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diioonysus · 8 months

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creepy/messed-up history facts

the man in the booth across from lincoln was named major henry rathbone, and after booth fired the shot, rathbone tried to tackle him to the ground, but booth sliced rathbone in the arm with a dagger. after that night, rathbone was never free of guilt. he suffered from stomach ailments to heart palpitations, and on december 23rd 1883, he attacked and killed his wife clara, and attempted to kill himself. he spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

in 1494, sailors returning from the new world brought with them massive outbreak of syphilis, which spread through an entire french army, and with no antibiotics to counteract it, the disease spread unchecked. the skin on victims' faces would essentially rot away from the grisly ulcers. in some cases, the noses, lips and other body parts of the affected people were essentially gone.

in 1890, thomas edison, using wax cylinder, produced a line of baby dolls. they had wooden bodies, procelain heads, and miniature phonographs in their chests. the phonographs would play back recordings of young women reciting nursery rhymes like "hictory dickory dock," and "now i lay me down to sleep." (here's the audio of them x)

dentures used to be made from the teeth of dead soldiers. they were ivory base plates with real human teeth attached, a lot of these were sold to dentists by scavengers looting corpses from the battle of waterloo. the dentists would boil the them down, cut off the roots, attach them to ivory plates, and sell them.

in 1929, a pair of scientists at princeton university wanted to test and understand how the auditory nerve percieves sound, and their test subject was an alive cat. they cut out part of its brain and attached one end of a telephone wire to its auditory nerve and the other end to a reciever. weirdly enough, many researchers think this helped lead to the development of cochlear implants. but the cat was killed after the scientists wanted to see if it worked on a dead cat.

in 1726, mary toft told doctors that she gave birth to rabbits, and doctors were fully convinced until they found pieces of corn inside the stomach of one of the rabbits, proving that it hadn't developed inside her womb. she instead was manually inserting the rabbits to make the delivery look as realistic as possible.

it was believed that babies under the age of 15 months couldn't feel pain, so doctors would instead use muscle relaxers that had a paralytic effect to stop the baby from moving. this essentially meant they couldn't move or cry but they could still hear, see, and feel everything that was done to them. this was accepted up until 1980s

there was a tiger in india named man-eater of champawat who became dependent on human flesh, which at the turn of the 20th century inflicted a seven-year reign, killing 436 men, women, and children. she was eventually killed in 1907.

there was a book called "how the mail steamer went down in mid atlantic, by a survivor," which tells the story of an unnamed ocean liner that sinks in the atlantic. the protagonist is a sailor named thompson, who grows concerned over the lifeboat shortage, and sure enough the liners collides with a small sailing ship in a fog. as the ship sinks, only 200 of the 700 people on board survive. the second novella "the wreck of the titan: or, futility" by morgan robertson, follows the fictional ocean liner titan, which hits an iceberg in the north atlantic and sinks. like the titanic, the titan was described as the largest ship afloat at the time, both ships had a shortage of lifeboats, and the titan was dubbed "unsinkable." when the accident occurred, roberston simply said he was knowledgabe about maritime operations, saying "i know what i'm writing about, that's all."

some books created in the 18th and 19th century were bound in real human skin which was called anthropodermic bibliopegy. most of these books that were bound with human skin instead of animal skin were mostly based on anatomy or erotica.

during the battle of ramree island, which was fought between january and february 1945, japanese soldiers were cornered by english troops seeking to conquer burmese island of ramree, forcing japanese troops to cross 10 miles of swamp. the japanese soon began to suffer the effects of tropical diseases, but the presence of large numbers of scorpions, tropical mosquitoes and thousands of saltwater crocodiles, the world's largest reptiles, was even worse. In its genre. very aggressive beasts that can reach 8 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. according to some survivors, during the night, they were hunted one by one, in which the crocodiles would ambush them from underneath. and the survivors said the worst part was hearing the screams and the breaking of bones in the dark.

there is a cocodile named gustave (or was if you believe he's dead), a large nile crocodile in burundi who has been rumored to have killed 200-300 people. he's never been captured, but it has been stated that he could be "easily more than 20 feet, and weigh more than 2,000 pounds." he was/is estimated to be over 100 years old, and was/is described as having bullet wounds over his body, and his right shoulder blade was found to be deeply wounded, but they don't know what could have caused it. it's been rumored that he would leave the corpses he killed behind. in 2019, an article revealed he was killed, but there's no photographic evidence which leaves people doubting it's true.

#just some creepy facts ive come across #history #scary #facts

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unreadpoppy · 10 months

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List of things I have a special interest on:

- Dolls: they have been a big part of my life, and when I gave some of them away to charity, I was legit crying. Now that I’m an adult, once I have financial stability, I’m planning on buying some more dolls. This category includes mostly collecting and watching the media of it, like Monster High, Ever After High and MLP/Equestria Girls.

- Barbie Movies: okay I wanted to put this separately because while I do like Barbie dolls, I’m only really interested in buying the ones related to the old movies. But the movies themselves are my thing. I rewatch them constantly (and I’m not someone who usually rewatches movies), talking about them makes me happy and it’s usually something I can use to bond with other people (since most people, especially AFAB’s, from my generation grew up with them).

- Stuffed Animals: I’ve been collecting stuffed animals since I was a child and I still have some of my childhood ones. They bring a lot of joy because not only are they cute, but they’re also very cuddly and I will hang on to them during a crisis. If I pass by a stuffed animals section in a store, or anywhere, I’ll probably stare at it. I also sleep with a few of them and they can be helpful with sleeping positions.

- Animals: this is more in the research part. I’ve always felt very connected to animals, since I was a kid, and I think they are one of the reasons I love stuffed animals so much, because then I can hug an animal I would be too afraid to meet in real life (like bears). Usually I’ll hyperfixate on certain animals, the most recent being bears, but others include blue whales, elephants, wolves, and tigers. Dogs are also very dear to my heart as you all know, I have 3 of my own, and I will wave at a dog on the street (or just look at it and sometimes snatch a picture from afar). When researching about animals, I focus more on how they behave, if they are social then how their societies work, how the communicate, how do they raise their offspring, etc. and I do like learning about new facts or certain individuals (like grizzly 399, O’Six, wolf 41, 42 and 21, that one male tiger who took care of two female cubs and the Heartz 52 Whale).

- Award Shows: I don’t know how to explain this but this is due to my love for trivia and finding patterns. Like I used to spend hours going through the Wikipedia lists for like best actor/actress/movie/director/etc. and finding coincidences or trivia about certain wins and the people behind them. Some parts of how the award shows happen also interest me but not as much as knowing the trivia. Also, thanks to this, I’ve been able to once get correctly all the winners of the big awards of the 2018 Academy Award ceremony. This also ties in with my obsession with a few celebrities.

- Diaries/Journals/Notebooks: I love writing in them and I love collecting them. Usually I’ll use one journal for a long period of time and gave 2 or 3 around that I bought to use later on. There are some periods of time where I spend a long time without buying one or even updating my journal, but once I do, the feeling of doing more will come back quickly. Playing DnD has also helped this interest, because it’s almost like I have an “excuse” to buy the notebooks, so that I can use it to play.

- Vampires: I’m a monster fucker and vampires are my shit. Some of my favorite media has vampires in it, like Castlevania and Vampire Hunter D, and I have read many books or novellas and fanfics just because they contained vampires. I read some of the big classics like Dracula, Carmilla and The Vampyre and I tend to like more consuming media about them than actually looking up the real life myths. Of course, I know many of the myths but there are so many that after some point, I wasn’t that interest anymore and I’d rather see what a creator’s personal take on them.

- History: I’ll divide this one in three subtopics.

- Historical Periods: When I was younger, I searched a lot about Ancient Rome and Greece, medieval and modern England, the Italian Renascence, and Victorian England. I don’t like them up so much nowadays, due to how much I learned back then was enough to satisfy me, but I will gladly join conversations about those periods.

- Historical Figures: I love looking up the lives of specific historical figures, most of them being royalty (judge me, I don’t care). I like learning about what their personal lives and relationships were like, their thoughts about the world and the impact they left on us. Other than the royals, I also like looking up thinkers/ philosophers (which will lead me into a rabbit hole of trying to understand they philosophy) and artists (shout out to Camille Claudel and many important people of theater).

- Historical Clothing: This one is more present in my day to day because I follow many YouTubers who focus on historical clothing. Love looking at the dresses (and again, especially the ones worn by the nobility and royalty), I love seeing how some people manage to recreate them or modernize them while still maintaining the important aesthetic elements. I have so many Pinterest boards just dedicated to historical dresses. My favorite periods include the renaissance, Victorian era, Edwardian era, and the big silhouettes of the French and Dutch court at certain periods.

- Theater: It was while doing this list that I realized how important theater (and acting) is to me. Like it started with musical theater and since I got into college it shifted into more “tradicional” theater (still love musicals tho, just don’t listen to them quite as often). I’m not the biggest fan of going to the theater in itself (mostly because crowds, tickets being expensive many times, the locations being far away from where I live and there not being as many as productions in my city as I would like, cause mainly it’s just theater for kids which I’m not a big fan of), but I do like reading the plays and imagining that scene could be acted out and the set design. I also like acting the scenes myself (although I tend to cringe at myself and not doing much of it if I’m alone, but I’ll definetly ask the teacher to act out a part if I can). Also like learning about how theater and plays have changed throughout history and looking about big theater people like Stanislavski and Brecht.

For the time being, I think this is it .

#actually autistic #special interests #also I don’t know if I should put books in here #cause like I’m an avid book reader #but I see it more as a hobby than an interest?#like I like buying books and reading the #*them #and sometimes Even if I know I won’t read a book I’ll sti search a bit about it #but I don’t particularly consider it a special interest even though it most likely is #journey

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beevean · 11 months

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m, o, y, z for the fandom meme?

M - Say something genuinely nice about a ship that you don’t ship (or its shippers, or anything related to you)

Oh, a ship I don't ship is very different from a ship I dislike/hate 😂

I'm neutral on Trevor/Alucard, only because I don't really see Alucard as romantically involved with anyone, but they are very nice to each other and I love to hear them being so kind and respectful to each other in GoS, so if someone ships them romantically I perfectly understands where they're coming from <3

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

I'm very bad at this game lol. I don't choose songs: songs choose me. My music culture is too limited.

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For example, my brain has decided that this is Isaactor + Hectaly and it won't hear otherwise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)

I definitely learned quite a lot about Devil May Cry despite never touching a game myself :P

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

I never considered myself a shipper until recently because even back in the day, shippers used to be extremely aggressive... just in a "MY SHIP IS BETTER THAN YOURS AND YOU'RE A POOPYHEAD" way, not in a "I am literally going to send you pictures of real children being abused to punish you for the horrible crime of thinking a fictional 17 yo and a fictional 19 yo could be cute together" way.

And I'm like. I still don't get it what's about ships that makes people this rabid? What is the point of ship wars? What is the point of yearning for your OTP to be canon? Guys, you're just smacking dolls together. This is literally the kind of game 7 years old play, except that you're drawing a masterpiece for 15 hours or writing a short novella over it.

My point is, I wish I could spread the message to everyone that this is supposed to be fun. Something about two characters (or more lol) sparks an idea in your head, and then you share that idea with others finding some common grounds. That's it. That's shipping. It's not that deep. It doesn't say anything about the person, something something Umbridge effect and the other way around. There are posts circulating about little girls putting Barbies in horrible situations with a "aw aren't they much more creative than the Patriarchy assumes they are" undertone, and then the same people act like a slightly less vanilla ship is a prelude to IRL crimes.

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bocceclub · 1 year

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Most fanfic is just...the most shallow level of consumption, you know? So much so that you can't really call it engagement, let alone analysis. Open an ao3 search for any given piece of media and 75% of it will be the same stock plug-and-play scenarios with characters so divorced from their contexts and motives, their entire driving purpose, that they might as well be paper dolls. Am I supposed to find this engaging or at all meaningful? Or even, at the very least, entertaining? And don't get me started on fix-it fics and the complete destruction of any kind of narrative conflict or negative event such as death, injury, emotional pain, etc etc etc. Why would I want to read a rehash of a story I already know, except it's been stripped of all chances for the protagonist to grow and change in a meaningful way? It's self-infantilizing. It's boring. It's the written form of baby food. Like I want to take most fanfic writers by the shoulders and say, go expand your palette, eat some real food – a chapbook of post-war Japanese poetry, a novella set during the height of the Serbian-Croatian War, a surrealist novel about a man alone in a house that is the world, the memoir of a displaced Afghan woman – and see if this bland slop is still satisfying when you've done so. Because I really really don't think it will be.

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ixirian-archive · 10 months

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its clear from looking at your profile that you like the character of charlie emily in the fnaf books a lot, why is that? i hear people complaining about these books, i would be interested in hearing a positive perspective on an aspect like this.

This turned out to be a longer answer than I thought, sorry about that! Wasn't sure if you were asking about the novel trilogy or books as a whole, so I answered both

Tldr at the end

There are 3 fnaf book series out there, and the novel trilogy is generally considered to be one of the better ones (at least the first book the silver eyes, is). Imo it's pretty solid for the most part (though the 2nd book suffers from what i call the "middle child curse" of falling a little flat and being less liked than the others) and the twist at the end with Charlie is better if youve read it yourself and got to watch all the minor odd details about her and the things around her build up to that point. As for why I like her specifically, I couldn't really give you a solid answer? She's relatable to me in some ways, and honestly sometimes I just like a character a lot more than others for no real reason other than I just do-this happens a lot lol

only thing I dislike is how her existence as a robot is misunderstood by half the "so and so is actually a robot" theories, because like the whole thing about her was that she wasn't actually possessed by the Charlie who died, but was a doll given life by Henry's painful emotions (think of those kids stories about toys who were loved so much that they became alive, but in a sad and negative way)

In general, when it comes to people complaining about the books, there are fair criticisms of them, but a lot of them I've noticed are from people who clearly haven't read them or even looked at a proper summary (some people even take shitposts at face value and its very strange to me)

I totally get some things like them starting to complicate things or important stuff being put there other than the games, but other things, like decrying a whole novella series because of like 2 or 3 weird individual stories, are just kinda....eh

When it comes to the books themselves as, well, books, imo the novel trilogy and Tales From The Pizzaplex have the strongest writing as a whole, while Fazbear Frights was fun but also just kinda felt like they kept throwing shit at the wall to see what stuck. TFTPP has a lot of interconnecting details between stories making it feel more grounded in its own world, while the novel trilogy is more fleshed out and gives you more time to get attached to every character involved + exploring the characters of Henry and William more

the best way I see it is to look at the books yourself and just judge that way, because you can't experience them 2nd hand like you could by watching a YouTube let's play of a game-most libraries should have the books for free and I believe the youtuber Ozone does audiobooks of them? So you still don't really have to buy them to experience them (though buying 3 of those novella books is cheaper than buying security breach once)

Tldr; a lot of the time I see people who havent read the books at all complaining about them, + a lot of people like to treat every single one as all bad because of like 3 weird stories out of....a lot, which imo isn't quite fair? Best to experience them yourself, which you can do for free with the power of libraries! Anyways that should be it for what I have to say, once again I'm sorry for being so wordy it just has a tendency to happen with things I like

#fnaf #asks #super sorry for being too wordy but im not good at condensing my thoughts just yet

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mma3youf · 3 years

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FA222 ,principles of graphic design:

Instructor: mr.munwar mukhtar

@uob-funoon @mnwrzmn

Project 1 : design

Covering up the Cracks: The Return of Wallpaper

How artists from Édouard Vuillard to Dorothea Tanning and Kehinde Wiley used wallpaper in their work

Forget fragrant roses and honeysuckle. Forget soft-throated songbirds and sunflowers. I always see spiders in wallpaper. My eyes trace the patterns, searching them out, those crooked arachnids. The mere hint of one turns my stomach. Look: there’s one! Tarantula-black, wriggling through that ivy-blossom, crouching behind those camellias. See its distended abdomen, those unwieldy legs?

What this says about me, I don’t want to know, but spiders also spring to mind whenever I think of a certain painting by Édouard Vuillard. Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893) is a most peculiar work, wrought with invisible tensions. The manner in which Vuillard configures his mother and sister hints at a curious dynamic, one more commonly imagined between a spider and a fly. Here is Madame Vuillard, a throbbing black presence, legs set wide apart, hands placed defiantly on her knees in as dominant and sinister a pose as she can muster. To the left, Vuillard’s sister, Marie (or Mimi as she was known within the family), looks as if she is being engulfed by the wallpaper. Or is she already trapped? Can you hear the frantic buzzing as she struggles to escape? It’s almost unbearable. Marie is ensnared; it’s as if Madame Vuillard has forced her into a web. The awkward angle at which Vuillard composes his picture fosters this tension. Somehow, the artist seems to suggest, maman is driving her daughter into dangerous territory.

Or is she? Is Vuillard really attempting to convey that his mother is pushing his sister not only to the limits of physical space, but also of sanity? Although the narrative is not explicit, Vuillard painted several similar portraits of his mother and sister that imply domestic disharmony. In The Door Ajar (1891), for example, Marie appears alone, this time peering into a room as if she wants simultaneously to enter and retreat. Marie’s dress and the wallpaper are barely distinguishable from one another: the maggoty yellow pattern of the latter insidiously overlaps with the strange crescent moons of the former to suggest … what exactly? Is Marie, once again, being pushed in to the web of the wallpaper? Or is something else at play? Could Vuillard be trying to capture some deep-seated predisposition in his sister? Perhaps, psychologically speaking, Marie wants to entwine herself with the background of life. As in Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, rather than being pushed out of the room by maman, Marie is perhaps choosing to contort her body so as to escape? Whatever the case, for Vuillard, wallpaper is never simply decorative. Loaded with narratives, in the artist’s hands it becomes a metaphor for the divide between physical and psychological space, between inner and outer realities.

A little less than 100 years after Vuillard completed Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, a young woman on the east coast of America took a series of photographs, ‘Space2, Providence, Rhode Island’ (1976–77), one of which could stand as a companion piece to his painting. An eerie connection exists between the two works, a conversation of sorts across the decades. Here is the image of another young woman who appears to want to escape and who uses wallpaper as the means by which to do so. Unlike Marie, however, who is the subject of her brother’s narrative, the woman in this photograph is most definitely the author of her own disappearance. Using strips of paper to cover her face, breasts and legs, Francesca Woodman attempts to take herself out of the photographs she so carefully constructs. Like wallpaper itself, with its repeating patterns and shapes, the desire to remove herself from the picture occurs throughout Woodman’s work.

In other self-portraits, Woodman crouches beneath a tilted door, disappears through a wall, merges with mirrors, windows and fireplaces. She is a ghost light, a will-’o-the-wisp, a haze and a blur; present only in her absence, a non sequitur made physical. Indeed, looking every bit like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), with her long blonde hair, floor-length skirts and black pumps, Woodman seems desperate to slip beyond the here and now, to use every available surface in order to vanish – not into Wonderland, but towards some other dimension. Ironically, much like the Cheshire Cat whose smile lingers long after the rest of his body has disappeared, by highlighting herself in the act of vanishing, Woodman’s spectral presence grows ever more compelling. Who is this beguiling figure dedicated to both evading and haunting? The answer is never clear. In fact, the nearest we come to it might be the manner of the photographer’s death. In 1981, at the age of 22, Woodman took her own life by jumping out of a window.

Appearance and disappearance. Repeating patterns and shapes. Integration and disintegration. A year before Vuillard completed Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, a novel was published in America that foreshadowed it. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes as its subject the agonizing mental decline of an unnamed narrator who has just given birth. Confined by her husband to an upstairs nursery with bars at the window, the woman is advised to empty her mind and do nothing but rest. Instead, she begins to tell us about her predicament. Having been deprived of any mental stimulation, she begins to believe she has seen glimpses of a woman trapped behind the room’s sickly yellow wallpaper. As a metaphor for the morbidly restrictive society into which 19th-century, middle-class women were born, The Yellow Wallpaper is highly effective; on a psychological level, it is unsurpassed. As with the walls in Vuillard’s painting, the paper crawls with meaning; the narrator projects her fears onto its ‘bloated curves and flourishes’, its ‘sprawling flamboyant patterns’ and ‘wallowing seaweeds’ until, finally, they take on a life of their own and begin to seep through the paper in the shape of a deranged ‘other’. The wallpaper, in other words, has become a reproduction of what is playing out in the narrator’s misshapen psyche.

It is hard to think of Gilman’s work without being reminded of that doyen of the 19th-century British arts and crafts movement, William Morris. The intricate wallpapers and textile designs he created for Victorian homes could easily have graced the room in which Gilman’s narrator was incarcerated. This made American artist Kehinde Wiley’s first UK museum solo show, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, at William Morris Gallery in London earlier this year more than a little intriguing. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper is something that has haunted me for years,’ Wiley says of the novella in a short film about the making of this work. ‘The idea of being in a room and not being taken seriously.’ This is not something that can be said of the six black women and two children Wiley met on the streets of east London, whose strikingly beautiful portraits filled the exhibition. Whether sitting or standing, whether their faces turn away or directly look out, each sitter is centre stage. More than that, each is engaged in a serious dialogue with the background patterns from which they emerge. These patterns are based on Morris’s own wallpaper designs that would have papered the walls of mansions inhabited by, among others, former slave-traders and plantation owners. In doing so, Wiley’s work plays on the conflict between the sinister history embedded in the prettiest detailing and the self-possessed women who emerge from the patterns, who seem to defy anyone to repeat it.

Lindsey Mendick, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, 2020, installation detail, Eastside Projects,Birmingham. Courtesy: the artist and Eastside Projects; photograph: Stuart Whipps

Coincidentally, artist and sculptor Lindsey Mendick’s exhibition at Eastside Projects in Birmingham earlier this year was also titled ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Featuring untitled videos, ceramics and miniatures, the show pivots on a disturbing episode in the artist’s life when, during a nervous breakdown in 2006, Mendick glanced from her bedroom window to see six men dressed in black, walking up and down the street speaking into walkie-talkies. Mendick related the incident to her mother who, given her daughter’s vulnerable state of mind, found the story difficult to believe. A few days later, however, news broke that the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, had been poisoned; he was Mendick’s neighbour.

Unlike Gilman’s narrator, what Mendick had seen was real; however, in her exhibition she, too, played with the idea of wallpaper as a borderland between sanity and insanity. The show also included other domestic items as receptacles into or onto which all that was unendurable could be projected. A large teapot (with a hole in one side through which you could view the vessel’s interior) contained two small ceramic figures taking tea from a large teapot containing two ceramic figures taking tea from a teapot, in what felt like a claustrophobic dance to the death. Nor did the claustrophobia end there, for all the pieces in the small, over-lit gallery spoke of other confined and confining spaces – from the hollowed-out, ceramic head of Russian President Vladimir Putin, inside which the figure of a distraught woman (Mendick herself?) sits on a toilet within a cramped bathroom, to a 1960s-style bedside cabinet inside which reside Mendick’s family members, configured weirdly as Russian dolls. But, of all the dialogues taking place inside this room, the loudest is also the most hallucinatory: the one inside my own head between Gilman and Mendick. What is it they are saying? That yellow is an unfortunate colour with which to decorate a room? That the divide between sanity and insanity is paper-thin? Or that even the most innocuous of objects can pulsate with the unconscious?

This is a sentiment with which the surrealist artist, sculptor and writer Dorothea Tanning would surely have agreed. Writing in the catalogue for her 1979 exhibition at New York’s Gimpel-Wietzenhoffer Gallery, she declared of her hometown of Galesburg, in rural Illinois, that ‘nothing happened but the wallpaper’. Tanning’s Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot (1970–73) is a three-dimensional, life-sized room in which two grubby pink torsos, shaped as if carved from ham, poke through the dingy wallpaper while the chimney breast gives birth to three further mutations – although whether these are animal, vegetable or some other tumorous mash-up, it is impossible to say. The work was partly inspired by a song Tanning recalled from her childhood: ‘In Room 202’ (1919) composed by Dave Harris with lyrics by Edgar Leslie and Bert Kalmar, tells the story of Kitty Kane, a gangster’s moll who poisoned herself while staying at a hotel in Chicago.

In room two hundred and two The walls keep talkin’ to you I’ll never tell you what they said So turn out the light and come to bed.

But if the song suggests talking walls, Tanning pushes this idea to its very edge, wishing to create a space in which the wallpaper, as she once explained, would ‘tear with screams’ while maintaining ‘an odd banality’. The latter is captured by the dreary ordinariness of the installation’s wallpaper while the former is contained in the hotel’s name: pavot is French for poppy, the flower from which opium is derived. By conflating these disparate ideas, Tanning succeeds in heightening the room’s creepiness; this in turn precipitates a sense of impending doom. What springs to mind is a back-street abortionist’s or the lair of a serial killer such as John Christie who, over several months in the early 1950s, murdered (among others) Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson and Hectorina MacLennan, hiding their bodies in a kitchen alcove, which he subsequently wallpapered over as if it were a solid wall. The women’s bodies were only discovered after Christie moved out of the house and his landlord, wanting to redecorate, tapped on what he thought was the rear wall to the kitchen only to discover it was hollow. As Ludovic Kennedy wrote in Ten Rillington Place (1961), the landlord then ‘pulled away a small piece of paper and shone his torch inside. Whatever he expected to see, it could hardly have been what he did see: the naked seated body of Hectorina MacLennan.’ You can almost envisage the landlord stumbling backwards in horror, just as the chambermaid might have done when she pushed open the door to Chambre 202. This is a room that distils much of what the work of Mendick, Vuillard, Wiley and Woodman makes clear: that wallpaper does not so much cover the cracks, as serve to reveal them.

Main image: Lindsey Mendick, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, 2020, installation view, Eastside Projects, Birmingham. Courtesy: the artist and Eastside Projects; photograph: Stuart Whipps

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tlbodine · 4 years

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Strange Dark Fairy Tales

A weird duo of horror movies from the 1980s this week. They’re not really on a theme, but they also...kind of totally are on a theme?

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Hellraiser (1987), was written and directed by Clive Barker as an adaptation of his novella The Hell-Bound Heart. It’s about a woman who lures strange men into her house so she can sacrifice them to her undead lover (who happens to be her husband’s brother) so that he can put his body back together after having been ripped apart by demons he summoned after opening a portal to hell while pursuing forbidden heights of pleasure and sensation.

Basically.

Look. In order to understand Clive Barker’s fiction, it helps to know a bit about the guy. He’s multi-talented -- professionally writing, painting, and directing for both film and stage. He’s openly gay. He worked as a male prostitute early in his career to help pay the bills when his writing wasn’t going well.

Sex and religion are huge, recurring themes in Barker’s work, and Hellraiser is pretty unambiguous about it. Hell is a sex dungeon where demons deliver pleasure and pain, bringing about sensations you never thought possible before completely destroying you.

Now, I’m just speculating here, but I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that a gay prostitute in the 1980s would become fascinated with writing about thrilling-but-dangerous deviant sexuality.

Ahem. Anyway. If Clive Barker didn’t invent the genre of splatterpunk -- these days what we refer to as “extreme horror,” or horror centered on violence, gore, depravity and sex -- he certainly contributed a fair amount to its development.

Hellraiser would go on to spawn a great number of sequels, none of which Barker had much involvement with, and Pinhead (a demon-prince with a face full of nails, who is never actually called Pinhead in the canon anywhere) has become an iconic face of the horror genre. It’s actually kind of interesting, because he is in very little of the original Hellraiser, but when you happen upon a neat design, you learn to stand behind it by way of clever marketing, ya know?

youtube

The Company of Wolves (1984) was directed by Neil Jordan, with a screenplay written by Angela Carter (adapted from a radio play, adapted from a short story, all of which she wrote).

Almost the entirety of the film is an extended dream sequence, which itself includes several embedded narratives as stories are passed along -- it’s basically an anthology film, a nesting doll of storytelling where it’s not entirely clear what’s meant to be real.

That said, at its most basic, it’s a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

I’d never seen the film before, although I did know the story (Angela Carter’s dark fairytale reimaginings in The Bloody Chamber are some of my favorite short stories ever). And I have to say, although I’m not entirely sure what that movie really was, or exactly what it all meant, I loved it a lot.

It predates Labyrinth by two years and I really wonder whether it influenced the later film at all. Similar themes and conceits show up in both, from the fashion choices of the “demon lover” trope to the presence of life-size, animated toys and an incongruously fanciful forest. That’s a thought that demands a whole essay.

Very fun movie, though. If you like fairy tales, I absolutely recommend it. It also has some of the absolute coolest werewolf transformation sequences. The effects are a bit rough -- like, you can absolutely tell that the animatronic is a puppet! -- but the ideas they’re evoking are really imaginative and neat. I would not be opposed to a modern remake of this movie, using today’s CGI effects, but only if it could be made by someone who deeply appreciated and understood Angela Carter’s work.

#horror movies #horror #horror by the decade #horror through the decades #hellraiser #the company of wolves #good stuff #literary horror

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silenthillmutual · 4 years

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horror/thriller movie recommendations based on your fave Danganronpa 1/2 character

the series in general: Saw (2004, dir. James Wan) - i can’t give much of a reasoning for this as i haven’t seen it but the “punishment fits the victim” trope appears to be a thing in Saw?

Makoto Naegi: It (2017, dir. Andres Muschietti) - as much about the power of friendship as it is about a fear beyond all others. the premise is probably relatively well known by now for the fact that there’s a big clown in it. content warnings: clowns, unsanitary, implied incest and csa.

Sayaka Maizono: Psycho (1960, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - this suggestion is an incredibly cheap shot, please forgive me. famous film, not sure if i can talk too much about the plotline without giving away the most important part.

Mukuro Ikusaba: Us (2019, dir. Jordan Peele) - doppelgangers show up to wreak havoc on an american family. themes of identity theft. much bloodier than Get Out.

Leon Kuwata: Scream (1996, dir. Wes Craven) - admittedly haven’t seen this either yet. i know, i know, i’m a fake horror fan. but i know that it was made as a sort of tongue-in-cheek homage to the tropeyness of horror films, and i didn’t want to put any movie too blatantly humorous here. i thought this would fit Leon.

Chihiro Fujisaki: A Quiet Place (2018, dir. John Krasinski) - monsters that attack based on noise terrorize a family. most dialogue is delivered through sign language. also has a really touching family dynamic, especially between the father and his children.

Mondo Oowada: Pet Sematary (1989, dir. Mary Lambert) - haven’t seen this one either, whoops. all i know is it’s about, like, bringing people back from the dead or something, and that it’s based on a Stephen King book.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru: The Stand (1994, dir. Mick Garris) - technically a miniseries, but i wasn’t really sure what other horror story fit him. it’s the world at the end in a final battle between good and evil, and nothing says Ultimate Moral Compass more than that to me.

Hifumi Yamada: Strangers on a Train (1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - the whole “i’ll do your murder if you do mine” kinda hits for chapter 3 i think. i also remember his hostage being his sister, so he’d probably like the relationship between Anne and Barbara.

Celes Ludenberg: Crimson Peak (2015, dir. Guillermo del Toro) - there’s a line the main character says that’s something to the effect of how she’d rather be like Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley because she died a widow? that’s Celescore. content warning: incest.

Sakura Oogami: Hereditary (2018, dir. Ari Aster) - both in the way that her dojo is a family business and in the themes of being afraid of hurting your loved ones. content warnings: child death, car accident, decapitation, possession, drug usage.

Toko Fukawa: Rebecca (1940, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - again haven’t watched or read the book on which it is based but the fact alone that it is based on a book? and it’s not directed by stanley kubrick’s book-ruining ass?

Byakuya Togami: Rope (1948, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - based on a play which itself was probably based loosely on the Leopold & Loeb case, it’s famous in part for its protagonists being gay. also they have superiority complexes and think that the privileged few should be allowed to murder inferior people because they’re above morality.

Yasuhiro Hagakure: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, dir. Wes Craven) - i feel like this is closer to what his brand of horror would be, but also people not really believing that what’s happening is actually happening is kind of his m.o. too. content warning: i don’t remember if this is explicit in the original or not, but Freddy Krueger was a pedophile.

Aoi Asahina: Friday the 13th (1980, dir. Sean S. Cunningham) - again i just think this is closer to what Hina’s brand of horror would be, but also i feel like the summer camp aesthetic would be for her.

Kyouko Kirigiri: The Secret in Their Eyes (2009, dir. Juan Jose Campanella) - i don’t totally remember it but detective going off the rails trying to solve a rape & murder case. Very intense, but very good.

Junko Enoshima: Midsommar (2019, dir. Ari Aster) - gaslighting people into joining a death cult? yeah, that screams junko. content warnings: graphic suicide, drug usage, gaslighting, people on fire, nudity, sex.

Monokuma: Child’s Play (1988, dir. Tom Holland) - creepy toy carrying the soul of a murderer. still need to finish watching this one, other than “creepy doll” i don’t have anything to offer in the way of content warnings.

Hajime Hinata: Get Out (2017, dir. Jordan Peele) - reluctant to go too much into details because i wouldn’t want to spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it, but the experiment done on Hajime vibes w this movie. content warning in that this film is about racism.

Twogami: Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - too many details would give away spoilers but the identity theft theme of the film fits for a guy whose talent is in identity theft.

Teruteru Hanamura: Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter) - had a hard time thinking of a horror movie for Teruteru, but Halloween (and 80′s slashers in general) have a tendency to punish the horny.

Mahiru Koizumi: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997, dir. Jim Gillespie) - would it be too much of a spoiler to say there’s similarities between this film & what gets Mahiru killed in-game?

Peko Pekoyama: The Purge (2013, dir. James DeMonaco) - people using masks to enact what they feel is justified revenge on the one day of the year when all crime is legal.

Hiyoko Saionji: The VVitch (2015, dir. Robert Eggers) - based on colonial-era folk tales about witches. very atmospheric, features the same kind of abusive slut-shaming verbal assaults Hiyoko hurls at others. content warning for briefly implied incest, some nudity, and parents being shitty.

Ibuki Mioda: Green Room (2015, dir. Jeremy Saulnier) - still need to see this one; punk band tries to survive to the end of the night after witnessing neo-nazis commit a murder.

Mikan Tsumiki: Carrie (1976, dir. Brian De Palma) - another film based on a stephen king novella, and also a pretty famous story. a longtime bullying & abuse victim starts to lose her shit after she begins developing telepathy. content warning for some nudity, fire, and an abusive mother.

Nekomaru Nidai: Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960, dir. Georges Franju) - wasn’t really sure where to go with him either, at first, and settled on body horror considering what happens to him later in-game. a doctor attempts to find a new face for his daughter after she is left disfigured from an accident.

Gundham Tanaka: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921, dir. Robert Wiene) - a mad scientist claims his hypnotized ‘somnambulist’ can see into the future, including the deaths of carnival-goers. highly influential silent film, german expressionist so peak aesthetic.

Nagito Komaeda: The Silence of the Lambs (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme) - it’s probably well enough known for Hannibal the Cannibal being in it, but it’s worth noting he’s not the primary antagonist of the film. he is the most memorable part of it, and his psychoanalysis is what made me think of Komaeda. content warnings for gore, sexual harassment, referenced cannibalism, period-typical transphobia (period is the late 80s/early 90s).

Chiaki Nanami: V/H/S (2012, various directors) - a horror anthology film of found-footage type shorts, not shown in chronological order of events. i don’t really remember the contents enough for warnings, check at your own risk.

Akane Owari: The Blair Witch Project (1999, dirs. Eduardo Sanchez & Daniel Myrick) - don’t really have a good reason for this one other than “they all go feral, which Akane is seconds from doing at any given moment.” i think she’d dig it. no real content warnings to be had, the original found footage film.

Kazuichi Souda: Jaws (1975, dir. Stephen Spielberg) - i’m not even entirely sure i know what would make him like it, maybe just the mechanical shark? i think we all know this as the movie that made people double down on their hatred of sharks. i don’t particularly care for it, but it’s popular.

Sonia Nevermind: Perfume: Story of a Murderer (2006, dir. Tom Tykwer) - follows a would-be perfumer as he murders women in an attempt to create the perfect scent. in retrospect i probably should have picked something based on a real crime, but i still think she’d like this one.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu: M (1931, dir. Fritz Lang) - when the police fail to catch a serial child murderer, the criminal underworld steps up to take action into their own hands. fitting, no?

Usami: Trick ‘r Treat (2007, dir. Michael Doughtery) - another sort of anthology film that follows what happens to townsfolk when they don’t abide by Halloween traditions. i put it for Usami because i thought it was actually kind of cute, as far as horror films go.

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thenightling · 4 years

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All Volumes of The Sandman placed in order of least favorite to favorite

First here is the order in which The Sandman should be read :

1. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes 2. The Sandman: The Doll’s House 3. The Sandman: Dream Country 4. The Sandman: Season of Mists 5. The Sandman: A Game of You 6. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections 7. The Sandman: Brief Lives 8. The Sandman: The Worlds’ End 9. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones 10. The Sandman: The Wake The Sandman: Dream Hunters The Sandman: Endless Nights The Sandman: Overture (a very beautiful prequel)

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And now the order of least favorite to favorite.

Warning: This post contains some spoilers.

14. The Kindly Ones.

I won’t sugar coat it. I’m not really a big fan of The Kindly Ones. I don’t care for the stylized art or the plot that much. Though I love The Sandman this is definitely not a volume I would consider a favorite. Yes, The Kindly Ones has its fans. It has a few good moments, I particularly liked how Matthew was portrayed in it. All of The Sandman is good in its own way. But The Kindly Ones is just not a favorite for me.

13. The Wake.

I have to look at this as someone who got into The Sandman late. I do like The Wake but I think if I read a six month (or longer) story arc of characters grieving another character, teenage me (I was fourteen in 1996) would probably have gotten frustrated and depressed.

I love the art style. I believe I read somewhere that (at the time) The Sandman: The Wake was the only graphic novel drawn entirely in colored pencil. The artwork is beautiful.

I think I might have enjoyed The Kindly Ones more if it had been drawn in the style of The Wake.

As with all of The Sandman there are a few shining moments. I do like the issue dealing with Hob’s Dream (issue 73). And I liked seeing Nada’s reincarnated toddler self, and Orpheus, whole, and at peace in Ellysium (Greek Heaven).

12. Endless Nights.

Endless Nights is a collection of seven stories, each focusing on a different member of The Endless family.

Endless Nights has a sad but well-written story about Morpheus and Killala of The Glow, one of the first to harness the green light that would later be the catalyst for The Green Lantern corp. I wonder if things would have played out differently if Morpheus had just been more up front and honest with Killala from the start.

11. The World’s End.

The World’s End features a strange interdenominational inn that transcends time and space and serves as a refuge for the displaced during ... er... Let’s just call them what DC comics calls them. “Crisis.”

This is a collection of short stories from characters who have all been touched by Dream and his world in some way. My favorites include Cluracan’s story and Hob’s Leviathan.

There’s also some heavy foreshadowing for The Kindly Ones.

10. The Dream Hunters (Graphic novel version).

The Dream Hunters is a stand alone story set in Ancient Japan and works as a bitter-sweet fable.

9. The Dream Hunters (novella version.)

I like the novella version of The Dream Hunters better than the graphic novel version because the artwork is just so gorgeous.

8. Fables and reflections.

Here is another collection of short stories all tied into The Sandman. Most of them can be read on their own.

7. Dream Country.

Here’s another set of The Sandman short stories that can be treated as stand alone one-shot stories. My favorites of these is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is a brilliant and off-beat Shakespere story in which Shakespeare is made to perform a Midsummer Nights Dream for the real Seelie Court.

I also liked Calliope because we get to see Morpheus as a sort of avenging angel type.

I happened to be reading A Dream of Cats for the first time on the very day I adopted Loki and Vlad (two of my three cats). This was not planned out, just a strange coincidence.

6. A Game of you.

This is probably the most misunderstood volume of The Sandman. Though Neil Gaiman based it on the personal experiences of a real life trans friend of his, whom consulted with him through the writing of it, many modern readers (mostly thanks to a very misleading Mary Sue article) have called this volume transphobic.

In actuality for 1992 this was an extremely progressive depiction of a transwoman and one of the first (if not first) trans women of DC comics.

Some of the complaints are because Wanda dies (many characters in The Sandman die, including the main protagonist...) while others think that the story claims transwomen cannot use feminine magick. This is not true. That was a claim made by a very dark witch, Thessaly AKA Larissa, a character who later betrays the series’ over-all protagonist. She probably should NOT be trusted.

The scene showing Wanda’s soul pretty much confirms how wrong Thessaly was.

The story deals with Barbie on a Jim Henson’s Labyrinth-esque adventure in her own personal dream world, and her friends who come to her rescue.

5. Brief Lives.

Brief lives is the story that tells us what happened with Destruction of the Endless. It is beautifully drawn. And this is where Song of Orpheus finally comes to its bitter-sweet conclusion as Morpheus enables his poor son to find peace at last.

4. The Doll’s House.

The Doll’s House gives us the story of Rose Walker- a person who is also a “Dream Vortex” (A person whose mind has the potential to cause dreams and reality to collapse into each other and destroy both) and how dangerous that can be. We are also introduced to The Corinthian, a Nightmare who could give Freddy Krueger a run for his money.

3. Season of Mists.

The Sandman: Season of Mists is a storyline that some Lucifer show fans might recongize. The Devil decides to quit. There’s a lot more to it than that but Lucifer quitting ruling Hell is the catalyst for most of it.

After finally (after ten-thousand-years!) realizing he was wrong in leaving Nada in Hell, Morpheus resolves to rescue her, at risk to himself. However once he gets there he finds Lucifer is shutting the place down. In spite, Lucifer leaves Morpheus the key to Hell. Suddenly The Dream Lord has to deal with all the entities that might want that “Prime psychic real estate.”

2. Overture

The Sandman: Overture and The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes are both my favorite volumes of The Sandman. I tend to alternate between which one is number 1 based on my mood.

In The Sandman: Overture Morpheus discovers that The Universe is ending and “It’s all his fault” for refusing to put out a star back when he was reeling at the destruction of a world because he had not wanted to kill a Dream Vortex (a person whose mind has the power to merge dreams and reality).

Now he’s off on a quest with a cat (whom he believes is another incarnation of himself). He adopts an orphaned child, and sets out to save the universe.

This is probably the most gorgeously drawn of all of The Sandman. The print is a little difficult for me to read (Impossible for me to read in physical format) but I can make the digital version large and enjoy the story and all the lovely detail in the artwork.

1. Preludes and Nocturnes

This is the one that starts it all. An order of early twentieth century occultists summon and trap The Lord of Dreams by accident when they meant to capture Death. Though they realize their mistake relatively quickly they decide to keep him prisoner anyway. After seventy-two-years of captivity Morpheus finally escapes and seeks out his lost property.

This is the one that roped me and made me a fast-fan to The Sandman.

#The Sandman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman #Neil Gaiman

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southsidelover · 5 years

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IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN!!!

The year has come to an end... but what a year it’s been! From the end and the new start of season 2 to 3, from the ridiculous Tumblr purge, from Cheryl-gate, to comic-gate... it’s been a hell of a ride, ladies and gentlemen. But through it all, I’ve ended up meeting and becoming close with such incredible people, not to mention those that have been with me since this madness began. I am legit full of love and adoration for those around me, because I’m who I am today because of the goodness you bring into my life. So! Here’s to another fantastic year, to hoping that you all have wonder and happiness in your life.

Some messages of love to those who have been standout fantastic below!

@yourpaljughead / @thetowcr - V! The V to by Z. My best friend, maid of honour, and a shining fucking star of goodness in this world. You have done... so much for me this year. From scheming behind my back with my fiancé to pull off the most beautiful engagement, to being here as I’ve bought my first house, to just being YOU... honestly, I couldn’t thank you enough for being the light that you are in my life. I know it’s been a challenging year, but I couldn’t be prouder of all the things you’ve done, the steps you’ve taken, the relationships you’ve recognized as toxic, and the growth you’ve made. Next year is going to be insane, and I can’t wait to face it all with you. I’m truly blessed to have you in my life. And... you know. I... I love you. Like. Love you lo-- lol. Wink wink. See you tonight, babe!

@chaosblossomed - Steph, like, holy shit. Can you believe that Choni was finally made real in this year of our lord, twenty gay teen? Basically, we called it, and made it fucking real, by summoning it with the strength of our writing skills. I’m so so happy we met. That you’ve been such a consistent and stable writing partner. That nobody else in this world does Cheryl the justice that you do, because holy crap, how are you not her? And like. I cannot, CANNOT WAIT until I meet you in person at my wedding. You are such a strong and persistent girl, and I can’t help but admire your willingness to bounce back from anything. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I adore you to bits, and I hope you know, we’re stuck together for life now.

@stormedchaos / @yourlittlejellybean - Oh my Lor. YOU have been such trouble, young lady! It was such a trip to meet you in person, and holy shit Ireland was so fun! Now here’s to hoping you can make it to Canada come 2k19, because you so need to be with everyone as we herald this madness for another year. I’m so happy you’re back to writing and feeling good, that you’ve purged out some of the awfulness of the year and are moving to a place in your life where you’re happy, free, and where your head is high. You’re a fantastic person, and you need to leave the shit where it belongs in 2018! Because next year is your year, girl, so own it, claim it, and find it yours, with goodness in your heart.

@goodnessfilled - Now, you, you? You’re such a good person Ric! And this year, holy crap, I swear you’ve made such huge progress! You’re now living in a new country, chasing your next educational step in life, and you’re doing it all while writing the most fleshed out, fantastic Archie, and extended family. Do you know how brilliant that is!? I mean I always remind you but still. I’m proud of you and what you’ve accomplished, and think the world of you - I appreciate that I can go to you when I need a person to bounce ideas off of, I appreciate your solidarity within the community, and I love that you are always there to do the moral right thing. You’re gold, Ric.

@dangeress / @wistcrias / @soleheir / etc - This girl is amazing. She manages to always write such rich, fantastic muses and with such grace. I’m always left in awe, Dani, and while we don’t talk as much as we RP, I want you to know that I always find your muses deep and amazing, and I adore writing with you when we do. You always feel unafraid and strong when it comes to the things that you believe in, and feel so fun when you have your emotions at hand. Just know you’re admired, and well thought of, from this court.

@machiavelliani / @ourpyrrhicvictory / @forslaughter / etc - Oso is like. Wow? I don’t know how else to put it, but seeing the black experience so beautifully captured in writing always makes me sit up straight. Oso’s got this beauty to their writing too that’s so inspiring and makes me wanna do shit better, and I hope that slowly but surely, I’m doing that. Can’t wait to do more with your muses with Agatha now that I have my own witchling muse to play, and never forget how brilliant you are my friend!!

@holyxgrail - Now if you wanna rp with a girl who write female brilliance, this is the one! I always feel bad tossing huge ass paragraphs at her, but man does she inspire me, and her muses are always so much fun to play against. Props to you for a year of finding out more of who and how you wanna play, for finding your confidence and your voice, and for knowing that you’re worth playing for both your boys AND your girls. Especially your girls. And thanks for inducting me into a world where I love Barbara Palvin, fuck!

@pinkxperfectionisms - Gonna be real. This girl? The most INCREDIBLE Betty. Like I love playing the good and the bad and the necessary evils, and how you always keep in mind that Betty is fucking 16 years old, man, like she doesn’t have her shit together, none of them do! They’re kids! You’re such a good bean of a soul, and rping with you and all our future OT3 stuff with V gets me all hella hyped, because I feel you’re so into the world building and understanding of maddening timelines on everyones’ ends. You’re gold babe!

@curiouscast - Nowwww, we started RPing because I found you super randomly in the indie rp tag but I’m so so glad I did! Like not only are all your muses so fun, but you’re so willing to try out new shit, you’re willing to really lean into characterizations, and I love that you keep pace with novella with me! Now that you’re also doing Riverdale and SPN, I swear to god we’re always going to have something going on. This new year is gonna be one that we DOMINATE, yo!!!

@evcryhcrd - My darling-est darling! You always always always inspire me with how much love and devotion you pay to Troy. Like it’s so heartening to know that you can be so invested and that we get to write such beautiful things together. I don’t know where the easiest place to find you anymore is (Tumblr? Discord? Where are you!) but know that I always find you dear in my heart. The last year was so fun to write out in development between Troy and Toni, and even with the angst and agony, I can’t wait to see what we cook up for them.

@mademiistakes / @favorpaid - Megs, my sweetie, thank you so much for the last year of goodness between Toni and Joaquin. Like their friendship fuels me! I know that despite your dolls both being dipped at the moment, I am confident you and I can continue RPing Serpent brilliance because that, babes, is what we do. I appreciate you so much, and thank you for being with me through the ups and the downs.

@heavenlysigh - Girl, I always love writing with you. Toni and Hara have seen so much growth this year, and I feel at the heart of it, that you always wake up this poetry in my writing. I adore it, and their complicated relationship and friendship. It really makes me feel emboldened when I see them together because it feels like such a lovely example of female friendship between the pair of them, in all its loveliness and ugliness. Let’s see all the new shit they stir up this year.

@slayvicr - Sam! Honestly we’re only now starting to get to know each other, but I love how supportive and wonderful you’ve been right out the gate. You’re so lovely when we talk and I can’t wait to see you at my wedding, because I know that you’re a wonderful person and that you’ll be a great person to be there during one of my happiest days. I can’t wait to write with you, either with Buffy or Joaquin or whoever you want to play! A new year, and more stuff for us!

@hoodjunior / @ladyreckoning - Hello JJ you wild warrior woman! Honestly, didn’t expect to get to know you well, and happy that we are talking. You have been so helpful about the things that you’ve helped me with along the way, from dumb Tumblr things, to helping me craft thoughtful statements. You’re a wonderful person who puts up with far too much, and while this year was not kind, I do hope that the next one will be.

@sunshinebarbiiie / @loyalserpvnt - You’re such a fucking sweetheart. Honestly, and writing with both Serena and SP has been a dream. I can’t wait to roll out all the things we’ve plotted between Toni and SP, and developing that rich friendship between Serena and Toni. The things that Serena and Vanessa should have been in the show, had the show been kind to us! Really, you’re fun to write with, and I love having you around.

@ragingicarus - Cries, I miss you load and loads and loads, you sweet human bean! I really want you to know that you’re treasured and loved and that writing Toni and John has been so much fun. I can’t wait to jump back in it with you, and want you to know that whenever you’re ready, I’m so so so ready! Missing you darling! And here’s to a new year full of fabulousness!!

@bubblegumxveil - J, my J~ you’re always out here with a cheerful word and a happiness to all that you do. Even when things are shit you always manage to have such a mature outlook, and I appreciate the hell out of that in you. Thank you for always thinking of me this year, and I hope you know that you’re really great and I appreciate the crap out of you. I hope next year is brilliant for you and you find your happiness the way you hope to find it!

@rxvenhairedprincess - To LA, my princess. I’m really proud of you this year... and thankful, because I know that I can be really blunt, but you’ve taken everything in stride. You’ve seen happiness and are turning so much into your happiness into a day to day thing. It makes me happy and heartened to see that growth in the last year and am really genuinely happy to have you here as apart of my little crew. You’re a good egg LA! Please always keep that in mind.

@swcctserpent / @mcntlethemagnificent / @fairriverdale - Chace! We missed each other in Sydney, but no matter, it does nothing to dull the brilliance in you. Thank you for being so great with both your muses and your own self, in helping give me some perspective when I’m a bit unhappy or unsure about what I want to write, thank you for being around, and thanks for being apart of the Riverdale community. I hope next year is a good one for you!

@snakeblccded - Your Charles is so much fun! And I’m happy you picked him up - really really, I’m happy to have him around and to write out all the good and uncertainty within his life out there on the edges. It’s an amazing thing to find someone who’s able to take what few details that are out there and turn that into writing gold, so really, that’s so cool of you. Can’t wait to see what we see in the new year together!

@wlftempr / @blackhearttm - Couldn’t forget you! I love having all your muses around, from the fatherliness of Alex, to... well, Toni and Spencer being wild. I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately because of vacation, but know that I love writing with you and appreciate you. Like I said on that call we had, I hope that you ended this year in a position where you feel happy and appreciated in your life, because you deserve that. I can’t wait to write with you more too! To a new year!

@uncivilizes - Such a random person to have found in the indie rp tag but wow am I glad! You write John like... holy shit amazing, and even though we haven’t done a ton of writing yet, you really perfectly capture his essence, and I can’t wait to do more over the coming year. I wanted to make sure you knew I appreciated and saw that shit in you!

#( milestones ) &&. in my feelings

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prgrmmr · 6 years

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Original Fic Fest Intro

I guess by making this post I am committing to doing this. I am going to try for every day, but that may not happen, especially with things going on this coming weekend. I’d like to thank @originalficfest for bringing us this week!

About me:

I am prgrmmr on Tumblr, Jae on discord, and MC Ewen on Amazon and AO3. I am a gen-x’er, and that’s about as close as I’ll get to admitting my age. I write with the handicap of ADHD, which is awful if I can’t concentrate and a wonderful gift if hyper-focus kicks in. I have self-published one book and hope to have more available in the future. Besides writing, my other hobbies include scrolling on Tumblr, playing games, roleplay, art, and collecting dolls. I have ball-jointed dolls that represent many of the characters who appear in my stories.

About my projects:

Knights of Naren - This is my fantasy/gay romance series, though only one novel is done at this point. I have a second draft of the second novel (shh it’s still missing chapters), a first draft of the third novel, and an outline of the fourth! I have also written a considerable number of short stories based on the world and the characters. It is likely that most of what I write this week will be for the Knights of Naren.

It’s a fairly typical fantasy world. There are mages. There are dragons. There are politics, and there are things that are going to happen that flips everything on its head.

And of course, there is love.

Pirates - It doesn’t have a real title yet, and this is going to be a novella/novelette length story. As it is shorter, I’m working on perfecting one chapter at a time. Chapter one is done. Chapter two is started. The rest is outlined. The idea for this story came about during roleplay in World of Warcraft, and I’m using my rogue’s voice as the narrator for this project. I will probably not be writing anything for this project this week, but you never know.

World of Warcraft - Since original characters count this week, there may be some blood elf stories. Many of my characters in Knights of Naren are based on original characters in WoW roleplay.

Characters:

I’m still not sure which ones I’ll be focusing on this week, but I am doing a character of the week thing! Original fic fest overlaps with two of them, Mage-Lord Athimas Melith’enddare and Lady Dela Eden. I may use one of the prompts for one of them.

Many of my characters have Tumblr pages for art and stories about them, as well as for inspiration posts. Not all of them are there, but most of the important ones are. The list can be found here.

#original fic fest #writing #intro

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unfortunatelysirius · 7 years

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☼☼ BEING IN LOVE WITH REMUS JOHN LUPIN WOULD INCLUDE ☼☼

[3 of 3 — Dating the <G O O D> Marauders]

❂ All love stories have a beginning, middle, and end, and for you and Remus, it was no different.

❂ The two of you met at St. Mungo's. He was in from a werewolf attack; you were in from the use of dark magic.

❂ The nurses called him a monster. They called you a victim.

❂ You thought he was gorgeous and fragile—like a glass doll, vulnerable. You were both covered in scratches and bruises that could eventually scar over. Your brains were damaged beyond repair, insecurities rising from the grave to haunt you evermore.

❂ On the second week of your stay at St. Mungo's, Remus was released. He came back a mere three hours after his dismissal to keep you company. Your parents were the causes of the wounds inflicted on you, and thus, you had no visitors—no friends, family, or even strangers.

❂ Remus liked that you didn't mock the scars aligning the crevices of his jaw. He liked that you didn't judge him for being a monster.

❂ On the first day, he read aloud Beauty and the Beast. The two of you were children, and you had never read a single fairytale in your life while Remus spent his childhood enriched in fantasy. Remus wanted to introduce you into magical realms far less sinister than the one you resided in.

❂ «I wish I were Belle.»

«You can be anyone you want to be, Y/N.»

❂ On the second day, he brought an enormous stack of fairytale novellas. He told you that his favorite was Jack and the Beanstalk, and you eagerly asked for him to read it aloud.

❂ Your parents never read to you storybooks before bedtime, and Remus's passion for fairytales filled you with delight. You wished that he had been in your life longer than just a few weeks. You wished that you had grown up knowing such a kind and benevolent soul.

❂ When you were finally released from the hospital, Aurors came and escorted you to the Ministry. They asked for you to stand on trial and recount the pain your mother and father inflicted on you.

❂ Though it hurt to remember the day's happenings, you were willing to do anything that would keep you from their custody.

❂ Your parents were put in Azkaban, and you were moved in with a muggle family that coincidentally lived in the same village as the Lupins.

❂ Remus was ecstatic to have you by his side for forever and always.

❂ Remus's mother and father both adored you, and they thought that Remus didn't deserve you.

❂ "He's a monster, Y/N."

"He's the closest thing to Prince Charming that I've ever known."

❂ You both had a ritual of going to the local park at midnight and cuddling together as you read your favorite fairytales over and over again. On full moons, it would only be you, and you'd sit and stare up at the moon, the only thought in your mind being a certain chocolate-loving werewolf and his gorgeous smile. And you would implore your ancestors to have mercy.

❂ And in that summer before the notorious Marauders would attend Hogwarts, the two of you got your letters. And that same night, two ecstatic eleven-year-olds shared their first little kiss, wrapped up in their excitement.

❂ There was no awkwardness. There was only love, compassion—faith and joy.

❂ The two of you were so happy to be attending the same school together, and the night before September 1st, Remus had looked so vulnerable.

❂ He asked, "You won't abandon me, will you?"

There wasn't a second's hesitation before you told him, "Never in a million years."

❂ On September 1st, 1971, you asked for your muggle foster parents to let you go with Remus's family, and your wish was granted.

❂ On the train, you and Remus spent the first thirty minutes alone and in a comfortable silence as you read fairytales together. Then suddenly, three fumbling imbeciles toppled into the compartment.

❂ The tallest one, Sirius, said, "Pardon us!" while the bespectacled one, James, just grinned stupidly. The pudgy one, Peter, waved awkwardly, giving a rushed apology. And the five of you become the notorious and inseparable Marauders, just like that.

❂ The five of you were sorted into Gryffindor, much to your locked-up parents' chagrin and the ever-rebellious Sirius's delight.

❂ Remus gave you a soft smile when the Sorting Hat proclaimed you a Gryffindor. He knew how worried and overwhelmed with anxiety you were in thinking you'd somehow end up a model of your mother or father. And when you came to plop down beside him, he enveloped you into a hug. Sirius and James made kissy-faces behind your backs, and if you were older and more mature, maybe you would have thrown up your middle finger as a reply.

❂ James and Sirius were the troublesome duo that always caused mischief that roped you, Remus, and Peter into detention. Peter was the ever-awed spectator who would nod vigorously at anything James said or done. You and Remus were the avid book readers and tentative lovers.

❂ One of Sirius's favorite pastimes was teasing you and Remus for being so awkwardly-in-love.

❂ "Where's the affection? Are the two of you too wrapped up in your own awkward neediness that you can't even give each other a simple peck?"

"Shut up, Sirius!"

❂ In all honesty, the only reason that you and Remus strictly forbade PDA was because of how deeply rooted Remus's insecurities were. He even neglected in asking you to be his girlfriend due to the belief embedded into his head that he was a monster.

❂ "I don't deserve you, Y/N."

"Remus, you're the only one I could ever be with. I love you!"

❂ And during the summer before third year, he finally gained the guts. There was nothing but you and Remus, an atmosphere of love and devotion, as you enveloped him in your arms and smashed your lips onto his. You murmured, "Yes," over and over again into the kiss, all until Remus laughingly put a finger between your lips and his. And for the first time in your entire life, you knew what it felt to be truly content.

❂ Hogwarts was a happy endeavor, but while you knew of Remus's "furry little secret," the other Marauders didn't. It hurt to keep such a heavy secret from your best mates, especially during full moons. But your heart would always be with Remus, your promises always kept, and his pleas for you to lie and deceive your best mates always went swiftly and steadily. You didn't want to upset Remus. You loved him more than anything in your life, and if he thought the best approach was to not get the boys involved, then you'd follow through. But the boys had other plans.

❂ On a full moon in the spring, during third year, the boys followed Remus to the Shrieking Shack. And they came back with bruises and scratches, an unconscious Remus dragged along with them.

❂ You were horrified, especially when it dawned on you that your mates had figured out his secret. Remus was going to be insecure, was going to sob from self-loathing, when he awoke to find that the beast in him had inflicted wounds onto his best friends.

❂ You ushered the four to the Hospital Wing, and you sat there by Remus's bedside, staring at him like he could wake any moment. You never truly knew how beautiful he was until that moment—until you caught a glimpse of his peaceful countenance, his soft features, his sharp jaw, his rosy lips. And still, he felt poor towards himself. He hated himself. And that bloody hurt to think about.

❂ You and the Marauders spent the rest of third year trying to fix him. You wanted to better his perception of himself, and you planned for it. You didn't want him to hate himself when he was the most caring, compassionate, and beautiful individual you'd ever met.

❂ During the beginning of fourth-year, the Marauders came up with a plan to become unregistered Animaguses. You wished to participate and help, but the boys refused.

❂ "Remus would have our hides!"

"But I want to help!"

❂ They went through, and slowly, new nicknames arose—Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail. You thought they were rather silly, but it made Remus feel better. All the jokes and companionship—the way the boys would do anything to help Remus during full moons—made you wonder where such wonderful people had been all your life.

❂ Lily Evans, at first, had detested you, all for the love you had for the boys. But slowly, she began to soften her feelings towards you, and you, Marlene, Lily, Mary, and Alice became good friends.

❂ The last three years of Hogwarts were hard. Remus's insecurities worsened, and he needed constant validation to even feel the slightest bit better about himself, and Sirius's home situation reached an all time low. Somedays you would find him on a couch in the common-room just crying, and you would hug and console him as he sobbed his worries and insecurities into your shoulder. You and Remus were prefects every year, something that turned heated out in empty corridors as you wandered around "on patrol." And in your seventh year, you got to watch a second romance unfold—that of Lily Evans and James Potter. And you enjoyed every second of watching the slow realization of feelings.

❂ Then, the Marauders's time at Hogwarts ended. And you were set to live your lives out in the real world, but all five of you knew that you wouldn't be going anywhere. After all, Sirius needed to play best man at Jily's wedding and a little tike had to be born, one way or another.

❂ James and Lily got married a mere year after Hogwarts let out. You were the Maid of Honor, Sirius the Best Man—and when you made your toast, you threatened Lily into foreswearing she'd make you godmother of at least one of her future children. That had set the room into a bout of laughter, with Remus watching you with a soft smile dimpling his face.

❂ Three days after the wedding, Remus popped the big question. And who were you to deny the affections of your childhood sweetheart?

❂ Your wedding was a small affair, unlike that of James and Lily. You and Remus were private people, liking the quiet and relishing in times of solitude. And your romance had always been tentative; Remus wanted to kiss you and not have to worry about feeling nervous. He wanted to kiss you like he always had—like you were precious cargo, someone he never wanted to let go for as long as he lived.

❂ The two of you had a honeymoon that ended with you two more in love than ever, and you moved in together. You were happy and content to lay in his arms each night, to awaken with a soft peck to the head and a rough voice whispering, "Good morning." You had always dreamed of a happily-ever-after like this since you were a little girl. And you had got it.

❂ But life isn't a fairy-tale. And happy endings sure-as-hell don't go without a price.

❂ And when James and Lily died, you and Remus fought to have custody of Harry. But Professor Dumbledore refused, stating that he had to be in the custody of his aunt and uncle.

❂ "That will not a true home, Professor! They won't love him."

"We can give him happiness. We can be a family."

❂ That night, you both cried for your losses. You cried for James, for Lily, for Peter—three innocent lives, taken. And Sirius, how his betrayal fractured your soul into pieces. Then Harry, young and innocent Harry being stripped away from two willing and loving parental figures and put into the custody of two magic-hating Muggles. And it was so unfair. You wouldn't know the golden boy with James's face and Lily's eyes, the child whose first word was "Paddy" and favorite pastime was riding a miniature broomstick. You wouldn't know him.

❂ At least you had each other. And for now, that was all that you needed.

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doomandgloomfromthetomb · 6 years

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Interview with Joe Pernice — 2005

Sunday Interview with PERNICE. There’s been a bunch of 1998 music chatter lately, but for my money, the Pernice Brothers’ Overcome By Happiness should be dominating all such chatter. Anyway, this talk took place a few years later ...

Over the past decade, Joe Pernice has established himself as one of the most reliably great songwriters of his generation. From his days in the not-so-alt-country collective, the Scud Mountain Boys, to side-trips into the Chappaquiddick Skyline, to his ongoing role as frontman for the Pernice Brothers, Joe's stirring storytelling skills and his distinctive way with a gorgeous melody have remained firmly in place. The Pernice Brothers began life as an orch-pop project, but the band's last two records, 2003's Yours, Mine & Ours and this year's Discover A Lovelier You, see them taking their cues from such '80s luminaries as the Smiths, New Order and Echo & the Bunnymen. Whatever direction Pernice takes his music in, the results are always worth hearing. He chatted with Junkmedia from his hometown of Holbrook, Mass.

At your recent show in Denver, you encored with "Doll On A Music Box," a song from [the semi-obscure mid-60s flying car movie starring Dick Van Dyke] "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." I was curious as to how you chose that song to cover.

On the tour for the last record, we used that soundtrack as opening music, and we decided to work it into our set. We're just fans of it. We actually recorded a version of it in Europe a little while ago. We had been doing these kind of heavier covers -- stuff like New Order and the Pretenders -- and we thought we should do something a little more low-key. James [Walbourne] my piano player, was going through a heavy spell of listening to that soundtrack, as well as the "Willie Wonka" soundtrack. Those records are just unbelievable -- there's no irony there in our covering that song.

I was surprised to see that Thom Monahan (bassist/co-producer) was missing from your touring lineup. Where'd he go?

He's taking a leave. We've been together for 10 years now, but he recently moved out to L.A., got married and has been working on a bunch of different recording projects. He just needed a break. We haven't made any big decisions, it's just that he had been working with some other bands, and it turned out that if he came out on tour with us, he'd have something like a single day off in between.

Like you said, you and Thom have been making records together for ten years. Why is he such a good collaborator for you?

[Pause] I don't know. [Laughs] We just hit it off. We've been working together since the second Scud Mountain Boys record in 1994, I think. We're both pretty headstrong guys, but we've learned how to not let things escalate if there are arguments in the studio. And there are arguments. But all of the guys I work with, we like working long hours. It's just fun for us. [Guitarist] Peyton [Pinkerton] and James, those guys would stay in the studio forever if they could. Time goes by so quick in there -- it'll feel like two hours and it'll actually be nine hours. Even when it's a pain in the ass, it's still fun.

Can you imagine making a record without Thom?

Oh, sure. It would be different, but I think different can be good. There are a lot of good people to record with out there. The more musicians I meet, I find that there are more people who are like us -- people who love to spend a lot of time in the studio. I haven't given it too much thought, but a change could be good. As a songwriter, it might be a good thing to have a little change.

From the liners, it looks as though you recorded the new album all over the place.

Yeah, we did some tracking in New York when Thom and I were both living there and then I did some on my own in Boston and Toronto and then we finished it up in Los Angeles.

Was it challenging to make a record in such a piecemeal fashion?

It wasn't a problem. It's good to get away from it sometimes. I think if we had done it all in one place, I still would've wanted to have the breaks that we had because of moving. Having some time off from a record can give you some space, some perspective on it.

The other mainstay in the band is Peyton Pinkerton, who's played on all the Pernice Brothers records. How'd you originally hook up with him?

We were all living in Northampton at the time. I was in grad school and Peyton had his band the New Radiant Storm Kings. It's really a kind of small town, so everybody sort of knows everybody. When I was putting together the first Pernice Brothers record, I asked him to come along and it's evolved from there.

It seems as though he's taken a more prominent role on the last two records. Do you pretty much give him free reign in the studio, in terms of guitar parts?

Sometimes. It's both. Sometimes there'll be a set idea I have for a guitar part. I'm a hack at best on guitar - no matter how much I practice, I'll just never be that good at guitar. I can hear guitar parts, but I can't play 'em. So I'll hum a part to Peyton, or I'll say "Can you do something like this?" And he can play it and change it a little and make it better. But he'll show up with a lot of ideas, too, so it's both. There's a lot of editing and forming that goes on in the studio.

Is it safe to say that a song on the new record like "Amazing Glow" -- with its mentions of changing cities and lifestyles -- is autobiographical? Or do you shy away from that sort of songwriting?

Oh no. Most everything that I've ever written comes from a real event or thing. But I try to step back from it at some point. I try to see what's the better story I can tell, even if it's not necessarily true. It's fun to see where a song can go, just to step back and let it take a left turn, regardless of what really happened or not.

Personally, I think it'd be pretty boring if I was just up there spouting the truth all the time. But that particular song did come out of something real and true. And it probably is true.

Another song from the new record, "My So-Called Celibate Life" -- is that your commentary on Los Angeles? (Sample lyric: "All the stars out in disguise / Look at all the money that money buys.")

Yeah, it's something I finished while I was out there. It's crazy, you go out to eat at a diner or something there and literally everyone there is working on a script or a project or something. I don't know if I was just going to places that were script workshop places, or what?

Have you caught some of that bug yourself? I was just reading that you're working on a script based on your novella (Meat Is Murder, a fictionalized memoir centered around the titular Smiths album).

Yeah, I've been working on a script for that with someone for about a year. It's getting pretty close to finished. But I'm not interested in selling the script. The plan is to produce it in a real DIY kind of way. It's almost done, and the hope is that early next year, we'll turn up the heat in terms of organizing the whole thing.

So you've got a book of poetry, a novella and now a film script. Can you foresee a time when these concerns might take precedence over music?

If I start to enjoy those things more, sure. I really take the path of least resistance. If sitting around alone in my house writing a book is more fulfilling than making music with people, than that's what I'll do. I just have to go with what I love.

We mentioned the Scud Mountain Boys earlier. It's been a decade since you put out those records. How do you view that band and that era?

I haven't listened to the records in a long time. The last time I did, I remember thinking they sounded pretty good. It was a really brief burst, when I think about it now. We put out three records in about two and a half years, maybe less than that. More like 15 months. But I think we made three good albums, we made our stamp. It was an exciting period. I felt I had hit upon something really good in terms of songwriting. I wrote most of those songs really quickly, in a matter of months, I think, with a few exceptions. I was writing a ton of songs back then, because I had just started really writing and taking time with it. It was just a really inspiring time. And everything started happening really quickly.

What's funny is that back then I was going through a heavy Jimmy Webb thing, and I had just started listening to Nick Drake and Burt Bacharach, too. So even though those early records have some undeniably country elements, that had a little more to do with the set up of the band, with pedal steel and mandolin taking such prominent roles. In fact, I remember the two records I listened to the most around that time might have been Dinosaur Jr's Green Mind and [Guided By Voices'] Bee Thousand.

Yeah, I was listening to Massachusetts recently and though the knee jerk reaction to that record would be to label it "alt-country," there were a lot of songs that didn't really fit into that category at all.

Yeah, I mean, going back to Jimmy Webb -- he's known for his country hits with Glen Campbell, like "Wichita Lineman" and "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." But you listen to those songs, and they're not country at all. They just happen to be set in Texas or something. They're insane. They don't really have any of the trappings that we think of as "country." They're so damn complex and a lot of times they don't have any choruses! They just go on and on without choruses. And they're amazing.

#joe pernice #pernice brothers #Scud Mountain Boys #sunday interview

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elliot-orion · 3 years

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Writeblr Re-Intro

I’ve seen quite a few people do this in the past couple weeks so i figure i probably should too considering how stinking long its been. so. hi there! I’m Elliot, and I use they/them pronouns! I’m a college kid majoring in creative writing and anthropology and regret doing both. I have a 9 year old emotional support cat, Van Gogh, who enjoys snoring, getting fur in my mouth, and chewing on my headphones. In addition to writing, I crochet amigurumis, play flight rising, bake like mad, obsess over dragons and stuffed animals, and spend way too much time thinking about superheroes.

I mostly write LGBT+ Young Adult/New Adult fiction, and recently published my first novel, “Sparks Fly.” You can see a tumblr summary of it here. “Sparks Fly” and the majority of my stories take place in the expansive Dark Heart Universe full of not so heroic Super Heroes and Super Villains with questionable but not necessarily bad morals. But I like to dabble all over and have WIPs including a horror duology, a scifi roadtrip story, and about 800 other WIPs that are going nowhere because I’m a pantser and that’s how i roll. Expect to see me name drop some characters or a story, tag it in one ask game, and then never mention it again rather frequently. I apologize in advance. The main stories you will actually see me mentioning a bunch are below the cut.

I technically have a website, and I technically have a twitter, but the former is a mess because I can’t program or remember to regularly blog and the latter i never use because social media scares me. Think there’s like 10 tweets on it and all of them are niche shitposts about my stories so... yea. I do have a Pinterest though, where you can find boards for most of my stories as well as a few of the name dropped once stories. so that’s fun. This intro is a mess.... Anyways, below the cut are some quick summaries of my main WIPs. If you want to learn more about the world that half of these are a part of (the DHU), look through this tag because my only summary series of it is way out of date.

Woodsmoke

A DHU novel. Woodsmoke is a Hero who 100% should not be going to the worst Villain in town, Stardust, for help, but fuck it he doesnt have any other option. In return for helping Woodsmoke save a whole bunch of school kids, Stardust demands Woodsmoke owes him a favor - he has to help Stardust and his gang get rid of the Director of the city’s Supers Association branch. The only probably is, the Director control everything, and Woodsmoke is utterly terrified of him. But, he owes a favor, and he’s even more afraid of what Stardust could do to civilians than he is of what the Director could do to him. When it all goes wrong, maybe its time for him to give up being a Hero and stop being Woodsmoke. Maybe it’s time to just be Vincent again, and finally heal from the damage the SA has done. This is on its fourth draft and still needs about 2 or so more (guessing here), but will hopefully be the next DHU book released (dont quote me on that im winging this)

Nightmare at the Lily Pad Inn

A DHU novel. Ben, who’s technically a Villain but really just can’t control their powers for shit and their powers are like, really scary so its bad, is on the run from their sociopathic asshole brother. They wind up at the Lily Pad Inn, a safe haven for Villains no matter what they’ve done, run by the cinnamon roll sweetheart Matty and their husband, Blue. While there, Ben meets Oliver, another not-technically-bad Super who can’t control his powers, and meets up with Morty, their best friend. Shit happens i guess idk i’ve not written a real summary for this one yet leave me alone. It’s on the first draft and its not even finished and i have no idea what the ending is because im a pantser go away.

Novella Collection

A DHU collection i guess. I’m not quite sure what else to call this because it’s made of three or so different novellas that I intend to fit together into a collection of novellas. The three novellas includes: the Empath, about Charlie who may just be the worlds most powerful empath and his partners who are very not happy with their area’s Director wanting Charlie to do something that could 100% kill him; Hell in High Heels, a historical DHU story about the Terra (Kitty), the Earth Elemental of the time, and Fer-De-Lance (Hattie), the Poison Elemental, and how they get married sorta unwillingly (thanks SA), break a shit ton of stereotypes, and help win World War 2.; and finally Wildfire, about the current day Fire Elemental and the Villain he really shouldn’t be so attracted to but 100% is and them chilling and being gay and idk this one needs a lot of work. All of these novellas have only had 1 draft and are still needing a lot of work.

And now for some not dhu stories...

The Other Beings / The Doll Maker

This is that horror duology I mentioned earlier. The Other Beings follow Nathan. He got sucked into the terrifying world of the Other Beings (well, 5 worlds actually), when he was 7 years old because of a brother he’s never quite forgiven for making him and his pseudo-sister Hazel hunt minor Beings for his whole childhood and fucking Nate up massively. He managed to leave the horror of the Other Beings for all of seven years before he was sucked back in by the Doll Maker, an Other Being with a penchant for turning pretty children and people into ball-jointed dolls. Turns out a horde of Other Beings is coming after him because of his dad which is a Bad and now he’s having to run as a human macguffin and trust me - he’s not happy about it. Only the Other Beings draft 1 has been written because it’s a dark story and with covid i have not have the mental energy to work on it more, but it’s super fun and i adore it. The Doll Maker, the second book, is solely about Doll Maker and his shit.

Paper Stars

Paper Stars is the scifi I mentioned, and just might be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, even though its only had one draft because it’s hella depressing (literally, the mc River is seriously suicidal) and with all the shit in my life rn i haven’t had the strength to work on it more. but i adore the story. Basically, River’s life has gone to hell since his Grandpa died and the only thing making him hold on is really his alien best friend, Keio. When his depression gets even worse, he finally asks Keio to take him away from Earth and to space to escape his problems. This works, kinda, i mean he falls in love and shit (yes River falls in love with a seal furry alien, please go through the tag its great), but eventually he knows he has to face his problems and get help because this is a realistic story about depression and love doesnt cure all and you cant run from mental illness. It’s great.

That’s kinda all the main stories i mention a lot, all the others are little things i start and stop or that i write a self indulgent first draft but never intend to take it any further. all of these i fully intend to publish one day tho. So... yea. Welcome to my blog, its chaos but we have a good time.

#Intro #intro post #dhu #woodsmoke #nlpi #nightmare at the lily pad inn #wildfire #hell in high heels #paper stars #the doll maker #the empath #writelr #My writing #writeblr #amwriting

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