed relieved and let himself fall on your bed to hug you in an awkward sitting position.

"Y/N..." he suddenly mumbled right next to your ear.

"Yeah?"

"...could I sleep here... just for tonight?" you pulled back from your hug with wide eyes as you eyed him in disbelief.

"No way, Laufeyson! Don't tell me you can't sleep without me by your side anymore!" you gasped amused.

"It's your fault!" he grumbled in a huff.

"Come here you big softy!" you grinned like a cheshire cat, making some room for him in your bed.

"I'm not soft!" he protested.

"Of course not." you giggled, pulling him down onto your bed while hugging him, "You're the meanest, scariest bub in the universe."

"I am," he mumbled pleased, a smug smile resting on his lips as he made himself comfortable under the blanket.

Taglist:

@lucywrites02 @funsized-mimi @gaitwae @queenjosielaufeyson @1marvelnerd3000 @darkacademicfrom2021 @lostgreekgod @tendertalesmain @donttouchmylaevateinn @asgardianprincess1050 @msturi2u @high-functioning-lokipath @elius-learns-to-write @plainlo-inthemorning @kokinu09 @midnights-ramblings @donaweasley @itsreallyjustmeh @sititran  @lindsey-laufeyson @ethanshide @delaber  @anonymousfiction211 @itsybitchylittlewitchy @iamalinarose @xorpsbane @vbecker10 @limiworld @ilovefanfictions  @crazzycrackers04 @tinctureofmaddness @marvelfanfn2187a113 @cosplayingwitch @sylvies4ever @tanushreeg27 @kellatron55 @loveshineslikethesky @scram1326 @camerons-specialinterest @mooncat163 @leucoratia @acefeather2002  @mochie85 @usagishira @michelleleewise @mischief2sarawr @lokidbadguy @ozymdias

#loki #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki drabble #loki blurb #loki oneshot #loki fanfic #loki fic #loki fanfiction #loki laufeyson #loki friggason #loki odinson

[raraeavesmoriendi]

I just finished last night and I have some questions for people who have read mike bockoven’s fantasticland -

[for those who have not:

- take a climate change-charged hurricane that’s the worst noaa has seen in recent memory and the first to hit daytona beach since 1960

- throw it at a Not-Disney-World Florida theme park with major national nostalgia, where a bunch of the Not-Disney College Program kids and some adult staff have opted to get paid extra to stay inside the park through the storm to prevent looting

- watch as people trapped within the park for more than a month - still with plenty of food and water, mind you - lose their minds, fragment into factions, and begin going full battle royale/lord of the flies on each other

- tell the whole thing testimonial style with different witnesses interviewed each chapter, a la World War Z, with some insanely unreliable narrators to boot

if that sounds like your kind of horror novel, give it a go. it’s not perfect (especially when they call the factions ‘tribes,’ which. yikes.) but I tore through it in like, two days.]

okay, questions below, spoilers for the novel:

1. …is the pirate who comforted the little boy who was evacuating, in interview three with the kansas city dad, Brock Hockley? am I reading too much into that?

like. I don’t remember that we ever get a description of him, so I don’t know about the “weird beard/mustache thing” the dad describes, but just. the emphasis put on “I’d like to shake his hand. I might even give him a hug.” feels so purposeful. part of me wonders if that’s supposed to add some further hindsight horror to what happened in the park and then his prison interview. he says early that he found making little kids happy a fulfilling and rewarding part of his job as a character actor in the park, and we know other people found him charismatic enough to follow, not just because they were scared but bc he could have these moments of surface-level charm or rationality (the code, etc.)

idk, I just thought it felt a bit too one-off to read it as Just Some Guy. but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I could be wrong.

2. we never get any hint as to the identity of the warthog couple, right? I remember the FNG found their masks discarded outside the World Circus, they’re first mentioned in the book as hanging around/inside the circus, and the guy from the Dreamland Hotel interview talks about still getting postcards from them whenever he moves (scariest part of the whole book for me ngl), so we can assume they were walked out with the rest of the survivors. I just wasn’t sure if there was anything else to do with them that I missed.

I’m still thinking about the fact that they turned the Dreamland lobby into a torture theater. like… who was that for? just for them, or did they have an audience? probably not, right? since they weren’t affiliated with anyone? but still. also, who were they taking there, just people they could pick off???

hmm. I wonder if any casualties thought to be faction-related were actually theirs.

3. in Travis’s interview (the guy with the body camera), do we know who the girl is that they found in the crawlspace of the employee locker room? the one whispering “Mommy” over and over? there were enough survivors left that she could be someone we didn’t encounter before, but I just thought I’d check that there wasn’t some other interview where someone describes a girl running off to hide. the Anonymous shopgirl mentioned one of the girls disappeared during the cannon raid on Pirate turf with the Deadpool soldiers before they turned on each other, so I wondered if it could be her.

4. Brock in his interview mentions that Sam Garlieck’s people were terrorizing others during the power outage in the storm shelter, specifically mentioning an instance of sexual assault. does anyone else corroborate this in their interview? Adam Jakes sounds skeptical, saying his research would have turned that up by now, but the only people we really hear from about that period are Sam himself (obviously an unreliable narrator, like, duh) and Stuart Dietz, who mentioned that Sam definitely killed Maria Flynn. did anyone see any other mentions of this anywhere, or did we just move straight out of the storm shelters and never talk about them again once we get to the park? is this just Brock being an unreliable narrator himself to justify how things went down? (but then why would he need to be, when Bryce definitely died?? although he himself says that wasn’t as big a motivator as people writing about him want it to be, so maybe that’s moot)

5. not really a question just an observation: Stuart Dietz, the maintenance guy/Mole Man, is the only person to get two interviews in the entire novel. Not Sam, not Jill, not Brock. I don’t know, I just find that really interesting why he was selected to come back twice. I know part of it is to describe the botched demolition, but I’m also wondering what effect it has on the novel that the only person we hear from multiple times is an older dude from one of the pointedly non-aggressive factions.

6. in looking through posts already in the tag, I don’t quite follow some readers’ comments that there was an attempt at a “cell phones bad!!” message here. I feel like every time it’s come up, it’s been shown by Adam Jakes (author stand-in) to be minimizing what really happened and looking for an easy scapegoat. I don’t think that was part of the intended story at all, I think it’s just been stated over and over as people using an excuse to not think themselves capable of similar violence. just wanted to put that out there.

anyway. one of my favorite things about novels with multi-witness perspectives is finding threads that leave off in one person’s story and pick up in another, so I’m going through my digital copy and highlighting all the places two different interviews tie together (Austin’s fate, the guy who botched branding Adrienne as part of his Pirate initiation, etc.)

if anyone else has noticed anything interesting, I’m all ears 👀

#fantasticland #mike bockoven #horror novels #it’s been a while that I’ve been so taken by a book that I stop to write a post about it #especially when I have housekeeping chores looming over my shoulder #glenn guignol is my favorite to no one’s surprise #his name was a delightful reference and the character delivered on that #if I had to do the v thing the novel calls out and over-identify with a faction it would be the Freaks #bc I feel like I’ve had to build myself up to be scarier than I was to be left alone at various times when I was younger #so that would be my strategy too v likely #although then I would have to grapple with if it only spread further panic and hysteria so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[visceravalentines]

DEAR MEG

I think you wrote that you loved the movie Annihilation. If I misremembered, please feel free to ignore this asdfg.

I remember I saw it and I really enjoyed the visuals, and the terrifying mutated plant bear screaming with a human voice (that part was haunting holy crap) but besides those scenes I wasn't super scared???

Maybe my brain is too small to understand the horror of it asdfghjk

But anyway, what I wanted to ask is, what were your favorite parts of the movie, and what scared you? If you don't mind me asking!

Have a nice day!!!

SOL MY LOVE

thank u for sending me this ask it is so lovely let's talk about cool movies!!!

I love Annihilation the movie but I also love Annihilation the book!! they are very different, only the very basic characters and concept make it into the movie. which makes sense because the book is surreal and abstract and can be hard to interpret what is actually going on at certain moments, and that doesn't translate very well to the big screen. the book, to me, is far more unsettling than the movie. I will answer for both! brain explosion below the cut!

it's an absolutely gorgeous film, weird and captivating and creepy. I love the body horror, the found footage from the previous expedition where the man's intestines are moving of their own accord......incredible. that bear???? scares the bejeezus out of me every time I watch it. one of the scariest creatures I can think of in a horror movie, creatures don't usually freak me out. the sound it makes haunts me. and the bear is not in the book! the book has......other guys. I also thought Natalie Portman ate the role of the biologist. she is distant and offputting and has very little interest in anything but the natural world around her, both in the book and in the movie.

in the book we get much more of a look into the biologist's very rich and strange internal life, and I remember reading it for the first time and being shocked how much I related to her. she was one of the first characters, maybe THE first character, I identified with on a meaningful level. when I read the book again recently I was pleased to find that hasn't changed, even though I have changed a lot since my first read. she is by no means an ideal role model or even a reliable narrator, but I just adore her. and her husband nicknames her Ghost Bird, which is everything to me.

the horror in the book is ultimately about something unmaking you and the world around you in a way you cannot understand. it's a very cosmic horror concept distilled down into very manageable pieces--a plant that begins to alter what you are with just a single touch. a creature that looks like something familiar, but feels distinctly wrong, or distinctly human. something wearing a face that does not belong to it. a sound you cannot identify. words you know, words you can read, but you can't understand what they're saying. it's there, it's right there, but you don't quite get it, and suddenly you are no longer you anymore and it's too late. it's about love and nature and knowledge and meaning and the value of all of these things and the horror of all of these things.

here are some of my very favorite lines from the book, the ones that give me the shivers every time I read it for one reason or another!!

"I am walking forever on the path from the border to base camp. It is taking a long time, and I know it will take even longer to get back. There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time..."

This was really the only thing I discovered in him after his return: a deep and unending solitude, as if he had been granted a gift that he didn't know what to do with. A gift that was poison to him and eventually killed him. But would it have killed me?

I took the photograph out of its frame, shoved it in my pocket. The lighthouse keeper would come with me, although he hardly counted as a good-luck charm. As I left the landing, I had the peculiar thought that I was not the first to pocket the photo, that someone would always come behind to replace it, to circle the lighthouse keeper again.

Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you're staring at it now.

"We should never have come here. I should never have come here." "That's all?" "I've come to believe it is the one fundamental truth."

There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you.

An almost plaintive keening, a lonely sound in that place, called out to me. And kept calling, pleading with me to return, to see it entire, to acknowledge its existence. I did not look back. I kept running.

Almost anyone else might see it differently. But I am not those people. I am just the biologist; I don't require any of this to have a deeper meaning.

#asks #mintgalaxia #i <3 horror analysis #thank u again for this ask sol it was so much fun to gush about one of my favorite pieces of media!! #highly highly recommend this book #the rest of the trilogy is fine imo but annihilation is the first and really stands head and shoulders above the others #i prefer to read it as a standalone

[thealien85]

House of Leaves reviewed

Light spoilers? I first heard about this book around 2013 on Reddit, where it is touted as "THE SCARIEST BOOK" Jury's still out on that for me¹. However, it is definitely one of the most unnerving books I've ever read. From the moment I started reading, this book felt alive in my hands.

Pretty quickly into it you discover that every instance of the word 'house' is printed blue². Some part of the introduction had me wondering when the story was set so I checked when it was published³. And what should I find? Even on the info page the word house is blue, and the title page too! I was surprised and impressed, they really changed it every time. So, thinking I'm clever, my next thought was "Well what about the cover? I think I would remember if it was-" ..holy shit its even blue on the cover! It must have been a small enough detail that I passed over when I first got the book. It felt like it morphed in my hands, reacting to me reading those first pages.

And that's what this book is, an experience. You are not passively enjoying this story. House of Leaves makes you a part of it. That is why I recommend this book. HOWEVER, if you are not in a good place mentally⁴ consider waiting. House of Leaves felt immensely like a book from the library of Jurgen Leitner⁵. A cursed item you fear might be changing you the further along you go.

¹ I haven't read many horror novels, so this probably takes the number one spot. Although it does remind me of when I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. The scene where Dennis is attacked by the Dilophosaurus . He is blinded and disembowled in such detail that it made my eyes hurt. I found myself rereading that passage, trying to make sense of the violence. Violence I knew would happen from seeing the movie! I knew it was coming and still I had a reaction. A horrific moment in what I hadn't at the time considered to be a horror novel. ² If you're reading the full color edition. ³ Danielewski, Mark Z. (March 7, 2000), House of Leaves (2nd ed.), New York: Pantheon Books, Random House ⁴ Can't expand on that much without spoiling more than I'd like. Check the trigger warnings, it is rather sexually explicit and has SA ⁵ Where my TMA fans at?

#book review #house of leaves #the magnus archives #horror books

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

What's the scariest ghost story you know?

I'm always sort of amused when I think about what a weird and out of touch person I am, because here are some examples:

1. The Mummy is a big scary movie monster, and scary movies in general are big scary movies. I don't want to be associated with that

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide is another big scary movie monster, and again, I don't want to be associated with them

3. I like horror. I like the idea of horror, more than I actually like the contents of the scary stories that I read. But there are parts of the horror fiction genre that seem to be aimed at me. (Although "gore is good" would have been a bad premise for the HHG books, as the title suggests)

4. In high school I had a "classical music and mythology" class taught by a creepy old woman (this was probably a pretty good sign for future things, but I was 11). She had some creepy things in her house (the name of which I forget, but I was always frightened of them because of their association with her). I think a lot of it was because her name was a Greek name, like "Orpheus"

5. The "old woman living by the railroad tracks" story from "Tales from Outer Suburbia," which I read on a dare or something -- that story has been in my nightmares since I was a kid

6. I used to have recurring dreams about the ghost of my grandpa trying to kill me with a kitchen knife. It would be scary at first, but then it turned out that he was just my grandpa, but my mom had divorced him (and apparently had some reason to divorce him). I don't know much about his life. I remember it being really funny

7. My mom and I used to watch a very scary and gory made-for-TV show called "Thirteen Ghosts," which was about a haunted house. The ghosts were all ghosts (i.e. they didn't have bodies, they just existed in the house). It was very scary -- the last episode was a "haunted house" and it was scary in the normal way, but in the last scene there was a huge monster that looked like an elephant and which had huge jaws and giant teeth. My mom and I laughed our asses off (my mom said it sounded like she had seen a really nasty sex movie)

8. The movie "The Ninth Configuration," which is about a haunted house, except that it's not really about the ghosts at all -- it is the ghost of the ghosts that haunt the house. They come to life and move the house around, and then they talk to the main character in the movie. I remember seeing it once and being very scared. I also remember reading a bit about the plot of this movie, and it seemed really cool, so I must have liked it very much. But I remember never actually seeing it

9. Another movie that I liked was "The Others," about haunted houses, except they are all places where someone died, and the ghosts come back to life. It's sort of like "Dead Ringers," and I think I may have liked it because one of the main characters was me and it was set in my high school. That was a weird film

10. Another movie that I liked was "Scream," but I watched it many years ago and I'm not sure if I still like it. I remember that the killer had a black mask. I think it was kind of creepy

11. I liked the book "The Girl in the Glass House," which was about a scary house. I think it was one of those books which was meant to be scary and also a love story. I liked the love story. I also liked the house, which was full of ghosts and strange things

12. At some point in time I watched a horror movie -- I forget which one -- in which the haunted house was inhabited by two sets of twin boys who were really violent and fucked people up and stuff, and there was some sort of evil computer controlling them and keeping them trapped inside their house. I think that movie might have been a part of a series that started with a very normal-looking house on the outside (I watched that one first), and then you went inside, and inside was the house that had two sets of twins, and they were all like demons in human bodies. And this was the last in the series.

I know a lot of what I'm listing here could be taken as evidence that I like other people's scary stories, that I don't actually have an appropriate personal "fear response" to things like the aforementioned Mummy and Hitchhiker's Guide and TNC, but I've actually gone to lengths to avoid things that I associate with those things, and I'm sure I'd keep avoiding them.

So, as I said, very out of touch. I'm going to continue out of touch for as long as I can, as it were.

#cbblanchard

[can-i-use-ur-nuns-bog]

ooh it is a Long Time since i drunk blogged but it is my lovely father's birthday so am a bit peshed AND i have decided to rewatch the exorcist iii.

it is SO. FREAKING. GOOD.

i am a big damien karras fan and the actor who plays william kinderman in this film (and the character in general, having also read the book/watched the first film) reminds me of my beloved step-grandad, so maybe i am a bit biased.

BUT as a long time horror fan who has now watched nearly 700 horror films in 14 years, it is awesome. nothing will ever live up to the masterpiece of the exorcist, but doing a very decent sequel (we will not mention the abomination of the exorcist ii) is very impressive. and i just thought, given william friedkin's recent death, i would express my love of this under-appreciated film.

i adore damien karras as a character (no joke, naming my child after him), and i love that he got explored more. i also love william kinderman and i love that he got explored more. i love that they addressed the fact that, even as a very isolated person, damien had people who remembered and loved him (shout out to my boi joe dyer as well for this).

i also love a tortured character, and the idea of a fundamentally decent person having to share a body with a violent murderer, being forced to murder your best friend? TERRIFYING. PURE HORROR. the gemini describing in torturous detail how he dragged karras from a peaceful death (after he SACRIFICED HIMSELF TO SAVE REAGAN) to be a tool for evil. while his body was trapped in a straight jacket in a padded room. HORRIBLE.

and the ACTING. brad dourif is a wonderfull (pun indented for my fellow exorcist iii fans) genre actor and thoroughly underappreciated as a whole, never mind in this film, where he did the most phenomenal monolgues. but jason miller... goddammit, no one else could play damien. no one. he was gone much too soon, i don't have much to say beyond that because holy shit. 'i believe in slime and stink, and in every crawling, putrid thing, every possible corruption, you SON OF A BITCH, i believe... in you' SIR what a monologue!!!!!!!! KINDERMAAAAN. I LOVE YOU.

and, AND... the shots!!! kinderman and the gemini lit by separate beams, kinderman sat upright and still while the gemini is slumped and twitchy. the hellraiser-esque blood and gore from father morning. THAT shot of the white-robed figure after the nurse (god bless the series for including this AMAZING shot, it scared the crap outta me). kinderman moving to damien's side when he was freed of the gemini, and both being in the light together. AGH.

AND this is exactly why i hero-worshipped the series and will never get over it being cancelled: they got that the horror of the possession and the exorcism was just part of the overall film, which was also about the horror of being alone, of having to deal with something so much bigger than you without any help, of giving your life to something and then thinking maybe you were wrong... the exorcist is absolutely a classic, terrifying horror film but it is also so much MORE than what a lot of people give it credit for. and the exorcist iii really highlights that for me; yes, it's not not the scariest in terms of gore/jump scares/violence/tense atmosphere, and the exorcism sequence is corny and played out and clichéd, but as a film about people it is terrifying and brilliant and underappreciated (although at least it is generally recognised as being a better/more legitimate film than the second)

#dont come at me i LOVE this film #and i have had to type this several times to male sure everything is spelt right #cks i am drjnk but i belive in this very passionately and will defend it while sober #dursley drunkblogs #alcohol tw #the exorcist #the exorcist iii #horror

[imnotgoinghome]

The Past, the Future, and the Present

Summary: the powers you never wanted, caused the things you never wanted to happen

Thank you for the request! I had so much fun writing this, hope you enjoy!

———————————————————————

The past was a terrible place for you and Peter, but the present wasn’t much better.

Ever since hydra killed your daughter, you hadn’t been the same. You became so rapped up in getting your daughter back that you lost yourself in the process. Peter was of course always there to comfort you and bring the real you back, but that was before the world forgot who he was, and without him, your original self disappeared.

Agatha was a good con in your plan, but a pro she quickly became. The hex worked for your mom, why would it work for you? Well that was your first mistake. Making Peter in the hex was another. Once his hex version of himself caught onto your tomfoolery, things didn’t end well. You ended up having to put a stop to the hex, but that didn’t stop you from getting the dark-hold.

As time went on, you got worst and worst, trying everything you knew to get your family back, until you remembered a book that you keep in a trunk in your bedroom of your cabin. The dark-hold was the one thing you needed to get your daughter back. Maybe it could help you, but after all, it did come with a heavy toll.

Doctor Strange didn’t help either. Coming to ask for help from you was his mistake. America Chavez was all you needed, well her power at least. This time, you got what you wanted, you got her power, but something must have gone wrong.

When you got to a different universe, no-one was there. Bella, your daughter, wasn’t there. Peter wasn’t there. No-one was there. ‘Maybe this universe was to similar to ours and she still died’ you thought. So you tried another universe, only to be left with the same problem, no-one was there. So off to the next universe you went, and again no-one.

You tried ever single universe only to be left with the same results for each one. Bella and Peter were gone, or worse dead. And, the scariest part was you never once saw yourself. Your universe was the only one where you and Peter hadn’t died. Once you come to the realization that your survival was one in a million, you stopped in your tracks. There was nothing left for you in the world. Peter long forgotten and Bella dead, you had no-one. So you went back to the one place you still had, Mount Wundagore.

It hurt to know you had no-one. Not even Peter, who you knew was alive, could help you out of the mess you had created. So you did the one thing you knew needed to be done, destroyed Mount Wundagore.

“Here we go again, another one sacrificing their live to save the world.” Korg said as he had finally finished telling your story to the younglings. He only told stories of the bravest hero’s alive. Even though you became a villain, you died a hero.

#mcu #villain reader #scarlet witch #wandavision #peter parker

[daisywords]

I don't really have nightmares but the two scariest horror movies ever are actually movies that my brain invented to show me in my dreams

The first one was a movie that was filmed entirely at one specific old hotel. The hotel was now famous because the movie had become a cult classic. I was staying there with my sister and they had like an in-depth tour of the hotel where they told us a lot of background/filming process stuff/extra lore. I hadn't seen the movie (I think it had been banned/was inaccessible) but they showed us a bunch of clips during the tour.

The movie was about a small group of people snowed in at the hotel, which was staffed by a mysterious order of hooded monks. The hotel was rumored to be inhabited by a mysterious beast, which traveled through the walls/heating ducts. Every night, one of the guests would disappear, presumably picked off by the beast.

Missing some plot points here, but the guests eventually barricaded themselves in the library, but the beast squeezed its way through the shelves anyway and bit someone's entire upper half off. There was one character who always wore a yellow raincoat, and I remember the shot of the raincoat being sprayed with blood.

The tour guide told us that the beast storyline was based off of a real legend about a real beast that actually inhabited the hotel, which is why the movie was filmed there.

Missing some more plot points but the next clip I remember was the movie's ending when the "final girl" (a man) was forcibly inducted in to the order of monks, who when they removed their hoods, revealed some...uh interesting body horror concepts that I an unable to express here. They gave the guy some drug so that he couldn't move but was still conscious, and [redacted]. It was implied that the monks served the beast, and would bring groups of people in as "sacrifices," and the one that the beast left alive was chosen as their new recruit.

The scariest part was that there was something important about the guests' names being written down, like it was important to the beast that there was a list and the guests had signed their own name, kind of like signing up, if you will. The second was that it was part of the lore that if you saw the beast you were marked for death.

Why are these the scariest parts? Well, you see, dream fiction and dream reality blended together a bit, as they tend to, and I saw a hooded monk out of the corner of my eye, right as the tour guide was having everyone in the tour group sign their names in the guest book. I realized with horror that I had now both seen the beast and signed my name.

The second scariest horror movie showed up in my dream last night, in which I was house sitting by myself. Connected to the back of the house was some kind of combined cellar/barn space, which was empty and divided into dark "stalls" like for horses or something. In one of them, I found something buried in the hay. It was a book. Just an old paperback with generic cover art, like something you could buy in an airport in the nineties. Looking at it filled me with dread.

I dropped the book and ran inside. After locking up the house for the night, I was about to turn on a movie before going to bed when I remembered the book and grew curious. I don't remember the title now, but in the dream I must have, because I googled it. I found there was a movie adaptation of the book called, and I'm serious, "Bees," but couldn't find a summary or even a blurb of the book or the movie. I turned on the TV and it pulled up a movie paused in the middle, like the owner of the house was halfway through it right before they left. Coincidentally, the movie was, in fact, "Bees."

Of course I pressed play. There were no bees in "Bees." What there were, however, were human beings with the most uncomfortably distorted faces I have ever seen. I cannot describe how awful the imagery was. It was incredibly disturbing. I turned off the movie after about a minute.

I was about to go to bed when I heard someone moving around outside. I went to text the house's owner to make sure there wasn't somebody coming over that night for any reason, but I didn't have my phone. With horror, I realized I had left it in the weird barn area, in the stall with the book. I wanted to go and get it, which I could do without going outside. But I was too afraid. I didn't want to go anywhere in the proximity of the "Bees" book. I ended up just kind of wandering frantically around the house, hearing more and more noises from outside.

#idk how to tag this #before you ask yes this is all true #just with some extraneous weird dream details deleted for increaased coherency #and also no I haven't dreamed of any other nonexistent movies that I can remember

[icouldntthinkofabetternamesook]

The Magnus Archives #3-Across the Street

This one is disturbing. There was no place to rest your sanity and the monster is truly fucked up. Introducing the Not-Them and I’m glad it was Tim doing research rather than Sacha or I might not have been able to take it. Tim is wooing filling clerks and using company funds for dubiously legal reasons. I respect that.

Hearing Jon again is startling I fucking jumped when Jonathan started talking again. I think that Johnny Simms is such an amazing voice actor. It's objectively the same voice and yet they sound completely different. We get an entire episode of Amy Patel and you almost forget that Jon the Archivist is even there. And then he speaks and it's a shock to the system. The play between the statement and the present and how the plot meanders through both. Something other than Jonatahn is driving the statements. We just don’t know what yet.

Amy

Amy Patel gave her statement in 2007. Nathan and Joshua were relatively normal people, you could grapes on to their normalcy in bizarre situations. Amy on the other hand is just bizarre. Amy is a watching creeper. Amy has serial killer vibes. This might be early infection signs from the table but she might just be like that.

She has the inherent fear of a man alone with a woman, not wanting him to know where she lives. A sadly all to rational fear. Even if the table hadn't turned out to be a much more intense monster, Amy being lured into a stranger house while partially concussed could very well have been the entirety of a statement. But the writers go far above and beyond that laying fear over fear for a deep slowburn of terror.

Once the monster is there it stares back at her. Before that she stares at Graham, a silent yet willing witness to his slow death. She is vitcim, witness and perpetrator. It is only because of her Graham is remembered at all. She takes part in hurting him and does not try to save him. She is a victim of something much greater and stranger. There is not the option of being only one thing. To live in this world means being a small part of a much larger system. You are both above and below the horrors happening. What you can never be is safe.

Graham

Not-Them spent years watching and waiting before striking. Graham has been living under the influence of the table for so long and it has wrapped him to only barely be human by the time we meet him. There were times I wasn’t sure if he’d been replaced by something else already or if he was just like that. This man eats his notebooks. So many notebooks. He is alone and aimless with no one to balance him or native him going missing.

He feels almost like a direct response to Joshua last episode. Joshua managed to keep the artifact in his house for a year and keep it together without being consumed. Graham kept it together year after year but it did him no good. Just keeping it in proximity chips away at him piece by piece till he’s scattered and worn down to near nothing. We saw a triumph only for it to be followed by a situation where you cannot win.

Not-Them

Not-Them will go on to become a major problem in this series and they are the scariest monster yet. Stalking Graham for years in a variety of forms. Mimicking things seen just out of the corner of your eye. The monster doesn’t move so much as your perception of it changes from place to place, never able to trust your perception. Coming from the table Graham brought into his life, one of the few things authentically driven by joy, ultimately destroying every trace of him except an uncaring womens memory and few old polaroids .

This is the first time  we’ve seen the monster succeed thus far. Nathan avoided getting pulled in. Joshua outlasted the monster and got off scot free. Graham dies. Amy would probably have died if she hadn't ran. Not-Them destroys Graham piece by piece and then torments Amy for months. Not-Graham destroys the note books, the thing that Graham was using to keep himself safe, the thing that kept him anchored to an increasingly small definition of humanity.

The journals want you to keep watching. Keep watching, keep watching, keep watching. Is it Graham, trying to keep the monster away? Is it a message to Amy, fueling her fear? Is it what the table says, pulling you deeper and deeper? Is it a message to Jon, the eventual ceaseless watcher? Perhaps it's for the audience, who will keep watching all the suffering till the very end.

Keep watching.

#mine #tma

[manicpixieirl]

november 2, 2023

The day I had my first seizure was the scariest day of my life. I don’t even remember it. I remember waking up in a hospital bed in Greenwich, Connecticut. The sheets were scratchy and I had an IV, heart monitor, and leftover wires stuck to my head from the EEG they performed while I was in a mini-coma.

I slept for two days, I was in the hospital for five. They didn’t let me shower, I forgot how to read. I made a nurse cry when I threw a copy of a book I could not read at the wall of my hospital room and begged for her to let me take a shower. I could feel her empathy radiate towards me when she picked up the book I had just thrown and set it at the end of my bed. She was crying for me when she had to deny my fifth request for a shower -

I was so desperate to be clean of this event, I even told her I would shower with the door open and she could pop in to make sure I didn’t suffer any more mysterious convulsions. Her name was Sarah, and I could tell she felt for me when she had to tell me no, I could not wash myself clean of this. I never could.

I did not remember the battle, the seizure itself, but I had the scars - most of them on my chest, a result derived from the moment I stopped breathing altogether and the EMTs had to do that thing where they rub two shock-ya-back-to-life-thingies together and yell “CLEAR!”

That’s the scariest part of it, not remembering. Not remembering the migraine I had for two days leading up to my seizure, not remembering grabbing lunch with a friend the week before, not remembering saying goodbye to my family when they moved to Texas a month earlier. A month of memories, ash. I lost a lot, mostly memories and people. My partner at the time, who found me asphyxiating on my own vomit mid-event, broke up with me a few weeks later.

“I just… didn’t sign up to date someone who has all of this going on.”

Okay, fair. I did have a lot going on, but I am a person, and people typically have a lot going on. Especially people who had recently flatlined twice in Greenwich Fucking Connecticut. All I had to hold onto when I was in the hospital was him, and hold onto him I did. Probably a little too tightly.

While I was in my mini-coma, he was responsible for filling out my intake forms. He knew I was bipolar, yet when the form required him to check yes or no as to whether or not the patient suffers from a mental-illness, he chose to check no. I guess the town was too small and the stigma too large.

I didn’t find out that seizures and bipolar disorder were related until I had dinner with my ex-almost-girlfriend (don’t ask, that’s for another day) about a month later.

“Okay but how do you know it had to do with my bipolar disorder?”

“Quincy, I work for the state psych-ward. When we admit patients with bipolar disorder, we don’t ask them if they’ve ever had a seizure, we ask them when their last seizure was.”

Yes, chef.

I spent months thinking that my body could betray me at any moment, that I could just fall over and seize and die with no rhyme or reason. All of this because someone checked no on an intake form when they should have checked yes.

Thanks, asshole.

It knocked the breath out of me to feel someone’s shame surrounding my mood disorder, so in that moment, I promised I would never deny it myself.

So here it is; 2020 I had a life-threatening seizure that was triggered by a manic-high. As a result, I will be on anticonvulsants for the rest of my life. I have a whole lot of this going on, but it’s who I am. To deny my illness is to deny myself, and I will not move through life in denial, but in radical acceptance of who I am.

My pill container is full. Two blue pills a day, one yellow, one white, one orange and two chewy adult-vitamins; I like tasting fruit-medley in the morning when I sit with a cocktail of medications in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It’s been three and a half years since my last seizure, my meds are working, and I have a partner who will not hesitate to check yes on an intake form if and when I have another epileptic event (it’s inevitable). I am sitting here with a thankful heart, hoping that both Sarah The Nurse and my ex-almost-girlfriend are doing well.

I haven’t had a seizure since my first, but it was bad enough to warrant my being mediated for epilepsy for the rest of my life. Every few years, I have to up my dosage and make sure they keep working the way they are supposed to. Every time I up the dosage, I experience a pretty dramatic shift in my mood. I become paranoid, irritable, and reactive. This is the first time I have upped my anticonvulsants since I sought out a separate prescription to help with my mania, and it sucks. Sometimes, I just have to admit - this shit sucks.

I started this blog to document my success story with Abilify, but I feel like as soon as I started to adjust to that, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Then, when I was just starting to get used to my ADHD meds, I was asked to readjust to a new anticonvulsant dosage. I feel like the entire time I have been blogging, I have simultaneously been adjusting - but maybe that’s just life, having a whole lot of this going on, but adjusting anyways. Maybe this isn’t a blog about med-changes after all,

maybe it’s just a blog about me.

#manic depressive #medmanagement #mentalhealthblog #mental heath support #mentalhealthsupport #recovery #epilepsy