#Metamorphoses of the Vampire | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thedepartmentofdiscoveries · 4 months

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Original French:

Les Métamorphoses du vampire

La femme cependant, de sa bouche de fraise,

En se tordant ainsi qu'un serpent sur la braise,

Et pétrissant ses seins sur le fer de son busc,

Laissait couler ces mots tout imprégnés de musc:

— «Moi, j'ai la lèvre humide, et je sais la science

De perdre au fond d'un lit l'antique conscience.

Je sèche tous les pleurs sur mes seins triomphants,

Et fais rire les vieux du rire des enfants.

Je remplace, pour qui me voit nue et sans voiles,

La lune, le soleil, le ciel et les étoiles!

Je suis, mon cher savant, si docte aux voluptés,

Lorsque j'étouffe un homme en mes bras redoutés,

Ou lorsque j'abandonne aux morsures mon buste,

Timide et libertine, et fragile et robuste,

Que sur ces matelas qui se pâment d'émoi,

Les anges impuissants se damneraient pour moi!»

Quand elle eut de mes os sucé toute la moelle,

Et que languissamment je me tournai vers elle

Pour lui rendre un baiser d'amour, je ne vis plus

Qu'une outre aux flancs gluants, toute pleine de pus!

Je fermai les deux yeux, dans ma froide épouvante,

Et quand je les rouvris à la clarté vivante,

À mes côtés, au lieu du mannequin puissant

Qui semblait avoir fait provision de sang,

Tremblaient confusément des débris de squelette,

Qui d'eux-mêmes rendaient le cri d'une girouette

Ou d'une enseigne, au bout d'une tringle de fer,

Que balance le vent pendant les nuits d'hiver.

— Charles Baudelaire

An English Translation:

Metamorphoses of the Vampire

Meanwhile from her red mouth the woman, in husky tones,

Twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones

And straining her white breasts from their imprisonment,

Let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:

"My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way

To keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.

All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make

Old men laugh happily as children for my sake.

For him who sees me naked in my tresses, I

Replace the sun, the moon, and all the stars of the sky!

Believe me, learnèd sir, I am so deeply skilled

That when I wind a lover in my soft arms, and yield

My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring — both

Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath —

Upon this bed that groans and sighs luxuriously

Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!"

When she had drained me of my very marrow, and cold

And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss — behold,

There at my side was nothing but a hideous

Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.

I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned till day:

And when I looked at morning for that beast of prey

Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own,

The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeleton

Wagged up and down in a lewd posture where she had lain,

Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervane

Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right

Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

fleursdumal.org

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prettybindings · 2 years

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Look at me naked, and I will replace sun and moon and every star in the sky.

- Charles Baudelaire, from "Metamorphoses of the Vampire"

#baudelaire #poetry #love #passion #desire #beauty #metamorphoses of the vampire

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fannyrosie · 6 months

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Starts making an old-school EGL/EGA coord; Ends up looking more like grownup Claudia in Interview with the Vampire than Kirsten Dunst herself

Outfit rundown Blouse: second-hand Innocent World Skirt: second-hand Métamorphose temps de fille (from 2002) Hat: vintage Scarf: vintage Flower pins: offbrand Shoes: Queen Bee

#fashion #egl #ega #old school #lolitafashion #vintage #vintage style #vintage fashion #jfashion #alternative fashion #interview with the vampire #long hairstyles #metamorphose temps de fille #innocent world #historybounding #second-hand fashion #classiclolita #fanny rosie #fannyrosie

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autumnmobile12 · 8 months

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Human turned Vampire variations

From the classic bite of Bram Stoker's novel explained to some really convoluted metamorphoses, here are 6 ways humans are turned into vampires throughout modern media.

Shiki

This series had a slow process, similar to the classic Dracula. The shiki chooses one victim to feed off of over the course of three nights and holds said victim entirely under their sway through a means of hypnosis. Growing increasingly more anemic and unable to tell their family and friends what's happening, the victim eventually passes away from heart failure.

However, the vampire bite itself doesn't guarantee a new vampire. It's caused by an unspecified genetic factor that responds to a vampire bite. The shiki in the series gather around the grave of their latest victim and wait for signs of life, digging up their new member if they do and giving up if they start to smell the body decaying.

It led to a pretty devastating moment for one of the vampires who desperately tried to turn the rest of her family, but none of them had the genetic factor and she ended up killing all of them for nothing.

Hellsing

Vampire bites virgin human of the opposite sex.

Okay, seems simple enough, but what exactly are we considering virginity here? This is an arbitrary concept with a definition that has changed multiple times over history, not to mention the 'loss of virginity' definition today varies according to who you ask. What are we considering gender? Are we strictly adhering to an individual's biological characteristics or is transgenderism/gender-fluidity at play? What about intersex individuals?

This one seems straightforward until you consider all the non-heteronormative angles, but really...I'm pretty sure no one watches this series for the plot. I think we all just showed up to see a vampire annihilate the Third Reich.

Twilight

I've never read/watched the books/movies, but I've heard it's venom in this series. Is it venom? If so, that's an interesting take.

Vampire in the Garden

Saliva.

The vampires of this series are the result of a genetic mutation and can change another human into a vampire by introducing an unspecified pathogen/chemical found in their saliva into the human's bloodstream.

Soulless (or the Alexia Tarrabotti novels)

All right, this book series is fun and I highly recommend. British sass, steampunk Victorians, LGBTQ+ representation, fabulous vampires, and dorky werewolves, I love it.

Anyway, vampires in this series have what's called 'feeder fangs,' but the female vampires have a second smaller set called 'maker fangs.' So only a female vampire can create a new vampire.

Also, the supernatural system of this world revolves around souls. People can have an average 'amount' of soul, for lack of a better word, an unknown percentage of people can have 'excess soul,' and a rare number can have no soul. Excess soul lingers after death, so people with excess soul become ghosts when they die. Or, if they are bitten by a vampire or werewolf, they can become that supernatural being and gain immortality.

But since there's no feasible way to measure how much soul one has, becoming supernatural is a roulette with death. Similar to Shiki, immortality by vampire bite is not guaranteed.

Vampire Knight

Vampires can reproduce with each other and give birth to children, essentially making them just a long-lived, virtually immortal sub-species of humanity that needs blood to survive.

There's also a vampire hierarchy of which only the rare 'purebloods' can create new vampires, but the former human vampires are unstable and often become mindless, blood-driven monsters, adding to the classicism of the upper hierarchy.

(If I remember right, it's been awhile since I read these.)

...

These are all the methods I can think of, but reblog if you can think of another method or one that's similar to the ones above.

#dracula #vampires #vampire media #vampire human metamorphoses #vampire knight #shiki #hellsing #hellsing ultimate #soulless #alexia tarrabotti #vampire in the garden #twilight

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knifeeater · 1 year

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liquidlightandrunningtrees · 1 year

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–angels would damn themselves for me.

Charles Baudelaire, The Metamorphoses of the Vampire

#quote #charles baudelaire #the metamorphoses of the vampire #angels #damn #quotes

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honeysound · 2 years

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Sunflower- Vampire Weekend // Bouquet of Sunflowers- Claude Monet // Sunflower Sutra- Allen Ginsberg // The Sunflowers- Mary Oliver // Facing Home Mixtape- FUR // Clytie is transformed into the Heliotrope- Ovid

#web weaving #sunflower #sunflowers #vampire weekend #claude monet #allen ginsberg #mary oliver #ovid #metamorphoses #compilation #honeysound

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vulpinesaint · 7 months

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i cannot believe that there’s another adam lambert fan on this site. when you said “if i had you” the song immediately started playing in my head!! he’s so amazing and underrated. and hot

goddddd the effect that adam lambert had on me as a young trans kid. hours of watching the music videos for if i had you and whataya want from me and never close our eyes and better than i know myself in middle school going "why can't i stop thinking about this..." the transsexualism of it all. no fr though he's so iconic!!!! my underappreciated darling of 2000s pop. i think so much about if i had you... every day of my life it is playing in my head and i am thinking about how it is so camp but also so real and also so fantastic and so 2000s and so everything.... cause fr. y'know. got my boots on got the right amount of leather and i'm doing me up with a black colored liner. and i'm working my strut but i know it don't matter. what we need in this world is some love. and also. y'know. girls in stripper heels boys rolling in maseratis. what they need in this world is some love. it's so silly but it's so genuine but it's so of its era but it's so iconic... i've been thinking for the past three days about how to phrase a post along the lines of "i'm like if they synthesized the song if i had you into a human child".... anyway. shout out to gay people for real. what would we do without them. everyone go listen to for your entertainment immediately

#adam lambert fans unite!!!! my middle school icon for real #and my icon now as well. but there's a middle schooler in my chest with their head in their hands going 'i'm just thinking about it...'#also hiiiiiiiiiiii!!! happy to be mutuals haha #ask #for those who have been keeping up with my recent antics.#adam lambert and spike from buffy the vampire slayer as my icons forms a pretty complete picture of why i am the way i am i think 😭#12/13 year old bracken took a good look at those guys and went 'huh. okay.' and then like. metamorphosized into them dskfgjshd

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see-arcane · 6 months

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I think what I love most about the idea of Jonathan clearly becoming Something Else is that it's so much scarier than a vampire. We know the rules and limitations of a vampire. Van Helsing can even provide a list. But Something Else? Let's be real, not even Jonathan knows.

Quincey: Hey, I couldn't help but notice Harker is kind of, uh. Metamorphosing in the corner over there.

Van Helsing: He is going through a grief-filled and harrowing time, Friend Quincey.

Quincey: True. But I don't tend to recall 'spontaneous hair color change, wall-crawling, inhuman speed, blazing eyes, and having an omnipresent heightening scare chord present in the soundtrack whenever you do things' as part of the grieving process.

Van Helsing: Are you not supposed to be laconic?

Quincey: Are you not supposed to be up every available textbook's ass about supernatural happenings in our vicinity?

Van Helsing: Friend Quincey, in fullest honesty, I feel it is best that he copes as he likes. If that means he has to transmute into an entity unknown to the written word or human recognition, that is his choice.

Quincey: ...

Van Helsing: ...

Quincey: So you're putting caring on hold because the Cross and Wafer combo hasn't given him hives.

Van Helsing, pouring himself his third stress-brandy: Perhaps.

Quincey: Jack, back me up here? We should be a little concerned, right?

Jack, has been melting into a manhood-admiration puddle as he watches Jonathan 'White-Haired Romantic Horror Anime Man' Harker handling his kukri in plain view for the past 3 hours: yeag

#let Jonathan be a confusing solicitor cryptid #he wears it well #monster jonathan harker #Jonathan Harker the Something Else #jonathan harker #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

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thesirenisles · 9 days

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Pluto’s Sirens 🦂

beauty, love astrology observations ✨

scorpio sun, scorpio moon, scorpio mars, scorpio ascendant , Scorpio lilith, Black moon lilith

8th house placements including Lilith

Lilith aspects, Pluto Aspects, Venus Opposing Trine Conjunction Square Pluto, Ruled, Dominant

Pluto in the 1st house, Pluto in the 8th house

“She knew death quite well. She often drowned. But, never in fear. The storm waters of love, pain, and sorrow filled her lungs and from their depths, she rose metamorphosed — a captivating phoenix of the sea.”

please do not steal any of my original work.

🦂Child of Pluto,

The stunning dark beauty that disappears intermittently, only to reemerge a brand new person.. having lived another full life to it’s completion.

You have walked the Valley of Death and your essence was fortified by means of eternal hellfire. There’s really no wonder why you’re so intimidatingly hot. 🔥

As a water sign, this is similar to the siren-like energy of Neptune. However, a Neptunian might unwittingly lure suitors to their death, but you, Plutonian Goddess are the siren who wants the kill.

🥀You are the siren they fear.

You are a mistress of the deep, a beacon of light through the annals of life’s taboo topics like sex, death, occultism, and mystery.

When considering Plutonian energy, I imagine the scorpion deep within a fierce ocean of emotions, burrowing deeper and deeper into the sand… searching and feeling…

Deep within these depths is where you thrive. The drowned woman… I say this because Scorpio is a fixed sign, meaning its energy can be stagnant.

So, it is literally fixed water or stuck water. Being stuck underwater can symbolically connote to drowning.

This is also where the big misunderstanding of Scorpio comes from because… a scorpion does not belong underwater?? Yup, you’re an anomaly.

But, hence this is literally why you cannot stay under water for too long. You’re meant to dive deep beneath the surface, transform yourself, others, and your surroundings BUT only for a little while.

If you try to resist and stay submerged, life literally pushes you to transform and resurface for fresh air. By the end of your journey, you come out reborn anew, carrying nothing but the wisdom you’ve gained.

At your core, you are here to transform yourself and others.

With this energy, you are always digging and craving depth wherever you go, whether you realize it or not just like the scorpion. This could be for emotions, the truth, or other extremes.

Your plutonic vibrations sometimes does this for you and easily charm souls into revealing their darkest and deepest desires to you.

Pluto has gifted you with a gaze that certainly helps to compel information, while also commanding authority and exuding power. (It’s giving Vampire Diariesss)

🥀A fierce siren, you wish to take hold of your romantic partners, friends, and families and lead them to the deepest depths of human existence.

But, this is only an attempt to free them from the confinement of the human ego and mundanity.

🦂The Misunderstood

The Scorpio/ 8th house slander is endless. But, I feel it’s just misunderstood. I love Plutonian energy. I find it refreshing, possibly because I have Scorpio 11th house & Scorpio Mars lol.

But, I get them. My longest friendship is with a beautiful Scorpio Sun and I have never had to second guess her loyalty.

She has been through more than anyone would guess, but maintains a heart of pure gold. Her shell is hard to crack though.

This is because you guys have seen the other side of life… death. You are aware most people aren’t living their truths or even knowledgeable of the truths of this Earthly realm… and it infuriates you at times.

It’s not easy being the one who sees a liar in a fake smile or an enemy within a friend. You see people without their masks and you call them out when needed… including family.

This can ruffle many feathers, of course. We all know how truth tellers are deemed in society.

And to some, your intense need to dive deep can terrify them and trigger them because in some way they are not living their authentic truth.

But, it’s meant to!

Pluto in the 1st house natives know this reaction well, as they wear the hellfire mark wherever they go. This triggers those who are not comfortable with darkness or their own shadow self.

Significant Lilith placements can resonate with this energy. Your presence and rebel energy triggers those whose identity is based upon a facade.

A Plutonian is a friend with their shadow self. They have seen the likes of all darkness.

You are the wounded warrior with these placements, (and honestly deserve so much more and so many hugs for what you’ve survived🥹) But, you seldom allow anyone to see you sweat or any weakness.

This need to conceal weakness hides your incredibly, loving heart and loyal spirit.

You can come off a bit brash at times. (Think, Jade from Victorious… Marlo from The Wire.. Matthew McConaughey’s character in True Detective) But, Its hard to empathize with those who seem ungrateful for their less challenging life paths or who refuse to make simple life changes out of fear.

You are like a butterfly. You have lived several lives, experiencing completely new things at each stage of life, but ultimately improving yourself each time.

While painful at times, that’s your superpower. ✨

The ironic part is that people see you in your Butterfly phase, ornate wings and beautiful colors, and assume you have not had it hard.

Until you sting. 🦂🩸

Absolutely incredible and yet so misunderstood.

Believe me when I say, it is such a GIFT to be able to transform in a world where Saturn’s energy reigns supreme.

🥀A piece of advice I leave to you all is… while understanding death.. DON’T forget to LIVE. Take a page out of the book of your sister sign, Taurus or Planet Venus… pamper your soul. 💅🏾

You are allowed and capable of just as much happiness and soft living as any other soul. Do not be afraid to open up and love or allow yourself to be loved.

You ARE loved over here! ❤️🫶🏾

🦂La Petite Mort “Little Death”.

To possess significant scorpio or 8th house placements is to live through many small deaths to be born anew.

Ironically, while Pluto rules sex, the French saying for an orgasm is Le Petite Mort … or “Little Death”.

Perfectly fitting.

With these placements, you can transform yourself and others through your sexual encounters.

🥀Your sex is transformative!

The sexual energy exudes from your pores, thanks to Papa Pluto and those around you can smell the fragrance.

When a suitor spots you, perched upon a rock amidst the chaos of the ocean… they can’t look away.

They don’t know what it is about you, but they are drawn… hooked and captivated by your watery siren gaze.

You call to them on the shore… and they approach only to be grasped and delivered to the bottom of the ocean for an unforgettable awakening.

This is why Scorpios/ Plutonians/ 8th housers rule the sack. There is less inhibition, less hesitation, and your goal is sink your prey… to the depths… and transform them. (This gives me chills to think about… very powerful stuff!)

Both men and women of Pluto have this quality. Even if they aren’t perfectly symmetrical or dreamy, you have to admit they are HOT AF & their raw sexual energy caught your eye and made you wonder if you even possess the endurance to swim in their waters…

Keep transforming the world Plutonians! We need you!

Thank you for reading! Wishing you blessings💋

Neptune Energy Observation is here. ♓️⬅️✨

MERCURY energy observation here. ♍️♊️

Other planets coming soon!

Alton Mason (Scorpio Sun) and Kofi Siriboe (Scorpio Pluto, Moon, Jupiter STELLIUM 😮‍💨)

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minotaurmutual · 2 years

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords / Lara Williams, Supper Club / Théodore Géricaul, The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19) / Jenefer Shute, Life-Size / Ovid (tr. Henry T. Riley), The Story of Erysichthon from Metamorphoses / Guillermo Lorca Garcia-Huidobro, The Banquet (2013-14) / Maya C. Popa, from “The Color Wheel Has Been Cancelled”, American Faith / Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood / Interview With the Vampire (1994) / Yves Olade, Belovéd / Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem / William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Dante and Virgil (1850) / J. Karl Bogartte, A Curious Night for a Double Eclipse / Leah Raeder, Black Iris / Hannibal (2013-2015) / Marina Tsvetaeva, Poem of the End / The Terror (2018) / CS Lewis, The Horse and His Boy / Beastars (2019 - ?) / Hélène Cixous from “The Love of the Wolf” / “The Cannibal” / Azra T. / Raw (2016) / Richard Siken, from Crush; “Wishbone” / Severance (2022 - ?) / Emma Rebholz, No Good Boodsuckers / Aex Lemon, Another Last Day / Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son (c. 1819–1823) / Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry / Black Sails (2014 - 2017) / Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless / Anaïs Nin, Henry and June / Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996) / Tanaka Mhishi / Margaret Atwood, You Are Happy / Jennifer’s Body (2009) / KotOR II / Edna St. Vincent Millay, from The Collected Poems of E. M; “True Encounter”

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caspercryptid · 6 days

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Dungeon Meshi as Monster Culture

-jeffrey jerome cohen as a framework for dungeon meshi

i. The Monsters Body is a cultural body

Vampires, burial, death: inter the corpse where the road forks...it will haunt that place that leads to many other places, that point of indecision...The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment—of a time, a feeling, and a place

ii. The Monster Always Escapes

We see the damage that the monster wreaks, the material remains...but the monster itself turns immaterial and vanishes, to reappear someplace else.

No monster tastes of death but once... Each time the grave opens and the unquiet slumberer strides forth("come from the dead, / Come back to tell you all"), the message proclaimed is transformed by the air that gives its speaker new life...monstrous interpretation is as much process as epiphany, a work that must content itself with fragments (footprints, bones, talismans, teeth, shadows, obscured glimpses—signifiers of monstrous passing that stand in for the monstrous body itself).

iii. The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis

The monster always escapes because it refuses easy categorization...they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions.

The too-precise laws of nature as set forth by science are gleefully violated in the freakish compilation of the monster's body.

Full of rebuke to traditional methods of organizing knowledge and human experience, the geography of the monster is an imperiling expanse, and therefore always a contested cultural space

iv. The Monster dwells at the gate of difference

The monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us... the monster is an incorporation of the Outside, the Beyond—of all those loci that are rhetorically placed as distant and distinct but originate Within.

Representing an anterior culture as monstrous justifies its displacement or extermination by rendering the act heroic..A political figure suddenly out of favor is transformed like an unwilling participant in a science experiment by the appointed historians of the replacement regime: "monstrous history" is rife with sudden, Ovidian metamorphose

History itself becomes a monster: defeaturing, self-deconstructive, always in danger of exposing the sutures that bind its disparate elements into a single, unnatural body.

V: The Monster polices the borders of the possible

From its position at the limits of knowing, the monster stands as a warning against exploration of its uncertain demesnes...curiosity is more often punished than rewarded, that one is better off safely contained within one's own domestic sphere than abroad, away from the watchful eyes of the state

To step outside this official geography is to risk attack by some monstrous border patrol or (worse) to become monstrous oneself.

The horribly fascinating loss of Lycaon's humanity merely reifies his previous moral state; the king's body is rendered all transparence, instantly and insistently readable. The power of the narrative prohibition peaks in the lingering description of the monstrously composite Lycaon, at that median where he is both man and beast, dual natures in a helpless tumult of assertion. The fable concludes when Lycaon can no longer speak, only signify.

Whereas monsters born of political expedience and self-justifying nationalism function as living invitations to action, usually military (invasions, usurpations, colonizations), the monster of prohibition polices the borders of the possible, interdicting through its grotesque body some behaviors and actions, envaluing others.

victims are devoured, engulfed, made to vanish from the public gaze: cannibalism as incorporation into the wrong cultural body.

vi: Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

The monster is continually linked to forbidden practices, in order to normalize and to enforce. The monster also attracts. The same creatures who terrify and interdict can evoke potent escapist fantasies; the linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a temporary egress from constraint

Escapist delight gives way to horror only when the monster threatens to overstep these boundaries, to destroy or deconstruct the thin walls of category and culture. When contained by geographic, generic, or epistemic marginalization, the monster can function as an alter ego, as an alluring projection of (an Other) self. The monster awakens one to the pleasures of the body, to the simple and fleeting joys of being frightened, or frightening—to the experience of mortality and corporality

The habitations of the monsters ...are more than dark regions of uncertain danger: they are also realms of happy fantasy, horizons of liberation.

the scapegoated monster is perhaps ritually destroyed in the course of some official narrative, purging the community by eliminating its sins. The monster's eradication functions as an exorcism and, when retold and promulgated, as a catechism

vii: The monster stands at the threshold of becoming

Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return.

And when they come back, they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and the history of knowing our place, but they bear self-knowledge, human knowledge—and a discourse all the more sacred as it arises from the Outside. These monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place.

They ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance toward its expression.

They ask us why we have created them

#dungeon meshi #Technically there's not spoilers for the manga but I think if you read the manga you'll get more out of this #laois touden #Marcille donato #falin touden #the canaries dungeon meshi #the canaries #senshi of izganda #thistle #thistle dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #delicious #delicious in dungeon

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majestativa · 3 months

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I am certain that each lover must also be a magician in order to approach fearlessly these sublime metamorphoses of shadow.

— Gherasim Luca, The Passive Vampire, transl by Krzysztof Fijalkowski, (2008)

#Romanian #Gherasim Luca #The Passive Vampire #Krzysztof Fijalkowski #(2008)#Essence

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blenselche · 1 month

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wanted to sketch this scene from Oneirogenic Coalescence out

“Shoko?”

She stares back at him, only a few inches away and inspecting his face with narrowed eyes.

“I’m stuck being your guide again,” she surmises. “Subtractional. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” She blows a sigh out, pushing a hand through her hair. “I should have stayed in the deadworlds.”

Finn snorts, elbowing her. “Well, for what it’s worth I’m glad you didn’t. Is it actually you this time, or- or is this just part of the hallucination?”

“I’ve been dragged out of your subconscious. I’m still with you, after all, as you’ve aged you’ve grown closer to me. You remember my life,” she turns, and they’re back at the gang’s open bathhouse, overgrowth creeping backwards. “Why is that?”

The Plant Teacher metamorphoses into a bath boy, poking at its hair rollers. “Your future is debating removing you from the cycle of reincarnation.”

Shoko looks over her shoulder, quirking a critical brow at him.

“I—“ his hands raise in defense of himself. “Maybe. It was just a stupid thought,” he muffles into his palm as he stares at their feet, uncomfortable and edgy. “Fern is immortal, he doesn’t have to die unless I do, and- and if I don’t die, then…”

“You’re afraid you won’t be able to find yourself in the next life,” she guesses, and he lifts a finger gun to the air without looking up. “You found the Princess, Finn, and we were barely friends. You found our closure, what makes you think you wouldn’t be able to find it again?”

“Maybe I’m tired of finding myself! Maybe- maybe I’m tired of going through painful junk and learning the same lessons just to find something good under it all,” his hands raise and slap back down to his sides as he walks in a circle on the concrete platform. “I’ve never been in love in any of my lives, and I finally have that. Why can’t I get off the ride if I have the chance? What if I want us to stay like we are?”

Shoko stops him, dragging him to sit on a cracked step as her life bustles around them in blurry, fluid dreamscapes. Finn watches with tired, drooping eyes as she releases the Ice King from a group of old witch women.

“That’s what life is, Finn. Sometimes we have our arm cut off by our father, sometimes we lose it trying to cling to him. It’s just how the cycle works. You can’t stop it.”

“I want to,” he murmurs, muscle of his jaw jumping. “I’ve finally got some stability.”

“Life is change,” the entity reminds him, lifting a slice of cucumber over its eye. “You cannot cross the stream without getting wet. You are not prone to give yourself to indolence, child, you are always moving, always changing. Do not falter to the soul erosion of a middling existence in vampirism, it is counterintuitive to your purpose.”

Finn groans, chest deflating. “I hate that determinism gunk. I’m not made for anything. I don’t believe in destiny.”

“No, I know you don’t. That does not stop it from being true.” It settles lower in the water, watching him. “You are a very purposeful being, Finn. You, a cosmic force trapped within a man cannot remove yourself from the cycle even if you wish it. You have yet to find your final method of being.”

“Not this comet crap again,” he whines, face tipping to the sky and eyes screwing up tight.

“Yes this comet crap again.” It snaps its fingers and they’re hung in the vast nothingness of space, Shoko scrambles to grab onto him, terrified.

“Finn!?” she screeches. “What’s it talking about?”

He curls an arm around her waist and hefts her higher. “We were put here to commit acts of ‘great good’,” Finn says, tense, “Davey stopped Orgalorg, you released Simon, I defeated the Lich, Penny blasts the cosmic elementals…” he pauses, brain skipping on the realization that he remembers her, “and some day we’ll ascend to the fourth dimension. I refused last time.” He nods with a rigid jerk to the comet, to Martin and the moth. “We’re… some godlike entity. But we forgot.” He swallows dry, throat constricting. “I don’t think about it. It makes me feel like- like my skin is on too tight.”

“You may reject predeterminism, but that does not stop it from affecting you,” the Teacher announces, loud enough to rattle his bones. “I can only help you if you’re open to it. Will you open yourself? Or will you pursue this dead ended, disillusioned passivity borne from the fear of your truth?”

He feels Shoko tremble in his arm, smells the sweet spices they used to use in her hair and sighs out a dejected “okay.” His feet hit the hardwood of the tree house’s kitchen, and he lets Shoko dismount his side, knees shaking and wobbly as she falls back into the dingy cushions of the wrap around sofa.

“That was terrifying,” she chokes with an airy laugh, forehead thunking to the table.

“… our bones are like, six feet away,” he thinks out loud and she shoots him a freaked out glance. “Sorry. Nerves.”

“Are you ready to face yourself, little hero?” It hangs from the ceiling, having taken on Marceline’s form.

A smarmy, weak grin stretches across his expression. “I already am, technically.”

“Don’t be tiresome, the other half of your soul gives me enough trouble.”

Finn snickers unevenly in the face of this unknowable tutelar, at the sensation of bantering with some infinite providence when he’s such a tiny animal.

He nods, and the strings of his being unravel as Shoko keeps hold on the red piece of yarn that connects them, steadying the knot at his center.

#keep yourself au #shoko #finn mertens

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silverdune · 4 months

Text

dental floss | p.sh

"vampirism is a right pain in the teeth."

minors dni. ageless blogs dni. blank blogs dni. you'll be blocked.

genre: vampire, slice of life, non-romance

character(s): park seonghwa (ft. ateez, other kpop artists (tba))

tags: vampires, blood (drinking, injury), explicit language, violence, injury detail, descriptions of metamorphoses, banter, references to dental practices, teeth, food, alcohol, historic and modern settings, flashbacks told in past tense, not 100% historically accurate, each chapter carries individual warnings

total word count: ~19k

summary: seonghwa has been under hongjoong's wing since he was turned in 1882. vampirism has been fun (for the most part), but there's one thing seonghwa absolutely can't stand to this day: his teeth. oh, and the fact that his loving mentor keeps suggesting he use dental floss on them.

a/n: what i originally planned to be a standalone one-shot has now expanded into a universe. also, while i take care to make sure i research the historical elements to the best of my ability, some parts may not be entirely historically accurate.

× masterlist under the cut ×

one. | two. | three: (i). (ii). (iii). (iv). (v). | four. | etc.

if you'd like to be added to a taglist, either leave a comment or send an ask. if you are a minor, or you do not have an indication of age somewhere on your blog, you will not be added.

taglist: @hyungseos-cafe × @namjooncrabs × @bikerjongho

× tristeetconfus (ave). do not repost. ×

#ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #ateez fic #ateez au #seonghwa scenarios #seonghwa imagines #seonghwa fic #words.(ave)#fic: dental floss

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hier--soir · 6 months

Note

I would love to know about books that changed your life…favorite books?

oh boy okay buckle up! let's talk books! [thank you so much for asking, i love talking about this stuff ilysm]

so i am currently reading decreation by anne carson which i am really loving, and i reckon that's instantly on the list so we'll start there.

lemme break it up by genre with everything i can think of off the top of my head [and see on my shelf right now] also YOU ASKED SORRY BUT IM BOUT TO RUN WILD ALSO IM DEFINITELY FORGETTING LIKE A HUNDRED GOOD BOOKS HERE

short-story/poetry collections [aka the main thing i read most these days]

brute by emily skaja

flèche by mary jean chan

deaf republic by ilya kaminsky

autobiography of red by anne carson

foreign soil by maxine beneba-clarke [changed me forever]

bluets by maggie nelson

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado [idk if this entire collection is on the favs list, but some of them? woof]

classics

an oresteia translated by anne carson

narcissus and echo [from metamorphoses] by ovid

the bacchae by euripides

old [and old-er] lit

macbeth by willy shakes [see: my blog description]

hamlet by willy shakes

a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams

the end of the affair by graham greene

contemporary lit

nightbitch by rachel yoder [who else out here turning into a dog when their husband is away for work?? just me?]

the secret history by donna tartt [duh]

milk fed by melissa broder

year of wonders by geraldine brooks [this book has everything: the plague, self-flaggelation, gore, fucking the local priest!]

call me by your name by andré aciman [lots of discourse around this one but you can't deny that the writing is beautiful]

a book that is not a favourite but certainly changed me as a person lmao

crash by j. g. ballard

fav series of all time!!!!

the skulduggery pleasant series by derek landy. idgaf! that irish man changed my life, go read it that shit is timeless. sorcery? friendship? vampires? violence? incredible stuff. the birth of my whimsy.

#sorry if men are out there writing books cause i've only read like ten of them lol #books!!!#hit my ask box if u wanna hear more about any of these im dead fucking serious #jessie's library #<- for real!#personal #jessie reads #jess replies

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