#the dionysian spiral

[fatestouch]

magic: jinx rose

Green Magic: Control over plants. Though, with Jinx, it's a relatively weak form of it, because he doesn't really have an affinity for it. He doesn't use it for much, just around the farm and when caring for his carnivorous plans. His magic is the reason they've lived so long--he's had those plants since he was 12.

Dark Magic: Control over the darker aspect of magic. Jinx does not use this magic. At all. The reason being, is that the dark magic he inherited from his biological mother is inherently rather volatile. Jinx used his magic to experiment only once. And even though his experiment was in a controlled environment, the feeling it gave him freaked him out so much he never called on it intentionally again.

Illusion Magic: Ability to manifest and control illusions. This is currently Jinx's strongest magic. Inheriting this ability from his biological father--who wasn't even a witch, just a magic-user--Jinx is gaining mastery over the art of fooling the senses.

Dionysian Magic: The magic that he gained when he became a favored follower of the god Dionysus. However, like his control over his dark magic, Jinx's control over the Dionysian magic is dubious. As it's directly connected to his mental state--madness and all--he has to be careful when he calls on it. If he uses it too much, he'll spiral, and it'll take more and more time to bring him out of it the more it happens.

#Hex HC;; #jinx is still actively learning magic; he only started seriously practicing about two years ago #so while his magic is growing stronger #he wouldnt exactly square fairly against a more experienced witch #unless he uses some sneaky tricks. which he would

[streetlights-was-taken]

I've been ideating and writing LIKE A HOOK INTO AN EYE. for maybe... nine months now? and it's just really not coming together the way I want it to, so I think I should shelve the idea for now. I don't know if I'll come back to it, and if I do, I don't know if I'll write it for the same characters or not.

the first time I got the idea for it was around july 2023 with venti as a dionysus figure. western theater started in dionysian festivals, so that's probably where the theater aspect came in. and it just spiraled from there.

draft plot:

the idea is that lumine has a witch's curse that pulls her to death, while venti has a god's curse that makes him mad with life. lumine's backstory with the curse was already explained in the draft for the fic. I was thinking for venti that the blood that runs in him literally makes him go mad with life, so he kinda uh. has to let that blood out from time to time. his music makes people feel good; but when people drink his blood, they get into wild party mode! and if they drink too much, it can drive them mad too. but it's how venti stays Normal and he doesn't know any other alternative. (mika has a peculiar effect in that, when he drinks it, he becomes less self-conscious. childe gets into his battle crazy mode and goes to fight clubs to sweat it out.)

lumine gets venti to act out aether's last play with her, like in the draft. they're supposed to stage it in the immernachtreich theater with fischl as the director (she competes with furina from fontaine as best director every year in some prestigious film awards). this is basically how described the theater in my drafts:

The Immernachtreich Theater is infamous for its pointed archways and hauntingly gothic architecture. It is a small theater, certainly not like the blockbusters that line up Thousand Winds street on the East End. It sits out of the way of traffic, tucked by the cliffs of Cape Oath like a true gothic house. Even so, Immernachtreich Theater enjoys a successful albeit controversial reputation. All of the plays performed in this theater go on to be immensely successful, but the cast always pays a price for it in the form of injuries, nightmares, or financial trouble. It is the theater’s cruel rite of passage. Though, thankfully, the audiences are never affected by this unlucky curse. The Immernachtreich Theater is thus known as the “black cat” of Mondstadt’s drama scene. Some say that the building itself is alive and sentient, influencing actors, writers, prop masters, and directors to change different parts of the play until it is deemed “perfect” by the house. Others say that the building is cursed to bring the casts’ ghosts to life. Those who step on the stage are guaranteed fame, but doomed to be haunted for it. Fischl is known to have been a victim, describing the theater as, “a tomb for those who cannot face reality.” She goes on to become a famous director after that, taking charge of the staff and all the plays that are tenacious enough to be performed onstage. Lumine hopes that all of these rumors are true.

there are some vague ideas of incorporating the dionysian mysteries to the fic. something about lumine and venti working on the play and spooky things happening in the immernachtreich theater. lumine thinks aether is haunting her, venti still "needs" to party or else he'll go mad, etc. at the climax of the story, cult-y magic-y things happen, and venti and lumine kind of negate their own curses by (literally) swapping one of their eyes, so they both "see" life and death together. something something death and rebirth themes in play.

the original story of the temptation of thanatos ends in a lovers' suicide, because the protagonist was actually in love with thanatos themselves. this was the inspiration for the play aether writes, but because he left it open-ended, lumine and venti have to finish it for him. lumine wants the play to end the same way the original story did. venti wants it to end with the protagonist seducing thanatos away into living with them.

I'm still not sure what ending they'll choose, or if they come up with a new ending now that they "see" both sides.

critique:

I think that the premise is interesting, and there is a clear direction of where I want the story to go, but I was getting nowhere after that. the story is also set up to have terrible pacing imo. like, why didn't venti just hand out the script in the beginning? why am I starting the story where lumine is producing the play with fischl, when we can just skip straight to the table read and rehearsals? I also wasn't really happy with the dialogue between venti and lumine.

there were a lot of poetry references because, uh, I was in a poetry reading mood when I was writing. but idk if they help the story or not. it feels like more metaphors on top of metaphors. I've been realizing lately that I need to work on making my writing clearer (in general) so. this isn't going to help me achieve that.

I think the ideas and direction of the story are fine, but I probably need to change the setting, and I need to develop lumine and venti's relationship with other characters. I was reading if we were villains and playing jack jeanne lately (on top of looking up other theater-related stuff, like how hadestown took ten years to get to broadway... I was really into theater media for a while) and I'm wondering if the story will work better if they're in a performance/drama school? it would lead to a more structured way of getting more characters together and develop their stories together, and we can always throw in a secret dionysian society within the school.

I really don't know. I'm also wondering if this doesn't end up as a venlumi story after all, even though the premise started with the idea of venti as dionysus. I'm still shaky on how I characterized them and wrote their dialogue in the draft.

maybe the idea suits other characters or other fandoms more? like, if I wanted to, I really could rewrite this idea into a nejikisa fic for the jj fandom instead instead lmao. or a chui fic. chui is already the cursed theater kid who will die for theater so like. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

but I'm tired and I really just want to not think of this fic anymore. maybe next time I'll revisit this. :(

anyway. I did try to do some world building through fake social media posts for the fic. I'm not sure if I will use them in the future or not. it's more of an exploration of their careers in the fic, and highlights how lumine worked as a paramedic (because I wanted her to be an anti-psychopomp to contrast her own curse).

#fic: like a hook into an eye.

[skookumsupine]

Years ago, [Xanthius] experienced an intense bout of insomnia. From early October 2013 until late February 2018, he found it impossible to get more than two hours of sleep consecutively. Each night, he would lay twisted in his bed, finding every new way he lay just as forced and uncomfortable as the last. He felt like he had forgotten the precise contortion needed to slip through the cracks of the waking world and fall asleep, like he was a mass of protruding limbs trying to fit through a square hole.

Waves of fear and regret crashed down on him in towering sets with no break between poundings long enough to catch his breath. Eventually, gradually, his nocturnal anxieties became a more or less normal part of his everyday routine. He would lay on his back some short summer nights and watch the light fade out of the western window until it rolled back in with the morning in the Eastern corner of his room. It was oddly peaceful and utterly unbearable.

Then, when he was completely desensitized to his own cortisol, he found a way to let himself be carried away by the rip currents in his mind and be swept under into oblivion. He discovered how not to try to not try too hard to sleep. Life in general took a turn for the better after this. He felt in his bones that the seasons of his life had taken a sharp turn towards sweeter times.

His record in all those years had been about 72 hours awake consecutively. Any amount of time beyond this and his body would hard reset on its own. This morning as he watched the brazen sun spill into his room, he realized he was approaching hour one hundred and sixty. He realized bitterly that his seasons were changing again.

Floaters and black dots swam giddily around the edges of his vision. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths, trying to detach his mind. After a few cycles he could feel the fuzzy hood of sleep slip over him. Then the bird slurred its song again “Chooka Wiillaa Widowww!” and his chance at sleep was ripped away from him, again. Rage boiled over in his guts. He coiled like a drunken snake and launched himself to his feet with sudden furious energy. Glaring out of the window by his bed, he focused on the lumpy brown bird swaying in the wind with the branches of the Chickasaw Plum, like a bloated tick swaying on the back of a panting dog. The Nightjar slouched slovenly in its nest. His vision narrowed into a tunnel as narrow as the barrel of a gun. The black floaters in his peripheral vision swarmed and multiplied. Their edges took on the technicolor sheen of a bubble on an oil slick. A fat vein popped out on his neck and with every pulse of blood the rainbow edges of the floaters flared with gemstone brilliance. “Chuuok-au-Weehee-Wippou!!” cried the drunken Nightjar. His body tremored with electric spasms that shot up his spine, forked across his bony shoulders, and wound a circuit around his solar plexus.

About two months back, a local beekeeper dumped the Sheriff’s son. Every morning for a week, Walker County deputies sprayed all the neonicotinoids pesticides they could economically get their hands on, to demonstrate the weight of his scorn. Every easily accessible flower in the county had been laced and not an invertebrate was safe. As of this week there were no more moths for tens of miles in any direction, and the grasshoppers rotted in the soy fields. The sidewalks were littered with shuddering horseflies. The beekeeper moved to New Caledonia and married someone that sells Swiss Watches. The Nightjar that lived in the Chickasaw Plum lost its primary nutrition source and was forced to branch out its eating habits by trial and error. Was the discovery that its shockingly wide mouth could gobble down several gooey, sickly sweet-smelling, maroon colored fruit in a single swallow a mistake? Yes, very much so, but the Nightjar wouldn’t discover this until too late. For the moment it was caught deep in the undertow of its Dionysian death spiral, blissfully unaware it was poisoning itself.

[Xanthius] was aware of the situation and the plight of the hungry bird, but that only made him angrier. The injustice of his wrath ate at his belly and created a positive feedback loop of destructive negativity. The black dots in his eyes crept in from the edges and one by one evacuated the peripherals for the center of his view. The murmuration of brilliant floaters coalesced into a single mass in his eye like a wizard's cataract, completely obscuring the bird. His righteous fury had fully soured and he wanted only to hurt something defenseless. To flex his power. To do harm to the innocent. To get this expel this evil energy that had possessed his being to such totality, and to project it onto a sacrifice. The multicolored rim of his black cataract flared with a searing light and smoke billowed from its circumference. His blood pounded deafeningly through his ears and his teeth felt electric. He shivered once and the floaters began to drip away from the central shape in rapid succession. In seconds his vision had cleared and he saw shriveled, scorched corpse of the bird that had lived in his backyard for so many years now. The bird whose song he used to wake up to at 4am and marvel at despite himself. He felt a tingling below the skull of his forehead and a sensation like an outflow of snow melt into a stagnant pool. He felt refreshed. His pulse felt gentle, as if he had slept for twelve glorious hours.

#tiny story #current wip #first draft #writeblr #satori #just goofin with words

[thatchaotictiefling]

Tw menstruation talk

Being mentally(/chronically) ill while on your period is proof that god isn't real and/or I hate them.

You telling my I have to stay functional and analyze my emotions to make sure I'm not spiraling WHILE taking into account the 1 week a month straight I'm having a panic attack all the time? While I'm even more crippled with pain than usual? Not to mention the transgenderism?

Anyway take a hot bath on the worst day of your period if you can. It helps with cramps and if you bring tea and snacks with you you feel like a dionysian god.

#tw menstrual cycle #tw menstruation #chronic pain #im actually currently in the bath and its the only this keeping me from going joker mode. highly recommend. #i might try birth control to see if it levels out my hormones but im v afraid it wil make me feel like my numb depression days so who knows #just cut it outta me #ok and encouraged to reblog. spread the bath gospel #chaotic lore

[thevibrationofatoms]

Dionysus: (◡‿◡🍇) here is your local god of confronting madness with substances that alter brain chemistry reminding you to take your meds 💜💜

Dionysus: (◡‿◡🍇) you hold infinite love and infinite capability to be loved, don't be afraid of it💜💜💜

Dionysus: (◡‿◡🍇) you are mine and are worthy of it 💜💜💜

Also Dionysus, about two seconds later:

(ʘ‿ʘ🍇)

aren't you tired of being nice???? Don't you want to just go apeshit?????? wouldn't it be nice to just go absofuckinlutely batshit feral and tear into those who oppress your world???

#sir this is a wendys and i have a headache #the dionysian spiral #dionysus #dionysian #being goddopted by the more like #dangerous but also sweet half feral drunk death wilderness god type aspect of Dionysus like #it makes for some wild intrusive thoughts #while i just hold my tea like #bruh its 9AM can we chill today #can we do that????? can we chill???? can we set aside this energy for when I need to confront someone without crying from anxiety????

[a-mutual-killing]

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The High Priest Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoë, 1765 

#jean-honore fragonard #coresus and callirhoe #1765 #dionysian #this story always makes me cry #big ol ugly tears #!!!!! #i like dionysus though #if i ever pray to a god to be avenged #i hope they too will send the city spiraling into madness resembling intoxication #which can only be cured by the death of the one who wronged me #or someone who would die in their stead #like good for you #you godly babe

[welcometogrouchland]

💫Welcome to the cult of Dionysus!✨

Sometimes the cheersquad resurrects the cult of Dionysus during home coming and the Film Club that's not a Film Club can only watch in horror 😔 (click for quality)

[image ID: a digital drawing. In the centre of the image is Nadia, a teenage Sri Lankan girl with brown skin and black hair flowing around her, wearing a cheerleaders uniform. She has glowing pink eyes with spirals in them, and her hands are in a contorted position. Behind her stands the Greek god Dionysus, depicted as a man in a purple cloak with a large collection of wine branches for a head. In the foreground four are four characters. Left to right is Aurora, a white girl with blue and purple hair, Holden, a Mexican girl with brown skin and dark hair, Dolly, a white boy with brown hair and eyes, and Jo, a black girl with dark brown skin and textured hair. All are looking at Nadia, except Holden who is holding a video camera and looking towards the viewer. Behind Dionysus is a collection of characters coloured in shades of blue either looking on at Nadia in horror or cheerleaders with crazed smiles. The background is made of black and purple, with the title "the Dionysian pep rally" written between Holden and Dolly. End ID]

#ladel's art #Internalised cringephobia is out! Posting my ocs is in! #ok so for some oc tags: #the enterprise of evil #(that's the series name) #and for a ton of oc names: #(bottom row left to right) #Aurora #Holden #Dolly #Jo #(middle) #Nadia #Annalise #not tagging everyone in the background #anyway THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SAID NICE THINGS IN THE LAST POST ILY ALL #but anyway yeah!! here are my kids #the guy in the background w the branches for a head is my take on Dionysus. like the greek god #it was very fun tapping into the 'entity who doesn't care about your well being' aspect of greek gods and making them a wee bit eldritch #like greek gods get attached to mortals but they very rarely respect them as autonomous beings and i figured after years of his worship- #-being diminished and underground Dionysus has lost touch with some of that old humanity #he's still massively petty tho #anyway Nadia gets character development later on to be a better person but she is quite fun when she's fucked up #there's also some tiny symbolism in how Holden is facing us but that's for another tims #can't believe i have 21 pages of second draft script written about these guys i love them sm #uhh you guys can also ask about my ocs if you want?? like I'd honestly be thrilled #idk where I'd even start but still #think i did a decent job on the ID? it was a tricky one since it's a complicated image but i tried #anyway! thank you for the encouragement have some wretched teens as reward

[elireadsalot]

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it."

It is the story of the downward spiral of a group of misfits in an elitist college into evil. The secret history tells us about Richard Papen, who is suddenly surrounded by a group of Classics students whose absurdity and elitism both entrances and confuses him. He tries to be like them and gets wrapped up in Dionysian bacchanals and murder along the way. Set in the New Hampden College, it is a mix of chaos, suspense and greek tragedy.

There are two things I liked about this book. The first thing was the suspense in it. When talking about the book in an interview, Donna Tartt says that suspense isn’t a bomb flying towards a character but a bomb that is stuck under a table at which two characters are talking, and the entire audience knows it, just waiting for that bomb to go off. To explain, we know that Bunny Corcoran, one of the Classics students gets murdered in the beginning. Now, this is no spoiler as the first line of the book makes this clear to us. But that’s exactly what got me through the freakishly long book which contained a LOT of references to a lot of things, unnecessary scenes/ paragraphs etc. Donna Tartt managed to have my attention for almost all of the book except for the last couple chapters where my attention started ebbing away, which is surprising given the fact that it is incredibly slow paced. 

The second thing I liked was the dark academia vibe to it. The mentions of greek mythology, the elitism, murder, the way it was written is a prime example of dark academia, and I loved it for that.

Apart from this, there really wasn’t much in the book to speak about. People who enjoy such themes as those mentioned above are likely to enjoy The Secret History.

Rating: ★★★(3/5)

Review by Elizabeth Turner

#book review #spotify #booklr #bookworm #authors #aesthetic #dark acadamia aesthetic #dark academism #dark academia #richard papen #henry winter #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #bunny corcoran #francis abernathy #the secret history #donna tartt #greek tragedy #dionysian #suspense #classics

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with MustangSally

MustangSally has 33 stories at Gossamer. Even if you haven’t read it, you’ve probably heard of at least one of them, Iolokus, since it’s an X-Files fanfic classic. All her fics hit big and are well worth your time. I’ve recced some of my favorites here before, including And Dance by the Light of the Moon, All the Children are Insane, and Iolokus. Big thanks to MustangSally for doing this interview.

What's the story behind your pen name?

I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Yes and no. Yes, because life has moved on since the early nineties and the characters and the fans are in vastly different places now. Our current tech would make the premise of the X-Files impossible. No, because of the longevity of some of the Star Trek TOS work (there’s an archive of hard copy fanzines at the University of Iowa). Top-drawer authors started out in TOS fandom.

I’m just greatly saddened that my physical body is showing wear and tear while the fic doesn’t. Fic gets to stay smooth-skinned and muscular, captured at the peak of perfection.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

At the risk of sounding atrociously trite, I think of the friends I made.  I met some very remarkable women that I’ve been able to stay friends with online for over twenty-five years.  We may have moved to Facebook and post entirely too much about our pets and which of our body parts has sagged this week, but we’re friends.  It’s a furiously funny, feminist, and well-educated group of women with jobs in the highest levels of academia, finance, communications, and media.  I’m amused by the fact that if I have a question about how a virus replicates, I can ask a PhD I’ve been drunk with in Las Vegas.

Back in the day, I had a job that sent me traveling around major cities in the US and UK. I could post on a message board and within ten minutes there were people I could go out for dinner and drinks with. We already knew we had something we could talk about for at least a couple of hours. Additionally, most of these people were women so there was an added level of security. Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Well, it was mostly atxc and the Yahoo! groups mailing lists that spiraled out into Geocities sites and, eventually, LiveJournal. The amusing thing is that getting in on the ground floor of social media and the Internet has helped me get jobs!  When I look at a new piece of software, I think, ‘this is hella easier than uploading to Geocities.’  We had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, on dial-up, fighting off dinosaurs with our AOL CDs while writing HTML code. What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

The past four years in politics have basically been the ugliest online kerfuffle the world has ever seen. I survived the Shipper Wars of ’96 and I thought those were brutal, but that was NOTHING. The only way to win an argument online is to not have the argument at all. Arguing with a troll is like mudwrestling a pig: You both get filthy and only the pig is happy.

Also, READ THE FUCKING TERMS OF SERVICE.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had the most terrible straight-girl crush on Scully. I wanted to be her best friend, I wanted to BE her.  I wanted to order Chinese food and paint each other’s nails and talk about bones.  Scully and Princess Leia and I could all just hang out poolside with hot and cold running waiters and poolboys, drink margaritas, and bitch about how unfair it all was – if the stupid men would just get OUT OF THE WAY AND LET US DO OUR JOBS, the world would be so much better. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

This question is really about Iolokus, isn’t it?  You can’t fool me. [Lilydale note: I can neither confirm nor deny the motivation for this question, but I cannot complain about the answer.]

Simply put, I was enraged. The moment it was revealed that Scully’s ova had been used in experimentation, I lost my feminist mind. It was the most obscene defilement imaginable.  Scully wasn’t nearly as angry as I was.  What I thought needed to happen was for Scully to become a fiery force of vengeance against the MEN who had done this to her.  Clearly, I was not going to get that level of satisfaction from the show, as I was imagining Kali-like carnage on a global scale. I emailed RivkaT (whom I did not know well at that point) with a proposition that we work together. Strangely enough, we didn’t meet face to face until we were well into the project, but we did talk on the phone quite a bit. The rules were simple – everyone had to be punished in truly horrific ways, and at some point, we had to see if we could write a car chase (only because that seemed impossible).  Then it basically turned into a very twisted game of chicken to see who could be the most outrageous in terms of killing people off or writing really horrific things that fit within the structure of the narrative.  I did, in the end, write the car chase, but RivkaT one-upped me by throwing in a helicopter (a FOX News helicopter, at that).  

Really, RivkaT?  A helicopter? What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? I am terribly proud of what I wrote, pleased that it brought pain and pleasure in equal amount to people, and, again, thrilled by the people I became friends with. I admit that I stopped watching the show when Scully announced her pregnancy.  I could only see a long jump over a shark tank for the rest of the series. I haven’t watched the new episodes, either.  It is complete in my mind and doesn’t need to be continued.  I wouldn’t say no to having a reunion with some of my fic friends, although we’re still chatting online like everyone does.   Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Rivka and I wrote in the Buffy fandom for a few years, but then we moved on to real adult jobs that left absolutely no time for me to write. I’m in education, and I regularly sweat blood for fear that someone is going to find my old fic. The Buffy people were fun; there was a certain *shininess* to them that I really enjoyed. The X-men authors were just batshit and delightful, and some amazing stuff came out of Marvel fandom, particularly in the Thor/Loki and Steve/Bucky subgenres. I’ve learned to appreciate a good coffee shop AU and one famous Erik/Charles fic where all the main characters are crabs. Seriously, crabs—it’s hysterical. [Lilydale note: Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted by groovyphilia currently has almost 2,500 kudos at AO3.]

Every few years, I’ll have a student try to explain to me what fandom is and I just smirk. Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? No. Not really. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I fell into an X-Men hole a few years back and had a great old time wallowing in the Cherik muck, and there was a flirtation with BBC Sherlock as well. Strangely enough, I became interested in A/B/O fics only because of what they were saying about the role of women in our society. The limitations on the male omegas seem absurd and then you realize those are the same limitations put on women all. the. time.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

RivkaT very nicely formatted everything and put it up on AO3. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I will always be stupidly proud of how shocked and horrified people were by Iolokus. The truth of the matter is that Iolokus has Greek drama at its core. Scully is Medea, and the entire story is lousy with “blood on the threshing floor” and Dionysian rites. The everyday is subverted into horror, and wives and daughters will tear men limb from limb like the Maenads. Since I was ultimately disappointed with what Chris Carter did with the entire show, that approach seemed appropriate.

At a certain level, all fic is corrective fic.  Like critic Anne Jamison said, “Irritated fans produce fanfic like irritated oysters produce pearls.”  And because fic has fallen so much into women’s sphere, a pure form of correction is not just the death of the author but the MURDER, a new creation springing up from the spilled blood like Cadmus sowing dragon’s teeth.

Okay, that’s a bit much. Maybe I should just take myself back to the isle of Goth Amazons or something. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I had to write a self-evaluation and a reflection on pedagogy today. If that’s not fiction, I don’t know what the fuck is.

All my creativity is caught up in trying to pretend to be a normal middle-aged white woman so no one knows I am really a lizard.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Keep writing, keep reading, keep fighting the commercialization of narratives. As things grow more and more commodified, all our dreams and desires reduced to tchotchkes made in China, it’s a revolutionary act to separate your work from the marketplace. Be bold, take chances, turn the trope on its ear and kick it in the ass. Take everything the creators have done to make a work palatable to the unwashed masses and set it on fire.

Be subversive.

Be mean.

Have a great fucking time.

(Posted by Lilydale on March 2, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #mustangsally

[perfidias]

PERFIDIA: THE STATE OF BEING FAITHLESS OR DISLOYAL SAINT MOON/MOON HAN-WOOL

The Devil upright, a poison-plated tongue and a quicksilver mouth, sharp-cut angles, cigarettes tucked behind both ears, the crescendo of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Waltz, love letters written in Latin, secrets whispered in French, a knife in your back (and one in your front, too, for good measure), cloaks and daggers, smoke and mirrors, the altar of Dionysus, hell’s nine circles, the caw of a raven, a mean twist of lips caught halfway between a sneer and a smirk, black leather gloves, moonflowers that bloom at dusk and die at dawn, the bottomless sea, twin Fibonacci spirals, puppet strings in place of heartstrings.

APPLICATION    DYNAMICS    SKELETON    TIMELINE

birth name: moon han-wool; english name: saint moon; 26 years old; he/him/his; born in seoul, south korea

(full biography tbd w/ taryn.....stay tuned!!!)

chaotic evil & leo………..need i say more??? 

heir to one of south korea’s largest chaebols (and currently working under his father as the director of public relations)

twin to séverine moon; can’t think of a single thing in the world he’d deny her; codependency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“the only real and lasting thing you’ve ever known is your sister, and your drive to protect her is the only desire that has survived the wasteland of your fickle heart. your devotion to the altar of her wellbeing knows no bounds, and there is nothing you wouldn’t sacrifice in her name” you get the gist

absolutely would betray ALL of you in the hunger games unless your name is séverine moon

on that note, absolutely would also betray ALL of you for séverine moon

childhood trauma game so strong even his daddy issues have daddy issues

trilingual (korean, french, and english); mostly speaks korean or english, but will curse at you in korean and seduce you in french

Big Latin Guy; can translate just about any latin text and used to pass notes in latin during his time at verdamme

was admitted to verdamme as a linguistics student but switched his discipline 4 times; tried his hand at philosophy, music, and classics before finally committing to the drama program at the headmaster’s behest

literally always has a cigarette tucked behind one or both of his ears

always lying

agent of chaos with a control kink??? the duality of man......

basically creates chaos so that it can never consume him again a la “shame all those daddy issues have left [you] choking on a near-debilitating fear of being the subject of control, and not the broker of it”

spends most of his free time reading (he’s partial to wilde, kafka, and dante), cryptically quoting latin texts and never offering up any translations, doing anything that he thinks will make him feel a little alive (drugs, parties, sex, games), attaching himself to séverine’s hip, lying for sport and for profit, making messes, cleaning up messes, finding new ways to defy his father, skulking around white rabbit

pros of being his friend: riches, dionysian bacchanals, repartee, fun, nights you won’t remember, good conversation

cons of being his friend: the knife that will end up in your back :(

#intro #sorry in advance for this Cursed man!!!!! #dynamics coming soon (:

[sapphicsecrecy]

sapphicsecrecy's favorite books!

hi! today I thought I'd give a quick summary of my favorite books as a way for you to get to know me better and maybe find something of interest. let me know how you felt about any of these! I'd love to talk about them.

1. the secret history by donna tartt

yep, no surprise here. richard papen, in a twist of fate, is thrust into an elite group of college students who find themselves spiraling into a dionysian madness of sorts. complete with relentless male gaze, drunk shenanigans, and a bacchanal gone awry. engaging, gorgeous writing, with a fascinating cast of characters.

2. coraline by neil gaiman

for me, this is a childhood favorite, both in film and book form. young coraline jones stumbles upon a small door in her family's new flat, which leads to an identical flat, except everything seems better. that is, until it's not. charming, unsettling in the best way possible, and one of my favorite fictional worlds.

3. alice in wonderland by lewis carroll

okay, okay, another childhood favorite. curious alice, chasing a peculiar white rabbit, stumbles down a rabbit hole headfirst into a world of absolute madness. alice in wonderland has my favorite imagery of any franchise (playing cards, flowers with heads, tea time, living chess pieces, etc). classic and whimsical.

4. house of leaves by mark z. danielewski

to avoid giving too much away, the basic premise of the story is that a young family moves into their new home on ash street, and find that the house is bigger on the inside than on the outside. a semiotician's dream, and a book that genuinely navigates like a labyrinth.

5. vicious by v.e. schwab

different from my standard tastes, but a bit of a staple in the dark academia community. vicious is about victor and eli, two brilliant former friends seeking revenge against one another for the follies of their youth, and the events that secured their extraordinary powers. an abundance of moral ambiguity and existential crisis wrapped in an adult fantasy. also an adorable found family.

6. lost boy: the true story of captain hook by christina henry

a retelling of the classic tale of peter pan, in which jamie, our main character, becomes peter's best friend, and eventually his greatest enemy. there's a delightful cast of characters here, with just enough of the macabre to stand out against other retellings. peter is the chilling villain in this part "lord of the flies" and part coming-of-age story. engaging and appropriately brutal.

7. the wasp factory by iain banks

I was careful not to label the list as recommendations, and this book was the main reason why. meet 16-year-old frank, a troubled and likely sociopathic boy who spends his days wreaking brutal havoc on local wildlife, receiving frightening calls from his older brother who has broken out of a psychiatric hospital, and falling into obsessive, meticulous patterns to cope with it all. not for the light of heart, but wry, sardonic, and frustratingly endearing in its tone.

8. the song of achilles by madeline miller

another retelling, this time centered around the lives of patroclus and achilles up until the trojan war. the writing in this book is dazzling, with a great mlm relationship. in classic homer fashion, it is a tragic and moving depiction of two iconic greek figures. I cried like,, four times while reading this. also a dark academia must.

#books #favorite books #book recommendations #but not really #id reccomend any of these except the wasp factory honestly #dark academia #dark academia recs #dark academic #song of achilles #alice in wonderland #the wasp factory #house of leaves #the secret history #vicious #lost boy: the true story of captain hook #coraline #bookblr #bibliophile

[sodalitefully]

Testing, testing, seven and thirteen. Tumblr, get your shit together. Over. :P

I read you loud and clear, glad tumblr managed to figure its shit out! Thanks for the ask, here’s #13!

This is the intro to an AU I have outlined but may or may not continue: Werewolf!Duff and satyr!Slash unexpectedly develop a rather antagonistic companionship; seems appropriate since we were recently talking about satyrs in gnr AUs!  Duff thinks Slash is a sweet little faun but he gets more and more Dionysian as Duff gets to know him.  Since they don’t really interact in the part I have written, there’s also some highlights from the outline afterwards.

Consider “faun” the more modern word for any bipedal half-goat/-sheep/-deer creature, all of which are descended from the ancient Greek satyrs.  

~~~~~

Even for a werewolf, Duff was… unlucky.  He didn’t have a “true” wolf form like the werewolves of old, who transformed into huge, powerful beasts, beautiful wolves the size of horses, true kings of the forest.  Nor did he have especially good control over his transformations; when his skin itched and his blood burned, he could only hold off the urge to shift for so long, a night or two at most.  

This, unfortunately, meant that he had no choice but to move to the country.  Yuck.  Duff was made for nightlife and sleepless streets, not gravel roads and placid townspeople.  But if he stayed in Los Angeles, it was inevitable that someone would notice the beastly wolf-man prowling the streets of Hollywood, and things would take a sharp turn in the same direction as An American Werewolf In London.

This morning, Duff had woken up in his cozy new country home to the sound of birds chirping, the dappled sunlight streaming through his bedroom window, and the telltale ache of muscles his human body didn’t have.  The weather was gorgeous and the forest beyond his garden fence looked positively serene – it was the perfect day for a hunt.

Truthfully, Duff almost never killed his own prey.  Fresh steaks were enough to keep him fed, but there was something about roaming the forest, tracking its inhabitants, silently stalking a deer or a rabbit from the shadows... Hunting was just about the only thrill Duff could get out here, even if he let his prey escape in the end.

Before the sun even rose above the treetops, Duff was on four paws and enjoying the many scents and sounds of the forest as he trotted deeper into the wild.  He pounced at birds, sniffed at burrows, and allowed tangled deer trails to guide his way... until he stumbled upon something far more interesting: large hoof prints, accompanied by the scent of cut grass and lanolin.  

Duff had become aware of the population of fauns in “his” forest not long after moving in.  The cloven prints, the cropped foliage, and the stray tufts of wool were all dead giveaways.  Based on how close the flock occasionally strayed towards Duff’s home, he suspected that though he was aware of them, the fauns had no idea that a werewolf resided nearby – sheep weren’t so observant as wolves, after all.  Regardless, Duff gave the flock its space.  A lone wolf had no chance taking on a whole flock of fauns... That is, hypothetically, of course.

One lost sheep, however, was a different story.  

Enthralled by the unexpected opportunity, Duff crouched low to the ground and swiftly, silently followed the meandering path though the dense trees, deeper into the forest than he’d ever ventured before.

When Duff caught up to his quarry, the faun had stopped to sit on a felled log and pick a clod of dirt out of his hoof, unaware of the game he had unwittingly become a part of.  Duff was careful to remain hidden from view as he evaluated his prize:  The faun was bare except for the dark brown fleece on his legs and the matching curls on his head, long enough to brush his upper back and studded with dried leaves.  Two ridged black horns protruded through the curls, coiling in on themselves to form a complete spiral and gleaming wickedly when the faun tilted his head.  Those horns and the pair of pointed hooves, each the size of a man's fist, were the weapons that a wolf had to watch out for when dealing with fauns.  Not that Duff was worried – it was in a faun’s nature to run rather than fight, and Duff was eagerly looking forward to the chase.  

Too eagerly, perhaps.  Duff shifted in anticipation, and the faun’s velvet ear flicked in his direction.  The faun went stock-still, frozen like a bronze statue straight out of Ancient Rome, then turned his head and looked Duff dead in the eye.

The stillness shattered, the faun kicked up a spray of dirt as he darted back into the trees and Duff bolted after him like a horse out of the gates.  His heart pounded and his blood burned with the thrill of the hunt, he let out a joyful howl as his paws slammed into the damp soil.  He had the advantage of running on four legs instead of two, but the faun had a marginal head start and Duff’s awkward hybrid physiology wasn’t built for speed.  It was only a matter of time before Duff could no longer follow the dizzying path the faun wound between thick tree trunks, but when he finally lost sight of his prey’s kicking hooves and undocked tail for good, he couldn’t bring himself to be too disappointed.  Following the faun’s trail further could wait for another day; instead he turned around and contentedly trotted back home with his excess energy expended and his predatory instincts satisfied.

~~~~

Duff has a good heart, but he just doesn’t take Slash seriously and he acts like a jerk because of it.  He thinks Slash is just some sweet little woodland creature, so once Slash is reasonably confident that Duff isn’t going to eat him, he takes it upon himself to show Duff that a faun is just a pretty name for a satyr, and satyrs haven’t changed all that much since Ancient Greece.

The first time Slash is in Duff’s house (unwillingly, after an injury) he’s completely convinced that Duff intends to eat him, he’s belligerent all the way there, he refuses to enter the kitchen for any reason, and he’s also afraid of Duff’s perfectly friendly dogs, to the point of scaling the furniture (and possibly Duff himself, being the tallest thing in the room) to get away from them.  After a few hours of not being eaten, he starts to reevaluate the situation and think of ways to assert himself to Duff.

Slash eventually lets Duff see his home in return, and it serves as one of Duff’s first glances at the true nature of his ovine neighbors.  The fauns’ home camp looks like if someone put a hippie commune and a frat house in a blender and dumped the resulting mess in a woodland meadow.  Incense sticks and red solo cups abound in equal measure, and there is little regard for privacy, private property, or clothing in general.  

Once their relationship progresses into something a little more intimate, Duff runs Slash a post-coital bath, he helps wash as Slash uses about a whole bottle of shampoo to lather up his hair and his fleece.  There’s never enough of the stuff back home, and he relishes the luxury of Duff’s cramped, outdated bathroom.  

When they first met, Slash would be livid every time Duff set off his flight response (werewolves being one of his few natural predators). It happens again when Axl, another wolf, pays Duff an unexpected visit and severely misunderstands the reason Slash happens to be in Duff’s living room.  “Duff, I just caught your dinner trying to escape out the back door.”  Slash is furious and also very shaken; for all his lack of sympathy, Duff feels guilty that he didn’t step in in time.

Tbh the thought process here was basically Slash>fluffy hair>sheep>sheep are basically goats>satyrs are associated with sex, drinking, and revelry>and so is slash… and then werewolf Duff just made sense.  

#reply #sodafics #you wouldn't believe how many google searches i've made for this fic #'lanolin' 'undocked sheep tail' how to wash a sheep' rams horn growth' antique bathtub'..... etc #the mythology was the easiest part #i don't know shit about sheep apparently #sluff #slash #saul hudson #duff mckagan #gnr #guns n roses #gnr fanfic #guns and roses #olly's sheep!slash art probably influenced this

[ikarosxtheoinos]

@fire-blooded​

Ikaros’ thoughts were a million miles away, at least a few thousand years, anyways. He’d crossed paths with a woman who might have been a doppelganger for someone Ikaros had known in the early years of his past. Someone he’d loved, the only someone to ever hold such affection, but when Ikaros had called out her name she had looked at him like a stranger. Drunk and stupid, Ikaros had played his part well, now, days later, he was still drunk and stupid but now the chaotic kobalos was spiraling. When he had returned to Corinth it was with a sense of purpose, there was a party, and where there was drink and disaster a kobalos was never far behind. 

He brought a bottle of wine from his brewery to his lips and tasted the bitterness behind his own sour grapes, another fuck you to the God who had given Ikaros everything he had ever wanted. The great Dionysus that saved him from the underworld. Benevolent and grand and full of absolute shit. Ikaros’ eyes narrowed as he saw a figure who looked disdainfully familiar, there was a striking resemblance, but some distinctive differences maybe. Besides, Alexander had been dead for over two thousand years, the kobalos had made it a personal vendetta to see to it. 

This genasi couldn’t possibly be him. Ikaros relied on his stealth and moved undetected through the streets, his drunkenness not hindering him, on the contrary, Ikaros was more stable with some form of inebriation in his system than he was without. An idea sprung into his mind as Ikaros turned to make eye contact with an oncoming driver, he rendered an illusion of invisibility across this man who looked like Alexander and lunged forward to pull the impostor away from the street before the car could run Damien down. 

“Crazy fucking driver,” Ikaros stated evenly, “I don’t think he saw you at all.” The Dionysian was something of an actor, his smile and concern appeared genuine, his inebriation made him seem that much more harmless. He offered Damien a helping hand up after he’d all but thrown him on the ground, Ikaros noticed first the twin eyes, their uniqueness all but unmistakable. Ikaros would learn of this man, and find out how best to hurt him once again.  “Are you alright?”

#convo:damien #this is a hott mess but ily and lmk if you want anything changed

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

what does it mean to be a woman? i find that the normie / incel paradigm is more meaningful than the male / female one. is this merely because my mind prioritizes intellectual independence as a virtue? is that what my mind, perhaps wrongly, registers as intelligence - the sort of cynicism that only emerges through study of the system we exist in? i feel as though there are those who live in a society, and those who merely tolerate it - those who have escaped the mental matrix of pop culture

OKIE !! UM

shit, theres alot here

this is going to be a mess, hang on

what it means to be a woman is uh, to boil it down rather clumsily, it’s a struggle for subjectivity in spite of one’s own body. A search for a self because of the perpetual trauma of being objectified. And that’s as far as what it means, to a woman.

i also think the normie/incel paradigm is more meaningful than the male/female one also. Instead of saying incel, i’d probably say something like outcast. Being in the out caste, in a way, produces a circuit of trauma that instills a drive to assert and validate one’s own nature by own’s own nature because they can’t find validation in any herd. Great people or the uh, the last men, will tend to navigate that i feel.

I think women will encounter being within the outsider circuit of abject loneliness less than men would because of the social oppression/abuse and eventual sexual objectification they confront particular to their gender. From an early age, they are conditioned into being herd or group critters. I don’t think it’s very often that a (cis)woman will encounter a deep, traumatizing relationship with the abyss, the way men do. This is so because a woman can often put a face to her trauma or have some safety net or shared solidarity with other women. A man who falls out of society often doesn’t. There is no net for young men, and perhaps this would go some way toward explaining suicide rates and the incel manner of hyperfocusing on tfw gf to fill that void with a companion.

Even the manners women would have fall into the outcast circuit the way men do (appearance, hygiene, wierd behaviour, etc) is prevented by the particular conditions and modes of oppression women experience. It’s redirected to her body, and thus into the struggle for subjectivity rather than a struggle against the void.

is this merely because my mind prioritizes intellectual independence as a virtue?

ur mind prioritizes it because its something you want for yourself.

I think its why alot of male relationships or male social hierarchies risk being object based, in a sort of desire for oneself, the qualities in a loftier other man. Or rather, a king. The status, not for the sake of status, but the self-security it MUST confer in his mind. And the desire for that status is what brings them together. I find alot of groups of men tend to function llike a bunch of rowdy wolves all flitting about and orbiting the “alpha” of their group. A sort of fraternity, tho often poisoned by latent insecurities and object/desire based perception.

Perhaps men have an abundance of subjectivity and that prevents them from seeing those around them and their own unconscious desire production outside a possessive or object basis.

Something that has stuck in my mind recently is Kantbot’s exasperated expression about how the alt right was supposed to be fraternity, or rather an attempt toward that. Of building a place for their own. But i feel that it appears it’s been fucked to hell by the way men incessantly objectify everything they perceive around them or render spaces of fraternity as opportunity, as a chance to achieve security in status while letting security in fraternity atrophy. I don’t think it was ALWAYS like this for men, but that it’s exasperated by capitalist modes of desire production.

. . .

Anyway, i think independence as a virtue of intelligence is a particularly male phenomenon or construct.

is that what my mind, perhaps wrongly, registers as intelligence

I think about intelligence the way uh, Aleksandr Dugin speaks to in the logos of cybele, of the multitude or pluralcy of truths and phenomena. I think intelligence is not a hard, measurable fact aside from circuits of awareness, outside and in. Or rather, what’s activated from use and circumstance. intelligence is ultimately noumenal or wahtever, or just. fuck. its something you can tap into but i dont think many people ever get to do so because there is also a pluralcy of traumas or manners you can use to explore and play.

Anyway, im extremely dis-articulated and offtopic with that lmfao. So uh, ill move on before i spiral on my inability to put this shit to words. What I mean to say, is like, i guess you can be extremely well read or versed but you can also be extremely stupid or underdeveloped in critical manners that wouldve allowed to be greater than book smart or fucking wahtever.

These are the ills, when expanded in a civilizational sense, that the west endures as an completely appolonian construct constricted by christianity and subsequent athiestic herd morality copes such as democracy and modernist material based ideologies (communist, fascism). In otherwords, what necessitates the dionysian modes of thinking.

the appolonian construct is part of with whats considered patriarchal modes of thinking. Which brings me back to “independence as a virtue of intelligence”

the sort of cynicism that only emerges through study of the system we exist in?

i think independence is a phenomenal byproduct of the process. Because that’s one part of what should be a pursuit toward pluralcy. A system over linearity.

i feel as though there are those who live in a society, and those who merely tolerate it

I dont really see a difference in that. Society is a platform, yes, and everyone learns to tolerate it or go FULL TED about it upon realizing the zoomed out horror it entails or hurriedly waits for us at the horizon.

those who have escaped the mental matrix of pop culture             

Wojak, the call is coming from inside the house

#effortpost #cybele #dionysus

[thevibrationofatoms]

"Dionysus wants nothing except for you to be yourself :))"

You know...you know that isn't nothing right? It isnt a non-sacrifice. It's a very uplifting and true message that I see a lot in a couple different Dionysiac circles online but it just always seems framed like that's easy.

Yeah compared to other Hellenistic theoi (or hell even compared to a lot of those old school bronze-age pantheons) Dionysus is pretty chill. A lot of devotees have the same experience of a less rigorous vibe and prayer feeling more relaxed like you're chatting with a friend/mentor figure. (Even in what glimpses of ancient cult practice there are there are mentions of Dionysian cult being less structured with "temples of open air" in the woods and a combination of secret initiation rituals but also an approach of everyone being equal in worship. But ANYWAY I'm getting sidetracked into fun history nerdery, back to the point.)

The point is this is still a god, and a Balls Old one at that. So when you say "this old god wants you to be you" we can't overlook the big implication of what it means when you then devote the idea of You and Your Self Improvement/Bettering to a Balls Old God. Being your best self involves uncomfortable self awareness and introspection, it's uneasy and challenging and it takes work. Hell it may take sacrifice of one type or another in life.

And it's not something that I think people are gonna get hurt with, or like it's gonna be a "don't get in over your head" but with growing online interest in Dionysus as a liberator I do think it's good to be aware of what a relationship with an old god could entail.

It may feel like you are, in effect, putting yourself on the metaphorical altar as the sacrifice. If you're asked to strive and try to be the true you, and you agree, you're gonna be held to it. Trying for your best is going to look different every day, and failure is involved, but the trying will be expected.

And this may feel different to different levels of devotion for people. I'm mostly speaking from my experience as someone who got hit with a metaphysical pinecone and went full Maenad, where it has at times felt like getting grabbed by the scruff of the neck and being forced to go through tumblrs dreaded Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known.

I'm definitely ADHD rambling via text, but I think my point may be directed at people I see who are like, wondering how they can get a deeper connection and asking for the right prayers or the best altar items and more standard ritual stuff. And that all may help you get into the mindset and visualization may help, but I see some stressing that they can't seem to make that connection or that they may not have an altar.

So maybe what I'm getting to is that if that's the case, remember that you are reaching out to an old god whose themes often involve releasing and giving in to a primal, more true and real version of you and accepting that. If you are striving for a deeper connection, that mindset may help you out more.

#dionysus #the dionysian spiral #dionysian #dionysos #dionysus devotion #hellenism #i may delete this later im kinda thinking out loud via tumblr post #its a response thats been brewing about in my head to the very UwU flavored posts about 'just be yourself!' #and im like #ok but that can also be hard #and maybe uh remember what may be implied if youre gonna say Being You is what you give to ancient gods of dichotomies and nature

[hedonosmosis]

I see a lot of people relating to Dionysos as Fun and Sexy Wine Uncle (which I fully support), but that isn’t the way he usually approaches me. He tends to arrive as Merciless Teardrinker or - if he’s being gentle - Our Most Ineffable Lord of Madness and Depravity.

It isn’t that he’s unkind. In fact, I find him to be very warm and loving. But he does not let me forget that he is dangerous. Unfathomable. Sovereign.

He’s always smiling, but he has sharp teeth.

All of this is to say that I’m trying to write a thing for the City Dionysia competition, but it has quickly become a deep dive into Dionysian Horror, and the concept keeps spiraling outwards and downwards, and it’s going to take years to finish, and I hope I will at least be able to submit a small part of it by the deadline.

I thought I was just going to write a devotional poem. How silly of me.

#dionysos #city dionysia #devotional writing #mystical nonsense